Can the Starving Artist Still Survive? (WOOM 07/07/26)

Transcript

[00:00:00]Darius: Especially when ex-boyfriend was sex trafficking and is currently in prison. Thank you.

[00:00:04]Jordan: Are we going to talk about that? Are we going to talk about that? And you still advocate for him?

[00:00:08]Darius: The rules, yeah, I don't. They would have more beef with her if she took a picture with Trey Songz.

[00:00:15]Jordan: They would.

[00:00:16]Darius: They literally would. I don't know what the rules are.

[00:00:19]Jordan: That's my thing, because the same girls who love this song and have it on their Instagram stories every weekend, are the same girls who are like, who are like, yeah, thank you, who are like, yeah, **** Tory Lanez or **** Chris Brown or **** whoever. And I'm like, y'all got to pick, y'all got to.

[00:00:33]Darius: You can't keep up. He's just out to trunk with Jordan and Darius. My name is Darius. That's these all up in your area on all socials.

[00:00:40]Jordan: And I'm Jordan. That's Jordan to be writing on all socials.

[00:00:44]Darius: Is our segment we've titled What's On Our Mind, still workshopping an actual title to it. Let us know, hit the inbox. But we let you guys know what's on our mind, what we've seen on the internet, what we have going on. I want to, you want to start with chasing your dreams.

[00:00:59]Jordan: Yeah, so I saw this tweet, this interview with Edward Norton, one of my favorite actors, Fight Club, for those who are maybe not an avid movie fan. Yeah, Worm from Rounders. Yeah, Worm from Rounders. The first Hulk, well, the first Hulk in the MCU before they gave it to Ruffalo. He was talking about how like when he lived in New York in 93, when he's like first trying to break out as an actor. And he was saying, you know, like, I knew exactly how much money I need to make just to have to live. I wouldn't drive because it's New York, you know, whatever. And he's like, you know, I needed plus rent and expenses, $1,500 total per month was where I needed to live to survive. And I could just work catering jobs on weird jobs so I could do auditions whenever I needed to and stuff like that to make it work. And it brought me back to the topic we talked about I think last week where it was what's been ruined by the cost of everything being so expensive. And I feel like Yeah, that is true.

[00:01:59]Darius: You used to be able to show up in New York City with a dollar and a dream.

[00:02:02]Jordan: Yeah, with a dollar and a dream and make some sort of living. And it feels like now you can't even, it's hard to like, it's a luxury if you're doing something that you enjoy.

[00:02:12]Darius: Yeah, that is true. And I do want to just say off the top, humans can be unreliable narrators. So I'm sure like. I don't doubt that he kind of knew, but like he's recall, like if you ask someone, you know, what was the rent on your first apartment in your early 20s? They're going to say a number and they're not going to think they're lying, but I bet you they're wrong. Like it's just right. You know, so don't take the numbers. He's saying to heart. But no, there is something to write. You know, the the struggling actor waiting tables and, you know, being able to to make **** shake that way, that **** is clipped. Yeah.

[00:02:54]Jordan: Doing it for the love of the game is over.

[00:02:56]Darius: Now you need to already have your bread there. And you know, we don't it's kind of like you don't you can't prove a negative. But I think that makes artworks that people can't, you know, within reason, chase their dreams that way.

[00:03:11]Jordan: Yeah, I agree. I think one, you can't possibly devote all your time and energy to it because you have to work so hard just to make. a living, you know what I mean? Or make a somewhat livable, you know, income. And also just like the stress from working a job that you have to have to live, that, you know, stifles your creativity. Like I work a lot and I work remote, so I'm spending and I have two monitors on essentially handcuffed to a desk for most of the day. And so at least the way my mind works is like, I'm most creative when I need a place to escape. I come up with a lot of ideas when I need to, when I have my mind is wants to go somewhere where my body can't be, if that makes sense. And I have those ideas and ****. I'm like, **** I can think of like. 15 poems or certainly a stanza while I'm working and ****. And it's like, but I can't just go and obsess about that for eight hours and then come back to work and still have a job. You know what I mean? Like, so it's, you know, of course we have the notes and voicemail and **** and you can work on it afterwards, but it's still, there's something to be said for doing the thing when the thing hits you.

