The Ghost of Episodes Past: The War on Christmas

For years, David and Langston have asked the questions that plague America: Is there a war on Christmas? Is Kwanzaa for Gen Alpha? Are there any Black holidays left? This year, we revisit three classic My Momma Told Me episodes to get some answers, and Al Jackson stops by to help us get to the bottom of it. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
The government, Kuala Bears are racist, the.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Money, any stuff, I can't tell me.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart and the very
next day.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
You gave it away. There it is. There it is.
Ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Welcome, gentiles and little Mama's alike to another phenomenal episode
of My Mama Told Me.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
The podcast where we dive deep into the pockets of
black conspiracy.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Theory and we finally work 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

(01:03):
us organization.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Thank you for your work, sir. We miss you every day.
L RP. God not forgotten, God for but not forgotten.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
And I don't know that I know his real name.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I don't know. I don't know his face.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
I knew, I knew he had a gangle.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
It was an old nigga and a gangle.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Who I am always inclined to listen to.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Believe it or not, we have a conspiracy for today.
We talked about this right before we jumped on. But
in light of the holiday season, it is, in fact
the holiday season, and we don't give a fuck which
holiday that is for you. It doesn't mean a goddamn

(01:46):
thing to us, but celebrate however you choose to celebrate.
And and in light of that, we said we were
going to say, my mama told me there's a or
on Christmas.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Oh yeah, come on, come on, I love this one.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
You love this.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
I was worried.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
I was worried this wouldn't sit well with you, But
I'm excited. Tell me everything you know.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Oh, I love it because I think it's for stupid people.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Like the entire concept of a war on Christmas is
shut up.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, you're stupid. Or eighty percent of households in this
country still celebrate Christmas.

Speaker 4 (02:32):
You win, you win.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
We're not going to overtake you white guys or your
Judeo Christian holiday that all this consumerism is based around.
We're so upside down. We got Jews celebrating Christmas. I
know a lot of Jewish people who do both Christmas one.
We won. It's not even a shut up oh, because
you have to say happy holidays, that's your big problem.

(02:55):
It's still Christmas. You don't got to go to work
on Christmas. You gotta go to work every fuck to
Dnika though, yeah you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
It does feel like I legally you can't even ask
for kuans off. I don't think you're even allowed to
ask for it.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
They're like, hey, man, don't say that.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
We know it's made up.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Don't say that, because now you're making me feel weird
as a boss. And I didn't even want to be
that guy. But you know how, you know I'm not
fucking giving you that stupid ass holiday.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
You know, damn well, you don't celebrate no quansah, go
break down these boxes.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
You you know, good and god damn well, I wasn't
about to give you kwans the days off.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yo. I know I we're Facebook friends. I saw your
throwing apart.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
I know you DJ, I know all your secrets, my man.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, were you ever Facebook friends with like coworkers? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (03:59):
When I was stitching, and yeah, I had a few
that I was really friends with that I didn't.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
I never I never, like maybe one or two. I
never added them.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
I knew which ones I could be and which ones
I couldn't be Like, there were some teachers who like,
if they saw me out party, and we're going to
bring judgment back to school. And then there were some
that were like, I would have been there if you
would have invited me, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, yeah,
this was in the cracking days. Yeah, this is when

(04:29):
I was. This is when I was blacking out on cracking.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, blacking off cracking.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
I was blacking on cracking. Then waking up and being like, so, kids, decimal,
what did we think of Sylvia palass.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
And they were like, mister cracking, why do you smell
like a they called?

Speaker 3 (04:53):
They knew already there, Yeah, this is drunk on cracking.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
I get to oh man, but yeah, so to say
I say all that, to say I, I, it's so funny.
The war on all this stuff is like, do I
think there are legitimate wars on some social constructs?

Speaker 4 (05:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Sure, Christmas, I don't think is one worth even talking about?

Speaker 3 (05:15):
I agree? I wonder if there is any benefit to
playing some devil's advocate inside of this. Yeah, let's for
the benefit of of sort of like, let's let's create
a little bit of chaos to be about.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Oh, you don't want it to be a You don't
want it to be a team minute podcast.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, I was hoping not to be.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
I think that I think what they are with what
people are claiming when they say that there is a
war on Christmas is not just rooted in like the
literal happy holidays of it all, but more in like
the larger fear of the United States, no longer reflecting
the values that they claim it was built on. Right

(05:59):
that like, this is a transforming nation, and they would
claim that the transformation itself is being reflected in the
holidays of it all.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Outside of but that's what I'm saying, outside of you
having to say happy holidays. Let's be honest. And I
love them. Yeah, I'll start by saying that I love them,
big fan. Is this what I'm really gaining ground?

Speaker 4 (06:46):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (06:46):
No, I've never thought about that at all. I'm not
getting new recruits.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Ever. I don't think they're gaining I think they're keeping it.
I think they're keeping it. I think shout out to
philipdel Yeah, I think they're I think they're doing good.
But I don't think, at least in my lifetime, I
don't think there's been like some ground swell of any
other religion. If anybody's coming up, it's the witches. That's

(07:13):
the only bitches I've seen more of now than from
when I was a kid. And nobody even believes you,
you dizzy ding dong, I.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Would say it's witches. And scientologists are are the only
people that I've seen make are real fucking like whoa
where'd that come from?

Speaker 2 (07:31):
You know? Yeah? And even scientologists. Do you know scientologists
who don't live in California? Mm hmm, exactly, No, not
don't one exactly.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
I've met some people that that don't live in Californifornia
that identify as former scientologists I've never.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Met at California.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, they like escaped and now they drive a cab
in Minnesota and they're they're happier, but also got a
story to tell and even if you didn't ask for it,
they're gonna tell you. Yeah, exactly, But nah, I don't
know any active scientologists and like fucking Chicago.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Bro, I don't even know any scientologists out of La County.

