Led Black (00:41)
Yo, what up everyone? It's Led Black and my brother Octavio Blanco. And here we're here for another episode of the Uptown Voices podcast, another special Black and Blanco episode. But before I go any further, I want to remind y'all, please subscribe. It costs you nothing, but it helps us out big time. So please subscribe. It's a new podcast. We need all the uptown love we can get. So please do that. My brother Octavio, what's up, man? How you doing, man?

Octavio Blanco (01:07)
Yeah.

I'm doing great. ⁓ I'm so excited. I really, really ⁓ enjoyed the last episode that we just published with Claudette and Save Harlem Now. I think she was great. And yeah, yeah, wanna just ⁓ reiterate that it would be great for ⁓ our viewers to subscribe. You'll see there's a button up above us. It might already be up there that says subscribe on it. ⁓

Led Black (01:16)
Yep.

Octavio Blanco (01:37)
That would be great for everybody to do. But I'm doing great. I'm happy to be here. Like always, these black and blancos are a good time for you and I to catch up. It's funny, we're neighbors. We used to talk on the street all the time, but now we talk ⁓ on the black and blanco episodes. But I'm really, really excited about what's going on here and about what we got coming up in the future,

Led Black (02:01)
Yes, sir. And I mean, one of the things that's on the horizon, right?

So by the time this comes out, I think we're still gonna be in time for it. So October 16th, the new NOMAA exhibit is coming out. It's gonna be at 176 and Broadway at the NOMAA Gallery. I think it's called Sustenance and Survival, if I'm not mistaken. Again, I know it's gonna be great. I haven't seen any sneak peeks, but I know a lot of the artists there. Franck De Las Mercedes said, know, so many, Rose Deler all these great artists. So I'm really looking forward to it. So yeah, so that's October 16th.

you go to Uptown Collective or go to ⁓ NOMAA and just RSVP for that night because it's free but you need to RSVP and I think it's a good exciting night for Uptown. Every year, every exhibit, the gallery gets, the exhibit gets better but the gallery itself gets better. So for those that don't know, the NOMAA Gallery and the NOMAA offices are within the historic and magnificent and venerable United Palace. So the gallery,

Because United Palace really like shows love to NOMAA has kept updating the gallery. So every time I go it looks a little different And I'm really excited to see what what what NOMAA is gonna come up with next

Octavio Blanco (03:13)
One of the things I love about those exhibits that NOMAA puts on at its gallery at the United Palace, they're so vibrant. And I'm not just talking about the art on the walls, which is also so vibrant, but just the vibe is vibrant. Like it's a multi-generational community and NOMAA really does a really good job of trying to make sure to be, to honor that multi-generational community that we live in. So you see artists from people, artists that are 90

Led Black (03:28)
That's right.

Octavio Blanco (03:41)
for people that are just starting out in their 20s and even sometimes even younger than that. But it's a great thing. do encourage everybody from our viewership to try and make it out there. ⁓ You know, these are great cultural events that we are just lucky to have and if we support them, ⁓ they're gonna continue being part of our community going forward.

Led Black (04:06)
And let me just go through some of the names, right? So I make sure I give the shout out to some of the artists. So Adaley Munoz, Ana Maria Reyes, Chae Kihn, Darcy Rogers, shout out to Darcy. She's a dope ass photographer. Elizabeth Starcevic, Felipe Galindo, who we had on the show not too long ago. know, Feggo who, you know, makes objectionable art. ⁓ Let's all make more objectionable art. Let's hear to that.

Octavio Blanco (04:26)
Yeah.

We

need more objectionable art for sure.

Led Black (04:32)
We need more

of that. Flor Khan, Francisco Alvarado Juarez, Franck de las Mercedes, our brother who also been on the show. Gabriel Castillo, Gal Cohen, Glenn Lieberman, J Gregory, Coutinho, Jeff Elliott, Jerise Fogel, who shout out to her as well. Jim Mutton, Kaé Sato, Kathia Regalado. I've seen her work, I really like it as well. Kim Cabán, Linda Vigdor, Luissed Yibirin, Marcia Annenberg.

Melanie Brewster, Mesoma Onyeagba, I'm sorry if I messed up the name, Myong Jin, Nadema Agard, sorry, I just had to say all these names, it's only fair. Only a few more, Natasha Beshenkovsky, Rafaelina Tineo, Rosa Naparstek,

Octavio Blanco (05:07)
Yeah!

Led Black (05:12)
Rose Deler, who's super amazing. Shu Tu, she's really cool on social media. Follow her. Susan Rubin, Tasha Woodson, Tom Sanford, that's my boy. ⁓ uberkunst on Instagram. He's, he's an amazing artist. Wilhelmina Grant Cooper, who's another amazing artist that I really have a lot of love for. Yael Ben-Zion and Yuby Hernandez, who's, who lives really close to us. She's really cool as well. ⁓ you know, I think it's going to be an exciting exhibit. And like you said, I think that's what makes NOMAA special, right? That they, they accept submissions.

Octavio Blanco (05:21)
Mm-hmm.

Led Black (05:42)
from artists that live uptown for real. ⁓ So it's great because it does bring the seasoned artists like an Andrea, like a Felipe, like the roses, right? That are making money in the art world, that are exhibited everywhere, right? And then it brings them closer to, yeah, and then it brings them with other artists that ⁓ are just starting out, that are just getting their feet wet in the business, and it gives them confidence, and it gets them to, sometimes you have to be in those rooms, you know what I mean?

Octavio Blanco (05:59)
International.

Led Black (06:12)
really important to be in the rooms with the people you want to be and see the people that you want to be like. So, you know, like I said, every every I've been friends with I think every executive director of NOMAA, you know, and everyone has just, you know, just done such amazing work with limited resources. Right. These are not million dollar organizations. Right. These are small organizations with a few dedicated people that make things run. So shout out to NOMAA. You know, like I'll be there with wine glass in hand. You know what mean? So so make sure you

Octavio Blanco (06:40)
Hahaha

Led Black (06:41)
Make sure you pull up.

Octavio Blanco (06:43)
I'll be there for the cheese. ⁓

Led Black (06:44)
And shout out to my boy Darryl.

Darryl runs the catering company that always does the wine and the food there. That's my brother. Shout out to him.

Octavio Blanco (06:52)
Yeah, man. ⁓

And just because there are young artists doesn't mean that they're not talented. There is tremendous amount of talent in uptown and it deserves. mean, it really, it's not like, we're so thankful to have you up here. No, no, no. This art deserves to be seen, has to be seen, must be seen. And we're just really glad that we have a venue ⁓ with the NOMAA Art Gallery where it can be seen. And the fact that it's in the United Palace Theater, ⁓

It's like in the building right next to it, but ⁓ it's really special to have that. And that United Palace Theater has become, in the last 10 years, has become such ⁓ an amazing partner with the community in terms of ⁓ displaying movies, having events, partnering with NOMAA. It's really wonderful that ⁓ the United Palace has, well, it saved by the folks there. ⁓

from going into disrepair. If you haven't been inside United Palace Theater, you must, must go. It's absolutely stunning. I went to this little event that they did called Circulos. There's new art installation. Light, yeah.

Led Black (08:06)
I want to see that was yeah, I saw some of the pictures.

Octavio Blanco (08:09)
Yeah, it was cool. mean, was the music they had. They had musicians, had samba and they had salsa and it was great. It was really great. Me and my wife were out there dancing. ⁓ And then when it ⁓ what it is is there's a new art installation. It's basically like a circle with ⁓ with with lights and, simple, but it's nice. It's a nice addition. And then to commemorate the circle, we did a big circle where all of us who were at the event,

Led Black (08:18)
Nice.

Octavio Blanco (08:39)
We followed the samba players with the drums, know, and we went into the United Palace Theater, the actual theater, which was dark. It was dark and it was only lit by candlelight, only lit by candlelight. It was pretty, it was pretty cool. mean, and the ceiling was back lit. So there were no like exterior, there were no like bright lights. Everything was like.

Led Black (08:42)
That's cool. Yeah.

What?

That's awesome.

Octavio Blanco (09:06)
because if you go in, you'll see it's latticed. There's like a lattice on the ceiling. And so the lights are behind that. And when that lights up, it just shows you sort of like this, it's got this like really back, cool back lit situation going on. But.

Led Black (09:21)
That's really cool.

Octavio Blanco (09:22)
Also

inside was just like candles. And so we went around and we came back out the back door back into Plaza de las Americas right there. that was it. That was the end of the night. We had a great time. Thank you to ⁓ United Palace for doing that. really, really enjoyed ourselves.

Led Black (09:37)
Yes,

I love United Palace. Mike Fittleson, think he's one of those people that is the right person for the job.

And I also feel that they've opened the doors to the community. You he's reached out to me. I've done some programming there, you know, in the four year or so, you know, shout out to United Palace. And speaking of art, I wanted to say that this weekend, the wife and I were walking down the Dyckman through Fort Tryon Park. so if you go to Fort Tryon Park, but more along along Broadway, you know, almost like almost like almost to Dyckman, there's a new like installation by Peter Bulo. So he does like

sculpture and this one is dedicated to like senior citizens. But if you recall like back in 2012, he had done a similar set of sculptures, like more on the Fort Washington side of ⁓ Fort Tryon Park. So more, you know, up the hill in the park. And he had done a bunch of really cool sculptures. So he has a bunch of them now. I don't know how long they're going to be there for, but if know people uptown stop by Fort Tryon Park along Broadway, close to the Dyckman and you're going to see,

see some artwork there. pretty cool. Peter Bulo. B-U-L-O-W.

Octavio Blanco (10:47)
Cool, yeah.

That's cool. I do a Saturday morning, well actually it's...

I do a neighborhood walk with some of my neighbors. ⁓ I go on Saturday mornings, but it's a they do it every morning on Tuesday, ⁓ Thursday and Saturday. I go Saturday mornings and we walk around the park. So I can't wait to see that. That'll be cool. We'll see that. And I I wanted to mention also there's some pretty cool openings, business openings, restaurant openings that have happened recently in the area ⁓ for our neighbors. I wanted to just mention it.

