Roy Wood Jr. Gets Real About Fear, Fame, & Fatherhood

29:25And you can't blame him because all he did, my dad was the first black radio whatever everywhere he worked for like a decade and a half. So he used to be in a lot of distrust of just America, you know, and capitalism as a whole. So anytime he could cut a corner and save a dollar, why buy it new when I know they're charging this, this, and this for it? And this is a perfectly good Canon or Nikon right here. And I could buy it from this person who I know is taking good care of. And I know the track record. My pops would go over people's houses. The newspaper was a wild time because you would just pull it.

30:02It was like Craigslist. Classified? Yeah. It's just a stranger. You're just going, yeah, come to my house. I have items. And then you just show up. And then you're just in a person's house. And my pops could tell by the way your living room was set up. No way. Whether or not he was going to buy the camera from you or whatever. How you take care of that space says a lot about how you take care of your items. For him, the red flag was liquor. If you kept your liquor in a nice little... If you had a spot for your liquor, then that means you take care of nice things. And so it was that and it was always the television.

30:41Like if the TV looked good and it was clean and like... you know in those days the tv would get all the dust on it you know the box tvs so if your electronics were dusted and your liquor was in a nice place in the house we're making a deal we won't make a deal but if i come in the house and your s**t's dusty you only wipe your table i know you don't take care of that camera so i know that camera's full of b***** inside too so i'm just no no remember the conversations sorry the conversations in the car going to make deals and the conversations coming back from making a deal i think that he and i talked about everything but me in my life like i don't know i just had one of the pops he's just like i felt like i just merged into traffic like i said in the book like i never really spent time with my dad as much as i was just hanging along with him while his life was in progress damn come with me doing the thing with grocery shopping and it was like he never came to a baseball game He never came to kick it at the science fair or to see the thing.

31:46Like, my pops couldn't name a single teacher. He didn't show up to no parent-teacher conferences. So, like, that wasn't his. Now, to be fair, he was also spending three, four days a week across town with the other family. So he was busy. But there was also this degree of, like, what I appreciated about the time I spent with my pops was that I always felt like a man. He always treated me like a man. when everybody else says you can and you got to be careful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, come on with me. We're driving to the thing. I've never driven on the freeway before. Ah, yeah, come on. And that was it.

32:25We on the freeway to Montgomery, and I'm driving him down to Alabama State so he can do a radio show that morning. So he was always talking about the news, the world, society. He was quick to talk about politicians, local politicians, state reps. he didn't like most of them he didn't care for most local politicians um so there was a there was a guy so there's a barber shop i used to go to in birmingham called a pete stone style shop and pete stone and my dad had a relationship from his time when my pops was embedded in pete's platoon during the vietnam war and so they were just still tight you know i don't know what they saw you know it's it's war yeah and you both made it back you got a bond yeah so pete's pete stone style shop is in the heart of the civil rights district it's a block and a half from the 16th street baptist church so it's like it's ground zero for black thought and black epicenter so there would be on any random day on a saturday in the style shop my pops the radio news dj the mayor would be there there would be a black state rep any black mayors from any surrounding suburbs would be there you would have community leaders and football coaches and half of them weren't getting a haircut they were just in there it was like a meeting of the minds like it's like that's where the meetings happened that was the room was pstone style shop so there was a um there was a mayor at the time of a suburb of Birmingham named Larry Langford.

34:05And so Larry Langford was the mayor of Fairfield's predominantly black suburb. It's not, it wasn't, he had gotten it. They were doing decent enough as a suburb and Langford was getting ready to run for city council and all this other stuff. And my pops and them are basically telling them why it could or couldn't work and all of that shit. and Langford had an idea at the time to build an amusement park. He had done a traffic study because Fairfield is between Birmingham and Mississippi. Langford had conducted a traffic study of showing how much traffic was passing through Birmingham to get to Atlanta.

34:45Atlanta was where you went if you wanted to live a life and have some nightlife or go see a game or whatever. And Langford's thing was, we're losing all this money to Atlanta. We could build some shit here. So if we're losing money because of Six Flags and Whitewater, we can build an amusement park here in Jefferson County. And we can get the money. And so he's trying to explain that. And them motherfuckers laughed at him. They're like, you're not going to build anything that can compete. With Atlanta. It's just not going to happen. and every Saturday for the next year and a half, Larry Langford came in that barbershop and argued with my pops about why it's going to work.

35:28And Langford had to grind. This motherfucker had to go to every suburb, a lot of them predominantly white, because Birmingham is, it's the city of Birmingham. The way government works, you have a county commission that basically is all the suburbs together as a conglomerate. And then you have the city of Birmingham, but you really can't do shit unless the county is on board with it. So to work the county, you have to work each individual commissioner and mayor and each individual suburb, see what their needs are, figure out a way to get them all to come together to agree that this thing that's going to be in your neighborhood, well, if it's so good, why does it got to be in your neighborhood?

36:04Why can't it be in my neighborhood? Why is it in your... So Langford is playing all of these angles and that motherfucker got it done he got an amusement park built and and i say all of that to say i just remember one day riding with my dad like two years later we're coming down i-20 through bessemer and we passed the sign for the amusement park and it's vision land that was the name of it that was the name of the amusement park yes vision land i had a vision he was wow listen this is black men in the 90s. I mean, still. Visionland. Yeah. Hey, kids, you want to go to Visionland? Yeah, I had a vision.

36:40Get an idea. What are we doing at Visionland? I had a vision for a land. I called it Visionland. But you got to understand, what Larry Langford did at that time, it was the equivalent, to me, it was the equivalent of Steve Jobs unifying the record labels under iTunes. Oh, so this was impossible. It's impossible. So you're driving down, you see the billboard for Visionland. Yeah, we're riding in the 89 Continental, and we pass by the Visionland sign, and my dad is driving. Trying not to look. And he looks up at it. Motherfucker did it.

37:18Which then starts a conversation about your dreams and your goals and what you're going to have to do. And so most conversations I had with my pops was about the battle that's going to be out there for you at some point. Huh. It's never how was your day. My dad could name him favorite foods, but you knew, like, hey, Jesse Jackson's coming to town. We're going to go backstage. Right, right, right. He's a Democratic private. I think 88, he came to town. He's backstage. My pops back there doing interviews, and Al Sharpton, everybody back there. He was just chilling. And so then on the ride home, now, see, that man, what you have to understand is blah, blah, blah, and the black man and the issues.

37:58And so he was just very talked to me like a regular ass partner. Also, for context, my pops was old. My dad was 63 when I was born. 63 when you were born? Yeah, when I was born. He was wearing a suave. I look 45. I lotion myself every day. No, but still, 63? Yeah, 63, yeah. I think my mom's was like 30, 31. Yeah, but still, I mean, that's a... So his ideology, I don't even... Knowing what I know now as a man, you're at 63. And at that point, you're over 70. you can't flip on your mind to have a conversation with no nine-year-old about nine-year-old things all you know is struggle and saving money on milk and that's the values i'm gonna give you you know it's funny you say that because your book to me feels like like i i know few people who do things in in a more methodical way than roywood jr like you every day when I see you at the Daily Show it felt like you were an undercover cop but the cool ones the ones who actually you know what I mean I'm working the case yeah yeah yeah and what I mean by that is like I've never seen Roy write a joke for no reason and not that there's a good way or bad way to write a joke but I've literally I've never seen Roy write a joke for no reason I would say to Roy and you know how we are with comedy like you and I I would just say I have a bit I'd be like man this joke there's this thing that's making me laugh right now and I'm you know what I mean Then I'll say to Roy in the same joking tone, I'll be like, anything you working on?

39:33And then Roy would turn to me and I feel like my world would go black and white and Roy would be like, man, I've noticed how there's an insidious presence in the city that has changed public transportation. And so I'm thinking of doing a deep dive into why the cost of the subway and the bus has gone up over the past few years, more than 175%. And I'm trying to figure out What that means to society And why nobody's saying anything about it Then I was like Oh, is this a joke? This is a joke that you're talking about This is where he's like Yeah, I'm gonna find the funny I'm gonna find the parts of it that make it funny But I remember Remember, I just met you as a human being Like you just popped into my life out of nowhere You know what I mean?

