Hyphenates
Ray Brandes’ incisive revelations about his Mexican-American identity and Kristi Maddocks’ remarks about feminism in the context of the early-’80s San Diego underground prompt another complex discussion: How many of us had another ethnic, sexual or cultural identity that colored our personal view of the San Diego underground?
Me first: I was certainly aware of the other Jewish kids in the scene, and I know many of us of the Hebrew persuasion read special irony into swastikas and other signifiers in some punk quarters. (SD underground veteran and friend-with-benefits of Che Underground D.A. Kolodenko has dealt intelligently with this Jewish-punk identity in his fiction.)
Long before Ray mentioned it, I’ve thought San Diego’s deep Mexican connection put an interesting geocultural twist on the musical underground (including the unusual Latino-skinhead synthesis within the SDSH).
And while I’m not aware of gay members currently contributing to our little sewing circle, I’ve spoken with folks who were at least semi-closeted in the early punk scene; urban gay aesthetics informed punk from the Velvets on, and I’m always interested in how much these friends considered themselves a minority within a minority.
Comments on the blog also drive home that some of our circle raised in less-affluent households were quite aware of socioeconomic differences that those of us born into more comfortable circumstances might not even consider.
How did you define yourself and those around you? Are those definitions still meaningful to you now?
Tags: Che Underground, ethnic identity, identity politics, racism, San Diego music, sexism, sexual orientation
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:33 am
(Actually, between the red hair and the surname, I long thought Ray was one of ours! Hee, hee.)
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:33 am
(Actually, between the red hair and the surname, I long thought Ray was one of ours! Hee, hee.)
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:16 am
I went to high school and got involved in music at a time my mother was in grad-school at SDSU, we lived on PELL grants and welfare in a $225.00 a month apartment. My brother and I shared one bedroom until I was 17. Everyone seemed wealthy to me -- they had cars.
We’d been reasonable, middle class when I was a small child -- but the family ‘dropped out’ and moved to California in ’69…
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:16 am
I went to high school and got involved in music at a time my mother was in grad-school at SDSU, we lived on PELL grants and welfare in a $225.00 a month apartment. My brother and I shared one bedroom until I was 17. Everyone seemed wealthy to me -- they had cars.
We’d been reasonable, middle class when I was a small child -- but the family ‘dropped out’ and moved to California in ’69…
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I might just be the whitest slice of bread in the bakery(german,danish,swedish and polish) But I had a Mormon upbringing which always gets a awkward and strained response when it gets brought up. I was the first of three males in the entire family. Therefore I was expected first to go on’ the bicycle tour’, that is ,to become a missionary at 18. At 16 I told my family that it wasn’t going to happen. I definitely felt the scorn from family and relatives. It was my own scarlet letter.
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I might just be the whitest slice of bread in the bakery(german,danish,swedish and polish) But I had a Mormon upbringing which always gets a awkward and strained response when it gets brought up. I was the first of three males in the entire family. Therefore I was expected first to go on’ the bicycle tour’, that is ,to become a missionary at 18. At 16 I told my family that it wasn’t going to happen. I definitely felt the scorn from family and relatives. It was my own scarlet letter.
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I was called things like “kike” and “Jewboy” on my junior high school athletic fields, but I don’t recall ever feeling any prejudice from other members of any music scene. Hey, a group of people who revered Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman and Joey Ramone were an inclusive bunch, at least regarding us Semitic types. And locally, I imagine that Marc Rude (né Hoffman) would have probably felt the same way. Then again, I never had any run ins with anyone wearing a swastika, so there may be some very different stories out there.
I was very surprised when I learned that Darby Crash was extremely scared of people finding out that he was gay, to the point of staging that scene in “The Decline of Western Civilization” where he’s making breakfast with someone that we’re supposed to think is his girlfriend. The details are spelled out in an interesting book put together in part by Don Bolles, the Germs’ drummer “Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and the Germs”. I’d like to think that today, a countercultural figure would be the last person needing to feel closeted, and that soon this will become like integrated lunch counters: in future generations, the thought of anti-gay discrimination will be as viscerally repugnant as “Whites Only” signs.
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I was called things like “kike” and “Jewboy” on my junior high school athletic fields, but I don’t recall ever feeling any prejudice from other members of any music scene. Hey, a group of people who revered Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman and Joey Ramone were an inclusive bunch, at least regarding us Semitic types. And locally, I imagine that Marc Rude (né Hoffman) would have probably felt the same way. Then again, I never had any run ins with anyone wearing a swastika, so there may be some very different stories out there.
I was very surprised when I learned that Darby Crash was extremely scared of people finding out that he was gay, to the point of staging that scene in “The Decline of Western Civilization” where he’s making breakfast with someone that we’re supposed to think is his girlfriend. The details are spelled out in an interesting book put together in part by Don Bolles, the Germs’ drummer “Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and the Germs”. I’d like to think that today, a countercultural figure would be the last person needing to feel closeted, and that soon this will become like integrated lunch counters: in future generations, the thought of anti-gay discrimination will be as viscerally repugnant as “Whites Only” signs.
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Paul: Indeed, I doubt we have too many horror stories of antisemitic discrimination! I agree … The folks on our scene never gave me any bad vibes — if anything, you’re right that the Reed/Richman/Ramone (Hell/Dylan/Bolan) mystique gave us cred. (Things got a little more complicated when Dave Fleminger and I regularly encountered members of the White Aryan Resistance in our kitchen in SF!)
We were no kind of underclass, but there was certainly mutual recognition and humor about being Jewish rockers. (You wrote a great song called “Jewish Like KISS” that nailed it to the wall.)
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Paul: Indeed, I doubt we have too many horror stories of antisemitic discrimination! I agree … The folks on our scene never gave me any bad vibes — if anything, you’re right that the Reed/Richman/Ramone (Hell/Dylan/Bolan) mystique gave us cred. (Things got a little more complicated when Dave Fleminger and I regularly encountered members of the White Aryan Resistance in our kitchen in SF!)
We were no kind of underclass, but there was certainly mutual recognition and humor about being Jewish rockers. (You wrote a great song called “Jewish Like KISS” that nailed it to the wall.)
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Speak of the devil! Here’s the MP3 of Lemons Are Yellow: “Jewish Like Kiss” (Kaufman/Fleminger).
Here’s what Paul Kaufman has to say about this fabulous number:
“Apropos of your last post, here’s an unreleased Lemons tune.
“Look in the mirror
Nothing we wanna miss
You think we’re the Beatles
But we’re Jewish, like KISS
“Lemons are Yellow, coming to your town
Turning Sheldon’s upside-down
“Sittin’ shiva for Joey
And I started to cry
You were huffing some Bondo
Dee Dee said we could fly
“Lemons are Yellow, coming to your town
Turning the White Castle upside-down
“In later versions, this verse was added, in homage to the story about Jeff’s younger brother pissing into electrical sockets to get the thrill of the shock:
“When you piss in the socket
You’ll be in for a shock
Not as much as what you’ll get
When you hear Lemons rock.
“The end stanza is straight up stolen from The Move.”
PS: This is freaky!
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Speak of the devil! Here’s the MP3 of Lemons Are Yellow: “Jewish Like Kiss” (Kaufman/Fleminger).
Here’s what Paul Kaufman has to say about this fabulous number:
“Apropos of your last post, here’s an unreleased Lemons tune.
“Look in the mirror
Nothing we wanna miss
You think we’re the Beatles
But we’re Jewish, like KISS
“Lemons are Yellow, coming to your town
Turning Sheldon’s upside-down
“Sittin’ shiva for Joey
And I started to cry
You were huffing some Bondo
Dee Dee said we could fly
“Lemons are Yellow, coming to your town
Turning the White Castle upside-down
“In later versions, this verse was added, in homage to the story about Jeff’s younger brother pissing into electrical sockets to get the thrill of the shock:
“When you piss in the socket
You’ll be in for a shock
Not as much as what you’ll get
When you hear Lemons rock.
“The end stanza is straight up stolen from The Move.”
PS: This is freaky!
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:01 pm
on my last adventure to san diego my sister gave me a big box of stuff. i brought it home and have little by little going through it and my feelings about it. my great grand parents russian marage licence, grand parents high school diplomas ect. i am a second gen american born, great grand child of german jews who traveld through russia and got off the boat on to ellis island. stuck suddenly nonjewish. as a small child my grandfather tought me a little yidish and i got a little glass of schnaps every time i got somthing right. on the other side my mothers parents were from a reservation near sterling oklahoma. strait up grapes of wrath. really, migrant fruit pickers. so a drunken poser buddist father of jewish back ground who thought he was mexican & a southern babtista mom. average american home. as a charming side note my pop always loved to say that our family crest was 2 crossed bottles of thunderbird with a pair of hand cuffs draped over the top. i come from a long line of drunken violent men. a legacy of brutality as it were. it ended with me thank goodness.
so i always thought, that since there was so much insanity and such at home i just kinda drifted out to where i found the underground and the people i met formed the person i am today. after my folks finnaly split there was lots of confusion and guilt i think, this worked well for my free wheeling new found family who at times all lived in that house and had band practices and shows and partys and the like.
