The Tim Ferriss Show - #710: Super Combo: Jamie Foxx and Maria Popova

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Starting point is 00:04:25 cometeer.com slash Tim Tim and listeners of this podcast will receive $25 off of their first order. So visit cometeer.com slash Tim Tim to learn more and get $25 off of your first order when you join the future of coffee with Cometeer. At this, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers from all different disciplines to tease out their routines, habits, favorite books, lessons learned, mental frameworks, et cetera, and so on and so on and so forth that you can apply to your own lives. This time around, we have a very special edition with two hit interviews from the podcast's back catalog. We're coming up very soon on the 10th anniversary of the podcast,

Starting point is 00:05:39 and I wanted to experiment with a new format, and that is taking someone who is very much a household name, a superstar who is known to the masses, in this case, Jamie Foxx, and pairing that person with someone who is lesser known, but who I consider to be a superstar and who I would love to have a little more visibility. So it's a two-for-one. And in this case, the names are Jamie Foxx and Maria Popova. Jamie Foxx, for those who may not know, you can find him on Twitter at IamJamieFoxx, is an Academy Award-winning actor, a Grammy Award-winning musician, and a stand-up and improv comedian. He is one of the most consummate performers and entertainers that I have ever met. Honestly, I would say that the two top are Jamie Foxx and Hugh Jackman, who've both been on the podcast. But Jamie blew my mind in this conversation. It was so much fun.

Starting point is 00:06:32 It ended up being voted podcast of the year in 2015, back in the Pliocene era of podcasting, when celebrities appearing on podcasts were really few and far between. And we did this in his recording studio at his house. There's music, there's comedy, there's everything. The stories are amazing. And then we have Maria Popova, who you can find on Twitter at BrainPicker, who is the creator of The Marginalian. Long ago, this was named BrainPickings. And it is included in the Library of Congress's permanent web archive of culturally valuable materials. It started off as a newsletter to a handful of friends, I think maybe six people, and now millions and millions and millions of people read her work

Starting point is 00:07:15 constantly. The Marginalian is Maria's one-woman labor of love, an inquiry into how to live and what it means to lead a good life. She is unbelievably prolific. She reads so continuously. She writes so beautifully. She speaks multiple languages, and English is not her first language, which is always incredibly impressive to me because her writing is better than mine, which is not to say that I'm the best in the world, but her English is far more elegant, far more eloquent than mine. She is incredibly consistent. The Marginalian was created on October 26, 2006, and it has been running strong for 17 plus years. So I hope you enjoy this format. You can dip in, dip out. You have two people to choose from. My hope is that you will begin with the

Starting point is 00:08:06 entertainment, the no name, and that will pull you in, in this case with Jamie Foxx, who better? And then you will continue and listen to someone you may not come across otherwise, and that is Maria Popova. I love both of these interviews, and I would love to know what you think of this format. So let me know on Twitter. It's going to be a while before I can bring myself to say X, as the cool kids might be saying, by tagging at Tferriss, at T-F-E-R-R-I-S-S. Let me know what you think of this format. My goal, again, is to introduce people to interviews they might have missed over the years. They might miss forever if they weren't surfaced and brought to your attention. And you can think of this as my personal curated selection of, if not the best

Starting point is 00:08:51 of the last 10 years of the podcast, at the very least, some of my own personal favorites. So I really hope you enjoy this and please do let me know what you think. Jamie, welcome to the show. Man, thanks, buddy. I'm so excited to be here. I'm admiring your setup here. This is crazy, right? This is where the magic happens.

Starting point is 00:09:13 To be honest with you, a lot of magic happens here. For the people that are listening, we are actually in my studio, my home studio. Now, you know, studios, we're talking about tech world. Studios, because of the tech world, a lot of them dissipated and closed doors. Because if you think about when LMFAO came around, they didn't need studios. They did all of their music on a laptop. Right. Flying from here to Germany or whatever like that and just dumped it on to uh and just pressed up the CD or the

Starting point is 00:09:46 iTunes so studios are almost becoming obsolete but there's something very interesting about this studio first just for people that are listening this studio and I'll describe it it's you know it's sort of plush the carpet is great we're gonna sit next to a grand piano uh you get a grand piano. You get a grand piano, which a lot of places. So we keep a grand piano around just to make sure that we don't lose, we don't get too techy. But what's interesting about it is it's actually electric,

Starting point is 00:10:22 but it's an electric grand piano, so we still have the wood to give you that warm sound, which I think it makes a lot of sense because as music starts to progress, because of the way we record now, sometimes you lose a little bit of the heart of it. So I think within the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years, it'll be this type of music. The real sound will remain know remain right that makes

Starting point is 00:10:45 sense now the studio when i first got the house looked like a old porn set it had a it had like an old basement carpet and a couch and like a metallica uh metallica poster and i was like what would i do with this because i needed needed a place to work and do music. What's interesting now, I got a guy to change the whole place over, and as you can see, we'll take pictures and show it for you guys that are listening, but they did a very good job in it. But if you look over here, this is where we do the recording. There's a booth, which is normal, but also the recording on both sides,

Starting point is 00:11:20 we're able to do animation. We're able to do, if we want to do ADR for movies. What is ADR? ADR is like when we're doing a movie, but we're recording the movie outside. There's a lot of noise. Oh, you're doing pickup audio? So we'll do pickup audio. And most, any actor or actress will tell you ADR is the worst thing in the world to do.

Starting point is 00:11:43 So to be able to have it here, I could do my ADR here. I could do my animation here and things like that. And so just the, now the, the studio itself, the actual brains of the studio, it's an old hard drive. And the reason I kept that old hard drive, I used to have a smaller studio in a smaller house, but when I had that small studio, I wasn't in music. I built a studio in a smaller house but when i had that small studio i wasn't in music i built the studio in my smaller house because i wanted to get in music but i was from comedy and from acting and things like that but what i would do is i would throw parties and i would invite musical people over uh at the party like but and when they would come over like if i had puff or or snoop or back at that time john b or or brian mcknight i

Starting point is 00:12:26 was hey man you know i'm trying to get the music would you leave me some music in my studio so people leave me like 16 bars 24 bars because they would they would record something while they're in the studio they would record we'd have the party going i say hey man let's go in the back you know while we're drinking and whatever like that and go and i say hey man just leave me a little something because i was trying to get into music. And then I met this kid named Breon Prescott, basketball, we play basketball and all this kind of stuff, pick up basketball games. And he said, hey, man, why don't you ever do music?

Starting point is 00:12:55 I said, man, I'm trying to get into that shit, man. I just, you know, I don't know how to get into it. And then one day he, I throw this big party and it was, the party was, was crazy because as I digress a little bit, I would follow Puffy Combs around back in the day when it was just like Puff and J-Lo. And back at that time, no one could get into his parties. But the reason he would let me in because I would carry a camera with me everywhere I go.

Starting point is 00:13:23 But it was back in the day day, like, you know, the big Canon cameras. Wait, he would let you in because I would carry a camera with me everywhere I go But it was back in the day day like, you know, the big Canon cameras wait He would let you in because you carried again. Yeah, because at that time I wasn't Jamie Foxx I was just Jamie Foxx and uh So I couldn't get into all the parties because puff was so big like he come to LA We couldn't get in our own clubs, right? But I popped I took a town car everywhere he went jumped out of the town car one day said yo puff Can I record? Now, at that point, he didn't know you at all.

Starting point is 00:13:46 He knew me. He knew me, the kid that was on 11 Color or whatever like that, but it wasn't elevated. Right. And plus, he was having parties that were like huge, like nobody's getting in. And so he saw me with the camera. He's like, yo, let him through. And it was back in the day, it was like the big Canon camera with the light and I had to change the battery. It wasn't like how today you just got your phone in your pocket.

Starting point is 00:14:06 No, I had production. But I would follow him around, and then one day we had this party in Philly that I recorded for him. And he said, yo, money, you know how much this party costs? I said, what? He said, it costs a million dollars for this party. I said, you paid a million dollars for a party? He was like, yeah, that's how we— I told Puff, I challenged him.

Starting point is 00:14:22 I said, I'll throw you a party at my house in LA, which is way smaller than this situation, but I'll spend maybe $400 and it will rival this party. Not in the scale of it, but in the type of people that are there. And he was, he was a little upset. You know, Puff is a, you know, he always likes to win. He's a competitive guy. He's a competitive guy. I said, yo, play, you, get us out your motherfucking mind.

Starting point is 00:14:43 Playboy, you don't understand the essence of this part. And I was like, all right, I get it. And he actually came to L.A. a few weeks later. And it was a Saturday. He said, yo, playboy, make that shit happen. So he calls me like 9 in the morning, right? For that night? In the morning.

Starting point is 00:14:59 He just said for the day. For the day. I said, no problem. So I go into my cell phones, call. I have a list of people that since comedy routine at a club. If they liked the routine, I had cue cards back in the day and would have people sign cue cards, sign their name, did you like the set, give me your pager

Starting point is 00:15:34 number, I will text you and let you know where I would be from time to time. They were like index cards. Index cards, so a box and I had these, God, get rid of this fly, man. Stop it for a second. All right. So we're picking back up.

Starting point is 00:15:48 I just have to. We took a fly break. Yeah. So it was a fly assault. I just have to admire this. Because the studio is, what would you say? Maybe like 30 by 15 feet on the floor. And then another 15 feet tall.

Starting point is 00:16:02 And you said, I'm going to stop and get this fly. Yeah. I saw the fly assaulting my man. This is a lot of space. the floor and then another 15 feet tall and you said i'm gonna stop and get this fly yeah i saw the fly salted my man this is a lot of space and it took you about seven seconds to track this fly down and kill it i was very impressed we gotta get shit done in here we don't have time so so the cue cards so so what so i would get cue cards and and you like i said i would send it you know i had a list of about 800 people had 600 women because women at that time, this was like around 90, 91, women at that time

Starting point is 00:16:26 would love to go to comedy clubs. So it was all the pretty girls because pretty girls like to laugh, you know, and you've got eight, nine girls together. Jamie, you're so crazy. I'm fine, whatever.

Starting point is 00:16:35 And so I had 800 signers, just 200 guys because they wanted to be where the girls were. So I would take that list and also say, okay, well now I'm having a party here here here whatever whatever if you want to come by so that same list along with the other people

Starting point is 00:16:50 that i met as i as i started to grow in the business i text and said i'm throwing a party for puff and this one puff had uh we ain't going nowhere was out. And it was blazing. It was popping. I mean, even the L.A. dudes was like, man, we don't want to fuck with this New York dude. The song was so hot. So I text. I said, listen, Puff is coming.

Starting point is 00:17:14 And the people that I text were only cool people. Like, no guys that'll be hating. You know, girls are pretty. Not slutty, but not too tight right you know i mean it was just it was just really it was it was it was and so i hit him at 12 noon i said yo where you at we're at a fever pitch it's going off over here in my little house and when he gets there his mind is blown and you know he shows up with the entourage, you know,

Starting point is 00:17:46 Puff, he was like, Gatsby, and he walked in, he says, oh, that's the girl from that show, and that's the girl on this,

Starting point is 00:17:51 and I said, yeah, Puff, we all live out here, you know, so all the people you see in Hollywood, I know they're my friends, and so he's like,

Starting point is 00:17:58 oh, shit, so the party's incredible, we're playing his music through my little sound speakers, everybody's really toasting him. And I said, Puff, the people that are here are different in this... What the fuck?

Starting point is 00:18:12 It's another fly. Hold on, stay right there. Good night. Two for two. Two for two. So, he's admiring that it's crazy and um and and everybody's in tune with him and i explained to him i said puff let me explain to you who you are i said these are the people who not only live in la but i think i've found the right set of people who

Starting point is 00:18:41 appreciate the art as well because what you do musically and what you're doing on the artistic side is blowing our minds as well. And I said, therefore look at the table. I only spent $400 on the table. There's Kentucky fried chicken. I just put it in a nice bowl. Uh,

Starting point is 00:18:57 there's cola. I just put them in pictures. I said, so no more than $400, but people are here. I said, because here's the thing, a fitted baseball cap,

Starting point is 00:19:04 New York fitted is $58. Maybe retail. I said, because here's the thing. A fitted baseball cap, New York, fitted. It's $58 maybe retail. I said, but Puff on your head is priceless. We just want to be around this fly shit, right? So we partied, and Puff is partying, and there's a dude standing next, like on the wall. No one's talking to him. He got a little green jump jacket on.

Starting point is 00:19:22 Guess who it was? It was Jay-Z. Nobody knew who he was. Jay-Z. I said, yeah, I know that dude. Missy Elliott has one room. Puff has the other room. Then I go to my garage to grab some other drinks, and I see this tall dude and this little dude,

Starting point is 00:19:36 and they're like, the little guy goes, yo, B, it's like this all the time. I said, yeah, what do you mean? You know, the girls and karaoke. I said, yeah, yeah, man, who are you? Oh, we're the Neptunes. My name is Pharrell. I said, i heard of you yeah man i like your shit so that's how long ago this was amazing so here's how i make the music play though so as puff is there i get people to leave me different bits of music or whatever because i'm trying to get into

Starting point is 00:19:59 the music thing so i turn that into a show in a sense to where i would just have different people i would toast and try to you know get my music on so one day my boy brian brings in this kid he has a backpack on his jaw's a little busted his name is kanye west and i say yo yo who's who's that i said yo that's a new kid kanye west he coming on i said really what do you do so he rapped i said well shit he got to perform that shit because everybody comes to this to my house they got to perform so i said yo man they say you the shit and he was really quiet you know i said man let me hear you rap you need your beats or whatever he said i don't need no beat freestyle blue every i mean chopped everybody's heads just Just amazed. I said, dude, I don't know where you come from, but you are going to be one of the biggest stars ever.

Starting point is 00:20:50 And he said, I actually have a song for you. I said, moi? Me, a song? Like, what you mean? He said, I got this song. He says, I want to record it. I said, well, you happen to be in luck because I got a studio in the back. So we go in the back.

Starting point is 00:21:04 And my studio at that time, I called it the Porsche. It was a lot smaller than this. It was really like, it was like a Learjet. It was compact. The sound was toasty. I had engineers from all over the city dial it in so that

Starting point is 00:21:19 when real artists come, they don't think that, oh, this is just comedian fucking around. Some real shit. So we go in and Kanye, you know, quiet. But at the same time, he knew what he wanted. He says, okay, the song goes like this. She say she want some Marvin Gaye, some Luther Vandross, a little. I said, I got it. And I started going, she say she want some Marvin Gaye.

Starting point is 00:21:42 And he said, what the fuck are you doing? I said, well said well see young man you don't know nothing about R&B see I'm an R&B motherfucker see I got to give him the shit

Starting point is 00:21:49 you know I got to put the shit on it and he goes really politely he says hits the button he says uh don't do that

Starting point is 00:21:55 I said but you don't know what you're talking about brother uh that ain't how the song go you gotta sing it this way

Starting point is 00:22:01 so in my mind I'm thinking you know what I'm gonna sing the shit the song is whack it's not gonna make it because i'm thinking old school r&b but he was teaching me the simplicity of hip-hop which i didn't know i was like cool guy great rapper i don't think it's gonna happen for him so i'll go off and do a bad movie. And when I come back, my boy says, remember that song you said was whack? I said, yes. Number one in the country.

Starting point is 00:22:28 You, Kanye, and Twista. Kanye's first record. And it was actually Twista's record. I said, oh, shit. So I'm at a club. He said, you don't believe me? I said, no. We're in Miami.

Starting point is 00:22:38 They played it. Everybody ran to the dance floor. I grabbed the mic, said, that's me. That's my song. I'm on that. And so the music, that's me. That's my song. I'm on that. And so the music, that's how I got into the music. Now, the reason the story is significant is because the same brains that we use, that same hard drive that we use, I brought it to this studio.

Starting point is 00:22:56 I don't know. So that hard drive is magical because we also did, just to give you a history on the music, Breon found that song slow jams. It went number one. And then as we started getting into music, there was a song that Breon brought in and he would play these. Breon would call me. Like he said,

Starting point is 00:23:14 you want to be in the music business? It's like, you know, two or three in the morning. He called me, says, you want to be in the music business? I said,

Starting point is 00:23:20 yeah. He said, and wake your ass up. I said, well, he said, I got this song. You got to hear.

Starting point is 00:23:24 So I drove all the way from my house in the valley to this little studio. He said, so you ready, motherfucker? Are you ready? And Breon always says everything three times. Are you ready, motherfucker? Are you ready? Are you ready? I said, yeah, yeah, man, play this shit.

Starting point is 00:23:37 So he plays it. And the song was, blame it on the goose. God's feeling loose. Blame it on the ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. I stopped it. I said, listen, first of all, please tell. God's feeling loose. Blame it on the ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. I stopped it. I said, listen, first of all, please tell me that's my song. He said, yeah, it's your song, but you got to record it right now because a lot of people are listening to this song

Starting point is 00:23:53 and they don't know if it's a hit or not. He said, but I know it's a hit. We did Blame It On The Alcohol. That night, I sung it exactly like the record, which goes way in contrast to my R&B roots because it was auto-tuned and everything like that, but we wanted to sing it exactly like the demo, so we wouldn't lose the essence of it.

Starting point is 00:24:08 I don't want to be like, blame it on the alcohol, you know, some corny shit. So we did that, and then we went from every, the way we broke that record is that we went from every club. We went to the strip clubs first. Went to the strip clubs? Strip clubs. We did an East Coast run.

Starting point is 00:24:24 So we were going to break the record in the East Coast. So we went to the strip club strip club we went we went we did the east coast run so we're going to break the record in the east coast so we went to the strip we went to new york um my man peck us took us around uh and i will go into the club and use my comedic you know vernacular to get the song off i said fellas you ever been uh at the club you meet a girl you've been drinking you think she look like Halle Berry, you get her back home, she looks like Halle Scary, you know what you got to do? Blame it on the goose, God's feeling loose, blame it on the ah, ah, ah, ah. Stop the record. Ladies, you ever meet a guy, you get back to the house with him and you've been drinking too much and you say, I usually don't do this, but you do it anyway. You got to blame it on the ah, ah, ah, ah. So we took that

Starting point is 00:25:04 and we went all the way down from new york all the way down to miami this is like 2008 and then the song took off and so long story longer blaming on alcohol was done here slow jams was done here so this studio has that that essence to it that you just you don't throw that away and just the building itself natasha beddingfield's been here she's cut kelly roland's been here she's cut the game has been here he's cut right here on this floor and i'm showing this uh for you guys listening i'm pointing to the floor to the carpet a young man by the name of ed sharing slept on this carpet for like six weeks uh trying to get his music career going uh he came from over from london he heard about a live show that i do in la so i really

Starting point is 00:25:53 want to do your live show if it's possible uh you know because i have some music that i love i hear this kid with this red hair i'm like man you do my live show and it's all it's mostly black you know what i'm saying but it's really like music people, like really hardcore music people. They're very finicky. You know, people that have played for Stevie Wonder. People will come there. I mean, I had Miranda Lambert one night. I had Stevie Wonder on stage.

Starting point is 00:26:15 I had Babyface. I said, so this is the real shit you're talking about. You know, you can come here. I don't care about the London and the accent. You got to really come with it. He said, I think I'll be okay. I said, all right. So I take her to my live night, 800 people there.

Starting point is 00:26:29 People playing, black folks sweating and just getting it. You know what I'm saying? I mean, people singing and, you know, they would tear American Idol up. You know, and these people haven't necessarily made it. So all of a sudden Ed Sheeran gets up with a ukulele, walks out onto the stage and the brother that was next to me was like yo fox man who the fuck is this dude right here man with the red hair and shit in the fucking ukulele i said man his name is ed sharon let's see what he

Starting point is 00:26:55 does within 12 minutes he got a standing ovation wow from that crowd and i said bro you're on your way so this studio has a like i said a lot of history and it has that magic to it as well the mojo yeah now you uh you mentioned getting into music but it seems like from what i've read of you that music in some ways came first music did music did my when i was a kid my my grandmother made sure that I took piano lessons. And you know, that's tough for a little boy in Texas, you know, playing for Elise and Chopin and Mozart.

Starting point is 00:27:35 And we're not talking about Houston there. No, we're talking Terrell, Texas. And I love my city. My city was dope because it was only 12,000 people. So it was like, literally like 12 or 15 families so we all knew each other.

Starting point is 00:27:48 But you know, for a little boy playing at that time, you know, the kids didn't understand, yo man, why you doing that? My grandma want me to do this, you know.

Starting point is 00:27:55 And so I would, sometimes I would be belligerent and be like, why you want me to do this? He says, the reason I want you to learn classical piano is because I want you to be able

Starting point is 00:28:04 to go across the tracks and play your music. For people listening, across the tracks or on the other side of the tracks for a southern city was the tracks in a southern city separates the city. One side is black, the other side is white. So in our city, the south side, the south side of town was where all the black folk live. The north side of town was where the the black folk lived the north side of town was where the white folks lived so she says i want you to be able to go on the white side of town and play classical music so she taught me how to play classical piano a lady by the name of lenita hodge taught me how to play classical piano and i literally would go on the other side

Starting point is 00:28:40 of the tracks and you know and start playing for like wine and cheese parties and things like that but my grandmother took it a step further too because she was able to see the future uh here's a lady with an eighth grade education she had her own business for 30 years she had her own uh nursery school business she says when i say across the tracks i don't just mean in tarrell and those people over there i mean the the metaphoric, like across the track, like meaning everywhere in the world. So you, music connects you to the, to,

Starting point is 00:29:09 to the whole world. So in doing that, I would connect with people on the other side of the tracks. We'll, you know, in a Southern city and Tara, you know, we will,

Starting point is 00:29:20 we will look behind the curve when it came to race relations. Let's just say it that way without, you know, I don't want to demonize my my hometown but there was there was that who's a little black kid and my grandmother be like don't you know play do your thing and when i would play you know a lot of that broke up broke you know broke up i remember even like being armed with just my music in sort of that racial setting. And sometimes like there was a time when there was a Christmas party. Were these paid gigs? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:29:51 I mean, I get like 10, 15 dollars. You know what I'm saying? At that time, and I played for the church. So playing for the church, I would make like $75 a week. So if you count that up, that's like $300 a month. That's real money. That's real money at 13, 14. My grandmother would take the money i said put it you know and give me this money so you're doing my money shit you ain't paying no rent you're gonna give me this money so but i remember

Starting point is 00:30:14 at that time being armed with just my music and uh there was a christmas party that i was supposed to play for myself and my best friend who was 17 i was 16 16 at the time. And so here's a little bit of the racial misunderstanding, shall we say. I went to play for the guys Christmas time. Maybe it's like December 17th. And we show up. It's two little black kids on the white side of town. And when he opens his door

Starting point is 00:30:38 and he sees these two little black kids, he says, what's going on here? I said, well, I'm here to play for your Christmas party. Then why are two of you here at the same time? I said, well, I don't have a license. He drove me. Is there a problem? Yeah, there's a problem.

Starting point is 00:30:53 I can't have two niggers in my house at the same time. And I was like, well, you know, I've been sort of used to the racial misunderstandings. And I said, well, is there any way he could wait outside or wait? And he can't wait on the street. Starts at 630. Now you got to make your mind up, man. So I said, I told my boy, I said, let's just come get me at 830, which was pretty late, you know, for kids at that time, you know? So I go in. He says, where's your tuxedo? I said, well, he didn't tell me to have a tuxedo. So we go into this room, which looks like a bedroom. And I'm looking like, why the fuck does he have clothes hanging up in his bedroom? But it was a walk-in closet.