40:21To set the stage for you properly You gotta understand how Roy Wood Jr. comes into my life As a person Tell me How it starts I'm starting on the Daily Show They've done the craziest thing ever They've gone We are getting A South African person Just say African Because the South doesn't really help anyone Doesn't matter We're getting an African To replace Jon Stewart The Jon Stewart Okay Now we have to assemble a cast Because everyone that was with Jon Stewart left The only person who stayed basically was Clapper Yeah Jordan Clapper And I guess Hassan technically right But of the like the legacy people Everyone was like oh yeah we're gone It's finished okay now they're like you have to build a team around you but we don't even know who you are so who compliments you so i'm getting tapes i'm getting record i'm getting everything people are like try this person look at this person try this person and then it was neil brennan who sent he was like if you are looking for somebody there are few human beings who are funnier and deserve it more than roywood jr wow i was like i don't know who roywood jr is wow and then somebody told me roy was performing at the comedy cellar so i go down to the comedy cellar i watch roy perform one of the funniest bits i've ever seen i still remember it till this day it was a bit about how gangs do they have like middle management in a gang yeah supervisors do they have supervisors because a gang is an establishment and he had this bit about like if you have an establishment you got to have middle management you got to have a supervisor so is there someone who goes to each of the gang members and critiques their swag but it's an amazing but it's phenomenal phenomenal joke right like a performance review yeah and it was one of the funniest premises i've ever seen and i was like this is hilarious so i go immediately to the daily show people i'm like i found a guy they're like okay we're gonna audition him i was like no no i found he's the guy forget the audition he's the guy they're like well that's not how this works because you african i'm like whatever we just do the thing they're like no we have procedures here has he done sexual harassment yes i have so they bring so they bring roy in roy does the audition i mean he's roy it's one of the funniest people immediately everyone's on board but now we are jumping into a show that's starting in how long three weeks three weeks after we meet so now we already have to jump in as comedic friends office mates partners there's no onboarding there's no there's no long getting to know you process merging on the freeway from the left that's exactly what it is it's merging instantly and the thing that got me about this guy was i work with comedians all the time comedians are never serious comedians are everything is a joke roy is like the antithesis of that it's like roy starts from serious and then turns into the funniest human being you've ever come across in your life but every day every day consistently okay let's put it this way in the first five weeks that we worked together if you had asked me who do you think here is going to shoot someone I would have picked Roy the first six weeks but that's because I didn't there was a reason for my intensity though but keep going okay I'm glad you acknowledge did you have a gun no no no but I no here's what it is about Roy here's what it is it's like first of all I also didn't know who shoots people this is before I lived in America this was still some good But you know what I mean You know what I mean No no what I mean is like You know in time Who shoots people in America You know like the vibe He didn't know the dead eyes He didn't know how to find Yeah yeah I didn't know American dead eyes No I just went This person From the movies I've watched This guy's gonna shoot people One day he's gonna come in He's gonna say Screw all of this No but he'll shoot specific people Roy had that vibe Yeah Roy didn't seem like A shoot everyone kind of guy Yeah He had a Okay Alright Like he wrote numbers on the bullets And then he would just tell you Your number But he wouldn't tell you what it means All right, four, I got you That's what Roy seemed like And every day I would meet this man And I'd go, how does he transform Because Leading up to rehearsal Everything was serious We would get out there I remember the first show we did, the first jokes It was about the Pope And Roy came on And you know, people were already like The Daily Show's not gonna work Our saving grace the home run that everyone agreed on the pope gag was roy wood jr people were like man i don't know about this new daily show but that roy wood jr guy i'll be damn they were like man this this guy is and i remember telling this to her i was like that was so funny i was laughing i was like that was amazing that was funny and roy was like we got to do it again tomorrow before so let me explain What?

44:52What?

44:55So for context, 2014, I had a sitcom end and Sullivan and Son on TBS. It ran three seasons. At the end of every season, myself, the star Steve Byrne, Vince Vaughn, we would sit with Steve Coonan, who at the time was the head of TBS. Right. And we'd have a little celebratory dinner and yay. See you guys next year, season two. We do season two. See you season three. We do season three. See you guys season four. A week later, Steve Coonan leaves TBS. And the new person comes in, Michael Wright. And he cancels everything but Conan O 'Brien. And in my head, I had already, season four has happened. You planned your life around it.

45:36And then it's snatched away from you. Then I'm adrift for a year. And I'm doing ESPN. I got a buddy from FAMU who I graduated journalism school with. He was a producer. He goes, hey, I don't know if you know this woman, Jamelle Hill, but she has a show that comes on at 2 o 'clock with Michael Smith, which you want to do. So I'm doing all of these free spots on ESPN for about a year. I book a pilot with Jermaine Fowler for ABC. It's Jermaine Fowler and Whoopi Goldberg. Network loves it. It's looking like we're going to go to series. But it falls in this story as it was told to me. I don't go back to Whoopi Goldberg and say I said, but as it was told to me.

46:17At the time, The View was going through a co-host change, and Whoopi was going through contract negotiations. The contract for our sitcom was also with ABC. ABC, as it was told to me, go to Whoopi and like, hey, what's up with the sitcom? We doing the sitcom? And Whoopi's like, well, what's up with the co-host? Because the sitcom is the thing to do in addition to The View. The View is the main thing, so we got to get that straight. And ABC was like, well, that's going to take a little longer. All right, well, I guess we ain't doing the sitcom. take it away two weeks later neil brennan calls me and says that you want to see me no way and that he thinks if i can get to new york and do a set and if you can see me do this set then it might be an opportunity to audition for the daily show meanwhile it's like you're on the plane i go to fucking i go to new york i've just had two short things get snatched away from me And the only reason I booked Sullivan and Son was because I was friends with Steve Byrne.

47:19I'd have been in L.A. seven years. I hadn't done shit, bro. Couldn't book nothing. I just couldn't. The city didn't work out for me. So I was getting ready to move to New York anyway. Then my girl at the time called me and told me she pregnant. So now I got this set that I can do in New York. And I got a kid on the way. And I'm doing fine on the road. I did the road 15 years, but you don't want to keep doing that. I don't want to do 45 weekends. So, yeah, every fucking joke, I'm not going to fuck up. If this doesn't work, it won't be because I did not execute. I ain't coming in here chuckling with nobody.

48:03I ain't coming in here to kiki. Nobody's an enemy, but I'm here to do the job. I'm here to fucking demolish. My audition, I was so proud of this. my audition for the daily show there was a story about a black kid in west virginia this is 2015 peak confederate flag brie newsome climbed the pole snatch it down there was a kid there was a black kid in west virginia who had a confederate flag tattoo and it was basically oh i'm black and i ain't tripping on confederate flag and i pitch a chat between me and trevor where i defend the black kid on the grounds that he's black in West Virginia. He has to get a tattoo so he can survive the walk home.

48:49It's camouflage. Matter of fact, I'm going to go to West Virginia and rescue this kid. And I roll up my sleeve and reveal a temporary Confederate tattoo that I put on myself that morning at a FedEx office. I'm at a FedEx office at 7 o 'clock in the morning, the morning of my Daily Show audition, printing Confederate flags onto stickers and fitting them. Yes! This one's too big. I need to print another. This one's too small. I need to print another. And using my graphic design skills, bitch. exactly how long it takes and i made a confederate flag and i stuck that shit on my arm and i brought the cuff on my sleeve down i was like this the whole audition and then reveal that shit and so that's where the intensity came from because i'm like i can't lose this job this has to work and i gotta feed this boy when he show up so just every day became this intense not only be funny, but what is the interesting thing about blackness?

50:03Because that was the thing I was appreciative about was that, dude, the first three stories, it was police reform. And then the second piece, and this is one I didn't think he was going to prove. So it's the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March. We've been on the air two weeks. And you know how you're trying to figure out how black you can be in a space? And I'm like, fuck it, man. Ronnie Chain was the one who gave me the courage to pitch it. I go into the pitch meeting in the field meeting. I go, yeah, it's the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March. I think there's some comedy there.

50:47We should go. I go, you sure? Yeah. not only we should go, we should talk to somebody in the Nation of Islam. See if you can book that. And they're like, like the field producers are like, okay, well, what's the angle? I give them the angle on it. And they're like, okay, because no matter what you pitch, it's got to go to Trevor and the producers, and then they go yes or no. So we get into the pitch meeting with Trevor and the producers, and we're like, yeah, there's this thing happening in D.C. with a lot of black people and it's scaring the whites who are in dc and i just want to go talk to the white people see why they scared if you're not racist why are you bothered with black people just fellowshipping and trevor's like like fellowshipping and trevor goes yeah do it and it was one of the best pieces we did and it's one of those things where i'm like okay I get to really dive into how I see the world and what the comedy of that could be and like the confederate thing in the audition and then when they send me a clepper on that ride alone to start the season and then when that when the million man march piece got approved as my second piece out the door I was like okay this is a good I've I called my girl all right you can move here we're good i think it's gonna be all right it's it's so funny how we we don't we don't necessarily know other people's intentions perspectives and experiences while we're in the same space as them you know there's always that uh i don't know i don't even know where i read it first but it's a really beautiful passage that said next time you see somebody in the traffic or walking in the street and they have a you know a scowl on their face and they look at you and you feel like they hate everyone ask yourself what is happening in their lives that's making them feel like that because they're just you on another day do you know what i mean and it's hard to think like that all the time because we think the world is about us as people and what's fascinating to me about this story is in my head i was the one fighting for my life with the daily show and you were just killing it like you you you're one of the most effortless comedians i've ever seen so every day I was going I don't know what I'm gonna do I don't know if this is gonna work but thank god I've got Roy Wood Jr.

53:09Little did I know he was in an office panicking looking through the classifieds checking for other jobs like alright let's see graphic design just by the way you know I always wonder about like the butterfly effect in life do you ever think to yourself that there's somebody out there who worked in that wherever you were whatever copy shop or Kinko's whatever you were yeah wherever you were and they're telling people they're like hey man you know that guy Roy Wood Jr. He used to work on the you know that dude's a secret confederate No The FedEx where he was printed Think about it If you saw if you saw Roy Wood Jr.

53:44printing out tattoos and putting them on himself then putting it in his sleeve and then you saw him on the daily show This one is good You'd be like nah You'd be like deep down I know who he is You go deep down I know exactly who he is Bro that shit was a struggle and I mean shit even just getting to New York once I got the job. Only reason I was able to move to New York is because I had Wendy Williams. Wendy Williams, I auditioned for the show and the Jermaine Fowler, Whoopi Goldberg thing dies. About a week later, I get a call from Wendy Williams. She was doing like a storytelling tour and wanted to open her.

