Transcript
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So I look back over the last 36 hours and I say, ok, how did this all happen?
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Why did it happen?
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Shit, I don't know.
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I don't know.
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But what I do know is this I am a master of showing up.
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I show up.
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I might be sleepy, I might be late, I might not have any cash on me.
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I have been to Europe twice people with no wallet and no cash.
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How you get all the way to Europe?
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Jade, that's another whole thing.
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But you know, delta got the fly ready and digital, whatever.
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I showed my passport and they showed my face and got on the thing and I didn't have no, I mean no money, not one single US dollar bill, not even a debit card, and they don't have cash up in Europe.
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Did y'all know that?
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So nobody couldn't send me nothing.
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So anyway, I'm going.
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So nobody couldn't send me nothing.
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So anyway, I'm gonna show up.
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I might not have any money, I might be late, I might be a little sleepy, but I'm gonna be there.
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Parenting up, caregiving adventures with comedian day smiles is the intense journey of unexpectedly being fully responsible for my mama.
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For over a decade I've been chipping away at the unknown, advocating for her and pushing Alzheimer's awareness on anyone and anything with a heartbeat.
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Spoiler alert I started comedy because this shit is so heavy, so be ready for the jokes.
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Caregiver newbies, ogs and village members just willing to prop up a caregiver, you are in the right place.
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Hi, this is Zeddy.
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I hope you enjoy my daughter's podcast, is that okay?
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Today's supporter shout-out goes to Portia Bruner.
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Hey there, portia Bruner from the Portia Show, so excited to have an opportunity to brag just a little bit about one of my favorite and really the funniest bites that I know, ain't you?
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You already know Jay Smile?
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My goodness, this woman has been on the Portia Show, I think, 152,000 times and we only do 200 episodes a season.
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Wait a minute.
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Did I say only 200?
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Thank you so much for watching and thank you so much for supporting this venue.
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We want you to be seen, feel, heard, and that's why we bring women like J Smiles on the show, because she's not just funny.
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She's not just a comedian, but she's a caregiver and she's taking care of her mother and she's teaching us so many lessons.
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You've seen how this woman travels the world.
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Was she like a captain of a ship or something?
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At one point on some vacation she had a little hat on, looking like the captain.
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I was like what is this?
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What in the whole entire world?
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But that's why we love her, because she is living a really full and robust life and I'm happy to be a part of A Day in the Life with J Smiles.
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Woo, I'm for sure.
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A Day in the Life of J Smiles.
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This is one of those 36-hour periods that is real and is raw.
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This is caregiving in the fast lane.
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It's HOV, with one person in the car.
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You know you're driving so fast, the police not going to catch you.
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Yes, okay, not in this car, I mean like in my car.
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I'm not saying that, but yeah.
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So like when I woke up yesterday, sandy was having some more adverse reactions with her seizure medication.
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This has been going on for for like seven months at this point and I've been battling like in the trenches back and forth with the doctors, with the experts and with the primary care physicians, trying to let them know it ain't working.
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So there's a certain amount of anxiety that just lives with me whenever she's not good.
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Then there were meetings and there were schedules.
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My podcast production team and I scheduled two months in advance that today would be 10 hours of podcast recording like three or four episodes, and all this beautifulness, recording like three or four episodes, and all this good beautifulness.
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And then I get a wonderful opportunity to be on television with less than 24 hours notice.
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But hey, stay ready, you ain't got to get ready.
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And then, if you ain't ready, act ready, just act ready and put something on.
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Okay, my lip ain't on, but it'll be on after I get through eating this Power Bar.
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Thank you for the Power Bar that has something in it that I can eat that won't make me itch or belch so many Power Bars make me belch.
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Get on stage.
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I'm like.
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That doesn't work out.
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So then I was up all last night Like I slept like 50 minutes, like 5-0.
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And I don't even think that was quality If you could sleep quality, but I don't think I did, because I was getting Zeddy's schedule.
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It's the end of the month, so caregivers want to put in their time sheet.
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So y'all, y'all.
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I had caregivers texting me trying to make sure all their July dates are right.
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The care manager in me says, of course, please share it with me.
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Good to lie to me.
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The talent in me is like I'm trying to figure out how to be on TV tomorrow.
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Well, in 11 hours, 10 hours, 9 hours, 8 hours, okay, but I do want to hear what you have to say, because these are the people who care for my mama, right?
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I don't want to short over them or putting their needs and their requests secondary to my own, because you never know that one time you might be a little short, get a little slippy, could be the worst day of their personal lives and it's just crossing over.
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So I'm like you know what I mean, and we on the way up, we ain't all the way up.
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So the podcast production studio still has to be put together, assembled and disassembled about once every three and a half weeks.
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So probably assembly would take a process.
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And you know, on TV you can't wear what you want to wear.
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There are rules.
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You can't clash with the host.
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You can't clash with whatever the brand is of the network you're going with.
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You can't wear a brand name that hadn't been approved.
