MESS with Sydnee Washington & Marie Faustin - "The Balancing The Hate Expert" with Zainab Johnson

Episode Date: April 21, 2017

For this episode of The Unofficial Expert, fellow comedian Zainab Johnson stops by to teach the girls how to balance the hate. Listen! Rate! Subscribe!----Listen to The Unofficial Expert Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus:https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus----BONUS EPISODES AVAILABLE NOW ON PATREON:www.patreon.com/TheUnofficialExpertBUY UNOFFICIAL EXPERT MERCH:https://www.teepublic.com/stores/the-unofficial-expert-podcastFOLLOW THE UNOFFICIAL EXPERT:https://www.instagram.com/UnofficialExpertFOLLOW SYDNEE:https://www.instagram.com/JustSYDbwhttps://twitter.com/justsydnycFOLLOW MARIE:https://www.instagram.com/Reeezyhttps://twitter.com/MsReeezyFOLLOW ANDREW:https://www.instagram.com/mcgui_guyTHE UNOFFICIAL EXPERT IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/the-unofficial-expertSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

hello hello hello hello hey sydney hey marie this is the unofficial expert podcast yes and we're in a new location right now uh yep very temporary and uh there's a dog here there is a dog he's being real rude and loud his name is goomba so if you hear a little we're not doing anything bad to him he's just caged up I know why the caged dog sings right now so don't be upset

don't call the ASCC I don't even know the letters they're like is Michael Vick there? is there a dog fight going on? damn no we just locked him up because he's climbing all over my lap and you know I don't do dogs

you really don't you should be having one dog No, I don't like dogs. Oh. I don't like dogs. All right. Because, you know, he's really excited. He's a little tiny greyhound thing, long-faced Mr. Burns dog.

And I don't want him to get really excited and pee on my phone. He does look like Mr. Burns. Oh. Oh, there he is. There he is. There goes good. He wants to be on the podcast. That's all that is.

All right. Well, we'll make sure to ask him some questions for the quiz at the end. Absolutely. So. You having a good week? I'm having a fabulous week. i feel like i have a new expertise every time every time my expertise is a bagging proprietors um that's what i did last night i was at a show at this very well-known uh pizza establishment

and i i went last and i did my jokes or whatever and i did my story about going on a date with a billionaire and right away every time i tell this story some older bald white man comes up he's like that was funny it's like nah that was for real that really did happen they're like well you didn't hook up with that guy but maybe you'll give me a chance it's like no he was a billionaire you're like you are not a billionaire like one time a guy just tried to show me his American Express card and I was like that's a clear American Express so that's like a starter American Express that's a beginner that's a novice car yeah everybody's got that Marie don't you got one of those no I don't but I mean the credit limit is probably the same as my my my card so

right oh goomba this you're gonna be a problem all the whole episode i feel like i have to let him out oh my goodness i gotta let the dog out who let the dogs who let the dogs out you you you you you no but anyway i um so i'm sitting at the bar um i had a ticket for pizza that i gave to another friend because you were like i don't need free pizza i could pay for my pizza right so then so then the guy sits next to me he's like you were really funny blah blah blah did you want some more pizza and I was like sure I'll take some more pizza

from this guy and so he goes in the back in the kitchen and you were like ah he must be a delivery man I was like oh work it and I was like maybe he's a manager you know maybe he's friends with somebody and he's just got the hook up but he comes back and he starts talking to me and my friend

and then he's like yeah I own this place and i was like word you just own this place he's like no all of them i was like wow wow you met a pizza hut tycoon a pizza hut taco bell man yeah papa john's i met papa john you met father john father john yeah i met the father papa john wow yeah and then uh so we're talking and then he's like i pulled out my uber app man i'm so far from harlem and he's like well live in new jersey i have to go that way now when you pulled your phone out real dramatic like that did you do that because you wanted him to give you a ride no i honestly was gonna take an uber

i was gonna take an uber pool it was gonna take me about two hours to get there but it was fine it was about midnight i was like i'm ready i got my bags i could do this but he's like yeah i know i could give you a ride then i should have texted you i was like hey marie you didn't send me his plates or nothing i didn't i was gonna wait to tell you today if i didn't show up you know why well you wouldn't even know why no but god damn i should have texted you you jumped in a strange beige man's vehicle it was a porsche just to let you know okay but was it like a 2018 porsche or 2017 it was like it was a 1997 it was like a porsche minivan it was like a family man's It was a mid-size.

It was like, you def got some kids. You are a hot ass mess. Yes, he has three kids. He has a kid that's like 24 years old. I'm like, wow. Oh, so he's like my father's age. He tried to tell me he was 45. I said, ain't none of you a four or a five.

You better stop. You're a good 55, 60. His waist might be a 45, but I don't believe. Wow. So he owns all of those pizza places. All right, well, now we know where we're getting our pizza from. I feel like I'm trying to get us unlimited pizza for 2017. He didn't give you like a PDA pizza card?

Like whenever you come in, just flash this card and they'll give you some free pizza? No, I got his number. I'll text him and I'll be like, hey, what's up? What are you doing? Are you hungry? He's going to be like, hungry for what? Some of that black magic? Shut the fuck up.

He's so dumb. Were you an expert in anything then? I feel like I wasn't an expert in anything this week. But you know what I did? I discovered a new way to moisturize my natural hair. Okay, I'm going to tell you what I did. So I got the Argan Oil, Moroccan Oil kind of mix shampoo in condition because it was buy one get one free at Rite Aid.

So I got that, and I washed my hair. Oh, no, no, no. I twisted my hair first and then washed it in the twist because my hair is long enough and and curly enough that if I wash it loose it takes forever to detangle it so what I used to do is wash my hair in four sections with clips take the clips out wash it put the clip back in shampoo and condition each section separately but I watched a video and it was like just put your hair in like six twists on each side shampoo it in the twist and then i did a protein treatment for a couple minutes for half an hour and then i did

my conditioner while i was doing the twist and then when my hair was done i shea buttered coconut oiled and leave-in conditioner and my hair has been super moist for the last week wow yes i feel like you should open twist we should open in the salon now i feel like you got the juice well i mean i don't know about the juice but i can't cut hair i could cut a weave but i'm not you know what i mean because your hair will grow back slow we can get you more weave and cut that the right way the second time but i just for like natural my hair is always really really dry and moisture has always been a problem for me and i never knew that i could just do it and it took less it's a half an amount of time it didn't take for me to wash my hair because when it was in the twist

i didn't have to detangle again it was already sectioned off and then i just retwisted them in smaller sections and it's been super moisturized for the whole week you hear that listeners you hear that marie will wash your hair for five hundred dollars oh yeah this is a new treatment we're doing it's a foster it keeps your scalp very moisturized the fostering wash listen and then i and i had time to uh massage my edges listen you don't even want to you don't even want it with my edges right there okay speaking of edges our guests that we have today edges are so late i mean for the god are the kids still saying flake because i feel like they look like oh her edges are lit yes wait we didn't introduce you yet yes damn damn it i know we were talking to

your edges actually we're talking to you okay well our guest today is uh an awesome comedian she's done our show a couple times i think she's doing our live show on the 7th of may that's a sunday at the wild project and she's doing really big things in la and all over the world you should be traveling your passport got stamps in it it has stamps in it she's a queen she's a she's our queen she's she's just a queen she's our queen she'll be your queen queens of all queens okay and what is her expertise today miss washington uh her expertise is uh balancing the hate yes balancing the hate expert give it up for zaynab johnson even Goomba's clapping

