23 - Rosedale

Evan Mastronardi and standup comic Stan Talouis examine the racism in Rosedale, Queens--where Stan grew up--during the 1970s.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Mm hmm. All right, you'relistening to the Bralic and the All Things
Broke Network. This because we atleast I have. This is a biweekly
sometimes New York history podcast where Iuh man who still is renting uh a
resident of affordable housing and writer ofthe Metropolitan Triflon authority evan MASTERINARTI uh reads

(00:30):
a story to a man who survivedalmost getting caught in a Nigerian prince scheme.
Uh, and he survived to talkabout it? You want you want
you want to tell that story?I want you to, yes, introduce
yourself and then please tell your story. Uh? What's up guys on standing?

(00:53):
Uh? Stand up comic from NewYork City. I live in Queens,
I love I've born born in Manhattan, but yeah, in Queen's Living
Story. Now. Uh, doyou know what the story is gonna be
about? Uh? No, okay, good, that's how it's supposed to
go. Okay. I've been wantingto say this all day. Nineteen nineteen
two thousand, the year of ourLord Optimus prime R. The guy who's

(01:18):
filming turns the camera on himself andJubilee I don't even know again, there
will be no tables ladders, chairshere, gentlemen knows pro bono thirteenth century
Gregorian chances. He keeps claiming he'sbeen poisoned, Yes, by the fist

(01:42):
fucking adderable that you take Becca beckup. Pause part there's a McDonald's university.
His decision to enlist was quote aprimal compulsion, a living exclamation boy.
Yes see, you may have themob, but I got the city.
Have you ever met an ex wife? Because I'm their exhausted Alexander Graham cell

(02:08):
that's a number I don't talk toGalardo five times a day. He's got
my fucking house. He LARPs,Hey, just say, you know,
former marine von Kosovo helped put aformer YPD commissioner in jail, and now
I'm being hunted by him. Howare you doing, I'm saying on your
daughter's couch is credited in this film, Evan, I am looking at the

(02:30):
official Wikipedia page for Hambury University.Well, it was only a matter of
time before we put these two thingstogether nineteen seventy four. And there's a
reason I chose you for this.In Rosedale Queen's Okay, that's why,
because you know the history, andthat's that's for everyone that there's a trigger

(02:55):
warning here. It's pretty ugly forspecially for race relations. So the Spencers
are moving in to Rosedale. Now, at this time, Rosedale is mostly
Eastern European immigrant white. It's youknow, you got Jewish, Italian.

(03:16):
Yeah, yeah, So there's allthese you know, European immigrant backgrounds.
But and many of them have leftother parts of Queens. Some of them
have left Jamaica and some people goto Long Island. But this is this
group that's like I think it's Ithink of three hundred. It's like this
is where we hold them. It'slike like they the last bastion of this

(03:40):
white immigrant community that does not wantto leave Queens, that believes in this
element, which is you know,a dog whistle for frequently when we're black
and brown people live and they movedto Rodale. So there aren't too many
black families there at this time,but the Spencer's gonna be one of the

(04:00):
first. The Spencer's before that actuallylived in London and they are from the
West Indies. So while they're whilethey're here, it doesn't take very long
for there to be for them notto feel welcome. One of the first

(04:21):
things that happens is a group ofteenagers, a teenage, teenagers older,
just a whole rainbow coalition of assholeshere are decide to vandalize most of the
house. They're said, they're trying, They're throwing rocks, and they're setting

(04:45):
it parts a bit of blaze,and allegedly some people are just like looking
on during this part. So thisis there. You know, it used
to be want to make your neighborfeel welcome. They just basically existed and
they did not feel welcome. Mmhmm uh. And they're you know,

(05:09):
they're coming from London feeling that andthis is their part of their you know,
welcome to the US. They justwant a place to live. And
people are starting to believe that thisis the start of immigration just from another

(05:30):
part of Queens into this fucking partof Queens. That's somehow gonna threaten them,
that's somehow gonna threaten like like thefirst black families, the sign of
this. Yeah, well, uhyeah, I'm so. I moved to
Rosa ninety four I was I wasnine, and like you know, one

(05:55):
of the first things I did waslike research neighborhood and like they were they
used to fire houses like in myneighborhood all the time before, you know,
in the seventies. There's a greatit's a PBS documentary series they used
to do called The Way We WereThat's what this is based on. Well,
yeah, so I know I knowthat family. Then I know I

(06:15):
know who they know who they arethe Spencer you know the Spencers. I
don't know that personally, but Iknow who they are because they did like
a few years ago they went butthey went on like it was like Channel
elevenues or Channel nine or whatever,and it was like like a look back
on you know, right on thedocumentary or whatever. Uh. But yeah,
they used to they used to likefirebomb houses and they were to rock

(06:38):
their kids. And like I remember, like when I moved in, there
was a guy next door to us. So like like where my my my
house, my mom's house is likereally close to Sunrise Highway, and like
a lot of stuff doesn't really happenon my mouth's block because it's so close

(06:59):
to a lot of foot traffic.Like it's like three like literally a three
minute walk to the lawn the railroad. There's like stores everywhere around the corner.
There's you know, it's it's there'sa lot it's a lot harder for
things to happen. But I rememberright next door to us was like the
last white guy on the block.Like there was already like a Haitian family

(07:23):
that lives next door on the otherside. Yeah, it was like the
last white guy on the block.Nice enough, he was cool, like
you know, that's good, he'dlike I think we moved in like April
of ninety four. He was outby like the winter, like its not
even like maybe six months. Hewas all right, but like that you
saw he was like the end ofwhite flight. The house. The people

(07:43):
that you saw in real time,Yeah, people that own the house before
us, they were they were like, uh, their last name was like
Werner or something like that, likeJewish or yeah, like some kind of
German. Yeah yeah, yeah,I mean they seemed they seemed okay.
It was just like it was funny, like their house was like very seventies

(08:05):
and eighties when we came in andlike renovations and things like that. It's
like at the basement they still hadshed carpeting. They still had wallpaper,
like the wall paper like the youknow, like the wooden paneling. You'll
see in like old houses, yeah, all of that stuff. Like I
didn't want to move there, butlike obviously I was nine, I had
no trust. Yeah, you don'treally have a choice of neighborhood that.

(08:28):
Yeah. And like as you say, I want Long Island City mom.
Also yeah, female, I meanthink about it if we had gotten a
place in lond of City back then, man, like we would have sold
it for too much money. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it was like
Rosedale Roosdale used to be. Imean it's still not, like I mean,

(08:50):
it's it's funny. I saw aTikTok that was like Rosedale is like
top ten, like like most affluentplaces to live. I was like,
what, like that's I think it'slike I think that's like there's like two
families that are like really killing it, and then everybody else is like it's
like bringing the average up. Likemy mom is worth a good amount of

(09:13):
money. You know, hopefully thingsdon't change too much and you know that
that would be a good source ofextra income right the family. But like
my mom's house right now is wortha million dollars and that's like that's it's
kind of average for for Rosdale,Like there's houses. You know, I
have one of my cousins. Theirhouse is like double with ours is because

(09:33):
of all the work they put intoit too. Right. The only thing
is like I you know, asI've gotten older too, like I'm seeing
different I have different perspectives on thingsnow. So like like I would do
worry about the property value because likearound the corner from my from my mom's
house is like a major road,Franciscos Boulevard. Boulevard goes from like my

(09:58):
mom's neighborhood all the way up tolike Lushing, like like going towards the
Bronx. Yeah, it's a longroad. M hm. So but around
the corner, like I've seen,they put a Popeyes in there, they
put a there's a there's a DunkinDonuts. The writer was there, has
been there for a long time.But they they oh, there was a

(10:22):
this. This hurt my heart.This hurts It's gonna hurt yours. I
just need you to be prepared.When I was growing up, there was
this little Italian guy, his namewas Mario. He owned a pizza place.
When this when this work? No, no, no, that's dominic,
that's it. That's that's also alittle Talian guy. But Mario Mario

(10:45):
owned this pizzeria, like you know, remember I didn't do the right thing
now, yeah, yeah, Mariowas my soal yes, I grew up
on on Mario's pizza. Okay,you didn't make deliveries, no, no,
no, I'm not crazy. I'mnot. I was out here getting

(11:07):
scammed on craigs. Yeah right right, so yeah, and then the arcades
and the pizzerias trying to right avoidother conflict. Yes, okay, so
Mario's closed probably like right before thepandemic, which you know it happened.
Yeah, but then it was likeclosed for a long time. And I

(11:28):
was recently in my mom's neighborhood smokeshop now shop, dude, hurts,
we're getting older. Yeah, thisis when. This is my mom's neighborhood,
all within like a two minute walk, Popeyes, smoke shop, Donuts,
uh, mail shop, dollar store, Rite Aid. Yeah, this

(11:54):
is you go further down, there'syou know, another smoke another smoke shop,
beauty supply store, gun Yeah,like even even like pawn shops on
the street. Yeah. Like it'snot until you get to like right into
Long Island where you get into ValleyStream and that's when you have you know,
the sonic and like the mall.You know that old Chris rock Drew

