Thugz Mansion

A Prospective Renter

2006-06-14T00:46:00.000-07:00

Tiger, the dog, is howling in his sleep, and I have been seeing shapes for the past three hours. Well, "shapes" is perhaps the wrong word—shadows. First it was the mouse moving across the kitchen floor, seen from the other room. Then it was random arms, bent at the elbow, flitting around door-ways and corners. I wish I was making this up.

The cats outside have resumed their fight for the evening.

I have to write now or I won't be able to get to sleep. Thanks, obsessive-compulsion, but I haven't written in oh-god-I'm-not-going-to-check-the-date long. By the way, hi Mom, hi Dad, hi various people who really shouldn't be reading this.

Today, my landlady (we're not allowed to use names until we've moved out—something about "libel") showed the apartment to another prospective resident. Freddie has arranged for the sale of his keyboard on craigslist, and the buyer was supposed to pick it up today. As the illustrious F-Wong is in Seattle, I was acting as liaison for this transaction. The dude never showed. But as I was sitting on the couch, waiting for The Buyer to show up, there was a twisting sound, the grinding of a key against the pins of a lock. Or pair of locks. My heart leapt briefly, and I thought Kevin had returned for a while, so I would have someone to talk to. Wait, that sentence was totally gay. Maybe I should make something up about how he could handle the keyboard transaction and I could leave the apartment for a while. Anyway, the door ground open, followed by three short knocks. This being opposite the established order of events the world over, I offered up a tremulous "hello?"

It was the landlady, with prospective renter in tow. After some brief confusion (I thought the apartment had been shown already, but apparently this was a separate guy and she had put up another notice for this entry—possible, but not bloody likely, but I am as they say, "laid back" and decided not to press the issue) they ascended the stairs. The fellow looked around, and asked me if I was a "mushizican." After about four attempts, I managed to grasp that he was trying to say "musician," and with my poor ear and his thick accent, well, we just weren't going to be engaging in any sparkling conversation then, now we we? As the land lady led him through the three modest bedrooms, I made a list off all the things that would not sell this place—filthy commode, with unflushed toilet (there is a water shortage, dudes), clothes strewn on the floor of one room, and general disarray throughout the compartments. Still, a far cry from the pornography, bongs, and fortified wine bottles Kevin and I waded through when we first toured the place.

Sitting on the couch, I tried to focus on my gameboy while their conversation filtered through the house.

"Is an air conditioner?"
"There used to be, but it broke. We're thinking of getting it fixed as soon as possible."
"Why is no fix now??"
"…."

"Where is third bedroom?"
"That space with his desk was the room."
"That is not bedroom"
"You can do whatever you want with the space."
"That is not bedroom. Is not big enough."

And so on. When they were in the living room, the landlady attempted to point out the closet (which is full of junk). She tried to open it, as if the chair in front of the door did not exist. When the door did not swing easily open, I pointed out the existence of the chair, which she moved all of three inches, before trying to open the door again. Looking through the 3-inch gap she had managed to forge between door and frame, she saw the vacuum cleaner and numerous cleaning supplies, and opted not to show off the wonders space of the closet.

At which point, the renter asked: "Is this a bedroom?"

Much of the rest of the house was toured in silence.

After they descended the stairs, I heard some heated discussion, and it sounded as if the renter was pissed, as if he were calling the landlady on her bullshit. His unique mixture of Socratic irony, indecipherable foreign accent, and eventual belligerence may have just saved him a year in hell. The lucky git.

2 Incidents, Briefly Now

2006-05-15T20:07:00.000-07:00

Saturday I was sitting on the couch when I heard what can only be described as "someone-is-murdering-me screaming". Blood curdling, high-pitched shrieks, in chorus of about 4 or 5 different timbres. Distracted from my reading, I decided to listen for a minute to determine if someone was being raped or actively murdered (in front of a live studio audience, no less), or if a group of people had merely stumbled in on the scene of a good-old-fashioned massacre. Instead what I heard was this:

"THERE IS A BIRD IN THE HOUSE!"
"A BIRD IS IN THE HOUSE!"
"IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A BIRD!"
"OH MY GOD!"
"THERE IS A BIRD IN THE HOUSE!"

Bonus points if you can repeat this chorus in five part round and sustained for 3-5 minutes.

The way I can see it, the incident can be read three ways:

We're in a dystopian Blade Runner style future, and the birds are supposed to be extinct, thus necessitating such an extreme reaction.
There really is no natural life in Los Angeles, and people have forgotten that the are the dominant factor in the local food-web
OMG! BIRD FLU IS HERE!

Additionally, with the return of warm weather, the bag-men have returned. Last night an elite strike team raided the garbage cans out in the street, in a process which took no less than 30 minutes and resulted in every piece of garbage without a CRV attached to it being scattered through out the street.

This afternoon, some dude freaking rolled up into our front yard, and proceeded to rifle through one of our recycling bins, carefully laying out everything of any value in a fan pattern behind him on the ground. Rather than raise a fuss and get my ass beat, I decided to watch him. After about 10 minutes of rummaging, he very carefully closed the recycling lid, and picked up all of the bottles and cans he had scattered with a yellow plastic bag. On leaving our yard, he even carefully replaced the gate chain. Truly, he is the sasquatch of the West Adams Neighborhood, a gentle giant who lives in harmony with both his ecology. I am surprised he has found a way to thrive off of the intrusion of mankind into his domain.

2 more months. 2 more months.

A Thuggin Future

2006-05-13T01:08:00.000-07:00

At last, dear reader, the school year has officially ended. This can only mean one thing- we need to survive but one meager summer here at ThugzMansion. The next three months are all we have left. Think what you will of the brave Thugz residing at this humble abode, but it is my duty to sadly report that we will NOT be renewing our Thuggin lease- alas, we must relocate to Menlow behind Ralphs once our edjutainment at USC starts up again. Despite this arguably “pussy” move on our part, despite our seemingly apparent cowardice, despite the letters and cards I am SURE we shall receive berating us for our future domicile selection, all three of us thugz wait in apprehension by the mail slot, aware and prepared for the postal onslaught. I only ask, dear reader, that you not judge us by our residential selection, but by the quality of our character- as thuggin as that may be. And never forget- ThugzManse isn’t just a place, it isn’t where we live- it’s HOW we live, WHY we live, and you can NEVER take that away from us….. NEVER………..EVER!

