Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Skip Finley Full Interview

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Skip Finley Full Interview · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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Speaker 1: how to live a balanced life. With that said, let's
2:07
Speaker 1: get this interview rolling. My next guest, I'm so happy
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Speaker 1: to man when you talk about when you bring people
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Speaker 1: into your life or bring people on the show, you say, hey, man,
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Speaker 1: this individual played an important role. And while I'm able
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Speaker 1: to talk on this talk on this show and have
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Speaker 1: a concept call money Making Conversation, My next guest is
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Speaker 1: a well known executive who has been responsible for for
2:28
Speaker 1: for radio stations, five of which he owned, encompassing eighteen
2:32
Speaker 1: US markets. In addition to leading financial transaction valued at
2:36
Speaker 1: over a half billion dollars in radio station and related areas.
2:40
Speaker 1: His work has including business successes with radio news networks
2:44
Speaker 1: like YouTube, Black Network, Raiders, Shared and Broadcasting Network, American
2:48
Speaker 1: Urban Network, executive radio programs like uh Tom, Join the
2:52
Speaker 1: Morning Show, The Womany Williams Experience, The Steve Harvey Morning Show,
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Speaker 1: formats like The Light, and a satellite channel of a
3:01
Speaker 1: BT Uptown. He's an author, historian, speaker, and retired broadcasting.
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Speaker 1: His latest book is Welling Captains of Color, America's First Meritocracy,
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Speaker 1: which will be released on June fift and is available
3:16
Speaker 1: for pre order now. Please welcome the Money Making Conversation
3:19
Speaker 1: The King. I called him the King because he's the
3:22
Speaker 1: only reason I ever went up to Martha Veneyors Skip Finley, Man,
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Speaker 1: I can't wait for you to come back. I know
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Speaker 1: you won't. I'm gonna come back. Skip. Let's say, you know,
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Speaker 1: there was two thousand five. Everybody two thousand five, you know,
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Speaker 1: Steve Harvey and I we was was attempting to UH
3:42
Speaker 1: put together a deal led by Skip UH to become
3:46
Speaker 1: a morning drive and possibly syndicate with Clear Channel. At
3:49
Speaker 1: the time, we're gonna be a joint partnership in all this.
3:52
Speaker 1: And so Steve and I we went up to Martha's
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Speaker 1: Veneon and it had to be the coldest day of
3:56
Speaker 1: the year in the summer. It was in the summer.
4:00
Speaker 1: Remember it was in the summer, and Martin, Oh my god,
4:04
Speaker 1: it was. It was. It was, it was. It didn't
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Speaker 1: stop us from getting in business. And and that's that's important.
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Speaker 1: Way back then in two thousand five, when you know,
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Speaker 1: Steve and I sat down with you guys, and you
4:15
Speaker 1: guys were looking at uh you know, the possibilities of
4:18
Speaker 1: Union stations in South Carolina and stations in California. Of
4:22
Speaker 1: course w b L last the flagship in New York.
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Speaker 1: What did you seeing uh me as a manager back
4:27
Speaker 1: then and Steve Harvey as a talent back then. Well,
4:32
Speaker 1: you know, I first one gets to the punch line
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Speaker 1: to my knowledge to this day, that is the only
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Speaker 1: major media deal that was entirely conducted by black people. Absolutely,
4:44
Speaker 1: we made all the decisions in that you know that
4:46
Speaker 1: short part of that week when we were up here. Um,
4:50
Speaker 1: but it was uh. I was vice chairman the company,
4:53
Speaker 1: the President company, you know, Peppy Sutton and I and
4:57
Speaker 1: Charles Warfield the President company. You know there. Our chairman
5:01
Speaker 1: had the idea that there wasn't anything funny in black
5:04
Speaker 1: radio and that might be a key to success in
5:07
Speaker 1: Morning Drive. We certainly agree, you know, and got a
5:13
Speaker 1: call of an interest from Rushawn. You know how we
5:16
Speaker 1: like to talk to see Harvey. Well, we went crazy,
5:19
Speaker 1: We fell out, of course realistic. We knew we couldn't
5:22
Speaker 1: afford him, so it was up to me to figure
5:23
Speaker 1: out a way we could pay him. We couldn't do
5:28
Speaker 1: it right then I was head out on a vacation.
5:30
Speaker 1: They agreed to come up to Martha's vineyard. And the
5:32
Speaker 1: first funny story is my wife and I want to
5:34
Speaker 1: pick them up, the whole group, and for the airport.
5:36
Speaker 1: Ricky Anderson's attorney was with you, parents was with you.
