Are You Guccified?

Gucci Mane is easily the most popular rapper right now. Ugh. Next to the dump truck loads of hate that T.I. is receiving for an early, early release, Gucci Gucci stays in people's mouths (no prison humor).


Not since Lil Wayne's proverbial apex roughly 2 years ago has there been such an even playing field of adoration & loathing. Really though, Gucci is one of only 2 rap acts on the Billboard top ten, as of today, or something like that. Don't quote me. Funny thing, I've only heard his music twice; on a family trip to Shreveport, Louisiana, where I don't necessarily expect them to know any better (no shots, but you should see some of their street lights), & at a DMV picnic, the perfect culmination of food, liquor & ignorance. Imagine the horror that surged my veins when I saw 8 year olds shaking their future thong holders to Gucci explaining the different ways he can beat up a vagina. My word, not his. Actually, there was one other time, but I didn't know it was Gooch until later. There was 3 extremely greasy young cats, smoking weed in their car, bouncing around & repeating "I'm the shit, bitch!" in time with the music. They couldn't have been older than 18, with their neon clad t-shirts & untamed multi-mullets. But, they looked like those 90 year old ladies who, when they get the Holy Ghost, James Brown up & down the church aisles. Silly, out-of-touch me, I had know idea what the big deal was, but my curiosity was piqued as they drove away in their Kia Sportage. Yeah, a Sportage, so they were probably gay too, in addition to being receptive to awesomely horrid "music". When I found out that was a Gucci Mane song, the puzzle pieces began to take shape. Those poor kids were being Guccified, right before my very eyes. Had I have known that then, I would've lunged into that little car, & attempted to rescue them from their fate. By now though, they've probably already gotten eyebrow & neck tattoos, & more neon shirts. Raekwon help us all.


I believe, in order to be a pop icon, there has to be an unlimited amount of ignorance within ink-covered arms distance. Remember how there was that one retarded kid at your school who EVERYBODY knew? Even the bullies, barely above him academically, had mad love for that critter. It's that same neanderthal appeal that draws massive amounts of clearly sane people into these pop culture phenomenons, subsequently lowering their standards & expectations to become part of the movement. Gucci Mane is as clearly a celebrity as he is a fool, so why would his celebration be any different? Answer: it's not.


Congratulations! You've been Guccified.


Nowadays, all the things that made a rapper an "MC" have been forsaken, lost, forgotten & replaced by the cloak of douchbaggery. Skills have taken a back seat to finance. When the argument is made that Gucci obviously lacks said skill set, the response in most cases is a warm-hearted, "Stop hatin', bitch! Gucci gettin' all dat paypah, fuck boy!". Or something to that effect. Talent is now overshadowed by appearance. Like a preacher; never mind how sincere his message may, or may not be, what truly matters how nice his suit & watch are, or in some cases, how fancy his robe is. Gucci is so high up on the "look at me" ladder that he doesn't even need to wear shirts. No clothing manufacturer's wares/wears can exemplify, or contain, such a tremendous amount of nigganometry. Seriously, Gucci is so hood that his magical tattoos probably incinerate shirts as soon as they touch his canvas-y flesh. Or maybe I'm over thinking it, & to him, it's not worth the hassle of pulling a $500 scmedium tee over your arms when they're covered with Wonder Woman bracelets & 2-3 divers watches.


[tony's note: gotta love that irony of divers watches on niggas that don't swim...]


For all Gucci Mane's mono-syllabic word play & modernized shuck & jive (complete with "chains & whips"), he seem cognizant enough to have embraced the concept of "hate". There are hordes, legions if you will, of anti-Gucci Maners, who spout nothing more than his hopeful demise. Publicity is publicity, whether good or abundantly bad. & on some level, he must understand that if one takes the time to say, or type "Fuck Gucci", then they have, in essence, taken the time to say, or type "Fuck Gucci". If he doesnt, then he wouldn't have so much zing in his voice when he scoffs at the haters who make him so, umm, popular. Dig, if X-amount of people continuously tell me how bad something is, at some point, if only out of sheer boredom, I'm going to try it at least once. Like the time I boned a really skinny girl just because I'd heard how unsatisfying an experience it would be.


