13. THE BIG DREAMS BIG-ASS MAILBAG

This episode is made up of the inaugural Big Dreams Mailbag, some #hoopstalk about the NBA post draft, and the return of our Hold Ya Head and Shoutout to the Homies segments. Special thanks to the friends of the program for submitting hella questions and topics, the mailbag went crazyyyy. Enjoy!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:49

It might be your first time listening, so I don't know if you knew that. So I just wanted to say that up front. Well that being said, very excited for today's episode. Your boy is riding solo dolo. Cam in the studio with me, working on some stock shit. But yeah, we ride solo dolo today. Yeah, I'm excited because this is our first inaugural first inaugural, the same thing. This is our inaugural mailbag episode. I put a prompt on Instagram like, you know, what should I talk about? And got an overwhelming amount of responses. So we're gonna get into the mailbag. Very excited about that. Just some housekeeping, some some quick notes. Shout out to all the dads out there. Father's Day was this past Sunday. And I was really taken aback. I was talking to my cousin about this. Shout out to my co shout out DJ. I was talking to him about it. Like back in the day for Father's Day, you only I only really had to call a a couple guys, like my dad, some of my uncles, my grandfather. But now it was like seeing my friends get of the age where they got sons and daughters, being older, just coming across and meeting so many dope people who got sons and daughters. It really was like a marathon trying to wish all y'all a happy father's day. But that's a blessing. That's a blessing. I'd rather have it be that than the alternative. So really just want to send love to all the fathers out there. We really are switching up the trajectory of the stereotypes that black men aren't in the homes, that black men aren't in their kids, aren't in their kids' lives, that they aren't good fathers, so on and so forth. So salute to all the dads out there. Keep going strong. We see you. Your family love you, they appreciate you, and BD see you for sure. Also, I want to give a shout out to Cash. Cash was the guest on last week's episode. You can check her out at I forgot what what the convention that she's gonna be at July 11th, but it's a convention. Euphoriacon. I think that's what it's called. Euphoriacon. So you can check her and Girls from Venus out. Euphoriacon July 11th in DC. The largest streetwear market in the DMV is what they market it as. So real dope. Real dope event. Shout out to her, real good conversation. Yeah, your boy, your boy is your boy is really, I'm recovering. I've been doing a lot of a lot of traveling. I've been having a lot of outside time. I know technically summer just started. The first day of summer was technically on Sunday on Father's Day, but for me, in the way I give it up, the first day of summer is Memorial Day weekend. Whatever the first, you know, whatever that Friday sadly is of Memorial Day weekend. And it just keeps going. So it's been summer for me. I've seen Philly, I've seen DC, I've seen New York. I've been in Baltimore, of course, and the vibes are immaculate. I just say that now. The vibes are immaculate. So this is me telling you right now, like, enjoy the summer. I think this summer is gonna be a special one. It's gonna be a good one. Um a lot of folks, my age, they talk about summer 2016 as this landmark, watershed summer. And I firmly and strongly believe that this summer, summer 2026, we reversing all the bad will that we have from COVID, reversing all the ill will that we have from elections not going our way, and civil unrest, and George Floyd riots, all that, all that bullshit. I think that this summer is really gonna be a positive one and gonna be one for the books we got. World Cup stuff popping off. I wasn't in town, but Afram looked like a great time. It was good to see Charlie Wilson, Drew Hill, Paula Campbell, shit, everybody that was up there. It was good to see the legends on stage, bracing the stage. I heard they bring a Fat Tuesday down at Fellows Point. Now, I don't know if that's necessarily a summer thing, but I had a lot of good times at Fat Tuesdays as a as a youth, whether it be in Miami, whether it be in Philly, whether it be I think they had that motherfucker somewhere else. I don't remember. But I say all that to say, go get you some this summer. Go have a good time, go have a ball, go make some memories, take that trip, shoot that shot, whatever it is. Just make sure this summer is one for the books. Before we get into the ground rules, I also want to say R.R.P. to Take Keith, the legendary Memphis producer, was found dead last week, I want to say, at age 29. So RP to him. Just uh iconic tag, Take Keith, fuck these niggas up. Some great songs. Sicklemode immediately comes to mind. Family Matters. It's so many, bro. So wanna send condolences to Take Keith. It sucks to he's gone so soon, but at the same time, it's also a blessing and a testament to how great he was that he left such a legacy to go at twenty-nine and have a discography that's full of hints and it'd be so crucial to so many people from Drake, the sexy red, to uh yeah, man. It's it sucks, but it's uh it's a bittersweet for sure. So thanks to Take Keith. Thanks for everything you did. Let's move into these ground rules. I'm sighing because if you are consistent listening to the episode, you know that the running joke is that I say every week I'm gonna record these cause I hate doing them. And this is episode 13, so that's 12 weeks of me not recording them. So yeah, they're they're the bane of my existence. I'm not gonna lie. It's not it's not a lot of fun for me to read through this list. So let's get into it. Let me clean my throat, let me get my water, let me let me get ready for it. Alright, so these are the ground rules. These are how we get down here on the big dream show. If you've been here before, you can fast forward about 30 to 45 seconds unless you just like hearing me suffer. If you are new here, sit down, relax, get comfy, maybe, maybe get a bet. I don't know, I don't know what you're into. And these are about to govern our conversation for the next however long I'm in here recording this mailback. Ground rule number one. These thoughts are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of any family, friends, partners, affiliates, or associates. Don't tell nobody what you heard BD say, cause BD the one who said it. Rule number two, we use vulgar language. I'm a cusser, I come from a long line of cussers, so you might get a fuck, you might get a shit, you might get a ass, you might get a dan, you might get a bastard, you might get a motherfucker. You feel me? You never know. But well, you know, once it once I start going, it's hard to really it's hard to really police it, you know what I'm saying? Rule number three, follow me. So it's a solo episode, so I I may bounce from topic to topic a little more flagrantly than I would if I had a guest and they could keep me on track. So all I ask is that you follow, you listen, you pay attention, you listen intently. We in an era and we in a time where you can be distracted, you can play the game, you can drive, you could talk on the phone, text, you do whatever the fuck. You do a whole bunch of shit while you listen to this podcast. All I ask is that you listen critically, you listen intently, don't just half-ass listen, because you're gonna miss something. Cause once it gets going, it you'll see. If you've never been here before, you'll see. Once I get going, it yeah, it can go, it goes all over the place. Number four, on that same token, tell me if I'm tripping. I'm human just like y'all, I'm a man just like y'all. I don't know everything about everything. It's a lot of shit I don't know, to be honest with you. I think that was Socrates. Socrates said the shit is what I know, what I do know is that I know nothing. And he was like, oh, you the wise motherfucker who ever lived. Might have been Socrates. Might have been played up, but I think it was Socrates. All that to say, if I make a mistake, if I step out of pocket, if I say something that you don't agree with, say something that might be offensive, just whatever it may be, feel free to pull my card and feel free to get in contact with me. My Instagram is at Big DreamsJordan, so you can hit me up on there. It's the same old X. Don't email me. I ain't gonna lie. Don't email me. You nah. But all that being said, tell me if I'm tripping. Number five, help this thing grow. If you like what we're doing here, you like the big dreams show, you like me as a person, you think I'm swell, you think I'm rad, then shit. Tell a friend, tell a friend to tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your