Starting point is 00:31:30 I've never seen no shit like that. I was like, oh, man. We can make a split-level condo out of this shit. So he gives me a Brooks Brothers jacket that had the patches on the elbows. I'm like, oh, shit. So now I'm really playing. You know what i'm getting but as i'm playing uh they were doing uh the grown-ups there were doing uh racially misunderstanding jokes i'll

Starting point is 00:31:53 say it like that and my grandmother taught me something at that time she said uh when you're in a setting like that uh there's a word i want you to remember it's called furniture i said what is that she said you're part of the. So you don't comment on what's being said. You play. That's what you're there for. You let these people enjoy their... And the lady at the house felt bad. She said, I just want to apologize to you for what they're saying. I said, no problem. She said, can you sing something for us? And I was like, sure. I could sing something for us. And I was like, sure. I could sing something for us. And this was the song that I sang.

Starting point is 00:32:28 Chestnuts roasting on an open fire Jack Frost nipping at your nose You'll take help Being sung By a choir And folks dressed up like Eskimos Everybody Anyway, so as I'm singing, I remember watching those white guys, older men, some of them faculty at my school, that had just said something, you know, probably not, I don't think it was that they meant harm, harm, but it was.

Starting point is 00:33:15 They'd have to resign today. Yeah. And they look and they go, they immediately change. Wow, man, that's good. You know any other songs? And I sat and I did about maybe like a six-song set. And I saw what my grandmother talked about, that music cracked them in half.

Starting point is 00:33:30 They saw a different me. And then afterwards, he gave me $100. And I'm like, shit, call me nigga every day. I got $100. I'm rich. And what was interesting was I went to give him the jacket back. He's like, no, I can't wear the jacket. So it was still a little bit of residue left over.

Starting point is 00:33:49 But I saw what the music did. And I remember when my boy showed back up, I said, listen, it was a cool gig. We got paid. I said, but I got to get out of here. I said, because I'm too smart for this, I need to go elsewhere. And I did. I changed my major. Well, I changed the college that I was going to go to. I was going to go to another college in Texas and study music. Instead, I came to California and San Diego to study music at International University. And what was interesting about that was, is that being in Texas, it was black,

Starting point is 00:34:22 whites, and Mexicans. When I got to international university, it was 81 different countries represented at that school, all connected by music and other things, music and sports. And the music arena at that time was high-end, strict, child prodigies from Japan, child prodigies from China. I had a Russian music teacher, and I had a Yugoslavian music theory teacher. So it was really across the tracks. But because of that, because of Estelle Talley and Mark Talley, you know,

Starting point is 00:34:56 picking me up every weekend to go play music, man, it set me on, like I said, a crazy wonderful journey. And so the music was first, you know, and my college was interesting. I didn't know anything about Jewish, Palestinian. I had no idea. I was at the student center and there was this argument going on. So what are you arguing about? Oh, my brother, my friend.

Starting point is 00:35:28 They're talking about the Gaza Strip. I said, what the fuck is that? And they said, no, the Jewish occupation, the this, the that. I got a quick history lesson on that. I got a quick history lesson on people from Argentina. Or I would see a person who looked black and I'd be like, hey, what's up, brother? Bonjour. Oh, shit, where you from?

Starting point is 00:35:50 Paris. I was like, fuck, they got black people. That music gave me not only an opportunity to share, but an opportunity to be educated about other people because we study Texas history. Studying Texas history is interesting. If you study Texas history, if it didn't interesting. Like if you study Texas history,

Starting point is 00:36:05 if it didn't happen in Texas, it didn't happen. So when you look at like, like this is just a sidebar, but when you think about politics and what people know and don't know in politics and what they know about across the sea or what they know about even on the next block or what they know about what's different in Texas from new york the reason that politics is so interesting is because the people don't necessarily have educations of other people which is why i think that once we start opening up a little more and traveling a little more because what is it less than how many percent less or less than five percent of americans have passports and things? That's a small number, yeah.

Starting point is 00:36:46 So anyway, that music, like I said, took me everywhere. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. If you are a business-to-business marketer, your needs are unique and your solutions should be unique as well. B2B buying cycles are long and your customers face incredibly complex decisions. It's time that you had a marketing platform built specifically for you. LinkedIn ads empowers marketers with solutions for both you and your customers.

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Starting point is 00:38:03 Go to linkedin.com slash TFS to claim your campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash TFS to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash TFS. Terms and conditions apply. What other, your grandmother seems like a very wise woman and I've heard you describe her and I might be, I'm sure I'm paraphrasing this, but that she, she was the bow or had the arrow and she pointed you in different directions. I'm wondering what other, like you are the furniture, right? I mean, when to speak, when not to speak, what other lessons did you learn from your grandmother? My grandmother taught me confidence as well. My grandma was a very confident person

Starting point is 00:38:41 and a very smart, just, how would you say just naturally intelligent she was a a a taurus you're saying natural is like it wasn't something that was super educated or anything like that but you just had a now i'll give you i'll give you i'll give you a a hint of my grandmother i'm 10 years old maybe i think i'm in the fifth grade 76 president carter the preacher started preaching about homosexuality i don't know what it is i'm 10 or 8 or whatever so he's saying god made adam and eve god didn't make adam and steve some people's like you know it's southern it's Texas. Amen. My grandmother stood up and said, you stopped that. And the whole church stopped.

Starting point is 00:39:29 What's that, Ms. Taylor? You stopped that. Now, her words, what she said next was very interesting. Let me tell you something. I've had this nursery school for 30 years. And I want to let all y'all know that God makes sissies too. And the whole place went, what? She said, these little boys that I've watched since they could walk,

Starting point is 00:39:53 they play by different music. And you stop that because you're making it hard for them to navigate. Sits down, he goes to another subject. Eventually he leaves the church. But I found that very interesting. At that time, I didn't know what that meant until I got to be about 18. I was like, man, what was you talking about? She says, yeah, it's true. She says, you know, I've had this nursery school.

Starting point is 00:40:19 I see the difference in the kids. And so therefore I would have these kids come to me after they graduated from high school, gone to college or tried to have a family, although they had they were living with this. So she was a type of woman who had natural intelligence. I said, well, granny, well, what does it say about religion? Doesn't it say that it's that it's wrong? You know, being a kid from Texas, it's natural question. She says, you know, when I think about it, She said, you have to open up the umbrella of religion. I said, what do you mean?

Starting point is 00:40:48 She said, if you only open up the umbrella halfway, only a few people can stand under it. She said, you have to open the umbrella all the way through so God's children can stand on it. Because no one here did not get made by anybody else or anything else but God. So that was my grandmother, you know. It seems very, the move in church, that's a very bold move, very courageous move. Very bold, very bold. But my grandmother raised those people in church. See, I was adopted, you know, at seven months, so she was much older. So all of the kids that were there, whether, and it was, like I said, it was only a few families that lived in Terrell.

Starting point is 00:41:24 So all of the kids that grew up, or all of the grownups that were there whether and it was like i said it was only a few families that lived in taro so all of the kids that grew up or all of the grown-ups that were there she she was the matriarch because during during the year it was a it was a it was a it was a school you know i'm saying but then during the summer you drop your kids off at my grandmother's house and just let them keep them so she was very uh powerful in that sense and then when i did finally make it it was wonderful to tell my grandmother come live with me so my grandma was living with me so we go to the clubs you know my grandma was like she had to be 83 at the time should we go to clubs we hang out you know what i'm saying this is in la this is la i had a little apartment split level condo remember when that was hype the split L.A. I had a little apartment, split-level condo. Remember when that was hype?

Starting point is 00:42:07 The split-level condo. So I had a loft. Oh, yeah, Ricardo, he's only 19. He doesn't know what I'm talking about. But I had a loft, and we were living in that loft, and then we eventually rented a house. Me and my grandma, and I didn't know I was a mama's boy. We'd go to the parties, come back.

Starting point is 00:42:21 We'd have an after-party at the crib, and then one of my homies came and said, Yo, Fox, there's an older lady out here in the the in the front room i said yeah that's my grandma what's up uh yeah is it cool i said yeah and then you use a bottle of champagne pop what we doing we getting into what you know so uh she was uh she was amazing man so you know my grandmother you know we party hang have a good time she was 83 years old and then the big thing was as i granny you know it's christmas time why don't we do something we ain't never done you know you're selling making a little money why don't we go to hawaii for christmas because i got some friends from hawaii well what yeah well let's get it going gas up the plane

Starting point is 00:43:00 right so we uh fly to hawaii one year and it was just amazing to be able to show my grandmother another side of the world. It even made the papers in Terrell, Texas, Estelle Talley, on her way to Hawaii, you know, and I remember, you know, just a fun, just a fun time. I remember we're having a good time, we're going everywhere. And she had a boyfriend at the same time. He was 83 too. And he was on the land side. And so it was like December 23rd. And we called her boyfriend just so they could talk.

Starting point is 00:43:35 So she's on the phone. Mm-hmm. Yeah, having a good time. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. Yeah, weather's nice. Mm-hmm. Sunny.

Starting point is 00:43:46 Oh, food is good. I got my own seasonings, though. Real nice. Well, I tell you what. Look, I'm going to go, but let me tell you something. Don't let me come back there and catch you with no young girls. You understand? Because I don't play that.

Starting point is 00:43:59 Don't let me catch you with no young girls. You hear me? So she hangs up. There's like three or four families there. We're having a little Christmas party. We all go, Granny, when you said the young girls, what are you talking about? You know, 60, 65. I don't want to mess with them.

Starting point is 00:44:11 She says, shit, I'm 83. I can't handle a 65-year-old woman all in my shit. So she was just a great person, tough girl. I remember there were some situations where I did make it, and some people in my family felt like I should give them all of my money. This lady walks in and we're in my apartment. She comes and says, my rich cousin.

Starting point is 00:44:34 I didn't even recognize because I had only seen him maybe once or twice growing up. So anyway, he gets around to it. She says, I need $10,000 for a kidney. I'm like, who's kidney? Well, I i need kidney surgery something like that so if you give me the cash i could take it and get the i said well why don't you if it's a situation of medical i i know some doctors maybe they can help

Starting point is 00:44:59 you oh i would prefer the ten thousand dollars that's for you okay i'll hit you no i didn't call but i was like so that became a problem for her and she called me one day and left on the I would prefer the $10,000. That's okay. I'll hit you. I didn't call back. I was like, so that became a problem for her. And she called me one day and left on the answer machine. Young fella. Last time you seen the answer machine. So I'm checking my answer machine and she leaves a scathing message. Well, you know what?

Starting point is 00:45:19 I didn't get the money from you. And that's fine because you're not part of this family anyway. He was adopted. Nobody wanted you anyway. This is what this lady is saying to me. Brutal. I was like, what the hell? So I let my grandmother hear it. Let me run that back. Played it.

Starting point is 00:45:36 What's that number? And she called and I remember listening. Now I'm grown. I'm 22. So I'm grown and I hear how she stuck up for me. She said, let me explain something to you, boy. And I could hear her. I got that boy when he was seven months old.

Starting point is 00:45:51 I said, and everybody wanted him. I wanted him. Everybody, you know. I said, and he may not be blood, but he's our family. It was just an incredible, incredible thing. My grandmother was absolutely amazing. I think you need people like that. And when you talk about that bow, that's my reference to raising kids. And I got my own kids now, is that when you raise your kids, you are the bow and

Starting point is 00:46:14 arrow. You're the bow, they're the arrow, and you just try to aim them in the best direction that you can. And hopefully your aim isn't too off. And that's what she did for me. And then, you know, she watched my whole career all the way up until getting nominated for an Oscar where all of the things that she taught me came into play. When we did Ray Charles, that was an opportunity to play the piano, to be funny, to do an impersonation. And all these things is what my grandmother championed.

Starting point is 00:46:49 So when we embarked upon that film, I was like, oh, man, Granny was right. This is taking me on the other side of the tracks. And when we got in, even when I got a chance to meet Ray Charles, which, you know, that's my grandmother's era, you know. And she didn't get a chance to meet him because at the time she couldn't move bedridden a little bit. But being around older people, you know, I understood that muscle too because I was always the young kid with the old parents. So meeting Ray Charles was like seeing my grandfather seeing one of my uncles and when I met Ray and we were trying to do Ray Charles the movie and Taylor Hackford who was the director and he said you know I've been wanting to do this movie for 25 years I'm glad you came along because it's

Starting point is 00:47:35 the right time and I remember meeting Ray Charles walking down his studio you know clean you know look like almost like he could see you know and I said Mr. Charles you know just clean, you know, look like, almost like he could see, you know? And I said, Mr. Charles, you know, I'm just trying to do the best I can to, you know, to do,

Starting point is 00:47:50 to do your, move your biopies. And you know what, look, if you could play the blues, man, shit, you could do anything,

Starting point is 00:47:57 man. I said, what do you mean? He said, can you play the blues? Shit, that's what I'm asking. I said, I guess so.

Starting point is 00:48:02 Then come on. And we go and we sit down and all of the hard work that my grandmother put in all of the days my grandfather drove me to piano lessons here i am sitting with a legend and we were like And I was like playing the blues with Ray Charles. And as we're playing, I'm like, I'm on cloud nine. Then he moved into some intricate stuff like Thelonious Monk. And I was like, oh, shit, I got to catch up. And I hit a wrong note.

Starting point is 00:48:40 And he stopped because his ears are very sensitive. Now, why the hell would you do that? I said, what is that? Why you hit the note like that? That's a wrong note, man. Shit. I said, well, I'm sorry, Mr. Charles. He said, let me tell you something, buddy.

Starting point is 00:48:55 The notes are right underneath your fingers, baby. You just got to take the time out to play the right notes. That's life. So that was a lesson, that the notes are right underneath your fingers so metaphorically so now you got across the tracks there's someone like estelle tally teaches you then you got ray charles explaining now that you're across the tracks what notes are you going to play and so now we go on and we we we do movie, which we didn't know what we were doing.

Starting point is 00:49:26 We didn't know that it was going to be like that. It wasn't a studio film. It was independent. And, you know, doing the process of the movie was interesting, of my background being from Terrell, knowing how to mimic. But I needed to know how to do Ray Charles, like the young Ray Charles. So I got in touch with Quincy Jones. And for all of you young ones out there listening, make sure you Google Quincy Jones and Ray Charles. And the reason why you should do that is because they were the building blocks of our music today, which started in Seattle, Washington, which was interesting. Seattle at that time was a big

Starting point is 00:50:05 hub for jazz music, jazz musicians. And that's where Ray Charles migrated to running into a young Quincy Jones. Ray Charles actually taught Quincy Jones everything he knows about music. Who was Quincy Jones for you young ones listening? Quincy Jones was the one who did i mean he played he was a band director for frank sinatra all of those guys the rat pack all of those guys he was the band leader uh if you and when i met quincy jones he talks about that yeah man shit man music man these young cats don't know music anymore man shit they wouldn't they play in the key of Kia Q if they would, man. Shit, man, when I played baby Frankie, baby, I said, Mr. Jones, who's Frankie? Man, shit, Frank Sinatra, man. Shit, I was young, man. The band, we were playing in Monaco, man. We didn't even have time to

Starting point is 00:50:55 rehearse, baby. We're just there playing, waiting on fucking Frank to come in. I said, what do you mean? He says, we had to play this show in Monaco. Frank had never met me, knew that I was this young kid who was great with the music. I become the band leader. We don't get a chance to rehearse. Monaco, where there's billionaires and millionaires in the audience waiting on this incredible show. And he says, we're just vamping, man. Shit, and Frank doesn't even come out on the stage. He comes through the audience, man.

Starting point is 00:51:24 Shit, talking and shit. I'm like, man, I'm nervous as hell. And then Frank got up. He said he sung. The band was tight. And Frank Sinatra knighted him, like gave him a ring that was like, you know, pretty significant, if you know what I mean, and if you guys Google Frank Sinatra, you'll understand what I mean about the Lucoso Nostro, and so here I am now talking to Quincy Jones, and he's telling me about Ray Charles, he says, yeah, man, Ray taught me everything, man, shit, man, he taught me how to dress, we were wearing suits, suits, zoot suits, and shit, man, he had nice suits, tailor-made, and I said, why did he have nice suits, shit, man, he was always and shit, man. He had nice suits, tailor made. And I said, why did he have nice suits? Shit, man.

Starting point is 00:52:06 He was always around women, man. And women would tell him, man, those zoot suits are ugly because he couldn't see. So the women was telling him how to dress.

Starting point is 00:52:14 And I said, well, Mr. Jones, I'm trying to figure out how to do Ray Charles, but I need the young Ray Charles, right?

Starting point is 00:52:21 And he says, well, man, shit, let me look. And he gives me a cassette tape to you young ones out there. A cassette tape back in the day

Starting point is 00:52:29 was a way for us to, I'm just messing with her, to share music, and I said, okay, I got the cassette tape. I had to go rent a truck from a Hertz rental car because there was no cassette players

Starting point is 00:52:39 in the cars, so I popped the cassette tape in, and on the tape was, hi this is donna shore from the donna shore show we have two very wonderful musicians here today and mr kenny rogers and mr ray charles and you hear the young ray you know what god i'm just so happy to be here so happy that you know my music i mean this is just great and it was the young ray like you know uh because when i was talking to the older ray i didn't want to grab those bad old habits. I want to play him young. So I hear Ray talking young on the tape. And then all of a sudden

Starting point is 00:53:12 he's in charge of the, of the interview. And this is, you know, he was just doing his thing. And then all of a sudden she says, talk about the drugs, Ray. And then he started to stutter. Well, you know what? So I used that as DNA to play the iconic character, Ray Charles, that when he's talking about his music, he's fully in control. When he's confronted with real life things, why are you doing drugs? Why don't you take care of your family? Why are you cheating on your wife? He would stutter. And I say this long story to say this. After the success of Ray Charles, after being nominated for an Oscar, my grandmother got a chance to witness all of that. of you know of her labor for her young kid coming from that racially misunderstood town which i love and wouldn't change anything in the world when it comes to taro texas her saying get across the tracks we've now gone across the tracks we've gone all over the world and here we are and think about what's the odds of a kid who lives in a town, population 12,240 people, from Terrell to go all the way to Los Angeles, California,

Starting point is 00:54:38 meet Puff, meet all these different people, and then actually have an opportunity to win an Oscar, and your grandmother gets a chance to see that now, October 23rd, 2004, she passed away, which if you know, the actual awards was, uh, 2005, uh, in February, but she got a chance to hang in there and, and, you know, and feel it, you know? So, uh, it's, uh, you know, my grandmother was just like, you know, the, the blueprint. How do you think of teaching confidence with your own kids? Because you're, you're clearly a very confident guy. Uh, grandmother was very bold, very strong woman. How do you try to teach that to your kids? Well, what you do with your kids is like when my

Starting point is 00:55:22 daughter is, I, there's the phrase that when you see Annalise, my daughter and my oldest daughter, Corrine, I would always ask them, what's on the other side of fear? And they'd be like, huh? I said, what's on the other side of it? Meaning, like, if I stood in the middle of this floor right there and just yelled, ah, what's on the other side of that? Or if I stood in the middle of the floor and went, ah, what's on the other side of that? Or if I stood in the middle of the floor and went, what's on the other side of it? Meaning like either you do or you don't, but there's no penalty. There's no reward. It's just you just be yourself. So I taught them what's on the other side of fear?

Starting point is 00:55:56 Nothing. People are nervous for no reason because there's nothing. No one's going to come out and slap you or beat you up or anything. You're just nervous. So why even have that and so that's a building block that they can use not just about the entertainment business because that's the other thing you don't have to be an entertainer but whatever you go into whether you be a lawyer or school teacher or tech guy or whatever or girl whatever it is there's nothing

Starting point is 00:56:22 on the other side of it what's on the other side of fear nothing i like it so it's like so why are you what when people say well i'm so nervous what are you nervous about reminds me of this quote that i i sort of recite to myself and i'm going to paraphrase it because i have it written down but it's from mark twain it says i'm an old man who's known a great many troubles most of which never happened yeah exactly Because all of it is in our head. When we talk about fear or lack of being aggressive, it's in your head. So not everybody's going to be super aggressive, but the one thing that you can deal with is a person's fears. So if you start early, if they are a shy person, they just won't be as shy if you keep instilling those things.

Starting point is 00:57:05 The mimicry, the impersonation. Yeah. How early did that start? Because I read, and maybe you can tell me if this is off or not, because you never know with the internet, that your second grade teacher used to reward the class if they behaved by letting you tell jokes. Yeah, they would let me tell jokes because I would get in trouble. Miss Reeves, I think it was my third grade teacher, Miss Reeves, because I would talk, but I was very smart. My grandmother had a school. I lived in a school, so I already knew from first to eighth grade, I already knew all of the lesson plans.

Starting point is 00:57:41 So a kid like me sitting there with nothing to do, I'm going to get in trouble. So she would let me do stand-up comedy on Fridays for the kids. And all I would do is my grandmother would watch Johnny Carson. And the only room that had the television was my room. So I had to watch Johnny Carson too as a kid. So nine years old, seven, eight, nine years old, eight nine years old i would just take the jokes that were being told by uh david brenner and steve allen and a young uh david letterman uh uh who else would be on there franklin the jai you guys when you when you're hearing this you go google these guys uh a young jay leno uh uh these are, sort of like, you know, Richard Pryor. So I would take those jokes

Starting point is 00:58:28 and tell them in school because those kids wouldn't watch it. Please tell me you used Richard Pryor on Fridays. Well, I guess it was on primetime

Starting point is 00:58:33 so it wasn't Richard Pryor. Richard Pryor on primetime, you couldn't, you couldn't, he couldn't really say anything on primetime. He was clean. But like,

Starting point is 00:58:40 Rich Little. And Google Rich Little because Rich Little was the first person That I saw do impersonations So there was a This had to be This had to be like 76 1976

Starting point is 00:58:54 So like 5th grade for me The joke was Jimmy Carter Which was the president at the time Singing You Light Up My Life. And at that time, his brother was getting caught drunk all the time, like Billy. So it was Jimmy Carter going, so many nights, me and my brother Billy would sit by the window waiting for somebody to bring some peanuts and beer. And so that was my first attempt at an impersonation. And then it went on from there to do a retribution i am not a crook so you know

Starting point is 00:59:30 uh who else would i do reagan uh that came later but here's that reagan came later but reagan came like in the 80s when i was actually like 21 and i was the first black guy uh doing the reagan impersonation probably the only one. So I would be on stage doing my impersonations and going to Ronald Reagan. People are like, no, it ain't no way. Well, well, as a matter of fact, I will. Oh, no. There you go again. young and and that teacher miss reeves and miss miss douthit and all those teachers allowed miss

Starting point is 01:00:06 cole allowed me to be myself um you know helped me hone in on what i was going to be doing for the rest of my life like like literally my friends from tarot go like how the fuck did you do that this is the shit you used to do you turned your third in the cafeteria it was literally the same shit i'd be like wow millions of people are watching this shit it's the same it's the same thing and then then you know as people came uh came up you know the the impersonation you know like that cosby is back in to do the cosby impersonation is back in don't Don't know how I'm going to do it, but there's definitely a Cosby joke somewhere. I don't know where it,

Starting point is 01:00:47 but I used to do Cosby. Because of the people and the jello pudding and the filth and the flying and the fun, which Eddie Murphy did, but people didn't know, like, Cosby's real speaking voice

Starting point is 01:00:59 is not like that. What's his speaking voice like? His speaking voice was different because I remember I got in trouble with Mr. Cosby because he felt that the movie Booty Call like that. What's the speaking voice like? His speaking voice was different. Cause I remember I got in trouble with Mr. Cosby because, uh, he felt that the,

Starting point is 01:01:07 the, the, the movie booty call was not cool. And he said some things in the press about us. And I was like a young comedian, like, damn man, I'm just trying to work,

Starting point is 01:01:17 you know, but, but his speaking voice, he was on the phone. Well, see, the thing is, is when you do something like booty call, what is a booty call?

