[00:00:05] Speaker A: You're listening to casual talk radio, where common sense is still the norm. Whether you're a new or longtime listener. We appreciate you joining us today. Visit
[email protected] and now here's your host, Leister.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Good evening. Good evening. I have a simple question here at radio
[email protected]. Leister is your host, and if you haven't experienced the show, welcome.
Today is different than other episodes. I encourage you to check back our historicals, get a sense of the approach. But today I have a single question that dominates the topic.
That is, have you, whether doesn't matter male or female, have you ever proudly unleashed your inner cat Williams?
And you might be wondering, well, why now? It's all died down. That's the perfect time to discuss it because as I've said on other shows, the best time to really do a post mortem, as it is, is after everything dies down, because you have to take time to really process what was said. Otherwise, you're just getting triggered. You're just getting set off. That's where the term triggered comes from, is trigger finger, as in you're acting as opposed to really processing what's happening. Society doesn't process what they experience anymore. And as a result, there's a lot of emotions floating around. And I am not here talking about the emotional aspect. I'm talking about the practical aspect. If you're one of those who doesn't follow the goings on, first of all, kudos to you. But I'll repeat a couple of things. Cat Williams, one of the most celebrated comedians in the modern era, said some very terse things about the business, the comedy business, about Hollywood, about some of his peers. He went all in, did not hold back. And he's gotten some flak from many in the business and outside of the business. The summary of what he was talking about, he made some inferences and some terms. Bend over Billy is a term that was used by Demon Wilson, who's on Sanford and Sunfame, the guy with the fro. That was the term used there. Kat Williams made allegations, I'll call them allegations because that's what they are. They're alleged. Nothing was proven. But he alleged that there may be parties that are taking place, Diddy, including this, where these parties might encourage some form of sexual misbehavior in exchange for fame or for money. These are the allegations made. So let's assume for a moment that this is true because there's a lot of people that have made similar comments as this he talked about the idea that he basically was self made. He pushed and fought, and he came from nothing to build the empire that he has today. And he said that a lot of the other community comedians simply aren't that funny, which is why he doesn't do tours with them, he doesn't do sets with them, and that many of the other comedians held him back. There's a lot he went through. He talked about movie roles he did and just a lot. It was a lot to digest. This is on club Shayshe, which is basically a podcast. But I was intrigued to hear him talk because I'm a fan of Cat Williams, have been a fan since he first dropped on the scene. I felt that there was something stand out about him, similar to a Richard Pryor in a way. He didn't seem to be what I see a lot of comedians become, including your Eddie Murphy's of the world, which is toned down, which is safe. They don't want to disrupt, they don't want to shake it up.
I also resonated with something that he talked about, and this has been talked about by other people as well. And that is like Dave Chappelle, the idea that Hollywood or celebrity status, once you hit a certain peak, you seem to go nuts or something's stated to be wrong with you. So if I think back in time, the most notable examples I can think of is Amy Winehouse, who died. She died of, I believe it was drugs and alcohol. She died what was the river Phoenix. I believe he was Bobby, Bobby Brown, nowhere close to what he used to be in his prime as a big fan of his. Whitney Houston, Bobby's son, Bobby's daughter, Bobby Christina. They hit this level of celebrity and then things go off the rails. Chris Cross, one of the two of them died of, pretty sure it was a drug overdose there on and on. And it, and, and then as I move forward in time, Mariah Carey.
But I also think of people know Roger Troutman and Larry Troutman. That was a murder suicide.
Sam Cook going back now, sam Cook. Sam Cook was a, that was a tragedy.
I was intrigued at him making that statement and Chappelle making that statement about trying to keep it together and ultimately just saying, you know what? I came to realize what Hollywood was doing and how this was working and how some of these other celebrities were around me, and I kind of stuck to myself. I kind of said, I'm just going to do my own thing because this isn't going to work. And now I'm pushing back because some of these other celebrities in this case were saying things that simply weren't true. They're lying. And I had to come and clear the air when I asked the question, if you've ever brought out your inner cat Williams, I referred to the idea that if you ever listen to Cat Williams, he's confident, he's unapologetic, flat out.
He knows he's flawed. He accepts his flaws, though, as part of him, but he's proud in what he has done and he doesn't let anybody step on him. So there are traits about him that, in my personal opinion, are things that you should aspire to be.
And I believe people only focus on the negative aspects that have been told to them about some of these people.
