May 4, 2021 • 50 mins
If you point at a cemetery do all your fingers fall off? Langston and his guest Nick Chambers (Tawanda's Live Request) scratch the surface and more exploring this Jamaican superstition.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
If you're dead and you can't do anything else, I
wouldn't run around cursing people too for less easy. Yeah,
what's this nigger got the sniffles? I'm gonna beats. I
don't like how that shirt fits on you. Y'all. Every
shirt you try and gonna look bad. Yeah, you're gonna
(00:30):
be real stuff conscious when you wear them too, You're
gonna know they look bad. It ain't gonna be one
of them things where you're like, I look good for
other people are like, Now, I don't think that works.
You go, no, bitch, chips in your racist money, mars
(01:01):
man in terms stuff you can't tell me. Yep, there
it is there, It is there. It is. Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to another phenomenon devastating episode of My Mama Told Me,
the podcast where we died deep, deep into the pockets
(01:22):
of black conspiracy theories and we finally worked to prove
that George Washington Carver discovered over three hundred uses for
the peanut, but he had zero uses for these nuts.
Do you know why? Because he was castrated as a
young boy. That's right. They took that man's testicles away
from him, and that horrible and unfair thing happened, but
(01:43):
I believe it was the exact motivation he needed to
focus all of that other energy on other kinds of nuts,
no distractions. It's like how that old saying goes when
a ball nut closes a peanut opens. Huh, guys know
that classic saying that everybody says, It's it's a tale
(02:04):
is all this time? I'm your host, Lankston Herman. I'm
happy to be here. What a what a lovely, lovely
happy experience we have for you today, my guest, and
I should say this before my guest comes on. When
I was looking up information about George Washington Carver, one
of the first things that pops up when you type
in George Washington Carver is George Washington Carver, did he
(02:28):
own slaves? And Uh. That's a real sad question for
the Internet to have produced and really makes me feel
like America is hopeless and we deserve to die from
whatever virus. It doesn't have to be Corona, it can
be a way sillier virus. But we don't deserve to
keep living one way or the other. Anyway, my guest today,
he deserves to keep living. He's a good guy. Not
(02:50):
only is he a good person, he's a phenomenal artist.
He's one of these people that I'm immensely jealous of
because of his his many many skills. He is solely responsible,
no help. He made our theme music, he made the
artwork for this project. He he is the artist behind
so much of this. I just talked ship. This motherfucker
(03:12):
puts in the work. You guys are gonna love him.
A dear friend of hilarious person Mr Nick Chambers. Every money, Hello, Hello, Hello,
crowd is coming through. Great. Oh yeah, now they're here.
You made that theme music and they're like, what's up?
And let's be clear you you wrote some of the lyrics,
(03:33):
but I did. I wrote the less funny lyrics in
the UH. I wrote like three lyrics. I was like,
I don't know, dog, just repeat it. And you were like,
those are the ones that people quote to me. Though
those are I was like, whila, bears are raisedst Like
I get a fair amount of uh of response from
(03:55):
But I do genuinely think the stuff about the ozone
layer in the artians and the turkey stuff and is oh,
just fantastic work. You really should be proud of yourself.
Thank you, Yeah, nobody's gonna award you for it, and
and frankly they shouldn't. It's this is a stupid, stupid
thing you've done. But I'm really happy you did it.
(04:15):
I'm grateful we have an amazing conspiracy theory to unpack today.
I would argue it's new to me. I've never heard
it before, certainly not one that was like, uh constantly
in the lexicon of like ship that I heard growing up.
I know that you come from a Jamaican home, so
(04:39):
I have to imagine that there are some cultural sort
of like connection to some of the things that were
about to unpack. You said, and this is it's a
fun one. You said. My mama told me if you
point at a cemetery, all your fingers will fall off.
(05:01):
Talk to me about that. Tell me more so, if
you point episode there, all your things will fall off,
and the only way to reverse it is to bite
all of your fingers. Pre Okay, let's let's pause there
for a second, because my fingers are falling off. So
am I biting them preemptively? Exactly? You've pointed. You recognize
(05:21):
you pointed. You bite them too, I guess reattach the
nerves it's very medical. You bite all your fingers and
then they won't fall off. I don't know what the
time frame is in Well, That's what I'm wondering, is like,
how quickly am I expected to uh to to notice
(05:42):
this to bite down. I'm obviously aware of this wives tale,
So why the funk am I pointing in the first place?
I don't know, Like I asked, I asked, my parents
are like, okay, so, and this is something that they
told me long after I was a child because I
was very scary as a kid. I couldn't show up,
would have never been able to deal with this as
a child. But uh, and going back and like asking
(06:04):
like so weird, like who told you this? What what
would happen to, Like, I don't know, just somebody my mom?
And my mom said, I don't know, but it's a
thing that I used to do as a kid. And
my dad said, I don't know. It's from slavery. And
I asked for more information and he's like, it's probably
something left over. I don't understand. And and frankly, who
(06:28):
can argue with slavery. It's not there's no retort to that.
It's just like all right, it's from slavery, I guess slaves.
If I'm a slave master and people sneak out at night,
I would have been some horror stories like, yeah, there's
a cemetery, this ghosts. You gotta bite your fingers, and
why are you biting your fingers? They're coming up with
the dogs. They're catching you so right, or even if
(06:51):
it's a slave like being like, hey, didn't you kill
my friend? He right over there, He's like, no, if
you point your fingers gonna fall off, don't point it
a ship. Get back to work. It's just you're just
creating fear where fear wasn't, so you keep people in line.
I think I think that's that's a respectable choice. I
guess as a slave owner. The one, the one is
(07:15):
The one thing I respect about slave owners is they
came up with silly games to keep their slaves in mind. Slavery.
Not a fan, but if you're gonna be a slave owner,
you gotta do something silly. Tell him their fingers are
gonna fall off? Why not? All right, talk to me
a little bit about because I mentioned it in the preamble.
But your parents are Jamaican, Yes, yes, do you think
(07:40):
do you think that this comes from that, because I've
never heard that before, Like, I don't think that's necessarily
an American conspiracy if you will. Yeah, I haven't heard
it anywhere else. And I looked up trying to find
some information about I couldn't find anything. So I don't
know which Marley came over this ship. I'll tell you
(08:05):
right now, it's that Nigga Ziggy. That Nigga Ziggy was
out of pocket when he came up with this ship.
That's a classic Ziggy. You name somebody Ziggy, they're gonna
have some weird thoughts. You're gonna say something crazy. You
gotta keep up with his more talented brothers. He's gonna
say something wild. It's interesting because even in looking this up,
obviously this and I think some of my listeners would
(08:28):
even want to argue about this ship somewhere on the internet.
This falls probably closer to something that we qualify as superstition,
right that, Like it's a little more about like the
mythical than it is about like conspiratorial thing. But I
personally would argue, and I'd be curious to hear your
thoughts that I actually don't think there's that big of
(08:49):
a difference between conspiracy and superstition. It's something that you're
I don't know if it's necessarily proven, but you believe
in its real to you, So I definitely would put
it there. I think so. And then I think, you know,
the reality is that conspiracies are just superstitionous that haven't
had enough time to cook. You know what I mean that,
(09:10):
like you give this one a thousand years or even
like ship that that we think is like like right
now people are arguing whether or not five G is
sucking up our bodies, right, or whether or not five
G is some sort of poisonous thing in the universe, right,
And we're gonna argue about that as like a conspiracy
or whatever. But you let that cook long enough, and
(09:32):
a thousand years from now, if we live that long,
somebody's gonna be like, hey, man, don't put yourself on
below your waist, because if you put yourself on below
your waist, you'll curse your family blood for generations. And
that will know that that just means that, like, oh,
cell phone waves were cooking your testicles, but they don't
know that they're they're making it superstitions When it was
(09:54):
conspiracy back when we were alive to it exactly. It's
so weird thing because, like my parents are very religious,
so for this ghost thing to be part of their
their life is like a weird turn. I have believe
like ghosts and monsters, no goat, But if if you
(10:15):
mentioned like demons or the devil or anything, they're like
on board, Like yeah, ghost, forget that. I don't believe
any of that stuff. But have you ever seen any demon?
My mom told us that she she witnessed someone being
possessed in college. To this day, to this day, she
(10:35):
maintains that she's you gotta unpack that a little bit.
Tell me what happened where she's she witnessed the possession,
then went to a trigg she just witnessed an exorcism,
and then went off to the quad to her friends.
You got pe soup on my notebook. It was it
(10:57):
was this is in in Jamaica, and there was a
girl who lived in her dorm who was into like
weigi and spiritism and stuff. And she had a friend
who was also into it, and so they were in
like chapel and the and the preacher was talking. It
was a religious school. So the preachers talking about you
know Jesus, and and as you do. And I don't know,
(11:20):
I felt the name he was talking about Jesus is weird.
And the preacher was being a while that day. He
was talking about like Ravioli and trap music. I don't know,
but anyway, it was church. So he's talking about Jesus.
