Hood-Adjacent & Over 40: The Art of Building Our Own Spaces

speaker-0: Usabia.

speaker-1: I am your brother Mike alongside my man. And this is the Grown Man Game Podcast. We are back again getting it to you, man. Just just trying to keep it keep it honest, keep it true, keep it real, let y'all know what's going on in this world and get our opinions about everything that's crazy, man. you can go ahead and catch us. At Grown Man Game Pod on the socials. You can go ahead and email us at grown man game podcast at gmail.com. You can hit my brother Rod at

speaker-0: Four Fit Fatherhood. yeah. The number four Fit Fatherhood.

speaker-1: Right, you can go ahead and hit me up at maybe nice mic on all the socials, and that's what's up, man. you know what? I've been I've been lacking on asking y'all. We've been lacking on asking y'all. We need your help. We need you to focus on giving us money. No, I'm just saying we need if you're listen us on the Apple Podcast. Go ahead and give us you know, I'm saying a nice little review. You know, if you're enjoying this, you're feeling good, hook us up with five stars, you know what I'm saying? We probably probably shot you out on the episode. Like, good looking out, Davion three two five.

speaker-0: Dave.

speaker-1: He says, we love the show. Me and my homies listen to it. And we've been able to have some good conversations because of it. Thank you, Davion 325. Appreciate

speaker-0: Appreciate you, big dog.

speaker-1: you, brother. So, you know what I'm saying? Show some love in that way. Keep thank you so much for the subscriptions. Thank you for subscribing on the YouTubes, following us on everywhere. But yeah, man. It it it gives us it gives us energy to keep going. So good looking out on that. What's up with you, brother?

speaker-0: man, I am blessed and highly favored. right. as my mom would say.

speaker-1: Thank you, Jeez.

speaker-0: feeling good, feeling youthful in my in my ripe old age. life is good. I got some some news that I haven't told you.

speaker-1: Why you always got news that you never tell me, man? What's up with you, man?

speaker-0: I mean, you know.

speaker-1: supposed to be brothers.

speaker-0: i it's funny, I I can't do this every episode, right? I can't be I can't be dropping this big news every episode. I'm gonna get my life together. Right.

speaker-1: Sold the house and got a new one, right?

speaker-0: Yeah, no, we didn't sell the house, but we're closing the gym.

speaker-1: No man.

speaker-0: Yeah, man. It's not by like not by choice. our so our business partner had a deal at this at this particular location that he signed like 10 years ago. Him and the owner were good friends. They had like a little handshake deal, got us like a really sweet rate. Like, you know, this is 10 years ago. So it whatever the rate was then is a rate we've been paying this whole time. Well, my man passed away last year. his wife also passed away last year. So the kids have taken over. And one of the units next to us just got leased and they obviously are paying the current rate. So they went down the list like, how they paying so low? And we so so essentially they went back, they let us know that they were gonna be reviewing the lease and basically doubling our rent.

speaker-1: Hey

speaker-0: And so we we negotiated a little bit, went back and forth and and we were able to kind of get them to come down off of where they wanted to charge us, but it's still, you know, it's still a few thousand more than than what we want to pay. And so we're like, yeah, it's not worth it. I mean, it's worth it, but it's not worth it in the sense that like both me and my business partner have kids and families, and we gotta be involved with those. We both coach our kids, you know what I mean? He's got three, I got two. and so in order for it to make sense, him and I would have to be there more often. And it just don't make sense. Right. And even with that, like with both of us being there, it would be kind of like breaking even. And ain't nobody trying to work for free. You know what I mean? I'm not trying to work to have a job. Don't

speaker-1: Yeah, no, I'm just saying.

speaker-0: do that. Like I understand the economy the way it's set up right now is like you you work to pay for gas so you can go to work, but I ain't trying to do that with this. So we, you know, we we talked about it. We kind of figured it out. We had a meeting just earlier this week and we were letting them kind of talk through it. And we had them on had us on mute and they were on speakerphone. And they got to that part where like, yeah, what we're looking at is is you know, X amount for X amount per per square foot. And my man was typing it in. He turned it and showed us and we saw in unison. We was like, hell no. So you know, after we finished the conversation, we talked a little bit amongst the three of us and like, yo, that's that's not gonna work. Like we, we we're not gonna pay that. And if we decide to continue, we'll be moving to another location. But as of right now, we'll probably be shutting down. Not probably, we'll be shutting down at the end of the month because we don't want to start a new lease and we don't want to pay month to month at this rate. So like we'll we'll throw, we'll sell some stuff maybe, put the rest in storage and then come back at a later date. And we really honestly The for for what we have, we have a space that's much bigger than we actually need. and because we had such a good rate, like it didn't it didn't matter, right? Like we we could just take advantage of having extra space. But for what we do and how we do it, we really need maybe half of that. Like we don't need two offices and two bathrooms. Like we don't need all that space. We have like all this front end space we don't need. So we could probably go in somewhere else with a smaller footprint and and be okay, but We just none of us are really interested in doing all that right now. We might revisit it at the end of this year, like at the end of the season. not the fiscal year, but like the end, like what is it? Not not the calendar year, but the end of our quote unquote fiscal year, which would like August. and maybe redo something at that point. But as of right now, I'm out and I'm actually happy though, right? Like it's funny how these things keep happening, right? I feel like God is just giving me space to to. Or like move removing things to give me space to kind of really focus back in on what's most important. like the car, you know, got that out and then like cool, no, no big deal. felt good about it. This thing, like I thought I might feel some kind of way about it, but when they came back with that number, I was like, I didn't have enough. Hell no. Yeah. And then I start thinking like the the I don't spend a whole lot of time there. Like we had built it up to a point where I was only there one day a week. But even that was like, I gotta try to figure out who's gonna take. the girls to lessons. And then I got to try to schedule things around that. And then we're answering phone calls and talking to parents and and reaching out to coaches. And like there's a lot of stuff outside of the gym that you do that you don't really think about. Yeah. but those hours add up. And I then I do all the programming. So I do the programming for the classes and I do programming for the athletes. I do programming for our cause we have mobile. That's one thing we might keep is the the mobile training and the we have virtual training because we have athletes like all over the country. So that part we'll probably keep because that don't we don't need to change anything there. But like for those athletes, it's more one-on-one, right? So like you're programming specifically for them. So that takes more time. I got to talk to them and make sure they're doing the workouts and answering messages and stuff. So there's a lot more that goes into it in my particular role. So for me, it was like, yeah, I can I can do without that. Give me a little extra space and then I can focus in on my own kids because Reagan is hurt right now. And she she we thought she had like she strained her. We thought it was a hip flexor. It turned out it was actually her growing. we thought it was like a first degree strain strain where she would be back in like a week. And it turns out it's it's probably a two or three. It's like two and a half, was what they said. which means that it's gonna take longer for her to recover. So we gotta try to make sure I get her back on a good recovery protocol. and so it's just time to focus back in on home again. Yeah. And and and and like I said, it's it's not like we can't do it. And again, from the start, it wasn't something I planned on doing, right? When I walked away from the first gym, I didn't ever intend on going back into the gym. Like I had

speaker-1: Remember man. No we was popping bottles in Arizona like congratulations. Hey

speaker-0: Yeah, I never

speaker-1: y'all, I just opened up another gym. I might do another one in Vegas. We had another one over here.

speaker-0: You know what I'm thinking about it, man. I'm so glad that that stuff didn't happen. Like it would have been nice, obviously. You make money and expand your footprint and you get prestige and all this stuff. But like just thinking about like what all would have went into having three to four more gyms on top of the one that I already have, I would have been stressed out. You know what I mean? Or stressed out or stretched thin. Yeah. And so like it not happening, whatever. Right. And maybe that's hindsight being twenty twenty, but yeah. So I got a little bit more a little bit more freedom and I'm I'm happy for it. All right, good.

speaker-1: Yeah. Good man. I can't say congratulations, brother.

speaker-0: No, no, say congratulations. Cause it what it like I say, it freed up more time for the things that are most important. Y'all might get some more podcasts from me, you might get some more content. I might be able to drag Mike big headself in. We might do some extra stuff. You know what I mean? Like you know what I'm saying? Like it it's the benefit to y'all.

speaker-1: For sure. I mean me and me and Tiff literally had this conversation maybe Saturday night. We were like, man, we don't be hanging out with Rod and Ari as much as we used to. I was just like, well, it's just see, that's Ari calling, right? You see what I'm saying? This is what I'm talking about, y'all.

