By Popular Demand: True Coliwood Stories - College Athletics

[Pack2]

@Walt thank you for sharing these stories with us.

I hope you don't mind but I have shared some of these with my woman, a few of my boys and cousin to read bc they hit so close to home and have so much wisdom, comedy, sadness, disappointment and every other human emotion that ANYONE can appreciate and relate to these stories.

I don't even have the words to describe clicking that spoiler tag on the last one and seeing that smurf...

 

[NormanConnors]

Preacher Man (continued)
"nikka was losing his mind over Primo. He was memorizing mixtape lyrics, all that shyt. For some reason the album he couldn’t get enough of was Diamond D’s first joint – he would drive around blasting “Best Kept Secret,” “I Went for Mine,” and “fukk What You Heard” so much I started to get sick of them shyts.

I was going the opposite direction musically. ATLiens blew my mind – to this day it ranks up there for me with any album, any genre, ever. “Growing Old” had me like Like every New York nikka back then, I made snide remarks about the two corny looking nikkas in the source ads, standing in front of the car. We used to call them cats “Fat & Skinny.” But when I got down South and actually listened to 8-Ball & MJG… yo, they were nice as fukk. I started fukking with Scarface and Pac real heavy – they were the first rappers I heard where I felt their spirit on the tracks. I was used to hearing swagger come through in lyrics, but not spirit."

entire quote, but especially the bolded.

Preacher Man (continued)
" It was like seeing J.R. Smith counseling a group of cats on the merits of shot clock management; ‘Melo breaking down the art of the extra pass; Dwight Howard leading a seminar on mean-mugging; Rhyme King advocating for monosyllabic lyrical patterns; @Soundwave’s mother pretending she knew who @Soundwave’s father was. shyt WAS PREPOSTEROUS. "

this was like Nas paid in full/Stillmatic freestyle

Preacher Man (continued)
"Cory spelled out the horrific details on my machine, and as I listened I felt a hole open inside me that hasn’t ever closed. Rome had been at his homie’s house, sick as hell with a fever, passed out in the bedroom upstairs. Unbeknownst to Rome, his homie was perilously overdue on money he owed the biggest dealer in the city… that night he and his squad came to collect. They showed up at the house, tied up the 3 dudes in the living room, shot each one execution style. Rome heard the shyt, woke up out of his fever haze, fumbled around in the upstairs bedroom for the landline, and they heard him. According to Cory, you could hear Rome catch one to the head on the 911 tape; they bucked him as soon as the operator picked up. Sometimes I still try to imagine those harrowing final moments of my nikka’s life… alone in a dark bedroom, a long way from home, the sound of gunshot after gunshot downstairs and then footsteps like a drumline climbing the steps when they realize there’s someone else in the house… In the words of Andre on “Growing Old.” My stomach can't digest it even when I bless it..."



"I found my uncle in a rundown, abandoned brownstone that had been turned into a crackhouse. I bet that place costs at least 4 grand a month to live in these days. fukking New York City. He was in a small room that was cold as fukk; the one light source in the entire building was a lamp in the room, and it was so bright I had to squint to see anything. I had to step over a styrofoam Chinese takeout box, some chicken bones, shards of glass from a Ballantine Ale bottle that it turned out had been cracked over my uncle’s head. Lonnie was in the corner by a broken radiator looking like a sheet of looseleaf paper someone crumpled into a ball and tossed there. I saw blood running down his head and soaking through the side of his t-shirt. I knelt over him and shook him to make sure he was still alive. Dude rolled over, looked in my face, recognized me, and asked in a raspy ass voice Who had the best curveball of all time? Say what? I’m turning around to make sure whoever left my uncle like this isn’t coming back, worried he’s going to bleed out, and this nikka is asking me about baseball? I tried to get him to his feet, but he waved me off. You heard me nikka; answer the question. I'm looking at him like he's out his damned mind. Finally, I said: Dwight. Dwight, huh? Yeah motherfukker, Doc Gooden. He pushed himself against the wall so he had some support, and I could see he’d been stabbed real bad in his side. He was talking between shallow breaths, and his words came slow and spaced out. Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown was the best curveball pitcher of all time. I helped him to his feet finally, and when he leaned against me I felt all his weight. The nikka lost one of his fingers working on the farm. Then, when he was coming back from that shyt, the nikka broke another finger and it ended up being permanently bent. I started leading him to the door, then out into the hall. fukked up, right? We had to keep stopping because walking was causing him mad pain. He would gasp for air and clutch his side. It wasn’t fukked up though. Because of that he had a crazy grip on the ball and his curve had a special spin on it. Made it unhittable. I saw a gypsy cab down the block and waved one of my arms to flag it down. Sometimes it's our flaws that make us shine. He grabbed me under my chin and made me look in his eyes. You know it’s people who can’t walk but can dance, and it’s people who stutter but can sing clear? The cab pulled up in front of us and Lonnie kept rambling. Tells you something about the human brain. Or maybe the heart."




