Hunters Point, Gangland.

The events you are about to read took place 3 years ago while I was working on the set of an HBO gang series by famous producer Spike Lee. The show was never broadcast. We were working in San Francisco, in a African American community by the name of Hunters Point. To get an idea of how dangerous this place is, I will give you the information I received from the cops I was working with the day before, while working in a much safer neighborhood in San Francisco. In the safer neighborhood, the only excitement of the day was a few hispanic gang banger's knifing each other up the street, basic stuff, haha, right. The Caucasian police I work with claim they never so much as drive through Hunters Point, due to fear of being shot by, well, everyone. The production company let everyone know that they had the choice of working the next few nights, as it would definitely be life threatening. We were also informed not to wear any colored clothing. The next day we went to work at around 6PM. Not only are we in one of the worst neighborhoods in the US, but we are working nights, all night long. We finally arrive at Hunters Point, which is a community on top of a hill. We start the climb in our work truck, driving past many gang cars, getting eye fucked by everyone. Were not talking the good kind either, It's not the kind of glare you would get from a cute girl who wants to get down and dirty. Its the kind where they want your middle / high class citizen ass to bleed out on the curb from their ghetto shank or gat. I mean this literally, they wanted us dead just for driving into their territory. As we drive further to the top, we approach scenes strait out of a movie, ten gang bangers blasting rap in low riders sitting on the hood and all around the car rapping and calling each other niggers. Driving up there the first time and seeing this was one of the gnarliest things I had ever experienced. I had been in some extremely bad neighborhoods in my life, but this was the frosting on top of a Gothic weddings black frosted cake. To put it in simple terms, it was the ghetto version of Iraq. We arrive to the filming location, only to realize we are the first to arrive. We wait for about 5 minutes, and get eyeballed by everyone nearby. We decide its not safe enough to wait, so we drive out of the neighborhood to safety. When we return, we are escorted by 8 police officers with some of the crew. I feel a little bit safer until one of the cops tells me the locals might shoot someone just to say they shot someone who works in Hollywood. I laugh and tell the officer to shut the fuck up I don't want to hear that shit, as Im already fearing for my life. We get a few scenes off at the top of the hill, when a black muslim mafia group arrived that were hired to protect us. I think to myself ''the fucking mafia is protecting me, rad.'' They are packing some serious heat, illegally of course, but the officers don't care because they know their role is to protect everyone. As it begins to get dark, the tension rises, as all the nightly activity starts to become apparent. The majority of the neighborhood live nights and sleep days. Luckily, most of them are amazed and pretty excited we are there, a hollywood production in the ghetto of all ghettos. They had never seen this kind of thing, so they were very intrieged. At one point, I was wandering around, and found myself nowhere near set, and with no cops, or mafia. I was walking down the street when a young black girl approached me, around 16. I was surprised, because she was extremely hot, a beautiful girl. She was not dressed slutty at all either. We talked for a bit, and I told her to come with me back to set to check it out, she declined, as it was ''out of her territory'', and she ''can't wander over there or she would be killed''. I was shocked. So I walked her as far as she could go, and we stayed and watched from a distance, but close enough to see what was going on. As were watching, a few thugs approach us, my heart beat picks up, but its her brother and some friends, and they were cool to me. After 20 minutes or so I left after talking and telling the girl she should get the fuck out of this shit hole and become a model, because she was beautiful. She was super excited. I wandered back to set, looking at the houses, as I passes, noticing at least 30 bullet holes in each house, mostly on the doors. Literally, AT LEAST 30, and most windows were broken or boarded up. It mind fucked me. Once I reached the set, I stayed on the other side of the street, with the local onlookers. I began to talk to one of the gnarliest looking gangsters around. The scene they were filming was one dude shooting another, so after every take, the gangster would tell me, ''No no, that shit ain't how you done it, ya fuckin hold the piece like this, and ya fuckin cap that bitch nigger in the chest, fuuuuuuuuuuuck.'' Whatever bullshit he said, I always agreed with him. Who the fuck wouldn't? Meanwhile, all through the night we heard gun shots, tons of fucking gun shots, some were pretty far away, and some seemed very close. It was a war zone in there every night. The crew was freaked. So gang task force was called in to keep and eye on us as well. Now mind you, there are only about 6 guys on the crew that are white, including me, so I felt extremely out of place. If someone's going to get capped that night, I had a 1 in 6 chance of it being me. Great. Luckily, no one shed blood, at least no one on the crew. Hearing those gun shots all night though, some getting frightiningly close, I was starting to debate if working on this was actually worth the money. It turns out it was, because after 3 nights working in Hunters point, I walked out of there alive. Im one of about 15 of the only white men in existance that can say that. I know for a fact that I would not be alive today if we didn't have so many Police Officers, as well as Gang Task Force and Mafia up there with us each hellishly gnarly night.