And then the woman ran out and then people that
sorry said something through her to the floor, and so
(11:40):
they picked her up and her friend ran out. After
they picked them up, brought them back to the dorm
and for a long time they were like praying and
trying to get Jesus out of that. My mom said that, um, there,
in the name of Jesus, I tell I tell you
to get out. And the woman who was trying to
invoke Jesus to get rid of the demon, like every
time she would go to say the name of Jesus,
her tongue would curl up and prevented saying it. And
(12:03):
then the luijiboard girl said in a voice that they
had never heard before, who is this Jesus? So it
turns out she was just possessed by gay black man
and that's pretty cool. Titus Burgess came down to Jamaica,
(12:24):
for weeks was possessing. Yeah, that's why. So she heard
this voice, that's what she says. And what did she
do after that? Did she run away? Was she? Did
she stay and watched the whole thing? Like? What was
her response? She watched the whole thing. And then they
(12:45):
ended up sending the girl to the hospital. And then
this was during like final exams time, so they canceled
exams the next day because nobody in the door and
really got any sleep because there was an exorcism going on.
Oh and I would have paid somebody to pretend to
be possessed during the middle of my finals. Sweet part
(13:08):
of me thinks, like, was it is that? What the
whole thing was? Like a study for the exam? You
know what, they can't make you take a test if
you feel with demons, I'm gonna pretend. I just pretend.
That's that's fucking nuts, And that's it's such a weird
(13:31):
to your point, that's such a weird thing for your
parents to be like anti the possibility of ghosts or
goblins or whatever it is, but fully committed to the
ghosts and goblins of religious text that like, it's in
essence the exact same thing it's just connected to a
book that they read versus the ones that they didn't.
(13:54):
It's it's almost like people fully believing in the Marvel
universe but being like Batman gets a funk out of here.
That ain't that ain't scripture. That ain't a part of
what I. I subscribe to him and I ironed me
and let's talk about that. But that means you in
the Book of Tony Stark three verse Jarvis. Okay, so
(14:18):
your parents tell you this. You said they didn't tell
you until you got older? Yeah, at what point or
was there a point where did you believe it? Were
you at all? Like? Oh, maybe I gotta be careful
about that. You know, the context of it was like
we were talking about things that we believed as kids,
and they came up in that context. So it's like, yeah,
(14:40):
this is a stupid thing. Oh so they were acknowledging
it's a stupid right, Okay, So that makes it a
little easier. It's not like you're having a reason with
your parents being like, you know, if you pointed a cemetary,
you gotta bite your fingers otherwise bad boy's gonna fall off, right.
It's like, why would you even tell me that. Just
(15:01):
say that from when I point at the cemetery, don't
it's like it's a snake bite, like we gotta come in,
but it's like all the glue back in. It doesn't
make sense. I don't know exactly what's happening with the fingers. Okay,
So so they tell you this as something that they
(15:21):
once believed. Did your parents grow up near each other.
Did they know each other at a young age? No?
I think around maybe college age is when they met.
So it's something that they heard independently of each other.
They lived kind of in the same area in Kingston,
but I don't think they knew each other growing up. Sure,
(15:42):
so it was enough they believed it enough that they
they're stuck in their memories independently. And then they both
were like, hey, by the way, you buy your fingers fingers,
and that's how they met. Let's build a family together.
We can make a little comedian musician baby together. Let's
(16:02):
do that. They put the rings on each other's fingers
with their mouths and bit the finger on the way.
I like the idea that your father put the ring
off first, and then your mom was like, you know
what to do and then you had to bite that
finger and it wasn't this actual thing, It was merely protection. Yeah,
(16:25):
for the possibility that your fingers fall off. I want
this ring to stay on for a long time. How much?
Let me ask you this, because if you grew up
in a pretty religious household, how much of that do
you follow today? Are you a religious person? Do you
believe in any of it? What stuck? If anything, I
(16:46):
think there's a like in times of like stress and fear,
it will come back, just like as a reflex. Sure. No,
it's like I can't find my keyth Lord if you
see them anywhere. Lord, please let this airplane stay all
the way up in the air and not do some
weird ship. Yeah. There was one Halloween where I went
(17:09):
to UM. I was coming back from Vancouver and I'm
on the plane and I'm I'm a nervous flyer. I
do not like it. And I looked and there was
a nun on the plane. I was like, okay, cool,
she's here. She's like she's a liaison. Were good, And
I remember it's Halloween, Like this lady could clear. So
(17:31):
I'm just sitting there like quiet, like Lord, if that's
if she's with you cool. If she's not and you're
mad at her, just let my part of the plane
land somewhere, right, because that could have easily just been
a sinner. That could have been just a lady dressed
as a nun, which is blasphemous, which gives God every
reason to to flick your little airplane out of the sky,
(17:54):
has punishment for the what this bitch is doing. Exactly,
I didn't see the bottom have it could have been
all actually none, nobody just cross covered panties and you're like, oh,
thank God that this lady is here. I feel safe. Meanwhile,
you're going to hell. You're about to die. It's all.
(18:15):
It makes me so frustrated, even watching the way that
people behave on airplanes now, not even relation to just
religion necessarily, although I do think that for me, it's
like I believe that something's up there. I don't know
what to call it or how if the books that
we wrote have anything to do with it, but there's
certainly I don't think that we just came up with
(18:37):
us on our own. That said, they're like so many
people refuse to follow basic airplane rules, and it feels
like you like we're already spitting in God's face by
flying up here. And you know what I mean, Like
we're already breaking the rules. You don't, Yeah, close your
(18:58):
fucking laptop, you idiot, Like you don't don't do the
extra ship that even humans are Like, I I don't know,
this might be too far. We probably shouldn't do this one.
That's fucking crazy. How do you know better than the
people who are running the plane? Right? And I don't.
And to that point, I don't think that they know anything.
(19:18):
So if they're telling me, okay, if they start off
literally by being like, hey, y'all, here's what scares us,
that's maybe that's how they need to rephrase the whole
like airplane breakdown. Right, with all of our knowledge and
study and training, this is the thing that we're not
sure about. Yeah, would rattles my bones. That's when you
(19:41):
leave your cell phone on by the time we take off.
I don't know why, what's gonna happen? Maybe nothing, but
boy do I get nervous And I'd be like, all right,
I'm gonna turn my cell phone off. I would. I
would be more comfortable with a with a pilot who's like, hey,
I've been off the past couple of days just beat like,
let me know it, this is we're gonna be hitting
(20:01):
some terms. But hey, hey, whoa, who wasn't that crazy? Whoa?
That ship was all right? All right, we gotta take
a chill for us, like old on, I'm gonna land
this bad boy and just re resettle myself because that
was crazy. Comes on you just here, whoa, I ain't
(20:25):
even gonna lie. We got some ship coming up on
the radar that y'all ain't gonna funk with. And I
don't funk with it either. Anyway. Enjoy the peanuts and
uh and cocoa on your screens. We're only playing cocoa. Okay.
Last question, So you're not a particularly religious person, you're
(20:49):
not necessarily buying into their version of spirituality, at least
as in terms of the fingers falling off? Are there
any parts of things that they've said, like this that
you were like, Oh, I can get with that. I
see where that comes from, and I actually agree with that.
I don't know if it's agreeing, but the whole demon thing,
(21:12):
like even though I don't know if I believe it's
it's just like the cell phone on the airplane. It's
like you know what. I don't know if they are
demons in here, but let me just say Jesus a
few times, just in case, so they know. I know.
It's like cocking cocking a shotgun. I like that. You
think Jesus is like beetlejuice, and if you say his
(21:33):
name or a certain number of times, he's just gonna
pop up and do cool shit. I think Jesus. I
think Jesus is busier, right, I just see that as
this page or number. I wanted to know that, Like, ay,
I called you, you could call me back, come back ready,
No rush, I get it. You're a busy dude. You
got holes in your feet, in your hands. But whenever
(21:55):
you're ready, just it's called me back. It's me Nick.
By the way, it's Nick, your part time servant. It's Nick,
the guy who only kind of believes in you. You know,
when it's convenient for me. Do you remember? All right,
we're gonna take a break. We'll be back with more
(22:16):
Nick Chambers and more, my mama told me. And we
are back. Yeah, we're back here with more Nick Chambers more.
(22:46):
My mama told me. We're still talking about that. The
possibility of your fingers falling off sort of uh Dory
and Gray style. I guess if you point at a
cemetery just turned to ash because you didn't nip on
him right after you point. What do you think parents
were trying to get you from from doing with the
don't point at a cemetery because that's what a lot
(23:09):
of these old wives sales are cooked in, is like
allegories and lessons for being a better person. What's the
fear for a young person pointing at a cemetery. I
have no idea. I don't know. I don't know if
it's like like respecting the dead or uh, just pointing
in general, which is a long way to go to
(23:29):
just to get kids to not point. Yeah, i'd say
so you could have just said take your hat off
when we when we're around the grave. But as they
you're like view point before to god. Right. Somebody said
it was like if the if you point at a cemetery,
(23:51):
then the dead can see you and then they'll come
and get you with some like that. I don't know. Yeah, okay,
I could see that, like you're building it's like pointing
out a regular person almost where it's like you're opening communication. Yeah, yeah, now,
you're being rude, so now I gotta retaliate. And the dead,
(24:12):
I guess apparently are petty as ship and they're like
that motherfucker pointed at me. You cursed, bitch, you cursed.
