← Shannon Cason's Homemade
Shannon Cason's Homemade
A Lifetime of Best Friends
00:24:19
If you have or have had best friends, be thankful.
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Shannon Kacen
Shannon Case's Homemade is proud to be supported by the Friends of Homemade. Thank you to everyone who listens, enjoys and supports the stories. I'm gonna call you out if you supported me since the previous episode. To my friends, Celeste P. Thank you for the Cash app. Nino B. Thank you for joining the Patreon. My best friends, Lee W, Longtime friend of Homemade, thank you for the PayPal and my play cousins Robin in very special always thank you for your Cash apps. Cynthia L. Longtime friend of Homemade thank you for joining the Patreon. I stay active on Patreon and I'm planning to be even more and more active. So join the Patreon to follow the stories. Become a friend@patreon.com backslash Shannon Casen homemade is a friend funded podcast. Again, it's patreon.com backslash Shannon Casen or $sign Shannon Casen if you like to go direct. PayPal and other options are@shannoncasing.com I appreciate all the support. It's over a decade of stories and here's another one, so enjoy the show. Welcome to Homemade Friends. Specifically best Friends. A lot of people don't put it that way. I never really say my best friend. I may say my brother, my man, my dog, my Day one. It's all based on inflection, but for the purpose of this podcast, let's say best friends. If you've had one, it's a blessing. If you've had a crew of best friends, you're truly blessed. I go as far to say if you've had a best friend, you've been blessed. I've had my fair share over the years, ups and downs, ins and outs, and I plan to open myself up to more friends and best friend adventures in the future. And these are some of my past stories and some of my best friends now and then. I hope you enjoy. Gustavus was my first best friend. I never called him Gustavus. Everyone called him BB. He was four years older than me. He lived two houses down. We were the only young kids on our side of the street. We called ourselves seven eleven because I was seven. I think he was more my best friend than I was his. I may have just been the kid a few houses down that likes to hang around because of the age difference. Every year counts as three years until you turn 22. I disrespected our friendship one day. I didn't know it was disrespect until I saw Scarface as a teenager. You have to go through experiences in life to learn. I was only seven. Say hello to my little friend. BB had a sister named Tara. Tara was two years older than me and she was fine. I always had an eye for beautiful older women. I don't even think it has to do so much with age. I like grown ass women. I'm attracted to the sophistication. I could always make her laugh. Smiles and sophistication always does it for me. Even now. One day when BB wasn't around, I told Tara I wanted to show her something. We both went into my backyard alone. She said, what? I got close. I held her face in my hands like I saw the men on my mom's soap operas. And I kissed her. And we moved our heads from side to side. I imagine she watched her mom's soap operas too. We left the backyard breathing hard. That was my first kiss. I don't even know where the courage came from. I surprised myself with women sometimes. Thank God my best friend B.B. never found out. And I know the brothers listening like, damn, Shannon, how could you? That's how Manolo died. I've learned since then. So your fine ass sister is safe around me. Trust me. When my mom and dad divorced, we left the block and me and BB lost touch. I heard BB eventually got into MMA fighting. I hear he was pretty good. He fought in Atlantic City at a casino. I don't know what he's up to now though. I hear he lives in California. Probably has a family and life. I hope it's a good life. His sister Tara came to visit me once when I was in college at Michigan State. It was a totally random visit and she was still fine. My kisses do have an effect, but I was heavy in the church at the time time or else we would have seen if we improved on those soap opera kissing skills over the years. But it was only a friendly visit. We kept it friendly. When my mom and dad split up, we moved from the west side of Detroit to my grandma's house in a southwest suburb called E. Course. I was eight. We pulled on the block with all of our things. I noticed the kids at the end of the block. A lot more kids than on the west side. As many times as I had been to my grandma's house, I had never met these kids. But now I was going to be living here. I grabbed my bike from the pile of things and rode it down the block. No time like now. I rode my bike on the sidewalk to where the kids were and I just looked at them. This is how you made friends back in the day. You just Stare until someone notices you. One of