#120 - Roy Wood Jr.

Summary

Stavvy's World Podcast Episode #120 - Roy Wood Jr. Summary

Release Date: March 17, 2025

Hosts:

• Stavros Halkias
• Roy Wood Jr. (Guest)
• Eldis

---

Introduction to the Episode

In Episode #120 of Stavvy's World, host Stavros Halkias welcomes the acclaimed comedian Roy Wood Jr. to the show. Stavros expresses his admiration for Roy's career and highlights Roy's recent special on Hulu titled Lonely Flowers. The conversation immediately dives into Roy's experiences in the entertainment industry, his early days in radio, and his transition into stand-up comedy.

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Early Career and Radio Days

Roy Wood Jr. shares anecdotes from his time as a morning radio DJ, emphasizing the grueling schedule and unconventional methods he employed to sustain his career.

• Roy Wood Jr. (00:00 - 00:10): "Geico's motorcycle expertise means I'm covered by people who know bikes like I do."

• Stavros (18:32 - 19:09): Roy reminisces about his 12-year stint in radio, surviving on Cherry Coke and Skittles during late-night shifts. He also discusses the rampant use of unregulated energy drinks and speed pills during that era.

• Roy Wood Jr. (21:06 - 22:30): Describes the entrepreneurial side of his radio career, including selling prank call CDs under his own label, Stomper. He reflects on the informal distribution methods, such as burning CDs on his laptop while on tour.

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Prank Calls and Comedy Evolution

A significant portion of the conversation centers around Roy's early comedic endeavors, particularly his prank calls, and how comedy has evolved over the years.

• Roy Wood Jr. (24:05 - 24:14): Discusses the impact of regional audiences on comedic content and how what was acceptable in one area might not be in another.

• Stavros (25:11 - 25:28): Highlights the cultural shift in comedy, comparing old prank call styles to modern platforms like TikTok, and notes the lasting impact of Roy's early work.

• Roy Wood Jr. (25:39 - 26:55): Emphasizes the importance of reactions in comedy, explaining that his prank calls always concluded with the victim laughing, ensuring no lasting resentment.

---

Impact of Family and Upbringing

Roy delves into his family background, highlighting the profound influence his parents had on his life and career.

• Roy Wood Jr. (32:46 - 34:00): Explains his father's pioneering role in radio, covering significant historical events like the Soweto riots and the Zimbabwe Rhodesian civil war. Roy's mother, a college educator, prioritized his education, especially after he faced legal troubles in his youth.

• Stavros (34:27 - 35:16): Discusses the tension between pursuing comedy and adhering to parental expectations, drawing parallels to comedian John Mulaney's experiences with his parents.

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Challenges in Comedy and Personal Growth

The discussion shifts to the challenges comedians face in evolving their material to stay relevant and resonate with new audiences.

• Roy Wood Jr. (28:02 - 29:43): Critiques the stagnation in some comedians' careers who fail to adapt their humor to changing societal norms, using Dave Chappelle as an exemplar of successful evolution through longer-form sketches.

• Stavros (29:14 - 30:25): Agrees on the necessity of growth, emphasizing that comedy must evolve alongside its audience to maintain relevance and connection.

---

Listener Questions and Advice

The episode features interactive segments where listeners call in with personal dilemmas, seeking advice from Stavros and Roy.

Question 1: Navigating Relationship Conflicts Over Family Events (54:00 - 64:32)

• Caller: Struggles with his girlfriend unwilling to accommodate dining plans during a family dinner, feeling neglected and prioritized over his family's expectations.

• Stavros and Roy's Response:

  • Stavros (56:01 - 63:52): Advises the caller that his girlfriend's unwillingness to compromise is a red flag. Emphasizes the importance of prioritizing family and mutual respect in relationships.

  • Roy Wood Jr. (57:18 - 63:28): Suggests maintaining open communication and setting boundaries to prevent one-sided compromises. Recommends addressing the issue directly and evaluating the relationship's long-term viability based on the response.

Question 2: Coping with Relocation and Missing Home (83:18 - 94:54)

• Caller: Born and raised in Queens, moved south due to high living costs, and now struggles with homesickness and cultural differences.

• Stavros and Roy's Response:

  • Stavros (85:32 - 88:27): Encourages exploring hybrid cities that blend elements of the Northeast and Southern cultures, suggesting places like Raleigh or Durham. Highlights the importance of finding a community where one feels comfortable and supported.

  • Roy Wood Jr. (87:51 - 89:50): Advises maintaining one's identity and seeking environments that nurture personal and professional growth. Emphasizes the need to adapt without losing oneself and finding outlets for creative expression, such as local open mics.

---

Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

As the episode winds down, the hosts pivot to advertisements and sponsor messages, promoting services like HelloFresh, GEICO, Booking.com, and Mint Mobile.

• Stavros Halkias (28:37 - 44:00): Juggles promotional content with ongoing banter, maintaining the show's casual and humorous tone.

• Roy Wood Jr. (70:37 - 91:07): Wraps up the conversation by reiterating the importance of personal growth and adaptability in both comedy and life. Expresses gratitude for the discussion and encourages listeners to watch his latest special.

---

Notable Quotes

• Roy Wood Jr. (00:00): "Geico's motorcycle expertise means I'm covered by people who know bikes like I do."

• Roy Wood Jr. (04:16): "Television sitcom does not stand up."

• Roy Wood Jr. (25:24): "If this show was done today, it would be a dialog and discourse about the age of consent."

• Roy Wood Jr. (56:01): "If she has an inability to adapt to your social situations or even read the social clues, that's bigger picture."

• Stavros Halkias (63:28): "Trust me, I did. Putting it in writing is actually helpful sometimes."

• Roy Wood Jr. (72:01): "I think that you cannot save this friendship if there is no respect."

---

Concluding Remarks

Episode #120 of Stavvy's World offers an insightful look into Roy Wood Jr.'s journey through the entertainment industry, his personal challenges, and his perspectives on contemporary comedy. The episode balances humor with heartfelt discussions, providing listeners with valuable life advice and a deeper understanding of Roy's multifaceted career.

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Stay Tuned: For more engaging conversations and expert advice, tune into future episodes of Stavvy's World. Don't forget to participate by calling 904-800-STAV and leaving your voicemails for a chance to be featured on the show!

Transcript

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Geico's motorcycle expertise means I'm covered by.

[Stavros Halkias]

People who know bikes like I do.

[Eldis]

I'm happy as a clam. No conclusive scientific research has shown clams can experience happiness.

[Stavros Halkias]

It just meant that I feel really.

[Eldis]

Good about my coverage. I mean, even if you took the clam out for the best day ever, visiting the zoo, taking a scenic ride, knowing you're insured by specialists, and sharing a strawberry ice cream cone together, the clam would not feel happy and your strawberry cone would taste sort of clammy.

[Stavros Halkias]

Ew.

[Eldis]

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[Stavros Halkias]

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[Eldis]

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[Eldis]

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[Stavros Halkias]

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[Eldis]

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[Stavros Halkias]

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[Eldis]

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[Stavros Halkias]

Welcome everybody to Stavf's World 904-800-stuff. Call in, we'll solve your problems. I'm pumped to have on the couch Roy Wood Jr. Today, one of my favorites. One of the best comics truly like. You have a great career and you're still underrated in my opinion. And the special right now on Hulu. Lonely Flowers. Go watch it. It's awesome. You have the CNN show. Have I got news for you as well. A lot of places see our boy Roy. But go check out the special. We're comedians.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Stream that shit, man.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, stream it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

We don't know about the news.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, get Roblox off that shit.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Stream that on my son's laptop. I don't give a. Give me your laptop, boy.

[Stavros Halkias]

Stream it in Minecraft somehow. Block.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You're stupid and don't know how to circumvent parental settings.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, I know what I'm Doing a good point. You should put parental controls on your kid just so they learn how to cheat through parental controls. You have a kid who can't figure that out. It's tough. It's not looking good.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Mine is getting there. He's already. He already learned how to Google me. And then of course the next thing he did was Google himself.

[Stavros Halkias]

He wants some feedback.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, he said, I Googled Roy Wood Jr. Kid. And I go, and I go, did you like what you find? Yeah, some nice pictures.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But I was a little younger then. And I go, good, good keeping you off of the Internet.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's so funny. Yeah. I mean, it just really feels like we're cooked in terms of kids in the Internet. Your son's going to have like a robot girlfriend. Like, it's like they're going to be like, they're going to make things where you could just like, I mean, her and like the Blade Runner. And by the way, if you get a girlfriend looks like Anna Darmis, I would sign up. You know what I mean? Like, even though it's.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I would want him to have like one of those ex machina.

[Stavros Halkias]

I'm sorry, bro. It's coming. I know you don't want it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So embarrassed. If my son dated a robot. Man, Let me show you some of these white girls.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's. That's the march of progress. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Black man would bring home a respectable white woman, not one of these goddamn robots. When I was your age, you brought home a black. You brought a black woman. And then as you get tired of that, you bring him a white woman and disappoint your mom.

[Stavros Halkias]

Your mother's crying. She's in there. She's in there. She found. She found motor oil all over your pants. She knows how that got. You don't have a car. She knows how that WD40 got there.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You know what? You know what? Television sitcom does not stand up.

[Stavros Halkias]

What's that?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Caught a glimpse of it down a Reddit rabbit hole. Small Wonder.

[Stavros Halkias]

Small Wonder doesn't hold.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Small Wonder was a sitcom about a robot, about a teenage.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh, yes.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

The zany adventures of a suburban family, their next door neighbors. And an innovation and an innovative robot.

[Stavros Halkias]

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And it was like. It was like a 10 year old that's a robot. And then like the dad and it's like. But I watch it now and I'm just like knowing what we know about just creep.

[Stavros Halkias]

What's gonna happen at the instant a robot exists? Like, it's like, you can't make it a kid.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's the. It's the one. It's the one sitcom that is for sure reboot proof. Because today's technology on robots combined with the loneliness of men and the creepiness of pedophilia.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That sitcom would take a left turn 100 very fast.

[Stavros Halkias]

It would be like, hey, dad, why is this your life's work? And you know what? You could. You would hear an argument from the. The pedophile scientist who's like, look, you want me to fuck kids or you want me to fuck kid robots?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I gotta get it out of my system.

[Stavros Halkias]

You know what, though? That's maybe how we'll have robot breakthroughs.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

If we.

[Stavros Halkias]

If we charge, we're like, look, you guys get to make kid robots. But they got. But you also gotta make the adult versions that we can. That are good for the rest of us. We will have that technology. Those shitty Tesla robots that don't do shit, those are gone in a. In a month.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah.