I know he's like he gave up I made all the noise I could make he's like they black they hate me he's like these black bitches are not letting me out Zainab you look radiant do? thank you

you look like your life is going quite well that your savings account is looking beautiful is that the indicator life going well it's not well your hair is bright yes thank you thank you i just recently got my ends clipped for the first time since i started growing my hair back so like what is it 16 16 months or 17 months so they have you to rock not even a caesar you had like your hair off yeah and you looked super regal you were looking giving us like sexy alec weck thank you well i i felt like i felt like you were inspiring other people to be bald headed and i was like i should just

embrace this baldness and i was like you know what no this is not for me i don't know if i was inspiring people to be bald but i was inspiring people to do whatever is most comfortable for them okay and i was inspiring people i think to take risks and to just all around not really care about like you know yeah so 16 months ago you started throwing your back out yeah and now you you got your ends clipped for the first time yes were you afraid they were going to cut off too much hair no and she said that the the woman in LA who did it she is a black woman and she was like all right so usually women try and hold on to length um so I'm going to show you how much I need to cut off and you just let me know if that's okay I said I don't need to see what you cut this

shit off yeah I mean the point is I remember feeling that way though like when I had perm and it was a certain length out you know when you get your hair to grow a certain way then you try and keep it yeah i honestly have never had a problem growing hair yeah i mean do you hear that do you hear the copy i have no problem growing hair okay well for some of us struggling ass growing hair bitches like myself i stay struggling with the the length i just i want to keep it i want to keep it but i know you have to but you don't do what you should be doing with your hair for it to thrive yeah like when was the last time you washed your hair it's not gonna be a hair intervention well you know that's what it is we don't care about your edges

look at me today yes but what were we talking about louise hayes oh yeah louise hayes i asked okay so she has a book called you can heal your life and half of the book talks about um how a lot of our physical um ailments or whatever are associated with mental like our emotions in a way we think and stuff like that and so at the second half of the book it's basically just like pages of reference so you can look up almost any sort of ailment that you're having and it's simple as like a headache or arthritis to um alopecia or you know and it'll say what it's connected to like what thought is connected to and then to combat it like what affirmation what positive thought you you can have okay and so I say that because I feel like you know sometimes you ever

like see a person that's struggling with their skin and like the first thing they got to do is stop obsess over the struggle yeah you know what I'm saying like they got to stop looking at it and thinking it is bad it's bad it's bad because they're just sort of you know reinforcing the negative energy which is probably contributing to you know i'm saying whatever tox whatever toxin or whatever bacteria is trying to get out the face right you know or so you're saying i've never had i've never had problems growing hair yeah i mean your hair grows really well like i'm somebody i feel like i've always had great skin so my skin is just popping so sydney's saying you know we're trying to hold on to our edges and her hair is like

and i'm not saying like i'm not saying okay so it's like me like i remember my first gray hair i was like oh my god i know you know and and then you found six more and then i found you know over the years i found more and interestingly enough when the when the woman uh trimmed my edges last I mean my edges my hair last week my ends she was like I only found one gray hair I was like shut up but I realized I don't think about gray hairs anymore I just don't think about them and I mean I don't know like I would have to look up in that book and see if there's anything attached to like hair or hair loss or hair growth and I would be really interested I'm actually gonna try and google it so what's the name of the book again uh you can heal your life okay that's the name

I need that that's uh that's the uh unofficial expert book club first pick you can heal you can heal your you can heal your life yeah so i would encourage you first to need especially you because i feel like even when people are giving you compliments and anything i feel like you always choose the negative thing to say about yourself it's really interesting are we having an intervention for real y'all oh no it's not an intervention but i feel like a lot of women do do that yes like someone will compliment something that we have on and we'll be like oh i just got this from rainbow or yeah this is zara like it's nothing i had this for a long i did that when you come to me on my sweater i was like this is a tbt sweater that i just threw on yeah yeah instead of

just a thank you yeah exactly yeah that's something that a lot of us do need to work on and i think part of it is especially like you know you guys are attractive women you're smart you're um confident i think sometimes we don't realize that we do it because we're trying to keep other people comfortable like we almost um downplay ourselves because we've probably whether subconsciously or not we've been in situations where it's like okay well i'm gonna make i i know how great i am but i'm gonna make myself just a little bit regular with little things like that right just so everybody in the room around me is comfortable and it's like no i'm not saying be arrogant and i'm not saying you know but no just accept the compliment for

what it is yeah and and don't try to downplay someone saying something good about you yeah like sometimes somebody will give me a compliment and then i'll look at them to see if i can compliment something on them and i'll i'll search i'll be like i think um for it's like i can't i can't find anything huge shoelaces but you know what's a big compliment graciousness you know and i mean that's i'm not saying that like i've been because i feel the same way i used to feel obligated to compliment that right and not that there's not anything to compliment but it's like well thank you for noticing whatever you notice that you felt like it's nice i may not even agree with you at this point right you know but just let's just thank you yeah you know and and that really

is enough yeah you know if you are compelled if you are compelled if you see something like there's times where i'll see a woman and i think she's like stunning or something and if she stops me and she's like oh my god you are just I'm like one beautiful woman to the you know like I'm compelled to say that but I'm not like I'm like oh I'm not giving back to you girl beauty

you know not as pretty as you oh man and that keeps conversations that keeps interactions genuine yeah absolutely see Zaynab is keeping it real on the other page I feel like I'm

kind of super bothered The word of the You are What's the most You've done in recent memory because I feel like everything that you do Oh, no, I'm ratchet at the movie theater. Okay. Oh super ratchet. It's my way of sticking it to the man Okay, so like when I go to the movies, I don't care what's out like I might go see like this Because Spider-Man movies, if it's a black movie playing, oh, I'm paying for the black movie.

Okay. I'm going to go see. I'm going to go see the big blockbuster. That's fine. But, like, so I probably got eight Moonlight tickets. So Moonlight won. But I got eight Moonlight tickets. Moonlight is getting all my money.

Oh, okay. That's my way of, that's reparations for me. Yeah. Yeah. Supporting the black-owned things. Yeah. and then I guess what's ratchet about me is like I'm

one of the things because there's so many things but I'm definitely the girl that's pulling out four meals from her bag. Oh you got the Tupperware and you got the Tupperware in your bag? Oh yeah about the concession. Oh you and Marie. Y'all the same. We should go

catch a matinee. Oh yeah let's go get a matinee. I don't even get the popcorn but I'm like let me go to Target and pick up the popcorn I really like. You pick up popcorn and you bring popcorn into the movie theater. Sometimes I plan days ahead. You know what? I'm at the Target today. Let me get this popcorn for that matinee on Sunday.

We went to go see Get Out and I messaged everybody and was like, everybody's bringing something. Bring a snack. So people bought like Greg bought packets of Chips Ahoy cookies. They had fruit snacks. Oh yeah. They brought some mazes. I bought a box of fruit snacks.

