Some People Never Leave

Among other things, Henry Sarria is a long-time resident of Isla Vista, a frequent contributor to The Daily Nexus (University of California Santa Barbara’s student newspaper), and my next-door neighbor. When I moved into my apartment on Sueno Road in June of 1999, Henry was standing outside ready to greet me. I shook his hand, not sure what to make of him at first. (I hadn’t expected such a warm welcome on move-in day — certainly not a handshake from a thirty-three year-old wearing army fatigues and a scruffy-looking surf shirt.) Immediately he started telling stories. He talked almost non-stop, continued to describe random events as he followed me inside my new place, talked as I unpacked, then followed me back outside (still talking) to where I retrieved more of my possessions. The whole time I wanted to ask him, “Did all that you’re saying really happen? I mean, come on, that couldn’t possibly be true, right?” But after a while these questions didn’t seem to matter; Henry was so entertaining that I listened intently and didn’t say more than a few words. That’s what you do when you’re with him.

On Sunday, March 5th, 2000, I walked over to Henry’s studio, knocked on the door, and asked him for an interview. He was happy to oblige. We sat down on the floor in the center of his studio. Before I set the tape recorder running, I looked around the single room. To my left, three dirt bikes leaned against bookshelves stacked with trophies. At the far back of the studio were the kitchen and the bathroom, both clean. To my right was a ladder that led up to an overhead loft. Along the walls hung various posters and pictures, and one that stuck out to me was a painting of a skinny cat on a Wheaties box. I pointed out this artistic oddity and Henry explained that a previous neighbor had painted it for him. Then we began the interview that follows.

HENRY

When I first moved up here….Well, the first time I ever came up here was in 1985 for a skateboard contest. They used to have it at the end of fall quarter just before finals. It was November of ’85. I stayed at the dorms with my old girlfriend — well, we had broken up but we were still best friends, so I came up here and stayed over at the dorms with her and her dormmate. And I skated in this contest. They used to close off Trigo and put up a bunch of ramps and parking blocks and benches and they’d hold a skateboard contest there. The roads used to be a lot smoother then. And I stayed in the dorms and, you know, they’re dorms…what can I tell ya? So then, in 1986, I got invited to come back to the same contest. They decided to hold it again. This time I stayed in IV with one of my teammates, and the night before the contest we went to all these parties and I met tons of people and made friends everywhere I went. And the next day all these people I met the night before, they all showed up at the skateboard contest. Had a great time, and then if I didn’t have a skateboard contest or a BMX race I was up here on the weekends hanging out. Finally I started dating somebody up here and like around May of ’87 somebody said to me, “You know, why don’t you just move up here.” And I did.

Now one of the first changes I’m going to mention was when my friend, John Chen, where he used to live — that was the guy who was my teammate. Still a really good friend, like family to me. He used to live on Trigo right above what is now the hemp store. All right, history on that place: when I first moved up here that was actually where Sam’s to Go was originally. It’s now on Pardall but it used to be on Trigo, and then Sam’s to Go moved out to Pardall and it became Open Air Bikes. Next-door to that apartment — I don’t know what it is now — way back in ’87 that used to be called Kabuki Gardens. It was a hot tub place. A lot of crazy stuff went on there, and at night we used to sneak — we’d wait till about two in the morning when they finally closed down and everybody would leave and lock the place and the hot tubs were still warm…so we’d take this plank and put it from John Chen’s balcony to the wall, walk across, jump the wall, and go hot-tubbing at two o’clock in the morning!

Across the street there used to be this Mexican food place called Ceranito’s. Great place, best Mexican food ever, and they just went to the wayside. So we had Kabuki’s and then Ceranito’s right across the street. You know, it was all right there. And then, if you go up the street to a place called Bagel Café — that used to be Pizza Express. It was a pizza place. There was more than just Domino’s and Woodstocks in this town. Speaking of pizza places, there also used to be what’s now Rusty’s Pizza, well, the history behind that place is that it used to be called Pizza Bob’s. Another pizza place. They used to have bands there on Fridays and Saturdays. Uh, I think Toad the Wet Sprocket played there once. I think. If I can remember well…I know one of the bands I used to play in played there once. In fact, we played in one of the last shows there before it closed down. Then it became Time Out Pizza; of course, they lost their beer license because they were serving to minors…and then it became Oggie’s Bagels, then it became Ping Pong Pizza, and now it’s Rusty’s Pizza, so that’s the history behind that. My favorite place to eat that hasn’t changed in years: Blue Dolphin Café. Definitely. Woodstock’s — it’s a shame, man. They got rid of the old convection ovens and now they got those stupid belt ovens. It’s just not the same anymore. Nothing against Woodstock’s, you know. It’s just that, change is good and in this case…nah, I don’t think so.

Where were you living exactly when you first got here?

I was staying with my friend John and his roommate Jeff, so there were three people altogether: John, Jeff, and Brooke, in this one bedroom apartment above what is now the hemp store. And oh my God, we used to just get crazy up there. Um, it was crazy. One particular story I remember is this one time, just before I moved up here in ’87, my mom came out to visit me from Florida. Now remember, I didn’t have a conservative upbringing — I’m not conservative by any means — it was a rather normal upbringing, but all my life everybody that I knew in Florida — I grew up in Miami — everybody used to say “Boy, you’re weird. You belong in California.” So, here I am!

And uh, my mom came out here to visit me, and I decided to bring her to Isla Vista to show her where I was going to be moving to, because I used to live in West LA. I brought her up here and we get to John Chen’s apartment and we get here, it’s during spring break, hardly anybody in town, you know. All of a sudden we pull up to the apartment and knock on the door. Now a very drunk John Chen and his roommate Jeff open the door. John’s — well, they’re completely drunk and Jeff’s beating up a stereo with a baseball bat. My mom walks into the apartment and completely freaks out. She goes, “Oh my God, call the police. Somebody broke in!” because there was furniture upside down, stuff scattered everywhere, all over the walls. And I’m like, “No no no, Mom! This is normal.” She’s like “Oh. My God.”

