Speaker 1: Yo, I talk a lot. I know sometimes it could
Speaker 1: be hard to follow me. But if you don't listen
Speaker 1: to anything else, I say, listen to this. These people
Speaker 1: don't give a fuck about you. We didn't talked like
Speaker 1: your dad has passed away. I took you outside the office.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it, We've gone through all of this.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't do this to me. Not only will they
Speaker 1: they're going to. Yeah, like they're going to do it.
Speaker 1: It's like they're going to do you. You You're gonna
Speaker 1: get done. You will be done like something like if
Speaker 1: you are, if you are making the track towards being
Speaker 1: somebody important or influential, somebody is going to do you.
Speaker 1: There's no magic or sinister story to a divorce. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it don't work out. It just doesn't work out. But
Speaker 1: you want to believe certain people will never be happy
Speaker 1: because their lifestyles are antithetical to happiness in a relationship.
Speaker 1: So you want to you want to believe like like you,
Speaker 1: like you, you you. You want to believe that right.
Speaker 1: You want to believe that teams gives you that. In
Speaker 1: order to do that, TMZ has to treat those people
Speaker 1: like they're not people. They have to treat them as
Speaker 1: if their concepts celebrity is not a person.
Speaker 2: That's why I guess TMZ comes off a little bit
Speaker 2: invasive and ruthless.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, no, because they're.
Speaker 2: They're not treating they're they're treating them kind of like.
Speaker 1: Well, you have to write like even even the TMZ
Speaker 1: tour was a celebrity safari, Like what's on a safari?
Speaker 1: Animals animals, right and so and so like when when
Speaker 1: you like the tours celebrities for its animals, right, and
Speaker 1: so you do that, right and what you what you
Speaker 1: say is okay, Well, in order to be a celebrity,
Speaker 1: the game is pr at its base, right, So this
Speaker 1: is what you sign up for kind of right, because
Speaker 1: like there are certain things that you don't sign up for.
Speaker 1: I'll never talk I'll never I'll never forget this. There
Speaker 1: was the sister of a celebrity that had that had
Speaker 1: had something taught done to them. I'll never forget. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna talk about who I had the conversation with.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, we shouldn't do that. And they did
Speaker 1: the story and this dude went on fucking and let
Speaker 1: us fucking have and I was like, yo, we had
Speaker 1: to take it down and apologize and do all that
Speaker 1: stuff like yo, like there's a limit to this. And
Speaker 1: that's not me making a moral judgment on team team.
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you the way things go. So like
Speaker 1: when you know all of that, when you have an
Speaker 1: idea of what drives that, Like, obviously there they're moral.
Speaker 1: There are things that you have to not care about
Speaker 1: to work there. But most of the people there are
Speaker 1: good people. They're just desensitized to whatever was going on
Speaker 1: there because that's what they work, like like that, like
Speaker 1: that's what they do. I'm there. It's the same thing.
Speaker 1: Things are coming in at a certain point you go,
Speaker 1: god damn, you know, and it's there will be little
Speaker 1: small things. This is a football player that had this
Speaker 1: video come out of some altercation. It was in and
Speaker 1: it said savage beating by this and I was just
Speaker 1: looking at the hellline. I'm like, that's I don't think
Speaker 1: we should go savage beating there, Like I think savage
Speaker 1: is like a it's like an interesting way or there's
Speaker 1: just little small things. Uh. The mayor of DC died,
Speaker 1: Maror Marion Barry Crack. Mayor Marion Barry dies like he
Speaker 1: died and like by the way the people in DC
Speaker 1: are going to freak the funk out because I don't
Speaker 1: know if you guys know, but Marion Barry was with
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Junior like where I'm from, Like I
Speaker 1: deal with a group of people, a community, people that
Speaker 1: are always categorized by the worst moment that they have.
Speaker 1: And I don't feel comfortable with categorizing a man that
Speaker 1: means so much to his city by the worst, most
Speaker 1: scandalous thing he ever had. You can't talk about his
Speaker 1: life without talking about that, but maybe in the headline
Speaker 1: you don't do that. So it so all of those
Speaker 1: things start to start to happen. And so for me,
Speaker 1: what the place represents is not even so much a
Speaker 1: bunch of not even so much a bunch of moral
Speaker 1: people that are running around trying to get the dirn
Speaker 1: on celebrities. It represents our relationship to celebrity and our
Speaker 1: relationship to ourselves because there's no fucking reason whatsoever why
Speaker 1: we should spend so much time talking about what happens
Speaker 1: in the lives of famous people. It just really like,
Speaker 1: at its core, it just doesn't matter. And even to
Speaker 1: this day on the podcast, I still do it. And
Speaker 1: the reason why I still do it. I don't get
Speaker 1: the stories, but you try to extrapolate larger conversations out
Speaker 1: of these things and talk about them with notable people.
Speaker 1: But really it's just the need to talk about things
Speaker 1: that people care about, and for whatever reason, people care
Speaker 1: about celebrity and fame.
Speaker 2: Okay, can that makes sense? So going back to your story, Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you're at TMZ for nine years, you said, and
Speaker 2: then what happens after that?
