Jason Rodriguez - The Moose in the Closet: Eh, Eh and The Passion of the ’88: Thuggin’ It

Got Ultimate Spider-Man for the X-Box. Played it. Eh. Should have gotten The Warriors. Spider-Man sounds like Woody Allen.

Got the first volume of Planetary for my cranium. Read the first three stories. Am I just not getting it? Am I so used to decompressed storytelling that something following a one-and-done model just comes off as lacking? I don’t know. I just don’t feel like I’m connecting to the characters yet – it makes for good bathroom reading where I can knock out a story on the can (which is exactly where I read the first three stories) and not feel the need to go onto the next story. I’m going to keep reading it, though – see where it goes. I honestly think the end of the trade needs to have some sort of hook to it because the overarching conspiracy so far just doesn’t seem to be drawing me into the Big Picture (maybe my problem is that I’m looking for a Big Picture – or even looking for the wrong Big Picture). Please call me an asshole.

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I’ve already talked about my hip-hop fueled attempts of thug life. There was the gang fight that I backed out of, my attempted hip-hop group but I don’t think you all got the punch line yet. You see – I was trying to be gangster. Me. This guy:

Did you see that picture? Short white sleeve shirt, mullet and bolo-tie? Notice that blue backdrop behind me – that means that my father took that picture. He took photos on the side. So that bolo-tie wearing, taking pictures with daddy eleven/twelve year-old kid was tagging up Maze around the neighborhood and representing the Four-Deuced Bishop Crips until I didn’t show up for the fight, moving onto Junior High where I fell in with two new crews: The Price of Fame (TPF) and Fuckin’ Up Toys (FUT). Don’t you get the punch line? It’s funny. Because I was a fucking dork. Look at me! LOOK AT ME:

We all were. Whereas a lot of my friends from Junior High were turning towards Rock & Roll as genre of choice (probably because we received regular beatings from kids that concurrently recited 2 Short lyrics) there were still a bunch of us dorks that instead decided to keep living the lie.

My friend Vinny was likely one of them. Vinny was in Junior High with us, claimed to roll with several crews up in Park Slope. I told him all about 4DBC and asked him if he wanted to be down with us. This was after Dave and I already proved the futility of that crew by ditching on the gang fight – for what it was worth 4DBC didn’t even exist anymore.

He said he was down with 4DBC and asked if I wanted to join a crew he’s in, The Price of Fame, and start a new one with him called Fucking Up Toys.

I hope none of you out there are reading this and say, “Wow, Jason was in a lot of gangs.” Because if you are, you’re still not getting the punch line. LOOK AT ME:

I went to Vinny’s neighborhood to get the tour of the place. He showed me around, told me what crews were in Park Slope and how we fit in. During this entire tour I met nobody else from TPF or the newly formed FUT. Didn’t hear a name or see a face, didn’t even see it tagged up anywhere.

Now, this is all retrospect reflection of a sort but here’s how I see it. Us fakers, we found people that didn’t mind being faked to as long as they were allowed to fake us back. Hip-hop culture became sort of escapism, the music we listened to and the artists we idolized were talking about gangs and having each others backs and here we are getting karate chopped in the throat for Jansport strings.

So we all lied to each other, and we probably knew it at the time. We weren’t fooling anyone but ourselves – our parents weren’t having interventions and lecturing us about the dangers of gangbanging. So I’d walk around the neighborhood with kids like David, sporting my mullet, a silk shirt and a faux-silver peace sign and I’d tag up Maze on the handball court, write 4DBC, TPF and FUT under it. We’d blast boom boxes from our stoops. Say words like “nigga” and “trick” provided no-one else was listening.

We didn’t feel anymore secure but we still felt like part of the culture we loved. With a movement that, for us New Yorkers, started as the battle of the boroughs we adopted a lifestyle that came as close to West Coasters as we can get without being a true thug. We still listened to our socially conscious and responsible Public Enemy, BDP, De la Sol and Tribe Called Quest but we didn’t hear what they were saying. East Coast rap lost in my neighborhood and amongst my friends despite the fact that it was probably the music that was speaking directly to us. It was promoting knowledge, responsibility – doing something with your life. It was what my friends and I were doing – it was the reason why we were getting our asses kicked. But we still wanted to be like the West Coast. Gangbanging and pimpin’ hoes. Like they did in the movies. Like they did on MTV.

Hip-hop became a fucking joke. And here's the punchline, one last time:

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Eh, Eh and The Passion of the ’88: Thuggin’ It

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

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