Episode 204: Happy Freedom Day! (with Lauren Anderson)

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad and psychologist Dave Pizarro having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say and knowing my dad some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] It all takes place at a strip club. Two gang bangers hold a pastor, a drug dealer and a pregnant teen hostage in the middle of Hurricane Katrina. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:20] Dave, yesterday Trump incited a mob of his supporters to storm the US Capitol to try to overturn the election. What's wrong with us? It was either that or Kanye West getting divorced. I was pushing for that.

[00:01:40] There are times Tamler in one's life when one has to take a real step back and distract oneself with meaning of shit because we both texted each other yesterday. We were actually supposed to record yesterday, right? And it's a little heavy right now.

[00:01:58] We're recording this on Thursday the day after. Like you said, we were going to record yesterday, but that was right at the time when the Capitol was being overrun. So anyway, this was yesterday, today's Thursday. This episode will drop on Tuesday.

[00:02:13] Sometimes I have to tweet out, oh, we recorded this five days ago after the storming of the Capitol, but before blank. What do you think the blank would be if I have to tweet that out? Wow, that's a good question.

[00:02:28] You know, it's hard for me to sometimes disentangle forecasting from wish casting because I want it to be that Trump is declared incompetent because even like one of the things you just told me before we started recording sounds like the guy is doing a full Colonel Kurtz.

[00:02:49] He's just like full on lost it, right? He's like a hold up in the White House shaving his head and like, you know, slaughtering a fucking will to be through it. No, I do think he's lost it.

[00:03:00] Like that's what the 25th Amendment is for is like if they're incompetent to run the country. Actually, this gets me a real, real pertinent question. Are you willing to declare mental illness real illness for the sake of the 25th Amendment? That's a good question, right?

[00:03:17] Yeah, you know, it's a cost to just recognize the reality of certain mental illnesses like extreme narcissism. But is that your prediction of what will happen? Actually no, I realistically don't think it will happen.

[00:03:33] You know, I can't I'm not creative enough to think of any of the shit that's been happening to really predict what's going to happen. Like I suspect that what's going to happen is business as usual and people will ignore

[00:03:43] it and people will continue to blame Antifa and try to shirk responsibility. I feel like nothing's going to happen. But, you know, I don't know. Do you have any predictions? No, I was going to say roughly the same thing.

[00:03:55] Like how the fuck could you possibly predict if that's Antifa? They are some of the best actors in America today because they sure looked like Trump supporters like out of. It's a very, it's a very recognizable aesthetic. Right. Like they must have had a full on costume designer.

[00:04:12] Yeah, you know, one of the things I said sort of in the spirit of what you were saying, which is funny and sad, you know, and I was actually pretty angry about what was going on and upset.

[00:04:21] But the only thing I could manage to like tweet out was that these are some corny looking motherfuckers. These like these are some real. I was trying not to laugh at them because they're rioting, you know, their storm. But yeah.

[00:04:35] But they looked like they could, you know, what like a Saturday Night Live writer would think like a NASCAR infield looks like or something like that, you know? And they were like hats with beer cosies. There's some real questions as to the cops.

[00:04:52] A why they weren't prepared for this. This was not the hardest thing in the world to predict that something like that would happen and they just didn't have anywhere near the numbers. But then also like they were treating them with kid gloves

[00:05:06] until the very end where they finally just said, OK, you guys got to get the fuck out. Yeah. So like the difference between protests turning violent, I think usually is is the cops responses to the vandalism and the violence of the writers.

[00:05:21] And here it was just I saw one of my the favorite things I read yesterday was somebody tweeted, everybody's asking where are the cops? Do you really ask where Miley Cyrus is when Hannah Montana is performing? Right.

[00:05:36] Right. I mean, you have to think that some of them have a lot of sympathy with what they're doing. Yeah, they were taking selfies and shit. You know, it was not a good showing. That was not. I mean, like I, you know, whatever the irony is,

[00:05:48] this is more like how you would want cops to act in a protest. That's right. That's what, you know, I saw somebody's, you know, some black dude on Twitter like tweeted something out and said, basically like, look, let's make this clear.

[00:06:02] We're not asking you to like bash in their skulls. We're asking you to treat us the same way that you're treating them, right? Which it seems again, like I think that they should have been arresting everybody and zip tying everybody.

[00:06:12] So there's a but there's a happy medium there. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing how few people got arrested, how just open they were about everything. I think they were genuinely genuinely surprised even to the extent that they were kind of manhandled or like tear gas or pepper sprayed.

[00:06:28] Like they were surprised that that even happened. Yeah. I mean, I just I really don't understand how, you know, there's plenty of political discussion about this and I don't want to dive, do a deep dive, partly because I don't have the energy to do it right now.

[00:06:40] But it I was just shocked at the pictures of people like in Pence's chair, right? Like any any other protest this past summer that person would have gotten their skull bashed in. Like I cannot. It just seems so weird to me that police weren't rushing them

[00:06:58] and batoning them and getting them out of there. And Nancy Pelosi's office just enough to take that guy. That's a that's an immortal picture. That's an individual photo. Like when people do the year in review, there's no way that picture isn't isn't being.

[00:07:13] Yeah. Well, we should say, by the way, that in the second part of this episode, we are going to talk with the legendary Lauren Anderson, the first black ballerina at a major ballet company in America and whose shoes are in the Smithsonian. Whose shoes are in the Smithsonian.

[00:07:32] She's also a good friend of mine, a really good friend of my wife's. And we talk about the Atlanta episode, Juneteenth. That's what we'll be talking about. One of the great episodes of television ever just so, so good. And we decided we wanted to talk about it,

[00:07:50] but we thought it'd be a good idea to get some lived experience. And I think Lauren has plenty of that when it comes to these kinds of things. She grew up in Houston. She is a black woman that is required to adopt many roles

[00:08:04] over the course of her career. So it was a nice discussion. And but before that, we have to get to the important things. Last thing on the or I don't know, maybe you have more to say about the the Capitol thing yesterday.

[00:08:15] But what a fucking like Ted Cruz. It's just hard to even fathom. It is like just so mind boggling. What a sniveling weasel he is. And for what? Like, what does he think this is? Does he think they're going to like him?

[00:08:34] Does he think anybody will not view him as just like just an odious little rat? This just with no self respect, who just is willing to humiliate himself over and over and over again in the least entertaining way possible.

[00:08:49] Like, what does he think is going to come of this? I really hope this is the end of whatever career Ted Cruz has had. He is Ted Cruz is a like a poorly written movie villain, like and not like the powerful villain,

[00:09:07] but like the guy who is his second in like worm tongue from the Lord of the Rings, like or like Ned Beatty and Superman. Do you remember like Lex Luthor's like? Yes. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah.

[00:09:22] It's like he said yes so much to like whoever zero honor, zero honor, not even it cannot be that that Trump respects him. Obviously, I don't think so. So he's just and Trump supporters don't respect him. Like they like nobody respects him. You can't respect him.

[00:09:39] He's the he has the least. He's the arguably the person in America that you should have the least respect for. Maybe there should be a people least respectable person of the year. And nobody comes certainly off the top of my head. I can't think of anybody.

[00:09:56] You just know that his hands are clammy when you shake them. He's that kind of a dude. Right. He just looks like how he is too. All right, enough of that. We'll see what happens. God knows this will already be old news.

[00:10:07] And speaking of old news, Bean Dad, a controversy that I would not have even known about probably like forever, like I would have gone to my grave if it hadn't been for you. Right. That's right. Because of what happened yesterday

[00:10:21] that sort of interrupted that new cycle, because I think it would have been it would have made its way to you eventually had it not been completely usurped by by more pressing news. But I thought it was just the sort of thing that you might

[00:10:34] he might get a kick out of talking about. So Bean Dad is is now unfortunately, infamously known as Bean Dad is a he's a rock musician from Seattle named John Roderick who actually does podcasts with people who I like and people who I even know.