[Stavros Halkias]

If we tell pedophiles, they can figure out they can fuck children, robots.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

If this. If this show was done today, it would be a dialog and discourse about the age of consent.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, it would.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It would easily become hilarious hijinks.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right, right, right. And at the same time, they'd be slipping on stuff and. Yeah, I don't remember. I know. Small wonder. Purely as a. As a punchline about weird, shitty old sitcoms. I never watched it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I watched it for a quick minute.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yes.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Season I was of that Punky Brewster era.

[Stavros Halkias]

Sure.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So, you know, rebellious, you know, Macaulay Coke. Like any rebellious white kid.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Almost like every black kid's dream was to torture.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Fucking different strokes. These. The sl. Slick mouth.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

To Mr. Drummond.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. Different Strokes. Like, let's make the subtext the text. And it's like. Just like it's. Get to live. Get to directly mouth off to the rich white people instead of just pretend they're Richie Rich.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

The funniest about Different Strokes. I miss sitcom openings.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Where the opening of the sick. I love theme songs and sitcoms, but I used to love how sitcom openings, like the video they would show, would essentially tell the premise of the show.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yes, yes. So no matter where you're doing the show.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. You're caught up. You know what this is. And the Different Strokes opening sequence. The song is great, but the opening sequence is Mr. Drummond riding around in a limo and he just keeps looking out a window. Looking at the window.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And then he just looks and he just Sees two black kids playing basketball in the hood. Fucking Todd Bridges and Gary Coleman go scurrying into the limo and he drives off like, what the is this show about? It's just a white dude pulling up on Broke.

[Stavros Halkias]

Come on. No chance of getting sex trafficked. That's for sure, bro.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

They didn't ask. No, because in the song, it doesn't.

[Stavros Halkias]

Establish like, that it's an adoption, that it's a whole thing.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

The lyrics is. Establishes it. But when you're watching it, that was. I was. And yeah, he's a man of days. A man. But along came two. They acknowledge the legal adoption process within the lyrics.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right, right, right. But visually.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But visually, it just looks like a fucking rich white man picking up young black boys.

[Stavros Halkias]

I mean, small one. Yeah, we're working on some. It was really. It was really like. It's like, of course all of Hollywood is pedophile. Look at. Look at the. The proof was in front of us the whole time. Just. Just did it outright.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Brewster was an older man. Punky, tell that black friend yo it's time for her to go home.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, I caught a little bit of Punky. You were a big sitcom kid.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, I was huge, bro. I. I watched all the things. Only thing I didn't really rock with was Saved by the Bill. Not that I hated it, it just didn't. I don't know. I always found school boring.

[Stavros Halkias]

Well, it might be a generational thing too, because you're a little.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You're like 36.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah. You're like 10 years older than me. And so I remember. So your. Your fantasy of, like, mouthing off, I was watching because, yes, school sucks when you're actually in high school, but when you're a little ass kid, when you're a little fat kid and you're like, damn, Zach gets all the bitches. Everybody loves him. When I go to fucking high school, I'm gonna be like, Zach. That was. That was the fantasy they're selling. It's for, like, young. It's for, like, you know, 8 year olds to be like, that's what school's gonna be like. And I'm gonna be fucking awesome.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Later. Did just Dustin Diamond's character ever get laid? Like, did he get some ass at any point?

[Stavros Halkias]

I don't believe. I think Lisa, like, threw him a bone and kissed him on. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Because he was.

[Stavros Halkias]

He was obsessed with Lisa. But even that was, like, pathetic.

[Eldis]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, I know. Urkel, you know, Urkel had to transform.

[Stavros Halkias]

At the end, though. But at the end it was. She did like him for him. Right? Wasn't that the.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I don't know, because I.

[Stavros Halkias]

This is how. This is the age I am. I watched. I was invested in the end of Family Matters as it was going off the air. Like, I remember late period Family Man Matters. Post Urkel, you know, post Stefan. Or Kel, when her. Kel was like. When it was clearly like, you know, you know, who's the actor that plays him? I'm forgetting. I'm blanking. Jaleel White, when he was like, you know, you gotta show that I'm not a fucking loser. I can also fucking, like, you know, dance.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So I'm reading his memoir right now.

[Stavros Halkias]

You really are a learned man.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, that was my character, and I got a lot of respect for J. Just as. As an actor and as a human being. But, like, he really breaks down in that book how it was his mom that was, like, defending him and making sure that, like, he didn't get over, like. I'm paraphrasing how he said it, but he basically said, nobody ever tried to me. That's not how he said it.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But basically, his mother. His mom did a great job of protecting him from the demons and the evils of Hollywood, Whatever comes with being a child celebrity. And, like, for all of the stuff that was in that book, the thing that I found most interesting so far is that he breaks down what really happened with Judy Winslow.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh, really?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Because, you know, everybody jokes like, oh, Judy Winslow went upstairs and stuff. Started doing porn.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It was the tutoring. According in his book. According to him, like, if you're. I didn't know this, but you have.

[Stavros Halkias]

To go to school, right? Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You have to go to school. As a kid actor, you have to spend three hours a day on set learning. If you start flunking, they have to fire you from the show.

[Stavros Halkias]

Wow.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Just wasn't doing her homework.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. I got a sneaking suspicion if Urkel was flunk, and they'd figure something out, you know? Yeah, it's like, look, you're a. You're a. You're on the line character. You gotta learn algebra. You can't. You're not important enough to fucking. To. To. To, like, for us to look the other way. You're not the starting wide receiver. You're the reserve left tackle. All right? You'll get cut. Before we cheat for you, we need.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You in the film room watching tape. I don't want to watch tape. All right, go up them stairs real quick. And action. And it, man. But it's. It's really. I mean, it's Jamie Foxworth story to tell. But it's a very interesting dichotomy of just how having two different types of parents on set dictated their trajectories. Totally different directions.

[Stavros Halkias]

Totally.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I don't know that part of, like, watching old sitcoms now that have children knowing what, you know, what the business does to most children. It's hard to watch some of them because it's just like that kid. Probably just like when you watch Home Improvement. I don't remember which one is the one that's always beating on women.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But one of the kids. One of the Tool Time kids.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Really likes to punch women.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And so when I go back, I can't watch the sitcom.

[Stavros Halkias]

No. Most. It's like. It's like watching like, a movie from the 70s, which, like, that had like a. You know, it's like watching, like, not even from 70s, any movie with, like, animals in it. Like, I bet you like Homeward Bound. It's like, oh, yeah, they killed 12 golden retrievers getting that shot where he has to jump over the train tracks. It's like. It's just like watching old sitcoms with any kids. It's like, dog, you don't want to know what had to be done. Like, that's what I think. Especially the Operation Dumbo Drop.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You know, they were beating the.

[Stavros Halkias]

Out of that elephant.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Absolutely. Lover and Rayota cussing that elephant.

[Stavros Halkias]

Turner and Hooch. You know how many dogs they went through, man? Tom Hanks strangled one himself for not cooperating. Yeah, dude, it's.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's so the old. I was watching. I went down a rabbit hole of sitcom theme songs. And I don't know if there is a song more sad or Pull the lyrics up for me just so we.

[Stavros Halkias]

Can read the first verse.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

WKRP in Cincinnati.

[Stavros Halkias]

Okay, Sorry. Which WKRP in Cincinnati lyrics?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

This reads like a suicide. And it's for one of the most hilarious sitcoms of all time. If you ever wondered whatever happened to me, I'm living on the air in Cincinnati. Cincinnati. WKRP got kind of tired of packing and unpacking. Town to town, up and down the dial.

[Stavros Halkias]

How the. By the way, we've never done this. You know, this.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

We're never meant to be. But maybe think of me once in a while, you sad fuck.

[Stavros Halkias]

So it's a guy who's on, who got. Who took a job in Cincinnati to be, like, the local, you know, weatherman or whatever.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Radio dj. And now I'm in a weird city but damn, I had to leave the woman.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Then he goes, yeah. Heading up the highway Leaving you behind was the hardest thing Mind you, this song is nothing about what the fuck this show is about.

[Stavros Halkias]

Does this ever come up in the show? No. There's no character who left his wife.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Talks to her, he said, the radio station, station. Off with everybody else. Heading up the highway Leaving you behind Hardest thing I ever had to do Broke my heart in two but, baby, pay no mind the price for finding me was losing you.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh, my God, that's so funny.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's.

[Stavros Halkias]

I had to lose you Memories helped me hide my lonesome Feeling far away from you and feeling low it's getting late, my friend My love I miss you so Take good care of you. I gotta go.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I mean, pills are hitting in that verse. It's getting late I love you so.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

One of the greatest sitcom theme songs of all that is. Jeez.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh, yeah. That is hilarious. Cuz they probably just were like, they gave some musician. They're like, all right. It's about a guy who's moving to Cincinnati to be on the radio. He's like, I got it. Don't say another word. I got it, baby.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Revolver in my hand and I spin in the cylinder Thinking of you as I play Russian roulette.

[Stavros Halkias]

This episode of Stavi's World is brought to you by booking.com booking. Yeah, and we're on a tour, guys, and you know that. And you know we're sleeping on a tour bus, but we get tired of the bus. We just had a couple off days in Los Angeles. We were going to sleep on the bus. What did we do? We went to booking.com to find us a beautiful accommodation. I want to stay healthy. I want something with a nice big kitchen, some easy enough bedrooms for me, George Eldis, the whole team. We found that in a breeze with booking.com, a nice little accommodation. Maybe we were more in other cities, were in the mood for hotels. I gotta tell you, with, you know, with the tour bus, we like to have one hotel room per city to, if somebody needs to chill out, take a shower, use some personal facilities, whatever it is. We've always been able to find a really nice hotel close by to the theater. That's huge where we're performing because, you know, you want to walk right to the place. Thanks to booking.com. whatever you want to do. Booking.com Scott it. You want to go. You want to go to the beach, you want to Go skiing. You want it. You want a nice little, you know, you want hotel type situation, you want a nice little chalet, Any type of shit in America. You want these mother. Mother [e-mail]. got your back, chief. Okay. I think everybody. I think everybody knows that these mother freakers got your back. So find exactly what you're looking for on booking dot com. Booking. Yeah. You. You were spe. You know, radio. You were fucking. You have an awesome career. You have like, truly. I feel like you're like one of the last of the Mohicans in terms of the, like, how to come up through like radio road work through the South. Like it's. You were a DJ for a long time, were you?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

12 years while I was still doing the road.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's like a classic. That's a throwback. Guy is the guy who did stand up and morning radio. That's crazy.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It was within five hours of Birmingham. I drove home after the gig to be on air the next morning because I didn't want to lose the job. And for context, I'm 21, 22 when this start.

