November 23, 2025 • 53 mins
In this episode of Sacred Lessons, host Mike de la Rocha sits down with legendary photographer and director Estevan Oriol, whose lens has defined Los Angeles and global street culture for decades. From tour-managing Cypress Hill and House of Pain to receiving his first camera from his father, Estevan shares how photography became his medicine. Together, they explore how images can heal by restoring dignity, visibility, and belonging to those often unseen. Through his work, Estevan reminds us that representation is care, memory is justice, and every image can be an act of healing.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What are the cycles fathers passed down that son so
there left to heal. What if being a man was
about holding it all together but learning how to let go.
This is a space where men speak truth and find
the power to heal and transform. I'm Mike Dela Rocha.
Welcome to Sacred Lessons. Pictures can wound, but they can
(00:24):
also heal in our homes and in our neighborhoods. Images
are medicine proof that we exist, that we matter, that
we will always survive despite systemic attempts to erase us.
Welcome to Sacred Lessons. I'm Mike Dela Rocha. Today I'm
honored to sit with an icon, a Steven o'rial, a
(00:46):
photographer and director whose camera has captured the magic of
the streets. I say magic because a Steven is more
than just a photographer. He's a magician, a storyteller who's
not only worked with some of the greatest influential celebrities
in the world, but captured the beauty amiss, the struggle
of those often forgotten and outcasted by society. There's not
(01:10):
enough words to step on to say thank you for
not just being on this podcast, bro, but for what
you've done for our culture.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
You know this.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I'm I'm the only man in my family and my
mom's I never served time in a cage, and society
views me primos and everyone else as an outcast, not
worthy to be valued. And you have changed the entire narrative.
And so first and foremost, I want to say thank you.
It's a I don't say the word icon loosely, yeah,
(01:43):
but you're an icon, Bro, Thank you, And you're being consistent.
So you know this, this podcast is all about, you know,
men's wellness and healing, and as as myself as Chicano
or Latino men, we don't oftentimes talk about that thing
out publicly. And I've been on this journey and one
(02:03):
of the things that really stood out to me, Bro,
and just looking at your journey, is who's the person
that gave you your camera?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
My pops, my dad gave it to me, and he
gave me about a maybe two three minute photography lesson
and then I was on my way. But that was
all he knew. That was what he had heard, and
so he didn't really describe what he had learned since
(02:33):
that point. He just told me what they told him
and sent me on my way basically. But what he
said it's simple as there's two needles in the camera,
and you turn one of the knobs on the top
and then one on the lens, and one controls how
fast the shutter clicks, and one controls the depth of
(02:54):
feel on the lens. So that's more than what he
told me. He just said, made the two turn these
two knobs. When two needles meet in the middle, you're
ready to go. And he saw something that he thought
was cool that I was doing that I didn't see,
and because you know, I was caught up in the moment,
(03:15):
and one of them was building a Lowrider. I had
my lowwriter before I ever had the camera, and I
bought the car like in eighty nine, started fixing it
up in ninety one. By ninety four it was finished.
And then in ninety two I got a job with
the House of pain My homide Mugs from Cypress Hill
(03:37):
hooked me up with Everlast, which I already knew him,
but I didn't know. You know, he was working on
an album and they were going to go on tour.
So Mugs and me ever Last went to dinner and
they said, you want a tour manage house of pain,
and at that time they go, well, cover all the expenses,
but you know, you won't get paid until it kicks off,
(03:59):
you know, because right now we're not known. So I
told my boss that I used to work doors at
clubs and I worked construction during the day. So I
asked both of those bosses like, hey, I have this opportunity,
what do you think they go go for it, you know,
take the summer off and go do your thing. And
(04:22):
that summer turned into thirteen years of touring around the world.
I went to forty four countries with the bands up
till now, I've been to fifty six. And it all started,
you know, with that that one summer and and my
(04:43):
pops give me the camera.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
And your pop still was a well respective photographer, you crack.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, he was, you know, I mean back then it
was he was known like on on like the community
activists or community organizer level, but not as like a
more as an artist, you know, all around artists, because
(05:09):
he was photographing a lot of graffiti here in La
in the in the late eighties early nineties. He did
a show down in in uh downtown on overa street
at the place called the Pico house. His wife was
a curator of that space, and uh, they did a
(05:31):
couple of shows there when it was Burning Desire, which
was a graffiti artists show, and then there was one
called the Tribute to Scareto's and then after that the
city wanted the building back, and you know, because my
dad had brought a lot of shine to it and
(05:53):
his wife and made it this cool, great event space
and and community kind of center. And the city saw
that and they're like, you know, wanted to put their
things into it. And nothing's happened since that was about
thirty years ago. Wow, it's just been a you know,
(06:15):
anti run down and kind of back to what they
found how they found it. When they first found it
was full of rats and you know, homeless people were
living in there and stuff. So they cleaned it up
and made it a cool gallery and took off from there.
And that was being around all that and then him
(06:36):
give me my camera. I was like, okay, I'll try it.
You know, when that cool thing, you know, it's for me.
It wasn't cool to carry a big thing on my chest,
you know, you see back then. But I started bringing
it out here and there with different people and mostly
my friends and my car club and the band, and
(06:56):
I to you know, build my confidence because at first
I was like, I'd hide it, you know. I was like,
I'd be like this, I'd see something. He is cool
if I get a picture real quick, you know, yeah,
you know, no big deal. Else I'd take this big
thing out, you know, like doing all this. And then
I got comfortable with it and started just clicking away
(07:20):
and people were noticing the photos and telling me, hey,
you got something different, you know. And I went to
this one photo lab that my dad used to go to.
It was where they did all like the pros, like
Halma Newton and a couple other big guys in the city.
(07:41):
And I asked the lady there if she could do
my film for me. And then she was seeing what
I was shooting on tour and in the low writing scene,
and she was like, hey, uh, I think you got
something good here. Can I put some of your photos
up and in the lobby of the photo lab and yeah, sure,
(08:01):
and she goes, you know, you can keep them, or
you can keep the money if we sell them. It
was eleven photos and she sold eight of them. And
in that space they're used to selling known photographers work
which had known subject matter. Mine was nobody known. It
was all like homies from the streets or people low
writing or hip hop stuff. Ended up selling eight out
(08:25):
of eleven. Three of them a friend of mine, Matt,
he works at Meta now not works at but he's,
you know, one of the guys there, and you know,
thirty years later I'm working with them with the ray
bad metaglasses. So it was like a full circle moment,
(08:46):
which was pretty cool. That's pretty much been it.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Was it your inclination just to capture your friends and
the culture, or were your intentional like I don't see
anything out there, so I want to document or was
a mix of all that or what was that?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
No, I was never I never had any intention or
an agenda. It was more like I would shoot. I
missed a lot of stuff because I was late. You know,
I was lagging on pulling out the camera. You know,
I'd see someone like, man, that'd be a badass picture,
That'd be such a cool picture. If I pulled my camera,
(09:27):
I wonder if I get that picture, Man, that's a
good picture. And then I'd go to grab my camera
and the thing that I saw would move, so and
I didn't want to bring it back and recreate it,
you know, like if somebody was doing something with a
car and want to be like, hey, can you come
back and pretend like you're doing something on the car
again or whatever. So I missed a lot, but the
(09:53):
ones that I did catch, I think I caught enough
to do what it did, you know, So what you
see now is like probably about a fourth of what
I wanted to catch. But I still got a lot
because once I started getting the hang of it, and
(10:13):
I started knowing people what they liked, and just went
all out.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
You know. You know they always say that because you're
you're you're you're a storyteller, you're a photographer, but you're
also a filmmaker, and you have a unique perspective because
from the moment we met, I always knew, like, it's
not what I ain't gonna take any ship. He's gonna
(10:38):
he's gonna call it like it is. But also, and
again you can correct me, but when you're behind that lens,
I feel like you see people's souls, but also like
you're you're seeing things because people don't know when the
camera is off or on, or whether you're taking a
photo or not, and that's when you can see people's
true essence and character come out. Yeah, and tell me
(11:01):
is that your experience or I pretty much.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Go by if somebody has an interesting look, like if
you can see something different and like if you can
see a part of their story in their face or
like a place, a location or something that the person
is doing. You know, but there has to be something
(11:29):
that catches my eye. And you know, sometimes you do
feel like you see a little bit deeper, you know
than other other shoots. You know, sometimes if you know
who are where you're shooting, you kind of know like, oh,
this is this person's like you know it's heavy. You know,
(11:53):
she's you know, heavy in the community or something like
when like when we went down to Mexico. You know,
there's a lady in Tepito and I've been seeing her
there for like thirty years. She's right there at the
altar of Santa Marta and you can just see in
(12:15):
her face and you see like the place. You know,
like there's a there's a deep story there and she's
there every day and like I said, I saw her there.
