Author Archives: Stephen Carr

Southpaw

Anthony is a student at USC and one of my closest friends. He grew up in New York and moved to Los Angeles this year to study at USC. He comes from an Italian background.

 

 

Performance: “Southpaw is like a thing because when you introduce yourself to a girl you want to have your right hand open. You don’t want to have your right hand clammy or cold. Is that the reason?”

Sure, whatever reason you think is right. that’s why it’s folklore. keep talking. How does it happen and what does it mean.

“Well if you’re drinking a beer, and the beer is in your right hand, your hand is cold and wet from the can or bottle, and thats bad when you meet people. First you have to switch what hand the beer is in , and then your hand is cold. Southpaw is when you see somebody with their drink in your right hand, you say “Southpaw,” and they have to chug their entire drink. It’s to encourage you to always hold your drink in your right hand.”

 

Response: I’ve heard of southpaw before – it is very popular at USC and in party communities. A variation of this folklore that I’ve heard before is “Buffalo” where “buffalo” is exclaimed at a person holding a beer in their right hand and the same rules apply. I am unclear where the word buffalo would come from. Southpaw makes some sense, as that is the colloquial term for left handed pitchers in baseball. Anthony learned the phrase not in his home of New York but at USC.

White Lighter

Performance: “White Lighter. Ok umm… supposedly Tupac, when he died, he had a white lighter in his pocket. So nowadays, whenever people are smoking…smoking a cigarette, smoking weed, whatever you want to be smoking, crack-fuckit- haha, umm.. if you have a white lighter and you’re using that to smoke whatever you’re smoking it’s supposedly like really bad luck. Especially if you’re young and smoking, if you smoke with a white lighter everybody starts freaking out, and it’s supposedly VERY bad luck to be smoking with a white lighter. Ever since Tupac died with a white lighter in his pocket it’s become a big no-no to do that. It’s just bad luck. Nobody buys white lighters.”

Response: I had heard of this superstition but had never heard it’s origin. My other friend Anthony was in the room while Tanner told the story, and he confirmed that he had heard of the superstition but had never heard the Tupac portion. This is interesting as Tupac was a sort of icon for smoking weed and his death has lingering effects on the traditions and superstitions of those who partake in the activity.

Bananas on a Boat – Bad Luck

Tanner is a student at USC and one of my closest friends. He grew up in Brea California, on the boarder of Orange Country. He was a part of both soccer, skate, and fishing communities as a kid, as well as the public school community and his local community. 

 

Performance: So my dad has a boat and we go out to Catalina island all the time…we go fishing. So whenever we go we bring a lot of snacks: uncrustables, cheese sticks, beers (obviously) haha. Last time we went out with our buddy Max. And max brings out bananas onto the boat. so he brings bananas and we didn’t even realize it. so we go into the cooler and see the bananas – well wait first off we hadn’t caught ANY fish at that point. and we were like what is going on what is happening here. And the next day, the morning after he goes to the cooler and whips out a banana and starts eating it. and I didn’t realize it at the time but my dad starts talking about how having bananas on a boat is bad luck and if you have bananas on a boat while you’re fishing you will not catch fish. So…bananas on a boat while you’re fishing is bad luck.”

Oh. Do you believe it?

“I’ve never been fishing with bananas…and we usually do well… and the one time that Max brought bananas on the boat we didn’t catch any fish. so yes. I believe it.

 

Response: I’ve heard this superstition before, and can confirm that it has multiplicity and variation. Tanner later explained to me that the reason for the banana superstition originated from days where people would buy bananas full of spiders and transmit disease and infestation via their large fishing boats. I had never heard this explanation before, and am sure it is one of many used for this superstition.

Shoes On the Table – Never Marry

Anthony is a student at USC and one of my closest friends. He grew up in New York and moved to Los Angeles this year to study at USC. He comes from an Italian background.

 

 

Performance: “So I walked home – I had just bought a fresh pair of Jordan’s at the mall with my friends. They were very fresh, like $130. I was in 9th grade at the time so that was a big deal for me… a big investment. So I got them at the mall with my friends and then I took them home to show my Mom. I said Mom, I just got these new Jordan’s, they’re really sick, and she was like “ok let me see them” and then I put them on the table and was like ok check these out and she goes “DON’T PUT, THE SHOES ON THE GODDAM TABLE!” and I was like what why what the hell what the hell is going on mom. And she goes “You can’t put shoes on the table, or you’ll never get married.” And I was like what the fuck are you saying and she was like “you’re never going to get married if you put shoes on the table that’s what my grandmother always told me, so I stand by it.” And there ya go.”

 

Nice, so do you still not do it?

 

“No I do it… cuz I don’t want to get married.”

 

 

Response: This was a very interesting story because we discussed the taboo of shoes on the table in my Forms of Folklore class, but this variation of it never came up. It was agreed that if you did put shoes on the table it was either bad luck or that you would die sooner, but marriage was never mentioned. I find this variation to be interesting and confirms that boots on the table has true multiplicity and variation.

Skating “Five-0”

Tanner is a student at USC and one of my closest friends. He grew up in Brea California, on the boarder of Orange Country. He was a part of both soccer, skate, and fishing communities as a kid, as well as the public school community and his local community.

 

Performance: “So we’re at the skate park, and everybody has to wear helmets at the skate park – it’s the law. obviously we’re all skating and nobody is wearing helmets because… come on. haha. So we will all be skating and somebody is sitting at the top and all of a sudden you will hear somebody yell “Five-0!” And then you hear it and everybody panics and then runs to the bleachers and acts like they aren’t skating. I mean you say Five-0 because of the whole Hawaii Five-0 thing, and obviously the cops are showing up, and if you’re skating around and you don’t have a helmet on you get like a $200 ticket…which is like…not chill.”

Do you think that’s just a thing in Brea (where he is from) or do you think that’s a larger skate community thing? i asked.

“I mean i’ve been to other skate parks in like Chino and Santa Anna and people will yell Five-0 and the exact same thing happens. so yeah, I guess you could say it’s a bigger thing. One time though I was skating in Palmdale and yelled it and everybody thought I meant somebody was getting arrested and got really sketched out. I guess it means different things sometimes.”

 

Analysis: I believe that this skate folklore has both multiplicity and variation. As I never skated when I was younger, I had never heard of this warning call. It’s like a sort of code to say that cops are nearby without notifying the cops that the kids know. It is interesting that Tanner referenced a potential cause for the saying, the TV series Hawaii Five-0. The saying seems to sometimes mean different things in different skating communities but always has something to do with the police.