Starting point is 01:01:27 See, why are you calling the booty? You know, whatever. But it was so, it wasn't the, because you find out that that was your stick. Yeah, yeah. Because the kid and the child and people and the farmer, you know. So I know that that will that will come up i'll find a joke for for cosby that of course is going to be a little uh people gonna be like but it's gonna be funny as shit uh and now who's now uh doc rivers from uh the clippers hey you know we're gonna try you know

Starting point is 01:02:01 it's not blake's fault you know next year we gotta got to do better. You know, so I'm working on like the new impersonations now. And so that's, and the way you do an impersonation is usually about, it's musical. Like say Kermit the Frog, right? So Kermit the Frog is, so it's sort of like the way you do your, you know what I'm saying? It's finding... Right?

Starting point is 01:02:27 So... So the actual voice tone is in the key of G for Kermit the Frog. So that's... And then once you get the voice tone it's how you make it's how you manipulate your your your mouth to get the sound because you know it's so it's sort of constricting and then and then and then it's and then it's asking the character to come sit with you here with the uh three little so you know it's but the key is come sit with you. Kermit the Frog here. Here with the three little pigs. So, you know, but the key is this. And at the same time, Kermit the Frog, who else sounds like that?

Starting point is 01:03:10 Sammy Davis Jr. a little bit. Because, you know, man. So now Kermit the Frog is one way, but if you just twist your voice or twist your mouth to the right and grab some swag, now you're Sammy Davis Jr. Kermit the Frog, because, man, you know, it's the same voice. So that's sort of like the mechanical way of getting to the impression. So you would start with not the visual because obviously those people who are listening can't see this, but the mannerisms are also very much on point. Mannerisms are important because like I do a LeBron James impersonation, which is really not a voice.

Starting point is 01:03:54 It's more of his mannerism. It's the jaw. It's the look. Let's go, bro. Let's go, bro. The game of basketball, we just try to, you know, it's that. It's right after playing. When he comes off the court, they catch me still tight, you know, you know, the game of basketball, we just try to, you know, do the best, you know, so it's the mannerism. So people will appreciate the mannerisms first.

Starting point is 01:04:17 Physicality. The physicality of someone like LeBron or, you know, different, you know, like I said, different personalities bring about different things. When you look back on what Ray said to you, if you can play the blues, you can do anything. If you had to translate that for your own kids, let's just say, if you can do X, fill in the blank, you can do anything. What would you put in that blank? I would say this. It's a couple of things when you have kids who grow up around Hollywood. If you can stay motivated and if you can not do some things, not be jaded, not be entitled, not be spoiled, not do drugs drugs not get into all the bad stuff because it's you know our kids live in an elevated space so what i try to do and ricardo sees this all ricardo sees this all the time so does justine we don't play around when it comes to discipline as

Starting point is 01:05:22 well like when the kids are here and all of our friends, the size of the house means nothing to if you don't do the right thing, you're going to get in major trouble and you're going to get in Texas trouble. You know what I'm saying? Like how my grandmother discipline. So it's a it's a it's a it's a different thing when it comes to kids that are live in a privileged situation. Luckily, my daughters are very, very especially my oldest daughter. My oldest I never even asked me for money. Never asked for the new car. Never asked for a plane to ride coach.

Starting point is 01:05:57 I mean, you know, so I think she really, really has a great head on her shoulders. I remember I got this Rolls Royce and I went to go pick my daughter up in the Rolls Royce, thinking that's going to be, you know, I'll pick her up in the Rolls Royce. Drop the top. Drop it. What up, dog? So I'm riding, go to pick her up at school. She won't get in the car.

Starting point is 01:06:18 I said, baby, what are you doing? Look at the top. It comes up. She says, dad, I'm not getting in the car. Calls her mom. I said, could you come pick me up? I said, what you doing? She says dad i'm not getting the car calls her mom said could you come pick me up i said what you doing she says i'm not getting you you goofy you make me you make me look stupid in front of my friends i was like oh so you know she's really and that's something she has on his side my youngest daughter is a little different she wants to ride in the

Starting point is 01:06:38 rain in the rolls royce all the time daddy let's take this car we riding down sunset boulevard she playing rihanna you know'm saying, with her shades on. So she's a little different in that sense. And I remember telling her, I said, well, Annalise, we can't ride around in L.A. in the limo, in the Rolls Royce with the top down. We're on our way to the Soho house, and it's sort of finicky up there. So I got to at least put the top up. She's like, why? I said, listen, let me ride until I get to Soho house, got to at least put the top up. She's like, why? I said, just, I said, listen,

Starting point is 01:07:06 let me ride until I get to Soho house and then I'll put the top up as we get there. Okay. So we ride up in the Soho house. We're in the valet and all of these, you know, celebs and people are coming out. And she yells out, Jamie Foxx in the house. And I'm like, hell no.

Starting point is 01:07:21 So I'm trying to pull the top down. All the celebrities are like, look at this motherfucker being arrogant and shit. He's so gaudy, this motherfucker. And he's got his kid announcing him. So, you know, it's a lot of things you can tell your kids, man. And then you just have to hope for the best and be there.

Starting point is 01:07:40 What is your birth name? Eric Marlon Bishop. And how did Eric Marlon Bishop become Jamie Foxx? Man, I was Eric Marlon Bishop. Graduated high school, 86. I get out to California and I started doing, you know, I'm in college and doing the music. But I would go up on these open mic nights for comedy. So I'd go.

Starting point is 01:08:08 I'd do really well. I'd get, like, standing ovations. And then I came to L.A., got a standing ovation. And then when I came back every week, I wouldn't get called up. I was like, man, what's going on? But what I noticed was— And how does the open mic work? Well, here's what it is.

Starting point is 01:08:25 What you do is you put your name on a list. Put name on the list and they pick from the list and they say okay these are people that are going up so i went up had a great set then for the next three four weeks i didn't they never called my name i said yo money did you see my name yeah yeah you weren't on the list you were on the list but we got other people but i found out that the comedians were actually running the list so the comedians they had been here for a while was like, we don't want him on here cause he's showing us up. So I was like, fuck.

Starting point is 01:08:50 So I ended up going to this evening at the improv, the improv, like in Santa Monica. And so I had never been there. So I wouldn't notice it. A hundred guys would show up. Five girls would show up. The five girls will always get on the, on the show because they needed to break up the monotony.

Starting point is 01:09:10 So I said, hmm, I got some. So I wrote down on the list all of these unisex names. Stacey Green, Tracy Brown, Jamie Foxx. And now the guy chooses from the list. He says, is Jamie Foxx, is she here? She'll be first. I was like, no, money, that's me. Ah, okay.

Starting point is 01:09:32 All right, well, you're the fresh meat. I said, what is that? They were shooting Evening at the Improv, this old comedy show back in the day. I said, you'll be the guy that will just throw up to see if you get a laugh or two. You know, it's going to be a tough crowd. Freshman. Freshman. I said, cool.

Starting point is 01:09:47 So I go up in between two of the guys, get a standing ovation. People are like, who's the kid? Is he on the show? I said, no, he's a freshman. He's an amateur. So then they started yelling my name. Yo, Jamie. Yo, Jamie.

Starting point is 01:10:01 Hey, Jamie. But I'm not used to the name. So now they think I'm arrogant. This motherfucker thinks he's the she. He's not even listening to us. So I took that name, and it stuck. And then I started building everything off of it. Back in the day, people used to wear jackets and put names on the jackets.

Starting point is 01:10:18 So I had Sly as a dot, dot, dot. Coming to the foxhole, foxhole, you know, things like that. I'm going to grab a little something to eat. Yeah, sure thing. Okay, we are back after a little food break. Yeah. And we talked about some of your comedy starting in third grade, maybe earlier. We talked about grandmother.

Starting point is 01:10:42 And what I like to talk about a little bit more is fear. So you mentioned on the other side of fear. By the time you got to doing the open mics, getting up on stage, were you nervous? Were you afraid or were you over it? Because first I looked at it first. Like I went to an open mic night and saw the guys.

Starting point is 01:11:00 I was like, man, these dudes are terrible. And so when you go on stage and your whole life is not, I want to be a comedian, I went on stage like, yo, I'm going to just fuck around. So if I hit, cool. If I miss, I wasn't trying to be that anyway. I wanted to do more music. But when I went on stage, it was just natural.

Starting point is 01:11:26 I belong here. So I think that's the thing, too. When it comes to entertainment, there's a certain, like, oh, I belong here. This is what I'm supposed to do. How successful I will be or won't be, that's something out of my hands, but I do know that this is where I belong. And that's with anything and anybody. Like when you can, when you can sort of listen to that voice in your head or what's in your heart and you get a chance to do something that you really feel like you're

Starting point is 01:11:54 supposed to do, that alleviates a lot of the fear. Now, if it was a surgeon or a lawyer or something, you know, if something that I'm not, you know, versed in or something like that, then maybe there will be more fear. But with this, you don't have, well, I don't have those types of fears. And as I've gotten older in the business, I sort of simplify things. Like now I just execute. I have to ask people like ricardo justin justin what should i execute so the fear of a celebrity or or an artist now is how do i get my art off in a world where it's uh uh the the social media driven sort of uh uh ridicule and criticism like i always say like this like a person like prince or person like michael jackson could have never survived in today's world because in the in the day of the internet and where everybody has a voice most of the voices are hateful voices

Starting point is 01:13:01 or not understanding like like if you saw Prince with a guitar and a bandana and the way he dressed, you know, people would meme the shit out of it, you know? So now it's not a fear, but it's just a question that I have to always ask them. Like, yo, is this the cool shit to do or not the cool shit to do? And so what i learned

Starting point is 01:13:26 is when it's just executing something when it's either executing a song or executing a joke or executing things within within uh entertainment it's cool but then you have to wonder like how do you get it off like how do you like even now when you talk about the bill cosby joke back in the day we just tell the joke now you gotta be like okay i gotta tell the joke in a way that it's still funny it still keeps the bite on it but you know so those are the different like for me as a entertainer where there's not fear it's just like you you know, questions. Does that make sense? Makes sense. No, that makes sense. The considerations. When you, when you, have you bombed on stage before?

Starting point is 01:14:10 Oh, yeah. So what's, two things. What do you, when you are bombing, what is your internal dialogue or response? And then secondly. Internal dialogue is, boy, you stink. Boy, you bombing. I bomb, and it wasn't a lot i only bombed like twice do you remember your first yeah yeah i did this this show for this guy named latimore old blues singer i'm 21 what was his name latimore latimore sounds like voldemort yeah latimore

Starting point is 01:14:41 so this guy saw me at this other club and said, hey, man, you know, Lattimore's performing around the corner. Man, why don't you come and open it? I said, whatever. I said, how much you pay? He said, pay $50. I said, I'm there. 50 bucks, I need it. So this is like 89, 90.

Starting point is 01:14:57 So I get there, and I don't know who Lattimore is. I just know it's a lot of older people. Like, I mean, like, oh, oh. I'm like, oh, I'm like, oh shit. Where the people at? These other people. So I go up and the setting was different.

Starting point is 01:15:13 It was like the chairs and stuff were way in the, it was like a banquet setting. And it's in the middle of the hood, you know, Crenshaw. And like the tables were like from here to where, like 20 feet away, 30 feet away from me.

Starting point is 01:15:24 So I don't have that. Oh, you didn't have that have that yeah and i hadn't been doing stand-up comedy that long i'd only been doing it for like a year so i had if i'm funny i got an hour if i'm not funny it's about 10 minutes worth of shit because i would just take a joke and just keep spinning it and spinning it so my first joke they didn't get second joke they didn't get i said shit i'm damn near all the jokes so i said well let me do this before i do anything let me just talk about people in the audience so i looked and i saw this guy with this sort of suit on with a butterfly collar like oh shit i'm gonna talk about him with the butterfly collar but before i could say that i looked around everybody has a butterfly collar. This is what they really want to look like.

Starting point is 01:16:13 And so I just said, hey, man, I don't know what else y'all want. And pretty soon Lattimore was going to come up. You guys ready for Lattimore? And I just started doing that. So I'm going to take a break. So I get off stage and the dude that was washing the dishes takes his apron off and goes, man, I got it. He grabs the mic.

Starting point is 01:16:31 How y'all feel? And he started doing these old stock jokes. Kills. And so I said, okay, now I know what it is. You got to have jokes that are appropriate for your audience. So I learned on how to tell jokes for everybody

Starting point is 01:16:45 because at first my jokes was geared towards women it was singing and did that so what I started doing from that from that day on I would go to like Des Moines Iowa Davenport Iowa Boise Idaho where it's all white Gunnison all white. And I would go do like 40 minutes of all black material to see what they understood, what they didn't understand. So if I go to these all white places, if they understood 15 minutes, I logged that 15 minutes. I can go to any place where it's just all white. And you would determine if they understood it by the laughs. You would determine if they understood it by the laughs. I would ask, y'all know who this is uh and so i would tell the joke if 15 minutes they understood i can go to any place in the world that's all white and they get it then

Starting point is 01:17:34 i will go to my chocolate city chicago dc uh florida and do all of my uh political highbrow stuff and see what the see what see what the black folks understood man what the fuck you doubt my doubt now they understood 15 minutes now i got 15 to 30 minutes to 45 minutes that wherever i go no matter what age they'll understand no matter what gender no matter what race they'll understand this 45 minutes so i had to learn how to use the formula in order for you to be funny and then once you got your comedy license once you've been seen by enough people in the highest way like in the like if you look at uh like if you look at the arc of a kevin hart like kevin hart takes that arc takes the same formula i'm not for sure how he put it in his mind, but he's doing the same thing to where he's going to all of these places all over the world, implementing his comedy. And if they get it, he's gathering all of that so that now when people see Kevin Hart, no matter where in the world they're gonna laugh you know so it's the the you know becoming a great

Starting point is 01:18:46 comedian is also having that formula going on in your head because if you if you paint yourself into a corner like you're only the black comedian or you're only the hispanic comedian whatever that is then it's hard for you to become universal i mean eddie was eddie murphy was great he had an opportunity through saturday night live to get it to everybody. But it's definitely a formula to not bomb it. So what would you say to yourself? So that was the first bomb. You mentioned two.

Starting point is 01:19:15 Yeah. What was the second? The second one. And if it's hard to recall, the follow-up question is going to be, what is the post-game analysis when you step off the stage after bombing, say, the second time? When I bombed the second time was way later in my career when I'm working out jokes. But I don't like to work out jokes and tell people I'm working out.

Starting point is 01:19:37 I like to actually do a show, come and do the show. Right. So when, I think it was Irvine. So you don't tell people you're working on the show? No, no, no. I think that's cheating. And I think it was Irvine. So you don't tell people you're working on the show? No, no, no. I think that's cheating and I think you get bad habits. So I do a show in Irvine,

Starting point is 01:19:50 California. First show, I kill. They was just ready for me. I'm like, oh man, everything works. Second show,

Starting point is 01:19:57 bombed because I didn't take time to dig out the jokes and that. So, but when you bomb, you go like, okay, all right, let's go. Let's check it out.

Starting point is 01:20:09 So I got a team of my guys. I said, let's go. Okay, that didn't work. No, you got to put this in front of that. You got to put that behind this because that's going to kick this off. People didn't know what that was, so maybe we don't say that. So, you know, when you take the L, it's not like you're not funny. What's the L? Like you take the loss. Oh, okay. When you take the loss, it's not like you're not funny. What's the L? Like you take the loss.

Starting point is 01:20:26 Oh, okay. When you take the loss, it's not like you're not funny. It's just like, okay, you just didn't put the shit together. So that's the other thing, too. When you do become funny, it's going to be harder now to make people laugh because you set the bar. High water. So watch this. The hardest part for Chris Rock was after he had done something great in stand-up. Because now you got to top that.

Starting point is 01:20:54 The hardest part for Eddie Murphy, because Eddie wants to come out and do stand-up, is how do I top that in your head the hardest part is coming for kevin hart in the fact that you you smashed him now you gotta you gotta you know i'm saying you gotta know how to you gotta know how to refresh because when you do something like like i would look at my stuff and go like i gotta quit doing that because that shtick that I'm doing, people are catching on. And they're like, okay, motherfucker, we done already seen that shit. So that's the other thing. You got to have great material and you got to have, you got to know, you got to know how to move.

Starting point is 01:21:37 Because, like, right now is the perfect time for Eddie Murphy to come out and do stand-up. Because it's been so long. It's nostalgic. It was 30 years ago. So now you can catch a new young uh you can still excite the older you know so being a stand-up comedian is tough and you've seen a lot of funny guys not be funny anymore why because you can't top what you did you look at a jim carrey go like okay man where you at where you at you know i'm saying you know don't give up the

Starting point is 01:22:02 funny uh or you look at chris i always look at chris tug and be like motherfucker where you at you know i'm saying you know don't give up the funny or or you look at chris i always look at chris tug and be like motherfucker where you at don't don't leave don't leave us because being a stand-up comedian is an interesting thing most stand-up comedians want to look good in what way we just want to look good think about this when eddie murphy started doing stand-up he was funny but then he started doing, you know, the leather suits, and it was the fly shit, and the rings. They didn't want to look good. Joe Piscopo started working out with the muscles. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 01:22:34 So as a stand-up comedian, we got to be careful not to look too good because people start going, what the fuck are you doing? You ain't cute, nigga. We just want to laugh. You know what I'm saying? But when we started, you know, we started getting into our shit, that's when we lose

Starting point is 01:22:50 because I did that. Like, I got to, my thing was after In Living Color, the show called In Living Color that I did, I felt like I had made it. So I wasn't necessarily on the good looking shit, but I was on the, I've made it jokes

Starting point is 01:23:05 i went on stage and was doing rich jokes just got that range rover anybody else it's crazy out here you know they're so finicky right motherfuckers are looking at me like what the fuck is you talking about and then uh i was talking about you know the square footage of the house man when they get a certain square feet man that shit is crazy and maintaining you know motherfuckers are like motherfucker if you don't get off the goddamn stage i'd lost it right i lost it and i walked off stage and all of a sudden i walk off stage give it up for jamie foxx and i'm thinking they're going crazy yeah yeah thank you thank you so much and i'm standing outside the club and i hear the crowd going crazy i'm like what the fuck they doing i just went off stage what the fuck are they laughing at and i opened the door and there was a kid skinny little tank top on barely fit his name was chris

Starting point is 01:23:51 tucker he was smashing he was no one has been that funny within 15 minutes i've never seen i've never seen and i watch them all i've never seen a stand-up where people were laughing so hard. Like, I said, he's going to kill somebody. Like, when he says, last night, how was I? Oh, I killed. It's going to be true. Somebody's going to have a fucking heart attack. And I sat down and I went, I can't do that.

Starting point is 01:24:17 I lost that. So I left, went to another club. That night, bomb. Like, it wasn't just, you know. So finally, I went over to Okinawa, where the troops were, and started doing stand-up over there for the troops to sort of get back. It was my Rocky moment. Like, you know, I started running up the steps, chasing chickens and shit.

Starting point is 01:24:37 Bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom. Trying to get back. And for a stand-up comedian, that's the one thing you can never let go. You can never stop being, excuse me, a certain goofiness to you. And so, and like when you talk about fear or when you talk about bombing, it's,

Starting point is 01:24:50 it's different when you, when you, when you've done it for a long time, you know? And when you do bomb, you just got to get right back up

Starting point is 01:24:57 and you got to acknowledge it. Okay, I stunk, nigga. Because they're going to let you know. Like today's world, you can't do nothing in today's world without somebody letting you know, like, oh nigga, you fucked that to let you know. Like today's world, you can't do nothing in today's world

Starting point is 01:25:05 without somebody letting you know, oh, nigga, you fucked that up. What are the sources or where do most of your best bits come from? When you look back at the stuff that just killed, is it the shower, the thing that bugs you three times, so you write it down.

Starting point is 01:25:22 How do you develop your material? It was observation. I do jokes with them. It's just sort of like observation. Early on, it was the black and white thing. Black folks do it this way, white folks do it, which was the way we were doing comedy in the late 80s and 90s. The average white man's heart, no, it has to do with the heart.

Starting point is 01:25:43 The average white man's heart beats like this. Or the average white man's heart, no, it has to do with the heart. The average white man's heart beats like this. Or the average black man's heart beats like this. You know, ladies, that's why you have a choice. Would you rather make love to somebody like this? Or would you rather make love to somebody like this? I mean, that was the

Starting point is 01:26:03 jokes, you know, at the the time so it's observational and then it was personal like you do your observation first and then it was personal my grandmother who was uh um you know we lived together you know and when she first heard like on television what age was being old she didn't know what it exactly meant she just knew it was bad but she thought this is she's always on me anyway, that I'm going to catch AIDS. But it was for the wrong reasons. Like she would say, boy, it's six in the morning.

Starting point is 01:26:34 You're going to wake up? Shit, half the day done gone. I said, granny, what you mean it's six? Shit, I'm in there sleeping. Anybody sleep that long got to have AIDS. I said, granny, I don't think that's it. No, I saw it on TV. You Anybody sleep that long got to have AIDS. I said, I don't think that's it. No, I saw it on TV. You're sleeping too long. You got AIDS. I said, I don't think that's how they exactly. And then like, I would use her towels. Like, you know, you know, old Southern

Starting point is 01:26:57 women had them. There was a towel used and it was a nice towel. So I used a nice towel. Well, I know you ain't use my towels. I said, you don't put the A's on the towel. You don't use everybody's towel. Anybody use a towel like that got to have A's. I said, Granny, I don't think that's how, you know. So this is what she was actually saying. So when I did that joke on stage, people would just, you know, would die. So it's observational.

Starting point is 01:27:22 Then it's personal. And then some of the comedians are great politically i'm not necessarily a political guy my thing was the impersonation of the politician like bill clinton uh you know uh i did not have sex with that woman you know it was you know things like that but uh oh it's so many different ways and so many different guys out there that you look at and go, ooh, like when I would look at a young Chris Rock, the way he was a technician, just me, or you look at Jay Leno, or you look at even Arsenio Hall when he would work out, or you see Eddie working out a joke, or watching George Lopez, who knows how to

Starting point is 01:28:04 tap into the bass and just really bring you into his world and stuff. So it's they are watching george lopez who knows how to tap into the bass and just really bring you into his world and stuff so it's some it's some uh some guys at sarah silverman uh just i mean a technician amy schumer watching her on just a saturday night live when she's you know working her shit out uh a young Whoopi Goldberg at the Met. There's so many people that you can watch and see how to tap into your own skill set. I try to look at all of them and try to just not steal from it,

Starting point is 01:28:39 but just get inspired by it all. Who are some of the most underrated comedians who come to mind or people who you think haven't had their due haven't been appreciated i wouldn't say underrated but i i think that would just that was just like warriors that never got that shine oh there was a guy named tk kirkland who was a warrior but he never got to shine and tk had a colorful past you know and he'll let you know he said you know he was he was a crazy motherfucker but tk had a colorful past you know and he'll let you know he said you know he was he was a crazy motherfucker but tk had jokes like and juan duns kirk with the frog always say hi ho hi ho

Starting point is 01:29:13 is he a pimp and why and why do fat people wearing leather pants do they think that shit is cute and why do people in wheelchairs tie their motherfucking shoes do they think they're gonna trip oh man it was just he was just amazing and his delivery you know he say uh uh he says because i'm t to the motherfucking k that's what type of motherfucker i am don't play me play lotto you got a better chance and he's he he played a better chance. And he made himself a character on stage that was just, you know, you guys are too young to know this joke, but the Bugle Boy Jeans, Bugle Boy Jeans used to have a commercial where a girl would pull up in a car and says, excuse me, are those Bugle Boy, she would say this to a guy,

Starting point is 01:30:06 like he's walking on the street with his jeans, she says, excuse me, are those bugle boy jeans you're wearing? Why, yes, they are. And she'd get in the car. TK had a joke, man, that was so funny. He said, man, let that motherfucker be a motherfucking black girl in the motherfucking car. Excuse

Starting point is 01:30:21 me, are those bugle boy jeans you're wearing? Yeah. Get in the car, motherfucker. I mean. Are those beautiful boys that you're wearing? Yeah. Get in the car, motherfucker. I mean, people would just go. The dude has so many levels. And he's just, you know, he's an underground guy.