Here is a Picture I found that gives an example of what I explained near the beginning of the story. Believe me though, this is just an example, as this picture is nowhere near as gnarly as the gangsters I saw, these look like wana be tools compared to the raw gangsters of Hunters Point.

Gnarly...enough said.

Bar Trick Of the Week

Make a small hill of salt on the bar, sprinkle some pepper on top. (The real challenge of this trick is not pissing off the bartender). Bet someone you can get the pepper off without disturbing one grain of salt.
Once the bet's set, take a plastic comb, run it through your hair a few times (shaved head guys need to stay away from this trick), then hold comb over the mound and let the static electricity attract the pepper grains.
This trick is a good way to pick nerdy girls...who are probably pretty freaky in the sack. Joy!

Gnarly Video of the week

The Stunts you are about to see were performed by a professional, under no circumstances should you NOT try this at home. Go gnarly or go home!

Gnarly Bar Trick of the week

Put a cocktail napkin over someone's drink. Put two quarters on the counter, and bet fifty cents that you can drink their entire drink without touching the glass or the napkin.

When they accept the bet, take off the napkin, pick up the glass and drink their fourteen- dollar drink. Then push the fifty cents at them and tell them they won the bet.

BMX...gone bad & gone for good.

I started boogie boarding...oops, out of respect for them, it's actually called BODY boarding. Wait, I don't have any respect for them, Boogie boarding it is! Anyways, I started when I was 3-4 years old, then moved up to surfing when I was 5. I started skateboarding at age 4, with a technique of pushing on my knees then standing up. At age 13, I was well into surfing and skateboarding, and I loved both with extreme passion. However, being the way I am, it just wasn't enough, so I decided to take up another sport. Eddie had a Mongoose BMX bike, and I decided it was the cheapest way to take up a new sport. I began to ride BMX, and convinced a few friends to start riding with me. We hit up local dirt tracks, but mostly did street riding. After a few months of riding, I was getting pretty good for a 13 year old but the fame was short lived. One sunny day I got a call from a friend who wanted to go riding, so I grabbed my bike from the backyard, and headed out. We rode for about an hour, then I decided I wanted to ride home really quick to get a sandwich, man do I love gnarly sandwiches. The more you stack into it, the better. So I head home to get a sandwich, eat it extremely fast, and head back out. As I'm heading down the street, I attempt a few tricks, bad idea. Right when I attempt one, my handle bars spin, and my front tire sticks, I flip over the handle bars and begin my decent toward the pavement, head first. I decide to break my fall with my arms, but instead I break my arm with my fall. As I'm putting my hands down, to break my fall, my left arm snaps, and my face is headed strait for the pavement. I guess my left arm didn't like my face, or liked it and wanted to give it some attention as well. You guessed it, my face went to prom with the rough gravely pavement, smashing my pretty face, taking much of my skin hostage as well as half of my front tooth. After my face was done beating the shit out of the pavement, I stumbled to my feet, disoriented and feeling pretty shitty. I stumbled home in the worst pain of my life at that point. I opened the door to my house and my mom stood there in shock, she almost fainted and I told her I needed a band-aid. After I calmed her down I got all bandaged up and went to find my missing half tooth. Gnarly.