Led Black (11:10)
Nice.

Yeah, it was pretty cool.

Okay.

Octavio Blanco (11:25)
Because it's kind of cool to see this this happening ⁓ right around here. I think we mentioned it once before on our show right around the corner here There's a new cafe, but it's a cafe slash bike shop Which is a really kind of a really cool concept every weekend. It's packed because you know the bridge here It's right across. It's right across from the ⁓ North Walk of the George Washington Bridge I think North Walk is a misnomer because it's just bikes most of the time It's really and on the weekends

Led Black (11:38)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Octavio Blanco (11:55)
I swear it's like Tour de France, but what's cool is I swear it's like it's so crazy

Led Black (11:58)
⁓ It's true.

I hate this and I hate to say it because know there

was like be mindful of the bikes but I'm like they should be mindful of the people because some of them not all of course but some of them are jerks. It's so funny you say that like today right I'm parking on 180th right I'm parking I'm finding a parking and I'm waiting for someone to get out so I'm kind of blocking the bike lane but I have no choice right like I'm getting this parking and this guy was talking

Octavio Blanco (12:09)
Yeah. I know.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I'm sure you have your blinker on.

Led Black (12:30)
But again, I'm waiting, you could see the park again. This guy gave me like the weirdest look and I'm like, man, like what? Get out of here, man. So some of them, you're right, it's the north tour de France. Like it's crazy, yeah, I agree.

Octavio Blanco (12:33)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's

the tour to George Washington Bridge. ⁓ But look, man, I don't want to hate on them, but I do like sometimes I also, when I'm on the bridge as a pedestrian, I do hate them, but I don't want to hate on them. But anyway, what I wanted to say, yeah.

Led Black (12:52)
Yeah, me too.

Yeah, I've, yeah. No, my wife likes to run there, but I hate walking there.

It kind of bothers me sometimes, to be honest. It kind of jerks some of them.

Octavio Blanco (13:06)
Actually, I

can't wait till they open the Southwalk. When they open the Southwalk, that should alleviate some of this problem. So, you know, just for the time being, we have to share the space, but you know how sharing goes. Some people are better at it than others. ⁓ But yeah, when the Southwalk opens, which I think is gonna happen like next year, then hopefully it'll alleviate some of this issue. But.

Back to what I was saying, the cafe is called Breakaway Cafe. It's a cafe slash bike shop and every weekend it's packed. so that's really, really cool. On Broadway, Breakaway Cafe, like, yeah, yeah.

Led Black (13:39)
It's called, it's called what? Breakaway, what's it called? And it's on between, right? It's on

on Cabrini between 180th and 181st. And I agree, I agree. It's a great idea. I think it's smart to capitalize right on that on the bike business. And what's cool is they kind of have it open, the open kind of concept. And one of the things I really like is they have that little table that's like a bike with a like a little like a little.

Octavio Blanco (13:51)
Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a bike. They put

a plank on top of the bike. That's... Yeah. Yeah.

Led Black (14:06)
and they put a plank and it has like a little flower pot. like I think, you know, and again, like I

said, it looks pretty smart. They got some pastries, know, like light foods, like refreshments and stuff like that. And they fix bikes too. So they fix flats. Like it's just super smart.

Octavio Blanco (14:15)
apparently yeah

yeah really smart apparently the owner is Armenian I hope that I don't get this wrong I think he's Armenian and he bakes these Armenian breads so I have not I'm not I have not had it

Personally, saw somebody post about it on Facebook. So that's on my list of, of, of, of trying it. Yeah. So it's interesting. So that's one spot that opened up recently and I'm really happy about that. Obviously we live right, right there. You know, we're, neighbors, but then on Broadway, a new restaurant opened up called Tamarindo. Tamarindo. Yeah. Tamarindo. We walked in the other day. We didn't eat there, but we walked in. They got lots of ceviche, lots of different types of ceviche, which, you know, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't eat there. So I can't vouch whether it's

Led Black (14:36)
That sounds really interesting.

Yeah, so Tamarindo, yeah, yeah, pass by.

Yeah, yeah.

Octavio Blanco (15:02)
good or bad but it looked good. It looked good. You know you can you can see and you kind of get a sense of whether or not a place is good or bad. This place looked good. ⁓ I do want to go there and give and give them a try. I'm glad to see them there because I've said that ⁓ the barbecue place that was just down the block, ⁓ Au Jus is closed. That place is gone. They had another they had another place on ⁓ on the Upper West Side which is still open but this one that that was up in Washington Heights

And it's sad because the owner was actually from Washington Heights. He lives in Washington Heights. He's a former doctor who who Trans it who shifted to being a restaurateur and he had this place on the Upper West Side ⁓ you and he opened this other one up here in Washington Heights, but it but he closed it, you know anyway, I

Led Black (15:52)
And it's interesting.

So right next to that tamarindo where the KFC is at back in the, you know, not too long ago, like maybe five, six years ago, there used to be like, ⁓ like one of these Asian like fish places. Yeah. And they used to make the best Pastelito My dad put me on, he used to make like a shrimp Pastelito There was almost like an Asian style, like egg roll with shrimp in it and Pastelito. Yo, it was so good. I miss that place too.

Octavio Blanco (16:04)
A fish store. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, bro, bro. I

miss that place, yo, because you could. Fish market. I think it was literally fish. It was like.

Led Black (16:19)
You can go to that. What was the name of it? I don't remember the name of it.

Fish market, imaginary, the fish market.

Octavio Blanco (16:27)
The fish market, you know, but

yo, yeah, it was great. It was like a very New York place because you could get your fish and your crab and your shrimp and your corn and then you could bring it to the back and they would steam it for you right there. yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you could do that.

Led Black (16:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, they do whatever you want with it. Like, yeah, steaming, put them, fry it, you know, whatever you want, they'll do it. And like you said, you can take the fish home to cook yourself. You can buy for them to

make it. You know what mean? And there's a few of those places still, but that one was kind of like, was old school. Like I said, the pastelitos the shrimp pastelitos were A1.

Octavio Blanco (16:53)
Yeah.

yo,

you know, somebody needs to bring that back. Like, I don't think that that went away because it was a bad business. I think that just, I don't know, ⁓ listeners, if you have any intel on why that went away, I mean, it could have been the rent. don't know, rents are crazy around here.

Led Black (17:14)
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the

first, I would think that's a rent thing, if anything, that's one of the first. There's still got one like around my mom's way where I grew up like on 190 first and on 190 and St. Nicholas, they got one of those spaces a little bigger. To me, it's not as good, but you know, it's still, they still exist those places.

Octavio Blanco (17:19)
True.

Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah,

that was a great place. But so Tamarindo was number two. And then another place that opened up on 187th is a new diner. Like a new diner. Like it's right across the street from Dutch Baby, which is a relatively new ⁓ bakery. There's a new diner and ⁓ it's like a traditional diner. Like Vicky's, remember Vicky's used to be there?

Led Black (17:42)
Where? Where in 187th?

Mm-hmm. ⁓

So is it where it's where right in the middle of the block where what's where the Spanish place last tapas was?

Octavio Blanco (17:57)
The Vicky's Diner.

where Las Tapas was and then there was like a crepes place that, know, yeah, that's, but it's now in that same place in that same location. It's, ⁓ it is a, ⁓

Led Black (18:06)
Yeah, that same place.

Octavio Blanco (18:14)
traditional diner and from what I've gotten intel from my friends who've gone there it's it's relatively inexpensive right it's not like overpriced you know diners can be overpriced sometimes so it's pretty inexpensive friends of mine who've eaten there have had the burgers there they said the burger is good so like they're like haha yo what

Led Black (18:35)
Really? And do they have alcohol? Like, look at me asking for alcohol. Do they got alcohol?

Octavio Blanco (18:43)
As long as they've got coffee, coffee, I'm good. I don't know. don't

know. Actually, I don't know if they have alcohol. I don't know. I mean, I think, I don't know. Honestly, I don't know.

Led Black (18:50)
because they had a bar prior.

And because those are the

backyards, I wonder if they still have access to that backyard.

Octavio Blanco (18:58)
They

do, I think it's gonna open later. I don't think it's open right now. ⁓ I haven't personally been there myself, but I've had friends and family who've gone there and their reviews have been positive, which is High Hill Cafe or something? High Hill, High Hill. Yeah, High Hill Cafe, I think is what it's called.

Led Black (19:11)
And what's the name of it again?

Highhill, highhill. ⁓

Sounds like

it has cannabis in it.

Octavio Blanco (19:25)
It does, I know. It's the High Hill Cafe. We don't serve coffee here, but we can give you a blunt if you ask for it. ⁓

Yeah, and that's, think for, I think that's it for the openings that I'm aware of. Then of course in Inwood, there's like that Inwood is thriving. Dyckman continues to thrive with restaurant openings and new places that are, that are, that are opening up. think there's a new, a new bakery down there. It's, and then, and another place called Cheesy Melts or something like that. It's weird. Right on.

Led Black (20:00)
yeah, I seen

it, I seen it, yeah, Cheesy Melts, I seen it. No, I think that's exactly the name of it, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Octavio Blanco (20:04)
Something like that, it's like right on Broadway, right across.

Yes, is it

Cheesy Melts? And then there's like next door to it is a cafe. I mean a bakery. And I don't know what that, I forget what the name of that bakery. It's like Happy Bakery or something like that. Whatever. It's, whatever, is cool that there's new businesses that are opening up in the area. ⁓ I don't know what gives. ⁓ If it's the economy or what. But people are opening businesses.

And, ⁓ you know, ⁓ it's good. I'm glad to see it. I hope that, I wish everybody well. I hope that they all are successful and that they are doing what they love, you know? ⁓ Because entrepreneurship ⁓ is no joke. It's tough. It's a tough gig. It takes over your life. Yes, it is a tough road-a-ho. Giving you some of that. ⁓

Led Black (20:57)
It's a tough road to hold. Yup, it's a tough road to hold.

