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 done took you outside
Speaker 1: the office, We've talked about it, We've gone through all
Speaker 1: of this. You wouldn't do this to me. Not only
Speaker 1: will they, they're going to Yeah, like they're going to
Speaker 1: do it. It's like they're going to do you. You
Speaker 1: You're gonna get done. You will be done like something
Speaker 1: like if you are, if you are making the track
Speaker 1: towards being somebody important or influential, somebody is going to
Speaker 1: do you. There's no magic or sinister story to a divorce.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it don't work out. It just doesn't work out.
Speaker 1: But you want to believe certain people will never be
Speaker 1: happy 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 2: Animals animals, right.
Speaker 1: And so and so like when when you like the
Speaker 1: tours celebrities for its animals, right, and so you do that,
Speaker 1: right and what you what you say is okay, Well,
Speaker 1: in order to be a celebrity, the game is pr
Speaker 1: at its base, right, So this is what you sign
Speaker 1: up for kind of right, because like there are certain
Speaker 1: things that you don't sign up for. I'll never talk
Speaker 1: I'll never I'll never forget this. There was the sister
Speaker 1: of a celebrity that had that had had something taught
Speaker 1: done to them. I'll never forget. I'm not gonna talk
Speaker 1: about who I had the conversation with. I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't do that. And they did the story and
Speaker 1: this dude went on fucking and let us fucking happ
Speaker 1: and I was like, yo, we had to take it
Speaker 1: down and apologize and do all that stuff. I like, yo,
Speaker 1: like there's a limit to this. And that's not me
Speaker 1: making a moral judgment on team team. I'm just telling
Speaker 1: you the way things go. So like when you know
Speaker 1: all of that, when you have an idea of what
Speaker 1: drives that, Like obviously they're moral. There are things that
Speaker 1: you have to not care about to work there. But
Speaker 1: most of the people there are good people. They're just
Speaker 1: desensitized to whatever was going on there because that's where
Speaker 1: they work. Like like that, like that's what they do.
Speaker 1: I'm there. It's the same thing. Things are coming in
Speaker 1: at a certain point you go, god damn, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's there will be little small things. This is
Speaker 1: a football player that had this video come out of
Speaker 1: some altercation. It was in and it said savage beating
Speaker 1: by this and I was just looking at the hellline.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's I don't think we should go savage
Speaker 1: beating there, Like I think savage is like a it's
Speaker 1: like an interesting way or there's just little small things.
Speaker 1: The mayor of DC died, Maror Marion Barry Crack Mayor
Speaker 1: Marion Barry dies like he died and like by the
Speaker 1: way the people in DC are going to freak the
Speaker 1: funk out because I don't know if you guys know,
Speaker 1: but Marion Barry was with Martin Luther King Junior like
Speaker 1: where I'm from, Like I deal with a group of people,
Speaker 1: a community, people that are always categorized by the worst
Speaker 1: moment that they have. And I don't feel comfortable with
Speaker 1: categorizing a man that means so much to his city
Speaker 1: by the worst, most scandalous thing he ever had. You
Speaker 1: can't talk about his life without talking about that, but
Speaker 1: maybe in the headline you don't do that. So it
Speaker 1: so all of those things start to start to happen.
Speaker 1: And so for me, what the place represents, it's not
Speaker 1: even so much a bunch of not even so much
Speaker 1: a bunch of moral people that are running around trying
Speaker 1: to get the dirt on celebrities. It represents our relationship
Speaker 1: to celebrity and our relationship to ourselves, because there's no
Speaker 1: fucking reason whatsoever why we should spend so much time
Speaker 1: talking about what happens in the lives of famous people.
Speaker 1: It just really like, at its core, it just doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: And even to this day on the podcast, I still
Speaker 1: do it, and the reason why I still do it.
Speaker 1: I don't get the stories, but you try to extrapolate
Speaker 1: larger conversations out of these things and talk about them
Speaker 1: with notable people. But really it's just the need to
Speaker 1: talk about things that people care about, and for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: people care 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? No hands?
