Episode 1630 - Delroy Lindo

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All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fuck, nicks?

What's happening?

I'm Mark Marin.

This is my podcast.

Welcome to it.

I am in a very quiet hotel room in the glorious city of Chicago overlooking the big lake.

I can see it from my room.

It's a little cloudy.

It's a little intense.

I don't know.

Intense is not the word.

There's a weight to Chicago.

There's a...

I always like coming here, you know, and my shows this last couple days, they weren't even in the city.

They were out in Skokie and Joliet, but I'm like, I want to stay in the city because

it's a fucking great city.

And I can't even really explain it.

Not that I need to explain it, but I don't know.

I had some realization the other night where I'm just sitting up here in this hotel room in this, in this city of Chicago.

And I realized, you know what?

Fuck.

I just like the vibe of Chicago.

I can't explain it, but I just, you know, I chose to stay in the city and now I'm just in it.

And I just like the feeling.

And I think sometimes that's enough.

I think that that's what, I don't know about a vacation, but sometimes the experience of a place is just being in that place and not necessarily doing fucking anything, but absorbing whatever that place, whatever the vibrations of that place makes you feel and

just sitting it or walking it or eating it.

But it's a It's a great place.

It's been a good couple of days.

I think if I understand correctly and I've seen whatever is coming at me through the phone or the computer, that there is a global, if not nationwide, series of protests on April 5th.

And look,

I'll be honest with you, I don't go out to them a lot, but I think that we should,

if anything, just to see like-minded people freaked out.

angry, scared, and

sort of raising their voices.

I think it's important to do that.

Whether it'll have an effect or not, I don't know.

But I think a lot of people are isolated in their despair, and it's good to go out and be part of an action.

Just remember, the margin of votes that got us here, it was not that big, although we're being made to believe that it was.

I mean, the actions that are and policies and insanity that's taking place, it wasn't mandated.

It just is.

But it is a little difficult in a kind of leadership vacuum to figure out how to find any sort of hope or way through.

But I think that to go out and be part of the protest is the way to go.

And also, I guess this will be a test of the waters to see what this administration is willing to do when people gather, rightfully so, with their constitutional right to do that, and what sort of forces will be unleashed in order to stifle that or frighten people you know out of doing that.

God knows that people are being disappeared off of college campuses for speaking their minds or voicing their beliefs.

These are actions taken by the administration to scare the fuck out of people.

And it's working.

Anyway, I don't mean to start out so heavy.

This is what I woke up with.

I woke up from a dream.

of my late girlfriend that was a little disturbing.

And then I, in waking consciousness, you know it was just a an authoritarian shit show

of uh you know imagined possibilities but how you doing

what's what's going on today i'm going to talk to delroy lindo and it's a pretty amazing conversation he's he's an actor he's been in movies like get shorty ransom heist he's been in like four of Spike Lee's films, Malcolm X, Clockers, Crooklyn, Defy Bloods.

And I got an opportunity to talk to him because he's in this new Ryan Koogler movie called Sinners, which is a black horror movie with vampires and blues.

There's a lot about it that I like.

I didn't know anything about the movie, but it was kind of a fucking mind-blower.

And

it's,

I don't know.

Yeah, I'm a sucker for blues music.

It's so weird.

Right now, I don't know if you can hear it, but I think I'm sitting in the right position.

Like,

sometimes the Zoom recorder or the microphone, I don't know how it works, but sometimes when I'm recording not at home, I can hear a faint radio signal.

And when I started recording this, I just heard this kind of haunting slide guitar.

And I'm like, what the fuck is that?

And I was just sitting here trying to make it out.

And because I knew I knew it.

I knew I knew the tone of this particular slide guitar.

And as I focused in, I realized it was George Harrison, I believe, on John Lennon's How Do You Sleep.

And

I kind of locked in the faint voice of the ghosts, the ghosts of the Beatles, the ghosts of John Lennon, you know, talking shit about Paul McCartney, but also asking a pretty fundamental question at this point in time.

How do you sleep?

Not great.

I mean, I'm sleeping okay, but the dreams, not good.

So look, folks, I'll be in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I'm coming to GLC Live at 20 Monroe on Friday, April 11th.

And then Traverse City, Michigan.

I'll be at the City Opera House on Saturday, April 12th in Los Angeles.

I'm at Dynasty Typewriter Monday, April 14th, Saturday, April 26th, and Tuesday, April 29th.

Those are all at 7.30.

Largo in L.A., I've got an 8 p.m.

show on Tuesday, April 22nd, my mommy's birthday.

Then I'm coming to Toronto, Vermont, New Hampshire, and then Brooklyn for my my HBO special taping at Bam Harvey Theater on May 10th.

Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all of my dates and links to tickets.

Okay?

It's pretty wild.

I flew out here, Southwest Airlines.

I've gotten to the point where I so dislike LAX that I'll forego the luxury.

of a business seat or a larger airline to fly out of Burbank because I just do not want to deal with LAX.

And, you know, look,

whatever.

It's one of the few things I can do in terms of luxury.

But we were on Southwest, me and Makovsky.

And, you know, I go through a lot to get off the ground.

It's a lot of anxiety involved.

But we got up in the air and, you know, there was something going on in the plane.

I was just sitting there.

I try to sit in the very front, if I can, just for that legroom on Southwest.

Since you can sit anywhere, I try to at least get that.

And I was up front, and there was some, I don't know, there was some commotion going on.

You know, there was a flight attendant that was kind of great and kind of chatty and kind of a real character.

And, and I'm like, what's going on back there?

And she, and this is an hour into the flight, man.

And she said, we have two medical emergencies.

I'm like, what?

Two medical?

We haven't even been in the air an hour.

And then she said, yeah, but we have five doctors on the flight.

Holy fuck.

What are the odds of that?

Five doctors on a Southwest flight, on any flight?

That's fucking crazy.

So these people, the two people that were having trouble, I guess one of them passed out and one had a seizure, got the best medical attention that you can get in this country today.

I mean, you've got to wait weeks, maybe months to see a doctor.

And these people had events on an airplane and there were five doctors attending.

to the point where they can consult each other.

I mean, it was, it was kind of astounding that, you know, healthcare in this country is certainly not good.

And depending on your plan, literally months to see a doctor.

But these guys, whoever these people were that had these issues, and I believe they're both okay,

got

literally the best medical attention they could get in this country today on a southwest flight to the point where I was like, well, what are we doing?

Are we going to go to Chicago or do we got to land?

And she's like, well, the doctors have consulted and they've told the pilot that he can continue on to Chicago.

So they had a little confab back there and

shared opinions and made a group decision that we were okay to keep flying and that these people were going to be okay.

And then the flight attendant told me that, but it's going to be a little longer because we had to change our route in case we had to land in Omaha or wherever.

But also we had to fly at a different altitude so the air in the cabin would be less pressurized and easier for the people that were having trouble to breathe.

There's still a lot of stuff going on in this plane, man.

And I was just kind of amazed at the fortuitous event of five doctors on a plane.

I do believe that everybody was okay.

So

yeah, it's been kind of interesting

these last couple of days.

