Rhymin and stealin « The Ghettoist

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Apr 10

Free Radicals

I want to start off this entry by stating that I am a fan of the show South Park. I feel that in 14 seasons on the air the show has not missed a beat and is still one of the funniest things on television. The pull no punches and never take the easy way out. What is most amazing is that they produce such quality in such a short time. Their season does not have them writing and animating months before airing. It’s my understanding that they usually complete their episodes on Tuesday for a Wednesday airing. Cannibal the Musical aside Matt and Trey have yet to put out anything that does not make me laugh my ass off. Needles to say this entry will be extremely biased.

If you have been paying attention, the two creators of South Park have recently been called out publicly by a website called revolutionmuslim.com. They were told that should they insult the prophet Mohammed that they will probably meet a fate the same as Theo Van Gogh. If you are not aware of the situation regarding Van Gogh, he was a Dutch film maker who was murdered by a Muslim who took extreme exception to his film Submission which addresses the treatment of women in the Muslim world. I have seen Submission and you should too. It’s a powerful piece of film with a strong message. It is in English and available all over the internet. Just a warning though, there are boobies.

So the internet tough guys at revolutionmuslim.com have for all intensive purposes put out their own jihad against Matt and Trey because they have “insulted the prophet.” I saw the episode and can’t really find where they insulted him. They stated very clearly that Mohammed is the only person throughout history who is not fair game. They followed the letter of the law(not actual laws, but the laws that some subscribe to.) They did not in any way depict his image. These douches obviously choose to have a literal interpretation of sharia, and not a conceptual one. I bet they follow everything to the letter of the law, so how can they get mad for this? Matt and Trey found a loophole. Give them credit.

Let’s look at these pillars of the community. The group was started by a man named Joseph Cohen. Yep you got that right, they were started by a self hating Jew who converted to Islam. They follow the teachings of a man named Abdullah el-Faisal, a radical who is quoted as saying “Our way is the bullet, not the ballot.” Good looking out “holy man.” The same piece of crap who was convicted of soliciting the murder of Jews, Americans, Christians and Hindus. I will give Mr. Cohen credit as he has since left the group because he felt them to be too radical.

Now I am not here to dispute religion or God. Personally I am a big fan of God, but not a fan of his supporters. What I want to call into question is the way people carry out what they believe to be his will. Man is a flawed creature, so how on earth can we really know what God’s will is? If we do accept the believe that The Koran was written by God himself how can we know what he really meant? The book is more than 1200 years old. That was a long time ago. I have trouble knowing what my wife wants most of the time and I live with her. Also if you claim to truly know what God’s will is, having an absolute understanding of his wishes, doesn’t that make you just like God? I’m not a religious scholar, but is that not blasphemy? I have an idea, if you are claiming to speak for him shouldn’t you preface your statements by saying “I’m not 100% sure but from knowing what I know, and all that I have studied, I believe in my heart that this is God’s will. Do with it what you may.”

While researching this blog I did go to revolutionmuslim.com but the site was down. I did however find their blog. These kooks do a great job of trying to convince themselves that their views are correct and without dispute, almost as if God himself wrote them. They blame American imperialism for all the ills of the world. The same imperialist country that gives them the freedom to be pussies from behind a keyboard. Am I doing the same as they, sure. But these are my feelings, beliefs and opinions. They belong completely to me and never for a second do I say that they have the endorsement of God. I admit whole heartedly that I have no idea what his will is. I’m just going to try my best to be a decent person and hope when my life ends that him and I are okay. Isn’t that the best anybody can do?

So as of the writing of this blog, I did not see how they followed up the treatment of Mohammed. I set my DVR for the later showing and instead of 201 I got Scrotie Mc Boogerballs. Hopefully it will be online later and I can watch those infidel pigs and laugh my ass off. And to the cowards at revolutionmuslim.com I have some advice for you. If you hate this country so much buy a ticket to Iraq and behave like other “soldiers of God” have in the past. Put down the keyboard and pick up a gun. Walk up to the closest U.S. soldier you see with said gun and watch as he sends you to see Allah faster than you can say “Holy Shit, what the Fuck am I doing?”

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Acting All Ghetto, Rhymin and stealin, White People

Apr 10

Gangster or Gangsta…it’s all the same to me

TheGhettoist

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I am Italian. When you think of Italians, what is the one stereotype that enters everybody’s mind? That we are all in the mob. Well I could tell you if that were the case, the mob would be pretty damn crowded and pretty freaking powerful. I do contend this though, if you are Italian and you live in one of the boroughs of New York City, then there is a chance you know somebody or are related to somebody who has had dealings with organized crime. I know I sure have.

My Mafia pedigree starts at the very beginning of La Cosa Nostra. As a kid growing up my grandfather would tell me tales of his uncle, a man named Joe Adonis. If you have never heard the name, Adonis was one of the founders of The National Crime Syndicate (the precursor to Cosa Nostra.) The man’s list of misdeeds is long and distinguished. Eventually deported along with his close friend Luck Luciano, Adonis lived a life of luxury in Milan but died of a heart attack when he was taken by Italian police for an interrogation. My grandfather would regale me with tales of how his family led by his uncle Joey A ran Brooklyn, even roughing up Al Capone during his Brooklyn days. Now as a kid I fell in love with these stories. But as an adult I am not sure how involved in the mob my grandfather was, but I still have fond memories of the stories. I know that he was not lying about his relation to Adonis though.

As I grew up on the South Shore of Staten Island I began to notice more and more mob influence. There was the guy who lived down the street who spent every sunny day washing his Coupe De’Ville. Yes there was a red plastic horn and Vanillaroma air fresheners hanging from the rear view mirror. That car was MINT!. The guy wore track suits with wife beaters under them. The outfit was finished with loafers and gold chains with a big gold Christ’s Head on the end. The guy never went to a job like everybody else on my street, and his house was the only one I had ever seen that had its own security cameras.

High school saw headlines like Godfather whacked outside Sparks steakhouse. ”Hey his name was Castellano. I wonder if he was related to that guy in my math class who lives in a mansion on Todt Hill and has his own tennis court. Hey where is that guy who was in my math class, he hasn’t been in school since that Don guy was shot?” Another incident involved a body being found in the basement of Paul’s Sweet Shop in New Dorp. “Didn’t my friend Franks parents own that place?” The body was a of a man who took was reported to have shot at John Gotti on a Queen’s street. There was an investigation and the police were looking for another guy who was in my English class sophomore year. The same guy who’s father was alleged to own The infamous Ravenite Social Club. It was the same guy who accused me of disrespecting him after I called him out in a bar for punching a girl in the bathroom because she wouldn’t blow him. It was the same guy who would get 3 to 10 and have to pay back $14.1 million for a real estate scam that had he and his (biological) family members selling properties they really didn’t own. Real stand up guy huh?

On Staten Island, the mob was everywhere. I’d get calls from my cousin telling me he had just come from a BBQ on Lambert’s Lane. He was in the backyard of a guy named Sammy The Bull. He described it as sick and also told me that he was told not to eat all the smoked mozzarella as Mr. Gravano would get pissed. Time eventually told what would happen when Sammy The Bull got pissed. My cousin wasn’t a gangster, he was a stock broker; but he followed the mob like I followed The Giants. If there were an Alphonse Persico trading card he would have surely had it.

