Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: What's that in? Yo, what up, bro? Y' all stand for ot.
Yeah, I am, too, bro. Y got to stay. Hold on. Watch out. Y watch out.
Listen up, workers. Overtime is mandatory this weekend. No excuses. We know.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Let me work.
Please let me work. Let me work.
Please let me work.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: What's happening? What's happening? What's happening, everybody? How y' all doing? Welcome to Mandatory Overtime, another episode of Mandatory Overtime. I am your host, your main man, DJ High Star, here at Mandatory Overtime. The aim is to recalibrate and redefine manhood as we see it in our community.
I appreciate all you guys being out here with me. It's simply a audio journal of an 80s Baby, if you will. Right? Social experiment and consistency.
You could have been anywhere in the world. And I'm glad you're here listening to me, man. I appreciate that.
I appreciate that.
Now, don't confuse this with the man that's fair. It's just a place where the man is fair. All right? So pull up a chair, like, comment, subscribe, share, and make some noise because your man is here.
You heard?
They say I got a Russian sound engineer and a check, one, two.
A check, one, two, Shit like that, sir. Let's go to work, y'. All.
Live from Charlotte, America.
Y' all know what time it is? Charlotte wassup. Fresh off a road trip myself.
Just came back from Charleston. Had a good time down there. I had to stop in Orangeburg first and lay the rest. One of my older frat brothers, brother Johnny Murdaugh. Just want to pay my respects and give my condolences and. And everything to his family, so rest in peace, brother Johnny Murdaugh, the owner. Senior. Excuse me, the owner of the Max Family Entertainment center down there in Orangeburg. If you're familiar with Orangeburg and stuff, you know, a lot of those buildings and stuff. He was just big into real estate, commercial real estate. So salute to. Salute to brother Myrtle. But I didn't make it down to Charleston. Kicked it down there for a little bit. We might have to start doing, like, a little side mission show called Mandatory Eats, you know, or mandatory eating time versus mandatory overtime. I'm not sure.
But I went down there, had some great food, food from my other frat brother, my fellow frat brother, from Charleston Southern. But they've got a restaurant down there called My Three Sons of Charleston and Delightful Chef's Kiss, y'.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: All.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Chef's Kiss. Shout out to My three sons. Had some seafood, rice from there, fish plate, macaroni and cheese. Was on point. Had some okra down there, you know, went in Charleston, do Charleston things and some chicken. Right. So it was busting. It was busting. Okay. I can't say that. Had raising canes the night before.
Okay. We not gonna explore my troubles with raising Kane, but just know I coached the Browns to the Super Bowl, y'.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: All.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So I don't know if y' all had y' all bets on the Cowboys, the Panthers, the Bengals, anybody else. I coached the Browns to the Super Bowl.
It's a bad experience, y'. All. I am. I don't want to start off on such a. Yeah. I mean, graphic nature, if you will, and none of that. But that's.
That's essentially what happened. It was. It was not a good experience. I had to jump into plumber mode, shout out to my cousin for housing me, keeping me there.
It was just like a.
I don't know. I don't know. I'm not gonna get into it, y'.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: All.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: I'm not gonna get into it and just know. It was like a scene out of a TV show. Curb your enthusiasm, Martin. It was. It was a scene out of a sitcom. What I went through recovering from the raising canes, let's just say that.
All right. But moving right along before we go into building wisdom and. And high star bars and stuff like that for the week, I do want to figure out how I'm do my callbacks or like I'm trying to think what they call it in, like the newspaper industry and stuff, or editorials whenever they correct stuff. Or I'm thinking the Deja Vu's or. Anyway, I'm thinking of calling this segment Deja Vu's or Rome Stradamus, if you. If you will. Rome Stradamus moments.
Things that I've said on the podcast and have. Have aged well, if you will. So the car flags thing, seeing a lot of car flags out and about.
