0:08

I want you. Hello,

0:16

Welcome to True Romance. This is Carolina

0:18

Barlow and I'm Devin Leary.

0:21

How do you spell that? Um?

0:23

It's um,

0:26

you know what. We'll get to it later. It's

0:28

I use auto correct so much

0:31

I can't quite recall. Devin.

0:34

How are you doing this week? I'm doing okay.

0:37

But you know who's doing better? One

0:40

guess just kidding. It's

0:42

Demi Lovado. People, She's

0:45

doing great. She is celebrating

0:47

her six month anniversary.

0:50

In case you didn't see, she posted

0:52

on her Instagram Stories,

0:55

also known as My Number one news source,

0:58

a video of ax Eric

1:01

captioned happy six months to my darling,

1:03

the best father these pups could ever

1:05

ask for. I love you beyond

1:08

all caps. Thank you for making

1:11

my life so much better at max Eric

1:14

hearth heart Heart. I love you, baby, hearth heart

1:16

Heart. Max Eric reposted

1:20

the story and said words

1:22

fall short, baby, love you infinitely,

1:25

and then some thank you for being

1:27

the light of my life. Heart cheers

1:29

to forever ring emoji. There's

1:33

no way this burns out. They're gonna keep

1:35

up this energy for the next sixty years.

1:37

This feels like a classic lifelong

1:42

through the Golden years, through

1:44

any challenges through

1:46

any challenges. I mean, she's the best.

1:49

He's the best dad her pups could ask

1:51

for, and you know, those pups

1:53

could ask for any dad. So

1:55

after they got engaged, I don't know if you had this experience,

1:58

but I saw that she said, I'm celebrating

2:00

my five month anniversary with my

2:02

fiance Max Eric at no Book.

2:05

My first thought was five months

2:08

engaged. No, that couldn't be

2:10

because I follow her very closely and I

2:12

think it happened very recently. And

2:14

then I thought, oh my god,

2:17

they've been together for only five months?

2:20

Yea? And first of all,

2:22

do you celebrate five month anniversaries? Like?

2:24

Is that a thing I did when I was twenty

2:28

and I had my first boyfriend of my

2:30

life, and I would celebrate every

2:33

quote month adversary.

2:35

I'm worried for when anything hard hits,

2:37

like a headache or a

2:40

move or one of the pups

2:42

having to go to a vet, Like how how good

2:44

of a pup dad is he? Really? You know, it's

2:47

like, have they even spent a

2:50

holiday together? Have they?

2:52

I mean, listen those of us who

2:54

watched her first MTV documentary,

2:58

I completely forget what it was called, but she

3:01

did this documentary about how she had

3:03

gone to eating disorder rehab and now

3:05

she was staying strong. She had

3:07

tattoos on her wrists that said stay straight

3:09

strong, And in

3:11

that documentary she talked about how hard

3:14

holidays are, such as Thanksgiving for

3:16

someone with needing disorder, which is not wrong.

3:19

She's not wrong, strong relate. So

3:21

I'm interested. Have they spent to Thanksgiving

3:24

together? Has he commented

3:26

on how she's consuming her

3:28

mashed potatoes. It's a very delicate thing.

3:31

Yeah, you never talked about how a girl eats,

3:33

which my dad learned actually on Thanksgiving,

3:37

and he was never seen again. I'm

3:39

worried what happens to the Dave Matthews music

3:42

turns off? And I mean that figuratively and

3:44

literally because they keep on tagging the

3:46

Dave Matthews band in these stories and

3:48

I'm like, are you trying to satirize

3:51

yourself? Like? Are you making fun of yourself?

3:53

Are you trolling yourself? It

3:56

makes me think of Andy on the Office when he

3:58

goes roller skating, he's Dave Matthews

4:01

deep Cuts. Only it

4:06

makes me think of every funk

4:08

boy in my high school who didn't know my

4:10

first name. It makes me think of Jason Mraz,

4:12

who I once saw do an acoustic cover of Dave

4:14

Matthews band and I was like, that's

4:16

so hot at the time, and

4:19

that ages me. You're like, that's

4:21

art. Well, there's other news before we get to

4:23

our guest today that we actually need to cover. Army

4:26

Hammer obviously went through a divorce with Elizabeth

4:28

Chambers armand and

4:31

that led him to

4:33

have what I can only call a

4:35

rich, handsome man's

4:38

middle life crisis, Like this is the hardest time in

4:40

his life will ever go through, moves sal

4:42

A. On a recent birthday

4:44

Instagram post, he said

4:48

that he is working construction

4:50

for one of his friends. I feel

4:52

like he's trying to rough it for the first time

4:54

in his life. He's trying to force himself into roughing

4:57

it. It reminds me of a kid who I went to high

4:59

school with who to pair for his role

5:01

in The Crucible. He said he went to the beach

5:03

and doug holes because he had never

5:05

done labor in his life. Oh

5:08

and he wanted to feel it. But

5:11

Army is also dating Rumor Willis,

5:14

notably from the Dancing with the Stars

5:16

franchise, daughter of Bruce Willis

5:18

and Demi Moore. She's gorgeous

5:21

and seems really cool. I will say that, Okay,

5:23

two things. One, maybe

5:25

most importantly, one time

5:28

I was on the phone with my

5:30

therapist and Bruce Willis

5:33

drove by me. So you

5:37

could say that I'm a little connected

5:39

to this story. This one's personal for me. This

5:41

one is close to home. Also,

5:44

my friend Anto consistently,

5:46

when we have looked out

5:49

at the New York City skyline or

5:51

in l a past any

5:53

street, he will say, do you think

5:56

Bruce Willis lives in one of those houses? So

5:58

so again close to home with this. But

6:01

I respected because it's come to this point

6:04

in our lives where

6:06

anytime a male celebrity dates

6:09

a woman over five,

6:12

I'm like, oh cool, you're interesting, you

6:14

have depth, you have weight, you

6:16

have gravitas, the desire to

6:19

have a conversation with someone,

6:21

because most of them are hanging out with like

6:24

Stasie Baby

6:26

or whatever Kylie Jenner's friends are named. I

6:28

was disappointed when I found out Brad Pitt's dating

6:31

this insane like perfect

6:33

model. I was like, can't you date like an

6:35

artist? Aren't you into art? I mean, is

6:38

he I don't know, is into

6:40

I don't know? He drew

6:42

a painting and it's of the sun in the house. It's

6:45

a stick figure, it's

6:47

of the sun smiling. I think it's the

6:49

same line where Army hammers like, I'm into

6:51

construction and yeah, this year, I'm

6:53

going to date someone older than eighteen. Yeah.

6:57

Well, something that's personal to both of us right now

6:59

is that the Kardashians have decided to end

7:01

there one hundred year run. Yes,

7:03

after a season eight hundred and fifty

7:06

where we see Northwest wedding, they

7:08

have decided, yes, that

7:11

maybe they won't have cameras

7:13

follow their kids. It was a shocking

7:16

little box to see come up on

7:18

my Instagram feed, the announcement,

7:22

the thanks in gratitude

7:24

to Bunim Murray, Bunim

7:26

Murray, the

7:29

gratitude express to Ryan Seacrest

7:32

for believing in them.

