DAPHNIQUE SPRINGS - Punchline Pasta

Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke. I'm your host, Coleen Witt, and today we have very special guest, comedian Daphnique Springs is in the building.

Hey, what's up. I'm happy to be here.

Yes, I'm happy to have you cooking for me. Of course, what are you going to be having us eat today?

Today we are gonna eat chicken top Roman noodles mixed with boiled eggs.

Boiled eggs.

Yeah, cut it in half, you drop it in the water.

With it boiled, so there's cooked.

We put the boiled egg in here.

Oh okay, Yeah, I've seen different ramen with eggs. I don't know if I've seen it with the fully cooked egg in it. So yay for you for giving it something different. I was telling your publicists, like, you know, can she come with something different? But while you go ahead and start cooking the noodles and eggs or do you? Or I guess you could put the eggs in hun.

Now, yeah, I can put the eggs in first. You gotta take them eggs, just drop them in there.

Just make sure that water ain't too hot? Now is it hot? Is it warm? Ah?

Not a water cool? Is hell, why want to crak that bad boy up a little bit?

So take me back to what was going on in the era of ramen and egg.

Rawmen and egg started off, or when I was in college. I went to Eastern Michigan University, Okay, and you know back in the day, you just bad a budgeting money. Yeah, and then also rawmen noodles was popular. Just it was like the era of Roman noodles for us, you think.

So, I feel like everyone at some point has the era. When you go through the phase of ramen noodles, you've come up with every hack on how to make it creatively your own ramen noodle.

Right, Yeah, And I feel like back when I was eating it in college that was two thousand and five to two thousand and eight, I was eating ramen noodles. It was it was it was a trendy. It was trendy. Everybody was eating ramen noodles. We didn't care about nutritional facts. See all of that vegan stuff and that's new stuff.

Yeah, people don't.

Understand that being vegan and vegetarian. You heard of people that did it. But back in the day, if somebody was vegan, you was like, oh, they just gay.

Oh, I'm just.

Joking, but but it just wasn't popular.

So now back in the day, people just ate ramen noodles and stuff like that. And it was just like the thing you went to when you were in college, boy, because what happened is that you would get your college card and on that card, once you run up that money, you had to learn how to survive past that. Because when you first get your money, you going, you eating that pizza, You going to Buffalo Wild Wings, you getting, oh, you want some wings?

I get get fifty wings on my car.

And then it comes three four months later you realize you swiped that card and it's like decline, You like, let me go on over to the store and get some raw men nodles exactly.

I still I hate to admit this, but I make jokes with my girlfriends. I'm like, you catch me at the top of the month, I'm breaded up. By the end of the month, I don't know. We can't do nothing yet, go nowhere. By the end that count was solo. But did you know when you were in college that you were gonna do comedy? Like? What were you in college for?

I went to college college for a chemistry degree and chemistry.

Yeah, chemistry, yep, that's a farm.

I'm good at math and science. Those are my my things that I'm good at. So you know, I'm more left brain, business savvy and stuff like that. So I went to college for chemistry and then I dropped out ten credits short of a chemistry degree, and I worked at a pharmaceutical company internship, and then I didn't like it. So I was like, let me go ahead and move to LA and become actress.

Now you come from two parent household, single parent, can you give me a little backrou.

So my parents were teenage parents.

My mother got pregnant at sixteen, had me a week after her seventeen birthday. My dad was nineteen, and I was like, well, that don't make it. My mom was like, I was like, that sound a little statutory rape. And she's like, don't talk about your daddy like that. She was like, back in the day, it was something called the Romeo and Juliet law.

So long as they will. She had three years, she had three years. Okay, you no, she still got his last name.

They've been divorced over twenty years, but they're still tight.

Yeah, they still cool. We all went on vacation to Columbia last year. My mom still has the last name. She said she just liked it better. It had a better rein to it. Springs. And so my parents were, you know, together for some years, and I think when I was probably like three, they got married, stay married for about three years, maybe four, and then they divorced and I stayed with my dad for a while for some years, and then I went to go live with

I don't like.

I don't like when they started when you the more kids you have, the more you have the budget.

When when my daddy was like, it's time to budget.

We can't eat steak no more at home, I was like, I think I go live with my mama, could.

Go back to living the regular life that I like to live.

So from like three or four, you lived with him till like seven.

No, No, my parents were married and then once they divorced, I live with my father.

So did you run from seven?

Actually? Consciously say, hey, Mom, I'm gonna go with daddy.

No.

My mom said that she was like she was trying to find settle herself and work and stuff like that, and she said she didn't want to leave me with anybody, and my dad was responsible enough to keep me, you know, because my dad was there to take me to school, to pick me up from school. We went fishing every day, so deep fishing, so we were fishing there.

We have such a really good background that I don't think if we were just standing on the outside, we would never know, like chemis street fishing.

Yeah, I was on the golf team in high school. A lot of people would never know these things about me. But yeah, I came from a family of love too. I didn't realize that until I became an adult and realized being around other people. Is that a lot of people, not a lot of people, but some people are raised up on survival. And when you raised up with parents that love you and always there with you and stuff like that and spend time with you, Like me and my mom used to go to piston games.

You know.

We were always going to taste festival and festivals and stuff like that. Like my mom said, anybody that her friends knew. If I couldn't come along, she wasn't going. So yeah, my mom didn't work, no two or three jobs. She had one job back in the day, and she spent time with me when she was, you know, in between works.

She worked while I was like in school. Basically, so, yeah.

Okay, I like to hear that. Yeah, so you go to school, you decide to leave school and trek it to la. How do your parents receive the news of you saying no to chemistry and science and math.

Well, my dad is a chemist, so he was just like, he said, you you only live once, he said, basically said, you know, college will never go anywhere. He said, It'll still be there. Said, if you go out there for a year or two and don't like it, I'll still be here. You can always come back, he said. But what happens if you stay here end up meeting somebody having kids, and you just getting farther and farther away

And I'm sure that made your parents feel a lot more better about you.

Yeah, because I wasn't here by myself. My mother said she was glad I wasn't by myself. So being in I'm going back to her home, you know, California, I'm not by myself. So I don't know if I could have moved to California just by myself.

Well, you were still how old were you that night?

Twenty When I moved here, I was twenty one and I moved with ten thousand dollars?

Wow?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was working at the casino in Englewood.

