The Moose in the Closet: Culture Countered and Taxed!

The Counter Culture Festival was a success, I have a little miny report over here. Everyone had a good time, there was a good turn-out, we all seemed to sell some stuff, everyone got nice and toasty, the bands all rocked. Just a good time, it was what a comic show should be. And my ashcan was a success, I think, everyone seemed to dig it. Once I covered the printing cost I just gave the rest out for free, still have plenty to give out so if anyone’s interested in seeing one feel free to email me - it’s a good little book.

I need to get back on the novel – I’m excited to write it, just haven’t had the time but with the festival done I’ll have plenty of time this month.

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I’ve talked at length about NYC in the early 90s and how people used to steal EVERYTHING. I’ve even offered up theories – the materialism that seeped over from the 80s combined with the new recession left people wanting Nikes, Starter Hats and Jansport bags but with only enough money to pay for Sikes, Staffer Hats and Jamsport bags.

I’ve gotten taxed several times. I had a whole entry on Jansport strings and alluded to the Spurs hat and gunpoint mugging which I’ll be expanding on today. But what I want to get across first is, everyone paid their taxes at some point. I mean, yeah, I was a little on the dorkier side and had no sort of protection once I bitched out on 4DBC but that just made my tax schedule more frequent than other peoples.

You’d always overhear stories about people getting taxed. I was in the locker room in Junior High when I overheard one of the biggest, most feared thugs in school talking about how some people jumped him and took his bike the other night. Your influence only went so far and if you wandered outside of your domain with little to no back-up, you had to pay the taxes. Of course, the difference with the thug in question was that he was rallying his crew and they were going to go get his bike back (and if he didn’t get it he’d just tax somebody else’s) whereas I would have to ride my sister’s Little Mermaid bike until my parent’s got the money to get me a new one. My tax was more of a permanent thing; other people got to claim deductions on theirs.

We were playing handball when my Spurs hat got taxed. Starter hat, fitted – right when the Spurs got their new logo. The new logo made all Spurs products hot, everyone wanted some Spurs paraphernalia. I had the hat, the shirt and I even had this jersey with David Robinson on it. It didn’t matter what your team was, the Spurs were the new Lakers in the early 90s.

My hat got stolen the first day I wore it to school. I was in the 8th grade and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible but that hat was like blood in the fucking water. We were playing handball in the morning, before school even starts, I’m sitting over on the sideline when the bell rings. We all pick up our shit to go inside.

I shit you not; these two little kids roll up on me. Now, I’m in the 8th grade, these kids have to be at most 7th grade if not (so ashamed) elementary school. The slightly taller one gets right up to me and says, “Run that Spurs hat!”

I just kind of snort a laugh and say “no”, look to my boys…

My boys are going inside. It’s like in the movies when someone drops the soap in the prison shower and everyone gets the fuck out of the bathroom except the fish – that was me, I was the fucking fish and some goddamn 6th grader and his friend dropped the soap.

“What you mean ‘no’?”

Ditched or not I wasn’t going to hand over my hat to some punk kid. So I tell him, straight up, “I’m not giving you my hat,” and I turn to go into the school.

‘Lil Bow-Wow reaches for it (he practically had to jump, I was six-foot at this point) and I grab it. He yanks, I pull back. He keeps telling me to “run my hat” and I keep telling him to “fuck off”. Our little tug-of-war ended when his partner clocks me square in the face. I stumble back, stunned that the little midget packed a punch like that, and was going to chase after them except I noticed my nose was SPEWING blood.

I had to go to the nurse, she called my parents. They wanted to know who did this and I was too embarrassed to tell them I got taxed by elementary school kids that I told them it was a drive by snuffing. I had to go to the doctors to get it checked out – it wasn’t horrible – my nose looks perfectly normal now which is more than I can say for other people that got their shit fucked up like that.

So, I lost my Spurs hat and decided to stay away from fitted Starter Hats for a while. My mom had a one-shot philosophy. When my Jansport was stolen I got a Lucas. When the Nikes were taken out of the locker I got the Reebok. After the Starter Hat fiasco I was wearing Mets’ hats purchased at bodegas that fell apart when it rained.

The gunpoint mugging was obviously a lot scarier. One of the three times I’ve had a gun pulled on me (here and here for the other two) but this time I was all alone. It was B, Nick and a couple of their friends. I was coming back from a DATE, my Junior High girlfriend Jessie and I just got out of the theater after seeing Species. We walked separate ways (in JHS things like “walking the lady home” is an inconvenience, especially when there was handball to play) and I got accosted in broad day light by these cats.

First of all, this was in front of the Cobble Hill movie theater. This is way far from Red Hook. I live on the Red Hook/Carroll Gardens border – these cats all lived deep in Red Hook. What the fuck they were doing in Cobble Hills, the neighborhood beyond Carroll Gardens, is beyond me. They circle me tight, so no one can see inside, and tell me to give up my wallet.

Keep in mind I grew up with B and Nick was my boy up until JHS.

Anyway, I give the “I don’t have my wallet line” and this dude Andre lifts his shirt and flashes his steel. Granted, he didn’t actually pull it, but my heart still fucking stopped. I practically threw my wallet at him I was so eager to give it up. They walked off, laughing.

Despite that fact that I knew everyone of those kid names and where they lived, I couldn’t say shit.

The same crew taxed me one other time. Again I found myself walking home alone, this time closer to my neighborhood, when a smaller version of the crew saddled up behind me. B started telling me to give him my money, I was saying I didn’t have any. He keeps going and going saying that he doesn’t want to fuck me up. Finally I say, “All I got is forty-one cents.”

I remember that – I remember the exact number I pulled out of my ass because right after that B follows up with, “Then give me your forty-one cents.”

I reached in my pocket, grabbed a fist full of change, gave it to B and walked off. It’s funny, because I realized how hopeless all those kids were just then. They were practically celebrating over a fistful of change – like they won, you know?

Anyway, you pay your taxes and you move on. I’ve gotten basketballs, footballs and blue balls taxed. Money and clothes. And you move on and you move on. Now I pay over 40k a year in taxes but that’s only because I’m making fucking bank.

Labels: mitc

Culture Countered and Taxed! – Everyone Pays Their Taxes

Monday, November 14, 2005

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