FLAME MONROE - Succotash

Hmmm, y'all had all the booby.

I ain't got I don't have boobs, so I got them. I had them for like three seconds when I had a baby.

I borral man. They alone, They going back.

Welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke. I'm your host, Coleen Wit and today we have Emmy nominated flaming role in the building comedian, actress, writer, entertainer, podcaster. Also, what's what's the name of your podcast? Learn? You guys could check her out on the Black Effects. So today what do you have us eating?

She forgot dad, mom, brother.

It's sad because I did leave that out on purpose. But then no, that is probably the hardest title, right that is that is.

The hardest, the most joyful, and the most pain.

And how many kids you?

Three? Three? He wasn't playing just wait, I wouldn't with tight with it out mistakes, not at all. Thank you for having me. Hello everyone, eating Eating Broken. You know what we're gonna have? This is what I ate when I was broken.

Scutas suckutash is a poor man's meal, but it will feel you up.

How do you how do you spell that sucker tash?

Now you asked me some difficult questions, sucker tash. So I'm thinking it's s U C c A T t A s h.

I think did you make it up?

No?

Absolutely not. My grandmother May used to make this all the time. It was a bunch of us, so she had to stretch it out.

Okay, so what are the ingredients?

So the ingredients actually is our whole curnel of corn cutokra, a tomato, onion, green pepper, celery, and whatever season you season to taste however you want. And usually bacon. I don't see the bacon up here, and you put it over a bit of rice.

We do have bacon, and you.

Can imagine feeding about nine kids screaming and it will fill.

And it was healthy because it was ventance.

Oh yeah, because I saw Okrah. And when I saw Oprah, I said.

Oh heck no. I'll tell you about okrah.

Y'all young kids say macaroni and cheese. Let us all here say Okrah. I'm gonna let you sit on there and think about that for a minute.

Something. You have to be very good at cooking. I'm gonna tell you a little story. Okay. My mom is Jamaican and she would do the whole Okrah thing. It's my mama was a great cook. But me and my siblings would band together that every time the Okrah rent like came to the front of the freezer, it was like someone's job to go and hide it to the back of the freezer. And that was the job of us kids, was just to hide the Oprah and she would never find it.

Okay, it's pretty tasteless though.

It really is flimey though well, and then okay, and then I was in North Carolina with Nick Cannon and blimey.

I was.

I was out there and I had told him like, I really hate Okra and he was like, you ain't never had fried Okra? And I said, okay, you know, I'll take one for the team. And I still hated it, So I can't mess with Okra. So I'm going to gracefully take this one for the team for eating while broke. But we do have bacon. Do you want me to like bacon?

Yes? Please? Because bacon is the starter.

All right, So we're now back, So we have your apple with bacon, all right, So let's get the cooking.

Let me drop a little olive oil here, saying, oh, I brought you a gift before I get started.

I brought you a fan.

Okay, what is your face? I want to see you pop it too? Here we go, Hey, what is that?

What is that?

Can't bitch do what I do?

I believe it.

This is this is the this is gonna be the model for the rest of my life.

Everybody mindset is what he's she we That is my own preferred pronoun. He's wet because I pretty much feel like they kick me out the community. I got my own pronoun. Man stands for he cast the check, she make the money. We spent the same person saying the same person?

Is I like that? I like that?

I cover all the bases?

Is that you?

That is me?

Okay?

And in my sexty day, I was.

Young, So you started out. So let's kind of take it back to you call it succotash circuit circuitans. So what was going on in the era of sutash.

We were living in the projects of Chicago on the West Side and hearing horn the projects. My grandmother Big jip That's what everybody called my grandmother, Big Jipu. She was my grandmother ran guns, so candy, uh so women so drugs.

This was the gains of other.

Projects, and it was a bunch of grandkids. She had a bunch of grandkids, so she had to stretch food out in between when it was high and low.

My grandma was a blu leg My grandmother is a pimp. I love my grandmother. May she rest in peace.

And she raised you.

She pretty much raised my mama. Was bucked while my mom was out doing her thing. My mother was seventeen when she had me, so she was a kid. And I didn't understand that when I was a kid, But now that I have my own children, I get. I couldn't imagine my daughter, who's nineteen, having a baby now because she's not responsible at all. So I can only imagine what Valerie was like. That's my mother, Valerie. So my grandmother stepped up, you know, and a lot of

Well I have no idea.

Oh well, you look like I'm so well.

Anyway, a lot of grandmothers had to step up to help raise the grandkids because the moms were young, or they were working, they were trying to better themselves, to make a better life. So my grandmother stepped up and it was but I was the first grand baby. I was the most spoiled, and I was the most loved. I hope my other my other siblings don't hear that.

I guarantee you and you'll get that random phone call. So this was the signature edition Grandma's house.

This was the poor man's meal when money was tight and we knew money was this how we But she would always like fry a big thing of chicken wings.

Chicken wings was dirt cheap back then. Good guy, you.

Could get a whole bag of chicken wings and feed the family of twelve for fat dollars.

Fat dollars, my bag. You want chicken wing needs to go around? Good God.

Yesterday's prices, Yeah, yesterday's prices. So you grew up with your grandmother. How did you get into comedy? How did you get into the entertainment?

Like?

What was that first step?

Well? I never I could not sing, I couldn't dance.

Well, what a lot of people don't know about me is that when I graduated high school, I graduated CVS High School in Chicago.

I had a four year music scholarship to the Cookman. I played the obo.

I was in All City Orchestra and man, I almost set first chair to us at second chair.

What instrument the obo?