5:41
Speaker 1: We got to the airport and these good looking, overly
5:45
Speaker 1: well dressed brother come back to the terminal with these
5:49
Speaker 1: tailor three piece suits on the Martha's rade. Now I'm
5:53
Speaker 1: totally embarrassed because I'm there in a T shirt a
5:54
Speaker 1: pair of short My wife is cute anyway, so it
5:58
Speaker 1: didn't matter what she had on. So she's driving a
6:02
Speaker 1: little town with a little convertible Mercedes and I'm driving,
6:06
Speaker 1: you know, my big F one pickup troop. Well, then
6:10
Speaker 1: the bags come out and they had these eye shaped bags.
6:13
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, what did he say? Well,
6:15
Speaker 1: those are had bags? Y'all knock at dad. Happened in
6:19
Speaker 1: all this and if you do it on bow away,
6:23
Speaker 1: well we can from there. Um, you know, eight men
6:28
Speaker 1: sat down on the room and decided. You know, we
6:31
Speaker 1: generally liked and respected each other over the years. We've
6:35
Speaker 1: heard because you know, since you know success of the program, Um,
6:39
Speaker 1: you know, most comedians side they want to go and
6:42
Speaker 1: do that too. What we knew Steve Harvey had already
6:46
Speaker 1: been a professional morning drive announcer in the two next
6:51
Speaker 1: largest markets in the country, Chicago and Los Angeles, for
6:54
Speaker 1: eight years, had all the experience doing the announcing, and
6:58
Speaker 1: just happened to be one of the funniest men on
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Speaker 1: the planet, right, And I think a lot of folks
7:04
Speaker 1: don't crush you too, have a history and stand upright,
7:09
Speaker 1: and we like to laugh. So being around a couple
7:11
Speaker 1: of brothers like you, guys who might to tell jokes,
7:13
Speaker 1: was just amazing, you know, and help and help cementa deal. Well,
7:17
Speaker 1: you know, it was great. I always remember that that
7:19
Speaker 1: that number we put out in the pippy sudden he
7:21
Speaker 1: fell out and I said, wait, wait, wait, hear who
7:27
Speaker 1: we can do. And I said, said, Steve win, come
7:31
Speaker 1: up with half the dog and with another property, we
7:36
Speaker 1: can do this bonus thing. Well, I've got this idea
7:40
Speaker 1: on how to get stations to pay rights fees to
7:42
Speaker 1: do this instead of just giving us advertising time to
7:45
Speaker 1: go out and sell, which was the first time the
7:49
Speaker 1: model had ever been used. Absolutely absolutely, And I said,
7:52
Speaker 1: I happen to know two guys at two radio networks
7:55
Speaker 1: who would love to partner with us and distribute you know,
7:58
Speaker 1: the steal. Once we put it off together and it
8:01
Speaker 1: all started up there that and and by the way,
8:04
Speaker 1: you know, broadcast on the show from New York, where
8:08
Speaker 1: you're in the publishing center of the world, you're the
8:10
Speaker 1: television center of the world. You're in the fashion center
8:13
Speaker 1: of the world. Imagine Steve, what you can do just
8:16
Speaker 1: being there. And you've got books, you've got movies, you've
8:19
Speaker 1: got fashion. You need to open a comedy club. And
8:22
Speaker 1: at that time, you guys are into health food. Absolutely
8:25
Speaker 1: except for you're trying to convince me. We have lunch
8:27
Speaker 1: at Michael that day was health food. Absolutely, absolutely absolutely,
8:32
Speaker 1: because in the restaurant still talk about that. The man
8:35
Speaker 1: came over said, well, here's the desserts we like to
8:37
Speaker 1: have today. Rushawn says, remember all of them. Thank you.
8:43
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not the grandma, all these tables, desserts.
8:47
Speaker 1: I'm like, how does he stay so and tight eating
8:52
Speaker 1: like that? You know, I wanted people to understand that.
8:56
Speaker 1: You know, when you see me, you supicially when you
8:59
Speaker 1: see Steve, he's a national star. Now you know that.
9:02
Speaker 1: That meeting, like you said, the African American man sitting
9:04
Speaker 1: in the room, negotiating, you know, and figuring it out,
9:08
Speaker 1: and and and then putting us on the station, a
9:11
Speaker 1: flagship station, WBLS one of seven point five. That's still
9:15
Speaker 1: little numbers because that station right there, Man, we were
9:18
Speaker 1: there for two years because that was part of the deal.