speaker-0: Damn kids. No, I don't know. It's not even look at that. What is that?

speaker-1: Ranches, brother.

speaker-0: It's ringing, but it's not ringing.

speaker-1: See? Palantir, man. Palantir.

speaker-0: Right.

speaker-1: But no, we were just talking about like, well, it's just that it's that season where everybody's playing sports. Yeah. Kids are in 2,300 different kind of things. So you're being pulled in so many different directions. And, you know, if you can fit a little bit of time to go do something, a lot of times like, man, I gotta, I gotta do a little date night with Tiff. We can't go out with Rod and Ari right now. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

speaker-0: We could do a couples day name, but then you need the you need that solo time where y'all can talk about stuff that that just y'all need to talk about. You know what I mean? You might wanna you know.

speaker-1: You know what I'm saying? Do some slow calf raises or something right quick.

speaker-0: Saying falling up the windows, you know what I mean? Like a teenager. It's funny. I told Ari that last night. Where was we at? We were somewhere. So we Reese had her band performance last night. So the parking lot was full. So we dropped her and and Reagan and Ari's mom off. And they were like, I was like, gonna go park around the corner. You guys can get out and I'll, you know, I'll walk back. I was like, No, I'll go with you. And so we had to drive like all the way around to like some neighborhood. And then we parked. And I was like, hey, remember when we used to be teenagers, we used to just like park somewhere and make out? It's like, you want to make out? She just started laughing. I was just joking. Like I didn't really, I mean, I would have, don't get me wrong. But but I was like, it's funny just to think about that. Like, yeah, you need that space. Cause I would never would have said that with the well, I might have just jokingly, because it grosses them out when I talk about stuff like that. Like, man, your mama fine, boy. Woo.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah. Mom looking like a snack right now in the girls. But yeah, you need that time. And so that yeah, we talked about that too. It's like it's hard because everybody has stuff. Everybody's got a schedule. And and it's funny because you get these kids into things, right? I feel like we're planning a life which I have mixed emotions on. like I feel like it's some stuff that they just need to do or not do or whatever. But I feel like we're constantly trying to give them things to do. but then everything wants to be the priority. Like, dog, you

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: can't like, all right, this middle school band, right? It's it's cool. I get it. For some people, that's that's their thing, right? Like band is their thing and I get it. But like it's a class. So like no, we not gonna be there five days a week. Like you can't, you can't request that of us. Like we don't have, like it's not that, right? It's it's but everything feels like that. Right. The the band wants every day, the softball wants every day. When she gets a little acting role, like, yeah, we need you to be here for the next four days. I'm like, she got school. Like what kind of what kind of world do y'all live in? Like Yeah,

speaker-1: Could have told her if she's f

speaker-0: no. Just you know, you you'll sign her out of school. I'm like not signing her out of school. But I think that's where everything is. Everything wants to be a priority. And I think as parents, that's tough. Yeah. Cause you want to provide for your kids. You want to give them all the opportunity, especially In the black community, I think that's one of the things we we beat ourselves over the head with as parents is like we want to give them everything that we didn't have. Yeah. Right. We want to provide all the other like I really wanted to be in the band, but we didn't have and so now I'm trying to make sure that she's in it, you what I'm saying? Like

speaker-1: Man, you know what I'm saying? The best one. Holler at me.

speaker-0: Trumpet. Bang geek.

speaker-1: Sixth chair. I wasn't good enough.

speaker-0: Yeah, six chair and you might as well have sat in the chairs next to me.

speaker-1: It was like 13, 14, 15 of us, right?

speaker-0: like six A, six B, six it was like one through five and then rest y'all sixes.

speaker-1: Well that's something, you know, saying I go back and forth with myself also with and we've had this discussion like years ago we had this discussion about how much is too much for the kids, how much is not enough. Cause

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: I'm like, I wanna keep Maddie busy because we don't need no idle mind situation happening. We don't need cool. At the same time, it's like, you know, she started back volleyball. Last week she made the number one team.

speaker-0: Yeah, we did a little dance. We was a we were doing a little what is that, the Charlie Brown? Okay. I was like, that's dope, man. I know

speaker-1: No.

speaker-0: that's been a been a a goal that you've been working towards.

speaker-1: She's been working, man. It's been beautiful to watch her work and work and work. But now there's more practices. The coach is hitting us up. Hey, you want to come in early before practices so we can get this extra work in for her position? So that's more money. Yeah, yeah.

speaker-0: Welcome.

speaker-1: And it's like what you were saying about, you know, your gym and doing the online training. I was, you know, the dude came up to us and like, yeah, we have, you know, the Online training, we could do it from your house and yada yada yada. And I was like, mm, okay, maybe we'll see. But There's also so much positive about it because it's like, okay, you're learning how to deal with a team and work in a team. You're learning how to deal with hardships. Yeah. You're learning how to push yourself past where you thought you could go. Yep. And then you get all of the all of the the the the what word am I looking for? Help me out, Rod.

speaker-0: Benefits?

speaker-1: yeah. You get all of the benefits that come with that from all of that work and you learn. Work ethic. You know, I can teach her so much work ethic, but then coach has to teach her something too from a different angle.

speaker-0: Right.

speaker-1: Matter of fact, I was talking about you when we were talking about the training. I said, We got Uncle Rod around the corner. I'll pay Uncle Rod, and we'll be out the Corvette out just in time.

speaker-0: Yeah, it's again, I thought about that last night too, man. I was like, damn, I didn't have the space before, but now I can like really make the garage a full blown. Like I got that little corner of it that's the gym, but like I can really expand and we can do all the stuff that I wanted, because my driveway is slanted, so it's and we're on a hill. So some of the stuff we can't do, but I'm like, now I got the space. May not come when you call, but he always has

speaker-1: On time, baby. Yeah, yeah. But you know, so just trying to find that balance too, man. Cause

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: I used to be very much of you don't need to be doing too much. One is enough. That's good. Now I'm kinda like, okay, a little more is just fine. Okay, you wanna do the volleyball thing. Okay, now you wanna do She was doing she's doing volleyball at her school also. And you know, I'm in my head, I'm like, You're gonna be able to do both all right, let's see. But then when she made the team, she's like, I think I might have to leave volleyball at school. And I was like, Are you sure you wanna do that? I mean, the season is not that long. And now she's like, you know what? If they don't get their stuff together, I'm a leader team, so I need to keep pushing so we can get some wins out of our belt. And I'm like, okay, so you you're trying to stay with the team? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not really conflicting yet. I'm like, all right. Cool. So it's like, you know, I'm saying she's growing because she has to grow.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: But I just don't wanna put too much on her because I do believe that we do that as a society. We put so much, not just on our kids, but on ourselves where we just Okay, Monday we gotta do this, Tuesday we gotta do this, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we gotta we got to, we got to, we got to, we got to. No the hell we don't. COVID came and people were like, I can stay at home and still enjoy life. Yeah. You know, so it's like finding that balance, man, like you always

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what? My thing has always been like exposure, right? Like I want to try to expose them to as many things as we can and then let them like absorb one or two or whatever, right? Yeah. The unfortunate part about exposure is my kids like everything. Right? Like, yeah, we want to do this, we want to do that, we want to do this. Like Reese wants she she we just started golfing, because she would want to golf forever. So every every Sunday now we go golf. Okay. and then she wants to get back into horseback riding. And then she wants to she remember she was writing a script. She wants to get back into writing. She just had me buy her a journal so she can start writing in it. like I'm like, dog, you can you can do all these things.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We we'll sign you up for it. And yeah, you can't do all that. and I I don't want to be the one because I don't know which one is gonna be the thing. Right. Right. And so now that we have put ourselves in this position, I don't want to be like, no, you can't do that. Don't do that. Cause I don't want to kill her creativity or kill her, you know, her drive to find these things. And I kind of want it to happen naturally, like, all right, cool, sign you up for this, sign you up for that. Eventually one of these things is going to conflict and you're going to choose, like, yeah, I don't want to do this. Yeah, that's not really the one. Or I could do it at home or do it something separate. The the thing that I'm I'm fighting the most is like you said, the idle hands, right? Because when they don't have anything, I think especially for for my two, because they do a whole lot, when they don't have anything, they don't want to do nothing. Right? They just want to be on their phone. scrolling or whatever. They don't want to like I'm like, you still got responsibility. You still got other stuff to do. Like sure you don't have practice today, but your room it's a tornado in there. Like you you gotta wash your clothes. Like you like you you gotta go do the dishes. Like you got you got responsibilities. You've been able to kind of escape some of those because you was at practice from three to seven, but practice ain't no practice today. Like get in there and start cleaning. Yeah. because they just would rather just Well, I didn't have anything today, so I just planned on being on my phone or or Reagan watched I forgot what is the Coven Coven Academy. Have you heard of that? It's like about little witches or something. It's like 20 minute episodes, bro. It's 21 episodes in a season. She watched the whole season in three days. I'm

