Black Nerd Problems

by William Evans

  What Ippo lacks is a killer’s instinct. He is the nicest, kindest kid. He just wants to see how far he can go. How strong he can become. That mentality will only get you so far. After a devastating loss challenging the #2 world ranked boxer Alfredo Gonzales (I was sad for weeks), Ippo is at a crossroads. Takamura tells him how it is point-blank. He draws a line in the ground (ironically where Takamura first tested Ippo’s decision to become a boxer) and tells Ippo not to cross it unless he’s ready to become a whole ’nother monster. That’s the only way he’ll survive going for the world title. Takamura is telling Ippo not to get Coach Kamogawa’s hopes up on him if he’s not willing to take that next step.

  Ippo now wonders if he has what it takes to cross that line and become a monster. It’s not in his demeanor, he fights and moves forward on courage and because that’s all he knows how to do. What does it mean to become inhuman? Whenever Ippo comes back to that line in the ground Takamura made, he goes around it every time. He sees that inhuman quality in his boxing rivals and friends and wonders about himself. This internalization and constant questioning of himself make Ippo so human and relatable. That questioning is really the heart of the matter. I love when we see characters in a story at an impasse like this. It’s reflective of real life in sports shit. How far are you willing to go to be the best? Did you come all this way just to say you came this far? And can you live with the toll that becoming the best or inhuman will take on your body?

  At the time Ippo was living with those consequences, having suffered from being punch drunk. Punch drunk is a boxing term for a cerebral concussion from blows to the head. It causes confusion, hand tremors, memory lapses (it can even lead to dementia). It’s hard to tell if the condition is short term or permanent at times when symptoms are displayed. It seemed temporary for Ippo. However, in his comeback match, Ippo gets knocked down and doesn’t remember it. From there the writing is on the wall. Ippo gives his coach a meaningful look before heading back out to fight. Once I saw the look, I said, “No. Not like dis. Not like dis!” as Ippo delivers a crushing soliloquy about this being as far as he can go.

  “After this, I don’t think I’ll be able to continue. I don’t think I can go with you anymore, Coach. I’m so sorry. At the very least I want you to see the new Dempsey Roll we created together. All that time that you spent on me. I want to show you that it wasn’t all for nothing. Please watch me!”

  We only see a glimpse of the new Dempsey Roll, as Ippo gets knocked out before it’s in full gear. His final goal is showing the new Dempsey Roll they toiled over as a parting gift to his coach. Arghhhhhhhh, Ippo’s apology to the coach broke me, man. Especially since the creator, Morikawa Jouji, has been having health issues regularly. These health issues have caused delays in the series. It is evident the creator is apologizing to his fans through Ippo’s words.

  During my junior year of high school, in track and field I had an accident in the pole vault field event. It was during a windy day at a track meet. After two good practice jumps, I went for a third because I wanted one more good jump to know I was on point. When I went in the air the wind stopped all my momentum and I fell into the metal box from about ten feet on my tailbone. I honestly cannot describe that pain to you in any language. When I tried to come back and vault again, I could not physically run the same anymore or jump the same. I’d limp after a few jumps or after sprinting a bit. I loved track and I loved pole vaulting, but after three years it was something I couldn’t do the same anymore. That’s why I love a journey where real shit befalls characters. Issues that they can’t punch their way out of. Circumstances where life doesn’t always work out in their favor. I feel stories like that are more relatable.

  Boxing is a contact sport different from track, but in any sport, when you can no longer do what you love, that feeling of loss is universal. Especially when it’s through no fault of your own but just your body saying, “Nooooope.” There’s no way to really explain the feeling. You either wonder what could have happened had you not gotten injured, come to terms with what happened, or know that you gave it your all and have no regrets. Listen, I love mangas that tackle fantasy shit, ninja shit, or magic shit, but when it comes to mangas that tackle this sports shit? They hit so differently. No one’s life is on the line. The universe isn’t in jeopardy. We’re just watching a boxing match. The difference is seeing what Ippo as an athlete went through to prepare for his matches as an underdog. Then seeing the preparation he underwent as a champion. There’s something about that atmosphere that pulls you in as a reader, especially if you are or used to be an athlete. There’s also the question of what happens to an athlete that can’t compete anymore. This is where I get invested in storytelling by a writer, because trying to capture that feeling is not an easy feat. Translating that emotion for your readers to really feel that shit takes skill. Morikawa Jouji has utilized his skill in long-form storytelling over the years for this exact turning point for Ippo.

