Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 10. Roy Wood Jr: From Birmingham to The Daily Show to Broadway?

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

Mike and Roy teamed up to raise money for comedy club waitstaffs with “Tip Your Waitstaff.” Now they work on jokes about gin vomit, stealing fancy jeans, and why being a Daily Show correspondent could put you in more hot water than having a criminal record. The episode touches on regret, redemption, and lands in an unexpected place when Mike asks Roy if he’d consider letting Mike produce his one person show. Don’t miss this one. Please consider donating to: https://www.iseemeinc.com

We are so excited on this week's Working It Out to have a very special guest, Roy Wood Jr. If you don't know Roy, you may have seen him on The Daily Show as a correspondent since 2015. He is a phenomenal comedian. His specials Father Figure and No One Loves You, are brilliant. And then together, he and I, back in March, co-created an initiative called Tip Your Weight Staff, where we did these Instagram Lives with other comedians. We did about 30 episodes.

We helped on tipyourweightstaff.com raise over $600,000 with all these different GoFundMes at Comedy Club Waitstaffs. We helped raise over $100,000 for the Comedy Cellar in New York City, where Roy and I see each other most often, as well as his home club, the Stardome in Birmingham, which is, I think, where you are right now, Roy. Is that right? No. Since we talked last, bro, I got the fuck out of Alabama. The block too hot down there.

Oh, okay. We timed it perfectly. This is when I knew for sure Alabama was going to become a COVID hotspot. In my mom's neighborhood, the ice cream man was still running. And I'm like oh shit yeah just bringing the germs straight into the neighborhood come on out kids and take this covid back inside to your me mall and by the way like ice cream trucks always were germ ridden to begin with it's never been a hand sanitizer bottle on the side of an ice cream truck so when i saw that i go back inside and i just walked over to my girl i was

like yeah we gotta figure out when to dip because oh my gosh we can't stay in this shit that's this i'm not gonna stay here in this and I taught my mom to minimize her retail exposure. I feel like that's where a lot of it's happening in the South. It's just you're in the habit of going to the store every three, four days. And I'm trying to cut that down to two weeks for my mom. Really once a month if we could really do it the right way. But, you know, so far so good. That's why I keep telling people is that there's a lot of

delivery right now and there's a lot of curbside it's not that big a deal you don't have to freak out you don't have to scream in the uh grocery store aisles and go ah you're taking away my rights it's like no just do curbside yeah it's like why are either of you in the fucking store yeah exactly why are you videoing her and why is she there yeah you see this lady out without a man motherfucker you need to go home too and just order this shit like none of these arguments about a mask have happened at essential places. No. It's not the doctor's office or, I don't know, the DMV.

Yeah. Where you can't curbside a license renewal. Yeah, man. You were, so I was watching this clip of you on The Tonight Show talking about when you were protesting in in birmingham and and and there was uh you were peacefully protesting but then there was some looting and there was like an optometrist office that was broken oh yeah dr adams so i saw the protest I didn't go to the protest. I saw the footage, and it pained me not to go. But at the end of the day, I have a four-year-old I have to provide for.

So I need to stay alive so I can figure out other ways to fight for justice and other ways to bring attention to issues. So I saw this woman's optometry office get trashed 40 years in the civil rights district this office and we just went down there me and a bunch of buddies and i just put it out on twitter and half the city showed up and we just cleaned up that whole block and i felt like in a way that was contributing because you're trying to help renew someone's spirit and belief. I found that to be the case when I was watching that footage. And also you can socially distance while shoveling glass.

You cannot socially distance while screaming defund the police in front of a Confederate monument. Both are useful activities, and I endorse both. But one is, according to Dr.. Fauci safer than the other one. Sure. And plus I'm out there with my friends, a lot of whom I haven't seen in years or in a long time. So it was an opportunity to play catch up. We was on those UV rays for about three hours. Yeah. So it was, it was chill. It took me back to my radio days. The thing that I took for granted when I did mornings in Birmingham for a decade was just how much fucking community service we did and just how much being out on the block with people and, you know, pressing the flesh. Yeah. How big a part of the job that was.

how big a part of the job that was. You know, with those UV rays, if you inject those into your veins and the disinfectants, it cures you, the COVID. Yeah, I heard bleach lotion also works. If you use bleach as lotion. By the way, I'm really glad we did tip your waitstaff because we got a lot of really nice thank yous

from the waitstaffs across the country. And who knew we'd be going into July and August and we're still dealing with it. Still dealing with it. Some of the comedy clubs are creeping back open. But, you know, I myself am not in a rush to get back on stage. Same. Some of the clubs are doing some parking lot shows and things. I don't think that that's a terrible idea.