They're like thirty years ago. I went to a film
a video for Cypress hill. It's called the know Intendez
(12:40):
Landa kill a man in Spanish, and somebody asked me
to go get them some ingredients that they needed, so
I went. I didn't know where I was going. They go, yeah,
go to this place is the Mercalo, and you know
they'll have what you need in there. So I'm going
(13:02):
in there with this list. You know, I don't speak
Spanish very good, and you know, everybody's looking at me anyways.
I don't look like I'm from there. I didn't know why,
you know, but you know, when you go in there,
there's a lot of crazy stuff in there. You know,
it's a trippy place. And I got what I needed
(13:23):
from the list and went back and they're like, hey,
so what do you think you know? We're about shooting.
I was like, man, I found a cool place. We
should go down there, and little do we know, you know,
we're in the heart of the hood, you know. And
it's like if you don't know, or if you do know,
(13:43):
it's a heavy place to be, but you know, we
got welcome there, shot some scenes of the video there,
and to me, this day is one of my coolest experiences.
And every time I go back over that way. I
try to stop by and say, I had the lady
see if she's there. She's you know, really cool and uh,
(14:05):
you know, take I try to take a portrait of her.
You know, each time seen her go from like jet
black slick back hair and now she has this cool
like gray strip going down the middle. Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
You know that one photo that you took when we
were there. The thing I appreciate about your photos is
you capture and maybe this is me bro, but the essence,
like you capture the exterior the shell, so you could
see some like gangster tattered everywhere, but if you capture
(14:42):
the look in his eyes. Yeah, and the look in
the eyes is oftentimes that tenderness that the shell is blocking.
And not everybody could do that. Number one, not everyone
can do that. Number two, not everyone's allowed to do that.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
And you you've gotten permission because you come from the
environments that you're shooting.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah. And I don't make them look bad, yeah, I know,
Like my idea is to make them look the best anyway,
no matter who I shoot, Like, I never let to
me like put their like chin into their chests. They
look all you know, way out you know, I always
try and make everybody you know, look the best they
can have the you know, nice jaw line and you know,
(15:25):
just looking as cool and best physically or whatever, you know,
because people are that's the thing they're most critical. I
was like, oh, you made me look fat, or you
made me look this or ugly or whatever. So that's
the first thing on my mind is I need to
make this person look the best so that they feel
(15:45):
the best when they see the photo. And you know,
like you said, sometimes I get those shots that they
look deeper into a person than just you know, one
click moment type of thing. But it's a trip that
what a photo is. You know, it's like one fraction
(16:09):
of a second that you're getting of somebody's expression, where
they're sitting and the feeling they have in their head
at that time, and it's forever. And it's crazy how
you freeze that like split second of time and what
(16:29):
you get. You know, now it's different. You know, there's
digital cameras and you could just hold your finger on
the button just shoot a thousand shots in seconds, you know,
but that's not me. You know, even with my digital camera,
I try and minimize the times I push a button.
More about like skill than and quantity over quality, you know,
(16:53):
quality over quantity, right, So I'm not just shooting just
to shoot and then hopefully I get one good run
out of there. It's like I won't push a button
unless I feel it right. Right.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And let me ask you, since this podcast is centered
on healing, when you take a photo of like this,
you know, I'm assuming you were thinking of a couple
of people when you give that example with the chain
and looking like really good, is that a healing moment
when you actually show that photo to that person who
you shot.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, if you make somebody look good, and if you
make somebody look good, they feel good, and who knows
what they're going through that day or whatever, and they're like, oh,
cool man, this, you know this is cool. You know
I like that and it makes them feel good. And
that's that I did that for that person that day,
(17:49):
you know, on the healing aspect of it. There's a
lot of photos that I've taken the people that have passed,
and the photos I had not only were they the cooler,
you know, better photos that people have had of these
their loved ones that passed, but they were the only ones.
(18:11):
You know, sometimes they didn't take a picture with their
mom before or something like that, and the you know,
the mom has that photo of her and her son.
You know that it means a lot more than just
anual picture. So lot, maybe ten of my photos have
(18:32):
been used in the frame that goes next to a casket,
which is pretty like heavy for me. You know, I'm like, dang,
you know, like a person's thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy
eighty years old and the one second that I took
a photo of them might have only been one. That's
(18:57):
the photo that meant the most to them about that person.
And that's that's kind of a heavy thing. When you
go into a funeral and you bring the frame to
the family and they put it right there in the easel,
right next to their loved one the pass It's like,
that's a deep feeling.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
And I think, what the reason why you're so beloved?
Because most photographers wouldn't take that shot because they wouldn't
see the value in the shot, and you do. You've
been since day one, and that is probably like the
greatest gift that family has ever gotten, because again, they
(19:37):
might not even have a photo for the casket.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
For example, I just you know, memories are great. Yeah,
They're like such a big part of your life. Like
I don't know how many times a day or a
week that we talk about people that have passed in
(20:01):
our everyday life. Yeah, and today one of my friends,
one of my best friend's dads died, and you know,
that triggered off my mom dying. And then it makes
you think about my pops. You know, he's eighty three
years old now, so I'm like that his pops was
in his seventies. So there's you know, all automatically, it
(20:23):
just goes memories, memories, memories, and then you think about
when times were driving here. You know, I'm driving my
sixty one in Paula. Reminded me of driving in my
other car in the nineties, listening to nineties music. You know,
like all that stuff is all based on memories. And
(20:45):
that's how I'm going through most of the day. A
lot of memories, a lot of what's happening now, and
not so much what's happening in the future, because I'm
not there yet, you.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Know, right right right, Well, let me ask you this.
So many of these how I frame this, so many
of these interviews I've done the awakening is literally what
you just said, the near death experience, the loss of
a parent, the loss of a child, the holding of
(21:21):
a grandmother or grandfather who's dying, and then realizing like
oh snap, like this life isn't that long, So what
do we do? And Louis Rodriguez I think, you know, Louisa,
you know, he's mentored me for almost thirty years, and
he was here yesterday and he was saying that our
(21:42):
gifts and talents, you have to actually go through the grief.
You got to go through the wound, and right next
to the wound is actually where your gift is. And
a lot of folks I've talked about loved ones dying
on the podcast, I said, once they died, I got
a better perspective, obviously, and then shifted the perspective, shifted
the way they live their life. And this is from
(22:03):
thirty year old to forty year old, fifty blah blah blah.
And so you know a lot of your photography is
straddling all those worlds. Yeah, that's an intentional or just
capturing them moments.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
I'm around that every day. Yeah, so I think that,
you know, seeing a lot of my friends pass away,
and like being there during some of them definitely changed
my life, you know, not just because oh I lost
(22:38):
my friend. It's like for me, a lot of the
things that I do, the motivation I do is I'm
doing this because these guys can't no more. Like we
were doing it together and then they died, and I'm like,
oh man, now it's just like me, you know, like
(22:59):
you know me and whoever is still going, we got
to go, you know, harder for you know, like it
kind of like motivates you in a weird way to
uh go harder for the ones that aren't here, no
more than the ones that can't do it. And yes,
it's uh. When my mom passed away, it was probably
(23:21):
the most devastating and like hurtful pain I ever had
physically or or mentally. But the crazy part about that
was the next day I had a book signing and uh,
I told my friend who was let me use the
(23:42):
basically went to put up like forty photos, took a
bunch of boxes of books there and uh and then
I called and to cancel it. And I was like, hey, man,
I got to cancel tomorrow is all. What what happened?
My mom died and Uh, He's all, no, you know,
are you sure you sure you want to cancel it?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
You know?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
And I'm thinking in my head like, well, who else
would think about like oh, yeah, I'm going to go
and work tomorrow, you know. But then I was thinking,
like he was asking me, are you sure you want
to do that? For for some type of reason, so
it made me think about it. I was like, Okay, yeah, no,
(24:25):
I don't want to cancel. I'll be there, you know,
and I went. And that was probably the best thing
that I ever did, you know, because that made me
not think about it, and I was, you know, thankfully
there was over one hundred people there in line. They
(24:46):
all wanted me to sign the book. So it was
like I had no time to think of none of
that stuff, you know, And you know I would think
of it, but I just had to like push through it,
you know, just like, yeah, Okay, what are you gonna do?
You know, one hundred some people here waiting for you
to sign your book? You're going to fall apart right now? Nope? Okay,
(25:09):
you know, sign another one. Like I'm telling myself this
in my head, and got through the line. I was like,
I went to tell my homie. You know, his name's Casey.
He goes by clips. He's the owner of Seventh Letter
and Known gallery and the head of a wr MSK.
(25:31):
And I go, hey, Casey, you know that was good.
Thank you Homie for you know, letting me do that.
I was able to, you know, use this to keep
my mind off of this right now. And uh yeah,
And he just handed me the stack of the cash.
