Richmond

before travis left to meet up with his band, i made sure i had enough money to catch bart all the way out to richmond and he made sure i knew how to get to the venue from the station. it's a sort of underground warehouse-- burnt ramen-- and i'd never been there before.

"oh, walk on the bart tracks," he added.

"good call," i said while looking at the map, "that's a way more direct route."

"no i mean, to not get fucked with," he explained, "dylan told me if you walk on the tracks you're less likely to get shot."

"oh, okay."

there is this cloud of fear in everyone's minds when they hear about richmond. usually they'll ask, "the richmond, or richmond-richmond?" in order to determine between the san francisco suburbia full of chinese or russian folk, and the second most popular place to be murdered in the bay area.


don't worry, richmond's homicide rate has decreased 40% this year. only 15 people have been shot to death so far.

i can't say i've had a bad experience with the notorious city. but i've only been there once, and it was by accident.

back when i was still commuting to san francisco in hopes to spawn an acting career, i was cast as a super-villain in a comedy about ice cream. most of the shoot was done in a mixture of emeryville and surrounding east bay towns.

i used to give away free sacks of weed to anyone who was willing to drive me up to an audition or a film shoot-- it worked pretty well, actually. and so, david was speeding me to the location while smoking a joint.

but sometimes there were issues with gas. even though i was paying in marijuana, i was still expected to cover the prices of gas in a situation that we ran out. and, of course, the one time we did run out was smack dab in the center of richmond. richmond-richmond, not the richmond.

but i had no idea what that meant.

i also had no cash. and neither did david. what i did have was half of my ice cream super-villain costume wrapped around my legs and a check for $32. unfortunately, the gas station attendant did not accept checks from long-haired fools wearing orange jumpsuits and awful gloves.

i tried briefly to convince the attendant that i would be back the following day and could pay him for whatever gas he was willing to spot-- but it didn't work and so i was on my way back to david when a rather ghetto-looking fella' shouted to me.

"man, you look like you from humboldt!"

"hah," i laughed, "no. i'm from san jose. i wish i were from humbodlt!"

and then it hit me. his humboldt remark. i did have money for gas-- it just wasn't in cash-form yet.

"hey!" i shouted to the man, "do you need anything?"

"i don't," he said, "but my brother over there does."

it wasn't long before i found myself sitting in a lincoln with a rather large grill-toothed man and a glove full of weed. i wasn't entirely nervous-- though i did find that david had pinched one of my grams and almost made me look like i was trying to skimp the man. one thing that is absolutely no fun is trying to sell weed to a complete stranger and suddenly noticing that your grams seem to be a bit small. it's also never very smart to sit in said stranger's car with over an ounce of weed in your hands when you only weight 125lbs. but i was mostly excited to sell this guy some pot and know we were not stranded due to lack of gas money.

i would've been more nervous had i known more about richmond. but i didn't.

i sold him an $8 gram. an amazing deal for him, and a moment of desperation for me. we said some awkward good byes in which i tried to appear hard. probably didn't work.

when i got back to san jose, i told friends about how selling weed had saved me from being stranded and out of gas. but most of them just stared.

"you do realize richmond is like the murder capital of the world?"

i had not realized.

i've looked back on several things i've done as a teenager and thanked the lords of chaos for not letting me die.

but sometimes it's better not to know much about what you're doing-- you act much calmer when you aren't aware of how dangerous a situation may be. and, in the world of selling drugs, it never hurts to cut someone a really great deal if you think there's a chance they'll beat the shit out of you and jack the rest of your stash otherwise.

anyway, travis' show was at 8pm last night and if all went to plan i should be just about to wake up for coffee and a 10am interview back in san francisco.

if not, i should be dead on the bart tracks back in richmond.

both ways, i'm sure it was a great show-- i'll write more about it later.