No, I was working at the casino in Florida in Coconut Creek, and it was a casino there, and this older Jewish guy used to come in there and he would give me five hundred dollars for a cup of coffee. Oh, just to talk to him for a few minutes, just regular conversation. It was a lot of regulars in there that were wealthy people, and they would they had certain girls that they liked and just wanted the company, you know.

Wow.

And then I was just like I had a little extra other money.

Somebody here, you were already good with money. You make this move and you decide you want to get into you said acting.

Or I wanted to move here to get into the industry. Okay, you know how you just don't know. I was like, let me go out there and just see whatever I get drawn into. And ten months later I got drawn into stand.

Up within ten months yeah, and ten October. Yeah, so you could drop the ram and if you want.

So, Am I making enough for two or just one? No?

Two?

You're feeding both of us, Okay, But luckily I ate before we started taping, so I'm not gonna be as hard pressed. I'm really excited to hear your story. Oh you're gonna drop that packet in there.

Oh yeah, you.

Forgot about the pack I didn't forget about the See, that's why we need you here.

So here, I'll take that. Everyone can hit a crunching on theh.

And you see how see how people like I'm not touching the actual roman because some of y'all don't be.

Washing y'all hands. Oh yeah, y'all here just touching stuff.

That's why we keep the sanitizer on the on the sea.

Wonder why everybody got a colim h.

So you're out here? What springs the ten month? Oh my gosh, I have an epiphany. This is what I want to do. What happens?

So it was my ex boyfriend.

So my boyfriend in college was like, hey, I have a friend out there, LeVar. He said, why don't you connect with him? Is somebody else we knew in college but they were a little bit older than me.

So I hit up LeVar.

LeVar was a school teacher out here, and I would hang out with LeVar and LeVar had a friend, and it wasn't all the time, but it was just somebody I.

Could hang out with.

Have a friend out here, buddy, you know, very safe, not trying to hit on me or try to you know whatever, just that he's looking out for his friend's friend, right because that's my ex boyfriend, but looking out for me. So he had a friend that came over there, this guy named Elijah that was from Detroit as well, or probably Ohio one of those states. I'm not for sure, because when you go to college in Michigan, it could

Acting.

When you first started comedy, you do a lot of breaker shows. That's where you have to bring ten ten people to get stage time. So I was like, yeah, that's for me. That looked good, you know. I said, can I go up? He said yeah, if you can bring some people here, you go up. I said, all right, and I gathered my My grandmother used to come to all my shows. She's eighty now, so that had to be she had to be like in her sixties.

She would come with her little my girlma got to shake.

So yeah, she come with her wig child and she'll sit in the front row get roasted. And but she she was as long as I pay for a little two drank minimums. She give her a little two SIPs of drinks and she'll be fine, and she would come to the shows. That was one person down, so I had to get other people, you know. But you know, I just started from there and I did comedy for maybe like a year and a half, and then after that I quit for I think about two years, maybe.

Two to three years. Why did you quit because it was tough.

I think, especially like being a female comic, when you first get started, it can be a little rough in the man's world, and then you're kind of dealing with low tier comedians when you first get started, like people who have no common courtesy and respect, think they can say whatever the people or joke any type of way. I think that as you go up in the game, you develop a little more hopefully professionalism.

You see what I'm saying.

Yeah, so now you're spending times in the bars, the bars, the bars, the bars, that's where you're gonna do stand up at when you first get started. Then you develop to the clubs. With the clubs, the clubs have certain type of people get etiquette, people get a little more a little more professional. People can still be unprofessional at every level. But the more you move up, hopefully the more professionalism, and I think the funnier you get, the more you get with.

People just respect.

Yeah, yeah, did you have to deal with, like, I know, different aspects of the industry women have to deal with, like guys constantly trying to get with them and all that. Did you have to deal with a lot of that?

Yeah? I deal with a little bit of it, but you know, I can.

I had a boyfriend ex boyfriend, like he'll fight anybody. But you know, but you also don't want to be known as a person that's going around starting ship. But it's just some people that could be really on some bullshit. It's a lot of lower back touching, long creepy hugs. It's like, yo, chill out, brot high.

Yeah, come up from it.

Don't do that from a distance.

I think you guys were messing around just from the distance, and people don't understand how things look in.

The distance, right.

It even feels sometimes inappropriate while you in the in the moment, but even from the distance, it looks like people are putting claims on you.

And I didn't like that.

No, I wouldn't like that. We may have to check on the ramen before it becomes mashed potato.

Sound like you cook?

I do cook. I'm like, yo, that ramen is definitely gonna be muss. You may want to turn it off, you.

Know what, I'm gonna turn it down because it's still you know, you got to change it up.

I think how often do you cook?

Probably like three four times a year.

I thought you were gonna say, a week, how are you eating?

I'm on the road, I'm out, I'm eating out.

But that's it's nowadays. It's a lot.

Yeah, but it's to the point people know me from restaurants and know my order already.

Like you'll pull up, you'll be like, it's dam neat and they got your order done in twenty minute.

To see you.

That's what they say, so you want to it's bad when they be like, you don't even have to say your order. Because I'm the habit of creature, a creature. I eat the same thing all the time, so I ain't changing up too much. So when I like to eat good this week so far, I've ate eating at Boa.

BoA's expensive three.

Hundred dollars I spent there and then last night I was at Kazana, so I like to eat out. People say what your little vices is? You may not see it on me, but because it's in my stomach.

You're hilarious. My only vice is expensive cars, oh for real? But how I literally know? I just switch up like every two or three years. I'm not one of those people that own multiple cars at one time, but you know, if my bank account grows up, don't ever think I won't be that girl that has the Lamborghini yours and you know, escalate or something. I have to have an expensive one car. It's just my cars. I can't do

See.

I like to be like, okay, what can I afford here? Okay, I can afford that, go down the level?

No see, And I always do the top of the model. Like when I got my new car, I called them and I said, where's the massagers in this? In the the car seat had massages and the massagers weren't massaging. And the guys were like, well, when you ordered it, it didn't have it on the order, And I said, bullshit. This is the top model. And I was like, is there a topper model than this? And they're like no, and I was like, so then the massagers go in

I just have to have seat warmers.

Yeah, no, I also have to have the steering reel warmer. I also have to have the little alert on the mirrors, the little you know, blind side alert.

Do you like the thing where they put the speed of the car in the windshield?

