Side Effects of Small Doses Best of 2024

Welcome everybody, it's a small doses end of the year extravaganza!

Yes, it is time for our annual highlight episode where we play you some clips from some of our most listened to episodes that have gotten the most response and that people really seem to really connect with.

And I must say, it's always a surprise to me. It's always a surprise to me which episodes end up being like at the tippy top of our listenership. Now, of course, episodes that have been earlier in the year are going to resonate further just because there's been a lot more time to listen. And I'm very lucky to have a podcast audience that

Y'all will binge things like y'all will may not listen for like a month, but then you'll come back and like binge everything. So my listenership kind of moves up and down. I want to also let everybody know though that we will be going independent at the end of January. Small doses podcast will be going independent at the end of January. And that will mean nothing to you.

It will mean nothing to you, but what it will mean is that listening and being a consistent listener will help support me being able to continue doing this podcast because I will be funding it myself. So I will be paying my producers myself and my editors myself. And that is because I believe in this podcast. And I believe in it because we've had listeners that have been committed to it for years and years and years. So some of the ways you can continue to support and elevate are, of course, when you see me sharing clips,

Share those clips on social media. Also, when you have a chance, you know, go and drop a review on iTunes, Apple podcasts, drop a review and let's keep that rating up and make sure that people feel like, okay, this is about something. And whenever the episodes drop on Wednesday, if you can try your best to listen on that Wednesday, because that's how I get bumped to the top of the charts, so to speak.

And that will help in us being able to retain revenue from our ad sales. Also want to remind you, I don't choose those ads. So once I go independent, it's the same as this, where like I basically just the ads run. Now there will be hopefully people who will specifically companies that will specifically come to me for ads. And that's different. Like if someone comes to me to sell me an ad for, I don't know, a gun, like I'm not going to do Colt 45 ads. So like that's not going to happen.

Nonetheless, I just wanted to tell you all about those changes. I know a lot of us are going through changes at the end of this year. And a lot of us are losing our jobs. Yeah, a lot of us are losing our jobs. We're losing our stability. We're losing our financial fortitude. And for those of us who think, oh, well, I'm safe, nobody is.

That's the reality of where we are. And that's why it's so imperative that we try our best to be in support of everybody that we can, not necessarily financially, but to continue to work that muscle of community. Because it's going to come and it's going to be needed and it's going to show up for you. And you're going to want it to be there. So let's get into this highlight episode.

we're talking about the fact that, you know, we're going into this new regime change here in the United States, where we have a psychotic fool, and we have a bunch of psychotic fools following him. And then we have just large, loud, late-stage capitalism as it exists in corruption, because he's literally just put a whole bunch of people in government positions, not because they have, like, skill. No, because they have money.

Okay. It's a good money. This is also attached to what we have seen in the great effort of suppressing knowledge, particularly around black people and their history and this country's history with black people. So I felt it very necessary to include some highlights from side effects of critical race theory with Professor Kimberly Crenshaw, the creator of critical race theory.

We're fighting for our president and we're fighting for our future. And the only way we could do that is to recover what's been forcibly taken away from us about our past. I wonder all the time about what I can, like education is always my thing, right? Like, how do we teach? How do we teach? How do we teach? And then they start with the banning of the books. Yeah.

And again, well, you said something earlier where you would go to people and be like, look what they're doing to us. They'd be like, what do you mean we? And I feel like there's so many people saying that.

that are in the we. And so when I see the band books, I see people who will kind of be like, well, you know, I mean, them gay books anyway. You know, they so like, I don't got a problem with that, you know. And this is what's so brilliant behind their strategy, because they know exactly where to press the fault lines are lack of solidarity with each other.

our ignorance. And let me just expand this for a moment to remind folks, it's not just the banning of the books that there's been a shoulder shrug around. It's a banning of entire aspects of black history. There you go. So when DeSantis told the college board last year, you might be able to tell some part of black history, but you ain't go tell this and they had a whole chart. Yep. A chart.

with the names, right? That's how freshy. Yeah. No, this right here. And guess who that was? It was. It was. It was. It was. It was queer black people. It was progressive black people. It was labor centric black people. It was the movement that actually created the possibility for the course to even be taught, which was the Black Lives Matter movement.

So they took out all of the stuff that makes Black knowledge useful and necessary to be able to better understand our present. If you can't talk about

How our contemporary lives have been shaped by un-reconstructed practices from the past? If you can't talk about why our neighborhoods look the way they do, why black, well, looks the way it is, why black health is what it is, if you can't tell those stories, then people and our children or some of them are left with the assumption that there must be something wrong with us, because there's nothing else out there that explains any of that.