Till next time, fellow Thugz-

PeaceOut.

This is a freaking urban environment

2006-04-21T10:57:00.000-07:00

SOMEBODY owns a motherfuckin' ROOSTER.

That fucker crows ALL THE MOTHERFUCKIN' TIME

Oh Hell Yes

2006-03-13T22:02:00.000-08:00

Need I say more?

Send Help

2006-03-04T20:42:00.000-08:00

I am trapped in a hell where my neighbors are engaged in an audio duel. Will an endless tide of generic Ranchero music overcome the soulful strains of 50 Cent's "Disco Inferno" set on perpetual repeat??

Yesterday I was at a party and some idiot thought it would be cute to put on Daddy Yankee's "Gasolina." Drunk girls immediately began to get down to Reggaeton hip-hop as if it were the freshest thing they had ever heard. I nearly destroyed whoever's laptop was serving up the music, because the beat common to Reggaeton hip-hop has a way of embedding itself in your skull and never leaving. This is awesome when every car and house in a five mile radius is blasting a track off of Barrio Fino.

Next time this happens, I swear I will karate-chop through your iBook, Reggaeton Bandito.

QCIC?

2006-02-13T17:41:00.000-08:00

Alright, I've had this idea for sometime now, and need some help making it go. The Orchargenesis of this idea came from two things:

The Google Maps API is free, ridiculously flexible, and totally bitchin'.

DPS sends out Crime Reports in order to comply with the "Timely Warning" provision of the Clery Act.

Combine these two things and I think students could have a powerful tool for watching and judging their the crime that occurs around the USC campus.

Thugz Manse has (thankfully) been spared any muggings or robberies thus far. I think Kevin getting his side-view mirror crushed off is perhaps the worst crime we've had to endure. And by we, I mean Kevin, and maybe Freddie who helped him glue the mirror back on. I was too busy failing Russian to help.

But I digress. The biggest thing DPS's crime alerts lack is a way to visually track and process the information they present. Yes, I know roughly where Walton Avenue is, but where officially is the 3400 block of Walton Avenue, where at 3:30 AM on February 5^th, this happened:

REPORTED OFFENSE: Two vehicles stopped long side the victim. Approximately 8 male suspects exited, struck him and demanded property. The complainant complied and all suspects fled the area in vehicles.

SUSPECT DESCRIPTION (provided by complainant):
Suspect 1- Described as male Hispanic, 5 feet 8 inches,170 pounds, 18-20 years, wearing over-size white-tee shirt, and baggy black pants.
Suspect 2- Described as a male White.
Suspect 3-8 Described as male Hispanics.

SUSPECT VEHICLE: 1 - 4 door black sedan.
SUSPECT VEHICLE: 2 - 4 door white sedan.

I'm sorry, but that's just kind of ridiculous. A two car job with a gang of 8 dudes robbing one student? That's not how you conduct a mugging, that's how you conduct a heist. The sheer ridiculosity of this event struck me, and I decided to look up exactly where this was, so I would never get caught there with my pants down at 3:30 AM when two cars start to creep up suspiciously. In case you're wondering what this looks like:

I hope pictures have proved my point-- being able to see how near to USC and in around what specific block of student housing this Mad Max-esque robbery happened is far more powerful than just reading a line of text and trying to add yet another pushpin in your mental map of where not to be around USC.

As they are, crime alerts aren't all that useful, but if you track them on a map, they become far more relevant. It's important that information be presented in a useful format, especially when it's something as easy to do as this.

Ideally, we should be able to take the google maps API and connect it to a database containing these crime alerts. Once we have all the crude locations plotted, we can start manipulating the information in other useful ways, such as:

Sorting by type of crime: Are you more liable to be mugged or assaulted if you walk down this street?
Sorting by number of suspects: just how many dudes should you be expecting?
Sorting by time on the daily scale: Is it this road more dangerous at 11 PM or 3 AM?
Sorting by time on a larger scale: Which days are the worst for crime? Which times of the month? Which months? Which years? Was this area dangerous 2 months ago, but not anymore?
Physical Descriptions: will the attacker be tall or short? Stout or slim? What will they be wearing?
Vehicles: Should I watch out for unmarked vans or a beat-up Honda Accord?

And if we're getting ridiculously specific:

What sort of weapons do criminals carry around here?
Pictures: Let students upload pictures of the area where it happened-- let people know what it looks like so it is recognizable as they are walking/cycling around it. It may prompt some lucky feelings of deja vu.

All of this would be fantastic for just logging at sorting the crimes-- in addition to the geographical display, a few regular charts may be useful as well. However, if we were to pimp this project all the way out, we could start creating different zones on the map and cataloging them by the crimes that occur. I'd love to test my hypothesis that it's actually more dangerous to live in the student housing immediately off campus where criminal know they can prey on students than to take your chances farther out at a location like Thugz Manse. Perhaps there is a preferred radius, or a few streets combine to form a Bermuda Triangle from which wallets, iPods, and cellphones never return? Is there someway we could get Batman involved? What if we let students plot routes (perhaps with pulldown menus of common off campus housing buildings and on campus locations) and then compute the risks of that route? It's not much but it may be the difference between someone calling campus cruiser and getting home safe, or losing their stuff. Could we make this service accessible through cellphones or other mobile technology? We could make it something people could actually use in their day to day lives as opposed to an internet oddity The safety tips DPS gives out are reasonable, but they seem more like snake oil than an actual cure. Perhaps they would be more useful if students had a better context to actualize them in?

Additionally, we must consider the interplay of the criminal element here: if students start acting smarter and safer, will the criminals move on, or will they become more aggressive? Will they fail to catch on, especially if they are driving in from out of the area?

There's always a mild buzz in the university presses about how USC is at odds with the surrounding community, but then, often it seems like the surrounding community is hatin' on us students instead of just the university. If this thing makes the whole area safer, perhaps more than students will benefit?

Could we export our back-end software and interface to other schools? I can think of a few other campuses where this may be welcomed.

Essentially, I'm just a curious bastard who wants to look at all the information contained in these crime alerts through a number of different lenses. I know the technology exists to do it, and it's only a matter of application, but I really just don't have the time or the expertise to do this all myself.