I don't even know what that is.

It's a double ree instrument. I was.

I was masterful at it. My teacher, mister Harold Anthony Bradman, he rest in peace, just was a teacher that was diligent and the things that he got away with as a teacher back then he would be under the jail with now. But it instilled such a drive in us, and we wanted to make him plou proud. We wanted to please him because we could see the smile of pride on his face when we did a great job. I don't I think that's what's missing with teaching now.

Little Johnny, it's not deserve board. He was too slow.

Okay, so yeah, that's low heat.

I got it on low heat. Let me.

I ain't got my real glasses on the girl. I can't even see you right now.

You know, when you get old like hair.

I'll put it on four. Yeah, there you're good.

I was gonna see you don't even want you don't even cook? Girl. What's the name of this show? Oh?

Cook? I thought sleep on me?

Guys.

So what you do is you saw you get to bake it heated up, and then you start start tearing the onions and bell pepper and celery with it as it heats up, because then you get all the flavors going. And then you season the veggies and the meat while they're in there, and you add the corn and the the tomatoes and the celery, I mean the okra last, because the okra takes no time. It's just pretty much steamed.

Now, is there a reason why you went my frozen corn and frozen okra?

Because it's quick and I got three kids not being a hurry. But when you got time, you got time to shut the corn and roll with tomato. Get cut into dice the tomatoes up.

I ain't got time for that girl. Three kids, you know, two of the same age and they're not twins.

How oh, never mind, just.

You forget already.

I got olds at the same time, two different.

And both my baby mama's named Tasha.

I know someone that their baby mama's one named the kid Aja and the other one named the kid a.

And I was like, two different baby mamas.

Yes, I said, they must have been beefing, but your baby mama's got along well it well, probably not.

Know each other like that.

But both of their names was Tasha, but their names weren't Tasha when I met them.

See, both my baby mamas are very masculine.

Stood girls like so that you know, we all come up with our own name.

I'm flaying that ain't my legal name.

So I didn't know they was Tasha's until after the deed had been done.

Wow. Wow, So you and all your baby mamas get along with.

My son's mom who my first born, my son, Jamaicas, His mom passed last year from diabetes. But my other my daughter's mom two daughters. Yeah we cool, We okay, that's the truth. Okay, we're okay, And I can say that now because there was a time I couldn't say that. There was a time we were feuding and bitter because I got full custyer other kids the entire time. But that's not what we were feuding about.

Okay, were you a young mom?

I mean I was thirty seven when I had my first baby.

Oh okay, you like me?

I was, you know, because I watched my mother, my aunties, who all had children young, lose their lives. Not lose like they died, but they were never able to live and thrive. So I knew I wanted a family of my own, but I wanted to be flaming roofus as long as I could before I did that.

So I was so. You know, a lot of people go when they get older.

They say, oh, I'm reliving my childhood. There's no need for me to relive my childhood.

I did.

I was playing my whole twenties. I didn't have a baby to thirty seven, so I was allowed to be met. But I am ready to be an empty nester again.

Yeah, oh your kids still live with you?

Hell? Yeah? What? Your pandemic slowed everything? Down, including them.

So your kids grew up Now I'm gonna go a little deep with it. So your kids grew up in an environment having a situation that's not traditional I guess in the world sense when they were going through it, like cause right now we're in a world where trans and all all this is like it's actually almost in everything you turn on. You turn on the TV, commercials, movies, whatever. But your kids grew up in an era where that wasn't the norm.

Right, Well, I don't know if it was an era. You're not only twenty. They just grew up in the house with me, you know. And will I say that we grew up together? Probably yes, you know, even though that I was thirty seven, I never had kids, but I had a baby brother that I raised, so it wasn't like I was, you know, new to its just having my own. And then I thought that me and my my daughter's mom were going to be married and

You had two children.

With somebody who never loved me, how do you figure that?

Well, you know, you don't figure it while you're in it, because love is blind, and you take way more than you should.

That's anybody.

Yeah.

But when I got out of it and I realized the things that she could say to me, and I think that didn't say Dick could say to me what she did, I realized this person never loved me. You know a lot of us put love and all this emphasis on love and oh they love me, and you take abuse, and it don't always have to be a physical abuse, it really does. Mental abuse is to me is way more damaging because you can't the pain don't stop.

To Okay, okay, perfect, So you you're going to school for music, how do you transition from there?

So let me tell you when I went to so because I'm from the c Chicago. I'm from Chicago. And if I was speaking like I got a list, I got five screws in my mouth right now. So I'm getting into implants. I'm in the process of process, and so I'm speaking weird to me. But I was born and raised on the West Side. I was educated on the South Side. I came out on the North Side, but I did my best work on the East Side.

That's me being koy.

I didn't even know I wanted to play music. I went there was a in the band in CBS High School band. The years that we were there, I'm not going to tell you all the years do the manu. We were the number one band in the country. We were invited to d C and everywhere to play because I band director Harold Bray was such a fantastic teacher and I went into it was called the be Have. I went in one day. I was really really short that in high school until I came a junior, I was only like fort eleven OAU.

Right now, you're what you're like? You got to be like six. No, no, no, I'm only five, only five eight.

I'm only five.

A look, I just have a big princi I'm sure, and I wear really high heels on stage because I want to be really tall. I envy tall people. That's what I always wanted to be. I always wanted to be tall. Everybody thinks I'm really tall. I just got a big ass mouth and a big you know shape. Oh, let me stick keep starting my food and uh. I went in and I just joined the band.

And it gave me because I didn't have a dad at home.