Rock Gnarly!...and girls!

For those of you that know me, you know that I love rock music. One of the best rock bands in existance is Buckcherry, and one of their best songs is "Crazy Bitch". Gnarly band, even gnarlier song, but when combined with this video, it truely deserves GNARLY status! Without further ado, I present the Gnarly Video of the week.

Burning questions of desire finally answered

Q: Why do husbands die first?
A: They want to.

Q: What do you call a dog with balls of steel and no hind legs?
A: Sparky!

Q: What does a Bulimic person call 2 fingers?
A: Desert.

Gnarly funpack of knowledge

Are there species besides humans that have sex for pleasure? YES
Are greencards actually green? NO
Are elephants really afraid of mice? NO
Has Sesame Street's Elmo ever been invited to testify before congress? YES
Did former Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis Jr. once throw a no-hitter after using LSD? YES!

Technorati Profile

Drawn to the bathroom

Headbanging to the Extreme
Once a week, I will post a short story, for a quick gnarly pleasure. This event took place about 6 months ago, at about 2am. Working on movies is extremely demanding, and the hours are insane. I got to bed the night before at about 11pm, so in total, I received 3 hours of sleep. Compared to some nights, this is actually considered sleeping in. I wake up to the sound of my alarm, in which the sound to my ears is the equivalent of rubbing salt into your eyes while drinking a beer the following morning of a binge liquor fest. Anyways, I turn the alarm off, and hop out of bed extremely fast. This is where the problem starts. I hop up so fast that I start to get extremely light headed, and for some reason, at that exact moment my brain tells me if I make it to the bathroom before I pass out, everything will be okay. Fuck, was my brain ever wrong. As I quickly approached the bathroom in record time while my head increasingly faded into the depths of dizzy hell, I shot through the doorway, only to pass out at that exact moment. The last thing I remember is my face heading towards the ceramic sink. Who knows how long I was out, but I woke up with an extreme throbbing headache, as well as a darkish black and red bruise on the right side of my head. Best of all, it was smack dab on my temple. I had throbbing headaches for the next 2 weeks, and suffered a severe concussion. Moral of the story, if you ever start to get dizzy, make sure you run to the closest bathroom asap, and everything will be A-Okay. Gnarly.