And, you know, I'm talking about what I can in relatively broad ways.

on stage about the this condition we're all living in or what's what's hanging over us and what's happening and because like if i'm going to record it it's got to hold so in terms of being specific about uh events you know i'm kind of doing you know broad strokes that are yes certainly critical certainly critical of of what's happening governmentally but also critical of like for instance what's happening you know i'm always sort of on top of this idea of certain people who have built this

their entire point of view on their fight for free speech and making it seem like a First Amendment issue when really it was just a

kind of cultural issue around getting pushback for saying outdated words that

marginalize, marginalize people even more.

But it's interesting, these free speech warriors, and this is brought to my attention, Pat and Oswald sent me a video of a guy.

I don't know who it was, but sometimes you get these videos and you're like, well, that sort of puts it into words.

You're not hearing much from these guys now when students are being,

you know, disappeared off college campuses in this country.

And, you know, some states are outlawing rainbow flags that there's no champions of free speech around what's really happening on a constitutional level, not just their desire to be able to say naughty words because it makes them feel better to be sort of bullies under the guise of, you know, can't you people take a joke, you sad people?

And that stuff has an effect.

You know, it's just like people are just afraid to talk because they don't want to deal with it.

And it's interesting when the bullies and sociopaths are emboldened, you do have a sense of real fear out there in the world, you know.

Again, this is a pretty heavy Monday morning, and I apologize, but I do want to thank the people that came out in Skokie and Joliet.

I thought Joliet was very special in a very haunted way.

And I won't forget it.

How's that?

Look, you guys, so Del Roy Lindo is here, and his new movie is Sinners, which is in theaters, including IMAX, on April 18th.

And this is me talking to Del Roy Lindo.

You're a musician, obviously.

A bit, yeah.

What kind of music do you play?

I am sort of stuck in a basic Pentatonic blues

country trip.

I played a little last night.

It's never been.

I used to say

I keep it as a hobby, so all my guitars don't represent broken dream vessels.

But if you could have made it, you would have?

I don't know that I had the

courage to.

I find singing very vulnerable for me.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And

I'm a comic.

So all my tools are sort of

keeping pain down.

There are people who would say that

doing stand-up is also vulnerable.

Well, I can get there.

I think it's more frightening, the vulnerable.

I mean, the potential for embarrassment is there.

I just find that

I can't sing with any protection.

Do you know what I mean?

Like when you sing, you're going to be all out there.

You're going to be out there.

Yeah.

But if you're singing for real, if you're authentic.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I don't seem to know how to do anything any other way.

That's fair, man.

So I've learned to sing in public, but it was a big, you know, I've been playing.

It's a big deal.

Well, yeah, I've been playing guitar my whole life.

And then recently I got together with some guys and we do music nights and I do covers.

And, you know, I feel that I've been doing stand-up my whole life so I there's no you know and

getting on stage there's no fear yeah

and when I'm out there I know I can handle myself no matter what but with music you know you're confined to that song and if you fuck up within that song you got to keep moving or start over and yeah

a song yeah

does it not come to you that when you're singing a song, you are free to interpret the song.

Oh, yeah.

However you so therefore you're not confined.

No, no, but like if I fuck up, if I fuck up the chords or I hit a bad note,

you know, it's all interpretation.

That's one of the reasons I think I didn't become a musician was because

the skill set, you know, I'm kind of, I'm good at what I do, but

it's limited.

Did you see a film called

20 Feet from Stardom?

Yes.

And they were talking about the difference between being a front man or a front person and backup.

Yeah.

And that 20 feet represents a whole

deal.

And I was just talking about Mary Clayton last night.

Really?

Yeah.

I was back at the comedy store, and we were talking about...

Comedy store on Sunset?

Yeah.

And some of the door guys, I was out back hanging around, and some of them were talking about

pop stars and who's the singer.

And then some woman brought up, you know, that woman who sang backup on Give Me Shelter.

I'm like, yeah.

Mary Clayton.

Right.

And she tried.

You know, she put out a couple solo records.

She talks about it in the film.

Yeah, I have them.

I mean, I listened to them.

Somebody else

who

I've become friendly with,

you know who Lisa Fisher is?

Uh-uh.

Wait, is she?

You kind of sort of do.

Is she a songwriter?

No, no.

Lisa Fisher, you kind of sort of do know who she is because Lisa Fisher took up the mantle from Mary Clayton.

In other words, she would sing

on Give Me Shelter.

Behind Nick.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, I've seen her.

You sure have.

Yeah.

Oh, and she, and Lisa Fisher is in 20 Feet from Stardust.

Okay.

Right?

Yeah.

She also had an album or two as a solo artist and didn't.

Yeah.

It's very unforgiving, but it's probably no more unforgiving than the music, acting or whatever.

Well, it's sort of.

Actually, it is.

Yeah.

It is.

It's worse.

Yeah, because you don't get as many shots.

You don't get.

And also, you know, I had a conversation with Aaron Neville years ago, man.

He plays with Keith a lot.

Oh, for real?

Yeah.

Keith 33.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah.

And he was talking about

how

unforgiving, and that's my word.

He didn't use

some other words, but

what a trip the music industry is.

The shots that happen within music and what's expected for it to pay off is very specific.

And

the industry itself will just, you know, they'll just hang you out.

to dry.

You know, if you don't make that hit or you don't have someone that believes in you and it's all a numbers game, I think that more than acting really in the broad sense, it's more of a numbers game.

You know, we put that thing out there, did nothing.

What are we going to do?

Next.

Yeah.

On to the next.

And also, like, who the fuck knows why people are magic?

That was part of the point of, I think,

part of the point of

20 Feet from Stardom, I think.

Because

it's.

What do you call it?

It's amorphous something.

Oh, you can't figure it out.

And that thing, that thing, the it, whatever the it is.

Now,

so

I'm sitting here looking at a Gimme Shelter, yeah, Mick Jagger.

And I don't know, a year ago or whatever, Keith Richards'

book came out a year younger.

Oh my God, that book.

I didn't read it.

I love the guy.

Oh, you do?

I do, yeah.

Okay.

So

he was talking about he was being interviewed on NPR.

It's so funny, dude, because that day day he was on NPR.

Yeah.

Like I've been wanting to interview him

a childhood hero, right?

You're fascinated.

And the only way we could interview him was that day.

Me and my producer, I flew to New York, and we're waiting in NPR studios and we were just going to go in there and use their studios to interview.

Wait a minute, like Bumrush or...

No, no, no.

It was set up.

It was set up.

They let us do it because we had connections at NYSW, NYC, or wherever it was.

NPR in New York.

And the funniest thing that happened was we're waiting to go in and interview Keith.

He's doing that interview that you heard.

And some woman comes, is running around the office going, he's smoking.

He's smoking in the building.

What do we do?

I'm like, that's not.

You let him smoke, dude.

Baby, you got to let him smoke.

What the fuck?

Yeah,

that's it.

But did you do the interview?

Yeah, yeah.

So anyhow, here's my point.

He mentioned in the interview,

He said words to the effect, Mick Jagger's the greatest

entertainer in the world, or something like that.

