← Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay
Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay
Fatherhood and Forgiveness With Roy Wood Jr., Plus Ed Zitron Breaks Down the “AI Bubble”
01:57:56
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- [00:02]
Van Lathan
Yo, yo, yo. Thought warriors. What is up? Higher learning is on.
- [00:05]
Rachel Lynn
It's Ivan Lathan Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay.
- [00:08]
Van Lathan
Interview. Heavy show today.
- [00:09]
Rachel Lynn
We got Roy Wood Jr. Beautiful conversation.
- [00:13]
Van Lathan
Beautiful conversation on fatherhood. On his brand new book. We also got Ed Zittron. That's gonna come on and he's gonna come on and talk about AI. Artificial general intelligence data centers. Rachel's portfolio heavily invested into AI.
- [00:25]
Rachel Lynn
I didn't say I was heavily invested, but as Ed will say, we all kind of are tied to it in some way or another. And if those things that Van said make sense to you, like they don't for me at times. Ed explains it all.
- [00:35]
Van Lathan
Ed explains it all. Can AI become something that thinks for itself? We'll see.
- [00:42]
Rachel Lynn
It's interesting because I, I, I feel like I left. I'm definitely informed, but now I'm scared for new reasons.
- [00:48]
Roy Wood Jr.
Oh, yeah.
- [00:49]
Rachel Lynn
The reasons that scared me before, they're not the same, but I'm still scared.
- [00:53]
Van Lathan
That's great questions, by the way. I particularly like the question that you asked about the housing bubble. It's a great, great thing.
- [00:57]
Rachel Lynn
Did my research. Thank you.
- [00:59]
Van Lathan
This episode is brought to you by Hyundai. The all new 2026 Hyundai Palisade Hybrid doesn't just turn heads. It commands respect. With its stunning exterior, luxurious interior with available captain seats and spacious third row seating. And equipped with advanced technology, you and the family are making a statement before you even step out. Okay, Hyundai. Visit HyundaiUSA.com to learn more and experience the all new 2026 Palisade Hybrid today.
- [01:28]
Rachel Lynn
So good, so good, so good. New markdowns are on at your Nordstrom Rack store.
- [01:34]
Roy Wood Jr.
Save even more.
- [01:35]
Rachel Lynn
Up to 70% on dresses, tops, boots and handbags. To give and get. Cause I always find something amazing. Just so many good brands. I get an extra 5% off with my Nordstrom credit card. Total queen treatment. Join the Nordy Club at Nordstrom Rack to unlock our best deals. Big gifts, big, big perks. That's why you rack.
- [01:56]
Van Lathan
All right, let's get to the show. Kamala Harris is back. She was talking to the BBC and she said she might run for president.
- [02:03]
Rachel Lynn
Downey, stories of your baby nieces, Amara and Leela.
- [02:08]
Van Lathan
When are they going to see a.
- [02:09]
Ed Zitron
Woman in charge in the White House?
- [02:11]
Rachel Lynn
In their lifetime for sure.
- [02:14]
Roy Wood Jr.
Could it be you?
- [02:15]
Van Lathan
Possibly.
- [02:17]
Rachel Lynn
Have you made a decision yet? No, I have not. But you say in your book, I'm not done. That is correct. I am not done.
- [02:25]
Van Lathan
I have lived my entire career, a.
- [02:28]
Rachel Lynn
Life of service, and it's in My bones. And there are many ways to serve.
- [02:33]
Van Lathan
I have not decided yet what I.
- [02:36]
Rachel Lynn
Will do in the future beyond what.
- [02:38]
Van Lathan
I am doing right now. Okay. Kamala Harris hints that she might run for president again. Is that something that excites you, Rachel?
- [02:47]
Rachel Lynn
I can't really look at it that way. I don't look at it as a way that excites me. I think that Kamala Harris has to answer the question in this way. She has to keep the door open. She has to let it be known that there is some sort of possibility. I don't think that she will run. I really don't. But I understand why she would want to. And I feel bad for her. And I've explained that before when we were talking about her book 107 Days. I feel bad for the position that she's been placed in. Yes, she tried to run before, didn't work. She became the vice president. Then they put her in an impossible situation pretty much for her run for the presidency. And as a person who's been successful in every. Every time she's run, she's been successful. When you look at her political career and then to be placed in this position when she was running for president, she really didn't have a full fair shot. So I understand why the competitor in her would want to run again. I really do. But the position that she's in right now, I hope she's not done. Let me just say that I do hope that she's not done as far as wanting to be involved in politics. I have a hard time seeing how it would work for her for running for president, because even right now, as she's doing the media runs, she's talking about her book. She's talking about the past. Where I feel like the American public is and what they want from their politicians is kind of like, what are you doing moving forward? And when you have somebody who possibly is running, as Gavin Newsom now said, he would be lying if he said he's not considering it. After. Did he say after the midterms? Maybe after the midterms. I think he said he's in a position where he is actively sitting in office opposing Donald Trump, challenging policies that are being placed out there by Congress. He's being combative in a way that Kamala Harris is not in a position as much to be in because she's not in political office. She's talking about her book, which is about the past 107 days. So I don't see see her having the advantage as maybe some of her other Democratic political opponents who might run have over her. So I just don't know. So all that to say. It's hard for me to say, am I excited? I will answer it by saying I want to see her always involved in politics because I appreciate what Kamala Harris stands for, what she represents, and how she has fought for the people and dedicated her life to public service for majority of her life. So I want that in a politician. I just don't know where it is for her, and it's hard for me to see that in the presidency.
- [05:15]
Van Lathan
So this is the third time she would have run for president. Yeah, she did run in 2020. So we should say that there was a truncated campaign that she had to be a part of, but then There was in 2020, a full Kamala Harris president campaign. It'd be the third time she won. Well, what do you mean shortened in 2020?
- [05:35]
Rachel Lynn
Oh, sorry. I'm sorry.
- [05:37]
Van Lathan
It was a fool. So her ability to run and get people galvanized, it's obviously gonna be different now than it was then because she's been vice president for a long time. I like Vice President Harris. Yes, I like her. Okay, here's the deal. What you're saying is very important. And the reality is this. Kamala Harris has got to give the American people a reason to vote for her. She has got to give the American people a reason to vote for her. And she has to figure out a way, in my opinion. I'm not giving political advice. Goddamn ex vice president. But there are still things that I see the administration or people from the administration. We're having Karine Jean Pierre on the show pretty soon. I watched Karine Jean Pierre get asked directly by Eamonn about the situation in Gaza, the genocide that the Biden administration rubber stamped and couldn't put any distance between themselves and. And Kamala Harris, while she was running, seemed not to be able to reconcile the concerns that people had about our foreign policy in that particular instance and what a future with her as president would look like. Kareem was a part of that too, and she talked about that with Amon, and the question seemed sincere, and the answer seemed like politicking. Why am I bringing that up? I'm bringing that up because there are questions that a large portion of the American public is going to ask about the future leader of this country that people must be prepared to answer. I'll say something. We had Gavin Newsom here, the APAC question that ended up going everywhere. That question helps him. He asked that question on Higher learning. You have the interesting, interesting answer, right? That is a no disrespect to our platform, a relatively low leverage place for him to come here and completely fuck that answer. Because he will be asked that question again on a larger platform by a million trillion dollar platform, and he will have to have an answer that speaks to the concerns of a lot of people, not just on that, on affordability, on the environment, on all kinds of things. And people want a vision for the future. All it is to be said that if Vice President Harris is going to run to your point, it is time to think about and address the actual issues and actual problems that Americans care about. This is not me being hypercritical of her. This is me saying, if, in fact, she is going to use her inordinate skill to become the president or to forget about becoming the president, to affect American politics, to affect the political reality in America, then it might be time to kind of move away. Everybody's writing books. Joe Biden has a book coming out. King Jean Pierre has a book coming out. Kamala Harris has a book that's out. Everybody's writing books. I get it. Everyone is free to write all the books they can. But when you are inside the bookstore, on your book tour, outside on the street, people are being kidnapped and put into cars.
- [09:14]
Roy Wood Jr.
Now.
- [09:15]
Van Lathan
Wouldn't happen if Kamala Harris was the president. That's fair for her to say. I gave you an alternative. You picked the wrong one. That's true. 100% true, guys. She gave you an alternative. You picked the wrong one. But we're here now, so we want to know how we're going to get out of it. And we want to know what you have to say and what you have to give to the American people as a way out of it. And we want moral clarity on some issues that it did not seem like the administration or the Democrats themselves had moral clarity on. So am I excited? I'm excited. I'll answer for myself. If she's back in the fight, I'm into it. I'm into it. Sure.
- [09:53]
Rachel Lynn
I'm curious.
- [09:54]
Van Lathan
If she's back in the fight, I'm into it. But they got to switch up. Can't do it the same way as last time. I personally don't feel like I still do not believe that this current crop of Democrats that's running and that's all of them. Vice President Harris out of it. That's all of them. I don't think they understand what kind of electorate that they're speaking to. I still don't think they get it. They're not getting it. I still hear the same shit.
- [10:22]
Rachel Lynn
You think Gavin Newsom.
- [10:23]
Van Lathan
Yeah.
- [10:24]
Rachel Lynn
Okay.
- [10:25]
Van Lathan
For as much. As much heavy shit as Gavin talked, for as much stuff as I see him. Brilliant interview that he just did on all of the smoke. I still don't think they're getting it. The Democrats aren't getting it. They're still. They're dragging their feet, actually. Not dragging their feet. They're dragging their knuckles because I don't think they're not understanding. Gavin is fighting. He's doing what he can, like, properly.
- [10:49]
Rachel Lynn
But you mean as maybe as a whole, just rhetorically.
- [10:52]
Van Lathan
They're not getting it. They're not. They're not getting through the insulation to really get to the thing. They're not getting it. Something's happening.
- [10:58]
Rachel Lynn
I think that's a good segue into.
- [10:59]
Van Lathan
The next topic, which is Hakeem Jeffries. He endorsed Zoramdani in a way.
- [11:07]
Rachel Lynn
Exactly.
- [11:11]
Van Lathan
He basically said. He gave a statement to the New York Times. He says, zoram Hamdani has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed to being mayor for all New Yorkers, including those who do not support his candidacy. In that spirit, I support him and the entire citywide Democratic ticket in the general election. The election is next week. This was, I think, last week that he did this. So just at the end there, he gets in and gives his endorsement. Is this. This is a day before early voting.
- [11:42]
Rachel Lynn
Began, which he promised he'd do.
- [11:43]
Van Lathan
Is this endorsement meaningful to you?
- [11:50]
Rachel Lynn
It's meaningful that, fine, he did it. I'll acknowledge that. But is it, I guess, like, truly meaningful? Like, oh, Hakeem Jeffries is, like, really behind Mamdani and what he represents?
- [12:03]
Roy Wood Jr.
No.
- [12:03]
Rachel Lynn
And I mean, I think he even said that. He talks about, like, there are things that they agree on, there are things that they don't agree on. But as he said, I endorse the Democratic ticket. He did not say, I endorse Mamdani specifically. And I think that your answer lies in there. Hakeem Jeffries is New York. It's a strategic move for him. He totally recognizes what would happen in the long run should he not support Mamdani. There's a growing movement within the Democratic Party, but particularly in the city of New York. And you can see that with the way that Moudani won the ticket in the primary. And so I think that for him, he has to do that in order to solidify his place, should he become the speaker of the House, to get support within the Democratic Party as a whole, should he continue to run, he needs to show unity, in a sense. So, as he said, it's the ticket, not the person, not particularly his policies.
- [13:05]
Van Lathan
So, you know, a lot of people, they ask me, they go, van, what happened to you being a Democrat? Why aren't you a Democrat? And they think that me not being a Democrat is a specific criticism of the Democratic Party, which it is, but at the same time, it's not. The reason why I am not a Democrat is because I don't believe in political parties, period. And stuff like this is one reason why political parties are something other to me than what I am, what I view as useful community. Because what political parties have is they have to me a superseding set of priorities. And those priorities have to do with stuff that they've done for each other. Like, they have loyalty to each other based upon the fact that within the party, they have a working relationship with this person. And I clerked with this person, and I came up under this person, and this person was good to me, and this person is great, and this person's been doing this. So when they fight, a lot of times, they fight for the people that they have political allegiances to and personal relationships with, rather than think about what's good for the people that are in their constituents, those people's constituencies. And sometimes they might feel like that person that they're fighting for or that entity or that thing is actually the thing that's best for those people. But even their thinking of that, to me, is clouded by the relationships that they have, Right? So if I was to look at Nancy Pelosi or Rip Waters respectfully, when I say these people's names, particularly the black people, respectfully, as I say the name of Maxine Waters or of Jim Clyburn respectfully, with the highest degree of respect to those black elders that have done so much. If I was to say, just make a broad general outlook on either side of the aisle, that I don't think that certain people have the vigor, have the vitality, or at this point, the credibility to continue to be prominent voices in this party. Meaning one thing that is holding the Democrats back is their inability to adapt to a changing landscape of their own electorate, of the people in their electorate that are ready to step up and lead and the issues that those people are connected to. And one of the reasons why they can't sometimes understand it is because they're from a different generation. It is not in any way meant to be disrespectful. Or dismissive, but they are legitimately from a different generation. We talked to Roy Wood a second ago and we're going to show you guys the interview. Play the interview for you guys. And we talk about our fathers and we talk about the men that raised us. And they talk. Those men did their best, but they were from a different generations with a completely different set of inputs into the world and into society than we do. Totally different. So if you're trying to lead a contemporary world, it sometimes puts you at a disadvantage. And this is on both sides of the political aisle to be led by people who aren't really living in that world. And the reality is that, like, when you say that there are all kinds of things that get in the middle of that criticism other than whether or not it's true. It's loyalty to the people that made you. It's an understanding of the inner party workings and all of that type of stuff. And they're probably right about all of that. They know what it takes to mobilize people. They know all of that stuff. I don't wanna be a part of that. I don't want to have to. I'm always gonna show deference and respect to older black people. That's how I was raised.
