Speaker 1: Welcome to Jay dot M, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Ladies and Gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, you have walked in
Speaker 1: on a conversation. Okay, you walked in on the conversation
Speaker 1: with Roy Wood Jr. Okay, your lady on the stats?
Speaker 1: Would you lay down the stats? I mean, he's the
Speaker 1: ultimate black man. Y'all mad him? Y'all know it from Alabama.
Speaker 1: Y'all know every time you turn on Comedy Central, you'll
Speaker 1: be like, wait, is the man owned Comedy Central? Because
Speaker 1: he being on all contacts of the day. Uh, y'all
Speaker 1: know the man got a big stand up coming out
Speaker 1: October twenty nine. Y'all know the man is funny, but
Speaker 1: he means what he says and what he says got
Speaker 1: a lot to do with who we are. And I
Speaker 1: would say more, but I just want Roy Wood to talk.
Speaker 1: So Froy Wood Jr. Welcome to J dot M. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you all for having me. I like, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be honest and this isn't even like me like,
Speaker 1: shoot no bullshit at y'all. I appre create the space
Speaker 1: that you all have created where I feel like I
Speaker 1: could be a little comfortable. I can say some ignorant
Speaker 1: ship and you can talk about some real ship as well,
Speaker 1: because you know, you know, sometimes you get on these
Speaker 1: podcasts and tell us, tell us about Twitter. I love
Speaker 1: start for you. I understand you were you were a DJ.
Speaker 1: Like they picked one line from your bio. Interesting, so
Speaker 1: you started in radio right, you did radio DJ. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: that's not what the sing I wish I could see
Speaker 1: this show. I got to add that to your intro,
Speaker 1: like Corey were the only prank call radio guy who
Speaker 1: actually made it to the limps that would listen, you
Speaker 1: know what, they'll do it. They'll be like, so, I
Speaker 1: understand you did prank phone calls from two thousand and
Speaker 1: one and now you're on the Daily Show. Bitch you
Speaker 1: talking to? Who is you talking to? Sometimes? I do
Speaker 1: wish you could say that during it in you like,
Speaker 1: who who are you talking to? Right now? It's it's
Speaker 1: so wild, but it's it is a blessing to be
Speaker 1: able to be on the Daily Show and like, I'm
Speaker 1: thankful that Trevor lets me do some stuff that like
Speaker 1: speaks to black issues, like because I'm I'm the comedian
Speaker 1: that's pro black. But you don't realize until after the
Speaker 1: show and I'd already said everything to you on some
Speaker 1: on some sneaky and ship like I don't have I
Speaker 1: don't have the the charisma of Dick Gregory, and I
Speaker 1: don't have the goal of Paul Mooney to just to
Speaker 1: just comeing upper cut the motherfucker named mouth out to
Speaker 1: gate white folks stop up, like I can't do. That's
Speaker 1: that's the nuance of Negro culture. Yeah, but it's just
Speaker 1: wilder because you know, when I started, like I was,
Speaker 1: you know, you're nineteen, you ain't talking about ship. All
Speaker 1: my els was about my roommates eating my food and
Speaker 1: all of this stuff. And then as I got into
Speaker 1: my thirties, and then when I had a child, like
Speaker 1: you start realizing, I having my son at thirty eight,
Speaker 1: that I'm forty two, he's five. Do the math, and
Speaker 1: that's when you start realizing, Okay, this world is fucked.
Speaker 1: How do I help fix it? What can I do
Speaker 1: to contribute to that? And I look back at my parents,
Speaker 1: and you know, my pops was a civil rights journalist.
Speaker 1: My dad, you know, from the fifties in South African
Speaker 1: riots and Zimbabwe and Vietnam and Chicago race rides, like
Speaker 1: all of that ship my pops was there on the
Speaker 1: front lines and doing news commentary. And it's wild because
Speaker 1: I look at my career now and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just doing what he was doing. But I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to be funny, like I at least have the
Speaker 1: luxury of being able to laugh at some of it,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't funny to him. Right, So let me
Speaker 1: explain something. So you had Joyce the educator, and you
Speaker 1: had a father who was a civil rights and journalist.
Speaker 1: What's your dad name, roy Wood Senior Morehouse College from
Speaker 1: and my mom is Florida and m and she was
Speaker 1: amongst the first black students to integrate Delta State University
Speaker 1: in Mississippi as well, so white university black and then
Speaker 1: went to another That's why they made me go to
Speaker 1: family Like, yo, you want to know some this is
Speaker 1: some other Jedi mind tricks ship that black college parents do.
Speaker 1: My senior year in high school, they just put a
Speaker 1: list of black colleges on the fridge and it was
Speaker 1: like pick one of them. There was there was no
Speaker 1: other conversation about what you want to major in? What
Speaker 1: do you want to I don't think my parents ever
Speaker 1: really asked me what I wanted to be when I
Speaker 1: grow up. Like, there was a conversation about an astronaut
Speaker 1: and middle school that my mama saw how much space
Speaker 1: camp calls, so she taught me out of it. Everybody
Speaker 1: wanted to go to space camp after watching that eighties
Speaker 1: movie about space Kim with the black dude from the
Speaker 1: ton Yeah. So I ended up at I ended up
Speaker 1: at Florida in there. Man, that's and you know, that
Speaker 1: ended up being the right situation for me. But that's
Speaker 1: kind of where where it all started. It's just as
Speaker 1: wild because I did morning radio Ricky Smiley. What happened?
Speaker 1: Ricky Smiley left Birmingham to go to Dallas to start
Speaker 1: his syndicated joint that he's got today, and I came
Speaker 1: in behind Rick and I just started co hosting and turning,
Speaker 1: buying donuts whatever while up on the road. And so
Speaker 1: I just did that, and then I just did stand
Speaker 1: up on the road and just every year you get
Speaker 1: a chance to skip a level approve yourself. I believe
Speaker 1: pretty much in any whatever the industry is, you get
Speaker 1: two to three times a year to impress somebody that
Speaker 1: could help influence you and get you up to the
Speaker 1: next level. So all you need to do is nail
Speaker 1: one or two of those opportunities, and so you get
Speaker 1: enough TV and that grows and it grows and it grows,
Speaker 1: and then next thing you know, you've got two hour
Speaker 1: specials in the third on the way. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: did radio. Yeah, inspirations of all of us radio people
Speaker 1: just then inspiration. I love that you were talking about
Speaker 1: how you you're you're forty two were the same age
Speaker 1: just for another week though, because I'll be forty three
Speaker 1: at the end of the week. But oh so you're
Speaker 1: a little sat looking anyway you can slander us later.