7:34

I mean, how many people can thank Ryan seacrests

7:36

for believing them. You got Kelly Carlson

7:38

and that's it, and listen, that's

7:41

a good company to be in. But I actually

7:43

think that the Kardashians are responsible for

7:45

a lot of harm and body dysmorphia,

7:48

Christian cult formation, Trump's

7:51

presidency, Trump's mass

7:53

murder of people. I mean, the list goes

7:55

on. But at the same time, what I like

7:58

to continue watching them get their makeup done and talk

8:00

about nothing. Yes, I

8:02

in my opinion, the show ended a while

8:05

ago. The show ended

8:07

when they stopped wearing

8:11

thick eyeliner, when

8:13

Kim got serious with Kanye, and

8:16

you know, obviously Kanye is so protective

8:18

and smartly was like, Okay,

8:21

if you're going to be on the show, then we have to

8:23

really like monitor it. You can't be

8:25

like slapping your sister in the face

8:27

and like having Chloe Kardashian bite

8:29

your butt, Which were the good old days.

8:32

Those were the good old days. So were the good

8:34

old days. Yeah, when Kim was dating

8:36

her bodyguard, Oh my god, that was a

8:38

great one. Yes, that was great. The

8:40

Chris Humphrey season also, when you slowly

8:43

realized that these people were absolutely

8:45

not supposed to be together and did not even

8:47

know what to talk about. Yes, So

8:49

I would say the last hurrah was the Jordan

8:51

Woods affair of it all. And I will say this

8:53

too, I really did feel for Jordans and I

8:56

felt really bad for her. She was sluge

8:58

shamed by America and was

9:00

a kid. Yeah. I stopped

9:02

watching a while ago. I

9:04

would say, the only times I've tuned in since

9:06

then was Kim's robbery season

9:08

just because for obvious reasons, and

9:11

then when the Jordan

9:13

Woods drama happened. But I just at

9:16

that point, I was like, I really can't

9:18

watch another scripted

9:22

prank on Chris where they like hire

9:24

a clown to do like

9:27

juggling because it helps

9:29

her empty nest syndrome or something like.

9:31

That's like the kind of stuff they get into, like

9:35

the plot of the show for the past five years, and

9:37

I really can't watch another scene

9:40

where Chloe is like, well, it's so weird,

9:42

Like even though I work out seven

9:44

hours a day, I'm still like

9:47

just so fat in my butt and my boobs,

9:49

only it's so weird. I just

9:51

actually can't take that. And I

9:53

also can't take the fact

9:55

that Courtney, the one that I

9:57

was holding onto like she's still interests

10:00

saying she's still her own person, is

10:02

now friends with TikTok stars who

10:04

are twenty. She also every

10:06

episode was like I just want to live my life

10:09

and be with my kids, and I'm like, good, get

10:11

the funk off my TV. I want to listen to something

10:13

else. It's time. It's time that

10:15

we all turned the page, and do we think

10:17

that this is the end? No, are you kidding

10:19

me? They're going to go to the Hampton's or Miami

10:21

or something. Kanye is going to be

10:23

in debt. He's spent seven million

10:26

dollars on this presidential campaign. And

10:28

guess what. I don't think he's gonna be president.

10:30

I don't think it's going to go well. I think we

10:33

should never say the words.

10:35

I don't think he's going to be president again. But

10:39

I'm just wondering what is going to be the next

10:41

family that we're going to watch unfold on reality

10:44

TV, because right now he is pushing

10:48

Terry Bradshaw's family, like the Bradshaw

10:50

Bunch or something. And I'm

10:52

going to tell you, I'm not intrigued.

10:55

It's not trashy. It looks very

10:57

like boring, staged. They're

10:59

like our dads. Such a good girl dad. I'm

11:03

like, what give me Kylie

11:06

dancing on the pole when she's twelve. Give

11:08

me Bruce Jenner coming

11:10

home finding her dancing on the pole, yelling

11:12

at rob because he had friends over,

11:15

No Brody, because Brodie Jenner

11:17

was there, supposed to babysit down. I mean, that's

11:19

what we need remember they were

11:22

just trying to push Ashley

11:24

Simpson Ross and Evan Ross and

11:26

I was like no, no, no, no

11:29

no. I watched the first episode

11:31

and then I was like, uh m

11:33

hm m hmm. So

11:36

remember Lamar and Chloe. That was a

11:38

really good show. Can you cannot even

11:41

go down that road because I will

11:43

cry, Oh I'll cry. There is

11:45

a family that might be a good TV

11:47

show, and that's Jerry

11:50

Folwell Jr. Prominent

11:52

evangelical leader and newly

11:54

resigned Liberty University leader,

11:57

his wife Becky Folwell, and

12:00

John Carlo Granda, a one time Miami

12:02

pool attendant who was thrust

12:04

into the spotlight this week when

12:06

he claimed to be sexually involved with

12:09

both Jerry and his wife Becky for years.

12:12

Listen. I do not believe shaming

12:15

anyone for their consensual sex choices,

12:17

but I will say that when you've built your

12:19

career on shame, I'm going

12:21

to enjoy watching you be embarrassed.

12:24

And Jerry, I guess

12:26

enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,

12:29

which is so like, it's

12:31

almost too porny, Like I'm like, it's

12:33

not even interesting. He

12:35

likes watching from the corner of the room when Becky and

12:37

like guys would have sex. So

12:41

what I have to say about that? And I feel like it's really

12:43

good that we have this podcast, that we have this outlet

12:46

for me to say that I have had sex

12:48

with Becky. Folwell, and

12:51

to our listeners, this isn't something to

12:53

laugh at, Devin, do you want to say

12:55

anything? Sorry? I I

12:57

just I feel a little uncomfortable us.

13:00

I've also had sex with Becky with

13:02

an eye there

13:04

you haven't, folks. Everyone's been trying to get

13:07

this information out of us, But like the Kardashians,

13:09

we are going to come forth

13:12

with it. First, We're gonna get a head control

13:14

our narrative. We're controlling our narrative.

13:16

Thank you. Well, we have to get into

13:18

our interview today. We wanted to

13:20

get all of our petty new

13:23

garbage trash. We want to get up our garbage

13:25

trash out of the way because we actually have an amazing

13:27

guest. And our

13:29

guest this week is an author,

13:32

poet, performer. She has released

13:34

three poetry collections, I

13:36

Think I'm Ready to See Frank Ocean, A Speed,

13:39

Education and Human Being and Pantone,

13:41

and most recently released her book This

13:44

Is Major Notes on Diana Ross

13:46

and Dark Girls and Being Dope, which

13:48

are Eric Thompson described as quote

13:50

unquote everything and Ocean

13:52

Voong described as a kaleidoscope. She

13:55

curates the Tenderness Project with Russque,

13:57

and her work can also be found in publications

13:59

such as Tinhouse Paper, ESPN,

14:02

Salon, Vulture, and New York Magazine.

14:04

Please welcome to True Romance, say

14:08

laws Whi,

14:11

Hi, Hi, It's so nice to

14:13

be here. How are you doing? I'm doing well.

14:15

How are you two doing today? We are good.

14:18

Before we begin, I just want to

14:20

say I'm really jumping in

14:22

here, but Devin and I enjoyed your books

14:24

so much. It's thrilling,

14:27

funny, very painful, and heartbreaking

14:29

at times, incredibly honest.

14:32

I'm gonna keep going. It's vulnerable, it's

14:35

interrogating. It's a real pleasure.

14:39

And this may sound hyperbolic or

14:41

that I'm sucking up to you, but I think it's revolutionary.

14:44

I have never heard of someone

14:46

talk about being a woman in America the

14:49

way you do. And I wanted to ask,

14:51

have you gotten a lot of responses like this

14:53

to the book? I mean, what are people saying?

