0:00

Welcome, um, to the living the dream

0:02

podcast with curveball. Um, if

0:05

you believe you can achieve

0:08

Chee Chee, welcome to the living a dream with Curveball

0:21

podcast, a show where I

0:24

interview guests that teach,

0:27

motivate and inspire. Today we're going to be talking to

0:32

creative and innovative leader Anthony

0:35

Carter. Anthony

0:38

basically focuses on writing,

0:40

podcasting, and documentary filmmaking.

0:43

When he writes, he writes about black

0:46

male mental health and relationships and

0:49

money. So he's really successful.

0:52

We're going to be talking to him about everything that

0:54

he's up to and his films and, and

0:57

books and stuff like that and what he's got coming

1:00

up. So, Anthony, thank you so much for joining me

1:03

today.

1:03

No problem. Thank you for having me. Good evening. How are

1:06

you doing?

1:08

Well, why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about

1:11

yourself?

1:12

Sure. Um, my name is Anthony Carter. I

1:15

am a, um, Detroiter.

1:18

Um, raised in motown. My parents moved to,

1:21

back to Detroit. I was about a year old, so I grew up

1:24

in Detroit. Went, um, to college in the south, went

1:27

to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. I

1:30

majored in English. Um, what have I been doing

1:33

since then? That was many, many years ago.

1:37

I have been since then. I've lived all over the world.

1:39

I've lived in Japan, I've lived

1:42

in new, uh, York City. I've lived

1:45

in Brixton, in Atlanta.

1:48

I've toured. I've been in beauty and the beast. I've done

1:51

a lot of writing. What I'm focusing on these days

1:54

is saving black men. And what I mean by

1:56

that is, um, helping them eliminate hypertension

1:59

without medication and the use and the addition

2:02

of a whole food plant based diet.

2:05

Yes, since you mentioned that, a, uh,

2:08

plant based diet, go ahead and

2:10

explain to your journey why

2:14

you got started on that.

2:15

Sure. Uh, so I'm a vegan. I'm a whole food plant

2:18

based, uh, vegan. I've been that now

2:21

for, I would say I

2:23

started four years ago, right before the

2:26

pandemic. And I was kind of a junk food vegan.

2:29

Initially. I was eating a lot of, um, junk because there's a lot of

2:32

junk you can eat that's vegan. You know, like Fritos and

2:35

Oreos. That's vegan and people don't know it.

2:38

I was eating a lot of stuff that was not necessarily that

2:41

great for me. Then I started working with a wonderful

2:44

coach by the name of Lisa A. Smith, who runs

2:47

the black health Academy. And she.

2:50

I did a twelve week restart with her. Right.

2:53

And it was twelve weeks. It was no all, no salt, no

2:55

sugar, and a lot of whole foods. And

2:58

so, you know, we had to try different foods every week. We were trying

3:01

a different, uh, m. Like, I didn't even know. I

3:04

like turnips, right? So that was one of the things I love now that

3:07

I didn't know then. But I started eating a lot of things,

3:10

eating things differently. I, uh, started, um. And it turned my health

3:13

around because I had had a health scare. I had been

3:16

given the diagnosis. The doctor never said I had

3:19

hypertension. She just said my blood

3:21

pressure was extremely high. She had given me the

3:24

blood pressure test four times in a row, and she was like, I can't

3:27

believe you haven't had a stroke. I can't believe nothing's

3:30

happened to you. So they immediately put me on pills, and I

3:33

immediately tried to. Tried to get off the pills. It took me two years

3:36

to get off of them, and I got off of them by

3:39

using a whole food plant based diet and a really

3:41

great, caring, compassionate community that I surrounded

3:44

myself.

3:45

So you say we can't. We cannot moderate

3:48

ourselves to a healthy life. Why do you feel that

3:51

way?

3:52

Oh, uh, no. You brought up the dreaded n

3:54

word. You can.