Speaker 1: After that?
Speaker 2: Wait, what happened with your ending in TMZ?
Speaker 1: I got fired for what? An altercation inside the office
Speaker 1: with a white boy?
Speaker 2: You say altercation?
Speaker 1: No hands? They say I use hands?
Speaker 2: They say you used hands? Did you use hands? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Not in any real way.
Speaker 2: I mean not in a real way. What did you
Speaker 2: like that?
Speaker 1: Like, No, I'm not gonna smack nobody. See, I would
Speaker 1: never This is the funny thing that would never happen, Right.
Speaker 2: That would never happen. You said, a white boy. I'm like,
Speaker 2: maybe you went light on him, you smacked him.
Speaker 1: This guy was my guy, still is my guy. He's
Speaker 1: a Republican. Whatever, tell you what happened. I'm an emotional person.
Speaker 2: I can kind of see that very true.
Speaker 1: Uh, They they wanted me to talk about. There's only
Speaker 1: one thing I don't want to talk about, Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 1: I just don't want to talk about it. Like even
Speaker 1: saying the name Hurricane Katrina, like right now it makes
Speaker 1: me want to cry. I just don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about it, don't want think about I want to talk
Speaker 1: about don't want talk about it. I don't very tough,
Speaker 1: very hard. And there was this story that had gone
Speaker 1: on in the newsroom earlier where George Bush was being
Speaker 1: cool with like Ellen DeGeneres, thats some football games, and
Speaker 1: I was like, it doesn't matter what you guys say
Speaker 1: about George Bush. I don't give a fuck that he paints.
Speaker 1: I don't give a fuck that show Obama like George Bush,
Speaker 1: fuck George Bush forever, Like it doesn't matter. I don't
Speaker 1: give a fuck. Who's the who's worse fucking forever wheels
Speaker 1: in the water. He didn't care that. The way it
Speaker 1: goes like, hey, we're gonna bring this back and you're
Speaker 1: so passionate about it, and the thing it's like, guys,
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about it. Oh, I told you,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about guys, And do I want
Speaker 1: talk about Like No, I'm like I'm like, please, please,
Speaker 1: I'm like please, I don't want to. I want to
Speaker 1: discuss it. I'm here, I do everything. I've been the
Speaker 1: funny nigga for a long time. I've been the I do.
Speaker 1: I'm the Swiss Army Knife of niggas. I'm the funny nigga.
Speaker 1: I'm the basketball nigga. I'm the who look at the
Speaker 1: ass nigga. I'm like all that I've been. This just
Speaker 1: I'm saying, don't don't. I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: You gotta do it, fam we need you. Okay. So
Speaker 1: I get on there and I'm talking my whole thing,
Speaker 1: and this guy out there hosting the show, he's cutting
Speaker 1: me off, and he's speaking to me in a way
Speaker 1: that I don't like. Anytime you speak to me in
Speaker 1: a way that I don't like, we have a conversation
Speaker 1: about it, Okay, is it? So? This is le genially
Speaker 1: how this happened. I challenge anyone to watch the video.
Speaker 1: Guys up there, he's sitting down, he's doing the show.
Speaker 1: I know him now. I know him like we're friends,
Speaker 1: and we're friends. Now he's up there and he's doing
Speaker 1: the show. He's done this already and I don't want
Speaker 1: to yell at him across the newsroom make a big scene.
Speaker 1: So I go up to him while he's sitting down,
Speaker 1: and I put my hands on his shoulders, and you
Speaker 1: can see me on the video. I'm whispering into his ear.
Speaker 1: I'm whispering into his ear.
Speaker 2: Does he turn around to do the whole big scene?
Speaker 1: Nah, he turns around and he moves his hand from
Speaker 1: off my shoulder and I'll move it and then and
Speaker 1: then I whispering to his ear, and I say, and
Speaker 1: you can see me leaving. I pat him on the side.
Speaker 1: You can see me leaving, and I do like this,
Speaker 1: and I walk back. The last thing I said to
Speaker 1: him was not something that you should say to somebody
Speaker 1: in the office. He stood up and I was like, whatever,
Speaker 1: I don't even.
Speaker 2: Want to hear it.
Speaker 1: The last thing that I said is something. And so
Speaker 1: when I said that, Charles said, Van go home.
Speaker 2: What did you say?
Speaker 1: No? So the like so the I mean, the last
Speaker 1: thing was a threat. It was no, no, no, that wasn't.
Speaker 2: A it was a lights out.
Speaker 1: The last thing was a threat. It wasn't a threat
Speaker 1: as in I'm gonna do something to you. It was
Speaker 1: a threat as in these are my limits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't cross that line again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and and that's probably too far for Charles.
Speaker 1: Charles Charles goes Van go home. That's the last time
Speaker 1: I was ever in TMZ. It was funny because when
Speaker 1: they called me, I knew I was gonna have to
Speaker 1: it was gonna have to bench be for a little while, right,
Speaker 1: uh that Yeah, so listen, it's funny. So I'm on
Speaker 1: the thing and I'm like, I'm one of the phone
Speaker 1: with the HR people and they go, yeah, did you
Speaker 1: choke him? And I went wait what And they were
Speaker 1: like yeah, did you put your hands around his neck?