[Stavros Halkias]

Sure.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So you got the metabolism for that and you're excited and you're surviving on cherry coke and Skittles at 3 in the morning. Fighting at does.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Taking truck stop speed pills.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

The most unregulated. I hope RFK does clean up some of this. The I was putting in my body was not good, bro. Like, the packaging was just weird. Like this is before talking late 90s, early 2000s, 010101 through about 2015 is my radio era while doing other. But like this is the beginning of energy drinks and Red Bull. And five, the bleeding edge. Yeah. When they were putting whatever when it was like make your hands tremble.

[Stavros Halkias]

Like I remember 4 loco. That was our college years.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It was so like that. And they used to have these pills at these truck stops and I don't know if it's called Stay woke or something.

[Stavros Halkias]

Black Panther packaging. Stay Woke before George Floyd.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It was like a. Like the package was like a stick of dynamite holding a thunderbolt.

[Stavros Halkias]

Love that dude.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And I would take three of those.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. Probably just speed in there, hop back.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

In my Ford Focus and get to the station in time to do mornings. And that was the life, man. Radio was wild though, because I go back and listen to some of the prank calls I did and I was like, I was just hungry, bro. I didn't even mean it.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I said to people, it's like the tiktokers have Gotten a hold of some of my vault stuff. Like, my stuff has always been like. So when I first started doing pranks, I gave them away for free.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I put them on my website, by the way.

[Stavros Halkias]

Again, that's what I'm talking about. You have like a. Like, you. You almost have like a vaudeville career where it was like, radio prank call. Because it's like, I remember. We remember that era of like, you know, we're talking jerky boys. We're talking like, every, like, you know, you'd have, like, albums, would have, like, prank interstitials.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Comedy and hip hop.

[Stavros Halkias]

Comedy and hip hop had it all. Yeah, absolutely. There would be skits on every. On every, like, big rap album. Would have, like, three pieces of sketch comedy masterpiece.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Make them say, opens with a prank phone call to no Limit Studio.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right. It was culturally very big.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. So like, that made me money, though, man. I sold those.

[Eldis]

Really?

[Stavros Halkias]

That's awesome.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I would print, bro. I would.

[Stavros Halkias]

So that was like your merch. Was that like. Oh, wow.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I could never think of a joke to put on the shirt.

[Stavros Halkias]

Sure.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But I would take. I had an HP desktop, 5550.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh, yeah, dude.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And I would pack that in my focus and I would spend all day in the hotel burning greenback CDs.

[Stavros Halkias]

You would burn your own Frank CD.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And they had the label Stomper where you just stomped that.

[Stavros Halkias]

You did your own labels?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I did.

[Stavros Halkias]

So you're in a holiday in a.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Express, just making dope all day on your desktop.

[Stavros Halkias]

On the road to bur CDs.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I had no. I had a Dale finally. Dale is for an 8100 with a wood grain heel rest. Laptops used to have. I'm old laptops used to have customizable heel rest where you could pop them in and out.

[Stavros Halkias]

I'm not.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I had a wood grain.

[Stavros Halkias]

Incredible, dude.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You had the wood grain Dell inspiring 8100 with the wood grain heel rest. And I would just make CDs all day and sell them shits.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's awesome.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You know, I'm. It's. It's cool that a lot of that old. That I've forgotten about. And I. I stopped. I stopped doing pranks in 0807 when I moved to LA. I stopped doing them because I didn't want to be known as the prank call.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And it was starting to. I get that because they were good, but I get that.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

No, I want to do other shit. So I just never. I never sold another CD. Pulled all the shit off iTunes.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right. And it's long enough. It's far enough in the past, whereas before, everything was automatically digitized that it's kind of crazy for it to stay hidden. Whereas, you know, if you do a podcast, for example, in your mid-20s, when you're saying wild shit, that's there forever, you know, like.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But. I mean. But, like, people started finding the old pranks, and I got to give it up to a lot of these tiktokers that would just. Folks have just put my. On YouTube once. YouTube gain traction over the years. And then Tik Tockers would take this off YouTube and then pull that up, and then they put, I. I'll never do another prank call. I don't even retweet what. I don't even think people know it's me.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Half the time.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Which to me is still kind of cool.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's all. That's even cooler.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's like just laughing at some. And I'm just going, yeah, I was a crazy.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah. No, believe me, I wish that would happen with Comet. I wish we would be like, oh, that fat guy that's laughing. I wonder who that is. Actually, my laugh would instantly give me away, no matter what.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But I think we. I think we're at a point societally with comedy where in terms of the retroactive cancel.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That we're in a different place.

[Stavros Halkias]

Totally. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You can understand. Comedy matches the times of what. And I know this because I have a degree in journalism and I flunked mass media law three times.

[Stavros Halkias]

You flunked it three times. So the third.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Three times.

[Stavros Halkias]

The third time's the charm.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

What is decent or indecent is decided by the listening public at large within the region of the material being.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh, interesting.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So the same way some radio station could play a fart sound.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Like if it's Bubba the Love Sponge.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right, right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Classic Opie and Anthony. Like you took half the Opie and Anthony did.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

On the East Coast.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That was terrestrial radio.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

They never got a complaint. For real. They never got taken off the air. Right.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

If you take any ONA segment and you drop that in Tupelo, Mississippi, on a gospel station.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

They're going to catch a strike. That station would catch a strike from the FCC. 100k fine. So most of what we were doing at the time just fell in line with, yeah, I want to use some racial slurs to yell at you to get you to cuss me out. And it's gonna be funny.

[Stavros Halkias]

Sounds great.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's just the idea of anger.

[Stavros Halkias]

Totally.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

If I can trick you into being angry at me. Yuck, yuck, yuck. That's all Jackass was for sure. Jackass was just triggering people into being.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I'm trying to elicit a reaction.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. They would have.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Whatever I can say to get that is fair game.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. Eric Andre's pranks. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But at the end of it, you know, I don't think Eric shows all of that within his show, but at the end of all of these. These pranks, you go to the person, hey, it's cool. Cool.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Every prank that I've done, at the end, the person's laughing.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So it's like there's a. Well, no, it's also a degree of reverence in what we did, but it's just not something I ever wanted to go back and do over and over again.

[Stavros Halkias]

Of course. And also, I think there's the thing of, like, it's not only just the time period, but it's also like the time in someone's life. Like, prank calls is a young man's game. You know what I mean? Like, saying the wildest shit you can think of on a podcast is a young man game. Like. Like. And that's. I think every generation goes through that. Everyone loves prank calls. Everyone, when they're 13, calls someone and says, can I have a pussy burger? You know, like, you call, like, the. The carry out. You're like, I want some jizz fries. I'm not saying that's what you did, but I'm just saying, like, it's a natural thing, but it's the same. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I called a hotel once. So what I learned from being on the road is that I learned how to call directly to hotel rooms without circumvent desk.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Not even need to know the person's name on the room.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So I get back to the radio station, and I would call a hotel room and just. I would. I would act like I'm. Yeah. And then call the room, pretending that I'm next. Next door.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And asking them if they'd slide a condom under the door. You ain't got no rubbers over there, dude.

[Stavros Halkias]

I'm in 302.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That's. I can't do that at 46.

[Stavros Halkias]

No, no, no. But it's still funny. It still holds.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And, like, I'm 46. You can't behave like that. That's why I love of seeing, like, in the case in point. That's why I feel like even with sketch humor, there's a maturity cycle that we all go through.

[Stavros Halkias]

Sure.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And it's like five to seven years. There's like a five to seven year window where sketch comedy got you.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That's your guy. Yeah, that's your. It's Will Ferrell era. Totally snl. For me, it was that and then Living Color. That was my peak sketch era. Which is what makes Chappelle such an anomaly.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But I think part of what Chappelle did was a lot of longer form sketches. So stylistically, it was a new way to consume.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. But that's interesting because I think. I think he had a lot of windows in that. Yeah. There was like, he. There was so much cultural significance. He also caught the dvd, the box set DVD wave of like. And there was like a few box sets of my generation. It's like those. And that might be the one, honestly. I mean, there's also family guys first when Fox took them off the air, that's why they got back on was because of like box sets, DVD sales.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And then Adult Swim was like, all right, we'll put it on.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It was only off the strength of the secondary market. But, like, I feel like that's why, if you notice, even with. I can. Trying to think of them, because I'm trying to say this with respect. It's not a dis.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

When you think of like sketch Internet sketch artists or performers now. Right.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

No matter who you love that does a funny thing on the Internet on their channel and it's so funny. They've got five to seven years before you.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

As a consumer.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Your take your. Your palette changes for sure. For sure. Your comedic palette changes. And it doesn't mean that that person isn't funny anymore. They have to figure out a way to evolve to get the next generation that's growing into them.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Or else.

[Stavros Halkias]

Or to grow with their. Grow with their correct fan base.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And the ones who don't grow with their fan base to create new content that addresses their palette shift. You know, they're.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Because then they go, why are you still doing that?

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. They're like, remember. Yeah. It's like. Yeah. It's like they're just doing movies from. They're doing quote. They do stand up and they do quotes from the movies they were in in 1994. You know what I mean? It's like. And you guys can put together maybe a couple people. We're talking about it. We don't gotta say who it was exactly. But, you know, it is like the kind of thing where it's like, yeah, you gotta. It's just everyone should grow. But you know, I love that you started prank calls because it's just so. Because it's fucking hilarious to be like, yeah, you have degree. I mean, you're. You were on the Daily show for years. You have a news show, you know, a news comedy show. But it's like comedy just starts with the like, let's just pick up a phone and piss some people off. Like it's. There's some base ways to do it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's crazy because people just go, oh, liberal, fake comedian. It's like there was 15 years of me sleeping in my car.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Cursing out strangers, Totally doing the worst shows. I literally could not afford to purchase 1,000 CDs.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

A dollar a pop.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I had to self produce them at 250 per.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Just like I, I don't even have the front money.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

To buy enough CDs to make blank CDs. Yeah.

[Stavros Halkias]

I can't buy. I don't have the money to buy blank cd.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It took me a while, man.

[Stavros Halkias]

Guys, I don't know about you, but I like keeping my money where I can see it, in my pockets. All right. Traditional big wireless though. They want to take your fucking cash. Are you going to let them? We're not letting them anymore. Not here at Stavie Baby Enterprises. Because we have. Who's our carrier for our business line. That's right. Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile, baby. They make it so easy to fucking switch. We switched fast as hell, didn't we, Eldis?

