Speaker 1: This is kJ Live with Chris John Sillen and Chris
Speaker 1: is having conversations with influencers in the sports world and
Speaker 1: entertainment in this strain. Now here's Chris Johnson. You're now
Speaker 1: to get the kJ Live. Today's guest on the show
Speaker 1: is the writer, producer, the social media influencer with over
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty thousand followers and a half a
Speaker 1: billion impressius to his credit. He as the host of
Speaker 1: Buckets on Wave TV, and he has been recognized as
Speaker 1: the goat of Twitter by Lebron James. Please welcome King
Speaker 1: Josiah Johnson to the show. What's up, Big Joe? I
Speaker 1: gotta correct you real quick? Half a billion? I do?
Speaker 1: I do the half a billion in like March and April.
Speaker 1: So I'm you know, we're putting these numbers out. We're
Speaker 1: gonna hear about two billion this year. If anything. Bill
Speaker 1: on the bed. You're not a big deal, nothing to
Speaker 1: bragg or bust about. Just average you know, damn average twittering.
Speaker 1: But you know, because this was so the last time
Speaker 1: that I wrote your bio out, bro in March when
Speaker 1: we did our show, you only had three fifty or something.
Speaker 1: It was something crazy, So you've done You've done that
Speaker 1: many since. That's real quick talk about just what it
Speaker 1: feels like to go viral. A lot of us has
Speaker 1: never gone viral. You go viral every day, probably six
Speaker 1: seven times a day. What does it feel like, Joe?
Speaker 1: What is the you know, what is the physical you
Speaker 1: know the moments? What does it feel like? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like a drug man, obviously, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: we're in a cannabis legal state. So it's like you
Speaker 1: take that first hit of the fire, and you know,
Speaker 1: you're you know, you take the first few hands and
Speaker 1: couple you know, when you first start smoking, and you
Speaker 1: got the munchies, and but then after a while, then
Speaker 1: it's more just maintenance. Like after after after you just
Speaker 1: get used to hitting the fire repeatedly, just become more
Speaker 1: maintenance thing. And now it doesn't really have the same
Speaker 1: a lord that it used to. Now it's more like
Speaker 1: I feel like I need to do it, and you're
Speaker 1: kind of watching it, watching it happen in real time.
Speaker 1: And I know a lot of people like when they tweet,
Speaker 1: I'm always constantly refreshing just those first couple of minutes,
Speaker 1: and I can generally tell now within the first forty
Speaker 1: five seconds, sixty seconds if a tweet is gonna go
Speaker 1: viral or not, just bake on like kind of the
Speaker 1: immediate reaction on Twitter. But it's still always a great
Speaker 1: mom and it's always that pressure of the next one,
Speaker 1: you know. So now it's like, if I got a
Speaker 1: viral tweet, I gotta worry about what what's the next
Speaker 1: weally gonna be? Because you know, if if I go
Speaker 1: days now in between putting up viral content, I'll start
Speaker 1: to get nervous, start to get jittery, start to get aunty,
Speaker 1: like damn, maybe I don't got it anymore. But for me,
Speaker 1: so I just have to constantly come back to the block,
Speaker 1: keep bringing the heat always and uh, you know, just
Speaker 1: keep these flares out. So you you literally feel sort
Speaker 1: of a pressure when you on Twitter or social media
Speaker 1: that because you have done so much, You've like scorched
Speaker 1: earth that so many times, you feel like you can't
Speaker 1: not do it no more. I mean, you don't want
Speaker 1: to hang it up. When are you gonna? Are you
Speaker 1: ever gonna say? You know what? That's it, y'all got it.
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, I'm tired of doing this. Ship
Speaker 1: It's too easy, son, kind of like Hove. You know,
Speaker 1: when Hove got out the game started doing other things,
Speaker 1: it was kind of like yo, a bar for bars,
Speaker 1: Just like, what is it is that? Do you ever
Speaker 1: start to think of those things? Joe, I'm definitely feeling.
Speaker 1: I Mean, the problem with me now is I see
Speaker 1: so many people It's funny of having a conversation with
Speaker 1: you know, somebody famous. I'm not gonna say their name,
Speaker 1: but they're like, yeah, man, I see I see I
Speaker 1: see all these other accounts trying to be like you,
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, I see that too, but I
Speaker 1: don't see the bags coming with that. So it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you're in this game, and but seriously, you're
Speaker 1: in this game in this world. Now. It's like I
Speaker 1: know most of people that work at these companies, and
Speaker 1: you know, I know that they're getting told, oh, tweet
Speaker 1: like Joe Side. But it's like you can just hit
Speaker 1: yo side and give him a bag and he can
Speaker 1: help you with your infrastructure, your strategy. But you know,
Speaker 1: like like we talked about before, it's it's the thing
Speaker 1: I always say if I was like a five ft
Speaker 1: seven white dude, nerdy, corny white dude tweeting at the
Speaker 1: level that I'm tweeting at people to throw millions of
Speaker 1: dollars at me, gave me my platform, really let me
Speaker 1: do whatever I wanted to do. But because I'm a
Speaker 1: six or seven black man former hooper, they look at
Speaker 1: it's like, well, damn shit, or what he could do it?
Speaker 1: I could do it too. There's nothing there can't be
Speaker 1: special about him. He's just a big, dumb, dumb animal
Speaker 1: former athlete. I really feel that because then you know,
Speaker 1: but constantly like, oh, well, you know, doing nothing special
Speaker 1: about this. So I see people in its flame and
Speaker 1: I'll see random humans come at me. You fell off,
Speaker 1: you did this, you do that. And every time I
Speaker 1: see that, it's like, Okay, fall off on this, fall
Speaker 1: up on this, motherfucking another viral clip, another lebron quote,
Speaker 1: tweet minding my business, fall off on that. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like you said before, I can't
Speaker 1: I can't ease up on it now because, like I,
Speaker 1: so many people who want me to fail. So anytime
Speaker 1: the tweet is not at the level that needs to
Speaker 1: be at, it's a bunch of negativity and hate. And
Speaker 1: I see all that ship man, I see everything that
Speaker 1: goes on on my social account. But I also you know,
Speaker 1: I love the support and I love the people that
Speaker 1: rock with me. But you know, it's like, you could
Speaker 1: get five hundred positive comments, five people, you can get
Speaker 1: a Lebron quote, sweet, But I'm more fascinated by the
Speaker 1: three or four people who hate it or tell me
Speaker 1: I'm a cornball or whatever whatever. But then I'll click
Speaker 1: on their profiles and see what they're about, and you
Speaker 1: just really see the pain and the jealousy and the
Speaker 1: frustration in their heart that they can't really perform at
Speaker 1: a level. And this is, you know, not to compare
Speaker 1: myself to Lebron at all, but you see it. Lebron
Speaker 1: can put up a tweet about opening up a new school. Hey,
Speaker 1: I just donated a five million dollars a charity, and
Speaker 1: immediately the comments, how come you donate six million? We
Speaker 1: didn't open up to schools. You were fraud You did this,
Speaker 1: you did that. Your rings don't count, bubble, And it's
Speaker 1: like you just see the hate of misery and bitterness.
Speaker 1: And the funny thing is a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: realize that these troll accounts. I'll literally stalk these troll
Speaker 1: accounts and I'll just hunt them, and I'll see the
Speaker 1: way they talk, in the way they're tweeting, the way
Speaker 1: they move, and it's like, I know exactly who the
Speaker 1: funk you are. I don't know exactly who you are,
Speaker 1: don't know exactly why you're so frustrated because your boss
Speaker 1: is telling you to do the same exact ship you can't.
Speaker 1: Oh so you're figuring out who people are. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean when people talk reckless and crazy to me, Chris,
Speaker 1: you know, as a Johnson growing up at Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: we don't really allow that that kind of time foolery
Speaker 1: to go down. So anybody who's talking reppers or wild
Speaker 1: or out of pocket, definitely, you know, it's like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: if this becomes an issue, I need to know who
Speaker 1: this is. This person. Things they're they're moving with the
Speaker 1: mask on things, they're moving in silence, but they're misspelling
Speaker 1: the same word the way that they do on their
Speaker 1: regular account. They have the same Cadens, same sense. Caden's
Speaker 1: on the burner accounts have on the regular cog that's
Speaker 1: rough dog. And it's like, okay, because I don't even
Speaker 1: breathe this ship, but Joe, I'm playing Look what I
Speaker 1: am glad and proud about, Uh, the way you handled
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff, and the beginning when you
Speaker 1: first jumped on here and you got active on Twitter,
Speaker 1: you used to, you know, address every single person and
Speaker 1: every single comment. And I used to just I used
Speaker 1: to find myself scrolling through for hours just why reading
Speaker 1: your comments, addressing every single person. And then but at
Speaker 1: you got to the point we were like, yo, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let it go. Um like you know, I'm moving on.
Speaker 1: You seem that you started operating a higher plane. And
Speaker 1: then fast forward to that moment that night, that day
Speaker 1: Lebron jumped on your joint. I mean it was sort
Speaker 1: of like the culmination. I think if you would have
Speaker 1: kept your original course, you wouldn't have opened up your
Speaker 1: total potential as a social media guy. You put your
Speaker 1: stuff to the side, and then man, it culminated with
Speaker 1: that Lebron tweet and now he's ultimately co tweeted you
Speaker 1: a few times after that. Talk about though that moment,
Speaker 1: because we have been Lebron fans for a while, we
Speaker 1: have been you know, you have wrote a show basically
Speaker 1: based on his basic a character was like you know,
Speaker 1: Lebron Lover or whatever. Talk about the moment with Lebron finally, Uh,
Speaker 1: I hit you on Twitter, as you know I was.
Speaker 1: I was a little disappointed and almost to the point
Speaker 1: of disrespected that Lebron wasn't rocking me considering how hard
Speaker 1: I'm rocking. You know, it's two three chair. You see,
Speaker 1: it's been a lot of Lebron, and there's been peaks
Speaker 1: and valleys, and obviously I think about the old days
Speaker 1: in the battles with the Kobe fans and the MJ fans,
Speaker 1: and you know, Lebron joining the Lakers and kind of
Speaker 1: putting the end to all that type of ship. But
Speaker 1: for me, the moment of validation June one, obviously a
Speaker 1: moment that were living in for me in the history
Speaker 1: of Josiah to Twitter, watching them watching the Nets game,
Speaker 1: minding my business, you know, was was using the facilities?
Speaker 1: Were you taking it? Was? Literally? Had I got a
Speaker 1: pastrami sandwich from g MLOs in burd Bank. Anybody who's
Speaker 1: ever been there, no sandwiches are fired. I literally my eyes,
Speaker 1: My eyes got bigger in my stomach. So I asked
Speaker 1: for a bunch of extra peppers and pickles, and Ship
Speaker 1: said I would normally do outside my eating comfort zone.
Speaker 1: So I'm after create before the game, just firing up,
Speaker 1: you know, the hallepinion, little green peppers, onto the sandwich,
Speaker 1: eating it delicious. And then right around the fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: late in the fourth stomach starts bubbling, running the bathroom.
Speaker 1: So I'm using the facilities while it's happening. Got the
Speaker 1: door crack. My wife is giving me the play by play,
Speaker 1: and she's like, yeah, br Bruce, wait, she's giving you
Speaker 1: played by play. Why are you take it through the
Speaker 1: door crack because I'm about twining while I'm going. You know,
Speaker 1: they're all conditions, like there's no excuse, no. You know again,
Speaker 1: if you're in the Johnson family, you know that whatever
Speaker 1: there's you know, there are things were getting off and
Speaker 1: started their dad, and you really trickled down that. You
Speaker 1: just have to become used to certain saying yeah, whatever's
Speaker 1: going on, that's a part of it. But she's getting
Speaker 1: me to play by play. Yeah, Bruce Brown, he missed
Speaker 1: the floater. I'm like, oh, let me fire off this.
Speaker 1: You know this, this this Harlem nice clip, real quick,
Speaker 1: put that up. I come back that thing. And like
Speaker 1: I said, I know in the first minute minute if
Speaker 1: her tweets gonna perform or not that thing is hidden
Speaker 1: is going by, had like a couple hundred retweets when
Speaker 1: the first minute, I'm like, okay, it's just about to go.