I don't.

I hate it.

I don't like that.

Even if it is on my car, I would take it off.

Yeah, I don't like that. I also don't like the lane control. I don't like that. I always turn that off. Some features are too much.

Even though you could turn that off, you can.

Yes, sometimes I've almost got an accident because I don't hate well in case progressive it's watching. It's always used by signal, but if you don't use your signal for the people out there who don't use their signal that I've driven in the car with that was the passenger. Yeah, I don't like how the car would jerk you back into your lane. I've already made a decision. Bro, we ride, you don't drive me.

I drive you.

No, you could definitely tout it off. Anytime I feel my car do that, I'm like, I'm someone must have hit it. But yeah, I turn that. That is an ultimate get off my car thing.

In New York, people ran into the back of my car a total of four times.

No, they just riding. They always trying.

To get too close to you. Okay, my twin, I don't know. My twin has like, yes, I have a fraternal oh yeah, so, but my twin in the last year has gotten in quite a couple of accidents, and I'm starting to.

Think I accident.

Yeah, I get it because she's never the causer. But I'm like, girl, like, what's going on? Like do they need to put like, you know, orange caution around your car? I don't understand how sound I definitely, I just don't get it. So anyways, going back to what made you actually take the step back, Uh, just.

Just it was somebody I was a manager I wanted to sign when he was like, well, have you ever thought about stand up? Because I swear back in the day, when you were an actor and people would see you, they'd be like, well, do you know, stand up seems like a faster track into acting. And so I tried that and I got ended up getting back into it and just just building some thicker skin.

And were you working jobs while you were doing comedy?

I would say.

When I first moved here, I immediately joined sag After within the first month.

And then I was.

Well, I thought you have to earn it.

You know, back in the day you could just buy your way into After.

Oh okay, So I immediately joined after within the first month. So I would do background on sets. And when you were background on the set, if you were after, you made a minimum of twenty dollars an hour.

So I would do that.

And it's like when I first within the first year I came out here, I had built myself up by the end of the year to like, you know, four or five thousand a months just in background working. Because back in the day, you know, years before the pandemic, you would be on set for twelve hours, maybe sixteen hours, and once it was over eight hours, it went into

I don't know if you remember that show.

First.

Yeah, I loved House.

Shoutouts.

House was so good that show, Yeah, okay, And the guy asked me the ad was like, hey, are you are you SAG?

I said no.

He said I'll bring you back every day until you are, and he gave me three vouchers and then I joined SAG because I had the money, and so yeah, I would just always earn money back and forth. With that, and that was for maybe like the first I would say, three and a half years.

And then you're also doing you after you get through the sag after and you get fired from is it House Central Casting? Central?

Oh?

Central Casting?

And yet you know that that's the mecca out in Los Angeles.

A baby can fire you.

Yeah, I thought it was submits you for jobs, so they can just tell you they're no longer submitted.

But I believe Tiffany Haatis got fired from there, too, didn't she.

I don't know.

So I was like, it could be a good thing that they fire in certain people. They fire Brad Pitt too, if I'm not mistaken.

If that's the case.

Stars that they got rid of, and it's just like, yeah.

Well that's good. So you get let go and you see it as a blessing in disguise, Yeah, of course, and then what's your next move?

Next move is say, you know what, I'm going to Vegas work the casinos during the summer, come back, and now I have money to actually I started back doing stand up, so now I have money to actually be able to submit to like colleges and stuff. Because when you do colleges, you go there and you perform in front of the students, but you have to pay you how to get your flight, your hotel, and then it's like a little small fee or whatever to actually showcase.

I didn't I thought the colleges paid, you pay the college.

No, the colleges pay you once you get the gig. But they have showcases. It's called you know, I can't remember what it's called, Naka Naka.

That's what you do, the showcase and then the pick and then they start.

So it's a feat to do the showcase, and then colleges from all over are there, depending on the region. So if you make it into Naka Naka Midwest, then all the Midwest colleges will be there and you perform in front of the showcase and then the college you booked you. So then I started doing that and then twenty fourteen I called my mom.

She said, what you got going on? I said, you know, I don't know. She was like, do you have a plan B. I said no, I don't have no plan B. This's it.

This gotta work. We all in I like. She said, okay, well you got to be more aggressive.

Yeah yeah, I said.

Yeah, she said, she said, I know you you timid. You not talking to people, you're not networking whatever. So I'm at the laugh Factory Ian Wass Cat Williams. Oh good, yeah. And so he was up he was upstairs, and it's this guy who was on the road with him, Big Wheezy.

Big Wheezy is probably six hundred pounds.

Oh big, he's big.

He got the stairs and it was like no way to get around him. But I found this tiniest spot and squeezed around him because he always make jokes of this story because his big ass walking upstairs, taking up the whole steps in the back of the Laugh Factory, going up the steps, there wasn't no two people. Two people could normally go up and down there. Not with Big Wheezy.

It's just him.

So he going up the steps and I find a little spot, squeeze in front of him, run over the cass, like hey can I can I get some shows on the road with you? He said, are you funny? I said, I said, yeah, yeah, I am lying.

I was lying.

You didn't think you were funny at the time. I was okay, okay, yeah, But that's what anybody would say, was okay, I would have money to get booted said, can I get some shows with you?

He said yeah, he said yes, Big Wheezy, give him your number. I said, okay, so I gave Big Weezy. I yeah, his voice a little bit.

Okay, So you gave him the number. And did they follow up?

Big Wheezy follow up? Because Big Weezy had knew me.

Big Wheezy is a really great person, a really great person, and so he followed up, and you know, he said, hey, you come around, we're doing this. And then I got tour days with him?

Right? And did you have to audition for him or did he see you to days or he went based on your word?

Oh, I got to give you a chance like that, just based on.

Just okay, I like that.

If you think you if you think you funny, I give you a shot.

Okay, Well I'm glad you and to that question the way you did. Yeah, yeah, I'm funny.

Of course.

Stay confident, Yeah, stay confident. So you do the show dates, How does it go?

They went really good, you know, and I was able to do quite a bit of shows or whatever. So yeah, so that was cool, and then you know, went back to the colleges and then right after that, I ended up winning ABFF. What's that American Black Film Festival used to do a comedy winnings competition and you win five thousand dollars and get a showcase with HBO.

Okay and you won it.

I won.