Octavio Blanco (21:07)
farmer. I guess that's a farmer thing, right? ⁓ row. It's a row, a row to hoe. You gotta hoe it. You gotta hoe that road. But what's going on with you, man? What's, what's new? How are you doing?

Led Black (21:09)
Yeah, I don't know where I got it from. Tough road to hold. You gotta hold it. You gotta hold that road. But I, no, I want to, I'm

doing good. I also want to shout out the Dyckman Run Club.

They have the annual 5K on the 18th of this month of October. So go hit them up, Dyckman Run Club on Instagram and you check them out. So it's gonna be 10-18. Uptown Collective is like the media sponsor for it. So make sure you check that out. I think it's gonna be really dope.

Octavio Blanco (21:25)
Ariaia.

Yeah, and we're talking about entrepreneurship. I guess I want to, I've been, you know, because I am also an entrepreneur and I'm doing, you know, I'm in the midst of launching my stuff. ⁓ I've been talking to the New York City Small Business Solutions. We have one up here on 181st Street actually, that's dedicated to Washington Heights, New York City Small Business Solutions. You know, they work with the Chamber of Commerce. They work with the Washington Heights.

business improvement district and they are going to have a event on October 17th at the Armory and it's all about city contacts and resources. So if you're an entrepreneur living uptown and you want to get connected to you know city contracts and city resources there's going to be a huge event in the Armory on October 19th and that's from 9 till

on Friday October 17th, Friday October 17th from nine till two. yeah, shout out to the New York Small Business Solutions. I called them today and got contacted with somebody there. She was very helpful. It's funny though, when you talk to people who deal with the public, sometimes you gotta like, you gotta massage them to make them like be nice. ⁓

Like sometimes sometimes, you you could tell what somebody's been like ⁓ Talking to people a lot a lot a lot and it's kind of like mmm But you know after you know after talking to this person for a little while, you know, they were

Led Black (23:07)
I can see that.

Octavio Blanco (23:21)
They were very, very nice and super helpful. They sent me a ton of information. And so, you know, I encourage everybody who's an entrepreneur uptown ⁓ to reach out to SBS Small Business Solutions. There's all kinds of stuff that they do to help entrepreneurs get ahead. You're from like connecting you to accountants to, you know, helping you to become a women owned and minority business and things like that. Those are all the, and a million other things that they do to help.

Led Black (23:23)
you

Octavio Blanco (23:51)
you as you are establishing your business in case you're not aware. ⁓ That was really good.

Led Black (23:57)
Yeah,

because I mean, know, being an entrepreneur is not easy, you know what mean? And I think that one of the things that I've learned is you have to put your best foot forward. You have to learn as much as you can. You have to network a lot. You know, it's funny, I was at an event that I took part with with NYLFF a few years ago and

my boy Dista from the Heights, one of the greatest Washington Heights graffiti writers, right? And he was doing an event and I got him to do the event and whatever and he was there painting and I was talking and afterwards he's like, yo, Led you a smoozer. And I was like.

Octavio Blanco (24:19)
Mm-hmm.

Hahaha

Led Black (24:32)
I never forgot that, But I don't take that as a bad thing. I like to talk and I like to state my case and I like to help out if I can and give and take. And I think that's very important for entrepreneurs, to be able to put your best foot forward, to say, hey, I do this. Growing up in the hood, I grew up in the hood. You don't come up to other people and ask for help, especially other men. ⁓ That's something you kind of grew up with growing up in the hood, but I had to get over that.

those things and sometimes those things don't help. So, hey, my name is Led, I'll do this and you know, what do you do? You know, that's important, know, especially you when when you're not an entrepreneur, you gotta you gotta get that back anyway possible. So, you know.

Octavio Blanco (25:12)
Yeah,

it's hard to step out of our comfort zone. I have seen you schmooze, I can say. I mean, you're definitely a good schmoozer, but you know, that's not, and that's good. That's good that you are because, know, it's in your, I don't know if, like, is that something that came natural to you or is that something that you had to work at? Like, is it something that you're like, okay, ⁓ I'm going to this thing. I gotta put my best foot forward. Or do you just do, are you just like on automatic when you go?

Led Black (25:19)
I'm a good smoozer.

You know what it is,

like I always say, like, saw Elijo de Bernalda Moronta, you know what mean? Like, my mom is like, like again, she's way cooler than me, way nicer than me, you know, like she's a talker, she makes friends really easy, you know, like, so there's been times, like one time I was going, we were gonna pick someone up at JFK, right? The person, the plane was late, so we're waiting. So I said, mom, I'll be back, I'm gonna come back. When I come back,

She's made friends with this lady. They're making plans. know what mean? Next week, I come to Mother House, lady's there, they're eating. Now they're lifelong friends. You know what mean? So I think some of it is natural. think also some of it is also, growing up in the hood, have to... Because again, I grew up during the crack era, right? During, like, where regular kids became people with a lot of money and change. So that was part of, like, you always had to know how to... ⁓

Octavio Blanco (26:08)
Ha

Led Black (26:27)
work your way through people, you know what mean? And you can't fight everybody, you know what mean? And you have to find a way to navigate. So I think that's part of it. But again, like my mom, like I said, my mom is this woman, she just makes friends very naturally. She helps out, she's very, very, even more so than me sometimes, that I'm like, she's too helpful. Sometimes she gets taken advantage of because she cooks for a good chunk of my building, you know what I mean, still. You know I mean? yeah, but I think some of it is naturally, some of it is environment.

Octavio Blanco (26:50)
Hahaha!

⁓ huh. Well, you know, I think, I think it's important to be able to network. It's important to, to do that. And the fact that you, you know, have those skills, you know, is great. I also, I'm pretty good. I'm a talker. I like to talk to, I do, I will say though, like one of the tough, tough things is like,

Whether it's entrepreneurship or whatever other thing is going on, a lot of times like we're going through like our own like emotional roller coasters, right? So some days you feel on some days you don't feel on like this afternoon. I feel particularly on I'm pretty excited. I was really happy with the last episode that we did. I think I'm really happy with the fact that ⁓ you know, our audience continues to incrementally grow and you know, we're not we're not. It's not we're not millions of people watching us, but we but every every month we see a couple more.

Led Black (27:22)
Mm-hmm.

Octavio Blanco (27:43)
people subscribing. Every month I can I see that the views are growing. Every month I see that you know our socials are like really really blowing up ⁓ you know and so you know that

Led Black (27:44)
Mm-hmm.

And the shorts, the YouTube

shorts have been doing really well as well, so that's good. Cheers to that.

Octavio Blanco (27:58)
The YouTube shorts are doing well.

Cheers to that YouTube. But what I was getting at is that, you know, it takes a lot of work to sometimes when you're not feeling your best to actually put your best foot forward. So that can be a challenge. you know, ⁓ we have to find ways, you know, we have to find ways and we have to help and push ourselves to do it. ⁓ yeah, but the... ⁓

Led Black (28:26)
Talking about the shorts.

I want to talk about the shorts. So I think one of the shorts that did really well was the one where I said about Trump, I said about Biden, right? Like he sucked, he sucked. And then I attacked Pelosi and all that. But I think from judging from the comments that people think I was saying like.

Octavio Blanco (28:27)
Yeah, the shorts. Yeah, go for it. Yeah.

Yeah, he suck. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Led Black (28:48)
pro-republican. So I just want to clarify like no, no. Just because I was attacking the Democratic Party elite doesn't mean that I'm pro-republican any way, shape, form. I have never voted Republican, will never vote Republican, right? Just want to make sure I clarify that because again, I was attacking Pelosi and Schumer because they suck and I attacked Biden because he sucked.

Octavio Blanco (28:49)
Yeah.

You

Led Black (29:12)
But that doesn't mean vote Republican, right? Like, I think that's been one of the biggest fallacies that we talked about and we always talk about it, that I think the Trump administration, they're right in a lot of ways when they attack Democrats, right? But that doesn't mean that they're better. They're actually worse, right? They're exponentially worse. And what we're living through right now is proof positive of that, right? These motherfuckers are crazy.

Octavio Blanco (29:33)
Yeah.

Yeah, you know that.

Yes, they are. Yeah, these motherfuckers are crazy. Yeah. Maybe, maybe. I think you're right. She should have talked more like a person rather than like as you know, president. But it's hard. Our whole, our whole par...

Led Black (29:42)
just like Kamala said it yesterday. These motherfuckers are crazy. She should have talked like that during the election. Maybe she might have got elected.

And Liz Cheney, and

Liz Cheney, maybe not, maybe drop Liz Cheney next time, and her father, Darth Vader, like, what the what was that?

Octavio Blanco (30:05)
I Know I know but listen, you know, you're absolutely right I think that there that there might have been some misunderstanding there and that's one of the problems with social media, right? You're only given a certain amount of space to make a point and so, know I was making sure that I was sharing your your your clips

in, you know, with each other so that people, they saw them, maybe they could see them the next one. And there was some context around, you know, what you were saying, because people, I think some people may have misunderstood, but that is the problem with social media is that...

It's easy to like take things out of context because you're only getting a snippet so, you know, that's why i'm really glad that we have the podcast to back it up because the podcast is the full context of what you were saying The podcast is where anybody who's listening here is going to actually get what the message in the its clearest and most ⁓ Understandable form. ⁓ I do want to say about the clips. ⁓ I don't know I I

We're experimenting with technology, mentioned it to you.

Led Black (31:16)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know

how I feel about me in Spanish talking. I like it to a degree in terms of that people, more people. It was really freaky. It was really weird, because I sounded not Dominican in Spanish. But it sounds like my voice, which is weird and weird. I was like, ugh, it's crazy.

