Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Vanessa Beyor and this is my brother Jonah.
Speaker 1: We're two siblings who love to talk about our childhood
Speaker 1: and nostalgia and how it shaped us into the people
Speaker 1: we are today, who are pretty cool if I do
Speaker 1: say so myself. Welcome to how did we get weird? So, Jonah,
Speaker 1: thanks for being on time today. Do you remember how
Speaker 1: when we used to go to school growing up, it
Speaker 1: was very hard for us to be on time? Yes,
Speaker 1: I do remember. Um well, before we could drive, remember
Speaker 1: waiting for the school bus and we could see it
Speaker 1: out the front window of our house, so you would
Speaker 1: be like frantically trying to get your backpack and shoes
Speaker 1: on before the bus came, and then you kind of
Speaker 1: see it coming and you try to like run. We
Speaker 1: have super long driveway, so you'd have to run that
Speaker 1: long driveway and then if you missed the bus, then
Speaker 1: our parents had to drive us school. And um yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember, just like so, I mean I feel that's
Speaker 1: maybe were like so much internalized anxiety come from like
Speaker 1: just like knowing any second now the bus bus is
Speaker 1: going to come with it, yeah, and we would always
Speaker 1: cut it super close or miss the bus. And I
Speaker 1: remember once, uh, you and I had the same Doc
Speaker 1: Martin like like high tops growing up. I guess I
Speaker 1: don't know if you call those high tops, but the
Speaker 1: same Doc Martin boots and Um, one time I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to school. I think I was sick and you
Speaker 1: were running really late for the bus, and you grabbed
Speaker 1: mine and kind of ran to the bus half in them.
Speaker 1: But then once you got to school you realized they
Speaker 1: were too small on you. What's funny is I don't
Speaker 1: remember that, but I think that's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that would happen to me, and I would just be
Speaker 1: like okay, and I would like never. It wouldn't be
Speaker 1: that big of a deal to me at that time
Speaker 1: in my life. Yeah, it reminds me of the time
Speaker 1: that I got called into the nurses office at school
Speaker 1: because you're like piercing in your chin fell out, and
Speaker 1: they she wanted me to help with it for like
Speaker 1: sanitary reasons because we were related. Anyways, we had a
Speaker 1: lot of adventures going to school. I remember then. Once
Speaker 1: we were in high school, we were alway is late
Speaker 1: because you would make us late. Yeah, well you were
Speaker 1: like an honor student. Um, I was not in any
Speaker 1: honors program. I and I feel like we had to
Speaker 1: be at school so seven thirty in the morning, so
Speaker 1: I was always running late, and I felt like you
Speaker 1: were basically late to first period probably almost every day
Speaker 1: because of me. Yeah, but I also felt really cool
Speaker 1: being late to school because of you, or just coming
Speaker 1: to school with you in general, because you would blast
Speaker 1: all this punk music and it it like really made
Speaker 1: me feel cool to have that, like playing out of
Speaker 1: the car when I was like, you know, I wasn't
Speaker 1: really a legit punk um that wasn't a legit punk
Speaker 1: such as yourself, Jonah well, believe it or not. I
Speaker 1: just remember like how weird it was parking in our
Speaker 1: school parking lot because there would be like, right, like
Speaker 1: I had like a folks like and Jetta, but then
Speaker 1: there would be like super rich kids where I'd like
Speaker 1: between like two Hummers and just how weird that seems
Speaker 1: now for like these like sixteen year old kids to
Speaker 1: have like sports cars totally. And I remember how weird
Speaker 1: it was because we would pull in and everyone was
Speaker 1: it into quiet music and our car was like like
Speaker 1: it was like the yelling guys, which I guess is hardcore,
Speaker 1: which fan was yelling guys. They were all yelling guys.
Speaker 1: It was always a song with yelling guys. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: had some Yeah, our dad's friend helped us get some,
Speaker 1: like twelve in speakers I had in the trunk. I
Speaker 1: had a really loud right with speakers and it feels
Speaker 1: so unnecessary. It was like it was so unnecessary, but
Speaker 1: it got so loud. But yeah, I mean that was
Speaker 1: I'd like just love listening to love music in my car, which, now,
Speaker 1: what if I pulled next to the cars playing love
Speaker 1: of music. It's something I cannot even imagine myself doing.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to like, yeah, but it's better. I don't know.
Speaker 1: You were just the coolest Jonah, And thank you for
Speaker 1: giving me so much cred. No problem, I didn't even
Speaker 1: know that was giving you credit. I thought you have been,
Speaker 1: you have been our whole lives. So well, what a
Speaker 1: sweet moment. Well you've you've done well for yourself too,
Speaker 1: so don't don't sell yourself short. Thanks so much. Well,
Speaker 1: let's get into our yes today, our guest today. We're
Speaker 1: so was so excited to have him. He's an actor,
Speaker 1: he's a writer, he's a comedian. You've seen him on Southside,
Speaker 1: High Maintenance, The Boys and as Jared on Insecure and
Speaker 1: his recent work on hbos Paused with Sam j. But
Speaker 1: most importantly, he hosts a wildly popular podcast, My Mama
Speaker 1: told me, please welcome Lankston Kerman. Wow. Can I say
Speaker 1: that was the sweetest interaction I've ever I've dreamt of
Speaker 1: having those interactions with my siblings of somebody just being like,
Speaker 1: you've done pretty well for yourself. Too beautiful, But it's
Speaker 1: it's it's Have you ever had someone tell you they've
Speaker 1: you've given them a lot of Credit's a hard thing
Speaker 1: to start a response to it is, and I I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't envy your position in that moment to have
Speaker 1: to come up with a charming retort. It doesn't happen often.
Speaker 1: That's unprecedented. Yeah, No, it was a tough spot to
Speaker 1: be in. I too found myself to get the bus
Speaker 1: to school, but I don't know that we had the
Speaker 1: same bus experience. I wasn't. I wasn't often late because
Speaker 1: the buses where most of the fights happened at my school,
Speaker 1: and so Papa needed a front seat to whoever was
Speaker 1: gonna be punching each other in the head that day,
Speaker 1: and that that was always exciting. Wow. Wow, I don't
Speaker 1: remember a ton of fights on the buses with us,
Speaker 1: but um, I think, yeah, they're the best fights. I
Speaker 1: would say of all the fights, the bus fights are
Speaker 1: the best because the space is super contained and it's
Speaker 1: just uh, it can only last like twelve seconds before
Speaker 1: like so, either an obstruction happened, somebody's body gets in
Speaker 1: the way, or the bus driver pulls over, and now
Speaker 1: an adult who we don't respect is involved. It's all
Speaker 1: fun right right now. Were you ever involved in the
Speaker 1: fights or were you just like kind of the audience. No, never,
Speaker 1: I'm a coward. I I I instigated fight. I chimed
Speaker 1: in when when it seemed as if nobody was paying
Speaker 1: attention and and sort of added punchlines to whatever punching
Speaker 1: was happening. But no, I wasn't. I wasn't fighting anybody.
Speaker 1: Those bus drivers are definitely not paid enough to deal
Speaker 1: with that. No, And and it shows they do not
Speaker 1: care for the work and they do not care about
Speaker 1: the children that they're transporting. Yeah, so did you transition
Speaker 1: to driving to school or what was your kind of
Speaker 1: high school getting the school experience? Like, yeah, I so
Speaker 1: I got I took the bus through middle school and
Speaker 1: then because my middle school was way further than my
Speaker 1: high school was from from my home. And then by
Speaker 1: the time I got to high school, I think I
Speaker 1: I either got like rides because I would like show
Speaker 1: up super early for like basketball practice or whatever activities,
Speaker 1: or I would walk, uh, which I think by then
Speaker 1: I had like a group of friends who was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll walk a mile and a half together and that school.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why that was cool. I think
Speaker 1: in respect we should have happily learned, you know, how
Speaker 1: to do something else. But we were like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: would have walk, guys, this is nice. We were weirdly
Speaker 1: not it was a rule we were not allowed to
Speaker 1: walk to school. So it was like if you if
Speaker 1: you we and we lived pretty close to our school,
Speaker 1: we're probably like a mile and a half away from
Speaker 1: our school, which actually not that close if you can't imagine, actually,
Speaker 1: but like, yeah, people would. It was like it was
Speaker 1: very like, you know, if you get caught walking to school, actually,
Speaker 1: I don't know what would happen. I don't know. You
Speaker 1: weren't allowed to leave, you weren't allowed to go to McDonald's.
