My Bad Morning with Good Morning America
In the early spring of 2017, I received a call from an ABC producer requesting that I follow up an on-air phone interview with a trip to the Good Morning America studio for a live interview. This wasn’t exactly on my list of things to do: I had to go to work the next day at the Berkey Creamery and I hadn’t walked on the bourgeois streets of Manhattan in over four years.
Although I often come off as talkative and outgoing, I am actually quite the introvert, nestling myself inside my cocoon for a good two to three hours before I ever gain the confidence to go outside and speak to a single person. And a few doses of caffeine never hurt.
I find comfort and tranquility on the farmlands of Central Pennsylvania and North Carolina and Missouri and Allentown, New Jersey–not the busy streets of Manhattan.
As a child, I spent my summers on church camps in Tennessee, homesteads in Virginia, hotels in Arkansas, and wrong directions in Texas. Oh, honey, who did you think Kordel Davis was?
Manhattan is what I was always warned about. I had a bit of a strict upbringing, but never too much, and a mother who was caring in her own way. Curfew was to be 5 PM on school nights and 9 PM on weekends. Those girls with their fresh eyes, and in the twenty-first century, those boys with their fresh eyes, too.
So, church on Sundays. Work at 16. And out of the house at 18–which I was not at all ready for.
And so I thought I would be ready to do a live interview with Good Morning America. Screw the New Testament. Screw work at the legendary Berkey Creamery. And screw my mother who had kicked me out of the house just about as many times as there are letters in the word love.
A phone interview that would appear on national television which could be filmed in Curtin Hall? Sure. But still, Manhattan? No. And I made ABC very well aware of my final answer. That was until the producer whispered into my ear, “You’ll get to meet Michael Strahan.” My Kryptonite. Now we’re dealing to meet one of the most successful Black men in all of America. How could I say no?
A text from my mother: How are you feeling now that this has been torn apart by the mainstream media? “But they’re giving me a chance to raise awareness…” I thought.
Another text from my mother: I’ll go to the media myself if this madness does not come to an end. “But they like me…” I thought.
Early spring is a revealing time of the year. The alliums are in full bloom. The pine trees have sprinkled the earthly floor with a brown hue that gives newly engaged couples the desire to get married on the spot. And mainstream media vampires are out lurking for fresh blood.
I text my mother back: Just stop.
So she stopped. But the mainstream media vampires did not.
Dinner with the ABC producer who liked me. Randy, Paula, and Simon would all be coming back to American Idol, he told me. I was taking an important first step for colleges and universities all across the country, he told me. I would be interviewed by George Stephanopoulos, he told me…
Randy, Paula, and Simon would of course never come back to American Idol. And I would never be interviewed by George Stephanopoulos.
The next day, Good Morning America called and asked for my text messages detailing the death threats I received at Penn State. I never sent them–and they got angry. And so, they enlisted Dr. Drew to turn against me on national television.
But Dr. Drew never turned against me. Instead, he defended me on national television. He knew that my Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs had been had crumbled and self–actualization was far out of reach.
He knew that Eric Barron’s House of Cards had fallen apart straight on my face leaving a permanent scar on my forehead. He knew that soul eating demons had been looking directly into my eyes. And he knew that the Sandusky culture had never left Penn State, only gone underground as to hinder the growth of the school’s tarnished reputation.
After the interview, I immediately called an old friend from high school who was a Journalism and Media Studies major at Rutgers University. I asked them to watch the interview. They noted their amazement at how calm and cool I had remained throughout the interview.
But calm and cool was my only option. I had stayed up until 2 AM scrolling the Wikipedia pages of the Good Morning America anchors. Although I was scheduled to have an interview with George Stephanopoulos, I was told that it could be switched up if a “crisis situation” occurred.
Crisis situation as in “Oh my goodness. He arrived at dinner with two white parents. Maybe he truly is like those spoiled fraternity brothers after all.” I can give thanks to Etiquette Class at Rutgers Gardens for informing me of what that dinner was truly all about.
Robin Roberts’ Wikipedia page was the one I had lingered on the longest. Why? Breast. Cancer. Survivor.
On January 6, 2009, my Grammie lost her fight with breast cancer. She was strong and resilient for as long as she possibly could be.
