Why Won't You Date Me? with Nicole Byer - Issues Affecting the Black Condition (w/ Roy Wood Jr.)

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

Roy Wood Jr. (The Daily Show) shares his calculations on the safest way of traveling during COVID, discusses dealing with friends who aren't taking the pandemic seriously, getting detained in Canada, and reporting on Black issues on The Daily Show. Learn more about I See Me, Inc charity here. Support Black Lives Matter. For a list of resources and ways to help, check out blacklivesmatters.carrd.co.Follow Nicole Byer:Twitter: @nicolebyerInstagram: @nicolebyerFacebook: www.facebook.com/nicolebyercomedyBuy Merch: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/nicole-byer?ref_id=964Order Nicole's book: www.indiebound.org/book/9781524850746

Why won't you date me? Why won't you date me? Why won't you date me? Please tell me why? Oh, baby, welcome to another episode of Why Won't You Date Me? A podcast where me, Nicole Byer, tries to figure out how I'm still single. Even though I've been redecorating my house and you could jizz all over my wallpaper, I would use it as extra glue. My guest today, you know him from The Daily show Space Force, the opening act, the last OG, Better Call Saul. He's got specials. Oh, boy.

Oh, boy. It's Roy Wood Jr. Hello. Hello. Hello. It's a lot of spackle if you're using jizz as a plaster of Paris. But then it'll never come off the wall. Yes, that would be very interesting.

Your wall would look like those kindergarten ceilings with those weird... Let me stop right there. That's too much of a visual for some people. How are you, friend? I'm good. Happy COVID-19 to you and yours. Yes, happy COVID-19. It is not going anywhere anytime soon.

I'm going to miss it. I'm going to miss lockdown when the country opens back up and we got three, four different vaccines out there to choose from and people get back out in those streets. I think I might stay inside a little longer i know for a fact i'll stay inside just a little bit longer because people be wild and they don't know how to be acting but i'm excited because i was talking to a friend i might have mentioned on the podcast already but she was like after the spanish flu or the great flu whatever you want to call it she was like the roaring 20s happened and that was a good time yeah yeah harlem renaissance not too long after that so yeah and then world wars one and two we got a lot of

action around the corner oh i don't want to go to war that to me does not seem like optimal fun but how else will our country stay in business as a corporation if we aren't going and whooping ass somewhere across the globe i'm sorry this is a relationship podcast let me not get into my political opinions about war roy here is a secret this podcast is about whatever i want it to be no one has caught on that since the George Floyd protests, I've only had black people or people of color on. Not one person has noticed. That's an impressive streak.

I was like, I'm going to do this for the rest of the year. And not one person has been like, wow, I can't believe that I'm only listening to people of color. That would be a very awkward email. It would be a nice email. I think white people should reach out more, should ask questions. I mean, I'm not going to answer all your questions

because I'm not the one doing your homework, but I think it's okay to be like, I noticed that. Is that okay? Ask your black friends questions. The ones that you know personally. Not me. Yeah, that's fair.

That's very fair right i try like me when it comes to explaining race and stuff like that to some of my friends like i have friends that'll call me up you know what can i do like i've had the guilty white friend call over the course of the summer and i know it comes from a good place and i just go hey man look i'm gonna send you a couple links and start with this book and after that you should be able to figure this shit out after that you ever seen a motherfucker lost in a store

like if it was like a department store and a white person where's the equality you know what I think it's over that way if you look just go that way I just passed it it's not a lot left on the shelf but if it's if it's anywhere in the store it's gonna be bad but what i'm not gonna be is the employee who

walks with you you ever had that shit when you go out to shop oh follow me i'm like i won't go on no adventure with you my fucker like now you're in like this forced friendship for 60 yards like i don't want to just point my fucker point to the way where the tvs are i don't want to just point my point to the way where the tvs are i don't want you to i don't want to come with you you don't want to be that poem about jesus with the footsteps no absolutely not absolutely not like when they volunteer to take me to the department i just asked about i go i just want to know where it is i'm gonna go over there later sometimes i'll follow them because sometimes i feel like door they explore and we're like on an adventure and we might discover some other things I feel like they're using you to get out of doing whatever the fuck it is

They were supposed to be doing in that moment and you're some sort of lifeline. I'm not your retail lifeline I'm a fucking go do your do your task? Just point have you ever worked in retail? retail lifeline. Motherfucker, go do your task. Just a point. Have you ever worked in retail? No, I've been food my entire life. The only jobs

outside of comedy have always been food related. I figured out real quick in high school that if you work in food, you eat good and you eat good

off the clock. It's very easy to steal. It's very easy to take food home. So, since I was 15, I did yard work like for like 13 14 just raking leaves and cutting grass and then my first job with like a pay stub and like tax deductions was basking robbins and from then on all the way through subway and shonies i through Subway and Shoney's I worked in a hospital cafeteria uh Golden Corral was my last actual job I love Golden Corral yeah that was that was a good spot man I don't know how this buffet is

gonna survive this COVID it's not gonna survive this COVID I think we go back to the kitchen cafeteria I don't know if you know the Piccadilly's morrison's type hot plate cafe it's like the school lunch room where the person has just it's just just a lunch lady scooping your shit onto a plate you know there's a lot of restaurants like that down south you know me being from alabama that's all we had growing up with a cafeteria style dining where you go through the piccadilly line and it's just a person point to your vegetable and they scoop it and then they pass your plate to the meat motherfucker meat motherfucker what meat you want then they your plate gets passed down like a subway sandwich from section to section

then you get your assembled plate at the end of the line yeah that's not gonna be here after 2020 i think that's the only way you can do anything remotely buffet is that there just has to be an assigned server because you can't have randos just breathing up all over on top of everything. Yep. Yep. That's not it for me. No. I think about the Sizzler as a kid and like watching another kid sneeze right up into it because they weren't tall enough for the sneeze guard and being like, we all got to eat that.

