The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - South Beach Sessions - Roy Wood Jr.

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

Late night shows may come and go, but for Roy Wood Jr. the hustle-and-grind never stops. Roy visits Dan in Miami for a South Beach Sessions unlike any other, reflecting on how far he's come from his scary, early days as a comedian and why he wanted to be the next Stuart Scott at ESPN. Amidst strikes and layoffs in a shaky entertainment landscape, Roy also shares what The Daily Show was like under Trevor Noah, and what the future of late night will look like if he takes over next... Go to RoyWoodJr.com for tour dates, tickets, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to South Beach Sessions. I'm excited about this one. It doesn't mean I haven't been excited about the others, but my level of admiration for this person with what he's done just sort of flippantly being a journalist while also being a comedian, honoring the things that his father was about in what now passes for the old South when he was a journalist who was more joyless than he was. And so I sort of recognize in you some of the things I saw at my dinner table where my dad was really unhappy at work. And I'm like, I don't want to do it that way.

Like I'd like to work hard, but there's got to be joy in it because I don't want to be miserable. But Roy Wood Jr. should be, if you've been paying attention, the Daily Show host now, if televisions executives weren't perpetually idiots, he would already be the Daily Show host because you're what you've done. I admire you so much, but at least in part because I don't think many people know how hard it was for you to make a career out of all of this. What's weird, man, is, all right, here's, like, because I started comedy at 19,

which I would argue, if you start anything as a teenager, you're just learning the art of it. You don't have an opinion, you don't have an angle on what you want to do. And then when you start realizing, oh no, these are the things I really want to talk about that I really care about. Well, then there, that comes at a cost to a degree because now certain clubs aren't going to book you. Are you going to deal with certain criticism? So that part of it has always been a weird balancing act. But at the end of

the day, if I'm not excited to talk about the stuff I want to talk about, then I can't, I can't be up here. But foundationally when did you decide that you were going to do funny as a living? I don't know, like that's a weird, it's a weird question to answer because I just kind of got, I fucked myself for lack of a bitter phrasing. So when I was in college, and we can go down this rabbit hole if you want, but like when I was in college, when I was 18, 19, I got arrested for stealing credit cards to buy clothes. So we're buying jeans and shit and selling them on campus, whatever.

I get caught, I think I'm going to prison. That is what my lawyer told me, that is what everyone, well, these cases are usually a trutated out of five years sentence by a kid behavior and you're a young man with no priors and then, me, that is what everyone, well, these cases are usually adjudicated at a five-year sentence, but with a kept behavior, and you're a young man with no priors, and then... But it's a federal felony, right?

Correct. Correct. So, I end up somehow getting probation instead of prison. So in that time, up until sentence, and I started doing stand-up comedy just because I had no friends, I was sad. I guess you could... I stopped short of saying depression knowing now what people who

are depressed deal with but whatever it was I was in a bad place. Comedy made me happy. So when I found out I got probation I just kept doing comedy. So when I got back in college at that point I was so focused on stand-up that I made good grades just so my parents just so my mom couldn't say shit to me like you can't you can't tell me I'm throwing my life away with comedy I'm over here on the Dean's list so when I graduated with my degree in broadcast no one would hire me because I had no internships because I spent every summer doing comedy but then when you do the math and I look back on and I go oh that was my internship it was comedy and

so when I graduated from school I had two jobs that I could have applied for I'm a man, I'm gonna look back on her and go, oh, that was my internship. It was comedy. And so when I graduated from school, I had two jobs that I could have applied for. I'm probably what I've gotten. One was the Tampa Tribune to do the page two sports 2 a.m. Oh, you could have been a sports writer. You were headed down the possible sports writer. I was on that Stuart Scott, Kenny Main, Vanneau Wright,

Ginny Moose type offbeat. Like those were the journalists that I respected. You worked at ESPN some and you were watching Stewart Scott, basically change what sports television looked like because Stewart Scott was rebellious. I mean, all he was doing was being black and breaststroke. But I didn't know that. All I knew was just that this motherfucker

could talk like me, but he's cool, but he's doing, he's talking about what I love, but he sounds like me. He was the first person, and because before that, before Stu Scott, it was Fred Hickman. And Fred Hickman was the more buttoned down, more appropriate, more like my father, journalistically.

And Stuart Scott, to me, was the evolution. That's so funny. Hickman was 80s black man on television badass, but serial professional. Yes. Like this is a man you can trust, just look at him. Correct. Because he's from Ed Bradley.

Ed Bradley was probably Fred Hickman's OG journalistically. So, oh, so you're watching Stuart Scott changing, like he's allowed to be in the playground of sports He doesn't have to be serious journalists. Correct. As was Van Erow right who it's seen in hit line sports at the time. People talk real crazy and talk to him. Do the highlights real fast and the J's beat the A's and the bull still went from the hornet.

I just liked it. I like it was different. It wasn't the traditional box of conservative behavior that I was told that you have to adhere to. So yeah, so I get a job offer. I had a job opportunity at the temperature of year and I had one at the Birmingham News. Both were gonna pay about $17,000 or $14,000.

By my calculations that year, at this point I'm going into my third year of comedy. By my calculations that year, at this point, I'm going to my third year of comedy by my calculations. I would have made 27K that year. Then I stopped minus gas and all of the other stuff, but I worked hard enough in those two years in school. The about a time I came out, I just did the math and it just fiscally made more sense to keep doing comedy. And every year, a business decision. And every year, since then, it has fiscally made more sense

to keep doing comedy. But this is the part that I don't think people can possibly understand of what it is to do that. To be someone who decides to make his career with the bravery of I've got the expectation of funny, and all I have is my talent, my humor, my jokes, my charisma. I'm going to make a career of this with no health insurance.

I'm gonna do sad comedy clubs, and I'm gonna learn how to make 19 people from mobile Alabama laugh because guns pulled on you. Guns pulled on you. Pading cocaine one time. There's, it's definitely been called the inward a couple of times from hecklers. Like that, but you have to remember,

when I started, I didn't have anything. I was supposed to be in prison. So this is better than prison. So this idea of taking here risk and a jump, it wasn't that just didn't register and God bless me because I just was too dumb to know how wild of a decision I was making. I had two roommates, bro. All I had to cover every month living in Tallahassee was $375 and I did that at Golden Corral. So the money I was making on the weekend, that was just extra gravy and I was riding the greyhound.

I want to hear about the Golden Corral gig. I mean, how bad were the earliest, the earliest gigs? This wasn't that long ago, it's 20 years ago. In that 99, 2000 era Southern buffet. No. The Golden Corral was the shit, bro. No, I'm not, I like Golden Keral as a restaurant. Look at me.

I'm saying playing it as a venue. No, no, no, no, I worked there. I worked, I worked 15 hours a week at Golden Keral. Okay. All right, I misunderstood you. I thought you were playing Golden Keral that you were doing stand-up there. Oh, God, no, that would be invisible.

Monday through Thursday, Golden K the Carral Thursday night, I take the Greyhound to wherever my weekend gigs are. Monday morning, I'm back in Tallahassee, to take a night class, then go back to go to the Carral. And that was the washroom's repeat while I was in school. And so then after about a year of that, my mom got me a car, she put down on a car for me. And that opened up essentially the whole Eastern Seaboard

to me every weekend. And, you know, that's why I, you know, I'd say it a million times, my mom is my biggest supporter because even when she didn't understand why I was doing comedy, she just wanted me to do it safely. So here's a car, stop sleeping in the bus station. That's going to get you murdered. I'm like you're probably right, I will now go sleep at a truck stop. I would at least sleep at a flying J and it takes years of traveling and notice this But flying J's are the only truck stops that I've seen by design by corporate design

Where the cash register is closest to the parking lot. It's not in the center of the store So if I'm gonna get robbed or murdered there will be a witness At least one person. That's how you were touring. That's how your career began. I'm going to see if I can do this safely up and down the Eastern Seaboard with jokes. Cheaply. Not safely.

What is the cheapest way to do this? And more often than not, it was, it was sleeping in my car at truck stops. If you got lucky, you could meet a girl off of a dating site and maybe if the date went well, you could sleep on a couch like it was even about sex. It was just, I need somewhere to stay tonight, you know, a show is late. Like if you're, if you're good enough date, then maybe they'll offer. You're going to get back on the road? It's late.

Just stay on my couch. Thank you. You're just, this is how you're making a career of it. Because people couldn't fathom it now, right? Watching you on television, they couldn't fathom the idea that you were and thrilled to do it, probably. It was amazing.

And I couldn't, like, I don't, that's why I could never tell anyone that like, anyone in their like late 20s, early 30s, where they go, well, how do I do it? You know, the way you do it, and like you can't. You can, I think that's one of the biggest fallacies in any career is thinking that you can do it the same way that people you look up to did it.

The game has changed. Gas was also a $1.29 in a gallon when I started. The money and stand-up is exactly the same. 50 to 75, I opened 100 to middle. You might get 200 to be the last guy on stage. If you want to call that a headliner, the gas is triple hotels or more, the gigs are far and fewer in between.

So, when I got to Birmingham, I started interning at a radio station there. That ended up at for like 12 years. If the gig was less than four hours, bro, I drove back that night because I need to be on the air in the morning. I'm trying to be, to what's got. So, I can't, not, you know, I can't not water this plant. So you find yourself just kind of living on both sides of the tracks at all times but when you're young and you're just driven and you're fueled by that it's

It's beautiful and then one day you're 44 and both of your industries Bet you're in or on strike your show is in flux without a host and the economics of touring have changed immensely and you still have to get back out there with that same fever that same, you know, passion and that's a very difficult thing to recreate when you have a child and you have responsibilities and I think that part of it, you know, it's like Rocky 3 at the club of Lane beat the sh- how do Rocky and then Mickey sits Rocky down like, yo man, you got rich, you got comfortable, you lost the fight. It happens that fast, it's hard for me to fathom that the

industries could be that fragile that someone with your talent, your name, your brand, would see not just corporate change throughout America, but also comedy change in ways that would demand your evolution. That if you got fat and lazy with the idea, I don't have to hustle just as much as I was at those truck stops, because now I got a kid too. Like back then it was just me. I could sleep in truck stops. I can't believe that career could be that flimsy with someone not just with your talent but your bonafide.

