#52: Obesity

There’s one of the following in every hood. The cat who was called Baby Huey when he was a kid. Or the chick with the carrot legs known as Tiny. Or baby doll known as Muffin with the muffin top. Lemme stop, this ain’t the nicknames post.

Anyway, to get back in focus, real talk, the hood is teeming with fat bastards. Oodles of lard*sses who probably eat Oodles of Noodles…uncooked…dipped in Cheez Wiz…on a kaiser roll…with bacon…baked in! Same people that have the nerve to drink a diet soda with it like they’re doing something.

It’s a really weird rule of unalike attract, alike repel or whatever, kinda like how in planes you move the flaps up to go down and down to go up. Ghetto people who can barely afford to keep their fridge stocked somehow, someway tend not to miss too many meals because somehow food with more ingredients that’s bad for you is cheaper than food with less ingredients that’s good for you. And unlike their non-ghetto counterparts, ghetto people eat like it’s going out of style, and then park themselves in front of the tube to catch up on their stories or videos or bootleg movies or whatever.

Imbalanced lifestyles leaving the hood chock full of large and in charge ghetto people built like tanks. Water tanks. Septic tanks. Whatever tank it is, it’s a tank that doesn’t move much, because many ghetto people never met an exercise they liked. Which is how the diabetes clinics keep a good attendance…even on Christmas.

While we’re at it, ever notice also that a lot of ghetto girls that have nicknames and e-mail/Internet handles with words like “Sexy” or “Cute” in them are unequivocally fat? Can’t say they’re tryna convince themselves they’re attractive and desirable, because thirsty *ss ghetto dudes already have them convinced, gassin’ em up in Myspace comments and sh*t, having them think they can walk out the rest and to the club in their brand new kits from Torrid and Abundance with swagger enough to expect three free drinks plus appetizers. Their crew of four will dance in a circle (like they’re really beating dudes away with a stick that night) and take up the entire floor. Sloppy, morbidly obese chicks that in turn have the nerve to consider themselves “thick.”

Ghetto people get uber-fat as if being so damn big builds character. As if it’s the best protection. Yeah, it’s great protection…from getting laid. Oh, who am I kidding, Big Bertha still finds a way to crank out a bunch of babies…all of which she can feed from one teat as they treat her spread out areola like the round table King Arthur’s knights sat around.

They often try to explain it away with excuses like having thyroid problems or being “big-bone-ded.” When usually it never occurred to them that BBQ cheese puffs since 3 years old ain’t exactly the breakfast of champions.

Sorry, NBC, ghetto people are the biggest losers of a different kind.

#51: Halloween

Ghetto people get up for most all holidays. Usually because they’re excuses to get into certain activities. As mentioned a month ago, it’s the time to either eat like a pig, drink like a fish, smoke like a chimney maybe, party like a rockstar…or in the case of Halloween, do the following:
-dress like a complete whore. Used to be that females did like everyone else and dressed in rather silly costumes. While some still do, many chicks have latched on to this obsessive need to be a “sexy ____.” Sexy werewolf, sexy firefighter, sexy sportswriter, sexy person who cleans toilets, sexy bowling shoe disinfector (probably isn’t a word, who cares?), sexy serial rapist. Hell, there will probably be some fat ghetto girl who comes out in a bra and panties and says that’s her costume so she can get laid. Any excuse to wear tight revealing sh*t and get their cleavage drooled into like the attention whores they are, these tramps are now making the most un-sexy thing you can possibly think of “sexy”…perfect night for a ghetto girl to get knocked up at 2am. And she won’t know who the father is because he was masked up that night* and she was drunk off Incredible Hulks.
-be criminal and destructive. Throw eggs, play Bushwick Bill and rob little kids for their trick or treat bags, deface cars, or take it to the annual Detroit extreme: burn houses down on Devil’s Night. Putting innocent families who don’t have insurance on the street. Yep, there’s ghetto bastards ready to make a fun night miserable this weekend.
-get the little crumb-crunchers free candy. Hey, ghetto people love free crap and they wanna shut their kids up…what better way to kill two birds with one stone than to send their little bad *sses out in those cheap supermarket vinyl costumes (hey, screw getting creative) to go get candy that will have their heads jumping off their bodies for a week?

