Math-Mayne-Tician (with Radha Blank)

it is. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another phenomenal episode of My Mama Told Me, the podcast where we dive deep, deep into the pockets of black conspiracy theories and we finally work to prove that Russell Wilson is the greatest known survivor of jungle fever in human history. The man was dating the ugliest of whites. He was deep in the trenches of white devildom, and then found his way out to now stand aside Sierra during Torque videos. He's

free of his jungle fever. I don't know how he did it, but no man has survived it greater than Russell Wilson. These are facts, ladies and gentlemen. Fuck a theory, these are actual facts. I am your host, like sneak Kerman. I'm happy to be here. It's a goddamn beautiful day outside, even though I'm trapped in my room. I'm trapped in my room, being held captive by my wife and her her mother, who have now taken over the rest of my home. But that doesn't matter, because you know who's

who's the most free, who isn't trapped? It's my guest today. She lives. She lives free, God damn it, she lives. She lives the way she wants to live. Is what I've heard on the streets and everywhere that everybody is talking about her because she's amazing. She's a filmmaker, director, writer, producer, she does all the ship. You know her donut maker.

Donut maker, she said, she makes donuts. And you know what, she made a point to tell me, to tell you she doesn't have COVID, And that's a big deal, right now, that's a big deal. Like you've already heard her voice, you know her best from from her beautiful film which I love so much, forty year old version. Give it up for my guest, Miss Roda Blake. Thank you, Oh my god. I feel so honored to be in that intro and then to be connected with the term skeet skeet.

I mean it's what a warm, a literally warm welcome. Thank you so much. I like to roll out that skeet skeet carpet whenever I can for whoever is doing quotable. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm such a fair and of this show. And I know two people right now A Lisa blountmore Ahead and Emir Lewis are gagging because they are huge fans, so I just had to shout them out. But thanks for having me on. Yeah, I I'm so

excited you're on. We've already we've talked a few times on on the chats and instagram ship and I I love your work. I've been working with Eric Bronco, who I know you know very well and help help make your beautiful film. So you know, big fan, and I'm happy you're here. We're gonna we're gonna have a silly ass time because you came with a conspiracy theory that that I don't even know really how to qualify it. Truly is an exciting conversation we're about to jump into,

so I want to introduce it carefully. But you said my mama told me about Terence Howard and his new Math. Yes, it's not just it's not just the new math Linkston. It's called the universal math. And if you look very closely at the acronym, it's Tom tom me right, as in belly and Shaton, you know, as the some of the Black Muslims will call him, might try to skew that towards belly of the beast. But they say that

your stomach is your second brain. So do you see in connection the universal tom tom as in tell me and second brain. I'm just saying that the signs of this new way of thinking have been there, even if we don't understand them, they're there. And thank you, thank you to Terrence, you know, for introducing my brain this concept.

So okay, because you're coming in hot right now. Out you coming in, you've already did that that that hotep finger thing where squeeze your fingers together to orchestrate around you. You're you're already doing I'm wearing I'm wearing a head wrap. It just kind of goes with the territory. And as someone who's been extra extra excommunicated, I couldn't even say it. You see how the brain scramble, how they you know

what I'm saying, they got in there. My brain transmitters as someone who's been excommunicated from several of these uh pontificating communities, from the hoteps for black israel lites, you know, Like I'm very familiar with mathematics, and it was Terrence. It was Terrence, so that I think that I feel gave me permission as a person in the Red Bone

Brigade to go deeper, you know what I mean? Like sometimes the sometimes when you're red bone, you light skin, A head wrap in a wide nose is not enough, especially that the light eyes. You know what I'm saying with this mathematics and these gestures, I am kind of being kind of welcomed into a skin tone a little

darker than mine. If you understand, you're tapping into something very important here because for years, and I think that this is true about a lot of lighter skinned people, is that is that we are often accused of trying to overcompensate for for our connection to the black community, that that we overdo the work right, that we're trying

too hard. And you're saying that for years, you found yourself in communities where you attempted to be a part of something, and they pushed you out of it because you might have been a try hard in their minds. But exactly inspired by Terrence Howard, you're saying, you're coming with new information, a new energy even to to approach these communities and say, jokes on you, motherfucker's I'm back.

Do you remember Do you remember a TV movie called Queeney that starred halle Berry where she was playing the matriarch of Alex Haley right, and she burst into the church with her her pale, pale white skin. They actually lightened halle Berry for this role. If you can imagine Hallie being lighter. They lightened her to play Queeny and she bursts through the black church and she goes as Niggers. As Nigress terences math. It's my version of Ias Nickers. It gives the Red Bone Brigade a chance to own

our beige rage, as I call it beige rage. We get to own it thanks to his mathematics. And it's not something exactly I get to say as Niggers without actually saying that. And you know, and it's not to say I completely understand the mathematics. I think that's the point of it is. You're not supposed to be able

to clearly explain it to someone. You're supposed to drop put a little droplet in their mouths Um, that doesn't sound right, but put a droplet in their mouth and create that curiosity so that they then go and become more confused. And you know, your level of confusion speaks to the level of passion. How badly do you want to unconfused your brain? See hold on, no, wait a minute,

think now you you hit a spot right there. I'm not even gonna hold you that that right there where you confuse somebody and then you check how much they they're committed to un confusing. That's it to the un confusing. That's a conference right there, Linkston, when you're ready to take this light scared, redbone, rage bage rage on the road. You know what I'm saying, commit to un confusing your mind. I love it. I don't know what that acronym would be,

but we figure it out. I will say that, even as you're talking and we have not clarified what terence sowards universal order it is, we will clarify all of that. Dear listener who is at home struggling right now with all of this conversation, but but fuck you, we're having fun.

