00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin. 00:00:18 Speaker 2: Hey everybody, it's me W camout Bell. I'm dropping into your feed today to bring your preview of my new podcast, Who's with Me Now. If you know me in my work, I like to have conversations, but not just regular conversations. I like to have conversations that focus on the big talk, the big things. So I'm talking to some people, reached out to friends of mine, people I admire, to ask them things that I really want to know, and also to give them their flowers. I hope you enjoy it, and if you do, find Who's with Me with W cam al Bell wherever you listen to your podcasts. Push can Plus subscribers can hear each episode ad free. Sign up on the Who's with Me with W kmal Bell show page on Apple or at pushkin dot Fm, slash plus. Hey everybody, it's me W Cabell. Welcome to episode five of Who's With Me? And also, if you're on YouTube like subscribe, hit that hype button. I hear that hype button is important. I hypet things now too, so hit that hype button. If you're on the regular podcast apps, just subscribe, and you know, hit the share button. Share with a friend everybody, please share this podcast with your friends. That's how we build this It's really going well right now. I'm really excited about it, but we got to share it with the friends. Please share it with your friends. 00:01:29 Speaker 1: Thank you. 00:01:29 Speaker 2: Today the guest is David Diggs. Super excited to have him on. The conversation was great. You may know David from the most recent season of The Boys. You may know him as one of the stars of the musical Hamilton on Broadway. You might know him from his rap group clipping he's a rapper, or you may know him from just Lots of Stuff snow Piercer. The dude works hard. We talk about working hard and the importance of being with your family. We also talk about the importance of men nurturing their friendships with their men friends. Famously, he's friends with Rafael Cassol. They met each other in high school. Raefael is also a good person who is too good looking to be such a good person. I don't know how they do it. And also they're both famously from the East Bay of Northern California, Oakland and Berkeley and a little bit Albany. Weirdly, but anyway, we talked about all that enjoy the interview when we get there. First, I have a confession to make. I w Cambell used to be a fan of the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship. I know, I know, I know, it's not I was bit by the martial arts bug early as a young person. I grew up in the era of Bruce Lee movies being on television and renting them from the video store, and so I did martial arts as a kid, also as a teenager. So I love martial arts and I found my pathway into the UFC through martial arts. Originally, when the UFC came out in the nineties, I didn't like it because their whole marketing thing was like somebody might die, and I was like, I don't really want to see that. But then when Dana White took it over, he made an effort to make it more mainstream, bringing more rules in and weight classes, and that was all great, and so I was there for the prime era of the UFC. 00:03:09 Speaker 1: Rowsy Connor McGregor. 00:03:11 Speaker 2: My favorite UFC fighter of all time Amna Nunez, who was the first champion who was also openly gay in any combat sport. So yeah, shout out to Aman in nunas the Lionus. And then at some point I started to just struggle with my UFC fandom. I think it happened around COVID because Dana White, who was clearly, you know, not a guy that I'd want to like hang out with or invite to my house, just through the struggles of COVID he did with a lot of people on the right did. They went super maga and super trumpy and super anti the left, even though COVID happened when his friend Donald Trump was president. So I don't know what had to do with the left, but all the COVID restrictions really put a b in Dana's bonnet, and so he's gone. He went super like maga. Not just Republican, but maga. He's also spoken in all three of Trump's Republican national conventions and calls Trump a friend, and you know that's not a good sign. And so I just started to like feel like, I don't know if I can support this sport with my dollars anymore, and I started to buy less and less fights. And then a couple of years ago, on New Year's Eve, he famously was in a fight with his wife that was captured on video. They were in a nightclub somewhere and she slapped him and he slapped it right back, and I was like, oh, I'm out, And I knew I was right to be out because a lot of UFC fans were saying she hit him first. Yeah, that's that's how uh chivalry, being a gentleman works. 00:04:39 Speaker 1: My wife hit me. She had it coming. 00:04:42 Speaker 2: Oh, you guys are awful, and you're probably gonna be awful in the comments if you find this clip. And I had been one of the evangelists of the sport, one of the few left wing evangelists. Max's also a fan of a guy named Luke Thomas who's also a more left wing evangelist of the UFC. He's an MMA journalist and also a regular journalist. He's in my book Who Is Government? Luke's a great guy. Follow his work on YouTube. Luke Thomas gets a political also Morning Combat, which is a UFC show or his MMA show. 00:05:07 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:05:07 Speaker 2: So I was like one of the few left wing UFC people. I knew, fans I knew, and I just like, I can't do it anymore. 00:05:12 Speaker 1: I can't. 00:05:13 Speaker 2: I can't do it. And I understand that athletes don't always have your politics. That's fine, but they can't be anti my humanity or what I think is good in the world. They can't do that. Like recently some of the San Francisco giants on Pride Day war hats with Bible versus that were somehow saying we're not with Pride Day. So it's like, all right, well, I can't sit for a game of that. I get that we don't have to think the same way, but I can't have you poke in a stick in my face while I'm trying to enjoy your sport. So I just left it behind. But Dana White did not care. He didn't care. He figured out a way to keep the sport going. But I think day White knew he was losing some left wing fans. So in his new media deal, he didn't do a pay per view thing, because pay per view you do exactly who wants your sport. He signed with Paramount Plus, which is also the Ellisons, and so you don't have to pay for individual fights now they just come if you pay for Paramount Plus. So I think it's a way of hacking around on the idea of like, oh, I don't have to get you to pay for anymore. You'll just watch it because it's on your app. I did not watch it. And we all have been talking about the UFC recently because of the event that just happened over the past weekend, the UFC Freedom two fifty Raw Rah Kid RockA USA event that happened on the lawn of the White House that was supposed to be to celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth Birthday of America but somehow ended up being moved to Donald Trump's birthday. And that event happened over the weekend, and if you read the reviews of it as a UFC event, people say it was a good UFC event, But if you read the reviews of it as a cultural event, it is pointing to everything wrong in America right now. In particular, one moment, a fighter named Josh Hokitt won his fight against Things fought. Derek lewis a black guy, which is not important, but there's not that many black guys in the UFC, so I mentioned it, so Josh Hokit, who is not a black guy, at the end of his fight when he was in the ring doing his winter speech, and Josh Hogen is sort of a he's doing like a bad version of Randy Mochellman Savage from the WWE. It's like a TMU Randy Mochellman Savage. Uh. He's given his speech and somebody he sort of runs out of steam and clearly just wants to get out of there. And so he turns to Joe Rogan who's interviewing him, and Joe was dressed like I think the way I could describe Joe, he was dressed like a like the junior used car salesman who needs to talk to the manager to decide if you're gonna get your undercoding. He was dressed like a like a majer d at a restaurant. That's not good anymore. So Josh Hog turns to Joe Rogan and says, uh, Michelle Obaum was a man right America, And the crowd cheers. And I heard this because I was paying attention to the fights through Luke Thomas's watch along and just through following it online. And I saw that. I was like what And I pulled it up and found the clip and that's what. 00:08:03 Speaker 1: The guy did. 00:08:05 Speaker 2: And to me, any any fin layer of belief that this was about, that this event was about that was nonpartisan and non political. Dana White kept saying it was non political, it was just the way to celebrate America. Even though Dana White is political and everything he does, he somehow seems to think he's not political. But at the same time he's spoken at all three Republican national conventions. He literally will say, I'm not into politics, but you spoke at three Republican national conventions. So any hint that this was not a toxic environment strewn with maga politics went away. When Josh Hogad said the thing about Michelle Obama that I don't want to repeat again. It sort of ties into last week why I really am anti and have to be loudly anti transphobia, because transphobia doesn't just hurt trans people, it hurts women overall, because anybody who's transphobic is going to use that as an attack on a woman they don't like. And Michelle Obama, who's just somewhere living her best life, having conversations on her podcast with her brother, just doing her own thing and has not ever tried to run for politics and has not been involved in politics since Obama left office, is being called a man on the lawn of the house she used to live in, and Joe Rogan just sat there and laughed, which really made me just feel like, fuck you, Joe Rogan. The Kevin Heart Roast the news story that will never end. Recently, Joe Rogan said, any comedian who criticized any comedian who made jokes with the Kevin Heart Roast, that comedian is a trader to comedy. And trader is such a funny word because traders normally use as the word you use when you're a trader to your country. And I would say, Joe Rogan, I'm fining to be a trader to comedy. Are you fining to be a trader to your country? Because that's what you're doing right now by glad handling Trump everywhere you go and letting this man slowly become the fascist of his dreams. You, Joe Rogan, are being a trader to your country. I'll take trader to comedy. Can you handle trader to your country? All right, let's breathe, let's relax. 00:10:06 Speaker 1: We got to clear the air. 00:10:07 Speaker 2: I gotta relax because my guest doesn't need all this bad ugliness in the air, because he is the amazing, the awesome, the incredible to be Biggs. 00:10:27 Speaker 1: Right now we're officially started. 