over the years one of the most fascinating armed conflicts, if not outright wars, has been that one between the houses of bloods and crips in los angeles. well, there or wherever it is they fight, look you see. many tales of the skirmishes have of course been told, most famously in that one documentary from the time him out of Shanghai Surprise and him out of Apocalypse Now were coppers. it was called Colours in proper, actual english, but our friends in America, as they are so prone to do, lost the "u" when the posters went to the printers.
just about as much is known over this splendid fight as remains unknown. until now, that is. after quite a lot of research into the subject i can, on this day, reveal the previously lost (or secret) origins of the conflict. they are, believe you me, going to cause quite a few surprises, and some revision of textbooks. in regards of the latter, particularly in UK school textbooks, where there appears to be a dogged determination to create a sense of actually being America here. lord have mercy and help us.
most, if not all, reading this shall be aware of how these two "gangs" (more social clubs, really, but semantics) regularly fight over things like "turf", wearing the wrong shade of clothing, drugs and the ladies. with the latter usually referred to in a derogatory way. what most will not know is that both of these factions were as one, and were brought together by a tourist called Bertie Fettlebottom.
like most warring parties, a failure to recognise that they have more in common than they have differences precludes any peace. in the case of the bloods and crips, they have forgotten the magical man who first brought them together. even their names, as we shall see (if you read on) come from his very words to them, as point of fact the first words any of them ever heard spoken by him. but, let's go through the story from the start.
it all began, or commenced, with some youths just wandering around the less affluent areas of los angeles, throwing basketballs at moving vehicles in between smacking worn discarded tyres and dustbin lids with a stick. this generally wholesome pastime was disrupted when they heard, in an accent peculiar to them, a man in a shop shouting "they're bloody crisps" whilst holding a bag of what they would call chips. wrongly call chips. so peculiar was the accent that to their untrained ears they appeared to hear "bloods and crips". hence the names used in the wars to come.
curious, they looked further, and saw the appearance of this gentleman was even more new to them than the accent. he had what to them seemed was a knotted cloth on his head (actually a handkerchief), wore a shirt of no sleeves and full of holes (string vest), three quarter length trousers with some rope instead of a belt (actually regular trousers rolled up to the shin) and shoes with no laces. it shall be, later on, important to remember this. some of you may have pieced a few parts together, though.
due to a significant police presence at the time the youths could not continue throwing basketballs at moving cars, or stab this strange fellow safely. instead, then, they decided to speak to him. on asking his name in direct American ("who the f*** are you?") they learned it was Bertie Fettlebottom, off of an area in Yorkshire, England, broadly called Silton. further questions were asked, in particular about his choice of garments. Bertie explained that the "hankie on his head" was to keep off the sunburn, the vest was his best, his trousers were rolled up as he went wandering in the sea, the shoes came with no laces when he obtained them from a strange sounding place called the "council tip" and the belt for his trousers was confiscated by the police when he went to prison, despite being innocent. as it was the most interesting part, the youths asked what he went to jail (as they call it) for, to which he proudly responded that despite being innocent he was sent for a full 2 (week) stretch for the non payment of a fine for failing to pay a fine for fly tipping. the youths had no idea what this was, but it sounded rather hardcore, and so they determined Bertie was an absolute badass.
so yes, then, the classical wardrobe of bloods and crips members all stem from efforts to replicate the look of Bertie Fettlebottom. as best they could, of course, with the limitations of American clothing availability. with handkerchiefs not available in the USA they wore bandannas instead. likewise, string vests were not available, so basketball shirts were it. further, they decided on just three quarter length cargo trousers (wrongly called "pants" in American) rather than rolling up the legs, and also refused to wear belts in solidarity with an innocent man (according to him). laces were also removed from all shoes they wore.
unfortunately, though, this is where the divide commenced. some believed that the hankie Bertie wore on his head was red, and so sought a bandanna of that colour. others, meanwhile, were adamant that it was blue, hence their choice. with no proof of either being correct available, this insistence on the colour he had on escalated to a lot of silly bother, mostly in the form of drive by shootings.
they asked more of his homeland. Bertie explained that although he saw himself as a staunch as he was proud Silton man, the place called Silton did not exist. instead it was split into two districts, or parishes, called Over Silton and Nether Silton. when quizzed on whether or not there was any tension between the two, he replied yes, of course. every now and then, he said, one parish council was found to have overstepped the mark, making decisions which inadvertently affected the other and should have been discussed with them first.
when pressed on how differences were resolved, their hopes for hearing of shootings and gang wars didn't happen. instead Bertie told them of an event called The Annual Over Silton And Never Silton Net Curtain Twitchers And Jam Makers Congregation. here the two communities would meet, and tell the formal, official jokes of the two parishes. these are "you never get anything good from Nether Silton", which gets the response "oh get over yourselves, Over Silton", and peace is secured for another year.
in the face of cultural divide, the youths asked of Bertie what net curtain twitching involved, and what jam making meant. he explained, as best he could. at first they tried this, but found in los angeles when you peeked out the curtains at what your neighbours were up to you got shot at, and making jam was more time consuming and considerably less profitable than cooking meth. in the early days of the bloods and crips wars there was an attempt at telling of official jokes to keep the peace. however, these invariably resulted in people saying "hey f*** yo mama" and lots of shooting.
beyond the colours of bandannas, it is also known that making the wrong (or incorrect) hand sign in los angeles can, depending on whose turf you are on, get you shot. this, too, stems from Bertie Fettlebottom. the youths, desperate to know, asked Bertie if he was ultimately from Over or Nether of the two Siltons. in response he simply tapped his forefinger on his nostril a few times and said "never you mind". some of the gang believed he did this with his right hand, whereas others insist that he did it with his left. hence the divide on hand signs between the two, and why the wrong one will get you punished by means of death by being killed.
many mysteries exist about how we, as ostensible humans, exist and function. few, however, are surely as strange as the unexplained tourist from an obscure part of Yorkshire accidentally triggering a few decades of open war in the streets of la (man). adding to the mystery is that nearly all traces of Bertie Fettlebottom appear to have been erased. when you go to either Silton and ask after him, you get the expected "we don't like outsiders" look, and the answer is always that they have never heard of him. also, no details of him exist in the parish council records. well, this is true at least of the first couple of pages of their internet thing i looked at.
right, well, there you have it. many of us in the UK have concerns about elements of American ways of life (i am reluctant to say culture, but still) seeping into our way of doing things. yet, as you can see here, the biggest armed conflict to occur on American soil was in part inspired by just one man inexplicably buying crisps in downtown la (man) one day many, many years ago. perhaps we should resist throwing stones at the glass house.
no, it is highly unlikely i shall engage in this sort of investigative research again. if we are honest i am likely to have put myself on a hit list for a drive by shooting for revealing these long hidden origins. well, if it happens, it happens.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment