Roy Wood Jr. joins Flagrant to recount his 25-minute White House Correspondents' Dinner set, detailing how he balanced jokes about Tucker Carlson's firing, Ron DeSantis's LGBTQ+ policies, and Joe Biden's age while avoiding alienating the room. He contrasts this with his own stand-up panic, Nicki Minaj's water advice, and debates on Diana Ross's punctuality versus systemic racism. The conversation explores cultural appropriation in Cleopatra documentaries, George Washington Carver's stolen inventions, and the unique pressure on Black comedians to represent their communities without sacrificing artistic freedom or facing the isolation felt by Indian Americans between cultures. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Florida's Gay Policies Joke00:14:38
We also have a couple that we thought you might like.
Oh, jeez.
And you can read them and it won't affect your career opportunities at all.
It's always a f ⁇ ing ride when I come to the flavor.
Okay, ready?
Here's a good one.
Florida's gay policies are incredibly strict.
You're not allowed to say gay.
Matter of fact, if you're HIV positive, Ron, DeSantis calls you Disney Plus.
Okay, what about this one?
How demented are you, motherfuckers?
Let's take a moment to recognize the hardworking Americans that have endured trains dumping toxic loads all over them.
We're thinking about you, Stormy Daniels.
I love that.
Okay, here you go.
This was a sweet one.
Jesus.
I'll read it if you know.
Tucker Carlson's been fired.
His absence at Fox News is actually the only gaping hole that Don Lemon wouldn't fill.
We're talking.
I should have had y'all writing for me because it's easier to tone down than punching.
Like, I know how to take those jokes and go, okay, I know how to fucking pay my son's college.
What's up, everybody?
And welcome to Flagrant.
And today we have an incredibly special guest, okay?
Fresh off of the White House correspondence dinner, ready to go to the Met Gala.
Look at this outfit.
Oh, no.
Okay, we got legends.
Boy Wood Junior Joe, bro.
Yeah!
All right.
You deserve to be there.
Let me give you flowers off the top.
Okay.
Your words.
This is a story a lot of motherfuckers don't know.
First year of the Daily Show, I've been here two months, 20th anniversary of the Million Man March.
They're doing the Justice or Else March down in D.C.
I wanted to interview Minister Louis Farrakhan to find out about the march and all of that.
I have no plug into the Muslim world.
Like, I'm black.
I'm southern black.
I just don't know no Muslims like that.
I didn't know a black Muslim ever until I met here.
I didn't know nothing but regular blacks till college.
Like, I didn't meet a Dominican till literally till it's Alabama.
It's just regular blacks.
There's no Jamaicans and no shit like that.
So I'm trying to get it in with the Nation of Islam.
I know Charlemagne knows some folks in the Nation of Islam, but I also don't know Charlemagne.
And there's only one person in this city.
Ally, bro.
Andrew the ally.
And I don't even know him like that.
I just know him just as a comic around a little bit, whatever.
I just, I email him very hard.
Hey, man, could you ask Charlemagne to ask the Muslims to ask?
And he just replies back.
Didn't give me no promises.
He goes, I'll see what I can do.
And then we got the brother Nouri Muhammad on the daily show.
Then they reached out to us.
I don't know what you did.
I don't know what Charlemagne did.
I don't know how they found my email, but they reached out to me.
It wasn't like you brought back the contact information.
Yeah.
Just some mysterious shit happened, man.
That's how Islam works, bro.
Yo, but I was able to talk with some brothers from the nation on the daily show of all shows.
Like them worlds don't normally mix.
And that was the second piece I did on the daily show.
And it's because of this motherfucker right here.
There you go.
Alhamdulillah.
Look at you.
Is that it?
Is that how you say?
Alhamdulillah.
Now, if they come for you and try and cancel, you just pull this clip and then just publish that.
I tried to get you the minister.
I asked Charlemagne.
Yeah, yeah, but no, but you know, the minister, they're not going to give access to him just on a regular basis all the time.
But Nouri Muhammad represented what they were trying to do.
Okay.
Hot take.
Is Minister Farrakhan the best public speaker alive?
Oration and subject matter.
Yeah.
Obviously content.
He's the best player.
But just off.
Just off.
Subject matter is a given.
Subject matter you can't even compare.
But just off of oration, is he number one?
I don't know.
Or is it Chappelle?
Chappelle is, I might be obviously Dr. Umar.
Yo.
Yo.
Honestly.
Honestly.
The way he drops bars, bro.
Yeah, Dr. Umar is fire, but he's not fucking with the minister.
Umar's different, though, because he paces real shit with jokes.
He sneaks shit in here and there.
Like he oscillates.
Yeah.
I think Obama just owned, if you close your eyes, who would you want to listen to read you a book?
Minister Farrakhan.
That would be a 14-hour.
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.
The Jews pushed him off.
I wouldn't want to read every nursery front as Mr. Farrakhan.
SarahCon be going on them diagrams.
Humpty Dumpty.
Now, before we get into, we must talk about humps.
Motherfucker, you're adding stuff to Scotty.
That's why he's the GOAT, man.
Tony W was on the wall because the Jews took his legs.
Why'd the Jews build a wall in the first place?
Why is there Israel in Palestine?
It was one place.
It was the whaling wall.
That's why he was crying.
Man, audio book would be five days long.
You can't read it.
But no, man, it's a pleasure to be here with you.
We're so stoked that you're here.
I have a lot of questions.
You're just fresh off the White House correspondents that obviously.
Okay, first of all, we want to get some jokes that maybe they said no to.
Okay.
We want to hear some of the things that you have to say.
Let's start with context.
Okay.
They didn't police none of the material.
That's why they were nervous as shit.
Wow.
They didn't police a black.
They did not.
Yeah.
I love that.
They probably like, we can't.
We need to live for the speech.
So let's not police it right now.
No, I got to give it up to the Correspondents Association, man.
They did not ask to see a single thing.
The only time they saw that script was when I sent it to the dude that was running the prompter.
Wow.
Okay.
That was it.
Now, of course, you're wondering which way you're going to go.
And like, you go to like some function the night before.
Hi, I'm with the president.
Okay.
Do you know what you're going to talk about?
Let's back up real quick because there's a lot of people who watch internationally.
They might not know how important this night is.
What is this night?
Can you explain to them what you just hosted?
So every year, all of the press that cover Washington, D.C. politics, they all get together with the politicians from both sides of the aisle.
And this really, this is some shit that would never happen in most countries.
No.
And they have a night of drinking and joking.
They give out scholarships to young journalism students.
The tickets that they sell for this, the money goes into a pot to give scholarships to students who are trying to be the next wave of journalists.
And the president is there.
The president is there.
All the most people are six feet from you.
Yeah.
All the most powerful people in the world are there.
And then all the most powerful people.
Senators, representatives too, state reps.
And the media.
So everybody who's talking shit about each other nonstop is in a room and they're forced to interact with one another.
And I think it's a really cool thing.
One, because everybody has to have a sense of humor.
But two, when you write an article about somebody, you know that later that year, you're going to see them.
You're going to have to look them in the eyes.
And I think it adds, it should add a little bit of empathy to the discourse.
I don't know if it does, but I think that that's the idea, which is let's not just write and talk shit about each other if I'm going to have to see you.
But see, I think that's where we're starting to get back to, though, because the thing that they didn't really talk about, or at least I haven't seen in the articles yet, is that Kellyanne Conway pulled up.
Caitlin Jenner pulled up.
There were a couple of people from the right-wing side of the game who have not come the last couple of years.
I just think that just being in a room with people you don't fuck with is an eventuality that maybe you'll start fucking with them.
I think it's a reason why we get good at comedy is because when we start, people don't fuck with us on stage because we're bad.
So then to the point of the jokes that I chose not to do, that's what I was up against.
Because as a comedian, nobody in that room, for the most part, knows me as a stand-up.
You know me as a daily show correspondent.
You know, shit I do on the daily show is like 20% of what I do on stage.
And ain't nobody in that room seen my comedy because I know they ain't got paramount.
Tough as shit, Daley Show and tough ass shit.
I'm just saying, they ain't seen me because my first two specials was on the Comedy Central app.
Ain't nobody in that room got the conversation about that.
So I'm on stage.
All the good journalism is behind a paywall.
That was a sign.
I didn't mean it.
Come out.
That was a son.
None of that shit, boy.
So I'm up there and I got to do jokes that help you understand who I am as a person and honor the tradition.
Because that's the other thing with this for the people who don't know.
You kind of got to throw jabs and call out what's been happening in the last year.
And you can't come on stage, especially not as a comedian.
You can't come on stage, lean into one side of the issues.
I tried not to.
I'm sure somebody's going to be upset no matter what.
Yeah, it is what it is.
But that's the spirit of the night: we can all laugh about the mistakes we made and the things we're doing wrong, and hopefully we can get them right.
And they hire a comedian to literally come out and roast everybody there.
Correct.
It is a roast, and it's been this for years.
Now, you go up.
I want to know what's the call.
Does your agent call you and say you're in the running for it?
Like, how does one get selected for it?
Were you friends with, I don't know, I said Kamala just because of obviously similarities.
Oh, because black?
What?
Because black.
You think he's black?
You think the bomb said?
No, you're dressed like her Indian grandmother's house.
What are you talking about?
Fuck you.
Look at that.
You thought I did.
You don't want to find my 90s after muffins.
That shit is so good.
Okay, okay.
That's one of them jokes that make you question putting the clothes on.
Don't let them save you, bro.
Nah, they called.
They call my people.
They're like, we want to, does Roy want to freaking do this shit?
So your agent calls you and says, hey, the White House just called or the Correspondents Association, whatever it is.
Let's connect the dots.
So January, the Warriors are at the White House to do the trophy jersey, whatever the fuck.
I get an invite to come and talk to the Warriors.
So I can talk to Steve Kerr, talk to Steph, talk to Draymond.
While there, I got to sit in on the press briefing.
And so we end up doing a little skit with Kareen John Pierre that it was fine.
It was funny enough, but they were also very, what are you going to do?
Are you going to make us look crazy?
And I think that went well enough that maybe I guess, you know, whoever was there and picked game, then like, hmm.
And then, yes.
Offer it to the Negro who came.
Offer it to him.
I enjoyed his skit with Tamrick.
So, yeah, we got a call.
And then at that point, you can't say no.
Of course not.
And it's a huge honor.
Just for everybody who's not from America, I don't know if you realize it, but there's only a handful of comedians have done this.
Less than 15.
Are you the first full black?
No, Larry Wilmore, Wanda Sykes, said the entertainer.
Oh, wow.
Like, I literally do a little research on it.
Yeah, It's a freaking entertainer.
Yeah, six entertainer.
But his was wild.
Said was the one I ended up trying to model my shit after because Said ain't a roast comic either.