00:10:29 Speaker 3: There we go. 00:10:30 Speaker 2: So thank you for doing my podcast, Thank you for having It's You're among the first conversations I've had for this podcast. So I when I was like, who can I reach out to? I want to come down to LA and do some episodes, and you were high on my list. And I was also like, who knows where that dude is in the world. You can be like I figured you'd say yes, but also was like he could be anywhere. 00:10:49 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, that's true. 00:10:50 Speaker 4: But I'm always trying to be home, so like it's good if you're doing so of the NLA. It's a really like good choice to try and hit me, like get me to do something here because I'm trying to be here. 00:10:59 Speaker 2: Okay, I start every episode of by giving people their flowers. I feel like in the hectic world that we're in and the thing's going on and I'm and I'm booking people who I really admire and want to talked to for an hour, so it's not like it's not yet just like, well I got to book you because we got a slot, so it really important to me to like book people, and so certainly. I've appreciate how like how you have come into my life. Like when I it was when I moved back to the Bay Area with my wife and Melissa, who you know, was pregnant with our second kid, our second daughter. I was between jobs, so I didn't really know what was happening when things were going on, and that I was working on the United Shades, and I was really like had decided, we decided to make our life in the East Bay. At that point, we were living in Berkeley, but we always wanted to get to Oakland. But we decided we're not going to live in LA or New York. We're going to be here. And when you and Rafa reached out about blind spotting, I remember getting the call like they got these guys want you to do this thing. 00:11:56 Speaker 1: I was like, okay, cool, and then they're like, they want to talk to you on the phone. Do you remember this. You guys were like, we want to talk to. 00:12:01 Speaker 3: You on the I remember talking to you on the phone. 00:12:04 Speaker 1: It was like a meet. They were like, they want to talk to you on the phone, was what it was said to me. I was like, okay. 00:12:07 Speaker 2: Before I moderated and you both just sort of let me know that, no, we know who you are, which I appreciated. 00:12:15 Speaker 4: It was such a that everything associated with that film was like a wild experience for us because we had yet to work in Hollywood at all, really, so we didn't know how these things actually work. But it was you know, we kept being like, we want everybody to know how intentional this is for us, you know, like this is not a part of this that's like, yeah, that would be cool. It was like, no, this is who we want to do this and you were like, what it would be awesome if Kamal did this, Like this would be amazing. 00:12:45 Speaker 2: And for me, I was still in this spot. I mean I still in this spot, but I was in the spot of like, I know, I'm working hard, I'm doing doing things, but I don't know if you know who's seeing it, or who's aware of it, or who is who or who even or maybe people see it but don't like it, you know what I mean. I sort of put my head down and like I'm going to do the work. Especially then, so the fact that I think you all told me that you'd seen me at the punch line back in the day, Yeah, which I was when it's the club that I came up at in San Francisco. So I just appreciate you too, and you how intentional you all are about your life and your work and connecting those things, and how when I when I look at you, like I said when I reached out for you the podcast, like this dude, I just saw him on stage in Berkeley with clipping like, you know, wrapping his ass off madness. Yeah, I had opened my eagle on yesterday. 00:13:32 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, So I just I just saw you. 00:13:36 Speaker 2: Then I'm watching you on my phone in a in the new clip from the Boys, like there's a very proof like there he is, yeah yeah yeah. And then and then as I sit down today, I'm like, oh, another movie's coming out, Yeah yeah, a Magic Hour. 00:13:52 Speaker 4: Magic Hour Yeah yeah, which I'm I'm that's one of those ones, like amazing that it's gonna have a theatrical release, very independent, yeah, very yeah. 00:13:59 Speaker 3: So I'm so excited about it. 00:14:01 Speaker 2: Looking at the clip, looks like the movie is like, is this the movie that me and my wife can go to or should we see separately of those intense marriage movies where you're like. 00:14:10 Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, I think it's a can though. It's very pro marriage. Okay, it's very pro forgiveness. It's very Yeah. 00:14:17 Speaker 2: I remember I went and saw Eternal Sunshine of the spotless uh spotless mind with my girlfriend at the time, and I watched someone go I think we got to break up. 00:14:26 Speaker 1: I don't get this from you. I'm not I don't feel this. 00:14:31 Speaker 3: Where's the support, I'm not so. 00:14:35 Speaker 2: I just want to be careful about those things. But I just see you like busting your ass all the time. Oh man, I appreciate that. I mean, yes, sort of. I mean we all waste time behind the scenes, and we all we all like have days we can't get out of bed. I'm not saying that you no, no, no, no, but I just but I just want to be clear, like and again to take these flowers. 00:14:57 Speaker 3: Yes, I'm not accepting. I'm trying to be and you can you can elaborate. 00:15:01 Speaker 2: But I do see like sometimes there's people like I look at your I get he's he's. 00:15:07 Speaker 1: Good at a lot of things. Just take it. 00:15:10 Speaker 2: He's good a lot of things. But he doesn't have to do all these things. He doesn't need to be here in Berkeley, wrapping his ass off with clipping and he could be at home, you know what I mean, you know, he could be he you know, I see you like I just see you in being in a lot of spaces and and you do all of those spaces. And I really appreciate like it models like intentional work ethic, but also the kind of like approach to this business that is like on some level we're all just like some of us are just plumbers making the donuts, you know what I mean, not that plumbers should make donuts, but you know what I mean, the idea of like we're just doing the work that's in front of us. 00:15:43 Speaker 3: It's crazy, but yeah, you know, yeah, no, I agree. 00:15:46 Speaker 4: I mean to a certain degree, I do have to do all of those things because I don't know how to function otherwise, you know, like I don't ye the Bay Arean is of it all is that is that thing where we just do things. We have to make things, and a lot of the way the business side of this works is you end up waiting to make things. 00:16:09 Speaker 3: You end up like waiting for permission to make things. 00:16:11 Speaker 4: And I don't know how to feel like a person when I'm doing that. At the same time, like and this is you know, I admire you a lot in this too, because like I'm trying. I'm new to this dad business and I'm like always trying to be with him, so anything that takes me away from him, I am like I'm like very nervous about and I'm always trying to minimize and like how quickly can I get in and get out? But I still like need to do it. You know, the amount of like serious discussions me and my wife Abby I have had to have about like I know this doesn't bring in any money and I know like where she's never getting out. It's like me apologizing beforehand, like I'm so sorry, but I just I have to go do this rap show. 00:16:54 Speaker 1: I mean, and you know, and it's a real rap show. 00:16:56 Speaker 2: It's not like it doesn't there's nothing about clipping that feels like it's like a hobby. It feels like this is and you know, I saw the tiny desk and I've and listened to the music and it's like there's in an alternate timeline, this is just who you are. 00:17:08 Speaker 3: Yeah, Like you're just that guy. 00:17:10 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I still kind of think of myself as that guy. I don't know, like, yeah, I'm just like I in the you know, around twenty two thousand and nine or something eight something like that, Like I made a very conscious decision to start identifying as a rapper, you know, because I was like, I otherwise, how can I say that I am? You know, like it was the thing I had been doing for longer than anything else. I wasn't making any money from anywhere at the time, so it was just like, well, what's the thing that And I had. 00:17:43 Speaker 3: To be like, well, what do I love if I you know, what is what is the thing? I want? 00:17:47 Speaker 4: To be honest, I want to make these rap songs. I want to go all over the world playing raps. I'm a rapper. I was saying that in public, which is a crazy thing for like a young black men to just especially like without a deal and with no like evidence that that's working. But just like you know, show it up in my ninety seven Honda Civic being like, yeah, I'm a rapper. 00:18:07 Speaker 3: I'm a crazy thing to do. 00:18:08 Speaker 4: But I so anyway, that was such a choice that it's a thing that I still I still very much identify as. 00:18:16 Speaker 2: Yeah, and and I would imagine, like you said in the bay, there's just a let's make some stuff yeah, and sort of let's make some stuff without almost without regards often to profit or or market. 00:18:29 Speaker 1: Uh whether the market needs this thing. 00:18:32 Speaker 4: They know, because we don't know how, right, like who there's no industry there, which is it's a wild place in hindsight to be such a robust like arts forward place where there isn't an industry behind it. So all of us are just making it and like figure and making the time to make it and figuring out how to work other jobs and make it. And that's just what you do because like art is necessary and we make art and so yeah that yeah, so that that's just part of the thing. And I have so I was just thinking about this today, like I have a lot of I have hired people and also keep other people around me who are concerned with product right because I don't even know how. 00:19:14 Speaker 1: Oh you need people who are like that's a good unit. We can sell that. 00:19:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean not in a cynical way, but in like a this is a capitalistic society we live in. You have made a good unit that we can this is a good thing we can do. 00:19:25 Speaker 4: Yeah, or even you know, even in films like this, I am such a process guy that I don't you know, if I see a thing that's like, this is a really interesting script I would like to do. 00:19:41 Speaker 3: That's all I need to want to do it. 00:19:42 Speaker 4: And other people can advise me like that's gonna tank, that's not or this is whatever. Ultimately I can decide to do it, even like while shooting, somebody to tell me that's what directors are for. I'm so interested in the process. I'll do a thousand takes of a scene. 