March 18, 2024 • 41 mins
What role has Hollywood played in America’s violence epidemic? To find the answer, we tell the story of our experience with a musical movement born in the late 80s…and how it impacted urban America.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:22):
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Thanks everyone.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Everywhere you look, you see violence in our country and
it's nothing new.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
A rising tide of gun violence.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Violent climb is on the rise.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
In the city of Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
LAPD Chief Michael Moore announced Tuesday that the city has
experienced a fifty percent increase in shooting victims during the
same time period last year.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
We do talk a lot about gun insanity here on
I would just news these days, and tragically it was
on full display across New York City yesterday, nine shootings
on Memorial Day. So, just based off the data, while
Chicago has more crime, you're more likely to be a
victim of certain violent crimes in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Violence plagues America, which got us to wondering what role
has Hollywood played in this epidemic. I'm Patrick Carelci.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
And I'm Adriana Cortes, and this.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Is Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
We're all about telling stories.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Stories. Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
The media mocks stories about everyday Americans at the globalist ignore.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
and we promise only one thing, the truth. Welcome to
Red Pilled America. Violence has plagued urban America for decades,
(02:05):
and it appears that the problem has only gotten worse.
What role has Hollywood played in this epidemic? To find
the answer, we tell the story of our experience with
a musical movement that was born in the late eighties
and how it changed the environment of urban America. My
(02:30):
bottom lip was swelling, blood was dripping into my mouth.
That's when I realized something was changing. I've been a
breakdancer for about two years and never even came close
to fighting during a dance battle. But there I was
in a breakdancing circle with my lip busted open by
wrapper iced tea. I started dancing pretty early in life.
(02:53):
I was only seven when Saturday Night Fever hit the
big screen, but I already felt like I could give
John Jibolta a run for money. My sister and I
wowed the crowd with our disco moves at just about
every wedding we attended. We even want a dance contest
at my dad's annual company picnic, and we were going
up against grown adults. I'll never forget the adulation received
(03:15):
when we were announced the winners. It was exhilarating. So
when breakdancing came on the scene, it fit like a glove.
I began breaking in nineteen eighty two and for the
next three years was in the sweet spot physically for
the sport. I was small and limber, and breakdancing truly
was always a sport an opinion the athletic world came
too late. In December twenty twenty, the International Olympic Committee
(03:38):
announced that breakdancing was being added to the Paris twenty
twenty four Games. When I was twelve, my dad wanted
me to focus on baseball, but I was just an
average second basement However, I truly excelled at breaking. I
mastered a few slam dunk moves that took out just
about every opponent I ever faced. One was called the turtle.
(03:58):
Pictures someone balancing on their two hands with both of
their elbows buried into their stomach, then walking around on
those hands really fast in a circle. That's the turtle.
The second I busted that move, I immediately took out
ninety nine percent of my competition. For the remaining one percent,
I perfected another move called the cricket. Now picture someone
(04:19):
balancing on their left hand with their left elbow buried
into their stomach, then hopping in a circle on that
one left hand. It was kind of like a bouncing handspin,
and it was near impossible for anyone large to pull off.
About a year after I picked up the sport, a
documentary called Breakin' an Enterin debuted on a Los Angeles
subscription TV network called on TV. The documentary was one
(04:41):
of the first on breakdancing, and it featured a gang
banger turned wrapper, Iced Tea. After the film debuted, Iced
Tea became an overnight celebrity within the urban youth culture.
In the early eighties, mainstream TV had near zero breakdancing content,
so iced Tea was thought by many of us to
be a god within this new movement. When I showed
(05:04):
up at Magic Mountain one afternoon in nineteen eighty four
and saw Iced Tea in a breaking circle, I was
as star struck as a kid could be. The problem
was that somehow the twenty six year old rapper got
fixated on fourteen year old me and decided to call
me out for a dance battle. Now, Iced Tea was
(05:27):
street famous for being a rapper, but he was a
horrible breakdancer, I mean horrible, so he probably strategically picked
out the youngest looking kid on the scene to increase
his chances of winning. I may have been fourteen, but
to a hardened street hustler like Iced Tea, I probably
looked twelve. So anyway, he called me out with some
stupid move, and I decided not to hold back. I mean,
(05:49):
this was break dancing. I'd been doing it for two
years and had never seen a fight breakout, so what
harm would there be in beating a hip hop street
legend in front of an audience. Yes, I was young
and naive. I took to the floor and did my
turtle move right out of the gate, and the crowd
(06:10):
around me erupted. I still remember the look on Icedy's
face when I popped up. If there were cell phones
at the time, i'd have gone viral. Iced Tea wasn't
sure what to do next, so he went out and
basically did the same move he did his first go around.
And that's when I decided to put a cherry on
(06:30):
top of his defeat with my cricket move. When he
popped up from the floor and pointed at me, I
hit the ground and started popping around like a top
on one hand, and the audience went insane. It was
the first time I really felt the energy of a
large crowd. When I finished, I thought that was it.
I'd beaten the street legend, fair and square. But he
(06:51):
couldn't take the embarrassment. He grabbed me and thrust my
prepubescent face into his chest hard. He tried to make
it look like a dance move, but everyone knew what
was happening. Iced Tea was salty that some young kid
beat him. When I emerged from the attack, I could
feel my bottom lip was busted open and blood was
(07:12):
dripping onto my shirt. As I looked up, I could
see iced Tea raising his arms into the air as
if he'd won physically. I didn't stand a chance against him.
I was only fourteen, barely beginning puberty. Iced Tea was
a twenty six year old gangster wrapper before gangster rap
had even become a genre. There was no way I
(07:34):
was going to return the favor to his face, nor
did I want to. That's not what break dancing was about.
Fights just never occurred. It was all about who was
the most talented. Breaking was the purest form of meritocracy
my young self had ever experienced. Most breakers actually respected
those that defeated them. But something was changing in our
(07:54):
hip hop movement. Things were getting more violent, and even
then I understood that it was a game changing development.
Most people don't know this, but modern breakdancing and rapping
arose in the early nineteen seventies as a response to
an unstable time in New York City. The Big Apple
was experiencing unprecedented street gang violence. In response, the hip
(08:17):
hop movement was born, and it grew in part because
it helped smooth tensions. Young men now had a new
way to settle grievances. They'd compete with one another without
using their fists. Breakdancers and rappers battled and the crowd
decided the winners. It was a glorious time. Hip Hop
then was actually a soothing development in the urban community,
(08:39):
but when guys like Iced Tea entered the scene, things
started to change. As the mid eighties progressed, breakdancing faded
in popularity and a new dance music called electro became
all the rage. The sound was a blend of high
energy breakdancing music, disco and hip hop, and with this
fresh sound emerged in dance scene. Breakdancing crews gave way
(09:02):
to dance cruise, and by nineteen eighty six I had
left break dancing behind and formed a dance crew with
a few high school friends. We called ourselves the Dramatics,
and we were pretty damn good. The standout dancer in
our crew was probably my best friend, Mark. The guy
was small and had footwork that no one could match.
(09:24):
He helped me transition from breaking to this new form
of dance, and our crew quickly became popular at all
the clubs in the South Bay suburbs of Los Angeles,
areas like Hawthorne, Torrents, Carson, Gardina, Lowndale, and Inglewood, the
latter being the home of the Los Angeles Forum, like breaking,
there were very few fights in this dance scene. Don't
get me wrong. We were young men, most of us
(09:46):
without a father in the house, so we got in
our fair share of fights outside of the clubs. But
the dance scene seemed to be a calming force for
young men with more testosterone than they knew what to
do with, and girls seemed to dig it as well.
This new scene chugged along for two years, but as
nineteen eighty seven came around, something began to happen. The
(10:07):
shift that I sense when I faced off with iced
Tea started to really blossom. Early that year, a new
group called n w A released a single called Boys
in the Hood, and it hit Los Angeles like a
nuclear bomb. In a time without social media, the song
still spread like wildfire, and we were right at this
(10:27):
new musical movement's epicenter. To give you an understanding of
how close we were to this new gangster rap phenomenon,
let me give you some perspective. It's widely known that
gangster rap was born at a drive in theater turned
open air swap meet called the Rhodium. That's where the
(10:48):
founders of n w A first connected It eventually sell
their first albums from a booth at this swap meet.