When I left Shaolin, I moved to the other mob haven, Howard Beach Queens. It wasn’t planned, but sometimes life lays a path for you. While I was there, I made friends with a woman. She would tell me it probably wasn’t best to talk to her if I was a cop, that her family was pretty well known and not for good things. Now in my life I had known people who talked up their families and this woman would not reveal who her family was. I had no evidence of her O.C. (that’s Organized Crime and not Orange County)connection. She had an Irish last name so I knew she wasn’t one of the Gottis. Eventually she revealed to me that there was a character in a movie based on her father. I’m not going to say which one but let’s just say I used to wonder if money from a heist of a certain German airline was still in her house. Still can’t figure it out…Jeeze, just IMDB Robert DeNiro.

Last week I was talking to my friend Joaquin “Jack” Garcia. Jack’s a big guy 6’4″ 390lbs but he’s one of the nicest, most likeable humble people you will meet. We were comparing notes about gangsters we knew in common. Haven’t heard of Jack? He was born in Cuba and since coming to this country he has become a New York Times bestselling author, and Benicio DelToro has signed on the play him in a movie. Not sure how they will handle the size difference things. He also has his own show on www.shovio.com with New York radio legend Valerie Smaldone. Oh and by the way, Jack also has the distinction of the only FBI agent to ever be offered to be a made man. Silly gangsters, Jack’s not even Italian. You might be saying well Joe Pistone did the same thing as Donnie Brasco, but the truth was (and not by any means am I diminishing what Pistone did) they were expecting it now making Jack’s job even harder.

Having grown up with the mob’s influence around me never really tempted me to enter that life. I had what I considered a healthy admiration, but never an envy. Gangsters to me were kind of like characters in fiction. They weren’t real people. They existed in real life, but their lives were not real. They did things that were bad, horrible even. They violated commandments and laws. Maybe my sense of morality was too strong? Maybe it was that when I played cops and robbers I always chose the cop? Maybe my family connection to law enforcement was too strong?

To look at the family I consider the opposite of my own I looked at the 60 Minutes interview of John Gotti Jr. that took place last Sunday. I viewed the video with the intention of hating Junior. He’s a notorious asshole and his claims that he’s left the mob behind were about as believable to me as The Octomom’s saying she just wants to be a normal mom. But while watching something struck a chord with me. He was talking about how he idolized his father and how he wanted to live up to the legend that was his dad. Now my father did not make headlines like John Gotti Sr. did, but there was more than one occasion that I would see my father ride up on horseback. His NYPD Mounted Unit uniform absolutely perfect. His leather good polished with a shine that would rival shoes polished by Tommy DeVito. His gold sergeant’s chevrons and gold band on his helmet stood out from the rest of his troops. He was just a sergeant at the time, but to a twelve year old kid, he might as well been a general. When you turn on the television and your father is leading the St. Patrick’s Day Parade down 5th Avenue and you’re not the least bit Irish, it sets a pretty lofty goal to reach.

I did identify with Junior a bit, but there is no way I can let him off the hook. He blames his choice of careers on the fact that he grew up in Howard Beach and that was the way the streets were. Really Junior? The streets of Howard Beach? The streets of Howard Beach are some of the quietest in the whole city. It’s also one of the first neighborhoods plowed when the snow hits the ground. Howard Beach might be really close to East New York, but geography is the only similarity those two neighborhoods share. Any turmoil in that neighborhood was caused by punks like you and Fat Nick Minucci. The neighborhood is not without its charm though. New Park Pizzeria (or Last Stop Pizzeria as I like to call it for its role in the 1986 racially motivated homicide) makes an awesome slice, one of the best I ever had.

Junior and pretty much all gangsters share one trait in common, they are all sociopaths. The chemistry of their brains allow them to do what normal people are not able to do, act as if heinous actions against others are okay, just because it’s their own will. It doesn’t matter what color you are either. Crip or Blood, Latin King, or MS-13, they’re all sociopaths and all cowards as well. it doesn’t take much to run with a crew of twenty knuckleheads who have the same mindset. Try walking on your own some time. The fact of the matter is the only people these entities provide protection to their members only from themselves.

I have to admit I find it disturbing when people let young men in urban areas off the hook for their actions. I often hear that dealing drugs and gangs are the only way out of the ghetto. It’s the only way they will make money, that’s why they join. Yeah well Italians have the same option but the overwhelming majority don’t follow in that path. What happened to hard work? What happened to find out what you are good at and exploiting that to the fullest? That’s how you make money, not by swearing an oath of loyalty and having your finger pricked, not by putting on a certain color bandana. That’s what I believe and that’s what I will tell my son should he ever seek an career in unethical pursuits. Gangstas and gangsters cost the good people of New York and the U.S. billions of dollars every year. Whether it’s for the salary of extra beat cop who has to walk along Pennsylvania Avenue because of increased shootings, or all the money that is paid in extortion at business who have to pass the cost on to you, or it could be for the extra money that is built into construction and waste removal by somebody who’s picture in on a blackboard in a government biulding with the word CAPO above it; it’s not about black or white it’s about green.

Well that’s it. I am done with my underworld name dropping. The reality is that I am not proud to know any of those people with the exception of Jack. The man has heart and balls bigger than most of us can only imagine. And if you take nothing else from this entry…don’t join a gang or the mafia.

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Acting All Ghetto, Rhymin and stealin, White People

Mar 10

Is This the Best Brooklyn can do?

TheGhettoist

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I’ve gotten a lot of guff recently. People have told me that I have turned this blog into a pro-cop apologist rant. They are not incorrect. It’s possible that I have strayed from my original mission statement, and I now risk losing my funding. Well this will be my last cop related entry for a while. This is not so much cop related though as it is entertainment related. Last week I decided to take in a movie and review it, I was going to spend the loot so you didn’t have to.

I took myself to my local multiplex and plopped down the nearly criminal $12.00 to view Brooklyn’s Finest. I did not go into this movie hopeful, and was not surprised when I left the theatre with the same sense of emptiness that I walked in with. Movie food might fill your belly, but do you ever feel satisfied when you walk out? That’s kind of the same feeling I got from this film. Yes my time was occupied by this movie, but I cannot say it was time I felt like I accomplished something. After I saw The Hurt Locker, I felt like I used time wisely even though it was a self indulgent veg out kind of thing. A certain part of my psyche was fed and fed with quality ingredients. Finest was nothing like that. The hollow feeling in my psyche was the same as the one in my belly that was filled with popcorn.

Now I have to qualify this review with my DQ (Douche Quotient) regarding cop movies and cop shows. The first article I ever had published was titled Why I Hate Cop Shows. Don’t go looking for it anywhere. The magazine NY Hotshot has long since folded and the website is now an advertisement for a photographer. I wrote the article back in 2000 and I have always contended that Barney Miller is the best and most realistic cop show ever produced. If I had to pick a cop movie, I would have to go with Fort Apache The Bronx. Whereas those two works in my opinion share a brilliance and have done their 20 and now retired, Finest seems like it just entered the police academy. I watch these films and shows from a little different point of view than most people, but I still am a watcher of film. So like every other person who thinks they are right, I know best.

