hey man, nice shot!

Ice-T and Body Count at The Ritz on June 19, 1992 in New York City.

Photo by Al Pereira/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives

I was thinking about how I've changed between 2016 to now. I could say the present moment, but that sounds corny to me - something I'd hear in a meditation class in Marin. Every moment is the present.

Ch-ch changes

 I'm more guarded and objective now. I love to chat, but I listen and observe intently because not everyone is safe for me or to me. I'm used to the odd expression whenever I enter white spaces. People not introducing themselves or asking my name. What is she? Where is she from? The visibly invisible paradox experience. 

It used to be that way, then a big cultural shift happened where were suddenly seen, although we've always existed. 

I withdrew from socializing too much, drew a smaller circle of close friends, and got into philosophy and writing. Slovaj is a favorite philosopher and very punk to me.  On social media, if I see someone on a white saviour or fetishizer trip - delete. Snooze. Restrict. Speaking out for black people when one isn't - hard nope. Rant at me for supporting a black woman who made a public statement that was true?

Sit down and shut the fuck up. 

The first person I let go happened after the capital riot on January 6th, 2021. I was stoked for Stacey Abrams that morning, then it all went Twilight Zone like snap. I had a visceral reaction to the capital riot - a mix of fear and outrage. How long, not long. 

" Did you see the capital riots? Now, what kind of white Planet of the Apes shit was that? What would make white men think they're losing the country? Because there's no more white couples in commercials? There's no black couples either. Every commercial has a mixed race couple."  - Chris Rock

I texted my friend Jason who I had known for 27 years, 

" Is this the racist shit your parents voted for?! They can get fucked! We're done!"

"My parents are not racist!" He replied. " Ask them why they voted for him. I'm going through a hard time right now." 

Jason's hard time was dating and being chronically single. We met in our early 20s as roommates and became close like homie-cousins. I've always been good at platonic relationships. In romantic ones I vacillate between hot mess with issues, undone by the fates because of said issues, or a master of the seduction mixtape that gets thrown in a box.

When we were young, Jason once called me out for being a shitty friend. I only seemed to reach out to him when I had boyfriend drama (see above). He was right. I was acting like a damsel in distress. Now I'm more distress and much less damsel. 

Jason lamented about his love life for years. He was a good person, but emotionally immature. He still functioned like a boy into adulthood and (straight) women pick up on that. He made pizza for me and his roommate, by hand, and was so upset with how it came out he refused to eat any of it. He was so undone he ate a negative energy quesadilla instead. 

Jason was an ace boon for a long time. Lonely and disillusioned with the Bay, he moved to LA in the early 2ks. On one visit, he invited me to a friend's 4th of July party in Santa Monica. The hosts volunteered with Jason in a coastal preservation cohort of party surfers. They lived in a condo complex that was like a maze. Their parties usually ended up on the roof where people could spread out and watch fireworks over the city. 

We chatted with one cat who mentioned he played football when he was young and worked part-time as a bodyguard. He demonstrated to us how to block a punch. Jason became anxious as though the dude was going to punch him, which he wasn't. I watched this interaction play out and it occurred to me how fearful Jason could be. That was connected, I would learn later, to harsh parenting and hearing his mom being abused. 

Jason had a dedicated skincare routine, having struggled with acne as a teen. He spent a grip on top-of-the-line man science products I'd never heard of. It was like a next level grooming ritual. 

As friends, I got Jason to expand his taste in music from Triumph (sucks!) to Body Count and punk. We'd go to shows together in the early - mid 90s. I lost Jason to the pit at his first Body Count show, which seemed transformative to him at the time. 

Jason was a bit of a nerd who collected college football trading cars since middle school. He grew up in Oakland and Contra Costa County. As a kid he wanted to be a jock, but he took a hit in 9th grade, twisted his ankle, and gave up the dream. He maintained the kid who tackled him did it on purpose.

" You know," I said. "Every 9th grade boy does shit on purpose." 

Jason's complexion became the basis of his belief system that girls rejected him for his face. Whenever I suggested therapy, to work things out, he insisted nothing was wrong he couldn't work out himself. Like other men of our generation, Jason was haunted by the Alphaman he was supposed to be.