My stand-up ain't roasty.
Yeah.
I talk about issues, but I don't roast folks.
But the way Said was doing it, I was like, okay, if I try to do something like that, all he did was kind of do his stand-up in a more casual form.
That's what I felt like you did when you got into the Dominion joke.
I was like, Roy's doing his stand-up.
That's a stand-up bit.
That's a stand-up bit.
You can tell if someone is being their stand-up show because also that shit was ripping.
That Dominion joke was ripping.
That's my favorite voting machine.
They ain't suing me.
And the callback was great.
But see, that's enough that, like, okay, he's funny for real.
Now it gives me the right to go right behind that and do the school shooting.
Hold on, hold on.
I want to get into that, but let us get it.
I came right behind that.
So you have, so you have how many months to prepare for this?
And how long do they tell you that it should be?
How many months to prepare for this?
And how long do they tell you that it should be?
I got the call in February.
They said do 15 minutes.
I started trying to structure what I wanted to do first before I got writers involved.
And then the news kept changing.
And then March comes, right?
So it's the beginning of March.
I got my guest hosting week at the daily show, top of April.
So I got to start thinking about topics for that.
And my problem was that anything I want to do for the dinner, well, should I do it on the daily show?
Maybe just put that on the day.
That's a better place.
So I just didn't think about it at all until after my guest week, which gave me a three-week runway.
Which kind of works because the biggest stories broke the week of, five days before the dinner, Tucker Carl sent down them and get fired.
Ron DeSantis joke, the Ron DeSantis run is the only thing that survived from February till the night.
One joke.
Every other joke just got remixed.
We had Fox News jokes, but then Tucker took over that whole run.
So the Fox News run became mostly about Tucker.
Then the Clarence Thomas stuff, I had a CRT joke, and then the Clarence Thomas stuff leaks about him taking the unpaid vacation.
NFT, fucking just merges well together.
Yeah, that was a phenomenal joke.
Great joke.
Yeah, and so like just as news kept breaking, we just kept, I mean, like the first draft, bro, we had Chinese spy balloon jokes.
It's like, yeah.
You had a little tag.
But the drive-by.
You can't sit in it no more and talk about how the media obsessed over these balloons.
Most people don't care no more.
Yeah, also, there's a Cat Williams spy balloon joke.
Like, you know, I'm like obsessed with like, well, what are other comedians saying about the thing?
And I got to find somebody, somebody posted some cell phone footage of Cat Williams from a set earlier this year.
But his spy balloon material.
Yeah.
Y'all don't even need to address that topic now.
He got it.
He got it.
He owns that topic.
And not only that, his joke works in an evergreen way.
And I couldn't figure out how to tell it, because that's the other thing with the correspondence center.
It's just timely.
It's topical.
You got to be about what's happening right now.
And I couldn't figure out a way to do the spy balloon in that way.
But then, you know, we started huddling up and all the writers and we're like, oh, okay, here's a way to just sneak it in.
Yeah.
So when was the set finalized?
Bro, we was texting from the table on the night.
Wow.
Motherfuckers was at the podium and they're texting and they're going, Fauci's in here.
Do you got anything about Fauci?
And I'm like, oh, I think I can come up with something.
And is that coming onto the teleprompter?
Cat Williams Spy Balloon Material00:11:11
No.
So you just got to put that in there.
I got to drop it in just at some point.
The Britney Griner joke, like just that little quick pass, I didn't know she was going to be there till I saw her on the red carpet.
Was she?
So she was there.
She was there.
She didn't know she was going to be there until probably July.
Yeah, that red car was flashback.
She was like, God damn it.
These Soviets again.
Motherfuckers.
So that Biden nap run where, you know, Biden gets work done between naps.
Why did they show your face during that?
Did you notice that?
I don't know.
I don't know.
They must have known.
What I'm assuming.
Once you send him the prompter, they know.
And they're like, I'm not going to let him act out Joe.
So it's just cut to some cowboy in the audience who's like, yeah, yeah, I like the real sleep.
Also, they don't need audience cutaways in this shit.
I'm so confused why they do that.
For stand audience.
For stand-up specials, I get it.
But for this specifically, it's like that audience.
There's always someone on camera that's not doing what the other people are doing.
Yeah.
Yeah, the cut shot is always like, well, what the fuck is he doing?
Like, what is he talking about?
Well, the one time when they showed Trump like four years ago or five years ago, remember when he's just stone facing stealing shit.
Yeah, that is the great, that's a great time to do it.
Okay, they should keep the cutaways.
Just for Trump, just for Trump.
You just cut away for him for every single joke.
I was praying he pulled up, bro.
Yeah, he's not going to.
I thought that was so pussy that he didn't come.
Yeah.
I was praying he pulled up.
You see, that's why you figured like somebody like Kelly Ann Conway would go back to Trump.
It was a good time.
You should go.
Yeah.
And then it'd be your ass up there next year.
It'd be a whole different game.
I mean, imagine that.
So did you have some jokes for people that didn't show up that you pulled out?
No, because I wasn't, that's the one thing I don't subscribe to.
Just because you ain't here don't mean I ain't gonna talk about your ass.
If you've been wilding out, I'm supposed to not talk about Clarence Thomas because he didn't show up.
Yeah.
I just think if you got jokes about people that you have to do jokes about some of the people that are there, I think to earn the right to do the other jokes.
The only joke I was really nervous about was the school shooting joke.
What happened with the school shooting joke?
It was fine to me.
I don't care what the hell was that.
Was that the intention of the joke?
Yeah, just to just say pass gun laws without getting into, yeah, bing gun.
Like, you don't want to.
I thought that was the ballsiest joke.
To do that three and a half minutes in, you could lose not just the room, the entire country.
Because they don't have crazy trust in you.
You know what I mean?
You got one Dominion voting booth shit that hit.
That's a joke you put.
You tucked 30 minutes into a special.
You're doing it three minutes in to a speech for the entire world.
It could have cost you, and it hit, which is amazing.
I have to kick you in the teeth or else I don't earn the right to let's fail.
The Biden joke off the top.
What comedy club?
So good.
Like you saw me at the cellar.
The dark Brandon.
I didn't get that.
What is a mean thing?
That was a joke back from, if you watch it online, you don't, it's a callback to what Biden said earlier.
Oh, is it a Let's Go Brandon reference?
It's Biden leaning into people calling him Brandon.
He goes, I'm Dark Brandon.
Basically, I'm a tough guy.
So he says a thing to Roy where he's like, I'm ready for your jokes, but I don't know about dark Brandon.
And then he puts on the glasses.
And the crowd goes, he's leaning into their branding.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, there was a joke at the top, and you saw me coming to the comedy cellar running it every night.
Certain jokes you can't do in the club.
Like, all you can do is guess the main punchlines.
But like that, the first joke is me handing Biden back his classified documents.
Yeah, like that.
That he left at the podium.
If that doesn't work, how fucked am I?
Yeah.
Your first joke at a corporate gig.
Yeah, We've been there.
They don't know who you are.
It's just people in there like, oh, so they got a prop comic.
So we got black character.
That's all you got.
Trashing you from the stage.
Yeah, but they laughed.
And so then it's like, okay, let me do one joke on myself.
So, hey, I look like Keenan Thompson.
That was good.
Giggle.
Okay, let's do a quick Santos joke.
Giggle, giggle, giggle.
School shootings, motherfucker.
Yeah.
Like, that's where you have to go.
But you knew when you said it that they were going to groan.
Correct.
And then you had that line at the end, which I thought was simple.
Don't groan at me.
Pass legislation.
Yeah, just pass legislation.
Which is such a good, like, fuck you.
You're not going to sit here and moral hype.
You're groaning because it's true.
So if you got a problem with it, change it.
Do something about it.
So from there, then you can get into the people and all of that stuff.
I just think you got to, I got to come on stage and in two minutes, I got to prove to you that I'm funny and worth paying attention to.
Then we have to establish where the line is.
And so the school shooting joke is to establish the line.
Like, it's, I mean, you know, this shit is sociology, bro.
Like it's just manipulating people in a certain way so that they stay with you long enough to get to the next joke, to the next joke, and to the next joke.
And then once you have kind of people in a pocket, then you can do the Clarence Thomas joke.
Like the original intention was to do the Clarence Thomas joke higher in the set.
But then I'm like, if they don't know where I'm coming from, they got to trust you.
Yeah, trust me.
That one, you're taking them on a journey.
It's a long walk.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I didn't learn that walk yet.
Okay.
Now, speaking of jokes that may or may not be in this roast, we asked if there were certain jokes that you did not include.
Now, you're saying nobody edited your shit.
No one edited my shit.
Did you have anybody pull you aside and invite you to an island to fuck teenagers if you didn't say any jokes about them?
No, they did not.
I did not get the invitation.
Not at all?
No, no.
So I guess I wasn't funny enough.
Yo, don't make fun of me.
Prior to that.
Prior probably get caught.
His mom ran it.
Nah, I gotta, I can say with all honesty, man, nobody policed me.
It was people who were in those particular camps who knew that I was going to have something fun.
Like I did CNN Friday morning before the shit, the week of the Don Lemon firing.
And like some of the producers of CNN, I said, oh, what are you going to say tomorrow about?
Are we in it?
I'm like, yeah, I have to say something about what the hell happened here.
His picture is still on the wall.
You haven't even taken him down off the decoration yet.
Yes, I have to bring that up.
So it was more people who knew that they were targets.
It was the same thing a couple years ago when I did the congressional correspondence dinner, which is like the AAA ball version of this shit.
And it was the same time when Megan Kelly had got fired or whatever from NBC and NBC people were all up in my face.
So are you going to say anything about Megan?
Let's get to some of these jokes.
Now, understanding all of that.
Just the meanest ones, by the way.
Just the meanest ones.
You don't want all the shit?
No.
Okay.
So to me, the issue was this, bro.
Some of the jokes were so mean that it would jeopardize the structural integrity of jokes that came after it.
Okay.
I love that.
When you understand what you're doing, I love the way you break down comedy.
It's just like inside baseball.
But you don't know me.
These people don't know me.
So I cannot just be this vile out the gate because you don't know me.
And then if I'm too vile near the end of the joke run, it undermines the sincerity mom and dad shit that I put at the end because I felt in love with you.
Which was a great original choice.
Is it true that that woman wasn't actually your mom?
You actually hired an actor?
That was my mom before.
Wait a minute.
Wait, don't start those shit.
They just cut to some random.
Yeah.
You got to stand in on Viv.
You're like, what?
Who's that lady?
I could have gave it a better seat, bro.
Oh, they fucked in the mouth.
Okay, only the mean ones.
Now, some of these are cut for tone because they would break up the cadence of the act in the way I wanted to do between left, right-wing jokes.
