it is what it is

This blog tonight is sponsored by Tilburg's Dutch Brown Ale. Getting drunk off the sweet taste of windmills and legalized marijuana has never been so delicious.

First of all, as my life usually goes, distractions arose and I haven't had a chance to blog in quite some time, what with my trips to DC and West Point for work, and an impromptu visit to the township of Ithaca. To put it in perspective, between June 25 and July 16 I only spent 5 nights in Brooklyn. And, like a screening of Natural Born Killers, there was so much going in that time that I really can't explain it all with true justice. So, akin the mysterious location of the Titanic, the stories from my trips around the Northeast are now unfortunately lost and forgotten, swallowed by the ocean and buried by time. We will just have to wonder where they went and hope that someday, when our society has long since passed, an alien civilization will happen upon our lonely planet, and unearth the secrets that we, ourselves, were unable to discover. (Note: the poetry here works better if you're reading this pre-1985... my style is a little dated). Moving along, the topics for tonights discussion are as follows: trains and agriculture.

So I was on my way home from work today, and, being rush hour in NYC, the train was packed. Having just spent a semester in China, I'm no stranger to the game "How many people can we fit on a train before something pops." But, like a rousing game of Stratego, it's only fun at first, until you realize you've lost the Spy piece and now the whole set is basically worthless. That'll just ruin your entire afternoon. But, God had a plan of adding a dash of awkward to my uncomfortable misery. In addition to the Indian guy standing behind me basically fucking me in the ass every time the train jostled from side to side, about halfway though my journey home, my right nut began to itch violently. On top of all this, I was standing right in front of this pretty cute girl who was sitting in one of those chairs on the side of the car, so there was no reprieve from my situation without looking like I was diddling myself. And I couldn't even pull the real slickness and gain a brief respite from the discomfort by adjusting my satchel bag across my groin like I normally do because my bag was, as far as I'm concerned, the only thing stopping Apu behind me from actually tearing through my pants and making me his prison bitch. Bad times all around man. But, when I got off the train, I saw a man on the street corner that made all my troubles melt away and helped me realize the life I truly lead and the random people my aura attracts.

Last night, when I was sitting on the porch of my building with Ev, grabbing a smoke and sippin' on some vino, a man approached us, looking straight Brooklyn thug, rollin' in his white tee, grey sweats and some hot, gleaming all-white AF1's. He would later introduce himself to me as Agriculture, cuz he comes from the dirt, you know? Here's a brief run down of what we talked about (mainly, the stories he told us, whether or not we were psychologically prepared for the shit this man would spit in our ensuing time together). First of all, he kept saying how everyone was "corny" and how he rolled by the building last night and people were "mad corny" and the only people he could chill with were some fat chicks (his words, not mine). He was really disappointed, because no one likes having to settle for some fat chicks when you could be pulling down a shorty or two. Then, Agriculture (or Ag as he's called for short) told us about how his friend wanted him to move to Connecticut because his friend was afraid that someone was trying to murder him out there. But he wasn't down with that, because he ain't no body guard and he's certainly no one's guardian angel. Then, literally as if he'd been struck by divine inspiration, a light bulb went off in Ag's head and he hopped off to go buy some beer so he could have a drink with us.

After returning from his shopping spree, he cracked open a bottle of Heineken with his teeth (the coolest thing I've ever seen a person pull off next to this guy). So, as we sipped on our beers he began entertaining us with stories of his life which I have paraphrased bellow with little or no exaggeration. Usually my blogs become bastions beleaguered by pertinently padded prose and amusingly appalling analogies and anecdotes. But this is the honest recount of what this guy said, no frills.

He was up in Boston a couple years ago, "you know, this was a time when Big Pun was still alive." One night, at the spry age of 13 mind you, he was hanging out at Club Hollywood (by the way, there is no Club Hollywood in Boston) with his cousin, who was performing on stage that night. His cousin was a Crip, and, while he doesn't fuck around with that gang shit, he was wearing blue that night, because he loves blue. He wears a lot of blue. Blue is his favorite color. But it still doesn't mean anything. Some Bloods walked into the club when he was drinking on some wine and he could see them mouthing off something about him and his cousin. After an innocent (well, as innocent as two rival gangs can make it) brush by that quickly turned to a heated altercation, one of the Bloods broke a bottle over his cousins head. Now, while this in and of itself is worthy of it's own Spike Lee joint, having just returned from a trip to Ithaca myself, wherein I got drunk and tried to break a bottle over our porch railing, I fully appreciate the gravity of any situation when someone breaks a bottle over your head. If you don't know how hard it is, next time you're drinking a bottled beer in a relatively secure environment, try and break a bottle over something. Then you'll get the full scope of the force involved here.

He then proceeded to tell us about his own rap career. Like I said, his name was Agriculture, because he comes from the dirt. He was supposed to be writing a jingle that night but he couldn't get his mind around it. "A jingle for what?" you may be asking. For a shoe store that had just opened about two blocks away, naturally. You know, just a store that had some $700 Reeboks, and a pair of snake-skin Nikes for $1000. "But how can people right on the border of the Cosby Show's Brooklyn and the Brooklyn of the Marcy Projects afford $1000 shoes?" I asked, rather puzzled, as you most certainly are right now after hearing this entire tale. Oh, because there are crazy drug dealers around here, making mad coin on the streets. He was going to give us a sample of some of his rhymes, but he couldn't spit his violent shit because there was a shorty (Ev) around. Unfortunately, the security guard came out and told us we couldn't drink outside, forcing us and Agriculture to part ways. For a side note, I'm pretty sure you can drink outside because I do it all the time. I bet you Agriculture is just always up in that joint, causing all kinds of problems in his own hood and the security guard won't stand for it anymore (or sit behind his desk for it). Hopefully we'll cross paths again in the near future, because his stories, like dilithium crystals, could power my blog like it was the Starship Enterprise.

It's taken me all night to write this because I keep getting distracted by the world around me. I wonder if you can buy an attention span on eBay? Regardless, enjoy your day or night and check back again soon because, hopefully, now that work has slowed down I'll have more time to write in this thing rather than squirreling away the stories of my misadventures away in my brain like a diabetic hoards his insulin. You know what? Some of us might like to try some. You don't have to be so greedy all the time. Keep on truckin', brother.

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