The last living memory I have of Grammie is Christmas Day 2008. I was vividly upset, sitting on a chair directly across from her death bed. I was saddened that my two little sisters had received Christmas presents from our aunt, but I did not.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked my mother. “I’m not sure,” she replied.
Little did I know that Grammie’s last living memory of me would be a sad little boy pouting because he believed he deserved new toys. Her connection now seemed stronger to me than ever before, her spirit listening in ever so delicately on mine.
Although I did not realize that Grammie’s death was only twelve days away, I should have. My Grandfather came to our house several weeks before Christmas, asking my brothers and me if we would be pallbearers for Grammie. I had no idea what a pallbearer was. I thought he had asked us to be polar bears and my eleven-year-old brain was confused.
My Grandfather is a visionary. He owns a revered custom stair company in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. As a child, he would take me on trips to job sites and he would explain to me where the kitchen, bathrooms, windows, front door, back door, light switches, and stairs would all be placed in the home. He was able to determine all of this simply by taking a look at the bare naked 2 x 4 construction sites.
I learned much during these construction site visits, and I hoped to inherit my Grandfather’s God-given gift to seemingly predict death minutes and hours and days before it arrives.
January 6, 2009. The day Grammie would lose her battle with breast cancer at the tender age of sixty. I started the day eating Captain Crunch in the kitchen, then moved into the living room and sat on the couch playing Transformers on my Nintendo DS.
I was so into the video game that I so easily avoided my mother when she asked my sisters and me to get ready for school. She began crying. Why did it seem to me she was always crying…? “I can’t,” she says to my stepfather. Not today. Not while I’m this close to defeating Megatron…
I got home from school and my mother told my siblings and me to sit down on the couch for some important news. More tears. A mother who had been crying all day long. I just lost my favorite purple headphones on my walk home from the bus. I should be the one crying here. What madness could be swirling through my mother’s brain…
“Grammie passed away.” And just like that my mother started to ball her eyes out. And I started to ball my eyes out. And we all started to ball our eyes out.
Our Grammie had died and all I wanted to do that morning was play Transformers and ignore my mother. Pouting because my mother asked me to clean up after myself. Pouting because I lost my purple headphones. Pouting Pouting Pouting. And Grammie was dead.
The Grammie who had purchased my school supplies for the two years that she had known me was dead. The Grammie who tried to instill inside of me a level of manliness more than anyone else was dead. The Grammie who had warned me about a future political battle over healthcare was dead. And I, unlike everyone else around me, never saw it coming.
Although I should have. I sat directly across from her death bed twelve days before she died. She wasn’t moving and she was barely speaking. This was not the Grammie I once knew with her eyes half open and her mouth fully closed. There would be no thrashing around and making awkward movements on that death bed. There would be no ability whatsoever.
How did I not know that this was her death bed? There was even my Grandfather coming to our house asking us to be pallbearers for Grammie. Why didn’t I ask what a pallbearer is? Such a simple question, yet such a difficult truth.
Vision. It’s what my Grandfather has. It’s what wisdom gives us. The two go hand in hand allowing us to look into the future and choose the best option. For some of us, it gives the ability to see death coming from a mile away and say, “not today.”
I didn’t have that ability on Christmas Day 2008. I was too caught up in hope feeling all too much like Neo in The Matrix Revolutions when he is told, “how close the pattern of love is to the pattern of insanity.”
I wasn’t close to becoming the visionary my Grandfather is–not close at all. He spends his hours and his days around such earthly creatures that live their lives so close to the sky, designing custom stairs for clients in Wildwood and Colt’s Neck and Westchester.
I hoped and I prayed that I would someday gain his vision. Maybe going to construction sites with him would help in some capacity. I knew that there would come a day when I would need this vision of death. I knew if The Kingdom had a reason or rationale whatsoever it would come.
Frequent mass shootings on the news and frequent mass shooter drills at my suburban Reading, Pennsylvania high school. Maybe it would come in Mrs. Belletierre’s World Literature class. There I was; Always alert, always aware, always giving Mrs. Belletierre a pleasant smile so she would never think and never know.
Drunk goggles class with Ms. Lutz. Maybe it would come in the form of a man or a woman who had too much to drink in too little time. I knew it would come. I knew it would–
February 2, 2017. I would be thrown against a wall. Again.
