Black Church, Part 6

Reverend Kimble must be back on crack, poor thing…..

 

Huh?

You didn’t know Rev used to be on the pipe?

 

Oh, that’s right, I forgot, y’all White. Y’all got them educated preachers, y’all make sure of that. Send ‘em to seminary, make ‘em take theology classes, learn the Greek and the Hebrew all that good stuff…

 

Not us!

 

As far as Black folk is concerned, the only book a preacher need to know is the Book.

 

That’s right, the Bible, and plenty of it.

 

It aint to say that a preacher can’t be educated, but it aint necessary. What we look for in a preacher is what’s called “The Call.”

 

What did you say?

 

Uh-huh, that’s what I figured. You don’t know, do you?

 

If you gotta ask, you’ll never know.

 

But, since I’m the H.N.I.C., I must make an attempt to explain it, or at least try…

 

(Ahem)

 

“The Call” is when God looks down and picks somebody to preach for Him, theoretically the most lo-down Negro He can find. God washes him up, and puts His Word in his mouth, and generally spruces the boy up so he won’t make God shame.

(The proper word is “ashamed,” I know, but BlackSpeak is succinct by default.)

 

We accept the preacher’s word for it, God’s calling and all, but we keep an eye on him for a year or so, until the proof kick in. Like, how he act when he walk down the street, and he catch a whiff of Jimmy Bivens’ fresh-rolled blunt. What do he do?

 

What–do–he–DO???

 

If he keep on steppin’, he’s okay. Preach on, Brother, preach on!

 

But…

 

If he stop….and lift one finger in the air…and tiptoe into the alley…?

 

Uh…Bro-Man better get another dip.

 

Huh?

 

Oh, you’re not about to make me explain that, are you?

 

Here! Look @ this clip, and you’ll get it:

 

I hope.

 

Now, how do I know for certain Rev is back on crack?

 

Well, for one thing, crack is a powerfully addicting drug, more addicting than sex, or even chocolate.

 

Okay, I did go a bit far.

 

Chocolate beats crack 2–1, in a blind taste test.

 

Now, chocolate crack?

 

Forget it! You can lay hands, anoint with baby oil, do whatever you wanna do, if a  nigga get hooked on chocolate crack?

 

He do a drive-by on the whole church, for a hit of chocolate crack!

 

Chocolate crack, chocolate crack….make you break yo momma’s back!

 

Okay, I quit….

 

Heck, just the idea of chocolate crack makes my mouth water….

 

See how hard it is to quit?

 

See?

 

Any-WAY, Rev is drooling, right in the middle of his sermon. That’s what he used to do, when he was pimpin’ on Elmore street, right by the Greyhound Bus station.

 

Huh?

 

Yes, Autumn, Rev used to exploit young African-American females adjacent to the urban transportation modality center, ask your mother, if you don’t believe me.

 

Now, quit interrupting!

 

Rev used to wear this long fur coat, rabbit or possum, I don’t know which, but it was long and stank.

Not “stunk,” not “stinking”……. stank!

 

S-t-a-n-k!

See, Rev used to be in love with Ma’am Shuckey, she run the ho-house on the south side, and she have Rev covering her bases on the north side.

Huh?

Rev…well, he wasn’t Rev yet, he was Sweet Henry then…

 

Just keep up.

 

BlackSpeak take a lot of twists and turns, you just gotta keep up.

 

Sweet Henry, he hang around the bus station, wait on the New Orleans express to drop off White girls that be running away from home. Well, they headed for the French Quarter, but they chicken out and jump off. Sweet Henry, he sees ‘em going over to the pay phone, trying to call home, but he don’t do nothing just yet. He’s slick like that.

He let ‘em try, two, three times, but they can’t get through, ’cause Henry done gummed up the phone with a plug of super glue.

Yeah, I told you he was slick!

So, he wait till he see ‘em crying and carrying on, then he come in all smooth and smiling, offer to make the call for them, “…just give me yo’ daddy’s number, I’ll talk to him for ya, cher, don’t you worry, Sweet Henry make it all right…” and, well, before it’s over with, little Becky going ’round the world for a Benjy.

Like I said, God looking for a low-down nigga to turn around…

 

Huh?

 

That means she’s going to provide extensive sexual favors for $100.

 

Got it?

 

Henry steer ‘em over to Ma’am Shuckey’s, trying to buy Ma’am Shuckey’s love, ’cause he in love with Ma’am Shuckey.

 

Think about it for a minute, you’ll figure it out. Ask the Psychology majors, they can explain it better than I can.

You white people make everything complicated. Geez!

 

Ma’am Shuckey, she got Henry wearing that nutria rat coat, she told him he look cute in it, he keep it on 24-7. What he don’t know is, she got powder shook all on the inside, powder made Henry fall in love, and that powder keep him in love.

 

It’s just some Dr. Scholls’ with a little baking soda mixed in, but she don’t know that.

 

Don’t say nothing to her about it, y’hear?