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: like, bro, you got hurt and you can't go to practice, so you just watched s just 40 hours of TV. She's like, what? She was like, Well, I I I couldn't do anything. They said told me to just sit in the dugout and they said I could have my phone. I'm like, You was watching it in the dugout? Like, what the were

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: you crazy? Like, were you trying to get killed? Or if they came in and caught you? She was like, Nobody cares when you're hurt. Like they just I was like, Yeah, I guess so. I've been that coach before. I look in, you are here. Shut up. Maybe we'll get back to work. So

speaker-1: Get out of here. So broke arms.

speaker-0: Yeah. So yeah, I think that's the thing that I I'm trying to figure out is like the balance between keeping them occupied and giving them space to to kind of or sovereignty to grow and try to find their own things. I think our gener well your generation's ahead of mine just a little bit, but we kind of cross over is our our parents like be careful now. Our parents and for the most part, like if you did something just because you you had interest in it. Like it wasn't a whole lot of like, we're gonna put you in this and we're gonna put you in that and you're gonna do this. It was like, yo, mom, can I please play football for months and months and months and months and months or like years. Like I wanted to play football And my mom was like, Nope, not this year. I'll cost too much. Are you not old enough? Or we don't that ain't gonna fit our schedule because I'm working nights and who gonna take you to practice? And then eventually it was like, all right, this is the year. You're gonna play. Your cousin is playing. We can you can go the same, you guys go to practice. We didn't play on same team my first year, but we can go to practice together. It made sense. And then it was the rest was history. But like we had to kind of I know I'm not saying that the parents didn't, because I know my mom and she listens. So let me be clear, mother. I know that they did get us involved in stuff and they tried different things and they gave us opportunities to get into stuff, but I'm just saying generationally, like they had other stuff that they was worried about. They was not trying to manage our schedule. Right. My mom was not my agent. She wasn't trying to figure out what

speaker-1: You don't know.

speaker-0: I was gonna do with these hours. Like, he's home from school. Let's make sure he does. Nah, I was like,

speaker-1: Frost the chicken, take the chicken out the freezer and make sure

speaker-0: You didn't defrost the chicken? Right.

speaker-1: Well you told me at like four AM I'm sorry.

speaker-0: Okay. So you're not gonna eat tonight then. Yeah, just a I think it's just different, man. I think millennial exenials or whatever it is, parents are overcompensating a bit, trying to provide the quote unquote what we didn't have. Yeah. But I think it's it's we don't get to where we are if we don't go through life the way that we went through it. True. Yeah. And so we have to kind of realize like some of that is necessary. Some boy Creativity comes from boredom. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you don't, you don't do some of the creative things until you don't have nothing in front of you. Like if you got a TV and a and a phone and people are constantly giving you activities to do, you don't need to be creative because everything is creative for you. Yeah,

speaker-1: It never bored.

speaker-0: but for for a a musician, like if you had stuff to do all the time, there would be no time when you were just drumming on the table or you was thinking about composing something or putting the beat together or, you know, playing a trombone or what was it? The saxophone.

speaker-1: True.

speaker-0: Trumpet try playing the trumpet badly. Like

speaker-1: Sixth chair. You can't play bad in the sixth chair.

speaker-0: No, I'm messing with you. But like, you know what I mean? You would have you wouldn't have practiced, right? You wouldn't have tried to get better at it or you wouldn't have like heard something and be like, let me see if I could replicate that. Cause you'd have been in football or basketball or you would have been doing this thing or that thing, like our kids are, right? And then then to even get them in the band, we're forcing them. Hey, you should play the you should play the guitar or you should play the piano or you should like we're trying to get them to do this stuff instead of allowing them to kind of find it. which is, you know, I don't know, whatever. And it's a different different times.

speaker-1: Different times and just different moves and different things that we're trying to do. You know, me and Tiff, we were just talking about Growing up and you know, Maddie was asking for clothes. And me and Tiff were we were just, you know, talking to each other, and we were just like, Do you remember when you got clothes once a year? I said, Yeah, you got school clothes. That's when you went. We go on school shopping. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. It don't matter if you grow bigger or whatever. You you went school shopping once a year. Maybe grandma and them sent you some stuff for Christmas, or maybe sent you a little money or something.

speaker-0: Rhea coming into new Christmas clothes. Yeah. Back to school.

speaker-1: okay, what's up? Yeah, Lil' Miller outpost, you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? We out here. Come on, man.

speaker-0: Murvin's dog. Yeah. Don't hurt them with the before it came out and they had the like the newer versions of the Murvin's brand.

speaker-1: man. But it's like now, at least for her, it's like, I need some new shoes. I'm looking over at the shoes over which she got one, two, three, four. You need new shoes. Those ones ain't even got no, they ain't got holes in them. They ain't got nothing. Yeah, I need some new shoes. You said that you're gonna get me the yada yada. And she being on my head like you said you were gonna get them. I'm like, bruh, that's an extra little $70 that you really don't need.

speaker-0: That's the other thing is shoes ain't what they used to be. Remember you used to be able to go to Payless Shoe Store and your mama how you try on and you run down the aisle or whatever and you be able to get s like some shoes for twenty bucks? Like that don't even exist no more.

speaker-1: See, you know what, man, I'm gonna pray for you 'cause you have to go to pay less.

speaker-0: Payless, dog. You got a you got an issue with payless? Okay. Were you getting your shoes at Kmart? my bad. My bad. I forgot y'all. I just you know what I mean. I just looked at the last episode. I forgot y'all had the 750. But y'all was y'all wasn't y'all in a big boy. I forgot. Mike, Mike's Mike lives in the suburbs. That's my suburban

speaker-1: Wait, wait a minute.

speaker-0: Mike. You you you know what? You know what? I just

speaker-1: Slow down.

speaker-0: sent you that the other day. Is that suburban kids need hood kids for their development cousin for your development? Yeah, got you together.

speaker-1: for sure they do the buttons. Shout out to Watts. Every weekend in Watts. What's

speaker-0: Got you together, straightened you out.

speaker-1: up, Jeanette? They bread.

speaker-0: Hey guys. Why are you talking like that, Mike? Tiffany.

speaker-1: Nah, nah, nah. Man, I was raised by a single mom, so but we never had to really go to pay less, cause my uncle in Watts always his business kinda like a thrift store that he ran out of his garage.

speaker-0: Okay.

speaker-1: So, you know, boy going in the garage to get you something. All right, Uncle June Bug. Let me see. We going shop.

speaker-0: That's how you know you have That's how you know where he was at.

speaker-1: Yeah man. I think I had got a pair of Vas. That was probably the worst time for me. Yes.

speaker-0: The

speaker-1: Yeah, Via. It was a tough time. It

speaker-0: Yeah, it's a different yeah.

speaker-1: was a tough time, but

speaker-0: Beas are just stock. Whatever they whatever they got at this the factory is what they made them out of.

speaker-1: Yeah, but I never got pay-let shoes until I think maybe I was like 19. I remember telling my brother, like, yo, I got two pairs of shacks, so as long as I got the reds and the blues, so I'm cool. He's like, man, if you got shacks, you're not living good, bro. You need to figure things out. Like they look just like dunts, man. You know what I'm saying?

speaker-0: Jax. Dunkman. Mm two hand dunk. Man. Yeah, that must.

speaker-1: we supposed to be doing this show, we over here just gapping, man, but

speaker-0: The yapping content is where it's at apparently.

speaker-1: Yeah, I guess so. I guess so.

speaker-0: You wanna actually you said that, you wanna get into something? You got you got something that we can we can yap about.