And then we all ate that yeah and it was good it was good damn it it was good you're telling me once we're four covid vaccine there's three injections and a nasal like inhaler one we're gonna be four vaccines deep by the spring you're telling me that's not enough to bring back the buffet like if you can prove you've had your covid shot i mean i think in florida i think in all these states that never did a shutdown they'll be like yeah they probably still haven't shut down buffets no i'm sure people are still going to buffets like my friend who lives in florida he keeps showing me pictures of shit he's doing i'm like you're living your best life and you're not afraid and good for you but if it's two places that's wide open right now

it's Florida and Atlanta Georgia oh Atlanta's going for it and I'm like my black friends please they they're not nice to us at the hospital you don't want to get sick they out there black folks is out there out there like they got full coverage. I can see if you had insurance and you out here messing around with this COVID, but y'all out here with no coverage? You still going to the club? No, no, no, no, no. I was just at the hospital and I took a nice Gucci bag with me. So they'd be like, oh, she got some money.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you're wearing. Doesn't matter what your face looks like. If you are black black they treat you a certain kind of way and you cannot get around that i still don't know why they don't just sell fake insurance cards just so the ambulance will get you there in one piece and then when you get to the hospital you run my paperwork and it's like gotcha bitch but it's too late i'm already still alive like i would if i didn't have health insurance i would 1000 have a fake health insurance i would if i didn't have health insurance i would 1000 have a fake health insurance card yeah because i don't think the ambulance ran anything

i think they just looked at it yeah but why you bullshit that's probably next like an ambulance gonna pull up with a damn swipe with one of them card one of them square card readers a square reader for your insurance they gonna swipe the insurance card before they even put you on the gurney like hold on we got to make sure this go through before i put my gloves on it's fucked up before they did anything so i fell down the stairs and i dislocated my ankle and broke my fibula but uh before they did anything to me, this nice lady came in full PPE. She washed her hands. She put on gloves.

She was like, okay, give me your insurance card. And I was like, are you kidding? I haven't gotten any pain medication. She's like, well, I can go find your nurse after we're done with this. And I was like, this is fucking wild. And I said it to her face. I was like, I can't believe you're trying to get money out of me or like to make sure you can get money out of me before you do something for fuck.

Like, what the fuck? America's fucked up. We're like, I keep saying it, but this is a third world country here. If I didn't have a family, I would have moved this year and I'm not bullshitting you.

Where would you have moved to? I'm dead the fuck serious. If I did not have my girl and our child, if I was single, if this was 2015 and COVID hit I would have got the fuck out of America to whatever country would have taken me um my ancestry.com says Nigeria fuck with me hard so maybe go over there and be a fish out of water figure shit out also have a real good time in vancouver but i don't know you know canadian paperwork is a little tight i like canada

although one time i was detained in canada thank you because this was 2010 nobody told me that when you got to customs you gotta say oh i'm visiting a friend or oh no you said you were working no what i said was i'm doing improv and they said are you getting paid for it and i said nobody gets paid to do improv and i didn't know that that country treated people nicely so people do get paid to do improv so they're like ma'am follow us and also my bag was dry rot because I was poor and I was borrowing my friend's bag and it had been under her bed for so long because none of us traveled. So like my clothes were everywhere and I was holding this bag, holding my clothes and I was like, nobody gets paid to do improv.

So then they were like, get in this little room. Have you ever been arrested? And I was like, for real? Yeah. And they were like, we don't like criminals in our country. And I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Just a little shoplifting. And they're like, well't let criminals in our country and i was like oh no no no no just a little shoplifting and they're like well that's bad too uh and then they questioned me for like three hours canada's like that i went um my girl's people are from detroit she has people in detroit

rather my stupid ass is on some i'm gonna to go surprise you in Detroit and show up in flowers because I'm doing a gig close to Detroit. Miss the exit, go through the Windsor Tunnel or whatever the fuck the bridge is that takes you from Detroit across into Canada. Bust a U-turn and come right back through, right? you turn and come right back through, right? Because you go through the customs line, and I go, yeah, I just came through real fast, which is literally the worst thing you could say. Because you may as well just say,

yeah, I just came over here for five minutes to pick up the drugs. I am now headed back. And they took me in a room, and it was 10 to 20 questions about drugs and narcotics and unlike you i have been arrested i was stealing blue jeans but this is 98 i was literally a teenager when this happened that shit is still in the computer my nigga really oh yeah oh yeah my shit is still in the computer because my shit isn't i was arrested for shoplifting three times and it's all gone my shit as of last i checked a couple of years ago that shit is still there's still remnants of that all my drive all my traffic

tickets everything everything anything with the police it's still somewhere in the computer and maybe it's not in american computers but i don don't know what servant of Canadians got, but them motherfuckers found it. And it was literally 45 minutes of being questioned when all I did was miss an exit on the freeway. I had to literally show them my GPS. This is back in the day when you used to have the Garmin mounted up on the windshield. I had to show them that. It was like a whole ordeal to prove why i was only in canada for five minutes they could not fathom that i was just stupid

and just missed an exit i mean it's nice how closely they guard their country we we want to build a wall. Like, it's funny. Building a wall is so funny to me. I legit was thinking about Canada. I was just like, this seems like a decent place. And you know what? Maybe I just need to be around some black people for a little while. Figure some things out.

You know, if I'm going to just be cooped up somewhere, I may as well be able to go take a walk through some weird place that I've never been before and just discover the world during this downtime. All I need is a decent internet connection to do daily show stuff because they weren't sending us out in the field. Still aren't sending us out in the field for anything. But I don't know. But it is what it is. So instead, I'm in Nework where it's half open half closed which is the weirdest thing yeah new york seems crazy well it seemed like in the spring everything was open i feel like everybody i know in new york was like it's springtime in new york we're eating

outside and we're doing fun things i think for as long as kids are in school they just reopened schools again like they had closed them for a second before Thanksgiving and then after Thanksgiving I think they'd open them back up for a little while and once my son went back to preschool that's when I was like oh we're good it's like nah nah we're not good you know so I still have this air of paranoia about me when it comes to what I touch when I'm out standing. I don't even walk directly behind people. I don't even want to be in your germ cloud. Correct.