The point, even as you're talking, there's a part of me that feels like that is where philosophy started, right that even if we we want to take some of the these sort of like obviously tongue in cheek elements of some of this away, that there's this isn't that different than what Plato was doing with his boys back in in ancient Grecian times where he's like, I don't know,

maybe God could be a fucking wheel. And we were all pressed together and then we got separated and and granted that wasn't Plato, that's that it was one of his stupid ass friends. But the point is the philosophy is confusion with the goal of unconfusing. You're describing why why isn't un confusing as a term use more often? And I'm thinking about Socrates and Plato that maybe during one of those Greek orgies, you know, like somebody bust off and they said, Okay, this was good, this was

but I'm still unfulfilled because I have questions. And that's what I'm saying is that questions are a good thing. Questions are a great way of leading a conversation, disarming somebody, but also kind of like saying, I don't know it all. And when it comes to this universal math, not only don't I know it all, I don't know what the

funk it is. I just know it's interesting. And any opportunity to here Terrence break anything down from the flavor of of a potato chip, a scene, or what universal the universal math is, is an opportunity to look at someone who maybe that's ship crazy but maybe actually genius. You don't know, right, and that that Okay, let's take a step back here, because I think you're really you're hitting some sweet spots and in my precious little heart.

But what I'll say is is that Terrence Howard, I did my best to sort of trace the build of this narrative. I want to catch my listeners up a little bit. And it seems like around like two thousand and thirteen or so, became committed to the idea that the math that we understand to be true, the things that that we have held true for years and years and years in terms of mathematic equations, is mostly false.

And the core of that argument seems to be this simple equation a I would argue a first or second grade equation one times one equals one. That's the one that he's super hung up on. Tell me more about about where that goes wrong. I think what Terrence is positing is almost related to quantum physics. It's like what you see, it's not what you see, and that there's more there because according to the universal math, one times

one is not one. One times one is two. Now what I appreciate about that, even though I don't quite understand it is it means I get more biscuits. You know, I can ask or biscuits when I go to Popeye's and be like, one times one, I'm paying for one biscuit. I'm getting too. I can do a little bit of work on my one ab but really it's not one. It is too. So according to Terrence, more is more. You know that to say one times one equals one is to slight this idea of an increased quantity of

a thing. Now that's about all I completely understand, because I feel like when I met him, I'll just give you a little personal history. I used to write on a show that rhymes with scampire, right, and when I met this individual, he came in to talk to the writing room about, you know, different things in his character. This was season two. I only worked on the season two of the show. And when we when he sat down, he immediately locked eyes with me. I think it had yes,

immediately lost right. He locked what I would say, light eyes with me because I have light brown eyes. And I think he saw the head wrap and the wide nose and the light skin and he said, that's Faan right there. And he started to talk. And I believe he shared a bit of the mathematics. I'm not sure because all I remember was him saying stonehenge and quasars. That's like what I walked away from, walked away from the conversation with. And so I think in that moment

I got brain fucked. You know, I think he did something to my brain. And yet and yet he created he planted a seed of curiosity, like how I want to understand this man because he as a light skinned black actor. It's just what a very interesting career this man has had. He has drummed his guitar as a folk singer. He has written hip hop anthems for that show that runs with Skimpire. You know, he has married all kinds of women in the spectrum, not black women again,

very interesting. No, he hasn't touched on that, but I feel like his mathematics is his way of entree back to us. Him saying like, I think very different, deeply, I pontificate very much like a hotel, you know. But he's kind of like, I don't know. I just think he's a fascinating being, you know what I'm saying. And I say, like, does one times one equals to make sense? No, but need to do clouds. We don't understand how kangaroos have those pouches, you know what I mean? And Captain

Candy it melts in amount, you know. So these are things that like we can't be afraid to contemplate. Let me let me jump in here, because I think you're tapping into something really important, really vital in the Terrence Howard universe that that he is building is this act of questioning right that I think at its core, what Terrence Howard is doing is questioning the universe that was laid before us and saying why why does it have

to be this way? And while I even you know, admittedly do not at all aligned with new math or universal math, it's not. That's not something where I find myself buying in per se. I do funk with somebody saying there's a bunch of things historically and personally that I have been told to be objectively true and then later found out it wasn't as objective as they wanted me to believe. There were some some sort of like gray areas within that that objective conversation. And I think

Terence is sort of doing that. I think that he represents, you know, this idea of pushing against something which black people. I mean, that's black culture, right is counterculture is kind of creating something out of I mean, the fact that we survived this middle passage and have created you know, culture in this country is is almost miraculous. I don't

think anyone could have Dick did it. When I was in college, again one of my many attempts to align with my blackness, because I was often doubted in spite of having a chocolate mother and a wide nose, I joined this group called the Sons and Daughters of Africa at City College, and um, you know, at that time in my twenties, I called myself African, you know, and so you were like I'm not Black. I am African.