Speaker 1: You sneak out and go to McDonald's for lunch you
Speaker 1: can get in big trouble were you're allowed to leave? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were very kind of contained. Also, this these were
Speaker 1: school rules. This wasn't just like your family said no,
Speaker 1: this rule wouldn't let us watch to school. It was
Speaker 1: like which was there? I remember there was this one girl,
Speaker 1: Caitlin Store, who literally lived across the street from the
Speaker 1: school and she had to take the bus. Who isn't
Speaker 1: that crazy? Yeah, she had to take the bus and
Speaker 1: she was a really good student. She was maybe our
Speaker 1: valedictorian or like sal, sal, I'm not going to help you,
Speaker 1: but she she um, she was so she like listen,
Speaker 1: you know she took the bus every day. What a
Speaker 1: waste of taxpayers money? That's crazy. Yeah. And then I
Speaker 1: remember for senior prank, someone broke into where they kept
Speaker 1: the buses and slash the tires on all the bus
Speaker 1: That was my senior year. Yeah. Did they do that
Speaker 1: your year too? No? I don't think so, but I
Speaker 1: think I think I heard about it. And it was
Speaker 1: so great because we got to go to school late then.
Speaker 1: It was so it was so and actually my my
Speaker 1: friend was one of the people who did it. Like
Speaker 1: there was like a group of like six guys, and
Speaker 1: they were like he told me about it the night
Speaker 1: before they did it, and and he was like he
Speaker 1: was like and he he was gonna, I'm giving a
Speaker 1: lot of details. He was going to be at my
Speaker 1: prom date. And I was like, and there was a
Speaker 1: rule that like if if um, if someone gets caught
Speaker 1: doing a senior prank, they won't be allowed to go
Speaker 1: to prom and so and so. I so he was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this prank. He's like, I don't
Speaker 1: think we're gonna get caught, but if we if if
Speaker 1: we do, then like I won't be able to go
Speaker 1: to prom. And I was like, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I was like I'll go without you, Like I didn't,
Speaker 1: I might ruin your prom night forever and always so
Speaker 1: that I could be a part of a senior prank.
Speaker 1: Don't worry exactly. But then the next day we went
Speaker 1: to school, like like it was like on the news
Speaker 1: like Orange schools are delayed two hours because like there
Speaker 1: was because like the something with the busses and whatever.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I was so like freaked out
Speaker 1: about it because I was like, am I complicit in
Speaker 1: this crime? Like I was so like freaking out. Then
Speaker 1: it was I got to school. I was like loving
Speaker 1: that I knew because I kept I started kept going
Speaker 1: up people and be like, who do you think did this?
Speaker 1: This is wild? I'm so excited to be like in
Speaker 1: on the crime that I was just like, man, this
Speaker 1: is crazy, Like we better find out who these who?
Speaker 1: And I knew everyone who did it, and I was
Speaker 1: just like loving it. And then um, and then they
Speaker 1: all did get found out a few days later. And
Speaker 1: then but then the school let them go to prom
Speaker 1: because they didn't want to ruin their dates prom experiences.
Speaker 1: But again, as someone my focus was very much on
Speaker 1: myself going like and so I remember being like, you
Speaker 1: guys didn't have to do that, Like we would have
Speaker 1: still all gone, I think, But um, maybe not everyone
Speaker 1: felt that way because I wasn't going from like this
Speaker 1: was like a friend I was going with. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like a romantic like if I don't get to go
Speaker 1: with him, I won't have like, oh you were fine
Speaker 1: either way. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I do. I
Speaker 1: will say that I do appreciate a senior prank that
Speaker 1: actually has an an effect in the world, Like it's
Speaker 1: much better than I feel like for our senior prank
Speaker 1: somebody like put a bunch of baby oil on the
Speaker 1: main steps and just made people fall and ship and
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, well that's not helpful, gentlemen, Like let's
Speaker 1: do something that actually benefits the whole of the senior.
Speaker 1: It was. It was so great because I remember we
Speaker 1: had like tests since I mean probably nobody else was
Speaker 1: thinking as much about this because I was very into school,
Speaker 1: but we had tests that like we didn't have to
Speaker 1: finish them because of the time limits. Like like it's
Speaker 1: sort of like academically was like very helpful too, but yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: Like I remember, I think it was when I was
Speaker 1: in we had eighth grade in the high school. And
Speaker 1: when I was in eighth grade, Jonah, do you remember this,
Speaker 1: the seniors put a bunch of grasshoppers like all over
Speaker 1: the school and then by the time we got to school,
Speaker 1: they had basically all been like vacuumed up, which just
Speaker 1: felt like so sad because it was just like they
Speaker 1: just killed a bunch of grasshoppers before we got in.
Speaker 1: You guys just set up a grasshopper genocide real quick,
Speaker 1: and everyone got their day like regular. Yeah, very sad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember during graduation they were like, when you shake
Speaker 1: the principal's hand, put a marble in your hand, everyone's
Speaker 1: going to give him a marble and then he's not
Speaker 1: going to know what to do with all the marbles.
Speaker 1: And like I was just like, yeah, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: do that, trying to get out of here. I'm eighteen. O,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. Did people do it? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe some people did, I was, I don't, I don't remember. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope it was just one kid. Just one kid
Speaker 1: did the marble thing and tried to convince a lot
Speaker 1: of other people to do it, but only he did it,
Speaker 1: and and it was embarrassing and sort of awkward for him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so that's like, where am I supposed to get Mark?
Speaker 1: I don't know where you get marbles? I don't know.
Speaker 1: That feels like you could have figured that out if
Speaker 1: you honestly. Feels like prime time for finding I guess
Speaker 1: you're right. I guess you're right. You're right. They're probably
Speaker 1: Marvel stores all around us. I bet you at that
Speaker 1: time could get marbles at like a pharmacy, like a
Speaker 1: little like a little fishnet bag. Yeah, Walgreen's had to
Speaker 1: have a ton of marbles back then. Yeah, where did
Speaker 1: you get him today? Uh? Amazon dot com. You're Daddy
Speaker 1: Bezos himself, He'll send you marbles. You're right, you're right.
Speaker 1: What do you do with marbles? You play a game? Yeah,
Speaker 1: technically I believe the game is that you're it's it's
Speaker 1: you're meant to knock the marbles out of the center.
Speaker 1: That like you're it's like a competition almost like, uh,
Speaker 1: what's that that the slide e ball thing? You know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about? The big like like on a
Speaker 1: big like on a big like you're standing and you
Speaker 1: like push the ball in the big thing. Yeah, oh
Speaker 1: shuffle I love that. I love that we needed help
Speaker 1: for for very popular American games. But the point is
Speaker 1: Marble's is sort of like shuffle board, but it's more
Speaker 1: in the middle. So like you you create a center
Speaker 1: and then you you try to get your marble in
Speaker 1: the center, and then you try to knock other people's
Speaker 1: marbles out of the center. Is I think you're right?
Speaker 1: I just remember that you remember that Marble Madness video game? No,
Speaker 1: I don't. It was like a game where you kind
Speaker 1: of like tilted the screen and you would like have
Speaker 1: like a marble that would move around. It was pretty
Speaker 1: cool game. I remember the the analog version of that,
Speaker 1: not the video game, but those like cheap toys that
Speaker 1: you would get where like there's a marble and you
Speaker 1: have to make a uh follow the path with it.
Speaker 1: I assume it's it's something similar to that. Yeah. Well
Speaker 1: there's also those little remember like in when you would
Speaker 1: go home from a birthday party if you would get
Speaker 1: like a little bag of stuff. We we would always
Speaker 1: get those little squares that like had a little marble
Speaker 1: or had like a little ball in them and they
Speaker 1: go through a maze and you would do you know
Speaker 1: what I'm about? That's that ship? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: wonder if they still well, probably have them on Amazon
Speaker 1: dot com. Daddy Bazos makes it. I worked at a
Speaker 1: gift shop last year, uh, a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and we sold like like free trade, like, um, they
Speaker 1: make all that stuff. You can get it like free trade,
Speaker 1: like locally made toys for kids or these local people
Speaker 1: that are still carving weird mazes and then putting marbles
Speaker 1: in them. I don't know. It's a good question, it's
Speaker 1: a great question. I don't think I have the reason.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons I think I never played with
Speaker 1: marbles is because I would be so mesmerized by them
Speaker 1: because I really didn't know if they were cats eyes.
Speaker 1: Oh are some of them called like cat's eye marbles?
Speaker 1: They look like cat's eyes. Yeah, I've heard that, Langsy.
Speaker 1: To give you a little background, Vanessa, Um, we also
Speaker 1: had a box collection of antique boxes just he was
Speaker 1: really on to find. That's such a nice way of it,
Speaker 1: and it's also a very concise way of summing up
Speaker 1: a person's uh situation. Let's call it. No, no, no.
