Awesome; I F***in' Shot That!

I think I know a way to bring down the unemployment rate in the African American community after watching the Beastie Boys perform in a documentary called, Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!

(I know what you’re thinking, but I have black friends so it’s ok for me to talk about this.)

I was enjoying the movie, which followed the Beastie Boys from start to finish during a performance in their own backyard of New York City. They had a lot of people out there with cameras filming everything from every possible angle. It was a pretty cool idea which played out better than I expected, though I could have done without the dude who kept pointing his camera at a disinterested section and trying way too hard to get them excited by repeatedly telling them that it was “for the DVD.” (Give up already, dude! They don’t want to yell.)

I wasn’t expecting to learn a life lesson from the show, though important lessons are quite often learned when you least expect it. Like that one time I thought I was just going camping so that I could get my outdoorsman badge (and possibly my cooking one as well) and instead learned about inappropriate touching and what the wail of a violated animal sounded like. I‘m better now, but I don‘t think I‘ll ever go “snipe hunting“ again.

I saw the show was coming to an end so I had already brought up my favorite adult site on the old porn box, but was keeping the hairy eyeball on the final moments of the documentary. Doug E. fresh, who was featured during one of the songs with his particular brand of beat-boxing, which coincidentally I’ve never really been impressed by even though I can’t do what he does. I would, however, recommend Rahzel because he can do some crazy shit like singing and doing the beat at the same time. Ridiculous. Anyhow, Doug E. Fresh came into the room after the show and while the credits were rolling he walked around and had to give every single person in the room one of those handshake-half hug-manly sort of goodbyes.

(These also double as hello’s)

It took him just short of an nine hours to make his way through the room and I thought back to those times in my past where I was privy to the every day rituals of the black man. There were the times I played basketball at the intramural building in college, often the only white guy. I could dunk, which has no bearing on this story except that it allows me to brag. There was the time I attended the two birthday parties for a certain shitty former Detroit Lions Wide Receiver whose name I won’t mention except to tell you that it sounds like Otty Sanderson, and also he wore the double hognut if that helps. I also have been to numerous chicken and rib places and I’ve watched the movie How High.

But the event that really comes to mind was another concert I attended back in the day. It was the Notorious B.I.G., Mobb Deep, and a few other artists. It was a complete jumble fuck because a contract dispute kept Mobb Deep from showing up at the last minute, and Biggie was apparently in the same situation until things were resolved hours after the concert was supposed to start. What this meant for everybody, including my group of what I liked to call, “the only white people in the building,” was that we had a long wait to get in and a long wait until anyone performed. That’s quality people watching time right there, people. And People watch I did.

Apparently the way you greeted someone from your neck of the woods was by entering into an elaborate handshake routine that seemed to take days. If you knew 10 people in a row you were stuck doing the whole retarded hand jive dance ten times in a row. It was amazing that anyone got to their seats, and even more amazing that those angry looking black men could get through all their handshakes in time to steal our seats. I tried to get them back by being nice and saying, “Excuse me kind negro, but I do believe you have mistakenly sat in the wrong seat!”

Didn’t work so much.

Anyhow, as I watched Doug E. Fresh make his way through the room and I thought back to all of my previous encounters, I couldn’t help but think that if we did away with the “Yo, what up dog? How you feelin’?” or the “You a’ight?” pleasantries + handshakes that seem to have worked their way into a much more important role than they deserve, we could increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the black man by leaps and bounds.

Or 232%, as the results show in my double blind, double dummy crossover study analyzing the greetings and goodbyes in the African American community today.

Nobel here I come.

You’re welcome.