14:55

What are their initial responses you're getting? Because I know

14:57

you just released this at the end of June. It's

15:00

a crazy time for

15:02

me to be releasing the book, between COVID

15:04

and all of the anti

15:07

racist protesting that's going on, and

15:09

a lot more people trying to educate

15:11

themselves or at least give the appearance

15:13

of acceptability in

15:16

these particular times. I mean, you can't plan

15:18

what the world is going to look like when you release

15:20

a book, but I definitely did not think the world was going

15:22

to look like this, So it's

15:24

been an adjustment. I too, feel like

15:27

the ways that I approached writing

15:29

about womanhood are revolutionary. I

15:31

feel like I spent a

15:33

lot of time catching up and seeing

15:35

what was going on in the world of literature

15:38

that revolved around pulp culture and girlhood

15:41

and wanted to see

15:43

what I could do to kind of expand that conversation

15:46

and maybe look at girlhood, look at womanhood

15:48

in a way that most people might

15:51

find a connection to, but not necessarily

15:53

something that they had seen tackled in the

15:56

same way on the page. So I'm

15:58

still sitting with what it's like to have of that

16:00

kind of work in the world that that feels

16:03

a little bit different because it's still

16:05

trying to find its way it's still trying to find its audience.

16:08

You're trying to find its readership, because you know, when

16:10

when you're doing something that's a little bit different, sometimes that

16:12

takes a bit of time. Well, I also

16:15

felt for you because you wrote this all

16:18

encompassing and I

16:20

want to use the word loud, especially because

16:22

you talk about that a lot in the book. Um

16:25

it has almost auditory

16:28

volume. And I

16:31

was thinking, like funk, I wish

16:33

she had a book tour like you deserve

16:36

to be on stage right now. And I can't imagine.

16:38

I think about it a lot with all types of performers,

16:41

you know, whether it's people who have released

16:43

their albums that they've been working on for the past

16:45

two years, or people releasing

16:47

their movies. But I can imagine

16:49

that it's frustrating not to be able to have

16:52

human interaction over this book. Yeah,

16:55

I missed the book tour. I definitely agree

16:57

with you. It's a very audacious book,

17:00

like it's meant to be loud, it's

17:02

meant to be heard, and it's meant to

17:05

be a call and response project.

17:07

It's written like a conversation, and it's meant

17:09

to be a part of a conversation, and

17:11

so I missed that energy. I'm

17:14

interested to see when we can go back into

17:16

the world what it's been doing on its

17:18

own, what conversations it's been drumming up,

17:20

and I feel like I'll have that chance. But I

17:23

do agree with you. I mean I when I think just

17:25

about we were preparing for the launch

17:27

party to do the Love

17:29

Songs for Thoughts essay as

17:32

a cabaret kind of deal.

17:34

So I had a bunch of my students

17:36

were working together with a

17:38

friend of mine who produces from the met to put it together

17:40

as an acapella group. They were the major ettes, and

17:42

we were going to thread that and together, yeah, into

17:45

the the essay and go back

17:47

and forth between the music and the essay, which is something

17:49

that I like to do a lot in terms of

17:51

being a performer. So having

17:53

to let that go and having to just see

17:56

how people imagine what that

17:58

would feel like um our own

18:00

personal spaces, it's new. I

18:02

do hope eventually we'll get to see the book

18:04

take on those dimensions, but little by little

18:06

we'll watch the world change and see how that

18:08

changes things for the book as well. Definitely reads

18:11

musically. The whole book does to me kind

18:14

of read like a love song, and

18:16

particularly that chapter was

18:18

so engrossing because of the way music

18:21

is tied in. I was plowing up Spotify

18:23

as I was reading it, and I

18:25

really felt like I was in the world because of the

18:27

way the music drove that part of the book,

18:30

which reminds me too of your Frank Ocean

18:32

collection, because I love

18:34

the idea of you listening to the album and saying

18:36

like I'm gonna accompany this, like this

18:38

needs a partner. Yeah,

18:40

yeah. And I had a band with the Frank Ocean

18:43

Project. I had the Oceanographers,

18:45

and we would tour and do a lot of performances

18:48

that people could get a sense of what it is

18:50

like for the poems to live inside the book,

18:52

but also how they lived in conjunction

18:54

with the music. And since I write a lot

18:57

about music and musicians, I try

18:59

to examine how

19:01

the story fits back into the composition

19:05

as a way to mash it up, but as a way to build

19:07

on what we're actually hearing or seeing. So

19:09

that's an ongoing project of mine

19:11

that won't go away. It's just a little

19:14

bit more muted because of the way the world looks

19:16

right now. I found your book so helpful.

19:18

I'm recently single, and there's a real

19:20

celebration of being independent, a

19:23

exorcism of shame that

19:26

I found continuously through your book,

19:28

and it brings me to talking

19:31

about you had I wouldn't say,

19:33

and I don't know if you classified as a religious

19:35

upbringing very mess So, yeah,

19:38

you are pretty open about how

19:40

you waited till marriage. Yeah I

19:42

didn't. So I was a virgin until I

19:44

got married. I love it, I mean, and

19:46

I say I love it because it's an experience.

19:49

That's I talked

19:51

about this a lot. But the nineties

19:53

were a very The

19:55

nineties were a time when people were very

19:58

interested in virginity and very interested

20:00

in pop stars virginity. Yes,

20:03

and I remember completely normalizing

20:05

that, Like are just thinking, it's totally normal

20:07

for an interviewer to be like, Brittany, are you a

20:10

virgin or not? You need to tell

20:12

us right now. You owe it to the

20:14

world for us to know exactly what's going

20:16

I think about that all the time. I think about with

20:18

Britney Spears and Beyonce

20:20

and Christina, like this

20:23

whole ongoing conversation about, you

20:25

know, what, what they were doing with their bodies and

20:27

whether or not they were virgins. It was a crazy time.

20:29

It's a pretty perverse time if we look back, credibly

20:32

perverse. There's a couple Matt

20:34

Lower interviews from

20:36

that time that I'm just like, okay,

20:39

So it took us until twenty eighteen

20:42

or nineteen to realize that he's a creep.