" She pointed at the coffee table, which had a vase of plastic roses on it. You see them? You see them? They always stay beautiful. I thought maybe I should let her know that’s how you could tell when something wasn’t real."

Man these particular pieces read like something Donald Goines (my fav author) would write.



The way you tied in Growing Old by Kast and the double meaning with the curve ball was flawless execution. These stories should be bundled into a chronicles type package and sold as one book, I need that paperback in my life, excellent work so far



Sorry to hear about your homie Rome and how he went out. RIP

 

[NormanConnors]

breh, a lot of black people will internalize @Walt's stories. That is the point.

The mental illness stuff is truth, and that also reminds me of my 1st semester in college.

Thanks again @Walt

 

[playboyric]

At the time I couldn’t see the Harlem I knew was disappearing even more rapidly than I could've imagined: that in another 7 years 125th wouldn’t even have a hint of its old life to it; that vendors and bootleggers would get harassed out of existence; that the iconic eateries and record shops of my youth would be forced to close; that the people who used to show up on tour buses to eat at Sylvia's and gawk at how the other half lived would soon show up in moving vans and turn Harlem out with gentrification. That across from the Jackie Robinson projects, in front of the big ass wall that had EACH ONE TEACH ONE graffittied across it for years, where we would play taps until like 2 or 3 in the morning because there were no lights on the basketball court,.

 

[The_Hillsta]

You killin' this thread, your posts are definitely making me remember mad other shyt, hitting close to home. I still have my shoeboxes full of tapes in storage.

Bruh, you was speakin on chik-fil-a in one of your stories......GOTDAMN, the dorm I stayed in my second semester, the elevator would go down straight into the muthafukkin restaurant of the lobby. nikkaz blew ALL they meal card bread for the semester fukkin with chik-fil-a sandwiches and waffle fries. Couldn't BELIEVE that they didn't have one in Cali, would go back home on break and tell all them fools what they was missin. Bruh, we would meet hoes in that bytch take em back to the room on the elevator, send em back down to to the lobby wipin they mouths with chik fil a napkins

The music though,I STILL tell everybody to this day that them 1st couple Goodie Mob and Kast albums are some of the most therapeutic and heartfelt hip hop made for a black man's soul. The timing of them albums dropping at a time in our lives where we really needed it was a blessing straight from a higher power, I really believe that.

Lo's and Dre's verses on Thought Process used to put muthafukkaz to sleep at night like a baby with a clear mind for the morning


Still think Khujo and Big Boi's verse on mainstream was straight GOSPEL

 

[Taadow]

She pointed at the coffee table, which had a vase of plastic roses on it.
You see them? You see them? They always stay beautiful.
I thought maybe I should let her know that’s how you could tell when something wasn’t real.

DOWG...that's game...

 

[heisenburrr]

thank you

 

[Carolina Slim]

@Walt: I need to know, my nikka... What was that broad's reaction after Yatta's ether bomb?

 

[Walt]

@Walt: I need to know, my nikka... What was that broad's reaction after Yatta's ether bomb?

Hard to describe it... it was as if her face swallowed itself. 'Yatta was looking her dead in the eye. she looked toward Mitch for some backup, and he turned his head. That's when me and Rome boated the fukk out of there. We heard later that she stormed out and didn't talk to Mitch for a few days. After that she went right back to fukking him though.

