YouSaid · the spoken record

Fawn Weaver

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80
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2024-03-04
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2024-03-04
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  1. “Yes. I mean, and understandably, understandably. So he did not want to go to a town with Lynch in the name as a California boy who's African American. That is not what he would do intentionally, not in the South. But he did go and we were there for a very short period of time where, you know, talk about a life of serendipitous things and just sort of following those paths we were in the library top of the morning and we're just trying to find anything on this story and we can't find anything. And so I asked the assistant librarian comes over and asks how she can help and I told her what we were looking to do. And she said, well, let me go call my director and she calls the director. Well, long story short, the director then calls who is.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “Oh, it was well known. Yeah, yeah. This was not a, this was the worst kept secret if it was supposed, it was never supposed to be a secret. And that's what I realized when I read his biography is at that time, you know what the internet does. Article they turn the headline into clickbait and then everybody makes an assumption. Yeah. So, all around the internet at that time was that they very quickly determined that Jack was the slave owner, that he stole the recipe. Hid nearest, and all these other things. Well, I'm reading this biography and going, not a chant because I believed that it was a story of love, honor, and respect.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “Goes to Lynchburg, Tennessee to write the authoritative biography on the most famous whiskey maker in the world. And very early on into the book, it introduces this white preacher and distiller who Jack came to work for him as a chore boy. And Nereus Green was working the still at that time. This preacher, according to this biography, says that he introduces Jack to Nereus by saying, this is Uncle Nerus. He's the best whiskey maker that I know of. And then every page, it was either Niels Green or his son's Eli Green and George Green. I mean, they were very, very prominent in terms of mentions in this book. And they were mentioned more times than Jack's own family.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “Yeah, it speaks to me not because it was whiskey. It speaks to me because it was a ubiquitous American brand that it was very possible that a black man was at the very beginning of it. So I began looking into the story even more. And I got on Amazon and I ordered Jack Daniel's legacy. It was a biography by a local journalist out of Tuscalooza, Alabama.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “And for us as African Americans, until that point in our lives, there was no brand that was like a quintessential American brand that was known around the world that was able to be pinpointed to an African-American being there in the beginning.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “Immediately because everyone else around Jack is white. This was his leadership team, if you will. And the question was, is this nearest green, the story that had been floating around Lynchburg, Tennessee for so long about this African American formerly enslaved man who was the teacher of Jack Daniel? Is this him? That was the question that people were asking, but the headline was Jack Daniels embraces a hidden ingredient help from a slave. And I remember my eyes got wide as saucers and I know that because Keith sitting across from me panicked and I literally flip the paper around to him and he's like, you've got to be kidding.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “I remember first and foremost the photo so what I see is this photo of Jack Daniel and a lot of people saw it and immediately began wondering who is this black man to the right of Jack but what I saw when I saw that photo was something a little different which was Jack Daniel the most famous whiskey maker of all time was taking a photo with his team and he had seated the center position to the black man”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “Yeah, the irony is as I had always written, writing for me as cathartic to this day. The Happy Wise Club wasn't actually initially anywhere on my radar in terms of writing about it. But when they made the suggestion, I told my literary agent, I said, well, I've always wanted to travel the world. So how about I go to all seven continents and I interview couples happily married 25 years or more and deduce the common denominator. So that began my journey of finding couples. And so I would reach into people that I knew that lived in other countries and ask that exact same question. And they would always point me to that one couple in the community that everyone knows is a true, true, happily married. It's not for, well, at that time, there wasn't even really Instagram. So it wasn't for the Graham. And I did. I went and I traveled the world.