So when the college board basically came up with this new iteration of the course and it just so happened not to have all the things on the chart and tried to say that, well, no, we were bowing to DeSantis. We all should have been

Yo, you need to shut up and you know that this is being motivated and there needed to be a clear articulation for all of us who care about black history. Black history is not just about saying, oh, who was the first black person on TV?

It's not about black blacks. It's not about that. It's about the contours of our lives, understanding how they were created, how we responded, how we are part of that history. History is not about the past. It's about the present. Right.

And we weren't there. We weren't there. We were more willing to say, look, a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. And that, you know, look, if that had been the attitude that we had during the civil rights movement, we would have never defeated segregation. We had to be willing to boycott all of these stores that bow to segregationist impulses in the South.

even as they didn't in the North, we needed to say, no, you can't have segregated service in one place. You can't run in a apartheid business. We've got to do the same thing with education. We can't have an apartheid education system in which students in one part of the country get a sanitized, de-racialized story about us. And those in other parts of the country might get a fuller vision of it, might.

It's up to us to say, no, we're not going to wrap with this. I mean, I feel like people are still trying to learn. Again, I always come back to I think a lot of people are waking up, but they haven't figured out like they sitting on the edge of the bed. They don't know which way they don't know what to get dressed for. It's like.

Am I going to go to the outfit? Is this colorful? Yeah, like, am I going to the march? Like, am I going to the table? Is this a suit? Or is this like a lemme jacket kind of moment? Yeah, like, am I putting on the ski mask? Like, what are we kind of, you know, like, how do we disrupt? How do we disrupt? And I think

The Palestine movement that's happening is a very good representation for a lot of folks in just the myriad of ways that disruption can happen before we get to violence, which will be inevitable, by the way, because that is always the way it goes. They never change anything.

until the violence. And you know what's wild? It's never about violence for their lives. Or else after Sandy Hook, there would have been gun control. So it's not even about them being scared for their lives. And you tell me if you agree with me on this. It really for me is about them looking like they don't have power.

That's the only reason they really change. Like, these Negroes are just rioting everywhere. They're just doing so much. We look like we don't have control of the country. Fine, fine, fine. Here, nigga, damn. Here's the Voting Rights Act. Here, nigga, damn. Here's the Civil Rights Act. Here, nigga, damn. Here's the Housing Rights Act.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, Derrick Bell had a theory about this and this generation and this moment has caused a lot of us to revisit it and potentially revise or refine it. He had this theory called the interest convergence theory. And he basically said that societies like ours never correct themselves simply because it's the morally right thing to do. Exactly.

they do it when their interests converge in some way with the interests of those of us who have been socially marginalized. And it's not a crazy out of control idea. But it gives language. It gives language. And in fact, that is what Thurgood Marshall basically said in Brown versus Board of Education. Their whole argument is basically

We are a laughing stock in the world of pro-democratic human rights because we fight for freedom and democracy elsewhere and we deny it to the Negro here. And that was an argument that had a lot of traction in the papers. It had a lot of traction on the Supreme Court. So he had

evidence to suggest that. And the problem, of course, is that when the interests diverge, so does the capacity to foreground justice-seeking policies and practices. So, you know, I'm looking at this moment. It's like DEI post BLM, you know, like DEI during BLM was like, okay, fine, this makes sense because, you know, we want your money, we want you to feel safe, blah, blah, blah. Now it's over. Just like that. Just like that.

As we keep going on this end of the year highlight, I not only have guests on the show, but of course I do my solo episodes. And this solo episode that I feel like I got a lot of response from like directly. So there's one thing for people being like listeners and how that gets reflected on our charts, but it's a whole other thing for when people are like DMing me and saying, this really touched me. And there's a few episodes that have done that, but one episode that did that was side effects of being too much.

And I will be perfectly honest, I never know which episodes are gonna touch y'all. I never really know which episodes are gonna touch y'all because sometimes you just think like you're the only one going through something and then people will hit you and be like, thank you so much. This is beyond, beyond. So I got a DM from somebody who said,

I just want to share that I admire you to the highest level of admiration. You express yourself as a celebrity in such a way that I haven't seen or felt. My best friend sent me side effects of being too much, and it opened my heart and mind in a way I never knew existed. Not only did I not feel alone anymore, but I felt seen all caps.

Seeing beyond physical form beyond understanding I felt like someone finally saw and gave validation to my soul and existence I remember yelling at the top of my lungs in my car I am not or have never been too much and crying full tears I now let myself and others know that maybe my behavior is too much I am an Aries and hold myself accountable, but I am never too much You are to thank for that That felt so touching because

So much of this podcast is, it is therapeutic for me. It does allow me to sort through my thoughts. So to hear my thoughts are doing this really affirms for me that I am in purpose and I am on mission. And I've become very committed to that more than ever this year because it took me a while to even believe that.