the kids with a baby afro walked over. Hey, what's your name? Shannon. What's your name? Bj. You got a girl's name? No, I don't. Yeah, you do. Man, fuck you. Nah, I'm just fucking with you. Let me ride your bike for a little while. I was hesitant about it, but I had seen this kid around from the times I had visited my grandma. And I knew he lived on the block. So I let him ride. And he rolled and rolled and rolled. Eventually I said, hey, give me my bike back. And that was the start of an over 40 year friendship with Beach. There were other kids on 19th street in E course there was Beach. Nate Tootley, rest in Peace. Ryan and Ed were occasionally there if they were over at grandma's house for the summer. Brian, Terrence and Sean were the older kids on the block. Remember, one year is three years back then. But me and Bej were the closest. We rode bikes, we played basketball. I was better. We formed a rap group. He was better. I remember 19th street block parties. There was a Michael Jackson dance contest. Beach would put on one winter glove in his church loafers and entertain the whole block. All the parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and kids would be cheering and Bej would be dancing. And I was wild because that was my best friend. Bej is a star. I tell him all the time when we talk on the phone. I tell him, bej, you know you a star. His whole family is talented. His uncle is Barry Gordon. In our hip hop years, be stood a head above everyone else in our crew. And everyone in 31 would agree. Beej is a star and he's been my friend the longest. I've always been proud to have a living superstar as my friend. Beej didn't go to my school. He moved to another suburb of Detroit called Southfield when his mom got married. At school, there were different friends than just our block. I had one unlikely friend, Clifford. I say unlikely because Clifford couldn't play basketball. He couldn't run fast, he didn't rap. He wasn't into comic books or any of my interests. Clifford was just Clifford. And we were friends from school. When I found out Clifford lived around the block on 18th street in Ecourse. We hung out after school too. If you knew Clifford, you loved Clifford. Girls loved Clifford. Clifford loved girls. Clifford wasn't in shape, athletic or good looking. And he never had any issues with girls. Where I was passive, Clifford was assertive, aggressive even. I'd say, hey, Carla, you look nice today. I like Those clips in your hair. Purple. Is purple your favorite color? And Clifford would say, come over here with your fat ass, Carla. Then Carla would be hugging on Clifford to give you a vision. Clifford will remind you of steel and in juice. I was doing that oochie Gucci. My feet. We were in Boy Scouts together, actually. When I got falsely arrested by the Drano cops on the way to my Boy Scout meeting. In one of my stories, Clifford was there with me. We would laugh about it for years. I remember a bunch of us were skipping school in the white neighborhood of ecourse. And some old man pulled a gun on us. Everyone ran, but Clifford couldn't run like us. Clifford stood his ground and told the guy, if you shoot me, you a bitch. If you don't, you a bitch. Clifford had heart. Clifford was a real one, one of the realest. We never stopped being friends. Just went different roles in high school, where we didn't hang out with each other as much, but rest in peace to my old friend, one of my best friends at a time. Clifford, I love you, man. In high school, my friends took a logical term. I knew a kid from grade school who was cool, fun. We played basketball together sometimes. But we never really hung out with each other. But the friendship was inevitable. He was tall like me. He cracked weird jokes like me. He loved sports and being active like me. He couldn't rap, but he loved the arts and music like me. I remember once we were talking about lifting weights. And I told him I had some weights in my basement. He came by the house and we challenged each other to see who could do the most dumbbell curls. I won. But he was strong like me. And from that moment, me and O'Neal hung out constantly. We were around each other so much that it got corny. When I was around other friends, they would ask, where O'Neal at, man? I don't know. And I'm sure he got the same thing, too. They even titled us in the high school yearbook class of 93 best friends. Which we both thought was corny. But honestly, we prided ourselves on being the most original guys at Ecours High School. We didn't dress in the popular clothes of the time. We had to find a different twist to it. If everyone was wearing Nike, we'd wear New Balance. If everyone else was smoking weed, we were lifting weights. Our jokes were subtle, dry and nuanced. Other kids who understood knew we were the funniest dudes in the whole school. O'Neal was a comedian, dude was