037 Just a Friend transcript (Biz Markie)

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Amit: This is Famous and Gravy, a podcast about quality of life as we see it. One dead celebrity at a.

Michael: This person died in 2021, age 57. Beginning in 2007, he appeared regularly on the Nickelodeon show Yo Gaba Gaba.

Friend: That's that weird show with all the crazy characters you like. I had Adam Schlesinger.

Michael: Not Adam Schlesinger. He collaborated with artists such as the Beastie Boys and Will Smith and occasionally performed on film and television shows.

Friend: Uh, Steve Burns Is not dead is the problem. Yeah, and also not a Beastie Boy. It's related.

Michael: He appeared in the 2002 movie Men in Black II, in which he played an alien who is disguised as a postal worker and communicates with Will Smith's federal agent character via beatboxing.

Friend: Ah, he really, uh, he really got them for me, huh? ? Um, I remember the Will Smith beatbox part, but.

Michael: Who was, who was the

Friend: DJ Jazzy Jeff?.

Michael: Not DJ Jazzy Jeff. At a time when other MCs rapped about street gangs, hustlers, radical politics or police brutality, he brought a lighter approach to hip hop rapping about a beloved Brooklyn mall, the pleasures of nose picking and the inspiration that came to him while he was sitting on the toilet.

Friend: Oh, uh, Biz Markie. Okay. Okay, Hold on. Biz Markie, would this be Biz Markie?

Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Biz Markie.

Friend: There it is.

Archival: I want to talk about just a friend. Everybody said the record was garbage. It was whack. I even tried to get my man sworn to sing the hook. Do you? You got what I need, right? Nobody wanted to sing the. I'll say, Shit, , I gotta see this myself, . But 8 million records later, if you believe in yourself, anything could be achieved.

Michael: Welcome to Famous and. I'm Michael Osborne.

Amit: And I'm Amit Kapoor.

Michael: And on this show we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and reviewed their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer a big question, Would I want that?

Life today? Biz Markie died 2021, age 57. Category one, Grading the first line of their obituary. Biz Markie, The innovative yet proudly goofy rapper, DJ and producer who self-deprecating lyrics and offkey whale on songs like Just a friend Earned Him the nickname Clown Prince of Hiphop died on Friday.

He was 50.

First reaction is, I love it, .

I do too. There's a lot of praise in here.

Amit: Yeah. I'd like to ask Michael that we do something different that we go sentence by sentence.

Michael: So there's actually one sentence, but do you mean Clause bylaw? Clause bylaw? Correct. Innovative, yet proudly goofy

Amit: love. Proudly goofy love, innovative.

Right. So I love the contrast there because he was definitely a whole new style. And the proudly goofy was such a contrast to what was rising on the West Coast throughout what we remember eighties

Michael: rap to be. And I mean, in a way, rap to this day. I mean, there's not a whole lot of proudly goofy rappers overall.

I think we'll get into this as the conversation goes on, but there's a lot of ways in which this sort of territory that he carves out as being proudly goofy, really distinguishes him from other rappers then. And.

Amit: Proud is important. Proudly goofy is very different than just being performance. Goofy. Yes.

Okay. Next clause.

Michael: Okay. Producer who's self-deprecating lyrics and off key whale. On songs like Just a Friend.

Amit: Yeah. Self-deprecating I think in isolation doesn't sound so good.

Michael: Yeah. And is proudly goofy and self-deprecating. Are we being redundant

Amit: here? No, I don't think so. I think proudly Goofy was the lifestyle and the whole presence of the biz on stage on Mike as dj.

It was all the character of Bismark self-deprecating is, you know, rap and hip hop, as we know it is prideful. Right. He, some of his biggest hits were like a love torn songs.

Michael: I mean, they really did have to call out just a friend, cuz there is the one hit wonder sort of label or association with Bismarck. I think people could point to other things.

He did cameos or appearances or collaborations. But in terms of solo songs, a lot of people know just a friend and don't know anything else in

Amit: the catalog. Yeah. And the off keenness of it is what makes it so. Memorable and so popular.

Michael: Amen to that. And then finally, nickname Clown Prince of Hip Hop. How do I feel about that nickname moment?

Amit: I like it. I mean, he was a man of infinite nicknames. I wrote some down the diabolical one, you'd hear him refer to the diabolical bis. Marque The Inhuman Orchestra. I love that one.

Michael: Inhuman orchestra. And yes. What does that mean?

Amit: It just means that he could produce orchestral sounds with his mouth, was a beyond human capability.

I like to

Michael: introduce myself. My name is Biz

and Monk.

You.

Amit: Human beatbox and rap

Michael: king. Now, these are all very good. Our well clown princes is kind of, on one hand it looks like he's fully embracing it. On the other hand, you know, is it covering up an insecurity? I don't know. And I guess like anybody who calls himself the clown prince, I'm willing to. Sign off on it, but it does, uh, give me

Amit: pause.

Oh, yeah, no doubt. Yeah. There's insecurity in any class clown, whether you're doing that at, at 14 years old or in

Michael: your fifties. Uh, and we will get into that. All right. Well, so let's give it a great, I think we're both pretty high on

Amit: this. I've got a question, I, I forgot at the beginning. Did they attribute his proper name, his birth name?

Michael: No, and I, uh, I lost it. Sorry. Should I look it up? It's like Marcel Theo. They did not, they go by his station name, Bis Marque in the New York Times. Huh? It doesn't say Marcel Theo Hall, Better known as Bis Marque.

Amit: So we were cool with that on Muhammad Ali, that they didn't say Born Cassius Clay. I'm a little, uh, befuddled on this.

Michael: Yeah. Fred Curly Neil, you know, he got the quotes, uh,

Amit: mean Jean Oland, but that was just an addendum to his full.

Michael: My hunch, and I don't know, and I'd really like to talk to an Obi writer at some point about this, is that they are honoring how a person like to be identified in

Amit: their life. Okay. So for me, omission, maybe on this obituary is contribution is ah, yeah, influence and contribution of how much he appeared.

Everywhere. You know? Yes. In cameos, on other albums, co performing with other people. The man was ubiquitous and I didn't know all of this prior to the research for this episode, and I think that's a little missing Mark for me.

