SPOTLIGHT on Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hi, and welcome to this episode of Sasses at Spotlight. Today we're talking to Dr. William King Mission Frost. I am Lisa, and I am actually only sipping on water today because I'm already struggling with life. Well, it's fine. It's okay.

SPEAKER_05 0:33

Swallow my space.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Yum. And I'm your co-host, Agnes, and I'm drinking, as Lisa say, grass. Grass. My ice matcha. Yum. My matcha latte. And our guest, Dr. William King Vision Ross, is slipping slipping on saliva.

SPEAKER_05 0:56

Nothing, not a damn thing. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Thank you for joining us. And thank you for making time for us while at an airport.

SPEAKER_05 1:06

Yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate it. I appreciate the opportunity. This gate is empty at the moment because the the plane's just boarded. Nice. So we'll see until a little the little shit start coming back in here and then I'll have to leave again.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Okay. You want to go first with your question?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

My silly question.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

I forgot it. Take take 16. Alright, I'm gonna go first. If you could have dinner with any person living living or dead, who would it be and why?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Oh, this is a good one.

SPEAKER_05 1:41

Um I would living or dead, my dad. That's an easy one. I lost my dad when I was fifteen. And uh I would love to to sit and and see his face again and and share my perspectives and and my outlook on life. Um you know I know he's with me in in spirit, but given the opportunity, I would love to sit down and break where my dad is an adult.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

That's nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

I hate my question now. Too bad. Okay, I are we ready for this one? If you were a drag performer, what would your drag name be?

SPEAKER_05 2:26

If I was a w uh did you say if I was a drag performer?

SPEAKER_01 2:29

I did. I said that.

SPEAKER_05 2:32

Okay. Um if I was a drag performer, what what would what would I what would my performance be? What would you be your your performing name?

SPEAKER_03 2:42

What would your be your performance name be?

SPEAKER_05 2:54

Uh I don't I don't Jesus Christ, who prepares for a question like that?

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Um see that show.

SPEAKER_05 3:08

What song would you perform? What song would I perform?

SPEAKER_00 3:12

I like to move it, move it.

SPEAKER_05 3:13

Oh no, I'm just no, no.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

But moving the words in this place.

SPEAKER_05 3:19

I'd probably pick whatever Kuba Tong, Cuban, reggae was hot right now, because all them songs are already inappropriate. You don't even have to try to word for it. There's not even like uh uh what do they call it? There's no in the window. It's just no, there's no innuendo, there's no implications, it's just straight up. It's what it is.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

All right.

SPEAKER_05 3:46

Make make R. Kelly's 12th play look like a church song.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Woo can't get an Amen. Yeah, right. I would definitely come see that show.

SPEAKER_05 3:58

It'd probably be in the airport. I mean at this point.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

That you know, maybe you're onto something. Maybe more people would sign up for flights and deal with delays better.

SPEAKER_05 4:09

I've seen these little shits make the little TikTok videos. I'm at that age where I just want to kick kids. Like, I don't care if they're mine, they're not mine, just you know, when they trip over their own shit, I laugh. I'm that guy in the airport.

SPEAKER_03 4:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Interesting. Okay, mental note. I know we kind of skipped a little bit ahead, but tell us about yourself. Who are you? What do you do? Give us some background. What's the move? What's the vibe?