Oh, we went eating. Listen, I didn't eat soup in the movie theater. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. Yes, I did. I gotta eat this soup early in the movie because late in the movie, it's not gonna be hot no more. What kind of soup? It's a different soup. This is not a one-time thing. You ate it during the previews?

Yeah. Sometimes the soup is during... I'll eat the soup in whatever... Sometimes my food is so elaborate that I have to take out my phone just to make sure I'm seeing everything. Have you ever brought kale, like a salad? Absolutely. Nothing is off-limits.

Cindy, you see what it is? You've been hanging out with too many white folks. You've been seeing too many rom-coms. I know, because I actually bought popcorn at the movie theaters when we were there. Yes, we had all these snacks, and Sydney bought a $7 baby popcorn. I brought a popcorn for y'all. We had snacks. You know what?

Sometimes the popcorn ain't even that good. It really isn't. And that's insulting to me. It's like, for me, when I go to the movies, the goal is to enjoy myself. Right. And so I do everything. I wear comfortable clothes. I do everything that's going to make me enjoy myself.

And so, I mean, yeah, sometimes it's about, like, this is really highway robbery. But, I mean, the ticket prices are, too. In L.A., tickets in a movie theater is $18. $18? Yeah. What's a matinee? It depends on where you go. But a matinee can range anywhere from, like, $6 to, like, $14.

$14 is not a matinee. Yeah, it depends on where you go. some theaters, like the Art Bites, they don't even offer mat names. Yeah. You know, it's like,

yeah, you early, but I mean, we still doing the same job. It's still the same movie. Yeah. And that's, that's one,

that's one of the ones that has like the recliners and the assigned seating. Yeah. Yeah. But they're all, that's the thing, they're all turning

because they're like, oh, we can do that. You know, so a lot of theaters are doing it. So now, the average price

is like $16 for a movie in LA. Listen, $18 movie, who's going on dates? nobody's going on a date I would just literally just be going to the movies by myself that's it

like I'm not paying for somebody else why would you be paying because it's because you were dating a woman yeah okay gotcha well I mean you gotta say that sometimes I forget who cares when women go out on dates like a first date who pays

y'all just split it it should be whoever asked that's what I always say it should be whoever asked it should be whoever asked That's what I always say. Whoever has the shortest haircut, that's who it is. That's who it is.

Whoever got a fade is paying. Whoever's wearing two sports bras and a white beard. That's exactly who it is. Yeah, but sometimes you pay it and the popcorn isn't even that good, you know? No. I like swizzlers. You also don't know how long the popcorn is sitting in that machine. I went to this one movie theater in North Hollywood and the movies are like $3 or something.

And it's only because they're the ones that are out of the theater. you know they're like the ones that you're seeing like after whatever and i walked in i walked in with this fruit from the mexican radio so i was ready i had coffee and i had my mexican fruit you had a kiwi in your purse i didn't have kiwi but i had watermelon uh mango pineapple and then you know they just put it in a little bag it would be messy so you gotta be real strategic but let me just tell you what i know i know all the people when i walked in and they smell all that ripe fruit i'm sure their noses was like damn but like you were healthy at least at least you were healthy about it and i enjoyed my like that's what that you know okay i think when you

take a step back you had the coffee and the fruit because i had coffee going into it and then when i was about to park when i was about to park in the theater i put a little mexican lady and i'm like damn her food was delicious right right right and i'm like i gotta get this fruit so i finished the coffee i let the fruit just sit gumba is like no you know what happened you need to stop playing with i'm not playing with him we were ignoring him and he was like he went back in the cage almost um yeah so i let the car i drank the coffee and then like maybe a half hour into the film i started eating the fruit and i have a solution yeah i'm saying i like can't with you uh but can we get on the topic here the topic is i mean maybe i'm an expert at sneaking shit

into the movie theater? What's the biggest thing you ever snuck into the movie theater? Another person. Was it a child? Was it a child? Did you sneak it on a baby? True story, Marie. So, this is

one of my real broke days. Me and my friend, she's been interviewed and she made a million dollars off of Vine or something like that. Right, right, right. This is when we was real broke. And I'm like, so I'm like, let's go to the movies.

And we both ain't got it. And we ain't had nothing to do. We wanted to go to the movies. I'm like, let's just use the tickets. I got some tickets from yesterday, but I didn't really see all the movies I wanted to see. Yes, I saw multiple movies. And I'm like, I still ain't see all the movies I wanted to see. I'm like, well, let's just use the tickets from yesterday and go to the movies again today.

That makes sense. So, you know, usually it's like kids that are working. Right. like 16 year old fresh working paper right exactly i'm like i don't say nothing i was like just slash it okay be like oh we were in here already and just keep walking we just keep walking i walk in and i slash the ticket i'm like i was here already because he seemed like he wanted to say something but see i was too confident with my i was already gone yeah she ain't have the same confidence right so he said let me he stopped her and was like let me see and

she actually stopped see i wouldn't stop nope and she actually stopped and whatever he said to her all I hear is Zaynab Zaynab she said he want to talk to us oh no what he want to talk to us and I'm like

but what's crazy is this is how ratchet I am knowing I had tickets from the day before I asked the seat for a manager did you and I got a free stuff that day the right passes to see the movie and passes to come back

wait what did you say to the manager i can't remember exactly what i said to the manager but it was all about confidence it was all it was that privilege shit it was like hey i was here yesterday and i didn't have a pleasurable experience oh was that true you're just saying she had such a pleasurable experience she came back the next day i said i have a pleasurable experience i was like and your line your customer service lines are so long and i didn't want to I bet that would have just ruined my experience and they told me to come back tomorrow and I followed your instructions

and I came back and now we have another issue my friend was looking at me like yo how did you wow that is beautiful Zayda you snuck two people into the movie twice

I feel like we need to take a step back and I feel like you should just be our confidence expert I feel like that's what I think we're gonna have to redo the intro at the end oh my goodness but I feel like so but confidence does get you really far because if the person that you're talking to sees that you believe what you're saying they're like well maybe yeah it's really it's really a game yeah it's really a game it's like I mean I know you both have seen like comedians that ain't saying shit on stage but they're so confident that the audience is buying it and loving it and they're selling something i mean not intellect probably not

well-written material but they're selling something that the audience is buying that that's half the battle that really is i mean when you're on stage and you're just feeling it and you're just like whatever i'm saying is going to come out it's going to be gold i mean who's not going to be like yeah yeah they don't know any better you're the expert at that point well even when when i'm on stage like if i'm on stage and like a tiny like a piece of a joke works or like i cough and they laugh i'm like man it's gonna be a good show like you feel different yeah you know what i mean like you you sense that and you're like oh i'm just gonna try everything but you know what that is still their um positive like reinforcement so it takes them laughing at

something as simple as the coffee to be like oh i got this right but i'm talking about the comedian that the crowd is still like and they still like oh y'all don't know I'm the best thing that ever hit the stage or they're like y'all suck as an audience and then you know

as a comedian you look and you're like damn aren't they a really bad audience and then you go up and realize oh it's an audience you know but confidence see I mean I don't know if I can get it because I'm not that confident when it comes to I don't know like vomit on stage

yeah that's you know i'm not confident i don't think i'm going to i guess there's a difference between arrogance and confidence yes you know usually if i'm bombing i know why okay you know i know and you just sit in it or you're just like i'm just gonna roll with it this is what's happening tonight yeah sometimes i address it you know this is not really what i playing we're here yeah let's talk about it what would you like to see me do you know you've been taking orders you're like oh no no you know what i just want you to pay for a ticket you know you feel like you got your money you start yelping yourself because you're like i want to know what you're gonna write on my yelp review i just want to just make sure we all leave here with some sort