Michael: Well, how much are you gonna dock it? I'm

Amit: gonna dock that one point. So Bismark Key or Marcel, the O Hall's obituary.

I will give a nine. I

Michael: think I'm also gonna go a nine on it. I was gonna give a half point for not including the full name. That does feel like the kind of thing you're supposed to do, actually. But listen man,

Amit: our job is to set a high standard. That's right.

Michael: You know? Yeah. Well, nine's a very damn good score.

It's not quite perfect, but it's, It's right there.

Amit: Yeah. So I'm applauding you for the deduction. Oh, deal. We want perfection and legacy here. Isn't that right?

Michael: Quick programming note. Ed, you're a little under the weather today, correct? I am. Good for you for, uh, coming here and getting me sick. Ah,

Amit: yes. We've taken appropriate measures.

Michael: We've taken appropriate steps. All right. Category two, five things I love about you here. Ed and I work together to come up with five reasons why we'd love this person, why we want to be talking about them in the first place. I can lead, You can lead. I'm pretty

Amit: easy. Uh, I don't mind. So number one, I'm gonna go created the perfect Singalong.

Michael: So you're calling just a friend, the perfect singalong. Yeah.

Amit: And I'll go into that and not only just a friend, but the man was a singalong artist. And I can list a few examples. So let's start with just a friend. Okay. You know that song is. Di, if that goes on at a bar at 1:00 AM right now, you will still have the entire bar singing.

Yeah. And it's accessibility. It's sadness and the off keenness is what everybody loves about it. I mean, it is a country song disguises, hiphop. Oh, interesting. But it's about like a forlorn lover, and I think it's got the same appeal and the same heartstrings as friends and low places.

Michael: Song designed as, That's really good.

Almed. I agree. I, you know, so to say a word about just a friend for a minute, this cracks me up. If you go to Wikipedia, I'm gonna read what it says. The single, just a friend in which he alternates between rap and singing and singing is in quotes. Why is singing in quotes here you got what I need? But you say he just a friend.

And you say he justifi. Oh, he is absolutely singing. He's not necessarily singing

Amit: well, but, but what you're saying is like whatever Wikipedia editor did this was like, eh, I'm not gonna give it like singing,

Michael: but it's Exactly.

Amit: And I mean, so yeah, so that's a, the sing along, but there's more to that too. I mean, the man was a sing along artist.

If you look at vapors. I love that video. Yeah. Every rewatched it, the opening of it. And we'll show notes. This is, you know, him snapping his fingers and then like started, uh, wrapping. And then getting everyone to snap their fingers and singing along the man, uh, the man could control the crowd. Yeah. And he could get a crowd moving and that is lovable.

Marley Marle, I think, told this story about how bis Marqui like came to his office one day and was like waiting in the hallway and there was all these people hanging out, and then all of a sudden he just hears all these people singing along and the biz had, I guess that energy about him and the way that he kind of wrapped, you know, sort of slowly and excessively and brought you.

This idea of country and hip hop really is resonating with me with Bismark. And the last bit of trivia I'll throw in that is he did cover Johnny Paychecks, take this job and shove it on the office space bonus CDs

Michael: and,

and Showe. I ain't, And the job in it, one of the things I think is. Just a friend is a goofy song. Right. And everybody in their heads listening to this conversation is probably going, Ew. Right? Yeah. Like, like you want to do it, as you said, it's, it's got this thing along, quality to it. At the same time, the message that that song is, Awesome.

Yeah. Like it so speaks to an adolescent experience of, you know, I'm really into this girl and this is the most devastating thing she could possibly say. I'm great in all these ways, and she wants me as just a friend. It's actually slightly different.

Amit: It's, it's he pin for this girl and she's got this guy.

Yeah. And he keeps seeing signs. Guy that's around and she's saying, Oh, he's just a friend. In the sense that like, you've got potential with me. This guy, don't worry about him. He's just a friend. And so the despair that he's feeling is like, I'm being fucked with, you know, like I'm throwing my heart out and I'm giving it to this woman and she actually has somebody else but is dragging me along and it's breaking my.

Michael: Whatever side of that love triangle you're on. The words just a friend are always devastating.

Amit: Correct. That's such a perfect phrase for being love. Lauren.

Michael: That was gonna lead to my number two, if I can take it. So I do think that there is this goofball quality, but he, I mean he's also like pure hip hop in the sense that like there is.

Coming at you deal with it quality to him. I love that contrast of kind of in your face, the kind of confrontation that can surround the genre with a kind of like class clown element. I think he's the kind of guy who lights up a room and cheers you up wherever you are. But that he cannot be ignored.

Right. He like demands to be seen. I think it's just a unique combination. So I, I went with the kind of contrast of deal with it, hiphop attitude coupled with total goofball from my number two. I wanna

Amit: break it down just a little bit. So the contrast with, Deal with it, What was your wording?

Michael: Watching the videos?

I mean, he's, he's sort of doing the kind of posturing. All the eighties rappers were doing, you know, marching at the camera with a kind of, I'm coming at you and you gotta handle it. Posturing. Yes. Which I think is like core to what hip hop is. Yes. You rarely see that sort of coupled with comedy, but not pardy.

There's a lightheartedness about that. I think lighthearted confrontation overall. Is an interesting like sort of stance to have when dealing with

Amit: the world. I think you're right and that goes back to the innovative in the obituary. But he's certainly not the only one to do that. If you look at kind of early Run dmc, you look at what we now know as Will Smith, the original Fresh Prince, and way more recently things like Childish Gambino and Little Dickie, and a lot of that is born out of this era that Bis Marque was a part of introducing.

But there's also echos of, I think early kind of seven. The origins of rap and hip hop when you look at Grand Master Flash and that sort of jokingness.

Michael: I guess I just wanna say one more thing about my number two as we go on with Famous and Gravy. I think I really like these contrasts in people when two things exist that are seemingly contradictory, but that exist in a sort of symbiotic state.

I think that makes people more interesting, right? It it, it rounds them out. It gives them dimension and sides. So I think that's something I want to be looking for. You know, in five things going forward, there's a word that

Amit: they've assigned for that's even used in psychological settings. Dialectical. Yeah.

Huh? Right. That you can be part of one and part of another. And I think that gets really important as we get into things like mixed race and gender issues. But you know, even things like personality traits and music style, this idea of fitting into categories is. You know, we don't want it anymore. It's going by the wayside.