9:20
Speaker 1: We had to stay up there for two years and
9:22
Speaker 1: established ourselves in the New York market before we moved
9:25
Speaker 1: down to Atlanta, Georgia. And in doing so, it really
9:29
Speaker 1: it really played out to our advantage because of the
9:32
Speaker 1: fact that Wendy Williams was in the afternoon. So here's
9:35
Speaker 1: the station that has Steve Harve in the morning, Wendy
9:38
Speaker 1: Williams in the afternoon. Can you imagine what was walking
9:42
Speaker 1: through those doors. It was just it was just an
9:43
Speaker 1: amazing amount of star power, amazing amount of energy, and
9:48
Speaker 1: amazing amount of competition because an access and and the
9:52
Speaker 1: money was the money was beyond ridiculous. It was beyond
9:55
Speaker 1: all of our wildest dreams. But you know, I don't
9:58
Speaker 1: want people to think that was easy, because it was
10:00
Speaker 1: hard to get to that point. Absolutely, it was hard
10:03
Speaker 1: for the two of you to get to the pinnacle
10:05
Speaker 1: of career already before we got to sit down and talk.
10:08
Speaker 1: We feel the same Charlie, Peppi and I at that
10:12
Speaker 1: one time in history, we had between the three of
10:15
Speaker 1: us more management experience than any other radio group in
10:19
Speaker 1: the entire country at the time. I think we're like
10:21
Speaker 1: the number one or twenty second largest one. Now the
10:25
Speaker 1: other part I think, you know important for folks, you know,
10:30
Speaker 1: not to forget was it everybody showed up earlier or
10:34
Speaker 1: on time and did what they could do well. You know,
10:37
Speaker 1: nobody ever looked over there showed everybody was straight ahead.
10:41
Speaker 1: You know, you guys with you are with the best
10:43
Speaker 1: group of people I've ever worked with in my career,
10:46
Speaker 1: and I'm talking forty eight years. We know something when
10:50
Speaker 1: I look at uh one thing about it, you know,
10:52
Speaker 1: because back then he loved the fish. You know. He's
10:54
Speaker 1: always tells Steve to me what we're looking and fishing.
11:00
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm gonna go fishing, I said, but
11:04
Speaker 1: but he was. So I'm just talking toone because I'm
11:06
Speaker 1: about to transition to the book. I'm just talking about
11:07
Speaker 1: a guy who all which for two thousand and five.
11:10
Speaker 1: Way back then, he was always talking, I'm going down
11:12
Speaker 1: in the Bahamas, going down that fishing. You guys are
11:14
Speaker 1: gonna come with me, gonna fishing. He show us the
11:15
Speaker 1: pictures of the boat and then he shows the history
11:18
Speaker 1: of all the other previous fishing trips, just to assure
11:21
Speaker 1: us that this is what he did. That don't when
11:23
Speaker 1: you go out there, you go catch some fish and
11:25
Speaker 1: you're not gonna go out there with a novice. This
11:27
Speaker 1: was skipped. He laid it out so so so. Fishing
11:30
Speaker 1: and water it's always been part of his life. He
11:32
Speaker 1: looks like a fisherman. If you see him, you go, yeah, yeah,
11:35
Speaker 1: I can believe him. He could be he could have
11:37
Speaker 1: been that captain and Jawls and he could have been
11:39
Speaker 1: that guy. He could have been he could have been
11:41
Speaker 1: that guy in Jawls and so so when I when
11:44
Speaker 1: I see this book, you know, you know it's about willing.
11:47
Speaker 1: And we all know the important role at willing played
11:50
Speaker 1: in in our industry. And you and you and you,
11:53
Speaker 1: and you've ridden a comprehensive account over fifty sailors of
11:56
Speaker 1: color who rose to captain Captain America's well ships. And
12:00
Speaker 1: I talked to us about because I would tell you something.
12:03
Speaker 1: Everybody I've read this book. The detail and the amount
12:06
Speaker 1: of research that you've done on this book, Skip is
12:11
Speaker 1: phenomenal as well as fascinating. Well well, well, thank you
12:15
Speaker 1: all outsight. Louin wrapped that. But you know, being being blessed,
12:20
Speaker 1: you know, genetically, and being able to have a summer
12:22
Speaker 1: home and growing up on Marthins Vineyard during the Summer's right.
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Speaker 1: Then it happens to be one of the three whaling
12:27
Speaker 1: centers of the whole wide world. Along the way when
12:31
Speaker 1: I decided I wanted to be a writer. After broadcasting UM,
12:34
Speaker 1: I was asked to write an article for Martha's Vineyard
12:37
Speaker 1: magazine about William A. Martin, who was what they thought
12:41
Speaker 1: was the black captain here in Martha's Vineyard. Well, I
12:44
Speaker 1: started doing research. One thing led to another. One day
12:48
Speaker 1: I said, how the hell did this guy get to
12:49
Speaker 1: be a captain? This isn't like well because I do
12:56
Speaker 1: I am a D H D S instead have a
12:58
Speaker 1: little bit of O C day one thing to do
12:59
Speaker 1: an other. Before I knew it, I bought and read
13:03
Speaker 1: over a hundred books on whale, and we're pretty much
13:05
Speaker 1: all the books are on whaling. Started taking notes and
13:08
Speaker 1: the book came out of it UM and I was
13:11
Speaker 1: astounded to find these guys. And it's that the actual
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Speaker 1: number is fifty two that I can confirm. There's another dozen.