And this was the time when there was no open container law in Isla Vista. The open container law went into effect October 31, 1987, right at sunset. Of course that would be Halloween when there was sixty thousand people in town, from other places, who, to their knowledge, you could walk around with an open beer. No one informed them of the new change in the law. And, you know, they talk about how there were so many arrests on Halloween; well, most of those arrests were alcohol-related and they had nothing to do with violence or rape or anything like that. The only reason people got arrested is they were out walking around with an open beer in their hand. It’s Halloween, you don’t have any ID on you, the cops stop you: “There’s an open container law.” “Well I didn’t know.” “Well let’s see some ID.” “Well I don’t have it.” “You’re going to jail.” Which is kind of ridiculous I thought, you know. And I don’t know if you ever heard this but there was one time when the open container law expired and they forgot to re-file. The county forgot to re-file a law!

When did it expire?

This was spring of ’92. I’ll never forget this. My girlfriend at the time, Suzanna Kiery — she’s from Germany. Uh, I was supposed to meet her at Espresso Roma, which used to be across the street where Starbuck’s is now. Where Espresso Roma currently is used to be called McBurley’s. It was a beer and burger joint. Wednesday night twenty-five-cent beers — usually Meisterbrau — and these buck burgers. I mean it was great. Wednesday night was just slobber-drunk over there, everybody, all of Isla Vista was either there or Countdown at the Graduate, which is the former Bank of America that got burnt down, and then the Graduate became the Anaconda. Saw a lot of great shows there, saw Henry Rollins Band there, saw Public Enemy, saw, uh, Ice T, saw Body Count, saw Social Distortion, saw — even opened for the Ramones in the band I was playing with. Opened for Flipper, Youth Brigade, the Dickies, uh, who else did I see there? I think even Nirvana played there once. I think. Not sure. But anyway, so I’m skating down to where Espresso Roma currently is — and where it was at the time in ’92 — and I’m skating down there and all of a sudden one of my friends say, “Hey, dude! Did you hear about the open container ordinance?” and I go, “No I haven’t.” “It expired and they forgot to re-file.” Made an immediate turnaround. My friend and I went to the store, bought a pony keg right there on the spot and rented a tap, put it on my skateboard, carried it over to the Foot Patrol, set it right outside the Foot Patrol office and started drinking. The cops came out and just started laughing. They’re like, “Okay, really funny.” And the cops all knew me — not in a bad way — and they come out. It was uh, Officer C. Lander and Walton; they come out and they go, “It’s gotta be Henry…” You know, we’re sitting out in front giving people free beers — making sure they’re over twenty-one of course — and we’re toasting the cops. We did this for a whole weekend before the novelty of it all wore off and they finally got around to filing the ordinance. Yeah, it was a really interesting time.

Were you there for the riots at all?

No, that was in ’71. The burning of the bank was in ’71.

Wasn’t there something in like ’90 or ’91, or something?

There was the Memorial Day Weekend Riots in ’88. That was pretty funny. What had happened was there was a party on DP — go figure — and, uh, there was a fight at the party. Two meatheads got into a brawl. So the people having the party broke it up, said “Hey, if you’re going to do this, take it up the street. Get it outta here.” Well, the cops got word there was a fight at this party so of course they wait thirty minutes until afterwards then show up. And, uh, they get there and go, “We got reports that there’s been a fight.” And the people who were having the party said, “Oh, it’s okay. We took care of it. We threw them out of the party. They’re no longer here.” Cops said, “Well, we’re shutting down the party anyway.” They’re like, “Why’s that?” “Negative ambience.” “Negative ambience?” So all of a sudden the cops start trying to disperse the crowd. Now in the process of doing so they’re swinging their billy clubs around, pushing people around, and there was this guy named Bill McDonald, and I knew this guy. He was totally straight-edge — no drugs, no drinking, didn’t smoke. He played in a band; he was a musician in a band, super nice guy, used to work at the original Espresso Roma where Starbuck’s is now. And he was talking to this girl and all of a sudden he gets shoved from behind and he turns around and he goes, “What the — ” Next thing he knows he’s face-down in a police car getting handcuffed, for refusing to disperse or something like that. So people are yelling at the cops chanting, “Let Him Go! Let Him Go!” And the cops are citing that he was drunk or something like that. So people are yelling to let him go and then people start throwing beer cans and bottles, and rocks. So they put him in the car and all of a sudden a brick goes flying through the cop car window. Next thing you know the cops just get outta there and they just leave Bill McDonald handcuffed in the back of the car! So people break into the car and get Bill out, it was crazy. But Bill said, “No. I’m staying here. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

So the cops run back and radio for help. Word spreads up and down Del Playa: “Hey man, the cops. They’re on their way. They’re gonna, they’re gonna, uh, this and that and the other thing.” So people started mobilizing. And they start setting dumpsters on the street and lighting the things on fire. Meanwhile, I’m on Sabado. Okay, I’m watching my friend’s band play, and you know, I hear all this commotion on DP but I’m thinking, Okay, DP. Friday night. It’s a party. And I ended up going home that night. Well it turns out the cops showed up and there were cop cars from one end of Del Playa to the other ramming into these flaming dumpsters, knocking ’em into parked cars and everything. And then the cops were like marching on the street in a wedge formation with their riot batons, gas masks on, lobbing tear gas. It was just like, you know. And then they started barging into apartments, grabbing people, you know, because people were throwing dishes at the cops. It was nuts! And while all this was going on I’m just ‘Do-de-do-do’ on my way home and there’s all these cop cars and everything and I’m like, “Oh, probably somebody fell off a cliff.” Little did I know that there was like a mini-riot going on on DP. The next day I get a call from my mom and it’s like, “Henry!” “What?” “Are you okay?” “Shouldn’t I be?” “Well, there was a riot in your town last night.” “What?” “Yeah, it made the news.” And it was, I guess they called it a riot.