54:19So I'm on the road with Wendy and then I get the call for the audition and then I have to ask Wendy Williams, can I have a day off? Would you not? Yeah, you're not going to. You're not supposed to. You get fired. you're like we just replace you you go do the audition but you will be replaced you get all you get all the days off yeah yeah but wendy goes tell trevor i said hello and i'll see you tomorrow knowing so the next 10 days that i worked with wendy williams that was the fucking money to even get to new york to start the job like you just get blessed along the way but you just start looking it like i can't mess this up so i'm not joking around with y 'all i didn't do no sets at the i didn't do any comedy yeah you came to work in for that those first three four months until i felt like i had a grasp on what i was doing that's part of why i lived close i lived when i first moved i lived four blocks from the building because i didn't even want to commute i don't want to think about shit i'm staying till 9 30 every night and i'm gonna watch i'm gonna watch this i learned from you was one day a week have try to have lunch with a different cluster of people within the building learn the building learn the people learn all the jobs because then you can learn what jokes are possible and then how fast a joke could be flipped.

55:49Because now I know I'm not pitching something that graphics can... You're pitching a joke at 2.30 in the afternoon. It's too late. We're already... We're doing... Ideas are locked. So you got till noon. So if you got an idea for today, you need to serve that when you hit the building at 7.30 in the morning. Like that... So understanding the logistics of the building and all of that, like that became the only thing that I wanted to like just get right. And then I just figured everything else would take care of itself. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.

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58:20you know i feel like when i look through your life i feel like you've always been focused on hustling and surviving and getting something right and doing the right job and doing the job the right way and being in the right place and surviving and you know and then something flips when henry comes into your life your son right because because your book and you you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but like when I look at your book, you know, the man of many fathers, the intention behind the book and the message behind it almost feels like your only goal now in life is to be a good father. That's, and I mean, I even noticed this when I was with you at the daily show is like there's, there's a thing in you that, that has become focused.

59:11You know, there's something in you that's just become about this thing now is everything in service of and i actually wanted to know like why why the book like why why the book and why the book about fatherhood and being a father and what being you know what your father meant to you and didn't mean to you etc like why why that and why now because i didn't know my dad i don't think i truly knew him And he also died when I was 16. And then on top of that, we never talked a lot about his being and who he was. Ground zero for it was COVID when I did Finding Your Roots. Like, I had an inkling about like, all right, am I going to be present enough as a father?

59:59But COVID, 20 to 21, was kind of like the turning point because it's, I do finding your roots. And then Henry and I, his mother and I, we break up. And so now I'm out of the house. And it's joint custody, okay, fine. But in your head, you're like, fuck, I'm losing time. I'm losing my moment. You lose half the tuck-ins. You lose half the chit-chats. and you know, fuck, he's going to not know something about it. He's missing time to observe me. All right, fuck, he's got to, he needs to know me. What if I die before he's 16? He's not going to know me. And then you realize how compartmentalized your friendships are.

1:00:47Yeah. You know, I got partners I've been tight with since eighth grade. Not a lot. but they only know so much of me because they're not in New York. And then I got partners here who I work with, but they can't tell you nothing about my personal life. They can't tell you about the nuances of me. My son would have to go around to all these different folks and start piecing together. And I didn't want that for him. So I'm like, well, what if I just put something together? He needs values. if I'm gone tomorrow, what would I want him to know about me? Okay. Well, what do you know about your dad? Huh.

1:01:33Shit, I don't know a lot. Okay, well, then where did I learn all that stuff? And then you start realizing that there's all these beautiful people that you got put in your life either for one day or for, you know, flash in the pan or for a lifetime that influenced you. And so then I do finding your roots around the same time. Finding your roots, I find out that my dad lost his father when he was four. I did not know that. It was never told to me. I don't have much of a relationship with my father's side of the family. I'm the ninth of 11 kids. I'm my mother's only child. I got a gang of half siblings we talk about dad a little bit but i don't know folklore i don't know cousins and any of that shit i i take it around my dad's side of the family twice before he died i don't know i ain't never seen you don't know i'm sure you're a good person but i just don't know you so sitting on finding your roots finding that out then in that same episode my dad walked with a limp he had a hip implant.

1:02:42He had a prosthetic hip from when he was a teenager because he was trying to

1:02:51He was in high school and a woman had just broken up with him. And so he was trying to get her back. You're trying to get your girl back. Somebody pulled your girl, now you're trying to get her back. And in running behind her, like literally running behind her, got hit by a car. And so what would have lent the rest of his life? What would have prosthetic that had to be extended for the rest of his life? You're 13 when that happens. what does that do to your psyche what does that do to you as as a as a human and how does it change your relationship with women for the rest of your life how does it change how you see women how does it change how you see love with a daily reminder yeah and you start treating people like they are disposable in that part of your life because you were disposed of by a woman and granted it's teenage love, but still.

1:03:49Yeah. Rejection is rejection. That's the most scarring years for love, man. So it gave me a different perspective. So a lot of things that I was really upset about with him when my son was born, I'd already kind of started the process of letting him go. But then once I did Finding Your Roots and then I was out of the house and not in a regular 24-hour status with him, there became this heightened sense of now. Now, because I don't know what's going to happen. He knows his mom's side. He knows all of them. He sees those relatives on a regular basis. I'm closer with my two younger half siblings than I am my olders.

1:04:36I keep in touch with the olders, but not on some every year get together and eat ribs type shit. We don't do it. So, you know, when I go home to visit my mom, some of my half-siblings may stop by the house, say hey to them. So you're aware, but there is nobody in my son's life, there's nobody in my life who in my absence could accurately submit the man that I am to my son. So I write a book. yeah but you didn't you didn't just write a book though you

1:05:17you revealed yourself because i i think we have two options when we write a book maybe maybe even three you know like one is to write a story of how we wish to be perceived another story we can write is how we are perceived and then the third option is to write about who we really are and how we think and what i what i found like most interesting about your story and how you wrote it was you're grappling the whole time i don't feel like you figured out anything in a good way by the way you know what i mean i don't i don't read this and it's neatly tied up in a bow i i yeah i don't i don't read about your relationship with your dad and go like and then it all worked out You know, it's like, no, no, there's none of that.

1:06:06Like, it feels like this gradual unraveling and this stripping. I don't think you can separate it from where the book starts. Like, you've got this great story where you talk about being in the airport and you bump into a fellow comedian. He's buying a Father's Day card. Yeah. And he basically asks you, are you getting a Father's Day card? and you realize you've never bought a Father's Day card. Never. But what I found funny in that moment is like, you start talking about how limited Father's Day cards are. You know, it's like, best dad ever. To the man who taught me how to fish. You know, to my favorite camping buddy.

1:06:49And then Roy's like, where's the one where it's like, I didn't really know you, but if I did, I guess it might've been great. Yeah. Like, where's... We're the genuine ones. Yeah, yeah. Where's the genuine ones? You know what I mean? like from that moment i was just like man we're in for a journey on this and so if this was the daily show i'd be like i'd like to talk to the greeting card industry to understand why who writes the greeting cards and who sets up the narrative that fatherhood is always perfect and not stressful because like even with mother's day there's always we had our ups and downs yeah it's sentimental yeah but i but i think look if i was to guess i would say the reason for that is because of what you've sort of written about is because most fathers don't have sentimental.

1:07:34And I say most, and people will be like, where do you get your numbers? I'm guessing. Probably the times we've lived through, the times we're in. But I don't know many people where they can truly say that their fathers have been sentimental with them. So when you're buying your dad a Father's Day card, you're buying him a Father's Day card because they've told you it's Father's Day for the most part, right? And you're a small minority as well. Exactly. But when you look at like moms and women, they've generally lived in a world of like actually expressing the sentimentality, the feeling, how they, you know, I'll give you a simple example.

1:08:06When I was flying from South Africa back to New York, my mom said to me, I always go say goodbye to her, you know, before I travel. And then my mom said to me something that I was like, this is too beautiful for a human. She said to me, please send me a picture of the first flower you see when you get to New York. i was like damn it was such a like she said please send me a flower of the first picture you see in new york now i didn't realize how few flowers there are when she said that no i genuinely did it was like land land at newark drive in drive you're like man there's no flowers but besides the point it was such a sentimental soft you know it wasn't like all right kid you go out you're here yeah you know i i i struggle with that with my son and making sure that that's not my default you know and just you know be a man you're like oh no he needs a hug in this instance so give him a hug it's also made me more vulnerable with him in the day-to-day yeah and then i i had to there was someone that works for me that no longer works for me.

1:09:25And in making that decision to sever that relationship, he was the first person I talked about it with. Oh, wow. He's nine. But, you know, hey, man, how you doing? Not good. I had to be this person not vibing. And that's no different than you not getting along with somebody at the park. And it gave him agency to ask questions if he wanted to ask questions about the thing. And so that helps to bring us closer. But, you know, I try to put some humor in the book and I feel like it's funny, but I just also felt like it was the right time to write about these stories and these people because I think other folks could get something out of it.