Speaker 1: And I was like oh. And I was like, guys,
Speaker 1: this is Van. Hey, it's me. Circus Bear like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's Vans. This is Van. Think about what you're asking me.
Speaker 1: Think about if you're asking me whether or not I
Speaker 1: choked Mike in in front of the whole newsroom. It's me.
Speaker 1: I know you guys as children, I'd be around y'all
Speaker 1: like it's Van, Hey, it's me. Now come back the
Speaker 1: whole thing. I was like, oh, they about to do me,
Speaker 1: and they did. And it was like the funny thing
Speaker 1: about it was so all of these conversations. It's like
Speaker 1: stuff happens. I end up being terminated. Karen, my manager,
Speaker 1: like automatically has stuff. So we're taking all kinds of meanings.
Speaker 1: We're doing all kinds of stuff. Nobody guys is off
Speaker 1: me right, we're doing the same stuff. Because literally my
Speaker 1: contract was up at TMZ in about four more weeks,
Speaker 1: and I had already told them I wasn't resigning, So
Speaker 1: if they thought they would have had me for a
Speaker 1: longer term, there's no way they would have fired me.
Speaker 1: But it's like whatever, this is a way to try
Speaker 1: to maybe save some money, get off from under it.
Speaker 3: This is cool.
Speaker 1: So my it starts to get around the office that
Speaker 1: I'm not coming back. So my coworkers throw me a
Speaker 1: going away party, including the guy that I supposedly chose
Speaker 1: who comes to the going away party. And after that
Speaker 1: that was on a Saturday, pictures go up on Instagram
Speaker 1: on Monday. Paid six colls me and we heard that
Speaker 1: you got fired. We heard that you got fired. We
Speaker 1: heard it there was some kind of office altercation. We
Speaker 1: heard there was all of this stuff, and I'm like
Speaker 1: fuck now, I'm like god, damn, now I'm the six
Speaker 1: foot fourth scary nigga, are you six four? Don't play
Speaker 1: so now and so and so. Now I'm like and so.
Speaker 1: Now I'm like six foot, I'm like er er And
Speaker 1: they put up an article and the article was like
Speaker 1: super it went soft on me. Everybody loves fan and
Speaker 1: all of this stuff like that. TMZ got their asses kicked.
Speaker 1: Everybody was coming at them, like everybody and so then
Speaker 1: the next day the office struck back. And this is
Speaker 1: one of the most important moments of my career. Yo,
Speaker 1: I talk a lot. I know sometimes it could be
Speaker 1: hard to follow me. But if you don't listen to
Speaker 1: anything else, I say, listen to this. These people don't
Speaker 1: give a fuck about you. They don't tell you what
Speaker 1: we do as black people. Sometimes what we do is
Speaker 1: like the record label becomes a crew and a family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the.
Speaker 1: Production group becomes a crew and a family. We gotta sign,
Speaker 1: we got a logo, we got all of this stuff
Speaker 1: and boom boom boom, boom boom, and we cool. I
Speaker 1: know your kids, I know I know all of these
Speaker 1: people around you. We didn't talked like your dad has
Speaker 1: passed away. I done took you outside the office. We've
Speaker 1: talked about it. We've gone through all of this. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't do this to me. Not only will they they're
Speaker 1: going to Yeah, like they're going to do it. It's
Speaker 1: like they're going to do you. You're gonna get done.
Speaker 1: You will be done like something like if you are
Speaker 1: if you are making the track towards being somebody important
Speaker 1: or influential, somebody is going to do you. You will
Speaker 1: be done. So the question is for you is how
Speaker 1: are you gonna respond to it? As much naive? This
Speaker 1: is coming from a man at that time who was
Speaker 1: thirty nine years old. I didn't think they would do
Speaker 1: me that way. And the reason why I didn't think
Speaker 1: they would do me that way, it's not because it's
Speaker 1: because Yo, I know these people. It's to the point
Speaker 1: to me to where if I if I pick up
Speaker 1: your baby and hold your bab I'm from ban Rouge.
Speaker 1: If I pick up your baby, if I don't fuck
Speaker 1: with you and get that little nigg away from me.
Speaker 1: But like if if I pick up your baby and
Speaker 1: hold your baby and all your wife and I've been
Speaker 1: to your crib and all of that stuff, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: that there's gonna be a point where where somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: want to make me look in a certain way and
Speaker 1: somebody's gonna go, we can't do that to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but does it also make you wonder like kind
Speaker 2: of going back to the Jesus days, like the whole Judas,
Speaker 2: Like which one like with that piece of advice or
Speaker 2: that's that statement? Do you think that people should be
Speaker 2: also double looking over like which one of their crew
Speaker 2: is gonna be the one that kisses.
Speaker 1: Them on the cheek? No? No, do you know what
Speaker 1: we forget about Judas? What that he got paid? The
Speaker 1: money is the Judas I understand. So so hear me out.