3:57

No, no, you cannot. This is why,

4:00

you know, moderation is typically how we get in these

4:02

situations, right? So, for example, let me tell you a little bit

4:05

about what I used before I got sued, before I

4:08

committed to being healthy and turning my life.

4:11

You know, I used to eat the pizza and the

4:14

hot wings and the, um, chili cheese

4:17

fries and all that. Now, when my pressure went to

4:20

have my pressure checked, I went in because I wasn't

4:23

feeling well. And when I went to have my pressure went

4:26

in to have my pressure checked, it was about

4:28

145, 140 something over 90, which

4:31

is hot, right? That's super high.

4:33

Now, that didn't just happen with one meal and one

4:36

french fry. That was years of eating that kind of stuff,

4:39

right? So it was years of me, quote unquote, moderating, like,

4:42

okay, I'll just have a few french fries, or

4:45

I'll order this. These, these, uh,

4:48

I'll go to wingstop, and I'll get the six piece, but maybe I'll only

4:50

eat four. Right? So I moderated myself

4:54

into being unhealthy, and you cannot do

4:56

this. I cannot do the same thing

4:59

I did that got me unhealthy. I can't turn around and do the same

5:02

thing and then expect to turn it around. That doesn't

5:05

work. So, no, we're not about the moderation.

5:07

We're about, you know, abstinence. And giving up the

5:10

junk.

5:11

So, uh, one more question on that junk, then I want to get

5:14

into your amazing. Your amazing career and all that good

5:17

stuff. Um, I know that a lot

5:20

of people talk about the

5:23

junk. Like, you say that that is

5:26

put into the food and stuff. Uh,

5:29

and I know you have a plant based diet. Do you think

5:32

if that junk was removed from the

5:35

foods that, uh, it would be okay, or

5:38

do you just feel like, uh, it's a no

5:41

go?

5:42

When you say removed, how? What do you mean?

5:45

Like, you know, all the. All the toxins and

5:48

stuff. You know, you got toxins in the soil, you

5:50

got the different

5:53

things that are put in foods, you know, like the antibiotics

5:56

and different things that.

5:58

Right.

5:59

You know, you know, all that stuff.

6:02

Is put into the food so that you get addicted and you

6:04

like it. Right. There's a reason people like

6:07

salty, greasy foods. So if you take that

6:10

out, you know, that would definitely change your

6:13

diet, and, um, you

6:16

probably, you know, and it'll change your diet, and it also changed your

6:19

palate. Right. So, for example, um,

6:22

I used to be really big on sweets. I grew up eating. I grew up

6:25

with a grandmother from Texas, and she was

6:28

always pound cakes and cobblers and cookies and that kind of stuff

6:31

going. Um, so I got it on is,

6:34

you know, when, um, I went. When I

6:37

started with this journey with the no salt and all. No sugar,

6:40

and I took the sugar out of my diet

6:42

after. Not. After not having sugar in my

6:45

diet, I would say 14 days. It usually takes 14 to 15

6:48

days. My palate changed, so I

6:51

didn't, you know, you crave what you consume, and I didn't want

6:53

that. So I think if you. When you start talking about

6:56

taking the things out of the food, my thing

6:59

is, rather than try to find stuff that has stuff taken out, why

7:02

not just go for the good food anyway, right?

7:05

Why not go for the fruits and the vegetables? I was

7:08

eating, um, when I lived in California, I had a big mango tree in the

7:11

front of my house, right? I had two pomegranate trees.

7:13

So I would get. I would pluck mangoes right off the

7:16

tree in my front yard, and they were just as sweet and just as

7:19

satisfying as any cookies. So, yeah, you can do

7:22

it. But that. Ah, you tried to get me on that

7:25

one. I got you, Curtis.

7:28

Yeah. I was just kind of curious on it,

7:31

and great perspective. Let's jump

7:34

into your career. You know,

7:38

your documentaries. Tell us about your documentaries, and you've

7:41

also been up for semifinalists, so kind of

7:44

take us through that and how we can check them out.

