Read Part 1 of Strong Vibrations in helL.A. click HERE!
I want to preface this story by again stressing that there are no coincidences in life. All people, events, experiences are there to serve a purpose to you. It is up to you whether you choose to understand them, forget them or simply dismiss them. I choose to understand, but pay me no mind, unless of course, you want to understand.
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We arrive at the private drive at the top of the road and
get to Chron’s house.
Except it wasn’t a house but a massive compound and his
family lived there.
Chron greets us and I introduce him to the chiefs and there
are smiles and hugs and excitement and anticipation and energy and I felt it
too and it was strong and real up there on the Studio City hill.
We enter the house and it is magnificent: the space well
appointed and properly art’ed in detailed fashion, the appropriate appliances
all modern and new.
The expansive pristine and tranquil empty house belied the
frenzied energy that was brewing.
We walked through it all, arriving to the back garden and
hung a right and walked into what was attached to the house but a separate unit
with a recording studio in it.
We walk in and the place is in disarray -the bathroom light
didn’t work, there was no toilet paper -only subway napkins- and there was a
thick stench of tobacco and cannabis.
Clearly Chron’s parents were wealthy enough to forget about
him.
We press further and find where Chron had his future
superstars living and recording music. Two kids about 21 from London – Ben, the
white rapper and Charles his black compatriot and they were cool but young and
appropriately British and appropriately naïve for their age.
The recording studio/living room/loft bedroom area had walls
that were completely covered in graffiti and the frenzied disarray of our
current environment now properly construed the frenzied energy that swirled
among us.
"Ben Diamond spinning wax with Natty"
The hip hop beats were UP and there was booze and fine
cannabis and laughs and stories and we all got along fine.
We ripped cigs outside and the view was tremendous and of
the best LA variety – Looking down on the lights, always looking down.
(it says a lot about a city when the best view is looking
down)
We drink and carouse and spin tracks until it is time to go
the bar. The rappers stay behind and we are drunk and all shuffle into the
chauffeured SUV and descend down the hill, back into the lights with only a
single precious hour to spare at the bar.
Ill spare you the boring details of the bar until the end:
I was engaged in a conversation with Chief Natty about our
collective. I explained that the fault in our bright beautiful creative
energetic expansive group of friends was that we sometimes have difficulty in
summoning divine inspiration in ourselves individually, and that at times we
rely on the collective gatherings to find that same divine inspiration.
There was ALWAYS so much beautiful energy in our tribe.
So much magic in so many of our moments,
so much collective love and creativity at times.
Everyone bringing their energy, raw and
unhinged and sharing it and reveling in it.
DANCING! (the most pure form of soul
exaltation)
Those are SOME of life’s beautiful
moments. The collective, the tribe, all celebrating all that is human.
But Chasing just the celebration and
feeding only off the collective and not being able to find it in ourselves is
not sustainable.
Imagine what the collective energy
feels like when everyone can go to solitude and find that SAME energy that the
collective summons on their own.
THEN bringing it back to the collective
to celebrate.
Imagine the Power in THAT energy.
I was drunk and explaining this and it
was beautiful but was interrupted when I felt a tug at my sleeve from down
below.
Chaos, himself, had arrived and
immediately the point was lost in the surge of unruly energy.
I looked down and Chron Burgundy was
there, all Five foot Three of him and he was fucked up and mumbling for us to
do something:
He wanted us to go to his old house to
recover a gold rolex given to him by his deceased grandfather.
He said that his old roommates wouldn’t
give it back to him and that it was a $17k watch and that it was his most
cherished item from his grandfather and they hadn’t given it back but that they
would hand over the property if we all went there now to get it as he had just
talked to the dude.
No fucking way Chron Burgundy.
I am not entering any type of dispute
like this.
I ignore and attempt to get back to my
conversation but the Natty Chief had found two tall blondes,
or perhaps they found him-
and he was already regaling them with tall
tall tales of all the things he could do to them with his very
long
long
dread
locks.
The lights soon came on and it was time
to go.
We gather our group and hop back into
our SUV.
No sooner do the doors shut and the car
lurches forward does Chron Burgundy start in again with his whining about his
grandfather’s gold watch.
I am in shotgun and yell back that it
is not happening.
I turn my head back and survey the
situation:
Chief Nails and Chief Chef are in the
way back, silent and look annoyed. Chief Natty and Chron are in the middle row,
and Chief Natty is bouncing up and down in excitement, he is upset that someone
had stolen his new friend’s (for the time being) grandfather’s gold rolex
watch, and he is taking it personally.