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Y'all know J Smiles, I was all about wearing white and a whole bunch of clashing fly colors and they're like yes, so don't do none of that.
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What am I wearing y'all and I can't just wear J Smiles' brand, because that's anyway.
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We out here, we out here.
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And then I was like, oh, oh, I also get a segment to do stand-up.
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Yeah, I'm going to say something that don't have nothing to do with the podcast that I'm also going to record today.
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Yeah, yeah, and Zay is good, and she didn't want me to go to bed and it's so hard, it's so difficult, if she's having a period of lucidness, for me to step away.
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And a couple times, around 1 am, she started trying to talk, first time in like a month.
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She was like it's the same as her saying my name, is that right?
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And I was like shit, I'm supposed to be finishing putting up a podcast or making sure I know what I'm going to say tomorrow.
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That's okay, mama.
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Yes, that's right.
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Whatever you say or thought you say, of course it's all right.
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It's all right.
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So, anyway, everybody who wonders how come it's so hard, jay, for you to RSVP Today.
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I had to cancel on myself.
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Do you understand that?
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That I cancel on myself and on the team that I'm playing when you cancel on yourself?
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That's what love, that's what living, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to see local fans.
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This is just how we out here, we out here in the streets outside, in the streets outside of an open bank.
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If I had a penny for every time, I got the question Jay, how do you do it?
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How do you balance being a comedian and being a caregiver?
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How do you book gigs, how do you give speeches, how do you do this podcast and take care of Zeddy?
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First is divine intervention and a really close second.
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First is I have a phenomenal team.
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Like I'm not recording myself right now.
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There are people who are here assisting me and that's exactly what happened today.
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Like the last 36 hours have been completely impromptu.
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Nothing that I planned came to fruition.
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Prompt to Nothing that I planned came to fruition.
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Ten years ago hell, even three years ago, I would have been stressed and I would have been fighting it Like wait, I'm supposed to be doing A, b and C, mad Calling my best friend, trying to get an emergency session with my therapist.
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I don't know what's going wrong.
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I don't know.
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Is it God, is the universe?
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Is because I've dated that guy back and forth too many times and I wasn't right?
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First thing is is Zeddy remotely stable?
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And if she's remotely stable and I'm not in jail, that's just how bad.
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My life has hit rock bottom over and over again over this last decade.
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Plus that's my baseline, y'all I'm not worried about.
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Do I have some money?
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Did I pay my bills?
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No, is Zeddy alive and look stable?
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And am I physically free?
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And if that's the case.
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I'm like well, let me just keep it all going.
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What just happened was so beautiful.
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I can tell the story now.
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But the last 36 hours I was like I don't know when it's going on and I don't know why.
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But what I do know is, if I stop, that is doing a disservice to how many times the universe has held me up in the past.
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I know y'all like with J smiles enough with all of this generic rhetoric.
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What the hell happened?
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Ok, zeddy has Been diagnosed as being epileptic.
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Don't know if y'all knew this, but if you have two seizures within 24 hours or something, you are defined as epileptic.
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It doesn't matter if you don't ever have another one.
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Well, zetty had that about seven months ago and literally for the last six months her epilepsy medicine has been wrong.
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Not wrong according to the doctors, wrong according to J Smiles.
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I'm like my mama is walking around here looking like she on meth.
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That's not right.
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She's walking hunchback Looking like she's one of the people from Lord of the Rings.
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She's already five feet.
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So now if my mama is scrunched down to the point where she fold two, it's a problem.
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I call her name, I say mama, y'all.
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This is how she responds, staring off in the distance, looking like she's thinking about a lost loved one Maybe she is.
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All of that freaked me out.
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So I started pounding the doctors and I encourage you all to do the same.
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You know your LOs.
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I don't care if them people got PhDs, mds, lmnops.
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Who cares If your LO is worse after the medicine, f the medicine.
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So I've been fighting with these people and so 36 hours ago I started going round and round with the epilepsy.
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God, I guess he said.
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Well, I told you it was going to cause sedation.
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You just got to let her go through it for two weeks.
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On the other side of it, she'll be better.
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Sir, sir, I've been battling to keep my mama alive and now you want me, because of your little statistics and something that the FDA might have told you in grad school, to have her looking like she about to pass out.
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Her blood pressure skyrocketed but her sugar dropped.
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You know, old people can just fade into death because their heart rate get too low.
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I said let me tell you something.
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So y'all, I'm not, I'm not suggesting anybody else does this.
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But I wrote that man in my mama's, my chart and I said hey, you prescribe 20 milligrams, I'm giving her 10.
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And unless you call me back and say that me giving her 10 is going to kill her, thank you and have a good life, that me giving her a 10 is going to kill her.
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Thank you and have a good life.
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And now I'm waiting to see if my mama will be better.
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So all that was going on at the top of yesterday, and then today, my podcast team, two of the baddest chicks in the game Annalise and Mia.
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Annalise and Mia we took two months to plan where the three of us could get together and then I find out I could be on TV.
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They were like J Smiles we have a slot.
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We want to make it this.