SPEAKER_05 4:38

Uh born and raised in New York. Um I am the son of uh community activists. My mother was a young lord. She was actually the youngest female young lord uh in the New York chapter of the young lords back in the 60s. I grew up in a real radical revolutionary home. Community service was not something that we spoke about in theory or on occasion. It was every day. Um took care of my parents medically since I was eight. Lost my dad when I was 15. Um was really, really heavily involved in community organizing. But at the age of 15, losing my dad, I went through a period of um I wouldn't necessarily call it suicidal ideation. I would call it more um warped desire to join the spirit realm, right? I missed my dad terribly, so I was just on this shit about if I go, I'd be with my dad again, and then my mother wouldn't sustain the death of her son and her husband, so she'd pass away, and then we'd all be together again. So it worked out really conveniently for me because that's the time that I decided to join the Latin Kings, and uh, at the inception of my membership, I was a fixer, I guess you would call it. If there was a fight to be had or if there was a problem, um I was more than happy to show up because if the shit went south, again, my prophecy of being with my dad would be fulfilled. Um but I I realized really early on I was living in extreme contradiction and hypocrisy during the day. I was going to a specialized high school, I was a member of an organization called Aspira. I was promoting youth leadership and conflict resolution and peace conferences, and then when the sun set, I was on dikman having fights or in the concourse, fucking somebody up. So, you know, it was a little hypocrisy there that needed to be addressed, and so I finally snapped out of it in um 1997. I went to uh Cuba for the first time, was there for about a month, and really understood what revolution meant in that paradigm, uh, came back and really refined my community organizing uh to be more grassroots and more inclusive. Um coming out of New York, I think that we are inundated with concepts of leftism to the point that we don't want to hear anything from the other side, you know. Like for example, right now, you know, we got this asshole in office, but even a broke watch is right two times a day, you know, and right now Trump could say it's Sunday, and the left would say he's lying, but it is Sunday, so we have to we have to, I think, lead more with intellect as opposed to emotion. And so I I kind of went through those phases. Growing up, um left New York at the age of twenty one, twenty-one, twenty-two. Uh, had been going back and forth to Cuba many times and ended up getting initiated in uh several African Cuban paradigms out there and wanted to do my years, my subsequent years of development and reflection outside of New York. I didn't feel New York was a city that lent itself to respect. I think it lent itself to entitlement. So I could find another practitioner in the train and they might think it was okay to talk to me or touch me, and that's just not how it's supposed to go. So uh so I left New York. Um I was going to actually join the military. Um, and not because I wanted to be all that I could be, but because I wanted to subject myself to the complete opposite ideology that I was raised in and see if I could sustain and survive. Took my ASVAB test, was slated for military intelligence, decided to go to Arizona for a while, and uh I was gonna sign my contract in Arizona. And the day I went to sign my contract, uh walked in, and the recruiter was like, What do you want, you spick nigger? You're probably trying to run away from a case. You probably, you know, you can't you can't join the military just because you've been facing a bid and go to jail. You you did the crime, you gotta do the time.

SPEAKER_04 8:51

And I'm like, motherfuck, like I I haven't even said hello.

SPEAKER_05 8:54

And uh and he just really turned me off. Uh so needless to say, I didn't go into the military. Um and instead, I actually focused my efforts on um, again, the organizing and the studying. A couple of years after I moved to Arizona, I was asked to go to Europe to assist in the ending of a war between Latin kings and Yetas that was started by misinformation. That misinformation was further enhanced and perpetrated by the academic community, uh, anthropologists and sociologists specifically. Uh so after a three-year, uh every couple of months going back and forth and ultimately stopping a war, I decided to set my sights on um directly challenging academia. And and that's where my my theory came in. Uh, I created a theory called criminalized ethnicity theory that speaks to the ramifications of individuals being criminalized at a very early age and how they live through life uh holding on to those to those uh stigmas. Um I also write, I also I used to do poetry back in the day, uh got tired of that because all the poetry started to sound the same. Motherfuckers was talking either about you know, your ass is a peach and I want some fruit salad or uh fucking, you know, fuck the pig and no justice, no peace. And I'm like, first of all, you ain't getting laid, and and the other one ain't never been to a rally, so I got tired of the people talking shit. So I left that. I uh, you know, I got tired of people just snapping their fingers and nodding their head, like, yes, yes. And then Morgan's ain't doing shit, you know. So uh so I uh I just left left that world and decided I wanted to write and publish, and so I published a couple of books. Uh, I'm working on some now, just really trying to provide our community with resources that are more personal as opposed to buying our history from somebody else. Um I still do a lot of international travel. I now specialize in uh transnational gang research. And um that's me in a nutshell. The airport version. Y'all can edit that shit out. I don't know how how coherent it is. I'm working on like 12 minutes of sleep.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Oh, nothing's being edited. Don't worry about it. Gonna get the rod.

SPEAKER_05 11:27

Great, great.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

You're better than either one of us on 12 minutes of sleep than we are when we're put together. So, you know.

