Sheryl Underwood on Flagrant

YErrrr today, we have the incredible Sheryl Underwood with us. We're talking: - Women and accountability - Her father and leadership - Performing for the troops - Kevin Hart Roast - Bernie Mac's impact And much, much more - INDULGE Timestamps: 0:00 Women are perfect + Accountability 3:38 Not being the bread winner 5:43 All relationships are transactions 7:42 Football Player impressing Daddy 12:54 Leading, Family's influence + Entertainment biz 17:26 Str1pping, Military + Community Service 23:00 "We can't protect you" + Camaraderie 27:17 Getting Kevin Hart Roast + Process 35:51 Co-ordinating jokes + Tony Hinchcliffe = perfect villain 45:31 Upset at comedy + Don't get mad, get motivated 52:23 Animosity, Comedy evolving + Draymond Green/Lizzo 57:46 Comedy does translate internationally 1:01:19 Incels, face rub + Not recording jokes 1:08:54 Loving sports + Topics 1:11:31 Bernie Mac + Meeting your heroes 1:18:50 Sheryl's comedy + Wifey 1:23:03 Is Sheryl dating? 1:25:11 Variety show, Hollywood + Opportunities This episode is sponsored by Kalshi. This episode is sponsored by Sesh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Y'all might well start the camera right now.

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Let it roll.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I think that, okay, there's, when you, so when you guys, all of you are married?

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. He's not really married. He likes to pretend like he's married. He's married. It's that, what is this?

• 0:13Speaker 00

  Y'all like shacking or what's y'all?

• 0:15Speaker 01

  No, we engaged.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  You engaged. Oh, okay, so you almost.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  You bought a ring, you married.

• 0:19Speaker 00

  Yes, right. Okay, got it, got it, got it. So you married, so you, you fell in love with the girl, uh-oh, you fell in love with the girl. Is there anything that she does to this day that still drive you up a wall?

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Like, annoys me?

• 0:34Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Nah, she's perfect.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  You the Jack Benny. You not even lying, right? That ain't come out right. That's a lie, man. All of a sudden, side bitches now. Side bitches, side bitches now. So you gonna, you gonna leave her and bury me? Yeah, yeah.

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Of course, I'm gonna leave her and bury her.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  I don't wanna be with her.

• 0:59Speaker 00

  That's right, I'm gonna call, my friend will call right now, bitch. Never coming home, sunshine. Okay, what does y'all wanna talk about?

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Yes, we wanna talk about you.

• 1:07Speaker 00

  So y'all heard me talking to somebody that I was like, what?

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Something was frustrating you, we could tell.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  Um, but here's, I'm trying this new thing.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15Speaker 00

  And this new thing is called, figure out where you could be contributing to your own frustration.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Ooh, accountability?

• 1:24Speaker 00

  There you go, and I wish more bitches had it.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  How do we get, how do we, how do we get them to get it?

• 1:30Speaker 00

  New book, it's a new book we can all write together. Hey, bitch, hey, bitch, you are the problem. You are contributing to this.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  We've been trying to write that book for a little time. That's not a book, this is a scientific paper.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  Okay, so how do we, how do we solve this, uh, theory? How do we test it?

• 1:46Speaker 01

  How have you noticed that you're the problem? How can you think you're the problem when you're, you're on fire right now? It seems like every decision you made was the right decision.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  Well, uh, I would say most. If you're 90%, it's the 10 that you need to work on.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  So if you're communicating with someone and they don't seem to be understanding, then the first thing I look at is, 'cause my dad taught me, look at yourself first. So am I not conveying it right? Or did I believe, now this is where I think, me as a woman, did I believe that you were capable? Of doing, of not doing what you're doing.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21Speaker 00

  So if I believe that you were capable of not doing the thing that annoys me, then I'm the problem.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Cause you didn't communicate it.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  No, I believed that you were not gonna do the thing. If you don't like hair on soap.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  And every time this dude comes over.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Who's hair?

• 2:37Speaker 00

  It's his hair on my soap. So he taking my bar of soap and rubbing his balls with it. Can I say that?

• 2:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  Rubbing his balls with it. And, and it's in my shower, but I'm in love with this dude. And I go with this motherfucker with the, with the pubic hair on my damn soap.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  But if I believe that he's incapable, if he's capable of not doing that.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:59Speaker 00

  But he continues to do it. So there's a challenge to authority somewhere in there. Okay. Cause he don't wanna be controlled. So this bitch keep asking me about the pubic hair on the soap. And I keep telling this bitch, showing this bitch, I'm gonna put the pubic hair on the goddamn soap. Cause I'm a fucking man.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  There is an ego in it, which is like, stop telling me what to do.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  It's almost like you need to suggest it or ask it. But telling, there's a thing about the being told.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  Well, I say, might you consider?

• 3:27Speaker 01

  See, I think we look at that and we just said, yeah, she just told me what the fuck to do.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  Uh, well, see, I feel like it's the man. Remember when I was, I don't know if y'all saw me on, uh, Shannon Sharp's Club Shay Shay, right? And he asked me, how did I feel being the breadwinner? I'm like, I'm not the breadwinner. I'm the person who might make more money in a relationship, depends on who the man is. But I'm not the breadwinner. The man is the breadwinner. And we live off of what you do. My money is in addition to, hey, you wanna be a cowboy? I'm gonna send you to Montana to learn how to be a cowboy for your birthday. Right? That's what my money is for. Right?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  So you, when you're with a guy, you will live completely within the means of his salary?

• 4:11Speaker 00

  If that's what he wants to do. Well, first I gotta get to being engaged or married or being that girl for you. Because if, well, I believe, and I could be wrong, and hit me in the comments. I believe when a man's money is not stable, he cannot concentrate on a personal relationship with a woman.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  There is a version of that because it's hard to separate your identity from your ability to provide.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Some guys can do it, man.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  What, the gigolo?

• 4:38Speaker 01

  The gigolo. But they have a disconnect. It's almost like a sociopathy that allows them to do it.

• 4:44Speaker 00

  But then, to me, God makes woman's intuition to go, this guy's a gigolo. Do I want to be with a gigolo? Or do I want to be with all these other girls that are with the gigolo? And then, because I would ask a man, how long do you plan on being a gigolo? And can you use those skills for anything else? And how can I help you? Yes, yes. We gonna do what we gonna do.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  But you, you seem to be good at being a gigolo because you pulled me. And I fell for the bullshit. So that's what you gonna do. And I got to fifteen hundred, and that's what we doing.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  So what are we doing with this fifteen hundred?

• 5:25Speaker 00

  That's right. How we gonna take, how we gonna take seven hundred and fifty of us? Or five hundred, put five hundred in crypto? Five hundred in you, trying to get your life together? And then another five hundred for you to live off of? Now, you want to be in a relationship with me, or this just, is this a transaction? Which our relationships are still transaction.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  How so?

• 5:45Speaker 00

  To me.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  How so?

• 5:47Speaker 00

  You're either trading for love, or comfort, or, or security, or you make me feel good, or you care about me.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Does it make it not transactional if it's a love-for-love trade?

• 5:57Speaker 00

  It's still a transaction. It's equal love. I love you, you love me, and we build a life together. It's still a transaction. It's just a more pleasant transaction, right? If it's just, I'm fucking you because you pay me, or I'm fucking you because I get something from it, or...

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Home, security.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's right, that's right. To me, I, I wish people would just talk about, it's a transaction because my needs are meeting your needs. And let's see how we can get together, and if we enjoy ourselves together. But then, you gotta figure out, what about the shit about me that you don't like? And then, can you handle that shit? And can we just talk about it?

• 6:34Speaker 01

  What's not likable about you? What can someone not like?

• 6:37Speaker 00

  Ooh, it's a lot, it's a lot.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  What is, what is the thing? You smell phenomenal.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  It's a black guy. I see him right here. Right, that guy would've said, I'd be like, "Hey, man." But then I'm like, "For real?" He got a white, white, golden foot. You got a white, white? You got a backy. You got a backy. Oh, European, that's European, okay. No, but that's... Don't let him on the door. No, okay, listen, listen, man. I'm not against interracial, I have sampled everything God have made on the buffet of love, so I'm not against it. Same. Right. What's the best... Can you rank them? I, I would say, well, everybody's decent. If you still talking to me after we do something, it was decent, you know?

• 7:23Speaker 00

  You still talking? If you ain't, if you ain't put your hand in my back and said, "All right, sure, that was cool."

• 7:30Speaker 00

  "That next to be on in a few minutes." "Okay, is in your shoes, bitch, uh, why are you still here?"

• 7:36Speaker 00

  "And, and I get an Uber."

• 7:39Speaker 00

  No, I had a guy, okay, wait, see, this is a good start. So I, I met this guy, we've been talking on the phone for about a year, talking on the phone. What race? Uh, he black, uh, played football. Yeah. And we met at a Super Bowl. Oh. And he comes up, I'm selling cassettes, that's how long ago it was. Cassettes and CDs and posters. So he comes up, "How much, how much this cost, how much this cost?" And I was like, "Okay, if you big ass gonna buy something, buy something." So then he says, you know, "Let's exchange numbers." And I said, "Well, you know, listen, uh, I'm, I'm not these bitches." Okay, so... Straight up said it. Straight up, I said, "I'm not these bitches. I'm a different bitch. If you wanna exchange numbers, cool, but I, I'm not excited about that, right?"

• 8:23Speaker 00

  So we start talking, and we talked, talked for months, years. I think I'm getting to know him, right? So by the time, uh, something about to happen, I'm in the city where he's playing football, and he sends a car for me. Now, you just how far back, sends a stretch limo. You know, so we all looking out the window, "Ooh, ah." I was like, "Don't ooh, ah, don't ooh, ah, it's a setup." It's a setup, no, it's a setup. I'm thinking, it's a setup, I'm being set up. Okay, so it's a setup. So I get to, to the crib, I used to tell this story in my act, where we get to the locale... And the limousine dude is just throwing shit out the car like drive off. I'm like, I'm trapped in this motherfucker, but I'm glad I got gas money in the case I need to get the fuck out, jump out a window or something.

• 9:04Speaker 00

  Right. So then we get together and he says, uh, he said, I gotta, I gotta go, I gotta go to work. I said, okay. He's in training camp. I said, okay. So what's up? And, uh, he said, uh, what do you mean? I said, when is the car coming to get me to take me back? Uh, he said Friday. I said, motherfucker, I'm not fucking like this for four more days.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  You're in training camp, not me.

• 9:31Speaker 00

  Panicking. Cause I don't have that type of duration. I was panicked, right? So, but then I thought about it. So then he goes downstairs and some money and car keys and this car and garage and everything. So I go down and look at the car. Car's not been driven. And it's a guap. It's a big guap of money. Right. Guap. So I look at it and I go, it's a setup. This is something, this is not right. You know, this is first day and I get the money in the car and it's some bullshit. Must be some cameras around this motherfucker. I'm being set up. Right. I never think it's the happily ever after. Never, never. So I call my father and I go daddy.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  I said, I think, I think I'm being set up.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  You calling your dad from the house? Yeah, from the house where I was. In the car. She probably sitting. I called my dad and I, and I said, I think I'm being set up. He said, what do you mean? And I told him what happened. You said the details? Yeah. I said, you know, we were romantic, you know?

• 10:31Speaker 00

  And I said, but I, I said, this happened, this happened, this happened. I said, what do you think? He said, don't fuck this up until I meet my son-in-law.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  What? And then, and then when it's time for me to go back, cause it's time for him to go play with the team. So you stayed for the weekend? Yeah, yeah. Stayed for the weekend. How was your body holding up? Uh, it was, it was a struggle. It was a struggle. Yeah. Cause I'm only five two, right? It was a struggle. He was six, five, three fifty. Pussy had two black eyes.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  I was like, who is doing this all day?

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Who is doing this?