When I look at somebody like Eddie Murphy, I'll pick on him because I'm really disappointed there. Eddie Murphy used to be what Kat Williams is now as an outspoken, unapologetic. This is flat out what it is and I'm not going to take anything. And then he changed. The moment he took off that leather suit, the man changed. We talk about celebrities wearing dresses. Most of those celebrities are completely defensive about wearing dresses. If I think back to the know, going nuts when you hit level celebrity, Martin Lawrence, I think everybody remembers the stories about him allegedly running in the street, waving guns, saying they're trying to kill him. Martin did a segment where he said, oh, I was just high. I was just crazy high out of my mind. So he's acknowledging that that situation happened, but was it really that he was high? Is that really the reason why or was he not high and he was truly being, something was happening? Nobody knows for sure. We know that drugs may have been involved when he says high, right? We know drugs were involved and it seems like drugs are always just, we see people dying of these drugs left and right like crazy.
Well, how can there be such a pattern? Prince fentanyl right. How can there be such a pattern of so many when they hit a level of celebrity and they just seem to go crazy? Mariah Carey, she had her situation where she just went off the rails briefly. Britney Spears, we're seeing that now. Christina Aguilera went to her point. Seems like she's on recovery now. But my point is I'm wrapping it all together.
Kat Williams is the one where it seems like he acknowledged where he had his down points. He used them to strengthen his position and build and do something where he had something to contribute. But he talked to stories about how he was flat broke and playing with his kid and kid messed up his teeth, and he didn't have the money for it, and he was essentially homeless while filming on set. Well, that's a story that you don't hear. And I did an episode a while back about human for Luther Vandross, and I was emphasizing that many of these people are. They're humans. I say all of them, really. But many of them lived a normal life prior to the celebrity, and they worked to get up to the celebrity. When Kat then talked and told stories about certain people that didn't really work in the traditional sense to get to celebrity, they really were doing or giving up sexual favors in exchange for the success, we knew that was true, too. Pamela Anderson alluded to it on a show where she know, you know what you're getting into if you go to the hotel room, and if you do go in, get the job now later. And I wish she hadn't, but later, she would express regret for that statement. I wish she hadn't because there was nothing wrong with what she said. The fact is, if there's situations, and this happened recently in the wrestling business, if there's situations where you are invited to a hotel room, we're not talking a hotel conference room. We're not talking a hotel event. We're talking somebody's personal room. You're invited, you get there. There's only a male there.
Have you noticed in all these cases, it's always that there's only a male there, and that male is half dressed, if dressed at all?
But apparently they still go in, because when some of these are in power, some of these males, this is the whole diddy situation, too. When some of these are in power, they present whatever offers or whatever conditions or whatever threats or whatever blackmail, whatever it is, in exchange for something they're trying to get.
But there's no desire to just flat say no at that point and say, this doesn't feel right. I'm talking at the point you get the call or the mail, whatever text saying, come to this room. It's a hotel room. There's really no acceptable situation I can think of that you should be going as a woman, young or otherwise, to another person's hotel room, unless, you know, it's just another female that's not attracted to you. That's my stance on it. So the whole diddy then situation and the freak offs and all this, when, you know, basically, did he invite you? You cannot say yes. You've got to say no. So now this connects to what's going on with P. Diddy and the allegations about the freak offs and all the other people that were in bad boy that came out talking about this type of a situation, that it may be connected to the idea of if you want to hit a level of celebrity, this ties to Harvey Weinstein and all these others. You want to hit to a level of celebrity, there are things that you must do, and if you don't do them, you're not going to get there. So Kat told a story about declining $50,000,000.02 times. And allegedly, Harvey Weinstein had offered, I'll say, oral favors in exchange for this money upfront. And what Cat had implied is that other people that he's somewhat aware of likely took the money Demon Wilson, who I talked about from Sanford and Sun, that's what he came up, the term bend over Billy. The idea that he said, I never went to those parties, that's why I'm who I am, is because I didn't go. I knew what was happening there. I knew what the story was. Well, he's from way back years, decades. So that means it was something that's endemic in the business, not just comedy, but television and likely music, for many, many years.
When we think about groups like Crisscross, I'll put them up front. But there's tons of other groups where there has been allegations that in exchange for certain sexual favors, that this has happened. Maya the singer alluded to it. She alluded to the idea that she's been hit on by major producers and major big wigs and all this in exchange for whatnot. And she pushed it away and pushed back on it, and it affected her career. But she had to keep her principles and morals and ethics in check. There were stories around Tyra Banks and the theory that she might have given up sexual favors in exchange for a level, because remember, there was a point where she was a top on the model scene.
All I'm saying is Kat Williams was not apologetic about anything that he was saying.