*Speaking of creativity, ghetto dudes 16 and up will likely just throw on a mask with their everyday gear, and call it a costume since they’re too “hard” to turn their swag off and really get silly with it. They just wanna hit up a party and look to come up…maybe on some skins, maybe on some money from knocking off a liquor store (save the hate mail), who knows.

Anyways, Halloween is simply there to usher in the ghetto holiday f*ckery that’s just getting started.

#50: Worshiping criminals

BET had a documentary on a year or so back called American Gangster. Under normal circumstances, one would say it’s simply telling a story about people the general populace might not be aware of, just giving information. After all those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it, right? Sadly, however, one has to keep in mind BET’s recent history and what kind of demographic it seems to want to court. You guessed it: ghetto people!

This isn’t a rant on BET itself, that’s another post (surely one the audience has been looking for right here or on a more specifically Black-oriented blog, where the channel is frequently ripped, so let this author not lose focus here with this long set-up). And let me state now that it was among BET’s offerings that featured fairly solid production values (just like First In: Compton, a show you should follow while it’s here). The ugly part is the context one can’t miss, because if you’ve known enough ghetto people, especially males, you’d know they’re downright fascinated by criminals. And BET, having evolved into a station ghetto people turn to, apparently couldn’t resist catering to ghetto interests by airing this series, showing history a lot of ghetto people want to repeat!

Why is the ghetto world so interested in criminals? Ghetto people especially like to keep special edition Blu-Rays (the bootleg DVD just won’t cut it in these cases) of movies like Scarface, Goodfellas, Public Enemies, and American Gangster (no relation to the above) that romanticized the dubious protagonists of these flicks as the best at their respective professions. So when the real deal exists, just like high profile athletes and rappers, everyone wants to be (or be with) that guy. Wantin’ autographs and locks of their hair and sh*t. Dare I say he’s the ghetto person’s picture perfect idea of manhood. “F*ck Warren Buffett and Barack Obama, I wanna be Nicky Barnes or Freeway Ricky Ross!”

He lives that playboy lifestyle, successfully picks up all the freaks, comes and goes as he pleases, drives flashy expensive whips with equally pricey rims on them, holds down really nasty guns (another favorite ghetto toy), regularly orders bottle service at the swankiest clubs in town…he’s the epitome of hood rich. Yet while wrapping their lips around his d*ck, people don’t wrap their heads around what kinda heinous things he might have done to get to that level. And if and when they find out, they’re quick to excuse it! If duke goes to jail, he could have raped 12 kids and smoked their mothers and these idolaters of criminals are urging him to “keep his head up”…as if he’s somehow the victim. As if he’s a political prisoner, targeted for persecution by the powers that be for living and doing righteously. No matter what, the ghetto person has the criminal’s back.

The amounts of futures such criminals have probably destroyed (whether by physically killing people or some law changes due to them) don’t rate to ghetto people. They also don’t allow in their brains that said criminal whose picture is ironed on to their T-shirt would probably just as soon have them whacked if he felt one was in the way of what he wanted. But this congregation is too busy wishing they were as tough and rebellious, too busy living vicariously through the stories of these guys (as well as hating the idea of the criminal’s other enemy, law enforcement) to even consider there’s more than one side to every story. And that all heroes have elements of their lives that would make that proverbial little boy from the Black Sox scandal cry “Say it ain’t so, Joe!”

Author’s note: Yeah, so many topics could have been #50 on the ghetto bucket list, but the hot hand (immediately inspired by the f*ckery one reads over on AllHipHop) wrote this one!

#49: Loving Mom and hating Dad

Let this author frame the following for you in a way that ghetto folks understand.

In the hood, the boys are known to go back and forth with really incendiary jokes about their opponent’s relatives. Ghetto people all know (or at least are convinced) they pops ain’t sh*t, so baggin’ on dads doesn’t rate because it ain’t that effective. But baggin’ on moms is where you can get some laughs and do some real damage. Those sessions get charged like hemi Dodges.