[Eldis]

Yeah, dude, it was so easy to switch that shit. I just did it right online.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's fucking awesome, dude. So say, do me a favor. Say bye bye to your overpriced wireless plans. Jaw dropping monthly bills and unprecedented overages. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you with premium wireless plans starting at 15 bucks a month. It's not. It ain't shit. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts. Ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop [e-mail] that's mintmobile.comstavi upfront payment of 45 bucks for three month. Five gigabyte plan required equivalent to 15 bucks a month new customer offer for first three months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details, were your parents in all, like, because, you know, I know your dad has like. He's like, comes from a much more distinguished. He did like, you know, he actually covered the civil rights. You know, he was in the civil rights conflict. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

My dad was like, first off, he was like the first black. At most radio stations he was at. He was a radio news reporter and commentary type guy. But he would also just volunteer to go to just the dangerous shit, really. So.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But he knew it's because he would get more access.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Because no white reporter. My father literally covered the South African Soweto riots.

[Stavros Halkias]

Wow.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And then the Zimbabwe Rhodesian civil war. Damn, dude, just. You're hired wood. Thanks.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Give me a ticket to Africa. They shooting at. And I'd like to cover it. And they're like, go right the ahead.

[Stavros Halkias]

They're like, wow, that actually saves us. We were gonna have to do an awkward thing where we had to pretend, you know, we had to make a decision about who we were going to send to Africa. But thank you for being the one to volunteer.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And he would get shot at, report, win awards, and just kept moving up the ladder. I mean, he did Vietnam, he was embedded over there. Civil rights movement, Chicago in the 60s, like the rise of violence over there and riots. So, yeah, he was very revered. My mom's been a college educator.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Forever. And so she's very.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right, right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So she wasn't a fan.

[Stavros Halkias]

So that it's like, you're the. And then you're like, all right, mom and dad, can I have a fart machine for Christmas? I have to make prank calls.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So I got. So the little bit of bread I had before I started, like, I think I was 13, I started raking leaves around the neighborhood.

[Stavros Halkias]

Hell yeah, dude.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And that was to get Nintendo tapes and sneakers.

[Stavros Halkias]

Love it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

10 yards front, 15 front and back.

[Stavros Halkias]

Love it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Tell me. No. I take leaves from a house I already raked and I wait till dark and I put leaves in your yard, Wait a week, come back to your house.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

New customer.

[Stavros Halkias]

Be a real shame if there was some more leaves on your front lawn. Wouldn't it be?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That's what I would do.

[Stavros Halkias]

I would create low level leaf extortion payments.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I'm like, trump, baby. I create the problem, then I give you the solution, baby. Hey, that tick tock up. Yeah.

[Stavros Halkias]

And I fixed it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So. So I would. I would take that money and I would get subscriptions to. I didn't do baseball cards. I should have.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah. But because you are A big baseball guy. You're big.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I did Game Pro. Electronic Gaming Monthly.

[Stavros Halkias]

Hell, yeah, dude.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And MAD Magazine.

[Stavros Halkias]

Love that.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, Those were. Those subscription costs is where I spent most of my money. And my pops would see that. MAD Magazine. What is this, monkey. Because he just didn't. With humor.

[Stavros Halkias]

It's so funny to think about Mulaney. Talk about the same thing where it's like, his dad was like. He was like, so what? What do you want to be, Steve Martin? And he said it like it was an insult. And Melanie's like, that would actually be insane if I could achieve that. But, like, to his dad, Steve Martin's, like, a fucking pathetic, like, clown. You know? Like. Like, it's so funny to be the kind of people that love comedy that your dad couldn't even. He just thought it was a waste of.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Wrap his hand because. Because there was the idea that you're trying to be funny at a time where there's a lot of serious stuff going on. We ain't got time for these laughs. We got to mobilize.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right, right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You know, my father was one of the original investors in Soul Train.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh, wow.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

The television show.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So he hired Don Cornelius.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's huge.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

He hired.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's crazy.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You can Google this. Don Cornelius was a Chicago cop. He pulled my father over.

[Stavros Halkias]

Okay, for a year.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So not long enough to hit him.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So pulls my pops over, and my pops tells him, yo, you got a nice voice. You should be in radio. Here's my card. Come do radio news.

[Stavros Halkias]

Wow.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Don thinks about it, dips off, and starts working at WVO in Chicago and builds his media. That began his journey in the media.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And, you know, hey, I'm not gonna act like my dad was, like, the main front man or something. Other people gave money. But when it came time for the Soul Train pilot to be sold, Don couldn't get it sold, and it was taking longer than he expected. And my pops goes, hey, man, I know you got this little dancing show that you're doing, but I need my money back. And Don Cornelius to. I mean, I'm paraphrasing again, but basically, it was like, trust me, this is going to be a hit. The train of soul is a move and grooving thing. And if Dick Clark can make money like this, I think there's an opportunity for black America. As when the 70s come, we're going to get into a whole different vibe in this country. Country. To which my father said, and I quote, don't nobody want to Watch dance for an hour.

[Stavros Halkias]

So he's anti dancing and comedy.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You have to remember Dr. King just got shot. Fucking Detroit riots. You think about what the 60s were for black people for sure. And then some dude goes, you know, it'd be fun if we just dance. It'll be a 40 year empire. Shut the up and bring me my money back. So that's who my father was.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yes.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

He did not with fun.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. He did not fuck with fun.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Like, you know, like, you know how people have like their. Their. I remember sitting with my dad and we watched the ball game and we watched a special show show, my father and I. These are. These are the shows we watched.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Ever together as a unit.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

60 Minutes. Dan Rather, 20 20. Specifically John Stossel stories.

[Stavros Halkias]

Damn.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

C Span and Jeopardy.

[Stavros Halkias]

Wow. Yeah. That's who Jeopardy's the funnest. It got. Jeopardy's the funniest. They got, dude.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. So I just. I don't know, man. I grew up an only child. I got a bunch of half siblings. Siblings.

[Stavros Halkias]

But okay.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I grew up living in my own head. So like that's where the funny and weird started.

[Stavros Halkias]

My mom have siblings on your dad's side.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, of course.

[Stavros Halkias]

So I see the kind of fun he did with. There's a specific way he preferred to blow off Steam.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

The ninth of 11 kids.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's awesome.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That's my daddy calling the hotel room.

[Stavros Halkias]

For them condoms to be like a dower. Like all business guy. Then be like, look, what am I not gonna get? He's awesome. Yeah. You're doing your duty to the cause.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

My mom didn't with me doing comedy because I was on probation when I started it.

[Stavros Halkias]

Okay.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And so she wanted me to like stay in school. But I got arrested when I was 19 for stealing credit cards.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh, respect, dude. The credit card scam.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. People Forget in the 90s.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. That there was a. Was there a dead pre song that told you how to. How to steal identities?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I believe I could have wrote it.

[Stavros Halkias]

There's. Yeah, there was a. There's like the credit cards fraud was a big one.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

People don't understand how wild credit card usage was in the 90s. There was no chip.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right. It's just the. No, it's literally the number.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

The. You had to sign the back of the card. If it wasn't signed, then that was like running through TSA without stopping.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But otherwise, as long as you had a car, they would do a physical imprint of the card. They had carbon copy machines and that was like. So if someone Had a piece of that carbon copy. I have your full card number and your name as it appears on the card. And in those days you didn't even need a billing address to mail order.

[Stavros Halkias]

Hilarious.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So it's like it was just so simple and easy. We just figured out a number of different ways to get free clothes.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And we'll take the clothes and sell them sometimes.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Got caught, got on probation, got suspended from school for a semester for this. So during that suspended semester is when I started doing stand up. So I get back in school and mom and I. And I.

[Stavros Halkias]

And you're in college, right?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Correct. Yeah, I'm at Florida A. M. Tallahassee. So my mom, you know, she's. I'm gonna be on top of it and see what the. Is going on and you're not gonna be up anymore and I'm gonna check up on you.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And my mom went there. My father taught there, so.

[Stavros Halkias]

Gotcha.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

They've got a bin Laden network.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right. Keeping an eye on you. Yes, yes.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So I don't to this day I don't know who. Someone in the journalism department sent my mother my class schedule. And that first semester back after my suspension all I was taking 15 credit hours in three days, Tuesday through Thursdays. And I had like one night class on a Monday. But literally from 8 to 5, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, just education. 15 minute break in between. Fuck a lunch. Yeah, just go.

[Stavros Halkias]

Gotta get it done.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I did that so that I could have Thursday night and Friday morning to take the Greyhound to go do open mics anywhere in the South. Because Greyhound is fucking 8 hours to.

[Stavros Halkias]

Go, 4 hours in a car.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But I need it Friday, Saturday, Sunday and I need Monday on the Comeback.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

To get back to Tallahassee.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So my mom sees my. The schedules. What the. Why aren't you spreading your out? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just, I just want some days off.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And then one of her students saw me sleeping in the bus station in Birmingham like a couple months later. And Birmingham is small enough socially.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Where totally my father and I, and I say this humbly, but my father, he died my senior year of high school.

[Stavros Halkias]

Okay.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Highly respected man in the city of Birmingham. We're talking about a city that's 75 black. Birmingham proper. My father was four black people, so his name rang out for sure. So I'm.

[Stavros Halkias]

And you're named after him, right?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Ding, ding.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So why is the son of Roy.

[Stavros Halkias]

Wood senior sleeping on making a Greyhound buzz?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Correct.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Next to homeless people Openly doing crap.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So that gets back to my mom, and she's furious, Right. But I was on dean's list.

[Stavros Halkias]

Ah, nice.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Grades come out, like, a month later. I go, here's the deal. If my grades are solid, you can't say to me about comedy, right? We don't talk about it. I won't tell you about it. You're concerned about my grades. Yeah, clearly my grades are better because I have something to focus on. Leave just. Yeah, I was respectful, but of course, I didn't go, like, Punching Brewster on it.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Shut the up, Harry. Is that his name? I think that was the guy's name. So she said, cool. And then about six months later, my mom put down on a car for me to start driving so I wouldn't sleep in the bus station.