My mom was on drugs for such a long time, and gave me a family that was my first outside of my real friend because my uncles and I were gangsters and my aunties was out doing anything. So it gave me a sense of family and community. So I was like, it was God dignos exactly what he's doing. Whenever you think you're wrong or you're on the wrong path of things ain't going the way you want him

Like you'll have an aha moment, Yeah, like.

Why did I join the band? And then way out later I'm like, wow, that was a great experience. Then you know, so it was out he always knows what he's doing.

I know we questioned it, but so you joined this band.

Joined the band started off with the saxophone. Then I moved to the clarinet, and then I moved to the flute. Saxophone was my first joy, I thought, so was the clarinet, and then the food I was really good at. But then Harold Brace say, Marcus, that's how it used to call my name. I want you to try to oboe. It's because you're a good reader of music. Because I could read the music really quickly, and I hated to think it gave.

Me a headache.

I read not only in trouble clip not a base clap, because you have to roll your lips in to blow, and it was very hard.

I couldn't roll my lips. I'm like, that hurts.

But when I got it, it was something about the instrument would just soothe me. So whatever drama was going on at home, whatever disrespectful names I was being called or whatever abuse I was going through in my own house. My instrument brought me peace. So that's why I touched it. Since I left high school.

I do have whatever disrespectful names you recalled.

Oh yeah, my mother was quite abusive. She was.

My mother was on drugs though, and she my grandmother, was abusive to her, from what she tells me. And a lot of times we don't understand that, especially when it comes to mothers. We don't know what what they went through growing up. And when you were a kid, you don't give a damn. You want my mom to be nice to me. I don't know what your mama did to you. Yeah, because I'm too young to understand that. But a lot of times parents need to stop thinking

Oh okay, yeah we did.

We both did the work to prepair it. Or did you just do a whole lot of forgiving on yourself?

We both did a lot of forgiving on us. I had to talk to my mother to understand why she was so angry and so mean all the time. It wasn't about drugs. It was about either a man or she what my grandmother put her through, but she broke. I wasn't a girl, so the cycle. You can't do to me what she did you. But the name she called me was some of those names. Those names hurt to this day.

I have a question, and this is an off off topic question, but as a parents in questions is someone new parents, do you agree it's better for a kid not to see the parents show any emotion or do you think it's okay for a kid to see parents go through emotions?

Absolutely, you should show you if.

You should, like if I cry? Should I? Is it okay to cry in front of a child or is it not okay? You hide and protect.

I think it makes a child more attenked to you because when my mother used to cry when I was a baby or when I was a kid, I would cry too because my mother was my mother was hurt.

I felt that emotion.

I think that this world that we live in now is trying to make us touch free and emotionless.

I think you should show your children child emotions. How is it going to pass on?

Okay? Yeah?

So you know if you if something hurts you, you cry about it. If something bothers you, you want to speak up about it now.

So why would not show all of them?

When you're happy, it's a happy emotion, So why would you show all the emotions?

You know what I mean? Everything is not a dai of emoji to stay new generation.

But I just thought because with kids, you know, the assumption is, you know, uh, I guess you just want to like protect them from.

The world that we live in.

You can't protect your kids from going to the grocery store, church, or school because you don't know what's going to happen. What you have to do is be the best you that you can be. There is no book, There is no right or wrong way. There is a wrong way to be a parent, But there is no correct way to be a parent. You be the parent that you want that you want. That's the best thing you can do.

Be the parent that you want.

So after music, where does comedy? Is comedy? The next step? Like where is? I feel like something had to happen between music?

Like what I had a girl? Drag? I started doing drag.

But you know what made me know that I was quick with it was when we were in high school we played the dozens. You know, we used to play this game called beat Yo Coup Chae, beat Yo.

My name is Flame. I'm having fame, you know, like that I got good games, okay yo, Mama is lame. Okay, okay. So when we were on the.

Bad buses, because we used to do the games and we were all together, it was just great fun.

And looking back on that, I'm like a lot of these kids because.

They they on their phone, they don't even look at each other, and I'm like, they don't never understand what that was like. And I'm glad I have those memories. I hope I never lose my memory. I can lose my dad mad, but I want to lose my memory.

So in those interactions you started to I.

Real fell out because I had to fight girl. You know, if you did too bad, they will fight you. So I used to get beat up.

A couple of times.

At the point.

You're some boy was a gay boy.

I was the openly gay boy. And I was always sissy. I was always assistant. That's not everybody would that's sissy Marcus. But I was always me because my grandmother in stead just be happy, just be just be happy. She knew I jumped double dutch. I was the best jumping up double dutch rope jumper and everything. But and I got into a lot of fights. But it was a different type of bully, and it toughened me up. And also

I thought I was.

Grown for real, but I wanted my high schoo It was the Plumber because my band teacher told me to come back. He begged me to come back to school. Okay, that's why I said that. Man was great to me. And then I started doing drag shows. We were We graduated high school and I took a year to go to a little like a little local college. It was some kind of word processing thing. I was good at typing, but I didn't want to do that. I discovered the night life and we started going to the gay bars.

I couldn't believe it. I was like, I never do that.

You said you wouldn't do that.

I said I would never do that. Halloween came. I didn't want to be a clown. I didn't want to be a fire Trucker. I wanted to be a girl good goud, I said, I was gonna do it one time. Here we are thirty some years later, cities and Jesus, that's why I tell people all the time, you never know what your life, where life is going to take you, So don't make decisions that are that you can't take.

Yeah. Yeah, so he started with the drag and then so how long are you doing the drag for it? So when you say doing drag, like that's not.

