Bonus Episode: Was the Fuss Worth It: A Conversation with Phil on Double Dutch Fuss

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Hey, y'.

All.

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Now let's get into it.

So welcome, everyone.

My name is Nakara Campbell, and I serve as the host of But Make It Books, a podcast where we're bookishly healing through life through the Mahogany Books Podcast Network.

And I'm so blessed to be in the space with Phil today.

We actually met.

Was it like two?

About two years ago?

Two years ago, Deesha Philia, we did an event for her for Secret Life and church Ladies, if you haven't read that book, you definitely should.

I gave it to my father in law, and I was shocked how much he liked it because he is a roaring pastor.

So I was like, I know where this is gonna go.

It was either gonna go real well, real bad, but it went real well.

So I'm shocking.

So I'm glad that you reached out to me to talk about your memoir because you did talk to me about that one two years ago.

And first of all, let's get into the COVID I know you guys can see it back there, but, like, this is a beautiful cover.

And it.

The name Double Dutch Fuss is already doing a lot in itself.

And once you go deeper into the book, it's an exploration of masculinity, man.

Black families, who do we owe ourselves?

Who owes us things?

And how do we even explore our bodies?

So I want to talk about the title of Double Dutch Bus because you found more solace in doing Double Dutch than you did playing catch and fetch and all the things with your dad.

Catch, Fetch.

All the things.

And a whole childhood, really, in a surveillance state.

Before we get into it, what was the fuss actually about?

The fuss.

Well, first, thank you for having me it's really exciting to be here with you today.

I heard nothing but thank you for having me.

The fuss.

I felt like my existence created chaos when I was a child.

And even when it was quiet, you know, everyone didn't speak on it.

I didn't have the childhood where everyone made commentaries from face.

But you can feel, even in silence, when just your being is causing a disruption to the system.

And when I was working on the book, the title wasn't there yet.

There were a lot of different titles, a lot of different ideas.

And then when I read that story back to myself, I thought about how much of that interaction shaped how I moved through the world.

And as a person of a certain age.

You know, the song the Double Dutch Bust was in my head one day, and it just made sense to anchor the story to this moment around Double Dutch that shaped so much of how I saw myself as a kid.

I really love that.

And I want to talk about, too about the imagery of Double Dutch.

And if you've ever seen it in photos and pictures or whatever may have you, it unleashes something within you that feels wondrous and whimsy and all the things.

And you open up the book starting in Newark as a little boy who wanted to jump Double Dutch, which is so innocent, but.

But it really opens up your imagination.

And what does it mean when an adult allows a child to have imag.

And what does it cost when they.

Don't allow it as a kid?

I think because we are still.

When you're a child, you're still trying to make sense of this big world, right?

So you fill in the gaps with, you know, your imagination.

You know, you make things the way you want them to be.

Or if you don't know something, you go, well, maybe it's like this.

And before we were staring at tablets all day.

We use that time to think, to create.

Even.

Even if we weren't consciously thinking that we were creating, we were creating worlds where we felt safe, where things were fun, where there was color, where there was sound, where there was music, and it belonged to us.

Adults get in the way of that a lot.

You know, you have kids who kind of find their way to doing a thing, and adults say, stop making all that noise or stop using up all the paper to draw these shapes or whatever it is that you're doing that is just sort of naturally flowing from you.

A lot of us as adults don't learn to back up and just kind of watch and see where that is leading.

And when you take that away from children.

I think you take away so much in terms of discovery.

And I say this in a book.

So much of what we become is often decided for us before we had a chance to even think about who we are.

So, you know, we're in.

We're sort of given who we're supposed to be, what religion we're supposed to be, how we're supposed to move through the world, how we're supposed to dress.

There's very little space as a child for you to say, you know what?

I like to wear stripes, and I don't want to wear other colors.

Because your parents are going to say, well, the blue polka dots are on sale.

This is what you want to wear.

But it would be just as easy to find the stripes.

You know, there's a resistance.

There used to be much more of it, but I think people are more open to it now.

But there is a bit of a resistance to giving children agency.

And I don't know what that fear is.

There are some books that talk about, especially for black children, that there's remnants of slavery in the ways in which we like to control their bodies and not give them agency.

But it has a great impact, a tremendous impact on us.

When children aren't allowed to create and defend.

We see it through school, we see it through.