aunt, tell your sister, tell your brother, tell your uncle, tell your cousin, tell your niece, tell your nephew, tell somebody about this motherfucker. Like, rate, subscribe, review, leave a voicemail, leave a mailbag question, just just interact, interact and share. Share and interact, share and engage. The more that y'all interact with it, and the more I know, like, okay, these are what people like, this is what people don't like, this is who's sharing it, this is where they're sharing it at, that's where they're listening from, the more I'll be able to kind of tailor things in the future. So for example, if I'm doing a live show, or I plan on doing a live show, and I see all my listeners are in, I don't know, let's just say all my listeners are downtown. Well, then I'll tailor the live show to take place downtown because that's where the listenership is at. So all the things that you do, the likes, the rates, the shares, the reviews, the feedback, the praise, all of it goes into making the overall product better. Not just the show, but the overall universe that the show exists with now. So help it, help it out. And last but not least, do your motherfucking research. Don't let me be the end-all, don't let me be the be all end-all for any conversation topic, for any subject, anything I talk about on here. If it's something that interests you, do more research. Is it something you have never heard of, do more research? We gotta get in the habit of checking, double checking, triple checking, having sources on sources on sources. Because while I am informed, I'm not an expert. I'm not a professional. I'm a professional podcaster, but I'm not a I'm not a professional on whatever subjects I'm talking about. So do your research. Don't let me be the extent of the shit that you hear about. And let's have a great show. So the motherfucking mailbag, baby, I'm excited. I'm excited. Bill Simmons, um, I don't know if y'all know Bill Simmons, but if you do, he he does mailbag episodes every once in a while. And he's one of the people that as I think about how I want my media footprint to look like from doing a weekly podcast, well, a couple times a week podcast, having spin-offs to put people on, having his pops on the show. I mentioned that in the in the episode where I brought my pops on, that seeing Bill Simmons do it, and then me being able to do it, definitely was crazy. So he knew a mailbag. It's cool for me to have my own mailbag. Thank y'all to everyone that sent the submission in. Definitely gonna have to do this more often because I didn't know what the fuck I was about to talk about today. So let's get into this goddamn mailbag. Up first, we got my brother Ray, also known as No Play Ray. He is the CEO and founder of Everesco. I hope I'm saying that right. I'm probably saying it wrong. It's spelled A-V-E-R-E-S-C-O. He also was the brains behind the E-Greedy brand back in the day. I think Ray had another brand too. Ray, if you're listening to this, send me a DM. Because if you had a third brand, I don't want to shortchange it, but real creative powerhouse, just a guy that always is finding a way to put some dope shit out. Shout out to my brother. He said, How do you feel? Or what are your thoughts on streetwear in today's age? So when I thought about this, one thing that came to mind was streetwear used to be like the shit. You feel me? In a different kind of way. And what I mean by that is a lot of the people that we looked up to and idolized, whether it be the at least in our community, only speaking for black people right now. It was the rappers, it was the ball players, it was the street dudes, so on and so forth. And these dudes were more so wearing streetwear shit mixed in with some luxury here and there. Like of course you got your polo, which can kind of exist in both worlds, but you had all these streetwear brands, and on top of that, you had these rapper-owned brands or athlete-backed brands, so uh a Jordan brand, or WooWare, Foo. You got you got brands that are by black people for black people. And that was what you saw people wearing at award shows. That's what you saw people wearing in magazine spreads. Now, it seems like a lot of these people that we look towards as our kind of flag bearers of what's cool in the culture. It seems like a lot of them switched from wearing these more so traditional streetwear brands or these more so brands that you would find folks wearing. They switching out like the design of shit. And again, it's not to say that it wasn't always cats wearing Gucci and always wearing Louis Vuitton, but now it seems that the switch has been made to wear these luxury brands dipped their toe into the street into the streetwear look and took the gravity that was once occupied by those folks. So where you would have a Tupac back in the day wearing Carl Kanai shit, or LL Cool J wearing Fu. Now you got rappers that are they Gucci, they proud of, they are merry, they wearing all this all this big time shit. Like Biggie was wearing Koozy. You feel me? Koozy also is one of them brands that kind of is a luxury brand, but also was on some streetwear shit because all the street niggas was wearing it. Bape another one. So it's interesting to me from that perspective that like the streets ain't really dictating streetwear no more in the same kind of way, because everybody wanna wear these these designs, you want to have these European names on your chest, and I ain't hating, I ain't knocking. Like, I was just outside with some product shit with someone, so I'm definitely not knocking. But that is a big disconnect, at least to me. Also, it seems like around, I want to say around like whenever Two Chains came out with that album, where the two chains whenever Two Chains came out with the album with the two chains on it, I forgot what it was called. True story, I think. But I remember going in DTLR and stores of that ilk around the time and seeing like knockoffs of these high-fashion brands, like they were that was the shit that people was wearing and buying these, and we had the Mar Maine era where you had the the Ball Main biker jeans that was from Paxson. I was guilty of that. I love the Mar Mains, I ain't gonna lie, they got me through a lot. But you had that, you had, yeah, it's just countless examples of where it stopped being about how creative can I make the street shit and switch to how can I make the street shit be knockoff or the high fashion shit. Even with even with the feles, when the feliz came out and they was looking like the pride's. And while they had the line, my pride say pride and your pride say feliz. Like shit like that, you feel me? It just changed the game in a different kind of way. We also got this rhinestone epidemic that is sweeping the nation. All the young men out there wearing rhinestones from top to bottom. I didn't know it was an epidemic. I I've been pro-rhinestone, but used sparingly. Like even back in the day, seventh grade, eighth grade, I had the rhinestone Ed Hardy hat and the rhinestone, the Ed Hardy with the rhinestones on it. But that was when it was more of a rarity when you can get away with some rhinestones, because it's I might be the only nigga that wore rhinestones that you've seen in a two to three-week period. So now just going out, stepping out, seeing all these niggas wearing rhinestones on their jeans, rhinestones on their shirts, so on and so forth. It speaks also to what I was speaking about before. A lack of originality where everybody's trying to copy the next man. And me and Cash actually last week had a real good conversation about this when she was speaking about her inspirations behind Girls from Venus and always wanting it to be something that she didn't see nobody else doing, or something that she didn't see nobody else making it. So that's a big one, too. Lack of originality, luxury influence, superseding street influence. At least for me, man. A brand like yours, Ray, a lot of friends of mine who have dabbled in streetwear. It might not even be called streetwear, they might just be making fashion, it might just make clothes, but brands like Hey, brands like Motivated, Always Working, Infamous. Man, it's a whole list, it's a whole list, but I always have been of the mindset that I'd rather rock out with the smaller creator, quote unquote smaller creator, because it's all relative, but I'm just talking about in terms of market share, in terms of you don't got multiple stores in multiple places, that type of shit. Like you might got an online store or you might be vending, so on and so forth. But I've always been, not always, as an adult, I would say, I've been more inclined to rock out with the brands that where I can meet the owner, shake his hand, or the brands that are