Speaker 4 (08:11):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
You're saying you get to Orange and they're like, I
ain't doing that bullshit.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
I think maybe you get to Orange. I'm saying you
go north, no Ah, I got you like in the Bay.
I never knew anyone, and they got some weird religions
up there. You could get away with pretty much anything, damn.
So that's all I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
With this one devastating news for those Muslims out there.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
I can feel Carlos is like he's firing up his
computer right now.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
He is typing with the ferocity he has never typed before.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
I don't think he's typing. I think he's dictating to
his girlfriend. Maybe agreed.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
First of all, the fact that you think that man
has a girlfriend is in same that's insane. There was
no way. Well, I will say, to the question of
the war on Christmas, one of the things that I
briefly looked up a few things that it relates to
this conversation. Oh, but we need to throw to a break,

(09:19):
So maybe we should. Yeah, let's take a break and
then we'll come back and we'll talk about some of
the brief research that I did relating to this. All right, Yeah,
we'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Just talk to my mama told me we are back.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Ultimately, some of the research that I found does point
to not there in fact being a war on Christmas,
but instead reminded me pretty quickly how how little Christmas
is the tradition we think it is, that even Christmas

(10:06):
as we celebrate it is not like this ancient fucking
you know, generation after generation after generational type thing. And
they pretty much point to like Charles Dickens era, like
America or fucking Britain whatever, as the origin of Christmas

(10:28):
as we understand it.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Now, right, I mean, because the Night before Christmas was
like the first reference to Santa Claus, right, you know
that the poem twas the Night before Christmas and all
through the house.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
I don't know if that's the first reference to Santa Claus,
but it might be the first that sort of applies
him the way that we understand him, now, do you
know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (10:50):
That?

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Like, there are iterations of Santa Claus that have existed
for a really long time in other sort of like
cultures and communities and shit, but they've never necessarily understood
him as like jolly goodfellow who like eats cookies and
sugar snaps and whatever the fuck I mean.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
It seems like Valentine's Day, right, It's like the modern day.
They got you to start spending money and that's when
it blew up.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah, I think it sort of is all connected to
like capitalism, right that. Like so Charles Dickens, I guess,
in some of his shit starts to really write about Christmas,
not just as like a technical holiday that sort of
is listed in the Bible and recognized, but he attaches
morality to it, where it becomes like sort of this

(11:37):
sanctifying holiday where we are meant to share, share, spread
cheer and share gifts and love and reconsider our our
own choices and think about how we can be better people.
All of that shit is like very new in his generation,
and then suddenly people run with that because of capitalism.

(12:01):
They're like, yeah, if you've got to be a good person,
then you better buy these gifts or these items to
be able to justify your.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Good right, right, right. And that's why I also don't
care much about a war on it, to be honest. Yeah,
I was gonna do what I was gonna do regardless,
Like what is the war? The war is attacking you
buying presence for people.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
Right, It's not, It's just this is just an allegory.
It's just a part of the year where we very brief,
briefly go and we probably shouldn't be the worst version
of ourselves right now because our family's around, because we're
feeling nostalgic. Whatever the fuck is the sort of like
actual attachment, but like it's it's just an allegory.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Do you let me ask you and I'll take it personal.
Do you feel like your behavior personally improves during Christmas?

Speaker 3 (12:58):
I think I have less stuff to do.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
Niggas say, you know what I mean, Yeah, it's easy
to focus on relationships and shit when I don't. I
don't really have a ton of gigs or nothing.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, I think I slowed down and so like, I
reflect on the things that are important to me, in
part because there are other part of the year where
I ain't working that much and I do the same shit. Right,
But yeah, if we're just all doing it collectively, all right, cool,
that's tight, all right, that's fair, you.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Like, I think if everybody got a week off of
work and just had to like chill and not really
have to be stressed about a bunch of stuff, we'd
be more moral people.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
I think that's fair. I mean, yeah, I mean the
constant grindstone of capitalism kills everybody. But do you feel like, like,
do you get caught in the Christmas spirit? Do you
find yourself like out and you got the baby and
your wife and you your target, You're hearing the music,
maybe you got some make knog in the car, and
like you're just feeling like, yeah, let me give this
almost guy five bucks.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
Uh yeah, But I think that's largely brought on by
my kid more than like the enter my kid. My
family sort of makes that feel more.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
You don't have to put it in the quotes. Bro, Well,
I plan the lead.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
So I don't want any legal connections. We were never
a family.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
I was your care teamer.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
I stayed here.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
I didn't sign the birth certificate.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
But no, I think, like you know, you feel all
of the things because your kid is getting excited for
the things. Like my daughter now understands what it means
to receive gifts, and obviously she gets excited for fucking
Christmas and Santa Claus and all that shit, but she
also is beginning to at least understand that there is

(14:58):
a giving inside of like door too, and so like
she'll like see stuff and be like I want to
give that to my cousin, and that's beautiful and sweet.
And to be some like fucking scrooge around that doesn't
that's not human, you know what I mean? Like I'm
still a person. I'm just like, yeah, it's fucking beautiful. Yeah,

(15:21):
I want some eggnog while I watch her, you know,
stuff a teddy bear into a bag and call it
a gift.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
That sounds that's a gift. Why'd you do that?

