Which one are you?

I have a couple of addictions....well maybe more than a couple. Right up at the top of the list is billiards. I live to play pool.

Last month I was playing at the R Bar in the Marigny with a guy who was a pretty good shot. I was on my game and I ran the table on him. He walked up to me after the game and said, "You got ya game on, hustla."

"No man, I"m not a hustler...I just had a good game."

"No man...I mean hustla...not hustler...you know, a playa. You either a playa or a hata."

Being one the whitest guys I know, I had no idea what he was referring to. So he schooled me in the "Playa/Hata Dichotomy". I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

Essentially it goes like this, or at least how I interpreted it.... if you're generally just trying to make things better and a have a game going on...You're a playa.

If you are generally trying to make things worse, and you're jealous of people who have game....you're a hata.

The playa/hata thing supposedly has roots in a Notorious BIG song about pimping and stuff. But the point according to my pool companion is that it's taken on new meaning and is becoming part of the lexicon. Being a fan of emerging words and cultural parlance, I've put some thought into the paradigm and come up with some personal interpretations of the "Playa/Hata Dichotomy".