043 Poetic Justice transcript (Maya Angelou)

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[00:00:00] Amit: This is Famous and Gravy, a conversation about quality of life as we see it one dead celebrity at a time. Now for the opening quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

[00:00:11] Michael: This person died 2014, age 86. She was a Tony nominated stage actress. After her first marriage, she embarked on a career as a Calypso dancer.

[00:00:23] Friend: Good grief . No idea. Alright, keep going.

[00:00:27] Michael: She was a college professor and a ubiquitous presence on the lecture circuit. She also made several appearances on Sesame Street.

[00:00:35] Friend: Oh man, that Toni Morrison.

[00:00:37] Michael: Not Toni Morrison. In 2011, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

[00:00:43] Friend: Now that I should know, although I was busy, I was busy in 2011. I missed it.

[00:00:48] Michael: The whole year.

[00:00:50] Friend: I miss the entire year.

[00:00:52] Michael: What an excuse. Throughout her writing, she explored the concepts of personal identity and resilience through the multifaceted lens of race, sex, family, community, and the collective past.

[00:01:06] Friend: Not Maya Angelou. Maya Angelou. Not Maya Angelou. Is it Maya Angelou?

[00:01:12] Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Maya Angelou.

[00:01:14] Friend: I didn't even say it right. Maya Angelou.

[00:01:18] Michael: I've been saying Angelou my whole life and it's actually Angelou.

[00:01:23] Maya: And love You back. She does not know her beauty. She thinks her brown body has no glory. If she could dance naked under palm trees and see her image in the river, she would know. But there are no palm trees on the street and dishwater gives back no images. Mm-hmm. still when it look like the sun, when shine anymore. God put a rainbow in the clouds.

[00:02:18] Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

[00:02:21] Amit: I'm Amit Kapoor.

[00:02:22] Michael: And on this show we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and review 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 won that life today.

Maya Angelo died 2014, age 86. Who you ready for this one? I am. I've done my work. Have we earned this on Famous and Gravy? That's the question. Have we earned it? Earned the right to talk

about Maya Angelo's life. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely we

have, I think so too. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary.

Maya Angelou, whose landmark book of 1969. I Know why the Caged Bird sings a lyrical Unsparing account of her childhood and the Jim Crow South was among the first autobiographies by a 20th century black woman to reach a wide general readership died on Wednesday at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

She was

[00:03:28] Amit: 86. . I guess they just had to pick

[00:03:31] Michael: one thing that is like the challenge of this first line. I mean, they get into all the other stuff in the rest of the article, but in terms of the first line, you gotta pick one thing, right? The

[00:03:43] Amit: thing is there's like 30 mega things,

[00:03:46] Michael: right? And there's the polar opposite of pill.

Pucker . Yes, exactly. What

[00:03:51] Amit: I find interesting is I, and this is something that was kind of new to me, is that I know why the Cage bird sings came out in 1969. I mean, half of her significance as a human being had already happened by that time.

[00:04:04] Michael: She's 40 when she writes this or when it comes out. Yeah. I mean, she was born in 1928.

[00:04:08] Amit: She's already been in some incredibly significant and pivotal moments in time in history. Totally.

[00:04:14] Michael: Yeah. I mean, and this book is almost like the midway point. I mean, she makes it to 86 and this comes out, you know, 41. So this is about halfway through her life with most of the celebrities that we have on this show.

There's usually, you can distill it down to one or two things that made them very famous. Maybe it was a breakout role in a movie or a TV show. Maybe it was a sports accomplishment or some other thing. I think that they chose the. Event in her life for like, quote unquote why she's famous. What's interesting though is they don't actually give a noun to who or what she is.

They don't call her a poet or even a memoirist. That's one

[00:04:56] Amit: thing that I've struggled with her a little bit is that I don't even know what to call her. She's everything, yeah. Yeah. Is literally everything that has to do. I was gonna say performance, but

[00:05:06] Michael: that's not even right. Uh, so I actually pulled something from further on down in the obituary where they kind of list this all out.

They're talking about the 1992 inauguration where she reads this poem that Bill Clinton asked her to write. And it's, I think in some ways the other like major, major fame making event of her life. But they say in the obituary she had been a dancer, Calypso singer, street card conductor, single mother magazine editor, and Cairo administrative assistant in Ghana, official of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which is Martin Luther Kings big organization, friend or associate of some of the most imminent black Americans at the mid 20th century, including James Baldwin, Dr.

Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X. And then they say after her memoir, which Cage Bird was published when she's 40, she was a Tony nominated actress, college professor. At Wake Forest, ubiquitous presence on the lecture circuit, frequent guest on television shows from Oprah to Sesame Street and subject to a string of scholarly studies.

I'm on

[00:06:09] Amit: cake. Okay.

[00:06:09] Maya: Okay. My name is Maya and I like to eat mangoes and marshmallows, and my favorite pit is a moose.

[00:06:21] Michael: Wait a minute. Does, does Milo really have a pet? Moose? Ok. I don't

[00:06:25] Maya: have a pet moose.

[00:06:27] Amit: I'm, it starts with the letter am now. You got it. You see it is him. Wait, this is a great game. I love the game.

Kudos to her. And I think I'm gonna bring this in later, but great for you, Maya, as being impossible to pin down. Yeah.

[00:06:42] Michael: But let's talk first line of the obituary here. So, Landmark book. I know where the Cage board sings Lyrical Unsparing account of her childhood in the Jim Crow South. I think that's a nice description of the book.

[00:06:54] Amit: It is key, I think. I think that's what distinguished it from other

[00:06:58] Michael: books. And here's the sort of accomplishment that they give her in the first line of the Obi, among the first autobiographies by a 20th century black woman to reach a wide general readership. That's a pretty long-winded way of saying something, right?

Yeah. I

[00:07:15] Amit: think, I mean, what it's saying in shorter form is this is a story that was largely untold before in mass

[00:07:22] Michael: publication. There's a lot to think through in this first line of the oped. It's harder than usual. This is not John Madden or Bill Buckner in terms of let's get right to the point of why you know this person.

That said, I'm sort of a little bit frustrated because I want it to be a little bit more elegant.

[00:07:40] Amit: But do you think that's even possible with the limits of the human

[00:07:43] Michael: language? I, I'm looking for something that's sort of like lofty and elegant in the sense of like, simple that I can follow along with. I'm not sure I, I'm having a hard time following along with this one.