So, what do you do when that happens? Like, because when I'm looking at you, looking at you, you don't seem like somebody who gets on stage and bombs. So, I did, last time I was here, which I think was like in December, I did the Village Underground. Oh, yeah, I saw you, and you were telling me about this. And I killed. Mm-hmm. And I went around the corner to the cellar, maybe 20 minutes later, and I did the same exact thing, and I bombed. I know.

um I don't know why I bombed it was it was a couple of things okay explain to us uh with me it was it was a bit of timing it was um I gave a little bit more power than I normally do to the audience um the rooms are physically built a different way and so I didn't play to how the rooms are set up just in terms of what they can see and what they can't see um and then because I was bombing I went into the audience like I'm like well fuck it I'll just rip off something you know yo I hate

when you like just throw out your material and you're like yo somebody hit me with a buoy hit me with a motherfucking buoy I wasn't like you know give me something it was just sort of like here's my material it's not really hitting the way I'm doing somebody yells out something let's just

go with what they let me just address you know what I'm saying that sort of thing when I talk to when I'm already in my material and I go to the audience it's not it's not like give me something yeah but it it is kind of like okay pull this back in yeah yeah let's get back in order yeah exactly and it was not it was not good which is surprising to me because I feel like the seller crowd is there to laugh so for them to not be like as receptive to me is like oh because you know sometimes you do it well like we'll do a show someplace random that's not a

comedy club and the people in the room are like well I came here to bowl or whatever I didn't come here to laugh so they're they're more resistant to laughing as opposed to someone who goes out for an evening of like laughs and drinks and they they're more open to laughing yeah so it surprises me that like you were at the cell and they were like critic well I think I think it all went into confidence too because so in between the thing that I left out that I just remember it was in between the village underground and the cellar some friends came and they wanted to get in free and you know it was a weekend at the cellar and it's already past and it

took my mind out of what I was doing my mom went to accommodating them and sort of appeasing the people who need to accommodate them so that it's not an issue because you know this is this is this is not regarding the seller but just white people yeah white guys who can be passive right and so they give you what you want to smile your face with them and then you never booked again yeah and they went and was like no she you know she got she had seven people come to the show free you know what i'm saying yeah and so that took my mental space and once i once whatever one joke didn't go over that well because that took my mental space i just said fuck it and not

in a good way you know and i think just it was sort of like fuck anise is not going well in front of the friends that they just let in free oh so i'm not it was so much okay so there was a lot there was a lot going on a lot it was a lot happening so it wasn't that the audience was just not willing to laugh it's i think they just saw they saw all what was happening to me but had no idea what but they saw that i was disconnected yeah yeah you know yeah um and then i think i had a spot there maybe like two days later and i had a thing i said oh i gotta redeem myself and i mean that's a whole different audience that's not the same people they don't know them they're not gonna be like yo remember the girl you said was trashy it was crazy you know no it was it was for me

it was for it was for the staff it was like you didn't make this you didn't make a mistake yeah but you had came back but they've seen you tons of times so that's the thing i don't think you know in terms of our psyche and something like that it's like this how many guys how many times but God told you you were cute too many can't even count like but now

but God come up and be like ooh nah I can't do your face that's what I say to you you forget about

all it's not like well I got I can't do your face see I got I got 10,000 reviews it says otherwise

right you remember the bad stuff yeah more than you remember the good stuff yeah so so

that's what it was but then I just got back on stage with something that proved did you prove it so you came so you came very hard

you weren't you weren't laxing at all you weren't were your seven freeloading friends there no are you ever gonna let them back um okay so i love my friends i love my people being around me and stuff like that and i know sometimes just with the things that i'm doing sometimes the only way you can see me is by coming to a show um i do however feel like you got to kind of even know the program or or like do your due diligence and set it up so that you're not like recognize it's my job right okay i will tell you as someone who's worked in the industry for a long time people no matter how many times they're like you know i work here i decide this is where i get my money friends gonna come through and then they're gonna start acting

like friends it's like no i need you to still act like a patron nigga even though you're not paying like a patron I need you to act like you are a patron and like would you do this to somebody that you don't know don't do that to me like you're OD'ing right now like I've had people come in order stuff like that's like ridiculous

then get drinks on drinks on drinks and then I'm like are you gonna take care of my bartender like you gonna take care of my people like what's up oh you gonna have an argument like another waitress like why are you doing this they're not gonna fire me you already know that

that's why you're acting like that but you know that you can't come back here so there'll be no cheese and meat plate for you guys you know like Courtney is a very close friend of mine you guys had him and Courtney at this point

he kind of knows my schedule he's been to each of the clubs to know which one on which day there will be room, there will be extra seats nobody will mind you okay taking up the paid seat he knows like okay if i want to come see bain at the cellar maybe

like a tuesday night show is a better night for me to maybe come or even bring bring somebody that wants to see her that's just the easier you know because in his mind uh he wants to see me and support me but he also doesn't want to be a burden right you know and i think sometimes with friends who don't get to see you often they just are so happy to see you or think that you're so happy to see them that they kind of forget they don't consider the circumstances yeah but i think even friends sometimes i see you all the time there you guys are like it's like i see you every day i could what up nigga at work and you're like no no you can't call me dick my boss is here yeah the owner is here yeah okay we can't talk like that yeah yeah you know like let me get the

three shots of hennessy and it's neat and it's like no like you can't talk to me at work like that yeah and i think because it's um not like a corporate space and stuff like that people still forget that we're still few and far between in that in that sort of arena yeah we're still like largely outnumbered oh yeah i had a friend this is when i first started my um gig as a waitress i had eight friends come through two friends brought sandwiches from the hood oh they brought heroes they brought heroes with pepper turkey

they had boar's head in this nice ass establishment that already had food they're pulling out the sandwiches eating the damn sandwiches in front of the motherfucking security guard the security guard tapped me like do you know these people

and I was like well I could say no and then they just get kicked out or I could say yes and then like you brought these columns here with their freaking heroes yeah I was like oh man I told them I was like can you put the sandwich away so I told them to put the sandwich away and then they start

eating the sandwich in a corner like hiding like bag ladies like homeless people I was like yo I think also too because I've also been on the receiving end of a hook up and so I think you just find out

what the parameters are what's acceptable you know what I'm saying like what I mean what do you think would be acceptable I mean I always keep in mind I feel like if you got people coming in and they do something that you that doesn't go well

with what you're trying to hook them up with you have to just pull people to the side and tell them Cindy's pulled me to the side several times at her job like no no this is not what we're doing here today and I'm like oh okay so I can't get the ribeye

you can't get the ribeye in they complain about it it's a little dry you know what I mean like that you have to just tell people and then they'll behave but like you know that's what happens and I think that you could always just be like don't come to my job oh yeah or don't don't come see me before I have somebody who used to come to my job on a Monday just randomly without like hitting me up and letting me know that they were coming through and then well I didn't ask for you to come so should you get a hookup considering i didn't even know that you were coming yeah and you're bringing other people and i know your finances you can't afford an 18 drink more than one so why are you here bringing