It could be and you may be right and we will see but that does not make me comfortable because I you know like when people talk about like the light at the end of the tunnel right where people go there's a light, and keep running. And one day you will achieve and delight. To me, the light in the tunnel is the train coming to run me over. So I've always operated from a career standpoint. I've always operated from a place of paranoia

of this being a finite journey. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not going to bet by just sitting still and just going, I don't know, everything will be straight. No. But I put dates on the books in February, before the, when I heard a rumor that that was gonna be a writer's strike,

call my people, 30 cities. Let's go, let's find 30 cities. And now that's up to like 40 cities. I think we're going to do now. But this is this is one of the this is one of the reasons that I admire your journey and just how hard all of this stuff is to make an entire economy around. I'm just going to pop up in 40 cities. It's me and a microphone and you and I'm doing another show. I'm doing other things. But of course, I've got an act that's ready and it's going to be fresh and it's you and I'm doing another show. I'm doing other things But of course I've got an act that's ready and it's gonna be fresh and it's not and I'm gonna work I'm gonna work the America to see if it morphs into what a Netflix show because that's what's buying that correct

You do the things that you are passionate about and then people will find a place for you to do them within their organizations. And I think that's the biggest thing that has happened to me. That's the biggest transition in the industry, like entertainment. I mean, really, if you want to get in the sports, right? Like, you always talk about macaphy on your mother's ship show a couple of weeks ago, right? When ESPN was having, you know, the bloody, the bloody Sunday, right? We have transitioned from a place in my opinion within entertainment. I pay close attention to sports because sports as an industry television sports the studio stuff.

It operates at such razor thin budgets compared to other parts of the industry. If we're talking daytime talk shows, late night talk shows, scripted shows, et cetera, sports has always operated the most razor thin. So how sports goes to a degree can start informing me on how late night is going to go. That's just what I believe. I can be wrong, but that's just what I believe. And of course you have to study it that closely because your paths you could have ended up on either one of the paths Correct you could have you you very easily could have you would have been great as the funny sports writer on ESPN

Who then turned that into multiple shows because there is no funny sports writer at ESPN You know what put me up on game with that I had a year and This is also kind of why I'm in this mindset now career wise, but I had a I had what I what I'll call a drought year in 2014 the year before I got the daily show so I was blessed enough To where I had a buddy that I was in journalism school with and He knew some producers up at ESPN and hey man hey man, there's this lady, Jamel Hill, Mike's my, Mike Smith, they're doing this show

called His and Hers. If you ever near Bristol and I go out drive, and at the time I still lived in LA, but if I had a gig anywhere in the tri-state, hey man, can I come up and beat them? Because you saw how rare it was for a 6 PM sports center to give an opportunity. No, this is pre-6 p.m. sports center.

They were on it two in the afternoon, two years prior to when they did the same. Oh, like numbers never lie. The show on ESPN, that era. So you're like, I will drive from Los Angeles to Bristol to be on ESPN too, because there's a space where someone can be performing on television. If I'm performing anywhere within five hours of Bristol, I'm adding a day and I'm driving and I'm going to be in that studio. Because you're a hustler and because you see opportunities,

like you know, you know this exposure. It's exposure. It's paying me nothing, but it's exposure. And then that got me access to Bermoney, which got me access to Sports Nation, which got me access to West Coast, ESPN. Pretty much anything in ESPN LA that shot I did in 2014. I came in. And then the next year, the six happened. And then 2015, I get the daily show. And part of it was on the strength of some of the segments that I had done on ESPN. Because the sports, sports and comedy is hard. It's, to me, it's harder than politics in comedy because at least the politicians,

they don't take themselves seriously. They know they're running a hustle and you call them out for it and they just grand and go, yeah, what you're going to do. But if you call out an athlete or own or a fan-based a city, they don't like that. It's funny, isn't it? They don't like that.

But just how ridiculous that perspective is. And all you do is catch a ball, but you can't take the criticism. Meanwhile, my man over here making these crooked laws is getting all types of poor people done dirty. He can perfect, he can take criticism just fine. And so, you know, ESPN is a network where you got to kind of, there's guard rails up within the jokes.

There's not a lot of comedians that come on that network, just in general. Let's just be real about that. So it's so strange to me. I don't even understand it. It's not strange. Comedians are like, you can't control us. We're professional dynamite jugglers.

And everybody wants to see dynamite juggling, but they don't want to shit to go boom on their show. So they would just rather not book him himself. I had never thought that I booked a couple of comedians and it was cumbersome to do and I've never given it a thought. Honest to God that there were guardrails there to make sure that you couldn't come on there and make such a noise that you got your credit. You got attention for you but somehow soiled the Disney brand.

Yeah, I mean, you can make jokes or two, but let's keep them within the lines, but it depends on the type of comedian you book. I mean, I generally don't do humor that crosses into that in general, but there are comics who do that. I think do a good job. I'd say the one who tells the line perfectly is Bill Burr You know, Bill like still does like they bring him in a booth for Red Sox games now and just let him just open Mike live TV And it's perfectly on the line, but that's also a testament to Burr's professionalism because he knows where the line is

He could cross it if you want it, but like in that time, I'm sorry I got on this tangent, but like in that time, that taught me a lot about just hustle in general and just busing your ass and just trying to always make sure that you have another opportunity. So I never have set pretty and went, oh, everything's great. It's, oh, I did that really well. Okay, what's next? But how does this go for you? Because I can't imagine what it is to be you right now and I don't know what they're doing as they look for a replacement hose. Trevor Noah does it very well. Almost an impossible spot, really. John Stewart did it so well to come after him Trevor Noah does it successfully the next slot for that seems perfectly

Set up for you. It's It's whoever comes in after Trevor will never have it as bad as Trevor It's the you know that you don't want to be the guy that replaces the guy. You don't be the guy that replaces the guy Never play you know Trevor also was far more unknown domestically. He was huge internationally, but he was far more far less known, less known domestically at the time. I don't envy what he had to do in replacing John Stewart.

I just think that when we talk about who the next host is, be it me, I know how some min Hodges names in the hat. There's a couple of the guest hosts that we've had, some of the ladies, their names are in the hat. So, regardless of who comes in, there's also a bigger question of what is late night after the strike. And with the changing economic symbol, blah, blah.

Like, that is a question that also has to be answered. To me, the bigger question is, what is the show gonna be? Because if somebody goes, oh, you should host this daily show. What I hear is, you should host the pre-trever version of the show, the pre-COVID, whatever of the show.

I don't think fiscally, most late night shows, any new iterations of late night shows, I don't think they're gonna look like that anymore because I just don't know if the networks are committed to putting that type of money into that type of product anymore. And that's a question you can't answer because of the strike. So I can't call you and go, hey, are you really gonna put some money in this shit? Okay, cool. Leave my name in the hat or take my name out of the hat. But in the meantime, I can't wait. Amen.

Give me 50 cities. 40 in enough. The act is just went on strike. The light is going on. Yeah. See if we can add Canada or some Australia. Yeah. Cool.

Click. People don't wait. People don't understand that the industry is trembling right now and you just had to book a 50-50 city tour because you've got to keep the economy of your brand alive as the industry shakes. And that's a blessing and that is a blessing that I have from 25 years of grinding to be able to go into markets and to certain things that know me and trust me and know that you know my fans will come out and see me. Every actor and writer doesn't have that. So it's my job to be out there and try and fight a little bit for what's right and make sure that I'm holding it online and not going and talking to the network behind everybody's back. Yeah, so can I host it? Let me. I would love to have a late night show. 1,000% I would love to have a late night show. I think my iteration of what I've done on Comedy Central,

at some point has to come to an end. I don't think just sitting as a correspondent and to perpetuity benefits me, you know, in the long run, you know, it's kind of that if we can go sports for a second. To me, it's that cordial Stewart slash era, but he didn't want to make him start in quarterback and it go, okay, you can be in the slot

every now and then. Before the revolution at the position, correct. Correct. Hey, you can quarterback third downs during blowouts and you can be in the slot when we've been shot, go on, or something would hide toward it, whatever.

But this is why I would have loved to have you on ESPN talking about this stuff because six time executive of the year Bill Poli and thought Lamar Jackson, the MVP wasn't a quarterback. Like I would have loved for you to be able to slice, slice that up, playing in sports instead of just visiting on occasion because it spurred your curiosities. I like that.

I've always loved sports, man. I'm not good at it. I'm not good at it. But you'd be good talking about it. If you spend 20 years carving up what you've carved up and entertainment and comedy, if you spent the last 20 years taking the path you were originally going to take of, let me see if I can figure out how to be Stuart Scott. And I'd given you a microphone to be on one of these debate shows that you could have made your own.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I could have done that. I think I still could. And that's the beauty of where I am now creatively is that you kind of get your Tom Hanks at the end of Castaway where you just, there's all all these different roads which one do you go down. And that's kind of what I've had fun during this downtime or just creatively trying to explore. It's like okay well if it's not hosting the daily show within what which host what that show looked like well maybe you should go

to Miami and sit on a beach for a couple days and relax and try to create that and go, let me tell you what, I should go over to the studio and say hello, which is essentially what's happening right now, you know. So I'm just not in a position and I don't think I'll ever be comfortable in a position of waiting on an industry to decide when I get my next opportunity. And I think this is the first time in my career where I felt that, that real uncertainty for the first time, and my rent's not $375 anymore. So we got to go out and do something. So the first thing you do is tour where you can, and then you start coming up with your ideas, you write your films, you can get movies, you can finaglip book deal and all of that stuff. But to me that stuff is all

hot and cold. I enjoy conversation. I enjoy the thing that I love most about live radio was talking to regular people. Just talking, just taking calls. I want to talk to you about your career and your dad's career, but what you're articulating now. Freeing, scary, both, which is it of more? Freeing, scary? It's scary and exciting because you don't know what the hell you're doing, but all you're doing is trusting your instincts and what have you done your entire career, but trust

your instincts. That's all I've ever done. and is trusting your instincts. And what have you done your entire career, but trust your instincts. That's all I've ever done. I can't tell you why I did XYZ, going to ESPN for a year and just working repeated shows for free felt like the right thing to do. I go and I do Jamil and Mike, I do his and hers. They're OG podcasts which rolled into the 2PM show. I do that.

