True Story©... Rep a Set

 

    I'm a major homebody nowadays. I mean I have been since my 30s but after spending most of my 20s "outside," there is nothing more comforting to me than a quiet night on the couch with my wife and dogs. Being home means that I consume a lot of media -- social, traditional, etc...
Something I have noticed over the last couple of years is gang culture. This is probably helped along by the fact that a lot of what I take in involves people who are actively or were recently involved in criminal elements.  Right, I watch allegedly-unscripted shows like Love After Lockup, 60 Days in, Inmate to Roommate and the likes.  Something about the depiction of so-called grownups WILLINGLY ruining their own lives with rampant bad decisions makes me feel less bad about the bad decisions I make to ruin my own life.

    So yeah, back to it...  something I noticed.  Especially on the shows that depict the criminal gang element, there are ALWAYS a ton of gang bangers and "YNs" who claim to be Blood or Blood-affiliated members.  What I took note of as time progressed is that it never mattered where the depicted jail was or where the inhabitants were originally from; they were always claiming Blood.  Through all of this (honestly) trash TV I took in, only one person claimed Crip and he was from South Central and proudly continued to wear his blue when he went home to visit so I believe him.

    This all caused me to question the organizational dealings of the Blood gang nationwide.  Who gets the official say in WHO gets to be a Blood?  I mean a perfunctory Google search will tell me where and who it all began, and it stands to reason that that person if still alive or someone close to them if they aren't might have some kind of sway in who gets to claim what, right?  But what if they're operating under the Matthew 18:20 rule of "if two or three are gathered in my name..." meaning that if two or more come together to wear red and throw the signs then they are in.

    There HAS to be more to it than that, though...  Given that the only two people I personally know who actually claim to be Blood affiliated are both under the age of 30 and were both raised in Greensboro NC and have rarely if ever gone further than one can go from here in a motor vehicle, I was not ABOUT to attempt to ask them.  

    I was going to have to dig a little deeper.  I hit the interwebs and tried to find exactly where and how someone outside of LA would go about establishing a Blood set in their area without some tangential connection to the the original ones back at the home office.

[Phlip note: the irony of the term "tangential connection" when discussing people who have likely never heard those two words in the same sentence is not missed on me]

It seemed to me that people just get on the internet and claim whatever the fuck they want, because who is gonna fly out to Greensboro NC just to G-check five idiots claiming to be Sussmans Street Piru or some shit like that.

    Since now I know that I ain't really gotta BE a gangbanger or, y'know, DO gangbanger shit to SAY I was a gangbanger I decided just to establish my own set right here in the neighborhood.  I been here almost four years and I am one of very few dads on the block and am clearly the most active one.  I installed myself as "OG" and recruited the boys on the block -- ages 8 through 11 -- as my BGs.  My position as "neighborhood dad" made this easier since the moms all trust me with their kids to go to the park or play ball in my driveway or just hanging out and throwing the football in the street.  This allowed me to isolate them to go get into what we might be doing as members of our own Blood set.

... except there wasn't any fuckin Bloods or even anyone claiming it around here when I was their age.  Beyond DJ Quik and those around him, I'aint gotta damn clue about how to rep a set.  I can't dance and don't rap very well, so I was kinda assed out.

I had on the finest red gear and now having bought a red truck in October could be retconned into applicability, but what the fuck are we really doing?

I stood in front of my ex wife's someone I had a wedding with once apartment complex and threw gang signs for like three hours once and never did see anything on the news about the drive-by I was trying to summon.  I didn't use the letter C in a word for months and all it did was piss off everyone who received a text, including Wife Person™ when I asked for her 🅱️hick Fil-A order, or asked her to bring me some 🅱️offee with extra 🅱️ream.  She would ask "how do you PRONOUNCE that?" and I'd have to just get it myself because I had no clue either.

    Not to let y'all in on anything more than you need to know about me, but I have about the attention span of a puppy.  The tall task of maintaining my interest and engagement is the cost of continued participation.  While all this was going on, I was able to secure permission to buy a commercial lawn mower.  One thing I like more than silly pointless bullshit like starting a gang despite not knowing how to gang is making money, so I forgot all about that gang shit and got out on my lawn care route.

I didn't even get a Hellcat out of this deal.

    Oh what, y'all thought I was gonna drag that gang shit along until getting shot dead in the streets by the police?  Nah, I'm good.

Catch me on YouTube cutting these yards, soon as I get a hold of a couple interesting enough to record.