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:01 pm
on my last adventure to san diego my sister gave me a big box of stuff. i brought it home and have little by little going through it and my feelings about it. my great grand parents russian marage licence, grand parents high school diplomas ect. i am a second gen american born, great grand child of german jews who traveld through russia and got off the boat on to ellis island. stuck suddenly nonjewish. as a small child my grandfather tought me a little yidish and i got a little glass of schnaps every time i got somthing right. on the other side my mothers parents were from a reservation near sterling oklahoma. strait up grapes of wrath. really, migrant fruit pickers. so a drunken poser buddist father of jewish back ground who thought he was mexican & a southern babtista mom. average american home. as a charming side note my pop always loved to say that our family crest was 2 crossed bottles of thunderbird with a pair of hand cuffs draped over the top. i come from a long line of drunken violent men. a legacy of brutality as it were. it ended with me thank goodness.
so i always thought, that since there was so much insanity and such at home i just kinda drifted out to where i found the underground and the people i met formed the person i am today. after my folks finnaly split there was lots of confusion and guilt i think, this worked well for my free wheeling new found family who at times all lived in that house and had band practices and shows and partys and the like.
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Funny- I wasn’t really conscious of my ethnicity until I was in my twenties. I was watching a british film and turned to my girlfriend and mentioned that it must be nice having a heritage, hundred year old schools and pubs where your name has had a place forever. She just pointed out the number of my friends that were Scotch-Irish- something I’d never really thought about at all- and listed my family surnames (Gibson, Laird, Mccullough, and the oddball of the lot- Uranius-that part of the family were from Stockholm, and for some reason unknown to us our family’s furniture is in a museum there. No one seems to be able to ascertain why.)
I too hail from a typically Irish bit of geneology, both of my grandfathers died due to complications arising out of alcoholism. One was shot to death by his second wife while drunk and attempting to beat her, the other fell from a third floor balcony. Drunk and unlucky, apparently- no sclerosis of the liver for us Gibsons, by god- we like to retain a certain amount of melodrama in our means of expiring.
There’s also quite a few Native Americans in my family tree, one who was an Algonquian Indian in the same group as Pocahontas. There was also one black Portuguese woman a ways back.
As for the economics, my mom raised myself and my two sisters. My dad left when I was two to marry my stepmom who he was having an affair with. My mom was a stenographer for the navy and then for the court downtown that handles workers comp cases in San Diego. My dad was a teacher at Grosmont. He taught Country dick and Lester Bangs, among a zillion other students. My dad also sang with a group of musicians/teachers who got together every other week on Saturday night to play- Hoke Simpson, Gil Shepard, Tom Davies, Tom Geldner- a bunch of frustrated C&W/Folk artists. I sat in with them from the time I could hold a guitar.
Of all of my childhood friends I think none of them had two parents at home, most of them had drunks for parents (myself included- though my mom seems to have forgotten that since she quit drinking. The gene skipped my dad and nailed nearly all of us kids and my cousins.) I think of all my friends I was the only one who’s parents weren’t renting. We were broke all the time, but I never knew anything different until I was an adult so it made little negative impact on me. We got by.
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Funny- I wasn’t really conscious of my ethnicity until I was in my twenties. I was watching a british film and turned to my girlfriend and mentioned that it must be nice having a heritage, hundred year old schools and pubs where your name has had a place forever. She just pointed out the number of my friends that were Scotch-Irish- something I’d never really thought about at all- and listed my family surnames (Gibson, Laird, Mccullough, and the oddball of the lot- Uranius-that part of the family were from Stockholm, and for some reason unknown to us our family’s furniture is in a museum there. No one seems to be able to ascertain why.)
I too hail from a typically Irish bit of geneology, both of my grandfathers died due to complications arising out of alcoholism. One was shot to death by his second wife while drunk and attempting to beat her, the other fell from a third floor balcony. Drunk and unlucky, apparently- no sclerosis of the liver for us Gibsons, by god- we like to retain a certain amount of melodrama in our means of expiring.
There’s also quite a few Native Americans in my family tree, one who was an Algonquian Indian in the same group as Pocahontas. There was also one black Portuguese woman a ways back.
As for the economics, my mom raised myself and my two sisters. My dad left when I was two to marry my stepmom who he was having an affair with. My mom was a stenographer for the navy and then for the court downtown that handles workers comp cases in San Diego. My dad was a teacher at Grosmont. He taught Country dick and Lester Bangs, among a zillion other students. My dad also sang with a group of musicians/teachers who got together every other week on Saturday night to play- Hoke Simpson, Gil Shepard, Tom Davies, Tom Geldner- a bunch of frustrated C&W/Folk artists. I sat in with them from the time I could hold a guitar.
Of all of my childhood friends I think none of them had two parents at home, most of them had drunks for parents (myself included- though my mom seems to have forgotten that since she quit drinking. The gene skipped my dad and nailed nearly all of us kids and my cousins.) I think of all my friends I was the only one who’s parents weren’t renting. We were broke all the time, but I never knew anything different until I was an adult so it made little negative impact on me. We got by.
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I am of Irish extraction, and that was a big deal for a long time. There was a whole cult of Irish-American mod kids for a while (Monica Sullivan, Maggie Peters, Kevin Lyons, and I were the most active)
We used to march in parades a lot and did a lot of basement meetings of NORAID and got pretty political. Maggie’s parents ran a sort of underground railroad stop for IRA guys on the run.
“He’s ‘Jimmy’ and he lives in the back room. Just comes out for meals. Doesn’t talk much.”
“He’s ‘Johnny’ and he’s the brother of ‘Jimmy’ who’s moved on 6 months ago. Johnny doesn’t talk much either.”
Before I was about 17 I never met an Irishman who was not part of the whole Provo scene. Then I met Irish Johnny. (You may remember he was Earl’s roomie in OB…BAG-WAMY) He was from Dublin and he clued me in the whole world in the South. That and the nasty violence I met as a kid in my school and neighborhood (Jerry, Christopher, and I came from similarly bleak spots in SD) cured me of my involvement in violent revolutionary politics. In short I was less than amused by folks raising money for bullets who’d never seen somebody shot before.
The closeted part of me in my youth was the spiritual life I led. Not real hip to most people’s reckoning…and on occaison when it came “out” to folks it just got me in more trouble…like the time Dirk told Rick that I was Muslim…Rick was a fundamentalist Christian and until that point we had been good friends.
Some of you may remember when I shaved my head like a monk…there was a tongue-in-cheek homage to the band The Monks, but that particular style gesture was quite a bit more sincere than anybody realized.
I’ve always had a spiritual dimension to my life (my step dad who raised me but left when I was 14 is a Soto Zen priest and Unitarian Minister.
Check out his blog at http://www.monkeymindonline.blogspot.com
Of particular value is the archive of his sermons to his Unitarian Universalist congregation. He’s pretty cool. I was essentially raised by a hippy priest and a feminist union lawyer.
So I guess I have always been a heretic-american most of all.
Sign me up for the american gulag. I’m sure I fit somebody’s profile.
Still am.
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I am of Irish extraction, and that was a big deal for a long time. There was a whole cult of Irish-American mod kids for a while (Monica Sullivan, Maggie Peters, Kevin Lyons, and I were the most active)
We used to march in parades a lot and did a lot of basement meetings of NORAID and got pretty political. Maggie’s parents ran a sort of underground railroad stop for IRA guys on the run.
“He’s ‘Jimmy’ and he lives in the back room. Just comes out for meals. Doesn’t talk much.”
“He’s ‘Johnny’ and he’s the brother of ‘Jimmy’ who’s moved on 6 months ago. Johnny doesn’t talk much either.”
Before I was about 17 I never met an Irishman who was not part of the whole Provo scene. Then I met Irish Johnny. (You may remember he was Earl’s roomie in OB…BAG-WAMY) He was from Dublin and he clued me in the whole world in the South. That and the nasty violence I met as a kid in my school and neighborhood (Jerry, Christopher, and I came from similarly bleak spots in SD) cured me of my involvement in violent revolutionary politics. In short I was less than amused by folks raising money for bullets who’d never seen somebody shot before.
The closeted part of me in my youth was the spiritual life I led. Not real hip to most people’s reckoning…and on occaison when it came “out” to folks it just got me in more trouble…like the time Dirk told Rick that I was Muslim…Rick was a fundamentalist Christian and until that point we had been good friends.
Some of you may remember when I shaved my head like a monk…there was a tongue-in-cheek homage to the band The Monks, but that particular style gesture was quite a bit more sincere than anybody realized.
I’ve always had a spiritual dimension to my life (my step dad who raised me but left when I was 14 is a Soto Zen priest and Unitarian Minister.