Speaker 1: Next thing, I know, I'm scrolling and I see uh
Speaker 1: Lebron's you know, Abby show up with the check mare.
Speaker 1: I'm like James, so I click on it and literally,
Speaker 1: you know he's cracking up. We go back and forth
Speaker 1: the ends of calling me to go, and I think
Speaker 1: at that moment and I knew, like, I love like
Speaker 1: ruining my hater's life, Like there's nothing that makes me
Speaker 1: happier than when when my haters see some some great
Speaker 1: ship happening for me. I know how visible they are.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people I don't even know. That's
Speaker 1: the saddest, funniest part about it. A lot of people
Speaker 1: who literally they would have came and reached out to
Speaker 1: me and ask before advice, asked me for help. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm always fucking willing and able to get my tone
Speaker 1: to people, come and prove them if I see them
Speaker 1: actually trying to get to somewhere. But you just know
Speaker 1: that moment the level of hey, I knew right there.
Speaker 1: I told my wife, like, damn, this is open Pandora's
Speaker 1: box because, as you know, Lebron would go but people
Speaker 1: don't rock with him like that. So when Lebron fun
Speaker 1: with things, they'll deliberately go out their way to hate.
Speaker 1: And I do. I do with a little hate obviously
Speaker 1: going into the finals and a bunch of loser Wienny
Speaker 1: kids talking shit, and my thing is, you know, Chris,
Speaker 1: what I've learned from you is like, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: say whatever, say it, but be ready for what comes
Speaker 1: with that. If you don't, don't be a bit about it.
Speaker 1: Have heard you know what I'm saying, Like, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna talk reckless and crazy, put your name on it.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing I browed myself. And I know
Speaker 1: you do a well my counts, but we're not really
Speaker 1: hiding behind burnards. And if I got some ship I
Speaker 1: need to say to you, I'm gonna say it from
Speaker 1: my regular account. And we could do whatever, because it's
Speaker 1: definitely we will cross paths, and whenever that situation happens,
Speaker 1: what you want to do and I may win, I
Speaker 1: may lose, whatever, but it'll be whatever you want. We
Speaker 1: could do whatever you would like. Man, it gets real
Speaker 1: out here in these Twitter streets, bro. But again, Joe,
Speaker 1: the way you the way you did it, the way
Speaker 1: you've handled everything man, including the trolls and the people
Speaker 1: that attack you on the daily basis, I commend you.
Speaker 1: It's another reason why I wanted to talk to you,
Speaker 1: especially about I noticed that you did a podcast recently
Speaker 1: about toxic masculinity in social media and how to use
Speaker 1: social media to combat that. Just sort of God, talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about what that is and how you
Speaker 1: use social media to combat toxic masculine. And I think
Speaker 1: growing up in the world and environments that we grew in,
Speaker 1: and there was a ton of toxic masculine, and you
Speaker 1: think about going to places like Cranshaw or you know,
Speaker 1: playing in Los Angeles, all the stuff that goes on
Speaker 1: as a kid, just a lot of bad habits and
Speaker 1: Nazi things that were kind of brained on. Especially you know,
Speaker 1: I used as an example just my approach of women's
Speaker 1: basketball when I was younger and not really having that
Speaker 1: that respect. And I look back at myself and I
Speaker 1: look at these comments now from these idiots and these
Speaker 1: assholes who don't have anywhere near the skill or the
Speaker 1: town level that these women have, and just the negativity
Speaker 1: that was always you know, as male hoopers were always oh,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody could be on our level. But now
Speaker 1: just the respect and admiration and the ability and the
Speaker 1: connection I've been able to make in that space. And
Speaker 1: obviously you're doing a ton of work, you know, and
Speaker 1: and girls and women's and women's sports just throughout your career.
Speaker 1: But obviously seeing that now and realizing that you can
Speaker 1: change the way your mentality and your perspective was. You know,
Speaker 1: back when we're playing at U c l A, it
Speaker 1: was kind of a negative connotation towards the women's squad
Speaker 1: or what was going on at w n B A,
Speaker 1: where now it's like, now I want to be embracing
Speaker 1: and be a resource, being an ally and really use
Speaker 1: my platform as much as I can. I connected with
Speaker 1: a ton of women in the w n B, A
Speaker 1: tonne of women playing in college, Like, look like you
Speaker 1: may not have the biggest following right now, but let
Speaker 1: me use my my my resource on what I've been
Speaker 1: able to do to help you and help promote your
Speaker 1: guys brand, help be an advocate and the ally to
Speaker 1: the w n b A and other things. I think
Speaker 1: you know, those are mentalities that are stilled on us.
Speaker 1: And we're seeing lot of that even nowadays with like
Speaker 1: some own bios and ion real Sokka and what's going
Speaker 1: on with the mental health component, you know, and back
Speaker 1: in our day, and I've seen both sides of it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was like you weren't you know, you're
Speaker 1: you were You were told basically to put that aside
Speaker 1: and be tough, and you know all this stuff we've
Speaker 1: seen now that you know, suck it up, you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: you're not you you weak or you're soft or whatever.
Speaker 1: And it's like, nah, some of the type of people
Speaker 1: I know have have mental health issues. I have mental
Speaker 1: health stuff that I deal with two And you can't
Speaker 1: be afraid now to open up about that and stuff
Speaker 1: and just and just really communicate as man. We're always
Speaker 1: kind of taught to keep that ship to yourself, and
Speaker 1: you know, but then that birds inside of you and
Speaker 1: then it ends up, you know, coming out in ways
Speaker 1: that aren't really negative or you know, aren't really positive
Speaker 1: or ways that to really help you improve as a
Speaker 1: human being. So at getting older now, pushing these forties
Speaker 1: and just live in life and honestly dealing with everything
Speaker 1: I dealt with from the social side, the troll side,
Speaker 1: you know, the people with the hate and the negativity
Speaker 1: and just you know, wishing cancer on your family and
Speaker 1: I hope you die, and all that other type of
Speaker 1: ship that I see in a pretty much daily basis
Speaker 1: really made me strong at the point where I don't
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid to just be who I am, you know,
Speaker 1: talk about the things that interest me, support people that
Speaker 1: that deserve and are really warranted to have that support.
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest things about stuff like
Speaker 1: toxic masculinity and and and men and males and sports
Speaker 1: is it's a generational thing. So for instance, my generation,
Speaker 1: this toxic masculinity was something that was encouraged. It wasn't
Speaker 1: frowned upon exactly. You know, you you laugh at it.
Speaker 1: You're the cool guy in the locker room. If you
Speaker 1: talked about women in a disparaging way, you talked about
Speaker 1: your sexual conquests in a boasting, short of way, it
Speaker 1: just bigs you. Being a piece of ship was actually
Speaker 1: looked at as a positive. And you saw a lot
Speaker 1: of movies. You saw it in movies, You saw it
Speaker 1: in depictions of all types of characters that we look back,
Speaker 1: you know, look, for instance, pepe le pew Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: he's basically, you know, hugging on that chick and just
Speaker 1: pushing up order and she's just trying to get him off.
Speaker 1: But it was like it was a cartoon back in
Speaker 1: the day. But like later on they meet too, Pepula
Speaker 1: the pew. With all that to be said, Joe, when
Speaker 1: you have been in something has been ingrained in you
Speaker 1: and your culture and your generation, it takes an undoing.
Speaker 1: So mental health issues, so toxic maculinity can be viewed
Speaker 1: as a mental health issue, like you are, you're looking
Speaker 1: so so basically we need that needs to be I
Speaker 1: think not enough is done to address and do the
Speaker 1: undoing part of things for folks like myself going, you know, pushing,
Speaker 1: gonna be in his fifties pretty soon here around the corner,
Speaker 1: I haven't had, you know. And a lot of it
Speaker 1: is self help. A lot of it. You got to
Speaker 1: identify the problem. You gotta go and say, hey, I
Speaker 1: need to talk to somebody about this and I need
Speaker 1: to get myself under control. I wish there were more
Speaker 1: resources for men like like myself and yourself who played
Speaker 1: high level basketball on the college level to deal with stuff,
Speaker 1: to help us transition into our adulthood. But again, a
Speaker 1: lot of it is on the individual, and I agree
Speaker 1: with that definitely for sure. I mean I think, look,
Speaker 1: it takes a lot to admit and acknowledge anybody. Nobody
Speaker 1: likes any when they're wrong. Like look at Twitter debates
Speaker 1: and arguments. Nobody will ever be like, oh I'm wrong
Speaker 1: or just like them. I mean, looking at the ship
Speaker 1: going down with the pandemic now and people with they're
Speaker 1: asking nine point of views about vaccines and this that
Speaker 1: and whatever. It's it's at no point you want to
Speaker 1: be told. You know, we're in California. We just had
Speaker 1: a recallection where it's close to three million dollars for
Speaker 1: what for Gavin Newsom to do a better number than
Speaker 1: he did in you know the team, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. So this is but this is the reality.
Speaker 1: And people once they hold onto something, once they believe something,
Speaker 1: there's really nothing you're gonna do to be able to
Speaker 1: change it. Select to your point, it takes a lot
Speaker 1: for any human being to look in the mirror and
Speaker 1: be like, look, I gotta be a better person. I
Speaker 1: think somewhere along my journey, because you know, I've been
Speaker 1: in those lot rooms as well, and that was you know,
Speaker 1: that was a running gag in the joke. And I
Speaker 1: remember in College of sports psychologists hit me up like, yo,
Speaker 1: if you ever need to talk because I'm afriend, I'm
Speaker 1: not talking to you. I'm not crazy, and that's what
Speaker 1: you think, but really you need those persons to talk
Speaker 1: to you to get it out and you know, just
Speaker 1: and that's what I have now with my family structure,
Speaker 1: people like yourself and and josh Amon the rest of
Speaker 1: our our family, just to be able to talk to people,
Speaker 1: bounce ideas off of them, like am I tripping and
Speaker 1: you know they tripping whatever? And it's helped me a
Speaker 1: lot of the human being because, like I said, you
Speaker 1: bought a lot of that stuff up and it really
Speaker 1: displays itself in an extremely negative way when you unleash it.
Speaker 1: And as you know, being to Johnson, we can bottle
Speaker 1: some ship up and then when it's time to unload,
Speaker 1: we will unleash and you know, really really just be
Speaker 1: wild and regulars about it. But now I think, getting
Speaker 1: older and obviously yourself, I look at you as a
Speaker 1: role modeling example is you know, it takes a lot
Speaker 1: of step, It takes a lot of courage to be
Speaker 1: able to acknowledge these things and now move on and
Speaker 1: be better from them. And you don't have to be
Speaker 1: you know, like like Fat Joe said, yesterday's price not
Speaker 1: today's price. Yesterday's mentality doesn't need to be today's mentality either.
Speaker 1: You can move on and you can elevate. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm on that panel I did on talk to mass Lenny.
Speaker 1: They were talking about cancel coaching all this and that
Speaker 1: it's like all that ship is a figment of your imagination.
Speaker 1: I've seen human beings be canceled on Monday. By Wednesday,
Speaker 1: they're right back and to do whatever they want to do.
Speaker 1: So that's all just kind of the ship that's social
Speaker 1: and grains on people, and people need to be able
Speaker 1: to take the split reality from social. They're not the
Speaker 1: same thing. So they look at me and you know
Speaker 1: me like as this whole thing. I've risen this account
Speaker 1: of I've tried to stay levelheaded, not drink my own cool.
