Author Archives: Adrian Hernandez

Joke

Joke – Mutumbo

So uhh legend has it that uhh when uhh Dekembe Mutombo was at Georgetown, he went… he decided to go party… so he hit up uhh a frat party and rumor has it that he barged in, opened the doors and said “WHO WANTS TO SEX MUTOMBO?” and then like people were just like “what the fuck” and everyone gave em the finger like “nooo” so he got rejected like so like everytime he blocks a shot he gives em the finger like “no”.

Daniel says he was told this legend to explain why Mutombo does his finger wag after each time he blocks a shot. He said that “Mutombo is a thug for having the balls to yell that in a open place like that when he doesn’t really talk English.” This in turn says that Mutombo is outgoing and not shy. He heard it a few months back from one of his coworkers.

After researching this legend on the internet, I found a few versions that differ from Daniel’s retelling. First of all, I found that none of the other stories mentioned that this story was meant to explain the finger wag. Secondly I found that all the other stories had Mutombo going to a bar with some friends and not a frat party seemingly alone. Here is where some of the other versions differ: one story said that when he walked in, there was awkward silence and everyone was looking at him and in response he said his line, while the other story has him walking in yelling his line and then everyone giving him awkward silence. In either case he was rejected like in Daniel’s version.

Rite of Passage

Back in middle school, umm there was this one chick named Teresa that for some reason everybody liked her so uhh like people would ask her out and she would reject them and all of a sudden there were five niggas that got rejected and shit… and then uhh so then like wow five niggas thas a fuckin’… rejected by Teresa there you go rejected by Teresa! The RBT! Then uhh so it became like a little club and everyone that was rejected by her hung out so uhh the rest of us wanted to be in the club so we asked her out, of course we got rejected so umm on to high school we still hung out even though we asked out the same chick, no beef. Like most society people evolve so it went from Rejected By Teresa to Really Big Tities and other stuff that could be initialed RBT. Like before we used to not hang out with David and KT but they knew Adrian and Victor threw baseball so we had a feel for them so… they were cool so they were let into out group… but then there was this other faggot named Joseph who tried to hang out with us… but that nigga just doesn’t know! You can’t just barge into peoples groups and shit! That’s what he tried to do and you just can’t do that do he would tag along… but we didn’t want him there so whenever we would have a kickback at Adrian’s we would call everyone except him.

It is clear that Daniel feels that one should not try to join a group of people without being invited and accepted by the members of the group.

This piece is an example of a rite of passage that people had to do in order to join the group. It started off by being rejected by a certain girl and then evolved to more of a social group. The letters RBT came from the fact that there are several gangs or ‘krews’ in the school that consisted of a bunch of little gangsters and they had letters associated with them. Although not everyone was a gang member, the influence was there and it influenced us into calling our group RBT, although we really weren’t gang affiliated. As a matter of fact, in high school when one of the guys in the group wrote the letters RBT on a desk jokingly, an actual gang crossed out the letters and wrote theirs over them, a sign of disrespect. When we found out about that, we quickly refrained from referring to ourselves as ‘RBT’ because we were not gang affiliated and did not want people to get the wrong impression. Subsequently we simply referred to ourselves as ‘The Fellas’ or ‘The Guys’, nothing special.

Also, this shows how if one tries to join up with a group without going through the proper rites of passage, there will not be acceptance. As seen with KT and David, they were already known by the people in the group and were liked, thus allowing them to have an easy transition into the group. On the other hand, Joseph was not really known by many of the people thus making it difficult to be accepted. Also the fact that he was disliked by a member did not help his chances much either. This shows the camaraderie that was within the group because they stuck together in their decision not to allow Joseph to be a part of the group.

Rhyme

Rhyme – Cinderella

Cinderella, dress in yellow, went upstairs to kiss the fellow. She made a mistake and kissed a snake, how many doctors will it take…

Jesslynn heard this rhyme in the second grade when she was about 6. She said that the rhyme is used when her and other girls would jump rope. Also, she mentioned that the connotation behind is that girls in the age group get nervous about kissing boys so they might kiss something else because you are supposed to have your eyes closed when you are kissing. Since her eyes are closed, she cannot see exactly where she’s kissing and she might kiss something unexpected such as the wall and bust her lip, thus needing slight medical attention.