1:10:07just in some of the values that I learned from certain folks. And, you know, but it's not like, that's why I struggle with calling it like a memoir. I don't know if it's full life and times. And I dabble in some entertainment stories, but I don't. I kind of dabble in personal life a little bit, but it's all early stories in my personal life. Everything else is just people I've met along the way, just odd jobs and stuff like that. that well you know when you when you start off the book it reminded me of something i learned in therapy i always used to think and i think most of us think that we are most affected by the people who are in our lives we often take for granted that we can be affected most by the people who are not in our lives and i think there's a lot of men in the world and women as well but i know a lot of men who will draw a lot of their issues and things in life to their mom oh my mom was like this and my mom did this and my mom did that and you'd be like what about your dad well my dad wasn't really around so it wasn't you know he didn't really and only in therapy did I learn it was like oh no no no that's you know what I mean that that that that that absence that gaping hole yeah taught you this taught you this yeah you grew a limb because of that exactly you this missing yeah made you compensate in this way this not being there made you feel this way that you do you know what I mean and it's interesting because actually good yeah because you you do writes in the book and you're very quick to say it in the beginning and in a beautiful way you go look my mom was my everything my mom built this world she's my rock my soul you know the women in my life and you're like that's a story for another book but you're like but right now i want to write this book about fathers and you explain it through the lens of your son but even in that moment i felt like i was like damn we take for granted how how many people grow up and live in a world where their moms have to bear the burden of being both parents and so in a way don't get the joy of being the full version of who they are do you know being one role they get robbed and also just being one person yeah you're right like that to the gaping hole thing like that was part of it and and it's weird because a lot of that I didn't even discover until I started writing like I don't even think some of that stuff came out in therapy so like the idea of hustle hustle hustle and do it myself to a detriment as you've often told me like the idea of doing like Trevor said to me sometimes like Trevor just see me like post some random event that I'm done or some shit and he'll just come he'll come in my office you don't have to say yes to everything you can say no sometimes and just go home it's okay but my brain is still in hustle tbs whoopie goldberg like there's a trauma with that right but even predating that when i look at there were times where my parents they didn't necessarily argue about money but my pops could use money to manipulate the house right so if there was a week stretch or a two-week stretch but he just ain't gonna pay a bill this is a man that is highly respected and like his resume is bulletproof when it comes to what he's done for black americans and what he dedicated himself to and what he destroyed his psyche to do for us.

1:13:39But also this nigga might not pay the gas bill tonight. So you gonna freeze? Or you gonna go walk the neighborhood and rake leaves? So you can make the money so your mom can go to law school or finish law school at that point. I don't need her dropping out to get another job. I'll go get it. I'll work. I'll figure it out. So, at minimum, how can I not be a burden to my mom? okay, well, money is always a burden in this house. And once we move to Birmingham, I kind of talk a little bit in the book, you become more sentient of your parents' stresses. Yeah, definitely. Somewhere in middle school, late elementary, middle school, you can look at them and go, oh, I'm having a bad day today.

1:14:27You're less selfishly involved in your own want. So this idea of, damn, I know she'd be stressing about money because I see her body language when I ask for$10 for a field trip. I bet. I'm going to put my Nintendo tapes in the paper. I've been watching my pops long enough. I know how to secondhand some shit. I'm going to put a garage sale in the paper. It costs$10. Birmingham News just has something called Bargain Bananas, anything under$100 that we'll put in the paper for free. So I would put my entire bedroom in the paper for free. Saturday, pick up only, 9 to noon. And I put a table out there, bitch, and I sit in the front yard with some Boston baked beans and just sell old toys and sell old Nintendo tapes or whatever.

1:15:17And so this idea of becoming self-sufficient, that shit felt good. So, you know, I was working. You know, they don't care about it. They don't enforce child labor laws like that. And what I peep is that if I had a job that would only give me 20 hours, I could just go work temp service. As soon as I leave this job, I'm going to go down to Labor Ready or Labor Finders. They're going to get me outside in the construction for$75 at a time when minimum wage was$4.25. So that's good money. You had a crazy list of jobs. I mean, this man worked. You were sweeping the parking lot outside. Church's Chicken.

1:15:56Church's Chicken. In West End. Right. But one day you went and worked at a, what was that, like a concrete factory? Quick Crete. Quick Crete in Columbia, South Carolina. I will say that story is funny because every story, Roy is like, I went in and I worked hard and I did my best and I stayed there. And then Quick Crete, he's like, nah, man, I'm out. The hardest I've ever worked is the Quick Crete factory in Columbia, South Carolina, bro. I've never understood heat. And so you know what Quickrete is. It's the concrete, the wet. You add water to the heat. There's a machine that's got all the Quickrete powder and it comes down into a funnel, into a bag.

1:16:42No, but wait, wait, wait. You got to set this up from the beginning because you have to understand how this man got there. This is what makes it better for me because if you went to Quickrete to get a job, I'll go like, oh, well, this is par for the course. No. The day starts with Roy. and a room of grown men. 5 a.m. 5 a.m. How old are you at this time, bro? Early 20s, 21, 22. Yeah. But this is while I'm on the road doing stand-up. So I'm doing stand-up. In those days, you had comedy clubs that would be six-day runs. So in Columbia, there used to be a club, Comedy House Theater. They would book the MC for a two-week run.

1:17:19So you're in town for 14 days. They're there. May as well get a part-time job. Get a fucking job. but what are you doing all day? You going to work comedy? Oh, Roy's special, man. Roy, you're special. Go get a job. So I would just go, you drive down to Labor Ready, you sign in, and if you got work boots, they put you on, you get staffed faster if you got... Work boots. Yeah, if you got work boots. And a dude would just go, all right, Wood, Jenkins, Turner, y 'all work in the Quick Creek van outside. You go get on a van, they drop you off at a fucking factory at eight o 'clock in the morning, it's already 90 degrees.

1:17:59And it's a big aluminum shed that's baking. Hot. And inside, just for, and mind you, all I work is food service. I work air conditioned. But to work, to make quick money, the money's outside. You got to sweep leaves. You got to do dark. So I'm outside in the heat and there's a big ass machine that's just pumping quick-crete into a bag, and then the bag falls off that nozzle and just goes down a conveyor belt. And at the end of the conveyor belt, you just lift this 10-pound bag of concrete and you put it on a forklift pallet. You stack that bitch eight high, somebody come in with the cellophane, wrap that bitch, forklift man come in, pick it up, take it to the truck, they put down a new pallet, wash, rinse, repeat for eight hours.

1:18:48And I'm the bag man, and I'm just loading the pallet. And you think that this isn't a lot, but this. For eight hours. From shoulder height, 10 pounds from up high to down low. One direction. One direction. This is called eccentric loading. That's what that is. And you're 20 and this is a grown man and they're yelling at you because you're not moving fast enough. And the powder's in the air and it mixes with your sweat. So now you have concrete naps in your hair. and you got a show tonight you still have a show to do so you get back to the room at 5 30 and you're just like washing concrete out of your hair and then yeah and then at seven o 'clock tonight you got to be on stage man the confederate flag crazy

1:19:4214, I did that job two days. And then they moved me to a church. They were building a mega church and we were just scraping spackle off the concrete foundation. But that was so hard, so hot. Like I've never worked like that in my life, but it gave me such an appreciation and understanding for construction and just blue collar work in this country as a whole, man. You meet some people, man. You meet some really interesting people doing construction. I think everybody in this country, either food service or work outdoors for one year. They should have to. Everybody. Every single person in this country, just on some mandatory.

1:20:24You ain't going to get them to go to the military. But I think everybody should do food service or work outside. It's so funny you say that. We had an episode with Tracy McMillan Cottom. Yeah. And she was saying like, if she ruled the world, she would make it that everyone had to work in the service industry or everyone. It's almost exactly what you're saying. Yeah. Because she drew a line between how we perceive other people in these jobs and whether or not we know what it's like to be in them. Like when you told me, I mean, you told me, I read it in the book, but like how you worked in fast food.

1:20:58Because you have, I mean, what would the right word be? A disturbingly intimate relationship with fast food. Let me tell you something. Roy Wood Jr. I would pitch food segments. Every single week. And he's offshore there. Every single week. They would go viral. Roy would say to me, yo, so I've noticed that Popeyes is launching a new chicken sandwich. I think what we should do is we do it. Then I go, wait, wait, wait. What's Popeyes? Oh, it's a chicken joint. It's a chicken joint. And then I'm like, oh, is it everything? And Roy's the most detailed person I know. So Roy won't just say to you, it's a chicken joint.

1:21:39He'd be like, it's a chicken joint that started in the 50s, 60s. Now, down south, it wasn't the biggest. You got Bojangles and a few other chains that have really been blowing up over that section. And it's not that big on the West Coast. But over here, you got Popeyes, and Popeyes is pretty big. And Popeyes is normally known for their pieces. They're not really known. They're not like KFC and Chick. And he'd take me down this deep rabbit hole. Chick-fil-A is for sandwiches. Popeyes is for loose chicken. KFC is for a full meal. Yo, this man knows life through the lens of fast food. I don't know how.

1:22:11You have the most intimate relationship with fast food. We would do segments on the show. And I would just mention the McRib and pass it. And then McDonald's would just send me like 20 McRib coupons. You were there when Mountain Dew sent the Baja Blast. Oh, yeah, yeah. Tabasco sauce, hot sauce. Yeah, we were talking about Baja Blast. Do you remember when you made the, you had like a, it was like a mafia style thing on your social media. Oh, the coalition. It was the chicken wars or something. Because, I think it was because Popeye made the burgers, right? It was because of Popeye's son. Because Popeye's made the burger.