[00:10:49] And so so I'm a little I'm a little bit biased in the favor of giving the guy a break. So the guy has like a comedic persona, right? It's it's shtick. But he tweeted a series of tweets describing

[00:10:59] a day that he had with his daughter when she said she was hungry and he said, why don't you open a can of beans, baked beans? And and she didn't know how to use the can opener. So he just let her figure it out on her own, like,

[00:11:13] and it took about six hours where where she was just essentially trying to open this can of beans. And the way that he described it was sort of being like an asshole, Dad. Like this was his, you know, the persona that he was adopting, at least.

[00:11:26] And the way that he described it upset a lot of people because you know, and I get it, I get why some people who have actually been abused or have seen actual abuse might have thought he was taking this kind of thing lightly.

[00:11:38] And if you don't know who he is and that he's like a comedic podcaster, then you might actually take it more seriously. And maybe I don't know, maybe it should be taken seriously. But he immediately got the fire of like the fucking fire

[00:11:50] and brain stone of all of Twitter. And importantly, so he doubled down a little bit in his responses to people who were telling him he's an asshole and he's abusive. But then people just dug through his Twitter history.

[00:12:03] This is the part that I knew you would like and found some attempts at humor from a few years ago that involved like use of racial slurs, anti-Semitic, like Jews ruin everything. You know, shit that I could be crucified for.

[00:12:18] Shit you say all the time, I was actually going to text you and say like, you should you better delete your Twitter history because I'm sure there's something I'm sure there's a lot of this stuff that's worse. Yeah.

[00:12:29] To like, to be fair, I mean, I think this is part of the lack of wisdom on his on his behalf. Like, you know, the way that you and I joke is something that that I hope

[00:12:38] is obvious in context that I would but I wouldn't write that on Twitter. Like, I know you can take us out of context, but but putting it on Twitter is just, you know, like a keyword search can reveal. I mean, yes, yes, right.

[00:12:51] I think like the medium is the message as Marshall McLuhan said. And there is a difference between doing this stuff on a podcast episode and there's a difference from doing it on Twitter. That said, who the fuck? Who who like, why would you search this guy's history?

[00:13:07] These guys are stranger who you don't even know. What are you doing? Like what kind of a life do you lead? What kind of a person are you that you go trying to dig up stuff and then say you're offended by it?

[00:13:19] Like this person you never knew existed. He's a total stranger. And he tells this story that for whatever reason you find deeply hurtful or you pretend to and then you do this. It's like for everyone who criticizes Pylon, like all the Pylon stuff and cancel.

[00:13:35] I don't even want to say this guy's been canceled because it's not clear that, you know, aside from losing a like whatever, they're not using his music on some ridiculous podcast. Like nothing else has happened to him. That's a huge podcast.

[00:13:48] But yeah, here's one of the the unfortunate consequences of this is this guy is a sort of, you know, he has this circle of internet personalities that he's associated with. And he does like four podcasts with four different people,

[00:14:05] one of whom I know you, you know, you know him a bit. Dan Benjamin, who's a Jew and who knows that this guy isn't anti-Semitic. Ken Jennings does a podcast with him. And Ken Jennings tweeted out a defense of him, maybe flippantly,

[00:14:19] maybe early on not knowing and how Ken Jennings is in danger of losing his ability to host jeopardy. Oh my God. And you know who number two is fucking George Steph? George Stephanopoulos. No, really? Yeah, I swear to God. Oh my God. So that's a huge deal.

[00:14:37] Like that would mean that I would be like right out there with, you know, Andrew Sullivan on Substack bitching about cancel culture. If because of this, it's George Stephanopoulos instead of Ken Jennings. I had heard LeVar Burton as a potential and like I love LeVar.

[00:14:56] LeVar Burton. So I wouldn't shed a tear about that. But still, man, to like for this, for this kind of like somebody digging up your previous Twitter history, which, you know, it's this is if if there is a theme of shit we talk about since the beginning,

[00:15:08] we've talked about since the beginning, this is this is one this moral busy body bullshit that people have, which is just a consequence of the perverted incentives that the internet that, you know, that social media has for

[00:15:20] for being the first one to find that he that he, you know, said something mildly offensive and just amplifying it. And if you're that one, like you get a ton of retweets and a ton of people being like, oh yeah, you know, it's just bullshit.

[00:15:33] How so let's go through it. So the initial story, like he tells this story, it's now deleted, but there are screenshots of it. If you want to find it, it's it's kind of hard to imagine that he thought this would be taken well.

[00:15:49] Like it's I mean, just the fact that like if the daughter is hungry, so you're going to like like beans, baked beans, like what the fuck? Like you can give her beans. Often I thought that's what you guys all ate.

[00:16:04] No, you know, give your and then like, yeah, OK, I get it. Like a nine year old maybe should be able to open a can of beans. And so he but you know, the way he's describing it and how frustrated she is and how like, you know,

[00:16:16] exasperated and hungry and makes it sound like he's kind of being a dick, not abusive and all of that. Like I so just that story and the way people responded to that. So here's one thing I have no sympathy for is

[00:16:30] even if you are a victim of abuse, but especially for the majority of people who aren't victims of abuse, like just all of a sudden judging this stranger based on one tweet thread that he is an abusive parent.

[00:16:44] Like you have no idea who this guy is or what he is because you want to make fun of him. Fine, it's a totally make funnable story. If you want to like ratio it and do all that shit and call him an asshole or whatever.

[00:16:56] But he's still like there's no possible way to draw any conclusions about him as a parent overall. Good. You don't know him. This is your all your evidence. So like even at that stage, I would think like there is making fun of this guy, calling him Bean Dad,

[00:17:15] making jokes about it. Totally fine. He put it out there in public. He put it out there on Twitter. He's going to have to eat shit. That's fine. Like, you know, that's how that's the way it goes. That's how it works.

[00:17:26] But this and then so my so that's my view. But I understand, I guess, if you have a visceral, but especially for the vast majority of people who just don't who really just wanted to be outraged. They want to express their moral condemnation for this, for nothing.

[00:17:44] I mean, they could have just waited a few days and they had they could just they would have endless things to express moral outrage about. It's like save your energy. I mean, there is I think a weird, you know,

[00:17:56] that if you were a standup comic and said this on stage, everybody would laugh. You know, there is a sort of an inability to read an audience when the audience that you have maybe on Twitter would understand it, but the ability to amplify it

[00:18:10] to all sorts of people in a decontextualized way. Like that's just it means that comedy on Twitter, I think is damn near impossible unless it's super vanilla comedy. I don't think that's true. I think there are very funny people on Twitter

[00:18:24] who say really kind of edgy things, but like it's it's more that that you you can't like Dave. There is a way in which if Dave Chappelle wrote down some of the things he said and tweeted them,

[00:18:38] he would get ratioed to death more than if he said him on stage. So I agree. There are plenty of funny people on Twitter. It's just you can't take for granted that people are going to read it as comedy.

[00:18:48] Like I'm not convinced, though, that this guy is funny based on like any of the things that I've seen. He's a funny guy if you listen to his podcast, but but it's but it didn't come through here. Like you know, like he was and he doubled down

[00:19:01] when people were saying, you know, he was just like, fuck you like whatever. This is just which. I think it's also appropriate. Like, yeah, yes, fuck. It's let's get to like, I think one of the biggest issues which is that he posted an apology and in fact,

[00:19:14] you could just Google John Roderick apology and you'll see or being data. What is or being that apology? And you'll see a very like, I don't know, long, pretty well thought out, not perfect apology by any. I would call it broodling and pathetic actually.

[00:19:33] Like I'm opposed to the apology, not for the not because I don't accept, but it just seems like groveling. He is a very left leaning woke person. So I think that the people who were angry at him, he felt like shit, these are supposed to be my people.

[00:19:55] And so what you read as groveling is not like, yeah, Bill Burr wrote this, it would be groveling. But this guy, this guy, these are the principles that he wants to adhere to like he wants to be a woke guy.

[00:20:07] And so it was a real like I'm a straight white male and like I shouldn't have said all these things. But regardless, I agree with you that public apologies like this. I didn't used to think this, dude. But I think from some research that I read

[00:20:22] and from just like seeing this shit, I don't think they work. I don't think that they do anything other than get people more angry at you. And that's, I think, what happened here. Like I think it's just shut. You should just not have said it.