- [17:19]
Roy Wood Jr.
Always.
- [17:20]
Van Lathan
That I respect and that respect me.
- [17:23]
Roy Wood Jr.
Okay?
- [17:24]
Van Lathan
But I don't wanna have to show loyalty or to be in the bag for somebody just. Cause Pardi says so.
- [17:35]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [17:36]
Van Lathan
Just because, hey, there's somebody younger, somebody newer, somebody fresher. This person might be stopping new voices from coming. This person might be stopping this from happening. There's all kinds of. It's like you have something to say. Children are being bombed in Gaza. I can't say anything about it because that will cross the president.
- [17:55]
Roy Wood Jr.
I can't.
- [17:56]
Van Lathan
That's not good enough for me. And a party that is that intertwined, that's not good enough. I can't do that now. I can caucus with them on issues that I agree with and things that we have in common, but overall, I just don't think that works right now.
- [18:14]
Rachel Lynn
Sure, sure.
- [18:15]
Van Lathan
And so the flexibility of being able to look at something, issue to issue and look at situations, issue to issue, is very important to me. And when I look at the fact that the Democrats watched a candidate that is a rock star once in a generational type candidate, right? They watched him, in the landscape of New York, a very diverse electorate, legitimately light a fire under the people. A broad, multiracial, diverse coalition of people that this candidate spoke directly to. But because he's newer, different, doesn't quite align with the status quo of what the Democratic Party is. They actively tried to sabotage him. They, like actively tried to sabotage and they actively tried to not support it. And I'm looking at it and I'm going, look, Mandani is an unknown quantity. He still has to govern when he is elected, which he will be elected. He will win. He still has to govern. And there is plenty of Runway for disappointment with someone who has those types of ideas and has made these types of promises. Don't get me wrong, you guys.
- [19:29]
Rachel Lynn
And these types of enemies.
- [19:30]
Van Lathan
And these types of enemies. Don't get me wrong, guys. It's not a done deal. However, the fact that really, really the party establishment tried to extinguish this, like, what the. It's, it's, it's odd.
- [19:47]
Rachel Lynn
It's not odd. I don't know if odds the word I would use, but it proves your point as to why you stand where you do.
- [19:54]
Van Lathan
This episode is brought to you by Hyundai. The all new 2026 Hyundai Palisade Hybrid doesn't just turn heads. It commands respect. With its stunning exterior, luxurious interior with available captain seats and spacious third row seating. And equipped with advanced technology, you and the family are making a statement before you even step out. Okay, Hyundai. Visit HyundaiUSA.com to learn more and experience the all new 2026 Palisade Hybrid today.
- [20:24]
Rachel Lynn
This episode is brought to you by ebay. Before all the algorithm fed blah and the endless sea of dupes, shopping used to feel more fun. Find that feeling again on ebay. It's not mindless scrolling. It's a fashion pursuit. And when you score that rare Adidas collab or the Dior saddlebag you've been manifesting, it's a rush. Ebay has millions of pre loved finds from hundreds of brands backed by authenticity guarantee. Ebay things people love.
- [20:53]
Van Lathan
You guys. We're delighted back again on Higher Learning to have, I guess, a frequent guest now, but somebody that we love. Comedian, author, television Host Roy Wood Jr. Joins us on Higher Learning today. Everybody, give it up for Roy Wood.
- [21:11]
Roy Wood Jr.
Jr. A pleasure to see you in person finally and good to see you again, brother. Absolutely rock with this podcast. This is the perfect spectrum of Nigga.
- [21:20]
Van Lathan
Oh, say more.
- [21:21]
Roy Wood Jr.
Well, because you can get like politics and you can get like some legitimate discussion and analysis about black women and Jasmine Crockett and then also we might fight Memphis Bleak.
- [21:33]
Van Lathan
Oh shit.
- [21:35]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yes, there is a spectrum of all things that are relevant to the culture. Like both. All those things are as important as the Other.
- [21:43]
Van Lathan
That's true.
- [21:43]
Roy Wood Jr.
Even if they don't have the same societal stakes, it's still worth discussing and analyzing. So it's part of why I fuck with y'. All.
- [21:50]
Van Lathan
So let me ask you a question, then. Shouldn't we change the name of the podcast from Higher Learning to Nigga Dom?
- [21:56]
Rachel Lynn
I was about to say he was gonna make it the subtitle, but there you go. I knew you were gonna try to do that.
- [22:01]
Roy Wood Jr.
Nah, nah. You gotta keep the sponsorship money. It's true.
- [22:04]
Van Lathan
It's true. Corporate. So we were talking about something off camera. I'm gonna ask you now.
- [22:08]
Roy Wood Jr.
Okay.
- [22:09]
Van Lathan
We were talking about guys that we know shout out to Omar Dorsey, because we were talking about how great Omar Dorsey's career is. Prolific resume and still going this way, having a great career in a great season with, you know, some of the shows he's been on recently and stuff. We were talking about playing historical figures and that Roy Wood Jr. Has not played a black historical figure yet. If you were gonna play one, who would you play?
- [22:36]
Roy Wood Jr.
Somebody told me on Twitter. Somebody told me on Twitter that I have a civil rights hairline.
- [22:44]
Van Lathan
Now.
- [22:46]
Roy Wood Jr.
You can. It's fine. And, you know, you don't really know what something mean. And then you go back and look at pictures of Dr. King and, like, everybody from that era, everybody's line was pushed back a little bit. Everybody's line was pushed back. Yeah, I don't think I could play Dr. King. Everybody say I look like Dr. King sometimes. I get that comparison.
- [23:06]
Van Lathan
You could definitely play him.
- [23:07]
Rachel Lynn
No, I saw there's a picture. There's a video of you signing books in a suit recently that you posted. And that's when I saw it. I said, oh, my God, he's Dr. King. You know what?
- [23:18]
Roy Wood Jr.
So that's why I stopped. That's why I stopped wearing suits anywhere but the Daily show, because people just like, oh, you look like a preacher. And, like, you don't take the joke serious no more. And I'm like, no, I'm not a pastor. Yeah, you look like a pastor. That was one of the first things. Like, they try, like, in wardrobe, they try and put you in brown suits and, like, dark grays. I'm like, then the civil rights colors.
- [23:38]
Van Lathan
Yeah, they are.
- [23:39]
Roy Wood Jr.
I can't. Black, brown, and dark gray is freedom, you know? So I need a nice light blue. You know what I'm saying? Put me in that Obama. Some of that Obama tan suit shit. Like, give me that. But I never thought about. Cause I feel like all that shit is, like, acting, acting and then when you doing, like, a historical figure, then you gotta, like, legitimately take it serious. And I don't know if I. Give me Jesse Jackson. Let me play Jesse Jackson.
- [24:09]
Ed Zitron
Jesse is good.
- [24:09]
Roy Wood Jr.
I could be a fro and I could be loud. Yeah.
- [24:12]
Rachel Lynn
But I think it would be interesting. Cause we talk a lot about. What's the book? What's Dr. Peniell Joseph's book?
- [24:19]
Van Lathan
Sword and the Shield.
- [24:20]
Rachel Lynn
Sword and the Shield. There's so much to the character that doesn't have to just be serious. I feel like you're so dynamic. You would add so much. Think about it.
- [24:29]
Van Lathan
It'd be hard to hate Dr. King's life for comedy.
- [24:32]
Rachel Lynn
Not comedy, but. I mean, there's no funny. There's nothing funny.
- [24:36]
Van Lathan
I'm sure there was some funny shit. But he could be.
- [24:39]
Roy Wood Jr.
I could be Dr. King. But it would have to be, like, in the Vineyard. Like, the picture of him and Corett on that tandem bike in the Vineyard. Oh, yeah. It would have to be, like, some lighter away from, like. You know how they do, like. They do biopics that are just a period, just a small piece of somebody's life. That's what it would have to be with me and Dr. King.
- [24:57]
Van Lathan
Now, see, this is a good idea. Okay. This is a good idea. Hold on for a second. This is a good idea. Dr. King, Coretta at the vineyard. Three days where Dr. King is just on vacation from saving the world. He's just with his wife. They have. And then they're like. You do that movie, but then you put in little things to let people know that, like, hey, maybe he runs into a family. He gets a call, whatever. At the end, he literally has. He's in, like, the whole time. He's in, like, a short set, right? Cause he's on a venue.
- [25:33]
Roy Wood Jr.
I like that.
- [25:34]
Van Lathan
But at the end, he literally puts his suit back on, like Superman's suit, and he leaves the house to go and do his work. This movie is cold.
- [25:44]
Rachel Lynn
I like it.
- [25:44]
Van Lathan
This is a cold movie.
- [25:45]
Roy Wood Jr.
There's a telegram that in Dr. King. We need you in Memphis.
- [25:49]
Van Lathan
We need you in Memphis.
- [25:50]
Rachel Lynn
Did you hear the voice? Did you hear the voice?
- [25:53]
Van Lathan
He went right into it. We figured this out, by the way.
- [25:56]
Roy Wood Jr.
This is the type of movie, nonviolent.
- [25:58]
Van Lathan
This is the type of movies they used to make. There could be a scene where Dr. King and Coretta have a.
- [26:04]
Rachel Lynn
They kind of did something.
- [26:04]
Van Lathan
They kind of did like the Love Story.
- [26:06]
Rachel Lynn
I see a different side of it. It's done.
- [26:08]
Van Lathan
You have a new book out. The man of Many Fathers.
- [26:11]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yes, sir.
- [26:11]
Van Lathan
Life Lessons Disguised as a memoir. Hell of a title. Tell people the thrust behind writing this book.
- [26:19]
Roy Wood Jr.
Pops died when I was 16. And when I had my son nine years ago, you start going through what type of values do you want to pass on to your kid? And then you start thinking, all right, well, where did I get them values from? And then you realize you didn't get a lot of them from your pops. Cause he just wasn't. And even when he was. I'm my mama's only child. I'm the ninth of 11 kids. So you can understand the type of house that I came up in. Pops wasn't every day. So you start looking at these stories. And I started just realizing as I made a list of folks, bro, that I learned so much from so many random people and dope people and folks I'll never see again, folks that's dead and gone. It's like, this makes sense to pass on to my son in case I die soon. And I don't know, it's probably a little bit of paranoia too. I did find in your roots. And I found out my pops lost his dad when he was 4. He got disappeared in the Georgia in the 30s, in the 1930s. So you already know what that was. So the idea of if I'm gone for whatever reason before he and I are old enough to have, you know, talk about some real shit. Let me just put some of my values on paper for you, man, and just read that. And then the more I thought about that, I was like, all right, this could be a book. This might be something I could venture into, like making a one man show at some point or grow it down the road. But I just think when we think about masculinity, the idea that it all is supposed to come from one place, it don't. Back home in Birmingham, I work with some mentorship programs. And the thing that I've peeped at was that a lot of moments of wisdom that are passed on from elders to the youngins is microscopic. It's not some structured program or whatever. So when I really started thinking about that, I was like, oh, okay. Well, that time I worked day labor in South Carolina, that coworker that was on cocaine, that pimp in New Jersey. There's all these just weird, interesting ass people, man. Racist U.S. marshals, like, you name it. As odd as it is, you can get a lesson sometimes in the worst of moments as well. So that's what made me put it together, man.
- [28:24]
Van Lathan
You know, this is something that's Sometimes difficult for people to understand that, look into the community, and maybe don't have a lot of experience with it. I remember vividly, vividly walking into a Circle K with my friends. And there's a guy outside the Circle K in Baton Rouge. And he was, obviously, he was an addicted brother, as what we would call him at that time would be a crackhead, right? And I remember he walked out and he pulled me to the side, and he's like, hey, you see them little niggas that you with? Them ain't your little niggas. He's like, I see you getting on and off the bus. And he's like, them ain't your niggas. I'm like, man, get off me. Whatever. I remember went home telling my dad. He's like, man, the crackhead tried to tell me. And my dad was like, now why wouldn't you listen to him? He's like, he done seen everything that happens around there. He's like, if he tell you how to do something in terms of, like, how to stay off drugs, maybe you don't listen to him. But if a man is giving you his wisdom, you give him a second to hear him out because of what he's seen. People do not respect the wisdom of people who've had tough, hard, maybe even deviant lives if they haven't been around it, to see the humanity of those people.