1:22:45Roy did this whole thing. Let me tell you something. If someone should win a Pulitzer Prize. For that. For fast food analysis and like their writings and their thinking. I've always wondered like what, not what is it about fast food, but you have this. it connects us yeah but it's something deeper than that right there's something there's something you i don't know it's all an analogy for life so i the coalition was basically a drama involving chicken sandwiches plotting against popeyes because popeyes was fucking up the supply game because the popeyes chicken sandwich at the time was essentially a new drug and imagine how would all the old drug dealers establish with their clientele and this guy's getting all the we got to kill him how do we take out Popeyes and so I sat during COVID and just did stop motion animation with real sandwiches that I collected from all over the city and shot a drama and put it on YouTube and it connected with people in a way because I feel like each fast food there's they have a personality.

1:23:58Yeah. There's a relatability. This fast food company exudes this type of person or you're this type of person if you eat this type of stuff. So it's all very regional. It's almost like college football in a way too. Everybody's got a team. Everybody's got somebody they love. They got somebody they hate. Yeah, but Roy, you know it way too intimately. What I mean by this is like, you can ask someone, if you said someone like, oh, who goes to KFC? Who goes to, you know, In-N-Out? Who goes, they'll give you an answer. Let me tell you, Roy, if any of these companies need a consultant, they should come to this man.

1:24:33I think you know things about the supply chain, the quality of the food, where the food has been sourced, how it's been sourced, what it's all about. Like in the most serious way you can - They change suppliers and then that affects the recipe. Like even down to the water that they use to make biscuits, it can change how biscuits taste from different reasons. But it's the same shit with bagels. It's just nobody thinks that it might also apply to the biscuits, but it does. That's why fast food chains taste different in different regions sometimes. I wonder when you think like this, right? And then I think back to your dad.

1:25:13It's interesting that you say, I didn't know him. and yet from my reading of you so much of you seems like a deep knowing of him well because i'm him and that's also a mind a mind fuck is looking at yourself and going oh So, let's see. I care about people. Check. Okay. I figured out a way to use my gift to enrich and educate people. Okay. Check. Healthy distrust of close relationships. Check. Damn, I'm just doing what he do. I'm just a little funnier than him. You know, I still have. I was looking at my phone earlier because I was trying to find this. but it's like I will have like a random premise and then it's something that gets to a deeper thing but I don't know how to make it like funny to me and like there's there was a movie called the the assignment with Michelle Rodriguez where a male hitman is turned to get revenge on a hitman a male hitman is turned into a woman sounds familiar when was this so now the woman hitman is looking for the surgeon that turned her into a woman to reverse the surgery or get revenge correct and so how this was 2018 2019 okay so a bigger conversation about transphobia like that movie in its core is to me how i get to the joke i don't know but the challenge of that like that that's the stuff that's the material that excites me but that's what i mean but this is this is what i mean about being your father's son right and and and what your book goes through in so many ways is your dad was living this life like i love that you do the checking of the boxes and the natural question that it brings me to is how do you then choose you talk a little bit about auditing one of the most beautiful lines in the book and i'll paraphrase it in case i get it wrong but you basically say nothing makes you audit your relationship with your parents like having a child of your own because when you have a child of your own you then have to ask yourself what you want them to take of you but then you then have to ask yourself who you really are and in asking yourself who you really are you have to ask yourself who made you that way what are the worst parts of you exactly and how do you not accidentally infuse those things exactly the child unknowingly which means you have to be conscious of the fact that something as simple as saying i love you pops didn't do that from the old school so he just buy you some food like it's like one of them old school black jokes where your mama come in you hungry after she gave you a whooping or some shit like that's that's what my dad was my dad was educator and provider i'll tell you i'll tell you something that's that It scares me to that point where I don't know if I'm doing what he did.

1:28:49So my parents were separated until third grade. That's when my parents got back together. So my mother and I lived in Memphis before we moved in with him in Birmingham. My pops would come to Memphis once a month, and he'd stay for a day and a half, maybe two days. But he would sleep half of that. and knowing what I know now. You wasn't sleeping. You're older. You're an older dude. You want to nap. I'm 46. I want to nap. This month it was knocking 70. So yeah, you want to nap and you drove three and a half hours and you work mornings and he did morning radio for five hours and then he did an evening jazz and he'd do a talk show in the afternoon and that would roll into a jazz show.

1:29:36You were tired. Yeah, just tired. But he would always bring me a truck He'd bring me like a little toy truck from some truck stop or some shit or whatever. And I'd play with the truck, but they were all forgettable toys, nothing that stood out. And then fast forward, I'd say maybe two years ago, let's just say second grade when my son was in second grade. He's in fourth grade now. Let's just say second grade. First grade, it became sentient about me being gone. Yeah. You know, because I move out of the house. So it's kind of a, you know, dad, where are you type thing. And we're explaining to him the dynamics of what co-parenting would be.

1:30:27And then I think that second grade, I felt my relationship with him becoming a little bit more sentient and him missing me. like man where you been man i want to throw i want you know he wants to do the things he just wants to be with his pops and that would have held true even if i were under the same roof yeah but that shit hurt oh they never been missed by nobody you know or no one's told you they've missed you okay and so this idea of all right well when i'm gone he needs to know why i'm gone so the relationship becomes a little bit more communicative when i'm when i'm gone yeah here's a video or the thing i'll send that to his tablet we will facetime here and there but i more so enjoy sending him the perfect example he loves trains transportation planes all that so if it's a city he's never been to i'm first person pov camera from time i get off the plane show him the whole airport shoot that nice seven minute video break that bitch down into two minute chunks so i can send quicker and then i'll get on the train that that morning i would we did 20 cities in 30 days through Canada last year.

1:31:52And every day I rode mass transit in the morning to go get a paper. And we just ride the train all day. Here's the train. So I look like a tourist, which really used to scare me because now I look robbable. You know what I'm saying? Like my, you know, my spidey senses, it's just - Yeah, your paranoia is off the charts right now. I'm from the, at the time, the most murderous zip code in Birmingham. like facts. So my paranoia is justified. That PTSD, that comes with you in a nice little knapsack. So I'll send videos and sometimes I'll bring a little toy, a little souvenir, and now I rack my brain on when he's older.

1:32:38Does he equate that to me trying to be connected or does he look at it the way I look at the trucks? It's just a fickle, lazy, huh, motherfucker. It's an interesting one. But you don't know for another 30 years. You ain't going to know until he has his kid, probably. You know, the thing yesterday was when we were discussing this episode, if you'd allow me, was I knew I was not going to read the book and I didn't want to because I wanted to experience the book through you. But I experienced a bit of you from him. Then I remember saying, I don't think from this conversation Roy has ever been a child.

1:33:14Yeah, you didn't say that. I said, he's never been a child. But what we find is what you've explained about kids and parenting is that kids, if there's more than one sibling in a household, they'll experience parents differently because children allow you a chance to reinvent yourself. Correct. So you become whoever you want them to be. I mean, you want them to see as it goes. Having one child is the ultimate gift and curse because they experience you transforming in front of them. So you can never have that one idea that you think they will have of you. But what happened was I think your dad His practicality showed up In real life When you were growing up And in your life right now As a grown up Because when he Was older Obviously And you were younger He understood that He didn't have time He wasn't going to see you As a 25 year old man If you take the age gap So he knew that He had to be practical with you So what he had to do was He had to make you a father And your child Made you a son Because you are out here now You are playing, you are taking videos, you're taking pictures of things.

1:34:18You're looking like a tourist. You want to be a child. You want to hug him. You want to show him that you love him. So those are your gifts. Those are the things that he left you with. He made you a father. Your son made you a child. And that's what you must take with you. But often it happens that we want to live vicariously sometimes and we get fixated in the mistakes of others. And in life, there comes a time where you equalize. Now you understand why your dad had to take that nap. at first you might have thought he's avoiding me he doesn't want to be now you understand exactly why you have to think that I've been wanting to nap so bad after working at the quick street you understand

1:35:00and that's what I find whenever Trevor and I have conversation we get to that point where we like how do we reconcile our pasts and make peace with it and I think with this conversation right here from the little that I know of you and I'm sure there's a lot to find out is you are reconciling, balancing the books. You took the good, you discarded the bad, and you're infusing it now in your life. And your dad lives through you and your son lives through you. So I think that gap and that distance between what your dad could have been in your life and what you want to be in your son's life is visible in how you show up in your son's life.

1:35:32That's beautiful. Thank you for that. Yeah. I try now with him to just be very verbal about feelings, sharing feelings. And to me, the main thing is love and how does that manifest? How do you receive it? Teach him how to receive it, teach him how to show it. If I can do that, I'm good. Does he know how funny you are? Funny, no. But he is aware of what I do. No, no, no, no. Does he know how funny you are? I make him laugh. Oh, that's what I mean. Does he laugh at the jokes that I do on CNN? No, forget that. I'm saying, does he know how funny you are? How funny? No, but I can make him laugh from time to time.

1:36:17Okay. Yeah. He's got a sense of humor too. Yeah, but that's what I mean. That's one of the things that I think we take for granted is, this is what I felt when I was reading the book, right? And I was thinking of your dad and I was going, I think one of the greatest gifts of, one of the greatest acts of love that you've committed in this book is you've processed your father through the most generous lens possible, which is love. You've got a man who had another family in the same town as you, and it wasn't a secret, but it still holds a bit of shame, you know, and you and your mom are fighting against this thing.