Speaker 1: I know I'm married to Scorpio. I have been married
Speaker 1: to one for twenty three years, sir, So I know
Speaker 1: y Sagittarius to accept marriage? Oh my god, yes, because
Speaker 1: honey is an I'm close. But just talking about being
Speaker 1: a father to a little little and then how how
Speaker 1: that that part of your journey was, you know, really
Speaker 1: important about how you kind of poached your art and
Speaker 1: tell us about, like I want to know a little
Speaker 1: bit more about just some of the great possibilities around
Speaker 1: being a father at this point in your life, and
Speaker 1: how that's different from if you had maybe chosen to
Speaker 1: be a Dad earlier on in the process, like, how
Speaker 1: how does that work? I think old Dad's got the wisdom.
Speaker 1: Young Dad's got the time. You know. We're like, I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not around as much. Like it's it's high tight
Speaker 1: low tip right. We're like, if I'm prepping for an hour,
Speaker 1: there's a four there's a four month run where I'm
Speaker 1: gone consistently three to four days a week. And that
Speaker 1: ship was cute when he was two and three, and
Speaker 1: now he's five. So I'm missing ship, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to miss ship. So it's about capitalizing on the
Speaker 1: time we have together. So I try to be a
Speaker 1: lot more intentional when I'm in town, to the point
Speaker 1: where like, and it's embarrassing to say, but I have
Speaker 1: to make sure that because I'm so default me, like,
Speaker 1: you're so default selfish by the time in your late
Speaker 1: thirties you have a kid, you have to go, oh
Speaker 1: nah on me got karate on Thursday, he got tennis
Speaker 1: on Friday. I'm gonna pull up because he needs to
Speaker 1: at least see me there every now and then, because
Speaker 1: I think that helps, you know a little bit. The
Speaker 1: thing that I struggle with though, and this is kind
Speaker 1: of I guess where wisdom comes into play. And I
Speaker 1: think this is where I'm better than being at a
Speaker 1: younger as a younger father, is that you've had time
Speaker 1: to really evaluate how you were raised and what was
Speaker 1: good or bad. Because the first thing that I, at
Speaker 1: least I ain't speak everybody when I had my when
Speaker 1: I had my son, the first thing I did was
Speaker 1: audited every relationship, every interaction I had with my father,
Speaker 1: and then after my father, every interaction with grown men
Speaker 1: after that. My dad died when I was sixteen in
Speaker 1: high school, so he was one of them cats in
Speaker 1: the streets a little bit. I'll say that from a
Speaker 1: work standpoint set a great example from a father's standpoint.
Speaker 1: There a couple of holes. So you start figuring out,
Speaker 1: all right, well, how do I fix that? How do
Speaker 1: I close that hole and make sure that that that
Speaker 1: doesn't continue? You know, like it's weird when you're black
Speaker 1: and you have some level of success where you're essentially
Speaker 1: the cycle breaker and your family and that's ship with
Speaker 1: no fucking hand, But do that ship? Dog? Come on?
Speaker 1: How do you? How do you? How do you fix that?
Speaker 1: And then it also exposed traumas I didn't even know
Speaker 1: I had with my pops until I had a kid,
Speaker 1: because you don't even realize the you don't realize the
Speaker 1: holes that your parents had until you have a kid,
Speaker 1: and then you're trying to plug You're trying to do
Speaker 1: this like it's like, oh, fuck, he wasn't there. He
Speaker 1: missed that? Well fuck yeah, well wait a minute. Can't
Speaker 1: be mad at him right now? With the boy, I
Speaker 1: gotta be happy because I'm like something as simple as
Speaker 1: playing catch with my son. I took my son. I
Speaker 1: don't know if he'll stick with it. He seemed like
Speaker 1: he hate the ship, but I took him to baseball
Speaker 1: camp over the I don't think he's gonna stick with
Speaker 1: this ship. But just the act of playing catch with
Speaker 1: my son something I've never experienced conversely with my own father,
Speaker 1: and it sucked me up for a second, more real
Speaker 1: talk after the break. Have you also done into why
Speaker 1: your father wasn't that way? Did you know your grandfather
Speaker 1: and what kind of father your grandfather was? No, So
Speaker 1: let me tell you how COVID was a blessing. I
Speaker 1: did finding your roots um last year well over the
Speaker 1: old skip gates. Oh you made it, congratulations because it
Speaker 1: was COVID and most of the people he wanted was
Speaker 1: too scared to get on the plane. I was like,
Speaker 1: we gotta get some local celebrities. I know, I was
Speaker 1: far down the listen, listen, I'm aware of my star
Speaker 1: staff and I am not at the top of let's
Speaker 1: see where he's from. But it's COVID. So you gotta
Speaker 1: funk with me and the right one perfect time in
Speaker 1: a way that you don't even know. I understand you,
Speaker 1: deep deep deep down to the ball does ps Now.
Speaker 1: I will go back and watch that episode because I
Speaker 1: don't be watching. It really opened me up too, because
Speaker 1: I only have one living grandparents. I'm closer to my
Speaker 1: mom's side to my dad's side. I've only met two
Speaker 1: relatives on my dad's side outside of half siblings period,
Speaker 1: full stop. In my entire life, I never met grandparents
Speaker 1: and my aunt's cousins. None of them don't know him.
Speaker 1: I get it. I get a Facebook message from a
Speaker 1: wood about once every seven and eight years. I'll give
Speaker 1: them credit. They don't even hit me up for money,
Speaker 1: Like that's how much I don't talk. Amen, Amen. But
Speaker 1: the ones that I know, they've told me everything they
Speaker 1: could tell me. And so there was this so skip
Speaker 1: told me this thing. I don't even think he made
Speaker 1: it in the show, but this is what sucked me up,
Speaker 1: and this is what like reconstituted everything with me and
Speaker 1: my father. My father walked with a limp his whole life.
Speaker 1: He had a hit replacement when he was thirteen. So
Speaker 1: he's walking to girl home from school. This isn't funny,
Speaker 1: but it's kind. He's walking to girl home from school
Speaker 1: like his crush or whatever the fun. And let's just
Speaker 1: say he's a sophomore in high school and one of
Speaker 1: them singers with the varsity jackets comes over and pulls
Speaker 1: my father's girl just straight on some I just took
Speaker 1: your chick, nigga, What what you gonna do? Come with me, baby,
Speaker 1: get away from them, and she fucking left. She left
Speaker 1: with another man in front of my dad. My dad's
Speaker 1: crushed walked off with another dude. They go to W's
Speaker 1: the street and she dropped a book or something normalless
Speaker 1: she dropped something, and my father, being a gentleman or
Speaker 1: whatever the fun, goes out into the street to get
Speaker 1: her book to give it back to her, and he
Speaker 1: gets hit by a car shatters his hip right there.