Speaker 2: So the route is always gonna be in the industry itself, the.
Speaker 1: Root, the what pulls you apart, what brings you together
Speaker 1: with these people is the commerce, and what pulls you
Speaker 1: apart is the commerce. Yeah. Sure they liked me, but
Speaker 1: I was good for business. Yeah you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they liked me. They definitely liked me. But I was funny,
Speaker 1: and I was smart, and I was devastatingly handsome, and
Speaker 1: I was and I was all of those they like.
Speaker 1: They they liked me, but I was good for business
Speaker 1: and a lot of the things that I got away
Speaker 1: with there I wouldn't have gotten away with if I
Speaker 1: wasn't good for business, and at that point I was bad.
Speaker 2: For business, but they threw the mud back on you, right.
Speaker 1: So I was bad for business. And the moment that
Speaker 1: I became bad for business we talked about before was
Speaker 1: not a person anymore. It's like a thing. So Judas, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he did what he did. They paid him thirty pieces
Speaker 1: of silver. The thing is going to get you. Just
Speaker 1: be prepared for the thing, the thing when you're no longer,
Speaker 1: when they no longer have to protect you. First of all,
Speaker 1: anybody who doesn't have to protect you won't. That's the
Speaker 1: first thing. And secondly, if you're a threat to the money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, your toast.
Speaker 1: So at that point everybody is making them look bad.
Speaker 1: They're like they don't want to be embarrassed. People are
Speaker 1: asking if TMZ is racist. People are starting to say
Speaker 1: the TMZ fire Van because vancd to Kanye West. It's
Speaker 1: all of this stuff. If somebody would have got on
Speaker 1: the phone with me, I swear to God, if somebody
Speaker 1: would have called me and be like, Van, we're taking
Speaker 1: a beating. Is there something you can say? I'd have
Speaker 1: done them a solid because that's out of done them
Speaker 1: a solid because I had no fucking problem with being
Speaker 1: where I was. It was aw cool. I had everything
Speaker 1: set up.
Speaker 2: So, oh that's what that was gonna be My next question.
Speaker 2: So what was your mindset at when all of this
Speaker 2: was going on?
Speaker 1: I started having heart problems?
Speaker 2: Well, I thought you just said that. What do you
Speaker 2: mean while were you having heart problems?
Speaker 1: Was stressed out?
Speaker 2: Ok?
Speaker 1: Sorry? Like when I say I started having heart problems,
Speaker 1: it's like there's something called preventricular contractions. It's like a
Speaker 1: skipping of the beat. Like I was so stressed that
Speaker 1: I was like to play basketball very active. I was
Speaker 1: so stressed that my heart started missing timy. It was
Speaker 1: boom boom boom boom boom boom.
Speaker 2: When you were stressed over what just the whole transition
Speaker 2: and where your next road was going?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole deal, think about it, right, like the
Speaker 1: whole deal. But here's the deal though. I say all
Speaker 1: this to say this. People look for God in like
Speaker 1: the sky, but sometimes God is on the ground too,
Speaker 1: and he's like right where you're walking. I had to
Speaker 1: go through that, you know why, because I had to
Speaker 1: put people through that. I had to go through that
Speaker 1: because I had written and hit publish on headlines that
Speaker 1: had made people feel that way. I had got on
Speaker 1: TV and talked about people in a way that made
Speaker 1: them go, shit, these people don't know me. I had
Speaker 1: been a part of stories that portrayed people in a
Speaker 1: light that's not quite accurate to who they actually are
Speaker 1: without me really knowing them. I had been a part
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: So but you had You've been a part of it
Speaker 2: without the relationship. It's different. Obviously if you have the
Speaker 2: relationship and you're pushing the published button.
Speaker 1: That all feels the same. Because like for me seeing
Speaker 1: me on page six and seeing me going through all
Speaker 1: of this stuff and me going, hey, guys, you guys
Speaker 1: know me. This is not the thing. This is not
Speaker 1: the deal seeing something out of context played up. All
Speaker 1: the little micro feelings about black men are right there.
Speaker 1: Which is a maritime before Van snapped. It's a maritime
Speaker 1: before Van hurt somebody. This was a maritime before he
Speaker 1: showed us who he really is. Remember, when a white
Speaker 1: person does something wrong, it's somebody who did something wrong.
Speaker 1: When a black person does something wrong, they're showing us
Speaker 1: who they really are the whole time. So it's so
Speaker 1: so all of this stuff, it's like I went through that,
Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, cool, no more of that
Speaker 1: for me. I have to feel that, like, I'm not
Speaker 1: one of those persons. I always get caught when I
Speaker 1: do something wrong. I always it always comes back to me.
Speaker 1: He don't want me to escape without feeling it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it always comes back to me. And I could
Speaker 1: not leave there having done the Kanye thing and looked
Speaker 1: like some kind of big deal or whatever. I could
Speaker 1: not have left there without being on the other side
Speaker 1: of a headline. And so that's the way it went.