You're a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And I think what you're saying about Biz Marque is that he was an early example of that.

Michael: Absolutely. I'm glad he brought up, uh, the dialectic in Hale. Why don't you take number three? Number

Amit: three, My headline's gonna be he pulled a George Michael , but the story's gonna be better than that.

So you're familiar with the lawsuit, right? I am. I figured we'd be talking about this here. Yeah. So this is actually like one of. Biggest moments in hip hop history, if not music history. So the album with just a friend came out in 1989. Mm-hmm. bis. Marque's Follow up album was called, I Need A Haircut, which came out in 1991, Had a song on it called Alone Again, which sampled a song from, let's call him George O.

Sullivan. That is at least 70% of his name. Yeah.

Michael: Sullivan's one of the.

Amit: And the guy sued him and he won. And this was a sort of landmark case that set precedent for all future rap music and all

Michael: right, All of a sudden, I mean, and the judge like threw the fucking book at Bismarck E It actually sounded a little bit like the judge was trying to make a statement about.

How not, okay. It was that there was this culture of sampling in rap music and like scolded him and said, You have to clear everything from now on. And this changed hip

Amit: hop. It was a precedent setting case and BIS Marqui was fined, I think $250,000. But more importantly, all of his records had to be pulled off the shelve, so all of his unsold records.

So this was a pretty big turning point in what would've been a good financial trajectory for Bis Marque, and really puts him at. You know, the center of hiphop history as being this scapegoat. So the thing I was actually gonna point to of the thing I loved about him was his follow up album to that, that he called it All Samples Cleared

And that's what I like it. That is so Bismark key like, and just like a little nod to fuck you judge and fuck you. Oh Sullivan. And I'm calling this album All Samples Cleared and where this is a George Michael moment was, Do you remember? I think this was your Maich moment in our George Michael, episode 13.

George Michael was, you know, after he had kind of come out or was known that he was openly gay. He was the subject of a sting operation in Los Angeles, in which a undercover cop. Um, arrested him for an act of lewdness Yeah. Solicitation or something, right? Yes. And so George Michael was publicly embarrassed, arrested, and as a follow up, George Michael's next video was essentially parroting the entire thing and poking fun at the cop.

And it was kind of a fuck you cop type of video and Right. What Bis Marque did here in his next album was, Fuck you judge, or Fuck you judicial system. Oh, samples cleared. Yes. And so I like that

Michael: about. Good number three, Al. Okay, I'll take number four. This is a little generic, but I think it's important.

Gratitude. This guy seems to have a lot of gratitude. I think gratitude is an important emotion. I think it's an important thing to bring into life. Where I got to thinking about this is did you come across this Washington Post article from, I believe it was 2018. It was fairly late. It was a profile of Bismark and uh, he says, I'm one of the unsung heroes.

It's like I'm part of hip hop, but sometimes I'm forgotten. It's beautiful because it means all eyes ain't on me, so when I do pop up, they appreciate everything they see. It's like the Mc McRib sandwich . I think that he seems to be pretty happy about his place and hip hop history, how he keeps showing up, how he does have all these cameos and appearances on yo gaba.

Gaba, and. We'll talk about it later, but the, the Celebrity Weight Loss show, you know, Cameo and Men in Black, the collaboration with the Beastie Boys, on and on, you know, I think that this is really true. He seems kind of forgotten. He shows up and everybody's happy to see him, and I think he's just grateful for that.

I see a man who's living. A life that at least publicly leans towards. I'm really happy with how things are going and how it's turned out for me. I know that's a little bit generic, but I'm not sure we see public displays of gratitude that really feel heartfelt to me, especially given how high and how not high he went In terms of status.

Yeah, and, and recognizability. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's huge and absolutely

Amit: desirable. Yeah. I really, really like that. That resonates with me. You take number. Okay, I'm gonna go with just how biz he was. The biz was so biz and if I'm gonna put it into better wordings, it's authentic to character.

The best quote I found to start it off, as you know, he did a bunch of work with the Beastie Boys and Adam Horowitz said the Beastie Boys. He said, I did not expect the biz to be as biz like as he was. He goes, You better have the tape running when the biz is around. He's an all freestyle off the dome kind of artist.

So the man had his like, Eccentricities, the way that he was known for this kind of parroting, childlike, joyous behavior was all around him all the time. So the Beastie Boys also told this story of when he first came to studio to meet them, he said, Yo, you know, where there's a candy store? And the Beastie Boys were all like, Oh, they gotta get some drugs for Bis Marque.

And they're like, he's like, No, I need some DIY rolls and Snickers . Um, And you know, his music is so frequently, although we say is self deprecating. It really is joyous. You know, when you talk about picking boogers or even if you take things like the vapers and just a friend. So he fed this off of the way that he lived and he was a collector of just some crazy stuff.

They said he had a museum worthy collection. I

Michael: collect a lot of things and some things I just like to be next to me. I got every Jordan that ever came out. Every sneaker that is cool to me. That came out. I got every toy records. I got about 75 to 80,000, 40 fives. I got every Barbie dollar ever came out. I got trailer trash Barbie.

I got Is that a real Barbie? Yes. I can show you. Uh, I got Trailer trash Barbie. I got, uh, racist Barbies. I got, uh, this Barbies, this is one of the last interviews he did, and he goes on at length about his Barbie

Amit: collection, . It's nuts. So it's amazing. Oh,

Michael: it's so lovable. I think it's actually been handed over to a museum in New York, whether this is true

Amit: or not, he said, I gotta have two houses.

One for the business to live in and one for the business collection. That's, I don't know if he actually had two houses in like a Larry McMurry type of way. Uh, as I said that he always had that archive. They use the word archive kicking around. So it was always in his imagination and you could hear that in his endlessly inventive rhymes.

That's where the love part is, is that that was an archive for his imagination. .

Michael: Let's recap here. So what did you have for number one?

Amit: I said singalong artist, i e, country music parallel. I

Michael: tagged vulnerability in with air because there was something on my list that seemed to fit in there. Then I said kind of contrast of deal with it, hip hop attitude coupled with total goofball.

Then number

Amit: three, you, you had, I had pulled to George Michael in saying, Fuck you, judge, following lawsuit.