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “What's the story? Yeah, I didn't even know it was a blog, but yes, I called it just a website because I wasn't actually blogging on it. Introduced who I was and said, I want to find a million women around the world who are just like me, who are not represented in the media, who are not represented, whose marriage, it doesn't look anything like Desperate House Rise, Real Housewives, or all of these books that are now popping up that are, you know, really berating men. And so I said, I know that they're otherwise out there like me who have amazing husbands who support them, who love them, who are not caricatures. And I said, I'm going to start a club for women like me, and I'm going to call it and just like literally paused for a second. And I said, I know what I'm going to call it. I'm going to call it the Happy Wives Club. And so I emailed it to one of my sisters and three of my girlfriends who I knew had similar marriages. And then they sent it out. And within four weeks, I had people who had signed up from 20 different countries”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “Immediately So I get this phone call on my cell and I just started laughing. And I said, this must be the second coming. And he just fell out laughing immediately. And he's like, you've been talking to my mother. I have. And so we started off with a great deal of laughter. And so we're getting to the end of the conversation. And I had had an ongoing prayer with God that I still have to this day that I call my box me-in prayer and I'll use it for large decisions even for this day, which is, you know, if this is not for me, close this door in a way that I can't even open. And if it is for me, open the door in a way that no man can close. And so then it makes it a little easy for me to make decisions. I mean, it's a scary prayer to pray because you're now taking yourself out of it, but that was my prayer. Then it still is my prayer on big decisions now. And so we finally met for the first time.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “It was either gossip or it was Keith's mother talking about how amazing her son is. These were the two conversations going on and there was one particular week that I went in and I would go in weekly to get my hair done. And she said, you know, I've been watching you all these weeks come in here and it's amazing that you're so young and you're so smart and you're so business-minded and she literally puts her head over mine and says, you have to meet my son. And I very quickly pivoted the conversation. But after that moment, she was relentless. And at the time he was a vice president for Sony Pictures and for him.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “I was going to her, and you know, the thing that happens in a lot of African American hair salons and barber shops is there's just a lot of talk. There were two conversations in the hair salon and there were probably about 20 stylists.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “No, so this is why my PR firm failed. It wasn't just me. So, what I understood was, you know, how to get clients and how to do this integration and how to do all these things. What I did not understand, and I think this kind of comes back to what we were talking about before, where there was, you know, my father and mother were majorly downgrading, but didn't want anyone to know they were downgrading. So they still had this very big persona. Even though they didn't have a lot. Well, that was me in business. So I hired a ton of people and far too many people for what was needed at that time and ran out of money. Let's just say I do business different now, by the way.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “Yeah, the sculptures, the paintings, and that's where it was being introduced. Well, the journalists and those folks were coming in to interview the artists all around the room. Things related to Thomas Blackshare. So that was naturally going to end up being a part of the story because it was everywhere. That was essentially my PR plan.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “I would do that, but I would also integrate it in events. And so I remember, for instance, with Thomas Blackshire, there was a big Hollywood bowl event that was going to be with a bunch of jazz artists. And remember, I knew all these people from growing up, right? The music world was very easy for me to touch. And so I'd pick up the phone and call them directly and say, hey, this is what I'm doing. What are you thinking? And again, people weren't getting paid for product placement, right? And that wasn't even a thing. So me going in and saying, hey, can I place these products? They're like, sure. Where do you want to put”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “Yeah, one is a painter by the name of Thomas Blackshire, and the other was a company called Daddy Longlegs. They did those dolls with the hanging legs.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “And after I successfully did a few of the integrations that I had suggested, both of the clients said to me individually, if you ever decide to start your own PR firm, we'll come with you. That's how it began. So I began at 18 with two clients paying me $5,000 a month.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “Into other things, so now what they would call that is brand integration. But at the time, that didn't really exist. And so, you know, brand placements and things of that nature, that wasn't something happening in the early 90s. But it was how I was looking at how you garner earned media. And so for these two accounts, I had come up with a plan and it was so unfamiliar to the way that they did business, but the two clients absolutely loved the pitch. And so Pat said, run with it, you know, and keep in mind. So I'm about to turn 45. And if you put side-by-side pictures up of me at 18 and 45, I do not look that different, which I'm very happy about now. But I looked very mature at that age. So I did not come across in any way, shape, or form as an 18-year-old.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “Yeah, yeah It happened a little more serendipitous than that. I was an intern for an African-American PR firm in Los Angeles, the woman who owned it, Pat Tobin, very, very, very popular publicist. And I don't even remember how I met her actually, but she brought me in. I was in as an intern. They were working on a bunch of a different accounts and there were these two accounts that they were working on. And I had radically different ideas about how to garner PR for these two particular companies. So the way they were thinking about PR is you send out a press release and you see who picks it up and you pitch the story. And I was looking at PR as something that was fully experiential, something that was literally Interwoven”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “Yeah, I think my life has been marked by radical decisions. You know, I look back at that time and if I could do it all over again, I would have done it the exact same way. And I gained a freedom. By living in the homeless shelters, I thrived in them. And I think that in part not because there weren't rules. And I love rules. I live my life by rules, but I have to understand and agree with those rules. And the rules and the homeless shelters made complete sense to me.