- [29:41]
Roy Wood Jr.
I think also I believe that some people are put in front of us on our path as an example of what not to do. And there's lesson in that as well. You know, I was in. So when I did standup, my first nine years of standup, I was a road comic in the South. So you go to these clubs and you'd work three, four days at a time. You'd be in the same city for three, four days. I'd go get a job and I would just work day labor or whatever during the day.
- [30:07]
Van Lathan
While you was doing the standup.
- [30:08]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah. Cause I'm just you in the hotel all day fucking off. You playing PlayStation, nigga, go move a brick or something. Oh, wow. Not co check. You know what I mean? You said it.
- [30:20]
Van Lathan
No. Okay, but you. Yeah, you say, they label my ass.
- [30:28]
Roy Wood Jr.
You said it.
- [30:29]
Van Lathan
Now we see that. I'm glad that your front worked out for you. And you a comic.
- [30:34]
Roy Wood Jr.
We was at this Quikrete factory. It's a Quikrete factory in Columbia, South Carolina. And it's the hardest I've ever worked. Like, the physical. Physical. Like 20 pound bags of dry cement. And you Picking them up off a conveyor belt, stacking them on a forklift pallet. So the forklift take it to the truck and you just left or right all day. Eight hours, 95 degrees. And I'm working there with just an older dude. And I'm 21. 20, 21. I'm on probation at the time for credit cards. You can talk about that later. But you think these OGs are giving you wisdom, man, you need to get off papers, little nigga. I'm telling you, man, you getting your shit together, man. You got it. And come to find out, like at the end of the week, he's like, yeah, you 20. You do this job, you'll be a supervisor in five years. I'm 55. He's basically saying, I'm too old to do this forever. I'm gonna age out, you know, I ain't got a chance to be as great at working outside in the heat as you. And it's like the whole time you think it's an inspirational message, but it's like, oh, no, that's not what I want. And I don't know what pushed him to that point where, you know, God bless him, you a free man and you can. It's an honest day's work, but this ain't what I want to do. And you are way too happy to be doing this shit. And I'm like, oh, I got to get back in college. And that's how I got the idea to, oh, okay, let me go back to school. Cause I was gonna quit school. Not my mama, the educator who'd been in college 30, 40 years, she couldn't talk me into going back to school. Not the old co worker, not the.
- [32:05]
Van Lathan
Old pick ups of concrete.
- [32:07]
Rachel Lynn
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:08]
Roy Wood Jr.
Oh, shit, this is what out here. Let me go and get that degree real quick, bro. And I think the thing that I really also noticed in the book, just in putting the book together, was just, of course there were women in my life, there were women that impacted me. But because I still had my mom, I didn't naturally gravitate towards women like the women in my life were placed there. But when I look at anytime I was in a room, I'm trying to find somebody 10, 20 years older than me and just have a chit chat with them just to see what they about, just to see what they into. Because I never got that type of camaraderie growing up, man. And so I think that's kind of where I really ended up finding myself without really screening people's character. In some weird situations. But even in that, you still learn something.
- [32:57]
Rachel Lynn
Did your definition of fatherhood change while writing the book?
- [33:06]
Roy Wood Jr.
I think my definition of forgiveness changed.
- [33:09]
Rachel Lynn
What do you mean by that?
- [33:12]
Roy Wood Jr.
Cause I think you grow up, everybody had a parent. And you wish you got something different from that parent, right? And this idea of, I knew what kind of father I wanted to be, I want to be present. So how can I work and construct my life in a way where I'm not on the road? Cause I've opened for the comics who do 45 weekends a year. And I'm talking four or five day weeks. And I done seen cats bringing their kids with them to the club. Cause they ain't got custody and they ain't got no babysitter, whatever. So I knew I wanted to be present. Cause my pops wasn't always that. But I think you act as a parent sometimes out of resentment to what you didn't get. I think it's two types of parents. You either be what you wish you had, or you be what you got. Cause it worked out for you, right? So I'm gonna be everything. We gonna play catch, and we gonna do, and we gonna do. And you almost want to erase that part of your childhood. But then you look up and realize, all right, for me to be the best version of myself to him, I have to know who I am. And to know who I am, I have to know who he is. So I have to do the homework on that. I gotta go talk to family members. I got lucky because I got to do finding your roots. And it taught me a lot. You know, you lose your pops, and then they have census data. My dad had no other head of household, no other male head of household ever after that. You in Chicago on the rough side of town with a single mom. And then you get hit by a car, arguing over a girl who just broke up with you. Now you crippled the rest of your life. Well, how would that inform how you treat women? How would that inform how you even see love, your self esteem, and no man there to build it up. And you got hit by that car at 13, which is when you need that level of self esteem and somebody to be your backbone. So I don't feel like he had all of that. So it reconstituted what I felt like I didn't always get. So I can't be mad no more. I gotta sit and look at this man and go, all right, what's the best part to him? And what parts are like him or like me that I respect? And how can I best infuse those and bring those out in my son? What are the tools I can use to bring that out? I ain't saying that you gotta forgive your parents, but it's still good parts of em, so you gotta go find that. So, like that learning the idea of. All right, I can't hold on to whatever was between you and my moms. Right. I got two younger half brothers, who I was. Of all my siblings, I'm closest to my two younger halves. Cause we're closest in age. Pops would bring us around each other. So if I got my son right, and I know, all right, he's gotta see love and his relationship, how he treats women will start with how he sees me treat women. So then I gotta show him love. So then that means I need to make sure that whenever the time comes to bring a woman around him, that I have to love on this woman. Like it's a demonstration in a way. All right. Fuck. When did I see love? Damn. It wasn't him and my mom. It was him and the other woman. So now to be a better father, I have to sit and literally dissect the relationship my father had with the woman across town. Now I gotta call my two younger brothers and literally be like, yo, what was Pops like when he was at your house? Because even if you look at the way that my two younger brothers, their approaches to women is way different. Their approach to dating is different from mine because they had two folks that was trying to make it work. I had two folks who didn't even stay in the same room, bro. Like, we lived together. We moved back in with my pops in the fourth grade. Cause I was starting a while out in Memphis. So my mom's just like, look, we ain't gotta fuck with each other. Just make sure the boy don't join the gang. Yeah, you mind your business. I mind my business. I'm gonna save this money. I'm gonna go to law school, I'm gonna move out. Cool, cool. And that was the kind of the agreement that they had family for the sake of safety. Yeah, Thousand percent. And she was right to do so. We was wild in Memphis, bro. Like, that was. I was a latchkey kid. My mom ain't come home till 8 o'. Clock. I can do whatever the fuck I want. Like, we was out riding around the apartment complex, setting shit on fire, keying cars. Good grades though. Yeah. Cause that keep your mama off your ass, right?
- [38:03]
Van Lathan
People don't understand that. People don't understand, like, you know, people don't understand. A lot of people talk about, like, how this generation has grown up and all the safeguards and stuff like that. Antibacterial soap, Amber Alert, all of that stuff. And I tell them, I'm like, that's a response to our childhood. Because sometimes we would go. It is all of the over. Safety is a response to us. Because sometimes we just go, all right, cool. We out.
- [38:29]
Roy Wood Jr.
Bye. Gone. All right.
- [38:31]
Van Lathan
Okay. Come back when you know. All right, cool. Come back. Mama, Daddy wouldn't be home. Like, all kinds of stuff happening. We in abandoned houses. We, like. We breaking windows in abandoned houses. We got bikes. Y' all think a bike is a fun thing. A bike is a crosstown transportational tool. If you ride that bitch, you ride the bike. You don't know where you at.
- [38:55]
Roy Wood Jr.
It opens the world up. Yeah, that. Y' all hop fences and steal fruit.
- [38:59]
Van Lathan
Hop fences, steal fruit. If you had oranges, we could.
- [39:01]
Rachel Lynn
Not me, not me.
- [39:02]
Van Lathan
Hold on, Rachel. It's like, if you had oranges.
- [39:06]
Roy Wood Jr.
Hey, man.
- [39:07]
Van Lathan
Hey, man. Like. And sometimes people will come by and they'll be like. They say the name of. Hey, she got a kamaquat. They got kamaquats over there. And we'd be like, they got kamaquats. Like, yeah. Hey, man, we gotta go get some of them. Comic Con van. You down, like, yeah, let's go get some of them. Doing all kinds of dumb shit.
- [39:22]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah.
- [39:23]
Van Lathan
But just out there wild. But if you had. If your grades was good or if you made it back home before, whatever, they pretty much let you go figure it out.
- [39:35]
Roy Wood Jr.
They didn't care. I remember, man. So my mama from Clarksdale, we spent every summer. She a vampire in Mississippi.
- [39:46]
Van Lathan
I heard about y' all from Clarks. I heard y' all did so. She a vampire.
- [39:50]
Roy Wood Jr.
We spent every summer in Clarksdale, me and my cousins and on my grandma's street. Total, it was about like 15 to 20 kids. Like, peak summer when all the cousins from every house descended on that street. We was running in a pack, bro, with no supervision. And you would go to vacation Bible school from, like, 9 to 2. And then you reconvene at 2:30 and just run the street playing. The fucking mosquito truck come by. I know you had that in Baton Rouge.
- [40:17]
Van Lathan
Come down the street with the mosquito thing. You guys don't understand. Just spraying poison into the atmosphere. Oh, here come the mosquito truck. Just.
- [40:29]
Roy Wood Jr.
Only for the black neighborhood. But you playing street football and you supposed to wait for the cloud to dissipate. You're supposed to go inside.
- [40:35]
Van Lathan
Just come Back there, breathing it into your lungs.
- [40:39]
Roy Wood Jr.
Aerobic activity.
- [40:42]
Van Lathan
You playing football in the street, on the concrete, by the way, in a poison cloud.
- [40:47]
Roy Wood Jr.
Poison sidelines. Have you.
- [40:49]
Van Lathan
What are you talking about? The mosquito truck. Oh, but, well, I wouldn't talk about the mosquito, but yeah, the mosquito truck.
- [40:54]
Roy Wood Jr.
Come down the thing straight poison playing the atmosphere. Like you didn't. You just didn't know. Like. And that was, that was freedom. Man, that shit was amazing, bro. Like, it really was. And it's like you look at that type of childhood and then you try to figure out what you want to have. Like, I live in New York, I'm raising a city kid. I'm from Alabama. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know. It's times where I don't know if I'm stunting my son or not. You fourth grade and you'll ride the subway with me. But then we'll be on the subway and I'll see a second grader. Just. It'd be like they travel in like a pack of three or four. Like you gonna have to kidnap all of them if you just gonna steal em. But I'd be like, damn, should he be riding the subway by himself in second grade? I just don't trust this world. Like, it's just a different world. Like, kidnapping used to be a van, now they talking about trafficking. And your kid be overseas on some Liam Neeson taking shit. And I could have been there with him because I was too lazy to get him out of bed that morning and walk with him to the train. Nah, man, I'mma be on your hip.
- [42:03]
Rachel Lynn
No, no, no, no. I'm just thinking about what you're saying. This is what terrifies me of wanting to have children. No, no, no, seriously. But, no, go ahead, ask your question. But I'm just listening.
- [42:12]
Van Lathan
I can talk about the childhood thing because. For a long time, but because, you know, sometimes I look back and I look at how hard my father and my mother were on me. It was just because they could. The margin for error was so like, yo, every once in a while you just lost a kid, they just lost one. It was like a part of it. Like every once in a while something would go wrong. Like death was around everything. I want to ask you something specifically.
- [42:38]
Roy Wood Jr.
Before.
- [42:41]
Van Lathan
Your father passed away, you were 16. My father passed away. I was 41. Like four years ago, he passed away. Sometimes for me, it feels like it's a lot easier to be in conversation with his ghost. What I mean by that is like, there were Things that I could have asked my father and exploration about my life, about his life, that I could have asked him about when he was alive that he would have never granted me access to. He would have never been forthright or come clean about certain things. He would have never had conversations with me about certain things. He would have tried to protect his version or the version of himself that.
- [43:24]
Roy Wood Jr.
He showed to me, that generation, always.
- [43:27]
Van Lathan
But now that he's gone, I can learn who he really is. And that kind of reminds me, I can have conversations about people and they can look at me and they can be like, well, Van, you know, your father was. And they can tell me. Or I can look, I can go talk to his children that he had that I did not know he had. Or I can get stories about his life. My dad used to tell me about how he was a 60 minute man, never came off the football field. And he was. And then you talk to Uncle Ray and he'd be like, well, Van, you know your daddy couldn't run, right? And I'd be like, what? You'd be like, well, son, you know your father was out there and he had a lot of wiggle, but your daddy was slow. And I'd be like, what?
- [44:12]
Roy Wood Jr.
Called your daddy natron means.
- [44:14]
Van Lathan
Yeah, exactly. He's like, yo, he could make that baseball dance. He was a college athlete. But you know, your daddy couldn't run. And I'm like. And it's humanizing him for me because it's making him into a person. And it seems like for you that you had to do that at a.
- [44:33]
Roy Wood Jr.