Yeah, yeah.

And I said, no, he's not.

I mean, he's Mick Jagger and he does his thing.

But my point,

it is having the it.

There are a whole bunch of different iterations of it, having the it.

Yeah.

But the bottom line is, you got to have something.

Something.

And if you don't have whatever that

right.

Well,

what's interesting is efficiency will get you by.

If you've got

a little bit of talent and you're efficient,

you can work.

Yes.

Yes.

But to have it, which, you know, I think there's a spectrum of it.

You can have it to the point where people, you are an identifiable

it.

But then you get the big it.

I mean, who the?

The mega it.

The mega it.

I don't know what makes that.

It's something genetic and cosmic.

I don't know what it is.

But wait a minute now.

Yeah.

That's a different it because that it

is genius.

Sometimes, yeah.

I think it's it's transcendent authenticity.

It's transcendent.

I was who were we talking about last few months?

Sly Stone.

Yeah.

Genius.

Totally.

Well, he was genius.

Genius.

Yeah.

James Brown, genius.

Totally.

Two very different artists.

Stevie Wonder, genius.

But also band leaders, right?

So they had an ability to facilitate their vision with leading

leading a thing.

Yeah.

You know, with actors a little trickier.

You know, because some, you know, you know what I mean?

Because they don't need that kind of talent.

Yeah.

This is a whole other, this is good, though.

This is good.

What actors need is different.

Yes.

But talk about being boxed.

Yeah.

Actors are boxed by the environment that they are trying to function in.

Yeah.

Whether that be the Hollywood machine, the institution of Hollywood, whether it be theater,

you're.

Or literally the frame of the film.

The frame of the camera, the frame of the film, the frame of the theater that you're working with.

You're working with other actors.

Now, this is...

I'm getting into real

scary territory because,

okay.

Yeah.

When you

I'm on thin ice right now because

only you know it right now.

Well,

we're talking about actors.

Yes.

All right.

Lou Gossett, for me, was one of the greats.

Great.

And I mean that with a capital G.

And he, I would put him up against Lawrence Olivier, all those cats, all those people.

Yeah.

A great actor with a capital G.

Paul Winfield, a great actor with a capital G.

Right now,

the space that they were housed in,

that they were boxed in,

did not permit them, quote unquote, to have the kinds of careers that other great actors, movie stars have.

So there's a similarity with actors.

It's tricky because obviously the music industry and the

world that actors function in, they're different.

But

there are crossovers.

There are similar kinds of constraints.

Lack of opportunity.

All day long.

Right.

All day long.

And yeah, you get boxed in, literally.

All day long with lack of opportunity.

That's right.

And I think music, because of the spectrum of the hunger of the music industry, they're going to pull from all over the world.

Yeah.

And they're going to give everybody a shot.

It doesn't matter, you know,

well, they're not going to give everybody a shot.

They're going to give

certain people a shot.

Here's what I'm thinking about.

Yeah.

And I know you know this, Kat, and I'm terrible with names.

Me too.

I'm terrible with names.

Do you remember the Brothers Johnson?

Do you know who the Brothers Johnson are?

Sure.

And they had a hit with a song called,

I want to say it was called Strawberry Letter Number Something, something.

Right.

The composer of that song,

they didn't write that song.

There was another gentleman who wrote the song who was brilliant.

And he wrote that song.

He put that song on an album maybe five or six or seven years prior to the Brothers Johnson.

Right.

And it did nothing because the record company didn't understand what he was doing and he fell into obscurity.

Something happened.

I hope he had the publishing rights.

I don't know if he did or not.

Because sometimes that happens with music.

No, a lot of time they don't have the publishing rights.

That's right, early on, yeah.

He fell into obscurity, and then something happened 20 years ago, and he resurfaced.

And I bought his album.

And what he was saying saying in a lot of the interviews that he was doing when he resurfaced and he was getting this second shot at stardom second shot at fame essentially was that the record company had blocked him because they didn't like what he was doing huh but he had a certain kind of vision yeah

so anyhow I don't know I don't know well no no that I mean but commitment to vision is is an important thing if you've got the

if you've if you've if you've got the strength for it because that really is a testament to genius It is.

That you can sell out your genius, but if you hear a thing in a certain way and you can't get around it and there's nothing else you want to do but commit to that, that's a rare person because they don't see another way out.

So look,

I've been doing a lot of traveling and on the plane

four days ago, whatever, when I was coming from New York, I happened to watch

a documentary about Sinead O'Connor.

Have you seen that documentary?

Haven't.

it's called

Nothing Compares.

Yeah.

And it was really

it's an interesting analysis of a woman, of a person

who pretty much refused to compromise and paid the price for it.

Sure.

Now I'm not going to say she was a genius, but she had that

gifted, and she had that monumental hit, right?

Great.

Global hit.

But she refused.

She couldn't do it any other way.

And you see what happened.

Well, you know, I think genius is always competing with a certain amount of go fuck yourself.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Because it's hard to be a genius in the world, you know.

Yeah.

And culture doesn't

respect.

Yeah, because you're a weirdo.

You're a weirdo.

Because what culture wants is a commodification.

Yeah, how do we box this guy?

How do we box it?

How do we commodify this and sell it like this?

That was what's interesting about watching that Dylan movie.

You know, is that, you know, which one?

Just a new one.

You know, the.

Oh, the one with Timothy.

Yeah, I haven't seen it.

I haven't seen it.

Well, you just realized that this guy was sort of some sort of like almost

savant, you know,

nerd who was morphing into whatever, you know, his brain was telling him.

And he became Bob Dylan.

Yeah.

But there's many versions of that.

And

he keeps a lot of it

interior.

But there's also, you know, what drives a lot of genius is, you know, fuck you.

I know this is what I'm doing.

Or

yeah.

Or, as you said, I can't do it any other way.

This is

maybe the fuck you part is not, but I can't,

this is the way I do it.

Sure.

You kind of need fuck you to do it the way you do it.

It's a de facto fuck you, right?

I feel like an asshole right now, man.

I know.

It's true.

It's true.

But when you talk about like gossip and you talk about these guys.

Oh, man.

Lou Gossett Paul.

Did you know him at all?

Yeah, I did.

I did.

He died recently.

He did.

Yeah.

He did, man.

And I didn't know him, know him, but I worked with him

twice.

And I always,

he's, for me,

the gold standard of a cat who he and Paul Winfield, they're similar in as much as far as I'm concerned yeah

in as much as gargantuan talent who didn't get the opportunities they didn't get the opportunities commensurate with their talents as far as I'm concerned now you know Lou had a run but he also

here's a story this is a classic and he told me this and it's

After he won the Academy Award for an officer and a gentleman,

I don't think he worked for a year or whatever.

I hear hear that a lot.

Yeah, you hear that a lot.

And I'm not going to mention any name just because I don't want to put the name out there.

But I did have a conversation with

about

three years ago who said that winning the Academy Award was the worst thing that ever happened to her.

No, she was not being.

Just stay away from it.

Just stay.

You keep doing what you're doing.

Don't worry about that shit.

She said it was the worst thing thing that ever happened to him.

