Reflecting on Parenthood and Softness

From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh air Wekend. I'm Tona Mosley in Los Angeles. Today, Laverne Cox For over a decade, she's been one of the most visible trans women in America. and her new memoir transcendent She writes about growing up in Mobille, Alabama, and the bullying and harassment she faced as a feminine child who could not conform to what was expected of her. She writes about how she got through it, by in a way, leaving her body and going somewhere else in her mind A lot of the time, that place was music and dance. I just love pushing the grocery cart and then dancing with the grocery cart as if it was like a partner. Did you have headphones on? a walkmen? No, darling, the music was in my head and the groove is in the he. Also, we hear from comedian Ali Sadk He served six years in a Texas prison and turned his life into some of the most watched storytelling in comedy This is Fresh air Weekend. I'm Tona Moseley. And my guest today is Laverne Cox Chances are, you met her the way most of the world did as a transgender woman in prison. Doing hair and fighting for her right to gender affirming care in the Netflix series Orange is the New Black. Listen, dooc, I need my dosage given five years, eighty thousand dollars in my freedom For this I'm finally who I'm supposed to be. Do you understand Sry. I'd like to help you Unfortunately, you have elevated levels of AST and ALT, which could mean liver damage.est. That can mean anything We're gonna take you off your hormones entirely. until we can schedule an ultrasound, get a clean read But that could take months. I can offer you an antidepressant That's Laverne Cox as Sopfia Bersette in twenty fourteen. The role made her the first openly transgender person nominated for a primetime Emmy in an acting category and put her on the cover of Time magazine next to the words, The transgender tipping pointoint. for decade now. She's been one of the most visible trans women in America But the woman on that magazine cover was carrying things she'd never told anyone Not even her therapist She's written a new memoir titled Transcendent And it arrives at a moment when her right to simply exist is being debated in state houses across the country makes clear that for Cx, none of this is new. Long before she had the words for it, she was bullied for who she was. Her very existence, as she writes, was an affront to the order of things. And she's been fighting for the right to simply be her entire life The Verncockx Welcome to Fresh Air. It's such an honor to have you Thank you so much for having me. I have not heard It's rare that I just hear the clip from Orange and it's been so long and I Gosh, it brings back memories and it's really what's interesting is even out there. Often when I watch a scene that I've done, it's hard for me to have distance. I immediately am in the character again and I'm in the emotion. of the scene and and so and so I'm immediately like feeling what I was feeling When we shot this, this is twenty twelve that we shot it. So it was funny. I was just like Yeah, did you laugh? Why did it make you laugh? No, at the end I mean, the writing is so fantastic. mayaybe I can offer you an antidepressant was It's hilarious. Well, Orange is the newew bllack was revolutionary for the time. And your character I was very surprised to learn from the book. that you weren't a regular reoccurring character, you were a guest star. Yes. And I mean, that's really a contractual thing. So I was in, I think I don remember how many episodes I was in the first season, but I remember it was a day to day thing. I didn't have like a contract the first season. I was literally a day player, guest star, day player, but I it was kind of making day player rates. I wasn't making like guest star rates. The second season I was my salary was like a guest star rate and I had like I think a seven episode guarantine and it ended up using me for nine episodes. So I was there a lot and they wrote generously for me. I think because that my backstory episode came, it was the third episode of the show Oh Felt like you were a cast member Yeah I think people think because so much of the work that you have done feel so true to life that so much of that show might be your life. And I think it's part of what makes this book really eye opening because we're learning things about you that we didn't know I want to start with the beginning of your book. Okay because You're eight years old. You decide to start at a moment when you're eight years old. You are at a park near your family's apartment in Mobilee, Alabama. you're doing your kid thing and just playing out. And there are these boys that come up to you, the cararaway boys. And they begin teasing you. And then it gets violent Can I have you pick up the story from there during one of these teasing sessions, Why you talk like that onene of the Cway boys shobbed me I don't even remember which one They were interchangeably menacing figures This time I couldn't keep my balance and found myself falling hing the gravel of the playground scowled, annoyed at first But then looking up at them, I saw the switch