funny. I had grades good enough to go to Michigan State University. O'Neal didn't leave E course for college. Instead, he got a job as a cook at a popular seafood restaurant in Detroit called Fishbone. I remember being in college, bored. No one was as funny or fun as O'Neal. The guys on my floor weren't interested in exercising or lifting weights. So between semester break, I told O'Neal, man, you ain't doing nothing in Detroit. What you gonna be? A fried shrimp and catfish cook for life. So I got my resident assistant, who's actually one of my favorite DJs to this day, DJ Tony Tone, to let me bring another bed up to my Dorm room. And O'Neal stayed in my dorm with my other roommate, another friend from ecourse, Troy. And he started at Lansing Community College until he could get transferred to Michigan State. He wasn't a student, but he lived in the dorms at MSU to the point people thought he went to MSU, too. O'Neal immediately became everyone's friend at the dorm, so no one questioned it. To O'Neal's credit, he did what he had to do at Lansing Community College and transferred to MSU. We moved to Tweakingham Apartments, me, O'Neal and Troy. @ the time, I was getting heavily involved in a campus ministry that was at msu, and I started ruining the mix of the apartment. I thought O'Neal was going to follow me in the church life because he always did. But O'Neal was doing his own thing in college. And honestly, I started to act super saved. It's okay to get saved, but some people get super saved to become super Christian. I was super Christian. You probably know a super Christian friend that you can't invite to barbecues because they're going to complain about the beers and the bad language and the short skirts. I was that guy. I was. I remember once I came in our college apartment from a nighttime prayer service at the church, and I was full of Holy Ghost fire. When I came in the apartment, there were girls inside and my roommates, O'Neal and Troy, and a few guys from the football team. I was vexed in my spirit to see this seemingly normal college fun happening. And I felt the unction to evangelize. You know how Jesus turned water into wine? I'd reverse it and turn this college debauchery into a Praise party. In 15 minutes of entering, I had the small group in a prayer circle giving their lives over to Christ. I peeked up to see the look on O'Neal's face as everyone was praying the Sinner's Prayer. O'Neal wasn't praying. They kicked me out the apartment shortly after that. O'Neal was honest and he told me, if you want to be super Christian, do you leave me out of it. I had to respect it. Me and O'Neal kept in touch sporadically. He eventually moved to Los Angeles and went on to a life of acting, comedy, podcasts and personal training. Occasionally I see O'Neal in films, TV shows and commercials. I'm happy to see him every time. He pretty much cut me off, actually all of us. Troy says he hasn't talked to O'Neal in ages either. I don't know what it is, but nonetheless, a lot of who I am is because of my friendship with O'Neal. We would sit for hours and crack jokes and talk about our lives and ideas. I know I made my impression too. I miss our laughs. Holla at me, O'Neil. Since I spent so much time there, I started making friends at church. There was Rashawn, Lee, rest in peace to Lee, George, Annette, and Too many to name. One thing about church is it's a community. Sometimes it almost feels like a forced friendship because many of the people who I'd hang around in church. I probably wouldn't hang around naturally, but church makes it possible. Then I met Moses. Moses was more natural than any of my other church friendships. I'll put it like this. Most of the church friendships had a top down approach, meaning we saw ourselves as holy people who would uphold this veneer of holiness. And if we didn't, if we acted unholy in any way, we had to feel bad about it, then worry about who was going to snitch to the pastors first. When I first met O'Neal, we didn't put on such ears. We both immediately recognized that we were heathens just trying to do better. We were trying because being unholy is just so much more fun. But who wants to go to hell? We'll be honest about it. We first connected, talking about our memory of crackheads randomly looking for crack on the sidewalk. If you grew up in the 80s, crackheads would always be searching for crack. That was something they did. If you were walking down the sidewalk and a crackhead noticed any white or yellow colored rock on the ground, they would check it out. It's like finding money on the sidewalk. I found lots of money in the 80s, so I guess crack was the same way. But that's how we met, having an honest conversation. We would talk about the women at the church who was fine, who was annoying who we would, you know. God forgive us. We both noticed that the pastor had this limp fish