One area where I have to praise this film for is it’s casting, but only part of it. Don Cheadle is good in everything he does. The man just plain has range, maybe more than any other actor out there. This is the same man who was nearly unrecognizable (and it has nothing to do with his appearance) as Rocket in the movie Colors, is the same one who moved me to tears in Hotel Rwanda. Then by the same token cracked me up as Basher in the Ocean’s Eleven series. In Finest Cheadle plays Tango, an undercover cop who is embedded with a nefarious Brooklyn drug crew. Cheadle was likable but the script had him playing the cliché undercover cop who is “in too deep.” If you plan on seeing the film, I won’t ruin it but his actions at the end of the film had me saying WTF?

One surprise in this film was Wesley Snipes. Snipes’ Cazanova was good and even seemed to have some dimension to him. It was a supporting role, but Wesley seemed to make to most of it, and didn’t try and over act it. I’m glad about this as in light of his recent IRS troubles and lack of quality work in recent years, this might be a good turn for his career. Does this mean that Blade 4 is in the works? I sure hope so.

For me personally the best part of the casting was seeing Michael K. Williams, Hassan Johnson, and Isaiah Whitlock Jr. on the screen. If you’re saying who perhaps if I said Omar Little, Wee Bey, and State Senator Clay Davis you will know exactly who I a speaking of. I’m a huge fan of The Wire and even though I came late to the game watching it(the only season I actually saw when it aired originally was the final one), felt it was the finest piece of television ever produced next to Band of Brothers. It was good to see these three actors working, like seeing three old friends who you haven’t seen in a while. You saw they changed but were still essentially the same people. Williams had the biggest role playing the typical psychotic black drug dealer who has no regard for anything other than getting paper and power.

On the other side, the side of the cops, I can’t find much to praise. It strikes me that these men didn’t spend much time with actual cops, or if they did; the cops didn’t let their real personalities out. Ethan Hawke, a guy who I sometimes see walking around my neighborhood has instant name recognition and will put the asses in the seats, was not a great choice for this role. Hawke came from an upper class background and seemed to have trouble playing a blue collar cop. It seemed to me that he thought to play working class you just need to exchange your wallet for a wooden personality. He did his best to pretend he was Denzel in Training Day, but doesn’t hit the mark. His role has him playing another cliché of the cop who needs money and decides that killing and robbery are the way to go. Before they were given a decent contract, every cop I knew needed money. You know what they did to get money, they worked overtime constantly, or got side jobs. They didn’t take to robbery and murder. His character even takes to turning down overtime. His actions just did not make any sense to me, not as a cop, not as a human being. Shouldn’t there be reasons for a person to take the actions like Hawke did? All we know is that he has twins on the way, and needs to buy a new house. When you violate your oath in ways like his character did, then there has to be more than the typical struggle than what we all face every day. There has to be some sociopathology which the writing and acting did not let on.

Richard Gere was a little closer to the target as the weirdo loner cop. He was stubborn, and slightly on the dim side. He was very set in his ways and most of those ways were pretty flawed. But even the biggest asshole on the department has one or two people that they talked with, joked around with. What struck me was that he had no hobbies, no interests. Those guys usually had something away from the job that kept him going, whether it was fishing, or horses, or trips to Atlantic City. Eddie Dugan had none of that. In one scene he bought a fishing rod, but that was never explored it did nothing to give the character depth. The only hobby he did seem to have was a certain hooker in Chinatown. I can’t say this is far from the truth because it brings me back to a situation where a cop I knew started dumping rounds into the projects when a certain prostitute didn’t service him properly. In the man’s defense it wasn’t his regular girl, so can you really blame him?

So acting aside, the writing of this film needed work. I saw an interview on The View (it’s okay, call me a bitch) where Don Cheadle and Wesley Snipes were discussing how the writer of this film had worked in the subway. As I was watching the film I said to myself often, “Yeah this film was written by an MTA employee.” The guy had a good idea, but it seems like he wrote the story without doing the research. Just because you saw cops occasionally in your job doesn’t mean you understand how things work. I’ve got a theory with cop shows and movies. You either have to go way over the top like they did in a show like The Shield. It was easy to suspend belief and just enjoy the fantasy component, or keep it real like The Wire, and show us the comedy and drama that exists normally in life, especially in that life. You don’t have to manufacture it, it’s there already if you just look hard enough. You don’t have to create a scene like the poker game where the dialogue is unnatural and forced with the stupidity of guns being pulled to create artificial drama.

Am I being a nitpicky douche? Yeah I probably am, but I’m going to be this way till they come out with a cop movie that gets it right in this modern film era. Maybe I will just have to open my copy of Final Draft and write it myself. Then some asshole such as myself will rip me apart, but hopefully he decides he needs to do it right and comes out with something better than what I wrote. Then I will be able to die in peace.

Well that’s it for cop stuff for a while…Back to the hood!

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Acting All Ghetto, Rhymin and stealin, White People

Mar 10

41 Plungers Part 2 Redo

TheGhettoist

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So I haven’t posted in a while, but it’s not from being lazy. I started writing the second part of the last blog about police brutality, and the more I wrote the more I was dissatisfied with what I saw on the screen. Originally I had intended to write a blog about something much lighter than the topic at hand. I was thinking about maybe exploring why there were five freaking churches on my block when I lived in Harlem. Or I wanted theorize how Monique was going to be the fatter hairier female version of Cuba Gooding Jr. Cuba man I kid. I loved Rat Race, I mean it; and you really pulled off Nicky Barnes damn good.

But then something happened. I got a response on my last blog from a friend of mine. This person is a man I value as one of my closest friends on the planet. He’s a man who aside from being incredibly smart and insightful has a pedigree in the hip hop world that few can match. When you walk into this man’s office there are gold records and a large photo of him and Biggie with their arms around each other wearing tuxedos. I knew when this person commented that I had to respond to what he wrote. He’s a very measured person and if he took the time to carefully craft his response then I had better do so as well.

Then came the actual writing. As the words came out of me I couldn’t help but get a douche chill. If you have never heard the phrase before, it feels just as uncomfortable as it sounds. I found myself speaking from a place that was totally devoid of any humanity. I guess with all the exposure I have seen about the Diallo case, I became desensitized to whole thing. Couple that with that fact that I came from a position of academia and it’s easy for me to lose sight of the humanity of the situation.

You see when I was a member of the force, I spent a portion of my career as an academy instructor and one of the courses I created and taught was called Emergency Incident Management for Police Supervisors. This class had me breaking down various types of incidents whether they be natural disasters, airplane crashes, terrorist attacks, or shootings and telling people of higher ranks how to be cops when they get to them. Here I was a kid in my 20′s telling people with more time on the job than I had on the planet how to do their respective assignments. This forced me to really be on my game.

Without getting too pro cop in the Diallo shooting, I just want to raise some points briefly. Diallo did in fact resemble a rapist. The unit that he encountered The Street Crime Unit were some of the most active cops on the NYPD. They made up less than two percent of the department (380 cops) but yet they took 40% of the guns off the street in year prior to the shooting. How many lives were saved by those hundreds of guns being. These were active cops with lots of interaction with the public. They weren’t desk jockeys like myself.

The tragic events were complicated by a phenomenon called Rapid Reflex Response. I am not going to go too in depth to it but put simply when one person shoots, it is reflexive for other people to fire. If you have never been in a gun fight before I will explain something. It is very disorienting and you can’t always tell where the shots are coming from. I’ve been shot at and the only way I knew where the bullets were coming from was on the second shot I saw the person actually fire the gun. Before that, all I knew was there was a loud bang not far enough from me.