A lot of American flags out and about just just seeing a rise in it, you know, just. Just know where you heard it here first, that you heard it here first. Rather, the passion fruit conversation. I've gotten some feedback from that on the side. Try to encourage all of my friends and family to email the show. I'll go ahead and plug that real quick. Mandatory ot704gmail.com to get all the feedback in. But passion fruit conversation, A lot of people, you know, laughed and said I had some points, but I was fact checked on passion fruit. So you guys will be happy to know I'm aware that it's a Fruit. It's a real fruit. I guess, whatever. My point still stands, though, about the price.
And perhaps we may need to steer our.
Steer our focus in the direction of one fruit punch.
Maybe that's what deserves the investigation is fruit punch. You know, I know we have fruits like watermelon, if you will, that's very rich in red, but why is it always red in that same flavor? I mean, riddle me that.
So that was one other kind of deja vu Rom Shadamis thing that I wanted to revisit. And then, of course, like, just the way that this. This whole Drake case or whatnot is playing out, I don't even really got to say much about that, but y' all see how this. This, you know, this lawsuit is playing out before our eyes, so.
Yeah. And those. Those are my deja vu moments of.
Of the week.
Appreciate, y'.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: All.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you.
But now we are going to get into our building wisdom moments moment for the week. Before we do that, though, the. The episode this week is inspired by whenever I think about, you know, of course, manhood itself and what it's rooted in. What we hear a lot in society in general is that men are what the protectors and providers.
So we've already covered protecting black woman, protecting women as a whole, of course, but protecting black women more specifically on a previous episode.
So this episode wanted to talk or to kind of go into the word providing or provision and kind of, you know, dissect or take a look at what.
What that looks like, in other words, in our community and stuff. So knowing that this show will be called Provision, it's just the rapper in me, y'. All, I'm sorry. But nevertheless, we will start off all right. So we're gonna go ahead and start this week off building Wisdom segment here with brother Riza Islam. It's a clip that or an excerpt that I found off of YouTube I think is real valuable and relevant to today's conversation. So I want to go ahead and. We'll go ahead and get that segment started here.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Is that Prince McKeen?
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Come here, Prince.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: What's today's mathematics, yo? No disrespect, but we ain't in all of that, son. Build, destroy. The builders to elevate the mentalities of self and those around self, to add positive energy to every nation. To build, you must first start from the root, which is the knowledge foundation, and add on to the highest peak. To destroy is to eliminate and destroy any and all negativity that enters my cipher of supreme harmony, peace, God, peace. God. Do the knowledge.
Do the knowledge.
[00:08:51] Speaker C: The world is in the condition that it is in because of the disrespect of the woman. There's so much that we place around her because as we are also taught that when you teach a man, you are teaching an individual. When you teach a woman, you are teaching a nation. Every intelligent, strong, powerful man and woman came from the womb of a woman. So that's why they have to attack mother and remove father, because before you can get to her, you have to get through him. Every wise nation has security, and the man is supposed to be that security and the man having that essential position by nature. So someone who knows that about you will do their best to make sure you are removed. Because there is a standard of conditioning that has to take place. Man, woman, child. That's why they have to attack masculinity. The world is in the condition that it is in because.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: There you go. There we go.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Do the knowledge, nigga.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Shout out to brother Riza Islam for providing us with the wisdom for the week.
Very deep words, though, from the brother. You know, Brother Riza, he always speaks truth to power. Always member of the fruit of Islam, the brothers that represent the nation of Islam.
And he always speaking truth to power. So shout out to him. Shout out again for him.
Building wisdom and helping us to start that conversation. This week again, we talked about being protectors. And then this week we're going to talk a little bit about pro vision.
So before we do that, I want to go over a little bit of high star bars here. These high star bars are going to be provided by one.
What was Big Pun? Christopher?
Maybe Rios or Reyes, but nevertheless Big Pun, one of my favorite New York artists and Latin artists, Spitters MCs didn't take the craft lightly at all and was one talented brother.
So I want to go ahead and play. This is from a channel called Cam and the Jeans.
Now, I will say this, y', all and give y' all some warning. It's a white guy that is, you know, commenting and doing his thing with the hip hop research and stuff.
What he's saying is pretty accurate and stuff. I give him credit.
And I'm again repurposing his work, so I got to give him credit in that regard as well.
But kind of breaks down big puns. Legendary and iconic deep cover 98 cover that he, he and Fat Joe did.
