Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler - girl on guy 220: my mom

Episode Date: November 24, 2016

on this thanksgiving, I'm talking to someone I'm truly thankful for: my mother. she's an artist, an activist, a rebel, a seeker, a groundbreaker, a traveler, a musician, and my best friend.  I hope this inspires you to talk to the people closest to you over the holidays, and find common ground where you thought there was none. girl on guy is truly thankful.

This is Girl on Guy. Hey, everybody, welcome to Girl on Guy 220. Welcome to the show. This is a very special Thanksgiving episode of Girl on Guy. And whether you are feeling deeply thankful for all of your blessings at this time of year or wildly panicked about the future of our country, this is the place for you. Because this is going to be a show where I get to talk to somebody very special to me. and I hope as you are moving through your holiday season,

you speak to the people very close and important to you, your family. This episode is with my mom. I did an episode with my father years ago, I think maybe season one, and I always intended to do this one, wanted to give the shows a little bit of distance from each other, but finally got to sit down with my mom and talk with her. She's had an extraordinary life. She's still living it in the most vivacious and vigorous way,

and she's just had so many incredible experience, And I think, especially at a time like this where you may be separated from family members by, I don't know, ideology, geography, experience, age. You may be feeling distanced from certain people in your family for various reasons. One of the most important and interesting things to do is to try to find a way to better understand and empathize with the people who came before you, cared for you or grew up next to you, whether it's a parent, an aunt-uncle, a sister. sibling, whatever. You know, the holidays can be so conflict-driven, so much about resenting having to go back and do something with people that you get along with sometimes, not all of the time. Maybe the conflict is heightened at the holidays, and it's incredibly difficult to be around these people. But I think right now at a time when, look, the country is incredibly divided, and there are a lot of

reasons to feel distanced from people. Thanksgiving and the holidays can be a time to try to find a way to bridge the gap between us. So I'm not telling you I have all the answers. I personally, you know, people probably out there know my political orientation. I felt of a lot of despair and I'm sure I'm going to continue to feel an incredible amount of despair as we move forward through this particular administration. But what I can say is I refuse to give up on my ethics, on my morals, on my obligation to others. And there was a period where I just thought, well, fuck it, I can't do this anymore. but that's a stupid way to look at things. It really is. It's self-defeating and it also defeats others. So what I've decided is that I'm going to redouble my efforts to speak freely, to express my

ideas, to encourage other people to express their ideas, to encourage a healthy exchange of ideas. I always believe that if you have strongly held beliefs, then they can endure any onslaught. So if you're at the dinner table and you have some crazy uncle who refuses to talk to you because you don't agree with him, or maybe you decide he's too crazy to talk to. think about taking the not just the moral high road, but the conceptual or ideological high road, which is I feel good about where I am in my belief set. And you should too. And if you believe in your own core values and they're unassailable, then let's have a reasoned, thoughtful conversation about our differences. You know, we used to do that in this country. You used to have a

Congress that despite being divided by political ideology, constantly reached across the aisle, constantly collaborated and compromised to move the country forward. And we have been stuck for a long time. And I think one of the reasons is everybody needs to be right all the fucking time. And instead of just trying to find a way in to the other side. So, you know, this show is about talking. And it's about talking to people with different experiences than my own. And I encourage you as heartbroken or angry or bewildered or just desperate or agon

agonized as you might be to try to find a way to understand people that disagree with you. It may do nothing but reinforce your own strongly held beliefs, but at least you'll know who they are, why they feel the way they do, and maybe how to change their minds. I don't know. You know, compassion starts with listening. So that's my entreaty to you. And then organize, make phone calls, send emails, volunteer. If you have money to donate, donate it to your favorite charity. If you don't have, give your time. You know, in the past we've been in very dark times of a variety of types. And good people have always been steadfast through incredible injustice in the history of this country.

People have never given up. And so I entreat you to never give up. That is my encouragement to you. If you feel great about the way the election went, good for you. If you feel terrible about the election, the way the election went, push through your own despair and find a way to reach across to the other side, to understand them, and to redouble your own efforts on behalf of justice and equality. I think that's what's critical here. The only way the country moves forward is by listening, not by becoming more and more polarized, more and more idiotic, and more like the slowly disintegrating nuclear core that is Kanye West. It's about, trying to find a way to perceive other struggles as your own. I think that's a really important

lesson to take with us into this lovely holiday season where I'm going alternately be listening compassionately to the rants and raves of others and also drinking my feelings down into a tight and deliciously damn ball inside my stomach. All right, quickly with the business for this show. This episode is brought to you in part by Casper. Casper is a sleep brand that created one perfect mattress. It sells directly to its customers, eliminating the commission-driven inflated prices that you see in your everyday mattress store. Its award-winning sleep service was developed in-house. It has a sleek design and is delivered in these incredibly small. How did they do that size boxes? You free it from its constraints and it springs to life, and it is an extraordinary

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Use the promo code Girl on Guy for $50 off your mattress purchase with Casper. Check that out. Okay. This episode of Girl on Guy is with my mother, Robin Gregory, who birthed me and cared for me. And even though my parents divorced when I was about 10 years old has been an ever-present loving entity in my life for my entire time on this earth. She is my closest friend, one of the smartest, most lovely and interesting people that I know. And I think one of the cool things about talking to your parents is you discover how little you know about them, especially how little you know about the people they were before you met them as a baby.

You know, we have perceptions about our parents, what they were like, what their dreams are, how cool they are, what they were exposed to. Your parents are probably a lot cooler and a lot more interesting than you think. this conversation proves that about my mom. We didn't get to cover everything. We ran out of time. I could talk to her for days and days, and I do. But, you know, she grew up at a really interesting time, you know, for people who are talking about inequality and injustice and, and all kinds of penuries and difficulties in today's age, I think about my mother who grew up at a time where she still lived in a very segregated America, where they had separate water fountains, and they had to sit in a separate part of the bus, and they had to go to separate bathrooms. And,

And she triumphed in every way. And she's a brilliant, brilliant woman with diverse interests. And she's my mommy. So I hope you enjoy this conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Girl on Guy 220 with my mom, Robin. Coming at you. Straight out of the Girl on Guy bunker and right into your face. Welcome to my show.

Thank you. It's a pleasure being here. It's exciting. I've actually wanted to do this for a very long time. Oh, really? Yes, yes. I don't know. I wanted to spread out the one between, the one of dad and you. You know what I mean? Just to kind of have some distance between the two.

And I'm thrilled. So, you know, I'll preface this way saying we were hanging out this weekend. And you were talking, we were telling stories about when you were younger. And so I was so excited to hear those stories on the show. But I want to start at the very beginning. Okay. So where are you born? In the beginning, there was light. I was born in Washington, D.C. What year? 1945.

1945. And like I remember, like stories that I remember about your childhood were that it was like a really seminal time. But you were talking a little bit the other day about like what D.C. was like when you were growing up and how it changed. Yeah. Well, I think it changed after I left. Really? More than when you were a child. It was a Jim Crowtown.

You know, it was segregated. Everything was segregated. I didn't really interact with any white people until I was in college. Wow. Except for some teachers I had in high school. But even up to high school, there was no interaction with any white people unless I went downtown to shop or got on a bus. Because black people were not allowed to drive the buses in D.C. Really?

Right. Were you aware of that as a child? Oh, yeah. I was aware of it. Yeah. We were all aware of it, you know. It was just the way life was. And it's funny because when I meet people now, or, you know, like in my adult life, they were saying, oh, it's so sad. It was so segregated.

I said, well, you know, I didn't really miss anybody. Really? No. We were having a good time within our communities. And everybody was in our communities. You know, there were different strata, but we were all in our communities. and, well, just to give you an idea about the segregation in D.C. Pause for one second.

Plain mode? What is that to? Keeps any interference from coming in. So you're saying just to give you an idea of the segregation. Yeah, you know, like if you wanted to get a job or rent an apartment or a house or something, you had to look in the colored section of the newspaper. They had white. They had colored.

So you had to look in those sections. It was very segregated. there were certain stores downtown we knew we were not welcome in we couldn't go to. We just didn't go in those stores. Like department stores? Yeah, department stores. There was one called Garfinkels. One did not go into Garfinkels.

It was a high-end department store. They did not serve Negroes in Garfinkels. You dare not walk through the door. And that was just something you knew it wasn't based on any kind of anecdotal experience with somebody going in there. One like a sign on the front like in Mississippi, you know, like no color. allowed, but we knew we shouldn't go in there. Yeah. And so it was a reality because there was, for instance, there was this amusement park outside of Washington, D.C., called Glen Echo Park. And they had ads on the TV, you know, happy teenagers screaming on the roller coaster and all that,

but it didn't allow Negroes in that park. Oh, wow. And so, you know, we always wondered what it was like. And then later, when it got desegregated and we went out there, it was like, nothing. What was the big thing? What was anticlimactic? It was like, maybe we're just keeping this all to themselves. What was your perception of, I mean, white people like when you were growing up? Because, you know, there's got to be this dichotomy that I think even exists to day to a much, much, much lesser extent of, like living one way and then seeing yourself and also other cultures represented another way in the TV. For example, you couldn't go to the white amusement park, you couldn't shop in the white department store, but all the television

shows were kind of exulting, you know. All the television shows, you know, were of white people. So that, you know, it was Ed Sullivan who had black entertainers come on. on his show. And if somebody came on, they're like, Arnaviet, when Sarah Vaughn came on. Every black person alive during that time will tell you this. When someone came on the Ed Sullivan show, everybody would jump on the phone and call all their friends and relatives

and let them know that there was, you know, like a colored person on the TV. You know, there was quote unquote colored, like there were colored shows. There was Beulah, you know, who played a maid. and there was Amos and Andy, which was very popular. Right. Even though now it's like people see this. People talk about it, but we loved Amos and Andy.

