Kwanzaa Is On The Come Up! (with Al Jackson)

And the fact that like ballroom dancers are wearing those and they're dancing backwards and for in high heels. That's a banana gram thought.

It's nuts.

Women are strong. I've always said it. You have always said that. I've always said, I've argued with you a few times. You've always said it said. I've said let them loose. I say, don't lower the rim, put them in heels and raise it up.

I think they haven't tapped into their true potential. They're like, go h, they just need the right trigger.

Get them super Saiyans. Bears are racist.

The money.

Turning stuff can't tell me.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart and the very next.

Day you gave it away.

There it is. There it is, Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, gentiles and little mama's alike to another phenomenal episode of My Mama Told Me.

The podcast where we dive deep into the pockets of black conspiracy.

Theory and we finally worked to prove that the BPM, the beats per minute of the Cupid shovel are engineered at a specific frequency that is meant to enter the black brain and create order in the black community. Casper He wasn't just giving us a hit. He was giving us organization. Thank you for your work, sir. We miss you every day, alrightp godfort not forgotten, God for but not forgotten. And I don't know that I know his real name.

I don't know. I don't know his face.

I knew he had a cangle. Oh, I know old Nigga n.

Kangle, who I am always inclined to listen to.

He was a real He dressed I think through the whole of his life like we dressed during that era where people got dressed up in the club.

Oh the sweater veg.

Yeah, he would like keep a blazer and a cago on, but jeans.

Can I say this is embarrassing? I was maybe the brokest I had been in my adult life at that point. I did not participate in the business casual in the club.

You know what, history is gonna shine nicely on you because of that. Oh that's the good way you look at it, you know what I mean? Like I did, I was wearing bow ties. Oh, you seem like I was in a bad waddy. I was buying clothes and being like because I was a teacher at the gyme. Yeah, it was like I could wear these to school into the club, and that's a bad situation.

That's never if that age, if you're wearing your work close out, it's a problem, dude.

It was how I designed it, oh.

Man, because I'm not gonna lie, like there weren't a couple of days I left Target, just took the name tag off to a party.

I don't love it.

I don't love it, but like, yeah, that's never a good situation.

You guys got the factor the dress code in Remember, it was a different dress that's sure. That's sure, especially at black clubs, direct response to like the Saggy Jean's big T shirt era jackets. Yeah, where everybody looked like a runner and the wire. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. And a lot of clubs pushed back on that with their no hats with logos on on that kind of like coded language.

It was.

It was a strict dress code at the time.

Uh.

And now I think most places are pretty like if you look good, you can come in. But but there was a strict dress code where it was like you cannot have on anything that even resembles clothes that we consider like ethnic urban whatever the fuck it is the rubber shoes.

Sold shoes used to piss me off. It was crazy because that's like, of all the things that I'm not gonna get hard, sold shoes is the one that I'm not gonna bro.

We all had on flat bottoms.

That's crazy, crazy, Yeah, but I knew cast that had a backup pair of like nicer khakis, nicer shoes in case, because it would ruin your night if fo The homies got in and they were like those are those are sweatpants not jeans? You're like, no, I look at them. A fashion argument with the bouncer, like you're not getting that.

You mean that dude in a black T shirt? Yeah, Yeah, he's not gonna get it. This is just like fashion innovation. Our guests today, you're already hearing from him. He We're so happy he's here. We're in Denver, We're at dude i DK Studios, the the finest establishment we've ever been at in Denver. I would say, we've never been anywhere else, but this is the best.

Yeah, this is too. I shot my special on you.

Shot your special here? Yeah, and it seems impossible.

Is this beanie crazy?

You look crazy?

You look gorge man, it's like a little guy, cool beanie. When you said I had a beanie, I was like, okay, and then it was like smaller than I'm used to. I'm sorry, No, it's not you didn't do anything. This was like because of the Santa. We had a whole debacle before. Our guess today has nothing to do with any of this. I'm sorry.

I just he's surely been a victim.

Staring at the beanie because because you can't tell how big they are, and then you go to tug down and pull it down over your ears and it gets no give, and you're like, I gotta commit to this. But that's like you need a tough to hair beanie and we don't have that.

Oh so this is not good.

No, it's a good look. You just got to commit to it. It works with the with the jacket, old school.

Toss it to me.

It was lighter.

Yeah, yeah, I was already like, yeah, this doesn't have to wait.

This doesn't feel like.

I'm used to a forty five. Gave me a thirty eight. I'm sorry, man, it's okay.

I think you're doing fine, and I'm so happy that our guest is there not wearing any shitty clothing, you look great.

Paint on my pants like a concerned dad. This podcast, which I am so like, Yeah, shout out.

He's like Jesus, a person I'm a huge fan of. You're a huge fan of. You know him from Comedy Central, and you know I'm from his work on FX. You know I'm from his work on the goddamn News. You do the news sometimes.

I used to that show has been canceled. Okay, well yeah, well I did the News seven years.

Man.

You know you in this business, day, in this business, it's just like that was a great run. Yeah something else.

Now you've done it all and it all is amazing. And more importantly, you're an amazing comedian. And we're so happy he's here with us. Give it up for Al Jackson, everybody.

Oh do we have to say give it up? And we all know each other and there's no one here.

We usually press a button. Oh, and then there's like a sound effect that would follow it. And and I didn't keep that didn't account when I said give it up.

So I still appreciate it. Yeah, thank you, I'll take it. And there are there were times started my comedy career in South Florida and Miami, and it was a different world for stand up in that like doing black rooms early in your career when you weren't good anyway. They sometimes you would just walk into a nightclub Thursday, it's ladies' night. No one knows their stand up, no one knows, and

You would do better pulling the cord and just letting me talk. Yeah, then freshest seeing this with like, look, I've never met this boy in my life. It scares me that he's here. But we got to be respectful.

Also, there's no joke I can tell that's better than the slipping slide all stars.

Oh man, you know what I mean? What a period of hip hop?

Come take you to the house.

