The musical mix was different, too. I dug Elton John and fell under the spell of the Beatles, but I wasn’t used to rock ‘n’ roll radio. Fortunately, I discovered 1580 KDAY, a Black AM station that featured familiar funk and soul, and funnily enough it was the first place I ever heard Bowie. To me, David Bowie’s “Fame” was as funky as anything by the Ohio Players. In fact, before I saw a photo of him, I thought Bowie was Black.
Like her dad, Mom made sure I stayed on a spiritual path. She took me to Aunt Joan’s church, Unity by the Sea, on Fourth Street. The minister was a woman, Dr. Sue Sikking, who preached the progressive lessons I’d heard at Grandpa’s Science of Mind churches in New York. Aunt Joan had a powerful set of pipes, and limitless range. Sitting next to her, I was moved by how her angelic voice sailed over the choir and filled the entire sanctuary. At the end of the service, we sang “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” Then the entire congregation hugged. After the service, we walked over to Zucky’s, a Jewish deli on Wilshire Boulevard, for pastrami on rye.
My ultimate adjustment to Southern California, though, happened not as a result of church or even Mom’s TV show. It happened because of a specific and beautiful man-made object: the skateboard. Before L.A., I’d never even seen a skateboard, much less ridden one. Now the skateboard gave me that feeling all kids yearn for: freedom. In New York, I had been free to hop on buses and subways. Getting around there had been a breeze. Compared to L.A., New York actually felt compact; L.A. was spread out. New York was vertical; L.A. horizontal. And a kid in a horizontal city needs a horizontal mode of transportation. The skateboard was the perfect vehicle.
Also the coolest. The skateboard was king. Southern California was skateboard central. And, man, I was ready to ride.
Jeff Ho’s shop on Main Street in Santa Monica was to skateboards what Manny’s Music in Manhattan was to instruments. It was the hot spot for surfers and skaters. Ho was all about style; he was known for his colors and airbrushing. His boards looked like candy; you wanted to eat them. Like Popsicles, they faded from purple to green to orange to yellow.
I came on the scene at a huge moment. It was the birth of Dogtown and Z-Boys. Skateboarders were learning to move like surfers. A hobby had suddenly become an art form. Wes Humpston was one of the pioneers of the movement. His little brother Mike, my schoolmate, brought a prototype of the Dogtown board to class. Little did I know that board and logo would become holy grails of skate culture. Wes was a visionary who turned empty swimming pools into practice fields. The dude became world famous.
I was on the sidelines. I never came close to becoming a champ, but the board let me smoothly glide into this new teenage culture. It let me adjust to California. It made me feel part of what was happening. But mainly it gave me mobility. I could finally move around. I took to it naturally. When I got halfway good, I could fly down the streets of Santa Monica, down to Venice, slide by the beach, and get where I needed to go in a hurry.
My first board was a Bahne with Cadillac wheels and Chicago trucks. An early classic. Eventually I moved to a Zephyr with Bennett trucks and Road Rider wheels, which now had precision ball bearings, making for an extra smooth ride.
I also got hooked on pinball machines. In my mind, pinball and skateboarding went together. Something about perpetual motion. I’d skate over to the arcade at the Santa Monica Pier and play those metal-legged monsters—Bally’s Elton John Capt. Fantastic, KISS, the Rolling Stones—until my last quarter was gone.
* * *
The first season of The Jeffersons turned the show into a certified hit. The sitcom would run for eleven seasons and tape 253 episodes. Mom became a star. Her earnings grew far greater than my father’s. This changed the dynamic in their relationship. It took me a while to understand the impact of that change.
On the surface, it was easy to see. Mom was getting far more attention than Dad. At the time, Dad seemed okay with it. He was his wife’s biggest cheerleader. Her success made him proud and happy. But now that she was the bigger breadwinner, and not him, he had to adjust. For an alpha male like Dad, that wasn’t easy.
Before the start of the second season of The Jeffersons, Dad left New York. He arranged to work at NBC News in L.A., and the three of us moved into a two-bedroom apartment down the hall from Aunt Joan. We were back to our same dynamic. More than ever, he was on me. In L.A., Dad was out of his comfort zone. In the light of Mom’s stardom, he had to prove himself.
* * *
I graduated from Washington Elementary. Before starting John Adams Junior High in Santa Monica, I flew to New York to spend the summer in Bed-Stuy with Grandma Bessie and Grandpa Albert. It was so good to be back on the block. My grandparents always did wonders for my spirit.
So did Kevin Conner, a Brooklyn boy who’d been like a big brother to me since I was five. He was eager to show me what was going on. One day, right there on the corner of Throop and Kosciuszko, where the Rokers had lived for forty years, a kid our age had set up amps and giant homemade speakers in his front yard. I asked him, “Why are you playing records outside?”
Well, the kid let me know that he wasn’t playing records; he was making music.
I thought, How are you making music with records? That’s somebody else’s music. I didn’t get it. He was mixing vinyl on two turntables. Then these guys who called themselves “emcees” started talking over the music. They weren’t singing; they were telling stories over the recycled rhythms of songs I knew. This shit was funky. I loved it. Later, it would change my life and change the world.
With this music, a new style of movement was also born. The birth of break dancing was something to behold: I watched in amazement as guys in the neighborhood took sections of linoleum floors, laid them out on the sidewalk, and spun on their backs.
New York was being transformed visually, too. Subways were turned into canvases for underground artists. I liked the trains covered with graffiti more than the clean ones. The art spoke to me: fluorescent neon spray paint, whacky cartoon figures, flaming fireballs, ferocious snakes, and cuddly teddy bears devoured by slobbering green monsters.
I was witnessing the birth of hip-hop.
THE ZEN OF ZEP
Hip-hop was a cultural game changer. But my own personal game changer came in two different forms. These forms collided my first year of junior high in Santa Monica. I’m talking about rock ’n’ roll and marijuana. That combination propelled me in a whole different direction.
During lunch break, I jumped a fence and landed in an empty courtyard in a shuttered church. I was with Shannon Brock, who also happened to be half Black and half Jewish—only, in his case, his mom was Jewish and his dad was Black. Our other friend was a half-white, half-Hawaiian kid named Derek. He had a hippie dad who hung out with the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson. Derek and I loved riding our skateboards down Lincoln Boulevard to the Lucky supermarket, where he taught me to shoplift. Derek’s family barely had enough to get by. This wasn’t for fun. He was putting food on the table. He could slip a half-dozen steaks down his pants. I tried to help him, but I was a rank amateur. The best I could do was walk out with a box of cookies under my shirt. Mom, by the way, was crazy about Derek. She saw his sweet side. Mom saw everyone’s sweet side.