Some of these were cut for time.
All right.
Okay.
So this is coming off of the joke about Kamala Harris and that, no, Dick Cheney.
You know, Dick Cheney had a documentary.
And if you're a vice president and you got a documentary, that means you vice president it wrong.
Ain't no other vice president had a documentary.
Well, Al Gore had a documentary, but it wasn't about being vice president.
It was about something far more boring, saving the earth.
We don't care about the earth.
We all gonna get killed at a shopping mall.
I just don't want to die in a Spencer's gifts.
There you go.
You're gonna kill me at a Nordstrom's baby?
That's why, oh, yeah, if you want to kill me, kill me at a Nordstrom's.
That's funny.
But we cut it because we already had school shooting jokes, so we didn't need to do double shoot jokes.
Is Amir Donald Trump the most snitched on president of all time?
Nobody stands tall with the president.
Even Epstein had Jelaine Maxwell for obvious reasons.
Our media works hard.
They uncover a lot of horrors in this country, like migrant child workers, or as Republicans call it, the solution to childhood obesity.
Was that part of Michelle Obama's Let's Move initiative?
Let's move those pallets until three in the morning.
As an alt to that, I had the food was delicious tonight.
Yes, it was picked by migrant child workers.
It's good, right?
Exactly.
That's why I didn't do it.
See, would have been a good opening, though.
Mike Pence was good at playing hide and seek on January 6th.
Oh, yeah, here we go.
Now you'll know why I cut this one.
The only time I ever heard about Mike Pence doing anything as vice president is when he was playing hide and go seek with Trump supporters on January 6th.
And Mr. President Biden, the only thing I remember about your time as vice president is that you cussed a lot.
And honestly, I don't think that was that big of a fucking deal.
You were the fucking vice president, and now you're the fucking president.
You should be able to say what the fuck you want.
And then off Biden's reaction: oh, you're not cussing anymore?
Joe Biden always flip-flopping on the issues.
Long though.
Yeah, yeah.
Wordy.
Long, long, long time.
Yeah, but on C-SPAN, it's like, ah, fucking hell.
Now, while you still look for some, we also have a couple that we thought that you might.
Oh, geez.
Oh, my God.
Biden Vice President Cussing00:03:53
We prepared.
I'm sure you prepared.
Just a few, okay?
And you can read them.
We actually printed them out so that you can read them however you'd like.
Oh, that's so nice of you.
You know what I mean?
And it won't affect your career opportunities at all.
It's always a fucking ride when I come to the flavor.
Always a ride.
Okay, ready?
So, what would we like to start with?
Do we want to start with?
I'm sure these are better than anything else.
Here you go.
Here's a good one.
This is about your career.
Let's close the book.
Here's your single.
Okay.
Oh, I can't believe it.
You got it.
You got it.
Here we go.
Some major shake-ups in journalism lately.
We'll limit out and tucker out.
Network news has asked more members than a medieval transgender clinic.
Solo down, bro.
Okay.
Hold on.
Hold on.
Paul, acts in medieval.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Member penis.
Yeah.
All right.
Okay.
Here we go.
Okay.
Okay.
We'll stay on the news.
We'll stay on the news.
No.
Okay.
I'll read it in the room.
Or Alex will read it as royal.
Alex can't read it.
Never mind.
Jesus.
You got it.
Okay.
Okay.
Tucker Carlson's been fired.
His absence at Fox News is actually the only gaping hole that Don Lemon wouldn't fill.
We're talking.
Okay, okay.
What about this one?
This is a good one about Florida.
Yeah.
Let's see.
What about?
Florida's gay policies.
Florida's gay policies are incredibly strict.
You're not allowed to say gay.
Matter of fact, if you're HIV positive run, DeSantis calls you Disney Plus.
That's a great joke.
That's all right.
That's good.
That's a great one.
That's good.
Okay, okay, okay.
What about this?
What about this?
What demented are you, motherfucker?
Sidebar, before I read this one, and I'm going to read it.
I only did like the only woman I did a joke against was Kamala just because of the weird, because the thing that I was like really concerned about is like, motherfuckers trying to take a joke and then we're going to use it in the wrong way against you on Sunday morning.
Like the shit I said about Don Lemon, motherfuckers is weaponizing against him right now.
And I'm like, yeah, but I also said that they hired Charles Barkley, which to me isn't the equivalent to Don Lemon.
Charles talked that shit.
But Don also, regardless of whatever he did off camera, the motherfucker get on camera and hold motherfuckers accountable and ask me, I ain't never seen Charles Barkley like ask a pushback question.
And that's what's going to be missing.
And so, you know, I just think that if I did a Nikki Haley joke or if I did a fucking Diane Feinstein or any of those topics, it's like it's a thin line of getting that joke right without somebody going, you're just a man picking on a woman.
So this definitely is not that.
No.
Don Lemon Charles Barkley Comparison00:07:53
Let's take a moment to recognize the hard-working Americans that have endured trains dumping toxic loads all over them.
We're thinking about you, Stormy Daniels.
I love that.
I love that.
But why'd you pick on that poor girl?
Come on.
Come on, Roy.
Do you understand the groans that would have come from the room if I didn't read it?
That would have sounded like Stormy Daniels.
Oh, yeah.
Come on, Roy.
Because they thought you were going to say East Palestine, but it's really a whore.
Oh, wait, that's the same one you guys say.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Okay, here you go.
This one is.
This is why I come.
This one's something tame.
This one's sweet.
This one's a sweet one.
Okay.
Joe Biden is here, but he doesn't know that.
Just such a lifeless, brainless corpse.
I'm surprised Trump hasn't already fucked him.
Damn.
That's good.
That's a good joke.
Joke-wise, that's good.
You're saying right then, Joe Biden's up and he walks out of the game.
That is true.
But imagine you walked Biden.
Oh, that was amazing.
That's a fire.
It would prove he's alive if nothing else.
And he trips down the stairs.
This one you could say.
This one definitely is fine.
I haven't picked one of the shit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right.
All right.
I'll give you this one.
Mr. President, you did a great job with your jokes.
You know the problem with this joke?
Is that I have to do this one at the top?
Yeah, immediately.
Which I'm done for the rest of that.
If I open with this joke, my document joke much safer.
Yes.
Yes.
Mr. President, you did a great job with your jokes.
You had those lines down so perfect.
Hunter tried to snort them.
Anybody, there's a few here.
Just pick one.
Imagine him looking at you with his lifeless smile.
Yeah, where would they cut for that joke?
Hunter?
They should have had a cam for him.
They cut the bite of one time.
It looked like he was lost.
He's just like, what was it?
He was facing the wrong way.
You honorable.
I'll vote for him again off that fucking reaction.
I didn't vote for him the first time, but I'll vote this time.
Shit, I should have had y'all writing for me because it's easier to tone down than punching.
Like, I know how to take those jokes and go, okay, I know how to pay my son's fucking college tea.
I know how to rework that one and still get a pay.
Pay some bills.
Joe Biden is so old that he thinks Kamala and I are sitting on the same side of the room for legal reasons.
Nice little segregation action.
Every CNN, every CNN anchor is gone.
All that's left is Blitzer and Tapper, which is what Cuomo used to do to the female interns.
That's good.
Yeah.
Blitzer and Tapper.
But when you did Inside Jokes, this is what this feels like.
Yeah, but you know what, though?
To credit to Inside Jokes, I've tried working.
This is the other thing I discovered about me.
I tried working that military cop joke.
Yeah.
Still ain't got it right.
Really?
Wow.
I tried part of it for my last special.
I don't know what it is.
Like, I feel like, I don't know if it's some round-faced black man bullshit, but like people are predisposed to liking me.
So if I'm too mean in my set, like, well, why would you do that, Roy?
But I'm still like, it gets the groan, but I can't yo-yo it back to the bottom.
That crazy part, remember?
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
That's still up.
Go watch that.
That's so good.
I mean, that was like, I was, it was the three of us and Ferzy.
Oh, dude, that was personal.
So good.
We got to bring that shit.
But it is funny.
He was trying to do like a similar social conscious joke about the vets, and then you guys just started punching it up crazy.
It's crazy.
He's just like, my career's over.
Same feeling you feel right now.
But no, but I did it then.
I'm back now, man.
That's what I like rocking with y'all.
I mean, you motherfuckers.
No, I like fucking laughs.
I like jokes.
I just can't do all the jokes in the same fucking places that y'all.
Now, do you ever consider that?
Is that one of those things where like on stage, I assume you are completely liberated?
I've never watched you on stage and felt like you were holding a single thing back.
Matter of fact, one of my favorite things about you on stage is that like your style of joke telling is very shaking up seltzer.
You know what I mean?
Like it's like once that opens, it is spray.
Like the Dominion joke is a perfect example of it.
It's like you don't even know when the punchlines are starting and ending because the concept is funny and every line afterward is a punch on that concept.
Thanks.
Right.
So, and I feel like that is stylistically very similar to the other stuff that you do.
Like for me, like if I'm trying to say something or I'm trying to make a point, I need you to hear me.
So for me, certain types of jokes, people clam up and they immediately just go, well, I'm not going to listen to nothing else you got to say.
So now, if I go hard in the paint off the top, then I'm only undermining my ability for you to understand what the fuck I'm trying to say to you.
So if I can lull you in a little bit, maybe use a word or two that you like and that you hear and that you prefer, then come around on the back side of that and hit you with a punchline.
To me, that's more, that's a punch that connects better than me just being a straight joke brawler and just hitting you with joke, joke, joke, haymaker, haymaker, haymaker, versus, yes, I understand what you're saying.
Like a joke that didn't get shit that I love to this day was the Ron DeSantis joke of, you know, Ron's trying to pass laws.
Yeah, it was great.
But he doesn't understand that this is America.
We don't pass laws.
We promise we're going to pass a law and then we don't do it.
And that's what all the great leaders in this room understand.
That's why you're here because you're the best at making things not happen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's better than going, politicians ain't shit.
And y'all, y'all at the sex island.
Yeah.
For me, that's a better, that's a more effective way of getting you to listen.
And then me.
It's also a funnier angle.
Compliment something that people do horribly.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's to me more comedically palatable to compliment the worst things.
But you are the best at being obese or you're the best at being fat.
Because now we're in silly land.
You can't be the best at a worst thing or at a horrible thing.
So, yeah, yeah.
It was.
Yeah.
And it's a sentiment that we all feel.
Like we're like, nothing gets done in politics.
Nothing gets done.
So it's like, it's.
What's the best way for me to say that in a way that I know you heard me?
Because if you're still mad about a Stormy Daniels joke I did four minutes earlier, you ain't even listening no more.
And I still need you to hear me.
And so to me, that's kind of where I'm always trying to bank on.