[Stavros Halkias]

Awesome.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Still didn't fuck with me doing comedy. But also, I don't want you on crack.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want you. I don't want you inhaling crack fumes. Secondhand crack fumes, at least.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. I mean, she's my biggest fan now.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But your parents, they're just trying to protect you from your own stupidity, for sure. And I get it. But, you know, I had to make good grades as a way to keep.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And it actually was the best thing ever happened to me. But it would be, like, three, four more years before my mom would even acknowledge that maybe I would, like, totally do this as a job.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's better. I mean, I can't even imagine if somebody's. It's like, we're talking about the parental locks. Like, dude, if somebody's parents are supportive of them doing stand up, they're bad parents. Like, there's no. Like, that's. They're just bad parents. If you're like. Because it makes no sense, you should be like, all right, whatever. Like, you should. If your son starts doing open mics, anybody who's listening, treat it like, you know, he started smoking weed. And you're like, all right, well, hopefully he comes out of his system. And, like, it's not gonna. Everyone does something stupid in their youth. And, like, you know, and then if he. And then if he does it more, if he's, like, starting to drive and take greyhounds, that's. Oh, now he's on. Now he's taking pills. You know what I mean? And then it's like. And then he's like, I think I'm gonna move to New York. It's like, they're on heroin. You know what I mean?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But like all this you can name that happens on a greyhound. I didn't seen it. Yeah, jacking off, women waking up. What the, you like fight?

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, fights.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Drivers kicking people off. The, the, the, the most painful was every blue moon when we would take the gray. I take the, I take the girl. I call it the dog, but sure, take the dog.

[Stavros Halkias]

I only did a little dog. Luckily I had the Mega Bus. Went from Baltimore. I was in Baltimore in the Meg. I was in the Mega Bus days.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Right at the edge of Megabus territory.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. So I did a lot of Mega Bus. But I had to, if the gigs were really shitty at the beginning, I did have to take a couple Meg Greyhounds. But I, I, I got just a taste. I did everything one go round. I got so lucky. I didn't have to do it over and over. I did like D clubs, C club, you know what I mean? Like, I did it all but nine.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Years before I moved.

[Stavros Halkias]

Horrible, dude.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And the worst part of the greyhound rides were you would ride up past Paris island for Marine Corps basic training. And I'm not going to say we're right up on the gate. That part I don't remember. But I do remember there was specifically a stop at Parris island where they picked up marines who had either quit or been kicked out or damn, whatever the fuck you thought your life was supposed to be has not happened. This moment on the bus is the first real moment that this person is having of what the fuck? Next.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yes, yes. Moment of self reflection after leaving the Marines.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Cause that was the dream. That's what you were gonna do. And for whatever reason, you're on a goddamn greyhound with me and two masturbators. Someone smuggling some. And just the look of frustration. Sometimes tears, sometimes crying like, and, and it's, it's wild because I wish I could like go back and like this should be a reality show of just someone on a bus that pulls up to Parris Island. Or we'll go up further to Fayetteville for the army. Like just don't be sad guy, he just sits down next to. These are like, like 18 year olds and 19 year olds.

[Stavros Halkias]

Totally. They barely know what's going on. It's all good, man.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You got time.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You're in shape.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Say what you want about basic training, but you're gonna burn some calories.

[Stavros Halkias]

You're in shape. You don't have to kill anyone in the third world to protect our global interests. Yeah, you're fine.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That used to make me so sad because I just never knew what to like. You ever see some. A stranger you want to say something to?

[Stavros Halkias]

Totally.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You don't know what to fucking say?

[Stavros Halkias]

Nah. Folks, I'm here in a green room of historic theater on my very successful Dreamboat tour. And I gotta tell you, when I'm kicking back, I'm about to do the show, and when it's over, I'm gonna get it very twisted. I'm gonna keep it twisted with. That's right, Twisted tea. We love sucking them back on the tour bus. We love that they're delicious, that they're brewed with real iced tea. A nice, refreshing 5% alcohol by volume, flavorful, delectable. You want plain iced tea, you want peach, you want raspberry, they got it all. When you want to go, keep it twisted. On a nice day, having a picnic, sipping on a twisted tea, nothing finer. You'll love it. Just like me and Eldis and Straight George, who some of you might know who's on the tour. Look, we're keeping it twisted on the bus, off the bus, responsibly, deliciously. And we suggest you keep it twisted, too. Go. Go to your local purveyor of fine beverages and get a nice, cold twisted tea. You're gonna thank me. I think you're really gonna thank me for that. So remember, folks, grab a refreshing twisted tea today and keep it twisted.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Those days were fucking wild, man. The road. You know, I was nine years. Just wherever anyone said yes. I didn't give a. Yeah. If it was a microphone I'm in that I performed. And I'm not making this up. At the Monticello Watermelon Festival in Monticello, Florida. Was it Medford, Oregon? I think it's Medford that has the Watermelon Festival.

[Stavros Halkias]

Interesting.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. Was it good?

[Stavros Halkias]

I mean, that's pretty. I would love to attend a watermelon festival. You couldn't do it. It was one. One step. I feel like performing. There's enough.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, I feel like. I feel like. Just type in Monticello, Florida, Watermelon Festival. I think it was Monticello. I know Medford has one as well, but there it is.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, it exists.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, there it is. Monticello Watermelon Festival looks good, man. No, it's. It's everything that's wrong with comedy. Everything that. That ruins comedy.

[Stavros Halkias]

Ms. Watermelon Queen.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, it's. It's a day show.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's outdoors. And it's racially imbalanced.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. That stuff is just a bunch of white people enjoying watermelon. They're like. And now.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And you have to work clean. It's a festival. I call it 8 to 80s. It's 8 year olds to 80 year olds.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh my God, look at this. Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

See how far you have to scroll.

[Stavros Halkias]

Before they're line dancing black person. We saw an Asian before we saw an Asian. No. Oh, sorry. Instagram blocked. As folks, you're gonna have to check out the Monticello Water Festival.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's in its 73rd year. It's been around forever. It was. It was a gig. Yeah, man, it was a gig. And it's not like they were like, let me make sure I'm framing this because I know people.

[Stavros Halkias]

And luckily your father had passed away by the. He didn't have to hear about you stage.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Get off that stage. What is this? Monkey. But let me just make it perfectly clear. Yes, the watermelon is like a big cash crop in Monticello, Florida. And they celebrate the harvest with a big festival. Hip parade with the town's making money. That's the origins of the course.

[Stavros Halkias]

Of course.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So it's just there to celebrate the culture of the town. It's not like I got on stage and white people were like, eat one, eat one. It was a very proper event.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yes. But it's just still a horrible a day festival. One of the worst day festival.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

As a black guy celebrating watermelon, a little odd. Please don't put my photo on the fly.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. Or at least one where I'm frowning you. Ah, well, there's so much more we want to talk about, but we do have to. We do have to get to some questions, including. The one thing I didn't get to is how much I love that you, you were a Dolphins fan. Because teal and orange were the only non gang affiliated colors that were like easy for you to like. You wouldn't get beat.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Beat the up if you're wearing teams that were good. In the 80s and 90s, the dolphins were the only ones with gang safe colors. Cowboys were Crips. The Steelers were Gangster Disciples.

[Stavros Halkias]

Damn, dude.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So you couldn't even wear a Bo Jackson Raiders jersey because. And he's from Birmingham area. You couldn't even wear that.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Because it's Gangster Disciples. That's black. Like they ran Birmingham. So whatever team, you better be a Packers fan or some.

[Stavros Halkias]

It's just hilarious to be like, yep, Teal, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Respected also. Marino was respected because he had two black receivers that were very ignorant as far like I didn't know like to 1.0 type Mark Clayton and Mark Duper. They were very good. They were more Tyreek Hill, let me.

[Stavros Halkias]

Put it that way. Sure, sure, sure. That's fun.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So, yeah, you got it.

[Stavros Halkias]

Your receivers and your cornerbacks have to be insane.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. Marino.

[Stavros Halkias]

And they have to believe they're the man.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So it kept me from getting teased at school.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, elders, why don't we do a couple calls here? You know, we have some, some, some advice, a lot of wisdom over here. The man's got a journalism degree. He's seen guys beating off on greyhounds. He's seen it all.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It took me five years to graduate.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, we heard you do that class three times. All right, Eldis, what do we got here, buddy?

[Eldis]

Hi, Sally. Hi, Elvis. I guess we'll try this again.

[Stavros Halkias]

Dumbass.

[Eldis]

So our situation happened over break. Hi, Bobby. Hi, Eliz. Hi, guest. We'll try this again. So as situation happen over break, Thanksgiving, Christmas, what you're getting on? Anyways, from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve and Christmas, I spent every weekend on every holiday with my girlfriend's family. I had a great time doing it with fun was awesome. But I miss my family, obviously. So for New Year's Eve, my brother and sister invited my girlfriend and I to dinner. They live like three hours away. So we're gonna drive up on the 30th New Year's Eve and leave the first. So only really seeing that on the 31st for this is a restaurant. My girlfriend really doesn't like anything on the menu. As mentioned, they can make accommodation for certain ingredients. And she suggested that we ask changing the restaurant. And this restaurant is my sister's favorite restaurant and they both did like months ahead of time. Cafe, restaurant. I said, no, we're not going to do that. She said, well, what if we just don't go to dinner? We eat without them. And that was like a two or three hour dinner of most of the day that I wasn't going to get to spend with them. Then she suggested she just eat beforehand and my feelings were hurt because I feel like she was trying to get all these accommodations and changes to the plans that my brother and sister had graciously invited us to. Didn't like that. I understand she wants to be a priority and she deserves to be, but I felt this because this day was a priority to spend time with my brother and sister and for them to get to know her. She hadn't met her before.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh, wow.

[Eldis]

So I just felt like, I feel like it'll hurt because I've spent Every weekend up until now with her family. And now it's not like my family. And she's making it all about her. The power through. So what do you think? Is this a giant red flag? It's a one off. Let me know.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, I mean, that's fucking. She's. I mean, that's. Fuck. It sounds really fucking annoying. Minimum. Yeah. You spent every fucking holiday with her family. You probably didn't say shit. You were trying to make a good impression. Like, I guess it's one thing if she was, like, allergic to everything on this menu, but it's like she just didn't like the food. That's insane to be like, can you. Can we change this? It's like, no, it's like she's not. The fact that her. Her mindset isn't like, oh, we saw your family. You made a great impression. Let me go.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yes.

[Stavros Halkias]

Let me go. Like, have them like me. And it's like, look, if I don't like the food there, yeah, fuck it. I'll have a sandwich beforehand and I'll pick it some shit. But I'll make it about. Because no one's policing what you're eating either. Either. It's so clearly about the dinner. It's so clearly about getting to know each other. It's a New Year's dinner. It's just, you're drinking, you're just having a good time. Like, the whole idea is it's not about the food at all. And it is. It is. That is. That is red flag behavior, in my opinion.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yes. But is it enough to ring her up and put her on waivers?

