What is gangsta'...

...and is it such a bad thing?

[Disclaimer: Any similarity to actual persons or situations is purely incidental. Relax.]

When I think about it, the most honorable people I know are gangsta'. Of course I don't know any pimpin' or drug dealin' types; the gangsters I know make their living from legitimate businesses (as far as I know). The main difference between the gangsters and the corporate types is that if you beef with the gangsters, they will fuck you up physically. Is it really so wrong to have a little muscle? It's honest. I mean, we're frickin' monkeys, man. Monkeys are the nastiest, most cunning, most ruthless creatures in the animal kingdom. The gangster, it seems to me, more readily accepts his inner monkey than does the corporate suckup, and I can only see that as a point in the gangster's favor.

Plus, you know, gangsters won't dick you over like corporate bosses will with their oblique contracts. When dealing with the gangster, the terms are clear: You do what the gangster tells you, don't ask questions, and be happy with your cut. Beef with the gangster, and somebody gets hurt, probably you. Badabing, badaboom. Simple. Efficient. Effective -- everything the non-gangsta' enterprise is not.

Even beefing with gangsters is preferable to beefing with the government or with corporate lawyers. The gangster will squash beef if he benefits in some way from doing so. That's not always true once the government or a corporation gets a stick up its butt and decides to blame you for it. The gangster is a reasonable man at heart. He won't break your legs unless you leave him with no choice.

Which brings me to another point of honor for the gangster: His reputation represents his most valuable asset by far. He likes to be thought of as a shrewd but fair businessman, a family man, a pillar of the community and someone not to be fucked with. If you fuck with his business or his family or his community, well, as I mentioned, you leave him with no choice but to protect his brand equity.

What about the killing? Isn't that bad? Of course it is. But even there the gangster is far more noble than the corporation. Killing is seldom profitable for the gangster. It's a cost of doing business that he would prefer not to incur. For the corporation, by contrast, killing can be quite a moneymaker. Plus, think of the scale: How many people has Anheuser Busch killed? How many people wouldn't have diabetes today if not for Pepsi? How many children wouldn't have been blown to shreds if not for Lockheed-Martin's need to keep producing bombs and jets? Gangsters don't off kids, not intentionally anyway. The drug dealing gangsters indirectly kill the occasional kid, but not nearly as many as Lockheed does.

Those aren't the guys I'm talking about anyway. I'm talking about the guys who offer security systems to small businesses, the guys who build the bridges and maintain the tunnels and keep the politicians afraid of the unions. Gangsters are just legitimate businessmen who collect their debts more decisively than do the corporate businessmen.

Not that I know any real gangsters. Like I said, it's just a thought exercise, pure speculation.

At this point, we could get into a whole discussion about which is coolest -- gangsters, pirates, or ninjas -- but this is a blog for serious readers.
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