That's right, a Kiblan. I guess that's what we used to call Africa before it was called Africa by the Europeans. I was a part of the Sons and Daughters of Africa, and I would call myself African. And I even found like the most chocolate brother today who was from Africa, and he was Nigerian, and I would call myself African and he one day he just was like c st, I just I want to say to you that I'm sorry,

but you are not African. You are not Africa. And I know you call yourself that's not who you are. And for so long I was offended, But now I was like, wait a minute, I'm gonna claim American because you know, out of this very dark past and legacy of chattel slavery comes us who have created the culture in this country for the last two hundred years. And but we did it as an act of defiance. We were not expected to survive and then thrive and then create.

And so yeah, okay, I know most times we look at Terrence and we go with the you know, like what is this man is playing his guitar upside down, signs down? You know, did he get a bad batchel Coke? What is the problem? But I do anyone who pushes against you know, and who has like is rebellious and nature to me is actually that's extra black to me,

you know what I mean to say? Oh yeah, you've got your which most of the theories, most of the practices that we've adopted have come through uh Eurocentric paradigm. You know. Oh God, I'm sorry, hold on that. Who are the whole tep in me? Was just your centric you know what I'm saying, climb out. I almost made you among being Kate and started burning some sage. But it's true that so much of what we do we've been conditioned to believe is the truth is the end

all is the alpha omega. Even alpha omega comes from Eurocentric concepts of like what the apex of something is or what the truth of something is. So yeah, Terence is nuts, absolutely, But a lot of brilliance comes out of you know, those people who are way off to the left, you know, who've been left, who've been kind of isolated, maybe a week longer than they should have in their childhood, and they come up with all of this stuff, you know, so I'm not mad at him

for triumph. Well, here's here's where I get fascinated, because I I think I I agree that it is counter culture that ultimately creates Culture, creates new culture, creates our ability to exist in you know, America. As you're sort of much more eloquently explaining my question, and the thing that I've always struggled with is at what point does counter culture become counterproductive? Do you know what I mean that?

Like you have figures like a Terrence Howard, like a Kyrie Irving, you know, like uh, Kanye, all of these people who are very clearly being counter for the sake of being counter at times, and sometimes because I genuinely believe it, And sometimes it's just like I need someone to look at me, and it makes me sit and wonder, at what point does that actually start to work towards our detriment and not towards challenging us for the better.

I think if I can attempt to respond to that is, you know, one we have to always remember that human beings are evolving, you know, and that we should not if something sounds like truth, let's apply it to what we needed to be in the moment and then kind of release it. Don't make it law, because what history has told us over and over again, it's the minute we put somebody up, they're gonna fall. Then we're gonna see their flaws. We're gonna see there, we're gonna see holes.

But I think we have to kind of I hate to use the word piecemeals, but like just take what we can in the moment and just add it to the cannon, you know, as opposed to adding the person to the cannon. Add the philosophy, extrapolate the things that we can use. Just you know, discard the things that we cannot. I'm not saying discard the person, but just remember that, you know, it's a mouthpiece connected to a

flawed human being, you know. And so I mean, I was raised when I was coming up, my father would take me to hear Farrakhan speak, and I was a young black feminist at the time, and it was just like it was hard for me sometimes to to sit in in in places of the Nation of Islam and see where women and men were separated. And what my father always said is just take what you can from this moment, like there are if you just listen to if you listen to the entire teaching, you can extrapulate

what it is that you need for yourself. And I've learned a lot from Farrakhan because I did not completely cut him off. And I think where we are now is the minute we see those flaws, we throw the whole person away. We even throw the teachings away. You know, we call it cancel culture right now. But I understand even where that comes from. It's like, I need to feel empowered, and I need to feel you've had some choice in terms of what kind of enters your psyche

and who you consider a leader. You know, Yeah, just take what you can and keep it moving. I think you're you're making a really important point here and and fair County, I don't think there's probably a better example of a person who has who couldn't. He's so complicated right that, like, there there are elements of his teachings, elements of the words that he says that I connect with and believe in and think are super vital and important for people to try to activate in their own lives.

And then he says a whole bunch of awful shit about the Jews, and I'm like, ah, dog, you lost me, big man. I really wanted to like you. And I think to your point, that doesn't make the language that he was sharing previous to his bad take on a type of people any less valuable. It just means that the person that sharing it is a complicated person, a a person with flaws. We need to learn to accept

both of those things as true. I think when we, you know, in the in the culture now, we have this thing of calling women of a certain age auntie, right, and I think the same applies to uncle. If if you relate to these people as that relative in your family who smokes newports and you know, wears a mesh tank, you know, and his nipples are protruding, and he smells like you know, his armpits are very rare, but his playlist always gets everybody jumping. You know. Is he looking

at your second cousin? Is his his eyes looking a little too long at her developing? Yeah, but we're exactly, but we haven't completely thrown him away. And so that's what that's all I'm saying about the terences of the world is like hear them out because any of coptunity where you can challenge something you thought you knew is a good thing, you know, and maybe one times one is too. We don't, we don't know. From what I understand,

this man has spent seventeen hours a day researching this. Yeah, it's it's not it's that's the other part of it that that's so fascinating. And we'll get into some of this in the research. I don't want to I don't want to jump the gun on some of this. But it's not something he's like just saying to say he

isn't bullshitting. He's spent a lot of time. He has dot he has documented a fair amount of the time that he spent and even published articles attempting to support the claims that he's making with his his universal man. So this is it as uh casual? I guess is Kyrie going on, you know, a press conference and being like the earth is flat and I and give a funk what the repercussions are here? He's dedicating his life,