speaker-1: Yap about, yeah, man. well actually not, man. I think you had a little something. I was I had a little sprinkle. So, you know, I saw Kev on stage. He was on earn your leisure with the good brothers over there, and he was just talking about, you know, him and his wife and how they share each other's locations. And let me see, it's Troy, he's married, and then Rashad, I believe, is single. So the married dudes, they Pretty much like, yeah. The single brother was like kind of like smirking, like, you sh you share, you share your location with your wife for safety. I mean, I can understand for her safety, you wanna know where she's at just in case, but what what why for you? And he's like, Because I'm at where I'm at, and it's also for my safety.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: And she can know where I'm at, it don't matter. He's like, She get the cold to your phone, all that. Yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. That's feel like a no brainer, right? Like I I just I don't know, man. I don't I I don't understand getting to a point in your life where you're married and committed to somebody and then be like, I'm gonna keep these secrets. Right. Yeah,

speaker-1: There's the boundary.

speaker-0: no, you can't know where I'm at. And I'm you know, my phone is my phone and and I'm you know, it it just gives the impression that you're doing something shady. You know what I mean? Like if I if you ain't got nothing to hide, like for the for the most part, you probably aren't really doing anything. For most most guys, right? Most dudes really aren't doing anything. You just standing on some old principles that, you know, 'cause as we talked about bro code, right? Yeah. Standing on some old ideals of like, you ain't a man if you got a shit, you shit like it's some kind of shameful thing.

speaker-1: Right. you must be henpecked, brother. Right.

speaker-0: He whipped beta males and all that kind of stuff, right? But like it don't make I'm at where I'm at. Like he said, like, yo, I'm there. Like okay. If I'm doing something I ain't supposed to do, then I'm doing it and you know about it. You know what I'm saying? Like I it's just not the case, but I don't I don't get it. But I understand, I understand, you know, of the safety part of it. I can understand why he w he said what he said and I understand why a single guy would feel that way. Cause as a single man, like you don't have no responsibility to anybody but yourself. So like even if you had a girlfriend, it's not a long-term committed relationship, then you don't really need to have that kind of connection to her. But once you get married, like till death do us part, you need to know where I'm at. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like if something happened to me, I need somebody that's responsible to know where I'm at.

speaker-1: And it's not that craziness, you know what I'm saying? I got a buddy, he has to deal with some craziness, like, you know, why are you why are you over there? What's that smell on you? Like, damn, I'm just I went to work and I came home. Yeah, but it usually takes you fifteen minutes. Tonight it took you eighteen. It's not that. You know what I'm saying? That's a crazy person. It's not that. It's just

speaker-0: Is it though? And I say that because like there are obviously jealous people and crazy people. I'm not discounting that. But usually for the average human, they don't get to that unless there's a reason to be there, right? Or some kind of inclination or something was happening and where it's like, yeah, where was you? Cause the shit ain't lining up. Like the math ain't math. And like you ain't giving me the whole story. And so something seems off. And so, yeah, it did take you a little bit longer to get home. And that's not that's not the first time it happened. Like the first time you get home a little later, it's like, yeah, it was traffic. But damn, it's traffic every day. So now is your normal time to get home 20 minutes or is it 50? Cause sometimes you get home early. Did you get off earlier? Like then you start asking questions because there's there's obviously some trust there that's that's not yeah where it's supposed to be. So yes, I agree, there are some crazy people for sure. But then also there is there's there's there's something underlying that we're not addressing. And because you talking to your homeboy, you ain't saying the shit that you was doing. Mm-hmm. But it you know.

speaker-1: Yeah. Well I I mean I dug into that a little bit, you know what I'm saying? I'm like, You you cheated on her before? Nah man. Has she been cheated on before? Yeah. Okay. Well then that makes a more sense. But That's not what we're talking about fully. You know what I'm saying? We just talking about we're an open book because you're my best friend, you got my back. I don't need to sh, you know, I don't need to hide anything from you. Right. You know what I'm saying? You know what JG say, you you get the keys and the passcodes, you know, all the security codes or whatever. You know what I'm saying? It's that's just what it is. That's part of marriage. Do you feel like in marriage you should Have joint accounts, or do you feel like you should have that kind of separated? Cause I know how I feel about it, but I have talked to, you know, a couple of people that are married and you know, I've man, I gotta give my wife half of the rent this month. And that kind of blows my mind, how my mind think is is, you know what I'm saying, wired.

speaker-0: Yeah. So I I I'm a I'm a joint account. I I lean in that direction, right? I think you you bought the house together, you got the cars together, you got the, you know what I mean? Like it it we whatever is in this house is in this house. So I make it, it goes into a same account. we do have separate accounts, and that's like I might have some stuff that That I want to buy and I don't want you to necessarily know about like I'm buying a gift or something like that. I want it to come out of this account. So you don't, you don't, you don't hit the the transactions and be like, my gosh, you went to Bath and Body Works and ruin and surprise or something like that. All right. Or or or there's also like, I might do something that's extra, right? Like I might have an extra gig or something that I that I did. And so a good like majority of it goes to the joint account, right? But I might keep a little something for myself to treat myself to something, you know what I mean? Or like I may be saving up for something that I want to get. And if I put everything into the the joint account, well shit it's just getting spent. You know what I mean? Like, yo, like you d the hell with your savings. Like this this money in here is going to pay that stuff or buy stuff for the kids or get groceries, like all that stuff, right? And so we we have both, right? Like so we have our individual accounts and then we have our joint account. And I would say the lion's share for sure goes to the joint account. And even even some of the extra stuff, like I'm I'm doing some extra deals or brand deals or whatever, and it's like I don't need that for nothing. Like I don't have no plans for it, so it goes directly to the account. and I just feel like it's it's an easier way to have a financial conversation because everything is on the table. Yeah, right.

speaker-1: You know.

speaker-0: Yeah it's not like well, I I I made this this this month and I got this the extra that and it's just kinda muddies up the waters, you know what mean? I know for for my dad and my stepmom, I don't know what it their situation is now. It may be different now that, you know, she's retired and not working anymore. But I know they had separate accounts and had separate accounts my my whole life as far as I know. Yeah. And you know, when it's time to pay bills, he had his portion, she had her portion. And I don't know what their reasoning was for that. I don't you know it's probably because they were both previously married and in relationships and had the you know divorces and things happen, probably a little less trusting or wanted maybe a little bit more of their own control over it. But I just feel like it's more complicated that way. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Like I think you it and I think too, they come from a generation where you pay the you pay the the mortgage with a check. Like so I could we could write a check and you just give me your part or we give them two checks, whatever. But I think now that's a little bit harder because now I gotta make sure money transfers into from my account into your into some account so that it gets paid. And that's just complicated. Like I just keep it easy. Money's already a big enough issue. Like let's just keep it simple, as simple as possible.

speaker-1: Proper yeah, KIS, keep it simple. Yeah, we do something similar to that. I mean, when it comes to like birthday or Christmas gifts or something, then like we do have like two separate credit cards. Mm-hmm. And then we do have like two separate like Amazon accounts or something. Okay. Amazon, go ahead and pay us. Yeah. Send it send that

speaker-0: I just spent some money on Amazon to do it.

speaker-1: Growman Game Podcast at Gmail dot com. But yeah, that's about as far as it goes. Like we just we separate a lot of different accounts, but we're on each account together. So there's like we got the savings account, but it's a joint account. We got the bill pay account, but it's a joint account. And we got the expenditure money, but it's a joint account. And then we got the vacation account, but it's a joint account. You know what I'm saying? Kind of that thing, because like you said, it just makes it easier. But I do agree with you, like the older generation, you know what I'm saying, boomers. It seems like they were doing that a lot also because we had a a couples class with a lot of older couples and there was a good amount of them in there that were like, no, we you know, we keep our money separate and or yeah, I get my allowance on this day and whoop de whoop. And I was like, Your allowance? Yeah

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: you just did a whole presentation about God put us together and what God has joined together. We are one. Step for in the bank account. Yeah, a little bit. You know what I'm saying? But yeah, it seems like that's a generational thing. But it seems like it's coming back also to an extent. Because I know a lot of younger couples that are like, like I was saying, that kind of like, Yeah, I got mine, she got hers, and then we just come in the middle and pay what we gotta pay together. I was like, Mm, all right, that's interesting.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I I I guess it works. It it you know, if it works for you, it works for you. I feel like it I I I think I like it better the opposite way. Yeah. Right. Where like everything goes into the joint and then we agree on what our maybe our monthly is gonna be, right? Like I'm gonna get this mu amount that comes back to my account. We don't do that, but I'm just saying I know people who do it, right? Where like you talk about allowance, everything goes into the joint account. And then we have separate accounts and a certain amount of that goes into each person's account. So they have that to spend on whatever's, you know, energy drinks or something stupid. You know what I mean? Like your your own little vices or your little things that you want to get that's for yourself that have nothing to do with the family or with the with the relationship kind of stuff.

