In this episode, Edward L. Jones III talks about his new book, Medication, Mental Illness and Murder, and offers his critiques on mental health, criminal justice and Big Pharma. Then, Tonya McKenzie, Founder of Sand & Shores, discusses her activism work concerning gun violence and drug addiction, as well as the importance of storytelling in advocacy.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
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00:01:21 --> 00:01:56 Music.
00:01:56 --> 00:02:02 Hello, and welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.
00:02:02 --> 00:02:06 Ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be an excellent show,
00:02:06 --> 00:02:11 and it's about hope overcoming challenge, right?
00:02:11 --> 00:02:16 And the way that is going to go down is that I've got a man who's written a
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 book about something that really, really happened.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:28 And even with all the issues that come out in the book, the one thing that stands
00:02:28 --> 00:02:32 out is there's hope, even after tragedy.
00:02:33 --> 00:02:37 And my next guest, the other guest,
00:02:38 --> 00:02:42 she is an active person in her community,
00:02:42 --> 00:02:49 but she also is the embodiment of hope overcoming a challenge through her life
00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 story and what she went through as a child and And all the stuff that she's
00:02:52 --> 00:02:56 doing now and how that tragedy, you know,
00:02:56 --> 00:03:01 has motivated her to do incredible things in her community.
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 So I hope that you will enjoy those guests.
00:03:04 --> 00:03:14 You listen to them tell their stories and go into detail about his story and
00:03:14 --> 00:03:18 his interview about the book he wrote and her story,
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 her interview about the life that she's leading.
00:03:23 --> 00:03:26 We're still trying to get 20 subscribers, y'all.
00:03:28 --> 00:03:33 You know, I need help. I need help.
00:03:34 --> 00:03:39 And, you know, the world that we live in is pretty complicated.
00:03:41 --> 00:03:46 But the simple thing we can do is support folks that we believe in.
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00:03:55 --> 00:04:00 And, you know, just as we used to say in the hood, help a brother out.
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00:04:05 --> 00:04:11 You know, I've gotten some good feedback over the years about the podcast and even more so now.
00:04:12 --> 00:04:17 So, you know, we'll take that. But let's get some subscriptions.
00:04:17 --> 00:04:22 Let's do that, guys. Okay. Again, as I told you, I'm not a great salesman.
00:04:22 --> 00:04:31 So, you know, let it come from your heart instead of being wild and mesmerized into it.
00:04:31 --> 00:04:36 I'm pretty proud of what I've been able to do with this podcast and all the
00:04:36 --> 00:04:38 people that have helped me make this happen.
00:04:40 --> 00:04:46 And so, you know, we want to keep this thing going, and especially in a time like this, right?
00:04:47 --> 00:04:51 So, without any further ado, let's get the show started. And as always,
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 we started off with a moment of news for Grace G.
00:04:55 --> 00:05:00 Music.
00:05:01 --> 00:05:07 Thanks, Eric. President Trump enacted a baseline 10% tariff on all imports to
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 the United States. A U.S.
00:05:09 --> 00:05:14 Judge dismissed with prejudice corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
00:05:15 --> 00:05:20 President Trump withdrew his U.N. ambassador nominee, Elise Stefanik,
00:05:20 --> 00:05:22 to help preserve the Republican majority in the House.
00:05:23 --> 00:05:27 Susan Crawford's election to Wisconsin's Supreme Court preserved its liberal
00:05:27 --> 00:05:32 majority, marking a defeat for Trump and Elon Musk, who spent over $21 million
00:05:32 --> 00:05:34 backing her conservative opponent.
00:05:35 --> 00:05:41 U.S. Senator Cory Booker conducted a record-breaking 25-hour Senate floor speech
00:05:41 --> 00:05:43 opposing Trump-era policies.
00:05:43 --> 00:05:48 Attorney General Pam Bondi will seek the federal death penalty for Luigi Mangione,
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 accused of murdering a health care CEO.
00:05:51 --> 00:05:56 Trump ordered the removal of anti-American ideology from the Smithsonian,
00:05:56 --> 00:06:00 targeting museums he claims promote revisionist history.
00:06:00 --> 00:06:05 Columbia University's interim president resigned following a funding dispute
00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 with the Trump administration. The U.S.
00:06:08 --> 00:06:14 Justice Department withdrew from a lawsuit challenging Georgia's 2021 Republican-backed voting law.
00:06:14 --> 00:06:19 Separate federal district judges issued rulings that temporarily blocked the
00:06:19 --> 00:06:24 deportation of a Turkish Tufts University student accused of supporting Hamas
00:06:24 --> 00:06:30 and extended a temporary halt on Trump's use of a wartime law to expel Venezuelan gang members.
00:06:30 --> 00:06:34 The U.S. Naval Academy will no longer consider race in admissions,
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 reversing its previous policy.
00:06:36 --> 00:06:41 A federal appeals court paused a lower court ruling blocking Trump's ban on
00:06:41 --> 00:06:43 transgender military service.
00:06:43 --> 00:06:49 President Trump commuted the nearly 10-year prison sentence of Aussie media founder Carlos Watson.
00:06:50 --> 00:06:55 A 7.7-magnitude earthquake killed over 3 people in Myanmar.
00:06:55 --> 00:07:00 A French court banned far-right leader Marie Le Pen from the 2027 presidential
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 race over embezzlement charges.
00:07:03 --> 00:07:08 And measles cases in Texas and New Mexico rose to 444.
00:07:08 --> 00:07:12 I am Grace Gee, and this has been a Moment of News.
00:07:13 --> 00:07:18 Music.
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that Moment of News.
00:07:22 --> 00:07:29 And now it's time for our guest, Edward L. Jones III Edward L.
00:07:29 --> 00:07:34 Jones III has been an award-winning writer in advertising and higher education.
00:07:34 --> 00:07:39 During his ad career, he won more than 350 awards for creativity.
00:07:40 --> 00:07:45 In his time away from advertising, Ed served as a community columnist for the Charlotte Observer.
00:07:45 --> 00:07:49 He lives in the Winston-Salem, North Carolina area.
00:07:50 --> 00:07:54 Medication, Mental Illness, and Murder, What Really Killed the Crespi Twins
00:07:54 --> 00:07:59 is his first book, and that's what we're going to get into today.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:03 So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a
00:08:03 --> 00:08:07 guest on this podcast, Edward L. Jones III.
00:08:08 --> 00:08:17 Music.
00:08:18 --> 00:08:24 All right. Edward L. Jones, the third, or do you want me to just call you Ed or?
00:08:26 --> 00:08:32 Ed is good. All right. So welcome to the podcast, bro.
00:08:32 --> 00:08:37 Jones, I greatly appreciate you coming on. I'm actually honored to have you on.
00:08:38 --> 00:08:42 You've written a book called Medication, Mental Illness and Murder.
00:08:43 --> 00:08:48 And so we're going to talk about that and some issues that come out of that book.
00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 And I think this is going to be a good discussion.
00:08:52 --> 00:09:01 Most of my audience knows that I have a real concern about mental health in America.
00:09:01 --> 00:09:10 And as a former state legislator, that was a big concern during my time there.
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 And so, yeah, so we're going to get into that.
00:09:14 --> 00:09:19 But as always, I kind of I have a couple of icebreaking exercises to kind of
00:09:19 --> 00:09:20 get the interview going.
00:09:21 --> 00:09:25 So the first icebreaker is a quote.
00:09:25 --> 00:09:34 And this quote is hope means hoping when things are hopeless or it is no virtue
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 at all. What does that quote mean to you?
00:09:37 --> 00:09:39 Yeah, that's from G.K. Chesterton.
00:09:40 --> 00:09:44 It means, wow, it's a good,
00:09:45 --> 00:09:53 it basically means that you need hope in the darkest times, you know,
00:09:53 --> 00:10:00 and I'm not sure hope is actually a natural thing for human beings.
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 I think it has I think it's
00:10:03 --> 00:10:07 a supernatural virtue you know so but
00:10:07 --> 00:10:15 how you know how can you go on without hope you know that someday some meaning
00:10:15 --> 00:10:19 can be derived from all of this like if you're going through suffering mental
00:10:19 --> 00:10:25 illness you know and that is really the I've been told the cause of,
00:10:26 --> 00:10:28 clinical depression is hopelessness, you know?
00:10:29 --> 00:10:37 So yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's so vital to a life well lived is to
00:10:37 --> 00:10:39 be able to hold on to hope.
00:10:40 --> 00:10:46 Yeah. Yeah. And it is, I agree with your assessment that it's, it's more supernatural,
00:10:47 --> 00:10:53 than natural because, you know, we, we've been dealing with a lot of stuff over
00:10:53 --> 00:11:00 the last five years and, you know, depends on where you, where you fall on,
00:11:00 --> 00:11:01 on the political spectrum.
00:11:02 --> 00:11:06 I think some of us have had to rely on hope more than others.
00:11:07 --> 00:11:10 Yes. So. I feel you on that one.
00:11:10 --> 00:11:14 I know about these last five years. I hear you.
00:11:14 --> 00:11:18 Yes, sir. So, yeah, so I would have to agree with your assessment.
00:11:19 --> 00:11:25 All right. So now I need you to pick a number between one and 20.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 Okay. I'll go with lucky number seven.
00:11:29 --> 00:11:35 Okay. Number seven. What do you consider the best way to stay informed about
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 politics, current events, health, etc?
00:11:39 --> 00:11:43 Wow. You know, I rely on CNN a lot.
00:11:43 --> 00:11:49 And I particularly like a show that's on Saturday mornings called Smirconish,
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 Michael Smirconish, who's kind of in the middle of the spectrum.
00:11:54 --> 00:12:01 But I also, you know, I have a lot of links on Facebook to various publications.
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 And so I read a wide array.
00:12:05 --> 00:12:10 I try to read from both sides of the spectrum, you know, Wall Street Journal, New York Times.
00:12:11 --> 00:12:13 That's the way I kind of get my information.
00:12:15 --> 00:12:22 Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the cool thing about that exercise is that it's no
00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 wrong answer. I mean, you know, it's it's it's where people are.
00:12:26 --> 00:12:33 You know, I think, you know, the key thing is trying to get as many perspectives as possible.
00:12:34 --> 00:12:37 So that's that's good. So let's talk about this.
00:12:37 --> 00:12:40 That's right. Yeah. So let's talk about this book, Medication,
00:12:41 --> 00:12:42 Mental Illness and Murder.
00:12:43 --> 00:12:49 This is a personal book for you. You actually know the people that are involved
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 in the tragedy that you cover.
00:12:51 --> 00:12:56 So kind of talk about what this story is about.
00:12:58 --> 00:13:03 And I have a follow-up once you kind of lay out what the book is about.
00:13:04 --> 00:13:09 Sure. Well, you know, I tell people that this story came to me.
00:13:09 --> 00:13:16 I didn't go looking for it in a way. And how it all came about was in November
00:13:16 --> 00:13:23 of 2005, my wife and I were just getting to know David Crespi and Kim Crespi.
00:13:24 --> 00:13:31 And in December, right around Christmas time, I heard through the grapevine,
00:13:31 --> 00:13:37 through the wife grapevine, that David Crespi was suffering from depression.
00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 And by that time i had
00:13:41 --> 00:13:44 kind of successfully gotten my way
00:13:44 --> 00:13:52 through three bouts of clinical depression my last one was in about 1981 so
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 i got through them without any
00:13:54 --> 00:14:01 of these medications being available so so anyway i told my wife to tell.
00:14:03 --> 00:14:07 Him to tell David that, man, I really felt for him.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:15 If anybody listening has ever experienced depression, you know what I'm about to talk about.
00:14:15 --> 00:14:20 I mean, it's agony on multiple levels, including even physical,
00:14:20 --> 00:14:21 you know, your body hurts.
00:14:22 --> 00:14:27 So I had tremendous empathy. So I told,
00:14:28 --> 00:14:31 you know please get word to David that if
00:14:31 --> 00:14:37 he needs somebody to talk to who's been through this I would be there yesterday
00:14:37 --> 00:14:42 you know just to sit with him whatever just so he didn't feel alone well we
00:14:42 --> 00:14:48 got word back from Kim that David had been through previous episodes of depression,
00:14:49 --> 00:14:57 and she and David felt like David was getting maybe the best clinical treatment
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 he had ever gotten before.
00:15:00 --> 00:15:04 So my wife and I breathed a sigh of relief and thought, okay,
00:15:05 --> 00:15:06 everything's going to be fine.
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 And then on January 20th, 2006, we
00:15:10 --> 00:15:16 got a phone call and it was from a friend of my wife's religious person named
00:15:16 --> 00:15:23 Teresa and she she said to my wife you know she could barely get it out and
00:15:23 --> 00:15:30 David Crespi has done away with his twins and you know my wife almost dropped the phone.
00:15:31 --> 00:15:36 And my reaction was oh my lord you know I almost had a form of survivor guilt
00:15:36 --> 00:15:40 in a way it's like gosh if I could just have gotten to him could something I
00:15:40 --> 00:15:45 have said have helped you know So anyway, as you can imagine,
00:15:46 --> 00:15:54 in the ensuing days, I was very interested in reading the reporting of the Charlotte Observer. And...
00:15:56 --> 00:16:01 What came out was that David was on a cocktail of various medications,
00:16:01 --> 00:16:07 including Ambien, Trazodone, which is an antipsychotic, and Prozac.
00:16:08 --> 00:16:12 And he had started the Prozac seven days before the killings.
00:16:13 --> 00:16:17 And this is an interesting point to make, too.
00:16:18 --> 00:16:23 After he stabbed his five-year-old twin daughters to death.
00:16:24 --> 00:16:31 Here's how it happened. He was at home on leave that day, January 20th, for depression.
00:16:32 --> 00:16:40 His three older children were at three various schools, but the twin daughters
00:16:40 --> 00:16:42 were at home with him and Kim.
00:16:42 --> 00:16:47 And Kim went out to get a haircut at noon.
00:16:48 --> 00:16:55 And while she was away, the little girls asked David to play hide-and-seek.
00:16:56 --> 00:17:02 And while they were finding their hiding places, he went over to the butcher
00:17:02 --> 00:17:10 block on the kitchen counter, pulled out two large knives, went and found the two girls,
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 dragged them out, tried to kill them both at the same time.
00:17:16 --> 00:17:20 But started with stabbing Samantha multiple
00:17:20 --> 00:17:24 times and then while he was doing that to Sarah
00:17:24 --> 00:17:27 the other twin rested herself free and ran upstairs
00:17:27 --> 00:17:35 and hid behind his clothes in a closet upstairs so after he thought that Samantha
00:17:35 --> 00:17:43 was dead he went upstairs and dragged to Sarah out of the closet onto the master
00:17:43 --> 00:17:46 her bathroom floor and stabbed her multiple times.