One thing I can tell you without doubt is that race was not a factor in this shooting. When it comes to racism and police officers, I refer to the movie Crash and Matt Dillon’s character in particular. Officer Ryan was one racist motherfucker. I never saw things like he did to Terrence Howard and Thandie Newton’s characters, but I knew some guys who on the surface didn’t seem to understand the meaning of racial tolerance. I’ll even own up to throwing names around like Mutt, Mope and Skell. But much like Dillon’s character when it came down to it, every single cop I knew would willingly throw themselves into harm’s way to save another, regardless of color. Now I am not saying with every cop in every instance that it’s 100% true, but in my experience when the shit hits the fan you become colorblind.

One thing I can guarantee is that not a single one of those four men when they were standing in front of their lockers on Randal’s Island that night was sitting there counting their bullets saying “This one is for Raykwon, this one is for Tyrone, this one is for Jose. The Diallo shooting was a horrible accident and not the execution Al Sharpton, and Susan Sarandon would have you believe. Funny, Susie “Get Behind the Cause of The Moment,” was down at Ground Zero after 9/11 with pizzas in hand trying to make nice with the cops. A buddy of mine told me they wouldn’t let her in and essentially told her to beat it.

When a dentist drill a wrong tooth, it’s not the end of the world. Cable guy screws up you lose your cable for a bit. When a cop makes a mistake there’s a chance people can die. They’re human, and they do make mistakes. Now I’m not giving cops a pass here. Later I’ll show my true colors. But if you think 41 shots between 4 officers armed with anywhere between 68 (17 rounds in each service weapon) and 200 (additional 16 round magazines and possible second weapons) bullets is excessive then I can tell you have never been in a situation like those four officers were. When you think you are under fire you just pull the trigger and counting your shots is the last thing on your mind. You’re squeezing the 12 lbs (modified from 2.2 lbs) of pull from the trigger of your 9 millimeter till the disorienting boom stops. From an academic point of view 41 isn’t that many, from a civilian point of view…it’s more than excessive. I’ve heard comments like they should have shot him in the hand or the shoulder. They should have shot the gun out of his hand…are you serious? When you discharge your weapon you aim for the biggest part or the target, or center mass as it’s called. It’s hard to hit shit with a bullet, trust me I know. If you can shoot the gun out of somebody’s hand, you are a better person than me, and pretty much all the cops I know with the exception of one who can hit whatever he wants whenever he wants.

I’m not sure that I have convinced you that this was a mistake and a horrible tragedy where an innocent man died, and not a brutal execution. We can probably debate about this topic forever. But please debate me. Comment on what I’ve written. In the future I will write about this subject again. There is just too much to say about it. But with that being said, cops are held to a higher standard than other occupations, with good reason.

The screening process for the department is decent, but not great. Investigators have too many candidates, and often they have to worry more about making sure the applicant has their paper work in and complete as opposed to seeking out details of their character. Where the department needs to make a change is in the psychological test. In 1990 I took the same psychological test that my father did in 1973. That is not a joke or a typo. It’s two tests consisting of 1300 questions and there are tricks to passing it. In addition you have to draw three pictures which will miraculously reveal all your character flaws The truth is that if we sat in a room for twenty minutes I could teach you how to pass the psyche. It’s a crime that the same process is used for the past forty years.

I will tell you this though, the department is most likely going to get an influx of good candidates in the near future. There are no jobs out there and the bad economy makes civil service seem very appealing. You get a steady pay check along with some of the best benefits anywhere. Now that the city has decided to open up its check book you will get people who are better qualified than people who would take the same job for a lot less money. Top pay now is around $79,000 a year, and that’s without any overtime or night differential, or longevity pay. Realistically with some time on you’re making closer to $90,000. I know sergeants and detectives who are pulling in $120,000 a year. That money in a bad economy, there’s going to be people lined up and good people too.

There’s going to be competition as opposed to the philosophy the job is yours just come down and sign up…no matter who you are. The city can disqualify people who have arrests on their records. There have been cops in New York (and are most likely still employed) who have been arrested for armed robbery, they took plea bargain for a misdemeanor and eventually became New York City Police Officers. With a large applicant pool now the city can say don’t call us, we’ll call you. With money like that on the table you’re going to get Ivy League graduates who felt the vocation calling them but weren’t going to do the job for $49,000 a year. Tens of thousands of people apply for Nassau and Suffolk every year for a couple of hundred spots, why do so many apply…I’ll give you 116,000. In addition with more money you’ll not only attract the best but keep them around.

I worked with some great people who truly are the salt of the earth, they took the job for the right reasons. I worked with people who I thought were of questionable moral character. A badge and a uniform do not hide flaws on the contrary they magnify them. We need do need to hold men a women who chose this profession to a higher standard, but at the same time we need to give them our support. We also need to sometimes keep our emotions in check till we have all the facts. Bill Bratton had it right when he destroyed the badges of the men who were caught up in the Dirty 30 scandal. He said that the men forever tarnished the badges and their memories should wiped from the department. Those men were criminals, just like Justin Volpe is a criminal.

Those four men of The Street Crime Unit (which has since been disbanded as a result of the Diallo shooting) are not criminals, but rather men who were doing their job and made a horrible mistake. A mistake that I hope no cop, or parent or son ever has to live with again. And if you think those four men are not haunted by their actions even though they thought they were completely justified (which a jury agreed with) then think again. The four have huge crosses to bear and I for one am glad I will never have to bear it.

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Rhymin and stealin, White People

Mar 10

41 Plungers

TheGhettoist

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Every time I go to work I pass by the Wakimba Lounge on 8th Ave in Midtown. At first glance it looks like it’s trying to be something it’s not. It’s trying to look like a tropical locale in the heart of one of the busiest parts of the city, an urban oasis. Then after a second look, you can see it’s just like any other Manhattan Dive Bar. It’s not one of those kitschy dive bars that attracts the hipster crowd, and has them thinking they’re cool for going there. Not the Wak, it’s a true dive bar. It’s the kind of place that the smell of stale beer and desperation wafts out even when the doors are closed. The place has a soul, but the soul screams of hopelessness. The Wakimba does have a place in New York history. It is the place where Patrick Dorismond was shot by a New York City Police Officer.

The case of the Dorismond shooting was one of great controversy. The officers involved were not indicted. The Manhattan Grand Jury deemed the shooting accidental. The case drew little fanfare, not as much as you would have though a cop shooting an unarmed man would draw. The fact of the matter is that the shooting was overshadowed by two incidents that happened in the three years prior. Those two incidents which often get lumped together have very little to do with each other than they involved members of The NYPD and black men, immigrants for poor countries as well. But that’s where the similarities end. They are about as close in spirit as the homelands of the two men, which is not at all close.

The first case involves Haitian immigrant Abner Louima and the 1st Platoon of Brooklyn’s 70th Precinct. Louima was sodomized in the bathroom of Flatbush police station when he was taken into custody. The case drew massive protest and outrage, but most of it was knee jerk reactions led by my favorite “Holy Man” Al Sharpton (and you can expect a whole entry on the man I called Al Overtime at a later date.) When I say knee jerk, I mean that people over reacted without knowing all the facts. I actually had a pretty close connection to the case and know some details that most people do not. I knew Justin Volpe, we grew up not far from each other. We didn’t know each other personally, but I knew him from sight. I knew the crowd he ran with and thought he was a punk, a bully, worst of all, a guido. Now you don’t really think that a badge and a gun is going to change that do you? Guns make weak men feel strong, picture being able to carry a gun where ever you want. Talk about absolute power corrupting absolutely.

