Roy Wood Jr.

0:03Hi, my name is Roy Wood Jr.

0:07And I feel thankful about being Conan O 'Brien's friend.

0:33hello Conan O 'Brien here welcome to Conan O 'Brien needs a friend and uh I feel like I have two friends with me right now. Sonam of Sessian. And I believe it's Matt, Matthew, Matt Gorley. I think we're pals. We have a good flow. People like the way that we work together. That's weird that people like our kind of relationship, even though I don't think we do. I don't think that's important. Yeah. The chef doesn't have to love what he's making. I see. You know, and he probably should. Yeah. Yeah. Why would he make something he doesn't like. That doesn't make sense. What a terrible chef. What are we doing here?

1:12Here you go. Some more shit I make. What are you talking about? I think this is a lovely eclair. Oh, no. Shit. I hated it. Why do you hate it so much? Since childhood, struck by lightning, everything tastes like shit to me. Why did you become a chef? I heard I like the hat. It's fun to wear it. It's called a toque. All right.

1:46Really? You got into this? All food that you ingest tastes like excrement to you? Total shit! Because you were struck by lightning as child. So you serve it and I hate it. Even watching you eat it makes me sick. But you stayed in it because of the toque why are you going over this again and again we established everything it seems like a bad improv trick not at all i'm just trying to say that you tasted things and they then we've gone through it why do you repeat so much well turns out i was struck by lightning and uh as a child and so i tend to over set things up that's what i do you and i could be friends both struck by lightning you set things up right i tend to set things up now just to summarize you were hit by lightning oh i'm gonna fucking kill you and then it made you go over things too much when you're doing a podcast is that right uh man i don't know where that one started but i think we had a good time we had a good journey oh man we learned a lot i think about ourselves and about i learned you did you can do a french accent a german accent and an italian accent all at the same time and they all sound end up sounding russian yeah but at least by the way nixon that guy was from croatia oh no okay all right yeah okay yeah so anyway i just wanted to clear the air on that yeah you know i just why croatia popped into my head i i took a uh you know uber today uh to get here and i um i i'm a guy who talks to the driver i always like to i'm one of those people i don't know where you guys fall i choose no conversation on do you really do that yeah i do i i just i'm not good at small talk i don't mean that to be anti-social right i just i want to sleep okay and what about you i do both so i'm either not talking at all or he's coming up into my apartment checking out the sofa i'm trying to get rid of and that's a true story that's a true story you gotta have boundaries you're right that's funny that you're either or I'm gonna tell you this I've seen the little switch that says no that you can tap that says no conversation this is me to be completely honest I'm afraid that if I hit that they're gonna think oh I'm driving a stuck up snob and so I will never hit that and then I go too far the other way where they hit it on you trust me I think some of these people would because I say, I mean, this guy today, I could tell he was from, you know, and I said, well, where are you from?

4:28And a lot of times this is actually works out nicely because there are many drivers who are Armenian. Yeah. Then we chat and they know that I've been to Armenia with you and we have like a really good conversation and they like that I know like three words. In English. In English. But then today the guy was from Croatia and we were just talking back and forth and I got his whole story, like his whole life story. It was actually pretty fascinating. And so I got out of the car and I felt like, oh, good. I really got to know that guy. I hope he liked it too. You made a friend. He had no idea who I was.

5:05He was asking me what I do. And I just said, I just work in television. I think he thinks I'm a TV repairman. Yeah, maybe. I fixed flat screens, but it was really nice. I don't know. That's cool. You made a new friend. No, I think that's it. Oh, okay. I think that's it. Well, at least it was pleasant. Because I think you have to be, too. If you're not a pleasant person, that could, like, and if someone recognizes you, then. Well, this is something I'm very envious of, are the people who have made their reputation. And we've, you know, like a Jack Nicholson or a Harrison Ford, or like people who are, you know, these big stars, obviously, and this whole other caliber than anything I would ever be.

5:46But if you went up to them and said, hey, man, and they said, fuck off, you'd say, wow. Yeah. that's so cool. I'm not that person. If someone came up to me and I went, he's better fuck off. It's like, you're an asshole. Dancing around like an idiot on TV all those years. You acting all friendly. You're a sham. And then they would just start hitting me with a two by four. That's true. That's true. Yeah, I know. But that's, I don't, I mean, you can't be that guy. You can't be like a general listener at Harrison Ford. No, no, no, I don't. I don't have that incredible. so I'm not self-possessed like that and I also those are people that are larger than life you see them on the screen and they're larger than life I managed to be much smaller in life because people have seen me on small televisions well and you need people to like you yeah you mean oh like I need a friend yeah yeah I think a little breakthrough here yeah I think they could like punch someone in the face and people be like oh my god he punched me in the face and then with you they'd sue you.