7:47

Okay, so, um, I'm

7:49

gonna. I'll take you back to the. I guess the quote, the

7:52

beginning, which is about 30 years ago. Um,

7:55

I started off as an actor, right? As a singer,

7:58

then an actor, then a singing actor, and then

8:01

telling jokes and being on stage. And I moved to New

8:04

York, and the goal was just to stay on stage as much as humanly

8:06

possible. And I kept writing and I kept

8:09

performing. And then at some point, um,

8:12

during the pandemic, I remember

8:15

sitting on my couch and thinking, what do I want to do next?

8:18

Like, what? For me, the pandemic.

8:21

Now, I don't know. I can't speak for everybody, but for me, the

8:23

pandemic, COVID, was a huge

8:26

reset for me. Right when

8:29

COVID hit, I looked at my health, I looked at who

8:32

I wanted to be in the world and what I wanted to have.

8:34

And I started asking myself some hard questions like, well, do you want to live

8:37

this way? You know? And I started asking myself questions like,

8:40

well, how do you. What dreams have I put on the back

8:43

burner that, okay, well, this is the apocalypse, uh,

8:46

and the end of the world. I don't want to, you know,

8:50

I don't want them to put me in the pine box

8:52

without having gone after certain things, right?

8:55

So one of the things I wanted to go after was documentary

8:58

filmmaking. I always loved documentaries.

9:01

I'd watched a ton of them. Um. Um, I'd met people who

9:04

made documentary films. I kept saying, one day, I'm gonna do that. One day.

9:07

One day. One day. The pandemic hit in

9:09

March, and I was in California. And then I would

9:12

say in August or beginning of September,

9:15

I was sitting on my couch one Friday, and I said, you know

9:18

what? I want to dedicate my life to making

9:21

documentary. Curtis. I didn't know what that

9:23

meant. I didn't know

9:26

who I was talking to. I was on my couch one day in Long

9:29

Beach, California. One Friday. I put that on the

9:31

universe. And I swear, Monday,

9:34

three days later, I got a text from a friend

9:37

of mine who used to be a, um, um,

9:40

she was a co worker of mine. She'd gone to USC, University of Southern

9:43

California. He sent me this text with a flyer. And the

9:46

flyer said, um, do you want to learn

9:48

filmmaking? Documentary filmmaking. And on the flyer,

9:52

the class was called documentary filmmaking for

9:54

social change. So it was a class

9:57

that was designed for people to make who had been in

10:00

social work, who wanted to move into using

10:03

film as another medium to heal,

10:05

to move the community forward, to get

10:08

people, um, to have great lives.

