THE HIGHEST FIVE

I used to hate high fiving people but lately I’ve seen a resurgence of this multi use practice and I want back on the band wagon.  I say “multi-use” because if you think about it, high fiving is so versatile.  You can use it as a greeting, a congratulations, a celebratory action, a way to make a fool of someone as in “high five, down low, too slow”,  and even as a hip performance as in high fiving in the front as you walk by someone and then following with a reverse low five just as you pass.  The most awesome thing about high fives is that you don’t even need a cooperative or even aware partner for a high five.  I was at the trial for a murderer, as a witness, last month.  When he stood up and the bailiff told him to raise his right hand to swear his oath I leapt over the table towards him.  I managed to steal a free high five on his raised right hand before the bailiff pepper sprayed and beat me unconscious with his baton.  The verdict on court room oath high fives?  Totally worth it!  As if that wasn’t awesome enough I went to a neo Nazi rally I heard about on AryanNations.org.  I was drunk with ecstasy when everyone “Heiled Hitler”.  Let’s just say that when I woke up in the hospital a week later the only thing that hurt more than my broken jaw and crushed testicle, was the bruise on my hand from all those involuntary high fives I stole!  I can’t, however, say the same for the Black Panthers rally that I went to because you can’t high five a raised fist.  So, I didn’t get any high fives there, but I did, however, get my first gunshot wound in my left ass cheek, so that’s pretty cool.  I’ve been going crazy lately.  I’ve been slapping fives at auctions when they raise their hands; whacking the shit out of those little smarty nerds in elementary school classes that know the answers; getting some mid range fives from dirty bums with their hands out for change; people hailing cabs, and sailor’s wives on the pier as their husband’s ships sail away on deployment.  In fact, I’ve high fived so many times in the last month that I’ve developed quite the callus on my palm.  So much so that I could give a hand job to a running chainsaw and probably not feel it.  Despite the rough hands I plan on continuing in my palm punishing quest.  The more high fives I give, the more it catches on and therefore the more high fives I get.  It’s a perpetual motion machine of high fives and I’m right in the middle of it.

BLACK PANTHER PROBLEM

I was talking to my Brother-in-Law, Huey Newton III, yesterday.  He is having problems with his wife (my sister).  He said to me “Rusty, man, I need yo’ help wit dis bitch rite he’re.”  Well, hold on a second…let’s rewind a bit and get some perspective.  You see, Musty, my older sister, and Huey met at a New Black Panther Party rally in Oakland, California in September of 1995.  Huey is let’s say…not very tolerant of the fact that I’m white.  I keep trying to tell him that the name Shrew is, from what my mom told me, a Ugandan name, straight out of Africa, and that my family carries a rare albino genetic code that makes us all just LOOK Caucasian; but he doesn’t want to hear it.  So be it.  He insists that whenever I talk to him I speak to him in Ebonics, not because that is the only language he understands, he actually has a PhD. in linguistics; he just thinks Ebonics was a ridiculous segregationist technique created by the white man and that since I am a ridiculous white man that I should be forced to speak it.  That’s fine with me; when in Rome right?  So, therefore, I just adjust my vernacular when I’m around him, just as you would switch to Français when in Paris.  Musty is, of course, fluent in Ebonics, and is much more versed in the enunciation and inflection of the Ebonic vernacular than I am.  I’m working on it though.  Now that you have some background on Huey, let’s get back to his dilemma:

[ME] “So wuss yo beef wit Musty, cuz?”

[HUEY] “Bruh, lemme tell u bout dis heffa! I go tuh fuk dis bitch lass night, right? She gon tell me “My pussy hurts from da lass time we had sex”, I say, WHU!? Fuck dat shit!

[ME] “For real dog? Damn, wuz she sore or some shit from yo black mamba?”

[HUEY]  ”Nah, Homey, I get ta talkin’ to dis bitch and she tell me, after like 30 minutes or some shit, that it ain’t da pussy that hurts, it’s that she ain’t in da mood.”

[ME] “WHU! Bitch betta recognize!”

[HUEY]  “Dog, I wuz mad as hell, and I said, whut chu NEED tah do, is wash dat stank as pussy! Dat shit smell  like a ferret’s dick, girl! Dats problee why yo punk ass daddy named yo ass Musty!”

[ME] “Oh shit son! Den whut?”

[HUEY]  “Bruh, dis bitch dun pulled a gat out on mah ass!  She said “You evah say some shit like dat again, and I’ll blow yo muh fuckin’ dick, right duh fuck off!”  Yo! I wuz like, Oh SHIT dis skeezy is for real!

[ME] “Dat shit’s legit homey!  So, whutchu gon du now?”

[HUEY]  “I’m gon apologize to mah boo.  She don’t need shit like dat comin’ from her man.  I bought some flowers and candy and shit, cause bitches love flowers and candy and shit, you know what I’m sayin’ Dog?”

[ME] “True dat.”

[HUEY]  “A’ight bruh, I appreciate you lettin’ me holla at chu.  Peace out.”

[ME] “A’ight homey.”

Now that wasn’t so bad was it?  Nothing but a simple little misunderstanding between a married couple.  It happens to us all.  The point is that we learn to understand and listen to what our partner is trying to say and respect THEIR point of view as well.   Peace out, Homey.