A career, right, Oh my god, that was a career.

So you would make money doing I was.

I did the drag shows in Chicago. So and then let me tell you, I never wanted to be on the microphone.

We would.

I was just one of the one of the one of the girls, one of the players. They always had to host. My sister Tasha Thomas, May she rest in peace. Ages took a lot of my friends in the agies. Took a lot of my friends.

And she was like.

When I first did drag, the very first time, it was at the Baton, But then I went to the black club, it was called Club Laray, the greatest club ever, and I did a Teina Marie song you make love like springtime.

Remind you. I did the Black Song at the White Club and the White song at the Black Club. This is this is me wow.

So uh, she said, what did you do, baby, I said the attend She looked at me, she said, yeah, baby, drag ain't for everybody.

Oh girl, my heart was broken. I was so hurt behind that.

But I wasn't hurt to a point because Harold Bray, the teacher, had made me tough. I wasn't hurt to a point where I'm gonna go home and I ain't gonna never do drag again. I'm gonna stick my head into saying I was at the point of, oh, but you don't tell me what I can't do. I'm gonna show you. Yeah I did, and I got better and better. And so then she got into a fight with another young lady at the club. Okay, and the frank corner my business.

For anyone that doesn't know, And I'm gonna say anyone because me, I'm gonna say for me when you say drag queen, because I kind of know and I kind of don't. So I've been to a club and I've seen drag queens at like Hamburger Marie in La. Yeah, okay, and they performed. So when you say you did drag, that's what you were doing. Your performing, you're on stage. Okay, I got it.

But we had a different breed of drag. I was to me was very different. This is a very different era of drag. But so we were at a club called the Clubhouse. Tatter got into a fight with another young lady named Casey. Makes you rest in peace? I told the agent through out of my friend. And so a guy named Mark, the manager, Tino guy, came in a judgement. He said, Tash, she got suspended night. We need a host. So we all live in the mirror puting.

Now make up on it.

I ain't paid no attention because that was never something I was going to do. He says, flame you do it? I said, oh, absolutely not. He said, well, I said, I'm horrible on them, like, I don't want to talk to these people.

I don't know them.

They want to see me be a girl. They don't want to hear me talking nothing. So I went out there. I did he put He forced me, I give you an extra fifty bucks. I said, oh okay. I went and I was terrible. Oh, no, I was terrible. So he said, come back next week and do it again. I said, I don't want to. I don't want to do this. He said, do it again. I did it again.

I don't even remember, but whatever my comeback was. The room erupted.

I said, oh, yes, that's what you're supposed to do. Ever since then, I was so I was born.

Now, mind you.

I hosted the drag shows for seventeen years successfully in Chicago. I would have five or six hundred people come out on a Monday Thursday night in the middle of a blizzard fifty degrees below zero to see flame moro.

Okay, and you're at this point just hosting. You're not doing stand up.

No, I hadn't done stand up yet, so we went to all jokes aside. One night, me and a couple of friends of my comedy club just you know, just we want to go to the comedy club. I think it was like an open mic night or something, and Damion Williams was the host. So I was never a passable transforman, like you knew, you know, I mean, the body was banging, but you knew. The face was like, uh, that ain't no girl. And I'm not offended by that because I'm very comfortable with who I am and who

Why were you on house arrests.

Okay, we're gonna get to that. So that's what That's what I knew. I'm like, oh yeah, this is what I'm supposed to do.

So I was on house arrest because I went to I went to prison for the scept of practice in nineteen ninety one.

What does that mean? What is practice?

Girl openeding fictitious bank accounts underfect names and you know, like stealing bank robin, I'm funny in Clyde together, I'm.

Buddy in Clyde together.

Okay.

And I was sentenced to three and a half years. My first defense, I had never got caught. That ain't mean I had never done a crime. I had never got caught.

Okay, Okay, so you was gangster.

I told you.

I was raised by all Gates's grandmama and every but the judge that sendence me her name. I want you to remember this name in Google. Her name was just Joan core Boy. She I had a great lawyer, Jeffrey. Jeffrey's last name. I can't think that number man somewhere else. I was about to say Epstein, that's name is damn sure, ain't no Jeffrey, no no. But he was a Jewish guy, very very nice. He charged me a gang of money. All the money I saw out there, I gave it

Oh my gosh.

Exactly.

There was no trends in jail at the time. There was nothing like me. I was a complete anominal.

That's very dangerous, right, if.

You didn't have my mindset in my mouthpiece.

Thank god that I was raised by the people that I was raised, because the intimidation didn't work with me. So the thing to do was to lock me up in the hospital because that's what they could say, they could keep me safe.

I didn't want to be in a hospital. Wasn't nothing wrong with me.

I wanted to be out with everybody else because at that time it was a different time with prison.

So so you preferred to go to regular per.

Oh, yeah I was. I was. I didn't want to go to jail at all. Yeah.

I didn't want to be locked up. I didn't want to be confined. I didn't want to be put in segregation. I hadn't done anything wrong. So they tried to do that because I was trains and there was no place for your Now you send me to prison, now, girl, they got a whole wing of training. I got trains every they got a whole trans prison, I think. And but I incited three riots in thirty days and didn't

This was ninety one.

Wasn't those stretch pants he was sewing up. I got with four a pack of cigarettes. So I was in there just causing a ruckus. Mind you, I had a full bread and it didn't matter. It did not matter. So the warden at that time came and found me. He says, are you Parker b whatever my institution name was. I said I am. This was forty six days in. He says, bait you coming up out of my prison. You got these inward uneasy? That's exactly what he said to me.