SPEAKER_05 11:38

Well, the fact that y'all start with, well, what I'm drinking is, I mean, that's an indication that maybe, maybe we actually do better when we have alcohol.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Neither one of us have alcohol, so we're just like I am, I am we're incoherent, words are not wording.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

It's a hot mess. I am not drinking or enhanced today. So therein lies the problem. Completely sober.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

We shouldn't cut this now and just start again with a little drunk, okay.

SPEAKER_05 12:06

Whatever. So, what questions do you have? What else?

SPEAKER_01 12:09

We had started to talk about your experience with interpersonal relationships and etiquette, i.e. doing the travel, like as of now. Tell us what have you seen this latest trip?

SPEAKER_05 12:27

Um, it's a good question. I you know, first of all, I I'm I'm at the stage of my life where I enjoy being places I don't like getting to them. Um, and I don't like getting to them because I think that there's been such a societal shift where the deterioration of humanity has progressed so quickly that respect and courtesy is a fucking unicorn that we read about, you know, in in in the next edition of The Dark Crystal or The Never Ending Story. It it's it's something that, you know, it's like, let me tell you the tale of La Yorona, let me tell you the tale of when people respected each other. Like it's like one and the same. Uh and and so I just see a lack of of just courtesy, you know. I did a I did a class in Brooklyn College where I asked the students, I posed the question, I said, if if I was to pay for your because they all wanted to be activists, of course. And I said, if if I was gonna fund your activism 100% anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, right? I mean, the whole planet, you're gonna go to the whole planet. My only criteria is that you have to have a phrase that's gonna translate in every language, no matter where you go, whatever country you go to, SP ab to translate, what would you use? And the first person was like, no justice, no peace. And I'm like, well, justice is subjective, and so is peace. So I don't think you're gonna get the exact response that you're that you're wanting. Next student, no, Black Lives Matter. Well, in Africa, they don't really consider that a term that they would use for their ethnicity, so how would that work someplace else? Uh Cisapoire, uh, you can do what? You know, when it translates into another language, what is it that you're doing? So eventually they gave up. And I said, I'm gonna give you four extremely radical, revolutionary, ground shaking, dare I say, terms that are preparing to be banned. Take out a pen and a paper and write them down. And they all did, and they were all, I guess, waiting for me to give them the coordinates of Jesus' next coming. And instead, I told them, I said, the four most profound revolutionary words that you will ever hear are the following. Good morning, thank you, I'm sorry, and I appreciate you. And these fuckers were all sucking their teeth and huffing and puffing, and I'm like, I got fucking stationary that's older than y'all. You know what I mean? Y'all need to understand that the world is is based and built on humanity and that humanity is deteriorating. Um, and so they didn't really understand it. But if you go to an airport, you see people bumping each other, you see uh no place for the elderly, like there used to be, no respect, kids running around, kids rolling around on the floor. I don't even I don't even like And it's not just the airport.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

I mean it's it's anywhere you go.

SPEAKER_05 15:17

It's bad.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Yeah, same behaviors, anywhere.

SPEAKER_05 15:20

And I was uh this last week I was in Morocco and and I um I enjoy being in Morocco. Morocco has a lot of uh a very a very warm place in my heart, but this last trip I saw things that I had never seen in all the years that I've been going there, and it was just the level of of violence and and confrontation, physical confrontation. Uh the community still stepped in, so they didn't allow the fights to to really get out of hand. Um but the final fight that I witnessed last night was during the last call to prayer. I'm in uh Jamaa and Finas Square, it's the biggest square in Marrakesh. You hear the call to prayer coming from the mosque, and this man grabs the chairs uh from this woman worker's kiosk, and she's in full hijab, and he proceeds to break the chairs, and she's in full hijab. He, you know, her her face part rips off, and she grabs a rock and she's throwing it at his little kiosk and breaking his shit. They eventually get in each other's face and they're pushing each other. This is all while the call to prayer is still going on. And um, and it just really hit me that that this deterioration of humanity and this fact of you know, we used to joke around and hear people saying no fucks given. The fact that no fucks are truly given in the world is a scary thing. Uh, and so the airport is just a very concentrated version of that, for me at least. And so I just sit back and watch people and shake my fucking head. Couple that with the inability for people to know what an appropriate dress coat is when they're out in public. I mean, I'm in Atlanta right now. Apparently, bras are very expensive because nobody has one, and uh clothing is I guess cheaper at the size if it doesn't fit you because they're wearing that too. I just want to I just want to be telling, telling people, yo, stretch ain't a size, boo boo. Stretch is not a size.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Well, I was in Six Flags yesterday and I think I found all the bras because I feel like that's what everyone was wearing was underclothes. So, you know, maybe maybe they they had to, you know, you got the outer clothes, I got the underclothes like this year. Yes. I will say this though you know, I always grew up like very like self-conscious about a lot of things. And I see people wearing things and I'm like, oh my god, like I would absolutely never walk out of my house, but the the older I get, the more I am like you two, you like what fucking confidence that you have, and like I wish that I had that confidence, you know, and so like I'm I'm trying to like be less judgy as I get older.