[Stavros Halkias]

I don't think so. I think it's enough for, like, a demerit.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

All right. You got to call a team meeting.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Absolutely. You put this as you can do it one of two ways. If it were me, I would press her to still go to the dinner. Sure. I think go to the dinner. Listen, I want to have fun with them on their terms. I met with your family on your terms, and I want them to feel, you know, comfort. This is her favorite restaurant. It's her night. It's her event. She's inviting us into that space.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So we're not going to change the video venue, too. We can go if you want to just nibble on something and we do something afterwards. Cool. The problem with option two is that you're opening the door to always accommodating her wants and needs right when the situation doesn't fit, which means she'll feel like she never has to adapt.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

If she has an inability to adapt to your social situations or even read the social clues that. The social cues that she's wild for calling a restaurant to ask him if they got almond milk. Can you make the Alfredo with almond butter? No, they can't. It's regular fat ass butter. You probably have someone in your presence, my friend. This is bigger picture.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You have someone that is not yet capable of putting their needs sometimes second. Which is what a real relationship is about for sure. Taking turns, being uncomfortable. That's. That's love. She doesn't want to take her turn.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right? Absolutely. And you've more than done your part in doing Thanksgiving and Chris, I mean, by the way, New Year's is barely a holiday.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Your ground on that. Thanksgiving, Christmas too. Split those up. Or we do one in one or we do half of one and half of another. Because what it sounds like is that she's trying to merge you into her culture and doesn't really give a about yours, which means she just needs a dude that is compliant. She doesn't care about luck, love. She cares about somebody that's compliant because in her head she's already built out the role of husband and you're just. Either my own coming out.

[Stavros Halkias]

No, no, no, no. This is great. This is great, you guys. Yeah. Well, I mean, to be fair though, to. To your wife, you have nine half siblings. You barely. That's a lot of Thanksgivings. You know what I mean?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Everybody gets gift cards. I don't visit. I got one nephew here in New York. I with him. He's 30 minutes on the train.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right, right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But yeah, I think that.

[Stavros Halkias]

No, you're. I think you're right, Roy. Where it's like, this is. Yeah, it's about. There's no compromise here. And she has kind of. And I would just be. This isn't necessarily a deal breaker. Maybe she. She could just honestly be immature and being a little like. Like ignorant of the social cue and hopefully if you have like a. Hey, you hurt. This kind of hurt my feelings because I feel like I did everything I needed to with your family and this is really the only one time. And I really would hope that, you know, you'd be thinking about trying to make your. Trying to make a nice impression and spend time with them. I really want you to get to know them. The food, all this other stuff is immaterial. Let's be honest. What it's about is like spending time with my family. And I think like, you know, and just. I think that's really what the discussion is. And look, I don't. How. I don't know how old he is.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Did he say, it doesn't matter. She's dumb enough to sit for three hours and not eat shit. It's gonna. You look weird.

[Stavros Halkias]

It could just be some young though. Is my only caveat here, right? Where it's like. And look. But you're right too, Roy, in that maybe she just isn't ready to just be in. In a real if this is because, like, meeting each other's families over the holidays is a really big if this goes well, we take it to the next level. If this doesn't, we have to reassess and there's. You have grounds for light reassessment here is what I would say is that, like, this is enough to be like, to see. Is she really selfish, actually? Was she just acting weird? Did she just. Is. Did she have one fuck up where she wasn't really? Really? Did she not realize how important this was to you? Because also a girl like this, what you're talking about, about wanting to like, absorb you into their culture, there's people that would love that. There's people that hate their fucking families. In college, I. I had a college girlfriend. It was the. I was like, oh, I have a fucking excuse not to go to Thanksgiving. Like, I was pumped. I fucking never. It was awesome. And so like, she can find those people. Exist. Exist. Maybe she's looking for that. But maybe also she just, like, didn't understand how important this was to you and to her. Maybe it was like. Because if you take the, the importance off it, right? It's. If it's just, hey, we got dinner plans with like, you know, we got dinner plans, then the food does kind of matter. But if it's like, no, it's not about the dinner, you idiot. It's about my family.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Correct.

[Stavros Halkias]

If she missed that whole part, then it's possible. If she just, like, looks at it from your perspective and she's like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. I didn't even realize all this stuff. Stuff. I get it. Would I hold my breath if that's what's gonna happen? No.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But yeah, here's the olive branch you throw. Also, because you're gonna have this argument when it's time to split Thanksgiving and Christmas. Next time we hang with them, we'll pick the restaurant. So, yeah, give her some control. Let her choose the place. But in the short term, call a team meet and see what the is going on. Yeah, she Starts crying and acting weird and saying that you don't. I'm just saying. Saying you don't care about me, whatever. Then that irrational.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yes.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And then the way you circumvent that if you. Because this sounds like the type of guy who needs like four or five strikes before he pulls the trigger.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's how I am, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I like you. I'm really trying.

[Stavros Halkias]

For sure, you're on.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I'm gonna email st. So you. You have to, like, make sure that you're not letting her dictate every single thing you all do socially. But if they are taking your words out of context or misreading your tone, Write a letter.

[Stavros Halkias]

Trust me, I like I did. Putting in writing is actually helpful sometimes.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

No one reads letters mean.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

They assume you to be in your nicest form. You know, I like that you tell her. She said, well, I don't like that you.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Cry now.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, buddy, Grounds for. For. Grounds for a slight reassessment here.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. But if you cut it loose, let us know. Send a picture.

[Stavros Halkias]

All right. Damn, that is annoying.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Get in the dms. Heard what happened to you at New Year's.

[Stavros Halkias]

That guy's a idiot.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So all cute.

[Stavros Halkias]

I can't believe he would treat you that way. Go ahead, elders.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Dude, I. I. A guy's girlfriend one time off the radio.

[Stavros Halkias]

I love that.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I don't have time for these stories, but.

[Stavros Halkias]

No, we do. Oh, we do, brother.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Guy called the radio station, was like, you prank call my girl?

[Stavros Halkias]

No, he requested the prank call. He fucked his girlfriend. Devastating.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But so I prank call her. But the prank was like, you're like.

[Stavros Halkias]

Hey, it's a really good prank.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It was the. The prank because, you know, at the end of the prank, again, hey, it's the radio station. Your boyfriend put us up to this. And also your boyfriend wanted us to tell you bab. Harp. Violin. Violin, right. And she's like, oh, no. You like her. Yeah. All right, we're gonna email you about the prize. And we're gonna email her about the prize and that replied with her phone number. I was just going to give you the ludicrous cd. I'm just sending her pickup information to come get the cd. Why don't you. Why don't you bring it to my house?

[Stavros Halkias]

Wow, dude, that's incredible.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

My 20s were a wild time. Read this next one.

[Stavros Halkias]

What a time. Respect, dude.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Woman I want to date.

[Stavros Halkias]

Date is probably watching this poor guy. That idiot.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

All these podcasts that I do like this where it's Just all around.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Always end up saying some. That I have to explain.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's the. That's the magic of this, man. It really just feels like hanging out. That's the problem.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's not magic.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I was better at this when I was in a relationship because I would behave.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Now I just talk and then I'm even. It's not even going to be your day. It'll be like a year from now for sure. So I was listening to some podcasts of yours.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Is that what you did?

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Did you just people you met in the radio? Yes.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yes.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's the whole point. Everyone does everything. Definitely the reason comedians do comedy. All of us were like, this will be how it happens. And it did. Somehow we don't understand it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

This is a great decision.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah. That I've put all. Everything else makes no sense. But I will get attention from women if I do this. That's how it starts. That's always how it fucking starts. And yeah, sometimes we fuck women we don't deserve to actually almost exclusively, to be honest with you. Geez Louise. You know, right now we're a finely oiled machine here at Stavie Baby Enterprise. We're going on theater tours. We're selling truckloads of merchandise, whether it's a Dreamboat T shirt or the Stavie Baby calendar that we do yearly. But that wasn't always the case. We used to be a bum operation. We were selling things. We had shitty spreadsheets. There was no one helping me. I was doing it all myself. I'm too fucking dumb to do that kind of shit. That was in a pre Shopify world. Now with Shopify, we've blossomed. As my business and my career has grown, Shopify has made it easy to scale up our merch selling operation as we've gotten more fans more interested in our stuff. Whatever you're trying to sell, you got a little online shop you want to sell. You know, I don't know. You making arts and crafts, you making soaps, you selling dried meats? Who knows? We got all types of talent in the Stavi's world fan base. You want to be a small business owner, you want an online shop? Go to our friends at Shopify. What was that? Oh.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Oh.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's the sound of us making another sale. Somebody just bought a fucking T shirt or a fucking calendar. Who's to say? I'll tell you who'll tell me. Shopify. When I look at my analytics. Upgrade your business and get the Same checkout we use with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.comstavi all lowercase s t a V-V Y. Of course. Go to shopify.comstavvi to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.comstavi oh, that's another sale, baby. All right, eldest, what do we got? Al, what else we got?

[Eldis]

Stavie Eldest, possible guests. Love you guys. Love the show.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Let's dive in.

[Eldis]

So my question is not centered around, but involves the recent election. Doesn't matter what party I usually vote for. On a personal level, on a human level, I feel like a man like Donald Trump is unfit to be the legal head and international representative of not just my own country, but also, you know, arguably potentially the greatest or most of the greatest but most powerful country ever exists in the history of the earth.

[Stavros Halkias]

Who's SGA president called in man? Jesus Christ. I also love that he says it doesn't matter who I usually vote for. So are we talking. Are we dealing with a never Trump Republican, One of the funniest types of guys, like, well, I want to fucking. I want to start wars, but civilly, I want to be able to lower the minimum wage to $7. But call someone, sir or madam. It really pisses me off that he paid porn stars for pussy, but I want to do essentially the same stuff he wants to do. I love those guys.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Who is paying for vaginals?

[Stavros Halkias]

Those guys are fucking awesome. Anyway, this guy's awesome. Keep going.

[Eldis]

Eldis most by the greatest but most powerful country to ever exist in the history of the earth. And I just learned that one of my oldest and dearest friends of 15 years just didn't vote in the last election. And I think there are a handful of reasons that that could be, you know, justified. But we had a long conversation about it, and we both got the chance to say our piece. And after hearing his whole side of the story, I cannot help but see him as anything, as not just a coward and a bitch. And it's. It's making me so. It depresses me. It bums me out every time I think about him because it's just like, he's one of my oldest friends. I love him to death. And I thought I had a stronger ally in the humanity part of being a human. And I love corporate Democrat.

[Stavros Halkias]

I mean, are you fucking paying attention, bro? Jesus Christ. This is what. What we delude ourselves into thinking. It's like, look, of course, don't vote for Trump, but are we pretending like Shit's been going good with fucking Joe Biden didn't even know he was fucking alive half his term. The humanity of this shit, are you kidding me? Kamala couldn't win a fucking. Anyway. This is this fucking.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah, this, this is this.