Not to mention note the difference in attendance at buffet restaurants close to the hood for the Champagne brunch on the second Sunday in May versus the third Sunday in June. If pops is there on Father’s Day, it’s likely he’s paying his and everyone else’s way. Whereas moms on Mother’s Day probably has a brand new Lexus with that douchey red bow on top in the parking lot when she comes back out…with an LCD TV, Coach bag, shoes from Aldo, and that damn basket gift wrapped in the trunk! All of this chipped in for by her doting offspring, as if she made them by all by herself.

It’s just something about mothers with ghetto people. They can do ZERO wrong in one’s eyes. Have kids with mad multiple different dudes (that their man-sweatin’ *sses give priority over said children), end up in prison on credit card scams (even ruining their own kids credit so they can’t finance a car or house in the future), beg for help from the kids the rest of their triflin’ lives using the “dirty diapers” trump card for pacification, and be an otherwise complete bastard to them…and they still hold momdukes on a pedestal.

Pops could give a kid a little less money than he was able to earn that week, and he’s the worst! Person! In the worrrrrrrrld! Ghetto people have daddy issues arguably worse than they do police issues. Yeah, we all know of the deadbeat dudes who only care about chasing new draws and bolt at the first sign that old girl is with child. But ghetto society got so jaded from even hearing about those guys that dudes that are out to do right can’t catch a break. Can’t win custody in court or nothin’…even when the punk *ss mama is literally a meth and crack addict on the stroll 16 hours a day.

And you wonder why muthaf*ckas wanna get married less and less each passing year…

#48: Talking to people any kind of way

You ever text someone and get the response “who the f*ck is this?” and wonder why that was even necessary? You think to yourself that you could see the need to ask who someone is if you’re just curious, but did it require the seasoning of such a hostile fighting word like an F-bomb?

Ever been in line at the liquor store or the chicken and Chinese spot to see an interaction where the customer begins to flare his or her temper and begin spewing forth curses and racial and sexual orientation epithets and such as if that’s really going to get them better service as opposed to their dinner spit into? Way to resolve a dispute. The Newport you just smoked didn’t take the slightest edge off of your stress apparently.

Ever get on the bus or train knowing damn well once you get over by the local high school, parental discretion is advised? Have these kids heard nothing about how to act at home and abroad among polite and other mixed company?

Have some ghetto people lost their home training or are they simply showing they never had any in the first place? Are these folks having a series of bad days, are they just A-holes like that, or were they taught that this kind of language and attitude towards any random *ss person really is peace? And the majority of these twerps dare to assert what kind of “good Christian” they are…

Surely these same people don’t like being talked to any kind of way…unless they’re Likes To Fight Guy on the “I wish you would” tip looking to take it to someone’s chest. Oops, almost forgot, women fight with their mouth, and if you get into it with a ghetto girl, you just might shed a tear or two…because they’ll cut loose and be meeeeeeean! Really mean! You kiss your kids with that mouth, booch?

All this vulgarity, rowdiness, and belligerence from so many hood folks. Desensitized to the point zero empathy is there, zero decency, zero sense of how to treat people, even those you disagree with.

The disease has fully infected the hood, polluted Hip-Hop as a whole, the children are a bunch of potty mouths…I mean this ain’t the 50s and all that, a little colorful language expands minds every now and again…but don’t you the reader find it gets a bit over the top? Wouldn’t it seem uncalled for and inappropriate if you heard it, for lack of a better example, on Saturday morning cartoons?

What is the ghetto person’s hypertensive fascination with using cuss words?

Or the other one you should love that ghetto brothers especially drip like water? “My n*gga.”

Every five words if you eavesdrop on one of their conversations (or are forced to hear it due to the obnoxious loudness), it’s “my n*gga this, my n*gga that, my n*gga my n*gga my n*gga.” You would think they just saw Training Day for the first time the night before. It replaced “you know what I’m sayin’” earlier this decade for most overused ghetto verbiage.

It is said that people who can’t control their tongue can’t control their actions. Now if you notice such behavior in a person, why would you think it’s a good idea to make them company you keep? Or in the case of one of those Bridezilla grooms, marry it?

#47: Proud ignorance of the world at large

Ghetto people really don’t get around very much.* You can tell right off when a ghetto person opens his or her mouth…and things are confidently confessed that to someone more cultured should be completely beyond comprehension. Sounding just ignernt…yep, spelled just like that, not ignorant, but ignernt.

