www.ofrenda.org/starmama/archive/000821.html
The link above leads to a local homegirlz daily diary-
She wrote this about Sideshow.....
« Siesta | Home | He's a big boy now »
September 01, 2002
Sideshow
Around about the end of 1988 I was staying in deep East Oakland, in the 100's. Me and a few other 20 and 21 year old chicks lived in a tore-up one
bedroom apartment right on the ho stroll. There was all kinds of excitement right outside our door, but there were too many of us inside. We got on
each other's nerves a lot.
We hit the streets to get some breathing space. One or two, or all of us, would hop the 40 goin' norty, to Berkeley, or to downtown Oakland to get on
the A bus to The City and the Palladium. Or we'd catch the T to the Alameda Naval Air Station and turn out the Enlisted Men's club.
One night Angie and I were on the 40 bus, Berkeley bound, and we'd only gotten as far as Eastmont Mall when we saw commotion out the window.
Blocks and blocks of cars, full of gangsterish brothers, boomin systems thumpin Too $hort and Rodney O. They were mostly going south towards
Bancroft, and we could see more such goings on in the distance.
Fuck Berkeley, we decided. Something major was up.
We hopped off the bus and the parking lot across from McDonalds was full of guys siding in their cars and hollerin at the girls wandering around.
Heard in amongst the Too $hort tunes was a new beat - something crisp and catchy with a slap-and-rumble bass line. They were rapping about
Oakland. The Side Show, they were saying. "Oakland's movin somethin, and that's real". All of a sudden, we recognized the dank-enhanced voice of
Rich, this rapper our homegirl D was messing with a while back. "Peace to everybody in the O that I know/Dubble-R get with you at the side show".
Siding, if you aren't familiar with the term, is a style of driving where you slouch sideways in your seat, often with one arm outstretched, hand lightly
steering from the top of the wheel, and your other hand propped against your chin in a classic "I'm-nonchalant-and-fly-as-hell" pose. You must also
have a pounding amp to get the most ghetto-fabulous effect possible. This is usually only done if you've got a high-performance car or a tricked-out
old school sittin on vogues. Back in '88, Cougars and Stangs from the 60's still ruled the streets of Oakland, along with the minitrucks, 5.0's and a
Cutlass or two.
We walked down Church Street towards Bancroft. Our progess was slow, because we stopped every few yards when a particularly interesting tenda
hollered at us, or to speak to someone we knew. It seemed all of East Oakland, and some fools from the West and North, were down by The Mall
that Saturday night.
The Easmont Mall parking lot was packed with cars and people. Fiends were out selling everything from boosted Guess? clothes to the plants from off
their mama's porch. Dank and Newport smoke wafted across the top of the crowd, and everyone was shouting to be heard over the blaring music.
Down on Bancroft, the side show was on. Cars cruised, stop and go pace, from 73rd Ave to Church Street, where they busted a u-turn at the Taco Bell.
This u-turn usually involved a donut or a figure 8, and if you just dipped at the light and skee-skirted a bit, you'd have two or three dozen folx on
the corners circling their arms in the air, egging you on in hopes of getting you to "twist that shit".
Angie and I were drinking Bartle's and Jaymes coolers, high off some brown bammer weed. This was the most exciting, intoxicating shit we'd
encountered yet in our late-night journeys around The Bay. Everyone was juiced and happy to be kickin it and showing their ass. Even when OPD
showed up, folx dispersed a little bit but it just moved on up to Foothill and Havenscourt. Clouds of burnt-rubber smoke filed the intersection and the
headlights of the performing cars swung round and round. Finally the police broke it up for good and we caught the 40 downtown, but everything else
that night was anti-climatic and the side show had hooked us. We caught it whenever we could and thrilled in the rebel-without-a-causeness of it.
A few years later, in the mid-90's, I had a spot on 89th and Hillside. Side shows popped up every weekend in the intersection of 90th and MacArthur.