And actually let me come clean with this before I started doing the research on this episode, I'm not even sure I could have told you about the 1992 inauguration moment, much less her memoirs. I was never assigned these books in school, so it's a funny category of

[00:08:08] Amit: fame too. Yeah. And I don't think you're alone.

I think you're probably sitting there with 70, 80% of the population who Yeah. Has high name recognition, but not sure why.

[00:08:18] Michael: You know, I feel like the first line of the obituary is meant to do that work for you. It's meant to tell you why you know this name. I mean, they kind of do, she wrote a book. It came out before you were born.

It reached a general readership. I don't know, there's a part of me that's like Lottie fricken da that doesn't explain to me why I know this woman's name.

[00:08:37] Amit: Yeah. I, you know, maybe an alternative could have been just about a long storied lifetime

[00:08:43] Michael: of Yes. Multifaceted accomplishments or something. The

[00:08:46] Amit: multifaceted accomplishments that were pivotal in the idea of black identity and women's identity.

Yes. Um, and changing perspectives

[00:08:55] Michael: on that. I think you just wrote a slightly better rough draft version of the first line of this o bit. Again, it's harder and you kind of like wanna grade these on a curve, but I came. A little bit frustrated just because it didn't like land with a like, oh my God.

[00:09:11] Amit: And it kind of needs to, I think you pulled me away a little bit, so I was gonna give a lot of slack.

Like this is an impossible task, but I think I'm, I'm changing a little bit and I think what you said is that most people don't know exactly the breadth of her. And maybe it's the duty of that first line of the obituary to do that. I'm gonna go lower than I otherwise would have, and I'm gonna go at an even

[00:09:36] Michael: five.

I'm, I'm glad that you're holding this to a high standard. I think we both should. I'm gonna go six, but I think it's still like I am grading it on a curve heart. Uh, here. This is a really, really hard one.

[00:09:47] Amit: I also became attached to the fascination of Maya Angelo over the last week, and I just want more of that story to come out, I guess in the first sentence.

I want more people to know what we have uncovered in the last week. Right off the bat,

[00:10:00] Michael: this is actually the thing I wanted to say to you before we move on to the next category. I am at a point in life where black history is more interesting to me than I ever would've thought. I think I told you about this, but for the last couple years I was involved with this project, black Women of Amherst, and as a result of that project, I got a crash course in a lot of black history that I was just unaware of.

And the more you and I choose important black history figures for Famous and Gravy, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, I'm gonna say Donna Summer. And Bismark Key too, the more I fucking get into this history. And I think it's right to the core of our

[00:10:39] Amit: show. Yeah, I mean, I think so much of it is that the biggest players in history, a lot of 'em are, you know, we're just now seeing pass.

And that's the Maya angel who's Muhammad Ali, and they're intertwined with the ascension of pop culture, which this show is so much

[00:10:52] Michael: about. Well, let's get into it. Category two, five Things I love about You Here. Amit and I work together to come up with five reasons why we love this person, why we ought to be talking about them in the first place.

Why don't you do it, man? You take it.

[00:11:06] Amit: So number one, I'm gonna go Marvel superhero. So this has to do with her origin story, which is largely sad and and very tragic. And I wasn't fully aware of the story until getting into this episode. At the age of seven, she had been raped by her mother's boyfriend and she had told only one person about it, which was her brother.

She was afraid to tell other people and it eventually her brother told other members of the family, I mean, it got to her uncles and the next day the police show up. At her house, they were reporting that this person who had spent one night in jail for the rape of a seven year old Maya Angelo, had been killed, had been kicked to death.

Her response, as she says in my seven year old mind was that my voice can kill. And her response to that was she goes mute, meaning she actually does not speak a word for five years because she's afraid that if she opens her mouth, people will die. This becomes her educational. And she dives into reading books and poetry.

She memorizes Shakespeare. She memorizes all the

[00:12:22] Maya: poetry. I had long fella, I had GI Moku song. I had Za. When I decided to speak, I had a lot to say.

[00:12:35] Amit: Maya used to write on her chalkboard tablet, how much she likes poetry. And then a lady who sort of served as her tutor told her, you are not a fan of poetry until you can speak it.

And she goes down to, I forget if it was like a basement or a chicken coop. Yeah, I thought

[00:12:53] Michael: it was like under a porch or something. And stamps Arkansas or whatever. Yeah,

[00:12:56] Amit: yeah. And utters words out of her mouth for the first time in five years, in their words of a poem, what came out of this over the following 80 years was one of the greatest orators of our time.

And this to me is like Peter Parker being bit by the spider. It's horrible, but it's just remarkable. It's a out of this world story and what came outta that was a

[00:13:24] Michael: superhero, and I actually, I want to just dwell on the word or radar here. It's both her writing and words and of course we'll talk about it more later.

Next level voice.

[00:13:34] Amit: Oh, absolutely, yes.

[00:13:36] Michael: Alan Rickman. Like in terms of its exceptionality, I mean, this is the thing to get back to like, you know, what is the noun we want to use to describe her or Raiders? Pretty good poets, not bad teacher, I think could be mentioned in there. I kind of feel like poet may be the best one because poetry should be read aloud and it's a combination of word and voice.

[00:14:01] Amit: The thing I love about this is not just the out those world quality, it's the hope. It's a hope that goes into all trauma. What can come on the other side of it? Once you're in it, all you can see is darkness. And you receive the criticism and you have probably little hope. And in decreasing hope, what comes out of it is many times more impactful than what went in before it.

And just to know that there can be extraordinary

[00:14:32] Michael: virtue and service. I mean, you know, I

want

[00:14:35] Amit: something more than that. I want a word that describes extraordinary.

[00:14:38] Michael: Well, I, I'm good with superpower. I mean, that's what you use the title, this

[00:14:41] Amit: thing number one. Okay. So there can be superpowers that come out of trauma.

[00:14:45] Michael: There's also something like, Monk-like about being silent for this many years. One of the outcomes of that kind of experience, I have to believe is powers of observation. In addition to sort of walling yourself off, you're also taking it all in.

[00:15:01] Amit: Yeah. You become an acute observer. Yes. So from trauma comes superpower and acute observation.

[00:15:07] Michael: Great. Number one had to go there. Okay. I wrote cross-generational impact and overall ability to touch people. So she knew Billy Holiday in the 1950s. Billy Holiday said, you're gonna be famous, but not for your singing, and steered her away from singing. She met Nelson Mandela in 1962 before he went to prison.