I think I might have popped up on Beaumonti had a situation at some point before high noon and they were used Beaumonti and stuff. Then they would start using me as sports nation and sports nation is where I really settled in every three weeks. Just on there for one reason or another doing something talking about whatever current event was going on. And when you look at my job in that chair, it really wasn't any different from radio. Because in morning radio, as the comedian, as it was told to me by my radio sensei Samuel

Mack, the job of the comedian is to offer the viewpoint that no one else in the room possesses. The three people in the room possess the views of the listener. Your job is to be crazy town and come up with the most alternative, counter art, whatever it is, it can't be something that any three of us have already said or you think we would say. Until you have that thing to say, your job is to sit here and be quiet and answer the phone. And I was, so shut up until you have something funny to say.

And I was the job. And so that was the habit of how my community writing started. And then that fit perfectly into ESPN because Beetle, Marcellus Wiley and Max Kellerman, they were going to handle the structure, stats, nerd stuff. My job is to come in and say something silly. Roll grenades across the floor. That's it. That's your job.

And then you get to the daily show and lo and behold, what's your job now? Roll grenades. But you're a journalist in the middle of all of that. You are honoring your father's work through comedy by doing legitimate journalism on a show. I can't believe this happened on my watch and I was stunned to watch it. For John Stewart, so thoroughly, for that show to be so smart, that it's so

thoroughly took over news anchors so that John Stewart was the most trusted newsman in America by poll was because you guys were reaching people with creativity instead of the news like Fred Hickman would deliver it you guys were delivering to the people something that they were happy to be nourished because it was so smart and funny and it felt less like they were being lectured at. There's a pressure in that because then comes the expectation of we must do the thing that you think we should do.

That's the most righteous thing or cover the most righteous stories. And their stories that we don't always get to or we're not able to tackle with the same degree of depth as other shows. And I think that's because we have to be funny first. Like, you know, like, watch VICE news and then tell me how many of those stories are on us or Oliver or John Stewart over on Apple. Like, it's not going to be the same hit rate because we still have to be funny now. Oliver and Stuart Shales respectively go to different depths on particular problems than we do daily show.

We kind of have to hop scotch around. So certain stuff, if it's a super nuanced issue, it may not be the right story for Trevor to carry at the desk. It might have to go to a correspondent. And so that becomes a whole nother set of, you know, planning and production. But, you know, being on the show, it's definitely, it's far more journalistic

than anything I've ever done. I'm definitely like, when I first got there, I was like, oh, shit, I have to use my degree. I have to think about what the story is, what we're trying to say. And then also, what is the funny way? You know to go about talking about this thing because not everybody's gonna like it Not everybody's going to agree either and that's the thing that's when we talk about like

Divisciveness and blind loyalty and politics. I think you're going to deal with that the same way you do in sports And that's why I've always felt like sports and politics creatively kind of bill from the same, you know, bag of legos because it doesn't matter what you say, it doesn't matter how centricity is about a particular team of our own, or ship, somebody's going to call you out and say you're playing a favorite. It seems crazy to me that you're saying that, and I don't think you're wrong either. It's just not something that I'd ever considered. The idea that politicians or the political journalists would have it so much easier because they're all playing the same game and they understand it. Whereas sports journalists, the head coach doesn't interact with us the same way with

a wink when he is criticized. That sports would be more serious than politics seems crazy. When how often when a politician snaps back at a reporter, it is a huge story. I think Ron DeSantis said something slick back to someone this may have been a couple months ago, but he didn't like the question. So he was real snippy. And that was a story within the political news cycle for 36, 48 hours. Y'all get cussed at every day in the locker room. I don't like that question. Next question.

Well, the coach is all indignant about it. And then for the next four days, he won't call on you or your organization. It's crazy. It's funny. The next press conference, I'm not gonna talk to that news outlet. Because you said that our guy didn't have a good game shooting. He didn't, whereas the politician will go, yeah I didn't have

a good game but let me show you how that still benefits the American people. See, you don't understand. Well, you're missing shots, what you're doing is creating opportunities for other people to rebound the ball. That's politicians, it bounces off of them, but with fan bases, like you could tweet right now, something about picking issue. I'm not even a saying issue. You could tweet about a divisive political issue, and then your next tweet could be,

the cowboys will not make the playoffs. You tell me which tweet is gonna be more just visceral just anger even if one tweet gets more replies I think sports fans like there the ones to me that will actually show up to fight God bless him and I think part of that is also because sports brings you joy so when you're insulting a team, to a degree, you're insulting the fabric of someone's being. And I think they take that a little bit more personally than they do. You criticize and whatever politician represents their party. I have said for a while now that what sports do to people,

because you don't jump up and down screaming at many things Even if in your in the delivery room when you have your child There aren't many things that give you permission to do that with joy and it's it's been a weird It's been a weird World talk you pie at least in part because of what you're talking about some of those Regilities almost don't allow somehow for funny, which strikes me as so weird that that sports television wouldn't be funny here given what we're covering. Like it seems like such an easy place.

I've always been mystified by this, that this playground is taken so seriously that even if you're a little off-kilter, like we have been, you're viewed as sacrilegious because you're not treating off-kilter, like we have been, you're viewed as sacrilegious because you're not treating it seriously enough. Here you smile while doing any of this. You can't even smile while playing sports after time. They'll say that you're an asshole. I mean, when you look at the marriage of those two industries,

how often does that even happen? You had sport night on ABC back in the day, which was like an ESPN 30-rockish type show, but there's not a lot of comedy set within the world of something professional, not with a professional logo on it. And then when it's not a professional team, within your in Wackyland, because then the fans don't really, they won't accept that.

I thought Jay Moore had a shot originally at ESPN. I don't know when he was doing a comedy late night show in its original iteration. I don't know how long ago. Did that predate you too much to whoever? Yeah, that predate to me. I remember the program, but I wasn't an LA comic, so I didn't have a relationship with Jay at the time, but I just think it's a very difficult place to land a plane because you're going to good comedy is going to piss off somebody and there's nobody more sensitive than people within the orbit of sports. And they're going to complain to some exec who's not going to stamp beside you because ultimately

they could replace you with anything because it's cheap. So it's not worth the battle. Even cheaper now, right? Correct. It wasn't expensive before and and all of us were almost totally disposable, even if you could have replaced it. You could have, whatever sports nation was, yes, it might have been Michelle Beattle and Marcella Swiley. But if I put you on there with ESPN person to drawer, by virtue of it being on ESPN, it would be cheap

programming that would make money easy. Yeah. Same thing they did with the jump. Bye bye. Just because like they like, even if it's a hit, like when you look back and this wasn't a comedy, but I will go down, I will take it to the grave that playmakers. Oh, it was so good. Best television dramas ever written. So good, the NFL stomped it out.

Yeah. They said, you better get that show off the air. That's telling the truth about the pain. Drugs in pain and sex. We can't have that on ESPN. Yeah, you gotta get that off the TV. That's what it was shocking to see that on ESPN for whatever was four episodes or one season and the NFL said no more of that

Yeah, not only place you could have put a show like that was on like true TV or spike Wow I hadn't thought that might have been I cuz When I talk about ESPN and always people hear some sort of bitterness in it But I always wanted them as a content company because the space is so valuable I'm like if you put a little more money into some of these things, like they could be special different funny shows, creative playgrounds that are wild sprawling things. I wanted to, and in the last iteration of the ESPN,

I wanted to do a daily show for sports with Pablo Torrey and Mina Kimes and Bermani Jones. And it wouldn't have been that expensive by television standards, but if they can make it cheaper, and if they can pay everyone, you know, $100,000 a year, then, and if we're all actually interchangeable, right, because we are, it doesn't matter whether it's Kendrick Perkins

or Bermani Jones on ESPN. I mean, it might matter to you or me, but it's not gonna matter to what they're doing. Yeah. I think the biggest difference between, I just feel like sports and entertainment have always overlapped. And if you understand one, it helps you understand the other. I'd say the biggest difference though is that like in sports leagues, the owners want to pay their employees. You know, they may pinch you a little bit here and there.

Where's the difference in entertainment? If we're comparing the owners of sports teams to the heads of studios who run all of these companies that green light or cancel all of this stuff, they don't want to pay anything. They're constantly looking for a way to cut a corner and make things cheaper and pay everybody the lead and minimum wears. And professionally, you have super max deals and guys who barely see the court getting 80 million and 90 million for two years. So you'll never see that in entertainment here and there. There's, you know, so a couple, there's a couple of whales who get a real contract, you know, for the most part, this strike is, it's about the 85% of actors that don't even qualify for healthcare.

You understand? But the strike is also weird though, because I think it's not, I think that the public sentiment for the writers and actors has, it's grown. It needed time to grow because this strike isn't as instantly impactful to the average US citizen as is a teacher strike or a transit strike or sanitation. You know, neighborhood starts stanking and you got to walk to work as they know bus. Well, feel it in 18 months or 24 months when the content dries up. Correct, correct. Well, not even that long. I'd say maybe January.

