Pimpin' Ain't Easy...

Saturday. March 3, 2007...

After taking a gang of pictures of the Mac Dre memorial mural at Langton and Harrison, I got a call from Sara. Sara is a Chinese lady who moved from Hong Kong to Cleveland when she was 14. Culture shock than a muthafucka. From planet Asia to C-Town where the Blacks, Po-locks, Eye-talians and Puerto Ricans that may or may not speak Spanish live in a rather unstable harmony of sorts. This may be the reason I like the Asian broads cause I've only seent like four of 'em before I left C-Town back in 1998.

Cleveland wasn't too good to Sara. To hear her tell it, she was always getting hated on because of her ethnicity. Case in point: Sara goes back to Cleveland last September. She's partying at the Spy Bar, a decent nightlife jont in the Warehouse District, up the street from the Flats. She gets bumped into by this "white trash hoe", which causes her own drink to spill on her shirt. She demands an apology from the white trash hoe. The white trash hoe looks at her with that "bitch, please" face. Sara loses it and commences to giving the white trash hoe a "twenty piece" to her muthafucking dome. As Sara is bussing the white trash hoe all up in the face, Sara's girl comes over from the rear and busts a beer bottle over said white trash hoe's muthafucking dome. Sara and her girl fade into the dance floor after that as if ain't shit happen. Or so the legend was told to me. True or not, that is Cleveland for you. Folks used to call her "Egg Fu Young" and "Shrimp-Fried Rice". That may get a tad bothersome. Anyhow, y'all would love Sara. She's pretty and witty and applies her makeup exquisitely. She's got a Chinese accent, but her English is excellent in a colloquial fashion as she frequently uses typically Black idioms like "I'll beat a bitch ass" and "you feel me?"

So she asks me what am I doing tonight. Shit. Rolling with you. Cool. She's finsta fall through with her homies at like 8. It's on. I got just enough time to drive back to my telly, shave, wash and iron up some fly-ass Polo shit. I didn't know where we planned to go, nor did I know the dress code, so I always figure that it's better to arrive overdressed rather than underdressed. As I'm buttoning my sueded-cotton twill blue Lo-da-Lo dress shirt I get the call from Sara and she's right outside my hotel door. I open it up and there she goes not looking a day older than she did the last time i saw her about 9 years ago. She tells me I don't look any different either save for the hair. Hugs. I meet her homies. The first dude, Tony (above, first dude from left) is half-creole and half-Japanese, so basically he's Filipino. Dude was rocking the pony tail which made him look like a younger Toshiro Mifune. The other dude, Moe (above, third from the left) had facial hair, not that common with Japanese dudes, but didn't really look like anyone I could think of. They was cool. You get that vibe and just trust that the muthafuckas was alright. However I could tell that by their dress I was indeed overdressed, but fuck it. I already ironed, it's too late.

Folks was hungry, so we go to this spot Tommy's Joynt. It was the third best corned beef that I have had in my life. The first being that of my late grandmother (God bless her soul... I miss you everyday Opal) and the close second being Slyman's in Cleveland. So after we grub heartily, we head over to the club. The spot was Butterfly, right on Bay Street, across from Pier 33; the event was the Love Movement, held every first Saturday of the month. We arrived early, so the jont was pretty empty, but slowly filling in. Sara says she's got her girls en route to the club, so the night should be swell. Everyone decides to get their respective drinks and start to live that life. Nightlife that is. Drunk dudes, uppity women, overpriced drinks... y'all know the drill. There was a large bar as soon as you entered and to the right of that was the dance floor. Booths were at one end of the dance floor and opposite from those booths was a windowed wall that looked into the stank-ass brown water of the bay. To the left of the windowed wall, nestled behind the bar was the V.I.P. area, where I never, ever get into no matter the city, club or venue. Just not that important yo. If you followed the dance floor towards the rear of the club there was a visible kitchen that was separated by a big wooden wall as high as my chest, however tonight it was serving as a second bar. To the left of the functioning bar was an exit that led to a small pier where everyone went out to to smoke some cigarettes. I chose to smoke that Cali kill. Whilst on the little pier I noticed that Sara, Tony and Moe have a high threshold for jokes. Well, maybe it's just Tony with the high threshold because the scenario seems to be Sara cracking on Tony, usually pertaining to his lack of game, with Moe laughing his ass off. "You ain't got no game." Sara says about 16 times in a strong Cantonese accent. Tony, however, considers himself a pimp. Evidence of this shall be examined later in this tale...