[00:20:37] Well, I think like, yeah, I don't know if people got more angry or it was just another opportunity for them to like just pour on some new thing. I guess like I have a problem with it because there's nobody he should apologize to, you know what I mean?

[00:20:52] That's the thing. And here is like where I get almost almost Tamler like levels of restorative justice thinking where I really believe that what an apology ought to be is when you harm a person you care about

[00:21:05] or even a person that you didn't know you cared about, but like, you know that you've harmed them and you wish you hadn't. You go to that person and you apologize. Yeah. Here. Or you publicly apologize, but it's to a specific person like to a specific person

[00:21:17] who was legitimately harmed by you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, public apologies, I think are just PR. I just don't I don't like it. I actually think like, suppose that I said something that deeply offended you, which happens all the time. I wouldn't mind saying to our audience,

[00:21:37] I apologize to Tamler and is between us, but I don't get the right. I don't know. This is there's an amorphous audience that he has quote unquote harmed and he's tossing this out into the ether. And it's to me, it's just PR. It's bad PR.

[00:21:54] It's it's bad PR. I don't think it's wise. So I don't think it's prudent. It's not like it's not going to get the job done. But also just, I don't know, I have a kind of a moral look.

[00:22:05] This guy had people had no business getting this mad at him. People had business making fun of him. People had business being a dick to him, maybe on Twitter, but not getting all sanctimonious about anything that he said. And so there's nothing really to apologize for.

[00:22:25] And so and there's no person like you said to apologize to, whether it's in person or in public. It's just this amorphous mass of like sanctimonious Twitter like dicks. Yeah. And so like fuck them and don't apologize. Like is he really?

[00:22:45] I mean, he sounds really sorry, I guess, but I just, I don't know. I feel like this is something like if I'm about to do this, I would like you to stop. Well, that's what I was going to say is I understand his impulse.

[00:22:58] Like if I've hurt someone's feelings, like I feel like I feel like I really ought to. You know, so let me just read a little bit of it of his apology. He said, my language wasn't appropriate then or now.

[00:23:08] And reflecting on that has been part of my continuing education as an adult who wants to be a good ally. That education is ongoing and this experience will have a profound effect on the way I conduct myself throughout the rest of my life.

[00:23:17] I'm a middle-aged, middle class, straight white male, and I try to be cognizant of that and the responsibility my privileges entail and everything I do. In this case, it was precisely my privilege of not living in an abusive family,

[00:23:28] of not being a member of a community that routinely experiences real trauma that caused me to so grossly misjudge the impact of the language I chose. There's I get it, dude, but there is a way in which you are making real the hurt that you're accused of causing.

[00:23:40] And I don't think that that deserves. But I get it. I get the impulse like he quit Twitter in a huff panicked. And he probably the next day thought that this was the right move. Legitimizes all that the outrage and like,

[00:23:54] I guess I don't think it should be legitimized, but it's not maybe his job to like worry about whether this stuff is legitimized. So I wanted to ask you if I got canceled hardcore like this in public, like if somebody said like the anti-semitism has gone too far.

[00:24:11] Yeah, would you keep doing a podcast with me? Or would you be like, I would. I would. Like I say that like sincerely and I feel like I that's, you know, I have a lot of faults in my character, but bowing to this kind of pressure.

[00:24:26] I don't think is one of them. You never know until you're in that, you know. Yeah, I know you don't end. Here's a here's a response to the apology. And like this is exactly what I just find so reprehensible. So this is from somebody named Edgar Allen, bitch.

[00:24:48] That's what she calls herself on Twitter. She says, I assume it was she there's a photo of her. This is the other thing. It's like you're these are all fucking anonymous people. Who knows who these people are? Here's why I don't trust being dad's apology.

[00:25:01] He's who gives a fuck if you trust it or not. Like he says all the right words. And I really want to take it at face value. Want is in all caps. Like, oh, sure you do. Sure you want to.

[00:25:13] Like me like only you could take it at face value. But he also talks about how the persona he quote created isn't who he really is. And he makes sure to tell us that he and his child laughed a lot during the bean ordeal.

[00:25:27] I don't believe you create an abusive parent persona by accident. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like it's unbelievable. Like how can you not just have a life? Just watch a movie. Do something with your life. Do something interesting or enriching. It's mind boggling to me.

[00:25:44] This is what I mean, honestly, if you were just if you were just in it for likes and retweets, you would have a pretty decent time just like looking around and and being getting offended by somebody's in some cases.

[00:26:01] I don't even believe that these people are actually offended. Oh, I think yes. Definitely not. I think and actually this goes let's take a break. But I want to ask you a question that also that ties to that and that ties to

[00:26:17] the thing that happened yesterday, the storming of the capital, the insurrection. So let's take a break and I'll ask you that. It's like radio. It's like a teaser. Insert car commercial. Today's episode is brought to you once again by Givewell.

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[00:28:58] this episode. One of the things we were talking about was the sincerity of the people who were outraged. And this relates to something I wanted to say about the another tweet that someone made about what happened yesterday, the insurrection or the coup

[00:29:20] or whatever conceptual analysis you wanted to do of what happened yesterday. But before we get there, I just want to say that we were talking about public apologies and there is like a one famous one that we've talked about which is Dan Harmon's apology to

[00:29:36] the writer that he harassed when he was the showrunner at Community. And that was public, he also did it privately, but it was to a specific person who was sincerely and genuinely harmed by

[00:29:50] him. And that's why I think that was both necessary and so effective is he really went into it. And another thing he did it on the podcast, he didn't release a statement. I

[00:30:02] think if you release a statement, it already sounds kind of bullshit. Whereas if you actually say it. That like releasing a statement really makes me wonder whether it was a PR company that you hired.

[00:30:15] Again, that Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message. Like, you know, if you do it on a podcast where you're speaking and you like people can tell if you sound genuine, if you are

[00:30:23] really but you can't make that clear in a statement. And the fact that so many celebrities have released statements where they apologize is just like, yeah, I don't know.

[00:30:34] But the thing is, you know, like in that case, she can decide whether she wants to accept it. And I believe she did is the story. And then everybody can be like, okay, that's cool. But

[00:30:44] that everybody takes it upon themselves to be able to like, I'm not accepting Bean Dad's apology. Like who the fuck are you? Exactly. But this is why you don't apologize and the fuck are you to accept his apology or not? Like you're just some anonymous

[00:30:57] person. You don't even have your real name on Twitter. No. Again, stop me from doing it. Like smother me in the sleep. Well, I would stop you once I saw you starting to tweet

[00:31:09] what about father you were? I'd probably call you that. That's the thing. Like if I tweeted, like, you know, that I watched Chinatown with my daughter when she was 10 or something and everyone started piling on on Twitter, like I would eat shit for a couple of days.

[00:31:23] And then, but there's no way I would apologize to anybody. Like, you know, yeah, like only if you actually harmed your daughter, would you apologize? Like maybe this guy owed his daughter an apology. You know, maybe. Maybe. He doesn't seem to think that he did.

[00:31:36] And I don't know. Like it does a weird, it's a bit of a weird story. It is a weird story. He's a weird guy. Like he's, he's honestly odd, odd dude. You are, you know, he's not for everyone. This is the thing, you know, Twitter makes

[00:31:49] your audience include people who would never be drawn to your personality. Right. There's no curation there. So here's the thing I wanted to ask you before we went to the break. So there was a tweet by someone named Jonathan Blanks, who I don't know. He was talking

[00:32:11] about a Brett Stevens column that said like, we have to impeach Trump now. And Brett Stevens is one of these never Trumpers. He also had a little mishap with Twitter when he got into like a Twitter

[00:32:24] fight with somebody and then sent him an email and CC'd the provost of the, because it was a guy who was an professor. Remember that? He CC'd the provost. He's just like a snitch. He's just switching about, uh, Gansu culture. Like he CC'd the provost, like a little,

[00:32:41] like a little seven year old telling the teachers, unbelievable. And that was like a pile on that I could, you know, get behind. I wouldn't like contribute to it, but like, anyway, so he, so here's

[00:32:54] what Jonathan Blanks says. The last people I want to hear from are the number of Trumpers who fought Trump's culture wars for him. They are complicit even if cluelessly so. And then he says

[00:33:07] later in the thread to clarify, if you've spent the last four to five years complaining about woke SJW or 1619 folks, you were doing Trump a favor, whether or not you personally supported him.