When she was in Cairo, she met Malcolm X in Ghana. She became friends with Martin Luther King, who was killed on her birthday. She was buddies with James Baldwin, who she also met, I think, in Europe. Then she, you know, after the publication of her book, she ends up becoming friends and having an enormous impact on Oprah.

Then she shows up on the set of all things poetic justice, the John Singleton movie, where there's a story that we should tell. Maybe I'll just come back to that in a second. And then maybe my favorite. In 2006, after Chappelle leaves the Chappelle Show, she meets Dave Chappelle and he talks about what an enormous impact she has on him.

There's not sometimes, to me, this sort of common denominator of personality between the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and, you know, cultural expressions of rap, hip hop and comedy, as well as, you know, daytime television in the eighties, nineties, and aughts and into the 20 teens. That's some cross-generational impact.

Holy shit. I guess I should tell the John Singleton story. Uh, yes, do it. I don't think I'm gonna do this justice, but the story goes,

[00:16:40] Maya: I walked out of my trailer that morning and there was one young man cursing. Like you could see the blues come out of his mouth. And then he and another fellow, they were at each other's throats.

They had each other's clothes. So I went up to one young man and I said to, excuse me, may I speak to, he said, I wouldn't give. I said, aunt, understand, but may I speak to you for a minute. He said, if these move, I said, uh, I, I've heard that before, but do you know how important you are? Do you know that our people stood on ocean blocks so that you could live?

He said, I said, no, but I just wanted, when's the last time anyone told you how important you are? And he started to do, the tears started to come out. I had no Kleenex or anything, so I just wiped his face with my hand. and Ms. Janet Jackson came. I don't believe you actually talked to Tupac. Shakur said, I didn't know Tupac Shakur.

I didn't know Six Pack.

[00:17:53] Amit: I had never heard the

[00:17:54] Michael: name man. Tupac has this whole thing about how this moment changed his life. But when I talk about cross-generational impact on culture and sort of behind the scenes ability to touch people, that's a pretty striking example. You take number

[00:18:11] Amit: three, it's a bit of an extension of yours.

So the way that you talk about intergenerational impact in these figures, I just wanna talk about the diversity of jobs, and I'll go ahead and just call this Jack of all trades, master of all. She was pretty much good at all of them. You did the list, and I'm not gonna repeat it. So let's not forget her humble beginnings and also, my God, some startling beginnings.

I mean, she was a stripper, a prostitute, and a pimp. Point and madam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of these. And, but she started her first job. She was a street car driver in, uh, San Francisco. First black woman. Street car, . First black, first black person, period. Not just black woman. But I wanna just keep going cuz you listed the careers, but I don't wanna, uh, overshadow how big her performing career was.

She performed in Vegas as a dancer and a singer. She was on a touring company of Purge and Best, she was almost an understudy on a top Broadway performance. I mean, she was a real tried and true performer. And then she moves to Africa in the sixties to Egypt and Ghana, and works there as a journalist. She works in part of the movement for South African Freedom.

I mean, she's hard to keep up with. Full stop. Yes. So all this is before the book is even written in 1969. Yeah. Afterwards is all of the things we know about. But she's also directed a film starring Wesley Snipes. She was in Roots and she acted in roots as, as Quinta's grandmother. I mean, she really, really did everything.

And she was an Amer tenured American Studies professor throughout all of this. After 1981. It's so Forrest Gumpy, but I do like, I'm, I'm going Jack of all trades

[00:19:47] Michael: Master. It's a good one. All right, I'll take number four. I wrote understanding of virtues, so I saw her say, uh, there, there's a lot that she has to say about courage as the most important virtue, which I really, really like.

[00:20:04] Maya: Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can't be consistently kind or fair or humane or generous, not without courage, because if you don't have it sooner or later you'll stop and say the challenge is, is too

[00:20:27] Michael: great.

And what courage is to me is not absence of fear, but having fear. It's I've, I've heard one friend put it it's fear with feet, but I also heard her distinguish between modesty, which she's sort of down on, and humility, which she's bullish on. And just to like hear her sort of think through what makes people virtuous and what, how we organize virtues.

I could listen to it all day and I think that kind of couples in with some of her favorite sayings I wrote down, three people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Those are fucking words to live by. Two more, I'm convinced of this.

Good. Done Anywhere is good. Done everywhere for a change. Start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they're stones. That don't matter as long as you're breathing. It's never too late to do some good. Sometimes I feel like. Really frustrated with the problems of the world and like, what can I do?

What am I supposed to be doing? It's a little bit of, you know, think global, act local, I guess. But she put it way better than that bumper sticker version. And then the last one I wrote down. And there's, you know, thousands of these. If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.

That in a way, to me is what prayer is actually all about what is and is not within my control. So if you don't like something, change it. And if you can't do that, change something from the inside

[00:22:01] Amit: out. Maya Angelou spoke a lot. She wasn't very devout religiously to a specific thing. And I remember listening to one interview the other day.

She always invokes God and she believes in that. But then she was asked, what is religion and what is spirituality? And she said, religion is just merely a map. There's tons of maps. Choose a map if you want. And spirituality is surrender. And I think that very much fits into your last

[00:22:25] Michael: one. Yeah. So understanding of virtues.

I sometimes wish I had a whiteboard where I, I had this all mapped out for me for what are the virtues I should care about and what I should I be doing. So that's number four. You take the last one, round

[00:22:40] Amit: us out. So I'm going to go with attitude towards the family, and I'm actually not talking about blood family here.

She talks about everybody as being her son or daughter or granddaughter or

[00:22:57] Maya: grandson also, because at the same time, I am your mother. I'm your auntie, I'm your teacher, I'm your professor. And

[00:23:04] Amit: so she sees this collective duty to treat the world as her family. I loved the way that she would call Oprah Winfrey, her daughter.

She said, you are my daughter. She said this to Chappelle. You know, you are my son. And she had this duty to be a truth teller. To them, and this is what came across in her writing. So why the Cage Bird sings in many of the following memoirs. I mean, these are fairly controversial books. They're autobiographical and her autobiography is not even PG 13, not just the rape, but obviously working as a prostitute and as a pimp and being involved in around drug use and violence and a lot of these things that are, you know, not readily associated with a poet, but what she talks about is an obligation to her children.

And I'm saying this again as a collective global children to tell the truth that we have this idea that as children and as teenagers, that our parents are perfect models who were not flawed. And she wanted to disarm that and which is why she told her stories that. Let me tell you my favorite quote that she said about this, that, uh, I think summarizes it perfectly.

