Speaker 1: Hey, fam, I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Pop podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Speaker 1: Facebook watch show in audio, produced by Westbrook Audio and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcast. On this Red Table Talk. We've got
Speaker 1: a superstar coming to the table. I'm so excited. His
Speaker 1: name is Matthew mcconna. Hey. His life defining stories. When
Speaker 1: I first threatened to run away from home, my parents
Speaker 1: packed my bags for me, His parents volatile relationship. Dad
Speaker 1: flipped the dining room table into the ceiling, got up
Speaker 1: and began to stalk Mom. I really want to know
Speaker 1: how you were able to break these cycle, his fairy
Speaker 1: tale romance, What it was about her that you knew
Speaker 1: that she was the one? And that's a love story
Speaker 1: from all Man and an RTT exclusive. I was not
Speaker 1: able to talk to her as my mom for about
Speaker 1: eight years. The woman who raised him, Matthew's mother, her
Speaker 1: husband died. Making up to me, I worked him out
Speaker 1: a big boy Where you are plus a surprise reunion
Speaker 1: thirty years in the making. Alright, r t T fan,
Speaker 1: We've got a superstar coming to the table. His name
Speaker 1: is Mston McConn. I'm excited about that. He's a husband,
Speaker 1: a father, an Oscar winner, and now he can add
Speaker 1: best selling author to his list of accomplishments. Two and
Speaker 1: a half years ago, Matthew went into what he calls
Speaker 1: solitary confinement in the desert and he spent weeks alone
Speaker 1: without electricity, sifting through thirty six years of personal journals
Speaker 1: to write his new book. He calls it a love
Speaker 1: letter to life, and I gotta say it is one
Speaker 1: of those books that is full of gems and a
Speaker 1: lot of revelations. Matthew, what's happened in their best selling
Speaker 1: author right that? Now you're like on the top of
Speaker 1: every list. It was great. It's just good of a
Speaker 1: reception as I could have hoped. Yeah, we were talking
Speaker 1: about your book as a family. An idea that really
Speaker 1: sparked for us was breaking familial cycles, cycles that need
Speaker 1: to be broken. I mean it's taken me for what
Speaker 1: twenty years, you know, like kind of break my own
Speaker 1: familial cycles, you know, within my family, within my relationship.
Speaker 1: I disagree with that though with me. Yeah, sorry, Matthew,
Speaker 1: about to have a family moment here real quickly. And
Speaker 1: what we're um certainly, and how you've raised your children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely was able to break that cycle. Ignot rociate
Speaker 1: on on the Yeah, on the cycle breakers and you've
Speaker 1: created because that was a huge, you know, difference, because
Speaker 1: I raised you the way Mommy raised me, but you
Speaker 1: did something totally different. But it did and was learning
Speaker 1: while you were doing it. Back to you, Matthew, and
Speaker 1: I'm taking notes of it and writing things down. I
Speaker 1: really want to know how you were able to break
Speaker 1: those cycles, because from what I understand, your parents had
Speaker 1: a really intense relationship, the way that they loved each other.
Speaker 1: Matthew's parents were locked in a volatile, sometimes physically violent relationship.
Speaker 1: His book green Lights starts with an incident between mom
Speaker 1: and dad in their kitchen. Sure you want more potatoes,
Speaker 1: fat man, she barked, look at you, fat billion years. Sure,
Speaker 1: eat up, fat man, she yapped, as she scraped overwhelming
Speaker 1: amounts of mat potatoes on his plate. That was it.
Speaker 1: Dad flipped the dining room table into the ceiling, got
Speaker 1: up and began to stalk Mom. She ran to the
Speaker 1: wall mounted telephone on the other side of the kitchen
Speaker 1: to call nine one one. As he closed in, Mom
Speaker 1: grabbed the handheld into the phone off the wall mountain
Speaker 1: raked it across his brow. Dad's nose was broken. Blood
Speaker 1: was everywhere. Mom then ran to the cabin and pulled
Speaker 1: out a twelve inch chef's knife, then squared off at him.
