What I've Learned Being A Trash Man

              

             What up, family?! Today I really wanted to share some jewels with you, these jewels are coming straight from the back of a garbage truck. Yes, you read that right, gems from the hopper. Another man’s trash is another man’s treasure, I now know the true meaning of that phrase. So y’all could say that right now that I’m going to bless y’all with the treasure map, the spades, and I’m going to do the digging. All you gotta do is enjoy these gems.

             All trash men or garbage men have this phrase, “the trash talks to you.” It’s true the trash does so to speak “talks”, you can tell a lot about a person by their trash and trash can. My routes were mainly in west Omaha/Elkhorn/Millard, so you would think that I had it easy, right? Wrong. People out west are nasty, a ton of maggots, numerous pill bottles, and they don’t believe in trash bags. Just naked trash in the can and so you could get f*cked up throwing those cans because people out west drink a lot of wine. And by a lot I mean about 10 to 14 bottles in the can. Oh and people out in those areas have roaches and I am not speaking on the water bugs that be by drains in folks basements, nah fam, I am speaking on straight up project “I wish a nigga would try and stop on me roaches.”

            So what am I trying to tell you? Don’t be ashamed of where you are at now, most of my down North folks dream of living out west and envy those out there. Don’t. Those folks are living in hell, so many of these people pop pills for everything under the sun, they drink their weight in merlot, and they got roaches also. Some of the areas in Millard, like right by the water tower, the people look like the walking dead. You know they are on that GetGo aka Meth. Their homes resemble crack houses or trap houses. So don’t be so quick to envy, down North issues get aired out daily by the media, they just hide it better out west.

            I had many drivers in my time doing waste pick up for the city of Omaha, Millard, and Elkhorn. One driver tried to play me, most lazy drivers will try to play you. But this driver took the cake, he tells me off rip that he gets out and helps. So helping means that if there are 4 cans or more the driver will hop out and throw with you or if you are double siding a street, the driver hops out if there are a total of 5 more cans combined on both sides of the street. So we get to the first stop and he says to me, “hey I don’t know if they told you, but I’m on light duty. So I can’t help.” I respond with, “Oh, ok cool.” I walk to every single garbage can, I take my sweet ass time getting on the riding step and getting in to the cab. And the driver is complaining the whole time, “We need to be moving faster.” “Man, you need to move faster, we won’t ever get this route done.” And I replied, “Yes, WE need to be moving faster.” “YOU’RE RIGHT! I do need to move faster, but I won’t.” So naturally he just shuts the hell up. And do you know by the 9^th hour of that route, we had 4 trucks in there helping us? I kid you not.

            So what can you learn from this? Don’t let someone ride your back and take the credit for the work that you did. I know a few of y’all have to deal with this when you’re working on a group project. I am not telling you to sacrifice your grade so that the lazy asshole can learn a lesson. Just holla at your professor and let him/her know what’s going on. Don’t ever be with the shits. And it feels good sometimes to give folks a piece of their own medicine. 

            I spoke on having numerous drivers in the above story, you can learn a lot from the folks if you have an open mind. I have worked with guys/gals almost 10yrs my junior and guys that are almost twice my age. And I have learned a lot by just shutting up and listening to them tell their tales. I’ve learned about different cities, how to open up a small business, how to be a better lover, friend, and companion to my lady, how to be a more understanding son, I’ve learned the importance of “being broke for bullshit”. I have to credit the big homey JB with that, besides driving for WM, he owns a barbershop/beautyshop with his wife. He always put me on game about how to deal with money, so that’s why “being broke for bullshit” is the wave that I’m on. Build first, turn up later.

            Also I have to warn my fellas out there, take care of your woman. There are a lot of lonely attached women flirting with your neighborhood trash man. You out cheating on your wife with your receptionist and she running outside in a sports bra and boy shorts (yes, panties) giving out Gatorades. Or she’s running outside with cold water bottles in a slip with no bra, tryna talk about the weather and how sweaty the trash man is. Take care of home, fellas or you gonna be paying alimony to ya wife while she gets piped down by a man that throws 70-120lb cans about 900 times a day. You don’t want them type of problems, fam. And to my trash men, don’t fall for that bait…especially if you gotta woman at home. Take the Gatorade or water, say thank you and keep it pushing. You don’t wanna creep back over there and come face to face with a 12 gauge shotty. Ya life aint worth some neglected pussy. 