I don't really know how we could support this project-- perhaps advertisers would pay to sell pepper spray off of our site, or donations could keep us afloat. Maybe we'd get some sort of university backing or a grant, but I wouldn't count on it. Part of me thinks that organizing a website which catalogues just how dangerous the area around USC is might go over like a lead balloon with the university. But then again, they may welcome it as a resource which protects students and gives them a chance to show off how good campus policing is compared to other schools.

Anyway, it's a thought, I'd like to bounce it off of you, and if you have some skills, time, or input to contribute-- well, it's the internet man! You know what to do! Let's rock this, eh?

Car on Fire

2006-01-29T23:04:00.000-08:00

Cars spontaneously bursting into flame are the new tree outside of your dorm suddenly falling down.

Pyromania is so hot right now.

Seriously now, why does something so awesomely destructive have to happen early in Spring semester every year. You're two for two when it comes to chaos, USC!

Are You a Bad Enough Dude?

2006-01-25T16:33:00.000-08:00

Punks often be askin' me if they are bad enough dudes to survive at Thugz Manse.

In reply, I usually show them this picture:

The answer is usually no. No, they are not bad enough dudes to stop the Prince.

PIGEON

2006-01-12T16:48:00.000-08:00

This is on the patio roof behind our house. (The patio we can't go on because Killer lives in our back yard. Dr. Kisses moved out.)

BIG FROWNY FACE =C

LIVE FROM THUGZ MANSION!

2005-12-20T17:23:00.000-08:00

IT'S A VERY THUGZ MANSION CHRISTMAS!

I am here for a few hours on my way home (real home) from Houston. Suffice it to say, it's looking like a very thuggin' X-mas. As far as I can tell, thugz environs do not change with the season-- I have seen no decorations, nor X-mas hats on bagmen, and it saddens me. I suspect the only christmas cheer to be found around here is at the bottom of a bottle of Olde English 800. It's a shame, really.

Well, my computer is about to explode and the fridge is still empty! Merry Christmass to all! I hope you never have to live in such a terrible place!

Graffiti Exposé

2005-12-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

I wanted to call this post "Griffito Exposé," because it sounded cooler, but you know, grammar.

Ahem.

That said, ovder the past week or so, I have chosen to document some of the choicer selections of our environ's more tasteful expressions of urban discontent.

Functioning as my co-commentator for this critique is none other than the illustrious Freddie Wong, a man whose numerous explorations into the tortured soul of Realist
Urban Expressionism have left him in a far greater position to comment on such matters than I, a mere scholar of Suburban Romantic Escapism/Monumentalism. After all, as the saying goes, ex urbe veniet nihil. Without further ado, let us beginthis afternoon's exploration:

Freddie: There are three Ls in Killer. It's like he was like "This is not KILLLER ENOUGH."

Max: This is true. Notice the broad sweep of the horizontal rule between the two words.

Freddie: Do you think he carved his moniker with his KILLING IMPLEMENT?

Max: Yes.

Freddie: Killer Mack apparently operates with rusty nails on the sidewalk.

Max: It is almost as iff the KILLLER subsumed the MACK-- a comment on the Id's ultimate triumph over Ego?

Freddie: Maybe this is some sort of cryptic cry for help from one of his victims - she lies there, bleeding atop newly poured concrete, and in a bloody haze, scrawls the clues onto the sidewalk to her killer. Now, it's up to a ragtag team of detectives to find the killer before he KILLLS AGAIN.

Max: Or perhaps, this is the greatest of all Mack Daddies with all the skillz to killl.

Freddie: The symbol in between is a crude representation of the ever present bulge in his pants.

Max: I have nothing to say to that.

Freddie: Killler, baby.

Freddie: This is short and to the point. I like it.

Max: PUTA!

Freddie: Did you write this?

Max: No. I only wish I had the audacity to.

Freddie: I love the artist's choice of a bold, yet refined, rounded sans-serif fontface as if he is saying "Yes, you are a puta, but one with class."

Max: there's something disctinvtive about this piece, like the ripe smell of a whore's undegarments-- but something dignified.

Freddie: What would the purpose of this be? Some two-bit whore walks by turning tricks on Vermont, sees this graffito, realizes the wickedness of her ways, and then becomes a pole dancer in a club on Pico somewhere getting fired for punching out a customer who tries to pull the $2 bill trick.

Freddie: This is the ONLY acceptable outcome.

Max: Or perhaps, enticed by the brazen audacity of the statement, some young thing, unable to fend off the wicked ways of the city becomes seduced by the streetwalker's life of glamour and champagne?

Freddie: Or worse, maybe we're reading this wrong: maybe the person was writing "PUT A FENCE AROUND FRESH CONCRETE." But then... KILLLER MACK CAME AND TOOK CARE OF HIM!

Max: No, this was the other side of the street.

Freddie: Killler Mack has a KILLLER APPENDAGE.

Max: Killler Mack has limited turf.

Freddie: Yeah but he can reach out a "touch" someone with his ding-a-ling.

Max: the M in Mack is for MEMBER.

Freddie: they don't call him Killler for NOTHIN'.

Freddie: IRON MAIDEN! I see a trend here with the killing. People who choose to write on sidewalks have a lot of pent up rage.

Max: Perhaps Iron Maiden themselves wrote this. I mean, when was the last time they toured?

Freddie: That's concrete-roots promotions man. All hiring a roadie all saying "Listen Tim, you find some god damned concrete and you WRITE that we're going on TOUR."

Max: All I know is that know the parking lot of Olympian Burger is fucking metal.

Freddie: The date is 1981 on that patch... !

Freddie: MAYBE THAT WAS THE SPOT WHERE IRON MAIDEN KICKED OFF THE TOUR. The entire band went to Olympian burger, all got burgers, and then said "Oy! Let's rock!"

Max: But right above it is the word "Tour"... but it looks like "Pour." Perhaps, if you wish to make a sacrifice to IRON MAIDEN, that is where you pour your booze (or blood)? Every day, I pass this graffito, and I cannot help but want to get fucking metal; it's like every bloodcell in my body starts head bangin' and throwin' the horns.