13:18
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if they were black or I'm not
13:19
Speaker 1: sure if they were captain. Wasn't able to prove it
13:21
Speaker 1: because it's so long ago. But half these men we're
13:25
Speaker 1: whaling captains before the Civil War, you know. So this
13:30
Speaker 1: is a one of those hidden figures stories. And as
13:33
Speaker 1: I used that expression hidden figures, I probably should give
13:35
Speaker 1: a shout out to Mrs Johnson. Catherine Johnson, I understand,
13:38
Speaker 1: died today the hundred years a hundred one years old.
13:42
Speaker 1: She was a lady in in the movie Hidden Figures
13:44
Speaker 1: about NASA and the Christine is the only one who's
13:49
Speaker 1: still alive, right, huh played a role correct in the movie, right,
13:56
Speaker 1: I think so. But but but I remember seeing that
14:01
Speaker 1: movie kind of driving away from it, and I was like, damn,
14:05
Speaker 1: that happened while we were live. We were how do
14:09
Speaker 1: we not know that story? All right? And this is
14:12
Speaker 1: the same story you know you're talking about. You know,
14:14
Speaker 1: these guys altogether brought back over seventy million dollars worth
14:18
Speaker 1: of whale products, you know, and will it wasn't about food.
14:21
Speaker 1: It was about oil. This area than snack of the
14:24
Speaker 1: Wood's rhyme was pretty much the Middle East, Nantucket, New
14:27
Speaker 1: befter months vineon. That was the oil. This is the
14:30
Speaker 1: oil that lit our homes, that heated our homes, eventually
14:34
Speaker 1: lit our streets, and lubricated the American railroads and began
14:38
Speaker 1: the Industrial Revolution. And I've never heard a mention it,
14:42
Speaker 1: you know if these guys before So I was astounded.
14:45
Speaker 1: And that's the sense of what the book is about,
14:47
Speaker 1: you know. And it was it was such a difficult activity.
14:53
Speaker 1: About a hundred seventy five thousand people did it over
14:56
Speaker 1: the course of its life span two hundred forty some
14:59
Speaker 1: years ninety those people only went once because it was
15:02
Speaker 1: so difficult. Black guys didn't have any place else to go.
15:09
Speaker 1: Could I want to come back in the next break
15:10
Speaker 1: and get more detailed, because I want to know I
15:13
Speaker 1: would just tell everybody about this movie that this will
15:16
Speaker 1: tell everybody about this book, the detail, the research. Um, wow,
15:22
Speaker 1: that's all I have to say. Skip, family, be right
15:24
Speaker 1: back on money Making Conversations. We'll be right back with
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Speaker 1: dot com. Hi, this is Rushan McDonald. You're listening to
18:01
Speaker 1: Money Making Conversations. I'm interviewing Skip fentilely his new book,
18:05
Speaker 1: Willing Captains of Color, America's first merit occracy. Um, Skip
18:11
Speaker 1: tell us about we're talking about the research. What exactly
18:14
Speaker 1: as a Willie master, Let's talk about that? What exactly
18:16
Speaker 1: I want to I want to start breaking down the
18:17
Speaker 1: first the word master and captain are used interchangeably. Okay, master,
18:22
Speaker 1: really though it's a better word because that man in
18:26
Speaker 1: chargeable whale ship was omnipotive. Okay. You know when you're
18:31
Speaker 1: on a trip that average three to four years, and
18:34
Speaker 1: they were you couldn't have problems aboard ship, right said
18:44
Speaker 1: where we're gonna go, when we're gonna go? Talk to you?
18:46
Speaker 1: You're telling me that. Okay. Now, when a willing ship
18:49
Speaker 1: went out, it didn't just go out and come right back. No, no, no, no,
18:54
Speaker 1: They went out and sailed the world. There's a there's
18:57
Speaker 1: a beautiful, beautiful decoraate map in the new Bedford Whaling Museum,
19:03
Speaker 1: and it has an uncountable number of dots on it
19:06
Speaker 1: all over the world, red DUTs and blue dots, you know,
19:09
Speaker 1: standing for the type of whale, a regular whale, right,
19:12
Speaker 1: whales they call it, or sperm whale. You can't count them. Okay,
19:17
Speaker 1: you know these were the men's These whaling captains in
19:20
Speaker 1: chasing whales, literally mapped our oceans, has identified all of
19:24
Speaker 1: the islands and all of the oceans around the world.