Speaker 1: So that right there what I figure is that is
Speaker 1: what my father carried with him for the rest of
Speaker 1: his life, and that informed his relationship, perception of women,
Speaker 1: and his perception of how to treat women. Of course,
Speaker 1: that bitch. So when you start looking at unpacked trauma,
Speaker 1: I'm going, Oh, that motherfucker never went to therapy. I mean,
Speaker 1: what is therapy? Then? What is therapy to a baby boomer? Truthfully? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like what I'm saying. So when you look at that,
Speaker 1: it re it reconstituted a lot of everything. Also from
Speaker 1: finding your roots, I learned that my father lost his
Speaker 1: father when he was four years old. To this day,
Speaker 1: nobody knows how he left and never came home. In Georgia,
Speaker 1: we already know that's a legion and this is this
Speaker 1: is um nineteen, late twenties, early thirties, Georgia. And then
Speaker 1: they moved to Chicago. So it was never discussed in
Speaker 1: our family. How he died was never discussed, who he
Speaker 1: was was never discussed. And so and then I started thinking,
Speaker 1: on the fucking show, I go, well, who the fund
Speaker 1: did his mama date after him? Who were his role models,
Speaker 1: who were his examples? Who and I had and I
Speaker 1: to this day and I will die never knowing the
Speaker 1: answer to that question. So when you find out that
Speaker 1: type of ship, you got a grade a little bit
Speaker 1: of it on the curve, And it made it easier
Speaker 1: for me to go into fatherhood without a chip on
Speaker 1: my shoulder. Yes, because everybody, because at first you one
Speaker 1: had a chip. And and how do you deal with
Speaker 1: being mad at of motherfucker has been dead since? Ain't
Speaker 1: nothing you can do right there, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: So you just gotta go your father. Some people can
Speaker 1: do that. I love how you discussed this in terms
Speaker 1: of the generational trauma aspect, and would really stick out
Speaker 1: to me is when you talked about how sharing a
Speaker 1: beautiful moment with your child actually is a trigger for you.
Speaker 1: So I think that's a real important peace for parents
Speaker 1: and just for people in general. How a joyous occasion
Speaker 1: if it was absent somehow in your life, that even
Speaker 1: though you're in the moment, that you can actually be
Speaker 1: experiencing joy and deep pain at the same time. Jealousy, listen,
Speaker 1: and easy, very easy to self sabotage because you're not
Speaker 1: accustomed to the joy. It's like, how how dare I
Speaker 1: be heavy? My daddy wasn't happy? You know, but or
Speaker 1: or my child or how is it fair that my
Speaker 1: child gets something that I didn't I didn't get. Oh,
Speaker 1: I bet myself. Where people deliberately deny their kids stuff
Speaker 1: because they didn't get it and they think they turned
Speaker 1: out fine. It's like, now, you turned out okay in
Speaker 1: spite of it, but maybe don't give him a hug
Speaker 1: like the thing. My advice to anybody though, that's like
Speaker 1: dealing with that type of ship. The what I found
Speaker 1: most that I enjoy find if you got a parent
Speaker 1: that you got head beef with or still have beef with,
Speaker 1: figure out the one thing that you enjoyed with them
Speaker 1: and do that with your child, and then you'll feel
Speaker 1: connected to your parents in a positive way. So the
Speaker 1: best experiences I ever had with my father were traveling.
Speaker 1: I cannot tell you where we were going. I cannot
Speaker 1: tell you that that's none of that ship, but in
Speaker 1: the car, on the train, and the plane, just being
Speaker 1: in that space, because that's when he was the most
Speaker 1: normal and the most base level, and I got the
Speaker 1: most regular interaction out of him that wasn't like tense.
Speaker 1: I remember the year before he died, I got my
Speaker 1: learners permit at fifteen and my pops was doing his
Speaker 1: jazz show on commentary show. But at this point the
Speaker 1: cancer was kind of starting to creep up on him.
Speaker 1: So he's he's losing strength, but still strong enough to
Speaker 1: do radio. He was doing a morning news show at
Speaker 1: Alabama State. So every Saturday morning I would drive him
Speaker 1: to Montgomery because for me it was oh, I get
Speaker 1: to drive on the freeway, and for him it was oh,
Speaker 1: I gotta show for It was perfect. So every Saturday,
Speaker 1: for you know, our up our back, we was in
Speaker 1: the car and I just remember, I just remember fifteen
Speaker 1: hour car rides to Chicago, like I just those things.
Speaker 1: Like my dad. Before we moved to Birmingham, my mom
Speaker 1: and I was still living in Memphis. It's like second grade,
Speaker 1: and my dad was coming back and forth like every
Speaker 1: weekend to see us. And he had a fucking CB
Speaker 1: radio in his car, and he taught me how to
Speaker 1: talk to truckers and we would just ride down how
Speaker 1: are we seventy eight? Back to Birmingham and just talk
Speaker 1: to strangers on a fucking radio. And I thought it
Speaker 1: was the coolest, wildest sucking thing. And that's that's low
Speaker 1: kis prank call one point oh, because you're just working,
Speaker 1: talking to strangers and ship. So so with my boy.
Speaker 1: You know, this is a stupid thing to brag about,
Speaker 1: but I am very proud of it. My son is
Speaker 1: a gold status flyer with Delta Wow. He has his
Speaker 1: own You're traveling dog train. We're getting on this train.
Speaker 1: We're ridding all over New York City. We're gonna take
Speaker 1: this ferry and just do loops back and forth to
Speaker 1: Staten Island with no destination. Like we're taking the amtrack
Speaker 1: down south twenty eight hours in a sleep pecar. Because
Speaker 1: to me here some of that ship he'll remember. You
Speaker 1: might not remember playing catch, but you're gonna remember twenty
Speaker 1: eight hours on a shaky ass and track. You ain't
Speaker 1: gonna forget that. So those moments and it's gonna balance
Speaker 1: out those things that see every child, I don't care
Speaker 1: how intentional the parrot, every child gonna have a great
Speaker 1: and that eight hours that's gonna balance out the great.
Speaker 1: Feel me, I was thinking the same thing's gonna be
Speaker 1: a barely traveler to everybody. Forgive me. I don't mean
Speaker 1: the mama talk to you, but I got a whole
Speaker 1: two year old so baby. When he pulled out the
Speaker 1: conversation on the ship. I didn't do right as I
Speaker 1: don't talk to Who are you talking to? You're not
Speaker 1: talking to me? Is this some mother broad in the room.
Speaker 1: That's your mother? I don't. I don't know who you're
Speaker 1: talking to, but I love. What's wild is that I've
Speaker 1: gotten um. So we don't whip my child. I got
Speaker 1: whipped until the grade when my mom figured out that
Speaker 1: psychological punishment is better than physical. And so when like
Speaker 1: I don't know, my son was three or something, and
Speaker 1: my mom was telling him like, don't don't do that.
Speaker 1: Don't do that, boy, and she was like faking like
Speaker 1: she was gonna hit im, like a mama, we don't
Speaker 1: even raise hands. We can't even I don't do that,
Speaker 1: and start walking through why we thought that and all
Speaker 1: of that ship, and it was fine. And then one
Speaker 1: day out the blue, like years later, like like two
Speaker 1: three years later, my mama just came up to me,
Speaker 1: one day, you okay, inspite of what happened up the boy.