SPEAKER_05 18:08

No, as I get older, I'm more judgy, and I'm gonna tell you why. I uh I created a theory called um not a theory, excuse me, a concept called the mountain in the cave, right? The mountain is let me ask y'all a question. Lisa, if I asked you, do you think you are better than anybody else? What would you say? Okay. Do you believe in perfection?

SPEAKER_00 18:35

I think it's something that you can like aim for, but I feel like not many of us ever really achieve it.

SPEAKER_05 18:42

Okay. Agnes, what about you?

SPEAKER_01 18:44

First question, do I think I'm better than anyone? Big picture, no. I think I I think I am better than people who don't recognize their own flaws. If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_05 18:59

What about perfection?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_05 19:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Well depends on what your perfection is. It's objective.

SPEAKER_05 19:07

There you go. That's true. So so that's and that's the million dollar point right there, right? Subjective is the key word here, because perfection, nobody's asking me, well, what do you mean by perfection? The answer, people just answer the question like either yes or no. But we haven't taken the extra 30 seconds to find out what exactly I mean by perfection. And and the reality is that what I mean by perfection is only relative to me. What you mean to about perfection is relative to you. The question of whether you think you're better than anybody else, when it comes to, I love your answer, Lisa, about it depends on what it is, because when when the topic of conversation is yourself, then you are the fucking expert, right? There's nobody that knows more about you than you. And so you spend all this time building this mountain with your blood, your sweat, your tears, your sacrifice. And in that mountain, that mountain is your alone time. That mountain is is you. That mountain is the closed room that Dr. King and Malcolm and many other civil rights leaders said if you want to have good character, it's it's what you do when nobody's watching, things like that, right? It's that room that we create when we're all alone. That's our mountain. And on our mountain, you're the shit, right? We're all the shit on our mountain because it's our fucking mountain. We built it, we sacrificed for it, we constructed it. Nobody, and I mean nobody knows it better than we do. So am I better than anybody else when it comes to the fucking contents of my mountain? 100%. Do I believe in perfection? 100%. Because perfection is subjective. We have to define what perfection is, and people assume perfection is the absence of flaws or the absence of error. To me, perfection has to do with balance, be it spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, and in that balance, you can't just have good days. If you didn't have a bad day, you'd never have a good day. So there needs to be some kind of balance, right? So with that being said, I think that uh it comes to that do you, you, do you concept, there's the mountain and then there's the cave. The cave is when we're all collectively in a communal space. So this airport is a cave. So if you want to walk around and rock out with your tits out on your mountain, then do you, boo-boo. But if we're in a fucking communal space, then I think there needs to be some communal etiquette. Uh, and I think that that's where we have drifted away from. Uh, I see I'm looking at people right now with their seat, with their feet on the seats, the same seats that children sit on, the same seats that people sit on, the same seats that you put your bag on. You know, let us not forget six years ago the world had to be taught how to wash their fucking hands. You know what I mean? Like literally had to have instructions everywhere you went on how to wash your hands and how long to wash your hands. As if that wasn't enough, you bought an Apple Watch, that should automatically timed how long you washed your hands and then told you, hey, you didn't wash it long enough. So put your hand back in the water. And um, you know, now people are right back to. Same nasty ass shit. I'm I'm again I'm looking at a lady right now who just put her sandwich down on the chair next to her. She's now picking that sandwich up and taking a bite out of it. That bitch now has the bubonic plague. We will read about her tomorrow. So, you know, so again, on your mountain, do you? You go into the cave, come on. You know what I'm saying? Let's have some fucking respect.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Good point. I don't have hope for the I don't have hope for mankind, but that's just me.