10:11

Right? This came in on Monday to my phone. I went

10:14

to the, um, information meeting two days later, on

10:16

Wednesday, before we even went to potty break, I gave my

10:19

credit card. I was like, I'm in. I'm doing this. You know what I was

10:22

signing up for. Um, got into it,

10:25

started learning an incredible amount of information

10:28

about documentaries and how you tell stories

10:31

and how do you frame shots and how do you do, you know,

10:34

how do you set moves? And, um,

10:37

out of that, I did. I ended up

10:39

doing three documentaries. I did

10:42

one on, um, black men. And it was. And there was a lot of stuff

10:48

in that one about. From, um, Bell

10:51

hooks and James Baldwin and, um,

10:54

Paul Robeson and,

10:56

um, Jimi Hendrix. Like, they were all in

10:59

this short, like, quirky, um, experimental film. The big

11:04

one that really took off was the one you're talking about, which is

11:07

ask the old guy. And it's all about my

11:10

journey going from having, um, this

11:13

high blood pressure and this awful diagnosis to turning it

11:16

around. Um, and in turning

11:19

it around, me going on to Twitter

11:22

and meeting all these wonderful black vegans, these people who I

11:24

didn't know, I just met people on Twitter and I

11:27

said, hey, I'm, um. You know, I'm doing. I have a

11:30

podcast and I'm doing a movie. Can you do both? And he said, everybody I

11:33

talked to said, absolutely. So then I was able to

11:36

shoot, um, different interviews with them from

11:39

the podcast. We shot this film. We shot

11:42

the film using zoom, um,

11:45

my kitchen and the garden in front of my

11:47

house. And that was back in

11:51

the end of 2020, the first half of

11:54

2021. And it sat on

11:57

YouTube for a while and kind of languished. And then all of

12:00

a sudden, last, um, September, September of 23, it

12:03

just exploded. So it's gone from being like, you know, kind

12:06

of like out there, another film to now I'm up to 13 awards

12:09

for this film. I just got one today from Tokyo. I got an email today

12:12

from Tokyo saying, congratulations. You're an official selection

12:15

in Tokyo film Festival. So he keeps going and

12:17

going, man, that is sweet.

12:20

Congratulations on that.

12:21

Thank you. Thank you.

12:23

Tell us about the counternarrative project. Uh,

12:26

tell us what that's all about and what.

12:29

Why you decided to work on that and what you did with it.

12:32

Counternarrative project is a group of really

12:35

wonderful m black gay

12:38

men. And it's all about, um,

12:40

using all kinds of content, marketing and presentation

12:46

to tell our stories. Right? A lot of times

12:48

people tell, I know as a black gay man, people will

12:51

tell my. There are many people who've told

12:54

my story, tried to tell it, are trying to tell it

12:57

now, and they get it all wrong. It's just they. I don't

13:00

know what. I don't know who, where they're pulling this information

13:03

from, and. But it goes out into the world. And

13:05

as you know, with the Internet and everything else, something goes out into the

13:08

world you don't have any control over. And

13:11

now with the Internet, um, everybody can have a

13:14

platform. So with the counter narrative project, it's all

13:17

about, let's tell our own stories.

13:21

Let's create some narratives that we

13:24

orchestrate, that we tell from beginning to end, that

13:27

we tell from soup to next, that we tell from our story.

13:30

From our standpoint, we don't need anybody to tell our

13:33

story. Um, we can tell our own story. So, with

13:36

them, I've done, um. I did a podcast for

13:39

black. I think it's Black World aids day. I

13:42

think it's in February. I did a podcast for them. Um,

13:45

on that topic, I'm in a class now that's all about

13:48

being a content creator. So learning about editing

13:51

and, um, you know, using TikTok and

13:54

social media to get the message out. So, yeah, they're a great

13:57

group.

14:58

Okay, where you've also self

15:01

published seven books. So tell us what you

15:04

write about and how you got into that.

15:06

Okay. I got into that the time I got into everything, I just made a

15:09

decision. This is what I'm going to do. Right. Um. Um,

15:13

books came about because I have a

15:16

website, and I have a wonderful partner in

15:19

crime who lives in England, who,

15:22

um, manages it for me. He set it

15:25

up for me. When we first met, we

15:28

met in February or March of

15:31

2011. I was just writing and putting stuff out

15:33

there. I wrote something. It

15:36

ended up on Elton John's website in England. He saw it.

15:39

He reached out to me. He said, hey, we should do some stuff together.

15:42

I was like, sure, why not? So I started publishing stuff. I started

15:45

publishing blog posts. Then he said, you need a website. I

15:48

said, sure, why not? So we did that. Then after

15:51

I got the website up and running, he said, you really should be putting this

15:54

stuff into books. Like, you really should be making

15:57

collections, uh, you know, essay collections and putting

16:00

stuff. So I was like, you think so? So he said, yeah. So we published

16:03

the first one, self published. It was 21 essays.

16:06

And it's all about his unfettered mind, the importance of black male

16:09

mental health. And it was all about, um,

16:12

all the things that I've learned and seen and experienced and watched my

16:15

friends experience in terms of the fight,

16:17

the ongoing commitment to be mentally

16:20

healthy, a world that I feel many

16:23

times does not want us to be. Mendeley.