Speaker 1: She thought I wasn't whipping the boy because of some
Speaker 1: ship that happened to me. And I'm like, no, Mama,
Speaker 1: mask wasn't was justified. We almost got a victor. Because
Speaker 1: I almost burned down the comp up that justified as Oh,
Speaker 1: she probably felt so much. Said, I just say, we
Speaker 1: read some ship and we just want to try something differently.
Speaker 1: Because the thing about whipping your child, you can always
Speaker 1: start it, like if he's fifteen, I can just swing
Speaker 1: on him. Let's see, let's see what happens without the whippings,
Speaker 1: and let's see how far we can go with this.
Speaker 1: And if he's still wilding, then I'll beat your glass
Speaker 1: because you're still a black man. Yes, I do, because
Speaker 1: that's the beauty of being forty to having a child.
Speaker 1: See you got the wisdom, you know. I have to
Speaker 1: say that the conversations before the spankings were much worse
Speaker 1: than the actual spankings. The conversations like please beat me,
Speaker 1: because you made me feel like I know I was wrong.
Speaker 1: Please beat me? Only got a couple. I got about
Speaker 1: four good ones. And then after that I was remember mom,
Speaker 1: and she was two feet shorter, just swinging up. My
Speaker 1: mom was as cold with it. My mom would take
Speaker 1: my Nintendo tapes but leave the Nintendo in my room,
Speaker 1: so I just stare at it. Yeah, yeah, that's educator
Speaker 1: for a mother, right there. Is She would take my
Speaker 1: baseball glove. And she knew that I had the type
Speaker 1: of coaches where if you show up without your glove,
Speaker 1: you run the entire practice. You don't get to You
Speaker 1: did not bring stuff to play baseball, so you don't
Speaker 1: get to play baseball. So you're gonna run. And so
Speaker 1: my mama knew if if she took my glove, I
Speaker 1: just had to run. Other people do to work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So for two hours every day in the Alabama heat
Speaker 1: from three thirty pm, Tom, I'm running. We love your
Speaker 1: mom that you won't do that again. She wouldn't give it,
Speaker 1: and she wouldn't give it to me. That's a wonderful
Speaker 1: choice she hit with that. I know what to do
Speaker 1: with you, sir. Yo. With black kids, man, you can't
Speaker 1: you threaten to tell their coach. That's worse than telling
Speaker 1: their dad. I had no want your suicides and whatnot.
Speaker 1: I understand. Now we're gonna take a quick break and
Speaker 1: then we'll be right back. We all know there's a
Speaker 1: whole lot of implications around black children and discipline, and
Speaker 1: I think everybody on this call is aware of the
Speaker 1: ways that we are as a community trying to really
Speaker 1: work through how that looks now I know I had
Speaker 1: to do it. But the point is we know that
Speaker 1: we're having different conversations with ourselves about these kinds of things.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean that everything we learned was wrong.
Speaker 1: It just means that we're doing what we're doing with
Speaker 1: a consideration around things that our parents didn't consider and
Speaker 1: we're geting space. Yeah, we're giving space for things that
Speaker 1: they didn't give space for or that they didn't know
Speaker 1: to give space for. So that's and didn't have time.
Speaker 1: They not have the time to give space for. Everybody
Speaker 1: write that down so you don't keep offending your parents
Speaker 1: because they're like, so everything I taught you that ain't
Speaker 1: no good in the mother I was, I baby. My
Speaker 1: mom never spake to me. I I received maybe one
Speaker 1: physical interaction with my mother when I was fourteen, and
Speaker 1: I did deserve it. But how how did discipline happened
Speaker 1: in the house? Because I'm sure that wasn't the only
Speaker 1: Oh no, that wasn't It wasn't the only whipple bull offence.
Speaker 1: But truthfully, my mom literally just talked to me a lot.
Speaker 1: She had a relationship with us that she was actually
Speaker 1: be rated for. We we really did have a friendship.
Speaker 1: She just talked to us a lot, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: even like a situation where she had to say anything
Speaker 1: particular to us other than that these are my expectations,
Speaker 1: and like this is how things are going to work
Speaker 1: around here. Like if you don't do this, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna work for you, it's not gonna work for me.
Speaker 1: And let me just say this. I tried this with
Speaker 1: I have six children. I tried this with my children.
Speaker 1: It worked with three out of six numbers. It worked
Speaker 1: with bad at all. I had to shift it adjust
Speaker 1: with the other three. So, like I say this again,
Speaker 1: our parents be onto something. It's just a matter of
Speaker 1: us kind of figure out what works for our children
Speaker 1: and giving ourselves, let's say, like a nice little shark
Speaker 1: cutie plate of things to choose from in order, what right,
Speaker 1: in order for what we're gonna do to to help
Speaker 1: them learn and understand consequences. Man, I thought it with
Speaker 1: Chakudi Chicuni plate. I love it. Chacudi so good. My
Speaker 1: girl though, and watching how she interacts with that child,
Speaker 1: she has far more compassion than me. And I know,
Speaker 1: like that's something that I just generally did not receive
Speaker 1: growing up. And I know, hang on because I know
Speaker 1: one of you folks in Birmingham is listening right now,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna take this clip and send it to
Speaker 1: my mom and snitch and say that I said that
Speaker 1: my mama didn't love me. And that's not what I'm
Speaker 1: sucking saying, right Yo. When I start talking about family
Speaker 1: on these podcasts, it gets back to my mom. I'm
Speaker 1: just telling you right now. So I have to be
Speaker 1: very specific about my mom showed love through action and
Speaker 1: providing me because she was always working, and she was
Speaker 1: always in grad school or law school or a master's degree,
Speaker 1: something that kept her out until eight pm, and I
Speaker 1: was a latch key. I never felt unloved with my son.
Speaker 1: What I noticed in watching his interactions with his mama,
Speaker 1: I see my girl walking to room with him and
Speaker 1: hold him, and that you a different child to her
Speaker 1: than he is to me. So on the nights where
Speaker 1: I am stern with her, stern with him, I have
Speaker 1: to do what she does after the fact and kind
Speaker 1: of come back in, all right, you won't, you won't
Speaker 1: watch something you know you're not a black black mama
Speaker 1: beach and then go you want send me. I have
Speaker 1: to do the equivalent, which for me at our house.
Speaker 1: After I've been stern with him and put him in
Speaker 1: time out and he's cried, I have to come back
Speaker 1: in this room. Uh, you want to watch munster truck
Speaker 1: racing in the count to make sure that he feels
Speaker 1: like physical love, like an embrace of a man. I
Speaker 1: didn't wonder that, So I don't even know how to
Speaker 1: do it. But all right, I've watched enough episodes of
Speaker 1: black Woke, the shows US whatever. Yes, yes, I support
Speaker 1: black creators. Black crea. Meant to say wrong and feel
Speaker 1: it in Sorry, y'all, I didn't mean to say that.
