TRANSCRIPTION 🔗
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And there was a kid who had these really high pants.
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And back in the day, you know, you were either
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Michael Jackson or you just couldn't afford pants, you know
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what I mean. And my man was the latter, okay.
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And I was joking on this dude and I was
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loving it. And wait, the bus was cracking up and
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I was like, ooh, my superpower.
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I'm using it for evil, you know what I mean.
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I wouldn't stay. I stayed on this kid all on
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the bus, non stop, and people were laughing. And I
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watched this young man go into a shell, into a hole. Wow,
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he just went he could like he had nothing to say.
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He was speechless.
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But I wouldn't stop. But let me tell you what happened.
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There was this young lady and her name was and
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everybody loved that. Beth was superstar. She was so smart,
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she was pretty, she was everything. But she was very quiet.
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And Beth stood up at the end of the She's
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in the back of the bus and she stood up.
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She said.
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Stop and she's screamed wow, and.
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The whole bus where and I looked at her, like
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what she said, how are you? What are you doing?
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What are you doing? And I was like, uh uh uh.
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Jerry, you are better than that. Wow. Listen, it changed
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my life. Changed my life all hold with feet. Oh
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she was saying, age mee seventh grade. We all had
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seventh grade together. Wow.
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She was so respected and so loved because she was
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so smart and sweet and right now she's actually a brilliant.
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She's a social worker in the Blitz area right now
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and works with kids and bamilies and BLNT.
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I was gonna ask you do you know?
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Her gonna ask, yeah, I was like, most likely to succeed.
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We went to the same school from seventh grade all
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the way to senior year, and she was most likely
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to succeed along with me. Now this really me. I
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learned my lesson in seventh grade. I will never do
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comedy at someone else's expense. If you look at my comedy,
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it's always about me. Spice to Friday After next to
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white Chicks, to longest Jar, I'm the joke. Yes, never
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at someone else's expense. It's never I look at this guy,
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he's right down. It's really about making fun of manliness
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or making fun of you know.
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Popping my pants and do it all that stuff.
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You know.
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But I learned at a young age that that that
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bullying is purple. It's it cuscious people. And this is
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before social media, this is back in the day. It
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is like right, and but knowing that I've taken this
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as from the elementary school all the way up, and
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it was one of those things even I.
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Remember being bullied.
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But it's funny because.
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It's when when it was switch happened and I was
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the guy, and I got bloodlust on it, you know
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what I mean. It was kind of like, yeah, here
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I am, and and I'm not here to say that
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I'm innocent, you know what I mean.
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This thing was like I was guilty as charged.
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And let me tell you, I beg God to forgive
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me that to me for the next couple of days.
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Wow, she was so respected.
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And I was like, and I remember just running up
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to her like I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, and
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she wouldn't talk to me. She keep walking and I
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was like, oh my god, I got it. I gotta
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do anything to gain best trust back.
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And what did you do.
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After a couple of days, I went I finally cornered her.
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I was like, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.
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I should have never done that.
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And she looked at me and she said, I know
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you South, I know, but you better than that, Terry.
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You are better than.
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This is it? This isn't that's like a thirteen year
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old child like counseling another twelve thirteen. Yeah, this is
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like
Load full transcript
a habitable home.
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Expirits like to me, when.
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Your peers, when the people you're around, and this is
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why you got to be very very careful about your environment.
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And one thing, remember I was going up in Flint, Michigan,
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where most of the schools I happened to get picked
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to go to the school with kids who were picked
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for their skills. I had a skill as an artist.
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Beth was super smart. Uh. There were all kind of
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people at the school who wanted to be in school.
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And the environment was one of encouragement.
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The environment was one of we checked each other like
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and it was a beautiful thing.
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And I know a lot of people who don't have
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that environment right.
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The environment is more about putting people down. It's about
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competing with each other and fighting with each other. And
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I was that was the one thing that saved me
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even with all the things that were going on in
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my house.
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And it was my peers listen.
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My best friend and growing up, we made a vow
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because when I was a kid, I was in the
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dark about a lot of things, you know, right.
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We all were, and my father would never tell nothing.
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And I remember me and my friend we would be like, man,
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you know, like, why wou't these men tell us how
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to be men?
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Because I know about things. I just wanted to know
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how to be a man, right right.
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So I made a vow with my best friends and
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it was Darwin and I said, hey, man, if if
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you find out something that I don't know, promise me
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you'll tell me. And if I find out something you
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don't know, I promised to tell you. Wow, these are
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the kind of vowels that peers and if we were
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all kids, but this is the thing. It's the stuff
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that kids know. And with a friend like this and
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you have people to trust, it changed my life forever.
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--> 00:06:15.560
But had I not had that, I don't know where
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I would be right now. I really really am honestly saying.
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Because my father and then my mother was so religious.
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It was like I was asked about sex and she
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would never tell me, like, don't talk about sex.