The Rhodium was in our neighborhood of Torrance, California. It
was just a few blocks from my house. Hose NWA
actually recorded their first official album straight out of Compton,
a few miles from my home in a downtown Torrents
(11:09):
sound studio. So As young Men Are, Torrent's dance crew
was literally at ground zero of the gangster rap movement.
The problem with this new form of hip hop was
that it triggered something that was largely dormant in suburban neighborhoods.
But after listening to NWA, everyone thought that they were gangsters. Blacks, Whites, Latinos,
Asians and everything in between. Would blast boys in the
(11:32):
hood from their cars as if they'd always lived the
thug life. Being hard became aspirational to many young men,
and it made already shaky neighborhoods really unstable. I'm telling you,
Gangster rap was a real poison to a community of
fatherless young men that didn't know what to do with
their anger, and the police caught wind of this new
(11:52):
movement pretty quickly. During this time, I remember a gang
member targeting a Japanese friend within our crew. Even though
he was a victim, the police entered him into a
gang database. Then one night, when we were all caravanning
to a dance party, a cop pulled us all over,
and because we were with him, they took all of
our pictures to input us into this suspected criminal system.
(12:13):
It wasn't just blacks being profiled, as the media likes
to tell us. All young men with a certain look
were getting targeted as well. In dancing. My friends and
I thought we'd found an outlet for our aggression, but
the gangster rap scene was growing so fast that by
early nineteen eighty eight it quickly became the dominant pop
culture of our neighborhood, and it changed everything. Young urban
(12:37):
men continued to form groups, but they were no longer
centered on dancing. They were more about physical aggression. I
was about halfway into my final year of high school
and just wanted out. Things had become too volatile. Every
weekend fights broke out, and it seemed like NWA was
the trigger. Most of my friends were just itching to graduate,
(12:57):
to get the hell out of a building war zone
in youth culture. That was our mindset. One night in
early nineteen eighty eight. Like every high school, we had
a few major hangouts that we'd all converge on. In
North Torrance. That was a place that we called the Stadium,
which was the street entrance to our football field. Its
(13:20):
location was perfect. The residential area was offset by about
a block to the west, so most nights we could
all meet there and not be bothered for hours. And
there were never any fights there because we all knew
one another, so it was kind of a refuge. On
this particular night, though, a neighbor must have called the
cops pretty early. They showed up and politely broke up
(13:41):
the gathering. So we headed to our second best hangout,
a place we called Jack and the Crack, better known
to most people as Jack in the Box. The Crack
was in reference to their two tacos for ninety nine cents. Astonishingly,
thirty years later, those two tacos still only cost ninety
nine cents. Anyways, we loved Jack and the Crack not
only because of its food, but also because of its
(14:03):
drive through worker, or more precisely, his voice. We'd drive
up at the end of every night on the town
and place our order. Hello. We'd like four tacos, a hamburger,
a jumbo jack with no cheese, and two double cheeseburgers.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Please.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Okay, that's four tacos, one hambourge, one jumbo Yak no cheese,
and two double yees bourgees. I swear we'd go through
that drive through every weekend just to hear him repeat
our order. On this night, because the stadium got broke up,
especially early, we decided to go inside to eat and
hang out. We were there with our full posse. It
(14:39):
was me, Mark Kwan, Ricky Peewee, and a good friend
we called Close. Three of us were half Mexican, half white,
one was Korean, another one was a black Filipino Latino,
and Close was as white as they come. We were
today's picture of diversity. And we also had a group
of girls with us from high school. So we entered
Jack and the Crack, ordered our young b oyaks and
(15:00):
sat around winding down the night. We were having fun,
making jokes, fooling around. Nothing 've scene, just good clean laughter.
And anyways, we weren't fine dining at the French Laundry.
We were at Jack in the Box. About halfway through
our meal, a big group of jocks entered that we'd
never seen before. There were nine of them, and I
(15:21):
remember that because things had gotten so hostile at the
time that you always had to know if you were
outnumbered in any situation. So these guys come in and
I just remembered telling my friends to keep it cool,
no fights tonight. Everyone agreed we were dancers, not fighters
unless we had to be. But the problem was that
(15:43):
Jack and the Crack was our home away from home,
so there was a comfort to being there that some
new guys just weren't going to change.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
As we joked around, one of the guys told us
to shut up. And these weren't small guys. Their necks
were as thick as their heads and they looked to
be in their early twenties. Most of us were still seventeen.
One was sixteen. Being told to shut up in our
house didn't sit well with any one, but being the
part time mediator in our crew, I convinced everyone to
(16:10):
mellow out. Even the girls were begging us not to
cause any trouble. We all quietly agreed and decided to
take it down a notch. The jocks finished their food
and left, and we thought that was it, but it wasn't.
As we finished up our meal, one of the girls
with us looked out the window and noticed that the
jocks appeared to be waiting for us in the parking lot.
(16:31):
Not good. We were out numbered and out muscled. We
were dancers, not historically the beefiest bunch. I mean, A
guy in our crew was called pee Wee for a reason.
He was small, but our size often fooled less seasoned people.
Several of us could bench press over three hundred pounds,
and the growing hostilities sparked by the gangster rat movement
put us through a kind of boot camp in self defense.
(16:54):
As five minutes turned to ten, then fifteen, the jocks
were still in the parking lot. They weren't. And now
it was starting to get embarrassing. We had females with us,
It was getting late. It was clearly time to leave.
If we didn't get up and head to the car,
it could be interpreted that we were afraid. So I
calmly reminded the guys to keep it cool on the
(17:14):
way out. Let's just head straight to our cars and
get out of here. Okay, we don't need any trouble tonight.
We were tired for the last year, gangster rap helped
heat things up in our neck of the woods. Fight
seemed to be in every week in occurrence. This one night,
we wanted a break. Everyone agreed and we got up
and exited Jack in the Crack. But when we did,
(17:35):
all hell broke loose more after the break.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
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Speaker 2 (17:56):
Welcome back. So our dance crew was eating at Jack
in the Box when we noticed a bunch of jocks
were waiting for us in the parking lot. They outnumbered
us and out muscled us, So I made all my
friends promise to just peacefully walk to the car. Fight
seemed to be happening every weekend. This one night, we
wanted to break. Everyone agreed, and we got up and
(18:17):
exited Jack in the Box. As we walked the car,
the jocks stood there staring at us. One of them
must have calculated that they could whip our crew because
he began taunting us. We ignored him, then he stepped
it up a notch calling one of our girls a
nasty slur. Well, that was it. If we didn't do
something about that, word would travel at school that we
(18:37):
were pushovers, the kiss of death for a young high
school maile. As I turned around to get a better
look at the guy, I saw my friend, the white
boy we called close, walk up to the biggest guy
flipping a coin in the air. So are you kicking
or receiving? He said to the jock, And so the
games began. Now, as I said, gangster rapp had infested
(19:05):
our entire area and we weren't immune to it. The
lifestyle portrayed in the music amplified every confrontation, and the
males directly impacted by this new environment typically came prepared
Within seconds. Pewe pulled out a big bicycle lock change
from his trunk. My other friend, Mark pulled out a
bat from another car, and they both began returning verbal
(19:26):
fire to the prep school looking jocks. As Peewee continually
smacked the chain against the ground, he repeated, I don't care.
I'll go back to the pen pen meaning penitentiary, a
place the tech guru had never been. Mark was swinging
the bat like he was next up at the plate
let's play ball. He continually called out. But as much
as our crew tried to intimidate these jocks in hopes
(19:48):
of getting out of another fight, it wasn't working. They
must have thought we were just bluffing. Before I knew it,
their biggest guy took a swing at my friend that
was flipping the coin it was on. I may have
been a dancer, but I'd hit my physical peek at
the time, and I stepped into their biggest guy, knocking
him down with one punch. Our biggest guy, Ricky, was
(20:09):
holding his own against two guys. Kwan, Close and Peewee
were all beating their guys as well. These prep school
jocks must have realized that they might have underestimated us,
But it was Mark that delivered the knockout blow. As
a few of the guys got in their car to retreat,
Mark smashed in the side window. The jarring sound woke
everyone out of their fighting trance, and we all jumped
(20:32):
in our cars and peeled out. The jocks were so
stunned that they just stood there in a scared shock
as we sped away. We went to bed that night
a bit shook, but happy. That everyone made it out intact,
we thought it was over. But as I mentioned earlier,
Jack and the Crack was our home away from home.