Wow.

Two days later I was in my own house. I served eleven and a half months on house arrests in my own house.

That's crazy.

Look at Godo, no catch this story. Let me finish the story. We ain't get back back to the judge. Meanwhile, about a year later, the judge was on vacation with her family in Boca Raton, Florida. True story, Google it, and she was killed in a freak accident. You know how you have to push the clicker and the electrical gate closes. The electual gate when you know when you the sensor. When it hits ther sensor, it is supposed

Google it.

Okay, okay, So how do you go from Chicago seventeen years to where you're at today? I'm trying to catch.

Up, catch up today.

So I met Tasha for first Tasha my son's mom, and we was just kicking the bobos and we ended up getting pregnant.

So I wanted her. She had already had a son and maybe two years older.

This is the one you love, right.

No, this was the boy I was just kicking the bobos with the first Tash. Tasha too was the one I love.

And she said and what I respected about her, may she rest in peace. May you rest in peace? Tasha was She was like, I don't want another baby, fling, I said, just have my baby. I'd never actually for anything, I never had to go to court. We never had to set no papers. It was I took him home from the hospital. If she wanted to see him, she could, but it was my baby and he stealed my baby.

My baby got full rat to TSU. Last year.

He only did one semester Tennessee State Universey made the Ding's list that he hated it.

So you asked her for the baby, and then she did it.

And never gave me no grief over the years. Now, the other one who I loved, we went back and forth. I had to go to court eleven times here in Long Beach just to get custy with my kids.

Eleven times.

I didn't go in drag, I didn't go dressed up, I didn't go over the top. But the judge, because I was my presentation is transgender, made me come to court eleven times just from my own biological children. Wow, Illinois told me no. Illinois just said absolutely not. That's why that was the reason we moved from Illinois to California.

Everybody said you was chasing your dream.

I was chasing that too, But I wanted custody of my children and I didn't even need no colleges. And why I'm living in life. I'm living who I am. This is who I was when they were conceived. Why would anything change? Yes, please, why would anything change? So that's where we're at.

Okay, so now you're in LA you have your children. How does flame and Roll turn? You know, to flame and roll?

So I was working at Hamburger, Mary's and Long Beach for a long time.

Really, Oh yeah, I wonder if you went to you were there when I went You were in Hollywood, right, yeah, the Hollywood.

Yeah, I never really went there. I used to work at the one in Loan Beach. But they were very racist behind the scenes. Let me just say that publicly, because racism does exist within the game community. You know, you love to say we're not racist.

Bush yeahs added so just corn okras, celery, onions, tomato.

And some lawries.

I had some accent. I put that to that.

And that's with MSG now without okay, without that's like having sex with no kindom good god. Uh So yeah, And so I worked there and then I did botched in maybe twenty sixteen, and they fixed my left boot because my left booth had encapsulated. It was kind of Gangmang and leaning to the left. It was thank and I didn't know. I was never in any paint or anything. And because when I worked at hammerger Mary's, I tell you, God put you where he needs you to be. I

Okay and uh.

We were taking pictures and the guy was like, have you been on I thought about going on boys? I'm like for what He was like, Oh no, we'll fix your nose or if you got breathe with just because your story is so interesting, because he knew I had kids and everything, and I was like no, And you know everybody in Hollywood will tell you.

I'm a producer. I'm yeah.

He said, I said, I'll give you my email address, and so I gave him my email address and longer hold. Two weeks they reached out to me and I went to see doctor de Bry and I told him I wanted to make my breast and plant smaller. And when they did the X ray, he showed me that my left breast was completely busted. When you watched the episode on YouTube. You'll see it.

I didn't even know that because I wasn't in no pain.

I was.

I was. I was slipping off the stage and everything. And he was the nicest man.

Oh, he was the nicest, nicest doctor Deboro and that's it was nice too, But the bro just was the sweet got very expensive surgery.

They gave me great boobs.

Too, and they gave it to you. They didn't comp it.

Yeah, it was for free because you know my story. But I had to be on TV boom My wig off and with my fat belly at that time, I was a little thicker. And when idea the reveal at Hamburger Mary's, Tiffany had it, who had just taped Girls Trip. We were already friends. We were already cool and not like close close friends, but we worked on the circuit together and we were always very personal with each other.

This is who's gonna be on the show.

They didn't want me so bad that they didn't want to submit my episode, and my episode was the only one submitted and got nominated for Emmy.

Wow.

Tiffany had his present Stay Ready. And I'm not saying that like I'm gloating. I'm saying that because I had to prove somebody wrong. I know what works for me. I'm very comfortable with flame Moro, and I know what my weaknesses and my strengths are.

So where did comedy come into play?

I don't know. And y'all gonna be mad at me about this. Comedy is not my first live. Stand up is not my first live as I'm an MC. And the reason I say that people say, well, isn't it the same thing? Absolutely not. A lot of comedians can't host, and a lot of hosts can't do stand up. Luckily I can do both. But I love to host because what that allows.

Me to do is excuse me. Is whatever curtain or fear or shield you have in.

Front of you, after sitting with me, listening to me self defecate, laugh, make jokes about what's happening in the world from a human aspect twenty minutes here, you're going to be so familiar with me. You're gonna be like I forgot the flame was trans slame. Is my uncle or my auntie or this is?

That is my gift. My gift is to bring people together, not to separate us.

Yeah, because I could see that the first time we met. Was I want to say, was it like eight months ago?

Thank you? That is my gift.

