GUY TORRY & ALEX THOMAS

Comedians, Alex Thomas & Guy Torry, discuss the legacy of Phat Tuesdays at the Comedy Store, behind the scene stories from the movies Life, Players Club, American History X, Cast Away, and more. Epic episode! 

Hosted by @RealLondonBrown, @JustinHires, @BTKingsley

YouTube (Full Episodes): @KillinItPod

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Website: KillinItPod.com

Executive Produced by London Brown, Justin Hires, BT Kingsley

Engineer: Aaron Brungardt 

Transcript

SPEAKER_10 0:00

I've had residual checks that are $1.32. I got one for three cents the other day. Yeah, but I've also got residual checks to be $175,000. When I didn't respect it. $200,000. $40,000. But then I get a movie that I was cut out of, and the check be nine times more. Like, for example. Wait a minute, really? When I tell you, like, for example. I got cut out a movie and I don't get no residuals from that movie. You ready for this? Take like something like Players Club. It was, you know, hey, it's a hood classic, but it was a real movie. Got some good money. I got cut out of castaway. One of the biggest movies of time. I had I you know how crushed I was when I got cut two weeks before the premiere. I'm up here. I started a website with me, uh, Helen Hunt, and and and Tom Hanks.

SPEAKER_05 0:48

And a volleyball.

SPEAKER_10 0:52

No, I was the fleet manager at FedEx before the plane took off. I thought my life was going to change. Man.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

No black movies for me.

SPEAKER_10 1:00

I got cut out the movie. But long story short, biggest resentments I've ever had in my life. And I'm not even going to talk about that one. I would have loved to be in the movie, dude. Same year. I got a suit made for the premiere. Okay? Not only that, but it would have been looked at different. Now when I'm at these country clubs, these white country, they would have been known who Alex Thomas was. It just was more the black things, not knocking the black things. God bless them with that. My family was able to eat and it was great notoriety for me. But that white money, that cast wave movie, I could be like, I don't gotta work again.

SPEAKER_11 1:43

First of all, welcome to another episode of Killin' It. We're your host, Justin Hyas. Lendon Brown. BTK. Make sure you like, comment, subscribe. Hey, man. Read a hard way. Hey man. I like the way y'all just started.

SPEAKER_10 1:54

You didn't say, are y'all ready? You didn't do a 5-4-3-2-1. You're like, hey y'all gonna. Okay, so look, man, man.

SPEAKER_11 2:00

Mike's on.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Mike's already on.

SPEAKER_11 2:02

Man, we wanted to have an epic episode. I was like, how can we have an epic episode?

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Well, you call you called Alex the right version. Alex Thomas.

SPEAKER_10 2:12

And you threw God T on it. So don't talk about you a part of the show, too, damn it.

SPEAKER_08 2:17

I'm thinking, are you a part of the show?

SPEAKER_02 2:20

I'm like, I'm James. The Fat Tuesday podcast is coming later.

SPEAKER_11 2:26

Straight up. It should. Man, that'd be a fire podcast. Man, two of the funniest comedians in the game. I've been watching y'all. I'm gonna make y'all feel a little old, but I mean it sincerely. I've been watching y'all since I was a kid, you know. When you was dark skinned. When I was dark skinned. They looked dark when they was younger.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

No beard, no hair, no short hair.

SPEAKER_10 2:49

Next thing I thought you were gonna say, yeah, yeah. My mama came home from marching with Martin Luther K. Went to your show the night before.

SPEAKER_11 2:57

Yeah, you just really making it sound old. That is hilarious. Right after my mom hooked up with Jesse. Man, y'all, y'all look. That's believable. I mean, you never know. Um, y'all look younger, younger too, though. Y'all look great. I don't know how old y'all are.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

You black don't crack.

SPEAKER_06 3:11

And everybody in Hollywood is 36. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Actually, Alex has been to Epstein Island and even.

SPEAKER_10 3:17

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_08 3:19

So is this where we're going with this?

SPEAKER_10 3:21

Up the top. It's a mindset and a mind frame because it's crazy. I see dudes that I went to high school with. Man. Or dudes that, you know, girls too. And it's like, I know we're close in age. Yeah. But dude, you look 25 years older than me. You know what it was, too? We were talking about this off camera, but I remember the guys and the girls that at a young age were going hard with the drugs and alcohol. And you would always hear about it's gonna eventually catch up to you. You can see it. I see cats that like, yo, I remember when you smoked your first blunt in ninth grade. Wow. You look 99 years old. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it does catch up to you. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_11 3:58

Hey, I didn't want to say, I'm working on the, you know what I'm saying? I want to test out some merch, you know. Killing it. We're gonna start with branding. Always be brand. You see my hat. Bad Tuesdays. Come on, there's that. You see that? That's what we work for.

SPEAKER_10 4:11

It's our Central Country Club. Come on, man. That's what we're doing. Hey, you know what I look at it? Yeah. There's a word for that. Yeah, see? Hey man, nobody's gonna believe in you more than you. That's a fact. And I know we're in a Hollywood business. Well, we hire people for that. We hire people. Yeah. But until then, in the meantime, in between time, you got you are your walking billboard.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

And they don't put the marketing into African Americans as they do other people.

SPEAKER_11 4:35

Oh, I learned that with rush hour. I'll tell you quick, rush hour. When I did rush hour, see, I was able to see marketing dollars like firsthand because I did rush hour, then I did MacGyver back to back. Right. When I did rush hour, they had zero billboards up in Los Angeles. Zero. Zero. I said, I would hit up my manager. I said, yo, like, they don't have any billboards for rush hour. She talked to the head of the network. I'm not gonna say the network, do your research. They tell her only because I'm talking shit about it right now. She talked to the marketing people at the network, and they said, oh, well, no, we use the same dollars for rush hour that we use for everybody else. Okay. Rush Hour get canceled. McGyver comes on the same year. So technically I had two shows on at the same time. At the same time, actually, at one point. Bruh, McGyver billboards were everywhere in Los Angeles. I'm talking about every I'm talking about on Hollywood and Highland. Man. That large vertical billboard. Right. MacGyver. And so that let me know, and I wonder what was the difference between me and McGyver. Like, what's the difference? Complexion. I mean, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

I got one of that years ago, man, when Soul Plane came out. I don't care. Nobody says Soul Plane is one of my favorite movies. Oh, that's a classic. I wasn't in it. It's a hood classic. I didn't get it, but it's still one of my favorite movies. And when Soul Plane was coming out, you know, it was another movie coming out called Introducing Ted Hamilton or some some white movie, right? And they you saw them billboards and ads everywhere. And then when you saw Soul Plane, it's like they were, they were, they were pumping more of the bigger names in there than Kevin. At the time, Kevin Hart was coming up. I'm like, you have an opportunity to put that money and into into making him the face face of it, right? Right? And build this young black star that's coming up. But you but you and they didn't do it. And I was frustrated about it. Like I you would think I was in the movie, but I w but I wasn't. But I'm like, yo, and that's when I saw a clear choice, like the difference in how they do, you know. The urban projects versus the so-called mainstream.

SPEAKER_10 6:42

And you always hear, like, you hear stuff like they're setting them up to fail. Oh, yeah. Or but you don't want to believe that until you're either a part of it or you go, wow. So if we always say kind of Hollywood, for example, if Lorenz Tate was Ben Affleck, you know what I mean? If you know, you know, certain guys they really put more into that dude than they did. Because they were equal, they had the chances, but the projects that that particular guy was a part of, man, they really put into that promotion and advertising. Whereas ours is like, huh, if it if it doesn't go, if it doesn't blow, uh, it's just another urban film and we'll just hurry up and well put it on DVD or back in the day or perfect.

SPEAKER_06 7:21

I heard something about that recently. Uh Rafael Sadiq said that that was a situation for Neil Soul. He said Neil Sow isn't a thing. He said that the executives used to use the term for basically artists. A genre. Yeah, there's like that made RB music that they didn't want to put budget into. It was like on tops, they might do 500,000, maybe a million if they're really good. Right. But don't put no money money here. So like Neil's the Neo Soul artists hate that term.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

They do.

SPEAKER_10 7:46

Because actually what it was doing, it was disrespectful. We'll let that simmer. We're gonna push. I I gotta use names just to like make my point to you guys. I'm gonna just name three Neo artists, the Neo Soul artists. Right. Let's say Music Soul Child. Yeah. Let's say Rest in Peace D'Angelo. Yeah. Let's say a cat like Bilau. Yeah. Life Jennings. Yeah. People that black people like. Right. It was incredible music, but unfortunately, those brothers weren't Beyonce. Right. Uh Usher. Right. Um Luther Vangles. It's almost like the record label's way of going, they're RB. Not even Luther. Luther they didn't really put a lot into. It took a lot of.

SPEAKER_09 8:27

But that's why I used his name.

unknown 8:28

Right.

SPEAKER_10 8:28

That's why I used his name. My point is they were lost on, well, it's RB, but it's not, no, it is RB. It's just not, I hate to use the word. It's not pop RB. Or it's not. Just because that guy right there, I guess in today's terms, just because BT doesn't have 13 million followers, and you're as talented, if not more talented, but you only have five million followers, they're gonna push him. Why are they gonna push him? Because he can fall under the pop. He can fall under maybe selling 11 million albums before you sell two million. And it's messed up because it makes it look like he's less than or you know, it's just two different styles of RD. They're both incredible. Trust me, that star respects you because he wishes he had all your talent, but then you go, damn, I wish I had 11 million followers.

SPEAKER_11 9:20

But it's not to say, I want to rhyme like common sense.

SPEAKER_10 9:22

Right. But it's not to say his music ain't dope. Right. It's not to say, dude, I've been to his concert. I don't care how many followers he had. Right. That nigga's so much more talented than such and such, such and such and such and such. But since he didn't fall in the so-called lane, or like you said, we don't know where to put him, that doesn't mean he's not incredibly talented.

SPEAKER_06 9:41

Oh, we're going, baby. Uh, you gotta do intros.

SPEAKER_11 9:43

I know, right? Hey, man. That makes sense. No, no, no. We didn't we ain't introduced y'all yet. Oh, we did a whole album. My name is Alex Till. No, no, no, I gotcha. Man, we got two of the of the funniest comedians in the game, man. Um, wow. I'm talking about, I thought I wrote up, I I know y'all credit. I thought I wrote it down here, but I already know y'all.

SPEAKER_10 10:03

They've been on shows with you before.

SPEAKER_11 10:04

Uh they've both been, wait a minute. Yeah, forget all of that. They've been on, first of all, both been on Martin the TV series. We're gonna get to that. Uh American History X. Uh, wait a minute. What uh uh Players Club's Club Players Club Life. Jamie Fox Show. Jamie Fox shows. I had it wrote down on my other screen. Exactly, man. Don't be a menace. Tripping. Don't be a menace. Uh, man, give it, give it up for the one and only Guy Tori and Alex Thomas. Yeah, baby. Still here. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_10 10:37

We rockin'. Still here, man. Man, it's still, I always say it's, hey man, we still fly fresh and relevant. That's a fact. I can't even tell you, and I know he can back me up on this. I'm gonna look at you when I say it. How many cats did we start out with, guy? They are no two things nowhere to be found or just nothing else to say. Right. What do you got?

SPEAKER_07 10:57

What do you feel what do you feel has been able to sustain y'all for this long? You know what? Me personally. Not just to cut you up, but as you mentioned, like, um, because it people hop people at home who don't know, there's always like a, it's like high school where there you you you join high school with your class, and as you as you continue to ascend, you start to see everybody not graduating. Right. Um, and and and you know, because what I realized even too, when we were talking about earlier, I think before we start rolling, was how, you know, you you see people in from high school, they don't look the same. Right. And, you know, because everybody, you know, when we all come in, everybody's freshmen. But what do you guys feel um has allowed you to kind of graduate and move uh up uh graduate rather?

SPEAKER_02 11:42

For you answer that, I want to say that. Shout out to the guys and women who didn't make it uh along the world. No hard for the city. We never know what went on in their lives that got in the way. For sure.

SPEAKER_10 11:50

Life got in the way with a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Especially for the the women, because unfortunately, doing my research for Fat Tuesdays, and I was a lot of the women stopped doing comedy because of the sexual harassment. And and there was some funny talented women. They got tired of getting approached for stage time to give up whatever, whatever. So a lot of them stopped because of that. It wasn't that they weren't funny, they got got tired of the harassment, but that's a whole nother conversation.

SPEAKER_10 12:14

No, but you know, you know what it is, man? Me personally, I kept my ear and eyes to the streets. Not for any particular reason. That's really me. Yeah, I'm a real straight up LA dude. Way before I got in the entertainment business, that was just me as a person. Right. Right? So a lot of guys, I've heard dudes that that I'll run into in an airport and or they'll be like, man, I stopped 10, 15 years. Man, what kept you still going there? I didn't have nothing else to say. I'm like, well, I got a lot to say, because I've always been that dude that was, I I could speak on the older stuff, I could speak on the younger stuff. Like my crowds are weird when I when I when I go sell out around the country, I literally have parents and their kids come to the show. But when I say their kids, I mean the kids are like, you know, 25. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the dad will remember a movie that I did in the early 90s, right? But the kid will be like, yo, he did one of the funniest sketches I've ever seen on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Right.

SPEAKER_10 13:12

Or I saw a funny story on a podcast. Like words that the olders uh people weren't even using, that was my way of staying relevant. When I it's almost like I have a saying, get with the times or get left behind. I had to pivot. I saw what was going on with social media.

SPEAKER_11 13:31

I was gonna ask y'all about that. Like, how are y'all feeling about navigating this new world with social media? Like coming from, you know, staying.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Let me let me go back to what he was saying basically about staying relevant. It's like comedy chose us, we didn't choose comedy. And I I think the people who, when comedy chooses you, you stay in there long enough. Right. When you choose comedy and you try to do it, it ain't natural. And you can only pretend for so long.

SPEAKER_11 13:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

But it's you eventually have to know the answers to the test. Yes. You know what I mean? You can only know that. It's a gift. And and it's a gift that we've we've given when we were born, and once you find out your gift and you find out the assignment, then you go for it. It's easy after that. But if you if if you have a I tell anybody, if you got a job and you hate it, that's that wasn't your purpose. Get out that job, and whatever your gift is, that's where you need to be.