Much earlier.
- [44:36]
Van Lathan
Place in your life and it maybe changed your relationship to men, to fatherhood, to male guidance and all of that.
- [44:44]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah, I mean, I went through rage for a while. Like I didn't like the one thing I could do. Like, I didn't go by Roy Wood Jr. To my senior year of high school. Cause I knew it fucked with him. Cause my pops took pride in the family name. And there's kids all over the city and I have two older brothers who at the time were. They were news anchors in the city. So the Wood name journalistically. My pops was a radio journalist and career going all the way back to the 50s, covering every struggle, war, you name it. Hired Don Cornelius for his first media job for Soul Train. Like, he's contributed to the culture in a number of ways. So he was highly respected. But because of the way you ran the house. And I ain't always respect the house. I'm talking like shit. Like you come home some Nights. And you and my mama get into it. So you just don't pay the gas bill. So I ain't no heat for a day or two. Cause you're just trying to prove a point. So no, I don't want nobody to know I'm your child. Even though everybody knew it's just for being that was the thing. So when he died, my pops didn't. It sound crazy at the time, but where we are with the administration now, nigga might have been right. My pops didn't pay taxes because he didn't believe that the Voting Rights act for black people was written in a way that. To ensure its lastingness into perpetuity. So he refused to contribute to the government. Fiscally, they did not see the black man, black person as whole.
- [46:19]
Van Lathan
It's very convenient.
- [46:20]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah. But then when you die, the IRS comes for your fucking house, right?
- [46:25]
Van Lathan
That's not funny.
- [46:26]
Rachel Lynn
But yeah, I was gonna ask what happened with that.
- [46:29]
Roy Wood Jr.
So imagine your pops dies on a Monday. The IRS sends a lien on a Wednesday. My mom is still legally married to this man. They never died. So she is the estate. So now they coming for the house. But thank God you just got that law degree. So now you know how to drag this shit out. But in the meantime, he was the breadwinner. So now you gotta make money, bro. I'm in high school. I'm working 30 hours a week. I'm in my pop's room. He died that Monday. I went to school because, like, psychologically I'm very much just pushed forward. They send me home from school at noon. Cause it's weird. Cause I'm at school and your daddy died today. So motherfucker go home, right? I go to the attic, I find all my pops old cameras. I used to ride around with my dad. He would thrift, he would pawn shop, he would buy stuff out the paper. He's a camera collector. So I knew all the spots, I knew all the dealers in town. And I rode around town selling my pops cameras just to make sure. We could make gas, we could make rent, we could make lights, we could make water between now and the end of the school year. That don't leave you a lot of time to mourn somebody in that moment. You know what I'm saying? So then you get older. I hit my 20s, I started doing morning radio at the same station he had done news at. So now I'm on my I'm gonna eradicate your name mission. You know, I'm a B junior. I want them to know that I'm your son. I wanna be better than you. I wanna be colder than you. And I spent 10 years and all that does is affirm that I am him. And there's no getting larger than the man who did all of these things for the culture. I'm doing prank phone calls and parody songs. I'm not like, all right. Our morning show did stuff in the community and we were very charitable and we raised money and we did a lot of dope shit for black people. But if we're talking like the diaspora, my pops covered the fucking civil war in Zimbabwe, bro. What are you doing in Birmingham? Like, you're not going. You're never going to be bigger than that. So there became a period of accepting that, man. And when it really shifted for me, I did the correspondence dinner and I'd given a shout out. So my pops was the co founder of the national Black network, which was a syndicated black radio conglomerate of reporters who supplied News in the 60s and 70s to black radio stations. So you can know it's black Twitter. It's like, og. Here's the black news of the day. We are the reporters deciding what the black news is. Nbn, through a series of mergers, evolves into something called aurn, American Urban Radio Networks. And so AURN has a table at the correspondence dinner every year. And so I gave aurn a shout out and it's 30, 40, April Ryan, and all of them at the table. And we're at some of the after parties for the correspondence dinner and there's just random black journalists coming up to me telling me stories about my pops giving them their first chance or their internship or he gave them pointers. My dad, when my dad would travel for events, he would watch the local news anchors in that market, the black ones, and then call them and give them critiques and tips and local reporters and like, so those are the people coming back to me now, like, with your foot 60 minute man story and going, you know, your dad said this about da da da and journalism really should be this. And then they say that shit to me and it's like, my pop's giving me advice from the grave because it'd be, oh, damn, that is a cold ass suggestion. All right, damn. Okay, all right, I need to do that. So it's the only way I can really talk to him is through other people, I mean, or medium. And I ain't fucking with that, man.
- [50:11]
Rachel Lynn
Did that help you maybe reconcile certain feelings you had? Like I've read before that maybe I was listening to an interview where you talked about resentment that you may have had towards your father. And I know that the book deals with, obviously, and you've talked about it here, mortality, absence. But then hearing how he was present in so many other people's lives and what he meant to them, did that help you maybe reconcile some feelings that you had? Cause I was listening to you on Trevor Noah's podcast, which. It's a great conversation the two of you have, but you talked about how he didn't really ask you questions about you. It was more so educating you on things that were happening in the community or life. And I'm just wondering, when you hear stories like that, when you see his influence, does that help you reconcile certain things?
- [50:55]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah, quite a bit, actually. Cause part of it also. And I didn't know this till I talked to my mom after I wrote the book. Cause I didn't talk to my mom. And that was like, the first chapter of the book is about my mom. It's hard to explain how my dad relates to me without putting some of my mama business on Front Street, Right? And I did it as respectful as I could. I think we're good. We still ain't had, like, a proper debrief, but I think we're good. But in talking with my mom, I found out. So my pops dies in 95. I find out about the cancer in, let's say, 93, right? But then I come to find out he knew about the cancer in 85. He told my mom in 85, she never told me. So if I'm dealing and then I think about, all right, if I was with my son and you knew, you have a finite amount of time. Oh, also, my pops was old. My pops was 63 when I was born, 80 when he died. So by the time I moved to Birmingham, he in his 70s. He got cancer. Yeah. And he's not taking chemo. Cause he don't want this shit to make him too weak to do his job. Cause he got pride. So if you have 10 years left with your child or less, what would you teach him? What would you really infuse him with? It ain't gonna be, how was your day? It ain't gonna be, tell me your favorite color. It's, let me get you ready for the world. These motherfuckers are out there. You got one world, and they trying to get you.
- [52:26]
Van Lathan
Yep.
- [52:27]
Roy Wood Jr.
So let me get you straight on this. Come with me backstage. I'm interviewing this dude named Jesse Jackson. I want you to see this. Come with me over here. Minister Farrakhan's coming to Birmingham. I just want you to. And I'm sixth grade. What the fuck I'm doing on a school night like 9:30 with Minister Farrakhan.
- [52:46]
Rachel Lynn
Look at back.
- [52:46]
Van Lathan
That's so incredible, though. 9:30, you and Minister Farrakhan sitting back there like that. That's. But that. But see, he is funny.
- [52:57]
Roy Wood Jr.
He did what he could.
- [52:58]
Van Lathan
He did what he could.
- [52:59]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah. It's like, let me just give you the most important nuggets. Here's the resilience you will need. So start with that. So you can't. You can't. I can't still hold him to that.
- [53:13]
Rachel Lynn
For sure.
- [53:14]
Roy Wood Jr.
I let that go and it don't help me raise the boy. Holding onto it does nothing for me. So I just. I've rarely seen where resentment has helped in any capacity make you a better person. That's true.
- [53:30]
Van Lathan
I have to say something or Jason.
- [53:32]
Roy Wood Jr.
Wilson.
- [53:34]
Van Lathan
Will watch this and be mad at me. You said something earlier. I want to name it Detroit og. Yeah, it's the Man. If you guys haven't seen it, go watch.
- [53:44]
Rachel Lynn
Go watch our podcast.
- [53:45]
Van Lathan
Go watch our podcast and then go watch. Go watch Mr. Wilson talk to Cam Newton on Funky Fridays. Cam almost broke him. Cam almost got him. Like, Jason was talking about the importance of getting married. And Cam went, well, Jesus wasn't married.
- [54:02]
Ed Zitron
Jason goes.
- [54:06]
Van Lathan
Like, he. But I gotta say something. You said earlier that you, you know, that you were doing prank phone calls and all of that stuff. You know you mean more to us than that, right?
- [54:18]
Roy Wood Jr.
Absolutely. I'm just saying at that time. I know.
- [54:20]
Van Lathan
So just, you know that like, everything, like the investment that your father put into you, like, we're cashing it in and we appreciate your dad and we appreciate you.
- [54:30]
Roy Wood Jr.
I appreciate it, man. In a lot of ways, I became him. He did news commentary, he did news stories, he took calls from the community. Like, a lot of, like my last 10 years of standup and Daily show stories, it's all stuff he would have covered, right? Gang violence in Chicago, the Million Man March, cop city in Atlanta. Like, most of the black stuff I did on Daily Shows, stuff my pops would have already had a politician on talking about. But at that time, in terms of when I was in Birmingham, 0102 first starting in 95. Seven, getting out of his shadow, the things I was doing collectively for the culture were far inferior to him, to what he's, you know.
- [55:11]
Van Lathan
So we've talked a lot about your father and kind of searching for him or seeing him in other people, somebody outside of him, as you talk about, the man of many fathers, somebody outside of him directly that you talk about in the book, maybe that really meant a lot to you. Maybe give people an insight into that, like somebody other than your dad, someone who had to step in.
- [55:39]
Roy Wood Jr.
You know, I think that. I think a lot of people, it's like. Cause the stories aren't always inspiring, right? But what did I learn? Like, what is the. Like. And to me is when I worked at Golden Corral, bro. Like, it really. It really. But you got. Let me set the scene though, okay? I'm suspended from college. I am. At this time, I'm on probation for what would eventually be three years, but I'm suspended from school for using stolen credit card on campus mail theft. I had a work study at the campus post office. I stole a credit card from the post office, I took it and I bought clothes. I sold the clothes on campus.
- [56:28]
Van Lathan
That's what I'm talking about.
- [56:28]
Roy Wood Jr.
I was the plug, okay?
- [56:29]
Van Lathan
That's what I'm talking about. Shout out to my homie, you know who you are.
- [56:35]
Roy Wood Jr.
Prior to that, it was food, it was PlayStation game. But when I graduated to, like, doing, like, clothes and, like, using, like, tangible cars, like, all right, you gotta come on off the streets first. So when you're on probation and you used to be the plug on campus, you have no friends no more. And then, you know when you get arrested? Well, I don't know if y' all know, but when you get arrested, they show you a mugshot book of other people they building cases on and they trying to get you to roll her.
- [57:05]
Van Lathan
I don't burnt you some McDonald's brought you some McDonald's.
- [57:08]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah, but they tried. It was Miami subs at the time. It's Tallahassee. But I go, okay, well, I'm not snitching on them, but, like, I've already confessed to my shit, so there's no reason for me to snitch. But it's basically. They basically show me a book of everybody I was already kicking it with. Now you have no friends. So now you're in school, you have no friends. I'm doing stand up on the road. I'm 19, performing with 40 year olds. I ain't got nothing in common with them or I'm doing open mics. So you riding a Greyhound, you're alone. Everything is isolation. And then I get back in school that fall, it might have been that fall into that following year, but there was a bomber on campus at famu. There was a. It's a Fam. Yeah, yeah. So there was a white boy leaving pipe bombs in the bathroom. And so two or three of them went off. Nobody died. There might have been an injury or two. But at the time, this is like peak burning of black churches. So yeah, it's a precursor to where we at now? But like the campus was real tense and so they started running an investigation into figuring out who possible suspects are. And the FBI came into classrooms at FAM and was pulling, pulling people out the classrooms who were on active probation at the university and questioning you in the fucking hallway. Like not even like in some tucked off room. Just, what are you doing? Have you been around Explosive? Do you have any disdain for the university? Like just grilling you about, is this a student doing this and not an actual white supremacist? Which it turned out to be because I got pulled into the hall. People see me so they know that something's up. Like my arrest wasn't publicized at the time because they were still building cases against other people. They didn't want to spook folks out. But now, oh, what's up with Roy? Folks started doing, digging, pulling paperwork. They found my paperwork. They sent in the paperwork to the professors and to the student paper, trying to get stories written on me to get me expelled. Even though the decision had already been made for me to be suspended and be real Alabama. So folks were trying to like really fucked me up, bro. And so this idea of forgiveness and friendship, all I had was Golden Corral. It was the one place for a year and a half, almost two years, where I was not judged, I was loved. I was embraced by every single person in that fucking store. Every cook, every dishwasher. And like when you work at a restaurant, everybody is a different age, a different goal. It's the best. And restaurant jobs, like your job is the first time as a child where you're around adults who don't give a fuck about you. They don't care about your matriculation through life. And with a. It's just working around regular ass people. And so my PO had to come in and verify my employment. And I thought I was going to get fired. Come to find out, Golden Corral, half the store was on papers because they get a. Because they get the tax credit to hire the felons with tax credit. So now all the dishwashers in the back, it was mostly back of the house on papers. It wasn't the service. So now back at the house, taking me under their wing. It's not a OGs back there. They like, little nigga, I'm gonna look out for you, little nigga. And so it was a dude back there I called Big Mix. And so Mix had been on papers for a while for all types of just wild and guns and whatever. And he. That was like the one checks and balances outside of my PO Cause your mama can't get through me. And my mom wasn't even talking for real during that time because I was doing standup, and she didn't approve of it. And I'm like, look, if I make good grades, then just don't. Let's just not talk. But Mix was like, the one person that I felt, hey, man, you need to do whatever you need to do to not go back to jail. Cause I don't know about you, I'm not going. Almost like a sponsor. Like a behavioral sponsor in a way. And so that became the place where I was. Where I even thought that I had a place in society after getting arrested because they shame you after you've done something wrong. They try to make it seem like you're disposable. And I'm at school, and I'll be fair to fam, I had teachers and stuff that showed love and, you know, whatever, but it's just. There was Just there was some fucking snakes in the grass. That first semester when I got back in school, shout out, ratless.