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We want to make it fun.
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We need a comedian, not a character.
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We need a comedian that can come in off the cuff and riff with other comedians and somebody we can trust.
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Can you do it?
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I was like yes, of course, this is a call I got yesterday.
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Yes, of course, when Tomorrow?
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Shit, oh, first thing is that means I got to call my team.
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That means I got to quit on myself.
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You know what I mean Like psychologically.
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I got to stare myself up.
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I got to be a no-show to my own podcast production and I got to beg my folks, my producer and my videographer.
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You know that all that stuff we planned for two months and whatever you did in your life with all your friends, family, clients, manicure, pedicure, movies, dates, whatever, hey, can you move that?
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And while you're moving it, can you also come still be with me at the TV studio?
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And they were like, uh, hold on.
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They never said no To their credit, never said no, but I ain't going to lie.
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They didn't hold on.
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They never said no To their credit, never said no, but I ain't going to lie.
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They didn't answer as fast on the text messages as they usually answer, but that was valid, that's valid.
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But to prepare, watching my mama last night because y'all know I gave her a different medicine than what the doctor said.
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Ok, not a different kind, but a different dose.
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So I'm super watching her all night Because the caregivers are not responsible.
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I'm walking in and out of her room, I'm looking at her.
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I'm also setting up for whatever my podcast team would be able to do because spoiler alert they would normally be able to get to the studio and set up everything.
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I wouldn't have to do that.
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Okay, so I'm not a New York Times bestseller yet, but I do have a podcast team that sets up all the stuff for me.
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But hell, if I'm asking them to meet me at the studio, I can't also ask them.
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Well, hell, if I'm asking them to meet me at the studio, I can't also ask them.
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Well, if I'm asking them to meet me at the television station, I can't also expect them to be at the studio and set up for our podcast production, which is now gonna happen.
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It's gonna Start eight hours later than it was supposed to.
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You know what I'm saying.
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So I did it.
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Now the jury's still out on whether or not they're going to think I did a good job.
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So I'll tell you all about that in an outtake or a reel, because they may say you know what J Smiles next time you help the bear, because what you put together is trash.
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But I tried.
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So last night I put hours into setting it up and getting it right, hopefully, so we can get in and have a smoother Parenting Up podcast, our production of other episodes this evening.
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And then the television show, the Porsche show.
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They gave me directives.
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They didn't say tell this kind of joke, but I know her brand.
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I know her personally.
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I've come to know her because she went to Howard she's a Howard Bison and she told me what it would be about Like.
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And so now I got two minutes to try to come up with and these two television minutes and for any of you who haven't done television whatever, let's think of it like this what if you had an outfit to go to brunch with your crew, male or female?
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Or if the dudes you about to go to cigars?
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You got your outfit to go do cigars and play pool with the boys.
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And if you're a chick, you got your brunch outfit, and then, all of a sudden, you find out that there's no brunch and there's no cigars.
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You're going to the White House but the mall is closed.
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You know what I'm saying?
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Like you got to flip.
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You got to flip.
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Who are you talking to, what you talking about and what you wearing.
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They gave me Wardrobe don't do's.
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All of the wardrobe don't do's are my do's.
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Don't wear white.
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Y'all know J Smiles.
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All I wear is white.
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I wear white bottom, white top.
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They might think I'm a white girl by the time I get through putting all that damn white on.
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And no black and no multicolcolored bold prints.
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Anybody who has been to my outside, been open, shows my whole top looks like granimals or a crossword puzzle threw up with me, threw up on me with crayolaola markers.
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I said, damn, that's my whole closet, that's all my gear.
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What am I going to do?
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Still go check on Zeddy, I mean because right now it's about 2 am.
00:21:51.413 --> 00:21:58.702
I got to roll with me on this because I didn't get the call to about two or three in the afternoon, not like it started eight in the morning.
00:21:58.702 --> 00:22:03.252
So I had done all the stuff that don't even matter.
00:22:03.252 --> 00:22:05.221
No more All that stuff.
00:22:05.221 --> 00:22:06.726
Tony, I'm looking at that like shit.
00:22:06.726 --> 00:22:08.290
Why'd I bother do any of that?
00:22:09.599 --> 00:22:13.289
Had to call my brow lady hey, are you in town?
00:22:13.289 --> 00:22:14.132
I need to get threaded.
00:22:14.132 --> 00:22:19.347
Not only she said hey, not only am I not in Atlanta, I'm in Mexico.
00:22:19.347 --> 00:22:22.573
Boo, I need y'all to know.
00:22:22.573 --> 00:22:26.941
Nobody has touched my brows since my daddy died.
00:22:26.941 --> 00:22:32.457
But this lady and she said I'll be back, you know, in three days.
00:22:32.537 --> 00:22:35.142
I was like I'm going to be on TV tomorrow.
00:22:35.142 --> 00:22:43.734
She said, oh shit, okay, she was like my best friend, jay smiles.
00:22:43.734 --> 00:22:45.056
Please go to my best friend.