Then they're adults working someplace, and they've never had to imagine, so they can't think through a problem.

They can't create.

And so I did it in quiet.

Like a lot of my imagining was introspective and not obvious.

I could just sit and stare at a wall or be present in a room, but not there.

Some might say dissociation, but it just go away.

You know, I think about that a lot, especially when we're talking about imagination and people telling us who to be.

And I think you bring this up in a very poignant way.

We're really right.

First couple pages were introduced to your father.

By all accounts, he is the male archetype, right?

He's the football player, army vet.

All the guys want to be your dad.

He is that dude.

So growing up, watching this blueprint, being seeing it and then trying to force it on you, how knowing in your body that wasn't you.

How, how.

How do you.

You explore it so well in here.

But what is it like really, to grow up just being in that really?

Because you do touch on it in the book, but I know not every.

It's not obviously out yet.

So I just want you to kind of touch on, like, how you explored it.

I know that's a loaded question.

I apologize.

Question.

And it's.

It's.

I'm thinking about that existence.

So when you grow up, especially, you learn very early as a.

And I'm just gonna speak for being a boy.

As a boy, you learn very early that boys are supposed to be a certain kind of way.

And then you see your dad and your uncles and everybody are kind of in that zone, and you don't see yourself in that reflection.

And not that I wanted to necessarily wear a dress or anything like that, but I just didn't see myself in the ways in which they move through the world.

And it makes you feel from a very early age like something's wrong.

So then when something's wrong, you're their age, you're trying to fix it, but you don't really know what's wrong.

You just know that you're not like them and you don't get time and no one is supporting you being an individual.

Like, what is that?

You know.

You know, culturally, like, oh, you know, be yourself.

No, like, that wasn't.

It's not a thing.

So I just remember liking to be quiet, which for a lot of boys is not allowed to just sit in silence.

I like to read to myself and just sort of sit with a book or whatever and just kind of contemplate.

And I didn't like people bumping into me and pushing me, so I wasn't trying to go outside and scrape my knee on the asphalt.

It makes sense to me.

Who wants the band Aid, right?

Like, I don't want that, but to the world outside of me, like, why is he never dirty?

Why is.

Why is he not stuffed up?

Right?

Why?

Why are those things that happened to him?

And I don't know why that's a problem for people, but I know that it is.

So when it's in your house, there's no escape from it because, you know, I'm at home with my mom and, you know, my brother or whoever, and it feels good.

It's like, normal.

But then when dad comes home, I'm learning to code switch already without knowing what that is.

Either by disappearing and not trying to be seen because I don't know how I'm going to mess up, but I am.

Or by trying to do something that would impress him, to make him like me or to make him smile.

And, you know, it wasn't like he was always mean or anything.

It was just.

You could tell it didn't feel like there was an attraction.

Like, oh, this is my boy.

This is, you know, that I saw other fathers have with their son.

So it puts you in a position of feeling unwanted or displaced, but not really quite sure of how to fix that because you're not old enough to work through what it's even about yet.

And I think there's something wonderful you do and you explore, especially in your first couple chapters, but throughout the whole book, about accountability, because you see something, you are confused about what you just saw, and then you say it.

And then because you hold your father and the men in your lives accountable, then therefore you are feminine.

And that is something that I definitely want to bring up, a quote that you brought up about accountability.

My mother could never have gone for pedicures with her girlfriends if they knew she was wandering the streets, not taking care of her children.

Aunties wouldn't protect her.

Friends wouldn't have invited her to barbecues.

Men don't have the problem.

Why do you believe that men can evade accountability so much?

Because we are seeing it play out in a bunch of different ways, a reckoning of sorts.

And that quote has.

There's a.

This book's marked up.

There is a lot in there where I'm like, why do.

Why do we just give up accountability to men and place it all on women?

In high school, when I did my senior paper, I'm 16, I had to choose a topic.

Everyone's doing, like, you know, civil rights, you know, or whatever.

Yes.

Ruby Bridges.

It's straight up groovy.

Bridges, which kind of went.

My friend Tony Ann Johnson wrote the TV movie for Ruby Bridges.

Really?

She did great movies, but, yeah, Ruby Bridges, you know, all the.

All those things.

And my topic for my senior paper was based on a book by Jawanza Kunju Fu about how women raise their daughters and love their sons.