He's proud of who he is now. He doesn't let anybody step on who he's become. And he is not afraid to be proud of his achievements, which is admirable. You should admire his confidence and his willingness to put it out there and not let anybody trample on him, but also to simply put facts that he sees being exposed to the business as it is, because the thought is that he's going to try to help other people. Whether it does or not, it's a different conversation. Dave Chappelle recently did a stand up, and he was a little bit critical of Kat, not specifically for what he said.
His criticality was concerning because it basically. And the theory has been that Dave Chappelle was swapped with a clone, and he's not the same person, and it's a different person. The real Dave Chappelle's dead, whatever that is. But the concern that Dave Chappelle raised is, and I'll paraphrase, but he said that Kat Williams is one of the best storytellers. He's the best painters, as he referred to, one of the best storytellers. But you're saying only negative things about black people. You're not saying negative things about white people. Then I saw Marlon Wayans on a show, and he was responding to the criticism about black men wearing dresses. All these black comedians and men wearing dresses. And it's an emasculation, right? And I have been hypercritical of emasculation as well. Marlon Wayans essentially said, I didn't see that you guys had any problems with people like Robin Williams, who, by the way, Robin Williams. Eventually, he had major issues later. Remember, he was having all sorts of mental issues and things that happen after the fact. And Marlon ratled off a bunch of know. I think Tom Hanks, he called out, and some other ones know, are non black actors, comedians that wore a dress, and they get awards for it, of course. But if you look at the pattern, look at where they are now. Look at what happened to them. Look at how they were treated.
See, Marlon's only looking at one aspect. He's only looking at how the mainstream perceives a performance. It's not that. That was never Kat's point. Kat's point is, look at what seems to happen to those careers. Robin Williams was never the same after he had done it. Tom Hanks certainly has never been the same since he did it. None of. Of. Of nobody who has worn a dress is really the same as their peak. And that was the point he was trying to make. The Wayans brothers are nowhere near, nowhere near what they were before. Not even close. Nowhere near. Again. Robin Hanks. Nowhere near. Tom Hanks. Nowhere. Robin Williams. Sorry. Tom Hanks. Nowhere near at all. Martin. Nowhere near.
So what are we saying? What is Kat trying to say? What Kat's trying to say is simple.
He saw a pattern, as did Dave Chappelle and many others, of a desire to put people in dresses. Devin Wilson did, as well, of a desire to put men in dresses. And although Kat is speaking about black men, you could argue the case that all of them, it's pretty much the same thing. There's not really been, and I challenge
[email protected], to let me know of any comedian whatsoever that wore a dress for that one time or more that is still successful, that's still mainstream because you can go down the list. Kevin Hart is starting to decline from his peak. When he was the top dog, he was the top draw. He was unstoppable. He started to decline the moment he put on that dress and went out there. Terry crews so first of all, he admits on social media that he was sexually harassed by somebody puts on a dress. He's never been the same ever since. Could you imagine Tom Lister as in Zeus, tossing on a dress? You probably can't. Can you imagine ice cube putting on a dress? You probably can't. Could you imagine Snoop dogg wearing a dress? You probably can't. You probably can't. So all I'm saying is I'm echoing what Kat is likely referring to, which is the idea that these people were never the same since doing it. And it didn't really matter about black men. He's just talking about what he sees with black comedians because it seemed like it's a pervasive pattern there for white comedians. It was nowhere near as frequent. It was an infrequent thing. For whatever reason. It was nowhere near like Ricky Smiley, where essentially they're throwing him in a dress every single time. So I watch and read and analyze all this, and I am disturbed in what I saw from television and media, which is why I don't watch it that much, because it's all the same garbage. They're putting somebody in a dress and doing whatever it is.
The notable example I can think of is the wedding singer where they had the one, and he was a transgender activist, actually, George.
But he was arguably a standout at the movie, and he was a standout because he wasn't trying to play anything other than what he was. So it's not the same. Him wearing whatever he was wearing was part of his Persona. If you saw him outside of the movie set, that's what he was. It was not the same.
All I felt after listening to Kat was pride. Pride in somebody that was confident and not apologetic and not tiptoeing around stuff. He's thoughtful. He'll take a moment to think about what he wants to say, but at the end of it, it's just he is, I'm going to sip the tea, put it out there, and I'm not going to be soft touching anything anymore because I'm tired of taking it and I'm tired of people lying on me. And I had nothing but respect for him for doing that. And I would encourage anybody and everybody, especially in this current modern era of softness, to really think about how he approached what was happening to and for him and against him.