00:19:54 Speaker 3: I don't care. 00:19:54 Speaker 4: You got to tell me when it's done. I'm going to keep trying something new. I'm having a great time here, you know, So like you tell me when you got it, because I don't know. I'm just out here. 00:20:04 Speaker 1: I'm just out here doing it. 00:20:05 Speaker 3: I'm just out here. 00:20:06 Speaker 2: You're out here, like do the thing and let the director go, oh there it was great. I'm glad to know that where it was. 00:20:11 Speaker 4: Yeah, And I put a lot of trust in my collaborators in that way. Like my you know, if when I know what my role on a on a particular project is, my role here is as actor. 00:20:20 Speaker 3: Great, That's what I'm doing. I have to learn the lines and say the lines. 00:20:24 Speaker 4: Those are my parameters and like I'm gonna do as much as I can within that is everybody else. You tell me when I'm lit, you tell me if my hair is out of place, you tell I'm not gonna look at the screen. 00:20:32 Speaker 3: I don't care. 00:20:33 Speaker 4: He's like, my job is to be honest, try to find these moments of honesty. Like that's it, and I'll as many chances as you want to give me to do that. Cool if you're losing light and we got to move on, cool, you know, Like that's what it is. 00:20:48 Speaker 2: So I don't know if it's intentional, but I mean it's sort of connected to like you just want to work and do things, but you're just a person who also it has no problem appearing and like you said, a small independent film on stage doing you know, how would you declibe clipping is where's their role? 00:21:04 Speaker 1: And rap and hip hop? What is the you know? I talked to Mike Eglist day. 00:21:07 Speaker 2: He was like, I called myself art raps isn't working more so, I was like, I say indie rap because it sort of describes the entire thing. 00:21:14 Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting. 00:21:15 Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe we'll just put ourselves there. I don't We've always just called ourselves rap music. It was like very intentionally track because when we first came along, it was a lot of a lot of the commentary around us was like like I don't like rap, but I like this, or like this isn't like what rap is like, and we kept so we started being very intentional about this is just rap. 00:21:37 Speaker 3: We're not actually doing anything new. 00:21:38 Speaker 4: We are taking all of the traditions that we have learned from being lifelong like practitioners and fans of this culture of music and making the thing. 00:21:46 Speaker 3: That we do. 00:21:46 Speaker 4: So so I've always just called I just. 00:21:50 Speaker 1: You're not an anti rap. You post post rap. 00:21:54 Speaker 4: Not post rap, node nothing. Yeah, it's all it's all rap music. 00:21:59 Speaker 2: So but yeah, just to get back to the questions, like I see you like this is like what I would define is like like this hardcore rap outfit rap group. You're doing independent movies and then but you're also I'm not shocked at all to see you pop up in something big and loud and commercial like The Boys. That doesn't feel like Deviata is supposed to be independent. There's a time when people sort of put those labels on people, like you're not supposed to be doing that, you'd Parker posey, what are you doing in the movie. And I don't feel like with you that I see you as being like, oh that's I feel like, no, that's perfect for him, and I'm happy for him and I can't wait to see what he does in that space. 00:22:34 Speaker 3: Oh that's cool, thank you. 00:22:36 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:22:36 Speaker 3: I mean I think that those. 00:22:40 Speaker 4: That kind of sectioning off is sort of disappearing in some ways, you know. I'm I think we've we as fans as audience, have become so much more aware of the business side of it than we were before and how hard it is to make money doing art. So like I don't know, generally for me, any actor I see in a big thing that it looks like they got paid a lot for Like I'm very. 00:23:01 Speaker 1: Happy for man, that guy got insurance. You know, he's got an insurance cover for the whole year. 00:23:08 Speaker 4: And you know, Mike Eagle Song gets a placement in a on a Netflix movie. Hell yeah, like that's yes, I know you didn't get paid enough for that, but like I hope you did, like you know, so yeah, but I do, you know. I mean, the jump off for me was Hamilton and It and it was the most popular thing in a very long time, but it was still for me, it was me and my friends making something dumb, right, So like that it was so the only process I know. 00:23:45 Speaker 3: It's all part of the same as the same process. 00:23:47 Speaker 4: Oh, these people are people I trust, Like, these are artists I enjoy working with. This is an idea that I don't know if it works or not. It's a big, a big thing for me on everything. It's like if I'm the most attractive thing for me is to not know if it's gonna work because I need the experiment of it. I need the excitement of being like, wow, this is a big swing or what could we possibly be doing here, you know, being halfway through and me like this is a failure. You know, I kind of need that juice. So yeah, and so it just but because I think I have benefited in many ways because of that being my sort of entry to the more mainstream world in that for me, it was still that exact same modality of working, but but it became this phenomenon. 00:24:35 Speaker 3: Yeah that was just pop art, you know. 00:24:38 Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean I don't want to spend too much time with that because I know you've talked about Hamilton a lot, but I do I don't actually know the origin story of you and lin Manuel coming across each other. 00:24:47 Speaker 1: I'm sure you've talked about before. 00:24:48 Speaker 3: But how do you just freestyle of Supreme? 00:24:51 Speaker 1: Okay, just a hip hop collective? 00:24:53 Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, so we were rapping like yeah yeah and a yeah and a funny clerical error but. 00:25:01 Speaker 3: And so on. Some bas I told the story before too, so you cut it out of the thing. But like, it's. 00:25:06 Speaker 4: Me and Anthony VININCIALI was another founding member Freestyle. I was living in San Francisco. We were both due to a clerical error called the substitute teach the same class in Marine City, and so we show up. It's like a first grade class or something. You have to come up with something new to do with these kids every fifteen minutes. I guess we're both getting paid today, so we're both gonna do this. Yeah, And at some point we just start freestyling with the kid. He's like, do you do you freestyle? 00:25:30 Speaker 1: I do? 00:25:30 Speaker 4: He was like, great, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna be boxing. We do this, and we did that for half an hour. Really worked out. 00:25:35 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:25:35 Speaker 4: I think his wife's car broken down or something, so I gave him a ride home to San Francisco, and he we started talking and he was like, I'm part of this group freestyle of a pre of my friend Lynn. I don't know if you know him, he's like whatever, he's about to do a show on Broadway called in the Heights. That I have no idea of anything that you're talking about, but whatever. So but it was that's how I know those guys say that we became friends. 00:25:59 Speaker 2: And then I've become more fascinating recently with just the idea of sliding doors and butterfly effect and the idea that like that, doesn't you know that's a that's a yeah, your whole life goes a different direction if you maybe like you still an actor, you're still rapping, but you're not necessarily in Hamilton. 00:26:15 Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm almost certainly not. I don't know how, you know how I would have met those cats otherwise. And it's yeah, that that is particularly crazy, especially because like if anyone who's been a substitute teachers, not a lot of great opportunities to come. 00:26:31 Speaker 2: Out of it, a lot of life changing and after I substitute talk Yeah, yeah, those things and forget I tripped over a billion dollars, and I was like, there's a billion dollars here. 00:26:40 Speaker 1: I just thank god I substitute taught today. Yeah. 00:26:43 Speaker 2: No, that's so I want to give you just this is, uh how like my Hamilton, how I've seen Hamilton from the outside, because that ends in a very personal way. Otherwise we wouldn't necessarily talk about it. But like, I'm a person who like I was living in Oakland when Hamilton hit, and all I knew about Hamilton was that people in New York Twitter were like raving over Like that was like when Twitter was Twitter, you know, yeah, and Twitter was talking about Hamilton. 00:27:07 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:27:08 Speaker 2: And at the time, I didn't know if I was ever gonna see it. My wife's a big Broadway person, but we were not in a position to go to Broadway and see these things. So I just and then I remember, and then it like then it tours, and then more people start to see it, and then my wife starts to see it, and then it becomes Hamilton and it's everywhere and everybody's talking about it, uh pandemic it airs on Disney Plus and then the Hamilton discourse begins. And I sort of had this feeling that because my wife loves Broadway that like, I don't know that Broadways for everybody, Like I think that, like there's a reason why it's in New York and the people who want to see it go see it. I agree, and that like I feel like you can basically discourse every Broadway play because it's just it's just. And I know if it's a Broadway it's just it's it's about there's a lot of suspension of disbelief that happens when you go into a theater, like a Broadway theater, and why is everybody singing at me? 00:27:59 Speaker 1: You know, why is it? Why are there? Why isn't there? There's why isn't there that? 00:28:02 Speaker 2: But so the Hamilton discourse starts, which you know, which we don't have to get into, but it's just about like is this thing is? Is this thing the thing that it is? Or is it not the thing that it is? And how why would you do the thing this way? And D D D dad and all these things. And I remember seeing that Hamilton discourse and being like at the time, knowing you and be like, man, it's not his play, but he's in the middle of this and sort of feeling like how does it feel to be in the middle of this and sort of like and then everybody and then it feels like that happened, you know, we also in the pandemic and we all and then we sort of come back, and then then you all are at the Tonys and it's suddenly like it's okay. 00:28:37 Speaker 3: Ten years will do a lot like we're back, we're. 00:28:40 Speaker 1: Maybe, and we're celebrating the anniversary. 