Everyone there knew us. Come Monday morning, the police showed
(20:57):
up at our high school. At the end of the day,
one by one, we were all called into the dean's office.
For the first time in my life. A thought crossed
my mind. Am I about to get arrested? As we
sat there in a conference room, the dean entered with
a few police officers. One cop said he knew about
everything that happened at Jack in the Box and for
(21:18):
us to come clean. I know you're in a gang,
he insisted. None of us were. I, for one, was
a straight a student who truly despised gangs. But our
names must have popped up on that hoodlum database from
the time that we were pulled over, and so the
officer had something with which to grind away at us.
The growing gangster rap movement was now even impacting my future.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Patrick was not alone. Gangster rap impacted my life as well,
but in a slightly different way. I think it's fair
to say that most red pilled America listeners would be
surprised to know that I, your humble co host, was
once in an NWA inspired street gang. It wasn't exactly
(22:09):
a long stretch of my life, but nevertheless it happened.
We were a small operation called the East Side Locas.
And when I say small, that's not hyperbole. There were
just two of us in our set, me and my
best friend Lisa. We were tiny but mighty. For decades,
I've kept this story quiet. I didn't want to be
judged by my dumb life decisions. But today just about
(22:32):
anything goes morbidly Obese models walk the fashion runways. Public
schools teach that all whites are racist. Single guys who
don't want to date chicks with our transphobes and rioters
are now considered mostly peaceful, so comparatively speaking, a little
story about my brief turn to the thug life should
probably not get me canceled. Like many gang members before us,
(22:56):
Lisa and I never thought our lives would go in
that direction. We were good Catholic girls who typically avoided
danger like CNN avoids the truth. But on one fateful
day in the early nineties, Lisa and I became the
east Side Lolcas. At the time, I was a struggling
college student, clawing to make a better life for myself.
I grew up in a single mom household and received
(23:18):
very little help from my dad. But one thing I
did have going for me was my determination. I wanted
to be the first in my family to get a
college degree, to set an example for future generations. When
your parents are immigrants, there's this pressure you feel to
really make it big. I always thought they brought me
to the land of opportunity for a reason, so don't
fit up loser. I didn't have a road map on
(23:40):
how to succeed in life that I had a PhD
in survival. So on that Sunday afternoon in the early nineties,
I wasn't looking for trouble. I was looking for a book,
but trouble found me. It all started because I had
to go to the library to do some research for
a class. I roped my bestie Lisa into going with me.
We hopped into my beat up nineteen eighty two BMW
(24:01):
and headed to the West Covina Library. Now, this library
was uniquely positioned. In fact, its location was a big
part of why Lisa and I turned to the gangs
to life. Let me explain when you entered the West
Covina Library, you drove directly into their parking lot. A
large grassy area separated this lot and the library building.
(24:24):
To exit, there was only a single lane path wide
enough for one car. The exit path traversed the big
grassy section and cut right by the front door of
the library. It wasn't well designed, but it was functional.
When we arrived to the library, there wasn't a single
car in the parking lot. It was completely empty. Hmmm,
(24:45):
that's weird. Do you think it's closed? I wondered out loud.
Lisa shot me a strange look and shrugged her shoulders.
I'm sure she was wondering if I'd ever graduate with
such poor deduction skills. To investigate, I decided to drive
to the front door of the building and read the
hour printed on the entrance door. I stopped the car
on the single lane path where it was closest to
the building, stepped out, and high tailed it to the
(25:07):
entrance to read their hours of operation. Yep, it was closed, damn.
As I was walking back to my car, I noticed
a black Honda Civic had entered the parking lot. So
I started jogging back to my car because I was
blocking the road. However, before I could reach my driver's seat,
the Honda started laying on its horn, well before it
(25:28):
had even reached my car. Wow, this person must really
be in a hurry, I thought to myself. As I
got to my car, the black Honda hadn't quite made
it to where I was stopped. I beat him there
by a few seconds. Nevertheless, the driver hadn't let up
on the honking. Geez, this guy's really in a hurry.
(25:50):
I better move asap. The last thing I wanted to
do was be rude. For all I knew he could
be in the middle of an emergency. I was just
checking the hours, I said, before jumping back into my car.
So sorry, I added, even though technically he hadn't waited.
What happened next ultimately led to the formation of the
East Side Locus. The man stopped his Honda, got out
(26:14):
and screamed what bitch? He said it in the most
ghetto of voices. With his door open, I could hear
NWA's Dope Man blaring from his car speakers. He closed
with a large grunt uh, directed at me. Hm, that
was a bit much. I'm not the type of person
who starts fights or goes looking for trouble, but this
(26:37):
guy crossed the line. Nephew. Then I instinctively blurted out
with that. The guy started walking towards my car. Listen,
my bite is worse than my bark, but I'm not
gonna go toe to toe with the grown man. Chicks
who think they can physically whoop a guy are delusional.
Initially I didn't get a great look at him. I
just knew he was a man who was bigger than me,
(26:58):
and he had thuggish music blasting from his speakers. So
without hesitation, I jumped back into my car, put that
baby in first, and drove away. He definitely startled me,
but that isn't really surprising. I'm of Mexican descent, and
we're afraid of monsters like the chupacabra. Lisa, on the
other hand, is of Italian stock and doesn't scare easily
or at all. Come to think of it, Dude, did
(27:21):
you see him? That guy was ready to beat me up.
I said to Lisa, what kind of a man beats
up girls? A crazy one, that's who. Just then, the
Honda Civic drove by us. As it passed, Lisa and
I were able to get a good look at the
driver and his female passenger. He was a white guy
that looked to be in his early twenties. He had
(27:42):
a long, thin neck with the razors sharp adams apple,
no chin, and a very pronounced overbite. Think Beaker from
the Muppets. He looks like a big door to me.
Lisa volunteered with a hint of disgust on her face. Now,
Lisa has always been the ying to my yang. She
(28:02):
has a tendency to be calm and measured. I'm more
on the rambunctious and spontaneous side. When you grow up
in a hostile environment, it has a lingering impact. It
takes a lot of effort not to bust into a
real life scarface monologue. Every time someone slights you say
hello to my little Free is always kind of there,
ready to bubble up. Today I make a conscious effort
(28:25):
to contain the beast. But back then I wasn't as disciplined.
You're right, he's a nerd, I embarrassingly said. That's when
something inside me snapped. Had I no pride? I thought?
Was I really going to let this ichabod crane looking
dork punk me? I think not this NWA blasting poster
(28:46):
needed to be taught a lesson, and if I didn't
do it, who would I boiled? Over? The gangst in
me had been unlocked. Before I go any further, it's
important that you have a clear picture of how Lisa
and I were dressed on that fateful afternoon. Street gangs
were everywhere at the time. They were in our music films,
(29:07):
on the news, and on MTV. Rap music glorified gangstas,
so everyone had a clear understanding of what they looked like.
But other than Lisa being a descendant of the Italian
mob and I the Mexican cartel, we visually didn't really
fit the mold. Lisa is an attractive redhead with bright
blue eyes and freckles. My family comes from south of
the border, but I'm from the bloodline of Cortes, so
(29:30):
I don't exactly look intimidatingly indigenous like a lot of
members of the cartel do. But what we were lacking
in genetics we could make up in attire. Our fashion
choice that day was fifties inspired. We were both wearing
white wife beaters, you know, those thin, white ribbed underwear
looking tank tops that sometimes men used to wear. And
(29:51):
as luck would have it, we were also both wearing
bandanas as headbands. Mine was red, Lisa's was blue. After
quickly scanning our on some an idea came to me.
Pull your bandana down onto your forehead, I told Lisa
as I dug into my makeup bag for a black eyeliner.
Lisa looked confused. Here, draw tear drop underneath your eye,
(30:11):
I added, as I handed her the black eyeliner and
pulled my bandiana into the perfect gangster position. Let's follow
that jerk and scare them. We'll pretend we're gangbangers, I
blurted out, trying to hold back a laugh. Attack line
your lips with the black eyeliner. Lisa quickly responded she
was on board. With the pedal to the Metal and
(30:32):
Boys in the Hood playing on cassette, we were on
a mission to find that Ichabod crane driving the black
Honda Civic. Lady Luck was on our side. We caught
up with them at a light just a few blocks away.