Starting point is 01:30:40 Who else? There's a lot. I mean, a lot of people. Earthquake. Amazing. Earthquake is amazing. What's my other dude's name? Tony Roberts. Amazing. Tony Roberts, man, I've never laughed. some of his jokes, but he talks about, it's very physical, but he talks about being on a plane and the plane is going down and he says,

Starting point is 01:31:09 he said he was on a plane and he thought the plane was going down, so he says, so I wanted to fuck everybody before, you know, I wanted to fuck before.

Starting point is 01:31:15 He says, so while the plane's going down, he's fucking everybody, you know, he fucked the, he fucked the, he fucked the nun, he was fucking everybody

Starting point is 01:31:22 and then the plane leveled off. Oh, I'm sorry, y'all. I'm sorry, my bad. Just hilarious, man. And there's a, there's so many, man.

Starting point is 01:31:33 So many. Not a lot of new comedians now that are actually, it's funny, right? That are actually dangerous now. We don't have dangerous comedians. We don't have dangerous. The only dangerous comedian that we have right now is Amy Schumer.

Starting point is 01:31:47 She's dangerous. In what way? Like, she'll say it. Like, it'll be hot button. You know what I mean? Have you ever heard, I saw this guy on a, actually heard of him through a guy named Evan Goldberg, who's Seth Rogen's writing partner. And so Gerard, exactly. That was good.

Starting point is 01:32:07 So Gerard Carmichael, his special. Oh, my God. He's like, I would never make a rape joke. This is more of a rape question. It's like, oh, my God. He's dangerous. That struck me as dangerous. Well, he's dangerous.

Starting point is 01:32:20 And it's not a lot of that anymore. It's not a lot of dangerous comedians. And I think that's where we sort of go like, you know, where's that danger? Like you when you when you see Amy Schumer, you see like I saw her in a room talking about catching a dick in front of Robert De Niro. awards whatever like that and she's just i mean hardcore dance which is what serious silverman started out as you know so but amy looks like she's rounded the corner and is now you know really making it you know making it dope for herself if you look back at uh in living color and i i watched the show and it just if in retrospect it seems like such a magical combination of people. So how did that group get assembled? And what made that team so special?

Starting point is 01:33:17 Because you look at the list, right? You've got Chris Rock, you've got Jim Carrey, you've got the Wayans. It just goes, Jennifer Lopez, you go down the line. It's just, it's an all-star roster. Well, at that time, Keenan Ivory Wayans was the, he put it all together. And he was able to grab all of these incredibly talented people and make them get along and figure out how to squeeze all of this talent into 22 minutes of programming. Sure.

Starting point is 01:33:46 Cause it was only, it was a 30 minute show. So it was 22 minutes, but he was very disciplined in how we make jokes. You were not allowed to come in and be half-assed. He pulled you to the side and say, as a black comedian, you cannot be half-assed.

Starting point is 01:34:06 You're either great or you don't exist. So, and he says, don't take the racial part of that any kind of way. That's just the way it is. Because he wrote for Eddie Murphy. He was around the greatest. He says, I'm around the greatest all the time, so that's what we're going to do. So when you see Damon Wayans come in, and I just got hired, like they had already been doing the show for like a year or two years.

Starting point is 01:34:29 So when I saw Damon walk in and Jim walk in, it was like fucking Jurassic Park. It was like fucking T-Rex, you know what I'm saying? And the way I got on the show was crazy, too, because it went from the auditioning process, it was 100 comedians, down to 50, down to 25, down to 10, down to five. I was part of the five, but I was losing. I wasn't doing well within the improv of it

Starting point is 01:34:59 because I just wasn't catching the right shit. And then Kenan says something incredible. He says, well, I dig this, but I want to see y'all on stage doing stand-up because I want to have stand-up comedians. I was like, oh, shit, that's my shit. That's my shit. And the other four people didn't do stand-up. It was only one other girl that did stand-up.

Starting point is 01:35:16 God bless her, Yvette Wilson. But the other three didn't do stand-up. So I was like, oh, man. So that night, everybody's going to the Laugh Factory, which was just starting. Because at that time, the comedy store was dominating. Laugh Factory was just, and they begged, can we please have the audition in the Laugh Factory? So I show up late on purpose because I wanted to be last. Ah, smart.

Starting point is 01:35:38 So I show up late, and Tamara Rawitt, who was the producer, and I'm like, what are you doing? You're late. Oh, my God. Why aren't you here? We're supposed to go on early. You're supposed to be first, Jamie. Oh, my God. You're going to kill me.

Starting point is 01:35:52 I said, oh, damn. Can I just go up last? Yes, you have to. Because we've already started getting here. Whatever. So go ahead. Now, this was interesting for me because I was in white world. I was like on the mainstream.

Starting point is 01:36:05 I did all my jokes in the hood at that time. You know what I'm saying? I was the hood guy. So I was like, oh, shit, you know, uptown, you know what I'm saying? It's like everything is clean and shit, you know. Ain't no weed in the air or nothing, you know what I'm saying? Ain't nobody snuck no drinks in and shit. And it's an audition thing.

Starting point is 01:36:24 So I'm watching the guys, and God bless them. They just had never done stand-up before. So I had my cassette tape, and I knew what I was coming up to. I'm coming up to heavy decent effect with more bounce to the ounce. So I get a dude with my tape. He's like, what's this? That's my tape. You know, I go on with music.

Starting point is 01:36:40 You know, up there, they didn't go on with music. They just went up a hand clap. I said, no, man, I got to come in with heavy, decent effect. I'm going to bounce to the pumps. I need the crowd going. He said, okay, sure. So he's standing there with the tape. And then Sean Wayans gave me a great tip.

Starting point is 01:36:54 He walked up and said, yo, Jamie, just go up and do your act, man. Just stop worrying about it. Don't worry about the characters. Just do your act. Yo, Marlon, Marlon, come here. Chill, Jamie. Just do your act. I said, oh, really?

Starting point is 01:37:04 Just do my act? Do my act like I'm doing a hood? Yeah, do your act like you're Marlon, Marlon, come here. Chill, Jamie. Just do your act. I said, oh, really? Just do my act? Do my act like I'm doing a hood? Yeah, do your act like you're doing a hood. I said, straight. Cool. So I go up. They don't play the music. I'm waiting on them.

Starting point is 01:37:13 I'm like, oh, you got my music? The dude's over there like. I said, well, I'm supposed to have some music. And I said, if this shit goes wrong, you will actually see me working across the street at the gas station, and I went into a character. Man, I was in there with Kenan and all of them, dog, and it just didn't,

Starting point is 01:37:29 so I did this little character, and then I went into my act, and I got a standing ovation that night, and I remember seeing Jim Carrey, Kenan, Fly Girl, I was like on their feet, like, oh, man, this is great, and that's how I got on the show, and Girls, like, on their feet. Like, I said, oh, man, this is great. And that's how I got on the show.

Starting point is 01:37:47 And during that show, I did this character called Wanda. Yeah. Where I said, all the good-looking ladies, clap your hands. And everybody's like... I said, now, all the ugly ladies, let me see you make some noise. It was quiet. I said, ain't that a bitch? And all the ugly ladies out there, hey, for real, though, he ain't talking about me.

Starting point is 01:38:05 So we did this character. Kenan was like, I want you to do that a bitch? And all the ugly ladies out there, hey, for real, though, he ain't talking about me. So we did this character. Keenan was like, I want you to do that character on the show, because I think that's where you'll really flourish. And when I did that character, that's when everything sort of changed, because I was trying to find my bearings on the show, because we got on the show. But we were there for a trial basis. But when I did that character, it was like, it was like, it was like playing football. And I was like the punt returner and I was the rookie and I ran it all the way back the first day. Uh, so nobody really knew who I was, but they knew that this character was, was, was, was slamming. And so they sort of gave me like my stripes because, uh, these guys were juggernauts. I watched, I watched Kenan.an i said keenan these

Starting point is 01:38:45 jokes ain't funny there's the rights that the writers wrote he says get on your feet everybody get up let's do this so he was like there's never a joke that's not funny you just gotta work and find it so he taught us the formula of finding the jokes and he was right every single time and so uh like i said to be there watching Jim Carrey, like, create Pet Detective on set. He's writing Pet Detective, as it were. I said, what's that you're writing on? Hey, man, just, you know, working on some stuff. You know, just got some stuff I'm working on.

Starting point is 01:39:15 So what is that? Man, it's a little thing called Pet Detective. I said, okay, sounds funny. And was he developing it for the show at that time or for much later? For his own shit. I got to make one phone call. No problem. All right.

Starting point is 01:39:27 So we're back. We took a little breather. But catch us up. What were we just talking about? We were talking about how nowadays is that you don't get a chance to control your own narrative. Like we were talking about is there's two different people. Some people think that the tech world and social media and things on the internet is taking us to a great place. And then there's people who think

Starting point is 01:39:47 that it's a horrible place. I had, I spoke with a young lady who had been burned bad, bad by the press, bad to where she lost her job. And what was interesting about her job was that what they were scolding her about was, like me knowing her i was like

Starting point is 01:40:06 you're not like that at all i can't there's nothing i can do everybody thinks so and they took something like they went through emails and through our personal emails and all of a sudden whatever it was but it was just like you're not like that at all so when i was on the phone talking about it she was like they're saying this is i don't worry about, you're not like that at all. So when I was on the phone talking about it, she was like, they're saying this. I was like, ah, don't worry about it. You're cool. You're not like that. I don't give a fuck.

Starting point is 01:40:29 But I hadn't. I'm bowling. I'm like, I don't even need to read it. What could they possibly say? And when I looked, it was a national story. I went, what the fuck? She lost her job. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:40:40 And so even like you'll do something where you think that it's either you're making fun or you're having fun, but they'll take whatever it is that you say and make it what they want it to say. Or craft it where like if you do a joke, it's not about being a joker anymore. Jamie Foxx slams Caitlyn Jenner. Jamie Foxx trounces like, nah, I'm a comedian. We do, do,

Starting point is 01:41:08 but everything is something that they control. And it, it's tough because when I say Justin Bieber, what do you think? What's the first thing comes to mind? Be honest. Hair that I'm jealous of. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:41:21 But what do you think? But what do you think? Something about a kid who can't get it together. When I say Chris Brown, what do you think? It's something negative. When I say Jennifer Aniston, what do you think?

Starting point is 01:41:30 What do you think? Cover of Rolling Stone photograph, black and white. You think Brad Pitt? You think what? Cover of Rolling Stone magazine, black and white, naked,

Starting point is 01:41:37 laying on a bed. Oh, that's hilarious. The average person would think of not what they do. Right. But the impression. But what the headline is. The subliminal image they got at the checkout counter. I talked about this thing with Quentin Tarantino, which I thought was sad because usually when you see a story about Black Lives Matter or anything black, it's usually the same black on in black world there's black on black crime then there's the the the divide that is because of social media is uh that is going on between

Starting point is 01:42:34 the police officers and black folk police officers are on the whole are great folk i know them i shit i know a gang of police officers. But the one or two that have been caught on social media makes it look, paint the picture that it's all of them. Now granted, we've known for a long time that blacks and police officers have always had a divide.

Starting point is 01:42:58 We've done movies about it. We've done books about it. It just is the way it is. Now my take on it is because I call it residue. It's slave residue, meaning that slavery for 300 years, you saw a person of color a certain way for 300 years. You've always saw him as a slave or the criminal or something that you didn't value. So therefore, coming out of that, of course, there's going to be a divide when it comes to

Starting point is 01:43:25 police and when it comes to blacks and when it comes, that's always been that way. So take that off the table. But in today's world of how do we bridge that gap? I've gone to Quantico in Virginia, saw what a police officer sees. I've talked to police officers that how can we bridge the gap? I've suggested that you go get a white police officer who you think might not like black folk. You know what I'm saying? Get that person to go into the hood and throw a picnic for a kid that's eight, nine, 10 years old who's African-American so that he can see another, another side, another side of the police officer, because right now in social media or media period, the stories that are the most salacious, where it's the black person, the black cop being the black guy being killed by a cop.

Starting point is 01:44:18 It's hard to erase those images. I'm a black man. When I see that, I have to react to that because I'm like, wow, you know, that troubles me. But then I have to sit down and think, okay, let me not think of the worst thing to say, but let me think because I know how media tries to make things or heighten it. How do I bring people together in spite of the headline because what people don't understand is that when you keep showing the images of the black guy being killed by the by the cop that does something to you oh yeah that's like whatever you believe in if it was a jewish person if it was a gay person but you cannot sit and not be bothered by that at the same time that cop when he sees the other side of it when they're saying all you guys ain't shit which that's not what's really

Starting point is 01:45:11 being said most of the time it's with the individual cop now the cop sees the story in his mind now well fuck it was a problem. So now imagine that cop who's watching the story, driving on the street, that young black kid who's watching the story, walking on the street. What happens? Dynamite. Dynamite. Because we can't get it. We can't, we can't get anybody responsible on the media side to say, let's stop interviewing people and putting labels on them. Let's interview this man and this woman, but don't say that they're Democrat. Don't say that they're Republican.

Starting point is 01:45:51 Don't say that they're a cop. Just have them talk. Because when you see, when you're watching TV and you see something that you agree with, you agree with them only. And you can't hear the other person. That's the first thing. Two,

Starting point is 01:46:03 like when I look at Quentin Tarantino to demonize this guy can in just because people might be listening to this for years could you catch people up on the confusion tarantino who is a purist when it comes to his opinions and his emotions, even if even if you could go, I could go to Quentin Tarantino and say something. And I think, you know, as a black person and so on and so on. He said, well, stop doing that. Stop hanging it just on black, hanging on things that are substance first and then let it be. I mean, so I've heard this guy speak when there's no cameras. I said, well, you know what? You make a lot of sense. So Quentin Tarantino sees the Black Lives Matter campaign, sees the individual stories, 40 different people of individual stories where a police officer had killed the person who was unarmed. It touched him the reason i thought that was an impactful because you seldom see the white superstar go and stand with the black folk who just trying to be heard

Starting point is 01:47:17 even high-end black guys don't go stand with the black folks that's trying to be heard when it comes to like especially Hollywood because you know people in Hollywood are so scared oh they won't see my movie they won't go see my song if I stand if I stand up for anything of substance they're so fucking scared so when I saw this dude do that I was like wow that's great but then the misinterpretation of his words where he says I'm standing here with the murdered. Quentin Tarantino speaks that way. He speaks.

Starting point is 01:47:50 If you've read any of his movie or saw any of his movies, he speaks in those terms. He says, I stand with the murdered. When I see someone being murdered, I call it what it is. It's a murder. That's a murderer that killed this this person however the story got spun was that quentin tarantino is a cop hater he hates all cops and all cops are murderers and i was just like oh here we go again man here's a person who's willing and i'm gonna speak like willing to put aside his white cushy hollywoodness he could live on in his on his mountain and never give a shit about anything he came i said man i

Starting point is 01:48:34 felt something and now they paint it so bad and now you got you got the New York cop so we got something for his ass now it's a beef now it's that's not what we're trying to do but you can't do anything right now

Starting point is 01:48:52 because the media story if it's not salacious we don't want to report it we have to you feel what I'm saying no I do

Starting point is 01:49:03 and it's I mean if it bleeds it leads, I mean, they, if it bleeds, it leads, right? So they put the salacious, the visually viscerally impactful stuff up front because it gets the clicks or the purchases, the advertising,

Starting point is 01:49:13 the, the, the only, I suppose, flip side to that. And I have a very specific question for you that, uh, from a fan I'd love to ask related to,

Starting point is 01:49:22 um, some, some of these race questions, but the good news is if you can look at it in these terms is that the necessity for new is so high that if you starve a story of oxygen, it'll often die on its own because they can't regurgitate the same thing if there's no response. And so you can let it kind of die on the vine.

Starting point is 01:49:43 But we were talking about this before. I mean, I've had instances, and I won't bitch and moan too long because I think the question is more interesting than my bitching. But I've had instances where these formerly, I would say, outlets of record, very prestigious outlets, magazines. I'm not going to mention them by name. I know what you're talking about. But I was interviewed and profiled by a magazine at one point, very, very highbrow magazine. I know what you're talking about. up a sort of strategy. And I mean, this will get even more interesting once we have smart stadiums, once we have facial recognition, like you see on Facebook, once that's implemented across the board, it'll get very interesting. But I'm going to go down that rabbit hole. And instead, I'm

Starting point is 01:50:36 going to bring up a question that I'd love to get. Before you go into that. here's the problem. Back in the day, if there was a misquote and you went to that entity and said, hey, you quoted me wrong. Oh, we'll release a statement saying that we misquoted you and it erases. The problem with today's world, once it's out there, you can't get it back. You cannot change because it's going to stay there. When I punch up your name, that's the first thing that's going to come up, or the second thing that's coming up. You can't get rid of it. let it die but the problem is you have to at least once it starts give another hopefully that you can give another side of it that people may see a little bit they don't want to see what's crazy about our society right now no one wants to see anybody reconcile no one wants to see anybody

Starting point is 01:51:39 come together or say that like when i when i think about quentin tarantino i spoke and said i back you as a friend and keep keep speaking the truth and don't worry about the haters meaning speak the truth from you not whatever the comment was right but whatever you're saying in your truth right you say that because you ain't out there. You could be promoting your movie. You could be trying to make money. You actually trying to see how you could get, how you could go. I know the way he thinks.

Starting point is 01:52:12 I'm going to go talk to them. If they are wrong in what they're saying, I'm going to tell them. But if they are right, he says, I'll be the one that can go to the cops and say that. And now look, look at how it is.

Starting point is 01:52:24 It's so great. Go ahead, ask the question. Oh, no, I mean, I think you're right. I think that people want gladiatorial games and we don't have gladiatorial games, so they use the front page. Oh. Gladitorial games.

Starting point is 01:52:34 But speaking of conflict resolution, so this is a question from a fan, TJ. My wife is pregnant. We're moving to a very non-diverse neighborhood. We are kind of worried on how it will go. She is black and I am white. What is some advice he can give to a young couple raising a child of color in today's world I'll say this I'll say I'll say this about America let's use America as an example to me America is the most incredible civilization that has ever

Starting point is 01:53:02 been created hundreds of years from now, people will look at this place and marvel. There's the bitch in the complain aisle where everybody bitches complains about every single thing. But the one thing about America that is incredible is the evolution of freedom, the change. When I talk about slavery that happened it was 300 years of it look at the evolution we come out of it we have a black president people are more welcoming now um we used to live in a world not too long ago where it was frowned upon. It was tough. It was this. What I would say to people like that, just live your life. Like I live my life in places where at times it was definitely racial misunderstanding, but I would talk to that person. I would make sure that person understood who I was as a person i'm not going to compromise who i am as far as a black man but i'm also going to give you another another version of it not the version that you necessarily see on television the version that you see on the internet i'm gonna give you me and most of the time we are alike in

Starting point is 01:54:17 so many different in so many uh instances so when he's saying moving to that non-diverse place it's different man look at the look i hate to say this, but listen to the kids, bro. But when you talk about the kids, the kids today – I'm at the gym last night, 24-Hour Fitness. The kid is playing Future, white kid. Well, as is that. White kid. When I first moved into my neighborhood years ago,

Starting point is 01:54:44 and I felt like I made it. I'm in the white neighborhood now. I'm here. Oh, I'm, when I first moved into my neighborhood years ago and I felt like I made it, I'm in the white neighborhood now, I'm here. Oh, I'm so, I've made it. And I hear NWA blasting. I look out there with these kids, I was 16 years old. So times are changing, man. And you have to start giving people the benefit of the doubt that they'll get it right. And for all those people that were here back in the old days and that are now 50 and 60 and 70 years old, that's dying out. The way of thinking is dying out. You may be looking in a situation where you may have the first female president.

Starting point is 01:55:15 It's the evolution of, it's the evolution of freedom. Think about how we treated women at one point. No voice, no rights, no nothing. I've heard people say, I'd rather have a black person tell me something to do than a woman any day but now it's so we are on the right path man love who you want to love be where you want to be because we are evolving look at look at look at the steps that that that gay rights took in the past few years man that, that's huge when you're talking about people in the Bible Belt and how they felt.

Starting point is 01:55:47 So if those things are now, like my daughter taught me when she was 13. She's 21 now. She was 13, and this was nine years ago, and it was talking about gay rights and things like that. And I asked her friends, I said, what do you think about it? She said, Dad, we don't think about it. I said, that's you guys. That's a good answer.

Starting point is 01:56:10 She said, that's you guys. She said, that's old people. She said, that's why we're turned off from religion sometimes. That's why we're turned off from all of these different things, because old people argue about where you're from, what you do, what you look like. We don't give a shit. And so thank God for the youth.

Starting point is 01:56:26 Thank God for that couple. Because what they're doing is they're showing the new world. And she said, Dad, if someone was doing something somewhere that was straight, gay, black, white, or brown somewhere else, does it affect you at all? Does your air change? Does anything around you change because the people are living the way they want to live as long as they're not breaking the laws? You know what? You make great points. She went on to my radio show and talked about it. So we are in a new day. What we got to do,

Starting point is 01:56:53 though, is we got to stop. I said, like I was telling Justine, I said, we got to make sure to say, let's put media out of business. We got to quit allowing them to control the narrative. Those people like with Quentin Tarantino or the Black Lives Matter or people that speak up on something that is broken or that is wrong. You don't give them a chance by painting them in a bad situation. Are you going to do another comedy tour? Yeah, I'm going to do another comedy tour, but I'm going to start it organically. Maybe 100 people, 200 people, start it organically and just sort of grow it. I got some great jokes. And that's the thing. When you're a comedian, it's like you have to pray that the jokes will open up.

Starting point is 01:57:39 So I got some great jokes that people will get and understand. And then just the stuff that's been going on with me, you know, uh, you know, getting older, you know, uh, not realizing you to OG,

Starting point is 01:57:53 you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, the young, like the young hip hop guy. What's up OG? Damn, that's right.

Starting point is 01:57:58 You know, I mean, just, just, just, it's just some funny stuff. It's some funny stuff. That's it.

Starting point is 01:58:04 And, and that's what any comedian would tell you that it's hard to funny stuff. It's some funny stuff that's, and, and that's what any comedian would tell you, that it's hard to be funny when there's nothing funny happening. But there's been so much funny shit happening. For like my mom, who, you know, adopted,

Starting point is 01:58:14 who, who gave me up for adoption in seven months, and she comes back to live with me. And as she's living with me, she walks down, the first day she's here, she walks down, uh,

Starting point is 01:58:22 the steps and says, I want a phantom. I'm like, uh, bitch of the opera? What are you the steps and says, I want a phantom. I'm like, bitch, of the opera? What are you talking about? She's talking about a phantom of Rolls Royce, right? And it was just funny, just certain things that the fact that everybody lives in my house, the fact that my mom, my dad lives here, my two sisters, my dad still dates, you know, and my mom is going on his side of the house when he has a date, you know, just assessing, like just being in a way like, oh, hey, hi, I didn't know you had company, Joy.