[00:04:16]Darius: Yeah.

[00:04:16]Jordan: And it's just not always quite the same.

[00:04:19]Darius: But just like writing, man, sometimes you, just, it's like when you go for a run, you get like the call runner's high where you don't even realize you're running. that happens with writing where you just get writer's high and you're just flying through pages and you edit it later, but like you're not thinking about it. You're just pumping out the stuff. I do think so like the lifestyle and I have, I'm not going to just straight read what he said, but like, he's like, you know, my apartment was smaller than this. He's like in a podcast studio and he's like, my apartment was smaller than this.

[00:04:52]Jordan: It was a shoebox.

[00:04:53]Darius: I ate ramen and If I may offer a counterpoint, I don't hear a lot of people willing to do that anymore. There's like a lifestyle creep. Like people, you know, it is true. Like things are such that you can't just show up with a dollar and a dream anymore. But also people ain't willing to, you know, I hear people like, that's like, it's like people in their early to mid 20s complaining like, I don't want to have roommates. Well, I mean.

[00:05:19]Jordan: You're gonna have to work your whole life.

[00:05:20]Darius: You have to start somewhere like, how many, are the people willing to stay in the, roach invested studio apartment and eat ramen and work, do chase your dreams during the day and work overnight. Like he's not describing an upper middle class like luxurious life. And there's a lot of, it's like what people are like, boomers bought a house with $72 in an IOU. And it's like, the house had one bedroom, one bath, and they raised six people in it. You're not willing to do that. So there is, there is something to like the living standards are such that, you can still get a studio apartment with roaches and, chase your acting dream, but like, you don't want to do that. And No, it's a little bit of both. It's kind of what I'm getting at.

[00:06:14]Jordan: Yeah, that's very true. I feel like the lock-in was different back then. You know what I mean? Like you could really just hone in and like, you know, and also I think people, that's true. People don't want to do that. Like, you know, if, like I think. I remember I there was I had before I had a dream of I wanted to just go out to LA and just try it, know what I mean? And try to make it as I think it may be Tom Owens, maybe like write screenplays or something like that, or do something and act. I can't remember exactly what it was, but, and it's like, but damn, nowadays you're like, you gotta have 10 grand saved up to be there to be poor. Yeah. You know what I mean?

[00:06:46]Darius: And so it's a couple 1000 bucks a month to be homeless.

[00:06:49]Jordan: Yeah. And so that does kind of stifle a lot of, it makes me think of even the internet, it's great to, there's the cons in terms of comparing your life to other people and all that kind of stuff. But there's also more ways to get your stuff out there. But in the same token, it's also like, if you didn't have those avenues to put your stuff out there, it doesn't cost so much nowadays, but it's also like, well, then you have to do with everybody commenting on everything you do and everybody's a critic and everybody's they want to do what you're doing but they're mad you're doing it so they're just going to say negative things about it even if even if you're good at it you know what I mean it's.

[00:07:31]Darius: You know way off topic but you see this with like the WNBA players like complaining about like the racism online it's like I know this is inelegant and I'm sorry, but the commissioner can't turn off the internet. I don't know what to tell you. Right. There's nothing anyone can, there's no magic words Caitlin Clark come out and say to make them stop. Like you just have to, you know, if y'all need, like maybe have like a private network of players only IGs and Twitters and y'all and just make it for friends. If like you have to be, I don't know what to tell you. I can't turn off. You can't turn it off.

[00:08:05]Jordan: No. Yeah, there's nothing you can do.

[00:08:07]Darius: There's nothing anyone can do about the comment section.

[00:08:10]Jordan: Yeah. And I think more often than that, it's more positive than negative. It's just that it's, what your algorithm is programmed to be and also what you, what you respond to. Like I, you know, I've tweeted back and forth like celebrities and stuff. And rather than that, it's been more positive. But like, I remember one time I tweeted with someone and they misunderstood what I was saying and they thought it was a negative, but I got a response. You know what I mean? And it's like, that's That thing like, it's like that thing where actors like talk about getting reviews and reading them and they can pass through the 18 good reviews they saw, but that one negative comment will **** ** their whole day. You know what I mean?