Speaker 1: My sister collected boxes anyway, go on. Yeah, Like we'd
Speaker 1: go on a trip and I'd buy, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I get a little box that said like Florida or something.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I don't. I don't think I had any
Speaker 1: collections that, uh, that even come close to collecting boxes.
Speaker 1: I think I inherited my dad's coin collection and then
Speaker 1: moved on, Oh that's do you still have it? Do
Speaker 1: you still have the coins? No, I wasn't invested at all.
Speaker 1: He you know, it's one of those things where like um,
Speaker 1: where you think that you're finding something valuable because you
Speaker 1: find some penny that says like nineteen already nine, and
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, Dad, check this out. And then he
Speaker 1: looks at and he's like, well, it's technically not worth
Speaker 1: anything because it has an S on it and not
Speaker 1: a D, or it isn't clean the right way, or
Speaker 1: the president is facing in the wrong direction. It's like,
Speaker 1: all right, man, funk off, I'm going to bed, Like,
Speaker 1: what what is this game that you're playing here? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I could see that being very frustrating. Hasn't been as
Speaker 1: lucrative as your box collection rights always going to say
Speaker 1: I would really accept most any box into the collection,
Speaker 1: and you know, porcelain boxes, wooden boxes, just you know,
Speaker 1: anything anything, and perhaps the box from Daddy Bezos at
Speaker 1: Amazon Dot, you know. And look are the boxes all
Speaker 1: still my parents, Baseman, and are they every time I
Speaker 1: come home or they're like, Vanessa, you gotta get rid
Speaker 1: of these boxes. Yes, but and my mom was like,
Speaker 1: you can take you can take like a selection of
Speaker 1: the boxes back with you to l A and then
Speaker 1: we'll donate the rest. And I'm like, I'm keeping all
Speaker 1: the boxing and they're standing right here. I'm not moving
Speaker 1: these boxes at all. Good luck, family. We got these
Speaker 1: boxes for life, and everybody knows that We're going to
Speaker 1: go to a quick commercial break, but we'll be right
Speaker 1: back with Langston and we're back today. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about something that Vanessa and I were not familiar
Speaker 1: with until this week, but now we're kind of obsessed with.
Speaker 1: And Yes, and this was your topic lengths and so
Speaker 1: thank you for that. It is the and one mixtape.
Speaker 1: And for our listeners that aren't familiar with this, could
Speaker 1: you maybe just sort of explain a little bit what
Speaker 1: it is? Yeah, So the N one mix tapes we were, uh,
Speaker 1: sort of America's introduction to street basketball. It was like
Speaker 1: a bunch of random dudes who were not professional basketball
Speaker 1: players at least in the traditional sense you're NBA players
Speaker 1: who but we're fun and talented, like very talented people,
Speaker 1: and they would they just were nasty. They would do cool,
Speaker 1: cool moves that weren't even legal, uh in in professional basketball,
Speaker 1: weird crossovers and dunks, and they danced in your face
Speaker 1: after they embarrassed you in front of your family. And
Speaker 1: I loved it. I couldn't get enough of the N
Speaker 1: one mixtapes as a child. So, like, what age were
Speaker 1: you sort of when you were like peak and One fan? Uh?
Speaker 1: I was probably I think I probably really found and
Speaker 1: one around like eight to ten, I would say, uh,
Speaker 1: and one at the time, Uh, there was there were
Speaker 1: a bunch of players who were really cool. But on
Speaker 1: top of that, they also started a clothing brand. And
Speaker 1: at the time, the clothing brand was really cool because it,
Speaker 1: uh it was really big shirts and really baggy shorts
Speaker 1: to play basketball in. You know how uh easy that
Speaker 1: makes for playing basketball and uh and on top of that,
Speaker 1: all their shirts had like cool uh like phrases written
Speaker 1: on them, basically like trash talking phrases. So it would
Speaker 1: be like you, you brick so many shots you could
Speaker 1: build a house, and that would be written on the shirt.
Speaker 1: Or it would be like you you don't dribble good
Speaker 1: and your mom's a whore, and like that would be
Speaker 1: on the shirt and you'd get so excited because you
Speaker 1: were ship talking in your clothes. Yeah, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: just feeling I was just thinking about how it it's
Speaker 1: a just strong move to like wear clothes that say
Speaker 1: stuff on them. Yes, like in any Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: very daring. It's much in the way that I I
Speaker 1: and you know, and maybe it's the same as the
Speaker 1: person putting on juicy when maybe that thing isn't that juicy,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And you're wearing the shirt
Speaker 1: that you want to believe you can for stuff you
Speaker 1: think you can in the world, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It feels like you have to have so much confidence
Speaker 1: with it. I'm going to make a comparison that might
Speaker 1: not really track, but um, I live in a neighborhood
Speaker 1: where there's a lot people do so much Halloween decorating,
Speaker 1: and we were outside. I was walking with my friend
Speaker 1: outside this beautiful house and it was so decorated for
Speaker 1: Halloween in such a crazy way, like more than most houses.
Speaker 1: And then the guy who lived there was like outside
Speaker 1: on his phone and he was just like on this
Speaker 1: like on his front porch, like talking on the phone.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I feel like the story isn't
Speaker 1: gonna land well. But I was like, is he so
Speaker 1: embarrassed to be like an adult man, like standing in
Speaker 1: front of a house that's decorated so much? Now follow
Speaker 1: me here in the same way that like, if you're
Speaker 1: wearing a shirt that says like anything like don't talk
Speaker 1: to me before I have my morning coffee or whatever,
Speaker 1: do you like then when you make eye contact with
Speaker 1: other people. Are you like, I shouldn't have done this,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sorry I didn't. You can't talk to me.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. I feel like that
Speaker 1: story might not have been as relevant as I thought
Speaker 1: it was about the guy in the Halloween house. But
Speaker 1: I just think like, yeah, very but very cool that
Speaker 1: and one um did did the trash talking for you?
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, it was, it was. It was just
Speaker 1: a dope period in I think in basketball where we
Speaker 1: were transitioning out of sort of like this buttoned up
Speaker 1: version of what basketball was, which is a weird thing
Speaker 1: to think about in terms of basketball, but it was
Speaker 1: like this was back when you know, NBA players were
Speaker 1: expected to wear suits everywhere they went, and like Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan was just a nice Uh this is before we
Speaker 1: knew he was a monster. But Michael Jordan was a
Speaker 1: nice man who loved his family and never did anything wrong.
Speaker 1: And then you know, and one came a round and
Speaker 1: they were just like a man, I'm about to dunk
Speaker 1: on you in front of everyone you that knows you
Speaker 1: and cares about you. It was great. Yeah, was that
Speaker 1: the era of like Detroit Pistons, like the Bad Boys,
Speaker 1: this is this is years after Bad Boys. This would
Speaker 1: be sort of in the wake of the This is
Speaker 1: like late nineties, early two thousands actual like Alan Iverson,
Speaker 1: I think in a lot of ways is kind of,
Speaker 1: uh a synonymous with not synonymous, but sort of like
Speaker 1: runs parallel with like the and one culture, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense, got it? Got it. I was really into
Speaker 1: sports until about like seventh grade, so all of my
Speaker 1: references are like now, I'm like, I was this guy
Speaker 1: still playing. My Dad's like, yeah, he's a coach. But
Speaker 1: but I've been watching a lot of the ANI one
Speaker 1: videos and one one player I've been very impressed with
Speaker 1: is the professor. Oh the professor, of course, yes, I mean, well,
Speaker 1: could you describe in dove any thoughts on the professor? Oh,
Speaker 1: I have plenty of thoughts on the professor. Uh. The
Speaker 1: Professor was was white people's first, uh first introduction to
Speaker 1: the N one mix tapes. And he was fun because
Speaker 1: and one was so much about ship talking right that,
Speaker 1: and I think in some ways it also was sort
Speaker 1: of like a cool liaison into comedy, whereas like, I
Speaker 1: like sports and then they say mean things when they
Speaker 1: play sports. This is hilarious. So it was all of
Speaker 1: that for me. But the Professor is interesting. His name
Speaker 1: is Grayson by the way, so he's very white for
Speaker 1: anyone who who's unfamiliar. But the Professor was sort of
Speaker 1: like this cute, blonde haired kid who was playing with
Speaker 1: all these big, like athletic black dudes, and he was nice.
