I'm So Baltimore...

So this week on Facebook, there has been this "I'm So [insert hometown], I..."  thing going on. I posted a few comments, but then I'd always think of something else afterwards. So here is my "write 'em down as I think of ' em" extended list:

I'm so Baltimore, I...

• ...can listen to you talk and have a pretty good idea of which PART of Baltimore you grew up in;
• ...was in diapers when I started going to Orioles games;
• ...lived for a while in one of the project buildings that were imploded a few years ago;
• ...lived in one of those big houses in the Liberty Heights area that well off Jewish folk fled and converted into apartments after Black folk started moving in;
• ...lived my teen years in a rowhouse with marble steps;
• ...watched "Captain Chesapeake" after school every day, and Roller Derby and Wrestling on Saturdays;
• ...remember when the city tore down all those houses on Mulberry and Franklin Streets to build the "Highway to Nowhere";
• ...spent what seemed like half my childhood in Memorial Stadium (JUNIOR ORIOLES!);
• ...cried when the Colts fled to Indianapolis - and when the Bullets moved to Washington (I still refuse to call them the Wizards);
• ...WEBB radio station (We Enjoy Being Black!) in Walbrook Junction
• ... ate at the original Gino's restaurant on Howard Street;
• ...remember "Sampson's" as having the best soul food in West Baltimore - and the best rolls on the face of the earth;
• ...when First Mariner Arena was the Civic Center, when there was a stadium on 33rd Street, and there was no Harborplace;
• ...remember when your family had it good if your father worked at Bethlehem Steel;
• ...know what "skrimps", "skreets", and "zinks" are;
• ...can visit Lexington Market without being the least bit distracted by the surrounding chaos;
• ...know what "loose ones" are;
• ...spent many a summer night shooting Skelly out in the middle of Saratoga Street;
• ...remember the name of the nightclub where "You'll know if you belong!";
• ...used to participate in the Walk-a-Thon and Bike-a-Thon every year;
• ...remember Oprah when she hosted "People Are Talking" with Richard Sher;
• ...remember all too clearly the role of gift cards in our city political history;
• ...remember when Bon Secours Hospital was (not so) affectionately referred to as "Bon Se-kill";
• ...wonder how, after over 30 years of the subway and  over 20 years of the Light Rail, there is still only one line for each;
• ...used to ride the Bus all over the city on "Super Sundays";
• ...took off from work as soon as I heard what day the Ravens Super Bowl parade was;
• ...might need to take a whole WEEK off if the Orioles ever win another World Series...

Well, that's about all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll come back add on more items as I think of them (or "borrow" them from other people's lists). But all in all, I think this is a pretty good idea of what makes me SO BALTIMORE...

If you're going to try to holla at a woman...

...at least offer her your seat!

So I'm on the bus heading home from work. It's standing room only, as normal. At some point in the ride this attractive woman with a serious scowl on her face makes her way towards the back of the bus and ends up standing next to me. The dude sitting in the seat right in front of where this woman is standing immediately starts talking to her. "How you doin'? You look nice." you know, the usual unimaginative stuff guys say when they're trying to holla. Only thing is, he's talking, but he ain't even making a move to offer her his seat at all, which you know, might have actually helped his cause. Strike one...

"Look I'm sorry", the woman says, "But I am NOT in the mood for no talk right now."

Now, a reasonable man might say okay, and leave the woman alone. A more reasonable man might have taken the opportunity he missed the first time and offer her a seat. This was not a reasonable man, however. He still kept trying to holla, can I have your number, lemme talk to you, I'll take you out make you feel better, blah blah blah. And the whole time, the woman, who was already visibly upset when she got on the bus, was getting even more visibly pissed the fuck off. She was darker skinned, so you couldn't see her turning red; it was more like a plum color her face was getting. This was not going to end well...
Strike two...

Finally (after demonstrating much more patience than I thought she was capable of), she  had enough. "I TOLD YOU I was not in the mood for this shit. DAMN!" She snatched her body around a rather violent 180 degrees, turning her back to this knucklehead, muttering under her breath about his profound stupidity. End of story, right? He got the message, right? WRONG...