- [62:10]
Van Lathan
Ratless.
- [62:12]
Roy Wood Jr.
That did not want. Who did not think I deserved a second chance because of the mistake that I had made. So you have that. You ain't really talking to your mom. You have no friends no more. Your roommates are co. Defendants. Golden Corral. Damn.
- [62:29]
Rachel Lynn
You still talk to anybody from Golden Corral?
- [62:32]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah, I still talk to some of the servers. Oh, I love that. I still talk to some of the servers. We'll check in, like, every now and then. But, you know, this cat Mix was just so headstrong about not going back to jail that he just. He was the encouragement to everybody else in the building to make better choices. Always make better choices. You can make better choices. I'm telling you, man. Don't let them crackers get you. Them crackers trying to get you, nigga. Don't you let them crack. Died in a shootout with the Tallahassee police. Damn. A couple years later. And so, you know, you think about the idea of when somebody say, I ain't going back to jail, and you just think it's this proclamation of better living. But it also could be on that maniacal side where you're not taking. We're just like, well, what the fuck is prison if you would rather die in a shootout than go back to prison? And so that was the turn of. All right, let me do this comedy right? Let me do something that don't get me back in jail. And that place, that store literally changed my faith in people, and it changed my trajectory career wise. And it's just because everybody there was just helpful and warm and kind. Like, it was the perfect job for that time period in my life. There was nowhere else where I got love or was embraced other than Golden Corral and oh, and then shout out to the FAMU grad students, like, once you get into. Cause the grad students didn't know I got arrested. What is that?
- [64:20]
Van Lathan
I'm here for my Pakita and Brandy.
- [64:24]
Roy Wood Jr.
I love y'.
- [64:24]
Rachel Lynn
All.
- [64:31]
Van Lathan
Last thing I'll ask, are all of our kids all of our responsibility, you see, going back and forth.
- [64:39]
Roy Wood Jr.
Are you on some razor village to be the village?
- [64:42]
Van Lathan
Well, to me, I'll tell you why I ask. To me, that's who we are. To me, who we are. That's an African saying to me, who we are. There's an understanding that we all have a collective responsibility to guide and nurture and invest into even other people's kids, into other other people's kids. Because those other other people's kids are the kids that are going to be friends of our children. They're going to be marrying our children in community with our children. That there is one big organism called culture and community. And in order to nurture it, sometimes it's not about being a father to your kids. Sometimes it's about being a father figure, mother figure, auntie, uncle to somebody else's kids and caring about them. Your thoughts?
- [65:44]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah.
- [65:47]
Rachel Lynn
Be honest.
- [65:49]
Roy Wood Jr.
Let me tell you what I learned about myself. I'm not good with kids.
- [65:52]
Van Lathan
Oh, yeah, Fair.
- [65:54]
Roy Wood Jr.
But I work in support of organizations that do.
- [65:58]
Van Lathan
Right.
- [65:59]
Rachel Lynn
That's great advice.
- [66:00]
Roy Wood Jr.
That's my thing. Like we used to. Man, they used to send us. You know when I used to bomb the worst reading to kids in elementary school. Yeah. When they do that, Dr. Seuss come to the school, use a respected brother.
- [66:13]
Ed Zitron
Wood.
- [66:13]
Rachel Lynn
What happened?
- [66:14]
Roy Wood Jr.
You just be expecting them to connect and they don't. They just be staring at you.
- [66:18]
Van Lathan
Yeah.
- [66:19]
Roy Wood Jr.
And I'm like, motherfucker, laugh, chuckle. You adding voices to the book and all of that. And they just first grade public school kid. But no, like, there's, like, there's charities back at the crib. Like, pretty much everything I do, like, to the village thing, I pretty much do Everything I can to just pour stuff back into Birmingham. Like, I know it's a million charities and a million causes. If you ain't in Alabama, I don't give a fuck about what you know.
- [66:52]
Van Lathan
No.
- [66:52]
Roy Wood Jr.
Except for Precious Dreams. Cause they help homeless kids in New York. They're dope. But like, the idea of, like, supporting an organization that reaches children, that's my ministry and sports. Like, I go back to Birmingham, like, I'll do tricky shit like this. Where we hit a lick with Meta. And Meta had given us. This is a Daily show thing or whatever. And they had sent like 5, 6 VR headsets to the Daily Show. And I'm like, I know y' all not gonna use em. Let me just get in that call of Baseball to win Reality, people.
- [67:31]
Van Lathan
Oh, I got that. I love that.
- [67:32]
Roy Wood Jr.
It's just dope.
- [67:33]
Van Lathan
I love that. Play baseball in the living room.
- [67:35]
Roy Wood Jr.
So I played baseball growing up. And so my high school. The issue with my high school is that we don't have a field because we're on a weird side of town. The geography of it, whatever. So you lose 45 minutes every day in commute to a baseball field. Makes you less competitive. I get with Wind Reality, I get with Meta. We donate these headsets to the high school. And then I try to be a fiscal booster every year because I really believe that athletics helps to keep kids off the street. Like, that's what happened in Baltimore. They added more parks and more programs and the crime goes down. So to me, it's literacy and that. But in the one to one. What you talking about? On the Village stuff.
- [68:14]
Van Lathan
You did it again. The answer is yes, nigga. The answer is yes. All of our kids are all our responsibility, and you do it. But I know you giving.
- [68:21]
Rachel Lynn
You giving headsets, explaining the way he does it.
- [68:24]
Van Lathan
I get it. But like Roy the humility.
- [68:27]
Roy Wood Jr.
I'm not a mentorship program. I know, but can the kid be with you for 12 hours?
- [68:31]
Rachel Lynn
No, but I like the way you answered it.
- [68:33]
Van Lathan
I like the way you answered it too.
- [68:35]
Rachel Lynn
But there are other ways more than the direct. Direct.
- [68:38]
Van Lathan
But at the end of the day, just to let people know, Roy got a bunch of headsets and the win reality is fantastic. I got the short bet and Roy went, let me bless some kids with them because the kids need the headsets to help them in their development. So you doing it.
- [68:55]
Roy Wood Jr.
But I'm not talking to five 12 year olds on the train. I will say something to them in passing. Like, I also don't believe we should be scared of these Kids because they're wild and because nobody's gave them guidance. But I'm also not gonna go, oh, how your grades, young man? I just. I'll come up and try to just be like, yo, what y' all listening to? Just talk to me about something. That old school waiter shit, right? Talk to me about something you interested in? Of course. Sports, entertainment, whatever. What are y' all into, man? I like motherfucking little nuk nook. Boom, boom, click.
- [69:25]
Van Lathan
All right, cool.
- [69:28]
Roy Wood Jr.
I'm gonna try and listen to that. And I know they laughing at me. Cause I'm just an old nigga with salt and pepper, but it feels like some degree of. Hey, don't view everybody as a mark.
- [69:39]
Rachel Lynn
Yeah. You know, and they feel seen. Before we let you go, I know you're a big baseball fan. Who are you picking to win the World Series?
- [69:45]
Roy Wood Jr.
It's gotta be Dodgers. Okay, Dodgers. The arms are too massive. Blake Snell. I don't want to get into analysis. Dodgers.
- [69:53]
Rachel Lynn
All right.
- [69:53]
Roy Wood Jr.
I just think they. Well, six. All right. Toronto ain't no problem.
- [69:58]
Van Lathan
I'm telling y'.
- [69:59]
Ed Zitron
All.
- [69:59]
Van Lathan
Right?
- [69:59]
Roy Wood Jr.
Now the bigger question is, does Kendrick show up to 1 up? Drake showing up? He should.
- [70:05]
Van Lathan
He should. And I just let you guys know that I really. Actually, to the Canadians out there, I didn't have no beef with the Canadians, really. Until this series started. Cause then I started to see how the Canadians is moving. You know, to me, it was a Kendrick Drake thing. Everybody else made it a Canada or America thing. But just to the Canadians out there, I see how y' all moving.
- [70:28]
Roy Wood Jr.
Fuck y' all little chick.
- [70:29]
Rachel Lynn
It's a competition.
- [70:30]
Van Lathan
Yeah, I get it. And so I'm telling y' all something rhyme would do just because we brought this up. Luis out in front is a gigantic Dodger fan. Luis is a huge Dodger fan.
- [70:46]
Roy Wood Jr.
Huge.
- [70:47]
Van Lathan
I was talking to Luis, Luis the barista out here, and I was like.
- [70:50]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yo, man.
- [70:53]
Van Lathan
Are you going to the game? He goes, ah, man, the price of those games is too big. Higher learning. We gonna bless Luis. We gonna send Luis to the World Series.
- [71:02]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah, yeah.
- [71:04]
Van Lathan
Like, we gonna send Luis to the World Series. Me and Luis talk about baseball every day. Higher learning as a pot. We about to send Luis to the World Series. I asked him up there, I was like, would you go by yourself? He was like, yeah. Cause if I had to send Luis and somebody else to the World Series, we ain't doing that. But, like, we gonna send Luis to the World Series. Higher learnings and send them. And then Roy Ward Jr. Is gonna.
- [71:26]
Roy Wood Jr.
Contribute to that, I will. I went to the Cubs World Series. I'm a Cubs fan. It's one of the most unforgettable experiences. I put 500. Well, wait, hang on. Which game?
- [71:34]
Rachel Lynn
Whoa, whoa. What? You trying to sit up?
- [71:37]
Roy Wood Jr.
500 ain't shit.
- [71:38]
Van Lathan
That ain't what happened. How much does it cost to. Maurice told me it was 850 for the cheapest ticket.
- [71:42]
Rachel Lynn
Really?
- [71:42]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah. I paid. Cubs Game 7 in Cleveland, 15th row in the outfield. I paid $2,800. It's the only thing. I don't rock a lot of jewelry on kicks. I don't own a car.
- [71:56]
Rachel Lynn
That's your thing.
- [71:56]
Roy Wood Jr.
Sports is my. Yeah. May I make a suggestion on what game to buy the ticket for?
- [72:00]
Van Lathan
Okay.
- [72:01]
Roy Wood Jr.
Game five. In case the Dodgers run the table at home. Cause I think this is a two, three, two series.
- [72:05]
Ed Zitron
So.
- [72:06]
Van Lathan
Two, three, two. Yeah. So we got game five via Clinch. Yeah.
- [72:09]
Roy Wood Jr.
Okay. Yeah.
- [72:10]
Rachel Lynn
You absolutely can make a suggestion. You putting 500 on it?
- [72:13]
Van Lathan
Yeah. I mean, he'll have to. It's a higher learning thing. You don't put forces on it.
- [72:16]
Rachel Lynn
We're definitely gonna say Louise. We'll do Louise. We'll do it.
- [72:19]
Roy Wood Jr.
If y' all vouch on the script that y' all having me here. I appreciate it because I fuck with y' all and y' all have tried to have me. The scheduling's been weird.
- [72:27]
Rachel Lynn
No, we're happy to have you here. Thank you for coming here, especially in person.
- [72:30]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah. Yes. I like that.
- [72:31]
Van Lathan
Thank you for coming. Roy, I wanna let you know just one more time before you leave, man. You are. I hope you take this with you. You are one of the easiest people in this entire industry to root for, like, legitimately.
- [72:44]
Roy Wood Jr.
Thank you.
- [72:45]
Van Lathan
Not when I say you challenge, you know, it's not safe. It's not. There's. But you are one of the easiest people in this entire industry to root for. Every time I see you, I'm like, hey, Roy Wood. Retweet Roy Wood. Hope it happens. And you're doing so great. The book, everything that you said today, I resonate with so much of it. We resonate with so much of it. The mosquitoes and all of that. It's just almost like the same thing. Even the Junior thing. I put the junior on at 41.
- [73:20]
Rachel Lynn
Yeah.
- [73:21]
Van Lathan
I put the junior on at 41 because I feel like the world will forget my father. And I'm like, let me make you remember his name every time you say my name. So it's the same thing, man. I hope people go get the Book the Man of Many Fathers.
- [73:34]
Roy Wood Jr.
I appreciate that.