[00:08:43]Darius: Well, we've evolved to be more highly attuned to criticism because, you know, in Caveman Dave's criticism could get you killed. And so like, you know, the consequences were so dire, but that was back when your social network was, you know, 50 people and not 50,000 people. And so there's an evolutionary evolutionary reason why we're so we, you know, 10 good comments doesn't even equate to the one bad one, but true, to circle it back to it, it's just, yeah, you know, art does suffer when everything is monetized to that degree.

[00:09:19]Jordan: Yeah.

[00:09:20]Darius: And also the lifestyle he's describing is one of like, genuine. I mean, he's describing Yes, he didn't need to make a lot of money, but he was living in poverty.

[00:09:29]Jordan: He was poverty.

[00:09:30]Darius: Yeah. What he's describing is not a quality of life that most people are willing to accept to chase their dreams. And so that is true. It is, you know, is a bit of a chicken or egg thing there. You got anything else for that one?

[00:09:44]Jordan: Yeah, just one last point. Honestly, it's the one great thing I found with the internet and social media is like seeing that there are so many creative and talented people. Like, just like the comment section in TikTok is basically stand up. Like it's like, it's like, and these people just going to work the next day, working in their cubicles, doing whatever the ****. And like, or the people making these crazy, like funny reels and people will post their art. Like I follow out of like painters and stuff. And I'm like, bro, you painted that? Like, how is it physically possible? And then you have to go to work tomorrow and do ******* whatever you do for your job, you know? And it's like, it's, because it's like, it's inspiring, but it's also a little sad because I'm like, you should not be working whatever ******* job you're working with the ability that you have.

[00:10:27]Darius: Yeah, I mean, but a lot of these people don't want to monetize it, man.

[00:10:32]Jordan: That is also true.

[00:10:32]Darius: Monetize a hobby. It stops being a hobby real quick. Yeah. And I remember when Twitter was like that, where I would like every day multiple times laugh out loud. It's not like that anymore. But I used to scroll and be like, man, these people should be doing comedy. They should be writing for TV shows. They should be doing this, that, and the third. And a lot of TV shows would steal Twitter jokes. Like you could see, like if you were on a timeline, you could see them stealing a Twitter joke. And like, you know, I will say that like the people who actually do it for a living will tell you it's different when it's your job and like you need 7 jokes by Friday and there's no You can't have six jokes. You need seven. And they have to and you have to film that show. And if the jokes is like bomb, then it just is what it is. And so, you know, off the cuff with no consequences. It's easy to pump it out that way, you know.

[00:11:28]Jordan: So that's a good point. Did you see that clip of Benny Blanco on I'm sorry, Blake Griffin on Benny Blanco's podcast?

[00:11:37]Darius: I don't know who Benny Blanco is.

[00:11:39]Jordan: He does, he does like a lot of music stuff. He's married to Selena Gomez. He's a producer and stuff like that, musician. So he's talking about how he produced and worked on some albums with Kanye. Yeah. When back when he was doing that, remember that summer he dropped like 4, seven song albums with like everybody on good music? Yeah. Where he talked about that process. He's like, dude, a lot of people can't handle it. But he was like, for me, it was like fourth quarter game seven. He's like, and I loved it. You know, the pressure. He's like, dude, the day of the album party, like he hadn't laid a single vocal. And people are like, what the **** are we gonna do? Oh my God, like freaking out and ****. And he's like, he's laying vocals in the car on the way to the listening party. So the album can be put on streaming services. And like, you know, he's talking about just like the pressure and the rush and the thrill of having to perform at such a high level and produce that much work in that shorter period of time. And like, I was like, damn, that's crazy. But also a lot of people can't do that. And that's what separates the good from the great or the the dreamer from the one who accomplishes the goal.

[00:12:31]Darius: What I will say is that, you know, For the people listening, Kanye West can get away with that. I would not. Yeah, no, don't be finishing up the work on the way to present the work in the car on the way there. That's a recipe for someone of Kanye West's immense talent. I don't know.

[00:12:48]Jordan: Yeah, if you have a presentation at work, you should practice the night before. Yeah.