Speaker 3 (15:31):
Because she's gonna stuff it dumb, and I'll have to
fix it. I because I'm a father, David, Because I'll
have to put the bag down, and she'll barely be
able to get the teddy bear in because her stupid
little hands don't even work right yet, the synapses don't
fully connect well enough, and she'll get distracted and want

(15:52):
to color. Even though we agreed we were gonna wrap
gifts and make this a sweet, beautiful thing. But for
three seconds, she is sincerely going to try to stuff
that bear into that bag, and she'll say it's for
her cousin, and that's so meaningful to her, And I'm
gonna enjoy that for that three seconds that I can you.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Really paint a glowing portrait of family life.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Hey, manundn't be happy. I could not be happier.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
All right, that's a good answer, though, that is a
reasonable that's a good because I don't really care about
Christmas spirit at all, but I don't have a child.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
I think it's just you get certain things in your
life that gets you, know, you rarely get to experience
life again anew.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Right, Right, I mean I do feel like as though
I have a giving spirit. I just don't it's not
limited to I get kind of more annoyed when it's
limited when it's asked to be limited to this time
of year.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
Yeah, that obligatory instead.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, yeah, then it just becomes like, oh, this is
just another job.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, that's fair.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
I can see that.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
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 that we've never been
anywhere else, but this is the best. Yeah, this is
the top two shot my special one here, You shot
your special here? Yeah, and it seems impossible.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
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 hat. We had a whole debacle before.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
Our guest today has nothing to do with any of this.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
He's truly been a victim.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
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.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
Oh so this is not good.

Speaker 4 (18:15):
No, it's a good look. You just got to commit
to it. It works with the with the jacket old schools.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
To me, it was lighter. Yeah, yeah, I was already this. Yeah,
this doesn't have to wait. This doesn't feel like i'd
be where I'm used to a forty five. You gave
me a thirty eight. I'm sorry, man, it's okay.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
I think you're doing fine, and I'm so happy that
our guest is there not wearing any shitty clothing. You
look great.

Speaker 4 (18:40):
Paint on my pants. So like a concerned dad. This podcast,
which I am so like, Yeah, shout out. He's like
Jesus person.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
I'm a huge fan of. You're a huge fan of.
You know him from Comedy Central, and you know him
from his work on facts. You know, I'm from his
work on the goddamn news. You you do the news sometimes.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
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 and this business it's just
like that was a great run. Yeah something else now.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
No, 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.

Speaker 4 (19:20):
Oh do we have to say give it up? And
we all know each other and there's no one here.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
We usually press a button. Oh and then there's like
a sound effect that would follow it. And uh, and
I didn't keep that in account when I said give
it up, So I still appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (19:34):
Yeah, thank you, I'll take it.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
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,
Marry 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

(19:57):
excited to hear you fully unpack the sing it's it's
it's I think gonna evolve as you explain it. But
you basically said, my mama told me.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Quansa is on to come up.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
Yes, tell us everything you.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
My relationship with Kwanza 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 it smells weird. It smells

(20:43):
like like raw vegetables and radishes.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
Why do I have to go to the bad?

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (20:50):
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 Kwansa and
nineteen eighty six to a couple of black kids in Cleveland,
it's like, wait, one gift and no one knows I'm

(21:11):
talking about and 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 it to grow.
But as I look at my kids, who are I
can't barely call them kids anymore, seventeen sixteen to ten,
and how they react to not only Christmas, but Halloween,

(21:33):
Thanksgiving to a lesser extent. Kids don't care about their
Halloween candy, they don't care about Christmas. Because before the Internet,
if you wanted something, you threw hints all year, I
want this, I want this dirt mini dirt bike, and
you say January, March, November, throwing it out to Santa.

(21:57):
Now you could just get it. And so the immediately
my kids get up on Christmas morning like a hungover dad,
like they'd be off like nine, like we were up
at four third getting yelled go back to bed, parents
of wrapping gifts down there, you know. So the idea
of Christmas and the immediacy of the excitement of what

(22:17):
they got is gone. It does not exist. Interesting, And
I look at these kids now, and that just on
the own is very creepy. But I look at these
like girls, my dumb.

Speaker 5 (22:30):
I look at these kids, these kids, but no, it's
like they are incredibly emotionally articulate.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
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?

Speaker 2 (22:54):
But I know twenty years older. I want my friends
to do that.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
Can you imagine? Just like let me let me just
call it Dave, Just be like, you were really good today, brother,
You're doing great. You're inspiring 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 there.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
They're going to be a.

Speaker 4 (23:15):
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 taking things. Kwanza I found out happens
after the day after Christmas, so it's the twenty six

(23:35):
to New Year, so it's that dead week. So there's
territory there. It's one thing a day. One day's like unity,
one day's like togetherness, and it's about like it's the
kind of stuff that I would I wouldn't have even
known what you were talking about had you suggested that,
but I could see my daughters and also TikTokers getting
this big and being like today for unity, blah blah blah.

(23:57):
You get a couple of big people on that and Kwanza.
I'm saying, Christmas is there to be nice is wibbly.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
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 ship. Yeah, this is this is investing in in
pork belly for you.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah. Also charting the drop of Christmas, right, even Christmas
is on the decline.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
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 that
there is. It's out in the suburbs. I live in Denver,

(24:47):
in a house in a nice, safe neighborhood, you know,
and I've been there saying right for COVID like four
or five years. I don't think I've ever gotten a
trick or treater. Houses are close to each other. It's
it was neighborhood that's like built for.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
You can hit ten house. Yeah, my neighborhood. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (25:05):
But like now everybody throws they kids in the car
and they go out to the suburbs because the suburbs
can block off like the street. And then everybody pops
their garages and it's kind of like a dick measuring
contest between houses. Like yeah, you're giving out candy, but
they got music in their wife's got her tits out,

(25:27):
you know.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Over here giving out scholarship. You know.