20:44

Like these interviews are so disturbing

20:47

and so like gross totally,

20:50

but that that's how we all talked about these

20:52

women, so it seemed normal. It just it's

20:55

crazy to look back on that. And I

20:57

think it's even like it's even crazier

20:59

if we take them out of the frame of women,

21:01

because we were introduced to them as teenagers and

21:04

you know, started from the time that they

21:06

were in high school. The fact that we were checking

21:08

up with them every year to make sure that

21:10

they're high,

21:13

you know, which it's what It's definitely one

21:15

of those things that I think is really important to look at

21:17

is like how early we start to ascribe

21:20

this nomenclature of like womanhood or

21:22

being a woman on a female

21:25

body, and how often we start doing that before

21:27

the person has had enough time

21:29

to even decide like whether

21:32

or not that's someplace that they, you know, do

21:34

they think of themselves in that way or where,

21:36

you know, where is it that they feel the

21:38

most value, Like we are they starting to

21:40

figure out um

21:42

where they contain the most power and the most

21:44

energy, and it is

21:47

there. We've learned so much about how dangerous

21:50

it is to look at feminine

21:52

bodies in this way of

21:54

giving the maturity and giving them agency

21:57

in places where they don't have it, you

21:59

know, and particularly with the judgment

22:01

that we have, those

22:03

of us coming out of the nineties, like the judgment

22:05

that we've grown up with this idea that it should be

22:07

public knowledge how you're you know,

22:09

how you're deciding to live your life as

22:12

a woman. Yeah, I'm

22:14

curious about how you

22:16

transitioned out of that and if it was

22:19

the end of your marriage that sort of opened up

22:21

those doors to you. I loved you

22:23

describe going on your first Tinder dates

22:25

and swiping left, left left, and

22:27

your friend being like, you're gonna have to

22:30

pick one, Like you're

22:32

gonna have to pick someone. Yeah,

22:35

I mean, I still don't

22:37

feel like I'm I'm built

22:39

for this world. I feel so much

22:42

like an alien in it and

22:44

still trying to figure out what dating looks like for

22:46

me. I think what's been a really interesting

22:49

journey is watching what dating

22:51

has been for so many different people and

22:53

then having to participate it, becoming very late

22:55

to the game, you know, coming very late to the game

22:58

in terms of like looking at body

23:00

sexually in that like I got

23:02

married, I think when I was around twenty six, Like I

23:04

was a virgin. Like until that time,

23:07

I had a very different relationship

23:10

to the world, like dating people when

23:13

you knew you couldn't have sex with them, you know, dating

23:16

growing up, dating boys and not sleeping

23:18

with them. And actually I didn't know anything about

23:20

sex in certain ways, I think, especially

23:22

like after deciding to get

23:24

divorced and come into the world

23:27

as a sexual person, like in my thirties,

23:29

there are things that I feel really lucky about that

23:31

for because I spent

23:33

a lot of time talking to guys I had,

23:37

I you know, like

23:39

all guys that dated me, you

23:41

know, like in my early twenties, Like we

23:43

did a lot of talking, and I think I got

23:46

to know you know, I think I got to

23:48

know dudes in a way that for better or worse, like

23:50

a lot of women don't. So I went into

23:52

the world with like a very different relationship

23:55

to to who they were, and I see so

23:57

much of that manifest

24:00

in in apps in ways that

24:02

isn't particularly useful. One of the things

24:04

that I think about when it comes to apps

24:06

is this essay that Zad Smith wrote

24:08

about social media in general, in

24:10

which she posits, you know what happens

24:12

if we look at the kinds of people who created

24:15

these platforms and what it says about

24:17

the ways that they are looking

24:19

for space. And so if I look at an app

24:21

that way, you know, these apps were created

24:24

by the beta

24:26

boys, you know, just to ever the

24:29

sake of like, you know, stereotyping,

24:31

you know, for the sake of a conversation. You know, we're looking

24:33

at a lot of people who felt

24:36

like they didn't

24:38

measure up in terms of dating, that there is

24:40

this place where they couldn't fit. And so

24:42

if they could construct that place and make

24:44

that place digital, like take it out of you

24:47

know, the space of a bar for instance, or

24:49

any kind of space where they felt like sparring against

24:52

other men and having to compete for other men was

24:54

creating this particular sense that they had

24:56

of of women as people who would make

24:59

fun of them and removing

25:01

the possibility of having

25:03

to be under that kind of scrutiny. And

25:06

also offering up them this sense

25:08

of choice, you know, the fact that they look

25:10

at it as kind of this catalog of women that they

25:12

have available to them, as opposed to looking

25:15

at what dating is. You know, like we

25:17

really don't have that many choices of like the

25:19

people who work for us or who don't work for us, Like

25:22

when it comes to actual partnership, like

25:24

you're looking for a very select number of

25:26

people. But the idea that we

25:29

I think one of the things that I really

25:31

struggle with is the fact that we're

25:35

stuck in the system now when it comes

25:37

to apps that forces

25:39

women to be a commodity

25:42

in a way that's even worse than what we had

25:44

before. We are kind

25:46

of beholden to this idea that

25:49

none of us are special. You know that

25:51

it's it's just a matter of like how fast

25:54

we can you know any of us, whether you

25:56

know male or female, or however it is that

25:58

we're identifying in this in the

26:00

space of these apps, you know, which are also pretty binary

26:02

in terms of what they offer. You know, it's

26:04

a factory that really doesn't fit anyone. It

26:07

gives you like this quick endorphin

26:09

high of the idea that, um,

26:11

you're not alone that there is a possibility

26:13

of going out there and finding people, but

26:15

it doesn't get to the core of

26:18

what it is that any of us are looking for, which

26:20

is like feeling valued. Um

26:22

So I still like struggle with that as

26:25

a space and what it means because

26:27

I know, like for me, that's not the

26:29

place that I work the best.

26:32

You know, I work a lot better if if somebody gets

26:34

to like here or see me talk like

26:36

they get a better sense of who I am. Then you know, looking

26:39

at a collection of pictures where I'm

26:41

you know, cooking things or doing

26:43

yoga or walking my dog, you know whatever,

26:45

avatar it is that I feel like I need to put out

26:47

in the world to be datable. So, you

26:50

know, as this this little alien who

26:52

started things in a slightly different way than

26:54

a lot of people do. I think about these things a lot.

26:57

I am curious, like where it's going to

26:59

take us. I have a lot out of fascination with

27:01

what you know, what tender is going to do or

27:03

just like what are we going to do to keep

27:05

ourselves you know, dating and happy

27:07

and finding romance. Ultimately, Sammy

27:10

Davis agrees, and yeah,

27:15

he has clear opinions on love. Yeah,

27:18

that reminds me first of all of Mark

27:20

Zuckerberg's bangs and how that might

27:22

have affected his dating life, and

27:26

that he originally made that

27:28

website for Harvard which was hot

27:30

or not? Yeah,

27:33

and how we trusted him with making

27:35

the biggest social media

27:37

website and the history of the world

27:40

and probably the future of the world. I

27:42

find the fact that you relied on

27:44

conversation more so than a

27:47

lot of women do really interesting because

27:49

Devin and I, as we've

27:51

gotten older and having new relationships,

27:54

were sort of jarred by the fact

27:56

that we knew so little about the people that we

27:58

dated for quite some time. We're

28:02

like, wait, we never talked

28:04

to you about politics. Like

28:07

I was so overwhelmed the

28:09

first few dates on whether we are going

28:12

to hook up or not that I could barely

28:14

hear the other person or how they

28:16

were experiencing me. Like I was like, yeah,

28:18

yeah, I have a sister, I have a mom, I have a dad.

28:21

Okay, you know I'm not a weirdo.

28:23

Like yeah, Like yeah,

28:25

are you in close enough proximity where I can

28:27

make this work? Consisting this

28:30

work in the wintertime? Like yeah,

28:32

these are all necessary things, these are all important things

28:34

to think about, right my current

28:36

boyfriend. We were friends for a long

28:38

time before we started dating, but the first

28:41

night that we hooked up, I

28:43

suddenly was like completely struck

28:45

with fear about

28:49

how awkward it was going to be. Like suddenly I was like, Oh,

28:51

this isn't gonna be when we just like when we hang out

28:53

as friends. It's going to be like tension,

28:55

and how is he going to handle it? How am I going to handle

28:57

it? So I started just talking truly

29:01

motor mouth, NonStop, no

29:03

breaths in between sentences, whereas

29:06

normally I'm like a very quiet person conversationally.