flip in their eyes. I saw that flicker of threat The way their stances shifted into those of aggression that made the hairs on my arms stand on end They were disgusted by me I was no longer a friend up here someomeone to play with I was an easy target I was praying Their fist landed in unison on my face. My chest H You see this Look at this sissy, like a girl One of them sneered half laughing in gleeing as they punched me Their voices blended into one as they pelted me Earling every name they could think of and my instinct from his far back. as the days of daycare bullying took over Rolling me onto my side and into a ball The words rang in my ears. those from the past intermingling with those of the Caraway boys I'd heard these words before First, I had not known what they meant But now fter years a it I recognize them Words that meant I was different from the other kids. A girl. when I should have acted like a boy. Laverne, thank you for reading that passage. You go on to say that you curl up in a ball and it doesn't stop. They get energized. and finally, you're able to make it home And you get into your apartment and Your mom sees you And she doesn't say what happened to you She She immediately says, You let them beat you up like this What did you do to make them do this to you M Why did you want to start the book off with that particular story I don't know, it was that was my life. I mean, I think that was like The The physical violence of the other children that I that was persistent throughout my childhood and then Um, My mother finding out and instead of having an impulse to protect me or care for me or ask if I was okay She made it my fault. and It just in a way, it sort of epitomizes that kind of feeling of not feeling protected, not feeling safe It sort of encapsulates a lot of a lot of their childhood. I I'm, you know, reading that again. I have to say,'m It's still difficult to read. It's still difficult to You grew up inside of people's reactions to you. Yeah. An feminate child, a gender non conforming teenager a trans woman and everything that you You received, it was like race, gender, and class converging into one person. What really struck me from that very first story throughout the entire book is u The shame and hatred that people carried, they took it out on you and It even happened in your home Mhm Yes I'm just trying to gather my resilience and like I guess I'm like having And it so like there's like reading that I'm just like, I'm emotional. I'm angry. It's like it's hard to read that obviously I lived it, but it's hard to read about it again I guess and understand as an adult like I'm angry at the boys, I'm angry at my mother. I'm I want to protect That little child, I'm just so so angry and I think like, u, Yeah, I don't know if I I can be able to read excerpts from this book again. We'll see. I'm just I'm so pissed. I'm so angry and I'm so hurt and I'm so u What are the word what The anger comes from you having to experience it And it's it's, um There's also like the anger of All the kids that I've met. who are trans or queer, who are still experiencing this and anger of knowing that in states that have passed Anti trans laws that the bullying percentage of bullying is like skyrocket in those states. You hear a lot of stories great A a lot of stories but that's actually those are statistics, like those's the anecdotes, but those stats from the Trevor proroject They canid say manufacturered the consent to pass anti trans laws that would ban genderffirming care for kids. And all the minutes of trans girls in sports, all like two of them There's the rhetorical piece that happens in the media that is dehumanizing and stigmatizing trans people. and it creates a permission structure if like your you governor and your state legislators are doing, if your teachers and pundents on TV are doing it, then like of course, kids are emboldened to do it And that makes me so angry H And You know, I it's like the the sadness is like, you know, It's just the loneliness and I couldn't process it fully as a child I don't know. it just really sucked This was so It was torture to write this. And the reason I wrote it is to u to tell the truth. I I just don't think it's It makes me sense to write a book and like to clean stuff up and to like not be honest and not be Rob Our guest today is Laverne Cox. Her new memoir is called Transcendent more of our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Moseley, and this is Fresh Air weeekend I want to go back to your home and your mom and your decision to write all of this down because the majority of the book takes place in your childhood Tell me about Mobile, Alabama and that home that you grew up in. How would you describe it Mobile, it's interesting. I go back now and I find it quaint and way too hot in the summer bit like Azaleas, There's lots of beautiful things about it in all these antebellum homes still exists on like government street. There's something quaint about parts of it. And there's just a lot of trauma though literally on the streets, particularly in the neighborhood where my mom still lives, there's trauma on those streets for me. Is that a heart of