I walk to the side of people. People are nasty. They were nasty before the pandemic. They're probably even nastier now. Yo, let me tell you some wild shit Dulce Sloan gave me. She gave all of the correspondents on the show. I'm going to find the name of it before the end of this podcast because I want to give it

a plug. She gave me this mask. It looks like a regular cotton N95 mask, but there's a tube that goes from it to a respirator type fan that you can wear on your sleeve like an iPod shuffle and you just

breathe in air from around the corner like just you can mount the little fan anywhere on your neck or your back or whatever and just breathe the air behind you on the side and like she had to fly for the holidays or some shit or whatever she was doing for that that movie that she's promoting uh chick fight shout out dulce and uh chick fight and and she was or is it girl fight i don't know it was a good chick fight she like brought it to me at first this summer that's so you can breathe air that's not right in front of you that's fucking stupid dulce now put that shit on i was like shit this thing okay okay and then it's got the little android charger nigga i got a

mophie battery pack attached to my breathing thing walking around looking like a cyborg but it's so worth it i mean the things we're all doing. It's so fucking wild. Have you flown yet during this whole thing? No. No, I have not. I am horrified of flying in any capacity. Everyone is very poorly behaved in the airports. People take their masks off for no good reason. They free cough and not cover in their mouths.

American Airlines sold every goddamn seat on that plane. We were packed the fuck in. They had to keep announcing to keep your mask on. It was truly, it was intense. I drove 15 and a half hours to Birmingham so my son could get some grandma time. We did that earlier this year. And my mom, you know, my mom is a college educator,

but they've been quarantined as well in Birmingham like schools are open in Birmingham but this school in particular they're running like you know basically a COVID safe scheduling so if you're not essential to the education of the children do your do your job at home so we're like okay that's a safe situation so we did that and then um her brother had a baby and so we did the whole go meet the baby shit. And that was also a quarantine for a week and a half and then go meet the baby, then come back. But the whole time, nobody had any place to be. New York hadn't opened up.

So those are the only two. And that was an 11 hour drive. Damn. To Detroit. And that's like some old school road comic shit like that shit took me back to fucking 99 and 2000 level and i just don't have the stamina for it but i don't know what's worse the the stir craziness of a car for 15 hours or the hour and a half flight that it would have been to Detroit I would take I would take the

car just because there was a man in front of me who dropped his phone like in between the plane and the the jetway so it like fell on it fell on the tarmac and uh the pilot had to go get it and he was like oh excuse me and I was standing six feet away so like there I didn't have to like really move so I took a step back and I bumped into this man and i turned around i was like you shouldn't be this close to me why are you this close to me and he's like oh i guess we're gonna be rude now and i was like not rude i just don't want something from you dude like just back the fuck up so i take the car but i do get that like being in a car for that long oh we oh oh because yeah i used to drive from college to college

and it was a lot. Have you been disappointed in finding out the friends that you have who don't see this issue the same way as you? Yeah. Yeah. It's like the people I'm like, oh, okay, so I won't see you for a minute

because you're not being respectful. I'm not even sure if I can fuck with you on the other side of the four vaccines, bro. Like, what else are you thinking weird about? Like, politics, I am more understanding of a Trump voter than an anti-masker. I agree with you.

Because not all anti-maskers are right-wing and tinfoil hat or whatever. There's a lot of people on the left that are not fucking with masks and they don't believe in herd immunity and blah, blah, blah. At least with politics, for whatever reason you can pull out of the sky, you believe this guy can fix the issues fine fine but motherfucker this is science this isn't one thing or another we're not even talking about whether or not we should open up the country and open up the malls just the basic belief that covering your fucking face stops germs from flying further from your fucking face and you say no to that is truly is wild to question everything else about us i have

to i have to i had a one of the emts i talked about this i think probably last week or the week i don't know we're stacking episodes it's hard to keep track one of the emts i talked about this i think probably last week or the week i don't know we're stacking episodes it's hard to keep track one of the emts that picked me up was like very sarcastic like aren't you glad we're all wearing a mask and i was like yeah dude i am he's like why they don't work so i was like why does a surgeon wear a mask and he was like to keep their germs to their selves and i was like yeah it keeps the covid to yourself and then he went ah yeah you gotta be okay and i was like you're the man saving my life what the fuck is this yeah and i guarantee you he still doesn't believe in masks even though you attack it with logic it's just good good or goodest and there's a lot of people that just believe in good but i mean that's my fucking

pre-covid who don't even cover their mouth when they cough they just cough out into the into the atmosphere so you're gonna have people like that and i just would rather drive further around fewer people like at least at a gas station you can navigate your way in real quick if i gotta piss on the curb, I will. Like, there's just, I don't know. It's an issue of, I won't say contention in our home, but it's definitely something that, you know, that me and my girl probably, we're on different sides of the aisle on internally. And I don't want to speak too much on it

because she's not here to defend her point of view but you know if i'm driving and you're chilling it's all good i'll wear a mask in the car i'll be the one to get out get the gas so at least only i have covid if nothing else happens because i just feel like also you know just on some providing for your child type shit i really this sounds it's gonna sound crazy but i hope this makes sense hopefully the parents understand at no point in time can the mother the father and the child all be in the same amount of peril. It's the designated survivor ideology of the White House where anytime the president is in chambers or whatever the fuck,