You know, I thought that I needed to have a certain level of humility around that in order to be deserving. I don't know. I don't know. But nonetheless, no, I don't need to have humility. I need to claim it and live in it. And let's get into side effects of being too much.

Claim it and live in that. So when someone has told me in the past that I was quote unquote, too much, it has always been related to me simply existing as a joyful person. I'm not even exaggerating. I can name three different times where someone has said, you're just too much. And they're reasoning when I ask like, what about it is too much? Someone literally said to me, you just seem like you're happy all the time. And that's just...

That's just a problem. It's a problem for Jordy. I know, that's how I felt, Jordy. That's how I felt. Come here, though. Come here. You're not too much. Actually, at one point, I did think you were too much. Come here, Jordy. I thought you were too much and I got scared and I thought I was going to have to give you away. But here we are. Some people have said that you're too much on this podcast. They're like, oh my God, the dog is doing so much. But you know what? That's what this podcast is. So receive it.

So here's the thing. When that person said to me, like, you just seem like you're happy all the time, it was also wild to me because I was like, I am absolutely not happy all the time. I'm not happy all the time. But for them, even the illusion of simply just being consistently happy when they see me or they only saw me when I was doing my work and my work makes me happy, that felt like too much for them.

But at the time, I didn't have the language to really understand that that was a reflection of them and not me, right? I took that in as like, oh, I'm being annoying and I'm making someone not like me, et cetera, et cetera. When really it's like, damn, if someone being joyous is too much for you, that sucks for you. That sucks. But the concept of too much has been explained to me

sometimes verbally, but most times in action, right? Like you feel like people are being pushed away by you wanting to bring them closer. And sometimes their efforts to bring them closer are literally just you wanting reciprocation. Can you call me back when I call you? Can you not leave me hanging if we have plans? Can you

be responsive to my emotions, et cetera. Now, when I'm talking about it right now, it feels like a one-sided friendship, because that's what it becomes if the other person doesn't have that reciprocation. Sometimes maybe that other person doesn't feel like they can do any of those things with you, and that's a whole other episode. But the truth is, is that too much, in quotes, when it's not really explained, can really be very de-humanizing is not the word. And I don't wanna say, well, I'll just say, no, what's the word I'm looking for?

It's like taking your spirit. I know somebody's in their car yelling it at the speaker right now. It is D. It's like sobering. It sucks. It's D something. D's nuts. I can't remember what it is right now, but it sucks. Okay. We'll settle on disappointing. It's not an SAT word, but it gets the job done. Now, on the other hand, there is a version of being too much.

And nine times out of 10, that version of being too much is just lack of self awareness and wanting more from a scenario than either you're bringing to it or then it calls for. I think a lot of us have probably had situations where maybe someone came on too strong.

And that felt like too much. And it wasn't necessarily that that person themselves is too much, but it's that it doesn't match where we are in the process. The action or the desire doesn't match where we are in the process.

And so it feels like too much. It's low-key like if you're growing a plant, you got to manage how much water you give the plant. Because if you put too much water, you will drown the plant. And then it won't be able to grow. It won't be able to develop. It's that type of vibe. And that's a real thing that happens to some of us because, well, we don't know how to be fucking friends.

We don't know how to be friends. We maybe didn't have friends or maybe our parents didn't really like socialize us in that way or maybe we saw our parents have friends in the same manner. And so now we're mimicking that behavior. But whatever it is, there are times where we have had to either deal with that or what we've shown up in that way. And it's been probably very disappointing. It's also the kind of thing that really can jar you. And

The best case in that scenario is to be graceful with yourself.

Because a lot of times you're doing something without, you don't have the negative intention, but the too much that the other person is talking about feels negative because it feels harmful, right? Because it's either making them feel like they're not enough, or it's making them feel like they are not your equal. And if that's someone you actually do want as a friend or a partner, then that's not gonna work.

Right? That balance is not there and the imbalance is where we end up in conflict. Being quote unquote too much. Remember the quote unquote too much. Also as a sign of imbalance because sometimes it's really just that that person doesn't love you the way you love them or that person doesn't love the way that you love. Right? Because that's another thing.

you can feel like too much to someone who doesn't have that same love language, right? You can feel like too much to someone who doesn't have the experience of even receiving love or friendship.

So they don't have the actual tools to even break down. It's like how your body needs certain processes to break down certain vitamins, et cetera. And like you can have a deficiency, right? If your body doesn't know how to break down vitamin D, then it can't even accept vitamin D.