oh are you trying to show out in front of with your guests you guys been funny in front of company i'm gonna give you a check that's what i'm gonna give you you're gonna get a check but on the reverse let me tell you what's the worst thing if my friend invites me out and says oh no they said they're taking care of everything and then they hit us

now don't get me wrong I don't think I'm that person that gets more than what I was going to get you know what I'm saying I'm pretty no we're both people somebody else is praying oh yes let's get two entrees

no no I'm not I'm going to get an entree and then another one to go yeah just wrap that parmesan chicken up well maybe it's just your parmesan you know but I've been in situations where you know someone has told me you know

they'll take care of everything and we get there at the end of the night they hit you with that $1 bill what do you do with that I mean you just gotta you just gotta split it how many people split that no we fighting we arguing no we arguing i'm arguing i'm like no maybe like seven people split it so it's like a hundred dollars yeah but that's not what we was

if i wanted to go out and get a hundred dollars worth of food i would just go with the people i want to go with yeah well i mean i wasn't not with people that i didn't okay you know i'm saying but it also let me know this is early in a friendship with this person and so i checked in i was like oh, I thought you said they didn't take care of us. It's like, he was like, I mean, I thought it was. And then from now on, now I know how to operate with that person. Like, I learned something in that moment. I mean, yeah, I had to pay, but by saying,

I thought you said, that's not going to stop the bill. The bill is out. You know what I'm saying? The bill is out. I couldn't turn to the person and be like, well, he told me. Like, the bill is out for things that we consume. Right. You know?

And so now it's just like, okay, well this person you know it does a lot you know i'm saying sometimes tries to seem like they have something that they don't or be more important or more connected than they are yeah you know and so let me get clarity when i go into a situation i mean i don't know if you remember sydney but i asked before coming to your job for like wait what is you know when i see your face like oh they asked me to do it so and then i check in with the group y'all know sydney works here yes i remember that night we trying to leave you a tip the first time you were like no take the tip well you done waited on us well the thing is with taking tips from friends it's like

you know i don't know you don't have to pay me per se but like if you come with eight people yeah somebody gotta come up with something well how many of us was there i think a lot of people i think it was like four yeah well which night you're talking about four and eight is not the i mean i'm just like i feel like marie were you there uh marcia was there courtney was there spacey was there i'm sure if i think harder i can name more people oh maybe it was one yeah that's what i'm saying i'll put some money in her pocket but ain't nobody come out with me like i think you got 20 for me or something like that but it's like you're a good person you know you are a good person it's not even that it's just like

you that was nice and this is your job and just like you be saying I know everybody's finances well we know your finances too and Sydney can use this $20 because she got the Uber full somewhere bitch

the craziest thing the craziest thing that someone you ain't have on that black dress with your Sydney doll for no reason you going somewhere after work stop it Gumby garnish come on man good dog attitude you know the craziest thing someone ever did at sydney's

job that i bought was my sister almost got into a fight with some white man at the pool table and i was like sydney works here she works this is her job because you know when people do like they be playing pool over there they take it like it's like the world series of pool it's like you just pull at a place that no one is keeping score yeah and he like i guess didn't say excuse me or he like shoved her into and she must have said it's like a fitness competitor so she just had a competition that day yeah oh i remember she was on swole she was hungry she's very hungry very hungry she hadn't had anything to eat like she didn't no we no no no she gave her food she hadn't been eating like real food for like 12 weeks yeah so she was waiting on a burger and

this dude like shoved her or some lady said something and my sister was she was trying to fight the man she wasn't even trying to fight the girlfriend and I was like Cindy works here come down and her sister turned into Wolverine and was like in that moment you have to

whisper to the person that you're about to have an altercation with and say it's my friend it's my sister don't even say that you gotta explain everything you got a cc don't even say that you you picked the the person in the room wrong one yeah because you know why when you say my friend's sister or whatever works here then they're like oh so these

black people weren't supposed to be here so no you don't tell nobody that your friend you'd be like no you gotta let you gotta let them know that they're in the wrong place yeah you belong you be like no no no i got a room upstairs okay i am a guest my mom did that one day she okay my mom was in cracker barrel i'm like wow my mom lives in michigan okay cracker barrel is like a chain it's like white people waffle house yeah yeah that's accurate um you you could just tell it started the first one was a plantation you know like you just crack her barrel it just took whatever so uh my they messed up my mom's to-go order and she came my mom wasn't crazy sometimes she'd be at the bathroom with doctors with her like you better do it miss johnson you know she's

in michigan now where you just get in the car you get out the car she ain't gotta dress up to the city no more yeah and she went back in after the girl messed up her order and she said to the she said listen to me i know you're looking at my outfit and you think i don't have money but i am very very rich we were dying for a day very very rich very very rich so when i come in here a place that i don't eat it like mommy you be here all the time you can see your citizen coffee and you in your 50s shut up

she's dying very very rich the next time you think about messing up my order and I was just dying laughing but listen she was like confident I don't know if I would have been able to you know I think I'll age into that I'm sure

I look forward to it my brother was like that too my mother would be wrong she'll be like she'll do that at the supermarket it's just like hey um it said that the the the milk was x amount of for x price or whatever the toilet tissue was this much money and that's not what you rang it up as let me talk to the manager and the manager will come and be like uh yeah this is expired the the coupon that you had

is expired and my mom will demand that they honor the price and they do every single time i'm about to stay out of customer service looking for a rain check for something that she's not supposed to get. Well, your mom has that face like, yo, give her that rain check. Just give her the fucking rain check. And they know her now. They be like, alright, well, just give this Haitian lady her check. We don't want to have

no freaking problem. I can't wait to... I think sometimes we walk in like timid. We don't want them to judge us in a certain way or feel a certain way about us. I can't wait to be that old lady that just don't give a... You know, like, I'm halfway there.

I got to talk it out for you, though. You know, I got to let you know. See, I know you think I can't, but let me show you how much I don't care. I got to talk it out for you. I can't wait until the moment where I'm just like, you know, I got these 19 coupons, but I carefully quit. I love that. But you know what I did the other day? I was in Starbucks.

And you know how Starbucks sends you, like, that birthday free drink or something? No, we don't know about that. We don't do the Starbucks. Yeah, we do. You a member? You have a Starbucks card? I used to. We don't even do Dunkin' Donuts.

I stopped really going to Starbucks because when you find better coffee, you just start to make, you know, it's like Olive Garden. Once you have, like, really good Italian food, you're like, ah, I mean, I love the breadsticks, but, ah, can't eat it anymore. You know, you can just do a whole meal of just salad and breadsticks. Yeah. It's quite good. I mean, pretty much, that's what we did when we went, right?