Speaker 1: Take the lesson, move on, continue to do dope shit,
Speaker 1: do as much as you can, but like it. And also,
Speaker 1: you know, I had been to grilled cheese laying already.
Speaker 1: If I had to go back there again, I could.
Speaker 2: Now that you're older, do you It's I've been to
Speaker 2: the broke land. But I promise you I'm terrified of
Speaker 2: going back. But I meet so many people on this
Speaker 2: show that'll be like, I'll fault bankruptcy. I'll go back again.
Speaker 2: I'm not worried about it. You're not at that phase
Speaker 2: where you really genuinely don't want to go back.
Speaker 1: To me, I can't go back now. I could if
Speaker 1: I had to go back, it would happen, right, But
Speaker 1: I can't go back now.
Speaker 2: Why do you see that.
Speaker 1: We lost dad? So we lost dad in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: and it just changed, like it changed everything, like when
Speaker 1: we lost them, when we lost the old man. It's
Speaker 1: like I remember when you get the news. I go
Speaker 1: to ban Rouge and right away people start asking me
Speaker 1: stuff and it really didn't matter. I'm not used to
Speaker 1: people asking me stuff like in a family way, and
Speaker 1: then my decision being what they do and shout out
Speaker 1: to Bill Man, like you know, Bill goes So, I
Speaker 1: a guy work with at the Ringer. Bill hit Bill.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Bill goes Hey. He's like, man, He's like
Speaker 1: he's honest with me right there. He's like, man, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you right now, when you go down there, now
Speaker 1: it's gonna be different, Like you're going to have to
Speaker 1: be the guy. And I'm not saying that I am
Speaker 1: the guy in my family.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that, like, you're also the youngest, aren't you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm the youngest, but I'm also I mean, in
Speaker 1: terms of this immediate family, I want to parse apart
Speaker 1: all my family dynamics, but like they rely on me,
Speaker 1: so it it. So because of that now it's not
Speaker 1: even now. The fucking roof gotta get changed. Like stuff
Speaker 1: gotta happen. And even if my dad was around and
Speaker 1: he couldn't do it, he had a way to get
Speaker 1: it done. He was a useful, resourceful, responsible, old school man.
Speaker 2: You say that, but going back to when your mom left,
Speaker 2: you were saying that, like if the stove broke, you
Speaker 2: guys were like, well, he.
Speaker 1: Wasn't that way with him, but he would be that
Speaker 1: way with you. So if it's him, he man. When
Speaker 1: I went to his crib, like after he had passed away,
Speaker 1: like I see y'all got the wires and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's a production house. That's how it goes.
Speaker 1: So I go to this nigga shit and I'm in
Speaker 1: there and it's like it's weird, Like death is so
Speaker 1: weird because you're gone, but everything else around you is
Speaker 1: like the same. So I go into his house and
Speaker 1: the outdoor channel like he's a hunting fish, So the
Speaker 1: outdoor channel is still on, like it's still on, like
Speaker 1: he's he's the only thing that's not alive in the
Speaker 1: room is him. Like the outdoor channel is still on
Speaker 1: in the middle of the thing. His saddle is on
Speaker 1: the saddle horse that you put on in the room
Speaker 1: next to him, all of his hunting stuff is there.
Speaker 1: He has stuff laid out for the next time he's
Speaker 1: going hunting. His gun is taking a part. He was
Speaker 1: oiling it the night before he passed away, so like
Speaker 1: he wasn't expecting to die, right, And so I'm going
Speaker 1: there and I look and I see that he's running
Speaker 1: power out of one of the rooms into his bathroom.
Speaker 1: I'm like this, nigga is good for nigga ing and
Speaker 1: some shit. Why don't you just do whatever you gotta
Speaker 1: do to have the people come out there and have
Speaker 1: the power. I see if it would have been me
Speaker 1: doing that, If it had been me doing that, he say, boy,
Speaker 1: fix that. He's just used to dealing with a little
Speaker 1: bit less and then kind of making sure that you don't.
Speaker 1: So for him to be like gone and for people
Speaker 1: to know that they can't just because sometimes he didn't
Speaker 1: have it to give to you. He just had a
Speaker 1: strategy for you. And that's the craziest thing. When you
Speaker 1: need when you need one hundred and fifty dollars for
Speaker 1: somebody and they ain't got nothing, but advice. You know, well,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. That's like you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like, that's that's sometimes he didn't have it,
Speaker 1: but like since then, like I could go back to
Speaker 1: grilled cheese. I can get used to anything, but we
Speaker 1: can't go back to grill Yeah, yeah, I get it,
Speaker 1: Like we can't.
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 1: It's like niggas. And that's funny because and they know
Speaker 1: that because they don't even ask for the same amount
Speaker 1: of money before. Like if you if you got a
Speaker 1: thousand bucks in the bank account, people go, yo, man,
Speaker 1: let me hold, let me hold, let me hold one
Speaker 1: hundred bucks, bro the whole hundred dollars. Man, I need that.
Speaker 1: But if you don't, the numbers get crazy. What you mean,
Speaker 1: oh bruh, the numbers get crazy. It's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: need four thousand dollars. What the fuck you need for?