It was fun. So, you know, it was just, there were anomalies like that, you know. But then we had our black publications like Jet and Ebony, and, you know, so we were able to see ourselves there. But, you know, we were aware of it, but I don't know that we, You know, we were aware of it, but we were just living our lives within that context. And, you know, it wasn't bad. You know, it wasn't that bad in terms of everyday life.

Yeah. You know, it was a very nurturing environment. Mm-hmm. You know, like at my school, you know, our teachers taught us a lot of black history in our schools. Mm-hmm. You know, everybody was black, everybody. Right. You know, you didn't see any white people.

They just weren't there. Wow. Mm-hmm. That's interesting because I guess that like if you are not like one thing I think is is Noticable if you are in a if you're a minority in a dominant culture Society like this one is although it's obviously changing really rapidly That you're never not aware of that fact on some level but maybe you were less aware of it I guess every day

We were less aware of it because things weren't integrated we weren't surrounded you know It wasn't it was very shocking you know when they integrated the schools and those brave children had to march through the crowd and then be surrounded by people who were hostile to them, you know. So in our own communities, you know, it was just ordinary life. Right. When you were young and you were going to school, like what was the sense of what was possible for you, like with your life? Like when you would talk or you would think about what you wanted to do as an adult. Not much. You know, we thought it could be a woman really just. Really more than even a person of color. Like, like.

A woman, you know, a woman, you thought of a career as a teacher or a secretary or a nurse. You know? Yeah, yeah. We didn't really see these big horizons, really. I don't, some of us may have, you know, like, I don't know why I didn't because we had people in my family on my father's side that did, you know, stuff like there were writers and things like that on my father's side. Well, here's another interesting thing, not just Washington, you know, because my father's family lived in Atlantic. City, New Jersey, before it was ruined by the casinos and all. Atlantic City was like a mecca for black people in the summer.

Everybody came there, all the entertainers, you know, like black people had money. They all came to Atlantic City to spend the summer or some part of the summer there. Like, for instance, three doors down from my grandmother's house, it was my grandmother lived there. So I went to see my grandmother every summer and spent the whole summer there, and we went to the beach every day. and two houses down, Duke Ellington's family would come and spend summer and I would play with his granddaughter and all that. So there was all that going on Will Chamberlain, you know, like he tried to date my aunt and he came.

I remember he had coming to the house and he had to bend over to get up on the porch. He was so tall. We were going, ooh, he's a tall person. So here's the interesting thing, though. The beach, when you went to the shore, the street. reached that intersected with the boardwalk, they called the name of that particular beach. Like, there was the Missouri Avenue Beach, the Mississippi Avenue Beach, the Tennessee Avenue Beach, like that.

The black people had two beaches side by side that they went to, Mississippi and Missouri. Okay. Okay. We knew that we went to those beaches. We didn't go to the other people. We didn't go to the white beach, which was, there wasn't a line, you know, there was an invisible line in the sand. Right. You know, like, if you wanted to walk along the seashore, you could walk along the seashore, but you didn't stop.

Mm-hmm. You kept going. Yeah. You passed through. Yeah. But the only part that you could put your blanket down on was in the black section. No white people came into the black section. No black people went into the white section.

Did anybody ever violate that rule? Like, did white people ever come wandering down the beach? No. No? No. Wow. No. Because the thing about that time and about everything that happened since, especially

between maybe like when you were, you know, between like the 40s and let's say the 70s, was that there were these intrepid people who started breaking these rules. And I'm not even just talking about like the lunch counter protesters and the freedom writers, but, you know, just people who every day would make, you know, even the white guys that would go up to Harlem. You know what I mean? Right, right. Well, yeah, that always happened, you know, like in the music scene, you know, like Atlantic City was a big entertainment center too. All the entertainers performed there.

They had theaters there. Big entertainers came to Atlantic City. And Black vaudeville was there. And then there was what, you know, like Jerry Lewis used to come there and copy a lot of the stuff that the black people did. A lot of entertainers did that. And there was music and shows and stuff, you know, like I remember Count Basie and all those people coming there. It was funny because my Aunt Sheila said something to me. you're saying, did anybody ever break that?

And she was telling me that there were people. I never saw it. She said, you know, we all thought we couldn't do it, but some people just kind of snuck over. I never saw anybody sneaking over. But you were young, too, so you probably wouldn't even tuned into it. Yeah, but you wouldn't have been tuned into the scandal of it either. Do you know what I mean?

So, you know, Jet used to have these centerfalls of bathing beauties. Yes. And they would do those, there was this guy who was a photographer, and he would do the bathing beauties there. Oh, wow. section of the beach in Atlantic City. And I remember Sheila, you know, Sheila was a really beautiful girl. And she was in high school and she really wanted to be a centerfold.

You know, they were just in their bathing suits. It was nothing risque about it. So one year she actually, you know, the guy actually asked her. And she did a picture for the centerfold. Oh, wow. So it was, I just loved it, you know. Everybody was there, painters and writers. It was very stimulating, you know, intellectually stimulating.

And were you aware of that? you aware that there was this rich kind of like artistic community there? I was just, it was as even as a child, it was exciting, you know. Well, your grandmother was like an artistic person. She was. She was a painter. Mm-hmm. Very, very creative. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. And she sang. And what? She would make up songs. She would, she wrote children's stories and she made up songs and she would sing to us. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and she painted. And it was interesting because she never really left the house much.

Really? Yeah. She never went to the beach with us. Wow. She stayed at home almost all the time. Why do you think that was? I don't know. I don't know.

Like, I remember the house we, that she had, she was always planning to do something to that house. So she always had these blueprints she was working on. So she would go downtown to, you know, get the blueprints from the printers, you know. Yeah. Or maybe she would take me downtown to get some clothes or something. But she rarely left the house. Interesting.

She just loved being at home, I think. You know, she was a great cook, and, you know, she had a beautiful garden. And she just, you know, we would come. All the cousins and uncles and every month and stuff would come. And she just would be at home. And we would go off to the beach every day, like at 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning, and come back for dinner every single day of the week. Right.

That's another thing that I remember about my childhood as well, that I think is really lost nowadays is like the idea that kids just kind of flee out into the day and don't come back until the end of the day. But all the, you know, the aunts and uncles would go with us. We'd go to the beach. The children didn't really go to the beach alone.

Really? No. We had to go with an aunt or an uncle or whatever, you know. But we spent the whole day there. And we had a lot of freedom once we got there. We would go into the boardwalk, you know, looking for money that fell out of people's pockets through the slats. You know, and the boardwalk was very exciting. You know, like, you know, we had peers there, different peers where if, you know, sometimes we, instead of going to the beach, one of the aunts or uncles would take us to one of the peers.

Like there was a million dollar pier there and they had stage shows there. They have the diving horse, you know. Yes. Yes, they had the diving horse that would leap off into the water. It was exciting. It was very exciting. I loved Atlantic City. I just think they ruined it with the casinos and stuff.

Right, right. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people would agree. And the black people lived on the north side of town. So it was segregated there as well. It's interesting because I guess I just had in my head, I thought there had to always be people secretly or not so secretly crossing those lines. There were. There were.

There were always people doing that. Well, you know the story of June, right? June, who was the secret daughter. No. You don't know that story? No. My grandmother had her best friend Peggy lived around the corner. And Peggy and Paul, they didn't have any children, but we just loved them.

They were not our blood relatives, but we regard them as our aunt and uncle. And what happened was, there was this phenomenon. This happened all over the United States for black entertainers when they went on tour. They couldn't stay in the hotels. They had to stay at people's houses. So they stayed at different people's houses. Like they stayed at my grandmother's house. They stayed at my Aunt Peggy's house.

So there was this inter, there was this, it was a duo. They were called Stump and Stumpy. They were huge, huge on Black vaudeville. And in fact, Jerry Lewis almost sold his whole routine from Stumpy. Wow. No shit. They did a documentary on it, on PBS. is called secret daughter.

So that comes from the fact that stump, was he, I don't know, I think it was Stumpy that was her father, was June's father. He married a white woman. Okay. Okay. And they made a lot of money. It was still illegal at that time.

It was illegal? Not in New York. Okay. Not a, okay, because I'm thinking of Loving versus Virginia, so it was different in different states. Yeah. Okay. But, you know, it was difficult.

So when television came to fruition, black people couldn't get on television. White people were on television. And so Black vaudeville began to dry up. And they couldn't get any jobs. And so, you know, Jerry Lewis went on with his thing. In fact, he's in that documentary talking about it. Jerry Lewis is talking about it. He began to drink and get depressed and began to,

abuse his wife and beat her up and all that stuff. And so the marriage ended, and she was afraid of raising a black child on her own. I remember when she was born, Peggy said when June was born, you know, a lot of times when black babies are born,

especially if they're going to be light complexion, they don't look black right away. Yeah, they're very light. Yeah. So she was kind of excited because June didn't look particularly black when she was born. Peggy said, wait until she's a year old. So anyway, she felt like she couldn't face life with this black child. So she asked Peggy to take care of her. Oh, wow. So Peggy took care of June.

Oh, wow. Peggy took care of June, and June always regarded herself as one of our cousins. And then her mother went off and buried Larry Storch here in Hollywood. Larry Storch was on TV. He was like on F-Truth. He was like a big star here in Hollywood. And when Jude would visit her mother, she wouldn't tell people it was her daughter.

