Unabridged: The NYC Early Show with Kiese Laymon - Transcript
This Unabridged is a conversation with author and friend of The Stacks Kiese Laymon from our early show in New York City. We hear from Kiese about how he knows when his work is ready for an audience, and get intel on his forthcoming book. We also get into sports, hot topics, and the unmatched confidence of New Yorkers.
TRANSCRIPT
Traci Thomas 0:01
Hi everybody, it's me, Traci Thomas and it is another episode of The Stacks Unabridged. That is our monthly bonus episode for all members of The Stacks Pack on Patreon. You're getting ready to hear audio from the live in The Stacks tour stop in New York City at The Early Show with the wonderful, brilliant, amazing Kiese Laymon. We talked about his new book that is forthcoming. We talk about sports, we get messy, don't you worry. Okay, that's enough. Now time for my conversation with Kiese Laymon live in New York City.
Hi, everybody, welcome. Thank you. Hi, thank you all so much for being here. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Traci Thomas. I'm the host of The Stacks. If you don't know me, I know that you are dragged here by someone who does know me. But welcome. Tonight is a show about books a little bit, but mostly not. And I am joined by I think you all know by one of my most favorite authors and humans on the face of the earth. He told me I didn't have to read his bio. So I'm not going to because it's so long, because he's won all of the things and been nominated for all of the things and written all of the books. So with that being said, welcome to the stage, Kiese Laymon. There you go. Are you on? Are we on?
Kiese Laymon 1:42
Is this thing on? You got me.
Traci Thomas 1:46
Okay, so I can see you too. First question for me. We'll just start where I want. I was gonna go here later, but somebody asked for it. Next book, Good grief. I asked you how you were, you said good, so I'm-
Kiese Laymon 2:03
We like each other. I'm writing I've been writing. I've been writing since before, the last last book I wrote completely came out heavy. I just gotta make it better than heavy. And, and. And it can't, it can't, it can't and it can't hit any of the same tones or whatever. So I'm just writing myself through a different a lot of different manifestations of what I'm doing. And I'm also trying to be very private about what I'm doing. Because I want everybody to like, I grew up on rap music. So I want everybody to just get that shit one day like, Yeah, but it doesn't work like that. You got to tell them off. Like it's like a year and a half. So, okay, it's actually coming out next week.
Traci Thomas 2:47
Could you imagine if we were like, no, no, no.
Kiese Laymon 2:51
They know. Now they know.
Traci Thomas 2:54
How do you decide if it's better? I definitely don't believe you. I know how this shit works. You want publishing deets? It's not coming out next week. That's the publishing deets. Coming out maybe March 2025.
Kiese Laymon 3:08
I mean, if you write a book that I think captures the moment enough, I think you can force your publisher's hand. So we gonna see.
Traci Thomas 3:21
But I feel like those books are like- No, but I feel like when I feel like the way to like push the publisher to do it sooner is it has to be like so of the moment. Like you have to be writing a book about like, banned books two months ago, for them to like, push it out fast because they want to like capture that moment. But if it's memoir, or do you feel like you're writing something so current that Scrivener has no choice.
Kiese Laymon 3:52
Um, I want to I want to feel myself so much right now, but it's too early in the conversation.
Traci Thomas 3:58
Welcome back.
Kiese Laymon 3:58
You gotta get you gotta - But I think you're right. But I think yeah, I think you're right. I just think you know, maybe if you show people something they haven't haven't ever seen before. Their bodies and their minds can be like, we gotta get the shit out. And maybe not, but we'll see. Okay,
Traci Thomas 4:14
Okay, how do you decide if it's better than Heavy? Like, what is your internal barometer? I know you have your sentence refrigerator that you told me about on the show, where he'll like save a sentence that he knows is good. And like put it away somewhere and then when the time is right, like pull it out. Okay, this sentence is ready for this. But how do you know? When you're writing? Do you know does someone else have to tell you? Do you have to hear it out loud? What does that look like? Or feel like?