handshake that bothered us both. We noticed we didn't say anything because the teaching was good. No one would mention this, but me and Moses would talk about it driving in his pickup truck. And there were guys at the church who would call the pastor dad. Now I have a dad. A strong dad with a strong handshake. And never in the history of the universe would I call anyone else dad. But the pastor was cool. The teaching was good. This is no offense to the pastor. It's just an honest story. When I sinned and had sex with the church secretary, Moses laughed me through it. Me and Moses friendship was my second longest friendship after Beach. He was the best man at both my marriages. He helped me laugh through some of my most troubling and embarrassing times. Many of those stories are featured on this podcast. Make sure you purchase the classic episodes on Apple podcasts. But Moses was actually funnier than O'Neal. And O'Neil is a comedian. I'm not comparing, but I'm a good judge of humor. I know funny Moses is a better storyteller than me, but not structurally. His stories are told better in a pickup truck on the highway than on the stage. But tears. I'd be crying tears, laughing at Moses stories. The stories of his mom and his brothers and his sisters. He came from a big family. He had a tough past. He worked construction. He talked Christian conservative, but he lived like a demon, I guess, like most Christian conservatives. But he lives his life, as do I. So we became best of friends. Sometimes it's the simplest of things. I have a few boundaries. Not many. A few. I probably shouldn't say this publicly because people will try to use your boundaries against you. But it doesn't work with everyone because everyone doesn't count to me. But in friendships and relationships, I don't like being called specific disrespectful names. One of them is bitch. If I'm early talking to a woman and she uses simple cuss words playfully with me, I'll immediately let her know, hey, we don't do that. We don't call each other disrespectful names outside of the bedroom. Same with friends. We can rag on each other, just not disrespectfully. I'm big on respect. Moses knew this, and one day he decided to let bitch roll out. He works construction, so that's the talk. But I told him to leave that bitch shit for when you boot licking and ass kissing your foreman at the job site. And it went from there. He's stubborn. I'm stubborn. That was the start of the pandemic and we haven't talked since. He might be dead from COVID I don't know. That's a joke. That's a joke. He not dead. I seen his daughter in Chicago and she said he isn't dead from COVID But all in all, Moses is still my boy. No hard feelings, but if there's no respect, I can completely walk away and never look back. I've always been like that. Well, I guess you could call this looking back, but I think you get what I'm saying. Some friends are fleeting, some friends are seasonal, and some friends are forever. I hope to have more experiences with all three categories as my life continues down its timeline. Admittedly, I've never been the best at making friends. Most of my friends have to push through all the layers of introversion and self isolation to make it to become best friend status. And that's not fair to them. That's not fair to anyone. And then deal with my take it or leave it boundaries, demeaning banter, terrible body odor. Recently, many of my friends have come from right here. Listeners have become friends of the stories and then personal friends. We've hung out, visited each other's homes, went to concerts, or just talked shit to one another. I love that Homemade has made that possible. It's more fun to experience life with others. It just gets more difficult as life starts down this downward slope. So maybe, maybe I'll join another church. Or maybe I get more involved with community groups. Or maybe, maybe I just ride my bike into a crowd of like minded grownups and I just stare at them until someone walks over Foreign thank you for listening. This episode was produced at home by me, Shannon Kacen. Subscribe to Shannon Kacen on YouTube and @Shannon Casen on Instagram, Tick Tock and all social media. Consider supporting the stories@patreon.com shannoncasing or cash app $sign Shannon Casen be a friend of the show and for more information on coaching, workshops, speaking engagements, go to shannoncasing.com make sure you rate and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank you to retired noob for the five stars and the kind words. I appreciate you. This beat is produced by my brother Be Listen to his music on Bandcamp. Search Beej Gordy Brooks. Look for Beej Gordy Brooks and pay some money to him. The other beat was Dilla Beej and Them Part one from Slum Village. Fantastic volume one. All right. Come back soon for more and more stories. See you soon. Now that's homemade.