  For the time being Ippo has to stop boxing and retires, so he becomes a second (cornerman). We now see him in a coaching role. Through helping others, he sees what he could have done in his own career. The question keeps looming if this new perspective is enough to bring him out of retirement. This feels like more of a journey with a character, as it keeps the development of the character going. Much like the development of an athlete that no longer competes. I love seeing the switch in roles that has to be undertaken as a player in a game now becomes a coach/trainer for someone else. There’s also this feeling of life after a sports injury or life after aging out of an athletic career. It’s like seeing a famous sports player transition into being a commentator or announcer for the sport they use to do. Again, to me that’s such a hard thing to capture but gets done so well.

  Hajime no Ippo is truly telling a story for those that gave their body to a sport or a craft and the journey that comes with that. Ippo’s injury speaks volumes for those that have gone through something similar or witnessed a favorite athlete of theirs get sidelined by an injury. You can be an injured athlete or a fan of an athlete suffering an injury. There’s a feeling between the two that’s shared. Capturing this portion of sports is what keeps me so fascinated by the writing. The losses Ippo goes through that we witness feel so heavy, not only emotionally, but seeing the physical toll taken just like in the actual sport of boxing. Being with Ippo as an athlete as he makes his decision to retire for his health is a miraculous journey. We also see hints that he’ll be able to come back to the sport as well. This series embodies the roller coaster that sports can take athletes on with victories and crushing defeats. Seeing Ippo lose a boxing match, I instantly get taken back to disappointments at having lost a track meet or not clearing a height in pole vault. Same can be said when I see him standing in victory. At its core, this series is about those that just want to see how far they can go in a sport they love. To me, the physical and mental journey you go through training for your sport is what it takes to be strong. What it means to be strong is how one handles the tribulations to maintain that strength and when that strength is needed to know when to step away.

  Do You Have a Moment to Talk About Our Lord and Savior Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn?

  WILLIAM EVANS, aka The Warrior that Vanasha Ghosted

  ALL PRAISE TO the Sun God. All hail the changeling, the great blue conversion of the machine. Swordfish/Trinity-hacking, spear-wielding gawd. Have you heard about our Lord and Savior, Aloy? Alpha eff yo Omega. Hair kissed by fire. Moisturized with chillwater. Twisted with metalburn so that shit never come undone. Have you heard the good news? Aloy out here trying to save the tribe, fam. Aloy master strider and quagmire.

  I was up in the barber hut, trying to bring back that original human look. Out here doing it for the Gaia culture, nah mean? Sawtooth gonna roll up on the block, like we fuel or some shit. Your boy was lookin’ mad thirsty. Naw, fam. Aloy came through like a critical strike, yo. She came through riding sidesaddle on the broadhead, whippin’ them three arrows at a
time. Oh, a Ravager want to come play too? Aloy got some hardened arrows for that ass, b. Oh, was that your back-mounted cannon? Fuck that. Disc Launcher supposed to mean something to me? Yo, I’m dodging your shit and they still spinning, b, the discs still spinning.

  Nah, man, Aloy the truth, the gospel, the stained-glass mosaic and the muthafuckin’ sun rays that run through it. The bow and arrow-tip game? Gawdly. I seent her roll out the way of a stalker, pop up, and pull back on two terrablast arrows. I said she trying to cut about two of them terrablast, fam, cuz that’s just what she used to. Ain’t nobody out here fuckin’ with the ghost of Legolas, man! Ain’t nobody out here trying to see Lara Croft’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter in these overgrown streets, man!

  I tried to go hunting with Aloy one time, man. I tried to return these machines to the Earth, out here shoulder to shoulder with the deity of the quiver herself. I almost got caught, yo. Corrupted Trampler tried to come for my fade. I’m hittin’ this cat with mad hard-edge joints and he like, “Nah, nah.” Blockin’ that shit like I sent unsolicited nudes or some shit. Aloy yelling from the tall grass like, “Yo, fire arrows, b?” I’m like, “I ain’t got none.”