smaller on Instagram with maybe 500 followers, because at least in my opinion, in my personal style, it's always more important for me to look original and to look like I came up with shit myself instead of trying to copy a trend or trying to look like the next man. So yeah, yeah. My advice in general for anybody trying to be fly, anybody that's like what the street what the street wear do next, lean into the smaller creators, lean into the smaller brands, lean into the boutique brands, and mix it up with the with the high fashion. I also like retro shit too, stylistically. If you go on my gram, you'll see a couple pictures in my last photo. I was wearing some old Tommy Hill figure shit. One of them was something that Snoop Dogg wore in like 1993 on Saturday Night Live. It was a a long sleeve polo. Not one is just a red, white, and blue polo that I wear consistently. But them classic pieces still gonna hit that old Tommy, that old Ralph Lawrence, some guests, these these brands that were hallmarks, they weren't necessarily of our culture, but were hallmarks of our culture. A lot of the things that they made and things that they designed, when you look at them now, they hold up very well. That's why people are always borrowing from the 90s. That's why people are always looking at a motherfucker like Method Man as one of the flyest people ever, because as the game evolves, there's just some things that are gonna be able to just stand and test the time. So yeah, man. Good question, Ray. Good topic. Love that, love that. And also, like I said, if y'all didn't listen to it yet, listen to my episode last week with Cash, the founder, creator, creative genius behind Girls from Venus. Because she has really good thoughts on fashion. And she's someone who I feel does a good job of working the line between I'm gonna wear some high fashion, some high designer shit, but also I'm gonna wear some streetwear shit, and I'm gonna be involved in what Joe Fresca has got going on, what Cortez got going on, so on and so forth. Alright, next up, we got a question from my guy Trey. My brother Tremone of the Baltimore Banner. Also of the hold on, Trey, I gotta make sure I get your podcast name right because I want to give you a shout out. You you talked you talking in the mailbag, so I want to make sure, I want to make sure I shout out your podcast properly. But nah, Trey is a good dude, Baltimore Banner, Baltimore Association, a black journalist, Homeboy Hotline. That's the name of the podcast, the creator and the host of the Homeboy Hotline. So, Trey asked about the state of black youth in Baltimore, making space for them and not demonizing them. First things first, I tell y'all motherfuckers. Number one, turn off Fox News throw out the Baltimore Sun, unless it's Big Kyle. Shout out to my brother Kyle Andrews. He had an article in the Baltimore Sun. He's a former writer for The Sun before they got owned by uh Sinclair Media Group. But shout out to shout out to Kyle. We'll read his article and we'll read the article that they wrote about me and the gang back in the day about the demo tape. But these media platforms that don't have the best interest of black people that are owned by Sinclair and these properties that are at this group, y'all, we can't take that in. We can't take that in in the same kind of way. So that's number one. The narrative itself gotta be corrected. Number two, it's not enough place for black people to go. I mean black kids to go, excuse me. It's not enough place for them to go. If we are adults, if we listen to this, I look at the numbers, so I know most of my listenership is between 25 and 34. So if we're adults and we complain about how much shit cost. Think back to when you was a kid and you had to ask your mother for a ride somewhere, or you had to take the bus somewhere, or you had to go somewhere, and how much of a hassle that was to even put the play in motion, get the transportation, get the money together, get the fit together, go out somewhere and have a good time and make a home safe. That's a whole ordeal, especially for a young person. So the kids need places, they need places, the youth need places, they need places to go, they need places to go that don't cost money. Even in the goddamn convenience store, they'll tell you you can't have more than two juveniles in here at a time. So when you have this atmosphere, right? When you got all these kids with all this energy and all this access to all this shit, and they don't got nowhere to go and the places that they can go, they priced out. And again, we're adults, so we know that the job market is not in a good place right now. So it ain't no fucking summer jobs for the kids. So they can't work, they don't got nowhere to go, the movies are not affordable, a lot of the rec centers and shit closed. Yeah, man, we just we gotta create an opportunity for them. We gotta create an opportunity for them. That's that's number one. Change the perspective, change the media that we take in, the narrative around them. Because I don't know if y'all know, some of y'all know, some of y'all don't, but for the better part of half a decade, five to six years, I was in schools working with kids, doing youth groups at Douglas, at Patterson. Online, virtually, in person. Like I was in schools. Also, I was at Cherry Hill Elementary Middle. With is it just elementary middle? I think it's elementary middle. But regardless, I was at Cherry Hill Elementary School, the historic Cherry Hill Elementary School, whether it's a middle school or not. I was there doing groups with kids about podcasts and about media literacy and all these things. And they were engaged and they listened and they enjoyed it. So it's about finding ways to meet these kids where they are. It can't just be all sports. While sports are a great thing, I'm never gonna say kids shouldn't play sports. They teach you valuable things. It can't just be sports. We gotta be creative in the ways that we're accessing these kids. Because we've spoken time and time again. I spoke about it on the first episode of the show. The world that we were built for is not the world that we are in. So unless we drastically change our approach to all this shit, these kids, these youth are not gonna be able to adjust in a way that they need to. So it gotta be relevant. It gotta be relevant to meeting them where they are. And they're smart. You know what I mean? They're smart, they're consciously aware that they're making bad decisions. I had a job in 2019, 2020. I had a Americor job. One young woman on my caseload, well, young woman, young lady, young girl, I don't know what the fuck to call it. One middle school girl on my caseload, right? She always got in trouble. But she got in trouble because it wasn't really shit for her to do. But the problem was the gift and the curse of the youth in this generation is they don't really give a fuck about consequences in the same way that we did, just because of the difference of family structure, the difference of societal structure. They don't really fear shit in the same kind of way. So I remember sitting in this girl's living room and she was about to leave out. And I was like, yo, if you leave out, you're going to be in trouble with your mother. Like your mother is mad. And her mom was awesome, like, I'm trying to do everything the right way. I'm trying not to raise this girl how I was raised, because my mother would have been went upside my head. My mother would have been slapped the shit out of me. I don't want to slap the shit out of her. I'm trying hard. I'm trying hard, Mr. Jordan. I'm trying. So I'm talking to her. I'm rationing with her, like, you know that's not the right thing to do. You know you need to be in the house, or you know you need to do what you're supposed to be doing. And she fully emotionally aware, fully mentally aware, was like, yeah, I know, but I don't care. I just deal with it when I deal with it. So unless we adjust to meet them and that that spirit and use that spirit in a way that's gonna push us forward and get them in the positions where they need to be at, where they can make jobs and make money and make a way in this uncertain world and uncertain economy, we're gonna be fucked. Because when they don't got nowhere to go and they don't got nothing to do, and they got all this pent-up teenage angst and teenage energy and shit, it's gonna end up destructive. There's no way it doesn't. You can be the best kid in the world. If you don't got shit to do and you bored, you're gonna do dumb shit. So yeah, we gotta work together. Well, shout out to the rich program, shout out to Pride Youth Services, shout out to the Choice Program, shout out to uh it's a million of y'all. It's a million people doing good shit. Little Lass, my