Octavio Blanco (31:23)
Was it freaky? Was it freaky to see yourself?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

so just to clarify because I think ⁓ we are using, I speak Spanish, Led speaks Spanish, but it's a lot to like.

record something and then re-record it in Spanish. It just takes time, time, time that we don't have, especially when it's just me and lead doing this thing on our own. Lead has a full-time job. I'm trying to do a million things. So technology is helping us, right? So, cause I do want to expand somehow, especially on social. I would like to explain some of the audience. And so there's technology right now, artificial intelligence. I know that that's like a dirty word kinda, but I think it's, it's a very cool use of artificial intelligence where I take the clip.

take the clip of what you said letter what I said and I hit the button and like that it's you speaking it's you speaking in Spanish not just trans interprets it's it's you it's your voice but it's true it doesn't have a Dominican accent although although although there was one there was one moment where it almost had a Dominican accent yeah

Led Black (32:21)
It translate.

Yeah, you know the thing is, I'm-

It almost, the thing is like I'm anti-AI.

I'm gonna be honest, I'm anti-AI. I'm really like, when I've come down to it, I am anti-AI just because I feel at the end of the day.

the amount of, and again, not for everything. I'm not being like an anti AI, you know, like constitutionalist, you know, purist. I'm not saying that right. There's plenty of great uses for and, and, and science and everything. Right. But I just feel like the amount of energy that you have to, you know, ex, you know, exert for this, right. Like, like I was reading that, that the AI and Meta putting their next AI data center somewhere in Louisiana. And it's going to be the size.

Octavio Blanco (33:14)
Yeah.

Memphis. Yeah.

Led Black (33:16)
of Manhattan is

gonna be the size of Manhattan. That's 11 miles, like, that's nuts.

Octavio Blanco (33:20)
Yeah, well, well, wait, wait,

is it the size of Manhattan or it's going to use the same amount of energy as Manhattan?

Led Black (33:26)
No, it's the size, it's

the size of Manhattan. It's the size. So it's huge. And again, so that's that.

Octavio Blanco (33:32)
Wow. Yeah. So, you know, I...

Led Black (33:36)
So that's my thing with it. And again, I don't like it. I don't even like looking at myself in that. Because again, I know what you're saying. And again, maybe the audience should chime in and let us know how they feel about it. I don't really like it. I feel like I look freakish. And it sounds freakish to me too. Like that's not me. You know what mean? But I get it. I get it in the sense like the audience. But I rather, I don't like it. That's not me. Use it only for you from now on. I don't want it no more.

Octavio Blanco (34:00)
⁓ come on, no, no, come on, come on. You're the one that tells me you talk more than

I do. You make better points than I do. Well, we'll talk offline about this because we'll see what the audience says. You know, one of the things that I will say is that for sure, I think that AI is being used to manipulate.

Led Black (34:06)
I know, I don't want it no more. No, not at all, I'm anti-AI. I don't want it no more.

We'll talk, let the audience, let's see what the audience says.

Octavio Blanco (34:28)
a lot of stuff for negative in a negative way. You know, they're they're they're using clone voices to make it sound like, you know, politicians are saying things that they didn't say. That's not good. They're using, ⁓ you know, a I to create videos that look realistic but never happened. So, you know, there's stuff with a I that I think is hugely problematic. The energy I also feel really guilty about.

the fact that AI utilizes so much energy and also causes so much noise and vibrations and disturbs the communities where they've built these big data centers. One thing I hope is that ⁓ there's other technology, which also comes with its pluses and minuses. There's a small ⁓ nuclear technology that is being developed, which I think is going to be picked up to power these data centers, these small reactors. ⁓

And

so nuclear energy is a clean energy. So it doesn't burn fossil fuel. But the problem with nuclear energy right now is that we're not really good about ⁓ storing ⁓ the nuclear waste. ⁓ That's a political issue, ⁓ not a technological issue. But.

Once these small nuclear reactors are done and are figured out, these data centers should be able to run ⁓ clean energy. And that hopefully, from what I see, is going to be in the next five to 10 years. So at least that is going to be better, because it's not going to be.

Led Black (36:05)
I think that's the,

that is a term for that. I think it's called techno hubris. I don't, yeah. You just sounded so fantastic. Like in five, 10 years, we're to just take a little nuclear bomb. We'll take, no, that's not how it happens. That's not how it works. These people are going to fucking take it and run everything into the ground and destroy the planet to get more profit and power. And it's, funny. Like I was, I was, there was a woman talking about books. She wrote, wrote about AI and she was saying that AI doesn't have to be this way.

Octavio Blanco (36:10)
Is that? ⁓

Led Black (36:34)
Right? That from the very beginning, the people in power chose AI to displace workers, to take away away work, right? Not to make people's lives better and easier, right? Because there's reasons why AI could be done for that. no, I'm saying like the chat GPT a lot of those things are not done to make.

Octavio Blanco (36:49)
Okay.

Led Black (36:50)
people's lives better. It's take away things from people and just to make more profit and more efficiency. So I'm saying like this thing that like we're going to develop this new, like I don't know. I just think again, this is just, I think it's what makes it so good, right? I think that we have fundamental disagreements about these things. I don't see things in the rosy terms that you do. I just can't. I just don't think of that way. Five years we're not even going to have the United States not going to exist. So there's that fucking.

Octavio Blanco (36:53)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let me...

Hahaha!

Led Black (37:18)
What are you talking about? We're going to have Barron Trump being the new emperor. Like five years? Like what are you going

Octavio Blanco (37:22)
⁓

I have insider information, just so you know. This is gonna happen in five to 10 years, according to my sources.

Led Black (37:30)
Sorry, Nostradamus. Okay.

Octavio Blanco (37:33)
But

you're right though. mean, one of the things, if you talk to people who follow this, ⁓ like what you're talking about, but in terms of the pickup of these types of new energy technologies is that, money is the bottom line. so unfortunately the development of these reactors ⁓ usually it's too expensive. The cost overruns are huge. And so the...

That is a huge challenge for these types of reactors to come online in the timeline that I just expressed of five to 10 years. But mark my word, it's gonna happen in five to 10 years. You'll see. I don't know, I don't know. But yeah, but ⁓ all I can say is this.

without the AI technology that I'm using currently, like this show would take 10 more people. ⁓ I wouldn't be able to do it on my own. It'll be 10 times more expensive. ⁓ And, you know, I have to use the technology that I have available to me in order to enter this marketplace at a low enough, ⁓ you know, financial points.

Led Black (38:48)
Yeah, and I agree. I agree

100%. Right? I agree. And I think you have to use the tools available to you to and that's not my it's more of a philosophical thing. Like I just feel like that that that some of it, the usefulness is part of the seductiveness of it.

Octavio Blanco (39:06)
Mm-hmm.

Led Black (39:06)
Right?

And while you're using it in a way to enhance, a lot of people use it for stupid Like, know, like ridiculous shit and this is overused and then we're fucking burning down, you know, like wasting trees and the planet for, you know, stupid ass things. You know what I mean? That's what I'm saying.

Octavio Blanco (39:12)
yeah!

And, I mean, we're going, we're going way off the rails here, but I've been reading and watching lately, ⁓ this thing that's been happening with AI assisted suicide, where a lot of times it's young teenagers, they're using AI, they're becoming friends with their AI, they're expressing their,

discontent and their desire to maybe commit suicide. And a lot of this AI, sometimes I've seen, has a few times actually helped, like given the person who's on the other end of the human, like, ⁓ this is how you should do it, you know? Do you have rope? know, like stuff like that. And they're...

Led Black (40:08)
Wow, he's like the easiest

way to kill yourself is.

Octavio Blanco (40:11)
Right, exactly.

I love talking about suicide. The fact that you're thinking about suicide demonstrates that you're a deep thinker and really not happy. And maybe you shouldn't be around anymore. I don't know, man. Yeah, so it's also dystopian and scary. I can't deny that. That's the fact.

Led Black (40:30)
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. just think, and again,

while it's super useful and I'm glad that you use it, right, because this is helping amplify and get the word out, of course, right? But I just think that like everything that's produced by the society in the long run is produced for not for good, right? And these things end up, know, know, end up, you know, consuming us all, you know what I mean? So that's what saying. Like when you were saying nuclear five years, da da, like this planet, you know what I mean? Like, we don't know where this is at five years from now.

Octavio Blanco (40:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I mean, I just glossed over the fact that we don't store our nuclear waste appropriately.

Like, when I was at CNN, we did a report, this was probably about...

Led Black (41:05)
And you glossed over that Trump is fucking the dictator right now. So that's also that, right? There's this fucking wild man.

Octavio Blanco (41:14)
did a report that most nuclear waste is stored...

Led Black (41:17)
I can't hear you now.

Octavio Blanco (41:23)
at

nuclear facilities and not in the like nuclear, you know, deep caves of nuclear waste where they need to be stored.

Led Black (41:38)
Yeah, it's ridiculous. like I said, it's getting worse, right? Science, know, data, all those things are less important than they were before. It's wild.

Octavio Blanco (41:48)
Yeah, it's crazy. ⁓ But anyway, you know, like ⁓ we we're in this world, we have to live in it. ⁓ I know that it's like it's like we can choose not to participate if we don't want to. That's our choice. That's our right. ⁓ But at the same time, unfortunately, what we each do ⁓ as individuals sometimes is more performative. Really, the the the entities that need to be kept in

check are the corporations. ⁓ Those are the ones that are using AI power like through the roof. you know, they're using it. I'm sure that Wall Street trading firms are using AI to make their computations to make them sort of figure out what they're going to be investing in next and using that 24 hours a day all over the globe. And I'm sure that television studios and film studios are using AI all the time now to help them to improve

the graphics on their their films and stuff and then you know so all that stuff at the corporate level you know what we do as individuals maybe will have an impact but oftentimes doesn't have as much of an impact as we as we think it's a lot of times it's a little bit more performative and a little bit for us to ease our own our own guilt like for example ⁓ recycling or or you know conservation ⁓ if corporations did more recycling and more conservation if corporations use less

Led Black (42:49)
Mm-hmm.

Octavio Blanco (43:17)
less

plastic, if corporations did that, all those things, then we would see a big decline in pollution. Generally speaking, what individuals do in terms of their recycling and their ease of consumption of these things, it moves the needle, only a little bit compared to the corporations. It's almost like what you were saying when it comes to politics, when we were talking about the left and the right.