town? What part of town is that? We would call it down the Bay, D the Bay. And it's where most of the black people in Mobile live. and yeah, and it's downtown, it's downtown Mobile, which I think is fantastic. but because Be in Full Square and like the Mardi Gras parades, Mardiig Gas started in Mobile in this country, not in New Orleans, as some people might think And so the Migw pates are happen downtown. and love I love it. And you grew up with your mother and your twin brother? And my twin brother, Yes Yeah, Mobile though when I was growing up there, I was just I just desperate I needed to get out It was awful. it felt impressive and I just knew I needed to the second I discovered there was New York, I knew I had to be there. And so most of my childhood, I was in moobile, but I was in my imagination, I was in New York or I was on a TV screen, or I was on a movie screen, or I was on a broadway stage Yeah, it's interesting the book is called transcendent and in a way It sounds like Disassociating was your way to transcend as a child. What were some of the ways that you would try to to transcend always had There was always music in my head, which was such a wonderful gift. And so I just The second I was walking, I was dancing and I was dancing, I danced everywhere and it just kind of like It just took me away. It took me away from like because because for me when I danced, it was the music, but then there was like a character. There was a person that I could play. So I was like in a character and then it would be a new setting. And so like all the times when we'd be at the supermarket in the grocery store, I just loveved pushing the grocery cart and then dancing with the grocery card as if it was like a partner. Did you have headphones on? A walkmen? No, darling, the music groove is in the heart. a walkman. this is like I mean, you know, I was five years old. It would have been nineteen seventy seven. Did Walks even exist? We couldn't afford one, if they did, the music was in my head and the groove was in the hard. And actually, in the supermarkets they would play music. And I remember loving TV show themes. I would learn the word' TV show themes and like sing along and dance to them. So there was always like a song and a rhythm in a character and movement. and it was It was so amazing that I got to do that I had that, that I could go there. And then when I discovered that you could study dance, like, I want to take dance classes, I want to take dance classes I five years old And u and I won't give away that moment from the book. It's a little humorous moment about that. But finally in third grade I got to start studying dance and not really Um that was The best thing ever for me this disassociation, this going to all of these different places. I mean, this would happen to you everywhere at home, at school, and There's a particular moment in school where You've got your little fan and you're in your classroom and Something happens that kind of stays with you for the rest of your life Yeah. That was certainly a moment And so we had gone to S flags on a turch trip and I had some spending money. bought a handheill fan at the gift shop at S Flags. and as the women in church would fan themselves in a scarlet o'Hara ban herself at Sing Galm at the Wind onn television, it seemed like it was always on in Alabama Go figure. And I was having a sccarlet O'Hare moment, fanning myself in beginning of the day in third grade and my third grade teacher, Mrs. Ridgeway says you there come here and bring that thing with you when she marches me down the hall to the fourth grade teacher. tells me to show her what I was doing with my fan. And so I proceed to fan myself the way I had in class and she tells me to stop and I wait and she had conferences with that teacher. and then she marches me down the hall the fifth grade teacher and tells me to do it again. and I was like, Well, maybe I didn't do it, know Maybe I didn't fully commit, so I committed more and really really dropped into Scarlet. And then later that day, my mother comes in and it and tells me She had gotten a call from the school from Ms. Ridgway and Ms. Ridgeway said that that I would end up in New Orleans wearing a dress if we didn't get me into therapy right away. I understand now is what some people would refer to as conversion therapy. I guess there's different kinds. but at the time after three sessions with a therapist. solution or the you know, the thing that they suggest what we do is inject me with testosterone and The idea was that that was supposed to make me more masculine and I would not There was a hormone issue. This would have been nineteen eighty yeah. In nineteen eighty eighty one. And they were how old I was eight, nine years old nowng and hadn't even started going through Pubertyate. So they were suggesting injecting an eight nine year old with testosterone whichich sounds insane to me. My mother, thank God, said no to that. And so it was I just felt relief that that didn't happen to me It's so fascinating to read about your early days in New York and It Sounds like you were pretty discerning about what scenes you were part of Because you didn't see