[tony's other note: do not try that at home...]


My big homie Combat Jack had a drop on Daily-Math.com about how enamored he'd become with Gucci, against his will. Although I value his opinion as much as Dallas Penn's, I wasn't quite sold on giving G. Mane a voluntary listen until I got to the comments of the drop. "Wow", I thought aloud. 95% of the responses made this guy sound like the worst rapper ever. So naturally, I set aside any preconceived notions one would have about a nigga named "Gucci Mane", & gave him another shot. The music wasn't that bad. The music, meaning the instrumentation, production & mix-down of the song, mind you. The lyrics, however, made me feel like I forfeited my junior & senior years in high school. I found myself thinking twice before using any words with less than 3 syllables for the duration of that day. In his defense, though, I've never heard him say that he's the best rapper alive, or anything remotely close. I'm sure he'd confess to being extraordinarily mediocre, if his lexicon allowed either word. & I'm positive he couldn't care less about not having that accolade. Him receiving the newest cover of XXL doesn't help matters either, because there's undoubtedly a nation of under achieving up-&-coming rappers who'll follow his mold, without ever once attempting to be clever on the mic. & every time they see him count a stack of dough, or yank one of his slave chains in gaudy, tastless defiance, they'll lick their lips, knowing that the rap game ain't what it used to be.


Gucci Mane's success stems largely from his buffoonish behavior reaching comical levels. One would be hard pressed not to note that everytime he has an important album release date pending, he has an equally, if not more so, important court date looming as well. Coincidence? Possibly. Hilarious? Without a doubt. America's love affair for such stupidity is nothing new, but Hip Hop was an untapped resource for such idiocy about 15 years ago. Now, rappers provide just as much levity as Wee-man & Steve-O, back in their hey days, putting raw chickens in their adult diapers while wading a river chock with crocodiles. Imagine, as entertaining as "we" thought 50's online antics were over the last year or so, just imagine how funny it was to a room full of caucassian stuffed-shirts, who'd enjoy monkeys jumping around cages & throwing shit at each other just as much. If the monkey's hump trees, that's a bonus.


For what it's worth, God bless Gucci. I hope his success is long lasting. His kids should be straight, his bills should be paid, & just maybe he'll put all his profit to good use in his community. Yeah right. That nigga needs more jewelry & cars. He says so himself like, on every song. Even still, good luck & Godspeed Radrick, Dredrick, or whatever his momma named him.

Calizonamexitexana (...now say it backwards)

My people, I'm back! California to Arizona to New Mexico to TEXAS to Louisiana.

&, wow...fuck a road trip. I won't even ever watch "National Lampoon's Vacation', or any movie kin to it again in this lifetime. I lived it. Dude, if the situation to travel cross-country arises, & the method of travel is a car (or van), do yourself the biggest favor & say no go, word to Hall & Oates. Actually, I'll say be hesitant & leary; make sure that you travel with like-minded individuals. There's nothing worse than being held captive in a vehicle, miles from home with a bunch of folk who don't understand you & probably don't like you much anyway. I speak from fresh experience.

My "fam" & I left L.A. for Shreveport, LA last Friday morn. We arrived that Saturday night. Easily the suckiest, most uncomfortable 30-something hour experience of my life. Shit, if it wasn't for my homies over at XXLmag.com, I might have thrown myself under the bus (or van), literally. But, I did enjoy Shreveport, though. It's a quaint, countryside city; a far cry from the horrible, war-torn pictures that Lil Wayne & C-Murder paint about their respective state with their abysmal *ahem* music. It could just be that I spent the majority of time around my wife's Louisianian family, with their daily home cooked meals & adorable ebonical speech. Me being a city boy & such, I thought the bigger the family, the bigger the ratio for convicts to mental illness. Imagine my surprise when I meet people who genuinely spent time with each other doing nothing at all because they chose to, as opposed to a few uncles on house arrest & some cousins who can't leave the house because "the streets is watchin'". My wife's Grandma, who was the reason for the trip, is the coolest, nicest lady in the world. She's what a seventy-something year old Black women should be, rather than Tyler Perry's uberpopular homoerotic manifestations, seething with self-hate & ignorance. No shots at today's Black women, but you gals can only hope to eventually become that type of matriarch. Nah, fuck that, shots fired! Black girls (who become women, sort of) are in a state of emergency; lemmings diving off the cliff of practicality into pits of certain doom at breakneck speed. & most are either too stupid, too proud or too busy chasing children & various types of checks to see what lies ahead. I would feel sorry for said Black women, if I wasn't so put-off by their shitty attitudes & lack of self respect. There are exceptions though, & you know who you are.