She said, I wrote about my experiences because I thought too many people tell young folks I never did anything wrong. never. I have no skeletons in my closet. In fact, I have no closet. And she said they lie like that. And then young people find themselves in situations and they think, damn, I must be a pretty bad guy.

My mom or dad never did anything wrong. They can't forgive themselves and go on with their lives. The

[00:24:43] Maya: truth is very important. No matter how negative it is, it is imperative that you learn the truth, not necessarily the facts. I mean that that can come, but the facts can stand in front of the truth and almost obscure the truth.

However sad, however, morant, however terrible, we must know it. Otherwise, how can you make friends only equals make friends. You see.

[00:25:11] Michael: Let's recap thing number one. You said superhero origin, story number two, cross-generational impact and overall ability to touch people. Number three, you said jack

[00:25:23] Amit: of all trades, master of all.

[00:25:24] Michael: Number four, I said understanding of virtues. And number five, you said caring for the world is her family. Okay, let's go on category three. Malkovich Malkovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malkovich, in which people take a little portal into John Malkovich mind and they can have a front row seat to his experiences.

Amit, I want to hear your Malov bitch first. You take

[00:25:47] Amit: it. 1960. She is back in the United States. This is the starting of the really big

[00:25:55] Michael: civil rights movement. There's a lot of momentum in the civil rights movement. Yeah. So she's become

[00:25:59] Amit: quite a political activist herself at this time, taking part in a lot of protests.

So there is a protest in 1960 in which she brought her son to, and there are hundreds of people that turn out and as was very, very common. Then the police come to disperse it and they take their horses and they go through the middle of the street, which moves all the protestors to the sidewalks, which to Maya Angelou is the diffusion of the power of the protest.

[00:26:28] Michael: And I was looking at my. And she, we kept on and I said, ma, come on. You're gonna get us killed. Let's go. She turned to me and she said, one person standing on the word of God is the majority. I looked at her and I thought, you will have gone crazy. My mother pulled out this big hairpin out of her headband and stuck it in the sergeant's horse.

The sergeant's horse named and reared up. The sergeant fell off. The people came back from the sidewalk and we finished that march.

Yeah, that's a drop the mic moment, man. . One person

[00:27:16] Amit: standing on the word of God is a majority and then hairpin out and stabbed. The horse was fine, everybody. Don't worry about that. I like this as a malov moment for a lot of reasons. Seeing this overpowering force against you, having the courage

[00:27:34] Michael: to change it, which has to be fucking terrifying to just call that out, right?

like that has to be scary as fuck. Correct. This

[00:27:41] Amit: is a no questions ask. We will beat you and take you to jail without question. Era. I I, that,

[00:27:46] Michael: that's why it, it's such an example of courage cuz courage is like, I'm not afraid she had to be afraid, but she did it anyway. This

[00:27:52] Amit: protest of hundreds of people in one hairpin turns it all around.

I just think there is so much power in that moment, and most of all, there is so much purpose. Maya Angelou said repeatedly, anytime that people talked about in terms of we're not making progress. When she looks at the problems of black America in the 1990s and two thousands, you know, saying that we haven't made progress, she would always say, no, no, no.

We have made progress without Dr. King, without Malcolm X, without everyone who did everything in every moment before us, everything was progress. And this was one of her moments of purpose and progress. And that's the exact moment, the removing the hairpin and sticking your arm upwards towards the horse.

Those few seconds is the malkovich moment. Yeah.

[00:28:47] Michael: All right. My malkovich. Mm-hmm. , I said this earlier, I'm gonna say it again. Thus far in our conversation, we have been heaping a lot of well-deserved praise and love on this woman. Something I've been thinking about is that at what point does that become burdensome to her, and how burdensome is it to be so revered?

In 2002, she gets approached by Hallmark and it's a little bit synonymous with trite. To have something on a Hallmark card feels like almost cheap,

[00:29:22] Amit: right? Selling out. Is that the way you're trying to

[00:29:24] Michael: say this is where I'm going with this, is that she has to weigh out for herself. Am I gonna help out Hallmark with their Hallmark cards?

I think it's called the Life Mosaic Collection. So she's like conflicted about like whether or not to do this. Here's what I think makes this a Malkovich moment for me. Basically what I want to zoom in on is the moment she decides to ink the deal with Hallmark, which by the way is lucrative. I read one article from the National Endowment for the Humanities that, you know, she profited as much as $4 million for having worked with Hallmark on this product line.

I think that there's always a question of mechanism of message delivery. If you decide to work with Hallmark, do you run the risk of cheapening yourself that you're signing on with corporate America, and as you put it a second ago, selling out. So I wanna be behind the eyes when she makes the decision to say, yes, I will partner with Hallmark and create this product line.

[00:30:24] Amit: Yeah. I mean, do you think this is just an invented inauthenticity? The idea of if you do something for Hallmark or a corporation as opposed to outside of just selling your own art directly? Her books were sold by whatever publisher. They're money making things. It is above all entertainment. So what is the psychological struggle between writing another book and inking a deal with Hallmark?

[00:30:51] Michael: It it is, but it's not binary. Like the corruption of corporate power and the selling of one's self or selling out exists along a spectrum. You know, look, this is an important woman who a lot of people look to and follow the example of. And I think that she's got to weigh out, like what kind of model or precedent does this set?

So I don't think it's inauthentic, but I think it's a important question now, and I think it'll remain an important question and it should. The corporate beast can eat you up and can steal your soul. I don't think it did here, but I think that she had to think it through.

[00:31:27] Amit: I think you said it well, that selling out exists on a continuum and it's not always bad, and it could be okay.

It could be the right way to actually perpetuate your art, and I think that's a worthy way to look at. . Yeah,

[00:31:42] Michael: so that's my Malkovich . And with that, let's pause for a word from our sponsor,

[00:31:54] Amit: Michael. You know I love reading, right? Oh yeah. You know what I don't like about it? After I finish a book, and especially if I really like it, Uhhuh , I either give it away or it just sits there and it's worth

[00:32:05] Michael: nothing. Oh, yeah. You know, there's a solution for this. Throw it away. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That book is valuable to somebody else, but I'm not just talking about donating it.