We went to Olive Garden last summer. Just had salad and breadsticks. And just acted like tourists. We were like, can we get two plates? only one person ordered but we got two I mean salad is salad salad is and their salad is very good I was like don't bring that up wait fettuccine

over here can you just repeat that the salad is really good yeah I know I don't know how many how much nutritional value it is basically like iceberg lettuce carrot yeah it's already it's already pre-packaged it's already pre-packaged salad that's what it is yeah all right okay so you so i had this starbucks thing for my birthday and the thing when i did used to be a member of starbucks right um the birthday

thing doesn't expire like it comes around your birthday but you use it whenever and like like most companies they still have a reward program but they scale back on the reward program you know so anyway i got this voucher and i go to use it i know it's expired but i i ain't gonna say i know it's expired i'm like i got the birthday thing and i ordered my little brother like a that I'm paying for for him and he was like oh it's not going through you know he's scanning it I don't know and he's like could you show me and I made sure to scroll up and show him the part and so then he scrolled it you know and usually people are a little too timid to like scroll through your phone but he's so damn he's a black dude he wasn't black but he was gay and I just

feel like they are a bit more white bold. White bold is a nice way to put it. You're like, we don't even care about your job that much. Why are you scrolling? He was like, well, let me see. Right? And he's like, oop. That's what he did. He scrolled and said, oop, when he got to the date.

He was like, this is actually expired. And I looked at it like I never saw it before. I was like, well, let me see it. And he was like, I was like, oh, shoot, I didn't even realize it. and then he was like but like at that point

the drinks were being made I already ordered a drink from my little brother and so I was like well I mean can you honor me and then he was like and I was like

because I mean like who's going to he was like because I gave him a little bit of power in that you know what I'm saying who's going to

he's like I'm going to do it for you he's like well thank you I'm going to use that I'm like come on but you can't

see that sound like we shouldn't believe That sounds like you're still asking me. It's kind of like I told them. Yeah, I'm just kind of like, what's going on? Yeah, but the way that you said it, too, is can you still honor it? Yeah, can you still honor it either, right?

I mean, it was my birthday for you. Like, how does things expire? We in a time where girls celebrate their birthday the whole month. It expires three days after my birthday. It was three days after your birthday. It was like three days after. Wait, that lets you know how janky Starbucks,

Starbucks program used to be so good, which is why I don't really go to Starbucks. That is terrible that they're like, oh if you don't get it on the day of your birthday and after he said he's like oh we do a new program now where it's either the day before your birthday or the day after and I didn't want to be like that's messed up

because he had already agreed to it so I was like let me let him live you should have waited until you got it and then you started slurping in his face like well that's messed up it used to be the girl didn't really make it right and I was like

now he was looking like I just honored it you gave it back and I'm like well let's not waste this whole experience you can't give black people anything it ain't a black thing trust me well some of the most confident people that I

see are the most basic people in my mind listen let me just tell you what are black people still privileged no listen white people are so privileged that they don't even recognize that they're privileged well I just want you to

black people don't feel privileged until they in a Wendy's, until they in a McDonald's until they in somewhere you can't give me no extra sauce I've seen I've been there and I was like yo bitch you are clowning for a quarter pounder like stop it

like this is yes they like they treat the McDonald's people like they ain't shit if they really I feel like listen there was a time where you worked here sir why you going in on a person who's making the fries. Like, come on.

Well, yeah, I like my fries prepared a certain way. I do, too. Because I only go to fast food restaurants for fries. Me, too. And not even McDonald's. But this security guard outside of a coffee club, he was telling a story, an elaborate story, about how the girl messed up the order at McDonald's.

And my friend and I, we were so, like, confused because we couldn't even get past McDonald's. It's like, at the end of the whole story, he's like, McDonald's? He's like, yeah, and I was like, he was a security guard at a comedy club he knows where he's supposed to show her fries okay he's not getting them fancy like truffle fries truffle butter fries truffle oil fries he gets it i understand guys i can't believe we didn't stay on one topic at all we've been talking about

confidence today i thought that we all agreed that we were changing it to her being the confidence expert. I don't feel like it was all the way about confidence. Okay, how about I am an expert at conversation flow. Yes! Okay. Yeah. I feel like everything that we've talked about has been about confidence.

From the book to being on stage to getting you at Starbucks. And you know what? The crazy thing is I had paused the time when you let the dog out and then didn't put the time back on. So I don't even know how long we've been talking. I feel like it's almost

four so yeah she got here on time so we well here's can i ask you a question about confidence have you ever been confident in the situation that it failed you like you were like oh i'm gonna get this man or i'm gonna get this paid for or i'm gonna get whatever over on these people and then it was like no it blew up in your face okay so there has been times where i'm confident in a situation and i don't get what i want but usually if i don't get what i want it's because whatever whatever stopped me from getting what i want is out of my control and their control okay so you know what i'm saying so the exchange is like um there's a specific moment there is but if i tell you i'll be giving i'll be revealing too much of

really but I feel like we're already but the people who listen I don't know their faces they have no faces I'm walking around in the world they know who I am but I don't know who they are

they are faceless people Zaina you bring soup to the movies yeah I feel like we're way past that you bring stew to the but yes but not like again okay so this is really this is really general like i went in for this pilot that i realized i really wanted was i went in for it and i'm not pretty far in the process and then they ended up casting a man in the role so it's like that's out of my you know i felt like

oh this feels like this something is telling me that this is for me this is yeah this is I'm going to do this you know and that's just out of my you know I asked my representation for feedback everybody loved you oh my god you know what I'm saying

but we just haven't heard they haven't cast a role yet but they loved you you know that's out of my control yeah they picked a dude that's like an alley that was like wait what why'd you have me come all the way here because sometimes they don't know what they want tell them what they want

you know what I mean I feel like that's what I'm learning about this industry is that they lazy one because they not look thinking of anything new they want you to give them everything already done or they're going to recreate something that's already been done and been successful and you know they don't want to do any work

and you have to understand that there's so many minds spinning there's so many things that go into the production of something so like the best thing I can think about is some gay guy and I don't know if he's really gay

but I mean I'm saying that the character that was the role of a gay man so using a female and a feminine man yeah Gumby's doing the most it's like nobody's petting him so he's rubbing his body hard against his body

he's at the club and he's like oh well I ain't got no girlfriend Yeah, so you're just going to put your dick on the back of you. Put my dick between your shoulders. Yeah. But I feel like this could be a possibility. Really good gay actor in the world, gay male actor in the world, has a manager or agent that really believes in him

and read that script and called up somebody and said, we put this on tape. We put this role on tape. Now, I know you guys are looking for a black woman, but watch this you know what I'm saying and then they put the idea just because they're pitching their kind of fund

was right for their cause that's not what you want it's when you go in and the role is written for a white person and they say well hold on a second I have this girl who da da da and they're like we didn't even think of that we didn't even think that was possible

and then somebody else proposes the possibility and I mean there's nothing wrong with that because at some point you may benefit from that yeah you always want somebody who's gonna like push you in a direction that yeah even you didn't even know you were gonna go there yeah so yeah i'm just saying that's a possibility who knows how it happened and why it happened and that's great for the person that happened yeah you know um but it's classy you probably you said that great for them even though that was a role that you really wanted yeah i feel like i hope he dies that's

I got a call to go in and audition for something that was written for an Asian chick and I was like what I was like well my eyes are kind of little and I went in and um read for it and they're like that's great can you read it again but different and I was like no because at the time I can only read it the way I prepared it and I hadn't like I'm not an actress I'm not trained to be an actress and I'm taking classes now to better myself but I couldn't change what I had done like I went into that exactly but I didn't and I didn't ask them that I wish you would have asked them I mean I love the fact that you were like no that is hilarious to me because see I'm like not shock value but that would have probably instantly made me like you you know what I'm saying so if I felt

like that was a good job and I felt like oh she is just bold enough to be that honest in the moment and tell me no I'd probably be like well why no I wouldn't even make me say well why well why no And if you would have been like, you know, I wouldn't have been like, well, you know, but if you would have just been like, no, I would have, it would have probably made me bust out laughing. And then I would have, it would have piqued my curiosity, you know, which would have probably got to what you said. And then I would have, you know. But they just want to see range. They want to see if you can take it to another level that you didn't just prepare for. So it helps them with angles.