I don't know what the room is called. I probably should. I work at the Daily Show. But anytime all them elected motherfuckers is in the same room doing their shit, there's one motherfucker that's just not there and you are designated to run the country in case a bomb went off and killed everybody that's in the room so

where my child is concerned you know me and my girl we are respective co-presidents of this administration so we can't both be on the plane we can't both be on the plane i don't think that's crazy i fully get that i get that uh i get that fully one of us got it and i could be wrong this could sound as crazy as just wearing a mask to a lot of people well you can still get it driving i'm sure there's still ways i think people don't think about the amount of exposure versus like risk factors like i think people are like well if you go outside you could get it i'm like yeah if i go outside and tongue kiss somebody i'll probably get it but if i go outside i'm wearing a mask and i stay six feet away from somebody the likelihood of me getting it is very

fucking low well but they're doing studies now and they're trying to show where you know you could just walk through a motherfucker's corona cloud at the grocery store so the grocery store is just as simple as going to a gas station which is essentially just as simple as riding an airplane and you know and the thing that's crazy is that as much reading as I've done, and I've done a lot of reading, I've done airplane versus train versus bus. What is the ventilation system on an Amtrak Accela versus a sleeper car? What's the exposure probability if Enterprise brings me the vehicle instead of I going to pick it up? And it's all inconclusive. It's all every day that you leave

the house you take in a penitentiary chance it just is what it is and you just have to figure out good good or goodest and everybody's got a different scale of it well roy you really brought me down uh i was thinking that i was doing some safe stuff yo you want to know some crazy shit it's just you just do as best you can i'm not i'm not being a fatalist and saying you're screwed i look i did the ultimate i thought i had it all figured out i go you know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna charter a bus to birmingham that's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna charter a bus because that's the simplest way it It's just us and the driver. Driver takes a test three days out, takes another rapid test the morning of.

Because you can purchase rapid tests now commercially. And we'll sit all the way in the back. There's a bathroom on the bus. We're the only ones using it. So you could take a shit if you want. You can bring all the food and you just bring a second driver to relieve the first one because 15 hours is a long time i don't know you so you two fuckers split an eight hour shift these motherfuckers said it's

seven thousand dollars wow i was like bro and here's what I'm rating it against. Round trip, it's about $500 per person for us to fly somewhere. It's about $250, $300 a head each way. So I go, okay, $1,500 is the number. $1,500 is what it costs to fly. It's maybe double that to take a charter. You know how I'll offset the other $15? I'll call three other friends that are also from the South and go, you motherfuckers sit up front closer to the Corona.

And we'll sit all the way in the back. And everybody's got a 10 seat bubble. Right. I was like, it would be cheaper to just buy up a section of coach class. Yeah. Than to take a charter bus. That's wild. It would legit.

If I had the money, I would pull a charlie sheen it's an old clip you can dig it up on youtube but charlie sheen wanted to catch a home run baseball so bad that he bought up all of the seats and left field at anaheim stadium one night and it's just him by himself patiently waiting for someone to hit a home run and no one hit one it was fucking amazing he just wasted that money he was charlie sheen though he had that cbs two and a half million episode man to have money like that i just watched this movie indecent expose no wait what's it called indecent proposal have you seen that movie um It's not Robert Duvall.

No, it's Robert Redford proposes this deal to Woody Harrelson. And Demi Moore, he says, a million dollars for a night with your wife. And rich people could just do shit like that. And then they accept it, but then Woody gets regret. So Woody gets wild. They're on a helicopter away going away for their like special night together and he like runs to their hotel room there's a maid in there and he's like where are they and she's like no habla es ingles but up up they're up which i'm like this

is racist but whatever uh so i was like how does she only know where they are in english so he runs up to the helicopter pad and he's like d d no but then she's like off to fuck and then she does it and then he can't handle it and i don't want to spoil the rest of the movie but goddamn is it sexy fucking spoil it that movie came out 20 years ago lay it on me it's older than that even well it came out in 93 i believe but uh yeah so okay so if you don't want to hear the rest skip it skip it a little bit skip forward 30 minutes of the podcast so they fuck she comes back he's like you still love him and she's like no we did this for the money and then uh they end

up breaking up because they he can't handle it and then she ends up with robert redford and she is the happiest this woman is the entire movie she is so happy with this billionaire so then they're at this like zoo auction or whatever and then uh fucking woody harrelson shows up and uh he bids on something for a million dollars to be like i don't even want this money so he robert redford's like talk to your ex-husband whatever squash whatever and then they're talking he realizes there's still like love between them and he's like wow demi more is never gonna look at me the way she looks at woody harrelson i'm gonna break up with her so then he lies to her in the car she realizes that he's lying to her she realizes that he like actually loves her but she loves her poor ass husband like a little bit more so then she goes back to him and i was like bitch you could have had it all

stay with him for at least five years get some money from that prenup and then go back to your poor husband what a fucking terrible fucking ending yeah i thought you were gonna say woody harrelson killed him see that would have been good that that i that would have been more on on point for me even though i still don't think you should be killing people over relationship drama but in a movie come on now give it to me give me the drama i that one that's one of those movies where people it's a classic and you hear about it i'm glad I missed that one. I'm okay with that. I mean, the movie is very good up until the last five minutes. The way they decide to go through with it is great.

Then they have a lawyer who closes the deal. And the lawyer is Oliver Platt. And he's talking to Robert Redford. And he's like, in the clause, if you can't get it up, you still pay. If you die in the act, you still pay. And I'm like like those are funny clauses i i do though enjoy i think that in a lot of cinema we forget how much greed i i love the exploration of how greed influences character choices and how it changes people and how money can alter who people become i think that's a very

realistic thing in the real world so any movie where money is one of the focal points it's it's more than likely something i'm gonna watch because there's just it's interesting to see how it like like one of my personal favorites is a simple plan see how it like like one of my personal favorites is a simple plan with uh bill paxton um i don't want to say helen hunt because that was them in twister and i don't want y'all thinking that all white people be in the same movies i know billy bob thornton was in there it was a great cast but group of buddies find a plane with a bunch of money inside the plane, a plane. They're they're hunters. And there's a plane crash in the wood, a bunch of dead bodies in a private jet. They look in the jet. There's money. They keep the money.