Speaker 1: You ain't got a four thousand dollar life?
Speaker 2: Like what what?
Speaker 1: What? What the fuck you need four thousand dollars for? Man,
Speaker 1: I I need four thousand dollars? All right, Cool, you
Speaker 1: need four thousand what like what? Like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like you know, you know the whole thing, and I'm
Speaker 1: not like you hear other people talking about this and
Speaker 1: they are actually really rich. I'm doing okay, yeah, and they.
Speaker 2: They hating you for real. So when you come back
Speaker 2: to you give them what your dad gives you. No, no,
Speaker 2: let me tell you how to get this.
Speaker 1: For now, I gotta help out. I like it. I
Speaker 1: gotta help out as much as I can. But but see,
Speaker 1: this is the way I help out. I make you
Speaker 1: earn it. And listening to me, Oh god, I love.
Speaker 2: It, Oh my god, one of those I.
Speaker 1: Make you earn it. Sure, ye gotta do it, gotta
Speaker 1: do it, gotta do it. I make you earn Hey. Now, look,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna send this to you, but we gotta talk
Speaker 1: about how you live it. But we're doing it.
Speaker 2: That's messed up.
Speaker 1: Man. I'm not a fucking atmarious, So we at least
Speaker 1: got to have a conversation about how we could be better.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Now, I got rules of the game. If it's mom is,
Speaker 2: just give me the bill director.
Speaker 1: We all know that all of this doesn't it doesn't.
Speaker 1: This is not a mother grandmother thing. Mother and grandmother
Speaker 1: don't they don't even ask, they don't, they don't even
Speaker 1: ask like they really don't ask like they like it's
Speaker 1: like you'll come to their house, come to my mother
Speaker 1: in my grandmother's house, and they really doing the old
Speaker 1: small TV on top of the big Curtis Mathews. I'm like, nah, man,
Speaker 1: we gotta, we gotta, we gotta go get this whole situation.
Speaker 1: So they don't even ask. Obviously, with your mom, it's
Speaker 1: not that big of a deal.
Speaker 2: Oh of mine. I'm just like, I have to pay
Speaker 2: direct because it's never gonna get to whoever you owe.
Speaker 1: They want your mom not gonna pay the.
Speaker 2: Bill if I give my If my mom has a
Speaker 2: thousand dollars light bol hence her thousand dollars light bl
Speaker 2: you see where we're going, She'll be like, you give
Speaker 2: her the money. She'll be like, I know that they'll
Speaker 2: keep the lights on. If I just give them ten, you'd.
Speaker 1: Be like, just pay the bill.
Speaker 2: So I'll just be like, send me the bill direct.
Speaker 1: I see. This is why I love talking to people,
Speaker 1: and that's how I know you Black. That's why I
Speaker 1: love talking to people because I remember back in the day,
Speaker 1: I don't even know you could do that.
Speaker 2: I never knew you could do that until I discovered
Speaker 2: my mom can rack a bill's extremely high.
Speaker 1: My mom time, my momy told me to pay the
Speaker 1: light bill. She was like telling me, come by there
Speaker 1: and you'll drop them off seventy dollars. I'm like, drop
Speaker 1: them off seventy dollars, she said, telling me drop them
Speaker 1: off seventy dollars. Was like, you can drop them off
Speaker 1: seventy dollars. And she was like, yeah, they want you
Speaker 1: to pay something. You drop them off the seventy dollars
Speaker 1: and then you come back a little bit later. I
Speaker 1: remember once, it's just so many stories. Mom sprayed mace
Speaker 1: at the feet of the light guy, the light build god,
Speaker 1: so he couldn't come cut the lights off. She made
Speaker 1: some she makes the light buil god, no way swear
Speaker 1: light buil God. Mased them and then told him that
Speaker 1: the house was covered in the blood of Jesus and
Speaker 1: that if he came in there, his blessing was gonna
Speaker 1: be cut because she was trying to turn the lights
Speaker 1: off on her kids. Maceed them and then it was like,
Speaker 1: I'm letting you know, this house is covered by the
Speaker 1: blood of Jesus's coming here. This is crazy. She had
Speaker 1: she had force, she had the Bible, she had all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff anyway, So all of that stuff now
Speaker 1: is just like now you're blessed, you're walking in abundance,
Speaker 1: and you're trying your best to be available to the
Speaker 1: people that you care about. I care about all of
Speaker 1: black people. That's why I care about you. That's why
Speaker 1: you have to be investigated by the BBI, and we
Speaker 1: have to make sure.
Speaker 2: I don't even understand the point of the investigation.
Speaker 1: Okay, the point of the investigation for you, the point
Speaker 1: of So what we do with the Biracial Bureau of
Speaker 1: Investigation is we make sure that we we identify the
Speaker 1: problematic biracials that exist amongst us.
Speaker 2: What do you mean the problematic? You mean the ones
Speaker 2: that don't claim they're black. I knew that's what it was.
Speaker 2: I knew I'm not one of those. I passitest me.
