gangland
i love it, i love it, i love it
there is something about gangs that is so thrilling and interesting to me that i yearn to learn more about them.
a few nights a week, i hang out with my friend dave and we always end up on gangland on the history channel when we’re just lounging in front of the tv.
from the big guys at the mafia to the 45th street gang in west philly, there is so much sociology involved that goes way beyond loyalty and just plain feeling part of something bigger than yourself.
in my downtime at the newspaper, i find myself reading about all the different gangs. anyone watch gangland? anyone have any stories? any suggestions on what gangs i should join read up on?
Comments
That show is pretty ridiculous. I started to question it’s credibility when they had an episode about the FSU kids, a bunch of East Coast hardcore guys that started rebelling against skinheads at shows. I had never seen people that I knew/knew of on the History channel before, so it was kind of surreal, but they are hardly a “gang” in the Bloods/Crips sense of the word. The show is entertaining, but I think it is really just sensationalizing some shit that really isn’t that intense.
i haven’t watched it at all but the very idea of a whole episode about FSU is hilarious.
yeah i heard about that. it was on the friends stand united titled episode and featured a lot on elgin james. i mean, technically, it’s a gang that originated in boston in the eary 90s. it’s pretty “big” in philly and definitely featured people i have heard of or seen around town.
jay, why would it question its credibility? it’s basically a gang. that’s the thing about the show. they aren’t just profiling the biggies like the bloods and crips and kkk. they pick out certain neighborhoods, like the magnolia gang in the projects of new orleans. i think that’s the cool thing about it. you wouldn’t normally hear about this stuff if you didn’t live in town.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipF6rSY6flc&feature=related
I saw like 5 kids in this video that I went to college with. They were all scumbags.
elgin james = total scumbag. all the 90s/00s straight edge crews (FSU, Courage Crew, etc.) made going to hardcore shows unbearable for a couple of years. i am glad that R5/Sean started having FSU/joe hardcore do security at philly shows. it made the FSU kids concentrate more of making sure there were no fights instead of having 8 of them gang up on one kid.
did anyone read the FSU article that was in rolling stone magazine a few years ago?
fuck i knew this was gonna turn into an FSU post.
christina said:jay, why would it question its credibility? it’s basically a gang.
I dunno. I’ve watched the show a lot and they utilize all kinds of scary music and darkened images. I feel like they’re trying to make these “gangs” sound a lot more dangerous and unavoidable than they really are. They’re glorifying a bunch of petty bullshit.
i’ve not seen that one so maybe you’re right in saying they are glorifying petty bullshit. but when violence and drug dealing and crime is apparent, it’s automatically interesting. like, i could care less about joe hardcore pushing a bunch of kids around at a church show. i don’t know too much about the FSU kids, but it’s gotta stem from somewhere.
oh could you?
couldn’t. thanks for the correction.
I don’t know. Latin Kings, Yakuza, Bloods, Crips, Cosa Nostra, Triads, biker gangs like Hell’s Angels and Pagans, the movie Gangs of New York if you want to really go back towards the beginning like the Dead Rabbits. Then just various mafia like Irish and Russians.
MS13
Big Bill said:MS13
waiting for a gangland on that one.
christina said:yeah i heard about that. it was on the friends stand united titled episode and featured a lot on elgin james. i mean, technically, it’s a gang that originated in boston in the eary 90s. it’s pretty “big” in philly and definitely featured people i have heard of or seen around town.
Hahaha, what did you do, Wiki the topic in order to chime in on the conversation?
wtf are you talking about? all the show recaps are on history.com. i admitted that i didn’t see it but when i read the recap, that’s what they talked about. what you said makes no sense.
Does so. What you said reminds me of that episode of The Office (UK) where David keeps Googling Dostoyevsky so that he doesn’t seem like an idiot to the temp the day of the big Quizzo tournament.
I brought up gangs in one of my music therapy groups the other day, and before I could even make my point, one of the inmates was like “why do these white people always ask us if we’re in gangs?? They just assume that all black people are in gangs…” Then the white guys in the group started saying that they get asked if they’re in gangs too, but the black guy wouldn’t listen to that part. I tried to say that it was probably just one of the things that everyone is asked when they come into prison, and had nothing to do with race. Dude wouldn’t listen to me, and group just sucked in general… It’s never fun to be accused of being “the man” when you can’t even get a word in edgewise to defend yourself… =/
Oh and just for an interesting tidbit… In the California prison system, only groups started up IN prison are called gangs. I believe examples would be the Aryan Brotherhood and probably the Black Guerilla Family. Street gangs, like Crips, Bloods, MS13, are called “Disruptive Groups.” They have special units where they house known gang leaders, but that only applies to the prison gangs, and not to the street gangs. In the New Jersey prison system though, seems like the official term for all gangs is “Security Threat Group.” I don’t really get the point.
Jesus, wow.
I completely forgot about another thought I had about this show when we were discussing it yesterday. I was watching an episode over the weekend about some gang from Minneapolis. Some dude went on the lam and ended up meeting up with some “homies” in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. That seriously took away much of the charm of “For Emma” for me.
Are you referring to “For Emma, Forever Ago,” Bon Iver’s self-released 2007 album featuring Justin Vernon’s debut as Bon Iver, which is described as exuding such a strong sense of loneliness and remoteness that one might infer some tragedy behind it.
You know, in 2005, Vernon’s former band DeYarmond Edison moved from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to North Carolina. As the band developed and matured in its new home, the members’ artistic interests diverged and eventually the group disbanded. While his bandmates formed Megafaun, Vernon— who had worked with the Rosebuds and Ticonderoga— returned to Wisconsin, where he sequestered himself in a remote cabin for four snowy months. During that time, he wrote and recorded most of the songs that would eventually become For Emma, Forever Ago.
Yes, I think I’m the funniest person alive.
…
I guess you got the joke, eh, eyebrow?
BAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! I AGREE!
Wow. What a dick. Hahahaha.