I rode in a few cabs/Ubers whilst in SEVA this weekend. My favorite ride was from my hotel in Norfolk to the Coach House. My phone told me that David would pick me up in a blue Chevy Cruze, so when a blue Chevy Cruze pulled up I opened the door and said "David?" and David said "zman?" and I said "yes" and he said "KaMOANen! We GOOOAN!" I nestled into a thick plume of blunt smoke and looked at David's bloodshot eyes in the rearview mirror. I knew this would be a fun 12 minutes.
We made the first right and in a few blocks a clutch of young women dressed as naughty pirates passed in front of us. "UUUUNNNGGHHH!" observed David. "Indeed," I replied, "is there some sort of pirate party going on?" to which David laughingly responded "Pyra parda, pyra parda! Nah, we own Gramma Stree, aw you eveh wan in yo life is own Gramma Stree!" He expressed further opinions regarding Gramma Stree and then asked "You stain right by Gramma Stree, why you goan awway outta Colley?" So I explained that I was in town for a wedding the next day, and I was meeting up with various attendees at a restaurant. David clapped back like Clay Davis.
"Ya boy gettin murrd?!? Y'all gah go tua strip cluuhs on Gramma Stree!!" I demurred, "He already had a bachelor party for his first wedding, I don't think a strip club is in the cards tonight." David was intrigued. "He gen RE-murrd? Sheeeeit, he must have money to get murrd twice!" I replied "I haven't seen his balance sheet so I can't speak to that, but it's actually his third wedding so maybe he does." David was apoplectic. "Cot DAM!" he blurted, "this n***a a freak! Three times, sheeeit! He a freak!"
The music gods intervened to save me, as David's jam came on. I know this because he heard the early strains of the song and said "UUUUNNNGGHHH!" as he did when he saw the naughty pirates and turned the radio up very loud. Our readers know I'm fond of hiphop and I'm no prude, but I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "He can't be saying that" I thought to myself, so I Shazamed it and got this:
I then googled "shake sumn lyrics" and confirmed that yeah, DaBaby was really saying what it sounded like he was saying. I can't do it justice, watch the video."Make the ghetto bitches put their hands on their knees" makes me feel like a scene from "10" where Dudley Moore complains about today's youth and their music--I can't find it on YouTube, but here are the lines:
George Webber : If you were dancing with your wife, or girlfriend you knew in high school, and you said to her, Darling, they're playing our song, do you know what they'd be playing?
Don : What?
George Webber : Why Don't We Do It In The Road. Fuckin' hell kind of era is that?
Although I don't plan on pumping "Shake Sumn" from zmobile anytime soon, I might sneak it onto a jukebox the next time I'm out and overserved.
I wasn't able to completely tell this story to anyone because of my long and rambling storytelling style and everyone's general lack of interest in me. One of Whit's high school buddies explained that "Gramma Stree" isn't Grammar Street or Grandma Street as I hypothesized, it's Granby Street, and clarified that there are no strip clubs there (but he wishes there were) and the story dissolved into a noodie bar tangent. Similarly, I met some GTB lurkers and when I introduced David's car I said that it smelled like San Francisco and they recoiled shouting "Ah! San Fran smells like shit and piss and vomit!" and went off on their experiences there so my story dissolved again.