yourself fitting into the drag queen world. You understood and appreciated what they did. And you understood what these other groups, like there were all these other groups and you were part of a club kid group. I was so there was a very like in the early nineties there was kind of there was the downtown kids, there were the uptown kids. like I was a downtown girl. I was East Village, Really East Village because the gender noncforming thing the androgynous thing that I was doing when I moved New York in nineteen ninety three fit better in the East Village By the time I made it to New York, I was wearing dresses, lots of vintage things.ember I had a black Lemet vintage dress that I would wear. and then I would incorporate dance wear so I could go out and dance and really my things. So a good chunky heel, platform heel and my head was shaved and I shaved my brows and drew them on. and a lot of people and I out Grace Jones because the look his look was very androgynous The drag scene I wasn't in, but I also like I had I had internalized transphobia and like for me there was because by this time by the time I made it to New York, I'd also read Belle Hooks. And so I had and I'd read other feminist writers who were very skeptical of drag and this performance of womanhood that was sort of seen as mockery by some feminist. And so I was sort of contending with that and trying to like navigate my newfound feminist politics with like my gender and not wanting to sort of like feed into some sort of retrograde idea of womanhood. So there was also that was introduced in college, but underneath all of that was like a deep, deep transphobia that I internalized. That read as discernment, but really it was It was a lot of it was like I was terrified of ending up in new ones wearing a dress dress. Becauseuse I think in my mind too, if I embraced the womanhood, the girlhood that I knew I was. and in my mind I thought that like On top of like you know all the stigma that you are a degenerate or something that I think I internalize about trans people, it's also that I didn't think I could be smart, even though I loved smart women. There was I think there was just something about I was never presented with images of drag performers or trans women on television, if I ever even saw trans women on television at the time, that were articulate and intellectual. And even as I entered the club scene, there were so many really, really smart performers who were just brilliant artists But I need it I need it time to like let all that stuff go. and I've seen it time Laverne Cox, it's been such a pleasure to meet you and thank you for this conversation Thank you. This has really been wonderful Laverne Cox's new memoir is called Transcendent. My next guest is Ali Sadik. He's a comedian. The word undersells it What he really does is tell stories, true ones from his own life, and he's told so many of them that while watching his specials I realize Sadik is giving us a memoir delivered one set at a time For instance, a few years back, he went viral with a story about surviving a prison riot Sedk served six years for cocaine trafficking. arrested four days after his nineteenth birthday. He started doing stand upp after he got out. and nearly thirty years later, he's got more than a dozen specials, most of them independent on YouTube with millions of views in his twenty twenty two series Domino effects He traces his life growing up in Houston, starting at ten The year he went to live with his father and first got into trouble all the way through the choices that landed him in prison This month, he has a new special called My Father It's about everything that passed between Sadik and his dad before his father died in twenty eighteen Premiereerss on YouTube, june twenty first ere's clip. My dad had a thing about He dress My dad always wore Taylor May's suit. This is when he was When he was on his note, when he was on his note, 'cause he it's not a lot of men can say how they felt about D pops. I really wanted to look like this man. He was tall, dark, jet black, had a lot of charisma about hisself. But he just wasn't an ideal Father. My dad asked me one time. I'm sitting at his house and my daddy said it Man, why you don't never say nothing bad about your mom on stage? Holli Sedk, welcome to Fresh air. Thank you for having me. Ven your timing is great. And I was thinking when I was watching this that there is really nothing like remembering something funny about somebody after they're gone. It's like the truest way, the most purest way to grieve them. But I was just wondering, Watching this, if your dad felt some kind of way about being in your act, what do you think he'd say about you doing this entire special about him He never actually felt any type of way being my act He just wanted to know when I was gonna say something negative about somebody else and not just him. you know, um, I I get a lot of views but it's definitely ten views, fifteen views that I missed because my dad would go to the library and he would me up on the computer and watch all of my stuff and he would call and tell me. I just seen something else. I watched it about fifteen, ten, fifteen