San Diego Day 2

http://www.refugecrew.com/refugeflix/album25

Last night was a late night... all that walking around downtown and kickin it.... whew. I talked to Threat (graffiti artist from GospelGraffiti.com) and he wanted to scoop me up early so we could get to Tijuana to paint. I think its like 45 or an hour or so away from Man of Wars (the rapper) house. So he got me like at 7:00? Not to sure about that but Im thinking it was 7.

Threat pulled up in a blue mustang and all dressed up. I was like what? I thought we were painting today? He said he didnt get dirty but I felt like a scrub cause I was like all in old clothes and what not chillin in San Diego... SCRUB... lol

Anyways we drove out to this dude PISTO's house. This fool was like straight off of Friday man. Like what everyone think Mexicans are in Cali. He was like "wassup holmes... simon...". You know like straight homeboy. Threat reminded me of Blood in Blood out, Miclo... He's half Irish and half Mexican but was raised in Tj (Tijuana). We got directions from Pisto cause he couldn't go with us but REALLY wanted us to connect with Hecho en Mexico Crew (made in mexico).
So we jet from Pistos and hit up McDonalds for some breakfast. On the way I talked to Arkitekture who's working on the House of Faith site in Canada. I LOVE ARK!!! Just thought I'd throw that in. We cross the border pretty fast and all is cool but right as we enter Mexico its like an all out car battle. WOW... I felt like we were playing bumper cars just without the bump. We thought we had it easy with the "mapquest" style map PISTO drew us but that wasnt the case. At first we couldnt figure out this like things in the middle of the street we had to go around cause everytime we went around it took us off to this funky street. Good thing my cell was still working cause we called Pisto up a hundred times asking questions. After we figured that out it we got lost on this whole... "past the basketball courts, take a right second street to the right, turn at the liqour store thing. Whew... After about 30 minutes we finally go to a house that had like graf on it and fit the description we were looking for.

Now when I say "house" Im not talking front yard and a roof. I'm talking Mexico here homie. Dirt street, a huge ditch next to the houses to throw your trash and just some serious poverty. Now this neighborhood wasnt no cardboard box block but it still was trashed. Supposedly this was HEM's studio. A dude named CAFY lived here and we were just suppossed to whistle and yell, "CAFFYY!!!" and he'd come out. I mean I didnt think about it then but yo, here I am I don't even know Threat and he don't even know these guys we're looking for, and here we are like yelling at some house in the middle of TJ... Lord help us...

We yelled for a minute but nobody came out. I saw a mop laying near by and decided to lean it across the iron fence to the door and bang on it. In a couple minutes someone yells "quien es" (who is it). We told him Pisto sent us and he opens the door half dressed. Tells us to open the gate and come in. We walk in and its like this tore up house. I guess in Mexico its a pretty nice place. But in America it'd be considered pretty nasty. The living is like full of art supplies and half painted canvases and boards everywhere. It was crazy. We found out that this place was used as a studio for HEM crew to paint in.

Cafy invited us back where he had a Apple computer and all kinds of crazy stuff laying around. He had this like car door laying on the floor that all kinds of graf heads had signed and tagged up. On his desk were all kinds of stuff... weed, a couple pipes, fliers, markers. As we talked to him he was like half awake still. He said he knew we were coming but went to this graffiti party last night and got wasted.

As we waited I drew in his black book and he and Threat talked more about graf. Other people started showing up that Pisto had called from Cali to check if we made it there ok. I guess you wouldnt want to like plan a sneak attack on these fools cuase seriously dudes like came out the wood works. As we chilled a lady showed up looking for Cafy (pronounced CAFE). She started talking to him about art work and galleries and then out of no where... BAM... started like demanding rent money. Supposedly dudes been using this house for months without paying rent and she was MAD. This whole time I just got my head down drawing pretending I didnt know anybody... lol. Just incase she kicked us all out or asked me for some rent money :)

After she left we finally got our stuff together and headed out. We drove through the city for about 15 minutes to get to this wall. The streets are crazy out there and its like swarming with people walking and driving everywhere. When we finally got to the wall we saw that Cafy had hit up his piece up and that the rest of the wall needed to be buffed so we could paint on it. You know if you dont prep the wall all the spray paint just gets soaked up in it.