As we pulled up next to the car, we put
on our best impersonation of gangsters. A lot of gangs
(30:52):
have hand signs, but the only one that we knew
was the one from our hometown of Wescobina. It consisted
of the pinky ring and middle finger making a W
while the index finger and thumb make a sea. As
Ichabod and his girlfriend looked over at us, Lisa held
up the West Covina hand sign and blurted out, Isa,
look at Holmes. I thought I was gonna pee my
cut off jeans Schwartz. I did everything in my power
(31:15):
not to laugh, Lisa continued, Best believe you missed with
the wrong Wucas Homeslice. I honestly didn't think it was
gonna work. I mean, they just saw us outside of
public library, looking like fifties rockabilities. But just as we
were going to erupt and laughter and drive away, the driver,
who'd earlier been such a tough guy blasting NWA's dope man,
sped away in a panic. We couldn't believe it. He
(31:38):
actually thought we was gangst to gangsta. We should have
stopped it there, but like a pack of great whites
that smelled blood, we couldn't resist temptation and continued our chase.
And that's when things got out of hand. More after
the break back, so my best friend Lisa and I
(32:02):
decided to teach a lesson to a guy that yelled
at us in a road rage fit. We quickly modified
our fifties inspired attire to make us look like Cholas,
and we pulled up to his car, yelling gang slurs. Unbelievably,
the guy panicked and sped off. We really should have
stopped it there, but like a pack of great whites
that smelled blood, we couldn't resist temptation and continued the chase.
(32:25):
We followed the duo deep into the neighboring city. All
along the way we channeled every gangster movie cliche we
could muster. Our impersonations were a hybrid of nwh Chi
ch and Chong and goodfellas. We were all over the
hoodlum spectrum. But we also had a secret weapon. You see,
back in the early nineties, almost no one had a
(32:47):
cell phone. They were these huge, clunky pieces of equipment
that were basically the toys of fortune, five hundred CEOs
and drug kingpins. But as luck would have it, Lisa
had one. She's always been a tech junkie and she
was the first civilian I knew with the cellular phone.
So as we caught up with the Honda at another light,
Lisa flashed her accessory. My Sanchels called me for you Holmes,
(33:13):
I said to the driver. As Lisa held up her
cell phone that was the size of a small suitcase.
The driver looked like he was going to soil his trousers.
Lisa took it up a notch, pretending to make a
phone call from it for backup. In those days, cell
phone calls costs five dollars a minute, so never ever
use the phone. Well it worked. They must have thought
(33:33):
we were real kingpins when they saw the phone, because
before the light even turned green, they floored it. Now
we knew we were in his head. At each red light,
we'd drop another ghetto line. You bet ask somebody's suf futtle,
I mouthed. At the next light, Lisa screamed, you can't
be disrespecting us, Micaul. As they tried to make a
(33:56):
U turn, I rolled down my window and blurted, you're
about to get you ask fool. And my personal favorite
was delivered by Lisa as she hung out of the
car and screamed, this is what a massa. Before you
get any bright ideas the only reason why we knew
so many gangsta one liners was because it was nineteen
ninety two and it was the height of the gangster
wrap movement. Everyone who listened to it thought they were
(34:19):
from the ghetto, but I actually was from the ghetto.
Couple that, with the Bloods and the crips on the
news practically every night, it was easy to embody that persona.
It wasn't our fault. We had become victims of the culture.
After what seemed like thirty minutes, the chase came to
(34:42):
an abrupt pause when the now petrified, formally tough white
guy pulled into a dead end street. Now this really
should have been it. I mean, we'd been chasing them
forever and now we had them cornered. People do crazy
things when they're backed up against a wall. So I
decided enough was enough. I was gonna leave them in peace.
But as I tried to make a U turn, my
(35:03):
crappy BMW stalled in a position that made it look
like we were purposefully blocking the road. That's when Ichabod
Crane began driving straight towards us. At first I thought
he was gonna ram my car, but then he slowed down, stopped,
and rolled down the window. Please don't do this. Ichabod
pleaded as his girlfriend cried in the passenger seat. He continued,
(35:27):
with his voice cracking. We had a fight and I
lost my temper. I should have never said the things
I said. We had arrived at another crossroad. Should I
do the right thing and in the charade? Or should
I continue down the path of a fake gangsta? Obviously
I chose the latter. What can I say? We were young, immature,
and it was just so funny, right son, I'm Fenna
(35:50):
put my nine down, but don't let me see you
assima hood, because you know we're a We strapped up,
I said, in the best iced tea voice I could muster.
It was then that one of the funniest things in
the history of Lisa and aj happened. Lisa picked up
a water gun that belonged to my little brother, pointed
it at Ichabod and screamed, hand to the now, what
to your mother? That doesn't even make any sense. You'd
(36:13):
think at that point they'd recognize the absurdity of the situation,
after all, the gun was floresce and green. But they didn't.
They took cover. We practically died of laughter. Tears were
(36:33):
streaming down our faces. It reminded me of the famous
commercial two bandanas eight ninety nine vintage cut off five
oh one jeans, twenty ninety nine water gun seventy nine cents,
scaring a gangsterposer in his date priceless. I finally got
my car into gear and drove us out of there.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Gangster Rap impacted everyone, even the ladies. As my friends
and I sat in that high school conference room facing
questions from the police officers, the cops slowly began to
realize that almost all of us were under eighteen. The
guys we'd fought were twenty one, and there were more
of them. The dean pulled me to the side, I
was the honor student of the bunch and said that
(37:15):
from what the police gathered, we had a case against
the jocks. And that was the end of that. The
police left and we went back to class for the
final stretch of our last high school year. We avoided
any more fights. We did have a dramatic end to
our senior year, but that's a story for another time.
(37:36):
Over the following years, Gangster Rap got bigger and bigger,
so big, in fact, that Hollywood made a movie inspired
by NWA's music. Appropriately entitled Boys in the Hood, and
when it was released, America got a taste of what
many of us had been experiencing since the birth of
gangster rap.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
The film opened in more than eight hundred theaters across
the country, and violence broke out in at least eight stakes.
In all. At least six people were injured by gunfire
in southern California, others hurt when knives or guns were
drawn in suburban New York and Ohio, Minnesota, Texas, Wisconsin,
and Massachusetts. In Illinois, a man was killed. However, Columbia
(38:15):
Pictures Today said just a handful of theaters had canceled
showings of the movie. The company said it would pay
for extra security if theater owners requested it. Today director
John Singleton said it wasn't his movie that caused last
night's trouble.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
I mean, what happened last night was more of an
indication of the degeneralization of America society than a reflection
upon my film.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Still, it was the second time this year that violence
accompanied the opening of a major motion picture. In March,
the movie was New Jack City.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Which leads us back to the question, what's Hollywood's role
in the violence plaguing America. The answer is Hollywood has
glorified and even rewarded urban violence. In nineteen eighty eight,
NWA's Ice Cube released the song f the Police. Ice
Cube went on to become one of Hollywood's biggest screenwriters
(39:22):
and producers. In nineteen ninety two, rapper Iced Tea released
the song cop Killer. That same year, NWA's Doctor Dre
and rapper Snoop Dogg released a song about killing an
undercover cop. Ice Tea would eventually become a major actor
in movies like New Jack City. Snoop Dogg is a
cooking show with ex con Martha Stewart and Doctor Dre's
(39:43):
a billionaire that sits on the board of one of
Hollywood's new major players, Apple. By glorifying and rewarding the
thug life, Tinseltown has played a major role in mainstreaming
urban American violence, and they'll continue pumping their poison into
this country's blood, reaching angry, fatherless teenagers like I was.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
And even good Catholic schoolgirls like me.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
So the only antidote to Hollywood's poison is to create films, music,
TV shows, and literature that embodies the values that we
want to be the norm. Then we have to flood
America with those works. We must shame those that embody
the thug life and reward those that promote the moral path,
because if we don't, today's mainstream violence will look like
(40:29):
child's play tomorrow. Now, according to our count, just once
again recapping those numbers since Friday night, eighty five shootings,
fourteen homicides here in the city of Chicago.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Red Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's produced
by me Adrianna Cortez and Patrick Carrelci for Informed Ventures. Now.
