A drunk driving story and the best books I've read this year

Kind of a bonus episode. Xai and I will be back tomorrow to talk about the 3 drake albums but I couldn't stand the idea of being late with the show so I recorded a podcast while driving down to a show in Vancouver, Wa. It's a lil stream of consciousness at first and then I yap about literature. Thanks for listening, please hit the buttons. 

Transcript

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It's me. Mm-mm. It's me. That's cool.

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With Angelic H proclaim Christ is born in Bethlehem. Alright, welcome to the whatever episode of the Krim World Podcast.

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I am your host, Krim Burley. Thank you for listening, tapping the play button on whatever podcast listening app you use. I would ask kindly that on whatever podcast playing app you use, you leave us a like, you leave us a comment, you subscribe, you hit all the buttons. That helps us grow. That lets me know I'm not wasting my time. I'm coming from I'm your host, Krimberley, of course, at Crimberlay 2D on all platforms. I am coming to you live from i5 South, headed from Seattle down to Vancouver, Washington. About a three-hour drive, where upon arrival, I will be doing some stand-up comedy and then driving back about six hours round trip on a Sunday baby for about seven minutes of stage time. That's the life. I'm in a comedy contest. Vancouver's funniest person. I would say you could come next week, but I don't know if I'm gonna win. I wanna, I'd love to project confidence and say, nah, I'm dead, I definitely got this, but I've done too many comedy competitions to be cocky at this point. I used to be a very cocky person. Um if you're not a comedian, you might not be aware of the phenomena I wouldn't say phenomena, of the the comedy competition circuit. It's kind of uh a requirement. I wouldn't say it's a requirement, but if you're a lower to medium stand-up com comic, you often find yourself doing comedy contests. There's a lot of reasons why. The the biggest reasons, of course, are ego and money. Most comedy con I don't remember I don't know what the purse for this one is. The purse. I don't know what the purse for this one is. It's at least I I did the math, it's at least enough for me to cover my gas, so that's good enough for me to go down there and to get some stage time and hopefully uh pat my ego a little bit. Um yeah, I f the comedy contest as a comedian who does them, it is I'm at a good point in my like sense of self-assuredness and confidence as a comedian that I no longer let the results of the comedy contest really fuck with me. But there was a point where I was like, I think I have to stop doing these because I am just too devastated after everyone. And I think what really fucked me up was the first competition I ever did was kind of the best I've ever done, and in a weird way, is the best I I've ever done comedically uh since. It was the first year I competed in Portland's Funniest Person, uh uh a citywide, statewide contest run by Helium Comedy Club down in Portland, Oregon. And I've been doing comedy for about seven months less than a year when I registered or started in that competition. I made it to pass two rounds to the finals, um, competing against truly like the the best some of the best comedians in the Pacific Northwest. Um punched well above my weight, and the set I did is kind of like the clip I I wouldn't say is like crazy viral, but my most popular clips online uh are still from the set I did at the semifinals of this contest where I do the four types of white people. Uh this the four types of white people as like a full set on YouTube has like a hundred thousand views, and every time I clip it up uh into smaller pieces, it the two or there's two or three smaller pieces of the joke that have like a couple hundred thousand views online as well, and those are like my best performing clips I've ever had, and and that's the best I've ever did in a comp done in a competition, and at that this point that was seven years ago. So it definitely like I said, now I'm chiller with it, but it it it got to a point afterwards where it's just very frustrating to like because the best thing about comedy contests as like uh like the the m the best the most utility they have for you as a comedian is understanding your place and like measuring your progression as a comic, right? Like if the first year I did got didn't make it past the first round, but then the second year I made it past the first round, and the third year I didn't make it past you know, if there was like a progression, then I'd be like, okay, cool, I'm slowly getting better, this all makes sense. But when you go like, oh, alright, finals first year, second time I do it, don't make it past the first round, you're like, Oh, I there's no way I'm just like much worse now, is there? Um so yeah, that that's where a lot of my the difficulty I had, uh the difficult feelings I had around comedy contests started. And um yeah, now I I'm just really confident. And not to say I'm the best comedian of all time, that I like deserve to win every contest I'm in, but I'm very confident in my growth as a comedian and and the jokes I do. And you know, I I still like to use contests as like a measuring stick to see how good I am. Like I'd like to be someone to me, I'd like to be someone who is like, okay, every time I do one of these, I know I can make it to at least the finals. Because once you get to the finals, uh, you know, the the futility of the comedy contest is it is ultimately an art contest and art is subjective. Now, what makes comedy interesting is like, you know, as opposed to something like music or like painting, there's you can like measure the response to it uh with laughter, uh of course, like you know, uh uh in a battle of the bands, obviously like whoever the audience cheers for the loudest at the end is the winner, but it's still like you know, while the bands are performing, i i it's just harder to measure. You understand what I'm saying. Comedy, uh a bad a bad comedy set is obvious and everyone knows it from start to finish, and uh, you know, a good one is the same. Or it's like, I mean, the more I'm talking this out, I'm like, is it really any different than music? Uh uh But I mean, in in both instances, uh you c what you could say is, okay, what who are who are in the what type of people, what are the demographics of the crowd? Uh, you know, if I was competing in contests with all black audiences, I'm sure the results of the contest would be very different than all the results, than the results I've experienced. And I'm not saying I would win them all. That's preposterous. I don't think I'm just like, you know, automatically funnier to black people than any white comic. But what I'm trying to make it the point of is uh it's all in the eye of the beholder. So it is kind of you know futile to hang your opinion of yourself on, you know, the opinions of a hundred random strangers that went to one club on one night in July. So I I'm excited. All that all said, if I don't win, I will be there will be a moment where I'm like, fuck this, I was the funniest. Um and if I do win, I probably, you know what, I since a couple comedy contests ago, uh the last time I did Portland's funniest, I told myself if I win, I'm gonna buy myself a gold chain. Or maybe it was the first Vancouver's I did. Um, but basically three comedy contests ago, I told myself if I win, I would allow myself to buy a nice gold chain and I have yet to win. So more than than the, I mean the prize money for each contest was cool too, but more than the prize money, I want to earn a chain. That's what this is for. So yeah, uh, that's why I'm driving uh and recording the podcast right now. This is technically probably gonna be like a bonus episode because there's still gonna be uh another episode this week. Zy and I are gonna record tomorrow. It was hard to record this weekend because I chose Saturday and Sunday and um went Friday, well, he just wasn't feel Zai wasn't feeling well. And also I'm I'm a little happy we're gonna stretch, wait it out a little bit because you know, we're gonna do probably a whole episode about the new Drake album and or the new Drake albums plural and uh that motherfucker put out 40 songs, so I know me, uh you know, we decided, you know, the night before when when the album albums dropped, we're like, all right, we're definitely gonna pot about this tomorrow before I think either of us realized we're gonna I'm in listening to 40 songs in 24 hours, which I ended up doing, but you know, I'll save my I'll reserve my takes about the album until we hop on tomorrow night. But yeah, I'm happy we get some time to breathe with the music and maybe even pay attention to or talk about the reception it's been getting because a lot's happened in terms of you know people's receptions and the White House doing a parody of his album cover, but for MAGA, you know, uh the f the the Iceman Fallout, if you will. So that's why I'm doing this one. I I'm I'm so locked in. Crazy way to start a sentence, but I'm so yeah, locked in. I'm locked into growing this podcast, I'm locked into doing this consistently, and the idea of having an episode even a day late uh is making me bug out. So I'm gonna I'm gonna have this one for y'all, and then boom, we're gonna drop another one for y'all. Shout out to DJ Khaled and LeBron uh hopefully Monday night, Tuesday morning. Uh, like I said, I am driving right now. I don't know if this is illegal. I am holding the microphone because I have to. Um don't worry about me, I would say. I have actually unfortunately done, I haven't done Seattle to Vancouver, but I've done Olympia to Portland, which is uh a comparable drive, two of the three hours. I've done that blackout drunk, and that's not a flex. I'm just letting you know. I know, I know five south. I know, I know five south. Uh yeah, that is I I was just reflecting on um being drunk, having done this drive drunk before. And I'm just so grateful I'm sober now, y'all. Like I'm not I don't talk a ton about sobriety, um, especially not in my comedy, partly because I find the way people talk about sobriety uh in both the context of like real regular life and uh on stage to generally be annoying and hard to listen to, whether you're sober or not. Uh I I truly think it's the most personal of decisions, and I d I don't like the idea of being like anyone should or shouldn't. Like obviously I think if you think you have a problem, I think that's worth exploring. And that doesn't mean you have to, you know, cut out whatever you're doing right now, but I think, you know, bring some mindfulness to any part of your body, uh any part of your life or experience that, you know, you you feel away about. That's bringing up some friction that you're wondering about, that you're thinking about a lot. Because that means there's probably room for growth and some capacity. And uh, you know, I know when you're drinking that the idea of not drinking sounds really hard and scary uh and boring. And I would say it is hard. No, no, no, no. It is boring. I'm not gonna cat. I mean, I'm not gonna people say like uh my life is definitely more mundane than it was when I wasn't drinking. Like that's no question. Like that's uh that's that's something at this point I enjoy. That's a feature I enjoy. I like my life was too crazy when I was drinking. You if you're like, ah, my life's gonna be boring if I stop drinking, you probably could go for uh like 15% more boring. And I I fear now I have veered into the territory of sounding annoying while talking about not drinking. So I'm gonna I well I wanted to tell a story because I've never obviously that that uh two-hour blackout drive I did from Olympia to Portland, uh I didn't crash. I will I don't know, I said obviously, you don't know that. I didn't crash, I made it safely. I I used to drunk drive all the time, like every day. Uh I mean I was drunk all the time, every day, and I had a job and responsibilities that I still had to tend to. So uh, you know, that's that's how that went. And I've never thankfully my driving record is still clean, like no DUIs, no recs, whatever, which is crazy because there was one day, and maybe I'll ask Xai, what he remembers about this day, because Xai, uh the story does involve Xai in some capacity. But one day I was it was I was gonna go pick up my friend. It was a s it was at a point where I wasn't working, and you know, COVID, end of COVID, still getting unemployment. Uh if you were an alcoholic, just uh just a fucked up time to be you, because you're like, oh, free money, and I don't have a job, I'm getting drunk every day immediately. So I polished off a bottle of white wine uh before noon, and I was going to go pick up my friend so we could make music, and I swear, and I at this time, at this point, this was um probably 2021, 2022, uh maybe 2022. I think at this point, I had got someone gave me a car. I don't talk about it a lot, but COVID 2020 to 2022, I I had so much motion in Portland, it was crazy. And that's at one point someone gave me a car, but the car, the brakes were like really shot, and they were like, you should probably replace these brakes quick, but like here's a free car. And I was