Movie set chaos

Lights, Camera...BANG!
The events that you are about to hear take place about 2 and a half years ago while I was working on the set of a motion picture named RENT, in San Francisco, California. We were filming on 6th and Market Streets. For all those not familiar with these streets, let me explain. Aside from rich tourists from around the world taking a wrong turn from Union Square (probably looking for Macy's) most of market street is flooded with homeless, gang banger's, strip clubs, drug dealers, you name it, basically anything any normal citizen would despise of. (Besides the strip clubs of course, hah) The Movie set was HUGE, this was a high budget film. They were trying to recreate San Francisco streets to mimic New York, in which the film was supposed to take place. The set was huge, it stretched over 2 oversized blocks on 6th street, involved massive amounts of fake snow, and a pyro technic show beyond most shows you would see on the 4th of july. My job, as well as Eddie's, was to work with the cops to keep cars off the street, and keep the slum from disturbing the set. This is normally a very easy task, but while working on Market street, and especially 6th street, the drug dealers and prostitutes don't like their corner work being disturbed. Worst of all, filming took place at night, which is prime time for these prized citizens to start their nightly prowl. The first event took place in a back ally near the set. I was with an officer who was talking to a drunk homeless man that was harassing crew members. The officer was first asking the man nicely to please move along, and requested he not return to the set. The man was talking to the officer, but making little sense, it sounded something similar to listening to Bill Cosby speak. "fuk sluhni shit liquor no fushit turt go". Just before the officer grew impatient, and after threatening to bring the drunk downtown, a gang banger approached the officer and the drunk homeless man, and asked the officer if he wanted him to "bring him down". The officer agreed, thinking he meant bring him to the precinct, and laughed it off thinking it was a joke. At that moment the large gang banger grabbed the drunk man by the arms, lifted him up, and threw him extremely hard, onto the pavement. The officer, myself, and a few other people were shocked, as we couldn't believe what just happened. The officer told the gang banger to leave. The drunk was barely moving. About a half hour later the drunk homeless man finally rose up, still in extreme pain, and stumbled off. After dinner, me and a few officers were watching the road closure on one end of the set, talking about random bull shit, laughing at the scum learking in the shadows. Sitting there, we suddenly hear tires screeching, which is a normal occurrence in San Francisco. Just as our heads turn, expecting to see nothing exciting, we see a car hit a man on a bicycle. The man was propelled at least 6 feet into the air and fell with a bone crunching smash to the pavement. Apparently 3 motorcycle officers were not enough to keep this car sticking around, because it sped off just as quickly and swiftly as it hit the man on the bike. Two officers grabbed their helmets, and sped off after the vehicle. While one stayed back with me. We listened on the radio as they chased down the car for 20 minutes and arrested the culprit. At about 4-am, as if these events as well as witnessing countless drug deals and business men buying hookers, gang banger's buying hookers, drug dealers buying hookers, hookers and buisness men buying drugs, and hell, even hookers buying hookers. What would that even be classified as? Hooker hookup? Damn, that would be a good TV show, "Hooker Hookup's". Back on track, as if that were not enough to keep me cautious and entertained, something would happen that topped the night off. As I grow tired, I head back to my truck for a 10 minute sit down rest with a Red-Bull. About 4 minutes in, I hear and see 6 - 8 continuous gun shots rain from a vehicle and hit a parked rival gang car on the next street. The gang bangers didn't notice the cop's sitting just one block down at the roadblock, and sped right towards them, AND ME. I quickly jumped out of my truck and hunched down near the hood for cover, I watched the officers run into the middle of the street with their guns drawn only feet from the speeding car yelling for it to stop, but the car sped by. The cops chose not to shoot because the gang bangers didn't point a gun at the officers while screeching by. The cops once again, hopped onto their bikes and sped off after the car. After a good half hour chase, the officers finally stopped the car only one block from where the shooting took place. The 3 men in the car were arrested, as well as the female shooter, yes, female.

Here is a picture from the movie of the scene filmed that night. If people only knew that the off camera events were more exciting than the movie....if they only knew. Thanks to me, now you do. Gnarly.

