Episode 557 - Ian Edwards
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters oh my god what the fuck addicts hi i'm mark marin welcome to the show hi nicely nice to be here thank you for coming
Marc:If all goes well, when you hear this, it will be day six of no nicotine.
Marc:And I don't know.
Marc:I know some of you have been through this before with me years ago, but this is not.
Marc:I mean, I can't look at it as some sort of cycle.
Marc:I can't look at it like this happens, man.
Marc:When you're hooked on shit and you get back into it, you got to get off the shit again.
Marc:That's just the way it goes.
Marc:But boy, I had forgotten what it's like.
Marc:To be this raw, man.
Marc:I forgot what it's like to hang all your hopes and emotions and sense of well-being and thoughts of the future and the past and the present on some goddamn substance or two.
Marc:to sort of regulate and temper that shit and keep it corralled into a an area where it's manageable as a as opposed to a goddamn fucking break in the fence and everything's running around the past the possible future the present i'm not afraid of anything but everything do you understand that
Marc:I fear nothing but all of it.
Marc:Today on the show, Ian Edwards is here.
Marc:Ian Edwards is here.
Marc:He's great.
Marc:I love this guy.
Marc:I love talking to him.
Marc:He's a great comic.
Marc:His comedy album, 100% Half-Assed, is out on Team Coco Records.
Marc:We'll talk to Ian in a minute.
Marc:I do want to again mention that I will be at Largo here in Los Angeles on January 8th.
Marc:Is that right?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's going to be a good show.
Marc:I've never really played there solo.
Marc:Yeah, that's happening.
Marc:Saw an amazing guitar player with... I went and saw Chrissy Hines, who was great, over at Pantages.
Marc:Is that what it's called?
Marc:She had an opening act like a folk duo called The Rails, a man and a woman.
Marc:And then the dude came back and played guitar with Chrissy Hines, and he just...
Marc:fucking he's an animal on that fucking guitar and I believe Richard Thompson was sitting just a couple rows in front of me on the other side of the aisle and I spent a lot of time staring at the side of Richard Thompson's head in between songs just wondering what it feels like to be Richard Thompson's head what a fucking amazing guitar player that guy is songwriter
Marc:What else happened?
Marc:She would stop in the middle of songs to yell at people on their phones.
Marc:It was pretty beautiful.
Marc:I mean, as you know from my conversation, she is not the most relaxed, you know, zen person in the world.
Marc:But she was, you know, just right in the middle of songs.
Marc:Like, put the phone away.
Marc:Put the fucking phone away.
Marc:It was pretty good.
Marc:It was pretty punk rock.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:I respected it.
Marc:I cleaned my washing machine because I got angry at it.
Marc:So I went online.
Marc:I learned how to clean a washing machine.
Marc:Why not get a new washing machine, Mark?
Marc:Why not get one?
Marc:I bought these fucking things used in 2002.
Marc:Why don't I just buy?
Marc:What is fucking wrong with me?
Marc:Because I'm so afraid I'm going to choose the wrong thing of a thing and I'm going to be stuck with it.
Marc:And then I'm going to be the guy that got fucked by the thing because he didn't know what thing to get.
Marc:That's the fucking story of my life.
Marc:I'm going to buy a thing.
Marc:Why didn't you get that thing?
Marc:I didn't know that was a thing to get.
Marc:And then I feel like an asshole, like a sucker, like a dupe.
Marc:So I don't buy nothing.
Marc:I'm watching my house fall apart.
Marc:Fucking 14 year old, 15 year old washer and dryer that I just cleaned.
Marc:It's disgusting.
Marc:I just got to pull the trigger, man.
Marc:Just got to buy some shit.
Marc:But I cleaned it.
Marc:I put bleach in it.
Marc:Then I put vinegar in it.
Marc:Followed someone's instructions.
Marc:I don't know if they're a professional.
Marc:Would we just fucking just look online?
Marc:How do I clean a washing machine?
Marc:Oh, I guess this lady knows what she's doing.
Marc:Get some hydrochloric acid.
Marc:That sounds reasonable.
Marc:Where do I get that?
Marc:The fucking goddamn content heap.
Marc:It's what we do, folks.
Marc:This is my contribution to the great content heap.
Marc:I'm glad you guys listen.
Marc:I'm glad you guys, as you were looking for treasure at the great global cultural landfill that is the Internet, the big media dump,
Marc:You've picked me up and said, this looks like a good find.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Thank you for that.
Marc:Guess things are getting a little more serious with the woman I'm dating.
Marc:Went and had the full STD panel.
Marc:That's a sure sign of commitment.
Marc:A bit of commitment.
Marc:I will do that for you.
Marc:I will go get the full STD panel.
Marc:Even with the long shot stuff.
Marc:It's always scary, man.
Marc:It's always that thing.
Marc:No matter, you know, a year between them, a year and a half between them, you're like, oh, man.
Marc:That one might not have been the best idea.
Marc:Everything's fine.
Marc:Everything's fine.
Marc:You know who called me?
Marc:Chris Rock called me.
Marc:His movie, Top 5, opens in theaters this Friday, December 12th.
Marc:I enjoyed the movie.
Marc:There's some funny shit in it.
Marc:And Chris said, do you want to talk about the movie?
Marc:I said, yeah, let's talk about the movie, Chris.
Marc:You're Chris Rock.
Marc:So let's talk to Chris Rock about his movie.
Marc:Chris Rock.
Marc:Oh, Mark.
Marc:So, man, I watched a movie last night.
Marc:With people or not?
Marc:No, I sat there with myself in front of my computer with my sad dinner at my dining room table, and I watched the whole... What do you mean, fuck?
Marc:I enjoyed the movie, man.
Guest:I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Guest:It's just such a different experience with people, but...
Guest:Well, you know, for me, it was like I was with everybody I knew.
Marc:I could not believe the number of comedians.
Marc:It was like find the comic I know.
Marc:It was like some sort of game.
Marc:I couldn't even believe how many comics you fit into one movie.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Even Rachel Feinstein's got a line.
Guest:Rich Voss.
Guest:Rich Voss walking into the cellar.
Guest:You going on?
Guest:Yes, Rich Voss.
Guest:Rich Voss.
Guest:You walk by Dan Natterman in the hallway.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It's crazy.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Well, look, the bottom line is, man, I think this is the best movie you've made.
Marc:I really do.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:And I felt that it was personal.
Marc:I felt there was a lot of stuff.
Marc:And from your experience, it was interesting.
Marc:I had no idea, man, what I was about to see.
Marc:And as a guy who's a sober guy, when all of a sudden you're a sober guy, I'm like, all right, let's see how he handles this.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:again and i think you know let's see if he did this justice but i thought it was great man i really thought it was uh it was i because you are not that guy i am not that guy you know you know what's weird though what my success has come playing that guy i'm like new jack city i'm really good at it i don't know if you saw the motherfucker with the hat on broadway it's kind of the same role so whenever i'm
Guest:kind of have a drug problem in something.
Guest:So New Jack City was your bottom, your fictional bottom?
Guest:Yeah, it's so weird that drugs have been good to me.
Marc:No, I thought it was... On screen.
Marc:I really thought that the relationship was great, and I just thought, like, I was astounded with Cedric.
Marc:I mean, what a role that was, man.
Guest:Isn't he amazing?
Marc:He really is amazing.
Guest:See, it's...
Guest:The thing about comedians, I think Sandler still has said this to me a long time ago.
Guest:It's like, you can't do comedy with strangers.
Guest:You got to, like, work with your friends because you know what's funnier about them.
Guest:Exactly, man.
Guest:And I kind of, I knew Cedric had that in him.
Guest:You know, when I was casting it and all that stuff, a lot of people are, oh, he's so cuddly and he's this.
Guest:And I'm like, no, Cedric is...
Guest:Fucking buck wild.
Guest:Yeah, he is, man.
Guest:And as a comic, that guy, you know that guy.
Guest:If you do comedy and you get off a plane, you're like, oh, I know one of those guys.
Guest:It doesn't matter.
Guest:There's about three in every city.
Marc:Oh, yeah, man.
Marc:And I just thought it was astounding.
Marc:And I just thought the way you framed it, you know, with Rosaria Dawson, you know, how that relationship started to unfold.
Marc:And I didn't see that twist coming.
Marc:And I ain't going to spoil anything for anybody.
Marc:But I mean, you and I've had conversations, you know, whether you're planning on getting married or you are married, you know, those things that even though this was slightly amplified the relationship that you had with your wife, that feeling of like, am I doing the right thing is a real thing, man.
Guest:It is a real thing, and guys aren't allowed to question it.
Guest:Only women are.
Marc:Right, publicly, or else, you know, everyone, when you're a guy, everyone's like, just, you know, it happens to everybody.
Marc:Just do it.
Marc:Just go through with it.
Guest:Guys are supposed to be happy with whatever women they can get.
Guest:Only women are allowed to question, is he Mr. Right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:You got one.
Guest:Shut up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Shut up.
Guest:A woman likes you.
Guest:You fucking bum.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You feel great that any woman would touch you.
Guest:Oh, you're disgusting.
Marc:But so you wrote it all and you shot it all.
Marc:How long did it take you to shoot?
Guest:About, I think, what, 35 days?
Guest:You know, little, small budget.
Guest:But I kind of knew what I wanted.
Guest:You know, I'm working in a world I knew, working with people I knew, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't hesitate to call up, you know.
Guest:The other thing with this movie, I kind of treated it like a stand-up set, in a sense.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So, you know, I had a cut.
Guest:I was like, hey, Louie, watch this cut.
Marc:Did he do it for you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Give me some notes.
Guest:Hey, Apatow, what do you think?
Guest:Like, I treated it like I was working on a set.
Marc:Oh, that's great, man.
Marc:And what kind of feedback did those guys give you?
Marc:What did Louie say?
Guest:they gave me great feedback they they especially louie louie's about getting rid of the dumb shit like okay don't fall in love with these jokes you gotta fucking get this story out you gotta establish the drama between you guys right louie was great right i gotta say and then judd was about putting some of the dumb shit back in yes exactly
Guest:That's funny.
Guest:Did you show it to anybody else?
Guest:Did you show it to Sandler or Stiller or anybody?
Guest:Sandler?
Guest:Yeah, Stiller.
Guest:Stiller was like my Scott Rudin whisperer.
Guest:Like, every time I have a problem with Scott, I go, Stiller, how do you deal with this guy?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He was good with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he had great notes, too.