And because I do free voices, which is every Monday night and then we put your shameless plugging at the Hollywood Laugh Factory at seven.

Thirty we do a show at the Laugh Factory.

Huh every Monday night, Monday night, seven thirty pm.

I have such a diverse audience and and I'm talking when I say the verse, I'm talking about Asian, Caucasian, Mexican that that come to enjoy me. Because there I'm not going to say there is no color, but there is no race with me. Yeah, everybody gets it. I destroyed black people because I'm glad I destroyed what And when I say destroy, I make you see it for what it is and then make you laugh at it because it's not that serious.

Yes, and it just puts everybody at ease.

And just every Monday, and I'm telling we have the best you should come out, we have the best time, because that's.

What I want to do.

Every The world is so tight and so disgrunted, and racism ain't going nowhere. Politics is crazy. We have survived coronavirus. This is the forty seventh day of twenty twenty three, and we have had sixty eight mass shootings. Wow, you don't know what's going to happen twenty minutes from now.

So live your life and have a great time living.

It ain't gonna always be peaches and cream, but it don't take it so serious.

Do you feel like you've arrived?

No? Absolutely not.

Was there a point in your career where you're like, okay, this is it?

Like I'm stable in twenty nineteen and then the pandemic hit twenty nineteen. My career was flourishing like a brand new flower in spring. And then I did the Breakfast Club, which I absolutely love, and a lot of my community felt like I didn't speak on their behalf. I didn't because here's the killer right here. Because I'm a part of the lgbt Q I A plus community does not mean that because I got a little shine that I'm supposed to be the spokesperson of the community. That was

I'm speaking for me, okay.

So on that interview, that was the thing that was like the.

That was the turning point that made them feel like, I'm not really a trans person or I'm not a trans woman.

I'm this.

Whatever your opinion is of you never has any re infection on me because what you're saying about me don't don't represent me.

Well, the trans community has the not the trans community. The LGBTQ community has so much power. Were you a little bit intimidated when there was a backlash? Were you a little you know they intimidated or nervous because I feel like they have so much power that like getting the wrath from them can be very scary.

Well, I have.

I've faced the raft since maybe September of last year. I probably lost two hundred thousand dollars in work because of who I am and how I speak.

And that's crazy, because you're a part of their community and that you still you can still face some level of punishment.

Nothing that I survive the eighties, the nineties and the two thousands.

That ain't gonna break me, Okay.

And I see women and I know what a woman is to me, and I know what a woman is to this world, which is Mother Earth and every trans woman and trans man and lgbt Q I a plus person came through.

A woman, a woman.

And that's not to say that however you feel you represent you, that you don't represent you.

But we came through a woman. Yeah. I'm not a female, I will never be a female. I'm a female impersonator and a very good way.

You're still only twenty minutes and that's why you always say that he she we.

That's why I say he she we because you know, and there's so many new terminologies with the non binary and you know, and I'm still learning, and I'm a part of the community, but I am a dinosaur in some aspect because I'm still learning. Because every other week it's a goddamn new alphabet latitude, so I'm still learning.

I thought it was twenty six y'all. Oh my god, do.

You feel obligated to keep up with the with the the new lango.

I feel like I have a responsibility that I need to learn it in case I'm ever speaking with some other people. Is that they're dialect That does not mean that I have to use the language that they use. I just need to be able to say that I understand what you're saying to me. Because all the women that I know, biological women do not like the term cis woman, so I don't use cis woman exactly.

But okay, let's try your dish. Is it ready?

It's pretty much ready? You got some rice?

I have rice?

Okay, y'all, so we got some?

Do we put the rice in your dish or do we put it on your plate?

And I'm gonna put it and you put this over top of.

The rice, okay, and then I'm gonna put some rice on your plate. So in the crash, so you were you felt like you were doing well before the crash, Yeah, and then the pandemic.

Happening, and the pandemic happened, but then I heeart that. So what people don't know is they think that me and Charlomagne had this great friendship that happen. Charlemagne hired me the very first time I did the Breakfast Club. He said, you're coming to work for me, he told me on that day.

Okay, I say, you ain't got no doubt.

You know which power you got? You ain't got nothing, Lord behold. Charlie May signed fourteen podcasts and self included two years ago to the Black Effect Network. He was creating something and you know, and on that excuse me, everybody wanted me to give Charlamagne a hard time with blame he is and he did. When you're going to show tear him up. Charlemagne and Enby were so pleasant to me and so wonderful to me and respectful. You know, even when I went on that time when Boosie was

That kind of gay. Good.

I want a piece of bacon, just just so I can say, I have a piece of bacon, A plate of your pre cooked my pre cooked appleby it sounds very Is there a reason why it has to be apple work?

Oh? I love apple baker apple. We just got a flavor to it.

Oh and you know who has the best apple bakon gelston It costs three hundred dollars a pack.

Oh my god. You know Gelston's is the high end store.

I've only shot that Gelston's. Uh, when when there's it's that moment.

Let me.

I buy an E B T car from a girl sometimes and I go to Gelston's with eb T car and get the strip and crab and lobster and get to the counter and she said hi, cash check, And I say eb T real loud, so everybody look at me.

You know what's so funny? You wouldn't even think that about E B T and Gelston's.

They take everybody take ebt baby.

Yeah, you know what. When I was younger, I thought you couldn't get fast food with food stamps. But then now it's like, you can get fast food with food stands.

This show one PG. I'll tell you what else you can give a food stamp.

Hold, it's not what can you get?

It was a joke. Okay, you taste it?

I taste it. It's you know what. I just want to try the Oprah.

