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[0:06] Indira G. Wilson: Risking and trying and failing a lot because I am excited about like what's possible right now.

[0:11] Blaine Teamer: How would you define the term breakthrough for yourself?

[0:14] Indira G. Wilson: It's the transition where I start to acknowledge the value of the tension because the tension has got my attention.

[0:22] Blaine Teamer: How would you define the term breakthrough for yourself?

[0:24] Indira G. Wilson: Here's what I was talking about. I had to be real with myself because I'm talking about change in my life.

[0:31] Indira G. Wilson: Welcome to the Afro-Existential Podcast, a podcast and audio play in one.

[0:36] Indira G. Wilson: I am one of your hosts, Indira G. Wilson.

[0:39] Blaine Teamer: And I'm Blaine Teamer.

[0:40] Blaine Teamer: This season we'll be presenting a brand new audio play entitled Pandora's Trunk and a new interview series entitled The Breakthrough from Vision to Fruition.

[0:49] Indira G. Wilson: In this series, we hear from people who took a great idea and made it a reality.

[0:54] Blaine Teamer: We want to know how they did it and how they got over the obstacles along the way.

[0:58] Indira G. Wilson: We hope that it helps and inspires you to make your great idea a reality.

[1:03] Blaine Teamer: But before we go to commercial, here is a sneak peek of our next audio play, Pandora's Trunk.

[1:09] Indira G. Wilson: Pandora Washington is on a quest to find her birth mother.

[1:14] Indira G. Wilson: In this scene, she meets Sister Rosemary, who tries to explain to Pandora how she was seduced by the new minister of the first and last most faithful harvest and grains at Evanathy Church.

[1:14] Indira G. Wilson: Matthew 15:11 says, "It's not what goes into the mouth that defiles the person, but what comes out of the mouth."

[1:37] Indira G. Wilson: This defiles a person.

[1:40] Indira G. Wilson: Matthew 15:11.

[1:45] Indira G. Wilson: He ain't live.

[1:47] Indira G. Wilson: He ain't live because that's what it does say.

[1:50] Indira G. Wilson: Then Pandora, girlfriend, but he didn't like it, did he?

[1:55] Indira G. Wilson: He wanted me to taste his fruit.

[1:59] Indira G. Wilson: He wanted me to taste his fruit.

[2:02] Indira G. Wilson: Let me say it one more time. He wanted me to taste his fruit.

[2:08] Indira G. Wilson: And it was a strange fruit.

[2:11] Indira G. Wilson: Was it a mango or a tangelo?

[2:15] Indira G. Wilson: Was it like no mango or no tangelo?

[2:19] Indira G. Wilson: As far as I know.

[2:22] Indira G. Wilson: I did go. I said it was a strange fruit.

[2:26] Indira G. Wilson: And I like it.

[2:29] Indira G. Wilson: Was it like a kumquat or a papaya?

[2:33] Indira G. Wilson: Or a persimmon.

[2:35] Indira G. Wilson: And what? Like a kumquat.

[2:38] Indira G. Wilson: Was it not?

[2:40] Indira G. Wilson: And I would be a liar if I said it was like a me and oh my.

[2:47] Indira G. Wilson: I like it.

[2:48] Indira G. Wilson: And can I get an Amen?

[2:50] Indira G. Wilson: If it weren't like no persimmon.

[2:53] Indira G. Wilson: And I tell you one more game.

[2:55] Indira G. Wilson: The kind of fruit you want to have at night.

[3:00] Indira G. Wilson: In the afternoon as a flag.

[3:10] Indira G. Wilson: And we'll be right back after a brief commercial break.

[3:15] Indira G. Wilson: Every day I struggle with Karen.

[3:18] Indira G. Wilson: I don't wanna have to struggle with my hair.

[3:22] Indira G. Wilson: It improves shampoo and reconditioner.

[3:28] Indira G. Wilson: Oh, it goes deep into your roots and uncovers the natural beauty that's been there all the time.

[3:35] Indira G. Wilson: Yeah.

[3:36] Indira G. Wilson: Every day I live the struggle.

[3:38] Indira G. Wilson: I don't wanna have to struggle with my hair.

[3:41] Indira G. Wilson: And for added protection on those current games, there is Afro Existential Sheen Super Holding Hair Spray.

[3:49] Indira G. Wilson: A protein-based hairspray that holds your hair back, but won't hold you back.

[3:56] Indira G. Wilson: I don't even have to take my earrings off.

[3:58] Indira G. Wilson: I hate to think where I'd be without it.

[4:02] Indira G. Wilson: Afro Existential Sheen shampoo, reconditioner, and relaxer.