man Big Fred. Shout out to everybody doing work with these youth in the city, the youth in Baltimore City and City adjacent, because yeah, they need something, and when they put their mind to it, they really are capable of doing great shit. So yeah, thanks, Trey. Alright. Next up, we got my brother, the former the artist formerly known as Cruddy Dre. Dre asked, he just wrote Geo Politics. So, and also funny enough, shout out to DJ, my little my little brother DJ. He wrote his mailbag prompt was get Dre on there so you can talk about Maryland politics. So, Dre, the people want you. Shout out to DJ. I'm listening every week. DJ, you we gotta get you on here too, bro. Lady boy. And I take a swig of the water because the mailbag is is beating me, the mailbag fighting back. So geopolitics. My thoughts are we gotta look at it, and it's it's cliche, of course. We gotta look at it on multiple levels. We gotta look at it on a national level, we gotta look at it on a global level, we gotta look at it on a statewide level, a regional level, and a community level. When it comes to politics, if you don't know where to get started, get started with the smallest possible unit of change, picking up trash in your neighborhood, identifying problems in your neighborhood, and taking the actions that need to fix them. Maybe neighborhood, it might be community, whatever communities you belong to. Don't let community just be a physical kind of thing, but let community be the groups that you belong to, the groups that you subscribe to, the people that you cool with, what problems are y'all facing, and how can y'all fix it? Um also need more education around it. Dre, I'm proud of you because you went on you went on TikTok and basically did a voting guide for the for the Maryland election. So shit like that making it accessible. There's also a there's also a level of black literacy that we gotta have when it comes to political education. The tricky thing about being an African American in America is the dual consciousness. I think that's a Du Bois term. If it's not Du Bois, forgive me. That's why I said you gotta do your research. But understanding the double consciousness, understanding that we gotta both know what it means to be black and uh what things are facing our people and facing our communities and what our cultural test stones are and cultural landmarks. But we also gotta understand history, aka white history, as well as they kick it too. So you gotta understand Declaration of Independence, as well as you gotta understand that black people built a lot of the nation, as well as you gotta understand that the motherfucker George Washington has slaves and had slave teeth in his mouth and was trying to hunt down slaves that went away for freedom. So I understand the history, I understand of the communities that you live in and what they need, and then a broader understanding of the fact that we don't exist in a vacuum. America, or I even hate saying America, the United States of America, because all the shit is America, North America, South America, and so on and so forth. But understand that all the shit exists in community with each other. It's not just that what happens in the United States is only in the United States, but literally what happens in the United States affects Europe, affects Asia, affects India, affects Africa. So once you have a good baseline and a good understanding of that, you're able to understand why Trump doing that dumbass shit in Iran is impacting gas prices here. You dig what I'm saying? So yeah. Another piece of advice I would have to my previous point from Trey's question about not engaging in media that perpetuates negative images of black youth. You gotta engage in media that gives you an honest spin on international politics and international things that are going on. So really being a worldly citizen, I'm in business school, as a lot of y'all know, some of y'all may not, but the reason I bring that up is because oftentimes one of the best sources in this day and age to get your information from is from business, business sites. Because they're gonna give you the facts, they're gonna give you the numbers, they're gonna give you did people make money or did people lose money? And when you realize that a lot of the decision making on every scale that we talked about, from the hyperlocal of your block to the national, when you realize a lot of it, if not all of it, is driven by money more than anything else, then you understand while reading these business reports and learning these things about this company did this, Elon Musk made a trillion dollars doing that, so on and so forth, you understand how they how they intersect with each other. So, Dre, gotta get you on the show, my brother DJ. You know you good anytime, my boy. And yeah, let's move on to the next one. From my boy TJ, the good brother, good brother. TJ, yo, real quick, real quick, let's take it back. So, y'all know I did the episode with Jeffrey a few weeks ago about money. So TJ, my my MSJ brother, my UMD brother, and congratulations on you on your wedding. I think it's a wedding. It might be engagement, but I think it's a wedding. But he was actually the one that set me up back in the day with the IRA that I was in for a while and made a lot of money. So he put me on game about Roth IRAs and all that type of shit. So shout out to TJ. Good brother, good dude. TJ says, What do you think about shows getting eight episodes and why modern media has struggled? So back to the last uh the last point, money. Money. A lot of shit, a lot of shows, if they don't bang out in their initial season, in their initial run, the hope is that they can get enough episodes to then go to streaming and then get a second life on streaming. Money. While modern media has struggled, I think a lot of it comes down to the depth of monoculture and the the fracturing of that just over time. What I mean by monoculture culture is so back in the day, 80s, 90s, 2000s, even some 2010s, there weren't as many channels to get things. Like literally, there weren't as many channels because cable wasn't what it was, but there wasn't internet, there wasn't social media, there wasn't all these things. It was what came on the couple TV channels that you had, or the radio stations that you listened to, kind of dictated what you thought about pop culture and what you thought about shows. So uh a show like Seinfeld could do big ass numbers on their finale, a show like Friends could do big ass numbers on their finale. Even as even as recently as Game of Thrones in that finale, you can see a finale like that do big ass numbers because everybody was tapped into it and it felt like everyone was having a conversation. But now we're in this era where algorithms got shit so personalized and streaming has shit so segmented that my experience and the shows I watch can be 100% different from yours, but it's being shown to me in a way such that it seems like everybody's talking about this thing. Everybody's watching what I'm watching, everybody's tweeting about what I'm tweeting about, everybody's into what I'm into, and that creates this false sense of community where you really are more so individualized unless you're actively in these groups having conversations about the shows and shit. So yeah, man. A lot of it is money, a lot of it is large studios and large production companies don't want to take risks on things that they feel like aren't gonna make them whatever money they need. That's an that's another reason why we see not it's not TV, but that's why we see a lot of reboots and and sequels and shit. Because a lot of these folks are like, I'd rather go with the known money of making a Shrek 5, because I know that Shrek has an inherent brand and an inherent name value that people are gonna come out for, versus a sinner's. And sinners might not be the best example because sinners made boot cool money and went crazy, but that, and even with sinners, right? When you look at how people were engaged with sinners, how it felt like a broad conversation, how it felt like people were going to see it over and over and over again. That is a fragment of what we used to have with monoculture, where it would be like, Oh, everybody wants sinners, Michael B. Joy about to be everywhere, Ryan Cooler about to be everywhere, I can't think of our name. Gwen Stacey about to be everywhere. Smart and Gwen about to be everywhere, you dig what I'm saying? So, yeah, man. But on the flip side of that, it's giving room to a lot of independent creators in a way that we've never seen. So where you got folks on YouTube, folks on Instagram, folks on TikTok that are creating the whole worlds and whole universes, because in the death of monoculture, what has filled the void of that has been well, not the death of monoculture, not in that point, but in the death of these big budget shows and these big budget productions, we've seen things kind of shift towards more of a DIY lens and more of a reality lens where people don't really want the big budget shows in the same kind of way. Like they want them to sell appetite for them, but it ain't it ain't what it used to be. Where you had Sopranos, you had Breaking Bad, you had The Wire, you could just go boom, boom, boom, show, show, show, show, show. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you got some shit lined up in prime time. That's now been has given way to streamers and given way to folks who are making their own shows and their own series. Hey, what's my man name? Country Wayne. I think it's Country Wayne. Country Wayne got the show going on. Where it's just a continuing thing. It's like a soap barrel, but it ain't no context behind it. So it's just evolving, it's just changing. And on top of that, bro, attention spans are fucked up. So even where you might have a show that will get eight episodes, ten episodes, twelve episodes, and hopes of a new season. Niggas, niggas might not even have the attention span to sit down and watch the whole shit. So, yeah, bro. It's just a sign of times. Alright. Next up, we got my brother Mac Scott. Mac said, GTA 6, Juneteenth weekend, AJ the DC shit. IDK either. Shout out to Mac, man. Shout out to my brother. Make sure y'all stream. Mac Scott, talented rabbit. Make sure y'all stream his stream his projects, man. Just don't ask him about wrestling unless you want to argue. Um, GTA 6. I was gonna get to that and I hold your head, but I get to it now. Pre-orders actually open the day I'm recording this. GTA 6 is interesting because they got like a a whole scale. Like they got a whole pricing scale of expensive as shit to super expensive as shit. And there was word that a lot of shit is behind paywalls, or if you don't get the special edition or the supreme edition, you're not gonna be able to get access to shit that was basic and free in other editions of the game or other other years of the game. I don't know about it. I don't know. I'm excited. Don't get me wrong, I think it's gonna be a fun game. I'm gonna I'm gonna grab it for sure, but I don't know. Because I also get to this point, bro, where it's like, when do we get to the point of no return in terms of like, oh, this next game is gonna have even better graphics and you're gonna be able to do even more and so on and so forth. Like, when does it get to a point where you can't do no more? Where the graphics can't get no better, when you can't do all the shit, you know what I mean? So I wonder, I'm interested in GTA 6, but I wonder would it ever be a GTA 7? Like, at that point, is this just like a Neuralink chip and you just in that motherfucker, like, committing crimes in real life, like some virtual reality shit? Like, I don't know. I don't know. But I'm gonna buy it. I'm about it, I'm gonna be online for sure, probably getting washed because I'm not trying to spend no extra money. So I know niggas gonna be I know I'm getting murked. But it's cool, it's gonna be fun. Juneteenth weekend. Juneteenth was lit. Juneteenth was lit. I'm glad to see the national adoption. I'm from Maryland, as I'm sure a good amount of y'all listening are. So we wasn't really as big on Juneteenth as some of our Texas brethren or some of our California brethren. So we're to see Juneteenth evolve. To see Afram become a crown jewel of Juneteenth weekend has been really dope to see too, back in Baltimore, the African American Heritage Festival. Moving that from August back to Juneteenth. Brilliant. Brilliant. And yeah, I love Juneteenth. I love I just I love black shit. I love black shit. So yeah, Juneteenth lit. And then AJ to DC. I'm just happy to see Wizards fans happy about some shit, bro. It's been it's been dark. It's been sad for them. Bam put up 83 on them boys. I know we don't like to talk about it, but Bam put up 83 on them boys. It's been it's been a lot of misery for the Wizards fans. So them actually getting a number one pick, then tanks actually paying off. Now they got a core, they got Trey Young, they got Anthony Davis, they got some some young boys that was hooping, and the AJ's to the mix. That's it's dope, bro. I know a lot of people, I know there's this this DC, DMV, Baltimore rivalry, so on and so forth, but I like it when the when the commanders and when the when the Wizards do well. Because I like the energy in cities when their sports teams are doing well. No matter how much you might get on my nerves, no matter how obnoxious you might be, I like the energy in the city when they got hope and they got excitement. Same shit with the Knicks. I'm not a Knicks fan, but being in New York for the Knicks winning game five was a feeling I'll never forget. Because everybody in the city was just elated. It felt like it was fucking Christmas time. So shout out to the Wizards, shout out to DC. And I hope y'all hope y'all find continued success. I'll just put it that way. Hope y'all find success. Alright. Next up, we got my brother Swannee. Shout out to Swan, my brother Dev. He just wrote World Cup fans. Well, Dev, you would know better than me because you went to a couple World Cup games, not to put your business out there, but shit, you tell me. But I have been real entertained by some of the stories that have been leaking out. Like some of the Japanese folks visit and went to a Texas Roll House and they kept getting bread, and they kept eating the bread because they would have seen it as a sign of disrespect not to eat all the bread. Shit like that. Shit like people who try to sneak rash dressing through TSA, and TSA having to say y'all can't put that in y'all carry-ons because it's too big of a liquid. So the motherfuckers just was chugging the rash dressing. The Scottish dudes, a story about the dudes in Scotland, dudes and the Scottish dudes in Boston who drank all drank all the booze in Boston. That shit was very funny to me. But it's kind of bitter sweet. I hate to be this guy. I hate to bring it back here because while I am entertained by the the cultural melting pot that's going on, I am entertained by all these people just coming to America and fucking with it. I have to wonder how these events would have looked if our administration was different and was more tolerant of foreigners visiting the country at this time. A lot of people canceled their reservations, a lot of people boycotting America, a lot of people said I'm not coming. And I gotta wonder just how much more lit and how much more beautiful it would have been if all the people that canceled their trips didn't cancel their trips out of fear of being detained in a foreign country. So it's been dope though. It's been dope to see. It's definitely been dope. I'm not even a soccer fan, but I've been finding myself locked in on the World Cup because of folks like you do, folks like Tex, Cat, Taj, you just locked in, locked in on the World Cup. Spain doing this, Portugal doing that, Argentina doing this, England doing that, you dig what I'm saying? So it's dope. It's fire. So books, books checked in with a soccer question too. Books say, what if Americans Americans took soccer seriously? And that's an interesting one too, because theoretically, right, soccer should be as accessible to Americans of all income brackets as basketball. And I know that I know that's more theoretically, because in real life a lot of the folks who are becoming professional NBA players and shit like that. Oh no, let me let me take a civil war. So I know a lot of the folks who are becoming NBA players, a lot of them came up come up these days through like the AU circuit and they doing it kinda different than folks who just play basketball, just was playing street ball or playing for their local rec team or whatever it may be. You hit a button. So I know it's a little different. But again, theoretically, all you need is a ball and two goals. I'm a little biased because I got even though I'm I'm very pro-black, even though I'm very pro-African, a part of the diaspor, we all black, we all African, so on and so forth. There's a tinge of American exception exceptionalism. Exceptionalism, but you can't even say it. It's a tinge of American exceptionalism in my heart to where I feel like if we did take soccer seriously, Americans would dominate that joint. And I'm speaking specifically about melanated Americans, if I can be point blank and blunt. I know it's a lot of non-melanated folks that are greats, all-time greats at soccer. I'm not taking nothing away from them to describe them. But I also know that being an African-American being a black person, whenever we come