All right, let's unpack some of this research. And we
we talked a little bit about the way that superstition
feels like it's it's sort of leading the way in
this one. And I wanted to do a little research
(24:32):
on like superstition as a as a belief system. How
many people actually believe in superstitions in general, And apparently
twenty five percent of Americans identify themselves as superstitious in
some way, shape or form. They say that, yes, I
would consider myself a superstitious person. That sounds about right. Okay,
(24:57):
hell yeah, it was over your life, you would say.
One and four people are like, ay, don't split that pole,
don't right. It's things like that or like with sports
kind of things, for sure, I think right, And and
to that point, it's so cooked into even like the
way that our systems work, right, superstition is kind of
(25:17):
a part of everything. Like there's no floor in most
hotel rooms, and that's just because somebody decided that was
a bad number, and they were like, well, we can't
get guests to sleep here, so we'll just get rid
of the number. That's and it's still the thirteenth floor.
It's just a different number floor number. Yeah, it's like, bitch,
(25:39):
I know a fourteen eight means this ain't this ain't
a trick. This is just thirteen. And you're not telling
me that you think the bad luck is gonna get
lost in the hotel was looking for calling down to
the lobby like hey, I just I can't find my room.
I'm sorry. The is the third time I've called, but
(26:01):
I just can't find my room. So yeah, even with that,
this is something fascinating I didn't realize. But there are
other superstitions that sort of follow that same trajectory in
other places, right, Like I think we we often have
a very Americanized view of like what numbers are bad
or rules and ship But in China the number four
(26:22):
is bad, Like they don't funk with the number four
at all. So like I imagine that there's a bunch
of things that they skip over with the number four
because they don't funk with that. Or for example, in Brazil,
this airline loof that loof Dans. I don't know how
to pronounce it. I'm not from there, But they don't
have a seventeenth row on their airline, right, But they
(26:46):
don't tell you that there're seventeen rows. They say it's
something else because they don't want people to think that,
you know, they're sitting seventeen because apparently seventeen is bad.
Does this say why these specific number? So did you
do you know why they pick these specific numbers? No?
I mean I think it's similar to us, where it
just sort of like is a a old legend that
(27:10):
bills and then it's less about them actually believing it
and more about them preparing for people who do believe it. Right,
It's a lot of these companies are just like saying like, look,
I don't give a funk, I just want your money.
But it does it's easier to get your money if
you're not sitting there going I refuse to sit in
the thirteenth row or the seventeenth row or whatever it is.
(27:32):
I do really love the idea of there being a
a Brazilian Friday the seventeen, which but just Brazilian Jason
running around murdering people or Michael Myers. I thought, yeah,
just Michael Myers with the airhorn. The mask is all
(27:54):
colorful with the feathers and instead of the air it's
just there's beautiful feathers just dancing towards you. He's wearing
a mesh tank top. It looks good. Michael Myers looks good.
Miguel Meyers, No, I don't know. I don't know Portuguese,
(28:17):
I don't know Virgilian Portuguese, but I bet there's a
Miguel down there. Miguel Myers looks great. Okay, so uh.
Superstition apparently derives from the assumption that a connection exists
between cocurring, non related events, basically meaning that if my
fingers fall off after I pointed a cemetery, it's easy
(28:38):
to point at the cemetery and blame that instead of examining,
for example, why the funk I have leprosy? You know
what I mean? Like, where did this leopardsy come from?
And how did I get that as an adult? It's
just someone trying to hide their leprosy from their friends.
(28:59):
I I don't have leprosies. Just look at that cemetery
over there. Oh god, oh man, the devil, don't got me. Demons,
those cursed demons stole my fingers. Yeah, I think it's
such a fascinating thing because at the end of the day,
(29:20):
so much of superstition and so much of conspiracy theory.
And this is something that the research sort of shows
is that it's often connected to people's want for control,
right that, like, you live in this uncontrollable environment. Everything
is is chaotic and mayhem, and the easiest way to
make sense of that chaos and mayhem is to say, like, Okay,
(29:43):
here's a rule that I know how to follow. Here's
the thing that I know. If I do this, at
least I feel in charge of the whole thing, like
they even said, like and some of the research I
saw that that, uh, in Germany, between nineteen eighteen and
nineteen forty, the measures of economic threat correlated directly with
(30:03):
the measures of superstition. That like, superstition was going up,
because between nineteen eighteen and nineteen forty, they the money
was fucked up in Germany right there. Post World War One,
pre World War Two, they're still like rebuilding as a country,
and so they're being hyper superstitious and ship right, So
(30:24):
who who is keeping track of the superstition number. I'm
superstitious about that. Sure, yeah, okay, I'm here. I wasn't
why what you're throwing down? But why? Why is that
a thing that you've paid attention to, or how specifically
during the time when a bunch of Jews are being killed? Like,
why are you so focused on superstition right now when
(30:47):
you could be helping your neighbors. Right, we don't want
to print all that stuff. Let's print about the superstitions.
Let's run that story first. Hey, hey, stop writing about
these Jews. Man, don't you see all these black cats?
Every Let's focus that's bad cats. I do a killer
German impression. I don't know if because come look at
(31:11):
the black cats. Mad just I love I just love language.
That's my thing. Turkey isn't a German phrase. They're talking
about actual turkey. Yeah, at the time, black people turned
it into turned it into a cultural something else. But
(31:34):
now they were talking about an actual turkey named jive.
He was unlike in the German community. One of the
things that I ended up finding in a lot of
the research that I was unpacking is that there's actually
quite a few other cemetery based conspiracy theories. In fact,
(31:54):
I found a website that listed nearly like a hundred
of them. I've listed one of my favorites, and I
would love to get your reaction on a few of these.
But one of them was being first to leave a
cemetery after a funeral could bring you death. You'll die
if you leave first. Yep, if you leave that funeral first,
you might die. I mean we're already here. Yeah, Well,
(32:24):
it's a scary thing to tell somebody, like, you know,
if you leave version, you don't die, right. You know
what it was? It was a very unlike person on
their deathbed, like, you know, if you leave my funeral first,
you go, there's a bunch of annoyed people standing around
this grave like you about to leave. But I think
(32:45):
that's there's something really really insightful in what you're saying.
Is that so much of this while we make it
something dramatic or something, you know, like something that's affecting
the whole world, the reality is it's something that affected
a few individuals, and they are so selfish and and
sort of like self centered in all of this that
(33:06):
they then make it a rule for everybody to follow.
You know what I mean you, we don't all have
to throw salt over our shoulder. You did, dog, you
deal with You live in that salt needing life right right.
You're the one with the saltless back. You deal with
that ship. You got this unsalted back, My back as
(33:28):
salty as funk. I'm fine. I don't need none of that.
My shoulder plays of saltines, But tell me these ain't
salty in my Here's another one that I thought was
really interesting. They say, locking the door of your home
after a funeral procession passes by is bad luck at
(33:51):
what point, like as it's going by or later that day,
just I believe they said. After which that part bugged
me in the same way that they seemed to be
bugging you, where it's like, okay, so I just gotta
keep my door unlocked always. Now that feels a little
like I used to watch the show True Blood. It's
(34:11):
the whole vampire like they could only come in if
you get invited. That seems like some backwards, like the
ghosts can't operate a locked door after the possession, like
leave it open for right, So they're saying, hey, just
leave it open, let the ghost in, and then they'll
leave you alone. But if you lock that door, they'll
be piste and they'll want vengeance. Here's my personal favorite.
(34:35):
A witch. This is a real supercision. A witch must
be buried face down to prevent the community further supernatural spells.
If this doesn't want work, unbury them and turn their
clothes inside out, then rebury them face down. Say that,
let's part again. Sure a witch. If you're gonna bury
(34:57):
a which, you gotta bury your face down. That's that's
what they're saying. And if you funk up and don't
do that, you gotta dig her up, turn her clothes
inside out, and then rebury her face down. Take your
time with it. There's no there's no correct answer here.
I'll be frank with you. It's again. I think it's
(35:18):
just somebody got caught in a situation where they were
digging up a lady. She was a witch. That's why
she's naked because I had to turn It's just somebody
in Salem, right. This is a man. This is a
sick man who dug up a lady and wanted to
(35:40):
fuck took her clothes off. Let's be honest. It was
a man who was fucking corpses and somebody somebody walked
up and was like, Hey, why the funk are you
sticking your dick and that lady's butt? And you're like,
oh what, Oh no, she'll witch. I gotta bury her
face down and turn her clothes inside out. That's why
she naked and my dick is inside of her. I
(36:01):
had a much more wholesome idea that it's like a
local dressmaker and he's trying to get his name out there,
so he buried them. So the tag is out on
the back, so you buried them, and people, Oh, this
is let's go to listen. She dead, but she looked good.
(36:23):
I'm wanting to that was this tagline. She did, but
she looked good. Okay. The other thing that I sort
of wanted to look into in terms of these theories
around cemeteries is that it seems to be often be
connected to threat of death and decay, right, which I
(36:46):
have to assume comes from our history of terrible like
burial practices and diseases that sometimes follow those burial practices.
