V Street

Recently, one of my cohorts told me that being able to read another person’s facial expressions with ease is a necessity for normalcy. This thought is stemming from a test about autism that the person partook in, but I digress. I can accurately read other’s facial expressions very well and out of all the facial expressions that there are (thousands?), I am most drawn to only one. A smile. I have my reasons for this, but most people can agree that the most comforting, nostalgic and jovial version of a smile is a “warm” smile. This very specific and pleasant facial expression is the most efficient and encompassing way to describe this particular roommate. For our purposes here, her name will be Cairo. 

Cairo is like a sister to me. Most of the residents of 2710 V st and any person who has met her can certifiably agree that she is more of a grandmother figure, due to her senior-citizen like antics, but Cairo and I seem to have a different dynamic than everyone else. There is always a beginning to a relationship. One boring day, I was surfing Myspace and I stumbled across Cairo’s music. I offered to record her for free and we just became friends from that point forward. Cairo was a fairly sheltered girl when I met her. A year later Cairo joined my band and moved into the house. A large deal of the things we were doing seemed like new experiences for her and she, as I,  was very excited to be a part of everything that was happening at 2710 V st.

Cairo only shopped at thrift stores and often wouldn’t be caught dead without an old Men’s button up on and a pair of argilee socks. Her room was filled with ancient trinkets, polaroid photos and abstract drawings. Going into Cairo’s room could be compared to the scene in the second Matrix movie when Keanu walks out of the elevator and the community begins to give him things. Cairo was always giving people things; clothes, small little gifts, photos, cute little drawn pictures with notes, etc. etc. I liked to call her a mini philanthropist of thrift. 

Living with Cairo was the easiest task that you could ever ask of anyone. The girl lived on a raw foods diet and large quantities of Miso soup, wrote songs all day and brought hope bags of pastries from her work. She virtually never made a mess of any kind and she was always kind. To say that she was a light in a dark place would be a huge understatement.  While the rest of the roommates would have their problems and high school themed drama, I could always count on Cairo hang out and talk about how stupid everyone else was.  Her and I are very similar when it comes to handling situations in complete apathy. Yes, sometimes she would go next level with apathy and mutate into a flake, but, her infectious personality and excellent character always made up for it. 

Usually, at some part of the entry, I will include a bit of dirt on whomever I’m discussing. Not intentionally of course - it usually is produced from the actions of the roommate and this documentation is meant to serve as a completely truthful representation of the house. Anyways, I have absolutely zero negative words to transcribe about this person. Not as a roommate or as a friend. To say that being a part of what Cairo has grown into is not a privilege would be the most thorough lie I’ve told in a very long time. I feel completely compelled and inspired by this person on a daily basis and I feel that nothing she does is ever going to change that. She has a very safe and comfortable lead against any and all other roommates for her title of “Best Roommate”.

Who the fuck is Levi Bankrupt? Levi is the the schmuck who owned 2710 v street. I have not changed his first name and I have made the best effort to keep the better part of his last name inside of this post for reasons that will be divulged in time. Through out my entire time at the house, I had never met or spoke to Levi.

When I first began renting the house, I signed the lease with a gentleman who we will call Stewart. He worked with Levi at an urban development company and Levi had taken on the house as a project. It was in that period of time that the economy was taking a dive and bank loans were fragile and infrequent. Needless to say, the project was having problems receiving the proper funding to begin the development, so, Levi decided to rent the house out to help cover bills, plane trips, vacations, what have you. I signed the lease under the agreement that myself, and others, were occupying the house until they could develop the land. I penned my name on to the lease at 17 and, at the time, was very near sighted about the situation. I was just happy to have a huge house and to be out and on my own.

Stewart was our first real “Landlord”. Stewart had never been a landlord before and this was manufactured by the single fact that we were renting from a development company, not a property management company or some joe schmo. Despite his newcomer status quo in the landlord department, he was very attentive and friendly to us. I’ll never forget him greeting me with a soft spoken voice, silver beard and shining smile to walk through the house. He showed me around the house and I was enamored by the potential surrounding me. We’d often hang out with Stewart at neighborhood barbecues and sometimes art events. To this date, he was the best landlord I have experienced. 