Speaker 1: They say I use hands?
Speaker 2: They say you used hands? Did you use hands?
Speaker 1: Yeah, not in any real way.
Speaker 2: I mean not in a real way. What did you
Speaker 2: like that?
Speaker 1: Or like, no, I'm not gonna smack nobody. See, I
Speaker 1: would 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.
Speaker 1: Very true. Uh, they they wanted me to talk about.
Speaker 1: There's only one thing I don't want to talk about,
Speaker 1: Hurricane Katrina. I just don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Like even saying the name Hurricane Katrina, like right now,
Speaker 1: it makes me want to cry. I just don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about it, don't want think about I want
Speaker 1: to talk about don't want talk about it. I don't
Speaker 1: It's very tough, very hard. And there was this story
Speaker 1: that had gone on in the newsroom earlier where George
Speaker 1: Bush was being cool with like Ellen DeGeneres, that's some
Speaker 1: football games, and I was like, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: you guys say about George Bush. I don't give a
Speaker 1: fuck that he paints. I don't give a fuck that
Speaker 1: show Obama like George Bush, fuck George Bush forever, Like
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. I don't give a fuck. Who's the
Speaker 1: who's worse fucking forever wheels in the water. He didn't care.
Speaker 1: The way it goes like, Hey, we're gonna bring this
Speaker 1: back and you're so passionate about it, and the thing
Speaker 1: it's like, guys, I don't want to talk about it. Oh,
Speaker 1: I told you. I want to talk about guys, and
Speaker 1: I want talk about like, no I'm like, I'm like, please, Pa,
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 genially how
Speaker 1: this happened. I challenge anyone to watch the video. Guys
Speaker 1: up there, he's sitting down, he's doing the show. I
Speaker 1: know him now. I know him like we're friends, and
Speaker 1: we're friends. Now he's up there and he's doing the show.
Speaker 1: He's done this already, and I don't want to yell
Speaker 1: at him across the newsroom make a big scene. So
Speaker 1: I go up to him while he's sitting down, and
Speaker 1: I put my hands on his shoulders, and you can
Speaker 1: 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 and do the whole big scene? Nah?
Speaker 1: He turns around and he moves his hand from off
Speaker 1: my shoulder and I'm moving and then and then I
Speaker 1: whispering to his ear, and I say, and you can
Speaker 1: see me leaving. I pat him on the side. You
Speaker 1: can see me leaving, and I do like this, and
Speaker 1: I walk back. The last thing I said to him
Speaker 1: was not something that you should say to somebody in
Speaker 1: the office. He stood up and I was like, whatever,
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: Even 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 3: No?
Speaker 1: So like so the I mean, the last thing was
Speaker 1: 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 h 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 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 1: This is cool. So my it starts to get around
Speaker 1: the office that I'm not coming back. So my coworkers
Speaker 1: throw me a going away party, including the guy that
Speaker 1: I supposedly chose who comes to the going away party.
Speaker 1: And after that that was on a Saturday, pictures go
Speaker 1: up on Instagram. On Monday, Paid six calls me and
Speaker 1: we heard that you got fired. We heard that you
Speaker 1: got fired. We heard it there was some kind of
Speaker 1: office altercation. We heard there was all of this stuff,
Speaker 1: and I'm like fuck. Now, I'm like god, damn. Now
Speaker 1: I'm the six foot fourth scary nigga, are you six four?
Speaker 1: Don't play? And so and so and so. Now I'm
Speaker 1: like and so. Now I'm like six foot er er
Speaker 1: And they put up an article and the article was
Speaker 1: like super it went soft on me. Everybody loves fan
Speaker 1: and all of this stuff like that. TMZ got their
Speaker 1: asses kicked. Everybody was coming at them, like everybody. And
Speaker 1: so then the next day the office struck back. And
Speaker 1: this is the one of the most important moments of
Speaker 1: my career. Yo, I talk a lot. I know sometimes
Speaker 1: it could be hard to follow me. But if you
Speaker 1: don't listen to anything else, I say, listen to this.