• 11:07Speaker 00

  It's with you all day. You can't, right? So, when it's the time to go, right? So, I said, so what's up? You know, what is this? I said, because this is a lot, this seems like. He said, why don't you just relax? And then he said, I'm gonna take you, the car's gonna take you back. I said, oh, no, motherfucker. No, after five days of this, you have to go back and you have to introduce yourself to my father. And you have to talk to him. What? What? I said, motherfucker, yeah. I said, so put some clothes on. So, I made him get in the car that I didn't drive. And he drove me back to where my father was. I said, get out the motherfucking car, go talk to my dad. So, he walks in and, uh, my dad's watching wrestling. So, he's sitting straight to a TV. He doesn't look up. My father doesn't look up. He's, my father, old school, southern, right?

• 11:52Speaker 00

  He doesn't look up. And I said, daddy, this is such, such, such, such. He nods at him. And then I said, why don't you just tell him what you do for a living? I play football. My father said-

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Talk like that. Cheryl, come on.

• 12:07Speaker 00

  My father said, you do not have to bring her back to come back and visit us. I said-

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. Did you get that?

• 12:20Speaker 00

  Now, once he say he play football, he don't give a fuck about me.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  You're welcome to come here and-

• 12:25Speaker 00

  Anytime you want, anytime you want. So, what I'm saying is, is a long story long is, you have to figure out what is is. Especially as a woman. You need to figure out what is is and what role you gonna play in this situation. And that's why I do not believe any man I date, whether you play football or whether you work at the gas station. I'm not the breadwinner. You are the head of the household, because that's the way I was raised. My father was the head of household. When my father died, I deferred to my older brother.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  But you got leader energy. I don't know. I don't believe that you completely would defer to anybody.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  But a leader also has to play the position.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  You could, you could lead from behind.

• 13:05Speaker 00

  Absolutely. And, and I, you know, everybody that works with me-

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Just like a football player.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  That's right. All of this, and he was trying. And I was scared. No, no, no. That's not for you.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  You ain't even been my dad.

• 13:23Speaker 00

  But everybody that I work with, I tell, they go, you're the boss. No, I'm not the boss. I'm the leader.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 13:29Speaker 00

  The boss tells you what to do and you can be unhappy about it. The leader leads you into battle and you will go into battle with the leader because you know we're coming back alive. And that's why I'd rather be the leader than being the boss to dictate to someone.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Is this military influence or did you have this from like your pops early on or your mom early on like? Like where are you getting this philosophy on the world?

• 13:53Speaker 00

  My dad really shaped my worldview. And he was military. He and all his brothers were in the army. And then my mother married a man who was stationed off at Air Force Base. And so that's how we got to Castle Air Force Base and then went into the Air Force. So I was at Warner High. But I always.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  But wait, hold on. Didn't you? You went into Air Force later though, right? You got your masters before that.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  I was working on my masters while I was in the Air Force.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 14:21Speaker 00

  So I got my associates, my bachelors, my masters degree, a paralegal certificate from UCLA. And I have five honorary doctorates, four of them from HBCUs, one of them from University of Illinois Chicago. So I wanted to go to college because my dad was really, really smart.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  And but my dad was, he was progressive but very conservative. You know, so he would read a lot and understand people. And I wanted to be that. And my dad and my uncles on my mother and my father's side, very, very funny.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  So I would just be in the corner watching them.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Like how so? What were you observing?

• 14:58Speaker 00

  Storytelling.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  Cadence, hitting the joke. And I was like, okay, that's interesting. Because I started out as a singer, a singer in the choir.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  No way. Okay, you grew up in the church.

• 15:10Speaker 00

  Church, singing in the choir. So I was like, oh, maybe I could be a singer. I wanted to be in the entertainment business.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  You felt it early.

• 15:15Speaker 00

  Definitely, yeah. Five years. Well, you know, you know, us community, your parents wake you up in the middle of the night to dance for their friends? And perform. Okay. We're having a new generation.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  So they were partying when we were just running in the middle of the night.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  But they never said, come, my son can pop lock and spin on his head. They never say that. Oh, you were in salsa dancing. Everybody knew. You didn't have no white shoes and nothing like that. I wasn't nice to them. Okay, so you were Puerto Rican, Dominican, none of that happened for you. Yeah. Well, see, when we were growing up, our parents would wake us up to perform for their friends while they playing cards and all this stuff. Yeah, yeah. So I thought, okay, to get that kind of attention, you know, oh, okay. I kind of liked it. I knew I wanted to be in the entertainment business because I spent a lot of time in the house and watching things. And I was like, I can do that. I can do that. But how do, what do I do? Do I start off as a singer? I don't have pipes. My voice, when I started singing, it sounded more like Diana Ross, you know? But now that I've been doing comedy for so long, it's lower.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  It's like Lou Ross. You know what I'm saying? It's deeper now. I still sort of sing. I can sing, talk. I say I can sing, talk, walk, dance. Got it, got it.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Quick update. I'm gonna be out in L.A. shooting a movie this summer, but we added some stand-up shows, so pull on up. The Brea Improv will be there July 17th and July 18th. And then we're gonna be at the Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Great Outdoors Fest, August 8th. So you can go grab tickets to any of those shows if tickets are still available. DeAndresShultz.com. All right, Mark, what do you got?

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Oh, I have great news. I'm going all over at the end of the year. I'm going to Plano, Texas, Chandler, Arizona, Pasadena, California, San Diego, California. And then I'm also going to a couple other spots that are gonna be coming up at the end of the year, like Detroit, Michigan, and Salt Lake City, Utah. And I can wait, I can't wait to see you guys all there. Markyag on Live.com. Alex?

• 17:15Mark Gagnon?

  Guys, my monthly tennis series, TheAllLoveClub.com. The tennis is on July 25th. I'll see you guys there. The first one was fantastic. Second one's gonna be even better.

• 17:27Speaker 04

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• 17:56Speaker 00

  Then I got into dancing. And I answered an ad while I was in college at a bar. And it was sexual interpretive dance. That's what we call it.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Sexual interpretive dance?

• 18:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Sounds artsy.

• 18:10Speaker 00

  It's a great way of saying stripping.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, that's not stripping. It's art.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  I thought I was being artful. It was. So I grew up in Chicago. And it's a tavern. And it's still open to this day. And the owner remembers the day that I did this.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Get the fuck out of here.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  How old were you when you go in?

• 18:27Speaker 00

  Oh, I was, uh...

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Nineteen, twenty?

• 18:30Speaker 00

  Uh, I was young. I was young but old, you know? I was young but old. We got to stay in age. I don't know who watching this. Still my damn identity and my credits.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  No, still my identity. So I'm in this place where you're supposed to, you put on the lingerie and then you're supposed to...

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Model the lingerie?

• 18:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, so the guy buys it. So whoever buys it...

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Like Burlesque?

• 18:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, nah, it's a little bitty place. Burlesque seems beautiful. It's like a movie with, what's that girl? Christina Aguilera and Cher. Have you seen it?

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Moulin Rouge.

• 19:05Speaker 00

  Nah, Burlesque was the movie they did together. Matter of fact, James Brolin was in the movie. But I digress. So it's more like you buy the lingerie, you walk around the little bar, and whoever wants you to take it off, they pay for the lingerie. So you take it off in front of them.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  And then they get to keep your lingerie?

• 19:26Speaker 00

  But your neck in front of these dudes. So it's really a fancy version of stripping. But, um, and I think God let me know what I'm not capable of doing. So I start to tell jokes. And I was doing the Fred Sanford.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  I was telling you.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Full lingerie.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, and them street dudes.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  You can't strip work today. Put your shit bag on. You know, so that's when I knew, oh, I can do it. And then being in the military.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  I was making people laugh in the military because you have to entertain. We had a lot of downtime. So you have to entertain and basic training.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  When did you do basic?

• 20:05Speaker 00

  Lackland Air Force Base. Lackland was basic training, San Antonio. The tech school, because I went in as a medic and they told me I could transfer out to MWR.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  What's MWR?

• 20:17Speaker 00

  Moral, welfare and recreation. So that's what I wanted to be because I knew I wanted to be in the entertainment business.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Wait, do you go in as an officer?

• 20:24Speaker 00

  No, I didn't. I went in as enlisted. But it helped me pay my way through school.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  But it also taught me how to entertain people you don't know. If we're talking to each other, then we know some of the things of our background that's going to make us laugh.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  There's a shared understanding and a shared reality, but when you're talking to somebody that you've never knew anything about.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Mexican dude from El Paso, Texas.

• 20:48Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  You still got to crack him up.

• 20:50Speaker 00

  Or a white boy from Oklahoma.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 00

  You gotta make them laugh. And so I found that I was funny and I was doing the cadence. Because I was too, I couldn't do the guide on. The guide on is where you twirl the flag.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  But you can't, don't let that flag hit the ground, airman. You know, so you can't let the flag hit the ground. And it hit a clink, everybody looking at you like, you crazy, right? So I couldn't do that because I don't think I had the, because you got a twirl it under your arm.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  And I couldn't do it. But then they said, well, what else could you do? And one of the TI said, let her do the cadence, the chance. But my chance were, you know, your mother was home when you left, you're right, your mother's. So, but mine were dirty.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Oh, so you do, okay, okay.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, and people looked forward to us marching. But mine were dirty.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  And they're trying to keep a straight face.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  They're trying, that's right.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  And you're trying to crack them.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  Do you remember any of the, any of the cadences?

• 21:41Speaker 00

  Nothing I can say here, but I.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Say whatever you want here.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  Well, no, one thing I do remember is that I learned that I could be entertaining. But I also learned that it takes, being in the military, first it's a scary thing because they strip you down to build you back up. But it's the best thing. I wish in this country, we had mandatory, and if you don't want to do mandatory military service for two years, go into Peace Corps.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:10Speaker 00

  Do something. You should do something in this country.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  We were talking about this, like volunteering at like the national parks or something.

• 22:16Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Serving the country in some capacity.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  We were in Virginia Beach this past weekend doing shows and the USS Iwo Jima

• 22:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  came back.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  And I'd never seen this live, but like you got to see the ship that was away for 10 months.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  The whole family. People with kids.

• 22:34Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  It's also like 10 months, so you see a really young baby, you're like.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Hold on.

• 22:39Speaker 00

  Is that right?

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Dude, I got emotional, man. I got kind of caught up in it.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  The music, the pomp and circumstance.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Also just seeing these young guys, like these are kids. They're like 21 years old. They're coming off their moms. They're grabbing them. It was their first time. He's like big hugs. It was just this beautiful thing.

• 22:56Speaker 02

  Asking one of the moms, like, oh, who are you here for? She's like, oh, my son. And you're like, how long has he been deployed? She says 296 days.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Oh, to the.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  Yes, to the day.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  It was.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  To the day.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  It is like a beautiful.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Care packages.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:07Speaker 00

  Sending cookies.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  They said Amazon replaced all that.

• 23:10Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  They said if you try to send a care package, it's going to take twice as long as if you just go Amazon Direct and it'll find a way to.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  And that's what's good about ingenuity.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  But also, when you're away like that.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:23Speaker 00

  You live for letters and care packages and things like that. And I remember when I was first performing, after I got out of the reserve, they called me, somebody called me to do a comedy show.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  And we were in Yakuza. Yeah, Naval Base.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Where is that?

• 23:40Speaker 00

  In Japan.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  In Japan. So I was doing, my comedy's always been adult.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  Always been sexual, always been adult profane. So I was wearing these fringe hot pants and this fringe bolero jacket and boots. And I had these fishnet stockings and these pumps on that I couldn't really walk in. And I was telling the most hardcore sexual humor. And the Admiral, they said, the Admiral would like to see you. And I said, sir? And he says, so you former military? I said, yes, sir. And he said, listen, I'm gonna give it to you straight. What? We can't protect you. These men have been on the ship for 40 days.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  If you keep talking, we can't protect you. When the US military says they can't protect you?

• 24:24Speaker 02

  Who the fuck else?