(12:18):
was like, there's the mall whitepeople go to. This is the white
mall. And the white people usedto go to. Yeah, Green Acres
Mall where I used to go bymy mom is the mall white people used
to go to the hood mall whenthere's a Jimmy Jazz in there. Like
there's there's Jimmy jazz. It gotthat. Yeah, we got an outside

(12:39):
on them. But you know it'swhen there's a Jimmy jazz. Yeah anyway,
uh so, wait, but butthis is important because it's it's funny
that you're talking about the same thingsthat it goes to show you people of
all racism backgrounds think of the samethings. Because a lot of these people
were now they were also but theywere also concerned about stuff like that and

(13:03):
the property values and and it's likeeverybody concerned, Like everybody wants safety,
everybody wants property values to be good, everybody wants a Marios instead of a
fucking Cannabish oil motherfucking place. It'slike these are things people think about,
but they were worried that the Spencerswere gonna do what they call blockbusting,

(13:26):
which at first I thought was likelike a fucking uh what's his face Michael
Bay movie, And it's like andit's like, no, no, it's
not a good thing. You're you'rebust. You're breaking the block and creating
now a space. All it basicallymeans is that there's not a perfect row,
like a flush if it was cards. It's not a flush of white
families. That's all this basically means. So and you know, the Spencer

(13:50):
is not that it should particularly matterwhat they do, but these are middle
class, Like going to what you'resaying, it wasn't necessarily the most affluent
place, but it was middle class, upper middle class place. And Tony
Spencer he made he was a photoengraver in Manhattan, which apparently paid pretty
well then. And what so,what's starting to happen is that even though

(14:16):
everybody just wants the same thing,they're looking at black families as the beginning
of the end for the safety andthe appearance of their neighborhood. Yeah,
and and what's amazing, and Ithink you probably remember about the PBS documentary
is that there's no hiding here theywere very outspoken. Yeah, yeah,

(14:37):
they were there. Yeah, theywere very because you like there's always like
a generation where there's like like youlook at old old news footage from like
the sixties in the South, andit's like you see like a little old
lady was like I had no problemwith him, I just don't want to
live near us, right, Andthen I think that's sort of the vibe
that a lot of the a lotof the people in Rosedale, a lot

(14:58):
of the Irish Italian like to me, it was once I had that information,
it was kind of funny. Iwould see the older white people in
my neighborhood that still that's still likethere was a guy that owned the vacuum
vacuum shop owner and like old awhite guy you could tell like his dad
owned the store, and then heowned the store and then eventually left and

(15:18):
it turned the store into a roatyshop, which is all types of let's
go, that's exactly what he thoughtwould be there next, Like they've like
the landlord. It was like halfit was like one side they like split
it in, like one side throughbarbershop and the other became like a small
rot shop. Mh. But anyway, Uh, they like even like teachers,

(15:46):
like all of my teachers in likebecause I moved. I started fifth
grade in Rosedale, so like fromfifth to eighth grade, all my teachers
were like you could tell they werelike they used to live in Rosdale and
then Right Island and like you know, like it's like majority black school and
like all these teachers are super white. So like, you know, I

(16:07):
don't I'm not gonna say they treatedus any differently. I don't. I
don't think they did. I liketo think they didn't. But at the
time, it was always like okay, Like I remember I had a I
was always like, you know,into creative writing assignments and things like that.
So the opportunity came presented itself.That was, you know, I
took the shine because I mean,yeah, I knew at an early age

(16:30):
that I had a like my skill. I was bad at math and science,
but I could write, yeah,definitely. So I remember I had
we had this assignment we had towrite a newspaper article. I was like,
bet write this, I'm write thebest newspaper article I write. It
was like sixth grade, and Iremember finishing it and I was like,
nah, this is, this isthis is a little too good. This

(16:51):
is too good. So I putin like I put in things that were
so fake that there's no way anybodywould have believed that I like this was.
This was when me see ninety six, so Giuliani was mayor, and
I remember I wrote about an apartmentfire in the Upper West Side. I

(17:12):
specifically remember writing Major Leiani has pledgedto donate a million dollars of his own
money to the help that motherfucker don'teven have a hundred right, you know
this? Teacher said, I copied, I copied the She failed me and
said, I copied the article justfor take it? What the fuck right?

(17:33):
I'm twelve years old, twelve yearsold? Where would I Where did
I copy this from? So that'swhy I went home. I was pissed.
I told him, I told myaunt. My aunt came to the
school the next day. She waslike, I need you to show me
the article that he stole from.I need you exactly exactly what he did.
See. That's that mentality a littlebit. There's this notion that someone
can't do something, they can't bethis creative, all right, So so

(17:56):
one second has got it. Ijust got a piss. Well, I'm
getting so old. It's like everythinglike the piss is even like breaking up.
It's like you gotta do it inshifts. Yeah, yeah, I
get it, all right, I'llbe back, all right, ey,

(20:04):
all right. So the first attackon the Spencer's home happened. Actually I
believe before they moved in, thiswas like a warning. But the Spencer's
you gotta really give it to thisfamily that how strong they were. They
said, no, we have aright to be here as much as anybody

(20:25):
does. So they move in andthen on New Year's Eve nineteen seventy four,
the house gets Now this time they'reinside and there is a bomb,
and no one thankfully gets significantly hurt, but there's even more damage done to
the house, and it was enough, if done to its fullest effect,

(20:47):
to kill someone. Now the police, for some reason, the police,
some of the police think it's theKKK from Boston, and I'm like,
not, that's your neighbor. Yeah, Like I think what they're they're trying
to say is that like at thispoint, it's kind of like because if
if you saw the beginning of it, that even the announcers saying, like

(21:10):
when when you see the people chanting. He's saying, this isn't the South
years ago, this is Rosedale Queen'snow in the in the mid seventies.
And I guess it's it's always easierto outsource the hate and racism. Yeah,
you know. Uh so they wentunder that and they didn't really they

(21:32):
didn't. They barely investigated it.I believe they arrested someone, but they
let they let them go. Therewas no no one caught a real charge
here for this. And you know, you what, what a lot of
the people said was that, Okay, we don't we don't want them here,
but that wasn't our doing. Wewe a few violent uh members of

(21:59):
our movement, because they're creating amovement now to stop the blockbusting is not
representative of us. But it's likethey're still saying all the things. It's
kind of like Trump. It's likehe's saying all the things that would fuel
someone too, even if you didn'tdo yourself. He's saying all the things
that would fuel someone to act uponit. Right, So what's gonna happen

(22:22):
now is and still the family sayswe are not leaving like this, and
and and now they're starting now peoplefrom all parts of the city are starting
to go and be in front ofthe house and act as protection. So
you're starting to see this coalition ofcivil rights leaders of just random citizens around

(22:44):
New York coming in to show solidaritywith the Spencers. Yeah, so that
was really nice. That was reallynice to see. So what's happening now
is that there's this space basically thewhite European people, the sent people there

(23:06):
are now creating a second housing market. They're creating a second housing market that
is is run by them, andthey will always keep track of when a
house is open and and do everythingin their power essentially to get one of
them to be the real estate peopleto intervene if necessary, so that that

(23:29):
house goes to a white person soa black family wouldn't even see that listing.
Yeah, they're gonna have control overthe whole process. Well that's that's
kind of like what they were doingin Livetown on Long Island, right,
they got to the point where withredlining and Long Island they had like they
had I don't know what it's called, but like they're basically in the constitution,

(23:51):
the town constitution, like in thefifties, like right after the right
after like the forties and fifties,like at the end of the at the
end World War two, they hadlike stuff written into the into the town
bylaws that said, if you hadif you have like a drop of like
African American in your blood, yo, my house. What's so important about

(24:12):
fucking Levittown? Man? Like,bro, even if you're a white supremacist,
even if that Levettown, that's thehill. Like I have friends that
live in Levettown, and like,yeah, you know, to me,
it's like, it's kind of funnybecause the only time I ever really went

(24:33):
to Levettown, uh, was tohang either hang out with my friend or
like Governors the comedy club is there. Yeah, And I'm like, you
know what's funny now that I thinkabout it, I've only I've only got
booked gotten booked at Governor's once.And it was the small dining room in

(24:55):
the back, not a not anot a it's not a small room.
But it was like it wasn't themain room. And they didn't put me
on the flyer, which what Ididn't think. I didn't think too much
too much of it. Yeah,they put everybody else on the flyer,
and then I asked somebody about it. They were like, yeah, you
know, they don't. They tendto not put black comics on their line

(25:15):
on their flyers. It's nice becauseof the this is this is just hearsay.
I don't I can't research to findout if that's actually true, but
because I think, I want tosay, i've seen black people on their
flyers before. I think they're maybethey're just more well known mm hmm.
But someone did tell me once thatthey don't like putting black comics on their

(25:40):
lineups because you know, people seethe lineup and they're like, I don't
want to see that. You know, they want to see what they want
to see. They want to seelike the the old you know, the
big Italian guy that's going to talk. Yeah, which is fine. That's
you know, that's that's their progativethey're running. They're running a business.
If business says they put the peopleon the flyer that are gonna get people

(26:03):
in the seats. You know,do that They want their blue collar com
they want their pizza apri and comedytour. Yeah, and listen, that's
great. I will say this.I fucking burn that place. To the
I fucking lit that room on fire. They never heard, like, like
good ship, one of the bestsets I've ever had, Just like just

(26:26):
kill her. They're gonna put youin the Constitution, now, don't let
stand back right, Like it's Iwhenever I do, Like, that's the
thing. It's like, that's whyyou know you can't judge anybody by how
Yeah you don't know, because,like I'll be honest with you, I
always do well with middle class,middle class and upper middle class white audiences.