[00:12:52]Darius: Laying vocals on the way to the listening party is nuts. Nuts. Absolutely nuts. You know, and the thing is, Kanye, I mean, by then he was Kanye, Kanye. So if he just showed up and was like, it ain't ready yet, people was going to wait. You know, like he wasn't really risking anything. It's not like they were going to be like, I'm going home. He's 2 hours late. Like, no.

[00:13:13]Jordan: Like he wasn't going to get a record deal or something.

[00:13:15]Darius: Right, yeah, the stakes were low. So.

[00:13:19]Jordan: That's fair.

[00:13:20]Darius: All right, man. Have you been following the Young Miami and India Arie discourse?

[00:13:28]Jordan: Yeah, I have. I've seen some of the discourse online. I watched a clip of it on the button pod, which is pretty funny. What was the exact, do you have the exact quote that she, that India said before I? It's a long exemplify. Okay.

[00:13:41]Darius: IG comment. The gist of it was like, it's, it was like, it's a similar criticism to what OG said. Influencing the youth. Or just drill music, but for women. Gotcha. Okay. Those same criticisms that it's a bad influence, it's a bad culture to exemplify. The fact that this is the biggest hip hop song in the world is not a good look. Just, you know, if you listen to rap, there's always been a contingent of older, more conservative black people who have had have couldn't take the content of the rap music we were listening to.

[00:14:14]Jordan: Okay. So yeah. So it's basically the Cicely Tyson speech from that Madea movie.

[00:14:19]Darius: Correct.

[00:14:20]Jordan: He's like on this land.

[00:14:22]Darius: Right.

[00:14:23]Jordan: Yeah. So on the button pie, they're talking about it. And I think Mark was essentially like, he's like, I get it. Like, I agree with what she's saying, you know, he's like, but we do list that's like all rap music, like it's problematic, you know what I mean? So it's kind of hard to part, you know, part and parcel with, you know, one rapper versus another, you know, and they were kind of saying like, this ain't the worst of the bad influence of or misogynistic songs, you know what I mean? So but in general, like I, By and large, I agree with India Arie. There's obviously a problematic element in hip hop. And mostly because nowadays hip hop is not diverse anymore. Like growing up, we had, we had, you know, we had 50 Cent, we had Kanye, we had Wayne, we had 50, we had Common, we had Phone Rappers, Ludacris. Yeah, Ludacris. Yeah, we had so many people.

[00:15:15]Darius: Yeah, but the difference is that they say this about R&B now where it's like, there's still sexual content, but now is there's no innuendo. It's just ***** sucky, sucky. **** yeah, And so like someone said the blue contrail song, oops, was about scamming. And I'm like, yeah, but like, it was clever. And you could play it around your children. And the hook to this song is literally where my scamming *** ***** is at.

[00:15:41]Jordan: Scamming *** at. We are in ******* at, yes.

[00:15:44]Darius: It's like, it's like she knows like 12 words in the entire dictionary. And literally. That's the other thing too, someone was like, y'all be tearing down these young women. Young Miami's 32. Yeah, she's not that young. She's not young at all. She's 32 years old.

[00:16:03]Jordan: She's 32, she's not young. And the word artist, we're using that very liberally, considering what she actually makes her money doing, but we can leave that alone.

[00:16:12]Darius: I just thought that I swore I was going into, maybe it was, I thought going into 2026, ***** rap and drill rap was over. And ***** Rap is the number one rap song in the country right now. Drill Rap is over.

[00:16:25]Jordan: Yeah, it is. But pretty much. Yeah.

[00:16:29]Darius: It's a catchy song. I get it. I'm not clutching. It is.

[00:16:31]Jordan: It's very catchy.

[00:16:32]Darius: I'm not clutching my pearls, but I do. The people acting like Indi Arie did not have a point or acting like she's just a hate note hag. And it's like, no, I mean, sometimes the old folks do have a point. And the song is degenerate as ****.

[00:16:49]Jordan: Correct.

[00:16:50]Darius: It's okay to just not want to hear that ****.

[00:16:53]Jordan: Especially when you were in a group and in that group, your group mate went to jail for scamming and it almost ****** ** your career. Like that's kind of important to, especially when you know what I'm saying.

