Speaker 1: Quest left show is a production of iHeart Radio. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like people will be more honest when there's
Speaker 2: like not people in the rooms. Oh well, especially with
Speaker 2: these lineup questions, Oh shit, what is happening right now?
Speaker 2: I wanted to see how long it was going to
Speaker 2: take here we started cracking up. My guest today has
Speaker 2: one of my favorite laughs of all time. Actually sounds
Speaker 2: like she's crying every time she laughed. But anyway, our
Speaker 2: guest today has probably come to your attention, whether you
Speaker 2: know it or not. I credit her with seating the
Speaker 2: concept that we now today casually know as black Twitter.
Speaker 1: And you got to own this and I'm owning it.
Speaker 3: I hear you.
Speaker 1: You gotta own it.
Speaker 2: If you are a television watcher like I am, you
Speaker 2: probably watched one of the mini shows that she's had
Speaker 2: a hand either executive producing or consulting or writing for
Speaker 2: either or be it Scrubs or The Boondocks or The
Speaker 2: Jellies that should have never went off the air.
Speaker 1: I love the Jellies, the Last Og. There's also Bigger
Speaker 1: and Till Death and Oh mixed It.
Speaker 3: Ginny and Georgia, Tonda, Yes No, No, Jenny and Georgia
Speaker 3: alsold and the other black Girl.
Speaker 1: No, you're all over the place.
Speaker 2: She has authored best selling books mixed of course The
Speaker 2: Broke Diaries. But I saw a post of hers that
Speaker 2: sort of compelled me to invite her.
Speaker 1: We didn't quite plan.
Speaker 2: This so instantly. She asked, like, who didn't show up
Speaker 2: for me to show up? But I saw a post
Speaker 2: of hers, maybe like two months ago, where she's sort
Speaker 2: of skittish in celebrating the winds in her life and
Speaker 2: knowing the kind of the basis for which, or at
Speaker 2: least the cathartic process for which.
Speaker 1: This book that she's authored is for. I think that
Speaker 1: now's probably the most apropos time to celebrate our great
Speaker 1: friend of the show, Angela Nissel. How are you?
Speaker 3: I'm amazing man. We went from laughing to crying real quick.
Speaker 3: You got here.
Speaker 2: You're about to be like, by the way, the book
Speaker 2: is good Grief Past the Bread Mom is Dead is
Speaker 2: getting critical acclaim.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And by the time this airs, this will have already
Speaker 2: been a bestseller. I don't know when this will be
Speaker 2: on the air, but you know soon, it'll be on
Speaker 2: the air soon, all right, So I'm gonna ask you
Speaker 2: a barrage of questions. It's not rapid fire, but of
Speaker 2: this latest style of question I've been going.
Speaker 1: For this show, this is probably the most rogue I've
Speaker 1: ever gotten. Let's start with give me your earliest memory. Technically,
Speaker 1: what would you call the part of Philadelphia that you
Speaker 1: grew up in? People would say it's Southwest Philly, but
Speaker 1: isn't known isn't it.
Speaker 3: Used to be known as Eastwick because we thought we
Speaker 3: were better than everybody.
Speaker 1: But remember it used to be the suburbs.
Speaker 3: It was like, but people didn't even realize it exists.
Speaker 4: But now I look, I was like, these are just
Speaker 4: regular Southwest Philly homes.
Speaker 2: I think in ninety seven, so there was a point
Speaker 2: where like places like Chester Yayden, like wherever the trolleys
Speaker 2: of Septa would go, like their destinations. I always felt
Speaker 2: like that was like the fancy places where I wanted
Speaker 2: to grow up in I had they had cable out there,
Speaker 2: we did not have cable, and so but then kind
Speaker 2: of I'll say ninety seven very silently, I think ninety seven.
Speaker 1: Is the year that the gentrification process happened, and I
Speaker 1: saw this all over the United States.
Speaker 2: So places that we would visit back in ninety three
Speaker 2: ninety four were like no longer, They're like, suddenly projects
Speaker 2: are getting raised and ever. And then I saw that
Speaker 2: people were trading places and they would place inner city
Speaker 2: black folk into what we thought was the suburbs, and
Speaker 2: then white people came into.
Speaker 1: The inner city.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, the last time I drove, I actually
Speaker 2: did a sentimental drive through that part. You ever find
Speaker 2: yourself rolling up the window, but you don't want.
Speaker 1: You don't want to be racist. To get Jophie, I'm like,
Speaker 1: we grew up.
Speaker 3: With a strip mall, and it's like, what you got
Speaker 3: a strip mall?
Speaker 1: Dude?
Speaker 3: You mean we really thought we was doing something.
Speaker 1: It was life to live out there.
Speaker 2: I felt special when Thriller premiered on MTVS, like going
Speaker 2: to the suburbs, the Uncle Juney's house and now.
Speaker 4: Man, right, okay, but I wasn't that good, but I
Speaker 4: lived there, like I maybe it's just because I lived
Speaker 4: in la And I was like, I remember my mom,
Speaker 4: I'm saying, at least our house is in abandon, the
Speaker 4: one next door, Like that is what it took to
Speaker 4: be successful in Philly, Like at least.
Speaker 3: We don't live on It's like that's what made us
Speaker 3: a little better than other people. Ugh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So like, what is your earliest memories of living
Speaker 2: in that part of town.
Speaker 4: My mom mourned me when we moved, when we moved
Speaker 4: to that part of town that if I saw a
Speaker 4: group of white boys to run.
Speaker 1: Yes, she said that.
Speaker 3: Yes. You don't remember what Southwest Philly was going through
Speaker 3: in the eighties. The KKK march there.
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't know it was like that.
Speaker 3: Oh, they had.
Speaker 4: An interracial couple moved in and a black couple moved in,
Speaker 4: and it was all in the district of the church.
Speaker 4: I went to Catholic school, and it was like some
Speaker 4: wanna say sixty something in Woodland for anyone who knows Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: And once the black couple moved in and the interracial
Speaker 4: couple moved in, someone fire bombed their house.
Speaker 3: This was huge news that you can still google it today.
Speaker 4: And so then the KKK came through and they started recruiting,
Speaker 4: and every day when I would be on the trolley,
Speaker 4: I would just think, don't let anybody chase me home, Like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was crazy. So that's sad, but that is
Speaker 3: my first memory. Sorry, let's get back to me after this.
Speaker 2: I'm laughing at that because I had it all wrong
Speaker 2: because again, I thought that was the nice part of
Speaker 2: town because I would go out there for selective weekends.
Speaker 3: That is hilarious.
Speaker 4: No, And I didn't realize we were the Gentriman cake
Speaker 4: like you were the fire.
Speaker 1: You were, like, why we got to run? You're now
Speaker 1: a pioneer. You're a pioneer. There wee year did you
Speaker 1: move there?
Speaker 4: We moved like it's like eighty one and I lived
Speaker 4: down there. Oh we lived there until yeah, eighty one,
Speaker 4: until like ninety eight.
Speaker 3: My mom fabally moved out of.
Speaker 1: So technically, where did you come from? Like where were
Speaker 1: you born?
Speaker 3: Born in West Philadelphia?
Speaker 1: My West Philly?
Speaker 3: Yes, can you name the block fifty six? And oh
Speaker 3: my god, Catherine, Oh.
Speaker 1: Like real West Philly?
Speaker 3: What the hell?
Speaker 1: This is the thing?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: Like again, you were like the special girl that lives
Speaker 2: in the suburbs and she's kind of nerdy, and yeah,
Speaker 2: because she lives in the suburbs.
Speaker 4: My mom would be proud of that though, because that's
Speaker 4: what she wanted us to believe. But when I look
Speaker 4: back again, I'm like, Mom, you bought a car for
Speaker 4: two hundred and fifty dollars and we could see the
Speaker 4: street like.
Speaker 1: You had a flintstone car.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, like we can only get out of one door.
Speaker 3: But she it's all about don't pay attention to that.
Speaker 3: Get in school.
Speaker 2: I gotta tell you, I'm glad that someone else had
Speaker 2: that experience. So during the summer of ninety three, when
Speaker 2: we were having like a seven label bidding war and
Speaker 2: we were broke, and you know, there was like seven
Speaker 2: eight of us and we didn't have money to get
Speaker 2: back and forth on the bus or amtrak.
Speaker 1: So rich Richard Nichols took like three.
Speaker 2: Hundred bucks to get a station wagon and kind of
Speaker 2: a middle passion style shut up, no, no, no, We piled
Speaker 2: in the station wagon. But the middle road, the backseat
Speaker 2: had no floor to it, so we took a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of boxes to make it a floor.
Speaker 1: But when I tell you, the core, like the level,
Speaker 1: like imagine sitting where you have to like hold your
Speaker 1: I can't even do it now.
Speaker 2: Example, but Tik's stomach was like rock solid, like all
Speaker 2: the skinny people basically had to sit for an hour
Speaker 2: and a half with their feet in the hair. And
Speaker 2: this is the roots auditioning for deaf jam. Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that car died maybe two weeks.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I never knew that story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was not one of the happiest moments of
Speaker 1: the career.
Speaker 3: Well, I remember how long it took you to get
Speaker 3: a car.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, you know.
Speaker 4: I remember this because we picked up Erica I Badu
Speaker 4: from the airport one time in my crappy car and
Speaker 4: the bumper was falling off for some reason.
Speaker 3: You had nobody else to pick her up. And I
Speaker 3: remember as she saw me.
Speaker 4: Pulling around, her eyes kind of like, and then you
Speaker 4: as soon as she got in the car, I.
Speaker 3: Said, you said, I'm sorry about the car, eric No
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 1: You talked me out of all right. So there was
Speaker 1: a moment, Oh god.
Speaker 2: And I'm about to tell this story, all right, I
Speaker 2: gotta think of the most diplomatic way to tell the story. Okay,
Speaker 2: is February twenty third, when things fall apart comes out
Speaker 2: and the whole goal of the roots was literally for
Speaker 2: us to walk home from Kapa. And and this is
Speaker 2: I kind of blame boys to men for this one time.
Speaker 2: I saw Mike McCarry in the gallery. And you live
Speaker 2: out here in La so you can always tell, you know,
Speaker 2: like Juicy Couture became like the adopted where of like.
Speaker 1: Some strippers or whatever.
Speaker 2: Like some strippers, but they'll have an outfit that we'll
Speaker 2: try to you know know, like sort of a blow
Speaker 2: off the smoke to bring attention, but it's the outfit
Speaker 2: that everyone wears, like the rhyin stones and the hoodie
Speaker 2: or whatever, like, oh, you're trying to hide, right. So
Speaker 2: Mike had like literally like dark glasses, two hoodies on
Speaker 2: the thing like he's the only person dressed like I
Speaker 2: cannot be seen. And I don't know, like that made
Speaker 2: an impression on me. I was like, man, all I
Speaker 2: want to do is I want to blow up. And
Speaker 2: he couldn't give me a pound of it. Well, I
Speaker 2: gotta go and you know, like this kind of thing,
Speaker 2: and I don't know. I went home at night like yeah.
Speaker 2: So when we had an inkling that this album was
Speaker 2: actually going to be the album, I was like, yo, man,
Speaker 2: we gotta play the gallery.
Speaker 1: And they're like, just why don't you play in Tower Records,
Speaker 1: like a place.
Speaker 2: Where a wholes Like nah, man, it has to be
Speaker 2: the record store in the gallery. Like I wanted a pageant,
Speaker 2: I wanted a people lined up or whatever.
Speaker 1: He got that moment.
Speaker 2: So we were supposed to be there at like eleven
Speaker 2: o'clock to play and then sign autographs or whatever, and
Speaker 2: Tarik was late and Rich is like, yeah, he went
Speaker 2: to go get his car. I was like, get his car,
Speaker 2: And I didn't know that Tarik went and got his license,
Speaker 2: so I don't know. It's kind of like the sibling
Speaker 2: rivverything thing is I don't have my license, but I
Speaker 2: knew I was going to get me a car, and
Speaker 2: you you're like, dog, don't get a car, matter of fact.
Speaker 2: And this this is like the last time I let
Speaker 2: somebody sell me the Brooklyn Bridge, but in this case,
Speaker 2: it saved my life, so I'll cut it.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: You literally said like, man, you're gonna do that dumb
Speaker 2: rapper ship where you buy it.
Speaker 1: She's like, do you even have a license? I was
Speaker 1: like no, And I thought like I was going to
Speaker 1: do some.
Speaker 2: Biggie little sea ship because Little Caesar used to drive
Speaker 2: Biggie round. So I was like, all right, I'll pay somebody, like,
Speaker 2: you know, three hundred dollars a week to just drive
Speaker 2: me around like biggie.
Speaker 1: And you looked at me.
Speaker 2: He was like a mirror, that's the dumbest shit I've
Speaker 2: ever heard. In my life, like please, don't waste your
Speaker 2: money like that.
Speaker 1: And I was like huh.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, like do something, don't be a
Speaker 2: dumb rapper, like invest in your future.
Speaker 1: You know that money you could start a website and
Speaker 1: I was like, what website?
Speaker 2: And then I told you I had a computer I
Speaker 2: had was it a web TV?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's great?
Speaker 1: I had a web TV? And you're like, no, mere
Speaker 1: like a real computer, yo.
Speaker 3: But you thought you were killing it with that web
Speaker 3: TV because not everybody had like.
Speaker 1: You did so well.