Freddie: The spirit of Dave Murray rises out of the concrete and harmonizes some wicked solos and then he grinds his leather crotch in your face. Overall, it is a good experience for everyone involved.

Max: It really enriches the community. I'm glad to live in a place that really values music.

Freddie: I can't imagine the kid who thought writing this would be cool. "Shit man, you know what would rock? let's just CCCAAARRVVVEEE the Iron Maiden tour right here man!" Every stroke of the rusty nail punctuated by the singular thought "I... Am... So... METAL!"

Max: Perhaps his friend then said, "HOLY SHIT THAT IS AWESOME!" and that is where the "Killer" came from. This is such a self-reflexive piece.

Freddie: God damn yes! We are so Post-Modern.

Max: On one hand, it's about Iron Maiden, but on the other, it dares to declare it's own 'Killer-ness.' Killer-ness being second only to KILLLER-ness in terms of prestige around here.

Freddie: Killers was their album in 1981. It places this time capsule squarely in the beginning of the 80's - the ass decade of the 20th century, right after the Great Depression.

Max: That's even better. The graffito has been pre-informed by the album... Dude, you were born in the 80's.

Freddie: I am NOT PROUD OF THIS FACT! The decade started off so promisingly-- "the IRON MAIDEN KILLERS TOUR" and then before you know it--

Max: You were born?

Freddie: --We're trading hostages for guns and yuppies are buying penthouses.

Max: Shit. If only someone had written this on the Berlin Wall, no-one would have dared fuck with it. It would have become a monument to metal.

Freddie: The Wall would be standing still, probably. Like a modern day mecca for metalheads, all marching around it and kissing it.

Max: "The Killers Tour Qa'ba."

Max: Shit, man. Nothing will compare to how metal this was. Let's move on.

Freddie: Next!

Freddie: LOVE ME BABY!

Freddie: I still think it's "Love me Boby."

Max: An urgent, concupiscent cry!

Freddie: But she spelled Bobby wrong, and threw the line to make the 'o' an 'a', saving face in the harsh underground of the Los Angeles street graffiti scene.

Freddie: I notice that this message, a message of love, is hardly visible, while all the ones about killling and putas just about carve themselves all the way through the concrete.

Max: It's totally "Baby"-- it's not like anyone named Robert can be so easily seduced by a concrete siren.

Freddie: It looks like, frankly, it was written by a first-grader who just learned his "letters."

Max: Oh, so we're "quote marking" "letters" now are "we"?

Freddie: Note the mixture of capital and lowercase letters - perhaps a comment on the futility of communication and letters?

Max: Perhaps an expression of the schizoid nature of love?

Freddie: ...And the desire to break away from the confines of human writing into a form of truer expression - probably fingerpainting.

Max: When it comes to concrete graffiti, is that even a line which has to be crossed?

Freddie: The true Avant-Garde must be the first to cross it.

Max: Maybe whoever wrote this did it with a penis? That would explain the bold sweeping lines and the erotic subtext.

Freddie: It is clear we're dealing with the bleeding edge of art fused with profound social commentary here-- the profound use of space, the subtlety of the message, everything points to bona-fide genius!

Max: We must consider also, the orientation it's perpindicular to most other graffiti it's size, as if to turn the concepts it invokes (love, art, the human condition)--

Freddie: --ON THEIR SIDES??

Max: EXACTLY!

Freddie: God I creamed myself just now!

Max: Really, our commentary is exquisite.

Freddie: Not as exquisite as the artist and his message.

Max: I would never dare approach her/his/hir level.

Freddie: Let's move on.

Max: Wait! Wait a moment. Don't you want to consider how the message implicates the viewer?

Freddie: I cannot bear to stare into the brightness of this message any longer, lest my mind be blinded by sheer force of vision.

Max: Fair enough. But perhaps we are the "bobby/baby" who seeks to be loved? I would just like to close in saying--

Freddie: --I can't stop the tears they flow like torrents!

Max: That the visual complexity of the message, which challenges our notions of the gaze as well as interpellation, is as subtle and complex as any of Picasso's renditions of Velazquez's Las Meninas. Alright. Let's move on to KING LIZARD.

Freddie: Oh God! I creamed myself again!

Max: This, this, statement, this proclamation... Its defiance of our current commercial/urban hegemonic modes is shattering. It is almost as if KING LIZARD himself were attempting to tear down the social order around us, the falsehoods of our democracy, and re-instate the monarchy of the ancient world!

Freddie: I wish to someday meet this king and kneel in his presence in the hopes that he will knight me with his lizardly tongue. It would be hot, but in a regal sort of way.

Max: So, you're a sacred whore in his serpentine cult of god-king worship?

Freddie: This is one in a series of King Lizard prints, right?

Max: Yes: the other was too breathtaking to be featured here.

Freddie: Anything is better than the exposed falsehood of my life as I know it - to be a whore to the Lizard King is to evolve into a higher form of being! A higher form of being (that likes it in the butty)! Frankly, the Lizard King demands nothing less from his diciples.

Max: Well, truly. The artist's use of reptilian imagery recalls the reptillian complex of the brain, and with it, almost an atavistic approach to the social contract-- it screams "WE ARE NOT FREE" in our climate of panopticism, consumerism, mass-media-ism!

Freddie: Whoa there slow down with the big words, McLuhan!

Max: Rather than serving as a reactionary attempt to reinstate an old European social order, it recalls Ur and Kush, summoning that mystic deifyied edge of pre-history where humanity first learned to write and had not yet learned to otherize it's many tribes and nations.

Freddie: I imagine the dense urban Los Angeles, overrun with vines, reclaimed by the desert on which it sits so smugly. Atop the ruined skyscrapers of downtown, a golden throne. Atop this throne, the Lizard King, surveying the clearing sunrise. And to his side, I challenge any of the viewers to not imagine themselves dressed as his Lizard Queen.

Max: I am so hard right now.

Freddie: Good - the Lizard King loves that.

Max: I feel almost as if we have stumbled onto some forbidden knowledge; there's a syncreticism and dynamism in this work. A prodigy must be its architect!

Freddie: He flits about in the shadows, waiting for the moment when mankind is at its weakest to pounce upon his righteous throne and enslave us all.