[Stavros Halkias]

Anyway, it's crazy. Let's, let's, yeah, let's finish it.

[Eldis]

Simple solution, human. And I love him to death. I'm not ready to throw away a 15 year friendship, but as much as I try, I've been arguing about it with myself in my apartment for a month now, and I cannot mount a successful argument against myself that he's actually that good of a guy if he's willing to just stand aside and let that kind of a man take the reins of our own country. So, So I don't know what the fuck I'm doing here, but, Stavi, you're wiser than. I Love you guys. Love the show. Thanks so much. Ciao.

[Stavros Halkias]

I mean, wow. I have plenty of thoughts. First of all, I didn't vote for either of them, so stop listening to the show now. Caveat. I live in New York. They were like, if I lived in a battleground state, maybe it would have pressed me more. I probably would have. Who knows what push comes to shove? But, like, there are caveats here. Where do you live? But go ahead, Roy. You, you actually, you know, is the issue.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It sound, this is a message about how could you not vote? But it sounds like a. How could you not vote for Kamala, right?

[Stavros Halkias]

Like, if you voted, if he voted for the Green Party, how would you feel? You know what I mean? Like, it's like, I, I, I don't know.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I think. Joe, Joe, thank you for the message.

[Stavros Halkias]

Thanks for the call.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Joe, I think that, that you cannot save this friendship if there is no respect. Now, we can argue the idea. And this is what all the voter apathy boils down to. Yeah, it's fucking. Do you want the captain or the. Which, which drunk pilot do you want to try and land? Yeah, that's, that's politics. Hey, everybody, we're getting ready to crash. We got two captains up here. One's drunk, one's on shrooms. Which would you like to vote?

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And then Joe's buddy is in the back going, neither of these are good captains. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it, let's crash. I don't just, I'll just say it as a broader sense. I don't agree with not voting. And then you're gonna still complain about if you don't vote. Like, people that go, well, I didn't vote. I didn't vote. And this country as well. Then what are you doing to, to dethrone the, the two party system or whatever? Trevor Noah showed me a South African that he has in his office, like Mandela's ballot from the, the year he won when he got out of prison. Just like 20 on the ballot and it's like that looks like a nice level headed country where you have some level of all the candidates, everybody's invited to the debates.

[Stavros Halkias]

Sure.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So I understand the despair that your friend has in not not and choosing not to vote. But if you feel clearly you do this strongly about politics, you gotta let that friendship die because there's nothing you're going to be able to do.

[Stavros Halkias]

I mean, it's also like, so you're not going to be friends with anyone that voted for Trump. I mean, that's all because like, if the thing is, my friend could, didn't. My friend didn't vote for Kamala Harris, so I can't be friends with them anymore. Like that's let in your issues with Trump, which I guess whatever I, I get, I mean, I'm not pumped that Trump is present. But again, it's like what if you've had real issues with Gaza? I mean, what if he had fucking issues with like, you know, like, like there were things that the fucking, that the, the Democrats did that say that they said they weren't gonna change anything about that. It's like I understand if it's a deal breaker for certain people to not vote for it it and it's even if I didn't agree with it. Right. And it's like this also opens up the philosophical discussion of do you have, you don't have any friends that voted for Trump. And then it's like if, if you want things to change, you gotta also have like, you gotta be open to. Because I have friends who fucking who. I mean they're actually older relatives or whatever, but I also have friends who like, you know, it's like there aren't people that, I think there are people that voted for Trump that aren't totally all the way gone.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Correct.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That it's like, but those people, I believe those people are more single issue voters. And it's go. It's like the whole fracking thing. If you are a fracker or a coal, Trump come in town and go, I fix coal. You don't give a about deportationship. Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to eat right here. And this dude said he got me. Yeah, so you're in such a despair, you're not even going to look through all the facts, look at the multi layered corporations that are lying and that they actually aren't going to do anything to help your industry get back off the ground. I think that this election, this term with Trump, it would be helpful to have and I don't want to say softer approach because it's because liberals look at it as I have to sacrifice my humanity for your comprehension of why what's happening is bad for me.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right, right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So I'm not going to table my humanity to get to put knowledge into this person's head. But if you all stayed friends and just periodically you bring up whatever the fuck that's going on or this thing, it may be an opportunity to help get some policy permeated it because I think a lot of people who voted for Trump are going to look up. And unless Trump is smart enough to know how to blame the Democrats at midterms for what he hasn't delivered on.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

If there are promises he has not delivered on on, it will not be seen as incompetence within his administration. It'll be seen as well they're blocking me from doing the that I want to do.

[Stavros Halkias]

But and you know this too, it's like how many times every time there's a big like win, there's always the midterms. Historically, it always comes back a little bit. You know what I mean? Like it's always like that's just how politics works because you get in office promising a bunch of that doesn't happen. And so there's always like, like you know, it always comes back. So yeah, I mean I can imagine this guy's friend too. Like, you know, this guy sounds like every time any politics things comes up, he's going annoying, he's going, he's going straight to the humanity of the greatest, most powerful country in the world. How many people do we kill in Iraq? How many? It's just like what the America's sucks, dude.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I don't think Joe is wrong in that regard. I just don't think that that is an effective verbiage to reach people anymore.

[Stavros Halkias]

But it's also get off your high horse voting compared. Are you actually doing anything or did you actually vote? You know what I mean? It's like I do take a little umbrage with these people that act like they've done. They have like their civil servants of 30 years because they cast a vote and maybe you know, because it was easy for them to do it's like, Joe, are you that much better than your friend? Really? Like that's my, that's my other question.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But that depends on. And that's why I say it goes back to who did you vote for versus voting at all? Because if it's voter apathy and you just didn't take part in the system, I forget what the percentage was this year of pretty high population, but it was well over half.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Which is.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Not the norm.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So it's like okay, records. It was like what did Trump have like 83 million votes to like 77.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. I don't, I don't know. And I did vote for everything else, by the way. It was a, I was objecting to the, it was like a, I live in a state that's going to get carried by the Democrats anyway and I am objecting to how there, what, how Biden. Why like the hubris of Biden to run again instead of finding Democrats had four years to find a successor.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. 77 million to 75. So it's a little over half, half the country. We're at 300 million as a nation. So. Yeah, I, yeah, that's crazy. I, I feel like I don't just to the, to, to his question because we sure stay all day on the politics.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

If, Joe, if you feel that strongly about politics, I do not see a path through for this friendship.

[Stavros Halkias]

Sure.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Because you all have been friends until it hits something that truly means something to you that you are not going to bend on, nor should you. I just don't think that you, you know, you can kind of demote people to an outer sphere, but if you're like me, it's either you're either inner circle or you're Pluto.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Like, I don't really have an in between.

[Stavros Halkias]

I kind of know what you're talking about. Yeah, I guess that's fair. If we just, if we're looking at this and look, I agree. Like if this thing is that if you have really thought about it and it's that important to you, then yes, you know, but I don't know that this is exactly the kind of thing that I would lose a friendship over. Like I said, I mean, I'm friends with people that I disagree, straight up disagree with. And I would just think as a human being, this is an issue. If we're casting aside people that you have, divisiveness is a problem. And if you're casting aside a 15 year French, if there's not more common ground, then it's like, how are you going to find common ground with people that you have less in common with? And how are we going to actually move forward with something that. Because the real division.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That's fair.

[Stavros Halkias]

You know what I mean? It's like. It's like. It's like, we got it. We got. We. Everyone. A lot of Trump voters have a lot more in common with you than they do with. With the ruling class. That's actually sowing discord here. But that's my. That's my. That's my sort of thought here.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And I think we've learned that as comedians because we've been on the road and we've seen every voting block and demo. Totally at a granular level.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Where you see someone as an individual, but when you put them in a collective, it. It completely looks different.

[Stavros Halkias]

Definitely.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. Also. But I. I completely understand why some people voted for Trump. Like, it's not for a lot of people in this country. It's not about the bigger picture. It's just about what's happening for them on their street. And so bad that you're willing to believe a potential lie. Then I get. It's like the comics who open for known joke thieves.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Does that make sense?

[Stavros Halkias]

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You're running.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

No shame working in that administration.

[Stavros Halkias]

Look, I need a couple grand a weekend, man. What do you want from me?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Is paying me. Nice.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And I'm like, you should be in the struggle.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

The Monticello Watermelon Festival needs an opener.

[Stavros Halkias]

2.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

200. No. No gas, no hotel.

[Stavros Halkias]

No gas, no hotel. As many water bottles you can carry, but no bags. So anyway, dude, that's. That's our thought here. And, you know, at the end of the day, your enemy is not your year of 15, your friend of 15 years. It's. It's, you know, billionaires who are trying to keep everybody else down. And that's another thing that shocked me. I went on. I. I went on Theo's podcast and I talked about how historically the conservatives are who, like the ruling class, new billionaires support. And this is how good their propaganda is that people didn't believe me. They were like, that's not true. The richest people support Democrats. It's like, that's just like, a fact you can find in terms of. You can find that in terms of. And it might be more individual billionaires, but in terms of straight money that this poured in, it's always. Historically, there's. I. I would be willing to. I don't know this for a fact, but it's like. And it's like historically more has gone in from the richest people to conservative causes and candidates. And now it's even worse with Citizens United because you don't even have to disclose all that. So.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And. But that's the shell game that you're able to play on people who are just figuring out whether or not they're fracking coal mines, whatever the. Is going to be open tomorrow.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

They don't have time.

[Stavros Halkias]

For sure. For sure. It's like to them that's. But anyway, who gives a. Let's get a question about jacking off or something.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

If Trump said he was. If you worked at Blockbuster Video and Trump said he was bringing back VHS cassettes, you're gonna vote for.

[Stavros Halkias]

You're right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

That's your meal.

[Stavros Halkias]

Do Ms. Blockbuster. Go ahead. Eldis. Eldis. What up?

[Eldis]

What's going on? I need some help. I need advice. So I'm born and raised in Queens.

[Stavros Halkias]

Nice.

[Eldis]

I moved down south, bought a house, got a nice job, making my money. Whatever, whatever. Got my girl with me, got my two stupid dogs. The only thing that sucks is that I miss New York.

[Stavros Halkias]

Hell yeah, dude.

[Eldis]

The problem is I can't afford New York.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Right.

[Eldis]

I got the big beautiful house down here. I can't do that back home. If I go back home, I gotta live with my crazy parents. That picture, Frank and Estelle, Cassandra, it ain't happening. Not in my age. And I'm struggling because back home in New York, I was doing stand up.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh, no.