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You doing it? Are you doing? I was like no, no, no.
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You know, I was so scared to talk about anything
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with my parents that I went to my peers. And
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I was fortunate that I had the people who could
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tell me the right thing, Because they would have told
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me the wrong thing, I probably.
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Would have believed it.
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You know, that's interesting, that's a great that's a great
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story man.
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You know, just.
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Listening to you talk about about that event in your
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life on the bus and.
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What she means to you to the point where.
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You you know, you almost you start getting choked up.
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It says a lot about It says a lot about
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your heart and how much you care, right, because a
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lot of a lot of kids, man, majority of kids
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would have laughed it off and kept it moving, right,
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no matter what they did to that kid, no matter
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what she said, they would have gone off that bus
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and kept it moving. But you always it says to me,
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you had a good heart back then as a child,
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you had a good heart.
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Maybe it was going to church.
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All the time, right, you know, learning that that early
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the religion, religion, the impact going to church, trying to
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do the right thing all the time, just to stay on,
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stay on that youth. When I grew up, you know,
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every summer we would we would try to find a
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job like odd jobs and it's I just want to
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know what odd job did you do? Our jobs did
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you do before you became a professional? Go through the
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list of jobs. I want people to know what kind
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of jobs
we did. But without the internet, what with
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their job? I would cut yards, I looked at I
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worked at a nursery, a plant nursery. I'm talking about
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high school, like you know, like be working in publics.
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Tell me some of all the odd jobs you did.
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Oh man.
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First of all, my father again he was not playing.
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He was like, I'm gonna teach you guys how to
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do whatever. We wake us up at four in the morning. Wow.
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And we would do lawns all over Flint.
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And I mean we had we had a pickup truck
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and he had the lawnmower. We load up the lawnmower
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with the race. And this is what was so horrible, man,
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because it was a horrible job. You know in the
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ball you know, we in school, whole thing too. But
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he would make us every weekend we've been out there
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because the leaves that's when the leaves were good, that's
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where we're gonna let them but he.
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Would leave us out there all day. It didn't take
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the burdy. We didn't even get the marty.
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Low and then wait and then in the winter we
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shovel snow and dude, my father and this is the thing.
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It was so crazy.
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Once we got you know, we would learn, okay, this
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is how we can make some money. Right, So me
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and my brothers tried to do it on our own
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without my father doing it right.
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And my father would come in and be like how
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much money y'all got?
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Because we were so religious, we wouldn't lie, like, uh,
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like I got I saved about two hundred dollars, give
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me that money, wow, And our father would.
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Come take our money and labor laws back then y'all
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living in my room, that money my money?
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Correct, Well, it's it were horl Your first job was
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an artist, though, like in the arts was the courtroom sketching.
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Part, right, And that was right.
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But I wanted to get to that because I said, okay,
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this is this is crazy because you know, I don't want.
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To be doing lawns and shoveling snow.
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But as remember, because I was so religious and we
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couldn't do anything. One thing I could do was sit
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in my room and draw. And what I remember people
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talking about movies and talking.
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About all the movies they would go to see and
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all that. So I couldn't go. But what I would
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do is draw the movies.
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And I would draw what I thought the movies were,
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wo Jaws and Star Wars and all that, and I
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would draw all day.
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And my head.
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They created this amazing imagination and you know a lot
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of things people think are there their downfall or even
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the religious stuff.
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It created a skill in me and I could draw
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really really well.
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I was getting awards and the whole thing.
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And right after I went to college, I had a
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scholarship in art, not football.
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My scholarge is in art.
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And when I came back from my first year in college,
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I went down to w JRT.
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TV twelve in Blint, Michigan and showed my portfolio.
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And the art director followed me. And then there was
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a lot of This is back in the old days
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of the news when they had to you had to
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draw the backgrounds. This is before computers and all this stuff.
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So there was a murder, you would draw the chalk line,
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and then the police all right, y'all do it. And
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I would do the background for what happened in the news.
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And then they said, listen, we got a big court case.
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The courtroom sketch artist is from Chicago. He couldn't make it.
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Terry, we need you to go do the biggest It
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was the biggest murder case in.
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Flint, Michigan history.
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Wow, fixed people were murdered in one house, in a
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drug house.
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How old were you then?
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Oh?
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I was literally I was eighteen. This is a college,
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this is my first wheel lights and I and in
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the beginning, he said can you do it? And I
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just said yes without even thinking. And then I was like,
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I don't know how to do this anyway, right, And
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I went in the courtroom and I drew all the jurors,
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and I drew the dependence and I drew the q's
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and I was like, oh and dude, they loved it.
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I was like, it was my first job at entertainment.
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It was my first reel gig. And the director said, Terry,
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he said, you got a future in this. He said,
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I'll when you.
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Come back next summer, I want you to, you know,
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keep doing it.
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And the whole thing