times. So I'm always missing those ten or fifteen views that I know that I would get from him Your daddy, he left when you were three, but you'd see him every blue moon. but then around ten, he comes back into your life. You went to live with him And it seems like he was very much Do as I say, not as I do. When when did you first understand that contradiction. Oh man Probably the first year I lived with him Like my dad was my dad was Like I say, I don't think he was ready. I don't think he was ready to have his son with him. But yet he asked for you to live. He asked but I don't think he was ready. You know, people ask for a lot of things they're not ready for. And then like not a human though. I didn't think I didn't think a human was a part of that, but he definitely He definitely wasn't ready yet. You know, because he couldn't have been. Like when I look back at him, I'm like, Yo, b, there's no way that you was ready for me to come live with you becausecause you hadn't calmed down yet. you know just the story of him waking me up saying that he was getting ready to go to San Antonio And I'm teing, I gotta go to school tomorr. like, Yo, Bad, like was like, what do you think? what am I supposed to do Did you to go to San Antonio? He said say, do what you've been doing. Get yourself up, getet you ready to go to school. You know how to He Bra. That's not how this go, man I've never been in a house by myself before. to. Ali, Iie, is it true that, okay, you tell this story about him putting cocaine on a sore wisdom tooth. And I was wondering, is this true or is this just for lack? hundred percent true. one hundred percent true That's why I describe it so vividly. See, that's the thing about when I tell a story. I want people to understand I describe all the even little things so people understand that this is a true story because you can't It's hard to make up little things. You know, you can make up big things, but little intricate details about something like You know who was there James and Ivory And James was the one that saw me sitting on the steps. And he was like, what's up? Beuse my dad' name is Limberg And and he called me Le bird, L bird, what's going on And I said, I told about my two. And then my daddy call me over and seem me see And put that cocaine my on my tooth. I said, this man I didn't even know that's what it was. I just know it was the stuff that was in The cool whip tub that was in the refrigerator Wait, he kept the cocaine in a cool whip tub in the refrigerator. And yeah, the big cool whip thing, you know, how cool whips coming in that little container, that bigainer. Yeah And you re them. Yeah. and he put it in that's where the cocaine was at inside the refrigerator. And then as I thought about that earlier, like I told a story and I never even realized how super irresponsible he was I am ten. You don't think I like who whip The things that could have happened, you know? The things that could have happened, if I would have dipped because he always had strawberries. My dad loves strawberries. I always had strawberries in my house And I was like, yo, What I thought about if I would have just took one of those strawberries. put it in in that cool whip bowl thinking it was cool whip. becauseuse I still would have ate it even though I would have thought the cool whip was bad. I'm like, oh the cool it's fizzing out. And then I'm like, that's what it would have looked like to me. I said, is he was so, so irresponsible. It's crazy Okay, he dip he dips a little cocaine on that sore wisdom tooth What happened to you never had a problem that wasn't truth can Never even needed to have it taken out, huh neverever I probably still got that tooth in my mouth right now. It never had a proble I don't even remember getting my wisdom to taken out Might Luckily I never I don't have an addictive personality. I can just stop doing stuff. like hopefully that was it because my dad was insane And I had told that story. before before I ever before it ever aired on anything And I remember he was at the show when I did it Hm And he was like I can't leave you remember that We're listening to my conversation with comedian Ali Sadk. We'll hear more after a short break. This is fresh air weekend Let's go back to young Ali Sadk before the comedy. You are fourteen years old. You start selling drugs You like to joke on stage, you say I was a pharmaceutical sales rep. By the time though the Feds got you, you were nineteen, you were in college at Texas Southern University This is the ironic part You were actually planning to stop selling drugs when you were caught. How close were you to quitting? I had stopped actually. I was done. I was wrapped up And I got a phone call to someome help assist You know And I went out of me feeling obligated to, Okaykay, you know, I hold you back. But I was I was done. It had become Like man, what am I doing You know? Beause you started in the first place because you wanted money. You wanted to you want it your own money Yeah And I think I fight so hard now to explain that It was A character flaw It was like no Mhood a responsibility in that because I could have just worked for money You know, I could have