SPEAKER_06 14:24

So it's killing you. Little do you know being at that job is taking a lot out of you, is spilling over into your relationships, spilling over into your kids. You at home miserable every day.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Miserable, because that's not what you're supposed to be doing in the first damn place.

SPEAKER_10 14:36

I almost got to use sports, for example. I use sports as an example all the time. I'm such a sports fanatic. I I pertain sports to what we do. It's almost like you hear about it's the most cliche thing on the planet. You know, you always hear the cream rises to the top.

SPEAKER_04 14:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 14:54

Only the strong survive. You know, if you really love something. But it's really true. Guy, I think a lot of cats, it's just one of the reasons. I'm not giving you all the reasons. I think why a lot of people either fell off or they said, never mind to this, a few things. They didn't have that will, that determination to take the bumps of the bruises, the a million no's, the nights the jokes didn't work, the nights the chicks didn't want to get with you, when you tried to go out for a movie and you didn't get there, are so many speed bumps and loopholes in this business, it truly comes down to only the strong survive. And if you're one of those dudes that truly loves this shit, again, back to sports, man, you are really you're gonna you're gonna excel. How many times do you hear, I mean, this I two two two sports examples. Baseball. The the guys that strike out the most, you know, a lot of people don't know. I mean, the guys that hit the most on runs strike out the most. The dudes, like the the dudes that score the most in basketball, they shoot the most shooting, they're always going for the big picture. Like you can't be afraid to fail. And I think, hey man, I'd be lying to you through my teeth if I said I didn't fail. I failed so many times, but I had to tell myself literally, dog, you came too far to give up.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

There's time I set myself up to fail so I can win. What you mean? If I think I'm all who I think I am and how big my balls are, I'm gonna put myself in a situation to where prove it.

SPEAKER_07 16:29

We'll be an example of that.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

First time I did that, honestly, was when I was uh, and this is no disrespect for this gentleman, he's a good friend of mine, and he'll understand. And this is no cat, this is no no diss, man. I'm gonna say his name. Yeah. There was a comic who a guy who was an actor, a big actor, on a on a his brand, Reginald Ballard. He was just starting to do stand-up. He was already big from the show Mark, right? And we were booked on a show in Philly, and he was a headliner, and I was going on before him, but I had already been doing, you know, stand-up for a minute, right? And I was like, man, I said, um, I knew where he was in stand-up at that time, and I know my energy and my fire, right? And I knew it probably wasn't gonna be nice when he came on stage because he was new, but he had the bigger name.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

And I said, and as a friend, I said, hey man, um, let me go on, let me go on after you. Now I'm not one of these comics that need to close the show. I ain't that dude. I'll go on first, I don't care. But I'm like, I like let me let me let me go on after you, man. I want to see if I can follow somebody with a bigger name. Was this a night he was booked or something? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 17:37

But you were new, so you didn't find a few. He was new up. He was new anyway.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Right. I was just you know, following my spirit. And I was like, I was like, let me, let me, let me go on before you see. Because you don't ask that that. Right. You don't know.

SPEAKER_10 17:50

Meaning you didn't know any better. I knew better. No, I knew better. No.

SPEAKER_11 17:56

No, I knew better. He just didn't care. I knew no, no, no. I did care. He said it was basically he looking out for Bromman. That's how he said it. Oh, trying to be nice, like, bro. You can't follow it. Yeah, but not at this point.

SPEAKER_06 18:11

I should probably close. Right. So that's what he was.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Because I care about the entire show. Right. But all the time. And at the same time, I'm like, man. You could have failed. I wasn't gonna fail.

SPEAKER_10 18:20

No, no, but you can't. No, no, no. I'll beat you, and I love your confidence, but it goes back to what you said. I put myself in position.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Confidence is being spiritually bold. But it is.

SPEAKER_11 18:31

What's up, everybody? Appreciate you tuning in to killing it. Make sure you hit that subscribe button right now.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

So, so so what it was is like, you know, when they introduced him, you know, through the roof. Like through the roof. Right, right. Like, like, like because he's who they came to see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

And then when they introduced me, it was it was nice, but it wasn't that. Right, right, right. And and those things, I'm like, okay. And let me roll up my sleeves. And and So hold on, who went up first on this show? It was a host, I can't remember who else was on the show. Like a local.

SPEAKER_06 19:00

The name was James James.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

It was somebody and then me and then brother. Okay, so that was. And I switched, I switched it. So you did switch. So he allowed you to switch it. Yeah, he said, yeah. Okay. He knew what it was. Because he knew. He knew he was new. It wasn't that he wasn't funny because he's helped me.

SPEAKER_10 19:12

Have you seen your act before?

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Yeah, yeah. So he knew you were strong and then okay. So you I didn't realize how new it was. I said, keep the same money, you can do the same time. I said, I just want to see if I can know how big my balls are. And I don't do that often because it's disrespectful.

SPEAKER_11 19:25

You wanted to be You wanted to be T. out of Gaffrey. That's what you wanted to be. You're like, I'm gonna go on after the handliner.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

But no, that was different, though, because Gaffrey was the seasoned one, and T.I. was the new one. Oh, okay. Touched. Completely different.

SPEAKER_11 19:41

Touche, touche.

SPEAKER_10 19:42

So T.I. is a bigger name as an act, as an act, but not as a comedian. You know what I mean? It's a difference. So so in that same vein, but you get 10 million albums, but not have 10 minutes of material. That's a bad idea. But I will say, case TI see this.

SPEAKER_11 19:57

Oh, yeah. The Negro's funny. I've seen other.

SPEAKER_10 20:00

Wait, wait, real quick. I talked to you yesterday. Uh we played golf yesterday. Okay. And Chris called him on FaceTime. So it was me, Marlon Wayne. Chris Spencer, me, Anthony Anderson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been trying to teach him that, but we're so used to, you know, we talk about you.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Oh, Chris. So yesterday, you're known for the name dropping. Other person. But the difference is either receipts and they really don't know. No, you do. You do different when you're name dropping and that nigga doesn't know you.

SPEAKER_10 20:29

You don't have his number and he doesn't have your number. We met him one time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's different with me. We were just playing golf. So me and Bob. Yeah, yeah, right, right, right. It's me, Luther, Reggie. No, um, no, but uh, yeah, Chris just called him on FaceTime. It was me, Anthony Anderson, and Marlon, and he was like, What's up, man? We were just talking about all the craziness. Wait, we were just talking about the craziness that's going on with him and 50 and all that, but that you just brought it up. And by you saying that, yeah, and me saying what I'm saying, I was backing us both up. We just talking. We talking comedy. Right, right. And there's no disrespect. What it is is he stepped into a new world and a new job. Yeah, I respect him. Which was he's not a comedian, but he attempted it. And I appreciate you. T. I'll be on your ass, nigga.

SPEAKER_11 21:11

No, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, it'd be different if I was talking shit. No, Jugger.

SPEAKER_10 21:16

But but honestly, that's why he respects cats like me, Chris Godfrey. God said he knows that they're really true comedy assassins. Right. So it'd be different if I was a hate man.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

I applauded him for getting on stage and driving, because I didn't have a problem with him doing stand-up. It's entertainment. It's like actors getting mad at us for comedians coming into movies or TV or radio drop get coming getting mad at us because we go into radio spots. It's all entertainment. Why not? You live once. Try everything you can. Throw shit against the street.

SPEAKER_06 21:46

I mean, he's yeah, Tip's always been funny. He was al like if you saw it. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. He figured it out, man. Like you said, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_11 21:54

We was there that night. You was there tonight, we're not gonna saw that. But what happens is we first performed.

SPEAKER_10 22:00

It's a thousand percent with you guys. What happens is every dude in our business they got homies at the hangar, right? Right. And a lot of times in your click, you got back to sticky. That was funny. You used to be a comedian, right? You'd be funny. What happens is a lot of them don't understand there is truly an art form to what we do. Every hood, every city, every block, every porch, there's a homie that had everybody laughing in the neighborhood. We understand a lot of us comedians came from that. But the truth comes out. When the mic gets up, you're next. Go make 300 strangers laugh. Strangers. It's not the key word is strangers. So what happens is T.I. he found that out. But what he did was he surrounded himself around a bunch of funny people that know it. He kept working better. And he got better. And I saw him in the hole in the walls, in the sparse and out. But let me know he was taking it serious. So shout out to T.I.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

But sometimes your homemade tells you, man, you should go do stand-up and they really setting you up. They don't like it. They wouldn't see you crashing burn on that stage.

SPEAKER_11 23:04

You were triple plan them on that last seven, but you go bum the night, nigga. Wait a minute. So what hold on before we get to the question? I just want to cap the story. Yeah. You went up after Burman. Yeah. Did you you killed is what you say? I never say that, but yeah, I didn't kill that. Okay, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

I never use words I killed.

SPEAKER_06 23:23

I went back a couple of times and the uh the so setting yourself up to challenge yourself in a way where you might fail. Um you guys could both speak to this because you guys have both uh done this. I w but I want to make some specific energy for creating, how important is it for creating a room as a comic and having a room for yourself, and what did you see from the legendary room that we know as Fat Tuesdays? Like how did you how did that shape things for you going uh forward? Especially at that time where your shit was hot. As far as how why I created the room or Yeah, so what what what went into the logic of I'm I need to start a room?

SPEAKER_02 24:06

You know what's funny? It all starts off as a kid, to be honest. And I didn't realize this until I was doing an interview for the documentary. This white reporter asked me, Who told you to start Fat Tuesdays? And I got offended. And I was like, nobody. And then what popped in my head was my dad growing up always saying, be proactive. Don't wait to ask me to be told to do something. If you see something needs done, go ahead and do it. So hybrid to me moving to LA in 92, and I heard about the Comedy Act Theater in South Central from my brother Joe Tory, uh, about Robert Harris and and and Martin and Chris and Michael Jordan and Mike Tyson all in the audience. I heard about that, right? So when I got to LA in 92 after the riots, you know, the comic the comedy theater was none of that. There was black celebrities weren't coming down there anymore. Industry wasn't coming down there anymore. Right. So I saw no representation. So by the time '95 came, I had a coup a movie credit under my belt and and an agent manager, and I saw a lot of cats not getting a look. So I was like, man, this is a lot of talent down here. Let me go, let me go open up a room in Hollywood where they can, they'll come see them. Let me take the hood to Hollywood and showcase the Dan and Greens. And there's no disrespect to Dan and Greens and and Yeah, and those comics. List goes on and those times. This goes on and on. Because you had already been been on money, and Jar He's had already been on money.

SPEAKER_10 25:37

I'm like Euphinius. Let's go. Because I was three years before him. So I could tell you the story of when there was no black room at the comedy store to what he took it to.

SPEAKER_07 25:46

Okay, boom.

SPEAKER_02 25:47

So, so so so then so that's what made me go create Fat Tuesdays because one, I wanted a room to work out in.

SPEAKER_04 25:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Two, when I got to LA, a lot of white people made you feel like if you weren't at the comedy store, improv Laugh Factory, you weren't a real comic. And I hated that feeling. And I wanted to create some opportunities for other brothers and sisters to get looked at by Hollywood. So that was my night to showcase and use it as a platform. And that's that was the whole energy behind that. It was never about me.

SPEAKER_10 26:16

First of all, congratulations. It was great what you did. I was the small class of young black comics that were paid regulars. At the comedy store. In the comedy school. Who was part of that class? Explain that. Huh?

SPEAKER_07 26:31

Who was part of that class?

SPEAKER_10 26:33

Explain what paid regular is, are you? Alright, right. I'm explaining that. Yeah. Blondie. Um I'm gonna I'm gonna, but I'm gonna give you the Go ahead. I'm gonna try to give it as slow as I mean as fast as possible. Cliff knows. So the three juggernauts in this city was the laugh factory, the comedy store, the improv.

SPEAKER_06 26:49

Still is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 26:50

Right, still is. They're the ones still standing, and they're the ones that get the respect in the business, and blah, blah, blah. But when I started, there was beef with three different owners. Bud Freeman, the owner of the improv, uh, Jamie Masada, owner of the laugh factory, Mitzi Shore. All three of them hated the comedy store. All three of them hated each other, right? They if they they literally would say, if you're headlining at the lab factory, you cannot come over here and headline it at the improv. But Freeman was like, if you are working at the improv or at the lab factory, you cannot come over here to the improv. It was really beef like that. But what happened was me and a few of my homies, me, Daryl Heath, Chris Tucker, we were, since we really didn't have credits yet, and really no one knew our name, we were able to fly under the radar and become paid regulars at all three at the same time. I know that. With no other young black comics, because you either a brand new new dude in this hip-hop generation, right, or you were a star. There was like no in-between. So stars, literally, if Damon Wayne's went up or Martin would go up at the comedy store, Jamie Masada would say, You can't go up here. You know, and Eddie Griffin was a comedy store comedian. He never, never, maybe, maybe when he 20 years down, but at that time, he couldn't do both, all three, to this day. 33 years later, I am still a paid regular at all three. I was able to roll kind of like under the radar for all the years. But then again, it's slow as they got older, it became like there'd be nights with me, Joe Rogan, and Chris Dealy or whatever, but we did, we do all three in the same night. But in the early 90s, it was literally one or the other because the owners, you know, you still wanted to get a check. Right. You looked like you had a question. No, no, no. I'm right with you. Okay, so as far as Guy T goes, right? I was happy when he did what he did because as a young black comic that was working both rooms, I was that dude that I'd be at the Comedy Act Theater in a room full of gangsters and killers and all that, and literally hop on the bus and go to a complete white room at all three in one night. I literally would do three spots in one night Live Factory, comedy store, improv with no car. Wow. Literally getting a check from all three. But my thing was I hated having, I gotta go to the hood to be around black people. So when he started Fat Tuesday, what was great for us paid regulars were like, we got a black night like at our house. I'm gonna lose a regular.

SPEAKER_11 29:32

I want to let everybody know paid regular back then was $12. Yeah, it was like $25. Okay, $25.