She would say it was her maid's daughter. Oh, wow. That would have been in the 50s or the 60s? 50s and 60s. 50s and 60s. You know. Which was, can you imagine, the psychological thing? No, of your mother's.

denying, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then desperately wanting the affection of your mother, and so taking it any way you can get it, but being treated. Her mother was dropped dead, gorgeous, God, she was a beautiful woman. She had an ex-model, you know, she was just beautiful. And you guys all knew that that was what her life was like

when you were growing up? I didn't really find out about the real details of it until June made that movie. I just didn't really know the whole background like suddenly there was June you know I don't know yeah yeah yeah yeah what was you brought something up that I think is really interesting

and I wonder how you perceived it when you were growing up which is that you know within the black community there was a lot of awareness and there's still a lot of awareness on them not as much now again of people's of how you know the temperature of people's skin right like very dark and very light and how people were treated And you grew up and you were a light-skinned black person where you, how did people treat that for you?

Well, you know, Washington was a southern town, really. People don't understand that it's below the Mason-Dixon line. The color thing was really strong. You know, the paper bag test and all that crap. Explain to people the paper bag test. You're listening who don't know what that is. You know, like to be accepted, you know, people would hold a paper bag up to your face. And if you were darker than the paper bag, you just didn't pass muster.

Right. But it was kind of like an arbitrary. It wasn't like you were trying to get into a club or anything. Yeah, like maybe you were trying to get into a club. Oh, really? Not a dancing club, but like into an organization or something. But, you know, it was very obvious who was light and who was dark. And then there was a whole thing about the hair.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, good hair, which persists to this day. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I didn't remember any preferential treatment for my, myself somehow. I do remember my mother telling me, I think I was about three, she said I came screaming into the house crying, saying, am I white? Am I white? And she was saying, you know, why do you think you're white? She said, because the kids say I'm white. The kids say I'm white. Am I white? I was very upset. And she just, she pointed to the stove and she said, you see that

stove? That's white. Are you white? And I was like, no, she said, go back outside and play. When you were older, like when you were a teenager, did it come up? You know, I just wasn't aware of it coming up. I was aware of it because there was this incident when I was in the sixth grade. There was a really self-hating teacher. She would put on, she was very dark and she would put on this makeup to make her face look lighter, but actually she looked gray. She was really self-hating.

And there were these twins in the school who were, They weren't really, really light. They were, you know, they were a beautiful kind of copper color, but they had this beautiful black hair that hung down to their waist. Oh, yeah. And she used to treat them, you know, like dollies and everything. And one day I was in the bathroom. I mean, I was in the sixth grade, but I was ahead of my class.

So I was, I guess I was about nine or ten years old. I was in the stall, and I could hear her berating this child. And when I opened the door, it was like a really dark child. She was like so ugly to this girl. and the other beautiful girls were over to the side and I don't know what I just walked up to that teacher and I told her about herself really what did you say I can't remember what I said but I was aware of why she was doing it and I got really pissed off just like this little skinny kid really yeah yeah you were this little kind of like not not me anyway she grabbed me and she marched me to the principal's office and you know I was in trouble and everything and and um I I didn't feel upset about or wrong about it.

And then they call my mom. And my mom came to the school and told them about themselves. As well. You know, as a part, you know, I was on the crossing guard. They called us patrol girls and boys. We wore these little things like cadet. I don't know how to describe it. Yeah, the sashes.

Yeah. And, you know, it was like it goes across and then it has a little belt. Yeah. And, you know, we would be like crossing guards and everything. And they stripped me of that. It was like, really? No scandal. Scandal, because I told this teacher off, you know.

Yeah. I was aware of it, you know, like my father was very politically conscious, very politically conscious. Because, like, my mother was from Savannah. And I remember when I was three, three, I think I was three. My mom wanted to go home for Christmas or something. My father did not want to go to the south. Oh, wow. He did not want to go to the south.

And, but, you know, so we decided we were going to drive. and he told us, he said, we could not get out of the car and buy anything or go to the bathroom or anything. If you have to pee, we have to pee by the side of the road, and we have to take our own food, and we kept saying, why, Daddy, why? And he explained it to us.

He did. He explained it what was happening. And Granddaddy, he was also very light-skinned. He was very, he could have passed if he wanted to. All of his brothers could have passed for White. And did some of them passed for White when they were younger? Like, when they were at Harvard? No. No?

They were very black conscious. My grandfather was, you know, very black conscious. So they never tried to do anything like that. I remember that years and years and years later when granddaddy Jean had remarried and his second wife was white and he had, you know, two daughters, that I introduced a friend to my aunt, Lisa, and my friend said, how can that be your aunt? I know, I know.

People ask me, like they'd see a picture, they'd say, how could they be your sisters? They're white. I said, look at our faces, okay? Just look at our faces. We look at our features. Exactly. We look exactly alike. But even Fetty and I, you know,

with exactly the same genetic material, have different colored skin. You know what I mean? We're different shades. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I guess I wonder,

this is a delicate way to ask this question. if sometimes if you are a light-skinned black person you have to really fight a little harder for your ethnic territory than somebody with darker skin. That's true. That happened a lot when the black power movement came. Yeah? Oh, yeah. It was like a big deal, you know, like suddenly light skin wasn't the big thing anymore.

So all the light-skinned girls wanted to be darker, you know. Right. Yeah, you had to fight for that. You know, are you black enough? It was this whole thing. Are you black enough? Well, I don't know. What does that mean?

You know, things like that. And then when your dad and I got married, his best friend, I can't remember his name. He looked completely white. There was no way that he looked like he was black, but he was black. And he was our best man. And all the people, you know, because we were in the black power movement, they were at the wedding. Who's that white guy? You know, why is he in the wedding and all this kind of stuff?

And somebody said, well, you know, his. mother didn't run as fast as your mother. That's all so ridiculous. Ridiculous. Oh, my God. But, you know, white, light skin people got preferential treatment, not just from white people, but from other black people. I mean, again, and I guess that was something I was really wondering about because I

feel like, you know, it goes all the way back to sleep. slavery, obviously. Obviously. Yeah. But, you know, even that thing, when I was a kid, oh, you know, you got good hair. You know what I mean? Like this idea of, like, kind of being made

not to think that you're beautiful and surprising this other thing and anything that resembles this other thing, you know, becomes meaningful. Well, you know, I was in that whole thing where I wore my hair natural and I got the homecoming queen thing. Well, I want to talk about that,

but I want to come to it. Okay. I want to cover like your time in high school because I remember like hearing, you know, you were like this very studious kid. You were like this good kid. You weren't a rebel, I imagine, even though you told that teacher off. What, what, how did you turn from, you know, kind of someone who was, you know, and I know you were like, you were like, you were advanced a couple of grades and you were like this straight a student. Well, I went to school when I was four and they put me in the kindergarten.

And after a week, they said, no, she's too far. advance for kindergarten let's put in the first grade well after two weeks of the first grade they wanted to put me in the second grade but my mother wouldn't allow it she said that's just too much right a four year old then i would have been beyond my brother too who was 16 months older she didn't want me to be beyond him you know like it was we were in the same grade like when they skipped me to the first grade she didn't want me to be beyond him because he was older than me she didn't think that was even though you guys kind of look like twins yeah we did people always thought we were twins because we were only 16 months apart, and we were very close to each other and looked alike.

Yeah. So, wait, I lost my train. So they wanted to put you in the second grade, but. Yeah, so I, she didn't. And then you were asking me. Oh, just about the, you know, because whenever I think of you in college, you know, I think of you was being this kind of rebel. Right.

I was, yeah, but, well, I was always conscious about, I was always, conscious about black history. I read about it. It was in my family, you know, like there were reading materials always available about it. Our teachers taught it. I was like I was very conscious of black people's place in this society from a really early age. And I remember, you know, like I felt like I wanted, what is the word? It's like I just felt like a social justice person. Yeah. Yeah. And when I was in high school, though, it was not an issue. When I went to my high, high school had just been integrated like maybe a year or two before I got there. But all the white people bailed out.

Okay. There were like about 10 white people that stayed. And they didn't interact with anyone. They sort of clung to each other. I don't know why their parents didn't take them out or maybe they just thought it was a good idea for them to stay there. But, you know, it was the first time I encountered white teachers. Yeah. But it was a great high school experience.

It was a fantastic high school. It was the academic high school in the city. You had to qualify to be there. Because I didn't live in that district. I had to go all the way across town. So it was some kind of equivalent of busing. But not really because it was academic. It was an academic magnet.

I mean, you just took the bus. You just took public transportation. Right, right. Okay. Yeah, like that busing wasn't even a factor at that point. Right. Busing came a little later than that. Okay.

So our school was quote unquote integrated, although you hardly saw any white. students. Great education. It's a great education. But the whole being involved in the movement happened in college.

Yeah. So before that, that wasn't really how you saw yourself. You were aware of this stuff, but you didn't think of yourself as an activist. Well, there was nothing really going on. You know, like, I remember my father being so excited during the Montgomery bus boycott. Yeah, yeah. He felt like something's happening.

And the other thing, we were aware of, I guess I was about eight or nine when Emmett Till was lynched. All of the kids talked about it. We were just little kids. We were very aware of Emmett Till's lynching. Also, because he knew about lynching. He was a child.

He was a child. We were aware of lynching. You know, and then this happened without, you know, it was a big deal, you know, because his mother would not allow them to do anything to his face. She had an open casket. She wanted everybody to see what happened to him. And my brother was really touched, he was like really upset by it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was such an act of brutality and against a child. Yeah. I mean, and I think that was a really galvanizing

thing for a lot of people. But things would happen. Like, we knew the police were hostile. You know, there were no black policeman when I was coming out. We knew the police were hostile to black people. And in fact, this kid, when I was about 12 or so, he got to, killed on a golf course. He was a paper boy. And he got shot in the back on a golf course by a policeman because he used to go across the golf course to deliver papers. And then one night they

just shot it, you know. So we were aware of these things. What did they say? Why did they say that they did that? They didn't say. Back then they probably weren't even forced to give an answer. No, no. They were a lot of southern people on the police force. They just, you know, he was just a kid, you know,

like I don't know what they thought. They think he was stealing something. I don't know. He was just walking. with his paper bag on his shoulder, you know. So we were aware of this stuff, so I was very sensitive to the atmosphere of everything. And so my involvement really came with the March on Washington. Yeah? Mm-hmm.