But that's been... Oh, wow, that quickly. I think at some point, but it's as the voices start permeating. It just takes... This is one of those strikes where I feel like it takes time for the word to spray. I feel people to really understand, for people to really be educated on exactly what is happening because your perception and assumption of an actor is that they're all ballin because you saw a couple of emballin in a newspaper or an article so you assume that all actors live fat

like the top you know 5% of actors and that's the difference between like a teacher and a garbage strike like you know, ain't no teachers ball and there's no teacher would a Porsche if they are they still in they're still in from the school so you can't go well don't they all have porches? No, you know they don't all have porches you never see them on you so you know they're all struggling so I think that's the biggest difference but you know I just think that if industries, if sports were

to not take itself so seriously, it would take one quadrant to not take itself so seriously, be it the journalists who don't want to be criticized ever, be it the fans, be it the players, be it the owners. One of those four corners, if one of those four corners lets off alone because we can laugh about it. And it would be okay, but it's too much money involved. It's way too much money involved. Your father made you want to be doing this because you were seeing his activism

and radio love of journalism through the work he was doing or were you not moved into this path by any of that. I wasn't moved. I was more inspired by Stuart Scott and Fred Hickman than I was my father in the beginning because my dad's work was more he was a true radio news guy like he went out and was embedded in wars getting shot at with a tape recorder, Vietnam, Rhodesians, and Bob Lee now, South African riots, civil rights movement, name a riot in the 60s. My pops was there. So a man like that who then matriculates into working in Chicago at WVLN and starting, co-founding what we knew at the time as the National Black News Network in BN. In BN was

essentially a national syndicated news outlet that delivered news for black people to let black people know what's going on. Here's the news that's relevant to us and here's what this means for you, here's what this policy thing means for us, you know, just being the news window between black people and all of it black on right. Correct. And when you take in and I didn't learn this to a later at the daily show, but when you take in nothing, my bad news and your job every week is to go cover the

bad thing. Then you just, I didn't see them laugh a lot. I'll just put it that way. I didn't see my dad a lot. I'll just put it that way. I didn't see my dad laugh often. I enjoyed laughter. Laughter was an escape because we moved to Birmingham from Memphis when I was in the third grade. And I was never in the same school system for more than two years

until high school. So every two years, I'm having to meet new people and humor was the easiest, if I make this person laugh, he's not going to fuck with me. So let me figure out how to make people laugh. And it wouldn't even necessarily be the bully in the classroom. You identify the bully, but you identify who the bully's cool with. And then that's the person you go get cool with.

And then by proxy, maybe you get the bully off your back. So, you know, for me, humor was more of a defense mechanism than anything, but it just came naturally. I think I play sports, but I wrote the bench. So you're just, you're aligning your thoughts. You're just sitting on the bench about everything that's funnier. You're not playing, you're not any good.

But hold on, I want to go back for a second because your dad is Bringing joylessness to the work. That's what you're seeing and Understandably right because if you're talking about Jesus like not just covering the things with the tape recorder You're talking but also just coming through the the racist south to just the PTSD of existing South to just the PTSD of existing As a black man in that time, right? So it's like, okay, I can look at him and see that he's Not well Most of the time beaten down. Yeah fighting. I have to fight all the time because he has to survive the same way you do

Will be you're gonna do it funny to keep the bully away from you calculated strategic He didn't have those he didn't have the world buried him because he had it harder than you did So you the cup so you the cope with that with drugs or alcohol or in his case women like that was the escape like you have to have and now And you also had a jazz show jazz You do all this while Covered this that in the third, get mace to your gas. And it would just pop in John Coltrane. And that was like his happy place. So

like I observed that and you know, and lately, I just tended to gravitate to people with bigger energy than my father. Then as I got older, then you realize how much of your parents is just in you. And it's not even anything you can control on where the other, you just kind of wake up one day and you go, you know, I don't want to keep making jokes about the weatherman and check engine lights. What's up with this police reform? Like, figuring out, like, to go from that joke

to like, start tiptoeing into issues, but not even really trying to choose a side half the time, just going back to the old radio rules, find the alternate angle that no one else is, first do the research, find out everything that's been said about this issue from every possible Zigzag along reddit I read all the weird message boards that would Whatever the lobby is to the dark web. Let me know everything about everything and Then from that formulate what I think about this, but this is how, this is how a maximum hustler

in this industry, this is why I admire this because you had to find all the slivers over 20 years. People think you just get between people and are naturally funny. No. That you're just there, this is a funny man, a holy man reached into his crib and gave him funny when he was young and look at him.

He's on television between those two people choosing the perfect window to tell the joke that's going to work as the fifth voice because you've sculpted, I'm going to get in and out of here with a sentence or two and not waste your time. It's like you need it. But you've been that hustle to survive for 20 years of career bounces through small comedy clubs at the beginning, right? Like the hardest parts of this and maybe the most joyful were back then. Yeah. Because it's always more fun when it's early and that's when you're not plugged in to enjoy it and you should.

You should. Well, you don't have the years of wisdom to know that, at that, right? That comes with only time, oh, I should have enjoyed that more. But you don't, because you go to a room now, back in the day, there used to be rooms that were turned into a juke joint

after the show. And you could stay and just dance and talk and just meet and interact with people. There used to be rooms that were turned into a juke joint after the show. And you could stay and just dance and talk and just meet and interact with people. I met, you know, to work in the south on a weekly basis and make enough money to pay bills. I'm talking if you're trying to clear anywhere from 25 to 40K, which is kind of what I cleared eventually as a middle at before I moved up to a headliner. We're talking 0-1 through about 0-5. $100 is your show. $200 is your show.

Correct. Correct. Now they're not covering gas in between and if you have an off-night you got to figure that out. You can lose 50 at a hotel room or you can fly and jay it. Sometimes I would go do day labor and use the money do day labor and use the money from day labor to pay for the hotel room wherever I was in that town. So you know, just get to the city of day early, show up at 6 a.m. with some work boots on, do a shift, come home at 5. Go get a hotel room with my, and so I mean, there were, there were ways to make it to put it all together. But yeah, those were good times. And I met a lot

of people and a lot of great comics that I got to open for, I got to work with. And the thing that really is impactful about that now is that a lot of those people, they've either quit or they've died or they've made it. Just like Millwind, those are the three lanes for comedian. Some suicide, some bad health, but you know, depending on the comedian, you could almost akin quitting to dying.

If they didn't want to quit, you know, you, whatever life thing happened to you. But that's why it's the hardest thing. To me, that's why I'm saying I don't think people understand how hard you had it It's a community of what how many people right now who could pick up a phone and do a 50 50 city tour How small is that world? I'd say if we're going across all genres all races I'd say about 500 if that 500 comedians right now they could do 50 cities yeah or to make it to make a living at it not truck truck stop to truck stop to make the it's a very hard

way to make a living and there's no safe pain. Only pain bills off stand up alone no other income coming in I would say about 500 I could be off I know some comic might argue 1000, but I think at that point you're talking about openers. There's not 500 comedy clubs. There's some theater venues, but not everybody can play at theater. Well, is everybody can play a comedy club?

There's 50 states. You own the aggregate. Let's just say there's three comedy clubs per state. Some high, some low. So that's, you know, what, 150 clubs, 50, just three. So there are how many people in the world who can appreciate how just how hard it is to do this. Because if they're quitting or dying, they're not living to tell about it, right? Yeah. I'd say a thousand. I would say if we're counting open micers and MCs and feature acts and stuff, I would say it's probably

three thousand, four thousand comedians that hold the title at some point have been paid at least a dollar to do it. But of that four thousand I would say probably five hundred or so. Along the path and give it that the truck stops were the beginning and there was some joy in it because you were chasing something and it was better than jail. Has the industry beaten you down in a way that would in any way look like what your father was after 20 years of the industry beating him down that you start with this idea of I want to make a living being funny

And then everything that happens in the industry is so stupid unfair greedy silly that you just get beaten down by it And it sucks some of the joy out of the font well then and also gets to a place where Do you want to keep talking about those things? And I think that's part of what my dad did a jazz show. Like I get that now. That's what you have to do. Yeah, you just have to go into the scoring stretch. But that's what sports is for me. Like I enjoy that because I don't have to sit and yell about world issues. There's a stress in that and I saw that through Trevor Noah because Trevor, at least I had days off now and then it's a corresponding Trevor's in there every day here and all the bad stuff and then choosing the stuff that we can make

a show with. That takes a toll. So what was that, by the way, you mentioned that earlier and I wanted to ask you a follow and I didn't about this. You said how hard it was for him, not just following John Stewart, God almighty. But just okay, who are you and why are you talking about these things? Who are you and why are you talking about these? Who are you and why are you talking about our business? Where's our dad that we've loved all these years before you and then meanwhile behind the scenes

He's reading all of the most horrible shit on earth every single day and then deciding what stuff to put on TV and then getting criticized for that race and xenophobia not just not just race like every kind of other don't revisionist history trevinoa there was a lot of hate on him in that first year a lot of unfair hate and then it became love over time and repetition and just him working and just doing what he does and people eventually coming around but out the gate it's very hard and I don't think the next whole sort of daily show will necessarily have to deal with as much of that from the outside. But internally, it's still a very difficult mind-bending

job to just sit and take all of that in. And it is exhausting. And at some point, it gets you coming home with a thousand yards there like your like our fathers did. And I don't know if that's what I would want. Is there another show option perhaps? Can you can you pepper in some other shit in between the segments to like that's where my brain oh but I just think one of the reasons that I would advocate for you doing this show you tell me if I have any of this wrong because they're just observations from afar. But because you realize the platform that that is for you to be able to do that show in your voice, your way, by hiring just a handful of people who can put your imprint on it, I can see you doing that show with your experiences and your growth in a way that's super uncommon

for anybody with real confidence, with real confidence to be yourself on television because you know this playground. And you, that's why I think you'd crush it because you would imprint it and you'd, you've been working all your life for this moment. Thankful. And I'm appreciative of that perspective. I've done a lot of things that would say that I could do that thing well. Now, you have to convince an exec who does not want to take chances in a time where pretty much every studio wants to do the safe thing. They want to do remakes. They don't want to rock the

boat because if you do something truly different and it doesn't work, it's your ass if it convinced that person to do something different because what's wild is that everything that you're talking about with me that would be considered a Radical approach to television By some studios, but you would play with the form by ziggin when others are zagging by put you've been doing that all your life Yeah, you have been looking for the spots when you can if I gave you if I armed you with a team of writers right now and say do a political show that you with a team of writers right now and say do a political show that okay it has black in it but no that's not you're doing a show for everybody that has broad appeal you are

uniquely qualified to walk that tight broke. The shows in late night that we respect the most that have done the best were done by people who the execs did not get in the way of. So the question becomes, will people creatively obstruct me and keep me from doing the things that I wanna do that best fit me? Because let's not get it twisted. There's some shows out there

where people want to hire you to do what they think you should be doing. They don't want you to be you. I look at you and I think you can be a good version of what I need you to be. So let me just take a little bit of that creativity away. Let me knock away that little part of your person out there. Now you're perfect and now you're miserable. Ain't tell calling them what to do. They didn't tell our cine, or what to do. They tried to travel what to do and then travel told them

what the fuck we're gonna be doing. So, you know, that, that part of it, I can't control. And I'm not going to just accept something if it means that, like, when you drive a Ferrari, if somebody else was controlling it remotely. It's a Ferrari, and you gotta Ferrari, You had a Honda. But now you got a Ferrari. But you have no control of the way that it's turned left, where this train, they decide where you going. I'm a bad person to ask though, because I left the Ferrari because they took one bit of control away from me. And I just, you know, I just, yeah, I got, I wanted no interference. I didn't think I was doing anything

that was that blasphemous. We are at a time in entertainment, sports as well. We are at a time in entertainment where talent to some degree can dictate what they want and what they want to do. and the execs don't necessarily have all that power which brings them back to that original point about Pat McAfee and that it used to be a setup where hey I think you're talented come with me I'll help you find an audience on my network now it's more of a oh I see you have an audience would you like to come be on my network and that's not a knock on Pat you built your shit go go get your or of a, oh, I see you have an audience. Would you like to come be on my network?