So the next thing you know a bunch of cops got brought up on charges of excessive, uh, excessively harsh behavior or something like that. You know, I don’t know what the actual charge was, or ‘conduct unbecoming a police officer,’ cuz they were just grabbing people. There was this one couple that was like butt-naked asleep in their room and they barge into this house, kick down the door, and grab ’em and parade them outside. They were just grabbing people left and right. I mean it was absolutely crazy. That was Memorial Day weekend of 1988. I’ll never forget that. That was classic.

I’m wondering about their rules for Halloween now. I mean, how did they come about? Wasn’t there some type of…I don’t know. Riot, maybe?

Oh. What originally happened — it’s kind of interesting — what originally happened was, um, Halloween in 1987 — that’s the year that Playboy magazine released the list of the top ten places to be on Halloween night. Number one: Isla Vista, University of California Santa Barbara. So everybody — every horny, drunken male on the West coast, and some from the East coast — that read that article decided to come out to UCSB for Halloween. That’s when there was sixty thousand people in this town. I remember. I was living in Ellwood at the time and, um, but I was staying here with friends in IV because there was no way I was getting home, you know. We had a bunch of our friends come down from up in Santa Rosa and stuff, too, so we were contributing to the problem.

That weekend was absolutely amazing. There was sixty thousand — there was people coming out of the woodwork. There were no fights. There were no rapes. There was no…the only arrests that got made were for open container because that’s when I told you the open container law went into effect. And I remember our band was playing at what we called The Thousand Club. It was 1000 Embarcadero Del Mar, right there on Sabado and Embarcadero, and I remember our band was playing and the apartment complex was jam-packed with people. The balconies were actually sagging. No, the walkways were actually sagging under the load of so many people. I’m like, “Holy…” You know, I’m like. And then somebody did a stage dive from the balcony and landed in the crowd and everything and he was okay. Um, so then there was Halloween of ’88. Now the thing about Halloween of ’87 is that it landed on a Friday night. Halloween of ’88, I think it landed on a Saturday — yeah, it landed on a Saturday…but wait that was a leap year so it would have been a Sunday. Yeah. That one was pretty crazy but not to the extent of ’87.

’89 — it landed on a Monday and that was pretty mellow but ’89 was actually quite funny because we had this huge water balloon fight, and I-I feel kinda bad about it now because it was during the time when we were in Drought Stage and we had a water shortage. And what had happened was on DP all these neighbors conspired together on this that they were going to form a gauntlet of water balloon launchers along the first part of the 66 block of Del Playa from the corner of Camino Pescadero up till about 6640 or something like that. And anybody jogging by or riding a bicycle or driving in a car got pelted. I mean it was crazy. It was The Gauntlet.

So word got around town that there’s this major water balloon fight going on DP, so my friends and I go down to DP. We get my launcher. And we get a bunch of water balloons and we just get into these total skirmishes with these people in their apartments and there’s, you know, balloons flying everywhere, water everywhere, people running into their apartments, getting nailed with balloons. And the funniest was…Now like I said, motorcycles and scooters wouldn’t get hit, but cars would. So all of a sudden around the corner here comes this white VW Cabriolet convertible. Driving it is a blond girl, with the top down, in a cheerleader uniform. At this point I was hanging out on the balcony with some of the perpetrators — we’d made a truce — I was out there with them. We all look at each other and just go, “Thank you, God!” A sudden barrage of water balloons just nails this car. Now this girl, in all her absolute brilliance….Now if that was me, there’s just one expression I got for you: ‘Gun it. Just floor it, get outta there.’ No. She stops. Turns off her car and tries to put the top up. We’re all looking at each other going, “This is too good to be true.” Meanwhile the water balloons keep flying and she’s just getting pelted. Finally, this guy comes out from one of the apartments and I swear to you all the guy was wearing was a loincloth and an executioner hood. He’s got this five-gallon bucket of water and comes behind her, taps her on the shoulder and when she turns around he just dumps it on her! And everyone’s cheering and applauding, and she was just pissed off.

So then this truck shows up and in the back is a bunch of guys with a bunch of cardboard pizza boxes for shields, and a bucket of water balloons. And a guy’s standing there with a Jason hockey mask and a lacrosse stick with a water balloon in it, and everybody charged the truck and it led to this massive water balloon battle and everything. Well, that carried over into Sunday. And the two main perpetrators at this point was the balcony and what we used to call The Old Reef, which is an apartment. I believe it’s 6630 Del Playa, and then there was The Bunker, which is 6645 Del Playa. I was at 6645. This is how the guys at 6630 and I became like best friends. We got into this war. We had my launcher at The Bunker and they had their launcher at The Reef, and we were just like vreeeeoor! firing across Del Playa, you know, at each other. It’s on videotape. I mean you see the camera angles…Incoming!

Well, what finally happens is, whenever a bicycle or car went by there was an immediate truce and we’d start hitting what was on the street. There’s this old guy with his daughter — I guess the daughter went to school here and he was visiting town — and all of a sudden we just start throwing water balloons. The old guy gets pissed off, so he goes, “I’m going to call the police.” So he barges into this apartment across the way and he’s like, “I need to use your phone. I need to call the police. Those people out there hit me with water balloons.” And the people in the apartment are like, “Get outta here!” They’re like, “Take it like a man,” or something. So the old guy goes back outside and he’s standing under the tree, and one of the guys on our balcony yells some insult and here comes a water balloon from 6630. The old guy is soaked, gets super ticked off, barges back inside this apartment and grabs the phone this time. He calls the cops. Cops get there. So we’re all on the balcony and there’s two cops — one was super cool and the other was a total jerk. And they’re both UC campus cops, too. And the one that’s being a total jerk is like, “You just assaulted a citizen!” And one of the guys on our balcony started yelling, “It’s only water! It’s only water!” At this moment, twenty drunks on this balcony — oh by the way, there was kegs on that balcony too — twenty drunks on this balcony started chanting, “It’s Only Water.” So the cops are facing this balcony full of people deciding what to do and as they’re doing that we open this one side door and get out the side. And the old guy sees us and signals the cops like, “Gentlemen, gentlemen. They’re getting out this way.” Well, the cops start running that way where the old guy was pointing to, and as they’re running that way we start running the other way out this other door.