29:08

I was like, Okay, So anyway, in sixth grade, I was trying

29:11

to this girl this happened. That was an

29:13

interesting experiment. How

29:15

did that make you feel? Yeah, I felt like

29:17

I was trying to push

29:19

off the inevitable in a way because I

29:22

cared so much about him as a person

29:25

and I was so into him, and

29:27

I was so excited about

29:29

that he might be into me that

29:31

I wanted to like hold on to that kind

29:33

of and I thought, the second we

29:36

introduce making out in

29:38

sex and all that, like that will change

29:40

it somehow, either for the better or

29:42

for the worst. Luckily, it was for the better,

29:45

but I didn't know at the time, so I was

29:47

kind of terrified of

29:49

that, and I felt like I was just trying

29:51

to savor the moment,

29:53

even though the moment ended up being me just talking

29:55

about nonsense the whole time. But

29:59

I think that's totally un ustandable. I think we're

30:02

still trying to figure out what

30:05

is like modern intimacy, like how does

30:07

it work the best because we're trying to tear

30:09

down all of these hierarchical structures

30:12

that say relationships are supposed to look

30:14

a specific way. But I think there's

30:17

so much shame and so much

30:19

social expectations,

30:21

like so much social control, that all of us feel

30:23

like we have to go back and answer for, like

30:25

answer to whatever group we're responding

30:28

to, in terms of how we're perceived

30:30

and whether or not we feel respected and

30:33

whether or not we're valued, and it

30:36

can get in the way of us just being able

30:38

to feel good in our bodies and feeling confident

30:40

about our decisions and how we move forward. Yeah,

30:43

I don't know what the solution is to that, but I definitely

30:45

like writing about it. You have one of the craziest

30:47

tender dates I've ever heard of. I

30:51

have a lot of I have a lot of crazy dates. Yeah,

30:54

I have a lot of crazy dates. I

30:57

was fascinated because you had one

31:00

of the best lines I've ever heard of. Again, in

31:02

the world, where I'm constantly nervous

31:04

about how to appear to guys, I come off

31:06

very brash because I don't like feeling awkward. So

31:08

I'm very much the person who's like, Yeah, how

31:10

are we going to make out or not? I once this

31:14

one guy I dated, we went

31:16

back to his house on like the third date, and I

31:18

felt so awkward that when he gave me

31:20

a tour of his house and showed me his bedroom,

31:23

just for a second, I almost said, Okay,

31:25

is this where we're gonna have sex later as a joke, And

31:28

later I told him that. He was like, thank God

31:31

you didn't say that. I would have freaked

31:33

out. But I

31:35

have to say. You have a line in the book where you talk

31:37

about this guy you're on a date with who's talking

31:40

about that he loves painting, and

31:43

so he sort of says something like, what do you want

31:45

to you know, how where do you want to go to next?

31:48

And you say, I think I want to paint, which

31:50

I think is like one of the hottest

31:52

things I've ever heard. I

31:55

try so smooth, so

31:57

smooth, I literally couldn't

32:00

never I had that one moment

32:02

where all of the fates collided and you

32:04

know, I I looked, you know, hot and together

32:07

for a moment. You know. But it was funny,

32:09

like I can have that moment and then the universe

32:11

completely decides, you know, it's just gonna be

32:14

flauntsome lightning. Like nothing else

32:16

went well in terms of the date, you

32:18

know, a lot of me having to

32:21

to piece together other people's

32:23

lives, which I was like, oh, I know this, I

32:25

know this place, I've been here before. Yeah, yeah,

32:30

I don't want to spoil it, but there was an

32:32

ex girlfriend who shows up drunken

32:34

late to the date. There is an ex girlfriend who

32:37

makes a cameo. Yeah you do

32:39

have to get in the car and help look for a drunk

32:41

ex girlfriend of your date in the middle

32:43

of the night and

32:47

then stop a confrontation that could

32:49

have easily led to the authorities being

32:51

called. It's yeah,

32:53

it became a you know, the painting was probably

32:55

the peak. That was the peak. You know, it

32:58

went jille. I hope those two, you

33:00

know, are safe. In minnisode they're really

33:02

good friends of mine and they're doing great.

33:04

And that's one

33:06

thing I missed from the book tour is I was

33:09

definitely looking forward to. I was like, Okay,

33:11

Minneapolis, Oh my god,

33:14

very specific tender date. I wonder

33:16

if any of you are familiar with him.

33:18

Somewhere in my phone, I still have like a screenshot

33:20

of his tender profile that I was planning

33:23

on, you know, taking through my Minneapolis

33:25

tour and being like anybody's seen imagine,

33:28

just want to know, you know, just want him to know he's in this

33:30

book. And next step on the stage,

33:32

we have Ricky, And now we have Ricky.

33:36

On that note, we're going to throw a commercial and we'll

33:38

be right back with Sheola on True Romance.

33:43

Oh

33:50

and welcome back to True Romance. Today.

33:52

We're joined by Shaila Lawson.

33:55

We're talking about the misadventures

33:58

of dating and love lives

34:00

and, as Sheila said, the

34:03

confusion of modern love. I

34:05

wanted to ask you because from what

34:08

you may have gathered by Devon and I

34:10

recollecting some stories from our own love lives,

34:13

we're a little bit awkward. I'm

34:15

we're not always smooth. I'm going about

34:17

that. If you've been listening to the pod, you may not know

34:19

that you talk about feeling

34:22

awkward and social situations a lot.

34:24

And how do

34:26

you think that presents itself in your

34:28

love life.

34:31

That's a good question. I don't know. I mean

34:33

I would I would love to, you

34:35

know, I'd love to know what the people think. UM.

34:38

And for me, I don't think I probably

34:41

do come off as terribly

34:43

awkward when it comes to dating.

34:45

I think I have my my moments.

34:48

But I

34:50

was trained to be a performer, UM,

34:52

so much of what I

34:54

was trained to do, specifically like being a

34:56

black woman, like I don't have very many opportunities

34:59

where people give me much of like a first

35:01

chance, you know, because one of the things that's a big part

35:03

of the essay, the tender essay,

35:05

is the idea that I went on my first tender

35:08

date with UM, a person who's

35:10

Vietnamese American, and looking at the idea

35:12

that as a black woman and a nation man, we are

35:14

too the we're listed as like the undateables

35:16

when it comes to two apps, And

35:19

so I wanted to write an essay that

35:21

kind of showcase the ways that we

35:23

are, you know, the ways that we are like Hella

35:26

attractive and sexy and we come off as you

35:28

know, is to like really datable people

35:30

in an impossible situation in

35:32

that essay, which I think is really important to

35:34

see, because I think that we're lacking

35:37

the visibility around what it

35:40

means for me to be awkward in the

35:42

world and how that's a lot different than what it would

35:44

mean if I if I weren't a black woman, because

35:47

I don't get a lot of invitations to like be

35:50

well known or for people to get to know me

35:52

or spend time getting to know me. So I,

35:55

um, I don't get a lot of time being

35:58

in the awkward part of my body. Um,

36:00

I know that it's there because like I know

36:03

me, and you know, I

36:05

know what like my close friends and people like that say

36:07

about me. But so often, like when

36:11

it's been quite a while since I have

36:13

been a person that somebody else

36:16

invested the time in getting to know. As long

36:18

as that's the situation that I meant, a lot of people

36:20

are just getting the They're getting the

36:22

performer first, because that's that's what I

36:24

do, and that's how I know to

36:26

keep people happy. Yeah, I

36:28

don't, because I just think about like even

36:31

in my marriage, like when I talk to my ex husband

36:33

about being an awkward person. He

36:35

you know, he one of the things that he mentioned

36:37

that I thought was really interesting is like a lot of

36:40

what I think of as awkward is

36:42

the ways that I try to come off is not

36:44

knowing or confused or things like that. Is

36:47

a way to make people comfortable, which is another

36:49

thing that I end up in a lot of situations required

36:51

to do because because the

36:53

stereotypes that come with being a black woman. I'm if

36:56

I'm assertive, then I'm angry if I

36:58

talk with some kind you know, very

37:00

definitive idea of this is how things are. Then

37:03

people get mad about the idea. Oh, she

37:05

thinks she knows better than we than we do,

37:07

you know, she thinks she knows better than us. Um.