(26:51):
Yeah, well it's Is it becauseI wear glasses and I'm safe,
Yes, it is that. Thatis exactly the case. They see me
because I'm not a threat, andthey're like, oh yeah, you know
they see a jogger in the neighborhood. Well maybe not. They're like,
what what they see when they seeme? They're like, look, I'm

(27:11):
not gonna let you take my daughter, but okay, but you can you
can absolutely make me laugh, sir, like I did. We went I
went to we went to Colorado.Oh yeah, yeah. The show in
a it's a song called Littleton andit's very very affluent. Mm hm.
The I reached out to some peoplein Denver and I was like, hey,

(27:33):
I'm looking for looking for some spotswhile I'm in town. Yeah,
it's only hooked me up with thisguy. It was a comic that I
knew when he was here and hehad moved. He moved to Denver and
okay, and it was literally likea gated community. It was like like
all these like old there were someyoung people, but like they were,
it was like just one big community. Have you did you see? Don't

(27:59):
worry darling. No, I justheard a lot of controversy about it,
but I never saw it. Prettygood movie. Uh It's like it's like
all the same kind of person.They're all very I'm not gonna say wealthy,
but they were all they were allkind of rich. They all had
that okay. Uh so I Ishow up and it's it's like I don't

(28:22):
know what they thought of me.And then I go up and I did
really well. The only thing Idid I started joking about I started doing
talking about the bus and oh yeah, the bus, the bus, about
how we're all like kind of thesame in the train, but we're not.
Yeah, yeah they don't know whata bus is. No, they
don't. Jokes That joke didn't reallyland but the rest of their jokes did

(28:47):
pretty well, so it was sogood. I'm walking off stage and this
this guy like like he's like,oh, like he've had his arms open,
like grabbed my arm. Okay,slip forty dollars in my hand.
Oh okay. Look in a month, I would have been doing stand up

(29:07):
for fourteen years. People that haveever slipped money into my hand after a
comedy show, just white people,every time, never fails. So listen,
I have no no quarrels. Okay, well, but like to your
point, like it's like there thereare these times like they like what they
like and they don't want they don'tthey don't want change. And yeah,

(29:30):
i mean Rosdale in the seventies wasthere was change. People were just like
I mean, it's like anybody else, like if you're if you know,
you know, as I'm you know, I'm getting married this year, and
I'm you know, yeah, Ihope to be having kids soon, and
I want to raise my kids ina place where there's like it's it's the
schools that matter, right like mymom. I'm sure that was a huge

(29:56):
part of it. Was like Iwant to I want to own my own
home and I want to live ina place where my my son can go
to school and feel safe and allthis, all the other things. So
I'm not going to put any womenaround him, right, She was like,
I wanted to have a great education, so I'm going to pay five
thousand dollars a year so that thereare no girls. No girls. Okay,

(30:22):
it usually does. Some of theuniform kids. I remember always taking
the train where the ones doing theworst ship. Yeah, I as there
was something coke. I went toschool, Like, yeah, I went
to school with criminals. Man,Like, there's a yeah that that uniform
there's they do a lot to counterbalance. I remember my freshman year of high
school. I had two friends,Uh, they had just joined the Bloods.

(30:47):
They had like just bloods, okay, fresh blood bloods. So I
remember they had to as part ofone of one of the things they have
to do for their initiation, theyhad to like they had to rob an
old lady for five dollars. Specificallywhat the and they had like they had

(31:07):
to get a picture of like aframed picture. They went to her house,
they like robbed her for five dollarsand got a picture of her a
fucking selfie. No, no,like in her house. Dude, they
got a picture of it. Waitbut which but she was there while they
did Yeah yeah, yeah, that'sinside of her house. Ship. Meanwhile,

(31:30):
we're in Catholic school, Like Ilike I knew, I knew a
kid that did so much coke hehad to have open heart surgery by school.
Yeah, man, Jesus Christ,list taking the fucking regions because Catholic
school doesn't mean ship. You justyou just is. All you're doing is

(31:53):
paying paying money to dress nicely.Yeah, you're paying. Yeah, it's
it's the you know form and perhapsthe remnant of corporal punishment. Like I
can tell you, like you're right, I can't. I mean I can.
I can't speak for all Catholic schoolsin New York, all Catholic high

(32:14):
schools in New York. But Ican tell you that my high school produced
ah, mostly cops, construction workersunion guys. Uh, and four medians.
All right, so they produced fanIsland and four comedians. Uh.
There's I mean, there's plenty ofathletes, this is I mean, yeah,

(32:37):
everybody, like you know, there'sguys. There's a couple of guys
that there was a guy that playedfor the Knicks he started at my high
school and transferred out played for theWarriors. He started on my high school,
transferred out. Who else? Ohthe guy that didn't rented vitamin water?
What's my high school? Oh?Micropoli went to went to Holy Cross.

(32:59):
Nice. We've got some NFL playersthere. We've got Oh, if
you ever watched Hard Knocks the ClevelandBrown season, Devin coulduce the title.
Okay, across uh we produced Kevin. You know, it's not just it's
kind of amazing. Sounds like nobodybecame a priest now. But all right,

(33:25):
fine, but but when you werethere, I don't hear priests alumni
or there was one guy, oneguy for sure. I know there was
a guy. Okay, they gotone Brian, a good success. But
okay, what's his name? Brian? He was like Asian Brian ching all
right, so Brian, But I'mjust saying not the not exactly what what

(33:47):
what they were shoving every night?The deal. It was like, listen,
you have four years to do this, just yeah, that's all.
They wanted to just limit the oldladies. You rob all right in Jesus
name amen to They were like wentbragging. I was like, what that's
not that's an old lady. Comeon, now what chapter of the I

(34:13):
don't know the chapter these these Bloods. That's interesting. I told you my
boy tried to join the Bloods byputting a mice face audition video. Was
he pop? He was. Hewas dancing with a big red shirt on
in the park and it was likeit was like an audition video that you
would send a producer. Was itwas like stomp the yard. Yeah,

(34:36):
And he was like, stomp theyard, stop these Bloods, and he's
there, get to stomp it inthese air Force ones. I mean,
I mean, I didn't think that'show it went. I didn't think there's
like, you know, a fuckingSteven Spielberg producer behind the Bloods looking at
looking at videos saying all right,I like how I would have loved I

(34:57):
would have loved to be part ofthat audition process. It was incredible.
But anyway, I think he hadthat. He probably had that game song
in the background, you know,blooh blah blood Yeah, yeah, he
had that. He had like thatship in the background too. Yeah,
Because this is this is like twothousand and four as well. What the
perks were joining the Bloods? Hesaid, I don't even know if he
was successful. That was like oneof the last times I saw him,

(35:19):
like once after that, because Idon't know. I know he went to
Seattle at one point. That's allI know now, as far as I
know, there's not a lot ofthere's not a lot of bloods. I
met a guy who was Latin king, though I didn't ask many questions,
but apparently the tattoo looked legit.Oh man, I almost got into a
fight because I had a Laker jacketin high school. And oh yeah,

(35:42):
those those colors, right, Iremember you were fucked with colors because yeah,
they were red, yellows all that. When I was in high school.
High school from ninety eight to twothousand and two, you couldn't wear
there were no colors you could wearwithout being fucked with. You couldn't wear
red, you couldn't wear blue,you couldn't wear black, You couldn't wear
purple. Was a gang too,These are the Dominicans don't play purple?

(36:02):
Were I remember like there were certainLatin kings that didn't like people wearing purple.
Mm hmm. You couldn't wear lightblue, you couldn't wear green,
which is really shitty because my highschool colors were green and gold. That's
great. So that's the day youget jumped. Yeah, uh what else?
That was that it? Yeah?I think that was it. You

(36:24):
couldn't yeah, there was you couldn'twear black because of the Lost Boys.
You can't wear black basic like andthen but then they realized I think they
realized that it was like kind offucked up. But like they were like
specifically not black bandanas. You couldn'twear black bands. Okay, well that's
you have to put effort to wearblack bandanas. So yeah, if you

(36:45):
do that, you know what you'redoing. But yeah, obviously red,
blue, black, purple, yellow, and green basically all over the bib
you can't wear Yeah, this isof raolas. Now you walk around wearing
orange like a yeah. So soit's so it's happening. At this point,

(37:08):
it's like I don't I don't understandwhy, Like they the white people
in this neighborhood are talking about thesefamilies like they have some grand plan to
block to bust their block until likewe did, and so like no,
but you didn't have a fucking blueprint. You didn't all get together that they're

(37:29):
looking at it like a bunch ofblack families are getting together and say here's
where we're gonna suck them up,and here's we're gonna break this block,
and like what happened. Okay,they were right in the meetings. I'm
not supposed to talk about the meeting. Yeah, no, I understand the
limitations though. It's okay. It'swild though, like if if that was
the if that was the plan,why would we beat at a time?