SPEAKER_10 29:38

But obviously it was like that now. Still nothing. I know. Not far from it, but I don't even think I ever told you this guy. So when you would see me going and ripping your room in the main room, I was like, that's where I started. I was just about to say that. But in the same night. Oh, God. This is the story people didn't know. So when he had Fat Tuesday, when it was at its most popping, every superstar on the planet in there, I would get off and literally, uh, let's say I got off at 9 45. Right. My 950 spots in the OR room. And after the OR room, I have a 1015 upstairs in the building. So I would get three workouts in one night. I would go from the all-black room to two lily white, snow white rooms. But as a comedian, it's like I got all I can get in one night. So that's why I was always able to do both rooms. That's some New York. So let me tag, let me tag on that.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

So first of all, the comedy store was the comedy club out of the three that took the misfits. Like the improv and those were buttoned up. They were like really suit tied type of comics. You could be a complete weirdo with a crack habit and get a spot at the comedy store. At the comedy store, that's the mitzvah. They took everything. He said they still like it. Like like the Yaakov Smiranovs and the and the um the weird uh what is it? Andy Kaufman. Yeah, yeah. They took that because even white, you if you were that goofball type of comic, you couldn't perform at the improved. But I'm gonna get in real detail with that. And I want to say one thing too, to explain what he said the stuff. The OR is the original room. So the comic store has three rooms. Right. They have the original room, which is the very first room. It hosts like 200 people. Right. They have the belly room, which is originally created for female comics, which makes you wanted them to have a spot to open up. That's where I started. It's upstairs, it holds like 90 people. And then the main room is a 400 seat. That's the big room. So when you say he's hopping from room to room, it's within the same club. I think it was probably the first club that had multiple rooms like that.

SPEAKER_10 31:33

Now a lot of them have it. But we're going back to the misfit and the weird feeling out of the three, this is what we always said. The comedy store, let me I'm gonna tell you what I personally used all three. I had functions for all three rooms. The function was the comedy store was I thought of a joke today. I don't know if this shit's gonna work. It might offend people and nobody gives a fuck about it. That's so funny. I would try that at the comedy store. Something about that super black room, you felt like you were in a tunnel by yourself. If it worked, it worked. If it was black in color, not in people. Back as yes, black as in the back. You literally felt like you were in a like a like a closet telling jokes. You don't know who's listening. Dark room. Yeah, dark room. You barely see the front row. It was where you really got stuff on its heels. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 32:17

The the laugh factory was my place to get corporate. Always had mixed rooms to this day. Chocolate Sunday, even though it's black, it's just something about you were Armenians, black whites, it was always a mixed room. And then the improv was always the showcase room. The improv is a room ABC might be here. NBC might be here tonight. That might be three agents in the front row.

SPEAKER_07 32:40

You did the set.

SPEAKER_10 32:41

You did a set, right? You did a set. Right. And you and you would really feel it. Like you'd be like, oh my God. You almost felt like you had to dress different at the improv. That's so funny.

SPEAKER_06 32:50

I told somebody that, like, maybe three days ago, without that, without even knowing what it was like. I was like, it feels like comedy is this industry in this beautiful art form. The Laugh Factory feels like, everybody, come look at this. Comedy. The lights are really bright, the ceilings are really high. The set of, yeah, it's like comedy. Like the improv feels industrial. It feels like comedy as an industry. This one doesn't feel too much different than Cleveland, which don't feel too much different than Hollywood. It's like I tell you when you when you in an improv, it feels like a and then the store feels like the dark resets of a comic's brain. You just said it's same shit. But I didn't even know that. I just feel it.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

You can feel it like cocaine of the glass table that's in the green room or the main room. Prior to um what's the someone?

SPEAKER_06 33:39

Shell got candy in there. What the fuck are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Yeah. Oh, Robin Williams? Robin Williams.

SPEAKER_10 33:46

Yeah. What we used to always say was the comedy store was the Yankee Stadium for comedy. Wow. Again, you hear me use the sports terms. It's like, yeah, there's a billion baseball parks in the world, but there's nothing big. You feel like you ain't made it until you got played in Yankee Stadium. Yeah, MSG or like a rucker, yeah. And that's why, again, I I know I'm all over the place, but I was proud and I was happy it's something else you did. Some people get upset with this, but I wasn't mad. And I didn't ever hate, and I and I never got to tell you straightforward, right? So just give me the answer real quick. What year was it a few years ago back that you did something big with all these comedians got their names on the wall? Just give me a year. That was Fat Tuesdays. Alright, Ron D.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Like everybody got their names on the wall. That's Fat Tuesdays. Yeah, but what what year was that? That was 2020. Well, we we shot in 2021. It came out in 2022.

SPEAKER_10 34:35

So that year when I, I mean, I saw every black comic, that's when all the names went up?

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 34:39

22? Yeah. Okay, so here's my thing, and this is just honest. Come from the bottom of my heart, but I've never been able to express this outside of like just friends and I know it's coming. No. One thing great that you did too, not only did you allow black comics that would have never been able to get in here if it hadn't been for Fat Tuesday. Right? So that's that's a compliment. At one time, to get your name on the wall, you had to be a let me just get it out. No, I'm not saying that. I ain't saying that. Because you were a comedy store comic. So I'm not saying I'm not talking about you. My name was already on the wall. So I'm not talking about you. What I'm saying is there was a time where you had to be a comedy store comedian to get your name on that wall.

SPEAKER_05 35:26

Right. Right?

SPEAKER_10 35:27

So I was very proud because before all you guys, my name went on maybe 10 years before you guys, right? And I was happy for that. But when all these people went up there, I was like, I personally was like, that dude was never a comedy store. I'm not saying names. That guy was never, that guy, that all of a sudden there was all these people. But things had changed since the George Floyd thing. And I feel like that it opened up doors for these white people that run, you know, that establishment. You know, how's this looking now? That so many black comics that have contributed that weren't a part of our team got on the wall. So I'm not knocking them. No, no. I'm just saying completely balanced. Because you used to have to be a comedian that played the comic store. And I'm playing star. There's stars. There is stars that we all know that they got big in comedy, but their name went up on the wall. But they never were comedians at the comedy store. I've been there 32 years. That dude never really, unless it was a showcase. He maybe did a guest spotted guy, but he wasn't a comedy store comedian. So that's why I was happy unfortunately what happened with George. So let me things open.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

So let me and there's a whole wall of brothers on the wall. Everything you said was valid. Very valid and very right. Right. But that's why I did it. Because I found out there were some names on that wall that weren't black, that got that weren't comedians.

SPEAKER_07 36:44

At the store.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

That got on the wall. Oh. That I didn't know. There's names on that wall that were not comedians? I I do I do or did comedy. I did comedy for two weeks. Oh, yeah. All week. And their name called themselves comedians. And their name were on the their names were on the wall. And that's what I used to get. Gotcha. Those up. Now when it furthered. So you were an advocate to make that. Like this guy's a huge star. And this guy just that was not the original ending of the and I don't want to ruin for people who didn't see it. That wasn't the original ending of the Go watch Fat Tuesday Doc.

SPEAKER_11 37:15

Amazing man.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

Ending was different.

SPEAKER_10 37:17

What happened was And the only reason I wasn't on it because I was out of town. Yes, we we reached out to the city. People, everybody hit me like, dude, you were one of the OGs that you were there before. How were you not on it? He called me separate.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

And did a pre-interview. But I was called. And yeah. So here's and it was during COVID, too. So we didn't get a lot of people in there because we shot during COVID. Everything in LA was shut down. Yeah, yeah. And so a lot of community, a lot of people didn't want to come out because they felt smooth. We also had a cap on, LA County had a cap on how many people we can have on set a day, but also Amazon, who paid for it, had a cap on how many people we had to have in it. You know what I'm saying? We had a cap. So it we had a lot of stuff we were fighting, but it was a lot of good that came out of that too. Anyway, back to the original ending was not supposed to be the names of the wall. The original ending was something else. It's just the fact that when we were interviewing, a lot of comedians start expressing the importance of their name on the wall, if they had it or didn't have it. And I heard the I heard them and I was like, huh. I told Reggie Hullen, the great director, who's who was asking the questions, who's directing it, I said, man, start asking them what's the significance of having their name on the wall. And when he started asking that question, the comics would get emotional if their name was or wasn't on the wall. And I was like, huh. I said, I wonder if I can, you know, get their names on the wall. Because the comedy store has said several times to me that if it wasn't for Fat Tuesdays, the comedy store would have been shut down.

SPEAKER_10 38:44

As far as the money and the revenue involved, they told me out of one of the owners' mouth.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

A lot of Fridays, they wouldn't have made payroll had it not been for Fat Tuesdays.

SPEAKER_10 38:52

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

So Fat Tuesdays was important to the comedy store. So my thing was, and my name was already on the wall. I wasn't trying to use to get my name on the wall. My name had been on the wall a few years, maybe after his. Several years after his, actually. But I said, you know, if if Fat Tuesdays was important to the comedy store, these comedians were important to Fat Tuesdays. And without these comedians, there'd be no Fat Tuesdays. It wouldn't have been as successful as it was.

SPEAKER_04 39:14

Right.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

So they say, okay, well, let us think about it. And uh I said, well, give me a list of names. I thought of everybody that ever crossed that stage at Fat Tuesdays.

SPEAKER_10 39:24

I had three. You just answered what I said of it.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

I had like 200 or something names. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This nigga cat me for it. Slow down, soldier.

SPEAKER_10 39:37

I wanted everybody on that. Everybody ever came through Fat Tuesdays. Because there's some names we all know. But yeah. There's it. You ever in the audience, right? Tupac. Everybody Piper. Name is on the wall, by the way. Speaking of Tupac. He's definitely on the wall. Speaking of Tupac. Name is on the wall, by the way. Speaking of Tupac, that's how I met Tupac at comedy store. Yeah, I met him. Well, I met him. During amateur night, because his favorite comedian was Chris Tucker. But he there was no Chris Tucker without seeing Alex Thomas. Because we were both literally, we were both. We were both the dudes like up. He's either before me, I'm after him. We were two little young amateurs, but the night was so hot. It was crazy to have an amateur night that people come to see. Because amateur night or open mic, we don't get crowds. Nobody here has a name. None of us had credits, but it would just was the popping night. So we button this up.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

So that's so to answer your thing, there was that was that was one of the reasons, reasons why. And when I found out that my brother's name wasn't on the wall, who meant a lot to stand-up comedy. Absolutely. Cedric Entertainer, when Central Entertainer doing his interview said, My name ain't on the wall, but I got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I'm like, how is that?

SPEAKER_06 40:47

Yeah, it feels crazy.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

When Jay Phillips said to me, man, I just wanted to drive past sometimes with my kids and say your dad's name on that wall. So when I heard that and saw Marshall Wilfield's name wasn't on the wall. Demilitant told me, um, when I called him and said, Hey man, I said, Man, I was able to get your name on the wall. And he started like, like, crying, like welling up. I can, I could, I can hear his voice. Because Demilitant, when I interviewed him, he told me he had he had he had auditioned for the comedy store and got passed. But Mitzi wanted him to change his name to Whoopsie Woolly. And he was like, What? He's like, Because you have woolly hair.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

And he said, no, I'm not crazy.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Tell him the year. That had to be like 85 years. Because he had he had he had a bushy afro. Whoopsie. And he said no. So the fact that he said no. And the fact that he said no, his name never got on the wall. So I called and told him, he got, he, he welled up. Then when he came to our shooting, when we unveiled the wall, and I and I make sure they put uh Daryl D. Militant Littleton, not just D Militant. Right. And he said, Man, you not only you said you got my whole name on there. And what that meant was he knew he was dying.

SPEAKER_10 42:01

Yeah, yeah. Because he didn't die. He died not too long after that.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

He knew he was dying. So when he got emotional, make me emotional now, he knew he was dying. And he was like, Wow, my whole name.

unknown 42:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:11

Wow. That would have been hilarious. You would have put uh whoopsie woolly. And so that's why.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

So to answer your to answer your your your your question, that that that's that's what happened.

SPEAKER_10 42:23

But I got I got that flat from a lot of people. You have to back him up on the magnitude of what that wall means. Yeah, you're gonna get people, they'd be like, oh, what's the big deal? But in our field.

SPEAKER_07 42:32

Right, right.

SPEAKER_10 42:32

Okay, it's like if you played pro baseball, the whole goal is one day possibly be in the Hall of Fame. You know, you'll get a guy like, you know, say take somebody like Charles Barkley, who goes down as one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He just didn't get the ring, but he was respected, uh Mexican amongst his peers. Yeah, and he still goes down as one of the greatest of all time. So my whole thing is this, and I'll make it quick. Whatever my credits were in life, TV shows, movies, animation, whatever, my kids, when they're older, they're gonna be able to walk up there in that same where you see David Letterman, where you see Richard Pryor, where you see Red Fox, where you see Eddie Murphy, where you see, you know, you know, Dave Chappelle, your daddy's name was right up there awesome. On that name. You know, so it's like whatever I did in my life, hey man, in my field, I made it to the highest level. And it's not everybody's gonna win the championship. Not everybody can be the dude to get $50 million a year. Sorry about that. But you're still, but you're still gonna be in the league.

SPEAKER_11 43:31

I'm about to say you got a rotary phone.

SPEAKER_10 43:33

Oh, he's 90s.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

That's the old 90s. So the the the the shout out to the kids. The shit's gonna be loud. Shout out to the comedy store too, because I had I had there's a you know what a parking lot is, right? There's a space that's blank in the parking lot of the comedy store in the back that was that could have fit a lot of the names. But the comedy store, what they did, they chose to pull it in front on the main room on sunset.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

My name ain't even with the rest of it. On the side. But but the fact that they they use that spot is like, man, thank you. You were revolutionary. Thank you, brother. It was ever about Simon. Thank you.

SPEAKER_10 44:09

You really need you were you were the you were the George Floyd, the Martin Luther King of just getting people together. Well, like Bobby Seals, he would be Newton, man.