00:17:46 --> 00:17:50 And then, this is an important thing for the listeners to know,
00:17:51 --> 00:18:01 he took off his blood-stained clothes, washed up, put on brand new clothes, and called 911.
00:18:02 --> 00:18:06 And the first thing he says is, I just killed my two daughters.
00:18:07 --> 00:18:11 Almost calmly, almost otherworldly kind of tone, you know.
00:18:11 --> 00:18:16 You just, what? The operator says, I just killed my two daughters and a female
00:18:16 --> 00:18:21 911 operator cuts in and says, sir, are you on any medications?
00:18:21 --> 00:18:26 She, you know, I mean, think about that. She knew she she suspected something right away.
00:18:28 --> 00:18:32 Yes, what kind of medications are you on? I'm on antidepressants.
00:18:32 --> 00:18:43 Well, the audio and transcript of that 911 call was not released until almost
00:18:43 --> 00:18:50 three months after David Crespi was sentenced to two consecutive life terms
00:18:50 --> 00:18:52 without the possibility of parole.
00:18:52 --> 00:18:59 So that's kind of the core of the story, And the way that it's structured is,
00:19:00 --> 00:19:07 Kim Crespi gave me her contemporaneous journal entries, which are profoundly moving.
00:19:07 --> 00:19:12 And I interweave those journal entries.
00:19:12 --> 00:19:18 They're kind of the spine of the book. and they give the book a real-life hero.
00:19:19 --> 00:19:24 And so I interweaved that. And then it's almost like it's kind of a detective
00:19:24 --> 00:19:32 story in a way because it's kind of like Kim and I together in a way set out
00:19:32 --> 00:19:35 on a quest to find clues and answers to.
00:19:36 --> 00:19:40 Here's three questions we were trying to find answers to. How is it possible
00:19:40 --> 00:19:47 that a legally prescribed SSRI antidepressant could turn a superstar banker
00:19:47 --> 00:19:50 who was an exemplary father and husband into a killer?
00:19:50 --> 00:19:55 Why didn't the pharmaceutical companies who are aware of the potentially lethal
00:19:55 --> 00:20:01 side effects of these medications do more to make those side effects known?
00:20:01 --> 00:20:06 And how have those companies been able to get away with burying negative and
00:20:06 --> 00:20:12 alarming test results revealed in hundreds of clinical trials for decades?
00:20:13 --> 00:20:14 Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:15 --> 00:20:19 And so initially, though, you weren't going to do a book.
00:20:19 --> 00:20:24 You had written like an article or an op-ed, I believe.
00:20:25 --> 00:20:32 And then somebody said, you know, you need to flesh this out a little more.
00:20:32 --> 00:20:37 Kind of talk about that, how you got convinced to go ahead and make this a book
00:20:37 --> 00:20:41 instead of just a one-time article or op-ed.
00:20:42 --> 00:20:47 Thanks for asking. That's a great question. Yeah, I wrote two on the anniversary,
00:20:48 --> 00:20:50 the second anniversary of the killings.
00:20:50 --> 00:20:55 By that time, I had gone to visit David in prison with my wife and Kim.
00:20:56 --> 00:21:02 And so I wrote an op ed on this on the second anniversary and talked about how
00:21:02 --> 00:21:06 David was my best pen pal by that time.
00:21:06 --> 00:21:11 And so anyway, and I braced myself when that op-ed came out because I thought
00:21:11 --> 00:21:16 I was going to get a lot of, you know, negative emails, etc.
00:21:16 --> 00:21:19 But no such thing happened. But anyway, to get to the point of that,
00:21:20 --> 00:21:26 I later posted, you know, I have a bunch of college friends and all kinds of friends on Facebook.
00:21:26 --> 00:21:33 I later posted that op-ed, I think on another anniversary, and a college classmate
00:21:33 --> 00:21:39 of mine named Terry Hummel, who was the former publisher of Rolling Stone magazine,
00:21:39 --> 00:21:45 he's the one who got in contact with me and said, you know, Ed, you've got a book here.
00:21:46 --> 00:21:51 And what's interesting is, you know, I said, okay, you know, I think so too.
00:21:53 --> 00:22:01 And so he invited me to be in a teleconference with him and one of his favorite
00:22:01 --> 00:22:05 writers from his Rolling Stone magazine days. And so...
00:22:07 --> 00:22:12 You know, he told me to tell this writer about, you know, the story, kind of how dark it was.
00:22:13 --> 00:22:18 And we all, he, this writer kind of sat there in kind of a stunned silence.
00:22:19 --> 00:22:23 And he was kind of said, I just, this story is so grim. I just don't know.
00:22:24 --> 00:22:29 I don't know how you can shape it so people can get through it, you know.
00:22:29 --> 00:22:37 And it's interesting, the teleconference ended with this writer saying,
00:22:37 --> 00:22:41 well, I know one thing I'm going to do when I get home, I'm going to start trying
00:22:41 --> 00:22:43 to taper off my antidepressants.
00:22:45 --> 00:22:48 But it took me a while to realize that
00:22:48 --> 00:22:51 the key to making it not just
00:22:51 --> 00:22:55 readable but inspiring was you
00:22:55 --> 00:23:03 know kim crespi had given me her 400 page journal and and i finally realized
00:23:03 --> 00:23:09 if i you know edit this down to key passages etc then i've got kind of the bones
00:23:09 --> 00:23:12 or the spine of a book Yeah.
00:23:12 --> 00:23:21 And then and also with your personal journey following the trial and news coverage,
00:23:21 --> 00:23:28 because I think Oprah had talked about this case on her show and and, you know,
00:23:28 --> 00:23:33 just just your because you actually knew the people is one thing to,
00:23:33 --> 00:23:36 you know, a lot of folks, you know, they have to go in and, you know,
00:23:37 --> 00:23:39 get background and all this kind of stuff.
00:23:39 --> 00:23:43 But these were people, these were actually human beings that you had interacted with.
00:23:43 --> 00:23:48 David, not as much as Kim, but you knew them.
00:23:48 --> 00:23:56 And so this hit personal as opposed to some piece that you may be assigned to
00:23:56 --> 00:23:57 cover or something like that.
00:23:58 --> 00:24:05 So true. Yes. And, you know, I write in the book that I went to the superior
00:24:05 --> 00:24:06 court hearing about the case,
00:24:07 --> 00:24:12 you know, and David had already pleaded to two life terms, you know,
00:24:12 --> 00:24:14 without the possibility of parole.
00:24:15 --> 00:24:22 And that's when I found out more about David because this hearing went on for about eight hours.
00:24:23 --> 00:24:31 It was like a riveting mini trial or almost like a trial that could have been but never was.
00:24:31 --> 00:24:38 And, you know, I learned from that that David was, I mean, just had an impeccable
00:24:38 --> 00:24:44 record. He had a 4.0 grade point average in college.
00:24:44 --> 00:24:50 He scored in the top five in the CPA exam in the country when he graduated.
00:24:50 --> 00:24:59 He became the youngest CFO in the history of Sacramento Savings Bank at the age of 29.
00:25:00 --> 00:25:08 His first wife died of a brain tumor. She was a nurse, and he established scholarships
00:25:08 --> 00:25:14 in her name to help future nursing students afford their education.
00:25:15 --> 00:25:21 I mean, the man never had a parking ticket, never lightly spanked any of his
00:25:21 --> 00:25:23 five children, no history of violence.
00:25:23 --> 00:25:30 And then he does this, you know, and it's like, and I went into that Superior
00:25:30 --> 00:25:32 Court hearing, you know,
00:25:32 --> 00:25:37 wondering, but, you know, if by that time I had found out how many drugs he
00:25:37 --> 00:25:41 was on and I knew nothing about, you know.
00:25:42 --> 00:25:46 Prozac other than it was a happy pill, a miracle drug.
00:25:46 --> 00:25:54 But I had recently, like a month before that hearing, I had heard and read about
00:25:54 --> 00:25:58 a case involving Patrick Kennedy, U.S.
00:25:58 --> 00:26:01 House of Representatives, you know, the son of Teddy Kennedy,
00:26:01 --> 00:26:04 having this bizarre wreck in Washington, D.C.
00:26:04 --> 00:26:14 And getting out of his car and being utterly incoherent. And it was proven that
00:26:14 --> 00:26:16 he was that way because he was taking Ambien, you know.
00:26:17 --> 00:26:25 So anyway, I went into that Superior Court hearing wondering if I had been subjected
00:26:25 --> 00:26:32 to taking all these drugs, could I, with my brain chemistry or my DNA,
00:26:32 --> 00:26:38 could I have done something equally as horrible, you know, as David did?
00:26:38 --> 00:26:40 So that was an open question.
00:26:40 --> 00:26:47 And I'll tell you what, I went into that hearing kind of a law and order conservative,
00:26:47 --> 00:26:53 you know, that I had heard about this horrible case, the Andrea Yates case.
00:26:54 --> 00:27:02 She was a woman suffering from postpartum depression, and she had five beautiful little children.
00:27:02 --> 00:27:09 And while her husband was away, she drowned each one of those five little children in their bathtub.
00:27:10 --> 00:27:15 And so I'm thinking, when I heard about that, she needs to be like waterboarded
00:27:15 --> 00:27:18 to death. She deserves just the worst punishment ever.
00:27:18 --> 00:27:25 And at the end of that superior court hearing, I, A, thought that David,
00:27:25 --> 00:27:31 that there had been a miscarriage of justice, that he did these things because of these chemicals.
00:27:31 --> 00:27:38 And then B, I thought, gosh, I wonder if Andrea Yates was on some of these kind
00:27:38 --> 00:27:40 of drugs. And it turned out, oh, yes, she was.
00:27:40 --> 00:27:49 She was on like twice the dosage of Effexor that anybody should ever be on, plus Remeron.
00:27:51 --> 00:27:54 Yeah so i'm i'm gonna get into that
00:27:54 --> 00:27:59 as a matter of fact well i do want you to explain to the listeners what the
00:27:59 --> 00:28:07 term black dog is oh okay that i think Winston Churchill coined that and and
00:28:07 --> 00:28:14 that was his bouts of depression that he called it the black dog would come back to visit him.
00:28:15 --> 00:28:18 Yeah yeah because it's like i i
00:28:18 --> 00:28:21 never heard that term before until i read the book and it
00:28:21 --> 00:28:24 was like the reason why it really intrigued me
00:28:24 --> 00:28:27 and i'm glad you shared yours because the folks
00:28:27 --> 00:28:30 that listen to the show know that i've
00:28:30 --> 00:28:34 gone through depression as well and oh
00:28:34 --> 00:28:37 wow i'm trying to think zoloft was the
00:28:37 --> 00:28:40 drug that they gave me and it was only but the
00:28:40 --> 00:28:43 doctor only gave me a half a pill to
00:28:43 --> 00:28:46 take and uh you know
00:28:46 --> 00:28:52 and this was around 2010 2011
00:28:52 --> 00:28:56 12 around in that area there and
00:28:56 --> 00:28:59 so like you you described it accurately
00:28:59 --> 00:29:02 it's like one minute
00:29:02 --> 00:29:05 you you know you kind of like you're in your
00:29:05 --> 00:29:08 zone you you're you're you you are doing
00:29:08 --> 00:29:12 things repetitively and you don't catch it and then
00:29:12 --> 00:29:17 you know you start acting a certain way you start feeling lethargic and you
00:29:17 --> 00:29:23 know kind of kind of like a my myochondriac you like you're not really in pain
00:29:23 --> 00:29:28 but you feel like you are right and you know you just go you just you just go
00:29:28 --> 00:29:30 through all that stuff so I can understand why,
00:29:31 --> 00:29:36 Winston Churchill referred to it as the black dog because it'll it'll bite you
00:29:36 --> 00:29:39 and you know and And that's something that.
00:29:40 --> 00:29:44 Men in particular, not just black men or white men or whatever,
00:29:44 --> 00:29:51 but men in particular, you know, we have a tough time admitting that we went through that.
00:29:51 --> 00:29:54 And I'm sure in reading the book,
00:29:55 --> 00:30:01 you know, David was was dealing with part of that denial because he would he
00:30:01 --> 00:30:06 would tell folks, yeah, I'm having suicidal thoughts, but he wouldn't admit
00:30:06 --> 00:30:08 that he was having homicidal thoughts.
00:30:08 --> 00:30:14 So he was still he wasn't fully sharing his experience, which a lot of people
00:30:14 --> 00:30:16 when they go through depression do.
00:30:17 --> 00:30:21 Right, right. So glad you brought up Zoloft because I've got a couple of stories
00:30:21 --> 00:30:27 about Zoloft that I think maybe you and your listeners may want to hear about.
00:30:27 --> 00:30:30 Okay, so this isn't in the book.
00:30:30 --> 00:30:33 I found this out and I heard this in a documentary later.
00:30:33 --> 00:30:40 So there's an expert that I quote in the book several times named Dr.
00:30:40 --> 00:30:45 David Healy. He's a forensic psychiatrist and PhD and has written a couple of
00:30:45 --> 00:30:49 books. But OK, so this is about Zoloft.
00:30:50 --> 00:30:56 And he told this true story about a clinical trial that was suppressed in 1983.
00:30:57 --> 00:31:01 Nine years before the launch of Zoloft in the United States,
00:31:02 --> 00:31:08 21 years before the FDA required Pfizer to put a black box warning on it.
00:31:08 --> 00:31:14 Pfizer had done a healthy volunteer trial with Zoloft in the United Kingdom.
00:31:14 --> 00:31:18 They recruited 12 women for this trial.
00:31:18 --> 00:31:22 Again, these are healthy women. Half of them were to be given Zoloft.
00:31:22 --> 00:31:24 The other half were given a placebo.
00:31:25 --> 00:31:30 The trial was due to run for two weeks, but it was stopped after one week because
00:31:30 --> 00:31:36 every single woman taking Zoloft had become anxious, apprehensive, agitated.
00:31:36 --> 00:31:39 One or two of these help previously
00:31:39 --> 00:31:44 healthy women had begun to voice thoughts about harming others so all of the
00:31:44 --> 00:31:49 things that led the fda to put a black box warning on this drug 21 years later
00:31:49 --> 00:31:57 were there in 1983 so they they obviously suppressed that information so then
00:31:57 --> 00:31:58 speaking of zoloft i've got.
00:32:00 --> 00:32:03 Quick story, true story that happened in Australia.
