You Can Find Me in The Club...

....or standing right outside about to get in. But I will get in. I don't club a lot, but when I do, it's gotsta be DOPE. And of course, anything I do is DOPE.

Except tonight.

You see, I pulled up in a million trucks. I was looking, smelling feeling like a million bucks.

Until I remembered I took the bus and never even owned a car. On top of that, I was no where near a million bucks richer than I had been previous to stepping in line. But it was pay day, and I intended to use all the $50 allotted on big spending wisely. And my smell was also not of the million dollar variety but of the Granddaddy OG Purple Kush. DOPE.

So as told, being the baller that I be, you know I got up in the club for free.

It didn't hurt that there wasn't a cover but I know if there was, a nigga still wouldn't have been paying...because a nigga would have went somewhere else.

First step in the club, I throw the shades on because I am some kind of stoned. Stoned like In the Stone from firing up that earth and blowing smoke into the wind on the walk to the club (did I mention I took the bus to the club).


OPERATION COMPLETELY DISTORT VISION was now in progress.

I began to survey my environment, you know checking out the fellas, the highs and lows. But I kept my good eye open for clocking the hoes.

And this is where the night began.

So now I'm at the bar, shake, shaking, taking them off (whatever that means). Tonight I thought I would play the wall and wait for a girl to come talk to me. You know, like girls do. And you'd be surprised that more times than none, it actually works.

Except tonight.

The ladies in the club on this particular evening were something, different if you will.
And by "different", I mean fucking wrecked.

No hate from over here though. We are all God's children (if you believe in that sort of thing) when the lights are off. But the lights weren't off. They were dim. And when the lights are dim, the Devil's slightly slower step child, DECEPTION is slowly afoot.

I go to buy my first of two $15 Long Island Iced Teas of the night and as I prepare to savor every last drop (cent), for the next 20, maybe 25 minutes (including the mostly watery drink it will become when the ice melts) I look over and see a group of females enjoying the hell out of this club.

They were having fun, looking all types of good, like video good. Porn Star good. Janet Jackson circa Poetic Justice good. Until I realized OPERATION COMPLETELY DISTORT VISION was going down. And that was because I was high. **REMOVES SUNGLASSES**

REALITY Bites.

These girls were confident. I must say that.

The first thing I noticed was the hair. One had a weave, the other was natural, another one even had the Rihanna red dye job going on. Upon closer inspection (and about $7.50 into my drink), it was revealed to me that these women were even dressed nicely.


Nice shoes, accessories, all that (because a man notices when a woman takes her time on what she's wearing, or at least we pretend to).

But then, I saw...

In the worst way possible.

I don't know if it was the terrible smiles, the clown make up or how this one girl's lazy eye was working harder than the busy eye. Either way, my high was getting low and it became clear it was time to move on.

Deceived. As Troo would put it, "that whole crew over there a little messed up and they know it. That's why they have the most personality."

Troo.

So I finish another $3 of my drink and about 40% of my sustained high and turn left and what do we see...is that Nicki Minaj? Fat ass, big boobs, crazy hair, light skinned nigga looking sad next to her. The last $4.50 of my drink was telling me this must be Nicki, or at least a close cousin, maybe an impersonator.

Nope. Just some chick with purple, pink and green hair. One thing was for sure, this lady was not her hair.

Nor was she the dress, shoes, earrings, perfume or anything else she might have been wearing that night. I'll never understand why women who are a size 12 would attempt to squeeze that ass (ass ass ass ass ass ass ass...one 'ass' does not suffice for the amount of ass she fit in that dress) into a size 6.

It appeared her little black dress was trying to grow up into the big black dress it was always meant to be.

C'MON WIT YOUR BIG ASS, LEMME SEE SOMETHING...you know, something that doesn't give you 4 back titties.

As I went to buy my second $15 drink, I hear noise break out in the club. A fight, a small skirmish perhaps?

Wrong again, Ricochet. 

It's just that lame nigga having more fun than the amount of fun that is actually in the club. He's having so much fun that no one else can have fun because he is using it all up. This nigga also happened to be that other nigga.

You know, that other nigga at the club who hasn't learned how to properly ask a lady for a dance so he just goes up behind them and tries to start dancing.

Yeah that guy.

And on this particular night as it would happen, his plan was not working.

I didn't care. I finished my second drink, all $15 plus ice, my high was wearing off and I was about ready to leave this club alone. So I made my way for the exit.

The end of a decent night.

...on my way out though, I couldn't help but notice this lame nigga getting rejected by an entire group of girls. One by one, they shot him down. I chuckled to myself
and by "to myself" I mean out loud.

I guess he heard me laugh and he laughed to. Then he tried to hit me with the

"You know what I mean?"

or

"Theeeseeee bitches beeeee tripping doooooooogggg" shrug.

No, nigga. No.

I'm out.

I am not my hair, or somethin' like that

Dopes and dopettes,

I have a small, small confession to make. I am KICK-ASS!

