It's Always Personal

This 2024 election cycle hasn't been pretty, it's been historically eventful, but Kamala Harris is going into the championship rounds showing her mettle. She's not exactly Barack Obama 2.0, but she became the candidate for this moment, and it may pay off for her. Wood talks about VP Harris' Big Stand by taking a look at the commentary of Rod and Karen from the popular The Black Guy Who Tips podcast.

Other topics include thoughts on this weekend's Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame induction of the greatest rap group of all time A Tribe Called Quest, first listen reaction to Benny the Butcher & 38 Spesh's new album Stabbed & Shot 2, De La Soul's touching brand new video for its 90s record "Oodles of O's" (LL Dave), a few highlights of Slow Horses S5 and its season finale, and more.

Wood shares some thoughts on "listening" to a couple of brothers with different approaches to politics. Other topics include Today's Moment with The Teachings of Jason Whitlock's Fearless, soc med & podcast snitchin' featuring Drink Champs and Sway in the Morning, how could Nike slip so badly, and new music on the way in Stabbed & Shot 2 and The Lotus Child.

Everyone should do what they believe they need to do on November 5. That includes sitting out the election altogether. Currently, a discussion about acceptable ways to communicate with Black men is underway, as well as a warning being given that Black men's support for former President Donald Trump needs to be respected. Moreover, a blame game is going on, preemptively, just in case VP Kamala Harris fails to win the election. Wood just spends some time trying to understand where the "Vote Trump brothers" are really coming from. The 45th President really has better policies and solutions than the VP?

Other topics include Cam Newton joining Stephen A. on First Take, forthcoming drama Exhibiting Forgiveness, and Tubi's big bet on Deion Sanders.

Wood sets the table for the IAP review of new romantic-drama She Taught Love, and Andscape-produced fim streaming on HULU. The episode became too long and had to be split into two episodes so some earlier topics include the NFL, TV Talk about Slow Horses S4 & Bad Monkey, troubling family relationships during tough times and the silence about San Jose St Univ. Women's volleyball player Blaire Fleming.

The She Taught Love review gets into Wood's reaction to the new romantic-drama, as well as thoughts about director Nate Edwards, Darrell Britt-Gibson's debut as writer and lead, Arsema Thomas, and the important relationships Britt-Gibson's writing highlighted.

Wood sets the table for the IAP review of new romantic-drama She Taught Love, and Andscape-produced fim streaming on HULU. The episode became too long and had to be split into two episodes so some earlier topics include the NFL, TV Talk about Slow Horses S4 & Bad Monkey, troubling family relationships during tough times and the silence about San Jose St Univ. Women's volleyball player Blaire Fleming.

Wood is still saluting HULU's UnPrisoned comedy-drama and its creator Tracy McMillan, leads Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo, and Marque Richardson for attempting to truly do meaningful work. Salute to HULU for investing in the telling of Black stories. At least with UnPrisoned we get to look at working through our ish from multiple perspectives, whereas on soc med apps we often rush to jump in our Team Uniforms and demean each other for bad behavior.

The premise of this C.L.I.P.S. installment is to take a look the UnPrisoned character "Mal" with the respect to our community's penchant to outright lionize strong Black leads like James St. Patrick (I said Sinclair), Franklin Saint, Nino Brown, Menace's O-Dog or Sugar Hill's Romello. Or maybe we laughed way too hard at Boomerang's Marcus while in our head replaying some of our own "doggish footage" from years ago. Are we, as Black men, too far gone to pay any attention to the love lessons learned by Darius Lovehall, or even Savon Garrison, in 1997's Love Jones? Big discussion to have, but Wood wastes some time looking closer at the example of Marque Richardson's "Mal" through two seasons of UnPrisoned. Wood couldn't think of the right word that many of us struggle with as young men, but the best of us succumb to an insatiable appetite for sexual exploits with women - and many a "bills" have come due for such decisions.

How'd HULU's UnPrisoned do for its sophomore season? The Kerry Washington-led comedy is creator Tracy McMillan attempt to share her pain to help others in "the community" to begin to work through theirs. Hey, it features some drug trafficking! Other topics include hateful Indiana Fever fans and the censuring of Alyssa Thomas (and other WNBAers), Baker Mayfield tried to sack Tom Brady, whether the SCOTUS served Marcellus Williams up to Missouri, and random TV/entertainment notes.

Wood rambles on about rookie Washington Commander Jayden Daniels triumphant Monday Night Football debut, highly addictive Lays potato chips, more details on Peacock's limited series Fight Night, Talib Kweli & J Rawls' new album The Confidence of Knowing, and filtering social media commentary to identify real opportunity and individuals with problem-solving skills.

Wood discusses Will Packer and Kevin Hart's popular new mini-series on Peacock - Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist. Music just doesn't stand much of a chance nowadays, but Tyrese really created some real RnB magic with a new record on his Beautiful Pain album. Gospel singer Le'Andria Johnson "steals the album" with her fierce performance on "Don't Think You Ever Loved Me", which also features Lenny Kravitz.