What was happening is arguably people stealing jokes, people lying on him, people doing all sorts of things. And he had to put it out there. It just so happened that he did it in one show. He went on other shows like Willie D's show. I don't think it was as good as Shay, but Shannon sharp. So I think in my opinion, people should aspire to be as confident as Kat Williams. I don't suggest that you actively try to insult people or demean people. I'm saying that I think everybody should be wanting to be that confident and not afraid to just put it out there when things aren't going correct and things are wrong and you know it's wrong and speak up about it because this, that's what I deal with with my endeavors.
There's a sentiment where they don't want to hear the truth and I don't present any sort of insult on any person because in a way I'm just like not. I'm not insulting a person. I'm calling out what I see straight up. And some people aren't going to like it. It is what it is. It's about the truth on the matter.
Modern society, especially in a world of ESG and Dei, this diversity and inclusion, which I'll get to as I close, has pushed people to be afraid to speak up for fear of canceling or for fear of getting fired or for fear of some other treatment. That's not right, not correct, which got me thinking. And Kat talked about this as well, with the inequality with women and Tiffany Haddish not getting paid equal and having to go on the air and admitting she wasn't getting paid equal, which echoes what Monique had been saying for some time, which ties then to the controversy around Oprah and the theory that Oprah's holding people back and that Tyler Perry is holding people back. Tyler Perry, he can only be an address. He can't play any role. That's not an address. So now I'm connecting the dots.
It's big picture here. It's not just one isolated. It's a bigger thing in Hollywood that Kat Williams has exposed because he has the platform to do so.
My podcast, arguably all of them, especially casual talk, does nothing but share thoughts and opinions about what I see. And there's connections in what I've talked about in the past and what's coming out now with people who have more of a platform than I do. And I'm hopeful that it leads to more openness.
Getting away from the snowflake, quote, unquote, and getting back to being open to having conversations that people may not want to hear, but they need to hear a lot of this stuff.
So now I connect to diversity, and it got me thinking. Diversity doesn't really exist. In fact, we're moving away from diversity. We're moving away from equality. We're moving away from inclusion. And you wonder, how can that be? If we're pushing towards Lgbtqia, whatever, how can it be that we are moving in the opposite direction of what it isn't designed to be pushing towards? Let me explain something to you here.
Diversity means that we are tolerant of that which is different. That's the core definition of diversity.
How can we then be diverse or claim to be diverse if we don't allow people who come from disparate backgrounds, who speak in different ways, with different accents, possibly different tones, possibly different clothes, how can it be that we are against somebody who speaks with just strong tone? They're not swearing, they're not cussing, they're not rude, but they are very direct. They're telling you this was wrong, that was done wrong. We look down on that. We tell people, you need to soften your verbiage up. That's a little bit too much. You need to calm it down and use softer verbiage. And be mindful of pronouns. You've got to be careful about how you express something.
What you're doing is you're telling somebody how to talk, you're telling somebody how to think. You're telling somebody how to act. You're telling somebody how to behave, and you're telling that to a group of people. That's not diversity, it's groupthink. That's what it is. That's why I say we are moving away from diversity in our quest to try to keep people from being hurt and keep people from being upset, keep people from being sad, keep people from being angry because they don't want to feel anything. They don't want to feel anything that's uncomfortable. They're being protected when you protect them. They don't know how to handle true adversity when they don't know how to handle true adversity and something comes their way that's really damaging, they're done. They're toast. And then what ends up happening? Many of them commit suicide or ponder doing so.
That's what we saw. We saw kids hang themselves in the backyards because they couldn't handle bullying at school. We see kids shooting each other. We see drug overdoses like crazy and drowning in a tub or a pool, which is happening way too freaking frequently.
Explain it. You can't accept there's too much desire to protect people from harmful, hurtful emotions. That is how you grow stronger, is to experience a lot of that stuff. I'm not justifying anything that caused it. I'm saying that if you don't experience adversity, you're not going to come out stronger. And the fact is, the adversity is never going to stop. It doesn't matter if it's your home, doesn't matter if it's your workplace, doesn't matter if it's war, doesn't matter if it's your neighborhood. You're going to experience adversity on a constant basis throughout life. The myth is that the more money you make, the happier you'll be. The notorious B-I-G. The more money you make, the more problems you get. And jealousy and envy. That's true.
Money is not going to save you. It won't. And hiding it won't save you. Trying to filter it out won't save you. Nothing saves you from it. The only way that you can get past it is to confront it. You've got to welcome the smoke and you got to confront it head on and say, you're not going to beat me. You might have heard, if you're religious, you might have heard the term, I'm not going to let you win. Satan. What do you think that means? It means I'm going to confront it.
