I was working in a not-so-good neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago today, and one of my coworkers stepped across the street to get coffee at a greasy spoon called G & N Breakfast.  The older gentleman who said he was the owner asked her nationality, she told him Irish, and he discerned that she is probably a democrat.  Sloppily shoveling his breakfast into his mouth, he then asked if she worked at the school across the street and asked how she can stand working with all those niggers.  She said that's not a word she is okay with, to which he said it should be fine to say that because they call each other that all the time.  Of course, rather than realizing or caring that he had offended his customer, he went on spouting off anti Black statements and said the N in his business' name stood for niggers and the G for some other racial slur (Roughly 70% of his business would be African American on a day-to-day basis).  She was mad, but remaining calm, she just told him that being Greek, he is only a few shades lighter than those he hates so much.  This made him really mad, and he started spitting his hash browns all over the place while he yelling God knows what as she left.

Later I told the Mexican maintenance man (who I call Amigo and he calls me Amigo) at the work site about the exchange, and he said he has known that guy for years and he's a right prick who yells at his staff and calls them idiots all the time in front of customers.  Amigo said he told the guy he would whip his ass if he ever talked to him like that.  Apparently the owner was a Chicago cop who bought the place since 1959 after getting shot in the arm.  Doesn't sound like his world view has changed much since 1959 . . .

So, if you ever want to get in a time machine and meet a real live racist from the days of the Civil Rights movement, go visit him at G & N Breakfast on the West Side of Chicago.  If you would like to bring along some fire hoses and dogs to turn the tides on him, I certainly would not object.

Today Was . . . Dry

Today was crap.  I screwed something up, defended myself as if I was right, then after a nap realized how stupid and wrong I was.  

But I will say this: I learned a new "hood word" on the West Side.  

Dry.

When you say someone is dry, it means that they have not been laid in a long while.

Example:

Quintel: Man, I've been hittin' it all week, son!

Keywan: No way, dawg.  You dry as hell.

So.  I'm an idiot, but on the bright side, I'm learning. 

Sit Down "Indian Style" on the Carpet, Seven Readers . . .

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Bait Car

Did you know there is a show called "Bait Car" on TrueTV in which a car is left unlocked and running in various ghettos, and they see who will try to steal it? Then the cops in the van freeze the car up remotely so it can't run anymore and the robber is locked from the inside.

I just hope that they pull those cars up to trailer parks too so that people see that poor white people will steal too.

Check out this guy. He doesn't know that there was a camera in the car busting him crying, so he comes out of the car with his hardcore gangster vibe.

More Lessons from The Hood: Wet and Soul Train

As some of you may know, Tuesday is when I work in Chicago's West Side, and I always come away with a funny story or a bit of knowledge; Today I got both.

1. A student asked me if I was dry. I had no idea what he meant by this, and other students informed me that to be dry meant to "not be getting any from any females." So, if your skin is dry, that means you're ashy, and if you couldn't get laid in a morgue, you are dry as hell. Make sense? I didn't tell them that I only get "wet" once a month when I see my out-of-town girlfriend. It didn't seem like something those boys needed to know.

2. Mr. Green, the principal at the school for bad kids, said that one teacher was sending so many kids out of his class and down to the office that it was like the "Soul Train" line of dancers down the hallway. I asked him if he felt like Don Cornelius up in there. Actually, Don Cornelius is a product of Chicago Public Schools. No lie.



3. One girl told me that she doesn't like the drama created from hanging out with girls. So, she said "That's why I like to be hangin' out with niggas." By that she meant males. Something was just funny about her saying that to just about the whitest guy in America.

Today's Funny Hood Story, Sept 27, 2011

Every Tuesday I work on the West Side of Chicago where I'm the only white guy for blocks and blocks . . .

Today, my boss in those parts, Mr. Green, wanted to get the attention of a big and ugly kid and said, "Hey, Big Ugly!" What's funny is that Big Ugly walked right over without being the least bit offended that he had just been called big and ugly.

Then Mr. Green started asking him if he played football because of his size, and I said, "Yeah, look at the hands on that fella!" His hands were maybe the biggest things I've ever seen and could have probably held two footballs each with room to spare.