Max: How Lovecraftian. Oh shit! There were a race of serpent-men in his mythos who did worship a Lizard-God!

Freddie: Such amazing pastiche!

Max: Also, it is a band, I guess.

Freddie: Maybe they're trying to promote their tour.

Max: No, this could be a child's modern day Lascaux, recalling Tyrannosaurus rex! The Tyrant, The Lizard, The King: a triune figure for all that is dark and powerful in every heart.

Freddie: ...Hot.

Max: Indeed.

Max: Let us not dwell on its dark and awesome symbolism any longer.

Freddie: Next!

Freddie: Ok

Max: Our last piece is a bit less primitive, a little more heavily constructed than the sheer balls-to-the-wall awesomeness of King Lizard. It appears to be the constructor's imprint of the F. Niemann & Co. Paving Company.

Freddie: The tyranny of the corporation is expressed here in stark contrast the individualistic and free form works seen previously. It is imprinted, as if from a mold. A cold, calculating mold, with none of the rocking, none of the implied testicular fortitude, and none of the royalty.

Max: I must disagree! This is a paean to the working man! F. Niemann AND CO. At last, Labor is recognized in their own works, achieving both ownership of their fruits through the municipality and the dissemination of their name, while empowering the community by providing such a rich canvas.

Freddie: No man, it is totally about the corporation man all getting their fingers on everything man fuck the Man! Down with The Man!

Max: Perhaps there is some inherent complexity were are overlooking?

Freddie: NO man where are the molotovs i'm going to start a RIOOOTTTT!

Max: Please, good sir, violence is not the answer! Because seriously, who would win in a fight between King Lizard or Killler Mack?

Freddie: I dare not fathom this battle of such titans. I can tell you who would lose-- and the answer is: Mankind.

Max: I have a better answer: "Your Mom."

A grand don't come easy

2005-10-31T22:04:00.000-08:00

Thugz Mansion hit (or is very close to hitting) 1000 hits, so I thought it might be a good idea to post how exactly people are finding this blog. Most search engine hits are through msn.com, the search engine of choice for people who don't know how to use the internet. The terms that have hit this site are colorful and varied. For example:

- thugz fucking
- thug
- street thugz
- short stories the thug life
- latino thugz
- thugs mansion
- thug style
- thug living
- Celebrity Mansion pictures

Needless to say, the folks looking for celebrities and juicy pictures of Max, Kevin, and I getting it on with each other will be disappointed. Wait, what am I saying? Pretty much anybody looking for thugz on the internet and hitting this blog and expecting something other than pasty kids who go to USC and whine about where they live will be disappointed. Especially the folks expecting that we show a little more genitalia on this thing.

If you are one of these people, we are, as always, sorry to disappoint.

-f.w.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2005-10-09T16:28:00.000-07:00

Soundscape Ltd. to Release "The Soundz of Thugz Mansion"

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 9 /PRNewsWire/ -- Soundscape Ltd. (NYSE: SSCP), the leading retailer of ambient soundtracks for personal use, announced today they will begin a groundbreaking ambient soundtrack series, entitled "Urban Flows," starting with the release of "The Soundz of Thugz Mansion."

"We have seen a marked shift in our target demographics for those seeking an ambient soundtrack to put on for relaxation or meditation," says Soundscape President Gillian Moore, "We've found that this entire market has become stale. Everyone just releases jungle sounds and beach noises. Those are great, but we started to ask ourselves: 'Are we doing everything we can as a company to push the envelope of ambient relaxation soundtracks? Instead of releasing Ocean Waves 12, let's do something different. Let's shake things up!"

"This marks a definite new direction for this market," notes music analyst Jack Schmetterling of the RIAA. "We've even recommended that Soundscape put the industry level copy protection schemes on this new CD, because I anticipate demand will be so high across all demographics that piracy will be inevitable."

"We've gone to great lengths to get the most relaxing, authentic soundscapes possible," says Wørf Goddelstaag, lead recording engineer. "The inhabitants of Thugz Mansion in South Los Angeles graciously allowed our engineers to set up our microphones and record the same sounds that Thugz across L.A. hear everyday. We've taken these beautiful, soothing soundtracks and processed them with the latest in DLP digital technology so the sound experience will be just like if you were there. For select tracks, we've even enlisted the help of noted avant garde new age pianist Johann Georgstein to lay some backing tracks over. Truly, these are the most complex, layered, and soothing tracks I've recorded to date."

"We intend this debut, groundbreaking CD for everyone," says Moore. "It's important I think, in our day and age, to take a moment to reflect on our day, and what better way to do it but Thug Style. Now, even if you live in the Hamptons, you can get a nappy-ass rocking chair with armrest all cut up from when your cousin Vincent was so jittery couldn't hit his damned vein with the coke needle, all stabbin' and flailin' like a motherfuck, lounge back with a couple of forty's and bottles of Henessey XO, knockin' em back with your Tec on your lap, flipping off the gate security cops as they do their rounds, and generally swearing up a storm, and kick Tru' Thug Style to an authentic digitally mastered soundscape of South Central Los Angeles blaring from your built-in embedded Bose porch outdoor speakers. All your white-ass crackah neighbors will truly 'know your steez' from that point onward! And if you're meditating, right on the cusp of nirvana, the sound of ice cream trucks and Latino women swearing at each other loudly in Spanish will make sure you stick around in the 'hood' and keep it real. None of that non-violent Buddhist shit for you, G!"

The CD will go on sale on October 13th.

TRACK LISTING (with MP3 previews):
1. Intro: South Central (What, what, what?)
2. A Mutt's Comment on the Music of the Ranch
3. Underneath the Holding Pattern for LAX
4. Birdsong and Soft Ice Cream Summers
5. The Bagmen Swear and the Children Cry
6. Reflections on a Lazy Sunday Afternoon
7. Mufflers and Gentle Acceleration Are Not Thug
8. The Plaintive Cry of a Hound and Garbage Disposal
9. These Cans Will Feed Me Another Day
10. My System Rattles Louder Than Yours
11. Outro: Thug Life 4 Lyfe (Aiight?)

They can't cope with me

2005-10-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Kevin and I tried to repair his broken mirror with a new part. On his Ford truck, this involves removing the plastic side panel on the door, and popping off the clips that hold it in. While we sat on one side of the street, engaged in mortal combat with this side door, screwdrivers in hand, a car pulled up on the other side.

