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Lady GaGa "Just Dance" |
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Sitting shotgun. This is where I belong. Windows down, backseat bumping, LMFAO blasting as we're speeding down Parthenia. The whole situation is ridiculous. We're all ridiculous.
We crashed the opening of an art gallery in Koreatown because we heard there was going to be free food. The pizza was out when we got there and all that was left was Tecate. The room where the art displayed was sparse. It confirmed what I learned trolling galleries during high school; nobody goes to art galleries to look at art, they go to be looked at. I wanted to admire the art, but my friends wanted to dance to lounge music instead.
Location is no boundary for the movement for my hips. This was not the first time I was going to be judged and it was certainly not the last. Eyes fixated on us as we let loose to the smooth electronic sound. Arms waving, hips shaking, beats breaking. We had only been at this art gallery for seven minutes and we were the centre of attention. Julie schmoozed with two Jews. Joan caught up with old art fiends. Somehow we ended up on the patio observing Saturday night K-town traffic as namedropping hipsters blew smoke out their mouths and leered out the corners of their eyes. By now it was nine P.M. and we were already bored. We were in the city, but we knew we had to head back to the Valley to find the gold we were seeking.
Ken drove on the 101 back over the hill. As we were passing Universal City, Ken declared
"I. Belong. Here."
Out of everybody in the car, I was the only one to have been born in Los Angeles. Yet, all four of us find this city central to the core of our being. I don't know if that's good or something to aspire to. Once someone says they love L.A. they're instantly some second-rate hack. If I'm a second-rate hack, fine. During first grade my family moved to San Jose and I instantly fell in hate. Even at six years old I knew I belonged in Los Angeles.
The identity of Van Nuys is that of ethnic working-class. Pupuserias and carnecerias. Taco trucks and cholos who don't give a fuck. It's an identity that has caused parts of the neighbourhood to break off and rename themselves to seem classier, like Lake Balboa. Until first grade I lived in an apartment in what is now Valley Glen. I remember the auto repair shop, the liquor store, the fact that I lived across the street from Sherman Oaks, two blocks from Chandler Boulevard. My hometown will always be Van Nuys. You can call yourself Valley Village, and you can piss and moan that you identify more with Sherman Oaks, you're still Van Nuys. My name is Jessica Salamanca, I live in Chatsworth and I am unapologetically Van Nuys.
Which is incidentally where Ken exited off the 170 onto Sherman Way.
Some weeks before, I decided to test how well the phrase "Where the party at?" works. Three parties, two numbers, one kickback and an infinite amount of memories were made the night I decided to take fate into my own hands. Now, it was time for the redux. Like the dumb, bored kids we are, we cruised down Sherman Way with the intent of trolling the Cobalt Cafe.
When we arrived, we pranced through the parking lot obnoxiously calling attention to ourselves and our desire to party on Metal Night. Long beards, long hair and long glares let us know we were barely being tolerated. It was eleven P.M. and we had no party. The moment Julie burst out into song was conveniently when my parents called.
I would find out two days later my parents went on an Indian casino tour. My parents were partying harder than I was, and they're in their fifties.
Just as Julie was making a valiant effort to hit a high note I asked Joan to call the Cholos. The Cholos are our kickback hosting friends in Reseda from that fateful night. We met at the intersection of Corbin and Sherman Way. Them in a black Escalade, all hopelessly high. Us in a black Explorer, all sickeningly sober. If the metal kids can't drop it, surely the Cholos can.
"Hey, this is Hashinka! Remember me? We hung out at your place a couple of Saturdays ago. Do you know where any parties at tonight? See your friends there! Spooky House, let's go."
The Cholos never got our real names and we never got theirs real or fake. I feel like a double agent in a way. Susan parties at clubs, goes to the University of Virginia and stays with her cousin in Van Nuys. Jessica goes to movies with her mom, attends Pierce College and never thinks about her cousins at all. This isn't a Tyler Durden act. This is me trying to seem cooler than I actually am. But I always blow my cover. Always, always, always.