Check out his blog at http://www.monkeymindonline.blogspot.com
Of particular value is the archive of his sermons to his Unitarian Universalist congregation. He’s pretty cool. I was essentially raised by a hippy priest and a feminist union lawyer.
So I guess I have always been a heretic-american most of all.
Sign me up for the american gulag. I’m sure I fit somebody’s profile.
Still am.
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
So far, I’m not seeing a lot of easygoing conformists in our joint family tree …
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
So far, I’m not seeing a lot of easygoing conformists in our joint family tree …
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I like to tell people that by the time I realized I was Irish it wasn’t cool anymore.
The nineties Irish thing made me a little embarrassed to admit my heritage. Of course I was saved from much of it because I was in Wyoming and Hawaii for that decade, and those are two states that the mutton-chop whiskers and wool cap Flogging Molly thing missed.
In some ways I’m so stereotypically Scottish and Irish, and it wasn’t until I began paying attention to what some authors bloodlines were that I began to pay more attention to the similarities and realized just how typical I am. It was kind of nice to realize, as I’ve never felt that I’m typically anything. Though you take the good with the bad, and all of it isn’t a cup of tea. Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through it” meant a lot more to me than he actually said, which I think was the point of the book in some ways. Paul Maclean’s charismatic bravado overshadowed by his dark, seething inner turmoil- I believe he makes a reference to the Term “Black Irish” and his father comments on the dark side of a Scott as well. He very much reminded me of several people who I knew from the punk scene in the eighties, as well as myself. Of course he dies from it. What’s so great about a story if the character you want to save most doesn’t die in the end?
I don’t really know a lot about the Swedes aside from a couple tidbits of information I’ve run across in my studies of substance abuse, and the outcome of that is that a Swedish/Scottish/Irish guy is pretty much triple screwed in his likelihood to have alcohol problems. I think Sweden was this huge glaring exception in Scandanavia where many Swedes typically drink to blackout as a matter of course. The country that brought us the fresh faced ABBA is bound to be a little twisted.
My dad went to a different church every week for a few years, just checking stuff out. He had a near perfect photographic memory for anything he read and was hyper-analytical. I never went to church with him as I wasn’t forced to and preferred to spend my time at his place hiking and catching snakes, shooting cans, etc… My mom however was a unitarian (though she dabbled a bit at Terry Cole Whittaker’s events at the PBJH theater) and we went to the church up in Hillcrest. I mostly rode my skateboard around and was totally uninvolved with the church. I was born agnostic and have pretty much stayed that way, though I have always been interested in Taoism and Buddhism- particularly Zen- and teachers like Shunryu Suzuki and Dogen, Morehei Ushiba and pretty much anyone who attempts to trancend the dogma and get right to the core of existing.
It’s not really surprising to me that a lot of people from that era of punk are either athiest, agnostic or some form of spirituality that wasn’t ‘normal’ for most Americans at that time. Coming out of the Father Knows Best era and through the hippy era, seeing a lot of them sell out and buy everything they were rebelling against lock, stock and barrel- it makes a bit of sense that the punks would largely continue to reach outside the box. John Larroquette (who is Irish-Catholic and Creole turned agnostic as soon as he was given the choice) said that his sponsor (a Jewish Atheist) told him the difference between Guilt and Shame is “An Jewish person feels shame because he’s done something wrong, and Irish Catholic feels guilt because he was caught.” A funny joke but beneath that it belies certain cultural differences that have to do with our ‘societies’ or cultures, for lack of a handier word. Not across the board, by any means- but the more I find myself being “typically celtic” the more I look into the cultural norms that are behind these kinds of things. I think most of it is to some degree learned, though I for sure have a couple genetic flaws that can’t be written off as learned.
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Ray Brandes was very generous with his time while I was scoping out this topic. Here’s what he shared with me:
“First of all, I wouldn’t worry about offending anyone’s delicate sensibilities. It’s an interesting issue, and one which should at least promote some intelligent discussion.
“While I have done quite a bit of work in this area, I can tell you that my twenty-year-old self was far from self-actualized. There is a Langston Hughes story called ‘Passing,’ which is found in a book of his called The Ways of White Folks. In the story, a light-skinned African-American ‘passes’ as white in order to fit in, to advance in his career, and to avoid discrimination and persecution.
“My life experience has been somewhat analogous. As a very pale, red-headed Latino with a Germanic surname, I have spent quite a bit of my adult life explaining to people the diversity that exists within Latin cultures, and dealing with the disbelief that invariably surfaces when I share my ethnicity. But my name and appearance has also allowed me to avoid the prejudice that many in my own family have faced.
“In the old days, because I could ‘pass’ quite easily, the issue never came up. Most of my peers never knew that about me, and I would venture to say that at least among the circles in which we moved, race did not seem to be an issue.
“So to answer your question, I don’t feel the Latinos had a shared and marginalized identity within our peer group, at least. I never noted any camaraderie amongst anybody based on ethnicity or religion.
“It is also fascinating to me to note that quite a few of the original San Diego Skinheads were Mexican-American.
“As far as gay scenesters go, I know for a fact that at least a couple of very well-known members of our circle were gay but did not feel safe to come out. I would like to think that most of us would have been generous and open-minded enough to accept them, but let’s face it: Rock and roll tends to create a very inhospitable environment for gay people.”
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:05 pm
hmmmm ? do you dare the spiritual thred rothy ? we sertanly talkd about it alot back at the che, spurd on by booze and what not. when not mounting and soiling each other in the woods.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:05 pm
hmmmm ? do you dare the spiritual thred rothy ? we sertanly talkd about it alot back at the che, spurd on by booze and what not. when not mounting and soiling each other in the woods.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:24 pm
After I got into punk I learned from some older people that it just wasn’t cool to hassle someone for being gay. My parents were pretty fair people and didn’t abide by any kind of racism or any crap like that, so gays were just other people to me, and as I grew older I had less and less of that “jock mentality” about my own sexuality and I think I’ve always been a better person for it.
On the original topic- a note I just sent off to Mr M’berg. The story is too long to put up here, but I’ll manage a couple paragraphs:
Attached is a story I wrote a while back that I’ve never really finished up. There’s a pretty good excerpt on our love/hate relationship with the Latinos. They were organized and had a certain amount of unity that we found threatening. They were also tough and cool and dressed well and had a certain way of carrying themselves that said nobody was going to fuck with them and if they did it’d be on immediately. They had style and class and worked with what they had. At our school it was just us and them, and we sort of defined each other by existing as a nemesis. Otherwise there would have been no one to fight with.
Later I think there was as much in common between the punks and the Lowriders as there were differences. Ostracized by the cops and the normals, living on the fringe, oftentimes operating somewhere in the gray area between legal and illegal. At that point we also had found our own style. In High school I ended up spending some time with the Vatos because we had no one else to hang out with. I’d come to school with a mowhawk or colored hair, the LIFEHATER tattoo on my head- they thought I was crazy, but with those guys crazy sometimes passes for okay. I think there was a mutual appreciation between the two groups a lot more than was ever voiced. And although it’s not quite the same as feeling prejudice towards you because of the color of your skin, I think being a punk way back then gave a few white kids an idea of how that feels, and left an impression of immediacy in the act of not doing that to someone else.
And lets not forget Suicidal Tendencies and Jay Adams and that whole East LA/Oxnard adoption of Latino culture. Los Lobos played with the punks because that was the only crowd that appreciated and accepted them at the time. X makes a few references to the culture, “His first name was homeboy, could his last name be trouble?” (See how We Are- a song that always leaves me nostalgic and sad.)
The excerpt:
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Toby: Right on the mark. You encapsulated a big swathe of my own acculturation process moving from Milwaukee to Leucadia in time for seventh grade. I was just telling my wife the other night how I spent my first year mesmerized by rumors of looming junior-high gang wars between the surfers and the Latinos. Nothing ever seemed to come of it, but it added this exotic fear factor to the standard-issue adolescent dread those years provoke.
I totally relate to your perception of those kids as more mature, more serious … Kind of regal. In hindsight, I have to assume they were prey to all the same insecurities I had, but they sure seemed to have it together when I was 12!
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Toby: Right on the mark. You encapsulated a big swathe of my own acculturation process moving from Milwaukee to Leucadia in time for seventh grade. I was just telling my wife the other night how I spent my first year mesmerized by rumors of looming junior-high gang wars between the surfers and the Latinos. Nothing ever seemed to come of it, but it added this exotic fear factor to the standard-issue adolescent dread those years provoke.
I totally relate to your perception of those kids as more mature, more serious … Kind of regal. In hindsight, I have to assume they were prey to all the same insecurities I had, but they sure seemed to have it together when I was 12!
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Great post Toby…
On the whole dynamic between Anglo and Vato culture in SD. I’m a Lomas de Oro homeboy of sorts, having lived there from 12 to 18 years old, and while I was never anything but a skinny white kid, I was surprised how much respect we all got in my neighborhood.