Kiese Laymon 4:16
I mean, it looks like it look is an interesting verb like it feels like. I feel like when you do something that you need to do artistically like your your scan, your body, your nose, your feet. It doesn't mean the feet nose and, you know, fingertips of all y'all are gonna fill it. But there's a different way to talk about it. But I just, I just say like, like when you like burst your heart out of your chest, lovingly. I just think, you know, you know, I'm saying right now, I've been, I've been writing a lot, you know, I mean, I've been reading a lot and ran through a lot. And for me, like, the entryway is, like, so important. can't really find the entryway, but I got tons of like, second, third, fourth sections, I just got to figure out if where I want to start is where I want to start. I don't know if y'all came to hear some, like real serious bullshit. But and, and honestly, like, I gave a lot of my insides to people with my last one. And I think when you do that, you buy yourself time to heal, not Tom to like, wait for the market to get you. And I actually just needed to heal my insides after that shit. And it wasn't the book as much as it was a book. It was the relationships I wrote through in the book, but it was probably much more like, after the ship came out, and people were filling it much more than I thought they would and, and I'm just I was like, I was born like a fast sensitive little boy. And I'm still a fat sensitive little boy with a with a temper. But still fast. It's a little boy and so and so I could have like pushed another book out, which would have helped me not deal with what heavy men in the world. But I did not. And I'm just taking a little time to write myself into a better space and write a better book. I got a lot of material. I just got to figure out how to layer it and, and, and present something that's worthy of what came before it and worthy of this person.
Traci Thomas 6:39
I don't want to stay here because I feel like it's making you sad a little. But I have follow ups.
Kiese Laymon 6:45
It's not making me sad. It's not making me understand like to bore people, and sometimes I feel like people get bored. No? Okay.
Traci Thomas 6:54
Everyone's here to hear you talk about writing. I'm here to talk about the NFL with you. So we'll get that soon. Don't worry, I got all the hot takes for the NFL. I know I've heard you. You did a podcast with Mira Jacob, and Saeed Jones, where you all talked about your Yeah, you can get it anymore. It's like not online anymore. I tried to find it for a link in the show notes. Who was talking crazy. Yeah. And they all wrote I don't know if you know, Mira Jacob, you know, good talk. Yeah. First of all, that book is fucking amazing. They talk and then say Jones wrote a book, the US are talking about his memoir, how to how we fight for our lives. Also fucking amazing. I think do you get Yeah, they're over there. They're over there. So get them. But you all talked about book tour. And you've talked about like, meeting people. And like protecting yourself, but also feeling like this weird thing of like being out in the world and talking about your insides that you wrote about that. Like maybe your good friends don't even know that part of you. But then, like a roomful of strangers do. And when I heard that episode, I thought it was really interesting. And I was like, Oh, that's interesting. I now doing this tour. You and I have talked about this about like, I'm now experiencing that in a way that I've never experienced, even though I'm a person who performed my whole life. Yeah. And so I'm wondering, I'm asking for advice for a person that I know. How do you, like, hold on to you and like, stay grounded in you, when you have so many people who your work has impacted? I know, I mean, I'm sure most of you who have read heavy or any of Kshs work, like feel a type of way about you, that is totally separate than how you feel about you. Yeah, or how you feel about the person you're talking to. So like, how do you do that?
Kiese Laymon 8:45
I mean, I'm gonna take that question. Seriously, that podcast, we were actually, I'm gonna say, I'm just gonna say what we're talking about, and then pivot and today, because the question is sort of came up about like, have you had sex on book tour? That's right. I wasn't. I wasn't the whole. Like, that wasn't what we were talking about. And then I was just like, No, and I'm not gonna speak with my colleagues.
Traci Thomas 9:11
I think you all said no, I don't believe some of you.
Kiese Laymon 9:17
All of us didn't say no. But But what have I no idea? I think that that question is so important, Tracy, because like this notion of staying grounded, is important in the center's is important. But it doesn't take an axe, not you. But I think that that utterance doesn't take into consideration if your ground is toxic. If your ground is sinking, you know, I'm saying if your ground is what you don't want it to be. So different times in book tour, I needed people to bring me up off the ground, because I was in some quicksand. Right. And I think we can talk and we talked about that before. And I think the wonder of being on tour slash talking to people who are invested at all in your art is that you get to hear, not just what they think about your art when they think about the art of being a human, most people who talk to him books are talking about themselves. I met seven eight people here, you know, I'm saying and and I think that they were not keeping me grounded, right? They were taking me to the Lakers or taking me to Brookhaven, Mississippi or taking me to Toronto, or, you know, so So for me, I don't live in Toronto and I live in LA,
Traci Thomas 10:20
No, she's gonna yell at us.
