I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WBEZ Chicago, join me as i share how the genre began

their social impact and why these stories endure listen wherever you get your podcast where do i put my

face how about that that's where my face goes.

From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette. I'm Greta Johnson.

And I'm Trisha Bobita.

And today on the show, our guest is W. Kamau Bell. We've actually had him on Nerdette before when his CNN show United Shades of America came out.

Now he has a new book. It's called The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell, and he lays out all the ways in his life, which he has been very, very awkward things about his youth, which whose youth wasn't at least a little awkward. Mine certainly was. Greta, yours was. I've seen photographs. Thank you, yes.

His awkward bouts of sexism and all sorts of awkward stories from W. Kamau Bell, who is brutally honest in this book, and I like it.

We're also going to learn a lot about Shark Tank and Blackish, which are two TV shows that he

admires for very different reasons. And you will learn a homemade trick for defeating squirrels

in your backyard. Don't say we never help you guys. It's the time of year when you're probably

dealing with squirrels, I guess.

And we have a solution for you.

Let's get to it.

Here's W. Kamau-Bow.

So I'm going to look at my paper just to make sure I get the entire subtitle of the book right here. Yeah, that's funny.

I never realized when I did that that would be like people.

I'm happy that people do it, but I was like yeah that's a mouthful so the new book is the awkward thoughts of w Kamau bell subtitle ready I'm gonna have to take a

breath tales of a six four African-American heterosexual cisgender left-leaning asthmatic black and

...