[00:33:20] So, you know, this is targeting, I think some of the people that we often are not happy with, the people who overblow cancel culture or, you know, woke culture or whatever. But I like,

[00:33:35] and at first when I saw this, I was kind of like, it's kind of true. They have made everybody think that like PC communists have taken over all the universities and the media. And they've done it

[00:33:48] maybe at times cynically, but, but, but I don't know like that I hold them in any way culpable for yesterday, but I wanted to know what you thought of it.

[00:34:01] It's a tough question. You know, there is a subreddit called, am I the asshole? And the way that it works is people post like a genuine question like this happened, am I the asshole? And the rules

[00:34:11] are that you have to either respond with NTA, which means not the asshole or you're the asshole, YTA. Yeah. But there's a third option, which is everybody sucks here. Yeah.

[00:34:22] And that third option is the way I feel about this stuff. Like, do I want to blame like some of the IDW folks? They did throw fuel on the fire. Like the ability for some people to point to the sort

[00:34:33] of centrist IDW folks for legitimizing some of their, you know, preferences. Yeah. I'm sure it had an effect. Now, I don't know if it had an effect on those corny ass motherfuckers in the Trump, you know, beanies, but they're certainly like it didn't help. Now I, but the

[00:34:54] thing is like, you know, the reason I say everybody sucks here is because I don't like those people either. Like a lot of them I don't like, like a lot of the super, I don't know, maybe people

[00:35:05] put me in this category, but the super SJWs. Yeah. Like the super woke that are looking for offense in the way that we just were talking about are people who I think make

[00:35:14] our culture shit too. So it's a hard one. Like you have to pick your battles and I've fallen on the side of, I would rather be lumped into the SJW folks because even if they suck, like there,

[00:35:27] they are fighting for something that in general I'm more likely to agree with than the people who are the anti-woke crowd. But I don't like this country. I don't like any of this, you know, this culture. These culture wars are draining. They're terrible. Yeah. Like if you're talking

[00:35:42] about like the Weinsteins, like I don't know about them. Like I don't know how seriously to take their shtick. I know that certain people like Andrew Sullivan, as misguided as I think he is, like he really believes that critical race theory has taken over all universities and

[00:36:02] like most of the media. And while I think that's batshit crazy, I also think that he believes it. And if he believes it, then you know, it's hard to hold him responsible for some

[00:36:17] collateral effects of that even if like I don't read him anymore and I've, you know, and I think it's ludicrous. So I guess if I think that you really buy the bulls that bullshit, then

[00:36:32] you know, and this is true even of like that some of the Trump supporters like I think some of them, I think a lot of them really believe this election was rigged and stolen. And like that

[00:36:42] doesn't justify breaking into the capital, but it justifies being really mad and being really, you know, it's like this is part of living in this new world where there's no objective authority to trust. And so people are going to be benighted and misguided. I'm sure we are a

[00:37:00] lot of the time too. Like that's just, you know, there's going to be that's that's the destructive effects of that. I don't think it's like their fault. Yeah, well, so here's the thing. I mean, there is there's like sort of causal blame and there's

[00:37:14] moral blame. And it may be the case that people start off. I mean, look sort of how James Lindsay went off the deep end there. People start off sort of pissed off at like

[00:37:24] some of the shit we make fun of, right? Like those crazy ass papers that get published and like stuff that that is obviously ridiculous. Now, we might disagree about its influence on universities in general, but we know some of that's ludicrous. So if they start there,

[00:37:38] because that's where their anger is, it's easy to see how they might get drawn like more and more in one direction. And I think this happens on both sides. Yeah, I so they might actually be causally to blame for bringing a lot of say young men

[00:37:56] into the like Trump spheres. I don't think that they deserve the moral blame in the sense that some of the more reasonable ones are actually making some decent points about like the ludicrousness

[00:38:10] of these these ideas. But you know, some people just are like the conspirators are just wrong. Like I want to believe that they're just wrong. Like I'm trying so hard to hold on to some

[00:38:23] epistemic clarity and some. Well, it's like it's easy to think that James Lindsey is wrong. Like he really has become like a QAnon person essentially except substitute like Hillary Clinton or with like critical race theory. But but yeah, I think you're right. I think sometimes

[00:38:43] I see it happening with myself on a micro level where at first you're just sort of joking around and making fun of something and a little irritate or even just irritated by it.

[00:38:52] And then you start to magnify its importance. But yeah, like I have to make it's like we have to make a real decision about what we're going to let anger us more. Right? And like because

[00:39:05] so much and publicize and like make a big thing. I mean the thing that like when you're talking about like the Weinstein's they've profited off this they've made themselves millionaires off of this stuff. And so when that's true and like that's probably that's true for a lot

[00:39:19] of them. Like this is a big money generator and you and I always joke about how like we could make more money if we just joined the IDW and started bitching about like intersectionalism or whatever.

[00:39:30] So that adds this element of well, like you're just doing this to profit for profit but and look what happens. People take you seriously and then like but again I think

[00:39:44] it's more it's weirder than that. I think it maybe starts that way but then you start to really believe it. You start to believe what you're selling and you start to get really emotionally

[00:39:53] invested in what you're selling. And so yeah. Yeah, the best thing is just to not believe anything and not care about anything. This is nihilist. This is the sort of apathetic

[00:40:05] comfort zone that I like to inhabit till fucking shit forces me to vote. Lie on the floor and listen to old bowling games through your headphones. Exactly. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. This world

[00:40:24] is a shit show. Before we take a real break, I asked Tamler to let me say a few words about the rapper MF Doom who passed away. It was only announced on New Year's Eve but he passed away

[00:40:41] on October 31st so he'd been dead for a couple months. And normally I'm not gonna want to take up time talking about my sentimental life but he was my favorite artist and he was a

[00:40:56] I think the most creative person I've ever heard rap and he took up a lot of my time and energy. I have a room full of MF Doom shit. If anybody has listened to my beats and liked them,

[00:41:09] there's an undeniable influence of his work and you know I used to when I taught in real life in person, my big intro side class that has sometimes up to a thousand kids, I would have a my desktop

[00:41:23] computer on my computer was a picture of MF Doom, a cover of his album and for the last eight years it's been so nice to get to tell. Here people say like I saw this picture on your

[00:41:37] laptop and because of that I went and looked up who this was and now like they've become like true, true deep fans and a lot of those people emailed me the night that he died and it was

[00:41:46] announced that he died and I was sad man and like I don't have much to say other than art really matters and it like really can change people's lives in a way that is

[00:41:59] it's just one of the few pleasures in this life during this day and age is the power that an artist can have over you so it's a rest in peace MF Doom and thank you for listening.