[4:07] Indira G. Wilson: Get it today. Your roots will thank you.

[4:11] Indira G. Wilson: And that's no lie.

[4:13] Indira G. Wilson: Oh.

[4:17] Indira G. Wilson: We invite your apprehensive listeners. I know we have been on a long hiatus, but it is not for naught, okay?

[4:24] Indira G. Wilson: We are so excited about this new season, and we have so many cool things lined up.

[4:30] Indira G. Wilson: You know, as always, we have great, insightful interviews coming up with incredible people for our breakthrough series, Vision to Fruition.

[4:40] Indira G. Wilson: We have a great new correspondent, Frederick Johnson, who's going to be doing some in-depth, wonderful interviews.

[4:47] Indira G. Wilson: My personal favorite, we have a new segment called It Makes It Easier to Do What Must Be Done.

[4:54] Indira G. Wilson: With our friend Henri.

[4:57] Indira G. Wilson: And he is always gonna keep it real and keep us grounded in what Afro-existentialism is all about.

[5:06] Indira G. Wilson: And we also have a new segment called How Great Ideas Were Born.

[5:14] Indira G. Wilson: Brought to you by new fancy Vine.

[5:19] Indira G. Wilson: Which is so much fun.

[5:21] Indira G. Wilson: And last but certainly not least, we will be debuting the next play in our play series called Pandora's Trunk, written by the wonderful genius that is my partner and banter, Blaine Teamer.

[5:46] Indira G. Wilson: A third.

[5:47] Indira G. Wilson: The third.

[5:49] Indira G. Wilson: It is fantastic.

[5:51] Indira G. Wilson: And as always, really keys into our main drive for this podcast, Afro-existentialism.

[5:58] Blaine Teamer: I've got the beginning of an idea.

[6:00] Blaine Teamer: And I've got the end of it.

[6:01] Blaine Teamer: What's interesting about this new interview series called the Breakthrough, those private conversations that you have offline with people where they're talking about the struggle of it, when you get to this interview process, all of that is removed.

[6:17] Blaine Teamer: I can I know why what people are thinking. We're storytellers, and so we know that you sell things based off of being relatable.

[6:25] Blaine Teamer: Art is truth, right? And I think that when you're selling a business, you want everybody to think that everything is great.

[6:31] Blaine Teamer: You want them to trust you with their money, you know, and their business.

[6:35] Blaine Teamer: You do you believe that they will go, oh well, this bitch was taking Xanax to go to sleep every night while she was trying to put this together.

[6:42] Blaine Teamer: She's not stable, she doesn't want my money.

[6:44] Blaine Teamer: But the thing that you don't know is that everybody's taking Xanax.

[6:47] Indira G. Wilson: Exactly.

[6:48] Blaine Teamer: And the true story is is that you're taking the Xanax, and that's helping you do what you have to do.

[6:55] Indira G. Wilson: Right, right.

[6:56] Blaine Teamer: You're not unstable, you're just anxious.

[7:01] Indira G. Wilson: Yeah.

[7:02] Blaine Teamer: Which we all are, but you've figured out a way to manage it and do and accomplish what you're trying to do.

[7:08] Blaine Teamer: That's the interesting piece that people need to know about.

[7:11] Blaine Teamer: That it's there's all these things that come in your way that you kind of have to figure out in real time and all these challenges.

[7:18] Blaine Teamer: And people need to know that you got over those challenges, and they're not discouraged when they're faced with challenges.

[7:24] Indira G. Wilson: I have an idea. I think instead of calling this the breakthrough series from vision to fruition, we now henceforth and forevermore say this is called the low down dirty truth series.

[7:25] Indira G. Wilson: From vision to fruition.

[7:40] Blaine Teamer: The breakthrough, no but for real.

[7:45] Indira G. Wilson: Well, really ha happened.

[7:48] Indira G. Wilson: And we'll be right back after a brief commercial break.

[7:51] Alistair Justin Black: Hello, I'm Alistair Justin Black from the Theater and the Black. Playwright Blaine Teamer began writing DEAD WAIT in 2016.

[8:01] Alistair Justin Black: You finished it nearly four months later.

[8:05] Alistair Justin Black: The writing of the perfect line in a great play, or the making of a line of fine fancy wines.

[8:35] Alistair Justin Black: It's five o'clock somewhere. Take life one sip at a time.

[8:41] Indira G. Wilson: And welcome back. I wanted to take a moment to introduce Frederick Johnson.

[8:46] Indira G. Wilson: You don't know how happy we are to have you with us.

[8:50] Indira G. Wilson: We're going to be doing our first interview together.