And the bulk of the movie is deciding what to do with the money. And, you know, what do we do? And each person making their own individual choices on what to do with their share and how that choice influences the other people and then other motherfuckers start finding out about the money and how that all and that movie was to me one of the best portrayals of just greed and coming up you know you know you you go through all of this it's kind of like set it off set it off is probably another good example of greed it's one of my favorite fucking movies yeah it's a great example of greed because they had enough to live and they could have gotten away with it but you

know queen latifah she needed more money she won a little bit more money and then i love her girlfriend in the movie she doesn't say much but she speaks volumes yeah i you know what i appreciated about that about that portrayal of lesbian love is that they didn't lean into it they didn't just so how long have you been doing the list that's what i mean at a time where this wasn't just a commonplace ass thing to see but they treated it like it was normal i think that's part of how you create a situation of normalcy around stuff that people love to make a stink about that's none of your fucking business that's why i liked it so much because she was just a she reminded me of like people in my family who you know are gay or whatever and you know their partner

might be quiet and they don't say very much but they're there and you're like yeah whatever you're there you we respect you that's what i mean by like she didn't say much but it spoke volumes like i fucking i love that movie yeah we're like that in our family but it's with cops i'm trying to think i can't think of any or at least not any out members of the lgbtqIA plus community in our family, but we definitely got some cops and we definitely had family get togethers in the last four or five years, but it's never, well, how could you do the job?

Do you understand what that means? Of course, everybody's got their opinions about the occupation and what it stands for, but in the presence of family and stuff like that, it's just a different energy where it doesn't suck the air out of the room. And I respect movies where they don't allow things that everyone may not have seen but do need to know. Yeah, this is happening out here in the world. But anyway, this money, how are we going to get it? I have a question.

We kind of like danced around politics, but how did you get into politics? Was it before or after you got The Daily Show? I wouldn't say I'm into politics. I would say that I'm into issues that affect the black condition. Okay. I would say that's my biggest, that's my biggest give a fuck. My comedy started changing. I got the Daily Show in 2015.

I'd say somewhere around 2012. So I was doing morning radio in Birmingham. I did mornings for well over a decade. We got fired in 2012. And so I went back to LA and I was doing a sitcom on TBS and I was doing some stuff with ESPN and I was getting to a point where I was starting to age out of college gigs you know mid-30s you just you look a little old you just look like you look like a substitute teacher trying to relate to 18 year olds and I've always enjoyed

college shows and performing for college students but I was getting further and further away from what they were experiencing and what I was starting to experience so I was having to kind of fabricate a set that was just for them and I didn't really like that. And, you know, that was probably the first turn in my material away from like kind of lighter superhero jokes and food jokes and stuff that was this is fine. Toledo for whoever the fuck shows up to trying to figure out ways to take stuff that people were already arguing about and finding the third side to the argument. And so that's what kind of Twitter came in. I started fucking with Twitter hard in 2010

and you can start seeing arguments. You see most arguments on Twitter are A and B. The tweet that excels presents the C side to the argument or the C joke that doesn't address either side, but presents another opinion that you didn't necessarily consider. So that was kind of what I tried to do with my radio show before it ended. So the creative shift had already happened for me in other capacities and so then when I got back out on the radio ends the sitcom gets canceled now I'm back on the road on a regular

basis and now I really do want to talk about some shit that has a little bit of teeth behind it and around the same time Trevor takes over the daily show and Neil Brennan I gotta give Neil Brennan a shout out on this because he's the one who recommended me to Trevor and the producers. And I have a sit down with Trevor. You know, I do the audition or whatever. And he was very, as a comedian, you know, comic to comic, Trevor basically said, look, I'm here. This is a place for you to do what you already do. Like your stuff already has some teeth to it.

So just figure out a way to do that. But within the confines of the rules of the show. And when you look at a lot of issues that affect the black community, a lot of them are policy based issues. So, or there are things that could be changed to some degree by policy. So it becomes like this perfect parallel, you know,

you know, I, I was never before I worked at the daily show, I was never on some Dennis Miller, Lewis black level examination of the Republic. I like when I got hired, this, how scared I was when I got hired,

I went back and tried to learn all the presidents and vice presidents and I was planning I was planning to take a political science class that was the other thing that I was getting ready to do because I was like I don't know enough can I just say you saying that is

how a lot of black people think because we're like oh my god I got this job I got to be the best at this job I don't think yeah I don't want to like generalize but I do not think I would hear that come out of a white person's mouth that I got this job I got I got in the door I got a seat at the table and now I'm gonna go take a class a college fucking course to make sure I keep my seat at the table. I have to destroy. I have to come in here and destroy.

But then what you realize is that there are people in there who don't fake the funk. Like we have we have a fat checker charts. For a hot second, I thought you said a fat checker. And I was like, damn, well, that's weird. I don't understand why you'd have that pinching you as you walk in the door chad's job as a fact checker he just knows policy he knows bills that were proposed that didn't pass he could name the former chief of staff that got fired mid-term and like he knows the assistant attorney general in the 1952 special election like he can name all the aircraft carriers that are named after presidents like he is deep into that type of stuff so you have people there that have a

wealth of political knowledge you have people that are funny you have people that understand structure and you all come together on some power ranger voltron shit to create the script every day and trevor is a piece of all of those people even more so because he knows all of the international leaders and all the international history and how that stuff connects to american politics my job is to walk in and go, hey, I heard this thing that's fucked up happening to black people and this is how we make a joke about it without pissing off black people and waking up white folk.

