Gangsta!

How could anyone possibly not be fascinated by the life of a gangster? I have no accounts of first-hand experiences and what-not, but the films have driven me to a love affair with this idea. The idea of what it would be like to be a gangster. To help you fully comprehend my obsession I will narrate two instances from my life. Few years back my best friend from school visited me. I had taken a 10-day break from my work to visit my parents, and he joined me for 3 days. The first night he stayed over we snuck out of the house around 11-ish (pm), after my parents had fallen asleep, and bought some beer, a pack of smokes, and my resourceful friend had some weed on him. I don’t take well to weed, at all. And it’s actually surprising considering the amount of alcohol intoxication I can handle. May be the onset of weed intoxication is too sudden for me, or may be I never fully grasped the subtle ways of handling weed intoxication. Anyways we snuck up to the terrace and after we had the beer started to smoke the joint. The beer and the weed, combined with my minimal tolerance to weed sent me into a blissful daze. I was "browned out" for about 2 hours, as my friend recalled the next morning. And during this entire time a particular movie scene constantly played in my head, like repeatedly running a tape start to end until it croaks and dies. A scene from the Guy Ritchie movie: Rock n’ Rolla, where the gangster/rockstar is hammered on booze and weed and drugs of all sorts, standing in front of the mirror looking at himself play the guitar with his shirt off. A quick clarification here is very essential: the “shirt off” part is not what I was excited about, it was his blissful state. Goddamn gangsters, they are so damn cool about everything! So there I was, standing on my folks’ terrace mimicking that dude's guitar-playing theatrics, in a state of blissful trance encompassing the vibe of a drugged out gangster.

The next day we got hammered again, kicking off with some weed in the morning and continuing the buzz with beer in the afternoon that went on until the onset of night. It was a disaster that we returned to my folks’ place that night, but that’s another story. Anyways I was blacked out this time, for good! And I sat in front of my bedroom mirror replaying Travolta’s scene from Pulp Fiction, when he is en route to pick up Mia Wallace for dinner. He is stoned as fuck and driving his car while listening to music on his radio, doing a snail-paced head-bang that culminated into a blissful, rhythmic demeanor. Just enjoying that moment. 

Brando’s scenes from The Godfather, the holy mother of all gangster movies, came next. It was undoubtedly a terrible impression that I was doing, but they were all in my head, and I was enacting them without any inhibitions. And of course the previous night’s Rock n’ Rolla scene again, this time with my shirt off, complete with the low-waist jeans held up by a funky belt, goggles, and a fucking stoned demeanor, playing the “guitar”. It is one thing to be stoned, a totally different experience being gangsta stoned!

After this my fascination with these films and their larger than life gangsta personas was obvious. The money, the fame, the women, the glamor, the outfits, and the cars. They could buy anything they wanted, fuck any woman they pleased, drive any car they desired, and smash anyone’s skull they hated. The shake-downs, the fear they instilled in people, and the respect they demanded. If I was to redo this whole shindig, a gangster would be somewhere on the top of my list. I would probably die of liver failure owing to the constant booze, cancer/heart attack owing to the chain smoking, or simply shot dead to be found later in a ditch somewhere in an abandoned alley. But as long as you've enjoyed every fucking minute of your life doing just as you pleased, who gives a shit? Isn't that the whole point, to live happily, every waking second?You cant really choose how you die anyhow. then why worry about it? If I was a gangster and was at gun point, I would close my eyes, think of the great fucking life I led up to that point, and smile. Of course I would be shot after, but once I’m dead why the fuck would I care if I was in a ditch or covered in flowers in a coffin? I’m already dead, remember? Oh, and there's that smug satisfaction that your brothers will avenge you.