When did being a ‚Äúwannabe‚Äù become a ‚Äúshouldn’t have tried‚Äù? Sure, it’s 2008, and there are still plenty of wannabes running around this city. Wannabe gangsters (mafia style), wannabe politicians (pod people), wannabe players (certain employees of the SHA) and other various assorted wannabes have been part of this city’s sub-culture forever.

They move through life like they have their own gravity field and make people sick to their stomachs along the way, but they somehow manage to survive and even thrive in our community. To some, that would say a lot about the fixtures in this community that feed into and feed off of the constant stream of excrement that ebbs and flows like the tide.

The hard part of dealing with the wannabes is you can never tell when bullshit begins and the last vestiges of reality finally evaporate. Sadly, it’s hard to say what brings people to put themselves so far out there, in an attempt to even be deemed a wannabe, that they risk their reputation, their family’s reputation and even life and limb sometimes.

Events in the last month have unfolded that clearly demonstrate when a ‚Äúwannabe‚Äù transcends his own delusional world and lands squarely in the category of ‚Äúshouldn’t have tried.‚Äù Whether you try to pass yourself off as a member of the NBA or want so desperately to be in a gang that you wear rival gang colors in an attempt to capture street-level respect, unfortunately it’s your family that becomes the collateral damage – the true victims of wannabe-itis.

Where has humility gone? What does one have to do to displace the built-in ulterior motive suppositions that people make? How many more people will not care about their family’s reputation being shattered by their own insane actions? How many more families will be called to the hospital to pick up their kid who has been shot trying to gain respect? When you figure it out, call us and give us the scoop.