If you've watched any like old tiny television, you know
these motherfucker's didn't watch their hands. They weren't like cleaning
up properly after bodies. And I wanted to sort of
like unpack, like what is our actual history with like clean,
(37:09):
effective burial practices. And apparently there are example, horrible examples.
There's a this ancient city in Turkey. I'm not even
gonna pretend to pronounce this name, but it was not
you know, the city of Jive, Turkey. Uh, nine thousand
(37:31):
years ago, people used to bury their beloved under their
houses as an attempt to separate themselves from their ancests
or not separate themselves or out there from their ancestors
emotionally or physically or smell. Yes, you just have a
rotting corpse buried underneath your home because you want to
(37:53):
be connected. Yeah, that's so, just as many people in
your family died that under that's right, and I have
there was some more people are dying because of this rotting,
festering corpse underneath your home. And this is in what
what is this? This was nine thousand years ago? So
(38:14):
according to some people, the earth didn't exist yet, but
according to it was BC. Let's just agree it was
BC before before. And you know what, that's how they
get that's how they get you before coffience is how
you end up getting murdered by time. I guess I
(38:38):
don't know, all right. This is another one that was
pretty wild. It said that in some parts of ancient Greece,
people used to put iron nails across the dead bodies
to prevent an eventual undesired resurrection. Basically like, in order
to prevent zombies from rising, they would basically nail parts
of the body to the coffin, into the ground or
(39:00):
to the ground, whatever it was. But you know, ship's
gotta be juice, gotta be popping about that nail, you
know what I mean, It's gonna squirt right when we
hit that nail in there. I've opened a caprice son
before I know. So you're nailing the person to the coffin. Yeah,
(39:25):
just in case the zombifying and get back up. But
can't they just like I've seen zombie movies where they
just whatever part of them is stuck, they just ripped
that part off and keep coming. Yeah, well that's not
what they believed in ancient Greece. Apparently an iron nail
was enough for a zombie to be like, oh damn,
they got I was gonna eat their brains. But never mind,
(39:49):
that's cool, smart y'all, smart o y'all going to ben
math or something that's cool. Right, And also, if you're
coming from a time where you've been hearing stories about
Jesus and Lazarus, people coming back to life is not
too far fetched, I suppose, right, sure, they believed in resurrection,
and for them it was it was more of which
(40:10):
resurrections they liked and which ones they didn't. I guess
they preferred certain resurrections over others. Who do you want
to come back for another season? It was it was
really American Idol study style voting to keep you underground
or or around underground or around next year on Grecian television. Okay,
(40:36):
this is the last piece of research that I sort
of wanted to dig into because I do think that
that left that leprosy and sort of like these conversations
around like where so many of these conspiracies comes from
is valid, right that, like a lot of it is
diseases and sicknesses that we then blow up into something
more extreme. And it turns out in my research, I
(40:58):
found out that leopard see actually still exists in Jamaica
today in this day and age. A lot to be
proud of of your home country. But come on, but
if fairly in five cases of leprosy were found in
Jamaica alone, which I didn't even know was still a thing,
(41:22):
You know what I mean? I mean, I guess if
you're wearing so many mess shirts, it's too much bacteria
falling in and out. You gotta cover some of that.
All that daggering, somebody's gonna catch, right, you dagger till
somebody's fingers fall along to the pieces to make a
(41:42):
dance out of that. Yeah, I dropped the finger that.
All right, we're gonna take one more break. We'll be
back with more Nick Chambers and more, my mama told me.
(42:06):
And we are back you know, no, no, no, yeah,
we're back here with more Nick Chambers more. My mama
told me. We're still talking about the horrors of leprosy
(42:27):
that seemed to be overtaking Jamaica and the silly conspiracy
theories that Nick's family came up with to help explain
the fact that in leprosy still exists in I know,
I thought that was a Bible disease and nothing else.
I'm amazed. I'm shocked. Yeah, is anyone is Sean Paul
(42:48):
on this in raising money. I love that. You know
how a con is an Africa helping people get like
electricity and building hospitals and shipped. I would love it
if Sean Paul just dedicated all his energy to leprosy.
That's it, he's gonna get rid of it. Don't touch.
(43:14):
This music has changed. He used to touch all the time,
but now he's like, don't, don't do it. It's got
social distancing. Jamaican dance hall music man Daggering from Afar
made my FaceTime. All right, let's play a game. This
(43:35):
is a very fun game that I like to play.
You know it, you love it. It's a game called
White Ugly. You're disgusting. I'm gonna kill you. Give me
two alright, white lies. This is a fun game where Nick,
I'm going to introduce to you a widely held conspiracy
theory in the white community, conspiracy theory that many whites
(43:58):
seem to believe in. And what I would love for
you to do is unpack why you think this conspiracy
theory is so important to white people. What do you
think it is that they believe in? What are these
sneaky motherfucker's up to you give what I'm saying the
conspiracy theory for you, And this is a new one
for me. I had not heard this before, but apparently
there's a fair amount of people who believe that the
(44:21):
Queen of England is a cannibal, that she that she
eats humans, and that is how she maintained for this
long that she's now whatever, ninety five years old, and
part of the way that she stayed so youthful and
stayed in power is by eating the flesh of other
human beings. My question for you, why do you think
(44:44):
that white people think that the Queen Elizabeth the second
is a cannibal? Well, when you say white people, I'm
gonna assume you mean white men. Sure, so I think
for an a white man to see a white woman
or any woman in power, there's got to be something.
(45:05):
There's got to be something wrong with her. She gotta
be do something, doing some evil. So there's no King's
how that gotta be right? That is that, like you know,
Philip would be the king. But the bitch keep telling her,
telling them she gonna eat them, keep saute and her
servants keep Philip be like cool, I just back off.
(45:29):
She's crazy. You want to be king, but she won't
let him because she's crazy. It's it's crazy. It's wild
out there in England. Which which fork is the human fork?
The way they said they have the whole spread? Which
for it? That's the one she keep in her pocket.
That's a private fort, you know what I mean. It's
(45:50):
strapped to her thigh guard a boat. This one's as
the one she waits till like a door get shut
too quick, and it's like just one of those slaves
that they don't call slaves no more in there because
they're slaves. I'm watching the crown right now, and that's slavery.
(46:11):
I don't give a funk what they say, right, I
don't care how many trumpets you put before. It's exactly it.
I walk into a room and then another, like a
more important person comes into the room, and I bow,
and they go, get the funk out of here, bitch,
and I gotta just scurry off. I'm forty. No, I'm
a slave. If I'm forty and I gotta scurry, I'm
(46:35):
a slave. If words have make you run out the room, yeah,
words from an old lady. Yeah, let's let's look if
this is a job like you keep telling me it is.
Let's make this a professional setting. Give me an HR,
give me a somebody that that can answer my concerns.
(46:56):
But if you're gonna make me scurry, then just admit
I'm a slave, and let's let's move forward. Honestly, exactly,
there's no Her Majesty's hr. Yes and frankly, and I'm
willing to start this conspiracy theory. Now, I'm not unconvinced
(47:17):
that the Queen isn't sexually assaulting a fair amount of
those uh servants, know what I mean. That's why she
aliveed so long. She got that what she's still she's
she's she's just stand in the hallway and you gotta bow.
It's like further down, keep bowing, not low enough, you
(47:42):
know where I like it. And then when she's done,
she rings a bell and that servant gotta scurry out,
fucking nutcase, bring me the scurrying bell. I'm clum clog.
I do to think there's so much of this history
that that is it's absurd and it's cooked in the
(48:06):
weird thing within. This goes back to your point with
the monarchy, is that they are almost being progressive, right,
They're almost introducing this idea that a woman can be
in charge of an entire country before a lot of
other places are willing to do that, which you could
argue as a cool thing, But even in doing that,
(48:27):
there's so much undermining that happens in placing this woman
in this position of power. So she's not truly in charge.
She's just a figurehead that puts on army clothes sometimes,
but it's not You're not actually this powerful figure. And
so to your point, there's probably a bunch of dudes
who are sitting back like, you know, the bitch don't
(48:48):
do nothing. We were the real power is the man,
but they the only explanation is she eat kids or
whatever it is. That's yeah, it's surely nuts. Well, Nick,
I think we did it. I think we we nailed
this episode. I think I think that was what a
beautiful time. Could you tell the people at home where
(49:09):
they can find you, what cool stuff do you have
going on? Sure? I'm Chambers Comedy on social media. Do
a podcast with Towanda Gonna called Towandah's Life Requests where
we uh it's a musical advice shows and people come
in with situations that they're going through into one to
prescribe them a song to listen to to help them
with that situation. Hell yeah, it's a beautiful time. Nick
(49:31):
is a beautiful man. The artwork is beautiful, the music
is beautiful. Please go and follow him, and as always,
like and subscribe. I would like for more people to
like and subscribe to this thing. Apparently you got to
say that to people. But please like and subscribe and
write comments. I like the comments. They make me feel good.
I read and check for him every day, despite the
(49:52):
fact that that seems like a psychopathic way of living.
