Reminds me of the time I walked into East L.A. looking for a bar. No one seemed to know what a bar was. As I crossed an intersection, a pick-up truck with three homies in the front seat was waiting at the light. The driver revved the engine just as I stepped in front of the vehicle....so, being a honky...and feeling a bit out of place in tha hood, I figured it was best just not to show any fear. So I approaced the vehicle and asked them if they knew where there was a bar. "a what?" the driver asked. Well, long story short, it turns out back then in the seventies, at least, they didn't call a bar a bar....it was a club. They pointed down the street. Wasn't more than a few minutes later, I was looking down the barrel of a handgun. Two kids...maybe fourteen or fifteen asking me if I was a cop. I was a bit traumatized by the gun...more so when the kid holding it told me to put my hands in the air and turn around. His brown eyes held a combination of hatred and dismay and led back centuries to the eyes of an ancient warrior. Anyhow...the other kid keeps telling this kid not to shoot me. That was awfully nice of him. And as I turned around facing away, as instructed, I thought for sure he was gonna bust a cap in my squash. But, he told me to run. so, I ran....but it's hard to run with your hands in the air and I must have let them down....because the last thing I heard him yell over the wind that was now rushing past my ears was...."get them hans back up in tha air muthafucka!"

...and I thought to myself...'yo, you trippin'? what you doin HERE, in this hood yo?