I do think audiences have amnesia once they get hit with a really strong bit.
Like, you know, that you could offend them and then push them away.
But if the next joke is really solid and strong, and I do think that they'll forget about that fucked up thing you said.
Patrice is good at that.
Bill Maher, Ricky Gervais, but they also, every joke is super strong and every joke, every premise.
Local Reporter Civil Rights Story00:05:08
And mine is kind of more, you know, up and down and up and down.
And if I fuck up one part of the journey, then I'm stumbling through the next two bits to get the equity to get back to zero to get you to laugh at the next fucking thing.
So you feel like you need that momentum with the crowd.
You need them on your side.
I'm saying if you're, to lull you in and then counter punch you, yes.
That's what I prefer to do.
Because otherwise, if you're a brawler like that, if you're a brawler like Patrice, then you've got to, every punch has to be emailed.
Yeah.
And I feel like with you and your comedy, and I felt this in the speech too, there's like, it's almost like a whole story.
The hour is kind of a journey we're going on together.
Yeah.
And then I felt like you did that with the speech too, with the scandals that tie us together was kind of the premise.
And I'm also curious if you had that, if you knew you were going to do that, if you were just like, I need something to make this a journey.
I need something to make it a journey because I knew I wanted to tie my pops and like all of the war reporting he did and like talk a little bit about just from an angle of, and it's not even kissing ass, I know what the fuck y'all go through.
My pops never talked about covering Vietnam and being embedded in South Africa during riots and Zimbabwe, like African Civil War.
Like that's some hostage shit where you wouldn't even talk about journalists that's locked up in fucking Africa.
It's always European and Eastern bloc and all of that shit.
And what's impressive is if he talked about struggling South Africa, they would just let him host a daily show.
You know what I mean?
Really?
Why didn't he not?
My daddy too angry for comedy.
He's the custom white folks.
My pops used to watch C-SPAN every night and he'd go, let me see what these crackers up to.
That's literally how my pops would turn on C-SPAN.
These lying motherfuckers.
So yeah, I wanted to tie my pops and his journey through journalism and just how the thing that I that I missed though, and we just, you ain't got, but they told me to do 15, I did 25.
It's too long.
But, like, the scandal, the other scandal in media is not just y'all put everything behind a paywall because y'all broke, but also the first people you fire is all the reporters that's covering all the important shit.
They're not covering, like, it's all the local reporters that go and like that Oklahoma.
Oh, you mean by fire like loser jobs because the companies aren't making enough money?
Correct.
So, when they have layoffs, yeah, when you have layoffs and you firing all these local reporters, the local reporters are the ones that go, every national story is a local story first.
And it's some local story, it's some local reporter editor to do it, and then a national reporter coming in and go, get the fuck out the way.
But you wouldn't even have known about it if it wasn't a local reporter.
And so, you know, that's why I tried to tie in what my moms and them was going through.
But I couldn't even really get deep into that.
You know, my moms is protesting at a white Mississippi College trying to help integrate it, and they're getting their ass whooped, bro.
Wait, really?
Yeah, yeah.
This is 60s shit.
And so hoses and stuff?
Yeah.
Just to be spoken about that?
No.
Oh.
Because, like, it's a lot of people.
I always want to know what that is like.
It's two types of black people from the civil rights movement.
You got the ones.
From which side?
Why would you assume I don't know the hoes, bro?
Ask a fireman about that.
I'm talking about getting a hit with the hoax.
Like, that's got to be awful.
Do you think it's been like a German shepherd, my fucking shit?
Oh, my God.
They've got the German Shepherds out there, too.
Yeah.
It's two types of black folks from the Civil Rights Movement.
You got the ones that's vocal now and the Al Sharpening.
I was just thinking that, bro.
What is that?
Sherman everything.
They gave us chocolate cake, though, so that made up for it.
They did.
They're like, get that shit out of here.
We're going to take these vanilla cakes.
But then you got black folks that just don't say shit.
They don't talk about it just on some PTSD shit.
So my mom is just staying in college and make sure black kids get education.
She worked at a black college for the last 30, 35 years now.
So that's how she tries to be part of the solution.
But my mom don't talk about that shit.
But you know it was a local reporter.
But most of the civil rights movement was local reporters.
Before all the national motherfuckers came down and like started embarrassing the country.
So that's where I was trying to tie it all into y'all are laying off the people that were the bedrock of all of this change that you keep saying we need to make in this country.
But I couldn't figure out a funny way to say it.
So I ain't saying that.
But I love that you ended on a sentimental note because most of the time it's jokes straight through.
You got them with the jokes and then you ended very thoughtfully and beautifully and like shouted out your parents in a way that most people wouldn't.
When else are you going to get a fucking chance in front of America to fucking say something meaningful?
Like you can be funny, but I've been funny enough at this point 10, 15 minutes in.
Yeah, but that was on Viacom, so people could actually see you being funny.
That brings up a very good point.
The Paramount Plus app is a very useful app, but I would hope that everyone would subscribe to Paramount Plus.
My favorite app is the Paramount Plus when I'm streaming from my Dominion voting machine.
Dominion got to give you something, bro.
They got to give you a little piece of that.
No money.
Oh, well, they got some money now.
Yeah, they would do it.
But what about being in the room?
North Dakota Voting Machine App00:02:31
Did anyone come up and talk to you afterwards?
You talked to Biden at all?
Anything like that?
I mean, it's just usual quick chop it up before they, you know, security was dragging me.
Yeah, the president?
Did the president quick chop it up?
You know how it goes.
We don't.
I mean, but what did y'all expect him to say?
Like, I was moving.
I will now pass reparations and then walk off.
That would have been fine.
So you got reparations though?
Oh, my God.
That would be.
I'm curious if Biden shook your hand or if he knew what's up and he reached back and gave me, you know what I mean?
No, it was just a straight up.
It's just from downtown.
He didn't have to come from back to start cussing again.
We're everywhere.
Get the dogs.
Who the fuck is he?
I don't know.
Nah, Kamala was real nice.
What did she, her hands off?
Yes.
Okay.
Why are you asking about a woman's hands?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm a male.
What?
No, you got me feeling creepy for saying yes.
Why did you remember that so good?
That was the wrong answer.
Damn, you know.
Did she have open toe heels up?
No, okay.
You don't dance at all.
Nah, nah, nah.
I know you didn't give her a hug.
I took a deep inhale like a creep.
Like, I didn't look at you like, hey.
Learn from the best.
Like that sniff, my man.
I shave better.
So, so, so, Kamala was looking good.
Anybody else there?
Everybody was chill, man.
The North Dakota, like, governor, was she there?
I don't know.
You know, the fine?
I didn't know.
I've not seen it.
Are there any fine politics?
We got like a fine politician who's like from North Dakota.
You're talking about the translator?
No.
You're talking about going to North Dakota.
Dakota.
You're talking about traveling all the way to North Dakota.
I'm not going to travel there.
You moved to North Dakota.
You said it like you moved to North Dakota.
She came to you.
You see, she's right there.
She got the Nancy Pelosi.
I think she's kind of.
Did you have any jokes about Pelosi's upper chest?
No.
Just upper chest.
I mean, if you dropped heavies during the speech, it would be iconic.
No, there was, there was, no, we just had a conversation about the Tucker stuff and the Pelosi picture in the office.
But like, too many people need to know the backstory on that to get that joke.
Because the Pelosi thing is like one of them.
Remember the thing?
So it's too much backstory.
So we didn't do that.
Did you know that Tucker Carlson is Don Lemon's drag name?
No, I did not.
Fuck you.
That's not true.
Nancy Pelosi Upper Chest Joke00:02:08
No, like there's not a drag.
There's just so much going on and so much.
Like you just see everybody just in passing.
Like only person I really got to chop it up with for a minute was Gail King and Lester Holt.
Like I'm just like I'm trying to find OG journalists to talk to.
Because like the journalists and like you know journalism degree in me it's like oh my god it's you I fucking respect your coverage.
Quick question.
Immediately before the speech and immediately after the speech, what are your feelings?
Immediately they call your name.
You're going up.
Are you thinking anything?
Is it pure panic?
Is it once I get the first laugh?
Everything is easy.
And then once it's done and it goes well, what's that feeling like?
First thought walking on stage is I should have gone to grad school.
Like, fuck.
What am I doing?
But it's like, I mean, this is nuts, dude.
But you can't not do it.
You can't not do it.
We're legit fucking lunatics for just trying the most dangerous fucking shit, stand-ups.
Yeah.
Hasa Minaj gave me a gang of advice, but then he also told me, take a water up there, your mouth's going to get dry.
And I forgot, and I was fucking up there choking.
A lot of them pauses, it's just me waiting on Slobber to come back.
It's not comedic time, and I'm fucking waiting on mouth juice to fucking lubricate.
And then after, it's just one big exhale, man.
Just one big fucking exhale.
And I posted a picture on my IG of just me just sitting in the chair that everybody had left the stage and the room is dispersing.
And I'm just like, on some Thanos, watch the sunrise on Ungrateful, whatever the fuck, just fucking exhale.
What'd your mom say when you saw her afterwards?
She was cool.
She was cool about it.
We spoke briefly.
My mom, we'll talk about it.
You know, black mamas, they don't say shit till like months later.
Thank you for what you did.
It'll be months later, but she got the fuck out of there.
They had a Diana Ross concert, and I keep forgetting.
That's like old black women's Beyonce.
Yeah, yeah.
She left early.
You know, as soon as she didn't stay this, like, say good job.
To go see Diana Ross.
Yo, how many more chances are you going to get to see Diana Ross?
Post-Show Thanos Sunrise Exhale00:12:58
Yeah, that's a good point.
How many chances are you going to see her correspondent?
She saw herself in the correspondence.
I'll be at the hotel in the morning.
Fuck him.
I got to tell you.
I'm having plenty of chances to tell him he didn't have the job at the thing I was at.
Yeah, my mom bounced.
Traffic was going crazy, and they knew, you know, Diana Ross, Diana Ross, go on stage on time.
She ain't one of them like black artists where they say 11:30 and then it's one in the morning before they go.
This guy's a crazy guy.
Racist, bro.
He's trying to say a black people are late.
Do you think the reason she was on time is because she was disciplined so much earlier in her career?
Oh, dude.
With dogs.
That's way worse than what I said.
That's way worse than what I said.
Who's being racist?
Who's not racist?
That's not racist.
I think all guys do that.
Or something.
Did all guys do that or what?
My mama got a day.
My mama got shot at that fire hose and they just like, well, let me start being on time.
Case them police out there tripping.
That protest was supposed to start at four.
I'm going to leave at three so I can make the protest.
Was it the police that did the fire hosing?
No, it's the fire department.
The police call the fire department.
Yeah, the fire department gets off easy on that.