But the iconic portion of that verse. So we'll go ahead and let this video play, y', all, so we can go over these high Star bars, real quick.
Big Pun uses a technique that most rappers can't master called syllable overflow.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: The floor.
Shoot that.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: That right there was a normal syllable. Now watch Big Pun cram twice the amount of syllables within the same amount of time.
Like that, like that, like that.
On the video itself, you should see the white guy's face. He's like, what?
But, yeah, so right at the end of that, again, iconic freestyle, where they're covering Snoop and Dr. Dre's deep cover, Big Pun says, dead in the middle of Little Italy. Little did we know that we riddled some middlemen who didn't do diddly. So even if we try, let's, I guess, try to, right. For the sake of high star bars. Dead in the middle of Little Italy. That's on some New York lingo, right? Like, you dead ass. I'm dead. I'm dead serious. So you dead in the middle of Little Italy. Little did we know that we riddled some middlemen who didn't do Italy. Like, the people that we thought that we got, they was really just middlemen, and they ain't do diddly, and we thought that we got our guys. So that was a fire. Fire. High star bars, of course, from the late great thing, Big Pun. Like that.
So shout out to him again. Let me know what y' all think of them High star bars. Let me know if y. What y' all think of us, you know, in our building wisdom segment as well.
It's definitely lines or email is wide open, but we're gonna move forward here, and I'm gonna go ahead and get this Gong.
Pause. Never mind.
There we go. Okay.
But nevertheless, I want to go through some random thoughts and random gripes for this week.
First one is not so much a gripe, but more or less a random thought. I think about my black Christian men, like, black pastors and clergymen and stuff like that. And I think about the signs. You know, you got to pick up on the social cues whenever they get upset and. And whenever they're agitated or irritated.
One sign is when they start addressing other men as dude.
Oh, they turned up. Yeah, I'm just here. I'm not.
I'm not here to debate that. And just. It's an observation that I've made. If you hear your pastor or a deacon or anybody, and you might just be you chilling, you getting stuff ready to go home, and all you hear in the background is, dude, really?
Dude, are you serious? Dude, dude, dude, dude, get out my face. Dude. Get out my face, Dude, I'm Saying, I've seen it. I've seen it personally. Okay? Not my church, but in church. So, y', all, it's just a random thought that I had.
Black clergymen, when they get aggressive and get mad, unless they just straight up from the hood, and they'll abandon all of that decorum and diplomacy and just go straight to before that step that like, yo, oh, y' all want here now? Or what's my man. I wish I had that clip. My man said, oh, I can't curse. All right, we singing tired of this here before they get there. Is dude, like, dude, are you serious? Are you for real right now? Dude, I don't know why I don't got the rhyme or reason for it.
Black churches, y'.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: All.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Anywho, let me see here.
Secondly, more or less of a random thought, more of a gripe. All right, so this is something that's just a little grind of my gears.
Just listed down. Rapper asmr. Okay, I don't know where to start with this. Rappers that get on podcast or radio show interviews, let's start off with the popping gum or chewing gum, all right? Angela Yee, she's kind of famous for putting a stop to that and slowing that down, all right? A lot of y' all stopped coming on there with your gum and popping this. A lot of women rappers and stuff will come on and they'll be popping the gum. Fellas, you know, y' all are not exempt from anything. All right, y', all, what you drink, okay? You got a big ass cup with all of this.
7:11 Ice or American deli? Ice, you know what I'm saying? Ice from checks, I don't know. But with a drink in it, who knows if it's literal drugs that you're bringing into my studio and establishment, let alone if you fake in the funk and it's just some sweet tea, but you just. Just. Just all over the microphone, man.
I don't like that. Be so that rapper asmr. It don't stop at the drinks. The chains. The. The chains. It sounds. It sounds fake. All right? All of that.
The clink, clink, clink, clink.
We're not trying to hear all of that. Just. You supposed to be more professional than that. In other words, all right, we shouldn't have to adjust to you because you're coming. No, be presentable. Be professional. Take your grill out. If you only had your grill in for a week or two weeks, take that grill out before you go to an interview. We don't want to hear you Getting adjusted. Yeah. So I grew up about 10 years down south.