Led Black (43:34)
This is minuscule. This is minuscule.

Octavio Blanco (43:45)
and where like the dialogue is and I was saying yeah you know well you know the Democrats are they they need to they're they're working at it but then you said to me yeah but it's just happening up here like like in this upper like right

corner, it's not going all the way that it needs to go to, you know, don't know I'm going way off base here, I'm in my explanation or me bringing these two issues together, but it was interesting to me when you made that comment. I hadn't really thought about that. ⁓

But you look thoroughly confused by what I just said. ⁓

Led Black (44:23)
No, no, no, no, no, you're right, you're right. That's hilarious.

⁓

Octavio Blanco (44:31)
You're like Octavio, you ⁓ need to get some rest.

⁓ man, so, well here we are,

Here we are. Yeah.

Led Black (46:25)
And another thing I want to talk about is like the

anti-intellectualism, you know, in our community, right? You know, when I was growing up, you know, I wasn't anti-intellectual. I was anti the system.

Octavio Blanco (46:30)
Mmm, yeah.

Led Black (46:38)
I was anti-school. Seventh grade was the year that I found about girls in the streets and stuff like that. I also found out I didn't really care about school so much. And by the time I got to high school, to me, I graduated from high school, but I really didn't care so much for institutions of learning. I like to learn. I've never stopped learning. I'm a reader. So I wasn't anti-intellectual. I was anti-school. I was anti-the-system.

I

see now and there's a lot of people you know that that some of them are my age older some of them are younger that They're anti-intellectual right they don't they don't they just want to be spoon-fed. They just consuming media. They don't really read right They don't write well, you know, cuz I spent a lot of my time, you know trying to engage some of my pro-trump You know followers on on on social media, you know trying to see like trying to gauge them and you know to a person it's always

First of all, they just regurgitate whatever talking points they hear, right? And they also, when they send me content, it's usually content from people that hate Latinos or other Latinos or black people that also hate Latinos and black people, right? And they think that justifies it. so a lot of times, you know, I'll respond back, you know, I write something back.

and they don't respond back. I even get voice notes. The reason is they're not good writers, right? So they don't write well. But to me, if you don't write well, if you don't read, how could you be the person that you somehow know politics? So I think that anti-intellectualism is what was one of the reasons we're here now. So I think there's always been Latinos, kind of a lot of Latinos like of my generation, right? I kind of like looked ascance at the institutions of learning. But me, I was always reading and learning, but I think

that that's hurt us, you know, because now we just let, you know, we're falling victim to this scam that's put us in this purgatory. They're like, the country that we once loved is falling apart.

Octavio Blanco (48:38)
⁓ You know what's interesting about what you just said is that ⁓ today, just today, a friend of mine, I'm not gonna say his name because I don't know what the rules are about him sharing stuff with me is, but he's an editor and he edits philosophy books. And he lives uptown, he lives uptown. ⁓ And he just sent me ⁓ this thing, it's an unsolicited proposal for a book. ⁓

Stupidity and self-absorption aims to be the first full length philosophical monograph on the phenomenon of human stupidity. Despite the large trench of social epistemology and vice epistemology of recent decades, stupidity as a phenomenon has not yet received a serious theoretical treatment within academic

philosophy. So in other words, they want to talk about how society ⁓ often ⁓ remains stupid, remains dumb. And what you're talking about, the anti-intellectualism that we're seeing right now, is really in line with what ⁓ this author was proposing. I think it's a really cool idea. And the thing is, though, ⁓

Folks who believe this. ⁓

Usually believe it because they are in power. And so they feel like I don't need to study. I don't need to, to, educate myself because guess what? My people are in power and they got my back. So nobody's going to take advantage of me because I've got this. And, so what's unfortunate is with the Latino community, especially, the folks that are anti-intellectual who are like, yeah, well, you know, Donald, Donnie Trump has my back.

Led Black (50:22)
Right.

Octavio Blanco (50:35)
Guess what? He really doesn't. He really doesn't have your back. I see these posts on social media of these Latino Trump voters and next thing you know, their uncle, their uncle got deported and they're...

And they're crying. Their husbands got deported and they're crying and they and they got stopped and their windows got bashed in because they happen to be brown and they're crying. And guess what? They voted for Trump. They voted for this BS, which by the way is the reason why I think your voice should be ⁓ AI'd into Spanish because I want to get to, you know, those communities. Oftentimes the poor communities who are feeling vulnerable, they want to go like, well,

voted for Trump so maybe that's going to save us and it's not going to work. If that's what you think it's not going to work and it's and we've seen it in the polls that the poorest communities in New York and the five boroughs of New York went to the right and why is that? Because those are vulnerable communities and they are hoping that by voting for Trump and voting for the right that the right is going to say ⁓

Led Black (51:33)
Yeah

you

Octavio Blanco (51:43)
you know what, they're on our side, they're okay. But that's not the case. That is absolutely not the case. So that's why they got bamboozled and they got bamboozled. They fell for the okie doke and they, you know.

Led Black (51:47)
Yep. They got bamboozled. They fell with an okie doke.

Octavio Blanco (51:57)
I can understand it to a certain degree because those are vulnerable communities. Those people are vulnerable. Those people are afraid. Those people are trying to get political power or at least political support, right? So they're like, well, if we show our people that we're gonna be, we're done with the Democrats, we're gonna go Republican, the Republicans are gonna save us, are gonna protect us. And that's not the case. So back to the point that you were, yeah.

Led Black (52:20)
Yeah, but it's

also the fucking smug about it, right? So it's like, I'm getting off a plantation, but you go into another plantation, dumbass. So what are you talking about? So it's like, it's one of those things that there's just so much smug. I know it. No, you don't. You don't read. You don't read. And you put us in this predicament because of this. I I think that like, I was reading something today, I meant to send it to you. like, you know, I think that needs to be said. Y'all did this. You thought you were so smart.

Octavio Blanco (52:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Led Black (52:49)
And look what you did. You planted us in the hands of Stephen Miller. Little Nosferatu.

Octavio Blanco (52:54)
my

god, my god, Stephen Miller, that guy. That guy is horrible. That guy is a horrible human being.

Led Black (53:01)
He's so weak and he's so

just like, ugh. He would be nobody if he wasn't so evil. He's just an evil person. And he's the one in charge, President Miller. But I'm saying this is what these people put in power.

Octavio Blanco (53:20)
Yeah, yeah, he's been he's been like that since high school. I encourage anybody who is interested. It's available. You know, he had a speech in high school where he's like, I will not pick up the trash. I will not. I will leave my trash. We have we have people to do that immigrants to do that. It's disgusting. I actually don't know.

Led Black (53:35)
Yeah.

He stopped

being some kid's friend because he was Latino. And this kid's been like that since he was eighth, eighth, since the eighth or ninth grade. Like he's been young, you know, just being a bigot for that long. you know, and he's at the epitome of power right now. And our own people did that.

Octavio Blanco (53:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's awful. I don't know what happened, if anything, in his life to make him that way. Because I also believe that he's Jewish. So it's like as a Jew to operate in this way is so...

Led Black (54:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, some of his family members have disowned him, or denounced him, I should say.

Octavio Blanco (54:22)
I remember,

I mean, it's this idea, this hate, this...

racism, it's so, sometimes it's so tantalizing to people. think there's something about it, the power, and when you look at Nazism and things like that, the graphics, the dress, the music, all that stuff, there's something that can be alluring about it. almost, I remember, I'll tell you a story. I grew up all over, well mainly in Europe and in the United States. When I was a kid in Spain,

Spain was just coming out of a very like fascist time ⁓ with Franco. So there was a lot of...

Led Black (55:03)
Franco, yeah.

Octavio Blanco (55:06)
there was a lot of sort of underground fascists and also underground Nazis and you know I was what was I I must have been like eight years old or something and I had a I had a little buddy and uh he lived he lived next door to me and his dad unbeknownst to me was a fascist and a Nazi and one day me and my buddy I forget what his name is but we were in my backyard and uh

we were playing a game and the game was called the Heil Hitler game. And so me and him were basically being Nazis and we were flashing the salute to each other and saying those words, right? ⁓ Now, my mom who is Jewish ⁓ heard this and she came.

Led Black (55:52)
My goodness, wow.

my god.

Octavio Blanco (56:01)
she came running out of the house.

Led Black (56:03)
I hope she

whooped your ass.

Octavio Blanco (56:06)
No, you know what? To her credit, she didn't whoop my ass. She did send the kid home and was like, you're never to come back here. ⁓ And she did tell me I was never to talk to that kid again. But then what she did is she took me inside and she sat me down on the couch, sat next to me, and she explained to me.

Led Black (56:13)
Mm-hmm.

Octavio Blanco (56:33)
about the Holocaust and about being Jewish. And the interesting thing is in my family, ⁓

My immediate family, my father is Mexican. He's not, you know, he didn't grow. He's not Jewish. but my mother is American, ⁓ and she is Jewish, but she did not grow up in the Jewish faith, right? Her father grew up as a Orthodox Jew. ⁓ and then he was like, that's too much. And instead of just like taking it back a notch, like, you know, becoming a reform Jew, he was just like, I'm done with this.

And so my mother never grew up in the Jewish faith, but she understood and she knew the history of being Jewish. And so she sat me down and she explained everything. She talked about the six million Jews that were exterminated and the way that they were exterminated. And I don't remember if she showed me like, I think we must've had like an encyclopedia and I think she went into the encyclopedia and in the encyclopedia it talked about it and it had pictures and stuff like that. So I was able to see the photo.

Led Black (57:17)
Bye.

Octavio Blanco (57:40)
of what was going on. And by the time that she was done, I was just in tears, bawling, feeling awful, guilty, horrible because I was out there doing this, but I didn't know what I was doing. But I've never forgotten that lesson, you know? And it's just one of those things that formatively has made me who I am. Yes, I'm Latino. Yes, I'm Mexican. Yes, I'm Jewish. Yes, I'm a New Yorker. Yes, I'm a Marylander. Yes, I grew up in Italy, so I kind of feel Italian. Yes, I grew up in

Led Black (57:46)
Horrible, right?