Michael: My number four was pure gratitude and your number five was just how busy

Amit: he. 24 hour character.

Michael: All right, Category three, Malkovich Malkovich. His category is named after the movie being John Malkovich, in which people take a little portal into John Markovic's mind and they can have a front row seat to his experiences.

You want me to go

Amit: first? Yeah, why don't you? I feel like I often go

Michael: first. Mine's pretty simple and I'm not going super deep here. This came up in a few places, including in the New York Times article. He was said to have once given his high school vice principal a cake laced with laxatives . This is. Pure dumb and dumber.

This is the kind of prank I really would have wanted to do in high school and would not have had the balls to do. I wanna be there At the moment, he hands over the laxative laced cake to the vice principal. I don't know what happened of this story. I saw it mentioned a few times. I just wanna be the behind the eyes for actually the whole experience to do baking the cake in the kitchen.

Yeah, you got the Betty Crocker, you know, mix in your kitchen. With buttermilk and everything, and , you loaded up with laxatives and the laughing to yourself at that moment, and then the handing it like, I baked this cake for you. I don't have enough details about this story. I'm not sure I need a lot. I just wanna be behind the eyes.

Amit: Beautiful. Thank you. I, I can't even think of like the loosest, no pun intended, crossover at all between yours and mine. You go, you're Maich. So mine is his performances in the Tibetan Freedom Concerts. So a series of concerts held in the mid to late nineties when Tibetan Freedom was a. Big celebrity issue.

Mm-hmm. brought to the United States a lot and a lot of benefit concerts done in the same way that, um, kind of live aid was done in the eighties. So the two major American ones were a 96 show in San Francisco and a 97 1 in New York, both of which Bismarck Key was a part of. And why is it a malkovich? So I'll tell you.

So it's his performances specifically, and I'm gonna use specific quotes to extract from it to try to create the scene from it. So in 96, so this woman, Aaron Potts, who was uh, one of the organizers of the event and one of the leaders of. Kind of the American free movement. Uh, and so she says that, Well, first of all, the biz didn't fly this.

I didn't know about him, and this was the only reference I saw to that. So they had to get him a Greyhound bus ticket and called him five days before to remind him to get on the bus, and he shows up in his gray sweatsuit and just crushes it. Is one of the top performances of the entire Tibetan Freedom Festival.

And then Sarah Peric, I'm just gonna read verbatim what she said about business performance, cause I don't think I could say it any better. She says Biz really brought the fun to it, but in a way that also made the crowd think about Tibet. He started beatboxing and then he was like, You save free. You a Tibet and beat boxing over it.

It was hysterical and biz started doing this twisty little dance. He had charisma coming out of every pour of his body, and the whole crowd went mental. If you were the most apolitical person in the world, you'd go home and go free Tibet. In China, people would be put in prison for saying free Tibet. So every time bi shouted free Tibet, it was incredible political statement.

I don't know that I need to even add anymore to that to, to explain why that is. AIC moment.

Michael: Wow. That is triumphant. That is incredible. Everybody say free bet to be, Oh, I never forget.

Amit: And so then the follow up to the Bet and Freedom concert, the New York one held the following year. This again, I'm really, uh, upset that I couldn't find tape of this.

If anyone does, please send it our way to hello@famousandgravy.com. He shows up on stage wearing an Afro wig with a Delo guitar, and did an entire human beatbox version of Jimmy Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner.

Michael: Holy cow. Yeah. God, that has to be out there somewhere. I couldn't find it. That is beautiful. But to make it at Maich, I think it's the power

Amit: of, you know, this is, this is going back to my number one of using his stong ability to bring a crowd together and actually get into people's hearts to move them towards, A cause or at least think about something.

Yeah. You know, wielding that power of his sing along his charisma and actually Yeah. Fully alive. Yeah. And, and turn it into activism, you know? Yeah. But in, but in this like, fucking, like, funny, I'm taking a bus in a great jumpsuit and putting on a Afro wig, uh, biz kind of way.

Michael: That's beautiful. I love that.

Malcolm ve. Let's pause for a word from our sponsor.

Amit: Michael, do you know one of the ways in which I'm cool? ,

Michael: what did you have in mind? I have vinyl records. Oh, that is cool. Vinyl records are a lot of fun. I love studying the old covers and I love that the music is actually on the record, Right? It's like been engraved.

Amit: Totally. And you will never guess where I buy my vinyl records

Michael: from. I would assume that you are going. Garage sales. That is

Amit: incorrect. I exclusively get my vinyl records at Half Price Books. I'm

Michael: sorry, you said Half Price Books? You're talking about vinyl

Amit: records? Yes. Half Price Books is more than books, Board games, vinyl records, CDs, movies, puzzles.

And even brand new

Michael: bestsellers. My goodness, it's so much more than just books. Yes. But when it comes to books, I do know that Half Price Books is the nation's largest new and used book seller with 120 stores in 19 states. And Half Price Books is also online@hhb.com.

Let's go on category four, loving marriage. How many marriages, also, how many kids, and is there anything public about these relationships? I found this kind of surprising. What I saw was one marriage to Tara in 2018. Uh, they were very private. Biz was 54, and he, you know, dies at 57. So they're married a little over three years.

She had a child from a previous relationship, but there were no kids together. But, so he is a stepdad to, uh, one of Tara's children who was

Amit: an activist. Yeah, her name's Avery. She's, uh, did a lot in the Black Lives Matter movement. Apparently he was close to her and then also, Tara had a niece that he was also close to.

I see.

Michael: And that's it. Right. Did you see anything else? Like it was actually hard to get data on this? Yeah,

Amit: extremely private. I mean, no signs of any marriages prior. And no kids. And no kids. And, uh, but we don't even know much about relationships afterwards. I mean, I don't think him and blah, blah, blah ever worked out.

Michael: I asked her, her, she said, Blah, blah, blah, . I mentioned the song earlier. What Goes Around comes around, which I feel like what I heard in the song, what goes around is kind of vindication, right? Cause one day I'm gonna make it and you be wanting me. You try hard. Ever since I graduated to make it big. And yes, I finally made it with your videos and tv.