What you think about it? Then Voltron comes together and goes, yes, this is the story. This is the story we're trying to tell and here's a way to make this interesting without it being disrespectful to the people that are being affected by it, which is the ultimate tightrope that you have to walk at The Daily Show. is that there's a lot more victims. You know, there are people that are being put under unfair duress because of laws that have been passed

and implemented and being neglected by an administration. And then you have waves of people who are finally courageous enough to step forward and speak out in their own right about wrongs that have been happening to them that we as a society may have never been privy to so there's a lot of people that are now stepping up and going this is my time this is my space

let me tell you about what the fuck i've been going through for not just the last four years the last 5 10 20 whatever so when you look at all of the possible stories to choose from there's so many more faces to these stories where it just used to be policy policy policy did you believe a politician the policy and like the BAFTA treaty initiative and the free trade and and now it's like no they're building a wall they're putting people in cages they're separating children from families what's up and that's a totally different style issue to try and bring to light while at the same time honoring the comedic

aspects of what the daily show is supposed to be so So that's where I think we all work in unison. You know, stand up, I get a little bit more leeway to kind of be a little more fun and silly, but I also like, I enjoy, I have more fun talking about just issues than myself. Like it's fun to just get on stage and how can we explore taking a knee for the anthem? You should stand for the anthem. You should kneel for the anthem. What if we just agreed that maybe that's not the right song? Maybe there's a better song. Maybe if there was a better song, everybody would stand.

And so that becomes the joke is, well, who's the artist that white people and black people love? Oh, it's Brunouno mars i love bruno mars he looks like every race if you guessed any race that bruno mars is that is he's literally the melting pot he represents what america is supposed so for me comedically that's a joke that doesn't sit on either side of the issue it's just an alternate point of view and so i have fun doing that on stage because it's dangerous it's you know it's oh what's he gonna say is he gonna piss me off is he gonna cancel it oh okay okay i like that kind of comedy it It excites me. I like towing the line. I've got like a Black Lives Matter joke right now

that works beautifully when there's black people in the crowd. And then when there's no black people in the crowd, I have to tell the white people to package up their white guilt, send it through the post office, keep them running and send it away. And I'll say it again and you'll laugh but it's just

so fun like i really i love how dangerous it is to like get to a point where you're like oh no oh no she might offend me oh wait no it's a real solid good joke built on a premise that could have been very offensive and fucked up if she went in a different way shut your mouth and trust me yeah and of course the important part with that is how you sequence your set because you have to earn the trust of the audience to get to that place.

And you know, a lot of people are triggered by certain things and a lot of people just don't want to hear certain. They believe there are no jokes whatsoever in this particular quadrant of topic.

And that's fine. I don't think that's fine. I think you can joke about anything. Oh, but i'm not going to placate to that fear i'm just saying that's what's going to activate your reservations in recoiling the moment i say mass shooting just saying that you don't know which way i'm going, but just saying those two words. What's he going to do? What's he going to talk about with this? It's like the Chappelle bit about how, was it in this SNL monologue,

about how COVID cut mass shootings because there aren't a bunch of people out in the streets. That's a funny observation. That's fair game. You're not making fun, and that's what I mean by, you're not making fun of the victims of mass shootings. No, it's just an observation. That's fair game. You know, you're not making fun. And that's what I mean by you're not making fun of the victims of mass shootings. No, it's just an observation. In that particular joke. Correct. And it's comedians that go there and will like legit make things.

Oh, my God. Twitter's a minefield. Oh, yeah. When it comes to that type of stuff. But for me, I enjoy. It's the roller coaster of the topic and the edge of it. Are we going to go over the edge and then to be able to yo-yo you back, to me is more fun than, you know, letting you fall off the cliff. I agree.

Real quick, we have to take a break. And we're back. It is a relationship podcast, and I guess I should ask about relationships. But first, I want to know about working on a radio station. Okay, so when I was little, I used to pretend, I feel like every kid used to pretend to work on a radio station. Yeah, because you listen to the radio. But how was it fun to work at a radio station?

What was it like? I enjoyed it. It's hard work. You're paid little. But now that I'm older, what I really appreciate was the community aspect of the radio station. And we were the heritage station in Birmingham. So we were the main black station, at least for the radio station. And we were the heritage station in Birmingham. So we were the main black station, at least for the younger audiences.

And we were always out in the community. Every single week, we were somewhere in Birmingham, either a giveaway or a concert or just at a cell phone store, giving out phone cases. And just to be able to press the flesh and meet people in the community. Birmingham is a very socially small city. That sense of community, I think, is still there today. And I met a lot of dope people in them streets that I'm still

able to network with, you know, even now. You know, radio is cool. If you're into like, it just depends on what you like to do. I just enjoy entertaining and informing people. You know, even now, you know, radio is cool. If you're into like, it just depends on what you like to do. I just enjoy entertaining and informing people. You know, Tom Joyner was one of my idols in that regard. And, you know, he talks about party with a purpose.

That was always his thing with radio. And so I enjoy, you know, because I was in a weird position because I took over for Ricky Smiley when he left to form his syndicated show that exists today. And Ricky is Birmingham royalty especially in radio comedy for sure but especially in Birmingham radio so you know Birmingham is a community that supports their own if you're funny so

as a comedian on radio that first year was rough because a lot of people would call the station and go, that wasn't funny. That shit Roy Wood. Man, somebody tell Roy Wood to quit, man. That man need to kill himself, man. He ain't no Ricky Smiler. Black people will just tell you shit. To your face in the streets, too. Keep it behind.

These are the same people. I got to go out to the fucking, to the Arby's to give away roast beef coupons. You Roy Wood? Man, you need to tighten up, bro. These are the same people I got to go out to the fucking to the Arby's to give away roast beef coupons. You know, you need to tighten up, bro. Let me get two coupons, though. That's funny. But it's all love, you know. But, you know, by the same token. You know, I've tried to pour back into the city of Birmingham with various projects and try to support local charities and people and, you know, and show my face.

But more importantly, try to make sure that money and opportunity gets poured back into the city because, you know, the city's worth it. And I think that's what I discovered the most about radio, which is how close knit of a community the city of Birmingham is, but also just black people as a whole. But the actual job, just up late playing music doing prank phone calls yeah it was fun uh the only thing i didn't do i didn't go to any of the concerts what that we sponsored why not a one because it was always a weekend on the weekends i did stand up so i would just leave so i missed i missed an entire the entire crunk era of rap because I started at Jams in 2001. I missed Outkast. Outkast toured their last album.

