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| Me, Sheepshead Bay block party, on a midget pony |
Here in the hood, every summer is a party. We have street fairs, festivals, outdoor concerts, fireworks at the beach, every type of party you can think of. After months of winter, we emerge outdoors and spring to life, just like the greenery around us. We slowly stir and awaken, rubbing the sleep from our eyes, to take advantage of the blessed bounty we have around us. They say here that as the sap rises in a tree, so a young man's fancy turns to love. New energy sprouts vividly to life, energizing the very air we breathe. As we pour out into the streets, culture clashes become inevitable, and the block party serves as the battleground.
A couple of summers ago, a guy from our dojo had a barbecue and naturally, half of our small school came out to celebrate with him. As the neighbors across the street got drunker, their salsa jams became louder and louder, a tribal sign of pride. Not that we needed that particular cultural cue: their Puerto Rican flag was huge, just to drive the point home. Yeah, we get it, guy. Ghettos and booze do not mix well together—you can feel the latent tension building up right under the surface, like a seed pushing through the soil, desperate to reach the healing sunlight. The tipping point chooses a side, and at this point, the night can erupt into the best time of your life, or the crowd turns violent and angry. Whoops, wrong energy.
Every New York kid becomes an expert early on at reading the vibe of a crowd, assessing party goers and bailing if it looks like a group will flip over into the dark side. We then bail quickly, or as I like to call it "pull a ninja", because a drunk guy who wants to brawl needs people to do it with, and he can turn on you quickly if he notices you leaving "early", so its best to come up with a plan, and make your exit on the sly. Me and my girls usually hatched a scheme like this, "Alright, lemme go to the bathroom first, wait about ten minutes, then you go, and I'll meet you outside." Boom, you're outta there, safe and sound.
Back to my BJJ homie and his block. Word spread that a group of martial artists were on the block, because they knew where my friend trained, and we stood out. When we are together, we are a group of every color, size and shape on this beautiful planet, diverse as this earth can get, united through our allegiance to learning the art of fight science. I guess they might have wanted to impress us, but more likely they were actually afraid, a feeling that doesn't come often to that small territory. Thugs congregate in groups, and gangs are brave only in numbers. It's a sure sign of the coward. Unlike shows of aggression, we can actually fight, which causes posers to flip. First they drained 40s on the stoop, then the music blared uncomfortably loud, and when that didn't bust up our good time, things got weird. To get our attention, they actually started to rattle swords. No, really. Stick with me on this one.
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| My cousins' block, 4th of July, Sheepshead Bay |
This guy got up from his place on the stoop, weaved over to a car, and started bangng on it. His drunk rational was that there were signs all over the block advertising a "No Parking" policy for the party, so this car "deserved it", because by being there, it was a blatant sign of disrespect. It's twisted, but in this guy's mind, the car is a stand in for the owner, and those feelings of class war get transferred onto the object, thereby the absent owner of the car must be a white guy who hates him. It's that fucked up. Alcohol and a high school dropouts do not mix well. He ripped off a rear view mirror after a couple of limp tries. This must have angered him further, because we placidly went back to our barbecue. Food and famished fighters is like feeding time at the zoo. We briefly lift up our heads then start grazing again. As the token fighter female in our crowd, I felt an obligation to speak up and be the rational one in the crowd, "Should we do something about it, like call the cops or something?" Our sensei blew it off, so I forgot about it and went back to the party.
Next thing I know, this guy comes banging out of the front door to his place and goes back to the SUV with, I kid you not, a FUCKING SAMURAI SWORD. At this point, we're in full blast of a good time, so as long as he and his homies don't fuck with us, it's that time of the night to sit back and enjoy the show because this is better than any movie or t.v. sitcom could ever hope to be. So, he takes out this sword and proceeds to puncture a tire, and this is the key point, he actually does it in one fell swoop. We have some artists in our crowd who teach weapons training, so at this point, some of our dudes are impressed! I'm like, am I really seeing this guy attack a car with a fucking sword or what?! I'm overjoyed. He very deliberately slashes each and every tire with a cut, then sheathes his sword and weaves his way drunkenly back inside, to return his precious symbol of manhood back to its' holy place in his rathole. God knows what that must look like—every Karate Kid ghetto douchebag has Bruce Lee posters in their room. But you what? Job well done, asshole. You wanted to kill a car, and you did. Congrats.