So I read that book for whatever reason, at 15, 16 in.

The book's premise is that part of what we're seeing culturally is that daughters were being raised to understand finances, how to manage a house, how to be in the world.

Socially.

Education was important for women to pass down to their daughters and for the family to give.

And sons were being smothered with love.

They were being handed plates of food, their clothes were being washed.

They weren't being held accountable.

Accountable for much except for maybe taking the trash out.

Things like that.

That women were being.

Girls were being prepared to be to run a household, and sons were being hugged and coddled.

And I remember reading that as a teenager, and I'm young.

I'm looking at my Life and thinking about some of the men in my life and going, huh.

You know, I see a lot of that emotion right?

There were men around, but the women were the heads of the household.

As far as I was concerned.

They were the leaders.

Even if the men were working or whatever, the women made the house run fully.

They were providing they could fix a problem.

And, you know, if they needed to paint the house, you know, like, whatever had to happen.

So early on, I kind of had this idea of, you know, that accountability not being given to young men in many families.

But I think it's that patriarchal piece that, you know, men lead even when they're not, and then not being told when they're wrong.

And some of that silence comes out of fear, you know, because unchecked emotional regulation.

So when you speak up against that, there's sometimes violence, and that's frightening.

And in that particular quote, when you talk about that, I think about how so many men that I knew never had problems getting a girlfriend, getting a wife, hanging out and showing their face anywhere when they were not taking care of their children.

They could walk into an auntie's house or grandma's house with a new girlfriend, and everybody knows they haven't bought any food or anything for their children, and no one says a word.

And there's no way that most women in that same circumstance would not be treated terribly if they showed up.

And everyone knew that they were not taking care of their kids.

But here they come with their new boyfriend and hang out.

And I don't know why that silence was.

It's sort of so common.

But what it does is it allows a certain level of permissiveness.

And what's sad is that so many of the women who allow cousin so and so or their brother to come in with these women and not take care of their kids and not take care of responsibility.

So many of them have had that done to them.

And it just creates this terrible cycle where, you know, it's confusing.

As a child, you know, I think, you know, I could.

It made me not trust the men in my life.

So I have a younger brother, and, you know, we're not seeing our father.

And there's a guy who I've known and kind of looked up to who was friends with my dad, and he knows that my father's not taking care of us.

But you're still buddies with him.

But you want to be my mentor still.

So you're friends with the person who's hurting me.

So I don't know that I can trust you, because that tells me you're just like him.

Complicit.

Complicit.

So I.

That the impact for me has been for me personally, how that manifested was a deep distrust of men in general, you know, because I saw very few buck against that, say, nah, you can't be around me.

You're not.

You go home and go home.

And, you know, I didn't see anybody stand up for me in that way, except for the women who, like, sometimes would say, you know, like, my dad would call, like, one of my, you know, mother's friends, like, hey, haven't seen.

And she'd be like, boy, you know, Right.

You know, sometimes that would happen.

But for the most part, for meeting men, to see them just kind of welcome him without any accountability made me think, okay, I can't trust any of you.

So let's talk about that a little bit more.

Because throughout your life, you've had women who were your solace, like your friends throughout high school and then even when you were in la.

But when it comes to love that you know and shout out to you, you're married, Marianne, and I'm about to be joining you across those hollow walls.

I will be asking all the questions, Lord, help me, Lord.

But how you navigated throughout the book of you finding love and also finding sexual pleasure within yourself, because you said it, you talked about queer, normative things that you guys did growing up with your friends, that you're like, this is a little queer, y'.

All.

So how did you navigate not trusting men, but also finding love later when they.

Man, like, that is so, you know, it's.

It's deep because you have to, like, let down your guard.

And I feel you on that because sometimes even with my own father and like, he knows this, I don't trust him all the time either.

But I found love.

And I want to see how you found that too.

There was a lot of distrust, you know, so it was a complex.

There was the coming out piece, which is hard enough.

Yeah.

And then once you come out, it's like, okay, so what's over here?

You know, like, what's who all over there?

What's happening?

And do I belong?

Do I fit in?

What is this?

And then what I found is that so many of us didn't trust each other because of how we've been treated by our families, how we've been treated by our dads, how we've been treated by other males in our lives, our peers.

So most of my early interactions were with people who Were not looking for much because they had not seen much.