[00:42:10] Yeah nice yeah yeah and so instead of like piling on this next person and digging through their tweets like appreciate all great artists yeah listen to MF Doom. All right speaking of great

[00:42:23] artists we will be back to talk about an episode by one of our great artists Donald Glover from his great series Atlanta. This episode of Very Bad Wizards is brought to you once again

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[00:44:56] welcome back to Very Bad Wizards this is the time in the show that we like to take a moment to thank all of our supporters all of our listeners everybody who's contacted us with their various

[00:46:02] ideas suggestions praise and complaints we appreciate it all and we again read every single one of them unfortunately don't aren't disciplined enough to reply to them all but we appreciate

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[00:47:23] yeah I don't think so I haven't seen it anyway but I think subscribing is good for us in some way yeah because then we'll maybe Spotify we'll see how awesome we are and we'll offer some Joe

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[00:48:23] there are four volumes of Dave's beats on there and um and then for two dollars and up per episode you will get bonus episodes and we just released one in fact um we were we're on

[00:48:37] Atlanta kick and we did an episode just uh dropped a few days ago on Teddy Perkins kind of horror short film um where laquith stanfield shines and donald glover shines although you would never

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[00:50:03] always to live up to it absolutely and buy t-shirts buy t-shirts that's right those amazing t-shirts i got my cotton bureau um hoodie which i hadn't gotten that was the one thing i hadn't gotten

[00:50:15] and so now i've i'm all decked out my family's all decked out it's great all right um let's turn to our interview well it's not really an interview it's our conversation about atlanta's

[00:50:30] episode juneteenth and our guest for today i'm really happy to have her on it's lauren anderson now just a little introduction to lauren for all you philistines in our listenership who may

[00:50:44] not be familiar with her she is a former ballet dancer for houston ballet she danced there for 23 years and in 1990 she became the first african-american principal ballerina for a major american ballet company she still works at houston ballet where which is where she met my wife and it's

[00:51:06] how i met lauren as well um and she's not just a famous ballerina she's just a very funny good person i think you'll see that in the conversation she's a very good friend of my

[00:51:21] wife's and a friend of mine too a few years ago she had her point shoes from her final performance as a ballerina with houston ballet added to the permanent collection at the smithsonian

[00:51:35] the smithsonian it'll be there forever so cool or at least as long as we're still going as a country and and actually that's what we start out talking about before we get to the atlanta

[00:51:48] episode of juneteenth but what was it like when she went to the smithsonian and had the exhibit that she had her shoes put in the exhibit so yeah enjoy the conversation that is so bad ass

[00:52:05] yeah oh my god it's bizarre it's the smithsonian thing to me is still unreal so did you get to visit did you get to go when they did it okay so i went for the yes the opening and it was amazing

[00:52:21] because i think there were like four presidents and or three presidents and their wives and a bunch of other famous people of all kind of colors and um yeah and i had my parents there and

[00:52:36] my son and my best friend and yeah it was it was pretty big stuff did they serve hennessey tell them what you tell them what your son said oh this is very cool okay so um

[00:52:54] we were going so for laurence to get out of school he had to go to these certain places as history teachers said okay you got to go to these certain places and i want pictures with the shoes so we

[00:53:05] only had a certain amount of tickets for people to enter at different times so i worked it out to where everyone in my party got to go but laurence needed to take pictures by the shoes so we had

[00:53:15] to kind of plan that during the day so we went during the day and patty labelle was doing a soundcheck and and usher was coming in and we were in this like 10 minute window in between those two

[00:53:28] so we got ushered in there and went to the first floor then went to the second floor the third floor had sports memorabilia and my son wanted to look at the sports memorabilia when he found out

[00:53:39] that usher was coming he's like well can i just stay here and wait for usher i'm like no dude we're here because you need to take pictures with my shoes so let's go

[00:53:49] so we finally get up there and he just kind of looked at the case and he just went oh oh my goodness that's my mom oh my god my great-grandkids can come and say this is their great

[00:54:03] great grandmother i mean that was probably the the coolest part of the whole thing yeah that was neat that's so cool if only our kids respected us like i know we can only imagine

[00:54:14] what that would be like yeah well they all need proof right they all need proof of what you it's true it's crazy it's true like if they hear somebody else say something about us then then it's cool

[00:54:26] all right so let's talk we're here with the legendary lauren anderson and we're going to talk about an episode of atlanta david and i've been i've loved this show we want to

[00:54:36] we've been wanting to talk about atlanta for a long time and honestly i think this is my favorite episode but we thought it would be a good idea to have somebody on with some lived experience

[00:54:48] that can connect with the show and and sort of let us in on some of the things that we may not be able to fully relate to so lauren first of all welcome to the podcast thank you

[00:55:00] for coming on i am so happy to be here i've heard so much about you guys david i'm so happy to meet you baby i am too i'm thrilled actually this is gonna be fun this is bizarre

[00:55:10] for me to see tam like this yeah it's true normally i'm just like the kind of worthless husband the goofy guy in the back also i'm like oh wow look he's got a microphone and headphones

[00:55:25] also by the way uh recording at noon is the weirdest thing because tamela is usually at least three drinks in that's awesome and now i'm only two drinks in you know yeah that's very odd

[00:55:40] yeah that's right and it's 11 for us here so it's even let me i'll just read those quick synopsis for anybody who hasn't seen it although we strongly recommend seeing the episode it's short you

[00:55:51] have to watch it it's short it's short and it's one of the funniest pieces of television that i've seen in a long time so uh urn who is played by donald glover and his baby mama

[00:56:05] can i say baby mama lauren absolutely baby because that's exactly what she is van who was played by the awesome zazy beats they are going to a very kind wealthy juneteenth celebration because van thinks it'll be really good for her career there's a lot of rich

[00:56:24] wealthy influential people there and so she asks urn to pretend that they're married and that he's an ivy league graduate um the party is hosted by an elitist black woman and her white

[00:56:36] husband who is very into black culture and black history in a creepy for sure but not entirely unsympathetic way um so there's just a bunch of cringy scenes with van and urn trying to fake their way through conversations with these wealthy elitist silly people and uh van

[00:56:58] over the course of the party starts to feel like she's betraying her integrity even more than she suspected she might have to and she gets really drunk finally towards the end of the episode urn snaps and they have to leave the party the episodes ends

[00:57:11] with them having sex in the car on the way home they were just making out man you're you're bringing something into this no there was straight up well well let's just say cut off before the sex but it was gonna happen we didn't get to see that

[00:57:26] you don't see the whole sex scene you don't see like cowgirl she had she had that look in her eyes it is true so loren uh what did what let's start with you what did you think of the episode overall um i know you're new to atlanta right

[00:57:42] right you hadn't seen atlanta before right okay i hadn't seen atlanta i am so looking forward to seeing the entire thing and i want to start from episode one but i will say episode nine i think it

[00:57:53] is is a great introduction and will make anyone want to watch it um you know i i will tell you this i have been three people in that episode i've been urn i've been van and i've been this

[00:58:07] weird there's this one woman uh when the guys oh it's when he's doing the the poetry what he does is this one woman who has this look on her face of are you kidding me i've been

[00:58:22] heard too right i will say i watched it twice the first time it was cringy and i laughed out loud the second time it was cringy in a different way and i laughed even louder

[00:58:35] i appreciate interesting all of it can you can you say a little bit about the two kinds of cringe okay so the first cringe was oh my you're kidding me right it's all it's so stereotypical over the

[00:58:48] top stereotypes on every kind of black person there is uh the second time i watched it i caught all of the um i think i caught more of what the writers were trying to say like what what do you

[00:59:01] think the writers are trying to say okay so all of this wealthy elite people if you haven't seen it they're all black right so you walk into this place and you've got this old man river

[00:59:13] at a juneteenth party that's the most ridiculous thing i've ever seen in my life but i thought it was hilarious and at first i thought they were trying to be like the the hostess was trying to be

[00:59:24] kitsch but they were totally serious they're sincere oh my god it was learn are you from texas oh absolutely i'm a native houstonian so i until recently because i think of the the sort of national attention of things like black lives matter maybe everybody knows what juneteenth is

[00:59:45] but growing up i grew up in california i learned late in life what juneteenth was so maybe you guys can say a little bit about like is this something that's actually celebrated like have you

[00:59:55] like was this an event oh my goodness honey okay so in texas we found out like last that that there was an emancipation proclamation right and that's a celebration of juneteenth for texas specifically it's specific to texas right so i've been to juneteenth barbecues like my entire life

[01:00:17] that's what we did now we didn't have you know like emancipation tea and all this kind of stuff i mean it was just you know plantation owner poison yeah plantation owner poison i'm like that's

[01:00:29] the one i would have asked for too if i was at that part um but i think you know it was just like a celebration and it was another reason to to get drunk and eat barbecue right but that

[01:00:42] was what my opinion of it as a child it was like fourth of july it didn't mean anything to me it was just another reason that these older people got together and i knew i was going to see family