• 24:25Speaker 00

  You know who they put in front of the, because we were staying in Billetting, where the, you know, the hotel is called Billetting. So we were staying there. You know who they put in front of my door to guard me every night? And they were in shifts? Bruce Lee. The Marines. Really? The Marines. Because these dudes were sitting outside of my door, playing the guitar, making beaded necklaces and professing their love. And I was like, what is happening? What is happening? I'm just doing a show. Yeah. You know, but I do, I like performing for the military. The last thing I did, I did a USO tour. Oh, yeah, that's pretty cool. Oh, my God, so fun, so fun. But what made it really fun for me, it was with the Sergeant Major of the Army. And I kept asking him, are you sure you mean me?

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Are you sure you want me to go? Because you know me, right? And the USO people were like, absolutely, because you don't get paid for it. It's the payment is the love from the troops. Of course, yeah. So we go to Afghanistan. Phew. And we go down to the fobs. Well, first, I'm so excited. I think I'm going to walk up to General Petraeus, and I'm going to shake his hand and hug him and tell him how great he is. General Petraeus was like, who the fuck are you? You know? We're the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. I'm so fucking hurt.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  So then, but the, but the Command Sergeant Majors and the people that knew me. And then they were asking, who was I? Because they had double the people. So the people that knew me from Def Comedy Jam and Comic View. Oh, okay. They had double the people. So I was doing this bit, Shelvis A Tribute to the King. And I was dressed as Elvis Presley with the mutton chops and the wig and custom-made Elvis outfit from BK Enterprises where Elvis was getting his made. Okay. And, and I was doing this, that was my intro. And people died laughing and everything. And they loved the country singers and they were waiting for Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. But we went to a fob, a forward operating base in Afghanistan. And you could hear these dudes on their heads saying, who the fuck is the black girl?

• 26:27Speaker 00

  I don't know who the fuck she is. And I was telling every dick joke, every dirty joke I knew. And they were stomping and clapping. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I could get on, I got on the helicopter and they said, whoever she is, protect her. I ain't never laughed that hard. And that's what comedy does, in my opinion.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Oh, that's amazing.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  It brings us together. Same thing with the roast.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  But so does the military.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  I think that's the thing that a lot of people maybe don't understand, like the camaraderie that exists within the military. It's like, when you know that your life is dependent on the person next to you, you don't really care that much that they're Filipino.

• 27:01Speaker 00

  That's right. You don't care.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  A lot of this shit goes out the window.

• 27:04Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  So a lot of my buddies that are in the military, they have these like incredibly close relationships with guys, like from all different walks of life. But there's nothing off limits.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  No.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  It's not like a regular office job where like you would never maybe share your real personality with somebody at the office.

• 27:20Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  You're gonna get to know who that person is.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  Absolutely, because you're shitting, showering, and shaving with the person. You know, you're eating the same MRE that they're eating.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  You're telling stories. You're sad that your girl betrayed you, so now you're gonna shoot somebody. I'm just saying, to be facetious. But, but I think military, um, it's one of the great, law enforcement, anything that, like you say, your life depends on.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Lives on the line, shit gets different, man.

• 27:44Speaker 00

  But, but also, it's the humor. It's gallows humor. Like, people that were so upset about the roast.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, what did, what did you, first of all, you had an amazing set on the roast. Obviously, you've heard this, but like.

• 27:55Mark Gagnon?

  You killed it.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  There was something that I thought you brought to the roast that was fantastic, which was, one, genuinely having fun is infectious. Right? Like, whoever has the most fun.

• 28:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  I want to be around as a person that's consuming.

• 28:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Right? The person who's watching the game and they're having the most fun watching the game, that's the part of the bar you want to be around.

• 28:18Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  And you were up there, you were having so much fun, and it, in, in a way, it like broke the fourth wall. Like, there are moments where, and I want to ask you here, it's like, I don't know if you were even reading off the prompter, like, are you just making up all this shit? Like, this is a big fucking moment. I did, I did the Brady one. There's, it's a big moment where you're going, okay, I've been working on this, I want to make sure that everything goes well. But it felt like you were just kind of letting it rip.

• 28:45Speaker 00

  Well, okay.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Like, it felt so natural.

• 28:48Speaker 00

  So, okay, could you, because a lot of people don't really understand the amount of preparation. It is a production. And they're, you running jokes with their writers. Did you guys do that?

• 28:58Speaker 01

  So, basically, so I had a few guys that, that were working with me, and they were fantastic.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Me too.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like, and you should have the guys that kind of like, understand your voice. And, um, it was, it was, not to make this about me, but it was a crazy weekend.

• 29:10Speaker 00

  We gonna make it about us.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Okay, we're making it about us. So, it was like, I was doing Madison Square Garden Friday, Saturday, and then I had to go do the roast Sunday.

• 29:19Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  So, basically, I was like, okay, I have two weeks to work on the roast, and then I want to make sure I'm ready for Madison Square Garden.

• 29:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  So, it was like, this, it was crazy week, but some amazing guys that helped me write, write, Robbie Slovic, Ryan Nessin, Matt Broussard, Tyler Morrison, I want to make sure I'm getting all the guys. Anyway, uh, but, uh, I had it all kind of mapped out.

• 29:41Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  But there is that part of you when you're up there, you're like, man, I just want to be in this moment. And I felt like the times where I kind of like, segued away.

• 29:49Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Were like, the realist, like, I saw Dana White in the audience, and I like, had a joke on him, like, there were just these, and I saw you do that, or at least it felt like you were doing that.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  That's what happened, that's what happened.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  And you saw the whole place just get caught up in it.

• 30:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  It was like, the most pure version of what you wanted to say.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  And now, instead of like, us analyzing the misdirection of your joke, we're caught up on your energy.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  Absolutely, and that's what you want, and that's what American humor is all about.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  This is an international experience, because everybody got Netflix.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:18Speaker 00

  But I agree with you, for me, um, I took a meeting with Netflix, and I pitched an idea that I wanted to do with them. And they were like, oh, that's, that's interesting, great idea, would you do Netflix as a joke? I was like, sure, you want me to do that? So, uh, they said, okay, let's start there. So, they offered me the Ice House in Pasadena.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  The hundred-plus seat room, not, it wasn't no big room, right?

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Great room.

• 30:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's right, very intimate.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  See, I like the intimacy of the comedy club, yes.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  There's something beautiful there, it's.

• 30:51Speaker 00

  You can't beat it.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  The connection is, is built there.

• 30:54Speaker 00

  That's right, I think. Litters are great.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  They're amazing.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  But you cannot hold your lemon pepper wings in your drink on your lap at a theater.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  You can literally like touch everybody in the club.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  You can slap somebody in the back, but you don't know, you go, did you hear what the fuck she just said?

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Also, everyone can see everyone else.

• 31:08Speaker 00

  That's right. And it brings people together. And you can feel, okay, you don't like this. Okay, let me, let me transition over to that, you know, because I'm doing like political humor on the road. I'm doing, and I'm talking about being a Republican. I'm doing Trump jokes. I'm doing, you know, uh, why the Democrats are going to continue to lose election jokes. But I'm using every word in the lexicon and telling them why I'm using these words. So in, in a comedy club, it's more intimate.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  But I got a couple of calls from my colleagues saying, you too big. You need to be in the Hollywood Bowl show. You need to be in the this, this, this. Why would you do a little bitty room like that? Why not? Why not? If this is where we work, this is where we work.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  I think sometimes, uh, people get caught up on like the perception of what you should be doing instead of like what you choose to be doing.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  And I think you've been in the game long enough where like maybe you're not as worried about that. I think like when people are first getting there, a little bit of momentum.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  And I remember being in that position where it's just like, all right, what should we do? What is the venue we should be doing?

• 32:07Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  And then I think after you do those things, you go, well, what do I want to do for where I'm at in my hour?

• 32:13Speaker 00

  There you go. And see for me, um, I wanted to do, I asked him, I said, will you allow me to bring the show that I'm doing, I'm doing the I need a job tour?

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  Will you allow me to bring that show into the Ice House? They said, sure, whatever you want to do is your night. So it's, it's, I go on first.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:29Speaker 00

  Then it's Kyle Erby goes up.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 32:31Speaker 00

  Now, Mike Washington usually travels with us, but he, we're all such close family.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  You'll start your own show?

• 32:39Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  And then you bring up comics.

• 32:42Speaker 00

  Uh huh, uh huh. And that's what I was trying to, um, advance.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 32:46Speaker 00

  That's the show that I really want to do, um, because I think that there's a camaraderie of comics. There are a lot of comics out there that think that their career is, they're not going to have it. But there's some great comics out there that need us to have, that to pull them up and go, come on, it's not over for you. You could be, um, you could be Kathy Griffin.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:08Speaker 00

  Come on, girl.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  So, so you had that issue with the head, with the bloody head.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:12Speaker 00

  Okay, come on back. Tammy Fescatelli, great comic. When you're talking about Mellie Camacho, what you're talking about, there are a lot of old school comics.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  That need to be put back in the mix. So I, I asked, could I do that? And then they said, can you, what about B.T. Kingsley? I was like, cool. So we did the show the way we do it.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Are you doing time in between? Like, if I'm going to see Cheryl.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  And I want, and I want more than just the opening. Am I gonna get Cheryl throughout the whole night?

• 33:37Speaker 00

  You get, what I would do as a headliner, you get that up front.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Oh, you open the whole thing?

• 33:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I open the show and you get that up front. And then Kyle comes up and he does the show. But when Mike Washington is with us, I do what I do. Then Kyle comes up, then, then me and Kyle got a banter. Then we bring up Mike Washington and then he does what he does. And then me and Mike got a banter. So it's like being in a comedy team.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 34:02Speaker 00

  With everybody on the show.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Very cool.

• 34:04Speaker 00

  And it's, I say it's a house party inside of a comedy club. And it's fun, but also we run it, the time is right, because it helps me do better on time.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 34:13Speaker 00

  You know, if you want to be in the club all night long, but these people have been here setting up before you were here. Come on, let's get them in, let's entertain. And let's feed them, put drinks and food in them and get them out so they can go home happy, right? So, but when doing this for Netflix, this small room, it put my name on the map. So then somebody calls me and says, um, would you be willing to do the Kevin Hart roast? I said, of course.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  How, how long before the roast do you agree to it?

• 34:40Speaker 00

  Oh, it had to be maybe a week?

• 34:43Speaker 01

  So you would want to prep.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  No way.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  So everybody else has probably been prepping for at least a month.

• 34:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, I think, I think about, uh, I, oh, I'm not sure. I don't know, because somebody asked Kyle's out there, he'll, he'll know the exact time. I know I had enough time to, as soon as they asked, and I didn't know if I had it. I started looking for outfits online. Alice and Olivia, Alice plus Olivia is where the outfit came from. And then I went to Amazon, it's this shirt. And I'm thinking, okay, what shoes can I walk in? And I called my glam guy, Dale McDonald. And I said, listen, can you come, you come into town and put my face together for the Ice House Show? Can you stay over?

• 35:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  And do this? And he was like, yeah, I got you. So I pulled my team together. Erna Fouché is my conscious, she runs my foundation, Harry Sutherland, runs part of my foundation, and he's the person that hooks me up with corporations, because he's an elected county commissioner. So I brought my team in, and I said, we're gonna network this, see what we can get out of it. But putting the set together and dealing with their writers. Because, did you have to run jokes with their writers too?

• 35:54Speaker 01

  So what, what, what we basically did was say, hey, does anybody have these jokes?

• 36:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  And I knew I was going up at the end.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  So I was basically like, just tell me if anybody has this, and I'll just scrap it. Because I don't want to get to the end of the show. And then, a lot of the stuff has been used.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  That's right, that's right. Unless you can make it better.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  If you can make it better, that's fine.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  That's the key. You gotta make it better. Like with the Tony Hanscliff, George Floyd joke?

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 00

  I don't think God sent me a good enough comeback. But because Pete Davidson hit with the Charlie Kirk joke, for the Cookout Coalition, I was like, oh yeah, he got you. Right, he got you. But for me, I wanted to learn to work with other people's writers. And so we could see that they were writing for everybody.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  And what was working, what wasn't working. But what was funny to me, they had the brunch, oh what?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  The one where, where you're like, yeah, we fucked, me and Kevin fucked.