16:25

And what I would do is I. That was the first

16:28

book, and then I put out another book about, you know,

16:31

reinventing yourself for the 21st century in terms of a job

16:34

market. That's called strong stuff. Um,

16:37

we just kept, you know, I kept writing and doing essays, and every so

16:40

often, he would get an email from him. He would say, you know what?

16:43

Time for another book, right? And we put together the COVID

16:46

We did the table of contents, and we publish them. And we published

16:49

them through, I think the first time you published them through

16:52

Lulu. And then the other ones, we just kind of

16:54

published ourselves. You can get them on the website, and we're giving them away for

16:57

free. But now we were charging. But now we're charging for

17:00

them.

17:01

Okay. Speaking of the job market, you do a

17:04

lot with the youth, with the youth readiness

17:06

workshops. So kind of explain to tell the listeners

17:09

about those, and, you know, are they virtual or, uh,

17:12

local?

17:14

Um, they are

17:16

both. It's a hybrid. I love working with young people.

17:19

I've worked with a lot of them. I do a lot of things with young people

17:22

around, um, getting job

17:25

ready. Right. And what does that look like? And what does

17:28

it look like now? A lot of the things that I'm

17:31

teaching young people and coaching them through are things

17:33

that, I don't know your age, but I know I'm

17:36

56. So the things that I. That I learned

17:39

from the time I could, like, walk, you know, in terms

17:42

of presentation, how do you talk to older

17:44

people? How do you address people? You know,

17:47

that a lot of. We've lost a lot of that. A lot of my

17:51

time has been around coaching. Like, okay, this is how

17:53

you approach somebody in an appropriate manner.

17:56

This is how you follow up. This is how you stand

17:59

out. So that if you go in a situation

18:02

and they may have seen 300 people, why are they going to

18:05

call you back? Right. So I do a lot of things, tips

18:08

and tricks around. Okay. This is how you

18:11

make that happen. This is how you follow up.

18:14

This is what you do. If, you know, they ghost you

18:17

and you went and you want to find out what's going

18:20

on, but you don't, but you still want to keep it professional.

18:23

Right? So I do a lot of that with young people. A lot of things

18:25

around financial literacy, a lot of things

18:28

around budgeting, a lot of things around

18:31

short and long term goal planning.

18:34

Okay, well, you're also on a mission to get

18:37

100,000 black men to commit to their health.

18:40

Tell us about that mission.

18:41

Okay. That mission is all a part of. I mentioned the

18:44

film earlier. Ask the old guy. I have. I've

18:47

started a movement, and I'm on Facebook Live.

18:50

I do a Facebook live every Tuesday and a Facebook

18:53

live. The title of is that plant life. T h a t

18:56

p l a n t. Life. Life. And

18:59

it's all about me. Um, supporting black, um,

19:04

men, 40 to 60, who are committed

19:07

to combating hypertension without the use of

19:10

medication and the addition of a whole food plant

19:12

based lifestyle. That was a long

19:15

winded way of saying that my goal is to get

19:18

100,000 of us off the

19:20

medication and get 100,000 of us black men

19:25

healthy and productive.

19:27

And where's your number right now? Where yet? Right now.

19:30

What'd you say?

19:31

Where yet? Right now. What, in terms of numbers?

19:34

Yeah, I don't have my numbers yet. I don't

19:37

know. That's why I

19:40

gotta. I gotta figure that out. I don't have my numbers as of

19:43

yet. That's the. That's the vision. That's. That's where I'm

19:45

headed. And that's where I'm heading. But I don't have

19:48

the. I don't have, um. I got no numbers for you right now. I

19:51

wish I did. I wish I did.

19:55

Absolutely. Well, tell us about any

19:58

upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need

20:01

to be aware of because you got a lot of irons in the fire.