I usually gallerries want to take their cut. He's here, Helmie,
(25:54):
this is all you. And he gave me the everything
from that what I sold. And I was like, damn,
you know, like that's cool, like some people care, you know.
And yeah, that that was like a big turning point
for me for that event, you know that had happened.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
But when did you It's ongoing obviously for me, it's
been ten years since I lost my dad. But did
you give yourself the grace and the time to process
mom's passing?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Not really. I don't think I ever stopped. I think
if you stop, you you could maybe go into a
like a darker place. But if you keep going, keep
it moving, you stay on you know, stay on your track.
(26:54):
It helps you get through it, you know, you keep
your life going, like when they when all the fires happen,
and they're well, first like their strikes were happening, you
can't work, nobody's working. Then the fires happened, nobody's working.
Now there's ice in the streets and nobody's going to work.
(27:16):
So like there's all these events happening, there's no work,
and it's like and then they're talking about the economy, like, well,
how you how's this economy supposed to happen? Nobody's working right,
and how you supposed to feel good and go through
your life if you can't work right, you know, like
the bills don't stop coming, but the work does, like
(27:39):
you know, and it's not it's not our it's not
our control, you know, Like how many thousands of houses
burned down and the city just shut down, Like, hey,
nobody's going to work because we're grieving for the the
losses of houses and people and pets and everything. And
it's like, you know, like for me, it was like
(28:04):
I went right to work and that's what kept me going,
you know, and I you know, it doesn't work for everybody,
but for me it did, right, And.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Do you have another outlet? Stuff on? No? Just work,
nothing well, work is your passion obviously.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Yeah, if I go, yeah, my my passion is doing
I do what I love and I get paid for
I do work, but ninety percent of the time I'm
not getting paid, but I still do the same thing.
So to me and everybody else, it's like I'm working,
but the checks you know, aren't coming like that. So yeah,
(28:48):
I would say, just you know, div into something that
you love to do, and for me, that that's what
it was.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Was your is Would you consider your work or your
passion the photography like your form of like release and therapy.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, for sure, any type of creating and stuff like that.
Even if I'm you know, in the motion of getting
to the point where I'm shooting, all that process, all
the process of winding it down after the day, you know,
because sometimes a shoot could be like a week of
(29:28):
preparation or more and then like a week of getting
everything together for the job you did. So yeah, you're
not I'm only shooting one day for a couple hours.
But all that whole processes is cool for me.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Let me ask. We always end the segment with the
sacred five, but I want to ask one more question.
What do you tell oh man that are hurting right now.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I tell him, you know, everything's gonna be okay on
the other side, you know, just push through it, and uh,
you know, you just you gotta stay strong, you know,
because if you let uh, if you let all that
stuff you know, take over you, then it's gonna get worse.
(30:28):
And you know, I come from the old school. You know,
there was no it was like, you know, suck it
up or stay strong or you know, man up, you
know that kind of stuff. So that's that's what I knew,
(30:48):
That's how that's how I grew up. That's how the
men around me were. And I take that and then
what I know and I combine them together, and that's
what helps me get through everything, because you know, you
could get down and out real bad, and you know,
(31:12):
you see it out on the streets all the time.
What happens if you let that take over you, you know,
you could end up in an RV or in a
tent or in a hospital or dead, you know, strung out,
spun out. So I I try to, you know, hold
(31:35):
my ground in my head so that I don't ever
let it get to that anywhere near that. So I've
had family members and friends do all that all the
way from you know, getting spun out on drugs or
being homeless to killing themselves. So I learned a lot,
(31:56):
you know, watching other people and seeing what they go
through and how they navigate through life.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
So I was gonna say, the influence of your father,
who's the person that gave you your first camera, obviously
saw something in you. We've both lost a parent and
we both still have one parent alive. Like you said,
your father's in his eighties already. Have you have you
shared everything that you wanted to with them or is
there anything left unsaid? No?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah, of course. My goal is to do put out
a book or some books of his work and to
do a documentary on him. And he has a little pushback,
you know, for it, but I'm trying to tell him,
(32:49):
you know, like what you use your camera for was
to tell a story that you wanted to be told,
and you use that as a tool to tell another story,
to do something else, to achieve what you want to do,
achieve before you started doing that. So when he asked me, like, hey,
(33:11):
well what do you want to do this for? Because
I want to, you know, I want to tell my
dad's story. I think you have a cool story and
people know you, but they don't know certain things about you.
And I want them to know you, you know, I want
them to see the work you did. I want them
to know the community work you did. I want to
know the struggles you went through, you know, with your
(33:34):
parents and everything. And I think it's a cool thing
to do. Now you're eighty three, Like, let's knock it out,
and you know, like we have to talk about it,
which for me, I'm like, what are we talking about?
You know what I you know, I did at Live regionals.
I did cyper sale documentaries like you know, and I
(33:57):
didn't do no weird shit where I was making them
look bad or scanless or nothing. So it's like, it's
all about the story and let's let's get it going.
So we're in the talking phase, then we're gonna write
something out, then we're gonna start shooting it.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
But has that brought you closer together?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah? But uh, you know, he's an old school guy,
so he's a little bit you know, uh setting his ways.
And you know, for me, I would have done it
six months ago or a year ago, probably when I
started talking about it already. I would have been on it,
you know, but uh, you know, to respect his time
(34:39):
and all that stuff when he wants to do it.
So that's what I'm waiting for. But uh, you know,
every time I'm with him, I would say, in the
past two years I've been I asked him just little stories,
like he'll mention something or something like that, and then
I'll ask him about those whatever it was or and
(35:02):
then he shows me pictures and he tells me this
long detailed story, and I'm every time, I'm blown away.
I'm like, man, that's crazy, that's so cool. You know.
I want to do you know, this thing it, you know,
I just want to do it. It's so I don't
know the what's so hard about it, you know, But
(35:24):
I just keep learning more and more about him. But then,
you know, like I'm not saying my dad's gonna pass
away anytime soon. But you know, he's eighty three. Clint
East was like ninety six. He's still talking shit, he's
still directing movies. Still looks good. My pops, uh lives
(35:44):
downtown and he runs up the you know, the parts
of downtown that are hilly. He runs up those backwards.
He goes to the YMCA three times a week, hits
the heavy bags, he works out like he's my idol,
Like who I want to my health? I want to
be like him at his age, you know. But they
(36:09):
grew up in a different era where like the food
that they were eating was a little bit better. I
grew up in the air where they're trying to poison
us and kill us. You know, Let's make everybody as
fat as they could be, as healthy as they unhealthy
as they could be, the most diseases that they could have.
Let's make the most money off of them that we can.
(36:31):
And they had this like cool little plan. And now
that I'm older and I've gotten sick and I've gone
through health shit, it makes me sick, you know. It
pisses me off. Like they have a whole aisle full
of sodas on both sides and that's just straight poison.
They have a whole aisle full of chips and candy
(36:54):
and baking stuff, and like people are like, oh my
sweet tooth or whatever. I'm like that sweet too, gotta go.
You know that's gonna that's going to be your killer.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Well I'm going to send you one of people were
interviewing this filmmaker. His name is Tad Nakamura. His father
similar to your father. His father is known as the
godfather of Asian American cinema. He was an activist. His
father was in the Japanese in tournament camp and Tad
(37:28):
we went to school together, and no one had ever
done a documentary on his dad and similar like, I
remember a few years ago having the same conversation with
Tad and he's like, bro, I want to do a
film on my dad, yea, and I want to I
want to memoralize his legacy and what he gave to
this world. In the process of filming the doc his
(37:51):
dad gets Parkinson's and his dad was in his eighties.
The whole film then it wasn't a year, ended up
being a I don't know, three to four year. He
ended up calling it a third act because it was about
his father, him and his son. Yeah, but in the
Proad son three generations, and it actually became a documentary
(38:17):
about Tad because you know, we don't talk about love. Yeah,
this was the love letter to his dad and his
dad understanding his body de cane, he saw the other side.
He was saying things on camera because that was a
safety net. He was always behind the camera, but he
(38:38):
knew he was giving his son the torch, but he
was saying things he had never said to Tad, and
Tad sent me an early before it was final. I
sent him my book before I was out. He sent
me the film and we were both crying simultaneously because
we both wrote love letters to our dad. We didn't
name it that at the time.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, that's pretty much what it is.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
That's what it is.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Yeah, it's like, I want to do this for my dad,
you know, And you know he's just the older guy.
You know, he's like kind of hard headed, you know
the older guys are. But it's it's that, you know,
it's all that. It's it's like I want to do
Like every time I last time we talked was a
(39:23):
couple of days ago, and we're there for four hours.
I felt like forty five minutes or an hour four hours.