Road Rash with a little SNAP

Snap Crackle Pop
For my first post, I will start of with the most recent incident, but far from the worst, I was involved in. It all started about 3-4 weeks ago, in Santa Cruz, California. We will start off the day before the incident, the events that took place in the next 24 hours are more than likely what caused my brain to fail to function properly the following afternoon. The morning started out sunny, and windless, great, perfect for a early morning surf. Okay, okay so it was around 11:30 already, but I'm sticking to my story, perfect surf conditions. I drove to a secret beach on the other end of town... to find there were "only" 8 guys out in the water, JOY! Well, I only told three people about the spot, so at least I know who to exclude from my next party invite list. Anyways, back on track, after an epic surf session with my 8 new friends, which actually turned into 14, (but who's counting) I found 3 seperate cars pulled over by cops on the side of the road. The thing is, I normally go 10-15 over the speed limit because the road is usually empty, so good thing those other 3 car's (thanks guys and gals) took the bait for me. The rest of daylight was pretty basic, so I wont go into detail. The night started at about 8'ish if I remember correctly, where Eddie, Amber, Gabe and I boozed up at our house, and then cruised to meet up with Jennifer to have a few more drinks as well as dinner at a restaurant. A few rum and cokes later, Eddie Gabe and I decide to go to the liquor store to buy a bottle of rum and a 2 liter of Diet Coke, yes, I said diet, fuck sugar. Anyways, we start to down that bottle of rum and drive to the Boardwalk for a concert. We rock the shit out of that, then end up at a party at a random house where we ended up knowing lots of people, but we have to leave because a certain "little princess" was puking out in the parking lot. Just as were about to leave of course, 4 cop cars pull up out front to bust up the party. After a bit of trying to evade police, by hiding behind houses and in parking lots, extremely drunk thinking were spy's or some shit hiding in the shadows, we confront the officers. Good thing Eddie put on his thinking cap, or should I say beer dispenser helmet, and saves the night by telling two lady officers that "this", hunched over his car, giving it a great big hug, is "his car", and he "will not be driving it". Good thing you pointed that out, Eddie. Luckily the two officer's were nice enough, and gullible enough to believe we ordered a cab that will be there any minute. Fortunately, someone does call a cab and it arrives after sitting on a bus bench for a half an hour. We then take the cab back to Amber's house (mansion), and make grilled cheese sandwiches while talking about... I blanked out from there, I can't remember much, except falling onto a bed that was straight out of a fairytale. It looked like a bed for a princess...oh wait, that's right, it had a princess in it. I quickly fell out of it and then went to sleep in the next room. The next morning we all woke up....yes, extremely hung over. Again, it's a blur until about 2 that afternoon, when I got a call from Eddie to cruise down to the beach, because him, Amber and Little Princess were down there. After getting a syco text message from a syco ex girlfriend(if you ever read this...FUCK OFF, no one likes you), I decided to cruise down to the beach. Now remember, I am EXTREMELY hung over. So I grab my backpack, and my skate and start to cruise down to the beach. I am skating extremely fast, and am approaching a hill. Now if you are familiar with the trussel hill leading to the Capitola Village, you know it's steep. So, being extremely hung over, my brain was not functioning properly. I am approaching the hill going pretty fast, I would say 20Mph because the cars were barley passing me. I see a car approaching behind me, and the hill has no room for me to be on the side of it, so I decide to go in front of the car. I continue to pick up speed, and then start declining the hill, picking up more speed. About half way down the hill, I would guess I was going 35mph - 40mph at least, because the car behind me that was going minimum 25mph, was far behind and still fading. My hung over brain finally clicks into reality, I'm going too fast, so naturally I put my right foot down to slow down, bad idea. Going that fast, I never had a chance. I have never skated this fast, and didn't realise that once I took one foot off the board, it was already all over, after about 2 extreme speed wobbles, I lost control. From there, I fell onto my left arm, which gave out, breaking something in my wrist, elbow as well as possibly something in my shoulder. -Snap- Scrapping on the pavement, also known as Road Rash. Quick instinct sprung in, and within 1/100 of a second, and 6 or so feet of sliding on the pavement, I realized the best thing to do is roll over onto my back, because I was wearing a backpack. Plus my arm didn't have any skin on it anymore -Crackle-, so whats the point of sliding on that anymore. At this point, my left arm from my wrist to my elbow is being very harshly burned, fun's over for you little buddy. So I slide onto my back and realize my backpack doesn't cover my whole back, because I could feel the skin burning off on my lower back-Pop-, luckily that only lasted for about 10 more feet, and I came to a stop. I quickly jumped up, grabbed my skate and thanked the lady driving behind me for not running me over. She insisted she help me because it was "the most horrific thing she had ever seen", but I insisted I was okay, hiding my extensively bleeding arm from her sight. So I went off, and skated.....yes, skated the rest of the way down the hill to the beach. Smile on face, I showed Eddie and he insisted I go get a "Band-Aid", hahaha, because it might get dirty or infected in the water. Finally I agreed and started home, about 15 min later the pain amplified 100 times, but I wrapped it up nice and good and skated back to the beach.

I have included a picture for your enjoyment.