put in the work. He's got the charts, and you know, do I give you am I giving a warning before you go and look at it? Am I telling it might scramble your fucking brain. It might do that. But the man put the man put a lot of work in and maybe jumping into what might be psychosis, maybe there's still something, you know, maybe there's something to take

away from it. It's all I'm saying. That's beautiful, and honestly, I don't think there is a more beautiful way to go to a break of being like that crazy motherfucker still has hope, and we should treat more crazy motherfucker's like there's some hope left in them away. Yes, I love that. All right, We're gonna take a break. We'll be back with more round of the lake and more. My mama told me, we back. This is one that will like into the bank like ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Yep, we're back

here were more rut of like more. My mama told me. I always regret pressing that button as soon as I do it, I said to myself, you just trapped yourself in a one minute long drop of evil man laughing about people dying from a disease. Anyway, we're still talking about Terrence Howard in his Universal Math New Math or and this is something we haven't brought up yet, at least in terms of the title. You may know it as terriology. You terriology before is terriology on your radars?

As a name that it goes by. You know, I have to say something else about names. Is I think I might have in the past dismissed, dismissed Terrence Howard, and then I realized his name is Terrence Seawn Howard. You know, it's my version of the head rack, like okay, red bull light skin, but with a name like to Sean you got come on now, can't dismiss him. There's there's something there that I just wanted to say that

that brother is undeniably black. Whether that's right, whether he likes it or whether we like it, that's all up her games. But that motherfucker is black as shit, Terence. There's nothing blacker than creating recreating a law around mathematics. I mean, should I bring up the five percenters? You know what I'm saying? Like, come on, so Terrets in

his beige days, that's a black man. It doesn't feel any less confusing to me than like some of like Woo Tank's early ship where it's just like them like doing equations and ship that Like I'm not tracking this at all, Playboy. I don't know the street price of cocaine. So none of this makes sense to me. But look how he was. You know, they say Wu Tang loves the children. The children are forced to do math? Did they re engaged? You know? Thirty six Chamber. I mean,

math is all present in the whole world. And so that is the blackest thing I think a person can do is like not only referred to mathematics, but reinvent them, you know, as a fuck you to the hundreds, the hundreds and hundreds of years of mathematics that we've been following. Is to reinvent mathematics. That's black as hell. I like that and that I think that's a good segue into our research because it got me thinking if Terrence Howard is in this space of creating new math, a universal

math that he believes to be true. It got me asking the question where does math actually come from? Like what is the origin of mathematics? And as we understand it? And again i'm I'm there's a there's a heavy quotation around we, right, And before I even go that's how they get you, because the we that that is sort of being presented to the world in terms of our

understanding of modern mathematics came from like this dude, Archimedes. Right, they're saying, like Archimedes from old ask Grecian times is considered like the founder, the the father of modern mathematics because of all of the contributions he did to us figuring out, as you know, every kind of equation, including

one plus one or one times one equals one. Right, that said the the commitment, or rather it made me ask the question, how much of our commitment to our comedies is just us deciding that this person was going to be the figurehead and not actually doing the real

research beyond that starting point. Because we know historically there were civilizations well before our comedies ever existed that that built thinks that that had structures and all sorts of like cool stuff going on that had to have required some version of mathematic equations that had to require them to measure in and count and do all kinds of

things that required math that Archimedes had nothing to do with. Well, first of all, great like yes, again, this goes back to questioning something that has been kind of accepted as law and universal truth. I'm thinking about this particular African tribe and I feel terrible because the name is escaping me. Right now. I want to say the dumb, oh, the Duan people who, when they were first discovered, you know, would create etchings of our solar system. They didn't have telescopes,

you know what I mean. They didn't have telescopes, they didn't have the apparatus to actually affirm these things. But when modern science of the time compared, it was all correct, you know. And so it's been speculated that they had some kind of connection to an alien life force. But here is this isolated community of people who have been practicing a certain belief system for hundreds of years outside

of the law. The things that we are saying is law, and there was an accuracy, you know that it was succinct, you know, and it was how they lived their lives. So it's like, what we don't see, we don't know, you know. And if we don't know, we don't see it,

we can't challenge it, you know what I mean. So it's like it just seems like once we decided that these uh philosophers and uh the great minds of those days, which all came out of Europe, Europe, Like, once we decided that, okay, this is what we're gonna go with. We just then everything seemed to be quantified or qualified by people who worked like that, and it's not until now. I remember I saw a movie and it was about an alien life force that supposedly created the Egyptian Pyramids.

Is the name of this movie, you know, noting not quite that one that's very scientific, but it wasn't cone Heads. But in this film, because the ship was the shape of a hollow pyramid, the theory being put forward is that the pyramids were formed because the ship would land every so hundred years. God is the name, It's on the tip of my tongue. And and the way they were able to get into this world was going through

some kind of portal. I'm forgetting that. My point is that I think when we don't understand something, we create some kind of theory, and that theory is still connected to, you know, some kind of your eurocentric lens or understanding of something, and we will take something on and we will make it long and not challenge it and not

challenge it at all. And I think even more to that point there it's a question of communication that like these people who existed before Archimedes or the mathematicians who who knew math before this, your Eurocentric lens gets involved, had for various reasons, no reason or way of communicating with the people who then set the standard of what the world is Christianity for? Is it stargate is what Olivia is saying in the chat state. So I think

with that, it's it's like the Bible, right. It reminds me so much of the way that Christianity worked. So so we know that for years the written word didn't exist, that every story that we're hearing was just people talking that like I had to tell the story to a person, who then hold a story to a person, and that was the transference of knowledge. And then at some point some fucking weirdo decided that they were going to write