The1990s Alphaman was everywhere and he was unstoppable. Clean cut in previous generations, the Gen X Alphaman was shaggy or had long hair with the wind in it if he was in a rock band. He wore 3/4 skater pants if he was a hip hooligan or jeans with cowboy boots and a wifebeater ( tank top ). It's inappropriate to call anything a wifebeater now, not even a real one. The contemporary nomenclature is abuser, but that doesn't make sense for a shirt, unless it's the possessive abuser's shirt, which should include a scarlet A dripping blood. I think the word wifebeater was ironic cholo slang that Cheech & Chong made-up. 

"Hey, ese! Check out my wifebeater and chinos, holmes!"

1990s Alphaman usually had a mentor / partner who was a Vietnam vet. He schooled Alphaman on what was really going on because his generation had served in a catastrophic failure of American imperialism. 

Alphaman realized he really loved the girl when it was too late, but saved the world anyway while sustaining injuries that would take any other mortal out. It was tricky to be a young man then, out-babed by the heroic Alphaman. If one couldn't attempt physical heroic perfection, they would default to being clowns. The 90s was the age of clown bro bands - Insane Clown Posse, Sugar Ray, Korn, Crazy Town, Len, and Limp Bizkit. They were adored by young fans who always seemed to be screaming and giggling at them on MTV - a normal human response to clowns. I was on a more misanthropic trip at the time. Perfect Circle and Tool lyrics were like poetry. Fuck your God! Your Lord and your Christ! 

Angry atheism was my shit. 

Jason's parents were both professionals of the 1% who divorced when he was a kid. His older brother went on to study at Brigham Young and became a Mormon. Big Bro married a young woman he met through the JCLDS cult, moved to DC, got his PhD, taught at Virginia Tech, survived the active shooter in 2007, and brought forth 5 Mormon children that the world didn't need ( I've encountered Mormons in the jungle ). I already know Big Bro, without question, is pro-Goon. In the context of the status quo, Jason's immediate family was supercalifragilistic straight.

Jason could not compete with Big Bro's accomplishments. I never met their dad, a serious conservative, who had moved to Nevada to evade income tax and owned another property in Kentucky. I'm sure Dad and I would have clashed. I'm not the kind of company he imagined his son kept. Prom queens and marketing executives preferred. The only prom queen I've ever truly admired was Carrie. 

Jason and Dad would take regular trips to Spring training or baseball games in different cities around the country. Through his dad's company, Jason got a position in marketing, then dad sold the business. 

A fan of The Donnas, Jason tried starting his own indie punk label, 5 & 10 Records, an homage to the last mid-century thing that existed when we were kids. When he realised running a label was hard and people can be shitty, he squashed that. Then he landed a dream job for a digital music start-up that flopped with the dot.com crash. After that he got into the financial management game. In LA he worked for a firm for almost 10 years, making a modest living on his regular commissions. He didn't understand why he wasn't making the big dough like some of his colleagues.

" Because they don't care about people." I said, " From what you've told me, they sound like Boiler Room bros." 

I didn't understand why Jason wanted to live like them. They were LA assholes -  men who drove BMWs, ran in squads between strip clubs, hung over in meetings, and events. Alphamen. Jason was a nice dude who never thought he was good enough to meet them at their arrogant level. That insecurity proved fatal with the ladies, most of whom weren't good enough either. Jason was on a continuous loop of loneliness and high expectations. His dream girl was perfection without flaws or human qualities. He felt online dating was beneath him and no place to find a potential wife.

Through 2020 I was stressed out by the state of the country and the pandemic. That year I was a contractor at Elections from the Primary to the General Election. I was shocked at the level of disinformation, racism, and xenophobic rancor I heard. On the phone, I'm a secret agent of the revolution who sounds white. My intonation and cadence come from three sources: Schoolhouse Rock, bookworm, and growing up in Berkeley. 

 ' I don't pick sides" Jason said. " I don't think (Goon) is a bad guy, really." 

" Dude, whaaat? He's incompetent! I said. " People are suffering because of him."

Jason and I were both history and topography geeks, but when it came to politics, he was more moderate in his values than progressive. An echo chamber of his father's tired, Ronald Reagan-era, navy blazer and red tie, Just Say No, deregulation capitalist Kool-Aid. 