That's the same thing with actual emotions. Some people don't have the actual tools to know how to break down the emotions so that it can feed them. So it just feels like toxic. It feels like a frustration because they're constantly having to face something that they can't manage. And so it feels like too much. You are reminding me of my inability to be able to process this with just your existence. I don't know about y'all, but I've been in that situation.

with the lovers. I've told you all this on this podcast several times. I've had men say to me straight up, I can't be with you because you're too good of a person and I'm not equipped to process that and give it back equally. Now, did I walk away? No, of course.

And of course not. I said, no, we can build the tools together. We can mine it. We can mine for the ore and we can shape it. And then we can fashion it into something that will allow you to be able to process my love. And that's what I went from too much in quotes to too much for real. Okay? Because now I'm giving, giving, giving to something and someone that has very clearly stated, I cannot receive this.

So this is not too much. It's overflowing. You understand? The levy then broke. But both of these things can seem kind of like esoteric, right? They can seem kind of nebulous.

But in reality, we are a world of individuals trying to figure out and manage how to be in this world of individuals. And when it comes down to it, the best thing you can do is learn about you and learn about what type of person you are. Are you somebody that needs a little bit more help in showing up with emotions? Are you somebody that is very advanced and is an emotional intellectual, you know?

You can be fair to yourself and say, I didn't get that from my parents or I didn't get that from my experience. You know, you can say that to yourself and be honest with yourself. And the sooner that you do that, the more you can do for yourself and love for yourself and provide for yourself. Because there is never too much work and love that you can give yourself in order to receive the overabundance of much that exists here in this world.

I feel like I'm wearing the right outfit for this episode. I feel very guru. So that was side effects of being too much, but let's get into people who are doing too much. And that's the Karens, okay? So we have Regina Jackson and Syra Rowe on the show, and they had created during the pandemic this like dinner with white women, I think it was called, where they would really all just sitting down with these white women, get an innate ass.

about how they are perpetuating racism. And the white woman would be so shocked. They would be so amazed, but it was such necessary work. And so we were able to have them on the show. And it was a time side effects of deconstructing Karens. Like many folks, I became in tune.

with you all during this pandemic when you started doing these deconstructing Karen dinners. And everybody like saw this clip that was floating around where this white lady found out in real time that just because she was sleeping with black men, that that

didn't mean she couldn't be racist against black men and it was like seeing the horror come across her face of I think it was really it was like a very palpable and like just enjoyable thing for I think a lot of us to witness during a very dark time but I wanted to just from jump get into like

What made you all even start this? Because to my understanding, these were in Canada, right? These were not in the States or were they in the States? No, they're in the US. They were in the States. Someone told me it was Toronto and I was like, I don't know, they feel real American white.

Yeah, that's where the documentary premiered was, Canada. But we started this, because Saira ran for office in 2018, way before George Floyd and white people discovered racism. So Saira ran against a longtime Democratic Congresswoman.

And her whole platform was anti-racism. So every time she would give a speech or a talk, white women would line up around the corner. They wanted to talk to Cyrus. And what they wanted to say was not me.

I'm not racist. So I had a white woman friend in the neighborhood who says I'm done with Cyrus. And where is this in America? Denver, Colorado. Denver, Colorado. So I go to Cyrus and I says, so and so wants to meet with you. Cyrus goes, Regina, I'm not doing that anymore.

She said, I'm paying for breakfast, lunch, dinner, cocktails. I'm paying for a babysitter. I'm meeting with all these white ladies, and they're not going to vote for me anyway. She said, but I'll tell you what, if your friend wants to have a dinner and invite some of her white lady friends and you do it with me, she said, we can do that. So we had a couple of those and take it from their side.

Yeah. I mean, her friend, her friend, who said that Cyrus hates white people, the straw that broke that Karen's back was by saying that Beto O'Rourke is a white savior. And if you live in Texas, vote for him and donate money to him because I just did. And so white supremacy depends on false binaries. Like it's got to be either or.

multiple things can be and are true. And that was it. So yeah, I posted about it on Facebook and it went viral. The next thing you know, we have hundreds of Karens raising their hand. I want to do a dinner. I want to do a dinner. So Regina came up with the title race to dinner. This is in February of 2019. And Patty, I've inspect who is the director of deconstructing care and reaches out to me over a DM since she's like, I've been following your congressional race and I've been wanting to do

a movie about the work, but I couldn't figure out a way to ground it. And now there are these dinners. And Regina and I are like, yeah, this white lady in LA is going to actually come out to Denver and do a movie. And there she shows up in the summer of 2019 with her whole film crew. And we shoot the dinner. And that's what you see in deconstructing Karen. And the reason it world premiered in Toronto.

is that all the American film festivals ran for the hills. They saw it and they're like, this is too toxic. So the CBC bought it after seeing it Hot Docs in Toronto aired it two days later. Jesse Waters on Fox News does a full five minute story hit piece.

saying that running it in Canada is the equivalent of Canada declaring war on the United States and compared it to Pearl Harbor. So talk about the dumbification of people. And that's like the most watched media outlet show in the world. And so this is how people become, this is why we are where we are, is because of people like Jesse Waters.