We scrambled to the car and arrived in record time, appropriately to the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" as we were pulling into the empty parking lot. Ken and I looked at each other. He was driving all over the Valley and the best party we had was our own at a gas station six hours earlier. I glanced at the only other car in the lot. There were eight people loading sound equipment into a black SUV. They looked like any other band of kids, but after a few seconds I realized I went to high school with them. I never talked to these people but I was suddenly struck with an immature fear. What if they remember me, my disgusting Academic Decathlon letterman jacket, when the televised school news interviewed me? I can't be Susan, I have to be Jessica. If I'm Jessica I am going to be so awkward. Joan and Julie got out of the car to ask if they knew where the party at. I stared through the windshield and lost my mind. I had used my first year out of high school as a chance to leave my awkward self behind. I lost forty pounds, and made a promise to myself that I was going to go on every adventure that I could. In those short few seconds I realized I was going to be put to the test. Have I really gotten more comfortable with myself or am I going to revert to the loner on the couch that awkwardly haunted CSUN parties while I was in senior year?
"Shut down by the police. Moved to somewhere in Northridge. Follow them."
Off we were down Nordhoff following this SUV filled with people who knew my past. It was conveniently time for Joan to enter an identity crisis so my own worries could be forgotten.
"I love bright colours. I go to art school. But, I don't want to be a hipster. So what if my fish eye camera is from Urban Outfitters. That doesn't make me a hipster. Does it?"
I turned around in the chair and made sure to speak clear above the 3OH!3 blaring.
"You're asian, you have dreadlocks, and you live in Chicago. You have a lot going against you. If you have to deny you're a hipster, you're probably a hipster. I admit it. I'm wearing green shorts, I have gold spray paint and I love eighties music completely unironically."
I turned back to the windshield as Joan moaned in despair and Julie cackled.
We pulled up in front of a house at Saticoy and White Oak, but the lack of activity was alarming. One of the passengers came out and started walking towards our car. We saw he had a bandana in one of his back pockets.
"Hey Ken, you're gay. Why don't you tell us what that kid's hanky code is saying he'll do?"
"How am I supposed to know what that means?"
"Because you're a gay, Ken. That’s something gays do."
"Well, Julie, you're a Polak and you don't see me making references to how stupid you are."
The guy came up to Ken’s window. Thank God the window was up and Kanye West was blasting. I don't think we would've gotten out alive if he heard what Julie was screeching.
"The party got raided a few minutes ago. Follow us to Balboa and Parthenia.”
"I'm In L.A., Trick" by LMFAO started playing as the SUV sped down Parthenia. The police had screwed us over twice before, what was a third time? A charm. We made a wild left turn onto a residential street in Northridge and saw Mecca. Souped up cars lined the street. A crowd of kids congregated on the front lawn of the house at the dead end. We finally had our party, it was one in the morning and we had no idea what was going to happen now.
The house was twenty degrees warmer inside than outside due to body heat. Grinding, pussy popping, pop, lock and dropping. This wasn't any ordinary party. This was a Cholo Rave.
I'm Nicaraguan-American and I don't know Spanish. I've been called white-washed and a coconut. No matter how much I want to identify with Hispanics in the Valley I've been rejected more times than I like to admit. However, once in the centre of this party I had never felt more alive in my entire life. I was finally accepted as not only nerdy Jessica, but finally as Hispanic. I let out a long, loud laugh of ecstasy as we danced hard.
Ken and I walked over to the deserted living room. We took a long hard look at the broken glass and woodchips all over the floor.
"Holy crap, this is a foreclosed house!"
How recessionista was this? More importantly, how brilliant were Cholos? I would've never thought to bounce parties from foreclosed house to foreclosed house. No need to worry about cleaning up any mess at all. Ken and I looked at each other with glee on our faces. We had just seen the most intelligent event in our entire lives.
We witnessed dance gangs shouting with each other. There was one particular guy who did the Xena warrior cry every three minutes. Kids got high off nitrous oxide instead of pot. Sweat poured off us as we writhed on the floor. We were young, it was Saturday night in the Valley and we were at a Cholo Rave in a foreclosed house dancing to a remix of Michael Jackson's "Thriller". If anything was so unabashedly 2009, this was it.
After the Rave was over, we went to 7-11 to get water. We loitered in front of the entrance, talking and refusing to believe what had happened. Once we saw the sky begin to turn from black to purple we knew it was time to go home. The night was over, but that didn't mean our memories were.
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