Speaker 2: I came from an era where like the Beastie Boys
Speaker 2: were handing out like CDs. You remember when the internet
Speaker 2: used to be on CDs? Yes, right, how do we
Speaker 2: get online.
Speaker 1: With or whatever?
Speaker 2: So the Beastie boys were like I thought I was
Speaker 2: even more technically proficient than anyone else because I can
Speaker 2: go on my television.
Speaker 1: And I thought it was a shit.
Speaker 2: And the way you just you came to my house
Speaker 2: and looked at my setup and I'm all like.
Speaker 1: And you look like no mair. And that was the
Speaker 1: moment where I felt.
Speaker 2: So doweeby that I gave up and I said, look,
Speaker 2: what do I have to buy?
Speaker 1: Like what is your nerd paradise. What do I have
Speaker 1: to do? And then you me and someone else that
Speaker 1: I met him once, Doug.
Speaker 2: It wasn't Doug yet. It was someone else, Eric, not Eric.
Speaker 2: It wasn't Eric. It was another guy. He might've went
Speaker 2: to pen or whatever. He was nerdy. Y'all drove.
Speaker 1: Y'all drove me to comp Usa. We drove the comp Usa.
Speaker 2: Somebody I do with a car back then, and I'm
Speaker 2: telling you, I had this seventeen thousand dollars like it
Speaker 2: was a paper route money, like.
Speaker 1: Dumb shit like Karen Cash or whatever.
Speaker 2: And reluctantly I just watched my car just fade out
Speaker 2: the dream and got a computer.
Speaker 1: And then y'all built a new world.
Speaker 2: And like I had to fall in love with someone
Speaker 2: heavy out of state for me to actually get a license.
Speaker 1: And even then, I only got a.
Speaker 2: License because I agreed to do a car commercial and
Speaker 2: they didn't know I wasn't licensed, and so the day
Speaker 2: before they were like, hey, so where's your insurance and
Speaker 2: all that stuff?
Speaker 1: No, and I was like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: For Sion?
Speaker 2: That's why I drove a Sion And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't have a license, and They were like, wait,
Speaker 2: why are you doing a car commercial?
Speaker 1: Well? The money was great.
Speaker 2: The money was awesome, So I was like, hell, y'all
Speaker 2: do a car I thought I was going to play
Speaker 2: this sound like.
Speaker 3: Did you think I was just gonna pull you down
Speaker 3: the street that you didn't really.
Speaker 1: Have to drunk? I didn't know I was going to drive.
Speaker 2: I thought like, if they're coming to quest Love, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: you want me to drum on the car. I was
Speaker 2: dreaming the concept of the commercial in my head, like
Speaker 2: I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: Hit the tires and hilarious. Right.
Speaker 2: And the day before they had the call, well, they
Speaker 2: didn't want to let the client know that I was
Speaker 2: not licensed, so they had changed the entire concept of
Speaker 2: the commercial. And in the next three days I had
Speaker 2: to cram all night. Dorn Ngeleheart, my manager. She uh
Speaker 2: taught me how to drive.
Speaker 1: This is the unspoken.
Speaker 2: Part is what we're not We won't laugh at. Dawn
Speaker 2: still jokes about, yeah, I taught you how to drive.
Speaker 2: Let's just say that Dawn does not look like you
Speaker 2: or I.
Speaker 1: She's not white. So what else we got out there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And so I was forced to get my permit and
Speaker 1: my license so I can shoot this commercial and they
Speaker 1: gave me the car, and then you know, that's so
Speaker 1: I like willed myself into that.
Speaker 2: But yes, you you talked me out of Hey, I
Speaker 2: could have gotten that car and probably would have gotten
Speaker 2: arrested for driving me out a license or.
Speaker 4: But also, why didn't I just tell you to get
Speaker 4: your license? Like you had a major record at this point?
Speaker 4: What would I want you to do? Catch the subway?
Speaker 2: You didn't do the wagging finger thing. But the shame,
Speaker 2: I felt like, that's the first time I didn't feel smart.
Speaker 1: I was always the.
Speaker 3: Tweevy, not with the web TV, Like literally the.
Speaker 1: First time I was like, damn, maybe I'm not smart.
Speaker 2: And I let you talk me into taking my car
Speaker 2: money and that's how I seedd the Okay player.
Speaker 4: So what's funny is I love that computer more than
Speaker 4: I would have loved a car. You would have never
Speaker 4: like let me drive your car, But I was on
Speaker 4: that computer all the time.
Speaker 1: Oh you house, you and the house way more than
Speaker 1: I was. You let Malick in the house.
Speaker 3: Hold up.
Speaker 1: You literally were on the road once and I heard
Speaker 1: Malek's voice in the background.
Speaker 2: I was like, yo, not only that, Malick leaked a
Speaker 2: root song.
Speaker 1: I think the first time the song got leaked, I
Speaker 1: never even knew that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like we that's why I took quick Sam Millennium
Speaker 2: was supposed to be on Phrenology and I was like
Speaker 2: Malek rooning now like leaking songs on the internet.
Speaker 4: So you see, this is why friends shouldn't work together,
Speaker 4: because like Eddie, you would have had like, hey, here's
Speaker 4: who letting you literally were like, all right, I'm.
Speaker 3: Going on tour.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I didn't know this was a billion dollar
Speaker 2: idea of business.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that I.
Speaker 3: Had something to put on the website.
Speaker 2: Hey, Malick, right, I now see that you were running
Speaker 2: out of resources.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of inside baseball talk.
Speaker 4: Yo.
Speaker 1: What TV show defined your childhood?
Speaker 3: Different strokes? Which is that sad?
Speaker 1: It depends on which character you are. Who did you
Speaker 1: relate to the most timberly or no?
Speaker 3: Wait, because this is gonna be this is so he could.
Speaker 4: Be Charlene and not the answer you're looking for. I
Speaker 4: just remember, this is the dumbest answer you're.
Speaker 3: Ever going to get. There was an episode where I
Speaker 3: had a crusher on Dudley.
Speaker 1: Oh, don't bring up that episode.
Speaker 3: No. I thought, my brother always gets to see boobs.
Speaker 3: Boobs are all the way, always on TV.
Speaker 4: Boobs were everywhere in the eighties like you could, and
Speaker 4: I thought, I'm finally going to see a penis.
Speaker 1: On that episode.
Speaker 3: I was young.
Speaker 1: Oh god, I don't even want to explain to people. Hey,
Speaker 1: just google the special episode of Different Strokes in Dudley.
Speaker 1: Ah yo, And you know what, I actually rewatched that
Speaker 1: episode during my Christmas vacation. Dog Dudley's dad was not
Speaker 1: mad enough at what Gordon Jump was doing.
Speaker 2: Like the way they busted in it was sort of like,
Speaker 2: you know, to Lee to have kids and uncompromising positions.
Speaker 2: You remember, like he gave him drugs or whatever. They
Speaker 2: were like all disc a bible matter of fact? Did
Speaker 2: Dully ever come on the show after that?
Speaker 4: All I know is I don't remember it the same
Speaker 4: way because I just remember that whole thing being I
Speaker 4: didn't see.
Speaker 3: A penis, Oh my god show because they had the
Speaker 3: same thing they put like parents should watch this with
Speaker 3: their children. I was like, I'm not watching it with
Speaker 3: my mom.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the fifth hour of The Today Show. Angela
Speaker 1: and this all right?
Speaker 2: In junior high, were you a shy kid or were
Speaker 2: you the class clown or were.
Speaker 1: You the teacher's pet.
Speaker 4: I think I was the class clown because I just
Speaker 4: want we changed school so much. Whatever school my mom
Speaker 4: found out was the best one to get you into college,
Speaker 4: and that was the one. So I went to Mastermin
Speaker 4: and I came to that from a Catholic school, and
Speaker 4: I just remember thinking, when I get to Master.
Speaker 3: I'm going to reinvent myself. I'm gonna be funny. People
Speaker 3: will like me. Wait really yes, but and then oh
Speaker 3: but here's what I did wrong.
Speaker 4: I also felt the pressure because it was Mastermin is
Speaker 4: a selective junior high in Philadelphia. It's my mom told me,
Speaker 4: you know, you have to be smart to get in.
Speaker 4: So I went in thinking everyone's going to be little urkles.
Speaker 4: And so I remember I was the first one called
Speaker 4: on to read a page from some book and I
Speaker 4: read it like Shakespeare, thinking that's what you're sted to
Speaker 4: do in a whole class bust out laugh.
Speaker 2: Wait, okay, So when we first met at our job,
Speaker 2: like you had a whole nother code switch persona that
Speaker 2: like you were like the hood joined and later when
Speaker 2: I found out you were nerdy, I like, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: wait what happened to In proper English?
Speaker 3: There's always been nerdy girls in the hood.
Speaker 1: And you know it's funny, is my mom tried to
Speaker 1: I want you to show me the book this one?
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh hilarious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so when and sits next to me At my job.
Speaker 2: Many of you know that I took on a telemarketing
Speaker 2: insurance job to pay for the roots demo that never happened,
Speaker 2: And so you know, it was rare that, like, you know,
Speaker 2: Q girls come in to office or whatever, and you
Speaker 2: were new and I got your number, and when I
Speaker 2: got home, you gave me the first three digits, the
Speaker 2: next three digits and a question mark.
Speaker 1: Yes for the last digit.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: And I looked at this thing and realized, wait, what
Speaker 2: is the last digit of your original home phone number?
Speaker 3: I don't even remember you remember the whole thing?
Speaker 1: Well, I know it's two on five, three sixty five,
Speaker 1: but I don't know the.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, it was the original one wasn't nine.
Speaker 2: So I went it was already eight o'clock, and my
Speaker 2: dumb ass is like, d zero, no, one no.
Speaker 1: And when I finally got.
Speaker 2: To you, you laughed, you laugh, And I lied to
Speaker 2: you and said, well, you know, I just went backwards
Speaker 2: and was like I started at one and literally had
Speaker 2: to work my way up to So when she asked
Speaker 2: me to sign my first book, I did the same
Speaker 2: this is my old number, so it doesn't work it.
Speaker 2: So I did the same thing that she did to me,
Speaker 2: which was put a question mark. All right, So what
Speaker 2: teacher in your school experience do you feel like, really
Speaker 2: like saw you.
Speaker 1: Who's the teacher that like changed you?
Speaker 4: The school you taught me to go to. Her name
Speaker 4: is Missus Pritchett, The Schools Britchett.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, okay, you told me to go to Performing Arts.
Speaker 4: You told me I was going to another one of
Speaker 4: those fancy schools. My mom was like, this is the one,
Speaker 4: but we can't afford it. So I was working at
Speaker 4: RMA change with you, and then you said you should
Speaker 4: go to Performing Arts. And I remember she sat me
Speaker 4: down and she gave me the most loving, yet honest
Speaker 4: speech about what makes good writers. She's like, you're a
Speaker 4: little off, but it's all. She compared me to her
Speaker 4: cousin who's a little off but a little great writer.
Speaker 3: And she was just giving me one of those speeches
Speaker 3: that people given the movies, like I believe in your kid.
Speaker 3: You got this, you know.
Speaker 2: Oh everyone's always looking forward to be the savior of like,
Speaker 2: but no.
Speaker 3: One said that to the writing majors. We were the nerds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, Okay, you know now at
Speaker 1: Kappa there's like nine majors. Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't even know there could be nine majors.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean at the time, you were either dance,
Speaker 2: you were TV radio like production, like if you wanted
Speaker 2: to be a cameraman or that person on the other
Speaker 2: side of that acting. And in music you were either
Speaker 2: in the choir or in the band. And then there
Speaker 2: was creative writing majors, and we just never knew, like
Speaker 2: what would you guys do, like walk me through a
Speaker 2: day at Kapa, because I never was. You were the
Speaker 2: only person I was friends with from creative writer.
Speaker 3: That says it, all, right.
Speaker 1: Are you the most successful person out of like who
Speaker 1: else has done notable things in creation?
Speaker 4: It's so funny because I always see your name and
Speaker 4: I don't see any creative writers.
Speaker 3: There were some good writers. Literally, what we did.
Speaker 4: A lot of grammar, a lot of reading other and
Speaker 4: I agree to be a good writer, you have to read.
Speaker 3: But back when we were in school. I'm like, did
Speaker 3: they at least diversify a little bit what we read?
Speaker 1: I was like, if we see the usual tilia a
Speaker 1: big Gilga mission?
Speaker 3: But no it was.
Speaker 4: And then it certainly prepared me for Hollywood because ninety
Speaker 4: nine percent would be rewriting, Like you know, just write
Speaker 4: something and work on it the whole week to try
Speaker 4: to make it better. But at that point in your life,
Speaker 4: you're just working to get the A. There was one
Speaker 4: teacher who loved whenever I wrote about the Holocaust, I
Speaker 4: could write anything.
Speaker 3: She had her pride, you know, so I was like,
Speaker 3: this is a guaranteed day. Yeah, that's Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Do you have Miss Silva ever?
Speaker 3: Or was she going Miss Silva? No?
Speaker 1: Was she there in school?
Speaker 3: I think so? Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah. She She would have like one big giant college
Speaker 1: word per year that was like over three syllables and
Speaker 1: four syllables, and then she said it so much that
Speaker 1: it stuck to you and then you found ways to
Speaker 1: try to drop it in, you know, but the rest
Speaker 1: of your grammar isn't good. So I'll be like around
Speaker 1: the way like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so if you could you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, Like, you know, recapitulate you know what you
Speaker 2: just said, then I'll just like, hell you talking about it?