Speaker 1: He could he could dribble better than almost everybody. His
Speaker 1: passes were insane. He did crazy layups and sort of
Speaker 1: trick moves, and no one that they played against took
Speaker 1: him seriously until he would embarrass every body, which only
Speaker 1: added to the the pizzazz of it all. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And what's more amazing is the way they're doing it
Speaker 1: in these clothes, Like you were saying that is are
Speaker 1: so big between their legs and it's like it's in Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's insane. Have you followed what what the Professor has
Speaker 1: been doing more recently? I have, and and he's now
Speaker 1: turned into some sort of Christian basketball player where he
Speaker 1: he like goes from random park to random park across
Speaker 1: the world. Now he like has a very popular YouTube
Speaker 1: following and Instagram following where he'll go to like, uh,
Speaker 1: Singapore and just play random people at parks there and
Speaker 1: then like cut up, uh, like footage of him crossing
Speaker 1: people over and then hugging them afterwards and telling them
Speaker 1: that that God loves them. And yeah, it's fascinating. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's taken that street ball thing in a whole different direction.
Speaker 1: I guess he has there's prayer now in it. And uh,
Speaker 1: I knew him when he was getting yelled curse words,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's different vibes. I guess for sure.
Speaker 1: Did you play that the and one video game at all?
Speaker 1: We found out about the video game recently. I did
Speaker 1: not play the End one video game. I know nothing
Speaker 1: of this. Oh, I can tell you that it came
Speaker 1: out in two thousand six. I have a couple of
Speaker 1: facts here. Um, the PlayStation two version received quote mixed reviews,
Speaker 1: while the Xbox well, the Xbox version received generally unfavorable reviews.
Speaker 1: So it seems like you didn't miss much. No, and
Speaker 1: thank god it's so. If it came out in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, I had just graduated from high school,
Speaker 1: and I think by that time I was pretty uh,
Speaker 1: I knew I wasn't going to make the NBA, so
Speaker 1: so I had sort of moved on from my dreams
Speaker 1: of playing certainly I wasn't playing video games of and
Speaker 1: one mixtapes, but uh damn, that's a shame. They had
Speaker 1: their their big shot and they blew it. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: It's true. Were you did you play a lot of
Speaker 1: kind of basketball growing up or in high school during
Speaker 1: that period of your life. I did. I played basketball.
Speaker 1: That was my main thing through uh through junior year
Speaker 1: of high school, and then I got cut from the
Speaker 1: team and then ended up like writing poetry after that,
Speaker 1: so I took a big turn. But I yeah, even
Speaker 1: after that, like I I then like made technically made
Speaker 1: the team my senior year, but I quit to continue
Speaker 1: writing poetry. But then in college I ended up playing
Speaker 1: as a practice player for my women's basketball team. So
Speaker 1: I was like basically like showing up every day to
Speaker 1: like get beat up on by these these very talented girls.
Speaker 1: So it it. You know, I love basketball, I was playing,
Speaker 1: you know, for most of my life. I think giving
Speaker 1: a basketball for poetry is pretty cool. I think that's
Speaker 1: a pretty pretty cool move. I don't know if most
Speaker 1: people would agree, but I appreciate your encouragement. What kind
Speaker 1: of what kind of poems were you writing at that time?
Speaker 1: I think, uh, in high school. It was mostly love
Speaker 1: poems the girls who uh, who were either partially interested
Speaker 1: or I had moved on from whatever our situation was.
Speaker 1: That that's probably the major theme of everything I was writing.
Speaker 1: And did you were you giving them to the girls
Speaker 1: or were you sort of just kind of brooding with them? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: I I made sure you heard it. If if you
Speaker 1: dated me, you heard those poems? Did it fix any
Speaker 1: of our situations? It did not, But you were gonna
Speaker 1: get every word I wrote down? And were you like
Speaker 1: keeping yourself to like? Were you like I want to
Speaker 1: write a poem for this girl, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: be like, um, I am the pentameter, or like I
Speaker 1: wanted to be a Limerick. I wanted to No, No,
Speaker 1: this was this was two thousand four when limericks no
Speaker 1: longer mattered and I am big pentameter meant ship to
Speaker 1: any girls that I dated, I just yeah, it was
Speaker 1: mostly just free verse. It was me just writing down
Speaker 1: my thoughts. I I had the good fortune of going
Speaker 1: to a high school that had like a pretty large
Speaker 1: spoken word club, Like there were like sixty kids in
Speaker 1: the program, uh in my high school, and so uh
Speaker 1: with that, I think we just it wasn't as like
Speaker 1: weird oh lame as I think it could have been
Speaker 1: if this were like one of those weird like three
Speaker 1: person clubs where our books getting knocked out of our
Speaker 1: hands and we don't know what to do with ourselves
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And sorry, one more question about this.
Speaker 1: Would you would you read them the poems or would
Speaker 1: you give them to them? So thank you for asking. Uh. No,
Speaker 1: I I'd often read the poems at our at our
Speaker 1: spoken word like um uh concert the concerts the wrong word,
Speaker 1: but it was sort of like our spoken word performances shows.
Speaker 1: I would read the poems there, uh, with the hopes
Speaker 1: that they would show up to said performances and they
Speaker 1: they'd be left so a flutter by the things that
Speaker 1: I said, that they would come back to me and
Speaker 1: our romance would begin again. Did you get into slam
Speaker 1: poetry because that seems like a really like between basketball
Speaker 1: and poetry. That seems like this sort of performative type
Speaker 1: of poetry. You know, I don't know if I saw
Speaker 1: Williams all this stuff was that era. Yeah, saw Williams
Speaker 1: was was exactly that era, And that is exactly why
Speaker 1: I think I gravitated so much to poetry. Like I
Speaker 1: was already writing poetry, right, I was interested in it.
Speaker 1: But then you know, you're coming out of sports and
Speaker 1: it's like, wow, I don't I want to compete. I
Speaker 1: want to do a thing, and so, uh, slam became
Speaker 1: like a nice transition into that. And I grew up
Speaker 1: in in Oak Park outside of Chicago, so I know,
Speaker 1: you guys are from Chicago to yet we're from Cleveland,
Speaker 1: but I but I lived in Chicago for a long time,
Speaker 1: so you know. And so Chicago has the largest even
Speaker 1: today has the largest youth slam in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this thing called Louder than a Bomb. And so
Speaker 1: like our team would compete every year, and uh, it
Speaker 1: became like a cool thing where like now I'm I'm
Speaker 1: writing poetry, but I'm writing poetry to funk people up,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, instead of just writing it,
Speaker 1: uh for sad reasons. Amazing. Yeah, it was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now did you ever speaking of being did you not
Speaker 1: to take it away from your post? I mean, I
Speaker 1: I I love hearing about your poetry. I feel like
Speaker 1: that's so it also, but just being from Chicago, did
Speaker 1: you ever see and one the and one tour? Like
Speaker 1: in person, like when they went to Chicago, did you go?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I wish I had. I don't think that
Speaker 1: that I had like the wherewithal as like a young person.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this this you guys relate to
Speaker 1: this at all, but I think a part of me
Speaker 1: always treated that is like a foreign thing that like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's like seeing your favorite person in concert. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until I got to like high school that I was like, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: they they might actually come to where I live. It
Speaker 1: was always like, well, I'll never be in the same
Speaker 1: room as uh as the professor or or hot sauce,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like it was just me
Speaker 1: not It never even crossed my mind that I could
Speaker 1: go and see them, So now I never got to
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, I remember being like in that that
Speaker 1: kind of like pre going to concert age where like
Speaker 1: I'm a little older than you. I'm forty one, and
Speaker 1: so I remember like all these kids coming to school
Speaker 1: wearing like American gladiator shirts and they're like we also
Speaker 1: went to see American gladiators that like the arena. I
Speaker 1: was like, how did you guys know about Like how
Speaker 1: do you even find out about stuff? I guess yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, people would go to that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: I remember, uh, my dad one year took me to
Speaker 1: uh to family Double Dare like but not not the
Speaker 1: in studio one, the one that they would just like
Speaker 1: to Yeah that would just go on tour and being
Speaker 1: like a stadium somewhere and like do like random families
Speaker 1: and not film it, but like Mark Summers would be
Speaker 1: there and I remember him like pacing the like audience,
Speaker 1: being like, we need another kid, who's gonna be our kid?
Speaker 1: And me going crazy and he looked right at me
Speaker 1: and moved to a different person. And that's why I've
Speaker 1: always maintained fuck Mark Summers for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: I will go to my graves saying fuck you, Mark Summers.
Speaker 1: I'll never forgive you. Well it makes you feeling better.
Speaker 1: We just watched the Nickelodeon documentary and I Mark Summers
Speaker 1: I think was probably hating every Also he did say
Speaker 1: that um at one point his kids said to him,
Speaker 1: like because he was going on those tours with Double
Speaker 1: the Air, and his kids were like, why do you
Speaker 1: spend the weekend with other people's kids but not us?