Okay, yep, Okay, that's a big deal, big deal. Okay. Mom is definitely proud. She like, okay, I'm on my way up. Okay. Now do you think that mom conversation is what made you push to the cat Williams?

Yeah, because you see people around all the time. But I've never been the type.

You know.

I went and saw it's the casting director headed casting at BT plus, Robbie reed. She does this thing with Devin Franklin and I went recently and he said something that really stuck with me. He said, most of us are sitting on yess, but we're too afraid to ask. I agree, And I'm one of those type of people. I don't ask people for help. If you offer me help,

I don't do that. But I know people that do that and their career be moving.

Yeah.

So because I'm not like that, It's just like, am I missing out on certain things because I don't ask such and such can I get on this show? I just truly work off of just being talented enough to where people see me.

And then think of it.

Yeah.

Yeah. My dad growing up, he used to always do this thing. He used to get on my nerves as a kid. He'd always be like, if like, say we want a candy or something, We'd be like, oh, we want to ask you something, be like ask you never know if I'm gonna say no, then we'd always ask it. Of course he'd always say no and be like, man, this is stupid. But as I got older, I started to say, like, I never take no from people that don't have the ability to say yes. That's like something

Yeah.

But so you know, I just did that, and you just constantly just keep going, keep going. How I just success out here because people, you know, the haters in the comments be like, you ain't this, you ain't that, But I just success? Is am I doing better this year than I did last year? Did I accomplish more goals and more things this year that I set forth than I did last year? And if I'm doing that, then I'm doing good.

So you do like a comparison to your previous year.

I write down, like I like to write down all my goals for the year, and then I like to write down at the top of the your also write down all the things I achieved for the previous year. I like that because that teaches you just to be grateful. Sometimes when we in it, it feel like you're going stagnant. But you ever had somebody be like, yo, your podcast killing it?

But then you be like, yo, it don't feel that way.

It don't feel like that way in the moment, like it's like shut up, are you?

Are you? Are you trying to play with me because I'm talking to be like no.

I used to work with Nick Cannon, and he used to always tell me, like, take time to take it all in, Like you're running, you're running, but you're not taking time to take it in.

We living for the future to pass.

Most of us are not. We're not. And it got to a point where I would get so depressed over like, oh, I fucked up here or I messed up here, and my dad would say, like, Okay, that's it. You're gonna start having to hang this stuff on your walls, like you gotta go. This is what you call hang that ship on the wall. And I started putting up like posters in my house. And now I have, like I call it the hall of fame of just shit that I accomplished, and I put on the walls grants and

Okay, we got we got better goals.

But the truth of the matter is I like that because I do goal boards every year, but I've never thought about putting the stuff that I previously accomplished. I like taking a picture and go, damn, okay, that was on the list. I didn't realize that, you.

Know, But but I think, don't even realize that you accomplished so much.

Yeah, you really don't, especially if you're a go getter and you're consistently moving that goal post. That's a great way to do it. So after you've accomplished like winning the festival festal, now you're doing these tour dates. You do the Cat Williams thing, what's the next play?

The next play was okay, so years ago, this had to be two thousand and twelve, And.

I want everybody to pay attention to how much time and consistency his story is taking twenty twelve.

I used to And you know what I love about this city is you can meet some time hearted people that will make you feel comfortable.

I love people who don't chase you away from your dreams.

And I say that because you could be in situations that make you not feel good, and it can kind of deter you from achieving your goals because you revert to this depressed person or this hermit or whatever, and it pushes you farther away from your dreams. But shout out to all the people out there that make you feel comfortable, that may uplift you, that don't try to be sexual with you or anything like that just make you just really.

Allow you to exist. It was this guy.

His name is Billy Williams. He used to be on The Martin Show. He's really good friends with Martin Lawrence. Billy Williams. Okay, okay, so yeah, so he so one night, me and we used to always go. I used to go meet him outside of his apartment. You know, never went in. Always just meet him outside pick him up. We would go hiking and we would just talk talk talk. So one night he was like, hey, meet me, meet me, Come pick me up. He said, he said, not come pick me up. He said, meet me at Red Lobster.

I stopped by. It's him, a girl and Martin Lawrence. He introduces me.

He didn't tell you that that was coming up.

Tall introduced me to Martin Lawrence.

Fast forward a few years later, Martin Lawrence allowed me to feature all of his shows at the Comedy Store.

And then starting in July, be on tour with him on twelve cities.

Yeah, it's amazing how everything starts to work and full circle of moments and stuff that you experienced in the past and then it comes.

To fuition in the future. You see what I'm saying. So you just never know.

That's another reason why I like to just stay out of stuff and drama and stuff, because you just never know where things will end up and how people try to treat people good, you know, yeah, but I will get with your.

Ass if I have to.

You're hilarious because you know some of.

These people will try you out here.

So how so you're now going on the tour with Martin Lawrence. I literally just saw that. Yeah, yeah, I was like wait, wait what of course, my head was like, oh, we gotta get Yeah, he's headlined, and I saw that was a lot of good names on it is DC Young Fly, Chico Bean. There's a bunch of people, Yeah, Dion Cole, Dion Cole, and you are awesome, Benji Brown.

Yeah, we're from Florida.

Yeah, so you're gonna be on all the twelve dates.

I'm gonna be on twelve days. But it's a lot of.

Dates, Okay, yeah, awesome and your special? Are we getting inching closer to your special now?

Yes? So that we got to just go back a little bit.

So so in two thousand and twenty twenty one, I remember, I believe it might have been twenty twenty one.

Like yeah, after COVID, right right on the ending of COVID, Yeah, COVID. Okay, Okay, so you know Houston never closed. I didn't know, so, yeah, they never closed.

So I was talking to.

Keith no to Dave Chappelle one night, this rapper Trade of Truth had had a comedy night at the House of Blues in Houston. He's a rapper, he does a celebrity weekend whatever.

So were you out there for that.

Yeah.

He flies us out and everything and take care of us and we experienced the whole weekend people that he like, and we perform on Sunday. He had Dave Chappelle as well. Dave Chappelle was talking to me, just like me and you talking. He was like, hey, every comic. He didn't touch me.

He was like, every comic should live in New York for at least two years. So I kind of took that to heart. I was like, well, shit, you know, it's the pandemic.

I don't feel like nothing really popping in LA and all the auditions is self tape now you no longer have to be here to audition.