[01:00:52] and friends and hang out so it was a fun time and it was and i'm an only child so i enjoyed being around other kids my age and running around at the park so you said you've been van and you've

[01:01:04] been earned can you say you know when you've been so i was the first black principal dancer in a major ballet company right so i have been in these situations where um i thought it would be a good

[01:01:19] idea if i went to this person's house because it's like a board members party that i didn't want to go to right it would be a good idea if i went and whoever i was dating at the time

[01:01:33] i like made it seem like we were really you know you know that it was all copacetic over maybe it wasn't or i was getting divorced or something but i was you know we put

[01:01:43] put on that it was all perfect right because there's a a way that i need to appear i've also been earned where i needed to go to help somebody because somebody knew that i was

[01:01:59] their business partner's wife's favorite ballerina right so i've done that and then i've been that crazy woman at a party going these people are all nuts why am i here right you gotta be fucking getting me

[01:02:12] yeah and and and my ex-husband is white but he was not like that white guy you know neither one of us have been to africa and really like that you want to talk about

[01:02:26] that guy for because he's so this is a guy who who paints what was his painting a representation of the malchim ex quote quote yeah and and then he says his painting accurately depicts the plight

[01:02:40] of the contemporary black man as he gives as he gives donald glover a hennessey uh in his office and his office is is like full of like just like african and african america and

[01:02:55] like memorabilia like this dude collects like reminders of slavery and shit like he he runs me of there's a what's bamboozle the spike lee movie did you ever watch bamboozle the guy he's like a

[01:03:11] tom let's say and he collects like little sambo looking characters like it's something about the collection of that that is creepy well his thing from a white guy the difference is his

[01:03:23] thing was supposed it's like you saw pictures of him in college with black with black guys and in black frats and you saw this and then you see a martin luther king picture and then you see a

[01:03:35] picture of him with someone in africa because you know he needed to go and and atone for his for the sins of all white people his guilt yeah but then you see like the seat i noticed

[01:03:46] just the second time the seat that he's sitting in is like lizard and leopard and so it's almost oh i did yeah i mean it was kind of i didn't notice that jacked up like yeah i went

[01:03:56] to africa and i did this but i brought back this bento cloth and i've got this like you know crocodile and leopard and lizard i don't know these skins it was just really bizarre the thing is though he

[01:04:07] it seems like he i mean he met well right yeah he was sincere about all of his ridiculous as it was he was sincere yeah yeah no i love at the end when donal gliver snaps and he's like and no i've

[01:04:22] never been to africa because i'm fucking broke and then the guy's like oh that's my bad that's my bad he have you come across people like that like white people try over trying to identify or

[01:04:37] understand the black experience yes oh absolutely absolutely all the time the apologetic and it's funny because especially with what's come up with the black lives matter movement and and the past i don't know seven or eight months and the apologies and uh can you help me explain

[01:04:56] can you help me with this and you know i've tried to let my my friends off the hook right i'm like look you don't need to apologize it's not your fault you didn't do anything to me

[01:05:07] right and i don't know what your parents or your great grandparents did and and um i know the history but let's let's move forward but have i i have come across that person

[01:05:18] that's like uh yo baby yo and stuff like that to me and i am so not the hood person yes i am all about working in the hood and did i live in the hood yes am i yo baby yo no um you don't have to

[01:05:34] yo but i just think it's the right but i try to let that person off the hook too because they're doing the best they can right right you one of the things that um that i don't think is

[01:05:46] obvious to non-black people in america is um something that this show is really so it's not it's not only just the white guy that's being satirized it's the class battles between black

[01:05:59] people that that i remember uh realizing this at some point and being like oh you mean you mean like amongst each other like you guys like look down on each other you know and i was like oh and this

[01:06:14] captures i think that but absolutely you tell me so there's so there's that okay um there's that whole thing of oh you're with a rap situation right like that's less like that music is less

[01:06:31] music than like soul whatever um yeah but that happens in every culture right yeah in the latin culture i mean it's just it's an every single solitary culture that i know there's somebody that thinks that they're better than the other because of the class system right

[01:06:48] and okay so then there's a whole different culture so like my parents you would never leave the house with your jeans not ironed your hair not perfectly combed and you know

[01:06:58] a hoodie why would you even wear a hoodie right okay so in watching my dad look at my son my son has like worm hair i call it worm hair he's got uh dreads but they're not really dreads more

[01:07:13] like twists he has twists and i don't care how you wear this hair actually i kind of like it all poofed out on top because i think it looks kind of cool actually how how old is he 17 so he absolutely

[01:07:24] is not ironing a pair of jeans he absolutely is wearing a hoodie and he has hair that's all over the place that some days he doesn't even comb now my dad on the other hand doesn't go to bed

[01:07:34] without combing his hair i mean he's you know it's just a different yeah but it's just a different thing right so in terms of what the writers are trying to say i think they are definitely getting at

[01:07:47] also this idea of pretending to be something you're not because there's a there's a kind of a key scene in the middle of the episode where van says to earn and like this whole time she kind of knows

[01:07:58] that he's right to be looking down on everything that's going on but she needs his support and she says can't we just for once pretend to be somebody we're not you're very good at it

[01:08:08] alluding to the fact that he's that he's probably betrayed her in a bunch of different uh a bunch of different times and after that like that kind of makes him fully commit to the you know the act

[01:08:21] at that point and that's like the moment where they're both now trying to you know they're both on the same team they are going to try to make it through this party make everybody love

[01:08:33] them that but it's also where van starts to go over the like where she starts drinking more it's where she starts to feel so just as he's kind of on board she starts to i don't know what do you

[01:08:46] think lauren what do you think is going through van's mind towards the second half of the episode as even when things are going well she just has to excuse herself and she just keeps

[01:08:57] drinking and drinking and drinking she has a conversation with the hostess which is a turning point like yeah all this money i know okay so you got this guy you got all this money but do

[01:09:10] you and she says the words and it's awesome she goes do you have anybody that you can confide in do you have anybody that you can be real with is there any reality anywhere basically in your life

[01:09:20] right and she realizes that's what she really wants and she's known that's what she's wanted all the time um and when he says all the things she's wanted to hear to those friends and that's

[01:09:34] when she splits because he says well you know actually she's been the provider and he was he was being honest but he was being his asshole self but he was being honest right yeah i think so too

[01:09:44] yeah and she finally heard in my brain just because i've been her in that instance she's finally heard what she wants to hear and and she's finally she at some point had given up on him

[01:09:57] and realized realize just how much she wants him and then she goes in the bathroom and has this moment with herself you know um yeah she says to him at that moment you're being mean yeah like you're

[01:10:09] mean you're being mean you're bringing me you're willing reeling me back in jerk yeah right because at first at first i was like i thought that she she thought he was being completely

[01:10:20] disingenuous and that's why she was saying why are you being mean but i think it's just that you're being mean because you're making me like you right now yeah like you're making me realize

[01:10:30] that we this is what i've always wanted this is who you could be we could be this yeah that was a that was yeah we didn't i didn't mention in the synopsis but the episode

[01:10:41] starts with him waking up in some random bed yeah like can you imagine having to pick up your like the person who's supposed to be your partner from like some floozies like well the thing is

[01:10:53] that almost made it easier right yeah it makes it easier for you to not want to be with somebody if you're picking him up from hoella's house like when she's like are you high he's like not

[01:11:07] really not really right which was true like i think he had taken like a couple hits uh in bed that morning and then but he was not realized he's not as high as he needed to be for that party he was jolted into

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[01:13:33] tamo the thing you're talking about like the the being who you are like this authenticity there is something and lauren i don't know if you pick up on this in just this one episode but throughout the series i feel like urn's character he's always struggling with this and

[01:13:49] he as a defense he seems to uh want to be sort of superior to everybody like when he's just with like the the hip hop people and paper boy he's a little detached he's like i'm not you i'm not

[01:14:05] you know like he did go to princeton for a few years right so he didn't graduate but he went didn't graduate but he's also that way around everybody he's really struggling i think to to