On one cross-country trip we visited Jason's mom and stepdad in Austin. They had a formal dining room, inspired by the Windsors. In their home office, his stepdad, a Vietnam vet, had a MAGA sticker prominently placed on his laptop. I'd met them once before when they lived in Danville. I knew then how straight and conservative they were. I can adapt to any situation with people. I knew that listening was more chill than stoking the fire with black liberation theology and socialist thought. Such things freak conservatives out. All they hear is reparations through taxation and the destruction of Williams Sonoma. 

 They were more concerned with protecting their own position and wealth within the social order, which is why they supported the Goon. In Austin, I took a drive with Jason's mom to the local store. 

" He seems so sad to me." She said.

" He's lonely. " I said. " He has to work some things out, but he doesn't see it. He thinks it's his looks, not internal." 

Our friendship fell apart after the capital riot. His complacency and lack of empathy for me and others disturbed me. I wondered why he never pushed back on his folks? Part of it was that he wanted their love and approval, which seemed to be conditional. The other was because he was getting money from a trust account each month - in addition to and on top of - what he earned on his own. 

I heard Jason moved to St. Petersburg, Florida several years ago, which made sense. That's a state he seems better suited to than where we're from. I never wanted my friend to suffer for the sins of his parents. I needed him to care and empathize with my fear and outrage. He didn't.

I had to let that boy go, lost to the Body Count pit long ago.

a day on the delta with lady dee

                      

                                         Satellite image of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

                                                                             California

I'm not sure of the timeframe to this story, likely in the early 2010s. My girl Dee ( aka the Dope Mistress ) was working for PG&E at the time. Her car was in the shop and she needed a ride to a training center in the Central Valley. I'm always down for a road trip experience, plus I'm that friend who will come through in a jam. Chauffeur, regulator, clairvoyant, dog sitter. I'm a renaissance woman. 

Dee and I met as coworkers 20 years ago at a high volume digital print company in Oakland. We worked in customer service which was 99.9% black. Management was 99.9% white. Dee maintains that I came up with the code name Plantation Print, which is probably true. Our department manager, in her 20s at the time, was a Bay Area Becky. Determined to live like Paris Hilton, she once hosted a party at her place with lots of booze and no food. Drunk and starving to stay thin, swinging her hair around seemed to be lifestyle choices. 

Several years later, we moved on in our working lives. Dee had been recruited by PG&E as an Executive Assistant. She was tasked with doing a survey of a training site in the Central Valley for a linemen recruiting initiative. The crew were gents and good people; mostly young men getting started on the line. We watched a training session where they practiced scaling and maneuvering around demo poles. Their instructor, chauffeuring us in a golf cart, asked the crew to greet us, in unison, as they hung from their harnesses 50 feet up. 

" Good morning, Dee and Lisa!" 

We had lunch with the crew in the commissary. It was interesting to learn about their work and how dangerous it can be; something we all take for granted except when the power grid goes down. It's physically demanding work, like the forestry service. Wildfire and winter storm gladiators. We finished the tour and made a plan to stop for an afternoon adult libation on the way home. Tequila! Driving back towards Tracy, we spotted a colorful taco shack restaurant along the Delta. 

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, locally we call it the Delta, is the river and estuary system that twists and turns through this area of Northern California. In a satellite image, it looks like earth arteries. It's another world in this part of the state; a landscape similar to the plains with hills and the center of agriculture. We drove past wind farms and crops ready to harvest as far as the eye could see. It's Grapes of Wrath country, just a few hours east of San Francisco. 

The taco shack was a funky little place built on stilts playing music and a captioned soccer game on an overhead monitor. We sat at the bar, chopping it up when we heard a speed boat pull up at the lower level dock. I love boats and being on the water, so I went to check it out. 

The boat was owned by a Mexican couple, partying along the Delta for the weekend. They were from Sac or maybe Modesto. We chatted for awhile and they invited us back up river where they had launched. Dee was reluctant. 

" I don't know, Lisa." She said. " I can't swim and they seem a bit rough." 

" I can swim! " I said. "Don't worry. If anything happens I will save you!" 

" Girl..." Dee's tone was all doubt. 

As a friend Dee trusts that even if I lure her into the moment, I will not let her down or harm come her way - ever.  We'd been through some rowdy times with the Plantation Print crew ( dinner party after parties including one in San Ramon for a coworker's hip hop-player's club experience ). We paid our bill and climbed into the boat. Dee was fitted with a life jacket. Cue Bay Area gangster rap.