6:49Well, also, they'd have to feel it first. And then so like, was that a cool breeze? I just gave you a chop to the jaw. I just played a little chin music with my right hook. So I didn't really, oh, so you struck me. Yes, I did. Oh, I thought a very old butterfly had a stroke and then a cool wind blew it against my cheek. But if you struck me, I'm suing you now. All right. I'll pay up. I don't think that would go too well. But anyway, were you signaling me that I should get on with it? Yeah. Okay. It was awkward because then I just looked at you and you didn't signal me. I did. I held up the rap sign.

7:31I know, but I saw something in my peripheral vision. And this is a note to all my would-be attackers. I think I'm losing my peripheral vision. So ninjas, time to get me. I saw a little flash. I saw a middle finger go up, I think, for half a second. I was just itching my eye. Okay, well, again, peripheral vision's starting to go. You thought now that your peripheral vision's going away, now ninjas can attack you? As in before you had it? I think ninjas are going to be fine with a full frontal assault on you. Please, I think, first of all, I think there's a whole many, many, many different sections of the Assassin League that have been trying to get me for years, but I have legendary peripheral vision.

8:14So the ninjas have just been waiting around, smoking cigarettes, playing mahjong, waiting. Ninjas don't smoke cigarettes. Yes they do. Oh, they're such chain smokers. They cut out little holes in the ninja mask. They puff away. Well, now they do e-cigarettes. Those ones that smell like bubble gum. Like, do I smell bubble gum? Oh look, ninjas waiting for Conan to lose his peripheral vision and reading Us Magazine. They broke up They sure did Oh they seem like Such a good couple Hey I just heard From an eye doctor That Conan's losing His peripheral vision Everyone get your Throwing stars It's time Alright Too much idiocy My guest today Is a hilarious comedian And correspondent On The Daily Show Starting September 15th He'll be on his Happy to be here Live tour Tickets are available At livenation.com I'm just happy He's here

9:12Roy Wood Jr., welcome.

9:18You, and I know you like deflect compliments. You're like very good at like... I'm a ninja. Dodging flowers when they are thrown at you. And I started comedy in 98. I feel like your program did more for the growth of stand-up comedy as a genre. I would argue you and the Bob and Tom program in terms of the volume of stand-up comedians, new stand-up comedians that they exposed to the world. Maybe Comic View, but that was only two or three years. But like there was a stretch in my career where you were the only show that would work me. And me and JP Buck, who was your talent, your stand-up booker.

9:59And I met JP years earlier on Star Search, the Star Search reboot with Arsenio and like O2 or something. Right. That single credit. That was the only four and a half minutes I was on television every year for four years was your show. And that single credit would get me another year in the college market, which got me enough money to stay in L.A. another year because the colleges were paying the bills. The road money was negligible. because at this point i moved to la wrote like i was making like i don't know 1200 a week minus commissions minus airfare right so it's just a break even damn near but that show man well you know it's not i gotta tell you something though it's it's interesting first of all i'll take that because that's and and i i'm very appreciative that we were able to have so much comedy on but i'll tell you this and this is true i wasn't doing you any favors because you are always funny you're always funny and you're so good so when i could say okay i got an hour we got an hour of show to do tonight but there's six minutes or seven minutes at the end that roy is going to take over and it's going to be really good you're doing me a favor you know so it works both ways it's one of those things where it's it's just a two-way street so you always made uh brought a lot of professionalism and really funny stuff to my show and i wanted to start by we've had i wanted to start today by saying uh that i saw your performance on the white house chorus month's dinner and i thought you were fantastic i thought you were absolutely fantastic and i've done that venue uh i've played that thing twice uh once uh uh under clinton but the hardest one was following obama which uh and obama he had i mean it was almost like he was hosting the daily show he had audio visual he had you know they had all this stuff he had all these writers working on it he had uh i mean it was perfectly produced i think he spent more time on that white house correspondence and he did i bet the economy tanked that the week that he did the correspondence dinner and he just you know and so my experience was and i'm sure it's maybe it's the same but you sit with the first lady is that was that your experience right next to joe biden yeah and my experience was i'm sitting next to michelle obama and obama's up there and he's killing and i know i'm supposed to follow him and i've got all these jokes which i think are pretty good i've worked hard on it he's they don't let you know what what the president's gonna do and the president gets to go first so you're there with all these jokes you've been working on for six months and they're saying obama's up there and he'll he'll do one that's kind of close to something that i was gonna do yeah because it's all the same stuff in the news so i'm trying to flip through all my blue cards and take out the ones that he's touching to drop them yeah but at the same time michelle obama's talking to me and she's saying so your children are how old now conan and at one point and it's so funny because she's because she's the greatest she's such a lovely i've i'm friendly with her she's such a lovely person she's the star in every room she's beautiful she's really funny but in this one moment i'm thinking would you please leave me alone Shut up.