Speaker 1: They believe my own height. People call me the king
Speaker 1: and asked the King it is you've never missed and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, like my fuck, you just never I
Speaker 1: missed a ton. You just haven't seen it. I failed
Speaker 1: a shiploading, but from those failures I've been able to
Speaker 1: build an elevate to get to I want to be
Speaker 1: because you know, like said, I'm not gonna stay down,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I might be down right now,
Speaker 1: but I'm I ain't gonna stay down like whatever. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try to go get it. You know, Yep, yep,
Speaker 1: no man. That's and and this is These are the
Speaker 1: type of conversations I think that we need as males,
Speaker 1: we need as men. We need to spend more time
Speaker 1: addressing because we have we have a lot of young,
Speaker 1: impressionable youngsters basically listening to us that that you know,
Speaker 1: subscribe to your content, listen to my stuff, watch our videos,
Speaker 1: watch our stuff. So the messaging has to be one
Speaker 1: of hey, you know, you know that stuff ain't cool
Speaker 1: and I realized that. And I want to ask you this,
Speaker 1: do you think when you became a dad and fatherhood
Speaker 1: did that sort of change your mentality at all? Because
Speaker 1: I know when I had little girls and daughters, I
Speaker 1: started to kind of look at things through a different lens.
Speaker 1: Did you yeah? For sure? Boys that I go back
Speaker 1: and wink with the way I was before kids and
Speaker 1: know why I am now and they definitely changed. I
Speaker 1: mean they with your patient as your home, mentality, how
Speaker 1: to approach things, and now just being responsible for another
Speaker 1: humans life and well being. Right, you know when when
Speaker 1: the baby first comes out, all my friends, my male
Speaker 1: friends who are about to have kids and ship, and
Speaker 1: it's like it's not really gonna it's not really gonna change.
Speaker 1: For you're gonna notice the hormonal changes in your and
Speaker 1: your wife or your girlfriend, whoever. You're gonna see that.
Speaker 1: But once that baby comes out, then it's like you
Speaker 1: gotta lock and low because now you're responsible for this
Speaker 1: child for the rest of his life. It's well being,
Speaker 1: it's health. Now became less about me. There were times,
Speaker 1: you know, pre kids, when I have a quitter mentality
Speaker 1: or just give up and not give a fuck, you
Speaker 1: know what was me type of you know, just approach
Speaker 1: to life where it's like I gotta feed these children
Speaker 1: now and that's the ship that drives and motivates me
Speaker 1: and everything I do now, Like I gotta do your point.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna waste my time going at people who
Speaker 1: don't rock them. You don't rock with me, I don't
Speaker 1: rock with tons of things. Don't You don't see me
Speaker 1: talking about how much I hate this or hate that,
Speaker 1: or then this sucked, or that I stopped worrying about
Speaker 1: other people's art, creativity, blessings and all that other ship.
Speaker 1: And that's when my life got so much better because
Speaker 1: I know, now I gotta worry about these kids, and
Speaker 1: I gotta feed them, and they don't want to hear
Speaker 1: no excuses. They don't want to hear whatever reason I
Speaker 1: didn't do this or couldn't do that, or couldn't couldn't
Speaker 1: provide for them, Like that's not on the table. So
Speaker 1: everything I do now is with that motivation. And that's
Speaker 1: where you know, I get so spirited and passionate and
Speaker 1: fiery about a lot of this ship because you know,
Speaker 1: like you know, when you see people taking your whole
Speaker 1: style or taking your whole is um now but trying
Speaker 1: to be buddies with you and buddy, it's like, my fucker,
Speaker 1: this is money. You just took fucking food off my table,
Speaker 1: Like this is now my kids can't eat because you
Speaker 1: want to steal my ship and try to you know,
Speaker 1: basically look at the style that I created and not
Speaker 1: really pay your dues and pay your ties to to
Speaker 1: the person that's responsible for so the ship really becomes frustrating,
Speaker 1: especially in the social world. This is the thing I
Speaker 1: pressed upon a lot of people that look like us,
Speaker 1: black men and women that are trying to get in
Speaker 1: the game. It's like, like you already have a huge following,
Speaker 1: Like they're just they're just kind of mystique about social
Speaker 1: where if you look at the highest level, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of white people in positions that they candidly don't earn,
Speaker 1: Like you know, I'm looking at the social game and
Speaker 1: if you're like, like, if you had to pick between
Speaker 1: who who you want to be a VP of your
Speaker 1: company or who you want to do this or that,
Speaker 1: the person with a hundred any three thousand followers that's
Speaker 1: shown that they can get it out the mud and
Speaker 1: go viral on the owner. The person with like two
Speaker 1: followers that frankly doesn't know ship can't even build social
Speaker 1: on their own account. This is not but this is
Speaker 1: not how the world works. So all these people get
Speaker 1: put in positions where their head of this and VP
Speaker 1: of that and do this and do that, and it's
Speaker 1: like for what you haven't even like you saw social
Speaker 1: that you can't even build your own ship, like like
Speaker 1: you're so good at social that you don't even know
Speaker 1: how to take all the things that apparently are good
Speaker 1: enough for you to get these these cushy jobs and
Speaker 1: applying to your own accounts, How does that make any less?
Speaker 1: Like me being a chef, but I cam only a
Speaker 1: chef when I could fucking do it at my five
Speaker 1: star gourmet restaurant. When I'm at home in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: I can't even make a grill cheese sandwich. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to don't. I don't know how to do this,
Speaker 1: But you know, give me all the resources and everything.
Speaker 1: So for me, like you were having kids, really just
Speaker 1: lit a fire under my ask like I gotta get
Speaker 1: my life together, gotta get my ship right, because ultimately
Speaker 1: they don't want to hear no excuses. And we have
Speaker 1: that sports background and mentality playing for people like Coach West,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to hear no fucking excuses. Get
Speaker 1: it done, or you know, or you fail. That's pretty
Speaker 1: much it. And that's how I move in shape now
Speaker 1: in this game. Perspective is everything, man, and and it's
Speaker 1: just it's amazing to see how brothers change and development evolved.
Speaker 1: But let's get back to something that you're doing currently.
Speaker 1: A lot of people, Well, so we just talked about
Speaker 1: your Twitter exploits and and for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: you know, just doing that would be something to hang
Speaker 1: they had on. But man, you're also you've created a show,
Speaker 1: an animated comedy series for Comedy Central, Legends of Champion
Speaker 1: of Heights. And then on October twenty night, you're a
Speaker 1: writer producer on Colin Black and White, right, and excuse me,
Speaker 1: Colin and Black and White, which was a Netflix series
Speaker 1: produced exactly produced by Colin Kaepernick and Avla Duverney, and
Speaker 1: you're on there as a writer producer. Man, that must
Speaker 1: have been an amazing experience. To talk about a little
Speaker 1: bit about working with Ava, Michael Starberry and those big
Speaker 1: time people in that writer's room. Well, first, I mean
Speaker 1: shouts out to Starburry for giving me the opportunity and
Speaker 1: you know, you know, the love that we are the
Speaker 1: family have a Starberry. But obviously my my favorite writer
Speaker 1: in the game. And to see history jectory has been
Speaker 1: so inspiring since me him for the first time in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, knowing how talented he was then and
Speaker 1: now seeing it all kind of coming to fruition obviously
Speaker 1: when they see us to get the Emmy nomination that
Speaker 1: should have won, but that's neither here nor there. And
Speaker 1: then you know, partner back up with Ava to do
Speaker 1: this show Colin in Black and White and obviously shout
Speaker 1: out to Ava fellow U s l A Brewing, you know,
Speaker 1: just you know, queen like I can't. You know, it's
Speaker 1: always like you want to get people with their flowers
Speaker 1: when they're a lives. So anytime people ask me about Ava,
Speaker 1: I always trying to make sure to do that because
Speaker 1: her giving me the opportunity, she did not have to
Speaker 1: do this, she didn't have to bring me along with
Speaker 1: this thing, and to let me be a part of
Speaker 1: something I feel like it's really just gonna be, you know,
Speaker 1: historical in terms of what it's gonna be able to
Speaker 1: do and accomplish with a tremendous experience. And obviously Cap
Speaker 1: the thing about Catman, I was rolling with Caps just
Speaker 1: six teen when that first thing started. I remember, you
Speaker 1: know how I think he started his his protests initially
Speaker 1: in August, he wasn't really trying to draw attention to it. Eventually,
Speaker 1: through some some various factors, including Steve White, shower at
Speaker 1: NFL Network was another person I rocked with heavy. You know,
Speaker 1: I got brought to light and then kind of you
Speaker 1: just saw his career, just get this mantled and get
Speaker 1: black balled and just blatantly just mistreated by the NFL.
Speaker 1: But I remember, and I went to the Comedy Central
Speaker 1: Emmis party, which was in like early September, literally, and
Speaker 1: we're Raiders. Families were Raider's family, were Raider's household. But
Speaker 1: I'm out there rocking the cap jersey and the American
Speaker 1: flag pants just in solidary and supports And I don't
Speaker 1: even know Colin at this point, but I kind of
Speaker 1: appear in a similar situation where you just get fed
Speaker 1: up with the bullshit that's going on in the world,
Speaker 1: especially as black men and women and the way we're treated.
Speaker 1: But we know we're respected to be here for people's entertainment,
Speaker 1: and then how dare us have to, you know, complain
Speaker 1: about anything going on in the world. And to see
Speaker 1: the way that Conlin was basically just shipped all over
Speaker 1: by mainstream media. Oh, he's disrespecting the troops, he's disrespecting
Speaker 1: the veterans, he's disrespecting the police. And to see how
Speaker 1: these things are played out in the last five years,
Speaker 1: and how this a blatant amount of bullshit from those
Speaker 1: same exact people who disrespect the veterans, disrespected military, really
Speaker 1: disrespect the police. You're talking about capital insurrection and literally
Speaker 1: trying to overthrow a government because you weren't happy that
Speaker 1: democracy didn't work in your favor. You know, you weren't
Speaker 1: happy that everybody was able to use their votes to
Speaker 1: vote on who they to vote for and to see
Speaker 1: that ship play on in real time. And this hypocrisy
Speaker 1: and even situations now going on with like the vaccinations
Speaker 1: in the NFL and guys, you know, holding this anti
Speaker 1: vax stance and you know, I'm willing to die for
Speaker 1: this anti vax stance, but not for a fellow, one
Speaker 1: of my my brothren in the league who literally was blackballed,
Speaker 1: included against my NFL owners to not be allowed to
Speaker 1: do what he was very good at doing. And people
Speaker 1: kind of say, oh, well, he he was trash, he
Speaker 1: was this he was at I mean, give me a
Speaker 1: fucking break. I've seen the number of starters and players
Speaker 1: that have gotten to look and gotten multiple looks since
Speaker 1: and you can't tell me that Colin isn't one of
Speaker 1: the top thirty two quarterbacks in NFL. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: he's the best. I'm not saying he's the worst, but
Speaker 1: you can't tell him he doesn't deserve to be on
Speaker 1: a roster. So to be able to have Colin, you know,
Speaker 1: come in with us, sit in a room with us,
Speaker 1: and just be able to see him, talk to him,
Speaker 1: ask him questions, asking about all the misinformation on the
Speaker 1: bullshit going on, Hey, did you really even want to
Speaker 1: play this that in the third and to see the
Speaker 1: way he responded that, and just even though we were
Speaker 1: actually with Colin he came in the it was like,
Speaker 1: I think, no, we're like nineteen ish. I told were
Speaker 1: November twenty nineteen ish. He came in and actually the
Speaker 1: day he came in, he found out about that workout
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, and just to see, you know, how how
Speaker 1: happy he was, how excited he was to really go
Speaker 1: out there and show it. But even us in the
Speaker 1: in the writer's room just know it, like, man, you
Speaker 1: know this knows like some bullshit dog like like that
Speaker 1: you're doing a workout for all thirty two teens doesn't
Speaker 1: really make any sense. I've never really seen that happen before.
Speaker 1: It just seemed really fishy. Didn't come to find out obviously,
Speaker 1: the league and put a bunch of bullshit and paperwork
Speaker 1: in the contract about you know, him with the workers
Speaker 1: com Ship and now that he wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: super collusion again, and it's just like this is just
Speaker 1: a sad state of a fairy, but this is where
Speaker 1: we deal with his black men and women in this country.