[00:17:03]Darius: Like ex-boyfriend was sex trafficking and is currently in prison.

[00:17:06]Jordan: Thank you. Are we going to talk about that? Are we going to talk about that? And you still advocate for him? That's the rules. Yeah, I don't.

[00:17:13]Darius: They would have more beef with her if she took a picture with Trey Songz. I don't know what the rules are.

[00:17:21]Jordan: That's my thing, because the same girls who love this song and have it on their Instagram stories every weekend, the same girls who are like, who are like, yeah, thank you, who are like, yeah, **** Tory Lanez or **** Chris Brown or **** whoever. And I'm like, y'all got to pick, y'all got to.

[00:17:36]Darius: You can't keep up, man. You just. You got to be.

[00:17:38]Jordan: Yeah, man. It's just the mental gymnastics is kind of crazy.

[00:17:41]Darius: I don't know. There's no consistency. There's no logic. People just. I will say I do feel like a lot of people just kind of just don't talk about the woke era anymore. They just kind of, everyone's tired, everyone's just over it, and everyone's just like, you know what?

[00:17:55]Jordan: I think everyone's, because it's too much if races keep going, like who's cancelled, who's not, I don't know.

[00:18:03]Darius: We'll be talking about like some artists and some be like, y'all don't remember what he said on a forum in 2012. No, I don't. And I don't care.

[00:18:09]Jordan: No, I don't.

[00:18:12]Darius: Keep it to yourself. I don't have a spreadsheet of this **** man.

[00:18:14]Jordan: And I hate when they do that. And they do it with like the vague posting. And I'm like, well, what did they do? Like what? And you got to scroll 57 comments to see what they did. And it wasn't even that crazy. Yeah. I also like My thing with like people trying to criticize NDRA, I'm like, first of all, she was a phenomenal artist, musician, writer, everything. Her music, she walked the walk, she talked, talked, her pen was crazy. And back to like you said about the point about like R&B and like innuendo, like, I don't know what it is, but like cursing in R&B just feels offensive to me. Because like there's, again, there's just no innuendo. There's no metaphors. There's no similes. There's no literary devices. There's no onomata. There's nothing. It's just, yeah, literally. And it's like, she talked about sex and ****. Listen to Chocolate High. What do you think that song is about? I mean, you know, it's just that music was for smart people.

[00:19:05]Darius: Yeah. You know, and also these artists, it would behoove them to clean it up. We sound so old to clean it up a little bit because, you know, millennials are parents now and them being able to play their music around their kids with the wink and the nod to their spouse is valuable. Like, I didn't know Country Grammar was about a drive-by shooting until I was 20 something years old. Yeah. You know, it was just, it was just. Down, down, baby, Yo Street and the Range Rover. Like, I didn't think that was about to drive by. Yeah. But like, something like that. Some St. Louis St. V. And it's just, but like, he didn't just drill music would literally overtly feel like, and I'm going to murder you. And I'm like, yeah.

[00:19:49]Jordan: No, you know what's funny? So I was like.

[00:19:51]Darius: You can play that around your kids, you know?

[00:19:53]Jordan: No, I was literally listening to Murder on My Mind today by YNW Melly. And he's literally, you know, he's in jail for killing his two best friends, whatever.

[00:20:00]Darius: It's a confession.

[00:20:02]Jordan: Yeah I shot him and he's like he held my hand and was like I'm afraid to die and next one is he died in my arms yeah bro you're gonna go to jail for that.

[00:20:10]Darius: It's like they think they have a an internet that the FBI doesn't have access to it's like they have a yeah like there's.

[00:20:17]Jordan: No diplomatic immunity in the rap songs that's not that's not a thing.

[00:20:22]Darius: No it's not a thing and The lyric of the First Amendment protection is for discussing things that like didn't happen, but it doesn't, if they can tie it to an actual, because the common defense is like, no one's arresting Bob Marley for shooting a sheriff. But like, there's no connection to Bob Marley actually shooting a sheriff. You know, you just say a song called I Shot the Sheriff. If he actually shot a sheriff, then it would be. But like you have your songs are about actual crimes.