Normally, this is not a big deal. However, several things immediately made it clear to both Kevin and I, both of whom, I might add, are about as far from "hood' as a rear license plate, that this particular car wasn't your ordinary one.

1. The car was a Ford Taurus.
2. The car was a glaringly non-discreet shade of government gray.
3. The car, despite being a Ford Taurus, appeared to be taken care of. Every other Ford Taurus on our block usually was missing parts or in various states of barely drivable disrepair.
4. The driver was white.
5. The driver had shoulders that intruded on the passenger seat.
6. The driver was wearing sunglasses that screamed authority.
7. The driver was parked halfway in a driveway with his car idling.

Kevin and I immediately assumed this guy is either an undercover cop or a private eye of some sort. If he wasn't packing heat, then he was definitely packing some stun gun he ordered off a shady spy catalogue from some store in the middle of Illinois with some grandiose name like "The Thugbuster 10,000" (the 10,000 figure being slightly misleading, as the one shock that this particular stun gun provides before short circuiting and killing its user would be the equivalent of biting on tin foil).

The final cherry on the proverbial shit cake was that he was speaking into his phone in an unconventional manner. Rather than risk his detective mind to the brain cancer that awaits us all by holding the phone to the side of his face, he had it held in front of his mouth, palm forward, and at a slight angle, in a manner as if the phone was a two-way radio. He employed the method of someone who has just pulled a radio from his pocket, brought it to bear on his chops, and mouthed a "Ten-Four," on a Motorolla flip phone he got at Radio Shack for free after signing up with Verizon.

It was probably on speaker mode, or he was dictating the observations of a keen, discerning mind, into his mom's answering machine.

Kevin and I, wondering if he could be any more obvious, or attract any more attention into himself, were both prepared to approach him on the other side of the street and ask straight up, "Excuse me, sir, are you lost or on a stakeout?" But his keen detective intuition, perhaps sensing impending embarassment, told him to pull out of that space and execute a three point turn in the middle of the street. No sooner than he finished point one of the three point turn, did cars from both ends of the street slam on their brakes and beep loudly at this gray Ford Taurus sitting in the middle of the street. He kept his cool, finished the three point turn, and sped off.

Apparently, his Holmes-like instincts neglected to tell him to check his mirrors before pulling into traffic.

As we laughed at this veritable Bond, I had to shout at an old lady a few feet away, who attempted to steal a small box of my drill bits I had left by the truck we were working on. I am standing with a screwdriver in my hand. She sheepishly returns it, mumbling "Ya know, I figured if somebody left it there, I might as well take it."

I fumed. "You're lucky that Johnny Law just happened to wreck his shit on his driving test just now. I'd hate to see what he'd do."

-f.w.

The Bagman Cometh

2005-09-19T21:30:00.000-07:00

Today was trashday.

On trashday, both the recycling bins and regular trash bins are placed out in the street for the custodial chariots to empty them.

But the bagmen get to them first.

There are all kinds of bagmen-- there was the one outside Thugz Manse this morning, calmly scavenging through a phalanx of blue bins, searching perhaps, for a golden ticket, or more likely, a dollar built five cents at a time out of a CRV worth of aluminum.

There are the were-bagmen, beings of such power and prowess, such awesome mystique that we can only make the vaguest suppositions as to their existence. Such men brawl and yell over the barking of Killer and Mr. Snufflewuffums (Thugz Mansion's resident K-9 units) in order to establish territorial foraging rights. Once, our fence was bent into the yard by the rubbish bins, where I can only suppose an exceptionally large or powerful specimen attempted to lean into our yard.

There are lesser bagmen, and greater, sadder bagmen and those that thrive. I saw a one-legged man hobbling down Vermont today, his leg forming a piston in conjunction with his crutchs. Clutched in his right hand, the omnipresent black trashbag that marks all bagmen.

Today, as I rounded the corner of 27^th Street, I walked past the most average bagman I had seen yet-- two shopping carts, many bags, a few bundles, and a resigned look in his eyes as he lifted what must have been the latest in a long series of bin lids.

Slowly, I brought my eyes to bear on the paved horizon again, and was nearly transfixed in my journey, as I saw, dear readers, the archetype from which all lesser bagmen are wrought. Forgive me for my cliché, but truly, this man was the Ur-Bagman, The Bagman, the bagmen mothers tell their children about if they are into that whole cautionary urban fairy-tale type thing. I don't even think those stories exist, but if they did, this bagman would be the principal figure of a few. He would probably have not been the hero.

It sprang upon me as if I were in a dream, a ghastly phrase that encapsulated the final totality of this singular being's presence:
"The Bagman cometh!"

Yes, he was dirty, yes, he was downtrodden, his brow fixed with a leaden heaviness upon the Asphalt in front of him. But he was magnificent. Flanking him were his carts, his glorious carts spread behind him in a flying V, heaped high with hefty bags filled with the finiest refined bauxite the cola companies of America dare to provide. The matte bags were stacked highest about his shoulders, and lower farther back. He was wingèd, this bagman, shrouded in the blackest pitch of an avenging angel, as he shuffled and rolled down the street. Wingèd, a synthesis of man and machine and the discards of society, swaddled in dusty plastic, and here, reminding us of our sins and mortality, the very being of sepulchral decay and mineral immortality, a modern day vanitas reflected in the oily pavement.

And he was holding up traffic.

A Glock that don't phase me

2005-08-31T16:03:00.000-07:00

Today in my stultifying Biology lecture, I was busy being a thug and playing Megaman on my brick of a cell phone. However, the constant battle of my blue hero towards mechanized bosses through two dimensional landscapes grew tiresome, and I forced myself to take notes on the lecture.

But if you've just recently engaged in mortal combat with Iceman with only your standard Megaman powers and beating his flurry of ice attacks with sheer agility and aplomb, somehow lipids and protein folding is no longer interesting. As a result, and as a result of our pitbull's excessive barking keeping me from having a good night's sleep, I dozed off.

Then something exploded.