Kiese Laymon 10:26
I'm gonna respect Toronto.
Traci Thomas 10:28
I get yelled at in every city I say Toronto.
Kiese Laymon 10:33
But my point is, I think I think you have to also look forward to being lifted. And I think when people lift you and twist you in ways you don't want to be twisted, you got to call people who maybe have experienced it, or maybe not like, and I think that king what is what can keep our flight healthy, as opposed to like being grounded. Because when I was on book tour, the last thing I needed was to be grounded in fucking what I was going through in my real life, you know, I'm saying, and like, we didn't meet on book tour, but we met on virtual book tour, you know, I mean, we met on a podcast like, four years ago.
Traci Thomas 11:06
It's called Three, it's called The Stacks. Ever heard of it?
Kiese Laymon 11:09
And I'm saying, and, you know, I wasn't, I was just talking to you. Like, first of all, I've been in New York to do work a lot. But I haven't been in New York in front of an audience in like, four years. And the last time I was here, I believe I was with Andre Hyland, I think when the most incredible actors of our time, but I had just start trying to do gummies, right? Like, I know how to fucking do that shit. Like, I eat gummies. But like, not that gummy, and like, not Swedish. I'll remember if anybody who went to that event, and it's Andre, like, Andre is like, the shit and Kathy was there. Um, and I was just like, damn, and I left that should be like, y'all came to York, the worst event ever. But even that event, I just want to say, like, took me to a different took me to a different place. And like, being here with you now, like, I am going through things in my life that are kinda like shitty to sucky, blah, blah, blah, life shit, everybody goes through. I don't want to be grounded tonight. I want to be lifted. So I want to say why are you on this tour, and you get lifted by people really, I think you should really like sit in that shit. Because that is amazing. It's amazing that people came here to get lifted from the stacks. And I think it's a waste of amazement if you don't get lifted from them.
Traci Thomas 12:23
So wise. Thanks, everyone for being here. I just think it's interesting, because like, when you write a book, or when you do a podcast is, I mean, I talked to other another person, but it's, I don't know how it hits. You all, like you write the book. And then you wait 18 months, 12 months before people get it. So like you're in a different place in your life than you were when you were writing it and working on it. And so for me, What's always interesting is when I get the feedback of an episode that I've recorded, like a long time ago, like I got an episode, I won't tell you who but I got an episode of coming out in November, that I recorded a few weeks ago. And I had so many thoughts and feelings about it. But I'm sure that by the time you all hear it and have thoughts and feelings about it, I'm going to be thinking about what's coming up December, right. Like, you're already working on the next book by the time the book hits the world. And so for me, I think that's the dissonance that's really hard to work through is like, How can I be present for the audience? When the thing is done for me?
Kiese Laymon 13:33
Definitely. That's hard. Yeah, I think I think the thing with with book writing, and you do what you do, what people call memoir is, people understandably, you know, if you read that book last week, you and you see this person, you know, I'll have people I mean, I have people who say they love me, you know, and, and they'll be like, Man, you can go on to tell me how to casino was last week, and I'm like, my nigga, like, I feel you trying to love me. But like, that was a book I wrote years ago. Like the assumptions, I think, see people assume that what they read is the person is the person not part of the person. And what the person attempted to make into an artful, soulful, useful piece of art that is rooted in like, I believe my life and experience, but motherfuckers change, right? So so so I'm gonna share my good friend a heavy is essentially going to be me forever. But there's some big things that have changed and heavy significantly. And I don't expect people to know but I don't expect people also to read the book and think you know, me, right. You know what I want you to know about me, and you know that I love you enough to share it. But that don't mean you know me, right. Right.