I probably think I know who that is.

I've talked to Oscar winners who, like, you think that's it, and especially women, and then all of a sudden it's like, what do we do with her?

What do you call it?

Is it a poison chalice?

It's not necessary.

I'm not going to say that.

But also, who the hell knows what agents are doing to?

You know,

after you win that, the expectation is we're not going to take anything unless it's this.

And then by the time that gets to the talent, they're like, we don't think you should do it.

Yeah.

Who knows?

Yeah.

But who gots it?

So he told you a story.

Yeah, yeah.

He didn't.

I think

he didn't work for a long time and he didn't get the kinds of opportunities.

Him winning the Academy Award did not result in getting the opportunities that he thought he would get.

And I think I have heard...

Hallie Berry, who I do not know, say something similar.

Yeah, she's great.

I love talking to her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, also, I mean, this, this kind of, is sort of an age-old story about the box that black actors were kept in forever.

Boy.

Right.

So, I mean, that doesn't change.

Yeah.

And that, you know, well, that was sort of amazing about this new movie, Sinners, which I went to and watched in the theater.

That, you know, you've got a full black cast, you got a black director, and I didn't know what I was getting into.

You've seen it.

You had to see it.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Huh.

I thought they weren't letting people.

But I guess you had to to see it in order to.

Yeah, why wouldn't I see it?

Okay, go ahead.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

And

when I got in the theater, I didn't know anything about it.

I knew there were vampires involved.

Okay.

Which is not, you know, necessarily, you know, I'm not going to run to see a vampire movie.

Right.

But, you know, when I was like, oh, this is a music movie.

This is about

the sort of

the transcendence.

and the power and the magic of music.

And it's also about community.

Yeah.

And I was sort of like, oh my God, this is going to be great.

You know, and he took some chances with, you know, the nature of the magic of music and the ways.

And

I was thrilled to see an ensemble piece that dealt in a unique way with these, you know, not only community issues, but historical issues, but also, you know, fairly modern issues.

I mean, it's very contemporary.

Yeah, it was very interesting.

It's very contemporary.

Like as I was leading into this conversation with you, I'm like, there's a lot of pussy-eating talk in this movie.

And I'm like, well, that's sort of one of those things that people don't talk about.

Right.

That, that, that is

like a community secret in a way.

So you know what?

You're, you're reminding me, because I just saw

a second screening last night.

I just saw it.

And Ryan has taken a leap.

with this film as far as I'm concerned.

And I can't really be too articulate because I'm really, frankly, still processing.

But he has taken a leap and he's taken some chances with this form and he's really committed

to the story that he wants to tell and the way he wants to tell it.

Well, it's interesting because it's a story, it's a myth, and it's a myth that people know.

You know, so how are you going to get there?

You know, how are you going to get there?

How are you going to tell the Robert Johnson story?

Yeah, right.

You know, in a different way?

How are you going to deal with that mythology within the community that's time-appropriate at the time?

Charlie Patton's guitar,

to create the impact of that and not just do a Devil at the Crossroads bit.

You know what I mean?

And how do you do all of that and make it relevant for a 21st-century audience?

Yeah.

But I think there is

a precedent set now, you know, with

black cinema and black horror cinema that has

a place.

Yeah.

I'm knocking wood.

Yeah, I'm knocking wood because

I want you to be right.

And I'm not saying I disagree with you.

I am not saying I disagree.

I want that space to open up.

Yeah.

We need that space to open up.

I think Jordan Peale has done a good job of being provocative and

finding a way to enable black voices in a unique way.

Yes.

Have you spoken with him?

Yeah, not in a while.

I haven't spoken to him since he was in the comedy team.

I'd like to get him back to the city.

Okay, so you haven't spoken with him post-get out at then.

No, no.

No, I've talked to him

out and around.

No, I've seen him around.

Got it.

But

he's got a certain genius, that guy.

You know,

he's one of those guys who's committed to his vision, and

for better or for worse, he's going to put it out there.

And more path to win.

Yeah, no.

God bless him.

God bless him.

So when you see this script,

because what was interesting to me, because I'm kind of a booze guy, despite, you know, what, you know, I know it's kind of a traditional kind of white boomer thing to be, but

when you have to take on that history,

and what's interesting about the way that

Ryan directed the film was he was very clear on the roots of the music and where it comes from and the power of that and what carries through and what it meant to, you know, have music transcend the pain of being sort of you know wrestled into Christianity not the music transcend the pain the music channel the pain oh yeah yeah channel the pain yeah so you can feel it there safely in a way quote unquote one and the same

because the pain is coming through the pain is coming through the music it ain't how finished finishing point well I mean I just thought for you to see that script and to play that you know a guy who is like close to the first generation of blues guys but you know on the edge of being the next generation,

but having enough source material to know who the guys were.

You know, what did you see in that part?

When you read it, you're like, I'm going to do this guy and I'm going to find him.

What, now I'm not sure I'm going to answer your question, but I can tell you when I read the script,

I thought I was clear about the fact

that Ryan was using

the music and this narrative as a conduit to tell a story

about

community.

And the fact that in this particular community,

the music

is one of the bedrocks.

The church is one of the bedrocks.

Yes, there's a clash, as clash, and I'm saying saying clash in quotes,

a clash as it relates to the character that

the father.

Yeah, the preacher.

The preacher.

Yeah.

But they're all there.

They're all there in the same place,

geographical and spiritual place.

There's a scene that's not in the film, unfortunately.

It was a short scene in which I'm telling Preacher Boy.

Yeah.

They have their church and we have ours.

In our church, the music is, this music is the lifeblood of this church.

So they have the way that they express and we have the way that we express.

It's unfortunately

not in the cut.

Well, but that's straddling the abyss.

No question.

And I just realized something about the movie because at the beginning, when Preacher Boy comes into the church after he's been through

the big

battle, you know, and he hugs his dad, there are those flashes of his dad being a demon.

And the thing is, is that what that implies is that it's within all of us.

And you're going to hold it down.

And it is.

Of course it is.

And you're going to hold it down or you're going to negotiate it.

But wait a minute.

I didn't think of his dad as being a demon.

I thought of his dad.

I didn't think of his dad being a demon.

Not being one, but like there's a moment of embrace where he's flashing to the conflict, but it didn't look like a flashback it looked like what was happening then and it and it kind of is right right okay right but what i'm saying it implied to me that we all have it within us and we do but i didn't i didn't realize the the the sort of the implications of that so you know what you know what's interesting for me right now listening to you as an audience now when did you see the film because it's been a few days ago oh okay so you've seen the most recent case yeah yeah all right so it's terrific for me to sit here and hear an audience response and hear what you as an audience,

what spoke to you, what resonated for you, right,

on the journey of the film, on the journey of this narrative.

And

because

the fact is,

For instance,

when Preacher Boy and his his daddy are hugging, I didn't get, of course I sell the flashbacks.

I hadn't processed that yet.

What you got from it, I hadn't processed that.

I just know that it's dynamic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just did it just now, it processed it.

Oh, in the moment, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, but it's interesting when you're talking about souls and

that the approach was not a

sell your soul kind of thing.