into fields, we tend to dominate them if we're given proper time to prepare and proper not even we don't even be getting proper shit and still be dominating, but regardless, if Americans took soccer seriously, it Yeah, it It would be almost oxymoronic because then we would have to be a part of the international community in a different kind of way. We have to loan people out in a different kind of way. So I would like to see it. I would like to see it. Shout out to Shout out to my little homie Cash, shout out to my nephew. He he gonna be the one. He's gonna be the one turning all this shit up. Alright, from Dr. Butler. Dr. Butler said, can you speak about regional food chains? So some some joints came to mind for me. Cookout for sure. Culivers. I've been dying to go to colours. I thought about like I think the nearest colours is like four or five hours from me, but I've never heard a bad thing about colours. I heard they got the good shakes and the good burger. So I as many many a day I thought about just packing up the whip and driving to the nearest colours. Bojangles, fat burger, in and out. These are things that we don't have around my way. I think they bring bringing the bojangles, but I don't know, man. It's real hit or miss too, because I feel like a lot of these chains, when you take them out of the regions that they're in and you tr start to expand them, unless you're really on your on your McDonald's and Ray Kroc, it don't always hit the same. I remember being real excited about Raisin Canes. I was listening to a podcast back in the day with some dudes in Arizona, and they always talked about raising canes, raising canes, raising canes, chicken tenders, raising canes, raising canes. It's the best chicken, blah, blah. Bro, they opened that raisin canes up out thing was outhousing. That shit was phony, boy. I was hurt. I was hurt. But again, that's what happens sometimes when you when you got that franchise model. You it shit might not not always endure the way it needs to. But I like regional chains and the reasons that they from. Also when make a plea, the most non- the most regional, non-regional chain of them all. We need to bring back Boston Market. It's time the people are ready. So on and so forth. We we've seen them prosper. So it's a plea to whoever it may be, unless I gotta do it myself. We need Boston Market back, man. We need we need an entree on two sides and a shitty piece of cornbread with a with a sparkling beverage and a slice of cake or a slice of pie. We need that. We need that. Times are hard. Times are hard, man. So this is my plea. Bring back Boston Market. I might gotta go to the motherland themselves. I might gotta go to Boston just to just to see what it's hitting on. Bring back Boston Market, man. Regional food chains. Regional food chains. Alright. Question from Dev. How food and dialect travel with internet and airplanes. I never really thought about that, bro. How food and dialect has travel with internet and airplanes. That's an interesting thought though. Drake comes to mind immediately, because Drake is the biggest culture vulture I've seen. So he's he's traveled with internet and airplanes to different cultures to, you know, steal they sound, steal their swag. I wonder how much the Yeah, I wonder I wonder how different it is, though. That's that's what I would question. Because to me it seems that music would be a big part of it in imitating people's sounds and imitating people's music, and I don't know if that's necessarily an internet thing, because pre-internet, Michael Jackson was doing world tours all around the country, having all around the world, excuse me, having people pass out and shit. I think about Adele too. I think about how when Adele sings, I feel like she doesn't really have an accent. And LMA, how they sing with no accent, but then when they talk, they have accents. The food piece, I don't know. I wonder how much of that is internet related, you know what I mean? Because the what East India Spice Company, West India Spice Company, in 15, 1600, they was they was taking all the spices from India and bringing them to Europe, bringing them to the what we now know as the United States. But then the motherfuckers wasn't using the spices. So it's like, oh, it's too spicy, you know. So yeah, it's interesting. I never really I never really thought about that topic, bro. I I really would be curious to if I could see a study. I I guess the way I would try to see it is and there's no way for me to get this data at all, but how much have grocery store international sections or small international markets, how much have their business and clientele changed as time is as time has gone on? That's a good question. Alright, another question from books. We have what does a great sitcom mean to you? So for the for the sake of this conversation, I'm gonna include dramedies, so like insecure, Atlanta, I'm included, I'm including them in there, because we don't really When we say sitcom, I think that we're referring to a like a multi-camera kind of setup. I don't know. Cause the office isn't multi-camera, the office is like a single camera, but the office changed the game where it was the first comedy sitcom type of show to be shot like that. And then you saw Parks and Rec and a lot of other joints follow suit. But just for the sake of this argument, I'm just talking about funny shows. So Insecure is a sitcom for this conversation, Atlanta is a sitcom for this conversation. And I thought about this, right? Here are some things that I look for. Number one, quotability. You gotta have quotes, it gotta be quotables, it gotta be shit that I saw that was so funny in that episode or that show that in my regular non-TV character life, I'm saying that shit. I'm quoting that shit. Longevity, you gotta have enough episodes for us to replay it. You gotta you gotta have uh enough episodes for it to replay. The longer the sitcom, the better. I know some of them went too long in the truth, and it's like, alright now, y'all can y'all can pack it in. But for me, I like a sitcom where I can sit down for an afternoon and watch hella episodes. That's why Good Times is is great to me. Well, one of the reasons, because good times got hella episodes. Relevance. I want I want topical shit in my sitcoms. That's just me. This is just me personally. I want a guest star that was famous back in the day, and the crowd go like woo when they come in. I like that type of shit. Also, jokes that poke fun at the times. I don't need my I need my humor to be timeless, but I don't necessarily need my jokes to be timeless, if that makes sense. Number three, a great sitcom has a great cast, a strong ensemble. So usually there's like one person that anchors the show, that's like the star of the show, more or less. But then the people around them, in my opinion, they gotta also be funny. They gotta also be interesting. I like shows where it's like one episode can be about the main character, the next episode can focus on one of the supporting characters, the next episode can focus on the support. Like, I like that type of shit. I'm cool if it's like purely star-driven, like don't get me wrong, but fresh prince wouldn't be fresh press if you didn't have Carlton and Hillary and Ashley and Uncle Phil and Aunt Viv and Jazz and Jeffrey and so on and so forth. So that's a big one for me too. And last but not least, I kind of spoke about it in the in an earlier point, but just replayability, syndicationable. A lot of shows, I know they wanted to hit 60 episodes back in the day because that was the number for syndication. It was like once you hit 60, then we can put your show on other networks, and you can keep getting them residual checks and run your shit on UPN, run your shit on TBS, run your shit on Fox 45 at night, whatever it may be. So those are kind of things that make a sitcom great to me. Yeah, and so it's man, and it's just so many great ones, man. Kirby enthusiasm is one that comes to mind for sure, as hitting those hitting those checkpoints, Martin, Fresh Prince, Golden Girls, Good Times. It's it's infinite. It's infinite. So great question. Alright. From my man Flash, he says, What are some ways to maintain self-care in good and bad days? So I say one is a consistent routine. It's a little harder, it's a little harder at different seasons of your life, but having a consistent routine, having things that you do when times are good and when times are bad, and being angered to that, it kind of takes away a lot of the a lot of the variation in how you feel during the day. Because if you know you go to the gym every other day, for example, no matter how good a badger day is, you know you're gonna try to keep that routine going of going to the gym. So consistent routine