Public Ally Not All Heroes Wear Clocks

What if the loudest hype man of an era was also one of its most surprising humanitarians? We pull back the curtain on Flavor Flav’s wild, complicated arc—self-taught musical prodigy, Public Enemy’s essential counterweight, chaotic reality TV architect—and land on a twist that made us cheer: a devoted advocate for women’s sports who quietly funds training, travel, and real recognition. This isn’t a rebrand story; it’s a blueprint for using fame as a tool.

We start with awe. Will Smith’s Pole to Pole sparks a meditation on silence and scale—standing on a glacier, hearing water run beneath your feet, remembering how small we are and why that matters. That frame makes Flav’s early life pop: Roosevelt roots, piano at five, fifteen instruments, church choir, trouble, culinary school, and a fateful link with Carlton Ridenhour that forged Public Enemy. Chuck D brought granite, Flav brought spark; together they turned politics into momentum. 911 Is a Joke proved humor can punch hard. Then came the VH1 era, where Flav didn’t just chase relevance—he rewired unscripted TV and birthed a new meme language.

The heart of this episode lives in Flav’s present-tense purpose. From funding the U.S. women’s water polo team to bankrolling celebrations for women’s hockey champions to amplifying bobsled and skeleton athletes, he’s channeling attention and dollars where they’re needed most. It’s logistics-as-love: flights, rooms, dinners, and a megaphone for parity in sports that rarely get prime-time shine. We connect those moves to a broader Gen X ethos we live by—learn a trade, improvise when the tools aren’t there, move the eight-hundred-pound grill with milk crates if you have to, and keep going with humor, candor, and grit.

Come for the cultural reframe, stay for the pizza-fueled tangents, diary nostalgia, and unfiltered parking lot wisdom. If you’re ready to rethink a pop culture icon—and maybe your own playbook for showing up—hit play, share it with a friend, and leave a review to tell us what surprised you most.

Transcript

Cold Open, Birthdays, And Tattoos

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Two best friends fucking fast. We're missing two arcades, we're having a blast. Eating these dreams, be on screens, it was all bad. Never never never laughing, sharing, are going forever. We'll take you back whatever.

SPEAKER_04 0:31

Welcome to Like Whatever, a podcast for, by, and about Gen X. I'm Nicole, and this is my BFFF Heather. Hello. I just think we just shouldn't even talk about this week at all. No, I agree. On so many levels.

SPEAKER_05 0:47

It's been wicked bad.

SPEAKER_04 0:48

I don't want to talk about any part our week or or this week in the news, or I will say that today is my Friday because this is my birthday weekend. That is something I will gladly talk about. So I took um off Thursday and Friday because long weekends are my favorite, and my birthday's on Sunday. So this way I get a nice long weekend. Um I'm getting a tattoo tomorrow. Woohoo! Super psyched about that. Um nothing like tattoo therapy. I'm getting a tattoo covered that I've wanted covered for about 20 years now. So super, super excited for that. I'm excited for you too. Thanks. I just had a cover up. Yeah, and yours looks great. I'm very, very excited to see what he has in mind. He's been texting me the past few days asking questions, and so he's drawn up the design, I guess. So we'll see. But it's flowers, so you can't go wrong with me in flowers. I don't think he can screw it up.

SPEAKER_05 1:47

I mean, to me, just making that one go away is gonna be exactly you could have just drawn X's over it and it would have been Yeah, because I was very excited.

SPEAKER_04 1:57

Like I really wanted butterflies on it, and when I said butterflies and he said no, I was like, okay, do flowers. I don't care.

SPEAKER_05 2:02

Like clown faces on it.

SPEAKER_04 2:06

I don't care, dare get it off me.

unknown 2:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:11

This week's been uh I'm in the middle of a mail count still, and two more days. It feels like you were just in the mail count. It's six months. That's six months. Insane. It's just ridiculous. So that and then that and that and this, that, and the other.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

However, your dad is ordering us pizza. Super psyched for that. So at some point we will be pausing. You won't know, but well, you will, because we'll probably come back and talk about how good. Delicious the pizza.

SPEAKER_05 2:43

We aren't starving. I have been thinking about pizza for I don't even know how long, and I have just not gotten to get pizza. I think of pizza on the daily. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

That's the first when I got back from Puntacana. That was the first thing I got was pizza.

SPEAKER_05 2:59

Pizza's nature's most perfect food. It is. It is. Yeah. Well, we gotta, we're in person. We are no more snow.

SPEAKER_04 3:08

No more snow.

SPEAKER_05 3:10

Hopefully that will be it for the year for us. It better start getting warm, damn it. It's supposed to. I don't know what happened today. It was warm earlier and now it's not. My birthday's supposed to be like 70. I know. It's weird. Where we live is weird because make sure. I just got a text. It's not my mom telling me that it's pizza's here. Um, I don't even I got distracted by pizza. Um I wasn't paying either.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

I know. You're thinking about pizza too.

SPEAKER_05 3:44

We're starving. I remember. It's foggy here. Like we have fog. And when I tell you we have fog, I'm not, that's no joke. Yeah, it's full-blown clouds in the sky.

SPEAKER_04 3:59

If you've been in an airplane and when you're passing through the clouds, that's what it looks like here.

SPEAKER_05 4:04

It's cra and everybody when they move here and they hear like you know, schools are two-hour delay for fog, and everybody is like, that is insane. And then you get in the fog and you're like, oh shit, like this is fucking fog.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

Yeah, you have to drive slow. You will roll up on some brake lights. Yeah, it's quick.