Traci Thomas 14:44
After the show last night, I was in DC last night with Jason Reynolds. And we got dinner. That God oh my God, who people who are they're very dreamy. But we wouldn't got dinner afterwards and we were talking about baseball and I was like being a bass all night. And then we were talking about musical theater. And I was like being a musical theater nerd. And he turns to me, and he goes, I didn't even know you were into this stuff. And I was like, Really, he's like, I knew you like sports. But like, that's not a part of you that like we know, because I don't really get to, like, nerd out about pitching decisions in playoff baseball on the podcast, but like, that's something I'm very passionate about. And like, he doesn't know about my very strong opinions about Mike Trout. Very strong opinions about Mike Trout. I have the most intense opinions about him. I hate him. That's like, I don't think he's like that. But it's funny that you say that because it's like, I think there's so many people here tonight who have known me for my whole life or close to it, or most of my life, who know those who only know those things about me, right? And then there's other people who are like, you like musical theater, and I'm like, Would you like me to do the opening number from chorus line? I'm avails like that I've been I've thought that. I think that's like always a really funny thing. And I think about that a lot about with authors who write memoir, because you do feel like you know, the person completely. And what I've learned from the show is that oftentimes authors who write memoir will tell me, Well, you only read you only get to read the part that I'm ready to share. So like, that's why memoir is right, more than one memoir, because they're working through the shit over time. So a lot of people be like, Oh, well, you already wrote your memoir while you're writing another memoir. It's like, well, there's other things. Yeah.
Kiese Laymon 16:34
Yeah. I felt that way. About other memoirs, though, I must say.
Traci Thomas 16:41
A lot of memoirs, also.
Kiese Laymon 16:42
Sometimes you can tell when the second memoir is the money grab memoir. And I'm just and just to go back to circular like, I just didn't want to write the money grab memoir. There was a point. I felt there was no, but there was a point I could have put out some bullshit and my name would it would have sold some books, but like, nah, nah, but you know what, like, because we talked so much over the machine. Like, it was amazing me people don't know about musical theater in sports, because that's what it like. The sports part is like, but we talk we spend most of our time talking about sports.
Traci Thomas 17:11
Yeah, they don't know that. Now. Should we talk about the Lakers now if they want to hear that, okay, let's talk about the Lakers. I mean, we in New York, anybody besides Laney, even like the Lakers here? These the three?
Kiese Laymon 17:29
okay. Why are we not talking about the Knicks should be the question.
Traci Thomas 17:35
Do people only like the Knicks, here? That's ok.
Kiese Laymon 17:38
Ok, let's talk about the Lakers. Let's talk about the Lakers.
Traci Thomas 17:41
Let's talk about the Lakers. I hate the Lakers. I'm a warriors fan, but a real a real warriors fan. I used to go so when we were when I was in middle school. My dad finally did the thing where he got the good fucking seats at the basketball game. And he got to see you guys know what that is like. It's like the like, I've arrived. Right? He got the good, like really good seats at the Warriors, but the warriors were dogshit back then. Okay. 13 win season. We were attending those games. And so my mom got to go to the good games when like Kobe and Shaq would come to town. And then my brother got to go to like second tier. And I got to go to every warriors Timberwolves and Kings game on the face of the earth. The way that I loved Kevin Garnett because he was like the only celebrity I ever got to see. And so I always tell people, I'm a real warriors fan. Like Andre has been injured, or whatever. And Baron Davis. Member I like was devastated when we got rid of Monta Ellis for fucking stuff. We're getting rid of my Dallas for some little kid with weak ankles. That was my face. I was like, this is the dumbest thing we've ever done. Like remember, like Steven, I had an idea for a TV show called on no bean drinks in me and it was Andre. I never say his name Ron Andras been drinking binge receive Beatrice and Steven Jackson was a reality show. They lived in an apartment together and they did stuff.
Kiese Laymon 19:18
That would have been incredibly fucking great. I would have been nice right there.
Traci Thomas 19:23
And so I don't like the Lakers because I'm a warriors fan. But you like the Lakers because you have no team loyalty whatsoever and you just follow LeBron wherever he goes, like a real boring person. Of course. I hate that. We fight about this regularly.
Kiese Laymon 19:35
But do you want me to you mean to get like, fake deep for like 40 seconds. Why would you support a white man's tax exemption?
Traci Thomas 19:45
What you what is the Lakers are not that LeBron is not that. Okay, but he's owned by a white person.
Kiese Laymon 19:52
Not really.
Traci Thomas 19:53
What do you mean? He I mean, I mean all white person, essentially the owner of the Lakers, the buses.
Kiese Laymon 19:59
He owns LeBron. Well, he made more than them.
Traci Thomas 20:03
Sure, but they are in charge of him-
Kiese Laymon 20:06
I just want to add a little bit of zest to this. I think it's interesting. When people who have progressive politics follow white man's tax-exempted teams.