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[00:32:24] Amit: them back for like a savings bond

[00:32:27] Michael: or some sort of, no, I'm talking cold, hard cash. Enough for you to pick up the next lunch tab. I'm sure. Really

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Category four, love and marriage. How many marriages? Also, how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? Oh boy. Yes. It's hard, right? Even the New York Times obituary said she was a little bit unclear on number of marriages. At least two, maybe three, and maybe more, although it's, you know, a little bit, we don't know.

I do not know how to say this person's first name. The Natas Tosh Angelo. That's 1951 to 1954. Maya was 23, divorced. Age 26. This is where she gets her last name. She was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis. Angelo is her Greek husband and became a stage name. And this was around the time that she was a Calypso dancer.

So Maya Angelou had a certain sort of exotic quality to it. Anyway, marriage lasted three or four years, if not

[00:34:03] Amit: clear by the name. This was an interracial marriage.

[00:34:06] Michael: That's right. Then this is the one where I some reports, uh, the Wikipedia entry, for example, at as well as the citation says that this was never an official marriage, but with South African activist, I don't know how to say his name.

V u s u m z I. How the fuck do I say that?

[00:34:24] Amit: Amit Zuzi. Maka.

[00:34:27] Michael: They were never officially married, but this is when she's in Africa, in, uh, Cairo and then in Ghana from 1960 to 63. Maya was 32 to age 35 ish. And then the other official marriage, uh, that we know of is Paul Dfu, D E F U. I can't say any of her husband's

[00:34:46] Amit: names.

Just call him sideburns. If you saw the video, I'll call

[00:34:49] Michael: him sideburns. Okay. Yeah. And he was also European, right?

[00:34:52] Maya: Yeah. Years ago I fell in love with a man and we lived together in great harmony, but then he wanted to get married and I don't care much for the institution. . And so I called Jimmy. He said, does your reluctance to marry him have anything to do with his being white?

So ? I said, maybe. He said, but his being white didn't keep you from falling in love with him. I said, no. He said, but it keeps you from making a public statement of your lab. Is that it? He said, Maya, Angelo, you talk about courage all the time. You tell everybody else to dare to love, but you don't have the courage.

Are you a hypocrite? And he talked to me harder than he'd ever talked to me before. So what the hell you're gonna do, girl? I said I'm gonna marry the man

[00:35:47] Michael: what to do. Let's come back to this. The one other thing I wanna say on the family front, just to sort of lay out the facts, is she had a son, uh, she got pregnant, age 16.

It sounds like the first man she was with, the way she tells the story, but out of that, becomes pregnant with her son Clyde, who uh, later changed his name to Guy. And that's her only biological heir. Yeah. Is her son, guy. And the father was not

[00:36:10] Amit: involved. And That's correct. And Maya's mother and Maya made a choice to raise that child without, that's right.

Without that father in the

[00:36:16] Michael: picture, he was asked. Once, what's it like growing up in the shadow of his beloved parent? And he replied, I didn't. I grew up in her light. Sometimes I wasn't worthy of it, but it has always been an experience that expanded me. That is extraordinary to me in terms of having a parent who is this important, powerful transcendent that he would say that I didn't grow up in her shadow.

I grew up in her light. I can't think of words of higher praise. So that told me something about her role as a mother. All right, what's the make of the marriage category? Let's

[00:36:52] Amit: go back to Guy for a second. He said in that B B C documentary that my mother never found long-term love. She had these marriages, she had other relationships in between, and I think she was still, you know, pretty actively cavorting well into the end of her life.

She doesn't shy away about her, her sexuality or her appetite as she calls it. Totally, but it doesn't seem like there's a lot of secure attachment going on.

[00:37:18] Michael: It's funny, I saw her asked about it in places where like, are you hard to live with? And she's like, I don't think I'm hard to live with. But I think that she was very regimented in her devotion to her writing.

She would block off long hours where do not disturb me. I'm going into a hotel room and with, you know, a bottle of whiskey and I am going to write right. And later that day I'm gonna edit, edit, edit. That may have come at the expense of, you know, long-term partnership, long-term intimacy with the single individual.

Seems like

[00:37:48] Amit: she was also prone that falling in love quickly and flights are. She meets these people like Makay, for example, and then follows him to Cairo. I,

[00:37:58] Michael: I mean, I don't know what to make of this. I mean, it does sound like Makay the husband. Yeah. At least to hear her son describe it, you know, the closest she ever came to like long-term love.

It sounds idyllic, if I'm remembering that one right. I, I honestly don't know what, what to make of this marriage record here, Amit, in terms of desirability and, and how I understand her. So she lived

[00:38:21] Amit: well into her mid eighties. She talked about how joyous she was. You know, even in her early eighties and like Oprah interviews, so it seems like she had happiness, she had fulfillment.

The way I talked about that she saw the world as her family. Everyone's her children, everyone's her parent. She doesn't look lonely. But I think that's part of the lifestyle that she had of constantly being a mentor to so many, and she had a very deep friendship with people like Sicily, Tyson. She had sort of these fill-in and companions.

But to you, is it wrong?

[00:38:57] Michael: I think she's a difficult, you know, puzzle piece to match up with. Perhaps. I don't see a deep intimacy void like that. For example, with Gary Shandling came up, right, that you sort of do see a kind of like need that's never met in Gary Shandling, that I don't get that same vibe of need from Maya Angello.

So I don't know anything's wrong. I don't know what we're supposed to do. Supposed to do. I mean, nothing she

[00:39:28] Amit: did was orthodox. She essentially had a child as a single mom,

[00:39:32] Michael: had interracial relationships way before that was commonplace, and then

[00:39:36] Amit: lived out the majority of the second half of her life without a dedicated single partner.

I mean, she had these few year marriages. Maybe May is an example of an acceptable way to do

[00:39:50] Michael: this. I actually think that's right. The more I think about it, it doesn't look lacking to me. Even if others might have said, Hey, how come you're not paired off yet? If

[00:40:00] Maya: the next person who comes along and cares for me and makes me laugh happens to be a four foot tall, 500 pound Japanese Sumitomo wrestler, I will marry him and make no apology to.

Now, that to me is very normal. Of course, it wouldn't seem normal to people who look at me if I walked down the street with somebody who is a Japanese Humie, tomo wrestler, and we call each other darling, but it would be normal to me. Do you see what I

[00:40:31] Amit: mean? She talks about love, so much, love of other people, love of the universe, love of God, but it's, it's human beings.

At the end of the day.