Speaker 4 (25:31):
It's like a chance for closeted extroverts to act like, oh,
I'm just sexy, Sherlock Holmes.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
It's like all right, 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 clouses 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

(25:59):
I grew up up in a suburb of Chicago, but
when we were kids, it felt like we were terrorizing
people's homes where like the doorbell never 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,

(26:20):
pleasant neighbors, and like we get some trick or treaters,
but they don't bother us, Like if we turn the
porch light off, it's over.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
Like everybody's very like aware and respectful of the holiday.
And so I to circle this back to Christmas. If
it sounds like I'm understanding you correctly, it's less that
Christmas is disappearing, but more that we value it differently
than we did as children.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
Absolutely, and only the people that like the kind of
religious people 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. It's great for me. I'm damn
near fifty, but like my son don't care about football sixteens,

(27:05):
so like he's like, I don't eat that much, Like
Thanksgiving isn't a big deal to him, damn. And there's a.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Space for quantitative.

Speaker 4 (27:14):
Quanta and just any other kind of like like holidays
kind of go up and down, and like I feel
like there's just going to be adult holidays because Halloween,
I think it's almost fully adult, but just like you
need the kids for the for the beard of it,
but really a lot there's going to be a younger
generation that takes like a kind of fringe holiday, dust

(27:37):
it off and makes it their own.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
I love the idea of the executives at Big Kwanzas rubbing.
They're rubbing their hands together.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
We hear a big Quantita in Detroit.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Yeah, are you tired of Santa Claus dancing in the
back of your video? Come on over here to Kwansa.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
That's the thing. And then we're gonna have to watch
the commodification of Kwansa, which is gonna be the most
American thing you can do. It is like all these
things that you think are so underground as we look
at like Snoop selling us. Uh, you know, fire pits
outside we.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Got we got some of that Snoop wine on Thanksgiving. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:21):
Wine is just like I mean, all these things that
were underground, now they're gonna be used to market to you.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
We were talking about this before you got here, but
we 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 had. You ain't gotta pray,
you ain't gotta to go thank your black neighbor. Nothing.

(28:58):
It's just you get the day off. You ain't got
to talk about it. And it happened so fast because
four years ago even I don't think I knew any
white people who even knew what June.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
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.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
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.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
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?

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (29:45):
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,
no exactly what it is. They probably heard it once,
but just like you know, people are just coming around
MLK Day.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
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.

Speaker 4 (30:23):
It, yeah straight, Arizona. Arizona wouldn't like because what's it
called the Public Enemy had a song basically about it.

Speaker 6 (30:30):
By the time I get 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.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
It like didn't get declared a national holiday until like
pretty recently.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
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 whole blood.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Yeah man, But to that point, Juneteenth is now it
seems cody ubiquitous with like the American holiday experience, and
then the same feels like it will happen to Kwanza
should it get this cleviten.

Speaker 4 (31:17):
It'll 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

(31:37):
your uncle will be like, what now.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
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.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
Do you have you ever celebrated Kwanta in your adult life?

Speaker 2 (32:05):
No?

Speaker 3 (32:05):
Not as a child, but not even as an adult.

Speaker 4 (32:09):
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 said then, 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?

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Then it's just gonna be one young child being annihilated
by a new a new holiday.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
I would be so hard. He knows his brother, he
knows his siblings at Christmas?

Speaker 4 (32:37):
Yeah, friends, is it's like, yo, what did you get
for unity today?

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Who moji.

Speaker 4 (32:48):
Out of coach?

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Coach?

Speaker 3 (32:49):
It turns out me and my dad held hands in
the kitchen and said what we're grateful for about each other?

Speaker 4 (32:55):
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 tried to do. But you know, comics.
Uh 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.

(33:16):
It's also the same period of time where you're open
to join in a cult.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
It's weird. Yeah, yeah. What is the quants of greeting?

Speaker 4 (33:22):
Actually it's think it's Swahili based, So like, I feel
very uncomfortable black men from Cleveland.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
Many many quanzas to you brothers.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
Okay, I like that, make quantsa be with you.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
The only word I know is jambo.

Speaker 4 (33:40):
What does that mean?

Speaker 2 (33:41):
It means hello. I had a book when I was
a kid called Jombo means hello. Yeah, okay, that.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
Guy Efect stay with you.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:53):
How many books do you read? You remember years later?
It's impressive.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
I read a lot of books as a kid. I
don't read it as many as as an adult, but
I read a shaw other books as a kid.

Speaker 4 (34:02):
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 becuse I couldn't read anything.
And then I just went on a tear and I
started reading everything.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Oh no, I don't have it anymore. I'm my brain
as much, but as a kid, I was like, really,
you feel its 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? Yeah, Like the
porch is over, and now I got to acquire new

(34:36):
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.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
Now, before we wrapped this thing up, I guess the
question on my mind. You you talked about the possibility
that Quanta 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

(35:06):
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.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
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're
going 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

(35:39):
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. There is just a level to how far
that you can go within any industry anything. It's just
it's a numbers game.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
Nick, you know who Alan Pain is?

Speaker 2 (36:00):
You do okay?