Yeah.

I just had an audition today and it was just self tape, and it's here, it's gonna shoot in LA. So everything's self taped now, so you could basically live anywhere else.

Oh I don't know that.

Yeah, so you know, only commercial auditions are still doing some some of them are still in person. So so I was like, all right, cool, I thought about it. So I hit Keith Robinson. I said, hey, man, what do you think about me move? He's like, I think you'll do good at out here, he said. I said, I'm gonna come visit first. So I went out there in September. He got me an audition at the Comedy Seller and st passed me.

Wow on the first one, on the first audition. Yeah, that's a that's a big feat for New York. Yes, because I'm familiar with the New York landscape and the Seller is one of the harder Yeah, like literally the hardest club. Like I know Eagles in that circuit, Eagle past every single club. The Seller was the last one.

It was my first.

Yeah, that's a huge accomplishment. Okay, So so he.

Got me the audition, st passed me in September. I moved out there in November. Oh shoot, yeah, something happened. I got a booking in with some good money. So I was supposed to move November, be in my apartment in November first, but I kind of ended up moving towards like the middle or the end of November twenty twenty one, and then I stayed out there for two years, and then I moved back here in January Los Angeles January twenty twenty four.

And you weren't just doing the October, No, you were doing it all the different.

The Seller, the Stand, and New York Comedy Club with my three main clubs, which you were doing really good.

Yeah, I did.

I was lucky enough to be able to work those top clubs like that.

And I also like this consistency is very, very prevalent in your whole story. It's like you heard Chappelle say, hey, you need to do two years you didn't play. You were like, oh, you need to do two years there.

I was like, boom, the industry already set up for me to do two years there. So that that works because if I had to audition all the time, I don't know if I would have just if the pandemic didn't happen, I would have just moved out there and then you just go dead for like two years of auditioning and stuff.

But you know, I was like, all right, boom, everything's a lining.

But now, but this is the end of COVID Because New York was like Darth Vader during I remember.

Cold in November, but they still were having shown. But this is twenty one or twenty two, well twenty one November twenty twenty.

One, okay, okay, so you're out there basically, you know, a year and a half outside of the actual first shutdown, which this March twenty twenty, so it was still a little like inching, but come twenty twenty two it started boom.

Twenty twenty three, it was no and then I left January twenty.

So much respect to you for how serious you're taking this, yeah dream like I mean, well it's not a dream because it's happening. But I'm saying, like, I love how driven you are in this whole story. You're yeah, like you have to be made like there's no distractions, there's no I see nothing but focus.

Thank you.

It's really really beautiful.

And so October thirtieth, my mother said that was her birthday gift to me to shoot her special, and I'm like, shut up, no one, but yeah, October thirtieth, twenty twenty three, I shot my special at the.

Sellar. Yeah, and I love it because the seller is just so willing to help. Shout out to Liz.

You know, she came in.

I just had say, hey, Les, can I shoot my special? Hair?

Seeing a couple other people had shot their specials there, and you know, I talked to them. They gave me options for a camera crew. She gave me options. She said, it's totally up to you who you want to choose. She said, we are here to help there, to help the comic. And I shot my special there and I shot my special A left child.

What did you say?

I shot my special and left?

Oh for real?

Yeah, move back?

Well, you know what I wanted to know. Why did you feel it was so important for you to shoot the special at the cellar?

I felt like it was just a great venue. And also like to watch the trajectory of people around me. That's what I look at.

What do you mean by that?

Just I can map out sometimes off of IMDb, off a social media post, I can map people's trajectory, so like where their career kind of started to start to get like a little leg up, and then where it went fast.

Like the tipping point. Like you can you can see the tipping point.

You can see the growth.

You can see like the beginning stages when they were still looking raggedy, and then they went up and they was able to get a.

Nice pair of shoes and one good suit.

And then you started to see that their videos started to go viral here and then they put they shot the special here.

So I'll watch other people how they move, you know.

I like that. Yeah, you have to.

You have to be aware of everybody that is around you, because I didn't know about entering comedy festivals until I saw other comedians in comedy festivals posting their stuff like, hey, y'all, I'm in this comedy festival posting it up. I got accepted in on their uh Instagram, so I would write down the comedy festival. I'll go to the website research it, look at the date that they were taking submissions.

Be ready for the next year.

I love it.

Yeah, I'm watching everything.

You do well since you watched, and I'm about to learn how we take what is this a hard boiled egg?

Yeah, you don't have no salt though.

It's in the back. It's like you might not.

Season your food.

It's in the back. If you go in the back. You know, when you walked in, you were all nice, Oh, look how nice it is in that back kitchen.

This egg might be deformed. What happened to the front half of it?

I don't know.

You done gave me all eggs.

I don't know. I don't know.

If I.

I don't know, I never do that, or maybe you boil it the.

Way it could be because it was it was only a small pot and it wasn't fully emerging water, so the yolk kind of went to one side.

Yeah, so we do we need salt because I could call cup but I feel like ramen is already salty. Did you put all those seasoning packets in it? Just too Yeah? Yeah, nah, that's salty. That's salty. I don't season my food. So when I go in your house, if I were to go in your fridge right now, you.

Ain't gonna see no season So I don't even know why I'm over.

You're talking, but I'm saying, like when you go in your if I was like, hey, I'm gonna swing by the house. The first thing I like to do when I go to people fruit. Oh it's fruit, So there's something in there.

So you are going and a lot of green juices? Why because you know what you mean?

You buy the document.

It's like the average person isn't getting enough vegetable intakes because even when we do eat vegetables nowadays, we're putting so much salt and seasoning and boiling them all the way, he says, So it's better. It's really good to juice. So then I just buy the juices instead of using my juice machine.

Where do you buy your juices at?

I like to get mine at Trader Show Trader joels, Yeah, I try to drink one a day. It's thirty days, so ninety dollars a month because they about three dollars. Walmart is another good places to get them too.

I'm gonna go do that.

Yeah, So I juice every day.

Your say you say you juice every day like you're the one making it.

I'm Barney. Well.

First of all, I will say this, I just discovered Trader Joe's recently, and it in the.

Last couple of years.

Mine was like the last three months. But I will say this, Trader Joe's makes it so easy if you don't know how to cook. Have you walked through their frozen food sex show?

But this guy was telling me you need to get their orange chicken.

Bro I just made that orange chicken last night.