I’ll never forget when I got Madness 12″ single of “One Step Beyond” in spanish (“Un Paso Adalente!”)
I made a tape, got my boom box, took a walk to 26th and Broadway. Lomas gang’s corner. Turn it up LOUD and strut past the boys (OK across the street…I was loony but not crazy!)
First I heard was “don’t play it if you don’t understand it” so I started shouting it back in English. No fists…all grins.
When I was a long-haired 13 year old in OP shorts my neighbors saved my ass a couple of times from gangsters…’He’s OK don’t mess with him. He lives over on E street and does the paper route with that shopping cart!’
Later when I cut off all my hair and became a mod the homeboys loved all the suits…”Check out the zoot-suit on Gringo Flaco!”
I was offered a fair amount of ‘sherm’ and used to run to Brown’s Field wrecking yards with the lowriders for parts for my Caddy.
In the punk rock days Eastside homeboys used to come to the shows at the Carpenters’ Hall. They stayed way in back, but they had HUGE grins on their faces. I think they really dug all the crazy macho adreneline.
That scene was mostly pretty cool until El Tigre stabbed Jeff Lucas/Dickey/Lowe/Whatever-this-week in the arm.
There’s always an asshole.
Golden Hills Park was near enough to my house (about 5 blocks) so we’d end up there after parties/shows sometimes, but my friends from out of the neighborhood (most of you) never really understood how to hang there without trouble. You could be white as the driven snow, but if you nodded your head politely when people gave you a look, and if you had the right music coming out of your car, everyone was fine. We shared beers and ran from the cops together…smoked behind the trees together and talked about girls together. Just a bunch of boys.
I do remember one night playing the Selecter’s first album over and over. The LM guys really liked that one, especially the James Bond Theme…and then Brendan Berg busted out the Undertones. Next car by pulled up short and threw a full bottle of beer at us. I told him not to play that!
“It’s gonna happen, happen,…happens all the time!” Good album actually.
Everyone knew the only transgression was to be too familiar with women from across the racial divide. Very paternalistic macho vibe and very seriously dealt with. People would get hurt. I do know a few kids who tried to stray in that regard and they had to leave the neighborhood to be left in peace.
As for the SDSH…some of them were from my neighborhood so I never thought much of them, and when they found out where I lived they were pretty kind…for a bunch of thugs.
Tim Brown was the worst of them, and the whitest of them. Overcompensating I believe. Talk about ‘closeted’…heheheheh.
We used to have Migra raids in my nieghborhood, fighting cocks in the alleys, WONDERFUL parties all over for any (I mean ANY) occaision. When we threw the big ones at E Street, invariably the response from the Japanese neighbors was to leave town for the day, and from the Mexican neighbors across the street was to throw a party of their own. Theirs were sometimes bigger than ours. I distinctly remember not being allowed to clean “their” side of the street the next day. Such is life in the barrio.
We had a pretty serious communist party cell on my block. They tried to bomb the shipyards in Logan Heights but got raided. TONS of explosives.
Maybe that’s for the politics thread…another time.
Patndhat
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Matthew.
We almost really had that race riot at my school. Roosevelt Jr. High. Next to the zoo.
My first day of school I was asked “are you going to fight tomorrow?” and I was puzzled. Then the kid (white guy from JROTC if I remember) explained all the white kids and all the mexican kids were going to fight the next day.
Great…the rumors are true.
Next day in PE class (2nd period) I watched the mexican kids (mostly Sherman boys) pulling chains and clubs out of their pants and putting them in their gym lockers.
Shit…this is really happening.
4th period there was a fire alarm.
The school was surrounded by police cars and SD Transit busses.
They packed us all up and sent us home…I guess the teachers heard too.
Glad they did. It was going to be nasty.
Pat
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Matthew.
We almost really had that race riot at my school. Roosevelt Jr. High. Next to the zoo.
My first day of school I was asked “are you going to fight tomorrow?” and I was puzzled. Then the kid (white guy from JROTC if I remember) explained all the white kids and all the mexican kids were going to fight the next day.
Great…the rumors are true.
Next day in PE class (2nd period) I watched the mexican kids (mostly Sherman boys) pulling chains and clubs out of their pants and putting them in their gym lockers.
Shit…this is really happening.
4th period there was a fire alarm.
The school was surrounded by police cars and SD Transit busses.
They packed us all up and sent us home…I guess the teachers heard too.
Glad they did. It was going to be nasty.
Pat
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
That kind of shit happened at PBJH, too. I moved to PB right after sixth grade, going from being the long haired kid at relatively suburban chase avenue elementary to being the new kid at PBJH where you rode a city bus to school and there were cops at the school entrance. Culture shock. Funny because in hindsight PB was a fairly safe little berg and the school was no big deal- but at the time I felt like a fish out of water. Plus it just seemed like at that time in PB there were a LOT of guys with chips on their shoulders who wanted to fight.
Though even now you guys have just opened my eyes to stuff I had no idea was going on there. I was well aware of the large mafia presence around the time I was working on the fishing boat out of Oceanside, but I had no idea anything so colorful as the IRA or Communists were happening. That makes my cold indictments of Southern California’s homogeneous climate seem a little less fair. I’m sure there’s a ton of shit I’ve missed.
I do remember my mom had a boyfriend that lived just across the freeway from the visitor information center on Mission bay, and when we were at his house I used to walk over to this Italian restaurant and get a slice of pizza and a coke or some garlic bread. The Pizza place shared the building with a realty office on Morena Blvd. So one time years later I see that place on the news, and someone had done a full on mafia hit- no witnesses, silencer- and killed everyone in that realty office. They said right on the news that there was a suspected mafia connection. Kind of tripped me out, but added a little personality to an area of the city that was most lacking in personality.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
That kind of shit happened at PBJH, too. I moved to PB right after sixth grade, going from being the long haired kid at relatively suburban chase avenue elementary to being the new kid at PBJH where you rode a city bus to school and there were cops at the school entrance. Culture shock. Funny because in hindsight PB was a fairly safe little berg and the school was no big deal- but at the time I felt like a fish out of water. Plus it just seemed like at that time in PB there were a LOT of guys with chips on their shoulders who wanted to fight.
Though even now you guys have just opened my eyes to stuff I had no idea was going on there. I was well aware of the large mafia presence around the time I was working on the fishing boat out of Oceanside, but I had no idea anything so colorful as the IRA or Communists were happening. That makes my cold indictments of Southern California’s homogeneous climate seem a little less fair. I’m sure there’s a ton of shit I’ve missed.
I do remember my mom had a boyfriend that lived just across the freeway from the visitor information center on Mission bay, and when we were at his house I used to walk over to this Italian restaurant and get a slice of pizza and a coke or some garlic bread. The Pizza place shared the building with a realty office on Morena Blvd. So one time years later I see that place on the news, and someone had done a full on mafia hit- no witnesses, silencer- and killed everyone in that realty office. They said right on the news that there was a suspected mafia connection. Kind of tripped me out, but added a little personality to an area of the city that was most lacking in personality.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Quote from Matt M: Toby: Right on the mark. You encapsulated a big swathe of my own acculturation process moving from Milwaukee to Leucadia in time for seventh grade. I was just telling my wife the other night how I spent my first year mesmerized by rumors of looming junior-high gang wars between the surfers and the Latinos. Nothing ever seemed to come of it, but it added this exotic fear factor to the standard-issue adolescent dread those years provoke.
I totally relate to your perception of those kids as more mature, more serious … Kind of regal. In hindsight, I have to assume they were prey to all the same insecurities I had, but they sure seemed to have it together when I was 12!
Yeah- when I moved up to Encinitas in 83 I felt way more safe, and the T-flats guys who I went to school with were much more accessible than the guys in San Diego. Even the PB lowrider guys were more accessible than the Sherman Heights guys that came to our school. I used to have to walk through that little stretch of PB on Garnet just West of the Seven Eleven where there were a dozen or so rental houses and it was PBs small Latino community. Those guys would give me a little trouble here and there- make some half-hearted wisecrack and laugh as I walked by, generally making me uncomfortable and nothing worse- but mostly they were just bored kids talking shit, and they never really hassled me too much even though I walked through there by myself for years.
I’ve heard a lot of stories about Los Vahos from Eden Gardens, who I believe have been referred to simply as ‘EG’ from the late seventies forward. Los Vahos hail from the fifties when they’d fight greasers and surfers and jocks. Back then I think prejudice was much more prevalent even in California (which I sometimes see taking steps backwards in that respect) and it had to have been extremely fucked to be treated by some like a second class citizen. I’ve been told that one of the biggest families in Eden Gardens came from people who smuggled opium pre-turn of the century. That kind of history intrigues me to no end, and if I think of things with that wide angle on history, thinking back through the Wild West years and of what they did to survive and how they got where they are- I can see a little why these kids are so adept at carrying themselves with composure well beyond their years.