I I go on there every day hoping there's a
new comment for me to read. And I would love
to read yours. Uh, And it's always. If you would
love to send me stuff, you can send it to
my Mama pod at gmail dot com my mama pod
at gmail dot com. Otherwise, by bitch, because my crop
(50:18):
chips in your mails. Qualitators are racist. The mostly lay
mostly money stuff I can't tell me
If you're dead and you can't do anything else, I
wouldn't run around cursing people too for less easy. Yeah,
what's this nigger got the sniffles? I'm gonna beats. I
don't like how that shirt fits on you. Y'all. Every
shirt you try and gonna look bad. Yeah, you're gonna
(00:30):
be real stuff conscious when you wear them too, You're
gonna know they look bad. It ain't gonna be one
of them things where you're like, I look good for
other people are like, Now, I don't think that works.
You go, no, bitch, chips in your racist money, mars
(01:01):
man in terms stuff you can't tell me. Yep, there
it is there, It is there. It is. Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to another phenomenon devastating episode of My Mama Told Me,
the podcast where we died deep, deep into the pockets
(01:22):
of black conspiracy theories and we finally worked to prove
that George Washington Carver discovered over three hundred uses for
the peanut, but he had zero uses for these nuts.
Do you know why? Because he was castrated as a
young boy. That's right. They took that man's testicles away
from him, and that horrible and unfair thing happened, but
(01:43):
I believe it was the exact motivation he needed to
focus all of that other energy on other kinds of nuts,
no distractions. It's like how that old saying goes when
a ball nut closes a peanut opens. Huh, guys know
that classic saying that everybody says, It's it's a tale
(02:04):
is all this time? I'm your host, Lankston Herman. I'm
happy to be here. What a what a lovely, lovely
happy experience we have for you today, my guest, and
I should say this before my guest comes on. When
I was looking up information about George Washington Carver, one
of the first things that pops up when you type
in George Washington Carver is George Washington Carver, did he
(02:28):
own slaves? And Uh. That's a real sad question for
the Internet to have produced and really makes me feel
like America is hopeless and we deserve to die from
whatever virus. It doesn't have to be Corona, it can
be a way sillier virus. But we don't deserve to
keep living one way or the other. Anyway, my guest today,
he deserves to keep living. He's a good guy. Not
(02:50):
only is he a good person, he's a phenomenal artist.
He's one of these people that I'm immensely jealous of
because of his his many many skills. He is solely responsible,
no help. He made our theme music, he made the
artwork for this project. He he is the artist behind
so much of this. I just talked ship. This motherfucker
(03:12):
puts in the work. You guys are gonna love him.
A dear friend of hilarious person Mr Nick Chambers. Every money, Hello, Hello, Hello,
crowd is coming through. Great. Oh yeah, now they're here.
You made that theme music and they're like, what's up?
And let's be clear you you wrote some of the lyrics,
(03:33):
but I did. I wrote the less funny lyrics in
the UH. I wrote like three lyrics. I was like,
I don't know, dog, just repeat it. And you were like,
those are the ones that people quote to me. Though
those are I was like, whila, bears are raisedst Like
I get a fair amount of uh of response from
(03:55):
But I do genuinely think the stuff about the ozone
layer in the artians and the turkey stuff and is oh,
just fantastic work. You really should be proud of yourself.
Thank you, Yeah, nobody's gonna award you for it, and
and frankly they shouldn't. It's this is a stupid, stupid
thing you've done. But I'm really happy you did it.
(04:15):
I'm grateful we have an amazing conspiracy theory to unpack today.
I would argue it's new to me. I've never heard
it before, certainly not one that was like, uh constantly
in the lexicon of like ship that I heard growing up.
I know that you come from a Jamaican home, so
(04:39):
I have to imagine that there are some cultural sort
of like connection to some of the things that were
about to unpack. You said, and this is it's a
fun one. You said. My mama told me if you
point at a cemetery, all your fingers will fall off.
(05:01):
Talk to me about that. Tell me more so, if
you point episode there, all your things will fall off,
and the only way to reverse it is to bite
all of your fingers. Pre Okay, let's let's pause there
for a second, because my fingers are falling off. So
am I biting them preemptively? Exactly? You've pointed. You recognize
(05:21):
you pointed. You bite them too, I guess reattach the
nerves it's very medical. You bite all your fingers and
then they won't fall off. I don't know what the
time frame is in Well, That's what I'm wondering, is like,
how quickly am I expected to uh to to notice
(05:42):
this to bite down. I'm obviously aware of this wives tale,
So why the funk am I pointing in the first place?
I don't know, Like I asked, I asked, my parents
are like, okay, so, and this is something that they
told me long after I was a child because I
was very scary as a kid. I couldn't show up,
would have never been able to deal with this as
a child. But uh, and going back and like asking
(06:04):
like so weird, like who told you this? What what
would happen to, Like, I don't know, just somebody my mom?
And my mom said, I don't know, but it's a
thing that I used to do as a kid. And
my dad said, I don't know. It's from slavery. And
I asked for more information and he's like, it's probably
something left over. I don't understand. And and frankly, who
(06:28):
can argue with slavery. It's not there's no retort to that.
It's just like all right, it's from slavery, I guess slaves.
If I'm a slave master and people sneak out at night,
I would have been some horror stories like, yeah, there's
a cemetery, this ghosts. You gotta bite your fingers, and
why are you biting your fingers? They're coming up with
the dogs. They're catching you so right, or even if
(06:51):
it's a slave like being like, hey, didn't you kill
my friend? He right over there, He's like, no, if
you point your fingers gonna fall off, don't point it
a ship. Get back to work. It's just you're just
creating fear where fear wasn't, so you keep people in line.
I think I think that's that's a respectable choice. I
guess as a slave owner. The one, the one is
(07:15):
The one thing I respect about slave owners is they
came up with silly games to keep their slaves in mind. Slavery.
Not a fan, but if you're gonna be a slave owner,
you gotta do something silly. Tell him their fingers are
gonna fall off? Why not? All right, talk to me
a little bit about because I mentioned it in the preamble.
But your parents are Jamaican, Yes, yes, do you think
(07:40):
do you think that this comes from that, because I've
never heard that before, Like, I don't think that's necessarily
an American conspiracy if you will. Yeah, I haven't heard
it anywhere else. And I looked up trying to find
some information about I couldn't find anything. So I don't
know which Marley came over this ship. I'll tell you
(08:05):
right now, it's that Nigga Ziggy. That Nigga Ziggy was
out of pocket when he came up with this ship.
That's a classic Ziggy. You name somebody Ziggy, they're gonna
have some weird thoughts. You're gonna say something crazy. You
gotta keep up with his more talented brothers. He's gonna
say something wild. It's interesting because even in looking this up,
obviously this and I think some of my listeners would
(08:28):
even want to argue about this ship somewhere on the internet.
This falls probably closer to something that we qualify as superstition,
right that, Like it's a little more about like the
mythical than it is about like conspiratorial thing. But I
personally would argue, and I'd be curious to hear your
thoughts that I actually don't think there's that big of
(08:49):
a difference between conspiracy and superstition. It's something that you're
I don't know if it's necessarily proven, but you believe
in its real to you, So I definitely would put
it there. I think so. And then I think, you know,
the reality is that conspiracies are just superstitionous that haven't
had enough time to cook. You know what I mean that,
(09:10):
like you give this one a thousand years or even
like ship that that we think is like like right
now people are arguing whether or not five G is
sucking up our bodies, right, or whether or not five
G is some sort of poisonous thing in the universe, right,
And we're gonna argue about that as like a conspiracy
or whatever. But you let that cook long enough, and
(09:32):
a thousand years from now, if we live that long,
somebody's gonna be like, hey, man, don't put yourself on
below your waist, because if you put yourself on below
your waist, you'll curse your family blood for generations. And
that will know that that just means that, like, oh,
cell phone waves were cooking your testicles, but they don't
know that they're they're making it superstitions When it was
(09:54):
conspiracy back when we were alive to it exactly. It's
so weird thing because, like my parents are very religious,
so for this ghost thing to be part of their
their life is like a weird turn. I have believe
like ghosts and monsters, no goat, But if if you
(10:15):
mentioned like demons or the devil or anything, they're like
on board, Like yeah, ghost, forget that. I don't believe
any of that stuff. But have you ever seen any demon?
My mom told us that she she witnessed someone being
possessed in college. To this day, to this day, she
(10:35):
maintains that she's you gotta unpack that a little bit.
Tell me what happened where she's she witnessed the possession,
then went to a trigg she just witnessed an exorcism,
and then went off to the quad to her friends.
You got pe soup on my notebook. It was it
(10:57):
was this is in in Jamaica, and there was a
girl who lived in her dorm who was into like
weigi and spiritism and stuff. And she had a friend
who was also into it, and so they were in
like chapel and the and the preacher was talking. It
was a religious school. So the preachers talking about you
know Jesus, and and as you do. And I don't know,
(11:20):
I felt the name he was talking about Jesus is weird.
And the preacher was being a while that day. He
was talking about like Ravioli and trap music. I don't know,
but anyway, it was church. So he's talking about Jesus.
