Several times I’ve stopped to think… why we do what we do?
I’ve lived an exquisite life… seen it all and done it all.
I’ve been to every city, every club, every restaurant, broke bread with made men, negotiated street mergers between rival sets, counted piles of cash that would make your accountant gasp and got deeper between more girl’s legs than Tampax.
But truth be told, not everything in my life has been peachy and glamorous.
I’ve seen some horrific things and persevered through tragedy.
Its strange to look back on the moments that have sculpted me as a man and as a G. To the layman, typically, tragedy makes you rethink your future course of life. However, for Gs and the like, that’s not the case.
I often ponder retirement and vacating the life after enormous scores. Am I wrong? Shouldn’t tragedy make me rethink my life???
For some strange reason, catastrophes inspire me. I don’t shed tears, I seize opportunities. I may be cold hearted but success is to blame.
I’ve ruined so many opportunities to court and wife up filthy rich princesses but when I look back, I don’t have regrets.
It would be extremely un-G for a female to tame me.
This is the life we chose and I’m engrained with that mentality. For a G, the goal of the game is constantly trade up.
Nothing is ever too much or too good. I’ve earned everything I have, never asked for help and kept everything in the air for so long that letting things fall into place seems preposterous.
Maybe my line of reasoning is out of whack but quitting The Life is akin to losing your senses…
No longer would I need to secure 3 exit routes before I check into a hotel or sit down at a restaurant. I certainly wouldn’t need to check if the bouncer is strapped before I enter a nightclub either. Quitting could ultimately change the way I socialize; I could talk more freely, use a cell phone, a credit card and maybe even my real name.
But even as I type these words, it’s hard for me to imagine life without thrills, the sensation of being envied and the feeling of cocking a chromed 4-4.
There is no question that time has made me more mature, confident and practical. But I don’t foresee myself shaking off the attributes that define me as a man and as a G. When I was younger, I was much more hot headed, had a short fuse, and would tussle with anyone. I had no reservations about strapping up with the eagles and throwing bullets like McNabb.
And although I’ve acquired more experience, understanding and appreciation for the life we lead, I know there is only one exit.
So while it would have been nice to settle down somewhere far away, gotten chubby and had kids… I’d rather know the end for certain than be plagued with what if’s forever.
Recently, I went to Osteria Del Teatro in South Beach with a couple associates, as a launching pad. Cruised in, suited down; Prada Suit, Charcoal-Acai colored Prada shirt, murderous Gucci tie, Luger nina (and I don’t mean that fly South Beach hostess/ model I swooped on recently named Nina either) and Gucci loafers no socks. My pockets exploding like an Irish pipe bomb and green like photosynthesis. More shells than Frutti Di Mare. My associates were wearing…I think Corneliani suits.
So we rolled in, I was greeted like The Prince of G’s by the Maître’d (who really is a class act, and I am on a first name basis with most of the staff) and we slid into the best table in the house. Girls clocking me, because I have more Mack than Craig in the bed (and I don’t mean club B.E.D Miami, either) and Screwface the Dred. I ordered up a 10 year old Barolo and walked outside with my associates and my glass of wine to clack my Dunhill Lighter and smoke a jack.
My associates were talking about some crazy new-school shit, like using Google Earth to help plan heist moves and some standard old-school shit, like comparing the quality of Burmese Sapphires VS Sri Lankan Sapphires. Hardly listening to them, I noticed an older guy, probably on the north side of 70 years old sitting in a chair, smoking a cigarette, drinking a glass of red. He was dressed pretty sharp; smooth sweater, plaid slacks and loafers no socks. The height of fashion for the Grandpa G set. There was something about this guy that I noticed right away. Game recognizes Game type situation. “Player Recognition” is what we call it in the industry.
I paid my respects right away and introduced myself. He said his name was “Donald” and gave me a pat on the back and said to me, “keep doing what you are doing young G, and don’t let the rival factions and Haters get you south” (well, he didn’t really say that exactly, but something to that effect). He got up, flicked his cigarette with swagger, really close to one of my associates and walked back in Osteria Del Teatro. Dope move. Style all the way.
As we re-entered the restaurant, I noticed that Donald was sitting by himself next to the window. I started really getting into the bottle of red as it was opening up. Real Inky.
Then, like a comet across the night sky in Cartagena, Colombia, the most beautiful girl I have seen on this stay in South Beach (and that is saying a lot) walks in to Osteria Del Teatro. Narciso Rodriguez dress, I think, Christian Louboutin shoes with the red bottoms, spinning a Dolce & Gabbana tote. This girl was so beautiful everyone in the place stopped. I think my heart even skipped a beat like a scratched Special Ed record. Guess who she sat down next to?