like, Cool, I'm an alcoholic, so I'm not really gonna think about the brakes thing you said again. I'm I'm just gonna that's just you know, and I uh what am I gonna do? Go to a mechanic and get my brakes fixed with my unlimited free money from the government. No, so I'm driving uh maybe less than five minutes from my street. As you know, they say that's where most or less than five minutes from my house, that's where most crashes happen within like a mile of your house one way or the other. That's an interesting statistic. Um but yeah, I I'm driving down a hill, someone just breaks really hard in front of me. I think because someone was crossing at a crosswalk. I I don't really, I'm not, as you can imagine, I'm not my reaction time isn't stellar, uh, one bottle of uh 7-Eleven wine in. So I react kind of slowly. I don't hit this car, but my brakes, I slam on my brakes, as you know, brakes are pretty much shot. So that's not helping. Uh, and I'm getting close to this car. I don't want to crash into this car, and not crashing into this car. Wow. Uh like this whole story is fucked up, but I did I did save myself a lot of a lot more trouble because I swerved uh onto the sidewalk into like a bus shelter, like one of those like glass boxes that has like uh fucking benches in it where people wait for the bus. Drove my car straight through one of those. No damage to my car, but the bus shelter destroyed, and I I like freak out, I like back up, I uh like back my car up from all the shit. I kind of tried to drive off. I kind of tried to just drive away and be like, okay, maybe we'll just no one will notice, and I'll move on. But like someone like as I was like pulling off of the block where it happened, someone was like, Where are you going? I'm like, oh no, I'm just parking. Uh so I do park. I park my car, sprint back to my house. Uh, like I said, I'm less than a mile from my house, sprint back to my house. Uh Zai is there. I'm like, Zai, I just did I just crashed my car into a bus. What do I do? Or like a bus stop, what do I do? Uh this is why I have to ask Zai. In my memory, Zai told me that I should just uh stay there or stay at home and not go back and just say fuck it. I don't know what what I don't know what uh stroke of I I asked him that and he gave me that advice and that's already what I wanted to do. But something inside of me was like, that can't be, that can't be the right advice, despite being drunk and him being like my best friend. Uh so I I called someone else. They were like, no, you you definitely gotta go back. Like someone's gonna call the cops and the cops are gonna like look for you. So I changed clothes. I don't know why. I changed clothes. I don't think I brushed my teeth or anything, but I did put on a mask because I figured if I was wearing a mask, they wouldn't be able to smell the alcohol in my breath. Again, crazy considering I didn't think to I thought that far, but I didn't think to like brush my teeth or like mouthwash or gum. I was just like, mask, that should do it. Came back to the scene of the crime. The police were just like looking around. I see them eventually walk up to my car uh and like start looking inside it. So I like run up to them, I wave him down, I'm like, hey, hey, sorry. Uh yeah, this is this is my car. And they're like, Did you did you crash into that bus shelter? And I was like, Yeah, yeah. And they like asked me what happened. I told them, I told them what happened. Like, my like my brakes didn't work, I swerved and hit the bus shelter, and that's that's it. And then they were like, Okay, well, we did some interviews with people, with like witnesses, and they described you as wearing a different outfit than you're wearing. And at this point, I can't tell you what the logic of changing my outfit was. Uh I I thought maybe I wanted to, I thought maybe I would go back. If I was gonna go back and fess up to it, then like changing the outfit only serves to make me seem insane. Um, but I did that. Uh changed outfit. They were like, Why'd you change? I was like, oh, I was really sweaty. Uh um and they were like, okay, uh, and that was it. They didn't, they didn't breathe me, they didn't have any more questions. They said, hey, maybe, they said maybe the the bus people, TriMet, will send you a bill of some kind. Never happened. I never had to pay for it. Nothing ever came of that. And I don't I've tried to do that on stage. It works fine. I haven't got like a better end to it. I'd say like I think now like that now I know what it feels like to be a white person. Is that the good button on it? I might try it again under that uh under that umbrella. Uh so that was uh that was that was just a little a little drunk muse or a little drunk memory drive a drunk drive down memory lane. That was a drunk drive down memory lane. So the next topic, I don't know. I'm at my I'm at 11. I just finished a book this week. I'm at 11 books finished this year, y'all. I'm at my I'm at my peak reading level. Um I'm 30 and I think I'm finally reading at close to a college level. Uh and so I don't know. I'm just gonna talk, go through all the books I've read this year and say like a quick word about them, and maybe a longer than quick word, because this is a bonus episode, and okay. Last book I read was a book called Comics. I wish I could remember who wrote it. It's pretty much a long history, like a pretty in depth history of stand up comedy as an art. It's a big comedy episode. I'm a comedian, haha. Uh yeah, stand up comedy from its origins. Back like pre-Vaudeville. Um I think that that's kind of the origin, vaudeville. And uh all the way up until it goes until the death of Robin Williams. So fairly modern um or it goes up to a yeah, it goes up to a fairly modern time. Uh what uh well, my favorite parts about the book. I like learning about comedy, of course. Interesting, the most interesting parts to me were learning about the mob and comedians' involvement with the mob. Like if you were a stand-up comedian from like 1940 to 1970, you pretty much were an employee of the mob and learning about how the mob basically created Vegas because of law, like some other I can't remember what state, but a different state's laws were like tried to force the mob out, and so the mob's like, fuck it, we're buying Vegas. So you can think I I think a lot of people know this, but you can thank the mob for Vegas. You can thank the mob for the rise of stand-up comedy in a lot of ways. Another person who is like weirdly influential in the space of stand-up comedy was Hugh Hefner. The Playboy clubs were these clubs that existed kind of nationwide after the first comedy boom. The first comedy boom is pretty