Speaker 2: Acknowledging my nationality does not negate whether I'm black, whether
Speaker 2: I'm not acknowledging I'm black.
Speaker 1: I'll say right there, I'll say, right now, your prospects
Speaker 1: are good.
Speaker 2: My prospects are hella good.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna have to go deep. We're gonna have.
Speaker 2: After you read, after you reborn a crime. We could talk,
Speaker 2: but we're not gonna.
Speaker 1: I'll read Trevor's book. I'll actually add his book to
Speaker 1: it is the Curriculum to be Beyond.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite books. Ryan, it's one of your
Speaker 2: favorite books.
Speaker 1: Ryan, Fuck with that? Ryan? You biracial?
Speaker 4: You are?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: What are you?
Speaker 1: Vietnamese? Oh?
Speaker 2: Soo?
Speaker 1: One Vietnamese parent, one white paranent Okay, that counts.
Speaker 2: But I mean, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Is that by racial?
Speaker 2: I was like, wait, you got blacking him?
Speaker 1: Hold up?
Speaker 2: You do that kind of the second he said biracial ship?
Speaker 2: But baby, you know you never know? But but no,
Speaker 2: you should. You should check out the Trevor note Book.
Speaker 2: I promise you. It's a great read. You'll you'll probably
Speaker 2: end your BBI commission after that.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 2: I know what you mean though, because I've met people
Speaker 2: that are like you know, they won't exactly acknowledge the
Speaker 2: black if they're half. But I acknowledge it, but I
Speaker 2: also acknowledged the other.
Speaker 1: It's more of a bit than it is anything else.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna have a lot of fun with you.
Speaker 2: Is there any way people could keep up with you?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: It's the success Story.
Speaker 1: Still Grinding Hire Learning Podcasts on the Ringer Podcast Network
Speaker 1: with My Fantastic co host Rachel Lindsay. Fantastic co host
Speaker 1: Rachel Lindsay, The Midnight Boys podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network,
Speaker 1: The ring Verse, Uh you see me on CNN. The
Speaker 1: movie company is doing well. Life is moving in a
Speaker 1: positive direction. I'm not where I want to go by
Speaker 1: my moay.
Speaker 2: I do want to touch on the Academy Award winning like,
Speaker 2: can we backcheck to that? That was before you were
Speaker 2: that was after you're fired, So.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been able to do it if I'd
Speaker 1: still been at Team Z.
Speaker 2: Okay, did you know you were going to work on
Speaker 2: that project when you were getting fired or did it.
Speaker 1: Just come out after? Kay?
Speaker 2: Was it around the George Floyd or okay, during the COVID.
Speaker 1: During COVID Okay, yeah, okay, idea money execution. You never
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about with everything that happened during COVID,
Speaker 2: how these brands are now supporting black business, Like, how
Speaker 2: do you feel about it?
Speaker 1: What do you mean how they support it? I don't
Speaker 1: think they are. Well.
Speaker 2: There was a period during the whole black lives. To me,
Speaker 2: it feels like the world had to come to an end,
Speaker 2: Like literally sports had to end, The whole world had
Speaker 2: to stop for everyone to say, what is happening to
Speaker 2: blacks is really bad? It literally took If I think
Speaker 2: if sports was running at the same time, it'd be
Speaker 2: like any other year. But what I did notice, like
Speaker 2: there was a lot of like I know, a lot
Speaker 2: of brands that got distribution because they were black owned,
Speaker 2: or if you had a black in the title of
Speaker 2: anything that you were doing around that time, you were
Speaker 2: getting distribution. You were getting sales from white you know,
Speaker 2: white ran companies.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Ah, So it's interesting there was an opportunity there
Speaker 1: that was missed, and was missed for myriad reasons. America's
Speaker 1: inability to reconcile its relationship with black Americans will be
Speaker 1: the thing that destroys America because if you cannot reconcile.
Speaker 1: In reconciling America's relationship historically and contemporarily with black people,
Speaker 1: you actually address many different American problems. You address American inequity,
Speaker 1: you address capitalism, you address you address so many of
Speaker 1: the different problems that exist for Americans across the lower
Speaker 1: class spectrum, right, But you can't really do it because
Speaker 1: number One, there is a way that things are supposed
Speaker 1: to go in the country, and there's a fixed middle
Speaker 1: to lower class in the country, and the threat of
Speaker 1: those people becoming anything other than that threatens the way
Speaker 1: things are supposed to go. With black people specifically, It's
Speaker 1: this simple, and I know this sounds very unintellectual. America
Speaker 1: just don't want niggas to have shit. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: and so and here's the example to that real quick.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go on and on like I do
Speaker 1: everything that America has told black people to do to
Speaker 1: get a hit in America, black people have done. Black
Speaker 1: people bought land. We own more land in nineteen oh
Speaker 1: five than we own now. Bought land top four white owners,
Speaker 1: white land owners, and all of America owned more land
Speaker 1: than all of Black America combined. Right, we owned land.
Speaker 1: They took the land. They took the land through terrorism,
Speaker 1: they took the land through contract bind We started thriving
Speaker 1: communities everywhere. They just said, no, we try to buy houses.