Speaker 1: And so then he said, like the next day after
Speaker 1: his kids said that to him, he quit. So actually
Speaker 1: you were part of the thing that got him to
Speaker 1: like stop working. So in some ways you got back
Speaker 1: at him. He looked me dead in my eyes, and
Speaker 1: he was like, I got to get back to my family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he probably that's probably why he didn't pick you, because
Speaker 1: he probably felt so warm towards you, Like he was like,
Speaker 1: if I picked this kid, then it's going to truly
Speaker 1: break my heart. He picked some to another another beautiful child.
Speaker 1: I have to end this here. Yeah, so he picked
Speaker 1: like a kid that he was like this kid over
Speaker 1: here out of a giant nose, Mark Summers Summers. He
Speaker 1: doesn't talk about it on the documentary, but he um
Speaker 1: famously has very a lot of O C D, which
Speaker 1: who doesn't. But sure, and I have to imagine that
Speaker 1: job must have contributed to it. Well, that's the thing,
Speaker 1: is like, is it the chicken or the like what
Speaker 1: that that job does seem? I mean so fun for kids,
Speaker 1: but like there's so much disgusting even just like imagery. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: Like you said, Green, it's not coming out of a
Speaker 1: a giant nose and you have to do this. I
Speaker 1: assume they're filming what like four episodes a day, Yeah,
Speaker 1: five days a week, just to be able to satisfy
Speaker 1: our sick need to watch more noses, have more Bookers
Speaker 1: in them. It's it's all bad. Yeah, but then he um,
Speaker 1: he got right out of there once his kids complained.
Speaker 1: And maybe I need to make my peace with Mark Summers.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe I can't go to my grave with these
Speaker 1: negative feelings towards could be kind of live rating, you know,
Speaker 1: just to let it go, not be carrying that around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all this all this gag covering my heart. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know if it also if it drives you, then
Speaker 1: that then hold onto. Sure if it's helping you to. Um,
Speaker 1: did you watch did you watch a lot of Nickelodeon
Speaker 1: growing up? I loved it. It was I was a
Speaker 1: Nickelodeon kid. I know there are some Disney Kids and Nicodeon. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Disney Kids weirded me out, I'll be honest, because you
Speaker 1: had to pay for the Disney Channel, so they You know,
Speaker 1: that was a bigger issue for me as well. Our
Speaker 1: cable was limited. But it just Nickelodeon was like edgy
Speaker 1: and cool and like I was talking to somebody about
Speaker 1: it today, actually that like it didn't it is just
Speaker 1: now occurring to me as of recently that like all
Speaker 1: that had like wul Tang clan On and Mary J.
Speaker 1: Blige and they were singing their real songs, not like
Speaker 1: versions of the songs in front of audiences of twelve
Speaker 1: year old It was it is pretty crazy. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: if you watch this documentary, they also Coolio talks about
Speaker 1: how like he did the song for Keenan and Kell's
Speaker 1: show and it was like the most popular song he
Speaker 1: ever Like it was like it was like a huge deal.
Speaker 1: Like it was like, it's pretty crazy. If that doesn't
Speaker 1: make you do your hair the way Coolio does it there,
Speaker 1: I don't know what what has you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: right right right right right totally. You dedicate your work
Speaker 1: to being a talented rap artist, and the thing that
Speaker 1: propels you into to stardom is making the theme music
Speaker 1: to two boys, uh arguing about orange soda. It's a
Speaker 1: bad combination for an adult man. Yeah, I mean then
Speaker 1: he went on and did um dangerous minds that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, And all we have now is Michelle Peiffer
Speaker 1: and a leather jacket telling us that, uh, we can't
Speaker 1: get out the ghetto, we can make something of ourselves.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Michelle. Yeah, I don't think that movie would
Speaker 1: probably get be getting made anytime against soon. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think so either. I think that's why we
Speaker 1: don't bring it up for positive reasons than yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I wanted to talk really briefly about your
Speaker 1: podcast my mom told me, which yeah, it's not an
Speaker 1: amazing network, I hear, um, But I mean, how would
Speaker 1: you sort of describe the podcast? Maybe, um, for people
Speaker 1: who haven't heard it, haven't heard it before. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: I love conspiracy theories, and I happened to be black
Speaker 1: and have a ton of friends who happened to be black,
Speaker 1: So we just talk about black people in their conspiracy theories,
Speaker 1: which oftentimes are are there's a lot of inn diagram
Speaker 1: crossover between white conspiracy theories. But there's a different sort
Speaker 1: of like twist right at the end, which makes it pretty.
Speaker 1: It makes it fun and and interesting and sort of
Speaker 1: a more nuanced, uh conversation than every other insane person
Speaker 1: that's on the internet, for sure. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: have any I mean, because to me, that's it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: There's there's so many kind of interesting topics, are there
Speaker 1: any that you've done that kind of stand out to
Speaker 1: you or any that, Like, I just didn't know about
Speaker 1: so many of these conspiracies, so they're really interesting to
Speaker 1: listen about. There any any favors you have, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I have a ton of them. Uh Carl Tart,
Speaker 1: who's a very funny comedian. Um uh improv sketch dude
Speaker 1: who who came on? And Uh, it's a conspiracy theory
Speaker 1: I've heard for for years now where we talked about, uh,
Speaker 1: the theory that women put menstrual blood. You can't eat
Speaker 1: a strange woman's uh spaghetti because uh women put their
Speaker 1: own menstrual blood in the spaghetti and make you fall
Speaker 1: in love with them. Well, I can speak to that.
Speaker 1: That's that's something you heard when you were younger. It's
Speaker 1: something that I heard more actually in early adulthood than
Speaker 1: I heard like a person. But he's from Uh, he's
Speaker 1: from Mississippi, I believe. And it is a very Southern
Speaker 1: thing to like think that. You know, it's like it
Speaker 1: has to do with like juju and magic and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff that voodoo ko do I believe
Speaker 1: is the the sort of like actual term that's connected
Speaker 1: to it. But it's it's some sort of witch doctor
Speaker 1: e ship. Yeah. Yeah, wow, that's it was interesting too.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've been listening to your podcast and it's
Speaker 1: interesting too that there is something. I mean that's interesting
Speaker 1: that you heard it more as an adult, but there
Speaker 1: is also some like I remember so many of those
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories from being a kid, like because as a kid,
Speaker 1: like you really you're really like, oh, this must be true,
Speaker 1: like this must be Like I was listening to the
Speaker 1: Tommy Hill Figure episode and it's like we all thought
Speaker 1: we were Like he was on Oprah he said like,
Speaker 1: and it's true. It's like, what which episode was it.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, there's there's literally no evidence of this
Speaker 1: actually existing. What is it? What is it? What is
Speaker 1: it about Tommy hill Figure? That Tommy Hill Figure, at
Speaker 1: some point in his early in sort of like the
Speaker 1: transition of Hill Figure clothing, uh, Tommy jeans whatever it was,
Speaker 1: made a big announcement on Oprah that he did not
Speaker 1: want black people wearing his clothing. He'd made it for
Speaker 1: like a certain class of people, and black people did
Speaker 1: not represent that class. And what I think I heard,
Speaker 1: the version I think I heard was like Oprah got
Speaker 1: so mad at him, that she like yelled at him
Speaker 1: on the show and she would never have him back again,
Speaker 1: and that maybe the reason we hadn't seen it was
Speaker 1: because as she wouldn't, she refused to air the episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I similarly had heard this story of the bravery that Oprah.
Speaker 1: Oprah put her foot down and she said, get out
Speaker 1: of here. Tommy, you never show your face around here again.
Speaker 1: You're dead to me, and then that had like it
Speaker 1: had squashed his career at that point. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's so fascinating to think about how these things
Speaker 1: spread during that era, like before the Internet, how everyone
Speaker 1: we could all hear these stories that like how how
Speaker 1: did they spread? Like how did people find out about
Speaker 1: this stuff? Well, it's so fun because because in doing
Speaker 1: the research, what I discovered is that it actually came
Speaker 1: from basically like some chain mail, like a chain email
Speaker 1: from the Philippines, and it did actually come from a
Speaker 1: shitty thing that Tommy said. Shitty is a weighted term,
Speaker 1: but basically he went out and he said, like, hey,
Speaker 1: please stop wearing knockoff versions of my clothing. It doesn't
Speaker 1: look as good. I don't like that. And a bunch
Speaker 1: of people in other countries were like, they forget you man,
Speaker 1: You're like ruining our sweet deal when we make these
Speaker 1: these nice knockoffs and that's how we make our money.