How old were you? I was 17. Hadn't turned 18 yet. It was 63. I was working. I had a summer job working. working for the Department of the Marines downtown. And I remember reading about it and getting very excited about it,

and I decided I wanted to be a part of it. And so I did. I went and, you know, joined the staff, did the logistics thing and met all these people. It was like organizational stuff. Yeah. Yeah. They were all, you know, I met Bayard Rustin and all those great people.

You know, I saw Martin Luther King up, close and, you know, so there was a movement on campus. You know, it was called the Nonviolent Action Group, which is a group that formed right before SNCC, which was a student nonviolent coordinating committee. So when I got to campus, I joined that group, you know, which was after the march on Washington, because I met a lot of those people there who were working on that march. Did SNCC form at Howard? Snick didn't really form at Howard, but there was a large group of people who were there,

who were seminal in the forming like Stokely Carmichael was a student there. You know, and he was Stokely Carmichael, Courtney Cox, Ralph Featherstone. These were like big names in the Snick thing. And, you know, some people at the campus were doing the Freedom Rides. They were going down on the Freedom Rides. So it was, you know, a lot was. happening. So this was like, I mean, not your radicalization, I guess, because this was always kind of who you were, but like your galvanization where you started to be more of an activist.

How was that also being a student? Like how did that fit into your life as a student? Like, was it hard to do both? It wasn't. It wasn't because, well, we were a small group on campus and everybody was sort of bourgeois, you know. It's a lot of sitting around in salons and discussing ideas. Oh, you know, joining sororities and stuff. I wasn't doing it. Yeah, you were doing all that bullshit. Yeah, so we were politically active and we were, you know, we would do demonstrations and stuff.

So, you know, like a lot of people were arguing against it. They just thought it was, you know, too radical. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They were, the hair, you know. Yeah.

The hair thing. And just the radical action that we were taking on campus. and off campus. There were so many events that happened there. Like, it was just the beginning of people becoming aware of what was going on in Vietnam. The war hadn't really started, but we were sending what they called advisors to Vietnam,

which were like foot soldiers. And they were called advisors, but they were really just about to infiltrate the whole thing. And so they brought Madam New to the campus. She was like this, we were just becoming aware of the stuff that was going on behind the scenes that we had no idea about. So Madam New came to the campus at General Hershey, and we did big demonstrations against them, and we didn't allow General Hershey to speak, and so some people got expelled behind a big demonstration that we had against him.

Really? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, it's also interesting because at that time, I mean, there's still, obviously, there's still student activism, and they probably always will be. But you had so much less information available to you back then. I mean, I think a lot of the thing about the protests then was that what the story we were being told about the war was different than what was really happening. Exactly. But it was very hard to verify. That's right. The truth.

That's right. So a lot of the activism would have been about just like what's the truth. Yeah, what's really happening. Yeah. You know, like, and, you know, so there was a lot of intellectual discussion about things. Like Stokely was a very dynamic person. Mm-hmm. You know, he drove a lot of the dialogue there on the campus.

Rap Brown came. His brother was there. Ed Brown was his brother. He was involved in Stick. Rap Brown didn't go to Howard. He went to, what's that, big football school, Louisiana, Gremlin. But he came up and became radicalized by his brother. So he was just like a football player at college.

Right. So it was a stimulating time. And when they had Mississippi Freedom Summer, I worked in the SNCC office in D.C., which was like sort of a liaison office between the people who were down in Mississippi working on the voter project and the Justice Department. Like I had to call Katzenbach,

who was ahead of the Justice Department, and report incidents to him that were happening down there. And that's when those three guys got killed, you know? Yes. Oh, God, why can't I think of their name? Goodman, Schwerner, and Cheney. Cheney. Mm-hmm.

Did you ever feel like your own safety was at... Occasionally, because, like, we did some demonstrations down on the eastern shore of Maryland. It was very racist down there. And, you know, they... The National Guard attacked us, you know, with tear gas and bullets and stuff. And that was pretty scary. You know, I wanted to go to Mississippi. Mississippi, but my mother just freaked out so much that, you know, I didn't go.

Yeah. Well, because, you know, it could die. You could die. You could die. Legitimately. You know what I mean? It wasn't like an abstract concept. Yeah.

So I just, I stayed in Washington in the office there and was just being the liaison. So, you know, a lot was happening. It was a lot happening at that time. There was this kind of big cultural gesture that you made that you brought up a little while ago about the hair because probably before then you had, and your hair more conventionally. I did. I did. Well, that's when, you know, the whole blackest beautiful thing began to happen and just the

beginning of it. And I started to wear my hair and we called it naturally. We didn't call it an afro yet. There was only one other person on campus who had their hair like that and that was Stokely's girlfriend. Mary Love Lace. That was her name. And so, you know, I started wearing my hair like that.

And to be the homecoming queen on the campus, you had to be in a sorority, and you had to be nominated by a fraternity. It was always a light-skinned girl with long hair that was like as close to white as possible. So these guys approached me from the men's dorm and the law school, and they said, you know, we want to run you for the homecoming queen. You know, we're going to do this radical thing.

You know, like it's going to be us, not a fraternity. It's going to be you. You're not in a sorority. It's going to have to do with our image, you know, the black image. And so we waged the campaign and everything. And what was that campaign like? I mean, were you putting up posters? Putting up posters, speaking, you know, like appearing at different things.

And I remember all the other girls like sort of sniggering, you know, thinking I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell. Right, right, right, right. You know, and so the whole campaign happened. And when I won, everyone was just shocked. Yeah, it was shocked. Because it was something bigger than just this one. bigger than that thing.

It was like we weren't doing it for the vanity beauty thing. We were doing it to make a statement. Yeah. And about our beauty, you know. And I was shunned a lot. You know, like if you were the homecoming queen, they would make a big deal out. They would invite you to a tea.

You know, these professors would invite you to a tea. I never got invited to the tea. Really? Wow. They would present you at the tea with this bracelet they gave you for the homecoming queen. Like a who's. who cut a bracelet with little charms. Yeah, as a charm.

They just delivered it to me. Oh, wow. Wow. Yeah, yeah. So they were real upset about it, you know. A lot of people were upset about it. Other people were related about it. Yeah. Did it change, did it change the conversation about beauty on that campus?

It did. It made a huge, it was like a lot, a huge shift about it. You know, some people started wearing their hair and natural, you know, who had not been doing that before. Right. Well, it was validating. Validating. Yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, I think even today.

Black people, and especially black women, are made, you know, like you keep hearing this conversation come up in workplaces too. You know, like people don't want you to wear braids. They don't want you wear natural. They don't want you wear dreds. They want you to fit into convention, you know.

Yeah, like the year after, they ran another woman. She was a very beautiful woman who had a hair and an afro, and she was dark. She didn't win. And everybody just felt the color thing was still alive. Right, right, right. I mean, these kind of incremental moves.

Right, right. When you're at Howard and you're involved with SNCC and you're organizing and everything. And what was your undergraduate degree? But you were a fine arts major. Fine arts, yeah. What did you think you were going to do with your life? I wanted to be a painter. I really wanted to be a painter.

And then, you know, like, we were not taught to be bold, though. You know, like, how are you going to make a living? how you're going to stay a lab, blah, blah, so I minored in education. So, you know, so I could be an art teacher. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think people are, no matter what your background, and, you know, people, especially women, and I think people of color, especially back then, would have been said, oh, you know, how are you going to make a living, you know, do something responsible.

But that's also the time in your life when you're thinking most radically about what, you know what I mean? It's the time when you feel bravest. That's right, yeah. Maybe because nothing's happened yet. So, you know, kind of anything is possible. Yeah, yeah. Like the first thing I tried to do, you know, like after I graduated, your dad, I had met your dad by then.

And we came to California, we came to L.A. I tried to get a job in a display department for a department store. Like doing the window? Yeah, like doing the displays. Well, it was very, they didn't hire women, you know, like. Mm-hmm. I'm sure the color thing was in there, but I think it was more like the woman thing. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. They didn't hire women to do that job, but you could get some, like, jobs in the background. Right, right. I got a job at Sears making the signs for the store. Painting the signs. Actually, there was this old kind of printing press. Okay. You set type by hand.

Wow. And then you ran off the cards to make the signs. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So I got that job. And I did that. And then when we moved later on, when we moved to the Bay Area, I kept trying to get into that field, but I just couldn't get in.

They just weren't hiring any women. So then I decided I better go on and try to be a teacher. It's so crazy, too, because now I would think if you looked at that field, it's probably all women. Probably all women, you know. How did you meet Dad? Oh, he was dashing. Well, this is really interesting. I'll tell you how I met him.

You know, he was a photographer. We had these things, you know, Stokely and Rapids, different people had set up these dialogues. They were called rap sessions. And so people on different sides of the spectrum would get, and they would meet, and they would talk. And, you know, like, I guess they recorded it and stuff. And so there was this one session where, you know,

the black people in the Black Movement were talking to people from the Ku Klux Klan. So there were Ku Klux Klan guys there. And then us. And your dad was there taking pictures. Wow. So he was taking pictures of me. And then he had seen me earlier in a demonstration on campus.

He had taken some pictures. So then, you know, that's how I met. And he wanted to show me the pictures that he had taken. That's always a good way in. Sam, he says, you know, yeah, those photographers, they always met the women. You know. I want to come right back to the story. but what was that like?