And then the woman ran out and then people that
sorry said something through her to the floor, and so
(11:40):
they picked her up and her friend ran out. After
they picked them up, brought them back to the dorm
and for a long time they were like praying and
trying to get Jesus out of that. My mom said that, um, there,
in the name of Jesus, I tell I tell you
to get out. And the woman who was trying to
invoke Jesus to get rid of the demon, like every
time she would go to say the name of Jesus,
her tongue would curl up and prevented saying it. And
(12:03):
then the luijiboard girl said in a voice that they
had never heard before, who is this Jesus? So it
turns out she was just possessed by gay black man
and that's pretty cool. Titus Burgess came down to Jamaica,
(12:24):
for weeks was possessing. Yeah, that's why. So she heard
this voice, that's what she says. And what did she
do after that? Did she run away? Was she? Did
she stay and watched the whole thing? Like? What was
her response? She watched the whole thing. And then they
(12:45):
ended up sending the girl to the hospital. And then
this was during like final exams time, so they canceled
exams the next day because nobody in the door and
really got any sleep because there was an exorcism going on.
Oh and I would have paid somebody to pretend to
be possessed during the middle of my finals. Sweet part
(13:08):
of me thinks, like, was it is that? What the
whole thing was? Like a study for the exam? You
know what, they can't make you take a test if
you feel with demons, I'm gonna pretend. I just pretend.
That's that's fucking nuts, And that's it's such a weird
(13:31):
to your point, that's such a weird thing for your
parents to be like anti the possibility of ghosts or
goblins or whatever it is, but fully committed to the
ghosts and goblins of religious text that like, it's in
essence the exact same thing it's just connected to a
book that they read versus the ones that they didn't.
(13:54):
It's it's almost like people fully believing in the Marvel
universe but being like Batman gets a funk out of here.
That ain't that ain't scripture. That ain't a part of
what I. I subscribe to him and I ironed me
and let's talk about that. But that means you in
the Book of Tony Stark three verse Jarvis. Okay, so
(14:18):
your parents tell you this. You said they didn't tell
you until you got older? Yeah, at what point or
was there a point where did you believe it? Were
you at all? Like? Oh, maybe I gotta be careful
about that. You know, the context of it was like
we were talking about things that we believed as kids,
and they came up in that context. So it's like, yeah,
(14:40):
this is a stupid thing. Oh so they were acknowledging
it's a stupid right, Okay, So that makes it a
little easier. It's not like you're having a reason with
your parents being like, you know, if you pointed a cemetary,
you gotta bite your fingers otherwise bad boy's gonna fall off, right.
It's like, why would you even tell me that. Just
(15:01):
say that from when I point at the cemetery, don't
it's like it's a snake bite, like we gotta come in,
but it's like all the glue back in. It doesn't
make sense. I don't know exactly what's happening with the fingers. Okay,
So so they tell you this as something that they
(15:21):
once believed. Did your parents grow up near each other.
Did they know each other at a young age? No?
I think around maybe college age is when they met.
So it's something that they heard independently of each other.
They lived kind of in the same area in Kingston,
but I don't think they knew each other growing up. Sure,
(15:42):
so it was enough they believed it enough that they
they're stuck in their memories independently. And then they both
were like, hey, by the way, you buy your fingers fingers,
and that's how they met. Let's build a family together.
We can make a little comedian musician baby together. Let's
(16:02):
do that. They put the rings on each other's fingers
with their mouths and bit the finger on the way.
I like the idea that your father put the ring
off first, and then your mom was like, you know
what to do and then you had to bite that
finger and it wasn't this actual thing, It was merely protection. Yeah,
(16:25):
for the possibility that your fingers fall off. I want
this ring to stay on for a long time. How much?
Let me ask you this, because if you grew up
in a pretty religious household, how much of that do
you follow today? Are you a religious person? Do you
believe in any of it? What stuck? If anything, I
(16:46):
think there's a like in times of like stress and fear,
it will come back, just like as a reflex. Sure. No,
it's like I can't find my keyth Lord if you
see them anywhere. Lord, please let this airplane stay all
the way up in the air and not do some
weird ship. Yeah. There was one Halloween where I went
(17:09):
to UM. I was coming back from Vancouver and I'm
on the plane and I'm I'm a nervous flyer. I
do not like it. And I looked and there was
a nun on the plane. I was like, okay, cool,
she's here. She's like she's a liaison. Were good, And
I remember it's Halloween, Like this lady could clear. So
(17:31):
I'm just sitting there like quiet, like Lord, if that's
if she's with you cool. If she's not and you're
mad at her, just let my part of the plane
land somewhere, right, because that could have easily just been
a sinner. That could have been just a lady dressed
as a nun, which is blasphemous, which gives God every
reason to to flick your little airplane out of the sky,
(17:54):
has punishment for the what this bitch is doing. Exactly,
I didn't see the bottom have it could have been
all actually none, nobody just cross covered panties and you're like, oh,
thank God that this lady is here. I feel safe. Meanwhile,
you're going to hell. You're about to die. It's all.
(18:15):
It makes me so frustrated, even watching the way that
people behave on airplanes now, not even relation to just
religion necessarily, although I do think that for me, it's
like I believe that something's up there. I don't know
what to call it or how if the books that
we wrote have anything to do with it, but there's
certainly I don't think that we just came up with
(18:37):
us on our own. That said, they're like so many
people refuse to follow basic airplane rules, and it feels
like you like we're already spitting in God's face by
flying up here. And you know what I mean, Like
we're already breaking the rules. You don't, Yeah, close your
(18:58):
fucking laptop, you idiot, Like you don't don't do the
extra ship that even humans are Like, I I don't know,
this might be too far. We probably shouldn't do this one.
That's fucking crazy. How do you know better than the
people who are running the plane? Right? And I don't.
And to that point, I don't think that they know anything.
(19:18):
So if they're telling me, okay, if they start off
literally by being like, hey, y'all, here's what scares us,
that's maybe that's how they need to rephrase the whole
like airplane breakdown. Right, with all of our knowledge and
study and training, this is the thing that we're not
sure about. Yeah, would rattles my bones. That's when you
(19:41):
leave your cell phone on by the time we take off.
I don't know why, what's gonna happen? Maybe nothing, but
boy do I get nervous And I'd be like, all right,
I'm gonna turn my cell phone off. I would. I
would be more comfortable with a with a pilot who's like, hey,
I've been off the past couple of days just beat like,
let me know it, this is we're gonna be hitting
(20:01):
some terms. But hey, hey, whoa, who wasn't that crazy? Whoa?
That ship was all right? All right, we gotta take
a chill for us, like old on, I'm gonna land
this bad boy and just re resettle myself because that
was crazy. Comes on you just here, whoa, I ain't
(20:25):
even gonna lie. We got some ship coming up on
the radar that y'all ain't gonna funk with. And I
don't funk with it either. Anyway. Enjoy the peanuts and
uh and cocoa on your screens. We're only playing cocoa. Okay.
Last question, So you're not a particularly religious person, you're
(20:49):
not necessarily buying into their version of spirituality, at least
as in terms of the fingers falling off? Are there
any parts of things that they've said, like this that
you were like, Oh, I can get with that. I
see where that comes from, and I actually agree with that.
I don't know if it's agreeing, but the whole demon thing,
(21:12):
like even though I don't know if I believe it's
it's just like the cell phone on the airplane. It's
like you know what. I don't know if they are
demons in here, but let me just say Jesus a
few times, just in case, so they know. I know.
It's like cocking cocking a shotgun. I like that. You
think Jesus is like beetlejuice, and if you say his
(21:33):
name or a certain number of times, he's just gonna
pop up and do cool shit. I think Jesus. I
think Jesus is busier, right, I just see that as
this page or number. I wanted to know that, Like, ay,
I called you, you could call me back, come back ready,
No rush, I get it. You're a busy dude. You
got holes in your feet, in your hands. But whenever
(21:55):
you're ready, just it's called me back. It's me Nick.
By the way, it's Nick, your part time servant. It's Nick,
the guy who only kind of believes in you. You know,
when it's convenient for me. Do you remember? All right,
we're gonna take a break. We'll be back with more
(22:16):
Nick Chambers and more, my mama told me. And we
are back. Yeah, we're back here with more Nick Chambers more.
(22:46):
My mama told me. We're still talking about that. The
possibility of your fingers falling off sort of uh Dory
and Gray style. I guess if you point at a
cemetery just turned to ash because you didn't nip on
him right after you point. What do you think parents
were trying to get you from from doing with the
don't point at a cemetery because that's what a lot
(23:09):
of these old wives sales are cooked in, is like
allegories and lessons for being a better person. What's the
fear for a young person pointing at a cemetery. I
have no idea. I don't know. I don't know if
it's like like respecting the dead or uh, just pointing
in general, which is a long way to go to
(23:29):
just to get kids to not point. Yeah, i'd say
so you could have just said take your hat off
when we when we're around the grave. But as they
you're like view point before to god. Right. Somebody said
it was like if the if you point at a cemetery,
(23:51):
then the dead can see you and then they'll come
and get you with some like that. I don't know. Yeah, okay,
I could see that, like you're building it's like pointing
out a regular person almost where it's like you're opening communication. Yeah, yeah, now,
you're being rude, so now I gotta retaliate. And the dead,
(24:12):
I guess apparently are petty as ship and they're like
that motherfucker pointed at me. You cursed, bitch, you cursed.
