1. "50 CentGate" (Spring 2003): It's rare that you'll hear me say I "hate" anyone. Hate is a very strong word, and I don't throw it around lightly. So let's just say that I LOATHE 50 Cent. But even I'll admit that Get Rich or Die Tryin', his major label debut, was a titanic album. I must have listened to it once or twice a day for a good three months -- whether on my headphones, my room stereo, or the dusty boombox we kept in the weightlifting cage. Within a month, we had most of the album memorized. Within 6 weeks, we started communicating only in soundbites from the album. Scenarios:
a. Lunch: One friend grabs another's sandwich, takes a bite, stares. "I'll eatcha food in broad day like it's lunchtiiime."
b. Practice: Training partner fails to complete jump, gets lashed on back by bar. "Damn, homie. In high school you was the man, homie. What happened to you?!"
c. Evening news:
TV Reporter: "Gunfire erupted..."
Friend: "I love the sound of gun-firer."
Yeah, that was annoying... and pretty sad.
2. "ChapelleGate" (Spring 2004): similar scenario to #1, just involving the infamous Rick James and Prince sketches from Chapelle. Also pretty sad when you think about it.
3. "PappadeauxGate" (Spring 2005): at Mike Jones' behest, we visited the popular Houston eatery.
Waitress (looking at me, the only white guy in the restaurant): "Where are you from?"
Me: "New Jersey."
Waitress: "Why'd you come here?"
Me: "Well, we heard that real baller's eat at Pappadeaux. We're real ballers, soooo..."
Waitress (stifles laughter behind menus, leaves to compose herself)
I think PappadeauxGate is actually a sub-joke of the much longer running MikeJones/SwishahouseGate of Spring 2004 to the present.
4. "Hammer&Wee-WeeGate" (Spring 2004 to Fall 2004) aka "The Great Collar Popping":
For a brief period time, I was engaged in an ironic detachment contest of epic proportions. My opponent: a certain Johns Hopkins student known as the Ph/f[?]atmaster. The objective: search for rap videos that were so bad they were good. And were there ever some great bad ones -- Black Russians' "Back Up Out My Way" (Description: "The Black Russians have a beach party! Magoo plays football!") comes to mind. The best/worst by far, however, was "Pop Ya Collar" by MC Hammer, featuring Wee Wee. When Ph/f[?]atmaster inboxed me this one, I knew I had lost.
The video speaks for itself, but I always have to have the last word, so...
I'm not lying when I tell you we learned every pop -- by name -- and that we (and by "we," I mean the specially formed "Committee to Elect Hammer and Wee-Wee") executed them with an undeniable level of grace, fluidity, and swag. I'm also not lying when I say that I "Delivered the Pop" in a Notting Hill club last weekend... to applause, nonetheless. Popping is now just part of my DNA. I don't even have to think about it, I just do it. Wu-wei-wu.
Looking back at the video, though, I now realize that I never fully appreciated the pain, the heartbreak, and the cosmic wisdom that're packed into this song. Hammer pours his heart out and you can't help but feel bad for him. Doubly so when you see that hideous dress shirt he's wearing.
"Sounded like them good old times
Reminded me of when the world was mine...
Bring back them good old days
We danced the night away"
"I had to get away
Put it down and learn to pray
Now that's the only way
Now that's the only way"*
*Although I would like to note that, in following this immediately with "POP YA COLLAR MAYNE!", Hammer seems to locate his salvation not in God, but in the pop. Or perhaps God is the pop... Ever since "Pray," Hammer's theology has been kind of questionable.
Other inside jokes-cum-universal-implosions I've witnessed and/or been involved in: "ForeignDirectInvestmentGate" (Fall 2006 - Present), "Costa/AbbeyBank-CafeGate" (Spring 2006), "BalmIrahqGate" (Fall 2003), "SockPuppetGate" (Fall 1999 to Spring 2001), and the grandaddy of them all, "DoucheGate" (Fall 1997 to Spring 1999) [please, don't ask, it's a long story involving an all-boys Catholic high school that deserves a much more extensive telling than I could give here].
"I need to stop doing this blog stuff, oooooooh weeeee!"
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