But yeah, I'm not in a rush to get back into a club. It seems like bars are one of the easiest ways to spread it. Yeah, everything that makes comedy perfect is also great for COVID. Yes. Every comedy club is just a COVID oven low ceiling low ceilings liquor everybody's spraying particles out their mouth yeah that's right that's right no what's amazing is fauci will point out that laughter literally laughter Literally, laughter spreads the virus. So it's like laughter is the best medicine, except when it spreads a deadly virus. Yes.

It's like, oh, laughter is the best medicine, except for shut the fuck up. So this is a part of the show we call the slow round, and it's just a series of prompts. Do you remember a smell from your childhood? So this is a part of the show we call the slow round, and it's just a series of prompts. Do you remember a smell from your childhood? Dead animals on the train tracks walking to soccer practice in seventh grade. Wow. That's a very strong smell.

That's in the southern heat. To this day, I don't know how animals get hit by trains. In the middle of... Were you trying to hurry up and cross? That's the only thing I can think of. You just juke the wrong way at the last minute. But a train isn't like a car where it's just all of a sudden right up on you. It's a train.

It's horns. It's all all of a sudden right up on you it's a train it's horns it's all types of so right there's an expression that's like there's a train coming and that stench man that southern heat stench of just dead raccoons and armadillos and fucking every now and then a deer. Like, just, oh, my God. Like, to this day, that's the one thing, that's one smell I'll never forget. Gin vomit. What? So in college, me and a few buddies,

we met some older women. And by older, we were like, I don't know, what were we, 20? Yeah, you're 20. They were probably 25. Yeah, they were 25, exactly. 24, 25 grad students. Yeah. Of course, we called them old heads.

Oh, my God, old heads. We called 25-year-old women old heads. So these old heads was like, we want to drink with y'all. Y'all should come over to our house and get drunk with us. We was like, fuck yeah, baby. Let's get drunk. So we go by all this. They give us a lid.

Not knowing that they were rolling us to restock their liquor cabinet is what they were doing. Wow. Brilliant. Wow. Wisdom. Wisdom from the old heads. That's a move i've never even heard that but that's a good move bro we went to we went to jack's liquor in tallahassee florida

and we paid a homeless guy 20 to buy all of our alcohol wow and we roll over there with like 80 worth of bottles worth of shit and we sat with these women and we start drinking the gin we bought a bottle of gin for ourselves and and i'm a slow drinker in the sense that i'm trying to kind of you know flirt you know like i like i don't want to lose my faculties sure because i'm trying to flirt i'm trying to see you're trying to keep it cool yeah i. Yeah. I'm trying to fucking holler at one of these women. That's my objective. Sure. My buddies are all just getting drunk. We sit there for about another hour and a half, and I'm probably the most sober person in the room of my crew. I'm for sure the most sober in

my crew. And I look up, and the women all have on different clothes. Really? And they're dressed to the nines. By the way, it's 7.30 at night, by the way, when we get over there. So not only have you rolled us to restock your liquor cabinet, you used us for pregame before you went out to the club. That's great. So I look up, and they walk over to us.

They go, so what y'all about to do which is fucking i don't know if you all did this up in massachusetts but down south what y'all about to do means it's time for you to get the fuck out of my house for you to go yeah yeah i get that we have other plans we go we thought we was hanging no we headed to the club but call us later tonight and maybe y'all could come back over and we knew that wasn't gonna happen because we shit face so we get in the car we head home uh my friends are gone they are gone yeah just drunk we're four deep and an 87 Dodge Aries. I'm driving. It's my car. Stylish.

Yeah. One of them, one of the boys in the back seat vomits all over me. Oh, my gosh. Over my right shoulder and all over the center console. Oh, my gosh. Jesus. Vomit has filled the cup holder. Projectile.

Yeah. Buddy in the front seat goes, man that's disgusting i need you to slow the car down i don't like the smell of vomit i go neither do i we're close to campus can you just hold on he goes i'll try he rolls the window down it's half out the car half in the car oh my god but it's all down in between the window and all of that shit and the dodge the dodge aries no bro so three blocks later we get pulled over because he's his head is out the window like just on on some Ace Ventura shit, trying to just like get a breeze because he can't stand the smell of the vomit. He thinks it's going to make him throw up again.

