My neck went naked between 2004 (when I stopped wearing that hemp necklace) and the summer of 2008.
And it was in that summer of ‘08 when I acquired 2 dog tags. Every time I wear them out, someone always asks me about them, so here’s the story:
I used to do a lot of promotional events. Everything from energy drinks to cars. This particular one was for the Army and it was on the day of something called the Bud Billikan parade. We had just moved to Chicago and I had no idea what this was, so I took the job and convinced my girlfriend to do the same.
The day before the event, I google mapped the location..hmmm interesting…the parade is on the South Side…somewhere I haven’t been before.
We drove out there, taking note of the slow degradation of the buildings around us. When we finally arrived near the location, we were surrounded by stores with bars on the windows and yellow “do not cross” police tape. I parked my blue acura rsx on the street- the most expensive and newest car on the block.
We started walking to the meeting place when we realized what Wikipedia already knew- the Bud Billikan parade is the largest black parade in the United States.
I’m no racist, but I’ll be honest, we were the only white people for miles and it was fucking freaky. It wasn’t just black people either, i mean we were in the hood. I don’t even think we saw more that 3 other white people the entire day. To compound this situation, my girlfriend is a 5′ 10″ blonde girl from Sweden with a booty. She might as well have been a movie star or a wheel barrel full of money- no one would leave her alone.
Anyhow, we were passing out free stuff, which couldn’t have been easier. People where approaching us, where normally we would do the opposite. The only catch is that you have to fill out a short form. Back at the main army tent, there was a machine which made dog tags. People wrote down their requests and we would type them in the computer and it would spit out a new dog tag.
I couldn’t possibly describe to my friends the things that people were writing on these tags. Everything from “R.I.P my bratha lil poo poo” to “south side gangsta murderer”..so I had to steal two for proof.
I took one that said “Ariel Fisher the impecable wun calis finist” and “Lets get it popin im in tha wild hundreds baby ya dig” The last one says, “Phil Tyler is cool”. lol

phil tyler dog tags
Wow.
So when the parade ended and we signed out, we walked back to my car. While we were crossing the street that was still blocked off from the parade, a cop car races up and slams on it’s breaks. The two police officers inside ask, “what are you two doing here?” We told them about how we helped pass out army promotional materials and he told us to get in. On the way back to my car, the cops told us how dumb we were and he is surprised we lasted this long…. I guess people were getting shot and stabbed all day.