The development company wasn’t getting any help funding their projects. Eventually, the company began to disintegrate and one of the first pieces they decided to tear off first was Stewart. Stewart came by one day to tell us that he would no longer be working for the company, that we were re-assigned to another employee and that we should keep our ear to the ground on the upcoming status of the house. This news made everyone in the house uncomfortable. I started giving our rent checks to a guy named Mike and amazingly enough, he was able to become the complete opposite of Stewart and fulfill the position of Worst Landlord! The guy acted like the residents of 2710 v street didn’t exist for more than one day out of the month; payday. No calls were to be returned with questions about the house unless they were related to turning in a money order. 

The day finally came when the bank put a public notice on our front door that the house was to be foreclosed. To me, this brought many different truths into the light. To begin with, I figured if our rent money wasn’t going towards the mortgage bill, it must’ve been going to someplace else. Additionally, I found out that the development group I had been giving the rent to had completely disbanded. Lastly, the letter said that we had 30 days to vacate the property. This shit storm situation caused a looming fear ripple effect among the residents of the house and even caused one of the residents to move out. This information was the sole contributor to my growing frustration with Mike, Levi and the development company. It was this frustration that caused the last phone call that I would have with any entity of the development company. 

During this phone call I spoke in a very “I’m fucking serious / I can’t believe you did this to us” voice. I told him about the letter from the bank. He then tried to convince me that it was nothing and that we were to continue paying rent and living under the same conditions. At that point, in the most concise way I could, I expressed to him the discomfort that I, and the other residents, had been treated with from him as a landlord and revealed that I knew the development company was now thin air. I told him that we were not going to pay them one more cent until the situation was worked out. He froze. After a nervous laugh, he told me that I can’t make that call. I then said the words “Well, I just did” and hung up my phone. The next call was to the bank. They informed me that the house was now owned by the bank and that whomever we were paying rent to was a the old owner of the house and we were under no obligation to give that person money any longer. 

Levi had stopped paying the mortgage payments for the house months before we received the foreclosure notice. I later received word from the banker that was selling the house (for the bank) that Levi was in South Africa and had been for quite some time. Now, if we can re-trace our steps here for a second; I had been giving money orders to Mike and he would give them to the “Owner” of the house, Levi. Levi was in South Africa. Some questions arose in my mind:

“What could Levi possibly be doing in South Africa while his investments are slipping away (aka my home) and his development company is in the midst of a disappearing act? What was he doing with our money?”

Well, Levi was making a movie.

I reached over to my side and unhinged the mini carabiner from my side. Sifting through the keys, I quickly found that faded gold key that had opened and closed so many doors for me. The Den’s basement key. I swiftly slid the key into the deadbolt lock and used my shoulder to push the door open. This was the last time I would ever enter or visualize 2710 v st. 

By this point, the house had been abandoned. Apparently, one day a city official came and told them to pack their things and leave by Feb. 01, 2011.  Every person who was living there was not on the lease, so, they were deemed “squatters”. Judging from the condition of the house, that was not very far from the truth.   

I walked through the basement where so many had come to escape their shitty jobs, school, and what have you. Trash was scattered throughout the area, on the floor, walls, etc. Every window that was in the large basement room was broken out. Some kids seemed to have broken in and tagged the walls that were painted as art pieces with “graffiti”. I put graffiti in quotes because it seemed to be quick name tag bull-shit, nothing that resembled actual creative direction. Christmas lights flickering in different rooms informed me that the power was still on. Saddened by the entire staggering visualization, I stepped out of the room and entered the back practice room. 

The lights were flickering and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the original reason for me coming to the den: the coffee table. It was in the room with other random pieces of furniture and assorted trash. The table was propped up on the wall and missing all of its legs, but the surface seemed to be in good condition. I was walking up to the table to grab it when I noticed something quite peculiar. The table was propped up with one of those large wooden crate things that you could find behind any grocery store. I glanced up to find a hole had been cut out of the floor. A fire escape, if you will, where as the pole was replaced by a shaky crate propped up on my table. I had to go up. 

The hole led me to what used to be my old room. Once again, christmas lights were strung everywhere the trash volume level had not decreased. I didn’t pay much attention to anything other than what I wanted to grab. A scarf, a couple pieces of art and an extension chord. Walking down the old steps to the kitchen / hallway to the house’s left side of rooms, there was a bass guitar that had been smashed through one wall in the hallway that went all the way through to the next “room”. Once again, all the windows were broken out. Beds, appliances and most big pieces of furniture still remained in the house. I walked through the destruction and suddenly, something inside of me snapped. At a moments notice, I went back to my old room, down the hatch and left the house. I was taken over by the feeling of finality and goddamnit, I panicked. Being excited and deeply saddened all at once ain’t nothin to fuck with. So I left. 