Speaker 1: And then obviously from that to see the George Floyd situation,
Speaker 1: the pandemic start and just now people see it in
Speaker 1: their eyes, and Christian, you and I both know, like
Speaker 1: I saw a lot of bullshit and I actually lost
Speaker 1: a lot of respect for people that have respect for
Speaker 1: just to see how they moved during you know, the
Speaker 1: George Floyd, you know, peaceful protests and how they moved
Speaker 1: with Jacob Blake. It was just a lot of fake,
Speaker 1: fucking pandering and you know, just oh, I'm really you know,
Speaker 1: we want to do more black projects this and there're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this should last a month. I don't believe any any
Speaker 1: word of what you're saying. And me it really like,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of lost my mental sanity for
Speaker 1: a while during that time point the pandemic, just all
Speaker 1: the ship going on. But just to know how frustrating
Speaker 1: it is still when it was, oh, we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna do better, we're gonna make an effort to really,
Speaker 1: you know, diversify, and it's like, all right, we're tired
Speaker 1: of doing that. It's been a month. I'm sucking exhausted.
Speaker 1: Back to we tried. We hired a couple of blacks.
Speaker 1: We just found some blacks on the street game jobs.
Speaker 1: It didn't work out like lo and behol shockingly, and
Speaker 1: you know, we tried, So we're gonna go back to
Speaker 1: whatever the status quo is. What about what about those
Speaker 1: that would say joe to to your to this point
Speaker 1: that you know, before in our country, nobody, no companies
Speaker 1: was doing nothing like this. So maybe if it's a
Speaker 1: little bit better than nothing, I think if you have
Speaker 1: to realize the motivations and intentions. I don't think companies
Speaker 1: were doing this because they cared about diversity and they
Speaker 1: cared about black people. They were doing it because, oh,
Speaker 1: when other people are doing this, they're getting a ton
Speaker 1: of likes on those posts, they're getting a ton of retweets,
Speaker 1: they're getting a ton of engagements, and we still sell
Speaker 1: the black people, so you know, we need to pretend
Speaker 1: like we give a funk at the highest level. No,
Speaker 1: my friends don't care about about about improving and advancing.
Speaker 1: I mean I tell people candidly, Look, I'm heavy and
Speaker 1: social media uh NBA NFL six seventy percent black. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like social media teams during that sixty seventy
Speaker 1: percent black range, you'd be lucky if you've got ten
Speaker 1: percent Black people represented, you know, in a lot of
Speaker 1: these spaces. And but this is how we're meant to
Speaker 1: look like we're not mentally capable to talk about the
Speaker 1: things that we know. But you constantly see a lot
Speaker 1: of these social platforms literally just stealing black culture, stealing
Speaker 1: black verracular and operating honestly the in digital black face
Speaker 1: where you know they're they're white. Employees will start talking
Speaker 1: about dripping swag and blah blah blah, and it's like, motherfucker,
Speaker 1: I know the fucking person you stole that ship from.
Speaker 1: I know the person you stole that from. I know
Speaker 1: when I see one of my my black friends post
Speaker 1: a hot tweet, Oh, this is gonna end up on
Speaker 1: a major account with a couple of words changed around.
Speaker 1: I've seen it happen to me personally, and these are
Speaker 1: the people that get to dominate these spaces. The same
Speaker 1: thing with the leagues in terms of representation at the
Speaker 1: ownership level, at the executive level. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: we seeing I think we're one short of the record
Speaker 1: for a black coach in the NBA going into this season.
Speaker 1: But why it takes so long to get to this point,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And why you know, when
Speaker 1: black coaches are giving these positions, they're not giving the
Speaker 1: rope and the opportunities to look at the NFL, like
Speaker 1: there's no shortage of white coaches who've been regurgitated all types,
Speaker 1: you know, multiple head coaching jobs and proven that they
Speaker 1: don't have the goods. Or I look at a guy
Speaker 1: like Eric the Enemy and everybody, oh Andy Reid calls
Speaker 1: the plays, and I look at all Belichick's disciples. What
Speaker 1: Belichick not calling those plays? But those my fuckers getting
Speaker 1: head coaching jobs out to ask. So it's always just
Speaker 1: this double standard of everything going on the world, where
Speaker 1: black cip constantly are good enough. We should just be
Speaker 1: happy for whatever we're getting, and it's like, man, fuck you,
Speaker 1: we were we we we make this circle. We are
Speaker 1: we are the reason that all this stuff is able
Speaker 1: to exist. You know what I mean. You look and
Speaker 1: I love the way that guys like Lebrian and k
Speaker 1: D and Stephan, these guys move. Now where it's like,
Speaker 1: funk you. I'm gonna control my own narrative. I don't
Speaker 1: need to rest on you guys. I can start my
Speaker 1: own media companies. I can do all the same ships
Speaker 1: you guys are doing and hire the same exact people
Speaker 1: you guys are hiring, and do our own ship now.
Speaker 1: So I think you know we're seeing really it's like
Speaker 1: a great moment, especially for Black American in this country.
Speaker 1: But we can't let that slip away. We can't take
Speaker 1: the foot off the gas either. You know. We gotta
Speaker 1: keep keep fighting for what we believe in and keep
Speaker 1: fighting for those opportunities. And that's like I told you before,
Speaker 1: That's like if I was putting up the numbers I'm
Speaker 1: putting up, but I'm a five foot seven white dude,
Speaker 1: I'd be ordained. That's the greatest social media mind of
Speaker 1: this generation. Here's ten million dollars. Start with whatever you
Speaker 1: want to start, do whatever companies you want to do.
Speaker 1: Fail as much as you want. You failed head here there.
Speaker 1: We gave your promotion for another bigger, better company ship
Speaker 1: that we see on the other side very very frequently.
Speaker 1: But again, because I'm a six or seven black dude
Speaker 1: that used to hoop, you know, I'm not respected. I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm mean boy, like oh, he just makes memes
Speaker 1: like nah, I do a little bit more than that memes. Honestly,
Speaker 1: you're about ten percent of actually my workflow. Do a
Speaker 1: lot more than that, and and try to be you know,
Speaker 1: growing up in the Johnson household, we had a premium
Speaker 1: was put on education from from you know, Dad, all
Speaker 1: the way down, like you you gotta be smart in
Speaker 1: this house or you're not gonna be respected. We're watching
Speaker 1: Jeopardy going hard at each other. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: We're we're noting will of fortunate as much. That's not
Speaker 1: really a thinking man, Yeah, that's not. It's complicated as
Speaker 1: a rapid fire que and that it's like when anybody
Speaker 1: can figure out a word puzzle out when they get
Speaker 1: the guest a letter. We're going hard on this ship,
Speaker 1: reading almanacs, reading all types of ship to gaining knowledge,
Speaker 1: you know, being educated, being an honors classes, ap classes,
Speaker 1: just performing at the highest level, but for some reasons
Speaker 1: like oh, when you play basketball, so you're not intelligence.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, my fucker, I did that, and I
Speaker 1: can give you buckets on end off the court. Final
Speaker 1: thing about cap um, what do you what did you
Speaker 1: learn about the man Colin Captant that you didn't know before?
Speaker 1: I think seeing Cap and you know, I've done some
Speaker 1: research on Cap leading up to it, and obviously Starbury
Speaker 1: told me I was working on the gig. I felt
Speaker 1: son dead to him. I put like a whole huge
Speaker 1: research packing together, did as much of a deep dive
Speaker 1: as I could just to find out about his life.
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't realize they see Cap now
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like, well, you grew up with
Speaker 1: the two white parents in a in a suburb, where
Speaker 1: do you have to complain about That's kind of even
Speaker 1: from the black community, you see a lot. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think looking at Cap is like, you know, with the
Speaker 1: show really highlighting this high school experience, that a lot
Speaker 1: of these seeds were planned early on, and you had
Speaker 1: a kid that you know, struggle with his identity growing
Speaker 1: up in an all white family, growing up in Central California,
Speaker 1: which anybody who knows anything about Calli, you know, Central
Speaker 1: Cally is the red area, right, Like you know Colin
Speaker 1: saying he he lived five minutes away from the grand
Speaker 1: Wizard of the clan, like knowing these type of things,
Speaker 1: but you know, knowing that because he was great with
Speaker 1: with his athletic exploits, that people look look past all
Speaker 1: that type of stuff. But Colin at a very early
Speaker 1: age had a thirst and a knowledge. I want to
Speaker 1: learn about his culture, his blackness, and really discover who
Speaker 1: he really was, which is situation that we're beyond his control.
Speaker 1: Obviously being adopted into a white family, not not having
Speaker 1: access to the type of situation. But as you start
Speaker 1: to read, you start to learn knowing that, damn, I'm different.
Speaker 1: Like you know, I got a white brother and sister
Speaker 1: and two white parents, and they treat me like a
Speaker 1: son and they love me like I'm family. But when
Speaker 1: we go to places, I'm getting stared at and getting
Speaker 1: sneered and getting you know, the racial comments. And again,
Speaker 1: growing up in Central Calli is not the same as
Speaker 1: growing up in Los Angeles. You know, don't let the
Speaker 1: election fool you. You start making that drive to go
Speaker 1: up to the bay whatever. You know, you pull over
Speaker 1: them gas station. Sometimes you like this is not this
Speaker 1: is not for you, but so for him, just you know,
Speaker 1: his experience in high school and what a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't realize about Cap is that he was kind
Speaker 1: of always the underdog. He only had one college scholarship
Speaker 1: offer coming out of high school and at one quarterback offer,
Speaker 1: and that came literally as a result of a basketball game,
Speaker 1: like he he bawled out like Nevada. I think Nevada
Speaker 1: coach just came to check him out. He had been
Speaker 1: in their camp or whatever they he was on the radar.
Speaker 1: But that song played basically in a basketball game, was like, look,
Speaker 1: even don't work out his quarterback, we can get this
Speaker 1: guy in another position. Like he's a fucking just talented
Speaker 1: as athlete and Colin, to his credit, I'm a quarterback.
Speaker 1: I want to play quarterback. So if you knew how
Speaker 1: much he loved the position, how much he sacrificed to
Speaker 1: be a quarterback, and then when he got that opportunity
Speaker 1: in the NFL leading to the highest level, and it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, people will shoot on Cap and you look
Speaker 1: at Jimmy Garoppolo, who's in a similar situation led the
Speaker 1: Nine into the super Bowl. Then you have a shitty
Speaker 1: year and it's oh, well, you know the team wasn't good,
Speaker 1: like cap deal with those same exact ship. You know,
Speaker 1: when you look at the Chip Kelly years with the Niners,
Speaker 1: people people act like they had a super Bowl level
Speaker 1: squad every year and he just wasn't performing as a quarterback.
Speaker 1: It's like, now, look at some of those teams he
Speaker 1: was dealing with injury, he was battling there. There's a
Speaker 1: reason he had a flu, which we've seen from pretty
Speaker 1: much any quarterback you can think of. Right now, I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the Manning broadcast on you know, Monday Night Football,
Speaker 1: like their career is just more perfect all the way through.
Speaker 1: Payton has some downtime. I'm not comparing Colin that Colin
Speaker 1: and Payton or Colin Eli, but just to say that
Speaker 1: guys go through down periods and it's not like we
Speaker 1: just throw them, throw them to the side, like we
Speaker 1: allowed them to come back given the resource they need.
Speaker 1: And now when you get that squad that can perform, well,
Speaker 1: it's not always just on you know, the quarterback. But
Speaker 1: they'll look at the win loss record, those type of
Speaker 1: things and not acknowledge, Oh, the line wasn't as good
Speaker 1: as it need to be, the receiving corps wasn't as
Speaker 1: good as it needed to be. Well, well, well, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry to cut you off with Joe. I see it
Speaker 1: all the time that in no offense against Josh Rosen.
