The Compton Story

I’m afraid that putting this story in writing for all to see will only lead to disappointment and dismay. Be forewarned, this story only barely qualifies as interesting, and even barelier qualifies as funny, despite what past and present members of the CTK youth group might tell you. And now our story.

* * *

It is a well-known fact, and obvious to everyone who meets her, that my mother is street. She’s ghetto. She’s got mad street cred, yo. That all stems from the fact that as a young girl, she lived for several years in Compton, California. That’s right—she’s straight outta Compton.

When I was in high school, my family took a vacation over winter break to visit my mom’s cousin, who lives in California. We all loaded up in two brand new Winnebago motor homes, to be delivered to motor home dealerships in the greater Los Angeles area, and headed west.

While we were in California, my mom decided that it would be a really good idea to show us all where she’d lived when she was a girl. I, having not considered the fact that my mom’s street cred would protect us from harm, thought that was an exceedingly bad idea, as I did not want to spend any time at all in Compton. But my mother insisted. “Yo, get in the ride and I’ll show you my ‘hood,” she told us.

So all six of us—my parents, my three sisters and I—all piled into my mom’s cousin’s car—er, ride—and headed for Compton.

Once we reached Compton, it became obvious to all of us that my mom did not remember exactly where her house had been. The natural solution, of course, was to drive slowly up and down the streets of Compton, looking for this house she only vaguely remembered. So we rolled, windows down, bass thumpin’ (probably to either Miami Sound Machine or Manheim Steamroller—street, yo!), air jacks lifting our ride up and dropping it back down, slowly through the streets of my mom’s old ‘hood.

“Oh, I think this might be—no, that’s not it,” she’d say. “Oh, here it is! I see—no, that’s not it, either… [pause] There it—nope, I guess not…” Meanwhile, I was sinking lower and lower into the back seat, trying to make myself as invisible as possible, for fear that a stray bullet—or one meant for us—might find me.

Finally we turned onto a street that she seemed to legitimately recognize. She pointed at a small, ranch style home with bars on the windows and two kids playing in the front yard and said that that was where she’d lived. She said, “Phil,” that’s my dad, “pull over to the curb!” Phil did so. My mom leaned out the window and said to the kids, “I used to live in your house when I was a little girl!” The two kids got up and ran inside, and after looking at the house—or “crib”—where my mom had once lived, we drove away and eventually out of Compton, much to my relief.

To this day, my mom occasionally gets calls from Snoop, Dre, and some of her other old homeys. They drop by now and then and they all roll, sippin’ on gin ‘n’ juice (laid back), with their minds on their money and their money on their minds, as you might expect.

That, my friends, is the Compton story.

Matt

An uninteresting thing happened on the way to the Met…

Yestermaday I was reading a post on Greg’s blog, which is always good reading, and came to a realization:

Interesting things don’t happen to me.

That’s sort of an overly blanketful statement, I suppose. I mean, yeah, occasionally something interesting might happen to me. More often, though, only somewhat interesting things happen to other people around me. Even more often, interesting things happen to other people who are nowhere near me (sort of seems like a statement of the obvious…).

The blog entry that led to this realization told an interesting story of somewhat strange and interesting things that happened to Greg and some of his presumably interesting friends. I thought to myself after reading it, “It’s been a long, long time since anything weird like that has happened to me.” I seem to recall that my life was once more full of strange and interesting occurrences, but more recently… not so much.

So how, I wonder, do I bring back some of the interestingness that’s been missing from my life? Perhaps I could start spending more time in public places. The general public, after all, is largely composed of very unusual folks. Perhaps some of them would begin interacting with me in interesting ways. Another possible solution would be for me to inject more spontaneity into my life (although can you really plan to do that?). You know, just get up and go do things when they occur to me, which could, then, lead to interesting goings on. A third possible solution would be for me to look at the sorts of things that normally happen to me anyway in a different light, and try to infuse them with interestingness. That seems sort of unnatural, though.

I’d like to share an example of a somewhat interesting thing that happened to someone other than me: Last Friday evening, my wife and I went downtown to enjoy some live music on the Ped Mall. There were many other people there. At one point during the show, I sort of half noticed a man get up from where he was sitting in front of us and walk off away from the stage. Then, a moment later, a woman who was sitting near where he’d been seated jumped to her feet, looked frantically about, then pointed at the man and shouted, “Him!” At that, the woman’s husband, who’d also been sitting there, ran after the man, caught him from behind, and shoved him hard onto the ground. The shovee fell down (but managed to hold onto his cigarette!), then looked up and asked, “What the [flip]?!?” A fair question, I thought. Then the husband/shover asked gruffly, “Where is it?” and some other man stepped between the two and said, “He put it in the trash can.” Then the husband/shover and his wife went to a nearby trash can and pulled out what I assumed was her purse, which the first guy had apparently stolen, only to discard in the nearest trash receptacle. Then the woman recognized a friend, gave the friend a hug, and began chatting away about various pleasant things completely unrelated to what had just taken place. It was all pretty weird, and while I was there to witness it, none of it happened to me.

Rather than lament the fact that such things don’t happen to me, I should probably just be grateful that I wasn’t involved, so maybe that’s a bad example. I’m not saying I’d like for strange men to steal my wife’s purse, or for angry people to shove me onto the ground (which I’d argue was not interesting, but just plain sucky). If I’m really looking to have more interesting things happen to me, though, I suppose a good way to make that happen would be to instigate such exchanges. I could start stealing purses and immediately throwing them in the trash. Or I could try to pick fights at random. Or I could hug strangers. Well, no… then they’d have stories of interesting things that happened to them, and I’d just be stuck with stories of weird things I’d done to other people. I already have a few of those.

I guess I should just be happy with my rather uninteresting existence. I’m not saying I’m unhappy with my life as it is. On the contrary, I rather enjoy it. I’d like some new stories to tell, though, ‘cause the Compton story is getting old.

Matt