Now everywhere you go, everybody knows me. Now the tables have turning downs. Me your. So I can't imagine that there wasn't opportunity for lasting meaningful relationships. But I don't see it. I mean, I just, I have nothing to go on here. I hardly know what to. One of the reasons we have these categories is to try and extract, uh, desirability in places when there's an absence of information like there is here.

You know? Do we draw conclusions either way or do we just sort of leave it?

Amit: What we can say is yes. It's quite sad that he died three years to the date almost after his marriage. Um, he did at least everything that we read in that Terrace said is that he was a wonderful stepfather for that time. Um, and.

Uncle if there's such a thing.

Michael: Mostly I need to leave this as a question mark and look at other categories to see where to extract desirability. Category five net worth. This was a little confusing to me. I saw 1 million. Is that

Amit: what you saw? I saw one. I also saw three, so it's gonna be somewhere between one and three.

Michael: That's what I was gonna say. In that Washington Post article from 2019, I mentioned he's asked about having 3 million. Like the word on the street is he has 3 million and he says, No. It's way more than that. I don't know. It's hard to say. You mentioned earlier some of the collections, which. The consumer have their own value, but it also, you know, anybody who's collecting like that is spending a lot of money.

Yeah. Um, so I, I don't know. It's, it's a fairly low number. It's not a bad number and he's got enough for security and, uh, and so forth, but I don't know. Seems kind of low. If somebody, it seemed

Amit: kind of low. What I make out of it is exactly what you said. That he, he was a spender. Yeah. And I think that's a whole part of just what this whole character of the biz is.

You know, he sees something, he gets it, it gives him joy, it gives him influence and you know, you, you, you don't take money to save it. You, you take money to spend it.

Michael: I guess that's true. If it's much less than 1 million though, then my heart's starting to break and I'm starting to wonder, right, If it's less than 1 million for somebody who.

Had this kind of success, even if it was decades ago. Every time he steps on stage, people cheer and excited to know who he is. It would've been a little weird if it was at less than a million, don't you think?

Amit: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. But I mean, he did not sell that many albums.

Michael: Yeah. I don't know. Still on the lower side, not lower side by global standards, but by fame standards.

Correct.

Amit: Fame and wealth don't always coexist even in, in the ways that we

Michael: look. And I think it gets back to what I was saying earlier about gratitude. I mean, I see him as a guy who's happy, right? And so does he need more money? I don't know. It's it like, I kind of like it too, in a funny way, even if it feels a little bit low based on his stature.

All right, let's move on. Categor six, Simpson Cite Live or Hall of Fame. This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons, as well as impersonations. I went, oh, for three here on it. And unless I'm missing something, I didn't see anything on Saturday Night Live.

I really looked, I didn't see anything on The Simpsons, and I was a little surprised by that. But then I thought, you know, just a friend of the song kind of predates the Simpsons, late eighties. I mean, The Simpsons didn't really start to warm up as an institution until the early nineties. And then no Halls not even Arsenio.

That's shock. That shocked me as well. I, it, maybe it's out there and it's not well cataloged on the internet, but I really tried to find an appearance in our hall. Did not see it, so maybe the timing's a little bit off there as well. I don't know. I, and I think that usually, you know, this category is a pretty good.

General Pulse, you know, on how famous somebody is. I felt like our category fell short here. There are people who are way into yo gaba, GABA that I didn't know. There are people who really

Amit: remember parents our age, definitely. Hey,

Michael: kids just gather around for business speed of the day. I'm a teachership.

Sounds. You guys did great. Yeah.

People who really remember his cameo in Men in Black too. It, it's one of the funniest parts of that movie in a way. Oh, it's like a

I what

Just about everybody works in a post office as an alien. And I think his association and friendship with the Beastie Boys looms large for some people. So overall, I think he is more famous than what we would otherwise take from this category, even if he's not, you know, on the, necessarily the Mount Rushmore of famous hip hop artists.

Amit: Yeah, I, But I think he's also a little dated, I think despite Yoga Agava and men in Black too and all, like these chart toppers were all late eighties, early nineties, and so I. Kind of see that. I don't think our categories completely invalidate this. I think he had all the cameos, but I think he's a little under the radar and he's in a different, he's in his own tier of, uh, of a hip hop star.

I mean,

Michael: that's the thing is like you really, and I, I didn't find the YouTube super clip of the Bismark key cameos, but. , there would be like a 30 minute string easily. Right. Of all the places he's popping up kind of throughout television history for, you know, 30 years. Yeah.

Amit: Correct. Empire Blackish, SpongeBob Squarepants, Celebrity Fit Club you referenced.

Yeah. And I'll cap it with, uh, it was sampled by the Rolling Stones. In their, uh, 1997 song, Anybody Seen My Baby?

Michael: Everybody.

Uh, let's go on category seven. Over under, in this category, we look at the generalized life expectancy for the year somebody was born to see if they beat the house odds and as a measure of grace. So life expectancy for men in the US In 1964, the year he was born at 75.5, he died at age. 57 way under by about 18 years.

I got some things I want to talk about in this category. You know, we've mentioned a couple times, Celebrity Fit Club. Uh, he was on it in 2005 and he actually won it season one for having lost 40 pounds. I do think he struggled with his weight. He had a stroke and went into a diabetic coma in April of 2020, so a full year before he died.

That was of course, the height of lockdown. The Instagram post I saw him of June, 2021, he didn't look like a guy who had suffered a serious stroke. I didn't see a. Outward physical signs of that, but this is, I think, other than maybe George Michael, the youngest death we have yet done on Famous and Gravy.

Is that right? Yep. Okay. Here's my question. We've been on a streak with the last few episodes of people who have died a little bit younger. Bill Buckner, Donna Summer, Alan Rickman, Gary Chaning. Topic of younger deaths has been coming up more. I'm wondering if it's fucked up in a way for us to be talking about that.

In terms of desirability. We don't get to choose our death. Man, 57 is absolutely young. The man died before his time. He should have had more life and this hurts. Maybe he. Suffered from conditions that we don't completely understand. The diabetic coma thing makes me wonder, and Lord knows he talks about candy a lot.

It's not hard to imagine a less than healthy diet that I guess is within his control, but to the extent that you and I say, this is too young and that's desirable, or that's not, I'm not sure if we're actually doing what we should be doing on Famous and Gravy because it's about the decisions you make during your life.