Speaker 1: But I've seen people make this excuse for Josh Rosan
Speaker 1: and like every single stop of every year of his
Speaker 1: career where his offensive line wasn't good, and look at
Speaker 1: his defense and give him a chance. All he needs
Speaker 1: his reps. But then you see the black quarterbacks typically
Speaker 1: you know your boy Dwayne um Haskins in Washington, remember him,
Speaker 1: Remember how they get they severed ties with him after
Speaker 1: just nothing. But I've noticed that trend, and so for me,
Speaker 1: it's like I thought it's supposed to be about who
Speaker 1: can play the position um and seems like the black
Speaker 1: quarterbacks are evaluated differently than white quarterbacks. I remember you
Speaker 1: did that piece, you produced that piece at the NFL
Speaker 1: Network a long time ago, when you're talking about guys
Speaker 1: like Mark was at Myron bisco Marlon Briscoe, Marlon Briscoe,
Speaker 1: the legend, the magician. But you look at I mean
Speaker 1: you know, and that's the whole thing to you. Look
Speaker 1: at the NFL right from like ninety six, there were
Speaker 1: no black quarterbacks and then felt let alone black play,
Speaker 1: you know, gentleman's agreement, no blacks allowed. Look at the
Speaker 1: SEC with schools into the seventies even early eighties weren't
Speaker 1: working with black people at all. And then now coming
Speaker 1: revolutionized position, you think about people like James Shack Harris
Speaker 1: and Marlo Briscoe who you mentioned, and just you know,
Speaker 1: Willie Thrower and guys that didn't get those opportunities. You know,
Speaker 1: you look at Marlin story. Marlin fucking was you know,
Speaker 1: I think she could have been Rick of the Year
Speaker 1: or like finished second whatever came in. But literally the
Speaker 1: amount of variables it took for him to get into
Speaker 1: the Broncos line up as a quarterback. Then he gets
Speaker 1: out there and dazzles and literally never plays quarterback again
Speaker 1: after that. You know. But just this is the world
Speaker 1: that goes on for for black quarterbacks in general. So
Speaker 1: to see the way Colin is like, oh, you're ungrateful,
Speaker 1: You're up to the you know, you're up to the
Speaker 1: N word, because because you now want to bring attention,
Speaker 1: are you just do it because you're not playing like
Speaker 1: whatever the fucking factors and variables are we talking about
Speaker 1: Magic Johnson all the time? Who we're revering our household.
Speaker 1: I'm fairly confident of Magic didn't get HIV, he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been such a big advocate for HIV and the
Speaker 1: Age initiative. You know, you look at Michael Vick and
Speaker 1: the Dog Fight, and you can think whatever you want
Speaker 1: about Michael Vick, but if Michael Vick hadn't went to
Speaker 1: that situation, his life and perspective wouldn't have changed for
Speaker 1: now him to become an advocate and go out of
Speaker 1: his way to use his time and celebrities influence to
Speaker 1: bring attention to situations that go on there with with
Speaker 1: animal mistreatment and things like that. So whatever were the
Speaker 1: factors of variables, I'm gonna type of human being, whatever
Speaker 1: that that ship doesn't is irrelevant. It's it's a matter
Speaker 1: of what you accomplished and what you're trying to do
Speaker 1: and use that platform for. And I think what we
Speaker 1: saw and what Colin helped really engineer and bring life
Speaker 1: to and bring attention to is a lot of the
Speaker 1: bullshit that goes on in the world. Again, a lot
Speaker 1: of the people that were saying he's anti this and
Speaker 1: anti that proved themselves to be the exact same thing
Speaker 1: that they were accusing him of when she didn't go
Speaker 1: their way. I had to listen to people like Tommy
Speaker 1: Learn said that the Capital insurrection was just a bad day, like,
Speaker 1: you guys try to overthrow the fucking government? What was Chris?
Speaker 1: I was back in New Jersey with my mom recently.
Speaker 1: We went and saw Bonnie Watson Coleman, who was a congresswoman,
Speaker 1: and she's telling us what that experience was like, being
Speaker 1: stuck she was in the capital with that experience was
Speaker 1: she was she scared for her life? Did you get
Speaker 1: assensed that she was scared for her life the way
Speaker 1: she was telling the story, She she was somewhere else,
Speaker 1: and she was basically, let's go to the capital. It'll
Speaker 1: be safer there. Kind of they've gotten wind of what
Speaker 1: was going on. So she went actually went to the capital,
Speaker 1: but to have to sit there and be in fear
Speaker 1: of people who were mad because democracy didn't work in
Speaker 1: their favor. And these are the same people that say
Speaker 1: this is not a big deal, and that's not a
Speaker 1: big deal, and why are we doing this? And why
Speaker 1: do we need vaccines? And I'm gonna take this fucking
Speaker 1: horse tranquilizer or whatever. It's just such an assinine perspect
Speaker 1: in the world. And this is what I always trying
Speaker 1: to explain. It's like it doesn't you can't think about
Speaker 1: it rationally. You can't think about what's right or wrong
Speaker 1: because people, even when they're presented with the option for
Speaker 1: right or wrong. People new slavery was wrong. People new
Speaker 1: segregation was wrong. People knew the Civil Rights air and
Speaker 1: all the ship was going on. Fucking water holes and
Speaker 1: black people just for for one to sit on the
Speaker 1: bus equally that you know. But they don't give a
Speaker 1: funk and they never will, so you can't really worry
Speaker 1: about them. The only thing you do is defeat them.
Speaker 1: The only way you defeat them is by being successful,
Speaker 1: getting your bags right, really fortifying your crew, and having
Speaker 1: enough resources at your discloser to be able to combat
Speaker 1: all the negativity and bullshit going out in the world.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely appreciate that. Man. We're feared a little bit,
Speaker 1: but it's all great. No, no, but it's good stuff. Man.
Speaker 1: Sometimes these are these are the topics that conversations bring
Speaker 1: up and bring out of a person, especially someone like yourself,
Speaker 1: is very passionate. And when you hear that, when you
Speaker 1: hear the passion, Yeah, man, I'm looking forward to seeing
Speaker 1: this Kaepernick project because if you bring this type of
Speaker 1: passion to writing, Josiah, this is the type of ship
Speaker 1: that you know, makes for just unbelievable genius work level
Speaker 1: because you care and so that's what matters. But man,
Speaker 1: this other thing that you're doing, Bro, you was back
Speaker 1: in New Jersey or you was back East with your mind,
Speaker 1: but you did the Prolacrosse Situation League, Premiere Lacross League.
Speaker 1: Talk about how you got involved with the Premiere Lacrosse
Speaker 1: League and what's up on Lacross. I mean I heard,
Speaker 1: you know, I did a little bit with it, but
Speaker 1: I have no idea what that sports about. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: shout out to the Leven, the legend, Trevor Trout, you
Speaker 1: know USC legend. But uh, you know he connected me
Speaker 1: with with the league. You know, they were interested in
Speaker 1: doing some stuff. They around in San Jose for their
Speaker 1: All Star game back and like me and July So
Speaker 1: reached out. Man. Honestly, I'm and I told them the
Speaker 1: same things, like we just didn't have a cross out here.
Speaker 1: But you know, if we did, my body might have around.
Speaker 1: You know, you might have seen the really doing work.
Speaker 1: You know, you're talking about Jim Brown and arguably the
Speaker 1: greatest of cross player ever. And just you know, the
Speaker 1: Crosses saw some other ship. Man. I didn't really know
Speaker 1: a ton about the league initially, but anything I get
Speaker 1: involved with I do a ton of research. Took a
Speaker 1: deep die. So shout out to the Rebel Brothers Mike
Speaker 1: and Paul, Paul who just actually recently retired, you know,
Speaker 1: after I think like a fourteen year career pro but help.
Speaker 1: So basically, these guys are playing in another league. Brandon,
Speaker 1: the situation wasn't that good. The Rebel Brothers are like, fun, this,
Speaker 1: we can improve it started. The Premier Lacrosse League brought
Speaker 1: a lot of the high level talent. It's it's a
Speaker 1: different league and unique in the fact that these guys
Speaker 1: now get equity in the league and they have a
Speaker 1: vested interest in the league success. And they basically barnstorm.
Speaker 1: So they've got eight teams, but the teams have no
Speaker 1: city affiliation. They all traveled together across the country week
Speaker 1: to week, playing in different cities. So just even that
Speaker 1: perspective kind of like the Big Three in terms of
Speaker 1: how its structured like that, but getting all the best
Speaker 1: high level across players and meeting guys like Miles Jones
Speaker 1: and Jules Hanningberg and fucking huh Romar Dennis and just
Speaker 1: like guys that are a part of the league that
Speaker 1: you know. You see these like six ft three, six
Speaker 1: ft four, like big buff like usually Miles Jones in
Speaker 1: real life. You're like, I'm talking to he was, like
Speaker 1: I played au with Dubias Harrison back in then, Lie,
Speaker 1: I know you did. Bro. You're out here. You could
Speaker 1: be a linebacker, you could be anything you want to be.
Speaker 1: But see them out there, And that's what I was
Speaker 1: gonna ask you, just about the body builds, Like what
Speaker 1: athletes would you compare lacrosse players to, like what positional
Speaker 1: like point guard like NBA point guards or I mean
Speaker 1: you see everything. You see guys build like fullbacks. You
Speaker 1: see dudes that could literally be like you know, middle
Speaker 1: linebackers in the NFL, guys are on the shorter side,
Speaker 1: kind of like baseball hockey kind of different, Like you're
Speaker 1: gonna get a hodge pods of guy depending on their position.
Speaker 1: Like they got this one legend who came up with
Speaker 1: the thick board summer. You know, he's built like literally
Speaker 1: straight fullback. But out on the field like you know,
Speaker 1: it's such a you know, they can move, they got
Speaker 1: jukes and they can move and like speed, quickness, agility,
Speaker 1: side to side. That's what matters Joe all that. But
Speaker 1: they're also like they can pound each other with the
Speaker 1: sticks at defender to try and knock the ball out
Speaker 1: of somebody's hands. So they'll be whacking ship out of
Speaker 1: each other like somebody whacked me like that. I'm not
Speaker 1: to put the stick down, the square up. They're going
Speaker 1: at these dudes, and you know they're there, weren't there,
Speaker 1: weren't protection everything, but just being able to connect the sports.
Speaker 1: Shout out to the legend r J two, r J
Speaker 1: Kminsky over at uh, you know, Premier Lacrosse League. To me,
Speaker 1: it reminds me so much of what the NFL was
Speaker 1: doing back in the early days with the NFL films,
Speaker 1: And if people look at the success of the NFL,
Speaker 1: you gotta look at the sables Stephen Head and what
Speaker 1: they were able to do and making those games feel
Speaker 1: larger than life like when I was at NFL and
Speaker 1: NFL network. I always say NFL could take a game
Speaker 1: that was zero zero make it look like the greatest
Speaker 1: game ever played, just with the camera angles, the great voiceover,
Speaker 1: the god shots, and the Premier Lacrosse League is really
Speaker 1: ambinding a lot of that. They've got it like a
Speaker 1: just an amazing crew of social media people and people
Speaker 1: on the video production side that that really go out
Speaker 1: there and just honestly, every game you've got, so every
Speaker 1: team has like one to two people on the social
Speaker 1: video side, so you figure you put them all together,
Speaker 1: that's not sixteen people. You've got it every single game
Speaker 1: that are just there that love the sport, really building
Speaker 1: up a strong community. So I did the All Star
Speaker 1: Game with them. I'm like, yeah, I want to funk
Speaker 1: with you. I want to come, you know, like I
Speaker 1: come out to Philly for the Semize and check you
Speaker 1: all out there. So I got to go and actually
Speaker 1: see real games being played. All Star game was obviously
Speaker 1: kind of you know, dudes were having fun and you know,
Speaker 1: just just sucking around, but to see them in a
Speaker 1: high level game, high level competition, like these dudes really
Speaker 1: go at each other and you know the league is awesome.
Speaker 1: They let me get field level, let me get in
Speaker 1: the huddles like ship that we would never be able
Speaker 1: to get off in any other sport, but just to
Speaker 1: see the intensity the fire and also just you know
Speaker 1: the amount of black players in the league and the
Speaker 1: Black Across Alliance and what they're trying to do to
Speaker 1: strengthen the brawn the game. Yeah, you know, there's there's
Speaker 1: there's a there's a heavy contingent. That was the one
Speaker 1: thing I do with any sports that that I deal with.
Speaker 1: It's like, I need to know what your your black
Speaker 1: representation looks like. And those are the people that would
Speaker 1: love to elevate and amplifying edition to have the people
Speaker 1: in the league. But those are people I resonate with
Speaker 1: the most, so you know, let me sit down with them.