All right, let's unpack some of this research. And we
we talked a little bit about the way that superstition
feels like it's it's sort of leading the way in
this one. And I wanted to do a little research
(24:32):
on like superstition as a as a belief system. How
many people actually believe in superstitions in general, And apparently
twenty five percent of Americans identify themselves as superstitious in
some way, shape or form. They say that, yes, I
would consider myself a superstitious person. That sounds about right. Okay,
(24:57):
hell yeah, it was over your life, you would say.
One and four people are like, ay, don't split that pole,
don't right. It's things like that or like with sports
kind of things, for sure, I think right, And and
to that point, it's so cooked into even like the
way that our systems work, right, superstition is kind of
(25:17):
a part of everything. Like there's no floor in most
hotel rooms, and that's just because somebody decided that was
a bad number, and they were like, well, we can't
get guests to sleep here, so we'll just get rid
of the number. That's and it's still the thirteenth floor.
It's just a different number floor number. Yeah, it's like, bitch,
(25:39):
I know a fourteen eight means this ain't this ain't
a trick. This is just thirteen. And you're not telling
me that you think the bad luck is gonna get
lost in the hotel was looking for calling down to
the lobby like hey, I just I can't find my room.
I'm sorry. The is the third time I've called, but
(26:01):
I just can't find my room. So yeah, even with that,
this is something fascinating I didn't realize. But there are
other superstitions that sort of follow that same trajectory in
other places, right, Like I think we we often have
a very Americanized view of like what numbers are bad
or rules and ship But in China the number four
(26:22):
is bad, Like they don't funk with the number four
at all. So like I imagine that there's a bunch
of things that they skip over with the number four
because they don't funk with that. Or for example, in Brazil,
this airline loof that loof Dans. I don't know how
to pronounce it. I'm not from there, But they don't
have a seventeenth row on their airline, right, But they
(26:46):
don't tell you that there're seventeen rows. They say it's
something else because they don't want people to think that,
you know, they're sitting seventeen because apparently seventeen is bad.
Does this say why these specific number? So did you
do you know why they pick these specific numbers? No?
I mean I think it's similar to us, where it
just sort of like is a a old legend that
(27:10):
bills and then it's less about them actually believing it
and more about them preparing for people who do believe it. Right,
It's a lot of these companies are just like saying like, look,
I don't give a funk, I just want your money.
But it does it's easier to get your money if
you're not sitting there going I refuse to sit in
the thirteenth row or the seventeenth row or whatever it is.
(27:32):
I do really love the idea of there being a
a Brazilian Friday the seventeen, which but just Brazilian Jason
running around murdering people or Michael Myers. I thought, yeah,
just Michael Myers with the airhorn. The mask is all
(27:54):
colorful with the feathers and instead of the air it's
just there's beautiful feathers just dancing towards you. He's wearing
a mesh tank top. It looks good. Michael Myers looks good.
Miguel Meyers, No, I don't know. I don't know Portuguese,
(28:17):
I don't know Virgilian Portuguese, but I bet there's a
Miguel down there. Miguel Myers looks great. Okay, so uh.
Superstition apparently derives from the assumption that a connection exists
between cocurring, non related events, basically meaning that if my
fingers fall off after I pointed a cemetery, it's easy
(28:38):
to point at the cemetery and blame that instead of examining,
for example, why the funk I have leprosy? You know
what I mean? Like, where did this leopardsy come from?
And how did I get that as an adult? It's
just someone trying to hide their leprosy from their friends.
(28:59):
I I don't have leprosies. Just look at that cemetery
over there. Oh god, oh man, the devil, don't got me. Demons,
those cursed demons stole my fingers. Yeah, I think it's
such a fascinating thing because at the end of the day,
(29:20):
so much of superstition and so much of conspiracy theory.
And this is something that the research sort of shows
is that it's often connected to people's want for control,
right that, like, you live in this uncontrollable environment. Everything
is is chaotic and mayhem, and the easiest way to
make sense of that chaos and mayhem is to say, like, Okay,
(29:43):
here's a rule that I know how to follow. Here's
the thing that I know. If I do this, at
least I feel in charge of the whole thing, like
they even said, like and some of the research I
saw that that, uh, in Germany, between nineteen eighteen and
nineteen forty, the measures of economic threat correlated directly with
(30:03):
the measures of superstition. That like, superstition was going up,
because between nineteen eighteen and nineteen forty, they the money
was fucked up in Germany right there. Post World War One,
pre World War Two, they're still like rebuilding as a country,
and so they're being hyper superstitious and ship right, So
(30:24):
who who is keeping track of the superstition number. I'm
superstitious about that. Sure, yeah, okay, I'm here. I wasn't
why what you're throwing down? But why? Why is that
a thing that you've paid attention to, or how specifically
during the time when a bunch of Jews are being killed? Like,
why are you so focused on superstition right now when
(30:47):
you could be helping your neighbors. Right, we don't want
to print all that stuff. Let's print about the superstitions.
Let's run that story first. Hey, hey, stop writing about
these Jews. Man, don't you see all these black cats?
Every Let's focus that's bad cats. I do a killer
German impression. I don't know if because come look at
(31:11):
the black cats. Mad just I love I just love language.
That's my thing. Turkey isn't a German phrase. They're talking
about actual turkey. Yeah, at the time, black people turned
it into turned it into a cultural something else. But
(31:34):
now they were talking about an actual turkey named jive.
He was unlike in the German community. One of the
things that I ended up finding in a lot of
the research that I was unpacking is that there's actually
quite a few other cemetery based conspiracy theories. In fact,
(31:54):
I found a website that listed nearly like a hundred
of them. I've listed one of my favorites, and I
would love to get your reaction on a few of these.
But one of them was being first to leave a
cemetery after a funeral could bring you death. You'll die
if you leave first. Yep, if you leave that funeral first,
you might die. I mean we're already here. Yeah, Well,
(32:24):
it's a scary thing to tell somebody, like, you know,
if you leave version, you don't die, right. You know
what it was? It was a very unlike person on
their deathbed, like, you know, if you leave my funeral first,
you go, there's a bunch of annoyed people standing around
this grave like you about to leave. But I think
(32:45):
that's there's something really really insightful in what you're saying.
Is that so much of this while we make it
something dramatic or something, you know, like something that's affecting
the whole world, the reality is it's something that affected
a few individuals, and they are so selfish and and
sort of like self centered in all of this that
(33:06):
they then make it a rule for everybody to follow.
You know what I mean you, we don't all have
to throw salt over our shoulder. You did, dog, you
deal with You live in that salt needing life right right.
You're the one with the saltless back. You deal with
that ship. You got this unsalted back, My back as
(33:28):
salty as funk. I'm fine. I don't need none of that.
My shoulder plays of saltines, But tell me these ain't
salty in my Here's another one that I thought was
really interesting. They say, locking the door of your home
after a funeral procession passes by is bad luck at
(33:51):
what point, like as it's going by or later that day,
just I believe they said. After which that part bugged
me in the same way that they seemed to be
bugging you, where it's like, okay, so I just gotta
keep my door unlocked always. Now that feels a little
like I used to watch the show True Blood. It's
(34:11):
the whole vampire like they could only come in if
you get invited. That seems like some backwards, like the
ghosts can't operate a locked door after the possession, like
leave it open for right, So they're saying, hey, just
leave it open, let the ghost in, and then they'll
leave you alone. But if you lock that door, they'll
be piste and they'll want vengeance. Here's my personal favorite.
(34:35):
A witch. This is a real supercision. A witch must
be buried face down to prevent the community further supernatural spells.
If this doesn't want work, unbury them and turn their
clothes inside out, then rebury them face down. Say that,
let's part again. Sure a witch. If you're gonna bury
(34:57):
a which, you gotta bury your face down. That's that's
what they're saying. And if you funk up and don't
do that, you gotta dig her up, turn her clothes
inside out, and then rebury her face down. Take your
time with it. There's no there's no correct answer here.
I'll be frank with you. It's again. I think it's
(35:18):
just somebody got caught in a situation where they were
digging up a lady. She was a witch. That's why
she's naked because I had to turn It's just somebody
in Salem, right. This is a man. This is a
sick man who dug up a lady and wanted to
(35:40):
fuck took her clothes off. Let's be honest. It was
a man who was fucking corpses and somebody somebody walked
up and was like, Hey, why the funk are you
sticking your dick and that lady's butt? And you're like,
oh what, Oh no, she'll witch. I gotta bury her
face down and turn her clothes inside out. That's why
she naked and my dick is inside of her. I
(36:01):
had a much more wholesome idea that it's like a
local dressmaker and he's trying to get his name out there,
so he buried them. So the tag is out on
the back, so you buried them, and people, Oh, this
is let's go to listen. She dead, but she looked good.
(36:23):
I'm wanting to that was this tagline. She did, but
she looked good. Okay. The other thing that I sort
of wanted to look into in terms of these theories
around cemeteries is that it seems to be often be
connected to threat of death and decay, right, which I
(36:46):
have to assume comes from our history of terrible like
burial practices and diseases that sometimes follow those burial practices.
If you've watched any like old tiny television, you know
these motherfucker's didn't watch their hands. They weren't like cleaning
up properly after bodies. And I wanted to sort of
like unpack, like what is our actual history with like clean,
(37:09):
effective burial practices. And apparently there are example, horrible examples.
