Stop your leerin’, jeerin’, no more sneerin’.
You’re in my house, boy. You should be fearin.’ My baby sees a smile but I see smirk, She sees boyfriend; I see jerk. I say ‘go away’ but you still lurk.
Don’t you ever have to work?
That’s me trying to rap. Yup, a Caucasian 60-year-old, a Baby Boomer, born about halfway between the Bruce Springsteen Boomers and what some creative ethnographer has labeled the Bob Dylan Boomers.
I blame it on a friend from years ago. He discovered hip-hop very early — at least for a white guy — and somehow found ways to get access to songs, lots of songs, before they became known outside rap circles.
He passed along music and I listened, a lot, sometimes trying to create rhymes in my head when the situation warranted. I didn’t realize it until now but stress has obviously been a trigger for this phenomenon. A couple weeks ago in the hospital, lyrics started streaming through my mind as I tried to distract myself during a very unpleasant medical moment.
This friend, though not black and not exactly young at the time, seemed always to know what would become a mainstream song. Still, despite his savvy, he always wore headphones. He’d sneak around playing songs. I’m sure he didn’t want to talk about how he had copies of the music but I also think he was embarrassed — worried about what white people thought of him.
That’s why he took to initiating coworkers and friends to rap. The more white people he got interested the less he would stand out — kinda like a heroin junkie get friends hooked.
Hey, that’s MY couch, boy, it’s not your toy. Don’t sink so easily in the seat next to me. This is not your luxury, suddenly your place to be. That is fantasy. Don’t press your luck with me.
I was the perfect recipient of my friend’s cassettes because, when he gave me music, like early LLCool J. way back in the mid-’80s, I didn’t care who heard me play it. The kids were very young and I never had the extra money to buy my own music. So, I just played what i had — loud — often while my wife had the kids out of the house so I could do some construction work.
The rap beat, relentless and full of funk, went well with my method of home repair — lots of banging. When it came time to demolish something, woohoo, up went the volume.
I don’t like your arrogance. Or the way you prance. Where the f’ you get those pants? Yer momma go to France? Yeah, you’re spoiled, you’ve never toiled. For my girl, you’re too old.
Do you even know how to dance?
My rap aficionado friend was part of my life so long ago I lost touch. Not sure if he ever came out of the closet with his secret obsession, or cashed in on it.
I wish I had embraced the music back then, taken advantage of my introduction when it came so fortuitously. I might have gotten better at crafting those lines. Who knows how far I could have gone? It it really inconceivable to think of an arthritic senior citizen on stage riffing “Outta-Oxy Blues?”
Instead, I’m stuck with discombobulated recollections of lyrics that years ago invaded my cranium, like that day one of my girls had her first teenage boyfriend over to the house with me as chaperone.
Of course, you don’t please me. You do not see what I see. This girl’s my progeny. She is an epiphany. She means the world to me. Want a new enemy?
She kept signalling me to get lost. At the least, I had to leave them alone in the TV room. It wasn’t easy; I didn’t trust him.
I tried to distract myself by heading down the basement to patch some ceiling holes left from a plumbing job.
But I could still hear them upstairs, especially the boy.
Giggling, laughing, oh so dashing. Son, you are a smooth one. I see a noone but she sees fun. Did I mention that I hate your mum?
I’m feeling manic, panic, burn near atomic. If this wasn’t real, it would be comic.
Forget this plaster. The ceilings a disaster. Trying to work faster but hands alabaster.
This is my house. Am I not the master?
Luckily, my wife didn’t stay away long that day. I was still in the cellar. She yelled down to ask me if I was calling her. She said she thought she heard me talking.
I just said no. Would you even try to explain?
Love it. Reminds me of the boys coming to our house asking if Julie was home. Bill would say yes and slam the door, looking at me like WTF? I’d say, “honey!” He’d say “they didn’t ask to come in, they just asked if she was home.” Dads!
Ha, i love it, cool.
Love this, David!!