Hello, it's another edition of fifty plus. I'm James Love Jr. It
is August twenty one, twenty twenty three, and yes, I survived Hurricane
Hillary or hurricane quotes Hillary and the earthquake yesterday here in Los Angeles. I
didn't feel anything the earth, the hurricane, which is heavy rain, so
where I lived here in Englewood, not a big deal and it's fine.
So I survived that. Today. It's a very interesting day for me personally
and for my family. But for me personally, August twenty first has two
things, and it involves my brothers. So I have several people all in
my life. You know, there are siblings. We all have siblings.
Almost don't it's only children. And it's weird how life will do something that
converges on another. Something's something I'll explain a second. I haven't had coffee
yet. It's weird when one day could have several meetings. That's I guess
that's there. That's that's the main point of this. And there is several
times in my life when my voice is just kid. My voice was gone
on this weekend too, so my voice kind of back where there were many
I'll be invited to four major events the same Saturday in one month. You're
like, why that Saturday? Like, it's just weird. So I'll start
the good. So seven years ago I lostarch good. Start the good.
Today it's my younger brother Jr's birthday. I'm gonna tell you his age.
She's ocker than I am. I think he don't tell his age, but
he lives. He's what he lives with me, Flavis, the fans and
brothers. You never seen him. I'm in public. I'm in the public
eye. So I've chosen to be here. So when it comes to my
family, I let them choose if and when they wouldn't be included and related
to me in public. My voice is still not back all the way.
I'm like, well, that's crazy. He still feel scratchy, and I
know that it's always over the years. I choose to be here and do
this. They don't choose. I was like, so some of them are
very private's but you'll never see him, and some are like they don't mind.
They're on social media, they don't care. So my brother and I've
always kind of kept separate identities. He's partially online, like partially in public.
I partially not the last couple of years. He's actually it gets up
to him. His reason. He's tagged me in a few things, come
to a few of my events and some my famous friends. They know who
he is, but we've never done a show together or knowing that he's not
up for that. I but it's his birthday. He's actually post some stuff
and I can. I post it and tagged him in a couple of things
you'll see my social media. But it's his birthday. And so he's a
younger brother that I've taken care of when I was younger. He's a younger
brother that I lived with. He's a brother that he and I have both
went through a lot this year together with my mom my now late stepdad,
and my aunts. He was the one, he was the brother who was
side by side with me, and so he went through all the stuff,
you know, we alongside with me and stepped up and was there for my
stepdad, for my mom, my aunt. He was like he was there.
So he and I are probably the most hired from everything that's gone on.
But we did. We did it. We're stronger for it. We've
had we had the serious conversations, we had the we've had a few fights,
you know, and all that kind of stuff. But he is the
one who It's me and him in terms of the men were we're together,
fighting this together, working on this together, side by side. So hey,
birthday to him of course, and to and just things for stepping it
up and being there for our parents and people. It would have fell on
me mostly I had a lot. I'm I'm still the the older one on
the more. I'm the one they just trust the most. I've had more
life experience, so there's a lot of things that I handled it. He
doesn't have to handle at all. That's why I'm super tired, and I've
come on here and told you about that. But but without him, it
would have all fallen on me, and I just would have been just too
much. So his contribution is very important, is very it should be noted.
It's very important, and I don't take for granted at all. Right,
So say it's his birthday and so I had some presence for him and
put him together and all that stuff. Okay, So the other brother,
a big brother, passed away seven years ago today, and here was Max,
and some of you, my fans were with me when I explained it
to you guys back then was Aftermath TV. Some of you have seen over
the years my tributes and things to him, and some of you, a
few of you and knew him actually find out later they knew who he was.
Max was someone who Well, it's funny, I now for the first
it's the CERTA things went through my mind right now. So one some stuff
came to my brain that I wasn't allowing to come to my brain until I
guess now, grief is its own thing, right, and I grieve for
him all the time. But I realized I was like thinking back, So
for those of you guys who don't know, I'll do a brief version.
It's very painful for me, so I'll do a brief version for me.
So I he texted me. I was his last text. He texted me.
He was like, Hey, what are you doing? Blah blah.
I texted him back in answer. I went and did an after Best TV
my soap block because it was a Sunday, it happened, and I did
my soaps somebody as the Best TV. And as I'm leaving as a message
on my phone and after us see me me a long hallway and then I
went outside and I was I was gonna walk to the train station because it
was a hot night, as usual in Las Angeles, in the valley in
Las Angeles. So I see, so I called back the number. That's
what I'm told that he's dead. I was in shock because he had a
heart attack. Now he hadn't been to me. I hadn't seen sickly.
It wasn't sickly. He was a bodybuilding, he worked out all the stuff.
The thing they told me was he happened to be driving when he had
the heart attack. And he was only in forty seven. And I'm not
making the thing. It's all he was only year old, and I was
so AGEI was here the year older. So he was in late forties.
And he went, I guess quietly like he just he said, luckily,
was on a residential street. A cop happened to be I guess behind him
and knows the card is slowed down and go to a stop so the car
didn't crash. He didn't injure anybody else, but he said he died.
I was devastated. Called my mother right away, but I couldn't breathe,
and and it it just it was just overwhelming. It something I'll never forget
first of my life. It was just like no, and I was his
last text. I kept saying, they going, But now I was answering
him back. He didn't answering me back. And now I look back seven
years later, about a week or so before, he had called me about
this condition that I had had and a friend of mine had had. Okay,
so do we tell you that. I'll make sure it all makes sense.