Speaker 4 (36:01):
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

(36:25):
sweet potato pie. 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 That's the ceiling. And when people my girl

(36:50):
made it and when people tried it, they're like like
they were just like, why don't people eat this? It
was just like some of us, like you came out
with Kiwi or something like, oh this is some weird
you know, it was just like fruit huh try it?
But yeah, it's going to be popular. But it's like
that's the same thing with Kwanta. Is Kwanta gonna morph

(37:11):
into pumpkin piles? Are going to stay slue potato pie?
And that's the question.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Well, I would love for Patty Leabelle to make my quantas.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
So I'm not Patty Leabell does Quanta pies. That'd be
pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (37:23):
Oh I can't imagine.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
How could that be the crossover we've been waiting for.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
Patty. Get on the phone, baby girl, right there. We've
been calling you. You gotta pick up there. We got
a lot of ideas.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
For you, Patty.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
But more importantly, we want Kwanta to become very popular.
I I do worry about it. I guess it is
maybe My My concern is that I do think I
think about it a lot in terms of larger black
conversations of how many things do we actually want to
become as universal as we claim that we do that

(37:59):
like it. It's something we see often on the Internet
where people get upset when our culture becomes usurped and
we feel like we deserve credit for the thing that
was a very popular thing with like these TikTok dances,
where like black kids were creating these chore beautiful, choreographed dances,
and then a white girl would go and do it

(38:20):
and become much more popular off of this shit, And
a part of me goes, stop showing these motherfucker's that shit,
right right, just keep it in house.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Do you do you think that the nature of Kwanza, though,
is a little different than even that of a Juneteenth,
where it's like Juneteenth is like a celebration of a
thing that happened in America, so it's able to be
co opted where Kuwans are specifically created to be this
like pet African, pet Africanist, like holiday. I don't think that,

(38:52):
I so to that, I guess I say, I don't
think it scales up because I don't think that they
get on board.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
Well, I think, I excuse me, I'll just have an thought.
I think the real real time example that we have
of it is pride. Look how crossover.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Straight white ladies love pride.

Speaker 4 (39:10):
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 nineteen eighty two in
Green Bay, Wisconsin. And now to see those same dudes
at our parade, I'm sure infuriates them, but they're probably gay,

(39:34):
younger LGBTQ plus folks that are like, but this is
what we wanted. So it's the It's the price of admission,
and the price of admission to be accepted by the
Greater United States or guy's culture, whatever is, you have
to give up that this is ours and you have

(39:54):
to watch somebody who didn't give a fuck about it
commodify it and make money off it and act like
they thought.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
Of And I think that's really 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

(40:20):
gets scary.

Speaker 4 (40:21):
Well, it's every look at the weed business, right, Yeah,
it's gonna be Coca Cola has a Kwanza flavor.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
And yeah, it's.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
Hard to know where this starts and stops.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
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.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
And that's that's I pray if we can wrap this
thing up, I pray that Kwanza somehow becomes the miracle holiday.
If there is a miracle inside of Kwanza, I think
the miracle would be Kwanza some by some miracle being
the first holiday that remains its core fully black but
also gains the popularity, uh that it deserves in unifying

(41:06):
black people.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
Well, Langston is the season. I believe in this Quanta
Dave miracle. Hell yeah, quantsa day a week. What do
they call the manora the manure?

Speaker 3 (41:21):
I don't know, the Quanta stick.

Speaker 4 (41:26):
And yeah, 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.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
When has a game for quantity.

Speaker 4 (41:38):
Yeah, Target always wants the white kids stands up. I win.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
I'm the King of Quants.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
Good for him because more people know about it, so
it's it's the constant.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
Yeah, yikes, Al, you want to tell the people where
they can find you, what cool ship you got going on.

Speaker 4 (41:56):
You can find me at Al Jackson on I G
and you can listen to me on Daytime Talk after
Dark where we 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.

(42:17):
Al Jackson live for days, but mostly follow me on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
We are back, So I do want to speak to
because we came in talking about it and we kind
of pulled from it. This idea is what we wanted
to discuss, the idea that there are no black holidays anymore.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
Yeah, that there are there are no and when we
say black holidays, at least we maybe you should clarify
that like there are technically black holidays, right that like
June teen's being an example of one, Martin Luther King
Day being another. I think those are technically, if my

(43:00):
I think those are the only two national holidays relating
to the history.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
But that seems very it's loose. It's very loose that month.
It feels like lose. Do you feel like because on
was when was Black History Month? In acting? It feels
like within our lifetime?

Speaker 3 (43:19):
Right, No, it's not in our lifetime. I actually looked
it up. The original sort of like introduction of what
would eventually become Black History Month was nineteen sixteen.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Oh wow, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
It basically was introduced at first as like a Black
History Day. Carter G. Woodson is given the credit for
sort of the initiation of it all, but it was
like it started as like a day of commemoration and
then a week Negro Achievement Week. I believe it was
originally called I.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Think maybe we keep that Negro Achievement Week right after
Black Bike Week.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
It's Black Beach Week, Black Bike Week, and Negro Achievement Week.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
That's your whole summer break, baby.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
But even that, even that, I think is such a
good example of like Black Bike Week remains a black
holiday because we don't demand that they participate in the shit.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Okay, I see what you're saying.

Speaker 4 (44:24):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
Like them nigga's in Myrtle Beach, just keep being themselves
in Myrtle Beach on their bikes, with their their weird
used to be bad bitch ladies.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Man, because we should pull up? Can we get we
cauld should should get Will Ferrell to send us to
Black Bike Week.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
Bro, if we went to Black Bike Week and hosted
a live episode, let's go. I don't know that we'll survive,
but I'd have fun.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
You go out doing what you love. If I'm going
to die, kill me at Black Bike Week. I don't
want to ride one of them motorcycles, but I want
to sit on a motorcycle that's the color of tropical starbusts,
star bursts. Starbust is weird and it is playing so rough,

(45:15):
so tough by Zap and Roger. Come on, man, they
looks I every time I see an old black guy
on a motorcycle with loud music, I get jealous. That'd
be so cool.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
They wouldn't, They would hate our guts.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
But man, when we have fun, now, who cares? Man?
It's not about that. It's about how I just want, man,
I just this is this is true. I just typed
in Black Bike Week into YouTube, and the first thing
I see is a lady on a giant, white and
peak motorcycle, and then another lady walking by with a

(45:48):
T shirt that says big booties Matter, Come on, which
I didn't even know was in contestant. I think I
think it keeps uh ebbing and flowing.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
I think there was a period where white people hated them,
and then they embraced them, mostly on their own bodies,
and now I think they're pushing back against them again.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Well either way, black bike But I see what you're saying,
Black Bike Week.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
That's a real holiday. That's a real Black holiday.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Fucking homecoming. Yeah that that what is it?