Fairly move us to Texas. Like, we're not trying to hear all of that. Take your grill out. You want to sound audible. You want to sound clear. All right. Sober. All right. Slurring of the words and. Yeah, hey, we're not trying to hear all of that.
It's not manly, B.
All right?
It don't stop with that. Okay? The chains, the drink, the ice, the. The grills, the smoking. If they're in a spot where they could smoke and they wanted all of that stuff, all that's unpleasant. That's cacophony, if you will. Okay. Not trying to hear that.
But also when rappers is either freestyling or if they just like, you know, regular talking and then they figure out that it's an uncensored platform and that they could kind of give it up.
You don't got to take that time to then go into your whole vibe or whatever like that. They're like, yeah. So, you know, in the community that I grew up in, it was a two family house. Huh? Oh, oh, we could curse. Oh, well, the. The God community that I.
We every night, like, now all of a sudden, you want to turn up on your profanity and everything like that. It's lazy. It's lazy, B. All right? We ain't trying to hear that.
Just being real, y'.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: All.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Forgive my live engineering, man. You know what I'm saying?
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Or.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Or give it. Give it kudos. Give it respect and props.
Let me see here.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Let me work.
Please, let me work.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: So last random thought of the week, man.
I hate when that's around you that could sing, and they got to let you know that they could sing.
All right? I'm talking about the fellas. Like, you know, we're doing that during casual. If we hooping or working out or just playing a video game, you don't gotta break out into no Brian McKnight or nothing like that. My boy. Okay, Carl Thomas, we ain't trying to hear your rendition of Let It Snow whenever is, you know what I'm saying?
On a move somewhere or kicking it and watching a football game.
Save that for the kickback with the girls and all of that, okay? I'm tired of just going over to your partner's house. You done pearled up, you know what I'm saying? Y' all chilling. Might have a good drink or whatnot. And all you hear is painting pictures in a broken glass. And I'm rude. There's a woman revealing.
I see what the woman is.
You whining, man. You whining, all right? And it always starts off with a hum. Why?
Yo, bro, I could want us to put you in a talent show. You want us to. You know, I'm saying we could get you that record deal if you need, bruh. I know that that's a talent and a passion and a hobby or habit of yours, if you will, but come on, my brother.
Wait till the ladies get around, man. That's all I'm saying. Wait for the kickback, man.
So that's. That was my. My random gripes and random thoughts of the week, y'.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: All.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Y' all give me the feedback. Let me know if I'm bugging on any of those. Let me know if y' all agree on any of those. Okay, you can email me. Mandatory o o t704gmail.com mandatory ot704gmail.com all right? And then we can have this conversation, if you will, with that. So with that being said, though, I do want to move forward, and we're going to go ahead and talk a little bit about provision this week. All right?
It's not a lot of notes that I have on it because I want to hear a lot of y' all feedback with this. So three things.
Feedback on manhood and what it is to be a man, or different adjectives that define manhood. Then secondly, your takes on the different protecting, you know, stances and stuff on protecting black women. But this one, the third, will kind of complete this trinity of things where we talk about provision and providing.
So I have down listed here, though, next to provision.
Like, if we were on the streets with, like, shout out to the black Hebrew Israelites and my, you know, 5 percenters and things like that. A nation of Islam, fruit of Islam. But if we was on the streets with some brothers and they was, you know, esoteric and, you know, just. Just very educated brothers, a lot of them would be like, provision. Provision, brother. That means to provide vision, you need to be provid.
Vision. You know what I'm saying? Look at the roots and the words, brother. But yeah, never mind. Nevertheless, rather, provide is the.