Speaker 1: But so it's things like that where I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do things that I never got and you're trying to
Speaker 1: almost in a way, you're doing your impersonation of what
Speaker 1: you think a good parent is because it's not your default,
Speaker 1: you know. But I'm happy to do it like you
Speaker 1: just you have to put a hat on like it's
Speaker 1: a job. This is the job requirement if I don't
Speaker 1: want him going around hidden, And I also want him
Speaker 1: to know that it's okay to be in his feelings
Speaker 1: and feel a certain way, like that's the one thing.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, my girl's great at that ship. Sure,
Speaker 1: it's okay to feel that way, and when you feel better,
Speaker 1: come back in the room and let us and when
Speaker 1: you're ready to be around people, get like it's that
Speaker 1: ship where I'm like, if you don't requine and doing
Speaker 1: out of here, but they're doing it. That's my default.
Speaker 1: My default is get the funk on out of here
Speaker 1: with that wine. But she goes go away and feel
Speaker 1: that it's okay, and you can return when you don't
Speaker 1: feel that way. There's two ways. If they had the
Speaker 1: combination in the parent unit. I'm so glad that the
Speaker 1: gag is the approaches. One thing. Ship still could go left,
Speaker 1: like right, like Angel was saying earlier, all the things
Speaker 1: that we're attempting to do with our children and trying
Speaker 1: to be better people, you know, being wokeity, you know,
Speaker 1: or attempting to be you know, like, the ship can
Speaker 1: still go left. It's like everybody's gonna need therapy. Period.
Speaker 1: It could. But at the same time, because you life,
Speaker 1: life goes left, right you therapy, Yeah, you can't. You're
Speaker 1: still a good daughter. But you're still a good daughter.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that's okay. Sometimes you know, I still you know,
Speaker 1: I still struggle with some things, you know, like I
Speaker 1: told you guys like my mom really stopped working it
Speaker 1: when I was fourteen, and it forced need to be
Speaker 1: an adult. It forced me to go to work and
Speaker 1: pay bills and figure stuff out. And that I that's
Speaker 1: probably why I work so much, probably why I have
Speaker 1: so many jobs. But what I the difference I'll say
Speaker 1: with my kid is that I realized how important our
Speaker 1: quality time is and how is the little stuff is
Speaker 1: the walks, it's the you know, it's playing records in
Speaker 1: the library and you know, talking about music because that's
Speaker 1: what he loves to do, you know, so going places
Speaker 1: that he wants to go. That that's you know, a
Speaker 1: soul of balancing act. Really really, So let me ask
Speaker 1: you a question since you're further down the parenting assembly
Speaker 1: lined in me. I have a similar outlook on work
Speaker 1: so my father. In times where my parents were arguing
Speaker 1: about money, I chose to work because I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be the child to bug them for ten dollars
Speaker 1: for the field trip or the thirty dollars for the
Speaker 1: Nintendo tape or whatever. So so I started working at fourteen.
Speaker 1: I would rake yards around the neighborhood ten dollars front yard,
Speaker 1: fifteen front and back. And that rolled into selling sodas
Speaker 1: at at Alabama games and basking Robbins and Subway, and
Speaker 1: I worked at like just always two jobs while still
Speaker 1: going to class and to the point where my mom
Speaker 1: would kind of give me a little bit of ease
Speaker 1: on being a C student. Then when my pop stopped
Speaker 1: my seeing my dad was one of them. My my
Speaker 1: daddy was so black. He didn't pay taxes because the
Speaker 1: black man didn't have a right to vote. That was
Speaker 1: going to expire whatever whatever. So my daddy said and
Speaker 1: tell us a law, I'm not paying taxes. So when
Speaker 1: my daddy died, the I R S said, we're gonna
Speaker 1: need his house. We're gonna need to get all them cars, right,
Speaker 1: give them cars about it. So I had to work
Speaker 1: to help my mom the lights on my senior year.
Speaker 1: So when I started doing stand up, I knew what
Speaker 1: it was like like. Being broke didn't scare me anymore
Speaker 1: because I had been without and I knew how to hustle.
Speaker 1: So that was always the constant thing, like even now
Speaker 1: to this day, when the pandemic hit. Yeah, I'm on
Speaker 1: the Daily Show, but oh ship, you're telling me there's
Speaker 1: a world out there where comedy clubs could be no
Speaker 1: longer exist. I bet I'm gonna get this our special together.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start to fucking podcasts. I'm gonna sucking sell
Speaker 1: two shows. I'm a right like, my brain just started
Speaker 1: fucking going dog. And now I have this child, and
Speaker 1: I have to decide how do you teach it? Because
Speaker 1: the thing that you can't teach my I got to
Speaker 1: give credit to my homie Tommy John again for this.
Speaker 1: How do you teach poverty to a child that doesn't
Speaker 1: grow up in it? How do you give them that hunger?
Speaker 1: Because I don't know if I want my kids to work,
Speaker 1: but I know that part of my values and part
Speaker 1: of my character came from working. It's also the only
Speaker 1: time you get to be around adults who don't have
Speaker 1: governance over you, So you get to interact with with
Speaker 1: grown folks and really see how the world. Like I
Speaker 1: really think everybody should work in a restaurant. At some
Speaker 1: point you seventeen, you're working with thirty eight year old
Speaker 1: men and veterans and old pie It's just every possible
Speaker 1: type of person you'll meet in this world comes through
Speaker 1: a restaurant. And so I don't know how to put
Speaker 1: that in my boy without it being something that feels
Speaker 1: forced or whatever. Like, you know, how do you teach
Speaker 1: them the value of work but not want them to
Speaker 1: become a workaholic. I can give you this one perspective.
Speaker 1: I'm sure Asia has six. Uh, I can give you
Speaker 1: this one. I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned this on
Speaker 1: the podcast at least once before, but I think it's
Speaker 1: a really good choice to use your fuse box. That's
Speaker 1: exactly what it is. To use that. When you're going
Speaker 1: to leave, and you're son knows that you're gonna leave,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't want you to, You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: make a hard choice and don't leave. I know, don't
Speaker 1: leave or turn that fuse box off everything except your
Speaker 1: refrigerator because you don't want your food to go bad
Speaker 1: and spend the day with no electricity whatsoever. And when
Speaker 1: it's time to eat, you eat cold sandwiches. When it's
Speaker 1: time to watch a movie, you get already for it,
Speaker 1: but the TV doesn't work. If he wants to play
Speaker 1: a video game or something, so get all ready for it,
Speaker 1: but the t but it doesn't come on. By the
Speaker 1: time the end of the night was up, and it
Speaker 1: was candles everywhere. My son, you know, he said, Mommy,
Speaker 1: we can't the pool is cold, the TV doesn't work.