Speaker 1: These people don't give a fuck about you. They don't
Speaker 1: tell you what we do as black people. Sometimes what
Speaker 1: we do is like the record label becomes a crew
Speaker 1: and a family. Yeah, the production group becomes a crew
Speaker 1: and a family. We gotta sign, we got a logo,
Speaker 1: we got all of this stuff and boom boom boom,
Speaker 1: boom boom, and we cool. I know your kids, I
Speaker 1: know I know all of these people around you. We
Speaker 1: didn't talked like your dad has passed away. I done
Speaker 1: took you outside the office. We've talked about it. We've
Speaker 1: gone through all of this. You wouldn't do this to me.
Speaker 1: Not only will they They're going to Yeah, like they're
Speaker 1: going to do it. It's like they're going to do you.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get done. You will be done like something
Speaker 1: like if you are if you are making the track
Speaker 1: towards being somebody important or influential, somebody is going to
Speaker 1: do you. You will be done. So the question is
Speaker 1: for you is how are you gonna respond to it?
Speaker 1: As much naive? This is coming from a man at
Speaker 1: that time who was thirty nine years old. I didn't
Speaker 1: think they would do me that way. And the reason
Speaker 1: why I didn't think they would do me that way,
Speaker 1: it's not because it's because yo, I know these people.
Speaker 1: It's to the point to me to where if I
Speaker 1: if I pick up your baby and hold your baby,
Speaker 1: I'm from ban Rouge. If I pick up your baby,
Speaker 1: if I don't fuck with you and get that little
Speaker 1: nigg away from me. But like if if I pick
Speaker 1: up your baby and hold your baby and all your
Speaker 1: wife and I've been to your crib and all of
Speaker 1: that stuff, I'm thinking that there's gonna be a point
Speaker 1: where where somebody's gonna want to make me look in
Speaker 1: a certain way and somebody's gonna go, we can't do
Speaker 1: 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?
Speaker 2: The money is the Judas I understand.
Speaker 1: So so hear me out.
Speaker 2: So the roote is always gonna be in the the
Speaker 2: industry in 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
Speaker 1: bad for business.
Speaker 2: 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 it before,
Speaker 1: was 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: 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 him 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 all 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 y, what was your mindset at when all of
Speaker 2: this 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: It was stressed out? Okay, sorry. Like when I say
Speaker 1: I started having heart problems, it's like there's something called
Speaker 1: preventricular contractions. It's like a skipping of the beat. Like, uh,
Speaker 1: I was so stressed that I was like to play
Speaker 1: basketball very active. I was so stressed that my heart
Speaker 1: started missing timing. It was boom boom boomoom 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. Okay, think about it right, like
Speaker 1: the whole deal. But here's the deal though. I say
Speaker 1: all this to say this. People look for God in
Speaker 1: like the sky. 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 like portrayed people in
Speaker 1: a light that's not quite accurate to who they actually
Speaker 1: are without me really knowing them. I had been a
Speaker 1: part 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, that all.
Speaker 1: Feels the same because like for me seeing me on
Speaker 1: page six and seeing me going through all of this
Speaker 1: stuff and me going, hey, guys, you guys know me.
Speaker 1: This is not the thing. This is not the deal,
Speaker 1: seeing something out of context played up. All all the
Speaker 1: little micro feelings about black men are right there, Which
Speaker 1: is a maritime before Van snapped, It's a maritime before
Speaker 1: Van hurt somebody. This was a maaratime before he showed
Speaker 1: us who he really is. Remember, when a white person
Speaker 1: does something wrong, it's somebody who did something wrong. When
Speaker 1: a black person does something wrong, they're showing us who
Speaker 1: they really are the whole time. So it's so all
Speaker 1: of this stuff. It's like I went through that and
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, cool, no more of that for me.
Speaker 1: I have to feel that, like I'm not one of
Speaker 1: those persons. I always get caught when I do something wrong.