Traci Thomas 20:20
What do you think sports are?
Kiese Laymon 20:22
That's why you follow the black motherfucker who can do it the best. Wherever they go. You go to New York, we Knicks fans, not like Phoenix, Phoenix race solidarity versus tax exemptions.
Traci Thomas 20:38
But I know because also basketball is a black sport. So I'm always going to be supporting Black sports.
Kiese Laymon 20:43
But it's owned by the white man. So why follow his team everywhere?
Traci Thomas 20:46
But LeBron's famous too! That's why none of the players technically are but also it's they're called owners so we could talk about that too.
Kiese Laymon 20:55
Do you think when Linda Bus owns LeBron James, because I think LeBron James has more say over the Lakers and the Lakers have over him.
Traci Thomas 21:02
But wherever he goes, you're supporting that person's tax exemption, whether it's the Lakers or Miami or Cleveland or whatever, you are supporting that ownership.
Kiese Laymon 21:12
Via support of the black motherfucker who can do the art tremendously well.
Traci Thomas 21:16
You think by being a Warriors fan. I'm like, Oh, I love Larry Ellison or whatever the fuck?
Kiese Laymon 21:21
I think you love Andre Biatus. I think you love Stephen Jackson. Yes. I think you love-
Traci Thomas 21:27
I love Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, I love Draymond Green. I do not love Jordan pool, and I'm so glad he's gone because I always thought he was a little you know, I fucking hate that guy. Bye. Bye.
Kiese Laymon 21:38
I wish I had I'm just I'm just hating0 I wish I wish I had a team.
Traci Thomas 21:41
I do too. What annoys me during the playoffs. I'll be like, Oh, hey, warriors, and then I'm like, Oh, I'm rooting for the kings. I'm like, just to be a straight up hater. And then you'll be like, oh, now I'm rooting for Oh, you didn't know that. I love like Minnesota. Oh, I love it's like every week. Oh my god. Phoenix off Phoenix. I love it there. Arizona is amazing. I'm like, oh, mitt, the warriors are great. And you're a hater. Yes. Oh, well, I wish you would have done that in the group.
Kiese Laymon 22:07
And I am absolutely a hater. But I do love Memphis to team. I do too, because of drama. Right? Me too.
Traci Thomas 22:15
Can we talk about the gun thing? Let's talk about the guns. I want to talk. Is that okay? That she was racist as fuck? Right. You
Kiese Laymon 22:22
were the first person before it all got started to say that. Okay, that I heard.
Unknown Speaker 22:26
Thank you. Yeah,
Kiese Laymon 22:27
I'll talk a little bit more about that,
Traci Thomas 22:28
I think is racist. Because I think that if John Moran was Jason Moran, or whatever, not Jason Reynolds. He wouldn't have gotten in trouble. If he was like out on the range with his guns, and Coors. It would be a second amendment moment. And maybe, maybe Adam Silver, the spineless commissioner would have been like, Jason don't do that. Yeah. Because we don't, we don't want to do that. We're a league that cares about these things. But I think that they threw the book at jaw to make a point about little black kids and black people and young black people. And it was about a lot more than John Moran. And also, he didn't do anything illegal in Tennessee. And that's the thing that I'm just like, and I don't even fuck with guns, like I'm very deeply anti gun, like terrified of gun. I'm from California, like, I'm not a southerner. I know, that's like a cultural thing. But it is not who I am at all. And I was sitting there being like, I'm defending a gun thing, right? And like, it just, it just felt so clearly not. It felt so clearly, like they were trying to punish a black person in the way that they like to punish black people. You know what I mean?
Kiese Laymon 23:50
And you said that before? I mean, I heard you say that before anybody wrote it. And I think even when I thought about it a little bit more or just watched a little bit more, I think one of the most like sort of pernicious things about it is that I'm sort of helping people make these wide ranging statements but John looks like my little nephews like advice so it wasn't just they just took out a black kid like they took out a black kid who in Memphis and Jackson in parts of Oakland in Little Rock I think probably in New York like that he they look like John you don't say I'm not typical black all black people look alike but like like the countenance the hair and so when you punish job, you really make Jabba the face of like gun violence in this country when a motherfucking shot at right nobody that we know that we know so i I'm grateful I think when a nation does such racist horrendous things because you know, we can we can describe it and description appears to be analysis, but um, but I'm also terrified that that that league, let them let that let them do that because this is where I thought you were going because a critique of LeBron is that if LeBron who does play for One owner didn't like that. You talk to other people and you say I'm not playing until that gets wrecked. And that's what I think you should that's what I think should have been done in the NBA because that dude didn't break a law he didn't and I'm abolitionists I don't give a fuck about laws but some people do and he didn't break one.