SPEAKER_05 22:34

No, no hope.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

No hope. No, because mankind he the human race is the most destructive race species on this planet. And the life cycle comes at they come in cycles. And eventually, you know, all shit's gonna fall apart and then we're just a new era will rise again. It's just it is what the fuck it is. I not that I don't care, but I don't care because it's gonna happen or not happen.

SPEAKER_05 22:59

I got a car payment, so I think we're good for a few years. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

As long as that car payment is going, okay.

SPEAKER_05 23:05

In that case, I don't think the planet's gonna go to work, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:19

I gotta buy a new washer and dryer, now that you mention it. So I think I might prolong our longevity just by that. Thanks. Thanks for the cozy thought.

SPEAKER_05 23:30

What else? I hope I'm not like the most depressing guest you guys have on the show.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Lisa, any questions you have?

SPEAKER_00 23:37

I wanna hear more about your theory and you know, like the stuff that you're working on and like I guess if if you are okay talking about your process and what that looks like for you, like how do you go about researching your theory and what and may and even if you can tell us like what you have found on it so far, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_05 24:10

So yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean the the because of the pioneering factor, a lot of the research is reading about the ethnicity concepts and theories that are already in existence, um, and then making sure that I'm not duplicating that and making sure that I'm coming at it from a different perspective. Uh the bulk of my research is ethnographic, so it's interviews, it's actually spending time in communities, it's talking to people, it's going to different places, hearing their stories and really putting it into the context, and then doing a deep dive into how academia and society as a whole um navigate our lives based on what they think we're gonna do. Like growing up in New York City, we knew that it was the third grade when the city and corrections would ascertain how many um jails they were gonna need in Judy based on how many blacks and Latinos from what neighborhood were going to school in the third grade, you know. And so we grew up in shit like that. Um, and what I find is that these concepts, oh shit, hold on, let me check. I just got a notification from Delta. Hold on. And there'll be no theory, there'll be hold on a second. Um so I think that uh what I found is that there's a lot of internalized inferiority, and I think people have a deeply rooted belief that social mobility is stunted, and as a result, they are um again, that do you concept, they're just gonna maximize the moment to the standard that they think is is relevant and and their perspective of things is warped. For example, you take a brother from the hood and you tell them, hey, you got a job interview tomorrow, dress professional. If you don't define professional, they may understand professional as looking good. Looking good may be the $65, $75 Scarf Face t-shirt that they just bought because it got rhinestones in the gun and they think they look cool in it. And so somewhere there's a there's a mess up, you know, there's a breakdown, and and then they'll wear that t-shirt to the job interview uh because they think that looks good. Um and it has to do with being criminalized. Um, in my own personal experiences, I'm not immune to having been criminalized. I live in the state of Arizona, I carry a firearm every day. When I can travel to places that I am able to bring my firearm with me, I do. The process to check a pistol into the airport with your luggage is really only adding about 15, 20 minutes tops to the normal checking process. I function like if that shit takes three, four hours. I drive with four copies of my license. One in my wallet, one in my glove box, one in this little compartment near the steering wheel. I got another two in my motorcycle because at the end of the day, I'm not reaching for shit. I'm the wrong color and the wrong ethnicity to be able to do whatever the fuck he wants. And and maybe that has changed, maybe it hasn't. Um, but I function in that regard. I, you know, I move in a way that I assume I'm the primary suspect and target. And I'm fortunate enough to have been traveled and seen things and I'm able to articulate it a little differently. But a lot of our communal brothers and sisters cannot articulate it in that respect because they they don't have a perspective that expands past their neighborhood, and so they just feel like a criminal and they feel targeted. And when they feel that they can't progress or get anywhere, it affects how they live in the moment and affects how they live in the day. Um, and that's where we see uh almost a lack of value for life and and and sacrifice and honesty and integrity, and violence becomes something that is second nature. And how do you tell people who live in a violent society not to be violent? You know, I mean it's it's you know, I I remember uh when I first started working with this university in Spain, it was on a conflict resolution contract, and I was like, before I sign anything, can I just get out the irony that we're all speaking Spanish because y'all motherfuckers came to my island, colonized it, killed the natives, imposed your language, and now y'all are over the violence, and now you want to do conflict resolution. That's like the master telling the slave, hey Kunta, I'm over this slave thing, brother. How about you? Are we good? Let's just move on. Heck no, motherfucker, we not good, you know. Um, and so I think that that's something that um it's really interesting. You know, it it it's uh I just I just feel that we have detached from our culture. Um, I had lunch uh with a buddy of mine today, and we went to this cafe here in Atlanta, and uh everyone in the cafe was African American. And the DJs had a DJ and it was you know blaring the music.