I did not know Chuckie Schwartz ,one of the other men involved, but I knew people who knew him and well. Everybody I knew who knew him said that that he was not the kind of guy to do something like that, and these were men I trusted, who trusted Chuck. Nobody was surprised that Volpe had done something like this, but at least four people I knew said it was not in Chuck’s character to do something like that. Even Volpe himself cleared Chuck, but it didn’t take much to call Justin’s character into question. I never got commentary on Bruder or Weiss, so I can make no judgment on their deeds or character.

There is another key player in this case that I knew. How I came about to know him was unfortunate. He was just a kid who was doing the right thing, what he was sworn to do. His name Eric Turetsky, at the time it was Police Officer Eric Turetsky the King’s County D.A.’s star witness. Eric had seen parts of the incident and had come forward with what he saw. I had met Eric while visiting my father at work one day at Nazareth High School. My father was Eric’s boss after he came forward. Now if you put two and two together, you can will figure out that Eric was assigned to the Internal Affairs Bureau once he was removed from The Seven Oh. My father at the time was a lieutenant in Group 32 and one of the final cases he worked in his career was the Louima case. When the news broke I asked him about it. His words were that it was bullshit and they essentially were trying to find evidence to clear everybody involved. As the investigation progressed they said there was no way that this did not happen. Louima was sodomized, sexually assaulted by a New York City Police Officer. He wouldn’t give me details but he said that anybody involved was going to do serious time, like the amount that can be measured in percentages of a century.

So we have to look at the facts of the case and we will see that justice was served and pretty well for that fact. Louima was involved in a scuffle outside a Brooklyn nightclub. He is alleged to have sucker punched Justin Volpe. The case was dropped so we will never know the outcome. Louima most likely got his ass kicked on the way to the precinct. I’m not condoning street justice, but I understand it. Sometimes it’s the only message a knuckle head understands, you meet his violence with your own harsher violence. I never participated in it, but the fact is an Assault 2nd Degree (which is the charge for hitting a police officer in New York) arrest is usually a tough case to make stick in this city. If the person does get convicted or cops a plea there’s a good chance there will be no or little jail time. The system sucks in that respect.

So if we fast forward to today, we can see how the lives of four people have been changed by this incident. Justin Volpe took a plea for 30 years with no parole. Chuck Schwartz was convicted and sentenced to twelve years. That conviction was overturned because it was deemed that he did not receive a fair trial. With perjury charges looming he took a plea for a five year sentence. He has since been released and is reported as working as a carpenter. Eric Turetsky did what he perceived as the right thing and is branded a rat for the rest of his career, which is the worst thing possible among police officers. He was an amenable guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and even his actions and motives were called into question while on the stand. I’ve always contended that this was a crime and if any cop had come across this event on the street that he’d think it a great collar. Volpe deserved to be punished, but I’m not sure 30 years was correct. If he had been a civilian and it was a first offense then I couldn’t see him serving more than 10 years and a life time of sex offender status. Does a uniform elevate the severity of a crime, not in the New York State Penal Law to my knowledge, but in the court of public opinion and surely in the Reverend Al’s definition of justice.

Abner Louima a Haitian immigrant who had not seen his family for six years before the event is now a very rich man. He won $8.5 Million in tax free money ($5.8 after legal fees) and now lives in Florida. In 2003 he went back to Haiti to see his family, wow great family man he is. He has since set up The Abner Louima Foundation which form information I obtained listed $1181 assets and $6181 in income as of 2007. He’s a rich man who lives in Florida while the good intentions of his “foundation” seem idle. He has since found a role as The Rev. Al’s pony to trot out when he needs to put a face on police brutality. He’s the victim of a crime who was compensated more than most victims are. He’s no hero in my eyes as some would have you believe. I’ve discussed this case with numerous people and myself included would trade places with him in a second for a pay day like that. Giuliani Time (an allegation he made that the cops screamed as they were sodomizing him, things changed under Rudy but I don’t know a single cop who was a fan of the man, a fan enough to evoke his name anyhow,)paid him very well. Three men’s lives forever changed by the actions of one, and only one being compensated for it.

The other case that often comes under the same umbrella is Amadou Diallo. In this case the four white Street Crime cops were acquitted. This case involves no crime as some would have you believe. This is a very unfortunate tragedy in which a man died. He looked like a wanted man who was raping women in the South Bronx. When questioned in front of his house he did not comply. Call it a language barrier, call it a miscommunication, but don’t call it a murder. Don’t be like Springsteen and write a song about it, till you understand the case fully. In a later entry I will discuss The Sean Bell Shooting and I will introduce some facts and theories that will show that neither of these incidents were crimes but tragedies, bad tactics, yes; but not a bunch of white cops gunning for brothers as certain activists would have you believe. So I ask for you not to have a knee jerk reaction to some of my statements. In a coming blog hopefully you will see where I am coming from. I’m by no means saying not to be mad. I’d never want to take your feelings away, but I just merely want you to know there are two sides to the story.

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Rhymin and stealin, These Are The Breaks, White People

Mar 10

Cracker Rap

TheGhettoist

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In my previous blog about Affirmative Action, I declared it was not a good thing and I stand by it. I’m thinking though maybe we need a little of it though in the world of rap. That clearly is a joke, but I want to know why the hell it is nearly impossible for people lacking color to make it in the world of hip hop. Now I will admit the sampling that we have had the pleasure of hearing throughout hip hop’s existence is quite small, and not very distinguished.

The father of white rap is Rodney Dangerfield if you can believe it. In 1981 he released his Grammy winning album No Respect which contained the wildly popular hit Rappin Rodney. The song was clearly a spoof, but not knowing any better I coveted the album almost as much as I did Paradise Theatre (I know I was a fan of Styx, it’s fine make fun of me. The following year I bought Blizzard of Ozz and everything changed.) Music historians will contend that Blondie’s Rapture is the first song with rap in it, but in White mainstream America, but we just thought “Hey Blondie is really singing along with the beat. And look wasn’t that black guy in the white tux on the Gong Show, and that Fab Five Freddy, he has a real alliterate name.” I also think we might have been a little distracted by how hot Debbie Harry really was to notice any cultural implications.

Fast forward to 1984 and we have a performance by two icons of white rap. We have Jim Belushi and Alex Karras (it’s okay, he had flava he adopted a black kid named Webster,) perform White Guy Rap on Saturday Night Live. C’mon if you were alive around that time you remember lyrics such as “I like your shirt. I like your tie. I like your wife, just kidding guy.” Funny stuff, right? For white people rap had been a vehicle of satire. Whereas people like Kurtis Blow used rap to tell us about The Breaks, we used it to be cute and get chuckles. The uncategorized genre had no seriousness to us.

Even with the emergence of what many consider the first white rap group The Beastie Boys the landscape changed. Don’t get me wrong, I love their first album (it was required listening on any road trip) but I can’t in good conscience rank it along side It Takes a Nation of Millions, Strictly Business, and Road to The Riches, and Paid in Full. The Beasties are musicians, and with their body of work I have a hard time calling them strictly rappers. And please don’t misunderstand I am a fan of them. I own several albums . I even played Paul’s Boutique for a black friend of mine and he was like “Who the hell is this?” My response was, “Yo man, this is The Beastie Boys. It’s their second album.” He answered “Shit, I have to get this. This is good.”