Now at this point the people in the apartment locked the doors and they had like three dead bolts and a wooden plank, and the cops are trying to break down the door and they can’t. So they’re trying to figure out a way to get in — this is when I’m sitting there saying to myself, “Well, I got an engineering midterm tomorrow. I don’t think I can study for it in jail. I need to get the hell out of here.” So I climb off the balcony. There was a catamaran sailboat — the mast used to stick out into the driveway. I got my feet on the thing, and I’m hanging and all of a sudden I look and there’s these two cops with their backs turned toward me about thirty feet away. I’m hanging off the balcony going like…. So I let go and I quick pull off my sweatshirt and tuck it under my t-shirt, start walking across the street. It’s on videotape! And, uh, once I got across the street I just bolted to the other apartment, the 6630. Turns out they ended up arresting two of these guys that lived in this one apartment and they just put ’em in the car, handcuffed ’em and put ’em in the car, yelled at them and then let them go. That was the crazy one in ’89.

Then ’90…’90 — well, ’92 was the last crazy Halloween. Last time sixty thousand showed up for one night. That year it was bad because a lot of people fell off cliffs, a lot of fights, there were a bunch of sexual assaults, and the whole fun of the whole thing just wore off overnight. I mean, Halloween of ’91 I remember walking right outside my doorway and there was a fight between two guys out there. And I’m like, “Hey, break it up.” And all of a sudden it’s like…you know. So I grab my paintball gun and just went to town on these guys cuz they wouldn’t stop fighting. But there were a lot of stupid people in ’91 and ’92 and that’s when the sheriff’s department finally decided to do something about it, and the first year they enforced the Halloween zero-tolerance thing they were total jerks about it.

The cops that usually patrol the town were totally cool — I got to say that about them — because they know the community. But the cops that came in from out of town — I mean the Santa Barbara County sheriffs who didn’t usually patrol this area — were total jerks. I remember I was leaving the store and I was well over twenty-one years of age and I bought a twelver of beer. My plan was to — I was just gonna come home, have a couple beers, have a couple friends over, you know, kick back, listen to some CDs or some tapes or something — hang out. I’m walking out of the store and all of a sudden I hear, “Hey you! What’s in the bag?” And I think it’s one of my friends joking around with me so I say, “Your mother!” And he goes, “Come here, smart-ass.” And I turn around and it’s a cop, and I go, “Oh, great.” So I walk up. He’s like, “What’s in the bag there, smart-ass?” And I say, “Beer?” He goes, “Do you have an ID?” And I said, “Well, in order to buy some I’d have to have an ID, wouldn’t I?” He goes, “Let me see it.” I’m like, “Sure,” and I pull out my driver’s license. At this point one of the cops that I know comes up and says, “Hey, Henry. What’s going on?” And I said, “I don’t know, you tell me.” The other cop goes, “This smart-ass here blah-blah-blah-blah.” And I said, “Hey, I’m not the one with the attitude. I was just coming out of the store with a twelver of beer to go home and all of a sudden I’m getting yelled at.” So the guy was like, “Well here’s your ID back” and throws it at me, and I’m like, you know. I didn’t flinch because if I would’ve flinched he would’ve tried to make it seem like I was gonna jump at him or something so I just stood there, let it hit me on the chest and it fell to the ground. I go, “Is it okay if I pick it up?” So I like bent down and picked up my ID and the one cop that knew me is like, “Dude, I’m sorry.” Then something happened where I said to the one cop — I’m like, “First time in this town, Junior?” Like that. He was like, “What did you call me?” I said, “Don’t worry about it.” So then Al says, “Hey, just go home.” So I start getting on my bike, go, “Have a good Halloween, Al. Have a good Halloween, Junior.” All of a sudden…“Hey!” I just took off on my bike, do-de-do-do-do, just came home.

That year they arrested a bunch of people, gave out a bunch of citations, and all of them got thrown out of court because they were unconstitutional. I mean you can’t discriminate against youth. That’s what was determined when most of these cases went to court — the judge threw them out because, uh, it was clearly youthful discrimination. I mean, it was like they singled out a population and just ran amuck, and there was documented reports of the cops just doing stuff that was wrong, that wasn’t within the guidelines of the sheriff’s department policy. That was ’91 — I mean, I’m sorry. That was ’93. That was Halloween of ’93. Halloween of ’94 they toned down somewhat, but it got pretty bad because there was more cops on the street than there were trick-or-treaters. Uh, ’95 was really dismal. At this point nobody wanted to go out on the streets on Halloween. The cops used to set up a big command post on Trigo and Camino Del Sur, which we used to terrorize with water balloon launchers. They couldn’t tell where it was comin’ from. You know, we were about half a block away just reowww! with somebody on a walkie-talkie giving us coordinates. Then we started getting a little bit more high-tech using S-team rocket motors with basal fins and M-80s, which, you know. Actually, this started up in ’94. We prepared for Halloween of ’94.

Was it just a case of too many people? I mean, was that what got the cops all nervous — too many people?