[8:56] Frederick Johnson: I'm very excited about this interview and looking forward to meeting Tony Pearson, who is a world champion bodybuilder who came to fame in the late 70s.

[9:11] Frederick Johnson: He's just was discovered by Arnold Schwarzenegger on Venice Beach at Muscle Beach. That's where it all began for him professionally.

[9:19] Frederick Johnson: And this man now decades later, you know, here it is, you know, 40 plus years later, you know, he's now a legend.

[9:26] Indira G. Wilson: He's a legend. And he's written an autobiography called Driven, and that's going to be what we're primarily going to focus on in the interview. Talk about breakthroughs. You know, he had a very, uh, he had a background full of adversity and abuse and a lot of trauma. I won't go into details. You guys will have to wait for the interview. But he made a leap from coming from that type of background to at a very young age. I mean, he wasn't even, he was still like a teenager when he came out to Los Angeles and ended up on Muscle Beach and was determined. He had this unwavering drive and determination to become a professional bodybuilder, you know, despite everything he had to overcome. So I'm excited about that conversation to really hear from him how he survived what he survived and became who he became.

I thought about him while we were doing the interview with Kit Shapiro for the show. Kit Shapiro wrote a beautiful book about her relationship with her mother called Eartha and Kit, a daughter's love story in black and white. And she speaks about how her mother was abused as a child as well. So it's interesting how these people who endured this type of abuse managed to get to the top of their careers and stay there for decades.

[10:45] Indira G. Wilson: And no, we have a brand new segment. I was afraid of that. And Dira and I are often asked the question, where do you get your ideas? That's what we want to know. Inspiration can come from anywhere, any place, at any time. Who told you that? And here is a perfect example to show how our ideas are born.

[11:06] Alistair Justin Black: Exactly. Like one of these things is gonna be a hand. Hello, I'm Alistair Justin Black. And welcome to our new series, How Great Ideas Were Born. Brought to you by new fancy wine.

[11:26] Indira G. Wilson: Carla Rossi or Boone Farm.

[11:26] Alistair Justin Black: Oh, Carla Rossi.

[11:30] Indira G. Wilson: Mm-hmm.

[11:30] Alistair Justin Black: That's real wine, I think.

[11:32] Indira G. Wilson: Yeah, yeah. Though I was a huge Boone Farm drinker, but I have a theory that Boone's Farm is now just Stella Rosa.

[11:39] Alistair Justin Black: I think it's the exact same, but they just put a classy sticker on things.

[11:43] Indira G. Wilson: You can sell anything.

[11:46] Alistair Justin Black: Anything. And I was positive the other day when I went in and they had some pineapple. I was like, you ain't shit.

[11:54] Indira G. Wilson: Pineapple Boone Farm?

[11:55] Alistair Justin Black: No, Stella Rosa has like a pineapple, or it was pineapple or strawberry. It was something that was like, y'all trying to sell us a muscatel. I tell you.

[12:04] Indira G. Wilson: How was it?

[12:05] Alistair Justin Black: Delicious.

[12:08] Indira G. Wilson: It was wonderful. It was wonderful. It was delicious.

[12:11] Alistair Justin Black: Somebody makes one, maybe it's Stella Rosa. And they do like an apple, like a green apple.

[12:17] Indira G. Wilson: Yeah, they do a green apple.

[12:18] Alistair Justin Black: That's how you know it's Boone's Farm. That it is just some sugary wine, and you don't get drunk off of it. It's like a one cooler.

[12:28] Indira G. Wilson: But that, and that's funny you say that because it's like the popularity of wine coolers has gone down, but it's basically, it seems like it's basically like a wine cooler in what? A very fancy bottle.

[12:36] Alistair Justin Black: Fancy wine.

[12:38] Indira G. Wilson: Fancy, that's fancy wine.

[12:44] Alistair Justin Black: I wonder if I could do that.

[12:48] Indira G. Wilson: Make a fancy wine fancy.

[12:51] Alistair Justin Black: No, bougie.

[12:52] Indira G. Wilson: Bougie.

[12:53] Alistair Justin Black: Yes. That's one of the titles. You know, so it's fancy wine, and you got the boujoulet, the cabaret cabernet, the Mercy Merlot, the Pinot Black, not the Pinot Noir, the Pinot Black. Fancy wine. For the basic bitch in your life.

[13:13] Indira G. Wilson: Fancy wine. For the basic bitch in your life.

[13:26] Alistair Justin Black: Yes, bougie. What'd you call it? Sponsored by Bougi Lay. Exclusively at Ace Hardware.

[13:35] Indira G. Wilson: That's how you got some.

[13:37] Alistair Justin Black: It's only at Ace Hardware right at the front.