of leaning on your network is another one. If you're not feeling great, understand if you need space to be alone or if you need to highlight some folks and get a different perspective. Because sometimes you'll realize that getting stuck in a funk or getting stuck in a bad day, that your brain is over catastrophizing it, and it might be a bad day, it might be shit, don't get me wrong, but your brain might go on the treadmill. This is a bad day, so it means I'm gonna have a bad week, which fucking I'm gonna have a bad month, or fucking I'm just a bad person, so on and so forth. So getting out of your head in that kind of way, leaning on your network, consistent routine. Also, having things that have also being willing to break the routine. I know it sounds kind of contradictory, but if you have a consistent routine and you realize that the things in your consistent routine aren't bringing you what you need in a good way or a bad way, be willing to break it and switch it up with the norm. For me, I'm real big on novelty in big and small ways. So novelty just having new things and new experiences. So it'll be times I'd be coming home from work and I'll take the same way home from work, and then one day I'll be like, Well, I'm just gonna make a left instead of making a right. I'm still going to the same place, I'm gonna get there at about the same time, but I'm gonna see some different shit and be exposed to some different shit, and then my brain will then react in a different kind of way. And then, you know, just understand that things are temporary, both good and bad. The good days is temporary, the bad days is temporary. So really try to stay present, stay in the moment, figure out what makes the shit good and what make the shit get what make the shit good and what make the shit bad, and then replicating it from there. So those are ways to maintain self-care in good and bad days for sure. Next up we got my brother Bookie O. And how many sports is the goat undisputed? Is it just messy and gretzky? So this was a tough question because I thought about it. But the names I came up with, there is some contention. So I said boxing, you got Riley, and when it's like, ah, I don't know about R. Lee, because you have folks like Jack Johnson, you have folks who was you had like them old white dudes that was undefeated for like a 30 and oh, Floyd Mayweather got a case as the GOAT. Floyd Mayweather never lost. So boxing, that's a dispute. UFC, I don't know enough about it, but I was under the impression that John Jones is the GOAT. He might not be. It might be some other motherfucker that was choking people out before I started watching. What's the album? What's my man's name? He used to wear the flame shorts. Y'all know who I'm talking about. If y'all watch basketball, he used to basketball. If y'all watch UFC, he used to be with Chuck Lindell. I can't remember his name right now, though. Football. I think Brady is very close to being the GOAT. But there are arguments for Jerry Rice, arguments for Lawrence Taylor, arguments, it was an argument for Joe Montana. Brady kind of shut the Montana shit down. And then you got folks that they don't get enough credit, but to me, I feel like they should be in a conversation like uh an Otto Graham, like a like a Don Husser, you feel me? Folks who who did shit before the NFL merger happened, who were strictly in the NFL and not in the NFL plus the AFL, which became the NFL golf. I don't know. Ain't no GOAT in golf, as far as I know. So the two I did come up with though, the two that I am willing to stand on as being GOATs, Jim Brown is the greatest lacrosse player of all time. Joey Chestnut is the greatest greatest competitive hot dog eater of all time. I think Joey Chestnut is an undisputed GOAT for sure. Like he he been doing the summer after summer. I'm surprised he's still alive, to be honest with you. I know he smelled crazy. I would hate to sit in the subway next to him. Alright. Last but not least, we got my boy Brad. And Brad says, What are your thoughts on the new Spider-Man movie and why do people love him so much? So, Brad, I'm excited. I'm excited to see what's my man's name? Tom Holland. I'm excited to see Tom Holland in a more grown-up Spider-Man role. We get a lot of a lot of all the Spider-Man movies start with him in high school for some reason. At least with this when they switched it up, and we didn't have to see Uncle Ben get killed. We saw Aunt May get killed, which is a little different, but yeah, I'm excited to see grown-up Spider-Man. And to the second question, why do people love him so much? So speaking for me, Spider-Man is my favorite superhero. I know that's a cool thing to say as a grown ass man, but Spider-Man was always my favorite superhero because Spider-Man always had to both save the day, but he had real human problems. Like he was trying to figure out how to pay rent, he was trying to figure out how to get his girlfriend back. He was his aunt was sick, so he had to take care of his aunt. He had to deal with the grief of his uncle got killed because it was his fault. So Spider-Man was always human in a way that a lot of other superheroes weren't to me. So I think that's why he has such an enduring legacy, as well as he just has a really cool design. It's hard to go wrong with red and blue, red, black, and blue. So yeah. Be excited for that Spider-Man brand new day. I'll tell you that. So, real quick, thank you to everyone that contributed to the to the mailbag. We're gonna take a brief break so I can drink some water and then we're gonna breeze through a couple more things. We're gonna do some sports talk real quick. We're gonna do some hold your head. We're gonna do some shout out to the homies. We're back. Let's get into some sports talk. Alright. Giannis Anton Tekumpo was traded to the Miami Heat. I'm whelmed. I'm welcome. I don't I don't think it's I don't right now I don't think that Heat have a championship roster. Giannis is a a great player, but it's been I don't know. Y'all remember Dwayne Howard kept saying he didn't want to get traded from the magic, and then everybody who worked for the magic was like Dwight Howard wants to get traded from the magic, and every time they asked Dwight Howard, he was like, I don't want to get traded for the magic, and then he got traded from the magic. That's kind of how I feel about the Giannis thing. I think a lot of the goodwill and the good faith that he had kind of got taken up. Now, luckily, Wemby was not able to take the crown from him as the king of the of the European black ballers, because he lost in the finals and then proceeded to to do some dirty shit and some foul shit. But yeah, I'm not I'm not moved. They also got to get rid of my boy Norm Powell. I fuck with Norm Powell. I think Norm Powell is underrated. He's a he's a bucket getter. I'm a I'm a Norm Powell fan. There's a spot for Norm Powell on one of the one of the teams I root for for sure. But Yon said the Heat. Interesting to see how they how they fill out the team. But I will say, I think that it's cool that the Heat have this legacy of getting stars decade after decade, because they got Alonzo Morning back in the day. And then they got Shaq in free agency. They got LeBron and Chris Boss in free agency. They got D-Wade back, but I think that might have been a trade. Oh no, I think D-Wade got- I don't remember. I don't remember how D-Wade ended up back at the back on the heat, but I know he ended up back on the heat. And they got Jimmy Butler. And now you're on this onto onto the Kumbo. So the Heat, very sneaky, very sneaky star, star latent franchise. Not one that you necessarily think of. You think of the Lakers a lot. You think of the Knicks swinging and missing a lot, but that's not the case now. Congress to them. You think of stars wanting to go to Boston. You think of a place where stars want to go. Miami comes up, but it doesn't really come up as much as it should. Because it ain't consistently been top three, top two at getting premier talent over the last since Pat Riley's been there. So shiny honest, man. And Thornes, and Garnis, and Blonis, and all your brothers, and my man OG Bobby Portis over there now. Hopefully he'll knock nobody out of South Beach. Also, also interested in the NBA. It's been a lot of trade speculation around some big names. Kawhi Leonard, Job Barant, Kyrie Irving, Jalen Brown, possibly Kevin Durant. So I'm interested to see how the rest of the NBA offseason off-season, I was about to say off-season, how the rest of the NBA off-season shakes out. We also got real big extensions for Austin Reeves, for Trey Young. I think James Harden re-signed in Cleveland already, too. So they got them boys locked on. And last but not least, I'll just say the NBA draft being true