things down, and then that became documented as permanence. But that doesn't mean that that permanence was the correct version of the story. That doesn't mean that this math, as we understand it is even the correct version of math. It is just the math that got standardized for all

of us at this point in society to understand. And so Terrence Howard, be he right or be he insane, is at least going a bro, I've been recalculating, and you're supposed to do it in his voice, Lank study you know better, right see, And that's what that quiver, the quiver in his voice might be the knowledge, you know, Like that's why he's shaking so much, because he is

bubbling with this knowledge. No, seriously, you know, thank you Olivia for bringing up the title Stargate, because when I watched that movie and I saw what was Hollywood's version of a revisionist idea, I thought gall goal of the storytellers to try to diminish. And I'm not just talking about the pyramids, like they equated all Egyptian things, from the scab and the symbols to the hyry glyphith to an alien race. That it couldn't have been the intelligence

of the the Egyptians. They still don't know how Egyptians build the pyramids, and that they're hollow and side and they don't implode. They don't, you know. But the goal of those people too, to create a revision revisionists, even though it's a narrative revisionist history around and listen. As a storyteller, I know the way and power of creating story in shaping influencing a narrative. And there's some kid who saw that who thinks that Egyptian, Egyptian culture came

out of fucking aliens. But my point is that all that Terrence is exhibiting is the same thing that the Galileos and Socrates, that is gal like the unmitigated gal to say that this thing I'm theorizing is truth or could be truth. And so you gotta admire in a society where so many of our leaders have been assassinated

by the time that were forty years old. You know, you know, I don't even have to bring up the prison industrial complex before a black man to spend seventeen hours a day on a particular theory and then put it out there, you gotta admire the gal or balls I should say that Terence, you know, is exhibiting. I mean, listen, let's not forget about the whole marvel part of it all.

Like this man, I'm glad because this man. Do you think that's how you come up with seventeen hours in your day is to have to have to have some free time brought on by your shall we say difficult personality? I think firing is another way, Yes, in his and from history. For those of you that are unaware, Terrence Howard has become infamous in Hollywood is one of the more difficult people to have around when you are acting, performing,

just talking, just being in a space. It seems Terence Howard tends to make things a lot, a lot more difficult than they were previously and specifically one of his most infamous firings, and firing is probably a weighted word in this case. But he was the the original roadie in Iron Man. And I didn't know this. I'm not sure if you know this, but he actually was the highest paid person on that film, the original Iron Man talent. Howard got paid more than Robert Downey Jr. Himself For

the for acting in that film. I had no idea. I just want to add a little something really quickly, is that I have to say this from everyone who worked with him on the set of that show that runs with Skimpire, they said he was the most professional. They said he was the most professional. I want to add that in yes, that he was the most professional. He showed up one time, he had all his lines memorized.

It's not to say that he would not pitch some crazy shit but he, from what I understand, was very professional. That is interesting. Did not know he was the highest paid actor, but not only the highest paid, but he was one of the first people brought onto the film

that he was on it well before Robert was. He made three point five to four point five million dollars for his performance in Iron Man, and then he also claims he had to take a one million dollar pay cut from that because he advocated for Robert Downey Jr. When the studio, when Marvel was still unsure about bringing a former drug addict on as the star of their their you know, blossoming series of films. So Terrence Howard, in theory, is the reason we have Iron Man the

way that we do. So you mean to tell me, brother, that that one Terrence Howard times that one Robert Downey Jr. Equals to high paid. You see. What I'm saying is that he's been working his math from the beginning. He's been choreographing something. And again I'm going back to Gaul. You are the highest paid nick on the set and you got the nerve to tell Marvel, I'm we'll offer

the next movie. Well this that it's it's partly what happened, what he claims happened, and what what is sort of uh in the air in terms of actually what transpired is that part of his contracts said that if there was a second or third film, which he was signed on for three films, as he claims, if there was a second or third film, he would make somewhere between

five million and eight million dollars for those films. Now, after the first film success, which nobody expected, right, that Ironman film turned into something that they certainly did not guess it would be, which is now you know, fifteen films deep in terms of various spinoffs in in universe building.

Right that said, when the second film came around, Marvel came back to him and basically offered him a one million dollar check instead and said you are not essential to the creation of this project and therefore will take your worth in this project, which is why he asked for more money, and then went on to call Robert Downey Jr. He says, twenty one times in a day, trying to get his friend quote unquote to advocate for him the same way he advocated for him the first

time they went through it. Oh ship you see, yeah, you know, like and we were just about to dismiss this guy and his universal mathematics, which probably came as a result of like saying the numbers don't add up, Like that's probably something he had in mind. And so you know, they say adversity is our greatest teacher, Like wait, not only okay, this is no information, thank you Linkston.