Yeah, on the firemen.
One, we have to discuss that.
The fire department playing like a really because everybody puts it on the police and everybody thinks the firemen are heroes because they are.
They ran into the building and stuff like that or the buildings, 9-11.
But they were hosing you guys down.
Yeah, but then they stopped.
They did.
The police keep fucking up.
That is true.
But I'm also, there's also something ironic about people who definitely didn't go to college stopping black people from going to college.
Maybe I was recording more than maybe if they were allowed to go to that school, they wouldn't be upset, but they were turned down and then they had to become firemen.
You want an inside joke right now?
Here you go, motherfucker.
I had a joke about something similar in my special about how firefighters got off the hook and the same thing with the National Guard.
Like the National Guard straight murdered protesters back in the day.
Kent State.
They pulled up.
That's right.
That's right.
That was the National Guard who did that.
But like over time, we love the National Guard again.
Like now the National Guard showed.
We're like, all right, you're here to bring snacks and maybe help.
But at no point do we bring up the mistake they made because at some point the National Guard was like, all right, maybe we should stop shooting motherfuckers and let's just bring snacks.
And maybe that's what the police need to do.
We love snacks, though, dude.
I couldn't figure out a way to tie it all together.
Because the police.
Instead of water, it was Kool-Aid.
See, that part is fascinating.
That's where it is.
Is it watermelon?
No, That would be, then you could make an argument.
Like, we were trying to help.
Like, we just wanted everybody to have their electrolytes, you know?
I couldn't figure it out.
That part, bro.
He's too angry.
That is messed up.
I feel like we're being excluded from their workshop.
Intentionally said we did.
Yeah, you guys are doing outside jokes right now.
And we're doing inside jokes.
We got to work on that.
We got to work on that.
That was the maddest I ever made anybody on Twitter, black people for sure.
I called, I said, I tweeted one time that Kool-Aid ain't shit but flavored city water.
And motherfuckers were furious.
Like I had insulted their whole childhood.
But that's what it is.
I mean, yeah, but it's still delicious.
But stop acting like it was the greatest thing.
You don't, most people don't make Kool-Aid as an adult.
That's shit.
If Kool-Aid is available, you might have it.
But no one as a fucking adult chooses Kool-Aid first.
No one, if you went over a motherfucking house and they offered you Kool-Aid, you would judge them.
That's true.
No, that's true.
That's when I learned about like you start talking about motherfuckers' food and all that shit.
You're just insulting their childhood because they did.
Grandmama gave them Kool-Aid.
Made it together.
And it's not the Kool-Aid that you miss, it's the warm hug and bosom of your fucking grandmother.
Yeah dude, I never got.
I never got grandma tits, man.
All my grandmas were dead and their tits were dead, so I never got that.
You ain't dig them up.
You know what I thought about that, just to get that feeling that bosom.
You know yeah, you are me ma, but that must be nice, like your grandma did.
You know your grandma?
Y'all only had one living grandparent oh Mississippi, and we would walk to the National Guard Armory to let me look at him.
What I said?
We used to go to go to the National Guard Armory.
Shit, love playing in fire hoses a punch.
This is a summer's day.
Okay, let's be serious with the story.
Okay, you and your, your grandmama and my fondest memory, my memory of my grandmother.
You just say your fondlest my, my best memory.
You just say your best memory.
Dude, this guy is crazy.
The most, the most grandest memory.
No, we used to walk.
We used to walk every month to the National Guard Armory to pick up her government cheese and peanut butter.
That's what you called them.
I'm just telling you a good memory I had of a woman.
I love this.
Why you're free about kool-aid royalties.
You gotta taste it out.
Government cheese, roy okay okay so, okay.
So she gets the government cheese and the barriers.
Had a grandma and I remember walking with her and that's like when I used to get the wisdom from her.
Was like on the long walks in Mississippi to go get free shit from the government.
And what would she say on some of those long walks, what was, what was?
That is the blackest story ever told on this podcast.
Right there holy, listen up Alan, you don't have any stories like that with my grandma to go get government cheese.
I didn't want to say that part, but that's part of it.
Yeah yeah, wow.
Government, do they still have government cheese?
They have government cheese, but I don't know about government peanut butter.
So did in the south.
Do you guys feel like an entitlement with peanut butter?
Do you feel like that's yours?
No, but barbecue motherfuckers, we all claim yeah, barbecue.
Is the south claiming barbecue or claiming peanut butter, barbecue barbecue?
So black people have no historical uh, like attachment to the invention of peanut butter.
We, with George Washington Carver, I mean legend.
I think white people like peanut butter more than black people.
That's why I think y'all love it so much.
Black people are like I don't even want, we don't have a lot of peanut butter, we don't have a lot of peanut butter recipes.
But that's what I don't understand.
Like I mean this is like groundbreaking technology.
I mean it's cool, but it's not like what we with, like George Washington Carver's, like I don't name a black Edm dj.
It's like we like what you do, Dj Ruckus.
Okay, we love Dj Ruckus and we respect him, but also some of what he does isn't traditionally, I guess in a black space.
I don't, I don't.
I can't remember any black person just rolling out peanut butter cookies or peanut brittle or any of the fucking peanut snacks.
Is that like a self-loathing thing?
Like where do you think that comes from?
Why do you give a fucking idiot?
That's a great question.
That is an excellent question.
Why do your people not embrace the creations?
That was the most sincere question he's ever asked.
That was Barbara Walters Andrew, about fucking peanut butter, bro.
That should be bothering me man, because George Washington Carver was a goat.
How about chocolate chip cookies?
That's a black dude.
I know that.
Yeah, y'all took both recipes.
Give it back to us.
Give us the break.
First of all, first of all, first of all.
Y'all.
You right?
You're right.
We did take that.
I didn't take that.
We did take.
Hold on.
Can I just ask one question?
Are you saying white people stole chocolate chip cookies from black people?
They didn't steal.
My man sold the recipe and they low-balled him.
Yeah, they fucked him.
If he was on Shark Tank begging for a deal, it was so fucking sad.
Famous Amos had another thing.
And then the motherfucker didn't get no money.
But wait a minute.
No investors.
Nothing.
Hold on a second.
But he didn't invent the chocolate chip cookie, did he, really?
I think it was the first chocolate chip cookie sold.
Famous Amos.
Black people invented chocolate chip cookies.
Peanut butter.
It's like saying you invented toast.
Everybody will go, well, I also put bread.
That's what the people in the Middle East do with their like pita and hummus.
It's like, yeah, we know how to mash a chickpea.
Like, it's not yours.
I don't know if he invented it, but I know he had one that was really dope that everybody fucked with.
And then somebody said, give me your recipe.
I'll make it big and national.
And then they just bought it from him.
Fuck, dude.
So it might have just been on some like 11 herbs and spices type shit with this is how I do a chocolate chip cookie.
And then they took it and fucking ran with it.
That's disgusting.
That's just like, I've never believed in reparations until today.
Dude, do you realize what that could have done for the black community?
You got to get some of that keyboard money, bro.
Bro, them fucking elf.
But that's the shit you can't prove, though.
That's what is such a gray area thing.
It's like, well, did he invent it?
Well, I don't know.
Well, there's also fucking the ancient Greeks used to put chocolate in a fucking sand.
No, they used to put dick and chocolate.
No, that's kids.
Oh, kids.
Yeah, Kids, they used to do that.
Yeah, yeah.
But so that they could figure out their math formulas, you know?
They needed it, right?
Because they couldn't do math without dick and butts, you know?
They needed muses.
Yeah, they didn't division.
I don't know.
Divide them.
I don't know why we don't do more with like peanut butter production.
Like, I don't know how did y'all steal the peanuts from us.
What's interesting is when I asked the question, you guys were judging me.
Now you're ruminating on it and you're going, holy shit.
We changed the world.
George Washington Carver.
Can I tell you about God?
White people love peanut butter, took all the credit.
Who was allergic to peanuts?
White people.
I never met a minority with peanut allergy in my fucking life.
Do you think that that was by design?
Do you think that George Washington Carver put that in?
It was payback.
It was kryptonite.
Like that Dan Brown book, Dante's Inferno or whatever.
What does that mean?
You got a virus that hits like 20 years later?
Take that.
Holy shit.
George Washington Carver.
We got to ask the minister.
We got to ask the minister.
Email Charlemagne.
I'm going to email Charlemagne right now.
We're going to get to the bottom of this.
Because I love peanut butter, but will my kids not?
You're going to ask that shit.
And then you're going to get a random email.
Shut the fuck up about our shit.
Get some peanut butter stuck in your mouth and shut up.
Nah, but they got us back with milk, though.
I'm showing that close intolerance.
Yo, why would George Washington Carver invent something that you can't really enjoy it without milk?
You can't enjoy it without the milk.
Son, he wasn't for y'all.
George Washington Carver was not for y'all.
I don't want to say that, but like...
He was for himself.
He was for GW.
That's the George Washington part.
Yeah.
GW's doing the heavy lifting, dude.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, man.
What a shame.
Why are y'all trying to see our T George Washington Carver?
I don't like that.
This is critical race theory where we're talking about Transformation.
This is critical.
Critical races theory.
It's definitely a theory because ain't none of this shit proven that we're talking about right now.
Okay, listen, listen.
Before you go, because I know you have a very busy day, you work on a very serious news show where you have to worry about the facts.
On this show right here, we have a little segment that we like to call Feelings, No Facts.
So, your feelings here, okay, are the only thing that's important.
No facts are important right now at all with the topics that we're about to talk about.
Okay, so let's start it out.
Cleopatra cultural appropriation.
Have you heard about this?
No, but I'm sure I can guess it.
A bunch of white folks dressing up like Queen Cleopatra and freaking Panon Egyptian stuff.
It gets even crazier.
Crazy.
They flipped it on us, bro.
We did flip it on y'all.
Y'all didn't even know.
Mark, can you please explain?
Basically, Jada Pingaswith is producing a show for Netflix that is effectively a documentary about Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, and they cast this beautiful black woman.
Now, the Egyptian council and like all of the politicians in Egypt are saying that this is racist because Cleopatra was historically Greek, Greek, Ptolemaic Greek.
And so they're saying you can't be casting a black woman in a Greek woman's role and effectively wiping out what Egyptians look like.
Yeah, it's erasure.
White Folks Cleopatra Costume Party00:03:33
When does acting just come down to just the person?
Yo, thank you, bro.
Has to do it.
We've been saying that.
Like, I mean, where's the line?
Like, I understand representation, but then acting.
Once it starts coming back to bite us in the ass, now let's just make it about the person.
Yeah, let's make it about the skill, the talent.
I mean, so they're saying what?
Cast someone of a nationality that is closer to the genetic lineage.
Yep.
Either someone that is true Egyptian or some Egyptian.