Speaker 2: Like literally, Miss Silva was that person?
Speaker 1: You never had her?
Speaker 3: No, But I love.
Speaker 4: How good your brain is because to me, all of
Speaker 4: these people are background noise to getting beat up on
Speaker 4: the boys and end video set and thinking a mayor
Speaker 4: told me to come to this.
Speaker 2: Oh god, wait, did you guys ever have like normal
Speaker 2: things like high school dances or anything?
Speaker 1: Did you guys have it.
Speaker 3: My version of Kappa? No, there weren't enough boys one.
Speaker 3: That's why my mom said I could go.
Speaker 5: Oh she knew you would not get pregnant.
Speaker 3: She came to my audition. She was like, all gay and.
Speaker 1: All right, did you know your grandparents at all?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what were they?
Speaker 3: Like? Whoa?
Speaker 4: They were your typical move up from the South, don't
Speaker 4: show any emotions, drink quietly, black.
Speaker 1: People yes, boomers and black people yes.
Speaker 4: Move into West Philadelphia when West Philadelphia High is still
Speaker 4: half white, and then by the time you get out, it's.
Speaker 3: Like what happened?
Speaker 1: Wait, West Philly was half white.
Speaker 3: It was Overbrooks. Sorry, my mom went to Overbrooks.
Speaker 2: I was about to say, oh, by the way, all right,
Speaker 2: so I'm getting my mural. And I didn't know that
Speaker 2: West Philly is now apartments and so West Willy High
Speaker 2: it is yeah for my face to be on the
Speaker 2: West Philly High Wall. Well, the place that I was
Speaker 2: when I was driving by there, that was like lean
Speaker 2: on me.
Speaker 1: That was like a prison.
Speaker 4: I go there now. Wait, I went up near to
Speaker 4: where I used to live, and my mom used to
Speaker 4: be like, be careful out there. You know, people selling
Speaker 4: stuff on the street. And I said, oh my god,
Speaker 4: that has gentrified.
Speaker 1: Like okay, So when you go to Philly, do you
Speaker 1: chase ghosts? Do you?
Speaker 3: What does that mean?
Speaker 1: All Right?
Speaker 2: When I go to Philly, even if I'm in New
Speaker 2: York and I got like a good twenty four hours off,
Speaker 2: I'll get in the car and I will drive to
Speaker 2: Philly and chase. Chasing ghost for me is just going
Speaker 2: to my Grandmam's neighborhood. I never get out the car.
Speaker 2: I just sit there and Jack Meyer's you know fruit stand,
Speaker 2: and that's where Nana used to send me to get bread.
Speaker 2: And this is where we built the basketball court. But
Speaker 2: I used to always ridicule youah, hear like basketball players
Speaker 2: going back to the old projects. Yes, And then something
Speaker 2: bad happens and you're like, dumb motherfucker, like why would
Speaker 2: you go back? But I find myself doing the same
Speaker 2: thing every time. Like what I really love to do though,
Speaker 2: Like my all time favorite shit is if it's winter
Speaker 2: and I have like a hood one, I will actually
Speaker 2: get on the thirty six, No, dude, the way to
Speaker 2: produce tears with me, you know, the former Warner Makers
Speaker 2: or Macy's. Oh god, I hate when I date myself
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen twenty two, it was a Macy's. You
Speaker 1: know when you go to the thirteenth Street L and
Speaker 1: the trolley thing, you know that art mural where it's
Speaker 1: like it looks like the Whiz logo but it's like red,
Speaker 1: green and black.
Speaker 3: No, like, oh I kind of remember it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's artwork. It's like this mural thing. It's been
Speaker 1: there forever. It's been there since like when I was
Speaker 1: in first grade, like seventy six, And I will get
Speaker 1: on a thirty six sit and go all the way
Speaker 1: to the end and east Wick or whatever.
Speaker 4: The right the nice part of Southwest God.
Speaker 2: And then circle around come back to to the end
Speaker 2: of the line. Then I'll get on the L and
Speaker 2: do the whole entire trip. Matter of fact, of the pandemic.
Speaker 2: I would go on YouTube. Do you know there's people
Speaker 2: that like document entire train rides of the L.
Speaker 1: From the front. I'm backing up.
Speaker 3: I'm like famous people. They're different than us. You couldn't
Speaker 3: pay me to get on the L or on the
Speaker 3: train on my day off.
Speaker 2: When all right, so the day that we decided what
Speaker 2: was it, March thirteenth, the day that we decided the
Speaker 2: world was going to shut down. Yes, and there's this
Speaker 2: whole apocalypse like revelation thing in the air.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, my last act. I ran to.
Speaker 2: Gods we used to get a cheese steak, and then
Speaker 2: I ran back to spring Garden and rode the l
Speaker 2: one more time.
Speaker 5: And then I had my driver drive me to the farm.
Speaker 2: That I quarantined and in pound Ridge, like this very
Speaker 2: richy Poundridge farm where you know, the people let me
Speaker 2: stay in their guesthouse. But yeah, I don't know why
Speaker 2: I have this obsession with Septa wow, And.
Speaker 1: So I'd sit there.
Speaker 2: One day I discovered I went on YouTube and someone
Speaker 2: had the entire ride there. I probably watched ten hours
Speaker 2: worth of train stops.
Speaker 1: There's one from like nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 4: That says more about your age than anything else. You said,
Speaker 4: you and my husband just other people's experiences.
Speaker 3: I've had enough of my own. I'm just going to
Speaker 3: turn on YouTube and it's literally just trains.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, do you not have a recurring all right?
Speaker 1: So the recurring dream I've had before, like therapy, finally
Speaker 1: went away. No, there's a reason why. I'll say that.
Speaker 2: From from tenth grade probably until I was like forty five, it's.
Speaker 1: The same dream.
Speaker 2: I'm on the l headed home, and it's the most
Speaker 2: dreaded bad report card day, feeling like whatever, feeling that
Speaker 2: makes you want to stall not to go home.
Speaker 1: You ever been suspended from school or whatever? No, oh,
Speaker 1: that's right, you're a nerd. No, you said, beat my ass.
Speaker 2: Right, No, I have bad report cards before, or you know,
Speaker 2: you got to see or whatever. But I would dream
Speaker 2: that I was in school and I'm always failing and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get it when I get home.
Speaker 1: But I never get home.
Speaker 2: But I'm perpetually between thirteenth Street and fifty second Street.
Speaker 2: And that was like the dreams I would have from
Speaker 2: like maybe fifteen till forty five, Like the last ten
Speaker 2: years of my life, I've been free of that.
Speaker 3: But how I'm like, that's abnormal. I have that dream
Speaker 3: at least once a month for real.
Speaker 1: Do you have the same recurring dream.
Speaker 4: It's the same one, except I'm in Kappa And somehow
Speaker 4: they figured out that I haven't graduated, and I got
Speaker 4: to come back at my old age and go back
Speaker 4: and sit there for my diploma.
Speaker 3: I'm like, but I graduated. Nobody cares.
Speaker 1: Did that happen for Roda?
Speaker 3: No? Never?
Speaker 1: You were like a great student, right, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, I yeah, I went to good college, graduated. I mean,
Speaker 4: but that it freaks me out, and I still have
Speaker 4: that dream. So wait, I got to get a better therapist, right.
Speaker 1: Mine? Mine is kind of weird.
Speaker 2: My dad was doing a residency in Lake City at
Speaker 2: the Tropicana, and I was drumming for him, and you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't have a pager or we didn't have cell
Speaker 2: phones Backfit and Bowser If you remember Bowser from Shanna Na?
Speaker 1: Wow, No, yes you do, She'll just fake it it
Speaker 1: like you don't.
Speaker 3: You're a little bit older than me.
Speaker 1: And have you heard of the group?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay, one of them.
Speaker 2: You've seen Greece okay, yes, yes, there's a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of guys.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean the same thing.
Speaker 2: But he wore all black and he had the low
Speaker 2: voice or whatever anyway, like right, but I mean he
Speaker 2: didn't talk like that backstage, but he's like he's like
Speaker 2: a mirror. There's a phone call for you. And uh,
Speaker 2: who was who is our Do you remember our science teacher?
Speaker 1: Oh? God, no, not mister. I think it was.
Speaker 3: Corey, the one that didn't make us do anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, it begins with a I forget that name.
Speaker 2: And literally is like, mister Thompson, you still have to
Speaker 2: take your your final exam. Don't think doing a residency.
Speaker 2: What your father is going to get you out of this.
Speaker 2: If you are not in class tomorrow at a.
Speaker 1: You're not going to graduate. And literally like I.
Speaker 2: Did the show and dad had to drive me back
Speaker 2: to Philadelphia and I passed by the skin of my
Speaker 2: teeth and so wow. But yeah, so even as a
Speaker 2: good student, you thought you were going to be.
Speaker 1: A bad student.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I never talked to my therapist. What
Speaker 3: is this dream about. You're the first one that is
Speaker 3: like something so far in our past.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the bottom line was but okay,
Speaker 2: so more than that, like I decided to I mean,
Speaker 2: it's past therapy. It's also like this whole metaphysical thing
Speaker 2: where you actually have to say, like, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: not in high school anymore, I'm not fifteen. I'm da
Speaker 2: da da, Like I had to do these and literally
Speaker 2: talk it away. So I've not had the nightmare of failing.
Speaker 2: But even as a foty year old, I was about
Speaker 2: to get my ass beat for getting a bad grade
Speaker 2: or whatever. So yeah, all right, because you brought me
Speaker 2: into the tech world. Did you ever have an embarrassing
Speaker 2: AOL or MSN screen name?
Speaker 3: God, your memory is so good. I can't remember.
Speaker 4: I remember having an embarrassing one on my Commodore sixty
Speaker 4: four back when I was like eleven or twelve.
Speaker 1: Wait you could.
Speaker 3: There were little groups. That's where I first started.
Speaker 1: Wait what year did a guy?
Speaker 3: Ooh, this had to be eighty six, eighty seven?
Speaker 4: And I remember my dad weekend Dad, not even weekend Dad,
Speaker 4: but got you something new that I can't afford? Yay,
Speaker 4: And yeah it was like and I just remember.
Speaker 1: So you talk to your friends or a community of.
Speaker 3: Friends, usually strangers, because it was just an all green
Speaker 3: screen and you could go into a place called like sewing.
Speaker 2: You know, and wait a minute. Okay, go go ahead,
Speaker 2: go ahead. Yess just reminded me of something, no.
Speaker 3: Go, because I was the whole thing.
Speaker 1: The first time.
Speaker 2: You introduced me to AOL, like a group community thing. Yes,
Speaker 2: Prince was in the group chat wow, and his screen
Speaker 2: name was white Mansion. But he was an asshole about
Speaker 2: it because if you remember, like AOL had like an
Speaker 2: all white screen. He would type in all white and
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to copy paste so that I
Speaker 2: could see the cryptic message.
Speaker 1: And I think Doug is the one.
Speaker 2: Doug who worked at Oka Player taught me how to
Speaker 2: blacken the screen so I could see.
Speaker 1: And then I asked him like, yo, was that you?
Speaker 1: And He's like, yeah, that was me. So I didn't
Speaker 1: know that Prince was my first time in a group chat.
Speaker 4: What's also crazy is I remember specifically thinking, Wow, do
Speaker 4: we get a mirror online? I just had a web
Speaker 4: TV all right, let's start him off for aos.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I miss AOL chat so much, and you
Speaker 2: know people like when people on special like, oh my god, there,
Speaker 2: I do miss the days.
Speaker 4: Of There was some mystery to it now I'm just
Speaker 4: like everyone has a video, but I had no idea
Speaker 4: who I was really talking to back then, you know,
Speaker 4: and so you could be in a room with Prince
Speaker 4: and not know it.
Speaker 1: All right, what's the furthest place you've ever traveled?
Speaker 3: Oh wow, it's probably gonna be with you down to Brazil.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you did come to Brazil with us? Ah,
Speaker 1: you did come to Brazil. Wait did you go sight seeing?
Speaker 3: Yes with Tina Ferris one time?
Speaker 1: Were you accosted by no kids? Or Okay?
Speaker 2: I made the mistake of like walking by myself and
Speaker 2: someone told me like if you walk by yourself, like
Speaker 2: have a bag of toiletries with you. And I was
Speaker 2: like why and they were like, well, you know, some
Speaker 2: more of the fly ship might happen, and the kid
Speaker 2: might come.
Speaker 1: Up to you and be like Sarah, could you give me?
Speaker 2: And then you'll be like, oh, here kid, and then
Speaker 2: suddenly everyone just pops up. You mean, like the Michael
Speaker 2: Jackson Dad video, like bobbing from nowhere. I wasn't prepared
Speaker 2: so literally, like I had to run my way out
Speaker 2: of there while like seventeen.
Speaker 1: Kids just like please please please, like chase me. H. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so and then I didn't go out after that.
Speaker 4: But I'm laughing because y'all must have got They must
Speaker 4: have said, bring whoever you want, because y'all never brought
Speaker 4: me to it. It were so many people y'all bought
Speaker 4: on that trip.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, So were you there when someone got
Speaker 1: in Tina's face? Were you backstage for this? I was there, okay, okay, and.
Speaker 3: I thought, lord, we all about to be arrested in Brazil.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't want to out him, but I forget
Speaker 2: what his name was, but he was angry. I think
Speaker 2: that we went five minutes over.