I did not know this stuff about this the lore of this marvel legacy got replaced and then tried to do the okay dough like we weren't gonna notice that you don't replace the red bone with chocolate, you know, like, and I'm not mad, I'm not mad at he's the best. He's amazing, and it works, that chemistry work. But you know that when that happened, black people were like, Terence, you dumb asked, you know what I mean, like, how are you gonna go and f this the same thing

that they did to Dave Chappelle. It's like when it comes to this money thing, which we've made into a god um, like how dar you black man turn you know, challenge the white man's dollar. And look, we I'm sure a lot of people didn't know what you just shared in terms of what he was contractually, what do you agree to? And then now they did an okay dope on him, like, I do not know that information, And I think that is it's all complicated, right, because it

is coming from Terrence Howard himself. These are his claims, so there is the possibility of it not being true. But at its core, this is a person saying, yo, I advocated for something, and then intentionally, this studio and a larger corporation is building propaganda around the personality that, whether whether right or wrong, I've had for a while that like Terrence Howard by this point is already known

as a difficult person. And so the studio is looking at this situation and saying, we can short change this individual and if if he decides not to go along with what we're offering, we'll tell everybody's crazy and it's too hard to work with, and then we will replace him with somebody who everybody knows is a sweetheart and has never offended anyone. Yeah, and you know, it's so funny, this idea of difficult as a person who you know,

had it, had their dealings with the industry. When I first started writing in TV, I had become very close friends with a lot of the people in the writing the first show that I worked on, which was a get down first Hollywood, you know, TV writing room and in the room, and I wasn't really even paying attention to gender because, to be honest with you, I thought there'd be more challenges around race than my gender. I wasn't.

I wasn't paying attention to who most of the people in the room described as difficult until I looked up one day and I was like, all the people that they're talking about a women, right, all the people they're talking about of color, And so this narrative around difficult, sometimes I wonder like if the same behavior came from

you know, Terence, this white counterpart. And listen, I'm not saying that Terence ain't difficult, and I'm not saying that this motherfucker ain't crazy, Okay, But I'm just saying it's very easy for us to fold in to that narrative of the difficult person, which in Hollywood often is female. You know, Like, it's just a very easy narrative to create around someone who doesn't fall into line, doesn't fall

in line the way we like them to. You know what I'm saying, So and so I think you're making a really important point because to the question of difficult and this is going to be around a way sort of getting back to what you're saying, but I think

it's important. Terrence Howard first introduces his conversation of new math of of teriology in a Rolling Stone interview he did in right and the rolling Stone interview is meant to be actually amid a bit of a like a celebration of this figure who went from being a massive movie star, Hustle and flow, crash, iron Man, all these things that were huge, the best Man, you get it, all these things, yeah, that then are taken away from him because of what he is, you know, being labeled

as as this difficult person and then somehow finding his way back to success with a surprise hit of Empire. This article comes out. It's meant to make him look cool and and interesting and sort of like but also honest and and raw and all the things, but it ends up being and I've read the article, it ends up feeling a lot like I guess the best way to say is like an expose on a super villain

after like they've they've lost to the Justice League. Do you know what I mean him standing in a in a high rise apartment, staring at himself in a mirror, and silk pajamas wended by yes and silk robe and boxers, and he's surrounded by all these objects he's built, these terriology objects that he he has that are plastic all around the house that he and his then wife have like constructed, and and it's it's him, I guess, pontificating about the complexity of the world and the world he's created.

But it's very haunting the interview. I think, I'm I'm in agreeing with you. I'm so simultaneously adding silk robe and Boxers to my dream band list. I have a list of dream bands, and that would be I'd love to see silk robing Boxers open Cotchella one year. But yeah, no, I I agree. I read that same article and they completely it was farcical. It was like, let's sit back and laugh at this nutbag, you know who lost it all. He had the chance of a lifetime, and um I did.

I did feel a little empathetic at the end because I was like, you know, he didn't sign up for that. He probably was so happy that someone would listen to his theory around the new universal mathematteriology that he just you know, I mean, he does that when you give

him a platform. This is someone who probably feels like you've dismissed me as a light skin light eye having, you know, cute guy who's on a black soap opera and you don't think I have any And I and I feel for actors in that way, and that we often dismissed their level of intelligence and think that they

aren't more than the roles that they play. And so yeah, you give him a platform to talk about something and okay, yeah, he may have said a little too much that, you know, more than you could digest in a sit down, you know, and I won't sit down, but you could feel where the journals just like, you know what, I'm gonna pivot and I'm going to let the people know that I sat with this nutbag for an hour and let him just hang himself, so to speak, you know what I mean.

And too, there were moments in that where I do think that he was relatively articulate about some of the things that that have been labeled challenging or difficult in

his personality. Like there is that moment where they asked him about The Best Man and like sort of like his the the infamy he built on that set, even the fact that that was this first sort of like breakout role, and with that they they labeled him difficult after the shooting of The Best Man, And he said, look, at the end of the day, they wanted to make me to make choices as an actor that didn't feel

correct to the role that I had been given. That like I they wanted me to do these lines funny and like like read them like a slapstick sort of like sidekick character. And he was like, Nigga, I played guitar upside down. I wanted to read it like a man who plays guitar upside down. And it ended up landing better than it would have landed if he did it the silly billy way. But for for that communication, for that set, for all the people involved, the relationship

was challenged right, if not burned completely right. And I think that it speaks to the expectations of actors. I think, especially when it comes to black actors and black artisans where and I won't say we because I'm not an actor, but like the idea is, like you should be so grateful that you got this role. Don't come in here and challenging, mixing things up. And this is something else

I want to add to this really quickly. It's like we may have seen Terence for the first time and the best Man, but who knows how long he's been out there pavement, you know, beating the pavement. And it was this musician Kamassi Washington who talked about this thing of just because people have discovered you in this particular moment, it doesn't mean that you aren't a vet and that you haven't been at this thing for a very long time.