Speaker 1: So we've got to sit down with Miles and Jewels
Speaker 1: and romar Uh in San Jose and just talk to
Speaker 1: these guys. And it's just like, damn, these dudes are
Speaker 1: fucking legends, Like just cool, last dude. Everybody in the
Speaker 1: league is cool and really bracing of all cultures. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate the Rebel Brothers for let me even get
Speaker 1: the opportunity to out there and be a part of it.
Speaker 1: I hit up Paul Paul retired yesterday, hit him with
Speaker 1: the d M, just like, you know, I appreciate the
Speaker 1: opportunity here. He responded right back, like, you know, just
Speaker 1: thank you and everything you do. I know he's launch
Speaker 1: an initiative now to get you know, lacrosse goals and
Speaker 1: underserved communities across the country and really, you know, I
Speaker 1: think the sport is burgeoning. I think it really has
Speaker 1: the potential to be the next big American sport because
Speaker 1: it has all the fast paced, high scoring, has you know,
Speaker 1: the big hits, that has a nice juice and nice moves.
Speaker 1: It's basically, you know, it's like hockey on on on
Speaker 1: on the grass soccer field. But are committed to the sport.
Speaker 1: They love it, and you know, for me just to
Speaker 1: be a partner, I'm super appreciative. Yeah. I love to
Speaker 1: see some you know, inner city partnerships or initiatives with
Speaker 1: kids in the inner city to make you know, equipment
Speaker 1: more affordable. I would think one of the big challenges
Speaker 1: with the sport like lacrosse, which is you know, reputation
Speaker 1: to be East Coast base kind of preppy, you know,
Speaker 1: high exacuty league sport. If we can get some affordable
Speaker 1: gloves and the helmet and all that and all that.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that that's that's ninety of it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just getting enough equipment for all these kids. Dog,
Speaker 1: you know how that go. You know, the equipment is
Speaker 1: if you get some cross in the hood, I promise
Speaker 1: you in the next five or ten years. Because also
Speaker 1: just a ship from football, it's not it's not as
Speaker 1: dangerous of sport were talking about the ct and all
Speaker 1: that other type of ship, but has a lot of
Speaker 1: the same principles in it. What God trying to shake
Speaker 1: each other and shake defenders and get buckets on, you know,
Speaker 1: score goals. There there's a potential that I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's another sport that we can just take
Speaker 1: over and dominate if given given the right access. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And what's your experience? And I wanted to touch on
Speaker 1: this because you you have experience at the NFL network.
Speaker 1: You're pretty experienced in the league. Um, I've read somewhere
Speaker 1: where the NFL had this like racial norming thing that
Speaker 1: they were doing when taking into account uh former players
Speaker 1: CTE can custious. Do you are you aware of that
Speaker 1: that what's going on? With that situation. What is your
Speaker 1: thoughts on how the NFL operates from a business perspective
Speaker 1: like that. Well, you know, I'm never wanting to funk
Speaker 1: up my bags, and obviously I got a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of great friends at the NFL and NFL
Speaker 1: Network and I worked there for the better part of
Speaker 1: ten years. But to see the type of situations that
Speaker 1: are going, it's extremely frustrating. I think they initially dropped
Speaker 1: that one up like that are called like super Bowl.
Speaker 1: We've been buried it, you know, you know, nobody really
Speaker 1: heard about it. Then it resurfaced a few months later
Speaker 1: when they're talking about how blatantly discriminatory they were. So
Speaker 1: not only do you knowledge that you have CT how
Speaker 1: fun up a situation is that you set aside a
Speaker 1: fund for guys to get the help they need. And Chris,
Speaker 1: I'll just tell you real quicker story. So I was
Speaker 1: working in the NFL is probably like two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, there was Super Bowl in Miami,
Speaker 1: whatever year that was. So, you know, like the NFL,
Speaker 1: the NFL network was always a hierarchy. So obviously the
Speaker 1: upper level exacts and like the premium talent, they stayed
Speaker 1: in South Beach. We stayed across the bridge, like right
Speaker 1: near the airport. Um, and I'll never forget this. You
Speaker 1: got the glitz and glamorous South Beach, all these super
Speaker 1: Bowl parties, just all the amazing ship going on. We're
Speaker 1: really staying on like a Marriott right near the airport,
Speaker 1: and all the former guys have whatever, Like the t
Speaker 1: g I version, Friday's version of the restaurant is in
Speaker 1: the restaurant hotel. All these former guys come through like
Speaker 1: fucking Earl Campbell, dig Bucket, like just all these and
Speaker 1: these dudes are struggling to walk and fucking it, I'm
Speaker 1: going over there. I'm just getting like, got some food
Speaker 1: to go real quick, and kind of stumbled on like
Speaker 1: the former player reunion, And just see the way those
Speaker 1: guys were treated, the guys that literally laid the foundation
Speaker 1: for God to get these multimillion dollar contract ship broke
Speaker 1: my heart. Man. I remember just looking at that ship,
Speaker 1: and I was probably like four at the time, not
Speaker 1: really understanding what was going on. But now that's take
Speaker 1: a look back on it. So to see the way
Speaker 1: the league is treating players that literally sacrificed so much,
Speaker 1: players that grew up in this toxic masculinity culture where
Speaker 1: you know that's not a can cuss your head just hurts,
Speaker 1: Rub some ice on and go back out there and
Speaker 1: fucking get us to win. That's the only thing that matters. Hey,
Speaker 1: entertain these fans, that's the only thing that matters. So
Speaker 1: to see these guys now getting mistreated like that, I
Speaker 1: think the thing was like they treated black players mental
Speaker 1: capacity at a lower level than than white players, and
Speaker 1: that was a part of the initial baseline test going in.
Speaker 1: And to see this type of ship happened in the
Speaker 1: league and now I's like, oh, yeah, we sucked up,
Speaker 1: and believe me, nobody's perfect. But to see the way
Speaker 1: that the players are treated, and that's not even in
Speaker 1: the NFL, like across sports, it's like these guys laid
Speaker 1: to found dation. I think that's even indicative of us
Speaker 1: as society. We don't take care of our old. We
Speaker 1: kind of just capt him aside. And that's something. Not
Speaker 1: to bring it back to this rona pandemic, the coronavirus pandemic,
Speaker 1: but something that's been so blatany like pissed me off.
Speaker 1: It is like are old people are at risk? They're
Speaker 1: they're the they're the target, you know, sixty five and older,
Speaker 1: and we don't even have enough love and respect for
Speaker 1: them to just fucking wear a mask and do simple
Speaker 1: ship like we'd rather go out of our way. Hey
Speaker 1: you're old, just stay your ass at home instead of,
Speaker 1: you know, just caring about our common man. So when
Speaker 1: I saw the ship going with the NFL, and honestly,
Speaker 1: it was extremely disappointed. Like I said, I got a
Speaker 1: ton of friends there, a ton of people that I
Speaker 1: rock with in respect, but there comes a point when
Speaker 1: when this bullshit needs to get exposed. And even stuff
Speaker 1: as simple as Colin being black Ball for five seasons,
Speaker 1: you're tell me he's not good enough to be on
Speaker 1: a roster With all the other ship going on. We've
Speaker 1: seen guys fucking literally murderers and fucking all type. You know,
Speaker 1: talk about Aaron Hernan as the ship going on. All
Speaker 1: that's good to go because hey, they can perform. We've
Speaker 1: seen Antonio Brown and a lot of stuff he's done. Well,
Speaker 1: hey he's good, so who cares. But it's like, what
Speaker 1: did Colin actually do? Like I mean, it should have
Speaker 1: been out there punching him in, Like would you like
Speaker 1: him more if he was rolling around with like a
Speaker 1: stockpile of guns, like, you know, threatening people. Would you
Speaker 1: prefer him to get a d y and hit somebody
Speaker 1: and you can't? I mean, it's just like what what
Speaker 1: are you ultimately mad at that this black man who
Speaker 1: was successful wanted to use this platform to raise awareness
Speaker 1: and attention to the sugar on That's what you're That's
Speaker 1: what that was like, Oh, we can't have him in
Speaker 1: this league. Yeah, anytime any time you speak out against
Speaker 1: law enforcement, military, I feel like, as an athlete in
Speaker 1: this country, you're gonna wade in some controversial waters. You've
Speaker 1: seen it throughout our history. Muhammad A Live is a
Speaker 1: great example of how. You know, he speaks out against
Speaker 1: the war against Vietnam. You know, ain't no Vietcong. They
Speaker 1: were called me the inn word, refused to go, and
Speaker 1: now he's ostracized by mainstream America. It's so funny to
Speaker 1: see Muhammad Ali's just how people talked about him close
Speaker 1: to his death, and he was revered. But if you
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people that were around back then,
Speaker 1: remember what time it was. I got a feeling that
Speaker 1: same thing is gonna happen with a Colin captant. What
Speaker 1: I do think it's it's one of those things. Shut
Speaker 1: up and dribble. Athletes are to be seen and to
Speaker 1: perform and not hurt. I really think it has to
Speaker 1: do with that, my guy. But the crazy part about it,
Speaker 1: just quickly is that everything was always he's anti he's
Speaker 1: anti Miller, carry, he's anti veters. Literally, Nate Bowyer green Beret,
Speaker 1: is the one who told Colin to do this peaceful protests.
Speaker 1: And that's and this is like when you look at
Speaker 1: the history and it's like, just look at the simple facts.
Speaker 1: A white green beret, white former green beret told Colin
Speaker 1: this would this would be appropriate way to to voice
Speaker 1: your grievments in your protests. And now that got fun too.
Speaker 1: You don't care about the veterans, Like Chris, I live
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. I was driving down Savicinti the other
Speaker 1: day near the v A. What are we talking about?
Speaker 1: We don't care about sucking veterans. You so many homeless
Speaker 1: encampments there are across the city of former veterans who
Speaker 1: are just spit out and shipped on by this country.
Speaker 1: And but now because Colin, Kaepernick and Cap put up
Speaker 1: like a million dollars, are very charitable endeavors when it
Speaker 1: first happened, and it was like, oh, well that's not enough.
Speaker 1: It's I'm afraid you don't put up money for ship.
Speaker 1: And you're trying to tell me a million dollars anybody
Speaker 1: putting up a million for anything? Oh well he makes
Speaker 1: x amount and that's this is the ship. And I
Speaker 1: see it happened with Lebron, I see it have with staff.
Speaker 1: I see it having with so many guys when they
Speaker 1: try to use their platform is basically shut up nigger entertainment.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear what you have to say
Speaker 1: about anything other than put that basketball in the basket,
Speaker 1: throw that football, help me win my fantasy league. Like
Speaker 1: I don't give a funk about your personal opinions about anything.
Speaker 1: And that ship is honestly to me is I've gotten older.
Speaker 1: It's like this is embarrassing, dog, Like this is you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I see it the same thing
Speaker 1: in the business side and in the corporate culture, where
Speaker 1: oh you know, we just can't find talent to black people,
Speaker 1: like are you looking? And where are you looking? Because
Speaker 1: I can rattle off thirty to forty to fifty times
Speaker 1: of black people right now who can easily come in
Speaker 1: and smash other people's jobs. But they don't want to change,
Speaker 1: like they rather just put up the black square on Instagram,
Speaker 1: do something special during fucking black hairstry month. Oh hey,
Speaker 1: half off on hot sauce without you know what I
Speaker 1: mean that that's how they want to operate. So you know,
Speaker 1: the game is the game. Joe. When I when I
Speaker 1: listened to you talk, man, I have one thing I
Speaker 1: want I wanted to ask you. It's like, who do
Speaker 1: you envision playing the role of Josiah Johnson in your
Speaker 1: life story if you had a chance, Like who who
Speaker 1: would be the perfect actor to play Joe at this
Speaker 1: in a movie about you? I mean, if Brian Gumble
Speaker 1: or grand Gumble has any children, That's probably been the
Speaker 1: most ideal option. I'm trying to think, because you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I was, I was, I was plumping my
Speaker 1: younger life. So really, it's gotta be somebody who could
Speaker 1: who could throw around weight, like you know, we could
Speaker 1: make an around over Thanksgiving and put on fifteen pounds
Speaker 1: and then over the course the next three months drop fifty.