Would be the verb, right? To provide is the verb to the noun or whatnot of provision. However, I have written down, though, like, decision and decisive. Making. Again, deciding on things. Direction, right? All these things were written down because when I think of. When we think about protecting and providing for a woman, I think a dude thinks about, oh, man, a woman touches my girl on the butt. I'm a. You know what I'm saying I'm punch him in the face and then we gonna go back to the house that I pay for because I provide everything in here. And so I pay all of the bills. I pay the, you know, I'm saying I pay the rent and the mortgage. I pay for the cars because I provide everything. And it's like that's a kind of archaic or a less nuanced way of looking at things. Definitely. Again, protection. We talking about protection physically, of course, but let's think about the other ways of protection, right? Spiritually, we need to know how to protect our women and our families financially. We need to know how to protect our women and our family and stuff from things. So protection is more than physical and holding our people down. That definitely is the main tenant in that or one of the main tenants because of the dystopia that we live in. So, yes, we do need to protect from the crazies, but also we need to protection from ourselves. We need protection from our negative thoughts and negative energy. We need to just be able to and equipped to protect our family from anything that's not in concert with where. With where you would like to go as a man and how you would like to lead your family. And in other words, right, I'm kind of spitting on that now. Yeah, I'm kind of spitting.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: Like that.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: So when we talk about provision and we start to get to providing, I just want to tell my brothers out there, y' all is again, it's more than a paycheck, definitely. I still need y' all to strive to get a little bit of bread.
Get a lot of bit of bread.
Let's talk that up, right? Let's speak that into existence. But your energy needs to be wealthy with a job or not.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: Come on, man.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: Come on. Come on, man.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: Get that water.
He about to get this work. He about to get this work.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Hey, the energy that you on it. Need to be wealthy before you even, you know, see more than one comma inside your bank account or your. Your paycheck having all of that.
So that wealth, that's way more than money. They say the poorest man in the world. Oh, what do you say? What's the saying? It says the.
The poorest man in the world, all he has is his money or something like that. Something along those lines. I just butchered it, but y' all get where I'm going with that.
Okay?
But nevertheless. So men, black men specifically, I want y' all to think about these words, though. Vision, okay?
This decision making, direction Right. These are things that you're providing. Right? Providing vision, providing decision making, direction, providing resolve and calm in your situation.
You don't. If, if. If there's an emotional situation, there's no reason that you need to be the most emotional person in the house and people need to be working to calm you down.
That's not p, my boy.
It's just simply not manly, man. I'm be for real. So resolve, calm. You need to provide calm. Need to be able to provide peace. A lot of times we look to our significant others for peace, and that's true. They can give us that. Once the world beats us up and once we've gone through all of the, you know, the problems that the world presents to us and stuff, we want to go home and we want to, you know.
You know, we want to be greeted with peace, but we also have to present peace and provide peace as well. Come on. I don't know. This week it sounded a little religious. This week. All right. I'm kind of preaching, y'. All.
Nevertheless, I didn't know that provision was going to take me here. Thank you. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. I give. Listen, I give the reverence. Just speaking truth to power. Yeah.
All right. So I just want you to think about those different things that we need to provide our women and our family with outside of money. Is those. Those different things?
Also, we can touch on this as well, you know, and it's just a question for y'. All.
Let's talk about black men's relationship with finances and with money.
All right? How. Let's. Let's be vulnerable.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: All right?
[00:28:00] Speaker A: It's a safe space.
Okay. Of everything that you could think under the sun with money that you've done, I've done it. Okay.
So up every which away.
I know and I'm familiar with, but moving forward, you know, you gotta. Gotta know better so that you could do better.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: Do the knowledge.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Um, but let's talk a little bit about black men's relationship with finances. First of all, like your debt. Are you in debt first and foremost, and, and do you understand your own debt and the type of debt that you're in, what the timetable would look like for you to be become, you know, get out of debt and. And everything like that. I think about it a lot of times a conversation that I'll have with my circle and is the fact that black men, specifically, we are playing defense a lot of times playing defense. So whether you recovering from, let's say, incarceration, I'm not trying to Cast no aspersions or like cast any like prejudices on us as black men. But some of the things that we've gone through with the system, say for instance, child support or paying taxes, suspended license, and you bouncing back from that, anything from being jailed and being in the system and dealing with those type of fees.