Michael Mason?
No, not me…Donald!
After she gave him a kiss on the lips, I gave up all hope that she was Donald’s grandflydaughter. My Game is butter, I got bread and rivals want to toast me. So, as a natural reaction, I thought for a split second of trying to peel Donald for his girl and front paging her, but I was then ashamed I even thought that.
The Impressions – I’m So Proud
Here was a old-school G, who probably chilled with Lansky at Wolfie’s, who has obviously been in the Game forever and deserves his respect from young International Playboys on the Rise like your humble author.
Scoreboard: Grandpa G- 1, Michael Mason- 0
Cam’ron – Your Girl
I raised my glass to Donald, took a huge glup of my Barolo and smiled to myself. In South Beach you can be a G into your 70’s!
Safe to say, I am not getting married anytime soon…
Sure, I am not naïve enough to think that money might have had something to do with it, but then again what doesn’t?
Charge it to The Game. You can keep the change, but I kept my receipt.
Admit it, SUV’s are pretty obnoxious. They guzzle gas and perpetuate wars in the Middle East. Sports Utility Vehicles are also horrible for the environment. And you are not doing yourself any favors as far as style points are concerned, especially compared to vintage muscle cars, vintage Cadillacs and hell, even brand new Lacs.
Sure, SUV’s are necessary if you want to drive from Diego to Cabo San Lucas or if you need to shoot down to a Panamanian beach for a few low profile months. Or if you are rolling around a Cartel controlled Latin American city, bulletproofed down. But, if you all you do, is drive around the Suburbs, go to work and Starbucks, you are pretty much a jerkoff. Fair enough?
Tupac – Holla If Ya Hear Me (G Manifesto Certified Classic)
Here is another reason not to drive an SUV:
My little cousin, Mark Pablo Mason, is an up and coming baby G who lives in Washington DC, was recently was out west visiting colleges. He gave me a call and we met at Pink’s Hollywood for some Hot Dogs. We were both fresh on the scene, crispy and clean like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Irish Spring.
Like two Assassins in the height of fashion, we had young fly LA girls in SUV’s, peeping us as they rolled by. (Not really part of the story, but I just wanted to set the record straight in ‘08.)
As we ate Polish Pastrami swiss cheese dogs and choked down cigarettes (the lunch of champions), I asked him about what’s new on the baby G money making scheme front.
Mark had some pretty basic stuff to say, like bean flipping, standing over rival factions, making book, rigged dice games, swooping private school girls and socialites from a higher economic strata, arson for the Barons, small time heists etc. You know, typical baby G stuff. But then he got my attention with something, as it turns out, gave me some faith in the younger generation. Mad Innovative.
Mark went on to tell me he and his crew have been heisting catalytic converters from cars, primarily from SUV’s because of their height off the ground. He said he can heist a catalytic converter in with a socket wrench or cordless sawzall and be gone in 60 seconds. His crew is so quick, they can even wack them during the daylight. I knew immediately where he was going with this…
See, the commodity markets are very bullish these days. Metals prices have been on a sharp upswing. Catalytic converters (not to be sexist or anything, but for the girls out there, Catalytic converters are used to reduce the toxicity of emissions from your car’s engine) contain precious metals. Most importantly your Catalytic converter contains Rhodium, priced today at over $6000 an ounce. It also contains Platinum (and I don’t mean Platinum Diggers either), $1,200 an ounce and Palladium (and I don’t mean that 80’s Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell nightclub in NYC either) at $320 per ounce.
Mark and his crew would heist the catalytic converters and get paid up to $100 per, from the Barons upstairs. Cats also don’t have serial numbers on them, therefore, reducing the risk.
I thought this was interesting since I heard through the G grapevine about how some guys heisted an empty Fuel tanker and sold it for scrap. I also caught wind of Cats being heisted on the west coast, to be put on containers, headed for Japan.
Just one more reason not to drive your environmentally damaging, wack SUV.
Either way, since Mark is flush with CASH he paid for my Pink’s. I can’t remember the last time someone paid for my meal.
Kid has got some class. And the world’s future is safe, at least for the next generation of G’s.
After Pink’s we ran into a couple of the fly girls in a SUV at Fred Segal. They followed us to Chateau Marmont for some late afternoon Champagne. Worked out well into the night. We were driving a ’64 Lac. In case you wanted to know the data.
It is no secret that the US economy sucks right now. All kinds of Indices of Leading Economic indicators are falling. Residential Real estate is in a tail spin (except the extremely high-end market). We are seeing sharp drops in building permits. Consumer Confidence is low coupled with the number of initial claims for unemployment insurance rising. Orders for Durable Goods has dropped (the Durable Goods report being one of my favorite indicators). Crude Oil prices are constantly testing its all time record high. We have a credit crunch. The Chinese are killing us (and teaming up with the Euros). So is the War. The dollar is weesh. The best Stocks are trading sideways, hell, even the Casino Stocks are taking a hit.