[00:40:41] Michael: Personally, I kinda wish she had found a Japanese sumo wrestler. I kinda like that. Let's move on. Category five, net worth. I saw the magic number on it. You did 10 rain confetti, celebrations, fireworks. I know I've danced around it a little bit in recent episodes, but to go back to, you know, the famous and Gravy archives, I love 10 million.

I just think it's great and I like that the Hallmark deal comes along fairly late in life, which looks like it accounts for almost half of it. It does seem like one of the more lucrative things she's done. I think the book sales are one thing, and I'm sure they're pretty good, but I don't think it's like

[00:41:19] Amit: crazy riches.

I was expecting more, to be honest, the number of books in published works. Plus, you know, you talk about this Hallmark deal, but there was also other licensing, like her quotes were used all the time. And all sorts of things. She did do a paid lecture circuit. She was not apologetic about that.

[00:41:36] Michael: It seems like the main gig was Wake Forest too.

[00:41:39] Amit: Yeah. But you're a tenured professor of American Studies. How much

[00:41:42] Michael: is that gonna pay you? I don't know, but I think it's like a baseline stability no matter what. It's like just the Forest gum line one go. We don't have to think about money anymore. One last thing. Yeah. Okay, shall we move on? Category six, Simpsons Saturday Night Live or Halls of Fame.

This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on S N L or the Simpsons, as well as impersonations. There is a surprising amount to get through here. She was impersonated on the Simpsons, season 12, episode three. There's some sort of panel discussion. Lenny asks,

[00:42:15] Amit: ah yeah, I'm a techno thriller junkie and

[00:42:17] Maya: I'd like to know he's the B2 bomber.

More detectable when

[00:42:20] Amit: it rains.

[00:42:21] Michael: Whoa, what do you think, Tom

[00:42:22] Amit: Clancy. Leo the B two. Come on now. I was asking Maya Angelo. The

[00:42:26] Michael: Ebony Fighter awakens dappled with the Dewey beads of more. It is a Mach five child, forever bound to suckle from the shriveled breast of Congress.

[00:42:36] Amit: Oh, Maya,

[00:42:37] Michael: you are a national treasure.

She's also mentioned briefly in season four. All right, lemme get to Saturday Night Live. There are many impersonations. All of them are. Fucking hilarious. So the first one, have you seen this David Allen Greer doing Maya Angelou commercials. This is in 1997. There's Maya Angelo for Butterfinger Maya Angelo for Fruit Loops, and Maya Angelo for Pennzoil.

[00:43:05] Maya: And now Maya Angelo for Fruit

[00:43:07] Amit: Loops.

[00:43:09] Michael: Tucan Sam, you leap on the back of the wind load stone to assorted fruit flavors Phoenix of the Dawns one smile we gave you Tucan Sam life. You tuan Sam give us loops of fruit swimming in the churning fro the the Mother Sea of milk, a prism of fruity color, a cornucopia of over 40 fruity tastes.

The orange, the apple, the grape, the palm

[00:43:38] Amit: granite,

[00:43:38] Michael: the quince.

[00:43:43] Maya: The plantain. This is

[00:43:45] Amit: Ben Maya Angelo

[00:43:46] Michael: for Fruit Loops. Then in 2002, Tracy Morgan plays Maya Angelo previewing some of her Hallmark cards. Again, this is gold. I cannot do it justice. I will begin with this one here. . It's my favorite . I lay down in my grave and watch my children grow. Proud blooms above the weeds of death, I lay down in my grave to die.

Happy Fifth birthday, grams . Uh, and then finally, Maya Rudolph in 2013. The skit is called, I Know Why The Cage Bird laughs, and it's all about Maya Angelo pranking. People like Cornell West, Stephen King, and Morgan Freeman. It's pretty funny. Okay. Arsenio Hall, multiple appearances. I'm happy to say this one sort of shocked me.

No Hollywood Star. Let me just step aside for a second and say she is on a quarter, an actual quarter, US minted quarter, US Treasury, US meant, but somehow she's not on the Hollywood Star Shocked me. Fucking John Madden has a Hollywood star, but it does speak to the nature of her fame, which is ultimately what this category is all about.

I think that there's a lot of people who might know her name and aren't exactly sure why. I think she's gonna make the history books in a way that very few famous and gravy dead celebrities do. But is it gonna be more about her contribution to the arts, to political life? Like how is she gonna be remembered?

You know? Yeah. I

[00:45:29] Amit: think this goes back to the first line of the obituary question. I don't know that it fit in 50 years. That book is gonna be as significant as it is now. But I could see her being vaulted into longevity because I think of the breadth of the persona of who she was. It's like Hemingway.

You know, without the persona of Hemingway and these like images of him being in Paris or Cuba and being drunk and loud in this oversized personality, I, I think that's part of what perpetuates the, the legend of Hemingway. And Maya Angelou doesn't have those traits, but she does have an outsized personality.

And like you said, she does intersect everywhere and everyone,

[00:46:13] Michael: part of what makes her interesting is what she's doing off camera, not on camera. Like what we applaud here more is not actually captured on film most of the time, even if she's really great on the talk shows. Yes. Okay. Category seven. Over under, in this category, we look at the 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 a woman born in the United States in 1928 was 58.3. She lived to age 86, so she beat it by 28 years. Crushed it. I'd say also crushed it on the grace front. Yeah. This

[00:46:52] Amit: is really, really against all odds, but totally. She wins in the grace category. You know, one of the last interviews she was giving to Oprah in 2013 or 2014 is Oprah was asking her, you know, like, what's it like to be in your eighties?

And she's like, it's awesome. What can you say about the

[00:47:07] Maya: eighties? My, it's still hot. Didn't do it. If you can do it, if you can, if you have a choice, choose the eighties. Oh my goodness. I mean it, if you've been caring for yourself, you know, moderation in all things. Yes. And even moderation. In moderation.

Don't get too much moderation . But when you get into your eighties and you find that you are still looking kind of All right. And people still say, hello, , you think, Hmm, I'm glad I got this far.

[00:47:43] Michael: I mean, it's actually hard to think of examples of aging. Quite disgracefully.

[00:47:49] Amit: Yeah. I, I feel a Ruth Bader Ginsburg

[00:47:51] Michael: parallel here.

Yeah, I agree with that. Okay, let's pause for another break. Larry Bird alive, the rules are simple. Dead or alive. Correct. He's 66 years old. Shell Silverstein alive. I'm afraid the sidewalk has ended. No. Uh, and they did in 1999. Oh shoot. Really? That long ago. Yeah. Jonathan Goldsmith, who's that played? The doe's most interesting man in the world?