Right.

You You know, it was about, you know, there's a community of lost souls that are eternal and a community of

souls within, you know,

earthly people in a way that struggle.

And, you know,

that is the struggle.

That's the struggle to be a human being, right?

Yeah.

It's the struggle of being

on this.

journey and trying to figure out what the fuck.

How you doing with it?

Speaking of no pun intended, what the the fuck?

Yeah.

The process of navigating,

what the fuck is this?

Yeah.

Without losing your mind.

Yes.

Finding ways to articulate it for oneself.

If you're a parent, I'm a parent, I have a son.

Then trying to articulate it on some level for one's children without it becoming

It can never be this is the way it is.

Restrictive.

Restrictive because they're going to find their own thing anyhow yeah but you want to be able to interpret something for your children and what i what i

uh

have recognized for many many many many many years

you know for instance when young people when young actors for instance younger actors say to me mr lindo

give me some advice or how's it been for you i always preface it by saying,

I can tell you some things that happened to me, but I got to tell you this.

I'm still processing this shit for myself.

I'm not the oracle.

I'm damn sure not the oracle.

Yeah.

I'm still processing this.

But having said that,

this is what happened to me.

This has been my experience.

So, in terms of your processing,

how much do you find you've been processing your entire life?

The whole time.

Listen, listen, man.

I'm actually actually writing a book right now.

It's a

memoir-ish.

It's memoir-esque in as much as it deals with

parts of my life, parts of my mom's life, our lives together.

And that whole thing has been,

the whole journey of writing the book has been about processing and reprocessing.

Well, you know, it's interesting when you write because something comes out of you where you can look at it and go like, oh,

now I understand that.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

One can look at it, an experience that one has had as a child or a series of experiences one has had as a child and say, oh, that's what that is.

It's not necessarily I understand it, but it's an awareness.

Sure.

Oh, that's what that was.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, that's what that was.

Where does a narrative start?

Where does a narrative start?

What does a narrative mean?

What does a narrative mean to me now, today?

Right.

Oh, that's what that shit was.

Okay, now what?

Yeah.

There's always a now what.

Well, that's because, you know, once you figure out the wiring

that got you here,

you know, it becomes challenging when you have to question the wiring, right?

Where you're like, well, how can I unfuck that?

Well, well.

Yes, how can I unfuck that?

How can I.

Some of it has got to be unfuckable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But a lot of it isn't.

Some of it is not unfuckable.

I know.

And some of it is like,

okay, I'm going to come to terms with this.

That's right.

Acceptance.

Acceptance, as long as I know what,

as long as I know what

the root of this is or the genesis of this.

You can make different choices.

You can make different choices.

That's right.

Yeah.

I mean, I used to do a joke about that when you get to a certain age and you want to see a therapist because you're at that precipice.

And you walk in and you just, you know,

you know why you're there at a certain age.

And I used to say, like, look, there's a lot of things we're just not going to unfuck.

But if we can temper.

You would say that at the top?

Well, just a joke.

Oh,

you know, but

if we can temper some of the unfuckable stuff so I can live with them and unfuck what we can, that'd be good.

That's right.

No, that's exactly right.

But I wanted to ask you,

because we started this conversation and I said that I had

a certain admiration

for

the expression of ingenuity in certain individuals, particularly in

the entertainment industry and

in this public-facing

industry that we're in.

How did you come?

to doing this show.

Oh, it was out of a certain amount of desperation.

You know, I'd been kicking around as a comic for, you know, probably

20 years, and I'd done some radio, you know, for a spell.

And I was, you know, I'd never done it before, but I found that, you know,

I could get through on these kind of mics.

So the way this started is like my comedy career was kind of going nowhere.

And I was in the middle of a divorce, and I was going broke, and I had no prospects.

And, you know, there was this outlet that no one knew about podcasting really interesting and I said to my producer I said you think we can figure this out and get this out in the world and he's like yeah let's let's try it and and we just committed to doing Monday and Thursday you know a different show every Monday and Thursday we've been doing that since 2009.

And what was it?

What were you doing?

Well,

at first it didn't,

it wasn't, it was like different segments.

It was, you know, different, it was almost a radio structure, right?

I have an interview, but we do a little comedy bit and whatever.

And then for a while, it was like

I always do an opening thing.

That's, you know, what do you mean, like an opening monologue?

Yeah, yeah, but it's not funny all the time.

It's me living my life.

Okay.

And then we do an interview, and then we do a third act, which was a guy who, you know, was usually an improv actor playing it real.

So people listened and didn't know if it was real or not.

And then eventually it just evolved into a long-form interview show.

And the idea of it, the way I always characterize it is that

for a while it was just my peers in my community of comedy.

So it was really me having famous people over to talk about myself.

Other comics.

Yeah, other comics or to resolve issues that I thought we had in my brain.

So it was built on connection.

Like I don't do questions.

And then it became a thing, you know, it became like one of the first things in this particular medium.

I had good cosmic timing and the skill set that enabled me to establish something.

And out of of that, I got acting jobs.

My comedy career took off.

Good for you.

I mean, everything changed in my garage.

Obama came to my house in his last term.

Yes.

I've seen that.

Parts, segments of it.

Yeah, you heard it.

Did he come to you or you went to him?

No, he came to my old house.

No, but I'm no, no, no, no.

I mean.

Why did he do it?

No, no, no, no.

Did he show an interest in you?

Did he hear Mark Maron on the air and he said, oh, I want to.

Well, I think that, you know, it was his last year,

you know, and it was the second term.

And I think that some people in his orbit thought it would be an interesting thing.

And, you know, I don't do a political interview.

I can, but I wanted to do a personal interview.

And he's very candid.

And, you know, and he knew me.

Like, he did his homework.

And, but, yeah, it was a connected thing.

You know,

it was a real conversation, you know.

But that was a big event in the sort of growth of this medium.

Now, most people do video.

We don't do video.

We're old school.

We're analog over here.

I did one this morning.

It was a podcast, but it was on camera.

Yeah, yeah, I did.

Which is why I thought this would be on camera.

Yeah, no,

we keep it audio.

We trim it up and make it nice, and we do audio product here.

Yeah.

So to answer your question,

it was a Hail Mary pass with no intention of monetizing, no real way to do that,

just a way to keep me engaged because it was a dark time for me.

And

my producer, who's been with me for decades now, I met him when he was 24,

is the keeper of my consciousness.

So it was really,

it was a very personal show.

And out of that, some sort of style emerged and saved my life.

Literally and figuratively.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Things get dark when you're not working.

Yeah.

Although, you know.

Yeah.

I've been all right.

You've been all right.

But

I know from not working.

How do you find not working out here in Los Angeles?

Because

lonely,

isolated,

you know, because all you can do is the one thing you shouldn't do, and that's judge yourself against other people and ask, why the fuck does that guy?

Yeah, yeah, maybe I don't got it.

You know, the arc of that never goes anywhere good.

What do I got to do?

Maybe I don't got what I think I have.

Right.

You know,

now there's no way out.

And then you have something to eat.

Do you find that people avoid you out here when you're not working because they think if they're around you, they'll catch it too?