You can't hide, you can't run. It's all around you. That's the nature of what it is. You've got to confront it heads on. However you describe it doesn't matter. It's still adversity of some kind. It's still a challenge of some kind. Trials and tribulations, they're all around you and they're not going to change simply because these people are trying to protect you from pain.
Pain is how you get eventually numb to the pain. Over time, by experiencing it and learning to deal with it, eventually you get numb to the pain. Is that an ideal state? No. But that's the reality of getting stronger from adversity, which is why there are certain people that are hardened against it. When you look at somebody like a Donald Trump who seems unstoppable. No matter what they try to do to the guy, it's because he's gone through so much and he doesn't stop. He just keeps fighting back. He keeps fighting. He's fighting. He keeps fighting. No matter what you think of him as a man, you have to respect that tenacity. You have to respect the fact that he just does not stop. He'll keep fighting. Vivek Ramaswamy quit, but he had told us before, he said, if we keep on attacking President Trump, I will back out because then I'll support him. That's exactly what he did. So he stayed true to himself. Ron DeSantis quit. We knew he was going to quit because he wasn't a fighter. He never was a fighter. He wasn't going to win again. He's too soft. Whatever.
All I'm saying, folks, consider finding your inner cat Williams. Your inner cat Williams is nothing more than having the strength to push back against stuff you know is wrong, not wanting to be filtered or protected or sheltered against adversity, recognizing adversity is all around you, using it and leveraging it to get stronger as an individual and then use that platform to help other people, because that's exactly what he's doing. He's using his platform to expose things that are wrong. He adopted a bunch of children, and he had a statement that I think is also something worth thinking.
Well, because Shannon had asked, well, why? Because I think he said eight kids, I believe adopted. He said, because think about how you would be perceived if you believe in God. Think about how you would be received and perceived for what you just did. You are helping people who don't have somebody to help them. So how would that make you look? How would you be perceived? The things that you do, right, the things that you're giving back? Because by adopting, he's helping children that don't have a home. I talked about it on an old episode that I considered it and I might do once. I'm at a point where I knew I could support them independently, I theoretically could. But in terms of physical living space, I mean, so when he says that, well, that's compelling. That's compelling, yes. I want them to feel like, and he doesn't even consider themselves really the sole parent. He knows that their real parents are still alive, and he's basically just, he's like a surrogate. He's standing in to help out because you could have where the child was put up for adoption simply because the original parents had a rough time of it that could have happened. Could be just financial situations. But they still need somebody to raise them. They still need somebody to educate them. They still need somebody to help them get through school. They still need somebody to help them navigate the crazy world. And if their natural parents simply can't do it at the point, but they want the best for their child, there's a lot of them that were put up for adoption because they want the best for the child and they hope that somebody will pick them up, that'll take care of them. That's huge. That's huge.
In closing, hopefully you get a chance to listen to, if not the full show. It's pretty long. I think it's like two and a half hours long. If not the whole show, then certainly snippets. But I would recommend listening to the whole show if you get a chance in Club Shayshe with Kat Williams, because I would hope that you would take inspiration from the kind of person he presents himself to be. Try not to get too fixated emotionally on the drama behind the what of what he's saying. There's a lot of drama behind it, and from him there's legitimacy. Others have said that there's not. It doesn't matter to me, and I don't think it should matter to you. It's really just the presentation of a man. Like he comes across as a man.
Others question whether that's true. I see that the person comes across as a man when you acknowledge your role as a parent. Number one, when you're willing to push back on stuff that's done wrong to you. Number two, when you don't allow people to straight lie on you. Number three, and when you're willing to fight and just keep fighting, and you're not going to give up until you get to where you're going.
That's the definition of a man to me. And we've lost some of that, which is why I have a call to action to consider listening to it and consider listening to how that is. If you listen to some of it and all you can think of is, oh, I can't stand his voice, or it's too much drama or something else, you might just be not what he had aspired to be. And that's fine, you're okay with it. But if you're open minded, I think you'll find that's the kind of people we need pushing back. Pushing back against what's happened to society, real men back.
And I would hope some of the women out listen to him and recognize. Yeah, that's a real man. That's what we should want. Not somebody who's soft, not somebody who's tepid, not somebody who's willing to let somebody run all over him, but somebody who's a true protector. There's nothing wrong with having a protector, because you can be a protector and still be a partner. The key is, do you recognize your role in whatever relationship it happens to be? And I think Kat has done the best job of outlining his role in the world and setting his foot down and saying, I'm not going to let anybody take that from me or my kids. That's a man, folks. That's a man. You all who.