13:18I've got to figure out if he's doing my debt ceiling joke or not. I can't remember who it was next to Trevor Noah last year when Trevor did the Correspondents Dinner. But Trevor came up there and was like straight laser focused on his set. And whoever it was on one side of Trevor, somebody was like, well, why aren't you talking to Trevor? Why didn't you talk to Trevor? They were like, he was focusing on his stuff. He didn't have time to chit chat. Is the way not to do comedy is to make the comedian and sit out in front of the audience for an hour and a half and then watch someone else go up and get the...

13:52Yeah. And it's a crazy kind of show business, but it's a fascinating experience. I later got to talk on this program. I got to talk to President Obama and I said, you know, it's so unfair because you were so... I said, you're so good and you've got all the best material and you are the most powerful person in the world and comedy is all about status and you get to go first. And then with no ceremony, the minute he's done, they just go like, let's do him like Conan O 'Brien. No buffer. No buffer, nothing. And he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I know it's not fair, but I don't care. I thought that is just so true.

14:37What does he care? And then Biden closes with this dark Brandon joke, which I guess is like his alter ego. Yeah, with the sunglasses. Yeah. And so then he's standing there while I'm being introduced. Still milking the laughs. Milking. Yeah. Milking. Still playing the room. And now I have to walk past him to get to this. It's like, come on, man. You just ripped. Just go. Leave. Just get the hell out of here. Why are you? It's not. You know, it's funny. It's not about the comedian on those nights. That's the other thing. Jill Biden's in my ear. I'm going over cards. And then my writers are texting.

15:11hey man Kellyanne Conway's in the room hey I'm on Twitter right now turns out Fauci did show up if you have a Fauci joke maybe you should add a Fauci joke and then they're just ganging jokes in the WhatsApp thread and I'm like guys everyone please shut the fuck up I can't yes yeah but thanks for that information Bill Barr's here oh okay cool oh Caitlyn Jenner's here okay cool and it's a lot but it's just trying to figure out at that point where to add a joke I would say that's when the set for me was like, okay, these are the jokes. Yes. Fauci. All right. Maybe. Then Biden goes up. Biden stepped on.

15:47I had a Rupert Murdoch Fox news joke that I just threw out altogether because Biden's was funnier. Yep. And I just, I could do mine, but it's not gonna, why even bother? And then his Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon stuff hit so hard that I reordered. Yep. I changed the batting order to create more space between those two topics for me. I was doing the same thing. Like this joke comes out, this joke comes out. Okay, Obama just hit that. This joke comes out. This joke's still okay, but it flips up here now because it's got to go earlier to sort of tag what he said. And you're doing all that while the most important woman in the country is chatting you up about, you know, what college do you think your daughter might be interested in?

16:29We talked about Alabama and the South and barbecue. And I was nervous in a weird way because, like, my first inclination when I spoke with it was just to go, don't worry, you're safe. Yeah. Like, is this, are you just gaming me to find out what I want to say about you? Sure. Yeah, exactly. Because there's a lot of that shit the week of. Get DMs from people at particular news organizations. Hey, man, how you been? You ready for Saturday? I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to butter me up so I don't go after you. So, no, she was very nice, but we're not talking policy and how to solve immigration.