Speaker 1: And so they made up a weird statement about Tommy
Speaker 1: He'll Figure saying this thing, and then the email got
Speaker 1: circulated so many times that we in our middle schools
Speaker 1: were like hell, yeah, yeah yeah. And you know what's
Speaker 1: so crazy. It is like even though that stuff is
Speaker 1: so like you hear it a lot in childhood and
Speaker 1: stuff like, I still feel like when like I would,
Speaker 1: I still like every time I had seen an ad
Speaker 1: for like a Tommy thing, I'd be like, why are
Speaker 1: people supporting this guy? Like even as an adult, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy is a monster. I don't know what. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I there's so many things that that uh that
Speaker 1: we're hugely problematic and or wrong from from these conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories that circulate from being young that I still, like
Speaker 1: you said, I'm still like, I know it's not right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't know. I can't support old Tommy hill Figure
Speaker 1: even though he's done nothing wrong. He seems honestly like
Speaker 1: sweet man, sweet nice. Yeah. You know, there's also like
Speaker 1: a thing with Jewish people I feel like where your
Speaker 1: parents tell you that everyone's anti Semitics, so you sort
Speaker 1: of think that like everything is somehow made by like
Speaker 1: an anti Semitic, like you can't you shouldn't watch this
Speaker 1: or do this thing or this thing because they don't
Speaker 1: like Jews. As you know, that was I don't there's
Speaker 1: we In a similar episode similar we talked about how
Speaker 1: some people theorize that the that Timberland's were made by
Speaker 1: the KKK, that the entire like, uh, the thing is
Speaker 1: owned by the KKK, and the tree on the on
Speaker 1: the Timberland logo is actually connected to uh, hangings for
Speaker 1: for slaves right or for black people in general. But
Speaker 1: that said, uh, one of the things that that sort
Speaker 1: of gets uncovered in all of that is that Timberland
Speaker 1: were actually originally conceived and owned by Jewish people, but
Speaker 1: because of this weird rumor that got started, they got
Speaker 1: associated with so much anti Semitism that it like did
Speaker 1: do damage to the problem like the product at certain points. Wow. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's wow. But yeah, I mean, I think that's really
Speaker 1: interesting parallel because I think that the idea of like
Speaker 1: a black conspiracy theory probably makes so much sense, and
Speaker 1: the fact that like you know, brought you so marginalized,
Speaker 1: you know, taking advantage of brought over by you know, slavery,
Speaker 1: all this stuff. Obviously, how could you not think that
Speaker 1: things are against you on some level, like with these
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. Do you think that's an element of it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do, And I think in a in an interesting
Speaker 1: way or a really like important way. The goal isn't
Speaker 1: so much to just keep this like locked on on
Speaker 1: black people, but to sort of show the ways that
Speaker 1: like it kind of crosses over into all of our ship,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean that like much in the
Speaker 1: way that that you know, these weird stories come up
Speaker 1: in the black community, they also come up in a
Speaker 1: lot of other marginalized communities and then our American community
Speaker 1: as a whole, if whatever that means, If that exists,
Speaker 1: But like I do think that that it's not it's
Speaker 1: not meant to be a thing where it's like this
Speaker 1: is for us, and y'all ain't supposed to hear it.
Speaker 1: It's like, not listen to it and recognize that you
Speaker 1: probably heard something very similar to it, even if it
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily verbatim what you grew up with. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's really smart. I think that, and I
Speaker 1: think that your podcast really does that really well. And
Speaker 1: some of them are are so dark. Yeah, like the
Speaker 1: Brandy stuff I found to be like really darn all
Speaker 1: that stuff. Yeah I didn't know. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: just didn't know any of this stuff. Some of them
Speaker 1: get real sad, uh if you if you take them seriously,
Speaker 1: which is why I try to laugh through all it,
Speaker 1: because yeah, we're going to take another quick break and
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. Okay, we are back and Langston.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to play a game with you where
Speaker 1: we bring up nostalgic products, like products shows, stuff from
Speaker 1: our childhood that are now making a comeback. And if
Speaker 1: you're into them, you can give them a yes, Stalgia
Speaker 1: all Stalja, and if you're not into them, you give
Speaker 1: them a no Stalla no no no no no no
Speaker 1: no no no no Stalja. You face like you look
Speaker 1: impressed by how fun these puns are, and I'm wow
Speaker 1: staalgia by by what you're putting together here. I love it.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much well to give you the first
Speaker 1: man product um. A popular snack that was discontinued but
Speaker 1: is now coming back is three D Dorito's Dorito's has
Speaker 1: announced that they're e dimensional snack dubbed three D Crunch
Speaker 1: has hit the stores. Um. They come in spicy ranch
Speaker 1: and chili cheese nacho and instead of the traditional flat
Speaker 1: triangles that you know we're all used to and honestly love, Um,
Speaker 1: they come in a conical shape. And these were originally
Speaker 1: available between and four but now they're they're back. What
Speaker 1: what you know? Are you? Are you a Dorrito person?
Speaker 1: Are you excited about? You know? I do love a Dorrito.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan, and I do remember the the
Speaker 1: three D der ritos. But I am going to say
Speaker 1: nostalgia to the return of the three D de Rito,
Speaker 1: because yes, I am a much uh. I I have
Speaker 1: a much fonder, warmer memory of Bugles, and I think
Speaker 1: Bugles deserve to be brought back and and celebrated properly
Speaker 1: instead of Doritos just recycling their same flavor with new stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a Bugle rip off. Let me let
Speaker 1: me ask you something like, let me see if this
Speaker 1: statement from Rachel fer Ferdinando that she's frieda Ley's North
Speaker 1: American Senior Vice president and chief marketing officer. Um, let
Speaker 1: me see, it's a statement that she says changes your
Speaker 1: mind at all. What's exciting is that we didn't just
Speaker 1: bring back the original, We've evolved it to reflect the
Speaker 1: snacking trends of a new generation. We're thrilled interest a
Speaker 1: new version at a time when we could all use
Speaker 1: a small amount of joy. What do you think they've
Speaker 1: They've evolved it and about that. It feels like she's
Speaker 1: trying to make this about like the racial uh awakening
Speaker 1: of the country, but then pretend like it's just about
Speaker 1: bringing snacks. Do you know what I mean? Where She's like,
Speaker 1: America is in a tough place right now, we just
Speaker 1: had an insurrection. All kinds of horrible things are happening.
Speaker 1: But Doritos, the Dorrito's Company, is really here to support
Speaker 1: you in and bring you a little bit of joy.
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't need to I see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure when she made this statement, but
Speaker 1: it was definitely in response to something bad happening in
Speaker 1: the world. Yes, they felt like, you know, a puppy
Speaker 1: was murdered on their campuses and she was like, well,
Speaker 1: Dorito's three d I guess we got to bring it back. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is really like it is a kind of a
Speaker 1: funny name though to be like like this is a
Speaker 1: three D dorrito, like you can touch all the sides
Speaker 1: it like it's already three DS. And I mean even
Speaker 1: that's such a good point. Yeah, we've been three D
Speaker 1: this whole time. Yeah, we're not living in flat Land,
Speaker 1: so everything is three D. Did you guys ever watch
Speaker 1: flat Land? And it's a whole um? I didn't, But
Speaker 1: I didn't either because I think I either made it
Speaker 1: up or it was like a thing you want. It
Speaker 1: sounds a little in like middle school math. It's I
Speaker 1: remember flat Stanley, but that that's about as far as
Speaker 1: uh flat uh titles that I'm familiar with. What was
Speaker 1: flat Stanley. Flat Stanley was this thing that they would
Speaker 1: make kids take a picture with as like a way
Speaker 1: of uh, you would mail him uh two different people
Speaker 1: on different like continents and countries and all that, as
Speaker 1: a way of like pin pal sort of communication. And
Speaker 1: so you would send someone flat Stanley and they would
Speaker 1: take a picture with flat Stanley Stanley, and that's how
Speaker 1: you knew that flat Stanley had like made it to
Speaker 1: the people you were communicating with across the world. That
Speaker 1: does sound very fun to me. This is probably like
Speaker 1: if there's younger people listening to this too, grew up
Speaker 1: with like TikTok and all stuff, I probably like, man,
Speaker 1: people did insane stuff and they were kids, and it
Speaker 1: must sound just so wild. Just the just the very
Speaker 1: concept of pin pals is in my mind one of
Speaker 1: the most uh embarrassing things that we could have done
Speaker 1: for generations. We were just writing random kids and being like, yo,
Speaker 1: I have enough friends, will you be one of them?