Traci Thomas 25:17
Because that's usually the standard that's right. I feel like that's the thing it's like you set the rule like I think about not talking about the NFL but Riley Cooper remember when he was like out there doing the whole N word thing at the concert ever and then they made Michael Vick be friends with him and Michael Vick had to be like, I know you all hate me because the dog thing but I literally went to prison over this and now you're making me be teammates with like an act of racist and I have to give this guy cover when essentially what Riley Cooper did if he had been in the NBA would potentially be like behavior unbecoming or whatever they said that John did which is like such a weird thing to say. And so I feel like when it's a white person who does it they get to be the individual who made a mistake and then like black people have to apologize for them or like the way they make all the black commentators like apologize or like vouch for thing Yeah, it just it's like so shaky and it's such a weird performance and and nobody says anything who is who are not owned by owners nobody like that says anything nobody that like you really like a lot that you like follow to city to city like a lot I definitely like people like that don't always like say things but like they're not owned by people but they also apparently are because they're Don't say things at all, you know? Good boy. Good boy. Yeah, good boy. So just really quick NFL take i You guys jets fans here. I know Josh is here. Where's Josh? He's a fake everything fan. Okay. Oh, yeah. J T is Jetsons? What about Aaron Rodgers? my nemesis?
Kiese Laymon 26:54
Tough break jets fans. Oh, man. Dark days. This dude. I mean, are we going hard on people?
Traci Thomas 27:05
I don't wish injury on anybody that's really sad and scary. Like, I don't want anybody to be hurt, but I hated him so much. And when it happened, I really had to be like, sorry for your Achilles. But also, maybe don't be fucking Q anon or whatever the fuck or maybe don't be friends with Joe Rogan. I don't know if karma works exactly like that. But like, it might,
Kiese Laymon 27:27
you know, you know what I thought in like, I take every opportunity in my life performative life to this New York.
Traci Thomas 27:36
Yeah, but I love New York.
Kiese Laymon 27:38
But, but it's completely it's completely performative. But I'm really good at performing it. Yeah. So I'm gonna perform it. I always thought it was so like, what's the word that people say apropos of Aaron Rodgers to come to the Jets. Why? Because when I moved to New York, I met the most illogically fucking confident people I have ever met. In my fucking life. In my life. I was playing basketball. This is there's a dude named Sebastian Telfair, some of y'all might know, Tibet, Sebastian, Telfair Sebastian. Telfair got in trouble for some guns. So he came up to Dutchess County, where some of us were I mean, I worked and some people in here went to school, and he was just being up there to be Ambassador just working on his game. And this is when I was sweating in shape. I was playing ball. Sebastian, Telfair, just in there shooting. I had been like I was friends with a lot of people in Poughkeepsie. He used to bring me up there to play ball black man, this month and Sebastian Telfair is an average at best point guard. I mean, I mean, I mean, he's an incredible point guard compared to regular humans, but like, compared compared to his players, he's just he was the average punter. This dude is in there working out with two weight vests now who were on top of each other. Wait, miss, and my friends like you think that it's bassy? And I'm like, You don't know him like like, yeah, Sebastian, Telfair like, oh, yeah, thanks. You think you want to play with us? My mom, I don't want to play with us. They get him to play. He destroys the entire gym. We have to wait vessel. We walk over to the sideline, I don't think you would I don't even know you were in school. Then we walk over to the sideline. Everybody putting their shirts on. Yo, man keep leave a bus pass. Yes. All right. We were just watching the same game fan. And all of them New York. My focus was like, Yo, I couldn't believe I put it on bassy and I was just like, and these are the same dudes who like not play ball in high school or college, but were somehow going to dramatically or go overseas and play ball. So I always assume I always I always think New York is the home of the most like, like incredibly mediocre but like in your mind the most magnificent motherfuckers ever. And Aaron Rodgers because this motherfucker won a Super Bowl one He is horrendous when it counts, horrendous. And he tried to fool everybody about the COVID test, which we
Traci Thomas 30:07
He said I have been immunized immunized.