Speaker 1: I always it always comes back to me. He don't
Speaker 1: want me to escape without feeling it. Yeah, so it
Speaker 1: always comes back to me. And I could not leave
Speaker 1: there having done the Kanye thing and looked like some
Speaker 1: kind of big deal or whatever. I could not have
Speaker 1: left there without being on the other side of a headline.
Speaker 1: And so that's the way it went. Take the lesson,
Speaker 1: move on, continue to do dope shit, do as much
Speaker 1: as you can, but like it. And also, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd been to grilled Cheese Land already. If I had
Speaker 1: 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 fall 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. 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 know, man, like you know, Bill goes So, I
Speaker 1: the guy work with at the Ringer. Bill like 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 even.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: The fucking roof gotta get changed, Like stuff gotta happen.
Speaker 1: And even if my dad was around and he couldn't
Speaker 1: do it, he had a way to get it done.
Speaker 1: He was a useful, resourceful, responsible, old school man.
Speaker 2: You say that, but going back to when you're mom left,
Speaker 2: you were saying that, like if the stove broke.
Speaker 1: You guys were like, will he wasn't that way with him,
Speaker 1: but he would be that way with you. So if
Speaker 1: it's him, he man. When I went to his crib,
Speaker 1: like after he had passed away, like I see y'all
Speaker 1: got the wires and all this stuff, and you know
Speaker 1: it's a production house. That's how it goes. So I
Speaker 1: go to this nigga shit and I'm in there and
Speaker 1: it's like it's weird, Like death is so weird because
Speaker 1: you're gone, but everything else around you is like the same.
Speaker 1: So I go into his house and the outdoor channel
Speaker 1: like he's a hunting fish, so the outdoor channel is
Speaker 1: still on, like it's still on, like he's he's the
Speaker 1: only thing that's not alive in the room is him.
Speaker 1: Like the outdoor channel is still on in the middle
Speaker 1: of the thing. His saddle is on the saddle horse
Speaker 1: that you put on in the room next to him.
Speaker 1: All of his hunting stuff is there. He has stuff
Speaker 1: laid out for the next time he's His gun is
Speaker 1: taking apart. He was oiling it to die before he
Speaker 1: passed away, so like he wasn't expecting to die, right,
Speaker 1: And so I'm going there and I'll look and I
Speaker 1: see that he's running power out of one of the
Speaker 1: rooms into his bathroom. I'm like this, Nigga is good
Speaker 1: for nigga rig and some shit. Why don't you just
Speaker 1: do whatever you gotta do to have the people come
Speaker 1: out there and have the power. I see if it
Speaker 1: would have been me doing that, If it had been
Speaker 1: me doing that, he say, boy, fix that. He's just
Speaker 1: used to dealing with a little bit less and then
Speaker 1: kind of making sure that you don't. So for him
Speaker 1: to be like gone and for people to know that
Speaker 1: they can't just because sometimes he didn't have it to
Speaker 1: give to you. He just had a strategy for you.
Speaker 1: And that's the craziest thing. When you need when you
Speaker 1: need one hundred and fifty dollars for somebody and they
Speaker 1: ain't got nothing but advice.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Like that's like that's the
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, that's that's sometimes he
Speaker 1: didn't have it. But like since then, like I could
Speaker 1: go back to grilled cheese. I can get used to anything,
Speaker 1: but we can't go back to grilly Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: get it, Like we can't. I get it. It's like niggas.
Speaker 1: And that's funny because and they know that because they
Speaker 1: don't even ask for the same amount of money before.
Speaker 1: Like if you if you got a thousand bucks in
Speaker 1: the bank account, people go, yo, man, let me hold,
Speaker 1: let me hold, let me hold a hundred bucks, bro
Speaker 1: the whole hundred dollars. Man need that. But if you don't,
Speaker 1: the numbers get crazy. What you mean, oh bruh, the
Speaker 1: numbers get crazy. It's like, yeah, I need four thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: What the fuck you need for? You ain't got a
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars life? Like what what? What? What the
Speaker 1: fuck you need four thousand dollars for? Man, I I
Speaker 1: need four thousand dollars? All right, cool? You need four
Speaker 1: thousand what like what? Like I don't know, like you know,
Speaker 1: you know the whole thing. And I'm not like you.