Big Ugly could be very "handy" on The Chicago Bears offensive line this season, and it would be the best nickname since the last time we were really good and "The Fridge" played on the team.

I Wanted To Tell You Some Things That Happened on the West Side Today . . .

. . . but I'm so damn mad about The Bulls losing that all I can remember are these things.

1. We were talking about "First 48," and this coworker of mine, Big Ron, said that he'd like to watch, but he can't stop watching that show where they "wrastle" alligators. That one dude on there, who is "country as hell" by Big Ron's estimation, looked in the fridge, saw there was nothing to eat, and decided he had better step out to shoot a squirrel, coon, or possum. Would you all eat a possum? I don't know - anything with a tail like a rat . . .

2. Big Ron was then talking about Oprah, and he makes a point that a lot of people have done a great deal of charity - they just don't have a public forum every day to showcase it. According to Ron, Bill Cosby put loads of kids in the south through college and Michael Jackson walked into a hospital somewhere and paid for a bunch of surgeries - he just didn't have a talk show to let everyone know that he got his awesomeness on that day. Good point. Big Ron also thought he should have been on the Oprah show because he was a "battered man" due to the fact that his sisters "beat the shit" out of him all the time.

3. Later, Big Ron asked everyone what they were doing for Memorial Day Weekend because he was looking to BBQ. One gal said she was having a party on the South Side, so he said, "Cool. Do you want me to bring the charcoal or lighter fluid?" She said, "Shoot, you could bring some steaks or something," To which the quite brilliant Big Ron responded, "That's a little out of my price range. I gave you the two items I'm willing to bring, and without them, you got no fire."

I can learn a lot from Big Ron, and I hope you can too, Seven Readers.

A New Hood Term

I was working with an African American student on the west side of Chicago today, and he claimed to be tired from playing "the game" all night. Sidebar: African American kids always say that they play "the game" in reference to video games in general, whereas kids of other nationalities will say "play video games," or just name the system, such as "play Playstation" or "play my D.S."

But, that's not the new term I wanted to share with you. He went on to say that "Gran Turismo" was humpin' all night. In other words, he was playing the game for a long time, and it was a lot of fun. The game wasn't literally humping the console; they don't do that quite yet.

I looked up the word in this sense on Urban Dictionary just now, and the only sense they had it in was to say that you're working hard on something as fast as you can, as in, "I'm humpin' it, so get off my back!"

What do you think, Seven Readers? Do you think you can use this most modern of slang terms in daily conversation in your lifer or least in the comments section?

Here's mine, "I was out at the bar drinkin' my tits off, and UFC was humpin' on the plasmas til midnight!"

Macbeth in the Hood

I was teaching Shakespeare's Macbeth to some inner city Black kids the other day, and I got off to a bad start when I called one kid a nickname he didn't like, some kids snickered, so he called me "whiteboy" in response. Now, I knew I was in the wrong, so I just explained to him that I won't call him that name if he won't call me whiteboy. It's not a name that offends me, it's just punking me out in front of the kids, which is kind of like what I did to him. He said he meant no disrespect, and by the end of the class, we were cool - he was reading the part of Banquo.

I hate to stereotype, but oh well: As usual, the girls were participating better than the boys. It was hard to get the boys to even read parts like "Murderer 3," where they would only have a line or two. After Banquo's parts were up, he volunteered to read other parts! This was after starting the class by saying MF'er around 19 times and calling me whiteboy - now I had him on my side, and things were looking up. What's more, these kids were into it.

Our friend Banquo said of Macbeth, "Damn, he just killin' everybody!" That's true, actually.

This is interesting though: after Banquot dies, his ghost comes back to visit Macbeth. It was around this time that our Banquot hit his knee on his desk and let out an impressive chain of obscenities. I said, "Banquot's ghost has returned! And he's swearing!"

That even got a laugh out of some of those too cool for school kids who didn't want to do anything.