Will Smith’s Pole To Pole And Alaska

SPEAKER_05 4:21

So it got foggy, I guess. I don't I don't know. It's just it's weird out, and I don't like it.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

Oh, one thing I did want to talk about was the um Will Smith Poll to Pole. I love that. Yeah, you've watched it already. I watched it this, I don't know, day or two ago. Um I found it just coming on with the first episode with on the first episode on National Geographic because I think it runs on either, I don't know, one of those channels that I don't pay for.

unknown 4:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:52

So I knew I had to commit and watch it. And I sat and watched the entire series which yeah, it was excellent, and and the thing I really liked is I like that Will Smith is getting a second chance because we all have mental health issues, we all go through shit. And he talks about it. He does, he talks about it in there, he owns it, yeah. He knows that he was struggling. And if you haven't heard of it, the premise of the show is he had a mentor who passed away a couple years ago, which happens to coincide with the slap heard around the world, um, and his mental breaks. So I think that had a lot to do with it. Um, but his mentor would travel around to these the far reaches of the earth looking for the answers to life, and he would try to get Will to go with him, and Will would never go, and now he wanted to do that. So he traveled to the South Pole, he traveled to the Amazon, the North Pole, the South Pole was the most fascinating to me. Like that would be hard. Like that would be really hard, but that would I just I just would love to feel it. Like, what's it feel like there where there's just nothing but yeah, except I am afraid of falling off the bottom of the earth. So that's just it's just how I picture it. You get there, because he reached out and touched the literal South Pole, and I was like, then you just fall off.

SPEAKER_05 6:30

I went to Alaska for my 30th. Um and no, it is not the north or the south pole. I understand. But I did take the helicopter tour and go stand on top of a glacier. Wow. Yeah. And it it's just so unbelievable because it's just like you can hear well, you when you're standing on it, you can hear the water running underneath of it for one. And it and otherwise, it's just quiet, like quiet.

SPEAKER_04 7:05

And that's what he said in the show. He was said it's just silent. There's no birds, bugs, nothing, no noise except the noise that you are making. There's it's just like a void.

SPEAKER_05 7:16

And when the when the face of a of a um glacier falls off, it is like it is they I believe the natives there call it white thunder, and it is like it's just it's an amazing experience to stand on top of it. And then, you know, you chip a piece of it off, because of course that's what you do when you're on you have to taste it. Of course. And then it's like the most I don't even like water, but it was like the most pure. I I if you sent me to go to Alaska tomorrow, I would do it. I mean, it is it's it's just beyond beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 7:53

And I could see you living in Alaska.

SPEAKER_05 7:55

I could live in Alaska.

SPEAKER_04 7:57

We were just talking before we came on the show um about going and living in isolation and how much we would love to do that. Um I especially feel that after watching the Will Smith show because one of the episodes is on happiness, and he goes to the happiest people in the world who are in is it Papua New Guinea? I believe so. Yeah, I think that's where it was. Uh, just a little tribe. Um, just no worries. Everybody's happy, smiling. And I mean, you saw them cry, they would talk about relatives that had passed on or things like that, and they would cry. It's not like they're that obnoxious, happy, they're just not stressed. And yeah, yeah, it was really, really cool. And I was like, man, that looks really enticing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:46

Well, and I always thought there's part of Alaska, like where you go on the cruise ships. It's just like here. It's a um it it's uh I forget what they call it, some kind of rainforest. Um, so it doesn't snow that much there. So it's their winners are just like our winners here, and and it's right on the water. So, you know, obviously that is only thing I don't think I could deal with is earthquakes. Yeah. That's earthquakes. Not a thing I want to experience.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

And people walking over from Russia.

SPEAKER_05 9:16

I don't care about I don't care where you're coming from. I just don't want to be in an earthquake. I'm not prep, I'm not prepared for that. I have not grown up with that. I don't know. I can handle a hurricane.

SPEAKER_04 9:27

Yeah. I would like to live in like Sicily, Alaska from northern exposure. Yeah. Like that would be fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess that many people.

Isolation, Happiness, And Travel Dreams

SPEAKER_05 9:35

I went to the town that that was filmed in. Yeah. I would totally have to do the Alaskan. Okay. I want to go in the fall though. I went in the spring. And it's great in the spring because the the glaciers are calving, and the um the whales are coming back up from Hawaii. So it's all you see is like moms and babies because they come first. Yeah. So you see a lot of whales, but which was like I wanted to see three things, and like whales was one of them. And I got to see that. So I don't know. I would do it again. And I would do it. I know a lot of people poo-poo cruises, but for me, I think cruises is one of the best bangs for your buck that you can get. I mean, these cruises are like three or four or five, six hundred dollars, seven nights of accommodations, all the food you can eat. True. I mean, sight teams. Yeah, like it's some some of them are less than a hundred dollars a day.

SPEAKER_04 10:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:30

And that's everything. Like a pool. I mean, in Alaska, you don't really get to use the pool, but right, you know, these I don't know. I I love a cruise.

SPEAKER_04 10:40

Yeah. I work with a lady, she's on a cruise right now and she swears by them. It's it's she has a whole little cruise group that they just I get it.

SPEAKER_05 10:49

If you don't like a structure to your vacation, like you like to go willy-nilly or whatever, I like it's I like to willy-nilly. It's kind of a bummer for that because they really don't like you to do things off on your own. Because if you don't if you do things off on your own and you don't make it back to the boat, that's on you. And uh that would stress me out too.

SPEAKER_04 11:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:10

All day I'd be like, all right, guys, I know we still have four hours, but we should probably start heading back. I've been to the Bahamas so many times, I don't even get off the damn boat anymore. I'm just like, I don't care that we're in the Bahamas. I'm gonna stay here because everybody gets off the boat, then you have the whole boat to yourself. It's great.