Speaker 1: You know, you know that that's how we kind of
Speaker 1: get down. So it's somebody who who could be really
Speaker 1: nimble on that side. But uh, Ship, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe Brian Gumble, I'm trying to think, Uh, Kennedy Meeks,
Speaker 1: maybe I forget. Uh, I could always hear me with
Speaker 1: fucking you know, just send me photos of people that
Speaker 1: looked like me. I know, I saw somebody at a
Speaker 1: JORDI had a volleyball practice over at Merrymountain. There was
Speaker 1: a guy there. He looked just it reminded me of
Speaker 1: me so much. I took pictures of I'll said him,
Speaker 1: but this is like a couple of years ago, but
Speaker 1: I do it too, Like I'll see a guy that
Speaker 1: revised me a year. I like Stafford shot because I
Speaker 1: know later on I'm gonna show you, buddy man. Uh Man,
Speaker 1: this conversation has been rivety. Man. I'm gonna talk about
Speaker 1: though kind of you know as we close it up, Uh,
Speaker 1: your experiences or memorable stories interactions with the late great
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant. So you know, obviously, and this is ship.
Speaker 1: I look back on it and really really regret and
Speaker 1: it drives me just to be a better human being
Speaker 1: every day. But coming up being a Lebron fan, we
Speaker 1: used to really go at Kobe fans like it was.
Speaker 1: You know, there was nasty stood on both sides, a
Speaker 1: lot of hey, a lot of it are all and
Speaker 1: you know how much these two dudes loved each other,
Speaker 1: rock with each other. You know, every year on Kobe's birthday,
Speaker 1: I posted a clip with Lebron singing Kobe Happy Birthday,
Speaker 1: just as a reminder that these dudes really really funk
Speaker 1: with each other heavy and really elevated the game. And
Speaker 1: I'm so thankful that. You know, when Lebron decided to
Speaker 1: come to the Laker in the eighteen that was a
Speaker 1: you know, a siminar moment for all of us. Let's
Speaker 1: put our egos, put our differences the side, Lebron's on
Speaker 1: the Lakers. Now we're we're rocking. Like any you know,
Speaker 1: I tweeted about this a few times, but any Kobe slander,
Speaker 1: any negative or anything I've done in the past, that's
Speaker 1: just all done like nothing but respect for Kobe, his family,
Speaker 1: this Lakers organization. And it's funny, man. When Lebron first came,
Speaker 1: everybody was like, you know, you had a lot of
Speaker 1: Laker fans that have supported the move, but a lot
Speaker 1: of them were like, I mean, he just want to
Speaker 1: be an actor. He's gonna disrespect the Purple and go
Speaker 1: he don't really want to be here. You don't care
Speaker 1: about this, you don't care about that. Fast forward to
Speaker 1: the year, Our Lord, two thousand, twenty October. In the Bubble, Lebron,
Speaker 1: you know, helps lead the Lakers are championship, gets that
Speaker 1: Finals MVP, obviously after Kobe had passed away in January,
Speaker 1: and even that that moment to know that, you know,
Speaker 1: hours before Kobe passed, he's literally on the phone with
Speaker 1: Lebron and some of the guy on the plane congratulating
Speaker 1: Lebron for passing him, you know, on the all time
Speaker 1: scoring list, and literally Kobe's last tweet is a salute
Speaker 1: to Lebron. I mean that's just for me, you know,
Speaker 1: I still cry about that ship to this day and
Speaker 1: just think about how can I be a better person,
Speaker 1: How can I not get caught up in any of
Speaker 1: this bullshit? And even like you know, I'll joke around
Speaker 1: with the m J debates and things like that just
Speaker 1: to piss off Jordan Fancs. I know they're older and
Speaker 1: they could take it, but you know, when you look
Speaker 1: at these guys in their contribution to the game, Kobe, Lebron,
Speaker 1: and how much. They just loved each other, revered each other.
Speaker 1: It really helped me to become a better person. Man.
Speaker 1: I think about Kobe pretty often, and for me, the
Speaker 1: highlight of just you know, seeing Kobe and this is funny.
Speaker 1: I was a Kobe hater at this point. But back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eleven Drew League, you know, during
Speaker 1: the lockout, get a call from our dad, Marcus Johnson.
Speaker 1: Dad hits me like, YO, come through the Drew League.
Speaker 1: It's probably like ten am whatever. Come through the Jew
Speaker 1: League today. You know, Kobe is supposed to come through,
Speaker 1: and I'm being an ass. I'm like that, I don't
Speaker 1: really give a funk, like you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: be cool, sweet guy, like, uh, I'm a Lebron fan.
Speaker 1: I ain't going It's funny. I think I him my buddy,
Speaker 1: Marcus Miles Ludy. Marcus spells his name the same way
Speaker 1: as Dad. He was named after Dad, you know, the legend.
Speaker 1: Hit up Marcus like, YO, make you go shoot this
Speaker 1: Kobe game. He's like, no, man, I can't do it.
Speaker 1: I'm like fuck it. I'll find I'll go up there.
Speaker 1: But go up there and just the energy, the atmosphere
Speaker 1: they were playing at Washington Park still at that point,
Speaker 1: you know, James Harden was there, DeMar de Rose and
Speaker 1: just like the young crew of guys Market Banks, other
Speaker 1: dudes at Davis I believe was out there as well.
Speaker 1: That that came out. Everybody pulled up to get this
Speaker 1: moment to go at Kobe and anybody who's been in
Speaker 1: the Drew League, especially in those Washington Park days. This
Speaker 1: is not like a traditional game. You got all types
Speaker 1: of fan fans on the court. You had dudes holding babies,
Speaker 1: talking shit. You know, I'm interviewing people for the game,
Speaker 1: like y'all excited to see Kobe, Like, no, we're here
Speaker 1: to see Casper Ware and casp where he played a
Speaker 1: long beach State believe was the m VP of the league.
Speaker 1: That you're a bucket getter, but they have their hometown heroes.
Speaker 1: They're like, what we're fucking tripping off Kobe. Kobe pulls
Speaker 1: up though, ho Jim fan boys just you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just just to see him in real life again. I'm
Speaker 1: moving freely with the camera to the point like the
Speaker 1: Sheriff's come over and be like, yo, you gotta give
Speaker 1: Kobe a little space because I'm on the grills, getting
Speaker 1: the angles. You know, I'm really gonna get them angles
Speaker 1: and get them get that good b row. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: see Kobe go out there. James Harden was young at
Speaker 1: this point, but Harden going at Kobe. They're just going
Speaker 1: back and forth. And the thing I'll never forget about
Speaker 1: that game. You know, Kobe came out, he knew, he
Speaker 1: knew what it was because Kobe played in the Rugger
Speaker 1: before he played the other spots. He knew what he
Speaker 1: had to do. His squads down like eight points with
Speaker 1: like two minutes ago. It's like there's no way, especially
Speaker 1: the style in the way that they're playing, Like the
Speaker 1: game has evolved at that point. Lay in the fourth
Speaker 1: quarter to just kind of all Star game Demark doing
Speaker 1: three sixties without you know, guys just sucking around. Cops
Speaker 1: come over to Kobe, like, Coby want to want to
Speaker 1: get you out now, you know, the crowd's gonna be
Speaker 1: a circus. You know, let's get you to the car.
Speaker 1: We'll get you out. Kobe looks at the scoreboard like
Speaker 1: what the game ain't over? Like literally, like you know,
Speaker 1: he's about to slap the ship out of police officers
Speaker 1: just for having happening, having the goal, like, are you
Speaker 1: kidding me? And I think that little the little fire
Speaker 1: Kobe's asked, like what, like you think about to lose
Speaker 1: this ship? So Kobe obviously engineers to come back. He
Speaker 1: gets the ball in the final possession going that harden,
Speaker 1: and I'm just sitting there. I'm sweating at this point
Speaker 1: because like, you know what's gonna happen, you know, And
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about the historical perspective of it, just
Speaker 1: this moment and to actually be here in this gym
Speaker 1: in southern California on this day, just to witness this fucking,
Speaker 1: you know moment in basketball laur in history. Kobe knocks
Speaker 1: down the fucking game, win her. Whole crowd goes nuts.
Speaker 1: And then after that moment, this is like two thousand twelve.
Speaker 1: So I've got the pan Assignic camera and I've got
Speaker 1: to transfer the footage over, but I'm missing a chord
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I'm just gonna shoot the ship. I'll
Speaker 1: edit it another point. I'm missing a chord. After that point,
Speaker 1: I'm fucking frankly calling on the homies, like who can
Speaker 1: I go pull up to? So call my buddy Nolan Martin,
Speaker 1: who actually worked at k t l A in the
Speaker 1: news room at that point, Joe my ass over to
Speaker 1: kt l A and Hollywood was able to transfer the
Speaker 1: footage over, get the clip out, and kind of the
Speaker 1: rest is history in terms of the Drew League. The
Speaker 1: next week, I think they went and play it against
Speaker 1: the good Men in d C and kind of just
Speaker 1: spawned that. But you know, we grew up in l A.
Speaker 1: And this time I always have to tell people, like
Speaker 1: the Drew, the Drew is um hold on a second, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: Like the Drew at that point, you know, wasn't the
Speaker 1: league that people know of now, Like you know, the
Speaker 1: Joe Weekly League was the premier league back in the
Speaker 1: day for all the pros and god the playoffs, Joe Weekly, Patrick,
Speaker 1: the Trashes tragically passes away, and you know, the Drew
Speaker 1: is kind of the last league standing at that point.
Speaker 1: In addition to the Real Run, which obviously had one
Speaker 1: of the greatest moments. And you know in the history
Speaker 1: of basketball, they were getting off back in the day,
Speaker 1: shot off at the Anthony. But now the Drews basically
Speaker 1: transformed to the premier basketball league. Everybody from all over
Speaker 1: the country, all over the world tries to come out
Speaker 1: here and get it. So just to see the way
Speaker 1: Dino and that crew has been able to elevate that
Speaker 1: league and obviously stepped up into the moment because a
Speaker 1: lot of people wouldn't been able to handle that. And
Speaker 1: the league just continued to grow. And shout out to
Speaker 1: Nate Jones and Camon and a lot of crew working
Speaker 1: on the digital side behind the scenes, all the people
Speaker 1: are Nike to really elevate and grow this league and
Speaker 1: do something just tremendous for the community. But really, Lebron
Speaker 1: came that summer, k d came that summer, but Abe
Speaker 1: coming that summer put the Drew League on the map
Speaker 1: and putting on a trajectory now where it's still the
Speaker 1: premier league in the summertime. Yeah, I'll tell you, man,
Speaker 1: when when we talk about Kobe, Man, it's fascinating. When
Speaker 1: I talked to everyone and I asked him this question.
Speaker 1: I've asked, you know, fifty sixty people over the last
Speaker 1: five months just their feelings and thoughts on Kobe, and
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly the sentiment has been um a lot about a
Speaker 1: lot of stories that you didn't hear, a lot of
Speaker 1: things that you don't see, a lot of stuff that
Speaker 1: happens behind the scenes. Mark Spears talked to me yesterday
Speaker 1: about how Kobe was congratulating Mark on his new position
Speaker 1: when he started joining The Undefeated. But it was on
Speaker 1: Kobe's jersey retirement night, and Kobe had the you know,
Speaker 1: the awareness to be like Mark, congratulations on your new gig,
Speaker 1: you know, in the tunnel, and Marks like, man, you
Speaker 1: know you did two charges in the rafters, and this
Speaker 1: dude is congratulating me. But Monty Jones talked about how
Speaker 1: at the charity game that they played after Katrina, and
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember that, but it was
Speaker 1: on T and T. It was like but Monty's first gig.