20:05

Um, upcoming projects. I'm going to be doing a

20:08

workshop, and I

20:10

will, um, if your listeners want to contact me,

20:13

they can definitely reach out to me on Twitter. Anthony

20:16

L. Carter. They can reach out to me on Facebook. My name is anthony

20:19

Carter. It's on Facebook. I do a Facebook live every

20:22

Tuesday. What's coming up? I'm going to do a two hour

20:25

workshop. You know, taurus is

20:27

100,000. Uh,

20:29

legion of black men. I'm going to be doing a two hour

20:32

workshop to introduce, um, black men

20:35

to the plant based lifestyle. Introduce

20:38

them to how they can use that to eliminate

20:41

stress, chronic stress. How they can use that

20:44

to get their blood pressure, you know,

20:46

um, eliminate high blood pressure. We're not trying to manage

20:49

it. So the workshop is how we're going to eliminate certain

20:52

things. Not manage. Not manage

20:54

situations we don't want to manage and we don't want to have. So that's what the

20:57

workshop is about.

20:59

Okay. You mentioned your website. That was

21:02

going to be my next question. Uh, throughout your

21:04

contact, on social media, throughout your website.

21:07

Okay.

21:08

The website is Anthony Dash

21:10

carter.com. A n t h o n

21:13

y. Dash Carter carter.com. I've

21:17

got books. I've got podcasts on there. I've got,

21:20

um, essays. There's tons of stuff on there because

21:23

it's about. Yeah, it's 13 years old,

21:26

so there's tons of things on there.

21:29

Shout out to JC and pod breed. I'm

21:32

really glad he hooked us up. Uh, you are doing a

21:34

lot, and it's amazing. So close us

21:37

out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something that I forgot to

21:40

touch on that you would like to talk about, or any final thoughts you have for

21:43

the listeners.

21:45

Um, I think we touched on a lot in a very quick, in a

21:48

very quick amount of time. I just want to remind

21:51

people that, um, they are in

21:54

charge of their own lives. Right. We get

21:57

to decide, like, you're talking about the counter narrative project. So all the

22:00

things that I do, the writing, the

22:03

speaking, the, um, um,

22:06

blogging, the podcast, making

22:09

movies, everything is, for me, is about

22:12

reminding us that we're in charge of our own lives.

22:15

We get to dictate how we live, how

22:18

well we live, who we become, what we do, how we

22:21

show up in the world. Don't let anybody tell you,

22:24

um, you can't do that or why you're doing that. So

22:27

my suggestion would be keep, um,

22:30

fighting, you know, keep standing up for yourself.

22:33

Check out my work. If you're interested in working

22:35

with me, reach out. You can reach out to me on those, the mediums

22:38

that I mentioned. Um, I'm always looking for

22:41

a partner in crime, a place to speak, a place

22:44

to show my film, uh, which is on

22:48

YouTube, by the way. Ask the old guy by Anthony Carter is on

22:50

YouTube. So you can. Your listeners can

22:53

check that out.

22:55

Absolutely. Definitely. Go check that

22:58

out. And, yeah, I try to keep the shows as short, as

23:01

sweet as I can so people don't have an excuse to turn it off,

23:04

but get as much information as they can so they

23:07

can learn, be motivated and inspired.

23:10

Anthony Carter.com, y'all go check him

23:14

out. Check out his live facebook. Check out his

23:17

YouTube. I'm definitely gonna be reaching out to

23:19

him. I got, I got a little short documentary up there

23:22

collaborating with somebody as my cybersecurity job.

23:25

But I want to try to get a documentary about

23:28

my life. But listen,

23:32

absolutely, listeners, if you have

23:35

any guests or suggestion topics, see Jackson

23:37

102 is the place to send them.

23:40

Jump on your favorite podcast app.

23:43

Hit that follow button. Leave us a review. Thank

23:46

you for listening. Thank you for supporting the show. And Anthony,

23:49

thank you for joining us.

23:51

Thank you. I'll talk to you soon.

23:53

For more information on the living the Dream

23:56

podcast, visit www.djcurvefball.com.

24:01

Until next time, stay focused

24:04

on living the dream.

24:06

Drink.