Guest:Stiller's...
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Ben Stiller really, really knows his shit, man.
Guest:But I was surprised.
Guest:Ben Stiller tells you to cut something, cut it.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:He's the guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I was surprised.
Guest:It was great seeing Leslie Jones.
Marc:Oh, isn't she great?
Marc:She really is just on fire on screen, man.
Marc:I mean, she's got such a vitality.
Marc:It's so raw, dude.
Marc:It's amazing.
Guest:Every director I showed the movie to, the first person they go, they go, who's that woman?
Guest:Who's the black woman in the project?
Guest:Judd immediately put her in his movie.
Guest:Did he?
Guest:The one in New York?
Guest:So she's in the... The Schumer movie?
Guest:The Amy Schumer movie.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:Yeah, no, she's great.
Guest:Yeah, Judd watched it in the cutting room and literally like, okay, I'm going to get a part for this woman.
Marc:I'm so glad that things are going so well for her.
Guest:She's a good person.
Marc:Great, great person.
Guest:She's one of the few that's as good a person as she is funny.
Guest:She's just...
Marc:Yeah, she's a good person, and she paid some serious Cat Williams dues.
Marc:Anybody deserves success for putting up with that stuff.
Guest:Yeah, she definitely paid some dues.
Marc:She got some stories for your ass.
Marc:No doubt.
Marc:It's funny, because I don't want to mention who people are, because for me, watching the movie, you have that moment where there are these story points, and I'm sitting there like, who the fuck is that?
Marc:And I'm like, oh my God, that's Ben Vereen.
Marc:I haven't seen that guy.
Yeah.
Marc:You know?
Marc:So it was really a good time to see you moving through that world.
Marc:What made you decide, though, like, and also the clips from the Slave movie are just, even though they're like three seconds long, it's just fucking hilarious, man.
Guest:Ah, thanks, man.
Guest:You know?
Guest:And that night you had with Cedric in that hotel room, that was good.
Guest:I didn't see the spin on that.
Guest:I didn't see what was going to happen with that.
Guest:That was pretty great.
Guest:That's what happens in that, though.
Guest:That kind of happened to me, a version of it anyway.
Guest:But, you know, you went out of your way to show the mess, which, you know, for a second I was like, oh, yeah, he had to show that?
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Dude, when you're in a theater and that scene...
Guest:You, I'm just telling you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is that one of those laughs where people laugh with their feet?
Guest:Uh-huh, yeah.
Guest:People can't hold, they can't control themselves.
Guest:They literally can't control themselves.
Guest:It's like, oh shit.
Marc:Are you seeing, have you watched it with like a, like all black audience?
Guest:All black, all white.
Guest:You know, when you deal with studios, man, they test it like, okay, Asian women over 30.
Guest:Right.
Marc:They go figure it out.
Marc:Not to be hackneyed, but I mean, what was the reaction from an all black audience?
Guest:I mean, all black audience, you literally can't hear it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You kind of can't hear half the movie.
Guest:The white audience loves it too, but you can't hear it.
Guest:They're all black audience.
Guest:It's just too much.
Marc:It was good to see Artie.
Marc:You had Artie and Tracy in there before the accident.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Are they both doing all right?
Guest:You know, hey, I talked to Artie about a month ago.
Guest:I talked to Tracy a couple.
Guest:We actually showed Tracy the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's got the nurse comes and does physical therapy every day.
Marc:Right, long haul.
Guest:You know, you're not going to be bumping into them at the store anytime soon.
Guest:But, you know, they'll eventually...
Guest:but that was a really bad accident.
Marc:I know, man.
Marc:You know, and it's just like, you know, one thing after another.
Marc:I'm glad they're both alive.
Guest:You know what's fucked up?
Guest:I'll say this on your... The only guy that got cut and it was only because the scene didn't quite work was Stanhope.
Guest:I'm fucking mad.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I wanted Stanhope in there so bad.
Marc:What did Stanhope play?
Guest:Stanhope played a kid... It was like this cutaway where I talk about...
Guest:Being bused to school and kids calling me nigger every day and then we cut to Stan Hope, who's a cop.
Guest:Yeah, we called him nigger.
Guest:We called him every day.
Guest:Matter of fact, that was his name.
Guest:I don't even know who you're talking about.
Guest:You mean nigger in third grade?
Guest:Oh, I know who you're talking about.
Marc:Who else did I see in there?
Marc:Brian Regan was great.
Marc:I see him on screen, and I just want to laugh already.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I'm like, whenever I see Brian Regan, I'm like, oh, it's coming.
Marc:Something's good.
Guest:Yeah, when I watch him on Letterman, I'm always laughing before he even gets to the joke.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:It's just the buildup, because you know it's going to pay off.
Guest:You know, he did a show in my neighborhood, like Inglewood, New Jersey.
Guest:I don't live in Inglewood, but he did a show in Inglewood, and I just...
Guest:Like, just walked in the theater and watched them from the side of the stage.
Guest:When he got off stage, he's looking at me like, what are you doing here?
Guest:What the fuck are you doing here?
Marc:Well, it's funny.
Guest:I barely knew the guy.
Marc:Well, he's one of those guys that comics... Way back when I was in New York and at the old improv before it closed up, when Bill Hicks was in the city for maybe a year, Hicks would go out of his way to go in and watch Brian Regan.
Marc:He's just one of those guys that's just steady, man.
Marc:He's always going to get a laugh, man.
Guest:He always... Yeah, he's...
Guest:He would actually, right now, he's the heir to the Rich Jenny throne of funniest guy that the world doesn't quite know about.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But enough people know.
Guest:He does all right.
Guest:You know, he does fine.
Guest:I'm just saying, like, he's...
Guest:He's one of those guys that no comedian in the world says, yeah, I want to follow Brian Regan.
Marc:No, that's for sure.
Guest:I don't want any parts of that fight.
Marc:Well, you know what's great also about the character and about the movie is that I think it's close enough to your life, obviously, outside of the drug problem and the, I don't know, framing the sort of like the way you made your millions was this horrendous series of movies.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And obviously your real life character is deeper, but it enabled you to sort of talk as Chris Rock.
Marc:Like, you know, when you were on the train talking about Pryor, talking about Murphy, talking about Cosby, there was a, you know, you could tell that it's like, well, that's a conversation Chris has had.
Marc:You know that shit.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:All of that stuff, we just kept it rolling, honestly.
Guest:It was just me and Rosario having a conversation.
Marc:And I tell you, honestly, Chris, I'm thrilled that you made a personal movie that really nails who you are and what it is to be in that kind of fame.
Marc:And also just the respect you give comics.
Marc:I'm happy to be happy for you, man.
Marc:Thanks, man.
Marc:You did a good job, and I wish you the best of luck with it.
Marc:Thanks for talking to me.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I'm glad I didn't have you, you know, put you in a position where you had to not talk bad about a shitty movie.
Guest:You didn't, and I'm happy too, buddy.
Guest:Good luck with it, man.
Guest:Thanks a lot.
Guest:Take it easy.
Marc:Ian Edwards has been on the show.
Marc:I've known him a long time.
Marc:I've known him since he started, basically, you know, back in New York when he's a little guy with dreads.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I do want to play this quick for you.
Marc:It's not that I'm proud of it, but it happened.
Marc:All right.
Marc:This is Ian Edwards.
Marc:This is from episode 69 of WTF.
Marc:It was from 2010, recorded at the Bridgetown Comedy Festival in Portland, Oregon.
Marc:And it's horrible.
Marc:I am horrible.
Marc:Listen.
Marc:You have family in Jamaica still?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And did you go back there?
Marc:Hell no.
Guest:Nah, nah.
Guest:I got family there.
Guest:I haven't seen them in a minute, though.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:If I go back to Jamaica, I'll be going back to the tourist spots.
Guest:I'm going to do the white people thing and go, you know, just enjoy the island.
Marc:I just didn't want you to get on stage going, talk about Katrina, but not what happened in my country.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You know, he just fucked up.
Guest:That's Haiti.
Oh.
Marc:Wow, I really fucked up.
Guest:I think that's that white guilt again.
Guest:Do you have family in that black island of yours?
Marc:I do.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I mean, they're all the same.
Guest:Same black island.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Jesus, Mark.
Guest:Jesus, Ian.
Marc:I apologize.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:I don't think I'm going to recover from this one.
Yeah.
Marc:Like, I knew it was Haiti, but for some reason I decided it was Jamaica.
Marc:And I thought, this is really going to save me and Ian on the race thing.
Marc:Like, you know, I'm listening.
Marc:I'm listening to Sean.
Marc:I'm like, I'm going to take this moment and really put out an olive branch and make this work.
Marc:So, Ian, Jamaica was devastated.
Marc:Have you heard?
Guest:You see where phony concern gets you?
Marc:You don't give a fuck about Haiti.
Marc:You know what I'm sitting here doing?
Marc:I'm sitting here thinking, like, you know, this is my show, but it's a live one, and there's no fucking way I can cut out that mistake.
LAUGHTER
Guest:Oh, that's fantastic.
Marc:Yeah, I really thought I was going to walk out of this show thinking, like, that went great.
Marc:And now I'm going to be thinking, like, I'm a fucking idiot.
Marc:But I didn't send money to Haiti either.
Marc:I did a couple.
Guest:You sure you didn't send it to Panama or some other island?
Guest:How sure are you that you sent it to Haiti?
Marc:The weird thing is, I sent it to you, but I must not have had the right address.
Guest:From Mark Maron to Black Island.
Guest:Put it in the mail.
Guest:Oh, I did my part.
Guest:Put the money in a bottle and shoved it in the ocean.
Guest:Sailing to the Caribbean.
Guest:It's going to help somebody.
Marc:Anyways, if you do have time, please send money to Jamaica.
Marc:And...
Marc:They're not going to know why, but just do it because I told you to.
Marc:If you listen to WTF, please make your checks to Jamaica.
Marc:Just fill it out to the black people of Jamaica and just send it there.
Marc:Just send it to Jamaica, Jamaica.
Guest:Please.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, I have to own that.
Marc:I have to own it.
Marc:I could have cut that out, but there's, in the name of transparency, all right?
Marc:All right, let's go now to me and Ian Edwards talking in the garage.
Marc:I love this guy.
Guest:You're pretty fucking busy.
Guest:I'm trying to be.
Guest:I'm trying to be busy.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Weren't you writing there, though?
Marc:Over at, what were we, Two Broke Girls?
Guest:Yeah, but I switched.