Yeah, you're from you're from Florida from Cleveland. I went down to Florida for grad school and then start I taught middle school. Like you do you teach middle school? I taught high school. Yeah, I taught middle school for five years and started doing open mics at night. But yeah, so I started my career in South Florida. But I'm from Cleveland.

But you were there when the trick Daddy rained Supreme.

That seems like one of the eras of the world.

It was just it was the last, I feel like, period of time where the world was like the wild wild West. Like the apartment complex I was in was a place where those people don't exist anymore because now those people have been fired and like going and now they've been replaced with twenty seven year olds that are serious about their career. Maintenance men smoking blunts walking down

There is no there's no dirtbag release. There's no what happens in anywhere, you know what I mean. Like it it's everything is documented and if it isn't documented, it could be documented. And in that way it forces people to never release fully into like oh I'm just a scum, I'm just scummed for a little while.

Now, the problem is they funnel it into YouTube comments, yeah, you know what I mean, and like places on the Internet where it doesn't feel good to release, you know what I mean. But it's like, if you could just go to Vegas once a year, kill a prostitute with your boys, maybe you don't have to be so mean to these female comedians on YouTube.

Yeah, that's what's missing is a dead sex worker.

That's obviously going crazy. But I do, I do, I do think that that, like maybe you need to be able to go out and get nuts. Like I went to New Orleans just recently and it was just not it's just the tone of it feels like it shifted a little bit. Even on Bourbon Street really yeah.

Yeah, or they're just people taking video of themselves. I feel like there's a there needs to be a place where you know that you're not gonna be videoed. And that's even at strip clubs. Even when who was at John Moran out here in Denver, Oh yeah, he had he had the strap with him at the strip club. Not great, but that's not our business, no, and it affected his career. And it's just like athletes can't go to the strip club. You're twenty two, you know.

Twenty two and I make millions of dollars and I can't party with the naked woman and a gun.

And those strippers weren't scared, no, you know what I mean, Like whatever whatever he was doing with that gun, and again, not not my version of a great time. But like, whatever he was doing, he made it clear with everybody around him, this is okay.

No, they could they thought in sorry sources say they thought he was being corny. They weren't like, yeah, he's gonna shoot us. No, it was like, why are him and his boys all hanging out with their shirts off not talking to us?

Yeah, we're next to a target.

Yeah yeah, that's the thing, bro. People need to know that about that is that it is next to a target. WHOA, here's a parking lot, what's a target?

Whoa?

And a yes, anything you need on that block, which is pretty cool. But yeah, it wasn't like yeah.

It's just it's a it's a greater problem where just like I think that I was able to, like when I decided to stop drinking, chill out and just be a normal person, I got all that out of me. And it was a lot in there. It was a lot. I was a wild dude, and now I'm just like

I feel closer probably to what they were in that I don't know that I got like all my rocks off before I got married and settled into a life, and I do know now more than ever that like, oh, I'm just never going to have it, Like there's no version where I get to go party on the beach with a bunch of bad bitches and pretend like that's my life again.

Right, it just isn't, you.

Know what I mean.

And that's cool. Like I love my family, I love the life that I built. But you just have to settle into the fact that, like them days, them days were available, you didn't access them quite as much as you should have. And you'll live with that, you know what I mean. You'll have to say in different ways, but it ain't happening with the bad bitches on the beach.

I was just gonna say, do you think you want it more in theory than you do in practice? But that's just saying, of course you want it in practice.

I don't know if you do. I don't know it one day like a day.

Yeah, I mean in theory, but I think in the fantasies that we all have about like whatever scenario that you want to paint, whether it's you and six models in a penthouse wherever I was. I did this old school hip hop show and they're playing jay Z and he at that line, I got six model chicks, six bottles of Chris and I was thinking, like the owl now would hate to be at the bar with six models and like just trying to like wrangle him to go and be like, yo, where she put her card down,

I think that's often the problem, right is, And it's something I think I was aware of even at a younger age was like I would watch the dudes who were really like saucing with women and really like going crazy out there, and I watched how they talk to people and how they like moved with people, and I knew I didn't have that in me.

That is you will learn that first time you go to a night club and you're like, oh, that's not what I'm doing.

And that's the problem. It's not that I didn't want to do it, Yeah, you know what I mean, I just didn't have it. No, And I knew even now, like, even with my resources and whatever, I'm gonna be around six batties and I'm not gonna talk to him like a man that gets six batties.

You're trying to interject stand up comedy into the commerce.

Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna fuck around and bring up attack on Titan, and then it's ruined.

That's true. That's true because I have had myself in bad bitch situations where I was not converting very nerves, and then that feels even worse than the idea. That's why it happened is a bad feeling, that's a low where you're like I got the I got in if you didn't go, you can sleep.

If you went and you bombed, you awake, you feel that that's a tough night, damn.

But also their personalities might not Like we could hang out in any scenario, and I feel like it would be funny serious at some points, but just like interactive because of the way are the way we talk to each other. But a model, for the most part is

Funny for the back end of the night. When you find out I'm sad.

You think you first meant to cry in front of me, I'm fair.

Well, we're glad you've changed your ways. We're glad you're here with us today. On our most Christian episode, I would say, yeah, Christmas, it's our holiday episode. We're excited to have you here. Al And you came to us with a conspiracy. You came to us with I would say a denser conspiracy than we're going to articulate it as but we're excited to hear you fully unpack this thing. It's it's it's I think gonna evolve as you explain it. But you basically said, my mama told me Quanza is

My relationship up with Kwansa has been slight to non existent most of my life. My mom was a very progressive black woman, like I always said, like she she had us eating kinoa like in eighty when no one knew like health food store, Like same kind of store that has like carrot juice, you know, like one of them co ops. Were you like, why it smells weird? It smells like raw vegetables, radishes.

Why do I have to go to the bad Yeah?