Speaker 1: But my friend from Chicago, Louis, he said when he
Speaker 1: was a kid, he was pen pals with um, he
Speaker 1: was pim pals with Soley Moon Fry. So I might
Speaker 1: have put the wrong emphasis on the wrong words, but
Speaker 1: Punky Brewster was his pen pal. I know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I should find out more information, like was it pre
Speaker 1: Like at what point that sounds like maybe that's a
Speaker 1: made up story. It's true, he's not a liar, Jonah,
Speaker 1: And you're going to say that don't count my friends.
Speaker 1: It sounds like something you would say though in like
Speaker 1: sixth grade, like when were like doing improv in Chicago.
Speaker 1: I believe Okay, Well, I mean he if he made
Speaker 1: it up and it would actually be really I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure it's true. I'm gonna get confirmation. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like you gotta do some some digging on this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to bring this back in another episode and
Speaker 1: be like, hey, quick update, y'all. Turns out he's a
Speaker 1: a sick liar and he led me on for years
Speaker 1: believing that Punky Brewster was his, which would be very sad.
Speaker 1: Vanessa thoughts, I'm kind of honestly, I'm kind of a
Speaker 1: nostalgia on it because you know, I hadn't really thought
Speaker 1: about the Bugles element Langston, but I do think, like
Speaker 1: you're right, It's like, you know, stick to what you do.
Speaker 1: You guys are you know you already have like carved
Speaker 1: out such a wonderful space for yourselves in the snack world,
Speaker 1: and like yeah, it's like who needs it? And also
Speaker 1: like you know, I don't want to burn um Rachel
Speaker 1: Fernando of Freedom A North America, but um, you know,
Speaker 1: have some self awareness, I think. And and look, if
Speaker 1: Doritos every wants me to do commercial, I'll do it,
Speaker 1: but like has the self awareness of like, you know,
Speaker 1: that's I don't know that it's going to bring that
Speaker 1: many people joy, you know, And and if it is
Speaker 1: you already. You know. I have a lot of thoughts
Speaker 1: and they're not coming together in a great way. But
Speaker 1: I'm a nostalgia for it. I agree. I think you
Speaker 1: put it together just fine. Thank you. The people that
Speaker 1: want this don't need it, Let's not give it to them.
Speaker 1: A nostalgia also, UM, I think Rachel just lost me
Speaker 1: with that statement about about the snacking revolving for snacking
Speaker 1: tons of a new generation. It feels just a bit
Speaker 1: self important. It's like you took a torrito and just
Speaker 1: copied the bugle. Yeah, this bugle thing, really, it basically
Speaker 1: makes a decision for us. Yeah. Yeah, so great. We're
Speaker 1: all all three nostalgias for that one. UM. The next one,
Speaker 1: UM is about the TLC reunion mm HM TLC, who
Speaker 1: are the best selling American female group of all time.
Speaker 1: UM just announced their celebration of Crazy Sexy Cool National
Speaker 1: Tour UM eighteen cities, featuring uh T, Bas and Chili.
Speaker 1: They're going to perform songs from Diamond certified album twenty
Speaker 1: seven years later. The nineties theme shows will feature fan interaction,
Speaker 1: nineties fashion, surprise guests, and more. Joining TLC is Bone,
Speaker 1: Thugs and Harmony, plus special guests. Oh hey, I'm a
Speaker 1: guest Dolgia for that, that's pretty cool. I agree. Were
Speaker 1: you a big TLC fan? I was deeply in love
Speaker 1: with U with each member at different points in my life.
Speaker 1: I think, I think Chili was my my original first love,
Speaker 1: and then I think uh I eventually realized left I
Speaker 1: was was beautiful in her own right, and then super
Speaker 1: sad when she died, and then of course t Baas
Speaker 1: who could not love t bas So? Yeah, I loved
Speaker 1: and their music was amazing. Yeah, I was in there
Speaker 1: were great And did you by the way, did you
Speaker 1: um did you see the v H one two thousand
Speaker 1: and thirteen like that when they did, like the movie
Speaker 1: about their lives where like people played them, I did not. Uh.
Speaker 1: I valued my time and respected them too much to
Speaker 1: revisit whatever the attempt was going to be at. I think.
Speaker 1: Wasn't Kiki Palmer one of the Yeah, no, I know,
Speaker 1: I actually yeah, okay, well I thought it was good.
Speaker 1: Jonah Jonah was I think separately and it never talked
Speaker 1: about like did you say that documentary that that weird
Speaker 1: movie about them? And she was like yeah, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw too. And when it's pretty good, right, And
Speaker 1: Jonah was like no, and so we were gonna have
Speaker 1: you kind of um be the like deciding but but
Speaker 1: respect that I was back that I can't say I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be that person that says it's bad
Speaker 1: because I chose not to see it. Somate once again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got some good news because the same announcement they
Speaker 1: said to to our documentary special biography TLC is going
Speaker 1: to come out on any So that'll be like a legit, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they have such an interesting story to write, where
Speaker 1: like they were selling so many records and everything, and
Speaker 1: they were they were like making no money, right, Like
Speaker 1: I feel like every artist before like two thousand pretty
Speaker 1: much got scammed out of most of their wealth. Like
Speaker 1: I was watching this thing about Cisco the other day,
Speaker 1: and uh, the Thong song obviously his biggest hit, his
Speaker 1: most classic sort of like song. And as it turns out,
Speaker 1: he makes almost no money on the Thong song because
Speaker 1: of that living Levita local line that like he go
Speaker 1: because he threw that in there, and in the studio
Speaker 1: session they go a, man, I don't think we could
Speaker 1: clear that, and he goes, nah, it's cool. I know.
Speaker 1: Ricky Martin's people, I'll take care of it, and then
Speaker 1: never does. And they released the song, and Ricky Martin's
Speaker 1: people hear it, and they sued the ship out of them,
Speaker 1: and then they settle and basically have to give like
Speaker 1: crazy points on every play just to be able to satiate,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole He sort of created Cisco follow
Speaker 1: up on your Yeah, that happened. That also happened with
Speaker 1: that um that verb song Bittersweet Symphony. It's like that
Speaker 1: main song is so sample from the Rolling Stones, and
Speaker 1: I think like they ended up getting like Rolling Stones
Speaker 1: got like all the publishing from the song because of
Speaker 1: some kind of deal. I mean, yeah, that was like
Speaker 1: the era where that kind of stuff would happen. It's
Speaker 1: so crazy. And any thoughts on bone Tones that harmony
Speaker 1: big fan. We're from Cleveland and John, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you remember the US. People would see we had
Speaker 1: a mall in our suburb called Beechwood Place, and and
Speaker 1: people would see once in a while they would see
Speaker 1: bone Thugs at beech With Place and they would be
Speaker 1: like they would come into school and they would be
Speaker 1: like I was at beach With Place and bone Thugs.
Speaker 1: But it's like it was like a very suburban mall.
Speaker 1: So it just feels so funny like that that people
Speaker 1: would see them there, and but it was like those
Speaker 1: were the only like those were like the celebrities that would, like,
Speaker 1: you know, they sometimes go There's like you could sometimes
Speaker 1: see them at Beecher Place, and that was just like
Speaker 1: kept everybody. I can tell it was suburban because you're like,
Speaker 1: we saw bone thugs, and it's not naming which bone thugs.
Speaker 1: It's not like we saw all of bone thugs together
Speaker 1: they shop at the mall at once. Yes, I can
Speaker 1: think of like three times someone said to me we
Speaker 1: saw bone thugs. Nobody ever called anyone if my name
Speaker 1: really was like, I don't remember of that. I don't
Speaker 1: remember that. I'm sure, I'm sure how I remember a
Speaker 1: bunch of times people like coming back from Beechwood Place
Speaker 1: and being so excited about it. Laston, did you have
Speaker 1: any celebrity settings at any like Chicago area malls growing up? Oh,
Speaker 1: at the mall, m hmmm, I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: think I was a little too suburban, but not in
Speaker 1: a in a way that celebrities would come to our mall.
Speaker 1: It was more like suburban sad suburban if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Like the North Riverside Mall was more a place where
Speaker 1: you could uh buy some Pelly Pelly jeans and then
Speaker 1: get shot at, depending on the time of day you went.
Speaker 1: Um So I yeah, No, I didn't see anybody there.