How was it? It was delicious, So I say, it's like prebade and everything.

Yeah, it's literally like even their karaoke chicken, like you could buy their stuff. And I get a rice maker, which I used to like, always buy rice about.

The inciant rice. Nowadays I used to do that.

But if you the cheapness or the frugal part of me, or the becoming a mom part of me, I decided to go to Target. They sell the mini rice maker for twenty bucks. I promise you you get one bag of bassetti or jasmine rice. However you like your rice. It takes like thirty minutes.

Because I don't know how to cook. Rice is hard to cook.

I promise you this rice cooker will change the game. It's twenty bucks. You go on the Target. You get your little twenty dollar rice cooker. It comes with the little measuring cup. You put a cup of water, two cups of water, a cup of rice. You have the best tasting rice. And the cool thing is that ain't nothing with the devil if you if you leave, you can come home and the rice is so warm and the cooker mm, so you have fresh rice.

So why even go out?

Yeah? And then Trader Joe's, you could get the orange chicken, get a bag of broccoli, put it in the stove. Within ten fifteen minutes, you have a whole meal with a leftover. Now I'm Chinese, yep, I promise you, because I used to spend so much on Chinese food, like once or twice a week. But Trader Joe's has the ultimate hack.

I'm a transracial cooker.

You're I'm telling you. I promise you if you just take another look at that Trader Joe's frozen aile, you won't have to eat out as much.

And Trader Joe's damn ploys always got a good attitude. And they be like, you want us to help you to your car? And I'd be like, come on, strong man, shit, that's all I need is a Trader Joe man in my life.

And the U And they give like your kid a bunch of stickers, And I don't really like that because you know, my house will be covered in stickers that I can't get. OK, But my daughter likes it.

She'd be like, where's my stickers? Oh? So she come to expect it.

So this is a good dish. But I mean, I probably would never do this again. I like the Ramen without the egg.

I'll never do it again either.

Who would have ever thought, because when we grew up, ramen was like a struggle meal. Now they selling rawmen in restaurants and naming the restaurant Ramen, and then they're selling these dishes for twenty twenty five dollars.

I will. I'll say this though, I've never gone to Ramen place and actually spend No, I'm lying, I took. I did buy one Ramen dish once, but yeah, I can't my brain in my brain, I can't do it. But anywhere you eat now it's expensive. You could go to McDonald's and it's like seven dollars fry.

I like to get a coke and a small fried and that'd be seven dollars.

Okay, I gotta tell you this quick little half that I just discovered the other day, and my homie was laughing at me. I don't know that this is every Taco Bell, but Taco Bell released like a frozen slurpy. Ooh, and they have like a dragon fruits frozen slurpy. Okay, I'm forty Okay. Little stupid things like really excite me. Yeah, and I call my homie and I was like, yo, treat yourself today. He's like, what you're talking about? I said, Taco Bell has a happy hour. I didn't even know about.

He was.

I was like, yo, I just finished the surpee and he's like. I was like, but I want another one. He's like, turn around. I say, you know it. I turned around, went back and the guy at the Taco Bell was laughing at me. He was like, a Taco Bell and get one, yo, I promise you that dragon fruit.

You know what. I like.

It's better than the seven day beer.

Are you cherry lemonade from Chick fil A? No, it's seasonal. Oh my god, a real piece of crack heaven?

Really, but is it unhappy hour? Do they give a happy yes? I think the happy hour makes it seem like a little bit more like riskale, like oh my god, I'm really coming up.

Yeah, but uh, I will say, shot gotta be flirted with. Yeah, yeah, somebody gonna come in there flirting.

Yeah yeah, but yeah, no I promise you it is the best slurpye And I don't know if they do it with every Taco Bell, but I just recently was at a Taco Bell and they were like happy hour two to five, and I was like what, and I loved it even more. But it is the best slurpee. It is by far trump's all the other slurpees. I love it. But in another hack, I learned.

Fruit too, but that wasn't popular when we were dragging fruit no fruit when we were kids.

Have you actually eaten it though?

Yeah?

I've never had one, oh for real yellow.

And pink one.

Yeah, I don't get it from a not Trader Joe's. I never seen it in there, Whole foods, whole foods.

I I have eating one broke. You think I'm ever in whole foods?

Yo, you gotta try that dragon fruit though I don't.

I don't even know, Like if you showed me a dragon fruit, I wouldn't even know what it looks like. It has like porcupines on them a little bit. Okay, Yeah, I don't know. I like the slurpee.

I like exotic fruits.

That's my little vice, exotic fruits. Yeah, yeah, No, I'll stick to the I just never know what parts to eat and what parts not to or what have you. So take me through the special, you release its anticipate, like, bring me to the anticipation of like you get it back. How you feel watching it? Did you watch it? It took me.

I swear to god, it took me three weeks to watch it.

What do you mean three weeks?

They sent it to me and then they was like, hey, did you get it. I couldn't stomach watch it myself.

Have you not watched yourself before?

Watched it before?

No, just other stuff you've watched, But when you watch your special.

I couldn't stomach watching it. It took me three weeks to ask you. And I had talk called Keith Robertson. I was like, yeah, man, it took me three weeks, and he was like, he was like, he said it took me. He said it took him a month on his first one.

So you mean like you would you would want to click it and you just didn't click it.

Yeah.

I would say every day I would get up and watch it, because you gotta go over and watch it. You gotta send them back.

Yeah, And then you paid for the production, right, do it?

Yep?

And oh my man.

For three weeks.

My team was That's another reason it came out so late after Like, it didn't come out so late, but it came out like five man months after I shot it.

Because it took me.

It was five months later.

It took me a month.

I know if it was my team, I would have gotten phone calls, text messages, emails. They'll find a way to be like, hey, what what what did you watch it? You watched it? No, I'm saying. The production side, they weren't like, hey, what's going on?

Yeah?

I mean, but they also have other people that they're working with, so they were just waiting for me to They didn't hit me.

After three it's like, hey, is everything okay? Did you get it?

I'm like, yeah, I'm watch it tomorrow. Then that's what made me really double down.

To watch it. Did you Did you watch it with anybody else? It was really good? It was really good. Was really good.

I feel like you got to say it.

No, I don't have to say it. First of all, I have too much history when it comes to comments. I liked it. I thought it was very relatable as a female dating Scenkle like everything. I was also like cruising the comments. Of course you have to cruise the comments to see what they're saying. Everybody was so excited about you in a cat suit.