Kiese Laymon 30:11
And he's fool people into thinking He's deep because he goes into the fucking woods and does shit like white boys do. And then what does New York do? Because he's one of them. He bout to change our scene. I don't wish injury on anybody but New York need to question like that, that shit. Like, I know. Like, I'm from Mississippi, like, we walk. bad job. We want our head down. You know? How y'all do you want okay, you know, like, like, man and his little person in my life who you know, and he was born in New York, and she got that thing and I'm just like.
Traci Thomas 30:45
Wait, so my brother's here with his wife, and their daughter is like seven years old. They're from California. And my niece Mila is a straight up fucking New Yorker, you guys. We went to Mexico. We went to Mexico with my kids. My kids are like, it's like nighttime, they want to go in the pool. And they're like running the pool and my leg goes, Hey, yo, you can't go in there without your clothes.
Kiese Laymon 31:14
Oh, my Lord.
Traci Thomas 31:15
She'll be seven in January. And she literally is like, she's like Auntie Traci. Your boys are going in the pool. It's like we got to hop on the Uptown one and get some chalk cheese. To get we go on the subway. We gotta go to the museum. I go to school over here. And she's like so little, like her big bow in her hair. But then she's like, Yo, what's up my god out here tonight? We gonna hit my hola you're six but she's held mature, like held responsible. And just like her voice is like, love. I just die. Like I'm obsessed with her alone. Like the boys are like where's my love? I'm like, probably smoking on the corner you guys. I don't know. She's running a card gamers love it but it's true New York kids are she here? No. She She probably is oh, she definitely has a fake ID. She's making your drink. Tip well! What else have we not done yet? Oh, Megan Markel. You oh so many takes about Megan Merkel and we do not have that kind of time where we go okay okay, but you love you want to hear my Meghan Markel takes. Okay, I'll just give a quick Megan Markel take quick. I was team Meghan Markel deeply because I am a mixed girl from California. Okay, if you are a mixed kid, there are so few of us who are princesses in England. Okay, so that's like a big moment. And obviously, I thought that was gonna be me. I do love Mr. Sacks. But like, if the option had come up, it probably would have gone great. I do look good in monochrome, as well. But, you know, and I've been rooting for her. And I've been rooting for him, because he looks like Kevin O'Brien. And I love Kevin O'Brien. And so I had to go out on her because she played in all of our faces when she acted like she didn't know what race was, because she is 41 or two. And she is from Los Angeles, which means she was 11 or so when the riots happened. And I was in Oakland, and I was like, six, and that shaped my whole fucking life and I couldn't smell the smoke. And I didn't have helicopters over my shit. I live in LA now. And those helicopters, they fly low. They are very aggressively loud. And they fuck with you at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday for no reason. So I know during the riots, and she lived near that shit. Her school is like at the top of Korea Town, basically. So if you drive down the shit, like it's people who live in that neighborhood, would tell me about how they could smell the ship for like days and days. And so when she tried to be like, I never considered race in my life. And I don't know what race is. And people think I'm white. Yeah, she's like, people think I'm white. And I'm like, No, white people might have been fooled when you strange your hair go, but you showed your pictures when you were a little kid and you look black as shit and like, that just really upset me because then she tried to play the whole like, I'm black. But then she was like, Oh, I can't say like so I'm a woman of color and like all of that shit just annoyed me. And so now I have to be kind of out on her because I wanted her to be the great mixed hope. And instead she was the great mix hope the other way. So I'm hold on her. Like she lied on the LA riots. Yeah. And like Oh, Jay like that is think about the shit that happened when you were like 12 1314 and how like, I was just telling my husband about poly class. People from the bear. You fucking remember Polly class was kidnapped out of a sleepover in her house in Petaluma. And I did not go to sleepovers for years like I would make my parents pick me up because I was scared and like This idea, like I was scared about the LA riots in Oakland, you know, and like, she's out here front, like it never crossed her mind.