It's all my brain, it's all quarter bus he. So my friend
and I each over the years had had a thing called Verico cells in our
testicles. I know it's just too much fast forward. It was too much
where you're positive or whatever. I won't go in to super details, but
you get blood clots in your in your testicles. A lot of times they're
not life threatening, and already it's like it's just it's it happens science to
correct themselves. Get to the surgery. My ac corrected themselves. Happened a
couple of times. And for my friend, he had surgery. It was
very painful surgery. Come down there. The only was the only way you
find out you have it is when you're doing some stuff to yourself and it
comes to that you see blood scarcely at first, you foresee like, oh
my god, there's blood. It's scary, so you go to a doctor
and get checked out. But it's but it's but my Like in my case,
it just I was trying to find a way out, and it did.
It came out, and after a week or so, I was back
to normal. I don't remember what caused them, or I don't remember all
that deals details, but he was having the same issue. I remember saying,
go to a doctor, get checked out. But I said either it
said, either it'll correct itself or you know whatever. Now I couldn't now.
Maybe they could have been indicative of some kind of other heart condition we
didn't know about. I don't if he ever went to the doctor. I
don't know if he said an appointment's going to doctor. By just about that,
just now, I had thought that in years, because I've been so
busy every year mourning the loss of his his death, I just haven't even
thought about a week before, weeks before that. Well, I've just been
said, I just goes. Just all that to say is that it could
have contributed towards it. We just said no. It also means it could
be just I'm finally able to see a bigger picture in life. Now again
we're concerning Hi because that bed Day's day has been so painful. And again
it's so weird because it's he died on my other brother's birthday. So it's
like I remember having to come home to tell him Max was Dad, but
I also had his birthday presence. It was the weirdest. It was like
there's no protocols, so that there's no handbook on how I mean, there's
other sides like what do I do, Like what do I do it's his
birthday? Or do I wait till much tomorrow? I got it was it
was. It was so bizarre. Meanwhile, I couldn't hide my grief.
I wasn't just I was fell apart. I've got some really strict and then
the next then literally the next year, right near Max, like a day
before Max's anniversary, my grandmother and my dog died back to back suddenly.
So it's like this, this this past weekend is always on a rough weekend.
And in my infamous speech at the Capital City Where Rewards a couple of
years ago, when I won an award during the same weekend, I was
like finally something good happened during this weekend, and I count out all of
a suff that's happening for that. It's just it's a weekend. I still
dread for it to come. I know it's coming, and maybe, let's
say, it'll get lesser and lesser. Maybe one day, I guess,
but obviously will you have known. No one can tell you how to grieve
or when to grieve and how to do it. It's just in losing somebody,
it's just so hard. I've lost many people in my life that it's
just crazy. And mission we lost my stepdad and his birthdays in two days,
so we're going to celebrate that. So that's we were interesting, but
it's it's I just think about Max today. Max was one of the nicest,
kindest people that you could meet. I can do this. He made
everybody feel good. I'm trying to. He made I feel special and feel
good. And he was just one of those people that everybody so you saw
him justly smiled. There were times I see him we just started laughing.
Why we're laughing? Why not just because of whatever? You know, how
we look king when we're talking. He was a person that made everyone feel
comfortable and feel good. He's like an ambassador for connection. I mean like
he would meet you, he would make you feel important, he would talk
to you, he would talk if you laugh, have a good time.
And so I just remember that the thing that after years go by, the
thing that it's tough. It's not always the big milestones. It's the little
stuff. And that's when it will hit you out of nowhere. And maybe
you guys have been through it, you know, or going through it.
You know, it's little stuff. There are things I want to tell him.
I can tell him. I know he's in heaven smiling down and I
can tell him. But I missed the physical presence of him. I miss
hearing him comment back and laughing about it, or you know, getting the
gossip. I miss I missed sharing is something funny. I miss his gumbo
parties. I miss I missed. We saw cons new song out, We
talked about the new songs. She came out going new song or she does
something. Because he was a big shot con fan. Whenever I hear her,
I hear him. We both sang. So we would singing songs out
of nowhere. We would just do that. He loved his eyelashes. He
loved his he was the last last job. He was a greener at Bath,
Bath and Beyond over in Westchester by Lax and just hearing people tell me,
Oh, I knew him from there. And my boy Mark J.
Freeman from a clost edition Days with Me, a friend of mine, I
knew him also, and also Max knew his brother. We didn't know what
to talk to you. I mentioned he died. He's like, wait a
minute, like wait a minute, like wait a minute, there was a
connection there. So it's a little it's like little stuff. I can't just
call him up. So today I celebrate him and my brother Jr. And
anybody who has brothers, all my other brothers. They're my all brothers in
the world, all the brothers today And I said this, Uh, this
show has become like my personal blog vlog, which I didn't care on that,
but it kind of has. And also the tied into being your fifties,
where you start to experience a lot of loss in your fifties, that's
where it starts to really kind of begin and the possible. You know,
you're both possibly losing your parents and if you have grandparents them too, but
losing your first cousins and siblings is also a thing that can happen to you.
That's just you're not don't can happen to any age, but it's kind
of like we're all getting older and it's just very important to make sure you
hold on to the folks that are here. You spend time with them,
you talk to them, you tell me you love them. I mean,
it's it's such a cliche thing to say, but it's it's very true because
I have learned just from this year too. Nothing's promised, so I'll end
it there. Hug your brother if you have one, if you're close to
one, talk to them, call them Max Jr. You guys are great.
I'm James lot Jr. And I'll talk to you next time.