17:06Right. It's just, oh, Alabama barbecue tastes different from Carolina barbecue. Yes, you're right. It does. It's still such a weird event. And then how, for me, and I don't know if this was right, but I chose to also have a care of concern for how the outside world would consume my performance. because everyone goes, oh, it's a corporate, treat it like a corporate gig for an auto manufacturer company. You're just going to do your car jokes, car industry jokes, and they're going to like them. But I'm like, yeah, but there's people that are going to watch this later, and I kind of want to have a joke that they kind of would relate to.

17:41So how do we balance the two? And so then it just became how to use pop culture in there as kind of the glue. Like for as long as you hear a word of a thing that you recognize and you're familiar with. like the joke at the top about the Fox News I'm not going to do any jokes about Dominion because Dominion will come after you matter of fact Dominion is my favorite voting machine if you want the truth have Dominion in the booth such a great joke so then the tag was the original joke was if there's two people you don't want to see in court it's Dominion and Cardi B either you know the Cardi B 4 million defamation suit story or you don't Then one of my writers, I got to give credit to Lily, Lily Blumkin.

18:26She's over at The Daily Show. Lily goes, also Gwyneth Paltrow. Yes. And I go, ah! I just, I don't swim in that world. But guess what? Which is smart, and credit to your writer, and you for seeing that, or resonating with you, is, okay, now you've led everybody into the tent. Because if you don't know Cardi B, you definitely know, that means you were definitely following Gwyneth's trial. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and so, I mean, that brings up. One tag informs you about the tag you don't understand. Yeah. You were hitting both sides, which doesn't always happen. You know what I mean? And I thought, so, yeah, you can get up there and you can go after Tucker Carlson.

19:07But you also had plenty of stuff on Don Lemon. And it was pretty clear that you were not playing favorites with the right or the left, which I think is really important right now. The debate, the biggest debate within assembling the whole set was when do we hit Biden? Do you hit him before or after Trump to set up the whole idea? Oh, no, I'm going to go at the liberals, too. Sure. But if you go at Biden too soon, you lose the whole room. Yeah. Because you haven't earned their trust with any joke. It's like, so what do you do? Yeah. So we just we we stack the set with what I like to call soft targets first that I feel like everybody in the room would be OK with.

19:47So Fox News, Tucker, Santos, Don Lemon. Right. And then Trump a little bit, but not too much Trump as to not make you think that this whole thing is about Trump. Yep. Then you go into everybody else. You had this great joke about, you know, France is burning to the ground because they people do not want to work an extra two years. They want to retire at 62, not 64. And they're literally burning Paris. And he said, we have a guy here who's 81 or 80 and is begging us to get to work for four more years. And to me, that was, I mean, I was laughing really hard, but it's also so fun to see Biden has to laugh, you know, and it's also a really funny joke.

20:33It's a really funny joke that you can relate to. and it's not but i thought what was really smart is the first thing you do when you got to the podium because you got to get them early first thing you do when you got to the podium is he said oh there's i think you left some documents up here first joke and it's just silly because it's so silly that he accidentally left some top secret documents at the podium and they cut to him and he laughs and it's like you know that's to me that's great because you broke the ice and it's also it's such a silly joke like you know what i mean it's it's it's silly that he gets up on the podium and leaves some top secret documents i was i was howling at that it was great to have right away that but that was horrific because i can't that was a bit i couldn't run into comedy clubs i mean you know me i'm gonna try and get all word perfect yep yep which you can't do you can try but it's not possible so i knew where the tentpole laughs were yeah yeah i knew where the support beams were yeah but all that stuff in between i didn't know if the document that document joke doesn't work i'm screwed i think i read somewhere that once you used to talk to your hamster yeah yeah yeah getting pig yeah joel yeah go into the room full-blown conversation like hey i disagree yeah yeah you're actually getting into it response yeah not like just you only understand me like yeah so what do you think oh really okay well maybe i'll do that today they would medicate you that's the problem not realizing that that was the medication because that was the outlet i went outside i played i stayed out of trouble for the most part in the neighborhood uh my mom got me a really nice basketball goal there was a park up the street i grew up on the west side um and there was a park on pearson avenue called powderly park and that was the free public park with the courts.