Anyways...

I spent a week trolling around town, trying my hardest to look like I'm from Los Angeles & still blend in simultaneously. If you know about Lewzanna, you know light skins are a dime a dozen, so 50% of the time, I fit in perfect with the homegrown Creoles, or "Geechies" as their refered to by the older crowd. But the other half of the time, gold teeth & dreads were noticeably absent from my person, which had your boy sticking out like a nipple ring through a bra-less wife-beater. I'm calling niggas "bruh" & "dude", which had to be some sort of dead giveaway, what with their "fowkz" & "playaz" & the occasional "shawty". One could also assume that, because none of my clothing had dollar signs plastered across it, or an "LSU" insignia, I probably didn't buy my clothes from the same swap meets that they did. I didn't see one pair of True Religion's or Ed Hardy's. Except what I was wearing. But I saw lots of Dickies. Whole suits, like niggas got them tailor-made in every color imaginable. With fedoras & cowboy hats & drivers caps & doo-rags, etc. We went to church & the preacher had on a Dicki-nah, I'm bullshitting. But, he had gold teeth though.
[tony's note: i'm joking. in actuality, the methodist church we attended had a lovely female pastor. service that day consisted of prayer & communion. unfortunately, no "down home" fire & brimstone heathen hate. guess we chose the wrong sunday.] At the risk of sounding tourist-y, the landscapes were breath-taking. Even the dilapadated houses appeared regal; rife with history & a story to tell. & the state is covered with moisture & lush greenery; I hadn't seen that much water & trees since my uncle stopped selling dope.

Black people in major cities always seem to have hidden agendas. There's always crab's that need to be pulled back down to the bottom of the barrel. But, out there, it seemed like all the crawfish (as opposed to regular old crabs), or mud-bugs, were comfortably resting where they may, waving at strangers & kindly smiling at one another. It was quite beautiful. Me being born & raised in Los Angeles, a nigga smiling at you means he's about to rob you, he's with the cat who's about to rob you, or he's about ask you for your phone number. My apprehension withered away though, as the days passed & I realized that this was just a laid-back, relaxed city amongst a country of contrite narcissists & ego-maniacal know-it-all's. Right, wrong or indifferent, folks in Louisiana were just chillin'. Can't be mad at that at all.

Normally, unfamiliar surroundings automatically activate my pretension, like some time-release, douche nozzle, anti-personality pill. But, it never went off down there. Maybe because I was too busy hoping a tornado didn't rip through our parrish. Or was preoccupied with slapping big-ass mosquitos away from my ears & mustache. I mean, BIG-ASS mosquitos. I can only imagine what their roaches must look like. Like shiny-ass hamsters that probably run as fast as a three year old.

As for the music, I didn't get to hear much, but when the occasional hooligan drove past, he was playing 'Gucci Mane'. Not that the guy's an exceptional lyricist; on the contrary. Dude's as basic as you can get, topic-wise. Lyrically, he blows [||]. Wack juice must stain his sheets when he sleeps on his back. Definitely not what one would get an earful of in the City of Angels, but don't tell him that. For what it's worth, I'd rather hear my son freestyling to a beat from 'Mario Kart'. No really, my son can actually bust a rhyme or two. Gucci, nah. No Dice. But God bless his gold-toothed heart for trying.