19:27
Speaker 1: That's how long these trips took. The longest trip was
19:30
Speaker 1: a little over eleven years. Okay. You know as the
19:34
Speaker 1: captains changed several times, the crew same show times. But
19:37
Speaker 1: the boat from place it left it came back to
19:39
Speaker 1: eleven years. Okay, okay, you know all this, guy Roshan
19:45
Speaker 1: read the book. Now I'm hearing you talk very comfortably
19:48
Speaker 1: about this, but listeners are hearing this for the first time.
19:51
Speaker 1: So a boat left the dock, let's say New Effort
19:54
Speaker 1: of New Bedford. Okay, masters did not come back for
19:58
Speaker 1: almost eleven years. Yes, okay, well, okay, how did they
20:04
Speaker 1: get paid? When did they drop off the ar all?
20:06
Speaker 1: What was going on? All right? The boat would leave
20:12
Speaker 1: most of the time. They'd leave New Bedford up here
20:13
Speaker 1: in New England. They head over towards Cape Verdie, which
20:16
Speaker 1: is off the coast of Africa. Along the way they
20:19
Speaker 1: would hunt for whales. Once they found a whale, they
20:23
Speaker 1: would release. They would drop three or four smaller boats
20:27
Speaker 1: the men would roll out. Six men would row over
20:29
Speaker 1: to that whale. Okay, they got close enough. Holo, holo, holo.
20:33
Speaker 1: You got off a big boat, got in a little
20:36
Speaker 1: bit of boat and rowed to the big whale. That's right.
20:40
Speaker 1: And then the big boat wasn't that big. The big
20:43
Speaker 1: boat was liket long. Most of them that's not very big.
20:48
Speaker 1: That's about six cars lined up. Let Okay, so they
20:54
Speaker 1: get off the little bitty boat, get in these little
20:56
Speaker 1: row boats going up to your little road boats, and
21:00
Speaker 1: they're chase of animals that are a hundred feet you know.
21:05
Speaker 1: Or here here, here's here's a here's a football reference
21:08
Speaker 1: for you. Okay. The smallest whale a dwarf sperm whales
21:12
Speaker 1: about three forty pounds, about the size of a defensive tackle,
21:17
Speaker 1: right right, right, right right, three hundred thousand pound blue
21:20
Speaker 1: whale is about the size of the entire NFL. So
21:26
Speaker 1: these men would row a boat over to one of
21:28
Speaker 1: these huge animals, you know, eighty two a hundred pounds,
21:32
Speaker 1: that's probably about the size they were rolling to it
21:36
Speaker 1: and stab it and keep sticking it and stabbing it
21:40
Speaker 1: until it died. Meanwhile, let's pulling them all over. So
21:44
Speaker 1: they might wind up. By time the whale rolls over
21:46
Speaker 1: and died, there's four miles away from the big boat.
21:49
Speaker 1: Then they have to tow that whale back to the boat,
21:52
Speaker 1: cut up into little tiny pieces, put in the fireplaces,
21:55
Speaker 1: melted down the oil on board. They had the wood
21:58
Speaker 1: in the stage that put the pile holo holo, skip skip.
22:01
Speaker 1: Could everybody in the studio going what what what? Because
22:07
Speaker 1: see see you've done all this research that you've done,
22:10
Speaker 1: all this research. I'm trying to slow you down, older brother. See,
22:13
Speaker 1: we gotta we gotta take all this in that Okay whale.
22:16
Speaker 1: Because I went well watching Okay, and the world came
22:19
Speaker 1: close to my boat, I told everybody, turn around, I'm out.
22:22
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was gonna be like this. Look here, everybody,
22:25
Speaker 1: you know, because I was on there with some other
22:26
Speaker 1: tourist people. They were mad at me. I said, hey, hey, hey,
22:29
Speaker 1: y'all augustand but they didn't tell me that was this
22:32
Speaker 1: big on TV. They looked small, this little boat. I'm
22:35
Speaker 1: an extra. After I had all kind of ideas in
22:37
Speaker 1: my head, I saw how close that whale came to
22:39
Speaker 1: my boat. Now these people out there going out there
22:42
Speaker 1: making a whale that made me nervous. There was a
22:44
Speaker 1: happy whale. That was a happy whale I was running
22:46
Speaker 1: away from. They were making a whale that big angry
22:49
Speaker 1: and you ain't suck him. That's right, And chapters are
22:54
Speaker 1: the world you saw. It was the right whale, so
22:55
Speaker 1: it didn't have teeth like a sperm whale. That was
22:59
Speaker 1: that was a highly valuable one. Their oil was the
23:01
Speaker 1: best because it didn't make smoke when it burned. Oh okay,
23:06
Speaker 1: so they made candles out of it first. That's how
23:08
Speaker 1: it all started. Okay, okay, okay. And by the way,
23:12
Speaker 1: you know, thankfully um we're watching is now a bigger
23:16
Speaker 1: business than wal killing ever was right, right, right, But
23:19
Speaker 1: let's get back to the whale killing, because that's what
23:21
Speaker 1: that book is all about. These these African American men.