• 36:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  He's making all this. So I said, Kevin, shut up before someone thinks I'm watching one of your movies.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  And so, I'm taking what they wrote.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  But it looked like you weren't gonna tell it.

• 37:05Speaker 00

  I wasn't, because I was like, move, go through the teleprompter.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  That was the beautiful moment, like, for the consumer, right?

• 37:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  It's like, this wasn't supposed to happen. And Kevin's like, nah, you gotta tell it.

• 37:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I'm looking at the prompter.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:17Speaker 00

  And so for me... Um, I like, I like to be prepared so that you know where you can ad lib. If you're not, if you're not prepared and you ad lib, you could lose the whole.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  You don't know where you're going, a hundred percent.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, you don't know what's going on.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:30Speaker 00

  So in working with them and then Vanessa Graddick and Kyle Erby, Ian Edwards, Chris Spencer. Um, it was a lot of people. I was like, what you got, what you got?

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  Um, but the fact that I could talk to Nikki Glaser at the luncheon.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 00

  Okay, so they have the brunch, the commed- everybody's there. Get to hug and talk to your colleagues. And I said, Nikki, how they coming? They, they said, they coming for you. I said, why they coming at me? You fucks hat- what am I? I'm the bitch that just lost a daytime talk show. I need a job. I need to work. Why they coming at me? And she said, they coming for you, hard. And I met Tony at the brunch.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  Tony Henskes walks up to me, he said, I'm Tony Henskes. I said, I know. And he's, I said, how you coming? He said, I'm coming, uh, your husband's suicide and you're being raped.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  No. Jesus.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  And I said, he said, well, what, what is he thinking? I said, you better be funny. I said, that's, I said, if it ain't funny, I said, I'm gonna get your ass, I swear. I said, I'm gonna get you. If it ain't funny, I said, it better be funny. He said, well, what about you? I said, my husband been dead. You know, and then that's when I thought, what are you gonna say back to him? When he says it, and I'm thinking, what do you say back to him? Then, and, and, but he, he's a great villain.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Yes, he is.

• 38:49Speaker 00

  He's the snidely whiplash of comedy right now.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  If we're looking at comedy as wrestling.

• 38:53Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  He is the perfect heel.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Absolutely, absolutely. Slither it. Yes, but, but here's the thing about this generation of roasting. It's not like when it was private at the Friars Club.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  And it was digs against people and we knew each other, we knew it wasn't personal. And then it's not like when Dean Martin and you got Milton Berle, who tells the best, who has the best dick jokes in the industry. Why? Cause he's got a big ass dick and he was blowing the backs out of Charlotte in the forties, fifties. He says, oh yeah, Milton Berle, cause he's not attractive in the face. But he was throwing that dick on the floor. Yeah, he was blowing them bitches out. So for me, it's not the same thing, but they roast at a certain level, right? But the fact that he came to me. With respect.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:39Speaker 00

  And I said, okay, it better be good. I said, that's all, it just better be good. And so Shane Gillis calls me and I said, first people saying, well Shane wants to talk to you. I said, give him my number, let's talk. And I said, Shane, I said, what's your name? I says, Great Western. He said, that's what I'm named after. I said, good. I said, if you don't come hard and don't come correct and this shit ain't funny, I said, I'm gonna pop you like Doc Holliday. In Tombstone. I said, cause that's my favorite movie. I love Shane and Tombstone. So we laughed and we joked, but then even running the jokes and having other comics go nah, and then running them through the prompter, cause I wanna get my cadence right. I don't wanna be reading something. I wanna be feeling and giving life, but I kept asking God on that stage, give me the words.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Give me the words that the audience needs me to say.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  In the moment?

• 40:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, cause I had a piece of paper, I had a piece of paper and an ink pen and I'm, and I'm, me and Tony are sitting next to each other and we're laughing and talking. And I'm getting to know him, I'm getting to feel him. That he's not, he's not all the way this dude. You know, he's the dude that talked about Puerto Rico. But if the Puerto Ricans ain't throwing hands on you every time they see you.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:50Speaker 00

  Okay, what, what, what is it? Is it humor?

• 40:52Speaker 01

  People don't wanna believe this, but Tony is a very sweet guy.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  He is very much so.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  People will not wanna be, cause people make up their minds without really understanding who somebody is.

• 41:02Speaker 00

  And that's why I went to Austin to do Kill Tony.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I saw it.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  I went there to do it because I'm trying, I'm not gonna change you. I don't believe in changing someone. I believe in influencing them to be their better self and evolution. So you can be that right now, cause you're making a lot of money, you make a lot of money. That's why I said what I said, midget and retard. Okay, what is the funny word? Little people or midget?

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Midget.

• 41:28Speaker 00

  Okay, disabled or retard?

• 41:31Speaker 01

  I mean retard.

• 41:32Speaker 00

  Okay, there we go. Okay, but here's the thing, if you push the pendulum too far to politically correctness, then people are gonna fight back with all of what you do, right?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Why you pointing at us?

• 41:47Speaker 00

  That's why I said, I'm glad you white male comics are out there doing what you're doing.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  Because we were getting cast. You know GLAD had me on their website as a homophobe?

• 41:57Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Yes, for a joke that I told at Comic View, and I thought I was telling a civil rights joke. And they said I was a homophobe. Oh, I would say one day, because I'm writing a book called I'm Fat Because of You.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  It's my life story, so I think we're gonna put that story in there.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 42:16Speaker 00

  Um, but the punchline is, dick is like secret deodorant. Dick is like secret deodorant. It's strong enough for a man, but it's made for a woman. And that's the punchline.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  And that's what makes you a homophobe?

• 42:29Speaker 00

  Um, it's all the stuff that I'm comparing it to, to say of our struggle, and you're comparing it to this. And they said I was a homophobe, but I laid it out. I laid it out from the middle passage, the everything.

• 42:43Speaker 01

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• 42:47Speaker 00

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• 42:48Speaker 01

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• 43:10Speaker 00

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• 43:12Speaker 00

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• 43:20Speaker 00

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• 43:25Speaker 00

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• 43:53Speaker 00

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• 43:54Speaker 01

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• 43:57Speaker 00

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• 43:58Speaker 01

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• 44:12Speaker 02

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• 44:13Speaker 01

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• 44:16Speaker 01

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• 44:40Speaker 02

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• 46:30Speaker 00

  So you go back to people being upset about jokes that were told at this roast. Well, it's racist. Of course it is.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  It's racial. Of course it is.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:43Speaker 00

  But when we're looking at, you guys say things, then they say, well, it opens the door to this. But Paul Mooney used to walk white people out of Caroline's.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  I used to watch Paul at Caroline's. That was one of the most unique comedy experiences. Because Paul would get these white women, it was also the women, he would get them in their feelings. But Paul, Paul would say wild shit, don't get me wrong.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  But he was hilarious.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  And it was well-written.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  And he had a pen.

• 47:12Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  But it was wild.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  Jackie Mason.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, Jackie.

• 47:15Speaker 00

  See, people don't understand, and I'm not giving cover to racism. What I'm saying is, don't get mad, get motivated. If you are mad about this, then be mad that farmers are now losing their farms in these red states. Be mad that 300,000 women lost a job.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  But they're not gonna do that, because there's no, there's no clicks or virtue signaling or white knighting based on that. There's no pats on the back based on that.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  Well, here's your problem, though. So you want to talk about a roast that we did with the expectation of us being superheroes. But you go to your job every day, and Bob from Accounting tells the worst jokes in the world. But you ain't did shit to Bob from Accounting. But you want us to stand up. If you and I were on the dais, we were supposed to slap Tony, right?

• 48:00Speaker 01

  They wanted us to.

• 48:01Speaker 00

  Well, here's the problem. I need you to go to your job and slap the motherfucker that's telling the thing. If that's what you want, if we throwing hands, if that's what you're doing.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  We were talking about this on the pod, and it was an interesting thing, because like, I think, I think a lot of the outrage maybe came from, this was huge all over social.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  And when you're looking at like, your friends' pictures of their kids and vacations, and then all of a sudden this joke pops up on your screen, that you didn't really... Elect to watch is just kind of thrown in your face. You're like, what the fuck is going on?

• 48:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  When you're at home and you choose to click on the roast of Kevin Hart.

• 48:42Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Knowing it's gonna be wild.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  I don't know if people had that much of a reaction. There may be moments where they're like, oh, that joke was harsh or, oh, do these people really not like each other?

• 48:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, cuz I was even like, damn.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:54Speaker 00

  Like, what? But they didn't want us to know what people were saying.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Which I think is better.

• 48:59Speaker 00

  Right, it's a reaction.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:01Speaker 00

  It's a reaction, but then people like criticizing us saying, well, you sat there and you laughed at it. Well, first, somebody had to clear that joke. So what I'm thinking is, who cleared the joke? So if you cleared the joke, then that's the type of humor we going with, whether it was funny or not funny. But on the same token, it is a roast.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  That's the thing, people got, people gotta understand, a roast is different than a stand the back.

• 49:24Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  And, Mark, you had a great way of describing this, where you were like, uh, it's like seeing a street fight can be like brutally violent.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  But then seeing a UFC fight where you know this is the point of what these guys are doing and they all signed up for it. It can still be brutally violent, but it's a little bit more digestible.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  Yes, it's digestible.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  It's contextualized. But at the same time, if you're scrolling at 8 a.m. and like you're having breakfast with your kid.

• 49:49Speaker 00

  Did you see this?

• 49:50Speaker 02

  And then you see a guy getting punched in the face 10 times, you're like, this is so violent. Why does anyone watch this? But it's being pushed on to you.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  It's the algorithm. So what I'd said to everybody, I'm not gonna get all these interviews right, and I'm gonna come to my thoughts. But here's the thing, radio stations, everybody that's arguing, uh, D L and Big J going back and forward with each other.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm like, what?

• 50:11Speaker 00

  Well, but here's the thing, though, listen, they giving as good as they get. When they put up Big J, the meme of Big J as Roseanne, it was hilarious. It made me laugh. It was hilarious, right? But then when they pulling up D L's old stuff, I would never do that. That's right, that's right. Okay, that's comics, that's, that's.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Because comics were not perfect, especially if we're talking on a podcast or like a talk show for 10 years. We're gonna say some wild shit.

• 50:35Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  That is gonna present ourselves as hypocritical if we're white knighting about something, if we're trying to.

• 50:40Speaker 00

  And we are hypocritical.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  Cuz we evolved in that. State, but you doing radio time spent listening. So you're arguing about this, you're talking about this, hey, when we come back, Dr. Such and such is going to talk about his reasons why the roast was not applicable, da, da, da, da, da. Okay, it's time spent listening, it's advertisement. Now, people that didn't have Netflix now got Netflix.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  People that didn't see the roast now watching. So something that had thirteen point eight now has fifteen.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Oh, they told me the roast numbers for Kevin Hart were fantastic.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  Yes, it's big, and but you know what, I thought the genius was, you put what looked like an attack upon a black female comic up against the manosphere. So if you love Cheryl Underwood and you're watching them beat her down, right? Now you're like, Sha, do something, do something, and did something, that's right. If you say anything that sound like, you will not make it out of Inglewood alive. A rut. This is the motherfucking forum. Built by the Showtime Lakers, you will respect us in this house. So for me, I felt that God sent me and I was produced to deliver for everybody that thought what was being said was inappropriate.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  So God sent you to call Shane a retard?

• 51:58Speaker 00

  I, I believe it. No, I asked him.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Give me the words, give me the words.

• 52:05Speaker 00

  It's a shame to be able to listen, I'm not talking about you Kevin as the midget, but I'm talking about you Shane as a retard. But also that January six joke. Now that was written, and I said, that's the one I want. Cause I, I asked Nikki, I said, Nikki, what, give me some, some pointers. Now, this is two female comics talking to each other, right? Well, we're supposed to be mortal enemies, white woman, right, black woman, we're supposed to be mortal enemies, right? No, not, well, society will want us to be mortal enemies.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 52:33Speaker 00

  Chelsea Handler, she comes to me at the brunch and she says, listen, I'm not coming for you. I said, listen, I got a couple on you, but they're not bad, you know? So we're talking, but that's camaraderie, right? So when Nikki says, tell them to give you the hardest stuff. So some of the stuff they said, I said, that don't even sound like me. And no, I said, give me- Me something, we want to make this a great roast.