I wrote by hand. I wrote down like six pages
of notes so that when we go to write out
the structure of how we want the doc to go
(39:43):
before we start filming, it's you know, it'll be tightened
up in there. But every time I've been talking to
him for the past couple of years been like that,
and it's so cool. You know. I didn't get to
do that with my mom, you know, like she was
in her seventy at that time. Yeah, she would be
eighty six now, I think, and yeah, it's like you
(40:09):
realize that, you know, like, hey, the clock's tick. You know.
Even with my kids, you know, I want to be
like that too, you know, like I don't want to
wait till i'm old to tell them stories like I'm
telling them at now. You know, I'm telling them everything
that I want them to know now, and I don't
think they get it. They're listening. They just wait for
(40:32):
the noise to stop so they can go on and
keep doing what they're doing for the day. But at
least I'm saying it, and if something were to happen,
they would have that memory like, well he did say
this at one time we were doing this, or you know,
I think about that now, Like every time I go
(40:53):
to getting a car on my motorcycle, you know, I
call certain people and just be like, hey, man, I
just want to call and say what's up. You know,
I'm gonna I'm gonna get on my bike or I'll
call you later. You know, and you know, I just
never want to have like a somebody have a weird feeling,
(41:15):
you know, later on if something wherever to happen or whatever.
You know. I always, I always like try to work
things out with people that are worth it, you know.
I don't want to have no distance with somebody that
care about or love want to you know, be tight
(41:35):
with the rest of them, you.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Know, keep it moving, get out, I can I ask
you the ones you don't want to get away to
know that they mean something to you, Your dad or
some of your friends. Do you all ever say I
love you too?
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah? That's the difference between my me, you know, taking
the old thing, but the new thing, you know is
I tell my homies I love him all the time. Yeah,
I love you, bro, I love you homie. You know
it's like why wouldn't you you know, you do right,
(42:12):
like supposedly you you know, I'm down for you, homie,
you know, like do whatever you know, Like then you
know what's the problem with saying it? Yeah? Then you know.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
With with your dad, my dad loved me and my
brother more than life. Yeah, my my grandfather, my weather
never said those words to him, so I never heard
him growing up, I would say it and he didn't
know how to respond. Yeah, is it? Do you and
your do you tell your.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Dad I love you? And yeah, like sometimes I go
out of my way to so that if he doesn't
say it, you know, or you know some sometimes he
didn't say it every time, you know. Yeah, but uh,
you know, you know, if you do, you do, you know,
(43:06):
just tell them, you know, because you can when they're gone,
you know, can go to their graveside all day long
and tell them how much you love them. But it's
somebody there. They hear you up there, you know they're
really are they really watching down over you? Who knows,
you know, I don't know anybody that's been up there.
(43:26):
They came back down and said, yeah, man, I was
watching you, you know, making sure everything was cool with you,
or I saw you crying on my graveside, like that's
never happened to me yet, so I don't know if
it does. Right, So the people are here, Yeah, all right,
let me see you later, Levy bro get home safe.
You know, whatever it ain't, it's nothing. It's three three
(43:50):
more words that you you know, you have no problem
saying all kinds of other words with them. Why can't
you tell your friends or your family you love them?
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Yeah, well, thank you for saying that though, Yeah, yeah,
no problem, because I just wanted to say, like a
lot of the men that we know, it's painful for
them to say those words. So when you and I
are able to say I love you, that gives them
(44:21):
permission to respond back or to consider saying it.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Yeah, or they could feel bad if they didn't say exactly,
but that's on them.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
It's on them. Well, I'm going to ask you. We
call it the Sacred Five. It's five questions you ask
her in one word or sentence, And it's kind of
like what's a Steven Aria's healing practices for self that
maybe others could consider. Obviously, like you said, what works
for you may not work for someone else, but it
(44:51):
may work for a lot of folks. It's just our
way to practical takeaways for the for the audience. So,
first question, name three things that make you your safe
connected and.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Whole, safe connected and whole. I would say, uh, family, friends,
and uh like uh, you know, work, you know, yeah,
(45:21):
you can't. I can't feel safe if I'm not working
or don't have no money. But the bills are flying
in you know. So yeah, those three cool?
Speaker 1 (45:34):
What song book or prayer brings you back to yourself?
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Mm hmm. There's so many songs, you know, like, from
so many genres of music. I can't even what.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
One immediately came to your mind when I first asked you.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Uh tell you guys say that laughing. Yeah, there's a
comfortable blee numb. Oh yeah, from Floyd because I was
listening to the other day on my bike and like
lead Zeppeline, Pink Floyd and then you know, some of
the hip hop. But then you know there's the oldies. Yeah,
(46:14):
like you know, I was listening to, Like I go
from listening to comfortably numb to like a hip hop
song to like ramp, you know, daylight, you know, just
it goes all over the place, desk made, you know,
like I gotta throw in some of that, yeah, that
type of stuff in there. Yeah, so it'd be hard
(46:35):
for me to say.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
You said that was good.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
What's one daily ritual or practice that grounds you?
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Sna and the ice bath every morning, I do it.
Twenty minutes in the sauna, three minutes in the ice
I do that. Three repetitions of that. Oh wow, then
I feel like I'm ready to go take the world
head on. Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
What's one small action that folks can take that are
on their healing.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Path, one thing they could do to heal or consider
on the healing. Yeah, I would just say to uh,
stay positive, you know, think uh yeah, like don't don't
get into that that hole. You know. I've never done it,
(47:27):
but I heard about this thing called the K hole,
you know, from people doing academy, and I just imagine
from the way they describe it, it's like quicksand kind
of and if you go into that negative space in
your head that it's like, yeah, it's like quicksand and
just got to keep your energy up and stay positive
(47:48):
and peaceful, like you know, a big thing for me
is peace and and positive energy.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Last one step one share one line blessing or quote
that inspires you mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yeah on uh.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
Or words that you live by.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
I like, I think a lot about it's uh, you
know the sapata you know, uh, dye on your feet
or going living on your knees, which is kind of
like you know, fight for something or fall for everything.
I think about that a lot in my you know,
(48:41):
in my head because I always feel like there's you know,
somebody's coming at you, you know, trying to get something,
and you know, you got to stand up for yourself,
for your people, for your family. You know. You always
it feels like there's something always trying to push into you,
you know, so you got to stand up for it,
(49:03):
you know, like kind of like what's going on in
the city now, you know, with all the the ice
and stuff like that, Like you got to stand up
for for our city, for our people, or what good
are we? You know, right you're just gonna be like, oh,
you know, poor them, you know, or as long as
(49:26):
they happened to me, you know, like this, I hear
people say, I'm like, it's wrong with you, Like, you know,
my grandma came here from Mexico, my other grandma came
here from Sicily. Like they came here with nothing, and
they made it like look at how look what we're doing.
(49:47):
They made it cool for us. We'd be still over there,
not saying that it's you know, anything bad about being
over there, but right now we're in the land of opportunity,
is where dreams come true and just seeing what goes on,
like you can't say it's you know, not true or
fake news orthing like that. People are recording with their
phone live like there's nothing fake about it. It's a
(50:11):
thousand percent real and it's ugly scandless. Like I've never
ever thought of I never thought of not living in
la But seeing all that, I'm like, man, I wonder
what it'd be like to live somewhere where it's like
no drama like that, you know, like you don't have
to worry about stuff or you know, you could just
(50:34):
be living like a normal life like before all that,
you know, like we're cool. Everything was. I thought everything
was pretty, you know, aside from the fires and this
and that, you know, those traumatic things that happened to us.
We all came together during the fires. Like I was
going to Pasadena doing the fire brigade cleaning up debris.
(50:55):
Well first we were doing the coffee in the mornings
for the firemen. Go right after that to do the
firebrigate clean up the debris and stuff from the street.
I had a gallery that we opened up a warehouse
turned it into a like a relief center for people
that lost everything. We had donations come in, driving the
people taking them to you know shelters. Then at night
(51:17):
we'd go get food and feed the fireman, and like
we came together as a city and helped everybody. Everybody
was like it looked like everybody was helping each other
and it was amazing. And now this, you know, it's like,
it's crazy, the contrast that's happened just in this year,
(51:37):
right right, it's wild. Well, you know, we got to
stay positive, keep the good energy and keep it moving,
stick together, help each other out, and you know, pull
through it.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
Well, step On, I just want to say thank you.
Usually I say three things. I'm going to say one
thing right now. Your whole life is a love letter
to la. Your whole life is a love letter to
those of us that oftentimes don't feel like we belong.
But when we look at your images, we feel a
(52:13):
sense of home and like we do belong. And I
want to thank your mother, your father, your ancestors, because
they gave you that gift that only you could do.
No one else in the world could take those photos,
but you and you allowed hope, dignity, compassion, and when
(52:34):
you were describing what happened after the fires, your portraits
are part of that tapestry to allow us to remember
our connection, and so just thank you for being who
you are, thank you for being on the show. Whatever
we could do to support the love letter to your father,
you know already got you. Whatever we got to do,
(52:54):
but just thank you for your life's work and for
being who you are. Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Sacred Lessons is a production of Iheart's Michael through It
our podcast network, Sacred Lessons Media, and the Prince Group.
