I weighed myself the other day, and saw with a shock that I am at my absolute top
weight ever, at 137 lbs. This evidently means I am no longer an official
lightweight. From now on you can refer to me as a Super Lightweight, or
as is my preference, a Junior Welterweight.
Oh yeah, I have a little story too.
I went to a friend's house with Nate to kick it supa-mellow and
watch some Chappelle's
Show. Not having a TV, cable shows are still kind of a delightful novelty for
me. We were there for a few hours, and finally left late in the evening.
There was frost on the ground when we left, and about 30 kids standing in a big group
down at the end of the street. It seemed like a strange hour...and I could hear some
kind of interesting noise so I wanted to go check it out. As I got closer I saw the
core was one group of about five guys huddled up next to each other. I could only just
barely hear, but it sounded like they were making some kind of music. The rest was
mostly stragglers and one group of girls giggling off to the side.
I was a hair intimidated by their street presence on this suburban street, but man, if
there's some kind of street rhyming going on in Shoreline then I want to hear it. So I
went right up to them and circled around a little, but they were just kind of wrapping
up the rhyme they were doing, and I didn't end up hearing anything.
I looked up and saw that Nate had thought we were parked this way and had just kept
walking towards the end of the street. I called out to him and the core group of guys
finally looked up at me and asked me what I wanted. I said, "I just wanted to hear some
rhymes."
The ringleader-lookin' guy gave me a raised eyebrow and said, "You got five bucks?" I
thought about just telling them to piss off and seeing if I could goad them into
rhyming, but then I realized I did indeed have five bucks and like...what the
hell...what was five dollars to me?
I pulled it out and gave it to him, and it was like flipping a switch in their
attitude. "You wanna flow?" one of them said. I probably couldn't rhyme my way out of a
paper bag, so I just said, "Hell no, I want to listen. Shit, it's my five bucks!"
So they circled up and fully three of them started beatboxing as one. I was just so sad
I didn't have anything to record them with...one guy laying down a thick, heavy amazing
beat that filled the street, and the others doing some strange clipped kind of sporadic
percussion.
As two of them started to rhyme I was dimly aware of a car pulling up and talking to
one of them. I didn't hear the exchange at all, but evidently it was come kinda signal
to break the party up. Several of them just stopped and started walking behind the
house they were near...into some kind of backyard shed.
"Hey wait," the man I had given the fiver to said, "he gave us five bucks. We can do it
a cappella!" The bassy beatboxer said something dismissive and kept walking.
Only this guy, and one short beat boxer stayed. They looked at me for just a moment and
then the beat boxer started a quiet, whispering, clicking beat, and the one remaining
rapper busted one last fierce rhyme. I don't remember a word of it, but it seemed
spontaneous by the way he had to pause and fake a couple of times...but mostly he just
rocked it out.
I don't remember what the rhyme was about, but when he wrapped it up a few short
minutes later, he gave me a bit of a worried look. I chuckled at him, "I got my money's
worth," and he smiled as I walked off.
Best rap show I've ever been to in Shoreline.
Then the next night I went to a crazy 80's roller skating party. So it was a pretty
good weekend, really. I think the hokey pokey really is what it's all
about.