There's something about the young death conversation you and I have been having that I feel like may be just a little bit off in terms of how we're approaching it.

Amit: I hear you. Um, so what you're saying is that, you know, as, as we get to the Vander beak, that it's, it's an unfair factoring, um, because you look at a death here it was 57.

That should be an a of spades. No. In terms of desirability is what you're saying,

Michael: Right? The way we have been talking about it. The universe or God or whatever decided your time is up. But I, I guess maybe one of the reasons I've been thinking about this is that I don't think we're entitled to anything on life.

I was talking with a friend the other day who just had somebody pass away in their forties. He's got young children and it's like, Fuck me. This is devastating. And I don't know. You and I are getting into a place in life where death is becoming a little bit more common around some of. Not necessarily our peer group.

I'm just getting more used to the fact that this is a reality. We live in this culture where we pretend like it's never gonna fucking happen and that, you know, by the time we make it to our deathbed, our story is supposed to be complete. And it doesn't fucking work that way. Right. We don't get that. It's unpredictable, it's unfair, and it's always kind of tragic, even if you make it to a judge Waner, you know, well into your late eighties or nineties.

So, yeah, I, You, you said it well a second ago. Should this factor heavily into the Vander beak? If, if we're talking about raw number of years, you wouldn't know on the Vader big for Donna Summer because you. Just too young. Just felt too tragic for me on that. On that thing. Yeah. And, and it's not that I disagree, but it's always tragic.

I don't know, I just, I wonder if we're getting any closer to comfort or acceptance of the inevitability of death as we go on with this show. Cause I si secretly, That's something I kind want to get to, recognizing just how hard it is to wrap your head around the unfathomable unknown. You know,

Amit: let's do it today, let's extract that from.

The Vander Bak because, you know, he died at 57 from complications of type two diabetes, no matter what, uh, I don't think either of us are gonna want that life. So what we have to do is, you know, how well did he do that? The, with the time that he had, uh, which is also, you know, a little tough because he didn't know when the ending was coming and

Michael: what he did in his, had Bismarck key, died in 2021, but had somehow magically.

Defied the rules of time and logic and had been 85. How does that change things in a way? You know, maybe I'm not going anywhere with this thought and maybe death is just too confusing to have this conversation. I, I guess I want us to crack open our thinking a little bit in terms of, You know how we classify and talk about young deaths on this show, and

Amit: I think all we can do is just experiment and evolve because I think you're right.

It's very imperfect. You know, ideally we get to a point that every category has changed somewhat into our North star of figuring out what is the type of life that we would desire, but more importantly, that our listeners can extract, that they may desire. And let's just, let's try

Michael: that. Given the cards you were dealt, how did you play it?

I mean, that seems to me the most interesting and important thing about what we're doing. I guess that's all I'm trying to say. This is too young. There's no question. I don't think we need to debate that. How much we probed the desirability to me is just another question, but we'll keep talking about it.

Okay,

Amit: good. What? I'm glad you I brought that up. Let's pause Danielle. Oh, Alive.

Michael: The rules are simple. Dead or alive. Danielle Steele is still with us at 74 years old. Dick Cavt. I think Dick Cavt is dead, uh, incorrect. Dick Cavt is still with us at 85 years old. Wow.

Test your knowledge, dead or alive. app.com.

The first of the inner life categories is Man in the mirror. What did this person think about their own reflection? You know, he's got this sort of slack jaw that hangs a little bit to the side. His mouth is open a lot, and he goofball that term has come up quite a bit. I also see self-acceptance in a way.

I mean, I think I, he kind of knows, you know, his look and the look he's given you. I mean, I, I feel like he's self-aware. You know, we did mention the weight struggles. I haven't actually watched the celebrity, uh, fit club. Programming, but I have to assume if you go on the TV show, you're there to lose weight.

And part of that is health, but maybe that's also about physical appearance. I, I, I went overall, he liked it. Um, and I think I, that's coming from the confidence that I see in his stage presence. But I'm a little bit on the fence with this one. Yeah, I'm

Amit: more resounding of a yes that he does like it is that I don't think you can do the type of body performance and the onstage performance that he does unless you have a lot of self-acceptance of your body and your look.

I don't think you can, you know, all the self-deprecating, uh, things that. Did I think that there is some insecurity behind that. I'm not sure. It's in looks though. Yeah. And you know, just you watch the videos, especially like the just a Friend video is, is worth the rewatch of him in the Mozart outfit. You know, like there, there definitely is self-acceptance.

Yeah. In that. And I think that that's the half of the clown Prince that it is. It's just like I'm put on this earth and I. This is what I look like and this is who I am, and this is how I'm making the most of it. That's why I'm giving a yes,

Michael: such a memorable video like this boat start. . Yes. God, it's so good.

Okay, next category, Outgoing message, like man in the mirror. How do we think they felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on their answering machine or outgoing voicemail? I actually had a little bit more confident. Resounding yes here. I said no question. He loved it. Speech impediment and all.

But I think that we've talked in the past about, you know, whether it's Kenny Rogers or Tom Petty or, or other singers, Sean Prine, how they felt about their singing voice compared with their talking voice. That those two things don't always go together. But I think if you're a hip hop artist, then it's a little bit more likely they're part of the same.

Yeah. More

Amit: likely his nons singing voice, like his interview voice, does come across a little more bashful. Yeah, like, like we say, the willingness to sing off key. And the second part of the question is about are you the type to record your own? And that's the question generally about self importance and accessibility and, and are you giving, are you giving with your time?

And that part I think is unquestionably yes. So I think both sides of me are pretty strong for a. Do

Michael: you think he, uh, beat boxed on his home answering machine? I think

Amit: I tried to beatbox on my home answering machine. Like

Michael: I was gonna ask if you, what is your experience with beatboxing? I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole on this cuz one of the, I, I guess maybe I'm a little embarrassed to say this cuz I was working, you know, in a room by myself as I was preparing for this interview.

I'm like, I'm just gonna try it a little bit and I couldn't catch my breath. So I wound up on a little video like, how do you breathe in and out? You know, I mean, it's a little bit of how you play a horn, right? How do you do the breath work when beat boxing? Because there's a real art to it. Oh, yeah.