SPEAKER_04 29:10

He's like, if you from a from uh HBCU and you graduated in HBCU, stand up, let me see you shake that ass.

SPEAKER_05 29:18

And I'm like, wow, did not think ass was gonna be at the end of that stand up H uh BCU comment, right?

SPEAKER_04 29:26

And uh let me see you, you know what I'm saying? That's what the fuck I'm talking about. We're gonna shake that motherfucking ass.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Alrighty then.

SPEAKER_05 29:35

Well, you know, where are we gonna go with that? You know, where are we gonna go with that? And and again, mountain and cave, right? So that's the kind of shit that I that I think about. And I think that that that being criminalized really does affect the power dynamic in society and it and and it and it's a whole new form of of slavery. Um, you know, we police each other, we keep each other down. There are no greater methods of keeping motherfuckers in the bottom of the barrel than empowering some other crabs to pull them down.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

And we have mastered this shit out of that. So shaking your ass is also easy, right?

SPEAKER_05 30:21

So like there were some struggles in that in that category.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Well, but you know what I mean, right? Like being sometimes being I guess improper, but like I I don't know is is harder than not trying or not caving to the pressure around you. So why why make the wave, right? Like if this is what everybody else is doing, you kind of just want to go along with it because it's it's easy instead of having to be the one to say, I'm not gonna do that because that's not we like or whatever, whether it's for me, for everyone, it's not appropriate. You know, not everybody feels comfortable being that person. And the more we just take the easy roads, here we are, you know, living in a place where everyone has a six second attention span and no one can be bothered to actually learn, you know, and and that's for me, you know, across the board, I deal with the public every single day. And and stupid does not have a preference.

SPEAKER_05 31:34

So I absolutely not. And and you know, imagine if um if we were to get to the point where you want to shake your ass and twerk? All right, cool, shake your ass and twerk. Why don't you find the cultural ramifications of that twerk and make it make it stronger, make it better, you know, make it real. You know, but again, that's me and my grouchy old age. What else you got? You're gonna ask me a lighter question now so that your guests don't be like, my god, what a what a fucking solemn dude.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Where are you traveling to?

SPEAKER_05 32:18

Um going back home, coming coming back from Marrakesh, uh going back to Phoenix.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Okay. What did you buy while you were in Marrakesh?

SPEAKER_05 32:28

Everything.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Everything.

SPEAKER_05 32:31

Everything. I'm actually gonna before I got on the plane, sit down and figure out how bad I'm gonna be next month as a result of what I spent last, you know. So actually I think uh I think there's some kind of like weather advisory. Once we hang up here, I'll go to the Delta Gate and find out what the fuck is going on. But um, but yeah, y'all gonna ask me. Like I said, I don't I don't I don't want to look like that solemn guest. I think that there's uh there's a need for laughter, there's a need for ho heart, hearty, lighted, heart, lightheartedness. I think there's a need for for smiles and and and lightweight things, but I do think that as a society, I think that we are imbalanced both in what we allow to upset us and what we seek for comfort. Um, if we were to if we were to understand the difference uh between, you know, just taking some time out to say, you know what, I'm I'm having a bad day, but you know, I'm gonna have a light day, but I'm gonna focus and I'm gonna read and I'm gonna be up on current events, and I'm gonna I know so many people that are like, I don't watch the news because it's depressing. I'll say, well, you know, that's a great tool for the oppressor to keep us ignorant. Like make this shit sound sad, and then we just don't know what the fuck is going on. We don't write our history, then we pay money to have it told to us by somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

But they won't but look, they won't be sad as they're in chains, it's fine.