Cop pulls us over, comes up to the window. I roll the car down and I just go, I'm the designated driver. Oh my gosh. And the cop looks at me, looks at the vomit and just goes, God bless you, young man. And just walked away. He never asked for a license, never asked for registration. Wow. To this day, I can't drink gin. I think you got to do that on stage. Have you done that on stage? I've never told. This is the first time I've ever told that story. That is a phenomenal story. told this is the first time i've ever told that story that is a phenomenal story the problem with me telling a lot of stories from college is that i lacked so much morality

then than i do now that it's yes it's getting people to recognize that i'm a different person now it's hard i i think that is a struggle in comedy right now especially with cancel culture and people want to roll you for people will figure out a way to roll you for who you were instead of recognizing who you are now and i think i need one more album for people to really really know me before i tell you the time where we went to confront a pimp who stole my high school class ring oh my gosh like that's wow that's not a story that's that you can just slide in there not right now when you talk about you know you know women's rights and you know respectability to women and the sex work trade and yeah of and body positivity like there's just so many

layers to that story that that i don't want to step on by appearing that i still condone those types of activities and people who do those things i mean i've talked about this publicly and you know in a number of different forums but when i was 19 i got arrested for stealing jeans from a department store part of what we used to do was sell that clothing to more affluent people in the city so i eat a pimp every now and then a pimp gotta look nice pimps were good customers oh my gosh when it comes to somebody who needs to look fresh at all times, it's a pimp. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you steal jeans, you sell them to people who can't afford those jeans. But super nice stuff.

Not like regular. A student is never going to buy a $200 pair of Jabot jeans, not on a regular basis. But a pimp needs five. Oh. You see what I'm saying? So a student might need one pair to wear for the homecoming event. But a pimp, that's his car washing outfit. So if you've made, as a teenager, if you're making your side hustle stealing clothing, you're going to sell it to more viable clientele.

Because the charge is the same. So that was my logic at the time. So somehow a pimp ends up in your home and your class ring ends up missing so you now you're walking the streets with a baseball bat for a hearth jones 250 dollar class which i don't even miss to this day and i think when i when i tell that story properly it's about materialism and just about things. Yeah, yeah, sure. I stole things to give to a guy who valued things that really weren't, that we shouldn't be valuing in the first place.

And then I went to fight him over a thing that I thought was valuable. But the only reason I thought it was valuable was because the fucking company told me I should have a ring. Yes, that you need those jeans or that ring, yeah. Yeah, so we were both stupid. But you can't get to that place without sounding like you condone pimping because you're so close to a pimp who was, for sure, abusive to women mentally and or physically.

Probably both, more than likely. And by the way, Roy, abusive to women, completely unethical, and the end result is being able to buy a stupid pair of jeans that are overpriced in the first place. Yes. All of that to buy jeans. That's what he was doing that for. my first mainstream tv credit was star search the reboot they yeah oh i've seen him i've seen it right terrible it's good i think it's good so um in 03 at the time with american idol american idol was i think two years prior to star search and every contestant like every year a contestant they were finding out something from his past

yeah and using it yeah there was this woman frenchie on american idol who took a couple nude photos some racy magazine spread, and they kicked her off the show, which now they would give you a show. Yeah, yeah. It might go the other way. Yeah. The irony of where we are now. So I was so petrified of someone finding out that I had just wrapped up probation that

that was the first thing I did on Star Search. The first package. They put the camera in front of me. Yes. You led with that so put the camera in front of me. Yes. Are you happy to be in Star Search? So they couldn't get you on it. Getting arrested was the best thing that ever happened to me. And that's why I got into comedy.

And they helped find me and get myself right. And I'm proof that if you make better choices, you can have a better life. Thank you. Wow. So y'all not going to dig this shit up. That's a smart move so when you like if there's a protest in birmingham is some of your calculation in your head when you don't go to the protest that if you get arrested uh for i what would you be arrested for disturbing the p no not

disturbing the peace it's uh what would it be i'm trying to think of what i'm forgetting uh civil disobedience? Yeah, unlawful assembly, something like that. Yeah. If you got arrested, that your record for stealing jeans would work against you? Yeah, I've thought about that. I mean, if we're talking about sentencing me and throwing the book at him. Yeah.

I think being on The Daily Show probably works more against me. That's hilarious. I'm serious. I really feel like being on The Daily Show is a serious disadvantage. And if you catch the wrong judge. Currently, yeah. You catch the wrong judge. There's a lot of things that are wrong with the criminal justice system that we try to use The Daily Show to help shine a light on.

Sure, sure. So then you're in the belly of the beast you know it may as well be you know the confederacy capturing a union soldier oh my god you know like if we're depending on the courtroom yeah you know depending on the judge so you, you know, priors, yeah. But, I mean, it's also, it's clothing. You were a teenager. Okay, fine. But, you know, it just depends. You know, there's still people to this day that may use that against me. I see it come up in message boards and stuff like that. And, you know, people will tweet about it as if it's to shame me.