Octavio Blanco (58:10)
Spain so I kind of feel Spanish. I have a European like I love the European flair but I love the American I love what America really stands for when we're in our right minds right now we're not but when we are in our right minds I like what we stand for but all of that I feel comes from this moment this moment of like ⁓ doing this ⁓ game with this neighbor

And then my mom not beating my ass, but my mom sitting me down and educating me about what it was. And I'll never forget it. And I'll never feel differently. And I'll never, that's why what's happening in Palestine is killing me right now. I just think it's so horrible that Israel, and I'm not gonna say the Jewish people, because the Jewish people in Israel are not one and the same, but that Israel is committing this genocide. And I know that you and me sometimes,

Led Black (59:03)
you

Octavio Blanco (59:05)
in the past, months ago, would talk about it and I was always uncomfortable with that. it's absolutely not, I have no, there are no qualms that this is a genocide that's happening. And the fact that Israel is doing it is disgusting to me. And unfortunately, it just feeds the anti-Semites. It just feeds the people who are anti-Jewish to say,

Led Black (59:33)
Mm.

Octavio Blanco (59:34)
Well, you know the Jews are not to be trusted because look what Israel is doing when it's Israel doing this not You know the Jews there's plenty of Jews and there's plenty of Israelis that are that are so ⁓ That are really angry and against what's happening. Anyway, I'm digressing but

Led Black (59:42)
Yeah.

Yeah, but no,

no, but if we see, we have to say something, right? Because it's not just Israel's genocide, right? It's America's genocide too, right? And if we're being honest, Biden, it's Biden's genocide. It happened under him. He allowed it to happen. That really happened, Democrats. Again, let's be honest. Like it was his genocide before it was Trump's.

Octavio Blanco (59:58)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Absolutely. And I think that we ⁓

Like my mother sat me down and educated me about what happened with the Jews when I was out back in my backyard playing a high Hitler game. think Democrats need to be educated the way that you're educating them and letting them know that this happened under your watch first. Yeah, it intensified and got worse under Trump, but it happened under your watch first. And Biden didn't do enough to say, you know what, guess what? If you're going to be using our bombs to annihilate

Led Black (1:00:39)
Mm-hmm.

Octavio Blanco (1:00:48)
these people, you're not gonna get any more of our bombs. If you're gonna be using our missiles to annihilate these people, you're not gonna get that iron dome that you rely on to protect yourself from the attacks because what you're doing is genocide and what you're doing is evil and now if you look at Palestine, it has been leveled. Families have been killed, they are being starved. It is disgusting.

Led Black (1:01:13)
Yeah, horrible, horrible, horrible. And again, I think that also caused the Democrats the election, right? By not, by

just being human, right? And saying, wait a minute, you know, and they allowed that issue to run away from them and Kamala didn't pivot as much as she needed to, right? I think Zoran, right, being very honest about that topic has been able to win. It's, hey, look, this is how I feel. I don't hate Jewish people, right? It's not about Jewish people. It's about this country doing this to those people there, right? And I think he's been very, very clear, you know, not going, not being an anti-Semitic, just being very clear on what's

right and what's wrong and I think that's helpful and I think I think the larger Democratic Party the the powers that be the establishment needs to get on board because this is how the people feel right like I think I think ⁓ Netanyahu and and his ilk and the Likud and all the far right wing have really done damage to the Jewish people.

Right. They are the ones causing the damage to Jewish people. And he there's a greater Israel plan afoot. You know what mean? It's not just Gaza and the West Bank. They want parts of Lebanon. They want parts of Syria. They want they want the whole Kinnikabooda. And they say that. Right. So the people that we fund are the ones doing this and we fund them and we haven't stopped. And it didn't start with Trump. Biden would I think he called it the bear hug.

Octavio Blanco (1:02:11)
Absolutely.

Led Black (1:02:37)
approach. So he would hug him in public and in private he would chide him, hey stop killing people. But also Biden got five million from AIPAC. I think he's probably the largest recipient ever of AIPAC money.

Octavio Blanco (1:02:45)
Yeah, strongly worded letters again with strongly worded letters.

Led Black (1:02:54)
So, you know, I think that says a lot, you know. So again, like we're that we're we're in a bad place. And I think the Democratic Party has a lot to do it. And they gave it to the you know, so funny, I had to say that I forgot about this. There was someone I don't remember the exact quote, but I think it was it I'm paraphrased here. But and I've always said this before that basically the election of Barack Obama, right, broke the psyche of a lot of white people.

A lot of white people were devastated by that. they just couldn't compute black president, ⁓ you know, and it short circuited their brains and allowed them to make space for such a, just like a grifter that Trump is. Like, that's the thing is like, again, I say this all the time that Trump derangement syndrome is when you look at Trump and you're not disgusted. If you look at that, that, that,

Octavio Blanco (1:03:39)
Mm-hmm.

Led Black (1:03:41)
morbidly obese windbag with the fake tan and the hair plugs that are a shade of unnatural blonde and the pompous, the way he talks, like no intelligence. If you look at that and you're not disgusted and repulsed that's Trump derangement syndrome, right? So what I'm saying is that the election of Barack unfortunately just broke the brains of.

far too many white people in this country and allowed them to make space for a grifter like Trump. And that's another reason that we're in the situation that we're in, unfortunately.

Octavio Blanco (1:04:11)
Yeah, no,

I don't disagree. But also I just do think that, I'm not disagreeing with the word that you said. I think that you're right. ⁓ I also think that this idea of ⁓ America is there for the good and America is in the right and is like the bright light of our globe.

You know, that's just, I'll become just words, just words. It's not, we're not backing it up with action. We have lost our humanity and we've been talking about AI and all that, but like, put all that aside, put the AI aside, put the politics aside even. When you put all that aside, it's like, you gotta think about what's the humanity. And when you see...

one government do what it's doing to a group of people, the way that it's doing it, and you don't stand up in the most forceful way to stop it, and you have the power to stop it, because without us, Israel is vulnerable as hell. Then you have a problem, and gosh, it's...

We have to, we have to stand up for what's right. We have to stand up for humanity. ⁓ And it's not even about politics. Like everybody's like trying to be slick with their politics, but it's just look at what's happening. It's not, it's just wrong, period. Like it's wrong.

Led Black (1:05:38)
⁓ You know, it's so

funny, like I remember this is gonna sound, I'm gonna bring it back to it. It's gonna sound a little crazy, right? But I remember seeing a video about Kobe, right? And Kobe says, you know, that he will wake up like at five in the morning, right? He will go practice for a few hours. Come have breakfast, he'll go practice for a few more hours, right? And then, you know, game time, he will play.

and then practice for a few more hours and every day. And what he was saying is like, he's like, because I do this every day, right? While no one else is doing what I'm doing, I'm just gonna be exponentially better than they are, right? Because every day I'm working hard at my craft, right? So by the time you meet me, cause you're not working as hard, you can't compete, right? And in this metaphor that I'm kind of really dragging out, Kobe is China, right?

Octavio Blanco (1:06:28)
Mm-hmm.

Led Black (1:06:29)
And America is Elvis, right? Late state Elvis, super fat obese, you know, just on drugs, you know what mean? Just delusional, right? So that's where we're at. And again, every day that Trump takes us further, China is just moving ahead, right? They took, you know, the billions that they owe, that they have in our money, right? When we pay that interest back to them,

They're taking and investing in their rails, they're investing in their roads, they're investing in their people, they're doing all that every day. They're just like Kobe.

Day in, day out, day in, day out. And while we're here, more wars, more money for Israel to have free healthcare and free education. While we don't have shit, our cities are rotting, right? Our infrastructure is rotting, right? So you get on the trains, who knows what could happen to you, right? But it's going up to three bucks in January, right? So it's a parasitic system, right? And there goes Kobe on the other side of the world just bettering himself.

So it's like what I'm saying is that we're not competing and Trump is making it worse. This kind of anti-intellectualism that is part of it, this anti-science, anti-data, no, don't give me numbers if they're bad numbers. We're just getting further and further along. And yes, we have this tremendous power. We have this tremendous might, but America is in its Kanye West era, right? It's just destroying its legacy.

Octavio Blanco (1:07:53)
back bad

Kanye bad Kanye

Led Black (1:07:55)
Well,

that's what Kanye is now. There's only a bad Kanye now. There's no good Kanye anymore. That good Kanye is long gone. But yeah, but doesn't exist, right? It's in his Kanye West era, because Kanye West is destroying his legacy every day. And finally, way worse to destroy. That's what America's doing. And any advantage it had is losing it. And while China's over there on the other side, not starting these major wars, not wasting their blood and treasure on wars, right? Just planning and building solar.

Octavio Blanco (1:08:00)
But they're used to.

Yeah.

Led Black (1:08:25)
building of renewable energies, just take them and again, and here we are with dumb ass and power, right? And we don't even have a functioning democracy anymore. we don't have cities are just rotting away. So that's what I'm saying. Like China's Kobe, America's Elvis.

Octavio Blanco (1:08:40)
That's a great ⁓ way to think about it. And it's sad. ⁓ I just think it's all, and it was all done on lies. ⁓ The people who...

who still support the Republicans ⁓ are refusing to acknowledge that they've been lied to. Remember when Zoran went to Staten Island and people were like being completely ⁓ awful towards him, ⁓ racist, yeah, racist, sorry, I should've, that's not mid-swords, yeah, they were being racist towards him, yeah.

Led Black (1:09:14)
Racist. Racist, yeah.

Octavio Blanco (1:09:21)
But Zoran was really great what he said. He's like, look, you I'm here to talk to you because what you've been pitched has been a ball of lies. I'm actually here to do what you wish would have been done, to be taken care of by the people who you elect.

not to be abused and taken advantage of. ⁓ You said it perfectly, like Israel has free education, Israel has free healthcare, Israel is practically a socialist country. And compared to the United States, we don't have any of that stuff and yet we send billions and billions of dollars over there. And what did Trump say when he was running for office? What was that thing that he was saying? yeah, no more wars.