1:36:57You've got this world where you're trying of cement yourself and and have the things that you you could have but you don't have and your dad's withholding them from you you know he's not paying the gas bill because he's fighting with your mom or he feels like you and your mom are up against him so he's going to make you both pay and not pay the gas bill or not pay the electric bill he's going to teach you both a lesson and you're like no but i'm on your side and he's like no you're not boy you're not on my team you know what i mean despite all of that i read the book and i went damn i felt for your dad i saw him as a human being.

1:37:30I didn't see him as a villain. I didn't see him as... You spend so much time trying to give him the benefit of the doubt in a beautiful way, by the way, that I was like, damn, what an act of love. And I think what it got me thinking about, because I think so many people go through this, is when your parents or when you are forced to focus on survival, we take for granted how many elements of living we put aside you know love intimacy fun fiction joy fiction imagination vision just random things we focus so much think about how many people have grown up and are growing up in worlds where the only thing they're allowed to think about is surviving so your dad goes roy i need you to be educated and i need you to know how to navigate the world and watch out for these white people exactly but i i can't teach you joy and don't pay your taxes because they're taking the black man's right to vote away in 2040 i'm just telling you this is the type of shit we're talking about yeah but but but if you think but if you think about it though if you if you think about it though he has to tell you that because he can't he can't tell you how to have fun because he didn't come from fun he didn't have fun he didn't do you get what I'm saying so he's like I need to teach you how to survive and I was thinking man it's so crazy how that becomes the thing that sort of we lose out on this the way I was thinking of it was I was going we always have to be careful especially if we're the next generation if you have the if you have the luxury of being the next generation that can move forward yeah I think it's very crucial to remember in life that you are trying to survive but on the other side of survival you need to remember all the luxuries you couldn't include in survival because those are the things that make surviving worthwhile yeah do you know what i'm saying yeah you want to win the war but you want to win it so that you come back to your friends and family and laugh if you can't come back and laugh that's exactly it because otherwise what was it for like what were you actually fighting for as an idea or as a did you get what i'm saying yeah It's like the whole point of it was for my son to be able to be relaxed and not have to think about a million different things.

1:39:57But how do you prepare someone for the world while also giving them agency to still be a child and making sure that there's a balance in that? Which is why I try to let him laugh with me. Crack a joke. You have the one thing, and this is more from my mom, he always has freedom of opinion. You can share it respectfully, but like all of that, be quiet and stay in the shop. You think this up? Tell me why. Break it down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me the logic of it. I still might not agree with you, but we can have, don't ever be afraid to bring something to me or to share something with me or talk to me about stuff.

1:40:35And I think that those were the things where I think as parents, we are either the parent we wish we had or we're a carbon copy. Of the parent we wish we didn't have. And the right balance is somewhere in the middle. But I mean, man, we laugh. But you know what me and my son laugh at? It's a lot of inside joke stuff. Yeah, no, no. That's all comedy. late. That's all comedy if we're honest. We watch Interstellar a couple times and Matthew McConaughey's character's got that robot TARS that he's always telling to do stuff. So if we're telling the other one to do something, TARS I need you to go in there and get the thing.

1:41:22TARS I need you to take a shower and get ready for bed. Does not compute. And he'll say does not compute. Like no. I just told you to do something. That was a man. It could be something as silly as that. I talk to you. But that's what I mean. As if you're an AI robot. Yeah, but that's what I mean. So funny, yeah. I think that the only piece of rage I really felt like if it's about anger, because the other thing with Finding Your Roots was that I also found out when my dad lost his dad at age four, per census data, there was no other male head of household in his life ever again. so as far as I know it was just him and his mom wow and if there was a man they wasn't on the papers yeah he was not official he wasn't official so that means at best you and some fleeting stepdaddy mr johnny come over from time to time and give you a nickel but not like a solid no household no quality time yeah yeah so my pops grew up you know when his pops died when he was four they left Atlanta and went to Chicago so you growing up you know you growing up in Chicago during the boom and then often dance civil rights and you know and then you off to covering Vietnam and every riot and every race war you can name as a journalist so this idea of yeah you can be mad But this all has to be looked at strictly through the lens of what did I learn and what do I hope for the boy to learn and how did that thing affect me?

1:43:03So you can leave out a lot of stories, but it wasn't my daddy was mean. Yeah, no. No, you did the thing. And here's how that day on that choice affected me. You didn't pay the bill. You didn't pay the power bill. So I chose to work 30 hours a week in high school so that there would always be money in our back pocket because I'm never going to be cold again, ever. I don't give a fuck what I have to do. I'll never be as cold as I was that night. And that's part of why I hate winter. It's from that. It's the idea of, I remember I was on my way to a gig and the gig canceled on the way. and I didn't have gas money to get back because the gig was the gas money to get back to Birmingham.

1:43:57And I had a quarter tank of gas and I go, I'm going to let the engine run and keep the car warm, you know, on and off every hour, get it down to an eighth and on that eighth of a tank, drive into town, drive to the next nearest city, get a day job, work that day, get the check and then make that money to drive back home. Damn. But I got to survive the night. And it's two degrees. And so you just got to sleep in a cold car. But there's a weird, oh, I've been here before. That kind of kicks in. You don't like it, but you know what you've been through. So you know what you can push through. And there's not a lot of people that know that story.

1:44:40I would even tell that story too. So how will my son even know what he's capable of? He needs to know what's in him. I think all our kids do. I think we owe it to our kids to share with them our pains, our struggles, our fears, our failures. But we present as perfect. And then a lot of us haven't even reconciled with any of that stuff. So your kid come to you dealing with something similar. You don't even know how to help him unpack it. Because you ain't looked at it yet. You haven't looked at that idea of how to move when you aren't confident. or what to do. Hey, I had to quit working with, I had to fire an employee, bro, and it hurt my heart, but I had to do it, and I'm here to tell you about it so you can understand the fragility of friendship.

1:45:34That's what you hope the long run is from a conversation like that. So, you know, you just, you don't know how it's going to all connect in the long run, but, you know, I just share everything. I just share as much as I can. And yeah, a lot of it does come back to being a good dad. But I think it's just also about having this story of, you know, I also don't want to get too obsessed with changing my behavior solely to influence his growth. Because then I'm not being me. You know, I took him. So when I left Daily Show, I took him with me to clean out my office. Yeah. you wrote about that because he needs to understand none of these jobs are forever none of this stuff is forever so you think he understood that not yet yeah but i've taken him by cnn and he's come there and understood that yes he's old enough now to understand the idea of this show and this show connects he's googled me once some so you know like there's he's aware of what I do but trying to take that trying to take that veneer off of what fame and stardom and all of that because he has no perspective on that of course kids don't care yeah they really don't but one day he'll figure out who Kaisenad is he'll be like daddy you ain't famous for shit KSI or somebody like he'll see real fame and it'll give him perspective.

1:47:15But yeah, you need to know who I am. And I'm thankful that my pops used to take me to the barbershop and he's born-ass speaking engagements. And I would sit on the floor with him in a radio station while he did call-in shows. I would just sit at his feet and he would take two hours of calls from the community. No music, just talking to people. So, Brother Wood, this would need to happen with the referendum. And you need a new city tax. And at that, I'll pay for the education. And my dad, you know, whether he was right or wrong, whether they were right or wrong, my pops would just be patient with people and hear them out and have conversations with them.

1:48:01And so you learn pieces of who your parents are when you see them doing the thing they love to do. And so that's important that my son at least sees and sentient about it. Don't go anywhere, because we got more What Now after this. Feeling short on smiles? Does your frown need to be turned upside down? We got the perfect dose of comedy. 30 minutes of scrubs. Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Sarah Chalk, and the rest of the gang at Sacred Heart are back for a brand new season. We play medical doctors who are besties. just like in real life. And we'll definitely be up in each other's cases. Scrubs premieres Wednesday on ABC.

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1:49:26It's funny, you know when you talk about breaking the curses, I often think about how impossible that can be sometimes. you know and what i mean by it is this like we we'll all talk about especially in the age that we're in now everyone will go you know my family did this and i'm gonna be the one who doesn't do it and my dad was like this and i'm not gonna be that and my mom was like this and i'm not gonna be that and i will be the one and i will be the one and the great irony of it is you'll end up being the one just from a different place do you know what i mean and reading through your book i I kept finding myself thinking maybe the great relief and release in life is not only thinking we're successful when we break the curse, but it's realizing that there's a whole lot of power in just naming the cage.

1:50:18Yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? This is what it is. Like, like I feel like you may get, cause there's no real scale that'll tell us how far or how close you get to being the perfect dad. But just knowing what the cage is that you're in because of your dad and being able to name it, change it. Like, it's not the exact same thing. But I mean, like for me, like ADHD, knowing that I had ADHD changed my life, genuinely. I didn't have to change everything about my life. But now I could tell you, I'd be like, oh, that's the ADHD. Like, I just know. I just know. I know how my brain works. I know at 1 a.m.