00:32:03 --> 00:32:09 On August the 1st, 1999, 74-year-old Australian David Hawkins,
00:32:10 --> 00:32:15 a model citizen with no prior history of violence, attacked his 68-year-old
00:32:15 --> 00:32:17 wife, strangling her to death.
00:32:17 --> 00:32:23 He immediately called Australia's equivalent of 911, and the call was recorded.
00:32:23 --> 00:32:26 Now, this is eerily similar to David Cresby.
00:32:26 --> 00:32:32 I have killed my wife, he says, on the call. I got tablets from the doctor yesterday,
00:32:32 --> 00:32:34 and I think they were too strong.
00:32:34 --> 00:32:36 I went absolutely wild.
00:32:37 --> 00:32:42 I don't know. I've got to go. I'm heading out, and I'm going to get rid of myself.
00:32:42 --> 00:32:47 Nobody can help me now. I'm shaking here. I can't wait. I can't stop.
00:32:48 --> 00:32:52 Well, the tablets, quote-unquote, David Hawkins had taken were Zoloft.
00:32:53 --> 00:32:59 When he hung up, Hawkins attempted to asphyxiate himself with carbon monoxide from his car.
00:32:59 --> 00:33:04 He stopped because he was worried about the effect that the two deaths would have on his daughter.
00:33:04 --> 00:33:10 Now, here's the difference between the David Crespi case and this case in Australia.
00:33:10 --> 00:33:14 Hawkins was charged with murder, like David Crespi. At the trial,
00:33:15 --> 00:33:23 the judge accepted a defense of automatism, meaning that Hawkins wasn't responsible for his actions.
00:33:23 --> 00:33:28 Quote, but for the Zoloft, which he took on the morning of August the 1st,
00:33:29 --> 00:33:33 1999, it is overwhelmingly probable that Mrs.
00:33:33 --> 00:33:38 Hawkins would not have been killed on that morning, said New South Wales Supreme
00:33:38 --> 00:33:40 Court Judge Barry O'Keefe.
00:33:40 --> 00:33:48 You know, their justice system in the UK actually has some form of mercy.
00:33:48 --> 00:33:53 And in the book, I get into another case of a David in Canada.
00:33:54 --> 00:34:04 But anyway, our our system is pretty merciless in these cases of mental illness involved tragedies.
00:34:04 --> 00:34:07 Yeah and that that was that leads
00:34:07 --> 00:34:10 into the next question because yeah you know
00:34:10 --> 00:34:13 i i looked at when i was looking
00:34:13 --> 00:34:16 at it especially with the little blurbs you would end
00:34:16 --> 00:34:23 each chapter with you know it was like you were you it sounded more like you
00:34:23 --> 00:34:29 you had an issue with big pharma or the pharmaceutical companies than so much
00:34:29 --> 00:34:34 the mental health system or the criminal justice system but,
00:34:35 --> 00:34:42 Do you feel that one of those three is a major failure compared to the other,
00:34:42 --> 00:34:48 or do you feel that it's a symphony of failure between all three of those entities? Oh, I tell you, yeah.
00:34:49 --> 00:34:54 I think it's a symphony of failure.
00:34:54 --> 00:34:58 And yeah, about the mental health care system.
00:35:00 --> 00:35:05 So in the David Crespi case, and I'm going to talk about the North Carolina
00:35:05 --> 00:35:08 state-run mental health care facilities, etc.
00:35:09 --> 00:35:15 In the light of this. So in David Crespi's case,
00:35:15 --> 00:35:22 the DA in Charlotte went for the death penalty and, you know,
00:35:23 --> 00:35:29 told David and his lawyers that that's what they were going to do. And so...
00:35:31 --> 00:35:36 David and Kim, David was too incoherent, but Kim and David's brother asked the
00:35:36 --> 00:35:42 lawyers about, is there some way we could consider an insanity case here?
00:35:43 --> 00:35:47 And the answer that came back was,
00:35:48 --> 00:35:54 if you were not insane to begin with,
00:35:54 --> 00:36:03 you were perfectly sane, and you were put into a North Carolina state-run mental
00:36:03 --> 00:36:07 health facility, that would make you insane.
00:36:08 --> 00:36:15 That's how bad. And I recently heard a sheriff in Cary, North Carolina.
00:36:15 --> 00:36:17 This was on the radio. I just happened to catch it.
00:36:17 --> 00:36:23 He and his men had just dealt with some kind of god-awful tragedy brought on
00:36:23 --> 00:36:26 by a person with a gun who was mentally ill.
00:36:26 --> 00:36:32 And he said This really struck me He said We of course aren't prepared to deal
00:36:32 --> 00:36:37 with something like that And he said People may not know this But the largest
00:36:37 --> 00:36:43 provider of mental health services In our state is our prisons I mean,
00:36:44 --> 00:36:46 How could it be more damning than that.
00:36:47 --> 00:36:55 Now in our legal system What I tell people Again I want to get back to this,
00:36:56 --> 00:37:00 This thing about it being merciless in these cases.
00:37:00 --> 00:37:06 You know, as I just kind of established, in the UK, they are somehow able to
00:37:06 --> 00:37:10 deal with this with more mercy than we are.
00:37:11 --> 00:37:17 And what I say is we lack the collective intelligence to deal with these kind
00:37:17 --> 00:37:19 of cases. And what do I mean by that?
00:37:21 --> 00:37:27 You know, F. Scott Fitzgerald's definition of intelligence was essentially the
00:37:27 --> 00:37:33 ability to hold two contradictory ideas in one's head simultaneously.
00:37:34 --> 00:37:41 And in the case of David Crespi and others, particularly David Crespi,
00:37:41 --> 00:37:47 just to focus on right now, we have to be able to hold these two thoughts in
00:37:47 --> 00:37:49 our heads simultaneously.
00:37:49 --> 00:37:56 A, David brutally killed his beautiful, defenseless twin daughters.
00:37:56 --> 00:38:00 B, David Crespi was the first victim.
00:38:01 --> 00:38:06 Somehow in the UK, they're able to hold those two thoughts in their minds.
00:38:06 --> 00:38:11 And there's a difference over there as I gather.
00:38:11 --> 00:38:19 And that is, you know, the judge, in conjunction with just the two lawyers,
00:38:19 --> 00:38:27 can render these merciful verdicts, you know, without the involvement of a jury, you know?
00:38:28 --> 00:38:34 So, yeah, but to your question, it was just a symphony of failures here in America.
00:38:35 --> 00:38:40 Yeah. And, and, and you, you, you highlighted the fact that,
00:38:40 --> 00:38:45 you know, in the case of Zoloft, that they had done this study in 83.
00:38:45 --> 00:38:51 And then later, several years later, they decided to put the warning out there.
00:38:51 --> 00:38:55 Yeah what outside outside
00:38:55 --> 00:38:58 of money what what
00:38:58 --> 00:39:01 why do you think you know big pharma
00:39:01 --> 00:39:05 the pharmaceutical companies you know would
00:39:05 --> 00:39:08 do that i mean so i have some fundamental things
00:39:08 --> 00:39:11 and i don't want to take up too much more
00:39:11 --> 00:39:15 time because we're pushing as it is but two things
00:39:15 --> 00:39:18 one when i was in the state legislature in Mississippi and
00:39:18 --> 00:39:21 this was from 99 to 2008 uh every
00:39:21 --> 00:39:25 year when we had appropriations department of
00:39:25 --> 00:39:30 mental health was cut and i had noticed this pattern early on and i would ask
00:39:30 --> 00:39:36 why would we always cut this and they say well you know because you know it's
00:39:36 --> 00:39:41 not as big a priority or we gotta you know we gotta deal with this we only dealing
00:39:41 --> 00:39:44 with a limited population I mean, all sorts of crazy excuses.
00:39:45 --> 00:39:50 And I told one of the leaders on the committee, appropriation committee,
00:39:50 --> 00:39:51 I said, we're going to pay for that.
00:39:51 --> 00:39:57 We're going to pay for that because if we're not in a position to deal with
00:39:57 --> 00:39:58 our citizens in that way.
00:40:00 --> 00:40:04 It's going to lead to a whole host of other problems that we're going to have
00:40:04 --> 00:40:11 to address legislatively, like crime, homelessness, all this kind of stuff, addiction, all that.
00:40:12 --> 00:40:16 And, you know, and you like you, you, you highlight independent,
00:40:16 --> 00:40:19 the pandemic brought all that out. Right.
00:40:19 --> 00:40:25 And, you know, and then now we're and then we're dealing with a situation now
00:40:25 --> 00:40:33 where some of us don't have faith that the leaders in Washington are going to
00:40:33 --> 00:40:37 hold people to the people's feet to the fire.
00:40:37 --> 00:40:42 Not only to put more money or put more emphasis on mental health,
00:40:43 --> 00:40:48 but to keep the pharmaceutical companies in line.
00:40:48 --> 00:40:55 Because, you know, in our lifetime, it was illegal for pharmaceutical companies
00:40:55 --> 00:40:56 to advertise on television.
00:40:56 --> 00:41:06 That's right. And it was legal for tobacco and alcohol, and then they flipped it.
00:41:07 --> 00:41:12 They banned tobacco, they banned alcohol, and well, as far as.
00:41:14 --> 00:41:19 Not alcohol per se, but it was like they used to put like the little they used
00:41:19 --> 00:41:22 to put like the little skull and bones in the ice cubes, little subtle things
00:41:22 --> 00:41:23 like that when it came to alcohol.
00:41:24 --> 00:41:29 But they flipped it on tobacco. They've they've you know, they don't do the
00:41:29 --> 00:41:33 tobacco commercials anymore, but now they do the pharmaceutical commercials.
00:41:33 --> 00:41:37 And if it wasn't for pharmaceutical companies, I don't know if we have three
00:41:37 --> 00:41:39 or four networks. Right.
00:41:39 --> 00:41:49 As far as financially stable. So I think that exacerbates the problem with the
00:41:49 --> 00:41:51 pharmaceutical companies.
00:41:51 --> 00:41:57 So I just, let's close out like this because we can go on forever.
00:41:57 --> 00:42:01 I can tell by the way that you're talking.
00:42:01 --> 00:42:03 We can do this for a long time.
00:42:04 --> 00:42:09 What do you want people, because one of the cool things that you do is like
00:42:09 --> 00:42:11 every chapter starts off with a quote.
00:42:11 --> 00:42:14 Like the one we started off with dealing with hope.
00:42:15 --> 00:42:19 So what do you want people when they read this book and they read this tragic
00:42:19 --> 00:42:24 story and they navigate through all the emotions that you present and Kim presents
00:42:24 --> 00:42:29 and even David as best as he can and all the stuff you kind of expose,
00:42:29 --> 00:42:35 what do you want people to take away from this book when they read that final chapter and close it?
00:42:36 --> 00:42:43 That's a great question. And I hope they'll take away four key messages.
00:42:44 --> 00:42:50 Number one, when patients and their families are armed with accurate information
00:42:50 --> 00:42:53 about medications, lives can be saved.
00:42:54 --> 00:43:01 Number two, better, more evidence-based options for treating depression are
00:43:01 --> 00:43:05 now available instead of neurotoxic pills.
00:43:06 --> 00:43:09 Three this is very important you as
00:43:09 --> 00:43:13 a patient have a legal right to informed
00:43:13 --> 00:43:20 consent that is your doctor is supposed to be or psychiatrist supposed to be
00:43:20 --> 00:43:26 legally obligated to sit with you and explain to you the pros and cons of these
00:43:26 --> 00:43:32 kind of medications okay so you could get these benefits, you could get these side effects.
00:43:33 --> 00:43:36 And, you know, and there's some severe side effects some people can get.
00:43:36 --> 00:43:39 So you have a legal right to inform consent.
00:43:40 --> 00:43:43 And then finally, never give up hope.
00:43:44 --> 00:43:47 You know, never give up hope.
00:43:48 --> 00:43:54 You know, we talked about Winston Churchill earlier. I think I used this quote in the book.
00:43:56 --> 00:43:59 When you are going through hell, keep going.
00:44:00 --> 00:44:03 Yeah. Yeah, you definitely use that.
00:44:03 --> 00:44:08 And so final question before I get to helping you plug this book.
00:44:09 --> 00:44:13 How is how are the Crespi's doing? as
00:44:13 --> 00:44:16 far as you know because this
00:44:16 --> 00:44:19 happened this it's almost been 20 years now
00:44:19 --> 00:44:26 so how how are they holding up right well thanks for asking kim kim is such
00:44:26 --> 00:44:33 an amazing person she is now in the throes of advanced parkinson's disease to
00:44:33 --> 00:44:38 the point where she can't she can't hardly do anything on her own.
00:44:38 --> 00:44:44 She can't cook. She can't go to the bathroom by herself, any of that.
00:44:44 --> 00:44:49 And she requires 24-7 care, which as you may imagine is very expensive.
00:44:50 --> 00:44:52 And she soon won't be able to afford that.
00:44:53 --> 00:44:58 But she's the kind of person who never curses the darkness.
00:44:58 --> 00:45:04 She only lights a candle. And, you know, the only thing she ever says with any
00:45:04 --> 00:45:10 kind of fervor to it about God and what's happened to her is she basically just
00:45:10 --> 00:45:12 says, God, what are you thinking?
00:45:12 --> 00:45:16 You know, so she's hanging and she is buoyed by what's going on,
00:45:16 --> 00:45:19 you know, with me getting out and
00:45:19 --> 00:45:24 helping to tell her family's story and hopefully save lives for doing it.
00:45:24 --> 00:45:32 Now, and the three surviving children, now young adults, are doing remarkably
00:45:32 --> 00:45:34 well considering all they've been through, you know?
00:45:35 --> 00:45:40 I think they are almost exhausted with worrying about their mother and their father.
00:45:41 --> 00:45:45 And, you know, every time this story is told and they listen to it,
00:45:45 --> 00:45:47 they are re-traumatized.
00:45:47 --> 00:45:53 So they're just trying to get on with their lives and they're doing a great job of it.
00:45:53 --> 00:45:58 They're all well-adjusted, you know, accomplished people.
00:45:59 --> 00:46:02 David is in a dark place. you know
00:46:02 --> 00:46:06 when i was writing this book uh you
00:46:06 --> 00:46:10 know we changed letter exchange letters and phone
00:46:10 --> 00:46:13 calls you know he would call me and of course he's only
00:46:13 --> 00:46:16 got like what two minutes and somebody's listening in
00:46:16 --> 00:46:20 at the prison and all that but and he was being bullied that i was right writing
00:46:20 --> 00:46:27 the book but within the last six months or so he's just gone dark he he he never
00:46:27 --> 00:46:35 calls kim anymore he he he He had a network of 400 people that he was pen pals with,
00:46:35 --> 00:46:38 including General Petraeus, of all people, who wrote him back.