To be fair, this is a documentary.
It's not a movie.
It's not like Jake Jillenhall doing Prince of Persia, which is fucked, but that's a movie.
This is a documentary.
The Persians were white.
They're from the Caucas Melons.
They weren't that caucus.
Jake Jillenhall caucus, bro.
I think they were white.
And then I think that, you know, Islam spread.
Yeah, but now we're getting into melanin percentages and all of that shit.
Listen.
You know?
I get it.
Now people are saying, well, no one was mad about white Jesus.
Jesus wasn't white.
We all know that.
But every movie with Jesus in it, he's white.
And you don't have the.
I assure you, black people are mad about white Jesus.
Nobody hears us.
So what is because you grew up in a church, right?
Yeah, yeah, Baptist.
So do you guys talk about Jesus being not white?
Are you like, he's probably more Middle Eastern looking?
It depends.
A lot of the black megachurches roll with white Jesus.
They really don't.
Can I ask you a serious question?
Like, they're indoctrinated from.
This is for real.
Because I've been going to church alone.
There's no fire hoses in church.
No, no, I know.
I know.
I talk baptism technically.
They wouldn't reach.
That's why they're baptized.
No, no.
No, but do you trust white Christian pastors?
I don't want to seem, I think I only trust black pastors, and then a random Asian pops up, and I'm like, yeah, they believe it.
I don't know if I trust pastors.
Whoa.
I'm not trying to all lives matter, but the religion, man, there's just a lot of manipulation in the church, and a lot of it is selfish.
And like to be raised in the church and then become spiritual.
And I believe that there's a God, but any dude with a Bentley trying to tell me how to meet God, I just said something off with you.
Small church pastors are the ones black.
Because you're broke.
Small church for sure.
No, you got to believe in this shit, too.
Yep.
Because you're trying to not be.
That's why they're taking laps around the church.
That's their gym, too.
They can't afford a membership.
Nah, I don't default to any pastor being truly full of morals.
Because then that's how they turn into the Joel Oldsteins and the Creflo dollars.
That's the thing with Joel.
He got bars.
I'm not going to lie.
He does have bars, but I don't buy it.
And I wonder if he was black.
I believe Creflo.
The problem is that you're trying to make these pastors out there.
I do believe.
I believe Creflo believes it.
Creflo told them people that God told me to tell you to give me the money to get the jet so I can go to Africa because I don't want to fly United.
Have you flown United to Africa, bro?
It's tough.
Have you done that?
It's tough.
I'm United, and it's tough.
It's tough.
I mean, United.
You can put Creflo through that, bro.
Yes.
Jesus got you.
He did.
He got on the private track.
That's why we believe, bro.
That's why we believe in Creflo.
Nah.
Here's the problem on the studio side.
They'll go, well, we can't find a talented Greek or Egyptian.
Jerry Springer Revisionist History00:15:24
Are you better off just finding the person who can't do the job just so it checks a box?
A worse actress that's Egyptian, hypothetically.
Yeah, I'm sure there's some good ones.
But this is good.
This is good that you're getting pushback.
Yeah.
Okay, what about this?
Siamese sisters, they're sharing a vagina.
Oh, I heard this one.
One of them has a boyfriend.
Oh, yes.
But they're Siamese from the top.
They look like a Y, right?
But they have one vagina.
Oh, look.
They look like a village person.
I know what the first, they like YMCA.
Look at it.
But if you zoom in, they do.
They do.
But like, if you zoom in really close.
How close?
How close?
Well, don't do that.
Okay.
So what do we think about this?
I mean, whoa.
Yeah.
Wow.
Listen.
I feel like there's a better way to wear the bra.
Like just one big one.
Stop hating.
Love is love.
My question is more rooted in what does the other one do while the other one is fucking?
That's my question.
What do you think?
Do you turn your head?
Do you look at each other in the eyes?
Like, I mean, look at your sister while you're getting, does this count as a three?
I have questions.
I think it's a two and a half and a three.
It's two and a half for sure.
But even what if like one of them is horny and the other's not and they just want to masturbate?
That's a good question.
It's a group discussion, bro.
You got to think about this.
You know, but aren't, but aren't a lot of twins like have synergy and thoughts.
They can feel what the other one's doing.
Yeah, like they all kind of want your twin jerks off.
You have a wedding.
Listen, y'all talk to this wrong person about this.
Young nigga.
That is crazy.
Go get the Lucas brothers.
Ask them.
I'm not the right person for this.
Ask Kenny and Keith.
Can you feel when you're called a stranger?
He's yourself.
Do you know?
That would be crazy.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Last one.
Okay.
This is a big one.
This is a really fucking big one here.
Okay.
Okay.
You didn't even know what it was.
No, I'm still looking for it.
Okay.
Okay.
Jerry Springer died.
What did he mean to you growing up?
It was good entertainment.
Jerry Springer, Richard Bay, which was like the bootleg Jerry Springer.
I don't know how many people remember the Richard Bay show, but like that.
That might have been some regional South shit.
So I never heard of it.
Yeah, I never heard it.
Google Richard Bay.
That motherfucker is Jerry Springer without the production team.
I saw a post that like some revisionist history on Jerry Springer.
Maybe that's why Richard Bay didn't pop.
Jerry Springer took all his money.
Motherfucker looked too much alike.
It's like Billy Blanks and Wesley Snipes.
They couldn't both exist in the same holly.
It could only be one.
Yeah.
My nigga told me a terrible story.
I know it's not true, but it makes me laugh that Billy Blanks and Wesley Snipes were both up for Passenger 57.
And Wesley called Billy and told him the wrong location for the audition.
Bro, that's true.
And that's how Wesley Snipes became a loser.
Like, you know, it's not true, but if that's true, that's one of the most fucking hilarious sabotages in Hollywood.
And then Billy Blanks did Tai Bo.
Yeah, and I've done Tai Bo.
Yeah.
Billy Bryce had like, he was like the straight to DVD muscle action movie guy.
Like him and Wesley at one point.
We're neck and neck.
We're the muscle black guy star if you want one.
Couldn't have done white men can't jump.
That's the drama side of it, I'm sure, is where Wesley's like, if we're being real.
Wait, what's the revisionist history with this?
That Jerry Springer exploited poor people and black people for entertainment and showed a lot of people at their worst.
And I never thought about it like that until I got older.
Because you don't know you're eating junk food when you're getting junk food.
Yeah, you don't realize it's just flavored city water.
Yeah.
As a kid, that's your grandma.
But when he was a mayor in Cincinnati, you know, Jerry Springer was 100.
He had a lot of policies in place that were trying to help people.
I think just the show, his show was just trying to be an alternative to the more buttoned-down Sally Jesse Raphael, Jenny Jones era of talk shows.
It was chaos.
He was really, I would almost say, in a way, Maury Povich stole his flow bar from the broken.
100%, yo.
100%.
I was thinking that.
Because when Springer first popped, Maury Povich was still.
Yeah.
We're going to get to the bottom of it and we're going to investigate it.
He had the show at Current Affair.
And then when he left for Kerr Affair and started his talk show, his talk show was way more buttoned down on some Geraldo Rivera shit.
And then.
Oh, what's that Jerry Springer guy doing?
Okay, well, let's do that in daytime because Springer came on at night in Birmingham.
Like, that wasn't even like a daytime, chaotic show.
That you are not the father shit hit.
And then.
Maternity test.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was all he did.
I'm sad he died, but I do agree with a lot of people that say that Jerry Spring was like, you know, just putting broke motherfuckers on the air for a couple hundred dollars and let them argue out some shit that they could have took from Judge Judy.
He did that same shit, though, Judge Judy.
This is Judge Judy.
What's the other one?
It's a boring version.
The best thing is, have you seen the, do you know what bum fights are?
Bro.
I remember that.
So bum fights were this like viral sensation where this dude would just watch bums fight and videotape them, put them up on YouTube.
This is early YouTube.
He would pay them.
He'd pay him and then bums would fight.
Somebody's like tattooed crazy shit on their forehead.
Then the kid was outside of like San Diego.
And it would just go crazy viral.
And he went on Dr. Phil once.
Dr. Phil brought him on and brought him on and accused him of taking advantage of mentally ill people and enriching himself.
But look at how he went on Dr. Phil.
Do you?
Why not?
That's despicable.
I don't want to talk to you.
You can go.
Look at him.
If you think I exploit people, every time you bring a guest on this show, you exploit them and spread whatever problems they have to the whole world.
You think that's helping them?
Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
You can go.
Sorry, but I just watched that footage, and that is absolutely despicable.
And I refuse to publicize that.
I'm just honored with you.
And then immediately publicize it.
That's funny.
I mean, it's kind of a good point.
I mean, yeah, that's all Dr. Phil is.
That's all most daytime TV is.
I mean, but how do y'all feel, though, when y'all see like broke white folks on TV arguing and shit and barefoot and dirty feet?
I don't think they care because there's enough white people that it doesn't matter.
It's not going to affect the way you view white people.
White people don't look at other white people as white people.
I know it sounds crazy.
Yeah.
Like, I've lived abroad in Spain, and I looked at all Americans as Americans.
Okay.
Right?
Because we were the minority there.
Right.
So every American there was like representative of me.
And if there was some American acting goofy at the bar, I'm like, how are you doing it?
Like, you fucking idiots.
Why are you making us look bad?
But like in America, we don't look at what, like, so when we see these white people that are on these shows, we're just like, oh, you fucking goofy idiots.
Oh, those are the poor whites.
Those are the meth head whites.
We don't even think of them as white.
The beauty of being white in America is you're not a white person.
You're just a person.
Yeah.
Fuck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't want to fuck your whole shit.
Yeah, nah, I think, I don't know.
I think Jerry Springer's show looked funny in the light now, but that shit was entertaining as fuck when I was pretty funny in the dark.
You gotta just talk about the term funny objective.
Yeah, you gotta be hilarious.
But I think you gotta own what you laughed at.
Yeah, I just, what I don't want to do is be all revisionists and act like, well, I would have never known I laughed.
It was hilarious.
Yeah.
I enjoyed it.
And then now you go, oh my God, why is that black person on TV?
But no, bro.
I think in like 10 years' time, we're going to be looking back at reality TV the same way.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, like all these shows, Love is Blind, all this shit is just like exploiting them.
A lot of people are committing suicide from these shows.
For real?
Yeah, there's like three contestants that committed suicide.
Oh, that's from which show?
Like different shows, but just a lot of these reality TV shows.
I was kitchen.
I heard a couple people kill themselves.
Really?
Gordon Ramsey yelled at him and killed himself.
No way.
More than one person.
I think it's more than one.
I know one.
All TV's best roaster, huh?
No one better.
Goat.
Goat.
That's amazing.