• 52:55Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah.

• 52:56Speaker 00

  We want to do Kevin proud, right? And for Kevin to say, Cheryl, I want you to do what you do.

• 53:01Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  And then for my team to go, here's what you need. Here's where you are at your best. And then I'm feeling the audience. Cause some of the jokes, the audience didn't like. Some of the jokes, they liked, but they didn't know why they liked it. And then also Hollywood is jaded. California is jaded. So they not laughing like if we was in Kentucky and they slapping them and they, we having a good time. But then I thought.

• 53:24Mark Gagnon?

  Nah, you got them moving.

• 53:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, speak to the room. Speak to the room.

• 53:28Mark Gagnon?

  Oh, you're saying earlier in the roast, maybe they weren't really cooked. Cause when you were up there, I thought they were standing up.

• 53:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I did not, and you know, it's kind of out of, out of body experience. Cause I didn't realize what was happening. What I felt was, okay Cheryl, there's nobody's getting up, cause I'm listening. And nobody's saying, answer them, answer them back, let them know. You ain't saying nothing but a motherfucking word. Where the fuck you think you at? You know, this is a roast of Kevin Hart.

• 53:53Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah.

• 53:53Speaker 00

  We still black up in this motherfucker.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  Right? So were you, when you were watching it, what were you thinking?

• 54:00Mark Gagnon?

  I think the, my biggest takeaway was that it felt like there was some animosity between some of the comics that went up.

• 54:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 54:07Mark Gagnon?

  Like, that's why I think it felt a little bit different. Like other roasts, it's like, oh, we all like each other, so there's more love here. But it seemed like there was some people that went up that actually didn't like each other. So that's why some of the jokes was like, ooh.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  And but then, but to me, what I felt, and really I did talk to God. I said, listen, I'm up here with my colleagues.

• 54:27Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah.

• 54:28Speaker 00

  These are, these are gentlemen that I'm trying to get to know.

• 54:30Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah.

• 54:31Speaker 00

  Um, that I need to understand what is comedy right now. This is what comedy is right now.

• 54:36Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah.

• 54:36Speaker 00

  So Cheryl, if you in this game, you better figure out what it is right now. But then I thought, oh, wait a minute. Cause I used to say, Ofe, cracker, pecker. One of my first jokes that I wrote, what go good with chili? Crackers.

• 54:49Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah.

• 54:49Speaker 00

  Now that you just mentioned white people, let's talk about their motherfucking ass. But why do you carry your personal stage? Cause white folks still, any race of people take land from the Indians and sure enough, take two or three dollars out your purse.

• 54:58Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:59Speaker 00

  So I, I, those are jokes I'm telling because I'm trying to. Express the history of this country, right? But then, if you get to do comedy long enough, you evolve

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:11Speaker 00

  into something else. Shane will evolve, Tony will evolve, but if we work together, just think of the type of movies we can make. We could recreate Smoking the Bandit. I told Shane, I said, we need to redo Smoking the Bandit. You be Burt Reynolds and I'll be Jerry Reed. You know, redo Cannonball Run. Let's get together. All of us as comics should be working on content together. So we can keep American humor alive and we can pay our bills and our mortgages and do things for our foundations. Because do you have a foundation?

• 55:46Speaker 01

  I have a foundation I work with, not my personal one. It's not my personal one.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  But wouldn't it be great if we all got together and it wasn't just Netflix roasting somebody? How about we roast to benefit something?

• 55:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:58Speaker 00

  We're good enough that we can roast to benefit something. We can still hit somebody, not as hardcore. Because Netflix, I think, that's why I said, free speech is alive and well and I thank you Netflix.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:09Speaker 00

  Why? Because I think people push too far into political correctness, the pronouns and stuff. So people got mad because I gotta call you a pronoun. You know, like I do transgender, I'm supposed to be transphobic.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:21Speaker 00

  I'm supposed to be homophobic and I do all of this in my show.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:24Speaker 00

  Where I talk about these things that I'm supposed to be.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:27Speaker 00

  But you won't get to know me and understand, I'm not against you. Just because I'm pro me, don't mean I'm against you.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  But some of these things, I just can't, why are we agreeing with? Why can't we talk about it? And that's how I looked at me participating in this roast. And then I found that I really wanted to get to know everybody. Draymond Green scared to death.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  He was scared of you.

• 56:47Speaker 00

  So no, he was scared to do the roast. So we're in the green room.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's terrifying. Imagine someone who's never done comedy before doing on the biggest stage in front of the most people.

• 56:55Speaker 00

  You know what I told him?

• 56:56Speaker 01

  What?

• 56:56Speaker 00

  I said, listen, you play basketball? Yeah. I said, I don't. You coming into what I do. So you don't have to be mean. Get through it.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, the expectation is definitely lower.

• 57:09Speaker 00

  I said, take a deep breath. I had him call Chris Spencer. And I said, you talked to Chris. I said, but even if you get a chuckle, that's your standing O.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:18Speaker 00

  Even if you get a, huh, you a trip, Draymond.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:22Speaker 00

  That's a standing O for you.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:24Speaker 00

  You're not gonna get what they're gonna get. Cause we've been doing this. We know how to course correct quickly. That joke didn't work, let's go to something else.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:32Speaker 00

  We know how to feed off the crowd. This is what we do.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:35Speaker 00

  If I was playing basketball, that ain't what I do.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:37Speaker 02

  If I hit the rim, I'd be happy.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. If I can just dribble a little bit, you know. But to talk to them, to talk to Lizzo and say, girl, don't worry, take a deep breath.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  She was another one that did fantastic off of energy.

• 57:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  She seemed like she was enjoying the moment.

• 57:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  And again, it's a very difficult thing to communicate to somebody who's nervous. To be like, hey, if you just don't be nervous and have fun, it would be great.

• 58:02Speaker 00

  Relax.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Cause it's the hardest thing to do is when you're nervous, just, oh, okay. Well, I guess I'll just turn that off and have fun.

• 58:07Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  But the people, they can kind of embrace that.

• 58:10Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:11Mark Gagnon?

  I felt bad for Draymond, cause he kept getting booed by all the Lakers fans.

• 58:15Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:15Mark Gagnon?

  Imagine, actually, you doing this for the first time and you getting booed, like.

• 58:19Speaker 00

  Yes. But now he, once you get through it, it's over. I think Naim did a wonderful job.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:25Speaker 00

  And I really would have wanted Tiffany, while I was getting beat up, to come down and go, hold on, bitch, let me, let me help you with some of this shit. And we show what black female comics can do when we're in it. I thought Regina Hall represented a side of the audience that was like, what the fuck is happening? What the fuck y'all talking about?

• 58:43Speaker 01

  She represented viewer, yeah.

• 58:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. And to me, I thought Chelsea Handler had the, the, the types of materi, the type of material. I was like, god damn, that joke, we talking about them being pussies? And the only reason, the only way they going to Saudi Arabia is to go get the money?

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:00Speaker 00

  I thought, hell, yeah.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Let's go again this year.

• 59:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:07Speaker 00

  But I don't know, you know, my feeling is, I don't know, like people say, well, Cheryl, why don't you do international shows?

• 59:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:16Speaker 00

  I don't know if it translates.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Yes, it does.

• 59:19Speaker 00

  Really?

• 59:19Speaker 02

  You would translate.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Not only would you translate, but like, you gotta understand, a lot of people learn English through comedy. So the biggest thing that the industry missed is they thought that comedy didn't translate overseas.

• 59:30Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  So they wouldn't like spend big money on like Hollywood comedy movies because they're like, there's no international audience. And when they stopped selling DVDs, the way that they made up for that, you know, money disparity is international box office.

• 59:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  So then they started making all these like big action movies because they're like, listen, if they're not really talking, but there's action, they'll watch it overseas. What they didn't realize is that when you go overseas and meet people who speak English, a lot of times they learned English from watching Family Guy.

• 59:57Speaker 00

  Really?

• 59:57Speaker 01

  They learned English from watching The Simpsons. They learned English from watching, uh, the Wayans Brothers.

• 1:00:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:00:02Speaker 02

  Friends was a big one.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Friends or like Ray, like the Ray Romano Show. What was it?

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  Everybody loves him.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  It's like, and it's, it's, it's amazing. And also now with YouTube and so much comedy on YouTube and social media. Since they don't have a comedy channel in their country, they'll watch a lot of their stand-up on YouTube.

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  So I was able to tour internationally for a long time, simply just by putting stuff out on YouTube. And now with this success, I mean, I'm sure you'll be able to do it. And they know English.

• 1:00:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  That's the other thing. It's like, if you're coming from a small country, you don't have your own like film studio that makes all your movies just for you. But you still need to watch TV. So what TV do you watch?

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  You watch American. You're right. Well, I am a-

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Dude, when I was in, when I was in the Middle East, because we've done Abu Dhabi, Dubai, we did the Riyadh Festival and like-

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  How was it?

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  It was awesome.

• 1:00:57Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  It was awesome. And they did-

• 1:00:59Speaker 00

  How dirty could you go?

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  As dirty as you want.

• 1:01:01Speaker 00

  Girls could do that?

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. There was gay girls on it.

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. They killed them.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  No, no, no, that's not true. That's not, that's not, that is not true.

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  They killed them.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  They killed them. They had a falcon just peck at them.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  Get there, get there! Attack!

• 1:01:21Speaker 00

  Well, that's why I'm doing an animated vehicle. And it's for nothing but comedians. And it's how we talk at the roast. How we talk when we're just talking to each other. And I'm hoping that Netflix will be interested in that.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Oh, what I was saying about that was that like, a lot of them are getting a lot. First of all, a lot of them are like just getting educated in America. And they're more aware of Americanisms and culture than Europeans.

• 1:01:49Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, these Europeans, like, a lot of them have like built up, they have their own TV shows. They have their own everything. So it's like, yeah, maybe they'll watch a big blockbuster American movie, but not as much.

• 1:01:58Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  But if you're from like a small country in the Middle East, the only thing you're watching is foreign shit.

• 1:02:04Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, they don't have 40 sitcoms that are all made there. There's just not enough people for it. So they're more aware of our like slang, they're more aware of our cultural shit. Than maybe if you went to France or if you went to Belgium. So you would crush over there.

• 1:02:19Speaker 00

  Well, I will tell you, it's, I knew something was different in walking through the airport.

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  Oh, you spelt it.

• 1:02:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm getting stared at. Or it's not just the flight attendants. It's like really young dudes are gazing at me. I'm like, what's happening? Do you know me or what's happening? And it's all these people that are, I don't know, it's a word for it. What is it involuntary celibacy?

• 1:02:42Speaker 01

  Oh, incels.

• 1:02:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, incels. Involuntary celibates, yeah, yeah, the incels. Yeah, they're horny. Remember when you were in Japan? Remember how horny those guys were?

• 1:02:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh my gosh.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  These guys are horny.

• 1:02:55Speaker 00

  Yes. Wait, I wrote this train.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  TSA ain't gonna protect you.

• 1:02:58Speaker 00

  No. When I rode the train in Japan, when I was in the military, and I was on a train, you know, a train, they do some wild shit on the train in Japan. And this dude just walked up and started rubbing my skin. And I was like, what the fuck is, where's the police? What the fuck is happening? And the translator said.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  We nuked them and they're different now.

• 1:03:18Speaker 00

  Never seen it. They've never seen it. They've never seen it before. They've never seen anybody alive with this color skin. So they were fascinated by it. But it was stimulating and I was like, well, get me off the train. But to me, and a lot of people, that was, oh, you sold out, they offered you a special, and you just took it, let them crucify the black community like that. That's not what happened. What happened was...