No, I'm not KICK-ASS, although that would be fuckin' awesome. You should all probably see that movie and look out for a costumed crusader coming to a town near you!

Now, onto the topic at hand. My hair.

I got a hair cut recently and as any black man can tell you, there is no better feeling than having your ears freshly lowered. And as any black man can also attest to, theres no worse feeling than not having the aforementioned haircut. Now, I am somewhere in between the two...my haircut isn't fresh but I don't quite need a new one...I am in the "hair upkeep" stage which is why I wrote this blog in the first place.

I was thinking "Ricky (that's what I call myself when I talk to myself), are you keeping your hair natural, ARE YOU keeping it real?" And the answer is no, at least I don't think so. Rather I don't even know what natural actually is. Follow me as I venture into memories of hairs long gone...

**DISCLAIMER** I apologize for the ignorance I have in "natural" hair. If I offend you in this blog, well, oh well...

Elementary School Hair Care

Ahhhh, the good ol' days when I didn't give a damn about how I looked or smelled for that matter. I was your regular little black boy. A lil ashy around the knees and elbows and some nappy ass hair. I don't know if it was my grandmothers ignorance about male hair care products or the fact that she too didn't give a damn if my scalp was dry because all I remember is getting my hair combed, a lot...and it hurt...I hated it. I never had braids or anything like that and I got haircuts but in that mean time, in between time, the comb and I had a Ike and Tina type relationship and the comb was whoopin' my ass. Occasionally, when my grandma felt, she would through a lil' Pink Lotion into my deprived scalp but it seemed that the KKK was the only way to kill the nigger naps in my hair.

Middle School - High School Hair Care

Now, I don't know when, but at some point I became fascinated with waves. Like facial hair, I thought this would be the "thing" to separate me from the children. Waves meant I was a MAN, well at least a teenager. So, I asked my friends who in turn gave me horrible advice about how to get waves. So, I got a low hair cut, some DAX wave grease, a du-rag and a wave brush. I applied the thick wave grease to my hair evenly and began to brush my hair like Marsha from the Brady Brunch was my idol. Then I wore my du-rag......all the time......everywhere. It's almost like the waves I were cultivating were my best kept secret.

Now I know you were probably wondering as I was rambling on "Did it work?" and the answer is, kind of. I got waves...on the top and around the sides but I must admit, it was very incomplete, like Mary J Blije when she's happy. And now my hair had a thick, greasy feel. I used so much damn grease my du-rag had waves. Whenever I ran out of grease, I knew I had a weeks worth stored up in my du-rag. Needless to say, this was not the way.

I tinkered with other ways before I found the one. And the answer was right in my shower the whole time. It was in the bottle of conditioner I was using that I previously had no idea what it was made for. I was told to leave the conditioner in my hair, then brush it and put the du-rag on. This transformed my life immensely. For the first time in my life, I had let my Soul Glo. And the waves were a spinnin. And my hair was healthy and not DAXed the fuck up.

Senior Year High School Hair Care and Beyond

Problem solved right, no. Having waves took way too much fucking work. The summer going into my senior year, I was working a summer job and volunteering. And like most of my ex-girlfriends that I stopped paying attention to, they slipped. My waves quickly became mere ripples in a pond made by a 3 year old girl with a pebble. But the fight was not lost because now I had became aware of something else...my hair had natural waves..when kept up. This keep up part was the hard part. The conditioner theory worked but added another 20 minutes to a shower and then I remembered back to the early days of hair care and I thought, HAIR LOTION! But not Pink Lotion, that was old lady hair lotion, no, I needed something else and I was introduced to Hollywood Beauty Olive Oil Hair Lotion. My Lord, this stuff changed my life. It made scalp moist (funny word, moist) and made my hair shine like the suits Puffy used to wear. And from then on, this was it...this was what I was going to do. I got the process down to 5 minutes and BAM!

"So Ricky, thanks for that interesting look into your slightly girl-like love affair with your hair but what does that have to do with your hair being natural? Are YOU keeping it real?" I'm happy I asked myself that. The answer is I don't know. When I got to college, I saw a lot of girls becoming obsessed with this natural look. I was confused at first and I believe I am still confused now as to what "going natural" really means. I met a girl with extensions in her hair (bamboo earings...you know the rest) who claimed she was "natural" to which I replied "tell that to the bald horse walking around now". As far as I know now, being natural just means not getting a perm, rather not using chemicals in your hair. It's healthier and it seems to give girls an amazing feeling...when done right. When done wrong, that same Sistah Girl singin India Arie will be dancing around to Just For Me on the way to the Dominicans.

And that brings us here ladies and gents, is my hair natural. Am I selling out my beautiful black roots by trying to make my hair what it isn't. Should I just like my hair grow out into the peasy mess that the man in the sky intended? If it were the 70's, would niggas with waves be the niggas with the fliest jheri curls? Or should I get my Detroit Red conk on?

I don't know, conks sound like they hurt.