Speaker 1: Come on, batman, I'll cut you from your nuts to
Speaker 1: your gulliver. A little five year old Matthew hit behind
Speaker 1: the couch and sphere. Seconds later, they moved towards each
Speaker 1: other and met in an animal embrace. They dropped to
Speaker 1: their knees, then to the bloody catchup cover linolean kitchen
Speaker 1: floor and made love. A red light turned green. M
Speaker 1: it sounds like to me that you wanted to do
Speaker 1: the your relationship with your wife a bit differently. Let
Speaker 1: me stop by saying this. I maintained much more then
Speaker 1: I broke the chain of how my parents. I have
Speaker 1: different means with which I communicate with my wife and
Speaker 1: my mom and dad did the way my mom and
Speaker 1: dad communicated. I always tell stories of sort of discipline
Speaker 1: or even fights that my parents had as my greatest
Speaker 1: love stories in our family. I think the reason I
Speaker 1: do that is that those were the times where the
Speaker 1: the love and our family where it seems like it
Speaker 1: was being challenged the most and it might break, but
Speaker 1: it never had a chance. You know, my mom and dad,
Speaker 1: we had a very passionate relationship. Twice divorced, thrice married,
Speaker 1: well once again the loved one. If the love would
Speaker 1: want it would have been twice married, thrice divorced. The
Speaker 1: love ended up winning three. A lot of times it
Speaker 1: was like I love you, I just don't like you
Speaker 1: right now. The love was never in question. My mom,
Speaker 1: to this day, who's eighty eight, with her middle finger
Speaker 1: that goes won't, won't, won't, won't won't because it's been
Speaker 1: broken four times, because she's banged my dad in the
Speaker 1: head until he'd go didn't stop it. She picked those fights,
Speaker 1: and she to this day would say, that's what I
Speaker 1: needed to communicate, That's what I needed to communicate. Now
Speaker 1: I go, well, I'm bad. I don't need that. Glad
Speaker 1: my wife doesn't need that. But hey, that's how y'all roll.
Speaker 1: My mom and dad, their relationship was like hurricane in
Speaker 1: the Pacific. I'll take a river with a few rapids.
Speaker 1: My threshold for like well and I catched myself is
Speaker 1: if I even raised my voice in our household, I
Speaker 1: immediately have alarmed that goes off and says, all right, mccannae,
Speaker 1: what did you not handle getting to this point that
Speaker 1: you had to raise your for your father? And I
Speaker 1: would like that too. We were very conscious of not
Speaker 1: raising our voices. I would always try you were upset
Speaker 1: because you got real quiet, Yes exactly, it would just
Speaker 1: get real quiet, and I'd be like, Okay, they're really
Speaker 1: getting into it now. Yeah. So it's so funny Matthew
Speaker 1: that you use your voice be your barometer. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: tone of it. Yeah, I've got a pretty quick threshold
Speaker 1: for that, and I'm not perfect at it, but I
Speaker 1: do at least start doing inventory very quickly if I
Speaker 1: get to where maybe my remark will be sharp, right,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'll go okay, um, all right, mr cool,
Speaker 1: what do we've not handled getting to this point where
Speaker 1: we had to get? You know? The other thing is
Speaker 1: I have different means with which I am still the
Speaker 1: same values and my children then my parents did in me.
Speaker 1: They were from a different era too. It was the
Speaker 1: era of if you're a kid, and you asked why
Speaker 1: it was because I said so exactly. Yeah, we're not
Speaker 1: talking about this. This is not up for discussion. Because
Speaker 1: I'm your parent, I said so the end. And in
Speaker 1: our family, you didn't get grounded if you've got in
Speaker 1: trouble because, as my mom always said, that would be
Speaker 1: taking your time away from you in time as your
Speaker 1: removed valuable asset. It's a binge your bat over. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna whoop your butt. Matthew's parents believed in teaching their
Speaker 1: kids lessons with tough love and an occasional whooping. I
Speaker 1: got whipped unto my butt bled for putting on a
Speaker 1: cracker Jack tattoo when I was ten years old. When
Speaker 1: I first threatened to run away from home, my parents
Speaker 1: packed my bags for me. I learned to swim when
Speaker 1: my mom threw me in the Lanto River and I
Speaker 1: was either going to float off the rocky waterfall thirty
Speaker 1: yards downstream or make it back to the bank. I
Speaker 1: made it to the bank. There was nothing fictitious about
Speaker 1: the love, though the love was real, bloody sometimes, but
Speaker 1: never in question. I never got injured, but I do
Speaker 1: remember the values that were instilled in me from the
Speaker 1: butt whoopen. I got my first one for not answering
Speaker 1: to my name. I got my second one for saying
Speaker 1: the word I can't instead of saying I'm having trouble.
