The premise: “Can you survive?” --Man vs. The ghetto

Survivor: a person who continues to function or prosper in spite of opposition, hardship, or setbacks. A person whose will to live out shadows insurmountable or often impossible life quicksand. The nakedness of man dealing with the absurd. Existentialism.

Beyonce wrote a song about it. In the video, she and the one surviving Destiny child member and some new chick ran around in somebody’s backyard in torn seductive dress that tugged at their titties and hips like a dirty old man. They looked lost like Beyonce lost one of her good wigs and Kelly and Michelle were desperately helping her look for it before she decided to shave their heads and make her a new weave. In the song Beyonce screams that “thought I couldn’t breathe without you, I’m inhaling. Thought I couldn’t see without you, I got perfect vision.” I guess it was a slap against the other three females who came and went like “bitch I got your man or bitch I got your career.”

ABC has a show called Survivor were 12 people subject themselves to destitute places or broke budget beach resorts and have to compete and survive against one another for like six months . The winner gets one million dollars. It’s a stupid show. It’s not even entertaining. I say take away the cameras, put them in the middle of the jungle and after six months, see who survived. I say don’t vote each other off but kill each other off. That’s real survival.

I remember the book I read in elementary, Lord of the flies; an allegorical novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding. It discussed how culture created by man fails, using as an example a group of British school-boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves with disastrous results I remember being emotionally destroyed when the character Piggy got killed. They beat him in the head with a rock. I never looked at my friends the same again. I identified with Piggy, mostly because I was a fat kid and sensible, effeminate and artistic. It’s a fat kid’s nightmare to be trapped with the same assholes that taunted you in civilization, now have no parental guidance. I decided that life was a jungle, polite prison and I needed to learn how to fight.

I don’t believe survival is voluntary. It’s live or die. It’s a fist to the stomach that knocks the wind out of you like that silly game boys played in middle school. It’s being knocked to your feet, unable to breathe, gasping for air, and the will to breathe again so you can kick your cousin ass for breaking the rules s and catching you off guard. When I think of failed survivors, I think of Amelia Earhart whose plane disappeared somewhere Pacific Ocean. She didn’t survive. I think of that guy from “Into the Wild” who decided after reading Thoreau he wanted to go live in the forest with the trees. He was found dead like a year later. Was he an idiot? Did he volunteer for his own death for no fucking reason other than idealism? Pretty words aren’t going to feed you when you run out of food. You can’t talk a bear down with quotes from your favorite author. I think of that guy who went to go live with the Bears. Grizzly Man is a 2005 documentary film by German director Werner Herzog. It chronicles the life and death of bear enthusiast Timothy Treadwell. The film consists of Treadwell's own footage of his interactions with grizzly bears before he and his girlfriend were killed and partially ingested by a bear in 2003. Why would anyone want to go live with wild Bears? He wasn’t surviving. He was an idiot.
I don’t believe true survival is voluntary but reactionary. Lately I’ve become obsessed with a show called “Man vs. Wild.” The premise: “Can you survive?”

Imagine you took a dream cruise. I guess in my case one of those overtop gay cruises filled with drag queens in Rupaul high heels, butch Rosie O’Donnell dykes, old rich men, hot young drug addict whores and lots of liquor. I don’t think you are allowed to eat on a gay cruise. It’s not one of those family cruises where people go away for a week and gain like twenty pounds. A gay cruise, hitting the gym is mandatory. Now imagine suddenly the “Chlamydia and Gonherrea”cruise ship crashed against a big rock. I guess a gay titanic. During a morning hangover the ship is sinking fast and it’s up to you to stay alive. I would first have to ask myself why the hell I am on a gay cruise. I hate boats. I get sea sick something horrible. Yet, unlike most black folks I can swim but I don’t want to test my skills in the middle of somebody’s ocean.

Now imagine after you spent a horrible couple of months on somebody’s island with drag queens without their make-up, you are rescued. On the way back to what you hope is a liquor store, your helicopter crashes on a jungle island. I know that’s fucked up. First I would have to ask myself why am I in a helicopter flying over a jungle. The question is could I survive. No. I would be dead in the first ten minutes. I can barely wash my own clothes. Everything I cook burns. If there isn’t a takeout menu, I will starve to death.