They toured with Stank On Ya before Speakerbox Love Below. Stank On Ya was the last album they did tours for. And if I'm not mistaken, I don't even think Andre 3000 went out on every stop. And he came through Birmingham and I had a gig and I just fucking left and like that's one of my biggest regrets

in music is having the opportunity to see so many artists live and I passed on it especially knowing what I know now in terms of the art of live performance there's so much to learn from rappers

about crowd control there's so much you can learn. You can learn as much from them as you can any other performer that you watch on stage. Rappers and Vegas shows. Yeah, because they deal with some unruly people in Vegas. Yes. That shit is legit fascinating in how they can, the same way as a stand-up you're picking particular jokes the rappers are kind of like they'll have their set list but if the energy is kind of down

you can see them nah nah play we're gonna do the other thing first and they'll tell the dj and it just sounds like some ignorant drunk talk but they are legit in the middle in real time in front of you altering what they had prepared for the sake of crowd control and energy and i just i missed all of that i missed all of that you know there's a lot of famous people that came to the station and you know you see interviews and stuff some people were rude i'll tell you one off the air that to this fucking day and I promise you I will have my fucking desserts with this person I promise you sooner or later she's gonna walk into a fucking audition and I'm gonna smile

I'm gonna smile you're gonna walk in to audition for one of my fucking shows and I'm just gonna fucking smile I'm gonna smile and and I'm gonna hire you I'm gonna smile and and i'm gonna hire you i'm gonna hire you and then i'm gonna fucking work you to the bone i'm gonna work you to the goddamn bone because they're talented i gotta give them that they are talented but they're some very nasty motherfuckers man and

that's probably the other lesson i learned about radio. It's just how rude a lot of people can be. You know, there's people that have since been, um, I'll tell you something interesting about, about me too, was like going back to that point of victims coming out and realizing they're not victims, they're survivors, right? And they come out and they speak on whatever was happening to them in that

time. Some of the names that have been named over the years have all walked through the hallway of 95, seven jams in Birmingham. And most of them were assholes then, just on a general basis. So when you see that type of shit in the

media about them years later, you kind of sit on your couch and you just go, you motherfucker. They finally got your ass. That was probably the second best lesson was just the veneer of celebrity and ego and how thin it is and radio was probably a primer in how not to treat people if ever i became big you know i don't think I'm at that point yet soon baby yeah but I'll never

I'm trying to think of an example man um it's a motherfucker caught up in that in that me too shit now used to come to the station came to the station to promote

some shit wouldn't even make eye contact with us in the studio like like that's that's wild to me it's like for the 20 minutes 30 minutes you can look up you could just you could talk to people that's all you can make it's just people people being people speaking of people how did you meet your wife oh we met so all right so my publicist quit on me this was 2014 20 no shit should be mad if i say that shoot 2012 2013 2013 let's just call it 2013 maybe 2014 anyway my publicist quits and she calls me up she goes roy i'm taking a job at a college as the head of public affairs and blah blah blah blah and fuck entertainment i ain't fucking with y'all no more. I'll handle your last couple of things, but basically, I get it.

Entertainment's fickle. You working for a college, that's real bread every day, and that's life insurance and healthcare. Okay, fine. So I need a new publicist. There was a photographer that I'd worked with to take some headshots,

and he and I were talking one day and I just mentioned in past, I need a motherfucking publicist. I'm a publicist. Can you believe my publicist? How the fuck you going to quit? Now, mind you, this is the same time that the TBS sitcom just got canceled.

I ain't got shit cracking, but a couple of gigs in Toledo. She ain't getting no real money from me. So it was probably the right time to fire my ass. So Craig goes, yeah, man, well, I took pictures at this dude's wedding and his sister do PR. I was like, oh, shit. Okay, dope.

That's what's up. Well, hook it up. And you know how like somebody thinks that they can help you, but they've really given you nothing. Like they're trying to help. They're trying to help, but they don't understand the nature of what you need. And so I get on the phone with craig and he goes yeah man

she does pr and uh i think she'd be good so he connects us i hop on the phone with this woman like yeah craig say you do pr yeah i do political pr for a congressperson in dc mother fuck craig this isn't like i the phone, like, literally three sentences into this conversation. I'm like, this is not who I need. She doesn't, you've never done entertainment PR. You have no connects. You don't even know what, you're not even in a fucking TV city. In fucking D.C.

What the fuck? And so, I go, oh, political PR. What the fuck? And so. I go, oh, political PR. What's that about? There's this and there's politicians, but I hate politics. I'm getting out of politics. I'm starting a shoe line. I'm moving to Silicon Valley where my parents are because I want to start my shoe line.

So I was intrigued by that because anybody who quits something that is stable to bet on themselves is a fucking lunatic. That's what comedians are. We're fucking lunatics. You have walked away from a college degree to drive around the country telling jokes to strangers. It is the strangest thing, but it's the most relatable thing. And so the moment she said that my ears went up and i was like oh tell me about it wow that's a big bet i called this woman trying to see if she was right for me for pr and we stayed on the phone for four hours first time we talked we

talked for four fucking hours and and so she was planning like in the next week to drive to like i still want to call craig and cuss him out because i'm like why the fuck would you recommend a publicist who don't even work in my shit and getting ready to quit the shit that she do like it's it's such it's like when your grandma go you should call so-and-so he working tv he can get you help you sell a show do you call him and he works at comcast yeah he drives a cable truck no disrespect to our people no but you get what i'm saying different yeah you're not connected to how tv is made you're connected in a different way so she um fuck i i haven't told the story many times i'm trying to remember so she's making the drive and however it's working out for her drive oh this is how you can verify

the year whatever the first year was of the vince vaughn comedy festival in nashville tennessee the vince vaughn comedy festival it's now Tennessee. The Vince Vaughn Comedy Festival? It's now the Nashville Comedy Festival. It's rebranded a couple times. It's got different names and shit. But originally, it was the Vince Vaughn Comedy Festival. So whatever the first year was of that. So I look at a map.