 

[threattonature]

that rome shyt hit me, and brught back a memeory BUT....

the mitch shyt reminds me of my 2nd semester of my first year... My 1st roomate was col as fukk, he was the cousin of an NFL quarterback. dude was hilarious, but he moved out cuz he was older. my 2nd roomate tho... he was cool as fukk BUT... this nikka smoked MAD black and milds... i dont think u understand, he smoked them shyts so much he looked like and even after taking a shower smelled like he was middleton black and mild incarnate. the nikkas bed and sheets smelled like a black and mild, so fukkin disgusting.

that rome shyt tho reminds of my nikka B. II spent a lil bit of time wit my pops growing up... my family is jamaican and there are 2 things most jamaican men are about, dominos and white rum. my pops has mad trophies from trotting across the country beasting on other jamaican cats. anyway, i'd kick it wit him at the jamaican spot, which is where me and b linked up and would learn dominos, play golden axe, and ping pong. growing up we got into a lot of shyt, but a time came where i made a decision not to do extravagant ignorant ass shyt because there is no p*ssy in jail, and i cannot be the death of my moms. i told B like, 'yo, this street shyt is bullshyt, me and my other nikkas got hoes on deck, come kick it wit us and you'll be good" he never took me up on the offer, but i'd still see him cuz i'd still be in the streets a lil bit. i end up leaving and going away to college, mad years go by, i'd go home, but even when i went home i wasnt really there. I had seen my nikka B and chopped it up wit him, he was aite, but the niga was rough, i surmise he may have had a body or 2 on him, but he was still B, if i need some wrk put in, he was the niga i'd holler at, cuz i'm not catching any bodies. more years pass. a couple years ago i go back to the bar cuz his grandmoms works there and went to go say whatup to old jamaican cats. i roll up like "where's b, whats good wit him' she looks at me like '' you dont know, he's dead, he got shot. the last thing he said was 'i shoulda listened to majestyx, i this shyt wouldnt have happened" I was done for like a week, couldnt say shyt.

@Walt writing real blackman experience stories from the heart.

It's always a matter of if ya people don't want you pulling them up then you can't let them pull you down trying to keep that bond. I had saw it myself my first year of college. In high school me and this dude Jeff was both always real smart. Going back to sixth grades both of us took this math placement exam that let us both skip two grades of courses. I moved to a school across town right after and couldn't do it. Come high school we ran in the same circles with the same people but never kicked it with each other. We both got full ride scholarship offers to University of South Florida because of crazy high SAT scores. Neither could accept it because we were both the type to put in just enough work to pass even though the shyt came easy to us. So neither of us had high enough GPAs to accept.

I ended up going to a university in state. I knew nobody on campus. Sometime during the first week we crossed paths and found out we lived in the same dorm and from that point hung day and night. Found out how in high school he was huge on weed. Would smoke for days straight at a time and wouldn't leave his room. We were in a couple of the same classes. I stayed on his ass to go to class. We'd be up all night playing NFL Gameday and I'd still drag his ass to class. His grades were solid, he stopped smoking, and had got his head straight. At some point some of his people back home decided to visit. He had a solo dorm room. They came up for a week. Brought all kinds of smoke for him. Dude seriously didn't leave his room for like two weeks. Wasn't answering his phone or nothing. Finally got a hold of him and after that it was a wrap. He stopped going to class. Was smoking all the time and ended up with like a .06 GPA for the semester. By the end of the year ended up dropping out. Bumped into him a few years later and he was back living in our hometown working as a bag boy at one of the grocery stores. Dude was seriously one of the smartest people I have ever met and done in by not being able to put distance between him and his friends.

 

[TrueEpic08]

Hard to describe it... it was as if her face swallowed itself. 'Yatta was looking her dead in the eye. she looked toward Mitch for some backup, and he turned his head. That's when me and Rome boated the fukk out of there. We heard later that she stormed out and didn't talk to Mitch for a few days. After that she went right back to fukking him though.