Didn't you get arrested? Yeah, bitch, in 98. Now, do you want to talk about how to fix civil rights or not? Yeah. That's actually one of my questions in the slow round for people. But you already answered it, which is what is the period of your life that you sort of most cringe at? And for me, it was like my teens and my 20s and i feel like i sort of got it together in my 30s and now in my 40s i feel like i i feel like i'm starting

to to figure some things out there's a stretch from age 25 to about 33 that i wish I could play differently as it relates to relationships. Yeah. And just being honest in love. Yeah. I think that is probably, that's for sure. If it's some, what could you change? It's that stretch. And I would even put that stretch above the last conversation I had with my father because it's unrealistic to feel like I could have changed that because that wasn't completely on me yeah

whereas 25 to about 34 yeah that was me that was all my fault and you know you I think once you get older and you start taking stock of the way that you may have treated people in a relationship, you know, it's like, all right. That not only affects other people, but it affects you. And then the thing that nobody teaches you what to, like, people try to prepare you for everything. Yeah. But no one can teach you how to prepare to carry regret. Yeah. And carrying regret is probably one of the – you can't train for it.

You can't teach anybody that shit. You can't – like i think about my son and you know how to let things go but the best way is to just be better and to be what you should have been and so that's what i and that's the life i've led since then um my father and i feel like there were certain things that i wish i could have asked him yeah to help reconcile present day feelings but also i was 16 it wasn't my place to ask him and he probably wouldn't have answered honestly because i was 16 so yeah i can't really change that one you know what i'm saying like i could i wish i could go back and ask him what

you still i'm gonna get the truth i struggle with i struggle with that still i mean my my my dad uh my dad had pneumonia recently and i and i got scared he tested negative for covid but i got really scared uh that that it could be that and and and then it would be you know a coin toss as he's 80 years old as to whether it's game over. And then it's like, well, what was my last, you know, year or two of conversations with like him? Not great. I mean, we're really at odds with each other, particularly because of the political climate. We're very much at odds. And I don't think I'm proud of all the things I've said to him.

And it's hard, man. It's hard. It gets me choked up thinking about it. Yeah, and it's one of those things where I look back at those periods and you just go, fuck, man. Yeah. Fuck. I fucking played that one wrong.

I played that one all the way wrong. And sometimes it'll fuck with you even more because you know you can't undo it. Like someone told me, I received a card one time from a person. I received a card one time from a person, and essentially what the card said was two chemicals, I'm paraphrasing it, two chemicals with their own chemical composition are mixed to make something new. You can never separate that mix to return them to the original two chemicals that they were. Yeah, that's right. Before they mixed. Yeah. Once the chemical reaction occurs, you can't undo it.

Correct. Or as Neil Brennan would eloquently put it, you can't put toothpaste back in the tube, man. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it's like this weird, fuck, I wish I could have it all back. And then I find myself talking to strangers about my father who knew him and knew his work. My dad was a journalist, civil rights journalist. And he covered the riots in Soweto in the 50s.

He was in Rhodesia during the Civil War. Front line. He was an embedded reporter in Vietnam with black platoons who were getting sent in first to die. And, you know, came back, started the National Black Network. Just a shit ton of woke-ity-woke journalism that was for the culture and, you know, shining a light on a lot of bullshit. And, you know, not that different from what a lot of my standup is now. Sure, sure. So molecularly, we are very, very similar. It sucks sometimes to have strangers and family members

help you piece together who someone was because you didn't get to ask those questions. So I don't know. I've thought about ways to communicate from the grave with my son if you really want to get deep into that. But, you know, maybe the work is enough. I just know that I don't want to leave him prone to making a lot of the same mistakes that I did.

And even if he does, you can be educated on, here's what you do now that you have made that mistake. This is a bit that I'm working on that I thought you could relate to, which is the pandemic has been challenging because at my lowest points in the pandemic, I've felt completely alone, but I'm quarantined. So I can't be alone by definition. I have to take care of my family. So it's worse than being alone because at least when you're alone, you get to be alone. Currently, I'm just a failing member of a group. And I think part of the reason I'm failing is that weekends are not weekends. Like last Saturday, I'd worked all week, and then I was off,

and then I realized when you have kids, there is no off. There is only on and more on. And off is more on than on. Like when you're off, you think, oh oh man i wish i had more time on like you can't tell your five-year-old i'd love to get you abandoned for your boo-boo but i'm off it's this weird land of am i doing this right yeah it's today a work day or do i not like i don't know every day feels like tuesday or thursday yes this nebulous universe of tuesdays and thursdays yeah tuesday is like all right what

else can we get done and thursday's kind of like all right i've done a lot in the time to start winding down here yeah it's time to wind down a little. I had another one, which is even the term off is misleading because when you're off, you're still alive. Like the actual off is dead. I read about this guy who jumped off a bridge. I was like, he's off. And in Buddhism, you try to turn off. You try to think nothing, but it doesn't work for me.