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What are the cycles fathers passed down that son so
there left to heal. What if being a man was
about holding it all together but learning how to let go.
This is a space where men speak truth and find
the power to heal and transform. I'm Mike Dela Rocha.
Welcome to Sacred Lessons. Pictures can wound, but they can
(00:24):
also heal in our homes and in our neighborhoods. Images
are medicine proof that we exist, that we matter, that
we will always survive despite systemic attempts to erase us.
Welcome to Sacred Lessons. I'm Mike Dela Rocha. Today I'm
honored to sit with an icon, a Steven o'rial, a
(00:46):
photographer and director whose camera has captured the magic of
the streets. I say magic because a Steven is more
than just a photographer. He's a magician, a storyteller who's
not only worked with some of the greatest influential celebrities
in the world, but captured the beauty amiss, the struggle
of those often forgotten and outcasted by society. There's not
(01:10):
enough words to step on to say thank you for
not just being on this podcast, bro, but for what
you've done for our culture.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
You know this.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I'm I'm the only man in my family and my
mom's I never served time in a cage, and society
views me primos and everyone else as an outcast, not
worthy to be valued. And you have changed the entire narrative.
And so first and foremost, I want to say thank you.
It's a I don't say the word icon loosely, yeah,
(01:43):
but you're an icon, Bro, Thank you, And you're being consistent.
So you know this, this podcast is all about, you know,
men's wellness and healing, and as as myself as Chicano
or Latino men, we don't oftentimes talk about that thing
out publicly. And I've been on this journey and one
(02:03):
of the things that really stood out to me, Bro,
and just looking at your journey, is who's the person
that gave you your camera?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
My pops, my dad gave it to me, and he
gave me about a maybe two three minute photography lesson
and then I was on my way. But that was
all he knew. That was what he had heard, and
so he didn't really describe what he had learned since
(02:33):
that point. He just told me what they told him
and sent me on my way basically. But what he
said it's simple as there's two needles in the camera,
and you turn one of the knobs on the top
and then one on the lens, and one controls how
fast the shutter clicks, and one controls the depth of
(02:54):
feel on the lens. So that's more than what he
told me. He just said, made the two turn these
two knobs. When two needles meet in the middle, you're
ready to go. And he saw something that he thought
was cool that I was doing that I didn't see,
and because you know, I was caught up in the moment,
(03:15):
and one of them was building a Lowrider. I had
my lowwriter before I ever had the camera, and I
bought the car like in eighty nine, started fixing it
up in ninety one. By ninety four it was finished.
And then in ninety two I got a job with
the House of pain My homide Mugs from Cypress Hill
(03:37):
hooked me up with Everlast, which I already knew him,
but I didn't know. You know, he was working on
an album and they were going to go on tour.
So Mugs and me ever Last went to dinner and
they said, you want a tour manage house of pain,
and at that time they go, well, cover all the expenses,
but you know, you won't get paid until it kicks off,
(03:59):
you know, because right now we're not known. So I
told my boss that I used to work doors at
clubs and I worked construction during the day. So I
asked both of those bosses like, hey, I have this opportunity,
what do you think they go go for it, you know,
take the summer off and go do your thing. And
(04:22):
that summer turned into thirteen years of touring around the world.
I went to forty four countries with the bands up
till now, I've been to fifty six. And it all started,
you know, with that that one summer and and my
(04:43):
pops give me the camera.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
And your pop still was a well respective photographer, you crack.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, he was, you know, I mean back then it
was he was known like on on like the community
activists or community organizer level, but not as like a
more as an artist, you know, all around artists, because
(05:09):
he was photographing a lot of graffiti here in La
in the in the late eighties early nineties. He did
a show down in in uh downtown on overa street
at the place called the Pico house. His wife was
a curator of that space, and uh, they did a
(05:31):
couple of shows there when it was Burning Desire, which
was a graffiti artists show, and then there was one
called the Tribute to Scareto's and then after that the
city wanted the building back, and you know, because my
dad had brought a lot of shine to it and
(05:53):
his wife and made it this cool, great event space
and and community kind of center. And the city saw
that and they're like, you know, wanted to put their
things into it. And nothing's happened since that was about
thirty years ago. Wow, it's just been a you know,
(06:15):
anti run down and kind of back to what they
found how they found it. When they first found it
was full of rats and you know, homeless people were
living in there and stuff. So they cleaned it up
and made it a cool gallery and took off from there.
And that was being around all that and then him
(06:36):
give me my camera. I was like, okay, I'll try it.
You know, when that cool thing, you know, it's for me.
It wasn't cool to carry a big thing on my chest,
you know, you see back then. But I started bringing
it out here and there with different people and mostly
my friends and my car club and the band, and
(06:56):
I to you know, build my confidence because at first
I was like, I'd hide it, you know. I was like,
I'd be like this, I'd see something. He is cool
if I get a picture real quick, you know, yeah,
you know, no big deal. Else I'd take this big
thing out, you know, like doing all this. And then
I got comfortable with it and started just clicking away
(07:20):
and people were noticing the photos and telling me, hey,
you got something different, you know. And I went to
this one photo lab that my dad used to go to.
It was where they did all like the pros, like
Halma Newton and a couple other big guys in the city.
(07:41):
And I asked the lady there if she could do
my film for me. And then she was seeing what
I was shooting on tour and in the low writing scene,
and she was like, hey, uh, I think you got
something good here. Can I put some of your photos
up and in the lobby of the photo lab and yeah, sure,
(08:01):
and she goes, you know, you can keep them, or
you can keep the money if we sell them. It
was eleven photos and she sold eight of them. And
in that space they're used to selling known photographers work
which had known subject matter. Mine was nobody known. It
was all like homies from the streets or people low
writing or hip hop stuff. Ended up selling eight out
(08:25):
of eleven. Three of them a friend of mine, Matt,
he works at Meta now not works at but he's,
you know, one of the guys there, and you know,
thirty years later I'm working with them with the ray
bad metaglasses. So it was like a full circle moment,
(08:46):
which was pretty cool. That's pretty much been it.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Was it your inclination just to capture your friends and
the culture, or were your intentional like I don't see
anything out there, so I want to document or was
a mix of all that or what was that?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
No, I was never I never had any intention or
an agenda. It was more like I would shoot. I
missed a lot of stuff because I was late. You know,
I was lagging on pulling out the camera. You know,
I'd see someone like, man, that'd be a badass picture,
That'd be such a cool picture. If I pulled my camera,
(09:27):
I wonder if I get that picture, Man, that's a
good picture. And then I'd go to grab my camera
and the thing that I saw would move, so and
I didn't want to bring it back and recreate it,
you know, like if somebody was doing something with a
car and want to be like, hey, can you come
back and pretend like you're doing something on the car
again or whatever. So I missed a lot, but the
(09:53):
ones that I did catch, I think I caught enough
to do what it did, you know, So what you
see now is like probably about a fourth of what
I wanted to catch. But I still got a lot
because once I started getting the hang of it, and
(10:13):
I started knowing people what they liked, and just went
all out.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
You know. You know they always say that because you're
you're you're you're a storyteller, you're a photographer, but you're
also a filmmaker, and you have a unique perspective because
from the moment we met, I always knew, like, it's
not what I ain't gonna take any ship. He's gonna
(10:38):
he's gonna call it like it is. But also, and
again you can correct me, but when you're behind that lens,
I feel like you see people's souls, but also like
you're you're seeing things because people don't know when the
camera is off or on, or whether you're taking a
photo or not, and that's when you can see people's
true essence and character come out. Yeah, and tell me
(11:01):
is that your experience or I pretty much.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Go by if somebody has an interesting look, like if
you can see something different and like if you can
see a part of their story in their face or
like a place, a location or something that the person
is doing. You know, but there has to be something
(11:29):
that catches my eye. And you know, sometimes you do
feel like you see a little bit deeper, you know
than other other shoots. You know, sometimes if you know
who are where you're shooting, you kind of know like, oh,
this is this person's like you know it's heavy. You know,
(11:53):
she's you know, heavy in the community or something like
when like when we went down to Mexico. You know,
there's a lady in Tepito and I've been seeing her
there for like thirty years. She's right there at the
altar of Santa Marta and you can just see in
(12:15):
her face and you see like the place. You know,
like there's a there's a deep story there and she's
there every day and like I said, I saw her there.
They're like thirty years ago. I went to a film
a video for Cypress hill. It's called the know Intendez
(12:40):
Landa kill a man in Spanish, and somebody asked me
to go get them some ingredients that they needed, so
I went. I didn't know where I was going. They go, yeah,
go to this place is the Mercalo, and you know
they'll have what you need in there. So I'm going
(13:02):
in there with this list. You know, I don't speak
Spanish very good, and you know, everybody's looking at me anyways.