Yeah right, It's like my mom was on that grinding her own coffee bean. She's like when everybody's going like yuppie big cell phone. My mom was just very like of progressive, and so she introduced kwanza. But like introducing Kwanza in nineteen eighty six to a couple of black kids in Cleveland, it's like, wait, one gift and no one knows what I'm talking about. I don't know how to say it, and I won't say it like it Kwanza. There was no place, there was no fertile ground for

These kids there they like.

But no, it's like they are incredibly emotionally articulate. My daughter and her friends and the way they talk to each other and they're like something, we'll just get on a zoom call and we'll give each other positive affirmations.

I'm like, what, bro, how old is she seventeen? But I know twenty years older. I want my friends to do that.

Can you imagine? Just like, let me be let me just call it Dave, just be like, you were really good today.

Brothers, you're doing great.

You're inspired, and a lot of people coordinated. We are all calling at the same time on purpose. And my greater point to that is that they are a lot more they're they're going to be a lot less interested in celebrating a holiday like Christmas where there's not a lot of unless it's a very religious thing for you, it's really just seen as like a gift giving and

So you're saying, if I'm hearing you correctly, you're not necessarily tracking it rising. Yet you're on some like future stock shit. Yeah, this is this is investing in in pork belly for you. Yeah, like it also.

Charting the drop of right, you think Christmas is on the decline, not on the decline. I think what we've seen is that, for whatever lies we want to tell ourselves, most of these holidays are for adults. Like Halloween. Yeah, we say trick or treating, but them kids are in the house by dusk. Ain't no late night trick or treating. And if there is, it's out in the suburbs. I live in Denver, in a house in a nice, safe neighborhood, you know, and I've been there, saying, right for COVID

You know, over here giving out scholarship.

You know, it's like a chance for closeted extroverts to act like, oh, I'm just sexy Sherlock Holmes. It's like, all right, you know what I'm saying. You just wanted to put on some fish nets at being public because that's when you are internally. So I feel like Halloween parties are big. Halloween last like three four or five days. I saw people in November going to Halloween.

So we were on tour, yeah, and we're in We were in Atlanta on Halloween and mostly performing for old black ladies who were not participating in.

Halloween, not having a great time. They were not there for it at all. But we then toured.

We had like four days basically, and went to Austin, like three days later. In Austin, three days after Halloween was still celebrating. Halloween was still Sixth Street was blocked off. Everybody had on a costume, and it was it felt very adult in that way and where it had nothing to do with children and trick or treating. This was grown ups in nasty clothes wearing their shit.

Yeah, and that's how I think about it. I do think about it as it's Halloween's for phone parties or whatever.

You know what I mean.

You don't think about the kids, not at all, and I don't. I do think I used to see more kids. I feel like I used to see more kids. I mean, you don't see kids out the house in general anymore, but I used to see more. Like even within my neighborhood, it's like like yours, like clauses close together set up for trick or treating. Hardly anybody had any any kind of like lawn ornaments, any kind of lights there just really wasn't a lot.

Of It took all that when we were kids. And I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, but when we were kids, it felt like we were terrorizing people's homes, where like the doorbell ever stopped ringing, Like if you shut your door, you were getting ring ring ring all night long. And now even at my house, like and I live in a pretty like walkable, very nice, pleasant neighbors houses around, and like we get some trick or treaters, but they don't bother us, Like if we turn the

Absolutely, and only the people that like the kind of religious people to go to go to church on Christmas Eve or go to church Christmas Day or something like that. It really is almost like Thanksgiving. It's a holiday for older folks, football and food. That's great for me. I'm damn near fifty, but like my son don't care about football.

I love the idea of the executives at Big Kwanza rubbing. They're rubbing their hands together.

We hear a big Quansa in Detroit.

Yeah, are you tired of Santa Claus dancing in the back of your videos? Come on over here to Big Kwanza.

That's the thing. And then we're gonna have to watch the commodification of Quansa, which is gonna be the most American thing you can do. Is like all these things that you think are so underground as we look at like Snoop selling us, you know, fire pits outside.

We got we got some of that Snoop whine on Thanksgiving.

Yeah, wine is just like I mean, all these things that were underground, now they're gonna be used to market to you.

We were talking about this before you got here, but we were talking about how quickly Juneteenth got you served as now a just general national holiday that everybody gets the day off for nobody. Yet you ain't gotta pray, you ain't gotta to go thank your black neighbor, nothing. It's just you get the day off and you ain't gotta talk about it. And it happened so fast because four years ago even I don't think I knew any white people who even would.

It wasn't even it was It wasn't up for discussion. It never came up, no like, and then they found about out about that ship, and then white ladies got an Instagram filter and it was gone.

And I don't I mean, I'm not from the South, y'all ain't from the South. It wasn't a thing for me growing up, not at all, you know what I mean. Like even in black households, it's not like everybody celebrated June.

Team you would get a calendar and it'd be like Juneteenth was in the same genre as like, you know, like there'll be a day that's like Winter Soul System. Yeah, is that you know what I'm saying?

Yeah day?

Yeah, Yeah, they have to they like that a law has been passed. They have to alert you that that's a but it wasn't a thing. And then, like you said, out of nowhere, it's just like you don't celebrate Junie. You don't think we should. I don't think most Americans even to say, know exactly what it is. No, they probably heard it once, but just like you know, people are just coming around MLK Day.

Yeah. And that's also a fascinating thing because I didn't realize, and this is my own ignorance. I didn't realize how recently MLK Day was a day. You know what I mean that, I don't know how recently it is mokday. They were fighting against it during the fucking I think bush it, yeah.

Straight, Arizona, Arizona wouldn't like because, uh, what's it called the Public Enemy had a song basically about it by the time I get ar Yeah, yeah, yeah, and uh it was just like people would not they would not take the day off just out of like clear defiance of just like fuck that dude.

It like didn't get declared a national holiday until like pretty recently.

That's crazy. I guess we are. We're at least of the age where it's like, that's right when we would have been little kids enough to not know because I always recall it, but I always remember it.