SPEAKER_11 44:17

Alright, man. I'm sorry, man. We get into talk. I forgot. Y'all have questions. You got some questions for me?

SPEAKER_02 44:25

We got a bunch of questions, y'all. We got fans and no comedy talking.

SPEAKER_11 44:29

I'm gonna go to commercial first. Man, we gotta get into y'all's movie and TV film career, man. Because, you know, everybody, everybody we have on here, a lot of them big on social media. They still working to get TV and film credits. Y'all have some legend social media credits. Yeah, it is. I feel you. I want to get the life. The movie life. We gotta get the life. Okay. We get to like it.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

That's you.

SPEAKER_10 44:57

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_11 44:58

We gotta get the movie.

SPEAKER_10 44:59

I have a life. You were in the movie.

SPEAKER_11 45:00

The movie, the movie life, bruh. Okay, with the movie life, I I wanna, I gotta know, like, what's a memorable story from the movie life? Or who's the funniest person on set? You know, like what give us something.

SPEAKER_02 45:14

I mean, all those are easy. I mean, memorable moment is is is, and I say this all the time, because it's very important, and you know, at the at first day on the set, Eddie made the set comfortable by telling the director to let all the comics go. Let us freestyle. And that trust in somebody like Eddie Murphy, to have that trust in him for us to ad-lib and do everything was very important. I say very important because it was a period piece. So when we're ad-lib, we had to really, I had really studied the period. The 30s and the 40s and when it took place. So you can't be ad-libbing, you know, uh, you know, millennial shit in a movie that took place back then. So say holla back on the back. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Even down this is lit. Right. In 1840.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

Even down to the handshake. We were doing a baseball scene. Right, right. We was doing a baseball scene, and two of the um, I don't like calling extras. I don't like that, but um atmosphere. Props that eat. Um props that eat. It's Negros. No, atmospheric technicians. Okay. All right, that's a little bit. So they were they were high fiving. And I was like, they didn't high five back in the 30s and 40s. It was a different, and I told the director, I didn't go to them, I went to the directors, hey, those guys just high-fived. And that's not, period. That's not true.

SPEAKER_10 46:28

Did you leave that out your peripheral? Like you were you in a scene and you saw two homies over here throwing up. I was at the point or rolling 60s or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

That actually happened. That actually happened in the that actually happened in another production. Oh, yeah. But but but but if you study the period, you know, you know all the jive talk and the handshake, the movement. So, so I so that was the for Eddie Murphy to trust us is the best thing he ever could have done. And then you said, um, who's the funniest? Funniest offset, you know, was Bernie Mack. Bernie Mack would hold court and tell stories, man. And those stories, you know, we all been on movie sets. So you know when it's a new deal, and new deal means they're going to a new screen, this for you, you I know you all know. Uh, you go to your trailers and hang out and do whatever. Bernie, especially Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, it was a big story. He was always on. He was all but Bernie was telling stories, and Eddie and Martin would sit right there and listen. Usually stars like that be gone and wait and wait on you for the next setup. Yeah. But Bernie with Bernie was that guy who told stories and was.

SPEAKER_10 47:50

And comedy no. Let them go. Yeah. This is where the magic. Don't get me wrong, we all know in TV and film, uh, you know, you gotta get a couple of takes. Yeah. Get what's on the script. Get what's on the script. And then you that third take, y'all have fun. Take notes, Rob Snyder. And guess what? In post. I was going, I had a question about that. We're gonna get back to that. Yeah. That might be, and usually is the cut they keep. Yeah. Because guess what? The whole room's dying laughing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

How are you gonna not keep that in the final cut? How many times we've all of us been on auditions? Kill it, don't get the part, watch that production, and they used our shit.

SPEAKER_05 48:26

Right.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

From the audition. You got an example of that? Uh too many. I one one I can say. One I can say, uh, they use actually one of my jokes. Our Def our Def Comedy Jam at one point was doing the sketches before the shows. And they actually, when the sketch, one one of my jokes ended up in the sketch. They actually did my joke as a sketch and didn't use me.

SPEAKER_10 48:53

Listening while you had them done, and he was like, okay, then you can't.

SPEAKER_02 48:57

And they used it, they used it in the You know I'm a writer. Yeah. That's what some sketch shows did, though. They used to sit in the back, the writers sit in the back of the room and have a five showcase. Oh, that used to happen on the audition store in Living Clean. See, I didn't want to say it, man. I haven't thought of it.

SPEAKER_10 49:13

No, no, no, but it was a known fact. Famous sketch shows that were doing like uh cattle calls. Right. Thousand different actors bring six of your characters. Right. You don't think the writers were sitting on stage? Yeah. Yeah. You don't think the writers were in the back of the room? Uh you didn't make it, but that character. Next time you see your joke. Yeah. Or you see one of their stars playing your character. Because actually, what it was, they they know that you're not anybody yet, but that was a brilliant ass idea. I'm gonna be honest, how many times have you seen an amateur comedian, right? He he doesn't know the math of this shit yet. He might have had an incredible premise or an incredible something he's trying to work out. You just get in the back of the room, you go, dude, that dude left so much meat on the bottom. That happened to me. He doesn't even have a clue where to go with that.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 50:01

But somebody like those on those TV shows. Yeah, we we're gonna make something out of that. That fact, that might be a movie.

SPEAKER_06 50:08

I got a uh yeah, I have a question for you, and I'm pretty sure this has never been asked to you. Okay.

SPEAKER_10 50:13

You I'm not French. A lot of people think that I'm next. Hey! And he's never been to a Diddy bar. I've actually been to a lot of Diddy bars. I got following questions, but I have no clue what time the baby oil came out.

SPEAKER_08 50:28

So that's what you were saying?

SPEAKER_06 50:30

You uh had a very specific space because in some of your major credits, you had the pressure of following high-level entities. So you are part of the Jamie Foxx show. But this is Bentley's new forte after Martin. So it's like it uh part of this as hot as Jamie is, gotta be like, what is he gonna do after that? You're coming on Players Club after Friday. And a lot of that pressure's gotta be, what is he gonna do after that? What does that feel like on set being in that space? Uh did you realize it at the time? Like, uh, I can't really, I don't wanna be the part of the reason that this dropped the ball in a situation like this.

SPEAKER_10 51:19

I'm gonna be honest with you, man. It's again, you always hear me talk about sports. It's like, yeah, I'm very aware. I've always been, I guess before the word analytics, way before everybody had the analytics and everything, I was always a student of the game. Yeah. I knew what was going on around me, I knew who was doing what and how they did it and this and that, but I had to always tell myself, hey man, you did what you did to get here. If you were concerned what everybody else was doing, what their numbers were, how that last guy set was, how that last movie, I would never do me. So to answer your question, I blocked all that out and I just did me. I can't be Chris Tucker, Chris Tucker can't be me. I can't be Ice Cube, Ice Cube can't be me. I can't be Lorenzo. I had to be, I had to figure out who is Alex Thomas.

SPEAKER_06 52:07

But you killed it every time.

SPEAKER_10 52:09

Thank you. And I and it weren't the biggest roles, but it's stuff that people will remember forever. And I felt like here's my what's the whole word that you guys probably all know the saying. I tell to my kids today. You only get the a first time for a first impression. What's the word you gotta do? You only get a one chance to make a first impression. And that was always, I went into every role thinking like there is no if this don't work out, I I gotta kill it. Yeah, yeah, it may be small, but I you gotta take a uh a rope and become a cowboy. You gotta take an inch and make it a mile. Because what people always say is, man, it was a small scene, but you but you stole that shit. I'm like, and that was my mentality going on.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

And I wanna say, I wanna say that had to prepare you for because he did one a tour that I wouldn't do, because I probably don't have a confidence to do it. A rap tour.

SPEAKER_07 52:58

The NW screen. Up and smoke. Up and smoke tour.

SPEAKER_02 53:01

Yeah, I watched, I still have that DVD, I still watch it. But you opened that show. And and to open it, I I did a Maxwell Joe Scott tour, but that's a different audience from an up and smoke tour. Mind you? Might you know?

SPEAKER_10 53:13

Wait, what year did uh Kings of Comedy come out? Uh the the the tour or the the the uh the theory. We did the tour, we did the tour, we did the tour in '97, '98. Okay, so you guys were before uh we we did up and smoke in 2001. Right. But the reason I say that, we're not only because you bought it up. It was so huge for me, because at that time, the biggest room, the biggest, you know, uh, you know, platform I'd ever been on was opening up for huge comedians. Like, for example, by that time, Mark Curry had taken me out on the road, the whole country. Damon Wayans, these guys were some of the biggest comics at that time. They were selling out 5,000 seaters. So that was the biggest for me. So when Dr. Dre called me and said, it's gonna be 30,000 people every single night. Uh, can you do it? I was like, hell yeah. But isn't the story in my in my Dr. Dre voice? No, but it was huge for me because it just came up yesterday on the golf court. Somebody was asking, like, how did you tell jokes in that environment? And I told him, I told him to honest from the bottom of my heart. I had to figure out a way to become a hype man slash comedian. Because it ain't the same, these are not jokes I could go do Tuesday night at the Laugh Factory. Right. These are not jokes that I could go do the Comedy Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. Right. No, I had to figure out a way to sneak my jokes in here in front of 30,000 people that did not come to see me. They came, they were all drunk, they were all high, they came to see Dr. Dre Snoop.

SPEAKER_02 54:45

And I'm La Horny too. Horny and everything else.

SPEAKER_10 54:49

But I had to figure out a way, but I figured it out quick. I figured it out so quick to the point where here's the crazy part. Yes, I was the only person on the tour that they didn't come to see, but I also had my own little lane. Meaning, by 2001, I'd already had three, four movies under my belt. Yeah. I was already on the Jamie Foxx show. I had my little following. Also, one thing Dre is We know him. Right, right, right. So Dre and Snoop used to come up to me. I'm married now, so I can say this. But Snoop be like, he be like, cuz you got a bitch in every city. And then Dre was like, I know. He's like, nigga, I mean, you you did this. I guess they didn't realize, they just always looked at me a little more Alex. Right. They didn't realize that, like, dude, you know, I've been doing comedy for 11 years now. Uh I I was in a few movies, in a few TV shows. I'm not as big as y'all, but I got at least four, four to seven bitches in every city. You can show them. Because when you sit there with a bitch that already likes you, it's like, hey man, we just got here. Why she knows you already wish you know.

SPEAKER_08 55:52

I don't have a thousand like you do.

SPEAKER_02 55:54

But I have some acquaintances in every city. And I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure. This is the thing about with as black comedians and why we're so great and better than a lot of other uh comedians. Because we have to do shows in the hood. Yes. Period. In in with with Crips and Bloods are at our shows and they're heckling you. And you had making the life, you gotta make a life decision. Do I get him back and kill him, or do I let him kill me in the product? Because comics have gotten beat up, right? Stabbed, shot, brother. Joe Torch. No, no, finish me. Joe, I love you, but that's the truth. I'm sure. Am I lying?

SPEAKER_10 56:31

No, no, you're right. Okay, Joe.

SPEAKER_02 56:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_11 56:33

So though I'm sure though. Wait a minute, he was doing the beating up, but he was getting stabbed.

SPEAKER_06 56:36

We know Joe got the man, brother.

SPEAKER_10 56:38

He got a dude shot up a club because I was there that night, so I wouldn't get into it because it brings back memories. But your brother. But I was gonna say before we're getting fights every single day. But we know, but he was.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

I'm sure those rooms prepare help prepare you for that tour as well.

SPEAKER_10 56:54

I knew how to talk about people, and the person that I'm talking about can laugh with me. Right. Joe Tory? Yeah. His brother? No mercy. No, nigga. Somebody got to die tonight. We are going to fight. Joe would fight the nigga with the road. But but he was just a tough, you remember, remember Joe was buff at that time? Best wearing leather, arms out, shooting. Yeah, he was a tough nigga. Joe would talk about somebody and be like, yeah, nigga, I said it. Uh, next, this next comedian. You know what I mean? Like, you just gonna leave it like that? You know what I'm saying? But that's that was his thing, though. That was Joe's personality.

SPEAKER_07 57:26

So Did y'all see this when y'all were 16? Like, how early back, did y'all did y'all see this? Or it was it a some sort of event? Because sometimes people get encouraged to do it. Or they, you know, they got kicked out of school and then they went into comedy all the time.

SPEAKER_10 57:38

I want to be a comedian, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_07 57:39

When did that? And when did you because like the thing is wanting to do comedy is different from deciding to do it. When did you decide to do it?

SPEAKER_02 57:48

This is why I said comedy chose me. Because I didn't know it was even a job until really Def Comedy Jam. I knew who Pryor was, I knew who Cosby was, I knew all that, you know? And and when I saw first I saw my brother on Showtime at the Apollo, I was like, oh, okay. And then I saw Def Comedy Jam.

SPEAKER_07 58:07

So did you look at him like a comedian at that time? Or you just saw you just like your phone?

SPEAKER_02 58:10

On Apollo, yes.

SPEAKER_10 58:14

Joe, what? Like what year did he start?

SPEAKER_02 58:16

Joe started in college. So Joe started around 87, 88, maybe. Also, like not even five years ahead. Yeah, I started in '92. Right.

SPEAKER_07 58:23

Okay. Right. Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 58:25

And I always did things that my older brothers and sisters did. And then comedy, like I said, comedy chose me because I was always the class clown, like most of us, the school bus clown. We were always doing that. We didn't know it was, I didn't know it was a job. Otherwise, we would have dropped out in the third grade and went pro early. And started open mics in fourth grade. Right.

SPEAKER_08 58:42

But so that's your mom pepped you a lunch before you did your set.

SPEAKER_02 58:47

I eat your carrots before you do your joke. I wasn't a young kid who saw it and like, oh, I'm gonna be that. I knew I liked attention, and I knew I liked cheering people up, and I knew I was, you know, had a smart mouth. And all that developed into, you know, who I am today.