My question when these people leave these dinners is like, have you seen any of them behave differently after the dinner? Or do they just leave in a huff?

Well, that dinner that was on, that was videoed. A lot of people left in a huff. Let me say that. But what we have now is we have created a community where these women can stay connected to women around the world who have done race to dinners. So we have a community where they stay connected.

You know, we can talk about doing the work. They can bring up issues that they're having. They can have events in different places and get invitations out to people. So we maintain a community for those women. What do they also say that? Oh, go ahead.

Yeah, I would just say though that back to what's happening right now and like with guns. So like the rubber hits the road with it's they go on these unlearning journeys or these learning journeys for years. Like when does your journey end? When does the bus stop on your journey and you take a pit stop to do some shit? And that's my question.

Yeah, and so I would say honestly, like I'm done trying to even sugarcoat this in my own mind. I would say maybe 5% of the people, 5% of these white women have gone above and beyond because you can talk and you can talk and you can stay in touch. But like, are you showing up for children? And I can say no, you're not even showing up for your own white children because we had an action in Denver on June 5th.

thousands of them said they were gonna be there. Maybe a thousand actually showed up. These women like RSVPS for weddings and go, they, I mean, they'll knife fight each other to go to a Taylor Swift concert. I mean, they'll walk a moonwalk across the Atlantic Ocean to go see Taylor Swift, but they RSVP to show up for one day and sit on a beautiful lawn in Denver, Colorado on a beautiful day. And they're too crazy busy. They got really caught up with their Peloton or their hike that day.

And so in the end, honestly, I think that white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, all of it has snatched their souls and they don't even care about their own kids. They don't even care about their own kids. So if you don't care about your own kids, how are you going to care about you, Amanda? How are you going to care about you, Regina? How are you going to care about me? Sorry, they don't.

I said earlier when I was talking about side effects of solitude that I had to this year like really take ownership of the fact that I do have a gift and part of my gift is, well I have gifts and one of them is being able to be a vessel to speak into people, to pour into people and to receive transmissions that are sometimes for folks not necessarily the comforting thing they needed to hear but the necessary thing that they needed to hear.

Inside effects of finding your flow, I talk about that. And I talk about just how difficult sometimes it can be to really lean into like what your mission is and what your purpose is, but the ways in which it can come up and the ways in which it can happen. And for me, it really became about adhering to the mantra of flow, not force.

Whenever anything started to present with too many obstacles, not challenges. Challenges is different. Challenges are the things that are built into something that just require patience or require steadfastness or require learning. Obstacles are the things that

are nonsensical and don't really have to me like any real explanation. They just keep happening. I'd be feeling at this point that that is the energy forces at work or God or Dumbledore, whoever you want to call it, saying not that way, not

That way, I feel like our lives in so many cases are like a maze that we're walking. And whenever that's obstacles, it's like I'm trying to walk through a wall in the maze, whereas challenges just feels like they're like, you know, little obstacle courses, not obstacle courses, but like little like games on the maze, like a seesaw. And I gotta figure out how to run up the seesaw and down the seesaw. But I'm still gonna get to the end. You know, I'm still gonna get to the end.

So whenever I get too much force, I'm like, I listen to my gut and I get into my flow. Like we're gonna get into side effects of finding your flow. One day when my ex and I were in the pool, he never got in the pool. So he was like sitting by the pool and I was in the pool. And I forgot the conversation that we had, but I remember saying to myself, as I got out of the pool, I'm gonna save my relationship.

And I just think back on like, you really thought for like a good five minutes that this was able to somehow be saved by you, that you were gonna be able to force your way into making this shit flow. It was never gonna happen. I remember sitting on the dock in Belize and

I had just gotten news that I was basically blacklisted from certain comedy clubs and that that's why I wasn't able to set up a tour for 2023. And I remember saying to myself like getting up after sitting there, like getting up and starting to walk towards my room and telling myself like, no, you're gonna figure this out. They're gonna hear you.

And I got to my room and I sat outside and realized, yeah, this is force. This is force. I'm not saying don't fight back. There are things that you need to fight back because the flow is leading you in that direction. But this, this didn't feel like flow. This felt like ego.