00:46:38 --> 00:46:45 But he stopped writing those. He's been switched to two different prisons in
00:46:45 --> 00:46:47 the last two months or so.
00:46:48 --> 00:46:50 And so not doing well.
00:46:51 --> 00:46:57 Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it's a tough story.
00:46:57 --> 00:47:06 And you know everybody involved with that they're going to have their test of
00:47:06 --> 00:47:12 faith and test of hope to get you know to continue on regardless,
00:47:13 --> 00:47:15 hopefully you know.
00:47:16 --> 00:47:21 You know, there'll be there'll be more good days than bad days in that case,
00:47:21 --> 00:47:25 especially for Miss Kim and the children, for sure.
00:47:25 --> 00:47:30 And even David. I mean, I think, you know, part of part of our problem with
00:47:30 --> 00:47:36 the criminal justice system is that, you know, we're always supposed to be trying
00:47:36 --> 00:47:40 to rehab people, even if they're not going to be back in society.
00:47:40 --> 00:47:42 We want them to be better people than when they came in.
00:47:43 --> 00:47:47 And so I hope that I hope that David gets out of that dark place as well.
00:47:48 --> 00:47:51 So look, man, how can how can people get this book?
00:47:52 --> 00:47:56 How can people how can people get this book? How can people get in touch with you?
00:47:56 --> 00:48:01 Because like I said, I feel like I have to apologize because the time that we
00:48:01 --> 00:48:05 spent is clearly not enough to get into the nuances of everything.
00:48:05 --> 00:48:10 So how can people really get into it and get this book? Thanks for asking.
00:48:10 --> 00:48:18 Yes, please go to my website, edwardleejones.com, and there you will find a
00:48:18 --> 00:48:20 tab that says buy the book.
00:48:20 --> 00:48:24 And when you click on that tab, there are about four different links you can
00:48:24 --> 00:48:28 click on according to your preference. There's the Amazon link to the book.
00:48:28 --> 00:48:31 There's the Barnes & Noble link.
00:48:31 --> 00:48:35 And then there's the link to my publisher, Roman and Littlefield.
00:48:35 --> 00:48:40 So all of those are a good way to order the book according to your preference.
00:48:40 --> 00:48:49 And in another, oh, as far as getting in contact with me, I think the tab is called Contact.
00:48:49 --> 00:48:53 So you click on that and there's a little form you could fill out and,
00:48:53 --> 00:48:58 you know, give me your email address, et cetera, so I can respond to you.
00:48:59 --> 00:49:06 And you'll find an excerpt from the book on there or a bio about me, some early reviews.
00:49:06 --> 00:49:11 So that's the best way. And thanks for asking about that. No, no problem, sir.
00:49:12 --> 00:49:18 So Everly Jones III, or as I will refer to you now, Ed, thank you for coming on, man.
00:49:19 --> 00:49:24 I greatly appreciate the time that we were able to get into it.
00:49:24 --> 00:49:30 I really hope that this book is successful, not just from a financial standpoint
00:49:30 --> 00:49:36 or a literary standpoint, but to get information out there, to put a story out
00:49:36 --> 00:49:37 there and people can start.
00:49:39 --> 00:49:45 Looking at these issues, anything that can really address mental health in this
00:49:45 --> 00:49:48 nation and really put our focus on it, I'm all for it.
00:49:49 --> 00:49:53 So I thank you for writing the book. And again, I thank you for coming on the podcast.
00:49:54 --> 00:49:57 Thanks so much for having me on. It was just an honor to talk with you about
00:49:57 --> 00:50:02 the book and all the important issues you raised. Thank you. Thank you.
00:50:03 --> 00:50:05 All right, guys, and we're going to catch you all on the other side.
00:50:07 --> 00:50:26 Music.
00:50:26 --> 00:50:31 And so now it's time for my next guest, Tonya McKenzie.
00:50:32 --> 00:50:36 Tonya McKenzie, founder of Sand and Shores, is an international speaker,
00:50:37 --> 00:50:39 moderator, author, and civil servant.
00:50:39 --> 00:50:45 Tonya is also a Los Angeles County Commissioner of Alcohol and Other Drugs.
00:50:45 --> 00:50:50 She is a master storyteller at the intersection of communications and leadership.
00:50:51 --> 00:50:55 Tonya consults organizations and businesses to help them tell their story,
00:50:55 --> 00:50:59 elevate their brand awareness, and build a strong reputation.
00:50:59 --> 00:51:02 Tonya is a PR and reputation specialist.
00:51:03 --> 00:51:07 She hosts the Top 100 Leadership Podcast, Leaders and Learners,
00:51:07 --> 00:51:10 and is the co-host of My Morning Coffee Podcast.
00:51:11 --> 00:51:15 Tonya McKenzie was the first African-American woman elected to the Redondo Beach
00:51:15 --> 00:51:21 Chamber of Commerce, Board of Directors, and President of the North Redondo
00:51:21 --> 00:51:23 Beach Business Association.
00:51:23 --> 00:51:27 She was the only African-American named Redondo Beach Woman of the Year.
00:51:28 --> 00:51:33 She serves on the City of Redondo Beach General Plan Advisory Council,
00:51:33 --> 00:51:38 is Vice President of the Black Public Relations Society Los Angeles,
00:51:38 --> 00:51:44 the Redondo Beach Emergency Crisis Council, and the Advisory Council for Better Youth.
00:51:44 --> 00:51:49 Her body of work with chambers and business associations has shaped her into
00:51:49 --> 00:51:54 an advocate and valuable resource for small businesses and community organizations.
00:51:55 --> 00:51:59 Tonya McKenzie can be found highlighted in the pages of Amazing Moms,
00:51:59 --> 00:52:01 Parents of the 21st Century.
00:52:01 --> 00:52:06 As a young gun violence survivor, she has become a dedicated youth advocate.
00:52:06 --> 00:52:12 She is the author of a memoir titled A Child's Memories of Cartoons and Murder.
00:52:12 --> 00:52:18 Tonya has been married for over 20 years and has four kids, including a set of twins.
00:52:19 --> 00:52:24 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:52:24 --> 00:52:27 on this podcast, Tonya McKenzie.
00:52:30 --> 00:52:40 Music.
00:52:38 --> 00:52:43 All right. Tonya McKenzie, Commissioner. How are you doing, sister? You doing good?
00:52:44 --> 00:52:48 I'm blessed and highly favored and happy to be here with you. I'm doing great.
00:52:48 --> 00:52:51 Well, I'm really honored. I've been trying to get you on for a while,
00:52:52 --> 00:52:56 and I'm finally glad that our schedule is aligned where we can make this happen.
00:52:56 --> 00:53:01 And you're a very fascinating sister,
00:53:02 --> 00:53:09 You've got your hands in a lot of things. And so I wanted people to have a chance
00:53:09 --> 00:53:16 to hear your story a little bit and what you're doing out there in Redondo Beach, California.
00:53:16 --> 00:53:18 You must be kind of lonely out there.
00:53:18 --> 00:53:23 I wouldn't say lonely. The whole 3% of the Black population that does live here,
00:53:23 --> 00:53:28 we do tend to commune around each other. But lonely, no.
00:53:30 --> 00:53:34 So I'm always welcoming a little more melanin. You know, I'm always recruiting.
00:53:35 --> 00:53:38 Yeah, well, you know, just a quick story.
00:53:39 --> 00:53:43 This is kind of an aside other than the normal icebreakers I do.
00:53:43 --> 00:53:47 But I had a good friend of mine. He went to Northwestern.
00:53:48 --> 00:53:53 And at Northwestern University, all the dorms, they have cafeterias in their dormitories.
00:53:54 --> 00:54:00 And no matter which dormitory you went to all the black folks sat at one table.
00:54:01 --> 00:54:04 So you could have somebody that's part of your organization
00:54:04 --> 00:54:07 say the vibeta sitting next to a delta sigma theta
00:54:07 --> 00:54:10 and a aka and all you
00:54:10 --> 00:54:13 know everybody they all sitting together at that one table
00:54:13 --> 00:54:16 all the rest of the folks scattered around but
00:54:16 --> 00:54:20 those the black folks always and they always had the biggest table but
00:54:20 --> 00:54:23 they all they all sat together so that was
00:54:23 --> 00:54:26 that's kind of my analogy of Redondo Beach like
00:54:26 --> 00:54:30 you said all y'all hang out together but yeah I'll
00:54:30 --> 00:54:35 say most of us but you know all skin folk and kin folk you know that and there
00:54:35 --> 00:54:41 are some that want to have more proximity to whiteness than others and willing
00:54:41 --> 00:54:47 to do whatever it takes for that so that's going to happen anywhere also,
00:54:47 --> 00:54:52 but particularly here where the dominant folk are, don't look like us.
00:54:52 --> 00:54:55 So, you know, you're going to have those. You're going to have those.
00:54:55 --> 00:54:59 Yeah. Well, we have them in Atlanta, as black as Atlanta is.
00:55:00 --> 00:55:04 And we had it in Jackson, as black as Jackson. Jackson's blacker than Atlanta.
00:55:04 --> 00:55:08 So I'm definitely familiar with the proximity problem.
00:55:08 --> 00:55:15 So, look, let me throw a quote at you and get your response to it.
00:55:15 --> 00:55:20 You let people know who you are by the stories that you tell.
00:55:20 --> 00:55:22 What does that quote mean to you?
00:55:22 --> 00:55:27 You are not defined by your title or your job.
00:55:27 --> 00:55:37 You are more or less defined by the impact that you leave on this earth by the
00:55:37 --> 00:55:42 people that you touch and by the problems that you solve.
00:55:43 --> 00:55:46 That's what that means to me. Yeah. Okay.
00:55:47 --> 00:55:54 All right. So now I need you to pick a number between 1 and 20. Five.
00:55:54 --> 00:56:02 All right. What do you think we should decide at the local or state levels versus
00:56:02 --> 00:56:05 the federal level? Who is we?
00:56:05 --> 00:56:11 Americans. I think at the local level, things like education,
00:56:12 --> 00:56:14 taxes, infrastructure.
00:56:15 --> 00:56:21 Housing, those are things that definitely should be at the local level.
00:56:21 --> 00:56:29 And I would even go as far as to say the organization of the civic organizations in your community.
00:56:29 --> 00:56:34 So you will have a place where, let's say, they need a sheriff's department
00:56:34 --> 00:56:36 and other places need a local police department.
00:56:36 --> 00:56:40 Based on, you know, whatever the demographic is of that city.
00:56:40 --> 00:56:45 But those are the things I definitely feel like need to be at a local level
00:56:45 --> 00:56:50 because they show the personality of that community. And every community is different.
00:56:50 --> 00:56:54 So there should be ways that the,
00:56:54 --> 00:56:58 you know, the local residents can impact what's happening in that city.
00:56:59 --> 00:57:02 But then we look at a federal structure.
00:57:02 --> 00:57:13 I think student loans and federal educational assistance, like funding universities,
00:57:14 --> 00:57:17 public, I'm sorry, universities and colleges and things of that nature.
00:57:19 --> 00:57:25 Regulations in regards to things like civil rights, right?
00:57:25 --> 00:57:28 That should be a federal thing. That should not be a local thing because you
00:57:28 --> 00:57:30 would have somewhere like a Redondo
00:57:30 --> 00:57:34 Beach or a Torrance where locally Torrance is still a sundown down.
00:57:34 --> 00:57:40 So you need something federally that, you know, governs that.
00:57:41 --> 00:57:47 You need a bigger, you need big picture for the federal agencies and you need
00:57:47 --> 00:57:52 more micro managing on the local level. Does that make sense?
00:57:53 --> 00:57:56 Oh, it makes total sense to me. I don't think it makes sense to the current
00:57:56 --> 00:57:58 administration, but it makes total sense to me.
00:57:58 --> 00:58:05 That's why things are in such a kerfuffle, because he wants to regulate even
00:58:05 --> 00:58:08 the most minute elements of a community.
00:58:09 --> 00:58:13 So that's also where I get excited about having a Gavin Newsom that says,
00:58:13 --> 00:58:16 you know what? I don't really know.
00:58:16 --> 00:58:22 What you're doing. So I'm going to go ahead and do what I need to do over here.
00:58:22 --> 00:58:24 And you keep tearing up stuff over there.
00:58:24 --> 00:58:29 And I'm just going to go ahead and take care of the fifth largest economy in
00:58:29 --> 00:58:31 the country. I'm going to go ahead and do that over here.
00:58:32 --> 00:58:34 In the world. Sorry. In the world. That's what I was going to say.
00:58:34 --> 00:58:38 In the world, not just the United States. Yeah, in the world. Absolutely.
00:58:38 --> 00:58:43 Like, you're not going to play with your tariffs over here. And the funny thing is, And,
00:58:43 --> 00:58:46 you know, I'm not sure when this is going to be published, but when I woke up
00:58:46 --> 00:58:48 this morning and saw the video of Gavin saying,
00:58:49 --> 00:58:54 we're already starting to work with other countries to make sure that at least
00:58:54 --> 00:59:00 they know California is willing to work with them so that our communities here
00:59:00 --> 00:59:02 don't suffer as much as everyone else.
00:59:03 --> 00:59:07 That's one of those moments where you think, you know what? It is expensive to live in California.
00:59:07 --> 00:59:12 But you know what? I think I might be willing to go ahead and pay a little something
00:59:12 --> 00:59:17 to have someone looking out for us as opposed to a, I don't know,
00:59:17 --> 00:59:20 South Carolina. I could be wrong.
00:59:20 --> 00:59:24 Well, I mean, it's just, you know, all I'm thinking about is,
00:59:25 --> 00:59:29 you know, at one time in this country, we were under Articles of Confederation.
00:59:30 --> 00:59:35 And each state had to make their own deals, you know, trade deals and all that
00:59:35 --> 00:59:40 kind of stuff and, you know, and make their own decisions about anything else,
00:59:40 --> 00:59:46 even their own militia and whether their militia was going to join in in a united effort or not.
00:59:47 --> 00:59:50 And that was pretty manageable with 13.
00:59:50 --> 00:59:58 I think it's it's insane at 50. But, you know, I, you know, and you're forcing
00:59:58 --> 01:00:04 governors like Newsom to make those kind of decisions and even play with those ideas.
01:00:05 --> 01:00:09 And, you know, I tell people all the time, Texas and California were their own
01:00:09 --> 01:00:12 countries at one point. So it's not unusual.