So a lot of us were sort of empty and kind of bumping into each other and having these awkward interactions where we wanted to maybe just have someone to talk to, but had no roadmap for what that looked like.

So there's a lot of empty sexual encounters.

There's a lot of sort of people who you do want more from, but no one knows how to do it.

You know, we've not seen it modeled in any way.

And I will say that even with my husband, we figured it out.

But I think we both came into the relationship hurt with a fair amount of distrust in different ways, you know, and we had to learn that we're not here to hurt each other.

And I think that is what it takes time.

You know, so many of my friends are.

Have struggled with the idea of you're trying to create something you've never seen.

Now, a generation behind us, people who are in their 20s and 30s.

It warms my heart to see, like, my former students who are just, like, you know, 24, like, hey, I found this person, and we're off to get married.

That's phenomenal.

They haven't had the same burdens.

They've had some.

They've had their version, but they.

That level of distrust, People are out there looking for that.

They know it exists.

But I spent most of my life at that point where marriage wasn't even an option.

I was.

I wasn't even a full citizen right here.

Right.

Like, you know, I didn't know that I would ever be able to get married.

That's relatively new concept.

Right.

So I didn't have full citizenship.

So when you already started like that, what are we even doing?

You know, like, where does it go?

You know, so it was just all those complications politically and just how we were raised, it just made.

It makes it hard.

So to distrust and just sort of figuring it out just from scratch is kind of where we start.

Yeah.

And the ownership.

And I also want to say, you said kids now can be that, and you were creating it.

It's because you had the imagination to dream it up.

And I always think about that, especially as black people.

We have so much imagination because we've been through so much that we have not seen.

But we know we can be it because we have it in us, because it's always been ingrained and made in us.

And then there's another piece in the book you said, too, especially when we're talking about, like, trust and sex and all those Things.

It's like, if you have sex, you die, period.

And that is such a scary concept because it is in our bodies to express love and to have release and to have this euphoric thing happen.

So how did you really overcome that in yourself, to really find pleasure within your own body because you already finding it on your own alone?

How did you.

How did you get to trusting someone else to love your body as much as you were loving it as well?

That is a great question.

And I think the.

And this isn't in the book, but.

So when I was in my 20s in LA and I wasn't having tons of encounters, but I was scared to death.

Yes.

Yeah, it was very clear.

You were scared, terrified.

You were scared.

And I'm in LA and I don't know, you know, but then I did have encounters.

And the thing is, I can laugh now, but the encounter would be like, I just touched the hem of yours.

I'm at the urgent care the next day.

Like, I think.

I don't know.

So they were tired of me.

They were like, get out of here, hypochondriac.

We didn't even have speed.

You didn't even do nothing.

That was a date.

You're like.

You sat in the booth at Applebee's.

You're okay, right?

So I found myself within any contact, catastrophizing.

Like, so then I would be at.

And it wasn't even urgent care.

I was using the LA Free Clinic at the time.

And I would go in there, and it got to the point where I was like, what am I doing?

Like, okay, you know, like, let's breathe.

This is anxiety.

This is.

And it forced me to have mature conversations with people about their practices and say, like, because I'm not worried and we need to talk about what we're doing.

And I got to a place where I could really talk about what I wanted.

Where you had been?

Where I had been.

So I had.

You have to have to have those conversations up front because it was life or death at that time.

And I don't.

I mean, I'm gonna be honest, I.

There have been very few of my experiences during that time were fully pleasurable.

There was always, more often than not, a regret, even when I knew the person, even when I felt like I opened myself up to something and was it worth it?

And it was terrifying.

And it just felt bad.

It just felt bad to have this wonderful moment and then at the end of it, have to think, okay, what did I do?

Am I going to be sick?

Am I going to be.

It just wasn't worth it.

It really was.

And as I got older, I've talked to other people and they're just like, yeah, I was going through that same cycle.

There's a movie I think Loretta Divine is in.

I can't think of the name of it.

Dirty Laundry or something, but there's a scene where one of the characters keeps going to the clinic.

Right.

So it's not just me, but it was just terrifying time.

And I have to be honest, I don't know that at any point before I got married did I not have a little bit of regret at some point afterwards.

It was never like that feeling you see in the movies.

They wake up and open up blinds.

Never.

Not.

Not before.

And some of that came from.