But I often talk to my circle about us where we are playing defense and it got to get to a place or a position where we're playing offense. You know, whenever it comes to the moves that we make and our dreams and aspirations, a lot of times the career or the job that you have, unfortunately is what you were, is a sum of all your decisions that you made and you know, good or bad. And you're just left with having to work something instead of creating the future that you want for yourself, in other words, and kind of commanding that space that you work in and, and your positions that you have and everything like that. So I think, you know, we have to get that mindset of offense versus having the mindset of always being on defense, always catching up with this bill, always paying off a ticket, always, you know, trying to catch up and get out of a hole so that we can enjoy a little bit of money that we see. No, let's start playing offense, let our money work for us and then we can start making moves, you know, and creating the, the, the world that we want to see. In other words, the utopia and not the dystopia. Hello. All right, so again, that comes definitely with understanding your debt that you have, understanding your credit score as well, your credit usage and things like that. They are different tools that people use out there to leverage where they at so that they could get a little bit further. And you got to take risks out here. It's a risk assessment that you gotta take with yourself of how conservative, how aggressive do you want to be whenever it comes to pursuing your vision of what your reality, what you want your reality to be. You know, there are a lot of ways out there that people are getting capital in and everything.
A lot of rich people, they take loans out, these million dollar loans, billion dollar loans or huge hundred million dollar loans because they don't have to pay taxes on them.
I don't know if that's a secret that everybody knows that we have, but you don't have to pay taxes on a loan. So if your net worth is showing that you are worth a certain amount because you got money tied up in portfolios and in stocks and investments and stuff like that, your credit, if your credit is good enough, you could go out and take out these loans, all right?
Then you calculate the finance charges or the interest that you're paying back and you store the money up. If you do have a loan taken out, you store that money up or portion that money up in long term savings account, a high yielding account or an investment where the, the return on investment number is higher than the interest rate that you're paying back.
And then you got your money that you borrowed working for you. Where that's tanks money. Where are you saying.
So there's a bunch of different ways that, that the rich get richer. And I think another thing is education. Of course we got to still, you know, not.
We just got to steer away from the anti intellectual movement. That was another deja vu little callback thing that I did want to bring up. We talked about it here since day one. Anti intellectualism, now it's in the forefront. That's what I'm just saying. Just be aware. Just be aware how the universe aligns, y', all, whenever you speak truth to power. Hello.
So again, do you know your credit score? Do you know what that credit score means?
Do you, if you have any businesses, do you know what your business's credit score is? These are different things that we got to think about whenever it comes to our relationship with our finances and with our money. Like I said, if you outside of money, you got a lot more to provide than just money.
Mainly, you know, the most expensive asset that we have. You got to provide time in these situations as well.
Again, you cannot lead if you're not in a good mental space or a good headspace.
So you got to make sure that you are right and that you're good so that you could present the best version of yourself to be able to provide for your family. You know, again, your woman, your child, your family as a whole. So that's my thoughts and my notes on provision. I love to hear you guys feedback on your different views on provision and providing. What does that look like for a man? Whenever it comes to provision and when, whenever it comes to a man providing, y' all let me know.
But we're going to wrap that up again. Email us mandatory ot704gmail.com mandatory ot704gmail.com let's go ahead and move forward. All right, so these are a couple random thoughts that I did have and I didn't get to earlier that I do want to bring up, but let's go ahead and talk about it, y'. All. Customer service is trash all right. Everywhere, Everywhere, everywhere. Customer service is garbage. Garbage.
I don't know, you know, and I can do some conjecture, right? And I could think about reasons why, of course. But you think about. I watched it. I looked at this labor poster the other day at my job, and it said, minimum wage 725.
Alan, I'm thinking in my head, are we in 1999?
Golly.
And it's bad because if we was in 1999, it'll be like $5 and 25 cents. Five fifty. So you're telling me there's a $2 raise in the hourly minimum wage, but prices of housing and cost of living have gone up by hundreds and hundreds of percent. Thousands of percent.
Make it make sense.
Something that just grinds my gears. But nevertheless, I think that contributes heavily to customer service being trash. Nobody enjoys where they work at anymore. Nobody wants to be at work. Nobody likes to work. It's a very rare thing to see customer service exuded. Then we've got tip culture that's going on right now. Let me know if y' all are agitated or upset at tip culture as I am. You know, you go into regular, regular fast food spots and you just getting takeout, something that you ordered over the phone, it's already there and it's ready, but they got there and they kind of putting the pressure on you if you want to leave a tip or not.