Yeah. Way too many. It just got overwhelming. I mean, you know, they had to call search and rescue because of people falling off cliffs. I can’t remember anybody dying but I do remember people getting injured. I remember this one guy the cops were chasing on foot and this guy decided to Superman it off the cliff. I don’t know why. I don’t know what the rationale behind that was. Halloween of ’96 actually was a little bit better but I didn’t do much because I came down with the chicken pox. That sucked. I’ll never forget that.

You never had chicken pox when you were a kid?

Nah. It’s not a very common virus among Cubans in a tropical environment, so it was like — it was terrible. That was right after our band got back from tour, too. Pretty funny. Chicken pox at thirty-one years old: what the hell was I thinking?

You were born in Cuba — I remember you telling me that when we first met, and, um, how long did you live there?

Ah, until I was about two years old and then we got thrown out of the country. My mom and I. My mom, she’s a troublemaker. She’s worse than I am. I wonder where I get it from! But uh, we got thrown out of the country and then we came to Florida and that’s where I lived for a good portion of my life and then I moved out to California when I was like seventeen on tour with the band I was playing with. I already knew people out here from skateboard contests and stuff so I had plenty of friends and then, uh, lived in West LA for five years — four or five years — from ’83 up until ’87 so that’s about four years. Then I moved up here and this is where I’ve been ever since. Just refuse to leave. And I did it backwards: when I first moved up here I lived in Ellwood then moved to IV. Most people live in IV then move out to Ellwood. I did it totally backwards. But it’s a nice place. I can’t complain.

What’s the reason why you got kicked out of Cuba?

That’s a good question, actually. Um, it’s not a democratic society. Contrary to what any wannabe leftist thinker will tell you, uh, any wannabe pseudo-socialist. You know, it’s really funny because I just wrote an interesting little — it was somewhat of a rebuttal to an editorial about Cuba that showed up in the Nexus. An individual, John Bennett, wrote this article about Cuba saying how great of a place it is and Castro is doing a wonderful thing and that the US media bashes Cuba and blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-blah, and Cuba has ninety-four-percent literacy rate and they have one doctor for everyone one hundred people, you know, just trumpeting all these wonderful accomplishments. But the thing is, I’m like, “Well, if Cuba’s such a wonderful place, then how come there’s people dying to get out?” I mean, you know, I could cite example after example of mass exodus from Cuba of people wanting to get out. The one I came over in the 1960s was the Mariel Bridge; Lyndon Baines Johnson said that anybody who wants to leave can come on over to the US. If you’re willing to be a contributing member of society in the US…the doors are open, here you go. That lasted from ’64 I believe till ’71 or ’72 — that was the last Freedom Flight. Then there was the Mariel Boat Lift on May 16, 1980, and numerous other refugees in between and defections from the military. I remember the guy who showed up in a MIG-21 at Homestead Airforce Base. This is the same guy that went back and rescued his family or something like that.

Anyway, why did we get thrown out of Cuba? Well my parents, they helped Castro take over, and once he took over everybody who helped him Castro rounded ’em up and jailed ’em. And they tried ’em in court at the military tribunal on completely trumped up charges — it was total bull. My father was one of them. They jailed my father for a pretty long time, so yeah, my mom is pretty bitter. And when I was born, about a year and a half later my mom and dad got a divorce because she just saw the government was falling apart, slowly but surely, and then, uh, when I was two, about fifteen days after my birthday, we were on a plane coming to the US. And the reason why we were on a plane is basically because my mom opened her mouth one too many times. So she was invited to leave. She’s a very dynamic woman. She’s, um, she’s very funny. She looks like Lucy but she talks like Ricky. And, you know, I love her. I love her. I’ll be seeing her at the end of this month when I go down to Florida for a BMX race and a skateboard contest. It’ll be interesting while I’m down there. I get to see my cousins and my mom and aunts and uncles. They get to see me not grow up.

The thing I was saying about Cuba — the editorial that I had written asked the question: if Cuba’s such a great place under Castro, why are people literally dying to leave? Yeah, what good is ninety-four-percent literacy rate if you don’t like the country? What good is one doctor for every one hundred patients if the country cannot produce its medicine or the medical care offered is really not all that good — it’s socialized medicine that really lacks a lot of specialty medicines. Yeah, the US media bashes Cuba but the US media also bashes US policy and protocol as well, whereas the Cuban national newspaper — Grandma International — would not dare write anything against Cuba because immediately the editors would find themselves behind bars. Oh yeah, there’s a lot of freedom there.

Um, in the United States, you don’t get jailed for your political views. You could say, “I’m a fascist.” You could say, “I’m a communist.” You could say, “I’m a — I’m a nazi.” You could say whatever and you won’t get thrown in jail. It’s if you commit a crime of violence against other people. In Cuba, if you as much as say, “Oh, I’m a capitalist,” you’ll find yourself in jail. Once again, so much for freedom. It’s not slavery down there — it’s just a very politically repressed country. It is a dictatorship. You know, the first thing I say to people is “Yeah, I know the United States ain’t perfect but it’s the best game going for the past two hundred years. The most stable game.” Cuba, in its forty years — the only reason Castro has remained in power for so long is because he takes pride in being a thorn in the side of the US, but the thing is it’s at the expense of his own people. I got a problem with that. If Cuba’s such a great place, and everybody complains about the United States embargo on Cuba, and I’m like going, “Sorry but Cuba was in sorry shape long before the embargo.” You know when they were getting Russian rubles in there, and the thing about Cuba is if they would’ve had a good money management technique they wouldn’t be in the dire straits they’re in now. But they invested all their Russian rubles in spreading the romanticist notion of 1960s revolutionary thought — ala Che Guevara — to Ethiopia, Angola, Somalia, El Salvador, Nicaragua. They were spending more money on sending advisors and weapons to these places then they were on concentrating on their own country — all in the name of socialism. Where is it now? The Communist Bloc has completely fallen apart.