I think we were all kind of holding a piece of ourselves back.

Yeah.

It was never all in.

There was no trust.

Don't trust.

And, you know, so after you wake up or after the moment's over, it's just like, who are you?

Yeah, like, I just did this with you.

I don't even really know you.

I actually don't even trust you.

But I trust you with my body and my health.

And isn't that a wild concept?

It is and it is.

And it's hard to explain how intimate you can be and how far apart you can feel.

But is it, though?

Because straight men do it all the time.

They do.

So really, you're falling right into the same patriarchal.

Yeah.

Just dipping.

Dipping and diving.

And that's not a critique on you.

It's just what.

What everybody is doing.

But the thing is, it's like you don't even recognize that you are dipping in diving.

You actually many times want something else, but you're also, like, too scared he's going to be like that, or I don't know if he's going to be with 20 other people.

Like, it's so many other things, and you just get scared.

And it was hard to navigate.

It is hard.

It was hard.

And I think it's easier now for people to figure that out.

I definitely hope and pray that we continue that way, even if people try to take us back, because it lends itself to a more honest and fruitful society if we all can just be honest with ourselves.

And I think there's something that I've been talking to a lot of men in my life.

A lot of men at a certain age don't have real friendships because the lack of accountability that we talked about before and making amends when Somebody wrongs you, which I want to go back to your dad because later on you're figuring out nothing.

You're like, listen, I'm about to leave.

I'm about to find my own dreams out of here because there's too much.

And your dad did end up getting sick.

You thought your dad was about to do some self harm and you're like, listen, I'm about to go and take care of him.

What made you in your heart?

Like, that's a lot of complicated feelings, but you did it.

Was it obligation?

Was it this?

My, you know, obligation?

Like, this is my dad, this is my parent, this is what I got to do.

And then how did you really, you and your dad come to where he is really helping you in a lot of other ways?

Like, where did that, all of that come in?

So LA was complicated for me.

I loved la.

I had the time of my life, learned so much.

Like, all the things I did in LA were amazing, but also really difficult.

You're young, you're trying to be in the industry.

Expensive.

It's expensive.

A lot of rejection and getting this close to film and then they falling apart.

So I was at a place where I was going through my own next phase of life.

I was like 33, 34, and like, okay, where do I want to be next?

And as that's happening, he's now in his other phase where he, you know, after years of hard living and is reckoning with sort of the damage done.

And one thing that I believed was that I would get a call one day and that he would be dead and I wouldn't feel anything.

It would just be information and I would just, you know, about your life?

About my life.

And it blindsided me that that's not how I felt when I received a call about his.

His health.

It wouldn't have been how I thought it was going to be.

And it was the beginning of me learning that I don't have control, right?

Like.

Like I am a human being.

I have emotional reactions and I can steady myself and guard myself and.

And have the response that I pre planned to have, like, yeah, he's sick, Great, all right, I'm not gonna do nothing about it.

Or I can really acknowledge this feeling that I'm having, which is complex and complicated, and just ride that feeling and see where it takes me.

I did not feel immediately a sense of obligation to go to him.

It was an obligation.

I have a thing.

I am sentimental and it was a piece of me was just like, if this is the end I need some closure.

And just saying, okay, thanks for telling me wasn't enough.

I needed something else.

And I think that was the burning thing and also the confusion of why I was even caring.

I was going through all of that at the same time.

But once I went to him, it was confusing as to why I even cared.

And it actually brings up, you know, and I'm very open about this.

For me, it brings up the whole notion of what I talked about earlier about men do whatever they want to do and they have some place to fall.

So there was guilt around that.

Like, he got to just live hard and do whatever he wanted, and here I come, you know?

And I felt those feelings too.

Like, am I being complicit?

Am I supposed to let him fall the way he seemedly let us as a family when he walked out of our lives?

You know?

And so I wrestle with that.

I don't wrestle with it now, but I did wrestle with it for a long time.

And I think that there was a piece of it I did not feel obligated, but I did feel like I wanted to see.

I had some things I needed closure on.

And when I made the decision to allow him in my life, it felt easy because it was honest.

It was what I wanted to be doing.

But it wasn't easy to live.

It was an easy decision to sort of step into once I knew this is what I wanted.

But to live it was constantly facing the reality of, you know, how do we really forgive?

What is forgiveness?