- [73:34]
Van Lathan
Life lessons disguised as a memoir. Also, I have news for have I Got News for you. Season three airing now Saturday nights on cnn.
- [73:42]
Roy Wood Jr.
It's so funny. We ain't getting much fun on there.
- [73:44]
Rachel Lynn
It's so funny. It's such a nice break from the way news is produced.
- [73:48]
Roy Wood Jr.
If they do. If CNN does right by the show and bring US back in 26, we gotta get you. That's my word. As sure as Louise going to the ball game. Yeah, you get y' all on that.
- [73:58]
Van Lathan
Have y' all had Scott Jennings on yet?
- [74:01]
Roy Wood Jr.
No, surprisingly not. You know what's weird, man? CNN is a little with the talent. Yeah. With the folks that do Abby and.
- [74:10]
Van Lathan
Laura Cochran all day. But there's two different tiers, though. They're the actual CNN contributor family and it's actually a little family. And then there are the meat puppets like myself that they bring in to kick us around. But they treat you so good at cnn. I love my people at cnn. Help me for my Delta Miles.
- [74:30]
Roy Wood Jr.
Bomani Jones has come on. I'm trying to think of other crossover.
- [74:33]
Van Lathan
Shout Out Bo.
- [74:34]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah. So, I mean, you can. Come on, man. Can't wait, y'. All. It's.
- [74:38]
Rachel Lynn
Yeah, come on.
- [74:38]
Roy Wood Jr.
Come, come talk shit.
- [74:40]
Van Lathan
Definitely.
- [74:41]
Roy Wood Jr.
Please. It'd be a pleasure.
- [74:42]
Van Lathan
Roy Wood Jr. Thank you for joining us on Higher Learning.
- [74:44]
Roy Wood Jr.
Hey, thank you all. Appreciate this.
- [74:45]
Van Lathan
All right, man. For real, bro.
- [74:46]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah.
- [74:49]
Rachel Lynn
Your teen adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained. One who navigates life on their own terms effortlessly.
- [74:59]
Roy Wood Jr.
They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions.
- [75:09]
Rachel Lynn
They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist.
- [75:14]
Roy Wood Jr.
The new fragrance by Miu Miu, defined by you.
- [75:17]
Van Lathan
This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market.
- [75:19]
Ed Zitron
Whether it's a game day or backyard fire pit or simply to enjoy delicious food with the people you love, Whole Foods Market has got you find great everyday prices on 365 brand favorites like organic tortilla chips and salsa. Plus apple cider sandwich cookies. Yum. And right now you can save 50%. That's right, 50%. With prime on select frozen pizzas through October 28th. Visit your local Whole Foods Market today in store. Online terms apply.
- [75:47]
Van Lathan
AI. Is it taking over? Is it overhyped? Is it being artificially inflated by seven companies who are running a circular economy that really is masking massive, massive economic stress in America?
- [76:07]
Rachel Lynn
Is that a question or a statement?
- [76:09]
Van Lathan
I'm asking all these questions. I tried to answer them. I was trying to cramp. I can't do it. But someone that can is Ed Zittron. He is a technology writer, a podcaster, he's the host of the Better Offline podcast, CEO of the media and public relations company ezpr. He's a critic of the technology industry, but also he analyzes it, particularly of AI companies and the 2020s AI boom. This is an important issue. Ed is joining us right now on Higher Learning. Ed, let me ask you something.
- [76:43]
Ed Zitron
Sure.
- [76:44]
Van Lathan
Why do you think that ringing the alarm bells on AI's position in our society is important?
- [76:54]
Ed Zitron
Because right now the alarm bells that are being rung are, oh, AI could do this, AI could do that. AI will, will make a bunch of people unemployed. When the reality is, is that AI, right now, the only real business model it has is finding ways to burn billions of dollars, finding ways for tech investors to pretend there's growth, and stabilizing the US economy with data centers being built for demand that doesn't exist. It's a myth. It's built on myth.
- [77:22]
Rachel Lynn
Okay, but how does this compare to the past?
- [77:25]
Ed Zitron
Right?
- [77:25]
Rachel Lynn
Cause I think people listening will say, okay, well, we've been in these booms before, we've been in these bubbles before. How does this, what we're going through right now, Compare to the 90s tech bubble?
- [77:38]
Ed Zitron
So of the tech bubbles that people talk about, they talk about the tech bubble and they talk about Uber and Amazon Web Services. So Amazon's cloud platform, in all of these cases, there was never this amount of overbuild connected to a product that is yet to really prove much of a business model. And indeed a lot like, I don't remember the previous bubbles, just completely making stuff up there. Within the dot com bubble, for example, it was all about getting people stuff that they ordered online. A proven business model. The problem is that a lot of these companies didn't really bother to charge for shipping, didn't do real infrastructure so they could ship things in an affordable way. Even with the telecommunications boom, with a bunch of fiber laid around, that was still useful for building Internet. Now with GPUs, the underlying hardware behind AI, those really aren't useful for a bunch of other things. And on top of that, large language models are inherently limited. They're probabilistic, meaning they're guessing the thing that you want from them, which means they do something called hallucinate, which is they authoritatively state something that's true that they think is, that they say is true that isn't actually true this, when it comes to doing stuff with them, leads to them. I don't know if you've connected them to a code base, rewriting something and breaking it, or referencing a library that doesn't exist.
- [78:55]
Van Lathan
Large language models so let's start here. I'm going to ask you about the economy of this in a second, but let's give people a primer on what's going on. You used a couple of terms there. You said gpu, you said large language model. Tell people what a GPU is and then tell people what a large language model is and how both of those things are tied in to the economy. That might make it so that a data center is built across the street from them very soon, like a huge data center sucking up all the resources in their community. Why do GPUs and large language models matter?
- [79:36]
Ed Zitron
So those data centers may never get built, but that's a separate thing entirely. So a large language model is a. It's called a transformer based model. A very simplified way of looking at it is that it uses probability to compare two things. This is kind of a fudge, but. So when chatgpt tells you something, you ask it, it is effectively generating what it thinks is the most likely answer. Now, to run a large language model requires GPUs, graphics processing units effectively sold by one company called Nvidia, which is also the largest company on the stock market, to run these GPUs. It's not like you plug them in like a regular computer. They run very hot and you need a lot of them. You need hundreds thousand, hundreds of thousands in some cases of them to run these models. The other problem is they're extremely energy intensive on top of the cooling, which is already energy intensive. So to do even the simplest things with these models requires you to run one instance, which could be used by maybe a couple hundred people across four to twelve of these GPUs, each costing fifty to seventy thousand dollars just for the GPU. And that's before the servers and all the other stuff on top. Now, the thing is about all this is large language models at first showed some promise. People extrapolated saying, oh, it can generate text to mean this will be able to do distinct actions. Problem, problem is you're rolling dice effectively every time. And who wants to roll the dice when you're asking someone to do, I don't know, a financial transaction. But nevertheless, all of this comes down to selling masses of GPUs and putting them in big expensive data centers and hoping it Works out.
- [81:15]
Roy Wood Jr.
I.
- [81:15]
Rachel Lynn
Okay, I'm gonna ask because my questions are more of like, how is this gonna impact us? Which is where I get scared and nervous. I think AI is already just daunting, period. Right. Like, we don't really understand it. I listen to you explain it, I think I get it, and then something else will happen and I'm like, okay, I have no idea what it is. So then I go to, I guess like a broader picture of how is this gonna impact, impact me as a person. How is this gonna affect the society I live in? And I think that's what a lot of people wanna know. So when I, I guess going back to my original question is, is there any way that this, we are in the earlier moments of some sort of technical revolution or are we already overextended and headed for some sort of crash?
- [82:03]
Van Lathan
Great question.
- [82:04]
Ed Zitron
Absolutely. So one of the common tropes of Silicon Valley is that companies start, they burn a bunch of money, they grow and then they become profitable. That is one of the core tenets. Another thing is that with AI we have been sold this story of, oh, something that could automate our lives. An intelligent assistant, a thing that can know us and do things for us. These are the promises. The problem is that there's never been a more focused amount of capital on one particular tech ever in any period. So the early days have been and gone because the sheer amount of attention and money and ultimately large language models like ChatGPT kind of mostly do the same thing as they did three years ago. So yeah, it's really strange. So while they are better at some things, it's based on these benchmarks. Now you can't give them regular human benchmarks, you can't test them right. Like actually doing something. You can't have them do a job because they're not really good at that. So they have these benchmarks specifically built for AI. Except here's the problem, they're just memorizing a test. It's things with defined right answers. Because of that probability, they can't come up with novel ideas, they can't come up with original ones. So all of those scary headlines you're seeing about AI is replacing workers.
- [83:24]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah.
- [83:25]
Ed Zitron
Underneath all of them is a distinct lack of any evidence. There was a one that came out from Stanford fairly recently that said, I think it's 13% of AI influenced jobs are reducing in employment. When you looked a little deeper, one of those industries was accountancy, which has seen a dramatic drop in people becoming accountants. It's not actually because of AI. And indeed no one seems to be able to prove this. However, there is a massive push from these tech companies to push AI everywhere. And it's because they've run out of big ideas to sell us. They don't have anything else that will make them grow forever. So they've stuck themselves with this big expensive thing. And when you're a big tech executive, how do you prove you have a job? How do you prove why you're there? Buy stuff, invest stuff. The problem is they've now invested hundreds of billions of dollars and nobody's making a profit.
- [84:16]
Rachel Lynn
Can I ask a follow up really quickly? Is, is this what happened with the chat GPT update with GPT5?
- [84:22]
Ed Zitron
Yeah, so that was really interesting. So I actually reported this out. So GPT5 was talked up for years. You can go back to 2023 and there are people saying GPT5 will control entire computer systems. It was very dramatic. Then it came out. It's kind of a damp one. Like no one was really excited about it. It didn't do a ton more. It was better at some things. But beneath the surface was this thing that people thought was amazing called the router. So when you'd ask it a question, it would go, oh, this question here, this is quite good. I'm going to send this to a more a thinking model. So thinking is when it just you say, I want to do this and it walks through the steps. More expensive too. I actually had reported out that this router situation actually makes it more expensive. So in the end they released a more expensive version of ChatGPT that people hated because people were very attached to to the previous one, GPT4O. I think GPT5 in history is going to be the moment OpenAI was cooked. I think that that's when people started really turning on this company. They should have gone earlier, but I'll take it.
- [85:27]
Van Lathan
I'll ask you about artificial general intelligence in a second because that's kind of the white whale that everybody is chasing to prove that AI can revolutionize society. But let's get into the economy of it real quick. Describe for people the max 7 AI companies and how they control the AI economy and how this is working, particularly here in the American stock market.
- [85:51]
Ed Zitron
So let's start with Nvidia. Now, the reason, by the way, that Nvidia is the only company really selling these GPUs that's kind of changing, but not really is because a thing called Cuda C U D A not gonna go into the depths of it, but it's basically how you make a graphics processor run computing operations. Sure, somebody will say it's more, but that's basically it. So Nvidia has become the largest company on the stock market because really it is four of them. But the rest of the Magnificent Seven to some extent have been buying all of those GPUs. The Magnificent Seven made up, I think 42% of Nvidia's revenue. So you have this giant dependency building and then you have the dirty little secret that none of them are making money on it there. No, there's no profits here and we can get to OpenAI in a little bit, but we're just looking at the main ones. Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google, not a shred of profit. In fact, none of them want to talk about their AI revenue. Microsoft used to back in January, but then they stopped. I don't think they stopped because it's so good personally, but so you've got this situation where every our markets are based on this idea of selling these GPUs to these companies and there are other companies by them too. Numbers going up so much. But the problem has become where are the returns? Where are the returns on investment? Why is nobody talking about the wonderful things we can do with this? Why is no one talking about how much money they're making? And the answer is they're not. Every dollar they make, they're spending more than that.
- [87:20]
Van Lathan
Where are their revenues coming from?
- [87:23]
Ed Zitron
So that's the thing. They do sell AI services, but they can't sell them at high enough people prices to recoup the expensive and expenses. And even the customers they have don't really like it. Microsoft 365, their big software package they sell. I think they're 440 million customers. It's the one that has Office and Word and all these things in it. And it's the big cash cow. They had tons of money. Of those 440/something million customers, they only in August had 8 million active users paying for Microsoft Copilot AI. That's pretty bad. Microsoft are the apex predator of software sales and they can't even get that going. They stopped talking about AI revenue partially because of the 13 billion they're estimated to make this year. $10 billion of that is OpenAI's compute spend. So the money they spend to run all their operations, that money is, according to the information reported this out last year, that compute is sold at cost. So Microsoft's just taking a bath, just a $10 billion bath at best. They're just net zero. But they're probably losing more, especially with the tens of billions of dollars, I mean, $80 billion of capital expenditures, which is just money spent on stuff that they've done this year. It's weird because big tech is usually very boasty. They love to talk big, don't they? Oh, all the money we're making, all the money we're spending. But with AI, it's like, oh, we couldn't possibly talk about that. Oh, it's too early. Oh, we're in the early days. That's an excuse because large language models are not really something that people will pay for at scale.