speaker-1: Means whiskey. You can sponsor us also.

speaker-0: Yeah. Listen, Centauri or whoever. Like Yeah.

speaker-1: Uncle Nears I think something happened to Uncle Nears too. I think they're going out of business.

speaker-0: Yeah, something happened with that. I think it yeah, it's it's that's another topic for another discussion. But yeah. but yeah, so I I like I said I could see both ways. I mean, do whatever works for you. I'm I'm just of the mind of like whatever's the easiest way to do it, like life is already life and like you got if you gotta add more transactions and more stuff to it, like it just becomes problematic at some point, in my opinion. Now I I can't speak for everybody, right? You you you making a ton of money where it don't matter to you how that money gets spent, then by all means do whatever you do. But I do. You do. I can't do it.

speaker-1: Not yet.

speaker-0: Nah, nah. All right, so so we got the we got the the we you sharing your location because you're soft. and you might get hurt because you're weak. Like you you just can't be left alone. So you know what I mean? You might get out there and get hurt. but the tough guys on the internet, they not they not doing that, right? The single guys, they ain't they ain't signed up for that. You you suckers can do that on your own. but nah, so I like that is is is something that that's interesting. I think there was another thing that we had kind of talked about or that shared in our group was kind of along those lines of like. I don't even know if it's really along those lines, but I'm gonna try to tie it together. Let's see how this works.

speaker-1: Okay. Come on, you're a professional man.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So just some grown grown man game, right? Like because I think a lot of what we try to do is talk about like stuff from our perspective as as over 40, right? And hopefully somebody below us in age, right, can can hear our perspective and and maybe take a different footstep. Like like Jay-Z said, we keep using the Jay-Z references. This is Jay-Z and eight or whatever it is. Is you know, Hove did that. So hopefully you wouldn't have to go through that, right? Like so, we've done some things that we hopefully you don't have to go through. And it was a post where a dude was talking about he just wants to go do stuff that's fun, right? He's tired of all the tough guy stuff, right? And I've seen this, right? And it it as a 40-year-old man, when I go places, if I gotta like, if I have to have any kind of concern, like if I'm doing any of that, I'm leaving. Yeah. The sooner like and it I for me as a young man, like it would just be the part of where you you just went, right? Like and you might have your head on the swivel or you, you know, I mean that was just a part of the the culture, unfortunately, right? In some of the areas that we would frequent or go to, it was like something might pop off and that's just what it was. But as a grown man, look, I there's a couple things that I don't I don't want to have to deal with. One, I wanna know who gonna be there. Right. Like if I'm going somewhere, who gonna be there? How old are they gonna be? Right. two, if I can't find quick quality parking, I might leave. Like, you know what I mean? Like if I gotta circle the block too many times or I gotta drive around this parking lot, we might go back home. I'm just saying, like, what time is this gonna be over? what time is it actually gonna start? Things I didn't think about as a young man. ain't no parking. we just park a few blocks down and you know what I mean? We'll walk we'll walk down. you know, I don't know who's gonna be there, but you know, so and so like said it was gonna be cool, so we just show up. you know what I mean? That's that's I just can't do that stuff no more. Yeah, done with that. Nah, if I come if I walk into a location and I look to my left and I look to my right and I don't feel comfortable immediately, we got about two, three more minutes. We gone. I'm gonna look, I'm gonna scan one more time and it's like, hey man, we gotta get out of here. Like it, it's too many frown faces in here. Yeah, we supposed to be having a good time, and ain't nobody smiling, ain't nobody laughing. No, like it's a whole lot. It's hard staring. Nah, I'm good. I'm good. Yeah, and in the video, he was like, I want to go do some of the white boy stuff. And and I get that, right? Like, I don't, I'm not gonna necessarily say that that's that's what I would like to do because I'm All the time out here, I'm like, man, where where are black people at? We're like, where is the where where can we cause living in the suburbs is cool, right? Cause you obviously, you know, get out of some of the negative, you know, negative connotations of of living in in the hood or whatever. Everybody wants that to some degree, right? But there's a certain level of like, man, I just want to be around my people that that you yearn for when you live in the in the suburbs. And I'd be like out here and I'll go to like the local little malls or whatever, and be like, damn, man. One black person, one like a little black person, an old black dude, like it's like few and far between. Yeah. And I just wanna sometimes I just wanna be like, I just wanna go to Atlanta.

speaker-1: Everywhere you like.

speaker-0: Hey, what up, baby? Right. But I but you know I mean I be feeling like I'm in Wyoming. And and so as much as I want that, I don't want to go and feel uncomfortable. You know what I mean? Like I don't wanna just do the I guess let's call it, I guess we can call the white boy stuff. I don't want to like, you know, racialize it. But Cause they be, you know, they be acting a fool at their stuff too. Come on. Yeah, they they They got a story. They got yeah, and they got different stuff to worry about. Any mass shootings and all kinds of stuff. Our shootings mean nobody really gets shot. people just be shooting. yeah, they were shooting there, but nobody got shot. white people, man, yeah, Jesus. They don't dodge bullets at all.

speaker-1: They'd be like running towards the game.

speaker-0: Like, man, y'all gotta work on your agility. Zigzag, nigga, zigzag. but but I do appreciate like the the the safety, maybe. Like cause sometimes we'll go places, like we'll go we went to this little thing in Temecula, like a wine event or whatever. And you know, we the only black people there. And I know they have black wine events, and so we're trying to hook up with some of them and those is and and it's like they're older though. And

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: that's the weird part, is like I don't wanna be the youngest person in the room. But you know, if I want that vibe, that then, you know, older people look, yeah, I

speaker-1: Young man.

speaker-0: got I got to have some old lady tell me I'm handsome. Yeah, okay, all right, grandma, like that's cool. or I gotta go and it's, you know, it's mostly white, Hispanic, Asian, whatever, and I'm like the only black person. But when I walk into those spaces, I'm like the most dangerous person there. You know what I mean? Just and that and that feels weird.

speaker-1: Stay dame.

speaker-0: Right? It's cause everybody's like, huh? What's he doing here? You know? okay. Yeah. And it it's not like negative or anything, but you feel isolated or you feel like and maybe that's my own issue. Maybe that's just me, right? Like maybe I've my life and my history has has a has made me alert of the situations where I'm the only one. Right. Like I'm not I'm not trying to be rest in peace and like I'm not trying to be Nolan Wells. So when I'm the only black person in the room, I'm like, I'm very uncomfortable. Mm-hmm. And I I live in a lot of white spaces. Like at work, it's me and one other, maybe two other black dudes. We have an all faces meeting and it's three brown faces, you know what I'm saying? Like and everybody else is is you know, complex lightly complicated. It's it's I it's not awkward, but it you definitely notice. And so I'm trying to find spaces where I feel comfortable. Cause like I said, I can go both plays. I can go both ways, right? Like I can go and and be okay in in a hood environment. I can go and be okay in a in a suburban environment. Yeah. But in both spots, I'm like, I got I, you know what I mean? There's there's a little bit of a fence up, right? Like I'm just like on guard because what's gonna happen? Yeah. I'm tired of that, man. I'm too old to be feeling you know where I don't feel like that? In my house.

speaker-1: You know what saying?

speaker-0: Stay home, man. I'm not finna go mess with y'all.

speaker-1: Let's go ahead. Put some on the grill.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, like yeah. And just invite people over that I'm gonna feel cool with and everybody else stay outside. Yeah. And I don't like it. I wanna get outside. I wanna go see people. I wanna touch grass as they say.

speaker-1: Come on, man. Listen, man. There's some nice spots out there that we we've been to and we can go to that you're still

speaker-0: Yeah. But see, y when you say it like this it's some nice spot. That means it's like you gotta you gotta go out there. Yeah, you gotta do some work to get it.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: And I know people are trying to, right? Like they got the little kickball event that they be trying to do out here everywhere. And I know that's there's more black oriented events in out here in IE that people are trying to put together, but again, it's like spectrum. It's like the young people are darn to do it because they're trying to find some space and it's like heads like I'm not trying to go to another white party. Like I don't wanna, you know, me we walk in and they got Bluetooth and fedoras and clothes toe, open toe shoes. Yeah.

speaker-1: Mm-mm.

speaker-0: Yeah, everybody line dancing. Yeah. God damn. Yeah.