Speaker 3 (46:25):
The Howard Homecoming is like a real black holiday that
remains black because they don't then go, hey, white people,
you must you must be a part of this. You
must prove that you recognize our commitment to our culture.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
It's like, no, just leave them out of this. I
mean because also force is not maybe the way I
think there is a point to where forced acceptance is necessary,
whether it be like integrating schools and stuff like that,
but things like a holiday. I just don't know if
that ultimately does what you want it to know, you

(47:04):
know what I'm saying. Yeah, it is worth noting that
Carter G.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
Woodson basically he hoped that others would popularize the findings
and sort of like the culture of all the things
that he was he was doing with the Negro History
Week whatever it was called, and then that eventually snowballed
into what we now understand to be the you know,

(47:31):
February Black History Month, right right right? So it wasn't
and even I think where did I read it? There
was something I read that basically said that even as
he was sort of like building this thing, the intention
wasn't as much of like, oh, We're just going to
like spend a month making, you know, crediting all of

(47:55):
the things that black people do in February. I always
thought February was what he got assigned. He picked February.
He was like, no, February is the move. Why Woodson
chose February for reasons of tradition and reform. It has
commonly said that Woodson selected February to encompass the birthdays
of two great Americans who played a prominent role in

(48:16):
shaping Black history, namely Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas, whose
birthdays are the twelfth and the fourteenth. And I remember
reading that it wasn't so much that he was like, oh,
I love Abraham Lincoln and I love Frederick Douglas for
like their work, but he was, well, he basically was like,
there's a lot of shit happening all at once, So

(48:37):
February sort of makes sense if we're going to be
able to build this thing, right, right, Okay, So it
had its intention, and you know, I know every month
every year we complained that it's the shortest month and
what an odd choice that that would be the one
for black people. But it turns out the black dude
that made it wanted it that way.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
I also don't the shortest month thing is like a bit, right,
That's not really my issue with it.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
No, it's not like I'm celebrating Black History Month every
day the whole month anyway.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Well, and I almost think that that is that is
my issue with it, is that it becomes so long
that it is diluted, as opposed to like some kind
of what do you say, nigga advancement, leeky.

Speaker 3 (49:26):
Nigga do better, Nigga do better day.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
I mean, but there is something to like you can't
keep it because I don't think any month ascribed to
a people outside of that group of people. Listen, a
lot of people talk about Pride month. It's not people
outside of that community, as you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
Yeah, And I will say that again, And I'd be
curious to talk to a queer person about some of
the co opting of Pride even that, Like you see,
fucking the second that June first hits, every brand is
sort of like transforming their their logos and putting up
flags and sort of screaming about their embrace of like

(50:15):
queer culture. And it's like, I don't know that they
mean that shit, and I don't know that that helps
queer people in any honest way.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
Right, I mean, man, bro, I at least the Pride
that I've been to within San Francisco when I lived there,
it almost felt less. It was just a party. It
was just a street party. Yeah. I saw a lot
of hetero hetero sexual stuff going on to be you
know what I mean, a toime.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
Yeah, And I think it should it should feel a little.
I think true cultural celebrations should feel almost like outsider art.
They should feel like something that like a average person
can't just walk into and make sense of, because it
is it is honest to the culture and not just

(51:05):
you know, fucking you know a cliff notes of what
culture is.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Right. That being said, I do love an ethnic sneak
street fair. Oh it's awesome. Yeah. I was out with
the low riders on sick on to my own. That's
my birthday.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
I went to, uh, there's like an Italian fair street
fair that happens in New York one time, and like, well, sure,
but this is the one they acknowledged. But it was
like in little Italy, and like they had like a
bunch of foods I had never heard of. It wasn't
you know what I mean, this is an Italian street

(51:41):
I'm like, all right, spaghetti and the rest. And now
they were eating all kinds of shit I had never
heard of and doing weird stuff, and I was like,
this is cool. I never I never been a part of.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
This, bro. I love any Tell me I will pull
up on any ethnic street fair. Love It's like the greatest. Yeah,
it's fun man. Yeah, And so I do.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
I think maybe that's what I would I wish the
energy was for our holidays is more it is something
that you could pull up on as a white person.
I don't want it to be exclusive, but I don't
want it to be something where you just sort of
reap the benefits without ever having to interact with us directly.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
I will say I do like the idea of with
it becoming a national holiday. I like the idea of
resources being poortant to it that wouldn't have been before
because like we went to we went to jazz Fest
yesterday and like in Five Points, which is a like

(52:46):
historically black neighborhood or whatever, and like they got signs
for they're having a Juneteenth Street festival in which Little
Bow Wow is performing. Hell yeah, And like I don't
know if that because it's like city funded. Yeah, And
I don't know if that would have been able to
be as big before that without the national recognition, right,

(53:11):
And I think that's cool. And I wish that I'm
gonna be in Canada for Juneteenth because I make great decisions.
Oh man, uh, but.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
Yeah, I get what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
I think that's great. I think that's great for kids.
I think putting some infrastructure around it allows it to
ultimately grow. So it is like, uh, I don't know
what are we asking for, because if we are asking
to keep it insular to the point that we can't
worry about what they're doing, Okay, yeah, some of them
are gonna take it off and not care and blah

(53:47):
blah blah blah blah blah blah. But if we're getting
more resources to this thing, I do think of it
as a net positive.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Yeah, I just wonder about the way the resources are
actually being used. Like to your point, I think that's
great that little Bow Wow, don't do that that grown
Bow wows.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Shad Moss.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
Can be can can find funding and or rather this
organization can find funding to pay Shad Moss to appear
at their festival. On the flip side, I resent the
fact that that funding is only disseminated at the point
that we are fighting for a national holiday. I think

(54:32):
that that funding should have existed years before it did,
regardless of whether Shad Moss is available or not.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Also, I'll give you twenty fIF you want to.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
You think that's all it caused?