Speaker 1: They said no, we tried whatever we did, they just
Speaker 1: colluded to take it away. It Like you when people
Speaker 1: talk about Greenwood, I know you know, Tulsa is the
Speaker 1: one that sticks out in people's minds. What destroyed Tulsa
Speaker 1: was not the riot. It's not what destroyed Tulsa. Tulsa
Speaker 1: was known as Black Wall Street after the riot. They rebuilt.
Speaker 1: They had enough money to do that. You know. What
Speaker 1: destroyed Tulsa urban renewal. Urban renewal, which was a plan
Speaker 1: to take areas of inner city America, places that were
Speaker 1: deemed inner city or low low income and like run
Speaker 1: fucking freeways through them. Tulsa got fucked over because they
Speaker 1: ran a fucking freeway through it. The peoples. They couldn't
Speaker 1: take the people's land any other way. So they use
Speaker 1: urban renewal, imminent domain, all different types of things like
Speaker 1: that to dispossess these people of what they had built,
Speaker 1: and they of their communities, right, and so all of
Speaker 1: that stuff is to say that racism and and the
Speaker 1: idea that black people are supposed to be lesser than
Speaker 1: is so deeply entrenched in the American psyche that if
Speaker 1: it's not dealt with, and if it's not, if we
Speaker 1: don't come to terms with it, then America can't exist
Speaker 1: in any real functional way. And it's only so long, right,
Speaker 1: we think that it can. We think that it could
Speaker 1: just be like this forever. It can't. Because you start
Speaker 1: turning the blond eyed to the middle class, then you
Speaker 1: rode your ability to be a stable community, right you,
Speaker 1: Income inequality a stable society. Income inequality goes crazy. All
Speaker 1: of those things happen because they are huge chunks of
Speaker 1: the American electorate that people just are okay with saying
Speaker 1: they don't matter. George Floyd gets killed in front of everybody,
Speaker 1: and then people go, okay, well maybe we should do
Speaker 1: more for black people. Did they let us tell them
Speaker 1: the way they should do more? Right? They donated to
Speaker 1: three or four places, made those places rich, and then
Speaker 1: heaped the entire reputation on Black America on what those
Speaker 1: people did with the money. So, like what I'm saying
Speaker 1: is right now. It's people would answer to these questions,
Speaker 1: but they would have to be the questions that would
Speaker 1: have to be asked seriously, and they never will. And
Speaker 1: I want you to have nothing brought you over here
Speaker 1: as a slave in order to make it make sense
Speaker 1: to them and to trick themselves into believing, they have
Speaker 1: to trick themselves into believing you were subhuman. And after
Speaker 1: three generations. They really believe it. Yes, right. I mean
Speaker 1: when you're first kidnapping someone and you see a mother
Speaker 1: being separated from a child, you might feel something inside
Speaker 1: you that says that's wrong. But see about like one
Speaker 1: hundred years after that, that's gone because you have now
Speaker 1: like purposefully endeavored into a psychosis that makes you, that
Speaker 1: makes the way this country runs. You have to approach
Speaker 1: that as if it's true. And that's where we are.
Speaker 1: And so the only thing for us to do is
Speaker 1: to disassociate with that and do what eighty five souths
Speaker 1: and so many other people are doing here, which is
Speaker 1: collect advice. Do it for yourself, like depend on yourself
Speaker 1: and have solidarity with yourself. Se grilled cheese too.
Speaker 2: Grilled cheese too. Look at that grilled cheese.
Speaker 1: You like it.
Speaker 2: It's good. It's good. Eat your grilled cheese. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for your time. We appreciate it. And I'll
Speaker 2: catch up with you. And we're in La.
Speaker 1: Yeah, catch up. We have your We have an IR
Speaker 1: on you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna see what your your reading history
Speaker 2: is looking like.
Speaker 3: Hey, what up?
Speaker 2: Jay suck?
Speaker 4: All right, it's a rap secret ingredient, yo. Picture this
Speaker 4: a parallel dimension where Van Lathan's born without his secret sauce,
Speaker 4: that raw, unfiltered candor and this twisted reality that legendary
Speaker 4: Larry Flint joke never lands, Harvey's approval never earned TMZ
Speaker 4: producer status, never achieved. And when Kanye's spit in nonsense
Speaker 4: in the newsroom, insulting everybody in their mama, ain't nobody
Speaker 4: stepping up to check him. But in our world, Van
Speaker 4: Laythan's keeping it one thousand. He's got that freedom to
Speaker 4: speak his mind, and it's not just opening doors for him,
Speaker 4: it's straight of kicking them off their hinges. Van Laythan
Speaker 4: teaches us that when candor is your secret ingredient, life
Speaker 4: can hand you all the lemons it wants, you just
Speaker 4: throw them lemons right back and whip up a banging
Speaker 4: ass grilled cheese sandwich. I'm calling wit, and you've been
Speaker 4: listening to Eating While Broke.
Speaker 2: Peace out for more Eating While Broke from iHeartRadio and
Speaker 2: The Black Effect, Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.