And that's not a knock on Pat, you built your shit, go get your Brit. But I think that has a true, that is a true viable path to all of the other things that we thought we needed a degree to go and get. And so now we're at a time where you have execs across all of these networks. They're all going to have different financial mandates and who knows how much money the

writers and the actors are going to get when we settle, but when we do, it's going to change some financial models. So when those models change, your priorities and your creative goals are going to change. And what are those creative objectives from the networks versus the creative objectives from talent and people like me and going, no, that's not what I want to do. This is what I want to do. And either you rid it or you not, or you go over here and you fucking build your own

shit. You pull a lebataart, build a studio, put some neon up. I don't know if I can afford it. Just neon, yes, you're the idiot. We spent a lot of money on the neon and we blew the entire fuck on the neon. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool.

I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool.

I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool.

I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. I don't know if I'm a fool. foreigners, a harsher out the gate. That's just what we do. Who are you to come here and to? Okay, I'd like you. And that whole sentence took about five, six years. We didn't get an Emmy norm for five years as a show. I think when we won, it was for a digital, like the actual show itself didn't get a nomination for a while. You know, it's just people looking and seeing and trying to decide what he was doing. I don't want a show that puts me in that place. I love, I love Trevor Noah, but you don't quit live on the air because shit's going good. You know, you step down because you realize you're ready for a change. Well, then there had to be things that incentivize

that type of change. So, doing a job that meaningful, there is going to be stress. There has to be. It's a show every day. That's not easy to do. But what I'm trying to be cognizant of as I grow is figuring out just how much of myself I want to lose

in all of that. Because I don't want to be the guy that's just yelling about government every night. There's other things to yell about. It's interesting because what I hear, you correct me if I have this wrong, because you're in the running for a job that would have safety in it, that would allow you to raise a child without being in 50 cities over the course of a year away from a child that would offer security. And it sounds like what you're saying is it is possible that they give me all of these things

that would be the dream scenario. And I get there from one day to the other. And as soon as I land, I'm unhappy because I realize that the people I'm working for are not going to allow me to do this the way that I want to do it. Or worse still, I'm going to get a little bit of turbulence and they're not going to support me. I'm going to get inevitable turbulence when I start.

And they're not going to support me and it fizzles in six months because as a black man, I have this much margin for error. I agree with all of that. But the option also is to remain. So just go and do your own thing. And everything you're saying could also still happen. People go, oh yeah, we like it, we'll do whatever you want.

And you show up, isn't it? Just slight relationships. Yeah, I don't have a problem with you staying out late. Hey, why are you always out late? Like that could be, it could be either way. I just think that going into it thinking that, and this is for anybody that's trying to do late night, going into it, thinking that whatever you're going to get will mirror what was before COVID, you are

mistaken. The creative taste of people are different. The physical access is different. They're replacing James Corden with a game show. And it's not because at midnight is an entertaining, but it's also because at midnight is cheaper to produce than the late late show. That's what they think about. Late night. Tradition don't mean shit.

Money means everything to those entities, to those stockholders, to those people. It doesn't mean that they're wrong though that it has changed so much. Late night has changed so much that they can throw a game show on there and people are just catching clips in the morning anyway. You're making, for the most part you're making tomorrow's internet today. So how do you make this more relevant in the now? There's not a lot of live TV events that I think people clamor for, that are non-sports. Like, I would say the White House Correspondent's dinner still, that's still a relevant live thing.

I wanted to ask you about doing that because I feel like if you can do that, you can do just about anything. Yeah, but the correspondence, I don't know, nobody was in my way. And I had my team of writers who understood me. So I think that's, you know, I think that's a degree of what you need. But I think, I think networks and I think talent are both trying to predict what late night will truly look like on the other side of the strike. And then that's when the good ideas are going to flow. I don't think the daily show is going to go

anywhere regardless of whether or not I'm the host, but it is going to creatively evolve. It has to or it will die the same as any other show they can evolve. It has to physically evolve, like that's just. but this is what you're looking at, right? This is what you're looking like. And the end of the tunnel coming around me over. I'm not looking and going, Oh, I might get the host is going. If I don't figure out how to fix that show and do I need to come up with an idea that is me that is affordable that I can do every day that doesn't stress me the fuck out. That's also funny and poignant and fresh enough

that people would want to watch it on the day, not tomorrow on the internet. All of what you can do with 15 writers. 10? 10. I don't think, well, I don't know. Depending on the, depending on the guild, there's gonna be minimums that you have to carry for late night. I know right now at the early show, we carry a pretty good.

We got a deep bench, but we have to because we had a bunch of... You would be inspired, would you not? I know I can get your eyes to twinkle if I tell you, ten riders go do your own show, do it the way that you want to. Yeah, if the guild said 12, I'd rather have 12. I think the guild is going to say 12. I think that I don't know all the, but you don't need 12, but you don't need 12. I don't need 12. I don't need 12. I might be able to do it with eight. If I say eight, then everyone's going to do it with eight. And then you fuck the whole. But this is how you have,

but this is how you have to think right now. Man? Look, 20 years, you've figured out how to hustle your way to money through evolution in this business. It has changed for all 20 years, and now it changes again in a way that's even more dramatic, more seismic, and you're now living a bigger lifestyle with a child that has different responsibilities. Correct, but then there's ways you can play within those margins, right?

We're not gonna get all David Sampson, how to finagle the salary cap type shit. But I could carry 12 riders. And if that's more money, then you could shoot two episodes on one day and save a production day. Like that's one way to get like that's what a lot of daytime, like daytime talk, but they do that because there's shit's evergreen. So if I gave you I feel like if I gave you just the skeleton to create a budget for this show, you can come in. Why do you create even that?

You create even that. I'm just saying that you, I believe, I believe that I would have to give you much to make a good 50 minute show. What if you did it like Leno in the 90s and just had strangers just fact you and if you use the joke give them a hundred bucks. Those are true things by the way. Well, but you're nice. You had writers, but they also just had random comedies across the country. You would fact essentially tweet back in 92. Right. The reason the reason that I wanted to talk to you about some of this stuff is because you appreciate

the industry enough and the history to know that Jay Leno was hiding in a closet when some of these decisions were being made by executives, whether it be him or Letterman to replace Carson. You come in as a new age of comedian on the funniest daily show that there is, that replaces Carson in some ways in America. And it makes a network matter because what you guys were doing, people were hunting it down. I think it has to be as fresh as possible.

I think the biggest hurdle in my opinion for late night as a whole is that it records to early in the evening. I think that's one of the biggest problems. Is that you're recording a show at 5 p.m. to go on at 11. And that's not just daily show. Seth, Jimmy, everybody records early. And Jimmy Fallon, I can't ... I don't know what time, Kimmel. I've never done chemo. But I think that making something closer to airtime, if it's more expensive to go live, than don't go live, live.

But there has to be some degree of freshness to the content. The conversation needs to be as prevalent and fresh as possible. Well, it has to evolve to the modern age and the way it hasn't. Correct. What you're talking about is if you're taping something at 5 p.m. it can be dated now by 11 p.m. in a way that it couldn't be 20 years. Can't live like that anymore.

That's the first, that's the one change. Any program that I do that's late night, it has to be live or damn their live. The only thing that's closest to damn their live is the breakfast club with Charlemagne and envy. When the mornings they come on BT at 9 a.m. and what you're watching at 9 a.m. is stuff that was said at 7 a.m. So less than two hours, like the content's not even two, three hours old. And

it's already on air. That's being on top of the conversation. That's being ahead of the curve. And I think that's where late night eventually is going to have to start going to the other issue in my opinion if we really want to fucking pop the hood and fucking do a diagnostic is also think that the places where young people get their news doesn't always mirror the way in which news is parodied. Does that make sense? Yes. So when you look at regular TikTokers rocking down the street that are spitting real knowledge, and then you look at a lot of different podcasts now that have viewership that's higher than some local newscast in certain markets, those vehicles, the visual

medium of that matters. Flip that shit. Parity that. And the thing that's weird is that I don't imagine the tiktokers and the podcasters would be as offended as the local media would be for being parity because they come from a different comedic sensibility. So I think that plays more. Like when I look at the type of show I would want to do, I know the win and I know the creative visuals

that I would kind of, you know, sprinkle in there. But you wouldn't be given the freedom, right? The only way you can have the freedom is to do it all yourself probably so Unless someone came in with a disgusting amount of money or disgusting amount of true trust But if you put five of your comedian friends together in a room you would dominate the sports podcast market If just you and a couple of your comedian friends, you and Neil Brennan decided to ... Neil's a good friend.