Speaker 2 (54:45):
The kidding Me and my friend we were we were
talking about it, though, he said he thinks five I said,
I think ten to get Bow to perform.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
Yeah, I think it's way more than ten.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
He's way more than ten. Yeah. I think he's good.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
I think he's he's asking for.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Twenty plus and I think fifteen.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
Yeah, maybe he settles at fifteen, but I think he's
definitely showing up asking for like twenty to fifty and
then they talk him down because where else is he gonna.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
Be Denver on June team yeah, shout out.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
One of the things I also looked up was the
list of other black holidays. There are apparently a ton
of state holidays as it relates to black stuff. There's
a Rosa Parks Day that is either February fourth or
December first. I don't quite understand it's celebrated. The states

(55:47):
that celebrated are Alabama, California, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee,
and Texas. There's Emancipation Day, which apparently what we were
talking talking about is and this is fucking crazy. It's
either March twenty second, April sixteenth, or May twentieth, or

(56:08):
July third or November one, bro and it I think
depends on the state. And the states are Florida, Maryland,
Puerto Rico, Washington, d Puerto Rico. Bro, I'm just telling
you what they said. And the United States Virgin Islands
apparently celebrates this.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
That makes me so mad about my home state, Puerto
Rico does it. Yeah, there ain't no black poppy. You
got a voice in there. There you go. I didn't
do it though. You know what you didn't. You didn't
do it to the full extent of your power. I

(56:51):
said it in my voice. And that's kind of a workaround.
That s how you cheat the system.

Speaker 3 (57:01):
There's Harriet Tubman Day, which this one is March tenth.
There is no debate about it. Only Maryland apparently celebrates it.
It commemorates the death of Harriet Tubman, which feels odd.
There's Malcolm X Day, which Illinois is the only place
that celebrates it May nineteenth, and that's the birth Yeah,

(57:21):
we got it. That's the birthday of Malcolm X. There's
Barack Obama Day that's also in Illinois. It's August fourth,
the birthday of Barack Obama.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
Hawaii. He said, no comment and yeah, you festival, we
love Barack Obama Day.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
Put us on the motherfucking.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
There's there's Transit Equity Day or Quality Transit Equality Day.
I assume that has something to do with black people
on the bus. Yeah, the bus boycotts. And uh, that's
in Wisconsin for some reason on February fourth, and it's
on the birthday of Rosa Parks. And then finally there's
George Washington Carver Day February first, and that's only in Iowa.

(58:19):
What look, man, there are also some other crazy.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
Washington Carver working Tuskegee out. Was he born in Iowa?

Speaker 3 (58:30):
I don't. I've never known George Washington Carver to have
anything to do with Iowa neither. Apparently he's a big
He was born in Diamond, Missouri. Okay, he went to
Iowa state as well.

Speaker 4 (58:43):
There we go.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
Okay, that makes that makes some sense. I went to
his house when I was a kid. Was he there?
Went to his house? We have to book your t's house.
He was like, hold on, I don't know if maybe

(59:11):
this was good that you have that back. I'm back, baby,
I uh no, I wait what you said? His boss
got cut off.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
There's a conspiracy theory. I'm surprised we haven't talked about
this together on the podcast. It certainly has come up.
There is a conspiracy theory that George Washington Carver had
a surprisingly high pitched voice because he was castrated as
a boy. Oh he was born into slavery and was
castrated and then you know, was freed and obviously did

(59:45):
a bunch of cool shit. But the theory is that
his voice was really really high because of his castration.
It's the same theory that people had about Michael Jackson's
high voice, although that was obviously proven wrong by all
the people who are like, nah, that Nigga's voice was
real deep.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
He was being silly. He sounds like pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
What if everybody from Gary just talks like Freddy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
That's what I've assumed always is that do you know,
as men women, what I.

Speaker 3 (01:00:24):
Would love if there's a listener with the the uh know,
how is to redo that do dooo audio? But now
with with Freddy saying it, Michael Jackson, you gotta do
the video too. It's got to be video of Michael
Jackson saying there was do doo everywhere. Uh, But it's
with Freddy gives this voice instead.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
They can for sure do that. They did that Ai
wog Wan Deliah Drake ship. You can't do everywhere with
Freddy Gibbs.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
I was really surprised that that that that was AI.
I thought Drake had fully been broken by Kendrick.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
I listened to it more times than I care to admit.
That's fair. It's really funny, man, It's funny how they
talk there. Yeah, maybe we start talking in Toronto accents
and then we like carry it over.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
I hate the Toronto accents so much.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
It's so funny though. It's cartoonish. It's like they're all cartoonish.
You ever heard a white guy from Chicago. Yeah, they're fair,
they're all cartoonist. It's all yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
No accent is without its flaws, I guess, yeah, yeah,
which is why we deserve to say him. Man, It's
why we deserve to have it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
I'm gonna start with the Canadians and that worked my
way down. That's smart. Heyf im, you cheesed? What do
they say? Hey there, Bud? Hey, I'm a Canadian bud.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
But that's what makes it makes me so mad about
it because they talk like that, but then they say
like weird Caribbean words and that's meant to be like
tough guys.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Ship and the Caribbeans go everywhere the Caribbean people go everywhere.
It's the same reason British people do it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
Well, let me say this, Caribbean people need to stop. Whoa,
y'all need to sit the fuck now, the same issue
I have with Juneteenth. You man, you're spreading yourself too
wide and you're making you're making it so that your
culture is now being like misappropriated by a bunch of white,

(01:02:34):
weird Canadians.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
And I don't like that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
And Drake is wrong, but you're wronger, So sit the
fuck down somewhere and stop chilling with all these people.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
Oh man, that's that they're not It's just they just
go places in a listen. I'm for it. Caribbean people. Nope, Nope,
Caribbean people, I say, keep it going.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
We're calling upon you because we have we have new merch.
We have very exciting merch that we are now selling
and it's it's fucking great.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
We love it so much. Just sleek, it's sexy.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Come on, you want to tell them what we have?