I agree, her point about the girls being nervous is right on. However, it also might be that since girls are in the ‘boys have koodies’ stage, they themselves don’t want to kiss boys. Therefore they chant about a figure that is supposed to be older and since they might have the frame of mind that kissing is yucky, they chant about the woman not kissing the guy. Also the fact that Cinderella is the female figure is quite interesting. Cinderella is one of the favorites out of all the Disney princesses, no its not surprising that the chant was made about her.

There is also a variation to this chant. In some another version, instead of going upstairs, she goes downstairs to kiss the fellow. Its not much of a difference, however it might be just a geographical thing for why there is a difference.

Legend – Mexican

Legend – La Llorona

Some lady like drowned her kids or some shit and now she cries around the streets, calling their names and shit.

Jimmie says that his mother told him the story when he was about 6. He thinks it’s just a made up story that his parents and other grownups tell to their children in order to keep them inside the house.

There’s definitely a variation between this version of the Llorona and other versions. Jimmie states that she goes around the streets crying. In other stories she roams around near a river or some body of water. It is clear that his parents did want to scare him and keep him inside. Many Mexican parents like to scare their children so that they behave and do what the parents say. It reminds me of the fictional monster ‘El Cucuy’ that parents tell their children when they go to bed. If they get out of bed, the Cucuy will get them. The same concept applies to this Llorona: if children go outside at night the Llorona will get them.

Also, Jimmie’s adds vulgarity to the legend. The constant use of the word ‘shit’ depicts how people talk in Inglewood. Shit and many other curse words are used so commonly in everyday language that they’ve really lost their meaning, which allows them to be constantly repeated without offending almost anybody. In the first instance that it is used, shit replaces the words thing. In the second instance it replaces the word stuff. The word shit has become almost like a chameleon, in the sense that it can replace many words and people will still understand what the person is trying to say.

See:

Sylvia Ross (2006, January). The Zen of La Llorona.  News from Native California, 20(2), 9-10.  Retrieved May 1, 2008, from Ethnic NewsWatch (ENW) database. (Document ID: 1213348701).

Contemporary Legend – Texas

This happened in Texas:

Some dudes were drinking at a bar so they came out they were fucked up. And then like when they walked out the bar there was some chick walking across the street and she look like a broad like she look good. She was fine from behind hahaha. And she was with a white dress but her back… you could only see her back when she was crossing the street. I don’t know if she had cakes or not but she look good. So anyway she kept on walking and one of the guys tries to spit game and he’s like “Hey, what’s your name?” but she doesn’t turn around or say nothin’ and she keeps on walking. So he’s like “Naw, Imma get her number.” So he keeps on trying to talk to her like “ey where u goin’? You want me to follow you or walk you home?” But she doesn’t turn around so they keep on following her and like you know they’re drunk as fuck so they don’t really notice. So they keep on following her and following her and they keep on following her like down the road and its like an empty ass road. And then when he finally says “ey turn around lemmie see you.” So she turns around and then supposedly she has like the horse… the face of a horse. And like then they get all freaked out and shit. Like she’s all fine but just her face is a horse. And they’re like “oh shit” and then they run.

Jimmie says that the moral to this story was to not chase after a female in a dark lonely road. If she did not want to talk to you at the bar, don’t waste your time chasing after her, just move on to the next one.

I think Jimmie is right in a sense, but there is a whole lot more to the story. The lady that he describes matches the description of El Salvador’s Siguanaba: white dress, beautiful body, and head of a horse. Another aspect that matches these two figures is the fact that the woman in this story attracts men. The Siguanaba is said to mainly appear to men who typically are cheaters. In this instance, the men that walk after the woman are basically stalking her because she does not respond to them and they keep following her anyway. The Siguanaba attracts scumbags like those gentlemen and if she were to touch them, they go crazy. This leads me to believe that this story was made up by an El Salvadorian. Jimmie himself is Mexican so he probably heard it from someone who was El Salvadorian and had lived in Texas.

I am positive that the version has a great variation from the original version that he was probably told. Many of the phrases he uses, such as spitting game, broad, cakes, getting her number, etc., are terms that he frequently uses when talking about parties that he goes to. He spits game (flirts with) at some broads (good looking girls) with cakes (booty) and tries to get their phone numbers.

Also the vulgar language that is used to tell the story depicts the everyday language of the area he lives in. Most of the younger crowd in Inglewood actively curses when speaking. So naturally when they tell stories they add vulgarity since it’s a part of their nature.