SPEAKER_10 59:02

In my case, yeah, in high school, class clown, best sense of humor, kind of same story. No clue this is what I wanted to do. But in my case, growing up in South Central LA, half my family's Crips and Bloods, I always remember uh one thing Richard Pryor said back in the day, but his was in prison. Remember the famous, he was like, I was in jail, I kept these niggas laughing to keep their minds off the booty. Yeah. In my case, it was keep these niggas' minds off, making me join the motherfucking gang. Nigga, I it's almost like I knew because I was the only black kid in an all-white private school, right? They already looked at me like I was a corny nigga. Yeah. And both my parents were in my life. So I couldn't do all the so-called cool. I couldn't be out to nine and ten o'clock at night. They wanted me to go on a drive-by. Nigga, I had soccer practice. You know what I mean? They wanted me to buy the liquor store. I had choir rehearsal. You know what I mean? You had T ball. All this shit that they talked about, me doing, my whole thing was, but I can make you laugh. I was just silly, didn't know what I was doing, but that kept me away from them. They were like, this nigga can't beat roll with the Crips or the Buzz. Nigga, you you're corny or you're soft. We ain't never seen you fight. You ain't never smoked the blunt. We ain't never seen you with a can of beer. It used to bother me, and when I got older, I was like, thank God.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:22

We ain't never seen you with business in every city.

SPEAKER_10 1:00:25

Yeah, but the hoes came later.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:29

I'm gonna be mad as hell if we walk out of here and you don't talk about one of my favorite movies. I think tripping is hilarious. I think tripping is hilarious, underrated. I think you were hysterical in this shit. And for whatever reason, like we was talking about soul playing, like the whatever, love, da da da. But everybody that watches it, because I stumbled upon it. I'm just randomly, it's on. I'm like, and the nigga gets up in the in the bed dance, I'm like, what the fuck am I watching? I thought it was, I thought it was like a a new uh extended version of the house party. I was like, Who the fuck is this? Geez got it, everything. I was like, the theaters?

SPEAKER_11 1:01:05

Oh yeah. Yeah, it went to theaters.

SPEAKER_10 1:01:06

What years was this like? This is 95, 96. No, it was way later than.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

Donald Faison. Deion Richmond. Deion Richmond. Um, um, Maya Campbell. Gotcha, gotcha. It was, it was, you know what, Trippin' was funny because that's one of the movies where, you know, I've done Pearl Harbor, I've done American Shreks, I've done five. And when somebody comes and says, Man, you know what my favorite movie is? Tripping. I'm gonna like of all the tripping. Tripping is your one. You just bad because you can't walk like this. Yeah, uh, uh, yeah, yeah. But it shows, you know what it is. D'Artagnan, D'Artagnan Ebbman. Shout out to Dartanya and Evanny Anderson. Yeah, yeah, like by you versus.

SPEAKER_10 1:01:42

Tony Jackson. That shows whatever we did over the years, there was always a lane, and there were some people watching. Yeah, yeah. You can't compare it to Jurassic Park and goddamn Avatar, but guess what? Almost like Tubi is now. We could talk about it all day. Right. But you know how many people are growing up on Tubi now? He was in Hollaback. I love Hollaback.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:03

But the film on Trippin', it was like it was a great movie to work on because uh Donald Faison, Deion Richmond, we didn't all know each other until the movie, and we clicked like we were friends forever in the movie. And we had a cool director, David Rayner, who who again let the comments go allow it, allow us to be.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:22

I was like, this shit is hilarious, bro.

SPEAKER_11 1:02:24

It came out in 99. I looked it up. 99, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:26

Who do you guys go to for your comedy advice? Who ya, who are your Oh, I got some story, but you go ahead first.

SPEAKER_10 1:02:31

Well, in my case, it's crazy. I never, it's it's weird to use the word advice. Because when you say advice, like we get, I know you get it a lot of time. Hey man, what's your advice? I was really blessed to be around those guys that I was around. Like, meaning being around Will Smith every day at the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, being around Jamie Foxx every day, Jamie, being around the Wayans brothers for the last 30 years, from Keenan all the way down to Marlin, it was like we were in comedy boot camp, whether we knew it or liked it or not. It was if I ever had a question, right? It's crazy you're saying the word advice, but I guess it did come from all those guys. Right now, I'm still a student of the game. It's not like I'm it's not like I'm asking as much anymore because now I'm the guy that people come like, hey, OG, Unk, you've been in it 30 years. It's crazy. You know what I mean? That's crazy. I'm an OG. That's crazy. That's how I know I'm an Unk and I'm an old my daughter and my son. I'm in the mall, and a young dude came up to the food court, hey Unk, and my daddy was, I mean, my son, my kids like, is that your brother? That's like no legend, no Halo. That's what they call me because I'm of a certain age, and I had to explain what Unk was. But now I'm the guy giving advice. But I never did the advice thing. Hey man, what's your advice? I did. I was just, hey man, I just had no fear. I would talk to Martin, I would talk to Will, I would talk to Jamie like I should have been there. I talked to him like I'm one of the guys. It wasn't like, hey, little Alex, hey, the new new booty. I I really felt like I belonged. So my questions, it was kind of like just in conversation, not getting off.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:03

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_10 1:04:03

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:05

But you picked up some games still, yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Who basically, who would you guys go to if you had some, you know, because even as and you I know you give me just like because I want to say advice like they're so above you, but it's just like yo, when you try to work through.

SPEAKER_10 1:04:21

They led by example. I have to say this. Okay. Those dudes that we were fortunate to be around, and I know you have your stories, they literally led by example. It's almost like if we were in the underworld. Say we weren't in the entertainment, but we were just all straight niggas, right? You learn from the big homies. Yeah. I learned from my big homies. It happened to be my big homies. Sports were successful. They were veterans and they figured this shit out. So, you know, little do they know the stuff that fell on us, it made us successful.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:49

A little bit more baker soda, it's gonna rock up.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:53

In my case, I was fortunate to have a brick brother who already done it. Right. So I didn't I never asked for advice because he was just talking give it. And he was he taught he taught me game. He, you know, smile more on stage. Funny because he-smile. Exactly. It's so tough on the crowd, nigga. You got shot at last week. But he probably he knows my personality. He said, smile more on stage. Use the six parts of the stage, you know, the front, there's back, the left, the right, there's up, the down. So he was always giving advice. I never had to ask for advice. But I asked for advice from other people. Like one time I remember, and Joe got mad at us when I said this in front of him, but it was just fact. I was having Rotter's block. I was like, I couldn't think of anything else. And I called Jamie. Jamie had just gotten back from doing um Ali. Okay. I said, man, I can't think of anything, man. I'm Rodersblocking. And then he goes, Man, you never talk about your Hollywood stuff, your TVs and movie shows. I said, No, I keep that separate, I compartmentalize. He said, Man, people won't hear about that shit. People won't hear about, you know, um me having a fight on the set of uh uh of of um any given Sunday. Any given Sunday and and and what happened on the set of Ali and all that stuff. Talk about it because I used to never talk about my acting. On stage. So, and that opened up a lot for me. And like, oh, okay. And then years later, I had another Rotterdog. I ran into um uh Tommy Davison on at the Remember the Good Guys that used to be on the corner of uh Ventura. Oh, yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. And uh not Laura Tony. Okay, okay, yeah. I saw him, I said, man, Rogers Block. He said, Man, start opening with your closer. I said, What? He said, start opening with your closer. It'll make the rest of your set. Yeah, it'll make your other joke stronger.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:29

That's what Tony does, Tony Rock.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:31

Yeah, and that and that that that advice came to the case. It makes you have to be on the follow yourself. Exactly.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:35

So those are a fact. Which actually goes back to what he was talking about earlier. Follow yourself.

SPEAKER_10 1:06:43

You know that closer is the killer. Right. Who that nigga's strong. Right. But I actually do that depending on what city I go to. Right. I I would do it. It literally depends on the city. I'll look at a crowd and be like, you know what? Just for the hell of it, to throw a twist out there, to kind of test myself and see where I can go from there, I'll start off with my closer. And it's so, the shit's so strong that you go, little do they know, you're up there going, hey, oh shit, where do I go from here? Right, right, right, right, right. So what else is going on?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:11

And also I also got a lot of game from, you know, Bernie, Cedric, and Steve Harvey on the Kings of Comedy too. For example, though, right? Are you being a good one? Well, they would give me, they would say certain things, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_11 1:07:22

What's some things they say? What's some things?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:23

Just one thing that Steve said that stuck out, and I say this all the time, that's when I learned the difference between a comic and a comedian. Comic says funny things. A comedian makes things funny. You can be a comic all day and no one knows who you are. You're you're not transparent, they have no idea. They leave that com when they leave that show, they're not leaving with a piece of you. They laughed, but they don't know who the hell you are. Comedian, we expose ourselves. Absolutely. We make our pain our funny. So, our laughter. So, so I I would ask for advice in that way, but also a lot of advice came to me because I was Joe Toy's little brother. I remember doing uh Def Comedy Jam.

SPEAKER_10 1:08:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:04

Def Jam, Def Comedy Jam. Um, Chris Rock was like, God, I'm gonna take your brother under my wing. Fuck Joe. He said, Man, never get a hook. Because when your hook goes, you go. And at that time, Shucky Jackie was on stage for his second, for his second def jam, and it didn't go that well because the the hook is on the hook it blew him up. But it didn't work on the second half. Right, he was kind of a funny guy.

SPEAKER_11 1:08:30

Don't you be Shucky Ducky?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:33

Don't you quack, quack.

SPEAKER_11 1:08:35

And the nigga would end on that.

SPEAKER_10 1:08:37

But hold up. He would end on that. So I'm gonna do it, right? I'm sucky ducky. And then this would be the nigga's closer. And that's why, because I'm sucky, Ducky. Quack, quack, good night. But it worked. You know what I mean? Like I never wanted to be that. But don't get me wrong, it worked, but here's the flip side. That that falls into that 15 minutes of fame shit. Let's just be real. He had a career out there. He had a good career. People that cheated the process. He didn't cheat the process. No, no, no, no. What I mean, okay, so you're saying he's relevant and still kicking? Like he's gonna be a good thing. He's still doing stand up to the day, you know? No, no, no, no, no, no. What I'm trying to say is do you ever think about why some guys never went to the next level, guy?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:17

I just don't. I don't even worry about myself. Here's the answer. I can't talk about anybody else.

SPEAKER_10 1:09:23

Because I, again, being a winner of the game, it's almost like you're a doctor. You gotta know about the good and the bad. Yeah. You study both. So, so yeah, you study, I'm not just gonna study the good, I'm not just gonna study the bad. I really want to know, I'm really on those analytics. Like, why? I'll look at a comic on joke on on stage, whether I like him or not, I'm going, I know exactly why that joke didn't work.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:44

Right.

SPEAKER_10 1:09:44

And I can really help him to take that same premise and help him kill, but it's not really my place. But I still to this day, I will analyze. I'm not looking at it like other people. You know, I'll go BT. You know what? That shit was crazy. You know where advice came from? Blah, blah, blah, before the blah, blah, blah. And then you go do it, and you look at me like, nigga.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:03

It worked. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:04

I never thought of that. Thank you. You know, you know who gave me surprisingly advice? And this is when I was, I don't think I was doing comedy a year yet. I was at a Comedy Act Theater and I did my set, had a good set. It was cool. Got off stage, and in the back was TK Kirkland. T to the motherfucker. T to the motherfucker. And you wouldn't think to get advice from TK. And TK goes, Man, you write your jokes down word for word, don't you? I said, Yeah, I know. He said, I can see when you're telling your jokes, I can see you read. I was like, wow, he said, man, no, the joke write them down. Or if you write them down word for word, make an outline and just do the topics and do the bullet points. And and he was the first one, but by looking at me on stage, he saw that I was like trying to remember what I wrote down. Right, right, right, right. And I and and and like it came from that. DL gave me some advice one time. We I was doing comedy eight months, and we was in Bermuda doing a show, and without even saying anything, he was like, I was in my head, like I'm in another country, they may not get this shit. I gotta explain them in a different way. And without even saying that, he said, hey man, I know you're in another country. He said, Tell the jokes the same way you tell them in the States. Don't try to overexplain. And I'm like in myself, like, how do they even know I was that was that was a burden? Hey, but he was right.

SPEAKER_10 1:11:20

Now that we're getting into some masterclass shit, because now you now you you brought up another thing. I used to really be worried when I would go out of the country. Because I was like, how the hell are they gonna understand my jokes? Do you know what saved me with being able to kill around the world? I'm talking from Israel to Hong Kong to Jerusalem to goddamn Jamaica.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:40

Would you go to Israel now? Would you go to Israel now?

SPEAKER_10 1:11:44

No, but I wouldn't. No, no, but my Israel story was the bomb. Yeah, I hear what I'm saying. Nigga, when I show you I killed in Israel, uh, where were uh what they called rabbis were giving me their yarmulkes?

SPEAKER_11 1:11:58

Damn.

SPEAKER_10 1:11:59

Nigga, rabbi was like, oh, we love you. Like it was crazy. It's a long story, but yeah, Israel, I did nine shows with Jerry Seinfeld. That's dope. Oh yeah, it was it was it was called it's called comedy. I guess I said I'm sorry. I know we're long-winded. Nah, go for it. I mean, we could add to eight hours. It's a thing called comedy for Kobe. And he's been doing it for like 19 years. Wow. And what happens is Jerry Seinfeld is great friends with uh with the head rabbi in Israel, right? And it just happened to be the rabbi had, I think, two children that were killed to uh to terrorism, and they were both teenagers. You know, do his you know, the whole, you know, the what do they call the Palestinians versus all that stuff. It was a mess. So he started doing a comedy show like 20 years ago to raise money for children that have passed through the terrorism. Wow. And uh, I want to say, in like 16, 17 years of doing comedy for Kobe, there had only been like three black comics to go over there. Name Kobe, who's Kobe? So the kid Kobe was a kid. So not Kobe Bryant. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm glad you said that. So the rabbi's son's name was Kobe. Got it. He was the one that was killed to terrorism. They started this foundation. And Jerry Seinfeld just happened to be great friends with that guy.

SPEAKER_11 1:13:15

I'm gonna guess one of the black people, George Wallace. No. Because that's his best friend, you would think. Yeah, you would think.

SPEAKER_10 1:13:21

But no, no, no.