Speaker 1: Hear other people talking about this and they are actually
Speaker 1: really rich I'm doing okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they they hating you for real. So when
Speaker 2: you come back, do you give them what your dad
Speaker 2: gives you?
Speaker 1: Nah?
Speaker 2: No, I mean how to get this for now?
Speaker 1: I gotta help out, like I gotta help out as
Speaker 1: much as I can. But but see this is the
Speaker 1: way I help out. I make you earn it.
Speaker 2: And listening to me, oh god, I love it, Oh
Speaker 2: my god, one of those I.
Speaker 1: Make you earn it. Sure y, 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. We gotta talk about
Speaker 1: how you live it. But we're doing it.
Speaker 2: That's messed up, man.
Speaker 1: I'm not a fucking atmarious. So we at least got
Speaker 1: 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 direct.
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 ask,
Speaker 1: like they really don't ask like they like it's like
Speaker 1: you'll come to their house, come to my mother in
Speaker 1: my grandmother's house, and they really in the old small
Speaker 1: TV on top of the big Curtis Mathew. 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.
Speaker 2: Of a deal, oh of mine. I'm just like, I
Speaker 2: have to pay direct because it's never gonna get to
Speaker 2: whoever you owe.
Speaker 1: They want your mom not gonna pay the bill if.
Speaker 2: I give my If my mom has a thousand dollars
Speaker 2: light bol hence her one thousand dollars light bl you
Speaker 2: see where we're going, She'll be like, you give her
Speaker 2: the money. She'll be like, I know that they'll keep
Speaker 2: the lights on. If I just give them ten, you'd
Speaker 2: be like, just pay the bill. So I'll just be like,
Speaker 2: 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 mom told me to pay the
Speaker 1: light bill. She was like telling me, come buy there
Speaker 1: and you'll drop them off seventy dollars. I'm like, drop
Speaker 1: him off seventy dollars. She saydeah, tell them me drop
Speaker 1: them off seventy dollars. I was like, you can drop
Speaker 1: them off seventy dollars and she was like, yeah, they
Speaker 1: want you to pay something. You drop them off the
Speaker 1: seventy dollars and then you come back a little bit later.
Speaker 1: I remember once, it's just so many stories. Mom sprayed
Speaker 1: mace at the feet of the light guy, the light
Speaker 1: build god, so he could come cut the lights off.
Speaker 1: She made them she makes the light buil god. No
Speaker 1: way swear light buil God. Mased them and then told
Speaker 1: him that the house was covered in the blood of
Speaker 1: Jesus and that if he came in there, his blessing
Speaker 1: was gonna be cut because she was trying to turn
Speaker 1: the lights off on her kids. Maceed them and then
Speaker 1: it was like, I'm letting you know, this house is
Speaker 1: covered by the blood of Jesus's coming here. This is crazy.
Speaker 1: She had she had force, she had the Bible, she
Speaker 1: had all kinds of stuff anyway, So all of that
Speaker 1: stuff now is just like now you're blessed. You're walking
Speaker 1: in abundance, and you're trying your best to be available
Speaker 1: to the people that you care about. I care about
Speaker 1: all of black people. That's why I care about you.
Speaker 1: That's why you have to be investigated by the BBI,
Speaker 1: and we have to make sure.
Speaker 2: I don't even understand the point of the investigation, but okay,
Speaker 2: the point of.
Speaker 1: The investigation for you, the point of so what we
Speaker 1: do at the Biracial Bureau of Investigation is we make
Speaker 1: sure that we we identify the problematic Biracials that exist
Speaker 1: 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 after you.
Speaker 2: Read after you reborn a crime. We could we could talk,
Speaker 2: but we're not going to.
Speaker 1: I'll read Trevor's book. I'll actually add his book to
Speaker 1: it is the curriculum.