I saw something like this a few years back. One of my best friends (White) did this to someone he was having sex with (Black...and married), while at a party, while running game on a girl (White) he would have sex with that night. I mean, just killed her on her drinking habit and called her an idiot (not blatantly, just in the way that "polite" guys tend to do) in front of the whole party. Being his best friend, I had to be the nice guy and console her, passing up the opportunity to go home with two very good looking medical students in the process. She vowed to never see him again. Of course, next time I saw her, she was still having sex with him and he was still trying to have sex with other women in front of her. We're still friends, but even I had to call foul on that one. We talk about incessantly, but with all of your stories, it's almost banal to note the poisonous nature of inflated egos, status, and sexism in college.

(Irrelevant Sidenote: I got to the party long before everyone else to hang out with by friend and put my jacket in his room. Several hours later, knowing exactly what was going to happen, I went up to get my jacket, and juuuuust as I was leaving my friend and the white girl were coming up to the room to have sex. Of course she gets a good look at my face, and I note the absurdity of having sex to Radiohead. Thing about this was, she was in one of my English classes, and, in fact, a friend of a friend. This all occurred on a Saturday, and on Monday I stopped seeing her in my class. Her friend said it was partially because I saw her at that party with my friend that night.

They were listening to "Karma Police" while having sex. Who gets caught by them and who slides right past them in college anyway?)

The rest of the story was affecting as well, and there's always something depressing about seeing the image of someone constructed as great or untouchable (even your own) melt into air and dissolve before their eyes. For many people, especially those who construct it in lieu of anything material to support them save for models from media, it's all they've got, and they crumble or change completely without it. Some die because of it (basically a truism, I know, but still). And yet, more media than ever is created specifically to facilitate this type of illusion creation, people still buy into it, and then the people who facilitate the illusions vilify the ones who have little choice but to buy into it or exist within it in some respect because they did exactly what they were supposed to do with the materials. Not sure this is even relevant, but the piece made me think about it a bit.

The part about gentrification also made me think about everything I've read about Detroit lately, and the fact that, soon, there won't even be a space there for the deaths and brutalities of the type you wrote about to happen. The poor and unwanted groups of people will simply be discarded and left to rot in the shadows of a newly brightened and Whitened city. Detroit will probably look like New York in 10-15 years, where young professionals in "$4,000-a-month ex-crackhouses" live in the reconstituted spaces that the Lonnies of the world (I apologize if using his name in this way is disrespectful) used to survive and suffer in without compunction. Many of my friends live in realized versions of your imaginary restored crackhouse.

I won't go into my experiences with mental health, but you're right about the way that Blacks tend to treat it. I speculate that the resistance to dealing with mental health as mental health stems from a form of cutlural PTSD, related to the way that Blacks were treated in America throughout the years, but people performing the rituals of that PTSD now don't realize how they're handicapping Black youths in the future. I got lucky in dealing with my issues.

Good stuff.

 

[dennis roadman]

these joints are like the hood "Stand By Me"

imma need all yall to sign non-disclosure agreements to make sure royalties go to the right place when this shyt blows

 

[Jesus Is Lord]

Walt....tonight I came in here to read your stories because I was mad as hell after having a deep and loud arguement with wifey on some "let's get to the root of things" shyt (you know how women are with that type of shyt). Anywho after the fight I had my iPad in my hand and literally said, "maaaan, f this, let me read one of Walt's joints to ease my mind." Breh after reading "Preacher Man" my mind left that bs arguement and I became a slave to your story, ALL that shyt with Uncle Lonnie and your love for the '78 Yankees hit home,shyt even down to believing that Doc had the best curve ever.......I LIVED THAT. Yo, thank you fam for sharing part of your soul up here breh, not only "Preacher Man" stopped me from Ike Turnering wifey, it made me remember that life is wonderful but can be short, love those in it before they're no longer here. Walt got brehs in here dropping feelings, that speaks volumes.


Read stories by Walt before beating niqqas up brehs

 

[Listen]

These are they types or stories that drew me towards black music at a young age. White angst, while just as real, rarely seems as poetically painful.

 

[lutha]

@The_Hillsta

man, you mentioning chick-fi-la, I miss that shyt so much...it had been 5 years since i last had some....found out there is one about an hour and a half away, so I made that drive....gonna make that drive again.......but no such luck with bojangles, and don't get me started on my love for bojangles......damn I miss the south so much...

....as for the responding to preacher man story, i'm drinking getting my mind right to do that....that story touched on so much, gotta be in the right state of mind so I can respond properly