I'm just saying, like if I put, you guys are a lot funnier about sports than the people I talk to every day. We literally, we text them every day about sports, ironically. And how stupid it all is because you've sort of outgrown it both of you have you've learned some things in adulthood that makes sports this funny little thing that exists over there that you that comedians would have a good time parodying in a way that would get audience very quickly because they're so little weirdly they're so little funny in this medium I don't even get why they're so little funny

Do you think the do you think sports journalism has benefited more or less from the flood of podcasts, from athletes? I like it. I think that some are better than others in terms of the journalistic structure and the conversations they're trying to have. But I'm in, I've kind of enjoyed seeing active athletes

and it's predominantly basketball. It's not really a lot of baseball. Think football head, I am athlete, but I think they broke up. I love how competitive all of this stuff has become and the meritocracy and athletes flooding to it with understanding. Many of them will get weeded out. It'll be survival of the fittest just like it is in sports if they're not actually working at it. If

they think they can just get on a microphone and talk because they're famous and that people will keep showing up. If people know when it's mediocre, even if they can't identify why, they know when they're getting spoiled. Travis Kelsey said podcasting is the hardest job in the world. And I'm looking at what he's doing. I'm like, what's the matter with you? What kind of, but the idea of having to be excellent at it, not enough of them care that way, but all of them is seen what's happened with macaphy.

If the punter can do it. If the punter, but what he has done is he's created a community around nine dudes he's frallicking with and he's appealing to middle America. And he's not, he's not doing any of the stuff that's going to bother Disney because it's going to get headlines in the political race realms. Yeah, but I think that I think a lot of the athletes though, they tend to be

more open with one another. And I wonder if that's because they have a familiarity with the personal cross the table or if traditional sports journalists aren't always as chill because they are all default into button down mode, which makes the athlete button up, which makes him not tell you the good stories. Edger and James are remember being in a mockery with him and he's in his Bentley and he wasn't telling his story to anybody. He's like watching Scarface on the television of his Bentley.

What year is this? Is this straight out the U? Yeah, it's, it's, no, he's had a couple of good years with the cult. So he's a star, but he hasn't told anybody his story. We ended up putting him on the magazine, in the magazine covered like in a way that's scared America with like just gold teeth and dreadlocks and everything else. And he was giving his first interview where he was talking about things like Yeah, I'd ignore my coach if he said to Neil here in this situation if I've got incentives in my contract that pay me for touchdowns and so I ignore paid manning and everybody and

And because I there don't put it in my contract if you don't want me to ignore the coach and go get the money that's in the end zone But he took me to tell his story because he trusted no one and I would do well enough to get close to wherever he was while not being able to get close there at all Not at all right I he was selecting me as the journalist to tell the story because he's looking around and didn't feel like there was anybody who looked like him Who would end up yeah telling the story and there's all sorts story because he's looking around and didn't feel like there was anybody who looked like him who would end up telling this story. And there's all sorts of muddle between, the athlete doesn't trust us. I don't blame him,

that athlete generally doesn't have very much in common with us. And of course, if I put you in a room with comedians, you're gonna probably enjoy the conversation with all of the connection points about comedy. Then if I just put you in there with any kind of journalist asking question. Yeah, so then how do news outlets compete with that? Then how do you compete with an athlete

giving more to a podcaster than to your own reporter? Because some of that stuff is, as the conversations on somebody's podcasts are as good. Like some of the JJ Reddicks, that JJ gets out of my focus, it's as good as stuff that would be on a Sunday morning. He's working at it though. It's not just that J.J. is sitting down with somebody

and they respect J.J. because athlete X is looking at J.J. and saying, you couldn't have shot 40% from three unless you really cared deeply about the way that I care about this sport. You are excellent at what you do, the respect is built in and then JJ treats it as like how do I get content out of this person by just having a barometer for what's interesting. Are there any athletes that you found that like criticism? Because I know they don't like it and

probably that's part of why they probably go talk to their buddy who they used to run with in G-league. I wouldn't say like criticism necessarily, but I do know that Barclay is one who just is immune to it, has developed the skin. It wouldn't take the interview off track, like when you have the one or two criticism questions you have to eventually get to. With Barclay? No, with any athlete. Like, would

any athlete wear, if you criticize them, if you brought up a fair criticism within the interview, then you would see their energy shift and then the interview is basically done, or it's, or it's not the same. Are you asking if there can be an intimacy in an interview where an athlete is actually welcoming a criticism he or she hadn't considered because it is constructive and would therefore be helpful. Correct. Does it strike you that that's the dynamic in sports interviews? Let's see, I could do that with a politician. A politician wouldn't care. Not the real ones, not the ones that like a career politician's there, they are ready.

They're prepared. Well, but you've seen that you've seen this machine so deeply from the inside, how silly a game it is, even you have to be surprised by what's happened over the last six years in this kind of way. You know, you want to talk about the correspondence, Dena, you know, it was really wild. It was going to the after parties and just seeing all the people that be yelling at each other on TV, just drinking and kicking it.

And I'm like, what the What is he drinking with him? You're talking it. One child just on the... Oh, oh, y'all, all friends, because you used to work together on the thing five years ago when that network wasn't as divisive. Now you have to choose aside and you have to feed your kids And it's just the equivalent and then booking their 40 cities That's not happening with dream on and George No, I don't think so it's that over though. It's that brazen. It's that brazen a grift that they're all professional wrestlers just stealing from us Yeah, but nobody would believe it if you told them. And then also the general public,

the lie is more comforting. So I don't want to accept the truth, because then that means I have to unpack everything I've ever believed and then reprocess that it's too much work. So you haven't been surprised by the last six years? Not particularly, but then I also had a father that took me around to every Democratic primary.

Like, I remember I can take it back to 84 and my pops had me backstage with Jesse Jackson. When he was like, debate Michael Ducakis, like just, I've seen it all, I've met these people and you know, some of the politicians, Democrats as well. Not always good people off camera off stage. You know some of those people over the years, you know, you have to remember my father, he covered a lot of politics and a lot of silver rights

leaders and a lot of people who were relevant to the black cause. those people came through Birmingham, they came to the crib. So I hadn't seen them in the middle school, but I can reconstitute it now as an adult and understand what the vibes were. You know, like not everybody was, I'm not gonna say we weren't noble, but I think that there is definitely, well, what can I get out of it first, ism, within most politicians. You didn't realize how dumb that was the while backstage on Jesse Jackson and DuCoccus, right?

No, too young, I'm learning I'm a bill on Capitol Hill and everything's great and we elect the president against the most votes and then you get to college, electoral college,ling chats, but like we were I was in the group that marched when jet bush wouldn't certify the Al Gore blah blah blah in 2000. You get older and you go wait a minute this feels like a hustle. Oh you're redrawn districts are you a gerrymandering? Didn't learn that in 84. It was just vote. And then most people vote me in the win. And it's like, okay, even when you're in office, you're still a lot of people running hustles.

I spent time in black barbershops where you hear grown man conversations as a middle school, as a high schooler. So I understood how city politics worked in Birmingham. And once I understood local civics, I just kind of took that and just applied those assumptions to state and national politics for the most part. And for the most part, I've been right. You know, it's not really, you know, like there was, there was a, there was a then mayor of a Birmingham sober. Eventually became a mayor of Birmingham, German name Larry Langford. And Larry Langford at the time was trying to build an amusement park in Birmingham

proper to cut off traffic from missing. People from Mississippi were coming through Birmingham to go to Atlanta to go to six likes So length for this idea was let's build our own little thing here and Maybe we can siphon some of that traffic boosted tourism blah blah blah But Birmingham has like I don't know. I'm just spit. Oh, let's just say this 10 suburbs Each suburb has his own mayor But they're all part of the county commission within Jefferson County. So Birmingham proper is not liked by the other outlying suburbs.

If it's good for Birmingham, the other suburb, and Larry Lampor came in that barbershop every day for about two years and just gave the play by play of where he was on trying to get the other suburbs to play ball. And eventually he got the deal done and Vision Vision Land was Bill's Alabama adventure now. It's still there, wonderful park, go there. All wooden road, a coaster, beautiful wave. But just as a high school student listening to this man, talk about just trying to get all of the suburbs to agree to put in a little money to build a fucking park to bring in money

So we can split the money amongst all of the municipalities and we all grow Complete another bullshit the type of stuff. He like just cutting deals and having to meet and go and talk to it You know, it was it it was, like, that was like, my first lesson in local politics, from a dirty level, where, oh, okay, for this guy to approve it, you've got to go do these two things, and this guy, he'll, like, stupid shit,

like, I need Alabama tickets, I want to meet Gene Staling to the mix. I know, yeah. I give you a couple of tickets to an eight and four Gene Staling team. Literally. Literally. But I mean, I can't imagine what it was like for you or where you're imprinting from Birmingham resides. It's a great city. It's a great city and I think that Alabama is a state. There's always going to be some pockets of BS and a lot of different cities, but I think we assume one spot to be like everywhere else or be like, you know, we've had great mayors over the time that will try to do the right thing,

and then they get struck down by Montgomery, you know, they tried to pass, they passed, increasing minimum wage to $15, and then the state struck it down and said, state, why minimum wage is $10? Like they just, for no reason, just, you know, what they could, yeah. What y'all up there doing?

Y'all trying to be good? No, shut that down. What y'all doing up there? Y'all trying to take down a confederate monument? Alright, $30,000 fine. Just a little stuff, just a poke at you, but it's a resilient place, man. I think people come together. That's why like even when you look at like, when you look at the Carly Russell situation, back home, with the young woman who faked her own kidnapping for God knows whatever reason

and I'm sure clearly some mental stress or whatever the hell. She came out and said she lied, okay fine, but if you look back at those first two days of when it happened that whole community came together and looked for her and I would pray that anybody is blessed enough to be from a city or place as communal as Jefferson County Alabama where everybody came out black, white, whatever to literally just walk the way forest for a stranger. Alabama is also that. You make sure you say that when you start talking about auto policies and you start talking

about all the laws and stuff that really we don't have that much control over because the way the districts are drawn. So, you know, when you talk about the goodness of a place or whether or not a place is meaningful, well, we don't treat anybody from our community as if they're disposable, even if they might be lying. community is if they're disposable, even if they might be lying. And there's an ability to that. And I think that's something about Alabama that I think a lot of people get wrong because those are the stories that people don't see, those are the stories that don't get thrown up on the television, you know, it's quickly. But how are you imprinted by it? Because it sounds like some fierce Birmingham pride is coming through there.