⁓ America First ⁓ and how's that been going? How's that been going? He's blown up boats, Venezuelan drug dealers apparently, we don't know because we don't know who was on those boats. He's trying to instigate a war in Venezuela. He's invading American cities with his own private army. ⁓ Exactly where does America First come in to play here? I'm lost.

Led Black (1:10:20)
Yeah.

Octavio Blanco (1:10:45)
confused and I can't believe that the Republicans who elected him won't admit it that they were bamboozled. All of them. they're Latino or whether they be white.

Led Black (1:10:54)
Yeah.

And it's funny you say that, right? Because it's interesting, right? So right now, you know, we're in a shutdown. The government is shut down, right?

And then the thing is that like, if you hear Trump tell it, it's because the Democrats want to give healthcare to illegal immigrants, right? And again, it's a scapegoating again, but that's bullshit, right? The real reason the Democrats are not letting them, they want guarantees that the subsidies for Obamacare stay in place and they want it in writing, right? Because if they don't do that, come next year, people are gonna go from paying 800 for insurance to maybe $4,000,

If you have a family this is going to break you. This is going to hurt. It's really going to happen. But again, it's a constant lie, it's constant propaganda. Right now, farmers are getting squeezed on them. These tariffs are destroying them. China was buying all these soy. China's like the biggest soybean buyer in the world.

Octavio Blanco (1:11:37)
Yeah.

Led Black (1:11:57)
Right? don't get me, they might be, may not be number one, but they buy a lot of soybeans and they buy a lot of soybeans in this country from farmers, right? And these same farmers voted for Trump. So they quite literally bet the farm and they're about to lose the farm, right? Cause China said, word, okay. I'm gonna get my soybeans from Brazil and Argentina. Dumbass.

Octavio Blanco (1:12:18)
and

now they want a handout from the government. And guess what that's called? Socialism. So, you know... ⁓

Led Black (1:12:24)
But wait a minute, yeah, but they haven't gotten, wait a

minute. So it's funny, they've been murmurs of a bailout. That hasn't happened, they've discussed it. But you know which one is more serious? There's a bailout for Argentina that Trump, which is crazy, yeah, $20 billion because the policies that they wanna put in place here were put in place there and it bankrupted the country.

Octavio Blanco (1:12:36)
yeah, yeah, Argentina got $20 billion.

Led Black (1:12:47)
So that's and another thing that I found out, that 20 billion of American largesse is also because one of Trump's buddies will lose his shirt if they don't come with that money. You see what I'm saying? So this is where we're at, where this is a mafia boss. You know what mean? he's, mm-hmm, yeah, for He puts the sopranos to shame.

Octavio Blanco (1:13:03)
He's absolutely a mafia blast. Yeah.

Led Black (1:13:08)
He's the way, but again, the worst is the believers. Like, how do you see this fucking bozo and pledge allegiance to this guy? I just don't understand that. Just don't get it.

Octavio Blanco (1:13:18)
I

don't get it. mean, and you know one of the things that they keep saying? The MAGA supporter keeps saying, they're like, well, he's got the right, he wants to do the right thing. They still believe that he wants to do, I hear that so many times. He's trying to do the right thing. And it's like, no, he's not.

and you're just falling for it. Hook, line, and sinker. And you look like an ass.

Led Black (1:13:46)
Yeah, you know, it's, it's, again, it's, the programming, right? It's, it's the constant in your face, Fox News telling you how to think. And this weird cult of personality meets the, know, 21st century meets social media. And we're in for it. And again, this is still Elvis versus Kobe.

Octavio Blanco (1:13:46)
Alright.

Led Black (1:14:05)
And they're not going to, you know, every day, every day, China's just outpacing America every day, you know, and there's nothing that's to change that. And every day, the China's going, they're going moving along, evolving, we're going further and we're going backwards. And that's what's so wild. And again, it's like, sometimes I walk around like.

What's happening to, even like, you know, our little neck of the woods, right? Washington Heights, right? Like, I love this neighborhood, I've lived in this neighborhood my whole life, you know, where it's stints, small stints, other places.

But it's deteriorating rapidly, you know what mean? Rapidly. You know what mean? Like, it's every day I'm seeing things I've never seen before. You know what mean? I was walking yesterday right by the Chipotle, right by the Tamarindo, between the Tamarindo and the Chipotle on Broadway between 1st and 180th. And there was a homeless heroin addict, right?

And I don't know if it was a male or female. couldn't tell to be honest, but they were slumped up in the corner. But then they had like a little like like a little studio apartment, right? Which yeah, like like a China cabinet and ⁓ luggage and all the mess that comes with it. Right. And it's like, you know, my corner when you turn the corner now, it just starts smelling like piss now. Right. That wasn't a thing. Right. Like I said, when I grew up on Wadsworth, you know, east of Broadway, west of Broadway, it was like the golden, you know, the the the city on the hill.

And Fort Wash is deteriorating right before our eyes. So it's like, this is real world consequences and it's not just Trump and not just, like, you know, sometimes one of the arguments that people make is like, Democrat run cities are the worst, but it's bigger than that, right? It's bigger than Democrat and Republican because in a lot of ways they seem like the two wings of a beast.

Right? And they both, you know, they have not taken care of the people. They have taken care of rich folks. You know, it's always been about the rich. And both parties have done that, you know, to the expense of the working people and the poor and the middle class. And I think that's what you're seeing. Like, people are squeezed. And the next few months, you know, if you're in the bottom half of the society or the bottom whatever the number is, you're really going to feel pain. We're all going to feel pain.

Octavio Blanco (1:16:13)
Yeah, and I don't know if it was a post that you ⁓ promoted on Uptown Collective Social or if it was somebody else, but somebody posted this and I thought it seemed like a beautiful way of looking at it also like true. ⁓ know, the left wing and the right wing are two wings of the same bird and if they can't learn to flap together, this bird ain't gonna fly, you know? And we have the

Led Black (1:16:34)
Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Octavio Blanco (1:16:42)
left wing and the right wing we are farther apart than we've ever been and I mean you with good reason I would say with good reason but we must try to find a way to talk to each other so that the left wing and the right wing can fly because this this bird has to fly otherwise we're dead you know this bird is dead because a bird that can't fly that bird is dead

Led Black (1:17:08)
Yeah, we're making these weird man, that dog can't hunt. Like, yeah, we're doing it. Yeah, no, but no, but it's true though. But again, I don't even know, like, you know, again, it goes back to the MLK quote that I love, you know, we were either live together as brothers or Paris together as fools. And we're doing the latter. You know what I mean? And again, we're allowing the people on top to play us right. Because it really isn't like no one's, you know, the whole left right thing isn't even stupid at this point. It's really, there's really only a right in this country.

Octavio Blanco (1:17:12)
Anna!

Led Black (1:17:38)
The what we consider the left is just you know right of center. You know what mean? It's it's we've you know the the Republican Party and right wing have been able to like Move the needle so far to the right that you know that we get lost in certain things And then it's like both sides. It's just in again. It's just

Octavio Blanco (1:17:52)
What?

There's no Republican Party.

There's no Republican Party.

Led Black (1:18:00)
This is MAGA.

Octavio Blanco (1:18:00)
It's just MAGA. It's just MAGA. And so you can't, that's the thing. It's hard to, it's hard to talk to MAGA because MAGA doesn't deal with facts. mean, it used to be, you know, as much as they may have disagreed on a lot of basic things, Republicans and Democrats could talk to each other because there were some basic facts that were like understood, but

Those are gone now. are no facts when you talk to a MAGA person. It's just blind allegiance.

Led Black (1:18:36)
But you know what I think though, to be honest, like I think the rot goes a lot.

You know, I mean, like the riots from the very beginning of this country, right, from the very, very beginning. And I don't think we actually really deal with the rot. And I think what's happening now is more everything being exposed. Right. I think the Republican Party has been evil for a long time, but so has the Democratic Party. Right. Like ⁓ Clinton sold out the working class and labor to be more like Republicans. So I think for a long time, both of these parties have contributed to our current situation.

And again, like we're at this place because of that, right? And it's not just, you know, what we're at right now. This is long standing rot from the very beginning, right? The founding fathers, a lot of them were, you know, enslavers, right? And not just regular enslavers. Like Thomas Jefferson was like the Elon Musk of slavery, you know what mean? Like he was the guy, you know. ⁓

Octavio Blanco (1:19:28)
Yeah.

Led Black (1:19:37)
I also say he was like the colonial R. Kelly, right? Because he took one of his slaves, a child, 13, it was even wilder that she was the stepdaughter of his father-in-law, right? So she was his wife's half-sister, right? So she probably looked like his wife, but she had a better, she was probably a better figure, shape and figure. She was 13.

Octavio Blanco (1:19:56)
I'm gonna need

an org chart for that one. I believe you, just don't, I'm trying to follow.

Led Black (1:20:01)
But think about that.

His father-in-law abused, raped one of his slaves and had this girl. So Thomas Jefferson's father-in-law was the father of his wife and his mistress that he raped. I shouldn't even call it mistress, of his concubine. Right? So think about how sick that was.

Octavio Blanco (1:20:20)
yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Led Black (1:20:25)
And when Thomas Jefferson died, he didn't even release all of his children that were his own children. You know what mean? Which is wild. So that's what I'm saying. Like the rock goes from the beginning, right? And America didn't even really become a democracy to the voting rights bill of 65, right? Like, so we're a new democracy, young democracy, and it's going off the rails. And it's both parties' faults because both parties did not care enough about people. They cared about profit and about power.

Octavio Blanco (1:20:25)
huh.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Led Black (1:20:52)
Right. And then so everyone played this little game until Trump came and took everything over. Right. So instead of making something that was right and just, they made this thing that never was really right and just. Sometimes it became more just because it had to, because they didn't want to fall apart. So we played this game for a long time, both sides going at each other and, but never really. And now here comes Trump and takes over everything. Right. He just comes in. It was so easy to hit for that. I mean, that, that grotesque.

Octavio Blanco (1:20:57)
Yeah.