I hope you’re not on Wikipedia right now and thinking well The Beastie Boys released some tracks before License to Ill in like 1983. I respond…puh lease. Have you heard Cooky Puss? It sounds like The Jerky Boys were trying to make a song out of a prank phone call. Besides, it was an underground song and never made it to wide release…with good reason.

In 1986 though something changed. Rap met rock. Run-DMC collaborated with Aerosmith on a remix of their song Walk This Way. Now if you were a hardcore rocker, it was okay to listen to rap. You might have even ventured to other sections of the record store saying “Hey I heard that album King of Rock has a Zeppelin riff in it.” ’88 saw the creation of The Source magazine by two white Harvard students. But the truth is that we only had our toes in the water and hadn’t quite jumped in the pool.

1989 changed all that. When 3rd Bass’ The Cactus album debuted. They weren’t just good white rappers, but they were good rappers period. Who knew Columbia English majors could rap? Well Pete Nice was there on a basketball scholarship so that might have given you a clue. They had acceptance by the most respected rappers. Their videos were like a who’s who roll call of hip hop. They were down with De La Soul, they were down with EPMD. They had crossover appeal, they were down with Black Flag singer Henry Rollins, the angriest man in music. Their follow up album The Derelicts of Dialect did not let off the gas pedal for a second either.

I guess Pete Nice and Mc Search (I’m not forgetting about you DJ Richie Rich, but this entry is about the crackers of hip hop) set the bar so high that white rappers went underground. They were relegated to basements and making their own record booths on the boardwalk of Seaside Heights, New Jersey (there’s a really bad recording of Going Back to Cali out there with my name on it. I hope it was lost in a fire somewhere.)

There were a few blips on the radar though. 3rd Bass’ hard work was wiped out by Robert VanWinkle and they gave him the gas face for it. Ice was popular, but time revealed that he just wasn’t anything more than a novelty. He was like blue Tropical Fantasy soda, you like it at first; but eventually you get sick from it; and the blue tongue would do as much to attract the ladies as it would blasting anything from To The Extreme.

We had P.E. play with Anthrax on Bring The Noise. You can’t argue with the marriage of Long Island and Queens. Both these groups were considered the pinnacles of their respective genres. I know all the words to every song on It Takes a Nation of Millions and Among the Living. It’s hard to argue the talent of these two organizations (that’s provided you like rap and metal.) It’s like the marriage of chocolate and peanut butter in a Reese’s. Both groups do what they do best. Chuck and Flava rap their hearts out and Scott Ian thrashes. Charlie Benante pounds the drums with more heart and soul than any drum machine ever could. I was a little scared when Scott took the mic, but he doesn’t try to be black. He does his best to keep it metal, and Chuck doesn’t leave him hanging out there alone. Bio Hazard and Onyx tried to capture the same magic with slam but Evan Seinfeld and company seem to just be playing backup to Sticky Fingaz and the rest. It’s a damn good song that was made better with the melding of the two groups, but it lacks the ying and yang flow of Bring The Noise.

We can’t forget about Snow and his song Informer. It was kind of a novelty in the fact that if it weren’t for the fact that you saw the video you would think that flow like that came from a brother from Jamaica. Take the fact that he was from Canada and not even Jamaica, Queens then the novelty factor is increased tenfold. He couldn’t sustain anything after the one song…can you name another song by Snow? Didn’t he rejoin Color Me Bad after that song came out?

Sometimes it gets downright embarrassing though. We have Markie Mark and the Funky Bunch. Mark stick to producing Entourage and roles like Staff Sgt. Dignam in The Departed. He’s a great actor but I hope he sticks with his true calling and doesn’t catch the music bug again. The biggest embarrassment I felt while being white and listening to a rap song by one of my Caucasian brethren (well aside from K-Fed, but he’s a joke in and of itself) is The Notorious B.A.G. or Brian Austin Green, the name he was given. It’s on You Tube so there is no need to describe it. You can formulate your own opinion of anything off One Stop Carnival. Brian should stick to what he does best, acting occasionally and banging some of the hottest women in Hollywood (Tiffani Thissen, Megan Fox and my personal favorite Vanessa Marcil.)

When you talk about white rappers you have to mention The Insane Clown Posse. I see their place in the discussion but I can’t see fit to call them rappers. Their songs are catchy (although I am not a fan) and their rabid fan base gives them validation, but c’mon can they keep up with Rakim Allah? I feel their best work was inspiring the hilarious Jugalo News skit. Look for it on You Tube and be prepared to laugh your nuts off.

No discussion about white rap is complete without the inclusion of Eminem. He has Dr. Dre’s production, catchy beats that white people like and the ability to flow like KRS-One. How could he not be great? He hasn’t done much of late, but he doesn’t have to. Marshall Mathers III’s legacy is intact. He will emerge from hiding one day and gift us with genius and then it’s back to hiding. C’mon he made Dido cool to listen to.

Before I conclude, I have to pay homage to a Jewish man from Lido Beach, NY. It is impossible to discuss rap regardless of the color of the singer without giving defernce to Rick Rubin. Rick was there from the beginning and his DNA is in every rap song produced. The fact is the man has worked with anybody who is anybody in music not just hip hop. Do I really have to tell you about him? If I do then you better start asking The Google.

There is a glaring omission of a mention of the white rap fan, but that will be saved for a later entry entitled Wigga Please.

Well I’m never going claim that white people formed the landscape of rap, but with Rick Rubin, Eminem and 3rd Bass we’ve put the snowy caps on the top of the mountains. Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to be satisfied with ice hockey, and a whole shit load of other stuff.

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Rhymin and stealin, White People

Mar 10

A Tale of Two Idiots.

TheGhettoist

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They were the best of pols, they were the worst of pols…nah, they were the worst of pols. Pretty much all politicians suck, and currently the only one I can think of who actually does what he said he would do and has a heart in the right place is Newark Mayor Corey Booker. Watch the series Brick City and you’ll see a man who gets things done, but still genuinely cares about the people who he governs; and best of all he is willing to get his hands dirty to get the job done. What I think speaks most of the man’s character is that from what I have seen he is both pro-cop and pro-pop(ulation) which most mayors are of low income urban areas areusually seen as one or the other. I can go on all day extolling the virtues of Mr. Booker, but this entry is not about him. It is about two politicians who embody the opposite of my favorite mayor. Those pols are The Dishonorable Charles Rangel (or Cash Rangler as I like to call him) and David “the guy who followed the guy who liked hookers” Paterson.

Let’s start with good ole Charlie. He took office in 1971 (yeah, that long ago) when he defeated trail blazing Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. He won based on a platform of youth and change. While he was in office he did some good things for Harlem. He turned it into an Economic Empowerment Zone, it’s not there yet, and it will never turn into The Upper West Side, but it’s definitely a better place to live than it was in the early 1990′s. He was a vocal opponent to the war in Iraq, and his call to reinstate the draft ruffled the feathers of old white, out of touch men of power and that’s never a bad thing. He was a supporter of Israel in the Six Day War, which I have to give him kudos for. The man was a war veteran and best of all he was a kid from Harlem, from a single parent home who rose through the ranks and became one of the more powerful men in D.C.