Guest:I switched over to Black-ish.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:That's a new sitcom on ABC.
Guest:What's it called?
Guest:Black-ish.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So they seek you out?
Marc:Kind of.
Marc:We're going to need a specialist in Black-ish.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What the hell's the angle on that one?
Guest:It's an Anthony Anderson sitcom, and it's a friend of mine.
Guest:His name is Kenya Barris.
Guest:He's an EP.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And it's basically about a guy.
Guest:It's a family show, but I like the angle on it.
Guest:It's Archie Bunker S., the main character.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And the way he pulls her off is just done so that you could like him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's a black guy who grew up around my time.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And, you know, the world was one way before Obama got elected.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And now it's a different way.
Guest:And you have to accept those changes.
Guest:Plus, your kids grew up completely different in this upper middle class.
Guest:You raised them in an upper middle class neighborhood.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And they have all white friends.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they might not be black enough for you.
Marc:your kids your kids because you grew up in the hood you've you've had to adjust to this new sort of post-racial idea right whether it's a reality or not who really knows exactly right so and then your kids they don't they don't even ask the question yeah they don't even ask the question right so it's like oh that's interesting yeah it's very interesting is i is that a real thing in the now i'm not going to put you in the position no no to like speak for the black community does in in your people's
Marc:lives.
Marc:In your people's lives.
Guest:How does that play out?
Guest:That's a funny way to make it worse.
Guest:In your people's lives.
Marc:I've made it worse with you before.
Marc:I don't think I can top the Haiti comment.
Marc:The Haiti.
Marc:That was one of the best moments ever in my life.
Marc:It's hilarious.
Marc:They're like, well, do you have people down there?
Guest:At least you were concerned.
Guest:And you're like, oh, you think I'm from Haiti?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's all those islands.
Guest:But there's a lot of like back thing where Haitian people and Jamaican people think they're both better than each other.
Marc:Oh, is that true?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then nobody would want to be claimed or have the other country put on them.
Guest:Oh, so that was.
Guest:So then that comes out like that.
Marc:That was the personal backstory that I didn't even know about.
Guest:It's an insult to think one is the other.
Marc:It wasn't just racist on my ignorance of where it happened.
Guest:It had a lot less to do with racism than that.
Guest:No, fuck Haitians.
Guest:Don't hang that on me.
Marc:But were you born in Jamaica?
Guest:No, I was born in England.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:How'd that happen?
Guest:My parents, you know, they had sex there.
Marc:Yeah, and they wrote it out.
Guest:And they wrote it out.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Marc:How were they in England?
Marc:I don't understand.
Marc:Like, I need to know how black people get around the world.
Guest:How black people... Well, it's because of white people.
Guest:Yeah, usually.
Guest:It's usually.
Guest:It's like colonialism in reverse.
Guest:There was a period when that happened.
Guest:oh really yeah like we're sorry come back yeah like as a matter of fact we had a few wars we lost a few people yeah we got some jobs because there's a lot of dead people that's not there to fill them so we used to run your country come over yeah we'll give you a deal we'll give you a deal we'll give you some work yeah yeah right and that was your parents your dad's the first generation to go to England or you got grandparents there too nah first generation yeah what was he doing over there
Guest:He was like an electrician and he was good with like electronics and stuff like that.
Guest:Yeah, he used to work for the phone company and I think do their lines and anything electrical and stuff like that.
Guest:How long did you stay in England?
Guest:I stayed until I was like nine years old.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So you have memories of it?
Guest:Yeah, I got memories of it.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:Every time I tell somebody I've been there since I was nine, they're like, you have memories of it.
Guest:They expected me to have been there and then just bounced immediately.
Guest:We're just there for the passport.
Marc:Then we get out.
Marc:Some people are like, I left when I was three and you can't really hang it on.
Marc:But nine, I've been to England a few times.
Marc:I don't know how to frame it in my head.
Marc:What are your memories of it?
Marc:Anything?
Guest:Memories of it is like, you know, I had family.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Cousins.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you speak with an English accent?
Guest:Had the accent.
Guest:Did you?
Guest:Had the whole nine.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Played soccer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Went to school there.
Guest:Had friends.
Guest:It was the first set of friends that ever ripped apart or ripped from me.
Marc:Bad.
Marc:Bad.
Marc:And they were all British friends.
Marc:They were all British friends.
Guest:Little British friends.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was a group of three best friends.
Guest:I was a black one.
Guest:There was an Indian one, Harry.
Guest:And then Greg was the white one.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And we used to hang, yeah.
Guest:There's a lot of Indians in Britain.
Guest:Because the same thing.
Marc:Colonialism in reverse.
Marc:Colonialism in reverse.
Marc:Hey, we owe you a little something.
Marc:How about a job?
Guest:Come on in.
Guest:All that stuff we did to you, listen, just come over, get some jobs, fill in the places of these dead white people.
Guest:Oh, yeah, we're sorry.
Marc:We're sorry.
Marc:I hope this makes it up for whoever you might have lost in your family.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So where did you go when you were nine?
Marc:We went to Jamaica.
Guest:And then most of you grew up there?
Guest:Yeah, and I grew up there until I was like 17 years old.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, I went to high school there and everything.
Marc:All right, so you might have to set me straight on the Jamaica thing.
Marc:Like how?
Marc:Because I don't fucking know anything about it.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:I mean, I know like, all right, like, you know, I know there's pot, there's weed down there, and there's a few hairstyles.
Marc:A few hairstyles?
Marc:You mean dreadlocks?
Marc:It seems to...
Marc:It seems to have culturally infused itself into the more hippie-ish elements of my past.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:But I also know... Here's what I know.
Marc:I don't know the political element of it.
Marc:I know that there's a lot of poverty, but I know that people enjoy vacationing there.
Guest:Yeah, people love... Again, it's like white people love...
Guest:vacationing where other people are suffering.
Marc:Yeah, as long as they don't see it.
Marc:As long as they don't see it, yeah.
Marc:As long as they just drive by it and they go like, we don't really go over there.
Guest:Or just anybody rich.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I'd go back to Jamaica and vacation and just go to the tourist spots.
Guest:You would?
Guest:Yeah, because I never really did it when I was a kid.
Guest:You don't do it when you're a kid.
Guest:Yeah, you don't.
Guest:I just lived on an island.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I never really ran across tourists.
Guest:Oh, you didn't?
Guest:Nah.
Guest:If you went to Dunn's River.
Guest:I don't know what that is.
Guest:It's a tourist spot.
Guest:It's a big waterfall.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I climbed it when I was a kid.
Guest:And I went back more than 10 years ago as an adult.
Guest:And they said, let's climb it.
Guest:And I started slipping on the rocks.
Guest:I said, how the fuck did I climb this shit?
Guest:This is dangerous.
Guest:What are you people doing?
Guest:I just stayed at the bottom and let everybody climb.
Guest:How is this a vacation idea?
Guest:This is dangerous.
Guest:How do we do this?
Marc:Because I remember when I first met you,
Marc:Fuck, I don't even know how old you were.
Marc:What were you, like 20, 22?
Marc:Yeah, I was young, yeah.
Marc:And you were just, like, you were full on dreadlocks.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And really working the angle.
Marc:Yeah, working the angle.
Guest:It was my first way in.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, it's like, I'm this guy.
Guest:It was my first solid five-minute set that worked, that I found.
Marc:But you did grow up in that world.
Marc:So, I mean, in Jamaica, why'd your dad go back?
Guest:Oh, why'd he come here?
Marc:No, why'd he go back to Jamaica after England?
Guest:Because it was beautiful.
Guest:They missed it.
Guest:They had a great childhood.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they had some money that they saved.
Guest:And they figured they could just go back there.
Guest:Like, you never know how old your parents are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But they weren't old.
Guest:I think they had a too early retirement plan.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:They had to have been maybe just 40, maybe, when we were moving back.
Guest:But to us as kids, they looked older.
Guest:So, all right, this seems like a good move.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, maybe also the type of life that they might have grown up with, they didn't think in the same way of like, what, are we going to work our whole life till we're 65 to then move?
Marc:Maybe they were like, we got enough saved, and they knew what life was like there.
Marc:Maybe they could see a good life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it worked out.
Guest:And they moved back and they got a job.
Guest:Like my father got a job because he had degrees and stuff.
Guest:So he had a good job.
Guest:And stuff started.
Guest:But then life happens.
Guest:And that job doesn't exist anymore.
Guest:It's gone.
Guest:And stuff is gone.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But what I mean, but like there was it was difficult at times during, you know, there was upheaval in Jamaica.
Marc:I mean, do you remember that?
Guest:Yeah, I remember that.
Guest:I remember just like so you're coming from a country where in England they just have an election.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To the point where you're a kid, you don't even know there's an election.
Guest:You just see a new prime minister.
Guest:There's some newspapers.
Guest:There's some newspapers.
Guest:There's some stuff.
Guest:I'm watching cartoons.
Guest:Get that out of my face.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then you go to a country where the election is serious, like deadly serious.
Guest:And that's literal.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:People are getting gunned down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, who are you voting for?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:JLP?
Guest:Pap, pap, pap, pap.
Guest:Who you voting for?
Guest:PMP?
Guest:Pap, pap, pap, pap.
Guest:Like, if you survive these gunshots, when you come out the coma, you are now on the PMP side.
Guest:Yeah, you'll make the right decision.
Marc:Yeah, you're going to make the right decision.
Marc:We have faith in your ability.
Guest:Yeah, like, I remember I had this stupid joke about, and it was based on truth, where, you know, you walk in that street and you get a bunch of strangers come on you, and then, like, they ask your friend,
Guest:who you voting for yeah and he says he says something and then they shoot him yeah and then they turn to who you voting for and you're like what did he say it's like it there's that's like a classic joke yeah
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But it was kind of a true, that was life.
Marc:What was it?
Marc:What was the fucking, because I, you know, that's one of those things, like, I don't know in my mind as somebody, like, I wasn't that politically astute, but it seemed like Haitian politics took, like, we all knew about that shit.
Marc:You know, Aristide, Papa Doc, Baby Doc, but I don't know what was going on in Jamaica.
Marc:Right.
Marc:What was going on over there?
Guest:You know?
Guest:It was, it was, uh...
Guest:So the PMP is more considered socialist.
Guest:They were friends with Cuba.
Guest:Michael Manley was friends with Cuba.
Guest:So they were supposed to, this is how the economy kind of fell apart.
Guest:This is what I remember.