I could hear the skee-skirts from my apartment. I'd go down to the corner with whoever was hanging out at my place that night, and we'd chill with
the d-boys and watch the side show. By that time people were coming from out of town to side in East Oakland, and the spirit of it wasn't quite as
spontaneous and homegrown as it used to be. We were used to getting called "beeotch" when we wouldn't give up the digits, but now it happened far
too often, and there was a lot more hostility in the air than at the old-school side shows. And instead of the siders just flipping off the police as they
peeled off laying rubber, someone was always on hand to throw a bottle or two. I saw many an OPD officer get a bloody scalp from a flying 40. By the
second time I'd run home after fools started shooting at each other - or the cops - the magic of the side show was lost for me.
Recently the side shows were huge news out here. The police organized (with dubious effect) a task force to stop them, and some people were
seriously injured and even killed by fools leaving the side show drunk and driving recklessly. I was a mama by this time, and I'd been out of East
Oakland for several years. I was appalled at the video taped melees they showed on the news: the verbal and sometimes physical abuse against the
women present and the mean-spiritedness of it all. It just wasn't the same side show I remembered from back when 415 was Oakland's area code,
as well as the name of the group providing the soundtrack for the siders. I found myself yelling back at the people who were on the news
complaining about having nowhere for young people to hang out in Oakland. This new breed of sideshow seemed to be made up of mostly over-21's
and took place in the early morning hours, long after the clubs were closed, when "young people" should have had their asses at home anyway. I felt
that the majority of the side show defenders were exploiting a real issue - the need for a space and activities to channel the youthful energy of my
town - and twisting it into their own fucked up agenda.
I've tried to apply the excitement I felt back in the day to the latest version of the side show. Tried to sympathize with everyone who spoke out in
defense of their right to party down in the streets and hoo-ride after hours. Thought really long and hard about what it meant to me to be able to
see the young people of Oakland digging themselves and each other on a warm summer night, showing off their rides and freshly dipped outfits. I
realize now that the meanness and illegality were always there, but as a wild 20 something I chose to overlook it and just feel the fun. Side shows
still happen up on the streets of Oakland on spring and summer nights, even with the recent crackdowns. Driving through any decently-sized
intersection you're bound to see black swirls of rubber laid down the night before. They'll probably never stop happening, but they don't hold any
thrill at all for me these days. All they've done is made me feel unsafe in East Oakland after dark, which is something I never thought I'd feel.
I am getting old.
The link above leads to a local homegirlz daily diary-
She wrote this about Sideshow.....
« Siesta | Home | He's a big boy now »
September 01, 2002
Sideshow
Around about the end of 1988 I was staying in deep East Oakland, in the 100's. Me and a few other 20 and 21 year old chicks lived in a tore-up one
bedroom apartment right on the ho stroll. There was all kinds of excitement right outside our door, but there were too many of us inside. We got on
each other's nerves a lot.
We hit the streets to get some breathing space. One or two, or all of us, would hop the 40 goin' norty, to Berkeley, or to downtown Oakland to get on
the A bus to The City and the Palladium. Or we'd catch the T to the Alameda Naval Air Station and turn out the Enlisted Men's club.
One night Angie and I were on the 40 bus, Berkeley bound, and we'd only gotten as far as Eastmont Mall when we saw commotion out the window.
Blocks and blocks of cars, full of gangsterish brothers, boomin systems thumpin Too $hort and Rodney O. They were mostly going south towards
Bancroft, and we could see more such goings on in the distance.
Fuck Berkeley, we decided. Something major was up.
We hopped off the bus and the parking lot across from McDonalds was full of guys siding in their cars and hollerin at the girls wandering around.
Heard in amongst the Too $hort tunes was a new beat - something crisp and catchy with a slap-and-rumble bass line. They were rapping about
Oakland. The Side Show, they were saying. "Oakland's movin somethin, and that's real". All of a sudden, we recognized the dank-enhanced voice of
Rich, this rapper our homegirl D was messing with a while back. "Peace to everybody in the O that I know/Dubble-R get with you at the side show".
Siding, if you aren't familiar with the term, is a style of driving where you slouch sideways in your seat, often with one arm outstretched, hand lightly
steering from the top of the wheel, and your other hand propped against your chin in a classic "I'm-nonchalant-and-fly-as-hell" pose. You must also
have a pounding amp to get the most ghetto-fabulous effect possible. This is usually only done if you've got a high-performance car or a tricked-out
old school sittin on vogues. Back in '88, Cougars and Stangs from the 60's still ruled the streets of Oakland, along with the minitrucks, 5.0's and a
Cutlass or two.