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “I did. I went to a place called Covenant House. It's a homeless shelter for adults in Hollywood. And it was probably one of the most important moments of my life because I'd always been independent. And at Covenant House, the way that they have it set up, it's absolutely brilliant. I think it's one of the most amazing transition places that has ever been created. You go out, you get a job, you come back, you bring the paychecks, they save all of your money for you so you're not having to do any of that. You literally just turn over the checks. They save it for you. And then once you get to a certain amount and you can go out and get your own apartment, that's what you do.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “I do I do. I don't think that they loved me any less I don't think that they ever stopped loving me But I think it's difficult not to write a child off who has made it very, very clear they don't want to be parented. I don't know. I've actually never had a conversation with them about it because the one thing about how I am wired, and it's, I think, probably one of my greatest strengths is I don't go backwards.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “From the time I was five, I was trying to pack bags. No doubt about it. I actually left home at 15. And my mom said she still remembers the day I walked down the driveway and she watched me leaving with a backpack and a lunch pail in hand. And that was basically all I had was a backpack and a lunch bale. And I was like, I'm out of here. And so it wasn't a big blowout fight or anything of that nature. I just said this won't work for me.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “Restricted in everything. It was incredibly, I mean, we are Christian but could not wear pants as girls because there is a scripture that says men should not wear anything pertaining to women. Women should not wear anything pertaining to men. And their pastor took that to mean women should not wear pants. So imagine me as a teenager and it's wintertime and I'm trying to explain why I'm in skirts. It was not a fun upbringing for me for sure. And the way that I've been wired from day one, day one is to challenge everything. I came out of the womb challenging everything. I came out of the womb saying no.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “Very contentious. Very contentious. My mom and I, we can laugh about it now, but it wasn't funny back then is I'd say that we were their pastor's guinea pigs because anything that the pastors or the leadership of the church said, this is how you should raise your children, they did it. Is a hot mess”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “Yeah. And so for all of them, they were auntie and uncle to me, all of them. And that's the world that I knew. But I didn't know my father as any sort of celebrity. And I actually didn't know these people as celebrities I knew these people as normal people with normal problems coming into our home to be ministered to more than anything. That's what I knew. When I grew up, I only knew him as a minister.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “So he goes into the ministry, but he still begins to bring everyone with him. So Smokey and Stevie and Eddie Kendricks and all these different folks are at the house all the time.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “Absolutely, absolutely. He was a really, really, really big deal producer top of his game. And he decides to completely leave no backup plan and really not enough money in the bank to be able to continue to live the life he was living. Very long when you're living a lifestyle like he was big glass house at the top of Hollywood Heels, that consumption rate that consumption rate is really, really high. And so they had to downsize. They had to downgrade. I think that there was a part of him that did not want people to know that there were financial challenges. And so we lived in a world that was a bit split. But it was very interesting growing up in this dynamic because you had all of these celebrities coming, everybody in Motown, my father became their pastors of sorts.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “So he was one of the very first hit makers for Motown. Wow. He was there from the beginning. So he's credited with Diana Ross and the Supremes and the Temptations and the Four Tops and Michael Jackson. And just really from the beginning, Smokey Robinson. And when Stevie came in. And so that was sort of his world. And in 75, I believe it was either while my mother was pregnant with me or shortly before my father decided not to sign another contract with Motown. Now, understanding the picture is my dad is in this huge house on the top of Hollywood Hill. All the fancy cars, everybody would come to the parties. Everybody would come to the parties that he threw. And he decides that he really truly does believe God is calling him to move away from. Motown and to move away from that industry and to go into ministry.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “You walk into any type of liquor store, if you walk into any restaurant, any back bar and you ask them a very simple question, tell me what whiskier bourbon is on your back bar that represents someone who is not a white male and just wait White males represent 30% of this country and a hundred percent of the whiskies up until Uncle Narest. One hundred percent.”

    2024-03-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT