#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.

#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…

#43: Cookout holidays

There’s three types of holidays:
-the giftin’ kind (e.g. Chrismaboxihanukwanzakah AKA the whole month of December, Mother’s Day), where women and children always want some sh*t…
-the drinkin’ kind (NYE, St. Pats, Cinco de Mayo…really, all of them, but specifically those), the bar’s, club’s, liquor store’s, and freeloading female’s best friend, and…
-the grillin’ kind (could be the whole season of summer, but specifically Memorial Day weekend, July 4th weekend, and Labor Day weekend).

This is the type of holiday where there’s suddenly not a parking space in sight, mad kids you never met will be runnin’ around, and e’ybody feel like they can throw down. Swear they got the best ribs, the best carne asada, the best chicken, best brisket or brats or links.

Vegetarians, as you have probably figured out by now, ain’t welcome and the ghetto people who make up the bulk of the crowd will feel threatened by them and make remarks about how they can’t live without meat! So they’re up crap’s creek unless they’re interested in the potato salad with paprika and eggs and green onions and other random *ss ingredients (what in holy hell is a pimento?).

Anyway, all these foods you will take a plate of home, then forget all about as it goes bad inside your fridge…because you already know too many cooks spoil the pot(luck), but you gotta humor the sensitive bastards who made it lest you get made to feel feel guilty…

And of course you know what else is gonna happen when ghetto people get pepped up. That’s right, sweet babies, your ears will bear witness to the f*ckery known as a soundclash (clash being the key part of that term). Because there will be that DJ that doesn’t give a f*ck enough to have turntables as he opts for his dual CD player and a zip case full of bootlegs and burns of the same damn Tupac and reggaeton and oldies you can hear on a day heading home from work played with no kinda blends involved. That dude is also unequivocally over 35. And his opponent: that one cousin or boyfriend who swears his trunk rattlin’ *ss Chevy is bumpin’, so he just GOTS to have his door wide open as he wears Young Jeezy the f*ck out.

Oh, but there will be a wildcard, and that’s that dude that rides the wide *ss Harley with fringes on it. He’s sure to come rip snortin’ in the dance like he’s the absolute don playin’ Teddy Pendergrass or whatever super-lover artist was hot when he was younger.

Total noise pollution (which could get uglier if the karaoke starts) to add on to the air pollution of the burning flesh of the piggy piggy. Because the ghetto cookout just isn’t fine if the attendees can’t dine on swine. It’s a party, y’all, to which the 20-somethings will have blunts in rotation, the 13-year-old girls will bang out the stank dance of the month, and that one uncle the family suspiciously knows about is in the background grabbin’ his meat.

What, I was just talkin’ about the sliced beef!

#39: The 4th of July

Those who know the hood well know ghetto people get up for July 4th.

Why is July 4th so special? For patriotic reasons? Probably not (unless a family member’s in the military). Not many in the hood really care to appropriate the idea of Independence Day. But hey, why not enjoy the day off, and the excuse to get up with good people?

But again, why is July 4th so special? One can barbecue or grill on Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends just fine…or any day in the summer.

So why is July 4th so special to ghetto people?

FIREWORKS.

The whole damn week leading to July 4th, the hood is awash with the report of shock and awe inducing illegal fireworks. There’s always that guy that has the M80s and cherry bombs and bottle rockets on deck, and ghetto people find that guy and get that hook-up.

Because safe and sane stuff like cone fountains and Piccolo Petes just don’t cut it. City ordinances are worth scoffing at since the police basically WILL look the other way (not hating, just telling the real). So those illegal fireworks are getting lit and put in the air like spliffs. It’s not a celebrashonnnnnn without ‘em!

And the culmination on the night of the 4th (when everyone exhausts their stash and drivers have to swerve out of the way of fireworks in the middle of the street like mines) is like a day in Afghanistan. Literally for some, because there will be likely gunfire in the mix too (not like New Year’s, but it happens).

Author’s note: Yeah, the holiday just passed over the weekend, but the relevance was too much to wait till next year for.