They should have just added some peanut butter to the missing.
That's what they were missing.
Apparently, Jerry Springer felt bad about the show, too, at the end.
Oh, really?
Apparently, yeah.
Like when he started getting more involved in politics and stuff, he was kind of like, yeah, some of the way that the old show was was kind of well, he got involved with politics first.
Yeah, he got rice politics.
No, it's politics.
Just being on the other side, he started talking about it.
Yeah.
But that's what happens when you want to go to heaven.
Like all these old people are saying, yeah, they see the pearly gates calling.
It seems to be moral when you got $50 million and the show's over.
And you know what?
That's kind of fucked up.
What are you doing with that money?
You're keeping it, right?
Yeah.
Okay, NBA playoffs.
You basketball fan at all?
Yeah, but I'm a Hornets fan, so I don't really talk basketball.
Wait, why are you a Hornets fan?
Regional coverage in Alabama.
Everything I root for is the shit that came on TV: Cubs, Dolphins, Hornets.
That's late 80s, early 90s.
Regional coverage.
So what is it?
New Orleans Pelicans?
Because there's no Hornets anymore.
No, in 89, 88, 89, when they first came in, it was Charlotte.
Yeah, that was a crazy team.
You had LJ, Muggsy.
Black as fuck.
Yeah.
So it was like, yes.
But who do you root for now?
Because the Charlotte Hornets are now in New Orleans, and they're the Pelicans.
No, when they went back to Charlotte, I just kept it Charlotte.
Charlotte Bobcats.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
I stayed with the Bobcats, which was a mistake as well, but I'm trying to support black business.
Yeah, because what is it?
Where Bob Johnson?
It was Bob Johnson.
Then it was Michael Jordan.
So I'm like, I support, I feel like every black person should be rooting for the Hornets.
Yeah.
You know, but you sell out, sell out ass niggas.
You don't even buy peanut butter, bro.
Don't talk that shit.
He's called MJ a sellout, bro.
Rooting for no, I don't.
I just call it MJ a selling.
No, I'm calling out black people for not so much.
Any black person that's not a Charlotte Hornets fan is a sellout ass motherfucker.
Yeah.
Fucking NFTS.
Yeah.
Owned by the white sports ownership.
Cubs came on TV.
And then, you know, back in the day in the 90s, you got the TV game of the NFL team closest to you that was good.
And in Birmingham in the 90s, it was the Dolphins.
Falcons were trash.
Yeah.
Buccaneers were trash.
Saints were trash.
Oilers were so-so.
Marino was the man.
So you just watched it.
You can root for all this other shit, but it ain't coming on to you.
There was no fucking Sunday ticket in 92.
Yeah.
What about College Ball?
Were you an Alabama fan?
Casually.
Alabama fans are just, they're a lot.
Why?
They're intense.
Like, it's like, I don't know.
You ever met somebody that's a little too proud to be white?
No.
Not quite white every premises.
Not quite white.
The guy cuts his hair.
Not like you will not replace us white.
But like on the edge, I'm just like, like, Alabama fans, I used to sell sodas at the games growing up, and I'm just like, oh, man, y'all motherfuckers in.
Put an ass or water and then just throw it in your face.
You're like, would you like a cup with that?
How about a hoe?
See, I like, I support Alabama football because it keeps you off from talking about racism in Alabama for a couple months.
Yeah.
They're like the best ambassador for the state.
It's just whooping up on all the other fucking schools.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I support that.
It's just a lightning rod for racism.
It's got to redirect it a little bit.
Is it true what people think of Alabama, like these coastal elites?
Like, is there any truth to it?
No, it's good folks down there, man.
No, we don't think that they're not good.
We just think that they're slow, dumb.
No.
Yeah, that's what you mean.
No.
We never think that they're slow or dumb.
So what do you think?
Just have some super fine cousin pussy.
There are certain pockets of the South where there are things going on that not even people in the rest of the South would condone.
So you look at them.
I ain't never had no cousin pussy.
Is that what you're trying to ask me?
I'm not asking you.
I thought that was a Caucasian thing.
I thought it was Caucasian people or the cousin fuckers.
I didn't know that black people were involved.
No, that's not.
I'll try.
Yeah, it's third cousins.
Third cousin's not a cousin.
Yeah, third cousin, fair game.
Take that family reunion t-shirt off.
Wait, are you saying they're not a cousin because they're like three-fifths of a cousin?
Wow.
That's a racial joke.
Wow, dude.
Yeah.
Nah, Huntsville's banging, bro.
Like, you know what's wild about Space Force is that it built jobs.
Well, that's right because Space Force is in Huntsville.
Huntsville Ben had Mad Indians because there's a space center down there for like 20 years through Shar from Huntsville.
Yeah, more jobs.
More jobs.
The fastest growing city, one of the fastest-growing cities in the South is Huntsville.
Yes.
Faster than Birmingham, faster than Montgomery.
All that shit.
So, I mean, it's good folks down there.
We got decent industries.
Are you annoyed about the perception of it all?
A little bit.
That's also why third cousin?
Like, no, I am curious about the third cousin thing.
Listen, Diane Sawyer.
Which question?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so break this down.
So the first time you fuck a cousin, it's wrong.
The second time you fuck a cousin, the third cousin you fuck is, it's okay.
That's not what they mean.
No.
Explain it to me.
See, how does it mean?
It depends on which side of the family.
Okay.
First off, let's start there.
Oh, I didn't know that.
I'm listening.
That's true, bro.
That's true.
You can't fuck your dad's niece.
You can't be on the dick side.
I mean, unless your daddy ain't in the game, then you might be like, maybe.
Oh, I never even knew that guy.
Yeah.
I don't even know anybody in this side of the family.
People think this is a real fucking conversation.
No, no, no.
This is not real.
You get the hard part out the way.
They met the family already and shit like that.
Oh, man.
It's great.
Started day four.
I think, though, like the South is just, I mean, the same thing with Atlanta, Memphis, Nashville.
Like, it's good parts down there.
But all the shit that make the national news is all the country ignorant shit, man.
But that's the thing that's kind of annoying because the cool thing about traveling and doing shows is you get to go to these places and it's the country is shockingly similar, almost painfully similar.
And I think that's a function of the internet, too.
I think when we were younger, it wasn't that way.
But like a college in Alabama is not dissimilar to a college in fucking California, et cetera.
That's awesome.
Maybe you have a little bit more liberal shit in certain places for like the small liberal arts colleges, but like the big state universities are fucking the same.
So, and then we get to go to these places and it's like, yeah, it's just amazing growing up in New York and you have all these stupid prejudices.
And then you go and you like, I listen to country music for the first time as an adult and I'm like, holy shit, this slaps.
Like, what the?
Why was I one of these people that was like these, like, I was like a hacky coastal elite where I'd be like, I listen to all music except country without ever even trying country?
Yeah.
Nah, that shit goes hard, bro.
I think when hip-hop, when the South started taking over hip-hop in the late 90s, I think that helped create a turn culturally.
Because it's almost like you have to be seen as cool before people will see you as smart.
That's fucking great.
So they go, oh, they know how to party.
Killer Mike Music Political Respect00:03:25
Okay, well, what else are y'all doing on that?
Like, Killer Mike wouldn't be able to run around and be talking all this political shit if people didn't respect his music first.
Oh, interesting.
So he had to do that to run the jewels.
And then you can branch out into everything else.
And then Mike is the person that'll turn around and go, here are all the other people.
He does, he could make the vouch for all the other people in the South that are trying to do something different or trying to, you know, shift gears.
He's a kingmaker.
Yeah, low-key.
And so every city has those pockets of people that can do shit like that.
You know, I'm trying to think about New Orleans and who would be that person.
Like, who was a kingmaker?
What about Master P.
Yeah, I mean, P was a perfect example of what you're saying.
Because when they blew money in New Orleans, New Orleans was the fucking spot.
But I mean, on that community shit, like on some Uncle Luke shit in Miami, where, like, all right, you started with the music, but then you took on the Supreme Court, you won.
Probably mastery.
You changed music.
I don't think Master P gets enough credit for being the rapper who started rappers having their own businesses.
He had the clothing line, he had the fucking movies.
And then you start seeing rappers have clothing lines and liquor companies and all this other shit.
Yeah, all that extra branding.
I think Master P is the one that got bitty to be like, I just started a vodka.
What's the guy in the middle?
And then put that money back into the community.
Yeah.
That's where you see what's the guy?
Is it Slim Thug in Houston?
That's a lot of them in Houston.
Starface.
Bun B, Tray the Truth.
Yeah, maybe it was Trey.
They do a lot of stuff where they show up to like community events, hurricane reliefs.
Also, development stuff.
They're like building homes.
They're known as much now for what they do on trying to better the South than just what they was rapping about.
Like fucking Uncle Luke got a whole ass football league down there and is sending kids to the pros out of Liberty City.
Where the fuck you think Snoop got his idea to start his football game that is doing the exact same thing.
Right.
I think, is it at Long Beach?
Yeah.
So that type of stuff is where a guy like Luke, who at one point was a scourge of the fucking and all that ignorant bass booty music.
Yeah, yeah.
And now you're like, oh, wow, that dude is doing shit to make shit change and helping get fucking senators elected.
But isn't that kind of the American way?
It's like you make on some illegal shit, build up tons of money, and then you just become part of Congress or become part of become a politician, and then you try to act like you could do good and buy your sainthood.
Like, that's what every American royal family, if you will, has done.
But do you rather not do that and just sit back?
Would you rather respect them more if they just sit back and just spin bread and don't give a fuck?
No, I like the fact they're doing it.
I think it's like Joe Kennedy was a gangster, and then his family is known now as like tragic president who has died and politician who has died, not as a guy who was selling illegal drugs at the time and stole the election.
Yeah, rigging elections like a wild boy.
And now we just look at the Kenny film, like, oh, God, what happened to them?
It's so tragic.
They died on their private plane, but look at them.
He was taking on the mob.
He lost the mob.
He's just selling on his people.
But who better to take on the mob?
I just want, I'm like, you show me, like, you show me a prominent American family that didn't start out doing illegal business.
If you can show me that, I won't do anything, but it would be really nice to see this.
Joe Kennedy Gangster Election Rigging00:03:27
Yeah, but no, I think it's like, I think a lot of it, though, with the South is that in each of these cities, you just got motherfuckers who feel indebted to the crib to do something back at the crib.
Like, even when I, when I guest hosted a daily show, two of the three shout outs for the charities were Alabama-based charities.
The third one was for a group that fights to get felons in Florida their right to vote back.
And we talked about that before.
I got arrested when I was still in credit cards when I was a teenager.
So I didn't know that.
Yeah.
So that's how I got in a stand-up.
I thought I was going to prison, so I started telling jokes.
Get out of here.