00:28:42 Speaker 2: My favorite moment of the Tonys is when you you did that jump. I was watching with my daughter and she heard me go. 00:28:47 Speaker 3: Oh yeah. I got text from everybody I know like are you okay? You're okay? I think I might have said my niece. 00:28:57 Speaker 4: Literally, I don't think I've ever gotten more reach outs like for anything. 00:29:01 Speaker 1: You know. 00:29:02 Speaker 2: It was just like I watched it several times because I was like, I couldn't pull that off even at my best, my most athletic day of my life, but like that was truly impressed. 00:29:11 Speaker 4: I got separate phone calls before, you know, when we had decided to do that, from both Lynn and Andy the choreographer, both reached out like separately being like, can you jump off a table? I was like, I can't do it. Eight times a week but I could. I could probably get it up one time. There's and that is something about you that that I was respect you. 00:29:32 Speaker 2: There's an athletic, kinetic nature about you as an actor that is just that is also a part of your that seems to be a part of your process. 00:29:40 Speaker 4: Yeah, man, I you know, I came up running track, and so you know, from when I was nine till post colle ran all the way through college and was trying thought I might be able to make the trials or something after college. 00:29:49 Speaker 3: I was really it was really. 00:29:50 Speaker 4: Important to me and it is still the thing that I miss the most is that that, you know, I think most former athletes have this this thing where you just there was a kind of especially for me, where I'm not I'm you know, I'm a pretty I'm a I'm a relatively shy person. I'm like not, you know, I'm I play a lot of boisterous characters or I'm really that way in my life. It was a way to just quietly walk around and feel superior to and it's like you have this superpower. I can run really fast and I like jump over these I was a hurdler, so like I could also do this kind of like weird timing, technical flexibility thing that like you know, is useless probably in life, especially giving it. 00:30:37 Speaker 1: Gets over there quickly. 00:30:38 Speaker 4: But there's a bunch of you know, especially with my life choices, I'm running from the police or anything like that. Like, but but it was just nice you had that thing, and that just like all physical things goes away with age, you know. And so when I get those opportunities to do that on on shows or in TV work or whatever. You know, I'm always annoying my stump performer by being like how much you go let me do? 00:31:04 Speaker 3: Like can you can you teach me that thing? Like when we better if I died that thing. 00:31:08 Speaker 1: Because then you can you get the camera right. 00:31:11 Speaker 2: So to wrap up the Hamilton discourse, that just about seeing you, Tony's the reason why my daughter. 00:31:16 Speaker 1: Was watching it, My my Juno. 00:31:18 Speaker 2: She's now twelve at the time, she's probably ten because she became a kid who fell into Broadway and fell into Hamilton. And then I'd be walking around my house and here a ten year old be like, how goes the best? And it was just like, I don't care what anybody said. This thing is is like I just was like it was just so cool to see it in my life come full circle and come around like now I got this ten year old who is wrapping to herself in her bedroom lyrics from Hamilton. 00:31:45 Speaker 3: It's wild. 00:31:45 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a I never know whether to apologize her parents or to. 00:31:51 Speaker 2: There are creators who need to apologize. Are you involved in Coco Melon because Yeah. 00:31:56 Speaker 4: What's funny is we were at clipping was asked to contribute to sorry to Cocomelon, and we were all like, absolutely not. 00:32:01 Speaker 1: I can don't even understand how that would work. 00:32:04 Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we made Puppy ver Hanka, so we have some Yeah, but I. 00:32:08 Speaker 2: Did, But Cocomelons anyway, that's a whole nother podcast. But like luckily my seven year old who was the Cocomela and fiend is out of it for several years. But it was a I don't have I don't, I don't, you don't. You don't need apologize for Hamilton. There's other things I would like to talk to people about, to other other child creators. So for me just to see it as an inroads for this ten year old to like music and to hip hop, yeah, was like I think it's just like becomes like That's that's what you want right there, right. 00:32:52 Speaker 4: You know, it's a pretty wild you know, that's not what we thought we were doing, I don't think, but sure, it's amazing that that's happened. Well, the thing that it did is just the thing that Lynn is, which is like a person who exists at the intersection of exactly those things that there are, a history buff who is as knowledgeable about Broadway as he is about rap music and and so that it's like this show is just like the intersection of the things he loves. And that's he's a pretty like unique, fascinating person. But he's so kind of his you see this when you see him, when you see him speak publicly or whatever. His gift is that he lets everybody into its very and that that was it there. These are actually sort of three spheres that always feel incredibly gate kept right, and he was just like. 00:33:42 Speaker 3: Or or the everybody could just walk in. 00:33:46 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I just wanted to give you my this is my my Hamilton, the arc of my Hamilton relationship based on my twelve year old who's very excited I'm talking to you. The other thing that I when I think about you is just public displays of men in community. Men who are friends is such a cool thing, like dudes who have each other's backs all the time and don't so you and Rafa is like this as this sort of like one of the most exactly one of the most adorable things being Kelly Rafferty, who was who worked with me for years when we discovered the Calvin and Hobbes videos, you guys did. I mean, it's just like it's like they're so sweet and so sacrid and so underrated. Like I feel like I just want if anything can happen on this podcast, I need people to go watch those videos. 00:34:32 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:34:33 Speaker 4: Yeah, but they're not too many because I'll just get taken out. 00:34:37 Speaker 2: I don't think the calviny, I don't think he's that worried about it. Yeah, I'm sure, yeah, but anyway, I don't want to I don't want to get him. But anyway, just talk about being uh that this is you know, we all have this, many of us be friends with somebody in high school, like we're going to be friends forever or we're gonna do things forever, and then you know, things don't happen that way. Talk about being friends for a long time, publicly professionally and continually. 00:35:02 Speaker 4: Yeah, man, I mean Rafa so we you know, we actually we knew each other and high school, but we uh we actually didn't start really hanging out very much. So I was a little bit older than he was until I got back from college. So it's like two thousand and four, and uh, one of my best friends his little brothers the same classes as Rafael and were they were very good friends. 00:35:29 Speaker 1: And so. 00:35:31 Speaker 4: Raphael at whatever he was at the time, eighteen years old, nineteen years old, was already running a recording studio in North Oakland, and and my friend. 00:35:43 Speaker 3: Justin was like, you gotta go, you should go. You guys got you know, you guys go ahead. 00:35:47 Speaker 4: So we got like set up on a rapper play date basically and that and that was it. Like we stayed up till four in the morning that first night. I was there making a song and we got in the car and we listened to the song because that's as is the custom. And then uh, then I was there pretty much every night. I have probably spoken to him almost every day since then, Eida, But it was it's just yeah, it's crazy when you I think, especially at that age early twenties, you know, when you're really trying to figure it out. And if you're an artist and you find someone you click with artistically, that's incredibly valuable. 00:36:26 Speaker 3: That person also becomes somebody who. 00:36:29 Speaker 4: You trust, who you're you're making mistakes together and growing up together, and you know, has your back and has seeing you at your worst and is still there and get forces you to celebrate your wins. Like Rafa is so good with that for me, because I'm not a celebration type and he, for my whole life, has always been like try to eat. 00:36:48 Speaker 1: Me flowers and you're like, I know, yeah, yeah. 00:36:50 Speaker 4: But he's he's yeah, he has always been the one who's like, we gotta let's acknowledge it. Who knows how many of these we get, you know, so he's he's one of those. 00:37:00 Speaker 3: And so it's. 00:37:04 Speaker 4: It's interesting, we're, uh, we're writing another film together right now, and it is kind of about the how that kind of a friendship ages and what happens, you know, when. 00:37:15 Speaker 3: Kids get them all on the study, you know, like just yeah, what you know we made? 00:37:20 Speaker 4: Blind Spotting is essentially about like a you know, young man, late twenties, right, that kind of male friendship, and now what's what's a forties male friendship? Like, like you know, and what are those changes and how do you know, how do those things grow together? 00:37:40 Speaker 3: But it is. 00:37:42 Speaker 4: I think to me, what's interesting about it is it's both absolutely effortless and also incredibly intentional. 00:37:50 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, when you're in your forties. I don't know if this is true for women. As a man, you have to be intentional to stay friends with your men, friends anybody, Yeah, because it just sort of, yeah, are with your friends because it can just easy because you get so caught up in whatever your life is. 00:38:03 Speaker 1: Yeah, they like I don't even talk to that dude anymore. 00:38:05 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, when your life just stopped involving friends like as a necessary part of life, it kind of does. 00:38:12 Speaker 3: Uh, it's some ways. So yeah, it has to be intentional. 