It's contagious.

I don't know about that.

I mean,

I don't think I've ever worked enough

to nourish that projection.

Okay.

All right.

I got you.

You know what I mean?

I never had that much visibility.

I've always been sort of in my own zone and under the radar.

I mean, I work more now and I'm able to do things that I never thought I'd do, you know, acting and stuff like that.

Good for you.

But I never had the profile that, you people would look at me and go, he hasn't worked any year.

Maybe I don't want any of that to rub off on me.

But do you battle with depression?

Not clinical depression.

Oh, yeah.

I had the blues.

Yeah, I'm out of sorts.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't think I have clinical depression.

You might want to ask my wife.

No, I don't think I have clinical depression.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you're a guy that has, you know, a profile that, you know, you're a unique actor.

You know, you.

Am I?

Okay.

Yes.

You know, you hold the space in a very distinct way.

You've done some, like, it's just interesting in terms of the stories you've been able to tell.

Like, even like, you know, going to this old Blues Harp player, but then literally playing Spike's dad, that

there has been a lot of films that you've done that really are about community and about the types of personalities that occupy these worlds.

The ones where you really get a piece to work with.

But in terms of

your visibility, I mean, do you find that there's something that you've had all your life

that you've been struggling with or makes you different than other

people in your position?

Okay, I'm really and truly not being core right now

or smart or facetious.

I swear to God, I'm not.

I'm not sure what my position is.

Now, now, having said that,

I have been able to maintain

I'm a working actor.

Yeah.

And that's, frankly, special.

I don't take it for granted.

But because I'm not outside of myself, I'm inside.

I don't know, man.

No, for real.

I don't know.

I,

oh God, it's hard to talk about this stuff without sounding she, she, fruit, fruit.

But I will say this.

I am blessed with a capital B.

I am blessed.

And I'm not ashamed to say that.

Because I am

because I've continued to work.

Right.

And that's a hell of a thing.

Yeah.

So

I'm trying to respond to when you say a cat in my position.

And part of me wants to say, what position is that?

Well, I think what I'm talking about is that, you know, for me, and I don't know precisely how you were brought up, but

there.

Go ahead, go ahead.

But there is something about me that always, that I always feel a little outside.

Me too.

Me too.

And all my life.

Me too.

And it is part of that sort of like, I'm inside.

I don't see, you know,

from anyone else's point of view.

But

there's something uncomfortable about it.

Yes.

But

as soon as you said that,

immediately in my head, where I went to

was

I have acting.

Yeah.

The acting

avenue, avenue, the acting conduit

has saved my life.

Literally and figuratively.

Has saved my life.

Do you remember the moment?

There are too many of them

to enumerate.

But when you were a kid, did you?

Oh, yes.

Absolutely.

It was

people asked me this question.

And I always say it was when I was five years old and I was in the nativity play at school.

Where were you?

England.

I was in London.

And

in writing the book,

I recognize

that light bulb moment of, oh, I want to be an actor when I grow up.

Now, it wasn't linear.

It wasn't, I did the play and then I wanted to be an actor.

It wasn't like that, but it was the seed was planted.

What it had to do with was affirmation.

It was the way in which the lady who, the teacher who directed the Christmas play, affirmed me.

And I'm not even sure

that she knew.

I'm fairly certain that she had no clue that she was affirming me in the way that I was receiving it.

There were a couple things she said.

And again,

I'm repeating a story that various people have heard and will be in the book.

But please go buy the book.

Don't say, I don't know, I read this shit before.

I don't know.

There were a couple things.

She said, one of the other kids in the play could not remember his lines.

He was having a really hard time remembering his dialogue.

And at a certain point in rehearsal, she said to him,

Do it like Delroy.

Do it the way he, see the way he does it?

Yeah.

Affirming me.

Right.

And she commented on my ability to not only

retain the dialogue, say what I was supposed to say, but the way that I was,

she commented on my bearing,

the way that I was doing it.

And that's affirmation.

And because I was a kid in an all-white school, and I mean literally all-white, I was the only black child in this, in my elementary school.

How did that happen?

Great question.

If I'm being flip, I'll say buy the book.

But I will tell you that because my mom,

I'm of Jamaican extraction,

my mom was part of a home movement of Caribbean people, I mean hundreds of thousands of Caribbean people, who emigrated from the Caribbean.

At once?

over a period of years.

It started in the most recent kind of iteration of this movement started in 1948, although I have to be very clear that people of color, African-descended people, have been in the United Kingdom since Hannibal, since Roman times.

But this most

recent iteration started in 1948

as

people from the Caribbean were being invited to the United Kingdom to help rebuild

that that country in the aftermath of World War II.

So, things like the construction industry, the transportation industry, the nursing industry.

My mom was a nurse.

All of these hundreds of thousands of people started being

invited by the British government to come from the Caribbean to the United Kingdom.

My mom was part of that movement.

And the thing is, this:

all of the

these Caribbean islands were part of what used to be called the British Commonwealth.

So all of these Caribbean people were British, were English, or British citizens.

Okay.

So my mom was part of that

movement.

And then when she arrives in England,

she gets pregnant with me.

Then because she is pursuing a nursing career and she has to

be on campus, she has to live on the site of where she's studying.

And she could not have a young infant with her.

So I was placed with another family.

Did you follow all of that?

I did.

That was a lot of, that was a

lot of history in a minute and a half.

But a white family.

A white family.

A white,

because of the particular circumstances of our lives, my mom and myself.

Dad wasn't around?

Dad was not around.

Bless his heart.

No, dad was not around.

Did you ever meet him?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I met my father.

One of the other things, and this is really, really, really important in life,

I have forgiven him.

No, I've forgiven him.

Have you forgiven your pops?

I don't know what you're...

Well, that's the interesting question about, like,

my dad was around,

but

it doesn't matter.

If your parents,

if you're left to your own devices to build a sense of self,

you know,

it's going to be a long haul.

It's going to be a process.

And it's going to be a process.

It's still happening.

It's happening.

I'm still.

I hear you.

No, we all are, man.

But some people, if there's people I resent even a little bit,

it's the people that had parents.

It gave them a sense of self.

Like what I hear when you say affirmation.

Yeah.

That your ability to sort of eventually pursue a transformative

artistry.

Yes.

That gave you the relief.

of.

Relief and release.

Yes.

It's an amazing.

I can understand how it saved your life.

It is.

Because your folks do the best they can, or they say they did, though I don't believe it.

Generally speaking.

I don't always.

I mean, they did what they did.

Hold on a second.

My mom.

No, I'm sorry.

You finish and then I'll talk.

Well, I'm just saying that, like, I think they were

not really prepared or ready or had any sense of how to take on parenting to this day.

Who does?

I don't know.

I don't have kids.

Well, no.

That's what they did to me.

But listen, listen, let me just say this.

Ain't no handbook, man.

We'd all be so much better off if there was a handbook.

Yes, but

I agree with you.

There's no handbook.

But the battle is,

like you just said about your son, is at some point you realize that you have to give that kid the space and the support to develop a sense of self that will get him through life.