Speaker 1: I got my third butt whooping for lying and my
Speaker 1: fourth for saying I hate you to my brother. So
Speaker 1: what I remember is that those four times I got
Speaker 1: in trouble, I earned it, and the reasons I got
Speaker 1: in trouble were answer to your name. Love. Don't hate,
Speaker 1: have trouble doing something? But does say can't tell the truth,
Speaker 1: don't lie. I'll even go so far as to say this.
Speaker 1: I remember one night I got in trouble from my
Speaker 1: dad for lying. And all your kids out there. If
Speaker 1: you get home and you one of your parents is
Speaker 1: on the phone awake when they would be asleep, and
Speaker 1: they asked you, did you steal pizza tonight? It means
Speaker 1: they know you did, But I said no, I don't think.
Speaker 1: So he gave me two chance, pree chance, the fourth chance,
Speaker 1: and I lied again. I got it back in. What
Speaker 1: I remember that is the tears in my dad's eyes
Speaker 1: because he was broken hearted that his dog one son
Speaker 1: couldn't tell him the truth. It wasn't about the stolen pizza,
Speaker 1: was about you lied to me son. That broke his heart,
Speaker 1: hurt him a whole more than that back end hurt
Speaker 1: me like he would wouldn't being a good enough dad
Speaker 1: if you had taught me where I couldn't. Son, can't
Speaker 1: even tell me the damn truth about stealing the damn pizza. No,
Speaker 1: when I was disrespecting him. What he was trying to
Speaker 1: teach you is that and you're disrespecting yourself. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was one of the rules in our house with the kids.
Speaker 1: It was like, you tell me you're not go get
Speaker 1: in trouble, but if you lie to me, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be hell to pay. I had a couple. I had
Speaker 1: a couple of hell to pays. I tried it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you did. Try me. I tried. I tried both of everybody.
Speaker 1: I was the tryer. You're are you a scorpio, Matthew
Speaker 1: Am So this is okay the scorpios that I know,
Speaker 1: all right, you seem very chill. You seem like you
Speaker 1: seem like super chill. You're not. You're not a try
Speaker 1: or you know what I mean. But me, I was
Speaker 1: trying my parents every chance that I got. Well, yeah, yea,
Speaker 1: your scorpio as well. I mean, look, my thing is
Speaker 1: scorpios always equated to the incredible hull. Remember that show,
Speaker 1: you know, Messed With Bill Bixby. One time he says, no,
Speaker 1: thank you, I don't want to fight messed with him.
Speaker 1: Two times I says please, I said I don't want
Speaker 1: to fight messed with him. The third time he turns
Speaker 1: green and doesn't just get even, he gets way ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's a scorpio. That's a scorpio for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I go about sort of teaching my children differently. I
Speaker 1: do have longer conversations with my children about things and why, um,
Speaker 1: you know how that goes. Sometimes that suns rising the
Speaker 1: next day you're like, are we still here? Sometimes to
Speaker 1: get to that point, you know what, just because I
Speaker 1: said so, that's it, and I can get out lasted.
Speaker 1: At times they were like, we wish we wouldn't have
Speaker 1: made them ask why so much? There there's too many questions.
Speaker 1: There many questions. And I also was very clear for
Speaker 1: any time I got in trouble, I was like, yep, guilty.