Led Black (1:21:20)
thing that is the president now. He just took it over like nothing. It's wild.

Octavio Blanco (1:21:24)
There

was there was somebody speaking that I was listening to the other day might have been even today or could have been yesterday ⁓ they were saying at first I was just kind of like what is this person saying because they were like happy that Trump came around and they were just like talking about why about you know, you know, but then they were like but it's not because of the reasons that you would think

It's because he's exposed everything. He kicked the log over and all the little worms and all the little roly-poly's and all the little bugs that were hiding under that log came running out into the light. And now we see it and it's waking people up, supposedly.

I don't know if that's actually happening. I hope so. That he's waking up the people that are like, that may have been sort of like lulled into a false sense of security. When I was a kid, we used to, I used to watch horror movies and you know, there was always that false sense of security when they're like, my God. that was so close. good. Let's all go out into the courtyard. And then they like are happy going out to the courtyard and there he is, the monster.

Led Black (1:22:24)
Mm-hmm.

Octavio Blanco (1:22:34)
and then he kills them because because they had a false sense of security. Well, maybe maybe we've been woken up from that false sense of security and people are going to be more connected and more active. That's the hope. Whether or not that happens, I don't know. I think that with Zoran Mamdani's success, it's showing some evidence, at least here in New York City, that it has awakened ⁓ people who may have been not interested, people

who

may have been lulled into a false sense of security because things were pretty good. And now all of a sudden they are crappy and they want nothing to do with it and they're getting involved. So hopefully that's the case. What do you think about that?

Led Black (1:23:17)
Yeah, I'm super excited about Zoran and creating a different model ⁓ for governance, for the way forward, ⁓ for creating how you treat the citizens. I do feel that Zoran has what it takes and if we can get behind him and he can continue to be the excellent representative that he is, I think we can really make a dent and change things as far as New York City. I think we can ⁓ provide a blueprint for a lot of other cities.

across this country and I think even for the presidency but but to be honest right like I think that ⁓ This something is gonna be hard to to overcome

You know, I think we can create this little oasis here in New York City and continue that. I don't know if we can replicate that everywhere else. I think it'd be great to provide that example. And I think New York City can do that. We can do something. have the most important city in the planet, in my opinion, right? And I think that we have the right amount of, you know, culture, commerce to make that work. And I'm excited about, you know, being, I want to be right there with Zora and fighting that fight with them, you know, to make New York City better.

I think that's great, but I don't know how much influence you could have across this country federally. think, you know what mean? Like I really do feel that a lot of the ideas and notions that we used to have are cooked. They are no longer like ⁓ in effect. The notion of midterm elections and that it just sounds quaint and pretty ⁓ and hopeful and fanciful and.

Octavio Blanco (1:24:52)
Well, they're

almost upon us. Let's see what happens. Let's see what happens.

Led Black (1:24:55)
Let's see if we get there. Let's see if we get there. And then even if we do

get there, the presidential election in 2028, that seems like...

So far away and I don't see this man that's putting you know How many hundreds of millions of dollars to build a ballroom for himself and he's putting all this gold and making the gaudy as Right. I don't know how much he's willing to budge from that seat and once you make that mistake of giving that man power again He will now relinquish power. So I'm very hopeful for Zora and I hope we could provide ⁓ You know a new model and I'm willing to fight that fight with him in New York City and create it here

in New York City, you know, make this the real official capital of this country in certain ways, but the federal power is federal power. And I don't, you know, I don't have a lot of hopes for that. I don't have hope for midterms. I don't have hopes for 2028. You know I'm I don't think him and Stephen Miller, that ghoul, are relinquishing power that easily. And I think a lot of our notions are, like I said, quaint and fanciful.

Octavio Blanco (1:25:53)
I agree. Do you have any idea who's gonna, do you have any like projection or any thoughts on who's gonna be the Democratic candidate in 2028 or is that way too far away? I mean, I know Gavin Newsom is really like trying to step up to the mantle, but you know, that's Gavin and I don't know.

Led Black (1:26:06)
I mean like

You know, Gavin

Newsom, like, Gavin Newsom, I think, you know, to be honest,

He's too funny. He's too ambition. You know, I like that he's trolling Trump. I'm enjoying the F out of it. I love it. It's a Latina that's running his social media. Kudos to her. Kudos for really, you know, bringing it to Trump on a daily basis and trolling right wing people. Kudos, kudos, kudos. I'm not going to shit on that. I think that's the right approach. But I also think Gavin Newsom is a little too slippery, right? He tends to play really like funny with like the Ben Shapiro, the Charlie Kirks and all these people, right? And again,

Octavio Blanco (1:26:25)
You

Led Black (1:26:48)
And

like, if you don't believe, like, you don't believe people of color, black people, brown people are human, like Charlie Kirk and the Ben Shapiro's and all, then you have them on your show and you yucking it up, you keep keying with them, then I really don't have place for you as president. So Gavin Newsom is just too close, he's too ambitious and too like, hey, let's all be friends that we don't need friends like Charlie Kirk.

We don't need friends like Ben Shapiro. We don't need those kind of friends. And he plays too loosy and goosey with that. don't like that. ⁓ You know, I don't think we have a deep bench. Pritzker has been, you know, pretty good, but he's also a billionaire. So I don't trust the billionaires either. ⁓ But you know, anything is better than Trump. But that's how we got in this place in the first place, right? So ⁓ I forgot the guy's name. I think he's from New Hampshire, Maine. He looks like a lumberjack.

I forgot his name, ⁓ but this guy has been really promising and I've seen him a few times. He's very straightforward and he was having ⁓ an event. And you know what talking about? He looked like a lumberjack, like Paul Bunyan. Yeah, yeah.

Octavio Blanco (1:27:47)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's young, he's young guy, young

guy. Is he a senator from Maine or is he?

Led Black (1:27:56)
I'm not sure if it's Maine or New Hampshire, you know what saying? But he definitely looks like he could fuck somebody up. You know what mean? And he doesn't pull his punches. You know what I'm saying? But, but, but again, he also, you know, like, so the, the, the one that I was watching, someone in there, it was like, like a town hall kind of thing. Right. And someone there, you know, said something about, you know, like it was something pro Trump and most of the people there, ⁓ were

Octavio Blanco (1:27:59)
Yeah, yeah.

Hahahaha

Led Black (1:28:24)
were like kind of going at that person. And he said, hold on, hold on, don't do that.

He was like that person there, you know, they're going through something that's real and it's pain. And now I thought that was pretty, pretty good. forgot his name. I got to find his name. But what I'm saying, I'm not saying he's presidential. He's not that, but what I'm saying is that we need a new breed. And really I don't see anyone on the horizon. I kind of like AOC, but I also think she's, could be somewhat ambitious to a fault. Right? So it's like when Biden was like, everyone's telling Biden to get out, she did a video.

Octavio Blanco (1:28:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Led Black (1:28:59)
were like, I'm with Biden and they were dressed the same and they had like both white shirt and khakis and fucking shades and shit and that felt really icky, right? But I would still vote for her if she ran for president, you know, that's not what I'm saying. But again, I think she's probably the only one. you know, it's, you know, again, we're full of, this party's full of frauds. There's Cory Hooker. Cory Hooker's horrible, right? Cory Hooker is a prostitute for APAC.

Octavio Blanco (1:29:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, me too. Yeah.

Led Black (1:29:27)
⁓ Now he's cursing. Now have you seen him? He's cursing. That's his new thing. Like before he was like a funny duddy. Like he was like the black Ned Flanders. Like now he's like cursing and stuff. You know, it's like we have clowns. You know, Apex, Shakur again, Jeffries like, there's a picture him with a bat. Like get out of here. Like these clowns, it's clown show. So what I'm saying is that's why I'm not hopeful nationally. Cause we know we have a lot of clowns, man. You know, that circus bench is deep.

Octavio Blanco (1:29:35)
Ha

Yeah, we certainly have not built a good runway for the youth to step up. I do hope that AOC, maybe she's the way, you know.

I don't wanna take anything away from her. ⁓ I hear what you're saying. I do think that politics ⁓ is a slippery place to be anyway. when it comes to like, especially during election time, you gotta take everything politicians say with a grain of salt around the election time. It's mostly, gotta watch, you gotta see what they do. Where do they vote? What do they put money towards? Who's supporting them? Those are the things that you have to be paying attention

attention

to but we we we not we're we're not reading enough and we don't have we're defunded where all the oligarchs are taking over all the all the news companies you know you got all this it's just like crazy so you know good luck getting ⁓ good information ⁓

Led Black (1:30:44)
Yeah, yeah.

Octavio Blanco (1:30:53)
It's gonna be something else. And meanwhile, every news company out there is working on a shoestring budget. Every reporter who's out there is working their fingers to the bone. They're working super long shifts. If you don't know this, for the most part, yeah, you hear about anchors and they make millions of dollars, but most reporters aren't making that much money, right? Most reporters are barely hanging on.

It's really tough out there in journalism. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know how we're gonna get, how we're gonna be really able to track. And forget about local news. Local news is a nothing burger right now. It's a...

If it's on TV, if it bleeds, leads. If it's online, it's just like the most basic stuff available. just don't have enough of... Nobody's been able to crack that local, that way to make it so you can actually make a living doing local news nowadays. It's ⁓ tough.

Led Black (1:32:01)
It's wild.

But my brother, it's time to have dinner. It's dinner time. It's dinner time.

Octavio Blanco (1:32:04)
It's wild. It's getting, yeah, it's dinner time. know.

yo, ⁓ thanks again, Led. Thanks again for doing this, man. Thanks for your thoughts, your voice, your ideas. Thanks for your time. And thanks to your family for them giving you the time when you...

Led Black (1:32:12)
Yes, sir. Thank you, brother.

Octavio Blanco (1:32:29)
we should be with our people too. So enjoy dinner, enjoy dinner. And I'll see you all, spread love, bye.

Led Black (1:32:31)
Likewise, brother. Thanks, man. Spread love, it's the uptown way. See y'all next week.