Speaker 1: We we ate sandwiches for dinner. You know why why
Speaker 1: can't we do the stuff that we like to do.
Speaker 1: I said, well, mommy doesn't work, I can't pay for electricity.
Speaker 1: I like that when you make it tangible for them,
Speaker 1: they can understand that one thing begat to another. And
Speaker 1: when I work, I can buy you clothes. I can
Speaker 1: buy your shoes. I could take you to the places.
Speaker 1: I could do the things when I don't, I can't.
Speaker 1: It made it really tangible for him. And he asked
Speaker 1: me to go to work tomorrow. Can you go to
Speaker 1: work tomorrow, Maria, Yes, I can, Yes, I can. So
Speaker 1: do you what you want him to work? If he
Speaker 1: came home and said I had a job, yes, well
Speaker 1: that's a whole conversation because we we talked about poop
Speaker 1: putts and that is that is like a great fear
Speaker 1: for I think for a lot of black women, black man.
Speaker 1: If you do not want your shall your your son
Speaker 1: to grow up to be a pool putt leaving on
Speaker 1: the you know, sleeping in the basement, talking about kennis girl,
Speaker 1: spending night you know, come on, I borrow the car
Speaker 1: all that ship? Do? You don't want that? You want
Speaker 1: someone to who you know, supposed to raise these people
Speaker 1: so they could fly, you know, and be self sufficient
Speaker 1: and have a desire for some thing that can afford
Speaker 1: them the kind of lifestyle that they want to have
Speaker 1: to wait and most most of us want electricity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean so a j k. You answered, I'm curious
Speaker 1: because there's a part of the Roy's question about not
Speaker 1: becoming a workaholic. So how do you because because jil
Speaker 1: you got the beginning of the question, but then the
Speaker 1: other part, like the workaholic part, how do you do that? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you really want me to be honest,
Speaker 1: I mean my kids, my kids experienced that light situation
Speaker 1: and it wasn't a joke, so, you know, not not
Speaker 1: specifically the lights, but like when certain things couldn't happen
Speaker 1: because because there was a big recession that happened before
Speaker 1: before right before Obama came into office, we did not
Speaker 1: work for four months and I was pregnant at the time,
Speaker 1: so there was a lot of we can't do that,
Speaker 1: this can't happen because mom and dad would typically be
Speaker 1: on the road and we are not so certain things
Speaker 1: that would happen, those things couldn't happen. So my older
Speaker 1: children experience that in real time what it's like to
Speaker 1: have parents in the entertainment industry, but also understand that
Speaker 1: that's a real job, and that that job is not
Speaker 1: just because you see your parents on TV or you
Speaker 1: see X, Y and Z doesn't mean that they don't
Speaker 1: have bills or they don't have like a real life
Speaker 1: that's supported by real, actual action work work. And so
Speaker 1: they experienced that early on. It. So you see the
Speaker 1: difference in my younger children as opposed to my older children.
Speaker 1: All my older children worked in high school. All of
Speaker 1: them worked. They all had jobs. I have a senior
Speaker 1: right now who who works. Um, they all understand this
Speaker 1: because they wanted to get jobs for the very reason
Speaker 1: you wanted to get a job. It's like, my parents
Speaker 1: have six kids, they have multiple businesses. I don't want
Speaker 1: to have to come to my parents every time I
Speaker 1: want to go hang out with my friends, or every
Speaker 1: time I want a pair of sneakers, or every time
Speaker 1: I want something to X, Y and Z. But what that,
Speaker 1: what what happens is why communicateation is so important, is
Speaker 1: that you don't want them deciding the reason in their
Speaker 1: mind based on your circumstances that you haven't communicated, because
Speaker 1: what that causes is that then they start to believe
Speaker 1: something that might not really be true. I don't want
Speaker 1: to bother my parents because they can't afford it. Well,
Speaker 1: how the funk you know I can't afford it. I can.
Speaker 1: I might be able to, but you're you're you're creating
Speaker 1: a pathology and your probably you know, you're creating something
Speaker 1: in yourself that's not necessary. So that's why the communication
Speaker 1: between parent and child is so important, and the way
Speaker 1: that you talk about your professional life and the way
Speaker 1: you talk about adulting even with your young children, so
Speaker 1: that their perception is not always the perception of a child.
Speaker 1: So let's keep it real. Things you perceived as a child,
Speaker 1: you take them into your adulthood, and those are the
Speaker 1: way you perceive them as an adult. You carry a
Speaker 1: child's perception into your adulthood, and then it then dictates
Speaker 1: how you adult. Jesus. So I want my children to
Speaker 1: understand how to take their child perspective and the reality
Speaker 1: and create something that they can then use to anchor
Speaker 1: how they live their lives. Well, I have to say that.
Speaker 1: You know, we talk about this to it. You know,
Speaker 1: my kid and I we grew up in total different ways,
Speaker 1: so it's important for me. Like I grew up in
Speaker 1: a row home with one bathroom and Jed has never
Speaker 1: had a house or lived in the house with one bathroom.
Speaker 1: So I feel like we don't we can't relate in
Speaker 1: these areas like you had to, you know, go after
Speaker 1: Uncle Dave. You know, if he doesn't smell to join up.
Speaker 1: You know, you had to. You had to deal with
Speaker 1: people and and live with people and be patient and
Speaker 1: figure out other ways. You know, Grandma had the pea bucket.
Speaker 1: You know, you gotta make it work. And he doesn't.
Speaker 1: He doesn't relate to me in that way. So it's
Speaker 1: important for me to say no sometimes. You know, I
Speaker 1: figure out when you know, when's the right time to say.
Speaker 1: But I have to say no sometimes, not because because
Speaker 1: I can't do it. Because if you can't have everything,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That's this real life. You can't
Speaker 1: have everything all the time. Dog, And I love you
Speaker 1: enough to try to prepare you for the nose. What
Speaker 1: you're gonna do. You're gonna have a tantrum. You're gonna
Speaker 1: fall out, You're gonna be mad. How are you gonna
Speaker 1: deal with nor something else? Homi? I love you, don't
Speaker 1: be corny and don't be no damn, but I can't.
Speaker 1: Let's figure we have to serious for me, Like I
Speaker 1: have to figure out another way. If you want the thing,
Speaker 1: then here's the job that you have to do in
Speaker 1: order to get the thing. I'm required to take care
Speaker 1: of your needs. I'm not required to get it all
Speaker 1: you want? Nice? Love you, legal with him. We'll be
Speaker 1: back after the break. Is this the first time we
Speaker 1: did What's on your heart? And we don't even Nope,
Speaker 1: not at all. We just pulled down at all. This
Speaker 1: this damno episode is a what's on your heart? Right now?
