Hotwater Cornbread

I don't like the taste of cornbread all that much. Cornbread probably was created because Dollar Tree needed its own brand of box cake. It's one of the most overrated "a la carte" items on the soul food menu. What the hell is corn meal? Sounds like something you feed to pigs about to be slaughtered or what Big Baby Davis eats for his mid-morning late breakfast.

But cornbread to me has been one of the most referenced foods if you have ever held a conversation with Jody. It started over a decade ago with the movie Love For Sale;  two comedic relief characters performing the catchy song "Hotwater Cornbread" in a romantic comedy full of comedic relief characters. And it hasn't ended.

I used the song name for my usernames, gamertags, and occasional stripper name. Most people know I love nicknames and alter aliases (to where every person in my phone has their own nickname and personalized emoji). I find a name or an object or idea and my brain will loop the phrase or image until it is dissolved into my mind, for eternity. All of the movies, people watching, rap songs; one thing is snatched up from art and my brain has to have it and obsesses over it, like a crack-fiend. You may imagine how certain antics Jody does now comes into full play.

Fast forward to the spring of 2018. Hotwater Cornbread has evolved into Gentrified Cornbread and has become the epitome of who Jody is. All of the southern soul influences of food, culture, exercise (or lack thereof), people, etc. Everything I do has been refined to be more acceptable or polite in today's society, based off my ignorance of the word "gentrification"

- Adding chia seeds to pasta dishes
- Teaching a hour-long Vinyasa flow with Lauryn Hill serenading middle-aged white people
- Hanging pictures scientists of color throughout the hallways and in my classroom
- Running in well-lit neighborhoods but blasting King Sosa, Big K.R.I.T., & 21 while making aggressive physical gestures
- Making the devastating combo of pasta, red meat, and cheese in a hamburger helper but dumping sun-dried tomatoes, arugula, and sweet peppers in that bih for a veggie boast.

Maybe I am getting the definition of gentrification mixed up with "adding seasoned salt, black pepper, and garlic powder to chicken that hasn't been cooked properly"

Nevertheless (or nonetheless) the idea of gentrification to Jody has always had a negative connotation, especially with housing development. Of course renovated housing in Denver has displaced thousands of families to better suit couples with no kids who can afford high rent gourmet brunch spots on Sunday mornings.

Wait, let me restart.

Gentrification is supposed to make things more desirable, optimal, and beautiful. Right? The idea of Gentrified Cornbread is to improve on the design of everything imaginable. The food, the culture, the housing, the wellness, etc. Whoever the mayonnaise-colored man who started all of this kicking working class out to pop-up high-ceiling booty-looking houses left a bad taste in most people's minds. But a good taste if you ever get eggs benedict; I recommend you try Tupelo Honey's near Union Station. Simply sublime.

Until I saw my first piece of actual gentrified cornbread. It was pale. Not held together well. Chia seeds made it look like a rotting corpse that was stuck in a river for too long. Drier than the crevice of my thumb and index finger with no cocoa butter. Tasted like the one time I ate kibbles 'n' bits when I was 15 that no one dared me to eat.

Maybe scratch this whole entry or completely digest it, you're an adult. On paper.

This all started with the movie Love For Sale with two comedic relief characters in a romantic comedy full of comedic relief characters. And it hasn't ended.

I don't think it ever will,

"Hotwater Cornbread" by the fiction rap group K3 & No Doubt from over a decade ago started the chain of ridiculous nicknames Jody has given himself.

"Hotwater cornbread

I said,

Got popped by the feds

Now I'm seeing red

I pee'd in the bed,

I must be dead"