Come on, man. Skip past that, man. Either custom or skip me, please. Custom. And we could. Zero. Zero, you know, but nevertheless, I do tip for service, okay? I'm not that type of dude. I'm not, you know, a cheapskate. But come on now, you got to draw the line somewhere as a consumer.
In Japan, it's looked at as disrespectful if you tip.
So that's all I'm saying is let's, let's think about what we're doing. But I mean, again, it goes to the dystopia that we live in, right? It's. It's a bubble that's gonna eventually burst of capitalism where we charging high dollar for everything. And it's not. The wages are not catching up. So right now you got the super wealthy and then you got the middle class slowly realizing that they're not middle class anymore and that it's, you know, we gotta, you gotta cut down on your. On your yearly trips with the family, and you got to do some penny pension and soul searching with the groceries and stuff. So it's more or less, it's more or less separating us into two different classes. It feels like, however, back to my original point, customer service is trash. Now, I still move around with the respect that I would like to receive, so I still show people respect. But I'm gonna let y' all know, now I'm 39.
I don't know how much tolerance I got left. So I don't know how much patience I got left up in me.
All right, this brings me to my next topic, though, on the customer service is ass everywhere topic.
I wanted to ask y', all, are we small business in our way out of community? I think a lot of small businesses, you know, have grand dreams and aspirations of scaling up and being at a level that they're not at at the moment when they start. All right, all businesses, especially small businesses, they say they go through at least three years of losses before even turning a profit and seeing a profit. I think that a lot of businesses or business owners go into it looking at a get kind of a get rich quick scheme or let me flip this money, not looking at it as a passion project or something that's fulfilling their purpose.
So I have written down here, again, are we small businessing small business sing our way out of community? Made up the word businessing or whatnot. So the reason I thought about that is because of the tailgate season that we're in. And when I've been asked to, if I'm going to any tailgates recently, I thought about it and thought about, I'm cool. Like, I'm alright.
I don't really need to show up like that again.
Rest in peace to the sister that lost her life out in South Carolina state. But it's, you know, it's a crowd, it's a lot of people, and it's a lot of money spending. That's all you spending a lot of money out there at homecomings.
Okay? So that's, you know, you think about somewhere like South Carolina state, you might pay 40 or $50 to park.
All right, you go inside of the campus, on the campus, it might cost you a game ticket, let's say. So it's 55 for a game ticket.
You want to get something to drink, you want to get something to eat. Shoot, you pick a place. Everybody tailgating, but they charging a plate. So let's say 20, $25 for a plate of food. You want to go around and see people and stuff like that. You know, it just, it adds up to. Whereas the tailgate experience, you know, in the past, there's a lot of people that just came out there, they cooked. They just cooked their food. They had food out there prepared. You can go and your tailgate, your fellowship, you commune, you can go around different tables. You don't need no ticket, you don't need to pay, you don't gotta cash app nobody.
And I think back then it was better as well because we wasn't expecting so much out of people that are just regular cooks, regular chefs, right, Regular grill masters. We looking at them to be competition now. We turned into some competition judges on barbecue pitmasters or something like that and judging every piece of food that we eat. When back then we was just happy to get a plate. We happy to get a free plate. Go ahead, you go and tear it up if you will. If you not, then cool, you could throw it away or whatnot.
But again, all. I'm not going to be naive. All of this does go into the cost of living, cost of groceries nowadays, right? The cost of gas nowadays, cost of supplies nowadays. So I get it, I get it.
But at the same time, it's just, we reminisce on that time. It was a great time when. When the tailgates, everybody just had their own barbecue and stuff. And it wasn't an LLC attached to it or food truck service or company attached to it. It was just. Yo, y' all know the Williams? Yeah. Nah, they over there. They got the ribs today. I'm telling you. Did you. Did you see the Burgess boys out there? Yeah, the Burgess boys. They got the brisket over there. I'm telling you, we gotta. You know what I mean? Back when it was that versus us having to support at every turn we support in the business and we just making ourselves go broke by spreading out all of this bread. And nevertheless, that's. That's my little soapbox or whatnot.