Many would say that the house mirrored exactly what it looked like in 2008 when I first moved in and cleaned it up. I would say without a reasonable doubt that it was far worse than that. It’s safe to say that the house displayed a huge level of disgust, filth and everything that is outlined in the police’s 5150 code. I’m beyond happy to know that the people who occupied the house could never be described in such a negative light. 

Like most other seemingly fruitful aspects of my life, V street had become a sort obsession for me. Even when I was living in a completely irregular and filthy world, I still flourished in the beauty of what V street was for a short period of time. It had become a deranged version of something I’ve wanted ever since I was ten years old. It morphed me into a person who, at the time, I thought I was confident in being. We ran one of the most kick ass basment venues in sacramento, drank every night and spit in the face of every person who tried to tell us that music, and being a musician, was a waste. To no end would our inebriation fault our lack of culture because we were all in the moment, knowing that we wouldn’t have anything if we didn’t have our note busy minds. When I attempt to look back at all the events that occurred, it is hard to describe and recall everything that happened in the house because of a very large mental block I had place inside of my head. The good times were great. The bad times, however, have changed my life indefinitely.

This is the official return of the V street blog. 

Rick was one of the first people to move into the house. As I stated before, I’m not using any names here. It’s safe to assume that the name Rick is fictional and only serves the purpose of keeping the person I’m describing anonymous. Rick and I had been friends for years before he moved into the V house.  We played music together. Rick wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was often very reliable, lively and fun to be around. The only problem was that we built our entire relationship around being in a band together and when the band ceased to work with him as a part of it, as did our friendship.

Rick wasn’t ready to move out of his parents house and that became very obvious in the first couple weeks at the house.  In his first month of living at the house, he didn’t have enough money to move in. Being the giving friend I am, I paid most of his portion of the rent with the hope he would pay me back. No such action was ever taken. Rick wouldn’t ever clean anything. When I asked him why he didn’t do anything to help with the cleanliness of the house, his responses were transparent enough for me to see that he was used to having someone else pickup after him. One evening, he decided to make a hard boiled egg. I saw the egg was cooking, thought nothing of it, then went to sleep. Rick never came back to get the egg, eventually leading to the egg exploding in the kitchen. When I came out the next morning, I realized what had happened and I cleaned up everything that I could see. What I didn’t know was that the egg remnants had made their way behind, and into, the stove. This missed information would lead to one of the most disgusting events that ever happened in the house.

Upon his departure from his parents house, he took it as an opportunity to do most things that once could not do at their parents house. Girls, weed, and alcohol. This side of Rick was new to all of us and in the wake of its arrival we all were unprepared to deal with it. Before he moved in, Rick wasn’t really the type to use substances. At the time, most of our friends and roommates, including myself, were not heavily into substance abuse. We generally tended to stray away from all the bad stuff in those days. We were all young and impressionable, so when Rick decided to start using drugs and drinking like a fish everyone went on the offense. He would always bring over random, probably underage, girls to sleep with. On top of that, he had an ex girlfriend, who lived about an hour away, who he would constantly be driving to see. So, when he wasn’t working, he would be either curled up playing WoW in his room, smoking, drinking, driving to see his ex girlfriend or having girls over. After he moved in, we never saw him. He didn’t realize that the lifestyle he was choosing would eventually led to his swift departure from the house and our band.

Molly is pure MDMA. MDMA is one the main used ingredients in ecstasy. I’ve never really experimented with hard drugs before. I’ve smoked a bowl here and there had my share of baked weed goods, but I have never had any inclination to go any further than that; until I lived at v street. Drugs weren’t really my thing, and still aren’t. In my final month of consciously trying to live at v street, I was in a downward spiral that was caused by events previous to the night that I’m about to describe.