So there I was in early spring of 2017 sitting across the table from Robin Roberts exploiting Beta Theta Pi’s Alpha Upsilon chapter and our Chinua Achebe Greek tragedy. But I didn’t want to talk about Hazing Prevention or Bystander Intervention or Penn State’s latest scandal.
I wanted to know how she had survived breast cancer and my Grammie did not. The end result: a rambling Kordel who felt like the illiterate little boy I was pre-adoption. How close the pattern of love is to the pattern of insanity…
I still to this day cannot decipher how and why George Stephanopoulos was switched out last minute with Robin Roberts: Breast Cancer Survivor.
Had she done the switcheroo herself? Was she attempting to teach me a lesson? “You didn’t think… You didn’t think to…?”
Here I was being played and attacked by the mainstream media vampires. The headline would go on to say Penn State frat brother didn’t know what to do. What was going on throughout The Kingdom? What. Was. Happening.
My mother had tried to warn me about the mainstream media vampires. “I’ll go to the media myself if this madness doesn’t come to an end.”
But I wouldn’t listen. The only people capable of getting the point across to me were–get this–the Rutgers University Food Science Department.
I was sitting in a Food as Medicine lecture when the professor proposed the question, “Would anybody in this class ever want to do an interview with the mainstream media?” Nobody answered. She continued, “I wouldn’t. Not for any number of millions of dollars.”
She would crack jokes at how little the media knew about food. “Superfoods. Last year the superfood was blueberries and today it’s avocadoes and tomorrow it will be sunflower seeds. It’s all a trend. Everything with the media is a trend. I know the truth about food, Ph.D. in Food Science. But I don’t get paid enough to go around telling the public the truth about food. Give me a raise, and I give you The Truth.”
Another professor who teaches Food Processing Technologies wasn’t afraid to sum up the garbage created by the mainstream media.
One day he asked if anyone in the class knew the number one ingredient in cola soda.
A student raised his hand. “Sugar–high fructose corn syrup.”
The professor walked away from the podium and close to the student. “That sounds like the mainstream media answer,” he said.
I was now fully engaged and beyond interested.
“So then what’s the answer?” the student asked.
“Lemon juice.”
And just like that I finally realized just how much the mainstream media had cracked into society and washed out The Truth. Nabbing the knowledge of the farmers and food scientists and agriculture specialists and spreading misinformation all throughout the world. The bloodthirsty vampires who had promised me breakfast and coffee prior to my 7 AM interview and had instead given me two grapes, three pieces of cubed cantaloupe, a sliver of watermelon, and dihydrogen monoxide.
If I learned anything from Dr. Deepa Kumar, it’s that 23% of Americans are middle–class whilst 76% of us are working–class.
I sat in the Good Morning America studio. I saw the way they run their operations. Robin Roberts was not the one who had orchestrated this attack. She wasn’t telling people when to bring water on set. She wasn’t telling the cameramen which angle to use. She wasn’t deciding which stories were important and she wasn’t even explaining the importance of the stories.
Don’t get it twisted–despite the million’s galore salary–Robin Roberts is working–class. She sat behind the camera and said exactly what the mainstream media vampires told her to say. Their faces are not shown. Their names are not known. And that’s exactly how they like it. (Were they mad as I got a sneak peek at an executive speaking to Robin in the hallway moments before the show…?)
The cameras stop rolling. Robin Roberts looks me in the eyes, shakes my hand, and says, “Thank you for that. I know that wasn’t easy.” Not easy for me, or not easy for you?
This past fall I was vetted by CIA and FBI agents and Attorneys General at the Rutgers Eagleton Institute of Politics. I learned skills that would ensure that I would never again be played by a journalist or politician or anyone else who looks at me and says, “Just another Black.” (Some people have recently figured this out the hard way. Some like it–it’s sexy and savvy yet so real.)
But it was being played by Good Morning America that led me to realize that I, even with an IQ in the 98th Percentile, needed to attain new skills to ensure that I would never again be played.
In the spring of 2018, I sat down with Andrea Canning in a historic Cranbury, New Jersey inn to film a Hazing Prevention special for Dateline NBC. The walls of the inn were embedded with Revolutionary War imagery.
“These walls. This inn was used during the Revolutionary War.” No words from Andrea. Complete silence. Why? Because: this is The Revolution. And we will win.