Guest:So then they were supposed to get a loan from America to help with some things, to set the country straight.
Guest:Yeah, the PMP.
Guest:And then Michael Manley, the PMP leader, being a friend with the Cuban government,
Guest:They kind of pissed off the American government.
Guest:Fucked up the loan.
Guest:And they fucked up the loan.
Guest:Not approved.
Guest:You're not getting... Yeah, loan not approved unless you start fucking with these Cubans.
Guest:And then that kind of set the country back.
Guest:And then other things... Once you get set back, if you don't do...
Guest:You just keep making the same type of mistakes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Then the value began to devalue.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then things just got, you know.
Guest:Bad.
Guest:Bad.
Guest:Yeah, because there was a free-for-all.
Guest:There was no support.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, there's always a president.
Guest:There's always police.
Guest:It never goes Haiti in Jamaica.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:Like, Haiti's like...
Guest:Just from my perspective, Haiti's haywire.
Guest:There's always structure, but it's just money could have helped.
Marc:And the tourist trade is big.
Marc:It always has been, right?
Marc:I don't know why you're all of a sudden a representative of Jamaica now.
Marc:They're going to ask you very specific questions.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:I haven't been there in a minute.
Guest:I went there for a funeral three years ago.
Marc:That was the last time?
Guest:Yeah, it was the last time.
Marc:But you grew up there.
Marc:So what was it like growing up there?
Marc:I mean, there wasn't no comedy, that's for sure.
Marc:No, there was like- Were you always a creative kid, though?
Guest:I played soccer a lot.
Guest:That's all I really wanted to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I watched TV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there was a guy, I think he's still alive, called Oliver, who was like the national standard for comedy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's mostly like sketch comedy.
Guest:It's really good.
Guest:In Jamaica.
Guest:Yeah, in Jamaica, yeah.
Marc:Was it broad kind of- Broad humor, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But he was the guy.
Guest:But he was the guy.
Guest:Yeah, and you liked him?
Guest:Yeah, I liked him.
Guest:He entertained everybody.
Guest:It was funny as shit.
Guest:But I never thought, even when I came to America, I never thought about comedy as an option.
Guest:But you were just playing soccer, though.
Guest:Yeah, just playing soccer.
Guest:There's no career in that, necessarily.
Guest:No, but that's here.
Guest:There's no career.
Guest:But in Jamaica-
Guest:There's not a career, but the opportunity to be known all over the island.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then there were some Jamaican.
Guest:You could also go back to England if you were good enough.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And maybe get on a team there because it's a huge global sport except here, especially back then.
Guest:So then there's always those hopes and dreams.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So it was like a kid's dream to be a great soccer player.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it's weird that it's not popular here.
Guest:This is how bad soccer is.
Guest:Nerds look at you like you're a nerd.
Guest:If you like soccer and it's not the World Cup.
Marc:But it's sort of like our ignorance, though, as a country.
Marc:We just can't lock into it.
Marc:I don't know why we can't lock into it.
Marc:Do you?
Guest:Yeah, I figured it out.
Guest:Some people say there's not enough scoring.
Guest:It has nothing to do with that because if football, if the score is 21 to 10 in football, all they did was score three touchdowns and multiplied them by seven.
Guest:Yeah, that's it.
Guest:It's arbitrary, that thing.
Guest:Why is it seven?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Yeah, so it's arbitrary.
Guest:And then it just makes like it was a better game than it was.
Guest:And I love American football.
Guest:The problem with soccer is that America didn't invent soccer.
Guest:And it's as simple as that.
Guest:That's it?
Guest:That's it.
Guest:It's not our sport.
Guest:It's not your sport.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're not going to turn your back on the stuff that you invented to like some shit that you didn't invent.
Guest:Why would you do that?
Guest:You got baseball.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:We got our things.
Guest:You got your things.
Marc:This is too much for us to handle.
Guest:It's like cricket.
Guest:We don't take the time to understand it.
Guest:Because baseball, if you look at baseball, baseball, they say soccer's boring, there's no scoring, but...
Guest:Listen, they don't do shit in baseball.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:Like some guys on the field are chilling as much as people in the stands.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And the country loves the sport.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:It's America's pastime.
Guest:It's America's pastime.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:So it ain't the scoring.
Marc:No, soccer seems exciting.
Marc:I don't watch any sports, so I'm not isolating soccer as a bad thing.
Marc:It looks good.
Marc:It looks fun.
Marc:There seems to be a lot of emotion on the field always.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and you can actually see people experiencing emotion.
Marc:They're not wearing helmets and pads.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So that's another thing about it.
Marc:It does seem very human.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:People are in it, and they're not covered with padding.
Marc:All right, so how old were you when you moved here?
Marc:Seventeen.
Seventeen.
Marc:Did you move by yourself?
Marc:No, the family came.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Family came.
Marc:Why'd they leave Jamaica this time?
Guest:To come out of retirement.
Guest:It's a failed retirement.
Guest:Gotta get back to work.
Marc:And how many brothers and sisters you got?
Guest:I got one brother and two sisters.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:So there's four of you?
Guest:Who's the oldest?
Guest:My brother's the oldest, then my older sister, then me, then my younger sister.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Boy, girl, boy, girl.
Guest:Perfect.
Marc:You all get along?
Guest:Yeah, we all get along.
Guest:Then you all moved up to the States.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Four of them came first, left me and my younger sister for me to graduate the last year of high school.
Marc:Who did you leave them with?
Guest:They left me with an aunt, my mother's sister.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And that was all right?
Guest:It wasn't with me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, hey.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm not going anywhere.
Guest:It's fine.
Guest:Because I like the neighborhood that I lived in in Jamaica, and we had to switch neighborhoods.
Guest:And then my aunt had a shop.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What kind of shop?
Guest:Like a grocery shop.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I had to work in the shop.
Guest:That was part of the deal.
Guest:That was a part of it.
Guest:I don't even know it was a part of it.
Guest:Did you just sell me to my aunt?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got to work for her in the shop.
Guest:And I love my aunt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they did.
Guest:Obviously, they didn't sell me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, I'm a kid.
Guest:You didn't know that was negotiated.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like, OK, he can live here if he works in the shop.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it wasn't even like that.
Guest:It's just how it ended up being.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I had to go with her on Saturdays to the market to get stuff to bring back to the shop.
Guest:And when we're coming back, I'd pass my old neighborhood.
Guest:And like, those kids are fucking playing over there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm like, and I own a grocery shop now.
Guest:I got to go to work.
Guest:You saw your whole childhood go away.
Guest:Seeing the soccer ball, being kicked around.
Guest:Imagine passing your childhood every Saturday.
Marc:Yeah, that's rough.
Marc:So wait, so you had to go to market?
Marc:So like it was fresh food?
Guest:Yeah, all fresh fruit.
Marc:See, that's something that's different.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was the way it worked.
Guest:That's just the way it was.
Guest:It wasn't like, let's put on a farmer's market.
Guest:Right.
Marc:It was the market.
Marc:That was it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you guys had to go buy vegetables and all that shit?
Marc:Yeah, and all that stuff, yeah.
Marc:And that's just the way, I love that.
Marc:There's no trucks coming up with like, where are these tomatoes from?
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:You knew where they were from.
Marc:They were all grown around there.
Guest:Yeah, some hills, some farms, people brought them and sold in the market.
Marc:Tell me, I want to know some exotic foods that you enjoyed in Jamaica.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's what I'd like to talk about right now.
Guest:Well, yeah, like sour sop, sweet sop.
Guest:These are all fruits.
Guest:There's ackee.
Guest:All fruits.
Guest:There's ackee.
Marc:So you just said there's all fruits and said one that I don't know what it is.
Guest:And ackee is like the national dish.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And it's like...
Guest:I don't even know how to describe ackee because it looks like eggs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is it one thing?
Guest:You pick it off a tree.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It comes in a shell.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It's not ready to be eaten when the shell is closed.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Then when the shell opens, it kills the poison.
Guest:In the ackee.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's very important.
Guest:To get it at that point.
Guest:To get it when the shell opens by itself, not when you force it open or you're dead.
Guest:This is your last piece of ackee.
Guest:Dangerous fruit.
Guest:Dangerous fruit.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:What does it look like?
Marc:It looks like eggs?
Marc:It looks yellow.
Marc:It's yellow.
Marc:You got to scrape it out?
Marc:Is it got a big seed in it?
Guest:There's a seed in it.
Guest:There's a seed in the middle and there's four yellow, I don't know how to describe things that clamp onto the seed.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then there's a shell over it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the shell opens.
Guest:Sections or a section.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And there's four sections that are clamped around the seed and then you just...
Guest:pull the shell away yeah take out the seed yeah boom you got ackee yeah and where you cut it up you spice it up or anything you just spice it up in a frying pan oh really you fry it yeah yeah you could fry it or you could boil it so it's it's not or do we boil it and fry no it's not sweet at all oh my god i don't know anything about that
Guest:I don't know if you'd like it, but I love it.
Guest:Do you miss it or do you eat it here?
Guest:Can you find it?
Guest:Yeah, I can find it.
Guest:They got Jamaican restaurants.
Guest:They're scattered, but I can find it.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:But they sell it like caviar prices.
Guest:It's bananas.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like you can get it for hardly nothing for down Jamaica because they know you want it?
Guest:Yeah, they know.
Guest:There's like 10 of you that want it?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:All the other Jamaicans are like, fuck that shit.
Guest:Why don't you eat like this stuff?
Guest:It's cheaper.
Guest:I used to pick it in my backyard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now it's like $20 a meal out here.
Guest:Are you vegetarian?
Guest:I'm vegan, vegan.
Guest:Oh, and was that always?
Guest:No, no, I did that once I moved to California.
Guest:California got me.
Marc:Oh, that's new.
Marc:All right, so you're working at the supermarket, no dreams of comedy, just dreams of soccer.
Marc:Just dreams of soccer.
Marc:And lost youth.
Marc:Lost youth, yes.
Marc:Following your aunt around, filling baskets.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What kind of meat did they have down there?
Guest:They have the same stuff here.
Guest:They have cow meat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nothing exotic?
Guest:Chicken.
Guest:They have goats.
Guest:We had goats.
Guest:Before we moved to my aunt, we had goats.
Guest:You raised goats to kill them?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You did raise them to kill them, yeah.
Guest:I don't mind goat meat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't mind it.
Guest:We have called it curry goat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's dope.