speaker-1: Me a one Like I gotta learn another dance.

speaker-0: Yeah, I'm not I'm not there yet. I'm somewhere stuck in the middle. Mm-hmm. Right? I'm I'm what it what it what's the name called it? Dang, I forget the comedian's name, but it's like hood adjacent. Mm-hmm. I'm hood adjacent. Like I'm right on the outskirts of it. Like and and I you know, I still, you know, when I'm in my car, I'm selling drugs and and killing people. Then when I get out the car, I just wanna have a good time.

speaker-1: Have a good time.

speaker-0: Like just I'm trying not to cuss nobody out.

speaker-1: And try to just be at peace, man. No, I feel it. I mean, I can even when I was younger, I just remember, you know, because like you say, you have that alertness. So I just remember I wanted to go back to this because I was like, mm, I have a story. But you know what I'm saying, being in a suburban neighborhood and I'm going to my homie's house, black black dude shot Steve, and he's having a house party, and the house party was just Him, his best friend, and then me, we're the only black people there. And I'm like, Steve, what's gonna what's going on, baby? What's and you know, they got the band playing in the backyard, I'm looking around.

speaker-0: Yeah, the quinciera the band playing.

speaker-1: No, no, no. This was

speaker-0: This

speaker-1: Yeah, and I'm looking around, I'm like, Step.

speaker-0: No.

speaker-1: It's a dangerous situation you got going. no, man, it's my people. I'm saying, okay, cool. I'm gonna get at you. I'm gonna get at you. I'm gonna get up out of here. I'm gonna get at you. And sure enough, you know, I'm saying a couple hours later it it got to popping up. You know? Same thing, you know. Young, I'm with I'm with Mark. He's dating this girl, Mexican girl, her homegirl, and one other homegirl and one other homie. So we're like, all right, three black dudes, three Mexican girls. we got a house party that's going down. Like, house party? Okay, cool. You walk in the house party, it's raining, so that's already affecting the situation. And

speaker-0: Course.

speaker-1: then you just see, you know what I'm saying, you some attractive young ladies, you know what I'm saying? And then We the only three Negroes in here. I said. Hey man, let's go. Let's head to the beach or something, man. It's time to go. It's time to go. Cause I know how this ends. I know how this ends. And it's no disrespect. We know how this ends. All right, man, let's go. Let's go. And I ain't trying to do that no more. There's

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: even some white parties I'm not going to. Yeah. Not because I'm ready for whatever might pop up, but I'm just like, mm-hmm. I don't feel like having to beat up this old man because he tried to rub my wife's back or something. You know what I'm saying? Like don't do like don't do me like that, little brown sugar baby. Come on back here and talk to me. Let me see what you got. Hey sir, it's I'm my bad young fella. Go ahead on there, man. I know that thing swear.

speaker-0: Right. man. Yeah. You know what's funny though is like I've I've I've been in both of those situations. Like the the white like I moved to the suburbs out of in high school and it was like all white people, all white friends. I had black friends obviously, but they was in the same situation as me. So like we'd be like it'd be two, three of us and it'd be the white party and they'd be drinking beers and and playing rock music. And then you got your Mexican homies and you go to their party and it, you know, it's cool, but like they got the the older family is there, right? Like the kids don't care because they still, you know, we all hang out at school, you play play football together, play baseball together. But like, you know, your TO is like Orlay Holmes. Like what you doing here? What you and so but you still have a good time. Like you can still hang out and have a good time, but it's just that that vibe ain't really there. And then even in the same token, it's like I got, you know, when you when you play sports, you have friends all over the city. And y'all cool because y'all play sports together, but his neighborhood and your neighborhood ain't really like together. So your boy have a party, you go over there, and then people's like, who was that? Yeah,

speaker-1: So it old boy.

speaker-0: where you from?

speaker-1: I stay. Well your where your mama stay? Well your grandmama?

speaker-0: You had to what did it used to say? Like from my from my mama or something like that. Like used to try to try like play it off or whatever. And it's like, dog, can't we just go somewhere and just have a good time? Like I just want to have some fun, man. I don't want to have to explain myself. I don't wanna have to like be on guard or be looking out for something. I'm too old for that.

speaker-1: for that, man.

speaker-0: Like I I yeah, man, I that's later for that.

speaker-1: Trying to have fun, man. Hey man, let's let's go do a little cookout at at the at the park, y'all. Let's go to the park, have a little cookout.

speaker-0: Yeah. And that I think that's why it's important to have a circle, right? Or to have a a a group of people that's, you know, kind of aligned with you. And and that's kind of what we talked about earlier. Like we we kind of built that when the girls were young. And now that they have stuff, it's like it's harder to make that happen. but I I think it's extremely important to have that community, right? Like to have a group of people. Cause I know it kind of sometimes naturally happens. Like if you got a bunch of brothers and sisters, a bunch of family, like it just kind of all you just naturally are always together. You got cousins or whatever. But my sister lives in Alabama. My other sister lives in the Bay Area. Or the other sisters live in the Bay Area. So it's like, my kids and they got older kids. Like everybody's kids is graduating from high school and college. I got two young kids. They're like, yeah, they we got cousins, but they adults. Like we ain't hanging out with them. and so like the we don't have those connections. And I feel like that happens a little bit more now than maybe it did in the past is like families grow and expand and people move away. Yeah. Right. Like my my grandma, we talked about this before. Like our whole family lived in the same neighborhood. Like everybody was there. And so we did everything together. We had events together. We had parties together. We hung out together. You was at somebody's like you knew where people were because everybody was in the neighborhood. But now we're at a point where like everybody's spread out, everybody's grown. Like, and it's it obviously we want that, right? Like we want people to ascend and be able to to get out and move and you know, pick the life that they want to live, but then we start losing community.

speaker-1: That's the problem. That loss of community, that's the problem. it's kind of like a different conversation, but I'm sprinkle a little bit on here. when you're talking about like being black and you're doing well, you're doing a lot better, now you move to the suburbs, but now your kids are going to this predominantly white school now. You know what I'm saying? So, like you said, that connection with the cousins might not be there because they've moved. A little bit further and

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: So the best thing that has been for us is having the connection with us, being able to still have that, you call me, I'm Uncle Mike. Hey, Uncle Mike, can I do that's my play cousin? Like our kids still got play cousins. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? They got uncles that ain't related to them by blood. Right. They're able to act a fool and when it's their birthday. Happy birthday to me. You know what I'm saying? Right. They still get that. And I I it's a priority for me to make sure that they get that. Right? Because I've known people, me growing up in the suburbs, I've known black people that have decided, said this to me verbatim, just like, well, white people treat me better, so I'm gonna hang with them. Okay. Well what Jay-Z say? I ain't black on OJ. Okay.

speaker-0: Okay.

speaker-1: Okay.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: You know, so I never wanted that to be my daughter. And the beauty, you know, for us is we were able to send her to an elementary school that was literally like ninety-seven point eight percent black, but it was still a very high performing school. And man, if if I showed y'all her black history celebration stuff, he'd be like, damn, she from Atlanta? Like, no, I eat, you know what I'm saying? Southern California. But then her us moving into, you know, a better city, whatnot, and now going to junior high with, like I said, predominantly white kids, but there's more like, you know, Hispanic and Asian now.

speaker-0: You probably wanna just say non black. Yeah. Cause you was y'all was blackity black. Yeah. Now y'all you know b blackish.

speaker-1: Black. Yeah.

speaker-0: It's like pepper, but mostly salt. With a lot of white pepper.

speaker-1: A lot of white pepper, man, but you know, but even when I'm looking, you like, you know, okay, who are your your new friends? Okay, we're he ain't got no no new black friends. Okay. Well, it is what it is though. Yeah. But she has her core. So I'm like, we're good. We're good. I need you to know that your non-black friends can't be calling you nigga. You know what I'm saying? I need you to learn that and understand that. Don't let people touch your hair. Look at me, Maddie. Don't let no, she's gonna be like, my God, Dad, I know. But you know, these kind of core things where you need to learn that because Yeah, man. But you know, yeah. It's a give and take.

