[5] WEPA TIME Surfing In the South Bronx Yeah Hanging out on 138th All the dope dealers Think I look great With my girl Rosie I'll be dancing She waxes my board Then I wax her I'll be surfing In the South Bronx Yeah I take the number 6 Train Uptown to Orchard Beach Hanging out in Section 5 With the Ricans I come alive I'll be surfing In the South Bronx Yeah Con me negra Rosesita Yo estoy bailando Ai Mamita Ven conmigo A Orchard Beach Yo voy a surfiar Ay que neat I'll be surfing In the South Bronx Yeah © Luis Chaluisan Whatupyo Whatupyo Whatupyo What up ya Ahhhhhhhh Heh Listen to the words I'm speaking I'm not black or white But Puerto Rican Dropping lyrical bombs At night time Jamming with the flow Of this word style Que Bueno son Que Bueno son Que Bueno son Los Latinos No apollo-geez To the masses It's dog eat dog Got your back ah I'm coming to get ya I'm coming to wet ya I'm coming to hurt ya I'm a word gangster Backed by my gat In the shape of a pen Bangin Ya Is the jam I'm with Riffin Tiffin Spliffin Hittin Dippin I'll play you straight I'm not tricking Stupid wild The immaculate Dawn patrol jammer On the straight tip Que Bueno son Que Bueno son Que Bueno son Los Latinos Ven Conmigo Para Ver Una Cocita Bien Bonita Yo Vine a Vencer In Nombre Del Latino Loose Translation DAMN I LOVE BEING PUERTO RICAN © Chasan Chaluisan My daughter Chasan shouts, "Oh my God. Why are Puerto Ricans so loud!" whenever I’m going full blast. Because we are. At least in my family. It's "Wepa" (hueh-pah) time every day three hundred and sixty five days a year. Wepa time is the time that you just let go of all your inhibtions and come across loud and clear -- announcing yourself as if your life depends on it. That's something the women in my family know real well. Check out these three Smarican women. My mother's cousin Myrna catches this man exposing himself on the D Train one day and instead of screaming or recoiling in fright she grabs his member and holds on to it until the police come and arrest him. "What the hell do you think you're doing with that ... huh ... come here, Is it lost? Does it need to have a leash on it so it won't get away. Tell me. I mean you tried to introduce your little friend to me when no one was looking. Now whose on the spot?" She holds on to it with a vice grip for fifteen minutes -- FIFTEEN MINUTES -- with a crowd laughing and pointing at them on the platform. Wepa Time. My cousin Belen collars premier sociologist B.F. Skinner at Harvard when she’s an undergraduate at the University and grills him, "I had my son at fifteen, was married to a gang leader, my father was locked up ten years by the Feds and my mother is a tough broad. With all your theories about the environment shaping the individual how do you explain this Puerto Rican woman being at Harvard?" “This is my address. Meet me there at 3 PM I’d like to talk with you.” Wepa Time. My cousin Xenia -- Myrna’s cool younger sister -- can teach Christina Aguilera a thing or two and hips me to the real deal about life and virgins. "Yeah, I knew a lot of virgins who had sex while we were growing up in Brooklyn, hypocrites. They didn't take it in Here - pointing to her crotch. They took it in the ass, in the mouth, in the eye ... hey, I said fuck it ... put it where it supposed to go, bro, in the nappy dugout." Wepa Time. One day I convince my brother Ronnie to get into a packing box at the top of the cellar stairs and slide down to the basement. Just as we're positioning ourselves our mother opens the door and sets off the box down the flight. The greatest two second ride of our lives. You know what came after my mother's scream, "Ronnie y Luisitoooo." Wepa Time. But not the kind of Wepa we set off when I decide to perform an experiment. Appealing to my brothers intelligence and curiousity (he graduates Harvard in 1984 and codesigns the curriculun for the Museum School in Manhattan, another Smarican) I decide to set of an M-80 firework. Technically a quarter stick of dynamite. I want to see the effect in a closed environment vis a vis the bathroom. The resulting flash and explosion send Ronnie running up the block barefoot. He jumps out of his Keds in the blast and wears out a pair of kneecaps running so fast to get away. I think he becomes a successful teacher and principal because he knows that out there are hundreds of Raza kids with crazy brothers like me. So, someone has got to show these kids a more humane way to handle their inquisitiveness. We cover up the gaping hole in the bathroom tile with plaster and decide to use a blue permanent marker to try and match the color on the tile. "Perfect. They'll never know." The "they" is primarily my mother Ana. NASA can use her extra sensory powers of deductive reasoning in the search for life in the universe. Mommy appears on the scene 10 minutes later and from the other end of the block yells, "What have you two done now!" Wepa Time. She hit us in clave for two hours straight -- Bam Bam Bam BamBam y a domir. Half the time we’re hurdling furniture and beds with mommy in hot pursuit. Big Wepa time. It only ends when my brother does the most amazing thing I ever see a human being do. My mother catches him on the tip of his butt with the strap and I it must have hit some nerve or muscle at the right spot because suddenly he does a flip onto his bed, bounces, lands on the adjoining bed, bounces again and flies into my arms on the other side of the room. We all stand there in shocked silence and my mother suddenly leaves the room. We can hear her laughing in the kitchen downstairs telling my Titi Edu all about it over the phone, “Kwa Kwa Kwa Kwa Kwa …. Como … Kwa Kwa Kwa Kwa Kwa” Hey, she can laugh but at least the “coolie rumba” stops. Poor Ronnie is the hero of the day for that one. He’s my hero every day of the year. |
| New Edge Theater Bronx 10467 917-918-0470 |
| CONTACT US |
 |  |  |  |