Dar Dixon, Actor: It made me indirectly think about things and next thing I know I've got long hair
and stop shaving and I'm like "What am I doing?"
yeah but I could see you being just you're now an author and and you write
you know science fiction or or just I I think it works for you as well so I
thought you know it does or it doesn't I I think it does I like it you know again
it's I you know what if one thing that's come out of this also is I started to
look at this is gonna sound maybe potentially crazy and that's okay that's
fine you are entitled to your opinions looking at my life as performance art
living my life as a performance art piece not just being weird I'll go I'm
gonna grow my hair now man yeah you know I'm gonna dye my eyebrows
baby like not not that way and not that there's anything wrong with that because
honestly deep inside of me when I was a younger man I really wanted to do that I
admired those folks right Kate Bush is not a performance artist the first time
I heard Kate Bush sing what is happening blew my mind first time I heard Al
Jarreau start scatting I was like you know still one of my favorite albums of
all time is is Al Jarreau live and it was in 77 look to the
rainbow unbelievable but I didn't do it I was too scared for whatever reason
right but yeah I think that concepts really kind of beautiful and I like it
and it's working for me right now so I'm gonna keep doing more of that so
if the long hair and the beard and has precipitated me looking at things from a
bigger perspective or start talking more about a business aspect or transmedia or
living my life as a performance artist so be it so be it you know it's just
interesting that youryour cast as somebody that is really not who you are
in a lot of ways but but it seems that it's very convincing but I can tell that
if just from being around you these these few hours but that's not who you
are but you you just really can't judge a book by it's cover because I would not
have if I saw you on the street I would thought you know maybe you grew up in
Missouri or Texas or you know I would not have you know a Midwestern guy or
what it is from the south yeah and and just to think that there's a whole
another world inside of you and that just is very interesting because we
don't know about people walking around right that's the most interesting thing
that's where that's where all the juices that's where all the most beautiful
stuff happens right I told you earlier so my father-in-law was a really great
man right and did an interview that in in San Antonio and the girl afterwards
they wanted to look can we do a Facebook live
I'm sure great let's do it and she says uh so you know that must be really hard
you know you know those are big shoes to fill
I'm like well first of all I'm not a black man I'm not a Christian I'm not a
minister I'm not a PhD in mathematics all of which my father-in-law was and so
he is he and I I am I on me right second thing is I'm not trying to fill his
shoes mm-hmm right it's always over here but I
use it as motivation to keep going forward right on his on his tombstone he
put down I tried that's what he wanted to have his epitaph I tried
I got excuse me right right he certainly did try and if he tried that hard and
and what he and uncle Martin did in in many ways allowed my folks to even get
together right so in in a very real way I wouldn't even be here were it not for
the Reverend and my mother-in-law Juanita and uncle Martin on credit
wouldn't even be here right so I'm not trying to fill their shoes I'm just I'm
trying man I'm doing the best I can keep moving forward to do what I can do right
in whatever whatever way that's paws so I mean I started to say this earlier
to kind of all over the place but I decided that I was going to try to be
you know contribute and help and be of service so I met some people and there's
this thing called Southern California ceasefire and it's for victims of gang
violence and we meet in South South Central once a week and it's a place
where everyone can get together and share their stories and their pain or
what's going on or what kind of activities going to be happening or if
there's going to be a rally if there's gonna be a bake sale or a car wash or
whatever and of course you know someone lost their son or their father or their
daughter or their mother and these are people with real problems these are
people that are really suffering they're not freaked out because oh my god didn't
my audition go badly right that puts things in perspective rapidly right you
know I said earlier that um so I so I go down there and I haven't been down there
in a while but I do go and I do put myself in the middle of that and it's an
interesting mix because you've got the victims families and that's raw and
that's palpable and it's I mean I don't know what else to say about that
you've got LAPD they're plainclothes and you've got a lot of undercover
you've got current gang members and you've got old heads as they call them
who are out of the game and are trying to do best in fact they're the ones who
started the whole thing and it's it's it's really interesting and it really
helps to keep perspective on things and you know if this white boy can go down
there and talk and and just eat just I didn't say anything for six or seven
months I just what am I going to say what am I going to say Who am I to say
anything I'm just gonna listen to you it's all I can do I can listen
and that's as an actor by the way listening is everything right the you I
mean some of it something I hear frequently and I've heard Ben Kingsley
say and I've I've heard Michael Caine say and I've heard Helen Mirren saying