And if you're selfishly driven or emotionally irresponsible or not

in charge of your own shit,

that kid's going to become an appendage.

And then when he does find his own way, he's not going to know how to handle it.

Now, question.

Are you projecting right now?

Onto my parents?

Yes.

Are you projecting your viewpoint based on your experience?

Well, I'm projecting my viewpoint on trying to put together a sense of self over a certain amount of time.

And all you can do is you do some reading, you do some thinking, you find

explanations that jive with your particular problem, and you take what you can from that, and then you look for another fucking book.

And then you walk out the door and you live your life.

That's right.

Tomorrow.

Yeah, and tonight.

And you try to make different choices.

Okay, so look.

When I said I'd forgiven my father, I happened to think

it's complicated, man.

Yeah.

Because

look.

Oh, man.

I do believe my mom did the best she could.

That's good.

I absolutely believe that.

I believe that.

Was she flawed?

Yeah.

But she did the best she could with what she was handed, man.

My father, I do believe, could have made different choices,

but he didn't because maybe for whatever reason.

I actually think my pops was

a little bit,

okay.

I'll just say this.

He could have made different choices, man.

He could have.

He could have.

And you know what I, what I, the problem?

He didn't need to be as destructive.

He didn't.

He didn't need to be.

Just walk away, man.

Just walk away.

Don't, just, you don't want to be around?

Then leave and stay gone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, why drag everyone into your struggle?

Just the stuff that he was dealing with, even though I understand.

Look, all all right this is what I'll this is what I'll say to you yeah

I've always felt that my pops

had an image of himself

that he was pretty much unable to manifest yeah he was consistently

below the station in life to which he aspired

That was

racial, cultural, socio-political.

Here's a cat, here's a gentleman who emigrates from Jamaica to the United Kingdom at a particular point in the United Kingdom's history, and he got his ass kicked.

He got his ass kicked.

He got it handed to him.

But so did my mom.

She got her ass kicked.

And she got her shit handed to her.

But she did.

She still did the best she could.

And I think my father, quote unquote, did the best he could.

But the process

for my pops involved some behaviors that

I just don't think were necessary.

He couldn't live with himself, so he took it out on other people.

I don't even want to interpret that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Who the hell knows?

I mean, he did some.

For instance,

there were things, there were a couple things he did to me, and I only.

I saw my dad

less than 10 times in my whole life, less than the 10 fingers of my hand, right?

Yeah.

I saw him probably,

I saw my pops probably

six or seven times in my whole life, right?

Unfortunately,

the instances when he would come around were always traumatic.

Now you didn't, come on, man, you didn't need to do that.

I'm sorry, I refused.

You didn't need to do that.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

So they're the things that I quote unquote hold him responsible for, but that's why why I say I've forgiven him.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, because you know exactly.

I have a sense of what he, in retrospect,

I kind of have a sense that he was getting his ass kicked.

Yeah.

Figuratively, socio-politically, racially, for sure, culturally.

He's getting his ass kicked.

A lot of the Caribbean

people who emigrated at that particular point in time in England, they were getting their asses handed to them.

Yeah.

That

so I get it.

Yeah.

Right.

But

I just

still believe he, some of the choices he made, he didn't need to make.

Right.

Having said all of that, I've forgiven him.

Well, that's great.

You know, because like

my situation is different and my dad's still alive.

Oh, God.

And that's it.

And now he's losing his mind.

And, you know, but there's a vulnerability to that.

Yes.

And it's kind of beautiful.

And I talk about it on stage that, you know, you get to see the core of a guy.

And then you also get to make choices, which I don't know that you were enabled to make, that, like, if they live long enough and you maintain a relationship no matter how contentious, you can kind of start to separate, well, this is the bad shit I got, and this is the good shit I got from this man.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And then you can put it into context and say, like, well, I can work on my bad shit.

It's not, you know, I don't have to be mad at him.

And I can embrace the good shit and try try to, you know, keep my shit together.

You know what, man?

Yeah.

I think that's very sophisticated.

It's a very sophisticated and healthy way to look at it.

And I understand probably that what you just said, I mean, it's a journey.

It's a process that you're navigating.

But that's a really good way to look at it.

Now, you know, I've lost both my parents

many years ago.

And

on some level, I think that,

no, I'm almost positive.

Part of my ability to forgive my father

has to do with the fact that he is no longer here.

Sure.

You know.

Yeah, because now you have control of it and he lives with you.

Yes.

And what's the point?

What would be the point of me continuing, ah, that dude?

There's no point to that.

No, I mean, what are you going to do?

What are you going to do?

And you know what?

A really positive, a wonderful positive, and I'm not being facetious right now.

A terrific positive is that my father gave me a wonderful education in what not to do with my own son.

That's it.

Yeah.

And that's for real.

That's facts.

Which is not to say I don't make mistakes with my son.

Of course I do.

But broadly speaking, hey.

He gave me a really good

different choices.

Yeah, yes, absolutely.

It's beautiful.

And that is beautiful, and that's very valuable.

And how's your kid doing?

He's doing okay, man.

Good.

He's doing all right.

One of the things I most admire about my son

is that he does not,

he doesn't harbor bad feeling.

He lets it go, man.

I wish that's something you could learn too.

Absolutely.

No, I'll give you a really good example.

So, my son's a ball, my son plays basketball.

Yeah.

And the semifinal game last,

not this past weekend, but the weekend before last, in Buffalo, New York.

I go up to Buffalo to see his game.

And

in my opinion,

they got cheated.

They got cheated, man.

Yeah.

Bad call?

A series of bad calls.

Yeah.

A series of bad calls.

So you hated that umpire.

I didn't hate him.

I didn't respect him.

Yeah.

Come on.

Obviously, obvious bad calls.

He was favoring the other team.

Anyhow, my point.

My son was very upset.

I was very upset.

We hugged at the end of the game.

A few days later,

he and I said to him,

okay, this hurts.

This hurts, man, because it was so blatant.

It hurts.

But it is a life lesson.

Because life ain't fair.

Shit is effed up.

And

this is a microcosm of some aspects of life when you will be treated unfairly.

And sometimes you will blatantly be treated unfairly.

But my son, a few days after he

happens, dad, on to the next.

He didn't say those words, but the attitudinally, he's on to the next.

And at the end of it, at the end of the game, he walked across court.

I came out of the stands and we hugged.

And he said to me,

and he's crying and I'm crying.

And he said, it ain't over.

It ain't over.

It ain't over, dad.

It ain't over.

And I said to him, nah, man, you're just getting started.

Meaning, the next phase now, on to the next phase.

And he embraces that.

And so to your question, how's my son doing?

I'm proud of the fact,

and he takes after my wife in that regard, in this regard they find a way to embrace the positive and the possibility for the next step

it's it's brilliant I know I wish I could I hear you no I really I really hear you but I'll tell you when when when

We found out we were pregnant and when we found out that we were having a son.

Uh-huh.

And my wife said,

he's coming to teach you some things.

And that's true.

And he continues.

He does.

He continues to teach me.

And again, I've got to be.

And you let him.

I don't have a choice.

No, no, I don't have a choice, man.