SPEAKER_05 34:02

Yeah, you know, so but but like I said, I mean I'm not a I'm not a killjoy, I'm just a grouchy old guy. Grouchy old guy on 12 hours of sleep. Oh, 12 minutes, 12 minutes of sleep.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Okay, so oh go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Okay, I had a icebreaker question, I think the last spotlight, and I don't think we could uh actually air most of his answers. So I'm gonna try it with you.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

I had to take them all out.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Okay, I like this this turn left. I wasn't expecting that. So I'm gonna ask you what is your favorite inappropriate joke?

SPEAKER_03 34:44

My favorite inappropriate joke.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

We could actually air.

SPEAKER_05 34:51

If it's inappropriate, then I don't think you can air any of them.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

It could be inappropriate, but it can't be, you know, this would be it would be on a level inappropriateness, it was what the like on from one to ten, it was like a 17.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Yeah, Agnes can tell you off the air because I ain't if you don't know.

SPEAKER_05 35:10

Mine was mine will probably I couldn't even tell you right now in this terminal.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Alright. You guys are no fine. I still um okay, what's your favorite joke? Give me a joke that you like.

SPEAKER_05 35:19

I don't I don't have a lot of jokes, but like I tell you, like, one that uh is inappropriate is like you ever wonder, right? You ever wonder how deaf people fuck? It's just something that I think about, right? So, like, you know, when you are in that moment and you might have maybe a little seductive wordplay, you know, maybe you wanna try to get a little vulgar to add some spice to it. Like, what do they do? Are they just like tapping each other and shouldn't? Like, is that what the fuck is going on? Like, what are you really doing? So I think about shit like that.

SPEAKER_03 35:57

Okay. That's inappropriate.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

I guess somebody has to air it.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

But it's arable inappropriateness. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Aside from that, what else do you do for fun when you're not being a killjoy?

SPEAKER_05 36:11

I think about deaf people fucking. No, no, right.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Aside from aside aside from that, yeah. Can't be the only thing you do for fun.

SPEAKER_05 36:18

No, I have uh, you know, everything I do is intentional. So I I write, I read, I travel, I spend time with my dog, I spend time with my family, and you know, it yeah. Nothing like I don't have any one thing that it's like, you know, I play video games or or I do this.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

I don't as long as you have one guilty pleasure, one like guilty little pleasure. Come on.

SPEAKER_05 36:43

I buy bags unnecessarily. Unnecess like like a fucking chick from the 90s. Like I buy bags like serious.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

So okay, but let's say, I mean, I don't know what your schedule looks like, right? But let's say you come home from work, you know, and and you're supposed to have a meeting or something set up or whatever, right? And and you have like this three-hour block of time that you have set aside for X, Y, and Z, and it gets canceled. Now you have three hours of nothing. So what do you do?

SPEAKER_05 37:20

Never three hours of nothing. That meeting.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Well, but that's what I'm saying. Something got canceled. Something got canceled, so now you don't have anything until six o'clock. What are you doing until six o'clock? Are you trying to TV? Are you taking a nap? Like, you know, what is it?

SPEAKER_05 37:33

I might, I might, if I could take a nap, I'd take a nap. Uh if I could, um I I think I would say in the last year for like free time things that I enjoy doing are working on projects that are 100% me. They're not deadline driven, they're not affiliated with anybody else. If I want to write something, if I want to read something, if I want to do something that's just a hundred percent me, then I'll try to steal some time to do that.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

When you are working on stuff, whether it be for business, for education, for pleasure, whatever, and you are interrupted, how does that make you feel?

SPEAKER_05 38:18

Um shit, normal because uh I mean, but do you look at the interruption as like, oh good, I needed a break?

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Or are you like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_05 38:29

I the only time that I can get work done uninterruptedly is if I'm on a plane 30,000 miles up in the air. So if I'm not on a plane, the anticipation for an interruption is expected.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Expected.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

So you just already expect you're not a plane. Let's say you're not on a plane and your work does not get interrupted. How's that gonna make you feel?