But as he is a public figure, you have to look at some of his misdeeds which I feel define him. First of all you have to look at his role in the cover up of the execution of NYPD Patrolman Phillip Cardillo inside a mosque in Harlem. Rangel sided with his constituents rather than the police who were just doing their job, responding to a call for help. While next to well known militant idiot Louis Farrakhan, Rangel ordered all police out of the mosque or else he could not protect them. Sorry Charlie, I beg to differ. One call for The Tactical Patrol Force (T.P.F.) and I not sure much could have protected the residents of Harlem. Those monsters had one role only, to break heads. The behemoths carried ax handles instead of nightsticks. I am not by any means justifying police brutality. It obviously was a different time, not better by any stretch of the imagination; but that’s the way things were done back then.

I looked, but could not find on the internet Congressman apologized to Cardillo’s son Todd for sabotaging a crime scene and shit canning the investigation. Cardillo’s killer has never been caught, and probably never will. Hey Charlie if you have apologized please let me know, if not don’t you think it’s 37 years overdue?

If we look at some other doozies, we can look at Charlie’s tax problems. He claims to represent the people of Harlem, but yet lists DC as his primary address. Now I’m not sure where in D.C. he claims to live but I can tell you for sure it’s nowhere near Howard University. It’s probably in a pretty nice area but I’m sure it’s only so he doesn’t have a long commute. Apparently by living in D.C. he gets a pretty good homestead tax break. When he is not there though, he has not one but three rent controlled apartments. I’m sure you’re doing good for the country and the world, but don’t you think three families could benefit from affordable housing. I’m sure you ran on a platform that promised affordable housing, you had a chance to really keep a campaign promise but you blew it. Couple that with the fact he has an apartment in The D.R. that he makes rental income off of and never told the IRS about and I would say Charlie does not keep his house (or housing in order.) The man came under investigation for storing his Mercedes in The House of Representatives garage. Really you can’t afford a garage on $174,000 a year?

Charlie’s latest scandal involves him taking trips to the Caribbean which were paid for by corporations. Gee whiz, is it possible that when it comes time to create tax policy you might be influenced by somebody who gave you a free vacation to a tropical location? Hell, buy me dinner and I’ll write an amazing blog about you. Charlie is claiming he had no idea about it. I guess his staff must not tell him much, either that or he’s got so much money he never thinks about it. If he has that much money then he must have done something he shouldn’t have been. Let’s face it $174,000 a year is not enough money to not care about money.

So with an impressive resume of a few of the deadly sins (sloth, gluttony and greed) Charlie wanted to preserve his legacy by adding pride to the list. He used his Congressional office (in the illegal rent control apartment) to raise money for a public policy institute (exactly what a public policy institute does is a mystery to me) bearing his name. Talk about vain. Rangel has done some good things in his career, but the fact is that he is greedy and seemingly complacent. He until yesterday headed the most powerful sub-committee in Washington and should we have somebody with questionable ethics determining where the money goes? I think Rangel should go the way of Evan Bayh and decide he’s done enough good, and step aside and let somebody else serve the residents of Harlem. Isn’t that what it actually is about…public service?

Our second idiot David Patterson has come under much fire lately for his ordering the New York State Police to shit can an assault one of his top aides committed against their girlfriend. Patterson has come under fire by critics often and really hasn’t done much to quiet them. Within a few days of his swearing in it came out that he had an affair. Okay, not earth shattering news, but it’s an indicator of things to come. My main problems with the man is that his proposed budget rode on the back of the middle and lower class. It imposed taxes on things like soda and movie tickets. Times are tough, but how about hitting the rich. Everybody complains the middle class is vanishing, well be all means help speed the disappearance. He lets the MTA run unchecked. Most people don’t realize that the MTA is not a government agency. It is what is called a public benefit corporation. It’s a private company that serves the general public. How is it serving the public by cutting Metro Cards for students? How about you keeping contractors hired by the MTA in check? I have some insider info that contractors cost the MTA hundreds of millions every year with illegal practices. That’s for a whole other discussion though. Take the whole Aqueduct mess and you have painted a picture of a man who should not be where he is.

Worst of all, the man has no leadership qualities. The New York State Senate which is the most dysfunctional organization I have ever seen had itself hijacked by two spoiled brats (one who has since been removed from office for beating up his girlfriend, but has vowed to run again) and Davey did nothing to stop the temper tantrum. Does the man have no pride, or ego? He let state government be shut down and I can’t remember him making a single statement about it.

One of the few decisions I agree with is that Paterson did pardon Slick Rick from his attempted murder charges which ceased his deportation. I guess my love of LaDiDaDi and Children’s Story is greater than my love for justice in this case. But understand the man did serve his time, and nobody was killed. The whole deportation was a political move, I guess some I.C.E. official took exception to Treat Her Like a Prostitute. I have an idea for Dave when he leaves office he can be kind of like The Wizard of Oz for hip hop stars. I mean Slick Rick is now back home. He can find Bushwick Bill an eye. He can get Roxanne Shante real PhD, and he can get MC Search and Pete Nice back together.

UPDATE: As I was finishing this entry, a new scandal broke involving David Paterson. It appears that he is now under fire for an issue involving free Yankee tickets. My feeling is this, if you are the governor of a state and a team in that state is playing in The World Series, you should be able to attend the game, and for free. You are the highest politician in the state, and it’s just the way things are. I still think that Paterson is not qualified to govern. Hell Slick Rick might be more qualified than David Paterson. He’s just not the man for the job. At the same time I think there is a witch hunt and he unfortunately is going to have to step down early. The man is the ultimate lame duck, and now he’s kind of the underdog that people often root for. I am not rooting for him, but I say let him serve out his term. Nothing is going to get done in the state government anyway, it hasn’t in a couple years. Let the man have his dignity. He is owed that at least. November is not as far away as it seems.

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Acting All Ghetto, Rhymin and stealin

Feb 10

That’s the Sound of The Beast

TheGhettoist

1 Comment »

I want to talk about something that I think is important, life and death even. This is an area where I think I can provide insight that can save lives and make the quality of life easier. I want to discuss getting pulled over and confrontations with the police. I am well aware of the inherent tension between young men of color and law enforcement. Now I know it’s not every case, but I can tell you from what I have seen it is the rule rather than the exception. I do understand both sides of the argument, and it’s kind of like a he said she said situation. The cops are just harassing me because I’m black/Spanish/Middle Eastern. Well he matched the description.

The truth is there are realities involved here. The police have a job to do and it does have potential for danger. If you have been to one police funeral, you have been to too many. Knowing that this day of work could be your last on earth can put a person a little on edge. Most of the time when the police arrive it’s because they have been summoned by somebody for whatever reason. There’s a good chance that the reason could be you. Now I am not saying you did anything wrong but there’s a chance that the crazy old lady on the eight floor picked up the phone and called 911 to say that you were selling drugs. Regardless of if you were or not, the police still have to go to the scene and investigate. It’s their job…they raise their right hand and take an oath. Doctors take oaths and you’d be pretty upset if you went to a doctor and they didn’t treat you. Now with this being said, I know the police could be less gruff when they go about this appointed task. I have no choice to be honest though, I have done it both ways.