You know, just a lot of different things. Cuba’s a beautiful place. It’s where I was born. I’m proud to be a Cuban, but I love the United States. It’s my home now…until Castro falls and then I’ll probably go and find out where I was born. But I wouldn’t live there permanently. I’d love to go back and see my family. My dad’s still there. A bunch of my cousins and aunts and uncles are still there.

Is your dad still involved with the government?

He’s retired. He slowly retired. He was an engineer — electrical and computer design engineer. He just plays around with his hand radio, you know. He remarried; he has a daughter — that’s my half-sister. She lives in Argentina now. She’s married — she was married. Her and her husband moved to Argentina. Her husband turned out to be a psycho controlling possessive nut. They got a divorce. She stayed in Argentina; he went back to Cuba. She met this Argentine jazz guitarist, they fell in love, they got married, and now I have a little half-nephew: Jose Luis Junior. That’s my dad’s name — Jose Luis. You know, we got these weird like, you know, Billy Bob, Bobby Sue. We got the same kinda thing in Spanish. Jose Luis.

Or Reyes Francisco.

Yeah, that too. So that’s Cuba in a nutshell. I do believe the embargo does kinda suck, but there are countries that aren’t in line with the US that could help Cuba out but they won’t because Cuba has nothing to offer them, and besides Cuba’s ideals and mission statement are quite outdated. Che is dead. Hate to tell them that but, yeah right. Tell ’em to keep the faith over in Cuba but at the expense of how many million people? And that’s what I have a problem with. I don’t mind socialized medicine, I don’t mind socialized education — just don’t take it out on your own people. Come on, Fidel. And people wonder why I’m so involved in politics — I think it’s in my blood, or my heritage.

Now, switching gears a little here…you did attend UC Santa Barbara for four years? I mean, what was it like? What did you major in?

Oh yeah. Electrical and mechanical engineering and a minor in physics, or attempted minor in physics. Learned a lot of physics — don’t know if I minored in it. Um, what was it like? Interesting. Have you ever seen the movie PCU?

Uh, I think I have. Parts of it anyway.

Oh God! You know, I managed to come here — I was going to both City College and UCSB — and I managed to come here right in the heart of the Politically Correct Era. You know, it was the late eighties when Regan was in office from ’84 to ’88. Yeah, it was Regan’s last year in office, Bush and Quayle were running, and the Republican Conservative Right was running the country while the Democratic Left was doing anything it could at the height of the PC Era.

UCSB was PCU — the Politically Correct University at that time. And there was one of the most colorful groups that I can remember — you should go to the Nexus office and look at some of the old newspaper clippings — it was called the C.U.N.T.S. It was an acronym. It stood for Creative Underground Network of Truthful Sisters. And there were these ladies, women, girls, females, women, whatever you want to call them, that used to cruise around Isla Vista at night dressed in these black robes with candles. They’d stand in front of fraternity and sorority houses — where they were having parties — in silent protest of their raped sisters. They were basically the militant, femi-nazi types. And they used to go around stenciling ‘Dead Men Can’t Rape.’ I mean it was classic.

Now I’m usually not afraid of death, but some of the stupid things I’ve done in life, like skydiving…I mean, you’re approaching the ground at terminal velocity and if your chute doesn’t open, well, you’re screwed. But it’s fun. I have five jumps so far and I’m trying to get my girlfriend to go with me on the next. Anyway, once I did skydiving it was like one of those things where I said, “I don’t fear anything.” But the one thing I did fear was the C.U.N.T.S. I kid you not. I kid you not! I was going down Sueno to meet some friends of mine at Espresso Roma, and I’m on a forty-four inch long skateboard with soft kryptonics wheels on, which are very difficult to slide because they’re so grippy. I’m going down the street on this skateboard and I turn off a Sueno onto Camino Pescadero to connect over to Pardall and right as I turn the corner on Sueno, I look over towards Pardall and HERE THEY COME — the C.U.N.T.S. in their black robes with their candles, marching my way. And I just went, “Ah, shit! The C.U.N.T.S.!” and just pinched my board into this massive slide like reoowwr! I don’t know how I did it but I got these wheels to slide. And just took off pushing in the other direction at about a hundred miles an hour on this skateboard. There was no catching me. I tell ya. I feared like I was gonna get castrated or something. Knowing them they probably would’ve done it, too. But they were the same group. I believe it was the same group that came in when I was sitting in the Greek Classics class learning about Homer’s Odyssey. Now to put it in the simplest of layperson’s terms, The Odyssey was the hump with the biggest tits. Now, you know, granted that society back in that era was sexist. But we can’t change history. History is written to study and learn from, and it doesn’t mean that if you study it you say, “Oh, that’s pretty cool. I think I’ll adhere to those beliefs.” No, no, you know better. We’ve progressed as a society. We still have work to do but I think we’re progressing quite well. Well, anyway, some people, and I believe it was the C.U.N.T.S., felt that the subject matter of this class was wrong, shouldn’t be taught. So they were disrupting the class. They would just walk in and start yelling at the professor and at the class, and all this stuff and everything. And I’m like going, “I pay money to come here. I don’t need this.” Got into a big argument with one of them out in front of the class one day about that, you know. She said, “It’s a sexist subject matter.” “Yes it is,” I said. “And it teaches you what not to be like!”

