Hitting the Roof of the Car When Running Reds and Stripping

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/23/18
Primary Language: English

Context:

The subject is a white, gender non-binary individual who is a native Angeleno. They have been driving since they were 15. I brought up people hitting the roof of their car when running red lights as an example of the folklore I was trying to collect when they offered me this. I’d never heard of this stripping game style and it totally divorces the custom from the superstition it is usually associated with.

 

Piece:

“It’s a stupid high school game where if you through a, through a light when it’s turning red, like when its yellow. Pretty much, everyone has to hit the roof and whoever doesn’t hit the roof has to take off a piece of clothing. I’ve never done it, but I’ve heard of it.”

 

New York Sewer Alligator

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Montreal, Canada
Performance Date: 04/18/18
Primary Language: English

Context:

The subject is a white male and a lifelong New Yorker from Manhattan and Queens. He is my twin brother. Before this we were talking about growing up in New York and the stories we were told as children. I’ve heard a lot about the white alligator but very little about where it came from which shows that New Yorkers are ok with the mystery of the sewer gator.

 

Piece:

“Oh yeah, there’s an alligator in the sewers of New York. Like 100%. I think it’s like blind and white now because there’s no sun down there. I think it was with a circus, no someone brought up a baby alligator from Florida because people are stupid and then when it got too big they put it in the sewer and now it rules the sewer with all its gator babies. I don’t know if its true, but I like to believe, there’s so much wildlife in New York, you know?”

 

Win Some, Lose Most

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Montreal, Cananda
Performance Date: 04/18/18
Primary Language: English

Context:

The subject is a white male and a lifelong New Yorker from Manhattan and Queens. He is my twin brother and we attended the boarding school Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. Before this we were discussing boarding school and teen culture and how low levels of depression was a large part of that. We made a lot of jokes about it which led to this proverb. This proverb interests me because it is a youth proverb and those are very rare as we associate proverbs with age and wiseness. And it is a proverb that was created by youth and only used by youth in a sort of rebellion against that proverbial wisdom.

 

Piece:

“What we’d used to say, you know after something pretty shitty happened. Like you got a bad grade on a test or like you, it became really stupid after a while like you’d stub your toe and say “win some, lose most” and everyone would just agree with you. You know, it’s like “win some, lose some” but like true. It was sorta a joke”

 

Nutcrackers, Alcoholic Drinks, on Coney Island

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Montreal, Canada
Performance Date: 04/18/18
Primary Language: English

Context:

The subject is a white male and a lifelong New Yorker from Manhattan and Queens. He is my twin brother and we attended the boarding school Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. Before this we were discussing what New York had begun to mean to us when we moved out to school, how we always heard stories and how it became a party location that we returned to when school was let out. I love this idea of New York teen folk culture because we could not have a overculture because what we were doing was illegal. The knowledge of nutcrackers was folklore because it was passed on through person to person because it was illegal and the practice of making nutcrackers is also folklore because there is no formula recipe.

 

Piece:

“Nutcrackers are, oh this is totally folklore yeah. On Coney Island there are guys that walk around with big garbage bags full of small bottles of what is obestinbily juice and alcohol, I think it’s Capri Sun and rubbing alcohol, if I was to guess. But yeah it’s like 5 bucks and you give ‘em 5 dollars and you get fuckign wasted on Coney Island so yeah. Teens generally do this, cause you, we aren’t 21. Thats-that’s definitly how I go wasted first few times I did. That’s how it went down, pretty easy way.”

 

Why Dahlia’s, a Bar in New York, got Shut Down for Underage Drinking

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Montreal, Canada
Performance Date: 04/18/18
Primary Language: English

 

Context:

The subject is a white male and a lifelong New Yorker from Manhattan and Queens. He is my twin brother and we attended the boarding school Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. Before this we were discussing what New York had begun to mean to us when we moved out to school, how we always heard stories and how it became a party location that we returned to when school was let out. I love this idea of New York teen folk culture because we could not have a overculture because what we were doing was illegal. The knowledge itself was folklore because it was passed on through person to person and it changed based on who knew what and sometime they were wrong. And then there were stories about the places we went because there was so little formal knowledge about them.

 

Piece:

“Theres like certain places, that people like, like everyone knows the places that don’t card. You know what I mean? Its sorta the same thi-way a bunch of people know this thing. You learn from other people, from.. I think – I had friends who were older than me and its sorta passed down like that. So there’s this place called 212 Hisae, or just 212, on 2nd Avenue and 9th Street I wanna say but I could be inaccurate, you can google map it, uh. They don’t card, I’ve been there!…sometimes. There was this place called Dahlia’s, but I think they got shut down because they ended up serving middle schoolers ‘cause that’s how much they didn’t card. I assume what happened was that college kids were doing it, high schoolers found out and started doing it, and then middle schoolers found out and started drinking at Dahlia’s. I heard this, maybe senior yet of high school. I don’t remember who told me, I’m sorry, I think it’s just like a thing people were like saying, you know what I mean?