Some ruffian had brought in a carbonated beverage which had obviously had enough with being merely refreshing and upon opening, exploded in a sheer outburst of pent up rage, expelling the cap halfway across the room and startling the entire class. Some girls screamed. Some frat guys said "Whoa!" The ruffian sheepishly apologized, and it was several minutes before the class got back on track.

But meanwhile, the sudden, loud, gunshot-like sound barely stirred me from my slumber.

What I'm saying is this: if you get woken up every night by some loud noise, be it glass breaking, or dogs barking, or homeless guys shouting at your recycling bins, wimpy pop bottle explosions don't even come close to stirring you fully awake from your blissful slumber, which you take anywhere and anytime you can.

Thugz Mansion will change you.

-f.w.

Damage Toll #1

2005-08-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

This morning I was getting into my car to go to “Cutting Edge” host callbacks (a TV show I work on) when I found my left mirror detached from my car, lying in the gutter eight feet away. The car’s damage is extremely minimal- a small black scratch on the left in front of the mirror (most likely from the mirror itself as in was ripped off). The actual mirror is shattered but the breaking point is very clean so I’m planning on fixing it myself with some plastic epoxy and a new mirror. Here's some photographic art utilizing my misfortune as a symbol for my inner state:

I didn't say it was good photographic art. Just on more real-life project to distract me from my school work. . . joy. Oh, and I’m searching for a parking pass- the permit resale just happened today at noon so I’ve resorted to paying insane amounts to someone who doesn’t need the pass they purchased months ago. . . even more joy. Nobody said it would ever be easy (or cheap) to live in ThugzMansion.
-KAK

Paranoid Nerd!

2005-08-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

Here is a brief story about how I came to stand in the hallway of Thugz Mansion, in my underwear, clutching a pool cue for dear life, ready to beat the shit out of a non-existant home invader at about 11:00 PM on Wednesday evening:

I went to bed shortly before 11 in the hopes of getting a good rest and forgetting the troubles of the day behind me, only to be sung to sleep by the melodious barking of the Pitbull & Pug downstairs. These charming creatures, who Jam Master Freddie has already described as face-humpers tend to bark for three reasons:

Reason the First: It is 8 AM, and therefore, it is inconceivable that any hominid species in the surrounding 4 blocks should be allowed to sleep in.
Reason the Second: Another canid is barking, and like any good pack-species, P&P feel the need to join in and bark as loud as they fucking can to establish their dominance.
Reason the Last: A Stranger (and by stranger, I mean new tenant of Thugz Mansion) has approached the house or the recycling bins in the front yard, and P&P feel the need to defend their territory.

Now ordinarily, I wouldn't think anything of their barking, but I hadn't heard the landlord roar up in his unmuffled and COMPLETELY STREET LEGAL Acura, which is what usually prompts the dogs to bark at that godforsaken hour.

And so a tiny paranoid thought flits across my mind: "Someone is trying to break into Thugz Mansion!"

I dismissed the thought as paranoid, trusted the dogs to do their ravenously carnivorous duty in the event of the worst possible scenario, and tried to get some shut eye.

There were fucking ants in my bed, so you can imagine how well that went.

A few minutes later, I heard (or more importantly felt) the loudest slam I thought I had ever heard, the sound of a door being battered down like that one celebrity by his/her abusive spouse. Man, that joke practically writes itself. Anyway, loud fucking noise, sounds as if ramparts of THUGZ MANSE have been breach. I sat bolt upright in bed. I listened for a moment for further sounds of commotion, and hearing none, decide that our intruder has become inexplicably stealthy. Did I ever tell you I was retarded.

After making a mental inventory of possible weapons in my room, I crept over to the closet and got out the end of my pool cue. The heavy end. The end wot gets used for bashing things wiff. Convinced that this is a sufficiently classy club for a thug to wield, I open the "office" door and ask Freddie if he has heard anything. The lad, bless his thuggish heart, has been composing hella tunes with his headphones on, and did not hear any slam. Cautiously, I proceeded into the hall, and knock on Kevin's door to repeat my inquiry

"Pssssst! KEVIN! I think there's someone in the house! I heard the door slam!"

Kevin cracks his door, and then relates, rather sheepishly, that after studying in a manner that can only be described as hard-core at his well lit desk, he got up to find out what Freddie was up to in the office. Upon exiting his room, he was blinded by the comparative darkness of the hallway, and thinking nothing of it, proceeded to lean his head into our doorway. Lean into our shut doorway, and lean into it hard. Thus creating the world's loudest slamming noise ever, and thus leading to me freaking out and readying a defence that can be described as "in no way adequate whatsoever."

I slept with my pool cue that night.

Legit!

2005-08-24T16:23:00.000-07:00

"If I die because of living in this stupid house, I will be so fucking pissed off."

I have had the above thought more times than I can count walking to and from school, and fearing the whole while that I would be mugged on that particular journey most perilous. Also, that is the super-intelligent way I talk to myself all the time.

Yes, living in el Castile del Cabrones has been quite an experience for the first few days. From the first week spent on home improvement projects and moving in, to discovering the well maintained and near palatial places other putas are living in for $50 less a month, there have been times I have wanted to break down into open weeping. But a thug does not cry. It is not the thug way.

Aside from being miserably tired, woefully out of the DPS saftey radius, and discovering the joys of feeding oneself in a half-stocked kitchen, things have been pretty good. Until the Ants showed up.

Now the previous residents of Thugz Mansion were far from true thugs. With no respect for their hood or their crib, those fuckers left hella pr0n DVDs out and had their counters covered 4 rows deep with bum wines and 40oz bottles. This is not the thug way.

Yet surprisingly, for all their open offerings to Bacchus, they avoided an ant infestation. Ants are smart enough to avoid diet soda (they know it holds no nutritive value), but I did not count on ants being smart enough to avoid cheap booze. As an experiment one day, I would like to feed some larvae a few drops of Cisco or Night Train rather than royal jelly. If my hypothesis is correct, instead of queens, I'll create a new caste of pimp-ant, capable of subjugating the other ants via a four-legged backhand. But I digress.

That said, we are now fighting the second battle of Thugz Manse against the ants in our bathroom. We've deployed poison bait traps again, which worked well in the first round and killed the adult population of the hive. However, we seem to have missed the queen, as a new legion of fresh, slightly younger ants has taken the place of the previous horde.