Hubby was at the wheel; a burley dude with tattoos who liked hood rap. I was cracking up. We're from the Bay and we'd never heard such vulgar, low budget rap in our lives. Dee let out a sigh, shaking her head in disapproval. E-40 is about as raunchy as we can get. He's funny and he doesn't rap about genitalia. We tend to be discreet about our parts and the parts of others. Dee and I are not hood, but rather hood-adjacent. 

We set off from the taco shack. Hubby cranked up the speed to 40, 50, then 60mph as we zipped up river. " Odelay! This bitch got power tho for real!" 

Dee leaned into me. " Lisa, these people are hella hood!" She whispered.  "We are going to die out here!"

" No, no." I said, patting her hand with reassurance. " They're cool." 

Wifey sat across from us at the back of the boat. She pulled out a blue bottle of 150 proof mescal she had brought back from Mexico. 

" This is my shit!" She said. " I snuck it back in my luggage. Los mexicanos don't give a fuck! Do you want a hit? It's the best mescal in Mexico. You can't get it here." 

I passed. Dee took a sip and gagged. "Wow. That's some strong stuff."  

" You are such pretty ladies." She said. " Are you mixed?  I had a novia mulatta in jail. She was fine! I like the chicas. My man is cool with that. It's nice yall were down to hang out with us! " 

Dee and I exchanged the Bay Arean non-verbal look where you check in with your homie. 

Did you catch that?

Yes, yes I did.

Bitch, are we in danger?

Bitch, we could be. Stay ready!

" Lisa, I am so mad at you right now." Dee whispered, squinting against the river spritzing her face. "Are we going to have to jump off this damn boat?" 

" Don't do that!" I said. " You could injure yourself. We're going too fast. Just be cool. It's not that far to the launch and campground." 

" Hey! How fast do you want to go?!" Hubby shouted over his shoulder. 

' 100!" I said. 

" Daaaamn....que bueno." He adjusted the throttle and we lurched forward as he accelerated. 70, 80, 90.... Wifey squealed with joy, swinging her legs up in the air, flip flops flying, as she clung to her blue bottle mescal. 

" Lord Jesus!" Dee gripped her side of the boat for her life. 

I stayed close to Dee. If we did flip, I would be close enough to save her before being immolated myself. Honor is the way of the Jedi! It's quite a vivid sensation to be on a speed boat. You experience physics internally while flying through space on the water. 

Dee had had enough. " Okay!" She yelled. " Can we slow down please? Gracias!'

Hubby decelerated down to 40 - 50mph which still felt fast, just less rocket fast. By the time we reached the landing, Wifey was stumbling fucked up. I'm a nice person, so I helped her toward the clubhouse where they were meeting friends. Out front, Wifey lost her footing and crashed right into an A-frame sign, taking it out in a loud kah-clang-clang in front of scantily clad Delta summer people.

" Lisa! LET'S GO!" Dee was mad hot at that point. When she starts waving her hand like a church lady, she means business.

 " This bitch...." 

" I hear you!" I said. "We need to get a ride back to the taco shack." 

Guess who we ran into at the landing? Bay Area Becky from Plantation Print. I swear. She was there partying with her husband, a bro who talked like a juggaloo. We couldn't get a ride from them, lost as they were in a haze of weed, booze, and sunscreen. Delta culture has an outdoorsy, country-hood aspect to it. Wannabe rappers and DJs who motocross and jet ski. Low key Appalachian energy in California. 

 Eventually Hubby, who had maintained sobriety, left Wifey with friends and drove us back down river in their Chevy Tahoe. Nice dude, I thought. We had to go by visual memory, not sure where we were or even the name of the place. By the time we found my car it was getting dark.

On the drive home, Dee went off. Are you crazy?! You endangered our natural lives! You're reckless! You don't exercise good judgement in the pursuit of fun and adventure! Those people were dangerous! 

Well, she wasn't wrong. I can get into some shit, but I always find a way out. I think the couple were drug dealers or the homie-primos of dealers. Cali is diverse! I ate the bowl of crow with humility. I apologized ( even though I had fun in the moment ). I thought that was the end of it, but Dee didn't talk to me for 2 whole weeks. Bitter.

I pleaded mea culpa. No more drunk Mexicans on speed boats! You have my word. As older women now, we crack up remembering that day. The next spontaneous adventure with Lady Dee included a squad of international capitalists we met at Vesuvio's in North Beach. 

Dedicated to the Dope Mistress