That ghetto of the mind principle is real. Some people really have a NASCAR oval track their brain makes left turns in. They genuinely don’t see sh*t else. Whatever bullsh*t their mama or their little friends introduced to them is all they know, and they’re content with it, and actually have the nerve to dis things they’re unfamiliar with!

Take for instance some 18 year old ghetto girl. Meets a dude that uses fairly polite terminology, keeps a pretty clean diet, knows some other things he’s willing to teach her. Ghetto people tend to be threatened by worlds that are foreign to them. So she’s likely to slur him in a culturally insensitive manner and send him packing…as if how he’s living is beneath her.

This is how one hears things like Asians being all called Chinese, Latinos being all labeled Mexicans who eat beans and tacos, all Black people with “dreads” being called Jamaicans and asked if they have any weed to smoke, all Muslims being labeled terrorist A-rabs that threaten their good Christian sensibilities, and more…

And thinking that sh*t is OK to boot! Snitching is a huge ghetto crisis, but bigotry and prejudice (not brought forth by police, that is), that’s cool!

These are people whose horizons and minds you can’t expand to save your life…even if you’re buying! They’re life’s picky eaters. They have a life-tose intolerance, they just ain’t digesting much (unless it’s pork). This, but they’re also the biggest lemmings…meaning if the whole hood is on it, they’re on it. Won’t catch on to a new sound until it’s on the radio twenty times a day. Won’t watch that movie if the bootleg man ain’t got it in stock. Ways of customizing a car or wearing clothes that have existed for years ain’t cool…at least they weren’t until that baller rapper they aspire to be (with) mentions it in his song. As far as interest in international travel, the ghetto person is probably the one who speaks of Africa like it’s a country, or maybe that dude who wants to go to Brazil only because he thinks a porno shoot will break out when he leaves the airport. Foreign foods get Americanized partially due to ghetto people who need to be spoon fed stuff. This author sounds harsh, but go have a conversation with this very person and you’ll feel my pain like Clinton did while he was feeling on the booty of Monica Lewinsky.

*Having been around the block in bed, if diseases and popping out babies like rabbits is any indication, is the obvious exception.

Shirts Ghetto People Like

The ghetto world is known for wearing some wild *ss shirts. The hood may not have started the white tee thing, for example, but it sure took it to the extreme. And ghetto people are a surefire audience for the shirts you see at the swap meet or at the beach boardwalk with big *ss weed leaves on them or cuss words in massive block letters (e.g. Don’t Ask Me 4 Sh*t, a classic shirt this author could use when talking to women I wanna take out, but I digress)

Anyway, let’s document a little of what’s out there (in order from top to bottom). For instance, the hater enthusiasts are covered with authority.
A ghetto person just can't call their wardrobe complete without celebrating an irreverent song lyric that describes them to a T (pun intended). Of course one shirt bound to be on many ghetto backs celebrates the hood’s favorite skin art and Too Short’s favorite word all in one. Last but not least to be celebrated together are hood icons and bad design. Happy shopping.
<–This will especially be appreciated by the baller in your life this Christmas!

#46: Not caring for professional help

In case you haven’t noticed, ghetto people don’t do therapy.

Nope, having a shrink is not what’s hot in the streets. Ghetto folks are too “real” for that…no matter what kinda funk they could be in.

They ain’t tryna get labeled crazy or weak (though they and many of their ghetto contemporaries are as crazy and/or weak as they come…hey, they don’t hide behind guns and their crew for nothing). They think all the therapy they need is Jesus, or sex, or money (I guess they never heard money can’t buy happiness)…or exorcising their demons on others.

Is it not having the cash or insurance for it? Is it pride (read: fear of tainting their street cred)? Are these folks who say things like “only God can judge me” and other witticisms taught to them by Tupac records as they do this, that, and the third with no shame in their game really that afraid of being ostracized and gossiped about by their community? A lot of people in the hood are struggling with serious personal problems that they can’t sort out on their own. But again, many hood folks are victims (and some in turn are perpetrators) of the toxic ghetto mentality that rules out many of life’s options.