Speaker 4: Something like that, and I just remember Tina trying to
Speaker 4: handle it and him trying to handle it back, and
Speaker 4: all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: Trying to handle Tina.
Speaker 4: And then and then everybody you invited came off like
Speaker 4: you didn't know the route.
Speaker 3: Somehow had twenty five airplane tickets to this thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh yeah, that was It was a riot.
Speaker 4: And then the toper to that story is he left
Speaker 4: his check on the table and then someone, I will say,
Speaker 4: signed we left our check on the table and signed
Speaker 4: his name.
Speaker 3: I didn't do it his room number.
Speaker 1: Oh okay.
Speaker 2: In my mind, it was not ego eye cherry. But
Speaker 2: it's someone that's like starts.
Speaker 3: With an F. I'll remind you if I don't want
Speaker 3: to get sued on you.
Speaker 1: I feel getting very nervous right now. What is the
Speaker 1: first thing you do when you check into a hotel?
Speaker 4: As I got older, it is literally see if the
Speaker 4: bathroom is clean, because I've been stuck in a hotel
Speaker 4: where not where you're like, all of a sudden, you're
Speaker 4: just on You're like, oh man, really yeah, I mean I've.
Speaker 1: Had like, see you a person that has to go
Speaker 1: and clean the hotel before.
Speaker 4: I mean, it depends on how I can not clean
Speaker 4: it my own if it's like a roadside, but if
Speaker 4: it's like a nice one that.
Speaker 3: Hollywood's paying for. No, but that's to me. I've just
Speaker 3: realized growing up in Philly.
Speaker 4: I'm used to everything being old and dirty.
Speaker 3: That's just Philly the fault. I got out here and
Speaker 3: I was like, this is how bathrooms are supposed to look.
Speaker 3: You can have more than one.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, So when you're creating, when you're writing what
Speaker 2: four things must you always.
Speaker 3: Have prozac weed? You want me to tell the truth, Yes,
Speaker 3: I don't know, No, it is it's definitely Weed.
Speaker 4: It's definitely a funny movie to start me off some
Speaker 4: a good friend on the phone and actually, now meditation,
Speaker 4: I put that in there.
Speaker 2: So you do that all the time, So you have
Speaker 2: to put intentions and yeah, just miss what.
Speaker 4: I mind, not wander and just getting all the other
Speaker 4: noise out of my head.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So I have the hardest time with writing, especially with books,
Speaker 2: so and the way I do it fragment like okay,
Speaker 2: this is about whatever.
Speaker 1: Tell me about ninth grade and then you you know, but.
Speaker 2: I'm also like, oh zebra, and then not have anything
Speaker 2: or easily fall asleep and then the computer falls on
Speaker 2: the ground, Like.
Speaker 1: For you, how much straight work can you do without
Speaker 1: any distractions whatsoever?
Speaker 4: See, it's interesting for me because I see you as
Speaker 4: somewhat of a perfectionist, and you always come into things
Speaker 4: with a plan, and so at least from when I
Speaker 4: knew you, and so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm still tightly wound.
Speaker 4: And so that was me too when I used to write.
Speaker 4: Then I used to think, why are people like Treik
Speaker 4: so happy on weed? And I wasn't forty until I
Speaker 4: tried it, actually tried it with my husband and had
Speaker 4: a horrible experience.
Speaker 1: So you're late weed, yes, but it's.
Speaker 4: Wonderful for getting outside of your head and just letting
Speaker 4: yourself let go of that tightly wound.
Speaker 1: Stuff post or pre pandemic.
Speaker 3: My husband and I married in two thousand, not two thousand. No, yeah,
Speaker 3: I was like, wait a minute, you need twenty started
Speaker 3: the pandemic, So it's probably twenty nineteen because I remember
Speaker 3: cursing him out. I was like, you don't know, I
Speaker 3: can't handle this was I was so high. I just
Speaker 3: but he also taught me how to taper.
Speaker 1: And you and I have the same experiences. But I'm
Speaker 1: an edible person.
Speaker 3: Not me too.
Speaker 2: You know what I've tried. We I cannot get high.
Speaker 2: I've had a whole thing to myself and it's nothing happens.
Speaker 3: I remember when you first went to Amsterdam, Yes, and.
Speaker 1: Did I call you?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: You and Dreamhampton Man like, ah, you've seen sides of
Speaker 1: me that the world has never seen before.
Speaker 3: Yes, Oh that was hilarious because you were you were
Speaker 3: in the most innocent, like just you know, and you
Speaker 3: were so high it was so funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I shouldn't have done that.
Speaker 3: Back then, people were getting arrested for we to wear
Speaker 3: week so that was an experience you wanted to have,
Speaker 3: but you were so high that was a wonderful.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right. Do you talk to yourself when you're alone?
Speaker 3: Usually not outside my head?
Speaker 1: No, just inside your head? Yeah yeah, but never like
Speaker 1: out loud as in no, unless.
Speaker 3: It's like I want my husband to kind of leave
Speaker 3: me alone for a little while, and.
Speaker 2: I wasn't expected that part. Are you a window seat
Speaker 2: or an alca person?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 5: See?
Speaker 4: This captures both sides of me because I don't like
Speaker 4: asking people to get up when I have to pee,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: But I really like looking out the window. We're a pie,
Speaker 3: we're on a plane.
Speaker 4: So I always picked the because I don't want an
Speaker 4: inconvenience anybody else.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're an own person. Okay.
Speaker 2: Have you ever considered moving to a place where nobody
Speaker 2: knows you have.
Speaker 3: To do that? Honestly, my husband and I are talking
Speaker 3: about it, moving to Minnesota. His family is from there,
Speaker 3: and I went out there.
Speaker 4: And I, oh, well family, but yeah, you mean no
Speaker 4: one like not even my husband.
Speaker 1: Well, now you gotta have your husband with you?
Speaker 3: What I Yeah, I would love to do that.
Speaker 2: Actually, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna change your life right now.
Speaker 3: Okay, So here's you nude when you don't know?
Speaker 1: Okay it is So I went up there once to
Speaker 1: clear a sample.
Speaker 3: To Minnesota to Prince's house.
Speaker 2: Oh this is long after he passed. But there's a
Speaker 2: place that is called the Orfield Labs. Now Orefield Labs
Speaker 2: was once famous because probably the most notable creation of
Speaker 2: the studio was lips incorporated Funky Town, Won't You Do
Speaker 2: Me Right? Also for Bee Boys, if you're a DJ.
Speaker 2: Kat Stevenson's Dog was a donut was created at this
Speaker 2: very studio. Around nineteen eighty six, I believe they stop
Speaker 2: being a studio for music purposes and they transformed to
Speaker 2: like scientific Audio lab. And what they've invented was they've
Speaker 2: invented two types of rooms and it's very unique. One
Speaker 2: room is a room for which sound will never die.
Speaker 2: So if you clap your hands, you hear the sound
Speaker 2: of that clap like resonate forever. There's a kind of
Speaker 2: a fake chimney thing that they open to let the
Speaker 2: sound go. But in the other room is a the.
Speaker 1: Exact opposite, and it's a silent room.
Speaker 2: Not only was aware of this because again with clickbait
Speaker 2: and social media. You know, it starts with you know,
Speaker 2: can you survive fifteen minutes in the silent room where
Speaker 2: you know, like apparently like you're gonna go crazy. It's
Speaker 2: like the equivalent of I mean, you've seen movies where
Speaker 2: people get thrown in solitary comfort.
Speaker 1: Or the padded white room or whatever.
Speaker 2: So long story short is, they put you inside of
Speaker 2: this room and look up or filled labs or silent
Speaker 2: room Minnesota. They sit you in the studio room and
Speaker 2: there's literally no like the noise is sucked out and
Speaker 2: there's no light. The only way I can describe it
Speaker 2: is if you are on the verge of wanting to
Speaker 2: do an ayahuasca journey. This is probably the plant based
Speaker 2: version of it, where you don't have to take anything,
Speaker 2: but the results are the same.
Speaker 1: And what I've discovered was when.
Speaker 2: When you don't have your senses, when you can't see,
Speaker 2: when you can't hear, your brain panics and thinks you're
Speaker 2: about to die. So the first thing your brain does
Speaker 2: is it pumps levels of serotonin or dopamine in your head,
Speaker 2: which is kind of what you feel if you were
Speaker 2: to do heroin. And literally like I sat there and
Speaker 2: maybe two minutes later and I'm not saying words because
Speaker 2: I saw it, like.
Speaker 1: My hand flashing. I was like, wait, am I hallucinating?
Speaker 1: Like literally, it does something to you. It's one of
Speaker 1: the best spiritual experience.
Speaker 3: Really, because as you were talking, I was like, this sounds.
Speaker 2: Like hell again, like because of the hype of are
Speaker 2: you going to survive or not survive? Maybe like after
Speaker 2: three minutes, I'm like, oh, clearly, I'm not going to die.
Speaker 2: Like the first thing you hear is you hear your insides,
Speaker 2: you hear your heart beat, you hear all those things.
Speaker 2: And then when I close my eyes, I see, you know,
Speaker 2: like when we dream, like if like imagine your childhood home,
Speaker 2: you close your eyes and there's my childhood home.
Speaker 1: You see it. To me, that's normal.
Speaker 2: But when I open my eyes and you don't see anything,
Speaker 2: that's when you start to panic.
Speaker 1: Like, wait, am I blind? Am I blind?
Speaker 2: And the dopamine just keeps it puts you in this
Speaker 2: very relaxed state.
Speaker 1: I highly reckon.
Speaker 3: No, you know, it's funny, I have turned now.
Speaker 4: I was like, because I truly love meditating and the
Speaker 4: way it makes me feel, in the way it grounds me.
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, and you know, like people now,
Speaker 2: well they'll do like medicine journeys and all these things.
Speaker 2: And you know, like a lot of us, I'll say,
Speaker 2: for the most part black people who are very skeptical,
Speaker 2: very church. You know, if it's against God, I want
Speaker 2: nothing to do with a mirror, don't come to me
Speaker 2: with that. Twenty twenty had us in a place where
Speaker 2: like we were just slightly open to something other than
Speaker 2: kind of this Christian hearing anything that we're going through
Speaker 2: right now. And I will tell you that, yeah, that
Speaker 2: experience alone, and I've been kind of kicking the can
Speaker 2: that like would do in ayahuasca.
Speaker 1: I will eventually do it.
Speaker 2: But for those that are averse to that, this is
Speaker 2: probably the closest thing to it.
Speaker 1: So I'm so.
Speaker 3: Proud of you in a weird way, Like seriously.
Speaker 1: I would highly recommend this.
Speaker 4: I'm i just because I remember you didn't drink, you
Speaker 4: didn't smoke, you were just and so I know a
Speaker 4: lot of people who come up like that that won't
Speaker 4: touch anything like aahuasca.
Speaker 3: Or just you know.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I think in the pandemic, we all were
Speaker 6: like fuck it, and we had to there had to
Speaker 6: be something else, you know, I mean it just has
Speaker 6: to be something else, all right.
Speaker 1: So if you were allowed to go back to the
Speaker 1: age of ten for one hour, what would you do?
Speaker 4: First thing I think is ride my bike until the
Speaker 4: very moment the very last street light came on, just
Speaker 4: because I missed that freedom of just being ten and
Speaker 4: mom and Dad didn't care where you were as long
Speaker 4: as you came back when the street lights were on. And
Speaker 4: I just remember thinking when I had that bike at ten, that.
Speaker 3: I could almost make it anywhere in the city, you know,
Speaker 3: you just oh, you.
Speaker 1: Would go off the block into different neighborhoods.
Speaker 4: Like three four blocks, but it felt like bigger because
Speaker 4: it's like I used to have to walk these.
Speaker 3: You feel a little it's the first time.
Speaker 1: Having a bike. Yes, you're right.
Speaker 2: Actually I would take my bike and I could make
Speaker 2: it to like I live on fifty second Street. I
Speaker 2: think I could make it to pins Landing in like
Speaker 2: forty five minutes.
Speaker 3: See if there weren't any cars. I'm like, that's just
Speaker 3: a dream, just being free.
Speaker 2: Well, Pine Street was a little bear, so just you know,
Speaker 2: between Pine Street was a street where I didn't have
Speaker 2: to worry about like getting here.
Speaker 3: Who actually did it?
Speaker 1: Oh? All the time?
Speaker 4: Do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, i'ma do that all the time. What do you
Speaker 1: consider your bravest act to date?
Speaker 4: Oh, I would have to say moving my mom to
Speaker 4: Los Angeles and you brought her out here to get yes, yes, okay,
Speaker 4: and stealing her away from her.
Speaker 3: I didn't steal her away, even though he sued me
Speaker 3: for kidnapping. It's in the book she married. Yo. This
Speaker 3: is what I want to say about.
Speaker 4: They always worried about us and our generation in younger
Speaker 4: on social media and then the older people.
Speaker 3: She met a man, you know, and it's like people
Speaker 3: need to watch their parents and this technology.
Speaker 4: All of a sudden, she's, you know, falling in love
Speaker 4: and but the guy is just a scammer.
Speaker 3: He's a mess.
Speaker 1: So I picked her up like Prince scam level.
Speaker 4: Except Philadelphian preacher scammer. Like every time every time I
Speaker 4: came home, my mom would be like, well we found
Speaker 4: out this degree wasn't worth anything. I'll just pull out
Speaker 4: of my pension and send him to another school so
Speaker 4: you can get another degree.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I know, I know.