Below the house, A punk show was happening. Not one of those crazy hardcore punk shows, more or less an indie punk show. The music was loud and I had at least 9 beers in me. I entered my room to find some of my roommates and friends making plans to buy some molly pills from a person at the party. In my semi buzzed state, I handed over ten dollars and awaited the delivery of my compacted chemical adventure. I was talked into it by  people who have done the drug before and that I generally trusted. I was told that I would become very very happy with everything and ultimately have heightened senses. I quickly downed the pill and washed it down with some Stella Artois. As I sat and anticipated the upcoming possession of my body, I texted my step brother to tell him what I’d done, and that I wished he was there. When the pill took full effect, I felt the urge to drink alcohol in me drastically rise. Beer after beer, the count faded away in my thoughts, along with my hydration and definition of who I was.  I then agreed to take a walk to the river (30 blocks away) with some of my friends who had also dropped molly. We got to the river and I decided that I should smoke weed for the first time in 2 years.  On the way back, at 6 am, we went into a local coffee shop and I had double shot mocha on top of all my other alterations. I was completely changed and my actions were becoming dangerous and unrecognizable. When I returned to the V house, I promptly got in bed and thought about my experience. I gathered that the drug was supposed to bring a normal person to great and euphoric heights. I deduced that I didn’t ever get really happy while I was on Molly, which is the reasoning behind all the extra substances. I was at such a level of depression that even hard drugs would only have enough umph to bring me back to a normal person’s mental state. Me and the V house were falling into a circle of darkness that would be difficult to step out of. When I awoke after sleeping off the drugs and alcohol, I made the decision to begin making that step that would eventually lead to my departure from the v street dream.

Some characters who filtered throughout V street are worth having their own segment. It would be intensely hard for me to go on describing the v street life without having a couple member profiles. For confidentiality purposes, I’ve chosen to leave out names, so for this particular discussion, this person will be referred to as Samantha. Samantha had a very spotty personality. Some would say she had many faces, some of which we may have never even seen. She was very emotionally driven with sometimes little to zero logic and to put cream on top of the already delicious cake that was her demeanor, she was quite stubborn. I was never able to cultivate a standing relationship with this person because of those attributes.

Samantha moved into the house under the notion that she would be able to commute 120 miles to her school and back (so roughly 240 miles) to Sacramento every two days. Although, her current love interest was living in the house and that was some of the main motive behind the “experimental” idea. At the time, Samantha was oddly and aggressively straight edge. I would share drinks with other members of the house, my friends, sometimes even my family and she would become infuriated with us. Literally fuming. She would always leave the room or become very upset even if we were attempting to hold a conversation about substances. There was one instance where everyone in the house was having a get together and we all had been drinking. Samantha decided to call us from her 120 mile away location to tell us that she didn’t approve of what we were doing, amongst other random, non-meaningful snippets of conversation and she vehemently demanded we stop. Samantha didn’t like to do dishes. So, instead of washing a dish, she would pile up the dishes in spaces of her and her boyfriend’s room. It’s odor permeated from the room at a constant. Additionally, she didn’t like to clean very much. Samantha moved all of her stuff into the room after her boyfriend. He had the room completely dialed and perfect for her move in. She moved everything she owned into the middle of the room, where it continued sit for the next two months surrounded by her clothing, plastic bags and other items that were wiped from her attention span. It was basically anything you can imagine a college student having, except on the floor. When she was at the house, she stayed in her room. It seemed like when she did leave the space, it was only to acquire such goodies as Chipotle or local froyo favorite, Mochii. She now lives at her other 120 mile away location and is living life as though she were a junior in high school, doing all those experiments that so desperately needed to be done. No person from the house, our group of friends or her now ex boyfriend has put forth any effort to keep a relationship with her. 

If the v house were to have a alcoholic drink sponsor for it’s nightly routine of general shenanigans it would undoubtedly be the drink that is most commonly known as Four Loko. It’s other names can it be easily recognized as are fourlok’, liferuiner or ultimate blackout juice. Four Loko is a beverage that is 12% alcohol, 24 ounces and infused with all the worst parts of energy drinks that are made to make you jump around like a bouncy ball in a glass box. The best and most detrimental part of this drink is that it only costs it’s consumer $2.50. Many nights, myself and others would enter the v house from our trip to the liquor store with a literal case of Four Lokos. If you drink them fast enough you can have a great night for $5.00. If you drink them fast enough you can also have the possibility of waking up in a pool of vomit and not knowing what happened for the 4 or 5 hours after you finished your second Four Loko chugging session.