I just fall asleep, which because of my sleepwalking is on. And so I just don't have an off. I mean, I'm struggling in this whole thing. I think a lot of people are. I think a lot, especially, you have a son, I have a daughter, and it's uh when when is off are you getting it off i found a sweet spot of about one o'clock to five o'clock in the morning but the trade-off is sleep you got to be kidding me yeah i 1 a.m to 5 a.m, I get so much done in overnights. I like that shit, man. I love 2 in the morning. I love the hum of the refrigerator.

Yeah. I love the sirens freaking down south when I was at my mom's. I love the crickets. It's just, I don't know. It just feels like progress. I can get more done in three hours with no one awake than I can all day. I can get more done in three hours with no one awake than I can all day. I don't know if this is a bit yet, but it's for sure an observation that I want to hone in on making a bit and just how much disrespect the National Guard deals with. The basic premise is that the National Guard is America's stepdad. It's like a stepdad or an uncle where, like, when the shit gets out of hand,

the National Guard, the police are just like, fuck it, call in the National Guard. And it's so disrespectful because the National Guard, they're never treated as first responders. They're never mentioned in the conversation. Yeah. People, the first responders, give it up for the cops and the firefighters and paramedics. You know what?

Let's add nurses to the list. They do a lot of shit. And what about the grocery guy who put the lettuce on the shit? What about the delivery guy? Bitch, I helped stop a fucking pandemic even the commercial like the commercial isn't even about all the cool shit that you that you're gonna do like the army and navy is like every military commercial is badass and we don't take care of that ass and we get up early and look at this fucking. And the National Guard is like, hey, man, one weekend a month, two weeks a year.

Come on. Please. Please. It's not a lot of time. And it's crazy because they do so much shit. But you could never show the National Guard being aggressive like they're ordered to be because they're being aggressive against American citizens. Yeah. I guess that ain't sexy.

And it's like they stopped. Like when Katrina happened, the National Guard was there picking people up off the roof and delivering supplies. They handled the COVID quarantines. The first quarantine zone in America outside of Seattle, the National Guard was the ones doing the testing. Yeah. Before they had doctors in there so imagine you're just some fucking dude on a couch who agreed to do some shit two weeks a year for a check and they go hey man infectious disease you mind oh my god running to the garage and finding your shit no get the fucking marines all they do is brag about

how we're the first ones in well bitch, bitch, go be first with that. Yeah. You don't want to be first with that corona, do you? No, because you only want to fucking beat the shit out of strangers when it comes time to fucking beat the shit out of Americans who are rioting. You're in the National Guard, and you have to stop people from rioting for something that you stand for and believe in. I've seen the footage.

I don't know if you've seen the footage of National Guardsmen holding the line. A lot of black cops, too. And you can tell they don't believe in the shit that they're protecting. And now you have to stop protesters. And then when the protests are over, you're just back in this community. Like shit was cool. Yes. But the point is that they're they're in this

weird no man's land where they're not as respected as cops and not as respected as military they have to do the job of both yeah when the cops are really getting fucked up they call the national guard so you're basically daddy cop like man go get daddy we can't stop them yeah because then the national guard is also used as a threat like a fucking don't you make me send the national guard oh my gosh like anytime you threaten to send the national guard that's under the premise that they're gonna come and fuck shit up and whoop your ass and we'll get you in order motherfucker don't make me send the national guard them green trucks with the green cloth on the back you don't want them rambo trucks coming down the street really the stepdad analogy is perfect because it's like we like you but we don't love you exactly and that's why you treat the

national guard like a stepdad you talk shit to him you throw shit at him you ain't none of my real daddy you ain't the real army it's like your stepdad it's like he's around sometimes but not all the time and when he is around it's always fixing some shit stop doing that get the fuck off that roof i told you to get some hurricane we told you the storm was coming boy get on this goddamn helicopter what you doing at this house and he's married to your mom, which is America, and you don't even always agree with your mom anyway. But then your mom calls in your stepdaddy to talk some sense into you. When the truth is, you just want a dad that's as cool as the Coast Guard. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever consider

joining the Army? Yeah, I had a full Army ROTC scholarship in college that I turned down a week before graduation. No kidding. Yeah, it just, they wanted an eight-year commitment

for active, for reserve, and I just felt like you graduate from college at 21, and I basically owe you my life until I'm 28. It just felt like you graduate from college at 21. And I basically owe you my life until I'm 28. It just felt like a long time. And sure enough, five months after I graduated, 9-11 happened. So I would have been deployed. Unbelievable. I did ROTC in high school. I liked it. I enjoyed a lot of the discipline of it. I think there's some parts of the army that are beneficial to people.

