Monday, February 09, 2004

Well, apparently every body and their grandmother's pet squirrel have knowledge of or visited my blog at work. Even some people that I don't know. Today, one of the guys from IT (I think) said he read it. Well, I don't know if people at work reading or knowing about my blog is a good or bad thing but do know that this is my space and everybody is here out of his or her own volition. I use this space to vent out my frustrations. I was under the impression that only I, Felicia and a couple of friends read this crap. Well, at least people should leave a message so I'd know others are reading it and I don't mean so I can try to cover shit up or anything, but it placates my ego... LOL. If I ever piss anyone off or insult anyone... trust me, more than likely, it was my full intention to do so.

Ok, with that out of the way, I am still hunting down a lot of my High School friends via Internet, phone books and relatives. I was able to retrieve some pictures from my mom's house that I will post below with interesting (at least to me) side scripts. I was able to locate thanks to the Internet two more friends, Rob (who apparently now goes by Raab) and Claudine. I also happen to have pictures of both of them, yay! I found out that Raab has been traveling and touring a lot with bands. He is currently part of a band called Red Earth which is like a tribal/Native American influenced rock band. If I remember correctly, Raab himself was a black foot (or part) Indian. When I met him, me and him were the only two that liked both rock and hip-hop. At the time he was in a band called Captain Raab and the patrolling fartknockers (LOL!). He didn't hang out much with us, but he was always really cool and laid back. I don't think he did drugs, drank or smoked either. He was one of the most laid back, coolest people you could ever meet.

The other person I found was one of the girls "that got away" (LOL). Claudine Hernandez... Claudine came from another school during our either sophomore or Junior year and was much younger than I. At first, both me and my cousin Carlos wanted to get with her. She was quiet and shy and immediately started hanging out with Mila. This seemed odd to us cuz Mila was loud and obnoxious (but in an ok way I guess, LOL). I guess the fact that they were both Philippino made it easier for her. Anyway, eventually somehow or another I was the one talking to her and Carlos either lost interest or started dating someone else... the drugs kinda made high school a big daze. Sadly though, I never got with her but I can't really remember why. She, along with Jessica and Danielle were the last few girls I remember "courting" before I was shipped back to Texas. Claudine now works for The Parenting Clinic which is part of UDub. She is also, obviously, a U-Dub student. It's funny that she looks exactly the same as she did back then. I have not been able to find anybody else, but trust me... I will keep on looking.

I've also decided that once I'm done with the Seattle crew... LOL. I will start with the Houston crew and then the Mexico crew. The Mexico one I left until the end because it will be the absolute easiest to find since I still have a lot of ties and keep in contact with most of my friends there. I guess this will be my little hobby for the next few months or until I get bored and tired of looking for people. I am really doing this for nothing else than pure self gratification and curiosity... and maybe cuz I miss some of my friends... LOL.

These are some of the pictures I found. They're divided in three areas; Graffiti, Droogs, Friends and Hoodratz... I like the last category the best.... lol.

GRAFFITI



This is Jay in front of a piece we did for Cascade Elite Gymnastics in Lynwood, WA, hence the CEG. I don't have a picture of the finished piece but it went through several different stages before we were happy with it. There's another stage on a previous post of it. That was our first legal piece and they paid us $200 for it. This was back in 93 or 94.




This is Carlos in front of a piece [top] he made on a North Seattle "freewall". The DOG [bottom] was a group effort between the four of us.



This piece was volunteer work for something called "The Neutral Zone". "The Neutral Zone" was a pathetic, hippie attempt to remove gangs and high school kids of the streets after dark and "concentrate" them in "The Neutral Zone" where no gang colors were allowed, no drugs, no weapons... They had the walls covered with graffiti and the rooms (or psycholaundering chambers) each had a specific purpose. They had the library filled with urban and alternative (to persuade most ethnic backgrounds) magazines like "Street Beat", "Thrasher" and "Hip Hop Magazines"; they also had a pool room, an arcade room, an alcohol free soda fountain type bar, chess, D&D, checkers and just about every board game you can imagine. Sadly though, only the geeky kids showed up to play D&D when the rest of us were out doing more graffiti and poisoning the youth. Anyway, they told us the graffiti had to send a positive message and we couldn't portray guns or drugs (SHIT! That's all we knew!!). They wanted the words "UNITE", "TOGETHER" and a bunch of other tree-hugging hippie crap so we tried but at the end we didn't like being told what to do and we finished it and left and didn't wait for their opinion or anything. Sadly these are all the graffiti pictures I was able to find but I will dig further to see if more were salvaged.