1:50:54when I'm craving a chocolate, I know what's happening. Before, I would just go, I'm craving a chocolate. now at 1 a.m. I'm like oh hello old friend do you get what I'm saying and that's what I that's what I mean is like I feel like that's where you're doing the work and that's that's where you and your son will benefit because you're naming the cage yeah I think I think it all I think it all helps I don't I don't think it's a book he'll read or appreciate for another 15 years I think he's gotta be 20 somewhere in there but i think he'll appreciate the results of the book because you might think the book is for him but you might find you writing the book is what's been for him yeah i don't know anybody who can write i don't know anybody who can write their story honestly and not be forced to reckon with things that have happened in their life correct like i tell everyone all the time i go write a book about your life and they're like who's gonna read it i go but that's not, you shouldn't actually think about that.

1:51:55Go and write a book about your life. And when you're writing it, you start to realize how much you don't even know about your own life. You realize you don't even know your parents. At all. At all. At all. We know what our parents did. Yeah, you only know them through them being in service to you. Yeah, but you don't like know, and I mean like know your parents. Ask them like a real deep question that isn't, and what I mean about a real deep one is, They're actually the ones that seem like they're on the surface. My mama told me a story one time about in college, how she faked being pregnant on the dude.

1:52:32And we laughed for a fucking hour because this is an esteemed black college educator, three degrees. And I work in administration and I make sure these kids get their degrees. I was the first nine black people at Delta State. We protested at the president's office and we fought and I'm the child of a sharecropper. And also, I'm pregnant. Psych! And it was the 70s. You could really scare a dude back then. The technology wasn't what it was now to prove you're a liar. And I'm like, mama, why you did that? Piss me off. Just laughing at that. so you start you forget that your parents are just humans exactly so yeah put that in the book yes son yes i stole a credit card tried to buy some shit and got caught let me tell you about that world let me tell you about like all of these weird times and so that i don't know man i just i I just don't know if I would ever talk about any of this on stage.

1:53:45So I don't know when else I would ever have had a platform for it. But I think that's the beauty of different art forms, right? I never used to understand why musicians would paint sometimes. You know, you'd read these random stories. He's also an artist. They go like, da-da-da, has a painting. They paint. I'm like, why? I'm like, what are you doing? You make music already. and then over time you start realizing and i think this applies to everybody whether you're an artist or not because i think everyone is an artist genuinely not like in like oh everyone's an artist i mean it you everyone has something creative in them that they that they'll benefit from getting out and i think we take for granted that sometimes we think all of our stories will be told in the places that we think they can be told but they won't be some of your stories will only come out because of your friends some of your stories will only come out because you go to church some of your stories only come out because of therapy some of your stories only come out because you're in a relationship some of your stories will only come out if they are given the right avenue and stage to come out and so in a way i go like because of the book the book is a different stage yeah i was laughing i was laughing about you working at quick crete with the concrete in your hair i was laughing at you with the credit like roy's credit card fraud man let me tell you something good times we ate good for two years Do you know what I mean?

1:55:07It was just to get food. Like, that's how it started. There's the relationship. No, but it's true. That's true. I'm saying with food. Yeah. You know what it was? We just wanted Pizza Hut, bro. That's all. We wanted Pizza Hut. It was 96 and it was the beginning of Pay at the Pump. and in those days in the states your gas station receipt had your full name full credit card number and expiration date ah what a what a wonderful time insane insane what a dream and i go to a gas station and i get paid the pump and whoever was there before me hadn't pulled their receipt. So my receipt was attached to theirs.

1:55:59And I saw that full credit card number. And I was like, we having Pizza Hut tonight. And I went back to the dorm. I told my boys, I said, boys, whatever you want. Meat lovers, we getting breadsticks, all that. And we ordered like$40 worth of pizza on somebody else's credit card. And in those days when they would deliver the pizzas, right? This is where racism can help you. In those days when they delivered pizzas to black colleges, most black colleges are adjacent to a bad side of town in a lot of instances. So sometimes the pizza man get robbed. So the pizza man's already paranoid because he's already on 10 about being robbed.

1:56:49But we would walk up to pick up$50,$60 in pizzas. with a$10 cash tip in hand. White driver literally trembling as we're walking up. And we're dressed as hood as we, like in black hoodie, black Nike. Like we want, psychologically, we're trying to psych you out. You're trying to invoke racism. Yes. Yeah. Yes, because I need you to not ask me for this card because you think we're going to stomp you out. Oh, what'd you think I ain't got the card? Oh, you were, I didn't have the card. All I had was the receipt. The receipt from the pops. Yeah, but I like the$10 tip, though. That's psychological. That's brilliant.

1:57:26Because no one's tipping. And so we would walk up and we would go, hey, man, can I write the tip in? Do y 'all take cash? Hmm? Me? Yeah, you, man. There you go. Oh, here you go. And there's Parmesan and there's some red flakes for you. And we'd walk off and he'd never ask for the card. So you come back to the dorm, celebrating. And you're eating like we've ordered$80 worth of pizza. So we can't eat all this pizza. Oh, the dorm is just them motherfuckers is floating. You guys are the Ninja Turtles. Rafael, Donatello coming out the woodwork. You know how they smell them pies in the cartoons? And the motherfuckers get to float.

1:58:07So we're in the dorm during Monday Night Football, which is like premiere packed TV room. And we in the back like some fucking bosses. And motherfuckers will come up and... Take their respect. And they come up, and one dude from the football team, he come up and go, eight. I give you$10 for that pizza right now, fat-haired ass nigga.

1:58:33And this is like a$15 meat lover. He's offering me$10. That you haven't paid for. Bet. Nice doing business with you. That's how I started. We just wanted to eat pizza one night. Somebody bought one of the pizzas wholesale. And then a flashlight went off in my head. And so I just started selling food. I was the food dude. And then about a year or two later, I got a work study at the post office on campus. And mind you, the only reason I got the work study at the post office was because I was late signing up to be an RA in the dorm. I just forgot to sign up. I've been an RA for two years. Just forgot.

1:59:17And they were like, well, you can go work in the post office. Cool. Mail sorter. Now you have access to the actual tangible cards. At a college campus where everybody is applying for credit cards. Oh, my goodness. And in those days, credit cards came already activated in the envelope. There was no sticker. There was no call this number and put in your pin and your matching zip code. I mean, we could argue that they basically made you a fraudster if we're honest. Yeah. I mean, let's be honest, Roy. You had no other choice. I mean, really. This seems logical at this point. I'm like, this is God.

1:59:55God wants me. So now when we order the pizza, I can show the card. Hey, there's no more tip. Oh, man. I'll write in. You're still going to get tip. The confidence has gone up. And that's where you get sloppy because you get too arrogant. And so now with these tangible cards, you can sell clothing because you can just go buy clothes. And whole thing. Tell me what you need. Get it half price. It goes deeper, man. So you become the dude. Pizza's one thing, but now PlayStation, whatever you need, just half price. Just come tell me what you need. I'm just, I'm Amazon for that part of the campus. Look at me.

2:00:41Look at me. I am Jeff Bezos. And so we take a card in the Dillards and we knew one of the girls that worked the cash register and she was doing us a favor. And this is where, so to do us a favor, to leave more credit space on the card, she undercharged us for the merch so that the card would have more space. which I didn't need you to do because I'll just go steal another card when it's time to do this again and she undercharges us for everything and this is she's working in like I don't know polo or Tommy whatever one of those mall stores correct one of the designer departments where there are no seven dollar sweaters yep she's ringing up shit for like six dollars bro like this is too low and so she got caught and then the dominoes fell and we're at the house waiting on a pizza and the police, Tallahassee police came in they kicked that door and this is at a time where Tallahassee only had like 4 or 5 murders a year so this was some good action whole task force come in the house and take us down yeah it was like 7, 8 cops It's like, we got him.

2:02:03We got him. And then. He blew the whistle on you. Here's the fucked up part, though. We got arrested. They started searching the house. And then fucking Pizza Hut showed up with that goddamn pizza. And couldn't eat it. Couldn't eat it.

2:02:30and the cop ain't have enough sense to ask the pizza man if that was like stolen and that's all i remember about the night i got arrested was that fucking pizza hut smelled so good and i couldn't fucking touch it it was sitting right there in the living room bro couldn't fucking touch it and so got suspended from school and then during the suspension is when I started doing stand-up. Because I was like, oh, I'm probably going to go to prison. Well, that makes me sad. Well, let me just try stand-up. Because now you realize the common bond you share with people is your ability to give them things.

2:03:20And the moment I lost that superpower, nobody won't talk to me i had like one or two friends and around the same time i started working at golden corral and golden corral was like the first place i ever worked it's the first place i ever experienced true forgiveness and benevolence from strangers co-workers you don't know me and then you find out after a month or two you find out i get probation yeah don't know how i get probation i don't go to i don't go to jail and i'm doing stand-up i'm working at golden corral i'm riding out my suspension from school and then my co-workers at golden corral found out that i was on probation and i just remember just expecting to be fired like oh I okay and then and then you you discover that half the store is on probation because we had an owner who hired who hired convicted felons and returning citizens the tax breaks but also he legitimately believed in second chances and so that place at that time in my life was exactly where i needed to be because the the legal system is set up to make you feel like you're gonna fuck up again and they psychologically tell you yeah like you're coming back it's only a matter of time i'll see you soon sir and so yeah like that's the type of stuff where i feel like my son my son should know that and then it's also interesting in how that helped shape why I try to be as kind as I can to people and try to give chances to people.