[01:14:15] figure out who he is i think that's the one of the trajectories like the arc of his story is he doesn't quite know who he is he just knows who he doesn't want to be maybe right i'm looking forward

[01:14:25] to seeing it does he fit into every mold like does he fit into everywhere he goes is he chameleon like or or he kind of does but also doesn't like he fits yeah he there's a way in which

[01:14:36] he fits in and that he's smart enough and like socially agile enough that he can fake it or just adapt to his surroundings but he never fully feels like he fits in with any crowd

[01:14:49] i think that's that's my sense and i think that's also true of van to some extent she's trying to figure out where you know what what she's about you know donald clever strikes me as this

[01:15:01] in real life you see this um he knows that he's charming and likable and that that he can turn any group of people to be on his side but he kind of resents it like if you see him being interviewed

[01:15:15] about stuff he's not comfortable i mean part of it i think he's he's actually shy like he's actually shy but but it really seems to be that he almost resents his ability to to please

[01:15:27] everybody and this show is showing us more of his reactions about like his own like he doesn't like himself um in in this weird way but he's clearly loved by anybody he's around i think because the

[01:15:41] guy is just a likable and that's why he can get her out away with consistently throughout this episode saying some sarcastic me shit right horrible just but he the thing is is he tells

[01:15:52] the truth almost right he tells the truth and all of his sarcasm and all of his things that he's saying but they're choosing to take it the way they want to take it because he's likable right and i

[01:16:02] i get that because as the talent and i can say this more now because i'm not the quote unquote talent anymore as a talent people want to like you they want to please you they want

[01:16:11] you to keep being the talent and they want to keep seeing you the way they want to see you and especially now i'm older right now i'm in my mid fifties and i don't want to be all those

[01:16:21] different people it's exhausting it's absolutely exhausting i did it i did it for easily 25 years i did that yeah and it's it's tiring did you feel like your your pose the whatever you

[01:16:35] were trying to present to people was that like seeping into like your identity to the point where like it was hard to tell like what was the pose and what wasn't or did you always have a good

[01:16:46] sense of just who you were and what the mask was absolutely not i did not have a good sense of who i was i had to fire the sugarplum fairy to become me almost right i had to literally go okay

[01:17:01] you need to you are first of all you've retired you're not dancing anymore and you haven't danced for 13 years and you're not the sugarplum fairy and you really never were figure out and now

[01:17:13] i had to figure out who i was and unfortunately a number of things happened that were not that great to make me get there but um i think i'm there now for sure i mean i'm just pretty much me and all

[01:17:24] of the different circles but it's not easy to just be you when you're in front of people and in front of a lot of people in a certain way well that's what i wanted to ask you

[01:17:35] specifically as a performer it's a it's a a career that is built on hiding who your identity as anything else other than the performer i don't know it's funny that you say that because

[01:17:48] actually you're a performer too when you get in front of a class you are putting yours you're you're vulnerable you're putting yourself out yeah it's the same thing i swear to you it's the

[01:17:57] same thing it's just i'm doing it for maybe 2,600 and something people and you might be doing it for 50 right that's the difference um and you're getting to be yourself and talking about a certain

[01:18:08] subject and i should be being myself in becoming this role of whatever it is and you are to a certain extent but it's just a vulnerable place to be and the thing is um i'm a people pleaser

[01:18:21] and a little bit of a codependent which is good in a way because then i'm going to do my best to be my best at having you believe i'm whoever it is i'm supposed to be it's jacked up in a way

[01:18:35] because then you might not be able to not be that when you go home you're confused right so you drink and then i mean you do different things and that's um it's unfortunate that that sometimes

[01:18:51] doesn't end so well right it's a strain you see the strain in van right like she is just struggling that's why she's drinking and and when she has that scene with herself in the mirror you

[01:19:02] can just see the stress and like she it's tearing her apart and she feels like she can't abandon the the act now because you know she's already betrayed some core principles she has anyway

[01:19:16] but then at the same time it's just almost too much to bear for her and that's when she just goes you know just starts chugging vodka yeah her turning to alcohol in that moment is like

[01:19:28] it's like such a perfect microcosm of like what what life might feel like you know you uh lauren when you were talking about being a people pleaser um it reminded me of that just the little brief

[01:19:41] scene in this episode where um the hostess tells the young servers the black women who who are serving to smile because this isn't an orphanage right and it's there's so much going on

[01:19:55] there there is the class difference there's the the the uh what it means to be a woman like that where you have you got to see you better smile like this is not you got to be you know

[01:20:08] there's so much there in fact like my mind is reeling from all of the different this this episode just as one about identity and authenticity is just so there's so much here in every character is there's something that's going on with their identity so that's like the

[01:20:23] minister with i guess that's the minister's wife i'm assuming and he's we don't know she never talks she never talks and right looks at him like are you negro are you kidding me i mean i swear to god

[01:20:35] that's what she's saying and he's going on and on about i'm gonna help you with your finances and how to treat your wife and all this other stuff treat your woman treat your woman yeah

[01:20:46] oh my gosh it's and he's talking about how she was she was gonna want someone with a good body or something like that i'm like looking at him and i'm like what the fuck and then the woman's like

[01:20:57] and uh there's a lot there's a lot yeah he if there's a purely unsympathetic character maybe it's the hostess of the party the woman and i don't know if you guys agree with this but

[01:21:11] it seemed like she in some ways was the most authentic she knew who she was she loved money her decision what yeah she made a decision and this is she knows her husband what does she say about him

[01:21:23] like black people's hobby shit slam poetry martin reruns told he told my 95 year old grandma that she was making her collared greens wrong uh that's just the great lines she so she's

[01:21:36] in that way almost admirable in that she knows who she is and what she's done and she has no illusions about it but she's also just pretty unsympathetic as a character like very no real

[01:21:48] sense of humor no i don't know what was your impression of her oh she was horrible i like i said bitch i mean she was just um but you're right she absolutely knew who she was she goes

[01:22:02] i you know he married the the black woman he always wanted and da da da da da and i got my money in this big house because i love and then she said it because i love my money

[01:22:12] period yeah i love craig but i love my money right and at the end she went oh you make your money with rap oh lovely okay what and the whole comment about shooting the house down i mean the whole

[01:22:24] she knew um who she stepped on to get where she was going and who she was going to come and she's going to invite these people to the party she said that to to van in the beginning like okay

[01:22:36] you want to do this you can meet this person you i put all the right people in place i have moved all the chess pieces where i want them the scene is set go right that was kind of her

[01:22:49] but it's sort of interesting then that the one person who kind of knows who she is and what she's about is the least sympathetic it maybe betrays dave like what you were saying that donal

[01:23:02] glover might identify with the urn character as someone who never feels like he fully fits in or knows like what kind of person he wants to be maybe that's a position that is that he thinks he's endorsing in some sense that there's something bad about knowing

[01:23:21] who you are too much and not questioning it and not struggling with it right and maybe all of the i available identities are ones that ought not be picked up right like maybe everything

[01:23:34] that is available to me to be like to be either a sellout to the white people who are paying me to entertain them or to be a true whatever it means to be like the from the rap community

[01:23:43] all of those are kind of wack like decisions like options for him so maybe there is a virtue in not knowing virtue and struggling because even the white guy the crazy black people as a hobby

[01:23:55] thing seems like he's struggling with his identity in a way that he's not entirely hateable like he's corny as fuck yeah i mean i didn't hate i mean no he wasn't hateable at all he was just

[01:24:08] misguided he's just like some little run all over the place poor guy actually no he's not all over the place he's in one place that's just all over the place but um yeah i think i think urn

[01:24:22] is more like okay i i don't know who i am but i know who i'm not i think when you said that that was spot on look there was there's just one quote when she at the end of that scene uh that you were

[01:24:33] describing tamer went when they're talking ban and the hosts are talking and she says something my husband told me it's redundant to be both black and sorry in this world and then there's a pause and she's like that's from colored girls yeah that was actually a