speaker-0: I th I think, I think, because I know we gotta wrap up soon. I I was gonna say, I think from that portion of of this episode, I think that it is I think we used to have built in community, right? Like we just grew up in the community, and the community was we it was like the the the strength of the wolf is the pack, and the strength of the pack is the wolf. Like we we were the community and the community was us. And as we've grown and expanded, which What we want to do, right? Like we wanted to have equal access and we wanted to have equal opportunity. And we've been getting that to some degree. And we've had the opportunity to grow and expand and go into places and there aren't you know, whites only type area. I mean, obviously there still are, but the, you know, for the most part, we can go anywhere, do anything. but it comes with a little bit of a cost, right? And so I think what we've discovered or what we've learned is that you got to build your own community now. Right. Like you have to actively like I never imagined I would be responsible for being the black experience for my kids. Wow. You know what I'm saying? Like because I don't think there's ever been a time in their young life as in school where they weren't one of two or maybe three black kids in the class. Mm-hmm. And plenty of times where they've been the only one. Right. And then with that, it's like, all right, well, their experiences are are Latino. or Asian or white American and that could be English, Irish, Italian, whatever, right?

speaker-1: Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: But they don't get no, you know, then it's no connection to to black culture other than like everybody like rap music or, you know what I mean? Like that kind of stuff, right? So then they come home and I gotta be like, I gotta have them write a book report on a, you know what I mean? Like what's it, I'm gonna get you sucker. It's just Abraham Lincoln was killed by another piece of poor right trap.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Like, yes, right. Like I gotta, I gotta have them doing book reports on Malcolm X and we watching like old black movies just to kind of give them the experience that that we naturally got. We just got it. and I feel like it's not forced because they love it, but it's it's like it's different, right? And I think now that they're older, they're realizing it too. Like cause Reese especially, Reagan is Reagan has a a best friend that's black and that's been dope because that you know they they they're just connect on it, right? and they, you know, she went to BSU yesterday. I meant to tell you. She she she's joined BSU. The only tough part is she has softball, so she missed most of the meetings, but because she hurt, she was able to go yesterday. Nice. but that even that there was nothing I said, it was nothing I did. Like she just wanted to, she felt the need to be a part of that. Like she felt like she wanted to have that connection. And that's great. but it could have easily went the other way just because it's not there anywhere else. You know what I mean? Like that's never existed at any other school. There's never ever a opportunity where she can get in a room full of black kids and talk about like black experiences. And she was telling me what was going on. I was like, Yeah, that is that this and that was niggas, boy. I'm telling you. She's like, they was playing music, people was dancing. And I was like, you got the full black experience. That's what's up. And

speaker-1: Come on.

speaker-0: I was like, but you only get that like, you know, every two weeks for forty-five minutes or something. Cause on campus, y'all spread out.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: But but again, like it it was like a natural thing for her to be drawn to it. Right. And like Reese is naturally drawn to like black things, even though her best friend is is her best friends is like one of them is Asian, the other one is I wanna make sure I get this right. I think she's Mexican, but she might be, what's the other one? Salvadoran, you know, they don't they don't like to be confused, they don't like to so I'm gonna say she's like she's a Latina. because I don't know I don't know

speaker-1: Go.

speaker-0: which one. I don't wanna make no mistakes. and She hasn't ever had a a a friend that was black. You know what I mean? Well not not had a friend that was black, but like had a a close friend, right? She has associates and friends and that were black at her school, but just never had the opportunity. She's been like one of the only black girls her entire school career.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. No, I know what that's like. I know that's like

speaker-0: Every team, she's the only black, like you know what I mean? Like it's just I I I told you this. I tried to draft all the black girls two years ago. Yeah.

speaker-1: Remember we talked

speaker-0: And the coaches wasn't having it, man. They kept stealing all the all the sisters, man. I

speaker-1: man, you know what?

speaker-0: got three. I got three, and then one of them quit. so I ended up with two. But I had like if you would have looked at my draft board, it was all the way down. Come on. We was gonna win and lose together. All right, man.

speaker-1: We the Black Panthers, y'all.

speaker-0: We were gonna wear whatever team was gonna be black uniforms. It was gonna come out with I'm black, black, black. So when everybody's everybody's walk-up song was gonna be something like coming to America.

speaker-1: Man, come on man. But yeah, yeah. I mean it'd be like that.

speaker-0: Yeah. It'd be like that. But yeah, build you gotta build your own community now. You have to. Right. And you gotta be intentional about it. And I think as parents, you kind of be intentional about all of it. But I mean, for even for yourself. Because even for me, it's like I'm trying to now, I find myself like, I don't know what's happening, but I'm like, man, I just want to be around black people.

speaker-1: Mm.

speaker-0: And I don't know if it's the climate of the the the country or or just like the spaces that I'm in, but like I'm just I just want to be in black spaces. Safe.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah, I No, let me let me be clear, I wanna be in black spaces, I wanna be in nigga spaces. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

speaker-0: Like and and and there's a there's a difference. And I think if you are listening to this podcast and you black you understand the difference.

speaker-1: Yeah, you for sure understand Yeah. Matter of fact there's a Sol Nick happening Solnik combination thing happening on Saturday, you know what I'm saying? But I know Y'all Negroes is always doing

speaker-0: No, actually well, yeah. Yes.

speaker-1: So we were thinking about hitting that up, but that's the only like you said, where we're are we're building more and more black spaces. But, you know, when you travel, you know, a little bit to the west, there's so many black spaces in LA where it's just like, this is cool. That's cool.

speaker-0: Yes. You know what could be really cool with with all of it is if, you know, because we are expanding and growing and moving out or whatever and kind of populating these new areas. If we had like almost like fraternity, right? Like we have chapters at different universities, right? But like we just be like the the rancho chapter of niggas. You know what I'm saying? We just all get together and we do stuff, but that don't happen. Like we get we get to these spaces and like I it's it's it's probably more common. No, it's not. Let me stop lying. I was gonna say it's it's probably equal, where like the nod doesn't get responded. You know what I'm saying? Like it I feel like if I'm well, maybe not in LA, right? Because you gotta you gotta the nod might be up, might be down. It could mean two different things. But like out here, if it's an old black man, I'm for sure gonna get the nod back. If he's under 30, and I'm I'm mad at your daddy, because your daddy should have told you. If he if he's around and if he wasn't, your mama should have told you. Somebody gotta teach you, you gotta nod. But like we could potentially, right, as we expand and grow, create these communities outside of the community, the the community, right? 'Cause everybody out here is at some point, we from LA. Like even you just said, like, watch like like your family kind of comes from or somewhere in the south.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah. And you you associate yourself with that, but then you come here and then you get plugged into you know. the the the barrio or the you know the suburbs or whatever and you don't bring that community with you or you don't like connect with those people that are around you and I think we got to do a better job of that. Yeah. I think social media takes away from that a little bit because everybody's connecting online versus connecting in person. but I think it's happening. Yeah it's not happening fast enough.

speaker-1: Yeah, it's definitely happening. Yeah. It's not happening like you said as fast enough, but it's definitely happen even with Ari, she has her melanin on the trail. Yeah.

speaker-0: That's one of those things where she was like, I go hiking and I'm like the only black person out there. And sometimes that just is uncomfortable. You out in the middle of the woods somewhere, and it's just you and one other black person, like things

speaker-1: we

speaker-0: could go wrong. And you ain't got nobody to to to lean on. So she was like, I'm gonna put something together. And that's the kind of stuff that we gotta start doing.

speaker-1: Yeah, we have like you said, the same way that we were intentional about, you know, the girls hanging out and, you know, yada yada yada and communist creating this community between us. Like we have to be intentional with creating that community with the actual community.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah.

speaker-1: And, you know, I'm seeing on TikTok there's different groups and I have to share that with you and Ari and Shotiff and just you know, A girl at my job, she, you know, she put me on to like there's a sister who will do little meetups and these like around the corner from here, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Come to the park on Sunday. We're doing yoga in the park.

speaker-0: I've seen I've seen something like that. I don't know if it's the same person, but they did like a Soul Cycle.

speaker-1: I remember that soul cycle you sent me. I said this is what I

speaker-0: And I was like, I didn't I didn't even know that exist. Well, I mean, I knew it existed, but like I didn't know, right? I don't cycle, so it's way off my radar. But like it's a black owned spin studio. They went and they like they got there together and it was like a thing, right? It was one two things happening. One, we're supporting the black business. And then two, we're creating community. Yeah. And that's the stuff we be talking about, right? Like I was the one something I want to talk about, but we'll maybe we get to it next time, see if it's still happening because you know we don't follow through with shit. But but small. But Deontay Kyle was talking about doing the blackout. Have you seen this? No. No, I'll send it to you. Okay. But it's one of those things where we do, you know, we we have these every so often. Somebody gets on, it's got a little bit of cred, a little bit of whatever, and they tell us to do something, we do it for a little bit and then you know niggas go back to doing what they was doing. But it's one of those kind of things where it's like, you know, we're gonna stop doing the stuff. And it this is maybe, maybe super militant for this particular podcast, but like we gonna stop doing all things them, right? I'm not saying that. I got some you know some white friends and and relatives even that I love dearly. Yeah, good for you that I want to spend time with. You know what I mean? But at the same time. I got two. At the same time, you know.