just did something else. I could have it's so many things that I could have done versus being so destructive to a community. I remember being asked Ali, when do you think that you're going blow up And my honest answer was when I pay back there I got I this world something Because you sold drugs, like you ow you owe back because of that harm you did. That's interesting When I pay back society for for the destruction And I think that When you are a person that has really done things and you have really changed your life and you you think back on these things You can't help but to have a heavy heart. I remember I was in San Francisco. The homeless population is so crazy. And I'm at this comedy central festival, It's a comedy festival. and I'm walking from a hotel to the festival And I'm there for days and I keep trying to find different ways to get that not to run into Homeless people And I didn't walk five blocks down, ten blocks down, ten blocks this way. I walked every which way and couldn't. And I remember it was in the morning and I was on my way to ay and I just stopped in the streets. And I just started sobbing And I remember saying How much of this is my fault because I have been so destructive and reckless in my behavior. I just don't understand like, Obviously this is not the first generation. this is the generation that was affected by the first generation of what I did. You can't conceive the magnitude of destruction that you do when you sell drugs in a community You know, it ass people doing things that they would probably never do in order that's ruin their relationships, that what child didn't get fed because their mom or their father decided to do this and what what uncle or aunt stole something Like what did I do Did you and your dad ever talk about this because you know me He sold drugs and Then you went on to sell drugs. We never talked about it because D ended up using drugs. That was the lick that society took back. I remember a story that I told about some young guys on come on the block and they told me they had robbed these old guys And I looked at the stuff that they had and I made them put it in a bag Be I recognize the stuff And then I went and took my dad and his friend and stuff back And I said, manan, what a Well man, what were you doing over there And my dad blamed on his friends and my mom I'm over there with him. He got me robbed. And my mom, I told my mom about it later And my mom said she wass probably using Drugs and I said, No, he told me you he wasn't using on drugs. And that's what she told me,y' put your dad in rehab twice since we've been apart. And so I went back and told him, I said, Hey I thought you said you wouldn't use drugs. ma and he said, who told you that your mama, your mama violate my Ha rights. Look at this man is nuts. Like he's so even when he's doing something crazy, he's still funny. He's so crazy. So The um Unfortunately the Rom around while my dad, um is gone.' is an overdose And I don't believe that. I think that that's what people wanted to say, but I' not believe it either. The rumor that he died because of an overdose? Yeah Yeah where he had a heart attack And um, I know he hadn't been. ing? So if you hadn't been doing something and then you decide I'm going to do it one at time. You know, you don't know what your heart can take on that. So My dad just I had a heart attack out of nowhere You said it's a rumor, Do you believe that it might be true Um I'll leave it to not wanting to know if it is or is not I don't It don't it doesn't change the fact that he's gone. So how he went It gives me no closure only The oness still there so I rather live in, u O last days of You know, we played chess for about six hours against each other. We played chess so long that I stayed overnight day and then went right back over his house and we started playing chess again. My dad was a great chess player and I've never I've beat him twice in since I've learned. You know, six years old. he taught me at six. I beat him twice ever. So I'd rather stay in that lane of me and him play chess for hours on end versus if he overdosed tight Ali, thank you for sharing this and And that guilt you feel about selling drugs that you carry that because I feel like I I I kind of feel like I feel it. when I watch you, especially in This um This documentary really that you did called Ali Sadik from inside. It's this real conversation filmed inside of Texas County jail and I actually want to play a clip of it because It is not a comedy special. it's you in a room with inmates and you are standing in front of them Lal into them telling them stories for almost two hours straight about your experience being locked up And in this clip you're talking about the psychological effects of being locked up, which included you remembering your inmate number, which you call a spin number. Let's listen As the old heads that been here before As them do they remember they were original Th number. This that haunts me I've been out for twenty five years, almost twenty six years. sixty seven, ninety three, forty six Can't forget this number It's ingrained in my head likeike my social security number. It's my slavery