But damn, that's cool blooded yeah man, But to that point, Juneteenth is now it seems ubiquitous, ye, with like the American holiday experience, and then the same feels like it will happen to Kwanza should it get this this ineviten.

It'll be a clear dividing line between the generations. I think, like, I think it'll be a younger person thing, and eventually they will be older, but for a while it will be like twenty four year old students at NYU consciously celebrate it and it gets some kind of you know, traction on the Internet from it. But like your uncle will be like, what now, it.

Doesn't make sense. I see what you're saying. It's right for like, it's the perfect small cause for an internet asshole to take up, right, Like that's the perfect thing. Everybody's heard of it, but it's still niche enough that you you could be interesting by doing it's a perfect way to pretend you're interesting.

Yeah, what I'm saying. It reminds me a little bit. I've been watching the Menindez brothers shit, Like, you know, they had the show and then they had the documentary and they both came out sort of in tandem. But part of the reason that the Menendez brothers are now getting like this new trial, or at least this new assessment of their sentencing, was in part because a bunch of TikTok kids started unpacking their story and going like, hey, it's fucked up that we didn't address all the sexual

I also feel like Christmas is right for a takedown just because of blame it on Jeff Bezos. Kids get too many packages. They're not as excited about presidents. Yeah, think about it. When you were a kid, how many packages you got?

Very rare.

I got a package I went it was the most. It was as exciting as Christmas. My mom's saying, David, you got something in the mail that was not it was It's the same as Christmas. It was the same exactly.

You've been thinking about it for weeks when you sent away for some of the six to eight weeks. Every day at school you'd be like, man, is that is that gonna be at home? And then when it is, it was trash.

Whatever it was, it was trash. Nothing damn.

That's quick, beanie, nothing I could afford.

In the east Bay magazine, where's that documentary? Netflix?

Yeah, east By went through it. They had a high high and a low low.

That was that was. You know, there's always this narrative that like women be shopping, but like guys looked at that catalog in the exact same way that my grandmother would look at a sex with avenue catalog and be like, I'm gonna get that. Look at my grandm would be like, look at those Isotona gloves, and we'd be like, look at those shorts. You could customize all. We could go to the court with the same color shorts. It was like the same thing, got all.

The colors of shocks, every shock.

The amount of times me and my boys sat in a bed feet up just slipping through East Bay talking about the shoes we were never gonna have, bro, it's the the hours that I wasted.

I used to look at east By like a real magazine where I'd be like, oh, I haven't seen this one.

It meant the world to me.

You're planning outfits, planning full East Bay outfit.

Did you order anything from there?

Never one time I think I got some Team Jordans once, like it talks my dad into getting me some Team Jordans out of the again Team Jordans that ain't Jordans.

That that's the polo club of Yeah, yeah it was.

It was.

I should be fair to myself. It was also early in the Team Jordan era where we didn't quite understand they had they.

Were relevant for a minute where it was okay they had a moment where you didn't quite know that those weren't going to be treated like real Jordan's.

It felt like like twelve and a halfs and you were like a school, we got them twelve and a half whatever, And now we all know that. Yeah it's it's the US Polo Association.

Yeah, oh that's what it is. That sounds like like the minor leagues.

Yeah it was a bad but I got some of those. But truly everything else was just a dream that I was selling myself.

I would have myself fitted before football season with that. That East Bavi came out right before school started. Of course I had the gloves circle, I had the cleat circle. Never got any of it, but man, I was ready.

I ordered two things. I ordered this thing called the Aci rim. I used to play hoop, and it was like a rim that you put on on the inside like it was what an own person would ship in. And that ship gets your jumper so nice because you it has to be not only just a swish, but it puts. You had to put arc on it. So when you practice a couple of summers with that, bro, my my jumper was worked. Bro. It worked.

You're the first person I've ever heard who bought like a basketball tea that was like, Noah, this should worked.

Did your dream of just having a rebounder like all time rebound? No, but just a person I used to think of, like this imaginary guy that would just like rebound, Like how many more shots I could get up? If you're doing.

You was a Lobe child.

Yeah, shooting jumpers is the day giveaway.

Your least told me. The second thing you got was those pliometric shoes. That's the ones I wanted so bad.

You know, that's exactly what I'm about to tell you. Yes, they were called strength shoes. I used to be able to dunk with two hands. I rupture my achilles tendon. But it absolutely they absolutely worked.

Oh that fucks me up. Yes, because I remember, like your parents are like this is ridiculous. There's no special sneakers you're gonna wear. But like I remember looking at and being like, this technology makes sense.

You're on your tiptop.

This technology makes sense. It really really worked. I obviously my kids one of the best days of my life. I've had some good highlights in my life. I threw down a dunk at my boy Donnie's house in his driveway. I still remember that. That's probably thirty years ago.

No, but that's this is one of the best days of my life hearing about it.

Dude, it was you know who had crazy hops? Is Craig Robinson? What he came to our show because he's doing the show in deference, so he came on our set and I don't know why we were talking about basketball. We had the clip ready it was him no comic shoes of the hack joke, but it was him two hundred pounds ago. But I mean like crazy like threw down like uh Darryl Dawkins dunk like what it bruh. Craig Robinson was a baller, like you know what.

I could see that because he's bigger than you think he is, right like he's like he's like secretly like almost six three six four I think. And then he also is like one of them dudes that like had a whole life before he got to comedy.

Another teacher like us.

Yeah, he was a teacher. He was a musician. He did a lot of shit. And I think those kinds of guys they always you got one in your pocket where you're just like, yeah, I used to play ball, yeah, I used to dunk all motherfuckers. I don't do that no more. Capefully, those sneakers worked.

I'm sorry, I'm just like they convinced one birthday, dude.

They looked ridiculous and you looked great. They were like snow shoes in the city. They were like it was like a wider platform and then the shoe was on top. Right, it was like a trophy of a shoe.

It was like you were walking around like a gi joe, you know what I mean, Like you're truly just sitting on top of fucking g I Joe platform. Yes, and that you just kept you on your tiptoes all day.

