when my roommate situation in san francisco blew up i decided to move in with a rugby friend in west oakland. he lived in a converted auto body shop wharehouse in the ghetto with his rottweiler Drexel and pitbull ivy. eventually there were a group of us sleeping in lofts and couches some just on the floor. there was one small room where my friend slept but other than that it was all open. we would cook breakfast on camping gear and since rick was a builder he constructed some pipes and a sink. i was rhyming for a brazilian funk band and would practice all throughout the day. there was a standing rule that you could play music as loud as you wanted any time day or night. lots of artists and vagrants came through the doors. we purchased around 50 crates of records and had some turntables. often late at night after some 'sessions' everyone would crash out but i wanted to soak up as much of the night as possible so i would do a standing meditation and stand up in the wharehouse for hours until the early morning and my knees hurt from the concrete. we would listen to 'interviews' by bob marley and i learned to speak in his patois and channel the spirits. eventually everyone went their own way, some of us had luck, others didn't.
this painting is of those nights standing up totally connected and isolated at once. i felt an intimate connection with the universe. There was such good energy at that spot in the middle of the ghetto. it was ground zero for our street promotion company 'king makers'. we would travel around the bay wheatpasting all over trying to get up in higher and more dangerous spots. shout out to eag, ravishing rick and the italian circus bros.
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