Still exhausted from a great Coleman Hawkins Jazz Festival, I wasn’t in much of a mood for conversation Monday morning. But as I wearily stepped out of my car in the News-Press parking lot, I heard a familiar voice coming from the direction of Coleman Hawkins Park.

“Hey Weston, hey brother man, let me holla at you for a minute.”

It was Bag-Head Jheri, the Messanie Street philosopher. All 300 pounds of him, with a trash bag full of aluminum cans clinging and clanging at his side, rushed toward me. He wore a blue T-shirt with the words “Funkaholic: Drunk on Da Funk” on it.

“What is it, Bag?” I asked impatiently.

“You betta recognize ’fore I start throwin’ some bos up in here,” Bag warned. “I just wanted to give ya’ll some dap for getting a statute of Coleman Hawkins put up. It’s the bomb, baby!”

“Thanks Bag,” I answered politely. “It took the work and money of Bob Simpson, the Coleman Hawkins Jazz Society, St. Joseph News-Press, Heartland Health and a whole lot of other good people.”

“Now all those sell-outs can come out of the closet,” Bag said. “Now’s a good time to be black, ‘openly black,’ to borrow a term from the late, great George Carlin. I don’t care what Jesse Jackson ’nem say, we got a black presidential candidate and a statute of a black man in St. Joe.”

“Yeah, it shows progress, doesn’t it? These are good times,” I said agreeably.

“Like whoa. What planet you on, brother? I ain’t saying these are good times, I’m saying it’s a good time to be black,” Bag said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You all big on this affirmative action. Well, this is affirmative action at work, brutha. With this here economy, black folks and white folks, either one ain’t got nothing. You feelin’ me?” Bag said.

“Wait a minute. I never said I was for quotas and other outdated forms of affirmative action,” I answered defensively. “When I wrote about affirmative action, I basically said that we still need a system that helps ensure equal opportunity and that whites historically have had a head start.”

“Well it’s equal inopportunity for all now, brutha. Times ain’t good for nobod-ee. Don’t you read your own newspaper?” Bag asked smart-alecky.

“Why, yeah, but ... but ...,” I stammered.

“Then you know gas prices, a bad housing market and job losses done turned everything and everybody straight ghetto,” Bag said. “Ghetto po’ folks are like white collar professionals in this environment. Everybody else is just trying to get used to eatin’ lunch meat and drinking red Kool-Aid.”

“Yeah I suppose you’re right, Bag,” I said, not wanting to argue.

“Why things done got so bad, the gas man come right up and took my stimulus check right outta the mailman’s hand,” Bag said. “All that did was stimulate me to smack the taste outta his mouth.”

“Now Bag, violence isn’t the answer,” I reasoned.

“You Martin Luther King now?” Bag said.

“No, but violence is never the answer. We have to fight by voting and standing up for our rights,” I said.

“On the real tip tho, every cloud has a silver lining,” Bag said. “These hard times might bring people back to living within their means again. Folks be carpooling, not driving those big SUVs and wasting less stuff now. This ghetto style living just might get us back on track with money in the bank.”

“You left out recycling ” I added.

“Wait a minute now. I gots to put my mack hand down on that,” Bag said. “Shoot that idea to the curb. Recycling aluminum cans is my bizness.”

Alonzo Weston can be reached at alonzow@npgco.com.