  I didn’t know what was gonna kill me first, that Trampler charging at me or the disappointment in Aloy’s face. She pulled back on the bow and let the god flow with fire arrows into the machine’s side. And after she saved my life, she didn’t ask if I was okay. She didn’t check me for scars. She didn’t even teach me how to craft the hot nickels myself. She got dead up in my face like, “Boooi, you better get you some Blaze and light these muthafuckas up when you see them in the used-to-be streets. Rost ain’t get blown the fuck up so you could be out here shooting flaccid arrows at the corruption, my Nora. You better collect that Blaze. Let that Blaze get down into the joints! YOU DON’T BLAZE, YOU DON’T EAT. YOU DON’T BLAZE, YOU DON’T EAT.”

  Aloy ain’t here for that soft shit, man. I seen her talking to a dude that just lost his sister, drinking his pain away, and she hit him with the “that sounds tragic and all, but I need you to get your shit together cuz machines out here trying to merk you, fam. Machines smell that weakness, they will turn your ass inside out in the tall grass, b.” Aloy trying to save civilization, she ain’t got time for these non-Noras out here, man. Out here tracking down lost tribesmen like Aragorn. Nah, fuck that, like Darryl, except with some freeze arrows on the bow and if his motorcycle was a Charger machine. You try to ambush Aloy for her spear? You got Aloy fucked up. She walked in and out of the cauldrons, fam, your village ain’t got enough Ridge-Wood to bang with Aloy. Get your shards up, fam.

  Aloy first of her name, ghost in the Nora shell, one of the best to ever do it, yo. Aloy, aka Kate Bishop with a focus, aka Outkast but not from ATL, aka Elisabet better have my money, aka Thunderjaw ain’t got shit on me, is unfuckwithable, man. She put the whole Nora tribe on her back like Samurai Jack, fam. Recognize the sunset hair. Holla at Metal Bourne when you see her in the street. All-Mother be praised, in Aloy’s name. Amen.

  Two Dope Boys and Movin’ Weight with Pusha T’s Daytona

  WILLIAM & OMAR, aka The D.A.R.E. Kids Ready to Risk It All

  [Disclaimer: The album cover that depicts Whitney Houston’s bathroom is trash. No qualifier, that shit is despicable. We came to the identification of the cover after this write-up began and perfectly understand if you don’t want to eff with the album because of it. I don’t think we know how much of this was Kanye’s call, Pusha’s knowledge of it, or what kind of trash soul it takes to pay $85K for the shock and awe of further perpetuating the narrative of someone that struggled with addiction, but was brilliant and life touching in so many ways. If you good on that, we won’t judge you. No offense taken. If you are still enjoying the album, we got the commentary for you.]

  I don’t care what hood rap, trap rap, rap rap you’re listening to, but stop. Just stop. Pusha T dropped his album Daytona on the Lord’s blessed day of May 25, 2018, and brought back The Wire rolled up in Reagan-era economics running for office in New Jack City. Yeah, it’s that real. Daytona goes so hard we had to cut the raw for a taste test before the distribution deal goes through.

  WILLIAM: I knew, I fuckin’ knew, when your boy said, “I only ever looked up to Sosa / Y’all get a bird, this nigga Oprah,” we was gettin’ that good, vintage King Push. That back-to-the-beats-on-the-lunch-table King Push. “Still got millions in the ceiling but more like a few hundred K cuz I got some shoes and shit since then” King Push. I can’t be consoled, fam.

  OMAR: I heard that man say, “Influenced by niggas Straight Outta Compton, the scale never lies / I’m 2.2 incentivized,” and found myself in the kitchen packing lines of flour off the cutting board and into Ziploc bags. You don’t hear me, I’m chopping up Gold Medal all-purpose flour in my drawers ’cause I don’t trust myself around my own product. Weird part is, I had a gold chain on the entire time? I don’t own a gold chain, man. Push got me thinking I’m C.J. in San Andreas doin’ work for the Grove, homie.

  WILLIAM: Bruh. The fam went away for a long weekend, so the house is empty. I got a Friday off. The sun is shining. I’m out here bumping this shit with the windows down in very white spaces with an empty house and little responsibilities today. This shit felt like 1998 all over again. Right down to that murda/drug flow. I’m out here like, why are none of my long white T-shirts clean? Why don’t I own any Adidas anymore? But for real, Pusha got folks out here compromising their morals to get these lyrics off.