Really, the only way for the economy to pull out of this is some kind of Internet 2.0 miracle. Or, foreign investors with deep pockets recapitalize the U.S. financial sector, which is already happening. (The G Manifesto’s Guide to The Top Ten ways to Make Money in a Down Economy coming soon…)
Whatever spin people want to put on it, and a lot of what you hear is politically motivated, the US Economy is getting “check hooked” like Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton in his fight with “Pretty Boy” Floyd.
(Side Note: Recently, I was at Bergdorf’s in NYC buying some pocket squares and some fly rich girls from Madrid were treating the place like a bargain basement sale because the dollar is so weak. Anyways, I made plans with them to have some drinks at Jean-Georges later that night…worked out well…in case you wanted to know.)
Anyways, enough of that, what we really want to know is How to Swoop Girls in a down economy. The good thing, is you have come to the right place, as I cut my teeth as a baby G in a down economy. So, what I am saying is, I got moves for days. These G maneuvers are especially good for up-and-coming G’s that might have their Sneaker Game straight but they Paper Game is lacking. Here are some:
Dive Bars
When you have a down economy, the high-end restaurants and nightclubs; that we have been putting up at a breakneck pace over the last few years, are not holding mad girls like they used to. Especially not on weekdays. I have done an unofficial case study and I have concluded that; when people have less money, people go to dive bars more. I just went to a dive bar the other night to test my theory and KO’ed it. I called it out before I went out, so I guess you could say I “Muhammad Ali’d” it. And believe it or not, I even went non-suited down.
(Side Note: In the plus column, the down economy has also lessened the number of “guy” out at night. Remember, even six months ago, when you walked into a restaurant you would see so many guys in multi-colored striped shirts you thought you were looking at an Ellsworth Kelly Painting? They are all gone now. The Nightlife World is literally Littered with the mangled Corpses of fake-players, just as I predicted it would.)
Part of the reason I went non-suited down was because I constantly have haters claiming things like, “That guy, Michael Mason, sure he can swoop girls at the high-end spots, but he can’t swoop girls unless he is in a $4500 suit…” and garbage like that.
Haters so easily forget, that when I was an up-and-coming prototype G, I was hip-hop-skate-graffiti artist fresh to def every day, all day. Versatile. Plus, I got the fat nine skills in bowling beach breaks. On point, on the points. Even better on the Mexican reefs, high on reefer. And I was a sneaker head before sneaker heads existed.
So anyways, I rolled into this dive bar, that I haven’t been to in like 8 years, and it has been taken over by hipsters more or less (dope dive bars have the tendency to be infiltrated by Hollywood hipsters nowadays. One of the reasons I haven’t been in a while. Blame that on that stupid movie “Swingers”.)
I was wearing a black and red Skeeem hooded sweatshirt, Tranquilo t-shirt (dopest clothing/ money laundering company ever), custom plaid slacks from my Italian tailor, and Muhammad Ali Adidas kicks. Kind of a Kanyeze-Ali-kickflip-beanflipper-fiendleaner-G steez with a New-school twist. If, you know what I mean.
Anyways, the competition in the Dive bar was so light it almost floated away like chronic smoke. Every girl in the spot was clocking me like the Swiss. I was dressed so fresh here, girls were looking at me like I was a young David Koresh here. And I was flipping new school Pimp Game, straight vicious, changing Missus names to “Delicious”, even granting a few wishes.
Goose and Sodas at $5? It was like drinking for free. Swooped the flyest girl in the spot, silencing critics like Money Mayweather. So wat cha sayin’?
Retail- Boutique Move
A good Day move, especially for West Coast Beach towns, is to bump around the beach like Johnny “Bump City” Bumphus in a drop top mint condition ’63 Cadillac. Roll up to a Beach sandwich shop, the kind with fly girls working there. You know the type of joint, the kind of place where every sandwich comes with Avocado or bean sprouts or some other healthy crap. Where, they got mad Acai smoothies. Order a sandwich, flash a big bankroll while paying for it and get the fly girls phone number that slapped it together for you.
Do Or Die-Po Pimp
Then slide the Lac, past the beach, cop a few more numbers from beach bunnies, say “What up” to the local heavies and then park the whip in front of a fresh girls clothing boutique (however, not an extremely high-end one where a Platinum Digger would shop). Even in a down economy, girls buy mad clothes on plastic. Post up in the Lac while eating the turkey-smoked cheddar-avocado sandwich and girls will sweat you coming in and out of the clothing boutique. Works every time.