Because I have to tell you, I can't imagine. You know what's so strange is I can't imagine that happening now. I know, I know. There were, we had dialogues with, there was a white power movement. What was the name of those guys over in Arlington? It was like a paramilitary movement of white nationalists. We had dialogues with them. These guys were from the, and then there were these guys from the Ku Klux Klan,

the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan. Right, like just that they would, the order of the chameleli. would have been open to meeting with each other, you know what I mean, and thinking that, because the only reason you come together for dialogue is because you think that there's some result, some ideal result that could come out of it. Well, we just wanted to see if we could talk to them.

Right. And they were willing, you know, so, you know, instead of just hate, hate, hate, you know, like, okay, let's get in the room and see, you know, we're just human beings here. Of course, nobody really agreed with the other person's point of view. Right.

But it's like this thing. People don't know each. A lot of hate comes from. People just don't know each other. You know? Yeah. And that was really interesting. Those sessions were really interesting.

God, that's amazing. There was a lot of exciting stuff going on back then. They were the Berrigan brothers who were like these Catholic priests. They were brothers who were priests. They were very involved in the movement. They were always putting on things, you know, like to break through these barriers. And it was a very exciting time. Yeah, I mean, it was.

Again, it was like this dynamic time. And I think in a lot of ways, it seems so backwards to us now, like there was still so much segregation and lynchings and all this violence. But like now, like people don't even talk to each other. You know, they're just polarized and kind of drifting tectonically away rather than together and nobody wanting to work with anybody else on anything. Nothing has really changed. That's the thing that,

nothing has really changed because because we we can't really people don't want to talk about it they deny it you know they instead of talking like let's look at this thing let's talk about this thing they they just deny that it's even happening and it's more subtle like your dad was always afraid to go to the south and I told them I felt better than the south because I knew how they felt whereas in the north you know they were just pretending right right you didn't know who you know yeah Yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, they had the game face on, but who knows what they were thinking inside, whereas, you know, you knew where they stood in this album. But, yeah, it's really kind of, you know, having the perspective that I have and having lived as long as I've had, I don't really feel it's upsetting what's happening, but I'm not surprised by it. I'm not surprised by any of it because it just looks the same to me in a different way.

Really? It's a different way. You know, we keep patting ourselves on the way. the back about how much progress we've made, but we haven't made any progress. I mean, when I say that, that sounds very absolute, we've made a lot of progress in terms of opportunity, you know, in terms of the current generation, you know, like there's a lot more interchange among younger people that just didn't happen before, you know, it just didn't happen. And I mean, like when I go to the South, now, I remember the first time I went back to the South.

which was in 1998. Wow. It was just like completely different. I was, we were in Atlanta and Sam had some friends there. We were driving through. It was on the outskirts. And I said to Sam,

I said, yeah, they used to hang us from these trees. And now look, we're just riding through here and we're not afraid. But that's, I mean, the palpable fear does not exist anymore. No. Do you know what I mean? And I always was afraid of the South, which I think was generation.

generational. You know, I got that from you guys. You know what I mean? And from other cultural touchpoints and movies I'd seen and, you know, just general folklore. And I remember really loving it there. Yeah. And, you know, and being surprised how much I loved it. And, you know, to people who are listening who live in the South, you can feel how you want about that. But that's how, especially if you were a black person from the West, you know, from the North, the South, you know, had this, not really apocryphal, this, this, you know, great mythology. of being like a place that was really, really dangerous to be black. I mean, your dad never wanted to go to the south. We lived in D.C. He never wanted to go over the bridge into Virginia. Seriously, literally. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't know.

I, you know, I... Do you think the progress is elastic? Like, we have made these great leaps forward, you know? And in a lot of ways, you know, maybe more culturally than say economically, right? We've got all these cultural icons that people look up to, you know, that I think may eventually be the, they'll be the vanguard of change, right? Like if, you know, a million white kids love, you know, Kendrick Lamar,

and they listen to his music, that their consciousness is being raised, at least incrementally. But that doesn't mean that we're all not dragging this big kind of long weight of our history that is keeping us from moving forward as quickly as we should be. Because white people have always listened to our music. You know, they've always listened to our music. Well, there's always been a group of progressive white people. I mean, let's face it.

You know, we couldn't have done half of the stuff that we've done if we didn't have progressive help of white, the help of progressive white people, underground railroads. Yeah, exactly. Everything. Yeah. Even the 99% marches or even the Black Lives Matter.

People want to talk about Black Lives Matter. Like, that's only a black movement. It's a multi-racial movement. Racial movement, you know, and I was thinking about them last time. I think the only people who are afraid of Black Lives Matter are the people who think that Black Lives don't matter. That's true. You're only threatened by that statement if you think it's about you.

Do you know what I mean? Because it's not a zero-sum game. Black Lives Matter is not saying that other lives don't matter. It's just saying it should be included in the concept that lives matter. You matter. You know, like they don't value our lives, so, you know, like, it's easy to take the life away. And, you know, I feel really good about the Black Lives Matter movement. I'm really excited about it because I felt in despair, I felt like a lot of the young people didn't know our history, didn't care about it, and weren't very conscious, you know.

They were just sort of materialistic and lost in, you know, like all these sort of things. Yeah, and distracted by, you know, technology and, you know, whatever. And so to me, it's very encouraging to see BLM, you know. The fact that they created themselves out of this crisis and that they haven't gone away. Yes, yes, that it's not, wasn't a flash. It wasn't, you know, kind of a flash in the pan. When you moved out here and you ended up in San Francisco, you were like these young, cool hippies.

We weren't hippies. We didn't call ourselves hippies. We were, well, we kind of came here because of the hippies. Yeah, yeah. You know, the summer of love and stuff. That's what attracted us to California. We thought, oh, yeah, we want to be out there. So it was a very, it was a great time.

Everybody, you know, like, back then there was a lot of freeness and open and black and white people and everybody all intermingling, you know, like and um it was a very exciting time musically and culturally and you know life was a lot freer and relaxed and yeah you know it was it was a great time you guys moved to san francisco and then when did you get pregnant with me uh 1969 you were born in 70 and um yeah you were born you were born in San Francisco. It seems in some ways like that was like your and Daddy's Manifest Destiny.

You know he's a photographer and you were a painter and you were an activist and you kind of came to the most progressive place in the country at that time. But then in other ways, you were having kind of a conventional... Yeah, it was like we were conventional yet, you know, radical You know, we lived in the Fillmore. It was not called the Western Edition, and it was the Fillmore.

We went to the Fillmore. We saw people at the Fillmore and Winterland. You know, we saw all those great groups. That's when I began to listen to quote unquote white music. You know, because even music was kind of segregated. You know, music was segregated on the radio and in sales and everything before then. You know, they called it race music. Black music was called race music.

It's crazy. You know, so it was like ghettoized music, you know, on the radio and in the stores and everything, you know. And I think, I didn't even realize the white people were listening to our music until much later in life. I thought, oh, they really were listening to that. Oh, you know. Yeah.

I mean, you know, since the very beginning, you know, since jazz and, you know. Yeah, from way back there wasn't, you know. But, yeah, I mean, you're made to feel that there wasn't, you know, you should stay on your side. On your side of the film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What white music were you listening to when you got to San Francisco? Like Chicago.

I loved Chicago. Everybody loves Chicago. And then I met Santana. Oh, cool. I met him because we were, we had these friends, and one of them was a bass player, and he played with Santana. He played, did he play? No, he played with this group called Electric Flag. And so they had this big show at the Fillmore.

And it was like, I was just getting introduced. And I thought Santana was white. You know, like, you know, he's like a light skin, Mexican. Back when we were growing up, you had two realities. You thought they were white, people, black people, and then, quote, unquote, foreigners. That's exactly how people talk. Oh, he was a foreigner. Ridiculous.

Ridiculous. So anyway, I was backstage and Linda Tilleri was singing with that group with our friend, the bass player. And Santana came on. He started playing out. I thought, wow, who is that white guy? He's not really a white guy. And that's Santana. So when he first kind of started.

So I was getting introduced to all that kind of. of music and I really liked it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, how did your perception of like how you're moving through the world at that time changed? Because, you know, I won't be able to. Sometimes I have these ideas and I'm trying to like kind of crystallize them. You know, like when you're young and you're an activist and it's about trying to kind of

create space for your own power and your own actualization, sometimes it's, you're, It's grander. It's about like social justice and equality and access. But then there's this other, there's this other fight for freedom, which is like your own fight for your own personal freedom, your personal expansion. Well, you know, what happened with me was I kind of got,

the movement began to go into a bunch of different manifestations. So I got kind of burned out about it. You know, like I knew the people in the us organization. I knew, I hadn't met any Black Panthers yet when you were born. I met them late. No, no. I did meet them before you, boy, because we were living in Berkeley for a little while.

And they were all in Oakland. Yeah, like I met some Black Panthers in Berkeley. Like, Cheryl lived next door, and she had, her roommates were Black Panthers. Cheryl's my godmother. I know. So I met Bobby Seal and all those guys then, the spring of 68. And so, but there was this other part of the movie that was getting real radical, you know, and they were threatening each other, you know, like the whole rivalry, which we later found out was

set up by the government. Right, right. But that's a smart way to disempower movement is to start to put them against each other. So I began to really withdraw from some of that, you know. Like you said, we were doing this kind of radical thing,

but then we began to become kind of conventional. You'd like to have the conventional family. Smoked a lot of dope. That was fun. I never did anything like, really heavy drugs. Like my one experiment with LSD was terrible. Was it?

Oh, yeah. Tell me. We both could have been dead because of it. Really? Oh, yeah. Well, what happened? I had never done it. I was afraid of it.

I knew that my system was just too sensitive for things. But we had this couple that we knew. They came out to San Francisco, and they were like heads, you know, like, oh, yeah, you know, like acid, you know, so and so on, so. So your dad decided that he was going to try it. Oh, no. So I was sitting around and they were all high and I thought, okay, I'm just going to try it to. Yeah, yeah.