Speaker 1: Since we are here and we've been having this awesome conversation,
Speaker 1: Roy Wood Jr. What's on your heart? I would say
Speaker 1: the importance of going to therapy. I have enjoyed it. Uh,
Speaker 1: how do you know when you have anxiety or you
Speaker 1: just don't like being around my fus no more? What's
Speaker 1: the difference the difference in that? Because I'm starting there
Speaker 1: and I don't know if it's COVID paranoia or if
Speaker 1: it's or if just being locked up for a year
Speaker 1: just made me not like anything more than thirty people.
Speaker 1: I just get and you've been talking a lot, Like
Speaker 1: how about this, You've been talking a lot this year.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you just don't feel like talking on your regular time,
Speaker 1: Like I'm like talking to podcasts. That's a lot staying
Speaker 1: in those days with a microphone, comedy show talking commentary. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's been on my heart. I mean, definitely figuring
Speaker 1: out how to fucking raise this child, Like I get
Speaker 1: something I'm trying to do, Like I'm trying to prepare
Speaker 1: them for the police conduct conversation. You know, he's five,
Speaker 1: he's five. I think I saw seven year old arrested
Speaker 1: and a six year old was handcuffed in the last year,
Speaker 1: so I know that that is inevitable fing But for now,
Speaker 1: what I tried to do is teach him. Dogs are
Speaker 1: like people in the sense that they are unpredictable and
Speaker 1: many are friendly, but if you do it right, you
Speaker 1: can guess which way their emotions are going. So in
Speaker 1: teaching him how to read dogs, I'm hopefully teaching him
Speaker 1: how to move around people that he's unsure of, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And that goes you know, it's
Speaker 1: bigger than the police, but it starts with the police
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned. But just in terms of hey, man,
Speaker 1: move slow, no crazy movements, no loud noises, you know,
Speaker 1: like just anytime, like I haven't been in some weird situations,
Speaker 1: you know, when when with a gun, sometimes poliee, sometimes
Speaker 1: not police, but they had a gun and that was
Speaker 1: enough for you. You have my undivided attention and figuring
Speaker 1: out how to move safely through those spaces. So that's
Speaker 1: probably the biggest thing that's on my mind. And if
Speaker 1: there's anything that detaches me from moments with him that
Speaker 1: are pure and in the present, it's knowing how finite
Speaker 1: they are, and just you know, well, this ship is
Speaker 1: gonna be over not too three y. Nobody's gonna see
Speaker 1: him as this young cute kid any more. They're gonna
Speaker 1: see him as a young shoplifter. So let me going
Speaker 1: in and preprell don't don't touch stuff in the store. Dog.
Speaker 1: And it's like giving him the confidence of a king,
Speaker 1: but also knowing how to move around people who don't
Speaker 1: see him as such and not losing his confidence. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't want him to think he's a poop put
Speaker 1: but you need to know how to move around my
Speaker 1: fucker's I think you are right that that that storm
Speaker 1: constantly festers off the coast of my consciousness. It hasn't
Speaker 1: reached shore yet, but mhm, we do best we can
Speaker 1: about it. Well. As a as a black woman who
Speaker 1: has had this conversation with both her sons, her twenty
Speaker 1: two year old son and I have an eleven year
Speaker 1: old who just crossed over from that cute being like
Speaker 1: a fourth thread right from qute to threat. I will
Speaker 1: say this that the conversation that I had with my
Speaker 1: eleven year old is very different from the one I
Speaker 1: had with his brother. My experience with his brother was
Speaker 1: Tradmon Martin, but my experience with my eleven year old
Speaker 1: was Tummy and Rice. And so the level of fear
Speaker 1: and what it is that fueled the conversation with him
Speaker 1: was just from different circumstances. So with my little one,
Speaker 1: what I try to explain to him was this, there
Speaker 1: are just ways of you just being. You exist and
Speaker 1: you're and you're okay to exist in whatever way you
Speaker 1: feel that you want to exist, or what you have
Speaker 1: to understand is that just existing normal things that you
Speaker 1: would do normal things, cry, get upset, misunderstand do anything
Speaker 1: that those things can be misconstrued because of the way
Speaker 1: other people are taught. So you have to understand there's
Speaker 1: no way you cannot exist, there's no way. You just
Speaker 1: have to be aware of the way your existence is
Speaker 1: viewed by other people and how they do things and
Speaker 1: how they decide to do things. And it's just it's
Speaker 1: a very unfair, horrible conversation that we should never have
Speaker 1: to have with our sons, or our daughters for that matter,
Speaker 1: because I had the same versation with my daughters. I
Speaker 1: want to make that clear that girls get attacked by
Speaker 1: police too, but that the thing is that helping them
Speaker 1: to understand that balance is really damn near impossible because
Speaker 1: this is a toxic situation. Your child should not be
Speaker 1: able to manage it. That's the fact. That's the fact.
Speaker 1: Your child should not be able to have to manage this.
Speaker 1: And so the more that they understand it it's outside
Speaker 1: of them, I think, the better they can handle it,
Speaker 1: the more that they understand that, yes, there's some things
Speaker 1: that you could do that might make the situation turn
Speaker 1: a certain way, but you need to understand this is
Speaker 1: way outside of you. It's so way outside of you
Speaker 1: that really you could act a hundred percent perfect and
Speaker 1: this could still happen. Yep, you h h. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: we get to play catch straight and you get to
Speaker 1: tickle and giggle and have and be silly and make
Speaker 1: real cheese sandwiches and because they're funds. Miss it. I
Speaker 1: miss him, He's I missed him. He's like, I really
Speaker 1: I really funk with Jet, Like I really fun with him,
Speaker 1: Like I like that kid. I love him absolutely, but
Speaker 1: I like him. He's cool, he's dope. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: that's that's one of the goals too, to have a
Speaker 1: kid that you actually like. Yeah, yeah, that other people
Speaker 1: that you love like too, you know. Yeah, he got
Speaker 1: a good village Roy's he's very considerate. Yeah yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's that's the other thing that I think that
Speaker 1: he has that I didn't have growing upside, you know,
Speaker 1: my girl side, her whole family, these new girls zoom
Speaker 1: call every Sunday like this love. Yeah, people on a call,
Speaker 1: all but four people in each twenty boxes for three
Speaker 1: people in each box. They were you want to give
Speaker 1: him some of his love coming off the side, Like
Speaker 1: he gets a level of joy and togetherness that I
Speaker 1: never experienced just because you know, my mom's side, we
Speaker 1: were all close, but everybody was just just do another
Speaker 1: ship and you didn't have the gifted technology either to
Speaker 1: bring it together every way. You know that we three
Speaker 1: way just got invented in the eighties. Like he was
Speaker 1: doing good to get four people on a call. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he he has a good village. He definitely has a
Speaker 1: good village. And I'm just I'm blessed that there's enough
Speaker 1: people around when I'm not around, because because the challenge
Speaker 1: as a parent is how how do you remain present
Speaker 1: and also provide, you know, and COVID gave us, you know,
Speaker 1: the gifts to be at home over but you know
Speaker 1: now it's trying to get back out on this road.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm trying to write more so I don't
Speaker 1: have to like go out like that and I don't
Speaker 1: want to be on the road forty weeks a year.