Speaker 1: I never judged my parents for how they treat each other,
Speaker 1: how they raised us. Yeah, that is really that's really
Speaker 1: interesting because so many of us will judge our parents,
Speaker 1: so many of us will blame our parents for you know,
Speaker 1: if you hadn't done that, maybe I wouldn't be as
Speaker 1: crazy as if I chose not to say, oh, I
Speaker 1: was victimized better situation. I do not deny that situation
Speaker 1: that I may have been in, but it's up to
Speaker 1: me to choose if from victim mind right now, that's
Speaker 1: real talk, it really is. You know, like if people like, well,
Speaker 1: you were in a violent home with your mom and dad,
Speaker 1: you should feel this way and and you know you
Speaker 1: should talk about it this way and blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, I don't think that's the world's
Speaker 1: right to put that on us. So is it possible
Speaker 1: we can bring your mom out? The woman that they
Speaker 1: call k mac mac has been over in the wings.
Speaker 1: Here come hot and feisty, and may scoot me out
Speaker 1: of the frank. Though Matthew and his mother had difficulties
Speaker 1: at times, like a good old Southern boy and a
Speaker 1: great son, he never lost admiration for his mother. She's
Speaker 1: a true baller. She's beat two types of cancer on
Speaker 1: nothing more than ashburn and denial. She's a woman that says,
Speaker 1: I'm gunna before she can, I would before she could,
Speaker 1: and I'll be there before she's invited. She's eighty eight
Speaker 1: now and seldom do I go to bed after her
Speaker 1: or wake up before her. Come on, girls, some young
Speaker 1: lookod now which one's which? Come on, that's my mother?
Speaker 1: Where is my daughter? Uh? Huh? And that's my mommy
Speaker 1: and I'm her mommy. Okay, So you've got three generations.
Speaker 1: We got three generations. So you've been quarantined and with
Speaker 1: the family. How has that been going. You've been with
Speaker 1: Matthew and the whole gang the last seven months? Well,
Speaker 1: it's been it's been really really lovely. I'm enduring so
Speaker 1: much being around my grandchildren, and I'm very, very comfortable
Speaker 1: with them. They're very Matthew is a very good son.
Speaker 1: I tell him that all the time. He's good to me.
Speaker 1: Matthew was really easy to raise. I mean he really was.
Speaker 1: He would listen to me and sometimes he wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to discuss it with me, you know, and that only
Speaker 1: went so far because he's good at trying you to
Speaker 1: change your mind, you know what I mean, He works
Speaker 1: at it. Yes, Hey, I'm gonna give myself some credit
Speaker 1: raising him, right, So credit. How are you different as
Speaker 1: a grandmother than you were as a mother, because I
Speaker 1: know I was different, No, no different. I think those
Speaker 1: grandchildren the same as I did my kids. You know,
Speaker 1: they have they have respect for me and don't smart
Speaker 1: off to me. Now that the older to have, But
Speaker 1: the younger one did and it didn't turn out where
Speaker 1: you know what, the miss came back. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you this one. My mother was the same way. She
Speaker 1: doesn't let me have it many times. She didn't play
Speaker 1: with her grandkids either, So I completely yes, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say get away with things with me. You know, they
Speaker 1: can't play one against the other. Whatever their parents say,
Speaker 1: that's what they're gonna do. I mean, I I have
Speaker 1: I respect their parents for raising them the way they do,
Speaker 1: and I don't spoil them at all. When my mother
Speaker 1: became a grandmother and she came around and really helped
Speaker 1: me with the kids, any unresolved issues or pain that
Speaker 1: was between us really got healed in me being able
Speaker 1: to watch my mother as a grandmother. Because she was
Speaker 1: a young mom, so she had me at seventeen and
Speaker 1: she had some drug abuse issues probably my entire child
Speaker 1: for my entire childhood, so I didn't really get a mother,
Speaker 1: but I got to see her as a mother to
Speaker 1: me as an adult and as a grandmother, right, It
Speaker 1: really created this beautiful healing component between us. You and
Speaker 1: I had had a rough passion about eight years right
Speaker 1: after I got famous, but we healed that up back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four. As soon as I got famous,
Speaker 1: after Time to Kill, I started to having my weekly
Speaker 1: Sunday call home to call my mother, get car be Sunday.