Certain un-named members of the house crew who enjoyed Four Loko nights on a regular basis were able to turn the drink into a vice that was used for the soul purpose of getting out of their own skin and gaining ground on the goal that we all were trying to achieve; a rock and roll lifestyle. It was expected that, on these crazy nights, the yelling and slamming around would begin by at least 2 am. On multiple occasions, I’ve had to set out on a mission to find a person who had gone missing. I’d find them passed out in the corners of our completely pitch black basement, in the middle of the field next door and some times in a more normal place, like the kitchen floor. Attempting to handle people who have consumed an excess of Four Loko is very challenging. It was always carrying someone’s dead weight or trying to deal with a person while they were kicking and screaming at me about meaningless garbage. I’m no angel in this. I could write about my insane nights with the beverage, If I could remember anything that I did.

Spawning from a deep feeling of despondency, I began my night the conscious decision to consume an ungodly amount of hard alcohol. Even though I’m 19, it’s never been a problem for me to get alcohol. All of my friends are over the age of 21, with a couple exceptions. I’m usually the youngest person in our group. Anyways, it was a night of Jameson, Jim Bean, E & J, Pabst, and some sort of Mountain Dew / Jager drink. I put the night together pretty easily by showing up at a venue close to the house and telling the youthful kids there that I had a space to throw a “wicked party”. Not even an hour later, people were spilling in from every entrance the house had and I began to fall into my whiskey induced coma. New and old friends showed up. The more I drank, the more I could feel my inhibitions fading away like a pair old jeans that had all the color washed out of them. The night was fun, memorable and endless. 

The next morning I woke up and rolled out of bed. The first thing I noticed was that there was a small traces of blood through out my bedding. With no further adieu, I promptly checked my entire body for abrasions. My arms and hands had 25-30 small cuts on them and one large cut on my left forearm. I jogged my memory to find a large window of time from the night that could only be described as black. Pitch black. I got up and my back felt like a bowl of tapioca pudding. Not to far in the future I was leaving the house with a large amount of water when on of my roommates stopped me and summoned me into his room. I walked into the room and the sense that struck me first was sound. Crunching sound.  I glanced down and his entire floor was covered in glass and pictures from his wall. I looked up at my roommate to find him looking back at me with one of those beautiful nostalgic grins. I broke through a glass entertainment center with my body while I was dancing in his room that was filled with 17 other people, smoke, Daft Punk and all the pulsating dance lights one could fathom. Apparently, I was falling all over the place. I knocked every poster and piece of art off of his wall and used my lack of equilibrium to skillfully land my back, and all my body weight, on two 25 pound weights that were on his floor. As I hobbled out of the house to begin my day, I was completely unaware that this behavior would show it’s smug face in my life repeatedly in coming months.

There was at least 18 people who legitimately lived in the v house during my time there; not at the same time but 18 different individuals at different times. Honestly, there are many other people who should make the list of “living” at the house, but I felt that I needed to be generous with my figure. Watching all the different personas filter through the house was like staring at a thick line of ants that were filing in and out of a hole. Each person brought a different color to the palette that was used to paint the midtown bungalow in it’s outstanding character. If there was one attribute about v street that would always stay attractive, it was the undeniable fact that the house was never sterile, lacking personality or culture. If I were to attempt to deny the fact that the v house created some of the best memories I have, I would probably need to render my thoughts as delusional. The same logic could be applied for the antonym of that thought, as I also feel that a large quantity of my worst memories were synthesized at v street.

Most of the people who moved out of the house went back to their parent’s homes. I never had that option available to me. My parents moved 5 hours away with no intention of having a space for me. Almost all of the move outs that occurred happened in a negative hypnotic swirl of bad blood. No one can really explain the phenomena behind why every move out was foreshadowed by disconnection. People moved out and I would not hold any dialogue with them for months. We ignored each other and purposefully let our friendships fall by the side of the road, like some sort of crumbled up Doritios bag on the side of the freeway. It was like a big experiment that no one knew they were conducting. This happened on almost every occasion I can remember when an individual would move out,  except for a small handful of people. Continuing to live in the house became my biggest burden as I became more and more disconnected from the people who used to be my support structure and 2nd family. I’m happy to say that I’ve gained many of those people back in my life. Although, I’m unhappy that I’ll always be perplexed by why we let our great connections circle the drain in the unexplainable cloud of overwhelming disenchantment that surrounded the corners of 27th and V street.