On a trip to Grant's pass in a bar sitting next to me
was a guy from my hometown Simi Valley.
We talked about cool places. We talked about the schools we went.
He told me all about his days of glory.
And I wondered if I had any
Simi Valley in the seventies was a beautiful place to be.
Orchards of avocados and orange trees.
We were free to ride horses around or motorcycles tearing up the ground
of the property of J Paul Getty.
It would all change in the eighties.
Nothing trickled down like Reagan said for my family.
And things got to my old man
He left us all broke and my mom with no job and us to feed.
I don't know how we survived we stuck together and got our stride
Survived with the basic needs
Junior High I made it through but High School was extra cruel
politics with basketball got to me.
I knew I'd never leave the bench the coaches son and all his friends
played private leagues together since they were ten.
So I quit the game and grew my hair long instead.
I fell into the counter culture eating punk and metal like a vulture
in my bands "Decaying Flesh" and "Mutant Army".
We freed our minds, we freed out thoughts that suburban norms seem to rot in a town of conservatives we were policed.
Even jocks and straight edge skinheads felt the need to corner us thinking we were smoking weed.
I graduated and moved away from "Anywhere USA" which Simi Valley became so I left.
There were strip malls with department stores, track homes with a golf course. The kind of town people move to feel safe.
But from whom and what are they trying to feel safe?
When I lived there I didn't feel that way
And then one day Rodney King was beaten down by four police
and the whole thing was caught on tape.
They moved the trial to Simi Valley where a biased jury had to tally all the reasons these four could go free.
And they rioted in the streets of LA
and the infamy of Simi Valley remains
credits
from Sketch of a Man,
released September 16, 2023
Written by Freddy Trujillo
Freddy Trujillo- Bass and Vocals
Luther Russel- Guitars, Piano, Drums and Mellowtron
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