Amit: Did you beat box?

I think I did it like just with my friends on sleepovers and all. I think anybody around our age did. If you were how to give it a shot. Yeah. These were the, This was the age that we all did, and then you started to see over the next. 20 years. Like these, the terrible, like corporate parodies of it, you know, just, we all tried it, but I, I believe in the, the depth of the skill of it.

Michael: I mean, to turn the body into percussion is kind of incredible. Like, it's cool, you know. Totally. Um, uh, okay, let's move on. Category 10 regrets, Public or private. What we really want to know is what, if anything, kept this person awake at night? I couldn't find a lot here. I, we talked earlier about the sampling scandal.

I think that's more a badge of honor than a regret, but I did think that that was worth talking about. And then on the private side, I continue to have question marks about the home life. Not a lot of data on. Marriages. That's all I had. Did you have something else in regrets? Yeah,

Amit: I, I also had on the home life, just cause we don't know, um, you know what, he didn't marry until he was 54 years old.

Uh, was there anything internal that was contributing to that? And then, you know, we talk about candy and a guy that contracted diabetes. That's easy to make some assumptions there. There, Yeah. Um, and so you wonder if that's a regret, the same way that Leonard de Moy regretted smoking. Um, yes. I couldn't find a.

Michael: Yeah, I think that's telling. I mean, I think it gets back to the. You never know if it's posturing or if it's real. But it gets back to my thing about gratitude. I think the

Amit: guy was always around in some form through and through, and he was, you know, he never reinvented himself as far as who he was, but he reinvented where he showed up.

He was, he was always around. I

Michael: know I saw him also saying, uh, I'm, I'm one of those people that fits in everywhere. He was asked once, which was your favorite parody of just a friend. He is like, When Jeff Goldblum did it, I thought that was really good. And , he does look very comfortable in his own skin. He doesn't look like somebody who has a tremendous amount of regret.

Which I think is maybe not a bad segue into category 11, Good dreams, bad dreams. This question is not about personal perception, but rather, does this person look haunted? Do they have a look in the eye that suggests inner turmoil, inner demons, or unresolved trauma? Well, I keep going First. You

Amit: go first.

This time there's a little look in the eye. There's a little look in

Michael: the eye. I had the same thing. I so glad you went

Amit: there. That's faint. Uh, we don't, you know, there was not a lot told about his childhood. I don't know what, if there's anything contributing there. I

Michael: do think adolescence was hard. I did like reading between the lines.

I mean, he may have had friends, but I don't think he did very well with girls. I don't think. If he's pulling pranks on the vice principal. I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad sign, but I, I see something in the eye too. It sounds like you do.

Amit: Yeah, So I see something and I can't pinpoint I, The most we can do is speculate what you said, you know, younger hardship, teenage angst, and exclusion.

All of those could be his. Pain.

Michael: And yet I still want to go good dreams and believe that the humor is real and that the balance around being self-deprecating is real and that the gratitude is

Amit: real. But I go back to the word joyous in that. Yeah. Which was used to describe him. And that's where I believe good dreams.

So

Michael: he's the classic from tragedy to triumph. Not tragedy, so to speak, but for rags to riches because BI had nothing started with nothing. He knew that he was different, but he made fun of himself so he could shed light on a subject. It was almost self-sacrificial. We almost thought like, you know, do you want to highlight that?

But it was him bearing himself and it made him. You know, accessible. Well, and that's what's interesting to me is that we are coincidentally aligned like perfectly. We both see something and we both went good. Yeah, I guess that tells you something. Consensus matters. It's the scientific method. All right, Category 12, second to last category, cocktail coffee or cannabis.

This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. This may be a question of what kind of drug sounds like the most fun to partake. Or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access. A part of them that we are most curious about.

Amit: I'll go, uh, a question for you first.

Was he a weed guy? I

Michael: don't know. I didn't see it.

Amit: There's no

Michael: references in the music. There's not, whenever anybody is, uh, good with kids in a way that I think he is good with kids, but there's a part of me that thinks they gotta like getting high. Cause just being stoned. I think kids make a lot more Nickelodeon.

Oh yes. I'm not encouraging anything. I'm just saying. But yeah, I don't know that he's a we guy, but what do you got for coffee at Cocktail? Cannabis

Amit: Cocktail? So there's an image in the documentary, I think documentary that we both watched, which they're interviewing be, he's on a couch and it seems like he's drinking a glass of, um, some sort of whiskey.

I don't know what it is. And that, that kind of lit something up in me. And that's, uh, this isn't an access thing. That's how I wanna hang with him. But I think there's also access in just learning, uh, learning how to experience joy and, uh, and let go of it

Michael: all. So you think there's wisdom or something to extract?

Amit: You know, I don't even know if it's wisdom in terms of like sitting you down and, and giving you a lesson. Uh, so much as just like, feel, feel my energy and feel my vibe. And that's where you get it. So that's what I want and I just like, we know he's funny. We know he brings an energy, we know he'll start rhyming and that you'll start singing along with him, but.

Some of the other stuff I saw was like, he would just say, just madcap shit. Like in some interview in that documentary, they asked him, they're like, Hey bi, have you ever met Michael Jackson? He was like, Yeah, man. I wrote Thriller . And he would just like, just say Outland as stuff, and I think he just, uh, I think he was just always on.

And so I think it's gonna be this combination of, of music and good hang energy. And I'm gonna have, you know, I'm gonna have that kind of like 12 year old fun that I had when I first heard vapors or just a friend, but I'm gonna do it as an adult, uh, with some drinks. And I'm gonna add that little extra element of, of, I hate to say it, but substance that, uh, and that's the hang I want.

Michael: All of the things being equal. I thought I was gonna go cannabis. I actually want the coffee. Some of it is residual curiosity. I wanna know a little bit more about the love life, I guess. But more than anything, like I think I would really enjoy a conversation with him about the history of hip hop. I think I'd like to know what the scene was like.

In the early eighties, what it was like as this sort of, you know, new artistic movement kind of is coming into being. It's sort of in, its like late childhood, early adolescence, uh, in terms of the maturity of what hip hop was and what it became. And I think that. You know, I'd be really interested to talk with him about where it went and, and his views on where it went and you know, certainly how he sees his own position and everything, and contribution.