SPEAKER_04 11:26

It sounds fun. That's when you go to the pool. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 11:33

Take full advantage. Yep. Well, we have a really good topic, I think. It's my week, and I think she's been excited for this for days.

SPEAKER_04 11:42

She's very excited, which makes me excited.

SPEAKER_05 11:44

So you want to do the little spiel?

SPEAKER_04 11:47

Oh, yeah. Um, like, share, rate review. Um, find us wherever you live, listen to podcasts. You can email us at likewhateverpod at gmail.com. You can visit our website and www.likewhateverpod.com. There's some merch there. Uh-huh. We got merch. Um, and shout out to our author buddy Pat Um sporting the uh Like Whatever t-shirt on his live feed the other night. It was lovely. So cool. We super appreciate you, Pat. You're the best. Yes, he is. Um, and I might as well finish up with um Pat Green, who is the author of Hearts of Glass. Um, his second book is out. He is sounds like he's working pretty hard on his third book. Yeah, I saw I've been seeing updates. He's getting getting it done. So uh yeah, check him out, please. Um, I know I missed one. Well we're gonna put a ad we'll put a his little ad right here for you then. Oh, perfect.

Cruises, Costs, And Playing Tourist

SPEAKER_00 12:53

If you grew up in the 80s, you remember the music, the malls, the mixtapes. But some of us also remember something else. Feeling alone, feeling unseen, trying to survive things. No one should have to survive. My Hearts of Glass book series by Pat Green isn't just a love story set under neon lights. It's about survivors trying to find each other. It's about found family. It's about the kind of love that doesn't fix the past, but helps you build a future. If you've ever needed a reminder that you are not broken, that healing is possible, that love can be safe. Come visit the world of Hearts of Glass Living in the Real World and its sequel, Hearts of Glass Fade Away and Radiate. Find the books, paperback, ebook, or audiobook on PackGreenauthor.com because your story did not end in the eighties. It's still being written.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

All right. I think did I get them all? I think so. Podcast. Yeah, just just go to the places, tell your friends, all the things. We appreciate your support. We have somebody binging right now, and it's so fun. Every once in a while we get pop up with another listen. We we don't know where y'all are from or what your names are. Um, we can see like a city and a state or a country or something like that, but it's cool. Yeah. And when the episodes get enough listens, we don't know what's new and what's not. Right. We can't tell. So whoever you are, we hope you're enjoying it. Um, but yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:26

So I'm gonna do a little bit different. Uh-oh. I know. I'm still gonna say, let's fuck around and find out, but in a couple of things. I wanna I wanna preface it. Yeah. There are people in pop culture who are famous, there are people who are iconic, and then there are people who are so singular, so chaotic, so unmistakably themselves that they become a category of one. A genre, a gravitational force. So let's fuck around and find out about flavor flav.

SPEAKER_07 14:59

I know.

SPEAKER_04 15:00

What? If you'd have given me a thousand guesses, I would not have guessed that.

SPEAKER_05 15:07

This is fun. I know.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

That's why I've been talking about it. Because I don't know a ton about him. Obviously, I know who he is, and I know he pop kind of pops up everywhere. I enjoy seeing him pop up more than I do Snoop these days. Like, but he just because he just, even though he is, like you said, one of a kind, it he's so excited to be doing things, and he gets starstruck really easily. And yay!

Housekeeping, Merch, And Listener Shoutouts

SPEAKER_05 15:36

So much fun. So he is a musical prodigy who taught himself piano at five. Wow, he is a political hype man who helped build one of the most important hip hop groups in history. He's a reality TV pioneer who accidentally reinvented the entire genre. He is a philanthropist, a survivor, a walking meme, a cultural symbol, and a man who wore a clock so large it doubled as a medieval shield. And somehow, despite all of that, most people don't know his story. Yeah. Um, flavor flav is one of the most misunderstood figures in American pop culture. People see the clock, the gold teeth, the Viking helmet, the yelling, the chaos, the reality TV antics, and they assume that's the whole story. But underneath this spectacle is a man who shaped hip hop, shaped television, shaped culture, and shaped the way we think about fame itself. He's a contradiction in motion, brilliant and troubled, disciplined and chaotic, political and absurd. He's deeply talented and deeply flawed. He is the spark that made public enemy accessible. He's the emotional release valve in a group known for its intensity. He is the comic relief in a political revolution. He is the vulnerability in a genre built on bravado, and still to this day one of the most recognizable figures in American music. I didn't say a word through that, but the whole time I'm just nodding. Flavor Flav was born William Jonathan Drayton Jr. on March 16th, 1959. Oh, his birthday's coming up. Exactly. In Roosevelt, New York. Roosevelt and Freeport were working class black communities on Long Island, close enough to New York City to feel the cultural pulse, but far enough away to feel the economic neglect. His father ran a small neighborhood restaurant called the Soul Diner, a place where people gathered, argued, laughed, flirted, and played music on the jukebox. His mother kept the household running, but the home environment was far from peaceful. At the very from the very beginning, William showed signs of rare musical genius. He taught himself piano at age five, not took lessons, not plunked around. He taught himself, and he didn't stop there. He learned drums, guitar, bass, trumpet, saxophone, keyboards, harmonica, congos, violin, ukulele, mandolin, accordion, triangle, and cowbell. Fifteen instruments in total. Wow. I know. He sang in the church choir. He played in school band. He absorbed music like oxygen. But his childhood brilliance existed alongside instability. He struggled in school, he got into fights, he had trouble focusing. He was restless, impulsive, and drawn to trouble.