Starting point is 01:58:52 I mean, just, and they've turned into kids. So, you know, my dad would come to my room, uh-uh, uh-uh, could you tell her not to come on my side of the house when I got a date? And I'm like, now, parents. So, you know, it's funny things are happening lots of organic material yeah so it's organic now so we got fun when you think of the word successful who is the first person who comes to mind and why on the bigger picture because I witnessed this in 2008 to see President Obama become president to me, 2008, not talking about after he became president, because everyone will have their views on that. I know what it meant to me.

Starting point is 01:59:36 To see him stand up there, put his hand on that Bible and say, you know, become the president of the United States. That is success in so many different ways. And it also, it jars you for every person that says, oh, man, just because I'm black, I'm... Maybe you can't use that all the time because this man now showed you and whatever side you end up on because it's not a political thing to see that and the reason that it means so much to me to see an African American man

Starting point is 02:00:14 like do that like and literally when when he was this was interesting this is how we connected when he was 30 points down for the nomination 30 points down

Starting point is 02:00:23 no one knew who he was I get a call from Oprah Winfrey. Hi, Jamie Foxx. It's Oprah. Hi, Jamie. I was like, what's going on? There's this guy named Senator Obama. I think he's going to be the next president.

Starting point is 02:00:34 Then I got a call from Norman Lear. Jamie, it's Norman Lear. The senator's on fire. So who is he? Senator Obama. But he's 30 points down so no one knows the reason they're calling me is because we have a radio show that was reaching everybody especially the huge urban market so i go on my show and i say uh i'm voting for this guy named senator obama

Starting point is 02:00:56 because he's black and i go to commercial when i go to commercial my phone lines light up with all black people saying that we will not vote for this guy just because he's black. Don't treat us that way. So we ended up educating everybody about him. He's the nomination and he goes on and he wins. And to me, it was all odds against him. And I thought that that that type of success, regardless of where you come from, like I said, whatever side you stand on to me, that was something monumental. When we talk about where this country has come from, when you talk about the greatness of America evolving and evolving to that type of freedom and him taking advantage of being in America and becoming a president to me, that that's just success that he redefined what it is.

Starting point is 02:01:49 What historical figure do you most identify with? Who do I identify with historically? When it comes to entertainment, Sammy Davis Jr. is a person that I look at all the time who I go on the Internet and watch him play the drums or watch him sing or watch him dance or watch him do jokes or watch him do a movie or watch him spin guns. To me, he was just the ultimate entertainer. He was a full stack entertainer, as one engineer said. That's what he called you. Yeah. He had all the tools in the toolkit.

Starting point is 02:02:21 Oh, man, that's great. And then there's other sides of me, too. So, like, the sports side, like I was a Magic Johnson, like, you know, the person who loved being competitive but also wanted to get everybody else involved. And, you know, the way he played basketball. When it comes to social consciousness. May I interject for a second? Yeah. So, this might seem like a funny question but

Starting point is 02:02:46 do you feel like you identify more with magic johnson than kareem abdul-jabbar yeah the reason i feel more than kareem abdul-jabbar is because magic smiled and it was fun he was happy you know not to say the kareem wasn't but kareem was more serious guy you know very serious you ever met him he's completely serious you know i'm more the fun dude let's have a good time and you know when it comes to social consciousness and social issues that's where i i draw from a lot of different people i think going i think watching martin luther king and going to atlanta and seeing what he did and how he did when he did it when I look at the bravery of him it's beyond because I look at social issues today how we're so afraid to step out on anything like

Starting point is 02:03:36 oh my cars and my my wealth and my money and not to say that I've thought this way all my life like literally like it just happened not too long ago where i was like we gotta we gotta step up more more socially we gotta be on social con even if it even if some of the people say oh fuck it i ain't gonna go to your movie okay fine you weren't gonna go anyway but we had to step up a little bit more social social wise and when i went to see where martin luther king came from what he did and how his house was he actually came from middle class big nice house but it's right across the street from port from poverty and it sort of taught him how to deal with other cultures taught him how to deal with other uh financial groups he says i don't want to see people hurting

Starting point is 02:04:19 he says i want everybody you know so i i think like that i've always thought like uh even when we talked about earlier, the Jews and the Palestinians in the student center, the rest of the story was I befriended both of them, and we all became friends because I call myself Spackle, which is the stuff that goes in between the bricks. In between the cracks. Yeah, I'm Spackle.

Starting point is 02:04:41 I get along with all religions, get along with all people, and try to bring them all together. And so that was the so when I think about it socially, it is the Martin Luther King thing, because I think sometimes we overlook that the world is big enough for all of us to live on. It's big enough for all of us to get along. And sometimes I question why is it so tough to get along? You know, which is what Martin Luther King questions. I just don't I don't is it so tough to get along, you know, which is what Martin Luther King questions. I just don't, I don't get it. And I won't stand by.

Starting point is 02:05:09 So a little, and like I said, I've only thought about like that, you know, here in the past few years after watching Harry Belafonte go on stage before I was supposed to get a Lifetime Achievement Award. And he goes on and says something so prolific. He says, they were talking about violence. And he said, the violence that's happening in America is mostly black violence. And you black entertainers sit here mute. And we laid all of this groundwork down for you guys.

Starting point is 02:05:36 And you guys are disrespected and not picking up. So, you know, that's the one reason I said I think more socially. I mentioned Kareem Abdul-Jabbar because I saw, just by chance, a fantastic documentary called Minority of One. Yeah. And it's so good. Yeah. And it detailed, in particular, and I'm not at all well-versed with basketball, so it was also a glimpse into that world for me. But his relationship with Magic Johnson, which was fascinating. Yeah. with Magic Johnson, which was fascinating. Do you have any particular favorite documentaries

Starting point is 02:06:05 or movies that you just feel are must-watches for human beings? I know it's a big question. That's why. I think documentaries on cultures are important. If you get a chance to see any documentary about Jews and what they went through watch it any documentary documentary about palestinians and what they've gone through watch it blacks what they've gone

Starting point is 02:06:32 through watch it women and what they've gone through watch it the reason that i say it is because if we're talking about the human aspect of it like i didn't get it until i watched it was actually the pianist yeah and i just went shit i didn't know it was like that you know like i i didn't know that and so you know and then when i listened to some of my friends who like you know live in the middle east and they're going through those things i said shit i didn't know it was like that so i think anytime you get to watch get a chance to watch people and where they come from or culture and what they went through. You can even look at whites breaking away from the I mean, the 13 colonies breaking away from from England. You go, oh, shit, I didn't know you went through that.

Starting point is 02:07:20 So it's like when you do that, you come away with a sense of, okay, I get you now. Right. Helps build your compassion. Yeah. It helps build your compassion because you only live in your own world, you know what I'm saying? And unless you get a chance to see what it is, a lot of times your views will be narrow. And just watching documentaries like that to open up your views are just amazing when you look at when you look at the story of of uh like i said the story of slavery there was a

Starting point is 02:07:52 book that i just showed these young guys called without sanctuary without sanctuary where it's a book where a guy a photographer went around the south during the times of slavery and documented lynchings and he would document the lynching and take and make postcards because at that time see we go oof but at that time it was commonplace yeah it was a party so people would get their food that's where they got picnic from they would get their food drinks or whatever and they'll go down and watch the lynching and so there was a postcard said here's the lynching of nigga charlie uh hope you like it hope everything is well so that was something that was mind-blowing because it was commonplace you know so um when you get it like i said when you get a chance to see cultures and history you understand what

Starting point is 02:08:42 what's going on today and this is the last little factoid. If you get a chance, pull up the Harrison Act. The Harrison Act was an act about taking drugs off the street and making them illegal because at the time in our culture, we were able to use whatever drugs that was out there was available. But the government sort of didn't know how to get it off the street, so they ran a story, black man gets high on cocaine and fights cops and people's like so we gotta get rid of drugs people like fuck that i'm getting rid of our drugs get bigger guns give cops more jurisdiction finally they run

Starting point is 02:09:17 a story black man gets high on cocaine rapes and kills caucasian woman that's when the Harrison Act, because, well, we don't want that. But because of that Harrison Act with the jurisdiction of a cop, that plays into a little bit of what we're dealing with today, because it was sort of set that way at a time where it was commonplace to see slaves. It was commonplace to see blacks as second or third class citizens. So, and it's not to incite anything. It's not to make you feel anything angry. It's just a, it's just a peering into someone's genesis to see where we are today so that you can understand to, or try to have the compassion for all of all of us who live here in this country because like i said it's it's the best in the world and beyond i remember a friend

Starting point is 02:10:12 mentioned to me i was watching planet earth and he said there's a companion of some type which uh i really want to see called i think it's humans of earth and it actually profiles different civilizations different cultures around the world it shows you have humans have adapted you know mongolians using falcons for hunting all this and whatnot but the yeah i totally agree with you i think that you know if a culture is a set of beliefs and behaviors you have to in a way be taken on that sensory experience yeah to develop the compassion you don't get it through text alone necessarily. If you could have a billboard anywhere, what would it say?

Starting point is 02:10:52 Man, it would constantly change. It would be those new sneaky answer. I like it. It would be the billboard. Ball out dog. Have a great time. Go to church. Love somebody. Teach somebody dog. Have a great time. Go to church.

Starting point is 02:11:06 Love somebody. Teach somebody. Get angry a little bit. It would just change, you know, because, you know, these guys know me. I'm all about having, and at the end of the last one, be have as much fun as you can. Because in a blink of an eye, we'll all be gone. A hundred years compared to infinity is nothing. I talk to my sister all the time.

Starting point is 02:11:29 Why you? She be like, what's wrong? I said, girl, you better start having some fun. We gonna be gone in a minute. You gonna look back and say, shit, I should have been laughing. And now I'm dead. So, yeah, my billboard would change constantly because I think we all

Starting point is 02:11:44 change. You said get angry a little bit. And I remember I was given so yeah my billboard would change constantly because i think we all change and so you said get angry a little bit and it's it and i remember i was given this advice by a guy named poe bronson a writer many many years ago i asked him at an event i was sitting in the crowd and i said what do you do when you get writer's block and he said i write about what makes me angry yeah and uh if you if you were teaching a ninth grade class yeah mixed race, mixed gender, what would you teach that class about? What would you teach? What do you think the most important things,

Starting point is 02:12:13 skills, or otherwise that you could teach ninth graders might be? Well, like I said, it would have to be different tiered. If it's a ninth grader of today, I would teach them as much as you can interact with actual humans uh you know the toughest thing in the world is like looking at my daughter and we're in paris and they're generating thumbs yeah they're on their they're on their they're on their cell phones so i said as much

Starting point is 02:12:37 as you can interact with people because people it's the best interaction because there's all types. There's discretion when it comes to people. Like there's no discretion when it comes to thumbs and what you can say on the Internet. And that's why you get drugged down by it. Because it doesn't take anything. If it's an anonymous person and they say you're ugly and you're this and you're that and you're this, there's no discretion there. So they can sort of get the venom off. I said, if we're in a surrounding and I may feel something about something,

Starting point is 02:13:13 but I won't say it because I don't want to hurt somebody's feelings. I don't want to have it hurt my feelings. So that's the one thing, interact with people. The second thing is interact with people from all over the world because you become narrow when you're just all about my block. And just being about your block in today's world is going to hurt us because people don't understand global. We don't understand global market. We don't understand global things that how does something in the Middle East affect me in North Dakota because of the way we're set up like this. So it's like you have to get the education. I would bypass.

Starting point is 02:13:57 Well, no, I wouldn't buy president. Get the education of people all over the world. And then the last last couple of things would be history. No history. No. Why? We're why we're here why this especially when it comes to to to rules and legislation and things that know why uh why we vote why we don't vote uh if you think about it this wonderful country runs on just like a human brain we only use a little bit of it when it comes to the voting market you gotta vote get out there and be active in that a lot of times we just hey man whoever's the president is the president whoever's this way so so that and then

Starting point is 02:14:36 the last part that I would teach is last two things hustle hustle, teach your hustle. Your hustle muscle is, but hustle muscle is the most important thing. Um, when you hustle and you go get it, a lot of times that alleviates your problems. When you don't hustle or you leave it to chance, when you leave things to chance and you didn't give it all that day, now you start to argue or wonder about things. Bills, fuck, I got to get that done. Oh, my relationship is out of it. But if you hustle, for one,

Starting point is 02:15:10 it's going to take up a lot more of your time. So you don't have time to concentrate on just the worrying. If I put the work in, I got my check. I put it in.

Starting point is 02:15:20 And your check doesn't have to be monetary. It could be anything. It could be, I put the work in at the charity and this happened because of the charity but whatever it is put that hard work in and now you could see things coming to fruition and that takes not 70 percent of your worrying away because you did give it your all. And then the last part of it is reflect. Sit still for a minute.

Starting point is 02:15:48 Because when you're working, working, working, working, working, I got this, I got that, that will strain you as well. So you got to be able to decompress. You just got to be able to chill. Whatever it is that you chill with, if it's your homies, your friends, take time out to be like, you know what, I, I, if, if, if it's out of my hands, it's out of my hands, I'll get a better crack at it tomorrow, Colin Powell said something incredible, he said, I always feel like in the morning,

Starting point is 02:16:15 I got a brand new chance, and I'm paraphrasing, in the morning, he said, I, I love getting in the morning, to the morning, because it's a new opportunity. But really take that time for yourself. You know, relax, chill, whatever it is that you believe in. If it's God, Buddha, Allah, Hindu, all of them, whatever it is to get you on that, okay, you know, I did what I was supposed to do. Let me relax now. And then tomorrow or the next day, get another start.

Starting point is 02:16:43 What does the first 60 minutes of your day look like what do you have any morning routines that are important to you morning routines i wake up i uh i text the people that i dig and love what do you say i just send them encouraging like you know there's a few you know people that just you know really mean a lot to, you know, people that just, you know, really mean a lot to me, want to let them know I'm thinking about them, hold on, and then, uh, it varies, man, sometimes I'll be like, okay, I put some work in, so I put in eight days, so maybe these two days I could chill, uh, get a little, I do the, uh, just on the physical part I get my I get my 50 pull-ups in 100 sit-ups

Starting point is 02:17:29 you know maybe 100 maybe 100 crunches and it's easy I used to not be able to do it my boy Tyron Turner how many sets for the 50 pull-ups? for the 50 so I do 15 first

Starting point is 02:17:40 15 pull-ups this is what it is I do 15 pull-ups 50 push-ups 100 sit-ups then i go back and i do 15 different oh chin grip yeah so that'll get me to 30 another 50 push-ups that gets me 100 push-ups i'm done with the push-ups and then i do 10 and 10 back to the to the first grip and you don't have to do it every single day you can do it every other day uh and then what you notice is the pull-up bar and tyrant kept telling me this

Starting point is 02:18:13 well we i got a homie tyrant he played cane in men of society and he i kept wondering how is he always in shape he says man i'm trying to tell you the pull-up bar is everything so uh so that and then um and then just you know make the calls and what i need to get done and make sure i'm you know in the right you know position and you drink coffee get the kid i don't drink coffee i don't drink coffee is have you have you never oh you stopped i had to stop having stimulants. That's you and me. Earlier in my career, I was all about the stimulants. So at a certain point, I had to. Ixnay on the caffeine K.

Starting point is 02:18:56 Yeah, I've been cutting that out as well. It's not good for me. People are like, aren't you worried about depressants, alcohol? I'm like, no, no, no, no. Stimulants, that's what I need to be worried about. Yeah, because what I tell people all the time to drink coffee after a while you you keep you keep hitting that same muscle you know that in your brain to where you i know people right now who can drink four cups of coffee and go to sleep yeah i used to be that person yeah and so

Starting point is 02:19:17 it's like my and one of my boys loves uh uh what is the red bull red bull and then he won't understand why some days he'll just be like this. Yeah. So I had to stop and it was tough because I had to have coffee every day and I drank

Starting point is 02:19:29 like double espressos. You know, I was like, I had to have the up. Yeah. But now I know how to go get it inside of my,

Starting point is 02:19:38 you know, I know how to go get it inside. Last question here is, I'm going to ask what advice you would give to yourself three different ages, 20, 30, and 40. So what advice you would give to yourself three different ages 20, 30, and 40

Starting point is 02:19:47 so what advice would you give to your 20 year old self man put the condom on shit stop playing around important advice you're 20 man put that on buddy and not the fishnet one either

Starting point is 02:20:03 put the real one on okay anything else for 20 or should we move to 30 Put that on, buddy. And not the fishnet one either. Put the real one on. Okay. Anything else for 20 or should we move to 30? 20s. I had my daughter at 26. So the advice I would give me was like, calm down. You know, it was like calm down and just just you know make sure you're paying attention to your daughter and to the daughter's mom 20s was tough because i just got to la i was just

Starting point is 02:20:35 you know man the whole world was opening up so i'm like man i'm you know i'm trying to do all of it and while i was like calm down, and luckily, it was 26, so moving into 30, I was on my way to calming, if that makes sense. Does make sense. So then you hit 30. 30.

Starting point is 02:20:57 What advice would you give your 30-year-old self? It's going to go fast. In what way? It's going to go fast. The time is going to go fast. In what way? It's going to go fast. The time is going to go fast. So just make sure that you, uh, you start now planning for your future. And not only is it going to go fast, but don't spend all your money. Don't buy the, the, the jacket that's $12,000, you know, relax. You know, just relax it

Starting point is 02:21:26 because it's good. And 40 is going to come so fast and you don't think that it is, but it's going to come so fast. And would you say that because you would want your 30-year-old self to pay attention

Starting point is 02:21:37 to the present moment or do long-term thinking? No, you got to do long-term. When you're 30, you got a kid and you're in my business, and in any business. All businesses are going to, especially when you make, my business is about me, though, so I have to be careful in my decisions socially and plan for the future.

Starting point is 02:21:59 It's not going to be, I remember doing my television show, and it went five years, went fast. And I would tell the people on my television show and it went five years went fast and i would tell the people on my television show it's gonna go fast man and if you finish at 35 but you live till 70 you know so you have to really think about the future a long game yeah and then 40 before zero. Wow. 40. They're going to be tough decisions that you have to make when it comes to business. Because in your 40, when you're 40, in my business, the window is closing on certain things. So you have to be able to open those windows to other things. And some of the people that you've gone to battle with till you're 40 may not be the ones that you will battle and do business with towards 50. And take a little bit of your personal feelings out of it.

Starting point is 02:22:59 Because I'm very personal. Meaning like I would stay with someone even if I feel that they're not not up to par business wise, but you know, we have history. Take a little bit of the personal out of it. Still remain friends if you can with that person, because now it's really pending. Like 50 about to be here. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, you know, and, uh, I would tell my 40 year old self, grow up in your mind, but not in your body necessarily. Meaning stay young in your body, but certain parts of your life, you have to grow up and be grown about things. Because now you got another kid, your other child is, you know, 20, she's 21 now, which is just this past year. But she was 13, 14 when I was 40. But now you got to start living. You would always live your life 100% for you.

Starting point is 02:23:55 But now that you have your kids and they're a certain age, it's got to be 30% to 40% you, 60% to 7% what you're going to leave for them and how you're going to leave them because, like I said, it's flying. And that's it. Jamie, so much fun. I really appreciate you taking the time. And where can people find what you're up to, find you

Starting point is 02:24:20 online, learn? You can find me at IamJamieFox on my Periscope. i right am i saying this right yeah i got these young cats telling me what and then i am jamie fox on twitter also i am jamie fox on twitter i'm doing better on twitter i'm trying to do better and twitter and uh the old fella trying the latest album the latest album is called hollywood story of a dozen roses it's out i don't care how you get it you can download download it, bootleg it, steal it from a friend. I don't care.

Starting point is 02:24:47 I just want you to hear the music. The song that's out right now is I'm Supposed to Be in Love by Now. I'm supposed to be in love by now. It's been so long for me, I don't know how Been drowning in a sea of broken vows But I'm supposed to be in love by now I've been chasing my dream Now I'm chasing you

Starting point is 02:25:28 Running hard but my legs feel weak I done played every part I done played a fool Write the movie, I be your lead I'm supposed to be in love by now. Well, girl, you stole my heart to take a bow. In love by now. So make sure you get that.

Starting point is 02:26:04 In love by now is out. It's a song that my daughter made me. She sort of made me do. She's like, listen, stop with the club stuff. Stop with it. That's my oldest daughter. It's funny. She said, stop with the club joint. Stop.

Starting point is 02:26:17 You're trying to be too young. Like even she'd even like I had on some shoes one day that she thought was just I had too young of a shoe. She's like, Dad, what is that on your feet? I said, they're the new style, baby. They're the Giuseppes. You know, it's the new style. I had a zipper on and a buckle and my name engraved. And she's like, stop it.

Starting point is 02:26:37 She said, Dad, you have old feet. I said, what does it mean? You have old feet like you have your feet for marching like a civil rights. You have a civil rights thing so but she said do a song that we know

Starting point is 02:26:51 that it's from you and and it's true I'm supposed to be in love by now and so so that and

Starting point is 02:26:57 jumping out of the window and we just shot the in love by now video with George Lopez is the priest. I get stood up at the altar.

Starting point is 02:27:09 George Lopez is the priest. Nicole Scherzinger, and we all know her from the Pussycat Dolls, but also her solo career and everything. She plays my love interest, which is great because she's a good friend, and so we were able to, like, really get into some, like, you know, they don't do old school videos anymore. Like, this actually has a bit of a story. My man is in it and then all of my friends my daughter's in it my little daughter's in it and uh my mom and dad is in it you know so it's uh it's kind of cool

Starting point is 02:27:34 i was um jamming to babies in love yeah that's the type of music i'll listen to before i'm when i'm headed somewhere to write sit down do some creative work yeah man solid I think Justin Bieber's supposed to do that song first and we were lucky enough to get it but uh babies in love kid ink is on there so you know got some good stuff going and then uh later on uh sleepless nights will be out at some point and then uh we'll start work on the uh Mike Tyson uh bio and uh and that's it and then the the stand-up comedy is coming because like i said i got a lot of stuff that you know i got to get off uh get off my chest okay that's it since you brought up mike well what would mike say if you were here right now well i'm gonna say it like this because

Starting point is 02:28:20 now that i'm about to do the movie, to do the Mike Tyson impersonation would be a little disservice. What I would say is that I met Mike when I was 21 years old. I went on stage and I was doing my joke and I was getting in my Mike Tyson joke and I went into it and no one laughed. Because Mike was in the audience. A guy was in the audience with Mike and said, yo, Mike is in here, motherfucker. I was like, oh, man. The black girls in the front was like, what you going to do, Jamie?

Starting point is 02:28:49 You going to tell your jokes? You scared of Mike Tyson? This is when Mike Tyson was knocking people out for nothing. And then the guy yells out, Mike said do the joke. And that shit better be funny. I was like, oh, shit. So I do the joke. It's a standing ovation.

Starting point is 02:29:01 I come off stage and Mike goes, there he is. I want to talk to you. You're so funny. Come hang out with me. You're funny, motherfucker. Come and get in the car with It's a standing ovation. I come off stage and Mike goes, there he is. I want to talk to you. You're so funny. Come hang out with me. You're a funny motherfucker. Come get in the car with me. And we take off. And I started hanging out with Mike Tyson at 21 years old.