You can’t make this stuff up #3

Heard about something just too trife not to be posted here. It damn near qualified as a number post.

Alright, LAPD runs up on this Studio City club called Platinum (ghetto enough as it is by name alone), tells the security to kick gravel and travel, runs up in there and begins arresting all kinds of gangster cats, pickin’ em off like a hot hand on the video game Centipede. Bunch of parole violators, bunch of bail jumpers, bunch of dudes under the gang injunction order (not supposed to be together AT ALL, period). They figured they can’t rock out in the hood, so they rented out the club some ten miles away. Reports conflict on whether onetime already knew days in advance or if some heroic 2520 dropped the dime like his pocket was overflowing, but up to 100 jack-booted officers were all over it around 2am (so at least they got to have a full party…sweet!)

Heads stood out as it was with their swap meet personalized shirts and tacky bedazzled fake Ed Hardy in such a wine-and-cheese (by comparison) part of town. But really, what the hell were they thinking? All these legal swords ower their head: probation, parole, gang injunction…and on top of that, they were blazin’ inside!!

Oh, that leads to the beauty of what inspired this author to post it: The TV news report of it all. The intrepid journalist in his Indiana Jones leather jacket interviewing the good cop talking about how the place smelled like, and I quote “a Bob Marley concert.” Not to mention they said they could have probably popped more on a violation of something starting with P if their computers weren’t down. (Stop buying your PCs from telemarketers!) And the guy who apparently reported them gives his name on TV!! How very brave of him, as if anyone affiliated with that set won’t read the lower third and call 1-800-USSearch.

To wrap it up, Indiana Kovacik said there’s more of these to come because it’s “hood holiday season” this summer. Plenty of shopping days left, to be sure. And that’s one down *ss club owner to allow all that to go down (yeah, we really believe he didn’t know he was renting it out to a GANG…but he made bank off of having 400 people in the spot, that’s for damn sure).

This author is having a party THERE!

Click here to read the actual report and watch the video

#29: Special occasion corner vending

We all know the hood loves hustling…and we all know the hood loves hustlers.  This might be what allows a certain breed of hustlers to turn on a dime.  A brother once told this author that hustling is about finding what the people want or need and providing it for them.

Easily this is what’s going on when those damn tents get set up on every block during weekends, holidays, big concerts, event sports, and such.  Team car flags, the bootleg T-shirt of the month with the name of the ghetto hit song on the front, weird throw rugs, umbrellas when it rains, what have you.  Back after the September 11th attacks happened, these folks were literally on it the very next day with American flags.  One would swear there’s an all-purpose corner hustle warehouse all the street vendors converge on where the aforementioned is available along with the usual oils, incense, and fake Jordans.

I even once saw this Mexican cat selling boxing and martial arts equipment (because ya never know when someone passing by was thinking of training with a heavy bag for their living room).  As said in a past post, it’s a bazaar every single day in the hood.

But by far this author’s favorite is when the people pop up with them funky *ss gift baskets (AKA ghetto grab bags).  Without fail, every Valentine’s, Easter, Father’s Day, and especially Mother’s Day weekend, there they are…sometimes one on all four corners of an intersection.

And what’s in these baskets?  Myriad bullsh*t, basically.  One could probably slap together baskets with Smarties left over from Halloween, used panties, a jar of styling gel, dried-out incense, old condoms they got from the free clinic, bootleg DVDs they’re done watching, a pair of earrings that gave their previous owner keloids in her nose (!), and a stuck-together copy of King magazine, with a bed of dead grass clipped from their front yard, wrapped up in a see-thru trash bag and make a killing.

Since no two are alike, surely there’s some ghetto woman tacky enough to have a basket collection in her house akin to some nerdy fanboy who collects Transformers. Probably wants the hypothetical gift basket I just described.  And some shrew(d) of a hustler was just given the idea to sell it to her.

Hell, there’s probably some cornball parent who bought one to stash away for the daughter’s prom gift…