Party people,

Within a few hours a concept has already flown in with feathers bustling and cawing loud enough to annoy the neighbors.

Now lets not lie to ourselves and believe that there are pieces of us we keep hidden. Both physical and metaphysical, mental and spiritual. We are exposed and naked. Today, party people, we're going to end with a bang and discuss Thievery.



We're not going to turn this into some abstraction today and bore ourselves until our heads explode. Let's begin with a story, since, that's what I do--

I spent a few years in Sacramento, CA while I went to college and I stayed in a house on the south side. Far south. So south that it wasn't even considered Sacramento, but unincorporated Sacramento. Sheriff territory.

Just by that description, you may get a notion that what I'm about to tell you is that the place was bad, which it was, that it was full of bad people, which it was, that it was flat and dry and dead and it isn't the first place you'd go to have a good time, which it was. But let me awaken your better senses. Thievery, robbery, the bad things in life don't just happen in the bad parts of the world. Party people, we're smart enough to know that we're exposed to this no matter where we are.

Coming back from school one day, with my wife who was my girlfriend at the time, I found that the garage door was open and my girlfriend's car, who is my wife now, her car was gone. Disappeared. And all the gut feelings came to me with the knowledge that everything that was in here, everything that told people who I was to some extent was exposed, ran through and some of it stolen.



That feeling tears into you and you're never the same. Still living in that house, I paid attention to every little creak, every voice that came from outside, every shadow moving, and I was kept in a perpetual alertness that never really faded. A list was made in my head of every potential weapon in the house. I had a hand axe in the room. There was Bataan sticks in the small closet downstairs, screwdrivers in a little box in the cupboard.

Scenarios played in my head. I'm upstairs and I hear glass break. Full of fear and anxiousness and vengeance and furious anger I move with the most deliberate and quiet of movements. I keep light on my feet while I wrap my hands around the axe handle. I hide behind the bookshelf and hear for the intruder. I hear the intruder creep up the stairs. The first door across the hall is open. There's the sound of rummaging. The next door is open and more rummaging. Then, my door. Come, you piece of filth. Come and meet the vengeance and furious anger.

This feeling followed me to wherever. It didn't matter whether it was in a neighborhood that looked bad, and by bad I mean poor. A few weeks later, I hear that my cousin's car is vandalized. A few weeks after that, the car is vandalized again. And he lived in the good part of Sacramento. The north side. So north and so good, and by good I mean rich looking, so good that they want to call it another city, Natomas.

So, what can we say about that? These things happen outside of location. These things happen outside of appearance.



Physical thievery is not the real case here.

When you live in a bad area and you drive everyday to the good area to go to school, you begin to see how things change. By that, I mean you see how the city or town or village is shaped and how the buildings and businesses are placed and the effect it has on your sensibilities.

Let's imagine this picture: a long stretch of road with powerlines and powerline towers running down the side of it. Coming from the south, you see this stretch of road roll through low level buildings, one story buildings, businesses with no windows that look all closed up with roller garage doors. Houses on the side of this main road have yards neglected, with fingers of yellow grass reaching out, and some windows are cracked and smashed. Walls that are supposed to shield the backyards of some houses, they are cracked and some have holes where a car obviously crashed into some late night of drunkenness. Fenced in fields of nothing. There are parking lots that are empty. And the power lines keep on going.



Then, the buildings change. There's a taller, stronger looking building, with reflective windows. This building has trees and landscaping surrounding its parking lot. The power lines then go into a central station and then vanish. You pass under a bridge. This bridge, party people, is the key part of it. This bridge is the first physical landmark that bisects Power Inn Road coming from the south. Then a magical thing happens:

Power Inn Road disappears and is replaced by Howe.

Such a grand mental theft. Those driving up definitely feel a change. You've left the bad area and come into the good area. There are trees and green. The buildings vary more in size and shape, there seems to be more people driving about, better looking people, in suites, what I mean to say is richer people.

Your sense of apprehension is taken away and replaced by the promise of safety and security. How many of you have seen this before? The city steals from you, not your sense that things are bad, but the sense that people are the same. Somehow, the city suggests, there is a different class of people past this bride than those who are behind it. People do different things on this side of town than on the other side of town. What then is encouraged is a practice of judgement based on appearance. What is encouraged is a practice of believing that different people belong on different levels and certain people are better than others. Certain places are better than others. Certain cultures are better.



Mental theft through the alteration of your surroudings is the hardest to discern because it happens and you don't immediately notice it. Often times you must attune yourself to seeing it and then actually evaluate what you are seeing. What made me so much better when I crossed the bridge and attended college than when I was walking down the street to the mailbox on the south side? What made my north side self better than my south side self?

It works both ways. Those who find a belonging to one area or another, take this perception on the self. We hear things like, "I'm from the bad part of Oakland. I know what's up." As if someone who wasn't from the same place as you doesn't know, or doesn't have the ability to really know. That person is an outsider. That person is not on your level. But, you're not a thug because you're wearing a stocking on your head (no matter how silly that may look).




And you're not a high class business man because you wear a high class business suite. Often times you can find yourself being a pirate just by stealing certain things from yourself, or letting things be stolen from you, and then believing that you're still whole. Or, you can learn from this experience.

The enemy that we do not see is the enemy that we should be the most aware of. The enemy that attacks us through ways other than violence is the most dangerous enemy of all.

Most importantly, the ignorance is just as dangerous as the intelligence.

Be safe, party people.

And one more promise: things aren't always as serious as this. Our journey will be fun. Stay tuned.