Our entire archive of episodes is only available to our
backstage subscribers. To subscribe, visit Redpilled America dot com and
click support in the topmenu. Thanks for listening at
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Doding
Before we start the show, just a reminder to share, like,
and subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening to it,
and please give us a five star rating. It helps
us beat the big tech algorithm. Also, if you love
Red Pilled America, please consider becoming a backstage subscriber. You'll
have exclusive access to our entire back catalog of episodes
and are behind the scenes podcast. Just visit Redpilldamerica dot
(00:22):
com and click support in the top menu for details.
Thanks everyone.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Everywhere you look, you see violence in our country and
it's nothing new.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
A rising tide of gun violence.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Violent climb is on the rise.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
In the city of Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
LAPD Chief Michael Moore announced Tuesday that the city has
experienced a fifty percent increase in shooting victims during the
same time period last year.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
We do talk a lot about gun insanity here on
I would just news these days, and tragically it was
on full display across New York City yesterday, nine shootings
on Memorial Day. So, just based off the data, while
Chicago has more crime, you're more likely to be a
victim of certain violent crimes in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Violence plagues America, which got us to wondering what role
has Hollywood played in this epidemic. I'm Patrick Carelci.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
And I'm Adriana Cortes, and this.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Is Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
We're all about telling stories.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Stories. Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
The media mocks stories about everyday Americans at the globalist ignore.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
and we promise only one thing, the truth. Welcome to
Red Pilled America. Violence has plagued urban America for decades,
(02:05):
and it appears that the problem has only gotten worse.
What role has Hollywood played in this epidemic? To find
the answer, we tell the story of our experience with
a musical movement that was born in the late eighties
and how it changed the environment of urban America. My
(02:30):
bottom lip was swelling, blood was dripping into my mouth.
That's when I realized something was changing. I've been a
breakdancer for about two years and never even came close
to fighting during a dance battle. But there I was
in a breakdancing circle with my lip busted open by
wrapper iced tea. I started dancing pretty early in life.
(02:53):
I was only seven when Saturday Night Fever hit the
big screen, but I already felt like I could give
John Jibolta a run for money. My sister and I
wowed the crowd with our disco moves at just about
every wedding we attended. We even want a dance contest
at my dad's annual company picnic, and we were going
up against grown adults. I'll never forget the adulation received
(03:15):
when we were announced the winners. It was exhilarating. So
when breakdancing came on the scene, it fit like a glove.
I began breaking in nineteen eighty two and for the
next three years was in the sweet spot physically for
the sport. I was small and limber, and breakdancing truly
was always a sport an opinion the athletic world came
too late. In December twenty twenty, the International Olympic Committee
(03:38):
announced that breakdancing was being added to the Paris twenty
twenty four Games. When I was twelve, my dad wanted
me to focus on baseball, but I was just an
average second basement However, I truly excelled at breaking. I
mastered a few slam dunk moves that took out just
about every opponent I ever faced. One was called the turtle.
(03:58):
Pictures someone balancing on their two hands with both of
their elbows buried into their stomach, then walking around on
those hands really fast in a circle. That's the turtle.
The second I busted that move, I immediately took out
ninety nine percent of my competition. For the remaining one percent,
I perfected another move called the cricket. Now picture someone
(04:19):
balancing on their left hand with their left elbow buried
into their stomach, then hopping in a circle on that
one left hand. It was kind of like a bouncing handspin,
and it was near impossible for anyone large to pull off.
About a year after I picked up the sport, a
documentary called Breakin' an Enterin debuted on a Los Angeles
subscription TV network called on TV. The documentary was one
(04:41):
of the first on breakdancing, and it featured a gang
banger turned wrapper, Iced Tea. After the film debuted, Iced
Tea became an overnight celebrity within the urban youth culture.
In the early eighties, mainstream TV had near zero breakdancing content,
so iced Tea was thought by many of us to
be a god within this new movement. When I showed
(05:04):
up at Magic Mountain one afternoon in nineteen eighty four
and saw Iced Tea in a breaking circle, I was
as star struck as a kid could be. The problem
was that somehow the twenty six year old rapper got
fixated on fourteen year old me and decided to call
me out for a dance battle. Now, Iced Tea was
(05:27):
street famous for being a rapper, but he was a
horrible breakdancer, I mean horrible, so he probably strategically picked
out the youngest looking kid on the scene to increase
his chances of winning. I may have been fourteen, but
to a hardened street hustler like Iced Tea, I probably
looked twelve. So anyway, he called me out with some
stupid move, and I decided not to hold back. I mean,
(05:49):
this was break dancing. I'd been doing it for two
years and had never seen a fight breakout, so what
harm would there be in beating a hip hop street
legend in front of an audience. Yes, I was young
and naive. I took to the floor and did my
turtle move right out of the gate, and the crowd
(06:10):
around me erupted. I still remember the look on Icedy's
face when I popped up. If there were cell phones
at the time, i'd have gone viral. Iced Tea wasn't
sure what to do next, so he went out and
basically did the same move he did his first go around.
And that's when I decided to put a cherry on
(06:30):
top of his defeat with my cricket move. When he
popped up from the floor and pointed at me, I
hit the ground and started popping around like a top
on one hand, and the audience went insane. It was
the first time I really felt the energy of a
large crowd. When I finished, I thought that was it.
I'd beaten the street legend, fair and square. But he
(06:51):
couldn't take the embarrassment. He grabbed me and thrust my
prepubescent face into his chest hard. He tried to make
it look like a dance move, but everyone knew what
was happening. Iced Tea was salty that some young kid
beat him. When I emerged from the attack, I could
feel my bottom lip was busted open and blood was
(07:12):
dripping onto my shirt. As I looked up, I could
see iced Tea raising his arms into the air as
if he'd won physically. I didn't stand a chance against him.
I was only fourteen, barely beginning puberty. Iced Tea was
a twenty six year old gangster wrapper before gangster rap
had even become a genre. There was no way I
(07:34):
was going to return the favor to his face, nor
did I want to. That's not what break dancing was about.
Fights just never occurred. It was all about who was
the most talented. Breaking was the purest form of meritocracy
my young self had ever experienced. Most breakers actually respected
those that defeated them. But something was changing in our
(07:54):
hip hop movement. Things were getting more violent, and even
then I understood that it was a game changing development.
Most people don't know this, but modern breakdancing and rapping
arose in the early nineteen seventies as a response to
an unstable time in New York City. The Big Apple
was experiencing unprecedented street gang violence. In response, the hip
(08:17):
hop movement was born, and it grew in part because
it helped smooth tensions. Young men now had a new
way to settle grievances. They'd compete with one another without
using their fists. Breakdancers and rappers battled and the crowd
decided the winners. It was a glorious time. Hip Hop
then was actually a soothing development in the urban community,
(08:39):
but when guys like Iced Tea entered the scene, things
started to change. As the mid eighties progressed, breakdancing faded
in popularity and a new dance music called electro became
all the rage. The sound was a blend of high
energy breakdancing music, disco and hip hop, and with this
fresh sound emerged in dance scene. Breakdancing crews gave way
(09:02):
to dance cruise, and by nineteen eighty six I had
left break dancing behind and formed a dance crew with
a few high school friends. We called ourselves the Dramatics,
and we were pretty damn good. The standout dancer in
our crew was probably my best friend, Mark. The guy
was small and had footwork that no one could match.
(09:24):
He helped me transition from breaking to this new form
of dance, and our crew quickly became popular at all
the clubs in the South Bay suburbs of Los Angeles,
areas like Hawthorne, Torrents, Carson, Gardina, Lowndale, and Inglewood, the
latter being the home of the Los Angeles Forum, like breaking,
there were very few fights in this dance scene. Don't
get me wrong. We were young men, most of us
(09:46):
without a father in the house, so we got in
our fair share of fights outside of the clubs. But
the dance scene seemed to be a calming force for
young men with more testosterone than they knew what to
do with, and girls seemed to dig it as well.
This new scene chugged along for two years, but as
nineteen eighty seven came around, something began to happen. The
(10:07):
shift that I sense when I faced off with iced
Tea started to really blossom. Early that year, a new
group called n w A released a single called Boys
in the Hood, and it hit Los Angeles like a
nuclear bomb. In a time without social media, the song
still spread like wildfire, and we were right at this
(10:27):
new musical movement's epicenter. To give you an understanding of
how close we were to this new gangster rap phenomenon,
let me give you some perspective. It's widely known that
gangster rap was born at a drive in theater turned
open air swap meet called the Rhodium. That's where the
(10:48):
founders of n w A first connected It eventually sell
their first albums from a booth at this swap meet.