When I saw that, I knew where this
spaceship was headed, despite the protests of the majority.
We were headed back up to the Hollywood
Hills, again ascending away from the lights and into the elevated darkness.
After about a 15 minute ride up, we
arrive at the top of the hill and at the end of a cul de sac, hop out and
arrive at another compound. Chron springs to the front door with Chief Natty
and Chief Chef and Michael the young skateboarder.
Chief Nails is in a bad mood already
and stays in the car with the girl.
I get out but hang back to properly
keep an eye on the situation without being in the situation.
Fuck me.
This is the worst idea in the history
of ideas and somehow, knowing the terror and chaos that is Chron Burgundy, I
was here.
Watching.
Fuck me.
Chron begins to ring the doorbell and
bang on the door incessantly attempting to rouse which was surely a sleeping
house at near 3 am.
The house still sleeps.
He goes around to a sliding glass door
and pounds on that a bit when the front door explodes open
And who is there
But JESUS.
NO Shit, swear to his dad,
It’s fucking
JESUS.
Flowing brown unkempt hair and a bushy
brown unkempt beard to match with
SHOCKING Blue eyes, I had seen his
picture many many many times before.
Jesus, It was Jesus.
But Jesus was pissed off and slightly
mal-nutritioned and barefoot and a little pale for walking around the desert so
much and only wearing a pair of short musty mesh soccer shorts.
Did I mention he was pissed off and
wanted to kill Chron Burgundy?
Like family beef that existed for
generations, like Chron was Pontius Pilate,
he locked eyes with Chron and tore after him,
NO hesitation in his thirst for Chron’s
blood.
His hatred was innate and ingrained and
insatiable.
Chron ran in circles attempting to
dodge this rabid Jesus’s chase and when he had cleared enough room between
them, he reached in some sort of karate pose and bent back into what would
clearly culminate into a martial arts knock out move only to reach out and mace
Jesus full on in the face.
A clearly enraged Jesus let out a wild
shriek as the pepper seared his eyes.
I once walked into a cloud of pepper
spray that a girl that was near me mistook for a lipstick tube and sprayed, and
just the whiff of the stuff made my eyes bleed.
Jesus took it full on in the face.
But it didn’t stop him.
He tore after Chron with more vengeance
and an even greater tenacity.
Jesus’s disciples now appear out of the
house and into the cul de sac. They too
are shirtless in shorts and unkempt.
Chief Natty gets between Jesus and
Chron and Jesus stops and Natty offers
“we just want his property back dude”
Jesus erupts
“I left it for you on the curb 2 weeks
ago”
But remains calm as he surveys who was
with Chron and knows that it is not in his best interests to want to get
primitive with this collective of chiefs.
Natty
begins to try to piece it out with Jesus.
The Chef and Michael talk to the
Disciples.
I stand in the middle, quiet and
observing.
Chron Burgundy, lurking in safety
behind Natty’s bunned up dreadlocks and
tall lanky frame, suddenly pops out from
behind it and sprays Jesus full on in the face with mace again.
Any shred of calm that was restored to
hash this out like adults shattered and fell to the wayside.
Fucking Chron Burgundy.
My guess was this was his plan all
along:
Show up unexpectedly with 4 Chiefs in a
chauffeured black SUV, and then just punk Jesus.
Mace the bastard in his face.
Fuck Me.
I should have known.
Chron runs out of mace and heads for
the SUV and dives head first into the open back door.
Jesus is right behind him and literally
yanks CHron out of the SUV by his feet, and then piles on him and starts
raining blows onto Chron’s small body.
Jesus deserved to get a few licks in
for the mace, and I let him until I decide they are even and I move in and
throw Jesus off Chron.
I instruct everyone to get in the car so
that we can go, as the fuzz were surely on their way- riots in the cul de sacs
at the top of Hollywood Hills are never permissible- and I wanted no part of
the fuzz.
Everyone piles in except the Chef, who
has been as calm as I the entire time.
I look back only to see the Chef pick
up one of the Disciples and body slam his ass into the pavement and then
proceed to bitch slap the Disciple (musta been Judas) up and down the cul de
sac.
The car empties except for the girl and
Nails.
I am happy to see this.
Nails probably would have had Disciple
blood on his hands had he exited.