Yeah, I had a little cameltoe. I didn't realize I had.

I wasn't even looking at that. Well.

The man said it, and I was like, oh, that's a baby, I said, But you gotta be hard.

Some people appressed nah, I just I have two.

Like really negative comments, and I blocked those people from the YouTube, so they're not showing up on the special. Not because I don't I don't want anybody to see a negative comment about it. It's because people choose to attack you. And it's like, yo, I hate women like this, What does it have to do with the special?

Bro?

What did I do to you?

It's like some people in the world wide of it. See that's what I remember. I had a show in New York and this guy was like, I don't think you're funny. I said, I grew up in the era where you can't just say that to people. If you don't like something, just wait till you leave say it to your friend.

You know what I mean. I think when it comes to comedy, it's what I think, it's not.

It's not just about comedy in society. People feel like, even I just saw something with Raven Simone and her wife and she's like, hey guy. Her wife had said she had never seen the That's So Raven show prior to being in a relationship with Raven Simon, which nobody that meets me isn't obligated to see all about your show and all of my work, and you know what I mean. So it's like people were giving this woman

But I also don't think we were in like our era is probably the Aol Instant Messenger era. It wasn't as no, none of that. Facebook came out.

Facebook came out when I was in college and I'm thirty seven. Yeah, so Facebook didn't come out till I was in college. Because when I first went to college, you had to have a die edu. When I first joined Facebook, I had to have a die edu and because I heard about it in two thousand and four when I graduated high school. But I couldn't join because

But I'm saying that I think the social media error gave people a lot of confidences to.

Say whatever they want to people with no accountability and so with that, So that's the reason why I deleted two comments, because it's like, Yo, what does this have to do with anything? You're just attacking me because you woke up and decided you hate me. This has nothing to do with the special, has nothing to do with anything. You're just a miserable person and I think you can run into that on the internet. Yeah, yeah, and you attack me every day every day.

I black people.

I always say this too, like every day every comedian has their audience, but I think most people laugh at what they can relate to. So if I don't think a comedian is funny. Like I tell people all the time, I like people that have like childhood trauma, like the Sebastians, the bill Birds, Like if your mom and your parents were terrible, y'all give me that comedian John Wasamo, give me all those motherfuckers, and I'm like, gonna have fun all day. I enjoyed your special because I could relate

Like I can't say somebody successful is not funny. Yeah, you can't say that somebody that's really building up in upcoming isn't funny, you know what I mean.

It's just like they're just not funny to you.

But you get people that go in and if this person's not funny, they're there, they look like this, and they look, what does that have to do with anything?

You're just that's called bullying. Cyber go to these.

Pages and these people are just yeah, No.

I've had people comment on our show because I usually wear like a backwards hast I've heard people go into comments like why is this fifty year old wearing backwards? I'm like you, I'll go to their page like I know you ain't talking ship.

And then I have God tell me recently, that's why you old and you and don't nobody want you? And I was like, do you really actually looking at me, sir? Do you actually think nobody wants me? My face looked the same with or without makeup on. Do you really think I'm walking in the world and every man is like, forget her, we don't want her.

Like no, But I do think that the people do need to address like the insensitivity, because I will say, sick, a sick part of me, Like, I'll scroll through all the comments and the ones that are negative are the ones that get my attention. I do a little chuckle.

Sometimes I'll be like you want to respond to though, why I don't The positive ones you'd be like, Then a negative one you'd be like, you.

Know what you go to they paid you look at them, but it's always.

Whoever you, whoever's dissing you. When you look them up, you'd be like, come on, man.

And I was like, that's why you got buck teeth I said, ma'am, do you know what buck teeth are? Buck teeth is on your two front teeper.

Did you respond to her?

She had a gap this big?

Did you respond on? Did you respond?

I don't remember, Okay, sometimes I respond to people sometime like this one girl recently, she was like, y'all look old for millennials. Y'all really baby boomers? You know, baby boomers will be like sixty.

And stuff like that.

And I was like, girl, I said she and she I went to her page. She had a you know, little light bo in a BBL that didn't match. I said, girl, you talking. I said, you went to the Dominican Republic and got all that surgery and they could unbig your back.

That's hilarious.

I said, your back is huge. And she was like, oh, you just mas.

She been arguing for the last I stopped responding after like two comments she been arguing with because people keep finding stuff.

She been arguing with people in those comments for the last two months.

That's funny. I think, yeah, I think there's a space for people that are over opinionated on the Internet, and again it's just to bring people down. I can't understand what it's rooted in I've never really been. I'm one of those type of people though, Yeah, but I'm more like I like reading through comments. I just like reading through comments, skimming to see what the gist of what people's opinions are. But I don't know, I think I think the whole comment thing is just.

I think blocking hurts them the most.

Blocking and people you go to their page.

They aren't even following you, or some people was like they follow you.

And what I don't like about it is that some people get mad at you for having an opinion, but they have an opinion about you having an opinion.

So why is it okay for you to have an opinion but not me to have an opinion?

Yeah?

Does that make sense?

No, it doesn't, it doesn't. I just think that there's certain people that live for that. I'll go back to my twin. My twin doesn't really attack people online, but I will say, like, she'll literally lose sleepover fights on

You know.

But there's a certain type of people that are really invested, like they will lose sleep, they will get upset, they will and I.

Promise little Uzzi Bert had a purse. I was like, look at him with that perse on. Do you know I got death threats for that? They said they was gonna.

Kill me, girl, I don't know. They're crazy, un alive me. Are you able to make money off your socials now?

So I don't attack people, I just block them. So I'm I'm pretty good at roasting.

Really good.

I could read you for filth on there, okay.

Like a housewife mixed with your your comedian nightmare of roasting. But it's like you can't respond to people back in that way because if they started to report me, and people started to report me, they can.

Demonetize my page. So I just block them.

I just non no longer argue with them or if I say something. It's just it's very common things that it's like your back is big, that's not nothing triggering, but if I was like, you ugly fat bitch, that those are stuff that they can demonetize your page or actually, you know, get you your page taken out, taken off. Yeah, I've seen that happen to a comedian recently. He was going in on people that was seeing stuff about how he looked, and he went back and they took his whole page.

Oh shoot, well, going back to your special, I did your grandma watch it? And no, I don't know.

