So, it’s getting more and more difficult to keep blogging daily what with my Internet still being down. Joe says I should get a wireless card and see if I can pick up a signal in the building. Seems like a good and cheap idea, especially seeing as how I won’t have the money to pay Ragged Cunt Naps (RCN) for quite some time.
This weekend was eventful. The little girl and I kept a tight schedule. The highlight, I guess, was a trip to the Kennedy Center Saturday evening. They had this big event going called Arts Across America. Different performers from all over the country came to the Nation’s Capital for a one day festival. According to the brochure, there were almost three dozen performances taking place throughout the day on different stages, indoor and outdoor.
I went with my daughter and her Brownie troop to see Step Afrika! It’s a traveling showcase of step crews from various black frats and sororities. For my non-black and culturally deprived readers, stepping is a tradition on the campuses of historically black colleges and universities. It’s an African-inspired dance characterized by foot-stomping, hand-clapping and highly sophisticated synchronized routines. It’s a lot of fun to watch if the steppers are good. But they’re not always good.
Anyway, we had to stand on line for a half-hour. So, one of parents said, “Let’s have lunch then.”
I was thinking, Great. Is there an eatery somewhere? But when I finished looking around I saw that everyone in our group was reaching into their bags and pulling out sandwiches, bottled water, raw baby carrots, and fruit. I didn’t even realize they had bags!
I felt my daughter tugging at my shirt. I looked down at her and she was staring up at me with her eyes welling up. “Daddy,” she said, her voice quivering in anger, “Why didn’t you pack me a snack?”
I felt like shit on a stick.
The other parents saw my crisis and started offering up food.
“She can have half of Sara’s sandwich.”
“We’ve got an extra bag of carrots.”
“Thanks,” I said. Then I ran off to find her something to drink. It took about 15 minutes, and it cost me $3, but I came back with a small bottle of cranberry juice.
She only had a few sips before the line started moving and it was time to go in. And, of course, before we could enter the theatre, I had to throw away the juice.
When we took our seats, she was welling up again, “Daddy, why did you throw away the juice?”
“You can’t have juice in the theatre, honey. Only water.”
“Well, why didn’t you get me water like everybody else?”
I looked around and it was true. Every other little girl in our group had her own personal bottle of water. So what did I say? The only thing I could say.
“Sit down and stop complaining before I take you home. I don’t know why you’re crying. That juice cost me $3!”
Being an ornery bastard has its advantages.
She got over it, and soon it was time for the show.
For the most part, with the exception of the professional steppers who bookended the show, I was not impressed. I don’t want to call out any specific organizations―-elephants, frogs, cats, dogs, apes or whatever-―but lots of things have changed about stepping, and apparently not for the better.
Call me a snob, but when I went to college, people put work into their step routines, and they certainly wouldn’t go to the Kennedy Center with anything less than stellar. I caught myself yawning a few times.
Until, that is, one of the young ladies―who were not dressed in pink, green, or blue―busted her ass...hard. I mean, that shit looked like it hurt. To her credit, she got up and back into the routine so fast, I thought everyone else was going to do the same thing. I had to lean over to one of the other parents and ask, “Did she just bust her ass?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “But it sure looked like it.”
The high school team, however―The Coppin Academy Centaurs of Baltimore, Maryland―, was far more exciting than any of the college teams. They even broke down in the middle of the routine for a tribute to the Jheri Curl. It was great. Jheri Curls are always funny.
The true was humor was in the seats though. There were white people peppered―or salted, I guess, in this situation―throughout the crowd. They were highly concentrated in our row though. Our group of 20 was about 60% Caucasian. And what didn’t occur to me until we took our seats is white people, for the most part, have no idea what stepping is. It really is, like, one of our last secrets.
Stepping, pirated cable and sugar water.
The only other man in our group, who bore a strong resemblance to the older brother, Kent, from Napoleon Dynamite, looked confused the entire time. Especially when people started doing their calls.
“Yo-Yo!” and “Skee-Wee” and “Oo-oop!” and, of course, the constant barking.
It made me miss my college days something terrible. But when I looked over at this dude he was shaking his head and squinting his eyes as if to say, “What the shit is going on here? Are they gonna, like, try to get us or something?”
At some point he leaned over to one of the little black girls, who was seven-years-old by the way, and whispered, “What’s all this meowing about?”
I would’ve been offended if I wasn’t laughing so hard.
Right after the step show, Chuck Brown was doing a concert on the south lawn, but it was late and I had to get the little girl home. Maybe next year, if they do it again, I’ll plan a whole day around it.
And I’ll try to remember to pack a healthy lunch and some water.
And the album link…
CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE NEW COOL CEE BROWN ALBUM "IGNORANCE & CONFIDENCE"
Thanks for reading.
GOBAMA/BIDEN!
Innocent Question: What exactly do white frats and sororities do?
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3 comments:
the album is dope.
i still have only made my way through the first four tracks because i'm known to play the same song over and over.
i'm just going to assume the rest of the record is as good as the first few songs. LOL.
- spirit
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