00:38:15 Speaker 4: But I mean even all of our you know, starting to when we were working together when when blind spoting happened, and it happened after Hamilton and so there was like for two people actually honestly in the bay when we were making rap songs, like Rafa was kind of the famous one, so he had the deaf poetry thing going. Honestly, he had like a huge YouTube following. He was the one who was able to book shows out of town and he would always bring us a lot. Was always like, you know, so he was the one opening door so everybody could run through. And then this this thing happened. Now like the sort of balance had shifted the other way. People knew my name, wanted to talk to me, and like navigating those kinds of things. And then now you're adding agents and managers and stuff on top of that, who like don't understand the history of it and who you know? There are so many hard conversations that had to be had. 00:39:02 Speaker 1: Well like I know you suggest Draffa, but who else should we look at? 00:39:05 Speaker 4: Yeah, like literally nobody, but also know, hard conversations them hard conversations with each other about you know, we've we've had to we've developed a pretty good muscle now for on projects that we're working on together, like sitting down really before we even get into it and being like, what is important to you about this and what's important to me about this, and let's get really clear on that. What are non negotiables so that when all the bullshit starts happening, it's going to happen like we can. We can know that, like we are satisfying these things and we get we get that really clear. 00:39:37 Speaker 1: Before like what do we both want out of this? Yeah? 00:39:40 Speaker 2: Is that when the when all the crazy, when all the show is nonsense happens, we can remember, well, I just need this and you need. 00:39:45 Speaker 4: That, right because you know, when you start, especially with us, when you start talking about like who wrote what or whose idea. 00:39:54 Speaker 3: Is, it's like, not what are you talking about? Like that's not how it works. 00:39:57 Speaker 1: It's like Lennon McCartney, we were both there talking about it. 00:40:00 Speaker 4: We sit down and we eat food, and then like you know, a year later there's a thing. But it's so yeah, we've had to realize that, and this word the Hollywood business is very much about dividing those things up and being like credit, the credit is what you need, and so we tend to decide early on, like what's the credit you need from this? 00:40:19 Speaker 3: Bro? 00:40:19 Speaker 4: Like what's the what do we say? Obviously it doesn't matter, like the work doesn't matter. We're going to do what we do. What what what do you need. 00:40:27 Speaker 1: Out of this? 00:40:27 Speaker 4: Or what do I need out of this? Okay, let's do that let's make that happen. Let's send the teams off to accomplish that. 00:40:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, I would. 00:40:34 Speaker 2: That's the part about it that is so remarkable to me because once the as you know, I mean, you know, being a person who's also a rapper, the money has broken up a lot of friends in a wrapper, It's broken up a lot of crews, like a lot of boys falling apart over money. 00:40:50 Speaker 3: That's true. Ours, maybe ours didn't come from rap. 00:40:53 Speaker 2: But just I would imagine that there's probably it's got to be certain times where you have to sort of go stop, let's talk about this, because the would you want to prioritize the friendship. 00:41:03 Speaker 3: Yeah, oh absolutely. 00:41:04 Speaker 4: It turns out that these yeah, having relationships for that long, you have to talk things out. Yeah, stuff does get weird, you know, and stuff and time passes and you don't know. You go from when you're young and you're just hanging out in studios or whatever. You spend all you know, most of your free time is together, so you don't actually have to have those check ins. 00:41:28 Speaker 3: I just saw you and I'll see you again. 00:41:34 Speaker 2: And you're and you're also now if you two are working, there's not a sense of like We'll just do this until four in the morning, because I got a kid. 00:41:41 Speaker 4: Nothing until four in the morning. She's up at six. I'm like yeah, but yeah, and we work. You know, he's off shooting a TV show right now. So also, like geographically, we're just spread out and time is different. So it's just yeah with the clipping stuff too, Like finding time to record now is crazy. When I first moved to we started that band in twenty like eleven, when I first came down to LA and it's very easy to spend all day at Gionathan's house making songs. 00:42:09 Speaker 3: I didn't have anything else to do. Literally, my calendar. 00:42:15 Speaker 1: Was free, like my Google calendar. Yep. I'm free for the till the end of time. 00:42:21 Speaker 3: Currently, I've got nothing going on. 00:42:24 Speaker 2: Has there been have you guys been like you said, I there's a point when early in relationship where Rafa is like the big dog or the more prominent one, and then you you're after Hamilton. 00:42:34 Speaker 1: Is there is there any tension? 00:42:35 Speaker 2: There is there any sort of like guilt survivors You know that the I deal with a lot. 00:42:40 Speaker 4: Of survivors guilt, but not with that relationship. Really, I think the tension is always from it's not from within the relationship, right, it's always from outside, But it's always it's and it is often like I, how do I where it has been with me? And Rabbit's not really like this now. But at some points early on it was like, well, how what can I do to even this out? Because there's no way I can get the thing isn't out yet, right, there's no way that I can get them to see it. So what's the what's the thing that I can do the level this playing field or something? 00:43:21 Speaker 1: What do you mean the thing isn't out yet. 00:43:23 Speaker 4: Like when we were making blind spoting or whatever, you know, for example, like trying to get. 00:43:26 Speaker 3: That once this comes out, I think it's very obvious that. 00:43:30 Speaker 1: We're a duo. 00:43:31 Speaker 2: Yeah, but right now it's not here. But so you're feeling I'm doing half the work, but the world sees you as being the guy. Yeah, I want you to feel like I value your input into this. 00:43:40 Speaker 4: Yeah, so I used to worry about that a lot more, but we've we've gotten pretty good at it. But yeah, talk about being a dead is the best thing I've ever done. 00:43:49 Speaker 3: It's not even close, but it it did. 00:43:54 Speaker 4: It was that I really liked being on the road before, and I really enjoyed. Yeah, there's a certain kind of like high that you get from that, like not sleep like different city, every day kind of life. And now I just literally everything is to go back home. Like how much can I minimize the time away from home? 00:44:15 Speaker 1: Is there a flight after the show? Yeah? 00:44:17 Speaker 3: I'm on Red Eyes. 00:44:18 Speaker 4: All the time, man like like I yeah, or that the you know the show I'm working on right now, New York. I'm my lap whatever. My last day of work is. There's a seven am flight the next day, and I'm on it. You know, they can get me on it. 00:44:31 Speaker 1: I'm on it. 00:44:33 Speaker 4: And here it's the if you put me on that midnight red Eye, I'll take that one. 00:44:37 Speaker 1: You know. 00:44:37 Speaker 3: Mostly they don't like me to show up the day of that. 00:44:41 Speaker 2: The more you start to like get you know, put more miles on yourself, I don't say get older. You start to realize I can't do that red Eye flight and show up it like, hey, I'm here. 00:44:49 Speaker 1: Everybody, I'm here to work and I'm ready to work. 00:44:52 Speaker 4: Yeah, I won't be good exactly, but again, like that's actually less of a concern for me. And then spending time with my kids like if I get to do bedtime, I'll take being shitty tomorrow. 00:45:03 Speaker 1: I'm gonna need extra makeup today. 00:45:06 Speaker 4: Uh so yeah, so that thing is has been interesting, and but being a dad is it's the it's the. 00:45:16 Speaker 2: Most surprising thing. I mean, I know it's the best thing, but talking about some like really like specific things for me, I'll say, just to give you an example, like how much that like the kid. The moment the kid is born, you're actually meeting who they are, and it just reveals itself more over time, Like from the day each of my three daughters was born. They're that same person, but they were the day they were born. It's just because I just see it more. Their personality has emerged more over time. 00:45:45 Speaker 3: Man, it's so real. 00:45:46 Speaker 1: And so yeah, they're not empty vessels. They don't show up. 00:45:51 Speaker 2: They don't show up like O, well, just put whatever personality you wanted me. 00:45:55 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:45:55 Speaker 3: Yeah, And I. 00:45:58 Speaker 1: Don't know. 00:45:58 Speaker 4: I don't think I thought that's what it was going to be exactly, but I did think i'd have slightly more influence than I do. 00:46:03 Speaker 3: For sure, turns out like. 00:46:04 Speaker 4: I don't really have any Sometimes I get lucky, but he to he's really into music. 00:46:11 Speaker 3: Which is great. 00:46:13 Speaker 4: And we listen to so much music every day, and he's got you know, for for a two year old, like you know, generally they want to listen to the same things over and over again. But his his playlist of songs that he loves that you can sort of play anytime is like probably thirty songs long. Now, like he's you know, like he's made some musical stamina. 00:46:30 Speaker 2: Yeah, and now are these are these kids songs? 00:46:33 Speaker 1: No? 00:46:33 Speaker 3: Almost none of them. I mean, he likes the Bluey theme song Come On. 00:46:37 Speaker 1: That's which I don't think is really kids programming. 00:46:40 Speaker 3: No, he doesn't really watch the show. 00:46:42 Speaker 4: I watched the show, but every time the loops back to the song. 00:46:47 Speaker 1: It's a show for parents. 00:46:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, and the cartoon parts for the for the kids, but the actual contents. 00:46:53 Speaker 3: For the parents exactly. That show is so amazing. 00:46:56 Speaker 4: But big fan of of of uh. 00:47:00 Speaker 3: G n X. 00:47:01 Speaker 4: Like he was like that was you know, which is amazing that it you know, it came out. It was for it was literally his generation, and he like that Kendrick Lamar halftime show. We were just watching it again. He watches it daily. We've had to limit it. 00:47:16 Speaker 1: Eat your vegetables and then we can watch the. 00:47:17 Speaker 3: Kid literally what we do, Like, that's not the statement. 00:47:21 Speaker 1: Have a lot of common because I just watched that recently too, again. 00:47:24 Speaker 4: Like yeah we yeah, that's on all the time and he has his favorite Peekaboos, his favorite song on the which is inappropriate. 00:47:32 Speaker 2: I'm a where my seven year old's a TV off kid. Oh yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. 00:47:38 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. 00:47:39 Speaker 3: He calls that song mustard. 00:47:40 Speaker 2: Yeah, she was excited to see Mustard at the super Bowl. 00:47:43 Speaker 1: That was that. 00:47:44 Speaker 4: Mustard too, And every time it comes out, he goes here, cup Mustard. Yeah, so g had Ex's is out. He's a big Brandy Carlisle fan. Didn't get that from me, saying I like a lot of choices that are his own. 00:47:59 Speaker 3: Also, that's I would like. 00:48:01 Speaker 2: The musical festival that was like the big stage is Kendrick Lamar and Brandy Carlisle. 