Oh, dead. He's still with us at 84. Oh wow. I know. Good for him. Test your knowledge. Dead or alive? app.com. Category eight Man in the Mirror. At this point in the show, we're getting at the more introspective questions and the first of these, uh, man in the mirror is about how did they feel about their own reflection.

What did you have here?

[00:48:49] Amit: I actually went to, no, I went

[00:48:51] Michael: Disfavorably. Interesting. Okay. I went, yes, but I had to do some thinking. So it sounds like we're both right on that line of coulda gone either way. Maybe tell me more about your, no,

[00:49:03] Amit: this changing of careers doesn't matter how much we loved it, but the fact that we can't pin down Maya Angello, maybe she couldn't pin herself down.

You know, her words were perfect. Physical presence. Again, I think she dressed well. She was elegant, she was graceful, but she was impossible to define. And with that, I feel a power as much as I feel an insecurity.

[00:49:29] Michael: You know, she's beautiful in a very unique way, in a nonconventional way. Mentioned six foot tall.

She's also like strong. And she's also, I mean, she's, she's just got like charisma and presence. I lean yes here because what tipped the balance for me here was self-acceptance. You know, I saw more than once she was asked, would you rather be born a white man? And she says, absolutely not.

[00:49:58] Maya: No, God no, . I wouldn't want all that.

Uh, unfortunate unachievable expectations. My expectations are just beyond my reach and they have to do with me. My fantasy is to be six foot tall, black female American, a writer. successful, who laughs a lot and drinks just enough doers. White label Scott and goes to church on Sunday and really means it.

I loves her mother. Yes. And I loves her mother .

[00:50:40] Michael: I think she looks in the mirror and says, I am interesting. The life I've been given is interesting. I see. On balance self-acceptance. So if I just distill it down to if that's what man in the mirror is about, then I lean yes. But I really did have to think through this.

Okay. Category nine, 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 an answering machine or outgoing voicemail. Also where they have had the humility to use it, uh, when they and record their themselves on their outgoing message, or would they use the default setting.

I wrote, are you kidding me? Yes. And yes. Do you take issue with that? I do.

[00:51:23] Amit: Fuck me all time. One of the contrarian or really? Okay. Alright. One of the all time greatest voices. Let's not forget, she said at the age of seven, my words can kill. Yeah. She also said that mutism is an addiction. You know, it is her defense mechanism.

Even after Martin Luther King Jr. Died on her birthday, she went mute again. For five days, she does hold

[00:51:46] Michael: and her James Baldwin came and knocked on her door and said, you need to come meet my writer friends. And then out of that comes Cage, bird.

[00:51:52] Amit: Yeah. And then she became one of the great orators of our time in the way she delivered poems, the way she delivered speeches.

But I'm not sure that she sits there and listens to her own recordings. I think she loves to doll it out and she loves that other people can receive it. She talks about so much that words are things, but I think she has an issue with hearing her own as evidenced by this past.

[00:52:21] Michael: Okay. Actually that's a really compelling case.

I think you raised an interesting question of how you experience your own voice, and I also think you're really right to point to the mutism and the choice to be silent. I don't know if that totally translates into, I don't like my voice, so I'm sticking with my Yes, because I think that she appreciates the power of it, and I also know that you don't like it much when I go back on what I said.

Uh, next category regrets, public or private. What we really wanna know is what, if anything, kept this person awake at night? We've already talked about. Some of the trauma here, and I guess we'll get more into that in the next category. I didn't hear anything that was so loud that I re, you know, that was so obviously a big public Maya culpa, the love

[00:53:11] Amit: thing again.

I mean, her son did say it publicly that that mom never found lasting

[00:53:16] Michael: love. I had that in private regrets. Well, let me give you the other two I had in private regrets. This isn't that interesting, and maybe you ought to leave it aside, but she did back Hillary over, uh, Obama in 2008. Yes. I thought that was interesting, particularly because the real battle between Obama and Hillary in 2008 seemed to be for Oprah, who went with Obama ultimately.

And I mean, she has history with the Clintons. You know, bill and Hillary talk about how one of the things they bonded over when they first met was how each of them loved. Uh, I know where the Cage bird sings. Yeah. I mean, they, and you. Both spent

[00:53:51] Amit: their formative

[00:53:52] Michael: years in rural Arkansas. Bill Clinton said, I mean, she got me.

She knew me through and through, and that's why I asked her to write this poem for my inauguration. The big one I have here though in regrets is, is the burden of fame here. You know, it's something she says over and over again that I really love is that we need to be careful about putting people on pedestals.

We need to be careful about lionizing people because the message we send when we say you are an icon, you are next level. You are so full of virtue. It's incredible. The message we send there is that, and therefore the things you've accomplished are unachievable.

[00:54:31] Amit: One

[00:54:31] Maya: of the things some historians do, and one of the mistakes made is the historian and social historian in particular, recreate.

the man or woman as larger than life. If Malcolm and Martin and Abraham, Lincoln and Kennedy are beyond their reach, then they say, well, it's nothing I can do. They, those people are bigger than life. I'm just myself. I was born in Boston, so the wisest thing is to make the people accessible, show their wiles and their wits and their warts.

[00:55:17] Michael: People need to feel like self-actualization and virtue are achievable. How do you characterize this as a regret? I don't think she would second guess any of her decisions in terms of all these various projects she takes on and what she does in and out of our entertainment and in writing and in public speaking and so forth.

But I do sense a real discomfort with how she is regarded and how she wants other people to perceive her transcendent powers. So that's what I have in

[00:55:48] Amit: regrets. She doesn't act and she doesn't bs, and so I think she would've been open about it if it was actually a burden to her.

[00:55:57] Michael: I just sense it between the lines.

If a regret is like defined as something where you wished you'd done something else in the past, I don't see anything that's a regret, but I do see a burden. I do see an onus, you know? Yeah. Okay. Category 11, good dreams, bad dreams. This category is not about personal perception, but rather does this person have a haunted look at the eye?

Something that suggests inner turmoil, inner demons, or unresolved trauma. Okay. We've talked about a lot of trauma here. I'm still going good. I see self-acceptance and I see peace in the eye. Yeah,

[00:56:31] Amit: I would hesitate to use the word resolved, but she put it all out there for the world to read and that's cathartic

[00:56:37] Michael: and I see a spiritual connection.