"THE DROOGS"



This picture was taken probably in 1994. I remember it was at the party of a guy named Ken. Actually, if memory serves me right, Friday kicked my ass that night for being drunk and taking the last beer. LOL!!!! Then, he pulled a bottle of tequila and we kept getting drunk together... hehe. Anyway, from left to right: Dung (R.I.P. Dung had asthma and one time he, Jay, Justin and Joe went to swim at Echo Lake in N. Seattle. From what I'm told, cuz I was stuck at work, he had an asthma attack halfway through the lake and drowned.), Keith, Justin, Brock, Carlos, Mark (I think that was his name, he was just a kid he hung out with us every now and then. I think he was a freshman which kicked Carlos out of the youngest spot since by this picture Carlos was a Sophomore.), Marlon and kneeling is me and some dude that everybody hated cuz he was a fucking asshole and a moron, I think his name was Anthony. I called him Craig Mack cuz he was ugly as hell and had a fucked up 'fro.



This is us on a Park n' Ride on our way to the "freewall" on N. Seattle. Joe is sends his greetings.



Joe posing trying to look cooler than he actually was... LOL! Sadly, the thing I remember most about this picture is the girl on the poster.



After I got my uncle and his family evicted from an apartment complex in Lynnwood, we had to move to Mountlake Terrace (which is five steps away). In the Lynnwood apartment I shared a room with Carlos and Neto had his own room as well as my aunt and uncle. Well, the Mountlake Terrace apartment only had two rooms and a huge walk in storage closet on the inside. Guess who got stuck in the closet. LOL! But it was cool I didn't mind... it was like one of those attic rooms, I had everything but windows... LOL. This is where Joe and J are sitting, in my closet/ makeshift room. My walls were covered with future graffiti works of art we bombed. In case you were wondering what J is doing, he was rolling a joint.



I don't know what the hell we were thinking or who the hell we were trying to impress but this is our gang wannabe picture (with the exception of Dung who was in a real gang.) [top] left to right: Raab throwing a "Little Valley" sign which if I recall correctly is a native American gang or reservation or community or something, Myself (Your lord and master) throwing a "Vatos Locos" sign cuz I had just watched Bound by Honor, Justin throwing a Bloods sign (only god knows why), Dung throwing a "Crip Killer" sign cuz he was a blood. Carlos is actually in the picture but you can't see him. [bottom]Raab, Jason throwing something but I have no clue what, Justin, Dung and Carlos with the Dallas Cowboys outfit. That night we were high on several different things so I have no idea what the fuck we were doing or even where we were. These were all the pics I could find of my friends.


GIRLS (yay!)



Since the first person whom I found was Danielle and she was practically the one who, unbeknownst to her gyrated me into this search for my old classmates I will begin with her. The picture I had found of her from Western Washington Univ. is broken now and when I went to that page all the pictures are broken. I should have saved it but if it comes back up I will. Anyway, the top picture is the one Danielle gave me in 10th grade for yearbook. I was too much of a pseudo rebel to ever take high school pictures so you will NEVER find me on any of my old high school yearbooks (lol). The second picture she gave me the day I was supposed to go over to her house and hit on her but I was too dumb to. She said she wanted me to have that before I returned to Texas. Now she's married and in California... cool!



The next in line is Jessica, asshole Joe called her "snow white" cuz she was really light skinned... shit, the girl was almost pink! LOL. Jessica was probably the first girl I ever developed any type of feelings for in my life. I wouldn't call it love, but definitely if given the length of time it would have developed into that. Jessica and I started dated mere weeks before I was shipped to Texas so it didn't last long. I met her in Spanish class and drooled over her for a long time but never had the balls to tell her because I was a junkie and she was a smart student. Thankfully, I had asshole friends and Justin has Spanish class with us and he, in a mostly malicious way told her for me in front of the hold class. The top pic is in our Spanish class, as you can tell, I was the idiot who sat in the back never paying attention and she was a good student in the front. The bottom left is a picture we took together with Eun, her best friend, shortly before we started dating. I cut myself out of the pic cuz I looked like a retard. Well, I still do but back then I had a much lower self-esteem than now.. lol. And the bottom right is her prom picture... Sad story (*deep sigh*), I was supposed to go with her and we had made plans and arrangements and everything... I was psyched cuz I am not the type to go to the prom, until I met her it never even entered my mind, but since I was going with Jessica I was excited. Then my uncle and his family moved back to Texas shortly before the end of school and she ended up going with someone else... damn it... this was supposed to be a good trip down memory lane, now I know why I needed years of therapy to start a relationship after that... LOL!



Claudine I already told you about above... This is her then.



And this is her now



Alicia Bird... Alicia and I became really good friends, then I introduced her to Jay and they hit it off. After I moved to Texas they were still together for a long time. That's all I remember.



Anna was in my P.E. class but never really hung out outside of that class. Although we were really good friends she continually was on my case because I wasn't Christian. She was one of the smart, cool kids so we had different crowds.