Speaker 1: Mother wasn't answering the phone. A fan of my fame
Speaker 1: was answering the phone. I was trying to find my
Speaker 1: own balance with with fame and stuff. And I would
Speaker 1: share things with her, and you know, to whatever amount
Speaker 1: of innocence it was, I can now come, we can
Speaker 1: now completely laugh at it. But some of those things
Speaker 1: I would share might show up in the six o'clock
Speaker 1: news three days later. Um, for instance, hard copy. I'ming
Speaker 1: home at my beach house. Uh, and I got a
Speaker 1: buddy calls me and goes, hey, are you watching this?
Speaker 1: Because watching what he does? Put it on channel four
Speaker 1: whatever it was. And here's a camera going through our bedroom.
Speaker 1: Mom's leading the camera gonna and there's the bed where
Speaker 1: I caught him with Michelle. You know, I think we'll
Speaker 1: be able because he didn't last over here's the bathroom,
Speaker 1: and of course I walked in him on there and
Speaker 1: caught him doing you know what before as well. But
Speaker 1: don't worry about snow, big deal, and I'm going, holy mom,
Speaker 1: I call her up. Of course she's watching it too,
Speaker 1: so she picks up the phone and I hear the
Speaker 1: same damn show in the background, like, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? What do you mean? What am I talking about?
Speaker 1: I'm watching the same damn thing you are. You've got
Speaker 1: a hard copy, you know, in my bedroom. She goes like, oh,
Speaker 1: that got that, and she goes, I didn't think you'd
Speaker 1: find out. I didn't know. So there was years there
Speaker 1: where I would not share things with her because I was,
Speaker 1: you know, again, finding my own balance, building my own ship.
Speaker 1: And I was like, look, my loose lips will sink ships.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people that would like to
Speaker 1: know these things that it's none of their business. I
Speaker 1: was not able to talk to her as my mom
Speaker 1: for about eight years, and then I got my career
Speaker 1: stabilized enough, my boat was built well enough where I
Speaker 1: didn't feel like she could sink it, and then I
Speaker 1: just took the reins off and said, Mom, hit that
Speaker 1: red carpet. Talk to all of them, Tell them all
Speaker 1: those stories you want, and she's been great about it
Speaker 1: ever since. So that's beautiful. You know, it's such a trip, Matthew,
Speaker 1: because I know I had to tell my mom. I
Speaker 1: was like stot Would all asking everybody for pictures. I know,
Speaker 1: she like Listen Will's family, they get to take pictures
Speaker 1: with whoever, they whoever they want to take pictures with.
Speaker 1: But this one right here was like, don't you dad,
Speaker 1: don't you dad as anybody for a picture. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have no pictures because at the time, I was just like,
Speaker 1: you know, people want their times, right, and I didn't
Speaker 1: understand that. I definitely understand it. Though, I definitely understand.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean I don't want the pictures, but I
Speaker 1: do understand. Yeah, I was enduring his fame more than
Speaker 1: he was. I guess, yeah, absolutely, you know, aren't we proud, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're proud, but we also don't understand that it's such
Speaker 1: hard work for them. And then just being like on
Speaker 1: in the spotlight all the time. I have to agree
Speaker 1: with you, k that I enjoyed her spotlight way more
Speaker 1: than I did. Yeah, And I was like, you're not
Speaker 1: going to this event like that? Why you could be one?
Speaker 1: You could be doing still like that that we need
Speaker 1: to go ahead, like you cant the carpet. Come on,
Speaker 1: let's go. You got Mike, We'll hook up and go
Speaker 1: on the red carpet together, Miss kay. Can we talk
Speaker 1: about the three times to man? Yeah, please explain that
Speaker 1: I've been married four times, but four different men. She's
Speaker 1: been married to the same man. Oh lord, that'd be
Speaker 1: a hard adjustment at least getting into his mother, let
Speaker 1: his father boss her around, tell her what to do,
Speaker 1: how to vote. Uh no, it was awful, and he
Speaker 1: wanted me to be that way. And I'm a Yankee.
Speaker 1: I'm from Jersey and uh he's he's from this New Orleans.
Speaker 1: And it was just too much for me. And so
Speaker 1: when he started trying to change me, um, I got
Speaker 1: mad and I left. Then the next time was the
Speaker 1: same thing. We did have a spirited married Jess. But
Speaker 1: the third time we got married, it was when we
Speaker 1: had Matthew. We would fight. It doesn't go up, army.