(37:52):
Oh, because it's more tricky thatway. Notice it. It's it's like,
what's the expression, you slowly boila frog, You don't just throw
boiling water. Yeah. Yeah,that's a good point. So that's what
they thought. So that's why theycreated this parallel real estate. But the
way they're talking about this family thatjust wants, like you said, just

(38:13):
wants education, home ownership, tolive the quote unquote American dream, middle
class dream, and like that's theirreality. And then like, you know,
the Eastern European Fourth Descendant gang overhere is like thinking about all these
nefarious plans that they have about tryingto I don't. I think. I

(38:35):
think because perhaps many white folks areassociated with colonization. It's like you can
only think in that way that someone'sgonna want to come and plant their fucking
flag and make you speak their languagebecause it's like that's the only thing that
that history has known. Yeah,it's like it's interesting too because it's like

(38:57):
that's that's what they did, right. So it's like, I mean,
the West Indies never did that thisfamilies, the West Indies. You never
saw fucking the Barbados just fucking flama fucking flag in a neighborhood and say
you must have our accent. Yeah. Meanwhile they still use fucking British money.
Yeah. So there's the protests now, and everybody's just protesting, you

(39:22):
know, basic rights with what alot of these protests are, don't fire
bomb the homes, allow people tolive together. And the counter protests are
these white ladies who break into singingGod bless America. Of course, it's
like white people like they can't evenhave It's it's like the guys you fought
that were chanting, go is itwhitey tidy tighty highty bidies? Whatever the

(39:43):
fuck? It is like they can'teven have swag in their counter efforts.
I love a good race war,I agree with, especially when it's like
swag deficient. Yeah. No,Yeah, It's like it's always like like
you ever see like the Proud Boys. It's always like, yeah, I've

(40:04):
seen the Proud Boys wore ironically ledby an Afro Latino or before he went
to jail. But it's always likea like the most the corniest thing I
know, Like I don't even knowwhy anybody would join, but it's because
they are also corny. But yeah, it's like that's what always got me
about Trump. It's like this isyour king, right, It's like he's

(40:27):
he looks like a bowel movement.It's just like he's nasty. He doesn't
make good his speeches are ridiculous.He doesn't take good care of himself.
Here he smells bad. I'm surehe does smell bad, which is stupid
because he's a germophobe. How areyou a germophobe and and fail that one
thing that's one good quality. He'safraid of showering. I think he like

(40:50):
I heard on a podcast. Iwish I could remember what it was,
but somebody, it was like avery reliable source, like somebody that goes
doing said that he fucking stinks.All right, Well, don't surprised me
because everything else that emanates from himdoes like this. If I'm any other
Republican candidate, if I'm whoever theDemocratic candidate is going to be, I'm

(41:12):
like, that's all I'm roasting from. I'm roasting that used to be.
I mean, I'm sure when youwent to school, too, one of
the worst things. At a randompoint in argument, someone would talk about
how your breath stink. Oh mygod, Like that was just such a
punch, like it happens so manytimes, but it's just a randomness of
when it's dropped. It's like,and you need a fucking mint because your
breath and everybody's like, oh,listen, call it. Saying somebody's breath

(41:35):
smelled was like one of the worstthings you could say, to the point
where you had you had to havea rebuttal for it. Like I remember
when I don't know if this wasstill a thing when you were because I'm
a little bit older than you are. Yeah, but at the time I
was in like you know, fifthgrade. If somebody said that to you,
you had to be ready with likeit must be your upper lip,
like that's you had to be readyfor that. That's how that sounds like

(41:58):
you kissed them. That's such aweird thing. That was a Spike Lee
thing. I think it was aSpike Lee like lee because like I mean,
you go back and watch a SpikeLean movie like that. There was
there was some like very juvenile insultsthat yeah, people used to use.
That's how that's how you knew.Like you're like, oh, it's like

(42:19):
must be an upper lip. It'slike and then yes, but I see
a rebuttal to that one. Uhright, yeah, because like why you're
so close to my face be andthen and then like then there's of course
the homophobia aspect of that too,everything like breath, stink and gay was
like ko, yeah, like likethat's it. You're in the poke ball

(42:43):
now, yeah, like right,those are the two worst things you could
You could say you could have beenKazinski, but that's not as bad as
being gay with your breast thinking.Apparently in a New York City public school,
I remember remember one time, likethe dude this guy said something about,

(43:05):
you know, suck my dick andlike suck my big dick or like
something. This girl said, it'sonly big because you beat your meat so
much. Yeah, and we wereall like what, Yeah, that was
the thing I remember, Like it'sit's ridiculous to think about it now,
but like like you you could getmade fun of for being a virgin at
thirteen? Oh yes, like absolutely, I was made fun of at fifteen

(43:30):
for being a virgin buy an adult. Yeah, she said, because I
had my first girlfriend then. Andshe said the woman doesn't need experience,
but the man must. And I'mlike, I don't know how to finish
algebra? Yeah, who am Isupposed to be fucking at fifteen? Stand
and fucking dykman projects? Right?What am I supposed to do? You

(43:52):
couldn't even like in high school,Like if you couldn't even admit like like
jerking off, you could like that, Like I don't. I don't do
that. I get so much pussy, right, yeah exactly, Yeah that
was I get. I get somuch pussy. If I feel like it's

(44:12):
things are shifted because of I thinkthe younger zs in the general, I
think certain themes will always I meanI when I hear kids talk on the
train, especially the uniformed folk.As we said, it's pretty bad and
it's pretty sexual. I remember agirl got made fun of her not knowing
what it meant to give hit inthe fifth grade. Yeah, because like

(44:35):
how you don't know how to dothat? How you don't know what that
is? Yeah, Like we're inthe computer lab playing We're on like a
cafe press and new Grounds in thefucking computer lab and the girls getting fucking
reverse slut shamed. I sug guessmy age because we were playing fucking Oregon

(44:55):
Trail or I remember Oregon trand thatwas the ship. Yeah, I mean
we remember asked Jeeves before Google?Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the
kid what that is? So so, yeah, they're dry in their counter
protests. But what a lot ofthis is is they're giving examples. They're
like, look at what happened toJamaica, right, look at what happened

(45:16):
the South Bronx and when certain elementsmoved in, And what it really is
is and the person made a pointof us, they said, yeah,
but it's also because Jamaica had likethe lowest literacy level. But it's education.
It's not putting investments in a communityonce it's black, Like, once

(45:36):
it's black, suddenly investments in communityand all these community issues don't matter.
That's the problem that leads to thiscrime and direpidation happening. It's the resources
that are you know, accessible,Like once you see schools sorts of cut
funding when they're cutting like art programsand music programs, and you know that's
the first thing to go right alwaysand then when the next thing is always

(46:00):
like well, you know, there'sthere's not a lot of like youth sports,
there's not a lot of after schoolprograms and no starts to go,
and like it's like we see thishappen over and over again in these in
these communities, and like nobody everasked questions, and it's like we know,
and maybe that's maybe that's the point. Maybe noway's asking because we know
the answer. Yeah. But it'slike like even now when we talk about
like like it's funny like every timewe have a mayor and I'm like,

(46:23):
wow, this might be the worstmayor of my Yep, yep, someone
tops it. Like I'm afraid ofwho the next mayor is going to because
if if Eric Adams is a clubpromoter, Eric Adams is officially the worst
mayor of my lifetime I have beenalive for Can you give you know what?
Can you give him? No newmaterials stand because he keeps going to

(46:45):
planes and it's not good. Everytime the man uses planes and his material
it goes to a dark place.Yeah, like, uh, name New
York in one year, in onein one word, nine to eleven.
You know you might see like likeI would say, you know, fine,
if I'm making jokes, you talkabout pops on the subway, you

(47:05):
talk about random showtime, you talkabout music you don't talk about you might
see a plane go into a Yeah, like that's the last. You never
know what you might what you mightrun into in New York. Maybe you
know, you see pizza rat ormaybe it's the worst day of your life
the fucking city. So yeah,yeah, I don't know who it's gonna

(47:28):
be. Maybe maybe the rattle getsome votes? Is uh have theynounced who
the candidates could be? I don'tknow. Uh, well, I don't
care who. I could just getAdams out of here. I think I
feel like who's at Caban? Shecould run definitely, Caban could run again?
Sure? Yeah? Uh and Istill like Jimani Williams, Yeah,

(47:52):
the public advocate. Yeah what aboutwasn't there? Is that what I'm thinking?
It's like Jay, you Jumani.Yeah, is that what I'm thinking,
Yeah, j U, M,A, A and E. Yeah,
Okay, I'm thinking the same person. Okay, yeah, yeah,
Yeah, he's great. I meanas of now, as of dis recording,