00:48:05 Speaker 4: Yeah and clipping, Yeah, he only likes a cup all of my songs, but he does ask for them, which is very sweet. 00:48:11 Speaker 3: He goes one played Dada rapping. 00:48:15 Speaker 4: Breaks my heart and then I'll play a song and he's like, not that one, but yeah he's he's. 00:48:27 Speaker 3: Yeah, like he discovered I left the room. 00:48:29 Speaker 4: At one point and came back in and knew we were We had been like cruising through Apple Music on the Apple TV, which is how crazy it is that he can use remotes and stuff. But I left to use the bathroom song. I came back and he's got uh, some Egyptian pop song on called Bumbum that he's just dancing and he's that. He insisted that I added to his playlist right then, and it is like that's another thing in heavy rotation that he discovered entire time. 00:48:56 Speaker 1: I didn't know. 00:48:57 Speaker 3: I had to go look up what it was about. 00:48:59 Speaker 4: It turns out it's like about a guy who like accidentally gets drunk uh when he's out with his friends and like the hilarity that ensues. 00:49:06 Speaker 3: It's kind of like a novelty song. 00:49:07 Speaker 2: Ah. 00:49:08 Speaker 4: This dude Muhammed was apparently like a that's which sounded fake to me, But that's because I don't know nothing. Uh uh apparently like a very big star and. 00:49:21 Speaker 3: I don't know, so that stuff's crazy. 00:49:23 Speaker 4: But yeah, him that that thing about them already being their own people. 00:49:28 Speaker 3: I think I was surprised initially. 00:49:32 Speaker 4: This has calmed down somewhat now, but by how much anxiety I had, uh right when he was very small. The pregnancy too, Yeah, I was having I thought I was sick, Like I was in the at the doctor all the time, and it was like I think you should try. 00:49:48 Speaker 1: Oh wow, just like anxiety if I'm about to be a dad. 00:49:52 Speaker 4: I wore one of them seven day heart monitors, you know, say, like I was really, I was like, there's something wrong with me and I wanted to be a dad. It was just it was like this incredible amount of fear. And then when he was small too, just that this is the not knowing if you're doing anything right and what does that even mean? And like the whole you know, yeah, really, I there's a person who hasn't. I'm a pretty nervous person, but I don't think of myself as an anxious person. I haven't had a ton of anxiety in my life, but that the last couple of years, I've been like, yeah, more stressed that I ever. 00:50:33 Speaker 2: Have you figured out what it's connected to exactly? I mean as a dad, I don't. I don't need to be like why would you be anxious? But I get but have you sort of figured out what it is. 00:50:41 Speaker 1: Or where it's coming from I think it was just. 00:50:45 Speaker 4: I, you know, really loving somebody very deeply is anxiety inducing in some ways, and that like I can't control everything. I can't make everything good for them, you know, And I am so mostly I think at peace with like the that not everything's going to be good for me, you know. 00:51:08 Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, yeah, but you can't. You can't wrap your head around mine. Everything's gonna be. 00:51:13 Speaker 1: Good for him. Yeah. 00:51:14 Speaker 4: And then with a kid like I had never I've never loved anybody that much, Like that was wild. 00:51:19 Speaker 3: So this this thing of. 00:51:20 Speaker 4: Being like, oh, I only want good things for you and that's impossible, and I I just like that really stresses me out. And I think I also had a I had a great childhood in a very hard situation, you know, saying in hindsight, like we were poor, we were East Oakland, we were you know, like it was a lot against us. And I was so happy and like I had so much fun and we have everything relatively, and I am so worried about his happiness all the time, you know, I'm just like, oh, is this what you want to do? 00:51:56 Speaker 3: And I like and am I around enough? 00:51:58 Speaker 4: Which I'm really worth of being around That's the one thing I know is that both my parents were they were there. They weren't together, they were both very present, you know. So that's the one thing I try to control as much as I can. That just that he's about to start preschool, Are we choosing the right I don't know, like what and it's preschool. We could change it if he doesn't like it, go somewhere else, like where. It feels like such a stressful decision right now. 00:52:24 Speaker 3: I don't know. 00:52:43 Speaker 2: We live in a time where the algorithm once it knows, oh you and your dad, let me send you some things to be anxious about you and. 00:52:49 Speaker 3: Get the hell off. Yeah, barely. 00:52:52 Speaker 4: When I have to promote something, I tapped back in but mostly off that. 00:52:55 Speaker 2: But I think there's just the idea that there's also just so much more information to make you feel anxious and and that before when our parents were around, they just had to sort of you know, there's that one doctor's bock book, but other than that, it was just like just like figure it out, whereas now there's like, oh it's a book. Here's a book for kids who are one month and three days old, you know what I mean. So like there's just a lot more information that wants to make you anxious. But and I understand that, Like and I as a dad who travels a lot, and as a dad who if I talk about work, my kids sort of have that moment. 00:53:27 Speaker 1: Like are you about to leave? You know what I mean. 00:53:28 Speaker 2: But it's just like often I'm and I don't travel as much as I used to, but like even coming down here, I have to go. I'm two sleeps. I'll be gone for two sleeps. You have to describing things and sleep. So I feel like it helps, like. 00:53:39 Speaker 3: It changed everything so immediately. 00:53:43 Speaker 4: And all for like, I love my life right now. It's so great, but it was, it is. It's a bit. It's a big. 00:53:52 Speaker 3: Change, you know. So yeah, and it's great. 00:53:55 Speaker 2: It makes me when you're on the road, you're always like you said, it's like, oh, I'm glad to be here after the show's gore the air for yeah, get how to get home? 00:54:03 Speaker 3: How do I get home from here? 00:54:05 Speaker 1: Yeah? 00:54:05 Speaker 2: This is like I'm I'm like, oh, this will wrap up soon. I mean I have at nine o'clock, but I can just go straight to the airport, you know, you know. I like the idea of like all all. 00:54:13 Speaker 4: Three of us in clipping now have young children and like that. Jonathan described it really well one time. It's just like, yeah, I love playing shows. 00:54:20 Speaker 3: I love it. Nothing's better than hanging out with my daughter. 00:54:22 Speaker 4: Though there's another I would of course rather be doing that than anything else. So it doesn't really matter how much I love this. 00:54:29 Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that more. 00:54:30 Speaker 1: Yeah. Just unfortunately I can't figure out how hanging off my daughter will pay. Yeah. 00:54:34 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can't say come to the show, yeah, or you do like a family channel where you just put your family on the internet. 00:54:41 Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't do that. 00:54:42 Speaker 1: No, I can't do it either. 00:54:43 Speaker 3: I can't do wish that for him. He is very cute. 00:54:46 Speaker 1: Though you look at your kid like, man, you could be. 00:54:50 Speaker 3: You could really make some money, kid, I. 00:54:52 Speaker 1: Talk, I be your manager, We can really be out there. 00:54:56 Speaker 3: That has occurred to me. Yeah, but I think he's he's pretty introverted like me. I don't think you would love it, so. 00:55:02 Speaker 2: For sure, for sure. Before we get out of here, a couple more things. Uh So, I moved to the band in ninety seven, and I was really moving to be a part of the San Franco comedy scene. But I found an apartment in Oakland. So that's how I ended up in Oakland. I lived in the city, but I was even for a while, but I was always in Oakland because I met Melissa. She was in the East Bay, and I worked and had a day job in Berkeley, and so it was like I was. 00:55:25 Speaker 1: Like, again, it's sliding door things. 00:55:27 Speaker 2: If I found an apartment in San Francisco, maybe I'm a different my life's different, but I'm so like and I've only learned more as i've sort of been in Oakland. And we moved back to the Bay in twenty fourteen, right apart met you, and my one oldest doughter was born in San Francisco. 00:55:42 Speaker 1: By the two kids were born in the East Bay. 00:55:44 Speaker 2: But so there's just this real sense of like my kids are growing up with this idea of like we are from Oakland or we are from the East Bay. Can you talk about for people from the outside, Because there's a thing and I heard you, we've talked about you've talked about before, like that you told me when you were doing a blind spotting that like you had to explain to the to the costume people, no people from Oakland were things that say Oakland on. 00:56:07 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not it's not weird. It's not the only tourists do conversation. 00:56:13 Speaker 4: Yeah, no, actually we do wear It's not like everybody can just be wearing shirts to wrep the city. Yeah, they kind of go walk around for a second. 00:56:22 Speaker 1: You know, I can. Yeah, So can you just explain what that is? Why? 00:56:27 Speaker 2: What is the secret sauce there? Because you know, a lot of people love their hometown, but you've traveled all over the world, so you've seen other places. 00:56:33 Speaker 1: What is it about? 00:56:34 Speaker 2: And I feel like there's also part of the conversation that I also want to have East Bay versus Oakland. 00:56:40 Speaker 3: That's interesting, like like you. 00:56:41 Speaker 2: Also went to school in Berkeley, right, Yeah, so there's also the Berkeley thing versus Oakland. 00:56:46 Speaker 1: And I find myself in times like trying to figure out I live in Oakland. 00:56:50 Speaker 2: I love Oakland, but also I love the greater East Bay and also I did live in Berkeley, you know. And I'm not mad, you know, and I'm not trying to, but just but there is a there's all these different ways to describe this place and to name this place. 00:57:01 Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. 00:57:08 Speaker 1: A lot. Yeah, and it is inside baseball. But I sort of feel like there's. 00:57:11 Speaker 3: No more baseball. But that's not true. I mean the. 00:57:14 Speaker 1: Balls, dollars, yeah, the ballers, the boers. 