Speaker 1: You don't have to good up years, you know, And
Speaker 1: so I would do that. Yes, I I was pretty feightty, yes,
Speaker 1: but you know, one I have to say that there
Speaker 1: had to have been a lot of love between the
Speaker 1: two of you too, have gone through those breakups coming
Speaker 1: back together to get married three because, let me tell you,
Speaker 1: gave me over here was like, if I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: divorce and find me a new one. I never really
Speaker 1: had the desire to go back to a husband that
Speaker 1: I had divorced. Yeah, well, I have to say that
Speaker 1: I never stopped loving him. No and so and you
Speaker 1: don't only died, don't you. My husband died making up
Speaker 1: to me, right. And I remember saying, you know when
Speaker 1: you when he fell back, I said, worked him out,
Speaker 1: a big boy, I wear you out. And here's no response,
Speaker 1: no response, and I'm thinking, oh my god, something's wrong.
Speaker 1: So I run across the street to my dry brew
Speaker 1: and my neighbor, and I said, something's wrong. Something's wrong.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. And I had no
Speaker 1: idea that it was too much. It's hard to stop.
Speaker 1: You know. We had a party for him, kind of
Speaker 1: a celebration of his life. Yeah, and I said, hey, well,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you how he talks to my own son,
Speaker 1: but to some a bitches, I can give ten years
Speaker 1: your life to go the way my pop did. I
Speaker 1: just love you. I think you're a joy. I just
Speaker 1: want to have your spunk and your and your everything,
Speaker 1: your fire. Well, you girls are all beautiful, my gosh,
Speaker 1: and you don't age mom. Thank you. I've been hearing
Speaker 1: that all my life. I told her, she gave me
Speaker 1: some of that. You've got good genes. You're fine, I hope, so,
Speaker 1: I hope. So bye, thank you, thank you. I love her.
Speaker 1: She's Fantasticory, I got a couple of words in there.
Speaker 1: You did get a couple of words in them, Matthew
Speaker 1: parlaid on the back end of that beautiful freight chain. Yes,
Speaker 1: now you were raised with brothers. But now so you
Speaker 1: have two boys and and a daughter. How is it
Speaker 1: different raising your daughter than it is raising your Son's
Speaker 1: good question? And I'm still finding that out. Mind your mind.
Speaker 1: Her twelve in and seven, so we haven't hit those
Speaker 1: wonderful teen years. Good look, Matthew. From me, bro, there
Speaker 1: is a different I mean, I'm still learning the different
Speaker 1: ways of having a daughter is having sons. My daughter's ten.
Speaker 1: But she has a way that the other that the
Speaker 1: boys don't. I don't know how much of her way
Speaker 1: or how much how much of it's just a female way.
Speaker 1: I don't have to explain. She'll get it. She'll come
Speaker 1: up to me and talk to me and put a
Speaker 1: hand on me or and on my back, or ask
Speaker 1: me a question, and she's talking to me about how
Speaker 1: I feel. And I didn't have to say a word.
Speaker 1: The wonderful good luck charm for me, just one little
Speaker 1: tidbit right now, because this does have to do with
Speaker 1: father daughter love across space and time and dimensions. Interstellar
Speaker 1: changed my life forever. I just have to say it.
Speaker 1: After I watched it, I started studying physics. I've been
Speaker 1: studying physics for about five years now and it is
Speaker 1: one of the deepest loves of my life. And that
Speaker 1: movie sparked it. So I just want to say thank
Speaker 1: you for that. Thank you, happy for that. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: bringing that daughter to physics. We gotta talk to you
Speaker 1: just a little bit about your beautiful wife and what
Speaker 1: it was about her that you knew that she was
Speaker 1: the one. Matthew met Brazilian model Camilla Alvez in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six. Two kids and six years later, Matthew
Speaker 1: proposed on Christmas Day. The gorgeous couple was married on
Speaker 1: June night, two thousand and twelve in Austin, Texas, just
Speaker 1: months before Camilla gave birth to their youngest son. I'm
Speaker 1: not a club guy. On this particular night, I was
Speaker 1: a club guy. I'm sitting at a at a club
Speaker 1: on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, healthily single, and I'm holding
Speaker 1: court at this table maker Margarite is and this figure
Speaker 1: about twenty ft in front of me, moving from my
Speaker 1: right to left, this caramel shoulders and the soft turquoise
Speaker 1: sort of silk dress hanging off of it. Without even
Speaker 1: thinking about it, I didn't say who is that? I said,
Speaker 1: what is that? Okay? And then as she went and
Speaker 1: sat down my hands raised. I'm trying to get her attention.