Speaker 1: But Kobe just made life for him very easy. On
Speaker 1: the interview, he was intimidating, He was a little nervous,
Speaker 1: and this and that. Do you have like did you
Speaker 1: were you I'm trying to remember because I know we
Speaker 1: have basketball stuff with Kobe, but did you have any
Speaker 1: other kind of personal interactions with Kobe that we haven't
Speaker 1: talked about before that I don't know about, I mean,
Speaker 1: other than the only thing I think of it to
Speaker 1: your point, just how gracial, humble he was after that game.
Speaker 1: Everybody in the locker room. Again it's the Drew League,
Speaker 1: so you know, traditional things like that, and like no,
Speaker 1: I won't give a funk, Cooby, give me this, let
Speaker 1: me take a pick, come do this, but that wanted
Speaker 1: to grab a picture with him, so Kobe, you know,
Speaker 1: just come on, yeah, come on, yeah, come on, the
Speaker 1: old legend, you know. But him seeing Dad and you
Speaker 1: know Dad, Dad is a legend. But Dad feels like,
Speaker 1: you know, people don't recognize. And remember I got Dad
Speaker 1: on camera trying to you know, he's kind of edging
Speaker 1: his way over to Kobe. We're trying to still be sweet.
Speaker 1: But Kobe sees him right away, what's up? Oh g
Speaker 1: just gives him love. And for me it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I touched my heart because you know, just
Speaker 1: just knowing that the respect that Kobe had for the
Speaker 1: game man. But you know, seeing him play against you
Speaker 1: U c l A back in the days, coming as
Speaker 1: like a seventeen eighteen year old and knowing you didn't
Speaker 1: really give a funk, like you know, you were punky
Speaker 1: dudes at the men's gym. That was just it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter of Paul Hears whoever, the funk's coming through there.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't care. I'm giving you buckets. I'm
Speaker 1: going at you. But to see the way Kobe wouldn't
Speaker 1: back down and at that moment, and that was always
Speaker 1: my barometer for Hooper's Like if Chris, can you know,
Speaker 1: not not fucking break them their spirits mentally, because I've
Speaker 1: seen you break a lot of Hooper spirits guys that
Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't think that would get broken mentally
Speaker 1: like that. And this is a more testament to yourself
Speaker 1: as well. But when you would go ahead, dudes, because
Speaker 1: you didn't give a fun So when you go out
Speaker 1: doing no situation you have you said late, it's my
Speaker 1: home campus. I don't give a funk who you are
Speaker 1: do I'm trying to give you buckets and to just
Speaker 1: have that you know, it doesn't matter who it was.
Speaker 1: At the point where magic we have to step in, Yo, Chris,
Speaker 1: you have Magic Johnson trying to calm you down in
Speaker 1: the middle. But just people, don't you know, like these
Speaker 1: are normal situations that would happen in those games, like
Speaker 1: come on, Christian, you know, imagice fun your jobs to
Speaker 1: try to chill you out, but but to see you
Speaker 1: trying to really, you know, take Kobe's manhood and really
Speaker 1: punk him and Kobe not back down as a seventeen
Speaker 1: eighteen year old. For me, it's always just a moment
Speaker 1: where it's like, Yo, this dude is the real dude.
Speaker 1: I don't know how his career is gonna pan out,
Speaker 1: but I know if he can get past that heardle
Speaker 1: of deal because I haven't seen you. You have dudes
Speaker 1: who thought they were tougher ship and they leave that
Speaker 1: gym literally about to cry. You know, you see you
Speaker 1: see the bitch in their heart come out, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's like, damn, I thought this dude was tough
Speaker 1: like but but but but I was even shocked. And
Speaker 1: then in that moment, man, when he was looking at
Speaker 1: me because like you're saying, well, the situation happened, he
Speaker 1: had just tip dunked on me and kind of was
Speaker 1: looking at me. Dad was under the basket and ship
Speaker 1: and this is under the basket, Dad is just Kobe
Speaker 1: tip dunk's on me. I kind of look at that
Speaker 1: Dad kind of like like, you know, get get the side.
Speaker 1: I look, and then Kobe was kind of looking behind,
Speaker 1: like looking running back but looking I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: hell no, so you know, I just you know, immaturely.
Speaker 1: I would have run and fight. I would have do
Speaker 1: all this stuff. So as I'm running towards Kobe, all
Speaker 1: I see is Kobe right now. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I see Magic kind of slide into the picture. Chris
Speaker 1: hey Man. He laught my young boy, like, don't do nothing.
Speaker 1: So I run into Magic and I'm like swinging trying
Speaker 1: to get Kobe. So then that kind of happens, and
Speaker 1: I had a thing against him. Fast forward to my
Speaker 1: senior year though, I played in the Matthew Johnson Mid
Speaker 1: Summer nice classic. Guess who my coach was. Kobe Bryant.
Speaker 1: So I go in the game. He puts me in.
Speaker 1: I come in as a sub man. I had probably
Speaker 1: fourteen points and eight minutes, dog busting like three deep threes,
Speaker 1: you know, dudes trying to guardment. I was just turning
Speaker 1: the form out. It was like a time out. I'm
Speaker 1: down at the other end. There was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I think a free throw or something was happening. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I hear the whistle. He like gave
Speaker 1: me the whistle. What you know, look down It was Kobe.
Speaker 1: Kobe's looking He's on the bench, you know, in his
Speaker 1: coach with his fro with his suit. He's like, keep
Speaker 1: shooting that ship, boy, keep shooting that sh it. I
Speaker 1: was like, I was like, it was one of the
Speaker 1: greatest moments. It was one of the greatest because this
Speaker 1: is Frobe Kobe. So this is like Kobe won the
Speaker 1: duck contest and just he had just I think grew
Speaker 1: it out or just something happened, but he was killer
Speaker 1: and he and he was like, man, keep shooting that stuff.
Speaker 1: That interaction. He showed me love at the All Star
Speaker 1: Game in two thousand and one. I believe it was
Speaker 1: in l A or four. Two thousand and four. It
Speaker 1: was in l A. It was a big media scrum.
Speaker 1: He saw me made sure to look in the camera.
Speaker 1: I got the footage. But if it's like this big
Speaker 1: scrub and I'm like next to Steve, I'm like the
Speaker 1: Stewart Scott and some other dudes kind of hanging over
Speaker 1: in the scrum, and Kobe made sure to like look
Speaker 1: at me when he was answering. So he showed me
Speaker 1: like those type of love, which which also gets comes
Speaker 1: back to your point about how we we felt bad
Speaker 1: about all the years that we were lebron fans and
Speaker 1: sort of positioning our arguments and sort of hating on
Speaker 1: Kobe versus really uplifting the guy. I mean, Joe, I'll
Speaker 1: be honest with you, there's like years of basketball that
Speaker 1: I didn't watch of Kobe Bryant that I have to
Speaker 1: go back and see so I can be reminded of
Speaker 1: like the two thousands, the year he had autumn threes
Speaker 1: and autumn three forty point games. I didn't watch none
Speaker 1: of that. Bro. I was like, I'm not watching this.
Speaker 1: I'm off Kobe. I was mad he left Shock and
Speaker 1: he made Shock leave. I was so immature. And then
Speaker 1: the fast forward to the game against his last game, Joe,
Speaker 1: I literally I broke down. He hit that last shot Dog,
Speaker 1: you know, the two dribble pull up jumper, and I
Speaker 1: just like to start crying, man, because it was just
Speaker 1: like I was just like I couldn't believe it. I
Speaker 1: was just in a state of awe, of shock and
Speaker 1: of just reverence for like truly one of the greatest
Speaker 1: to have to pick up a basketball. Dog. That was
Speaker 1: the first time I felt old, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, but really old, like seeing somebody's whole career
Speaker 1: through from seventeen eighteen years old that dynamics and to
Speaker 1: your point, still wasn't really a big Laker fan at
Speaker 1: that moment. But I'll still watch that game and cry
Speaker 1: because it reminded me so much of the Drew Leigue
Speaker 1: game man from five years earlier, where it's like, then,
Speaker 1: there's no way to lose this game. He's gonna go
Speaker 1: out on a sour note. You know, obviously Lagers didn't
Speaker 1: have a great year that season, but all that ship
Speaker 1: does not matter. You don't care anything about that. And
Speaker 1: then obviously delivering the speech after with the Momba out
Speaker 1: and you know, as a hooper and somebody who's building
Speaker 1: these spaces and done media and ship like that. You know,
Speaker 1: this is real life, right, no takes like this is
Speaker 1: just straight who you are and have to go out there,
Speaker 1: you know, to give a speech after doing all that ship.
Speaker 1: But one of the best speechs I think I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: we do these possible flub stuff all on words whatever,
Speaker 1: This is like real life. There was no you know,
Speaker 1: I just had to play a game, bust these dudes
Speaker 1: asked the last thing I might ever played, and now
Speaker 1: to give this speech. So eloquently for Lakers fans just
Speaker 1: to hold on too. And at that moment, I think
Speaker 1: everything shifted. It's like, you know, because we were doing
Speaker 1: the thing we would call him Bryant just to disrespect
Speaker 1: Lakers fans and get them mad. Everything was Bryant, this
Speaker 1: Bryant that instead of caring of Kobe, but also the
Speaker 1: level of respect though it was never it's like you
Speaker 1: could be a hitter, but I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: always have the most tremendous amount respect for when he
Speaker 1: was able to do in the basketball courting his leadership
Speaker 1: and went in the rings. And now to see Lebron
Speaker 1: following in that footstep of the Momba mentality and Lebron
Speaker 1: coming through and helping carry that tradition, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we gotta shut that ship up. That those conversations are over.
Speaker 1: I don't really when people are like co code, where
Speaker 1: is Kobe going to go to bate Kobe kind of
Speaker 1: on his own thing right now, he's not. We don't
Speaker 1: discussed like whatever your field, whatever, Like he did whatever
Speaker 1: you need to do twenty years in l A. You
Speaker 1: know more than happy calling them to go like that's
Speaker 1: fucking you know what it is like you know, to
Speaker 1: see to be able to stand by that franchise. And
Speaker 1: I had this vision man of him and Lebron when
Speaker 1: Lebron first came, like hebe could just come back play
Speaker 1: fourth quarters, Kobe just pull up it like halftime, get
Speaker 1: get you get sweat in, but we need your third
Speaker 1: fourth quarter. Play about get to all the fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: come drop ten, you know, ten and four whatever. But
Speaker 1: you know, it would have been tremendous just to have
Speaker 1: that that level support. You've seen it now with a
Speaker 1: lot of these old guys that are that on the
Speaker 1: Laker squad. But you know, obviously you know, unable to happen.
Speaker 1: But just just something kind of the back of my
Speaker 1: head was like, you know, as if a Bron fan
Speaker 1: would love to see but I would say that they'd
Speaker 1: be like, I mean, oh I wished up the Bron need.
Speaker 1: It's like, I just want to see two elite level
Speaker 1: dudes who together for are you talking about? Those same
Speaker 1: people have no problem with the dance or the the
Speaker 1: Warriors super teams or any of that ship. But of
Speaker 1: course you brought these helps. Oh man, that would have
Speaker 1: been amazing. Joe, Joe Man, we appreciate you. Man, We've
Speaker 1: been going about an hour and ten minutes. Brother, I
Speaker 1: think we're gonna shut it down here, man. Thank you
Speaker 1: for your time today, bro. We are looking forward to
Speaker 1: everything that you've got going uh, for the rest of
Speaker 1: this year, next year, and beyond. October twenty nine, Colin
Speaker 1: in Black and White on Netflix, Josiah Johnson, Writer, producer,
Speaker 1: executive produced by Ava Duverney and Colin and Michael Starberry
Speaker 1: and that old crew and and everybody over there. Josiah Johnson,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Joe for showing up today. Appreciate you.
Speaker 1: I look forward to doing more. It is. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: just need to go ahead, get this ship cracking, because
Speaker 1: you know, we be veering off topic and ship and
Speaker 1: just but that's the game. But the topics be nice,
Speaker 1: the beers be nice. I think we own this stuff, bro.
Speaker 1: I think we're all the stuffing our bags until the
Speaker 1: next time. This is kJ Live King Josiah Johnson. We
Speaker 1: out