37:10

And I've encountered a lot of that in trying to

37:12

go into the dating world. So for the preservation

37:15

of my own awkwardness, I don't let people see it because

37:17

it's something that I feel I want to protect.

37:20

You know, there are some parts of me that I feel

37:22

a real responsibility to protect that don't necessarily

37:25

always get there their dating debut.

37:28

Mm hmm. That's really interesting.

37:30

It's it sounds like you feel like people

37:33

feel as though they know you before even

37:35

well, I have to figure out where where I

37:38

fit in a stereotype, you know, for

37:40

for any you know, I have to I have to gauge.

37:44

And this is something that most black people do, and it's

37:46

one of those things that we kind of quantify when it comes

37:48

to looking at apps. For instance,

37:50

like I talked to a friend of mine um who's

37:53

straight and mail, and one of the things that he said

37:55

is that he knows that he can make this space

37:57

work for him because he comes off as a non threatening

38:00

blackmail, you know, he he looks like the

38:02

model minority type black bail. Like that's

38:04

not something necessarily that white people

38:06

have to go through. In approaching an app is

38:09

saying do I look socially acceptable

38:11

enough for this to be

38:13

a medium that works for me? Do I reads

38:15

non threatening enough for this to be a medium

38:18

that works to me? Can I communicate that through words

38:20

and pictures in a way where

38:22

I will be a viable candidate

38:25

for the system's idea of romance?

38:28

And those are often questions that I don't want to have to

38:30

ask myself in order to find love, because

38:32

I feel like then I'm going to attract the wrong people.

38:35

I'm going to attract people who don't have a

38:37

clear sense of what I am

38:39

or what it is that I came to do. One

38:41

of the things I wanted to ask about because

38:44

you write so much about performance,

38:46

which I think is in costume, and you

38:48

translate a lot which I think is really

38:50

interesting, Like, Okay, when the white person

38:53

says how long have you lived here? For? When

38:55

I'm walking my dog, what they mean

38:57

is how did I not know that you

38:59

moved to are? I wanted to ask you, how

39:01

do you feel like white people, especially

39:03

right now, as you said, where a lot of white people

39:06

are suddenly as a social media

39:08

activists. How do you think they are

39:11

approaching you now? What kind of performance

39:13

do they want to put on for you? And and does that

39:15

impact your dating life? Like the first

39:18

response that comes to my head is you know

39:20

that white people don't affect my dating life

39:22

because of the fact that I don't date white people.

39:24

But it's it's

39:27

bigger than that, and that, Um, I've

39:30

had quite a few white people that I've

39:32

dated over the years. My husband was white.

39:35

I just hit a point

39:38

about five years ago where

39:41

I felt it was the healthiest choice for

39:43

me to not conscientiously put

39:45

myself in settings in which one

39:47

of my biggest responsibilities is going to have to be to educate,

39:52

especially in the world that we're moving

39:54

into now. I need spaces where

39:56

I feel like I

39:59

can just be under stood and that

40:01

I'm not responding to someone who needs

40:03

to to feel good about

40:06

not being racist, about not having

40:09

to deal with these particular issues and

40:11

the you know when we'd have to be very honest

40:13

about the fact that these things are not going to to

40:16

leave. And it's not as if making

40:18

the choice to date people of

40:20

color means that that absolves me from having

40:22

to deal with racism. Because we are deeply affected

40:25

by imperialism,

40:27

colonialism, America's

40:31

slave history. There's so much about

40:33

racism that makes it really difficult for BIPOC

40:36

people to date each other. Um

40:39

as an obstacle, But in terms

40:41

of my healing and my relationship

40:44

to community healing, that's place

40:47

where my work conserve

40:49

the greatest purpose. I'm not going

40:51

to be able to do very much good personally

40:54

and interracial relationship that involves

40:57

me trying to feel

40:59

come dribble in a white world because

41:02

unlike you know, most people who say that

41:04

I lived there, I lived in the Netherlands for three

41:06

years. I lived in the Netherlands at the time

41:08

where they have their Trump president. So

41:11

I was living there at a time where

41:14

people would not touch my hand to

41:16

return change back to me. People

41:19

thought that I was I was an immigrant,

41:21

but they thought of me as a refugee,

41:23

and so I would get I'd be

41:25

walking home from the bus and get propositioned for sex

41:28

because I thought it was a prostitute. Like I watched

41:31

some crazy you know, I want some crazy

41:34

stuff go down, watching another country

41:36

dissolved into a xenophobia and

41:39

I and having done that and

41:42

having gone through that experience with my partner,

41:44

it's one that I just know I can't do. There's

41:46

no more good that I can do. There's

41:49

no there's nothing else that I can do to

41:52

to make this situation better. Me

41:55

being intricately involved in

41:57

the day to day life of a white

41:59

family took a hell of a

42:01

lot of energy out of me. Um that I

42:03

don't think will ever be that

42:05

will ever be replenished, because nobody knows that

42:07

that's the thing that I need. They should,

42:10

you know, like just in terms of reciprocity from

42:12

one person to the other, but what often happens is

42:14

the sense of you know, Sheila,

42:17

we know that we don't know these things about

42:19

your culture or who you are. Tell us, tell

42:21

us what it is that you need us to do. Tell us how we

42:23

can make you feel good. And that's

42:26

not romantic to me. I

42:30

you know, what I want out of dating at

42:33

this point is is to be surprised

42:35

and to feel to feel

42:37

welcome, and to feel when

42:40

I'm sitting next to a person. The thing that

42:42

never comes up is us needing to teach, you

42:44

know, teach each other something other

42:47

than like a new dance step. Like I'm just kind

42:49

of tired the idea that every

42:51

conversation that I have to sit

42:53

in with my body has to be some

42:55

kind of larger political commentary or

42:57

speak to the realm of black

43:00

people large and say this is how we all

43:02

need to be treated as somebody who's, you know, an

43:04

incredibly tender and intimate

43:06

person. I just know that that's that's not an intimacy

43:08

that that feeds me. So I'm looking

43:10

for that, and in order to find that, I have to find

43:13

it outside of those kinds of performances.

43:16

It sounds like what you wrote about delight. How

43:18

can I live there when I'm

43:22

supposed to, like you said,

43:24

be an educator or an

43:26

envoy. Yeah, and I feel that way

43:28

irrespective of who I'm dating. I

43:30

think I'm at this point I'm just really open

43:33

to finding

43:35

people that can meet

43:37

and understand me, and I'm

43:39

very scared of what that looks like. Um,

43:43

but I'm learning a

43:45

lot in the process of what that looks like. I think, you

43:47

know, it's taught me to look

43:50

at the possibility of people

43:52

who are younger, for instance, which

43:54

I think is often really really helpful. I

43:56

think I had a very concrete idea in my mind,

43:59

especially growing up as a Southern

44:01

woman, that you know,

44:03

your partner is supposed to be older

44:06

and more mature and a provider, and

44:09

there's just so much toxicity

44:12

in particularly we're looking like toxic

44:15

masculinity. We've done a little bit better of

44:17

a job with a younger generation that we've

44:19

done with people in my generation.