But what happened was these people were from the East Coast and they didn't know, they took window pain acid. They didn't know he's supposed to cut it into four pieces. Yeah. Everybody took a window pain. Oh, no. So I took a window pain and let me tell you, I'm just glad to be alive. Wow. And when I say you almost started, it was like, I hallucinated all kinds of shit.

I hallucinated the stormtroopers coming and get us and taking us away to concentration camps. Oh, God. That's terrifying. They were like coming up the back stairs and banging on the door and stuff. Oh, my God. And I didn't have anything on. I had on a bathrobe. And you were a baby, and I had you in my arms that I started hitting out the window.

I thought they're not going to take us. Oh, wow. I was heading out the window. I had a leg out the frigging window. What happened? Somebody grabbed me and pulled me back in. I was like, I thought, oh, my. When I came out of it, I thought, oh, my God.

Suppose that had happened. That would have been so terrible. So terrible. And so not your nature. No, it just took me a long time to come and I thought, I will never touch that shit again. I don't understand. And then later, you know, we found out it was just too much, you know. But I wasn't willing to ever try any kind of hallucinogenic.

No. No mushrooms, no anything. Because, again, there's also like the, you know, For me, anyway, I know the one thing I do not like is not knowing my own mind. You know what I mean? For some people, they're all, they want to get out of it, right? They're really interesting getting away from kind of the construct of their own, the confines of their own mind.

But like, I like it in here. And I like that it's familiar. Do you know what I mean? I like that I know my way around it. I know how I feel about certain things, you know, how I perceive the world. And I guess, you know, consciousness expansion is exciting, but it's fucked up when all of a sudden you don't recognize yourself. Yeah, and it's just scary because the first part of the trip was beautiful.

I was having a good time. And then stuff got weird and scary, you know? You had me, and were you teaching? I was teaching when I was pregnant. Teaching art? Uh-huh. Teaching art. I taught art in a middle school out in Sausalito.

Martin Luther King Middle School. Yeah, out there. And were you still able to pursue your own artistic pursuits, or at this point you were a mom and a teacher? No, because the place, We lived in a two-story flat there, and I painted upstairs. I did huge canvases. Oh, wow.

So you were painting that whole time? That's great. That's great. And what was dad doing? He was a butcher. He was a butcher at that point. Yeah. Which he did for most of my childhood.

Always doing his photography, but that's how he made his living as a butcher. When I was a little older, you were the teacher in my school. Right, in the Montessori school. Yeah. Yeah. I always, you know, I think that like the struggle for someone if you're an artistic person is like, there's always a battle between trying to find time for that and the rest of your life. Right, right.

Do you feel like that's always been a part? You know, later on was when I stopped painting, when I had to really just, when your dad and I split up, you know, I had to figure out how to support myself and all that kind of stuff. But he always, he was very supportive of what I was doing. always facilitated whatever I wanted to do. You know, so he helped me do that, and that was really, really wonderful. When did you guys start? Because it's funny, now I can't quite remember it the way that I want to, when you started

getting involved with the ashram. I did want to talk about the Montessori school, just slightly. Because when you were born, when I was pregnant with you, I heard about Montessori. And I got really excited about it because of the, approach to children's education. And I knew right away that you were going to go to Montessori. You know, that that was going to be how you came through. And so, you know, both you and your sister went to Montessori schools. I just felt like the way that they were showing you how a child's mind works and how they interact with the environment, how they learn from their play and from what

they're doing on a physical level, was just made so much sense. to me. But anyway. Did it feel that way when you were teaching there? Yeah. Like philosophically aligned it with what you hoped it would be. I mean, you guys, we were progressives. You know, that was the thing. We've always been progressive.

Yeah. Our childhood was really progressive, you know, and obviously really education-driven. And it just felt normal when we were growing up, I guess, to know, to some extent anyway. I made it a priority. I mean, like, you know, we said, you guys were going to have this education. We didn't have any material possession. We didn't have any friggin' furniture. We had a piece of shit cars.

Because we wanted you to have a basic, the basic. We felt like, okay, if you could get the basics by the time you were 12, after that, you could, you carry yourself along. Yeah. So you were asking me something else. No, and now that we're talking about it, and I feel like I was very aware, maybe it was a little older than Fetty,

but I was very aware of the fact. that it was a constant sacrifice to keep us in those educational situations for most of our childhood. And my mom helped me with that, you know, helped me to do that. And to me, it was very, very important. You know, and material things

and meaning thing to me, really. Or your dad either. Your dad was, that's the thing that impressed me about him when I first met him was that it's not like he didn't enjoy, you know, but he wasn't a materialist. He could take it or leave it, you know. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, he almost divorced of attachment to stuff, yeah, which I think, I mean, you know, stuff is nice, but I feel very ambivalent. You like that. Both you and Fetty are like that, you know. And the whole thing about, you know, how people always talk about the big words that you use. I used big words with you and before you could even formulate words. Really? And adults are always saying, oh, you're talking to her like an adult.

And then she's saying them back to you. Like, she understands what they mean. You're like, well, I was, I mean, I think Fetty and I both were, but I was such a strangely accelerated kid. And I think now I realize that you were an accelerated kid too. But I mean, when did I start reading? Oh, you were reading my time you were four. Yeah, because I just remember being like so far ahead of my class in reading that I couldn't be a part of reading group. Like there was this kid you played with Nizam across the street. And you were over there. And you were over there. one day and you were reading a newspaper and Nizam's mother just thought you were faking it. Right? And so she went over and sat with you and you just read it to her and she went, oh my God. I said, well, she can read. I taught her to read.

I told both of you to read when you were toddlers. We just started reading, you know? Yeah, and I remember like I would read so much. I would read in the bed and I would read on the bus and I would miss my bus stop and we look up and it would be nighttime. All alone. Like the time you got lost on the bus, I was terrified. Do you remember that time?

I'm sure it must have happened. I'm sure it must have happened. And you had to take the bus home. You were young, like you were about seven or eight. And you had to take the bus home. And then one day you didn't come, and I went, oh my God, I was just terrified. And what had I done?

And I had been reading on the bus. Yeah, I'd gone to the end. I'd gone to the turnaround. I'd gone to the turnaround. Yeah. That must have happened more than one time in my life, that I went all the way to the turnaround because I was reading. I was asking you about the,

Ashram. Oh, the Ashram. And when you guys got involved with the ashram? Well, let me start at the beginning of all that. Before I came to California, you know, your dad had moved out to Los Angeles. And I finished my last semester at Howard. And I had roommates and all that. He was already out here. I had always felt that I was able to communicate with whatever you want to call God. And I always felt that there was something more than what was happening here on the physical level. And I remember I was very sick with the flu. I was staying with these friends of mine because I was about to come out here. I had to fly, you know, like at the end of the week and I had moved out of my place and I stayed with them until it was time for me to leave. And it was late at night. And there was this talk show that came

on late at night. I'm trying to remember the guy's name. Was it Marlowe Thomas's boy, husband? Donahue. It might have been Donahue. He had Maharishi on there. And I was laying in the bed sick with the flu and then he bought Maharishi on there and he starts and I just sat straight up and I thought, oh, this is it. Wow. This is what I've been looking for. Because I I used to have fantasies. Well, I used to tell myself when I was in the movement. Okay, if they put me in jail, I need to be able to be on a certain level where I'm not afraid of what's happening to me physically. Right, right. Can I project myself out of my body or find some level of equanimity where I'm not connected to?

Yeah. So when I saw that, I thought, oh, that's the thing. And then I came out to Los Angeles. He was transcendental meditation. Yes, Transcendental Meditation. So then when I got out here, your dad had a friend. from Pittsburgh, D. Quant, and she lived around the corner from us, and she was into TM. And then we met this other guy named Stan Lewis, who was really into TM. So there was these black

people that would be getting to meditate. And, well, at the time, Stan was doing two things. He was doing Rosicrucianism. So I started to dabble around with Rosicrucianism. I don't know what that is. Is that like Zoroastrianism? No, no. It's. It's like the Rosicrucians were sort of an outgrowth of, they were like two, I don't know what the base of it was, like the Masons went this way, the Rosicrucians went that way. It's like a spiritual practice. Okay. And anyway, I remember getting really interested in the, still interested in TM. And so when we left L.A. and we came back east again, we went to New York, and we got initiated into TM, and I started meditating.

That was the beginning of the meditation, right? So all those years I've been meditated was into yoga and meditation and everything. And then I was always studying some spiritual thing. I try to find out about spiritual practice. And then there was Ekincar. Ekencar was this movement I was studying where you actually... It's like... Astral traveling and all that.

And then how did I hear about Bob? I think I saw... I think I saw his picture on a post in Berkeley. You know, like Mukdenanda is coming And I said, ooh, I wonder who he is So we were all in the team We had already been to Ethiopia and stuff

Right, we lived in Ethiopia We lived in Ethiopia We were on that meditation course up in the mountains You know I remember I remember, I think that's one of my earliest memories Is when we were in Ethiopia And you played with Stan's daughter

Maya Sinah Yeah Mm-hmm Mm-hmm And so I met Baba after that and I decided to go see who he was

and that was, you know, I just met him and that was just it, you know. That was a big part of your life for most of my childhood. It was a huge part of my life. It still is a part of it. I don't go down there anymore but I still, it's still a part of my life in terms of my relationship to him.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you think, because now you're a Buddhist. So do you feel like those are compatible practices? I feel like it's all the same. You know, like my, I didn't come from a religious family. My family weren't, you know, people always think,

all the black people were in the church. Well, my people are not in the church. Yeah, I mean, I remember, you know, I would visit Grandma me every summer all we never did went to church. No, no, we weren't, we were intellectuals. We were not in the church. And, but I always had a spiritual part of it. me like when I was a little child

I would get up on Sunday and go to church all by myself and I would go to all these different churches trying to find out what they were all about like what's this one about what's that one about I was really just a curious seeker from the time I was a really little kid

you know and I found it interesting and then I decided on one I guess when I was 11 I said I'm going to be a Presbyterian and I chose Presbyterianism because it made sense to me intellectually and spiritually. It wasn't like, you know, those churches where you just kind of, oh, you know. Yeah.