I never really had to forgive on that level.

Yeah.

And questioning was forgiveness and was being a doormat, all that stuff.

And what does my forgiveness cost me with other family relationships?

Like, does it make people look at me and say, oh, I can't believe that you go back to him after what he did to you and how they see me or.

And I have to say, for my mother, how did it feel for her to watch.

To watch me go back to him?

And we talked a little bit about it, and I think she focused on the fact that I wasn't good, you know, being a good sign.

But deep down, I'm human.

I would imagine it's like a little bit of her side.

You don't deserve that.

You're not gonna say that, right?

Well, some people would.

Well, listen, I do know some people who would.

She did not say that, but she could have, and I would have understood it.

It's one of those things that I'm glad I just jumped in into the lived feeling and not stay within.

So the Pre the prescribed.

This is what you do in these moments.

Like, you just turn.

He turned his back, so I'm gonna turn my back.

Gotcha.

So I'm glad I lived through that because I learned so much about the complexity of relationships and how things just don't go away because you don't see them.

Right.

Because I wasn't talking to him.

Didn't mean that those feelings didn't go away.

And I think I would be a much different person now had I not not been able to have that closure.

You know, it's insane to me that you're sitting there holding a book that I wrote where I'm talking about my life and him and about this person who I thought at one point I wouldn't even know.

You know what I'm saying?

It's like it all leads somewhere.

I didn't know it was leading to this moment, but I found in talking to people as I was going through the process, so many of us have these relationships with our parents.

Not the exact story, but these sort of complex relationships around how much do I let you in?

How much do I have to help you because you were my mom or my dad?

And how much do you have to love and talk to me because I was your child?

Right.

Like, what are we?

What do we owe each other?

Yeah.

I've been searching through that for so long.

Forgiveness.

What do we owe one another?

And what do we owe ourselves?

Right.

So thinking about that to end before we open up for questions, if anybody has any.

Looking at the COVID to looking back at that little boy, was the fuss worth it?

Yes, the fuss was worth it.

I am one of those people that believes if you.

You change one thing, you change it all.

I think when people read the book, what you'll see and what I saw, because I didn't know that I really noticed this was how everything just connected, you know, like from where I went to college, connected to this.

Like, you know, I mean, in that.

Movie theater, how it connected to you becoming an alpha on a hand.

Like all of the things.

Yeah, you're just showing up for these things that are, you know, that you enjoy, that, you know, you're led to.

And so on the other end of it, it's pretty spectacular to watch that if you just keep moving.

And what I say is insane is that I'm not doing this with endless supplies of money.

Right.

I just believe there was a story.

I believe that I can make a film.

I believe that I can.

Even when the world and all the other circumstances might have been saying this doesn't make sense.

I believe I can go to films like all those things happen out of belief that I can't really point to where it came from.

But there were little dots and kind of leading me from place to place.

And I'm glad that mostly I followed that path.

So I do think it was.

I very much believe it was worth it.

I'm sitting here, I feel like I've learned so much and I think the book is going to be.

And people have said the book.

They laugh like at parts of the book.

I didn't think it was funny when I was writing it.

So when I was.

There are people laughing at parts of it.

And I'm glad because that is my personality as well.

Because I'm far enough removed from it to feel like this is a story.

Like this isn't just trauma on a page or anything.

This is a story that I think people can relate to.

No, it was very much given lived experience.

And even looking at you right now, you feel like the lightness.

Like you feel light, like you feel unburdened.

And it is scary to put your story, your story, this is not fictitious, it's not auto fiction.

This is you raw and uncut.

And it is unnerving.

And so I applaud you because this was years, I'm sure in the making.

And I'm glad that you're.

We're still growing and learning, but you're finding more solace in yourself.

Yes.

And I love that.

So with that, anybody have any questions?

Because I saw more.

But if anybody does, I'm fine to keep going because I have a lightning round.

All right.

I got lightning round.

Okay.

The song that was playing the day everything changed for you.

Like if you can go back.

Lightning spending fast.

I'm going to say.

This is.

I'm going to say the.

But right when I think about school days and just sort of seeing an escape.

Yes.

You know, like, oh, I want to go.

I want to go to the HBCU and just.

I think I can find my way, you know.

Cause I think if I had to stay home.

We're not sitting here today.

That's true.

I agree with that one book that.