(48:14):
who the fuck knows in the futurewhat's gonna happen, But as my
knowledge of him, I think hewould be a good mayor. Yeah,
it's not surprising the thing to seethat a lot of these areas, you
know, once the schools start togo, it's like, yeah, okay,
everything else is going like that gradelevel man, half three of Jamaica
reddick, great, that's slow.Like it's also like like Jamaica, first

(48:39):
off, Jamaica is big, Like, yeah, Jamaica is fucking huge everyone.
If you yeah, if you goby, if you go by like
certain zip codes the way, theways, like my mom's house is in
Rosedale, but like a lot oftimes I'll get mail and it'll say Jamaica,
New York right right. At onepoint Jamaica was jama a Locust man

(49:00):
or Laurels and Rose that all thatwas. It was all Jamaica. But
yeah, then it got broken up. But like Jamaica proper is still pretty
big to like Jamaica States where itstarts to get a little more rich and
then then you get further out.It kind of touches that the outskirts of

(49:20):
like qu gardens, but like Jamaica, Jamaica is pretty big. So like
now I'm not to make excuses,but at the same time, it's like
this isn't like, you know,we're not talking about like three schools and
like a like right mile radius.We're talking about a huge area, and
it's skewed probably to where they givefunding. And of course, yeah,
you tow aur certain zip codes andlike if you go to the others,

(49:45):
the more populated areas too, likeif you go if you go to like
you know you're talking about. Imean, it's kind of I don't know,
I haven't been around. I trynot to. I don't. I
have no reason to go over thereanymore because it's not very convenient for me.
But you know, there was apoint where like you've got you know,
the street vendors up and like especiallyup and down Parsons, and like

(50:07):
you get on the revenue and thenyou've got you know, going towards something
and like it's it's a lot ofwhat you know, what we see places,
you know, it's a Crown Friedchicken and it's like the McDonald's on
Subfron and Archer for a long timewas one of the worst McDonald's you could
go to, and they just shutit down, like I think it was

(50:29):
like the pandemic or maybe like right, maybe in the pandemic, but like
it was like one of the likethere was you couldn't go in there without
some nonsense. Have you been tothe Yankee Stadium McDonald's Not in a long
time. That is a special experience, not in a really long time.
Like the like it's probably like toplike knowing, like from what I remember,

(50:52):
it's probably like like bottom five McDonald's. Yeah. In the Times Square
one is also horrible. Square oneclose, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's crazy. End of the era. I think the major bad ones
got closed. I think the TimesSquare one is closed, The West one
is closed closed. I mean youcan still they're all over the place,

(51:14):
but like those are the ones that, like I reader the West fourth one.
There was a like a hate crimesChrist looking this guy got arrested for
like trying to stab like a gaycouple. Oh my god. Like every
other day there was something going onthere, like just trying to get him
the chicken. My god, butthat was like it was like a heavy,
heavily populated area because you know,you've got you know, you've got

(51:39):
everything there. You just I don'tknow, it's just it's it's it's wild
you've got And that also brings intothis is kind of a false narrative then,
because they're saying Jamaica went to helland like it's just not true.
It's just the fact that there isa presence now a larger press of black

(52:00):
and Latino people. And yes,what happens, like we talked about many
times, especially if there's NISA housingand all these things that the city resources
are supposed to fund and they don'tdo the fucking job and they don't make
they don't give the resources to thesame way they give the more white affluent
communities. Of course there's going tobe a disparity. That's just what happens.

(52:22):
One of the things like like Jamaica, Like it's because they even now
like when with like more of theluxury housing that they put in, they
just rather than fix what's there,they just slam this thing on top of
what's already existed, and they pushpeople out. But the thing about people

(52:43):
that live in Jamaica, as faras I can tell, like you can't
push those people out. It's verydifficult. Like you the literally the block
in between. So there's the JamaicaAvenue and Parsons Parsons of Ard runs through
Jamaica Avenue and yeah, they're parallelthat block in between from Parsons and Archer

(53:08):
to Parsons in Jamaica. Like it'syou're not pushing the dollar van guys out.
You're not pushing out the street vendors. You're not putting, You're you're
not doing it. You're just youcould they put a Chipotle over there?
I think they put a I sawthey put a something else. They put

(53:29):
a jolly b over there. Ithink. I'm like, it's still never
been to jolly Be what I knowthere's one port authority I've never been.
I gotta get the chicken. Idon't think I could funk with the sweet
sauce pasta. That doesn't sound.I don't know if I can reconcile that
diryet. It's not as sweet asyou think. Okay, the cheese is

(53:52):
good, this is okay, don'tgo to Portothority because this schedule over there.
Yeah, that's a tall of faint. Yeah right, there's one right
on Broadway in like forty something,forty fifth maybe right now. Look,
I hate Time Square as much asanybody, but right, I'll go for
some jolly b. Get yourself atwo piece, get some gravy. Oh

(54:15):
you know what you do? Ohbro, I just discovered this. I
didn't I had never tried it.Yeah, they have a dobo rice.
I love a doble rice. Okay. I like to scoop some out,
pour some gravy in there. Mhm. The gravy with the doble rice.
Okay, okay, life changing.Yeah, heard it for me. Jolly

(54:39):
b. That's Have you had Filipinobarbecue? That's oh no, I think
as well. I've had it fromlike a food truck and it was incredible.
Really. Yeah, they know whatthe fuck they're doing when they barbecue.
I gotta get into more Filipino food. See, this is all the
food that this group. By theway, I want to guess what this

(55:00):
white group that was trying to keepin theme of swagless attempts. Yes,
what this group was called? Youknow, something super lame? What was
it. Well, I'll give youthe acronym first. The acronym is raar
rar rar like a lion raar.Yeah. Or I'm gonna say Rosedale occupants

(55:22):
against uh D. No, theywouldn't be against redlining. No, I'm
gonna say Rosedale occupants against riggers.It's even drier. Return return our American

(55:42):
rights. No, no one's comingfrom anybody's right, nobody, especially white
people. We want this, Wewant those we want them to That's the
thing. Like when I watched this, it's like they're saying the same things
that the Trump people say. Nowit's just a broken record. It's like
and they're taking all the whatever happenedto the white person having rights? I'm
like, give me a legal rightthat is taken away from white I don't

(56:07):
see this. It's like it's allit's on the head. It's like there
is no law that was taken awayfrom white people. There have only been
laws that have been taken away fromblack people and women. It's like like,
I even even make America great againis like so dumb because it's like,
like, okay, even if youtruly, truly, truly believe that

(56:30):
America was great at some point,Yeah about that America that was great and
white that and they never give youthat answer. They never give you the
right answer. And the thing abouta lot of them people, especially the
ones in Middle America, the onesthat live in the fucking po dunk empty
towns of Pennsylvania that I drove through, is like like they're they're those they're

(56:54):
voting against their own interest interests.It's like always it's like you have I'm
doing better than a lot of them. Exactly, I'm doing great. Like
I don't have to work up atfour o'clock in the morning to to plow
the field. I don't have todo that. I am. Things are

(57:15):
good, you know. It's justit's so funny how like a narrative like
that can galvanize people. It's likeit's just they are you know what it
means to larp. Yeah, theyare LARPing oppression. Yeah. Yeah.
They want to act like these thingsare like in their mind, it's a

(57:37):
fantasy, it's happening. They're justconstant larp like I am. In their
mind, there's there's a war goingon and the white person is oppressed and
he must fight back from the blackoppressors. I wonder too if that's like
that might be a human nature thingnow that the more and more I think
about it, because it feels liketo me, you know, you have

(57:58):
it's you there are Maybe I'm justnoticing it more because of social media,
but like people people are, evenwith comedy, it's like people just want
to be offended, just like no, like you know it is, It's
true. It's a weird hustle liketo seek offense. It's like I'm of
the mind that if you don't likesomething, just stay away from it.