Skate Board Moves
This is a great younger Prototype G move for the younger girl set (18-22 year olds). If you see a couple of fly girls kicking it, skate over near them and bust a sick trick. Something simple, like a kickflip or a stalefish air over a curb. Or a basic Varial. I used to bust a lot of Judo airs, Mute airs and Feeble Grinds in my day. Small Wheels and Baggy Jeans supreme. No need to get all Danny Way or my main man Sean Sheffey on it. Just bust a dope trick with style. Then introduce yourself. They will be down. Great opener. Also you can package this move with:
Sean Sheffey
Zig Zag Smoke
When I was a younger prototype G I used to twist Jays and puff wherever, whenever. I would play it like Sean Paul if you would gimme the light. The beach, the streets, the club, sitting on Dubs, didn’t matter. I am talking smoking. And my last name isn’t even Frazier. Nor is my first name Joe or Marvis.
More high-profile the better. I have done an unofficial case study and in down markets people puff more weed. So a classic move is to bust a slob air over a curb introduce yourself to the two fly girls and spark up a jay. They will introduce themselves to you. Word life.
Word on the street is that Wesley Snipes, the star of “New Jack City” and an actor in “King of New York” is going on trial for being on the wrong side of The Internal Revenue Service. I really don’t have much of an opinion on the intricacies of the trial (although the venue of Ocala, Florida has got to hurt). But I do have an opinion on the man.
Here is a little story:
I had just got back to Los Angeles from a prolonged working vacation in the South of France. My good friend “Callahan” was throwing this dope gig in LA at the El Rey Theatre. Black Eyed Peas were performing. Think Black Eyed Peas before they added that girl with mad plastic surgery. You know, the one that all girls put on their ringtones nowadays. Behind the Front days. “That’s the joint, that’s the jam” days.
Anyways, it was a pretty celeb-heavy underground type-gig. That guy who was the main star of “Basketball Diaries” table was right next to our crew’s table. Mad fly LA Nightlife Princesses also.
My friend Callahan and I were chillin at the front bar talking French heists and strategy, slightly on Beans. Sipping cocktails.
Black Eyed Peas – Joints & Jam
As a young G on the rise, I was suited down of course, in a custom Italian number by…I can’t really remember. But I probably had a Glock 17 in those days as they were pretty hot then. Shirt blown open. Pocket Square. My friend was wearing whatever was the height of fashion for those days in LA. I don’t have to tell you that I was dressed doper than him. But that’s neither Sugar Hill nor E-tab Pill.
Up walks Wesley Snipes to the bar, solo, no Entourage, suited down kind of Nino Brown Style. This was not “Blade II” era Snipes, it was more “Roemello Skuggs” era Snipes.
Callahan (obviously feeling it): “Yo Wesley, I was Passenger 58!”
All three of us: Laughter. (I didn’t really get the joke at the time, but I was feeling good so I played along).
Introductions all around.
Then two mad fly girls, taller than Snipes and myself, if I remember correctly, came up to Snipes and gave him very enthusiastic hugs and kisses.
Then one of the two girls in a shitty LA attitude kind of way, says, “Who are these two guys?” meaning us. (You don’t really see this kind of attitude today as much as you saw in the good old days.) As if, I wasn’t just heisting on the Côte d’Azur and chilling with topless girls; named things like, Florence and Marie, on the beach two days prior.
Snipes then says after a slight pause for greater effect, “Callahan and Michael are my two best friends in the world” with an opened arms gesture. The two girl’s expressions changed from “over us” to “into us” immediately. After some more small talk, Snipes exited stage left and left us with the two girls, who by now, were down for whatever.
Not like we needed any help, but I have never forgotten Snipes’ gesture of Class. In my book, he has always been the coolest cat in Hollywood.
“I am not guilty, you’re the one that’s guilty. The lawmakers, the politicians, the Columbian drug lords, all you who lobby against making drugs legal. Just like you did with alcohol during the prohibition. You’re the one who’s guilty. I mean, c’mon, let’s kick the ballistics here: Ain’t no Uzi’s made in Harlem. Not one of us in here owns a poppy field. This thing is bigger than Nino Brown. This is big business. This is the American way.”- Nino Brown
I hope Snipes isn’t found guilty either.
Oh yeah, we ended up swooping the girls. Assist by Snipes.
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA The Seventh Letter
The Guide to Getting More out of Life http://www.thegmanifesto.com
(Want to see something in The G Manifesto? Send suggestions to thegmanifesto@yahoo.com)
Love is a Battle Field (Papoose / Pat Benatar) New Jack City