[13:37] Indira G. Wilson: Right at the front.

[13:42] Alistair Justin Black: So for every man that leaves, he picks up some fancy wine for his basic bitch at home.

[13:47] Indira G. Wilson: And they give you every wrench.

[13:50] Alistair Justin Black: You get a fancy wine.

[13:53] Indira G. Wilson: And yes, and it's got to be like really, really, really, really, really cheap. Like the price point can be no more than $6.99. There's two buck chuck, so it could be two dollars. The bottles probably cost more than the alcohol.

[14:09] Alistair Justin Black: That's a selling point. That's a selling point. We pimp we mix Kool-Aid and a drop of red wine.

[14:18] Indira G. Wilson: The bottle costs more than the brother.

[14:21] Alistair Justin Black: Fancy wine. Get your bougie lay, your Marcy Merlot, your cabaret cabinet, and your must have miss me bitch moscato.

[14:23] Indira G. Wilson: Miss me bitch.

[14:34] Alistair Justin Black: Miss me bitch. It's five o'clock somewhere. You know, and then you gotta have your table wine.

[14:44] Indira G. Wilson: Table that.

[14:45] Alistair Justin Black: Table that. Table that table that.

[14:48] Indira G. Wilson: This is where you can drink wine all day. It's got like four percent alcohol content. It's just called mellow.

[14:56] Alistair Justin Black: Fancy wine. How they have a year it was made. Made in the fall. And it needs to have, it has to have a twist cap for sure.

[15:11] Indira G. Wilson: It's definitely fancy wine has a twist cap.

[15:14] Alistair Justin Black: But it needs to have some type of special type of twist cap. Something that's a little bit fancy, like maybe it looks like a diamond on it or something.

[15:20] Indira G. Wilson: Or top, glued on top.

[15:24] Alistair Justin Black: Fancy. I feel fancy, you know. And then it's gotta be, and you know what the really key is for parties, is every bottle. This is for real, has to be a different color.

[15:35] Indira G. Wilson: Okay.

[15:36] Alistair Justin Black: So you got like a pink bottle, you got blue bottles, you got green bottles. And then so when you have a party and people lay out their wine and stuff, that it looks real pretty, you know.

[15:42] Indira G. Wilson: Right.

[15:42] Alistair Justin Black: It looks real pretty. If then we can host fancy parties, then promote fancy wine parties, you know. Have your fancy book club.

[15:56] Indira G. Wilson: Are you fancy? Hey, we gotta get whoever you fancy, huh?

[15:59] Alistair Justin Black: Are you fancy, huh? Hair done, nail done, everything did. You fancy, huh? Uh you fancy, fancy.

[16:07] Indira G. Wilson: Fancy parties. And the fancy party has to be real basic. Like you ain't even gotta dress up.

[16:11] Alistair Justin Black: You don't have to go fancy to the party. But we put glitter on top of all of our packaging. So it's fancy.

[16:19] Indira G. Wilson: That's the fancy part.

[16:21] Alistair Justin Black: Exactly. Glitter is everywhere. Glitters all over your hands, all over the supermarket, or all over Ace Hardware.

[16:28] Indira G. Wilson: Everywhere you go over all the displays, it's just a pile of glitter at the bottom.

[16:32] Alistair Justin Black: That's how you find the fancy wine. That's genius, Blaine. They would think that it was a mistake. You'd be like, no, no, no. There's meant to when you set it down, it leaves the glitter.

[16:43] Indira G. Wilson: So we as soon as you go on the wine aisle, you see the glitter on the ground. That's fancy wine.

[16:49] Alistair Justin Black: This segment has been brought to you by a new fancy wine. It's five o'clock somewhere. Enjoy life. One sip at a time. Hair done, nail done, everything did. Fancy, huh? Fancy. Fancy.

[17:08] Indira G. Wilson: We are so glad you joined us for another episode of the Afro-Existential Podcast. Please check out our next episode. First in our breakthrough interview series with college educator, motivator, and self-proclaimed instigator, Diana Valentine. And take a moment to visit us at our website, AfroEXPodcast.com for more fun and insightful content. Anything else? Please click subscribe. And check us out on Instagram at AfroEXPodcast. Anything else? Email us your comments or questions at AfroEXPodcast@gmail.com. Again, thank you for joining us. I am Indira G. Wilson.

[17:50] Blaine Teamer: And I'm Blaine Teamer. And as always, have a great day on purpose. The Afro-Existential Podcast is part of the Broadway Podcast Network. How would you define the term breakthrough for yourself? That my intuition will never lead me astray. This was my aha moment. Because sometimes people want you to stay where you are because it makes them feel comfortable.