I don't look like I'm from there. I didn't know why,
you know, but you know, when you go in there,
there's a lot of crazy stuff in there. You know,
it's a trippy place. And I got what I needed
(13:23):
from the list and went back and they're like, hey,
so what do you think you know? We're about shooting.
I was like, man, I found a cool place. We
should go down there, and little do we know, you know,
we're in the heart of the hood, you know. And
it's like if you don't know, or if you do know,
(13:43):
it's a heavy place to be, but you know, we
got welcome there, shot some scenes of the video there,
and to me, this day is one of my coolest experiences.
And every time I go back over that way. I
try to stop by and say, I had the lady
see if she's there. She's you know, really cool and uh,
(14:05):
you know, take I try to take a portrait of her.
You know, each time seen her go from like jet
black slick back hair and now she has this cool
like gray strip going down the middle. Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
You know that one photo that you took when we
were there. The thing I appreciate about your photos is
you capture and maybe this is me bro, but the essence,
like you capture the exterior the shell, so you could
see some like gangster tattered everywhere, but if you capture
(14:42):
the look in his eyes. Yeah, and the look in
the eyes is oftentimes that tenderness that the shell is blocking.
And not everybody could do that. Number one, not everyone
can do that. Number two, not everyone's allowed to do that.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
And you you've gotten permission because you come from the
environments that you're shooting.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah. And I don't make them look bad, yeah, I know,
Like my idea is to make them look the best anyway,
no matter who I shoot, Like, I never let to
me like put their like chin into their chests. They
look all you know, way out you know, I always
try and make everybody you know, look the best they
can have the you know, nice jaw line and you know,
(15:25):
just looking as cool and best physically or whatever, you know,
because people are that's the thing they're most critical. I
was like, oh, you made me look fat, or you
made me look this or ugly or whatever. So that's
the first thing on my mind is I need to
make this person look the best so that they feel
(15:45):
the best when they see the photo. And you know,
like you said, sometimes I get those shots that they
look deeper into a person than just you know, one
click moment type of thing. But it's a trip that
what a photo is. You know, it's like one fraction
(16:09):
of a second that you're getting of somebody's expression, where
they're sitting and the feeling they have in their head
at that time, and it's forever. And it's crazy how
you freeze that like split second of time and what
(16:29):
you get. You know, now it's different. You know, there's
digital cameras and you could just hold your finger on
the button just shoot a thousand shots in seconds, you know,
but that's not me. You know, even with my digital camera,
I try and minimize the times I push a button.
More about like skill than and quantity over quality, you know,
(16:53):
quality over quantity, right, So I'm not just shooting just
to shoot and then hopefully I get one good run
out of there. It's like I won't push a button
unless I feel it right. Right.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And let me ask you, since this podcast is centered
on healing, when you take a photo of like this,
you know, I'm assuming you were thinking of a couple
of people when you give that example with the chain
and looking like really good, is that a healing moment
when you actually show that photo to that person who
you shot.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, if you make somebody look good, and if you
make somebody look good, they feel good, and who knows
what they're going through that day or whatever, and they're like, oh,
cool man, this, you know this is cool. You know
I like that and it makes them feel good. And
that's that I did that for that person that day,
(17:49):
you know, on the healing aspect of it. There's a
lot of photos that I've taken the people that have passed,
and the photos I had not only were they the cooler,
you know, better photos that people have had of these
their loved ones that passed, but they were the only ones.
(18:11):
You know, sometimes they didn't take a picture with their
mom before or something like that, and the you know,
the mom has that photo of her and her son.
You know that it means a lot more than just
anual picture. So lot, maybe ten of my photos have
(18:32):
been used in the frame that goes next to a casket,
which is pretty like heavy for me. You know, I'm like, dang,
you know, like a person's thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy
eighty years old and the one second that I took
a photo of them might have only been one. That's
(18:57):
the photo that meant the most to them about that person.
And that's that's kind of a heavy thing. When you
go into a funeral and you bring the frame to
the family and they put it right there in the easel,
right next to their loved one the pass It's like,
that's a deep feeling.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
And I think, what the reason why you're so beloved?
Because most photographers wouldn't take that shot because they wouldn't
see the value in the shot, and you do. You've
been since day one, and that is probably like the
greatest gift that family has ever gotten, because again, they
(19:37):
might not even have a photo for the casket.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
For example, I just you know, memories are great. Yeah,
They're like such a big part of your life. Like
I don't know how many times a day or a
week that we talk about people that have passed in
(20:01):
our everyday life. Yeah, and today one of my friends,
one of my best friend's dads died, and you know,
that triggered off my mom dying. And then it makes
you think about my pops. You know, he's eighty three
years old now, so I'm like that his pops was
in his seventies. So there's you know, all automatically, it
(20:23):
just goes memories, memories, memories, and then you think about
when times were driving here. You know, I'm driving my
sixty one in Paula. Reminded me of driving in my
other car in the nineties, listening to nineties music. You know,
like all that stuff is all based on memories. And
(20:45):
that's how I'm going through most of the day. A
lot of memories, a lot of what's happening now, and
not so much what's happening in the future, because I'm
not there yet, you.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Know, right right right, Well, let me ask you this.
So many of these how I frame this, so many
of these interviews I've done the awakening is literally what
you just said, the near death experience, the loss of
a parent, the loss of a child, the holding of
(21:21):
a grandmother or grandfather who's dying, and then realizing like
oh snap, like this life isn't that long, So what
do we do? And Louis Rodriguez I think, you know, Louisa,
you know, he's mentored me for almost thirty years, and
he was here yesterday and he was saying that our
(21:42):
gifts and talents, you have to actually go through the grief.
You got to go through the wound, and right next
to the wound is actually where your gift is. And
a lot of folks I've talked about loved ones dying
on the podcast, I said, once they died, I got
a better perspective, obviously, and then shifted the perspective, shifted
the way they live their life. And this is from
(22:03):
thirty year old to forty year old, fifty blah blah blah.
And so you know a lot of your photography is
straddling all those worlds. Yeah, that's an intentional or just
capturing them moments.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
I'm around that every day. Yeah, so I think that,
you know, seeing a lot of my friends pass away,
and like being there during some of them definitely changed
my life, you know, not just because oh I lost
(22:38):
my friend. It's like for me, a lot of the
things that I do, the motivation I do is I'm
doing this because these guys can't no more. Like we
were doing it together and then they died, and I'm like,
oh man, now it's just like me, you know, like
(22:59):
you know me and whoever is still going, we got
to go, you know, harder for you know, like it
kind of like motivates you in a weird way to
uh go harder for the ones that aren't here, no
more than the ones that can't do it. And yes,
it's uh. When my mom passed away, it was probably
(23:21):
the most devastating and like hurtful pain I ever had
physically or or mentally. But the crazy part about that
was the next day I had a book signing and uh,
I told my friend who was let me use the
(23:42):
basically went to put up like forty photos, took a
bunch of boxes of books there and uh and then
I called and to cancel it. And I was like, hey, man,
I got to cancel tomorrow is all. What what happened?
My mom died and Uh, He's all, no, you know,
are you sure you sure you want to cancel it?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
You know?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
And I'm thinking in my head like, well, who else
would think about like oh, yeah, I'm going to go
and work tomorrow, you know. But then I was thinking,
like he was asking me, are you sure you want
to do that? For for some type of reason, so
it made me think about it. I was like, Okay, yeah, no,
(24:25):
I don't want to cancel. I'll be there, you know,
and I went. And that was probably the best thing
that I ever did, you know, because that made me
not think about it, and I was, you know, thankfully
there was over one hundred people there in line. They
(24:46):
all wanted me to sign the book. So it was
like I had no time to think of none of
that stuff, you know, And you know I would think
of it, but I just had to like push through it,
you know, just like, yeah, Okay, what are you gonna do?
You know, one hundred some people here waiting for you
to sign your book? You're going to fall apart right now? Nope? Okay,
(25:09):
you know, sign another one. Like I'm telling myself this
in my head, and got through the line. I was like,
I went to tell my homie. You know, his name's Casey.
He goes by clips. He's the owner of Seventh Letter
and Known gallery and the head of a wr MSK.
(25:31):
And I go, hey, Casey, you know that was good.
Thank you Homie for you know, letting me do that.
I was able to, you know, use this to keep
my mind off of this right now. And uh yeah,
And he just handed me the stack of the cash.
I usually gallerries want to take their cut. He's here, Helmie,
(25:54):
this is all you. And he gave me the everything
from that what I sold. And I was like, damn,
you know, like that's cool, like some people care, you know.
