The Infamous Story of The Calico Kitty
They say that every man can create. T’ck, this might be true, eh, but no, from what I know and from what I have seen, not every man can create. Every man can make something, of course, of course. But creation? Creation requires rhythm. And rhythm is like money, ha, you are born with, or you are born without it. So not every man creates. Every man can make, every man can rumble, but not every man can ride. And I have seen nobody ride - nobody - like I have seen a man ride in The Calico Kitty.
WHITTLER BLVD. PAREDÓN BLANCO, 1974.
It was the good fight. East Los, este - the wave, if you know the wave, that was in our blood, you know, in our parents and in our ancestors - in our history, claro? We had always had it. But we had not always had the world, the world of the seventies, when all the white boys were getting a little older, eh, and now it was our turn. We were on the rooftops and on the front page. I remember one headline - Mexican Riots Force Businesses To Close In Boyle Heights. It was Dia de Los Muertos! Pendejos. We didn’t care. We were wearing colours and flares and nothing and laughing… laughing, oh, smiling - sometimes fighting - making up, breaking down, rolling, riffing, cruising, tripping and… riding.
The streets would fill at night. What did we have? Nothing! Nothing, ha! But we had the streets. The neighbourhood. The wood porches where the abuelitas smacked their wet clothes against the railing. The grass lawns with the tree-box and trash cans. Fresh paint and everything clean. People moving in, in this neighbourhood? They were moving up. So, when the week was old and the night was young, and we had bought our liquor and our hash-pipes, we moved in, we moved up, and we moved down. And we moved up, and we moved down. And we moved up. And we moved round, and round, and round, and down. How did we do it? Ha! Inside the finest - cgh, cgh - inside the finest pieces of metal you have ever seen.
You see, at the time it was a club thing. I drove a ‘57 Impala with the pop doors and the plaques. That got me into the clubs, and I drove with The Imperials. We got together to work on our canvasses - chopping fenders, changing grills, re-working, always re-working. It was a competitive thing. But good competition - the competition for young men and young women, you know, the people who share a bond - not the cholos who run around trying to kill each other. T’ck. And you would see one car - crimson blue, like the ocean! - and you think, I have to have my care like that, so you change it. And the next week you see the white-wall tires, so you go to work, to work, to work, and you buy, and you fit, and you ride. Bajo y lento, eh! Low and slow, you say. Low and slow. That was how we drive, and it was how we made our cars, how we gave our streets and our people the gift of rhythm… on wheels. It was beautiful. Liberdade. We did not know how good we used to have it, eh.
Because one day I saw the car that would change my life. And I saw it, I saw it and I tell you, I knew in that moment it was not a car. It was a part of me. A ‘71 Riviera, with murals, oh, to take your eyes from you, forever, never to give them back. It came with the tri-color. Orange, black, white, shiny like LA. Chrome plates, the grill done too, oh, I cannot describe it. It roared like, like all of your dreams combined at once, happening at the same time. And it rolled through the crowds of sweating dancers like a kiss. Its wheels spun with the black magic of music. Poca madre… it was a beautiful thing. We were a beautiful thing.
But, t’ck, you asked, and this is why. No, really, this is why, eh. They had to stop us somehow. They could not stop the party, there was nothing wrong there. They could not stop the dancing, ha… impossible. And they could not find the gangs. So they stopped the cars. Illegal. Completamente. By the time I was twenty-eight. They made the law, they came to stop us sometimes, sometimes quite violent, yes. Quite violent. And I saw them, when they came to kill The Calico, when they came to take her away. Some of us cried we were so sad. In the empty garage. They had taken our canvas, taken away the beauty that we had made for ourselves. We had made the cars, we had made the rhythm. But they had made the laws.
So it was then I decided - and I will no change my mind - you see -
not every man can create.
read the original story (BBC News):
California gives green light to cruise again in lowriders - BBC News
The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of the author. The stories themselves are based on imagined events. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is fictitious and should not be taken as representative.
Pure Juice!
Then along came the CB RADIO--COMPUTERS--LAP TOPS--SAT NAVS--MOBILE PHONES etc and the people fell into line like lambs to the slaughter and the control of people was all wrapped up just like SNAP, CRACKLE AND POP! Just like that---The future!?---RESTRICTED TRAVEL---15 MIN CITIES---NO REAL MEAT ON MENU etc ! Ah but you shall enjoy your LOWRIDER but only in the garage or on driveway as you shall not be allowed to go any where in it! YES/NO?