And then I think along the way, he'd probably crack me up. I think he's just a funny fucking dude. So I think it'd be like an, like a nice, energetic conversation with probably a pretty strong cup of coffee. I forget. Episode you mentioned sort of taking a walk with somebody and having a cup of coffee.

That's what I'd love to do with Bismark. Like a nice day in New York. I'd love to grab a cup of coffee, walk around the neighborhood, have him show me the sites a little bit and, and take me back into the history of all this and, you know, help me understand it. Um, I think that'd be fun. I think that'd be a lot of fun.

I think I'd also would be a nice way to get some questions answered cuz I do have some questions here. Not big ones, but they're there and I wanna know more about. You know, inner peace, whether he got it or how far he got with it, right. I mean, that's something I'm always kind of looking for with somebody whose life is now complete and done.

So, yeah, I'd like the coffee. Yeah. All right. We're here. The Vander Beak named after James Vander Beak, who famously said, I don't want your life. Oit bis marque. Do you want this life? So to me the

Amit: question is about goofball and about being kind of this lifetime goofball. Uh, yeah, because he's got the check marks of everything else.

Like he's got the pure admiration tremendously. You know, everyone wants him on their tracks or on stage with him. The life experiences just between doing everything from, you know, Nickelodeon to a blockbuster film, to the rap shows. The Tibetan concerts, like the guy's done a lot and uh, and seen a lot.

And met a lot. This is a journeyman. Yeah. And so, uh, the question to me is, is the 57 years of kind of being a goofball and I think, uh, an interesting way to put it would be like, it's, it's kind of the Tinkerbell question.

Michael: What do you mean by the

Amit: Tinkerbell question? So it's like this kid that doesn't grow up and we know he did, we know that he did get married.

And in that private life, it could very well be, um, well, who, who even cares? Who even cares?

Michael: No, but are you, are you asking about like evolution? That's the question

Amit: is, is do you wanna be still a goofball into your fifties?

Michael: That's funny. You know, as you were talking about that, I was thinking about some, we've only done a couple of standup comics on the show and we need to do more because I do think with Joan Rivers and with Gary Chaning, we certainly talked about, you know, comedy.

As liberation as, as a, as a method for seeking truth. I don't, and, and, and so you could draw kind of similar parallel here, maybe in that the guy is about being funny and he's a funny guy and his music is funny, and when he shows up, we're here to laugh and he lights up a room with laughter. But it doesn't quite seem like the same motivation that a standup comic has where a standup is really like digging for meaning and, and truth.

This seems more about. We might as well laugh cuz life is short, painful, and hard and there's a lot of funny shit to laugh about. So it, it seems more like about an attitude than it does about a, you know, sort of strategy for dealing with life's ups and downs.

Amit: Yeah, it's, we might as well celebrate, you know, we might as well celebrate the things that we can Exactly.

Uh, so the, the question is, is it important to evolve into something else? Because the idea of being an adult child is extremely scorned, but is that fair? Right, Because somebody that emanates and attracts joy for their entire life, uh, like who the fuck can fall to? Like, who cares if it lives to a standard, like for, for so many people, joy is, is so hard to achieve, to name one joyous part of their life.

And this is a guy with a house full of, of little articles of joy and, uh, you know, and they, they, you know, he, he, he steps on stage on a Tibetan Freedom concert in 96, and he, he brings out joy after rage against the machine, you know? Yeah. You know, I just don't like it. I don't like the pejorative of the Tinkerbell problem.

You know, I, I don't want. Be that I don't think I have the personality for that of being sort of the child that never grew up. I don't think there's anything wrong, and I think it's extremely desirable to emanate and attract joy, uh, your entire life and to get the same joy out of a lunchbox as a 55 year old.

That a 10 year old does, but you're still a person that is self-sufficient. You're still a person that's making millions of dollars. You're still a person that's making an impact on the music world and on individual lives. There's some tremendous qualities in that guy. Yeah.

Michael: Fucking A and a wells. Sad.

Amit: Yeah. Yeah. So I, I really got to like him a lot more I think, over the last few weeks. And, and I wanna say, you know, just, just for biz, like fuck the Tinker Bell problem, you know? Yeah. And let's just change, change it into the joy equation. And this guy is joy and I'll take it. So yeah. I want your life biz

Michael: murky.

I think I 100% agree. The other thing I was thinking about in there is that it really does sort of stand in contrast to Maurice Sineck that episode we did, uh, about where the wild things are, where there's a kind of intellectualizing around the pain of what it means to lose innocence and be a child.

This is the good parts and it's embodied and it's lived what he's doing Behaviorally, not necessarily intellectually, that's what matters, right. And it is surrounded by a lot of joy. I have no doubt. There are painful moments. I have no doubt there's insecurity. I have no doubt there's like some darkness that we don't know, understand or are seeing, but that he's looking for joy and trying to bring it everywhere he goes, I want to do that too.

It's decidedly desirable and it's a beautiful fucking thing. So I am also a yes on the Vander Big despite the young.

Ahed, you are Marcel Theo Hall, better known as Biz Marque. You've died. Uh, you are before the Pearly Gates with, uh, St. Peter the Unitarian proxy for the afterlife. You have an opportunity to make a pitch. The floor is yours.

Amit: Okay, St. Peter, my name is, uh, is Biz and I got that name because I was always busy, uh, getting into trouble.

But, uh, we're talking about the right kind of trouble. We're not talking about gang violence, sex, drugs, uh, we're talking about the pranks and the picking boogers type of trouble. And just as you. Pick boogers. You can pick fun, you can pick joy, and if you can't do it, what I did in my life is I got on stage and I got you to sway, and I got you to sing along and I got you to chant, and I got a little bit of that joy coming out.

And if I wasn't present in the room, then my song was playing overhead on the speaker and you started singing along and that joy started coming. I was the imminence of joy. I was the collector of joy. I left joy behind and I'm gonna bring joy into those per Lee Gates and that are better. Be candy there.

Let me in.

Michael: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Famous and Gravy. If you're enjoying our. Please tell your friends about us. Help spread the word. Find us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at Famous and Gravy, and we also have a newsletter which you can sign up for on our website, famous and gravy.com.

Famous and Gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, Original theme music by Kevin Strang. Thanks for listening. See you next time.