SPEAKER_04 18:24

He was, in other words, he was bored. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:27

He was arrested multiple times for burglary and robbery. He dropped out of high school in the 11th grade and he spent time in juvenile detention. Um he was that that is the part of his story people forget. He wasn't just a class clown. He was a kid in pain, a kid who didn't fit into the structures around him, a kid who was brilliant but uncontained. A kid who needed direction and found it eventually in the most unexpected place. In 1978, William enrolled in culinary school. Wow. I know. He's that old.

SPEAKER_07 19:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:03

Jeez. Uh he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, but he knew he needed a skill. Cooking seemed like a path. I have said this many times that if you can work in a restaurant, you will never have trouble finding a job, no matter where you go or what you do, because you can always wash dishes and restaurants always need help.

Flavor Flav: Origin Story And Genius

SPEAKER_04 19:26

Yes. And I work with um, I've mentioned before, students with disabilities to help them find employment. And it makes my heart so happy when they want to study culinary. Or here in Delaware, anyway, they have high school pathways where you have to complete three years of a pathway that's offered at your school. Right. It could be animal science, uh, CNA, childcare, teacher academy, culinary. Like there's around here we're farming, so there's some ag ones and things like that. Um so I'll meet with kids, and a lot of kids don't. The idea is they do this pathway and they leave school ready to jump in to further their education in that and move on. But there's some kinks where we need to start helping kids understand better what these pathways mean. Anyway, any kid who's like, Well, I want to go to college and study computer tech. All right, cool. What was your pathway here? Culinary. I'm like, awesome. You're gonna know how to feed feed yourself and cook. If nothing else, not to mention, you will always be able to get a job if you need a side hustle or you can't find a job in the field that you're in, or you get laid off, or whatever happens. But at the bare minimum, you can cook for yourself. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 20:41

So I love and you can learn culinary, take ingredients that are relatively inexpensive, i.e., pasta. I mean, you can get a box of pasta for a dollar, even today. You can even today. Box of pasta. So far. Yeah. Well, I haven't checked today. So I mean yesterday you could get a box of pasta for a dollar. And if you have your basic staples, and you don't even need cans of tomatoes. You can make a sauce, you can make a sauce out of nearly anything.

SPEAKER_04 21:15

You can do butter and garlic. You can parmesan, you can throw anything on pasta and have a meal. And I'm that way too with the staples. Like there are certain things I have to have in my pantry, and as long as I have those things, I can have nothing else, and I can figure out something to make myself to eat. And and those are usually the best meals. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 21:36

I mean, granted, no cooking, you're not gonna make a lot of money off doing it unless you're a chef somewhere. Um and then it's just not the same. So much it's the stress is not worth the money that they make. Right. Um obviously, servers and bartenders is where your money is if you can if you're capable. You can tolerate if you're capable. I should if Are you capable of doing it? I am not. But I know that if something happens tomorrow where I need extra money, there are three restaurants within throwing distance of my house. And I'm sure that if I walked in there with the however many billions of years of experience I have, and I have done that. I've walked into restaurants on the other side of it because we were in the business for so long. Most people know who we are in the restaurant business around here, but still I could walk in anywhere and I don't need to cook. Same for me. I could waitress or bartend anywhere. Anywhere. Anywhere you go, no problem.

SPEAKER_04 22:39

You can get a job. I mean, I would go home and go to bed that night and probably not wake up because my body would be like we're done.

SPEAKER_05 22:47

Well, I can make French fries. I mean, so you know, I I just think it's a it's one of those skills that if you have children and or grandchildren or whatever, you know, really push them into their first job going into a restaurant. I mean, washing dishes, any of it. It's a s and the people that you will meet will be lifelong family sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 23:10

Yeah. And it's and when I worked in the casino 14 years, I have people that I am far closer to than a lot of my family.

SPEAKER_05 23:17

You're in a it's a whole different universe. There are criminals. I mean, because it's second chance. Yeah. If you need if you got out of prison, go to a restaurant immediately. Because they don't give a shit. If you're undocumented in this country, go to a restaurant because they don't, they just want a human being in the spot.

SPEAKER_04 23:37

If you're a parent and you need to work obscure hours because you're a single parent and you have to work around the city, mass chain, no offense to the chains, but they're very corporate and they're the mom and pop, yeah, they will move the heaven and earth for you.