It helps them from when they're doing the edits and they're doing the cuts that you can give them different things to work with. It was for a film or something? It was for a TV show, for, like, a recurring character on the show. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So, I haven't, like, I haven't watched the show, so I don't know. What show was it? I don't remember the name of the show, but it was something with Allie Wentworth.

Exactly. She's married to George Stephanopoulos. But it was for a network that I had never heard of either. It was one of those, like, you got 360 channels, it's on channel 342. But, like, the pay was good, and it was shooting for, like, two months. and the money would have been fantastic but I went in and was like but I'm not Asian

but like what happened and didn't get I think we all do that a lot they know you're not Asian they saw your picture so they know that you're not Asian and the last thing that they're doing

is calling you in to be a character, to be a sketch of an Asian Yeah, they don't want you to be Asian. They want you to be you. They work fine. Right. Maybe they saw you and they're like, oh, no, maybe we don't need an Asian girl.

Maybe you can be a Haitian girl. An Haitian girl. Yeah. You know? Well, yeah. I mean, the best advice that I've gotten recently from somebody who used to, she was an agent for like 25 years. And she was like, when you go into these auditions, you have to be confident and you can't be

apologetic because you need to know that they need you more than you need them. and a lot of us like because I'm just starting to audition for things we go in we're like we want them to like us and be like maybe like we're a little bit late or whatever we're like yeah sorry sorry sorry like and that's not that's not who I am outside of an audition so like you got to go in and act like you already got the part and yeah there's a lot of people who be in the like audition room and they're I'm like they already got it the way they're acting they're like, taking their jacket off, like, whew, I've been here. This is my, like, third time going in.

So they're like, this is nothing. But they might be just playing with your mental state. Shit, I don't even care. I'm like, listen, I'm just trying to remember these lines. So I don't care what you're doing over there. That's great that you got your blazer off. I'm fine. I just want to remember the lines for myself.

Yeah. All right. Yeah. I mean, listen, nothing is final until you die. So the good thing is you learn from it. yeah but what's made for you is going to be for you it's like there's no denying it when you walk in and you're like ah

that's it right there you don't even have to think twice about it we just got real deep on the podcast yeah we did me? no Sydney's aggressive she's confident

definitely not me aggressive I am the opposite what's for you is for you ain't nobody going to take it I read that in a book somewhere so I'm just like you know repeating that do we have any questions for Zainab

as our confidence ratchet CMB on the hate expert you are all things Zainab is expert on all things if you could say anything to somebody who's listening right now who maybe is not the most confident person

what would you say to them like what's a word of advice well say it to me because I'm one of those people who are not that confident look at Sydney look at me in my eye look at those brown eyes I would say do the work

I would say do the work you gotta like I ain't gonna believe nothing I ain't gonna love you more than you love yourself alright that's been enough thank you so much absolutely fabulous you know and I guess I would say because I've watched

a lot of people do this fake it until you make kids, but I don't really subscribe to that because what has worked for me has been my authenticity, and so I'm only rewarded when I am true to myself, and I notice that, and that's the reason why I, whenever I go into an audition room and I'm not confident and I'm not looking good, they can see right through it, I'm apologetic, it's uncomfortable for all of us, it's a bad representation of me, you know, it's all of those things, when I'm and say just you know like I know how to write jokes so I know how to tell my story so I could get like laughs but when I'm in it and I'm you know what I'm saying when I'm feeling myself

people feel me yeah you know and so I and I can I tend to be able to see past people who are faking it and it's a turnoff for me so that's the only reason why that wouldn't be my you know it's just like do the work and just recognize that like everybody is struggling with some everybody has issues everybody you know it has a it's having a bad day or bad days you know what i'm saying like you gotta you have to just remember that and sort of constantly feed yourself with like positive thoughts and love and you know even if it's even if it's as cliche as like a mary jane where you gotta have post-its on the wall when you can't think it you gotta just read it yeah you are great you would be shocked how many people's houses i've been to and they got

the post-its up and i'm like really you you need to write this like people that are like they seem the most confident yeah well that's why and they'd be trying to put the post-its away i'd be like no i already seen them that's why that's why they're confident because they put them damn post-its up all right I mean you know people would tell you anything there's people who tell me really I get a lot of positive reinforcements in different places in my life you know and I'm always like

oh thank you thank you but you could hear in that thank you report it's kind of like I'm not feeling like that today but yeah that's nice that you saw that yeah you're so sweet to say that to me you know but that's why it don't matter how many people say it to you

it don't matter how many people say you look nice if you don't think you look nice that's it you know yeah if you don't think you look nice that one person tells you you don't look nice that's why that stands out to you because you know look at that saying i've seen beyond the hate oh my goodness there's so many layers in the world you're like an onion like a red onion but you know it's because it's so easy to hate like you said marie it's so easy but it doesn't feel good it really doesn't well the way some people hate uh you would think that it feels great i I found out today that the reason why my electricity keeps getting cut off in the middle of the night

is because the man downstairs has been cutting my power, like going to the basement and putting the switch down. Wait, how bored is he that he's going all the way down to the basement? He complained to the super that something in my apartment is vibrating every day at 3 o'clock in the morning and waking him up. Mind you, there's no movement happening at 3 a.m. Yeah, and you're usually asleep at 3 a.m. He went, or I'm coming home at 3 a.m., getting in the shower and going to sleep. Because one day I came home late after a show or a party or whatever, and I was getting ready to get in the shower, and my power cut off. And I was like, ooh, let me light some candles, take this bath, take this shower.

Like, I wasn't going to go to the basement to reset the breakers or whatever. But he is the one who's been cutting off my power, and that's just hate. Like, you're mad that something, probably your girlfriend's hidden burn-a-cone is vibrating, and you're like, well, they woke me up, so you're going to go all the way downstairs? Yeah. Or why don't you just knock on my fucking door? exactly knock on my door and be like yo something's vibrating and waking me up at 3 a.m every night well i mean like you said he goes down every morning every in the middle of the night exactly exactly he bored and he ain't got nothing else to do because there's no way i'm getting out

of my bed if i'm in the bed i'm in the bed there's no way i'm putting putting shoes on to go all the way fucking don't to your basement but imagine if you are up and can't sleep and you know what i'm Like, regardless of what it is, whether it's his imagination, he's, you know, he's got to be tortured. Yeah, he is tortured. He's got a terrible life. Oh, Gumby needs to go outside or something. We've got to wrap this up. Cindy, do you have any questions for Zainab about anything that we discussed today?