Freddie took pictures on his cellphone, and I shit you not, our floor has run black with ants.

Someday, the ants will send an envoy, to ask why we poisoned them.

We will be forced to reply, "Because your people made the floor black"

ALSO:
WE ARE CUTTING A RAP SINGLE ABOUT THA 2^nd BATTLE OF THA ANTZZZ.

Kevin's Trip

2005-08-23T17:42:00.000-07:00

11:37 PM- I leave my parents’ house in San Diego, hesitant, yet fully aware of the two hour commitment ahead of me that is driving back home, returning to South Central Los Angeles, my personal trek into the heart of the ghetto. The trip commences splendidly- not a car on the road, some good tunes, a thermos of lukewarm coffee gently rocking to occasional grooves and bumps on the interstate 5 freeway. Time passes. I merge onto the 405 North, fully unaware of the vast misfortune that lay in my near future.

12:16 AM– “LEFT LANE CLOSED AHEAD” the dayglow orange sign screams. Less than a quarter of a mile, another sign informs “LEFT 3 LANES CLOSED AHEAD.” Now catching on to the oddity of four lanes being closed on the 405, a knot tightens within my gut. “ALL LANES CLOSED AHEAD,” the last and final sign on the 405 North bleats, damning truck drivers, late-working businessmen, and Lotharios everywhere. “Fuck,” I mutter to myself.

12:47 AM– After sitting in traffic on the 5 North at 12:45 PM, I begin to wonder what Hell must be like. Tonight, dear readers, was not my night to say the least.

1:04 AM - I do not know Los Angeles freeways. Yes, even after “living” in LA (and by “living” I mean being confined within the safety-net, the sterilized bubble, the oasis that is USC on-campus housing) I have not yet deciphered the seemingly endless ball-of-yarn freeways and street configurations of Los Angeles, most likely designed by drug-infested CalArts students after a long night of heavy Brecht, Pollak, and Cocaine. There, that being said, I had never taken the 5 North to USC, nor had any clue as to what lane changing, freeway hopping, or side-street cutting was necessary to undergo such a task. In short, I was lost. The obscenities grew worse.

1:57 AM – Eleven freeway merges later, after backtracking for over twenty miles through areas a sane person wouldn’t even dare stop for gas, I finally found the place I call home, reservedly. As I pull up to my street, my nearly dead ears perk up to the sound of shattering glass. Being in South Central, being two o’clock in the morning, this was not the sound of a child’s astray baseball throw tragically shattering his neighbor’s window. Surely not, this sound was the sound of a man less than two hundred feet away breaking into cars with a crowbar, pillaging whatever his grubby hands could find. Now fully awakened, I sit in the cab of my car wondering exactly what to do- to run into my house now, wait until he leaves, do something else. . . Eventually, I decide that the wisest choice is to get out of there as fast as possible, and I did. I ran to the porch of my duplex and fumbled with the keys, always seeming to stick at the most inopportune times in life. Once in the house, exhausted, without sheets for my bed or a toothbrush (both still in the car), I curled up on my bare mattress and slipped into a restless sleep. “Welcome to Thugz Mansion,” I tragicomically laugh to myself, still crying inside.

I cry at times

2005-08-22T22:47:00.000-07:00

Thugs Mansion is not a place – it is an idea. It is beyond physicality. As the tragically immortal 2Pac once penned, it is “the only place where thugz get in free / and you gotta be a G.”

Max, Kevin, and I have moved into to this residence several blocks north of the USC campus, escewing the traditional safe, sane, on-campus or close-to-campus approaches, and instead favoring the potential glory of having ourselves identified as “three USC males” who are assaulted and burglarized in a variety of ways in a soon to come USC Department of Public Safety school-wide email report of crimes in the area.

These reports, known as the DPS Reports, are both unintentionally hilarious and slightly disturbing for those who live only a few blocks away from a street where a fellow Trojan gets mugged by a gun-toting “African-American male, 13-14 years of age.” The Daily Trojan publishes a weekly “DPS Roundup” of the incidents that DPS has responded to, ranging everywhere from “The burglary of all of some frat dude’s X-Box games and ‘Girls Gone Wild’ DVDs,” to the inexplicable and humorously bizarre “USC Male gets punched in the back of the head without apparent provocation in broad daylight.” We’ve talked to our bookies, and they are giving good odds that one of these days, we’ll be the USC males that slightly nervous but completely safe freshman laugh at, thumbing through the Daily Trojan at breakfast.

Thugz Mansion is the top floor of a canary yellow duplex on a slightly shady street. When I say “slightly shady,” not only do I refer to the fact that the solitary street light puts out approximately the light of an eight-year old cell phone display, but also to the fact that this part of town, “home security” means more than a warped, peeling “Brinks Security” sticker tacked onto a window.

Many houses have wrought-iron gates. Still more have those iron bars placed squarely over windows and breakable entrances. And every second house has a large “Beware of Dog” sign. And the dogs they refer to aren’t your wimpy Chihuahuas or Daschunds. These dogs are 100% legit – Pitbulls and Rottweilers. These dogs will legit-ly tear you apart limb from limb and not blink an eye as your blood splatters across the dirty streets of L.A. No wonder they’re the South Central dog of choice.

Our landlord in fact has provided this particular home with two pitbulls, both of whom still retain their male dignity, and along with it, killer instinct. When we moved in and I gazed on their doghouse from our top story window to see the larger, more dominant pitbull furiously humping the other’s face, I knew I was in good hands. Like clockwork every morning at 8 AM, we’re awakened to the dogs furiously barking. The sound of a cell phone buzzing is enough to spur them into a wild barking frenzy, and the fact that they still have their cock ‘n balls intact means they’re ready to kill basically anything that makes a noise.

Max suggested we approach slowly and introduce our scents so they will learn to trust us. I figured that the mere smell of warm flesh would drive the dogs into a feeding frenzy, lustily tearing apart the iron gate that holds them from what basically amounts to an entire world full of delicious meat. So until evidence suggests otherwise, I’m keeping my distance.

Anyway, there’s tons of stuff always going down at a place titled Thugz Mansion, and I’ve got tons of stuff to say, so stay tuned. Plus since hopefully Max and Kevin will be updating this, it means there will be content! Wicked!

-f.w.