Yeah, and then got probation.
Wait, so what's this story?
I didn't know.
You were stealing credit cards?
Yeah, I was a mail sorter at the post office in college.
And you know, back in the 90s, credit cards came pre-approved.
There was no number to call to enter your social security number so we can activate.
The card was hot out the envelope.
And bitch, I took that thing to Dillett's and had a ball.
So how much do you think you got away with?
Like, versus what we got caught with?
Yeah.
Like, if this whole room, if this, if where we're sitting represent what we were doing, me and my boys, I got caught for that straw.
Wow.
How'd you even get caught?
And that straw is what got me three years of federal probation.
Whoa.
And so you avoid all of this.
You go, I got to get my shit together.
How to fucking act right.
And so that's when I got in the standup.
That's when everything started falling into place because you be on your straight and narrow.
The girl that rung us up, she did something wrong with the ring up.
And then her boss double-checked the receipts and saw it was the bullshit.
Oh, she snitched on you.
So she wouldn't have messed up.
Yeah, and then someone checked her.
She did what she had to do.
I ain't going to go to jail with these niggas.
I don't know.
But she had to say, oh, that wasn't the guy.
Yeah.
100%.
So you had them in on it.
And were you giving them a little piece too?
Yeah, everybody's a pick.
Because we were just trying to...
This is the thing.
You know what's fucked up about getting arrested too in this world.
Why are you pointing it at that?
This guy's the ops, bro.
I've been arrested.
He's a CO.
Hey.
You know what's up being arrested?
I'm sorry for the ER.
So the heart of a black person hurts.
Not a southern one.
Yeah.
Hello to Mason Dixon that ER, bro.
That was great.
Sorry about that.
Yes, Samesa.
The police try to pin everything on you when they catch you.
So it's like, oh, we got you for this credit card.
Well, we're going to assume you've done every credit card and checking every finance crime we're currently investigating in the city of Tallahassee.
How you get out of it?
They went to court.
So like in terms of you just tell the truth and then they eventually realize it wasn't you.
But the first thing they're trying to do from the jump before you even get a lawyer, before you even get a mug shot, they're trying to find out everything else you've ever done.
So you go through that and then you become a convicted felon and you got to work to get that shit off your record.
And that's a fucking pain in the ass.
So the third group, there's a group that's run by a gentleman named Desmond Mead out of Florida where they work to get convicted felons their right to vote back.
So I fucked with him hard because I didn't walk that walk.
So on some South giving back to the South shit, I think that everybody that's from the South puts a little bit on their back to go back and try and give back to the South and do something.
He's Charlam doing that too.
Yeah.
City Identity Comedy Privilege00:09:29
It's like really important.
He's staying down in South Carolina.
Yeah, it's really important to him.
He stayed down there because if we don't do, who the fuck else?
Because if you're from the South and you make it out in any capacity, it's like, fuck.
Yeah.
I don't know who going to come after me.
So let me go back home.
Like, if I can trick Facebook into giving me a bunch of VR headsets, I'm taking them straight to my high school.
And that's what we did.
So here, learn about Web3 because I don't know when the city schools are.
I'm a city school kid.
When they gonna have money for a fucking headset.
That is an interesting thing that we obviously don't really, I guess, fixate on at all when you grow up in New York or California.
The biggest hurdle oftentimes to like making a career in these places is getting here.
You know, I was born and raised in the East Village of New York.
I would go to the comedy clubs as a kid.
So to me, the idea of getting on stage there was like, all right, well, one day instead of walking and being the audience, I'll just walk over there and be on stage.
I imagine you coming up, you're looking at the great clubs in LA and New York, and you're just like, how the fuck is this going to happen?
I didn't even know when I wanted to do comedy.
I started, I was 14.
I thought about it when I was 14.
I didn't start till college.
I didn't even know my city had a comedy club.
What is it?
The Stardom.
Fucking legendary.
But the Stardome.
It's a great club.
Stardom is on the white side of town.
You only go to the white side of town.
Hoover.
Yeah, yeah.
The little suburb, the suburb where they're cutting off CRT.
Like black authors can't come speak at the schools in Hoover.
Like, it's white like that.
So growing up, that's a whole nother fucking world.
Like, bro, you go to Hoover when you have a baseball game out there and Christmas shop.
There's no other reason for you to be on that side of town.
Like on some, like, like how they say it's niggas in Miami who've never seen the ocean, who grew up there.
You just don't go to the fun thing.
You just don't be over there.
So like, I don't, like, do you all not have like that?
Like, do you have like this desire to like, I don't want to say you don't give back?
Cause I know you do a lot of this.
But that sense of, fuck my neighborhood.
How can I help?
Fuck this reading or illiteracy helps kids and I get arrested.
I got to go back and do the reading function.
Because I feel like that's the burden of being from the South too, is that.
I have that feeling, but I'm from Far Rock away, which is a really small town in Queens.
And so it's like, it's almost, I used to look at Manhattan the same way that people from outside New York look at New York.
Cause I'm like, oh, one day I want to make it there where all the big buildings and all the business is happening.
It's like I was just so far from that.
So that's how I want to get back to Far Rock.
And like the way you say Miami, they've never, there are people who grew up in Miami who haven't seen the ocean.
There are people that grow up in like Brooklyn, Queens that like, maybe have never been to Manhattan.
I've heard that too.
Or maybe have been a handful of times, right?
Yeah.
So I think that that's quite normal.
When I was growing up, so I grew up in Manhattan, my public school that I would go to wasn't necessarily in my neighborhood.
So like if I was living downtown and I went to a public school on the Upper East Side, like my neighborhood is kind of my identity.
You know what I mean?
And then my public school is on the upper east side and it's like, well, they look good.
You know what I mean?
They don't look like they need to be looked out for.
So for me, it's always been like representing.
I always felt a responsibility to represent the greatness of New York.
So how can I do that?
You know?
But at the same time, we don't have the same feeling as I imagine as someone who is coming up from a city that is not really thought of that much.
No, and you don't really have the opportunities in that city to learn what would get you to New York.
And then that's also why I'd be trying to put black colleges on my back too, because if we're going to keep it 100, what I did in college, every other school on earth would have expelled me for.
Florida A ⁇ M did not.
And I went back and got my degree.
Dangerous the rest of the way.
Yeah, I got suspended for that shit.
Were you like kids?
They sent me a can?
Did they like ask you how to?
No, they caught me fast.
That was funny.
Same day.
The tags were still on the shit.
You didn't even fuck that.
I didn't wear the shit.
That's just so fucked up.
I wear the South proudly, but I don't feel like I have to represent the South.
I feel like I have to represent India.
But then I go there and they're like, they're not Indian.
So now I'm literally trying to learn Hindi, do a comedy special in India and be like, look, I'm one of you.
And then if I give back, maybe you won't fucking resent me for it.
You sold the Google shit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm literally like with a tutor every week trying to learn Hindi to be like, yo, just accept me.
And then maybe if I try to help you, I won't be some condescending fuck.
I'll do free shows out there, whatever we got to do.
Why does that acceptance matter?
There's a weird thing because I wasn't, this sounds so, I'm not trying to make it too much about me, but you're never accepted as an American if you're Indian here.
So you feel like I'm Indian.
Then you go to India and they're like, you're American, bro.
We don't, you're, you're as American as this guy.
So you never feel like accepted.
So you're like, well, let me, I have a better chance of getting accepted there than I do here, I think.
Shit, you're right.
And then you flip that and then they go, oh, okay, he fucking does.
And I don't want to be like some condescending savior shit either.
So I'm like really trying to do it right and learn it and like do a special out there in Hindi.
Be like, yo, I'm not trying to make money off y'all.
Shows are free.
I don't give a fuck.
But I need you to see me as one of us.
Fucking nice.
Because I feel like it's us and you don't.
So let me make it feel like it's us.
What about the Indians here?
Do you feel like you?
I think we share a thing.
There's just not as many of us here.
And we all have this shared thing where like, you hear this all the time from Indians.
I'm American in India and then I'm Indian in America.
So I never really know what it is.
And I feel like I'm trying to put on for them too.
Like, let's make it a little fucking bridge here.
Yeah.
And that's a what, third of the population or some shit?
Like, a lot of y'all motherfuckers.
So y'all got to fucking ride together.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I don't feel that as much from black people.
Like, black people, you're black for as long as you like, like the white power joke from the correspondence dinner and the Clarence Thomas joke.
Like if you got one or two things where they go, okay, we know what side of the line you're on.
On are you up there for us or are you one of them?
You know what I mean?
Like that type of shit.
So I've always tried to, you know, be pro-black, as pro-black as I can on issues and things and try and bring resources and attention to issues.
I feel like that's my job.
Like I can't do every single thing.
I can't solve every fucking problem.
But I can take a camera to a million man March that no other mainstream and nobody covered that shit.
And I felt like you did a good job in the White House correspondence.
I'm going to give you some flowers aside from, I think you're legitimately one of the funniest comics on earth.
But like it was very clear what you believe, but you put the medicine in the candy.
So it never felt like he's preaching.
It felt like, here's what he believes, but it's also fucking funny.
It's a good joke.
CRT joke is great.
Yeah.
Yeah, that is a...
Segwaying into Clarence Thomas, great.
That is a tricky thing, man.
That is definitely a huge privilege, like being a white dude in comedy that I don't ever feel like I have to put on for white people, or I don't ever feel like I can't do a joke because I'm like letting down white folks.
You know what I mean?
Like, what will they think of me if I take this opinion?
I also don't have like a very one-sided political identity and I'm not, I wasn't raised religious.
So there is like this great freedom that I have to just kind of create without feeling like I'm letting down a group of people that I guess identify with me.
I do though understand why, I understand where you're coming from, but I also see like as people get more successful, why they seek shelter and refuge in a group, because there's protection in that, you know, like if you get to a certain point and you're having your opinion, if you're being a unique individual, that opinion is going to always piss off certain people.
And if your opinion just becomes one of the left or one of the right or one of the people who care about the environment or one of the people who care about black issues or whatever it is, you can never face scrutiny from your in-group.
And you know what I'm saying?
And I think it's very rare as people get big, big, big that they maintain that almost like individuality.
Yeah, I think that's the tough thing about being a comedian, though, is that at some point, if you don't criticize your own group.
Yeah.
Then what are you?
You know, and I think that's the hard part is you almost end up on an island to a degree as a comedian.
And you have to be one of y'all, but also if you don't criticize, you're not being fair.
But then when you do criticize, some people are going to be like, yo, what a fucking sellout.
How dare he?
And then wearing that for me, that's maybe because I'm insecure in my identity.
That's the worst shit.
You call me a sellout.
That shit eats away at me so fucking hard.
Because you guys got to wrestle between being comedian first or being Indian first or black first.