You know, whether she's talking about God implicitly or explicitly. I think that there is a, I'm at peace with myself in my lot in life, and there's

[00:56:48] Amit: a clarity in the eye and there's a clarity in the voice. You see

[00:56:51] Michael: the piece in the eye, you know? Yes. At least I do

[00:56:53] Maya: because I love people who laugh. I never trust people who don't laugh, which

[00:56:58] Michael: I'm sure

[00:57:01] Maya: and act as if they put airplane glue on the back of their hand and stuck them through that.

No. Boring as hell. I tell you one though, whether or not this one about just to make you laugh. No. Sprouted wheat and Sawyer shoots and Brussels in a cake, carrot, straw, and spinach raw. Today I need a steak , not thick, brown rice and rice peel and mushrooms, creamed on toast, turnips, mashed and parsnips.

Hashed. I'm dreaming of a roast .

[00:57:44] Michael: 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 with this person or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part that we are most curious about.

she is a little bit of a drinker talks. I mean, doesn't sound like heavy drinker. Yeah. Yeah. But I kinda love that. I, and I do think, you know, we mentioned it a few times, she made people feel at ease. So I don't feel like I need booze to get her to drop her guard. If I were to get high with Maya, Angelo, I think I'd trip out.

I don't think I could handle my shit. I think I'd, I'd, I'd feel awkward and I'd probably stick my foot in my mouth. So I just went coffee, which is my kind of default for any time. My sense of tremendous intellect. I think I'd just love to talk and I think that it would actually be a lot of give and take in that conversation.

I think that she is curious about everybody and I think she makes time for everybody. I, I, I think she's got a tremendous amount of humility and, and I think it'd just be a fun conversation. What exactly we talk about, I don't know, but I, I kind of feel like. With enough coffee and enough time, one of these sentences or nuggets of wisdom, would it inevitably just fall out?

And I suspect after an hour of drinking coffee with Maya Angelo, I would walk away with words to live by. And I don't know what those words would be, but I'd like that experience.

[00:59:08] Amit: Yeah, I, that's exactly, I want is the words to live by. And she seems to have this almost psychologist sense of saying the right thing to the right person.

You know, assessing where you are, where you're struggling with, and, and giving just the right anecdotes for you to shift your perspective just enough in that right direction. I mean, she did that for Chappelle. You could see him in that interview. You know, you could argue that for Tupac. She did at that moment.

So I want that.

[00:59:34] Michael: So what substance are you going with though?

[00:59:36] Amit: I love that she was a scotch drinker. Like even this was part of her writing habits. She would go and lock

[00:59:40] Michael: herself without hotel. Yeah, yeah. There's something Hemmingway esque about that too,

[00:59:43] Amit: right? Yeah, right. She'd have a pack of playing cards, which she'd play solitaire.

Then she'd have like a bottle of either Scotch or Sherry. So I, I think I want that. I want a glass of scotch with her in a coffee, like setting, maybe a dinner table type of setting or you know, back porch type of thing. And I maybe we start with coffee and then Maya's like, what do, should we get something

[01:00:06] Michael: a little stronger?

Yeah. Can I get you a drink after an hour or something? Yeah, that's the dream. That's a good one, Amit. All right. Final category. The VanDerBeek named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said, and varsity blues, I don't want your life. So the question is not, is this person important? Not do they have a tremendous legacy or have they affected history?

The question is, would you have wanted to have been this person? I'm gonna lead cuz I have a suspicion. You've got something interesting to say here. You usually do. So let me just come out with where I'm at on this all signs point to yes for me, because of the virtuousness, because of the impact, because of the interesting journey here, the two things that give me pause are one long-term partner.

There is no soulmate. And maybe no equal. Then the second thing is what I've been sort of dancing around throughout the conversation, the burden of being an icon, how hard that has to be.

I don't think that those are enough for me to say no here. I guess I'm most compelled by the interesting life, like if life is all about how you deal with the challenges and the traumas and turn them into acts of service and virtues, then like she does that externally, obviously, but I also see her doing it internally as best I can tell.

In a way, I don't feel like I have to think too hard about this one. It actually looks adventurous. It actually looks pretty fucking fun. Who she gets to meet, what she gets to talk to him about, the kind of conversations she's engaged in, the sort of weaving of intellectual life, artistic life and political life.

It looks fun. I'd like to be part of that life. I'd like to be part of that culture. And I, I'm a yes man and I don't know that I gotta think too hard about it. There's some reservation for the reasons I've outlined, but I'm a, yes, I want Your life. Maya Angelou,

I

[01:02:26] Amit: think you made her some really good points that the one that sticks out to me is when you said there's no equals, I don't know how lonely she was.

And it's not obvious to me that she wasn't. But again, she was a giver, she was a mentor to everybody and that's, you know, maybe she just had a selfless way of dealing. With loneliness is just by emptying herself out to these other people. But I have a concern about that. I have a fear of inhabiting a lonely soul.

I mean, she had her Oprahs and she had her Sicily Tysons, but there was no one like her. I'd be concerned about that, but it's not enough to say no. The contributions that she had, I think, and the things she got to experience through that 80 year life, you know, horrible at first, the first 20 years, but just everything afterwards is too hard to resist.

It's just too fascinating. It's too fun. But most of all, I saw a fulfilled woman in her eighties and when she was in her eighties and she was talking to Oprah and she was telling everybody, if you can make it this far, come on in the water's beautiful. I would like to be able to say that. For that reason, I would say, yes, I want your life.

Maya Angelou.

[01:03:43] Michael: I'm very glad to hear that, Amit. Amit, you are Maya Angelou. You have died and you stand before St. Peter, the Unitarian proxy for the afterlife. Make your pitch. Why should you be led in?

[01:03:59] Amit: Has anybody ever told you how important you are? That really is my life's work through my writings, my speeches, my advocacy.

I wanted everyone to know that they were important. If a word I wrote resonated, if a story from my life resonated, if a piece of wisdom resonated, it should resonate to that deep part of the body where somebody realizes that they are an individual living human being who is important. The sum of all history has led.

To their being alive right now, and there is nothing more important, more beautiful, more fragile, and more celebrated. Than that. So, St. Peter, I am important. You are important. Everyone that's still down there is very, very important. Let

[01:05:04] Michael: me in.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Famous and Gravy. If you're enjoying this show, please share it with your friends. We're trying to get the word out. You can find us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at Famous and Gravy. We also have a newsletter which you can sign up for. R r 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. Thank you again for listening. Tell your friends, see you next time.