[00:20:49]Jordan: Yeah. You know, if Biggie had actually shot Tupac, then he would have put that song would have been used in a court of law.

[00:20:55]Darius: Yeah, they can tie it to something that actually happened. You have no First Amendment protection. Correct. But no, I mean, black people are not a monolith and India is allowed to have a different opinion you know it's fine.

[00:21:10]Jordan: Yeah and it wasn't condemning her it wasn't she didn't you know cascade her as a person she didn't say she should be canceled it wasn't crazy and I think uh Yamami was actually pretty respectful in her response because they somebody had mixed uh done a mashup of her India song video with the song yeah and then I think Yamami commented on Ajila with the eyes emoji so I think she's down to like collab or you know something like that whatever but um it was a perfectly harmless critique. And I think that that's unlike what NBA journalists and commentators do, that's what makes the game good. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't a personal attack. It wasn't a, I'm going to assassinate your character. It was, it's kind of like what Mose Dev said about Drake, where he's like, there's a commercial aspect to it. I think of shopping. I think of Target when I hear his music. And he was like, yeah, you're not saying anything important anymore. Like that was a valid take.

[00:22:00]Darius: But also like when you make something It's not yours anymore. Also, just like the expectation is not 100% approval. That was never, you know, there's someone who didn't, who, you know, who doesn't like Teddy Pendergrass's music. I think they're crazy. But like Teddy Pendergrass isn't going to like, seek them out to, you know, to be mad. Like you're allowed to not like **** you know? So, yeah, I agree. Speaking of NBA commentators, not keeping a hoop, what's next topic?

[00:22:30]Jordan: Well, yeah, So the Jalen Brown. So there's obviously Jalen Brown got traded to the, I'm going to say to the Eagles, to the Sixers. We'll talk about the trade. We're going to do it. Yeah, we're right. About to say they next door, basically. We're going to talk about the actual trade in a separate topic, guys. But one of the big reasons why that leaked about why he was traded was because exactly this felt like he was the smart, like he was the smartest person in the room, which is wouldn't call that a dog whistle I think I call that like a train train choo choo.

[00:23:05]Darius: I mean I don't know um.

[00:23:09]Jordan: Well here's the hard part the thing with this particularly topic with him is he does act like that so it's almost like it's hard to say that his response to it it's racist but he is he can be pretentious.

[00:23:23]Darius: His response to that comment was that's a low bar to clear.

[00:23:27]Jordan: Yeah. And it's like, that's what someone who thinks you're the smartest person in.

[00:23:31]Darius: The room would say. Okay, so like people called it racist and I get it. That's what. Yeah. You know, the. Has any census player come out to defend him?

[00:23:43]Jordan: No.

[00:23:45]Darius: Okay, so.

[00:23:47]Jordan: Yeah, I get what you're saying.

[00:23:48]Darius: So you're telling me the guy who has a Twitch stream in which he constantly talks about how great he is. You're really shocked that people didn't enjoy working with him? Like, I don't, like, I don't, the thing is like, so you don't hear this critique. Like you said, it used to be a common critique of, you know, the uppity ***** trope, right?

[00:24:06]Jordan: Yes.

[00:24:07]Darius: So to me, the fact that no one uses it anymore makes me more inclined to believe it's actually just true about him. Because these white journalists, they have the internet too. Like Colin Coward has the internet too, and he knows what he's stepping in by going there. And it might just be the case that Jalen Brown is annoying and thinks he's the smartest person in the room and your mic's off. And I don't know, all the public evidence suggests that he's an annoying, smug, smartest know-it-all.

[00:24:37]Jordan: Yeah, I agree. I think so too. I think he's a good dude. He's a cool dude, but I'm sure he don't sound I'm sure he's a cool dude in like in relent but he seems very defensive about like he's not one of those people who's like not just smart he's like I want to prove to you that I'm smart and those people can be hard to deal with at times.

[00:24:57]Darius: Also he might be smart he might not I don't know I haven't seen much evidence to either way but like I think what it is, it's like he's smart for an NBA player, which is like being tall for a ******. Like I don't, I don't understand.

[00:25:10]Jordan: Right.

[00:25:12]Darius: He's heard NBA. Like if you heard these dudes.