As if America misrepresents what a community is because it can be good at its core and then be corrupted by everything around it. Yeah. I think that you know Birmingham has given me a lot of pride and my blackness is giving me a lot of pride in fighting for equality and what's right. For me what I've always tried to do with my comedy though, you know, I'm not dick-grigory. I'm not Paul Moon. I'll never be, I'll never be in that, in that orbit. But if I can make you think just a little differently about something that you thought you knew, for me, that's enough. I don't know if I have the power to change your mind about it. I don't have the power to yell at you about it.

I don't have the power to make you feel guilty about it and still make you laugh. And that was the brilliance to me of Paul Mooney and Dick Gregory was that they could get into something far more emotionally visceral and then yo-yo that shit two sentences later and to a punch line. I don't know anything about Mooney other than these two things I'm about to tell you, which are that other comedians admire his style of comedy and also that he was very hard to get along with.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I never worked with him outside the comedy clubs. He was fine, but I have heard professional stories, you know, studio execs or the writer couldn't get this then, and the third, I couldn't speak to that, but you know, he was always kind and treated me with respect. It is possible that he got beat down so much by doing, by the industry, that an unhappiness was brought there. I'm telling you, I heard the same, I have heard the same stories about him. I don't have a personal story in that regard, but yeah, you definitely look up one day and you're stressed about all of this, but you know, I've never been, I've never been negative enough since you know my dad

I remember one time in the seventh grade, I was in a dunking booth for our soccer team and it raised money for uniforms. My pops found out and he came and he cussed me out in front of everybody. It was like the just I got straight undressed by my pops in front of everybody about you don't make a fool of yourself because it was a fairly mixed situation. There were some white people over throwing balls and there were black people online too, but you turn that corner, you saw that white person trying to duck a black kid and was like And he just you just said you know It might be it might be a joke to you, but I ain't a joke to them and I never understood that till I joke to them. And I never understood that till like probably a decade and a half later, but he just he was not, you can raise money, but you're not gonna raise money like that.

He just not gonna let people do you like that. You gotta have some self respect. If you're going joke, you gotta have self respect. To this day, I don't know if my boss would approve of my career until like age 33. Like when I started talking about like real shit, stop doing jokes about gas prices and student loans, which I'm sure he didn't care about. But I think that Birmingham is just a place that Alabama is a place where if you're not from there, I can't trust you to help it. I don't know if you're going to, so let me go and see what I can do. So I try to do, you know, I do stuff with various charities down there, too many to name. Meta gave me a bunch of hits. That's the Oculus things. We got with Meta and I went reality to baseball, VR, batting

practice, and they put the software on them, shits for free, and went and gave them back to my high school. So y'all can learn how to donate to to high school. So you all can learn how to donate to the school resource center so the other students can just whip 3.0. If I don't do it, I don't know who's going to do that. In a perfect world, I would love to do more of that for all of the other schools in the city as well. But it just takes time. It just bit, you know, it's definitely a place that's special to me and that I don't even think that my final chapters are written. Now, I don't think I'm going to be in New York the rest of my life. Now, I don't want to move.

I don't want to talk about it with a longing and a love that I'm guessing you don't talk about any other city with because it sounds like the roots beyond you of your family structure and what they cared about that everything that you loved comes from there and that you had to get out of there in order for your career to blossom. But it doesn't sound from the way that you defend it. Like it's a place that you ever wanted to leave if you could do all the things that you wanted to do anyway. Yeah, if I could have done it for me, I would have, but the hardest thing is to realize you can't

and then go do it somewhere else, then come back and give the recipe to all the others. I feel like I'd be that when and found the pollen and I, every now and then I go back to Birmingham and I do a goofy dance so you can know where the opportunities are. I remember being CAAs. You mentioned sort of the economy of what Hollywood is and how it's run by a bunch of middle managers that will squeeze all the juice out of the industry. I had offers in Los Angeles and New York to do stuff and was told it can't happen in Miami.

It's not a thing that can be in Miami because you need to be in one of these other places. And so I was CAA's worst client for 10 years because I refused to do it anywhere other than Miami because I wanted to be tied to exactly what you're talking about. There's no other city that I talk about that way where I love it because I see things that you don't. And I know it's a bejeweled dumpster, but I know where the jewels are. And I know because I've lived here for 40 years and I really do love the place. I had that same conversation with Comedy Central 2018. I had a sitcom pilot, Jefferson County probation, where I played a probation officer. It was based on a probation officer I had who was like super dope and helpful and just literally was one of the most important characters in my life

at the time and helping me grow. So what would the criminal justice system look like if recidivism had people that actually cared about you not coming back to prison? So I went to comedy essentially. I said I want to shoot this show in Alabama. I think the South Each southern city is uniquely different and that it can play a character like the way New Orleans as a city is a character within the show There was there was a there was a sitcom on Fox dig for it. It was Anthony Anderson, and I think Cole Halzer, and they both played, it was a buddy cop comedy,

set in New Orleans, Fox, early arts, K-town, K-Vill, my memory's fucking in me. The way they used the specificity of New Orleans as a character in that show is beautiful. The way hustle and flow uses Memphis as a character, the way P-Valley uses Mississippi, I wanted to do the same thing for Alabama, and I went to Comedy Central, I talked to them about it, and they're like, well, Atlanta's cheaper, we can cheat Alabama, go, yeah, you can, but you can't cheap Alabama. And there was about $200,000 differential in production costs, which is a lot. That is a lot of money to not shoot.

Atlanta was 200 K cheaper. So I go to Birmingham and I spend about six, seven months in Birmingham just talking to all the people I need to talk to, basically pulling a Larry Langford amusement park move. How can we get the county on board? the people I need to talk to, basically pulling a Larry Langford amusement park move. How can we get the county on board? And let me go talk to this guy. What is this guy? And it's just literally all of them.

You were Larry Langford, kind of Larry Langford. What a plot, what a plot twist right there. You're making deals between the suburbs to see if you can get $200,000 reduced to get something to be more authentic and less corporate. Hey, County Commissioner, I need you to make sure that we get this tax incentive for this thing that's going to be good for the County. We're going to use, we're going to run equipment from this spot and then you go with the

this spot, okay, we're going to use a caterer from this spot. We're going to help the local economy. And we did. We had 90 people on staff, 63 were Alabama residents, 13 in cast, 10 were either Alabama residents or ties to the cast, like legitimately put money back into the city, and you know, the mayor of Birmingham ran to Wuffin, he was in school, Don Loupot,

like so many people came together for something that was inherently to shine a positive light on the state of Alabama. We ended up doing it for cheaper than we would have done in Atlanta, we beat the 200K. Show didn't go because of COVID and the Viacom merger. Hersh, it happens. But. Like dude, I was down in Montgomery, we had created.

How long did that take you? That seems like such a cool project. About a year. And it just all gets wasted, right? That's happening so much in the industry right now. It took me about a year to figure out. And I'm going to Birmingham one to month. Just been in a library somewhere. Like you've got something that's good and it just got bought because why? Like what? Or it just got we merged. We rewrote. We we didn't like the pilot. So we want to rewrite it. Oh the person who's in charge of your project got fired during the merger

We'll find a new person. Oh COVID hit end of COVID. Oh, we're not doing scripted stuff We're getting rid of everything on comedy central except for South Park and in in a daily show But hey, that was a good project good job. Let us know we have your next idea Was it and it's dead that's the good project. Good job. Let us know we have your next idea. That's it. And it's dead. That's the game, bro. So breaking, dude, like, I mean, that's the game, bro, like, you poured your heart into something you had that I should have poured my heart into this, that should have been the

second project. Maybe my mistake is trusting on the first project. But I also didn't pay enough attention to the way, to which way the wins were blown in the industry, but that show was never going to get more than two or three seed. The shows that got greenlit over us died after two or three seasons, and they got even up in the grinder as well. So you know, I don't know, maybe I could buy the show back from the network. That's the crazy thing about, that's the crazy thing about the entertainment industry

is that you have to like, if they give me money for an idea, they own the idea. In perpetuity. In perpetuity. If I move to Pluto, I cannot do a show about a probation officer, even if it's set on Pluto, because they own the idea of Roy as a probation officer. It's not just that they killed the project. It's that your heart and soul is now tied up in a vault somewhere because they paid the idea of Roy as a probation officer. It's not just that they killed the project. It's that your heart and soul is now tied up

in a vault somewhere because they paid you for it. So you can't go back and even do the show with somebody else if you want to put in all this sweat again. Unless they were fully reimbursed, dollar for dollar for every single thing that they spent money on to make that original project. Including the rewrites for the second run of the pilot. They will want every dollar back and even steal.

They may not give it back. When the time comes and I got the money, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna step to them about it because it's a bit of a problem. Well, when's that time gonna come though? Because we were talking just before, I don't want to betray a confidence here, but you say we can go anywhere.

Yeah. Just before we turned on the microphones, you were talking about I'm gonna say mumbling something spiritually Cosmically related where you were saying I really have to consider the signs about doing this all on my I think that The more I look at the industry. I think that the next project I do will probably be something that I conjure out of my own head. I don't know what they're going to do with the Daily Show. I don't know what other networks are looking to do with their show. Like at midnight doesn't have a host yet, so you know, my name could be in half a day. You know, I don't know.

But the more I look at this time, where there is like industry stillness, your brain goes back to truck stop mode, where you're just sitting. And that's when you start firing off all the good ideas. And I'm going, oh, well, let's do that. No, no, I just do that. You start doing the math on it. Oh, the time. Oh, so you with the time to think for a moment because you don't have to hustle to the next paycheck, you can do it the same way that you did it in college. When you said, it pays $27,000 if I go into comedy

and it pays $19,000 if I do sports writing, it seems I should do comedy. Correct. So if I have an idea that can reach as many people and I have more creative control then that might be the better play than going in, playing in somebody else's sandbox. Not all have anything to put against that yet because those offers haven't come in because of the strike.