We popped the trunk and soon realized Cafy didnt grab the buff paint. Man... That meant we had to find some or drive all the way back to Cafy's house. But it was already getting real late. I mean we woke up at 7 and its like already 2-3 hours later. This other homeboy named Crisis (pronounced CRE-SEES) had driven up to this wall with us and his house was just down the street. He told us there was a paint store nearby and so we decided to go for the walk.

We walked, and walked and walked and walked.... Finally we got to a store but the paint was expensive there. We decided to keep on walking and asking store owners where we could find paint. Nobody knew. After walking and not having any luck we turned back around to get the expensive paint so that we could get started on the wall.

We were getting hungry so we hit up this little taco stand that had "adobada" tacos/burritos for like .50 cents... not a good sign huh... I trusted Threat and Cafy and went ahead and ordered a couple and yo THEY WERE GOOD. Especially with some lemon on them. They were like pork I think marinated in like this sweet bar-b-que stuff. As they say in Cali... They were MACKIN. Atleast then they were... more on that later.

So we got the paint and jetted back to the wall only to find out NOBODY BROUGHT THE ROLLER NAP. We had a roller but no nap to put on it. We even had the tray... sheesh. The time is like 1 or 2 I think and we wanted to leave Mexico early cause it was Halloween weekend and we figured the border would take a minute to cross. We sent Crisis to go buy a roller nap which took a minute cause he used some of the money to buy weed down the street (machinnn). He soon ran back with the roller and we started rolling. The wall was real bad though. The paint on it was flakin of like dust. Cafy taught us how to use the bottom of the cans to scrap the whole wall cause the flakes were jaking up the roller. After ALLL that we finally started to paint.

Since now we were out of time we had to be quick. We talked about hitting up a full scene on the wall but to do that was gonna push it. Threat wanted to do a character but felt the wall needed more to really be good. He ended up painting Vincente Fernandez, a famous mexican singer, while Cafy did a rooster. I went ahead a pieced to try to fill up the wall.

We knocked out the wall pretty fast. All helping out and just working real hard. Mexico is a crazy place. I enjoy being in neighborhoods like that but our primary purpose that day was to meka a connection with Cafy in order to share Christ with him. To help Threat do that was great. I think he really enjoyed painting with us and just gettin down on a wall. All day he kept saying MACHINNEEE.... kind of like saying HARDCORE MANN... lol.

I also got to meet this guy from Texas... well he said he was from Texas but he actually was locked up here in Texas. His name was Lito. I gave him my email address so maybe he will email me. I doubt it. I told him what I do back in Texas and I can tell he had heard about spiritual things. I always wish I could share more with people like that. I probably should've just offered to pray for him right there. Although he seemed like the "church" thing made him more distant as we talked. Which I dont blame him. He probably doesnt know the Jesus I know about.

As it got dark we cleaned up our supplies and headed off back to HEM's pad. Early on the drive out we listened to this cd that Crisis and his rap crew AD made. He raps and is a pretty big name in his area. I think the do like quinces and highschool parties. Cafy is like their promoter of sorts. So yea.. thats what we listened to on the way home. Not to mention getting to drive by this like insanly long wall FULLLLL of graf. They had this graf jam awhile back and wow... its pretty amazing. It would've taken all day to take pictures of it but I can't wait to go back and shoot it all. It would be wayyyy worth it. (to me atleast... lol)