Public Enemy’s Rise And Role Balance

SPEAKER_05 23:54

And I know that when we had our restaurant, when we ended up having to close, it was an enormous burden on my sister and I because we had people working for us who depended on that money, and it it's very stressful to know that you're responsible for other people. And but you make friends, and it's I call it the island of misfit toys. I mean, it really is. It's the strangest group of people you'll ever meet in your life. Exactly. And they all get along. Yeah. But let's get back to Fleve. Okay. Uh, after calling, he ended up at Adelphi University, and this is where fate intervened. He met Carlton Riddenhauer. Carlton was everything William wasn't calm, grounded, disciplined, politically aware, academically focused. He had a deep voice that sounded like it was carved out of granite. He was already thinking about the world in big structural ways. William was the opposite, chaotic, energetic, spontaneous, musical, emotional, and somehow they clicked. They started collaborating on Carleton's college radio show. They talked about music, they talked about politics, they talked about the world they were living in, reagonomics, racial tension, police brutality, the crack epidemic, and the rise of mass incarceration. And somewhere in there, William Drayton became Flavor Flav. A graffiti tag turned identity, a persona that captured everything he was flavor, energy, unpredictability, and rhythm. This partnership would change hip hop forever. In 1985, Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Terminator X, and Professor Griff formed Public Enemy. Their first single, Public Enemy number one, caught the attention of Rick Rubin at Def Jam. Rick Rubin didn't understand Flav at first. He saw Chuck D as the star, the voice, the message. A flave seemed like noise. But Chuck D insisted we need him, and he was right. Public Enemy wasn't just a rap group. They were a movement, a political force, a sonic revolution. They were sound, they were the soundtrack of Black America's anger, frustration, and hope. Chuck D was the message, and Flav was the megaphone. Their debut album, Yo Bum Rush the Show, dropped in 1987. It was raw, loud, political, and unlike anything else in hip-hop. Then came It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back in 1988. One of the greatest hip-hop albums ever made, a masterpiece. Yep. In the middle of all that seriousness, all that political fire, all the revolutionary energy was Flavor Flav, the court jester that made the medicine go down. He wasn't just a sidekick, he was the contrast that made the message land. In 1990, Flav released 911 as a joke. It was funny, it was catchy, it was political, it was biting, it was everything public enemy stood for, but with Flav's signature chaos, and it became a huge hit. Suddenly people realize he's just not the hype man, he's actually brilliant. Yeah. But behind the scenes, Flav was struggling. Addiction, legal trouble, domestic issues, and arrests. He was arrested for robbery, for drug possession, for domestic violence, for driving offenses, for carrying two pounds of marijuana. His reputation suffered, his finances suffered, and his reputation suffered. Did I say his relationship suffered? When I read his reputation, I was like, wait, did I say that? It all suffered.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

You all know what she means.

SPEAKER_05 27:27

Public Enemy kept going, but Flav was becoming unreliable. Um, the chaos that made him magnetic was now making him a liability. By the late 90s, he had faded from the spotlight. Oh, from the late 90s, he had faded from the spotlight. And now we're gonna make Nicole talk about herself in her diary.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

No tea alike, we're laughing through her teenage pike.

SPEAKER_04 28:00

Alright, so I'm sorry that y'all missed it last week. Oh, I just realized I spelled Wednesday wrong. It's driving me crazy. You know what? Wednesday is not a good word to have to spell. Well, I know it's Wednesday, but I spelled it Wednesday. Wednesday.

SPEAKER_05 28:20

When Wednesday have happened. Thou shalt.

SPEAKER_04 28:25

There you go. All right, this was April 18th, 1984. Um, today we woke up. Yep. It's a good start. It is some days. Had to take my sister on a trip, then came back home. Our Girl Scout troop. Girl Scouts, what? By the way, all y'all that are sick of Girl Scout cookies, I found out today it ends on Sunday, March 8th. So no. I know. I never got any. Oh no. I did. I got my thin mints. Uh that's all I was gonna get. They're just so outrageously expensive.

SPEAKER_05 29:05

But they're so good. The little bitches put crack in that shit.

SPEAKER_04 29:08

I know. I might stop by a grocery store and Saturday. They'll be all out in droves. They will. They will. Um, all right. So went to Girls, my Girl Scout troop went swimming on in April. We might have stood in an indoor pool. Oh, look at that. I can't see. After mom dropped us off, she went and picked up my sister from Mum Mum's and brought her to the pool. Oh no. Uh after we went home, we had dinner and took somebody back home, but I was writing in the margin and I can't read it. Uh Daphne. Welcome back, Daphne. Welcome back. Was supposed to come over, but she got sick.

SPEAKER_05 29:54

Oh, Daphne, no.

SPEAKER_04 29:56

Daphne's constantly letting me down. It's no wonder we weren't friends anymore. We had to get rid of that bitch. No offense if you're listening, Daphne. So yeah, that was April 18th, 1984.

Struggles, Fadeout, And VH1 Revival

SPEAKER_05 30:10

Well, speaking of sisters, uh, we have been desperately trying to get my sister to come. And she did I tell did I tell you I thought she was close uh her we are not allowed to bully her. Okay. Because she said you just want me on there to bully me. And I was like, no. No. No.

SPEAKER_04 30:35

Well, she knows that I wouldn't bully her. I think she's afraid that the two of us teaming up. I don't think I've ever bullied her. I do remember you used to make her dance for me. She was a cheerleader. And she was an excellent dancer. Yes. She is a very good dancer. Yes. And she loves like hip-hop dance. Yes. So you would make her do her cheers and dances for me when she was younger. But that should have been a good thing.

SPEAKER_05 31:00

She did them fucking cheers. I know all the cheers, like still to this day. She did them so much. And it's so weird because she you would not expect her to be a cheerleader, but she was mi she is the exact opposite of me. Exact. I mean like y'all think I'm the opposite. No, she is 100%. Everybody swears we look alike, but I have straight as poker straight hair. Hers is curly and insane. Like I don't think you look alike. I don't either.

SPEAKER_04 31:32

I think in baby pictures or in little kid pictures, sometimes I'm not sure if it's you or her. Yeah. And then sometimes I'm not sure if your mom looks like you or her. When she was younger, like y'all did in younger years look alike, but I don't think as we've gotten older, no.