And I go, yo, which way are you going when you drive to San Francisco are you taking you know you're gonna take you know I-80 all the way across through Denver you're going high side are you taking 40 through Tornado Alley she goes I go well take I-40 and stop in Nashville and I can get you a room and at least there's a room for you just however you break up your drive break it up

so Nashville is one of your rest stops and if you want if you're free we can go to lunch she goes cool so that's when we meet she comes to Nashville she's supposed so that's when we meet she comes to nashville she's supposed to stay one day she stays three and so that was it man and so we were off to the races after that you know and that's pretty much been the last i don't fucking know how many years man all right we have a child he's four so like so you know

that's that I know I know marriage at this point is the inevitable truth um oh so you're not married right now yeah no no no my bad but it's's fine. It's not even something to correct on because, you know, what we are, you know, I feel like what we feel for one another, that's probably next. But just in terms of just how we met and how we vibed, I think that was, that's probably the most accurate account of, you know, one day we can do a couple's interview and I'm sure she can fill in some of the details, but that was the basic gist of it was, Hey, I have to meet this woman. And so then when she got to San Francisco, then came a year of up and downs to San Francisco and taking the Pacific coast train and cellos and 40 united flights you know like flying southwest from burbank to oakland then rent a car just to go to the movies then get back to the airport in time to catch the 7 p.m flight to land at nine to do a set out in hermosa

like have a full solid fucking day that's wild but that's love when you love somebody you do that kind of shit yeah and then i get the daily show and so here we are in new york man life is fucking crazy man all this because my publicist got a better gig. I mean, I'm a person who believes everything happens for a reason. And that's why it happened for a reason. Yeah. Yeah. The iron is that my publicist went to work at my alma mater, Florida A&M. Oh, really?

That's funny. Yeah. So I joke how Florida A&M is in a lot of ways responsible for my success, which is true. But they're also responsible for the birth of my child. Wait, what kind of child do you have is it a boy or girl uh who's it's a boy right now if you ask him he identifies as monster truck okay so please address him as red thunder that is his monster truck name oh that's so cute that's so cute no it's not it sounds like a stripper name call me red thunder i'm red thunder and i'm a monster truck and then he goes and does a donut in a circle it's so silly that's funny i like kids sometimes but most of the time i don't

and i like red thunder he sounds fun kids are fun but stressful I'll say this though having a kid really rewired how I write how I work and I've gotten more done in five years in New York than I did the eight years in LA and whatever time I split in Birmingham having a child makes you focus having a family makes you focus if you care enough to provide and care enough about setting up a life for them you you know, after you're gone. Which has been the weird shift mentally is that I'm kind of now more in a mindset of thinking about what his life will be after mine. Do you have a will? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We finally got that done. That took a minute to do. But, yeah, it's just about that's low-key that's part of why i do all these interviews and like i say yes to most podcasts it's just leaving breadcrumbs for him to figure out who the fuck he is because i don't have that for my father you know my father died when i was 16 so i have like news commentary stuff i have my dad interviewing everybody because he did he did radio and news commentary he's a reporter but I don't have much of him being interviewed you get what I'm saying so it's it's a it's a different energy but you know that's kind of it's it's a weird place to exist

every day but it keeps me motivated and driven and I think for as long as it's doing that, it can't be that bad of a way to live. You know? For the last couple years, I was like, oh, I should interview my aunts about my mom and my grandparents about my dad. And then I just never did it. And then COVID hit. And I was like, I guess I'll never do it. I don't know. One of these days I'll fucking do it.

You should do it. I don't know. One of these days I'll fucking do it. You should do it. I really am still trying to figure out ways to talk with people about my father. And a lot of those people are starting to die. And it's not that I necessarily care, but he might give a fuck. So let me go ahead and piece it together. So it's there for him just on some black people lost history we don't know our ancestors our history was stolen shit let it stop so i got a closet full of cameras and microphones and that'd be fucked up if all he knew is that you had a daddy his name was Roy Senior that's it

like what else I don't know nigga they was in Atlanta for a little while then they got broke so they went to Chicago well Roy we've come to the end

do you have anything you want to promote I two things I'm gonna promote the the Air Mass thing the homie Dulce texted me. It's the B2 Air Pro. B2 Air Pro. And that's how you breathe air from around the corner. And it attaches to a mask to your face. to a mask to your face also um there's a dope birmingham-based charity i see me inc i see me inc i see me incorporated i see me inc.com i see me is a group there's a statistical proof of literacy as it relates to the school to prison pipeline. The quicker children can read,

the less likely they are to end up in a cycle of going to prison. I See Me gets books by black authors, illustrated by black people, showing black images in the hands of black children so that black children can see themselves doing something awesome so that they know that wherever they is, that they could read more better and be something in this world and what is that again what's the website it's i see me inc i see me inc and we're

gonna put that link in the bio mars can you do that man donate some money to them man they're doing good stuff thank you mars well okay i'm also gonna promote the okra project i just did a show with um a bunch of friends where we donated money to the okra project it helps uh black trans people and they're the most at risk of you know violence so if you can help black trans people do that um but also if you liked this episode of why won't you date me you can like it you can rate it you can subscribe if you give it five stars on uh apple podcasts that's a nice thing to do uh also if you write me something nasty hitting on me i will read it aloud so this person wrote to me

nicole if you were my woman i would i would i would smear mashed potatoes on your thighs, put sour cream on your taint, and smother simulated bacon bits on your pleasure folds and eat you like a baked potato. Also, I stocked up on cane stand because I like to keep my lady's pussy pH balance and the sour cream might cause a yeast infection. Well, that is very nice and considerate, but I don't know what my uh

pleasure folds are i'm eager to learn what those are uh but yeah that's it bye This has been a Team Coco production.