We finally got to the HEM studio/house/ whatever you want to call it, and the rest of the crew was there. A dude named Libre who is an AMAZING portrait painter and Chente who's a well repected graf head out in that area. It was really crazy to see them cause all day we had been hanging out with crazy CAFY saying MACHINNEE all day and drinking and smokin out. And now there were two guys who looked nothing like CAFY. Well atleast not on the surface. Libre had glasses on a red medium fit hoodie, regular fit blue jeans and some books. Chente was all pimped out. He had on a jean jacket, sleeveless "golf" sweater, a collared shirt underneath, nice shoes and a cup of coffee. The offered us some cake too. I was soo lost. I really did not expect to see some guys like this in a house like this. We hung out for a long time. Way past the time we were suppossed to leave. Libre told us about his work and Chente talked to us about his past and graffiti art nowdays. All the while Cafy's still upstairs smoking a pipe and showing me rap videos from AD about smoking tweek (what we call ice (meth)) out of a gutted light bulb.

This day was really awesome. I mean wow... I just got to Cali and I'm already hittin the streets meeting people. Earlier when we were walking the streets looking for paint I was feining for God's Word. I had given my Bible away to before I left San Angelo and I like carrying around a pocket one. So while I was walking I was trying to say scripture back to myself instead. It was nutz cause I couldnt even say John 3:16 in my head. I tried and tried and I finally gave up. That night Cafy was showing me this video they made (the Tweek one) and it was just nutz. I watched it all (still while he's smoking weed next to me) and at the end it said something about 3:16. I asked him what they were talking about cause it was all in spanish. He rewinded it and said, "Oh 3:16 isnt that that God thing?" I said yea he was like, " What does it mean?". WOW. I started trying to say it to me and got stuck right at For God so loved the world... He went back to cleaning out his pipe and I was like oh man... I'm gonna miss this if I dont remember it. And then BANG. I said the whole verse to him and he just looked at me. I then retold it in plain english (to bad he speaks mostly spanish.. lol) about how God loved us so much that he sent his only son JESUS to die on the cross so we could live forever in Heaven with him. It was awesome!!!! and then he just started smoking again... lol. I was honored though to be used by God to share that verse with him. I hope I can pray for him more and maybe keep in touch.

We finally left their house with 3 more new friends and lots of stories to tell. Our trip across the border was long but not like hours or anything. It's pretty sad too. This young like 3rd or 5th grade girl was juggling fruit in the middle of the night so that someone would buy one or give her cash. She was gone trying to impress us. It was sad... We got to the American side and man THEY DONT PLAY. They straight up opened up the car door on these two young guys and searched their car, almost shut down lines and questioned you hardcore (maaacchhineeee).

Now that we're finally across we head over to Man of War's house to pick up clothes and stuff since I decided to crash at Threats house. We get to Mow's house and he's already asleep. I sneak around get my stuff and head out the door. Only to find out I left my other sweater in there with MY CELL PHONE in it. The door is now locked and I dont want to wake them up. Man... the main problem was that I didnt have Man of War's number on me except for on that phone. So I was like man, how am going to let him know when Im coming home. Because Threat lives like 45 minutes away. I knew I couldnt do anything about it till tomorrow so I just tried to leave it alone. Plus now also I couldnt call Val and she might be trying to call me. grrr...

We started to get hungry... actually... We had been hungry. So we hit up a place called IN and OUTs. This is a famouse burger place in Cali. It's like one of those burger shops everyone takes you your first time out. This place even has a secret menu. Their regular menu has like the burger and fries and what not on it. But you can tell them secret code words and they hook you up with extra stuff. Like we got our burgers "Animal Style", which means everthing on it. And you can even get your fries Animal Style where they put like all kinds of stuff on it. We also got us a Nepolitian shake, where they mix the chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry in one. Really dope place if you've never been. On the bottom of the cups there are scripture verses and when you pull up to the drive through they say,"Will you be eating this in your car?" lol... awesome

We drove out to Threats house... out in Oceanside and kicked it some more. Looked at all his old Krylon paint and graf stuff. Pretty much just winded down. Went to sleep and BOY DID IT FEEL GOOD. Day 2 and its already a good time out in Califasss...