(58:21):
Yeah, like whether it's some sortof media, whether it's you know,
like I don't like, I don't. I used to listen to Opian Anthony
a lot, and I was abig fan, and like I as as
I've noticed as I've gotten older,and like even now Anthony Coomia has gotten

(58:44):
really like like he's I'm not goingto sugarcoat it, he's he's racist.
Yeah, he's definitely said some ship. Yeah he says it all the time.
And I still follow him on Twitterbecause it's just like I just never
unfollowed him. All his tweets arelike they're they're they're shitty, they're fucked

(59:04):
up and they're they're racist and transphobicand xenophobic and things like that. And
then what's worse is like the facelesspeople that follow him and reply right even
less to to they have even lessto to hide, so well, I
shouldn't say that, they have evenless to lose, so they say whatever.
I actually think that's not true becausethe opening ant I mean, they're
rich, they got money. Yeah, but if you're just a rando working

(59:30):
somewhere and you say that and theyyour LinkedIn gets put on blasts, now
you actually could lose your job andyou're not rich. But a lot of
those profiles tend to be faceless.Yeah, listen, you know, the
internet just got to do its job. Though usually they can find it.
So like there was like there wasa time when, like whatever, if

(59:52):
there was something personally that I didn'tlike, I just didn't like. I
wasn't like there were times that didn'tfind Stern funny, and I just I
was like, all right, I'mnot I'm just not gonna listen to Stern.
Or there's certain comics that I don'tfind funny. I just don't.
I don't take in their content.And but it's like people go out of

(01:00:12):
their ways to not only take intheir content of taking the content of think
of people they don't like, butthen they complain about it. It's like
they hate, Yeah, they hatefuck themselves, right, But that's always
been a thing. Like if youever read Private Parts Howard Stern's book or
even see they bring it. Theybring it up in the movie. The
average in Howard Stern's hype and Imean the height of its success. Yeah,

(01:00:37):
the average listener, they average listenedthat liked Howard Stern listened to an
hour and a half of Stern aday. And when they asked them why,
they said, I want to seewhat. I want to hear what
he's gonna say next. You knowwhat, the average how long the average
hater listened for? Yeah, yeah, longer, And they say why,

(01:00:59):
I want to hear what's gonna saynext. That's it's it's it's human nature.
It's human nature to gravitate towards thethings that we don't like in order
to to complain about it. AndI think, what's what sets certain humans
apart. It's like making the decisionlike I am not doing this to myself,

(01:01:20):
right, Yeah, I mean,give that attention to something you do
want to listen to. It's thesame thing with people, like people give
their haters all. You see somuch posting and discussion about haters, like,
meanwhile, you're not getting attention tothe people who want to support you,
right, Yeah, I am asa stand up I am fueled by
the people who who you know,I'm like, yeah, this that that

(01:01:45):
that that feels good to when Iif I have any sort of success to
be like ha ha, I toldyou I would do it. But you're
right. I lately in the pastfew years, yeah, focused on my
own content and my own creativity andmy own work and jokes, and I

(01:02:06):
spend so much time hating on comicsthat I don't need to like it doesn't
at the end of the day,they're not thinking about me, And I
think they should go for politics.I think the same should go for any
sort of like if I think theworst thing we could do as a as
a society is pay attention to Trump, right right, this is what this

(01:02:30):
attention somewhere, He's gonna get it. What I would want to do is
this. Okay, give up Wyoming? Why why do we even have Wyoming?
Okay, give it to Donald Trump, Let him do whatever the fuck
he wants, and let the restof us live in the real world,
and anyone that wants to follow hisass can go to Wyoming too. I

(01:02:51):
just want to give him that.He can call it trump Landia. He
could do whatever the fuck he wants, and then in five years, everybody's
gonna like be nearly dead and likebe breathing horrible air, eating horrible food,
in a horrible education system. Imean, it's the only way.
Let him have his let him eat. I would. I wish we could

(01:03:12):
give him no audience, but Ithink that the way the world is,
it's not gonna happen. So Ihave kind of the opposite thing that give
it to him, but give itto him like in one place that I
don't got to fucking deal with it. Yeah, so give him Wyoming.
There's more animals than humans, andanyone that's in Wyoming that doesn't want to
be there, move out. Yeah, just like do that. That's that's

(01:03:36):
anyway, that's my thing. Butso yes, it's raw. It's return
our American rights wherever the fuck theywent. And they're also doxing new homeowners
who are black and like getting peopleto protest, getting people to make them
feel uncomfortable, just horrible things.And the thing that keeps going through my

(01:03:58):
mind is like all the discomfort inthe violence that they say black people are
doing to the neighbors. Who's doingthe violence here? Yeah, it's them.
It's like you're turning into what yousupposedly say you don't want, and
so yeah, they're doing harassment.And they're also trying to have their parallel
real estate agent kind of list thatonly serves white people. And in a

(01:04:24):
few years, like mid seventies,thirty one of the forty three homes are
white. So those twelve they're tryingto keep white from going or are going
to someone else, or if thatperson leaves, they wanted to be white
again. So they're like honing inon specific It's almost like a really fucked
up swing state thing. They're tryingto like save these things and have it

(01:04:47):
swing toward whitey tidy, my mightywhitey tidies, whatever the fuck they said.
And these people are all also immigrantsthat were once discriminated against, of
course, not to the agree thatthat, Oh that's what I want to
say. I was like, whenyou were like make American great again,
and it's always not a good time. I would always just gauge it by

(01:05:08):
where could a black person sit?Yeah, during this time? Could they
have their own water? Like canwe share a water fountain? Then?
Why are we talking about this time? Great? For who is the question?
Of course? But even these immigrantscheck Italian Jewish, you know that
they were discriminated against that one pointtoo. And to have the guy that

(01:05:31):
leads it is leaves this movement hischeck, which most people didn't even know
what the fuck that was decades ago. And Italians were sometimes, especially if
they were darker skinned, especially discriminatedagains. So it's like it's always a
right of passage, almost a stupidright of passage, to completely forget what
you went through and not like tosay, like, you don't go through

(01:05:55):
that. I went through this.It was shit. I want you not
to go through it. It's alwayslike, no, now it's our turn,
too old press. Well, yeah, if you could be aggregated into
Caucasian, yeah, it's like,yeah, the first there was the you
know, whether it's the Irish orthe Italians, and you know, whoever
was next they got shipped on.And then whoever was next they got shipped
on, and it's like it's it. There's never been, like there's never

(01:06:23):
been somebody that goes back and belike who who was the first? Who
who originated shitting on somebody? Likewe're just watching Killers of the Killers of
the Flower Moon. It's like,oh, I hear, that's great.
I want to see that so good. It's long, but it's good.
Yeah, it doesn't feel as longas other questions. Okay, but like
like it's basically about these the Iforgot what tribe of Native Americans. No,

(01:06:53):
uh, that's gonna bother me anyway. Uh. They they were on
land that happened to have oil onit, and they got all they all
got rich at all at once.And like you never hear stories about like
Native Americans like shitting on the peoplethat Europeans that came, Like you'll hear

(01:07:15):
like yeah they were, you knowthey were, yeah yeah. Any story
you hear about them getting attacked,like attacking the Pilgrims is because I'm sure
the Pilgrims are like, yeah,fuck you guys, we're gonna take this
land. Mm hmm. And likeit's like like these white people in Rosedale
in the seventies they probably felt likethey were Native Americans and like here comes
black with smallpox blankets, like,oh, they're trying to take our take

(01:07:40):
our land. It's like, shutup, it's not your like yeah,
but but there is a yeah,it's it's here first. But it's also
a superiority thing because they weren't.They know, they weren't the first ones
there. They just have to.And also, there is no black person
that is taking you out of yourhouse. America works. It's a cap
This is just capitalism that you clingto. Like they have, they have

(01:08:02):
a middle class income. They wantto be a homeowner, a home open
the fuck up, and they gotit. This is following what you're supposed
to follow in the US. It'slike whenever black people do the thing that
that white people do is like,oh that's different, exactly all right,
you followed the steps exactly like wedid. You can't do that right,

(01:08:26):
It's like it's it's total horseshit.It's like like it's and we see it
all the time even now, likemoving the goal post, like there's always
yeah, someone that's moving the goalpost. So at this time, just
some population notes, so some peoplenow as black families start to move and
US are starting to move to toNasau and Suffolk. So Nasa and Suffolk

(01:08:47):
together at this time have two anda half million people together at that time
in the seventies now and if youadded Brooklyn, Queens together at least today,
you'd have close to three million.And you know, yeah, the
Bronx and Staten Island. It's aboutlike two New York City boroughs which are

(01:09:11):
technically counties also, but Suthing andNassau counties are at least at that time
are what two boroughs are today.I don't know it's necessarily what the full
population numbers are, but the pointbeing it was much more suburban. And
at that time only five percent ofLong Island was black. Of the Long

(01:09:34):
Island, that's not you know,Queens, Brooklyn, like the Long Island.
Long Island only five percent was black. Like I've seen many yeah,
in the seventies, like I sawmany times people say the most segregated area
is Long Island, like in theUS. It's it's low key, actually
Long Island. Yeah, absolutely,there's a there's a great movie called Bad

(01:09:58):
Education. It's uh, it's it'swith Hugh Jackman, Allison, Janny yeah,
yeah, Roslin, the Roslyn SchoolDistrict. It goes back to what
we were saying before. It's like, yeah, wants to go live in
the in the area with the bestschools. So essentially it centers on this

(01:10:25):
one. It was like the superintendentof prince or or the president of whatever
whatever it was in school and howthey were embezzling money. But at one
point, Roslin, the Roslin SchoolDistrict was one of the best in the
country, and it was the samehe's all white like these these and then
nowadays you just see them getting goingfurther and further east. Like you know,

(01:10:47):
there was a time when you know, the people that lived in Rosedale,
they I was like, why,well, we're leaving Rosdale. We're
going to Valley Stream. Valley Streamgot a little too black and Hispanic to
lynn Brook. That's a wooden here, Like well, like you look at
Woodmere. Woodmere is like I mean, it's predominantly Jewish, like the city

(01:11:09):
Jewish. Yeah, uh, yougo to like Woodmere because like the way
the way it's sort of that thatpart of National County breaks like it goes
towards the train, like I goby train. So from Rosedale it goes
in two directions. It goes intoValley Stream, but then it goes towards