We walked down Church Street towards Bancroft. Our progess was slow, because we stopped every few yards when a particularly interesting tenda
hollered at us, or to speak to someone we knew. It seemed all of East Oakland, and some fools from the West and North, were down by The Mall
that Saturday night.
The Easmont Mall parking lot was packed with cars and people. Fiends were out selling everything from boosted Guess? clothes to the plants from off
their mama's porch. Dank and Newport smoke wafted across the top of the crowd, and everyone was shouting to be heard over the blaring music.
Down on Bancroft, the side show was on. Cars cruised, stop and go pace, from 73rd Ave to Church Street, where they busted a u-turn at the Taco Bell.
This u-turn usually involved a donut or a figure 8, and if you just dipped at the light and skee-skirted a bit, you'd have two or three dozen folx on
the corners circling their arms in the air, egging you on in hopes of getting you to "twist that shit".
Angie and I were drinking Bartle's and Jaymes coolers, high off some brown bammer weed. This was the most exciting, intoxicating shit we'd
encountered yet in our late-night journeys around The Bay. Everyone was juiced and happy to be kickin it and showing their ass. Even when OPD
showed up, folx dispersed a little bit but it just moved on up to Foothill and Havenscourt. Clouds of burnt-rubber smoke filed the intersection and the
headlights of the performing cars swung round and round. Finally the police broke it up for good and we caught the 40 downtown, but everything else
that night was anti-climatic and the side show had hooked us. We caught it whenever we could and thrilled in the rebel-without-a-causeness of it.
A few years later, in the mid-90's, I had a spot on 89th and Hillside. Side shows popped up every weekend in the intersection of 90th and MacArthur.
I could hear the skee-skirts from my apartment. I'd go down to the corner with whoever was hanging out at my place that night, and we'd chill with
the d-boys and watch the side show. By that time people were coming from out of town to side in East Oakland, and the spirit of it wasn't quite as
spontaneous and homegrown as it used to be. We were used to getting called "beeotch" when we wouldn't give up the digits, but now it happened far
too often, and there was a lot more hostility in the air than at the old-school side shows. And instead of the siders just flipping off the police as they
peeled off laying rubber, someone was always on hand to throw a bottle or two. I saw many an OPD officer get a bloody scalp from a flying 40. By the
second time I'd run home after fools started shooting at each other - or the cops - the magic of the side show was lost for me.
Recently the side shows were huge news out here. The police organized (with dubious effect) a task force to stop them, and some people were
seriously injured and even killed by fools leaving the side show drunk and driving recklessly. I was a mama by this time, and I'd been out of East
Oakland for several years. I was appalled at the video taped melees they showed on the news: the verbal and sometimes physical abuse against the
women present and the mean-spiritedness of it all. It just wasn't the same side show I remembered from back when 415 was Oakland's area code,
as well as the name of the group providing the soundtrack for the siders. I found myself yelling back at the people who were on the news
complaining about having nowhere for young people to hang out in Oakland. This new breed of sideshow seemed to be made up of mostly over-21's
and took place in the early morning hours, long after the clubs were closed, when "young people" should have had their asses at home anyway. I felt
that the majority of the side show defenders were exploiting a real issue - the need for a space and activities to channel the youthful energy of my
town - and twisting it into their own fucked up agenda.
I've tried to apply the excitement I felt back in the day to the latest version of the side show. Tried to sympathize with everyone who spoke out in
defense of their right to party down in the streets and hoo-ride after hours. Thought really long and hard about what it meant to me to be able to
see the young people of Oakland digging themselves and each other on a warm summer night, showing off their rides and freshly dipped outfits. I
realize now that the meanness and illegality were always there, but as a wild 20 something I chose to overlook it and just feel the fun. Side shows
still happen up on the streets of Oakland on spring and summer nights, even with the recent crackdowns. Driving through any decently-sized
intersection you're bound to see black swirls of rubber laid down the night before. They'll probably never stop happening, but they don't hold any
thrill at all for me these days. All they've done is made me feel unsafe in East Oakland after dark, which is something I never thought I'd feel.
I am getting old.