 

Mr. Piroq, he sell that schit for a love powder, but he buys it from the drug store, mostly for his wife’s feet.

Her feet stank, too.

 

She sit on the third pew, and I think her feet is why they call it a pew.

 

Her feet be funky, and she be having the nerve to shout in that pew. Damn!

 

Anyway, Rev is drooling, like he used to do at the bus station, keep a rag near his mouth to catch the spit. When he straight, it aint too bad, but when he backslide? His lips be juicy as a watermelon…

 

Huh?

Backslide???

 

Relapse, Autumn, Winter, whatever the hell yo’ name is, relapse!!!

 

Git yo’ azz outta my class!

 

Got me talkin’ Eubonics an’ schit! Get out!!!

 

Class dismissed…er…the doors of the church are open……..

 

Whatever!

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Black Church, Part 5–It’s Preaching Time!!!

“A-maaaaaaa….zeen graaaaaazzzze….

How sweeeeet, the-uh sowww-unddd 

 

Tha-at saaaave…uh-huuuh wreeeech

Li-iiiike meeeee-eeee! 

 

I-iii wuuuunce wuz loss….

But now eye-mm foun’ 

 

Wuz blin’, but now…

Eye-eye ceeee….”

Huh?

Oh, don’t try to sing it from the hymnal, Brittney. Nobody use them hymnals anyway, ‘cept for you White visitors. Black people just sing, even if we don’t know the words.

Don’t believe me? Just look around. Half the niggas in here don’t know the words, we just holler what we hear the next person sing.

Oh, and by the way, “sing” in present tense, past tense, and/or future tense, is pronounced, “sang.” As in, “She sho’ kin sang, caint she?” That can mean today, tomorrow, last week, or next year, it all depends on context.

Remember Rule # 48? BlackSpeak is totally dependent on context.

This is Second Sunday, so we’re singing “Amazing Grace.” Next Sunday is Lord’s Supper Sunday, so the song is different. It’ll be the old Negro Spiritual, “Dark Is De Night, Cold Is De Ground”.

What?

You never heard it?

What do you White people do in church anyway, eat quiche?

“Dark Is The Night” is an old, I mean old number, first played by Blind Willie Johnson, back in ’27. It’s on YouTube, if you’re interested, but don’t expect much singing, I mean sanging.

Take a listen… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNj2BXW852g

Willie don’t sang, he just play and moan the song. Blind Willie was really blind, he wasn’t playing blind to sell records, like some of them other Blind Boys do.

How many “Blind Boys” they got, anyway? The 5 Blind Boys, The Blind Boys From Mississippi, The Blind Boys of Alabama….Schit, there aint that many blind singers in America. I think some of ‘em be perpetratin’…

Now, Blind Willie is really blind. What happened was, his stepmomma was doing the double-butt shuffle with another man, and Willie’s daddy caught ‘em. She got mad, and grabbed some lye, and threw it in Willie’s face, and it got in his eyes and blinded him. Willie was just 7 years old, poor thing. If I was Willie’s daddy, I’d be in jail now.

No, I forgot, I live in Louisiana, we got temporary insanity defense over here. I’d be on her grave, on my knees, still beating her azz….

Anyway, this is how that song goes:

 “Dark was the night and cold was the ground…. On which the Lord was laid;

The sweat like drops of blood run down…..In agony he prayed…”

Yeah. Real spooky. We like schit like that. The deacon call out the line, then everybody joins in, real slow. We call it, “The Hymn of Preparation,” which means, “All right, Rev, time to preach! And after a song like that, you better do something!”

Oh, I almost forgot, class….you did bring a Bible, didn’t you?

Yes, a Bible. That’s what Rev is gonna preach from.

I know, you’re used to sermons that come out of Reader’s Digest or Charisma, but we don’t play that here. Rev gotta come out of the Book! If he don’t, old Mother Jones will give him the stank-eye, fold her arms, and don’t say nothing!

Every Black Church got an old Church Mother whose job it is to let folks know if Rev is preaching right or not, ’cause some people need help. If she waving her hands and saying “Amen!” real loud, Rev’s preaching! If not, oh well…..unless, of course, Rev is on a sticky topic that hits her in the mug.

Like, last week, Rev talked about gay marriage………

“This week on the news, they was talkin’ about gay marriage…’scuse me, chirren, but I want to know somethin’…what the HELL is gay……marriage?”

Everybody holler, “Talk, Reverend, talk!”

“What in HELL…’scuse me, y’all just gotta pray for me, I get upset when I hears foolishness like this…..”

“Go ‘head, Pastor, go ‘head! Talk, Doctor!”

“What do they meeeen…two mens…two hard-leg mens….two sweaty mens…”

Percy on the organ raise his hand, and say, “Yes, Lawd, Yesss, Lawd!!!” but everybody else says, “Help us, Lawd, help us!”