Oh, before I forget: Chancellor Huntinback. Captain Bob. Did you ever hear about this guy? Busted for embezzlement. Yes. And who busted him was The Daily Nexus. The editor-in-chief at the time was, uh, Steve Elzer. Wonderful guy. Big, heavy-set guy, used to live at La Loma apartments right next-door to my girlfriend at the time. So what happens is I guess some numbers weren’t jiving financially or something like that, and the newspaper did an expose and sure enough: Captain Bob and his wife Rita were using all this money to remodel their kitchen, to the tune of I forgot how many thousands of dollars. I think to top it was in the hundreds or the fifty thousand-dollar range. So, Chancellor Huntinback calls up Steve Elzer and says, “Stop printing. Cease and desist these articles,” and Steve Elzer says, “Screw you buddy. First amendment constitutional right.” Captain Bob Huntinback calls back. “I’m suing you,” he says. Steve Elzer says, “Go right ahead. You own the paper.” “Well I’m suing you.” “Go right ahead. You own the paper. You’ll only be suing yourself.” “Well I’m suing you anyway.” Huntinback sues. The judge says, “Well, you’re only suing yourself.” So the Captain couldn’t get the newspaper to stop writing editorials or articles about his embezzlement. He went to court. I forgot how many hundreds of hours of community service he got. Now if you and I were to try embezzlement I’m sure we’d be looking at some jail time, but he got community service. You know I’m sure the deal was decided by the lawyers and the judge out on some golf course — Sandpiper or somewhere up in Lompoc.

But, God. One of the old apartments I used to live at. Ah, Jesus. There was four of us that lived together. It was Matt, Craig, Brian, and myself, with assorted guests every now and then. And Matt, Craig, and Brian grew up together in Thousand Oaks. Craig, Matt, and I played in the same punk band together. I was Craig’s roommate. Matt and Brian were roommates. It was a little townhouse-type apartment. The most memorable things about that apartment was the hole in the ceiling that we fixed with a frozen pizza that stayed up there for a whole year, the loose rattlesnake in the apartment, the fireworks war, the assorted psychotic girlfriends that Craig and I would have — you know, we’ve had psychotic girlfriends show up and kick doors down and everything. Uh, and our apartment was a pigsty. The thing that everybody remembered the most was the carpet. And the reason we didn’t care was because it was a Ron L. Wolfe building. We just didn’t care. You know, Ron L. Wolfe — that tells you everything right there. We didn’t get our security deposit back and we didn’t care. Uh, the bathroom, the graffiti in the bathroom was great. But the fireworks war was by far one of the funniest episodes because one of my neighbors went down to San Diego, ended up going to Mexico too. He came back with a huge duffle bag of fireworks. How he got it across the border I don’t know. But all of a sudden he shows up at our door, he goes, “Look what I brought!” Opens up this duffel bag. And all of a sudden Craig just looks at all of us and says, “Let’s have a war.” He grabs a bunch of fireworks and runs upstairs. And we’re all standing there thinking, “What’s he mean by that?” We thought he was going to fire them out the window. All of a sudden six-ounce rocket just goes fooosh right down the stairs, ricochets off the wall, whizzes by my head and blows up in the kitchen. All of a sudden people start grabbing fireworks — we zip up the bag, you know, throw it in the closet to prevent a huge explosion.

Everybody goes to different rooms and starts throwing firecrackers inside the apartment. Shooo-bam! Bam! Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam! Shooo! Bottle rockets, you name it. So finally the manager of the apartments across the way calls the cops. He says there’s shots being fired. So the cops show up at our door — and it’s two cops I know. And they knock on the door, thinking we have guns. I open the door, my face is all blackened, singed hair, my shirt’s smoldering, there’s burn-holes. They look in the apartment. When the smoke finally clears they see this little fire on the couch going, little carpet burn going here. And Craig shows up at the top of the stairs wearing these leather pants and these leather motorcycle boots. He’s got a studded belt, a studded bracelet, he’s got a shaved head and he’s holding a bottle of Jack Daniels, and he goes to the edge of the stairs and trips and falls down the stairs, slides right to the cops’ feet. And they’re going like, laughing, “Okay, guys. You can get as drunk as you want, but no more fireworks. Please. Is there any left?” “No sir, no sir.” “Okay, we’ll take your word for it.” And they just split. The apartment was all full of smoke; it stunk like gunpowder for days. I’ll never forget that. And our eviction party was the craziest. We got evicted and threw a party. Ron L. Wolfe said, “That’s it. I am not renewing your lease.” Matt and I were going to stay but Ron L. Wolfe said, “N-uh.”

Here’s an interesting cultural thing: The Simpsons. I believe The Simpsons came out in 1990, in the fall of 1990. It was on the Fox network on Sunday night. And it had this two-hour block of shows. It was Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Living Color, Married with Children, and The Simpsons, so it was this two-hour block. And I kid you not, for that two-hour block the streets of Isla Vista were deserted. Nobody out on the streets. Everybody was in their apartments in front of the TV set for two hours. I mean, you could be a total random person and if you weren’t going to make it home in time you’d just pull up to any apartment and go, “Dude, hey! Can I watch The Simpsons with you?” “Sure, come on in, man. Have a beer, man!” You know, it was like absolutely fantastic. Everybody knew what was up with The Simpsons, a weird cultural norm.

A lot more concerts in the park then — I remember that. Oh, it’s funny. Toad the Wet Sprocket — very popular band, mind you, right? I saw them playing in a living room on Sabado Tarde doing Sex Pistols and Police cover tunes. This is back in ‘87-’88. So then Toad the Wet Sprocket got signed to a major label — whatever that means — then also, uh, Indica, that won the battle of the bands, basically doing Metallica cover tunes. So immediately all these people that play in bands in IV…I’ll tell ya right now, one thing about Isla Vista is there’s no shortage of bands. And I played for so many of them but I was like one of those guys — I could care less about the record label. I could care less. It’s not what I want to do. I want to do it just because we wanted to have some fun and get drunk and rowdy and just that’s it. What mostly mattered to me was the fact that wherever we went people had a good time. It was so much fun to be around people. But all these other bands — serious, serious bands — out to get signed and everything, well, they formed the Isla Vista Musicians Coalition. IVMC. And there was all these bands that were trying to sound like The Red Hot Chili Peppers, or trying to sound like they were from Seattle, which was sickening and it was like, “You’re showing no originality.” Oh, and then of course Ugly Kid Joe also got picked up, too. One-song wonder, one-song hit, you know, and it was so funny. Ugly Kid Joe used to be called Overdrive. It was just the cheesiest metal band. Yeah, I believe the lead singer is still floating around Santa Barbara somewhere. I think he is. Then there was other bands like, oh God, I remember this one: Lead Head. Oh, God. Talk about the white metal funk wannabe, what my friend calls ‘bro metal’. But, you know, where’s Lead Head now?

