#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!

#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…

#20: Bootlegs (and other illegitimate goods)

  You hear it by every liquor store, every check cashing place, every chicken-and-chinese stand.

“Got them CDs, got them DVDs.”

The bootleg man got you when no one else does.  Need that new Makaveli? It’s on deck.  A fresh replacement copy of Soul Plane?  It’s on deck.  If it’s directed by Tyler Perry, starring Cube, or featuring T.I. or Cassie on the soundtrack, it’s on deck with the bootleg man.

Or there’s that other guy with the Econoline doors propped open….

“I got that Ed Hardy, that True Religion, that Prada…”

Don’t forget that crackhead who is a better salesman of furniture than anyone who ever worked for Levitz or Wickes.  He also got those registration tags for your whip.

It’s a bazaar every single day in the hood.  Whatever you want, for a limited time only, it’s yours if you think the price is right.

The guys that have all this fraudulent crap wouldn’t put in the work if it wasn’t so lucrative.  Wouldn’t take the time to get that illicit editor’s copy, or sneak the video camera into the advanced screening, or buy in bulk from that warehouse…or ransack your neighbor’s property!  Because somebody in the hood will take a flier on it.  (And contribute to hood squalor in the process…but we know that don’t matter!)

Suckers and others line up to make sure they got the latest flick they ain’t tryna see in the theatre (more often than not a Black one) supporting piracy, and taking dollars away from the entertainers they obviously love enough to buy something featuring them in it, missing material and crappy sound and/or picture be damned.  And we all know it’s the pits not being dipped, so ghetto corner-cutters would rather cut to the corner to have what they need to floss like a boss at the club on Friday (and drink real drinks, go figure) instead of recycling Black dollars a better way by supporting the store down the block that really needs the customers.  

Keep this in mind when the “For Lease” sign goes up a week after the one that reads “Going Out Of Business.”  Or your favorite entertainer is no longer a bankable star.  Could have gone the extra mile and waited just a little bit longer for that legit product.  But ghetto people don’t often worry about legit.  No. They care about being up on the latest for as low a price as possible.  Remember this when you see a fairly crispy pair of late-model Jordans on someone’s feet in colors you don’t remember Nike making, or the Lex on D’s you know damn well Pooky can’t afford.  When they say they got the hookup, look for the fingers crossed behind their back!  Or look for the smoker they got that deal on the Rolex from (then you’ll know who to blame for the receiving stolen property charges).