Again, are we small business? Ain't small businessing our way out of community.
Customer service is ass everywhere. Pray for customer service. But lastly, I wanted to ask y', all, it's a question that I posed to the community. Y' all write, please email me and let me know what y' all think.
If you had, you're gifted with a business on the marketing budget, you're given the choice and the task to market it as either a black business, black owned business, or a small business.
Which are you choosing and why?
All right, see, I'll write me with y' all responses with that I'll give my aunts. Well, I get my answer this week. I'll wait till y' all write me back so that I can Give my answer on that.
I wanted to end this with some wisdom this week.
This piece is called Black Love the Spirit of Radio Raheem. It's a piece that I actually wrote and performed seven years ago.
Seven short years ago, especially considering Covid.
But when I wrote this and performed, formed it and published it to YouTube, I had a feeling that nothing. That it was going to kind of sadly be a timeless piece and that it was not, you know, how should I put it? It was going to live for a long time. And although it may have only a couple hundred views on YouTube, it's still very relevant today.
So before we end off, I'm going to play this.
But first, I will lead us with a prayer again, with faith that's in God. This prayer is straight from the heart. Let the ego and the hubris never break us apart. And from one brother to another, if nobody ever told you before, I love you. All right, So I appreciate y', all, man. I'mma leave y' all with this clip.
Excuse me with the poem again. Black Love the spirit of Radio Raheem, if you will. So it's a lot of high star bars through there. I may go through the high star bars next, next episode, but just listen to it, y', all and. And just give it some attention. I appreciate y', all, though. Have a good one and we'll see y' all and catch y' all in the next episode.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: I pledge obedience to the divided States of America, fearing that if I speak on the lies and the hate in America, I'll be just labeled as another guy that lies and hates on America. Therein lies lies my disdain and distaste with America. I hope y' all prepared. Cause we gonna stir it up. I hear cries of Maga.
I ask her what was the first formula to make Murica great?
To let the wicked lead the righteous. Watch Murica hate. How much sweat and labor, pain and agony we made Murica take before the birth of a new nation. Oh, y' all sleep See, we made Murica late Now wait, wait Indoctrinate me with this American dream Now as I wake up Deception appears amidst scheme Wicked dreams manifested it's all a pyramid scheme and that cacophony of silence Appears in my being and all the while carpe diem Is what I seem to hear in my dream so we choose to seize the day Let God's love lead the way and watch divinity be reciprocated no matter what the people say See I' ma preach today oh, y' all insecure cats can go and kick it with Easter rate, but I gotta keep it player. See, in the book it says we hold these truths to be self evident.
That all men are created equal. Well, quick question.
When will we hold these truths to be self evident for me and my people? I mean, sit back, really think about it for a second.
Am I right people? The only time we hold these truths to be self evident is when it comes to white people. Now that might not sound all the way politically right people, but understand, see, I'm in love with this country. Tis of thee.
But it's that idea, that sweet, sweet land of liberty. Not the image of all these unarmed dead black kids in the streets. I mean that shit gets sick in there especially cause they resemble me.
Remember when stuff happened in Charlotte, right?
They painted us as looters, savages, renegades.
It's insane.
Never been no losers, not no bad kids. Never been afraid as a child of destiny. I think it goes beyond saying that. You throw lemons at me, I'mma make lemonade. So what's the super solution?
[00:47:07] Speaker A: Right?
[00:47:08] Speaker B: We gotta make us stronger.
Gotta learn to speak less, listen more, hug longer. See, they made the drug stronger, but it's more hunger. So we gotta fight to weaken hate, work to love stronger.
This revolution will not be televised. In the grand spectrum, there's no time warnings.
So we must operate daily with the audacity of divine expectancy drenched all on us.
[00:47:44] Speaker A: Hey everybody, it's closing time.
You don't gotta go home, but you can't stay here.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: Closing time.
Do the knowledge.