And yeah, that that was like a big turning point
for me for that event, you know that had happened.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
But when did you It's ongoing obviously for me, it's
been ten years since I lost my dad. But did
you give yourself the grace and the time to process
mom's passing?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Not really. I don't think I ever stopped. I think
if you stop, you you could maybe go into a
like a darker place. But if you keep going, keep
it moving, you stay on you know, stay on your track.
(26:54):
It helps you get through it, you know, you keep
your life going, like when they when all the fires happen,
and they're well, first like their strikes were happening, you
can't work, nobody's working. Then the fires happened, nobody's working.
Now there's ice in the streets and nobody's going to work.
(27:16):
So like there's all these events happening, there's no work,
and it's like and then they're talking about the economy, like, well,
how you how's this economy supposed to happen? Nobody's working right,
and how you supposed to feel good and go through
your life if you can't work right, you know, like
the bills don't stop coming, but the work does, like
(27:39):
you know, and it's not it's not our it's not
our control, you know, Like how many thousands of houses
burned down and the city just shut down, Like, hey,
nobody's going to work because we're grieving for the the
losses of houses and people and pets and everything. And
it's like, you know, like for me, it was like
(28:04):
I went right to work and that's what kept me going,
you know, and I you know, it doesn't work for everybody,
but for me it did, right, And.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Do you have another outlet? Stuff on? No? Just work,
nothing well, work is your passion obviously.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Yeah, if I go, yeah, my my passion is doing
I do what I love and I get paid for
I do work, but ninety percent of the time I'm
not getting paid, but I still do the same thing.
So to me and everybody else, it's like I'm working,
but the checks you know, aren't coming like that. So yeah,
(28:48):
I would say, just you know, div into something that
you love to do, and for me, that that's what
it was.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Was your is Would you consider your work or your
passion the photography like your form of like release and therapy.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, for sure, any type of creating and stuff like that.
Even if I'm you know, in the motion of getting
to the point where I'm shooting, all that process, all
the process of winding it down after the day, you know,
because sometimes a shoot could be like a week of
(29:28):
preparation or more and then like a week of getting
everything together for the job you did. So yeah, you're
not I'm only shooting one day for a couple hours.
But all that whole processes is cool for me.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Let me ask. We always end the segment with the
sacred five, but I want to ask one more question.
What do you tell oh man that are hurting right now.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I tell him, you know, everything's gonna be okay on
the other side, you know, just push through it, and uh,
you know, you just you gotta stay strong, you know,
because if you let uh, if you let all that
stuff you know, take over you, then it's gonna get worse.
(30:28):
And you know, I come from the old school. You know,
there was no it was like, you know, suck it
up or stay strong or you know, man up, you
know that kind of stuff. So that's that's what I knew,
(30:48):
That's how that's how I grew up. That's how the
men around me were. And I take that and then
what I know and I combine them together, and that's
what helps me get through everything, because you know, you
could get down and out real bad, and you know,
(31:12):
you see it out on the streets all the time.
What happens if you let that take over you, you know,
you could end up in an RV or in a
tent or in a hospital or dead, you know, strung out,
spun out. So I I try to, you know, hold
(31:35):
my ground in my head so that I don't ever
let it get to that anywhere near that. So I've
had family members and friends do all that all the
way from you know, getting spun out on drugs or
being homeless to killing themselves. So I learned a lot,
(31:56):
you know, watching other people and seeing what they go
through and how they navigate through life.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
So I was gonna say, the influence of your father,
who's the person that gave you your first camera, obviously
saw something in you. We've both lost a parent and
we both still have one parent alive. Like you said,
your father's in his eighties already. Have you have you
shared everything that you wanted to with them or is
there anything left unsaid? No?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah, of course. My goal is to do put out
a book or some books of his work and to
do a documentary on him. And he has a little pushback,
you know, for it, but I'm trying to tell him,
(32:49):
you know, like what you use your camera for was
to tell a story that you wanted to be told,
and you use that as a tool to tell another story,
to do something else, to achieve what you want to do,
achieve before you started doing that. So when he asked me, like, hey,
(33:11):
well what do you want to do this for? Because
I want to, you know, I want to tell my
dad's story. I think you have a cool story and
people know you, but they don't know certain things about you.
And I want them to know you, you know, I want
them to see the work you did. I want them
to know the community work you did. I want to
know the struggles you went through, you know, with your
(33:34):
parents and everything. And I think it's a cool thing
to do. Now you're eighty three, Like, let's knock it out,
and you know, like we have to talk about it,
which for me, I'm like, what are we talking about?
You know what I you know, I did at Live regionals.
I did cyper sale documentaries like you know, and I
(33:57):
didn't do no weird shit where I was making them
look bad or scanless or nothing. So it's like, it's
all about the story and let's let's get it going.
So we're in the talking phase, then we're gonna write
something out, then we're gonna start shooting it.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
But has that brought you closer together?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah? But uh, you know, he's an old school guy,
so he's a little bit you know, uh setting his ways.
And you know, for me, I would have done it
six months ago or a year ago, probably when I
started talking about it already. I would have been on it,
you know, but uh, you know, to respect his time
(34:39):
and all that stuff when he wants to do it.
So that's what I'm waiting for. But uh, you know,
every time I'm with him, I would say, in the
past two years I've been I asked him just little stories,
like he'll mention something or something like that, and then
I'll ask him about those whatever it was or and
(35:02):
then he shows me pictures and he tells me this
long detailed story, and I'm every time, I'm blown away.
I'm like, man, that's crazy, that's so cool. You know.
I want to do you know, this thing it, you know,
I just want to do it. It's so I don't
know the what's so hard about it, you know, But
(35:24):
I just keep learning more and more about him. But then,
you know, like I'm not saying my dad's gonna pass
away anytime soon. But you know, he's eighty three. Clint
East was like ninety six. He's still talking shit, he's
still directing movies. Still looks good. My pops, uh lives
(35:44):
downtown and he runs up the you know, the parts
of downtown that are hilly. He runs up those backwards.
He goes to the YMCA three times a week, hits
the heavy bags, he works out like he's my idol,
Like who I want to my health? I want to
be like him at his age, you know. But they
(36:09):
grew up in a different era where like the food
that they were eating was a little bit better. I
grew up in the air where they're trying to poison
us and kill us. You know, Let's make everybody as
fat as they could be, as healthy as they unhealthy
as they could be, the most diseases that they could have.
Let's make the most money off of them that we can.
(36:31):
And they had this like cool little plan. And now
that I'm older and I've gotten sick and I've gone
through health shit, it makes me sick, you know. It
pisses me off. Like they have a whole aisle full
of sodas on both sides and that's just straight poison.
They have a whole aisle full of chips and candy
(36:54):
and baking stuff, and like people are like, oh my
sweet tooth or whatever. I'm like that sweet too, gotta go.
You know that's gonna that's going to be your killer.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Well I'm going to send you one of people were
interviewing this filmmaker. His name is Tad Nakamura. His father
similar to your father. His father is known as the
godfather of Asian American cinema. He was an activist. His
father was in the Japanese in tournament camp and Tad
(37:28):
we went to school together, and no one had ever
done a documentary on his dad and similar like, I
remember a few years ago having the same conversation with
Tad and he's like, bro, I want to do a
film on my dad, yea, and I want to I
want to memoralize his legacy and what he gave to
this world. In the process of filming the doc his
(37:51):
dad gets Parkinson's and his dad was in his eighties.
The whole film then it wasn't a year, ended up
being a I don't know, three to four year. He
ended up calling it a third act because it was about
his father, him and his son. Yeah, but in the
Proad son three generations, and it actually became a documentary
(38:17):
about Tad because you know, we don't talk about love. Yeah,
this was the love letter to his dad and his
dad understanding his body de cane, he saw the other side.
He was saying things on camera because that was a
safety net. He was always behind the camera, but he
(38:38):
knew he was giving his son the torch, but he
was saying things he had never said to Tad, and
Tad sent me an early before it was final. I
sent him my book before I was out. He sent
me the film and we were both crying simultaneously because
we both wrote love letters to our dad. We didn't
name it that at the time.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, that's pretty much what it is.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
That's what it is.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Yeah, it's like, I want to do this for my dad,
you know, And you know he's just the older guy.
You know, he's like kind of hard headed, you know
the older guys are. But it's it's that, you know,
it's all that. It's it's like I want to do
Like every time I last time we talked was a
(39:23):
couple of days ago, and we're there for four hours.
I felt like forty five minutes or an hour four hours.
I wrote by hand. I wrote down like six pages
of notes so that when we go to write out
the structure of how we want the doc to go
(39:43):
before we start filming, it's you know, it'll be tightened
up in there. But every time I've been talking to
him for the past couple of years been like that,
and it's so cool. You know. I didn't get to
do that with my mom, you know, like she was
in her seventy at that time. Yeah, she would be
eighty six now, I think, and yeah, it's like you
(40:09):
realize that, you know, like, hey, the clock's tick. You know.