One of my friends, Mitch Gamble, was telling me a story. He lived on DP and it was one of the punk bands and I forgot which one it was but they used to do a cover of “Eye of the Tiger”, the cheesiest of songs. And every night at about six-thirty, seven o’clock at night you’d hear Ch-eeeeoooooo, you know, the feedback, the amps, a little intro on the drums — ch-ch-ch-ch — then DAH. Dah-dah-dah! So whenever my friend hears this song he just gets goose-bumps cuz here he is — he was an engineering major — and here he is trying to study while outside, DAAAH! DAH-DAH-DAH! “Eye of the Tiger” from the second Rocky, and they always opened with that same song. I forget what band it was but I mean it was just the cheesiest cover tune you could possibly do.

I can’t talk. Fat Drunk and Stupid did cover tunes — since there was only three of us in the band, each one of us got to pick a cover tune. I remember Doc picked, um, “Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes. I picked The Cars’s “Best Friend’s Girl” cuz it only has three chords. It’s got wonderful harmony. And James picked “Big Mean” by the Foo Fighters. So out of thirty songs that we wrote we did these three songs. Then after we finally exhausted those songs then we had to pick three more cover tunes and throw them on our set. So James picked, um, what did he pick? Ah, it’ll come to me eventually but Doc picked the song by the Pajama Slave Dancers called “Driving the Porcelain Bus,” and I picked “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” John Denver, which is on tape by the way live at some club in LA. But, yeah, there was never ever a shortage of bands in town. And Halloween was a classic example of that because if you walked down Del Playa there was one band after another, all along DP and Sabado.

I’ve been playing in bands since I was twelve. Fat Drunk and Stupid was the most recent band I played in, but I played in so many. The first band I ever played for in IV was with my teammate John Chen, the guy who lived behind the Kabuki Gardens. It was called just simply The Drunk Fucks cuz we were just, you know, we were just…well, we used to switch off instruments too. Like half of the set I’d play the guitar and John would play drums and we’d switch instruments throughout the whole set as we were playing the song! And there was Boiling Idiots, and that was with my roommates who I used to live with right up the street from where I live at now. And then there was The Latchkey Kids, which were founded by two little high school kids from Dos Pueblos High School. Actually, three of them. And they came up to me and they needed a second guitar in there, and I brought in a drummer, which worked out cuz their original drummer ended up leaving. So it was the four of us. Mike and Mark were like sixteen and seventeen years old. I went to their high school graduation parties. I was twenty-four, twenty-five at the time and our drummer was like thirty-something, so it was like this generational expanse, you know. It was great. That band, The Latchkey Kids, had records out and was on compilation albums. Then I started playing for Dahmer’s Icebox. Oh, God. That band should’ve been called ValuJet cuz it was an accident waiting to happen. It was pretty sick. I still got tapes of that, too.

Then, uh, Doc, the bass player who’s my best friend, I just talked to him last night. He’s recovering from heroin addiction. I talked to him on the phone. He’s getting out of a rehab program, going to a halfway house. It’s really sad what happened to him. He’s a very smart guy. Got his master’s in geography, got hooked on heroin like around ’98, don’t know why. He lost his house, lost everything he had pretty much. I even have trouble picking up a guitar now because it just makes me think of him. You know, last night on the phone I was talking to him — I was crying. He was shocked. You know, I would break down to that level because I was really worried about him. And for the longest time I blamed myself for it, which is stupid. I had nothing to do with it but I’m such a logical person, I’m kinda like Mr. Spock — you know, everything has to have a logical reason. And I couldn’t find the reason why he would get hooked on heroin so the first time I blamed myself for it. I didn’t introduce him to it or anything. I just said, “It must be my fault because we played in a band, and I held the band together.” That’s the only rationale I could come up with. And Doc last night on the phone’s like, “I don’t want you to ever blame yourself for what I did.” It was like a ton of bricks off my shoulders. And I was crying like a little baby on the phone, but it was good to hear his voice and good to hear that he’s feeling fine and that he’s off that shit. His quote was, “I don’t want to go back to what I had.”

What happened with Doc taught me a lot about heroin addiction. It is a disease, and people pay a dear price for having that disease. I’ve had my issues with heroin based on what it’s done to other people that I know, love, and respect. It’s ruined a lot of lives. One of my first friends to fall by the wayside was eleven years old, when I was a kid. When I moved to California I didn’t know many people doing it, and then up here, I don’t know, it all of a sudden made this resurgence and one of my friends, Dave Schlesinger, got hooked on it when he was down here, and then he moved to San Francisco and he killed himself. Sold everything he had, bought a shotgun, and blew his head off. Pulled a Cobain off. That was back in, uh, ’95 or ’96, I believe. I even had an editorial about it in The Nexus, sort of a ‘welcome to UCSB and these are the things to look out for.’ I mean heroin was actually easier to find than pot was in this town. Heroin’s a bad drug, man. The only advice I can give anybody is stay the hell away from that crap. It doesn’t do anything for you. I never tried it. The only thing I’ve ever done is I’ve eaten pot brownies — and that’s rare — and I ate mushrooms twice. And I drank. I don’t drink anymore. I don’t do anything anymore.

(Originally published summer 2000 in Santa Barbara County’s Changing Urban Seen.)