Astrology Uncut A Street-Smart Guide to the Stars

Chapter 1 ARIES 03.21-04.19 THE BASICS Aries folk are what you might call provocateurs. Ram types love an argument. A beatdown? Even better. Up for any challenge, any opponent, any time, anywhere: whu, nigga, what? Real rah-rah. The trigger first, politic later type. Ruled by the planet Mars, these fire-sign personalities are hot-blooded to a fault and not afraid of banging heads with somebody. Understand: this is how rams communicate. It is also how they read a situation: to see what they can get away with. As in saying some off-the-wall shit like "You always acting like a bitch" and seeing what happens. It's why Aries director and quintessential white boy Quentin Tarantino felt the need to say "nigger" four thousand times in his movie Pulp Fiction. Juuust testing. Aries demand that you respect their gangsta. Will whoop that ass, if pressed. Thrive in conflict. Believe that. Remember when Da Brat got accused of pistol-whipping some woman in Atlanta? We ain't saying she's guilty, but that's some real Aries shit right dere. Want a vivid example of the Aries temperament? Three words: Marion "Suge" Knight. Let's not even talk about all the blood-soaked stories about cats getting their heads beaten in with champagne bottles, or forced to strip in bathroom stalls, or hung from balconies. Suge is Aries from head to toe. Meteoric rise to fame and fortune marked by impulse and violence, all the red suits, big-ass diamonds shining from both lobes. Think about it: Suge is a war-minded alpha male who terrorized an industry for years and left carnage in his wake. But his momma nicknamed him "Sugar Bear." Warmonger and momma's boy? That's Aries all day. To truly understand the Aries personality is to recognize that no matter how old they get, they remain, at their core, infants. Babies are cute, magnetic, and, unless moms was smokin' that crack or something, bursting with life. So it goes with Aries. It's why Aries celebrities dub themselves with infantile names like Da Brat and Babyface. Think Redman, hip-hop's preeminent Aries manchild, and his enfant terrible logo. Aries, in fact, are wonderful as children. Because they are in their natural age range, they glow with a special light. Every sign has a natural age: Aries is the infant. Taurus is the toddler. Gemini represents the age when a child learns to talk and communicate. Cancer is an emotional preteen, and Leo comes with the arrogance of adolescence. Virgo is the young adult. Libra is the age most people get married and fully enter society. Scorpio is the second childhood of the thirties, Sagittarius the expansive forties. Capricorn is the power and prestige that come with the fifties. Aquarius is the wisdom that comes in the seventies. And Pisces is the quiet end of life, where the childlike aspects return. The cycle comes back to Aries the infant and begins again. Thing is, babies can be tiny tyrants with no concept of anyone else but themselves. Give infants milk and they figure that it was their desire for the milk that somehow brought that about, not any effort on your part. Aries adults are the same way. Like their fellow fire signs Leo and Sag, they require your full attention, and their sense of entitlement can be in the upper ranges of ridiculous. In fact, your total service is their expectation. Aries comedian Martin Lawrence performed a bit in his last stand-up movie about collapsing and being semiparalyzed and then falling in love with his nurse because she would literally wipe his ass while bedridden. Real Aries moment. Take this one Aries cat we know. Cat is seeing this chick, right? Driving her SUV, using her cell phone, etc. Now one day an unfamiliar number comes up on her phone. So, being an Aries, he confronts her about it. When her answer is unsatisfactory, he tosses her phone out of the window of her car and then refusesMarriott, Rob is the author of 'Astrology Uncut A Street-Smart Guide to the Stars' with ISBN 9780812967937 and ISBN 0812967933.