poverty saddens me.

January 14th, 2003

07:09 pm - poverty saddens me.
One of the urban radio stations here in Columbia has a culturally interesting phenomenon known as the "World-Famous Afternoon Car-Phone Mega-Mix." It's basically a (usually fairly solid) half-hour urban/R&B mix, interspersed with callers in traffic going live to give their "shout-outs":

"Yo this is the 104.7 afternoon car-phone megamix, who is this?"
"Dis Shawty D, man."
"Yo Shawty, where you rollin' at?"
"I'm rollin' down Two Notch road."
"What you be rollin' in, Shawty?"
"I'm rollin' in a '91 Honda Accord."
"Kick ya shots."
"I like to give mah shot out to [list of varying lengths of people here]"
"A'ight Shawty, thank you for rollin' with a brother."
"Thanks for lettin' a brother roll."

... and on to the next caller. Aside from being culturally interesting, this is often a pretty amusing interplay - the degree of "ghetto fabulous" to which the callers ascribe varies WILDLY, and you get the occasional "thanks for lettin' a white boy roll" or - better yet - somebody attempting to call in from home or the office. Calling from the car is a MUST for the mega-mix, and if the disc jockey doesn't hear some road noise in the background, the hapless caller gets mocked severely and hung up on (and with no opportunity to deliver da shots).

The thing that saddens me is the deep need that people seem to have to declare precisely what make and model of vehicle they own - even down to the year that it was manufactured. It makes it seem even sadder when, all too often, the vehicle being described was "middle-class" at best when brand new, and is distinctly unimpressive from any sort of materialistic sense at its current age. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with driving a serviceable older car - nothing at ALL. What saddens me is the thought that, of all the things to possibly take pride in in their lives, people are picking something that is not only shallowly materialistic, but, well... isn't very impressive.

But fuck, what do you say about that? Not everybody can be rich - or even well-off. And everyone needs pride. The make, model, and year of your car just seems like an awfully unfortunate benchmark to judge the worth of your life with.

Current Mood: melancholy
Current Music: Dr. Dre - Let Me Ride

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Comments:

From: jennamonster Date: January 14th, 2003 - 05:43 pm					(Link)

When I was in high school, the local rap station had a deal like that in the mornings, except - oh, I love it - you could't just shout out to your friends, you had to do in the form of a little self made rap.

I went to a school that drew from two areas - one a rather rural little community full of doublewides and dirt roads, and the other a WAY upper class community known for it's golf courses. I think there were about six non-white kids in a school of over two thousand students. Nevertheless, we'd hear the girls from the tennis team calling in to "give a holla to my princess sista's."

I just don't get shit like that.

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	From: jennbennett Date: January 14th, 2003 - 06:54 pm					(Link)

Bwaahaaha!

Being from Columbia I know this all to well.. I heard a good one one day... I shit you not

DJ: "Hot 103.9 car phone mega mix... who dis"
CALLER: "This Tisha"
DJ:"Where you rollin Tisha"
CALLER: "Down Broad River Road"
DJ: "What you rollin in?"
CALLER: " A umm... 2002 Bentley"
DJ: *laughs* "mmmm hmmmm"
CALLER: pauses "I'd like to ummm give my shout outs too....."

WTF is that?

Straight up lying to try to sound impressive when this poor girl probably can't even spell Bentley and has NO idea what those things even cost and that the chances of her having one is less that the chance of a meteorite falling on her heead while she's in the shower.

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	From: jimbojones Date: January 14th, 2003 - 06:59 pm					(Link)

My favorites are always the ones where they try to sneak a call in from home, though.

"What you rollin' in?"
"I'm rollin' in, uh..."
"You played-out brother, you rollin' on yo' busted up COUCH. We got caller ID in here, that ain't even a cell phone you callin' from! CLICK"

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	From: zeldappa Date: January 15th, 2003 - 06:57 am					(Link)

I've only heard that show a few times but, to me, it always sounds more like they're following the formula and stating a fact rather than bragging about the year their car was made.

And at least the ones who don't lie about what car they're driving are (hopefully) living within their means and seem comfortable with that.

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	From: jimbojones Date: January 15th, 2003 - 07:34 am					(Link)

Mmmm, I dunno dude - they don't HAVE to state the year, yanno? I mean, a lot of them just say "Intrepid" or "Escort" or whatever. Shit, if I called in, I'd say "Neon". (I'd also be seriously tempted to say "thanks for lettin' a cracka roll." One day, I sincerely hope to hear a white boy with a thick southern accent calling in and end it with "thanks for lettin' a redneck roll", but mine's just not strong enough, and I wouldn't wanna fake the funk.)

I definitely feel you about (hopefully) living within their means and comfortable with it, but - speaking as somebody that's worked for Section 8 apartment complexes and rent-to-own stores in his own blue-collar past - that's rarer than it should be. We're talking about the same segment of society that produces such eternally classic lyrics as "ladies leave ya man at home / the club is fulla ballaz with their pockets full-grown" here, after all.

With that said, though, I think almost EVERYBODY lives way the hell outside their comfortable means when it comes to cars. DON'T get me started about all the damn $40,000 SUV's on the road... =)

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	From: zeldappa Date: January 15th, 2003 - 07:43 am					(Link)

I worked as a collector for a few months, so I know that there are some people who believe that driving a used Lexus is more important than actually being able to afford it. Still, I hope.

... and don't forget: "looking for cheese that don't make her a hood rat"

I hate SUVs, always blocking my view from my '99 Malibu and increasing the chances (since the damn things weigh so much) that I'll be dead after the crash. fuckers. Those $40,000 people are NEVER going to take the thing offroad.

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	From: jimbojones Date: January 15th, 2003 - 08:00 am					(Link)

> I hate SUVs, always blocking my view from
> my '99 Malibu and increasing the chances (since
> the damn things weigh so much) that I'll be
> dead after the crash. fuckers.

What really gets me is that the damn things make it more likely that the people IN the SUV will die in a crash, too - jackasses think that the statistics on ridiculously high fatalities in accidents involving people hit by an SUV must imply that the people IN the SUV are "safer" for driving it, but in actual fact the overall fatality rate for SUV occupants in accidents is a good 8% higher than the overall fatality rate for non-SUV occupants.

I keep telling myself I'm going to take up SUV tagging, but so far I haven't gotten around to it.

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	From: zeldappa Date: January 15th, 2003 - 08:13 am					(Link)

haha

Maybe you could try this to get you started?

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	From: jimbojones Date: January 15th, 2003 - 08:19 am					(Link)

BWAHAHAHAHA!

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	From: xkisses Date: January 15th, 2003 - 04:21 pm					(Link)

Black people are weird.

"Yeah, make sure you drink the expensive bottle of Courvosier(even though you hate the taste and would be much happier with a Mike's Hard Lemonade insead)"

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