Starting point is 02:29:11 It was the most incredible thing in the world. Mike was bigger than Michael Jackson at that time. He was the biggest person, biggest star in the world. Mike would be in a club, see a girl and say, hi, how are you? You like BMWs? They're like, huh? Do you like BMWs? You like cars? Yeah. He would go open up the BMW dealership. He'd buy a car for a girl and say hi how are you like bmw's they're like huh do you like being like you like

Starting point is 02:29:25 cars yeah he would go open up the bmw dealership they bought he'll buy a car for a girl that's how dope he was and then all his boys would go to all the different cities and pick up the cars that he bought for girls say yo come on get the keys back you know he's playing so it was great to see it was great to see him during that time then it was tough to see him when he went through what he went through and then when we finally decided to do this movie this is the mike tyson that i think people really be able to grasp is that when we show mike tyson older and i called mike and i said mike how are you i'll pray this to allah my brother i'm happy how are you so i'm good mike you know what's up what's going on i'm just happy i'm happy because i don't have any money anymore so I'm happy it's like Mike what

Starting point is 02:30:06 does that mean he said no it's just all the vultures that were around me the whole time it was always after my money so I don't have any money so nobody wants anything from me so I'm just so happy and if you notice his speaking voice like what I told you with Bill Cosby is completely different from when he's on stage when he's getting ready to fight so he was like I'm just so happy and I could tell I said Mike that's the person we need to tell. That's the story. We always see the person who rises to the mountaintop, but we don't see the other side of the mountain

Starting point is 02:30:34 and all the jagged edges and all the things, and you're about to slip off of that mountain. So Terry Winter, who wrote Wolf of Wall Street, Boardwalk Empire, and Martin Scorsese, who's going to direct it, who hasn't directed a film about boxing since Raging Bull. So fingers crossed, if it all goes together, we'll be able to see Mike Tyson in a different way and we'll be able to transform to where I want to be so good that as Mike Tyson that I look so much like him and when I walk into his house his kids would acknowledge me as a father

Starting point is 02:31:09 and then I want to be able to sit back and reflect and here's what I'm trying to do with a career is establish characters in Living Color it was Wanda

Starting point is 02:31:23 hey for real though i rock your world then it was willie beeman any given sunday my name is willie willie beeman i keep the ladies screaming then it's ray char no it's uh bundini brown from ali muhammad ali is a prophet how you gonna be godson soon as you come out the garage, you'll be number two. So Bundini Brown. And then it's, well, I got a woman way over town that's good to me. Then it's Ray Charles.

Starting point is 02:31:55 And then it's Django. You know they love him very well. Django. So the Django experience, you know, working with Quentin Tarantino, which was mind-blowing to be able to go in and read for that. And I didn't know about that part.

Starting point is 02:32:14 I thought Will Smith was going to do it. I was like, ooh, Will Smith and Quentin Tarantino. It was going to be incredible. It didn't work out that way. I meet with Quentin Tarantino. I told him I understand the script. I said, not only that, I have my own horse. and so i ended up riding my own horse in uh in django and i knew that that was going to be another character that's going to change the game and uh so they'll look at that so there's a django and then hopefully if everything goes right, Mike Tyson will sit with those characters so that you'll be able to, after a while, look at a career where you transformed into a character.

Starting point is 02:32:52 People know it and were moved by it. And hopefully if it all works out, it'll be a great opportunity to look back and see like wow man look at the things that you were able to do uh in america it's an incredible canon already and um my brother gave me mike tyson's autobiography for christmas last year and i sat down i read it because when i was a kid i would watch on the grainy vhs yeah mike tyson's greatest hits over and over and over and over. And you'd see his reception in Japan. He was the biggest star in the face of the planet. But you read the autobiography and there are layers upon layers.

Starting point is 02:33:33 A lot. A guy who just wanted to be in love, just wanted to, you know, it was more simple than we thought it would. Yeah. And I can't wait to see it. I hope it comes together. I hope so. Jamie, you are I can't wait to see it. I hope it comes together. I hope so. Jamie, you are the consummate performer and entertainer,

Starting point is 02:33:49 so please keep creating. All right, man. Thank you. This has been such a gift. Thank you for your time. Thank you, buddy. And for everybody listening, you can find all the show notes,

Starting point is 02:33:58 links to everything at 4hourworkweek.com forward slash podcast. You can search my name and Jamie's. It'll probably pop right up. And as always, thank you so much for listening. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, this is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. I am extremely excited to have a fellow geek in arms, Maria Popova, on the line with me.

Starting point is 02:34:24 Maria, how are you today? Very well. Thank you. Thank you for having me. And I appreciate your coaching on the last name. I wasn't sure if it was Popova or Popova. I have friends who, for instance, Naval Ravikant, who's a friend. It's actually novel, but Americans can't really pull that off, so he goes for Naval. So I appreciate the coaching. Yeah, as a country of immigrants, we have a surprisingly hard time getting people's original names right, right? Absolutely. It's just the sort of anglicizing of such a crisol,

Starting point is 02:35:00 like a melting pot of different cultures. And at the same time, I think it's a reflection of where I spend a lot of time, which is reading. And there are so many words, I've embarrassed myself on many occasions, that I've read dozens or even hundreds of times, especially in scientific literature that I've never heard pronounced. Oh, yeah. I call this reader syndrome. As somebody who spends the majority of her waking hours reading, you run into that a lot, especially with sort of cultural icons,

Starting point is 02:35:36 last names, first names that are spelled differently, very differently than they're pronounced. It's kind of tragicomic when you actually find out how they're pronounced. No, exactly. Or it can be a real revelation. I remember when I was a young kid, I couldn't hit, let's say, democracy or aristocracy. I could only say, and I'd also read it, democracy, aristocracy. For whatever reason, I couldn't get the emphasis right. But coming back to the reading and someone who spends most of their waking hours reading,

Starting point is 02:36:08 if someone asks you, and I'm sure occasionally it happens, what do you do for those people listening who may not be familiar with you? But we'll start with the cocktail question. When someone asks you, what do you do? How do you answer that? Well, I've answered it differently over the years, in part because I think inhabiting our own identity is kind of a perpetual process. But right now, I would say I read and I write in that order. And in between, I do some thinking and I think about how to live a meaningful life, basically. And if someone then were to go online, find your work, end up at Brain Pickings, and they're like,

Starting point is 02:36:50 oh, this is quite interesting. And they kind of looked over their shoulder because they happen to be doing it on their iPhone at the party. And they're like, what is Brain Pickings? How would you describe, how do you typically describe that? It's just the record of that thinking, my personal, subjective, private thinking that takes place between my reading and the writing, and takes form in writing. A collection of very interesting things, and sometimes, you know, how I've got to sort of simply put it to folks, and brain pickings, for those people wondering, is one of the very few sites that I end up on constantly. And when people ask me, what blogs do you read? I'm embarrassed, in some cases, kind of humiliated to answer that I

Starting point is 02:37:35 don't go really to many blogs consistently. And I think part of the reason is so many of them are feel compelled to put out very very timely of the moment material that expires within a few hours and i don't like the feeling of uh keeping up with the joneses when the joneses are just sort of churning out content and i remember kathy sierra at one at one point told me that you should focus on just-in-time information, not just-in-case information, which I thought was very astute and really sort of profound. But there are two sites that come to mind that I end up on quite a lot. Brain Pickings is one, and Sam Harris's blog is another. And I saw your review of his latest book, Waking Up. Well, not a review.

Starting point is 02:38:29 Not a review. I don't review books. I apologize. Okay. No, so this is... An annotated reading, if you will. Okay, so an annotated reading. And I definitely want to dig into that.

Starting point is 02:38:41 An annotated reading of Waking Up, which I found really, really impactful for me in a lot of ways. It put words to a lot of vague sort of feelings or observations that I had for a very long time. Talking about reviews. So I polled a number of my friends and my readers about different questions they would love to ask you. And a close friend of mine, Chris Saka, he came back with what percentage of New York Times bestsellers can be attributed to your coverage? And I'd be curious to hear you answer that. And then there's sort of a follow-up. But you've built this incredible powerhouse of an outlet for your, whether it's creative musings or observations, and it has a huge influence on what people read. So if you were to sort of think of that,

Starting point is 02:39:34 how would you answer that question? Well, first of all, you're very kind to put it that way, as is Chris. But I think one big caveat to all of that is that the majority of books that I read and write about are very old, out of print, things that are not competing for New York Times bestseller. In fact, I don't even know if I ever really, I mean, perhaps, I don't know if the books that I read have any overlap in the Venn diagram of things with the New York Times bestsellers. But I suspect that the reason Chris asked that question is actually that I met him through his wife who collaborated with Wendy McNaughton, the illustrator, whose work I love, and I love Wendy, on a book about wine. And that book ended up, and I wrote about it because it's lovely and sort of profound and challenges our existing ideas about sort of sense or experience. And I like things that take something very superficial and find something deeper and something unusual in it. But in any case, I wrote about that book and that particular piece on brain picking seemed to do pretty well and I think perhaps that warped Chris's idea of how much contemporary

Starting point is 02:40:48 books I really sort of am interested in. Right. But I would say that's a minority. Right. And for those people wondering, it's the essential scratch and sniff guide to becoming a wine expert, which was written along with, and the illustrations are wonderful. Richard Betts was the sommelier who was part of that. And at one point I met with him because I wanted to try to deconstruct the master sommelier test. And he said, I can show you how to do it.

Starting point is 02:41:17 And it was just the pared down, sort of hacked, if you will, version still of passing the master sommelier test was so intimidating that I put it on ice indefinitely. But at some point, Richard, we will talk again and form a game plan. So the opposite, of course, of sort of putting out this material that expires as soon as it's out on the vine is putting out what I think you do very often, and that is sort of timeless, timely and timeless, I've heard you call it, material where you're sort of pulling from old sources or older sources, doing pattern recognition

Starting point is 02:41:56 to pull from other areas to talk about, say, a theme or something that still affects people. And I was doing research for this interview, and we met briefly in New York at an event, and I've been a longtime fan of your work. And so I thought to myself, how much digging do I really need to do? And good God, you have such an absolute canon of work out there. It is astonishing. I mean, it is really... You're very kind. It's just the volume of time, really. It's been, you know, I've been doing this for eight years coming up. Actually, exactly a month from today, it'll be eight years. So it's just the accumulation, you know. And so I was, I was, I'm fascinated by routine and schedule.

Starting point is 02:42:48 And, you know, I'm reading from, of course, not the always accurate, but generally a good place to start Wikipedia. And it says that brain pickings takes 400 plus hours of work per month, hundreds of pieces of content per day, 12 to 15 books per week that you're reading. How do you, and I know I'm asking a handful of questions that you've been asked before, but sometimes the answers change and evolve. They always do. And which is why I actually don't do interviews very frequently because I find that they sort of tend to kind of cast this as the static thing that just stays there as some

Starting point is 02:43:31 sort of reference point while we're really just a fluid process and we're constantly evolving. But in any case, no, definitely. So the question that you've, I'm sure been asked many times, but I'll ask again is how do you choose the books? How do you find slash choose the books that you read? This is a huge problem for me because my appetite for reading outstrips the time that I have. unfortunately sometimes finding myself anxious because of the number of books I've taken on

Starting point is 02:44:07 at any given point in time. So I'd be curious how you sort of vet the books that you read. Well, I guess it goes back to that question of, well, let me backtrack and just say that I write about a very wide array of disciplines and eras and sensibilities because that's what I think about. So anything from art and science to philosophy illuminate some aspect, big or small, of that grand question that I think we all tussle with every day, which is how to live well, how to live a good, meaningful, fulfilling life. Whether that's, you know, Aristotle's views on happiness and government or beautiful art from 12th century Japan or Sam Harris's new book, anything. Got it.

Starting point is 02:45:09 And I've read you citing Kurt Vonnegut before. Kurt Vonnegut's one of my favorite writers of all time. I know, I heard your semicolon quote. I think it was either the interview I did with Kevin Kelly or with Sam, but I actually have a counterpoint to the semicolon question, but go on. So I actually brought up the semicolon quote partially as a sort of wink, wink, nod, ribbing to a friend of mine named John Romanello, who has a tattoo of a semicolon on his, I think it's his forearm. He loves semicolons. He also has a molecule

Starting point is 02:45:55 of testosterone on the other arm. He's a fascinating guy. But the quote that I heard you cite that I wanted to dig into a bit was Kurt Vonnegut saying, write to please just one person. And so my question to you is, when you write, is that still the case? And if so, who is that person that you are writing for? It is very much the case. I still write for an audience of one, and that's myself. Like I said, it's just the record of my thought process, my way of just trying to navigate my way through the world and understand my place in it, understand how we relate

Starting point is 02:46:41 to one another, how different pieces of the world relate to each other and sort of create a pattern of meaning out of seemingly unrelated meaningless information and the sort of intersection of or transmutation of information into into wisdom really which is what learning to live is it's about wisdom um so it's interesting, too, because when I started brain picking, like I said, almost eight years ago, it started very much as a private record of my own curiosity. And I shared it with seven co-workers that I had at the time, just as a little sort of email newsletter thing. And now to think that there are about 7 million people, strangers, reading it every month.

Starting point is 02:47:26 That's amazing. It's kind of surreal. Congratulations, by the way. Thank you. And I'm not sort of number dropping for scale or anything like that. But just to try to articulate how surreal it feels to me that I still feel like I'm writing for one person, one very sort of, you know, inward person. But there's also now the awareness that there are people looking on and interpreting and just relating to this pretty private act. And it's a strange thing to live with, and in no way a bad thing. I'm not complaining about it obviously but it's just interesting to observe how one relates to oneself when being

Starting point is 02:48:08 looked on by a few million people you know definitely and uh there's so many so many questions i want to ask you we might have to do part two at some point because i know we have some time constraints but the uh where to begin? This is where I start fraying at the ends as an interviewer. So the first question would be related to that. There's so much temptation to dumb things down or to go after kind of the tried and true BuzzFeed type headlines. Do you ever contend with that temptation? And if so, how do you resist it? And this is part of the, you know,

Starting point is 02:49:01 how do you respond to the expectations of the crowd or the 7 million people looking on? And I feel this personally sometimes because I have a blog. It has certainly by no means the number of monthly readers that you have. I'm somewhere between 1 and 2 million uniques a month usually. But thank you. But even at that scale, there are times when I put out something that I feel is very important, but on the dense side. And then it will, sometimes it takes off, but sometimes it doesn't. And there's a lot of temptation when, for instance, I know you use social media quite a bit, and we'll get to that, where I look at, say, the retweets of the favorites on something that's kind of dense,

Starting point is 02:49:44 and then I'm like, oh, God, I should just do like the seven tricks you can actually teach your cat, you know, and get 500,000 retweets. Is that something that ever sort of crosses your mind? And do you ever feel that temptation? Well, you know, it's interesting because i think anybody who thinks in public which is what writing is which is even what art is it's some sort of putting a piece of oneself out into the world anybody who does that struggles with this really irreconcilable kind of tug of war between wanting to really stay true to one's experience, you know,

Starting point is 02:50:28 and being aware that as soon as it's out in the world, there's this notion of the other audience. And, you know, Oscar Wilde, he very memorably said that a true artist takes no notice, whatever, of the public and that the public are to him non-existent. And it's very easy to say, especially for somebody as wild, who was very prolific, very public, almost performative in his public presence. It's very easy to call this out as a kind of hypocrisy and say, well, you can't possibly not care about the audience given you make your living through it and sort of perform to it right but i i think that's a pretty cynical interpretation i think rather than hypocrisy it's just this very human

Starting point is 02:51:11 struggle to be seen and to be understood which is why all art comes to be because one human being wants to put something into the world and to be understood for what he or she stands for and who he or she is. And so with that lens, I do think it's hard to say, well, you know, I don't care about what happens to it out there, even though I write for myself and think for myself, the awareness of the other really does change things. But I think perhaps Werner Herzog put it best. I just finished reading this kind of 600 page interview with him, essentially. It's a conversation that a journalist named Paul Cronin had with him over the course of 30 years. And in one passage, Herzog says something like, you know, it's always been important for me to have my films reach an audience.

Starting point is 02:52:08 I don't necessarily need to hear what those audience reactions are just as long as they're out there, that they're touching, that the films are touching people in some way. And I feel very similarly. With that in mind, I guess to answer your question rather circuitously, I don't feel tempted to make listicles or to make anything that I feel compromises my experience of what I stand for. In part, I think the beauty of the web is that it's a self-perfecting organism. But for as long as it's an ad supported medium the motive will be to perfect the commercial interest so perfect the art of the buzzfeed listicle the endless slideshow the infinitely paginated article and not to perfect the human spirit yeah of the reader or

Starting point is 02:53:00 the writer which is really what i'm interested in. Yeah, no, it's, uh, I think it's a very virtuous goal. Um, I, um, you know, I, I really admire your site and obviously the newsletter and all these other aspects of it, uh, for a lot of reasons. Uh, one of them is, uh them is, well, I feel a very sort of kindred spirit with a lot of the decisions it seems you have made. So, for instance, I mean, not doing the slideshows to rack up page views for some type of CPM advertising. That stuff drives me insane. So if it drives me insane, I assume it drives my readers insane. So I'm not going to do it. Or like you said, that's so wonderful that you do that. Because I think so much of the cultural crap

Starting point is 02:53:49 that is out there, not just on the internet, just in general comes from people who fail to understand that they should be making the kind of stuff they want to exist. So if you're a writer, write the things you want to read, if you're an artist, paint the things you want to paint, you want to see painted. And I think the commercial aspect is really warping that. And one thing I really admire about your work in all of its permutations, from your books to this podcast, the site, everything, is that there's just this sort of sense that you just want this to exist. It doesn't exist for any other reason than you want it to exist.

Starting point is 02:54:23 And I think that's wonderful. Thank you. That means want it to exist. And I think that's wonderful. Thank you. That means a lot to me. And coming back to the right to please just one person, I think that it's related to that. So in a way, it's put the things out into the world that you would want to consume yourself or experience yourself, number one. Secondly, just for those people who haven't heard this anecdote, when I was writing The 4-Hour Workweek as my first book, I still to this day find writing very challenging. And I wish I could say it's gotten easier over time, but for whatever reason, it seems not to have.

Starting point is 02:55:04 In the case of The 4-hour work week, I came out of undergrad at Princeton, and many years have passed, obviously. But when I wrote the first few chapters, it was really stilted and pompous and kind of Ivy League, where I was trying to use $10 words where a $0.10 word would suffice and be a lot cleaner. So I threw out the first few chapters that I drafted. And this was a major panic attack moment. I was on deadline. And I remember I was in Argentina at the time. And then I went the other way. And I said, No, no, I have to be loose. I have to be funny. And so I wrote a few chapters that were completely slapstick ridiculous. I mean, it sounded like three stooges put on paper. And so I had to throw out those few chapters. And of course, I'm doubling down on my anxiety at this point,

Starting point is 02:55:52 and decided at one point that I was just going to have a little bit of Yerba Mate tea, two glasses of wine, and no more than two glasses of Malbec, and sit down and start to write. What is that? Malbec is just this wonderful varietal in South America, best known in Argentina, but there are actually some really nice Malbec wines in Chile. As I understand it, it was viewed almost as a garbage grape in Europe, but it was brought by the Italians to Buenos Aires

Starting point is 02:56:23 and has developed this worldwide fame because of its cultivation in Argentina. So there's a lot of metaphor there that I also like. But I drank two glasses of wine, sat down, and literally opened up an email client and started typing the four-hour workweek as if I were writing it to two of my closest friends. One was an investment banker trapped in his own job, and he felt like he couldn't leave because his lifestyle was swelling to meet his income. And then the other was an entrepreneur trapped in a company of his own making. And so these two very specific guys in mind, I started to write with just enough alcohol to sort of take the edge off. And that's

Starting point is 02:57:06 how, you know, I was writing in that case to please just two people. But that's the only way I could make it work. Your schedule. So I've read of your schedule, but I'd love to hear the current iteration of that. It seems like you have a fairly regimented schedule, which would make sense if you're putting the number of hours into reading and writing that you do. So what does your current day look like? Well, I'll answer this with a caveat. The one thing I have struggled with or tried to solve for myself in the last few years, couple years maybe, is this sort of really delicate balance between productivity and presence. or our value through our efficiency and our earnings and our ability to perform certain tasks as opposed to just the fulfillment we feel in our own lives and the presence that we take in in the day-to-day and that's something that's become more and more apparent to me so I'm a little bit reluctant to discuss routine as some sort of holy grail of creative process

Starting point is 02:58:26 because it's just really, it's a crutch. I mean, routines and rituals help us not feel like this overwhelming messiness of just day-to-day life would consume us. It's a control mechanism, but that's not all there is. And if anything, it should be in the service of something greater, which is being present with one's own life. So with that in mind, my day is very predictable. I get up in the morning. I meditate for between 15 to 25 minutes before I do anything else.

Starting point is 02:58:59 What time do you wake up, typically? Exactly eight hours after I've gone to bed. So it varies. Okay. i'm a huge proponent of sleep i think um i when i write because what or when i i guess try to think what i do is essentially make associations between seemingly unrelated ideas and concepts and in order for that to happen you know know, those associative chains need to be firing. And when I am sleep deprived, I feel like I don't have full access to my own brain, which is certainly I'm not unique in that in any way. There's research showing that

Starting point is 02:59:36 our reflexes are severely hindered by lack of sleep. We're almost as drunk if we sleep less than half the amount of time we normally need to function. And I think ours is a culture where we wear our ability to get by on very little sleep as a kind of badge of honor that bespeaks work ethic or toughness or whatever it is, but really it's a total profound failure of priorities and of self-respect. And I try to sort of enact that in my own life by being very disciplined about my sleep, at least as disciplined as I am about my work, because the latter is a product of the capacities, you know, cultivated by the former. So in any case, so i get up eight hours after i

Starting point is 03:00:25 have gone to bed i meditate um i go to the gym where i do most of my um longer form reading i get back home i have breakfast and i start writing i usually write between two and three articles a day and one of them tends to be longer and when I write I need uninterrupted time so I try to get the longer one done earlier on in the day when I feel much more alert so I don't look at email or any anything really external to the the material I'm dealing with which does require quite a bit of research usually. So it's not like I can cut myself off from the internet or from other books, but I don't have people disruptions, I guess. So anything social. And then I take a short break. I'm a believer in

Starting point is 03:01:18 sort of pacing, creating a sort of rhythm where you do very intense focused work for an extended period and then you take a short break and then cycle back you know and then I deal with any sort of admin stuff like emails and just taking care of errands and whatnot and I resume writing and I write my other article or articles through the evening. I try to have some private time just later in the day, either with friends or with my partner or just, you know, time that is unburdened by deliberate thought, although you can never unburden yourself from thought in general. And then usually later at night, I either do some more reading or some more writing or a combination of the two. Got it. And so a number of follow-up questions. What type of meditation

Starting point is 03:02:13 do you practice currently? Just guided Vipassana, very, very basic. There's a woman named Tara Brock, who she's a mindfulness mindfulness practitioner how do you spell her last name b-r-a-c-h got it and she's based out of dc and she um was trained as a cognitive psychologist then did decades of buddhist training and and lived in an ashram and now she teaches mindfulness but with a very secular lens so um she records her classes and she has a podcast, which is how I came to know her. And every week she does a one hour lecture and sort of the philosophies and cognitive behavioral, you know, wisdom of the ages. And then she does a guided meditation um so i i use her meditations and she has changed my life perhaps more profoundly than anybody in my life so i highly highly recommend her um tara brock rock yes and all her her podcast is free um she has two books out too um she's really wonderful very generous person.