01:00:12 --> 01:00:17 It wouldn't be crazy if they decided, hey, we had enough of this and they break
01:00:17 --> 01:00:23 off again if if the trend continues. But I just don't think I don't think Americans
01:00:23 --> 01:00:24 have the stomach for that.
01:00:25 --> 01:00:28 I think they they Americans are being entertained right now.
01:00:28 --> 01:00:34 And as the money starts dwindling out of their pocketbook, the entertainment value will go away.
01:00:34 --> 01:00:40 And, you know, the person may not be worse than what we got,
01:00:40 --> 01:00:43 but he definitely is going to be he or she's going to be definitely better,
01:00:43 --> 01:00:46 you know, because people, they're not going to go to the extreme again.
01:00:48 --> 01:00:51 But it's hard to get worse than what we already have.
01:00:51 --> 01:00:56 The other thing is there's also a level of envy that people have,
01:00:56 --> 01:01:02 I hate to say this, for a California or even a Texas because—,
01:01:03 --> 01:01:07 You know, you have, you get to see how people function when they have someone
01:01:07 --> 01:01:10 looking out for their best interest and their economy is good.
01:01:10 --> 01:01:14 And no matter how bad you talk about California, people still want to come here. They do.
01:01:14 --> 01:01:18 And all of the hysteria about people are leaving California en masse,
01:01:18 --> 01:01:22 please wear, because the 405 and the 101 stay busy.
01:01:23 --> 01:01:25 We wish people would leave en masse.
01:01:26 --> 01:01:30 So, you know, a few people here or there, it's an even exchange.
01:01:30 --> 01:01:36 There are people leaving, there are people coming. We have transplants all the time, which is fine.
01:01:36 --> 01:01:41 We welcome diverse culture here. That's the difference is when people want to
01:01:41 --> 01:01:44 be able to be free in their diverse lifestyle,
01:01:44 --> 01:01:49 there's various different places you can go here, whether it's all the way up
01:01:49 --> 01:01:53 in Redlands and you want to be like an Aaron Rodgers,
01:01:53 --> 01:01:59 weird as all get out, or you want to live beat side, you know what I'm saying?
01:01:59 --> 01:02:04 You have options. So as bad as people want to make it seem, you have options.
01:02:04 --> 01:02:07 You get to live however it is you want to live.
01:02:07 --> 01:02:14 And it's hard when you live somewhere like a Mississippi, where you don't really
01:02:14 --> 01:02:15 get to live how you want to live.
01:02:15 --> 01:02:19 Yeah, there's no traffic, but at the same time, there's no education.
01:02:19 --> 01:02:24 They are burying people in John Doe graves behind police departments,
01:02:24 --> 01:02:28 and no one's governing things like that. Their health care is horrible.
01:02:29 --> 01:02:34 So, you know, people have choices. They're right about that. People have choices.
01:02:34 --> 01:02:39 But at the end of the day, I think everyone really wants to have a high quality
01:02:39 --> 01:02:42 of life without having to break the bank.
01:02:43 --> 01:02:47 So speaking about Mississippi, what's your connection with Mississippi?
01:02:48 --> 01:02:51 Well, my family, my grandfather's family is from Mississippi.
01:02:51 --> 01:02:54 They were a part of the Great Migration.
01:02:54 --> 01:03:00 So 17 brothers and sisters, all same mama, same daddy, came to California.
01:03:01 --> 01:03:07 One after the other would come start building wealth and then go back and get
01:03:07 --> 01:03:09 the next one and bring them back here.
01:03:10 --> 01:03:16 So I'm born and raised in San Jose, California, but a lot of my aunts and uncles
01:03:16 --> 01:03:21 wound up coming into Stockton and East Palo Alto and those places.
01:03:22 --> 01:03:26 But every two years, we will go back to Mississippi and have our family reunions there.
01:03:27 --> 01:03:33 So we'd fly into New Orleans, enjoy everything there, go through Gulfport and,
01:03:33 --> 01:03:35 you know, get some culture,
01:03:35 --> 01:03:40 play at the casino, know, and then go back to the farm where we would still
01:03:40 --> 01:03:42 learn how to fish. There's chickens.
01:03:43 --> 01:03:50 There's farming to be done. So we experienced that lifestyle while also living
01:03:50 --> 01:03:55 in California, bringing sugar cane back to California for those that couldn't
01:03:55 --> 01:03:57 come to the reunion to experience.
01:03:57 --> 01:04:01 But we have a very rich culture in Mississippi. We have a cemetery.
01:04:02 --> 01:04:05 My family has a cemetery in Mississippi.
01:04:05 --> 01:04:10 So being able to grow up, be born and raised in California, but still have deep
01:04:10 --> 01:04:16 roots and experience the culture of Mississippi, Columbia, it's actually Hattiesburg.
01:04:16 --> 01:04:21 We fly into Jackson or New Orleans and then drive through.
01:04:21 --> 01:04:25 But, you know, it was important to experience the culture of your people,
01:04:25 --> 01:04:27 no matter where you lived.
01:04:27 --> 01:04:32 In California, some of them wound up moving to like Nebraska and Arkansas, Florida, even.
01:04:33 --> 01:04:36 That's where my grandfather and his people are from. Yeah.
01:04:37 --> 01:04:41 You did a Mississippi thing right there. You named the biggest city to your small town.
01:04:41 --> 01:04:45 The town is Sumrall from what I understand, right? It is. Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:46 --> 01:04:50 That's where people is like, I always used to the best of my friends in the Delta.
01:04:50 --> 01:04:53 They's like, oh, man, I'm from Greenville. No, you know, you're from Hollindale.
01:04:54 --> 01:04:54 That's right down the road.
01:04:55 --> 01:04:58 You just claimed the biggest city that was next to you. I already know how that goes.
01:04:59 --> 01:05:03 People, listen, people don't know. And it's funny that I brought up Aaron Rodgers
01:05:03 --> 01:05:06 because Brett Favre lived around the corner from my grandfather's house.
01:05:06 --> 01:05:13 So we his house, you know, lit up the area before they actually had street signs.
01:05:14 --> 01:05:18 That's where he was born and raised. So when you hear that, when I heard about
01:05:18 --> 01:05:23 that, I lost that lawsuit in the case that he was involved in still in the money.
01:05:23 --> 01:05:27 I'm literally thinking about that community that these people come from.
01:05:27 --> 01:05:34 And I'm still in awe that this dude is like helping to siphon money from social
01:05:34 --> 01:05:38 services for his daughter's school because this is a very,
01:05:38 --> 01:05:43 listen, you will give people directions and it wouldn't be like turn left on Clark Avenue.
01:05:43 --> 01:05:49 It would be like at the third tree before the ditch by the thing. Like what?
01:05:50 --> 01:05:53 See, my house is the only house that has a light in the driveway.
01:05:54 --> 01:05:58 So just keep driving. Don't turn in nobody. The house with the light in the
01:05:58 --> 01:06:00 driveway. That's mine. Come on.
01:06:01 --> 01:06:05 Been there, done that. Yes. That was it. So, yeah, I didn't say Hattiesburg.
01:06:05 --> 01:06:08 I'm like, it's like 10 people know where Hattiesburg is, literally.
01:06:11 --> 01:06:17 So let's get into a little bit about your childhood, because you went through
01:06:17 --> 01:06:19 a personal strategy that you documented
01:06:19 --> 01:06:23 in your book entitled The Child's Memories of Cartoons and Murder.
01:06:23 --> 01:06:29 Talk to the listeners about that and how that has guided part of your advocacy journey.
01:06:29 --> 01:06:37 So when I was four and a half, my uncle from my mother's mother's side of the family,
01:06:37 --> 01:06:45 him and his friends came into our home and shot my mother and killed her boyfriend
01:06:45 --> 01:06:49 while she was pregnant in front of me and his son.
01:06:49 --> 01:06:56 And apparently there had been some street activity going on that obviously I
01:06:56 --> 01:06:58 was not privy to at that age.
01:06:58 --> 01:07:03 But as I continue to learn about the story and how I even got into a position
01:07:03 --> 01:07:07 to witness my mother being shot and her boyfriend being murdered.
01:07:09 --> 01:07:17 Became very clear that one, my mother was very clear about my uncle who she had bitten.
01:07:18 --> 01:07:21 She had, she'd been in street stuff. She, she, you know, there's,
01:07:21 --> 01:07:22 let me be very transparent.
01:07:23 --> 01:07:27 There are some women that just like, like that life. And she was in the life.
01:07:27 --> 01:07:32 And when I started doing my research about the book and the incident,
01:07:32 --> 01:07:37 a few things I found out is that he had multiple convictions for pimping and
01:07:37 --> 01:07:42 pandering, guns and drugs all through California.
01:07:43 --> 01:07:45 So why he was even out, I still don't know.
01:07:46 --> 01:07:51 Also, her boyfriend had a previous conviction for murder. She was pregnant when
01:07:51 --> 01:07:53 he got shot, when she got shot.
01:07:53 --> 01:08:01 So my brother was born obviously with some mental issues because when women
01:08:01 --> 01:08:07 are traumatized during pregnancy, something is likely going to be wrong with her child.
01:08:07 --> 01:08:10 All of these things I'm learning in my 20s while I'm researching this book.
01:08:11 --> 01:08:19 And also, we were in a federal witness protection program while this case was going on.
01:08:19 --> 01:08:24 And one of my uncles on my grandfather's side had passed away during this time
01:08:24 --> 01:08:26 and we couldn't go to the funeral.
01:08:26 --> 01:08:31 So as I started doing more research on that, I found out that the uncle that
01:08:31 --> 01:08:35 had shot my mom also possibly had something to do with that.
01:08:36 --> 01:08:41 All this being said, I started doing more research on our criminal justice system
01:08:41 --> 01:08:48 because I was registered from the time I was five or six until not too long
01:08:48 --> 01:08:51 ago in victim services with California.
01:08:51 --> 01:08:54 So understanding what that looked like, I would get information on...
01:08:56 --> 01:09:00 Uncle when he was up for parole and things of that nature.
01:09:00 --> 01:09:04 So I learned a lot about the criminal justice system based on my experience
01:09:04 --> 01:09:07 and research through this book.
01:09:07 --> 01:09:16 He was paroled twice, and Governor Jerry Brown and Governor Schwarzenegger rescinded
01:09:16 --> 01:09:21 his parole because they still felt like he was a threat to society.
01:09:21 --> 01:09:26 So at no point did he ever take responsibility for what he had done.
01:09:27 --> 01:09:31 And continued to place blame in other places. Eventually, I stopped writing
01:09:31 --> 01:09:37 letters to the parole board and things probably about maybe eight years ago. He got out.
01:09:38 --> 01:09:43 I did not protest it. He had cancer. He died soon after.
01:09:43 --> 01:09:50 But I learned a lot. I wanted to know as a child why I had to go through things like this.
01:09:50 --> 01:09:55 You know, kids that go through trauma, They don't know if it's because of a
01:09:55 --> 01:10:03 low self-worth, low value. Am I not valued by the people that should be protecting me?
01:10:05 --> 01:10:09 And as you matriculate through your life, elementary school,
01:10:09 --> 01:10:13 junior high school, things of that nature, literally we wear a mask because
01:10:13 --> 01:10:17 we don't want people to know what is going on at our home.
01:10:17 --> 01:10:21 I was always a happy kid, and I was scholastically...
01:10:23 --> 01:10:28 Superior. I was in gate class and always had great grades, never got in trouble.
01:10:29 --> 01:10:32 So yeah, I had questions like, what is going on?
01:10:32 --> 01:10:37 All that being said, after, here's the thing, after all of this was over and
01:10:37 --> 01:10:41 I wrote my book and I started touring, I started speaking at schools,
01:10:41 --> 01:10:44 I finally reconnected with my father.
01:10:44 --> 01:10:48 Do you know he knew nothing about nothing that had happened in my life.
01:10:50 --> 01:10:56 He said he didn't find out until, you know, I was in my 20s or something of that nature.
01:10:56 --> 01:11:01 And that blew my mind also because I was like, that is crazy to have a child
01:11:01 --> 01:11:02 as tight as I am with my kids.
01:11:03 --> 01:11:08 That is crazy to find out that all of these things happened in your child's
01:11:08 --> 01:11:10 life and you were nowhere around.
01:11:11 --> 01:11:14 So that was my childhood.
01:11:14 --> 01:11:17 And the book was really about telling the
01:11:17 --> 01:11:20 story of that child what that
01:11:20 --> 01:11:23 child went through not just when it
01:11:23 --> 01:11:30 happened but trying to process that through adolescence and young adulthood
01:11:30 --> 01:11:36 and relationships and you know higher education pursuits and things of that
01:11:36 --> 01:11:40 nature so that's that's really a child's memories of cartoons and murder.
01:11:41 --> 01:11:47 Yeah. So, but you got involved with, didn't you get involved with one of the
01:11:47 --> 01:11:54 anti, well, I shouldn't say anti-gun, but the gun control organizations?
01:11:54 --> 01:12:00 Yeah, so after I published the book, I wanted to form partnerships with organizations
01:12:00 --> 01:12:09 that were doing two things, helping young people deal with trauma from gun violence and helping people.
01:12:10 --> 01:12:15 Understand what gun violence does. So I'm a speaker for, I became a fellow of
01:12:15 --> 01:12:18 Everytown for Gun Violence and Moms Demand Action.
01:12:19 --> 01:12:25 And in that process, I've been speaking to Congress and anyone that will listen
01:12:25 --> 01:12:30 or needs to hear the story to fight for better gun legislation.
01:12:31 --> 01:12:37 And I've always been under the guise that, because I'm a habitual complainer, okay?
01:12:37 --> 01:12:41 I'm a tourist, I'm a habitual complainer, you know, typical wife,
01:12:41 --> 01:12:42 mama, always complaining about something.
01:12:42 --> 01:12:45 But I've always felt like, and my grandfather used to teach me,
01:12:45 --> 01:12:48 don't complain about it unless you're going to be a part of the solution.
01:12:48 --> 01:12:52 So there are things I won't complain about out loud because please don't ask me to help you.
01:12:52 --> 01:12:56 But if I'm going to complain about it out loud, I'm definitely willing to be
01:12:56 --> 01:12:59 a part of helping to solve the problem.
01:12:59 --> 01:13:05 So I've been with Everytown and Moms Demand for about five years now.
01:13:06 --> 01:13:13 Okay. Yeah, so you know Congresswoman McBride and Shannon Watts pretty well. Oh, yes.
01:13:13 --> 01:13:16 Shannon is one to follow. She, yeah, fearless.