Speaker 3: And so finally, you know, our parents, especially my mom
Speaker 3: came of age.
Speaker 4: Jim Crow just everything's hard in life, and you know,
Speaker 4: I don't want to be a burden.
Speaker 3: And I was like, no, I'm getting you the hell
Speaker 3: out of here.
Speaker 4: So I moved her in with me while he sued
Speaker 4: the hell out of me back home.
Speaker 3: But just the same feeling as you had as a
Speaker 3: kid on a bike.
Speaker 4: It was just the freedom. It was just me and
Speaker 4: her and me taking care of her in this beautiful place.
Speaker 2: Well it's California like for her, way different than Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: I remember asking her that exact question and she said,
Speaker 4: a lot of Mexicans.
Speaker 3: We did, at least not when I moved.
Speaker 4: You know, early two thousands, Philadelphia was pretty much black
Speaker 4: and white mostly coming up. And you know, she was, yeah,
Speaker 4: so this to her, like people speak in Spanish, She
Speaker 4: was like, you know how people from Philly are at
Speaker 4: least it's going to be an earthquake every day, and
Speaker 4: you know something's.
Speaker 3: Going to go wrong.
Speaker 1: But experienced an earthquake.
Speaker 4: No, thank God, because she would have, even though she
Speaker 4: had stage four cancer, she.
Speaker 3: Would have rolled her back to phil.
Speaker 4: But I think then I remember her saying to me
Speaker 4: once she said, people just seem a lot chiller out here,
Speaker 4: like a lot calmer, And I was like, well, you've
Speaker 4: never been on set with me. Other than that, yeah,
Speaker 4: there's just I'm glad she got to experience that laid
Speaker 4: back kind of California thing, even though she didn't know
Speaker 4: my house was in foreclosure and all this stuff and
Speaker 4: oh yeah, it's all I don't want to give anything away.
Speaker 3: Literally, there was a.
Speaker 4: Man taken pictures of my house when my mom when
Speaker 4: I finally got off the plane and my mom said,
Speaker 4: who's that?
Speaker 3: I was like, Papa Rozzi, Mom and pop last was
Speaker 3: somebody coming to make sure the.
Speaker 1: Condition of the house before they Oh god.
Speaker 4: So not only bringing her there but lying to her
Speaker 4: the whole time so that she would stay there.
Speaker 1: And she was never the wiser.
Speaker 3: You know, looking back, I think she.
Speaker 1: Probably knew, but what was she didn't want to embarrass.
Speaker 3: I'm stuck here now. I got on the plane.
Speaker 1: What was what was your twenty twenty like?
Speaker 3: Actually, and I hate saying this, it was great.
Speaker 2: What did you pivot and morph into in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: that you weren't before?
Speaker 1: Then?
Speaker 4: I realized I think in twenty twenty. I also got
Speaker 4: married right at the beginning of twenty twenty, and so
Speaker 4: we literally.
Speaker 1: Just picked the place January or February January. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So then when the world came doing in.
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm stuck with this money.
Speaker 1: Y'all stayed together.
Speaker 3: That's what made it great.
Speaker 4: I was like, I picked the right person this time.
Speaker 4: I was like, I actually like this.
Speaker 1: Was there a close call? Though?
Speaker 3: Actually no, I.
Speaker 4: Wish I could lie. It was great because he's introducing
Speaker 4: me to more weed. We're sitting there watching the world burn,
Speaker 4: you know. But also it was I was on the
Speaker 4: show Mixed Dish, and I realized how much life I
Speaker 4: lost in commuting every damn day, you know, just getting
Speaker 4: to and from the place where I already have to
Speaker 4: give such mental energy and you don't have a lot
Speaker 4: to give her to a relationship when you're giving it
Speaker 4: all to others.
Speaker 3: So it also made me think I want to focus
Speaker 3: more on my personal relationships than career growth all the time.
Speaker 1: Are you saying in terms of like like we all
Speaker 1: discovered zoom during that period, So not having to take
Speaker 1: a two hour trek and sitting on the are you
Speaker 1: one of these Californias Like I hate the four or
Speaker 1: five and dead?
Speaker 3: Guess why should I?
Speaker 1: I love see, I love traffic, I love driving, but
Speaker 1: I just love.
Speaker 4: My free time even more because I picked up hobbies.
Speaker 4: I didn't have hobbies before.
Speaker 1: What did you learn to do? Don't say sourdo please?
Speaker 3: No, no, I'm learning Spanish apprendiendo espaniel really see for dad.
Speaker 2: What is the most overrated or unsolicited advice that people
Speaker 2: gave to you as a caretaker? First of all, did
Speaker 2: you have a circle or at least a threat to
Speaker 2: fall back on?
Speaker 4: For no, I moved my mom out, was like, come on,
Speaker 4: I'm saving your life. And then someone eventually said, yeah,
Speaker 4: that she's pretty far gone. You can't save her life.
Speaker 4: And I was like, I haven't called City of Hope yet.
Speaker 4: Like that was me, And I think as.
Speaker 3: A caretaker, people are very taught me to be actively
Speaker 3: caring in terms of make sure how she's not in pain,
Speaker 3: make sure this, makes sure I will and testament are
Speaker 3: in place. But and forgot to tell me to just
Speaker 3: have quiet moments of just asking her questions about her
Speaker 3: past and even how to frame questions about her past
Speaker 3: so she talked to me about them. She wasn't my
Speaker 3: mom wasn't a.
Speaker 4: Very like this was my favorite Christmas, so this was
Speaker 4: my favorite time to ask her question.
Speaker 3: Yes, in my own way, like.
Speaker 4: No, because no, because it just felt like I have
Speaker 4: one recording of her. Okay, But also, my mom passed
Speaker 4: right before video on phones. She was in the people
Speaker 4: were transitioning from flip phones to iPhones, so you had
Speaker 4: to still had She still had to flip Like when
Speaker 4: I text her, she'd be like, what's wrong?
Speaker 3: Was on my screen? And I'm like, I got this iPhone,
Speaker 3: you can text on it. But yet we weren't. And
Speaker 3: I'm actually glad that I didn't, because when I look
Speaker 3: back at how sick she was, I was like, you
Speaker 3: dumb asshands. You really thought you were going to save
Speaker 3: her life, you know, like it's and I'm like, damn.
Speaker 4: You may have moved to California, but we no one
Speaker 4: taught us to just have that time together. And I think,
Speaker 4: when I look back, that's why she moved out.
Speaker 2: What was your primary source of comfort, like during this
Speaker 2: time period, you move your.
Speaker 1: Out in twenty twenty, and when did she passed?
Speaker 4: Oh no, I moved my mom out in twenty This
Speaker 4: was fifteen years ago, right on the border of iPhones
Speaker 4: and flip phones. Oh okay, yeah, so like twy fourteen,
Speaker 4: twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, and when she passed.
Speaker 3: She passed. She only lived with me for three months.
Speaker 1: Yeah she was Oh damn, yeah, I'm glad you.
Speaker 3: But I took care of her in Philly too.
Speaker 4: It was but she didn't let me know how bad
Speaker 4: her cancer was, which is something I learned that parents do,
Speaker 4: and her as a nurse, she also knew how to
Speaker 4: hide it, so she would just.
Speaker 3: Tell me, yeah, I got a missect. To me, I
Speaker 3: got another mastectomy and no cancer's going.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a bother. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be a burden. I hate when people see that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: So then one time she was supposed to come out
Speaker 4: and see me, and she said, I can't fly the doctor.
Speaker 4: I had to have another little procedure done. So I
Speaker 4: got on a plane and said, what is happening? You
Speaker 4: know what is happened?
Speaker 1: Did you ambush her?
Speaker 3: Yes, also had.
Speaker 4: To ambush her husband because he was a fake preachers,
Speaker 4: and so they had that hierarchy within the house.
Speaker 3: I'm the man of the house now, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: she just met your.
Speaker 4: Ass and him and my brother ended up throwing down and.
Speaker 3: It got real Philly. They got real Philly.
Speaker 1: I totally understand that what personal habit.
Speaker 2: Did you find hard to manage during this period of
Speaker 2: taking care of your mom?
Speaker 4: Gratitude? I used to practice that. Have my gratitude journal,
Speaker 4: still have it now. Everything was so rushed and life
Speaker 4: just seemed to suck because damn, you know, I haven't
Speaker 4: had an easy road in life anyway, and to lose
Speaker 4: my mom early, you know, it was just but also
Speaker 4: trying to keep her spirits up. I would try to
Speaker 4: think of one thing we could both be grateful for.
Speaker 3: But man, that was hard.
Speaker 1: That was aging gratitude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even harder when she passed. I was an angry
Speaker 3: motherfucker all the time.
Speaker 2: During this period of caretaking what one item of clothing?
Speaker 1: What was your what was your survival uniform?
Speaker 4: You know, I'll never forget because she moved in with
Speaker 4: me and she only bought one suitcase. Because we were
Speaker 4: just like, time is not on our sides. You got cans,
Speaker 4: you got this stage four cancer. I'm going to find
Speaker 4: a really good Hollywood doctor.
Speaker 3: To cure it. And so we went to Target to
Speaker 3: make a quick run to get the way we see
Speaker 3: someone for cancer. And because my mom was also very frugal,
Speaker 3: which she probably would have went to CVS.
Speaker 4: So she could have or target, but we went to
Speaker 4: get her a nightgown and I got a matching like
Speaker 4: pajama set, and I still have that fifteen year old
Speaker 4: pajama set.
Speaker 3: I keep everything though.
Speaker 1: This is such an angel in this times and conversation.
Speaker 2: Is there a song that makes you cry instantly when
Speaker 2: you hear it?
Speaker 3: This is a weird one too. What was the Luther
Speaker 3: Van song about Father's.
Speaker 1: Again?
Speaker 4: Yes, because that's the only song I saw my mom
Speaker 4: ever cry on when her father passed. My mom never cried,
Speaker 4: and I just remember that song coming on the radio
Speaker 4: after her dad died and her crying, and I thought
Speaker 4: I thought of her as a mother for the first time,
Speaker 4: and not just you know, I mean I thought of
Speaker 4: her rather as more than a mother, like someone who
Speaker 4: was something's daughter who was having those feelings, and I
Speaker 4: just remember that a human.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's swear that Luther's known for many things, but
Speaker 2: that that one song might be like his signature, his
Speaker 2: signature song.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I remember she sent me to a concert
Speaker 4: with her and her friends. They were her babysitters, and
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, they still don't know he's gay.
Speaker 3: I was young.
Speaker 1: My mom too. What memento keeps your mom's memory alive.
Speaker 4: Woo what oh her nursing id I keep it in
Speaker 4: my bedroom because she was so proud of that thing
Speaker 4: because she was not only an r N, she was
Speaker 4: a BSN actually a science and nursing they put your back,
Speaker 4: you know, yes, yes, but she would always say, you know,
Speaker 4: they don't expect a black woman to be you know,
Speaker 4: So she would always wear that with pride, like when
Speaker 4: someone would try to talk down to her something, it's.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm like, maybe it's a little elitist, but
Speaker 3: it's also a source of pride. She worked hard for
Speaker 3: that thing.
Speaker 2: Got what was the deepest regret of yours during that
Speaker 2: time period?
Speaker 1: Did you have any.
Speaker 3: Oh man, that whole time period, Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 3: had a lot.
Speaker 4: I started redecorating my home and remodeling it to make
Speaker 4: a commune so my entire family could move in because.
Speaker 1: You thought the world was just coming to it in.
Speaker 4: But also I just thought my mom died and I'm
Speaker 4: all alone. I got to move everybody from Philly into.
Speaker 1: My Oh god, I know, I know. And that was
Speaker 1: And so then and your marriage is doing to.
Speaker 4: Wait because nobody in Philly's gonna tell you, Yeah, we
Speaker 4: thought it was a good idea when we were all
Speaker 4: in grief.
Speaker 3: When we said that, because your ass was crying.
Speaker 1: Right for you, we don't want to move.
Speaker 3: All the way out. But I was so deep in
Speaker 3: grief and just the family is all important. And I
Speaker 3: moved out to California and everybody's back in Philly.
Speaker 4: I mean I literally was looking up schools for people
Speaker 4: and all this stuff, and one by one I had
Speaker 4: a falling out with people because I came to the
Speaker 4: realization that was the dumbest idea.
Speaker 3: But I didn't want to give up on it.
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, you pulled that off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I'm so glad in hindsight that I didn't.
Speaker 1: One do you create better when you are happy or sad?
Speaker 3: Here is the process I've learned. That's how weed comes
Speaker 3: into play.
Speaker 4: For me.
Speaker 3: Think about all the shit, the deep.
Speaker 4: Shit, like oh, until you can't almost take it anymore,
Speaker 4: you're like, fuck, what is this life?
Speaker 3: Smoke some weed and think about it again. It works
Speaker 3: for me. I don't know why, because they always say
Speaker 3: the lessons are in the hard part, But when you're
Speaker 3: trying to write through the hard parts, it's just too much.
Speaker 3: At times, I wanted everything to.
Speaker 1: Be like gaps go by where you didn't write or
Speaker 1: oh god.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I found myself. My husband was with me
Speaker 4: as I was writing, and I love writing comedy. But
Speaker 4: we know so many great comedians that are miserable and
Speaker 4: who took their own life, and I mean I can
Speaker 4: name some top names out here, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 4: hanging around with him is like like.