Everyone flicks their cigarette butts into the bay, and we come back in the club. Sara's girls that had been expected finally arrived, and arrive they did. Damn. Thangers, the lot of 'em. From left to right you'll see Bernedette, the short fly Pinay, Cheryl, the taller fly Pinay, and Kamilah, the tall fly sister. Some background is needed for the evolution of this story. Kamilah is evidently a lesbian (yeah, fooled me too, right?), but not so much of a lesbian that she doesn't decide to get with a dude every now and then. Tony wants to be that dude. Sara's prediction is that the shit ain't gone happen. Anyhow, the club is in full effect mode, so everyone gets to doing their respective groove thang. I got another drink and commenced to grooving. An aside on the dance styles of these various ladies... Bernadette could definitely dance quite well. However she was way too short for me to be giggin' with. Her and Moe looked great together as their heights were more complimentary. I can't recall Sara dancing really, she was probably conjuring up shit to say about Tony. Cheryl, I danced with for a minute. As fine as she was, she couldn't really get down. She's more of a late 1970s, early 1980s dancer. Remember when people used to really groove expressively with like two and a half feet of room betwixt them? Facing each other nonetheless? Conjures up visions of the Good Times painting right? That's Cheryl. A fine, respectable woman on the dance floor. Great traits for your sister to have, but not the fly-Pinay that you're thinking of waxing off and on for the evening. Now Kamilah, she's what they call retarded with it. She's got the dance steps and the grace, but when she gets that telepathic message from Keak Da Sneak that coincides with the DJ actually playing "Super Hyphy", she goes dumb. Dumb. Dumb. So dumb that it has to be reiterated with the power of the biblical triad. She gets that fucking stooey. I tried to keep up but there was no way. I said to her, "You love the Hyphy shit, eh?" To which she says, " How can you not? You gotta love it." I guess that you do.

As aforementioned, the Butterfly is off the hinges now. Everyone is feeling themselves. The DJ was killing it and only the lames were even considering standing still. A fine time for Tony to drop that megaton bomb game on Kamilah, forilla. All I see is Tony in Kamilah's ear for about 32 seconds when he drifts off away from her and comes to chill with the homies. You can't be sure if Sara overheard what Tony said or if Kamilah told Sara what was said, but the two crucial portions of the pimp game administered were reiterated to all of us by Sara far more times than truly necessary. Evidentally, Kamilah's sexual orientation was of no consequence to Tony who rather cock-assuredly promises her that regardless of all of that homosexuality, which ain't cool with God, "I'll take you there." His only instruction to her was given upon the pimp strut that directed his departure and from the stone gaze that only a true pimp can maintain even when he knows he's dropping a gang of yang. "Think about it." After that he slides to the left only to get antagonized by Sara for the rest of the evening who had to have repeated "I'll take you there" like 46 times. Sara maintains that "Tony don't got no fucking game. That bullshit don't fucking work on no fine women." Tony maintains that Sara is "fascinated by what [he] says to these bitches." That's why he argues that she eavesdropped. "She's simply fascinated with how I talk to these hoes." Like Tootsie Pop licks, the world may never know. What we do know is that the lines ain't really work, but situations like these are like farts in the breeze to a muthafucking pimp like Tony. "It ain't shit. I've had ones way nicer than that. Waaaaay nicer." A pimp lives to play another day...