- [89:00]
Rachel Lynn
So if investors, if this is their dirty little secret, which not disagreeing with you, then why are investors still investing in this?
- [89:10]
Ed Zitron
Because the markets are run by babies. It really is a very childlike thing when they say numb because the companies right now, they're still profitable, their margins are still good. They, they are showing growth every quarter. So the market sees this and says this means AI is doing this. And indeed you would see last quarter and this week is earnings last quarter. Google, who showed, has never discussed their AI revenue. They had growth in general, not broken out in any way. And the multiple outlets said, oh, Google's AI bet pays off. There's no proof that that's the case. And so these companies, I think are being invested in based on vibes. I know that sounds a little imprecise, but that really is it, because otherwise people, it really is scary because a lot of regular people's 401ks are tied up in this. And I read something where, well, the Mag 7 is 30% or something of the entire stock market.
- [90:06]
Van Lathan
Yeah.
- [90:07]
Ed Zitron
And when you remove their returns, the stock market was in decline last year.
- [90:11]
Van Lathan
We're in a recession. Yeah. Like if you take all of the AI investment out, like we're in a recession, we're essentially operating two different economies. One economy that is based on financial speculation and another economy that's contracting all over the country that this AI stuff cannot help. You said that these companies are profitable, but you said earlier AI wasn't profitable. Kind of clear, like square that circle for people. Tell people what you mean.
- [90:37]
Ed Zitron
Pardon me, I didn't make that point precisely enough. So Microsoft sells a bunch of stuff. Google sells a bunch of stuff. Google has Google Search and the attached advertising prints billions of dollars of revenue. Amazon has Amazon.com, amazon Web Services, where people can run their cloud applications. Incredibly profitable businesses. So they can kind of bury the losses. Like say you make $1,000 a week, but you lose $300 a week gambling, you still got 700 bucks. Right?
- [91:09]
Van Lathan
Right.
- [91:09]
Ed Zitron
And if all people are looking for is the top line number without wondering where that $300 went, just fine. These guys are just growing. Nothing's wrong here.
- [91:18]
Van Lathan
The question that a lot of people would be asking when you're gambling that 300 bucks, you're gambling hoping to win, right?
- [91:27]
Ed Zitron
Right.
- [91:27]
Van Lathan
You're losing it, but you're hoping to win. What is Microsoft hoping to get out of? AI? What is Google hoping to get out of AI? What is SoftBank hoping to get out of? Investment into AI. Nvidia pushed them to the side because they're actually selling the GPUs. They're the ones right now that actually hope that the bubble never bursts because they're making money based upon selling an actual thing. And TSMC and all of these other companies that are the superconductor companies, this is good for them. This is replace the Xbox as stuff that actually uses the stuff that they make. But what is Microsoft, Google and the rest of these companies that are burning their AI money, What are they hoping to get? Like, what's the white whale?
- [92:15]
Ed Zitron
So like any end of relationship situation, it looked good at the beginning. When it was two years ago, they could say, wow, we've got to invest in these GPUs because it's getting exponentially better. They're also followers, they follow each other. They don't really have independent thoughts. Their thought was that large language models would continue improving to the point they could take distinct operations that you could say, hey copilot, can you go build me a PowerPoint deck that includes these numbers? The problem is they're terrible at it when it comes to actually doing things. When it comes to generating and summarizing, fine. When it comes to doing things, not so much to the point that Microsoft, who has an exclusive right to use and sell OpenAI's models, stopped using them with Microsoft 365 in some cases because they couldn't work. They didn't work. They didn't generate the right PowerPoint slides. They're trying with Anthropic, but it's not much better. What they thought was that this was the ultimate cure all this would be the thing that would allow them to sell new cloud software things. They could add $30 a month onto 400 million people's bills. Wow, look at all the money. They thought that everybody was going to want AI Compute, which they would sell through Azure. And they thought that ultimately their investment in OpenAI was going to Lead them to being attached to the next Microsoft, to the next Google, when in reality it's looking far more like they're the next Bear Stearns.
- [93:39]
Rachel Lynn
I always get discouraged after these AI conversations.
- [93:42]
Van Lathan
No, but there's no reason to get discouraged because I guess what Ed is saying is that our thoughts that artificial general intelligence would come along and take over the world. And take over the world, they don't seem to be well founded.
- [93:53]
Rachel Lynn
Well, but, but, but there's investment in it, right?
- [93:56]
Ed Zitron
Yeah, yeah.
- [93:58]
Van Lathan
Oh, you got money in AI?
- [94:00]
Ed Zitron
Oh, you're told everyone does.
- [94:02]
Rachel Lynn
Thank you.
- [94:02]
Ed Zitron
Everybody, like, yeah, no, everyone's 401ks.
- [94:05]
Rachel Lynn
So let me ask you this. We're. We're in a. We're. Do you believe we're in a bubble?
- [94:10]
Ed Zitron
Absolutely.
- [94:11]
Rachel Lynn
Okay, so if the bubble bursts and you might not say if it's a matter of maybe you think when will this be more like the tech bubble or will this be devastating? Like what happened with the housing market.
- [94:25]
Ed Zitron
So the great financial crisis was really horrifying because it had millions of regular people that had actually like, they got houses they couldn't afford. So there were tons of defaults. There was also a bunch of betting on credit default swaps. So basically people saying, oh, I'm going to bet against the market, I'm going to bet for the market. A bunch of money was piled on top of money. So when everything fell down, banks literally stopped having money. Like there were banks out of money, insurance companies like aig who ran out of money. Very bad. This isn't as bad there. Yes, we will enter a recession and I think this will lead to a prolonged depression in the tech industry because tech has run out of these big ideas. They had the smartphone, they had cloud computing, they had all these things. I'm sure someone believed that AGI would come out of this, but from the very early days it was kind of obvious it wouldn't. Large language models are not conscious. They are doing an impression through probability of what a person might sound like. And the more you make them compute about something, the less accurate they become, the more garbled they will become just because of the nature of them. So this subject of AGI, sure, if that was anything to do with this, that would be a worthwhile thing to look at and say, maybe that will come out of this. But in reality, everyone is kind of spinning their wheels. However, my one worry about the market is the market has an unhealthy relationship with Nvidia. Nvidia's last quarter they had 55% year over year growth, you would think that they had no money. The reaction to it in some cases was to say, oh, what's going on with Nvidia? No, I don't like that. If they were to sustain a 55% year over year growth situation in a couple years, they'd be making $100 billion a quarter. It isn't realistic. It isn't realistic, especially because no one plugging these damn things in is making any money and they cost a bunch of money up front. The sheer amount of capital required just to make a GPU useful is astronomically different to any bubble we've ever seen. And so it will hit the stock market, it will be bad. Will it lead to the apocalypse? I don't think so. I don't know how. I can't speak to unemployment and such, but I think the retail investors, so regular people, they are going to be quite exposed too. And that's really where I'm worried. And that's why I'm so frustrated with the media propping this up.
- [96:48]
Van Lathan
So for people that artificial general intelligence, just a simple explanation is a computer's ability to think like a human. So you ask ChatGPT a question and ChatGPT gives you back a bunch of answers. They're predicting the answer is based upon the language that the large language model gets. However, if you told ChatGPT right now to go in and clear out your email inbox and answer it had to think that's the difference, right? The bet is that it'll eventually be able to do that. And everyone is saying that it will. Everyone being the tech people, they just give different years. Like Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, says it'll be 10 years. Elon Musk says it'll be five years. Jensen Huang, whoever. I'm not sure if he's actually said it. They're all betting that artificial general intelligence will eventually be possible. Then that creates AI that can cure cancer, that can build a warp drive that can do all of this stuff. If AGI is not possible, why are they saying that it is? Are they lying or are they mistaken?
- [97:59]
Ed Zitron
Depends who you're talking about. I think Sam Altman's lying. I think that, for example, the head of AI at Meta, Yann Lecun, he said that large language models will not lead to AGI. I think that there are some of them who you could say are just delightfully stupid about it, who are just like, oh yeah, the tooth fairy will be here tomorrow. I think people like Altman are just liars. Altman literally Said a few months ago the AGI was not a useful term anymore. Altman said in the past it's not a bubble. He's now said it's a bubble. Altman changes whatever he needs to say to whoever he's saying it to. He's said he wants to by 2033 build 250 gigawatts of data center capacity. That's about 1. It's over $10 trillion. I think that would cost it's more power. It's just not real. And he says whatever he wants and people just quote it is the problem. And so just a real quick thing on AGI as well. So that term thinking. They did a particularly deceptive piece of marketing around a thing called reasoning models. They claim they think what it actually does is say regular chatgpt. You'd say hey, I need you to do this. And it would say okay and spit out an output reasoning thinking. Because it will say thinking on the thing. It will say okay. He needs me to give him a list of different pastors. What would a list like that look like? I should go and do this. And you'll see the chain of thought that is not the same as AGI. It's kind of a hat on a hat situation. AGI is an idea. This conscious computer isn't coming and they're saying or even hinting about it because it's. It sends the stock up. It keeps people believing in them. But it is a myth. They haven't proven. We don't even know how human beings think. How the hell are we meant to do that in a computer? We don't. It's a crazy. When I found out, I was like, what? But yeah, we don't know. We don't know how human thinking works. We don't know how intelligence works in people. How the hell are we meant to do it in some conscious computer? And the other thing is with AGI is they keep talking about it in this very casual way, but what they're describing is digital slavery. They're saying that we are going to trap a conscious being in the computer and bend it to our will. And no one seems to want to talk about that part. It's a really disgraceful part that's left out. I've read so many AI Welfare articles that don't talk about that. But what do you call it when you trap a conscious being in a place and make them do something? What is that?
- [100:33]
Van Lathan
Hold on for a second.
- [100:34]
Rachel Lynn
That resonated.
- [100:35]
Van Lathan
Wait a minute, Sam. Excuse me, all you guys. You guys Want to be the digital slavers. I never thought of it that way before. So essentially what you're saying Is then these AGIs will kind of know. They will be able to think, but they'll have to.
- [100:54]
Ed Zitron
If that was possible.
- [100:55]
Van Lathan
Yeah, but if they. If they would have to think, but then they would know that they had to do something. I never thought about it as slavery, but it is.
- [101:04]
Rachel Lynn
I mean, if it becomes. And that's such a scary thought though, right? Like, if it becomes what they want it to become, what they're saying it can be. Isn't that the other fear that came up when I was talking about it, about why this is scary? Cause you're saying if it doesn't. You said if it doesn't become realized the way that they want it to, then that whole fear of AI taking over and all of that, it doesn't exist. But if it does, then. And the way you just described it, and they are able to create the thing that they are telling us that they will. Isn't that terrifying?
- [101:42]
Ed Zitron
It is. If.
- [101:43]
Rachel Lynn
Is it even possible?
- [101:45]
Ed Zitron
No, that's kind of like. That's kind of what I'm getting at. Like, yeah, like it's. It's. If we're afraid of the Ninja Turtles. At this point, I actually think there's probably more compelling science about the Ninja Turtles. I'm not even kidding. Like, we could probably make a Ninja Turtle faster than AGI. But in all seriousness, there's no proof that what they're doing, because one of the core things is self learning. Like, the whole thing is these models would have to start learning from themselves. Which is why a few months ago, Mark Zuckerberg said, yeah, we're seeing signs of the possibility that they might self learn. Just. You've not got. They've not got anything. So they're desperate. They've bought all of these GPUs, kind of knowing at this point it won't lead to anything like AGI. No one has a big beat on how you'd make this. There's a guy called Ilya Sutskever, one of the co founders of OpenAI, who made a company called SAFE Superintelligence. I wish I could get on this. I think he raised $2 billion and promised nothing. He's just like, yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna build AGI at some point. And everyone's like, yeah, sure, is the money, mate. Go right ahead.
- [102:45]
Van Lathan
Is there any other path to artificial general intelligence other than large language models? Is there another technology that uses AGI that could learn and then spit it out. Because we talk about getting to AGI, we've heard about other situations where I guess there was a non stop AI fucking artificial intelligence cartoon that was going on, and the cartoon started to ask questions about its existence and all of that. Is there a different technology other than large language models that could lead to AGI?
- [103:21]
Ed Zitron
So I think the. Are you talking about the. What was that cartoon example?
- [103:26]
Van Lathan
Was that like a Seinfeld cartoon or it was some kind of.
- [103:28]
Ed Zitron
Oh, yes, yeah, the AI Seinfeld thing.
- [103:30]
Van Lathan
The AI Seinfeld thing. And then they got to a point to where they started to ask what they were, and people were like, oh, that's a sign that they're considering their existence, which is a sign of advanced intelligence.