The Rhodium was in our neighborhood of Torrance, California. It
was just a few blocks from my house. Hose NWA
actually recorded their first official album straight out of Compton,
a few miles from my home in a downtown Torrents
(11:09):
sound studio. So As young Men Are, Torrent's dance crew
was literally at ground zero of the gangster rap movement.
The problem with this new form of hip hop was
that it triggered something that was largely dormant in suburban neighborhoods.
But after listening to NWA, everyone thought that they were gangsters. Blacks, Whites, Latinos,
Asians and everything in between. Would blast boys in the
(11:32):
hood from their cars as if they'd always lived the
thug life. Being hard became aspirational to many young men,
and it made already shaky neighborhoods really unstable. I'm telling you,
Gangster rap was a real poison to a community of
fatherless young men that didn't know what to do with
their anger, and the police caught wind of this new
(11:52):
movement pretty quickly. During this time, I remember a gang
member targeting a Japanese friend within our crew. Even though
he was a victim, the police entered him into a
gang database. Then one night, when we were all caravanning
to a dance party, a cop pulled us all over,
and because we were with him, they took all of
our pictures to input us into this suspected criminal system.
(12:13):
It wasn't just blacks being profiled, as the media likes
to tell us. All young men with a certain look
were getting targeted as well. In dancing. My friends and
I thought we'd found an outlet for our aggression, but
the gangster rap scene was growing so fast that by
early nineteen eighty eight it quickly became the dominant pop
culture of our neighborhood, and it changed everything. Young urban
(12:37):
men continued to form groups, but they were no longer
centered on dancing. They were more about physical aggression. I
was about halfway into my final year of high school
and just wanted out. Things had become too volatile. Every
weekend fights broke out, and it seemed like NWA was
the trigger. Most of my friends were just itching to graduate,
(12:57):
to get the hell out of a building war zone
in youth culture. That was our mindset. One night in
early nineteen eighty eight. Like every high school, we had
a few major hangouts that we'd all converge on. In
North Torrance. That was a place that we called the Stadium,
which was the street entrance to our football field. Its
(13:20):
location was perfect. The residential area was offset by about
a block to the west, so most nights we could
all meet there and not be bothered for hours. And
there were never any fights there because we all knew
one another, so it was kind of a refuge. On
this particular night, though, a neighbor must have called the
cops pretty early. They showed up and politely broke up
(13:41):
the gathering. So we headed to our second best hangout,
a place we called Jack and the Crack, better known
to most people as Jack in the Box. The Crack
was in reference to their two tacos for ninety nine cents. Astonishingly,
thirty years later, those two tacos still only cost ninety
nine cents. Anyways, we loved Jack and the Crack not
only because of its food, but also because of its
(14:03):
drive through worker, or more precisely, his voice. We'd drive
up at the end of every night on the town
and place our order. Hello. We'd like four tacos, a hamburger,
a jumbo jack with no cheese, and two double cheeseburgers.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Please.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Okay, that's four tacos, one hambourge, one jumbo Yak no cheese,
and two double yees bourgees. I swear we'd go through
that drive through every weekend just to hear him repeat
our order. On this night, because the stadium got broke up,
especially early, we decided to go inside to eat and
hang out. We were there with our full posse. It
(14:39):
was me, Mark Kwan, Ricky Peewee, and a good friend
we called Close. Three of us were half Mexican, half white,
one was Korean, another one was a black Filipino Latino,
and Close was as white as they come. We were
today's picture of diversity. And we also had a group
of girls with us from high school. So we entered
Jack and the Crack, ordered our young b oyaks and
(15:00):
sat around winding down the night. We were having fun,
making jokes, fooling around. Nothing 've scene, just good clean laughter.
And anyways, we weren't fine dining at the French Laundry.
We were at Jack in the Box. About halfway through
our meal, a big group of jocks entered that we'd
never seen before. There were nine of them, and I
(15:21):
remember that because things had gotten so hostile at the
time that you always had to know if you were
outnumbered in any situation. So these guys come in and
I just remembered telling my friends to keep it cool,
no fights tonight. Everyone agreed we were dancers, not fighters
unless we had to be. But the problem was that
(15:43):
Jack and the Crack was our home away from home,
so there was a comfort to being there that some
new guys just weren't going to change.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
As we joked around, one of the guys told us
to shut up. And these weren't small guys. Their necks
were as thick as their heads and they looked to
be in their early twenties. Most of us were still seventeen.
One was sixteen. Being told to shut up in our
house didn't sit well with any one, but being the
part time mediator in our crew, I convinced everyone to
(16:10):
mellow out. Even the girls were begging us not to
cause any trouble. We all quietly agreed and decided to
take it down a notch. The jocks finished their food
and left, and we thought that was it, but it wasn't.
As we finished up our meal, one of the girls
with us looked out the window and noticed that the
jocks appeared to be waiting for us in the parking lot.
(16:31):
Not good. We were out numbered and out muscled. We
were dancers, not historically the beefiest bunch. I mean, A
guy in our crew was called pee Wee for a reason.
He was small, but our size often fooled less seasoned people.
Several of us could bench press over three hundred pounds,
and the growing hostilities sparked by the gangster rat movement
put us through a kind of boot camp in self defense.
(16:54):
As five minutes turned to ten, then fifteen, the jocks
were still in the parking lot. They weren't. And now
it was starting to get embarrassing. We had females with us,
It was getting late. It was clearly time to leave.
If we didn't get up and head to the car,
it could be interpreted that we were afraid. So I
calmly reminded the guys to keep it cool on the
(17:14):
way out. Let's just head straight to our cars and
get out of here. Okay, we don't need any trouble tonight.
We were tired for the last year, gangster rap helped
heat things up in our neck of the woods. Fight
seemed to be in every week in occurrence. This one night,
we wanted a break. Everyone agreed and we got up
and exited Jack in the Crack. But when we did,
(17:35):
all hell broke loose more after the break.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
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and help us save America one story at a time.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Welcome back. So our dance crew was eating at Jack
in the Box when we noticed a bunch of jocks
were waiting for us in the parking lot. They outnumbered
us and out muscled us, So I made all my
friends promise to just peacefully walk to the car. Fight
seemed to be happening every weekend. This one night, we
wanted to break. Everyone agreed, and we got up and
(18:17):
exited Jack in the Box. As we walked the car,
the jocks stood there staring at us. One of them
must have calculated that they could whip our crew because
he began taunting us. We ignored him, then he stepped
it up a notch calling one of our girls a
nasty slur. Well, that was it. If we didn't do
something about that, word would travel at school that we
(18:37):
were pushovers, the kiss of death for a young high
school maile. As I turned around to get a better
look at the guy, I saw my friend, the white
boy we called close, walk up to the biggest guy
flipping a coin in the air. So are you kicking
or receiving? He said to the jock, And so the
games began. Now, as I said, gangster rapp had infested
(19:05):
our entire area and we weren't immune to it. The
lifestyle portrayed in the music amplified every confrontation, and the
males directly impacted by this new environment typically came prepared
Within seconds. Pewe pulled out a big bicycle lock change
from his trunk. My other friend, Mark pulled out a
bat from another car, and they both began returning verbal
(19:26):
fire to the prep school looking jocks. As Peewee continually
smacked the chain against the ground, he repeated, I don't care.
I'll go back to the pen pen meaning penitentiary, a
place the tech guru had never been. Mark was swinging
the bat like he was next up at the plate
let's play ball. He continually called out. But as much
as our crew tried to intimidate these jocks in hopes
(19:48):
of getting out of another fight, it wasn't working. They
must have thought we were just bluffing. Before I knew it,
their biggest guy took a swing at my friend that
was flipping the coin it was on. I may have
been a dancer, but I'd hit my physical peek at
the time, and I stepped into their biggest guy, knocking
him down with one punch. Our biggest guy, Ricky, was
(20:09):
holding his own against two guys. Kwan, Close and Peewee
were all beating their guys as well. These prep school
jocks must have realized that they might have underestimated us,
But it was Mark that delivered the knockout blow. As
a few of the guys got in their car to retreat,
Mark smashed in the side window. The jarring sound woke
everyone out of their fighting trance, and we all jumped
(20:32):
in our cars and peeled out. The jocks were so
stunned that they just stood there in a scared shock
as we sped away. We went to bed that night
a bit shook, but happy. That everyone made it out intact,
we thought it was over. But as I mentioned earlier,
Jack and the Crack was our home away from home.