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:15 am
Thanks for creating this thread, Matthew. This blog just keeps getting better and better. At first I saw this as a fun place to reconnect and reminisce, but I have been learning a lot about myself and reevaluating a lot of the memories I have as a result of reading the musings of you all. Pat and Toby, it’s always a pleasure when you share your insights.
Pat, I vaguely remember a few people with Irish flags on their parkas. I spoke with Monica Sullivan recently, but have always wondered what happened to Kevin and Maggie.
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:15 am
Thanks for creating this thread, Matthew. This blog just keeps getting better and better. At first I saw this as a fun place to reconnect and reminisce, but I have been learning a lot about myself and reevaluating a lot of the memories I have as a result of reading the musings of you all. Pat and Toby, it’s always a pleasure when you share your insights.
Pat, I vaguely remember a few people with Irish flags on their parkas. I spoke with Monica Sullivan recently, but have always wondered what happened to Kevin and Maggie.
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:37 am
I find it intriguing to learn that San Diego was/is so many different things to so many different people. I tend to get stuck in my own paradigm a lot- especially at a distance of 3000 miles and nearly twenty years.
I haven’t heard someone make a reference to “Sherm” in a very long time. The offer was always made in a sly way, an underhanded dare with a grin, eyebrows raised. “Hey homeboy- want some Sherrrmmm?” Classic.
Quote from Patrick: You could be white as the driven snow, but if you nodded your head politely when people gave you a look, and if you had the right music coming out of your car, everyone was fine.
I know that head nod- it bridges language barriers. An unspoken agreement, a common politeness- whatever. It’s more than a nod of the head. It works about 95% of the time in Hawaii. Like someone said- there always has to be an asshole. Latino culture figures largely in the things I love from my childhood in California. Whenever I write about my childhood some of it invariably comes into play. Just one more and I’m done:
We walk out the door and into the night, pulling up our coats against the cold as we head down the boardwalk towards Ventura. Making our way through the fog towards Bid’s House, the usual characters line the boardwalk, bums and hookers in the well lit places like moths to flames, street dealers and the associated bottom feeders staying out in the shadows where the business is done. Pulled in tight against the curb at the top of Ventura, three custom early-sixties Impalas sit low against the curb, hand-sprayed metal-flake paint jobs garish underneath the yellow glow of the street lamps.
The same Vato Locos who are always there on a Friday night are standing in a loose circle next to their rides, smoking and drinking and talking shit, just another Friday night in toon-town.
We know they see us coming but they don’t even look our way. They rarely do. As we pass, the alpha dog at the center of their little diorama makes eye contact with Bid and Bids stares back, unflinching. After a bit the Latino Chief gives Bid an almost imperceptible nod and turns his head to say something, then looks back. Bid doesn’t miss a beat, staring a few seconds longer as we walk by and then giving the Vato Loco a short nod back, just a flick of the head and then it’s eyes forward, the continuation of an unspoken agreement from two sides of the neighborhood.
I see all of it without really looking; I don’t really assume anything. To tell the truth it’s just the way things are around here- cat and dog- it goes on every day. People packed in like rats in a cage, trying to find their little place in the sun- their tiny chunk of Paradise. Sooner or later someone’s going to try to take yours, and there has to be some sort of agreement in order to cohabitate- a tiny bit of compromise so that everyone gets a chance to live their lives without having to fight their way across town every day just to fight their way back.
With the Mexicans and us- we just keep our distances- same with Red and his dirt bag Bikers down by the Daley Double, T.J. and that crowd of knuckle-dragging surf Nazis up by the pier. No one owns this neighborhood- there aren’t any rules set in concrete. It’s the Wild, Wild West, cowboys and Indians.
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:37 am
I find it intriguing to learn that San Diego was/is so many different things to so many different people. I tend to get stuck in my own paradigm a lot- especially at a distance of 3000 miles and nearly twenty years.
I haven’t heard someone make a reference to “Sherm” in a very long time. The offer was always made in a sly way, an underhanded dare with a grin, eyebrows raised. “Hey homeboy- want some Sherrrmmm?” Classic.
Quote from Patrick: You could be white as the driven snow, but if you nodded your head politely when people gave you a look, and if you had the right music coming out of your car, everyone was fine.
I know that head nod- it bridges language barriers. An unspoken agreement, a common politeness- whatever. It’s more than a nod of the head. It works about 95% of the time in Hawaii. Like someone said- there always has to be an asshole. Latino culture figures largely in the things I love from my childhood in California. Whenever I write about my childhood some of it invariably comes into play. Just one more and I’m done:
We walk out the door and into the night, pulling up our coats against the cold as we head down the boardwalk towards Ventura. Making our way through the fog towards Bid’s House, the usual characters line the boardwalk, bums and hookers in the well lit places like moths to flames, street dealers and the associated bottom feeders staying out in the shadows where the business is done. Pulled in tight against the curb at the top of Ventura, three custom early-sixties Impalas sit low against the curb, hand-sprayed metal-flake paint jobs garish underneath the yellow glow of the street lamps.
The same Vato Locos who are always there on a Friday night are standing in a loose circle next to their rides, smoking and drinking and talking shit, just another Friday night in toon-town.
We know they see us coming but they don’t even look our way. They rarely do. As we pass, the alpha dog at the center of their little diorama makes eye contact with Bid and Bids stares back, unflinching. After a bit the Latino Chief gives Bid an almost imperceptible nod and turns his head to say something, then looks back. Bid doesn’t miss a beat, staring a few seconds longer as we walk by and then giving the Vato Loco a short nod back, just a flick of the head and then it’s eyes forward, the continuation of an unspoken agreement from two sides of the neighborhood.
I see all of it without really looking; I don’t really assume anything. To tell the truth it’s just the way things are around here- cat and dog- it goes on every day. People packed in like rats in a cage, trying to find their little place in the sun- their tiny chunk of Paradise. Sooner or later someone’s going to try to take yours, and there has to be some sort of agreement in order to cohabitate- a tiny bit of compromise so that everyone gets a chance to live their lives without having to fight their way across town every day just to fight their way back.
With the Mexicans and us- we just keep our distances- same with Red and his dirt bag Bikers down by the Daley Double, T.J. and that crowd of knuckle-dragging surf Nazis up by the pier. No one owns this neighborhood- there aren’t any rules set in concrete. It’s the Wild, Wild West, cowboys and Indians.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:03 am
I remember Bid very well…his real name was Steve BTW. Closely held secret.
He was my real link to SDSH. Only truly nice guy of the bunch.
Pat
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:03 am
I remember Bid very well…his real name was Steve BTW. Closely held secret.
He was my real link to SDSH. Only truly nice guy of the bunch.
Pat
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 am
Ray…odd aside. Maggie was originally from Ithica NY, near our own Matt R’s Binghamton,…and anyhoo…she went back.
Recently my wife’s best friend brought around her new boyfriend. Also from Ithica. He mentioned where he was from and I had to bring up Maggie.
Turns out they finished high school together. My wife and I are 15 years apart in age. So she and her best friend both became engaged to guys from the opposite ends of the US who shared a common friend within 1 year of each other…our own Maggie.
Small freakin’ world.
Patndhat
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 am
Ray…odd aside. Maggie was originally from Ithica NY, near our own Matt R’s Binghamton,…and anyhoo…she went back.
Recently my wife’s best friend brought around her new boyfriend. Also from Ithica. He mentioned where he was from and I had to bring up Maggie.
Turns out they finished high school together. My wife and I are 15 years apart in age. So she and her best friend both became engaged to guys from the opposite ends of the US who shared a common friend within 1 year of each other…our own Maggie.
Small freakin’ world.
Patndhat
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:09 am
I knew Bid since I was about 13. He was a good guy a lot of the time, a character all of the time, and a good friend of mine. Crank fucked everything up.
I think the last time I saw him was at Lloyd’s funeral. He’s a person I’d like to hear something worked out alright for.
The first time I saw Bid Walker was the first week of seventh grade. I was pretty overwhelmed- new kid at a new school, new drill, new rules- I thought it was pretty much big-time. I walked out of building one at Pacific Beach Junior High School and looked out across the quad over a sea of bobbing heads, more students than I’d ever seen in one place making their way from building to building to get to their next class. The bell had just sounded signaling the end of lunch but there were still pods of students hanging around here and there, lingering as long as they could before going to class.
I was trying to find my way to the music building when I saw Bid and Trey Crawford with a few of their cronies standing in the path that led to the gym. Standing in front of them looking unfortunate was a guy about twice the size of Bid, his friends trying to fade into the crowd leaving him alone trying to get past Bid and into gym class. This poor, slow-witted, overgrown jock looked like one of those kids who grew six inches and filled out over summer but wasn’t really comfortable yet in the role of the big guy. He also must have made the mistake of bumping into Bid, who I later found out made a habit of taking out the biggest guy he could find on the first day of the school year, just to get it out of the way. Really the guy was doomed- he didn’t have to laugh at Bid or talk back or resist or bump into him- he was fucked right from the start, guilty of becoming the biggest guy in school over the summer break.