Even with my kids, you know, I want to be
like that too, you know, like I don't want to
wait till i'm old to tell them stories like I'm
telling them at now. You know, I'm telling them everything
that I want them to know now, and I don't
think they get it. They're listening. They just wait for
(40:32):
the noise to stop so they can go on and
keep doing what they're doing for the day. But at
least I'm saying it, and if something were to happen,
they would have that memory like, well he did say
this at one time we were doing this, or you know,
I think about that now, Like every time I go
(40:53):
to getting a car on my motorcycle, you know, I
call certain people and just be like, hey, man, I
just want to call and say what's up. You know,
I'm gonna I'm gonna get on my bike or I'll
call you later. You know, and you know, I just
never want to have like a somebody have a weird feeling,
(41:15):
you know, later on if something wherever to happen or whatever.
You know. I always, I always like try to work
things out with people that are worth it, you know.
I don't want to have no distance with somebody that
care about or love want to you know, be tight
(41:35):
with the rest of them, you.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Know, keep it moving, get out, I can I ask
you the ones you don't want to get away to
know that they mean something to you, Your dad or
some of your friends. Do you all ever say I
love you too?
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah? That's the difference between my me, you know, taking
the old thing, but the new thing, you know is
I tell my homies I love him all the time. Yeah,
I love you, bro, I love you homie. You know
it's like why wouldn't you you know, you do right,
(42:12):
like supposedly you you know, I'm down for you, homie,
you know, like do whatever you know, Like then you
know what's the problem with saying it? Yeah? Then you know.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
With with your dad, my dad loved me and my
brother more than life. Yeah, my my grandfather, my weather
never said those words to him, so I never heard
him growing up, I would say it and he didn't
know how to respond. Yeah, is it? Do you and
your do you tell your.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Dad I love you? And yeah, like sometimes I go
out of my way to so that if he doesn't
say it, you know, or you know some sometimes he
didn't say it every time, you know. Yeah, but uh,
you know, you know, if you do, you do, you know,
(43:06):
just tell them, you know, because you can when they're gone,
you know, can go to their graveside all day long
and tell them how much you love them. But it's
somebody there. They hear you up there, you know they're
really are they really watching down over you? Who knows,
you know, I don't know anybody that's been up there.
(43:26):
They came back down and said, yeah, man, I was
watching you, you know, making sure everything was cool with you,
or I saw you crying on my graveside, like that's
never happened to me yet, so I don't know if
it does. Right, So the people are here, Yeah, all right,
let me see you later, Levy bro get home safe.
You know, whatever it ain't, it's nothing. It's three three
(43:50):
more words that you you know, you have no problem
saying all kinds of other words with them. Why can't
you tell your friends or your family you love them?
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Yeah, well, thank you for saying that though, Yeah, yeah,
no problem, because I just wanted to say, like a
lot of the men that we know, it's painful for
them to say those words. So when you and I
are able to say I love you, that gives them
(44:21):
permission to respond back or to consider saying it.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Yeah, or they could feel bad if they didn't say exactly,
but that's on them.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
It's on them. Well, I'm going to ask you. We
call it the Sacred Five. It's five questions you ask
her in one word or sentence, And it's kind of
like what's a Steven Aria's healing practices for self that
maybe others could consider. Obviously, like you said, what works
for you may not work for someone else, but it
(44:51):
may work for a lot of folks. It's just our
way to practical takeaways for the for the audience. So,
first question, name three things that make you your safe
connected and.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Whole, safe connected and whole. I would say, uh, family, friends,
and uh like uh, you know, work, you know, yeah,
(45:21):
you can't. I can't feel safe if I'm not working
or don't have no money. But the bills are flying
in you know. So yeah, those three cool?
Speaker 1 (45:34):
What song book or prayer brings you back to yourself?
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Mm hmm. There's so many songs, you know, like, from
so many genres of music. I can't even what.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
One immediately came to your mind when I first asked you.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Uh tell you guys say that laughing. Yeah, there's a
comfortable blee numb. Oh yeah, from Floyd because I was
listening to the other day on my bike and like
lead Zeppeline, Pink Floyd and then you know, some of
the hip hop. But then you know there's the oldies. Yeah,
(46:14):
like you know, I was listening to, Like I go
from listening to comfortably numb to like a hip hop
song to like ramp, you know, daylight, you know, just
it goes all over the place, desk made, you know,
like I gotta throw in some of that, yeah, that
type of stuff in there. Yeah, so it'd be hard
(46:35):
for me to say.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
You said that was good.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
What's one daily ritual or practice that grounds you?
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Sna and the ice bath every morning, I do it.
Twenty minutes in the sauna, three minutes in the ice
I do that. Three repetitions of that. Oh wow, then
I feel like I'm ready to go take the world
head on. Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
What's one small action that folks can take that are
on their healing.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Path, one thing they could do to heal or consider
on the healing. Yeah, I would just say to uh,
stay positive, you know, think uh yeah, like don't don't
get into that that hole. You know. I've never done it,
(47:27):
but I heard about this thing called the K hole,
you know, from people doing academy, and I just imagine
from the way they describe it, it's like quicksand kind
of and if you go into that negative space in
your head that it's like, yeah, it's like quicksand and
just got to keep your energy up and stay positive
(47:48):
and peaceful, like you know, a big thing for me
is peace and and positive energy.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Last one step one share one line blessing or quote
that inspires you mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yeah on uh.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
Or words that you live by.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
I like, I think a lot about it's uh, you
know the sapata you know, uh, dye on your feet
or going living on your knees, which is kind of
like you know, fight for something or fall for everything.
I think about that a lot in my you know,
(48:41):
in my head because I always feel like there's you know,
somebody's coming at you, you know, trying to get something,
and you know, you got to stand up for yourself,
for your people, for your family. You know. You always
it feels like there's something always trying to push into you,
you know, so you got to stand up for it,
(49:03):
you know, like kind of like what's going on in
the city now, you know, with all the the ice
and stuff like that, Like you got to stand up
for for our city, for our people, or what good
are we? You know, right you're just gonna be like, oh,
you know, poor them, you know, or as long as
(49:26):
they happened to me, you know, like this, I hear
people say, I'm like, it's wrong with you, Like, you know,
my grandma came here from Mexico, my other grandma came
here from Sicily. Like they came here with nothing, and
they made it like look at how look what we're doing.
(49:47):
They made it cool for us. We'd be still over there,
not saying that it's you know, anything bad about being
over there, but right now we're in the land of opportunity,
is where dreams come true and just seeing what goes on,
like you can't say it's you know, not true or
fake news orthing like that. People are recording with their
phone live like there's nothing fake about it. It's a
(50:11):
thousand percent real and it's ugly scandless. Like I've never
ever thought of I never thought of not living in
la But seeing all that, I'm like, man, I wonder
what it'd be like to live somewhere where it's like
no drama like that, you know, like you don't have
to worry about stuff or you know, you could just
(50:34):
be living like a normal life like before all that,
you know, like we're cool. Everything was. I thought everything
was pretty, you know, aside from the fires and this
and that, you know, those traumatic things that happened to us.
We all came together during the fires. Like I was
going to Pasadena doing the fire brigade cleaning up debris.
(50:55):
Well first we were doing the coffee in the mornings
for the firemen. Go right after that to do the
firebrigate clean up the debris and stuff from the street.
I had a gallery that we opened up a warehouse
turned it into a like a relief center for people
that lost everything. We had donations come in, driving the
people taking them to you know shelters. Then at night
(51:17):
we'd go get food and feed the fireman, and like
we came together as a city and helped everybody. Everybody
was like it looked like everybody was helping each other
and it was amazing. And now this, you know, it's like,
it's crazy, the contrast that's happened just in this year,
(51:37):
right right, it's wild. Well, you know, we got to
stay positive, keep the good energy and keep it moving,
stick together, help each other out, and you know, pull
through it.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
Well, step On, I just want to say thank you.
Usually I say three things. I'm going to say one
thing right now. Your whole life is a love letter
to la. Your whole life is a love letter to
those of us that oftentimes don't feel like we belong.
But when we look at your images, we feel a
(52:13):
sense of home and like we do belong. And I
want to thank your mother, your father, your ancestors, because
they gave you that gift that only you could do.
No one else in the world could take those photos,
but you and you allowed hope, dignity, compassion, and when
(52:34):
you were describing what happened after the fires, your portraits
are part of that tapestry to allow us to remember
our connection, and so just thank you for being who
you are, thank you for being on the show. Whatever
we could do to support the love letter to your father,
you know already got you. Whatever we got to do,
(52:54):
but just thank you for your life's work and for
being who you are. Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Sacred Lessons is a production of Iheart's Michael through It
our podcast network, Sacred Lessons Media, and the Prince Group.
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