speaker-1: No.

speaker-0: Right? Jodi fooled me, dog. I don't even want I don't even get into that. For ye for however many years I thought she was mixed.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: No idea. Man. Undercover brother.

speaker-1: Mm-mm.

speaker-0: But no, but but again, it it's it's We'll see how long it lasts to see if it makes it to the next podcast where we can actually talk about it. But we've done stuff like that, right? Like Target, right?

speaker-1: yeah, yeah. Been a targeting so damn long.

speaker-0: Yeah, I haven't either. I haven't either. Actually I I I I did go and I'll say I I only went because people have got us gift cards.

speaker-1: You throw them gift cards away, brother.

speaker-0: Not throwing no money away. That'd be against everything, black in me. We went and got some school supplies, and I ain't been back since. but but like that, right? Like people still going and like we we do these things, right? Yeah, I have not watched the full NFL game, still, and I'm but like I told you, football coach, play football, get train people in the NFL, train Super Bowl champions. I just didn't watch them play.

speaker-1: Yeah, okay. And and then

speaker-0: Whatever, you know. Does it mean anything? No. Did it stop anything? No. But I said I was gonna do it and I did it. And here it is. Now Colin is back on the, you know, he gonna wrote a book and NFL is back on the hot seat or whatever, but people still gonna watch it.

speaker-1: Wow, for sure. Yeah.

speaker-0: I don't know what I'm talking about at this point. We probably should rap.

speaker-1: But hey listen man, we got very extra blackity black, but we are very extra blackity black. So you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Tune in next week, we might be even blacker.

speaker-0: Right. Yeah. Bigger and blacker, like

speaker-1: And black a word to Chris Wright. Yes sir. Yes sir.

speaker-0: I'm can with one one thing, 'cause just 'cause we said.

speaker-1: No, that's it man. Got to go.

speaker-0: Bigger and blacker, right? So Chris Rock was on on the Breakfast Club and they were talking to him about, you know, because Chris Rock now at this point, people have gotten on him about him being more aligned with white, white culture, white comedians, whatever. You know, he he makes his comedy. Or the the I guess the criticism was like he's making fun of black people for white audiences, right? It's crazy. And that's tough, right? Because When you ascend, eventually your audience expands, right? Like it just can't always be just black people. And so he was like, that's never been the case, or whatever. And so his his his his thing was like, the reason he called it bigger and blacker is because the response to bring the pain was it wasn't black enough, right? He was talking to a white audience. So he did it in, did it in Harlem at the Apollo, didn't sell tickets online, sold tickets at the door for five bucks. So they can get as many black people in there as they can, which is, you know, whatever. Like, I guess, you know, it's Harlem, five dollars, and hit it at the door, niggas was gonna be there. For sure. but he wanted to like really lean into just the black community, right? And it's tough because again, it's one of those similar situations, right? You start off in the black community, you're making jokes in in comedy clubs, and it's black jokes because you're a black comedian, you got the black experience, and then it starts being funny, people start liking you. Get a Netflix deal. You know what I mean? HBO was a thing back then and HBO's audience ain't all black. No. Right? So you got, if you want to stay making money, you gotta have some jokes that appeal to everybody. They can't just be all black hood jokes, right? You can't just talk about that stuff. So then the jokes start expanding, but we're suit we're hypersensitive. So you make a you make a joke about black people and they the camera pans the audience and there's six white people laughing. this nigga making fun of us for that. He making fun of us for them.

speaker-1: they it's funny. But here's where I push back on that too. I'm pretty sure you've been to a bunch of different, you know what I'm saying, hip hop concert shows or whatnot, or at least a couple. When you go to these hip hop shows, it's a lot of non-black people.

speaker-0: Man, listen, the country is a lot of non-black people.

speaker-1: Bom.

speaker-0: Like, I and that's the thing that I think we we lose in the weeds, right? It's like if we 14% of the country, like it ain't nobody, well, let me take that back. We can because 14% is still a large number based on the number of people in the country. But if you understand that everybody in the 14% don't me don't rock with you like that, then you need some of those other communities to come along and help you out. It's something I'm gonna share with you, and we gotta wrap this up. So I'm it's not for this podcast. Maybe we talk about it next time. but it's like the kind of the the the struggle with being a black owned or small small business is like people will complain about your inability to provide a higher service, but then because you're a small business, but then when you become bigger, they complain about the fact that you become too corporate. You know what I mean? And it's it's it's it's a whole thread. It's that's literally a thread of like how these different things kind of stack up. It's like they we want you to have want you to be more inclusive, but we also don't want you to lose the culture. Or we want you, you know, we want you to have a bigger brand, but then you sold out to white people. You know what I Like it's it's it's it's so it's so difficult because we don't know what the we need a leader. We like we like Chris Rock again, we need a leader, man. Like we we need somebody, we need to get aligned on something.

speaker-1: We just need to heal, man. We haven't fully healed from slavery, from Jim Crow.

speaker-0: Like it's hard to heal when you're still getting whipped.

speaker-1: It's it it is hard to heal when people act like nothing ever happened and while you're tripping. It didn't happen, you're fine, you're good. Like, bro, we still need to heal. We got traumas going on. It's very hard to heal. And the easiest thing to do is to blame the the person that you love the most with all your problems. And unfortunately, yeah,

speaker-0: Tell you.

speaker-1: we we we're blaming each other. Yeah. And even we were gonna get into it, but maybe next episode like this. Diaspora wars is just such a ridiculous thing. You know what I'm saying? Where you can just blame the closest people to you. But there's even a small war inside us. You know what I'm saying? Where it's like, you, you I forgot the different the black organizations that are like more upper crust, like

speaker-0: I mean you could go fraternities because I think I think fraternities where they there is some elitism or like we feel like we're above to some degree. I don't, but I mean like I can see it and you know there there's that kind of stuff where there's like honor societies or masons and and things like that where it's like this is this is something to a ascend to because they're a higher organization. But like whatever.

speaker-1: It's like it's so e and I caught myself in it on accident before too, 'cause it was just like this black organization. They're more of like a like I said, more well to do kind of organization and they were doing like, we're showing black doctors, black lawyers. I was like, yo, this is amazing. And the person that told me about it was actually Jody. But they were doing it in a city where she lives in, where there's like that many black people. Right. Yeah.

speaker-0: Right.

speaker-1: You know, me and Derek, we went to the Costco and you see the other brother and there is no confusion. This, what's up, man? Hey man, you know what I'm saying? There's no confusion because there's so many less of us. And at first in my mind, I'm like, why are you going over there when you can come over here where there's a whole lot of black kids that need to see this? Right. But I had to straighten out my mind and be like, but it's just it's good for the black kids that are in that community to see. Right. Hey, we also are in these professional, you know what I'm saying, positions and we also do these things and you can do it too. Yeah. It's not just them, you know what I'm saying? So, you know, I had to get my mind right. But yeah, man, we can get into that. That'd be fun.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. So stay tuned. appreciate you guys for listening. obviously we've we've hinted at several things we're gonna talk about in the next episode. If any of those things pique your interest, make sure you too you tune in. The easiest way to do that is to make sure you subscribe so you get updated and alerted when a new episode is coming out. Make sure you subscribe on YouTube. I really appreciate that. on all of your streaming platforms, whichever one is your favorite, make sure you subscribe there so you don't miss an episode. follow us on Instagram, as we said, grown man game pod. shoot us the email. make sure you you sorry, grown man game podcast at gmail. review five stars, four stars, three stars you didn't listen, right? Like do I act like you didn't even you didn't even hear the episode. We'll be fours and fives over here. make sure you follow Mike, maybe nice Mike on Instagram. and if you care to follow me, it is at for fit brotherhood the number four. Thank you again for listening, and that is the episode. Deuce.

speaker-1: Alright, children. Grown man gang, man gang, man gang, man gang, man gmg, gmg. What up, bro? GMG Weside, Mike