I mean you do see women, I don't know as much as you used to when it was like almost unacceptable for women to be out without wearing high heels. But when when you think, and I've talked to a lot of my female friends because I just took it for granted, like, oh, they throw heels on, they go out to party, think about being on your toes, leaving the house, going up and downstairs, dancing back on your toes, and then you see it like some chicks would have

For Sam show, we we we all put on high heels to like tryumph because that was like part of a bid of an episode. Whatever. I walked probably ten feet. It was like, I don't want I can't do this no more.

It's amazing. It's just like, man, it's crazy when you think about it, like that is something I have thought about though, that we are in an era that speaking of East Bay, that we would have never thought about in terms of sports where women's basketball, pro and college. Like I've talked to homies and been like, yo, the Iowa games going on, hits you back, and they're talking about women's college basketball. Think about how crazy that would have sounded eight years ago.

Now, dog I did. I was a practice player at UH for our college, our women's college basketball team.

That's cool.

Yeah it was fun college Michigan. Oh Jesus, yeah one, yeah it was. They were the worst team.

And you must can ball though.

I was pretty good. Yeah I could play. I could play some ball. I can't anymore. But at a time in my life I was pretty good at basketball. But one of the things that that I realized, even when doing it this was two thousand seven that I'm doing it. There was nobody I told it to that didn't laugh

It's I forgot what that principle is called. Like, the more you learn, the more you realize, the less you know, and so you understand how difficult life is. And that's why, like a lot of people will look at some amazing and be like, oh yeah, all right, yeah basketball, you

It's the thing that drives me the craziest. I only watch the NBA. I'm not really tapped in in any other sport, but like you'll see it, probably every day that an NBA game is playing, some some player's name will be trending, and it's just people saying they're fucking trash, just like Gay Vincent for the Lakers, unbelievable. Every week they're like, fucking gave n He's the worst player in the league. He fucking sucks. He is so good at basketball.

He's the best athlete you would ever come across if you met him in person in your entire life, by far and away, every every single NBA athlete.

I've played against d two dudes that I was like, I can't believe how much better you are at basketball than I am. You know what I mean, your light years above what I'm capable of. So like, what are we talking about? He's not trash. You're upset with him, and you're in a bad way because your parlay ain't gonna hit. But like, no way is this a bad basketball player. Watch your fucking mouth.

There's no respect. Watch your mouth, Doug. It's like in terms of just like can you put a little speck on anybody's name? Like it? Dude. I remember when the Calves won the title from Cleveland. It is the only time our city's ever seen a title in my lifetime.

I'm sorry that's happened to you.

I mean dysfunctional organizations. I mean, if you think about it, if you look at the team, it's just and I was telling my my homie this in a weird way. If you think about how like just soccer or football whatever. In Europe, if you suck, they demote you to basically secret late sys it is. But here NFL, they share that tea TV money, so there's no incentive for your team to get better. Because the good thing about capitalism whatever is it eliminates poorly run companies.

But here with what team do we talked about that with?

I don't remember, but I do remember the conversation.

Oh Jerry Jones, right, yeah, yeah, because because it's more lucrative than for win than if he's a winner.

What if what if the Cowboys or the Browns had to drop down and play in like the XFL or the AFL. If it was the XFL and the Super Bowl winner came up and played in the pros like soccer. Yeah, like you get, you get, and it would just keep your ship. So you're just not like, yo, we got an eighty five year old running our team, and your team looks like it a good wide receiver. It's like the way like a seven year old with draft, like

Yeah, we're the split. We still see the bread that we're gonna see. Everybody's gonna eat.

And it increases every year.

Right, Yeah, you just got to keep on. You just gotta hold the team as long as you own it. You make that money. That's a bad business.

Yeah.

Before once again, I'm sorry you guys haven't won. We recently won. It was pretty great. Yeah, you're a b No, this is because it's Christmas. It didn't come across the bit. The bit didn't really work. This is coming out on Christmas Eve. Yeah, so I wore Christmas colors. Well, you had on the Santa hat and then and then I gave it to like because I wanted him to be involved. That's all what this is about. Yeah, you you swung big on Christmas. I swung huge.

You said I love the Lord. That's not what I want, you know, that's what you said. What I said, that's not what I said.

I think women should work more.

Before we go to break. Do you have you ever celebrated kwants in your adult life? No? Not as a child, but not even as an adult.

No, And I don't. Maybe I was thinking, since I have this take on my next year, you know, because it's too late now to spring it on my kids. But I know, I know, it's like, that's my that's my I'd be like, I'm ready, Oh, y'all are college? All right?

Then this is gonna be one young child being annihilated by a new a new holiday.

I would be so hard. He knows his brother, he knows his siblings at Christmas?

Yeah, friends, Yeah, it's like, yo, what did you get for unity today? Who moji out of coach?

Coach? It turns out me and my dad held hands in the kitchen and said what we're grateful for about each other?

That's that's what it is. But the only time that that works hold hands talking about like hey man, we live a good life, which I think we should do more often, like I have, I've tried to do. But you know, comics is like that's a certain time in your life that's like post college until you get married, where you're trying to figure out who you are and there's a there's a space in there where like you be open. It's also the same period of time where you're open to join in a cult. It's just weird.

Yeah, yeah, it's the same thing.

Yeah, I mean really.

This is a cult. What do you think there's a comedy thing?

I mean, come on, I was telling my boy the other day with cults, like I wonder if, like cause if we only see the people that successfully started them, and you know that there's something that it failed, But what about the kinds of just like you have a cult and you try to like five hundred people and you got like four, Bro, there's twenty people? Really?

Yeah, shut up? What's the what's nick? Do you know the county where the Frozen Dead Lady was my Mother God. Yeah, but in that county, there's several other cults that are on the same type of thing where it's just like ten people who are on this ship.

Yeah, maybe that's the way to go, because like next to them got too big and once they started branding them that, the government was like, we got to get in.

