Hustle Man—the character played by Tracy Morgan on Martin—always kept a job.
You can talk about how he flip-flopped from gig to gig all you want, but his persistence at keeping the checks coming in and his eagerness to diversify his skill set were pretty impressive. Especially in Detroit.
You have to give credit where credit is due, and no job was beneath him.
Why, he sold chicken (or was it hens? or pigeons?) on a stick, going door to door in the middle of a blizzard. Talk about taking advantage of opportunity and blitzing the market with product.
He sold flowers roadside, and 10 minutes later—when he noticed Martin and Gina were in need—he tried to sell ’em some tires.
He was a wedding planner and developed affordable alternatives to those pricey items on wedding lists.
He sold jewelry.
He was managing and training a rapping chihuahua named Icepick. “Go ’Pick! Go ’Pick! Go ’Pick!” And lest we forget, he was also managing a cockroach that could pop-lock better than Rerun.
He played the saxophone and even secured an audition with a major record label.
All jokes aside, all of this spoke to Morgan’s comedic genius. Word is that Morgan ad-libbed many of his scenes. Here’s to Hustle Man, who never let a sluggish economy get him down and hustled by any means necessary.
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Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele is a staff writer at The Root and the founder and executive producer of Lectures to Beats, a Web series that features video interviews with scarily insightful people. Follow Lectures to Beats on Facebook and Twitter.
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