I mean, you're radiating light in everything you say. I'm like, oh, that's great. That's so great. I mean, maybe because I'm just not in the mind space of what you're saying. I'm like, I get it. I'm listening. But for me, it's kind of like I have to be in that place for me to listen and take it in and be like, I believe, you know? Because when you're in your own fucking head, like, that's your head.

Nobody can really tell you. I have positive things all the time. Nobody's saying anything negative to me ever. Like, anybody saying anything negative, they would never say it to my face or anybody who would know me. Right. know so I'm not hearing negative things from anybody except myself so when people talk to me about like confidence or just oh like believe in yourself or whatever I'm like yeah yeah yeah but you come off pretty confident I think it's just like when you're not confident in what you're

saying on stage sometimes it's obvious yeah because you are not your usual like because you'll be right make radiating light yeah no I mean I know that when I'm on stage even when I'm having a really bad day i can like you know pull it off but for the most part i'm like you know ain't nobody need to know when you fucking down yeah well you know or they can know or they can know and that's the like that's the sort of transparency that you have to be okay with but you have to i mean people respond to that too because what they see is i mean there's people that are down as well yeah you know what i'm saying and so if you you may relate to a certain person or people that night or in that conversation or in that moment and like there's there's nothing

wrong with that uh so when i forgot remember when the boy got killed on um his girlfriend recording on facetime yes and that was right after somebody else had just got yes right it was too much for me that week it was just like too much for me and i had this i had a spot at the improv in la that particular night and i was like i'm i was like crying all day and i was like I don't know how I'm gonna be able to get up on stage and be funny like I don't know how I'm gonna do it and then I was like you know what improv is always just an audience filled with white people you know and I'm gonna just get on it I'm gonna get on stage and get on the soapbox and tell them how awful they are and when I got there it was a teen tour it was nothing but little kids teenagers I mean still

white but still 13 to 16 years old yeah yeah yeah and it was a relief it was a relief and I just started, I was like, I'm about to yell at y'all because you are not your family, so that's great, and then it just became, and it was, for 15 minutes I had forgot about my memory, you know, and, but it was only because I was just,

I had released it in the moment, it was like, I was about to do this, but y'all were gone, I ain't gonna look it up for y'all today, you know what I'm saying, you know, and then you know, I started talking about who blew up the bathroom they said that they the tour was on the bus

I'm like aw shit and I've been 15 minutes with some teenagers on who blew up the bathroom you know what I'm saying I would never plan on talking about that I'm sure they were having a good time I mean I'm sure they'll remember you they're like mom give us

that phone no I'm sure they're like no something you said they were like I didn't expect that queen to get on stage and talk about nothing like that if I hear a little jewish white boy i didn't expect that queen you better get a map did you do your uh trash joke i didn't even do jokes you didn't do jokes to them because that's in the moment what i needed to do i needed to talk to i needed to talk to people yeah and who had no concept of what was going on yeah they didn't know and that's what they didn't know but that's just not the reality

of their life. That's not their life, you know? And I understand that. Okay. I feel like that's great. I feel like that's the little button that I'm ready to end on. But Zaynab, I want to ask you, what's next for you? Where can people listening find you?

I know you travel a lot. Where are you going to be next? Well, I'm on a road a lot now. I've been headlining some different clubs across the country. You hear that, people? Headlining. yeah we see you out here you're doing a lot

and it's beautiful to see y'all come together people love to say that you know black women aren't funny or like we're not out in these streets grinding as hard as these others and you're on the road all the time you went to Hong Kong and stuff and I was like

wow I didn't go to Hong Kong but I did go to China China okay Hong Kong was the other place I went to so darn I was off so you were like what's the difference uh yeah um but there are there actually are a lot of like i think people forget that like some more is always on the cheap we don't see some more on television so that means she or now like you know i'm saying so there's women who have been doing it for 20 plus years and they are

still selling out venues across the country consistently year after year right and that gets no visibility you know they're not they're not getting a tv deal yeah you know and headlining for me is is such an accomplishment but it's also a pill to swallow because most people across the country don't know who i am right and so i'm not i'm not going into an audience i'm not going into a club where they pay to see me because they're already seeing me i'm going into a club where they don't know why for the most part but that's great that's good because then you give them a reason to want to know more about you i mean whenever you get on stage you're always telling your story and so even though they weren't there for you in the beginning you leave with people

like oh shit zaynab let me let me like follow her yeah that is but i'm just saying that you know there's also something to be said about let's say somebody like kevin hart who a million people are there to see you and so it's like that moment where you cough and they laugh versus where i just said my most brilliantly written joke and you're still looking like i wonder if her hair feels like cotton candy you know um or you know walking into a club to seat 250 people and only 50 people are there and you have to take it to the chest and just decide

well I'm appreciative for these 50 people and I'm going to have the same conversation as if it was 250 people and so it's all a process but I am so grateful and so with that being said I have a lot of dates on my calendar

and so I can't remember them right now and I don't know when it's coming out what's your website? forgive me hurry up man get it get it done it's

zainabjohnson.com z-a-i-n-a-b johnson.com and you'll see if you just go to my calendar you'll see every single show date

that I have on the calendar right now and you can follow me on social media every handle is at zainabjohnson z-a-i-n-a-b

yes and you are on HBO all death all death comedy comedy I mean

I'm doing a bunch of stuff so I mean if you just follow me or if you just you know if you just turn a channel where you see my face where you hear my name where you recognize my voice and just

watch and stay tuned yeah like I mean just like know that big things are coming they're already in the works just a hoard of it yeah if you smell soup at the movies

give her all your money if you smell soup don't be sitting next to me coughing and shit, because I may have a problem with you messing up my meal. Also, excuse me, can you not cough so close to my soup that I snuck in here? I opened up a tuna fish sandwich on the 21st, right? Wow. I would have been really angry at you.

But you know what? Then the person sitting, like, across from me opened up some salad that had onions. I was like, what? Right. And she was like, mm. My sister tried to pull a tuna fish sandwich out at the warm-up once, and I was like, you better put that away. Not at the warm-up! At the warm-up!

We had a friend eat shrimp fried rice in the warm up but the warm up you know how hungry we are when we're doing it I was telling her to put it away because I didn't want to smell it it's not like this is a classy place and it's pockets in a warm up

we don't know how they got to see you eating wait but it's a place that why would you want to be eating like people are doing hookah people are smoking because some people are hungry well then take your hunger that smelly ass fish we ain't got time for that

So, look, would you guys rather the body and the feet supporting you guys and the artist that you love, and she got her shirt fried right, or would you rather somebody be like, girl, I can't even see you, but I am so hungry. Let me go upstairs. You know what? There's 20 people in the back who actually want a seat. So, if she would have got up, somebody else would have sat down. Somebody would have filled that seat. Well, excuse me. The world has grown.

Congratulations. You, too, can see the growth of the warm-up every second. at Karma Lounge 8pm we got our live show at the Wild Project on the 7th and Zaynab will be there and it's $10 a ticket so have your money ready

as always you can find me on Instagram at Reezy R-E-E-E-V-Y and Sydney you can catch me at J-U-S-T-S-Y-D-B-W just said B-W And Zainab, one more time before we go, what was the name of that book that you imagined?

You Can Heal Your Life. It's by Louise Hayes. Beautiful. We all want to get that book. And we'll talk about it next episode. Thank God. Thank you so much.