He loves those clear days, when seagulls float above, and crabs hop across the rocks like musical notes jumping from line to line in a pop song music sheet. The sea smelled like a mixture of oil, hot trash, and mucus-filled saliva. The dirty Southern California environment seemed suited for this little boy that shaped his weird and eccentric persona disguised with a laid-back vibe. If LA was a melting pot, then the SouthBay was the deep-fried grit that was over-cooked at the bottom, left on the stove for hours, neglected to be washed. There was nothing to be scared of. There were plenty of challenges that have been met, and this little freaky geek had a layer of toughness that John Hughes wouldn’t dare stereotype. Fishing was a great past-time, but he was never good at it. He just enjoyed the process of putting on the bait, despite the slimiest and nastiest of worms (especially the ones that put up a good fight). Although did he ever catch ‘The One’? Nah, he’s still working on it.

With the love of the sea, you’d think this guy was born on a ship. The hospital was on the pier though. It was an old restaurant converted into a hospital clinic, built for fisherman and their wives who never leave the pier. Babies were fished out of their wombs, each wrapped with newspaper because the clinic was always under-funded. Fortunately, there were NO frying pans next to the nursery, because this was NOT a cannibalistic hospital, as one would think.

The SouthBay in the ’80s had a mixture of cool and obliviousness to it. It was both tough and enjoyable to grow up around people who were both surfers AND gangsters. It’s not like the thugs in the movie Point Break, but it was pretty similar. Instead of robbing banks, they would rob little kids, no matter how deep they would stuff their lunch money inside their underwear. They were the people to avoid, but no matter how much one tried, they’d end up in someone’s stream of life one way or another to create those life-essential challenges. When reading books to get the ‘A’ on the next test, the real test was on the streets, no matter how old or young.

If musical instruments can become weapons, then his piano keyboard could’ve caused massacres. One note could slice off tongues, while a harmony of notes can slice off heads. In the ’80s, walking down the street with a sharply-studded keytar wrapped around the shoulder wouldn’t seem too far-fetched. The hands of those bullies reaching for money down his pants would never survive the threshold of a glorious “musical fuck-you”.

But life was like that: a series of Beethoven-like epic adventures of doom with an upbeat twist. Surfing at a young age would give him the same effect. Waves were just as bullies as the human kind. We’d just have to overcome the fears first-hand, with no need for an academic warning. Experience was the best teacher, and not the books that supplied “toughness”.