Speaker 1: Oh, every comedian I know is so it's how you.
Speaker 4: But I I was with my husband at the time,
Speaker 4: he just was just married. We were and I had
Speaker 4: to figure out how not to be depressed all the time.
Speaker 4: And he was like, try some of this.
Speaker 3: This is all that's worked for me.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what part of yourself are you just rediscovering now?
Speaker 3: Who as a grown asked woman what the hell I
Speaker 3: like to do and not what everybody else wants me
Speaker 3: to do?
Speaker 2: And my people pleasing whoa you know for real, Like
Speaker 2: I'm so glad that landed because I'm so bad, like
Speaker 2: I want to do on TV where it's just like
Speaker 2: no one looks and.
Speaker 1: Then they I'm always like.
Speaker 3: The man and that the world's not gonna fall apart
Speaker 3: when you do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2: I just learned not only no, like you remember, like
Speaker 2: Rich Nichols used to be just say what he felt. Yes,
Speaker 2: Tik's that way sometimes Jesus. Yes, literally that part just
Speaker 2: transforms you. And I was like, wow, this this is
Speaker 2: the zero fox part of my life, like happening right now.
Speaker 2: But I mean there's a way to not alienate people
Speaker 2: and still hold your ground and maintain but like literally
Speaker 2: not people pleasing. I didn't know how much like pain
Speaker 2: in my body, Yes, yes, I was used to those.
Speaker 1: Things and the throbbing, the throbbing, the throbbing and not
Speaker 1: knowing that your body's thriving throbbing because you promised that
Speaker 1: you would do this remix and you don't got time
Speaker 1: to do it, or you know, come and watch somebody's
Speaker 1: rough cut of something or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll check it out, and literally just like wear myself felt.
Speaker 1: So yeah, people pleasing is was my Do.
Speaker 3: You think you learned that as a kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think people pleasing comes from wanting to be likable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in my case, I think the kind of
Speaker 2: perceived charmed life that I've always seemed to have when
Speaker 2: I was a kid you have both parents.
Speaker 1: I went to private school, you get all these all
Speaker 1: these records of yours.
Speaker 2: You know, like it just always seemed easy for a
Speaker 2: mirror and then was way easier for questlove. So I
Speaker 2: think a lot of the times I tried in subconscious
Speaker 2: ways to make myself relatable by people pleasing and sometimes
Speaker 2: doll myself. A lot of the weight gain was like
Speaker 2: really trying my best not to be a threat and
Speaker 2: doll myself as much as I can and still survive.
Speaker 2: But I think after these series of me finally getting
Speaker 2: to the bottom of the autism journey, At first I
Speaker 2: took it as facts like oh, okay, autistic, everyone is altered,
Speaker 2: But then I really learned, like I don't know, I
Speaker 2: just woke.
Speaker 3: Up one day like, wait, is that an autism trait too?
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, like especially, and it's understandable why I
Speaker 2: think black people have been averse to science or any
Speaker 2: sort of thing with medical like therapy and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: This is in allfice. I don't think I have anything
Speaker 1: that's more unique than anyone else. I'm just like learning.
Speaker 2: This is probably the most I've ever spoken about it
Speaker 2: in public. But once I know and know that I know,
Speaker 2: like there's a level freedom there.
Speaker 3: Oh I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I highly recommend taking that exam and doing
Speaker 2: that what do you do for like self care?
Speaker 3: Meditation and hobbies and just going outside. I realized I
Speaker 3: live in a place that it's warm all the time,
Speaker 3: and I was working myself to death so much I
Speaker 3: never got to experience a warmness because I would be
Speaker 3: until it got night and it got cold. And so
Speaker 3: just really like I always think, how did the first
Speaker 3: people on the earth and people before we even invented mirrors, they.
Speaker 4: Didn't care what they look like, you know, Like it's
Speaker 4: like you listen to the birds. And I had a
Speaker 4: revelation one day when I was in my bed, I
Speaker 4: now wake.
Speaker 3: Up with the birds.
Speaker 4: That's what they made the alarm clocks like after so
Speaker 4: we would wake up when they wanted us to wake
Speaker 4: up and get to our jobs. And just enjoying simple
Speaker 4: stuff like that listening to birds, going like, I love
Speaker 4: old people, man.
Speaker 3: I hang out with them all the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because they're retired and they just noticed suff This
Speaker 4: guy says, just saw Cooper Hawk up there.
Speaker 3: I'm in I'm like show me. You know, they have
Speaker 3: time and they enjoy stuff.
Speaker 1: Do you collect anything?
Speaker 3: No, because I my husband collects everything, and I can't stand.
Speaker 1: Makes them throw away the record collection, not the record
Speaker 1: of collection.
Speaker 3: But if you have wrestling figures that some of them
Speaker 3: are worth. I look him up to see you. But
Speaker 3: he's also the type my husband is.
Speaker 1: He's a legend. Also yeah, and so, but he's not.
Speaker 4: I remember when I first saw Tarique take someone's I
Speaker 4: thought someone's giving you their CD. How gracious he was, Like,
Speaker 4: but we were young. But also I understand now as
Speaker 4: a wife who has a husband who people give things,
Speaker 4: but he doesn't.
Speaker 3: He keeps them all.
Speaker 1: Every painting of him and every painting, every you know,
Speaker 1: and his WWE fans are like so intense, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: do you go to those matches?
Speaker 4: I've never seen I have seen him wrestle once, but yeah,
Speaker 4: when I went, I didn't know anything about wrestling.
Speaker 3: I was like, damn, this is dangerous, this is scary,
Speaker 3: but it's awesome. I love it.
Speaker 1: Like do you ever get afraid for his safety? End?
Speaker 3: No, because he stopped.
Speaker 4: But when he did a backflip right when he was
Speaker 4: forty nine, because he wanted to do one more and
Speaker 4: like gotten rid for the road.
Speaker 3: But everything.
Speaker 4: I tell him the reason that WGA went on strike
Speaker 4: is because of him using up my insurance because all
Speaker 4: those injuries.
Speaker 2: God, what is your dream project? What is the project
Speaker 2: you are dying to execute and get off the ground.
Speaker 4: I be honest, anything with Regina King, And because I
Speaker 4: know nothing about her and I just see all that
Speaker 4: and I don't want too m K.
Speaker 3: She's not nice because I've met too many people and
Speaker 3: just let me have my dream that Regina King is
Speaker 3: my best friend in my head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think she's nice.
Speaker 3: Okay, have you met her? No, never met her, never
Speaker 3: worked with her?
Speaker 1: Wait? You work out here in Hollywood?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean she's she didn't do TV until recently.
Speaker 3: And no, that's the thing. Here's the thing.
Speaker 4: Also, I don't work in Hollywood because of the changes
Speaker 4: in the industry. I work in Toronto, and I work
Speaker 4: in New York. I was a New York last show
Speaker 4: for six months. So it's like I'm barely here.
Speaker 1: Okay. Is is Hollywood just a concept now? Because even
Speaker 1: for me, like all my friends are going to Atlanta
Speaker 1: or Tomronto or Vancouver or yes, is anything just straight
Speaker 1: up shot and produced out here?
Speaker 3: Very few things?
Speaker 4: And I mean you have to have a high, high
Speaker 4: level of stardom to get it done out here. But no,
Speaker 4: most of my friends and even like the Scrubs reboot,
Speaker 4: they're all up in Vancouver.
Speaker 1: It's an are you a part of it?
Speaker 3: No? I like my marriage, I don't want to go back.
Speaker 1: Congratulations for choosing yourself over.
Speaker 4: And I realized that the last time I went away
Speaker 4: and we have to be away from each other for
Speaker 4: four months, it's not fun. People like you get to
Speaker 4: travel for work and no, we work day to night
Speaker 4: and just go home. Like I remember going to New York.
Speaker 4: I think I'm gonna call I mean, I'm gonna see
Speaker 4: all these things. I didn't see anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been on sets where, especially with comedy shows,
Speaker 2: where literally don't get yes yes time to yourself.
Speaker 1: And I didn't realize like how hard it is like
Speaker 1: to be funny in the in the face of pressure.
Speaker 4: And Yeah, and it's also every show you go into
Speaker 4: there's a big managerial aspect to it. That some people
Speaker 4: are funny and come up with great stories, but they
Speaker 4: don't know how to manage your room, so they realize
Speaker 4: they don't like any jokes at four am in the
Speaker 4: morning and I'm like, dude, I'm over fifty now I can't.
Speaker 3: When I was on Scrubs, I was like, sure, Bill Lawrence,
Speaker 3: I'll pull another all nighter.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, Okay, so I want what show
Speaker 2: I visited? I went to Two and a Half Men
Speaker 2: once right, and.
Speaker 1: Was chuck there. I think all I know is that
Speaker 1: whenever they took a break, like someone didn't like a line,
Speaker 1: and the directors like, hut, cut cut and it take
Speaker 1: five whatever, and they took five. And the way that
Speaker 1: those writers formed a magic circle, they all knew what
Speaker 1: order they had to be in. It's like, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't like the da da da, not only the
Speaker 1: da da d D. So what do you got for me? No?
Speaker 1: What do you got from me? What do you got
Speaker 1: from me?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: And it felt like a creative version of Russian roulette. Ooh.
Speaker 4: And here's the thing you don't see is that sometimes
Speaker 4: we have already worked on that line in the room.
Speaker 4: And sometimes I've worked with some talented people, but there's
Speaker 4: some people won't say anything in the room. Then you're
Speaker 4: gonna get on set where the stars are it's like
Speaker 4: they kill it. Yeah, and then everybody from the network
Speaker 4: is looking and I'm like.
Speaker 3: I pitched that last week in the room, you know.
Speaker 3: So it's just like then you get up to the
Speaker 3: room and someone's fighting because it's like it's a lot,
Speaker 3: Like you say, it's a lot.
Speaker 1: Does your dream project have a title to it like.
Speaker 3: The you know what?
Speaker 4: Actually, my dream project would be about a fifty year
Speaker 4: old woman trying to get back in the workplace, figuring
Speaker 4: out what she really likes to do. And I started
Speaker 4: writing it just because I know a lot of women
Speaker 4: now who are their forties and fifties, and we all
Speaker 4: took that this is what our parents wanted us to do.
Speaker 4: I did it very well, but realized what the hell
Speaker 4: do I like to do? But also having to deal
Speaker 4: with I just had the realization that I could have
Speaker 4: given birth to Megan the Stallion without being a teenage mom.
Speaker 4: And that's always the level I see if I'm old,
Speaker 4: Like if I was a teenage mom, maybe I'm still
Speaker 4: She's top of.
Speaker 3: The charts, and I could be your mother without being a.
Speaker 1: Teenage could be Wow, whoa It hit me.
Speaker 3: Oh, and so now when I talk to younger people,
Speaker 3: I'm always thinking that I know you didn't just tell
Speaker 3: me what time I could go home. I could be
Speaker 3: your mom, you know, but that's the industry.
Speaker 1: That's gonna sit with me all day to day. Like
Speaker 1: I could be Megan the Stallion's dad and not have
Speaker 1: been that hit me hard. That's the quest left show,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. We'll see you later. Okay, I mean
Speaker 1: to ask you the same question three different ways. Okay,
Speaker 1: you were in Capa. What year tenth No, middle of eleventh,
Speaker 1: let's go before tenth grade? What was sixteen year old
Speaker 1: Angela Nissile's version of what success was? What five things
Speaker 1: would have been? Like I made it?
Speaker 3: Oh god, this is I.
Speaker 4: Mean, it's embarrassing. But a boyfriend who is eventually going
Speaker 4: to ask me to marry him. Okay, some place to
Speaker 4: work with a cubicle where I can maybe have off days.
Speaker 3: I needed to go to the hospital or like go to.
Speaker 1: I remember thinking you didn't want a better place to die?
Speaker 4: Thinking, how do you, as an adult like ask your
Speaker 4: Boston that you need a day off?
Speaker 3: And do you? God? What else?
Speaker 4: Oh god, it's so a nice back then, at least
Speaker 4: a nice car only had to be a Benz or something,
Speaker 4: not like a Bentley.
Speaker 3: Like now I was like a benz An apartment downtown
Speaker 3: in the nice section of Philadelphia where the cobblestones are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can I tell you, I gotta tell you something.
Speaker 1: I hate Michael Bivens for this.
Speaker 2: When they shot the Motown Philly video and you know
Speaker 2: the cobblestone place on like second, you know, the Wow
Speaker 2: Wow is on like second in South Street. So Michael
Speaker 2: Bivins purchased one of those houses there, and man, Me
Speaker 2: and Rieke were like, Yo, that's what's up. Like I
Speaker 2: go by that place now, It's like, Yo, how did
Speaker 2: I think success was living? I almost purchased. Matter of fact,
Speaker 2: before I purchased what do I call it? The sixth
Speaker 2: cens Housey.
Speaker 3: I didn't know you purchased that. That's hilarious.
