“What up fellas?”
On left – “What’s up homey? You wanna talk to some real heads from the block?”
“Yeah, that’s why I came over here, y’all looked like you been here for a minute.”
L – “I’m born and raised in the mission. I been here 3 decades homey. It used to be a lot different back in the day man. There was gangs and crews everywhere, instead of us two there’d be 40 of us on the corner. You couldn’t walk in the neighborhood with that camera because it was our neighborhood, know what I’m saying? We was here before there was weird restaurants and fucking snobby people everywhere and shit like that. What they’re doing to this city is Manhanttan-izing it man, you know? They’re trying to get all the people that been here for hella long out so they can make room for tech jobs, you know what I’m saying? Check it out, if you was young and smart back in they day where would you go? You would go to Wall St. right? But people thinking that’s not the best way out anymore man. If you’re young and smart today, what are you gonna do? You’re gonna go to Silicon Valley. This is where people wanna live so they’re kicking all the people that are from here out. The real motherfuckers man. This is all gonna be cookie cutter Manhattan shit for rich people soon man. It happens so quick dude. I did 4 years in YA and I got released and it was a different neighborhood. I didn’t hate though.”
“What’s YA?”
“YA is Youth Authority. I was locked up for 4 years from 15-18. They tried to get me to snitch on the homies out here, I didn’t snitch on em man, so I did my time. And when I got out I connections. And guess who’s in my neighborhood? Rich yuppies with a lot of money to spend. I took advantage of the situation, I didn’t hate. Some people were hatin’, beatin people up, robbin people. I just made money. And the girls like me man, I was fuckin yuppie girls and shit. I fuck them girls all day. Yeah man, it’s crazy. You got a business card?”
“Yeah, here you go.”
“For sure homey, I’ll hit you up, tell you some stories about how it used to be back in the day homey.”
“Bet. Preciate it. Stay up homey.”