I've heard Meryl Streep say it you know stillness silence and listening if you
focus on only those three things in your performance everything will just start
to blossom in ways that you could never have hoped for beautifully you know it
brings everything to life so I was like well you know I'll sit down and I'm
gonna listen cuz that's all I can do and by the way what am I gonna say that
would make me sound like the way I look like I was short hair clean-shaven those
days right I look like the man you know so I just said listen didn't say a word
yeah funny so our credit died I can't remember the year right now it's been
it's been a minute and I just had a surgery had I had a hip surgery and I
was like doc I've gotta flies like you can't fly like I have got to go to her
funeral I cannot not be there and so you know we got me on the medication and set
her and made sure I had plenty of painkillers and stuff
and so I'm hobbling along and just incredible pain and I've got this you
know so my suit and tie on and clean shaven short hair and I want you to know
the cops thought I was FBI uncle Martin's attorney from back in the day
during the movement comes up and goes so are you CIA are you FBI I don't think
we've met before I swear to God and I'm hopped up on vicodin the pains
out of this world I'm exhausted you know and and by the way that funeral
service lasted like I'll I had tapped out at the six-hour mark you know Stevie
Wonder was sing and I had to get up and go back and I sat back up in this upper
room where all the cops were and I was literally in a suit and tie on the floor
with my leg in the air and the cops are walking by me I just remember looking up
and there's guns and holsters badges and bellies and hats no one would
have believed it it was crazy but yeah yeah they thought I was a cop so I'm
walking into a situation like south of Southern California ceasefire with gang
members ex-gang members old heads LAPD the victims their families who the hell
was that guy what's that white boy doing here right and then as the word started
to get out all that to happen and II saw my husband you know then okay oh yeah
and then they start talking me and they're like and they find out oh well
I'm half Iranian you know my name is really dirty ish I knew you weren't
white I was like I think I'm white like nah man you ain't what you ain't white
yeah and then like that broke down all the distrust in the fear and the
barriers really interesting man and I and similarly when when when I was going
through tough times you know the people that helped and listen to me the most
with women why do you think that is I'll throw it back in you why do you
think why would why would you think and I'll answer the question I mean to be
coy why would a woman listen better be able to more equipped to handle it well
typically were sort of more the nurturers and the caregivers but that
doesn't mean men can't be as well and it doesn't mean that women always are but
that's typically been our role and that we're sort of taught to want to make
sure everybody's okay I don't know what I did realize that's an old stereotype
and I so yeah it is I'd agree and and I I'd never looked at
it necessarily that way women the female energy is and here's a man talking about
it so forgive me ladies my perspective you are much more in touch with your
emotions than men are much more from an early age you look at a 10 year old girl
versus a 10 year old boy she's 10 going on 21 right they understand social
dynamics they understand relationships right those are critical things by the
way they're critical in all aspects of life and especially in this business
right in any business right relationships and my and walking
emotional minefields we step in them quite awful well everyone does right
uh-huh well women though you know they think
about you know you talk to wound why'd she do that and they start breaking down
the psychological reasons and the emotional things that may be going on
you talk to guys like oh no you know they don't they don't we like we don't
care until men to get hit seems to be until we hit it like our mid-40s and
then if there's any hope it happens right around there that you're gonna
start to understand so I'd come and start talking about what was bothering
my guy friends like yeah cool what's on TV
right and I was like right and I would just go back into you know open
mouth-breather knuckle-dragging you know let's drink a beer mode right now if I
talk to a girlfriend she'd lean into me you know oh wow I'm like shit she's
listening to me right like wow oh my god that must have
been terrible or oh wow you're so brave to do that or whatever it was right and
just in listening and being empathetic which that feminine energy has in a more
beautiful way than men men do even though I was sat here and talked about
my father-in-law and Martin you know who certainly had it but it was still
masculine you know there's just a beautiful thing there so anyway because
of that I decided I was going to go down to the downtown woman's Center in LA and
similarly that didn't work out so well either because I I kind of got pulled
aside and well I didn't get pulled aside but I noticed that the women were like
there was they just there was this visceral stay away from me thing yeah
and I was a little bit older than it seemed to be like a lot of younger kid
were there and stuff but yeah happens it's understandable sorry I've been
through the wringer yeah they've been through the wringer I was like okay well
that's not the way I'm gonna be able to serve that situation I got to find
another way so
you