Guest:Like, my aunt at the shop, every Friday night, they used to have a big cook-up where they would kill a goat, and they'd have a guy come around, and then they'd make, like, soup out of the head of the goat.
Guest:Goat head soup?
Guest:Yeah, it's called manishwata.
Guest:Manishwata.
Guest:And then everybody would just come by to drink and- Eat the manishwata.
Guest:Yeah, drink the manishwata.
Guest:Yeah, eat goat, yeah.
Marc:The hot sauces.
Marc:The hot sauces.
Marc:They're important, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The Jamaican hot sauces have like the sweet element.
Marc:Like there's some mango in there sometimes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Guest:I think, I don't know if they do that for tourists.
Guest:It's like reggae music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If they want to cross over some reggae music, they'll water it down so that people can digest it.
Guest:We used to have the pepper.
Guest:It's called scotch bonnet.
Guest:And just drop that right in the thing, and it's just straight pepper.
Marc:That's hot as shit.
Marc:That's hot as shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's what you grew up with.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But now they got to make it a little more appealing.
Marc:Take the edge off.
Marc:Yeah, take the edge off.
Guest:Same with reggae music?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Certain kinds of regular music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Bob Marley was real.
Guest:But Bob Marley is like, that's how I like to do comedy.
Guest:Like you can say a hard message in a way where people don't grow up on it.
Guest:Don't think you sold out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And people from the outside are like, this shit is hard.
Guest:But not too angry.
Guest:Not alienating.
Guest:But not angry and alienating.
Guest:But you have your message in there, and it's undeniable, and people will play it for thousands of years.
Guest:Yeah, forever.
Guest:Forever, yeah.
Marc:Those Marley kids are going to be eaten for generations.
Guest:And they should be.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:But there was music that you grew up with where it's like, that shit's not going to play.
Guest:It's like the secret reggae.
Guest:Yeah, now in retrospect, it's like, yeah, I can see why that dude didn't make it.
Yeah.
Guest:Like who, Yellow Man?
Guest:Not even Yellow Man.
Guest:I can't think of any specific names, but just think of guys who you thought were good musicians who didn't get as big as other musicians, and then you could track back to- Sure.
Guest:They were too raw.
Guest:Yeah, too raw.
Guest:Something.
Guest:Yeah, you need some finesse.
Marc:Is that music you grew up with?
Marc:Is that the music you like?
Guest:yeah what yeah it was around the house when i was in england it was in the house yeah and definitely when i went to jamaica it was in the house but was uh but there are other musics right uh you got all the other music like in england they was playing everything like it's one station playing everything yeah maybe not enough reggae because right reggae was like fighting to come up uh-huh and uh but then in jamaica you're hearing a lot of reggae how old are you i never tell people
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah, I'm one of those dudes.
Guest:That's the only thing I don't tell people.
Marc:Okay, that's fine.
Marc:You're 60.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I say 70, but, you know.
Marc:You've been around a long time, that's all.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But do you remember when they're, like, the reason I'm asking is, like, do you have a recollection of when reggae became, like, the fucking global experience that it was?
Guest:Oh, here's the thing.
Guest:It was always big to me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because that's all I heard.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I don't remember when it became.
Guest:And I guess if you're on the outside, it became big to different people at different times.
Guest:But to me, I just grew up listening to it.
Marc:So, all right, so you move up here after you finish school and you got a degree in going to marketing.
Marc:Literally.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:So, and what did you do when you got up here?
Marc:Would you go to school?
Marc:Went to high school again.
Guest:Went straight back to high school.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:From the beginning?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nah, just like I think it was a year and a half or two years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I went to high school and it's funny because I think they put me back a year because they say you're from Jamaica.
Marc:Yeah, you can't be smart.
Guest:You can't be smart.
Guest:But Jamaica is run on the British system.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which is I think is more advanced than the American system.
Guest:But they just judged you.
Guest:They just judged me.
Guest:You're from an island.
Guest:yeah yeah you're gonna have to start yeah you're gonna have to start a year yeah we we don't even we don't want to test you or anything i don't think my parents knew to argue that either they just wanted to get you into the school and what where were you living in the city no i was living in long island how far out where uh i say 45 minutes always took me an hour to get to the city what town uh uniondale no uniondale yeah was there a jamaican community out there
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In New York, there's Jamaicans everywhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Were you even thinking about, you know, how you're going to make a living or like you have a big dream?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I figured out that I didn't want to be poor.
Guest:I figured that out.
Guest:So in my young brain, the only way to not be poor was to go to college.
Guest:It's like back then you could think anybody that went to college kind of has a good job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I just wanted to be at least middle class and have a good job.
Guest:But you didn't have an idea.
Guest:But I didn't have an idea.
Guest:Just going to go to college.
Guest:I was going to go to college.
Guest:But then by then, this is really dumb.
Guest:This is super dumb.
Guest:So I used to watch General Hospital, and there was a guy, he was like a physical therapist.
Marc:The character.
Guest:One of the characters, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he got a lot of women being a physical therapist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, I want to be a physical therapist.
Guest:So that was the dream.
Guest:Yeah, that was the dream.
Guest:I'm that simple.
Guest:You're basing your life on a fictional physical therapist who got a lot of pussy.
Guest:On TV.
Guest:TV bitches.
Guest:He got TV bitches.
Guest:Not even real life bitches.
Guest:Not like I knew him.
Guest:And he was pulling him.
Yeah.
Guest:So I didn't even know if the two correlated.
Guest:No, but it seemed reasonable to you.
Guest:Yeah, it seemed reasonable.
Marc:So did you look into becoming a physical therapist?
Guest:Yeah, I went to New York Institute of Technology.
Guest:You did?
Guest:You pursued it?
Guest:I pursued it, yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And I took a major in biology.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they had a soccer team.
Guest:My sister went there a year before me.
Guest:And they had a division two soccer team that made it to the final four.
Guest:So I was like, I'll walk on and I'll try to get a scholarship to finance my pussy getting physical therapy career.
Guest:So the plan, the bad plan, it still has some, at least some type of merit to it.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:No, I mean, it was a profession that helped people and they had soccer.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So, you know, it probably seemed to you like this is meant to be.
Guest:Yeah, it's meant to be.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So did you finish a degree in physical therapy?
Guest:Nah, like when we got to dissecting a fetal pig, I realized this wasn't going to work out.
Guest:How does this lead to me getting women?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just dissecting a fetal pig?
Guest:I'm in a lab coat.
Guest:There's a dead pig on the table, and I have a map of all its veins, and I can't find none of them.
Guest:And I'm cutting through.
Guest:And I've cut past the point where I could ever find this vein.
Guest:And I'm like, what if this is a human in front of me?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, you can't do this.
Marc:But you weren't going to be a surgeon.
Marc:Physical therapy is just like a guided... I know, but that's all I needed.
Guest:I mean, it didn't take much for me to get into this situation.
Guest:So it wasn't going to take much for me to want to get out of it.
Marc:You know what I'm saying?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you weren't upset by it.
Marc:I mean, you grew up...
Marc:around people butchering animals.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:So that wasn't the problem.
Guest:Yeah, that was never the problem.
Guest:It was just like, there's an honesty that I got from my father.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And if you're going to do a job, you got to do it good.
Guest:And I was like, I don't think I'll be able to do this job good.
Marc:Because I can't find the veins.
Guest:I can't find the veins.
Guest:They said there's supposed to be a red vein there.
Guest:There's supposed to be an artery there.
Guest:I don't find it.
Guest:And I think I already cut past the point where it should be.
Guest:And this could be somebody's body.
Guest:There's a big moment.
Guest:There's a big moment.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:You walked away.
Guest:Yeah, because, well...
Guest:You know you have to take electives.
Guest:So I had taken like a TV class.
Guest:TV?
Guest:Yeah, they had like a TV department and a film department.
Guest:So I'd taken those.
Guest:And I said, you know what?
Guest:And this is before comedy.
Guest:I said...
Guest:And they had a script writing class that I took.
Guest:There was a journalism class that I took.
Guest:And then I took an acting class in there.
Guest:And they had a film where you actually learn how to make film.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You did all that shit?
Guest:I did all that shit.
Guest:Like cutting on the beds and all.
Guest:Like you make your own.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Editing, yeah.
Guest:You start out with a super eight class and all that stuff.
Guest:And the straight up flat bed shit.
Marc:So you did finish.
Marc:You just didn't finish in biology.
Marc:Yeah, I just switched.
Guest:I said, I'll do that.
Guest:Like I didn't kill anybody when I was editing.
Marc:Yeah, there's a...
Marc:There were no veins to find the possibility of loss of life.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, so that seems safer for people.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you got a degree in film and television?
Guest:Yeah, communication, yeah.
Marc:And then what happened?
Guest:And then started, and I guess maybe that opened me up to, and I was still kind of working at the Burger King.
Guest:I didn't know you were working at the Burger King.
Guest:Yeah, I was working at the Burger King.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:East Meadow.
Guest:Yeah, Long Island, yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It sounds so sad to me when I said, oh, my God, man.
Marc:Just working at Burger King like where?
Marc:At the counter or in the back?
Guest:Mostly the back, but once in a while I hit the counter.
Marc:So you're just throwing the patties on the belt?
Guest:Yeah, throwing the patties on the belt or on the other side of the broiler, picking the patties up and putting them on the bun.
Guest:And then going down the line, passing them to the person who put the pickles on them.
Marc:Doing that type of shit.
Marc:There must have been a few moments similar to the pig moment where you're like, I can't do this for much longer.
Guest:Well, it wasn't even like that.
Guest:Again, when you're from Jamaica and your existence is more meager,
Guest:then you don't think this is bad.
Guest:I know this is a stepping stone job.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I don't feel bad about it.
Guest:Plus, we were having fun.
Guest:We were joking around.
Guest:We was laughing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:There was a homeboy there.
Guest:His name was Greg Ellis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was a singer, but he was funny as shit.
Marc:It is.
Marc:There's something about restaurant work.
Marc:There's a camaraderie to it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Y'all know it's not the greatest job in the world, but you can have fun just talking.
Marc:You can have fun.
Guest:And we were young enough not to take it.
Guest:Like, we saw this guy.
Guest:He just came out of prison.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this was his job.
Yeah.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is as good as it was going to get for him.
Guest:We knew we weren't in his position.
Guest:He came out of jail.
Guest:He was just trying to be right.
Guest:Listen, he couldn't fuck this up.
Guest:If he fucked this up, we used to wrestle in the freezer.
Guest:He couldn't get caught wrestling in the freezer or his life was over.