[00:25:15]Jordan: Yeah, some of these dudes, bro, there was a podcast I was listening to, or a clip I saw, and he was like, the guy was asking the, I don't want to say the name because I want to be rude, but he was asking an NBA player about the difference between playing with two specific great players that they were teammates with. And he was like, what's the, The similarities between the, it was just like, thank God you were tall.

[00:25:41]Darius: We live in North Carolina, Raleigh, three hours south of LaMelo Ball. He plays basketball. He's lucky basketball worked out for him because.

[00:25:52]Jordan: Thank God he grew to be 6'8.

[00:25:53]Darius: There's literally, I don't think he could do anything else.

[00:25:57]Jordan: Damn sure can't drop Uber. I know that much. I'm glad for my friends in Charlotte. Shout out y'all. They can they can Lyft fight another day.

[00:26:05]Darius: I think I don't know Jalen Brown, but I think that. He every all the public like the Twitch stream has just has no one else in it. It's just him talking about himself in his room. And he might just, so Lamani Jones made this point on his podcast this week.

[00:26:27]Jordan: And it's like, yeah, I saw it too.

[00:26:29]Darius: When you're actually smart, it does behoove you to make others comfortable with it. Yes. Nobody likes a smug know-it-all. And part of intelligence is social intelligence, emotional intelligence.

[00:26:41]Jordan: Reading the room.

[00:26:42]Darius: Reading the room and you know, I believe it was Bill Withers, the great Bill Withers, who said, you know, it don't do you no good to be doing all that talking if ain't nobody listening. So if you're smart and no one cares what you have to say, what does it matter?

[00:26:57]Jordan: No, it's not a lick. Yeah, it actually I was thinking about this over the last couple of days and it made me think of like Big Bang Theories. We both love that show. It's one of my favorite shows ever. But like Sheldon Cooper, he's a genius. He's also on the spectrum. he was also just an *******. Like there was also that too. He was terrible. He was horrible. He was mostly abusive, mostly negligent to Amy, you know, so on and so forth. And it's just like, you know, again, they put up with him because of what he had been through in life and, you know, his conditions and things of that nature. But he was more tolerated than liked, you know what I'm saying? And you compare that to. We'll talk about Game of Thrones in a little bit. But, you know, Tyrion to me was Tyrion and various were the smartest guys in Westeros to me. And they both knew how to hang out with and relay information and speak to and relate to people of all classes. You know what I mean? It reminds me of this Will Smith quote. He said, you know, you really want to have range. He's like, you know, from the White House to the ghetto, so to speak. And if you can't consort with anyone, then you can't even, you know, what? impact are you going to have with your information?

[00:28:07]Darius: You know, I mean, you know, it's like a great argument isn't one that a genius understands. It's one that a fool understands. And so, like, if you can't explain it in different rooms and you don't have a firm grasp of the now of the information itself. And so, you know, I'll just say this. I don't I don't think Jalen Brown would be a great hang. She doesn't sound like a gray hair. And can we please stop with the, he got into Cal Berkeley. Okay, he was there for.

[00:28:39]Jordan: He played for a year. It was a basketball scholarship. Come on, guys.

[00:28:42]Darius: Duke is basically Harvard South. No one says Brandon Ingram is a genius because he went to Duke. Then you're on the basketball team.

[00:28:49]Jordan: Yeah. And the truth is my favorite. And honestly, before I really reflected on some of the racial tones of the comment, when I first saw the statement released, I thought to myself, oh, so he had like Kyrie did in 2017?

[00:29:01]Darius: Yeah.

[00:29:01]Jordan: Like remember when he left LeBron and he wanted to like prove that I'm the big dog who was really smug in all his interviews and he tried to, he wanted everyone to believe that he was just like super smart guy. He was trying to act like he was Kobe, you know what I mean? Like Kobe's obviously famously highly intelligent, you know, whatever. And it's like, okay, we knew Kobe was intelligent because we found out that he was intelligent. It wasn't. He wasn't like, Hey, I also speak multiple languages and I play the piano and ****. You just learned that throughout the course of his life. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's like LeBron didn't go around telling Hey, I have a photographic memory and I'm the smartest basketball player ever.