Starting point is 03:03:25 I will have to check that out. And so you're listening, then you have earbuds in when you're, or you're listening to audio while you meditate. Yes. And it's interestingly, I mean, she puts one out every week, but I've been using the exact same one from the summer of 2010. It's just one that I like and feel familiar with. And it sort of helps me get into the rhythm. So every day I listen to the exact same one. of 2010. It's just one that I like and feel familiar with. And it sort of helps me get

Starting point is 03:03:45 into the rhythm. So every day I listen to the exact summer 2010. How does that start? How would people recognize it? How does the audio? I think the title is it sounds cheesy, but it is not cheesy. I think it's called smile meditation. And I'm sure she has repeated it in various forms through the years and other recordings. It just happens to be the one that I, you know, have on and on my broken 3g iPhone without any internet or cell service, which I just use as an iPod and that's on it. Awesome. That's a great answer. Um, God, I love, I love digging into the specifics. So when go to the gym then to work out, are you still using an elliptical for that?

Starting point is 03:04:29 Yes. You are? I do sprints, high-intensity intervals on the elliptical for cardio, and I do a lot of weights and body weight stuff too. You do? All right. But when you're reading, is that on the elliptical? Yes. And what type of device, if any, are you using for that reading?

Starting point is 03:04:51 Well, I prefer electronic. So I use the Kindle app on the iPad or any PDF viewer because I read a lot of archival stuff. But the challenge, of course, is that because I read so many older books that are out of print, let alone having digital versions, that's not always possible in case it's rarely possible unless I'm writing about something fairly new. And so in that case, I just go there with my big tome and my sticky notes and pens and Sharpies and various annotation analog devices, and I just do that. Cool. All right. So that leads perfectly into the next question, which is what does your note-taking system look like,

Starting point is 03:05:34 and how do you take notes? So for instance, you're really good at using excerpts or quotations, pull quotes, and I found myself asking as I was reading this, like, how are you gathering all of this so that you can use it later? So what does your note-taking system look like in the case of digital and in the case of hard copy? Hmm. So with digital, it's very simple. I just highlight passages and I write myself little notes underneath each that have acronyms that I use frequently for certain topics or shorthand that I have developed for myself. But reading is really, or understanding really,

Starting point is 03:06:19 which is what reading should be a conduit to, is a form of pattern recognition. So when you read a whole book, you kind of walk away with certain takeaways that are thematically linked, and they don't usually occur, you know, sequentially. So it's not like you walk away with one insight from the first chapter, one insight from the second chapter. It's just sort of this pattern of the writer's thoughts that permeate the entire narrative of the book. And so, especially if you read as a writer, so somebody who not only needs to walk away with that, but ideally wants to record what those patterns and themes are, that sort of reading is very different. And so what I end up doing with analog books in particular, and I've sort of hacked some systems of doing it electronically, but they're imperfect, is on the very last page of each book, which is blank usually, right before the end cover, I create an alternate index.

Starting point is 03:07:18 So I basically list out, as I'm reading, the topics and ideas that seem to be important and recurring in that volume. And then next to each of them, I start listing out the page numbers where they occur. And on those pages, I've obviously highlighted the respective passage and I have a little sort of sticky tab on the side so I can find it. But it's basically an index based not on keywords, which is what a standard book index is based on, but based on key ideas. And I use that then to sort of synthesize what those ideas are once I'm ready to write about the book. Okay, I have to geek out on this because I'm so excited now. So as it turns out, with analog books, I do exactly, literally exactly the same thing. I usually start with the front inside cover, but I create my own index. And of course,

Starting point is 03:08:10 they don't have to be in order. So you can sort of list them in any, in my particular case, in the order. I also will have sort of two, a couple of lines dedicated to PH and PH just refers to phrasing. So if I find a turn of phrase or wording that I find really... Oh, I do that too. Oh, really? But I call it BL for beautiful language. Oh, that's so cool. Okay. So there's that. And then I have, you know, like Q or Q, if they're quotes. So for instance, many books will have quotes attributed to other people or just header quotes in some cases. And so I'll have, you know, quotes, I'll just write that out and then colon, and then I'll list all the page

Starting point is 03:08:58 numbers for that particular sort of category that I'm collecting in the case of quotes. So when you're gathering this, you mentioned acronyms and shorthand. So besides beautiful language, what are some of the other acronyms that you use? Oh, they wouldn't make sense. They're just very private. It's like too long to get into what they stand for. They're just completely my own system. Is there one other example that you just just if you can indulge me? One that is, I guess, not so much about the contents of that passage as about its purpose is LJ, which is I have a little sort of labor of love side project called literary jukebox, right? Sure. I've seen it. It's Yeah, it's it's awesome. Oh, thank you. But yeah, so I do these pairings of passages from literature with a thematically matched

Starting point is 03:09:47 song. And so sometimes as I'm reading a book, I would come across a passage that I think would be great for that. And maybe a song comes to mind. And so I would put LJ next to it. But I want to go back to what you said about the external quotes, I guess, the author quoting another work. I think those are actually really important. And that goes back to your question about how I find what to read.

Starting point is 03:10:12 I mark those types of things. So for the annotations that are specific to that particular book, all of my sticky tab notes are on the side of the pages. But when there's an external quote, something referencing another work, I put a tab at the very top with the letter F, which stands for find, if I am not familiar with the work, or just no letter, if I just want to flag a quote from something else that I know of. And I think that's actually very important because the phenomenon itself, not my annotations of it, because literature is really, and I say this all the time, it is the original internet. So all of those references and citations and allusions, even they're essentially hyperlinks that that author placed to another work. And that way, if you follow those,

Starting point is 03:11:08 you go into this magnificent rabbit hole where you start out with something that you're already enjoying and liking, but follow these tangential references to other works that perhaps you would not have come across that way, I mean, directly. And in a way, it's a way to push oneself out of the filter bubble in a very incremental way. And I've often found amazing older books that were, you know, five or six hyperlink references removed from something I was reading, which led me to something else, which led me to this great other thing. So I think that's kind of a beautiful practice. Yeah, the serendipity of it is so beautiful when it works out.

Starting point is 03:11:54 And I'll give a confession. This is really embarrassing, but, you know, since no one's listening. I came across Seneca, so Seneca the Younger, who's had probably more impact on my life than any other writer. Originally, because I was perusing a number of anthologies on minimalism and simplicity, and Seneca kept on popping up, quote, Seneca, quote, Seneca. And because it was always one word like Madonna, or, and this is going to be really embarrassing, or like Sitting Bull, I assumed that Seneca was a Native American elder of some type for probably a good...

Starting point is 03:12:41 That's so lovely, actually. I assumed he was a Native American elder for probably a good lovely actually i i assumed he was a native american elder for a probably a good year or two before i realized he was a roman i was like man ferris you got to do your homework pal like you got to dig in and then at that point is when i really sort of jumped off the cliff into a lot of his writings which i've i still to this day revisit on an almost month of his. I just revisited The Shortness of Life. Oh, so good. Which is perhaps the best manifesto, and I hate this modern word, sort of buzzword,

Starting point is 03:13:18 but I use it intentionally. So the best manifesto for our current struggle with this very notion of productivity versus presence and how much are we really mistaking the doing for the being. And it's amazing that somebody wrote this millennia ago before there was Internet, before there was the things we call distractions today. And yet he writes about the exact same things, just in a different form. Yeah. The exact same things. And the way that if I'm trying to use Seneca as a gateway drug into philosophy, I won't use the P word first of all,

Starting point is 03:13:55 with most people because philosophy smacks of, I think it calls to mind for a lot of people, the sort of haughty pompous uh college student in um uh goodwill hunting in the bar scene who's like reciting you know shakespeare without giving uh any type of see i completely disagree i actually i agree with the notion that those are its connotations today and people have a resistance, but I think that's all the more reason to use it heavily and to use it intelligently and to reclaim it and to get people to understand that philosophy, whatever form it takes is the only way to figure out how to live. Everything else that we take away from anything is a set of philosophies essentially.

Starting point is 03:14:41 I agree. No, I totally agree. So, but I usually, if I'm going to lead people there, I try to lure them in with Seneca, because I think he's very easy to read compared to a lot of, at least the Stoics, or that's actually not even fair, compared to a lot of philosophers who have been translated from Greek. Most of his writing, I believe, is translated from Latin, which tends to be just an easier jump from English. So it's very easy to read. And what I tell people is, you know, start off with some of his letters and you'll find that you could just as easily replace these Roman names

Starting point is 03:15:17 like Lucilius and so on with like Bob and Jane or, you know, pick your contemporary name of choice. And they're all as relevant now as they were then. So I'm going to come back to the sort of performance versus presence, which I think of oftentimes as the achievement versus appreciation split or balance, or maybe neither. But before we get there, I want to put a bow on the note-taking with your electronic note-taking. So you're using the Kindle app, you're taking highlights. Where do you go from there?

Starting point is 03:15:59 Are there any other, what does the sort of workflow look like from there? And are there any particular types of software or apps or anything like that that you use often? I mean, honestly, I feel like that problem has not been solved at all in any kind of practical way. So the way that I do it is basically a bunch of hacks using existing technologies. But I don't think, or perhaps I'm just unaware, but I don't think there's anybody designing tools today for people who do serious heavy reading. There just isn't anything that I know. And so what I do is I highlight in the, in the Kindle app on the iPad. And then Amazon has this function that you can basically see your Kindle notes and highlights on the desktop on your computer.

Starting point is 03:16:49 I go to those, I copy them from that page, and I paste them into an Evernote file to sort of just have all of my notes in a specific book in one place. But sometimes I would also take a screen grab of a specific iPad, Kindle app, Kindle page with my highlighted passage, and then email that screen grab into my Evernote email, because Evernote has, as you know, optical character recognition. So when I search within it, it's also going to search the text in that image. I don't have to wait until I finish the book and export all my notes. And also, the formatting is kind of shitty on the Kindle notes on the desktop where you can see all your notes. So if you copy them, they paste into Evernote with this really weird formatting. So it tabulates each next note indented to the right. So it's sort of this cascading, long cascading thing that shifts more and more to the right of the page.

Starting point is 03:17:53 That's horrible. It's like an email thread. It's like an email thread, except there's no actual hierarchy. These are all, you know, and so if you want to go fix it, you have to do it manually within Evernote. And I read on the Werner Herzog book, for example, which is 600 pages, I have thousands of notes. So imagine thousands of tabulations until the last one is so narrow and long that it's just like unreadable. So hence my point about just there is no viable solution that I know. Got it. Okay, so let me just because this may or may not help. For me, it was a huge shift in how I manage Evernote.

Starting point is 03:18:34 Because I mean, I'm looking at this list of questions and I'm not reading entirely on script, but I have a collection of questions in Evernote right now. And one of the things I realized about formatting and transposing things from say, the, you know, my Kindle page, if you log into your Amazon account through kindle.amazon.com or copying and pasting from many different places is going to, I don't know if you've tried this, but edit and either paste and match style or paste as plain text. And it tends to remove all of that headache. Um,

Starting point is 03:19:12 let's see nine times out of 10. So if you, if the problem with that, I did try that once, but when you remove the style, it makes all the metadata look the same as the text. So on every highlighted passage, I also have my own notes. I see. Got it. Plus, you know, Amazon's own thing that says, add note, read, read at this location, delete note. And so it all merges it and becomes just hideous. It's just impossible to read.

Starting point is 03:19:37 God, you know, I wonder what to do there. Yeah, I used to take notes and drop them into Text Wrangler, which is used for coding a lot, just to remove the formatting, and then put it into Evernote. Yeah, I do that with Coda. Yeah, it's true, though. But there's got to be a solution. And the thing is, Evernote, I love Evernote.

Starting point is 03:19:56 I've been using it for many years, and I could probably not get through my day without it. But it has an API, which means somebody can build this. That's true. I even thought, I mean, I was at one point so desperate and so frustrated, But it has an API, which means somebody can build this. That's true. I even thought, I mean, I was at one point so desperate and so frustrated, which I think is the duo that causes all innovation, you know, desperation and frustration.

Starting point is 03:20:19 I thought maybe I should just save up some money and offer like a scholarship or like a grant for a hackathon for somebody to solve this for me. That's a great idea. I'm still not, I mean, I'm still sort of contemplating that. Okay, well, we'll talk about that separately. I think that's something that we could absolutely explore. And for all of you, programmers, coders out there, please take a look. This is actually not as rare an issue as you might expect. One question for you on the Kindle highlights. I've run into this.

Starting point is 03:20:47 You mentioned the Werner Herzog book and having thousands of highlights. Have you run into instances where you'll read an entire book, you're super impressed or not, but regardless you have hundreds of highlights and you go to look at those highlights and you're restricted to only see the first. Oh, yeah. It says like 200 highlights, 81 available or something like that. Right. So how often does that happen to you?

Starting point is 03:21:15 Because that's happened to me where I've taken so much time to meticulously highlight stuff and then I'm only able to see 25 percent. And it's so infuriating. And I think it's a limitation that is determined by the publisher. Yes, it is. And so I'll tell you why it hasn't happened to me much. It happens to me occasionally, but that's a DRM thing, digital, for listeners who don't like acronyms, digital rights management thing that is fairly new. So that is the case with more recently published books. But if you read,

Starting point is 03:21:46 you know, the digitized version of say, you know, Alan Watts that was published originally 40 years ago, there's no such problem unless the publisher now is like reclaiming rights and doing a whole new thing. But because I read so much less out of sort of newly published material. I don't run into it often. But there is a way to very laboriously deal with it, which is you can still open that passage in your Kindle app on desktop, so Kindle for Mac for me,

Starting point is 03:22:19 and it will let you highlight and copy those passages and paste them into your Evernote in between the missing parts. But it's obviously not conducive. I have done that. And it's so horrible because you also get the excerpted from three lines for every one. So just publishers, if you're listening to this, you are making it harder for people like Maria who have 7 million uniques per month to share your stuff. So please up your threshold. Do you have anybody helping you with brain pickings or is it just you?

Starting point is 03:22:59 The actual reading and writing obviously it's just me but as of about 10 months ago I have an assistant Lisa who's absolutely wonderful and she just helps me with admin stuff that has to do with my travel or email or scheduling things that I feel is weighing me down so much I operate so much out of a sense of guilt for sort of letting people down or, and as you know, I'm sure when you get to a point where the demands are just incomparable with what you can even look at, then you kind of need to have help in order not to either go insane or live with a constant guilt over not addressing things. And was there a particular...

Starting point is 03:23:46 Oh, and I also have a copy editor, this wonderful older lady I hired to do my proofreading. She's great. That's all I can say. I think proofreading is really, really important. And I'm constantly embarrassed if I have a typo, which, as you know, as a writer, you cannot proof your own work.

Starting point is 03:24:05 Your brain just does not see the errors that were made in the first place. have a typo, which, you know, as you know, as a writer, you cannot prove your own work. It just, your brain just does not see the errors that were made in the first place for the majority of them. And so, and people are kind of merciless. They think somehow that a typo makes you lazy or I don't even know. There's no kind of compassion for the humanity that produces something as human as a typo, right? Despite how mechanical the term itself seems, which is sort of ironic. But in any case, so yes, I have my assistant for admin and my copy editor for just proofing. And what platform is BrainPicking on at the moment? What's the technology behind it? I know that I've heard you mention WordPress before. Is it on, is it still on WordPress? Uh, it is on WordPress. I was going to make a joke on her about how the technology is called

Starting point is 03:24:53 Corpus Colossum, but, uh, the actual technology is, yeah, that was a very Sam Harris friendly joke. So when you're working with, say, your copy editor, do you give your copy editor admin access to WordPress and she'll go in, proofread it, and then schedule or publish? What's the process no it's it's a very again super sort of hacked together process which is every night i email her the articles from the preview page on wordpress i just copy that and paste it into a body email and i send it to her and then she sends me the corrections via email got it it. I mean, like I said, she's not very, I would say, tech savvy. I mean, I'm sure she's a wonderful learner.

Starting point is 03:25:52 So I'm sure she would totally learn how to do it if I gave her admin access. But between that and the fact that I write in HTML, so I really don't like the WYSIWYG. I hate it, actually. I think it's just easier to do it via email because then she can highlight the word and sometimes she would make suggestions that are more stylistic and I would like to have the final say in those

Starting point is 03:26:15 because very often I want to keep it the way that I have it because that's just my voice. So I find email works just fine. Got it. Okay, no, I'm always fascinated because I will use, Um, so I find email works just fine. Got it. Okay. No, I'm, I'm always fascinated because I, I will use, well, when I was, when I was hosting WordPress elsewhere, I'm also in WordPress.

Starting point is 03:26:33 I would use the share a draft plugin to share drafts with people. Uh, I'm, I'm now on WordPress VIP, which has a, it has a sharing function where people can leave feedback in a sidebar that runs alongside the article itself which is pretty cool oh that's cool i should i should look into that i think that's what i have to the wordpress vip the wordpress i don't even know what the that function is i i'm kind of i mean for somebody who writes on the web, I don't really, yeah, I sometimes only learn about things through friends. I think, yeah, that's how I learned about a lot of this stuff. and I really do. I love the track changes feature and I just find it more user-friendly for a lot of folks than having them use something

Starting point is 03:27:28 that's cloud-based like Google Docs just because I operate so much offline to try to get anything done. Yeah, I mean, that's what a lot of people suggest and what Kai, my proofreader, actually asked originally, but I do not own Microsoft products on principle, and I'm not going to just don't deal with it.

Starting point is 03:27:50 Okay, no, that makes sense. And your assistant, what was the sort of defining moment, the straw that broke the camel's back when you were like, you know what, what was the day where you're just like, fucking enough of this. I need to get somebody stat. I mean, when did you actually make the decision? It wasn't so much that I made the decision

Starting point is 03:28:12 as the decision was very strongly, lovingly, but strongly sort of pushed on me by my partner who one day said, you are using so much time on things that are just so menial and you should not. And because I was really stressing to a point of just driving myself crazy. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I always have been very independent. I, you know, moved away from my parents' house when I was 18, paid my way through school, lived always by myself. And I just had this Emerson-like sense of self-sufficiency and self-reliance to a point of pathology where it was to my own detriment.

Starting point is 03:28:54 And the notion of outsourcing felt to me on some level almost like an admission of weakness. Sure, yeah. It's ridiculous to feel that way. I think that's true for a lot of people though. Yeah, I know. And, and it's the strange thing,

Starting point is 03:29:08 the disorienting thing is that I think we intellectually know that's not the case, that it's actually a lot of strength to be able to delegate and to sort of divvy up control according to a hierarchy of priorities. But on some sort of psychoemotional level, it is just death to, to consider that you cannot do But on some sort of psychoemotional level, it is just death to consider that you cannot do something on your own anymore. And of course, I mean, it's interesting in terms of how brain cooking has evolved, which has always been very organic. So the sort of,

Starting point is 03:29:38 you know, eight year thing that has happened, it went from being a little newsletter that contained five links, no text, like five links to five things that I found very interesting. And then it went to sort of five links with a little paragraph about each about why this thing is interesting and important. And then it was, you know, not not a little paragraph, but a little like one page piece. And then it became not one, not five things every Friday, but three things every day of the week, pretty long form in the thousands of words, you know. And I foolishly and naively thought that I could just have the same sort of operational framework, despite the enormous swelling of just the volume of the writing. And that's unreasonable. It's completely unreasonable. So at one point last fall,

Starting point is 03:30:33 as the sort of seventh birthday of Brain Pickings was approaching, my partner was just like, please consider. And yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off i was just i'm always curious to ask how did you how did you find this the assistant that you ended up with uh well she's wonderful she's a professional sort of personal assistant that's had this type of job for about 20 years uh she's just a wonderfully warm and and just generous person but also has such doggedness about things and just work ethic it's unbelievable and you always have the sense that she's looking out for your best interest and in the most magnanimous kind of way towards you but also the most warmly non no bullshit way outwardly towards the world demanding things

Starting point is 03:31:27 from you. And having this buffer, it's really, really great. Yeah. And how did you track her down? How did the two of you get connected? Just a recommendation. She's been working for somebody who's a very trusted, dear person for a long time. So now she works for both of us. And did that person reach out to you? Did you reach out to her? I'm always curious about the specifics because the way that I found one of my first assistants, and we worked together for many years, was anytime I had a really fantastic interaction

Starting point is 03:32:01 with someone's assistant, I would say, hey, I know this is off topic, but you've been awesome to deal with. Do you have, you know, twin brother, twin sister, somebody who does what you do as well as you do it, that you could recommend to me because I need some help. And I just did that over and over again. And eventually one of them said, well, actually I work for multiple clients so we could talk about it and that's how we ended up working together uh but what what was the oh the introduction was made by the person so we i i i had met her at least my assistant i'd met her just socially many times before and so eventually when the time came for me to consider um like she just like we set up meeting, we talked and she was really into it and she'd been reading brain pickings. And, uh, um, I asked, made sure it wouldn't be too much on her plate.

Starting point is 03:32:52 Cause she's also, I mean, she's super woman, Lisa super woman. She is the mother of two kids. One of whom, um, is now her first year in high school and the other one, his first year in college. So she has that on her plate too and uh but she's very like i said very dogged very sort of dedicated and she was like i can do it and uh i'd like to do it and i was like great let's roll onward so with uh with your assistant if you were to do an 80 20 analysis of to the 20% of tasks that take up 80% of her time, what would those look like?

Starting point is 03:33:33 What is the vast majority of her time spent on? So a lot of it is, I guess, coordinating travel and things, but I'm trying to really, I mean, I have this new-ish commitment to really not do any speaking at commercial conferences anymore takes out a lot of me because I'm a writer and I also don't really recycle talks. I like to write something original. And when it's a commercial conference, it just doesn't add up for me what I get out of it because I usually donate my commissions to the local public library and whatnot. even one journalism student from going into buzzworthy land, you know, after graduation. That's worth it to me. And so even though I've scaled back on the speaking, speaking, I now I'm getting like all these college requests. And so that takes so much time, especially coordinating, because a lot of them are organized by sort of student volunteers and they're kind of still learning what it means to you know schedules and deadlines and advance notice and so Lisa is

Starting point is 03:34:52 sort of wrangling that and another big part and I should also mention that the evolution of what I've been able to delegate has been has sort of organically happened originally I just really didn't know what to give her I felt like I had to do all of I just really didn't know what to give her. I felt like I had to do all of it because I didn't know how to explain it to her to do. But she's a great learner, and I'm learning to delegate more. But another thing, because my site runs on donations, I sort of make an effort to send handwritten thank you cards

Starting point is 03:35:23 to just, at this point point randomly picked donors every month. And so I have her sort of export those names and emails for me and just give me like just prepare envelopes and all those types of things so that I could not spend too much time on the actual admin of the mailing. And do you operate, do you communicate exclusively via email or do you use other types of software? Oh, email. Email and text. Email and text. So no project management software at this point? No sort of Basecamp or Asana or anything like that? No, I don't. That would make me feel like I'm some sort of commercial organization. You know, I still have so much resistance to the fact that I even have to deal with these things. Right.

Starting point is 03:36:09 Back to the Oscar Wilde hypocrisy about audience or the humanity, I guess, of the tension. What's a couple of a couple of quick ones. So the first is when you when you lift, do you tend to have the same workout? What is your what is your weightlifting look like? It's changed a lot. In the last year and a half, I've prioritized body weight stuff heavily, no pun intended. That was actually total inadvertence. This is how language, how we think in language.