(01:11:31):
Long Beach or goes towards Rockaway,and then as you go toward, you
get further and further towards Rockaway.It gets more and more more and more
white, and then it gets kindof it kind of starts to get black
again, because Away is you know, there's nice parts of but there's also
pretty bad parts. Same thing withthe Long Beach, but Long Beach tends
to stay very white, especially likeyou go to the last stop, like

(01:11:55):
Long Beach extremely white. But likethat's a lot of these even the schools,
Like the only time you see likeminorities in these schools is like they're
athletes. Like it's just that's that'swhat it is. It's just you know,
I hate that's way. But it'slike that, I mean, yeah,

(01:12:19):
and that's the limitation we were talkingabout. It's like there can be
coexistence, but a lot of timesit's under this very specific limitation like okay,
but what what can you do thatinterests me? Like it's almost like
you have to do tricks, which, if we go back, comes from
this very racist ideology when we goback to the nineteen twenties and white people

(01:12:42):
would still attend shows that had blackpeople performing. They wanted the performances,
but they didn't want them to benecessarily their neighbor, like you said,
date their daughter, right, Soyeah, it's no different from how it
how it feels to do stand upfor these crowns. Yeah, it's exactly.
It's like a token is a Ohgreat I saw a black comedian.
Yeah, it's like that's it.Yeah, And like I you know,

(01:13:05):
I play around with it. Ihave because I'll you know, I know,
I'll do I'll do a show likethat and like I know, I
look like one of the good ones. But don't I take these lasses off.
I'm robbing every single morning. Itell them straight up, like yeah,
it's funny to see them laugh,Like I'm not gonna rob them,
but I will. You forget howyou forget a running back in the Blue

(01:13:28):
Tank Club? Right? Yeah?You don't know what I can do?
Yeah? If I could steal thatfucking flag, all right. Yeah,
And this guy brings up like thisreally weird scenario. It's like one of
them says, you know, Ihad a buddy who was trying to make
the firefighting joined the firefighters, andlike they had a quota and it was

(01:13:50):
like one guy that was black thatended up getting the last spot. So
of course it's nice to have tohave to hear about this, this this
racist, fucking f The n Ytest, it's like Jesus, there was
a test. It's like every theythen test every four years or every two

(01:14:12):
years and what that. Wow,I didn't realized that long. Yeah,
there was one that I took thatwas thrown out because they said it was
they said it was it was itwas racist towards I forgot who was supposed
to help Regardless, I passed,like like yeah, but they threw it
out. So but they let everybodythat took it, even if you aged

(01:14:33):
out, they let you take itagain. And I didn't. I just
I wasn't interested by that point.But like, you know, I get
it. I get it. Butlike the people that argue about affirmative action,
and like, like none nobody makesthese things up for the sake of
making it up. It's it's not. It wasn't a policy because it wasn't

(01:14:56):
necessary, right, right, No, one didn't have the goodness of their
heart, right, Yeah, exactly, could you imagine and we're like,
oh, you know what we need. We need like we need someone,
we need affirmative action because yeah,we have to fight for it. Yeah,
fought out of and out of necessity. Like every this is the thing
that so many people don't realize.I always say, so many of our

(01:15:20):
representatives are arguing against the next iterationof themselves because like, right now it's
going to be, well, uh, I would have I support Martin Luther
King, but you know, Idon't support CRT, and I don't and
and then and then the next generationis going to be like, well,

(01:15:42):
I still would have supported CRT,but I'm not supporting I don't know,
the Afro diaspora training or something,or some new thing that is trying to
educate us. And then it's alwaysgoing to be something else that that they'll
never be with the step of thepeople who are affected. And then it's
always reactionary. The thing is too, is like they're they're they're they're they're
co opting things that don't Like Isaw somebody tweeted about the Washington Commander's coach

(01:16:10):
and they're like, oh, they'relike the Washington Commander's coaches has gone woke,
and I'm like, stop using wordsout of context. You keep saying
it, and like they love doingthat, they love co opting these things,
and it's it's it's a it's amedia trick that's always been used.
It's always gonna be like whenever youknow, it's like slang, Like whenever

(01:16:30):
I was talking about it this morning, it's like I saw somebody was reading
from a gen Z Bible and itwas like, uh, God told Mary
that she passed the vibe check,and I was like, oh my god,
it's so stupid. But it's likewhenever it gets to white bros,

(01:16:55):
it's done. Yeah, like theit has been the Yeah. It's because
it starts it always starts with gaypeople. It always starts with usually gay
minorities. It always starts with likelike, uh, the gay the young
gay blacks, the young the gayblack teens, and then from there it

(01:17:15):
gets to to black women, andthen it gets to black men, and
then by the time it leads blackmen, it gets to women like like
the rest of like straight straight womenreally like because it's like every it always
starts with drag culture. It alwaysstarts with drag and then it makes its
way by and by the time itgets to straight white guys, it's like

(01:17:36):
straight white bros. In particular,it was like, oh, this is
dead. Yeah. When I heard, like like white bros start using the
term woke, and I was like, Okay, I can't say this anymore.
You know, you know who said, well, David Wells, Oh
god, he said, he said. I don't even think it was prompted.

(01:17:56):
It's just at some point in anold timer's game, I like,
I got I pretty much knew wheDavid will sat on things, but now
I have evidence, Like during oldtime everything at one point it's I don't
even like it's like you just blurtedit, like it wasn't even asked of
me. He's like, yeah,I won't have a bud anymore the rest
of my life because budd is woke. Budweiser and Nike are woke. These
are capitalists. These are not wokein the initial area of the term of

(01:18:24):
actually being woke as an aware ofinjustice. These are capitalist companies that are
just trying to do the bare minimum. There's nothing even it's just sad that
that's even the bare minimum is defensive. Imagine bud light more. Yeah,
it's also that, but it's alsolike, Jesus Christ, you're really gonna

(01:18:48):
that's the reason, because somebody puta fucking rainbow on it. This is
this ghost. What I'm saying here'sit's like the way the way I look
at it, it's like they're fightingthat. They're acting like someone's pushing them
out, and there's no white flightfairy. There's no like white flight magic

(01:19:10):
that makes them go. It's theirchoice to go right, and they're fighting
like the like there's a war.These black families are not fighting them.
These black families just want to livein peace. It's like if you go
to a boxing ring and no oneis there and you just are like you're
air fucking boxing, you're shadow boxingin the fucking ring. Nobody's coming for
you. Yeah. In fact,I would argue, you could argue that

(01:19:33):
there's a world where you want tolive in a more I don't want to
call it utopian, but you wantto live in a society, you know
that where you have a multicultural neighborhoodlike that, because if it works out,
you know, and as long asthere's resources in the neighborhood, it

(01:19:54):
makes it raises the property value,right how could it not, And it'll
attract people of all backgrounds to movethere, because there's a reason why the
affluent black people in the seventies movedand moved to Roles in the first place,
because the schools were the schools werebetter, and it was good houses,
and they were affordable and you couldyou could raise a family in a

(01:20:15):
good neighborhood. But you know,ironically, the fact that these white people
felt threatened, you know, becauseof that, resources were taken away and
you weren't able to Yeah, theymaintain it and then probably value went down.
Yeah they shot on themselves, right, But they'll say they'll say they
probably went went the probably value wentdown because of black people. They won't

(01:20:36):
say it has nothing to do withbombing places because I don't know about you,
but when I hear firebombed, I'mactually less likely to go somewhere,
right, But yeah, nothing todo with that. The sad part though,
is when you see the kids,like seeing the young white kids yell
at this black girl on a bikeand just say no, you have to

(01:20:59):
turn around, and just like yousee how it gets passed on And I
just immediately thought, like, whatbank is that guy in charge of now
exactly, you know, like whathospital is that guy? Now, who
is he representing as an attorney?Who is giving who's yeah, who is
he denying alone to exactly? Soyou know, eventually, as as you

(01:21:23):
start out in the over the nexttwo decades, there would be a continued
white flight too Long island as blackfamilies moved in and the roar stopped roaring
and uh and it became a youknow, no longer predominantly white. And
you know it's like no one firebombedeach other. It's like I'm not saying

(01:21:47):
there's no crime, but the typeof like this type of vitriol and hate
was not was just wasn't there.It was only there when the white the
white families were there and basically startedthis. So anyway, they did flight,
they did, but no one tookover. They just they chose to

(01:22:10):
leave. And now Rosedale, aswe said, is predominantly black, and
would you say Haitian as well,it's mostly Caribbean, Yeah, yeah,
okay, mostly Caribbean. Yeah.So yeah, that's pretty much the story.

