THE DISINTEGRATION OF STREET CREDIT

Now if you would have asked me about my street credit a week ago, I would’ve told you that it was at an all time high! But a lot can happen in a week! For those of you who don’t know, I have been playing basketball since before I can remember. I play because I get some form of enjoyment out of it, and it helps keep me in my skinny jeans. Although I’ve been playing forever, I never get any form of respect before the game. Each time out is like the first time out! Keep this in mind. A lot of times at first glance people find it hard to believe that I play sports at all. I’m not upset over this. I understand that deep v necks, festive socks, and shorts that show some thigh are not typical baller attire. Just recently I decided to get a summer cut. I went with a Mohawk. Grandma says “it makes me look rough!” Anyhow, upon my arrival to my Monday night rec. basketball game, I noticed I was getting some looks from around the gym, looks that I’m not familiar with getting. However, I’m very familiar with giving these looks, looks that suggest “could this man be carrying a switchblade?” Or “This guy certainly doesn’t say please and thank you every time.” I wasn’t ready to jump to any crazy conclusions, but in the back of my mind I was thinking “Oh my God, this Mohawk is giving me street credit.” Still skeptical I approached the court for tip-off. I locked eyes with a man that I assume has had street credit since birth! This guy certainly doesn’t use his pleases and thank you’s on a regular basis I thought to myself! We shook hands and wished each other luck, pretty routine and then something magical happened! ……… Instead of letting my hand go, he held on, pulled me toward him and gave me a half hug accompanied by a pat on the back. It’s most commonly known as a thug hug. It’s how gangsters say hi; I respect you and the street credit that you have obtained. This was remarkable to me, and although I was on cloud nine, I had to fight my smile off. If you smile while thug huggin, it’s frowned upon and it takes your credit down a few points. As a side note, this never would have happened with my previous haircut! (Longer, a little wavy with a slight part) As the week carried on, I received thug hugs from three different people! That’s two times the amount of thug hugs I had in the previous twenty three years of my life!!! Street credit was in the air! Much like anything else in life, the more you practice the better you get. So I started practicing good street credit habits. I reclined the seat in my 95 Jeep Cherokee, slouched down and drove with one hand on the wheel, as opposed to one at 9 and the other at 3 like usual and decided NOT to wear my seat belt as I drove for a few miles. I even called someone a bitch under my breath as she was leaving the room! But I’m almost certain she still heard! Just typical gangster ass shit that gangsters do! I entertained the idea of incorporating a strut that I practiced on my little bros, but they just looked at me and said “Jas are you ok?” It looks like your leg hurts.” “Nah guys, my leg doesn’t hurt. I’m struttin man!” After a few run-throughs in the mirror, I decided it was probably a little premature. Perhaps struttin comes during week # 2 of Street Cred Ed! Monday Rec. League night rolled around again and my credit and I were feeling pretty good about ourselves! My eyes were squinted, upper lip curled, and I was scowling as I casually walked into the gym. As the game got underway there was no thug hugging! In fact there was nothing that even remotely resembled anything of the sort! Instead, this man looked at me with a smug gleam in his eye and said “hey yo I got dookie!” Now I’ve been called many things in my day but “dookie” has never been one of them! I was a bit confused. Throughout the game he must have said this at least seven or eight times, “I got dookie”, “dookie’s mine”, “dookie ain’t going anywhere”, etc. So I’m positive dookie was the word he used to describe me. I racked my brain trying to think of what dookie could mean. Was it a flattering nickname he gave me because he heard how strong my credit was the previous week? Or did he think I was such a fantastic basketball player, so fantastic that I could play for Duke University? I knew that was a stretch! This man didn’t strike me as the type that’s into compliments. Following the game I raced over to my friends and asked them, “Hey what does dookie mean? That guy across the way kept referring to me as that.” Unanimously, they all looked at me and said “Dookie means shit!” “You mean ‘Da Shit’, like I’m cool?” “No! Like a piece of shit! Like dog shit,” my friend Booze had said. “Maybe he was calling you dookie because you’re small, like a piece of shit,” my other friend Casey had kindly pointed out. I was dumbfounded! How could this man that’s clearly suffering from the disease of conceit just start calling me shit right off the bat? For all he knew I could’ve had a very tough upbringing or known how to ultimate fight. It’s just not good manners to start calling someone shit right out the gates. If you’re going to call someone shit, at least give them a couple minutes or a small conversation to prove themselves. If you do that and still have a strong desire to refer to them as human excrement by all means, do it. That’s the proper dookie etiquette if you ask me! Needless to say, it was in that moment that I knew my time with street credit had come to an end! You don’t get called “dookie” that many times and live to tell about it! That took my credit right into the negative. The big black abyss of no return! Andy Warhol once said “everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes” I’m saying “everyone will have fifteen minutes of street credit!” Use it wisely! You never know when it's gonna come your way, and how long it’s gonna stick around!" In parting I would like to say thank you to street credit for all the good times and although we only spent a week together, that's still 10,065 minutes longer than I was expecting! It actually felt like about 10 or 11 days of memories! I hope somewhere down road we meet again and can be friends.

Emotionally yours,

Jason