Speaker 2: Oh when I tell you what I have to do
Speaker 2: to hang on to that house because it's now like
Speaker 2: literally four lawyers are trying to like, I'm the last
Speaker 2: black owner, wow that entire neighborhood. I lived on the
Speaker 2: block that was formerly the six cents block, and they've
Speaker 2: since then, four people have taken it in regental like
Speaker 2: there's no abandon houses and I'm the last person hanging
Speaker 2: on to that place. And they're trying every way to
Speaker 2: get me out of there. But before I brought that house,
Speaker 2: there was like a spot. I swear to god, maybe
Speaker 2: it's like nine hundred square feet, but I thought, man,
Speaker 2: I'm living off South Street, Like I can go right
Speaker 2: to the diner, take a joint of the diner, go
Speaker 2: to a rich movie theater.
Speaker 1: Like if I thought that was living.
Speaker 3: Right, we didn't. People didn't realize your whole world was
Speaker 3: your city, the pre internet, you know, and that's all
Speaker 3: we knew. And those were the best houses we saw.
Speaker 1: Now I'm like, oh god, exactly, Wait, you didn't name
Speaker 1: your last one?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, what would be the last one?
Speaker 1: Boyfriend? You wanted a better place to die that gave
Speaker 1: you time off to go to the hospital.
Speaker 3: You wanted a Ben's animal sanctuary.
Speaker 4: I always wanted, always would bring home the animals drops Parkway.
Speaker 1: What is your greatest extravagance?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 1: Or actually your first big check? What did you get?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, this is so you remember when Nike
Speaker 4: had this thing online where you could uh design.
Speaker 1: Your own doings, design your own doings?
Speaker 3: You were just that was my first check. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'd be sitting like with my feet on.
Speaker 1: Behind everybody like, where'd you get them from? One on one?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: That was what I did? Oh my god.
Speaker 1: When we got our checks, I purchased yeah, eight, that's
Speaker 1: I didn't let my dad know one. He didn't know
Speaker 1: we had a record deal. I told you. Dad didn't
Speaker 1: know about till the second alb until do you Want
Speaker 1: More came out? He didn't know about. Like I hit
Speaker 1: it perfectly.
Speaker 2: My cousins gave me away because you know we're in
Speaker 2: the inquiry, you know whatever. But I purchased seven pairs
Speaker 2: of Pumas.
Speaker 1: Yo. When you get you remember.
Speaker 2: When new shoes like that feeling I'm having new shoes
Speaker 2: Like I lived in a might get one pair of
Speaker 2: shoe a year. For school, you get play shoes and
Speaker 2: then your school shoes. But there's nothing like a fresh
Speaker 2: pair of sneakers. So the first thing I did was
Speaker 2: got seven pairs and you couldn't tell me nothing. But
Speaker 2: then one day my dad was like, then you have
Speaker 2: red Puma's on the other day and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I brought two pairs and I had to hide like
Speaker 2: I think I hit him in some girl's crib, Like
Speaker 2: that's yeah, but having having wait.
Speaker 4: What's so funny is when you say that, people think
Speaker 4: you came up so easy. When you say your dad,
Speaker 4: this is the biggest memory I have of your dad,
Speaker 4: me calling your house, him saying he's practicing Click.
Speaker 1: Yes, my dad was. He was Jill Jackson in West Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: So I was like, damn, I don't have a dad,
Speaker 3: but I'm glad I don't have that one. He just
Speaker 3: up on a friend. He didn't know what I needed.
Speaker 1: The rules were.
Speaker 2: I better be in this house before the Opra theme
Speaker 2: comes on, like you know, like the Fresh Prince of
Speaker 2: Belly thing when Carlton here is you started dancing. That
Speaker 2: song is so nightmares to me. That part of my
Speaker 2: therapy of getting over that, Like you don't know what yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean you you know where we went to school,
Speaker 2: and you know how long it takes to get to
Speaker 2: Market Street and the distractions you're in enough gallery or whatever,
Speaker 2: and then you gotta get to West Philly and then
Speaker 2: take another bust like I have an hour to get
Speaker 2: home before like the happiest song in the world is
Speaker 2: also just do not let that theme come on and
Speaker 2: your ass is not in this house no more.
Speaker 1: Soul trained for three weeks, like literally and I got
Speaker 1: soul trained punishments even like yeah, sorry.
Speaker 3: No, I'm cracking because that's a mirror that I know.
Speaker 2: So that's I was like, whoa, all right, So the
Speaker 2: first half hour of your day when you wake up,
Speaker 2: what do you do?
Speaker 3: My animals? My dog?
Speaker 1: How many animals do you?
Speaker 3: I only have a dog and a cat. But my
Speaker 3: dog looks at me like we going out yet? And
Speaker 3: so I'm like, that's why.
Speaker 1: So they wake you up?
Speaker 4: Yeah, because he wants to. Of course, he wants to
Speaker 4: go outside. Animals love outside, I mean, but he just
Speaker 4: gives me that look. And I'm glad I never had kids,
Speaker 4: because if a human.
Speaker 1: Ever looked at me the way he looks at me,
Speaker 1: like what kind of dog is?
Speaker 3: He's a big lab mutt mix. But he's like, oh,
Speaker 3: you still love me, You're gonna take me outside.
Speaker 1: He doesn't jump in the bed, No, it's just like
Speaker 1: the sad look.
Speaker 3: But then once we get out there, pip, so that
Speaker 3: also good. That's also good for me. It gets me
Speaker 3: out of the house first to talk to my old friends.
Speaker 1: I'm in a new relationship with a It comes with
Speaker 1: a dog.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that they wake you up when they're hungry,
Speaker 2: so usually and motherfucker will sit anywhere like on your neck,
Speaker 2: on your face, which basically tells me like you little
Speaker 2: late with the see with.
Speaker 3: You can also train them out of that.
Speaker 4: Because my dog, whenever he comes up to me, and
Speaker 4: I know he's already had everything he needs, I just go.
Speaker 4: So he thinks that him coming up to me makes
Speaker 4: me fall asleep at a certain time.
Speaker 1: Of the day. And he respects us.
Speaker 3: He's just like I turned mom off when you do
Speaker 3: it enough. It's repetition.
Speaker 1: How old is this dog?
Speaker 3: This dog's five?
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, mine's it's hiawa, but it's fifteen. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: the whole old dog trick thing, doesn't you know? Do
Speaker 2: you believe in past lives?
Speaker 4: That question worries me because I don't want to be reincarnated,
Speaker 4: so I kind of do, but I'm scared because then
Speaker 4: that means I gotta come back here again.
Speaker 3: I don't want to. This is how life can be
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 1: Man not to self removed. But have you ever seen soul?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: I not, actually never saw them move.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I their their version. I highly recommend, first
Speaker 2: of all, every Pixar film. It's really for adults.
Speaker 1: It's not for kids.
Speaker 2: I believe that there and that's why I got involved
Speaker 2: with it. Then that was the seventh draft, Like the
Speaker 2: first draft.
Speaker 1: Literally, I was like, yo, you guys are going to
Speaker 1: release this version because it was so mind blowing, how
Speaker 1: brazen they were about metaphysics, reincarnation, all these things. And
Speaker 1: in my mind, I'm like, oh, man, like, I gotta
Speaker 1: think about this movie because I know many a right
Speaker 1: wing pund and be like, yo, liberal Hollywood's trying to
Speaker 1: get our kids off of God and into But I
Speaker 1: know that that version of the film, that's what I
Speaker 1: believe that the Cycle Life is.
Speaker 3: Now I'm gonna watch it.
Speaker 2: It's a must watch, all right. Can you tell me
Speaker 2: what is your most overused emoji?
Speaker 3: According to my niece, it's the laughing while.
Speaker 1: Crying sideways or straight.
Speaker 3: See. I always feel like the sideways is trying too hard,
Speaker 3: like I'm better than the other people. I don't know
Speaker 3: to use that it means the same thing. Why can't
Speaker 3: you just use that one?
Speaker 2: But five of those laughing sideway also, that's sort of like,
Speaker 2: all right, I laughed at your joke and now I'll.
Speaker 1: Leave me alone. Yeah, a scene five of those are
Speaker 1: Do you have your phone on you?
Speaker 3: Oh it's out there?
Speaker 1: Someone grab No no, no, no no.
Speaker 2: This is hilarious only because, uh, someone taught me this
Speaker 2: thing where.
Speaker 3: You you can just wear the whole bag.
Speaker 1: So someone taught me this thing that whatever your most
Speaker 1: used emojis are, that represents where you are in life.
Speaker 3: But I started a new thing. So if you're gonna
Speaker 3: look at my most used emojis, it's gonna be really weird.
Speaker 1: Because you had a unique response to somebody.
Speaker 4: Because I tell everyone that there's certain emojis that don't
Speaker 4: get enough love, and.
Speaker 2: You started using Yes, all right, I did feel bad
Speaker 2: for Okay, so when they did the update with nine
Speaker 2: new emojis, right, so they updated and added nine new emojis,
Speaker 2: and one of them seemed really boring. I felt bad
Speaker 2: for that one, so I started. I did it as
Speaker 2: a joke, but now I'm using it out of pity.
Speaker 2: Are we the same person you said that before?
Speaker 4: I'm cracking up because I'm like, if you literally see
Speaker 4: my emojis, you'll be like, ange, what are these?
Speaker 1: Okay? So, so does the pretzel mean that you missed Philadelphia? Wait?
Speaker 2: I've never seen a person use the pretzel emoji. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's literally all right, So this is me analyzing you
Speaker 2: based on.
Speaker 1: Your rose so everyone knows that the left side is
Speaker 1: the one that you used the most. All right? Is
Speaker 1: this like the punch in the face one like that?
Speaker 3: I it's wait, I just knew that one.
Speaker 4: That's the last newsed. That was just to send my
Speaker 4: cousin something because we go. Is that like a U
Speaker 4: or I don't even know what that one. I just
Speaker 4: feel like it's confusion or all right?
Speaker 1: So the heart one is good, the sad one, the
Speaker 1: shrug all right, shrug one we always use. All right,
Speaker 1: you're wearing purple? Oh mine is blue? What is all right?
Speaker 1: So the chicken inside the egg those recently, that's right,
Speaker 1: we did have eastern what's the pretzel represent That was.
Speaker 4: Just me sending because we know when you have a
Speaker 4: t when you live across the country from people you love,
Speaker 4: you run out of things to talk about. So with
Speaker 4: my cousin, now I just we send emojis back and
Speaker 4: forth that mean nothing and just the bestel Yeah, like.
Speaker 3: I canna let you see you know what.
Speaker 2: I absolutely believe you when you use it, just non
Speaker 2: sequitor like random ship.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, use the cats. No one uses the
Speaker 1: cat emojis.
Speaker 3: Like the cat faces they doing my sewing forums?
Speaker 1: How many? How many? This is hready my favorite of
Speaker 1: this series. How many friends do you.
Speaker 3: Have on my sewing for him?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, how many?
Speaker 3: Take?
Speaker 1: What are you sewing? You mean knitting?
Speaker 3: Well, Crouch, I've really tried. I realized for real, like
Speaker 3: during the pandemic, is like, I don't have no hobbies.
Speaker 1: So I started to Yeah, what have you learned?
Speaker 3: I learned that I should not try to redom on
Speaker 3: the floor by myself.
Speaker 1: Okay, No.
Speaker 4: YouTube makes everything look so easy, and I am very frugal.
Speaker 4: I'm so I'm like peeling stick.
Speaker 1: Oh god, all right, what have you succeeded in as
Speaker 1: far as YouTube tutorial?
Speaker 3: You know, just sanding down and finishing furniture with a
Speaker 3: nice difference. I love thrift stores and if there's a
Speaker 3: chair for five dollars, I'm gonna make it work with
Speaker 3: a sounder.
Speaker 1: I am addicted to there.
Speaker 2: There's a YouTube show in which they'll take old furniture
Speaker 2: and make it into new furniture and kind of makes
Speaker 2: me think I can do that. But then I realized
Speaker 2: I'm quest love and that's not a good idea. So
Speaker 2: I don't do that, but someone recently, like this morning,
Speaker 2: I saw someone take a treasure chest and they turned
Speaker 2: in like too elegant green, like it almost looked like
Speaker 2: a Louis Louis Vauton test.
Speaker 1: And so that's what you do.
Speaker 3: That's what I want to do when I retire.
Speaker 4: Like that's oh man, just I swear to god, I
Speaker 4: could be Laura Ingles. I just I mean, minus a
Speaker 4: few things.
Speaker 1: But wait, someone just posted on Instagram where if you
Speaker 1: remember who's Laura Ingles's arch nemesis on the show, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I do not the blonde girl that we
Speaker 1: all have Nelly. Wait, how do you know?
Speaker 5: Wait?
Speaker 1: How old are you? Okay, so your grandma will watch?
Speaker 2: Okay, it's an episode where Nelly was faking an injury
Speaker 2: so that she didn't have to go to school, and
Speaker 2: you know everyone's going to school, and she was making
Speaker 2: Lara do her work for her, like do these hard chores,
Speaker 2: carry bucket up of water and all.
Speaker 1: These things, do her homework for whatever.
Speaker 2: And one day Laura had left like some sort of
Speaker 2: item in the house and she like, remember, I gotta
Speaker 2: go back and go get it. And right as she
Speaker 2: was walking to the house. She caught like Nelly like celebrating,
Speaker 2: like literally like.
Speaker 3: Like she's in the.
Speaker 1: Crib, like oh, like all that stuff.
Speaker 2: And Laura got so incensed right that she knocked on
Speaker 2: the door and she, like Nellie got back into the
Speaker 2: wheelchair like oh yes, And Laura came in. She's like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, just I forgot to take you on your
Speaker 2: morning walk. And she walked up this big hill and
Speaker 2: then she just tossed her.