44:21

I'm trying to get better and more comfortable

44:24

about dating women. I have

44:27

a lot of nervousness around dating

44:29

women that just comes from my own

44:31

vulnerability and just figuring out what

44:33

it's like to open

44:35

myself up again. Like the Southern

44:38

bell culture of like I was very much raised

44:40

too, you know, to grow up and figure

44:43

out how to keep a man happy like that was

44:45

that this this very concrete list of

44:48

delineated expectation that I grew up with,

44:50

and to look

44:53

at a long term

44:55

female partner and say, I don't really

44:57

know what it would take to make this person

44:59

happy, becau, because nobody's ever taught

45:01

me, nobody's ever sat me down and said, like,

45:03

these are the things you're supposed to do, this is what it's supposed

45:06

to look like. So those are

45:08

also frontiers that I'm trying to

45:10

to branch out into and do like lovingly

45:13

and respectfully. So, you know, romance

45:15

for me, it feels it feels kind of big

45:17

and broad and um, it still feels

45:19

really new. It still feels like something that I'm

45:21

still very new to figuring out.

45:23

And it's it's an advance. It's

45:26

a new adventure and I'm trying. That's exciting,

45:28

though, I think so I find

45:30

it. I find it terrifying because I'm deeply

45:32

shy. That's another word for it. Yeah,

45:36

I'm yeah, nervous about it, but I think

45:38

it'll be good. We have to take a quick break

45:41

so we will be right back with

45:43

more from Shala Lawson on True

45:46

Romance. Oh

45:56

and we're back on True Romance with

45:58

Shale Lawson. Have you had

46:00

any quarantine romance

46:03

experiences? I have not.

46:05

I mean I was really really hoping

46:07

that, like, you know, my dream

46:10

was that somebody would call me up and

46:12

just say that the only thing that they wanted to do during

46:14

quarantine is, you know, is

46:16

like, you know, have sex and look after our plants.

46:18

But I know, like nobody

46:21

has given like nobody's giving me that phone call, and

46:23

so I was like, oh shoot, I'm going to have to figure

46:25

this out, you know. So, I mean I've

46:27

developed I've definitely developed some some

46:29

quarantine crushes that I'm sure you know,

46:31

border on on stalking. I'm just

46:34

like I wonder when what's going

46:36

on their Instagram? I wonder what they're doing right now, what

46:38

are they thinking? Like one

46:42

of like the hotties from high school I just commented

46:44

on one of his pictures on Instagram, They're like,

46:46

Hey, what is your dog's

46:48

breed? And I just

46:51

really need to know that, I guess or

46:54

I think I've already. I think I've determined your

46:56

dog's breed. I got him a DNA test.

46:58

Here's the results you and

47:01

you want to be with a smart woman or not? Do you want

47:03

to be with a scientist or not? Or not? Do

47:06

you like intuitive women? If you don't

47:09

respond, I can only assume you don't. That's

47:12

the way to go. Just go straight in there. The comments

47:14

and the messages on Instagram are such a subtle

47:17

thing. I feel like I I sort of

47:19

got good at it towards the end. But

47:21

it's an art. It's a real The stocking

47:23

is an art. My

47:26

sister was on Instagram. She

47:28

found an old ex boyfriend her probably

47:30

one of her most serious relationships, and delicately

47:33

like we were a spy, Like yeah, slowly

47:36

scrolling through the pictures, were like, don't

47:38

press too hard, do not Like

47:42

I have also gone to someone's first picture

47:44

and accidentally liked it. Same. I just

47:47

have a friend with a dummy account

47:49

who goes through and looks at everybody,

47:52

like, you know, anytime I like somebody, I sent

47:54

her over there with her dummy account, and

47:57

that's a you know, she figures out there their

48:00

star chart. Oh my god,

48:02

whether or not it's going to work or not, before I've

48:05

even said hi, it's important.

48:07

We don't have time. You don't have time.

48:10

We really don't have time. The world is ending.

48:12

It's true. We wanted to

48:14

quickly touch on Diana Ross.

48:17

Yeah, this is major. First

48:20

of all, I mean, I don't want

48:22

to get too into it. We can't talk about every chapter of

48:24

your book, even though they're all amazing,

48:26

but we do want to. You

48:29

have one of the best chapters on hipsters,

48:31

which I think is I think it's essential

48:33

reading. But you described Diana Ross

48:36

as an authentic hipster because, as you said,

48:38

she, like other black women you mentioned, such as Josephine

48:41

Baker, Lena Horne, Bessie Smith, they

48:43

created their own standard of cool. It

48:47

wasn't you know, the hipster costume

48:49

or anything. And you also write Diana

48:52

Ross's intimacy is an icon on

48:54

its own. And you

48:56

talk a lot about the Whiz especially

49:00

the biggest particular effecting when you were a kid,

49:02

and what do you think it was that touched you so

49:04

much about her voice in particular, Well

49:06

with the word hipster, like hipster was a word

49:08

that originally referred to black

49:11

people who are anti establishment and then took

49:13

on the title that we know it to

49:15

have now. Um So

49:17

hipster. The word hipster itself got gentrified

49:20

um. And I like in

49:22

the book going back to think about if

49:25

the term was about black people

49:27

who nerded and weirded out, um,

49:30

who did that kind of stuff. And I don't think we

49:33

give enough attention to

49:36

the parts of Diana Ross's legacy in which

49:38

she was really awkward and weird and strange.

49:40

Like the picture of her on her very

49:43

first album she looks

49:45

like this very androgynous

49:48

rag doll. And the whole intent

49:51

is for this look to be kind of

49:53

disconcerting and uncomfortable

49:56

because the questions of like, you know,

49:58

what age is this person? Like what you know, where

50:00

is this person? And she

50:03

started to do that, she continued to do

50:05

that throughout her career. She started to do

50:07

that very early back when she was with the Supremes. And I

50:09

felt like the Whiz is where that kind of hit like

50:11

its high mark of of strange and

50:14

and awkward and like not quite right and

50:16

that not quite right being powerful

50:19

because in the Whiz she is

50:21

this very you

50:23

know, ordinary or we may not even think of a little

50:25

bit below average person

50:28

who is in their late

50:30

twenties, still living at home their family,

50:32

is still trying to figure out like why she came and

50:35

that felt very Yeah, that felt

50:38

very millennial to me. Like that felt very millennial

50:40

hipster to me. And I and I was like,

50:43

you know, Diana Ross was doing this in

50:45

the seventies, like giving us this when

50:47

she was in her thirties and the seventies, and

50:49

nobody wanted her to play that role because they thought she

50:51

was too old. It's like, it doesn't make sense for us to have like

50:53

this twenty six year old woman who's still

50:56

living at home and has you know, no kids,

50:58

no family, and can't figure it out. And it was

51:00

like Diana Ross has said, well, you know, you

51:02

just wait until, you know, just wait until

51:04

the ochts, because that's gonna be an

51:07

entire pastiche you know, and if it's

51:09

in so well now, and I like she

51:12

was like, wait till the housing crisis a particular

51:14

brand of right,

51:17

you know, and it's gonna like it's gonna continue

51:19

because I just think about you know, because for

51:21

for me, my generation, it was

51:23

the recession and it was like, oh, our jobs

51:25

are not recession fruit. We are back in

51:27

our basement, and

51:30

you know this this generation is going to be the same,

51:32

Like there's gonna be a lot of there's gonna be a lot of you

51:35

know, the Whiz Diana Rosses that

51:37

are going to have to continue to to

51:39

to re emerge and figure out like what to

51:41

do with themselves. And I just love the

51:43

idea that she put that there because

51:46

of her intimacy with people and

51:48

knowing um that

51:50

there are ways that you can speak

51:53

to this universal core. She talked

51:55

about that in like a seventies interview that she did about

51:57

the Whiz and how in The Wizard of All Is in

51:59

the original book, there's no mention of how old

52:01

Dorothy actually is, and there's actually

52:03

no mention of Dorothy's gender. So

52:06

the idea that Dorothy could be anyone was

52:08

something that she was really attracted to. And

52:10

I like thinking about girlhood in that way,

52:13

that girlhood could belong to anyone.