much when people were like, let's start building all the comedy clubs we have. Most of the comedy clubs we have now were built during the first comedy boom. I believe this is like the late, I want to say early 80s, late 70s. But uh yeah, a pivotal figure around that time was Hugh Hefner because of the these things called the Playboy Clubs, which were, you know, entertainment clubs. You know, it entertainment is kind of a tangent. Entertainment used to all be a lot more intertwined. That's another thing I learned about in this book. Uh I think I was like fairly aware of, but variety shows and things like that. Um who's the uh the the the dude who uh the Beatles did this for he the Beatles at the first Ed Sullivan, yeah. Ed Sullivan, um Ed Sullivan, like that was the peak of we're doing a band, then we're doing a comedian, then we're doing burlesque, then we're doing that, and that's just how entertainment was. Like it it didn't used to be you went to a music show. It was like you're going to a show, and the show will have a comedian, and I all the acts are just listed. And the the idea of just being like, okay, this is just a comedy show, is actually pretty new. I think like the comedy store in LA. I think that got started in like the 80s, and that was one of the first venues that was really like, nah, fuck it, we're just doing jokes. No uh, no, no Frank Sinatra. Um, but yeah, Hugh Hefner, the Playboy Clubs. A reason I say Hugh Hefner was so uh impactful is because Hugh Hefner was kind of the first booker to book black comedians, and it's the the the predecessor to Richard Pryor, and it's not Bill Cosby. I'm really upset I can't remember this person's name now, but it was the person uh besides uh Cosby that Richard Pryor got accused of ripping off the most. I I would look it up if I wasn't driving, y'all. Um but yeah, he was basically the first comedian to do like the National Club Circuit, and he the Q Hefner was the first person to be like, yeah, I'm gonna have a black comedian on the National Club Circuit. And I don't I had no idea Hugh Hefner did that thing. I I I told that to someone and I was like, you know, how like Q Hefner did this cool thing for black comics, and uh she was like, uh, well yeah, he's a complicated man. And I was like, wait, did Hugh Hefner do bad things? I didn't I wasn't abreast of the allegations about Hugh Hefner. I'm still not fully uh because I didn't look into it after that. And I'm not like surprised that the Playboy guy was on some weird time. However, I never saw that. He had good PR. I don't know. Uh so uh that's that's a fun fact from the book comics. Uh before that, I read a clockwork orange, which is like a classic, I guess it's British, but a classic piece of fiction. I so how I got put on a clockwork orange was outside of my job. They have free bananas, and uh the dude who was passing out the free bananas one day, he was reading a clockwork orange. I was like, What you reading? And he told me, and I was like, How is it? And he was like, Ah, I just started. But he he kind of he kind of gave pause. That was like he just started and he wasn't he was not particularly uh enjoying himself. And for whatever reason, I I guess I had just finished whatever book I had before that. I was like, uh, maybe I'll check that out because I I like the the ideal setup for me for any book or movie is it's a classic, but I also know nothing about it. Like it's gonna be hard for me to enjoy a lot of classic things that I've never seen before to this point because the cultural conversation around them is already so high that some parts of them I already know, like The Wire or The Godfather, or things like that, where it's like, yeah, it's kind of you know, what's the sixth sense? Like, I see dead people. It's hard to go into things like that with like no preconceived notions of what's gonna happen. But a Clockwork Orange is like, oh, I've definitely heard a lot about that. I know it's a there's a Stanley Kubrick film. Let me check that, check this out. And um, if you've haven't read it or seen the movie, I won't spoil it too much, but that is a dark, grim book. That is a that is not a fun read. I I get why, bro, because I could tell Bro didn't want to recommend it to me, and I get why why now because it's a very um it's heinous. It's a good it's a good read. Uh to me it was kind of like uh a mix between 1984 and catch her in the eye, where there's kind of this I would in Clockwork Orange it's not a full dystopia, but they're in this fucked up world where like the police and the government are doing like kind of insane shit to try and you know fix the populations and where it overlaps and that's how I felt like it overlaps in 1984, and where it overlaps uh with Catcher in the Rye is you know, is kind of like this young, it's kind of like this deranged, depraved rather coming of age story about a character here like I'm not really rooting for you. I'm rooting for you because I've seen what you've gone through, but you're kind of a fuck. Um so yeah, I I found it interesting. Um the most interesting part was the foreword is given by the author, uh, and he talks about how the Kubrick the Kubrick version of the film and the American version of the book leave out the last chapter, and the last chapter I I mean I guess I'll spoiler alert for a classic piece of fiction. Um the last chapter and that the author intended is kind of about how what is I don't remember his name at all. Um is about how the main character is like kind of realizes that he wants to have like a normal life and wants to like be a good person and that like all the shit he was doing before left him with like no pleasure, and you know, his American editor and Stanley Krubrick were both like, yeah, nah, what if this was just just that it fucked up depraved part with no reflection? And the author was like, Yeah, I hated that, but they gave me money, so what are you gonna do? And that was interesting. It was also interesting to hear the author talk about, you know, uh a fairly common common phenomena with art. He's like, Yeah, this isn't my favorite book ever written at all. Actually, Loki don't like this. I mean, I don't think he said he doesn't like it, but he doesn't feel like it's his best work at all, and it's his most popular work by far, which, you know, that's the nature of making art, isn't it? You you you make it and then people people project onto what they want. So that's why you yeah, you never make something you're not proud of, folks. Okay, after that, or before that, I read Salvation, Black People in Love by Bell Hooks. This is fourth or fifth Bell Hooks book I've read. If I see a new Bell Hooks book that I