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Comp II: Theme #2

18 February 2010

Make It Rain

He walks into the gym wearing an off-white wife beater that has stain marks all

over it, with chest hair exploding out in all different directions, making the person that

has to guard him cringe in disgust. His old school headband still exposes his bald head

covered with only a few strands of hair. The pair of thick goggles and Magnum P.I.

shorts up past his knees makes him look like he’s “Pistol Pete” Maravich from the

1970’s. To say he’s the odd ball of the group would be an understatement. He’s always

the last guy picked, and some are even willing to play four against five rather than have

him on the team. When the basketball gets in his hands, he mistakes this rare opportunity

for his shining moment.

“Make it rain!” He shouts as he launches the ball towards the hoop.

To the average white boy at the local YMCA who can barely dribble the ball,

making it rain means draining all the shots they take, especially from the three point line.

Of course, though, he can’t make it rain at all. When he says the classic phrase and

heaves the basketball up in the air, he’s lucky to even make connection with the

backboard. This is the typical type of person to use the phrase make it rain in a pick up

game of basketball. Some of the time, its hard to tell whether or not these people are

serious, so when all the guys on the team mock him they make sure to do so in a joking

sort of manner. However, making it rain has several different definitions depending on

the situation in which you are using the phrase.

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If it was up to Pacman Jones to define make it rain, he would have a completely

different definition than the player described above. Pacman Jones likes to make it rain

at the strip clubs, along with many other rappers and troubled pro sports players.

Everyone can visualize these types of people--wearing sunglasses indoors when its

already dark as night in the club, along with chains and jewelry that’s weighing them

down so much it looks as if they have a hunched back and are in desperate need of a

cane. In fact, Fat Joe even has a song called “Make It Rain”. To these types of people,

making it rain is when a person is in a strip club with a fat stack of cash throwing

twenties and fifties up in the air at the strippers. Chances are many people have seen

videos of these hooligans making it rain in strip clubs before, so a mental image isn’t too

hard to grasp for this particular definition of the phrase.

If you were to ask a legit, bonafide gangster, odds are making it rain wouldn’t be

in line with either of the definitions stated above. When gangsters make it rain, they are

emptying a full banana clip into the middle of some poor guy's torso. Shooting guns is

another way of defining the phrase make it rain. Although this may be a rare definition

to those who live in small towns and the suburbs, it’s much more common in the urban

areas of the country's large cities. From this perspective, the term is used to express fear,

terror, or destruction. For example, if some dude was all over your girl at a party, you

might say, “I’m gonna make it rain on his ass!”

Call of Duty gamers would have a completely different view on making it rain.

When a gamer gets seven kills in a row, they have the opportunity to call in an attack

helicopter to shoot members of the enemy team. When the gamer calls in the helicopter,

he is in fact making it rain. The chopper in the sky resembles a cloud, and as it shoots
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bullets at the enemy, it is comparable to rain falling from the sky. When you're gaming

online, it’s always a relief to hear a comrade shout out, “Oh yeah! Make it rain!” through

his head set.

At the end of the day, the phrase make it rain can mean and be used several

different ways depending upon the person using the phrase and the current set of

circumstances. For me, however, the definition is simple and clear cut. If someone

makes it rain, they are doing exactly that. Whether it’s a rain dance or a ritual, when

someone makes it rain they manipulate Mother Nature to produce rain clouds in the skies

above, literally making it rain. According to Rain Dancing, this can be dated all the way

back to ancient Egypt and certain Native American tribes (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.).

The ancient Egyptians and Native Americans would perform rain dances and rituals to

invoke rain and ensure the protection of the life sustaining harvest. From my point of

view, these are the people that actually make it rain, not some thug from the south side of

Chicago or Pacman Jones and his stack of sweaty bills in some strip club.
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Works Cited

Rain Dancing. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Web. 15 Feb. 2010.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_dancing>.