It’s funny how that ghetto mentality works. The ghetto has a thing for keeping one down and kicking them while they’re there and (while they ironically enough can’t stand haters) hating on any ideas for rising up that aren’t pre-approved as appropriate for one of the ghetto world. One can trace conditions of education and infrastructure and crime in the hood to this worldview. The ghetto would easily rather one like Maia Campbell not get the help she needs, but get caught on camera cussin’ out some hoodbooger in a tank top, as in that recent YouTube clip that made the rounds. You the reader probably have tons of new lines to impress your friends as you insult their anti-horny *sses.

It’s funny in all its seriousness.

#45: Being ready for trouble when partying

Was watching NBC Nightly News while listening to beats over the weekend of this writing. Lester Holt suddenly mentions that there was a shootout at a bar on a snowy Thursday night in Toledo, Ohio, with fairly robust surveillance footage. Ghetto people know full well that’s not a strange occurrence. Sh*t goes down at bars, clubs, and party functions where ghetto people are in attendance. Ask that idiot C-Murder, he’ll break it down for you.

Hey, the life is hectic. There’s bound to be a bunch of dudes (or thuggish-ruggish lesbians) interested in acting out dormant Mobb Deep fantasies, wishing a fool would so they can dust off the line they’ve waited their whole life to say: “I’ll be right back.” These same folks probably do drive an Ac and keep a Mac in the engine. Probably mack to girls in the function with razor blades in their mouth ready to buck fifty somebody. Well, we at least know that’s how New York party animal thugs rolled back in the 90s…and a lot of fools’ tactics don’t necessarily change with the times…but I digress.

At spots where the ghetto people are in the building, that *ss gotta be prepared. Know the exits (not just for the fight or shootout, but even if the dancefloor gets a little tight). Keep the coat and the purse and your crew close by. Might need to tuck in your chain in case of the party getting robbed (that does happen). Know what you can grab to swing at somebody and knock off a block or two. Don’t stand anywhere near the bouncer (they tend to either get touched or do the touchin’). And have a good first step. Hell, you might even wanna get like homeboy at the 2:41 mark of the video and practice that little stolen base strut he was working to perfection. He’s obviously one ghetto person who likes baseball. This may not be #6, but you really can’t make this stuff up.

#44: T.G.I. Friday’s–and other “bar and grills”

Yo, f*ck T.G.I. Friday’s.

No, really…f*ck T.G.I. Friday’s.

I mean, as a restaurant, Friday’s is cool, you can slide off in there and get a proper meal that’ll stick to your ribs, feel good about life with the game or some random ESPN show on in the background.

The goddamn bars they have in them, however, are complete ghetto douchebag conventions.

And since ghetto people have a bad habit of f*cking off all the dedicated bars in town, leaving the security guards of said defunct establishments needing a post to work, you end up finding both varieties of meatheads converging on the local Friday’s. Somehow Friday’s shines as this supposed place to be.

This is especially the case in ghetto suburbs. Because these are places where the dedicated bars never existed to begin with, there’s a true obnoxiousness level one finds himself steeped in the minute they walk in. It’s hard for this author to wrap his head around. How in holy hell did Friday’s just become like the sh*t to ghetto people?

Really, it’s the douchiest place in the world. It’s lit like the developers of each location went nuts buying up the local f*ckin’ Lamps Plus. Other features of the decor make you think a barber pole just threw up on its walls and tables after having too many Friday’s drinks. Crowd consists of wannabe fat cat cigar smokers, the motorcycle club delegation (often Ruff Ryders), mutant looking females in the building to test drive the hair they just got done…for Friday’s of all places. How the hell does one try to get chose up in Friday’s? Whether it’s macking or bringing a date, you can’t hear a goddamn thing in there! And it gets stupid packed too. Ghetto people pack lots of patience for Friday’s because most people with half a brain and any dignity dig in their heels, spin 180 degrees and jump it off elsewhere.

It can easily be like this at the hood Chili’s, hood Applebee’s, hood Bennigan’s, what have you…but ALL T.G.I. Friday’s spots get this way after 4pm. This author is surprised they don’t just splurge for a DJ that likes to play Baha Men and Wang Chung, charge a dub admission, and introduce bottle service so ghetto people can really feel they’re doing it big.

Anyone reading this, please explain why the hell T.G.I. Friday’s is so f*ckin’ popular?