Try to it's not gonna even have a you can do it. You can do it, you can do it.

I believe in you.

Oh god, I still hey, Okra a taste it's Slimmy. Oh my god, I can't do that?

Means are you married?

Yeah? Well about to be divorced?

Is it because you didn't like Slimmy?

I got a good comeback for world. No, it's because too many girls like Slimmy.

Okay that come on, I got it all the way. If y'all missed that, y'all too young? Grow up?

You know what I'm saying. No, but you know what I'm not.

I don't like what you know, like Oprah.

I don't like what anything? What?

What?

Yeah? Like that texture? So maybe that could inside joke inside, I know.

Exactly what but that the player up under this wing is like, you ain't no fun.

I would have divorced you. You don't like what?

No, let me tell you.

You hear me talk about Okra, that's what I was talking.

Let me just tell you so I can just save my own reputation. And god, God, please hopefully my family doesn't listen to this episode. But let me tell you something. Okay, he married me, so I clearly learned how to do the job that I had to do to do it. Okay, so I do I accommodated. Okay, it sounds like a task. I need you to enjoy it. Do you know what?

I need you to smile.

Like it's the last supper.

Look, when we got off the cameras off, I'm I'm gonna show her how I was getting down. Okay, because she will be impressed with me.

Okay, she said she, but you show me the right way. This rig might slide back a little bit, and oh my god, let me stop my photi.

So you know I did Coming View first.

I was the first trans person ever to be on Coming View in two thousand and four, where Ricky Smiley.

Was that had to have been a pivotal moment where it was.

But but hear me when I tell you, Chris Spencer was the one who got me on Coming View. Chrispincer picked up the phone, made a phone call and got me with Joyce Coleman and I was on Common View. But they tried to market me as a female. They were petrified to market me as a trans in two thousand and four. This is how far we have come because if they marketed me as a trans to controversy along with.

You know, but all the world wasn't ready, Oh my god, the world.

But when they see it, they wouldn't be able to tell.

They could tell, but they really did not want to say the words.

This is and this is why I'm saying.

We have moved from a space where they wouldn't say trans woman and transman is self explanatory.

But can I ask is do you don't think? Well, you would? You would only be the one to know. So is it more proper to say trans woman or just say.

She see I like both? Okay, there was a time, Okay, you know where he is not? Okay?

If if a trans girl's presentation is female, it is disrespectful to call her he. We do that out of shade when we argue with each other, but it really is disrespectful.

And some of their play that yeah.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people are gonna didn't know that.

Yeah with me because I'm so comfortable who I am and my my pronoun you know, say it's he she weak again. I'm a comedian, so every I make light and fun pretty much of almost everything.

By the way, this is delicious. I just moved all the oak run to the side.

I wish I had my other seasons, but I'm telling you that, you see, I'm telling you make the same baby you get each other.

Look at all that Oprah everybody, how much I hate Oprah, I will never there just nothing, nothing's making.

And I'm not going to force that on you either. I want you to hear what I was saying, literally what I say.

I'm not going to force that on you, just like I don't force me on people. I earned when I started in comedy in ninety seven ninety eight. I could be in the green room with a room for the comedians and I was invisible. They wouldn't talk to me, They wouldn't speak to me. They wouldn't even make eye contact with me. I earned their respect because I kept coming.

Like sometimes it was on the low on a choir.

But it let me know I was doing I was supposed to do. When they saw that I wasn't going anywhere. And I've been in the game twenty years now, a one male comic and said, ooh, Flame tried to get with me. Flamee tried. That was never the reputation I wanted. That was never what I didn't come in here for that. I came here to do this job. I wanted to play a y'all spint. I didn't want to play in just the LGBT party. It's too limided. I wanted to be a world known comedian, not just a gay comedian.

What made Charlotte bring you on the Breakfast Club?

Because I had did they ready with Tiffany House and she had did the show. And that's why I said when he brought me on. He didn't bring me on as a trans person. He brought me on as a comedian because we had taped they ready, and so my community got upset with me because they wanted me to be the you know, everybody gets a little shot. No, that was not what I didn't going there to tell him down. I love my sister, but I'm not gonna fight for bullshit. If it's bullshit, I'm not gonna I'm

Have you heard the community in an uproar about George Santos.

No, I don't say gay, That what does that mean you can't say the word.

Well, according to Ron DeSantis in Florida, he's trying to He has adopted the bill where they don't want teach the little kids to be able to come to If you were my teacher and I couldn't talk to my mom that I was having feelings for little boys, but you made me feel safe, So I came and talked to you.

And you can go to jail.

You can lose your job because you're not supposed to have those conversations with these So now these kids have nobody to turn to, nobody to talk to. It's not safe. But we're not in an uproar about that. We're too busy worried about things that are just so insignificant. I don't fight over insignificant. It needs to mean something, and that means something to me.

If you had advice to give to someone that's coming up in the same lane as you, what advice would you get?

Make great relationships and get as much stage time experience as you can because every room is different, every audience is different, and learn your audience. There is a responsibility on comedians to learn their audience.

There is a lot of comedians.

I ain't changing myself for nobody, Then you're not growing as a comic because I'm not going to go into a room full of Trumpsters doing my trump stuff knowing that I'm offending these people on purpose. Now I will change it from talking about his politics to talking about his shape or his hair to make it.

Funny to them.

There is a responsibility, and a lot of times I think that some of these comics that don't change things happen that shouldn't happen because you have to adapt, adapt to the room that you're in.

Okay, And then I just have just a couple more questions because we definitely went over the come on, what was the hardest hurdle you think you had to overcome, either personally or professionally in your entire lifetime.