days was whack as fuck. The second round of the NBA draft is already bullshit. But that two-day draft shit is whack, bro. It's it's it was whack when the NFL do it, to be honest with you. The NFL was smooth when it was uh and by two-day, I mean NFL being three days now instead of being two days like it was back in the day, but nah, we gotta we gotta let some shit go. We gotta cut some shit off the off the TV calendar. NBA guys, alright. Hold your head. We haven't done this in a week or two, so I got a lot of a lot of grievances there. I got some people to disrespect real quick. Hold your head to Antonio Brown. How dare you speak on Zay Flowers like that? Calling my man a bum, calling my man shitty. Like he he's tough. He he does play like you, bro. Like, I'm sorry to admit it to you. If y'all didn't hear Antonio Brown, the former R-Pro wide receiver, went on a profanity-laden rant about why people are comparing Zay Flowers to him. He's way better than Zay Flowers, so on and so forth. Hey man, I just put it this way, right? Now, Zay Flowers does fumble a lot. I can't I can't take that part away. That's the worst part of this game. But as about now, after all the shit you did, AB, regardless of how many yards and touchdowns you score, regardless of Super Bowl ring or not, Zay Flowers got a better chance of going to the Hall of Fame than you. Because Zay Flowers ain't take his goddamn shirt off in the middle of the game and run around. So, yeah, miss me with all that. Miss me with all that for sure. You're supposed to be uplifting your Florida brethren. You feel me? You're not supposed to be hating. Also, hold your head the the Donald Trump and the reflecting pool on National Mall. And y'all haven't been following this story. They painted the reflecting pool a dark shade of blue on national mall. President Trump said that he wanted it to look more patriotic. After they painted blue due to his dark color, the sunlight reflecting off of the dark hue caused algae blooms to grow in the in the reflecting pool. The algae blooms then turned all the shit green and fucked up the clear blue water that he was trying to put in there. To combat this, they had the idea of putting hydrogen peroxide in the water, which is a terrible environmental decision, as well as just not effective. So the hydrogen peroxide then caused the blue paint that was at the bottom of the pool to chip and break off. When asked about this, President Trump said that it was vandals that were doing the chipping of the paint. Vandals were coming in and breaking up the paint and fucking up the pool. So yeah, hold your hold your head, bro. Hold your head. The levels of incompetence are smile numbing. Smile blowing. Yeah, the presence of goddamn ninka poop. Like I don't I don't know what else to say. Hold your head to everybody paying that bread for GTA 6, myself included. We about to get spanked. We about to get spanked to get fucking. It's not gonna be a fun online process. It's not gonna be fun. It might get fun eventually, but it's gonna be rough starting off. And I'm the type of person I don't I don't get games when they first come out. I'm a little bit of a a lagger behind, so it's gonna suck when I got my my hoopty and GJ6 and a dirty beater and niggas pulling up and sh and Porsches with gold-plated guns and AK-47s. I'm not really gonna be able to do nothing. So I'll probably be on story mode for a good amount of time. Um hold your head to the lady who stole the trash can at the Knicks Parade. Apparently she worked for JP Morgan and was fired for stealing the trash. Was fired for stealing the trash can at the Knicks Parade. She dumped out all the trash. I don't necessarily think it's a fireable offense. I thought it was kind of funny, but I guess he broke some kind of moral clause in a contract, or she did some kind of shit that they deemed unsavory. I don't know, man. I don't know. Motherfuckers be choosing because there are much worse things going on in those high-profile C-suite jobs and those multinational companies than people stealing trash cans off the street. But hey, you can always slip, you can always slip that motherfucker. Uh hold your head to Terry Cruz. He ain't really do nothing. He just he just he went viral for saying that he beat his father up. His father was, and this is the noble part. I'm not hating on him for this, but his father, it's his father was abusive to his mother, so when he got old enough, he he beat the shit out of his father for a day. Like all day. And that's not the hold your head, the hold your head is is married very many people on the internet astutely pointing out, okay, Terry, if you got that smoke for your father, why didn't you do nothing when that white man grabs your dick in the middle of the party? And you know, I kind of lean to the same way. Like I can't when I see Terry Cruz in those tough guy roles now, like, in spite of what he did to his father, it just don't hit the same after knowing that that that man violated you like that. Yeah, also another clip came out with Terry Cruz saying that he would watch porn from 11 to 10 at night. So yeah, that's not that's not the kind of publicity that you want. And last, but but certainly least, certainly not least, maybe least, Big Tigger holds your head. You are you are a hero, you are an icon, you know. We loved you, we loved the basement, we loved you in the DMV, BT, all that shit. Yeah, apparently you're a scumbag. Apparently you're a scoundrel. Apparently you you're cruel to you beat women, you're cruel to your kids. It's just damn, it sucks. Damn, big tigger. You even live, you die the hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Speaking of heroes, shout out to the homies, man. Shout out to Cuffy, the homie DJ Cuffy, and the happy boys. You're gonna be DJing at Barkley City over at Jiffy Lube Live. Great accomplishment. Proud of you, bro. I think I shouted out Dre already for a happy birthday when I did his mailbag piece, but if I didn't, happy birthday to Dre. Not necessarily my homie, but Dr. Umar Johnson. He put video of the Frederick Douglass Marcus Garvey Academy up on the internet. So, hey, I'm a I'm not a hater, you know? I'm not a hater. So shout out to shout out to Dr. Umar for saying he was gonna build a school, and then it seems that he actually is building a school. So if that's really happening, that's gonna happen up, I'm not gonna hate on it. I'm really a proponent of black people having our own freedom schools and having our own ways of educating each other, learning black history, learning African-centered curriculum, African-centered spirituality, all that type of shit. So no matter agree or disagree with Dr. Umar, if he's bringing forth that type of vision at an accredited institution where people, where black boys and black girls will be prepared to survive and thrive in this world, I'm never gonna hate on that. And last but not least, I want to give a shout out to my brother Lewis Williams III. I call him Lou. You can call him what you want. This past week, he had the opening of his performance, spoken, spoken performance piece, The African Singularity. The African Singularity was about basically a young man, he's a brilliant scientist, his sister, who's a brilliant dancer, and their friend who's a brilliant drummer. The scientist finds a way to time travel, well, interdimensionally travel, to a universe where European colonization and African slave trade never happened. So it was really interesting to see and hear how that dialogue played out of one scene they're talking about. Well, whose land is this? The brother who is from that timeline is like, well, what do you mean whose land is it? People can't own land, like you can't own land, you can't own sky, you can't own stars. So it was interesting to see in dialogue form people being confronted with the way that the world is versus the way that the world could be, could have been, might be, whatever phrase to throw in there. So brilliant work, Lou. Super proud of you, bro. Enjoyed every minute of it. And yeah. Hell of an episode. Hell of an episode this week. Thank y'all for tuning in. Thank y'all for listening to the whole Big Dreams mailbag. As always, the voicemail line is open. The voicemail line ain't been banging, but it'll be cool to do a full voicemail episode in the future. I'm gonna get some some more guests lined up. But for now, I'm just enjoying life, enjoying the summer. In here doing what I love, trying to trying to grow, trying to build, you feel me? And yeah. Until next week. Same time, same place. I'll see y'all next Friday. Peace.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:49

Somebody sent me something on my phone and said that I hog tied her. I don't know how to hog tie people. What would I hogtide her?