Speaker 1: I say it again, it's coming back to you, Roy,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna tell you because you're here, so I
Speaker 1: gotta share it with you. This is my belief. I
Speaker 1: could be wrong, but this is what I truly, truly
Speaker 1: believe about life. The twenties are for working hard, the
Speaker 1: thirties are for working smart, the forties are for working
Speaker 1: how you want to, The fifties are for working when
Speaker 1: you want to, and the sixties are for working if
Speaker 1: you want to. I think it's a it's a good
Speaker 1: manual for exist like that. I like that. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: well I'm definitely getting into how I'm definitely I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: what's your ultimate? Roy Like, what you what do you?
Speaker 1: What do you wanted? What do you want? What's your ultimate?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Man, I'm driving in Fall. I've been
Speaker 1: driving in Fall since now. It just seemed like whatever
Speaker 1: you want thing. It just you know, it just seems
Speaker 1: like I never had plans beyond two to three years strategic,
Speaker 1: you know where, Like I'm just to a point where
Speaker 1: I feel like I have like a five year Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if I can get this show in this show greenlit,
Speaker 1: then I can turn into a studio deal and then
Speaker 1: I can create more content and get these other people on.
Speaker 1: But like ideally to build a production house and get
Speaker 1: more content started. The pipe Dream. Pipe Dream is a
Speaker 1: film and television production studio in Birmingham, maybe Huntsville, but
Speaker 1: there's so many hurdles. There's a lot of political hurdles
Speaker 1: to getting film and television advanced in the state of Alabama.
Speaker 1: But the only way that's going to happen is if
Speaker 1: you have good content to be created in that region.
Speaker 1: And the only people that are going to create content
Speaker 1: in that region are people that are of that region.
Speaker 1: And there ain't many people of Alabama that have enough
Speaker 1: power to get anything greenlit. So whether I want to
Speaker 1: or not, it's on me because nobody else is gonna
Speaker 1: fucking do it. And like there's a couple of people,
Speaker 1: like when I Comedy Central gave me a pilot in
Speaker 1: Jefferson County Probation, where I played a probation officer, which
Speaker 1: is loosely based on my situation when I was nineteen,
Speaker 1: I got popped for stealing some credit cards and so
Speaker 1: I had a probation officer that was Hella, just Hella
Speaker 1: nice and letting me travel and still do stand up
Speaker 1: during that time. And that's not the norm. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's not even it's against the rules truth be told.
Speaker 1: So it was just a show reimagining, like like when
Speaker 1: you look at the way crime is portrayed in television,
Speaker 1: right to catch the criminal. It's a courtroom show to
Speaker 1: send the criminal jail, or it's the criminal in jail,
Speaker 1: like those are the three those are the three aspects
Speaker 1: of crime. There's never any discussion or exploration on restorative
Speaker 1: justice or what restitution looks like and what that journey
Speaker 1: is back into society for said criminal. So it's it's
Speaker 1: a show that's got some some layers of you know,
Speaker 1: my own woke it he woke if you will. But
Speaker 1: to be able to a shot that in Alabama was
Speaker 1: a blessing, Like that's a fucking hell, Mary from your
Speaker 1: own ten yard line, and we got that bitch green
Speaker 1: lit and we got it shot and we hired again.
Speaker 1: It showed me what's possible in the state Alabama. And
Speaker 1: so that's that hasn't left my mind. Wood Jr. I
Speaker 1: like to save people whole man, friend, I know we
Speaker 1: just met, but to run try to me for yeah, man,
Speaker 1: from from from my perspective, peers that one thing begets
Speaker 1: another in your life pretty obviously from your parenting, from
Speaker 1: your parents and who they were to who you are now,
Speaker 1: how you're trying to raise your son. Um, you're the
Speaker 1: jobs that you've created at the jobs that you've had
Speaker 1: the fact that you still have this deep appreciation and
Speaker 1: respect for where you come from. All of those things.
Speaker 1: You have to just start seeing it. Go take little trips,
Speaker 1: look on Zello all the time, you know, and look
Speaker 1: at buildings that are available or land that's available. Uh,
Speaker 1: start talking about it more and more. Draw you all
Speaker 1: your ideas out, and truly, sincerely, it will come into fruition.
Speaker 1: That's not a myth. That's not you know. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to sell your pipe dream. I know I'm smiling,
Speaker 1: but I smile alt. I'm just saying. I'm just saying
Speaker 1: I will be very very happy to visit your studio
Speaker 1: and hopefully you will give me a job. As a job,
Speaker 1: I also use a job as well. I have six children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'll just tell you somebody shows I created to
Speaker 1: them a production. Let's just go. I'm like, we all
Speaker 1: look and Danzler is an excellent writer as well as St. Clair. No.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, bring them kids on set. We'll
Speaker 1: put them in work. They will take you up on that.
Speaker 1: They will take you up on that job. They like jobs.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to tell you. That's what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to told you gotta show them better than that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, man, I've really enjoyed this conversation. Sorry, as
Speaker 1: we appreciate this was this was dope, man. This is
Speaker 1: this y'all. Y'all all right man, it's a good time
Speaker 1: see friends and family out here in this world. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening to Jay dot Il the Podcast.
Speaker 1: Definitely appreciate you and the opportunity to share stories. That's
Speaker 1: our conversation as well as inspiration. That's our should. Love
Speaker 1: you so much. Talk to you later. Hi, if you
Speaker 1: have comments on something we said in this episode called
Speaker 1: eight six six, Hey, Jill, if you want to add
Speaker 1: to this conversation that's eight six six nine five four
Speaker 1: five five, don't forget to tell us your name and
Speaker 1: the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your
Speaker 1: message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: Jill Scott Presents Jay dot Il the Podcast. This podcast
Speaker 1: is hosted by Jill Scott, Laya st Clair, and Age
Speaker 1: grad and Danceller. It's executive producers are Jill Scott, Shawn
Speaker 1: g and Brian Calhoun's produced by Lawya st Clair and
Speaker 1: me Eves, Jeff Coke, the editing and sound design for
Speaker 1: this episode we're done by Christina Larenger. I also notified
Speaker 1: Roy that he has to be a special type of
Speaker 1: man to be invited to this podcast, Black women and
Speaker 1: respect black women and Black women women. As a man
Speaker 1: that was birthed by black women, do y'all holds that voice?
Speaker 1: I love it. J dot Ill is a production of
Speaker 1: I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
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