SPEAKER_05 31:46

No. And she was into sports, and I was not. And I mean she was a cheerleader for Christ's sake. Enough said. She was the social butterfly. Like everything revolved around her and her little circle. Yes. And yeah. I was telling um my work bestie the other day about how so I'm five years older than her. So when she was 16, I was 21. And you know, we went to the same private school. One of the girls that she's friends with also had a sister who was in my class. We were, and for whatever reason, I would get the phone call all the time. And I lived far away from them. Like at that time, I lived, they lived in Berlin area. That's where she went to school. I lived in Rehoba. And that that's probably a good 30, 40 miles away from each other. And they would call me on like Friday afternoons and be like, hey, we're having a party. What's up? And they're all a bunch of rich kids. Like her class was way richer than mine. And they don't know. They're they're all fucking it. I mean, they had a list. They would come and bring me a list, and it would be like peach snobs. Yeah. And I'd be like, yeah, no. But they would hand me gobs of money. And I was living in an apartment that I had no business being in. And I was like, all right. So I would buy them a bunch of shit. They handed me gobs of money. They would sit in the house while I went and got it and talk to my roommate at the time. And then when I would show up, I'd toss her the keys to the car and be like, I don't know, there's alcohol in the back of the car, but I don't know. I don't, I don't see you doing it. So bye. Yep. But the other girl would tattle on them.

unknown 33:33

Oh no.

SPEAKER_05 33:35

Who are you? What the fuck? I know. Whatever. I never tattled. My mother still doesn't know to this day. Probably because I'd be the one in fucking trouble for buying her shit. Of course. And she would Yeah. These are the things I want to have her on for. So that we can talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 33:50

Luckily she doesn't listen because you were totally gonna bully her.

SPEAKER_06 34:01

Mm-hmm.

Diary Break: 1984 Girl Scouts

SPEAKER_05 34:02

And never told my mom. Yeah. Anyway. In 19, in 20, no. In 2004. Gotcha. VH1 called and Flavor Flav joined the surreal life. America fell in love with him again. He was funny, he was weird, vulnerable, unpredictable, and he was TV gold. His relationship with Bridget Nielsen became a whole spin-off. Strange love. I never watched any of the VH1.

SPEAKER_03 34:34

I think everyone's relationship with Bridget Nielsen is a spin-off. It's out of control.

SPEAKER_05 34:42

Then came the masterpiece, Flavor of Love. A dating show so chaotic it makes Sebastian look like PBS. The finale of season two pulled 7.5 million viewers, one of the biggest non-sports cable audiences ever. That's crazy. It burst spin-offs, memes, gifts, internet culture. It was the big bang of messy reality TV. Uh he didn't just star in reality TV, he changed it. He released a solo album, Hollywood, in 2006. He appeared in films like New Jack City and Confessions of a Pit Fighter. He toured with Public Enemy. He became a pop culture elder statement. But the drama of Public Enemy never fully went away. In 2020, he was fired from the group after political disagreements. It was messy and it was public. Enemy?

unknown 35:37

Hold on.

Sisters, Cheer Routines, And Growing Up

SPEAKER_05 35:40

So they fired him over. Well, it was it was a little it was a little bit messy because it was following a dispute over the group performing at a Bernie Sanders rally. Oh bringing an end to one of the most colorful partnerships in rap history. A statement said the group would be moving forward without Flavor Flav. We thanked him for his years of service and wish him well. Chuck D, the group co-founder and core member, added on Twitter that he had been sued by Flav's lawyer on Friday, so now he stays home and better find rehab. A later statement signed by Chuck D and the rest of Public Enemy complained that Flav always chose to party over work and had been on suspension from the group since 2016. Flav responded on Twitter saying he was very disappointed in you and your decisions right now, Chuck. You want to destroy something we've built over 35 years over politics. I'm your partner, you can't fire me. There's no public enemy without Flavor Flav. That's what I was thinking. He added that he had not sued Chuck D and said, I'm not on drugs, like you're saying, and have been clean for 10 years. The rally performance took place on Sunday with core member Chuck D performing as Public Enemy Radio. Following the announcement, lawyers of Flavor Flaves said the rapper has not endorsed any political candidate in the election cycle, adding Sanders was not authorized to use the group's image without Flav's permission. While Chuck is certainly free to express his political view as he sees fit, his voice alone does not speak for public enemy. Flav appended the letter with a handwritten note reading, Hey Bernie, don't do this. In the wake of the legal letter, but before the dismissal, Chuck D had said, Flavor chooses to dance for his money and not do benevolent work like this. He has had a year to get his act together and get himself straight, or he's out. He argued that Flav's decision was about money rather than politics. My last strong was long ago, he wrote on Twitter. It's not about Bernie with Flav. He don't know the difference between American football player Barry Sanders or Bernie Sanders, so I don't attack Flav on what he don't know. If there was a money bag, Flav would have been there, front and center. He will not do free benefit shows. He complained of a lack of support from Flav for an earlier fundraiser by Harry Belafonte for the social justice organization Sankkoff, calling Flav ungrateful and accusing him of judging a bikini contest instead.

SPEAKER_04 38:11

It sounds like they grew apart. Flav wanted that lifestyle, which is fine. And Chuck D wanted to stay serious, so it's kind of what it sounds like. I don't see where either of them are wrong or right.

SPEAKER_05 38:30

Yeah. The group's DJ Terminator X left in 98 and was replaced by DJ Lourdes. Supporting member Professor Griff left in 89 after causing outrage with homophobic and anti-Semitic comments. Chuck D and Flav previously clashed in 2017 when Flav sued Chuck D and the group's management company, East Link, over unpaid earnings. The case against Chuck D was dismissed in January of 2019. The East Link case was also dismissed. Flav's latter-day fame has mostly been from reality. Chuck D offered muted support for the potential presidential candidate. I dig aspects of burn. He wrote on Twitter, hate the party bullshit, but can relate to half the issues and get forward. Use your minds and be ready to fight whoever in office. Wake the fuck up. Get off your asses, make yourself important where you live. Oh, pizza's here.