Speaker 1: And as I'm getting her attention with trying to get
Speaker 1: attention with my right hand, I hear my mother's voice
Speaker 1: in this year, going, boy, get your ass up. This
Speaker 1: is not the kind of woman you wave across the room. Yes, ma'am,
Speaker 1: I'm going right. So I got up, went over. The
Speaker 1: music was playing. I spoke better Portuguese and Spanish that
Speaker 1: night than I ever have since I fortunate. I asked
Speaker 1: her or she wanted to come back to the house
Speaker 1: to have some drinks with me and my friends. She said, no,
Speaker 1: I can't do that, but thanks for the invite. I
Speaker 1: walked her out to her car and caught a green light.
Speaker 1: You know what that green light was? Her car had
Speaker 1: been towed. That's right, that's my goodness. So now, um,
Speaker 1: you know, come on back and have a drink with
Speaker 1: me and friends. Okay, we go back, we all stay
Speaker 1: up a while. Um, I give you the guest bedroom
Speaker 1: at the end of the hallway, and I go to
Speaker 1: my bedroom. I snuck down to that room twice that night.
Speaker 1: I got kicked out very clearly both times. Now we
Speaker 1: get to another beautiful moment, which was something I went
Speaker 1: and went and started going wow. The next morning, I'm
Speaker 1: the last one up. Two friends had stayed over, and
Speaker 1: Camilla had stayed over. I'm coming down the stairs and
Speaker 1: I hear this laughter, the kind of laughter in conversation
Speaker 1: where people overlap where they've known each other for a
Speaker 1: long time time. They're finishing each other's sentences. And I
Speaker 1: see that same turquoise dress in the same caramel shoulders,
Speaker 1: sitting at the kitchen bar back here, my two friends
Speaker 1: on the other side, shirtless in the morning, and our
Speaker 1: housekeeper ishing out pancakes, and Camilla was holding court with housekeeper.
Speaker 1: She just met that morning and my two friends that
Speaker 1: she had only met for an hour the night before,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, the constitution of this woman
Speaker 1: the next morning in the same dress, none of this
Speaker 1: adolescent walk a shame bs. No, I know what decision
Speaker 1: I made. I stayed here. I slept in the bedroom
Speaker 1: down there. I have my dress on from last night.
Speaker 1: That's what I have, and I'm gonna stay here and
Speaker 1: enjoyed this breakfast. Now I'm going to give her a
Speaker 1: ride home. I asked her out that night. She gives
Speaker 1: me another great reason. What's the best reason this woman
Speaker 1: won't go out with me tonight? It's her dad's birthday.
Speaker 1: There we go. Family first, you damn right, lineage history, respect,
Speaker 1: Here we go. So I got her number, come in
Speaker 1: for a kiss on the cheek. I turned my head,
Speaker 1: caught about a quarter of child up, the kissed goodbye.
Speaker 1: Three nights later she came over and we had dinner
Speaker 1: at my house. And that's the only only woman I've
Speaker 1: learned to date since. And uh, here we are, Matthew,
Speaker 1: thank you for that. What of the beautiful love story?
Speaker 1: And that's a love story from a man? I know
Speaker 1: that's a man love story, right, there. All right, That
Speaker 1: ain't a little boy right there? In your book, you
Speaker 1: wrote about a woman named Tammy who opened your eyes
Speaker 1: to different cultures. In college, Matthew was a waiter at
Speaker 1: the original Catfish Station in All Black Blues Bar in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1: Tammy was the black and beautiful as midnight rockstar waitress
Speaker 1: who ran the floor and had every single dude in
Speaker 1: the joint thinking they had a chance, just so they
Speaker 1: tipped more. None of them did have a chance, that
Speaker 1: is me included. So all right, Matthew, we have the
Speaker 1: little surprise for you. You haven't seen her in thirty
Speaker 1: five years, but we tracked her down and she's a
Speaker 1: little something to say to you. You got me acting
Speaker 1: all up. You know, we're supposed to be grown an
Speaker 1: adult like you know thirty years ago. How are you doing? Wonderful?