number sixty seven, nine three forty six. That's my guest, Ali Sadig and his YouTube special from Inide, a conversation with inmates. And what goes on to happen A you rattle off your number, the guys start blurting out their numbers too. What does it signify that you can remember yourour spin number thirty years after you are out of prison that you did not get out of the situation unscathed You may have survived it. that you still have wounds I've been out twenty nine years at this point Even if I'm at home by myself, I'm gonna lock the bedroom door I still know this number So It's still things that you may survive, but you don't get out unscathed You're gonna lose some skin in this game And I think that these psychological wounds or different than my physical wounds. My physical wounds start to fade Why haven't these wounds faded yet I read that you know, as you're doing your time, that's when you started to think when I get out of here, I could probably have my hand in comedy. And I was wondering where they Were there people that you were also like watching or studying or thinking about as you were thinking about what type of comic you want it to be? Not at all When I when I saw doing stand upp, I actually didn't even know. to even start. It's like When I think about this journey I literally started from a place of zero. Like I had zero information on how to become a comic zero information on where to go. Zero I was at scratch And so when I think about Like, I'm I don't ever not feel successful because I'm like, yo, I did what I said I was going to do when I got out. I was going to become a comic, not knowing how to do it. I want to talk to you briefly about Parenthood. about you being a father. You're telling me earlier that You just want to not make the same mistakes that your dad made with your children And I mean, you joke about this a lot, but your kids are getting a very different father than you got, which I actually want to play a clip from your latest special where you talk about Taking your son, Hassan to a concert to the elements, earth wind and fire when he's eleven. Let's listen I know that I am. A better father than my father ones And I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to be just by my son's first concert in my first concert with my father My son hason. She's eleven his first concert was Earth win and fire And he asked to go He askedo my son came in to me and said, Father 'causeuse he's very upperross He said, I would like to attend a concert I said, Hasan What concert would you like to attend He said, I would like to go see The elements And I teaered up, I teared up My son want to go see the elements. And I said, wait, Who are the elements Hassan Is it some little white internet group that you've been listening to H son said, No father They're formmerly known as Earth wind and fire I immediately ran and got them tickets. I wanted to get them tickets my son me and my son going to see Earth Wire. He is eleven He's eleven years old. We went to his first concert Me and him, we go. We get to the concert. Hassan is the youngest person in this whole entire concert. And I know that for facts because I am the second youngest person That was my guest today in his latest special, My father. and Alie, that whole special. You marveling at your bougie kid, you know. You have built a soft life for him on purpose. wonder this because I mean, as a parent who also grew up a certain way, do you ever look at your son and worry that the thing that made you some of the positive things, you know, not all that challenging stuff you went through, but like positive stuff Um might also be the thing like you're keeping from him too. No that ft the softness of his life now, I hope that he continues to desire that. and you know, he goes through his own certain struggles, you know, because it's a certain struggle that happens in softness as well. but you know, whether he want oysters or crab, you know, it's dilemma for him. So he he got to, you know, you know, choices, choices. But yeah, he I love how he's living. I love the way that he lives. I applaud him and I just hope that, you know He comes out on the other side and always is like this and loves being a kid and then gives his children the opportunity to be a kid and always have a softness for me. I need somebody to roll me around when I get old. so hopefull hopefully he's there, you know, taking me to go eat oysters and, you know, asking me, do I want to go to a Bonie James concert or something, you know, I just love him. I just love the softness of his life Ali Sadk, it has been such a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much for this special and your time pleasure is all mine. I thank you very, very much Ali Sadk's new special is called My Father Yeah He! Fresh A Year Weekend is produced by T Thesa Madden. Fresh Aar's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrok, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krinzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Challiner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Baumman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper, with Terry Gross on Tony Mosley.