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  You can't respond to all the, like, there's always gonna be some, someone out there that's gonna have a negative critical comment.

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  I need to eat off these jokes. I didn't want, I don't like to record material. I wanna be Henny Youngman, "Take My Wife Please" until I die. I wanna, cuz I believe you can write jokes every day, but you can only polish them onstage.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  Yes, that's true, 100%.

• 1:04:04Speaker 00

  So, do you have jokes in your set that are years old?

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  No, not years.

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, see, I got stuff that's decades old, that people, you bring new people. I did Laugh-a-Palooza with Jamie Foxx, Jamie Foxx and Marcus King, but I wanted to put the September 11th material on film, because I was proud of our country. But I was getting booed when I came out as, I'm a Republican, and I'm a, I like a Bush, baby Bush Republican. I was like, get they asses.

• 1:04:36Speaker 00

  And the jokes, if you go back and look at the Laugh-a-Palooza set...

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  You're saying a woman grew up in a military family, that ended up going to the Air Force herself?

• 1:04:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I'm different.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  What a crazy idea.

• 1:04:45Speaker 00

  Well, but you know, we were Republicans before we were Democrats, you know? And if you, if you, if it wasn't Trump saying things, we would be into a lot of this shit.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  I, you're right about that.

• 1:04:56Speaker 00

  But Trump, and what's happening now, so you voted for this motherfucker, and now he done fucked shit up. But, but I'm giving both sides. And then you got the Clintons on the other side, which allows you to tell the greatest... That's right, and the greatest dick jokes in the world, right? So, to me, that's the set. But then, when Netflix made me an offer I couldn't refuse, cuz I kept saying, no, no, I gotta live off of this. This is how I eat. I don't have a TV show anymore, and I have responsibility. But I also have people who depend on me working.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  You can write new stuff. We saw you put together new stuff onstage. You can polish it onstage. How'd you do it over all these years?

• 1:05:33Speaker 00

  But with the roast, see, the roast...

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  Not the roast, I'm saying your act over years, this is decades.

• 1:05:38Speaker 00

  I add to, if something happens on... And then I go, oh, what I want to talk about? And then, but then I lose some things, you know, I got great Oprah Winfrey jokes, but then I lose it and then do I get to talk about the homosexuality stuff? And then I'm trying to figure out, do I want to bring those jokes back to go, this is how I got canceled? I got canceled from telling this joke. I kind of want to construct a special, special like that. Cause I want people to get to know me, but I also want people to understand. This is what I think is funny and this is what I want to say. When you were booing me because I said, uh, I like President Bush.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:12Speaker 00

  I want him to get they motherfucking asses, right? But you booing me for this, but you, you, you cashed the checks that he sent. You hate this motherfucker, but you cashed the checks. Now Trump is a totally different entity.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Speaker 00

  He should have stayed his ass at home, stop fucking with the Knicks.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  We'd be up 3-0.

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  That's it, that's right.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  We'd be up 3-0, Cheryl.

• 1:06:34Speaker 00

  That's right, that's, that, you fucking right, but you, you selfish ass motherfucker, you came out here, you fucked up traffic, you did all this bullshit, you should have stayed your ass in the White House.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Did you go last night?

• 1:06:45Speaker 00

  No, I, I was in the vicinity.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:47Speaker 00

  But the police told me, stop wandering your little hoeish ass around. Looking for sad Knicks friends to have sex with.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  There was a lot of them.

• 1:06:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I could have cleaned up that night.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  All right, guys, take a break for a second. Talkspace is the number one rated online therapy, bringing you professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatrists that you can access anytime, anywhere. Yes, you're going to be doing this online. Yes, that's how everybody does therapy now. You're no longer going into a little office with like shitty artwork on the wall so it doesn't look barren while you bare your soul. You're doing it over the phone, you're doing it over Zoom. Talkspace is in-network. Therapy, psychiatry. It is covered by most insurers and most insured members pay a copay of $0. Switch providers at no cost.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  Find the licensed provider that's, uh, the right fit for your needs. Talkspace is affordable. Even out of pocket, therapy can be costly, but part of the mission of Talkspace is to provide quality care that is accessible and affordable whether you or not you are insured. As a listener of this podcast, you're going to get $80 off of your first month with Talkspace when you go to talkspace.com/flagrant and enter the promo code SPACE80. That's S-P-A-C-E-8-0 to match with a licensed therapist today. Go to talkspace.com/flagrant and enter the promo code SPACE80. I realized something recently. Sleep is everything. I hate to be one of these

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  guys. I genuinely hate it because I like to stay up late and I have to wake up early because I have kids. The reality of the matter is, sleep dictates everything, especially at my age. When you're like 20 years old, I don't even know if sleep is necessary, to be honest with you. And then you hit 40 and it's like, if you don't sleep, there's just no way that you can be a functional human being. I didn't take it seriously until I switched to Brooklyn Bedding. Let me tell you about Brooklyn Bedding. This mattress is different. I'm not just crashing anymore, I'm actually recovering. If you want to wake up feeling aligned, rested, like your body actually reset overnight, which is the whole fucking point of going to sleep, I recommend getting yourself a mattress from Brooklyn Bedding. They're not just throwing

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• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  for 30% off. Get your sleep right. Everything else gets easier.

• 1:09:54Speaker 02

  Are you a Knicks fan?

• 1:09:55Speaker 00

  I'm a sports enthusiast. I'm more a football player. I try basketball players. I'm going to tell a story in a book. Someone from the 76ers pulled me out of a comedy club and it was the greatest experience. So we're putting it in the book.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  The name?

• 1:10:10Speaker 00

  Uh, I I'm not sure because some of these men, uh, we're gonna change the name to protect the innocent. We don't know if they're married now. Yeah, we don't know. But it's a great, it's a great story. It's a really great story. It involves, um, the fact that I'm rarely alone anywhere because I just feel like getting gaffled. I'm getting fucked up somewhere. You know, uh, uh, looking for Mr. Goodbar. Remember that movie where old girl is out there fucking dudes and the dude stabs her at the end of the movie?

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:10:41Speaker 00

  So, no spoiler alert.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's all.

• 1:10:43Speaker 00

  It's all movie. But but I'm never alone. So the person who knows.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:47Speaker 00

  People have witnessed me be infatuated by somebody.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Well, can you, can you, I don't want to give the book away.

• 1:10:52Speaker 00

  More football players than basketball players.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  But this basketball player, let's, it's a fake name. Maybe it was, he was known as Dr. K.

• 1:10:59Speaker 00

  No. No, if I could have, I would have. If I could, there were a couple of people that I was, uh, gonna get.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  You Ryan?

• 1:11:07Speaker 00

  Eh, man, I was, it's a couple of people I was like, hey, so what are you doing after this?

• 1:11:14Speaker 00

  Or they'll say, I don't even like that shirt, dark-skinned girl, you don't like me now, but you will like me later. I know how to keep a secret. And I got one good skill. One, one good skill that I know. And that's what I talk about in the show. I talk about in the show, what, what I can do and what I can't do. But those jokes, I try not to record them all the time.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  Cause you want to hold them for a big moment.

• 1:11:39Speaker 00

  Um, no, I really like for people to have fun in it because I like sexual material. I like profane material. I like racial material, uh, spiritual material. Uh, I talk about, uh, abortion, uh, talk about, uh, transgender. Matter of fact, when Shane and I were talking, we almost have the same.

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  Topic list?

• 1:11:59Speaker 00

  Structure, topic list, that's right. And so I was like, oh, cause so I'm going in the right, uh, direction. Either you're gonna be offended or you're gonna laugh real hard. You know, sometimes people yell out, I came here to hear comedy. I, and I tell it, if there's a white man yelling, hold on, sir, I'm gonna get to some material that you're really gonna appreciate.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  Give me ten minutes.

• 1:12:19Speaker 00

  That's right, let me get through this political stuff. This political stuff is for them and for us. Yeah. You know, but that's what I like about comedy, be able to do topics and.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  Can, can I ask you a Chicago lore question?

• 1:12:33Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  Um, Bernie.

• 1:12:36Speaker 00

  Bernie Man.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Bernie is.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Like transformative for me in like my comedy.

• 1:12:42Speaker 00

  House of.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  Life. Well, I saw him, I remember watching Kings of Comedy in a movie theater on 11th Street and 3rd Avenue with four of my friends. And it was the hardest I've ever, I ever laughed watching something. Eddie was the hardest I ever laughed listening. I listened to an audio cassette with my dad.

• 1:12:59Speaker 00

  Eddie Murphy.

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  Eddie's, yeah, Delirious. And I listened to it with my dad and that, I think that moment right there made me become a comedian.

• 1:13:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  Many years later.

• 1:13:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  But Bernie, it was, I was watching somebody that like, I just never had seen someone be so naturally funny that I didn't even know if it was jokes. I didn't know if it was a set. I didn't know if, somebody that was truly like listening to the crowd.

• 1:13:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:24Speaker 01

  Like the crowd was like an instrument for him. So it was like material, but also I know how to play off of your energy.

• 1:13:30Speaker 00

  And the words at that time to talk about the little boy.

• 1:13:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  And the, and the.

• 1:13:36Speaker 00

  Hysterical. The F with the two G's.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  The little one, he's a. That's right. He kind of muffled it when he said it.

• 1:13:43Speaker 00

  Him downstairs.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  Him downstairs. Yes. Some milk and coke.

• 1:13:46Speaker 00

  Yes, that's right. But, but most people don't know.

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  Chicago like.

• 1:13:50Speaker 00

  Bernie was a mentor to all of us that were coming up.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  So you were watching him when he had his, like, cause he had a room, right?

• 1:13:57Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  That he would host weekly?

• 1:13:58Speaker 00

  That we would go do the room and he would do the Cotton Club and we would go do the Cotton Club. But we knew Bernie from the neighborhood. He was, he was called Blue.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Growing up?

• 1:14:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was Blue because he was so black, he was Blue. That's what we would call him. Hey, what's up, Blue? You know, and he would come to my neighborhood.

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:14:17Speaker 00

  Because the, I think he was friends with the Cobb family across the street in my old neighborhood in Chicago. So when we were coming up as comics, matter of fact, it was Bernie that was telling us, dress up, come on time. You know, he was a mentor to us as comics. And when, when they did the 25th anniversary of Death Comedy Jam.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  I ain't afraid of you motherfuckers.

• 1:14:37Speaker 00

  And Chris Rock said, the two people he didn't want to follow.

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  Was, oh, no.

• 1:14:41Speaker 00

  Sheryl Underwood and Bernie Mac.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Really?

• 1:14:45Speaker 00

  It was, Chris Rock said he didn't want to follow either one of us. But Bernie, a big brother to us. And then when they did Kings.

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  When you would watch him at that, at that room, what was the name of the room that he would do weekly?

• 1:14:57Speaker 00

  It was two of them. It was the Roberts 600 room, I think. And then he did the Cotton Club.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  The Cotton Club, okay.

• 1:15:04Speaker 00

  Cotton Club.

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  He's hosting it, right?

• 1:15:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  Is he every night just doing different stuff? Is he riffing every night? So it was purely, he was like a magician in a way.

• 1:15:16Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  In his purest form, he's a comedian. He could just hold attention and like.

• 1:15:20Speaker 00

  Absolutely. And, and for Bernie, if you're talking about the comedians that you look up to and study, because I tell young comics, what can you tell me that I need to learn about comedy? I said, find your favorite comic and study mechanics.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:34Speaker 00

  Don't, don't, don't take jokes.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But learn how they tell jokes, learn how to hold attention.

• 1:15:39Speaker 00

  That's right. Cadence. That's why the social media comic is good.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:44Speaker 00

  But if you don't have a point of view and a set structure, what happens when those, that, that those sketches are not hitting?

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:51Speaker 00

  Right? Or your crowd work.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  It's different on stage. It's just a different, it's a different.

• 1:15:54Speaker 00

  It's a different, you gotta learn it. So Bernie Mac was one. And, and I would say for me, when I was coming up in comedy, Mitch Hedberg.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, Mitch was fantastic.