52:15

It's not something that's specifically tied to

52:17

gender. It's not tied to how

52:20

you grow up. It's tied to how you imagine

52:22

yourself and what you see in yourself.

52:24

And I just think that Diana Ross

52:26

is a really powerful example of that. I

52:29

loved when you said that in the book that we

52:31

all can have this Dorothy

52:33

inside of us, who is a lost girl looking to

52:36

go home, and one of my favorite

52:38

not to geek out on the Wizard of Oz, but one of my favorite

52:40

aspects of the Wizard of Oz is that Dorothy has

52:42

her shoes on the whole time. It's

52:44

like, Okay, you have this power the

52:46

whole time, but you're a little bit lost right now.

52:49

Yeah, I just I found a lot of comfort in that

52:51

same we were wondering if

52:53

you felt comfortable reading an excerpt

52:55

from the book, Part five,

52:58

Interracial Dating. Dev read

53:00

it first and she immediately texted it

53:02

to me with like all of it highlighted.

53:04

I wanted to say this earlier, so I'm gonna say it now. But

53:07

it's one of the few books I've read

53:09

in my life that it's all I can think

53:11

about, it's all I can talk about. So oh

53:14

good, tell your friends. No. Yeah,

53:17

It's just one of those books that I felt so

53:20

thrown into the world of your

53:22

imagination. The way you painted everything

53:24

was so so clear as a

53:26

visual in my mind. And the

53:29

end of the Intraracial Dating

53:31

chapter, particularly like

53:33

all of the chapters, but especially

53:35

this one, like kind of went right into my

53:38

heart at the end. So I really loved

53:40

it. I'm really really glad it spoke to you. Would

53:42

you like me to read X five? Yes, okay,

53:44

let's do it. As Devon was

53:47

mentioning um Intraracial

53:49

dating is a chapter in

53:51

the book, and it's about,

53:53

you know, being a bipop person and trying to date

53:55

people of my race. So the intrans

53:58

did enter, and this

54:00

is Act five. You've

54:02

got to learn to leave the table when

54:04

love is no longer being served, Nina

54:06

Simone says. You

54:09

try, But

54:11

when you have been invited and nothing has

54:13

been served, how do you make a graceful

54:15

exit? You hunger

54:17

politely, you make pleasant

54:20

conversation. You

54:22

pretend you are not waiting. You've

54:24

always been the most beautiful of house guests.

54:28

This is how you act. You

54:30

do not know how to excuse yourself

54:33

from the front strated ambivalence you feel

54:35

towards love. It

54:37

is impossible to subside the hunger that builds

54:39

in you. Seen

54:43

you are trying to get dressed to

54:45

go sit once again at the table, but you lie

54:48

on the floor of your bedroom in complete

54:50

despair. You

54:52

know the audience is watching. You

54:55

should say something, but

54:57

you don't have the words. Get

55:00

up, Get up, you think to yourself.

55:03

You pick up your jeans, lying at a crumpled

55:06

heap on the floor and try to pull them on. You

55:09

stand up and fall back onto the bed. He

55:13

doesn't respond, He doesn't respond, He

55:15

doesn't respond. Whispers through your head like

55:17

a chorus, and

55:19

the boys are all standing there behind you. The

55:22

brother you danced with at the bar, the

55:25

dancer you d m after his art show, your

55:27

occasional hook up you're one night

55:30

stand. The boy who is currently breaking

55:32

up with you, the boy who was always breaking

55:34

up with you, the boy you have not

55:36

met yet, the one you have always

55:39

known. You wait

55:41

for one of them to call, You,

55:43

wait for the phone to vibrate. You

55:46

don't want to stand up again until someone is

55:48

loving you. You push,

55:50

you, breathe in, you

55:53

stand up chills.

55:57

I had never heard of someone

56:00

reacting to that, I mean, any

56:02

quote that way. When you know

56:04

you've got to learn to leave the table when love is no longer

56:06

being served, you try. I

56:12

felt so much relief reading that. Sheila.

56:15

We can't thank you enough for being on the podcast

56:17

and and giving so much of your time. If

56:20

you haven't, please order

56:22

this is major notes on Diana Ross,

56:24

Dark Girls, and being dope. Do yourself

56:26

a favor, Do yourself a favor. It

56:29

is one of those books you will fuse to

56:31

give away because you're gonna want

56:33

it on your shelf. Mine is a dogyeard

56:36

as fuck highlighted.

56:39

I found it extremely

56:41

helpful and I

56:43

think it's liberating. Thank you so

56:45

much. It was such an honor to have you, truly,

56:48

and and thank you for the gift of this book.

56:50

Truly, thank you. I'm so glad that you all enjoyed.

56:52

This is major And

56:55

that was Sheila Lawson on True Romance.

56:58

We continue to in of you,

57:00

people like dose

57:02

Eelidak, Lauren Lapkis, Jared Goldstein

57:06

who now Shila Lawson,

57:09

who Devin no disrespect to you

57:12

and no disrespect to me. They're

57:15

smarter. They're all smarter than us.

57:18

Burned to us, burned to

57:20

us. We don't read enough. Okay,

57:22

that was great. I hope that

57:25

you and Sheyla find love

57:28

during this quarantine and

57:30

or lust during this quarantine. And

57:33

I hope that Demilovado

57:36

finds love during this quarantine after

57:38

her quarantine divorce from

57:41

her puppies dad, after

57:43

her upcoming divorce. Yeah.

57:46

I think lust is

57:48

a weird word, but I can imagine

57:50

myself calling you and saying Devin,

57:53

it's not love, but I have found

57:55

less during this quarantine. And

57:58

her name's Becky followell and

58:00

her name is Becky with an eye and her

58:02

name is Becky follow up, but I'm not done. His

58:04

name's John Carlo Granda. And

58:07

there's also this guy Jerry, but he's just sort

58:09

of like whatever sits in the corner in a clown

58:11

suit. Okay, have you seen the picture

58:13

of him. It was sort of like it was

58:16

his freak flag he was slowly

58:18

bringing out to fly, and it was

58:20

a picture of him and his wife

58:23

Becky. And you can look this

58:25

up there. Zipper is like halfway

58:27

down. I have seen it. His

58:30

his caption is more vacation shots,

58:32

lots of good friends visit us on the yacht.

58:35

I promise that's just black water in my glass.

58:37

It was a prop. Only his shirt

58:40

is like pulled up like

58:42

a girl in spring break, and

58:45

him and his wife just to have their tummies

58:47

out and their crotches

58:50

teased. That's American culture,

58:52

people, Okay, that's evangelical culture.

58:55

I promise it's just black water, you

58:57

know, the the old classic black water

59:00

her This man is a

59:02

man of God. That's

59:04

a man of God for you, that's an emog

59:06

and the upcoming episodes we're gonna be talking

59:09

divorce, marriages and

59:12

how ugly commitment can truly

59:14

be. Thank you listeners for

59:16

listening. Please tune

59:18

in next time for more true

59:22

rams. I

59:31

want true True

59:38

True soon

59:42

sorromantic lovely

59:46

baby, don't leave

59:48

me again. I want

59:51

true