So here’s Bid walker a full head shorter than the guy, pushing this guy backwards and slapping him on the head and face yelling, “Come on you big dumb fucker! You’re twice my size- take a fucking swing!” and here’s this poor giant sloth of a guy with such a definite height and weight advantage that it’s almost laughable, but in his head he’s still five foot one and 120 pounds and so he’s blubbering and sputtering, tears streaming down his cheeks as he trips over his own feet backwards while trying to fend off Bids barrage of blows with his hands.
After I’d been around a while I learned that aside from his older brother Bid was one of the toughest kids around at the time- and if he wasn’t the toughest, he was the craziest. Still- despite trying to live up to the family rep and survive the regular beatings doled out by his older brother who was in and out of Juvi, Bid was really an alright guy and amazingly somehow managed to hang onto his sense of humor. Last I saw of him that day he was standing over the prone figure of the oversized jock asking, “Jesus Christ buddy- get up! Where’s your fucking self-respect? At this rate you’re never going to make it through the year!”
Not the best Bid story to personify him being an alright guy, but it was the easiest to find.
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:02 am
Great thread Matt, I was’nt aware of that I shared so many similarities with others, though I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised.
I was born in Natonal City of Mexican -- German heritage. My mother (maiden name Cardenas) was from Guadalajara relocated to Tiajuana then onto San Diego, her family had to flee Mexico due to circumstances they rarely talk about, what I have been able to piece together was that my great grandfather shot his best friend in drunkin card fight and disappeared in the hills. His son, my grandfather,was apparently associatied with the wrong folks politcally and was killed in a gunfight on his way home. On a side note he must of been quite a piece of work as the Catholic church was willing to grant my grandmother a divorce due to his notoriety, rather strange especially since it just was’nt done very often in the 40′s.
My father was a navy brat of German heritage, not alot of fun growing up in a navy town post world war II, lots of rascim against germans and japanese back then( mother maiden name Hoffman father’s name Halterman). His story was alcohic abusive father and mother living in all the wrong neighborhoods in San Diego. He was what you’d call a pachuco even though he was as white as white comes, he was in a mexican gang, still has the tattoo but covers it with a ring. Occassionaly he spoke of it when I was a kid but his advice of ” never join a gang, you’ll only end up doing someone else’s dirty work ” always rang in my head. My mothers words of wisdom,” there’s honour among thieves” maybe I should have been a pirate(LOL).
Anyhow the two meet produce offspring and marry, they were young my mom was 15 and father was 18, seems unimaginable now . There was four of us though the oldest died at birth. We stayed in National city till I was three and relocated to La Mesa, leaving behind the Barrio , I believe it’s called bowing out of the gang culture. We were a working class family , neither one of my parents were college educated my father worked in a machine shop and later became a draftsman for aerospace my mother was a stay at home mom later became a cashier, I went to catholic school till 6th grade( I was even an Alterboy, attended church almost everyday). My parents divorced when I was nine and I bounced back and forth from between northern ca. and San diego till I was 14.
I loved music growing up especially live and gravited towards it. I also loved drugs and gravitated towards that too. I learned quite a lot about interacting with people of different backgrounds, mostly through drug culture. I remember vividly using “the nod” almost instinctively from a very young age. I was a runner of sorts from age 12 till I graduated to dealer at around age 15.
I remember I used to roadie for a strange metal band called Emerald when I was 14, It was kind of funny going to their gigs on my scooter.I later discovered the Mod scene just by having a scooter.I discovered some very cool music and people but found that drug usage was’nt tolerated in the elite circles.I kept that part relatively quiet till about age 17 when I met some punks and found many a kindred soul in self medication. I became aquainted with SDSH and found it slightly perplexing that most were mexican. I guess I can thank Dave Rinck and Dave Dick for introducing me to the Che Cafe. It’s influence probably saved me from becoming another meth statistic, everyone seemed creative or played in a band, I thought to myself “hey, that looks like fun I should learn how to play.”The majority of people were always supportive even though I didn’t know what I was doing, I only started playing base because it had fewer strings and no one else seemed to want to play it ( no offense Paul Howland) .
I recollect having some discussion along these lines in San Francisco with Jerry and Pat ( Hey all!) but never this indepth. I still associate those years and interactions as Magickal(Crowely) and syncronicitous(Jung). I’m constantly surprised at the memories that keep coming back to me after reading this blog.Over and out.
Larry Halterman
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:02 am
Great thread Matt, I was’nt aware of that I shared so many similarities with others, though I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised.
I was born in Natonal City of Mexican -- German heritage. My mother (maiden name Cardenas) was from Guadalajara relocated to Tiajuana then onto San Diego, her family had to flee Mexico due to circumstances they rarely talk about, what I have been able to piece together was that my great grandfather shot his best friend in drunkin card fight and disappeared in the hills. His son, my grandfather,was apparently associatied with the wrong folks politcally and was killed in a gunfight on his way home. On a side note he must of been quite a piece of work as the Catholic church was willing to grant my grandmother a divorce due to his notoriety, rather strange especially since it just was’nt done very often in the 40′s.
My father was a navy brat of German heritage, not alot of fun growing up in a navy town post world war II, lots of rascim against germans and japanese back then( mother maiden name Hoffman father’s name Halterman). His story was alcohic abusive father and mother living in all the wrong neighborhoods in San Diego. He was what you’d call a pachuco even though he was as white as white comes, he was in a mexican gang, still has the tattoo but covers it with a ring. Occassionaly he spoke of it when I was a kid but his advice of ” never join a gang, you’ll only end up doing someone else’s dirty work ” always rang in my head. My mothers words of wisdom,” there’s honour among thieves” maybe I should have been a pirate(LOL).
Anyhow the two meet produce offspring and marry, they were young my mom was 15 and father was 18, seems unimaginable now . There was four of us though the oldest died at birth. We stayed in National city till I was three and relocated to La Mesa, leaving behind the Barrio , I believe it’s called bowing out of the gang culture. We were a working class family , neither one of my parents were college educated my father worked in a machine shop and later became a draftsman for aerospace my mother was a stay at home mom later became a cashier, I went to catholic school till 6th grade( I was even an Alterboy, attended church almost everyday). My parents divorced when I was nine and I bounced back and forth from between northern ca. and San diego till I was 14.
I loved music growing up especially live and gravited towards it. I also loved drugs and gravitated towards that too. I learned quite a lot about interacting with people of different backgrounds, mostly through drug culture. I remember vividly using “the nod” almost instinctively from a very young age. I was a runner of sorts from age 12 till I graduated to dealer at around age 15.
I remember I used to roadie for a strange metal band called Emerald when I was 14, It was kind of funny going to their gigs on my scooter.I later discovered the Mod scene just by having a scooter.I discovered some very cool music and people but found that drug usage was’nt tolerated in the elite circles.I kept that part relatively quiet till about age 17 when I met some punks and found many a kindred soul in self medication. I became aquainted with SDSH and found it slightly perplexing that most were mexican. I guess I can thank Dave Rinck and Dave Dick for introducing me to the Che Cafe. It’s influence probably saved me from becoming another meth statistic, everyone seemed creative or played in a band, I thought to myself “hey, that looks like fun I should learn how to play.”The majority of people were always supportive even though I didn’t know what I was doing, I only started playing base because it had fewer strings and no one else seemed to want to play it ( no offense Paul Howland) .
I recollect having some discussion along these lines in San Francisco with Jerry and Pat ( Hey all!) but never this indepth. I still associate those years and interactions as Magickal(Crowely) and syncronicitous(Jung). I’m constantly surprised at the memories that keep coming back to me after reading this blog.Over and out.
Larry Halterman
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:59 am
Quoting Toby: “We envied their sense of culture, their sense of community. We envied their solidarity and their sense of identity, and their unity. Being white kids from urban Southern California it wasn’t too tough to realize that we’d been stripped of those things a long time ago- for most of us probably well before we were born. There was a cultural vacuum where our identity was supposed to be and it had a voracious appetite and would swallow up any number of cultures and trivialize and homogenize them automatically.”
I think that’s an important observation. One summer Matthew and Robert Labbe and I were doing a backpack in Europe trip, and we would often see groups folk dancing in town squares consisting of three (or more, perhaps) generations of families and neighbors in costumed rituals hundreds of years old. We knew we didn’t have anything like that in SD, where restaurants will boast of their longevity with signs that read “Since 1975″. I think that background, coupled with the isolating So Cal geography (everything is miles away from everything else, with little public transportation), left a lot of people looking for a community to be part of.