Starting point is 03:36:39 That's so funny. But I prioritize body weight stuff. And so I do pull-ups, pushups and that sort of thing. Um, it also depends on where I do my work at. My gym has, my building has a sort of gym, like a, you know, one of those residential gyms. Uh, but I also have a membership at a larger, um, probably I think the best gym in New York. I love it. Uh, but I'm only there a few days a week. So it just depends on where I do it and what I do. And if you had to pick one, besides the elliptical, if you had to pick one body weight exercise to hold you over, let's say you're traveling for a few months, you can only pick one body weight exercise, what would it be?

Starting point is 03:37:19 Well, it would be pull up, but you can't always find a place to do it. So I just do usually elevated push-ups, so my feet on a bench or bed or like a step or something and just push-ups. Cool. A great little hack for pulling motions while traveling is putting your feet on a chair and going underneath a table to do basically inverted bent rows. You know what's actually very helpful for traveling is... Plyometrics.

Starting point is 03:37:48 Plyometrics and TRX is actually quite handy. There's a system. For some reason, it's just not my thing. Can't get into it. Yeah. It doesn't... The thing is, here's the thing. So if I am forced by circumstances to do a workout that is not my preference

Starting point is 03:38:05 I very much like to be able to do something else while doing it such as listening to podcasts which is what I do well while I do weights at the gym anyway and there are certain types of movements that it's just a hassle to have the headphones and it's just like not great so I actually carry a weighted jump rope with me when I travel in case there's nowhere to do sprints, which is my plan B for cardio. And then plan C is just jumping, skipping rope. You're intense. I love it. Yeah, you know, I wanted to, every time I meet, and this is so silly, but I was so obsessed with Bulgarian Olympic weightlifters for a very long time that whenever I meet Bulgarians or people who at any point have lived in Bulgaria, I want to talk about Olympic weightlifting, but it's not. I know nothing about them.

Starting point is 03:38:57 I didn't even do the weight stuff when I was living in Bulgaria. No, exactly. It's kind of like, you know, like, oh, you're from Switzerland. Let me talk to you about the guys in the Ricola commercial. They're like, no, we don't talk about that stuff. Or worse yet, is that guy your cousin? Yeah, right. Right. You must know. Like, no, I actually don't. Like, I know I went to X, Y, and Z college, but there are 5,000 people per year. You know, it doesn't always work out. You mentioned the donations. I want to talk about

Starting point is 03:39:25 the site. So it appears, and I dug around a bit, but it appears that you have no comments or dates on your posts. Is that accurate? I don't have comments. I do have dates. They're in the URL. Oh, they're in the URL, but they're not in the post. They're in the URL structure, but they're not in the displayed post itself. Yeah. So the reason for that is because I do think we live in an enormously news fetishistic culture. And the reason I do what I do is precisely to decondition that because we think that if something is not news and it's not at the top of the search results or the top

Starting point is 03:40:05 of the feed, because all feeds are reverse chronology and, you know, there's an implicit hierarchy of importance to that. We think if it's not at the top, it's not important. And, you know, you would understand, you know, writing about Seneca, it really doesn't matter what the date stamp on it is. But I think that this culture conditions us so much people when they see a date stamp they sort of think oh this was like two years old oh and it's really you know two thousand years old but because a lot of academics actually use brain pickings to reference so i constantly get things this is another thing that lisa deals with like requests from textbooks for citations or you know whatnot and those people actually the dates. So I've made it so that if you actually

Starting point is 03:40:50 look, it's kind of easy to see, or I can just tell them when they write and ask me what the date is, look in the URL. But it's just not one of those immediate things that slaps you over the head, like a newspaper front page. Definitely. i actually have done the same thing for um quite a few years and if you if you go to any permalinks if you go if you get linked to any of my posts directly on the blog the date is there in the url but also at the very bottom of the post after the related links so for the same reason because there's so much bias against older material. And I think some of my older stuff is, I mean,

Starting point is 03:41:29 it depends on the person, obviously in the context, but it's, it's an easy way to have a high sort of abandonment rate is to, to timestamp the comments. Did you ever have comments or have you never had comments? I did originally. And then I was like,

Starting point is 03:41:43 you know what? I kind of feel like Herzog does. I don't really care to hear. I mean, I do write for me. I'm very gladdened by people who are in any way moved or touched. But the comments I was getting, I was I've been fortunate enough not to really get any, you know, trolling or anything like that. But they were kind of vacant or people trying to plug their own thing or spam. And it was taking more of my time than it was worth. And so instead, I've made my contact information very easily accessible. So if someone has something of substance and urgency to say, which is, I think, the two things that compel people to reach out, they'll do it via email behind their own name and not anonymously.

Starting point is 03:42:28 And then, I mean, I do get a lot of emails from readers, and those are valuable, you know, but I don't really care for comments. Now, the flip side of that is that now that I have the Facebook page having – something mysterious happened with the Brain Pickings Facebook page last fall where it just started growing so fast. I have no idea why. I was going to ask you about that because if you look at, say, your Twitter follower growth versus your Facebook growth, the Facebook just kind of took off. Yeah, it was in about October of last year and it went from 250,000 to now, I think, I don't know. Two point something million.

Starting point is 03:43:02 Close to three maybe. So more than tenfold in less than a year. I have no idea why. I've done nothing differently. I'm very, I don't really enjoy Facebook. I do it reluctantly because I know, I get a lot of emails from readers elsewhere in the world who actually use Facebook as their primary thing

Starting point is 03:43:20 and they're such sweet notes. You know, people who just are stimulated and inspired and moved in a way that perhaps they wouldn't be thing. And they're such sweet notes, you know, people who just are stimulated and inspired and moved in a way that perhaps they wouldn't be if they hadn't read that piece about some random thing that I read and wrote about. And I think it would be selfish of me to just sort of disable Facebook because I hate it. But the point of it is that you can't, you have comments on there. And Lisa, my assistant, actually, that's something I delegated her a few months ago just to completely deal with them. I can't deal with them. And not for any other reason that I have complete allergy to people pronouncing their so-called opinions without having actually digested or even engaged with the thing. So people would comment on the basis of like a thumbnail image or the title, make really outrageously inaccurate comments, clearly not having read the piece. And this kind of snap reaction thing that I think social media

Starting point is 03:44:20 to a large extent perpetuate, I can't deal with it just it's like a psychic drain like i can't even explain it just i i can't so anyway so so that would explain that would answer one of my questions which is in your header picture on uh facebook you have this should be a cardinal rule of the internet end of being human if you don't have the patience to read something don't have the hubris to comment on it yeah i was gonna i don't care if it sounds like bitchy or anything the point i mean you know it's interesting because i think a lot about criticism and the notion of criticism and and why it's so hard for anybody and i i don't think that people have a hard time with criticism because another person disagrees with or dislikes what they're saying.

Starting point is 03:45:09 They really have a hard time when they feel misunderstood, like the other person does not understand who they are or what they stand for in the world. And 99% of the time, and you actually touch on this in your conversation with Sam Harris, where you say that his ideas are not as controversial as people think when they don't actually understand what they are. But the main source of anguish is not being seen for who you are, not being understood. And this kind of reactive culture where people comment without taking the care to understand what you're expressing, who you are and what you stand for. It is so toxic. It is so toxic to readers, to writers, to us as a culture. And I just don't know how to get around it other than just having instructed Lisa to be just merciless about banning people and deleting comments that are just not, there's no humanity, there's no patience, there's no thinking in them. So, I mean, you know, anybody who writes online, I think, feels similarly that this is kind of my home. And if people come and be idiots in it, then they're not welcome there.

Starting point is 03:46:20 Yeah, no, I actually use the exact same analogy. I say, look, I view my, especially on my blog, I view the comments as my living room. And if you come into my house for the first time and get raging drunk and like, take your, you know, put your feet up on my table with your shoes on, you're not going to be invited back. You're gone, you know? So is your assistant's job as it relates to Facebook then primarily calling the herd and just removing the idiots? Or what are other instructions, if any? Are there things that she passes to you?

Starting point is 03:46:52 Are there things that she responds to? No. I don't really care what people say, again, to the point that if people have something of substance and urgency, they will reach out. And I'm then very happy to hear from actual humans and engage in a human dialogue, which I do. But I really care about, you know, the comments on Facebook. I just don't want them depressing me when I go on the page because I put my own things on there. You know, Lisa doesn't put the actual postings. And I also don't want them creating a culture that is antithetical to the very reason why I do what I do, which is a kind of faith in the human spirit.

Starting point is 03:47:30 I mean, that's where I come from. I am a cautious one sometimes, but an optimist about the so-called human condition. craps on that without having even given a chance to the thoughts that that speak to the to those ideals which is what my articles are record of then i will want them gone you know and so her instructions are just you know ban people who are offensive to others sort of in a vicious way as opposed to just having rational discourse of disagreement, ban people who are ignorant and, and have not read the thing and have some very scandalous or not even scandalous sort of sensation, sensationalist take on it. Clearly not understanding the nuance because I mean, a culture of news is, I say often a culture without nuance and And yeah, so that's basically it.

Starting point is 03:48:27 Help me stay sane when I look at them. That's her task. Does not make me lose my mind over just exasperation when people's impatient. No, and I really respect that because another reason that I read brain pickings as opposed to other sites, and I feel comfortable going there, is that I feel it is sort of a stronghold of positivity and optimism in a lot of respects.

Starting point is 03:48:54 So kudos. Thank you. The email. Actually, before we get to email, I've read that you schedule your Twitter and Facebook, which would make sense because you're prolific. If that if that's still the case, what do you use to schedule that social media? I use buffer for Twitter, and I use just my hands for Facebook. But again, I mean, this goes back to the same inner struggle of, I do want to be reading and writing for myself. So why do I have the compulsion to put so much of it out there? And I self-flagellate over that, because on some level, it does seem like a form of hypocrisy. But then I do think about the people that email me from India and Pakistan and South Africa and Korea and wherever, that actually that's how they connect. And I think if I'm

Starting point is 03:49:52 putting in the amount of time that I do into what I do, even if I do it for myself, I might as well just harness that time anyway, if it benefits somebody else's journey you know and so i do it because of that mostly definitely and i think that while it's fine to write for yourself if you if you keep the value of what you write to yourself when it could benefit a lot of other people then i think that's actually it could be viewed as a selfish act, right? So the, I think that there's, particularly when you're curating in the way that you do, and you're saving people thousands of hours of searching by distilling a lot of these concepts. Well, I would argue that the benefit, the value is not even, I mean, what I do is kind of the

Starting point is 03:50:43 antithesis of search. It's a discovery of things that ideally one would not have come across within the usual parameters of one's filter bubble, right? So sort of a lot of the people that, that I hear from, for example, you know, just this week to, to use the Seneca example, actually just this week, week, I heard from this guy who was an IT person, trained as a physicist, ended up doing IT and said, the Seneca, the shortness of life piece, really, really put everything in perspective. I've never really read philosophy, never been interested in it, never looked for it, but it just cut in the middle of what I'm struggling with right now in my own life. And it's kind of, it gives you pause to

Starting point is 03:51:25 hear that from people. Definitely. Agreed. On email, if you go to your contact page, you recommend emailcharter.org. And I'm very curious to hear if people actually follow the email charter. In terms of the email that you receive, do people actually pay attention to that and follow the rules? Yeah, they do. And I'm so grateful. I mean, the majority of them do. Some people who reach out with the intention of self-promoting, there's usually laziness to people who self-promote for the sake thereof. So they don't usually follow. But people who actually care to have a conversation and to engage are very courteous and very sort of mindful of what i've asked except for publicists who are never

Starting point is 03:52:26 yeah right well i mean i suppose uh if they're flying on autopilot and just blasting out a template dear blog dear blogger oh yeah i love those but dear blogger yeah or you know what i get very often which i think is actually hilarious uh People who don't even bother to read the name of the site. So they addressed me, dear Brian, somehow comes Brian. And the pinnacle of this was when last year, at one point, I opened my physical mailbox in my building, my home. And I found this bundle from the USPS, but like with an elastic band around it of mail for somebody named Brian Pickens, who lives in Long Beach, CA, or used to, I guess. And somehow that stuff got forwarded to me because I guess the guy either moved and the

Starting point is 03:53:22 USPS like somehow looked things up. And I don't even know. It was such a sort of mystery and metaphor for what I deal with online. I was like, how can you ask a publicist not to? So I used to have a company ages ago called Brain Quicken. And I had, I got a telemarketing call one evening, I remember. And this guy goes, hi, sorry if I'm interrupting. Is this Brian? And I go, excuse me? And he goes, Brian?

Starting point is 03:53:52 Brian Chicken? And I'm like, Brian Chicken. Brian Chicken. I was like, no, and take me off your list. Goodbye. Oh, God. So on the, on the, uh, on the email and pitching side of things, or just on the pitching side of things, how on earth do you deal with, uh, not just cold inquiries, but how do you deal with writer friends or acquaintances who are writers that you don't want to be rude to who want you to read their books. How do you polite decline that stuff?

Starting point is 03:54:26 And maybe you don't get a lot of it. I get a ton of it. And the fact of the matter is, like, not everyone is able to put the time or effort into writing a good book. So inevitably, if I get 10 books from decent or good friends, some of them are going to be terrible. And I don't have the time necessarily or the inclination to read them all. How do you deal with that type of situation?

Starting point is 03:54:50 Well, I guess you deal first and foremost by controlling not the outcome, but the cause, which is your circle of friends and acquaintances. I'm very selective about the people I surround myself with. And I'm, I like to think friendly to pretty much everybody that I meet. But my circle of actual friends is really close and really tight. And people who are just, you know, when the sky crumbles, they're going to be there and we're there for each other. And so with that in mind, I think there is a certain boundary that you have to put up beforehand to, I guess, manage social expectations in a way. And so for those people, my friend friends, in large part, I mean, I should mention that the majority of my close friends, including

Starting point is 03:55:38 my partner, too, are people that I have met just through what I do. So there's already the self-selection of sensibility and ideals. And, you know, I think we've become a centripetal force for the kinds of people we want to be and surround ourselves with those types of people. William Gibson has a wonderful word for it. He calls it personal microculture. And even when you said early on the kinship of spirit, I think that's so important. So which is a long winded way to say that when and if those inner circle people put a book out, it's a guarantee that I will like it because of who they are. And so then I'm more than happy to support it. I mean, the the book that we started with, the Scratch and Sniff Guide to Wine, Wendy, the illustrator is precisely that type of person,

Starting point is 03:56:25 somebody who I met through what each of us does. And she's now one of my closest human beings, you know? And so of course I'm going to support her work, but not because I'm being, um, nepotistic about it, but because that's the prerequirement that I am moved by her work and respect it and love it. And that's how we became friends. But outside of that inner circle, I don't, I think acquaintances know that there's no such expectation. And when I do get such requests, it's a matter of, well, did the person do their homework and knowing what I actually think and write about? Because very often, I'm sure you get that too, you get pitched things that are just so outside of what you do, in which case I don't even feel compelled to respond. Because if they didn't put in the time to understand what I'm interested in, why should I

Starting point is 03:57:14 put in the time to explain to them why this is not a fit? Yeah, that's a great way to put it. I need to embrace that more. I think that's an area where I carry a lot of guilt. Guilt. Yeah. But guilt, it's interesting because guilt is kind of the flip side of prestige and they're both horrible reasons to do things. So often we would agree as humans, not just you and me, just anybody would agree to do things because they sound prestigious in some way, you know, and, and equally avoid things because of the guilt thing, or do things because of the guilt thing, but sort of this whole Buddhist thing about aversion of, you know, avoidance and aversion and making decisions based out of either fear, which is what guilt is, it's the fear of disappointing somebody and then feeling

Starting point is 03:58:01 disappointed in yourself, or out of sort of grasping for, you know, approval or acclaim, which is what doing things for prestige is. I think either of those are really bad reasons to do things. And yet they motivate us a lot, or at least they sort of lurk in the back of the mind constantly. And it is a real practice to try to decondition that. Definitely. No, I like what you said about why put in the effort

Starting point is 03:58:30 to explain why it's not a fit if they haven't done the homework to determine if it is a fit. I think that's a great way to put it. I want to ask, and I know we don't have too much time left, so hopefully sometime, someday, we can do a follow up part two. I think that'd be a blast. I'll bring some more back if you actually drink wine so I can introduce you to it firsthand. But the donations, I, 20% of the options you're currently offering, which would you choose and why? In other words, you have people who…

Starting point is 03:59:15 What do you mean by the options? No, no. So I'll explain. Or two or three. So people can make a one-time single contribution. They can… Let me simplify that question, or they can become a member and donate, you know, $7, $3, $10, or $25 a month. What I'm trying to ask without being improprietous or making you feel uncomfortable is what is working best? When you're asking people for donations,

Starting point is 03:59:46 you know, assuming that it's working, if someone were to offer one or two options instead of four options per month, or the single contribution versus the membership or the membership versus the single contribution, what would your advice be to people? Well, I will preface this with the caveat that I use PayPal for donations and I can, for the life of me, figure out how to actually like look at the data and get any sort of real reason. All of it is so antiquated, their export tools and such, and I'm not that interested. I would siphon, you know, days into looking into it. So I can tell you sort of my intuitive interpretation of it. And by the way, the only reason these options are as they are also is also the reason why I

Starting point is 04:00:30 don't have an ad supported site, which is, I just asked myself, what would I like to read as a reader? Well, I would like an ad free site. And how would I like to support that? Well, I'd like to have a few options, you know, just because I don't want to, you know, be sort of confined to something. And so I just, just pulled it out of the hat, basically, with these tiers. And I've just left them on since I put them on, they seem to work, you know, whatever. And originally, my sense was that the one time donations accounted for much more, but I'd never actually analyzed it because I think I see the alerts that come from PayPal. And sometimes people would send really large one-time donations, like things that are totally humbling and enormously generous. And I think those kind of,

Starting point is 04:01:17 you kind of weigh them somehow as more than the cumulative sum of the smaller donations. So I thought the one-timers were much more, but then, and I'm pretty sure that must've been the case earlier on. Right. But, and I've had the recurring ones, I've had the one-time donations for as long as I can remember, for as long as I basically needed to start making money for the site. Because by the way, running the site cost me several times my rent, like all the costs associated with it. It's like crazy. So at one point, I got to a point where I had to make money. I said, I don't want to do ads. I don't believe in that. I'll have just donations. And I didn't think of recurring ones at the time. That was years ago and then um my friend max linsky who runs long

Starting point is 04:02:07 form.org or having tea and he said well why didn't you like push the recurring ones more because it's working really great for us and at that point i had the option but it was buried somewhere on my like donation about page or something and so i was like okay so i put it in the sidebar and that was i, I want to say, maybe 2011. And it started accruing slowly. And so this past year, when I did my taxes, I very reluctantly went to deal with all the PayPal tools to get the data out, basically. And I actually had Lisa pull all the Excels and whatnot. And then I did the tally to see, and to my surprise, the recurring

Starting point is 04:02:45 ones, which are very small individual amounts, actually were two to one ratio to the one time donation. And I don't know at what point it tipped over. But I think because of the scale, and just how many people have these tiny, tiny donations that they contribute every month. I mean, that's such an active commitment. And it's so generous, you know, that they add up. And my guess is that as time goes on, because the recurring ones have only been available for the last like two and a half, three years, whatever, they would become by far the larger sort of financial support compared to the single ones. Sure. No, that makes sense.

Starting point is 04:03:28 If you had to choose, and of course this is hypothetical, but if you had to choose two of the amounts to leave in the dropdown, so you have $7 a month, $3, $10, $25. If you had to choose two of those to leave up, which would you choose? Oh, I have no idea. Probably just the mathematical logical choice the two middle ones are the three and ten okay cool no just very curious about this kind of thing i think uh i think you've approached the blog in a very authentic way with the content and I can't emphasize strong, strongly enough what you just said, which is you, you base

Starting point is 04:04:09 what you do on what you would like or dislike as a reader. In the case of something with, with text, it doesn't have to be super complicated. It doesn't have to be doing tons of analytics for months before you make a decision. Just ask yourself, would this annoy the shit out of me? If so, don't do it. Would I love this? If so, try it out. And every decision too has been that way. And actually, in the last couple years, I've been getting really annoyed. I mean, brain picking is a pretty sort of lo-fi site, as you can see, just very super simple, basic. But I've been getting annoyed that it doesn't load very well on my iPhone when I want to look at something or pull something up to reference or iPad. And my friend Scott Belsky, who runs Behance, he's a great guy.

Starting point is 04:04:54 And he's been sort of a very generous donor, just supporting. And, you know, and one time he pulls me aside. That was like I think in February or March. And he's like, you know how much I love brain picking, but the site sucks. He didn't say it in that way, but he was super sweet about it. And he offered to connect me with this guy that he knew that I't want to be a media company. Like I don't want to be a BuzzFeed. But at the end of the day, I as a reader and as a sort of engager with that experience was being annoyed by it myself. So now I'm in the middle of releasing like a simple responsive site that is actually easy to read on your phone.

Starting point is 04:05:41 And so, yeah, despair and frustration prevail again in innovation. It's so, so worth it. It took me, let's see, it only took me three, oh God, seven years to get a mobile version of the site ready to go, which I just launched a month or two ago. So better late than never, I suppose. Well, Maria, this has been a blast. I really appreciate you taking the time. If someone were to want to explore brain pickings, what are a few articles you might suggest that they start with? Or a few posts? Well, since we talked about it so so much the seneca piece about the shortness of life it's a fairly short piece um there's a piece i did a couple years ago which was less about

Starting point is 04:06:33 it was not about a specific book just sort of things that i've been thinking about for a long time this disconnect between purpose and prestige and why we do things. And I forget what it's called. I think it's called How to Do What You Love or some other, How to Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love. And it was sort of an assemblage of thoughts on that from various sources as well as my own. And perhaps most of all, a piece that I wrote last fall on the seventh birthday, really, at the site, which was about seven things that I learned in those seven years of reading, writing, and living. Which is a great article, and I didn't want to replicate everything in here, so I sort of bobbed and weaved around some of these subjects a little bit.

Starting point is 04:07:18 But just to reiterate something that you mentioned, and that's doing nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone. And I just want to quote Paul Graham here, which you included, which is prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you'd like to like, which I think is so astute. And in closing, is there any... And also I should just interject and say, any Alan Watts piece, not because my writing about it is so great

Starting point is 04:07:49 or it's not coming from a place of check me out, it's coming from a place of check him out. Alan Watts has changed my life. I've written about him quite a bit, so I highly recommend any of those articles. Cool. All right. Brainpickings.org is the site, guys. Check it out.

Starting point is 04:08:04 Maria, any parting advice for this episode, this portion of our conversation before we check out? Any advice to the people listening out there, thoughts, parting comments? No advice per se, just, I guess, a comment and a hope, which is that, you know, thank you so much, not just for having me, but for having this show and for doing everything that you do. And I really hope we have more people who operate out of such a place of just, I guess, for lack of a better word,

Starting point is 04:08:37 idealism and conviction. And yeah, thank you for setting an example that way. Uh, well, that means a lot coming from you. And I think, I think you're a tremendous force for good out there in the world. So I hope people check out your work. I hope you continue to do what you're doing. I hope you continue to add repetitions to your pull-ups and, uh, we will, uh, we will talk again soon. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you, Tim.

Starting point is 04:09:08 Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that gets sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these

Starting point is 04:09:52 strange esoteric things end up in my field. And then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, tim.blog slash Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Cometeer.

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #710: Super Combo: Jamie Foxx and Maria Popova

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