23:24
Speaker 1: But let me, I could never correct this men of
23:27
Speaker 1: color because you told in the book, you said, this
23:29
Speaker 1: is not about African American man. Because yeah, that was
23:33
Speaker 1: one thing that struck me immediatelyast It's like, you know,
23:36
Speaker 1: you know, a slave is not an American, or West
23:39
Speaker 1: Indian is not American. Kate Bradian is not American. But
23:41
Speaker 1: they're all black. Okay, you can't call them are black
23:45
Speaker 1: because a lot of them were Native Americans, you know,
23:47
Speaker 1: who were mixed you know what our people, you know,
23:50
Speaker 1: and may as well be called black because what they
23:53
Speaker 1: called you know, um, you know, one drop makes you
23:56
Speaker 1: pure right. But you know, the basic one of the
23:58
Speaker 1: basis of slavery and in their own slaves. You know
24:01
Speaker 1: that that's in the book with as the subject now.
24:04
Speaker 1: But that's part of it. That's part of why you
24:06
Speaker 1: wrote this because of the fact that here are a
24:08
Speaker 1: man of color who were leading non colored man on
24:12
Speaker 1: the boat and they could flog, loosingly flog a white
24:16
Speaker 1: man on the whale ship who they couldn't look in
24:19
Speaker 1: the eye in the streets of South Carolina, Okay, and
24:25
Speaker 1: and and on and on. But the point is, let
24:30
Speaker 1: me you know, it wasn't so difficult killing the whale captain, whale,
24:35
Speaker 1: cutting the whale up. But life on the whale ship
24:38
Speaker 1: was awful. It was horrid. Your space was roughly the
24:41
Speaker 1: size of the back seat of an suv. For three
24:44
Speaker 1: or four years, people ask people ask me, you know, what,
24:49
Speaker 1: how did black man become the captain? You know, for
24:52
Speaker 1: the answers when the crew looked around and you're twelve
24:55
Speaker 1: hundred miles off shore, and the captain just dived, fell sicker,
24:58
Speaker 1: became incapacitated. You don't care who it is. I get home.
25:04
Speaker 1: And we had the experience from all those trips we
25:06
Speaker 1: had taken. We learned how to do it right. But
25:08
Speaker 1: the beauty of also your storytelling is that you know
25:11
Speaker 1: this is about being rewarded. That's why your the title
25:14
Speaker 1: of your book comes from being rewarded for your talent,
25:18
Speaker 1: being rewarded for your skill, and not being held back
25:21
Speaker 1: based on the color of your skin. That's where the
25:23
Speaker 1: title comes from. Correct, These men lived, Martin Luther King
25:27
Speaker 1: set your dream right right right, Because I was reading
25:30
Speaker 1: in your book you says that the well oil was
25:33
Speaker 1: peaked at two dollars and fifty five cents per gallon. Yeah,
25:38
Speaker 1: back then, and there's there's probably thirties, and there's about
25:42
Speaker 1: thirty five gallons per barrel, and a good and a
25:45
Speaker 1: good trip you're coming back with barrels, so it adds
25:49
Speaker 1: up fairly quickly. So basically that was just liquid gold
25:53
Speaker 1: back then, just liquid that you're willing willing as a
25:58
Speaker 1: as a business enterprise was almost identically the model of
26:02
Speaker 1: venture capital today, or what we call hedge funds and
26:05
Speaker 1: private equity funds. That was what. That was how whaling
26:08
Speaker 1: went when the captain and the crew was incentivized, you know,
26:12
Speaker 1: based upon their performance, when you had a group of
26:15
Speaker 1: people all invested into the venture. So a fifteen thousand
26:19
Speaker 1: nine whaling trips, each one was a separate business enterprise,
26:25
Speaker 1: and nobody cared who the captain was if he didn't
26:29
Speaker 1: bring the whale ship home with a full hall, as
26:33
Speaker 1: they used to say. And that's really really important now
26:36
Speaker 1: in this book. It was one captain in particular that
26:38
Speaker 1: you are inspired you to write this book. You mentioned
26:41
Speaker 1: his name, William Martin. When you started writing about him,
26:46
Speaker 1: didn't you discovered everything else? Correct? Yes? Yeah, the the
26:53
Speaker 1: Manti magazine had done a special issue one time about
26:57
Speaker 1: the wilship Charles W. Morgan's the Last Fiving Whales ship
27:00
Speaker 1: was completely restored. They took it from Mystic, Connecticut and
27:05
Speaker 1: brought it to New Bebry, brought up to Martin's vineyard, Boston,
27:07
Speaker 1: a couple of other places, and when it came here
27:10
Speaker 1: to Marzavin and we wanted to the magazine you know,
27:13
Speaker 1: you know, really devote some attention to it. Since you know,
27:16
Speaker 1: seven or so of its captors were from Martha's Vineyard.