SPEAKER_05 38:53

That it's time for a nap. That's my celebration.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Okay. You wouldn't be like, okay, what's like you're waiting for the fucking name. Like, okay, something's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_05 39:03

No, no, no, I don't, no, I don't, no, because that's a lot of energy that I'd be putting out into the universe, and the universe would almost be like, oh, my bad, did you did you did you want because you wanted the okay, you wanted the intriguing. You wanted the interruption, we got you. And so I'm not I'm not gonna put that out there like that.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

So fucking mature. What the fuck? I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't get it. I don't know. I don't know what to do with you right now. I'm sorry. We don't want to be a good one.

SPEAKER_05 39:33

Boo, boring, boring adult person on the show.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Oh my god, the maturity level is disgusting. I'm gonna You're on the wrong show.

SPEAKER_05 39:42

Like Right. I need to be on the two, the two Muppet old guys, though their show.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

The old man, Sattler, and uh oh, what's the other one's name? I don't know, some my people's um Waldorf.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Waldorf, yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

I was thinking of like not all the hotels. I gotta remember that it's hotels, yeah. It's hotels. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 40:04

All right, Liz, I think I'm gonna have to go to the gate. So last questions, anything to make me not sound so much of a kill journey?

SPEAKER_00 40:11

Too late.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Sorry, too late. You done do it to yourself already.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Is there anything that you wanna tell us, like uh future projects or anything that you might want to plug, or or if if there's anything that you might want to share, we can always include that.

SPEAKER_05 40:26

I will tell this to you both and to anybody who listens to you. Any inspiration they derive from any guest that you have on any topic that you explore, I hope they would take that inspiration and face it inward and realize that the next time they're in Barnes and Nobles or on Amazon looking for that next book to change their life, it's not there because the most important book they will ever read is the book that they write about themselves. And the most important work that they ever participate in is the work that's rooted in their own personal improvement. You know, we can stand up as a community and scream power to the people. And there's a lot to be said for the state giving us power, but it's muted if we would just understand how much power we inherently have over ourselves and how we live and how we choose to interact. And so, you know, when it's time to laugh, laugh, when it's a time to cry, don't be afraid to cry. When it's a time to scream, make sure you're screaming in the right direction and at the right person. Um, but just because another person can articulate the thought in your head and what you think is better than you can, don't blindly follow anybody. You still have the thought in your head, do it your way in a way that's that's indicative of your culture, your your beliefs, and in your own energy. Because, like I said, mountain and cave, you know. I can talk to you about my mountain and it's gonna sound good because it's my mountain. It's what the fuck I'm I I've spent my whole life building. But I'm a guest in your mountain, you know. Um, so I would I would hope that for every guest you have on, for every topic you discuss, people are not afraid to explore their own thoughts and and cheerlead their own projects because they're important. Whether they think they are or they're not, they're important.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Thank you. I was actually gonna ask you if you can leave us and our listeners with any last you know thoughts. And I think you beat me to the punch.

SPEAKER_05 42:26

Oh, look at that. 12 minutes, baby. 12 minutes. All right. Well, listen, thank you so much. Y'all are gonna edit this shit out, and it's gonna be like on today's episode of the guest didn't show up, but anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All right. Let me go find out what I'm what am I getting. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm gonna go look for that lady that got the that got the plague. I'm sure she got the last she was mad. Talk to y'all later. Bye.

SPEAKER_03 42:50

Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_05 42:52

I don't even know how to end this shit. There we go.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

We thank our guest so much, Dr. William, for making time, even though he was in an airport and he had to run. So we have to do the exit without him. We thank everyone for listening and for being here. We invite everyone to text us if they have any questions that we can pass along to him or any anything for us. We remind you all as always to drink responsibly and not to drink and drive. And until next time, I'm Felisa. And I'm afraid we're out of here. Bye bye. Today we're talking to Dr. William of King Ross. Oh my god, this is why I need to write shit down. This is why I need more than like four hours fucking notice when I work all day. I told you like a week and a half ago. And you're like, oh, I thought you were joking. You were saying like two minutes ago. In an airport? I really thought that was a fucking joke. Okay? Sorry, I didn't take you seriously. William Dr. William King Mission Ross. Yes. Okay.