Everyone there knew us. Come Monday morning, the police showed
(20:57):
up at our high school. At the end of the day,
one by one, we were all called into the dean's office.
For the first time in my life. A thought crossed
my mind. Am I about to get arrested? As we
sat there in a conference room, the dean entered with
a few police officers. One cop said he knew about
everything that happened at Jack in the Box and for
(21:18):
us to come clean. I know you're in a gang,
he insisted. None of us were. I, for one, was
a straight a student who truly despised gangs. But our
names must have popped up on that hoodlum database from
the time that we were pulled over, and so the
officer had something with which to grind away at us.
The growing gangster rap movement was now even impacting my future.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Patrick was not alone. Gangster rap impacted my life as well,
but in a slightly different way. I think it's fair
to say that most red pilled America listeners would be
surprised to know that I, your humble co host, was
once in an NWA inspired street gang. It wasn't exactly
(22:09):
a long stretch of my life, but nevertheless it happened.
We were a small operation called the East Side Locas.
And when I say small, that's not hyperbole. There were
just two of us in our set, me and my
best friend Lisa. We were tiny but mighty. For decades,
I've kept this story quiet. I didn't want to be
judged by my dumb life decisions. But today just about
(22:32):
anything goes morbidly Obese models walk the fashion runways. Public
schools teach that all whites are racist. Single guys who
don't want to date chicks with our transphobes and rioters
are now considered mostly peaceful, so comparatively speaking, a little
story about my brief turn to the thug life should
probably not get me canceled. Like many gang members before us,
(22:56):
Lisa and I never thought our lives would go in
that direction. We were good Catholic girls who typically avoided
danger like CNN avoids the truth. But on one fateful
day in the early nineties, Lisa and I became the
east Side Lolcas. At the time, I was a struggling
college student, clawing to make a better life for myself.
I grew up in a single mom household and received
(23:18):
very little help from my dad. But one thing I
did have going for me was my determination. I wanted
to be the first in my family to get a
college degree, to set an example for future generations. When
your parents are immigrants, there's this pressure you feel to
really make it big. I always thought they brought me
to the land of opportunity for a reason, so don't
fit up loser. I didn't have a road map on
(23:40):
how to succeed in life that I had a PhD
in survival. So on that Sunday afternoon in the early nineties,
I wasn't looking for trouble. I was looking for a book,
but trouble found me. It all started because I had
to go to the library to do some research for
a class. I roped my bestie Lisa into going with me.
We hopped into my beat up nineteen eighty two BMW
(24:01):
and headed to the West Covina Library. Now, this library
was uniquely positioned. In fact, its location was a big
part of why Lisa and I turned to the gangs
to life. Let me explain when you entered the West
Covina Library, you drove directly into their parking lot. A
large grassy area separated this lot and the library building.
(24:24):
To exit, there was only a single lane path wide
enough for one car. The exit path traversed the big
grassy section and cut right by the front door of
the library. It wasn't well designed, but it was functional.
When we arrived to the library, there wasn't a single
car in the parking lot. It was completely empty. Hmmm,
(24:45):
that's weird. Do you think it's closed? I wondered out loud.
Lisa shot me a strange look and shrugged her shoulders.
I'm sure she was wondering if I'd ever graduate with
such poor deduction skills. To investigate, I decided to drive
to the front door of the building and read the
hour printed on the entrance door. I stopped the car
on the single lane path where it was closest to
the building, stepped out, and high tailed it to the
(25:07):
entrance to read their hours of operation. Yep, it was closed, damn.
As I was walking back to my car, I noticed
a black Honda Civic had entered the parking lot. So
I started jogging back to my car because I was
blocking the road. However, before I could reach my driver's seat,
the Honda started laying on its horn, well before it
(25:28):
had even reached my car. Wow, this person must really
be in a hurry, I thought to myself. As I
got to my car, the black Honda hadn't quite made
it to where I was stopped. I beat him there
by a few seconds. Nevertheless, the driver hadn't let up
on the honking. Geez, this guy's really in a hurry.
(25:50):
I better move asap. The last thing I wanted to
do was be rude. For all I knew he could
be in the middle of an emergency. I was just
checking the hours, I said, before jumping back into my car.
So sorry, I added, even though technically he hadn't waited.
What happened next ultimately led to the formation of the
East Side Locus. The man stopped his Honda, got out
(26:14):
and screamed what bitch? He said it in the most
ghetto of voices. With his door open, I could hear
NWA's Dope Man blaring from his car speakers. He closed
with a large grunt uh, directed at me. Hm, that
was a bit much. I'm not the type of person
who starts fights or goes looking for trouble, but this
(26:37):
guy crossed the line. Nephew. Then I instinctively blurted out
with that. The guy started walking towards my car. Listen,
my bite is worse than my bark, but I'm not
gonna go toe to toe with the grown man. Chicks
who think they can physically whoop a guy are delusional.
Initially I didn't get a great look at him. I
just knew he was a man who was bigger than me,
(26:58):
and he had thuggish music blasting from his speakers. So
without hesitation, I jumped back into my car, put that
baby in first, and drove away. He definitely startled me,
but that isn't really surprising. I'm of Mexican descent, and
we're afraid of monsters like the chupacabra. Lisa, on the
other hand, is of Italian stock and doesn't scare easily
or at all. Come to think of it, Dude, did
(27:21):
you see him? That guy was ready to beat me up.
I said to Lisa, what kind of a man beats
up girls? A crazy one, that's who. Just then, the
Honda Civic drove by us. As it passed, Lisa and
I were able to get a good look at the
driver and his female passenger. He was a white guy
that looked to be in his early twenties. He had
(27:42):
a long, thin neck with the razors sharp adams apple,
no chin, and a very pronounced overbite. Think Beaker from
the Muppets. He looks like a big door to me.
Lisa volunteered with a hint of disgust on her face. Now,
Lisa has always been the ying to my yang. She
(28:02):
has a tendency to be calm and measured. I'm more
on the rambunctious and spontaneous side. When you grow up
in a hostile environment, it has a lingering impact. It
takes a lot of effort not to bust into a
real life scarface monologue. Every time someone slights you say
hello to my little Free is always kind of there,
ready to bubble up. Today I make a conscious effort
(28:25):
to contain the beast. But back then I wasn't as disciplined.
You're right, he's a nerd, I embarrassingly said. That's when
something inside me snapped. Had I no pride? I thought?
Was I really going to let this ichabod crane looking
dork punk me? I think not this NWA blasting poster
(28:46):
needed to be taught a lesson, and if I didn't
do it, who would I boiled? Over? The gangst in
me had been unlocked. Before I go any further, it's
important that you have a clear picture of how Lisa
and I were dressed on that fateful afternoon. Street gangs
were everywhere at the time. They were in our music films,
(29:07):
on the news, and on MTV. Rap music glorified gangstas,
so everyone had a clear understanding of what they looked like.
But other than Lisa being a descendant of the Italian
mob and I the Mexican cartel, we visually didn't really
fit the mold. Lisa is an attractive redhead with bright
blue eyes and freckles. My family comes from south of
the border, but I'm from the bloodline of Cortes, so
(29:30):
I don't exactly look intimidatingly indigenous like a lot of
members of the cartel do. But what we were lacking
in genetics we could make up in attire. Our fashion
choice that day was fifties inspired. We were both wearing
white wife beaters, you know, those thin, white ribbed underwear
looking tank tops that sometimes men used to wear. And
(29:51):
as luck would have it, we were also both wearing
bandanas as headbands. Mine was red, Lisa's was blue. After
quickly scanning our on some an idea came to me.
Pull your bandana down onto your forehead, I told Lisa
as I dug into my makeup bag for a black eyeliner.
Lisa looked confused. Here, draw tear drop underneath your eye,
(30:11):
I added, as I handed her the black eyeliner and
pulled my bandiana into the perfect gangster position. Let's follow
that jerk and scare them. We'll pretend we're gangbangers, I
blurted out, trying to hold back a laugh. Attack line
your lips with the black eyeliner. Lisa quickly responded she
was on board. With the pedal to the Metal and
(30:32):
Boys in the Hood playing on cassette, we were on
a mission to find that Ichabod crane driving the black
Honda Civic. Lady Luck was on our side. We caught
up with them at a light just a few blocks away.