All-in-all, I don't have too much to say bad about Louisiana. Even the police are pretty down to Earth. You'd never catch a cop in a big city like Los Angeles texting while on duty (no dry snitching). L.A. cops are too busy racially profiling coloreds & looking for the next young nigga (or ese) to shoot in the back. You know, doing their job. But, I guess when every other person isn't potentially wanted for attempted murder, there's more time to chillax like normal folk. Don't get me wrong; there were a couple of shootings not too far from where we were. It's not like niggas are down there trying to rekindle the civil rights movement or anything. If a group of people were marching, it was most likely to Sam's Seafood. If you're ever in Shreveport, do your mouth a favor [||], & indulge in some of their delicious cuisine. It'll make your tongue slap your brains out.

Perhaps the most, umm, slighty hypocritical facet of the "down south" experience was the amount of love swirls I saw. See, in Los Angeles, it's not uncommon to see people paired up in a variety of unnatural ways. Black/white, girl/girl, sickly/obese, etc. But for all of America's southern racist complexities, I didn't expect so many bi-racial couples. I saw a nappy head Hip-Hopster & a blue-eyed (yet well-endowed) she-devil making out under trees where I'm virtually positive an ancestor of his was hung from at some point in the state's history. But, it didn't faze him. I had the urge to yell out, "Obama for life", but decided against it. Now, if dude were smart, he'd use that race card throughout the entire relationship, making her his sympathetic, guilt-stricken slave. Reparations, per se. Nothing says "40 acres & a mule" like brand new Jordans & a PS3 from a white chick who you've convinced is related to your Great grandfather's owner. & If he were even smarter, he'd break out the sex-whip during Black History month. Just saying...
Eventually, the time came to head back home. Ugh. Piling back into the dreaded van I'd grown to hate a week before, I asked Jehovah to once again grant us safe passage through America's dangerous highways. The irony of that prayer is that as soon as we pulled off of the 10 freeway onto Normandie Avenue, we barely avoided an accident. I guess I should've expanded the prayer a little, to include "all the way to our front porch", or something. For the most part, fuck Los Angeles & all the asshole denizens I share it with. But, there's no place like home. Really though.


**HONORABLE MENTIONS**

I met what may have been the oldest living white dude at a Texas truck stop. & he seemed as intrigued to talk to me as I was to him...

The outskirts of New Mexico at 2:30 am is colder than a vampire's vajayjay. Not only was I the only Black man at that truck stop, but I was the only guy wearing a jacket. Go figure...

Skunks really stink. Like in the cartoons, when they have radiation waves of ass funk emanating from their body's. Yeah, that shit is for real dude...

The cemeteries in Louisiana are so God-awfully close to the homes that no one can convince me that those folk's ain't living on top of dead people...

Monster energy drink + truck stop black coffee + blood pressure medicine = what the halfway mark of a crack high must feel like...

Shouts out to Tricie, Feewee, Collin, & Sean for making us feel at home...

gone fishin'

Guess what?

I'm on a family vacation!First time ever, road trip & all. My wife's family lives in Louisiana, so we drove from Los Angeles to Shreveport to visit for a week. I've never been on a vacation in my life, so this is a new thing for me. I'm a creature of normalcy & routine. I like to know where my draws are, & that I can walk through the house in them & such. But, everybody needs time to cool their heels every now & then, I guess. You guy's have seven days to miss me, so enjoy yourselves while I'm gone. & don't do anything I wouldn't do.

But first...

I'd like to thank all of you, my supporters, who give me a reason to want to share my thoughts & opinions & snarcasm. I started my blog in January, & honestly, if I didn't have all y'all to write for, I would've stopped a long time ago. I'm deeply appreciative to be invited into your computers & enjoyed ([||] for the fellas) on a regular basis. Sometimes this site is my therapy, & I'm just thankful you guys have the patience, understanding & sense(s) of humor to ride with me. I'm not going to name names, but I know who my folks are. If you think this post is directed to you, there's a good chance it is.

So, even though I'll miss y'all, say a prayer for boy, & don't forget about me. & believe, when I get home, I'll have some stories to tell.

Be cool, & be careful motherfuckers. I'll holler next Monday.

*Btw, it says it on top of the page, but I'll say it again down here;
tonygrands@gmail.com
That's in case you business with me, or just want to chat*
In a minute...