[01:24:46] reference that i wanted i didn't get can do you can you explain that lauren for colored girls is a it's a play it's a uh a broadway play a book that doesn't mean it's four black girls it means

[01:25:01] right full color girls his name but i but i take it it's something that he has no real business reading yeah he made her read it yeah right yeah there was another one like that jack and jill the

[01:25:13] jack uh where they say that they're gonna uh you know they're considering her for the jack and jill atlanta chapter i had to look this up okay that's a that is a okay so the jack and jill are a

[01:25:28] bougie black uh organization service organization sort of but it's really it's just a social organization really and they have a coutillion for the girls when they graduate and they do all this

[01:25:42] kind of social stuff and you have to have a certain amount of money and you're invited and not a certain amount of money but you have to be somebody like i was invited to be a jack and jill i'm like

[01:25:53] why would you invite me to be a jack and jill well because i'm whoever it is that people think i am right it's not because it's supposed to be an honor yeah i mean i'm i'm an honorary a k a alpha

[01:26:03] kappa alpha sorority so that's the first black sorority right and they always say that a k a's back in the day were light skin you couldn't be darker than a paper bag um and you have to have

[01:26:17] long flowing white girl hair and you have to be this and you have to be that and you have to be this and you have to be that and now of course that's changed a little a little but and jack and

[01:26:27] jill and a lot of a k a's were in jack and jill so i was supposed to be in jack and jill but it just didn't happen my dad was like uh-uh she's at the houston ballet that's enough jack and jill for her

[01:26:38] she needs to be able to get along with everybody right yeah interesting well we should probably wrap up soon and let you go uh a couple other thoughts that i want one thing that i related to very much

[01:26:50] is not being a rich person hanging out with rich people it gets that awkwardness really well like i have occasions through like usually the university of houston honors college they have fundraisers

[01:27:05] and i'm someone who tends to feel pretty comfortable in his own skin but when i'm there there is something that it does to you that is very like i don't know yeah it's it's something that i've

[01:27:16] struggled with because i feel like i should be better at it but there's something that it does to me you know at a deep psychological level that's that's hard to handle and i think that that

[01:27:27] that this episode separate from all the race dynamics just gets that aspect of it right to the the poor people or not rich people in this stratosphere of wealth that it's like you can't

[01:27:42] here's what it is it's like when i'm talking to the people i can't connect with them like we're not on the same wavelength my jokes aren't funny to them they're whatever they're saying just seems ludicrous

[01:27:54] to me and and i can't make i can't smooth it over i can't make it right i don't know so that was that's my at least my my shit um when it comes to those things because i used to feel that way

[01:28:07] going to ballet parties um and now that i'm on boards with all of these ballet board members for different reasons i'm on the board because i'm all about access to arts for kids and and um

[01:28:23] in underserved communities so i'm on a lot of boards now um texas cultural trust houston arts alliance blu-zah and a lot of these people have ballet board members presidents of ballet boards and all this but i've gone to parties with them for years because i was answering the

[01:28:39] company blah blah blah and i felt weird and hope that other dancers would be there and sectioned off with them but now because i'm comfortable on my own skin and i'm a little bit like urn

[01:28:52] a little bit um not pretending to be someone's husband but just smart assie yeah um i have more fun with it right because but i think i'm also allowed to because of the person that they think i am

[01:29:08] yeah right yeah so yeah interesting it is interesting but i've i've had uh similar experiences timeler to what you're saying where you know just at the university level like there's you know rich donors who come in and there's fancy parties and if the president invites you

[01:29:25] to a party or something yeah or in some cases i've been i have friends who teach at business schools and they'll invite me to do some shit with some rich person right and so i've like

[01:29:35] this is how i met jeffrey ebsti right like this um that's a whole another story there's a whole other whole sordid story um but uh and i've always felt uncomfortable but the most uncomfortable i felt weirdly is in circumstances where i started to feel comfortable

[01:29:55] and i realized it so like for example like i first you're like wait this is weird to have people serving me i don't i don't like it i'm not used to it or like it's weird that that uh

[01:30:07] the valet person wants to take my bag i can carry my own bag like all that weird rich people shit and then i remember one time thinking no i like it when they carry my bags oh my god

[01:30:19] oh my god what have i become um i can say okay i have to retract my statement because when i get around academics i feel like a five-year-old like the only five-year-old at an adult party right i will

[01:30:35] say that yeah and it was a little intimidating coming here today but i know tam and i'm telling you this is different good we would hate to be like at normal academics that would be yeah this is not you guys are not

[01:30:53] what i was expecting hopefully that's the only reason people listen to us because if we're normal academics can we talk before we let loren go can we just talk about the poetry slam because that's maybe one of my favorite scenes in all of tv

[01:31:07] well the first time i heard the poetry okay so i watched it twice and the first time i heard the poetry slam i was so interested in what he was gonna say that i didn't hear what urn was hearing urn was hearing the dome

[01:31:29] and i'm just listening to what he's saying so i'm like this is ridiculous i didn't really get it until i watched it it was relating jim crow to poltergeist and being like trapped in the to do

[01:31:39] what the fuck jim crow is a ghost i am like trapped in the to- yeah it was so he captures something that is yet another thing which is people who are really bad at art but have enough money to do it

[01:31:53] like and people have to like listen to it like his painting of like some like jacked black guy like stabbing an eagle or some weird shit but it's bad it's just a bad painting and it doesn't belong

[01:32:06] in that room with all the other things and then everybody is around him listening to him and you're like the only reason people whatever listen to his art is like because he's rich right

[01:32:15] because yeah exactly um so any final thoughts loren that you wanted to hit on before we before we end one thing i will say is um uh every culture has that what we witness for

[01:32:32] that juneteenth thing every culture's got right and and um the beautiful thing is is that we can laugh about it yeah there's so many good like we haven't even talked about the play that the

[01:32:45] woman um this is right after oh my goodness the play she was on the sofa they were talking on the sofa oh my god the two gang bangers hold a stripper and a pastor and someone else hostage during

[01:33:01] hurricane Katrina during hurricane Katrina and then urn goes like oh that's that's quite a situation what's good is it shows us how ridiculous we think not necessarily how ridiculous we are but how ridiculous yeah we think about yeah and then why do you think they van is so

[01:33:21] wants to as they leave and urn snaps and he starts kind of telling people what he really thinks of them um which is also kind of a funny scene because he just once he gets started he can't stop even

[01:33:32] as they're leaving he's like this is a weird this is a weird place this is yeah uh but then when she tells him to pull over and they are gonna have sex unless you're Dave and think

[01:33:45] that they're just gonna like get to second base or something second base uh why why do you think van does that lauren i don't know they got they got to a special place those two i think by the end of

[01:34:00] it all i think they kind of got to a place where they actually met in the middle and are in agreement with one thing with with that right and they're um i don't know facing all the crap that's gone on and of

[01:34:15] course she's a little immigrated i think um she loves them he they they have feelings for each other now how they work through that i don't know because i haven't seen episode 10 or what happens after that i don't know but um they definitely came into agreement that

[01:34:33] yes you're right this is all whack but i think what started out was the the valley guys when they were right right oh that's another great scene why do you have your sister's underwear you never know you never know never know what get paper boy my sister's underwear

[01:34:52] yeah she he rescues her kind of because she needed somebody to just finally make it stop you know she couldn't she was pot committed at that point i think she needed him to just do something that

[01:35:09] she initially told him he didn't she didn't want him to do but then realized this is like a release from this unbearable way out of this this is how we're getting out of this by letting them

[01:35:21] know who you really are yeah which is the last thing i want them to know he took one for the team to get her out yeah yeah all right well thank you so much lauren this was fun and we really appreciate

[01:35:33] you coming on the podcast keep watching because we do bonus episodes like on like tv show sometimes and if you keep watching and you have an atlanta show episode that you want to talk about

[01:35:44] because now you know how fun we are yeah come back come back and talk to us about i'll come back and we'll definitely do it anytime lauren all right sounds good all right thank you so much

[01:35:54] and join us next time on very bad wizards anybody can have a break a very good man just a very bad wizard