Guest:Everything relied on that job.
Guest:He had to put the pickles perfectly on the bun and the cheese.
Guest:He couldn't get told more than three times in a month.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Or else, what the fuck was he going to do?
Marc:So it was a condition of his parole.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:He can't fucking do nothing.
Marc:Do nothing, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, he's just trying not to engage in the behavior that got him in prison.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:That's hilarious.
Guest:So I knew I was in a better position than that guy.
Yeah.
Guest:You could wrestle in the freezer.
Guest:Yeah, I could wrestle in the freezer.
Guest:We had full-on WWE matches in the walking freezer.
Guest:That's how you played it?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Were you a big wrestling fan?
Guest:Yeah, I was a big wrestling fan.
Marc:People loved wrestling.
Marc:Yeah, back then, you know.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:Some kids loved it.
Marc:They loved it, right?
Marc:Yeah, they loved it.
Marc:I thought it was real.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah, back then, yeah.
Guest:But when you found out it wasn't, did you stop watching it?
Guest:No, I fought it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You didn't even believe people?
Guest:I argued with people.
Guest:I argued with people.
Guest:Full-on illogical arguments.
Guest:About how it's real.
Marc:How it's real, yeah.
Marc:Fuck that.
Marc:So was your heart broken when you...
Marc:Yeah, it was definitely broken.
Marc:Oh, I'm sorry, man.
Marc:Yeah, you know.
Guest:So was that the last time you enjoyed wrestling?
Guest:I still watched it for a good amount.
Guest:Because then I was like, shit is entertaining.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then that wore away?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then that wore away.
Marc:Then you grew up.
Guest:Yeah, then you grew up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you still work at the Burger King.
Marc:You graduate.
Marc:You got your film and TV degree.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And, you know, what's coming into your head?
Guest:What are the ideas?
Guest:Right before I finished college, I was joking around on the drive-thru, like I'm taking orders and I'm clowning, just making up, doing hacky, comical shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I got a mic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Basically, I got a mic.
Guest:So it's like, yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, and I'd learn to tap into my sense of humor from watching Greg, you know, the singer, the singer, because he made the day go faster and people just gravitated to him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, I'm still mentally like out of place in a brand new country.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I've only been here a few years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So once I started tapping into that, it just was easy.
Guest:It was a good sense of humor is a good conversation breaker.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Common denominator with people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then so then using that and then just cracking jokes on a drive through a complete stranger one day after I took his order comes to the window and he's like, hey, man, uh,
Guest:Was that you that took my order?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, man, you're funny, man.
Guest:You should do comedy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And as quick as I was a physical therapist.
Guest:You were a comedian.
Guest:I was a comedian.
Guest:From an advice of a stranger.
Guest:I hadn't even been watching him for a few seasons on TV.
Guest:Some guy that wasn't smart enough to order real meat from somewhere says, you should be a comic.
Guest:And I was like, this is a great idea.
Guest:It's the best thing I've ever been told in my life.
Guest:But you knew you liked that dude that was funny.
Marc:Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So all you needed was a little bit of... Yeah, just a push.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Just a push, yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, I imagine, too, that... Because I kind of remember seeing you when you first started coming around.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:that you had to make some decisions about how you're going to be funny.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you've sort of held your pacing.
Marc:I mean, I think you were different then.
Marc:Yeah, I was.
Marc:But the way you phrased jokes, you're still sort of very deliberate and it's very true to yourself.
Marc:I was in there somewhere.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But because you're judging yourself against, because you've got a naturally different rhythm.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So you know what I mean?
Marc:You're going to either figure out how to milk that or get rid of it.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You know, but but how did you find what was sort of the the who are the guys you first saw that made you also realize that you could do it?
Marc:I mean, how did you get from from that guy telling you you need to be a comic to doing it?
Guest:Started, like, listening to comedy albums like Pryor and Cosby.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I listened to Red Fox, and this is blasphemous, but I didn't get it.
Guest:You didn't get it?
Guest:Nah, and even though Pryor and a lot of people swear by it, I was like, eh, this ain't me.
Guest:Well, no, that was just sort of like filthy jokes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But everybody was like, so like, Red Fox, Red Fox.
Guest:Like, I like the TV show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But as a stand-up, I'm like, these are joke jokes.
Guest:Yeah, they're joke jokes.
Guest:Yeah, I'm not a joke joke fan.
Marc:But you heard who, Pryor talk about him and Cosby, they referred to him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:especially prior like you know it's like and i guess he opened up doors so so no red fox the thing i appreciate is no red fox no prior so i can't dismiss that right but i'm like i stand up of red fox personally not me right but he's a funny guy funny guy for sure yeah and i wish i could act as good as he could yeah yeah comedically yeah
Marc:Yeah, he was something.
Marc:I've got those party records.
Marc:I've listened to him a couple of times, but there was something about his timing, that character.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:When you watch Stanford, he's a memorable character.
Guest:Right, for sure.
Marc:Unforgettable.
Marc:Yeah, it was really something.
Marc:But so you were a prior guy.
Guest:I was a prior guy, yeah.
Guest:You listened to all of it.
Guest:Yeah, I listen to all of it.
Marc:Did you become like a historian?
Guest:Like, you know, the prior before he became prior and you know about all that stuff?
Guest:Yeah, I became a historian and I saw like I'd buy like old VCR tapes where, you know, they'd have his performances when he is in black and white.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When he was like Cosby.
Guest:I read the books.
Marc:book yeah yeah i did everything yeah yeah everything you follow your gods yeah that you do yeah yeah yeah and it's it's amazing that transition that he made you know from that and where you just feel hear him breaking apart you hear the rawness right right of where he's at so so what did how did he inform your comedy what did you know you could do by or what do you think you had to do after listening to prior
Guest:Well, it let me it's it gave me structure, joke structure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so no matter what style I had at the time, I would always have structure and it was unintentional and it just rubbed off on me like him and Cosby.
Guest:They just had joke structure.
Guest:You know, you set it up.
Guest:And then you go the other way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or you say what the people expect you to say, but you don't say it in a way they expect you to say it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then, you know, everything is continuous.
Guest:There's always more there than like I remember having difficulties like just having a bunch of one liners.
Guest:And that used to bug the shit out of me.
Guest:You know, because because like once a one liner is done, you got to do another.
Guest:You got to do another one.
Guest:It's like, how many of these one liners do I need?
Yeah.
Guest:I got to find new topics.
Guest:And I don't think I can't make something funny out of these topics.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then, so then the stuff that they taught me without even going back and listening makes me realize, makes me figure out what's missing.
Guest:And he said, all right, take these one-liners and build on them.
Guest:And I'd go from a one-liner to a whole story or a bit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I didn't give up on it.
Guest:Like I just said, you could go here.
Guest:I'd start looking for directions.
Guest:So you would write it all out.
Guest:Nah, just at first I was doing, sometimes I, back then I wasn't writing it out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But in my head.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'd be like, where else can you go?
Guest:Right.
Marc:Follow through.
Guest:Yeah, follow, like follow the lines.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And see where they go.
Marc:Now, once that guy encouraged you at the drive-thru, did you start really working the drive-thru or?
Yeah.
Guest:and then what if i just stayed on the drive-thru and not gone to the comedy club and they'd be like i'd be like what like just you and the ex-con at that burger king ex-con still yeah yeah he's still making sure the pickles are right and you're killing and i'm killing yeah it's hilarious so how so how'd you find your way to uh you know to actually get on stage then
Guest:There was a comedy club right down the block.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:Governors.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Governors.
Guest:In East Meadow.
Guest:And now that I'm talking to you, if I look back at it, it's like, why did I end up at that Burger King?
Guest:That Burger King, my brother worked there and he got me a job there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I've been there since high school.
Guest:And I stayed there too long.
Guest:How many years?
Guest:Maybe five years.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Maybe could have been six.
Guest:There's a period when I left and came back.
Guest:You and Mike Lawrence have got those stories, his McDonald's story.
Guest:McDonald's story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think I did hear you talking to him about that.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:He's great.
Marc:He just surrendered his will.
Marc:He figured this is what he was going to do.
Marc:It's hilarious.
Marc:Six years, that's a long time, but it's right by Governor's, which is one of the great old clubs.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Used to have a great sound system.
Marc:I remember that room because everyone smoked in there.
Marc:Yeah, back then, yeah.
Marc:In all the memories of clubs, I remember that being the smokiest fucking club, but they had real good speakers.
Marc:That's all I remember.
Marc:I remember playing there a couple times, but it was there for a long time.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So what'd you do, just wander over there?
Guest:I knew it was there because there was a club, like a club club near there.
Guest:So I just knew it was there.
Guest:So I went over there and I started checking out open mics.
Guest:And I was checking out the open mics.
Guest:And then at the same time, during the other weeks, I would talk to people.
Guest:And anything that I said that was funny, I'd write it down in my head.
Guest:Like, that's a joke.
Guest:That's a joke.
Guest:Then I'd try stuff intentionally.
Guest:I'd just slip it in.
Guest:That's a joke.
Guest:So I had a set.
Guest:So you were thinking like a comic.
Guest:Yeah, I was thinking like a comic.
Guest:Automatically already.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So who do you remember the guys you first saw?
Marc:Because, I mean, you ended up in New York scene.
Marc:So you must have been seeing some of those dudes.
Marc:Well, like first I saw open micers.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But they ended up somewhere.
Marc:Some of them.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:you didn't make it i didn't make there was one guy he's still around his name is franz and then there's craig mitchell i don't know you know craig mitchell he's from new york but he doesn't do stand-up anymore he's acting and he has a regular job but he moved to la yeah i follow him on facebook and when we talk sometimes but there was this one guy his name was franz cassius and he i know franz you know franz yeah he was around working the angles forever yeah
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But Franz was like from Roosevelt, lived a block from where Eddie Murphy lived.
Guest:And that's the town.
Guest:And Franz was fucking funny from day one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one of the most amazing things he ever did to me, like as a comic, I'm a shy person.
Guest:I could be very introverted.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one night, Franz was going up like near last at the open mic.
Guest:And this is before I started.
Guest:I'm just watching him.
Guest:And the audience, there was eight of them and four of them decided to leave.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Franz stops him at the door and said, don't leave.
Guest:I'm next.
Guest:I guarantee I'll make you laugh.
Guest:And I thought, that is so fucking ballsy.
Guest:What if he doesn't make him laugh?
Guest:I would have just let them leave.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they came back in and he went on stage and he killed him.