See, that's really what force is based in many times. Fear and ego. Is this decision I'm making to either move or not move? Is this based in ego or fear? That's a great way to identify force because ultimately my reasoning for like, I'm going to show them was

both ego and fear. Ego, that who the hell they think they are playing in my face. Like that one time Whitney was singing, that's her friends are for with Luther Vandross, and he had let her know. Oh, I'm looser. Yeah, he had to let her know. But it was also fear, because it was also fear that these people think they're gonna get away with playing in my face. Like what are you, who cares? What are you afraid of? What are you proving? Who are these people?

That's force. And that's when I realized what I need to do is I need to bring in a man that we trust to the people and I need to figure out how to do it. But that has been a project that has come through in flow. So why am I stepping out of that? Why? It was so revelatory.

and so just like empowering because it felt like I had like found some type of alchemy and some type of magic, right? And all it really is a space. You know, that's really all it really is. And to me, faith doesn't have to be like specifically associated with some type of religion. Like it's just the trust and the unseen.

And that is where my obedience has now had to find itself. Trusting that I can be in flow because I know myself. I trust myself and I will listen to her. And I will listen to her so that when I do identify flow, I can remove it. Step outside of it. You know, sometimes flow is not even you.

It's other people's ego. It's other people's fear in your way. How do you move that? I've had to do it. Y'all I had an interview and a sister was in that interview just being real.

You know, she was really just being young and inexperienced, but she was being very cocky about it. And at a certain point in the interview, she asked a question that didn't relate to the documentary. And I said to her, you know, she had already told me that she hadn't watched the documentary. And I said to her, oh, I'm going to skip over that question because it doesn't really relate. And so later in the interview, she came with her final question.

Y'all, she just knew this question was gonna be the question, she said. So, having been in this industry so long, what do you say to people who misconstrue who you are?

And I thought about it for a second. I said, I don't say nothing to them. Cause I've really at this point to understand what there is to misconstrue. Like I've been at this for so long, like if y'all haven't figured it out yet, like I can't help you. I can't explain it to you. I can't make you understand it. Okay. Like that's it. Like I'm here. The track record is here. The examples are here. Like follow the trend. If you feel like I am diverting from consistency, then baby, I don't know what you're looking at. That's it. I don't know.

So she seemed a little bit bothered that I responded that way, but she was like, you know, so do you have any other questions? I mean, you already skipped my question earlier that I had for you.

And I said, you know, you seem bothered by that, but the reality is that it was not a relevant question to the documentary. And she said, well, I told you I haven't seen it. I told you, you just assumed that I haven't seen it. I said, I didn't assume you literally told me that you haven't seen it, but they sent you the screener. And she said, well, you know, I just, they did not send it to me. They did not send it to me. I said, even if they didn't send you the screener, you knew you were interviewing me today.

And if it was of an importance enough for you to make sure that your work was what it needed to be, then you would have found a way to see it by either contacting them and saying, please send me the screener or by simply paying the 15 bucks and expensing it. But ultimately, your responsibility is your own and you want to do a really good interview so you will not let people get in the way of that happening. That's what I'm trying to say.

And I was like, I'm just trying to give you game. I'm not trying to come at you. And she was like, well, I mean, I, you know, and I was like, you still seem very, you seem defensive. Oh my God, I'm not defensive. Then she gonna turn to the videographer and be like, I mean, isn't me or is it her?

At this big age that I've acquired, well, you not doing that. And so I said to her, I say, I think this would be better suited if you would leave the room. And we continue the interview alone. And she was like, huh? And she put her jacket on like a cape.

She turned around, she was like, well, ugh. And then she addressed my PR that she's been shading this whole time without even knowing because she's still a novice. Not even realizing that every single time that you claim that you did not get my screener, you're shading these two people in here who absolutely have sent you the screener several times. But you keep standing on that you were not giving the materials you needed. Who do you think these two people are? Who do you think this white lady and this big black man are? Like, do you think they did my security?

No, this is the PR. So you should have been addressing them from the gate when I walked in, if that was the case. Hey, y'all didn't send me the screen. Nonetheless, she ends up leaving and on her way out, she says, I knew this was going to go this way. I said, well, you manifested what you thought.

And then we went on to do a great interview with the videographer who was there. She gave him her questions and we were able to complete the interview. The vibe went immediately to the top because you know why we removed the force. So one of the best parts of doing this podcast is being able to platform folks that are just wonderful minds and

hilarious voices and we get both of those in Lisa Beasley and her creation of her character corporate Aaron and corporate Aaron took over the Internet. Tiny shout out to Lisa Beasley in Chicago. Corporate Aaron took over the Internet and she was so down that she came on the show and stayed in character for an hour as corporate Aaron.