I’ve rolled up on a bunch of men hanging outside the projects, lights on, breaks screeching, screaming up against the wall mother fuckers. Legs were kicked out, bodies were thrown down, hats and beepers slammed on the floor. Was it right, not really. But when you get a call of a man with a gun in an exact location, with a detailed description, and said person just so happens to be in the spot where they were alleged to be; then the adrenaline starts flowing and you are ready to go. As I got older and wiser, I realized that most of the calls I went on were unfounded. It could be that crazy old woman on the eight floor or it could be somebody who had a beef with said person. There is a chance that said male could truly be up to no good.

Criminals have been known to carry guns, but after I became a little older and a little wiser I saw a whole new way of doing things. My new approach was this: I’d roll up slowly, there’s no need for lights and sirens when I get there. If said person was in possession of a firearm, this would only help to elevate their nervousness and that’s when bad things can happen. I’d approach and address the crowd as gentlemen. Listen Mutt has a way of riling people up and with cooler heads there is less friction. In a direct and commanding voice I would tell everybody for their safety and mine to please turn around and place their hands on the wall. I’d like to say something like “Gentlemen, I know you’ve done this before, and you know how the game is played. The more cooperative you are the quicker I will be out of your hair.” I would do my search and if it turned up nothing, I would pull the person who was the subject of the call and ask the dispatcher to replay the description of the person in question. When they heard the suspect was a male black 5’9″ to 6’1″, 180 pounds wearing blue jeans, work boots and and a Tim Brown jersey standing in front of 428 W 27th Street, it was not racial, it was not personal it was just part of the job.

I tell you that story not for you to say, wow he’s a nice guy; or he was a good cop. I tell you to show you that there can be another way to do things, but sometimes life gets in the way and being human clouds judgment. And if you are confronted by the police you need to keep this issues in mind. These are men and women who ultimately want to go home at the end of the day. I know it’s hard to think about that when you are being pulled over or being held on a wall at gunpoint. We’re taught in the academy that car stops and family disputes are the two most dangerous encounters we will have out there, so again when you encounter the police in one of those situations there is a good chance they will be on edge.

This is a subject that we can debate forever, but there is a reality involved here. I just want to leave you with some tips for dealing with the police in confrontational situations:

You can’t win the battle. No matter what you say, or do you will not ever win the argument with a cop. You can call them whatever you, say whatever you want to them but the fact remains that if a cop wants to arrest you or give you a ticket they are going to. If you’re bigger than they are, they will call their friends, colleagues, and co workers. Nothing gets a cop more fired up than to run to another cop’s aide.
If you are pulled over then stop the car. Don’t make the cop chase you. He’s going to be pissed if he has to chase you If you think it’s not a real cop then call 911 and drive slowly until the dispatcher can sort this out. That doesn’t mean that you can speed away. Put your hazards on and drive slowly. The cop will get it. If it’s a marked police car, then the chance of it being an imposter is pretty damn slim. If Rodney King pulled over, the riots never happen.
Turn the interior light. There is nothing cops hate more than not being able to see. If you are not doing anything wrong you really have nothing to fear. If you are doing something wrong the cop will find out and it will be harder. If you have tint, roll the windows down…all of them. I know it’s cold, but you’ll live and live longer by doing it.
Keep your hands where the officer can see them. If it’s a car stop keep your hands on the wheel. If it’s a personal stop, take your hands out of your pocket and leave them in plain sight. Hands kill, period! It can be on a gun, with a knife, it can be with a bat, but it’s your hands that cops worry about.
Do not get out of the car. You might have something very important to say but you can wait till the cop walks back to the car. Getting a ticket will suck, but getting arrested or shot is much worse. If the cop directs you to get out of the car then do so.
No sudden movements. I think this one is self explanatory.
Do what the cop tells you. Don’t reach for your wallet in the glove compartment. I know you want to get out your license, but wait till the cops asks for it, and then tell the officer where your wallet is and that you are going for it. Communication will only make the situation better for everybody involved.

Now I am sure you are saying to yourself, “Why the hell should I have to listen to them? All they are going to do is harass me.” No that’s not true. It might seem that you are being harassed, but the cop chances are is just doing his job. Now you can easily say that cops do harass people of color and often. I respond with this, there are thousands of cops out there. New York City has close to 40,000. They interact with hundreds of thousands of people every day and yes there are incidents, but compared with the number of confrontations the number is small. I’m not denying the fact that cops can be assholes. I’ve been one, and I’ve worked with assholes. There is a percentage of people who are just assholes, regardless of what they do for a living. The police are never called when things are good. You never pick up the phone, dial 911 and say “Operator, I’m loving life right now, please send armed men to my apartment so I can tell them.” And the fact of the matter is that bad interactions with the police do tend to stick in one’s memory. With that in your memory, it’s easy to make an assumption about somebody strictly based on their uniform…just as easy as it is to make an assumption based on skin color.

I am going to conclude now. I’ve said a lot here. You might be thinking that it’s all about cops racially profiling people of color, and that’s the subject for a whole other blog entry.

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Acting All Ghetto, Rhymin and stealin, These Are The Breaks, White People

Feb 10

Sean vs Jay

TheGhettoist

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I might be in the minority here, but I am a much bigger fan of Sean Carter than I am of Jay Z. Sean Carter is a guy who rose up out of The Marcy Houses in Bed Stuy to become a mogul, not just a hip hop mogul; but a genuine force of culture in this country. Look at him, he owns the Nets. He’s married to Beyonce. Personally I was more about Kelly Rowland, but find me a list of hot women Beyonce doesn’t make…okay maybe a list of really hot amputees; but you can’t deny the woman is gorgeous. He own hotels and restaurants. The man sold Roc-a-Wear clothes for close to a quarter of a billion (yes that’s with a B) dollars, and still keep a substantial chunk of the company. The man embodies the American Dream.

Now if we look at his alter ego, Jay Z, Hova or whatever he calls himself, it is my contention that the man is not a good rapper. I know my opinion is so far off from the consensus, but like I always say about opinions; they are like assholes…everybody has them. Have I heard every track he had laid down, not I have not. The ones I have, I just don’t get the appeal. The only song I actually like is when he collaborated with Linkin Park. Maybe it’s my age as the reason why I don’t like him. I know it’s not my color. You can put on Ain’t No Half Steppin by Big Daddy Kane (who Jay used to be his hype man) and I know all the words. Put on Paid in Full and by Erik B and Rakim, and I know every beat, every sample. Put on Strictly Business by Erick and Parrish Making Dollars (that’s EPMD for those not in the know) and damn son I am useless because I have to hear that song. But if you put on Hard Knock Life and I get angry. I say shit like “How the hell does anybody like this?” and “This man is not hitting a SINGLE beat. His lyrics cannot hold a candle to something written on a diner napkin by KRS-ONE.

Now I know this is probably me. You cannot argue with the success he has had with his music. It has given him the opportunity to become the mogul that his is and showcase to the world what an amazing business man he is. Hey Jay if you’re reading this man, I have much love for you and whenever I hear about something you do (especially philanthropic) I am a vocal cheerleader. Your behavior is an example for how people with money should act. But I just don’t think I’ll ever like your music. Sorry man, it’s just personal taste. Please, though please, it gives the rest of us mere mortals hope that we can one day stand in the shade of the giant shadow you cast.

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Rhymin and stealin