• 1:16:04Speaker 00

  So, I was in love with Mitch. I was like, if we would just marry each other, we'd be a power couple.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  So you just loved him as a, did you look, because Mitch was operating on two frequencies. He was, he was like, you weren't sure if he was playing a character or this was truly him.

• 1:16:16Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  But you weren't looking at somebody who was being like the quintessential straight man.

• 1:16:21Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  He was different and he was on his own rhythm. And then he would have these jokes that seemed like they could come through a personality like he had. But he's operating on two, like, you could laugh at him without telling the jokes.

• 1:16:33Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  And Bernie had that too.

• 1:16:36Speaker 00

  That Bernie had it too. Uh, Bill Hicks.

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  Hicks.

• 1:16:39Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  Hicks was like structured, but he was.

• 1:16:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, but he was so intellectually.

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:44Speaker 00

  Sound, you know, because I'm old school. I'm watching comics. People said, well, did you realize you were a black female comic? No, I really believe that I'm an old Jewish comic from somewhere.

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  This is so, because when I came, all I was watching was Def Comedy Jam. That was my only real introduction to comedy.

• 1:17:00Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  I didn't really, I didn't, I never saw Seinfeld do stand up like I knew he had a TV show.

• 1:17:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  But that's all that was on TV for me.

• 1:17:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, see, I'm talking about old school, Lenny Bruce. You know, I'm talking about that old school.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  This is much older.

• 1:17:12Speaker 00

  Richard Pryor, I was in a room where Richard Pryor was in the room. And I just felt this energy pulling me and I felt like, don't do it. Because I'm like, have you ever been in a room? With, no, I just stood behind him. I stood behind him and just digested. No, same thing with Michael Jackson. When they were doing those rallies for Michael Jackson to protect him. And I was in one of those events, right? And sometimes you don't want to walk up to the person because you don't want to break that energy that's pulling you toward them. After the BET Comedy Awards, the first one, Eddie Murphy was in the room. And I ran up to him, but I stopped myself. He was wearing this cold blooded vanilla outfit, vanilla sweater, had to be cashmere,

• 1:17:56Speaker 00

  vanilla slacks, everything matched, right? And I almost reached out to touch him and I pulled back. I said, Mr. Murphy. And he said, I know exactly who you are, Cheryl. I was like, wow. You know, so when you, for me, I never want to intrude on someone's energy.

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  I get it.

• 1:18:12Speaker 00

  I would rather, even when I was going to the Republican conventions.

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:16Speaker 00

  And going to the DNC, icons in politics, you know, Bill Clinton, very sexual power.

• 1:18:24Speaker 01

  You felt it.

• 1:18:24Speaker 00

  Hell, yeah. Hell, I used to tell the story about, I put my hand out, drawers just fell down. I was like, what the fuck? I should have wore slacks.

• 1:18:34Speaker 00

  Because it's, it's, some people just have this energy.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:38Speaker 00

  And, and this pull to you. And I think people need to respect, you know, I know people want to run up and take selfies and do some, sometime, respect that.

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  Gotta respect the energy.

• 1:18:48Speaker 00

  Respect the energy.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  Especially if you really respect the person.

• 1:18:50Speaker 00

  Absolutely, and it's not like we don't want to, how many people walk up to you and want to take a picture? And they don't care what you're doing?

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  A bunch, I, I'll be honest, like, as long as, in my, in my experience, people have been very respectful. If I'm with my kids or whatever, like, they're almost like embarrassed to ask, like, I know you're with your family, would it be possible?

• 1:19:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  And if you approach it that energy, I'm so like...

• 1:19:09Speaker 00

  That's how I feel.

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  I'm, because you're basically going, I know that you're having a moment with your family, but if it's possible, and every single time, if I can, I will.

• 1:19:18Speaker 00

  When I first did Def Comedy Jam, and I said, I told my dad, I said, people were walking up to me, they wanted to talk to me. And he said, well, how many black people do you know will be able to talk to someone they saw on TV, heard on the radio, saw in a movie?

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  Great perspective.

• 1:19:32Speaker 00

  Respect that.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:34Speaker 00

  But he also said, no matter who the person is, talk to everybody like you're talking to Jesus and you can't go wrong.

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 1:19:39Speaker 00

  Uh, secondarily, your job is no better or no worse, but respect what other people do for a living, and respect their time.

• 1:19:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:48Speaker 00

  So for me, and I, I'm a female comic who's very male-directed, I'm very patriarchal. That's why my sets were constricting. When I first started doing comedy, women were popping out of my show like the Great Puck, and I'm not sucking no man, dick, I'm not. And I'm like, but that's why you're sitting by yourself.

• 1:20:06Speaker 00

  Or that's why you're mad that your man is talking to me, because I'm not pretty, like, you know?

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  Lies, lies.

• 1:20:13Speaker 00

  Well, I'm not, I'm not the stereotypical aesthetic attractiveness. I'm more intellectual, I'm more energy-driven, I'm more, like, I can talk sports and politics and current events, but I'm also...

• 1:20:26Speaker 01

  You're wifey.

• 1:20:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I know, okay, now that's the question then, let's ask the question. Then if I am that, then why can't I find... Him.

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  You gotta let them get it out their system.

• 1:20:38Speaker 00

  What do you mean?

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, like when you're young, when guys are young, they wanna wear the cape. You know what I mean? They wanna fly around a little bit and have some fun. But like eventually, you don't want like some 23 year old sitting next to you on vacation. Just scrolling your fucking phone the whole time. You're like, I'd rather shoot myself in the head. I want something that I can enjoy and have fun with and loves to do that thing you love to do.

• 1:20:59Speaker 00

  Well, but here's the catch. I think that some men, absolutely. And I would like, okay, depends on how long you want this to be. If you want it one night, you can have it all one night, but I'll never talk to you again.

• 1:21:12Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  What is it? We didn't build nothing. What is this? You wanna hit it and quit it? I'll show you what hit and quit it is. And they usually look all pitiful. You know, that's why I sneak out of rooms. They looking sad. I thought we were gonna, no, you said.

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  I see why the guy in Japan was having a hard time.

• 1:21:30Speaker 00

  Right, but you said, you just want, you said, you said, you just want this. Okay, I'm gonna give you what you said you wanted.

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  Most, most guys are not used to a woman being as like upfront with what she wants as you are.

• 1:21:43Speaker 00

  Well, it's rarely what I want. I will trade a man.

• 1:21:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:47Speaker 00

  Intimate, I will trade you, for me to get intimacy.

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:51Speaker 00

  In my past, I would trade you an action for intimacy.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  And now you're not gonna do that anymore.

• 1:21:59Speaker 00

  I try not to.

• 1:22:02Speaker 00

  Next ticket.

• 1:22:05Speaker 00

  I was in 50,000 dollar next ticket. I gotta do something. Exchange ain't no robbery.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Hardwood for hardwood.

• 1:22:14Speaker 00

  And I'm not doing it for the tickets. I'm doing it to show my appreciation. That you would consider me worthy of being taken on the floor. Where I get to slap Spike Lee and go, man, look at this.

• 1:22:28Speaker 00

  But I, I would like a man to understand, while standup comedy is very strong.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:35Speaker 00

  It's very sexual thing to do when a woman is doing it. I want to be your companion. I want to be your wife. I want to pick up the dry cleaning. I want to cook when I come home.

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  That's a, that's a tricky combo for you. Cause you need a guy who is not intimidated by your strength and your leadership and your intelligence and like the straight talk that you do.

• 1:22:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  But at the same time is confident enough to lead you in certain times? And are you confident enough to let them lead is the question?

• 1:23:06Speaker 00

  Absolutely. If you come to me as a man,

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:10Speaker 00

  Maybe a traditional man, but if you come to me as a man,

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  You're gonna let it happen.

• 1:23:14Speaker 00

  Then I'm like, oh, this dude is thorough. He got it. Okay, you ready? It doesn't matter race, it doesn't matter age, doesn't matter station in life. However long I got on this earth, I wanna find somebody I can build with that understands. This is my job. I'm going to do my job. I'm not sleeping with everybody on the road. I'm not doing all this stuff. Matter of fact, I can't wait to come home to you. And most people don't understand, when you do stand-up comedy, you're quiet. Well, you don't wanna talk to me.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  I've been talking.

• 1:23:46Speaker 00

  I've been talking. And all this adrenaline is running through my body after the show. So I wanna call somebody, how was the show, baby? It was good, this, this, this, this. Do you miss me? Of course I miss you. Bitch, when your flight land? I'm looking for that guy that understands. You have a job, so do I.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:03Speaker 02

  What has been the nature of your relationship history lately? Have you been dating?

• 1:24:06Speaker 00

  Um, well, I guess you gotta go outside to date. And I'm kind of a homebody, kinda reclusive.

• 1:24:16Speaker 00

  But if somebody would ask me out, most, for the past few decades, most men just kinda stare at me or gaze at me. And I think they think I have somebody. So they don't, they don't ask me. They don't, they don't talk, they don't go, so, so after the show, would you like to go out for coffee?

• 1:24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're probably intimidated.

• 1:24:35Mark Gagnon?

  You sound like an incel.

• 1:24:40Speaker 00

  But I, I think, see, I've heard that from women. They're just intimidated by your success and your power and your education. I don't know a real man who's intimidated.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  There's not a lot of real guys.

• 1:24:50Speaker 00

  Well, that's right. A real man looks at me as an asset.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:24:54Speaker 00

  If you're quiet as a man, but you're still a strong man.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  That's expensive though, Cheryl. That's what makes them assets.

• 1:25:01Speaker 00

  What do you mean?

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  Assets are expensive. You buy an asset, a home is an asset. Assets are expensive.

• 1:25:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, but what if we build a...

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  You ever seen a man buy a home? You know how intimidating that is?

• 1:25:11Speaker 00

  What? It's fun.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  It ain't fun. When you go and get a loan from the bank and they tell you how, oh, God, it's so much. Got to pass inspection. That is intimidating.

• 1:25:19Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  Nah, get in the hotel room for a night.

• 1:25:22Speaker 00

  That's, that's easy. But see, to me, I, I go into it as, okay, what do I need to have this? What I need to have is, okay, check it out, check it out. Then I send in my lawyer and I send in my accountant and I go, okay, don't come back without it. And then let's go. And I do my job. But see, to me, that's the kind of guy, but that he's more traditional.

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  Well, that's what you end up with then.

• 1:25:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, somebody that's more traditional, somebody that understands. I, I want somebody that I can talk to about things and go, did you hear this? Did you hear that? And then somebody that understands. I don't know everything.

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:56Speaker 00

  I may project leadership, but I want you to teach me something.

• 1:25:59Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:26:00Speaker 00

  Uh, change tire. Uh, let's talk about cryptocurrency, which I don't understand.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, nobody, nobody does.

• 1:26:06Speaker 00

  See, I think it's speculation.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  It is all speculation.

• 1:26:08Speaker 00

  If you can get your money in there, you know? But see, to me, this is what I wish people would understand about comics.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:14Speaker 00

  We have to know a lot about everything.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:17Speaker 00

  And then we have to keep working. And then we have to find other revenue streams, making content. So that's why, you know, I'm doing a Great American Talent Search because I want to bring back the variety show type structure and take it all over America. That's going to be my next tour.

• 1:26:31Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:26:32Speaker 00

  After we do this. Because I think there's a way to merge my daytime persona with the person they saw on the roast.

• 1:26:38Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:26:39Speaker 00

  Right? And do it all over the country and then turn it to maybe a TV show vehicle. Uh, but anything is talent. But if you sing or if you are in a singing group, you have to master the pass. Classic rock, classic country, classic soul, classic hip hop.

• 1:26:55Speaker 01

  Love that.

• 1:26:55Speaker 00

  Classic Latin. So you have to do some old school stuff that we, because nostalgia works.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:27:01Speaker 00

  But if you're a young person doing it, or if you're the white fire department somewhere doing new edition. See, that's gonna bring America together. And they got gospel plays that, you know, we're putting on college campuses, you know, PWIs, HBCUs, community colleges, because I think people need to learn both sides of the entertainment business. You think you wanna be a performer, but maybe you're not the performer.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  Maybe you're a director, maybe you're a writer.