Speaker 2: To be behind one of my favorite books. Ryan, it's
Speaker 2: one of your favorite books.
Speaker 1: Ryan, you fuck with that? Ryan? You biracial? You are what?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: What are?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 1: Vietnamese? Oh so one Vietnamese parent, one white parent.
Speaker 2: Okay, that counts. But I mean, yeah, I don't know
Speaker 2: that by racial. I was like, wait, you got blacking him?
Speaker 2: Hold up, you do that kind of brothers the second
Speaker 2: he said biracial ship. But baby, you know you never know.
Speaker 2: But but no, you should. You should check out the
Speaker 2: Trevor Noah book. I promise you. It's a great read.
Speaker 2: You'll you'll probably 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 others.
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 it,
Speaker 1: have fun with it.
Speaker 2: Is there any way people could keep up with you?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Miss 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 boy.
Speaker 2: I do want to touch on the Academy Award winning Like,
Speaker 2: can we backtrack 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 2: just come out? It was it around the George Floyd
Speaker 2: or okay during the COVID During COVID okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, idea money execution. You never 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: They there was a period during the whole Black Lives.
Speaker 2: To me, it feels like the world had to come
Speaker 2: to an end, Like literally sports had to end, The
Speaker 2: whole world had to stop for everyone to say, what
Speaker 2: is happening to blacks is really bad? It literally took
Speaker 2: If I think if sports was running at the same time,
Speaker 2: it'd be like any other year. But what I did notice,
Speaker 2: like there was a lot of like I know, a
Speaker 2: lot of brands that got distribution because they were black owned,
Speaker 2: or if you had a black in the title of
Speaker 2: any thing that you were doing around that time, you
Speaker 2: were 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 to 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 going to go on and on like I
Speaker 1: do everything that America has told Black people to do
Speaker 1: to get a hit. In America, black people have done.
Speaker 1: Black people bought land. We own more land in nineteen
Speaker 1: oh five than we own now. Bought land top four
Speaker 1: white owners white land owners, and all of America own
Speaker 1: more land than all of Black America combined. We own land.
Speaker 1: They took the land. They took the land through terrorism,
Speaker 1: They took the land through contract buyd 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's 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 people. 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 the idea
Speaker 1: that black people are supposed to be lesser than is
Speaker 1: so deeply entrenched in the American psyche that if it's
Speaker 1: not dealt with, and if it's not, if we don't
Speaker 1: come to terms with it, then America can't exist in
Speaker 1: 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 blind 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're huge chunks of the
Speaker 1: American electorate that people just are okay with saying they
Speaker 1: 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 like
Speaker 1: approach 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 South
Speaker 1: and so many other people are doing here, which is collectivize.
Speaker 1: Do it for yourself, like depend on yourself and have
Speaker 1: 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 a 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'll have your We have ir on you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna see what your reading history is
Speaker 2: looking like. Hey, what up? J suck all right, it's.
Speaker 3: Secret ingredient.
Speaker 2: YO, picture this a parallel dimension where Van Laythan's born
Speaker 2: without his secret sauce, that raw, unfiltered candor. In this
Speaker 2: twisted reality, that legendary Larry Flint joke never lands, Harvey's
Speaker 2: approval never earned, TMZ producer status never achieved. And when
Speaker 2: Kanye's spin in nonsense in the newsroom, insulting everybody in
Speaker 2: their mama, ain't nobody stepping up to check him. But
Speaker 2: in our world, Van Laythan's keeping it one thousand. He's
Speaker 2: got that freedom to speak his mind. And it's not
Speaker 2: just opening doors for him, it's straight up kicking them
Speaker 2: off their hinges. Van Laythan teaches us that when candor
Speaker 2: is your secret ingredient, life can hand you all the
Speaker 2: lemons it wants, you just throw them lemons right back
Speaker 2: and whip up a banging ass grilled cheese sandwich. I'm
Speaker 2: calling wit, and you've been listening to Eating While Broke.
Speaker 1: Peace out
Speaker 2: For more Eating While Broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect,
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.