I mean, because

in some instances, my son takes after me.

Yeah.

And there are instances in which it's infuriating.

And my wife will say, that's you right there.

And I got to give it up.

I have to accept.

You know what, you're right.

Right.

You're right.

So it's not a question of me letting him.

It's a question of his, it's a question of, it is, it just is.

Yeah.

It is what it is.

So how are you going to handle that?

Right.

Right.

And I think that's the joy and the struggle of

parents.

Yes.

Well, that's great.

I mean,

it sounds

moving.

It is moving.

It's moving emotionally.

It's also

one is physically moving because one is continuing to live

and grapple with

life.

That can't be a bad thing.

It's got to be a good thing.

Yes.

I mean, that's all of it.

That community, making, you know, being a decent person.

You know?

Yeah.

Well, you're doing good, man.

Yes, sir.

Knock on wood.

So what do you got in the, what's going on now?

You're going to push this movie and you're working on another one?

I am.

Oh, that's great.

And the book?

My book, which

I'll be

presenting my first draft to the publisher sometime in April.

Oh, great.

And I'm going off to do a film in Australia.

Australia.

Yeah.

Around the 18th, 19th of April.

And are you writing this on your own?

The book?

Yeah.

I am writing it on my own.

Good for you.

And my editor,

I asked her a question.

We met actually for the first time in New York two weeks, two and a half weeks ago.

And we were talking about the process of the book.

And I asked her a question, and she said,

I don't remember what the question was, but her response was,

yeah, but most people don't write their own books.

You're writing your own book.

You're writing it.

Yeah.

And at that point, oh, damn, yes.

So yes, I'm writing it myself.

That's great.

Because then you can work with the editor and you find out all this stuff about yourself.

But I will say that

I have some good source material because the source material for my book is

I got

a master's degree from NYU in 2014.

And my thesis

You went back to school.

I went back to school.

I actually went back to school twice.

I got my undergrad degree.

I mean, I got my undergrad degree from San Francisco State University in 2004.

And I got my master's degree in 2014.

What compelled you?

Good question.

A couple things.

Going back to my Caribbean roots and the fact that my mom came from a generation for whom education was everything.

And I had told my mom that when my mom mom was still living, no, I'm not going to college because I want to be an actor.

And I pursued acting.

I don't know that it broke her heart.

Yeah, it probably did break her heart at the time.

So I went back to school for my mom.

I went back to school for my son, who was when I got my,

my son was born in 2001.

I got my undergrad degree in 2004.

And I wanted my son.

I wanted to set an example so that when my son, when it was time to go to college for my son,

I wanted to have seen, I wanted to him, I wanted him to experience me walking the walk so I could talk the talk.

So I did it for myself, did it for my son, I did it for my mom, and I also did it for myself from the standpoint that

I wanted to challenge myself intellectually,

educationally,

to

challenge myself to navigate that process and come out the other side with an accomplishment.

What was the degree?

I got the degree.

My undergrad degree was in cinema.

Only on my, obviously 2004, my career is already in full flow.

Oh, yeah.

but

getting the degree in cinema was the most kind of efficacious way for me to navigate

the process of education at San Francisco State.

Because you were in it.

Because I was in it.

And my degree at NYU,

I studied at the Gallatin Division at NYU.

And the Gallatin Division is a

the Gallatin School is a school specifically structured for students who want to create their own degrees.

And that's what I did.

And my degree, my thesis, I studied the history of

black people, African-descended people,

starting in pre-Roman times.

I studied the

evolution of their presence in

the geographical space that became the United Kingdom.

I tracked their presence.

I tracked the evolution of British racism in response to their presence.

Going way back.

Going way back.

And I focused for a part of it on this period when my mom and hundreds of thousands of Caribbean people came to the United Kingdom.

It's called Windrush.

It's called the Windrush period because the boat that brought the first wave of Caribbean people to England was called the Empire Wind Rush.

And I tracked their presence in the United Kingdom, the evolution of British racism in response to their presence, and how all of those dynamics impact the 21st century entertainment industry for black actors in England.

Wow.

That's something.

Because it's a different history, and I've talked a little bit about this in a very unsophisticated way.

The history of colonialism versus the history of slavery is

very different.

Absolutely.

But racism is racism.

Racism is racism, and they're both as the history of colonialism is every bit as virulent and violent in its own way

as the institution of slavery.

Right.

But they are, to your point, they were different.

They manifested differently.

Well, that's so

you went and found yourself.

I'm finding myself, yes.

And this book

is really

liberating.

I'm really proud.

I mean, if you want to talk about the things that I'm proud of, I'm proud of, and you didn't ask me that, but

I will tell you.

I'm proud of the birth of my son.

Probably first and foremost, I'm proud of my wife.

I'm proud of my career.

But I'm also proud of having achieved educationally

what I've achieved.

Those achievements, those accomplishments are up there.

And you know what?

With all of my

nonsense and my neuroses, and all of that, in the final analysis, they make me feel better about myself.

Yeah, it's a rich life.

You know.

Yeah.

I feel better about myself.

Because

whatever path

I was supposed to be on,

I disrupted it and I went another path.

Yeah.

Took a left, took a right.

That's right.

Yeah.

If I was supposed to take a left when things could have gone left and things

fairly easily could have gone left, they didn't.

Saved your life again.

All day long.

Great talking to you.

God bless, man.

Thank you.

That got deep.

That was a, I enjoyed that conversation immensely.

Again, Sinners, the movie, comes out Friday, April 18th, and it's pretty wild.

Hang out for a minute.

Hey, folks, on Thursday, I talked to Lynn Margulies, the girlfriend of Andy Kaufman.

There's a new documentary about Andy called Thank You Very Much that's out now, and it's amazing.

And if you want to hear some Andy stories before that, you can check out the episode I did with Lori Anderson from two years ago, which had some surprising Andy connections.

Well, where'd you meet him?

A friend of mine said, and this was also like right around that time, she said, there's this guy who got to go out to Queens to this comedy club.

In the 70s?

Yeah.

Comedy club, early 70s.

Yeah.

And

you've got to check him out.

So I went to this club and

really squalid little place.

It was like.

Was it like Pips or something?

It probably didn't even have a name.

It probably had a name, but it was in Queens.

It wasn't even a comedy.

It was just a club.

Okay.

So there was a guy playing bongos

in this place.

And

it was a really long set.

And bongos,

I don't know,

they get a little tiring after a couple of minutes.

Just solo bongo.

Just solo bongo.

Yeah.

But then as he's playing these bongos, he had about maybe four different bongos, different pitches, and bongo, bongo, bongo.

And as he's playing, he's he's his head sort of falls and he and some tears start rolling down his cheeks and he starts crying and then he's playing a little faster and he starts crying and he's sobbing and then he's like

sobbing and everyone in the club is like what the hell what's wrong with this guy yeah and i was like

this is the greatest guy ever

That's from episode 1419 with Lori Anderson, which you can listen to for free on all podcast platforms.

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Here's an oldie from my fingers.

Boomer lives,

monkey Lavanda.

Cat angels everywhere, man

cat angels fucking everywhere, man.