• 1:27:24Speaker 00

  That's right, that's right, maybe you're audio.

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:26Speaker 00

  Right?

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:27Speaker 00

  So, and then I wanna try to do something that brings jobs back to California. Cause we just wanna drive to work and come home and sleep in our own beds.

• 1:27:35Speaker 01

  There's a lot, there's a lot that needs to change for that to happen. You're talking about entertainment jobs, right?

• 1:27:39Speaker 00

  Yes, how so?

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  I think the like, the easiest way of looking at it is to just say, oh, the unions are doing this, or the city is making that. I think that probably the more nuanced way to look at it is that, um, for a long time, making a movie in a place like California was not only the easiest, but also the best. Like you had the most talented crews there. And when I say the crews, I mean like the lighting guys, the audio guys, whatever. And then, as equipment got less expensive, and as people got trained in other parts of the world, they could start to be competitive. Like, you saw what Tyler did in Atlanta.

• 1:28:18Speaker 00

  Yes, in Atlanta, right.

• 1:28:19Speaker 01

  And like, that's working within politics, like getting these tax rebates and all those other things. And like, there are other places in America that did it, and there's other places internationally. Like, we just did this movie, Street Fighter, remember the video game? So, we shot that in Australia, and I think it's like 60% off to shoot it out there.

• 1:28:36Speaker 00

  But why can't, first, the right political leadership, the right financial structure?

• 1:28:42Speaker 01

  So, I think what has to happen is like, there's gotta be like an incentive, incentive structure. And like, I think the easiest version of it is to just be, just to like, point fingers and blame.

• 1:28:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:53Speaker 01

  But, there's another part where you just go, okay, like California's been incredibly successful and prolific in making like film and TV for a while. Now, other places can make high-level film and TV. So, maybe California goes, okay, in order for us to stay competitive, we'll have to change something.

• 1:29:08Speaker 00

  That's right, it's gonna have to be a paradigm shift.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  That's the free market economy, like that's kinda how it works.

• 1:29:13Speaker 00

  But if you bring a budget to, if you, if I wanna make a movie, and you bring a budget, and California says, okay, you do that here, and we're gonna help you pay to do that here. I think people have to understand, there's so much, the, the people that I worked with on the talk... The greatest people in the world. So when I got to the roast and I saw the same people I worked with at the top, I felt safe.

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  You're like, oh, wow, these people are.

• 1:29:38Speaker 00

  Yes, that's my cameraman. That's my, that's my teleprompter person.

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  That's what you, that's, I mean, like.

• 1:29:43Speaker 00

  It's trust.

• 1:29:44Speaker 01

  We're going, like, I'm going to film a movie out in California this summer.

• 1:29:48Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  And like, I would imagine it's one of like a handful of bigger budget movies that, that are gonna be filmed there, which is good.

• 1:29:57Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:29:57Speaker 01

  Cause there's nothing about this movie where you need to film it there.

• 1:30:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  It was decision made where they're like, we're gonna make this here.

• 1:30:07Speaker 00

  But did you have to do reasonably priced other places to get to the money, the finance money?

• 1:30:13Speaker 01

  I, I would imagine there was like good financing behind the movie.

• 1:30:18Speaker 00

  Can I tell you something? Honestly, uh, not because, I apologize.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  No, go, please, yeah.

• 1:30:22Speaker 00

  But, okay, so while I was working at the top and I have people that like, I'll write the three to five pages and then I'll hand it off to somebody and go, just give me a script. Doesn't have to be perfect. Why? Cause the first draft is not the last draft. So I have all these scripts. You go to agents, uh, get agency, they tell you why it's not good. Okay. But I just watched some stuff that this is horrible. So why, how did that get financed?

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  Good doesn't always mean it gets made.

• 1:30:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  So I think what happens, without going like too inside baseball, like I think what happens is like there are different networks that have objectives.

• 1:30:58Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30:58Speaker 01

  So they go, hey, we're gonna make a show for young adult males.

• 1:31:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  So you might have the best idea.

• 1:31:04Speaker 00

  That's what my animated vehicle is, is for young adult males.

• 1:31:07Speaker 01

  So then, then your agent's gotta find a streamer that is looking for something for young adult males. But if you're a streamer that's like, we're looking for 24 to 40 women.

• 1:31:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:31:18Speaker 01

  And you present them that, they might think it's amazing and they might go, it's just not what we're looking for. And they might choose a shittier project.

• 1:31:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  That actually fits their demo.

• 1:31:27Speaker 00

  Right. But for me, now for people that say, you sold out by agreeing to do a Netflix special.

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  Why is that selling? What's the argument for that?

• 1:31:35Speaker 00

  Uh, because there are people who believe that we just. Sat there and took the beat down of our culture for money from Netflix. But what what I want people to understand is this is the business we're in. I was called to do a job. I believe I did the job while I also defended the culture and defended American humor.

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  Couldn't you also say like just being up there is representative of the like the culture isn't one thing I would imagine. It's just like saying like Latinos, their culture is just salsa. It's like, it's not just that.

• 1:32:07Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  And like you being on that stage and having that prolific set and being the talk of the industry.

• 1:32:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:32:15Speaker 01

  You could make an argument that that's a huge contribution from the culture.

• 1:32:20Speaker 00

  That's what I would want people to see and to see.

• 1:32:23Speaker 01

  Well, that's what that's what will stick like the controversy lasts for a few weeks.

• 1:32:26Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  And then goes away. So it's like your longevity after this moment is the culture's longevity.

• 1:32:31Speaker 00

  It's opportunities, opportunities. I wouldn't have these opportunities now.

• 1:32:35Speaker 01

  You don't think these other you don't think these other streamers are seeing what you do, what you did right there? And they see that you get a deal. And then let's say your Netflix special goes crazy. This is like the industry is a game to be second, not first.

• 1:32:47Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  So you don't think that they're having their board meetings going like, who's the next Cheryl? What if we could get another Cheryl?

• 1:32:53Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:32:54Speaker 01

  That's how it works. That's the game.

• 1:32:55Speaker 00

  It's like, it's like, it's like, um, do you want Cheryl? I can't get her.

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  We can't afford Cheryl.

• 1:33:01Speaker 00

  We can't afford her.

• 1:33:02Speaker 01

  Who is who is next?

• 1:33:04Speaker 00

  Or they'll say, get me a and then they'll then you get to a point.

• 1:33:08Speaker 01

  Create a lane. So that's.

• 1:33:09Speaker 00

  And that is the goal and the goal is for me.

• 1:33:12Speaker 01

  And that's what I think sometimes maybe is lost with like what Kevin's contribution has been.

• 1:33:18Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like Kevin's contribution to entertainment. And I think a lot of times maybe we're used to it because a lot of us grow up seeing black people in like these amazingly high positions in entertainment. In terms of like the comedians that we look up to or the actors, et cetera. But like that also needs to be maintained.

• 1:33:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  So like Kevin being.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  Acting and doing stand up, but also like doing all these advertisements. Like, think about what that, like, this is, again, we kind of get used to shit.

• 1:33:48Speaker 00

  Showing that we can do that.

• 1:33:50Speaker 02

  Being an investor, a business owner.

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  A business owner, but also like TMO will be like, I want the face of my company to be that black guy. Do you think forty years ago?

• 1:34:00Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:34:00Speaker 01

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:34:01Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  Do you think these companies forty years ago were, were a black, they're having a board meeting where they're like, can we make a black person the face of our network?

• 1:34:09Speaker 00

  Even now.

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  It's a Jimmy T. Morgan.

• 1:34:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, even now, but even now, but that's.

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  That's the shit that kind of gets lost a little. Not saying that we can't make things better. We should always try to make things better, but maybe there's a little focus where we look at like the success and I would hope that would also be celebrated in this moment.

• 1:34:26Speaker 00

  That's why I said you're not just a great comic, you're a hell of a businessman. Because that's what they did, something that makes something and continues to grow. When we had a black comedy explosion happen, did people think that one day there was not gonna be a WB? Where there was not gonna be a UPN?

• 1:34:44Speaker 01

  This is downstream from it and I don't know, then maybe that's why I get caught up and I'm like, I understand that like the reflexive nature, like you just react in a minute, in the moment to something, but like, when things explode, so many other people are given opportunities and make so much.

• 1:35:00Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  And it's, it's, you know, to me, like, I'm so grateful for like the people that, you know, really kind of put me on. So Charlamagne the God and then Rogan, it's like, they both.

• 1:35:08Speaker 00

  Charlamagne is where my book is being done.

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:35:11Speaker 00

  Under that, yeah. Yeah, and so for me, but here's the catch though, we're trying to get somewhere and then it's Cheryl before the roast? And then Cheryl after the roast, where now people are taking my call. Or now the Asians want to, okay, go out, this, this, this.

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  Look at all those opportunities. So it's like, that's, that's what these things can create.

• 1:35:30Speaker 00

  And prepared content, but now what we need, and I, I wish this for, I'm gonna say specifically female comics. It's not just you getting on, or it's not just you doing a movie. Okay, now we're gonna produce, now we're gonna make content, we're gonna make animated stuff. Not just for us, we're gonna make it for the marketplace, right? So we should be making sitcoms and movies. And then we should say, okay, you only gonna give me two hundred and fifty thousand? I'm gonna make the movie for two hundred and fifty thousand.

• 1:36:01Speaker 01

  Issa's show, she has like a micro drama, I think, or something like that. Have you heard about Issa Rae?

• 1:36:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  And it's getting like hundreds of millions of it like and again, it's a different metric that they're trying to understand because it's like sure form on your phone, whatever. But I'm saying like these-

• 1:36:14Speaker 00

  It's the thing, have you seen it? It's on your phone and it's always abroad that she meets up with the millionaire that wants to hide his identity and then somebody slaps her and he's on the phone going buy stock and put that bitch out of that, just slap my girl. But I thought you were the chauffeur and then it's, it goes for a minute or two and then you buy the other minute or two and I'm addicted to this stuff.

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  And again, this is like, big explosions create tons of opportunities for other people and I get the reaction, I get and people have to feel whatever they want to feel. This is America. You were here in this country, you could feel whoever the fuck you want to feel and say whatever you want to say about it, that's the beautiful thing about it. But there is also, on top of that, there's also potentially when these moments are really successful, so many opportunities for other people that are aligned with these moments without even realizing it. And that is the cool payoff that I think happens over the next few years and then we forget about the controversy and then we just end up seeing-

• 1:37:15Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  When we were growing up, it was like you're watching the Wayans Brothers and you don't even realize how that might be downstream-

• 1:37:21Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:37:22Speaker 01

  -or something happened 10 years before.

• 1:37:23Speaker 00

  That's right. And how can we help each other?

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  Well, that's Calvinized, you know, this is the moment.

• 1:37:28Speaker 00

  This is the moment. That's why I'm coming around to talk to people that I would never have been able to talk to and say, oh, let's make this type of thing or how do I structure this or who would I come to finance it? That's my biggest problem with people that want to live in their own little silo. So if you don't step out of that silo, you will never understand why Netflix is now interested in Cheryl Underwood.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, you could have fought the other comedians at the roast. Or you can go on their shows, go on their podcasts, collaborate with them on projects.

• 1:37:58Speaker 00

  And to get to know them better because these are my colleagues.

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  Create a bunch of opportunities for people that you really love that might not be afforded those opportunities. Now you're in a position to shine some light on people.

• 1:38:07Speaker 00

  That's my job to open the door. That's why it's the leadership. Am I right? That's what I'm talking about.

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  Cheryl Underwood, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for being here. You're awesome.

• 1:38:18Speaker 00

  This was fun. So let's figure out how we gonna make some money.

• 1:38:21Speaker 01

  I think we need to do that.

• 1:38:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, we need to make some money.

• 1:38:23Speaker 01

  I think we absolutely need to do that.

• 1:38:25Speaker 04

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.