00:57:17 Speaker 2: But yeah, so like I just feel like you are from that place, so you and I feel sometimes I've gotten to the place where I'm really careful with my language, like because I know that sometimes people from Oakland are like, hey, come, I'll slow the down, you know what I mean, Like, you're not you didn't go to high school here, so settle down. 00:57:35 Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay, so you know, okay, I'll set it out a little bit. 00:57:38 Speaker 3: You know, but you I don't know, you've been there off a long time. But but yeah. 00:57:41 Speaker 1: As a as you're like, you're I've been here long, You've been alive. 00:57:44 Speaker 4: But okay, I think this is this feels like it's I'm speaking from a particular perspective of my age. Also that should be madeware. So like, I don't know how this applies to people younger than me, but it used to be and this is still to a degree true. When you tell people you're from California, it's either La or San Francisco, right, Like those are the two things that. 00:58:11 Speaker 1: People know yeah, sure. 00:58:16 Speaker 4: So part of being from the East Bay was about differentiating from that. It was hard line about we are not San Francisco, and you know because you're there, like culturally they are very different experiences. But also like yeah, we just hated that thing, like that's not who we are, Like we're we're over here and we're own thing. 00:58:37 Speaker 3: We're either it's. 00:58:38 Speaker 2: Sort of analogous to the Brooklyn Queens thing, but like. 00:58:42 Speaker 1: The cities, different cultures and differsonality. 00:58:45 Speaker 3: Functions the same way sort of. 00:58:48 Speaker 4: And so there's that Oakland being kind of like the biggest East Bay city, like the kind of hub that also became kind of a catch all for East Bay, right, And so there'd be again like if you're away, you could tell people from San Franciso. 00:59:04 Speaker 3: No from Oakland, then you'll just match just across the bridge. Whatever. 00:59:08 Speaker 4: If you start saying saying if you start saying things like Hayward or San Leandro or whatever else, Rito, Albany where I lived, like all of it, you know, Richmond, all these other things, people, it got so granular that people couldn't take it. So there was also this generalization happening, and for people who are really from Oakland used to be like you got used to being like people say, I'm from Oakland, Oh where we'll part you from, you know, or I'm from there too. 00:59:36 Speaker 3: Oh well I'm from Piedmont, you know. 00:59:40 Speaker 4: Which is actually like part of Oakland but you don't want to you know, or you know, was like a suburb, or you know, I'm from Hayward people. Yeah, so there there's this this other kind of like Oakland chauvinism, because Oakland feels special because it like was the hub. 00:59:57 Speaker 3: It was like it had the the. 01:00:01 Speaker 4: It was a historically was like a rougher area, you know, although I don't know, we were all scared of Richmond. 01:00:10 Speaker 3: But so yeah, so there was there was that too. 01:00:16 Speaker 4: So yeah, there was like a badge of honor with being from Oakland, from this like home of the Black Panther Party, this like real like sort of important like cultural, culturally relevant thing. And so I always I was born in Oakland, and my dad always lived in Oakland, and my mom then kept moving further and further north. So I was, as a person who was kind of out of place anyway, would always just claim Oakland because I was always living there. And then when I moved back home, I moved to Oakland, so you know, I've always felt like that was my home. But I also, like my mom lived in Albany, and I would never claim that, like that's crazy. You don't want to say that in public Like already is a very like well off small suburb with great public schools and where the most of the population, at least at the time were families of professors or my mom's case, they had one student housing complex down by the train tracks called the University Village where like graduate students with families could could live. And so my mom had gone back to school after my brother was born, and so she moved to the to the village, which is really desirable because again, like great public schools in Albany. So if you're gonna send it the thing, I understand so much more now than I did at the time. But like we had just saiducated in public school, you could live in Albany, then there you go. 01:01:36 Speaker 3: And so. 01:01:39 Speaker 4: Yeah, so there there's always this kind of like division and explanation and like where are you really from and all this stuff, But yeah, a lot of it, at least when we were young, was about being able to claim something that felt tough, you know, both because like it's cool because you're a young man and you want to feel tough, and also because like there's a certain kind of safety with having people be a little bit afraid of you for no good reason, right, like for someone like me, you know, who's not a scary person to lead with something that's a little bit like. 01:02:14 Speaker 3: Oh and like that. 01:02:17 Speaker 4: There's another great thing about Oakland is that like there's a kind of danger associated with it, even though like a lot of us are very artsy, like, even though it's a sort of and it's you know, you get your you get your like kumbaya, you're sort of hippiasthetic mixed right in with all your gangsterism and stuff. So it's and it was, so it's very useful to be able to come from a place that is that mixture, you know, where I got the hard part for Free God having to actually portray any of it. And so yeah, that's what I think about it for me. But it is like sort of the rich cultural history, the history of protests, the intellectual. 01:03:00 Speaker 3: History of Oakland, you know, and it. 01:03:03 Speaker 4: Is all there, and it is all there actually in the Holy Spade. But the neighborhoods field different. But like you know, I can go home and talk to people about books. I can't really talk to people in La about books. 01:03:15 Speaker 3: Really. 01:03:19 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's so it's that there is something different there, and. 01:03:28 Speaker 3: Especially for artists, but kind of for everybody. There's a. 01:03:33 Speaker 4: I think if you're from there, there's a there's an understanding that like it is special, and a lot of us end up fighting to. 01:03:40 Speaker 3: Keep it that way or to figure out how to keep. 01:03:43 Speaker 4: It that way and to figure out how to be able to survive and live there and make better livings there, and you know, you're still living there, so like this is a this is weird, like really part of that it's like how to you know, how can we grow this here instead of having to leave so much to figure this out and so and often at odds with our elected officials or you know, like there's often not a lot of help. But because I think historically that is also true, like the way community works there is different than it is in a lot of places. 01:04:18 Speaker 3: Certainly that it. 01:04:19 Speaker 4: Is here, you know, which geographically is very different. There are all sorts of reasons for that. 01:04:24 Speaker 2: But but yeah, La was northern was that area. It would be like nine different cities, like it would not be just Los Angeles. 01:04:33 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so we you know, there's a. 01:04:38 Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a kind of community there that like does feel different. And I think when you're from there, you've lived there a long time, there is this sort of uh drive and desire to continue to give back to it and continue to figure out how to. 01:04:52 Speaker 3: Make it a better place, because we all love it. 01:04:55 Speaker 1: So much. 01:04:57 Speaker 4: And even when we're not there, like we want it to thrive. Like the so much of my identity is about being from Oakland and being from. 01:05:07 Speaker 3: The East Bay in general, and so like. 01:05:11 Speaker 4: As that changes, I feel it is like shake, it shakes. 01:05:16 Speaker 3: Some things for me. You know, there were. 01:05:22 Speaker 4: Yes, but people could you know, families that I knew can't live there anymore, all that stuff, like all these just home the things that you called home, And that happens for everybody everywhere. But I think us or for me, loving that place so much, like it takes on like more of a Sometimes you feel like your foundation gets shaky when I don't know if the a's leave heard something you know, like or whatever, or the or the warriors leading a sign I'm not still It's like that's what a yeah, a slap. 01:05:53 Speaker 3: In the face. You were on the better side. 01:05:56 Speaker 2: You want some championships and the services like, oh we'd like that team now, yeah, bring back over here. 01:06:00 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. 01:06:02 Speaker 2: Well, I think it's just the sort of connected to all this is there's not every city has an activist culture, but I don't know that every city demands that all of its people sort of be engaged in the activist culture of the way that Oakland does. And Berkeley is part of this too with the free speech movement and everything. But the idea that like talk about, because you could be doing everything you're doing and not be regularly engaging in activism, right, you could just be like, I'm working, I'm a good representative of my city, but you are also regularly sort of like speaking out and saying things and supporting things someone regularly. Yeah, yeah, I mean I see you know, yeah, I'll say regularly. 01:06:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, more than most. All right again, more flowers, thank you? 01:06:47 Speaker 2: Sorry? 01:06:47 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Here's the thing. When people call on you, you do answer the call. 01:06:52 Speaker 2: It's not like you're not like, sorry, I've got a big movie coming out. I can't really be out here looking like I care about these care about humans. 01:06:59 Speaker 1: Yeah, so why do you answer the call? 01:07:03 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think it was how we grew up, you know, I mean the Berkeley all the Berkeley High thing, like we were walking out of school every day. 01:07:10 Speaker 3: I don't know, prot it was a protest. It was at least a protest a week. 01:07:15 Speaker 4: Just like, and the teachers were like, oh, we got to wrap up class earlier. 01:07:18 Speaker 3: I know, you got a big protest to get to. 01:07:20 Speaker 1: You know. It was like, uh, we'll stop math today because you gotta get up. 01:07:24 Speaker 3: You guys got to get out there. 01:07:26 Speaker 1: Nuclear here. 01:07:27 Speaker 4: I have some extra signs behind the desk if you'd like to, you know, whatever. 