And you're not thinking. Right, right. Yeah. Now you needed some structure, some intellectual structure around it. And how long were you a Presbyterian? Maybe up until, you know, when I got into college, I began to go to the AME church. You ever seen those churches? Those are the holy churches.

Well, there's lots of holy roll of the churches. Holy Roller Church. Don't they do a lot of singing? No, no. They're a lot like Presbyterians. Oh, okay. Yeah. African Methodist Episcopal. Yeah. So it's a lot like Presbyterians, really. So I started

going there. And then they came this point where I just felt like everything was hypocritical, so I stopped going to church. And that was the end of that. But I never did go to the, you know, like the typical black, I went to those churches to visit. I liked their music. Yes, I mean, there's nothing like going to a Baptist church.

Yeah, like the music. Like my best friend in high school was a Baptist, so I would go to church with her sometimes just to hear the music, you know. Yeah, I mean, it's a very specific experience in a Baptist church. Now, you know, you're in a different part of your life where you've been able to go back to being more of an artist. Yeah. You can embrace that part of yourself.

Yeah. And but maybe not. as fully as you wanted to like I know you want to start painting again I do I haven't painted for years I really miss it yeah what do you think is keeping you from diving back into it fully working that's what I could never balance the two things yeah you know like I kept trying to do it it's like when I I don't know if remember when I was in that house on 55th street I had that drawing board and you know I would try to paint there and I was always trying to paint but it's like the energy would just be some people

people can compartmentalize. I just, I couldn't do it. You know, you exhausted at the end of the day. You might have an idea in the middle of the day, but then it was gone by the time you got home, and then you were tired and you would take care of your family. It's like, blah, blah, blah. And that was just, you know, the end of it. I just, you know, just wasn't doing it, you know. So I'm fantasizing about getting back to it when I retire, whenever that it's going to be. But just when the music thing came in, you know, like that's one of my creative out, that is my creative outlet. Yeah. And does that feel as satisfying, you as painting does?

Yeah, I'd say it's about the same. I don't want to be doing both though. Right, right. You want to just be living a totally art-driven life. Well, the thing that's great about painting is that you don't need anybody. Yes, you don't have to book with anyone and have a, you know, the audience. And, you know, my whole thing with singing is I love to sing, but even though I've gotten over a certain level of stage fright, I still have it.

You know, like standing in front of people, I feel very vulnerable. Mm-hmm. So I have to take a drink. That seems perfectly normal to me. I don't even have the excuse of stage fright when I take a drink. I'm just taking a drink to take a drink. You know, to just relax and just fully express myself. So I won't have the inhibition, you know,

because alcohol takes weight inhibition. Yeah. I think alcohol is like a big occupational hazard for singers. Oh, I think so. I think for all performers. Because I think in the beginning it's, you know, know, literally therapeutic, you know, in the sense of like, okay, this is going to relax me or call me down or make me more brave or less inhibited, whatever it is. And then it becomes this

ritual and then it becomes a crutch. Yeah, and then you feel like you can't do it without it, you know, like you. And you don't trust yourself. And you're afraid to do it without it, you know, so there's that. How was your experience with your stage fright when you first started performing? Well, I would, I actually went to, I went to a hypnotist. Yeah. You know, like I was, I was singing with that big choir, you know, that jazz choir. The Oakland jazz choir. And then I was doing some solos with them and I just wanted to get over my stage fright. So I heard about this guy that worked with entertainers on their stage fright. He was a hypnotist. And he really helped me with it a lot. He did. It did help you. It did help me with, you know, to just sort of visualize certain things. And, you know, like, he was really good. You know, I really credited him with a lot of it. Mm-hmm. And then when you became a solo performer, because even when you're with a band and you're singing, it's still you out there, yeah.

You're not standing behind a piano or guitar or a bass or whatever it is. You're out there and it's you, you know. How do you manage it now? I mean, do you have other methods besides the cocktail, which is a perfectly acceptable and effective tools? Yes. I drink a little tequila before I go out. And then I, you know, because he had visualization things.

Like he was saying, okay, your fear, I had to come up with an animal that represented the fear. And so it was like, it was like a Doberman pitcher or a pit bull or something. So just imagine that, you know, like he's staying at home and he's chained to the doghouse. He's not with you. Yeah, yeah. You know, things like that. You know, I would envision those things. And then, you know, once I get going, then I feel more relaxed and all that.

like, you know, on the stage. Because I feel like I really do have something to share. You do. You do. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting, though, because I think most of us think about people who want to be performers or who are, you know, born in some way to be a performer,

that naturally, like stepping up there as a natural thing. Yeah. Like, some people are natural performers. I just wanted to sing. And, you know, the other part comes along with it, you know. Right. I remember reading, you know, that Michael Jackson was terrified. Like, when he,

when he recorded with Quincy Jones, he had to have his back. He couldn't look at the people in the studio. Oh, wow. He had to turn around and look at the wall and record without looking at the people. So, you know, when I realize that almost every singer has some level, there's some that don't, you know, but everybody. Everybody hasn't, you know, like I thought, I didn't feel alone. Right. I mean, and also there's something about the power that comes from confronting this fear that you have, right? Like really staring it down repeatedly that diminishes its power over you. But there's no way through that.

I mean, or around it or over it, you just have to do it every time until it gets less powerful. I think if I could, if I performed more, you know, like I'm not performing often enough. I think when you do it a lot, it becomes easier. You know, it's like if there are big gaps in between, it's like you're starting all over again.

You know, it's like, you know, it's better if you, it'd be great, if I could just, you know, have a gig every week. Right, right, right, right. I mean, just so much in your life has changed over the last few years. Yes, there is. That, you know, it's, you're reconfiguring it and you're kind of as you go and trying to figure out what you want your life to look like now. Yeah, I have no idea.

You know, as you know, I started singing really late in life. I think I was 50. And it was just this thing when I thought, this is something I've always, wanted to do and so I'm just going to do it you know and um I was glad I did you know I made those two recordings I'm proud of those they're incredible and but and equally incredible is just this did the decision to do so because I think most people come to this place in their life and they think oh well well I didn't do that so I'm not right right I didn't want to die I didn't want to die not doing it mm-hmm I would have regretted it you know hugely

Yeah. You know, you're probably going to retire the next couple of years. I hope so. What do you want your retirement to look like? I want to do creative things. I want to paint again, you know. I love the water, but I'm not a good swim. I'm not a confident swimmer.

I would like to really be able to swim. You swim adorable. You swim like an old-fashioned lady. from the 50s, with your head out of the water, your flowered cap. An elegant lady of means. So, you know, and the fear is because I almost drowned twice when I was a child. Really? Yeah.

I didn't know that long. You didn't know that? No. Once in Atlantic City, I got swept in an undertow. Oh, maybe I remember you telling me this story. And what happened? I just, I remember kind of surrendering to it because I couldn't do anything. anything about it? Really? And then that was when you popped up? No, this guy saved me. Oh, wow. He saw me go under and he just, all of a sudden I felt this strong arm around me and took me out of the water. Wow.

And then he put me down like, because it was my friend, both of us got towed under. He went back to get her and he put me down in this water that was like up around my ankles and I was so terrified. I couldn't walk out of that water. Oh my gosh. It was a terrifying experience. And then another time, it was after that I was swimming in a pool and I almost drowned. Was it just that you got tired or? I mean, I just wasn't a good swimmer you know and then I went too far

into the, I went to the deep end and I just, you know. Did somebody come and get you out? Yeah, yeah, mm-hmm. But I love the water, so, you know, I, so I want to, I want to like take an adult swim class to get my confidence back. I would love to travel

a little bit, you know. I'd just like to have a creative rest of my life, you know? It's funny because I wonder if when you were young and you had your kids, you thought you would have creative kids, you thought you would have artistic kids. I did. Yeah? I did.

I knew I'd have creative kids. You know, because that was like who we were, you know. Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And it turned out that way. Mm-hmm. For sure.

And, you know, I told you we had your horoscopes done. Mm-hmm. This guy did your horoscope. He told me exactly what was going to happen with you. What? What? What did he say? He said you were going to be famous.

What? Yeah. He said you were going to be in some kind of entertainment, and you're going to be famous and, you know, that you had this huge energy, you know, and that everybody was going to love you. And, you know. He didn't know exactly what you're going to be famous doing, but he'd do that you were going to be some kind of entertainer.

That's so crazy. And then he told me that Fetty's work was to work on her spiritual being. Really? Well, that's what she's doing. You know, I don't believe in all this mystical mumbo-jumbo-mom. He was an astrologer. So he did your charts, you know? And that's what happened, though, didn't it?

It is exactly what happened. Oh my God. I don't know if I have any other questions for you, Mommy. I love you. I love you too, sweet. I feel very fortunate to have been, not to be your daughter, you know. I feel very fortunate to have been your mother, to be your mother. I feel like the thing that I'm most grateful of in life is my family and the children that I had.

I feel really like my entire family has been just. such a blessing to me. You know, people don't get families like this every day. You know, my whole extended family. And then you guys as my children, I feel like you're my greatest creations. And, you know, one thing I just thought of was that you and dad, like, even though you divorced when we were pretty young, I was 10, Fetty was six. I talk about it a lot on the show, actually.