SPEAKER_11 1:13:22

George was the first.

SPEAKER_10 1:13:23

Okay, yeah, but then like six years later, it was Chris Rock, then four years later, it was Gang Safel, and then I was like the fourth black comedian to ever go out there. That's dope. Right, but we did nine cities in Jerusalem in Israel. It'd be like doing comedy in Clover City one night, Northridge another, Santa Monica another, but all these different, you know, synagogues, and it was huge. It just happened to be this is the year that I'm the uh that I'm the the headliner. Right. The crazy part about it was I really didn't know what in the hell. And the only you know, parameter was you can't cuss. Right. You can't talk about sex. That's why I didn't get it. Have fun. You know what I mean? Like it it was. But you ain't got no bitches over there. So it was a real, I liked these. I'll let that laugh go. That's very funny. Four more seconds of the laugh. Okay. Call for laughter. Let you get that stuff. Yep. You know how to warm up. So, long story short, I was like, damn, what am I gonna do? I just had to do 30 minutes every night. And I had to like kick into my joke vault.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:26

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:14:27

Stuff that I haven't done for years. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Stuff that I would kill. Dig in the crates, yeah. Digging the dig in the crates, pull out stuff that always killed. I just hadn't did it in a while. And it would, it made me feel great that stuff that you would think, oh, that's not relevant. Brand new over there. Nigga, when I say brand new, when I'll say they treated me like my name was Richard motherfucking prior. Right, right. They treated, but but most importantly, you know what I love the most, all aside of comedy? It just happened to be 2019. It was the year before the pandemic. Oh, wow. Uh, and I just started a family. So out of all my trips around this entire globe, my greatest trip ever was that trip to Jerusalem. Because I'm a Christian, right? But so I got to go visit the home of Jesus Christ. I got to take my kids to go see Bethlehem. I literally, when you say when they say Jesus walked on water, I have the video on Instagram of me walking on the Sea of Galilee. Like everything that you hear about in the Bible.

SPEAKER_11 1:15:27

Well, I thought you were about to say you had a video of Jesus walking on water. I thought you were gonna say he walked on water.

SPEAKER_10 1:15:32

That one got deleted. Uh-huh. My wife stopped. Why did Jesus came in the business? No, but it was huge. It was huge because we did one week in Europe. That just made it a family thing. We did one week in Europe, and then we did my nine days in Israel. And then what's crazy, I'm staying in Tel Aviv with all this craziness happening now. I'm looking at it, go, dude, I stayed a block away from that bomb head. I stayed too, I went to that place. I went to that place. So it was an amazing family trip, and it was one of my greatest comedy trips because it was the biggest comedy test I've ever like when I say no black people. Yeah. Nothing cool, nothing hip. I wasn't doing any uh Snoop Dogg jokes over there. You know what I mean? I had to dig deep.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:15

And I want to say this as a comedian. Yeah. I want to say this to the young comedians who will watch this, because I'm sure they're watching, is that you gotta be battle tested. And that's why getting on stage wherever you can, whenever you can, and any nook and cranny, it gets you ready for shows like that. It gets you ready for shows that we're gonna do that. Because you never know when you're gonna have to blow the dust off or something.

SPEAKER_10 1:16:38

What's so crazy is I'm damn near 30 years in at that time, and I was feeling like I'm an amateur again. I'm like, dude, you have performed all over the world. Why does it feel like this is gonna be such a test? How am I gonna do it? Yeah. So it was it was a mental win. It was a it was like, I did it. Like it's nowhere else.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:59

What is your writing style? Guy, what we're like, what what what is your writing style?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:02

I w I still write uh word for word, but then I break it down and bullet point it, and then just kind of go over it, study it. But it's things that I can relate to, something that may hit me. I may not use it for years, but I'll I'll write it down.

SPEAKER_10 1:17:14

Did you ever write a joke down four years ago and it's been in your book that whole time and you never use it? Twenty years ago. And then you go back to it and it kills it. Kills, yeah. So that's that my note to the young generation that it's don't everything, it's almost like we're rappers. And you wrote a song 11 years ago, man. That's it, that shit didn't make the album. The homies didn't like it, but you still got that. Hey, get the right beat and the right production and the right coming around and be a hit.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:40

I remember hearing from uh from David Arnold, Peace Upon his.

SPEAKER_10 1:18:03

You gonna have some great dad material. And it's like, I knew I wanted to start a family. Right. I knew I got married. I'm like, let me start writing it. I can't use it yet. Right. And it was like waiting for me. Always right. It was waiting for me in my joke books to win these children came along. So thank you, Halo. Thank you, legend, thank you, trust. Those are my kids.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:21

My brother Joe, real quick, Joe Torrey, those who may be just tuning in, uh, he was telling me he was on a set of Harlem Knights. He was uh he was one of those props that eat on Harlem Nights. But he said Red Fox told him, write one joke a day. 365 days in a year. You'll never run on material. Just write a joke a day. Or even if you didn't write a write a joke, go over one of your jokes and maybe tag it or develop it even more. But if you do that every day, you know, and it's 365 days in a year, because I had to start at one point as take this as a nine, treat this like a nine to five. You know, it's like get up in the morning, you know. People don't see the work that goes behind what we're all doing. Eat right, work out right, and and write every day. Even if it's just even if it's working on your acting or working on something else, or researching the joke that you gotta do. Do something every day, like it's a nine to five job, then get often.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:13

My mentor uh Don Don D. Curry told me one minute. That's my job. One minute a week. Is that you say the game? I'm sorry, he said one minute a week. Got it. And he was like every every every year you'd have a new hour.

SPEAKER_10 1:19:24

52 minutes? Yeah. That's crazy. I never looked at it like that. Me either.

SPEAKER_11 1:19:27

Did you see the movie Honora? No. It won an Academy Award. It's called Honora? It's called Honora. Was this in that? Why are you laughing? You gotta tell me what the We had a debate on this show. Honora is essentially the white players' club. And it won an Academy Award. At the Oscars?

SPEAKER_10 1:19:52

At the Oscars. In the 1800s? Bro, like last year.

SPEAKER_11 1:19:56

The last two years. Last year.

SPEAKER_10 1:19:58

No, it was white strippers. White strippers. Is that spearmint run or instead of magic running? That's a fact. I'm sorry that I know. That's a fact. We was having a debate.

SPEAKER_11 1:20:07

I was hot wings versus sushi. That's right. That's right. Okay. And we was having a debate on this show with uh actor named uh Paige Kennedy because he was saying. I know Paige. Paige was saying a Nora was better than Players Club. I said, ain't nowhere in hell. I said Players Club, I said, it's amazing to me how when a black people do certain things, it doesn't get the notoriety. But when the I saw the You saw that clip?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:30

So yeah. Oh, you said Paige's blood sugar was low too.

SPEAKER_10 1:20:34

You watch every episode of Jump in the Club. Can you text me or give me a clip of what the hell a Nora? I want you to watch it. No, no, I have to. It's the same. So they took the nigga blueprint and made it in the white world. Man, why look? Don't talk about friends like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:52

Don't talk about the sitcom friends like that.

SPEAKER_11 1:20:55

So, but this is the real question I wanted to get to. Cause we go get to these bitches.

SPEAKER_10 1:21:01

This gives me your only two hour episode. They've been running the light on us for the last 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:11

We've been running it. They've been flashing.

SPEAKER_10 1:21:13

You didn't know when you called us that we were gonna run the light, nigga? You knew it.

SPEAKER_11 1:21:22

Did you really think of each other? We do it out. Players club. The bitch, the women.

SPEAKER_10 1:21:29

I need you to what was like being in a 24-7 strip club. Imagine, imagine being in Magic City for 19 hours. Yeah, yeah. And then at that time, I wasn't gonna be single. I indulged. Yeah, uh, I was very hands-on. But they said no sex in the champagne room. Did you have sex in the shit room? Uh brother, uh the answer's yes. Um, but anyway. No, it was wild, man. It was, you know what I loved? Uh Q mixed in like real actresses with real strippers. Oh, beautiful. So that's what was incredible about it. It was like, you know, the real big booty strippers were able to help you out. Cristal.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:14

Crystal, yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:22:15

Cristel is a friend. You know, let me just be honest with you. I made a lot of friends and family off of that beer. No, I'm not even gonna lie. Lisa Wright, not only is she my sister today, Lisa Wright and my wife are damn near best friends now. Man, we need to get a movie with this woman 30 years ago. You know what I mean? Like, like I really stayed now. Some of the girls, it was just a quick, you know, it wasn't a lifetime thing. It was a it was a five-minute thing. You know, you can hope. I was in and I was out. You know what I mean? It was what a hamburger's all about. But when I say out of all the movies I've done, when I tell you that I talk about looking forward to going to work every day, because it didn't feel like working. For all the people, I might let the cat out the back, but this is so many years later. I have people that come up to me, yeah. Like when y'all shot Magic City, uh Players Club in Magic City, I was like, that wasn't Magic City. Like, y'all wasn't even in Atlanta? I'm like, nigga, we were in Chatsworth. Damn, I didn't know that. Well, they make a lot of the 118. We were in the Valley. They make a lot of porn in that. No, no, no, they know. We were down the street from there. I don't know how I know that, but vivid video. Oh, yeah, that it was a set. It wasn't really a strip club, but he really embodied the whole strip club world at that time. And yes, it became a cult classic. Right. Man, it's a cultural classic. Do you know how many girls over there? I have women come up to me. I I was just a guy in the movie. I have women that come up to me and I'll be in a strip club, and they'll be like, do you understand like the reason I'm on the poll today is because a player I'm making the money, making the money letting the money make me? I'm like, how old are you? I'm 23. So your mother lets you watch that at four? And you ended up being on the pole at 25. Or twerking in your pampers.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:59

It's time for the pacifier. It's time for the pacifier.

SPEAKER_10 1:24:03

Twerking in their pampers.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:06

There's some milk in this house. Some milk is hilarious. That's hilarious. Uh uh, okay, so I wanted to ask this. How close did you get to actually doing music? Because some of the jokes, first of all, you're you're you're really tied into that world. Yeah. Uh, between the the albums and and the and and and appearing on Get Richard Die Trying the Son and so forth, and you're surrounded by these people. But I've been in the room when Young Lia comes on. Oh my god. I've been in the room when this with with his closer is a party now. It really is. W what how close did it get? Well, BT, you did videos.

SPEAKER_10 1:24:47

Uh uh BT. Before I got into this business, yeah, I grew up in a musical household. My dad was in a his little band called Earth, Wind and Fire. I grew up with two pianos in the house in every single horn you could be. I grew up, I I have baby pictures of me in the studio with James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, Michael Jackson. My dad was the uh, he started out, so just so everybody knows, Earth, Wind and Fire was called the Phoenix Horns. It was Erdean, Maurice, and my dad, Alexander Thomas Sr. My dad was the wind of Earth, Wind and Fire. He was the trombones and all that.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:25:34

That's my daddy. So I grew up in the music, but but think about it. I was forced. They forced me to play piano. Right. They forced me to do the horn, and I, you know, when you force a kid to do something, you rebel. And I end up telling jokes for a living. Like I was the first thing. But remember, my generation is hip hop. I loved hip-hop. I'm that dude that used to get fights in fights in LA because I loved all hip-hop. You know, because at a certain time it was like, if you're from the East Coast, you only like East Coast. Right. If you're from the West Coast, cuz Nicky, you should just like No, I loved hip-hop. I'm the dude that knew about underground hip-hop in New York, and they would be mad at me. Right. So cut to now I do stand up. Def Comedy Jam comes around. Def Comedy Jam, they started calling me in all the comedy clubs. They would introduce me as the young hip-hop comedian. And I just started talking about. I found a lane. There's so much comedy in this thing called hip-hop. So I just became as the hip-hop comedian, taking songs, flipping songs, talking about scenarios. This was way before the internet and all that kind of shit. So, long story short, cut to Young Liar, only because you bought it up. Yes. Young Liar is my alter ego. Young Liar was like, what's his name? Uh Saser Bear and Cohen Cohen and what's the character in Borad. Chocolate job. Yeah, yeah, that came after me. I know, I know, but I'm saying. But yeah, when Kevin R did, they all I was the first to really do it. But I was really like that guy. Like, I would go deep cover. I would I would perform in strip clubs in Atlanta. Yes. As Young Liar, and them not even know that it's Alex Thomas. Because I really tout that nigga, you feel me? I had a noise and everything. Yeah. My noise. You know how you know Rick Russell, like, oh. Yeah. My shit was ah. That was my shit. But I really had real songs that would bump in strip clubs nationwide. Nobody knew. I got a Lamborghini and a helicopter. That was a near my death looking hella proper. I'm talking about cash. Cash. Cash. But I really think you don't know how many albums I sold on Spotify. Nobody to this day. Well, now talking about that. They had no idea that that was still a Young Liar. This came after Up and Smoke. Oh, I didn't start Young Liar. No, I started Young Liar when old boy Trinidad James came out. 2000. What would you say? This might be this might be 17, 18, 16, 16. And then it got serious. When that I woke up in a new Bugatti. When that went triple platinum, I'm like, nigga, I have to hit the studio. Right. Because the whole joke started out as a joke. The nigga saying I woke up in a Bugatti. No, you didn't. This is your first album. You don't have that kind of money. A Bugatti cost $3 million. Tell the truth. You woke up in your mama's buick. You don't wake up in a Bugatti. So when I started seeing that you can literally lie over beats, and if you get a real and and joke, and then I had a character behind it, and no one knew it was me, it took off.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:43

You do that though. You would randomly do stuff that people don't know as you like the bags for for uh for it's like yeah, yeah, bro. I know all this, but we don't have it. We don't have to make the real thing.

SPEAKER_11 1:28:55

I know, man. We got about it.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:57

Killing it, killing it in the thunder.

SPEAKER_10 1:29:02

We got about questions. Can we get back to the questions? Come after four hours later.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:06

What up, y'all? Thank you for uh watching, man. Listen, we appreciate you, but I need you to go ahead and hit that little subscribe. Don't act. Hit the little subscribe button. Thank you. That didn't take but so long. Look at you. Harmless.

