humanity i just described, you had these guys from the mental institution. anthony: ah, that s community for ya. handsome dick: that was the bronx. that was the bronx, man. anthony: maybe you know handsome dick from such pre-punk legeary bands t diators. dick grew up, where else? the athens, the cultural geyser, the font of art and music that is the bronx. and back in the day, like me, this was his special warm and happy place. handsome dick: i can go by and eat a full, two-and-a-half-hour meal, be stuffed, i see someone eating a white castle, i still want one. you can forget mickey d s, you can forget burger king, you forget all those places. if you need a white castle scratch, none of the cheap places will do. i can t stop eating these. setting hearts a blaze. doing next to nothing for days weekenders. even when a weekend s not enough, there s a hilton for you. book your break direct with hilton.com
the bronx, but it kind of won t feel like it. city island is a fishing village turned what? a parking lot for pleasure boats and a long-established restaurant row for new yorkers. desus: you picked the perfect day to come out here. anthony: desus says this place. and desus is always right. anthony: how far from your neighborhood? by car. desus: um, by car? maybe 15, 20 minutes. anthony: 20 minutes! desus: it seems like a world away. anthony: yeah. but it s kooky. i want to buy some nautical bric-a-brac while i m here. this is new york city? desus: this is, uh, cape cod in the bronx. many of my childhood memories, like, getting all excited to come out and we get there and they re like, oh, the beach is closed because of medical waste. there s not a day that you d go in the water and come out with like a maxi pad stuck to you. anthony: i ve been there. so you were here, like, when? like, yesterday? desus: i was literally here yesterday. anthony: wow. desus: for
this is the mahogany bark. this one is used for any type of bodily weaknesses. anthony: baba rashan abdul hakim, or pops baba as he s called, a grass roots bush doctor, healer. he uses recipes passed down from mothers and aunties, blends of roots, spices herbs, barks, and woods. baba: you take the wood root in the morning and a bitter that night. i don t care what is wrong with you, you re going to show improvement. anthony: whatever ails, he s got a cure. wood root cure for the blood, the body, the nerves. koromantee, an intestinal cleanser, and traditional african manback. helps you get your manhood back, among other things. baba: it was about 1956 when i came to america. so i had to make it in the apartment in bronx river. and back then, when i m boiling roots, the whole projects smell of these roots. they used to gibe them. hey, what your father doing in there? what kind of hocus pocus in there doing? you know what i mean?
too much cinnamon in their curried goat, which, as we all know, is a sin against god. lammy fixed things. curried goat and stewed oxtail, with rice and peas, collards, and, yes, mac and cheese. i can t resist. anthony: man, i mean, correct me if i m wrong there s a lot of good food in the bronx. desus: there is, there is. if people would like, you know, get over their bias and come above 96th street they would find out. man: you learn fast. anthony: i mean, if the bronx were a neighborhood in manhattan, sort of shrunk-down, you d have hipsters crawling all over this place. desus: oh! oh my god. if you live in the bronx, it s not necessary that you re going to ever leave the bronx, go to manhattan, cause everything you want, everything you need is in the bronx. so, why would you go past 149th street? anthony: right. desus: so, all that repping my neighborhood, the ethnic pride and all that stuff anthony: right. desus: people definitely hold on to that. and that
playing it. the car that drove by had it on. anthony: right. melle mel: you couldn t hear it was like a plue. it was like it was like a locust. it and that s when i realized, you know, it was it was something that was beyond what we was doing out in the streets. critically, it s not a great record, but if you play it right now, it s still, you know, it s still a good record. anthony: in this case, at least, history has come around. today, nobody looks back at the sugarhill gang as having been originals or innovators. people know who did what. melle mel: as far as hip-hop now, like, as far as the music now, these guys are not trying to tell the story of their time at all. okay, yeah, they popped a lot of bottles, oh yeah, they had sex with a lot of women, and they drove a lot of expensive cars, and nothing else happened. but you would never know what that there was a black president. you would never know that there was two, uh, wars. you would never know those things becau