01:13:17 --> 01:13:20 Fearless. Those are some fearless women. Yeah.
01:13:20 --> 01:13:29 I haven't met Shannon. We're connected on the interwebs. But I had met Congresswoman
01:13:29 --> 01:13:34 McBride before she got into Congress when she was doing a mom-to-man action work.
01:13:34 --> 01:13:41 And yeah, yeah, solid, solid, solid ladies. The great thing about these organizations,
01:13:41 --> 01:13:48 too, though, is they prep you and support you through learning how to be a part of the solution.
01:13:48 --> 01:13:53 So they don't just throw you out there. If you want to run for office or a higher
01:13:53 --> 01:13:56 office, any kind of higher office that...
01:13:58 --> 01:14:02 Takes part in legislation or improvements in your community.
01:14:03 --> 01:14:08 It could just be, I want to be on the board of the YMCA because that's preventative
01:14:08 --> 01:14:09 work. You know what I'm saying?
01:14:09 --> 01:14:14 They help you through that. And I think that's one of the most valuable assets
01:14:14 --> 01:14:15 to organizations like that.
01:14:16 --> 01:14:21 Yeah. Yeah. That is key. You got to teach folks how to fight for their rights. Yeah.
01:14:22 --> 01:14:27 You can't just stand in a corner yelling and being mad. You got to have some tangible results.
01:14:28 --> 01:14:31 Yeah, you got to be tactical. So let me be honest.
01:14:32 --> 01:14:37 You caught my attention when I saw that you were the chair of the Los Angeles
01:14:37 --> 01:14:40 County Commission on Alcohol and Other Drugs.
01:14:41 --> 01:14:46 Explain the purpose of the commission and what impact have you seen based on
01:14:46 --> 01:14:49 your work? Because you're the chair of that commission. Am I right on that?
01:14:49 --> 01:14:55 You are. You are. So the Commission of Alcohol and Other Drugs is set up to
01:14:55 --> 01:15:03 advise the county commissioners on legislation and programmatic opportunities for the county.
01:15:03 --> 01:15:06 L.A. County is the largest county in the nation, so we have some of the largest
01:15:06 --> 01:15:12 problems in the nation, especially when it comes to alcohol and drugs and other substances.
01:15:13 --> 01:15:18 So we stay abreast of any legislation that might be coming out.
01:15:18 --> 01:15:21 We have like a Senator Weiner.
01:15:21 --> 01:15:23 He's always, and I hope I don't catch too much heat for this,
01:15:24 --> 01:15:27 but he's always proposing legislation that's absolutely ridiculous.
01:15:27 --> 01:15:35 It feels like maybe the alcohol industry is slipping him a little thank you
01:15:35 --> 01:15:38 here and there. He will propose something like.
01:15:39 --> 01:15:48 If an event is over at 12 a.m., we think that you should still be able to sell liquor until 4.30 a.m.
01:15:48 --> 01:15:52 Well, why, sir? Well, why? What kind of sense does that make?
01:15:53 --> 01:15:59 Well, it helps to spur more commerce. It also helps to increase DUIs.
01:15:59 --> 01:16:06 Our job is to identify what's good, bad, and otherwise to then advise our supervisors.
01:16:06 --> 01:16:11 And for people that don't understand how, you know, Los Angeles is organized
01:16:11 --> 01:16:16 in Los Angeles County, I'm sorry, the fires that came up is a good example of
01:16:16 --> 01:16:20 people not understanding how Los Angeles County is put together.
01:16:20 --> 01:16:23 You have mayors of cities, right?
01:16:23 --> 01:16:29 But some cities, some unincorporated cities, do not have a mayor.
01:16:29 --> 01:16:34 You would take, I think, like Marina Del Rey, maybe? Our supervisor in that
01:16:34 --> 01:16:37 district is technically the mayor of that city.
01:16:38 --> 01:16:42 But also, the supervisors are like the mayor for the county.
01:16:43 --> 01:16:49 So everything goes through them. Any new budgets, laws, programs.
01:16:49 --> 01:16:55 They just tried to, I think they just put together some more new homeless budgeting, some program.
01:16:55 --> 01:16:58 It goes through them and it's voted on through them. So our
01:16:58 --> 01:17:04 job is to advise our supervisors from our district so when it's time for them
01:17:04 --> 01:17:11 to either reject or pass laws or funding for programs that they understand that
01:17:11 --> 01:17:16 we did due diligence in giving them said advice to make those decisions.
01:17:17 --> 01:17:21 I am the chair currently and the last chair currently.
01:17:22 --> 01:17:27 And many of us, many of us commissioners that are currently on this board have
01:17:27 --> 01:17:32 decided that we need to focus a lot more of our attention on our young people.
01:17:32 --> 01:17:40 As large as Los Angeles County is, we only have one residential treatment facility
01:17:40 --> 01:17:46 for youth, okay? We have tons for adults. We have one for youth.
01:17:47 --> 01:17:51 The way that we're dealing with young people when it comes to drugs and alcohol
01:17:51 --> 01:17:55 is unacceptable to me and many of us.
01:17:55 --> 01:18:01 So my charge has been having a hyper-focus on young people.
01:18:01 --> 01:18:07 And I truly believe that a lot of the work that we're doing is at least bringing
01:18:07 --> 01:18:14 attention to the fact that there needs to be more prevention and education and
01:18:14 --> 01:18:19 collaboration in our county to bring these numbers down.
01:18:20 --> 01:18:25 Because we have gotten to a place, this is the kind of the catch 22,
01:18:26 --> 01:18:31 you know, not just talking about DEI, but looking at how minorities are treated
01:18:31 --> 01:18:36 when it comes to laws and substance abuse and substances in homes.
01:18:36 --> 01:18:43 We know that people get started most of the time on drugs and alcohol in the home, right?
01:18:43 --> 01:18:51 And then we cannot punitively deal with our young people without doing the other
01:18:51 --> 01:18:55 work, the education, the prevention, things of that nature.
01:18:55 --> 01:18:59 We're getting caught up in, you know, just arresting them. You can't arrest
01:18:59 --> 01:19:00 yourself out of addiction.
01:19:01 --> 01:19:05 But the catch-22 is no one, so now no one is being penalized.
01:19:05 --> 01:19:09 So when kids are in school now, if they get caught with substances, they get a talking to.
01:19:10 --> 01:19:14 Well, that's not helping either. Get a talking to. Oh, and then next time we
01:19:14 --> 01:19:17 talk to them and their parents, well, half of them is getting it from their parents.
01:19:17 --> 01:19:22 Or now parents are providing a safe space for their kids to do these things,
01:19:23 --> 01:19:28 so that they can say, well, at least he's not outside doing it. This isn't working.
01:19:29 --> 01:19:34 These numbers are still going up and this is not working. So our job and our
01:19:34 --> 01:19:39 focus has been finding other ways to make aware,
01:19:39 --> 01:19:45 make our leaders aware that we have to be more strategic and solution-oriented
01:19:45 --> 01:19:48 to dealing with young people when it comes to alcohol and other drugs.
01:19:49 --> 01:19:55 Yeah, and that sounds like, you know, well, I know it's a worthy cause,
01:19:55 --> 01:20:00 but, you know, it's just amazing that, you know,
01:20:00 --> 01:20:06 Los Angeles County had the foresight to set something up like that.
01:20:06 --> 01:20:08 I had never heard of that.
01:20:09 --> 01:20:11 Like I said, I grew up in Chicago.
01:20:12 --> 01:20:15 Of course, they weren't dealing with stuff back then when I was growing up, but.
01:20:17 --> 01:20:20 Being in Jackson and politics there and then now being here in Atlanta,
01:20:20 --> 01:20:22 I had never heard of that before.
01:20:22 --> 01:20:28 So I thought it's really interesting that the county felt that it was important
01:20:28 --> 01:20:34 enough to really set up a commission to really get some ideas,
01:20:34 --> 01:20:38 some fresh eyes outside of whatever lobby.
01:20:38 --> 01:20:43 Because like you said, the senator you mentioned, yeah, whatever alcohol lobby
01:20:43 --> 01:20:47 is in that state is definitely in his pocket if he's pushing that kind of stuff.
01:20:48 --> 01:20:53 You know, I was a legislator for nine years, so I know, you know,
01:20:53 --> 01:20:58 people, people be trying, they be trying to buy a legislator as much as they could.
01:20:58 --> 01:21:02 You know, that's just, that's just how it goes. So, you know,
01:21:02 --> 01:21:08 you're going to have to face those kind of people, but to actually have a commission to deal with that.
01:21:08 --> 01:21:12 And to be a counteraction with that, that is credit.
01:21:12 --> 01:21:18 Now, you're in an uphill battle, as you eloquently pointed out,
01:21:19 --> 01:21:20 but at least you're in the battle.
01:21:21 --> 01:21:28 There's other states, major metropolitan areas that don't even take the issue on like that.
01:21:28 --> 01:21:34 And so, you know, I commend you for for not only putting yourself on the commission,
01:21:34 --> 01:21:37 but actually leading commission to doing that kind of work.
01:21:39 --> 01:21:45 So let's let's talk about your your company, Sun and Sand and Shores.
01:21:46 --> 01:21:50 What what was the what is the mission of that company and why do you why did
01:21:50 --> 01:21:52 you feel the need to start it?
01:21:52 --> 01:21:56 Sand & Shores is a marketing, PR,
01:21:56 --> 01:22:03 branding firm that I started because I recognize that people telling their stories
01:22:03 --> 01:22:08 is much more important than their titles or whatever it is they're trying to sell.
01:22:08 --> 01:22:13 And what I mean by that is, you know, even how we started our conversation,
01:22:13 --> 01:22:17 we got into just some important topics.
01:22:17 --> 01:22:22 We did some icebreakers. We got into some topics. But that is connection.
01:22:22 --> 01:22:26 I don't care what your title is if it's not connected to impact.
01:22:27 --> 01:22:35 I don't care who you think you are if it's unimportant to the people that you
01:22:35 --> 01:22:37 should be impacting or affecting.
01:22:38 --> 01:22:43 And when businesses are trying to sell their products and get you to buy into
01:22:43 --> 01:22:52 their services, what is true is that people buy and support those that they know, like, and trust.
01:22:52 --> 01:22:57 And there's no better way to get people to support you than to get them to know,
01:22:57 --> 01:23:01 like, and trust you through your stories, your stories of impact.
01:23:01 --> 01:23:03 How have you impacted their life?
01:23:03 --> 01:23:12 I started my company because I was with a publishing company out here in L.A.
01:23:12 --> 01:23:15 And I've been in marketing and PR all of my career.
01:23:16 --> 01:23:20 And we were doing a lot of advertising. And, you know, companies are promising
01:23:20 --> 01:23:22 like, oh, you get to, I'll see your ad.
01:23:22 --> 01:23:26 We'll see your ad 5 times. So you can purchase a front page,
01:23:27 --> 01:23:32 a cover ad or front page ad for $5.
01:23:32 --> 01:23:36 And I can tell you 20 people are going to see that ad.
01:23:36 --> 01:23:40 Well, they weren't using technology, first of all, to prove that.
01:23:40 --> 01:23:43 So you're just telling me that and I'm supposed to trust you.
01:23:43 --> 01:23:50 On top of the fact that when is the last time you remember a full-page ad in a magazine,
01:23:50 --> 01:23:58 as opposed to remembering a story that somebody told you or a story that you read, right?
01:23:59 --> 01:24:03 And I wanted to start a business, start a publication. I started a publication
01:24:03 --> 01:24:06 first. It was Real Estate Agent Magazine.
01:24:06 --> 01:24:11 And a lot of my advertisers recognized that they needed more than just an ad.
01:24:11 --> 01:24:13 So I started doing PR for them.
01:24:13 --> 01:24:18 And then I got so addicted to the impact that the stories were making that I
01:24:18 --> 01:24:23 just turned it into a full PR firm, meaning we help you tell your story,
01:24:23 --> 01:24:27 whether that's on social media, in publications, on TV.
01:24:28 --> 01:24:34 Person, so public speaking, how do you get people to connect to you?
01:24:34 --> 01:24:37 How do you get people to know, like, and trust you?
01:24:37 --> 01:24:40 And I started my company after my husband started his company,
01:24:40 --> 01:24:44 which was Red Beach Advisors, once we moved back to Southern California,
01:24:44 --> 01:24:47 because I'm from the Bay Area, born and raised.
01:24:47 --> 01:24:51 He started Red Beach Advisors, so he basically helps tech firms do the same
01:24:51 --> 01:24:54 thing I do with Sand & Shores.
01:24:54 --> 01:24:59 He helps them connect to their target market and grow their business.
01:24:59 --> 01:25:02 I do the same thing just through stories. And that's Sand & Shores.
01:25:02 --> 01:25:07 We are stationed out here in Redondo Beach, California, but we're global.
01:25:07 --> 01:25:13 I've done business in Poland and Africa and various different places because
01:25:13 --> 01:25:17 storytelling, it spans across industries.
01:25:18 --> 01:25:22 There's no end to how your story can impact others.
01:25:23 --> 01:25:30 Right. And one of the things I had noticed is that you like to focus as clientele,
01:25:30 --> 01:25:33 you mentioned about real estate, but also nonprofits.
01:25:34 --> 01:25:39 You want to help nonprofits be able to tell their story better.
01:25:39 --> 01:25:47 Just kind of what is it about a nonprofit that makes them a good client?
01:25:48 --> 01:25:50 It's nonprofit and civic organizations.
01:25:51 --> 01:25:55 One, it's helping them recognize that the public is their client, right?
01:25:55 --> 01:26:01 So whether it's the YMCA or the Chamber of Commerce or the police department,
01:26:01 --> 01:26:05 your client, your customer is that community that you serve.
01:26:05 --> 01:26:08 And many of them don't recognize that.
01:26:08 --> 01:26:13 Working with the police departments, helping them understand that you You can't
01:26:13 --> 01:26:16 just tell people to trust you because of your title or your shield.
01:26:16 --> 01:26:20 You have to show them that you are trustworthy. You have to help them get to
01:26:20 --> 01:26:24 know you, whether it's a YMCA, a Boys and Girls Club.
01:26:24 --> 01:26:28 What kind of impact are you doing? Who are you?
01:26:28 --> 01:26:32 Getting people to know who the CEO is, the executive director,
01:26:32 --> 01:26:37 the stories of the people that they have helped in the past,
01:26:37 --> 01:26:42 that lets people know that your investment in that organization is impactful,
01:26:42 --> 01:26:49 whether that's a donation or your time, because they grow through volunteerism, right?
01:26:49 --> 01:26:54 Many of these organizations grow through volunteerism and people lending their time.