SPEAKER_10 1:29:18

Hold on, hold on. So killing it with the feds. Hold on. No, but the back, the back. I just a long story short, that that lasted for 13 years, the Lewis Stewart collection. I'm no longer the owner of that. We went separate race, but yes, it made millions and millions of dollars. It took off. I was just, I just one of those dudes that I have to say these two three names. Uh, three people that I modeled myself after business-wise, was Russell Simmons, Diddy, and Jay-Z. And what I mean by that, Fat Farm, Rockerware, John John. These dudes made $600 million off a clothing brand, and it had nothing to do with music. Right. I was just always a fly fresh nigga that love accessories. And it literally just took off every star in the world. And it was just, it was just one of my endeavors. My new movement is South Central Country Club. I'm a golfer. It's organic. It really is a part of my life. I all everybody in Black Hollywood would always see me wearing it because I liked it. I wasn't even thinking about putting it on the market till the demand got so high. Where can I buy that? How can I buy that? Working up, I was like, I gotta go into business. And now this is taking off. So South CentralCountryClub.com. If you want to look fly, go get you some food.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:25

This thing, if you was doing those characters on that up a smoke tour, that would have been banana.

SPEAKER_10 1:30:28

Which it was, but I know I know the same.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:33

Everybody's lying.

SPEAKER_10 1:30:35

I spent a million dollars in the club last night. I got 92 bit. I got 32 uh, you know, Maserati's. Like everybody's lying.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:42

Sounds like our administration right, bro.

SPEAKER_10 1:30:44

Pretty much. Pretty much.

SPEAKER_11 1:30:45

I got two last questions. I gotta get to. Trump will be old liar. Orange liar. Orange liar. American History X.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_11 1:30:53

That was. Speaking of racism. I know exactly. American. But a transition. American History X. Edward Norton, um, I want to know, did you learn anything working on a movie like that just as an actor and being around Edward Norton? That was number one. And number two is did anybody call you a nigga on that set? And you was like, hey man, this shit ain't acting.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:18

Funny, funny thing. Well, first of all, Ed is one of the greatest actors, one of the greatest actors of our generation. A fact. And learning from him was uh was watching by watching. It wasn't, you know. And uh he gave me a note one time about camera lenses. I learned how to do the ask what camera lens are you on. And what that means is is like, are you close? Are you here? Are you tight? Are you are you three-quarters or are you wide? And that determines, yeah, that determines your movement. Because if you're tight, you can't do a lot of head movement because you'll be all off. When you're wide, you can do it wide. So when you when they shoot like that, they shoot wide, you can ask. He would have to do it. I saw him ask. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I would like, oh, okay, I learned that way, you know. So, and and like I said, you know, I was green. I was green then. I it's so funny because I just booked my first sitcom, which was good news on UPN, and we were we shot the pilot.

SPEAKER_11 1:32:10

R.I.P. the UPN.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:11

Man, it was lit, though. It was fire, it was fire, it was fire. We shot the pilot and we ended at like 2 a.m. And I had to be on the set for American Strax at 6 a.m. So I literally had to go home, shower, get like an hour and a half nap in, and shoot down uh to uh to the set for American Strax. But it it was so it was such a tense set because Ed Norton and the director hated each other and they didn't get along. And I was in the middle of a lot of those fights. Were they argue? Big time. In front of the set. In front of everybody. Oh wow. Because the thing about it is, you know, you all know, blocking is usually gonna take, you know, maybe 15, 20 minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think blocking would take an hour, two hours. Because they couldn't see, and I would, and I would be like, you know what, I'll be in my trailer. Y'all raised the show. So they were holding up production. Oh yeah. And a difference of opinion. And Ed, rightfully, you know, he he had his way that it should go, but he I think his methods were the method he did about it was wrong. Was he co-director? No.

SPEAKER_10 1:33:12

See, that's when you can kill it right there. And you just go, uh, excuse me. But but here's the I'm the director. Now, if we're both directing, I have to respect your vision on the shot also. But if I'm not the director, he's the star though, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:24

He was the star. And and and the director, this is his first movie. A rock or something.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:28

Yeah, but that's who he is, though. Norton's like that because that's what happened on Marvel. That happened on a lot of a lot of things. Yeah, he's a great actor, don't get it twisted.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:34

But he cares so much about the project that I get why he does it, because he wants it to be right. Yeah, he wants it to be great. But it's just it may be, and then now that he's an older actor, because American Sex was only his his second film. He had done Primal Fear, he had done Primal Fear, which he should have won an Oscar for. He got cheated on that. They gave the Cuba good, which Cuba did, well, but what he did in Primal Fear was. Money Talks. I mean, not Money Talks. Show me the money. Show me the money. So Jerry Maguire. Jerry Maguire. Right. Jeremy Maguire. So so Ed, it was only Ed's second film. And so, I mean, uh the uh Fight Club came out before making sex because they held the movie was held up in post. Because of all the they fired a director, Tony K. Shout out to Tony K, because him and Ed had too much of a difference, and it was just a chaotic piece of thing to work on, but I used that all that stress on that movie for my character. I'm in jail. You know what I'm saying? It was a it was tense on the set because the director had real skinheads on the set. Like he went to Orange County and like bust in, like busts a skinhead.

SPEAKER_10 1:34:34

So the skinheads were extras.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_10 1:34:36

Wow. Yes, they were props that. And they have to tell them, Willie, you know, you can't really stab somebody to do that. Right, right.

SPEAKER_11 1:34:42

I know that's real, that's authentic, but you can say as much as you can think.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:46

And they and they and look, and they wanted to rehearse lines. They had one line. Can we rehearse? Yeah, we had one line. Rehearse guy. I just want to make sure. All you gotta do is say nigga, you gotta rehearse that. But no, man, it was it was it was a great, it was a movie that really uh introduced me to Hollywood as an actor, mainstream Hollywood.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:05

And and crazy because they saw me right here. Wow. They saw me in Fat Tuesdays.

SPEAKER_10 1:35:11

Oh, that's how they found you.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:12

They came to see Tommy Davidson.

SPEAKER_10 1:35:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:16

At the time, my manager, shout out to Jeff Chetty. Man, right, shout out to Jeff Chetty, who was my manager at the time. I did the Aspen Comedy Festival. And he was like, God, there's so many industry people that are not here. You're gonna kill it up there. He said, What I'm gonna do is I need a Tuesday night. I need you to give me 250 free tickets. And I'm gonna invite industry down there who didn't come to Aspen to see you. He said, I'm gonna do a special show. I just want you and Tommy Davidson on the show. And at the time, me and Danny Green was tight, and I was like, well, no, what? What about he said, no, just you and Tommy Davidson? I said, okay. I said, but I need somebody to open for me. I said, I need I can't go cold. Even though five minutes. He said, well, yeah, have Danny go up and do to me. I said, cool. I came back and told Dan, I said, Danny, look, it's gonna be 250 industry. That's gotta be on. I said, nigga, bring your best shit. I said, do 10 minutes. Bring your A game. Bring do 10 minutes and bring me on. We go. And then I did it, but they they came down to see Tommy. And they heard my set. Not that I was any funnier than Tommy, but my set was more about being race, how stupid racism is. My my subject matter suited the role better. Plus, plus I was a lot cheaper than Tommy James. You know that was your audition then. And I didn't know that, I didn't even know they were there.

SPEAKER_10 1:36:31

Yeah, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:32

I didn't know they were there. And so I ended up getting the role because of Fat Tuesdays. Flip two years prior, they came to see me uh in the belly room for a role for in a movie, and you were on that lineup too. They were there to see you too. I don't know if you're doing or not. But I knew they were there to see me, and I get a call earlier that day from Chris Tucker. Say, hey man, I need to go up tonight. I said, Okay, I got you. And I remember that night, Chris blew the roof off that shit. Killed it. Fifth element.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:59

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:00

I didn't know they came to see Chris, and I didn't know you was you was on the list. Oh wow. You didn't know you went up there. We didn't know about it.

SPEAKER_10 1:37:07

It's kind of better that you didn't know because you, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:37:09

Somebody, somebody I know somebody who was a casting assistant on that movie, and they said, Yeah, you were on the list, Alex Thomas was on the list, and Chris Tucker. I didn't know Chris, they were came, I just thought they came to see me. But I when Chris got the part, I wasn't mad. I was like, hey, they they started Fat Tuesdays. I ain't tripping. Then when I saw the movie, I was like, Yeah, I would have heard I would have heard that role.

SPEAKER_11 1:37:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:29

Right?

SPEAKER_11 1:37:29

Yeah, that's a classic role he did.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:31

He killed it. Yeah. So I wouldn't have taken it to that level.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:34

Uh that's a great segue. And both you guys could answer this. Uh-oh! We need to have some bird talk. Uh what out of uh we got movies, we got TV, we got writing, we got running the show, we got bags. Where did you see financial wins? And you don't have to get specifically into the numbers, but when you saw if you don't want to. Yeah, yeah, if you don't want to, I did absolutely touring. Uh uh you were touring with you you guys have both hairline comedy clubs for years. Where did you see big money from? Where did you see substantial? Oh, this is I'm in a I'm moving stuff around, you know, I could support my family differently. It is things are good.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:16

I would say, I I mean, I'm honestly when you say, you know, some we make money, but the money money is doing Fat Tuesdays. That was the most important thing. More than TV and film? Yeah, that was a good one. Oh, oh, oh, oh, you're talking about earlier. No, not the night, I'm sorry. The documentary. Thank you for clarifying that. Yes, the documentary Fat Tuesdays.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:38

Really?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:38

Yeah, because I because I was executive producer. Uh I I my archives that I used that they they they and and also as a as a as a you know as the creator.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_10 1:38:52

And me, man, it was an accumulation of stuff. You know, because a lot of things that I did, it was never like the star of these things. But the things that I was a part of, they really did well. And I didn't, I'm gonna be honest with you, I didn't realize how much sometimes I was making until some of those huge residual checks came. And when those huge residual residual echoes, God thank God, you know, you always hear about that. You get you get a big check off of uh, you know, something you did 20 years ago, and the checks keep coming. But I'm not gonna lie to you, I've had um residual checks that are $1.32. I got one for three cents. Yeah, but I've also got that too. But I've also got residual checks to be $175,000 when I didn't respect it. $200,000, $40,000, $50,000. So it was never just one thing. Yeah, everything, I feel like everything paid me in its own way. You know, writing on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, okay, that was a great check. Money on the as I as a regular character on my first major TV show, uh, you know, Jamie Foxx show. You know, regular check. But then you'll get something like, I'm not gonna lie to you, a movie that I so-called was a star in, but then I get a movie that I was cut out of, and the check be nine times more. Like, for example. Wait a minute, really? Nigga, when I tell you like for example, for example, I got cut out a movie and I don't get no resistance from that fucking movie. Well, you ready for this? I I'm not gonna tell a long story because I know you gotta hurry. Yeah, man, shit, but take like something like Players Club. It was, you know, hey, it's a hood classic, but it was a real movie. Got some good money. But nigga, I got cut out of castaway. One of the biggest movies of time. I had I you know how crushed I was when I got cut two weeks before the premiere? I'm up here. Well, you got to start, I started a website with me, uh, Helen Hunt, and and and and Tom Hanks.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:51

And a volleyball. Wilson, nigga.

SPEAKER_10 1:40:55

No, no, literally, a lot of people don't know this. I was the manager, I was the fleet manager at FedEx before the plane took off. I thought my life was going to change.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:05

Man, no. That would have been great.

SPEAKER_10 1:41:07

I'm doing pic. I got a picture of me, Helen Hunt, and in time as the fleet manager. I got cut out the movie. But long story short, biggest resentments I've ever had in my life. And I'm not even gonna talk about that one. Because I would have loved to be in the movie, dude. Same here. I got a suit made for the premiere. Okay? Not only that, but I would have been looked at different. Now when I'm at these country clubs, these white country, they would have been known who Alex Thomas was. No, it just was more the black things. I I not knocking the black things, because guess what? God bless me with that. My family was able to eat, and it was great notoriety for me. But that white money, that, that, that, that castaway movie, I could be like, I don't gotta work again.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:52

But you know what I'm saying? So I got cut out of Stuck on You.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:55

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:56

Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon. Wow. Yeah. And I'm telling, and I was like, man, this is this is good. I mean, I this is this is after American Shreks and Purb and all the other stuff. It was just, you know, big fan of Matt Damon, because you know, I'm a boring guy, Jason Boring guy. But anyway, I got cut out and I get no residuals from that.

SPEAKER_10 1:42:17

I think what happened was I had to find out through the Drake Bond because I didn't know until the checks started coming. It's like if you get cut out like on the third cut, almost like um, say the movie's coming out June 1st. It's almost like with an album. Yeah. Right? You had 22 songs, but uh, you know, uh Virgin, what you'd only do, or Interscope said you can only fit 16 on that. And you've been they've been fighting for it, and it's like they've been fighting for it, and like, dude, but those other ones are bangers.

SPEAKER_11 1:42:43

I've heard I've heard someone else say that though. What you're saying, I heard somebody was in an animated film or something, and they got cut out and they still get residual.

SPEAKER_10 1:42:49

I think it was because the like whatever the word, the technical word for last minute, like when I say last minute, I guess the final cut before they were about to go to print, my scene got cut out. Let me tell you why I got cut out.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:02

That's why you gotta sit down. I play a street hustler in on right on uh Hollywood Boulevard, and Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon are stuck on you, that's their Siamese twins stuck together. I come up and hustle them, right? Funny scene. I'm ad-libbing. They we've made it great funny, right? Wardrobe put me in a Lakers jersey, a sh a Shaq jersey. Oh wow. A Lakers jersey, and they did not clear it with the NBA. Oh so when you're doing a negative character, wow, you can't have recognizable stuff on. You have to clear it, copyright, you're right. And I'm like, and and I and like we both know Jeannie Buzz. If I'd have known that, I'd have called Jeannie, Jeannie, clear this, please. Jesus Christ. So but they didn't clear with the NBA. If the star had the Laker jersey on, they would have had to keep it. Right, exactly. And and and I was only in, it's like one scene, two-parter. Damn. Uh but but the thing about it is, and I I had live, I was I was I was a fire. It was on fire. And the thing about it is, is I have I have the scene because it's in it's on the DVD in the deleted scenes. So it's part so it's part I can show it to you. But it's on my reel because it's like it's Greg in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a character I hadn't played, so it's part of my acting reel because it was there. But I got here's one thing that was fucked up about it. I'm watching TV one day, my back is to the TV, the trailer runs. I hear my voice, boom, I look, I'm there, but my jersey is CG eyed out. It's blacked out, and it looked weird. So why couldn't they just do that for the whole damn movie? They could do it for the trailer, but it would look weird for the whole scene. And when you see the scene, you'll see, why? That's like halfway doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:40

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:41

Right. So, and I'm like, I heard my voice, and I'm like, that's me. And then the jersey's black, I'm like, okay, well, maybe they'll do it for the whole movie.