haven't read pop up, I'm probably taking that John Down. Uh Bell Hooks, one of the most famous, prolific, influential black feminist writers of all time. Um, died recently a couple years ago. Uh, my favorite is definitely all about love. All about love, it was like so interesting thing about Bell Hooks's all about love is there was a period in my life where I tried to read that book with three different people I was in a relationship with. And every time I started reading, we started like reading the book together, we broke up. Like it happened with three relationships where it was like, um it wasn't because of the book at all. I don't know. Maybe, maybe it was. I'm saying it wasn't because of the book at all. It's like, I don't know, bro. The facts are the facts, like um but what I was so interested about, what made me so interested in that book and why it's a book I I return to and cite a lot within my own like thinking is because love, I think I talked about it with Zy on the Cheaters episode. And side note, the cheating episode where Zy and I talked about uh past infidelities and break down the Meg and Clay situation, far and away our most popular episode we've ever done of the show. I don't know what to make of that. One of my friends was like, maybe you guys should rebrand it as a cheaters podcast, and I laughed, and I was like, uh Lily? Um so I don't, I don't that's definitely not gonna be our beat forever. I'm not I'm not trying to brand m myself that way. Um, but uh thing I talked about in that was uh how we all everyone uses the word love, but no one no one's like there's no like definition that we all agree to and like I don't know. I I to me I think of love like I think of the words good and bad, right? Like obviously sometimes I say the words good and bad, but one thing I'm like trying, I want to instill in my child is I feel like the words good and bad are very indescriptive. Uh, you know, like how was your food? Good. That's that gives me like I understand you had a positive association with it, and you know, it was a overall, yeah, positive experience, but that doesn't tell me any like I think uh at least let's just say purely for the sake of being an interesting person, an interesting speaker, a better writer. I think anytime you use good or bad, you could definitely use a more descriptive word. How was your meal? It was delicious. I loved the notes of uh lemon and the orzo and the the pork was scrumptious. I don't know that uh uh sometimes I jump off the porch with an example, and I'm like, I don't know if that example proved my point at all. Um, but that's how I feel similarly about love, where I'm like, people say, we say love about uh so many different things, like I love my dog, I love my mom, but that's not the same, you know what I mean? But it's I'm just gonna say the same word. Uh maybe this is purely a semantic issue, maybe this is the type of uh on the spectrum, how my on the spectrum manifests. But I I always wondered what love meant and what was like the best definition for love uh when it comes to the highest form of the use of the word love. When you say you're in love with somebody, what does that mean? What should it mean? What is the history of what it means? And so that's that's what that book is all about. All about love is sick. That's not the book I'm talking about, though, although hard vouch for that. I'm talking about uh salvation, black people in love. Yes. Uh what was my biggest takeaway from that? I think uh trigger warning or whatever, uh, it's not a fun thing to talk about, but yeah, it just uh it made me think about how have more awareness, more empathy for the amount of sexual trauma that black women have gone through historically, and how even now they don't really get justice and like never have I'm not gonna say never will, but like even now the case the the cases in which it's prosecuted successfully when a black woman uh reports sexual trauma is is like the lowest of any other demographics, I believe. Um that's not I don't you know that's not a fun thing to talk about, and I don't know, that's just something I I that was the thing that stayed with me the most after that book is trying to rationalize that, trying to extend more empathy and talk more about the black women in my life, uh about like not like press them about info about that, but I don't know, it made me i I guess the best way to say is it it influenced me to have like some conversations with my mom and sister just to try and show them that I was there and that like I have a better understanding of the types of experiences they've probably had in life. Um and I'm obviously not gonna talk speak to those because those aren't my stories. But yeah, I think Bell Hooks always does such a great job writing about black people and black people and like our emotional state due to white supremacy and like how and the parts of that we ignore and the parts of that w that have just become like socially acceptable and like I don't know. So if you want, you know, it's not gonna be it's not gonna be a a uh a read that you're like fuck yeah, that was fun. But I I would encourage anyone to read any bell hook's book. Um see yeah, Salvation, Black People in Love, no exception. Uh before that I read a book called The Status Game. I can't remember the author, but the status game is essentially about how societally most of the decisions we make and the way we interact with each other and the world are based on all of us jockeying for status within whatever status games we have decided to play. Uh this is you know, you prepare for you know a layman breakdown of like a 300-page book, but uh ultimately this is like we all more than money and more than esteem or like respect, even we all are jostling to be looked at as whatever however we choose to identify. I'm a comedian, I am an American, I am uh an online content creator. So everything I do ultimately is to try and maneuver my way to the top of those games in order to, you know, not purely for uh pride, but also because historically, like being at the top of the quote unquote pack is the safest place to be. Um and this again, the he breaks it down a lot better than I have or can. Um, but I think it's definitely an interesting book in terms of giving you a new lens to look at life through and sociology through and the way humans interact through. Um, you know, it talks about things from how people become Nazis to this tribe in Africa, either Africa or South America, where they all all the men basically compete to grow the biggest possible yam, and whoever has the biggest possible yam has the most status. And, you know, this obvious not obviously ultimately