01:26:54 --> 01:26:56 Well, why would I give my time to you?
01:26:56 --> 01:27:01 Well, when I'm able to show you the impact that you giving your time or your
01:27:01 --> 01:27:06 donation has, it makes it much more pervasive.
01:27:06 --> 01:27:12 You feel like not only do you want to do it, you might actually go get somebody else to do it with you.
01:27:12 --> 01:27:17 You don't always have to tell people about it because other people tell other people about it.
01:27:18 --> 01:27:20 I teach people, you know, when it comes to PR, for the most part,
01:27:21 --> 01:27:25 marketing is you telling people how amazing you are. PR is other people telling
01:27:25 --> 01:27:27 other people how amazing you are.
01:27:27 --> 01:27:32 And when you can impact a community so much that they are telling other people,
01:27:32 --> 01:27:34 hey, yeah, go ahead and volunteer over here.
01:27:35 --> 01:27:38 Oh, you have some young people and they're looking for some community service
01:27:38 --> 01:27:42 time to put on their high school transcripts, college transcripts.
01:27:42 --> 01:27:45 I got this great organization over here that you might want to do this.
01:27:45 --> 01:27:47 Oh, the police department is doing a fundraiser.
01:27:48 --> 01:27:53 Great. I think we can, you know, go sell some tickets and we can all go.
01:27:53 --> 01:27:58 Because time is something we don't get back. It's priceless.
01:27:58 --> 01:28:01 So how are you spending it? What are you investing it in?
01:28:02 --> 01:28:08 Being able to elevate your organization by giving it credibility and showing impact is important.
01:28:09 --> 01:28:12 And they don't always understand that. You know, you go into business and you
01:28:12 --> 01:28:16 go, oh, I do a thing and I just want you to join us doing this thing.
01:28:17 --> 01:28:19 No, show impact. Talk about the people you're impacting.
01:28:20 --> 01:28:27 Recently, I worked with, I have a dream foundation and it was crazy because
01:28:27 --> 01:28:33 one of the young ladies who had recently passed away in my county district,
01:28:33 --> 01:28:35 which I knew about her story.
01:28:35 --> 01:28:38 It was a, it was a shooting right off the freeway.
01:28:39 --> 01:28:44 I wound up talking to her mom. We just, you know, connected on social media or something.
01:28:44 --> 01:28:51 And the organization that I was doing PR for, the young lady was an alumni from that organization.
01:28:51 --> 01:28:55 And it was just a full circle moment once I started working with them,
01:28:55 --> 01:28:59 which I used to volunteer for them. So I also volunteered.
01:29:00 --> 01:29:01 Then they became a client.
01:29:02 --> 01:29:06 Just so happens, this tragedy that happened, one of the girls was an alumni.
01:29:07 --> 01:29:12 It was just a very full circle moment. that we're able to talk about, elevate,
01:29:13 --> 01:29:19 raise money off of, and then continue to use her story as other ways to get
01:29:19 --> 01:29:22 more volunteers and impact more lives.
01:29:22 --> 01:29:26 So it just becomes, you know, something that it's legacy building.
01:29:26 --> 01:29:29 I'll leave it there. It's legacy building.
01:29:30 --> 01:29:33 Yeah. And that's very important. Even the little minutiae things.
01:29:34 --> 01:29:41 I remember, you know, I was working at ACLU and in Mississippi, that's always a battle.
01:29:41 --> 01:29:45 And, but I was able to get an amendment.
01:29:45 --> 01:29:49 They wanted to pass this blue lives matter bill where they, you know,
01:29:49 --> 01:29:53 if anything, make anything against a police officer was a hate crime.
01:29:53 --> 01:29:58 So I was able to get an amendment in, in the bill.
01:29:59 --> 01:30:03 You know, I had lobbied, I got one of the senators to introduce the amendment
01:30:03 --> 01:30:11 to make sure that it didn't violate, you know, this law would not abridge any
01:30:11 --> 01:30:12 First Amendment rights. Right.
01:30:13 --> 01:30:18 And it got passed. So, you know, we were you know, we were kind of doing our assessments.
01:30:18 --> 01:30:22 And the executive director came in my office and she started fussing.
01:30:22 --> 01:30:26 She said, Eric, what did you do this session?
01:30:26 --> 01:30:28 I said, well, you know, we were getting our butts kicked. She said,
01:30:28 --> 01:30:31 no, no, you did something in the session. What did you do?
01:30:31 --> 01:30:34 I said, well, we did get an amendment on that Blue Lives Matter.
01:30:34 --> 01:30:37 But she said, why didn't you tell me about that?
01:30:38 --> 01:30:41 You know, it was going to be in my report for the end of the year.
01:30:42 --> 01:30:42 You know what I'm saying?
01:30:42 --> 01:30:47 She said, no, we can tell the story about that. You know, we give people hope.
01:30:47 --> 01:30:51 And I was like, yes, ma'am. And so, you know, like you said,
01:30:51 --> 01:30:53 it's all part of the legacy.
01:30:53 --> 01:30:59 Even if you're going, you don't think you're making impact, the little things do matter.
01:30:59 --> 01:31:03 So that's why I wanted you to tell the story about Sand and Shores,
01:31:03 --> 01:31:10 because it's so important for organizations that are doing the work to be uplifted.
01:31:10 --> 01:31:14 That's really part of my motivation for doing this podcast, other than,
01:31:14 --> 01:31:18 you know, me getting upset with what's going on in politics.
01:31:18 --> 01:31:22 But to really uplift people that are doing the work. So...
01:31:23 --> 01:31:27 Let's tie that in with my next question, in that you have been very active with
01:31:27 --> 01:31:29 the Black Podcasters Association.
01:31:29 --> 01:31:32 You've conducted some workshops and so on.
01:31:32 --> 01:31:35 Why do you believe in the power of podcasting?
01:31:36 --> 01:31:42 I think it's one of the most authentic things that we have accessible to us
01:31:42 --> 01:31:47 that we can control and show our expertise.
01:31:47 --> 01:31:50 Right. We don't have to.
01:31:50 --> 01:31:57 There's no one way to do it. It's very much customized to who you are and what you represent.
01:31:58 --> 01:32:01 I continue to tell them, and I've been saying this for years,
01:32:01 --> 01:32:06 is that you podcasters are the new media. They are.
01:32:07 --> 01:32:12 If I like what you're talking about and I trust you, so we're back to the no
01:32:12 --> 01:32:15 like and trust, right? I'm going to continue to go back to you.
01:32:15 --> 01:32:17 I'm just going to keep coming back because I like what you're saying.
01:32:17 --> 01:32:20 If you're wrong and I tell you you're wrong and you might talk about it on your
01:32:20 --> 01:32:23 show, We can have an honest conversation.
01:32:23 --> 01:32:29 You are building a platform that people learn to trust you.
01:32:29 --> 01:32:35 And our media right now, mainstream media is so untrustworthy and they are so
01:32:35 --> 01:32:40 leaning one way or the other instead of just truthful,
01:32:40 --> 01:32:46 instead of just being honest, instead of covering whatever it is you say you're going to cover.
01:32:46 --> 01:32:49 So if you're a sports podcaster, but all you're covering is LeBron James,
01:32:50 --> 01:32:53 sir, I will not be back. I am bored. I need more.
01:32:54 --> 01:33:01 So people find what works for them and they begin to depend on that and then they contribute to it.
01:33:01 --> 01:33:08 And the podcaster also shows value to their viewership.
01:33:08 --> 01:33:15 This is something I can control and I get to show appreciation for you leaning
01:33:15 --> 01:33:18 in and having this conversation with me.
01:33:18 --> 01:33:23 You don't get that anywhere else. That is an authentic relationship that you
01:33:23 --> 01:33:26 can't create with mainstream media.
01:33:26 --> 01:33:32 They're so beholden to either their advertisers or ownership that they're losing
01:33:32 --> 01:33:37 the fact that you are supposed to be there to disseminate information to me.
01:33:37 --> 01:33:41 So now I'm just going to go to someone I know will always disseminate information
01:33:41 --> 01:33:45 to me in a space that I enjoy getting it, right?
01:33:46 --> 01:33:53 And I think we underestimate our value, our worth, and our ability to make change
01:33:53 --> 01:33:55 and impact. You would even look at a Shea Shea.
01:33:56 --> 01:34:00 You know, he didn't start off this hot. Some people would not ever.
01:34:01 --> 01:34:05 But, you know, you do have a Cat Williams. You do have the Black community going
01:34:05 --> 01:34:10 to him now to see who he's bringing on and what conversation are they having.
01:34:10 --> 01:34:14 I'm not going to watch every show, but he is going to have people on there where
01:34:14 --> 01:34:16 I'm like, This is a part of the culture.
01:34:16 --> 01:34:20 I want to hear what they have to say. I trust that he's going to at least have
01:34:20 --> 01:34:22 a conversation that I can get some value from.
01:34:23 --> 01:34:26 Same with me. My leaders and learners platform has always been.
01:34:26 --> 01:34:28 We've been doing this for six years now.
01:34:28 --> 01:34:33 When I do get amazing guests, we're having an honest conversation.
01:34:33 --> 01:34:37 April Ryan from White House Correspondent.
01:34:37 --> 01:34:42 She is a well-known journalist. We're going to have an honest conversation.
01:34:42 --> 01:34:45 One thing you know you're going to get from me is a story and an honest conversation.
01:34:46 --> 01:34:49 And if you tune in live, I'm asking any question that you pose.
01:34:49 --> 01:34:51 We're not hiding from the truth.
01:34:51 --> 01:34:55 And we're going to have these complex conversations.
01:34:55 --> 01:34:58 People start knowing where they can go to get what they need.
01:34:58 --> 01:35:05 And I think that is priceless in a time when you can't really trust corporate-led
01:35:05 --> 01:35:07 media outlets. And it's sad.
01:35:09 --> 01:35:13 Yeah. I'm a little jealous. I've been trying to get April Ryan and you got her. That's cool.
01:35:14 --> 01:35:17 We'll talk later about that. One of my favorite Deltas, you know,
01:35:17 --> 01:35:18 that's the D9 connection.
01:35:19 --> 01:35:22 Yeah, yeah. But, you know, like you said, but that's cool, though,
01:35:22 --> 01:35:24 because I've had guests that have podcasts.
01:35:25 --> 01:35:28 They say, Erik, how did you get these people on there? I just asked them,
01:35:28 --> 01:35:33 you know. But you also have, and to your understated point, because I don't
01:35:33 --> 01:35:39 think you give enough credit to the fact that you have authentic, honest conversations.
01:35:40 --> 01:35:44 And that is something that becomes priceless.
01:35:44 --> 01:35:49 You're not giving me spin. You ain't got me up here spinning and being the clown
01:35:49 --> 01:35:51 that people can find in other spaces.
01:35:52 --> 01:35:56 So when that is something that, because I'm going to tell people,
01:35:56 --> 01:35:58 like, yeah, check out his show.
01:35:58 --> 01:36:00 It's not it's not a fashion show.
01:36:00 --> 01:36:04 You're really there for some good information and a good conversation to make
01:36:04 --> 01:36:08 you think. And I do have friends that like to do things like think.
01:36:08 --> 01:36:12 And I know that that is so underrated these days. Like, yes,
01:36:13 --> 01:36:14 we think we process information.
01:36:15 --> 01:36:19 Everything is not a, you know, shit show. Pardon my French.
01:36:20 --> 01:36:26 No, if t was French. I wouldn't understand it. So, yeah, I get what you're saying.
01:36:26 --> 01:36:30 Come on. People do not like processing information these days.
01:36:30 --> 01:36:36 And having spaces that we can go where there is a little complexity and texture
01:36:36 --> 01:36:38 to the conversation, that matters.
01:36:39 --> 01:36:44 Yeah, it does. And that's the kind of a deliberate thing I wanted to do.
01:36:45 --> 01:36:47 It was something I noticed that was missing.
01:36:49 --> 01:36:53 And so I wanted to do that. But we're going to we're going to we're going to close it out.
01:36:53 --> 01:36:58 I do want to ask you this one question, though, because I think it's relevant to our time.
01:37:00 --> 01:37:05 And you were drafted to run in a recall election.
01:37:06 --> 01:37:11 And the reason why I think it's relevant is because this particular council
01:37:11 --> 01:37:18 person, over 2400 people signed a petition to say, get him out.
01:37:18 --> 01:37:20 Or at least have the election, right?
01:37:21 --> 01:37:29 Then 900, almost 1 people said you, Tonya McKenzie, should be the person
01:37:29 --> 01:37:32 to replace them if we do recall them, right? Yep.
01:37:33 --> 01:37:40 So then I look at the results of the recall and less people voted for the actual
01:37:40 --> 01:37:44 recall than voted for you to be the person to replace them.
01:37:44 --> 01:37:52 And so the question out of all that is, and the other statistic was,
01:37:52 --> 01:37:57 if all of the people who signed the petition voted, he would have been recalled.
01:37:58 --> 01:38:04 So the question out of all those stats, and I don't know if it's a good memory, bad memory for you.
01:38:04 --> 01:38:13 I'm sorry if it's a bad one. But what can we do to get people to stay engaged
01:38:13 --> 01:38:17 and fully participate in the process?
01:38:18 --> 01:38:25 Wow. So one of the things I think that kept people from voting,
01:38:25 --> 01:38:30 which is something that many people are good at, like our current administration,
01:38:31 --> 01:38:41 is you congest the process and the information so much with bluster and BS that
01:38:41 --> 01:38:44 it discourages people from getting involved.
01:38:45 --> 01:38:48 So it it produces a lot of apathy
01:38:48 --> 01:38:53 like I don't even care no more like this too much this is too much and people
01:38:53 --> 01:38:58 really don't want to participate in the too much after a while it's like my
01:38:58 --> 01:39:05 head is hurting this is dumb and I don't want to do this anymore so I think looking back on that.
01:39:07 --> 01:39:13 Situation, and many others, is we have to not engage in the BS.
01:39:13 --> 01:39:18 And that's hard because you're playing the, you know, he's doubling down on
01:39:18 --> 01:39:21 me, so now I got to come back and answer all these things.
01:39:21 --> 01:39:25 I listened to some people too and responded to a lot of things I probably should not have.
01:39:27 --> 01:39:32 Because it congests, it makes noise, and noise deters people.
01:39:32 --> 01:39:36 You know, I think it does. I think noise deters people.
01:39:37 --> 01:39:40 So when things are going on like our current administration,
01:39:40 --> 01:39:44 which becomes a clown show and a big circus, it deters people from participating
01:39:44 --> 01:39:49 because they don't know which way is up. It's gotten messy, and they're just like, forget it.