Speaker 1: I did, I would say. The biggest celebrity interaction I
Speaker 1: had as a kid was going to Chicago State University
Speaker 1: like one time, and I was like fifteen, and Kanye's
Speaker 1: mom was the was a professor there, and so she
Speaker 1: had him basically give like a talk to kids, high
Speaker 1: school kids who were visiting. And so they were like
Speaker 1: three hundred of us sitting and this is before College
Speaker 1: Dropout even came out, and just listen to Kanye make
Speaker 1: beats on the table and like he was doing like
Speaker 1: Spaceships and like all kinds of songs that ended up
Speaker 1: on College Dropout on the table and being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a hit right here, and check out
Speaker 1: this new thing I'm working on, and he'd like seeing
Speaker 1: a new thing, and we were like, this, dude's crazy,
Speaker 1: It's so cool. So yeah, I knew, well, I knew
Speaker 1: I saw Kanye before he uh, before he turned into
Speaker 1: a different Kanye. Wow. That is really amazing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was fun that. It's pretty cool. I got to
Speaker 1: see him like two or three times before college dropout
Speaker 1: even existed, and that was like, uh, a wild transition
Speaker 1: to watch, you know what I mean. Yeah, so okay,
Speaker 1: so this is a yes Dolgia for you. This tells
Speaker 1: absolutely I agree. I'm also yes s Dolgia for them.
Speaker 1: I was very obsessed with them and um. At camp,
Speaker 1: we did a lip singing contest to waterfalls and I
Speaker 1: memorized the wrap I does. And it's only like recently
Speaker 1: that I'm like, oh, I don't have to tell everybody that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't have to do it for people
Speaker 1: at carry, Like I don't have to like be so
Speaker 1: proud of that. It's sort of like it's actually making
Speaker 1: me less. Like I will say, that wasn't a weird
Speaker 1: way for you to introduce yourself to me. But I
Speaker 1: enjoyed it, just not exactly what I was expecting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've done some other stuff in US, you don't have
Speaker 1: to lead with that. Still, it's a really it is
Speaker 1: a it takes a lot of skill to do that.
Speaker 1: It's a very Hey I'm Vanessa, and uh I saw
Speaker 1: a rainbow yesterday. Yeah, sorry that I brought that up first.
Speaker 1: So great, So we got three just for that. Okay,
Speaker 1: three dollars just for that. Okay. Now, finally Verizon has
Speaker 1: brought back, um, the Motorola razor flip phone. Okay, and
Speaker 1: the new version has a full touchscreen and all the
Speaker 1: capabilities of a smartphone. But it folds in half like
Speaker 1: the classic razor phone, but rather than a phone that
Speaker 1: becomes the size of a tablet when you flip it open,
Speaker 1: it just when you flip it open, it becomes the
Speaker 1: size of a normal smartphone, and then it folds up
Speaker 1: so that it could like gets really small, like it
Speaker 1: could fit in your pocket. Mm hmm. It's a nostalgia
Speaker 1: for me. I I had to hear it all the
Speaker 1: way through, but I think I knew I was gonna
Speaker 1: say no right from the begin Yeah. I could tell
Speaker 1: you kind of wanted just say no to it, and
Speaker 1: I kind of kept giving you details. I heard Motorola,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm good. Uh, I survived those years.
Speaker 1: I don't need to go back to whatever that experience
Speaker 1: was of weird colored Motorola razors. Yeah, I I agree. Oh,
Speaker 1: and this we didn't mention, Um, it's the phone cost whoa, yeah, whoa.
Speaker 1: I guess it's like, imagine if you could fold your
Speaker 1: computer in half. I think I want to take this
Speaker 1: back already, but just thinking that's what laptops do, you know?
Speaker 1: But I mean you could know, you're absolutely but I
Speaker 1: think like these ones, you fold the screen in half.
Speaker 1: But am I wrong? Yeah? I think it's like it's
Speaker 1: like your your iPhone could just fold in half and
Speaker 1: be like half, but then it's like, so it's stubby,
Speaker 1: so thicker would Yeah, no, I'm good that that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound good if they want to bring back a phone
Speaker 1: that I think would have a big impacting The Sidekick.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed the Sidekick. I thought that that it
Speaker 1: was innovative at the time and deserves another shot, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Yeah, Sidekick was I felt like
Speaker 1: it was really like when texting kind of first came out.
Speaker 1: If you're a sidekick, it was like you could really
Speaker 1: really get into it. I need to do the toal
Speaker 1: nine you know? Yeah? Did you? I didn't, and I
Speaker 1: was terribly jealous of everybody who did. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: the one. It was the sidekicking. There was the one
Speaker 1: that you that you chirp where you could like chirt
Speaker 1: people with it, and I don't remember what it was called,
Speaker 1: but it was. Yeah, it just was there was like
Speaker 1: the next the next. I wanted a sidekick in the
Speaker 1: next sale, and I got neither, and for some reason
Speaker 1: that worked out for me, you know, I guess, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, I always wanted the Nokia like that
Speaker 1: when they first came out, the Nokia phones that came
Speaker 1: in different colors, like you could get like it in
Speaker 1: like pastel, pink or blue. And I remember some some
Speaker 1: like Girls Magazine reading it and being like all this
Speaker 1: slebs have like pastel colored. Oh like the little nochia
Speaker 1: brick like those little yeah yeah, like they had literally
Speaker 1: no like you couldn't do anything on them except make
Speaker 1: phone calls. But that's not true. You could play Snake
Speaker 1: and that was a real fun game before we realized
Speaker 1: that other games existed. Oh okay, okay, alright, well maybe
Speaker 1: I should have gotten one. I feel like this would
Speaker 1: be cool if we didn't already just have like iPhones
Speaker 1: and regular smartphones, Like this would be cool if it
Speaker 1: was like taking us from the flip phone to this.
Speaker 1: But I feel like it's kind of like a step
Speaker 1: backwards a little bit. Yeah, it's it's you're reintroducing Jenko
Speaker 1: Janes and like, I get it. There's like a nostalgic
Speaker 1: sort of uh want here for some people. But this
Speaker 1: isn't a great investment for most people. So but I
Speaker 1: guess they price it's so high that it's just just
Speaker 1: for people who are really rich to think it's like nostalgic.
Speaker 1: I don't know who the audience is. Yeah, is it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I can't imagine paying fifteen hundred dollars for any phone personally. No,
Speaker 1: that's you gotta be you gotta like own a museum
Speaker 1: and yeah, you know what I mean. Put that next
Speaker 1: to a Picasso, I guess, and just these are both
Speaker 1: art that nobody else could afford. Yeah, when me and
Speaker 1: my wife are out at the grocery store or something,
Speaker 1: it's like, produce is really expensive. I'll be like, and
Speaker 1: I made this joke's Vanessa yesterday too about something. I'd
Speaker 1: be like, does this thing come with WiFi? Um, that's
Speaker 1: like kind of my go to joke, and this phone,
Speaker 1: I guess actually does come with WiFi. WHOA, So the
Speaker 1: joke doesn't totally work, but just my way of saying like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta give me more. Yeah. When it when it
Speaker 1: comes to like technology stuff, it feels like the joke
Speaker 1: is it doesn't work as well with technology when everything
Speaker 1: has why I find out. Okay, so that's a nostalgia
Speaker 1: for you, Lankston. Jonah, it sounds like it's a nostalgia
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, it's I don't want it. It's too
Speaker 1: much money. I don't Yeah, it's it's a nostalgia just
Speaker 1: why Yeah. Um, I would say it's a nostalgia from
Speaker 1: me to um, although I'm curious if the price point
Speaker 1: comes down a little bit. You know, I'm a consumer.
Speaker 1: I love products so so, but for the moment, it's
Speaker 1: a nostalgia for me as well. So I think we
Speaker 1: got to nostalgia's and a gues stalgia. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think we're all agreed on all of them, which is
Speaker 1: pretty impressive on the same page, on the same page. Totally.
Speaker 1: We we synced up and we we made it happen
Speaker 1: together and I like that. Yes, same well, Lenkston, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being here with us today. It
Speaker 1: was such a delight talking to you and what a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Is there a place where people can find you other
Speaker 1: than your wonderful podcast. My mama told me, yeah you can.
Speaker 1: You can find me at Lengthston Kerman on all platforms.
Speaker 1: It's just Instagram, Twitter that that it's at Lengths Thon
Speaker 1: Kerman and yeah, you'll find me. I'll be there. That
Speaker 1: was really fun, Vanessa, Thanks so much to Lengths and
Speaker 1: for joining us and every and for listening. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed that, please subscribe to the podcast and keep an
Speaker 1: eye out for next week's episode of How Did We
Speaker 1: Get Weird, where we will discuss more stories from our
Speaker 1: child Nice to Dumping Left, where we would discuss more
Speaker 1: stories from our childhood and cultural touchstones like and one
Speaker 1: mixtapes