The last scenario. Imagine you are in Antarctica climbing some mountain. You slip and fall and there is a snow storm. You have to survive the brutal cold. First, I would have to ask myself why the hell am I in Antarctica climbing a mountain. Did I think weed was going to be at the top?

The unimaginable or absolutely insane is the premise of the show “Man vs. Wild.” Some guy named Bear Grylls consistently tests his limits on where or what he can survived just in case. I think Bear Grylls sounds like a porn name. I find the show entertaining like watching a car crash. I keep watching to see if or when he will get himself killed. At 23 years old, Bear, climbed Mount Everest. He is obviously a thrill seeker. I can’t imagine me ever being stuck in the Sahara Dessert. I can’t imagine myself cruising a swap just for the hell of it. Bear is willing to eat anything from mosquitoes, worms and even Camel hearts. Before I eat a worm off a tree I would have to be really really hungry. I don’t even like sloppy joes. I don’t like food that doesn’t match my dishes.

I guess my frustration is that I’ve defined his adventures as useless information. I don’t ever see myself in a Jungle running away from a lion. I can’t outrun a lion. I haven’t been to the gyms in years. I watch him getting himself stuck in quicksand and I think to myself, why? There are no quicksand traps in the hood. It’s not like I’m going to be in a rush to work and suddenly fall in quicksand.

So I decided I should get my own show, Man vs. the Ghetto. I was born in the Texas projects. Every day was the question “Will I survive?” In middle school it was can I make it to ninth grade without joining a gang. Of course I watched the movie “Colors” and decided I might like getting initiated. It was a male tradition in my family. I joined the East Terrance Gangsters or “ETG.” I figured since my older cousin was one of the leaders I wouldn’t have to get my ass beat. I was wrong. Joining a gang wasn’t like my family could just buy a wing at some university. I hated being in a gang. I didn’t like the wardrobe. I just didn’t see myself wearing dickies, a wife beater and house shoes. It was a ridiculous outfit. Also, there were no medical benefits in being in a gang. If you got shot and killed, there was no burial funeral money. Somebody would poor out their beer when they get high and think of you, but who gives a fuck. I also asked about their scholarship program. There was none. There was also no democracy. We didn’t get to vote our leaders into their positions. I put in my resignation the summer I decided to go off to math camp. I broke the “don’t ask, don’t tell rule.” I said I was gay. I was quickly honorably discharged but I still had to braid Ray Ray hair for the next four years.

In the ghetto I needed to learn how to survive if I accidently stepped on some angry drug dealer white sneakers. That’s a real test. I say pretend like you are retarded. Stop speaking in tongue and glorifying God. I think it’s a rule that a gansta can’t kick your ass if you start singing a gospel song at the top of your lungs. If you step on an angry drug dealer white sneakers, don’t become confrontation. Immediately back down. Tell a joke. I once saw this kid get his ass beat for stepping on the wrong angry black male tennis shoes while they were playing basketball. Instead of the kid apologizing and pretending he was retarded he worsened the situation by being confrontational. I guess he needed his niggard moment. He got a niggard ass whipping. I don’t need to win any fights. I just need to live. Also another reason how to get out of a fight is to stump the gangster’s intelligence. It’s like giving a robot unsolvable problem that contradicts its programming. My best friend once got out of a fight with my gangster cousin by demanding him to write him a five page argument on why he wanted to fight him. Of course my cousin feeling conflicted originally set out to write the paper but not getting past more than five sentences. It was genius.

In the ghetto, the number one rule was not to stay at any house party after 1am. Because usually that’s when everybody starts getting real drunk and high and then the fights start. Especially get out before 2am because that’s usually when the drive by happens.

My life in the projects had always been about survival. I needed to not make eye contact with the wrong people. I needed not to show people into my home. My grandmother every time she bought something usually covered it in a blanket and snuck it into her house.

I think to myself, how long would so called born survivor, survive the ghetto? His gay porn name alone would get his ass kicked.