01:39:50 --> 01:39:55 The simpler we keep things, the easier it is for people that actually care about
01:39:55 --> 01:39:58 the issue to then decide what they want to do.
01:39:59 --> 01:40:04 And what is that thing they teach us as kids? Like, if you see two fools arguing,
01:40:05 --> 01:40:07 sometimes you don't know which one is the fool.
01:40:10 --> 01:40:14 So disengaging in tomfoolery, I would say.
01:40:14 --> 01:40:19 That would probably be my only, the only thing I could suggest.
01:40:19 --> 01:40:23 Because, you know, we have a lot of money in politics.
01:40:23 --> 01:40:27 And when you have a lot of money to throw at things, you can make ugly things look pretty.
01:40:28 --> 01:40:32 So, you know, that's a hard one. And yes, I wouldn't say it was traumatic.
01:40:32 --> 01:40:36 I wound up being the first Black person on a Redondo Beach ballot.
01:40:36 --> 01:40:39 That's never happened before. Okay. I love being first.
01:40:39 --> 01:40:45 It wasn't a win, but it was a first. So, yeah, I guess in that sector, it was a win.
01:40:45 --> 01:40:48 But this guy had so much money.
01:40:49 --> 01:40:53 It's insane. He comes from one of the richest families in California.
01:40:53 --> 01:40:58 I actually used to sell the products that his father produced.
01:40:58 --> 01:41:04 So that was crazy to me. I was like, this is wild. But he had a lot of money to throw at it.
01:41:04 --> 01:41:08 And in politics, sometimes I think if there's a way to get money out of politics,
01:41:08 --> 01:41:12 which I'm sure it's probably not at this point, that would be great.
01:41:13 --> 01:41:19 But for the most part, it's really trying to be as clean as possible.
01:41:19 --> 01:41:22 Keeping things as simple for people to understand.
01:41:23 --> 01:41:26 Because remember, what I just said is people don't like to think.
01:41:26 --> 01:41:28 You want to make it easy for them.
01:41:28 --> 01:41:31 People do not like processing a lot of information these days.
01:41:32 --> 01:41:39 So you want to make things as simple as possible, give people instructions, A plus B equals C.
01:41:40 --> 01:41:42 It doesn't matter what the other side is doing.
01:41:43 --> 01:41:49 If you're trying to get people to, you know, go your way, I just think when
01:41:49 --> 01:41:52 it comes to elections, we need to keep it as clean and straightforward as possible.
01:41:52 --> 01:41:57 When you start engaging in some back and forth and the minutia of all the politics,
01:41:57 --> 01:42:00 it gets complicated for people and they just get caught up in apathy.
01:42:02 --> 01:42:06 Yeah, I definitely can attest to that. Well, look, Tonya McKenzie,
01:42:06 --> 01:42:08 it's been an honor to have you on.
01:42:08 --> 01:42:11 Tell people how they can get in touch with you.
01:42:11 --> 01:42:15 If they want to get a copy of the book, A Child's Memories of Cartoons and Murder.
01:42:17 --> 01:42:22 Find out more about the Commission on Alcohol and Other Drugs, just give your spiel.
01:42:22 --> 01:42:26 Just tell the folks how they can reach out to you. I try to keep it real simple.
01:42:26 --> 01:42:32 I am Tanya McKenzie PR on all social media platforms, or Sand and Shores,
01:42:32 --> 01:42:37 S-A-N-D-A-N-D-S-H-O-R-E-S on all social media platforms.
01:42:37 --> 01:42:39 And it's sandandshores.com if you want to check it out.
01:42:40 --> 01:42:44 I'll do this. I'll do you even one better. If you are a listener of Erik's and
01:42:44 --> 01:42:47 you want a copy of the book, let him know, and I'll just send it to you.
01:42:48 --> 01:42:50 I'll send it to you signed and everything.
01:42:51 --> 01:42:55 So I really appreciate Erik's time. Mr.
01:42:55 --> 01:43:00 Fleming, you are a joy because you're smart. I like smart people.
01:43:01 --> 01:43:05 I know that sounds crazy, but we just don't be getting running across a lot
01:43:05 --> 01:43:09 of smart people these days. So I will take it where I can get it.
01:43:09 --> 01:43:14 And I absolutely appreciate it. And I just encourage people to be intuitive,
01:43:15 --> 01:43:21 ask questions, get involved, be a part of the solution and enjoy the life that we're blessed to it.
01:43:22 --> 01:43:26 Well, thank you for that. And thank you for not only the kind words,
01:43:26 --> 01:43:29 but the instruction for our folks.
01:43:30 --> 01:43:36 Tonya McKenzie, it has been an honor to have you on. Thank you again for coming on.
01:43:37 --> 01:43:40 Thank you. All right, guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
01:43:43 --> 01:43:54 Music.
01:43:54 --> 01:44:00 I want to thank Edward L. Jones III and Tonya McKenzie for coming on the podcast.
01:44:01 --> 01:44:06 Please, please, please get Edward's book, Medication, Mental Illness,
01:44:07 --> 01:44:10 and Murder, What Really Killed the Crespi Twins.
01:44:11 --> 01:44:18 You can get that anywhere. You can buy books. And it's a deep dive into,
01:44:18 --> 01:44:24 as you've heard in the interview, about where we are in this country, about mental health,
01:44:24 --> 01:44:34 where we are about criminal justice, and where we are about even big pharma,
01:44:34 --> 01:44:36 the pharmaceutical companies.
01:44:37 --> 01:44:43 And you can see how those challenges all tie in, especially now with this current
01:44:43 --> 01:44:48 administration and we don't know, I don't think they even know,
01:44:48 --> 01:44:50 but we don't know what direction they're going to go.
01:44:50 --> 01:44:58 So get this book and it's going to be very, very helpful in providing some information
01:44:58 --> 01:45:03 and maybe if you're going through something, you know, like depression.
01:45:05 --> 01:45:14 It'll give you some questions to ask your psychiatrist or your doctor and how
01:45:14 --> 01:45:19 to manage that if you have to take medication to do that. I think that's vitally important.
01:45:20 --> 01:45:25 And then, of course, Commissioner McKenzie, Tonya McKenzie, as I stated,
01:45:26 --> 01:45:28 I've been trying to get the sister on.
01:45:28 --> 01:45:31 We finally got it going, and it was worth the wait.
01:45:31 --> 01:45:36 She's an incredible sister. And, you know,
01:45:36 --> 01:45:43 when you're outnumbered like she is in Redondo Beach,
01:45:43 --> 01:45:51 you have to have hope and you have to use that hope as a weapon to navigate and do good.
01:45:52 --> 01:45:58 And she is the epitome of that. She is not overwhelmed. She is not intimidated.
01:45:58 --> 01:46:01 She's doing what needs to be done.
01:46:02 --> 01:46:09 And she's got a great support system not just in her house but in the community and so.
01:46:10 --> 01:46:18 You know, she, again, she is an example of why this podcast exists to highlight
01:46:18 --> 01:46:20 people like her that are doing the work.
01:46:20 --> 01:46:24 So just glad that we were able to be on.
01:46:24 --> 01:46:29 So I'm not going to keep you all along because those were some pretty intense interviews.
01:46:29 --> 01:46:35 And I thank you all for supporting the podcast with the style that I do,
01:46:35 --> 01:46:38 because I really want to get the most out of the guests.
01:46:38 --> 01:46:42 Even though I tell guests, you know, you have an open invitation to come,
01:46:43 --> 01:46:47 you may not get a chance to hear from these people ever again,
01:46:47 --> 01:46:48 or at least not on my show.
01:46:48 --> 01:46:57 And you may not get the length of time to really hear what they're really thinking.
01:46:57 --> 01:47:02 Right. Because some people have hard cutoffs and, you know, if they're on mainstream
01:47:02 --> 01:47:07 media, if they get 10 minutes, then they're the star of the show. Right.
01:47:08 --> 01:47:14 So, you know, that's why we want to get as in-depth as we can and tell as much
01:47:14 --> 01:47:16 as the story we can and all that.
01:47:16 --> 01:47:24 And like I told Brother Jones, we could have done probably two or three episodes just based off his book.
01:47:24 --> 01:47:32 It is that intense and it's that deep. So I appreciate y'all for supporting that part.
01:47:34 --> 01:47:39 But I do want to say that there was one quote that was mentioned in my interview
01:47:39 --> 01:47:44 with Ed that is very, very apropos for where we are now.
01:47:44 --> 01:47:50 And it was Winston Churchill's quote that if you find yourself going through hell, keep going.
01:47:50 --> 01:47:55 So my encouragement to every American within the sound of my voice.
01:47:56 --> 01:48:01 Keep going because we are in hell right now.
01:48:02 --> 01:48:07 It may not feel as hot as you thought it might feel, but we're in it.
01:48:08 --> 01:48:13 And there is no sign of it relenting. There are glimmers of hope.
01:48:13 --> 01:48:15 We had that victory in Wisconsin.
01:48:17 --> 01:48:24 We had the, but how many elections are we going to have where you have a classic
01:48:24 --> 01:48:26 supervillain running a candidate, right?
01:48:28 --> 01:48:35 You know, we didn't flip any seats in Florida, but they were competitive in
01:48:35 --> 01:48:41 districts where the Republicans were winning by 30 some points. Right.
01:48:42 --> 01:48:45 So it's it's brewing. It's coming.
01:48:45 --> 01:48:51 But we're still in hell and we still have we still haven't even finished the
01:48:51 --> 01:48:53 first hundred days. Right.
01:48:53 --> 01:48:59 And now we're going to have to dig deep in our wallets to pay for stuff that
01:48:59 --> 01:49:03 matter if it's a house, a car, groceries,
01:49:04 --> 01:49:09 blue jeans, computers, cell phone, whatever you need to buy from this point forward.
01:49:11 --> 01:49:13 Going to have to dig deeper in our wallets to make it happen.
01:49:13 --> 01:49:20 If you have retirement accounts, you need to pay attention to how's that looking, right?
01:49:21 --> 01:49:25 If you invest in the stock market, you need to pay attention to how that's looking.
01:49:25 --> 01:49:31 If you're a Forex trader, watch how that dollar is moving compared to other
01:49:31 --> 01:49:33 currencies around the world, right? Right.
01:49:35 --> 01:49:38 We're we're in. We're in it. We're in some tough times.
01:49:39 --> 01:49:44 And it's based on petulance. It's based on stubbornness. It's based on narcissism.
01:49:44 --> 01:49:46 It's based on authoritarianism.
01:49:46 --> 01:49:52 But we're in it. So all I want y'all to do is continue to be engaged,
01:49:52 --> 01:49:55 listen to podcasts like A Moment with Erik Fleming and others.
01:49:58 --> 01:50:05 Do enough of a deep dive in, you know, whatever reliable source of information
01:50:05 --> 01:50:07 you can get good information from.
01:50:07 --> 01:50:14 You can watch, you know, local news, network news, cable news.
01:50:14 --> 01:50:16 Nobody's telling you not to do
01:50:16 --> 01:50:20 that, but don't just let that be your only source of information, right?
01:50:21 --> 01:50:24 Just like the preacher used to tell us on Sunday. It's like,
01:50:24 --> 01:50:28 don't go just off my sermons, read the book, right?
01:50:30 --> 01:50:36 So, you know, do your due diligence on that because every year,
01:50:36 --> 01:50:40 no matter where you live in the United States, there's an election happening.
01:50:41 --> 01:50:46 It may be more on the local side. You know, it's not going to be a presidential election every year.
01:50:47 --> 01:50:52 That's every four years. But, you know, your congressional folks and some of
01:50:52 --> 01:50:56 your state legislators, it all depends on what state you live in, show up every two years.
01:50:57 --> 01:51:01 You got judges to vote for. You got city council people. You got mayors.
01:51:01 --> 01:51:05 You got a whole bunch of stuff. You got county surveyors to vote for.
01:51:06 --> 01:51:11 So pay attention to that stuff. You don't have to be encyclopedic.
01:51:11 --> 01:51:13 You don't have to be a nerd or a junkie.
01:51:13 --> 01:51:17 Just get enough information so you can make an informed decision.
01:51:19 --> 01:51:25 Because we can't vote to be entertained anymore. We got to vote to be sustained, right?
01:51:25 --> 01:51:32 We got to vote so we can thrive and we can live in an America that not only
01:51:32 --> 01:51:35 we can be proud of, but we can be comfortable in, right?
01:51:36 --> 01:51:39 So that's the message.
01:51:40 --> 01:51:45 As Churchill said, if you find yourself in hell, keep going.
01:51:45 --> 01:51:48 So just let's keep going. Let's keep moving.
01:51:49 --> 01:51:53 You know, we're in a moment.
01:51:53 --> 01:52:01 So, you know, usually when people are challenged, they rise to that challenge.
01:52:01 --> 01:52:06 And a lot of the motivation for them rising to the challenge is the hope that's on the other side.
01:52:07 --> 01:52:14 So I want y'all to heed the message that we can overcome these challenges and
01:52:14 --> 01:52:18 I want you to use hope as a weapon to overcome those challenges.
01:52:19 --> 01:52:27 It's not easy every day. Lord knows I have my moments but I know there's light
01:52:27 --> 01:52:28 at the other end of the tunnel.
01:52:28 --> 01:52:36 I know that You know, even in the darkest of night, you can still see stars, right?
01:52:38 --> 01:52:42 What did the psalmist say that, you know, weeping may endure for a night,
01:52:42 --> 01:52:43 but joy comes in the morning?
01:52:44 --> 01:52:49 That's not just to be applied at funeral services. That's supposed to be applied in our everyday life.
01:52:50 --> 01:52:55 If we're given a chance to live another day, make the most of it.
01:52:55 --> 01:53:01 And that's what I try to do, my guests, and I hope all of you all listening.
01:53:02 --> 01:53:08 That's what we have to do to get through this moment in our history in the United States.
01:53:10 --> 01:53:18 You know, people around the world are making their judgments and they have the right to do that.
01:53:18 --> 01:53:24 But we in America have a different goal or obligation. We have a right to make a difference.
01:53:26 --> 01:53:29 And if not now, when, right?
01:53:30 --> 01:53:34 So as Reverend Jackson would say, keep hope alive.
01:53:35 --> 01:53:40 Keep it forefront in your journey. Keep it in your vision.
01:53:40 --> 01:53:46 And most importantly, just keep pressing forward. Keep going.
01:53:46 --> 01:53:49 Thank you all for listening. Until next time.
01:53:53 --> 01:54:37 Music.
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