People of a certain behavioral type need some structure. Clearly, I needed structure because I went straight to college and started stealing. So I needed some discipline. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it just, I don't know,

it just that long of a time. And this is without any knowledge about the lack of VA support and PTSD and how half of our homeless or veterans. With no knowledge of any of these statistics. Yeah, yeah. Man, this feels like a long time. When I'm staying at the hotel I stay at when I go to Indianapolis on tour, it's the hotel where they put all the new recruits,

the new Army recruits. Yeah. And I can never get over it. Because a lot of times it would be 30, 40, 50, maybe even 100 staying in the hotel. I can never get over how damn young they are. I remember my first year of stand-up, my first two years, really, I rode the Greyhound to get to gigs because I didn't have a car.

Yeah, I did that some. Yeah. And so when I would go up the East Coast, I'd go up 95 to do gigs. The Greyhound bus would stop at Parris Island at the Marines basic training and would pick up troops who had quit the training. Wow. So I remember every trip, every trip up, every trip down, we'd stop at Parris Island.

Yeah. And pick up two, three motherfuckers with a buzz cut and just the look on their face of just fuck that shit. Yeah. Some were like ecstatic static like they were leaving like you'd have thought this bus was headed to disney world yeah the way they ran and got on the bus and then others just cried like they were just very sad and very solemn like you know like they quit or they gave up you know whatever but you know i've always i don't know those

like you ever just strangers you still wonder about to this day Hold on a second. Now, right now, you have to do your classes. Yeah, you got to do your second class. Dude, let me tell you the great thing about my son's preschool. They have this e-learning stuff. Yeah. But they record all the sessions.

Oh, nice. So you can download them through Google Classroom. So anytime you want to just send him to class, I could just pull up, let's watch class from March 3rd and pretend it's today. Oh, my gosh. And you get an education. It's great. It's like sending your kids to school twice.

I'm telling you, Roy, like maybe i'm overstepping but i really do feel like you should write a solo show off broadway about your life like i does that interest you yeah it does it's the problem i don't know if you ever noticed with my stand-up i don't talk about myself yeah i know man i talk about the world i talk about my thoughts and analysis on the world because i've just i've always felt like my stuff was too weird or too hard to make funny in a traditional setup setup punch line yeah and really diving into the deeper parts of my life would require a comfort that i didn't possess at the time whereas now i'm like all right maybe i could get a little deeper and tell that story and really go into like there's the time when i did get arrested and i was getting transferred from

jail to court for the for the bail hearing and how the u.s marshal called me nigger for 30 minutes straight jesus from the from the jail all the way to the courthouse and like and then when i serious and then when i got bail and got free and i got free um he called me a lucky nigger like, my gosh. And then it's Tallahassee, so I end up working at Golden Corral. So a year and a half later, guess who's one of my customers at my table? That guy. Fucking U.S. Marshals. And here's the part, like, of course it's heinous, it's racism, whatever.

The part that hurt the most was that he didn't remember me oh that's which means you call everybody nigger i thought i was special yeah bitch you know so you thought it was a moment in his life where he crossed the line it's like you just call everybody naked like so there's there's an arc in that story. Yeah. Just in how, you know, just how racism is just such a way of life for so many people that it's like saying hello to a stranger. That's right. You know?

But there ain't a lot of punchlines in that. Then, to explore that story based on the current audience's mindset, I have to, I have to explain why I got arrested. I have to explain what I got arrested for. Then I have to have a moment of atonement

within my joke to go, I shouldn't have been stealing. I shouldn't have been. So now, so now, we're 15 minutes on some sidetrack shit

before I can get to the transport with the U.S. Marshal. That's right. That's why you need me to produce the show. Richard Pryor never went, no, I shouldn't have been smoking cocaine. But anyway, I was smoking cocaine. He just delivered it so matter-of-factly because people are on board with him because people knew who he was.

And so when you start revealing layers of yourself,'s right i think it it's it only works if people already know you chris rock i i don't think chris rock gets enough credit for the back half of tambourine and how emotionally naked he was on that stage unbelievable beautiful he's never done that he's never done that before he gets credit from from people who I respect, though. I think that there's a certain group of people, you and me included, who get that Tambourine is one of the best comedy specials in the last two decades.

It's downright... It's downright like a total shift. And it's beautiful because he starts one way, and it's a traditional Chris Rock special, and we love him. And then he just goes, oh yeah, porn addiction, divorce, and here's what else I'm going dealing with.

