THE BEGINNING OF A FABULOUS DEATH
Corpses like stars get close-ups. A true cyclical turbine that comes back around -- those being prepared for a funeral are as elegantly done up and fake as those prepared in the makeup chairs of Hollywood to play a fake part.
They both are not entirely different, you see. In Hollywood you're always as good as the last thing you did -- or at least that's what they say. I see a few writers and directors churning out more turds than a fiesta of 400 pound fat people at a free buffet.
On the streets, it's the same thing. Stories of ghetto super-stars are constantly circulated. In fact, it's the best kind of story when you're getting hammered on the stoop waiting for the next car load of bullets to be fired at you. Externally the bullets will harm, internally the malt liquor will rot your gut, which death is faster is the question.
I'M THE MAN SYNDROME... GANG PSYCHOLOGY
Here's a philosophy I percolated in my brain brewery for some time. Like a good film, you need motivations for your characters -- what is the motivation for getting in a gang?
1)Your mom mixed your bottle with gun powder when you're a kid and now you you have a proclivity to be attracted to any type of firearm and a wanton death to die by same.
2)You're in a neighborhood that basically leaves you no choice -- Chicago, New York, and LA are like Baghdad in the summertime. It was a join or die attitude.
3)You had the criminal gene and riding solo you sucked at being a criminal and couldn't even properly steal from the milkman, so a more organized criminal network would give you a broader horizon to commit crimes.
4)Life tossed you too many lemons and you needed to belong to something bigger than yourself and a gang provided you the biggest lemon squeezing machine available.
5)And my personally favorite -- you want to be the man.
Mafia life glamorized this on the silver screen. This is how crime and Hollywood are inexplicably married to wanting to have it all -- fame or infamy, fortunes, girls, street cred, drugs -- and having access to everything under the sun. Street people have access to Gang-Mart.
Mobsters were the talk of the town. People idolized them like movie stars. They had the jewelry. They had the girls. The had the names that people feared. Gangs wanted this but in a smaller income bracket -- but it was all about being the man. Someone that could get anything, from anywhere, at anytime.
She want your mom beat up from swatting you with the broom too many times? Call Tony. T -- he'll smack mom around a bit, knock the curlers out her hair.
Creating fear.
You want blow? You want friends to show up at a party so everyone doesn't think you're the loner loser whispered about in the high-school hallways...? Gangs come in multiple flavors and sizes and give you instant friends when you join.
You can dry clean your way to a fancy business, but usually a business owner doesn't carry the name a gangster does. I'll prove it -- how many people are afraid of Bill Gates? If they were they wouldn't have thrown pies in his face.
I'm the man states, you have few moral boundaries and that makes you instinctual deadly like an animal. You have the power to take lives because you live under a different code that restrains Joe Blow from knocking someone off. And some gangsters don't kill -- but they know the ones that do. And that fear right there keeps people from stepping on your toes.
But that's really a fallacy as well. Because more people want to kill rival gangsters and gang-bangers then most people who punch the time-card. Unless you're in Syria. That's a illusory correlation. Although those that punch the time card a work everyday are the ones gangbangers declare open robbing season on. You earn it, we'll take it.
Hollywood made gangsters glamorous. Chew on that one, Fergie.
I wanted to belong and I wanted to be the man that everyone could come to get anything except Bibles from. Didn't sell bibles. Want guns? Got it. Want drugs. Got it. Want Saturday night hookers? I can arrange that. Need Grandpa to knocked off his stroller -- I drew the line there.
But I was the guy that could come in a bar or club and get instant seating. The guy everyone sneered at when I made the papers, but let them get in a bind -- and you're the first they'll rub shoulders with. And tell their friends -- I know Brandon Wyse. Pull out their phone in front of their fling and call me about some stupid shit. Same person gets around a cop -- I'm the splat from a bird's ass on the windshield when my name comes up.
I was an honest criminal. I didn't believe in hurting no one that didn't have it coming.
NEXT BLOG -- Welcome to the warzone -- G.D'S AND VICE LORDS -- mortal enemies.
And for an intermission... It seemed to make news when I wanted to go straight. For your viewing displeasure... ME, MOI, AND I.
Former Gang Leader Looks to Write His Way to Hollywood
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