People Interacting with People
A podcast about People Interacting with People. In April 2015, I became homeless. I decided to embrace this homelessness and what followed was five years of nomadic life, over 250 moves in Canada and the United States, on an average budget of roughly $22 a day.
While sitting in a 24 hour diner in Toronto on my first two homeless nights, a young man sat beside me and when I told him about my experience - spending 9 hours each night at the diner, getting a free coffee and a brownie on my second night - he turned to me and asked:
"Do you think you'd be having the same experience if you were Black?"
Over those next five years, I had a series of "chance" encounters with Black people and had some very interesting conversations. I documented some of them in writing but when I compiled them into a 300 page script during the pandemic, I realized that - in writing it myself - I had lost the authenticity of the other person's voice.
And so, I decided to hit the road and reconnect with some of these wonderful people while also leaving myself open to meeting new ones. These are our conversations.
People Interacting with People
S1. EP7: The Mandalay Bay Shooting & Violence as a Universal Language, Johnny Tocco's Boxing Gym, Bad Hair Days & Black Representation in Comic Books with Daijon in Las Vegas
In this episode, I reconnect with my friend, Daijon, for a very animated conversation. Daijon and I first met in 2017 when I interviewed him for a boxing documentary shortly after the shooting at the Mandalay Bay where he worked at the time.
We talk about violence in America, Johnny Tocco's Boxing Gym, Daijon's struggles with his hair and being considered either "too light" or "too dark", and his obsession with comic books. And we have a whole lotta laughs in the process.
We hope you enjoy our conversation.
To see photos of Daijon, check us out on instagram at
https://www.instagram.com/peopleinteractingwithpeople/