is a metaphor for the things we all do uh to try and prove to others that we are the most, you know, the best in whatever uh respective field or uh community we align ourselves to. I would recommend this book. Uh again, this I already talked about, you know, it talks about like the Nazis and Soviet Union. I'm not I'm not reading a lot of books that are joyous, y'all. As you could probably tell, a lot of these, a lot of these don't be, don't be the most fun reads. But um I like learning right now. So the status game, I think that is uh I would definitely check out. Before that, um I'm saying before that, this is not the order I read them in, but I'm looking at a list while I'm driving. I'm gonna die. Um before that, uh, we have the Kid Cuddy memoir. Um I'm gonna be real with y'all, man. I like Kid Cuddy's music a lot. This is the first memoir I've ever read, and I've been like, I I don't I think I like you less. I think I don't know what it is about modern-day Cuddy that pisses me off. I think it's like the ultra arrogance and uh yeah, the ultra-arrogance and like I don't know, man, but the memoir, like, you know, I grew up with Cuddy. I it was very definitely interesting to hear the story about how he moved to New York and met up with plain Pat and how they created day and night, and how he met Kanye, and you know, how his career spiraled after that, and how he dealt with substance abuse problems, and there's parts about, you know, Diddy blowing up his car. I'm not gonna say it wasn't an interesting read as someone who, you know, is a huge fan of hip-hop, and like I said, a huge fan of Cuddy's music, uh, because Cuddy's undeniably one of the most influential hip-hop artists of our generation. Uh didn't make the list, but definitely I put him on my honorable mentions, right? I think Cuddy made honorable mentions. Um So I would say it's a good read. And I think I might just be sensitive about Kid Cuddy right now. I'm not 100% sure why, but it's it's just I think I don't think people should be right in memoirs until like, you know, you've done some reflection. Like I guess the bag is probably there for it, so that's why people do it. There's we're gonna do another memoir after this, where it's also gonna be a person where I'm like, you're you're like your life's not done. Like, figure some more shit out um before you do a memoir. But yeah, nothing I I don't there's not a ton of critiques I could actually make. I just find Kit Cuddy to be kind of arrogant um in a uh in a way I don't I don't uh it's hard, right? Because like some rappers get away with being arrogant and some people don't. I'm not gonna act like arrogance is never appealing. I just uh I just don't like when he does it. I don't know why. Uh before that, the previous book I read was the Malala memoir, the most recent Malala memoir. I think it might be her second. Um yeah, a story came out uh well when this book came out, uh a story on the daily, or someone else some news outlet picked up the story uh that's in the book that Malala tried weed and like made her re-experience her trauma. And then I think she went on uh Hassan Minaj's podcast and talked about trying weed. And I was like, I'll read about Malala doing weed. That's that's a decent hook for me. That's a good enough hook for me. So I read the Malala memoir. I did uh I did enjoy the Malala memoir. I'm just thinking about how ungenerous I was with Kit Cuddy, and now I'm gonna be like, yeah, I mean, Malala wasn't arrogant, but also a very young person, I think on their second memoir. But like I said, if the bag is there, do what you gotta do, I guess. But I did find this book to be interesting as someone who's never really engaged too crazy with Malala on. Her story, uh, actually engaging with her story. It's fascinating, it's definitely inspirational. Um, you know, in this particular book, it's a lot about her going to college and essentially her experience assimilating ultimately and like, you know, trying out different parts of Western culture and the backlash she faced at home and from her family and her parents because of, you know, wearing jeans and stuff like that. And it was really cool. I thought it was a nice coming-of-age story. Uh for me, you know, I don't I just like being honest, I haven't read a ton of stories about or written by uh people who are like Southwest Asian, South Asian, um trying to be respectful. I don't I can't remember exactly which country she's from. But uh yeah, I haven't read too many of those stories, and I was very interested in learning about the different parts of her culture, and you know, it felt like a timely read for me because I just moved up to Seattle. I work where I work, there's mostly Southwest South South Asian? Is that the right way to saying that? I hope so. Uh South Asian people, and you know, this was it sounds so uh saying this out loud, it feels I feel uh weird about it. So maybe this is a totally normal thing to do, and maybe this is like a weird uh colonization thing to do. But just like being around more of those people, it felt cool to be reading about you know their experiences and their holidays and stuff, and then being like, oh cool, we're celebrating this holiday at work. So uh I enjoyed that. I think it was definitely uh a great read. Uh uh fuck Kid Cuddy, I guess. Um before that was the Malcolm X autobiography. I might have talked briefly about reading the Malcolm X autobiography on here before, but one of I've started it before. I don't remember why I didn't finish it. Uh a lack of discipline or alcoholism surely was the case. But this is the first time I've actually finished the Malcolm X autobiography. One of the this might be probably my favorite book I've read this year. It is just such he just has such an interesting life in terms of, you know, when you think of Malcolm X and you see, you know, the mostly black and white photos of him, well, you know, there's a lot you don't know. Like I didn't know he was a j a redhead, you know what I mean? Like I because you only see the black and white photos. And I didn't know that like, you know, a lot of this book, a lot of his not a lot of his memoir, but like or autobiography, but like there's a decent bit of bit uh a bit of it about how much he loved going out and dancing and wearing a zoot suit and conking his hair. And, you know, uh there's a lot of cool, interesting rather information about uh the the what are the the black Israelites? Not the black Israelites, the uh Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad and their role in the black community and Malcolm's role in building it and learning about his strategy, learning about just such a fascinating