Band Rift, Politics, And Split

SPEAKER_00 39:27

This is for the Gen Xers who carried too much too young. The ones who learned to be strong before they ever felt safe. The ones who survived and kept going. My Hearts of Glass series is a story about first love. But it's also about healing after trauma. About friends who become family, about choosing tenderness when the world taught you to wear armor. Set in the glow of 1980s suburbia, mall corridors and mixtapes. It's nostalgic, yes. But it's also a reminder. You deserved better, and you still do. If you're ready for a story that sees you, visit my website, packgreenauthor.com, and discover the books Hearts of Glass Living in a Real World and its sequel, Hearts of Glass Fade Away and Radiate, in ebook, audiobook, and paperback. You're not invisible, and you were never alone.

SPEAKER_05 40:20

Okay, we're back. And we had technical difficulties. But we had a pizza break. We did have a pizza break. Yeah. Now we're full. Yes. And I think I just broke my mic.

unknown 40:32

Okay.

Pizza Break And Tech Gremlins

SPEAKER_05 40:35

Um, so back to Flav. Mm-hmm. So yeah, after his uh his drama, we'll move on from his his drama, and we're gonna move on to um these days. Okay. The twist that no one saw coming. Flavor Flav became a champion of women's sports. Yes. Which is the number one reason why I wanted to do this episode. He certainly did. It was wholesome. It was flavor, it was flavor, it was Flavor Flav launched. He flavor Flav launched a GoFundMe campaign to fund a multi-day celebration weekend in Las Vegas called She Got Game, dedicated to the U.S. female Olympic and Paralympic medalists. Nice. He emphasized that many of these athletes worked second and third jobs to support their training and deserve meaningful recognition and financial support. Funds raised go directly to the athletes who attend the event. He uh the U.S. women's hockey team won gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Flav personally invited them to Las Vegas for a celebration and began raising money to cover travel, lodging, dinners, show, events honoring their achievement. Yep. And they did go. He positioned himself as a vocal advocate for better recognition and resources for women's athletes. Flav served as the official hype man for the U.S. Bob Sleet and Skeleton teams at the 20 during the 2026 Winter Olympics. He's also helped fund travel and traveling and training costs for athletes in these sports, which are notoriously underfunded. That's awesome. Because they got slighted, the women's hockey team got slighted. Yep. I mean, I'm sorry, but I would much rather party with Flavor Flav. In Vegas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:22

I mean than have McDonald's in a big boring house. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:27

Hello. That's just common sense. He has previously sponsored the U.S. women's water polo team, helping cover expenses associated with training and competition. His GoFundMe profile shows a pattern of supporting individual athletes and community causes, including relief for black families impacted by the LA wildfires, multiple Olympic-related fundraisers for athletes needing financial help to compete. Support for musicians and community events raising awareness about gun violence. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 43:03

I feel like I kind of knew these things, but I didn't never put them all like together.

Flav’s Support For Women’s Sports

SPEAKER_05 43:07

I know I also read somewhere um he had something to do with in the so the what I know the water polo team he had in the 20 2024 Olympics. He funded them and their training and everything. And I want to say, and I thought it was I thought I put it in here. I don't know what happen half my script went away for whatever reason. Um the gymnastics team. He did stuff for the women's gymnastics team too. Like he paid rent for one of the girls or or something like that, like at her house. That you can't change. Exactly. You know. Yeah. Play the play. Yeah. And you know, I also put in here when it's not here anymore either. I don't know what happened. I know at one point I put the yeah booy. Yeah, boy. I don't know what happened to it. But the fifth, the thing, well, I'll okay, I'll just finish up. Flavor Flaves legacy is impossible to summarize. Hip hop pioneer, musical, musical prodigy, reality TV icon, philanthrop philanthropist, survivor, uh, the spark that made public enemy accessible, the man who changed reality TV forever, the guy who turned the clock into a cultural symbol, messy, brilliant, flawed, and unforgettable. Uh he is flavor flav. Yeah, boy. Yeah, boy, yeah, booy. So yeah, like it's I was just I was thinking about him when I saw that he was throwing the women's hockey team a party. Yes. I was like, you know, I don't really know a whole lot about Flavor Flav other than, you know, yeah, boy. And the clock. And I was shocked that he could play 15, that he taught himself 15 instruments. Like that was like, what?

SPEAKER_04 45:10

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_05 45:11

And I knew we had a rough time of it, you know, growing up. And you know, they I'm I'm sure most rappers did.

SPEAKER_04 45:20

It always fascinates me when a prodigy of any kind comes out of any type of environment. I mean, it's just crazy. Some some are lucky enough to be born into money and and support and things like that, but so many come from just the most unlikely places. And it's it just fascinates me.

SPEAKER_05 45:42

You know, and when when he and I think the biggest was when he started with the water polo team. That's when like the and he had been supporting them for a while. It's not like it was just suddenly one day he was like, you know what, I'm gonna like he had been supporting them for a while and paid for their trip to the Olympics and and everything. And you just have to like I was when I saw that, I was like, Well, that is crazy. All right, flavor flav, what but yeah, it's cool.

SPEAKER_04 46:12

Yeah, he said. That was really, really interesting. I love learning that about him.

SPEAKER_05 46:17

Thanks. I love him so much now. I know. Now I have to go listen to Well, I was gonna listen to public enemy, but then I had a rough week.

SPEAKER_04 46:27

You didn't need to throw more rage in there. They did not.

SPEAKER_05 46:31

At our little dinner, I got to tell my parents about part of my week. Yes. It was very fun. Yeah. They made me.

SPEAKER_04 46:41

Yeah. And your dad was very supportive. Yeah. You're crazy.

SPEAKER_05 46:47

Look, public service announcement. If you're 51 years old, you should probably not be starting fights with people in parking lots in the dark. Just saying. You're gonna end up getting killed, and that's what's gonna end up happening. I've been saying it for how long have I been saying, I I know, you keep trying.