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:59 am
Quoting Toby: “We envied their sense of culture, their sense of community. We envied their solidarity and their sense of identity, and their unity. Being white kids from urban Southern California it wasn’t too tough to realize that we’d been stripped of those things a long time ago- for most of us probably well before we were born. There was a cultural vacuum where our identity was supposed to be and it had a voracious appetite and would swallow up any number of cultures and trivialize and homogenize them automatically.”
I think that’s an important observation. One summer Matthew and Robert Labbe and I were doing a backpack in Europe trip, and we would often see groups folk dancing in town squares consisting of three (or more, perhaps) generations of families and neighbors in costumed rituals hundreds of years old. We knew we didn’t have anything like that in SD, where restaurants will boast of their longevity with signs that read “Since 1975″. I think that background, coupled with the isolating So Cal geography (everything is miles away from everything else, with little public transportation), left a lot of people looking for a community to be part of.
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:30 am
>>when not mounting and soiling each other in the woods
LOL! Bobo, dear, that’s an image worthy of James Joyce. If the eucalyptus grove around the Che Cafe could talk …
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:30 am
>>when not mounting and soiling each other in the woods
LOL! Bobo, dear, that’s an image worthy of James Joyce. If the eucalyptus grove around the Che Cafe could talk …
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
No offense taken at all Larry. I started out on guitar…I think it was one of Bertram Turetzky’s trips to my grade school that initially enchanted me about the bass. It was love at first touch with the electric bass for me. Bass used to make it a lot easier to get in bands, I don’t think it’s as much the case now after recent Bass “Heros” (Flea, Jaco Pastorious,etc.) bass became “cool” at some point, not really cool enough to make girls talk to you after a show though. Sorry to stray from the topic. Very interesting stuff.
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
No offense taken at all Larry. I started out on guitar…I think it was one of Bertram Turetzky’s trips to my grade school that initially enchanted me about the bass. It was love at first touch with the electric bass for me. Bass used to make it a lot easier to get in bands, I don’t think it’s as much the case now after recent Bass “Heros” (Flea, Jaco Pastorious,etc.) bass became “cool” at some point, not really cool enough to make girls talk to you after a show though. Sorry to stray from the topic. Very interesting stuff.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Paul Howland: Have we connected the Turetzky dots officially? My dad has collaborated extensively with Bert, Wendell has a tape of Noise 292 opening for the two of them at UCSD’s Center for Music Experiment, and 3 Guys Called Jesus appeared in a play written by my father and scored by Mr. Turetzky. Hell of a musician and teacher!
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Paul Howland: Have we connected the Turetzky dots officially? My dad has collaborated extensively with Bert, Wendell has a tape of Noise 292 opening for the two of them at UCSD’s Center for Music Experiment, and 3 Guys Called Jesus appeared in a play written by my father and scored by Mr. Turetzky. Hell of a musician and teacher!
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Mike Buckley -- longtime pal of Pat Works and Dan Howland -- studied music at UCSD because of Turetzky, if recollection serves me.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Mike Buckley -- longtime pal of Pat Works and Dan Howland -- studied music at UCSD because of Turetzky, if recollection serves me.
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Paul, you were so cool we talked to you BEFORE the show
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Paul, you were so cool we talked to you BEFORE the show
June 4th, 2008 at 1:16 am
Shit!
I totally forgot to mention the Zeros from Chula Vista.
Quote from Amplipedia: Javier Escovedo (lead vocals, guitar), Robert Lopez (vocals, guitar), Hector Penalosa (bass, vocals), Baba Chenelle (drums)
The Zeros were San Diego’s first true punk rock band. Founded in Chula Vista by four high school students, the group quickly became regulars in both the early Los Angeles and San Francisco punk scenes. Their bona fides as “the Mexican Ramones” earned them a supporting slot on the Clash’s first US tour and an on-stage cameo from Patti Smith. The familial ties of the various members is a rock family tree all its own.
The most notable punk exports from San Diego have to be either The Kinman Brothers or the Zeros, (followed by the injections, IMO) despite what several one sided interviews in books and on film seem to say.
June 4th, 2008 at 1:16 am
Shit!
I totally forgot to mention the Zeros from Chula Vista.
Quote from Amplipedia: Javier Escovedo (lead vocals, guitar), Robert Lopez (vocals, guitar), Hector Penalosa (bass, vocals), Baba Chenelle (drums)
The Zeros were San Diego’s first true punk rock band. Founded in Chula Vista by four high school students, the group quickly became regulars in both the early Los Angeles and San Francisco punk scenes. Their bona fides as “the Mexican Ramones” earned them a supporting slot on the Clash’s first US tour and an on-stage cameo from Patti Smith. The familial ties of the various members is a rock family tree all its own.
The most notable punk exports from San Diego have to be either The Kinman Brothers or the Zeros, (followed by the injections, IMO) despite what several one sided interviews in books and on film seem to say.
June 4th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Freaky! Thousands of miles away, Tom Griswold mentions the Zeros in a totally different context in a different thread.
June 4th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Freaky! Thousands of miles away, Tom Griswold mentions the Zeros in a totally different context in a different thread.
June 4th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
What’s really strange is I hadn’t read that comment yet.
June 4th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
What’s really strange is I hadn’t read that comment yet.
June 4th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
“Say you’re thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly someone says plate, or shrimp, or plate of shrimp. Out of the blue. No explanation. No use looking for one either. It’s all part of the cosmic unconsciousness.”
June 4th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
“Say you’re thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly someone says plate, or shrimp, or plate of shrimp. Out of the blue. No explanation. No use looking for one either. It’s all part of the cosmic unconsciousness.”
June 4th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
“Dioretix. The Science of
Matter over Mind”.
I have found so many uses in my everyday life for quotes from that particular movie. IMO Emelio Estevez never had a decent role after that.
June 4th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
“Dioretix. The Science of
Matter over Mind”.
I have found so many uses in my everyday life for quotes from that particular movie. IMO Emelio Estevez never had a decent role after that.
June 4th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
>>IMO Emelio Estevez never had a decent role after that.
EXACTLY what I was thinking just now while waiting for the 1 train. (And the Sheen-Estevez team’s also an interesting cultural mashup, eh?)
When I get back from the city tonight, I’ll try to prep a post on great punk-rock movies. Let’s see if we can get our house critic Mr. Smithey to participate!
June 4th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
>>IMO Emelio Estevez never had a decent role after that.
EXACTLY what I was thinking just now while waiting for the 1 train. (And the Sheen-Estevez team’s also an interesting cultural mashup, eh?)
When I get back from the city tonight, I’ll try to prep a post on great punk-rock movies. Let’s see if we can get our house critic Mr. Smithey to participate!
June 4th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
PS: Now that I’ve discovered I can post comments from my Blackberry, I’m totally screwed … Watch me get hit by a truck while reminiscing about Tex and the Horseheads at Rock Palace or something. LOL
June 4th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
PS: Now that I’ve discovered I can post comments from my Blackberry, I’m totally screwed … Watch me get hit by a truck while reminiscing about Tex and the Horseheads at Rock Palace or something. LOL
June 4th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
“Let’s get sushi and not pay”
My other favorite moments were more in the background- when one grocery clerk is
singing the “Feeling 7Up” song to himself and the other tells him to shut up…
And the sightings of tin cans simply marked “Food”.
June 4th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
“Let’s get sushi and not pay”
My other favorite moments were more in the background- when one grocery clerk is
singing the “Feeling 7Up” song to himself and the other tells him to shut up…
And the sightings of tin cans simply marked “Food”.
June 4th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
“Put it on a plate son, you’ll enjoy it more.”
“couldnt enjoy it any more than this, mom. Mm. Mm. Mm.
One of my favorite movies…
“John Wayne was a fag.”
I recently saw that guy in another movie, I cant remember what it was now. He always plays the same part.
June 4th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
“Put it on a plate son, you’ll enjoy it more.”
“couldnt enjoy it any more than this, mom. Mm. Mm. Mm.
One of my favorite movies…
“John Wayne was a fag.”
I recently saw that guy in another movie, I cant remember what it was now. He always plays the same part.
June 4th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
…and my favorite line, which I still say jokingly whenever my spouse claims that something wasnt her fault: “I blame society.”
June 4th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
…and my favorite line, which I still say jokingly whenever my spouse claims that something wasnt her fault: “I blame society.”
June 4th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Me too- the same scenes.
Tracy Walters. He’s a lot like Harry Dean Stanton in that he’ll play anything offbeat and do it well. I spotted him last in Manchurian Candidate. He’s had quite a run though- played tons of parts. Not a bad career at all.
June 4th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Me too- the same scenes.
Tracy Walters. He’s a lot like Harry Dean Stanton in that he’ll play anything offbeat and do it well. I spotted him last in Manchurian Candidate. He’s had quite a run though- played tons of parts. Not a bad career at all.
June 4th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
At Close Range was the movie I was thinking of…he plays Christopher Walken’s brother.
June 4th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
At Close Range was the movie I was thinking of…he plays Christopher Walken’s brother.