And I don't know what was going on in the inside of either of you or in between you when you weren't around us. But you guys really modeled kindness. Yeah. You know, uh, in a way that like, I know that like other people think our family's so weird. They do. You know, that we're, yeah, you know, and dad and, and, you know, like, both had new relationships. You both remarried. You know, you were all friends. You stayed friends. You still had a relationship. And did things with each other. Yeah. Hung out together socially when the kids weren't around. So it wasn't like you were being forced to do it by your kids. You know, in a way that just modeled. like this kindness, you know, that I'm really proud of. And I, you know, I think people think I'm such a

weirdo when I talk about it. But they do think it's strange. It's like, you know, why do you have to be angry? You know, the thing is, I love him. You know, he was, he was my partner for a long time. And we just became different. People went off on different paths. And if we had stayed together, he never would have met Zanobia, who I think is wonderful in his life, you know. And it's, I'd like being this way. You know, being inclusive is a lot more fun than than holding on to anger and resentment. There was nothing to be angry about or resentful about. You know, we just, we were young when we got married, you know, we gave it the old college try.

You know, we were married for 15 years and we just became different and our lives are different, but that doesn't stop you from loving somebody. Yeah, yeah. It's, I think, probably one of the greatest gifts I think that you have given me, you know, is that kindness and that kind of being able to be loving towards somebody in a way that isn't contingent on a bunch of other. And I'm sure people have judgments, you know, because you say you were raised by your dad, and they're going, ooh, you know, like, you know, I'm sure.

It's like, they don't understand that. You were raised by your dad. Fetty was raised by me, but there was all this interaction between our families all the time. Always, always, yeah. Going back and forth. But I felt your presence keenly in my life. I never felt like you weren't there. You know what I mean?

Like it implies somehow that, like, somebody ran away. Right. You guys were always up there. We were always doing things together and eating together and having, you know. We were on the phone all the time and all our holidays together. And you and Fetty went back and forth to each other's houses. Mm-hmm. You know, it was okay finally, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. It was rough on Fetty in the beginning. She was very young. She was young and it was harder for her to understand. You know. And also it might be personalities. Yeah. You know. I mean, I just forget everything. You know, like, were you traumatized? I can't remember. But I mean, you can't get through life without some trauma anyway. That's right. You know? I mean, this idea that like kids are you. I can't remember. But I mean, you can't get through life without some trauma anyway. That's right. You know? I mean, this idea that, like, kids are supposed to get this kind of cushy ride and everything laid out before them and no trauma, no difficulty. The whole approach to things is just, it's just beyond me.

Like, my favorite image is like the little kid on a bicycle, he's got a helmet on, he's got padded clothes, and he's got everything. It's like, let the kid just ride the friggin' bike. You know? You know, it's just so... It's weirdly overprotective. Yeah. Well, you guys were not protective parents.

I mean, you really kind of pushed us out and encouraged us to kind of get out there. And that was another thing that I really loved about the way that you parented was... My friends were asking you the other night, like what you said when I said I wanted to be a comedian, you know. And you were like, go for it, you know. Go for it. But that was the way you guys always were, which is like, well, you know, you might fall down. What if I fall down? Well, that might happen.

Yeah. just get right back up. Exactly. Exactly. And it's, you know, you guys instilled bravery, which I'm also very grateful for both of you, you know. I lucked out when I got you. We lucked out too. So one thing I had forgotten to ask you about that I wanted to was about when you went to live in India when I was a little kid. Fetty was a baby. Fetty was two. Okay. So I was six. and what kind of... We were all supposed to go together.

Okay. But then we couldn't afford it. And so we had to make a decision. First, we were all supposed to go together, and then we thought, well, maybe I could just take just both of you, and then we realized it didn't have money to take everybody, and, you know, we both realized it was an important thing to do. So that's when, you know, we decided that I would take Fetty,

and you would stay with your dad. And Fetti was a baby, so infants or not a toddler anyway. So it seemed to make more sense that she would go with you. And you were gone for a long time. I was gone. Yeah, I was gone for about four or five months. What was that like for you? Because it would have been such a different experience.

I mean, just living in an ashram, you know, kind of culturally different from, you know, just America. In India, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a wonderful experience. I really missed you. We were writing. We wrote to each other. Your dad had a hard time.

He was trying to figure out how to deal. He said he woke up and he was terrified the next day. Because they were just like this kid. He had to take care of him. Yeah, I'm really like, what to do. And it was a long time. It wasn't like a month. Right, right, right.

It was a long time, you know. So, you know, it was the greatest spiritual experience of my life being there in India, you know, and meditating every day in a holy place and living in that culture. What was it like for Fetty? I mean, she was a little baby. She was two, two and a half. The Indians loved Fetty.

Yeah? Oh yeah, they always wanted to give her things, which I didn't want her to take because I didn't want her to, every now and then, you know, she would give her something and then she would get terrible dysentery. And then someone wanted to take her with them and go somewhere, and I said, no. No, yeah. Because, you know, it was out in the country. Yeah, you had no idea.

I mean, just anybody, any country, anywhere. It was strange people taking your baby away. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, she had other children there to play with. And you just had to adapt to everything, you know, like you only had hot water once a day, a bucket full, which you had to do everything in, wash your hair, you close yourself. Right, right, right.

Did it transform you? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I don't know how to describe how it did, but it did. It was like a really deep connection to my spiritual self there. What was it like when you came back? Was it a letdown? Yeah, it was like even when we came back from Ethiopia, it was like, you just found yourself, you know, like you could find yourself in the middle of the street

You can wonder how you got there because the rhythm of life is different. I mean, you know, it's not like there are these clocks all the time. It's like the sun comes up and you know and you go to bed early. You know, you go when it gets dark. And you have this whole routine with meditation and stuff. And so, yeah, the rhythm is different. And so when you come back here, it's like a rude awakening. Yeah.

Everything is hard and fast, you know. Right. Would you ever do that again? I would love to do it again. When I saw that movie, Eat, Pray, Love. Yes. I was looking at it late one night. And then I realized that they didn't say it.

I guess they couldn't say it. It must have been some legal thing. But she was at the ashram. It's, I remember watching that movie and thinking, oh, that seems like that's the ashram. That was the ashram in Indiana. Oh, wow. And I just really wanted to go back again. Really?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's also, like, like, the idea that your whole day is just kind of regulated by, like, prayer and service. By spiritual practice. Mm-hmm. You know, and it was, there was a village, the village of Ganeshpuri was right down the road. So you could walk down there and they had like these hot springs. I would go down there and just, you know, take a hot, like a jacuzzi-type bath where the water came from the hot springs.

It was, you know, very rustic. You see, you know, elephants walking up and down. Wow. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wow. It was lovely. I really loved India.

Mm-hmm. It's really an ancient civilization, you know, still here. and everything seems to be infused with spirituality, you know. Of course, it's probably scary in parts there too, but... It's very tribal parts there. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, it's interesting because it's all of those things, right, like this very prayerful culture and then also, you know, can be very violent. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Yeah. But we were in a protective environment, and, you know, people loved Baba. And so this whole kind of industry around the ashram, you know, shops and musicians and, you know, stuff like that. And it felt safe. I did feel safe there. Yeah. I don't remember what it was like while you were gone.

I mean, I remember missing you for sure, but I don't remember. I guess that was the beginning also just of like mine and my dad's, like, relationship kind of developing in a different way, you know, and us being like a little team. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, you know. And then we all lived in the ashram here. Yeah, and then did that kind of, did you're living in India there in the ashram there,

I think, like kind of drive the idea that we'd move into the ashram here? Yeah. How long did we live there? Must have been a year or so. I felt like a good amount of time. Yes. I mean, we had the most unconventional. We did.

Of lives. We did. You'd wake up really early in the morning and you go meditate, you know, and then we would pack our, remember, they would pack our lunch. I do remember that. Yeah. A bunch of weird stuff. You know, I would do the flowers for the ashram in the morning at 3 o'clock,

and then I'd go to, you know, take you guys to school and then go to work, you know. It was a lovely life, really, to have that kind of spiritual schedule interacting with secular life at the same time. And I guess as a kid, for the most part, it was very playful, too, because, you know, you had to do some service, right, Sava. But a lot of times it was fun stuff like making fruit salad. I know. Or making flowers, you know, stuff that was kind of enjoyable. Yeah, and you guys had a community of children that you played with. And then you all got initiated by Baba, bopped on the head with the peacock flowers.

You got spiritual names? Yeah. Yeah. It was a very expanding experience, you know, a mind-expanding experience. Separate from spirituality, just that there were so many other ways to live. than just the kind of conventional one that people painted for you. I love you, Mommy. Thanks for doing my show. I don't know. Did we cover everything?

Probably not. Probably not. Maybe we'll do another one in the future. But I'm excited that we did this. And I'll put links on the website to your CDs so people can hear your music. Great. Wonderful. My mom is a very fantastic jazz singer and a mistress.

of the classics. Love you. Thank you, sweetie. Yay. All right. That was my mom. I loved it. I hope you loved it too.

You know what to do. Next episode is the awesome all-listener question show. This is your last chance to send me a question. Anything you want to know, anything you want to hear about, send it to me.

I will answer it. It is never too early, but as I have said many, many times, it will soon be too late. So send me your questions, Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, all the handles Aisha Tyler and Girl on Guy.

Come say hi to me. This is your shot to ask me a question, any question, or say anything you like to me for the All Listener Question Show. I'll read some of your letters. Some of you were backers on Kickstarter. I'll make sure to try to bring some of you in who have written me letters on the Kickstarter platform. But this is your opportunity.

If you have a question, write me a letter. I will respond on the All Listener Question Show. Thanks for being my army for giving me strength every day to move forward. And I hope that in my own tiny way, I may have given you a little bit of strength to move forward as well. Because there is no direction, my friends. There is no other direction but forward. And hopefully, together, upward.

You are my army. You are brilliant. You are indefatigable. You are compassionate. And you are legion. I'll touch you on the next one. Late. Girl on Guy is a production of Hot Machine.

Blowing shit up since 2009.