(01:22:30):
It started with it, and thisfamily really should get credit as a
pioneer in their owner and they didn'tlike all they did was just say no,
we're gonna stay here, this isour home. And that one act
of defiance, that act of like, yeah, I just want to live
here and do everything you guys wantedto do. Raise a family, be

(01:22:51):
safe, good education, own ahome. Just I just wanted to do
that thing. It's like, that'swhat. It's amazing that that what what
the rest of the neighborhood was alreadydoing. Mm hm, that act of
doing the same thing, like yousaid, just because of complexion started,
not started, the ideology was alreadythere, but turned some gears in this

(01:23:15):
uh, in this conflict that youknow, ultimately led to most of the
families they're leaving. Yeah, Likeit's still the point now where sometimes I'll
be at my mom's house and Isee a white person in the street.
I'm like, are you in theright place? Like do you know?
Yeah? But you know such asI mean, it is what it is,

(01:23:38):
like I don't I don't know that. The other thing, too,
is like with its a neighborhood likeRosdale, it's very difficult to for to
flip the other direction because I don'tthink you can gentrify an area that's difficult
to get if you need a car, you can't generify it. Yeah,
yeah, because yeah, my mom'smy mom's area. There's two buses you
can take there, and people don'tonly take the bus. Even the railroad.

(01:23:59):
You know, it's not the mostsuccessful because it's it's it's more expensive
to take it. But like thefurther that's that's my mom's where my mom
lives is curven anomaly because most ofRosedale is further away from the train.
Like growing up, there were peoplecommuters would drive and park in front of
my house and then walk to thetrain. There was one guy I saw

(01:24:23):
him every day every morning. Hepark his car right in front of our
house, walk to the train fiveo'clock, six o'clock, he's I see
him getting off the train, hoppinghis car drive to wherever. Because the
other thing too, like that Ithat I noticed as I was growing up,
is like when I started going out, especially you know, going out
to bars and stuff. The kidsthat lived in Nasal County and live in
the Valley Stream lynn Brook further out, further out east, they would also

(01:24:45):
do this. They would drive toRosedale and then take the train from Rosedale
because it's cheaper. Yeah, theticket is cheaper from Rosedale than it is
literally two minutes from the next stop. Valley Stream is two minutes down.
It's a different zone because it's Queensand you can buy the city tickets tickets

(01:25:05):
to many terminal. So I sayall this to say, like, I
don't see it flipping the other way. I think, I don't know if
there's a I don't see a scenariowhere the area gets gentrified, because it's
hard to gentrify areas that don't havereally subway access. Yeah, that's a
good point. It would it wouldhave to be that somebody and I hope

(01:25:30):
this doesn't happen, but somebody basicallybuys roast, right and then they change
everything, right, And I don'tI don't foresee that happening. It's just
not it's not feasible. Yeah,and yeah, I mean it's like I'm
sure these the people that are inWhite Flight and now are in Long Island

(01:25:51):
that now see that the predomin theneighborhood is predominantly black, are looking at
it like their fears were realized andthat they were pushed out and that the
neighborhood change. And it's like it'sit's just two realities. It really is.
It's like one reality is people justwanting a home. Like I said,

(01:26:11):
there's no schematic, there's they're notscheming, there's no grand plan.
It's just wanting to fulfill the sameaspect of what you see as the American
dream. Uh. But I wonder, Yeah, I wonder what happens to
their kids, because I mean that'swhat I wondered. Those are people,
well not even not even like I'mtalking about the kids of the people that

(01:26:34):
left, like yeah, someone whobought a house. Let's say, someone
who's like someone who's my age.I'm talking about like basically someone who like
had a ten year old in thenineties that was like, oh, to
leave. Last person to leave Rosedalemoved along island. You know, for

(01:26:55):
a long time, I considered myselfa Manhattan guy because I was like,
well, I was born in Manhattan, I lived there for the for the
for most of my life, andthen as time went on and I started
most of my life became queens.I'm a queen's guy, and I'm always
going to be a queen's guy,I guess until I move and I live
forty years somewhere else. But butI always wonder, like, because I

(01:27:19):
know people that like that are adultsnow that have kids that live in Long
Island or lived in Long Island,and you know they they have memories of
living in certain parts of Queens.I wonder about those people and their kids
like identity, Like is there aworld where they think they look back and

(01:27:41):
see this, because I mean,if some I would, I would hope
that someone my age, regardless ofcomplexion, someone who grew up in Long
Island and like, maybe it's gettingon you can't afford it anymore. I
don't know. I don't know howthe housing market is, but like,
are those people considering coming back?Are those people considering buying houses isn't viable
Candy my houses? Yeah, Imean it's I think one of the true

(01:28:08):
tests of like I understand everyone wantssafety, but I don't Rosedale didn't particularly
become And like we said, thereare many sources of crime. Most of
it is to blame on resources.But if if the especially you know,

(01:28:29):
known for its crime, which Idon't believe Rosdale is, and then the
truth test is kind of like,okay, so that we we've controlled for
that, that's out. Does awhite family want to live in a predominantly
black neighborhoods. That's it, right, Uh yeah, And I guess time

(01:28:50):
will tell if maybe it becomes moremulticultural again. But honestly, it's a
rare occurrent, yeah, that whitepeople move unless it is part of a
gentrification effort. And that's the thingthat kind of gets misconstrued. It's like
some people think I can't be ina neighborhood because I'm white. It's like,

(01:29:14):
well, not really. It's justthat if if your income is part
of a certain development effort for peopleof that income, then you are just
a part. You could be agreat neighbor, but your income is part
of that gentrification. But if you'reif you're middle class and you're moving to
middle class or you're working class,you're moving to working class, you know,
and you treat everybody with respect,you're just you're just in the neighborhood

(01:29:38):
and you're just of a different background. Yeah. Like one of my friends
from high school, like white guylived, which still does and it's like
that's is where he lives. Rightthen, It's never been like well,
I mean, I'm not gonna lie. We didn't call them white, mic
We didn't. We definitely didn't callhim white mic. Right. To be

(01:29:58):
fair, there's a lot of mics. We gotta do differentiate white mic from
the rest of the mics. Whitemic though, is also in the wire
no, uh, in the inthe Sabaka, Yes, there is a
white mic. Yeah, because there'salso a black mic. Right, they
had to differentiate, right, Soit's a decent lineage of white coming from

(01:30:23):
the classic right yeah. Yeah.Yeah. So like even you know,
there were black there were white peoplein the neighborhood, it was just like,
okay, that's just Mike whatever.That was exactly just my buddy.
Yes. So I don't know exactlywhat people learned from this, but I
mean I would I would hope peoplelearned from Rosedale. It's just that it

(01:30:47):
was all a fabricated fantasy fear thatled to violence, that led to all
of this animosity. That there wasno organic part of this. This was
manufactured, and this was manufactured bythese roar motherfuckers who just stupid, who

(01:31:11):
felt that their American rights were beingtaken just by the presence of another motherfucker,
just by the presence if someone existing. Do you imagine, could you
just imagine just that aspect of theideology, Like all someone does is sit
their ass down and get and openthe door, and I feel that my
rights have been taken away. Itsfucking insane. All right, Well,

(01:31:41):
this was fun still a terrible partof our history. But at the end
of the day, I do thinkthat your experiences are actually saying that,
you know, to some extent,certain aspects did prevail in a good way
because the fact that it is predominantlyblack and Caribbean neighborhood that you know,

(01:32:05):
you could see people wanting to moveto. I don't know if they'll be,
like we said, I don't knowhow white people will see this,
but the neighborhood's still here. It'snot like it turned into any These guys
thought it was gonna turn to fuckingFallujah, right, I mean it's like,
yeah, me wrong. I know, you know, there's certain places
I'm not gonna certain places I'm notgonna go. Like I just the thing

(01:32:29):
is too is like I know Rosellawell enough to be like all right,
and like it's like anything else.It's like any ever live. Yeah,
yeah, if I lived in Harlem, I'd be like all right to certain
parts of Harlem. I just right, I go where I'm familiar. So
anyway, it all turned out tobe a bunch of LARPs. And uh,
you know, I been meaning towrite this piece that white men LARPing

(01:32:53):
has really gotten out of control.Yeah, like them living out like all
old Donald Trump's campaign is one biglark. Yeah, it's just one thing,
this this parallel America that does notexist. That it was great at
a time that didn't happen for allpeople. Certainly wasn't great for all people.

(01:33:13):
Ever, It's like it's all thisparallel universe, this universe is putting
on this cloak of actually I amthe oppressed one. And yeah, we
should confine LARPing to like I don'tknow, doing potions and wizardry and in
a forest somewhere that's the LARPing.Do that, do that? Don't do
it with our fucking like neighborhoods andcountry. Yeah. Yeah, any final

(01:33:39):
thoughts on on Rosedale, I guessI don't know. I like I said,
once my mom's house is paid offand the mortgages paid off, hopefully
that's my house and nice, Uh, I will be uh to quote the
wire the brick going up. Yes, my mom is my mom is giving

(01:34:05):
away the rent that she's charging.Yeah, like are upstairs? Are upstairs
tenants? I mean three three bedroomapartment for under three thousand dollars? Come
on, wow, that's great withpotential access to a driveway uh minutes away

(01:34:29):
from the London Railroad. Yeah.From there, you're only thirty five minutes
away from Midtown. I mean,like when when that house is mine and
I'm the landlord boy Yeah yeah,other people can look like Amsterdam compared to
what you're gonna point out there.All right, Oh that was good man.

(01:34:55):
Yeah, thanks for going along thisthis ride. Yeah yeah, always
all right, thanks man, I'lldefinitely invite you back for some other funny
stuff. Yeah. Peace,