So we may see Terrence Howard in the Bestment as this new young actor, but if he actually has been at this thing for ten years or so, like, does he not have a right to try to challenge you know, what he thought the role was gonna be. You know, I just think there's this culture of just shut up and dribble, Just shut up and take the check, Just shut up and take the shine, don't challenge and as black artisans, as black women, as but queer people, as

people on the margins. The message here is shut up, be glad, you gotta pay check. Dave Chappelle be glad you gotta pay check, Terrence, don't challenge you know, yeah, And I will say that even with that, it also ignores to your point about your existence before this. It ignores some of the logic and reasoning of the human

underneath all of this. That while in reading this article you also read about his father and the fact that his father was arrested and taking to jail for a long time when Terrence was two years old for stabbing someone while they were standing in line to meet Santa at the mall. That basically a family was standing in line. His father, I guess, stepped in front of that family. They got into an argument about who was there first, or whether or not his father and their families should

have been allowed to go first. His father gets angry, pulls out a fucking nail file, stabs a man. Man dies, and then blood splatters everywhere, including on young Terrence Howard, who was two years old at the time, and then is full first I guess to grow up fatherless for a big portion of his life. And with that, this new math, whether right or wrong, has to come from a place of at least attempting to make sense of a world that isn't offering him answers in any reasoned way.

M hmm. Yeah, No, I absolutely see that as like this, someone is just trying to understand things, try to better understand their world. And yes, I mean that is to me the point of existing. You know. It's like, I mean, it even kind of connects to this kind of the vaccine debate. It's like, I'm not mad at people that challenge, you know, and want better understanding because that group think, you know, that group think mentality is like, you know,

it's what turns us into sheep. So yeah, Terrence sounds like there's baggage. That's I was like, there might be some mental health challenges. Who doesn't have mental health challenges? You know what I'm saying. You know what I mean, everyone has their basket, you know what I mean? Yeah, And I will say that that I think, and this goes back to my original sort of question is how do we reach a point where we are able to challenge things without being a detriment to the people around us.

And I think that that's the careful game that we're all learning to do in managing our own mental illnesses or challenges, personal or or public, whatever it is. It's like, yeah, I should question the vaccine for myself personally, I should ask is this essential? Am I doing the right thing? Uh? Is there any possibility that the government does not have my my best interests at heart? All of those things

are normal, healthy questions to be asking. But then to take those questions to the strue eats without ever having attempted to find answers to those questions first is the danger is where it starts to become unhealthy behavior and dangerous behavior. Now where I think this is a a cool flip is Terrence Howard's New Math ain't hurting nobody. That ship ain't. It's not anti vaccine, It's it's literally a nigga being like, hey, one times one equals to somebody.

Somebody talked to me about this ship, and it isn't the most brilliant thing I've ever seen, but it truly is not violent in any way, shape or form. I just say, like, question everything, but also leave the window slightly cracked, you know, to there being something to something within that everything that might be helpful to you, you know, and you know, maybe the flip side of this is a cautionary tale. When you have too much time your

hands what can happen. But yeah, I'm not I'm not mad at Terrence and I you know, he's so talented, Like we can't dismiss that, you know, Like he's the reason I watched The Best Man over and over again. I think his performances so understated. And I think he's one of those people who, you know, we we could go on and on about our version of the oscars and and and what things get, you know, our scene

of merit when you revisit these institutions and what they award. Like, he's one of those actors that, like, I've seen him in different things, and I'm like, this man is talented. You know, he's talented. And I don't know, maybe if he got more support or you know, maybe if he had a chance to address, you know, the trauma in his life, he wouldn't have seventeen hours devoted towards this

new man. I think that he's a man who needs to unpack, and maybe we have a little more responsibility in helping him on back instead of laughing at his interesting equations. I think it would be I it would be a mistake for us to go on break without me reading you this quote. This is a fun quote.

I found fun is in quotations. But I a quote from Terrence Howard where he says, and this is in relation to his new Math, where he says, since I was a child of three or four, I was always wondering, you know, why does a bubble take the shape of a ball? Why not a triangle or a square? I figured it out. If Pythagoras was here to see it, he would lose his mind. Einstein to Tesla, this is the last century that our children will ever have been taught that one times one is one. They won't have

to grow up in ignorance. Twenty years from now, they'll know that one times one equals too. We're about to show a new truth, the true universal math. And the proof is in the pieces I have created, the pieces that make up the motion of the universe. We work on them about seventy now, wurds today she cuts and puts on the crystal, she being his wife. I do the main work of soldering them together. They tell the truth from within. M h. It's beautiful. Poet, poetry, poetry, poetry.

All right, we're gonna take a break. We'll be back with more. Out of like more, My mama told me, and we are back. Oh yes, Kenny, Lenda nigga a pencil. Yeah, we're back here. We're more aroud of like more. My mama told me. We're still talking about Newman and Terrence Howard and the question of of asking more questions, of challenging the unit verse in front of you. And with that, I can't think of a better intro into playing a game. Would you like to play a game? It's a game

that we play on this show all the time. It's one of my my personal favorites. It's a game that I call white lies ugly. You're disgusting. I'm gonna kill you. Give me white lies. This is a game where Roda I am going to introduce to you a classic conspiracy theory, widely held conspiracy theory in the white community. And what I would love for you to do is tell me why you think white people are so committed to this conspiracy theory? You cool? This is This is one that

I've been seeing a lot more lately. Although I don't know how how widely held it is. It it has a bit of nuance, but maybe that's just because of where we live. But apparently there are quite a few people who believe that Prints Charles is a vampire, that the son of the Queen of England, the soon to be King of England, when she dies, and she will, God willing, she will die. Uh. If my prayers work, that lady will die. Okay, So, but Prince Charles apparently

is a vampire. I don't know if have you heard this before. I have never heard this conspiracy theory, and yet I'm intrigued. I really am. Well, let me tell you a little more, and then I'd love to hear

why you think people argue this. But apparently, in unpacking his genealogy, it turns out that Prince Charles is a descendant of lad the Impaler, who is the person that bram Stoke most Dracula is based on that Like historically, they're making connections, basically saying that he's a descendant of this infamous figure in history, and that because of that descendants, and because of his weird looks and also odd behavior, that he might in fact it also be descendant of Dracula.