Guest:And this is like maybe a year and a half to win for him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just thought that was fucking amazing.
Guest:That was the one of the first most amazing thing that I've ever seen in comedy.
Marc:Yeah, we had to hold on to the audience.
Marc:It was the worst thing about open mics.
Marc:You just sit there the whole night, watch people leave.
Guest:Yeah, and you're watching people, your friends, terrible comics, walk them.
Guest:So when did you start, when did you actually get up there?
Guest:Age-wise?
Guest:No, I mean, you know, comedy.
Guest:Like a few, after like two or three, watching two or three open mics, I went and did it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How'd it go?
Guest:Horrendous.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Horrible.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Horrible.
Guest:It was the worst.
Guest:Did you lock up?
Guest:Yeah, I locked up.
Guest:Like, one thing I didn't notice from watching the shows offstage is how bright the light were when you were on the stage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I'd never experienced, like, lights being shined in my face like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when you lose your sense of sight, you pretty much lose everything else.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like the audience was, I think it was a decent crowd at night.
Guest:I told some people to come down.
Guest:Yeah, that's the worst.
Guest:And that's the worst.
Guest:And then I was nervous, then I couldn't see.
Guest:I think I did the whole set like this.
Guest:With your hand up?
Guest:With my hand up.
Guest:Like somebody shining a flashlight in my face and I'm talking to somebody with a flashlight in my face.
Guest:That's number one.
Guest:And then so it locked me up.
Guest:And it made me also realize why cops shine a light on you when they pull you over to like to just kill your senses.
Guest:It disorientates you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the thing that made me keep doing it was I stumbled and stuttered through every joke and fucked up the timing and set up and punchline of every joke except the last one I said perfectly and it worked.
Guest:And I was like, all right, all I got to do is stop being nervous and I can be a comic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:Thank God for that last joke.
Guest:Thank God for that last joke.
Guest:I wouldn't even.
Marc:Still be a Burger King.
Guest:Yeah, still be a Burger King.
Marc:Working that window.
Marc:Okay, so you do some open mics, and then I'm trying to remember where I saw you first.
Marc:Probably over to Boston, right?
Marc:Yeah, probably to Boston.
Marc:Goddamn.
Marc:What year was that, man?
Marc:89?
Guest:Maybe 80s or 90s or something like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Early 90s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because there was a point when I realized I was doing comedy in Long Island open mics, Westchester, Yonkers, like hitting, like shooting stars and all those clubs.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:There's one in Westchester.
Guest:I can't remember the name of it.
Marc:Did you do black clubs?
Marc:Back then, not yet.
Guest:Not yet.
Marc:Oh, you eventually did?
Guest:Yeah, I did eventually, yeah.
Guest:Where, in Philly?
Guest:Nah, like the Uptown Comedy Club started.
Marc:Who was booking that?
Guest:andre and kevin brown yeah yeah and kevin brown is dot com the guy that was on uh 30 rock with tracy right right so he used to own a comedy club and russell simmons used to come there and wesley snipes a ton of people just used to come on a sunday night and russell simmons wanted to turn that into deaf comedy jam and the browns were like nah we're gonna do this thing on fox and then russell went and did deaf comedy he wanted to partner with them yeah
Marc:oh yeah that's gotta be looked at as a mistake that's gotta be a little bit of a regret there yeah maybe maybe so you start out doing the boston because anybody we could all do the boston yeah i remember i remember you coming around with your dreadlocks i'm like what's happening now see his attitude what's this guy's angle
Marc:That's hilarious.
Marc:But it was weird, though, because I remember you're very fit.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you had these dreads, and you had this presence, but you're very quiet and very cool, and you just kind of make no waves.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you get up there, and you had your shit, and you were hitting it.
Guest:And I had that shit because I was doing the black clubs.
Guest:And you're just doing New York period.
Guest:I think all the comics were afraid, so they wanted to jump on the audience so that the audience wouldn't jump on them.
Marc:Yeah, you got to nail that first one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And keep nailing them, because I've seen shows, I've been in black clubs where you'll do 10 great jokes in a row.
Guest:They'll be rolling, saying, this guy's the greatest.
Guest:And then you tell that one bad joke, and they turn on you.
Guest:You're like, hey, man.
Guest:Well, we're just good.
Marc:We're just good 10 jokes.
Marc:You just, boo, get the fuck off.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I can't imagine there were that many people from the islands in general.
Marc:Even though it's a black room and you're black, did you find that that was an obstacle at all?
Marc:Or were they able to appreciate that you come from a different place?
Marc:I mean, how was that?
Guest:It was only an obstacle out of town where there were no Jamaicans.
Guest:And I found that out the hard way.
Guest:Where?
Guest:Like Temple University.
Guest:Okay, yeah, Philly, yeah.
Guest:Philly, I don't think there's a lot.
Guest:That's how I found out there's not a lot of Jamaicans in Philly.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Because my opener was a Jamaican joke they usually killed in New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And nothing.
Guest:And I was completely affected, and they could see I was affected.
Guest:It just threw you.
Guest:And threw me.
Marc:That was your opener.
Guest:It was my opener.
Guest:That was kills.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, because you needed to kill with an opener in a black crowd.
Guest:Get you in, get you in.
Guest:Get you in with them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I did the second Jamaican joke.
Yeah.
Guest:And then the third you make a joke.
Guest:It was over.
Guest:It was over.
Guest:It was like a stadium, a basketball stadium full of people booing you.
Guest:They booed?
Guest:Yeah, they booed you.
Guest:The fuck, man?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I know black audiences are hard in that way.
Marc:If you can win them over, it's great.
Marc:It feels great, but I don't understand that fucking booing shit.
Marc:It's like, come on.
Marc:But it's just part of it.
Guest:It makes you stronger.
Guest:It's a part of it, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, every time I was booed, it was devastating.
Guest:But ultimately, at the end, like, when you kill a black crowd, you feel like, wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, I've gotten standing those in front of black people.
Guest:And it's like, it makes the booze.
Guest:Like, they went from, this audience could have booed me, but they stood for me.
Guest:So it's like, everything in between is like.
Guest:It don't matter.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I know, I know.
Marc:But I get it.
Guest:It's fucked up.
Marc:It hurts, man.
Guest:It's definitely fucked up.
Marc:Yeah, because there's no more lonely feeling to be in front of a room full of hundreds of people that they're booing or they just don't like you.
Marc:It's like, that's the loneliness.
Marc:I'd rather sit in this garage by myself and not talk to anybody for three days than to be alone on a stage with a bunch of people watching you not laughing.
Guest:Not laughing.
Guest:A thousand people bonded over booing you.
Guest:A thousand strangers bonded over booing you.
Guest:Like, the only thing they ever did together in their life or agreed on was that you stink.
Guest:That you stink.
Marc:That's not, that's never good.
Marc:But it was funny because, like, you know, you paid your dues and we were, you know, I mean, we kind of came up together.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then I didn't see you for a long time.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I don't even know why, but, like, I didn't, like, I guess I went to a lot of different cities.
Mm-hmm.
Marc:And then all of a sudden I saw you and it's like, holy shit, that's that kid with the dreadlocks with no dreadlocks.
Marc:He seems to have leveled off somehow.
Marc:And now he's like, you know, I was so happy to, because a lot of times you don't see people for years and you're like, are they even in it?
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Where you'd be like France, you know, like we're having that guy.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But you fucking, you know, I don't know if you ever went through a hard time or there was a period where it wasn't working out or what.
Guest:Nah, I always had fun.
Guest:I was just kind of off your radar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In like 2000 or maybe 99, I got a writing job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On a talk show out here.
Guest:Kenan Avery Wayans.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Late night talk show.
Guest:So I had like a set that was ripping around town.
Guest:Here.
Guest:In New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:JB Smooth's manager now, Rick Dorfman, who used to be a manager at New York Entertainment, was running that club.
Guest:So he tells me that there's a writing audition at Gotham Comedy Club.
Guest:They're looking for writers for Kenan's talk show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So am I interested to come down and do five minutes for the lady?
Guest:It was Sean Agar.
Guest:I auditioned and I killed.
Guest:Then she said, you have any writing samples?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it was for a writing job.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But they were looking at stand-ups because Kenan's a stand-up.
Marc:But were you one of those guys like, I never even thought about that.
Marc:I never wanted to write for anyone else.
Guest:But you're taking screenwriting.
Guest:I started writing movies just for myself and some TV shows ideas.
Guest:So I started writing those.
Guest:And one of the reasons why I started writing those or why I even had writing samples when she asked is because a few years earlier, I'm hanging out with this kid named Arnold Acevedo.
Guest:I don't know if you know Arnold Acevedo.
Guest:He's a comic too.
Guest:I don't know him.
Guest:He was from Long Island.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he was like, we were just hanging out after a show.
Guest:He's like, man, I got 300 sketches.
Guest:I was like, what?
Guest:What do you have 300 sketches for?
Guest:I wrote 300 sketches just in case I get on Saturday Night Live one day and I'm a writer.
Guest:I don't have to.
Guest:come up with a new idea every week and i was like i just got quiet everybody's still talking regularly yeah i'm like shit i don't got so what the fuck am i gonna do i don't have any sketches i don't have any sketches i was like calm down ian don't panic there's a logical way to fix this i said you come up with ideas all the time and you say you're gonna write them down and you never write them down next time you come with an idea write it down yeah
Guest:Next time after that, come on, write it down.
Guest:Before you know it, you'll have a few sketches and you won't be at this 300 sketch deficit.
Guest:I started doing that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I like when I calm myself down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The moments of maturity sometimes are standing even for me.
Marc:Well, you know, you feel like I'm not doing it right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like I'm not prepared.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you start writing them down?
Guest:I started writing them down.
Guest:I even wrote a few out.
Guest:And then the ones I didn't write down completely, I just wrote the idea out, the beginning, the middle, the end.
Guest:And I did that audition.
Guest:And she said, you have any writing sketches?
Guest:And I just went home and I sent her a six sketch packet that night.
Guest:It was like nothing.
Guest:Thank God for that guy.
Guest:Thank God for that conversation.
Guest:What's he doing?
Guest:I don't know.
Yeah.
Guest:He's got a lot of sketches ready.
Guest:He's got a lot of sketches that are unproduced.
Guest:But Arnold was funny, too.
Guest:Arnold was funny, too.
Guest:So you had the shit, and you sent him, and you got the gig.
Guest:And I got the gig.