On some level, he must have suddenly realized that we could swarm on him and his crowd and snap their necks if we wanted to, because he actually weaved over to my shirtless barbecuing BJJ friend and delivered a slurred speech of apologies and half-baked justifications for his recent actions. Now that his violent thug energy is spent, he feels remorse, just like every other abusive motherfucka in the hood does. It's a crazy up-and-down ride that I jumped off of a long time ago, and for me, unlike some kids in our crowd, this isn't some fun tilt-a-whirl ride in Gritty Disneyland. This is my home, and these are the kind of people I grew up with and have in my family. As funny as it is, it also sickens me. It's a double-edged sword. But, we emerge safely from this cultural brush up, so I'm happy with that. Besides, the big draw of the night is a live UFC event, so we make our way inside to support a fighter our teacher knows well. The saddest part is, for all his rattle and hum, he's a sideshow freak for us.
This all came back to me Saturday, when I walked out the door to see my street blocked off for our annual party, as I cross the street to get my chores done. Kiddie pools are set up, am inflatable ball room is in the works, kids are drawing on the sidewalk with chalk, but this is not the party it will be in a few hours, and I know that. Sure enough, I come home a few hours later, and start doing my thing—cookin' vittles and looking forward to putting up my feet to watch a movie. I got the window open and I'm enjoying a great cool breeze, a rare treat on the 4th floor. By then, my neighbors are drunk and shit gets loud. They haul out their speakers in ghetto fabulous fashion and crank up the bass. I see these people around all day every day in the hood, so I know they don't have day jobs, but they sure as fuck have money for the precious symbols important to their tribe—the boom box.
Don't get me wrong, I worked in a recording studio and I love my tunes, so I can handle just about any type of audio situation except one, and that is loud, shitty music. There is absolutely no need to advertise that you have rotten taste for everyone to hear. If we thought you dropped out of school in 10th grade, now we KNOW for sure that you did, because you just fucking broadcast it to the entire world. Asshole. Not that that's news to me. These hood rats avoid my gaze, and in all the years I've lived here, not once (ONCE!) has one of their crowd even deemed me worthy of "hello" or "how you doin'" and I know they fucking know who I am. But, that's the hood, man—same rules, different year. Not that I want to know them, anyway, so we follow this fucked up street hierarchy protocol that lets me know that I am several rungs on the evolutionary ladder above them, and we all play these roles that they assigned to me. Why? Because of fear. I'd be flattered if I also didn't think it was so chickenshit. That's right, readers, it's a double-edged sword.
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| Some pic of back in the day I found online |
It's not even worth addressing it with them, because they don't speak my language anyway. You just get into some drunk, drugged, and weird round robin of an exchange with a bunch of damaged characters who feed you some line of shit about how you should relax and join the party and its only one time of year, so what the fuck? Oh, right, I'm the asshole. I forgot! Thank you! The worst part is, there's little kids sitting right next to these speakers having their hearing damaged so one day of the year, their dad can feel like the Mayor of the Block. It's such a vicious cycle, where would I begin? The sound is so bad, readers, that I could still hear it after I closed all the windows, closed the shutters, turned on my A/C, two fans, and cranked the volume to 40 or 50 (LOUD) on my t.v. I could feel the floor of my apartment building shake as they rattled their swords ineffectually to the world, desperate as always.
But like all the encounters I have, I'm up in arms at the same time I have sense of humor about the situation. So for you, my dear audience, I culled the best of the worst I could find online to give you a taste of our block party experience on Saturday. It was layer upon layer of dueling boom boxes, as two factions battled it out for supremacy; sad, poignant, and funny, life in our little corner of the world for you to laugh about, as you shake you head, just like I did. Have great week and stay safe out there everybody. Temps ain't the only thing that rise on the block during the summertime.
Welcome to my Guantanamo Bay.