(Mom Jones try to give Percy a look, but she can forget that. Percy havin’ a flashback from last night with Randy; Rev is hitting Percy’s sweet spot…)

“Two mens…. standin’ up in chu’ch? Wantin’ to get married? What kind o’ church is that?”

“Jee-sus! JEE-sus!” The crowd’s all in it, now…

“When Gawd.. stood in the Garden of Eden, with Eve in one hand, and Adam in the other, Gawd wasn’t blind!

Gawd wasn’t crazy!

And Adam wasn’t crazy, neither! He say, ‘for this cause…..shall a man leeeeeeeeve his father and mother…..and cleeeeeeeeee to his wife! Adam wasn’t lookin’ for Steeeeeeve, Adam had Eeeeeeeeeve!”

And, there you go. Rev was just-a gettin‘ it, preaching a mile-a-minute on gay marriage, and po’ Mother had to sit with her lips tight, because everybody know her grandson Percy shackin’ up with Randy Fremont over there on Cutler Street. She try and play it off, callin’ them “roommates,” but everybody know what the deal is. Randy wears a size 16 shoe, if you get my drift, and Percy?

He walk in church every Sunday with a limp, and he wasn’t born with it, neither.

Hey, I’m just sayin’….

Ha!

Okay, hush, here come Rev!

Black Church, Part 4

Black Church, Part 4

 

Here’s a Little Known Fact: Not all Black people can sing.

 

Yes, you heard me!

 

Oh, I know that goes against everything you’ve been taught all your lives, but not all Black folks can sing. Let me explain…

 

Way back in slavery times, when we gathered around the front porch in the evening to sing to Massa, there was always one mo’fo’ in the bunch who couldn’t carry a tune, but he wanna stand in front and sing real loud, so Massa can hear him. Rest of the slaves know that if Massa hear his azz, everybody gotta go back in the cotton field and chop, and take a couple’a licks to take with ‘em, so they try to shush him up.

 

Things aint changed much, in every choir there’s a nigga that can’t sing. Nowhere in the Bible do it say that the Lord closes His eyes, but there’s plenty of spots where He closes His ears. When Sister Brown step up to the mike, the Lord sticks both His finger in His ears, real deep, and says, “Gabriel, please tell Me when Bernice finish that song!”

 

Don’t believe me?

 

Okay, here’s a sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocPeJn_hJpk

 

I know, I know, it’s kinda disconcerting, hearing her wail like that, sounds like a cat getting’ electrocuted, all you’re missing is the sparks and the smoke. One day I’ll tell you why Rev. let her sing, but that’s another story. Anyway, just nod your head like it sound good, but don’t clap too much, she’ll get happy and want to sing another verse…..huh?

 

Get happy?

 

I forgot, White people don’t get happy. Well, some of your way-out Pentecostals, you know, those snake-handling mo’fo’s, be dancing with them rattlesnakes in their hands, because Jesus said Christians could take up snakes and no harm would come from it….

 

I don’t think Jesus meant to pick ‘em up. Just if you happened to run across one, it wouldn’t harm you, but Jesus did not mean, “Go pick one up and take it to church with you and dance and sing with the mo’fo,”….no, He did NOT say that.

 

Some of you White people always want to take something too far.

 

Like bungee jumping. You don’t see niggas bungee jumping. As if a nigga gonna hook a rubber band on his azz and jump off a cliff. That’s White boy action, pure and simple.

 

“Dude, I’m gonna hook a rubber band on my hiney, and jump off this cliff!”

 

“Go for it, man!”

 

Any time you hear, “Go for it, man!” it’s a White boy, telling another White boy to do something stupid, trust me.

 

Back to what I was saying. You people don’t get happy in church. You weep silently, maybe, twist your handkerchief if it get really good to you, but you don’t get funky with your emotions in church.

 

We do.

 

Why, you ask?

 

It’s just a fundamental difference in our respective cultures. White people use church as a place to get it all together, and we use it as a place to let it all hang out. Y’all like quiet, dignified church, but us?

 

The noisier, the better. Church aint church, unless we cuttin’ up. We jump and holler, because that’s what good church is. So don’t act shocked if somebody get happy and fall out, and they throw a sheet over ‘em. That’s to keep it decent. Some deacons sitting on the front row like to look. White people don’t need sheets, ‘cause aint nobody falling out, and even if they do, y’all fall so dignified

and proper—why y’all do that? Just lean back with your arms folded and fall back, with an “Ahhhhhh!”

 

With catchers, no less. Somebody standing there ready to catch you and eeasssse yo’ butt to the floor, so you don’t bump nothing on the way down.

 

Black people?

 

We fall out, and the rule is, if you hurt yourself, you was faking the Spirit anyway.

So if you get hurt playing with the Spirit, that’s good for your azz. Next time, don’t fake it. We throw a sheet over you, if we can catch you, so nobody can see the rip in your drawers.

 

I aint making fun, I’m just sayin’….

 

Good, she’s finished. Stand up, it’s the Hymn of Preparation. Rev.’s getting ready to preach….