As we pulled up next to the car, we put
on our best impersonation of gangsters. A lot of gangs
(30:52):
have hand signs, but the only one that we knew
was the one from our hometown of Wescobina. It consisted
of the pinky ring and middle finger making a W
while the index finger and thumb make a sea. As
Ichabod and his girlfriend looked over at us, Lisa held
up the West Covina hand sign and blurted out, Isa,
look at Holmes. I thought I was gonna pee my
cut off jeans Schwartz. I did everything in my power
(31:15):
not to laugh, Lisa continued, Best believe you missed with
the wrong Wucas Homeslice. I honestly didn't think it was
gonna work. I mean, they just saw us outside of
public library, looking like fifties rockabilities. But just as we
were going to erupt and laughter and drive away, the driver,
who'd earlier been such a tough guy blasting NWA's dope man,
sped away in a panic. We couldn't believe it. He
(31:38):
actually thought we was gangst to gangsta. We should have
stopped it there, but like a pack of great whites
that smelled blood, we couldn't resist temptation and continued our chase.
And that's when things got out of hand. More after
the break back, so my best friend Lisa and I
(32:02):
decided to teach a lesson to a guy that yelled
at us in a road rage fit. We quickly modified
our fifties inspired attire to make us look like Cholas,
and we pulled up to his car, yelling gang slurs. Unbelievably,
the guy panicked and sped off. We really should have
stopped it there, but like a pack of great whites
that smelled blood, we couldn't resist temptation and continued the chase.
(32:25):
We followed the duo deep into the neighboring city. All
along the way we channeled every gangster movie cliche we
could muster. Our impersonations were a hybrid of nwh Chi
ch and Chong and goodfellas. We were all over the
hoodlum spectrum. But we also had a secret weapon. You see,
back in the early nineties, almost no one had a
(32:47):
cell phone. They were these huge, clunky pieces of equipment
that were basically the toys of fortune, five hundred CEOs
and drug kingpins. But as luck would have it, Lisa
had one. She's always been a tech junkie and she
was the first civilian I knew with the cellular phone.
So as we caught up with the Honda at another light,
Lisa flashed her accessory. My Sanchels called me for you Holmes,
(33:13):
I said to the driver. As Lisa held up her
cell phone that was the size of a small suitcase.
The driver looked like he was going to soil his trousers.
Lisa took it up a notch, pretending to make a
phone call from it for backup. In those days, cell
phone calls costs five dollars a minute, so never ever
use the phone. Well it worked. They must have thought
(33:33):
we were real kingpins when they saw the phone, because
before the light even turned green, they floored it. Now
we knew we were in his head. At each red light,
we'd drop another ghetto line. You bet ask somebody's suf futtle,
I mouthed. At the next light, Lisa screamed, you can't
be disrespecting us, Micaul. As they tried to make a
(33:56):
U turn, I rolled down my window and blurted, you're
about to get you ask fool. And my personal favorite
was delivered by Lisa as she hung out of the
car and screamed, this is what a massa. Before you
get any bright ideas the only reason why we knew
so many gangsta one liners was because it was nineteen
ninety two and it was the height of the gangster
wrap movement. Everyone who listened to it thought they were
(34:19):
from the ghetto, but I actually was from the ghetto.
Couple that, with the Bloods and the crips on the
news practically every night, it was easy to embody that persona.
It wasn't our fault. We had become victims of the culture.
After what seemed like thirty minutes, the chase came to
(34:42):
an abrupt pause when the now petrified, formally tough white
guy pulled into a dead end street. Now this really
should have been it. I mean, we'd been chasing them
forever and now we had them cornered. People do crazy
things when they're backed up against a wall. So I
decided enough was enough. I was gonna leave them in peace.
But as I tried to make a U turn, my
(35:03):
crappy BMW stalled in a position that made it look
like we were purposefully blocking the road. That's when Ichabod
Crane began driving straight towards us. At first I thought
he was gonna ram my car, but then he slowed down, stopped,
and rolled down the window. Please don't do this. Ichabod
pleaded as his girlfriend cried in the passenger seat. He continued,
(35:27):
with his voice cracking. We had a fight and I
lost my temper. I should have never said the things
I said. We had arrived at another crossroad. Should I
do the right thing and in the charade? Or should
I continue down the path of a fake gangsta? Obviously
I chose the latter. What can I say? We were young, immature,
and it was just so funny, right son, I'm Fenna
(35:50):
put my nine down, but don't let me see you
assima hood, because you know we're a We strapped up,
I said, in the best iced tea voice I could muster.
It was then that one of the funniest things in
the history of Lisa and aj happened. Lisa picked up
a water gun that belonged to my little brother, pointed
it at Ichabod and screamed, hand to the now, what
to your mother? That doesn't even make any sense. You'd
(36:13):
think at that point they'd recognize the absurdity of the situation,
after all, the gun was floresce and green. But they didn't.
They took cover. We practically died of laughter. Tears were
(36:33):
streaming down our faces. It reminded me of the famous
commercial two bandanas eight ninety nine vintage cut off five
oh one jeans, twenty ninety nine water gun seventy nine cents,
scaring a gangsterposer in his date priceless. I finally got
my car into gear and drove us out of there.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Gangster Rap impacted everyone, even the ladies. As my friends
and I sat in that high school conference room facing
questions from the police officers, the cops slowly began to
realize that almost all of us were under eighteen. The
guys we'd fought were twenty one, and there were more
of them. The dean pulled me to the side, I
was the honor student of the bunch and said that
(37:15):
from what the police gathered, we had a case against
the jocks. And that was the end of that. The
police left and we went back to class for the
final stretch of our last high school year. We avoided
any more fights. We did have a dramatic end to
our senior year, but that's a story for another time.
(37:36):
Over the following years, Gangster Rap got bigger and bigger,
so big, in fact, that Hollywood made a movie inspired
by NWA's music. Appropriately entitled Boys in the Hood, and
when it was released, America got a taste of what
many of us had been experiencing since the birth of
gangster rap.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
The film opened in more than eight hundred theaters across
the country, and violence broke out in at least eight stakes.
In all. At least six people were injured by gunfire
in southern California, others hurt when knives or guns were
drawn in suburban New York and Ohio, Minnesota, Texas, Wisconsin,
and Massachusetts. In Illinois, a man was killed. However, Columbia
(38:15):
Pictures Today said just a handful of theaters had canceled
showings of the movie. The company said it would pay
for extra security if theater owners requested it. Today director
John Singleton said it wasn't his movie that caused last
night's trouble.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
I mean, what happened last night was more of an
indication of the degeneralization of America society than a reflection
upon my film.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Still, it was the second time this year that violence
accompanied the opening of a major motion picture. In March,
the movie was New Jack City.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Which leads us back to the question, what's Hollywood's role
in the violence plaguing America. The answer is Hollywood has
glorified and even rewarded urban violence. In nineteen eighty eight,
NWA's Ice Cube released the song f the Police. Ice
Cube went on to become one of Hollywood's biggest screenwriters
(39:22):
and producers. In nineteen ninety two, rapper Iced Tea released
the song cop Killer. That same year, NWA's Doctor Dre
and rapper Snoop Dogg released a song about killing an
undercover cop. Ice Tea would eventually become a major actor
in movies like New Jack City. Snoop Dogg is a
cooking show with ex con Martha Stewart and Doctor Dre's
(39:43):
a billionaire that sits on the board of one of
Hollywood's new major players, Apple. By glorifying and rewarding the
thug life, Tinseltown has played a major role in mainstreaming
urban American violence, and they'll continue pumping their poison into
this country's blood, reaching angry, fatherless teenagers like I was.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
And even good Catholic schoolgirls like me.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
So the only antidote to Hollywood's poison is to create films, music,
TV shows, and literature that embodies the values that we
want to be the norm. Then we have to flood
America with those works. We must shame those that embody
the thug life and reward those that promote the moral path,
because if we don't, today's mainstream violence will look like
(40:29):
child's play tomorrow. Now, according to our count, just once
again recapping those numbers since Friday night, eighty five shootings,
fourteen homicides here in the city of Chicago.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Red Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's produced
by me Adrianna Cortez and Patrick Carrelci for Informed Ventures. Now.
Our entire archive of episodes is only available to our
backstage subscribers. To subscribe, visit Redpilled America dot com and
click support in the topmenu. Thanks for listening at
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Doding
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