Your thoughts please, wow, I I'm so intrigued. The first thing I'm thinking about are his ears. They are very they are very bad, like do look like they could, you know, propel him into flight. So there's that there's the idea that he is a part of a very old and archaic institution that you know, I don't know if it's garlic a steak, it has not died, you know, it is almost impermeable, it is. It feels immortal. You know, he is a part of this monarch that is just

like you can't kill it. And who knows. He's very pale. Yes, I don't know that the man has ever had a bit of sun. I've never seen a picture of him with a tan. You know, he always looks the same, you know, like the same, rugged worn, pale, leather bag of a face. You know. I don't even think I can challenge this theory because if I found out that he was indeed a vampire, I mean, this lineage makes things very very interesting. I don't know that I could

say I'm surprised. I mean, he did suck the lifeblood out of Princess Diana, you know, being married to him cost her her life, and um, wow, this is so interesting, Like I've never heard this before this moment, but I'm I'm gonna now look into it. So thank you please, all the research you need to do to figure out if he is well, first, if vampires exists, and number two, if he is in fact a vampire, and then three

why white people love it so much? Because to me, this and that's the part that I had some challenges with is to me, the Royal Kingdom of England and all those motherfucker's I'm sure that's not what they call it, but the Royal Kingdom of England and all those behind closed doors they but but to me, they always represented an odd pick for people that you wanted as your

figure heads, you know what I mean? Like, if I wanted figureheads, I want them to be sexy and hard and and just look, look, I get to look at them,

and I feel proud. And the fact that they've always picked these ghoulish monsters as the people, and granted, the bloodline apparently is what picked it, not them choosing them right, But either way, the fact that they've never overthrown that bloodline and made it like you know, fucking Idris and his sexy asked people means that these figure head just have to have a level of power and control that

exceeds the people's fight. You know, forever, right, it's forever, which you know, in this moment of you know, white fragility and the Karen's, you know, and the anti maskers, which to me is the reason so many Karen's are going off is because I think COVID kind of leveled the field. Like we the mask represents this this threat to all mankind, you know, like you being white and rich, it's not going to save you from this virus. So

we're in the same boat, honey. So yeah, putting on a mask when you've had access, you've had power, you've been on top all your life. I think it's it's kind of like just fucked with a lot of white people's brains. And so the idea of being immortal, I

think it's sexy. You know, It's like, okay, I know they say by by when he's seventy, the human race is going to be more you know, the mediaan skin tone is gonna be a little bit more brown than we were anticipating, this idea that a white male monarch could live forever. And then you and then you couple Brexit with that, like this excommunication and this you know, this this throwing away of immigrants, which to me is

about browning up the country or browning down. I don't know which direction it ghost and but yeah, I could see how immortal all powerful white man is a sexy idea, you know what I mean? Yeah, and I see it. I think even more to that point, it also ensures that that you have a justification for why you remain impoverished or or less than in these communities. As long as this motherfucker's immortal, then I can't beat him. He's a fucking vampire. That's just a regular dude who could

get shot like anybody else with a regular bullet. Then I'm tripping to let this motherfucker be that much better than me without doing something about it. Okay, And I just want to just add on to what you just said. Please don't get no ideas people. You know what I'm saying, Lengthson, when Lanson was talking about is Charles being a vampire, and then put that in context so that FBI is not calling us into I want to be clear. Shoot the Prince of what what is it, the Duke of Wales?

Shoot him, stop letting this one. I'm so com Please don't shoot him. I do not want to be responsible for whatever fall Oh my God said some silly ship on a podcast that truly none of you should be listening to in the first place. You should have better things to do with. Oh my god, I think we did it. I think we did the thing. This was so much fun. Could you tell the people at home this was amazing? Where they can find you? And what cool ship you have going on? You know? The movie

is still on Netflix. The four year version is still on Netflix. I am cooking and baking and working on things. I tend not to talk a lot about it, but like when it when it does come to fruition, I'll

be sharing it with you know, your audience. And yeah, I just it was a thrill to be on this show because I've had a couple of the couple of people that I'm like, you know what, I think this would make my mother proud if I was on Jesus and Marrow, and if I was on my mama told me because I was the child of a black conspiracy theorist, and so Mama, we made it today, we made it. Oh what a beautiful sentiment. That's so nice. Well please go watch go watch four year old version. It's so great.

Please follow Ratto online and as always, you can follow me at lengths thing Kerman and if you want to send me your drops, your theories, your very harsh opinions about my my performance as a podcast host, you can send them all to my mama pot at gmail dot com. Otherwise I don't know. I think we did it by bitch bye because my crop chips in your rails A quality. Bears are racists, money turkey stuff. I can't tell me