Speaker 3: Over a damn that's not where I was expected as started.
Speaker 2: She tossed her over a mountain and whatever, like and
Speaker 2: the mom's watching the mom who's equally is evil.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm sorry this became like two old people talk
Speaker 1: about I know.
Speaker 3: After the young person in the corner was like, my
Speaker 3: grandmom like that show.
Speaker 1: Uh do you make up your bed every morning?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: I do, because the dog does jump in and I
Speaker 4: want him to jump on the top, not on my sheets.
Speaker 4: Other than that, I never made it before the dog.
Speaker 1: All right, what is your motto? What is your life motto?
Speaker 4: Who?
Speaker 3: God? It's funny because I had literally just written this
Speaker 3: down because I decided I needed a life motto, and
Speaker 3: now I can't remember. I swear to God my notes.
Speaker 1: He was like, I need inspiration, something to.
Speaker 3: I just thought, I will crack up if this is
Speaker 3: at the top of my and watch it be something stupid.
Speaker 1: Note to self, get yourself a life motto.
Speaker 3: No, I'm laughing because this is let's see, No, that
Speaker 3: ain't God. If I had a life mottol it would.
Speaker 1: Be find a life model that and honestly.
Speaker 3: Be kind, be kind, be kind, be kinder than you
Speaker 3: think you need to be. Don't take anything personal.
Speaker 1: That's what if you don't authentically feel like being kind.
Speaker 4: You know what I've learned that most well, I mean,
Speaker 4: I mean if someone's punching you in the face. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean just from going through taking care of my
Speaker 4: mom and her death and just a bunch of other things, divorced,
Speaker 4: and you just never know what that person walking down
Speaker 4: the street is going through. And some of the people
Speaker 4: I remember most of my life are people who just
Speaker 4: stopped to give me a smile, or like I could
Speaker 4: name that teacher right away who bucked me up, but
Speaker 4: can't name under the other ones. So it's like, I
Speaker 4: just want to be that person that might say, someone
Speaker 4: from jumping off a bridge.
Speaker 1: Okay, I totally understand that. What is the best gift
Speaker 1: that you've ever given?
Speaker 3: The best gift, I would say, taken my taken one
Speaker 3: day to give mind this is hilarious. I would say,
Speaker 3: taking my niece to go to the slime Museum in
Speaker 3: New York, taking a day off from work when I
Speaker 3: was working on that show, and we went to someplace
Speaker 3: called the Slime Museum. And it is the most bootleg
Speaker 3: you can tell.
Speaker 4: Somebody just rented the bottom of this and threw a
Speaker 4: bunch of slime and a bunch of unhappy workers.
Speaker 1: Like, wait, what is the slime museum?
Speaker 3: That's what they call it.
Speaker 4: It seems like someone just rented a place they knew
Speaker 4: that kids loved slime. And I mean there was a
Speaker 4: it was like getting into a club, you know. But
Speaker 4: I bought VIP tickets for her, so we went past
Speaker 4: the club. She felt so she got to make her
Speaker 4: own slime and I got.
Speaker 1: She enjoyed it. THO, yes, yes, it meant the world too.
Speaker 1: Who is the funniest person that you know?
Speaker 3: Oh god, that I personally know.
Speaker 4: Now, See this is weird because it would be like
Speaker 4: a tie between Dave Chappelle and a dude who talks
Speaker 4: to himself on the corner at CRENSHAWL.
Speaker 1: And Oh, I thought you meant the Gus Christ guy.
Speaker 4: But there's just so many people who that's so funny.
Speaker 4: That's the person I sent the pretzel to. But there's
Speaker 4: just so many people I find that are funny. They
Speaker 4: just don't know how to hone it or make it
Speaker 4: specific enough. They're just funny, funny, funny, funny.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm not anywhere near like that level of screenwriting whatever,
Speaker 2: but I am a person that will take notes if
Speaker 2: someone tells a funny story, are you the person to whom?
Speaker 2: Like if you're in a group and someone tells the
Speaker 2: story of like, oh, man, the time that I went
Speaker 2: skiing and I caught my husband no.
Speaker 1: No, no no, and you're like I'll be right back,
Speaker 1: and you're like, so all your notes are Yes, you
Speaker 1: still people's lives.
Speaker 4: That's but that's but it's also I want to punch
Speaker 4: up people's lives because there's stories you can tell.
Speaker 3: Like my husband will tell a story and I'm like,
Speaker 3: rap it up.
Speaker 4: It could be so much better if you come up
Speaker 4: with the setup, get people emotionally involved, joke not you don't.
Speaker 3: He's like but I need to tell the whole truth.
Speaker 3: The truth's boring.
Speaker 1: You said this, and I god, oh man, all right.
Speaker 1: So the person I'm seeing now we had our first
Speaker 1: heart to heart story and she sat down sos, Honey,
Speaker 1: I want to tell you something you know, And I
Speaker 1: knew it was serious when the compliments came first.
Speaker 2: The last time this happened to me was Obama, where
Speaker 2: literally the compliment came first, and then I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, what did I do? And literally she's like,
Speaker 2: you got to figure out a way. Like I'm surprised
Speaker 2: you work at a comedy show and you don't know
Speaker 2: the art of.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, you don't even write comedy, so like
Speaker 1: what the hell? Like you criticize me for? But I
Speaker 1: realized at this very moment, like, wow, man, I could
Speaker 1: have used Angeline Life to teach me how.
Speaker 3: To My husband would be like, no, you don't. He
Speaker 3: gets so mad.
Speaker 1: All right. My final question to you, yes, sir, what
Speaker 1: is the hardest part of your job that no one
Speaker 1: gets to see or experience that it is?
Speaker 4: Everyone thinks that it's a bunch of people throwing around
Speaker 4: funny jokes, because again, they didn't show that part on
Speaker 4: thirty rock because truth is boring. It is a bunch
Speaker 4: of no's, and we can't say that. And you've offended someone,
Speaker 4: You're gonna offend this sponsor go back in. Someone's offended.
Speaker 4: One of the actors are offended because it reminds them
Speaker 4: of their ex boyfriend, and just the number of people
Speaker 4: that whole list you see at the end of the show.
Speaker 4: We have to accommodate what everyone will and won't do,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: So we'll even come up with that edging expectations.
Speaker 3: No, we don't have the set design for that. So
Speaker 3: it's a lot of just or we don't have enough days.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of just sitting there like everything we
Speaker 3: built just burnt to the ground and we have to
Speaker 3: shoot tomorrow.
Speaker 1: You know. It's a lot of So is there an
Speaker 1: actual scientific formula to a joke?
Speaker 2: Like Chappelle did a thing where he's like, the joke
Speaker 2: starts with the punchline. He has a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: punchs and this is real. He has a whole a
Speaker 2: jar or whatever with punchlines written, and it's his job
Speaker 2: to figure out what the setup is that will make
Speaker 2: that punchline funnier.
Speaker 4: See, I think for him that's true because he's always
Speaker 4: Dave Chappelle and so that's where he thinks of a
Speaker 4: place of jokes. But with characters, it's like, I need
Speaker 4: to think what this character really do, and so I
Speaker 4: need to think like five different.
Speaker 3: People, you know. So it's keeping it so people people
Speaker 3: online love to say, you.
Speaker 4: Know, that's not what that character would really do and
Speaker 4: did they have any black writers in the room, you know,
Speaker 4: or something like that. So it's making sure that you
Speaker 4: keep all these voices in your head consistent and going
Speaker 4: with what the audience will recognize from them, even if
Speaker 4: the joke is easier that you want to go for.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I grew up around a bunch of old people,
Speaker 2: so I'm still using like I'm a jazz person, so
Speaker 2: I still call people cats and men that's hip or
Speaker 2: you know, that's killing dog or whatever, but that's not
Speaker 2: the language of Now. I'll give Spike Lee a legendary past,
Speaker 2: but like we're kind of past the the hip hop
Speaker 2: jargon of the truth or yes, you know whatever. But
Speaker 2: in Spike's world, okay, it's through his lens. But do
Speaker 2: you find pressure, Like how often are you on Urban Dictionary?
Speaker 4: Here's the thing, though, one, there's always going to be
Speaker 4: a younger person in the room to correct you, but
Speaker 4: also spending time with the young people in my family,
Speaker 4: Like my niece just lectured me about saying the word
Speaker 4: dope and don't say skibbity anymore.
Speaker 3: That's totally yeah. But then it's funny because most of
Speaker 3: the words that they use are our words. She was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you don't know what clock means? Yes, I do.
Speaker 1: They're bringing that back, okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So talking to her.
Speaker 4: She just at that age where she just puts the
Speaker 4: FaceTime down forgets that I'm even there. He doesn't go
Speaker 4: about her day, but then she'll chime in when she
Speaker 4: remember there.
Speaker 2: So you literally like do time with younger people, just
Speaker 2: didn't see what their language is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ah, man, I want.
Speaker 3: To be that person, the one that's just like, see, I'm.
Speaker 2: That way with music and it. One time it bit
Speaker 2: me in the ass. I did one bar mitzvah one
Speaker 2: you're already laughing at the points line. I didn't even
Speaker 2: get to it. No, someone hired me for a bar
Speaker 2: mitzvah and I made the mistake. Because I work at
Speaker 2: thirty Rock. There's a whole bunch of interns so I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, easy, hey, what was you listening at
Speaker 2: when you was like, you know, because they're already nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, whatever, Yo, what was you listening at?
Speaker 1: Fifteen?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: I was listening to d D Da Da Da Da Da.
Speaker 1: So I had this list already, you know, Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: thirty seconds to Mars Jonas Brothers.
Speaker 2: I had the zone and I arrived to the spot
Speaker 2: and it's a black bar mitzvah, and the look a
Speaker 2: tear I had when I walked in and it was
Speaker 2: like hood like right, And I was like wait, I said,
Speaker 2: apartments for right, and she's said, oh wait, you didn't
Speaker 2: know that my husband played.
Speaker 1: For the Denver Nuggets. I'm dead And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I didn't. And his side of the family was there.
Speaker 1: And that's the only time where I stalled, like I
Speaker 1: needed an extra hour just to find internet and download
Speaker 1: clean versions of hip hop stuff that I didn't have
Speaker 1: was live. Well it was.
Speaker 2: But when you're that person, yes, yes, then you know
Speaker 2: I'm on wrap caviar looking up like what are the
Speaker 2: kids listening to?
Speaker 3: Wait?
Speaker 4: You just reminded me of a story because whenever people
Speaker 4: ask me about like groups and stuff. The roots is
Speaker 4: the first one that comes to my head, and I
Speaker 4: remember saying this recently and they were like, no, someone neurrant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even I would take myself out of that, all right.
Speaker 1: My final question is how cathartic and healing was it
Speaker 1: to I know where the concept came from, but when
Speaker 1: did you start it and why was it necessary for
Speaker 1: you to write this book.
Speaker 4: I'll say I've heard authors say that writing you know
Speaker 4: about the hardest times of their life is cathartic and healing,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, what the fuck drugs.
Speaker 3: Are you on? Because for me it was no. It
Speaker 3: was crying and then like trying to make sure I
Speaker 3: look like my husband. We were newly married. He's like,
Speaker 3: what is this. I'm like, I'm a writer, but it
Speaker 3: was just no.
Speaker 4: It was really hard because looking back at fifteen years,
Speaker 4: I'm also closer to my mother's age when she passed,
Speaker 4: and I see things why she did a lot of
Speaker 4: the things, and not having her to ask questions of
Speaker 4: and stuff like that. But then once I got to
Speaker 4: the jokes, I was like, all right, who I like
Speaker 4: this part, but yeah, the story, the actual story.
Speaker 3: Oh god, I was like, not for this amount of money,
Speaker 3: if I were do this again, someone punched me in
Speaker 3: a face. Don't nobody read no more?
Speaker 1: Like, yes they do.
Speaker 3: Wait, this is like every time I talk to some Okay,
Speaker 3: if they read, why they got to tell you. I
Speaker 3: don't usually read, but I'll pick up your book.
Speaker 1: Even I've heard that a few times. I've heard that
Speaker 1: a lot of times.
Speaker 3: But yeah, apparently, I mean, I thought it was coming back.
Speaker 3: And I've never stopped reading.
Speaker 4: But there's just you asked some get on a dating
Speaker 4: app and ask him, man, how the last time he
Speaker 4: read a book.
Speaker 3: It's the most sad thing.
Speaker 1: I Well, see, I thought everyone during the pandemic matters.
Speaker 1: I've read more books post pandemic, Like I felt bad
Speaker 1: that as an author, as a person that has New
Speaker 1: York Times bestsellers. Maybe I was on one two books
Speaker 1: a year.
Speaker 2: Now I'll be done a book in like five weeks,
Speaker 2: and if I really love it, I might get done
Speaker 2: through it.
Speaker 1: Like I've read more books in my life in the
Speaker 1: last like five six years. Ange, I thank you so
Speaker 1: much for this conversation.
Speaker 3: Oh this was awesome.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I enjoyed its great Angela Thistle on the
Speaker 1: Quest Loft Show. Please purchase a book can I keep
Speaker 1: this polease? Yes? This is beautiful.
Speaker 2: Quest Left Show is hosted by Me Mirror, Quest Loft Thompson.
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Speaker 2: Additional support by Lance Coleman. Special thanks to Kathy Wrong,
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Speaker 1: To Sugar Steve Mandelo.
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