            I feel like I have dropped enough jewels on ya dome, so y’all should be able to build a crown. So next time you see ya neighborhood trash man, give him/her a headnod or a bottle of water. They work hard, damn hard. Peace.

Young OG's

            

           Hey what’s good, fam? I know it’s been a minute since I’ve blessed y’all with my words of wisdom on digital paper. As you know I have been up on the podcast game, tryna bless everyone with that verbal dope. I miss writing though, it’s very peaceful for me and I think the streets need that written word, just in case all of my digital audio files will somehow be destroyed  by armed droids and Skynet. So let’s keep it pushing on the blog post, save the files and print these pages like a bible.

             

           So I really wanna speak on the importance of being a Young OG, I feel as if the OG’s older than me that are in their late 30’s/early 40’s gang has failed us. They really dropped the ball and got the youngins in my gang and younger outchea stuck like chuck. So the Young OG’s 27-35 gotta step it up, breath life in to the game and kick the truth to the young black youth. 

            What is an OG? My non-melanated people maybe asking, an OG is an elder in the hood. The one that puts you on game about life, keeps order, and gives advice when the youngin’s are outchea wildin’. Most of the triple OG’s got locked up or killed and left the OG’s in the wind. So the OG’s just kinda kept the game to themselves and left the youngin’s to fend for themselves. Don’t confuse an OG for an old nigga, there’s a bunch of old niggas in the hood spewing that bullshit and trying to gain respect. Nah fam, old niggas stay trying compete with the youngin’s instead of putting the youngin’s on game so they can take the culture even further than they did. Old niggas outchea in the streets tryna relive their youth, instead of doing the right thing like Spike Lee and dropping jewels. So my youngin’s y’all need to know the difference between an OG and an Old Nigga. 

            Old Nigga’s gon give you advice like, “Fuck that bitch if she tryna pen a baby on you, cuhz, just bounce” or “shit, you got it made, she pregnant bout to get that section 8 and welfare. You in the cut just chilling spending dem foodstamps, fam.” An OG will tell you, “get a paternity test first, make sure that lil nigga yours. Then take care of ya seed, you aint gotta have shit to do with the mama, but that boy/girl gon need his/her daddy.”

            So now you know the difference between an Old Nigga and an OG. Now us Young OG’s the late 20’s to mid 30’s gang, we gotta give these young G’s the game heavy. We got youngin’s outchea drowning in fuckery. Don’t believe me just go on twitter or IG and search the hashtag #RelationshipGoals. Niggas got relationship goals of rocking the same jeans and J’s as their girlfriend. Youngin’s outchea embracing mediocrity and only have a life goal of getting their followers up. Followers don’t equal dollars fam. Social media has changed the game of life, so that’s why the young OG’s like myself who have lived and moved through the streets and system before social media need to school the youth. A lot of youngin’s have no problem laying hands on a woman word to Chris Brown. And we can’t have a community of fuck niggas running round representing us. Y’all seen how misled Kanye was when he did his impromptu speech at the MTV VMA’s. If he had an OG in his circle he could’ve talked some since in to Ye’. But since Ye’ doesn’t have that kinda influence the youngin’s looking at Ye’ like an OG and they shouldn’t. 

            What brought this on, A.B.? Well I used to shame “new niggas” for not having a dad, but I didn’t have one growing up, but I had OG’s. And it just kinda hit me, we(young OG’s) will follow in the old niggas’ steps if we don’t son these new niggas. We will just have a bunch of lost fuck niggas running round doing fuck shit. So this is a call to all my young OG’s we gotta start son’ing these new niggas and bring em’ in to the light to be men. Our dads failed us, but that doesn’t mean that we fail each other. I know us Young OG’s are learning to be men off of trial and error, but if we can drop jewels on them so they won’t have to repeat the steps where we slipped at then we will build a nation of kings. So let’s live by the motto, “Each One, Teach One”. Peace.