27:20
Speaker 1: One of them did not happen to be Captain Martin.
27:22
Speaker 1: But that's why they asked me to write this piece
27:24
Speaker 1: about him, you know, because you know it's important to
27:26
Speaker 1: black well, you know, when they're doing I found, as
27:28
Speaker 1: it turns out, there were five black captains our Martha's Vineyard,
27:33
Speaker 1: gay three that sailed from here, you know, which was
27:37
Speaker 1: which was astounding because no one knew this. I will
27:40
Speaker 1: venture to say that thirty five to forty of these
27:45
Speaker 1: fifty two people, most people in the whaling industry and
27:49
Speaker 1: researchers have not heard their names or would not have
27:53
Speaker 1: associated them with being black, which is which is a founding.
27:57
Speaker 1: And that's that's you know that that's kind of excited.
28:00
Speaker 1: But you know if I got a little bit of
28:01
Speaker 1: that kind of nerd historian in me too. Well, the
28:03
Speaker 1: thing about you mentioned that about Martin in the book
28:06
Speaker 1: he was talking about you know, very rarely do they
28:08
Speaker 1: mention his color in the book at all. That's true
28:12
Speaker 1: of most captains. In the logs, the captain writes the lock,
28:16
Speaker 1: so he didn't have to put that information in there.
28:19
Speaker 1: It's when the when the crew gets on board the ship.
28:22
Speaker 1: You know, they had a man, the customs officer, and
28:25
Speaker 1: he would jot down the name, the height, the you know,
28:28
Speaker 1: how the people looked, the race, and things like that,
28:30
Speaker 1: you know, on a piece of paper and it would
28:33
Speaker 1: be attendant with the log with the owners. They know
28:35
Speaker 1: who was on the boat, and they could compare it
28:36
Speaker 1: with you know, when they came back. But if it
28:39
Speaker 1: wasn't for what that was called the um um siemens
28:43
Speaker 1: protection papers, I would not have been able to find
28:46
Speaker 1: any of this. Now today you can't even keep that
28:49
Speaker 1: information about the people, which is you know, and and
28:53
Speaker 1: they started to seem as protection papers dating back to
28:56
Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War when the British, you know what, impress
29:00
Speaker 1: our people and we didn't really have a sailing fleet
29:03
Speaker 1: until the War of eighteen twelve, when they continue to
29:06
Speaker 1: impress our people and the ship there seems protection papers
29:10
Speaker 1: function like a passport. This is who you are and
29:13
Speaker 1: where you're from. And the story is is a astounding
29:18
Speaker 1: And what I tried to do was it was to
29:19
Speaker 1: write it, you know, you know, in a way that
29:23
Speaker 1: it would be easy to read, easy to comprehend without
29:26
Speaker 1: you know, all the facts and you and hard and
29:30
Speaker 1: so bad. I highlighted how hard it was, which is
29:35
Speaker 1: the reason we went and other people didn't. But the
29:38
Speaker 1: you know, the young sixteen year old, you know, blue eye,
29:41
Speaker 1: blonde haired kids from the town of Agatown, you know,
29:44
Speaker 1: thinking I'm going to go out and make my fortune
29:46
Speaker 1: on this whale boat. You know, by time he had
29:49
Speaker 1: gone two booties off shore, about sixteen miles. He spent
29:52
Speaker 1: the last week throwing up, I want to go home.
29:57
Speaker 1: You know I we was talking about earlier. I want
30:00
Speaker 1: want you because I was so astounded by you talking
30:02
Speaker 1: about how wills are captives. Walk us through that step again,
30:05
Speaker 1: because I want to make sure my audience. Here is
30:07
Speaker 1: the whole process, without me interrupting. They spot a whale
30:11
Speaker 1: right well, here, here's the here's the entire sequence. You
30:16
Speaker 1: you hear, you know, it's it's dead quiet boats sailing,
30:20
Speaker 1: you know, in the bridge, somebody's and the man says,
30:23
Speaker 1: vow blows, and everybody jumps up and the adrenaline starts pumping.