Or broken heart?

It's the hardest thing I've ever heard that would come because people always didn't like me or I didn't like him.

I was always good with that too.

But why do you say broken heart? Did it affect you professionally?

Oh? Yeah, it made me.

It made me step away from the stage for a while, because I'm telling my baby, Mama had me some displaced She had me crazy as a role is and long did it last? For seven years? But I've had my heart broken by a woman and a man when I went to prison. When I got caught, I had a boyfriend. He put me in prison.

I was slick. I wouldn't go get caught. He turned me. He turned me. He was angry.

Riched Yeah, bitch, ass nigga.

Can I say that.

I assume you broke up on him when he snitched?

Well, I see that. That's show you how damb I was. I got out of prison and went right back to him. But Menjo only did forty eight days.

But I went right back to him, Okay.

And and what happened was I was blind because I was in it. But after going through the prison humiliation because I never had anything bad happened to me in prison, Thank you Jesus. I was so protected because my uncles were all stones on the West Side. Everybody knew the Gifts and family. Everybody knew us, so they knew who I was, so nobody was gonna bother me.

I mean not. I was never worried about that part. But he was just he got drugs and it just hurt me. I don't never want to I'm afraid of love because of that.

So what did like you did? Seven years of heartbreak? So what got you out of it? Was it just time?

Or was it like she kept she left? You know, she kept leaving. What's the songbody ojy? She says, your body's here with me, but your man is on the other side of town.

She stayed on the other side of town. Her body was physically there, but she wasn't there. And she was young. She didn't want to be a mom. She wanted to.

I think she wanted to be a mother for her mother, but she really didn't want to be a mommy.

If you understand what that her mama wanted her.

To prove that she was because she was an open legs, looked like a little boy, and her mom wanted her to be girl grandmama. So I think she did that for her mom. I just happened to be the collateral damage.

Thank god. I wanted my children though.

Okay, okay, And then you got back to work.

I had to heal.

How did how did you heal and get back in the race?

That was the that was the hardest part.

I have. My oldest daughter's name is easy. My children name is JaMarcus, Ezzy and Isaiah. Isabella Easy looks exactly like her mother. And I'm talking about from day one. So do you know how hard it was to men your broken heart while still functioning. I had a three year old, a three month old, and a three and a half year old, all at the same time by myself with a broken heart in southern California, own food stamps.

God kept me busy so I wouldn't sit and.

Wallow in my pain, even though there was times when I went to that bathroom it had meltdown because I didn't have no help. I couldn't leave my kids on my mom. Yeah, you know my mom had She was she was not nice.

So how are you working and supporting everything?

I was always a master of what I needed to do. I was always a great hustler. I was always a good hustler. You know, I knew how to push the almost illegal boundaries to make sure that my children could And when we were broke, when I had no money and I couldn't get no work because I was ostracized. After I left Hamburger, Mareas and Long Beach in southern California, where I couldn't get no work in the drag shows,

Oh, I had to feed money.

I take it. Your kids know about stash?

Oh my god, yes we eat we got money, We still eat it.

Okay, Okay, I love that you got personal.

Like, well, you know what, why sugar coat the true I did what I had to do to take care of my family. So when when they would take ostracize me and say like they're doing now this whole cancel culture thing, you are starving some possibly starving somebody's kid. Yeah, you know you you mad at this person because of a statement they said, like you don't have an opinion, like you haven't said some things that could offend somebody or have benefits or still offending somebody, and you want

I'm telling you I maybe maybe I'm twisted.

No, I'm against. I'm one hundred percent against cancel culture. My husband's a comedian, my little brother is a comedian, and I can only imagine, like, you know, the that area where you know comedy is supposed to laugh at my pain, right, and it's just you know, it's now in an area where you know, now you have to be considerate of the audience's feelings, which usually they.

Want you to walk around on Asia's I can't even balance their regular shoes. I damn sure they're gonna walk around the way as you're gonna get it. You're just gonna get it. And here it is. It's not gonna.

Stop me, but you're not you're not afraid of cancel culture.

I am not afraid of anything but Jesus, that's it. They have stopped a lot of work for me. But it's just like you stop work for me. I came and Sammy for a third year for Laugh and Learn. The bookings keep coming in from the comedy clubs because the mouth don't stop.

And the talent is here.

What you're gonna silence me? No, that ain't gonna silence me. Still in my we ignite, but that ain't gonna silence me?

All right? Well, where can everybody catch up with you and keep up with you?

Oh?

You can follow me on Instagram at Monroe Flame, on Twitter at Flame Monroe, on YouTube at Flame Monroe, on TikTok at Flame Monroe one two five, and on Facebook at Marcus Flame Monroe Parker. And you can go to my bio on Instagram to see where my books are coming up. Because I'm coming to younkers. I'm coming to pleasanton. But every Monday you can see me at the Hollywood Laugh Factor on Sunset blahlah blah. We have the best best adult fund for free voices. Come and hang out

And this is my nice dress. This is my Christian dress Monday.

And.

Can bitch do what we do?

Okay, let me see you pop?

Oh you do it right? Okay, I'm not there yet. Oh okay, okay, okay.

When your daughter's like getting on your nerves screaming hop that fan.

I guarantee you. Once my daughter sees me do this, that's the only thing she's gonna be doing next. Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Eating While Broke. The disc soccotash was definitely something you can make at home, easy, affordable, convenient. You know, in my personal opinion, skip the okra up please peace out.

You better keep it wet.

For more Eating While Broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.