Speaker 1: Look at you? You doing good too? There we are there,
Speaker 1: we are the station, right, cat Fig Station. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: this is awesome. Let me tell everyone a story about
Speaker 1: Ms Tammy. Here she's running the floor at the cat
Speaker 1: Fish Station and the client tells about what male something
Speaker 1: like that. Well, when this guy comes in to say
Speaker 1: I want to be a waiter here tam was like,
Speaker 1: uh huh, well she teached me the ropes. She also
Speaker 1: lets me know these are my key tables. Don't even
Speaker 1: think about serving them, mind you. All that kientele they
Speaker 1: wanted Tammy servant, all right, So you beat me in
Speaker 1: tips every single time. One time I made you sweat
Speaker 1: though you got seventy six. I got seventy two. I
Speaker 1: love that. Yeah. And you had a little fan club
Speaker 1: too though, you know that, right, He took a couple
Speaker 1: of years to work up my fan company. And the
Speaker 1: floor well, you know you had the butt going on.
Speaker 1: You know, you had the butt thing going on. So
Speaker 1: that's that's that's what that's what you're the ladies in there.
Speaker 1: He's not telling you all the whole truth. Dr Tammy
Speaker 1: with the truth because you know, Matthew, you can call
Speaker 1: her Dr Tammy because she is a professor at the
Speaker 1: University of St. Thomas in Houston and a visiting scholar
Speaker 1: at Rutgers University. Yes, Dr Tammy, Yes, yes, I love that.
Speaker 1: During the pandemic, you know, that was really sort of
Speaker 1: a pivotal moment for me in terms of my personal
Speaker 1: green light. Right, Um, I left a career for thirteen years.
Speaker 1: I became a doctor. Right. I actually finished my coursework
Speaker 1: in my dissertation and got my doctorate. You know, Matthew
Speaker 1: was not afraid to pivot. And that's really my lesson
Speaker 1: learned from you. Matthew. You taught me just to kind
Speaker 1: of take those yellow lights, those red lights and turn
Speaker 1: them into green lights. And so that's where I am.
Speaker 1: Look at you were a bright light of my past,
Speaker 1: and it's so good to see again. Tammy. You didn't
Speaker 1: even know you were in the book until the producers
Speaker 1: told you. Oh my gosh, no, I was like, what
Speaker 1: I mean, that was a couple of weeks ago, and uh,
Speaker 1: I thought it was a little spam with the way
Speaker 1: they reached out to me. But when I read it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, okay, and I am flattered, flattered that
Speaker 1: So I'm proud of you. I'm marveling. I mean, we
Speaker 1: really have grown up. So just to see him, you know,
Speaker 1: in this in this way, he's a family man, you know,
Speaker 1: because I knew when he was single, right, so family
Speaker 1: man tried. I tried. Everybody I tried would let me
Speaker 1: get close. Now I tried. I love it, Dammy, thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us. We just thought this would be
Speaker 1: a beautiful surprise for you, beautiful surprise for surprised. This
Speaker 1: is my day was already going good. Now it's going great, Damny,
Speaker 1: Love you girl, Bye bye. This was a beautiful year. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you so much your next time and quite enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: Thanks for watching Interstellar and getting into physics. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: it's gonna stay with me forever. We just love your
Speaker 1: book green Lights. We are so happy for your success,
Speaker 1: and we just continue to love you and think that
Speaker 1: you're amazing. Yeah, and for all the green lights to
Speaker 1: come your way, Matthew. Ladies, thank you. She kept the
Speaker 1: platonic to join the Red Table Talk family and become
Speaker 1: a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening to this
Speaker 1: episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook Watch,
Speaker 1: Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.