2:05:13Because there was like an 18-month stretch in my life where I could have been discarded. Florida A &M could have thrown me out. Golden Corral could have thrown me out. The school let me back in so I could graduate. Then I go get a job in Birmingham, working at the radio station after I graduate. I was still on probation when I started in 95.7. So that only happens because there are so many people that saw me for what I could become. So it changed how I saw myself. So I didn't feel like who I was. I could only see what I was destined to be. And like, that's all I still, to this day, that's still how I carry myself.

2:05:54Oh, well, yeah, I'm doing this now, but I know what's going to happen over there. Are you scared? Did you? No, no. Let's leave Daily Show because I know over here. It must be something. I know how to get there because I've been at Rock Bottom before. So this is easy. I can get from here. All right. Career's still going. That's how all of that thought process started was during that first year of probation, just in terms of like figuring out the self-reliance. And that's where everything from my pops and my moms and being a latchkey kid and then selling my own stuff and hustling and not asking my mama for no help.

2:06:40I needed that shit when I was on probation because I didn't have nobody. Ain't nobody trying to help you make the dream happen. And you in school, you back in college talking about you going to be a comedian. Nobody buying that. Not in a building full of scholars and not FAMU's journalism. I had a classmate, man. I ain't never felt more nothing in my life. And I'm still enrolled. And I'm back in college. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm in Jacksonville doing an open mic and some shit. And we backstage. They got the TV on. And I see one of my classmates anchoring the weekend news. We're the same age. And he's the weekend anchor.

2:07:30On TV. On TV. He's on his way. And I'm like, in that moment, I saw him. I was like, fuck. This got to work. This got to work. Because I don't. I'm never going to be. I'm never going to get to that. I'm not doing journalism properly. And I ended up doing my own version of it. And I got lucky as well because I worked in morning radio at a time where black radio, morning terrestrial radio was disgustingly competitive in certain markets. And we were one of the few markets, I think it was about 10 cities at the time, that had four different black morning shows. So we were the local show. But then you would have Tom Joyner syndicated in.

2:08:26I think Steve Harvey was just starting. There was also Doug Banks. There was also Tony Scott. There was also Russ Parr. So any of those five or six entities, four could be in any market. And so when you're the local black show, you have to creatively be way out in left field. To even be considered. To compete. So, yeah, I can do a lot of crazy, weird ideas. I don't have to just do prank phone calls. I can come up with weird calling characters. I can come up with parody songs. The Leo Debling character that we did on Daily Show, that was an old radio character. I wouldn't have even had the gumption to pitch it.

2:09:09at Daily Show had I not been given that creative freedom to just play in the sandbox and figure it out. And if it sucks, who cares? Nobody's going to remember because tomorrow's a new day on radio. If they don't like it, it's Birmingham. They're going to call and tell you you trash, but they're going to give you another chance. That's the one thing about Black audiences is that you can get booed, but you can always come again. You can always come back again. Try again. If it's good this time we'll cheer and if it's bad again we'll boot and each boo is its own individual yeah it doesn't it doesn't count towards the next thing yeah it's not a cumulative no it's not a cumulative thing an individual connection you don't take it don't take it personally yeah keep moving are you still mad come on man come on you're gonna act like you didn't suck you know you suck yeah you know it was a different time though man i'm i'm very grateful for that time because I needed forgiveness at a time where I did not deserve it.

2:10:12And I got an abundance of it. And so that's part of what keeps me gracious and trying to give chances to people. I haven't been able to get anything greenlit in a place where I can do effectively for other people what was done for me, especially um you know people coming off probation coming out of prison stuff like that doing some staff and shit with that like that's gonna be that's the birmingham plan you know you say that but i i feel like in the same way you sometimes put an outsized amount of pressure on yourself to be the perfect father that you never had if there's one thing everyone in this industry and I mean everyone will agree on and people don't agree on anything in life is Roy Wood Jr.

2:11:07has helped them in some way shape or form I'll tell you now you will be hard pressed to find a comedian or anyone who's like tangentially related to comedy who doesn't have a story about how you've helped them in some way shape and I mean everyone here's Eugene who's a random African think about it in the thick of covid think about it when you didn't have to yeah like me you name it the neil brennans of the world the i mean every random comedians nobody knows comedians everybody does know big comedians small comedians you bro like you name it because people were kind to me bro no no no you you say that but like i i think you you see in you saying like i've never I had the chance, I go, man, you take for granted how, and this is something that I've always loved about you as a friend, but I've always like wanted to strangle you on, is I go, you'll focus on the mountains, but you'll take for granted how many pebbles you've piled up.

2:12:04Yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? You'll always be like, man, when I get that mountain going, and I'm like, Roy, look how many pebbles you've put here, man. That is a, that's literally a mountain that you've built. There's more. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, there is more, but I'm saying that, that's like my wish for you as a friend and as a person. I always go like, oh man, just look back at some of those. Yeah, you've always wanted me to stop and just like - Always. Pause, not even stop, pause. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard because I always feel like that light in the tunnel, it's not the end of the journey, it's the train trying to run me over.

2:12:34Damn. So I just have to keep moving. Imagine playing with trains as his kid. What a crazy journey that must be. We'll play trains, daddy, choo-choo. Man, that's the end of my line. Oh, kids used to die in Birmingham, back in the 80s they used to try to hop freight trains to class oh yeah that's like us when we would yeah that's that's yeah same thing as south africa that's why i say it's like we lived a parallel life yeah you know can i tell you one of the biggest things your book did for me that that i appreciate is it brought something top of mind that i think is is really important to think about now and it's you talk about your journey with your father partially knowing a man and i argue we only partially know everyone in our lives, you know, but partially knowing this man for 16 years of your life, him dying.

2:13:24And then you talking about the many fathers and the men in your life that raised you in some way, shape or form, even in the smallest conversation, even in the smallest instruction, the smallest, you know, act of kindness. But what I, what I found myself thinking of when I closed the last page of the book is I went, damn, that's probably the biggest blow that masculinity has taken in society today is that we have fewer and fewer fathers because we have a smaller and smaller village do you get what i'm saying yeah like the way we used to live keeps it himself yeah the way we used to live like even having proximity even having a father was like a it's like they were all fathers and i mean yeah like this is like this this is where the language of you know african languages especially south african languages tie you to that concept everyone was bab you know what i mean so if i was talking to eugene's dad i'd say bab cause you know father cause but it's like father and and you know what i mean mom cause like you know what i mean mama got eugene mama got like it's like mom so there's all the moms and there's all the dads so all the brothers and all the brothers and all the sisters so you yours directly might not be there but we always grew up being like man there's fathers everywhere and there's moms everywhere and yours might not be there but there are many of them around to give instruction to give a beating to give correction to give guidance to give whatever it might be and all i thought to myself was like imagine growing up now as a young man whose father isn't present physically or emotionally and then like where where your father isolated yeah where are your fathers it's like just what the internet do you know what i mean in a lot of cases yeah but the problem with the internet that i have is it's a bunch of men telling you how to act but unlike a real father you don't get to see how they really act yeah yeah do you get what i'm saying perform you get the you get yeah they get to tell you all these things let me tell you what a real man does let me tell you a relationship let me tell you a real man let me tell you what a real man click thing goes off and then it's like well who's that person because kids see through the like you you wrote a whole book where you're seeing through the facade of your father you know what i mean yeah your father's telling you who he is but then you're seeing who he really is yeah i think that men are a lot less i don't know inclined to help too i don't think everybody wants the help i remember um like i'm I'm the guy now.

2:15:56The best I do with young people is stick and move. Like if we're in line, like bodegas and stuff, and it's like three, four, 14-year-olds in front of me in line, and then I'll tell you, all right, I'll stay out of trouble. And you're out. Yeah, because these kids don't want their advice. Oh, man, Roy, that's the way. I'll stay out of trouble now. Yeah, or I'll ask them an easy thing with adolescence, of like which teacher you hate oh that's that's a nice one okay they'll start going off yeah yeah but you still got to learn something from them like just stay in it man roy you're not wrong roy's been an old man his whole life you know what we need to do after this podcast we need a book we're gonna go trampolining we're gonna go like we're gonna go throw slime at each other we got Polkot.

2:16:53Just, I want to do like the dumbest, silliest things with you. Disneyland? Yo, whatever it is. Or Visionland. Visionland. It's Alabama Adventure now at Foreclosed News Bank. Oh, okay, okay, okay. It didn't work for us. I thought we were going to go around wearing little I Have a Dream hats. It's Visionland. Visionland. Have you been on the Million Man March ride? Oh, it's so long. Yes, a million more steps. 999 ,000 more steps. I've changed ownership a number of times, but it's still standing. One of the largest wooden roller coasters in the world. Wooden roller coasters? Yeah, it's called the Civil Rights Movement.

2:17:32Fuck you. Stop roasting my city. Oh, man. Roy, man, thanks for coming through. Man, I appreciate you, man. This was good. And can I tell you, man, thanks for sharing you. I appreciated it selfishly. Just as a human being who knows you, man your book was because like i got to have conversations with you that we've never got to have and i think anyone who reads it if if you are a a mom who is a single mom if you are a dad who's not in touch with your kids if you are a expecting dad if you are a son who doesn't know their dad if you if you are a human being fundamentally i feel like you've like you've written the book for them, man.

2:18:18It's beautiful. It's forgiving. It's insightful. It's light. It's funny. It's, yeah, man. It's phenomenal. I appreciate it, man. Yeah, man. Thank you. Well, until I have another child and then write another book. I bet you it.

2:18:37Oh, man. What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by DayZero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Parduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now?

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