character in terms of like you see him, he's like, I was on the streets like selling weed, and then I was on the streets like recruiting people for the cause. And it's just such a great story of like someone whose life was going in one direction, and then they were like, okay, I'm gonna go in the complete opposite direction almost, and become one of the most influential well-respected figures in history. And yeah, I mean, I I found the book to be fascinating. If you know anything about Malcolm X uh and you haven't read the book, I encourage you to because it is uh a lot more this the story is a lot bigger than you probably are imagining it is. Um before that I read Jesse David Fox's comedy book. That is just a book about stand-up comedy. It's not so much about the the history as much as as it is about the form and how the form has evolved into where it is now. Um I read that, it's probably the second or third time I read comedy book. Uh, I find it to be uh I'll probably read that book once a year for the rest of my life because there's just so many interesting perspectives on you know the form of stand-up comedy. And Jesse David Fox is a writer for Vulture. He has a comedy podcast called Good Ones, the best comedy interviewer by far. Um he just did the liner notes for Mark Marin's newest album. Just a well-respected journalist who really like interviews everyone and tells the story of comedy in a great way. I read it this time because it was right before I was uh not teaching, but um mentoring some University of Washington comedy students. I wanted to I wanted to brush up on my history. Um and so yeah, I you know, if you're a comedian, uh comics and comedy book, uh yeah, hit those. Uh next book, Kings and Ponds, the story of Paul Robson and Jackie Robinson. I've also talked a little bit about this one uh before, but if you don't know who Paul Robson is, one of the most interesting figures in black history, uh probably the most like, probably has been written out of history more than any other figure uh of his stature. Uh Paul Robeson was an all-American football player, NFL player, um lawyer, went to law school while he was in the NFL, and then he was a Broadway singer, or Broadway, uh Broadway actor and a singer, was probably one of the biggest singers in the world at one point, was probably one of the biggest actors in the world at one point, and was a huge figure in the civil rights uh movement at one point. Um, unfortunately, because when what this book uh Kings and Pond is about is his relationship or I guess kind of pseudo-rivalry with Jackie Robinson, another pivotal history another pivotal figure in black history. And what the book is ultimately about is Paul Robeson. The long and short of why Paul Robinson is kind of written out of history is because he got pretty tight with the Soviet Union and was messing with them, and they were kind of they were he was going over there and accepting awards from the Soviet Union at like the height of Cold War McCarthyism, and because of that, the government conspired using Jackie Robinson as a pawn to basically assassinate Robinson's character, and the the kind of climactic moment is this uh House HUAC house on intelligence. Some government board that they had Jackie Robinson testify against Paul Robson, despite the fact that these two dudes did not I as far as I recall, they never even like met face to face, so they didn't know each other. But Jackie Robinson obviously held a lot of clout and the blackslash civil rights community and having a figure of his stature speak out against Paul Robson, uh, made it so when the government like took away his passport and started making and basically blacklisting him from you know anything entertainment-wise, uh people weren't really too pressed to there wasn't like a big uh pushback against that because you had figures like Jackie Robinson and I believe even the NAACP who came out against him. Um so fascinating book about black history. Uh if you want to learn a lot about both Paul Robson and Jackie Robinson, but not the stories you get typically. It's a really interesting book. Um really, I wouldn't say it paints Jackie Robinson as a villain, but it paints Jackie Robinson as kind of a guy. Like obviously um breaking the color barrier was amazing and deserves to be, you know, held up as a significant moment in black and both just like regular American history. And um, but what you what you learned through the book is he had to make a lot of sacrifices, kind of uh I won't say in terms of like his ethics or his morality, but like in terms of his like pride and agency, he had to make take a lot of compromises in order to have the opportunities he did, and some of those compromises that he made, uh ultimately I wouldn't say tarnished his legacy, but by the end of Jackie's life, he wasn't as popular of a figure as he is now, um, because he was pretty polarizing to black people, and white people are white people. Um so yeah, I I would check out Kings and Ponds, uh interesting black history book that you're not gonna stories you're not really gonna hear about uh elsewhere. Um the last one uh was White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Um I probably could have paired this with a Malala book because uh not paired, but I could have talked about them back to back because I I wasn't familiar with Zadie Smith. I've seen some of her books, and then I heard her on a podcast uh kind semi-recently, and I was like, I'd just been meaning to check out one of her books, and I don't know why, but White Teeth caught my attention. And uh this is a hard book to summarize, but the reason I said I was uh should have paired it with the talking about the Malala book, because it ultimately is about uh family from Bangladesh, uh I believe, um, coming to England and uh how how what is the word uh assimilating, how assimilating kind of like tears their family apart. And there's there's other characters, there's uh characters from Jamaica who are also like assimilating, and there's you know, this book jumps through time and history a lot and is all about the history of like colonialism and war and you know how all these different cultures are ultimately affected by colonialism, going from like uh places like India all the way to Jamaica, on which are like places on two different opposite two opposite ends of the world, but both because of the old British Empire, you know, have a lot have some similar experiences, and the people that come from those cultures uh ultimately run into similar issues while assimilating and trying to fit in to white culture. Um, you know, British white culture. Read a bunch of British books. I just realized