Get Outta My Dreams and Get Into My Blog

1. Billy Ocean is alive and well and singing daily at Navy Pier. At any given moment his soulful voice with that accent of equal parts Trinidad and British can be heard all across the mile long stretch, from the stain glass museum to Connie’s Pizza, and unfortunately, it can be heard loud and clear at the docks of the Sea Dog ™ speedboats where I am stationed 40 hours a week. There are a number of bad songs that I hear there like Sussudio by Phil Collins or Summer Breeze by Seals and Crofts, the latter which I hear on a daily basis, guaranteed, but there was something about hearing both Billy Ocean’s When the Going Gets Tough the Tough Get Going AND Get Outta My Dreams Get Into My Car that really made me squirm in my tight, black slacks. That’s right, tight, black slacks, so that the heat locks in, due the color, and scorches your skin, due the tightness, and then your sense of hearing is equally tortured with that retched intro:
Billy: Hey you, get in to my car
Billy’s Girl Not Yet In His Car, But for the Time Being Merely In His Dreams: Who me?
Billy: Yes you, get in to my car
Wooooooooooooooh. Wah! Yeah!

2. After having my bike stolen, my plan all week was to drive my car somewhere and then take public transportation, which would enable me to sleep a little longer. This worked out great the first day, when I parked my car right by a bus stop and hopped on, but the following day I pressed my luck and kept driving. I noticed that as I got closer to downtown all the spots were meter spots, so I had to pull down a side street. The side street I chose off of Chicago Avenue was Hudson, and I went a few blocks down to Hudson and Locust. Make a mental note of this everyone, if you find yourself at this crossroads RUN. I saw a lot of empty lots, makeshift churches fashioned out of burnt out buildings, and that famous pattern of liquor stores directly next to currency exchanges. I parked my car and ran my ass to work. The boss’s kid promised to give me a ride back to my car, so I could have nice door-to-door service, but then he changed his mind and said he couldn't due to a commitment with his girlfriend. So, for the remainder of the day at work I was dreading my second encounter with Dough Boy and the rest of the Boyz in the Hood. As it turns out, that street is a little more “active” at 6pm then it is at 8:30 am. Just turning and looking down that block I knew that I was going to stick out like a turd in a punch bowl. I ventured down half a block and noticed some people playing softball. Here is my internal monologue as best as I can remember:
“Okay, softball. That means they have bats. Don’t look at that game, just keep looking straight ahead. Do I look tough? Probably not. I don’t look like I have money though, right? I wouldn’t be wearing this uniform if I had money. Okay, I can see my car another block down on the other side of the street. It’s still there and it looks like it has at least two rims left. There are dudes approaching on my side of the street, so what I’ll do is start a slow crossing the street process angling directly towards my car so that I don’t have to cross paths with any of these guys. Deer God, there are like 7 of these guys on the corner and they all have white shirts. Maybe they’re school uniforms. No, school is out for the summer. Maybe they got next in the softball game. Yeah . . . Shit, they’re ascending towards me. Okay, pick up the pace, but don’t look like you’re picking up the pace.”
What I did next was jump into my car, start it up, and peeled out of there without even taking my backpack off, despite the fact that I was crammed tightly against the steering wheel. If any of the Hudson and Locust white shirted gentlemen are reading right now, I’d like to thank you for not pulling out your strap and laying a buster down.

3. I broke up with the girl I was seeing for over two months. Two months is the longest I have been with a girl in about 2 years since splitting up with the girl who I was with for over 5 years, and I’d say this recent one was the closest thing I have had to a girlfriend; all the rest I’d classify as ‘very short term.’ She was really sweet and great in a lot of ways, but I’m really happy to be single for the summer.

4. I have been really good about not talking to my ex who I was with for over 5 years, because I know it’s good for me. It’s hard for both of us to stop talking to one another, but she has been kind enough to stop trying to contact me, until very recently. In a last ditch effort she texted me the following: “I need you to make me a workout play list of indie rock and actual good music.” At first I got all excited and thought about all the awesome up-tempo indie cuts I could put on that list, but then I thought, “That bitch.” I texted her back: “You are baiting me with a fun project. Dirty Pool.” To which she texted back: “I know. By the way your u r on the Swedish soccer team. #5 I think.” She ADMITS it and then just moves on. Now you see why it’s so hard to let someone out of my life who knows me so well and is so damn funny.