I know. And you're like, God damn. I know, man. And so I think you can only go there once people know you a little bit. I mean, I'm open to it, dude. I got a next-door neighbor in jail for murder. Jesus.

I've come from an interesting place. Wait, so your neighbor, because I've been working on material about my childhood neighbors lately, and I have, yeah, I mean, I have a neighbor who went to jail, but I don't have, it wasn't for murder. I think it was for armed robbery. The, was it was murder while you were living next to him? No, this was a couple of years after I had moved from the house, but I still kept in touch with the family. And, you know, he was, he was a getaway driver on a robbery that went south,

and he got charged with the murder. He wasn't the trigger man. You know, they have, like, the group laws in certain cities, you know. Yeah. There's – I grew up two doors over from a crack house, an active crack house. Whoa. But not a drug den, and there's a distinct difference. And I think that

i'm sorry i'm laughing at there's a distinct difference what there is if that's not funny i don't know what is and there's a distinct difference because people call everything a crack house it's like no yeah this was a crack house this This is where you purchase crack to consume elsewhere. This is carry out. Yeah. A drug den is a dime. This is curbside. Correct. A crack house is curbside.

A drug den is how many people in your party come. I will take you to your table. Here is your needle. Here are our crack specials for this evening. These are our crack specials. It's such a great line. So we had this neighbor at the time. When we moved to Birmingham in the third grade,

it was the back end of white flight from the hood. Yes, sure. And white flight, if people don't know what it is, it was a phenomenon that occurred where a lot of a lot of people left a lot of white people left cities uh to move to suburbs correct as the black middle class started to rise and black people started to move into to just traditionally white neighborhoods white people just up and left immediately thus lowering the property value and making it easier for black folks to move in because white people all went to the suburbs, so it was nice.

Miss Murray could not afford to be one of those people, so she was stuck living between our house and a crack house. And, dude, she called the police on these niggas once a month. Oh, my gosh. And every month, like clockwork, they were breaking her house, and they would beat her up for calling the police no and but they would never kill her oh my gosh and she never stopped calling the police on them like it was some weird tom and jerry shit like some bizarro itchy and scratchy oh my gosh where that is the darkest that's the darkest analogy for what you're literally describing.

Hey, you're going to keep selling crack? I'm going to keep calling the police on you. But the police never had probable cause. It was a well-run crack house. The cops never had probable cause to come in, but they knew it was Ms. Murray because who else could it be? It's the only white lady on the block. Yeah, yeah. And so the way the yards were set up. And what year was this when you were growing up, by the way? This was like 85. 85, okay.

Mid-80s. It's crack boom. Crack is moving. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd say boom was like 90 or something like that for crack. But it's a burgeoning stock. You can get on board. But they were never mean to anybody in the hood.

And that was the thing that was always odd you know and i've told well i think comedy central edited out because it was just too long of a story but i i talked about how all of my interactions with drug dealers were great yeah i had better interactions with drug dealers than i did cops yeah Yeah, I've talked to you about this before. Yeah. This is an amazing observation. And so when we played baseball, if you hit a home run, a home run was into the backyard of the crack house.

Yeah. But they didn't cut the grass. And there were needles in the grass, so you knew not to hop the fence to get the ball. The ball was just gone. Yeah. But if you wanted to, you could go knock on the door yeah and ask them for the tennis ball but we would deliberately wait until a bunch of balls

went over before we would not because we didn't want to trouble them for every you know we would wait like at the end of the week we'll go hey man we think it's eight balls back there can you just toss them over yeah and then it got to a point where without even asking some days the balls would just be back over the fence and we could just grab them and then one day we come home from um from the boys club and there's a box of brand new fucking tennis balls wow fresh out the kit that's another smell i love man i love it man the, man. The fresh smell. Tennis ball. Tennis ball. You open the metal part, and you sniff that first tennis ball felt. Why do tennis balls pack like, what, 40 ounces? It cracks open. It's like a refreshing.

It's like a NASAa product those tennis balls so there's um so there's a there's a box of fresh tennis balls yeah with a note that just says stop knocking on my door no kidding yeah it was just like oh this is a nice gesture but then this is also the same person that beat the shit out of an old white lady no i know man i mean and you're saying like you're saying that you know uh you like drug dealers more than you like the cops well that's like when i was talking to john laster and he was saying you know john right from yeah yeah and he was going you know when you're a black man in america the cops are not there to protect you. It's just not how it is. Not more than likely, no.