Guest:And they talked to me in December, and then the first week of January, they flew me out, and I started writing on the show.
Guest:Then it got canceled.
Guest:And then it got canceled on hiatus.
Guest:I was back in New York, and then they said the show was canceled.
Guest:But I felt like...
Guest:I could make it trying to get more writing jobs here.
Marc:You understood what it was like then.
Marc:Yeah, I had a feeling.
Marc:You were in the room.
Marc:It wasn't a mystery.
Marc:What is a writing job?
Marc:Do you sit by yourself?
Marc:Are there other people involved?
Marc:Right.
Guest:So you were like, that's a gig.
Guest:That's a gig.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's an entertainment.
Guest:I love entertainment.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So I could do that.
Guest:And plus, I didn't want to fight for those $75, $50 spots in New York.
Guest:It was very racy.
Guest:I was like, there's got to be more to it than that.
Guest:Now, I'm not saying I managed my writing career correctly either.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it was better being out in the sun here.
Guest:And, you know, Hugh Moore?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was in the car with him one day.
Guest:Because I had to come back anyway to get my stuff if I was going to leave.
Marc:Where did I just see him?
Marc:Where is he?
Marc:He shows up in weird places.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like I was doing a job in Phoenix, I think.
Marc:He opens for JB sometimes?
Marc:Yeah, he opens for JB.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:He was just there.
Marc:And I'm like, what are you doing?
Yeah.
Marc:He's a good guy.
Guest:He's a good guy, and he's a writer, too.
Guest:And we both... He had been writing on the Chris Spencer talk show.
Guest:Remember when that was going to be huge?
Guest:That was going to be huge.
Guest:So he was writing on that, and I was writing on Kenan, and they were rival shows.
Guest:Then mine got canceled, then eventually his got canceled.
Guest:So he'd already moved out here.
Guest:And we're chilling in the car, and we're listening to Mobb Deep.
Guest:And one of the rappers says, scared money don't make money.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And...
Guest:You know what that meant to me?
Guest:I had like a $9,000 payoff from the Keenan Ivory Man show.
Guest:And I could take that money, go back to New York, had a nice apartment in Jersey City, and build on top of that money with the shows that I'd already get just from being in the New York area, do colleges.
Guest:do the city clubs, which I love doing the city clubs.
Guest:It's nothing like just going from spot to spot to spot.
Guest:It's exciting.
Guest:And, you know, I have a poor Jamaican financial mentality.
Guest:It's like $9,000 was a lot of money to a kid.
Guest:You could retire in Jamaica with $9,000.
Guest:I think I had five more thousand than my parents went back to Jamaica to retire.
Guest:No, I'm just kidding.
Guest:It's hilarious.
Guest:So then I was going to just take that, go back, live in my apartment.
Guest:Rent was cheap.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, nah, stay here.
Guest:I didn't even have an apartment yet.
Guest:Spend money, get an apartment and spend the money till you get a job.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Scared money don't make money.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So I just stayed.
Marc:Scared money meaning like if I just stash it away and don't change my life or take any more risks or try to get into the big game.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Then I don't, there's no growth possible.
Marc:There's no growth.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you did it.
Guest:I just stayed.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you've been out here that long.
Marc:That's why I didn't see you.
Guest:That's why you didn't see me, yeah.
Marc:And then I came out here in 2002 and I'd see you around, but I, you know.
Guest:I ran into you at a gas station.
Guest:I know exactly.
Guest:Like the, on Franklin.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was like, Mark.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't even know if I remembered your name.
Guest:I just know I knew you.
Guest:I just knew you were a comic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I knew we hadn't seen each other in a long time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was like kind of awkward.
Guest:I don't know if you remember me, but you did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I didn't have dreads anymore.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So then that throws people who I was even close with.
Guest:Right.
Marc:It was probably over by where I lived.
Marc:Was it that one right off the highway right there at Franklin and Gower?
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I was living right around the corner.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:Like 2002.
Marc:Yeah, I was just happy to see it.
Marc:I was like, oh, shit.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It's good to run into people from New York that you know.
Guest:They run it in LA.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's like, okay, we're going to be all right.
Guest:Yeah, we're going to be all right.
Marc:That's all it takes.
Marc:You're here too?
Marc:I kind of remember that because that's the feeling.
Marc:It's like, oh, you're here.
Marc:Yeah, okay.
Marc:So I'm here too.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That's all it takes, man.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Marc:We didn't make a mistake because you're here.
Marc:Yeah, it's funny.
Marc:It's scary man those first couple years when you're used to jamming those spots and doing four or five a night and being in that community And you finally you finally get in in New York so you can actually work Yeah, and you only make you make a couple me hundred fifty two hundred tonight But whatever you can run around do the seller do stand up or whatever And then you make this weird decision like to fuck that off, right?
Marc:for the bigger life or the bigger shot in show business.
Marc:It's scary.
Marc:The first couple of years.
Marc:I mean, that's why I lived over there because in my mind, it's like, I can walk in this neighborhood.
Marc:There's like two blocks that you can walk.
Marc:I'd go to Bird's.
Marc:I'd go to the newsstand and walk to the Gelson's.
Guest:And that block was like a slice of the village.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I was walking distance from there too.
Guest:I said, first time I went to Bird's and that's true.
Guest:I said, this is like the village.
Guest:I'm going to come here all the fucking time.
Marc:That wears off.
Guest:I can see why that happens.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, because in the village, every block looks like that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You can walk four or five blocks.
Marc:You get a little tired of walking that one block.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, so where'd you end up living now?
Guest:Right now, I'm in Reseda.
Guest:Is that right?
Guest:I mean, so this is what happened.
Guest:So I'm in Reseda.
Guest:I'm trying to put the house up for sale because I don't want to live there.
Guest:You bought a house.
Guest:I bought a house, and I have writing jobs.
Guest:And plus, after writing jobs, I got to do sets at night.
Guest:So I was encountering a sleep deficit because after I did the writing job, say we get off at 5 or 4 or 6...
Guest:I didn't want to go home to Reseda to come back to do a set at 10.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I'd stick around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And sometimes end up sleeping in my car in Hollywood to kill time if I couldn't attach myself to a friend to kill time with them.
Marc:That's what comics do.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Okay, I'll run errands with you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I couldn't use somebody-
Guest:Then I'd sleep in my car like a homeless person and then do my set at 11 or 10, hang out a little bit, and then get back home at 1 a.m.
Guest:and then start at 9 a.m.
Guest:in the morning again.
Guest:So I was like, I need to be back near where I was, where I ran into you at the gas station, so at least I can come home and get some sleep.
Guest:I'm losing three hours of sleep a day, like a nap or something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So then I put it up for sale, got a buyer, 45-day escrow.
Guest:And five days before I was supposed to close the deal, the realtor calls me and says, you got to move out because the new owners want to move in immediately, like on the day of the closing.
Guest:So I said, all right, cool.
Guest:Put my stuff in storage, did that.
Guest:And the day of the closing, she called me and told me that the buyer's loan fell through.
Guest:Oh, fuck.
Guest:I'm like, bitch, I moved.
Yeah.
Guest:Say goodbye to the neighbors.
Guest:We threw a party.
Guest:I can't just move my shit back in and act like the going away chocolate cake that they bought me.
Guest:I didn't stuff it down my face.
Guest:That was your biggest fear?
Guest:They think that you worked them for the cake?
Guest:He's Jamaican.
Guest:He worked us for a cake.
Guest:It's simple.
Guest:So you moved back in?
Guest:Nah, I'm asleep in an empty house on a sleeping bag.
Guest:Right now?
Guest:Yeah, on a sleeping bag on the astronaut phone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was just trying to sell it?
Guest:Yeah, because I'm still trying to sell it.
Guest:And then I stay...
Guest:at a friend's house, another comics house, kind of in the Hollywood area sometimes, so I don't have to do my sets.
Guest:So that's the position I'm calling out.
Guest:I'm writing on a show in Burbank, so I'm like... So you're doing all right?
Guest:It's not bad.
Guest:I could be better.
Guest:Everybody in the room is 10 times or 50 times richer than me, but I'm working.
Marc:You've gone through how many shows?
Marc:So you did the Keenan Ivor Weirin thing, then what kind of happened after that?
Guest:Then I got a little stint on SNL.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Because Barry was managing Tracy Morgan.
Marc:Are you still with Barry?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Then I did Lyricist Lounge Show, another show on MTV.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then- In New York.
Guest:No, it seemed like it's a New York show, but it was shot and written here.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Then that ended after two seasons.
Guest:Then I just jumped from show to show like-
Guest:I need to find some stability.
Guest:So I ended.
Guest:I did.
Guest:Kevin Hart had a sitcom like in 2004.
Guest:I wrote on that and did the Boondocks before that.
Guest:And I was on Punk'd as one of the players on Punk'd did that and wrote on more sports.
Guest:And what else?
Guest:With Jay?
Guest:With Jay.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you've been working as a writer pretty steady.
Guest:Pretty steady.
Guest:And then I kind of fell off out of the stand-up.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then there was a point I said, I'm going to get back into this and started doing the stand-up back.
Marc:Okay, yeah.
Marc:Because it's weird.
Marc:You kind of lose your anchor if you get rid of the stand-up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're like, I'm going to back off on that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's the one thing that you can honestly own.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I said, if I want to get bitches like a physical therapist, I better do this stand-up.
Guest:I got to get back on stage.
Guest:That still was the goal.
Marc:That's the goal of a lot of things.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So basically, everything's all right now.
Marc:You're just trying to sell your house and figure out where you're going to live.
Marc:Figure out where I'm going to live and boost my profile.
Guest:Stand-up's good, man.
Guest:You're solid, buddy.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Guest:You too, man.
Guest:Love watching you, man.
Guest:It's inspiring.
Marc:Thank you, man.
Marc:Feelings mutual.
Marc:And thanks for coming and talking to me.
Marc:My pleasure, man.
Marc:It was a great talk.
Marc:That's Ian Edwards.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:The great Ian Edwards.
Marc:That was a blast.
Marc:I love that guy.
Marc:I actually do love that guy.
Marc:So, all right, go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Get that app.
Marc:Get the free app, then upgrade to the premium.
Marc:Get some Christmas gifts.
Marc:Get some Earthquaker devices.
Marc:The Palisades?
Marc:Jesus Christ.
Marc:This is crazy, man.
Marc:It's fucking crazy.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I feel like I was just held prisoner by a note.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:Where were we?
Marc:Boomer lives!