[Eldis]

I had my life. I grew up there. I was embedded into Queens and Long island. Mainly Queens.

[Stavros Halkias]

Love it.

[Eldis]

But now I'm down here with people that I can't stand.

[Stavros Halkias]

They're all hicks.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

They all suck. Oh, he's gonna swap.

[Stavros Halkias]

They're just.

[Eldis]

Yeah, it's hard to get along with them, you know?

[Stavros Halkias]

Wonder where he's living.

[Eldis]

We don't have the same interests. They're all like these. Everybody wants to be the funniest, biggest man in the room back. Like I'm not acting like myself down here. I miss my old life.

[Stavros Halkias]

He's veto in. In New York.

[Eldis]

I have a potential for a good life down here. But, man, there's something about New York, man. It's like dating that fine Spanish chick from Brooklyn. Like she's toxic, you know, you shouldn't date her. You might get stabbed, you might get spit on. He might get shot. She might call you the N word.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But you keep coming back.

[Eldis]

I don't know.

[Stavros Halkias]

You had him, he had you the first half. Then he lost her.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

She might call you her jungle bunny till you go back to fucking Nigeria.

[Stavros Halkias]

Okay, wow. So this guy is going through the classic the cost of living. He's been priced out of New York. He went down south. South. And I wonder where he's living.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Here's a couple things we know. True, yes, it's not a major metropolis, because most major metropolises in the south, even New Yorkers will give grace to go. It ain't New York, but it's got at least.

[Stavros Halkias]

No, that happened to me, definitely, because I have a very similar out view to this guy where Mid Atlantic. I'm from Baltimore, but, you know, I've been living. And I remember when I started actually touring anywhere in the South, I was like, this is gonna fucking suck. Yeah, he's fucking hillbillies. And then you get there, it's like, oh, it's a fucking awesome city.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Like, you know, also, tale number two, he said he did stand up in New York. He hasn't sought to do stand up where he lives. That means he's not in the city with a comedy scene in the south. And there's not many. There's a few cities with a sustainable. If you're an alcoholic, and the best they got is Mike's hard Lemonade.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right, right, right, right, right. You could make through a couple Brit filters. Level standup scene. Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So we're talking double A, Triple A baseball markets here. We're not talking.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

No city with a major sports team in the Big Four.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right, right, right, right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

So we're talking Macon, Georgia, Tupelo, Winston, Salem's.

[Stavros Halkias]

Right.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Montgomery, Alabama's. You know, sounds like Knoxville.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, Knoxville has a fucking comedy scene, but I guess Nashville's big now. But I guess the. Look, dude, here's what it boils down to for this guy is that all right, like, maybe you don't come back to you. You missed this type of lifestyle. Right? You miss. And you don't have to go straight to New York if you're just a. Maybe try maybe a major city in the south, whatever. But it doesn't have to be New York or this place. Is there somewhere where you can have like anywhere in sort of like the Northeast region or the Mid Atlantic region where it's like. Yeah, it's similar. It's like the same kind of place. Jersey. Even like Pennsylvania, Baltimore. You know what I mean? Like, just like a mix. Just some kind of city like that where it's like kind of similar. Cost of living is lower, you know, whatever you want to do open mics. I can't stop you. But you shouldn't.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You gotta scratch that itch, though.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It might be the one outlet for him.

[Stavros Halkias]

True.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And it could help him, you know, get a little bit of bread to make this move you're talking about. You know, let's.

[Stavros Halkias]

Let me stop you right there. Right. You should never do open mic and say, now this is gonna get me some money. You should go into it being like, this is a financial loser, but I like doing it. And then if you randomly get successful, great.

[Eldis]

But I. I have a feeling that.

[Stavros Halkias]

N word joke was straight out of the act. Yeah, yeah, you're right. The dating the Spanish chick act, that's his closure.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I miss violence and racism.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I think you try and go to one of those hybrid cities. Go to Raleigh, Durham, where they wear bubble vests but eat cheese grits.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah. AB.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

One of those New York overlap is sure.

[Stavros Halkias]

No, that's. Yeah. Why do you have to be where you are? Like, look, you don't want to go back to living with your parent. But look, at the end of the day, if you also love New York York, then maybe it is Long Island, Maybe it is the suburbs. Maybe it's somewhere on the outskirts, like, you know. You know? Yeah. I mean, not. Not that a story is cheap, but I just mean, like, if you really love it, you gotta go there and make it work. But if you just want. I think a hybrid could work. Whether that's somewhere in the south or whether that's somewhere closer to New York with a smaller, you know, a better cost of living. That might be the way to go, little buddy.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I just don't think that there is any scenario where if. Where you can build the life you want for yourself if you're not first happy.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, that's true.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

And whatever misery you have in New York is countered by your spirit being fed. And then that could be the inspiration for you to do better and want more and be able to create more and actually parlay with people that's trying to build versus whoever these people you're working with that just want to be the next. Yeah, funny fake ass Andrew Schultz.

[Stavros Halkias]

Like, you don't have a punchline.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You're right. That's what it sounds like. Sounds like they just do racist jokes.

[Stavros Halkias]

I also, I'm curious what he even means by that, because it's like, what? Just everybody wants to be the funniest, biggest man in the room. It's like, doesn't that kind of also sound like New York like, what is New York? A lot of demure personalities.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I thought he meant funny, bigoted man.

[Stavros Halkias]

No, no, no.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Okay, my bad. Forget all that before that.

[Stavros Halkias]

But maybe this is just not your. Your. Like, maybe this is just not your culture, and you need to move somewhere where you feel comfortable. But look, you shouldn't want to fight. You shouldn't move back home. Back home. But, yeah, if you think you can stick it out and you really want to move back, do it. But also, there's a grass is greener situation. Like. Like, you might get to New York and then the problems, it'll be like, I love it here, but, man, I hate this little ass basement apartment. It's like you really have to think about what's important to you. I do think you can find a nice middle ground, personally. You know, I always thought if I. If I. If I had to move out of New York, I don't. You know, I love it here. I don't want to go anywhere, but it's like, I've been to places where I could be happy and that were cheaper if I needed them to be.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

But.

[Stavros Halkias]

But good luck. We have one last question here. We're going to wrap up with Roy. Thank you so much for coming, dude.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Thank you for having me. Yeah, guys, Phil's my parachute.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. Yeah, not bad.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I've already got my parachute. Yeah, it's nice.

[Stavros Halkias]

It's nice. It's nice.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Close enough to Birmingham, and.

[Stavros Halkias]

And now it's like. I mean, Theo lives there now. Like, it's the. The. The club is good. They got a. They got a. Like, they have a scene, A real scene.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You can perform every night now. Yeah, that was not the norm. Yeah, bro, when I. I'm so old, I started in 98. Open mic used to be once a month in some cities.

[Stavros Halkias]

That's wild.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Tampa and Atlanta were the only cities that had consistent weekly open mics.

[Stavros Halkias]

Wow. Nuts. That is crazy. All right, Eld, what do you got to take us home here?

[Eldis]

Hey, stop. Eldest and guest. This isn't a question, but I just had to leave a message because this is funny. We saw you at Magoobie.

[Stavros Halkias]

Oh, hell, yeah.

[Eldis]

I guess it's been a couple weeks. But you were calling out dentists for giving away the toothbrush bags and stuff about how much you hate dentists. And it was so funny because I'm a dental hygienist. And as soon as I saw you were coming to the Goobies, I texted my boss, the dentist, and so we were both there at the show, and it was Just so funny. While you're saying that, I was like pointing like you. Well, listen, sense of humor. But we love you guys. So even though you hate the dentist.

[Stavros Halkias]

I don't. Look, the dentist is fine. But what do I need? A shitty toothbrush, a tube of travel toothpaste and floss in a embroidered little pencil bag. Why do I get that every. You're just giving me trash name. I don't need it.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Name another brand name of the healthc care industry that actually gives you a grab bag.

[Stavros Halkias]

All right, Next time I go to dentist, I'm giving you my grab bag.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Roy, here's the. Here's the wild part about the dentist.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

You ask for a second toothbrush, they get annoyed.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It'S a toothbrush. Give me another one. And they were like. Cuz clearly from. This is a sneaker cleaning brush.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

They were very much. I'll see is back there.

[Stavros Halkias]

Come on. You got a tub of them. You got a tub of them.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

We will decide. Yeah. Shut the.

[Stavros Halkias]

It just cost me 800 to be here. I can't get another toothbrush. But it's like, you know, you told me to get the electric one. You told me to buy a expensive one. Why are you giving me a, you know, whatever. Oral B anyway?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

It's not even Oral B. It's. Yeah, she says the name is like Charles. What brand is this?

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, I can get that. Delta gives you some. Some. The same quality toothbrush sometimes.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, the little.

[Stavros Halkias]

That little bag.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Lotion bag.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, thanks for coming to the Goobs. I always love to get over. Oh, I have to deposit that check actually. The owner's mad at me and he's like. And also it might not be there if I keep waiting, bro, I've worked those clubs. Yeah, yeah. All right. We gotta send this episode. I gotta go to Chase bank, everybody. Roy, thank you so much, guys. Watch the special. It's so funny. It's on Hulu right now. It also looks incredible, by the way, because I've been we we ever since we. I've produced mine and I've actually started caring about how special color since then. And it's like, dude, it's. It's. It might be my favorite since mine came out. And we like. Because we watched some. A bunch of old ones. Yours was like, I'm going to be watching it when it's time for the next one to like, see how you did a lot of that. It looked awesome.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Watch Ari Shaffir and get furious too. Got a whole forest on this.

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah. That's a little much for me. I think he overdid it. Personally, I prefer the look of your. I think, Ari look. The. The one he did for Jew was really nice and the lighting was interesting. What are you in a rainforest cafe?

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Candles?

[Stavros Halkias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought this one was a little more much, but whatever I was looking.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

At, I was like, what kind of budget do they got over there? I want to be in the jungle.

[Stavros Halkias]

But go watch special now. It's on Hulu right now. Lonely Flowers and. Yeah, we'll see.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I'm glad we got this done. It only took us two years.

[Stavros Halkias]

It is funny.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

I should synchronize schedule.

[Stavros Halkias]

I should send the text. We should do a video of the text exchange. It's literally like, what's up, man? I'm going to be recording and it's lit. We went back and forth for literally, like, you were one of the first batch. We reached out to when we started the podcast, but we got it done and we love it. Thanks for coming, man, and we will talk to you guys next time. Bye.

[Roy Wood Jr.]

Bye. Idiot.