Have you seen the Mother God documentary?

I think so. Is that that woman that kind of went crazy but like those kids were obsessed with her? Which one's the mother got.

She she starts drinking silver?

Yes, I saw that one. Absolutely.

Yeah, it's very that one. That part of it. I had to carry her around at the end, she like drinks herself to death, but specifically with silver and alcohol.

Right, But you imagine like diagnosing cirrhosis and then also having to be like are you drinking liquid silver?

Yes?

Yes, because I'm God. But that one, I think is an example of like there were only like fifteen people, but they fucked with her heart.

That's that's all you need. Small batched cults is really the way to go. I think that's what the problem becomes when they scale it up. Like, but if you're able to start a religion and it's just like you get eight to ten people, but they'll die for that ship. I'll get greedy, you know what I mean? How much do you need?

My wife keeps trying to start a cult. What. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have done this right before a break, but ah, she's actively keeps being her whole thing. She's a lawyer, and she keeps saying that a cult in order to start to get religious exemption from taxes, all you need, technically is a firmly held belief. You don't

That's pretty cool.

It is pretty cool. My issue with it, and this is what I keep trying to emphasize with her, is that this is a.

Great because I don't imagine you guys have that fight, but you're in a.

It's most of our fights.

It's like you have to put that hat on to be able to speak in front of the groups on the Santa Hat. I understand.

My issue with it is not that it doesn't sound dope. It's that historically we've always seen somebody take it too far, do you know what I mean? Like Wild Wild Country was about people putting on maroon and fucking in the woods, and everybody loved it, and they were doing great, and there were no problems until Sheila took it a step too far and she poisoned the water supply. And now all of a sudden, we don't get to fuck in the woods no more because things got crazy, do you

I got to step in for Sheila, Doug. You think Sheila is a hero in the story. I think Sheila is maybe, and this is going to sound crazy. I put her in the same pantheon that I put Kobe, whoa I swear to God and that somebody that's able to have determination on the level where it's unhealthy but it's necessary to get what you want done done. Kobe is going through a rape trial and balling on his off dse the death thousand yard deaths there. That's what

And I don't have that in me. I don't know how.

Many people do. But if you can get Sheila on your side, you're in good shape. If she's going against you as a problem.

But that's my issue is that I think it's not that you don't want Sheila on your side, and I agree with you. It was much more about those white people making problems for them than it was that Sheila created the problems.

But what you do need with this.

Firmly help belief is a level of sobriety where you go, we don't really believe this shit, and Sheila really fucking believed. Yeah right, that's dangerous.

And that's that's just you being too good of a cult leader.

That's the problem is that, like somebody in there is really gonna be like, I'll die for this shit. Well you need everybody kill you for this. I'll kill you for this shit. And that's scary.

But that's what I like about what your wife's idea is. She's like, hey, y'all, we're gonna run a scam. M we all know we're scamming that that I think seems reasonable, but I've been always starts that way. Yeah, I think he pulled me over because I was on you.

I never thought about the long term because we're imagining this in this abstract way, like we are all kind of these fixed individuals, but we all know that there have been periods of our lives. We got homeboys where it's like, yeah, this is a fun thing. After like he's had twenty seven nights of threesomes with twenty five year olds calling him their lord or whatever. That would change, but the chemicals in his mind.

Truly, But that's not what he's talking about, right Because also the way that your wife is describing it, there's no growth.

But I don't know that she can see past that. Do you see what I'm saying. I think she's looking at as like I have eleven best friends. If me and my eleven best friends all lived on a compound together and we pretended to have this firmly held belief, we'd be fine. But what she's skipping is that we are raising children, and our children would be raised on this compound with this firmly held belief as a principle that they're living under, which means that they will eventually

I mean, what is the firmly hell believe? Are you creating a religion or are you hiding from the government saying something, Because to me, it sounds like you're just hiding from the government and feeding this up.

And that's part of my problem. She don't have a firmly hell belief yet, So until she can come with a real argument for what our belief is, I'm not buying this until.

She has a messiah, she has a guy.

Yeah, I think again, you do start with a firmly hell belief. It doesn't. Hey, all people are great, We're all gonna wear Santa hats. That's how it starts. But it's not gonna you know, fundamentally, because of the way human beings change over the course of times, months, years. By the end of it, it's going to be somebody. There's going to be because within any faction, you start off unified, not just the walking dead. Initially it's like, but just the concept we are all trying to not

That we're just vibing. No, we're gonna argue about dinner one night, and it's gonna create a faction. And now suddenly your beliefs and my beliefs are slightly askew, and a generation later we're murdering each other. Yes, I don't think it's possible nature.

I don't think it's that talk. I think I think I believe in small batch of cults. Who I believe in small batch clotes? Well, I think when you try to start scaling it up and inviting people from the outside, I think you can do it.

Well.

Let me tell you about a little country called the United States of America. My man, It started with something called the Declaration of Independence, right, uh, and.

It ain't going so well. It's not going so well.

He won We need to take a break. Yeah, we went so long. Then, all right, we're gonna be back with mara Al Jackson more.

My mama told me.

We are back.

Happy Kwanza. What is the quanta reading?

Actually it's uh.

I think it's Swahili based, so like, I feel very uncomfortable black men from Cleveland Swahi.

Many many quanzas to you, brothers, Okay, I like that.

Make quantsa be with you.

The only word I know is jambo.

What does that mean?

It means hello. I had a book when I was a kid called Jombo means hello. Yeah, okay, there that.

Guy stayed with me.

Yeah.

How many books do you read? You remember years later? It's impressive.

I read a lot of.

Books as a kid. I don't read it as many as an adult, but I read a share of books as a kid.

Man I had adhd or do, but dude, I got adderall and it changed my life. I started being able to read. I got through college without ever really reading. I just had to listen because I couldn't read anything. And then I just went on a tear and I started reading everything.