This is one of the funniest episodes I've ever done of all time because we could not keep a straight face and because I was playing, you know, that's what improv is. I was playing with somebody who was willing to play. So the nonsense that was happening.

is top tier, top tier. So shout out to Lisa Meezely. If you ever get a chance to see her live, make sure you do so. Here she is side effects of corporate with corporate Erin. So Vogue magazine, which we do know is a company. They recently published a piece that credited football player Travis Kelsey with the Fade haircut. And so this is another situation where I said, you know what?

there wasn't an Aaron Thrallopolis in the room. Actually, can you just tell me Thrallopolis is such a unique name, is it Greek? No, so actually, I'm sorry, I cannot legally talk about my parents and that would expose them, but I will say that my great, great, great grandfather, he used to throw up a lot. And a lot of my past when I was younger, I didn't like working and anytime I wanted to work, I would throw up. Okay.

Got it. So for a long period of time, work made me want to throw up. Interesting. So it's kind of like how like there's people whose last name is Milner because they were Milner's, you know, your last name is Thralopolis because y'all were throw uping a lot. Yes. Yeah.

Look at, I mean, just the histories and etymologies of our genealogies, right? Just hurling. So much rich culture. Yeah, just hurling, pun intended, through history, through history. So what would you have said had you been lanyarded up?

In the room, when that editor said to the corporates, you know, at that conference table, this is going to be my piece that I'm going to contribute to this month's Vogue magazine, Travis Kelsey as the creator of the Fade. What would have been like a corporate, acceptable way for the black person in the room to say, you're out of your fucking mind? Okay.

But I don't know if I would have said it that way, but what I would have done is I would have came into the room and I would have said, hey, everybody, I would have looked at everybody in the eyes. Thank you guys so much for being a pivotal partner. My name is corporate Aaron. I'm the manager for the manager of religious use for management management. And I just can't even to kind of call us all in to kind of think about the critical ways and which we're kind of approaching the situation. Okay. And then I would give everybody time in the room to go around and say what they did in exhaust. And that's so those people can feel their voice fill the room.

Yeah. So they can now, they feel like they're a part of the conversation by just entering and saying, hey, what do you do here? Are you important? Okay, we do value. Yeah. Okay. Then I would have gotten down to the critical information. I would have looked around and said, I noticed that of all of the men here, the identities are kind of not representative of kind of

this cultural experience dealing with a fade here. Now, a lot of people didn't grow up and some people have super cuts as their kind of base knowledge. Fantastic. Yeah. And I teach a lot of hair workshops at

our company because, you know, yeah, I get called in a lot on my hair. And I say, Hey, it's nice to talk about people's hair. Yeah, this is mayoral hair. So of course it is. I often have to have to like, you know, speak up for myself and say, Hey, everybody's hair is different. But we do kind of have to honor the cultural influences and get proper credit. So I do know. So

When it came to that particular trauma issue, what I would say is, hey, let's include him and maybe four other white people who have also pioneered the fade. And then that way we can show there's kind of like a big group of people all coming together to say, hey, hair doesn't belong to any one person or all coming together to say, hey, we wear the fade. Now,

what I would say as I would encourage any members of the company in a black ERG to kind of use that moment to speak up and say, hey, yeah, we are kind of like the cultural creators of this movement that dates back here, here, here. And what I find interesting is I would ask that they bring some numbers to the table, maybe some pivotal pictures, maybe some snapshots throughout history to kind of prove and play.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw House Party. I was there. So kind of like showing like, hey, there were origins of this. It's interesting though, with this one in particular, I think this is maybe not the first time for sure, but one of the first times we're seeing this happen to black men in our culture. So I think that's very interesting to see them kind of saying, what? I've been rocking the fade.

And, you know, because we've seen it before with Kim K's signature braids or, you know, things like that. Hey Baldwin with the clean look with a bun and hoop earrings. Yeah, it's a very interesting dynamic. So I would be in there in the room to provide some pivotal pictures, some timelines, some snapshots. I would create a deck for sure. Oh, God, I have a deck. I love a deck. This was already a thing. I think I would pull in.

some images. I remember going to the barbershop when I was little with my dad that I can't talk about. Right. And they would have these pictures and these numbers and you would order a number haircut. Yes. And so there were no names. It was just the number. Yes. So I think one, if we want to kind of prop up Travis for this phenomenal hair moment, well, well, we might need to consider just adding him to one of those charts and giving him a number.

I want to get the number seven and it's Travis, Kelsey. I think he's 44. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. I actually hate that I know that. That's true inclusion. If we make the haircut a number, but when we single him out and get him a name, you know, I mean, how many times have you seen those black men on the escrow boxes? You don't know their names. No, it could be LaTravius. It could be LaTravius. You know, it could, it could be Levant.