22:24They didn't eat drinking and fighting and there was always something going on. So my mom would keep me from going to Powerdily all the time. She got me in the boys club and then she also put a basketball goal in my yard. The way our yard was set up, we had really high trees. So we had the only shaded driveway and peak 1 p.m. Alabama heat. So everybody would come from Powerdily. Why play in direct sunlight? We can go play at Roy Wood's house. and so people would just come to and it was out of very smart of your mom to to to do that because it's they say when you become a parent and then your kids as mine are teenagers everyone says you want your house to be the base you want people coming over to your house because it's safer yeah yeah and all you have to do is my mom is just listen for the dribble of the ball so you know i'm out there yeah and so that became a way that i met everybody in the neighborhood not a respect to my father my parents all the riffraff that happened at powderly never happened at our house, just on some, you know, just on some respect your elders type shit.

23:23Yeah. I want to make sure I educate anyone who's listening that you mentioned your father, your father, Roy Wood Sr. was a radio broadcasting journalism pioneer and also in the trenches of the civil rights movement in the sixties. And you've said he was, if there's any March with Dr. King in it, your dad has a good chance. Three rows back. He's probably three rows back. and people in the neighborhood then knew that obviously that respect probably emanated out from your father and your mother thousand percent gave you some some sense of protection my father was the voice in the car when their parents took them to school doing the news on the black radio station so you can listen to all the black music you want in the morning but when they stop for that news break on the fives that's my pops yeah so that got me a lot of equity within the city but I wouldn't say that I was even remotely like on some funny sense of humor shit until high school and even then it was only baseball because that was where you could be silly because it's sports it's a permission especially in high school it's a sports is permission to behave in ways you're not allowed to at school so you tell all the crash jokes you make fun of each other like and then we would just as a bench warmer in high school your job is to heckle the other team yeah just heckle them into oblivion i was good because that's all i had to do so there were days where i would literally sit and write heckles in class to get ready for your game to get ready for the game like and just that's great brutal shit bro like stuff you couldn't even places you couldn't even go with humor now but just brutal and just yelling it across the diamond at a total stranger and seeing the look of frustration in their face.

25:12Like, I know I'm getting to you. And then to the point where if you got the parents to chuckle, like that was an applause break. If you got the umpire to call timeout because the umpire had to laugh, that's a standing ovation. And that was the goal. The goal every game was to break the umpire. But not realizing that that was essentially just honing improv chops. Sure, yeah. and just working on crowd work it's a crowd work well all this stuff everyone has their own versions about it versions of it but i know what you're talking about which is you know we i come from a big family so we all sit around this round table that's still at my parents house i know exactly where i sat and i know that that's where i tried to get the whole table laughing i was in jrotc in high school and when we would have to do drill um some mornings and we would start with running They had like this quadruple tennis court.

26:09Yeah. So we'd have to do laps around the whole perimeter of this tennis court. And as we're jogging, I'm calling the jog like a Kentucky Derby. And they're getting to turn two, turn two, and they're pulling even. It's Roy next to Monica. Monica coming up on the outside, coming up on the inside is Sergeant Major. Sergeant Major. Sergeant Major is coming at me. And you're supposed to be controlling your breath because you're running and you're doing this bullshit. It doesn't matter. Wood's falling short. foot's falling short but as they get into that that was that was who i was yeah just so we're laughing as we're running around the space and that's when you start learning about comedy as this like tool of manipulation like it's it's literally i bet you i can make you detour from whatever your mental objectives are right now by doing something it's like tickling with your mouth yes yes yes you know uh i'm curious your father is very revered figure i think he passed away when you were pretty young yeah 16 16 years old would he have what would he think of your career in as a stand-up would he approve of that of of that move i don't think so he would approve now based on the material that I'm doing now.

27:29But you also have to remember, my father saw every horrible thing that you could name because he just had to cover it in the name of journalism, like foreign war reporting. So he saw African civil wars, which are way worse in terms of body counts and heinousness because a lot of that goes under reported, right? So he's seen stuff. So nothing's funny to him. And so case in point, when he worked at WVON in Chicago, my father was the first news director at this black-owned black news station. We are a news station that only does black news. Like if the N in NPR stood for me. Say it. No. So they were dedicated to the black experience and uplifting black people.

28:22my father hires a guy named don cornelius um to be a dj he don cornelius was a was a police officer in chicago he put my father over gave him a ticket i didn't know that yeah that's where don okay don's don cornelius's origin story he was a member of law enforcement for about a year maybe less than two for sure pulls my dad over in the course of giving my father a ticket my dad just He goes, you have a nice voice. Here's my card. Quit doing this shit. Come by the radio station. So Don Cornelius starts in radio under my father as a reporter at WVON. And during that time, as Don's understanding of the media grows, he comes up with the idea for Soul Train.