Now there is mayhem everywhere.
Chron Burgundy got the girl in the cars mace and is back at it, macing anything
that looked biblical.
I am standing in the middle of it all,
wondering how the fuck I got here and why, why
WHY
I am in the middle of this chaotic
reality.
I stand there among the balled up fists
and angry faces and yells and screams and elbows and mace. I stand there in the
middle of it all and am still. Not moving. At rest.
Holding space for restraint and for
wisdom and for peace.
Jesus is fucking irate and comes
charging at me, fist cocked, making direct eye contact with his piercing angry
blue eyes.
And then runs right past me.
I turn around and there was no one
behind me.
Did he just miss me?
Am I even here?
I continue to stand at rest holding
this peaceful space and another Disciple comes charging at me, fist cocked, eye
contact- the same as with Jesus before- and again it’s almost as he runs right
through me.
I seem to have risen above this
nonsense and madness.
How convenient.
I become aware and I get everyone
rustled up and back into the car.
We are poised to go but are dealing
with a half naked Jesus standing in front of the car and barking to run him
over.
Our driver, Muhammad, who had been the definition
of patient during this melee, had finally had it. He was Middle Eastern- my
guess Iran/Iraq and had seen a whole lot worse shit in his life than a pepper
spray soaked pissed off half naked Jesus in front of his car.
So Muhammad runs out of the car and
begins to scream in his native tongue and gesture wildly to Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t flinch.
Muhammad gets into a fighter stance and
is about to slug Jesus square in one of those intense blue eyes when the ghetto
bird makes its appearance.
Now, I didn’t come to LA for fame, and
I sure as shit don’t want 15 minutes of it, but the helicopter was above with
its bright light shining down on us.
Chron Burgundy bails out of the car and
runs and Natty follows and Jesus takes the bait and scurries off and Muhammad
floors it and again we were headed down into the lights.
Except before we actually got to the
lights of the city we were met with lights of the flashing blue and red variety.
The cop peers in and asks whats going
on and I explain that it was some age old Hollywood Hill beef between Chron
Burgundy and Jesus and we were just passing through and Muhammad was driving us
back to our home. He gives us a once over and understands what I am telling him
is real and we again advance down the hill, back into the lights.
We swoop the Natty Chief and leave
Chron to his own devices, cackling and howlin, but mostly people were yelling at me wondering how the hell I knew Chron Burgundy, and what the fuck was i thinking, but it was all in fun as we had escaped unscathed.
The high energy of the night carried us
into the morning, not before I said to no one in particular
“I feel used”
I ruminated on that statement that I
muttered aloud and could only surmise that I meant energetically, that I had
created this situation myself to find some truth, but in that case, I just used
myself, and perhaps that is what I meant by that but who knows.
We charged on into the morning, back at
the Natty Chief’s lair, my last memory was Natty, dreadlocks down to his ass,
dressed in a white robe fit for Detroit Pimp-gold cuffs and all- that read
“Beverly Hills Pimps and Hos Club”
walk out,
yell at his immigrant Chinese neighbors
and get the paper.
"Hanging with Frank in Chaos at Chron Burgundy's"
Post Script : The next day, the Chef
was retrieving a hat that he left at Chron Burgundy’s when Jesus showed up,
armed to the teeth with a hunting knife that could sheer an alligator and
rabid, seeking vengeance for the evening before. He chased poor Chron through
Chron’s parents vast, pristine compound, until Chron locked himself in a bathroom
and called the cops, who assuredly showed up again, ghetto bird and all to hash
out what seems to be an endless Hollywood Hill blood feud.
Second Post Script : I still love Chron Burgundy and honor him as a friend. But I won't be joining him on anymore Hollywood Hill Blood Feuds.
Third Post Script: If you enjoy hip hop, the kid who was recording at Chron Burgundy's crib, Ben Diamond brings the heat : Click Ben Diamonds "someday" youtube joint
Read Part 1 of the Story - WHO THE HELL IS CHRON BURGUNDY? CLICK HERE
Second Post Script : I still love Chron Burgundy and honor him as a friend. But I won't be joining him on anymore Hollywood Hill Blood Feuds.
Third Post Script: If you enjoy hip hop, the kid who was recording at Chron Burgundy's crib, Ben Diamond brings the heat : Click Ben Diamonds "someday" youtube joint
Read Part 1 of the Story - WHO THE HELL IS CHRON BURGUNDY? CLICK HERE
