Happy Thoughts

Well my friends, I'm officially an attorney. The Board of Bar Examiners surely missed a lot when allowing me to practice law here. Oh well. I'll tell you about the ceremony next time, right now to more important things. Songs that make u reminisce of the "good ol' dayz."

It never fails, everytime I hear "Damn it feels good to be a gangsta" by the Getto Boys, it takes me back to simpler days. I think everytime I heard that song I was either under the influence of certain substances or just cruisin with the fellas. I gotta admit, I had a few friends that were in gangs and looking for something devious to do, and for some reason when we did something bad and heard that song it made it all worthwhile, as if we truly were gangstas. Now that I think about it, all it was some young kids with nothin better to do, other than pickin fights or involved in some form of vandalism, just having a good time. The shit we got into is by no means harmless, but for some reason listening to that song, it made everything we did legit under the eyes of our friends.

"Cuz now I got the world swingin' from my nut damn it feels good to be a gangsta" If that isn't a good ending to a song I don't know what is.

One day in particular comes to mind. I gotta admit, at the time I was scared as hell, but of course when I told the story later I said I wasn't. I was in 10th grade I think. My boyz and my brother's boyz were cruisin looking for some action. A car with a bunch of fools rolls up next to us and starts talking shit. It was probably 6 of us in my car, what they didn't realize that my brother was behind me in his Blazer with 6 of his buddies and behind him 4 more buys were rollin with us. Before we knew it, my brother is tailgating them and we see they're calling someone. What we found out later was that those fools were calling their boys for some back up. 15 minutes later we're all in a park ready to throw down.

I was scare cuz my buddy thought he saw one of them with a gun. My brother and his six buddies were all up front talking to the other guys telling them to get out and fight (real macho right? Once everything happened we realized how stupid it was for him to be in the open when we thought they had guns). In the mean time the rest of us are hiding behind some shrubs ready to jump them when the least expect it.

We saw a total of three cars that they were rolling with, we weren't sure how many people were there. It turns out that it was 10 of them and no gun, what they had was pipes. When they get out, they're talkin shit - my brother's crew is talking shit. At this point one of the guys that was hiding with us makes a move and jumps out. Naturally we all jumped out, but we didn't wait long enough so as to not give them a chance to run. They saw the rest of us and got in their cars and drove off. Sure enough after this happen (this was my first encounter with what would've been a group fight) I turn on my radio, pop the cassette (tells you how old I am) and what song comes up next? Damn it feels good to be a gangsta. It was a good feeling after wards.

10 years later and family and a law degree later I realize just how stupid it was to do the shit we did. And for what? Nothing really, just a way for the boyz to show how tough we were. in reality it doesn't prove anything, all it proved was that I was stupid at the time, regardless of the risks we were taking.

But to this day, everytime I hear that song I think of those days, and regardless of the stupidity of the situation I think, damn it felt good to be a teenager. It's funny when older people would tell that I would miss high school days, I would laugh and say "hellz no, I'm fin forget this shit right quick." Now I think of the glory days of high school - not high school, I hated that shit, and I'm glad that's done, I miss the carelessness of the world at the time and all I had to worry about was hooking up with a girl and knowing there was a party to go to every weekend (maybe not like the ones the rican has been but good parties nonetheless)

Cuz in the end "when the fry dies down what the fuck you gonna doDamn it feels good to be a gangsta."