29:02Comes to my dad. My dad was one of the initial investors. And gave Don some of the money that he used ultimately for the first pilot for Soul Train. And then when it came time to get my dad his money back, Don Cornelius goes to my father. I was like, hey, man, instead of me paying you back, why don't you just stay on board? You know, I wouldn't, you know, this is, I just want you to be a part of this. To which my dad told Don Cornelius, and I quote, motherfucker, nobody wants to watch niggas dance for an hour. Give me my fucking money. So my dad just was not with party culture. He was not with fun.

29:37He just couldn't see it. Also, I mean, yeah, and it's hard to blame him because of everything he saw and being in the trenches of the civil rights movement like that. And then some dude's just going, what if we dance all day? People have giant afros. Yes. He couldn't see it. He couldn't see it. That celebration of blackness creates the black pride that helps to drive people to want more for themselves, for their community. He couldn't see it. When I was in middle school, I was in a dunk tank for our soccer team to raise money for jerseys. And my dad came into the dunk tank and cussed me out and told me to get out the dunk tank.

30:12in front of everybody. Like, get out of there. You nobody's fool. You ain't gonna be nobody's fool. All this joking and shucking. Get that lesson. I'm like, it's a dunk tank. We're raising money. It's just, I'm just gonna get splashed in some water. Yeah, we're raising money so we have decent uniforms because when you're a black middle school, you're only playing white. This is soccer in 88. There's not a lot of black schools playing soccer. So we're playing all of the, our uniforms, bro. Ping, we had ping. we borrowed jerseys from the partners in neighborhood growth, which was like the police athletic league at the time in Birmingham.

30:46So you have a community league that has jerseys. We're borrowing their jerseys. That's how poor our school was. And then my dad is like, nah, get your ass about it out. And it was very embarrassing. And I just remember after that, I just never tried to be funny around him again. Cause just, you're not with jokes, bro. He was a lot of things. He was not hilarious. You know, for the longest time, because I talked to so many people, that is not your trajectory. You were serious about being a journalist. Yeah, dude, I was. You were a serious, serious young man. I wanted to do sports though. Let me add that caveat.

31:25I knew that I did not carry my dad's intensity. Right. And, and mind you, the year before he died, when I was 15, I got my learner's permit so i got to drive him to all of his speaking engagements so i just sat and just watched him just go on stage and just spit fire for like a year and a half just churches and community centers and anything within three hours of birmingham i was the driver and hey boy get off that nintendo come take me to tupelo wow okay yeah and i would just sit and just watch him just destroyed with just words. But I knew I couldn't do that. It wasn't until Kenny Mayne, there's four people.

32:06It's Stuart Scott, it's Kenny Mayne, it's Jenny Mos from CNN, and this guy Van Earl Wright, who at the time was at CNN Headline News. I think he bounced around to a couple of sports organizations. But those four people were kind of like the brain trust. And then I honorable mention to Fred Hickman, RIP, but those people within journalism were fun and quirky. Jenny Moose did offbeat stories. She didn't really do sports. Right. But it was quirky, weird shit. I was like, all right, that's interesting. Stewart talks like me. Van Earl Wright would do that sports. That was the era. That was the era of when Headline News was a 30-minute repeating broadcast.

32:48And the sports section was 90 seconds. And they had a guy. And it's crazy to think about this now. But there was a guy at a time, people, where in 90 seconds, he had to give you the score of every game of the big four sports in this country. Yeah, yeah. Ape shit like talking speed and some bone thugs in harmony. But he enunciated every word. He added humor. Sure. You know, Jays down the race. Like no time for the score of the game. Just who won. Yep. Genghis fall to the Clippers. Clippers. Speaking of the lakes, the Lakers, Minneapolis.

33:25it's crazy to think we now have four espns that's the way the culture's changed it used to be you've got 90 seconds to cover all of news because there was no ticker right exactly this idea of constant access to sports scores was fucking foreign in 1994 yep so you had to watch headline news so i go to school and i'm like okay well i'll just i'll do journalism this feels right Like, damn, it's the family business. Well, I didn't really plan on that because I really wanted what I wanted to be was like a firefighter up until like my senior year of high school. And then Stuart Scott was the thing that like finally pushed me over the edge.