  OMAR: I’m in the heart of Brooklyn with this album playing. Next thing I know, the ghost of Nino Brown force projected himself next to me, eating a bowl of cereal, talkin’ ’bout, “Why this shit so hard?” And Push dropped this in the a.m.? The FCC didn’t have a problem with this? He talkin’ bricks of cocaine at 8:00 a.m.? Eggs and bacon ain’t even finished on the stove, and Push pushin’ my plate out the way in order to drop a duffel bag full of money on the table. I… I just came here for pancakes, fucked around, and got a court case now.

  WILLIAM: This dude done said, “To all of my young niggas / I am your Ghost and your Rae / This is my Purple Tape.” I… I cried, man. Like Halle Berry winning the Oscar cried. Never has a reference to the drug game and the color of physical multimedia made me so emotional. I was with my boys rockin’ the Purple Tape in the old-ass Oldsmobile in the whitest suburb in Central Ohio.

  Hearing Pusha say that made me feel like I was the time paradox. I was an anchor to the golden age of problematic rap, and I didn’t know I would ever hold such a distinction. And let’s be clear, Pusha might be the most problematic fave. This shit is straight up destructive, against every woke instinct in my body and… I’m playing it as we speak. Loud! Uncomfortable for my ears loud, b. I done took it back to the rearview mirror shakin’ in the car level, fam. That’s how serious this is right now.

  OMAR: Oh, a problematic fave easily. If Obama called a meeting for rappers, even he would have to say, “Ahhhhh. Now, we want to uplift the community, *long pause* you can tell your story but *longer pause* let’s be positive. Let’s have an influx of art to a higher standard that, ahhhh, raises the bar for hip-hop. Let’s be better for our future. Except for you, Pusha T. You can, ahhhhhh, keep talkin’ that dope game shit. We actually need that. I’m sure you do have more to offer, Push… but no. I want that, ahhhh, dope, Dracos, and dollars on the kitchen counter talk.”

  WILLIAM: Fam, we keep talkin’ about Wakanda as the utopia… if I were T’Challa, I might allow some trafficking just so Pusha T can rap about it. I know, I know, but you don’t take the brush out of Picasso’s hand, bruh. You gotta let genius be genius, no matter the cost. Whatever it fucking takes.

  OMAR: “Evacuate the city, engage all defenses, and get this man some dope money!” As far as I’m concerned, Pusha T is the real Thanos. He wouldn’t even need the Infinity Gauntlet. Pusha would just drop this album in order to turn half the universe to dust, plus he’d be ruthless enough to sweep
Peter Parker’s dust into a Ziploc bag, wrap it in duct tape, dip it in Vaseline, and sell it on the intergalactic streets for an Infinity Stone per ounce.

  WILLIAM: Can we talk about “Infrared” real quick? Can we talk about how Pusha, who already gives subzero fucks, found another level of not giving a fuck? “They ain’t even recognize Hov until Annie / so I don’t tap dance for the crackers and sing ‘Mammy.’ ” What in all fucks, man?!?! Not to mention the “How could you ever right these wrongs / when you don’t even write your songs.” Like, we KNOW who he was talking about, but I feel better pretending he talkin’ about every-muthafuckin-body.

  Pusha write rhymes for dudes that already write and would rather memorize his shit. Pusha write rhymes. I just want to be the Pusha T of TV recaps, man. I just want to write about Westworld with the same tenacity that Pusha T talks about interstate trafficking.

  OMAR: Dude, I’m ordering food with Pusha T tenacity from now on. It is a must. “Lemme get a ki of fries, an eight ball of lemonade, and three stacks’ worth of McRibs.” The line that shook me to my core is “This ain’t for the conscious, this is for the mud-made monsters.” Pusha T said, “Don’t think piece me, bro,” with that line. This is not about well-written analysis or the vicious cycle of violence that continues to engulf the youth. “This is about Black T-shirts… and drugs.”

  Also, can we just appreciate that among all the coke bars Pusha let us know he’s pro–sustainable energy? “White on white that’s the tester / Black on black that’s the Tesla.” What? Who does that? He talkin’ Tony Montana boatload of coke fresh from the pier, then being like, “Oh, my carbon footprint low as fuck, by the way. We been off that fossil fuel shit. It’s Earth Day every day when I drop the top.” He better have Captain Planet in a Tesla makin’ it rain coca leaves in the music video.