there's like there's like three or four British books on this thing. Um yeah, so White Teeth, uh I would say I didn't fully understand the ending. Um I would love for someone to talk me through it, but I really enjoyed that book. Uh the last book I read was Tanahasi Coates's Coates' The Message. And I almost didn't want to bring this up because I can't lie, y'all. That was probably the first book I read this year, and I don't remember that much about it. It's about uh Tanahasi Coates, one of the best intellectuals, black writers, whatever you want to call him in the world. Um and this book was ultimately about his trip to Palestine and connected that to black culture. And again, I just I I I don't remember enough to yap about it, frankly. Um, but I would recommend everything Tanahasi Coates does because he's one of the best authors. I have no idea how much time I've been doing at this point. I hope it's close to an hour, because that's all I have to talk about. Thank you for listening to this bonus car episode of the Crim World Podcast. Please, uh, if you're listening, send me book recommendations. I'm always looking to read more things. I'm about to start Kev on Stage's book. I just started a book about black Marxism. See, here's the thing. So I'm I go audiobooks. I I have a job where I can listen to audiobooks, so I that's how I consume a majority of my books. I would love to read, read books raw, the old-fashioned way, spit on them things, but that's just not where I'm at in life right now. And I think audiobooks at least half counts. Anyways, there's some books that like I really want to read, but they're so like dense informationally or historically, or the books I really want to like grasp that I'm like, I can't just audiobook this. So probably four or five books this year, um, which is pretty standard. Uh like Du Bois, like those W.E.B. Du Bois, some collection of essays. I started, I'm like, I just I just need to be able to look at this. And this black Marxism book, I got like 20 minutes and I'm like, listen, a third of the words you said I needed to look up, and I haven't done that. So um send me some books, send me some audio books, um preferably that have, you know, that don't go past a 12th grade uh reading level in terms of uh in terms of uh vocabulary. I like uh what was I gonna say? I I want to read more fiction, but I always end up getting nonfiction. I don't know what it is, but something in my brain thinks fiction isn't learning. And I know that's not true, and I generally enjoy a work when I can get into it. I generally enjoy fiction more because it's like an engaging story, but uh, I don't know. I end up just reading these like the status game or memoirs, because I'm like, at least I feel like I don't know, at the end of like uh White Teeth, I was just like, I don't get it. You know what I mean? I was like, this was uh it was a good novel, a lot happened, but at the end, I needed to read this book in an English class or in a book club because like I don't I don't know, I don't really know what happened for real. So uh maybe we'll start a book club. That is actually one of my goals. I would like when we grow this MFR uh to be big enough to add uh like or yeah, to start a Patreon. I think one of the tiers is gonna be book club, and we're all gonna vote on a book to read and we'll come together. Because that's what I really would need in my life now, is other people reading along with me. And maybe that's you. Maybe you just wanna say, hey, Krim, let's let's tag team a book. I'll fucking do it, dog. You think I don't have time to read a book? You just heard me list off like 11 books. Was it just a flex? Was the whole second half of this episode just a flex that I read? Maybe, maybe. But what are you gonna do, huh? You're listening to a podcast right now. You could probably be reading, you fool. You could at least be listening to an audiobook, but instead you're listening to uh a nigga talk about audiobooks. What kind of scam is that? Uh wish me luck in this comedy contest. I am uh I can't believe I did a whole podcast driving. Shout out to uh, I'm gonna I I end up cutting one part out because I didn't have any. I started doing a thing about Kian Peel breaking up, and then I was like, I don't even have an interesting commentary on this. I just wanted to tell people it happened. Uh so go look, go look up that story if you're interested. I had nothing to add. What was I what was I yapping about right now? Oh, shout out to Jason Katz. Uh I wish I knew your socials. Again, I would look it up, but I'm driving. But the homie Jason Katz, a Seattle comic, I saw him uh on TikTok. He posted an episode of Podcats. Shout out to Podcats. We're gonna have to, we're gonna have to collab. We're gonna have to do a collab episode here pretty soon. Um, but he did an episode where he was in his car and he was just real stream of conscious. And I don't know if I ever reached that level of lucidity. I don't uh, you know, I I was doing a lot of ah I think I was you let me know how lucid I was. Do is lucid the right word here? I don't know. Um uh ooh. Uh imagine, imagine I listen to the audio after this, and it's just all you can hear is my car engine. Whatever. Um uh I'm I'm about to exit 71. It's been thank you for listening. Uh hit all the buttons. Uh subscribe. Uh yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yadda.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:16

It's crap foreign. I'm with your bag, because you look great. Yeah, it's crap, forlet, and with your bank, and with your way. We at the same still must. She gave me brain, that's my green. I don't do brakes, I don't do games, I don't do change, but you're free. I'm fucking dang, I don't pick, and that's a stak, I'm making ring. I'm on a day, I'm on a big I want to pick a pick, I'm the bitch, I like a switch, look at the wrist, try to kiss, try, she wanna pick, come on to pack, she wanna kiss my life, I'll let the pitch, I'm gonna pick a bitch, I'm not crying, but you black. I crabbed on the highway, bitches on the driveway, broken like the broad job, it's cyber, white bitches like my lap, like my cousin white, white on the glass track, black and silver spiky, whiskey in my charity ring on her knees as she must be tired of me. I buy her some her meat, baby. It's your birthday. I want you a broadline, come and sit on my face, even if it's cram for the relight. Y can like or you can wait, yes, crab for the relat. Yay can like or white, yes, crab for the relight. I want your bag, cushion the crap, yes, crab for the lap, and watch your backs, and watch your white Yes, crab for the relight. You can like wake, yes, crab for lay.