30:28
Speaker 1: They go to those three whale boats. They lower those
30:32
Speaker 1: boats into the water, six guys in each boat. They
30:35
Speaker 1: roll as fast as they can towards where the guy's
30:37
Speaker 1: pointing to see that well, they wait until they see
30:41
Speaker 1: the spout. They get closer and closer and closer. Everybody's quiet.
30:45
Speaker 1: One guy, the harpooner, you know, gets up in front
30:48
Speaker 1: of the boat and he throws out harpoon into the whale.
30:53
Speaker 1: The record, by the way, which I have in the book,
30:55
Speaker 1: is about forty other words, every other whale what you
30:59
Speaker 1: were closer to it in a thirty ft boat. So
31:03
Speaker 1: when your friend says I got a boat, his boat,
31:05
Speaker 1: probably thirty ft are bigger. That's what these six guys
31:09
Speaker 1: are using to row after these after these whales. They
31:13
Speaker 1: stab a stavasa with sperm whale, you know, all of
31:16
Speaker 1: a sudden, when it spouts red, they know the fish
31:19
Speaker 1: is gonna die. Then it rolls over, which is called
31:22
Speaker 1: the flurry. They tie ropes to it, and they row
31:26
Speaker 1: that boat and tow that big heavy thing back. So
31:29
Speaker 1: if there were times if you're four miles away from
31:32
Speaker 1: the main boat, okay, you may be wrong the most
31:35
Speaker 1: of the night, not missing a beat. You get back
31:38
Speaker 1: up to the boat. They tie this thing alongside. Then
31:41
Speaker 1: they begin the process of butchering it. But you also
31:44
Speaker 1: have to worry about sharks too. Correct. The sharks are
31:47
Speaker 1: are eating it while they're towing it, they're eating it
31:50
Speaker 1: while it's being butchered. The smells are awful. People said
31:57
Speaker 1: to me, you know, well, you know what, what's the
32:00
Speaker 1: worst part about besides things like what are some of
32:02
Speaker 1: the worst things about? I said, well, there was two
32:04
Speaker 1: stories that I that I read about whaling um. One
32:08
Speaker 1: was he as a man's in his bunk in the
32:11
Speaker 1: fossil and he's not that concerned about being completely completely
32:16
Speaker 1: covered with roaches because they're eating the bed bugs. Another
32:23
Speaker 1: was they washed their clothes in urine. They have a
32:26
Speaker 1: communal power, you know, you know, fresh water goes bad
32:30
Speaker 1: on the boat, so they drank other things. But how
32:34
Speaker 1: bad did your clothes smell? That urine was a substitute
32:40
Speaker 1: to clean your clothes for three to four years. This
32:45
Speaker 1: is your experience. But if that's your experience, you know,
32:51
Speaker 1: versus being on a on a plantation someplace, I don't know, Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir,
32:58
Speaker 1: I don't know those skip this. Uh. I would thank
33:01
Speaker 1: you for calling my show man. You are as just
33:04
Speaker 1: as engaging and entertaining as as I've known you all
33:08
Speaker 1: those years. Again. The book is out. You can buy
33:11
Speaker 1: via pred online, Amazon dot com. A pre sell it
33:14
Speaker 1: right now. It comes out officially with June eighteenth, at
33:17
Speaker 1: least the official and please by now because it counts
33:20
Speaker 1: towards your first week sales and I'm trying to get
33:22
Speaker 1: towards it at least one of those best seller lists. Cool, well,
33:25
Speaker 1: this is what I want to do. I won't give
33:27
Speaker 1: me a banner. I'm gonna put it on all my
33:28
Speaker 1: social media because I'm telling you I'm a fan of you.
33:31
Speaker 1: You know that I'm a fan of this book, a
33:34
Speaker 1: great book, skip a book that he's gonna be a documentary,
33:37
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a movie, it's gonna be many things.
33:40
Speaker 1: And I want to get in line before a lot
33:41
Speaker 1: of people get in lines already. I'm already working on
33:44
Speaker 1: the on the fictional treatment of a slave who becomes
33:46
Speaker 1: a wailing captain. In fact, I'll tell you his name
33:48
Speaker 1: is Jubul Jew, my friend. We will talk soon. Thank you,
33:52
Speaker 1: But get those banners to me, okay, so I can
33:54
Speaker 1: get you that best selling I posted this weekend. I
33:56
Speaker 1: appreciate your brother, Thank you man back bye bye. In
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