Water Polo, Fundraisers, And Community Work

SPEAKER_04 47:06

I you keep trying, and nobody will take the bait. This kid tried. He did his best. I mean, if you need an example of the people prey on people who are weaker, you're the good example of the opposite end of that because people try coming at you and they're like, Oh, she is not weak. Oh, and what have I gotten myself into?

SPEAKER_07 47:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:32

No, I've always been weird. No big surprise. And I have always been I had a little altercation with somebody about this because we just talked about it. And uh I probably could have gotten killed. Um because I I I have a bit of a tendency to not give a flying fuck about my own safety in matters. Plus, the dude threatened to stomp my dog to death. Yeah. I mean, right there, game over.

SPEAKER_04 48:01

And you're smart and witty and not afraid to use it. So this kid make it hard for some moron to come up against you.

Why Flav’s Philanthropy Hits Different

SPEAKER_05 48:10

This kid claimed to be 32. I don't know. And he was skulking across my parking lot at 5 45 in the morning in the dark with his hood up. Like, what are you doing? It's uh it's a private property. Well, anyway, so I opened my mouth because that's who I am. I I have a lot of menopausal rage and been looking for a victim. And I have always never I shouldn't say that. I have an issue with my rage taking over, and I don't have flight. I only have fight. And I'm it's going to get me killed probably one day. I it and it's going to get my ass beat. And apparently this kid thought that his defense was the same as mine in that he would try and out crazy somebody. Because that's what I've always done. I've just outcrazy people. Unfortunately, yesterday he found out that his crazy works for some people. And again, don't ever take your eyes off your enemy. And he looked away. Game over. But I didn't get my ass kicked yet. He's probably gonna kill me tomorrow, but that's fine. No, he's not coming back. I don't know. You I should stop talking about it. I'm gonna will it into existence and well, that's what you're trying to do. I know. You want to kill you? I really probably should not try and get killed. But my dad was very supportive. He was, he was very proud of you. And now I want to get so now I want to get tell me if I'm wrong. I want to get when this kid comes back, because I've seen him a couple times. When he comes back, what I want to do, like maybe Sunday when I have off and I don't have anything else to do, I want to get like a clown costume. And like when he comes through the parking lot, I just want to step out behind him in the clown costume and just be like just quietly. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That's fucking scary. Yeah. That'd probably scare me. Yeah. That's what you got to do to scare me. And I don't mean no art the clown clown costume, because that's I'm not thin enough for that, number one. I was saying uh Killer Clowns from Outer Space. And I was even willing to put the work in for a paper mache candy. You were you did. You had it all planned out. Which is probably why there's something wrong with me. Anyway. And you get it from your dad. Who was just as excited and helping plan said costume he was. I and I was well, when I was talking about it, I said it's his fault because he had girls and he wanted boys, and he was not about to let his girls that we were taught to play.

SPEAKER_04 51:01

His words exactly, he did not want pansies. He said, I don't care if I have girls, I just don't want pansies.

Parking Lot Confrontation And Boundaries

SPEAKER_05 51:09

And he did not get that. Again, my sister has pulled people through windows of cars. Yes, yes. So yeah, he taught us very young. And his motto has always also been if you don't have muscles, you have to use your brains. And that has gotten through us a lot. Moving restaurant equipment. We have every kind of contraption under the sun in that restaurant to move equipment that was too heavy. One time the grill fell over. We were cleaning it and it fell off its legs because they weren't bolted down, even though he said 500 times the legs are not bolted on. Be careful with it. And then he pushed it off the side. Of course he did. And it was just him and I there. Well, those grills weigh, it was a six-foot grille. They weigh seven, eight hundred pounds. There's no way that we can pick it up and put it back on its legs. So I said, Dad, I think we're gonna need we're gonna need to call some boys to get this up. The man said, No. No, like why, why not? Just call some people to help us. Like, why no? No.

SPEAKER_06 52:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:16

No. He refused. So we ended up taking the jack and we would jack one end of it up and slide milk crates under it, and then go around and jack the other side up and slide milk crates under it, and then put the jack on the milk crate, because that's safe, and jack it up until we got one end high enough to get his trailer under it. We got the trailer under it and then pushed the trailer up, and that brought it up enough that we could slide the legs back under. Instead of calling somebody, we ended up spending two hours trying to to make the plan and then execute the plan. Yes. But it worked. Yeah. We got it back up there.

SPEAKER_04 53:04

He also said he went on a long walk today just to see if he could still walk that far. So this is why I want to have my sister on here.

SPEAKER_05 53:13

Yeah. Cause she's also Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. It runs in the family. Yeah, really. My mom's Italian, we can do. Yeah. She threatens to my dad all the time, he's gonna end up under the dumpster. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for listening. How's that for an ending? I know, right? I wish I could tell you more what happened, but I want to be incriminated. It's probably on video somewhere. If you look on YouTube, my landlord probably put it up. I know. I should ask him for it. I wonder if he has sound. I'm gonna find out. Yep. Um, put that bitch right up on YouTube, maybe. And then you can tell me if I was wrong. Yeah. And being just a Karen. Yeah. Fuck off. Uh, thanks for listening. Thank you. You can find us on all the socials at Like Whatever Pod. You can go to our website and look at our merch. Uh www.likewhateverpod.com. Uh you can find us where all the podcasts live. We're on there. Um email. Or you can you can send us an email. You can send us an email about what way you would scare somebody in a parking lot. To like whatever pod at gmail.com or don't like whatever. Whatever. Yeah, boy. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

Whatever we'll say.