I don't. Sometimes don't want my family watching my stuff.

Well that's what I want watch it, but you know, I don't just be like.

Hey, grandma, I watched a special, you know, but.

No, they like your mom she knows, yeah, because she's all on.

My social media. But my family do. But I don't.

Also, not my grandparents. They would need help setting it up. You have to go over there, put it, put YouTube on the screen, set it up.

They can't. They can't asset stuff like that on their own.

Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, it's just that I know, since you talked about I wonder I understand being related to a comedian, like you're not going to always keep up with everything they do. But I was just curious when they do watch your stuff? Do they are they like letting you do you? Or do they try to get in the weeds and say, like, why was she performing like that? Okay, perfect, because I'm not.

Doing anything derogatory. I'm just telling the stories that you told me.

That's it.

Yeah, you're telling well, you're telling your truth. But I'm I'm curious if there's anyone in your group that does do that. Okay, cool, and you prefer.

That way, right, because they want to ask me for money here and there, so they ain't gonna really rock the boat. Yeah, And I'm not going on there saying you dumb and you stupid. I'm attacking anybody. I'm just basically saying, my grandma got the shakes, and I do talk to my grandma. People like you don't talk to your I'm like, I do joke with my grandma like that.

She like it. My grandma like it. I love this favorite word is nigga your grandma's.

Favorite word, and the family has asked her to stop saying it. My mother hates it, and my mother has asked it. So I said, hey, so sometimes I call it. I say hey, Grandma. I was like, look at that nigga over there. She said, yeah, I don't like that nigga. So we joke like that because that's her favorite word, but she don't like She don't like to say it around the rest of the family, so we joke with it together.

That's your favorite word. Atactor for saying it.

Your special looks like you and your grandma have a good relationship. You guys have a very cute, flirty, like fun relationship.

Yo.

The craziest thing happened. So I took my grandparents at the other day. I like, I told her they'd be in Inglewood, so I took them about this something to eat. So my grandma husband, he gonna say. The guy came over as Hispanic guy helping us at the table.

He gonna say. He said to the guy, Tim, you speak good English. I said, you can't say that to him. He said what he said? He don't got no accent.

So the guy laughed because he wasn't offended. I said, I said, grand daddy, he's American. People are from other places, are born in America. I said, you were born in America. He said, yes, I was, But he just laughed because you can't how would you get mad at somebody that this man is eighty nine years old. But when he said it, I was like, yo, you just saying whatever you wanted to this guy. I mean he was in awe, like really wanting an answer.

Yeah.

No, my grandparents are characters like what the Yeah.

Yeah, I could see that. I just think watching the special, I definitely could see that you guys have a good relationship. How did how was the receiving of the special and like, did you accomplish everything you wanted to in regards to the special?

Yes, I feel like as far as everything I wanted to put out in a special, you know, and then just starting prepare for the next one.

That was my next year. Are you starting already to prepare?

Yeah?

You gotta write new jokes and then don't you have to practice on the road for a while. Yeah.

So what I like to do is because everybody in the world hasn't seen the special, and everybody that come out the shows haven't seen the special, is just to start to weaving new material in between.

Yeah.

So you don't go up there just doing because to me, when people come to come buy tickets, they bought tickets, some hire a babysitter, some actually bought a new outfit, buying drinks, They're going to go out to eat maybe before and after, or.

They're gonna eat there. They're spending money.

So I don't think you should allow someone to spend money and you just doing all new stuff that you don't know whether or.

Not it works.

Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. So what if people when people come out to see you on the road now they can expect a mix of the new and.

Yeah, and it's other stuff I have that didn't make the special as well.

So yeah, awesome. And now where does the transition for podcasting come in?

Oh?

I had started podcasting years ago, but I stopped Okay, Yeah, so I feel like you gotta let show people know your personality.

Yeah, I like that. Now, how how much? So you've been doing it for how many years? You took a break?

Took a break for two years?

Okay? Is that the two years you did in New York?

Yeah? Ok it was just harder for me to get resources and stuff out there, just because I lived in New Jersey. I didn't live in New York.

Okay, so you did. You didn't know New Jersey City, You did New Jersey, New Jersey.

I did a city, you know where Edge Order, New Jersey is no so edge Order, so all the New York sees.

We see all of New York.

Soon as you look out my window, you can see all the skylines to the buildings in the water in New York. So we live right there. I live by the water, so we can see New York. So I lived over there, and it wasn't It wasn't an area where the transit weren't very well New York, New Jersey. New Jersey City has good transit, you know, but not out there. So it was hard for a lot of comedians. And some of them was like, oh, Uber over there.

I said, yeah, I think who was it?

I think Safe the Sounds lives over there.

Oh I didn't know that.

I think he did, because I think he said that Jour on the interview when he's talking about Brooklyn.

Oh, for Brooklyn was like an hour and fifteen to thirty minutes away with me.

Yeah, I think he was talking about Brooklyn.

And then I didn't even go over there, even though I loved it as much because it was so far.

Yeah, it's like a three hour shits in the car well from Jersey. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

But see the seller and all that stuff was only like twenty It would take me about twenty four minutes to get home and it would take me about thirty five minutes to get to the city.

Okay, that's not bad. That's not a bad trade off. All right. So how can your fans keep up with you? Now?

Yeah, make sure you always follow me on social media.

But to find everything about me, you can go to my website www dot iamdsprings dot com.

I am dsprings dot com. You heard it here first. And any tips you would like to give to anybody trying to follow in your footsteps before we close out, I.

Would just stay stay consistent. I think that's the biggest thing.

I think that's definitely consistency. Consistent as much as you can. Yeah, and then that other thing that you mentioned earlier in the interview about asking.

Yeah, but sometimes don't ask when you're before you're ready.

You think, so, I do thinks. So I think you can like blow that one shot yeah okay, yeah.

Or you could just get a bad rip.

Just think, be consistent and do the work, the foundational work first, and then once you get to a certain place where people are like walking up to be like Yo, that was really good, Like I like that, then you're ready to maybe start asking people, oh, can I do your show at the end. Prov But don't just say, Hey, I'm starting comedy, can I do your show at the Yeah?

To do the foundational work first. All right, guys, thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Eating While Broke. Follow up with D Springs is I am D Springs yep, I am Springs dot com. Peace out, bye bye. For more Eating While Broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.