Kiese Laymon 35:07
Right, right. But we can I can ask one question, way, way, way way I can I can ask one question. You know, you know, when I'm, wait, how do I say? Just say, I want to quote you? Did you say you said did you can you call her a mix? Girl? Yeah. Okay. So you know when like, like, when, when. When makes people say, people think I'm white. I feel like they're never they're rarely talking about black people.
Traci Thomas 35:41
They're always talking about white people.
Kiese Laymon 35:43
So, so that to me, made me sad. Like it's not claimed, because that, to me is an extension. I'm not claiming the rise because you're not claiming what we actually see. Because, you know, we want to call everybody Black.
Traci Thomas 35:57
Like the moment she came out and was like, Prince, Harry's dating an actress. It was like, Oh, he's dating a black girl. Right? Okay, we're literally out of time. Oh, for real? I feel like we do publishing tea. Okay, well, publishing is full of shit. That's the tea, No offense, but it's true. Is that fair?
Kiese Laymon 36:22
Ohhh, I don't really know much of the publishing tea. I mean.
Traci Thomas 36:29
That is the biggest lie you're gonna hear all night.
Kiese Laymon 36:31
Yo, what you mean, I honestly feel like I'm not in on go to the meetings and all of that. But what but but I do, I will say one of the things we argue about the most is this is like, that question is a great question. But I'm not sure how to answer that publicly. Just like I'm not sure how to critique books created by people from vulnerable positions, right? For money, right? Negatively?
Traci Thomas 37:01
Not me. I don't have that problem.
Kiese Laymon 37:03
Yeah, I don't. So I don't know about publishing tea. But I will say, everybody in this room. I hope you encourage yourself or other people to get back on whatever we went on in 2020. When we fooled the world into believing that books by black folk, Latina, Latino, folk, queer folk of all fucking races, trans folk. I think something happened and people stopped buying books. I think I'm gonna blame publishing. But I also think I'm gonna blame human beings in America, who fucking think, you know, race and blackness particularly was a fad. And I think that's impacting a lot of book sales of young authors who got a chance to because of partially what happened in 2020. So yeah, if you if y'all want more shit like this, like get out there and support books from from, you know, not just the people who sell books, but you know, give Tyreke white, you know, a shot, like give a lot of these authors out here who were doing it. We are haunting. Yes. Well, we are haunting. Um, so yeah, so so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna diss any authors.
Traci Thomas 38:06
I always just think publishing - the people in charge, not the authors.
Kiese Laymon 38:10
Yeah, my editor is here right here. My Kathy Belden.
Traci Thomas 38:14
Kathy Belden is the greatest editor in the face of the earth. Kiese, Jason's forthcoming adult book, Jesmyn, you did People's Hospital. You did. Mitchell's survival math. Did you do Lacy Johnson? The reckonings? It's the list. It's a list Okay, people so if you don't know just look for the Scrivener thing and then go to the acknowledgments and it says Kathy Belden, you can read it. Oh, and Sadiq Fofana. Oh, yeah. Tennis downstairs. Anyways, okay, we got to get out of here. Here's what I want to say. I want to say thank you to KSA obviously, I want to say thank you to the folks that caveat obviously I want to say thank you to Cafe con Libros because they are selling books. If you haven't got a book, get a book. They're a Brooklyn based black Afro Latino owned bookstore. In one neighborhood remind me Crown Heights thank you in Brooklyn, so you can get books. Kiese signed a bunch of revenue on your way out I also have merch that you can buy so you can look like me my sister in law design this and my best friend from college Chris for to selling the merch so you can meet a part of me my dear love we were married on Facebook for like a decade and then I got really married and then we went to it's complicated and then I just got off Facebook
Kiese Laymon 39:31
Yeah, I want to thank- I just think we should thank Traci for making this happen. Thank you Oh. Again we met like four years ago doing The Stacks and and this is today we actually met in person we met in real never we never we never met in person but we talk. But but also I just want to thank you for taking like what appeared to be like a dream and lending that dream Like, you know, maximize and maximize. And that dream is all about like the work we try to put out there in the world. And it's the reminder that the work we try to put out there in the world means a tiny bit, but it doesn't mean anything without like Real Talk readers who want to engage with the work, wanna engage with the folks bringing it. So just thank you all so much for making space for our books and make a space for Traci. That means everything in the world.
Traci Thomas 40:21
Thanks for listening to the show.
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