There's a this ancient city in Turkey. I'm not even
gonna pretend to pronounce this name, but it was not
you know, the city of Jive, Turkey. Uh, nine thousand
(37:31):
years ago, people used to bury their beloved under their
houses as an attempt to separate themselves from their ancests
or not separate themselves or out there from their ancestors
emotionally or physically or smell. Yes, you just have a
rotting corpse buried underneath your home because you want to
(37:53):
be connected. Yeah, that's so, just as many people in
your family died that under that's right, and I have
there was some more people are dying because of this rotting,
festering corpse underneath your home. And this is in what
what is this? This was nine thousand years ago? So
(38:14):
according to some people, the earth didn't exist yet, but
according to it was BC. Let's just agree it was
BC before before. And you know what, that's how they
get that's how they get you before coffience is how
you end up getting murdered by time. I guess I
(38:38):
don't know, all right. This is another one that was
pretty wild. It said that in some parts of ancient Greece,
people used to put iron nails across the dead bodies
to prevent an eventual undesired resurrection. Basically like, in order
to prevent zombies from rising, they would basically nail parts
of the body to the coffin, into the ground or
(39:00):
to the ground, whatever it was. But you know, ship's
gotta be juice, gotta be popping about that nail, you
know what I mean, It's gonna squirt right when we
hit that nail in there. I've opened a caprice son
before I know. So you're nailing the person to the coffin. Yeah,
(39:25):
just in case the zombifying and get back up. But
can't they just like I've seen zombie movies where they
just whatever part of them is stuck, they just ripped
that part off and keep coming. Yeah, well that's not
what they believed in ancient Greece. Apparently an iron nail
was enough for a zombie to be like, oh damn,
they got I was gonna eat their brains. But never mind,
(39:49):
that's cool, smart y'all, smart o y'all going to ben
math or something that's cool. Right, And also, if you're
coming from a time where you've been hearing stories about
Jesus and Lazarus, people coming back to life is not
too far fetched, I suppose, right, sure, they believed in resurrection,
and for them it was it was more of which
(40:10):
resurrections they liked and which ones they didn't. I guess
they preferred certain resurrections over others. Who do you want
to come back for another season? It was it was
really American Idol study style voting to keep you underground
or or around underground or around next year on Grecian television. Okay,
(40:36):
this is the last piece of research that I sort
of wanted to dig into because I do think that
that left that leprosy and sort of like these conversations
around like where so many of these conspiracies comes from
is valid, right that, like a lot of it is
diseases and sicknesses that we then blow up into something
more extreme. And it turns out in my research, I
(40:58):
found out that leopard see actually still exists in Jamaica
today in this day and age. A lot to be
proud of of your home country. But come on, but
if fairly in five cases of leprosy were found in
Jamaica alone, which I didn't even know was still a thing,
(41:22):
You know what I mean? I mean, I guess if
you're wearing so many mess shirts, it's too much bacteria
falling in and out. You gotta cover some of that.
All that daggering, somebody's gonna catch, right, you dagger till
somebody's fingers fall along to the pieces to make a
(41:42):
dance out of that. Yeah, I dropped the finger that.
All right, we're gonna take one more break. We'll be
back with more Nick Chambers and more, my mama told me.
(42:06):
And we are back you know, no, no, no, yeah,
we're back here with more Nick Chambers more. My mama
told me. We're still talking about the horrors of leprosy
(42:27):
that seemed to be overtaking Jamaica and the silly conspiracy
theories that Nick's family came up with to help explain
the fact that in leprosy still exists in I know,
I thought that was a Bible disease and nothing else.
I'm amazed. I'm shocked. Yeah, is anyone is Sean Paul
(42:48):
on this in raising money. I love that. You know
how a con is an Africa helping people get like
electricity and building hospitals and shipped. I would love it
if Sean Paul just dedicated all his energy to leprosy.
That's it, he's gonna get rid of it. Don't touch.
(43:14):
This music has changed. He used to touch all the time,
but now he's like, don't, don't do it. It's got
social distancing. Jamaican dance hall music man Daggering from Afar
made my FaceTime. All right, let's play a game. This
(43:35):
is a very fun game that I like to play.
You know it, you love it. It's a game called
White Ugly. You're disgusting. I'm gonna kill you. Give me
two alright, white lies. This is a fun game where Nick,
I'm going to introduce to you a widely held conspiracy
theory in the white community, conspiracy theory that many whites
(43:58):
seem to believe in. And what I would love for
you to do is unpack why you think this conspiracy
theory is so important to white people. What do you
think it is that they believe in? What are these
sneaky motherfucker's up to you give what I'm saying the
conspiracy theory for you, And this is a new one
for me. I had not heard this before, but apparently
there's a fair amount of people who believe that the
(44:21):
Queen of England is a cannibal, that she that she
eats humans, and that is how she maintained for this
long that she's now whatever, ninety five years old, and
part of the way that she stayed so youthful and
stayed in power is by eating the flesh of other
human beings. My question for you, why do you think
(44:44):
that white people think that the Queen Elizabeth the second
is a cannibal? Well, when you say white people, I'm
gonna assume you mean white men. Sure, so I think
for an a white man to see a white woman
or any woman in power, there's got to be something.
(45:05):
There's got to be something wrong with her. She gotta
be do something, doing some evil. So there's no King's
how that gotta be right? That is that, like you know,
Philip would be the king. But the bitch keep telling her,
telling them she gonna eat them, keep saute and her
servants keep Philip be like cool, I just back off.
(45:29):
She's crazy. You want to be king, but she won't
let him because she's crazy. It's it's crazy. It's wild
out there in England. Which which fork is the human fork?
The way they said they have the whole spread? Which
for it? That's the one she keep in her pocket.
That's a private fort, you know what I mean. It's
(45:50):
strapped to her thigh guard a boat. This one's as
the one she waits till like a door get shut
too quick, and it's like just one of those slaves
that they don't call slaves no more in there because
they're slaves. I'm watching the crown right now, and that's slavery.
(46:11):
I don't give a funk what they say, right, I
don't care how many trumpets you put before. It's exactly it.
I walk into a room and then another, like a
more important person comes into the room, and I bow,
and they go, get the funk out of here, bitch,
and I gotta just scurry off. I'm forty. No, I'm
a slave. If I'm forty and I gotta scurry, I'm
(46:35):
a slave. If words have make you run out the room, yeah,
words from an old lady. Yeah, let's let's look if
this is a job like you keep telling me it is.
Let's make this a professional setting. Give me an HR,
give me a somebody that that can answer my concerns.
(46:56):
But if you're gonna make me scurry, then just admit
I'm a slave, and let's let's move forward. Honestly, exactly,
there's no Her Majesty's hr. Yes and frankly, and I'm
willing to start this conspiracy theory. Now, I'm not unconvinced
(47:17):
that the Queen isn't sexually assaulting a fair amount of
those uh servants, know what I mean. That's why she
aliveed so long. She got that what she's still she's
she's she's just stand in the hallway and you gotta bow.
It's like further down, keep bowing, not low enough, you
(47:42):
know where I like it. And then when she's done,
she rings a bell and that servant gotta scurry out,
fucking nutcase, bring me the scurrying bell. I'm clum clog.
I do to think there's so much of this history
that that is it's absurd and it's cooked in the
(48:06):
weird thing within. This goes back to your point with
the monarchy, is that they are almost being progressive, right,
They're almost introducing this idea that a woman can be
in charge of an entire country before a lot of
other places are willing to do that, which you could
argue as a cool thing, But even in doing that,
(48:27):
there's so much undermining that happens in placing this woman
in this position of power. So she's not truly in charge.
She's just a figurehead that puts on army clothes sometimes,
but it's not You're not actually this powerful figure. And
so to your point, there's probably a bunch of dudes
who are sitting back like, you know, the bitch don't
(48:48):
do nothing. We were the real power is the man,
but they the only explanation is she eat kids or
whatever it is. That's yeah, it's surely nuts. Well, Nick,
I think we did it. I think we we nailed
this episode. I think I think that was what a
beautiful time. Could you tell the people at home where
(49:09):
they can find you, what cool stuff do you have
going on? Sure? I'm Chambers Comedy on social media. Do
a podcast with Towanda Gonna called Towandah's Life Requests where
we uh it's a musical advice shows and people come
in with situations that they're going through into one to
prescribe them a song to listen to to help them
with that situation. Hell yeah, it's a beautiful time. Nick
(49:31):
is a beautiful man. The artwork is beautiful, the music
is beautiful. Please go and follow him, and as always,
like and subscribe. I would like for more people to
like and subscribe to this thing. Apparently you got to
say that to people. But please like and subscribe and
write comments. I like the comments. They make me feel good.
I read and check for him every day, despite the
(49:52):
fact that that seems like a psychopathic way of living.
I I go on there every day hoping there's a
new comment for me to read. And I would love
to read yours. Uh, And it's always. If you would
love to send me stuff, you can send it to
my Mama pod at gmail dot com my mama pod
at gmail dot com. Otherwise, by bitch, because my crop
(50:18):
chips in your mails. Qualitators are racist. The mostly lay
mostly money stuff I can't tell me
Hosts And Creators
Langston Kerman
David Gborie
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