Oh no, I don't have it anymore. I'm my brain as much. But as a kid, I was like, really, you feel the starting to go. Yeah, it's tough because I recently realized I ran out of like all the knowledge I acquired from reading in my youth.

I got to the end.

Does that make sense? Like the porch is over, and now I got to acquire new and the muscle at your feed from Not like I still read, but I read like four or five books in a.

Year, you know what I mean. There's a very embarrassing thing when somebody asks you, like, what's your favorite book, and then something from high school pops in your head.

Truly, Yeah, fences, Yeah, ELI was out like the things they carried. Yeah, you just have to act like you kept reading. But that books that you're like, look, catching a Riot still really good?

Okay, this is fucked up.

Though that it is.

I do feel that way about that book. He literally he tried to argue with me the other day about how good that book it is.

It is amazing, It is amazing.

I need to reread it.

Yeah, we should all reread it.

I taught it, and I don't feel that way.

I love it, and I've read other sallengers shit to make sure that I love it. But you know what I mean.

Okay, great, I'm giving her to reread. He taught English.

Yeah, I taught high school English.

I taught middle school science man middle school.

I hated them. I briefly did like after school programming with middle school kids, and they're truly the greatest nightmare I could imagine. So I couldn't handle it. You got to get on them wor I was at a weird time in my life and that I was just as crazy as they were. Like I was partying.

I was Miami.

I was at twenty seven in Miami, like pre social media, so it was like the nineteen fifties. Yeah, I literally you it'll smoke SIGs in the bar, like Miami's a loose bro. You can like take a scotch and walk outside and like like the glass dog and you know what I'm saying, Like they just don't care it down there. And so I think my kids felt my energy. But now if I try to teach not on there, they.

Would writ me apart.

You know, like when the old like one of the first, like the original gang member, like goes back to jail and he's like, I'm an old gen Like shut.

Up, you just don't have that energy anymore. So like hold up, like we hold up, you're trying to tell you don't know your history, young man.

You see, when we started, it was about breakdance.

I'll see you at the club. That's how they used to settle beefs. Think about that. It's just like me and Davids cool, We're gonna settle this on Friday at Club Outlander.

It's like, what I think there's any dance move I could do to you that would feel better than hitting somebody in the.

No, there was one brave man who figured that out. He lost that dance battle, and I'm just gonna beat him up. I'm gonna punch him in the head. I think that's gonna feel that that was ground zero for gang violence.

Can we go back to dancing and and graffiti, y'all.

It's yeah, that's.

Why we know the name Stanley Tuki Williams.

You know what I mean, because his windmill wasn't wind Now everybody's gotta die.

Yeah, I mean if you.

Think about like Juice doesn't seem like that long ago, but when you watch it, when you see the gun that Tupac has, like I would give that to my tech. That gun is like he's got like a thirty eight. He's like, you would look crazy if you pull that out, Like you can get that in the club openly, and like how quickly that elevated to like you gotta be extra strapped up.

And even that he only had one gun. The whole movie.

It's a community gun. Yeah.

The whole movie is just about Tupac got the gun and isn't being nice about it, and then everybody's scared. It's like, I bro, everybody's got guns now, and everybody they're not revolvers, they're they're really.

That's how they Juice two got squashed in the uh just the early development, Like Juice is successful, it's to make Juice two where now another guy's got a gun, then it's just a gang. Okay, okay, it only works if one if there's one gun, what if.

Tyrese Gibson has the gun?

Now pretty good, I would watch Juice two starring I.

Do believe that they made a Juice to and I do believe that it starred uh. If I'm not mistaken, I think it might have been either Soldier Boy or DC Young Fly.

Really. Oh, they made a Juice too recently.

I'm pretty I think that's a conspiracy. Yes, yeah, Belly two exists.

Juice, Yeah, it's I kind of it's not great watching the movie start in the game.

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you've discussed this, but uh, I guess what. I guess No, Pop wasn't the first act. I mean, ic Tea is in the first couple of Breakings. And here is a weird conspiracy I did have because I was like, remember the Olympics this past year that Australian breakdancer Ray Gun bruined breakdancing. They took it from the Olympics. I'll never forget Breaking two. They put a white girl in there. She was horrible and that was the end of the Breakings because Breaking one it was

That was a big thing and like also makes no sense story wise.

Talk to me.

I watched You with My Girl like six months ago. It is a horrible movie.

Is that electric?

Yeah, so it doesn't make any sense. It's like terribly rat like Breaking One had a plot. Breaking Two it was just like bad.

Admittedly, I've never seen either of the Breakings. I don't Oh, what are you a beach street guy? No, I haven't seen that either. There are certain films crush groove, that's your thing, buddy. There are certain generations of films that I know that if I watch it, I'm not gonna like it, and I don't want to disrespect it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, Roger, just go, I'm too old. The generation has passed. There's nothing they're gonna

Yeah?

He was killing it back then. I get it, but not no more. And I'm not trying to do.

You know what.

I still watch it holds up King of New York, Oh, with Frank Whitet.

Yeah.

Really, Christop's dark. Okay have you seen that? Wesley Snipe's his character, but he that's I mean, he was coked out and probably unmedicated. You know, do you ever think about that, Like when you look at our parents, Like everybody that they grew up with was not medicated. Yeah, all the depression, all the alcoholism. Nobody around them was like, hey David, I don't think you should be drinking in the morning. Like, no one ever told noone depressed. I mean,

No, they when they call younger generations like weak, I do understand what they're saying. I don't agree with it, but I understand it. It's like you were truly raw dogging the world and you figured out a way to survive this ship, and we're asking for reasonable accommodations and you're like, but I didn't. I didn't have that right, right, And so it's like, no, you comparatively, we we are doing a weaker thing, absolutely, but it also you're tripping you shouldn't have done.

That, right. There's some low key hating because I'm sure they're looking like, well, do you know what I could have done if it wasn't legal to slap your wife in Texas until nineteen ninety one or whatever, these crazy laws that they grew up with, like women like I don't think people realize like the world that women were living in up until probably like the mid early nineties, where what was going on at work, like your boss

It was crazy saw on Miami at work with women.