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
Yeah, we have three different types of hats, which is
really fun. We have a two tone hat, Alien Dad hat,
the traditional logo in black and khaki. Then we have
the enamel pin with an alien who has a coofie
on it. Since my mama told me. And then we
have t shirts that say proud little Mama, which is
who you are. Yeah, you can buy the merch now,

(01:03:53):
go to my mama told me dot merch table dot com.
It's a brand new name, but it's the same old
merch and we would love for you to get some
if you haven't got it already. And we want you
to have all the sweet stuff, So get it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
The last thing I'll tell you. And this actually made
me laugh pretty hard. There are a bunch of other
black holidays. Jackie Robinson Day, African American Music Appreciation Month,
which apparently is June. Obviously, there's Kwanza, which unfortunately has
been treated with such lack of seriousness that nobody will

(01:04:32):
treat it like a real holiday.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
I mean, you could bring it back.

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
Yeah, I don't have that kind of energy or commitment.
But I believe Christmas House, Yeah, I believe it. Whoever
has that kind of strength, but it's not me, but
my personal favorite. This is my personal favorite day that
I read on the list. Apparently there is a Kunta
Kente Day heritage festival that happens he's not real. It

(01:05:01):
happens in Annapolis, Maryland. It's that remarks the arrival of
Kunta Kente, which maybe he was real. I don't understand. No,
it's when you look it up, it's the picture of
LeVar Burton as Kunta Keno. Okay wait no, yeah, yes, okay.
He is a fictional character from the novel Roots. Was

(01:05:24):
it Roots a fictional but I've never read Roots. Yeah,
it's it's fictional. And not only was it fictional, I
believe that Alex Haley, the author, was later revealed to
because he was saying this was all based on real shit,
and then it later got revealed that all of it
was just him like fucking around, like none of it

(01:05:44):
was was rooted in any real truth of anything. So yeah,
it's all made up. But the fact that there's a
Kunta Kente Heritage Day is nuts. Fuck.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
But god damn it, that m be.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
Our only black holiday. So we gotta kind of take
it where it is, you know what I mean, because
maybe Kente Day is like fucking the blackest thing out there.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Olivia is saying, this is a moment for us to
start our own holiday. Oh that's Friday. I will maybe
we'll workshop it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
I don't think I don't think we can make it
a weekly thing, and I don't think coofy Fridays.

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
Is quite right.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
But but yeah, we listeners. If you're if you're inspired,
maybe send us your thoughts on what could be the
my mama told me inspired holiday.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
Listen. If you guys do a good job next year,
we'll commit to it. We will do a live show.

Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
We'll do a live show to celebrate the holiday.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
We'll wear traditional garb.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
Yep, we'll create traditional garb that we will wear on
the holiday. We will fully commit to this holiday. You
picked the date, you pick the theme, we will we
will pick the best of the themes and suggestions.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
Yes, also you picked the location.

Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
Pick the location. It's got to be for us, it's
got to be a black location. Don't don't come and
be like, ah, we're going to do it in veil,
like no, I don't know why my state caught it straight,
you know, yeah, I know, yeah, No, we we wanted

(01:07:39):
to be somewhere black, and we wanted to be something cool,
So don't come with bullshit. But it also has to
be funny. We like we like funny stuff at this podcast. Boy,
you want to tell the people where they can find
you and what cool shit you have going on.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
Run the whole catalog back. We want to be on
all of your Spotify raps next year. Am I gonna Kreon?

Speaker 4 (01:08:00):
Probably not.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
It gives me anxiety, but I do love to see it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
And in the meantime, you know, you can follow me
on Instagram at Cool Guy Jokes eighty seven. You know,
just doing some local shows around town. I still have
some leftover tour merch. Go to bring David Toplate dot com.
Buy up some of that and you know, just uh kwanza.
Oh yeah, and get we have merch at my mama

(01:08:26):
told me dot merchcentral dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:08:29):
Yeah, so go buy the merch again. My mama told
me dot merchcentral dot com. There's lots of cool hats
and pens and t shirts and that's it. But you
can buy any of that stuff. And then you can
follow me at Langston Kerman on all the cool social
media platforms.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
I love.

Speaker 3 (01:08:49):
New followers, So go on over come. I'm rest on
my knee if that's what you need over here at
uh at Old at Langston Kerman's house. And as always,
if you want to send us your own drops, your
own conspiracy theories. If you want to tell us how
there is in fact a war on Kwanza, please send
it all to my Mama pod at gmail dot com.

(01:09:11):
We would love to hear from you. Follow the podcast,
subscribe like do all the ship that you're supposed to do.
I ain't gonna say no more by Bitch.

Speaker 7 (01:09:27):
Christmas Night, the Cross to da oh Wait, you can't
him Hi, you can't kid wone, you can't JC.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
Whereever you go.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
Gon't be growing my crumb chips and your ees.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Kala bears are racist.

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):
The hostal Layer host the money

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Turning stuff, the vacant o make the