Helped you survive Invisible Life.

Elon Harris.

100%.

Finish the sentence.

I choose to exist on my own terms.

The day I.

The day I decided to love myself.

I didn't always, you know, which you probably know from the book, but.

Yes.

Yeah, I get that.

And then I'm gonna end this one.

You met Stevie Wonder.

What the Hell.

So that's the thing about the book.

Like, so.

So I was confused.

I was like, wait a minute.

Did he just say, okay, all right, cool, Steve.

Yeah.

So I came to know him through a couple of relationships, and he.

He knew I was nervous around him.

So when I would come and be in his presence, he would change his voice and say, hello, Phil.

Like, he would do that because I was very much hello.

You know, I couldn't.

I knew he was.

And I just.

I couldn't.

So over time, I relaxed.

And one of the best moments we had.

It was one morning.

I used to work for his partner, and I was at their house in the morning, and we both love kids cereal.

So he's at the table eating.

So I go have a bowl of cereal, and I'm about to go to work with his partner, and he hands me his.

He was listening to music.

He hands it to me, slides down, listen to this.

And I'm a huge Janet Jackson fan, like, her number one fan.

And it's the Velvet Rope, but it's not.

It's not out.

And so he has, like, a thing.

So I'm listening to that for the first time by myself, and I just remember sitting there thinking, in what world am I sitting at a table eating kicks?

It was making wonder, listening to the Velvet Rope before the rest of the planet.

And as I was writing a book, there are a few more of those moments with different people.

And I decided I didn't want to write a far as Gump, kind of like, we are the people.

But that interaction and having him especially, you know, I don't want to give away.

But what he does for me in the book, it's crazy where the gems and the knowledge will come from.

And you think you're this little small piece particle, just that no one sees.

And then you find yourself trying to escape this life in New Jersey and just trying to make your way.

And you're sitting at Stevie Wonder's breakfast table, eating cereal and still not knowing that your life is actually happening.

Yes.

You don't know your life is happening.

I'm sitting with Stevie Wonder, and I'm still going to myself, when is it my time?

When will someone see me?

When will I get someone who understands?

Or when will I make it into the industry?

And I'm not absorbing through all the steps like in the book.

There are so many places where I've arrived in a way that is appropriate for my age.

Right.

Because we live a fantasy that you're supposed to be this and that by A certain age, I was president of the Los Angeles chapter of NABJ.

I might have been 23, still going.

But when am I going to be the news director?

You know, like, it's a sickness.

It's that gifted kid syndrome.

But I'm sitting at that table thinking it's kind of cool, but not really understanding it's happening right now.

It's happening right now.

And that's one of the things that I work on.

Just still, just like, in this moment, it's happening right now.

We're sitting here talking.

I am so proud to be sitting here having this conversation with you.

I visualize this.

I'm a big visualizer, creative thing.

I visualize this.

I saw you talking to Disha.

I approached you.

I hadn't looked yet.

I said, oh, we're gonna do a show together.

You literally did.

You said, came up to me, listen, my book ain't out yet, but we gonna talk.

And I said, okay.

And now look at us talking.

Wow.

And I really want to say thank you because.

And we talked about this earlier.

You know, being a small indie podcast, even though I'm with Mahogany Books, is like, I still think, like, me, too.

I'm like, life is happening, girl, right now.

And I'm so blessed to talk about something that deeply has saved my own life, which is books.

And this one is going to change people's lives, and I hope you know that.

Try not to get emotional.

I'm a water sign, y', all, so I apologize in advance for my water sign have itself.

But you know us Scorpios, we are fake hard.

I'm like Jigglypuff with a knife.

But no, I really do think this book.

I was reading it, and I just felt myself throughout the pages, too, of trying to find your way in a world that is so confusing, especially being a black person who they try to put you in so many different boxes all of the time.

And even now, it's like, when will we be free?

When will our one generation have full rights as citizens?

And that is where we are right now.

And this is, like I said, is so timely.

So thank you, Phil, for bringing us in the conversation.

Thank you guys for listening to us.

And make sure you guys pick it up.

Is where you get all your bookstore, wherever you go and get your books.

You know, you can go to Amazon, you know, Jeff Bezos, Hellscape is there.

But if you can support Indy, we always appreciate that.

So let's make this number one period.

And thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Thank you.