Part I- how i came to

When my love for music really came to, i was in my early and formative years of high school. before that, i basically listened to the stuff my older brother listened to which consisted mostly of old school rap and hip hop. i was too young to buy tapes or cds and my parents were too clueless to aid in such purchases, so i spent a lot of time taping shit off the radio- mostly from Power 106 (you LA folk know what i'm talking about). While I never really molded into a little chola (i left the eyebrow shaving and permanent markering-in to my older cousin, see video above), i did once get kicked into my cousin's gang called "Non-Stoppable Females," better known as NSF. Her and her friends let me have it for a good 10 minutes one sunny day while we were at the park and by the time i was done getting my ass kicked, i was so scared of what was to come that i immediately thereafter begged them to kick me out of the gang, which they did, literally. but i digress...

Every summer my family and their friends would make it to Tahoe for some opium smoking, tounge stew making, jet ski riding and general persian style debauchery. i guess it reminded them of being in the old country as they used to rent cabins all next to each other and do lots of reminiscing. i was always dragged along on these motherland-style trips so that i could corral all the youngins while the adults were up to no good (my brother rarely made it on these trips as he was older and you know, a guy, which meant he could do as he pleased). the saving grace of these trips were the little miniature sized bottles of booze id steal from my father who used to take them from the airlines where he worked. he'd bring them home by the handfuls and i'd take them, always with the same excuse that i needed them for my bottle painting crafts projects. sometimes i wonder whether he was just playing dumb so as to let me have my little bit of fun or if he was really that clueless.

the other saving grace was sue. sue's family decided to partake in this particular summer trip. she was about 9 months older than me, and i was about 13/14 at the time and clueless to the ways of the world while she was already smoking cigarettes, kissing boys and listening to pretty great music. it was on that trip, about 12 years ago that i first heard the music that would forever change my life- the descendants, dead kennedys and guttermouth, which needless to say, all incredibly blew my mind. i was newly a teenager, at the ripe young age where one is filled with angst, bitterness and hate for their parents and all else rule enforcing. obviously, things would never be the same again.

to be continued...