But I'm also not going to wait till the end of the strike and then start ideating what the alternative is, the alternative may become the permanent. And I'm not afraid of that because what I keep meeting over the last couple of months is people that are now in their permanent alternatives. This is your beautiful, this was not the brain child when you first started the journey. And now I don't imagine you would have couldn't imagine me anywhere else but doing this. Well, it's interesting. It's interesting what you were saying

spoke to me just because I'd love to say that I had some sort of great foresight about where the industry was going and therefore I had to jump and do my own thing. But I felt pushed and that's sometimes when you make choices as well. Where I couldn't abide sort of

a fundamental disrespect of not having control over my own employees or lifelong friends or people that I care about. And so it wasn't, I don't think that I think I would have stayed in safety. I would have not been able to make the growth to freedom that was required because it is, I just had this argument the other day with Stephen A Smith where he didn't like the appraisal that somehow the people who leave ESPN view themselves as more courageous than he is by staying. And I'm like, but it is more courageous.

Like leaving is the hardest thing, whether you're pushed or not, it's much easier to say in the safety net, the protective governance is and the rigidities of the corporate, you could very easily take the daily show. Have it offered to you and stay there for the next 10 years of safety. And they can have control over you and you would feel like you'd sold your soul. You would feel that way. Yeah, it's a degree, but then what you hope is that you're given an iteration of the show that is Consistent with what they gave John consistent with what Trevor created for himself Were you're given space to be and exist on your creative terms?

There's gonna be some trade-off and all that shit It'll never be as perfect as you roll and solo, but you roll and solo may never be as profitable As you conceding some stuff be as perfect as you roll in solo, but you roll in solo may never be as profitable as you conceding some stuff. But what is it you're conceding? And I think that's the question that nobody can answer you because it's got to demonstrate. So you can't wait on that either. So it's almost being pushed by proxy in a way.

I had an opportunity to sit with Tom joiner, the radio syndicated Black radio legend. Legend. As identifiable in the industry as anyone in the history of the history. As whatever you think Howard Stern was for radio in his time during terrestrial, Tom Joyner was that for Black audiences. And I found opportunities, you know,

spend a little bit of time with him. And that's actually why I'm leaving in town now. Like I get to sit with him a little bit. I'm trying to fit. There is a, there is an oral history of his show that needs to be told, and I'm going to tell it. Like that, that has nothing to do with my own career goals or whatever, but, um,

oh, but it does, though, does it not? Like, just that you'd be, you'd be able to tell the story of industry handed down in your family. Like the thing that your, that you and your father cared about is Tom join or perfected it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Created the concept of so many things that you see now and or like the idea of a scripted audio podcast, or it's not a fictional story, whatever time join I was doing, I shit in 1993. On radio everyone, writing and rehearsing. So I end up at the Rangers, I got to give a quick shout out to the Texas Rangers. They hosted us for HBCU Black College Day at their ballpark and they donated $5 of every ticket to the Tom's

joint or foundation and we ended up there. I got to shout out to Isaiah Yates and Brother Cossus. I can't remember your first name, which I think is Roberto, but I don't want to be gussing on the body's name. That's right. I just didn't realize we were in the shoutout portion of the program.

No, not even, I'm not trying to, I'm just, this is all connected to Tom. I understand, I understand that these are people doing a good thing, and I understand you're trying to credit them. And so we're at this game, it ray causes. So we're at this game, you weren't gonna stop until you got ray shots. I had to remember, because this is the first ever. That was the other thing.

It was really dope that they extended their ballpark to black college grads and let us kick it and whatever. And so Tom is there. So Tom's foundation has raised like millions of dollars to send black kids to college and we're talking like 40, 50,000 children over the years. Like unreal amounts of money. And his syndicated show was so canon and black homes for so long, and we got to talking about it. And he talked about how he was scared to do it at first. Like, didn't even want to do it.

Didn't know quite what to do. Then over the course of the years, you're the number one show, you have all of these accolades and you're whipping ass. And it was still people trying to tell them what to do. It was still a trade-off and you know the trade-off worked for him. But then I think about how little I think corporate respects talent now. I think corporate, you know, in an unscripted capacity, I think we're past the legends. I think they look at everybody. It's just replaceable. What a cool story for you to tell it's because you don't want the

history of what the tapestry of what that program was daily for a long time in an industry that now has fallen apart, right? Because radio is not long. From Chicago to Dallas every day to do two different shows. For four years, I think, then birthed that into a syndicated show. The entertain millions and raised even more for whatever disease you want to name, he didn't raise money for whatever college you want to name, he didn't grow the six digit check. Any black college you can name it. I'll got money from Tom join us. You don't want it lost to history. No. And so, but then imagine how much reverence

you have for that project and that thing. And then you get to sit with the person, that brainchild, all of it, just on instinct. No one told them, here's the thing I do this and this could work and I do that. Then maybe that'll work. And there were people on the other side of the table telling him, he shouldn't do it. Or, all right, now that you're doing it, here's the rules to how you can do it. And like this constant battle, like you always imagine that there is this land within corporate interaction where they stop fucking with you. Yeah. That's the pie, as an outsider looking in, I'm just a correspondent.

So, you know, I live a very easy life compared to a host of a show, right? But to sit with someone like Tom and have him just walk through all of the different issues just creatively, to be in this space, to be where you are and look at what you have and what you've chosen to say no to. You know, people like you all have been the architects of your own careers based on your own wants. No one's ever told either of you what you're going to do. So when I look at like just even the strip to Miami, like this is just something on some universe pushing me in a way to at least see and consider things of what could be and not having that fear of the light and the tunnel.

And I think that's what we have to let go of as people is that, you know, jumping is always going to be scary, but it's necessary. And if you've done it before, you'll figure out a way to do it again. Well, what is the most joyful version of it look like to you? Whatever it is, if you're doing your dreams, creating your dreams so that you can have the balance between being a father at home because you can't want to be do this. The idea of being inspired enough to create and hustle is admirable and probably feed something in you that was in your 20s and you're grateful to be able to make a career this way.

But you can't want to be in 50 cities away from your your son. Not every year. No. I have three hour specials left of me. I already know that they're about I just gonna write them and after those three I'm done. I mean I'm blessed to be able to tour right now and it's good material but it's not the stuff that I'm gonna like. The next three things are more about me. I wanna talk about myself. I'm tired of talking about issues. I'm talking about me, talking about my father,

talking about my son, talking about my fatherhood. Like that's the stuff that I find interesting. So that's your next growth though, it's your 40s and finding the voice. You said 33, your father, until 33, your father would have been embarrassed by your material. And now you are closer to what your father until 33 your father would have been embarrassed by your material. And now you are closer to what your father's age was when he was raising you and you've learned

some things about life, comedy, business, fatherhood. You have material that's new, that's fresh. And to me, then I did an episode of finding your roots and found out like all of this shit about my lineage. It's like, oh, okay. Well, that's the stuff I want to talk about. That's interesting to me. It wears before. When you're a young comic, you're doing the material that you know is going to get

you chosen for TV and the material that you know is going to get you rebooked at a venue. And if your shit lines up with those two sensibilities, fantastic. But when it starts conflicting, you start losing a piece of yourself as you get older until you find an audience that wants to hear exactly what you were talking about. But that's why I am now. But that's where you are now in your career revolution. Absolutely. What are you 44 now?

44. Yeah, you've got an audience now. Yeah, wants to hear Roy. That's correct. And that means that is a value to what your library built over the last 20 years. Your Tom join our library of stuff. Yeah. The people who have gathered around you want to hear what your evolution is going to sound like because you still care about exploring these ways, this in ways that isn't lazy.

But you are trying to build something that you've never built before that your instincts are telling you are the right thing to build that no one associated with the construction of that project can see and very few have confidence in. And that includes your agents and managers, that includes the network, that includes other people you might need to help you write it. So you really have to have blind faith. And so that's what I'm learning and that's what I'm,

that's the muscle that I've been stepping into because I haven't had to work the blind faith muscle for a long time. Really didn't have to work it at all. Because when I started, all I needed was $365. So I wasn't really betting shit. I was just doing something different for shits and giggles because I didn't wanna go do an internship at a TV station and run a propter for some drunk anchor.

I didn't wanna do that. You say blind faith though, but that wouldn't be blind faith. You've got 20 years of knowing what your heart follows ends up paying off in happiness because it's not... No, the strategy. It's not your mind, it's not your mind that's leading you here. The hustle has gotten you this far,

but ultimately you end up following your heart along all these paths, don't you? Yeah. You don't ignore these signals even if you're feeling them. You're not like, no, never mind, I've got this figured out. I'm gonna do it my way. To me, that isn't blind faith, it's faith. It's faith earned through confidence of,

you know how hard this has been, better than most, and you know what has worked for you. It seems, it shines through in your work, that your work has confidence in it, and it's real confidence. Appreciate that man. But I don't have it misread, do I? No, no, no, no. It's a real confidence. Appreciate that man. But I don't have it Miss Red, do I? No, no, no.

It's a good confidence. I earned confidence. Earned confidence. I definitely bust my ass. And so now, but now, I guess the penalties for being wrong are greater. Like it's like, it's almost like the first time in a tightrope act where you look down.

I've been doing this 20, 25 years and I've just looked down. Oh, oh shit, I'm really up here now. Yeah. That's how I feel. I can't fall. Yeah, that's how I feel every day. Oh, I am really up here now. Roy Wood Jr. com is tour dates tickets. Again, he is your favorite comedians favorite correspondent on the daily show. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. I appreciate your time and I appreciate your work. I appreciate you, man. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. I appreciate your time and I appreciate your work. I appreciate you, man. Thank you for opening your neon home to me, man.

I appreciate the expensive neon. All your dreams can come true if you just know how much budget to put into the neon.