- [103:42]
Ed Zitron
So with that, you get back to the probability thing. This thing has been churning away, developing dialogue, and then someone says to it, well, what do you think you are? It probably thinks the most likely answer it wants, the person asking wants is, oh, I want you to tell me you're alive. That's a reasonable probabilistic determination from there. Because think about it within the context of the conversation. That makes sense as an answer. There is like, the most obvious thing to say would be that they are not. They're encouraged to be sycophants on some level. They're encouraged to give you what they think you want. So in this scenario, it thought, oh, yeah, yeah, that's what I want. Like, this person clearly wants me to be alive. So I shall answer as that. Now, the grander AGI purview truth is we don't know. There's no real proof that AGI is possible. We don't know how thinking works in people, and we certainly don't know how it works in computers. And we definitely don't have a path to making them learn on their own. They have all sorts of fancy terms about reinforcement learning. The truth is, these things don't even learn like people. When we learn, we apply it to the context of our memory, of our surroundings, our experiences. We learn we may feel good or bad that day. There are so many things that go into committing things to memory. The way they handle it, it's very one way they don't reconsider information. They may be told to poke certain databases on the way, but ultimately they're not thinking. They're following chains of actions. Even though they may be very complex and require thousands of GPUs, in some cases they still are doing math. And unless we have new kinds of math, we're really not going to get to AGI.
- [105:26]
Rachel Lynn
Last question for me, for our audience that's listening, and for me personally. What is the final takeaway? What should we take away from this conversation moving forward in our understanding of AI and the economy that all of.
- [105:42]
Ed Zitron
Those data centers are being built for demand that does not exist, that they have spent hundreds of billions? I think the Magnificent Seven will spend over $400 billion of CapEx this year. There's about 60 billion of revenue. There's no profits. No one's profitable. Everyone's losing money. OpenAI lost, I think, $4.9 billion in the first half of this year. That's after revenue. That's where we are right now. And the actual efficacy of these models, the things they can do, the practical, actual things, kind of the same as they were a year ago and pretty similar to a year before that.
- [106:16]
Van Lathan
What happens to all those data centers if this bubble goes pop?
- [106:22]
Ed Zitron
They go into receivership. They will ultimately be sold on. I think that the big cascade effect is going to be when one of these data center projects goes under. And the moment that happens, there's going to be a bunch of cheap GPUs that lower the value of GPUs everywhere. So those big projects, a data center takes about 32.5 to $40 billion and about two and a half years to build per gigawatt. Every time you read a gigawatt anywhere, that's what you should remember because it's nonsense, it's bollocks. They're never going to build them in some cases. And even if they do, based on everything I've seen, the demand does not exist. Everyone, everyone's pushing this boulder up a hill for no reason.
- [107:06]
Van Lathan
Wow, Ed. Well, you know, this is. This is interesting. This is what I've been getting into, guys. This is what I've been diving into. And Ed helped us. If they want to follow everything that you're doing and the alarms that you're ringing, where do they go?
- [107:25]
Ed Zitron
Betteroffline.com and I'm on Bluesky and Mon X. I'm on everything.
- [107:29]
Van Lathan
Yeah. Are you, Are you. Are they coming for you? Are you getting calls from. This is Sam Altman, open AI.
- [107:38]
Ed Zitron
No, Mr. Altman has yet to get back to me about an interview for some reason.
- [107:43]
Van Lathan
Oh. Oh, you've reached out.
- [107:45]
Ed Zitron
I know. And they said they consider and they haven't got back to me.
- [107:48]
Van Lathan
Wow. Well, Sam, where's my camera? Sam Altman, if you don't talk to Ed, you pussy. So we're calling you out right now, if you. I saw you talk to Tucker, you do interviews. We've seen you, Jensen Wong, Sam Altman, whoever else, all the Softbank people, everybody talk to somebody who has legitimate criticisms about the economy and the technology that surrounds AI and Ed, you are that guy. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [108:18]
Ed Zitron
On Higher Learning, man. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
- [108:21]
Van Lathan
No problem. That was Ed Zentron.
- [108:23]
Roy Wood Jr.
It was good.
- [108:24]
Rachel Lynn
Great.
- [108:26]
Van Lathan
Cash Money versus no Limit happened.
- [108:28]
Rachel Lynn
Did you watch it? Did it came on early. I missed a little bit of the beginning. I wasn't expecting a five o' clock start.
- [108:36]
Roy Wood Jr.
Guys.
- [108:37]
Van Lathan
No Limit one landslide.
- [108:42]
Rachel Lynn
How Landslide? But why? But you know why? For me, it wasn't just. It wasn't the songs. Because if they went head to head with songs, I still think that there could. It was a competition. It was the way no Limit came to the stage. No Limit looked like a coordinate, like no Limit soldiers.
- [109:01]
Van Lathan
It looked like a family. No Limit looked like a family.
- [109:03]
Rachel Lynn
Guys coordinated outfits. Everybody showed up. I was like, is Mia X gonna show up? She brought Kelly Price.
- [109:09]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah.
- [109:10]
Rachel Lynn
Mia X. Choppa Style Silk. The Shocker. Who? You ain't gotta say too much. I can't think of their names right now.
- [109:20]
Van Lathan
Well, that's Mercedes. Mercedes.
- [109:22]
Rachel Lynn
Mercedes. Mercedes wasn't there, but they sang the.
- [109:24]
Van Lathan
Song, man, that's been a.
- [109:25]
Rachel Lynn
And I know, I know Mercedes is suing them.
- [109:28]
Van Lathan
Yeah, Mercedes say she knows she's suing them. Yeah, Mercedes was shout out to everybody. But look, I was playing. I told you guys, man. No limit. That looked like Shout out to Cash Money, L.A. legends. It looked like family versus business. That's what it looked like. It looked like. And I'm not. And there's a lot of people talking about the way the business look, the way the business has been done by those labels in the past and all of that stuff. You know, there's enough people that would have criticisms of some of the no limit stuff. I'm not even gonna get into, like.
- [109:58]
Rachel Lynn
Well, Mercedes case and point.
- [109:59]
Van Lathan
But like, it looked like on that stage, family versus business. It looked like a business arrangement. On the cash money side, Turk wasn't even there. Shout out to Turk. And it looked like family versus business.
- [110:14]
Rachel Lynn
Can I.
- [110:14]
Ed Zitron
Can I.
- [110:15]
Rachel Lynn
It actually, I will push back. It didn't look like business. It looked like. It looked like family, but a split family. It looked like some of the family showed up and the other part didn't. And it was just odd. I mean, juvie and BG did a lot of heavy lifting that juvie.
- [110:32]
Van Lathan
I could Argue right now that juvie catalog alone could go up against no Limit for sure.
- [110:36]
Rachel Lynn
But I mean, them, like, scenes, like rapping. They were rapping other people's verses like they did a lot of heavy lifting.
- [110:43]
Van Lathan
Wayne wasn't there.
- [110:44]
Rachel Lynn
Wayne was not there.
- [110:46]
Van Lathan
I mean, you. That's what I'm saying.
- [110:47]
Rachel Lynn
Some people weren't there. So it looked like the family was split.
- [110:50]
Van Lathan
I told you guys before we went into it, you guys looked at me crazy. Told you no Limit had a chance to win. No Limit won't. All right. No Limit won the Versus and it's okay. You know who really won? Louisiana won. Louisiana won. We changed hip hop. No, it's not the South.
- [111:08]
Rachel Lynn
The south won.
- [111:10]
Van Lathan
Now, there is some talk right now between New Orleans and.
- [111:15]
Roy Wood Jr.
And what?
- [111:16]
Van Lathan
Well, sometimes the New Orleans people say that we not Louisiana. We New Orleans fair.
- [111:21]
Rachel Lynn
It's like saying we're Miami and. And that's Florida.
- [111:24]
Van Lathan
That's bullshit. It's not fair. It's not fair.
- [111:27]
Roy Wood Jr.
Okay.
- [111:28]
Rachel Lynn
Baton Rouge.
- [111:29]
Van Lathan
It's not fair.
- [111:30]
Rachel Lynn
Would you say it differently if you were from New Orleans? Probably.
- [111:33]
Van Lathan
I would say it differently. I'm just gonna be completely honest with you. I would say it differently after Hurricane Katrina, and I'm just gonna be. I love my people from New Orleans that would say that. But after. Legitimately. Legitimately, the people in my city opened up their homes and all of that for their family to come in at one of the worst times. I think that moment right there showed that even though New Orleans is New Orleans and it has a culture all its own, that only exists in that city. And that is true. I just. I feel away when people from New Orleans go, yo, don't compare us with the rest of the state. You can't really. We didn't.
- [112:15]
Rachel Lynn
I thought they were talking music with cousins.
- [112:17]
Van Lathan
No, I'm not talking about.
- [112:17]
Rachel Lynn
I thought that this statement. I know that they do that. You've always said that. I know that they do that. But I thought that this in particular with this, they were talking about music.
- [112:24]
Van Lathan
But this is another reason why the no Limit thing matters. Because no Limit was in Baton Rouge for a little while. They went Baton Rouge, they came back. So it's a Baton Rouge thing. You see Silta Shotgun out there, by the way. Stop hating on Silk and rap. Silk and rap. Stop hating on Silk. The shotgun.
- [112:38]
Rachel Lynn
Chasing the beats.
- [112:39]
Van Lathan
I'm not. Stop hating on Silk the shock. All right. Stop hating on them.
- [112:44]
Rachel Lynn
Stammering to get to that.
- [112:45]
Van Lathan
Stop hating on Silk. The Shocker. Donald. Maybe start busting off some Silk.
- [112:49]
Rachel Lynn
The Shocker verses, you know how people clap on the. Everybody claps on the 2 and the 4 and not the 1 and the 3. This is like a whole thing.
- [112:56]
Van Lathan
Still got a stutter, man.
- [112:57]
Rachel Lynn
Still. Silk raps on the one of the three. He does not. He raps on the one of the three.
- [113:03]
Van Lathan
Ableist, Lindsay, right here. Shout out to Silk, man. Silk is ill. I like Silk, okay? I always like to. After dollars we represent no limit. Put it down. Grow less presidential. When I write everything as substantial with rich, richest. Listen to how much riches.
- [113:16]
Rachel Lynn
Listen to me.
- [113:17]
Van Lathan
I always had money plus I always had bitches.
- [113:19]
Rachel Lynn
Listen to how you sound. Just. Just chasing it.
- [113:22]
Van Lathan
All right, before we go, play one thing real quick. Donnie, we gotta get outta here. Play one thing real quick before we go. Kentucky. This is Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear on Real Time with Bill Maher. Let's talk about another elephant in the room, which is race. I mean, in the past, Democrats, they had to check boxes before they could go forward with their ticket. You know, it would. I asked Democratic politicians this, and they didn't argue with it. I said, it's impossible to imagine a Democratic ticket without a person of color on it. Now, maybe that's the right thing to do, but it is more limiting than what the Republicans are, which is we don't give a fuck. That does make things easier, I guess. Right. But. Okay, but I'm just asking.
- [114:04]
Roy Wood Jr.
Yeah.
- [114:05]
Van Lathan
If you were just hypothetically at the top of the ticket, would you feel that sort of constraint? Would you say, no, I am the Democratic candidate and I can't have another white man on the ticket. I'd want, number one to pick somebody who could help govern. You want somebody who would do the best job. Because if you only run for these offices to win, and trust me, you've got to win to do them, then you're not doing it for the right reason. And so you've got to think about who can help me do a little bit more for the American people, who can add something that I might not.
- [114:36]
Ed Zitron
Have, who has some experience that I don't have.
- [114:39]
Van Lathan
So I think you're always looking both at winning and at governing. But I think what you're talking about is sometimes the right, meaning policies of inclusion can lead to exclusion.
- [114:49]
Ed Zitron
Now, the idea is we should be.
- [114:50]
Van Lathan
Able to pull more seats up to the table, not ask somebody who's been sitting at it to get up and.
- [114:55]
Ed Zitron
To move for somebody else.
- [114:58]
Van Lathan
Okay, this is directly to some of my white people out there. You will have to move. You will have to move Away from the table. The table was built for you a long, long time ago by us. We built the table. We solidified the table. We made the table sturdy so that you and your grandkids, your grandparents, your ancestors, everyone could eat. Everyone ate at the table. They served you. When you sat at the table, they pulled your chair out, let you sit, and pushed it back in. You've had enough. You will have to move. I know that that sounds really, really, really, really aggressive, but it's a fact. If America is, in fact, supposed to be a multiethnic, multiracial melting pot of ideas, you can't hoard seats at the table for a long time. And I do not trust you to add seats. I don't think, in a finite sense of resources, that very many seats can be added. In order for you to prove that you believe in America, that you believe in sharing community with people, some of you will have to move. And that's that. All right.
- [116:33]
Rachel Lynn
I like it. Ooh.
- [116:39]
Van Lathan
We got more stuff coming up. Higher learning. Tight thing. Caps off. But do not stop learning. We're sending Luis to the World Series. He doesn't even know yet. He's in the other room. He hasn't even realized yet. We're sending Luis to the World Series. Game five. He's going. Luis is going. I need to buy those tickets. Probably right now.
- [116:59]
Rachel Lynn
Yeah, he probably should. Let's figure that out. Let's figure that out.
- [117:02]
Van Lathan
But it's happening. Luis is going to the world. Take. Think ass off. Do not stop, stop learning. I'm Van Lathan JR.
- [117:07]
Rachel Lynn
I'm Rachel Lynn. Lindsay. Like, subscribe, share YouTube.
- [117:11]
Roy Wood Jr.
Bye, guys.