"Oh, you just gonna turn on me? That's messed up", he said, his feelings hurt that his special charm didn't win the object of his affections over and made her want him to give her all his loving (but not his seat on the bus).  
"A brotha try to be nice to you, and that's how you act? You ain't all that..."
Strike three...

Ol' gurl spun back around towards him even more ferociously than she had turned away.

Uh oh...

"B----, I told your m----- f------ ass that I was not in the mood for your b---s---, I told you that G--D--- f------ s--- TWICE, and you still gon' try to talk to me while I'm standing up and you sitting your m-----f------ ass the f--- down! You wanted to do something for me, you coulda stood the f--- up and at least let me have a f------ seat, after I told you I was in a bad mood. You wanna know I turned my back to you? 'Cause your hot garbage funky ass breath was making me sick while you was sitting on your G-- D--- ass talking up into my f------ nose! Whatchu gotta say to that, b----?" And back around she spun...

Damn...Now you might expect there to have been some laughter as this jackass getting the riot act read to him, but ol' gurl turned on him with such force, I think people actually felt a little sorry for poor fool. That plus, I don't anybody wanted to be the next one to get screamed on...

Meanwhile, the Ladies' Man, obviously rocked from this onslaught, tried to come back on ol' gurl, but he was kind of like Zab Judah trying to get up too fast after being cold cocked by Kostya Tszyu:

About the best he could say, after some unintelligible sputtering, was "Wh-wh-what the f--- you say?"

"You want me to tell you again?" She said, looking back at him.

And then he did the first smart thing of the whole encounter: he faced forward and shut his mouth...

"Miss, do you want to sit down?" the guy across the aisle asked.

"Yes, thank you!" she said, and so she sat.

And the gentleman did NOT try to holla at her...

Don't Get Yourself F'd Up...OOOPS!

The Clarence Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse is a massive building smack dab in the middle of Downtown Baltimore. It is, as you might expect, a pretty busy place. It is bordered by four busy streets, and if you are familiar with Downtown Baltimore, then you probably aren't surprised to know the four streets surrounding the courthouse are one way streets.  You also wouldn't be surprised that parking for the courthouse is practically non-existent. So while many people will just ride public transportation to the courthouse, many others will have someone drop them off in the half hour or so leading up to the court's opening its doors at 8 AM. Given the madness of rush hour traffic, people being dropped off generally have enough sense to get the heck out of the car and keep things moving with as little disturbance as possible. But there's always gotta be somebody messing things up...

The St. Paul Street entrance is the busiest of the four sides to the courthouse, as it where people with court dates go into the building (the other three sides have entrances for employees, people on jury duty, and prison buses bringing in inmates for court appearances). St. Paul Street itself is a one way street headed South, which in this case means the driver's side of cars is on the curbside of the courthouse, so if you're being dropped off, you should be quick but careful to get out of the car while avoiding oncoming traffic in the center lane. Today, however, some fool that had gotten out of the car dropping him off decided he had some more things to talk to the driver about, so he had the passenger door cracked open while he leaned down to continue his conversation. Not only was the car blocking traffic in his lane, but the knucklehead standing outside on the passenger side was forcing drivers in the center lane to veer slightly to the right to avoid the possibility of hitting him. As you might guess at 7:45 in the morning, this action was not exactly popular.

The driver of the pickup truck directly behind the car, who had been laying on his horn something fierce, stuck his head out of the window, and yelled, "MOVE YOUR FUCKIN' CAR!" The two jackasses stopped their conversation; the driver stuck his head out of the window, and yelled, "I ain't hear you, why don't you get out your truck and come down here and repeat that?" Meanwhile, the other idiot yelled, "Don't get fucked up in front the courthouse, White boy..."

Well, the "White boy" in question got out of his truck, and as it turns out he wasn't just any ol' White boy; he was a big, muscle bound, crew cut wearing, jarhead Baltimore City Police Officer, who carried himself with a swagger that suggested it would make his day to put his club upside somebody's head a couple, three times. And just like, all the toughness melted right out of the two big talkers:

"Oh shit, COP!" the guy standing outside the car said, as he slammed the door and scampered behind the car as it peeled off. And back to the pickup truck strutted the officer, with a look on his face that was part smug satisfaction and part disappointment that he didn't get to settle the matter of who was going to fuck WHOM up...