June 4th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I liked that somewhat cheesy eighties movie. The rare time you get to see Sean and Chris Penn work together. Plus I mean come on- Christopher Walken is always fun as a demented criminal genius. Which is why I think he could play a decent Garris. (That hasn’t come up for a week.)
June 4th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I liked that somewhat cheesy eighties movie. The rare time you get to see Sean and Chris Penn work together. Plus I mean come on- Christopher Walken is always fun as a demented criminal genius. Which is why I think he could play a decent Garris. (That hasn’t come up for a week.)
June 5th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Harry Dean Stanton used sing with his own band…my wife and I went to see him at Jack’s Sugar Shack in Hollywood. He was really drunk, but was a pretty good singer. He did mainly ballads, some of them in Spanish. I remember him doing the great old country song Four Walls.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Harry Dean Stanton used sing with his own band…my wife and I went to see him at Jack’s Sugar Shack in Hollywood. He was really drunk, but was a pretty good singer. He did mainly ballads, some of them in Spanish. I remember him doing the great old country song Four Walls.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:10 am
I’m totally against ethnicity (and also nationalism). I reject it completely.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:10 am
I’m totally against ethnicity (and also nationalism). I reject it completely.
June 8th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Could you elaborate? I’m interested.
If I had made that statement I’d interpret to say that to be “proud of your race” is to generalize quite a bit, and you really didn’t have anything to do with your conception anyhow- that was all luck. I’m Swedish, Irish and Scottish- kind of hard to pick how much of which and when you add in the American Indian, Black Portuguese and whatever else is in the mix (there’s lots) it would be ludicrous to say I’m proud of my race. I am a little bummed there’s no box for me to check and I have to check “White” by default. The whole “proud to be Irish” or “Proud to be Hawaiian” thing gets a little overboard. There have been tons of particularly despicable Irish people just like any other race, and most bloodlines have been mixed up enough that it’s a shot in the dark calling ourselves anything. But to be totally into whatever cultural events and pass-times that hail from your race- whatever- cool. Living in Hawaii we enjoy American, Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian and to a lesser degree Filipino and Portuguese heritage. I’m particularly fond of Buddhist and Taoist literature and history, as well as anything foreign that I find colorful and interesting. That stuff enriches my life, and I’m happy for it.
But yeah- a person is largely a sum of their experiences.
I would not discount DNA in particular races as being unique (Though I don’t think that’s what you were saying). That would be patently foolish. That would be like saying that (by and large) boys aren’t better at math first and girls don’t achieve a good grasp of speech first.
I do think that a lot of that has more to do with geography than race, though. There was a study (and yeah- I know- studies are pretty fallible a lot of the time)- there have actually been several studies- that show that a good portion of alcoholics hail from Northern European descent. Of course alcohol largely does the Native American Indians, Native Alaskan Indians and Polynesians no favors at all. No idea the why of that- or I can’t remember what the conclusions were.
June 8th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Could you elaborate? I’m interested.
If I had made that statement I’d interpret to say that to be “proud of your race” is to generalize quite a bit, and you really didn’t have anything to do with your conception anyhow- that was all luck. I’m Swedish, Irish and Scottish- kind of hard to pick how much of which and when you add in the American Indian, Black Portuguese and whatever else is in the mix (there’s lots) it would be ludicrous to say I’m proud of my race. I am a little bummed there’s no box for me to check and I have to check “White” by default. The whole “proud to be Irish” or “Proud to be Hawaiian” thing gets a little overboard. There have been tons of particularly despicable Irish people just like any other race, and most bloodlines have been mixed up enough that it’s a shot in the dark calling ourselves anything. But to be totally into whatever cultural events and pass-times that hail from your race- whatever- cool. Living in Hawaii we enjoy American, Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian and to a lesser degree Filipino and Portuguese heritage. I’m particularly fond of Buddhist and Taoist literature and history, as well as anything foreign that I find colorful and interesting. That stuff enriches my life, and I’m happy for it.
But yeah- a person is largely a sum of their experiences.
I would not discount DNA in particular races as being unique (Though I don’t think that’s what you were saying). That would be patently foolish. That would be like saying that (by and large) boys aren’t better at math first and girls don’t achieve a good grasp of speech first.
I do think that a lot of that has more to do with geography than race, though. There was a study (and yeah- I know- studies are pretty fallible a lot of the time)- there have actually been several studies- that show that a good portion of alcoholics hail from Northern European descent. Of course alcohol largely does the Native American Indians, Native Alaskan Indians and Polynesians no favors at all. No idea the why of that- or I can’t remember what the conclusions were.
June 9th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
This blog is the internet’s only virtual Presidio Park. I have never been to a high school reunion; reuniting here with all of you is far more important to me. one high school memory is of the smoking section at Patrick Henry. Did any of you guys have smoking sections? It was there that ethnicity was tenuously transcended. It was loosely segregated like a prison, but you’d feel ok offering a smoke to or even bumming one from a Lao immigrant, vato or brother--maybe even a hessian if you were really desperate. then when they came to school without cigs one day, they could get one from you at lunch. there were race riots in the parking lot, but no race riots among the delinquents in the smoking section.
June 9th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
This blog is the internet’s only virtual Presidio Park. I have never been to a high school reunion; reuniting here with all of you is far more important to me. one high school memory is of the smoking section at Patrick Henry. Did any of you guys have smoking sections? It was there that ethnicity was tenuously transcended. It was loosely segregated like a prison, but you’d feel ok offering a smoke to or even bumming one from a Lao immigrant, vato or brother--maybe even a hessian if you were really desperate. then when they came to school without cigs one day, they could get one from you at lunch. there were race riots in the parking lot, but no race riots among the delinquents in the smoking section.
June 16th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Apropos of little, here’s an interesting compendium of black punk musicians. I’m dismayed that Aaron Daniels of the Wallflowers isn’t included!
June 16th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Apropos of little, here’s an interesting compendium of black punk musicians. I’m dismayed that Aaron Daniels of the Wallflowers isn’t included!
May 7th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I once thought I was proud to be a wasp until my father(Rest his poor soul) reminded me of how ethnic I really was,
With all that Moorish blood running through my veins,
So Im here to say Im proud to be an Icelandic Noth African Saxon Roman, Hail!!!
May 7th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I once thought I was proud to be a wasp until my father(Rest his poor soul) reminded me of how ethnic I really was,
With all that Moorish blood running through my veins,
So Im here to say Im proud to be an Icelandic Noth African Saxon Roman, Hail!!!
May 8th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
So at the risk of being completely politically incorrect I must toss this up immediately (at the mere mention of the word “Moorish”):
I love this clip! Walken and Hopper are WAY better playing off each other than Pacino and Deniro ever were.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
So at the risk of being completely politically incorrect I must toss this up immediately (at the mere mention of the word “Moorish”):
I love this clip! Walken and Hopper are WAY better playing off each other than Pacino and Deniro ever were.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Why don’t I know this movie?? I didn’t even know they worked together.
How about Deniro and Pesci together??
May 8th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Why don’t I know this movie?? I didn’t even know they worked together.
How about Deniro and Pesci together??
May 8th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
I think that scene and Sarah Silverman’s opening scene in “Way of the Gun” are two of my favorite “makes me cringe” clips.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
I think that scene and Sarah Silverman’s opening scene in “Way of the Gun” are two of my favorite “makes me cringe” clips.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
I watch Sarah Silverman YOUTUBE clips nightly…I’m addicted.
What movie is that clip from Toby??
May 8th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
I watch Sarah Silverman YOUTUBE clips nightly…I’m addicted.
What movie is that clip from Toby??
May 8th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
True Romance. Pulp Fiction’s geeked out step-sibling. While Pulp Fiction made a bit of fun of how “uber-cool” the City of Angels and her children can be, Pulp Fiction stars ultra not-cool Christian Slater with Patricia Arquette (always great as a beautiful one-off) and about everybody who was ever very cool in the movie biz. Slater opens the movie as an employee of a comic book emporium who watches Sonny Chiba Kung Fu triple features.
Bonus: Gary Oldman as a black man- a pimp no less.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
True Romance. Pulp Fiction’s geeked out step-sibling. While Pulp Fiction made a bit of fun of how “uber-cool” the City of Angels and her children can be, Pulp Fiction stars ultra not-cool Christian Slater with Patricia Arquette (always great as a beautiful one-off) and about everybody who was ever very cool in the movie biz. Slater opens the movie as an employee of a comic book emporium who watches Sonny Chiba Kung Fu triple features.
Bonus: Gary Oldman as a black man- a pimp no less.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Wow…good to know. Did you say Gary Oldman OR Gary Coleman as the pimp.
Remember who played the pimp in “Taxi Driver”??
May 8th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Wow…good to know. Did you say Gary Oldman OR Gary Coleman as the pimp.
Remember who played the pimp in “Taxi Driver”??