Yeah. Not in the least. Yeah, it's interesting in the sense that, you know, there was that. There was a time I did it. I used to do shows for dope boys on a regular. They paid us, you know, and I'm not defending the occupation. See, this is where like doing a one-man show where now i have to go i'm not saying it's right that you should be

telling drugs and i agree with the occupation of drug dealer may i now continue my story now that you know my moral beliefs roy what is that voice let's identify what that voice is. Sick of that shit. It's judgmental fucks, but that's what I always feel when I start talking about myself and things that I've interacted with. Because I've had friendships and interactions with people who were immoral. Yeah. You know, on a regular basis. Yeah. I've interacted and broke bread with people who do things that I don't condone or co-sign on. But in those moments and those times, those relationships made sense.

Man, I think that's a hit show. And I want to keep talking to you about it. Because I think that you're underselling the genius that you have. you're underselling the genius that you have, which is the ability to take stories that are really dark and have them turn on a dime into comedy. And I think you're one of the very few people I've seen. I don't like following you for that reason when we're performing the same show.

You're too goddamn good. And I don't like it. I don't want any part of it. I want to be on a different show. But I think you have that ability, and I think we should keep talking about it because I'm telling you, man, your stories add up to a story of, I think,

of redemption, of kindness, of generosity. I think that there, and ultimately, is hilarious every step of the way. Where do clouds come from? Hang on one second. Henry? He just walked in

and asked me where clouds come from. That's, and about where, and the show is about where clouds come from. Well, you know what? With your guidance, we'll figure it out.

Well, let's end by the segment we call Working It Out for a Cause, where we shine a light on a nonprofit that our guest thinks is doing a good job. And I'm going to contribute to them. I'm going to encourage the listeners to contribute and we're going to link to them in the show notes. I see me incorporated. I see me INC. Okay.

So I see me is it's a nonprofit out of Birmingham started by a school teacher and this woman's vision. So, you know, the school to prison pipeline, there's a connection between illiteracy and incarceration. Okay. Quicker you get kids reading, the quicker kids learn, the more they want to learn, the less likely they are to get into the meat grinder that is the prison industrial complex. Kids are more encouraged to learn if they read books with images that are reflective of the people that they see commonly. And talk about black people, Mike.

Oh my gosh. It's just hitting me. It's just hitting me. So basically what they do is take books by black authors or books with black imagery and get them in the hands of kids who can't afford books or they're at schools where there aren't a lot of books of that nature. And then they channel that money into book drives and book libraries around the neighborhood and programs where they get Black people to come read to children in the schools. And they preach a message of literacy that I think is congruent with employment because I think literacy and employment run hand in hand. Yeah, I think literacy is massive. It's a crucial ingredient in finding some sense of equity in all of this madness. Yeah, and what they do is great. I've donated in the past. I've gone and they do the reading day on Dr. Seuss Day, but then they also do a real men read where they get black men to come into the school systems in Birmingham and read.

I call it quasi-mentoring. It's not quite full mentoring. You're like a stepdad. Yeah. Get in here and read to these kids and answer a couple questions, and then you can go home. You're the national Guard of Literacy. Yeah, I'm the National Guard. So I get deployed one weekend a month, two weeks a year,

and I go read to kids in city schools. So I've been a part of that group. That goes back to my radio station days, which is when I got into a lot of that philanthropy. And it's great. It's 100% great. Well, Roy, it's an honor. I love that we're friends.

I love all of your specials. I love all your material. I love all your projects. I love your work on The Daily Show, and I hope that we can build a show off-Broadway in New York together. All right, man. Let's figure it out, man.

After COVID, though. I don't want no motherfuckers coughing on me. I know, man. I hear you. So that's another episode of Working It Out with Roy Wood Jr. This is our 10th episode. A lot happened in 10 episodes. If you're not caught up, go back and listen to 1 through 10. We're very proud of them.

This one was possibly the coolest because we may have witnessed the beginning of an artistic partnership. Who knows? But it felt like, it just felt great to kick around ideas with Roy. Our producers of Working It Out are Peter Salamone and Joseph Birbiglia. Consulting producer Seth Barish. Sound mix by Kate Belinsky. Assistant editor Mabel Lewis. Thanks to my consigliere Mike Berkowitz as well as

Marissa Hurwitz. Special thanks to Jack Antonoff for his music As always a very special thanks to my wife, J. Hope Stein. Our book, the new one, is Curbside. We are on a virtual bookstore tour of America. Find out everything at burbiggs.com, where you can sign up for the mailing list. As always, a special thanks to my daughter, who created a radio fort with the help of one fresh pillow una i know you had something you wanted to say about that one fresh pillow get us more pillows she uh she wants more pillows so

uh if you don't mind sending some we'd appreciate it once again our thanks to sam adams who is presenting the restaurant strong fund join them today today at SamuelAdams.com. As always, thanks to everyone who listened. Tell your friends, tell your enemies. We're working it out. What y'all doing now?