Yeah, we should find them and give them their flowers this month. So before we go and finish this highlight show, we're going to close out with side effects of solitude. I went through a whole breakup last year and then I moved this year.

And I started to realize that I wasn't experiencing loneliness anymore. I was experiencing the delicious sweetness of enjoying being by myself. And I know so many of us struggle with that concept. Like we don't even try it yet. We just struggle with the concept of like what it's gonna be like. And I don't know, it may sound corny, but you are your best company. If you don't like your company, why would anybody else?

So check out side effects of solitude right here. I think about solitude and I get excited now. Like I think about solitude and I'm looking forward to a time where I know I'm gonna be meditative without having to be in the whole meditation situation, right? I just feel like when I'm in solitude, the whole time is meditative. The whole shit. Sometimes solitude is just

not even silence when this whole thing with the black magazines, the black journalism sites, you know, whether it be black enterprise and essence and Greo and the route, when that whole onslaught, that whole attack on my character happened, the very beginning, I thought I was okay. And then a week into it, I had a full on breakdown one day. Like I just couldn't stop crying and it just really had gotten to my core.

The cancer of what them people were spreading had officially gotten to my core and started to eat me up. And I went to my psychiatrist and we talked about it. And she was like, listen, what I want you to do today is it's at all possible. I want you to just go home and do nothing. Literally just go home and do absolutely nothing. And I knew I had to do my radio show, but I really had like nothing else I had to handle that day. She was like, just vegetate if you can.

And I thought about it, y'all, and I never really vegetate. Even if I'm watching something, I'm doing something. You know, like, I'm watching something, but then I'm like doing Arabic on my dual lingo. Like, I'm watching something, but I'm playing a game. Like, I never really just zone out. And I allowed myself to do that. I went and grabbed my basket of snacks. Yes, I have a basket of snacks. I grabbed my basket of snacks from the kitchen, came up, put them on the bed, and I just laid in bed.

Under the covers, not even laid down. I went under the covers because you know when I say laid down, I mean I laid on top of the covers because that's not like a real, real nap nap. You know what I'm saying? I'm just gonna take a laid down. No, I got under the covers. I got in the bed and I just watched TV and I let my brain get from outside of

me and I let it go into somebody else's life on TV and in movies, et cetera. And I watched this show called One Day, by the way, on Netflix. This is just a random promotion. This is one of the best written shows I've ever watched in my life. So if you're looking for like a really incredibly smart, well-written romance, baby, one day, and it's like 13 episodes, like it gives you the meat that you need.

And I woke up the next day and I was back. And I had therapy twice that week. So I went back and I was like, why am I okay today? And she was like, I think on a basic level, you had had just like sensory overload of negativity. And I'm like, is that even a real thing? Well, yes, that's like happens to me like a lot. Like if I have too much negativity, like I just shut down.

And she was like, yeah, I think that's what it is. And I think that by you disconnecting, it just kind of like allowed your mind to heal, like regenerate real quick. It just didn't take in anything else. But that was solitude. And sometimes I feel like there's a version of solitude where people can be in your space, but they're just letting you be in your space. You know, I've had times in the past where I was depressed and people asked me, what do you need from me?

And my response is kind of just, you just need you to let me be me. Like I just need you to let me be. So as you are going on this journey, as we find ourselves plotting a course, as we find ourselves trying to identify where our spaces, who our tribe is, et cetera, never forget that you are your first member of your tribe.

and that solitude is this concerted effort to give yourself time to be with yourself.

The last dose. There you have it, y'all. That's that 2024. Come and gone. The Small Doses stays the course. And thank you to our team at Small Doses. We got our editors, Knightie and Brendan. We have our producers, Tierra and Shirley.

Thank you to those of you who are over on Patreon and subscribed and you come every Sunday to listen to the Small Doses bonus episode live at 730 p.m. Eastern. It is a time honey. I call it the softer side of seals because it's where I talk about the things of the week that have basically been in my world. But we just have such a great time. We've had a whole community forum over there. And for those who subscribe to Patreon in order to watch these episodes of Small Doses,

I love y'all for being here, my seal squad people. We're going to continue the course. I'm going to see the course. Listen, I'm going to see the course as long as I can. When y'all saw me switch from like the whole set to being on video, those are the things I end up having to do to keep this going. But I tell you one thing, small doses podcast started traditionally as a podcast.

We are one of the originals. And so we're going to keep it going. The audio is here. Brendan does an incredible job with the soundscape and we're going to keep on doing what we do. So stick with us, stick by us. And if you're on Patreon, let me know what were some of your favorite episodes of the year, some of your highlights. Y'all, I'll see you in 2025.