01:07:32 Speaker 3: So, yeah, it was just part of it, and I don't know it was. 01:07:40 Speaker 4: It was sort of a surprised to find art separate from activism actually, like upon leaving, you know, I didn't really know. I guess I had heard tell of it, but like I didn't really know how you participated, and I didn't know that it existed. 01:07:54 Speaker 1: You know. 01:07:55 Speaker 4: I was a poetry slam kid, and I was like whatever, like I you know, Mark Mamuti, Joseph one of my mentors, like they're there literally was no separation between like any word he said, and like any way that his body moves and like his connection to activism, So like I yeah, so it's just yeah, it's just kind of in there and it's not you know, it's not all great. There's you know, there are some ways that like Berkeley is really fucking annoying man like Oakley can be really annoying. But also I would take it over, you know, I would take an awareness, even at the expense of just being able to have a nice dinner, you know, to the other side of it, to only ever having nice tenders with like not having at least some some awareness and desire to like help people that like things should not be as they are and how do I at at least some exploration of how do I fit into that, and how can I affect that and how can we affect that for each other. 01:09:08 Speaker 2: There's also to me with the thing that when I think about what I gained by moving to the Bay Area and living in Oakland specifically, there's an effortless intersectionality that happens there where you just stumble across different communities and so then you leave and go, Wait, you guys are freaked out about those things. I didn't know, to be freaked out about those things, you know what I mean, Like I was just sort of around people saying those things, and you know, so you know that we just sort of that even though it's funny, Oakland has this very hard you know, like you said, like you know, like don't oh you're from Oakland up. But also like Oakland has this like as long as you're cool, you know. Yeah, and also down for the people, down for the cause, down for the people struggling, down for the oppressed. 01:09:49 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and not a lot of. 01:09:56 Speaker 4: There's not a lot of pretense about what that looks like on some what kind of person that is, right, It's a diverse community in all senses, economically, ethnically, and just so like there's yeah, I feel like a lot of places you'll go and there's there's just an assumption that a person who cares about this is this kind of a person, or has this kind of a job, or does this really you know, and that's just not true there. Like you said, like the intersectionality is very common. It's almost like it just is how it is, you know. And I think that's one of the things when you talk about the reason we are so proud of it when we're from there is because we you know, you go away and you is the first time when you realize that not everywhere. It's like oh and you're starting to explain yourself all the time, and the explanation always ends up starting to look, I'm from I'm from Oakland. 01:10:53 Speaker 3: So and then you know and you hope that that. 01:10:58 Speaker 1: Will be enough. Is that you know? 01:10:59 Speaker 4: So you yeah, yeah, it's a different way of seeing things. 01:11:06 Speaker 3: It just is it just it just is. I don't know and make it, but I grew up in it, so like, yeah. 01:11:11 Speaker 1: You're and you're making it. You're making it. 01:11:14 Speaker 2: My penultimate question, are there any Is there any life lesson or thing that is true in your life? Are things that regularly help you sort of get through the day or sort of process the world, or things that you're like, this thing is true, this thing I've learned, this thing my mom said, this thing I read one time really helps you sort of like a mantra or anything that's sort of like like that, you're like, this is one thing. 01:11:35 Speaker 1: I know a few. 01:11:36 Speaker 4: I have a couple of good mantras and me and Ralph's mantra for since we started making rap songs. Energy up expectations down, is it? 01:11:48 Speaker 1: And so energy up expectations down. 01:11:51 Speaker 4: When we were doing rap shows at you know, the Senior Citizens Center in Berkeley or whatever like that, this. 01:11:55 Speaker 3: Was the thing like you're gonna put if you this is what we're doing. 01:11:58 Speaker 4: This is what we're doing now, and I'll put all of myself into it, and I'm going to expect absolutely nothing in return. I'm doing this because this is what I do, and so has served me very well. I'm always pleasantly surprised when anything comes back. It's not the point. It's again like about being a process person. And my dad always told me that you love people for exactly who they are and uh not who you want them to be. Who love them for who they are, and when they tell you who they are, you get to listen to them and you get to hold them to that, you know, And that is a thing that has really served me, like. 01:12:44 Speaker 1: That, you look for it, that's who you are. 01:12:46 Speaker 2: If I love you, then I understand that you are and I don't again, energy up expectations exactly what to expect from you, because you've told me who you are. 01:12:54 Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's and it was never about what I get back from you necessarily. You know, it's about I love this, this is who this is you, that's what I love and uh yeah, so those those are probably the two best ones. 01:13:06 Speaker 2: That's great, that's great. We don't know, we get too Thank you for that last question. What cause would you like people to support? What nonprofit? 01:13:15 Speaker 1: What? What thing that's going on? Do you want people to know about? 01:13:17 Speaker 4: The organization I've been doing the most work with lately is one called cool Hand Series, which is run by a woman named Madison O'Leary, and it's the hype as we bring films and filmmakers into prisons and then have conversations with inmates after post screening. So it's allowing art to make its way into the prison system and for the artists, for the creator, also getting us to think more about where our stories come from and who there's who are stories are for and. 01:13:55 Speaker 3: Where the story. 01:13:57 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a great organization is basically Maddie doing all of it. Ralph and I have brought Blind Spotting into a number of prisons at this point. They're also doing playwriting and and theater workshops in there, so producing plays and uh yeah, and she's brought so many great films and filmmakers in already a lot of work in California, a lot of New York. Also, we've done work in Utah. She's doing work in Texas. I haven't been there yet, but we're trying to figure that out. So yeah, it's it's a great org for like the artist friends of mine, like the naming names who are listening to this when when you get the call just say yes. 01:14:39 Speaker 3: It's so fun. 01:14:40 Speaker 4: It is actually like you know, it's it's a great, great time and a great and eye opening experience and you get to have some really beautiful conversations and meet really beautiful people, and you know, it's a way to acknowledge the madness of our for profit prison system in a very like hands on way and then figure out at least start to spend a little bit on well, what what can we do? This is how it is a how can we change it? And be like what can we do with it in this in its current state? And I think that's actually for a thing that is pretty simple at its course, just like come in to prison and do and talk to people who show art and talk to people who are interested in art. 01:15:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's called the cool Hand Series, cool Hand Series, and I haven't done that, but I have done so at Saint Quentin, and I think people don't understand that you get afraid of, like going into a prison, but when you go to those places, you immediately feel like, who's afraid of? They're just so happy that I'm here. Oh my god, the just and there and there happen, and the things that I say that I know they'd never. 01:15:45 Speaker 1: Have heard before, and they really appreciate it, you know, yeah. 01:15:48 Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's it's always a beautiful experience. Everyone is thrilled that you're there. And also and I end up getting so much out of it, and every time I go so sure. 01:15:58 Speaker 3: All right. 01:15:59 Speaker 1: Uh, last of the podcast is called Who's with Me? Are you with me? 01:16:02 Speaker 3: I'm with you? All right? 01:16:03 Speaker 1: Always be weird to find out. 01:16:06 Speaker 3: Actually, thank you. 01:16:08 Speaker 1: Finally, I didn't want to be here at all. 01:16:11 Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, Thanks Verving. 01:16:16 Speaker 2: That was my conversation with David Diggs. Love talking to that dude, could talk to him for hours and hours. Just sort of good person. 01:16:22 Speaker 1: As you heard. 01:16:22 Speaker 2: At the end, he shouted out the cool Hand Series, which is a curated series that brings filmmakers and their films into prisons so that the population there can see these films they might not otherwise see, and also they can engage enough conversations with these filmmakers. 01:16:36 Speaker 1: It's a great idea. 01:16:37 Speaker 2: I do a lot of work with San Quentin in my area, so I know the power of going into a prison. It is powerful for the people in the prison. It's also powerful for you. Thank you DEVV for being on the show today. Come back anytime. Also, thank you to Rabigren here in La where I am right now, who's producing this show, Rabagren Productions. Thank out to Pushkin Productions who is helping send this podcast around the world. And thank you to who else. Thank you to me. 01:17:05 Speaker 1: I showed up and I did it. I did my best. 01:17:10 Speaker 2: Special shout out to Skyline Studios as always, who lets me do things in Oakland. Next week, our guest is Nava Mao. Nava Mao is famously known for being one of the stars of the Netflix series Baby Reindeer. Nava Mao is also a transgender actress, which I only mentioned because we talk about that a lot, and I want you to tune in for that episode because the last two weeks we've talked about the transgender community. But I should probably have somebody from that community to speak for themselves. So next week, nav Mao and also once again, please like and subscribe Hype the Channel, give us five star reviews, and once you do all that, then share the podcast with somebody in your life who you think would dig it. That's the important part. That's how we build it. If you share this podcast with one or two people, then we can really start to do some things and really get the word out there. 01:17:55 Speaker 1: Who's with me? Are you with me? I'm with you? If you're watching right now, I'm pretty sure I'm with you. 01:18:00 Speaker 2: I can't imagine that Dana White and Joe Rogan made it this far.