April was the first friend I had when I moved to Washington. I met her while working at Taco Bell. She found out we went to the same high school and we started talking. I think she liked me, I liked her too but she had this on and off dumbass wigger of a boyfriend who thought he was a gangbanger. That kid was volatile and dangerous. On the back of this picture it says "Javier- I'm really glad we met and became friends. Hopefully someday we can be closer. I want you to know you call me any any time you need someone to talk to. You're a very sweet person and a good looking guy. Keep in touch and I won't lose contact with you either. Love =Amber=" Here's the pathetic thing, up until about ONE WEEK AGO I had never realized how much that message was a FUCKING INVITATION FOR ME TO ASK HER OUT!!!!!!!! I think I'm finally beginning to realize that drugs weren't such a good idea in high school! LOL!!! Anyway, with Amber it was an on again off again friendship and thinking back now, I can see how most of the thing she would say or do were in a flirtatious way... but I was usually not paying attention. Not cuz I didn't like her, but because I didn't like her friends or her wigger on/off boyfriend. I think eventually we lost contact and she dropped out of school, we saw her at a Grateful Dead concert in downtown Seattle a year or two later and she had a kid.



Jaime Schultz was one of the most beautiful girls you'd ever seen. She was half Japanese half White. When I was a senior she was a freshman. She was dating Mark (see picture above) but her and I became really good friends. Her sister Tracy, who was almost as pretty but had a slutty reputation, dated Joe for a while. And the girl in the picture below with Jamie...


was called Jennifer. We called her "Bob" because this chick was practically the high school's bicycle, everyone took a ride! The name "Bob" comes from "bobbing"... get it? get it? Anyway, for some reason (that I do not know nor care to know) Jay dated her for quite some time as well. Maybe all that experience made her a really good fuck... god knows! Tracey and "Bob" were really good friends... maybe even more.. LOL! She would fall more into the Hoodratz category but she was in the picture with Jamie and she's not.


HOODRATZ



The first group of hoodratz we would be discussing (lol) belonged to another school actually. They went to Lynwood High which was in... well, Lynwood, WA. Lynwood HS and Edmonds-Woodway were rivals in both scholastics and sports as well as street gang and just rivalry for no other reason than being from different schools. But from time to time there was a crossover of either friends or relationships. In our case, I was dating Richie who is the girl on the top picture. Hence we met the rest of the, what was later dubbed, Asian Hoodratz. Richie and I dated for maybe a month or so... then we ended up in fights everytime we drove to Lynwood so we stopped. I don't really know the girls that will. In the second picture is Richie and Sherry, I know Sherry cuz she's Mexican too and we kinda hung out a few times. From the very bottom pic I only know Richie and Sherry.


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Brenna Ramos came from California... Pico Rivera to be exact with is part of East Los Angeles. Brenna was a REAL hoodrat whom grew up amongst REAL gang members. She was not impressed by any of us because of that, not to mention SHE WAS FINE! LOL! The odd thing with her was that at school we had these two mixed kids who were brother and half Mexican and half Irish. They reject their Irish ancestry and claimed to be full-blooded Mexicans. The rest of us Mexicans, either out of high school meanness or pride, rejected them completely and the whole school saw them as clowns. James claimed Sur XIII, which he claimed it was a faction of a larger all Mexican California Crip street gang. All we knew is that both the Mexican and the Irish kids beat the fuck out of them on a regular basis for being dumbasses. Oh, sorry, got sidetracked there... Brenna found James' antics fascinating, she claimed he was a real gang member and whatever... Oscar and me almost kicked the shit out of him because Oscar (one of the bigger Mexican cool kids) liked her. Eventually she moved back to California and we never heard from her or James again


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Mila, Claudine, Sherry and Maria. Claudine was not a hoodrat by any means, but she hung out with Mila and Mila was one. Mile hung out with some Hispanic hoodratz from Lynwood such as Sherry and Maria. I knew Sherry pretty well but had only seen Maria a few times cuz me and her "vato" (lol) got in a fight a few weeks earlier
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Melissa was one of those hoodratz who tried annoyingly to be accepted. Melissa was like a mini "Bob" cuz she'd screw anybody to be part of the large group of us who always hung out. I don't know what ever happened to her.


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Lastly, Monique McBeth... I hardly knew Monique. We only talked when one of her "boyfriends" brought her around to the group. She was responsible for Keith and Ryan (whom were the closest friends) falling out and getting in a fistfight. That was harsh cuz they were really cool and the best of friends. I guess that's the only thing that made Monique infamous amongst us and of course she did look good... but she was too high maintenance for any of us... LOL!


Edmonds Woodway, or at least the facility that we attended, was bulldozed after my class graduated in 1994. It was rebuilt at a different location the following school year. I never visited the new location since I moved to Texas shortly before graduation. There are so many more good friends that I don't have pictures of that I wish I could see again. So many experiences and good times. I will continue my search and post my findings here... I am tired of typing so I will continue later.



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