I'll just say like in the places I worked, some of them were comedy clubs. So we're gonna make this real vague, but like it would be I can't. It was like Studio fifty four. It's exactly what you think.

It would be.

There was blow everywhere everywhere, and especially like when you would do the the smaller cities you'd be in like Fort Myers or somewhere just the owner would just you go back there to get paid, get your check, and just blow on the table your check sitting there, waitress sitting on his lap, he's half in the bag, his wife is up front. I mean, it was fuck it, but it didn't it didn't seem weird. It was just like I was offered to be paid in cocaine, their money,

Put her on the cover of Time magazine. Yeah you know what I mean, not Terry Crust's don't give a fuck about him getting his dick grabbed that one time. That lady deserves a profile of like a I went through it. There was no payoff on the other end of this. No, I was just a waitress at a comedy club in Miami. None of this, none of the math here works out in my favor right.

And that waitress would tell a waitress you know from her mom's generation, they hit me on the ass, and they'd be like, that's all honey.

Yeah, congratulations, Like think about I mean, it sounds like you had a first a good first night.

Yeah, what is your is your manager?

Gaida?

And like women, it's like, yeah, just a what a different world. And it wasn't that long ago, you know.

Before we wrap this thing up, I guess the question on my mind. You you talked about the possibility that Kwanta could become more powerful. You talked about the possibility that Kwanta could be then overtaken by our white counterparts, that it would become sort of a universal holiday. My question for you is do you think ultimately that would be a good thing for the growth? Is the growth of this holiday worth the squeeze of it becoming national and subsequently slightly white, if not completely.

Well, there's nothing that's if you do not cross over in a popular culture. Popular culture is not only all cultures, but definitely white culture. You are going to hit you you have a hard ceiling. Think about how many people are famous in the black community and people don't know who they are. You know, there's a lot, there's a lot of if you don't cross that level into like where a thirteen year old white kids know who you are, twenty seven year old grad students know who you are.

Nick, you know who Alan pa is? You do? Okay, next one of us?

It's any one without trying, That's what That's what black dudes really feel like. You're trying like that. But yeah, there's there's this past Thanksgiving. Just to keep it pretty recent, I was floored at the number of people that had never tasted or heard of sweet potato pie. Never heard of it, never heard of it, they heard a pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie is our culture, is like baseline for a holiday pie. Sweet potato pie is baseline, baseline for black

Well, I would love for Patty LaBelle to make my kwantas so I'm not.

Patty LaBelle does Quanta pies. That'd be pretty cool.

Oh I can't imagine.

How could that be the crossover we've been waiting for. Patty, get on the phone, baby girl. We've been calling you. You gotta pick up. We got a lot of ideas for you. Patty but more importantly, we want Quanta to

Do you do you think that the nature of kwansa though, is a little different than even that of a Juneteenth, where it's like June teenth is like a celebration of a thing that happened in America, so it's able to be co opted. Where kwans are specifically created to be this like ped African ped africanist, like holiday. I don't think that. I so to that, I guess say say I don't think it scales up because I don't think that they get on board.

Well, I think I excuse me, I was just having this thought. I think the real, real time example that we have of it is pride. Look how crossover straight white ladies love pride and straight white guys go to pride because straight white ladies are a pride And I know for a fact gay men that was like I used to get my ass kicked, my boyfriend got his teeth knocked out because we were holding the hands in

That's really the the where I struggle with it is the commodifying. I'm fine with it becoming a commodity we all benefit from, but when it starts becoming the type of commodity that like, truly only the motherfuckers that didn't invest in it in the first place are the ones making the money off of it, it gets scary.

Well, it's every look at the weed business, right, But yeah, it's.

Gonna be Coca Cola has a Kwanza flavor. And yeah, it's hard to know where this starts and stops. But I mean, I think that's an American thing more so than it's even a black thing. Is It's like, what's what's being offered up in culture that isn't eventually going to be co opted by corporations?

I don't know, And that's that's I pray if we can wrap this thing up, I pray that Quantza somehow becomes the miracle holiday. If there is a miracle inside of Quantsa, I think the miracle would be Kwanza some by some miracle being the first holiday that remains at its core fully black but also gains the popularity that it deserves in unifying black people.

Well, lang Stance is the season I believe in this Quanta Dave miracle. Hell yeah, Quanta day a week. What do they call the Manura?

Then the Quanta stick.

And yet and when you see it at Target and it's made by Better Homes and Living. Yeah, you know there are no African Americans on that board.

When has a game for quantity?

Yeah, Target always wants some white kids.

Stands up.

I win, I'm the king of us. Good for him because more people know about it. So it's the contant trug.

Yeah, man, yikes. Al, you want to tell the people where they can find you what cool shit you got going on?

You can find me at Al Jackson on I G and uh, you can listen to me on Daytime Talk after Dark where we uh it's my old Daily Blast live show. But we're right here in this here studio. Shout out dude, I d K Studios for holding me down. Shout out Nick, shout out Jacob. But yeah, and just check my website at Al Jackson Live for days, but mostly follow me on Instagram.

Fuck yeah, Cory, cool guy, Joke City seven on Instagram. Birth of a Nation on all streaming platforms, Patreon dot com back slash.

Statement bo hell Yeah. Follow me at Langston Kerman on all social media platforms, and you can watch my special it's called Bad Poetry. It's on Netflix. Watch English Teacher It's on FX. And if you want to send us your own drops, your own conspiracy theories, if you want to tell us what the actual manora for Kwanta is called, send it all to Mymama Pod at gmail dot com. You can also call us at eight four four Little Moms. We would love to hear from you. Hear your sweet

Creet it and hosted by Langston correct co hosted by David Bori, Executive produced by Will Ferrell, Hansani and Olivia Akilon, co produced by Bee Wayne, edited and engineered by Justin Kaffe, music by Nick Chambers, artwork by Dogon Kreega.

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