I was sitting on a South Central porch with the Watts Prophets, drinking bourbon in the rain when my pager blew up.

It was from Ice T’s manager, who told me I got the gig. The book I’d been jonzing to write since seeing Ice T and Body Count perform at Lollapalooza ’91 was a go. I’d pursued the writing of that book like a pitball in deep focus, and the day had finally arrived.

It wasn’t the first time it had arrived. 

The first time, I’d driven with a brazen Valley Girl living in San Francisco in the dark of night to LA during the Uprising of ’92. I saw the #seamy verdict, called Ice T’s manager and said, “Look! We got to write this book!”

I’d been reading a lot of Malcom X, having embarked on a post-grad year of tuning out, turning on and recalibrating my soul after having entered the work force a wee bit early (11).

Driving through the night with a pal who owned a restaurant in the Haight, we arrived in Los Angeles in time to smell the fires and feel the embers. I took a bus right into the heart of a neighborhood Torched By the Frustration of Perpetual Injustice where Ice T was shooting a music video.

There I was with my pen and red baseball hat, forgiven for being a honky who didn’t unnerstand we were on Blue Turf.

I watched the community celebrate one of their own homeboypoets bringing cameras to the neighborhood to reflect truth.

After filming was over, I watched the O.G. have to call triple a to jump his El Dog, as the phat soundsystem in his trunk drained his battery lol.

I took the bus back to my temporary beachside crib; I was staying at the editor of Creem’s Venice apartment while he was on vacation thanks to a brilliant punk publicist pal who always looked after a scribe like I.

There I was, working out with the brawny brutes at Gold’s Gym, and writing the book proposal for what would become “The Ice Opinion,” the first important book on rap culture. 

That it was my studies of Malcolm X, Dante Alighieri, and Ice T that led to the writing of the book, but that I was there during the Uprising of ’92 led to the perfect storm of what someday will be legend: how I wrote a book proposal, that made its way through a brilliant publicist pal to a Simon & Schuster editor, who saw the value of putting out the first important book of rap.

Nevertheless, right before I was to move to Los Angeles from San Francisco after my year of tuning out, turning on, and recalibrating my soul with critical books, Simon & Schuster pulled a fast one and pulled out the Big Book Deal the night before I was to embark on a move to L.A. More deetz here: https://vimeo.com/213624187

It’s all the stuff of quicksand and fairy dust, but I’ll say this: DIY is a good thing to adopt early. Gives you moxie.

As my pager blew up on that rainy South L.A. afternoon, with Ice T’s manager trying and succeeding to hook my scribe services for cheap, it would lead to the beginning of a beautiful friendship with my future bestie: Ice T’s first wife, Darlene Ortiz, the subject of my most recent book. It would also lead to more poetry, with prophets and sages on porches, drinking bourbon in the rain.

#lariots25

*****

The author and her bestie, Darlene “The Queen” Ortiz, at their book signing party at Delicious Pizza (photo Gary Winterboer); Dec. 10, 2017. “Definition of Down” is Cuda’s first book to be reviewed in the Sunday New York Times. #word xo