SPEAKER_07 1:44:49

They could have done it with the A.

SPEAKER_10 1:44:50

But they why does the jersey say cringe all high?

SPEAKER_07 1:44:55

One last thing. Just um, and then just thinking about this for a moment, but you guys are doing really great. And I know you guys have to edit this. No, no, no. No, we're gonna cut the podcast. We're gonna open up saying this is such a great part two.

SPEAKER_10 1:45:08

I'm gonna really go back. All this shit that we talked about before you so-called introduced me. Please don't say you're cutting all that. That was some good. You know how it is with four comics sitting together, you know, I'm gonna speak. I'm gonna let you know.

SPEAKER_11 1:45:21

I didn't tell the other day, but you're not gonna be a little bit more than a lot of people. I already knew this was gonna be I already knew this was gonna be a two-hour episode, and I already knew this is gonna probably be like 10, 12 clips because I already knew the stories and stuff like that that y'all had to drop. But that's why we wanted to do this episode.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:37

Also, some of the just like you said, some of the, at least for me, I know for probably is is friends and it's catching up.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:43

Like, you know, and and and the parts you haven't cut out the podcast, use for just clips. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_10 1:45:51

We're gonna clip, we're gonna discipline by yourself. Like you don't have an escape. It's an engineer back there. Yeah, Aaron back there. This is dope, by the way. Because what I want to do, I'm just yeah throwing this out, I always do this every time. When you so-called say it's over with cut, whatever, I I want him to come out, and what I do is I'm gonna have him take three or four shots of us like we were in act. Like somebody is.

SPEAKER_11 1:46:10

This is what then this is when people stop listening. To the to the We got you. We got we're gonna. Oh, yeah, you're talking about like the BTS. Yeah, the BTS, we got it.

SPEAKER_10 1:46:20

Oh, we're gonna. Yeah, so Ts will be like, nigga, off the picture, people go, nigga, it look like y'all know a ball.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:27

We got it, we got shout out to y'all, man, for doing this, man. I love it. Oh, absolutely. Oh, thank you, man.

SPEAKER_11 1:46:33

But we'll try to get the last question. Yes, the last question.

SPEAKER_07 1:46:36

Last question is Um, if everything and everyone you you lost was in a box, what would you search for first?

SPEAKER_10 1:46:42

Say that question with me.

SPEAKER_07 1:46:44

If everything you had lost, and that would include people, whatever that may be, if it was in a box, what would you search for first?

SPEAKER_02 1:46:52

Man, I can it be a person? Sure. Be my mama. Mama, my prayer warrior. My dad was great too. Don't get it twisted. They were together 53 years, but my mama, you know, mamas are different. Mamas are different. It'd be my mom.

SPEAKER_10 1:47:05

That's not an easy. I know it's gonna sound crazy. I know it sounds like a game show, but could you use that in a sentence? I say the question I'm talking about. You said one, but I'm going, I'm my answer is gonna be different if that's okay. No, for sure, just whatever you may listen to.

SPEAKER_07 1:47:21

Whatever you may have lost in your life, if it was all in a box, what would you search for first?

SPEAKER_10 1:47:25

It has to be something that you actually lost already.

SPEAKER_07 1:47:28

Something, someone, whatever it is, what would you search for first? Family, job, career.

SPEAKER_09 1:47:35

I'm not gonna lie. My childhood. Wow. Oh. My childhood, man.

SPEAKER_10 1:47:44

No, no, no. Make me really think about it. For sure. You know what I mean? Because sometimes you turn back, what if it was different? Where would I have been? I don't know if anybody else has ever thought like that. Right. Yeah. If the if the if the if the shoe was on the other foot different, the shoe was on the other foot, if if my circumstances were different, you know, like wow, like that's what I'd like to. I don't know if that makes sense. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:09

If the shoe was on the other foot, you'd be on the spectrum, nigga. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:48:13

You can't say nothing around it. It's gone. It's done. Like you got, wow, I wish I could do this different. I wish I could do that different. But then again, everybody's got a different route.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:23

And that's how and you got where you are is with your journey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I wouldn't change any of the bags.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:29

Uh this so this game is uh keep three, kill five. Oh my god. That's all right. So I'm gonna I'm gonna randomly give you a topic.

SPEAKER_10 1:48:38

Keep three.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:39

I'm gonna name these things off blindly. So if you think it's great, you gotta hold on to it because you only get to keep three. You don't know to keep it to ourselves? No, I'm saying it's it's so there's gonna be like it's almost like doing the top five list, but you're only doing three, but you don't know what's coming.

SPEAKER_10 1:48:55

Got it.

SPEAKER_11 1:48:55

Start with that. So you just want to. Together, we gotta we gotta roll.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:00

Um the LA you to find school.

SPEAKER_10 1:49:03

I mean, these are fast, though. So you just keep it to the city. The batteries are about to run out on the camera.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:06

All right, so so I got because I got one for both of y'all, but it's just keep or kill. So for for uh guy, I got uh I got I got top five, I got I got three, you keep three of these Lakers, you cutting five of them.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:18

Oh man, you know.

SPEAKER_10 1:49:20

I'm the best Laker fan of the fan. Nah, I'm gonna be born and raised in this shit. I don't care. I was in St. Louis.

SPEAKER_08 1:49:25

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. You flew here, I grew here.

SPEAKER_10 1:49:29

Next day, for you for the purple. And I'm wearing purple and gold.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:36

For you, I got West Coast songs. Okay, go. All right, so uh let me ask you. So for so let's go, Lakers. Uh Derek Fisher, keep or cut, or keep or kill.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:45

Oh man.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:46

Keep.

unknown 1:49:47

Keeper.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:48

You know, remember, you don't know who's coming next. I know. I'm a gifted. You get to keep three. Okay. Okay. Oh shit. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:49:55

But is it gonna be a starting five?

SPEAKER_06 1:49:56

No, it's only gonna be three. Okay, guys. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:19

Magic.

SPEAKER_10 1:50:20

There we go.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:22

The last one was you kept Derek Fisher.

SPEAKER_06 1:50:26

You cut James Worthy. You cut uh you killed Jerry West, you killed Robert Rory, you kept Kobe, you kept Magic. You kept Magic, you cut Luca, and the last one that you would have ended up keeping if you didn't was Samaki Walker, so good job.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:39

Let me tell why I kept why I kept popcorn while he played on the movie.

SPEAKER_10 1:50:45

Let me tell you a clip why I kept why I kept Fisher.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:47

I kept Fisher because Fisher was the glue that kept that team together.

SPEAKER_10 1:50:52

Let's not forget about the shops from big shop Bob, but I know. That's why I paused.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:58

That's why I paused.

SPEAKER_10 1:50:58

But I knew you had, I thought you were gonna come up with Shaq or Kareem somewhere in there, but that's why he's all over the place. So it might be so I'm funny. I gotta give him a. I'm a Laker fan. I know. Come on, bruh. Okay. I'm a Kareem Rush fan. You have to really be a Laker fan. He just said Kareem Rush or Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Oh, okay. I know. Hey, Kareem Rush.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:21

Come on, man. Alright, so these are uh West Coast songs. Ambitions as a Rider.

SPEAKER_09 1:51:28

Kill.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:29

Okay. Kendrick, alright. Keep.

unknown 1:51:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_10 1:51:33

Kill or what?

SPEAKER_06 1:51:34

Kill uh keeper kill. Kill mean you get rid of it. Keeping means you. I said keep it. You said you said keeper keeper Kendrick, alright. Uh explosive.

SPEAKER_09 1:51:45

Kill.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:47

Regulators.

SPEAKER_09 1:51:49

Kick.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:50

Jin and juice. Oh, you gotta keep that. So that's your three.

SPEAKER_10 1:51:54

So you so you kept no, you can keep going, but amen.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:57

Yeah, so you so you so you killed Ambestus as a writer, you kept Kendrick all right, you killed Explosive, you kept regulators, and I mean you kept gin and juice and you kept Warren G. And regulators.

SPEAKER_10 1:52:09

But if I don't say West Coast those three.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:11

It don't, yeah. You you killed. So the ones that was left that are officially killed are this is how we do it. Oh man. Drop it like it's hot, and Afropuffs. No, you won. You won.

SPEAKER_11 1:52:27

I'm about to say, Bobby, I'll appreciate that. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey man, thank y'all for pulling up, man. We had two legends up in here today, man. Appreciate the game, the stores. Let people know where they can find y'all at, y'all social medias. Hey, and I have fun. That's what it's supposed to be. That's good time, man. That's what's supposed to be, man.

SPEAKER_10 1:52:44

I don't know if it has to do, because we know you niggas. Probably. And family. And we like you guys. We know a lot of people, bro.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:52

You treat everybody well. When y'all, hey, when y'all go, when you go back to the golf course, tell them it's good, good time. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_11 1:52:58

It's like, yeah, tell Marlon. Tell Chris. Tell Spencer. Tell Joe. Because here's what happened.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:05

Yeah, because uh we got sick of the idea of if you were promoting something or creating something, you had to go to the Breakfast Club. You got to go to Joe Button, you gotta go to 85 South, you gotta go way over there to go promote. So that's what we build. All of them great platforms. All of them great platforms. God damn, this is LA, baby.

SPEAKER_10 1:53:23

Come on, man. I get it. Come on, man. I'm just curious, because it's just what I'm about to say. Editing, as far as this goes, isn't it? BT will be reviewing this episode. But the fact you know right now.

SPEAKER_11 1:53:34

I said reviewing this goddamn episode. Uh we take turns.

SPEAKER_07 1:53:40

Oh, you got it? Let me know. I do enjoy the game.

SPEAKER_11 1:53:43

Oh, no, okay, well, good. Good.

SPEAKER_07 1:53:46

He's too excited.

SPEAKER_10 1:53:48

You look like a water boy on the lake. No, no, no, no. That little insight topic we just had.

SPEAKER_11 1:53:54

What did you just say, what are you saying? We watch the episodes afterwards just individually on your own. Yeah, yeah, with your own note. We take turns just to make sure it's edited by missed anything. And if anything, if we need to cut out anything, whatever the case is. What do you guys ever debate? Yo, you gotta keep that scene when he went. We ain't never had enough debate about it. We kind of trust. Yeah, we trust each other. Okay. But just some of the. Wow, that's amazing. Send that to us.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:20

When we get off of here, we're gonna put these medals on, and you gotta tell the Lakers story about the keeping the team together. But uh go ahead.

SPEAKER_11 1:54:26

But just some of the episodes be longer than others. It's a long one. I they know it's a long one. How long was it in? It's two hours. And you know, we gotta go. It takes days or what's up. I be reviewing clips. I do a lot of things.

SPEAKER_10 1:54:37

That's just let you know it was a lot of great content here.

SPEAKER_11 1:54:39

Absolutely. Absolutely. That's a good problem to have. Oh, that's oh, oh. The clips gonna be amazing. The clips gonna be amazing. Y'all got some good visuals with the clips and all that stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah. We killing it. Okay. No, dope name. We're doing very, very well. Thank you.

SPEAKER_10 1:54:52

Thank you. Y'all need to do the killing it tour and sell them t-shirts. We will. That's the first one.

SPEAKER_11 1:54:57

I see it. I just made the I just made this. Yeah. It's coming. It's coming. We got the logo. It's coming. It's coming. But the plan is, anybody that stayed this long, you a real fan. The plan is to take this act on the road maybe next year. Absolutely. You know, just continue to build.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:13

That's right. Don't hope anything. That's right. Maybe. Speaking of the thing.

SPEAKER_11 1:55:16

Speaking of next year, we're going to be touring, killing it. Absolutely. You know what I'm saying? And I can promise you it's going to be something you ain't never experienced before.

SPEAKER_10 1:55:24

Absolutely. What's y'all's socials? Oh, yeah. So uh what's what's the camera? Right here? Yeah. Uh my Instagram, funny man Alex Thomas. All one word, funny man. Alex Thomas. If you want to pick up some South Central Country Club merch, go to South CentralCountry Club.com or go to uh on Instagram at South Central Country Club.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:46

Uh check out the Fat Tuesday documentary on Amazon Prime. You'll love it. Check me out, guyTory.com, and I have five websites, but just go to guyTory.com and you'll get to the other one. I have 17 websites. I'm a little nervous, sis.

SPEAKER_10 1:56:02

I heard somebody say that I have 11 websites. I got five. The reason I ask you guys about editing, is it coming up? Like, is you are we talking two weeks, a month? Because I got a big show coming up. So I'm like, Oh no, it'll be a while ago. It'll be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:16

All right, well, while uh May 9th, I'm at the uh upstairs in downtown LA at uh.

SPEAKER_11 1:56:21

This is coming out in 2029.

SPEAKER_10 1:56:28

And you guys will never hear about them.

SPEAKER_11 1:56:30

But uh, yeah, go see him. If you can go back in time, make it up.

SPEAKER_08 1:56:33

May night. May night.

SPEAKER_11 1:56:34

May touring all over, man. Go ahead, bro. Uh hey man, make sure you like, comment, subscribe, man. Leave your favorite moments in the comment section. Uh, tell your friends about the show, man. We've been your host, Justin Hyas. London Brown. B T King. And this has been the one and only Guy Tori and Alex Thomas. We're killing it.