I Hated High School Gym Class

During my high school days in Southern California (at Centennial High in Compton, to be specific), I was not into sports and lacked athletic ability. In fact, I absolutely hated gym class. For me, spending time in the school library would have been preferable. Whenever it rained I was glad because that meant we didn't have to change into our gym clothes (white T-shirt, blue shorts, white socks, and high-top sneakers). The entire gym period would be spent sitting in the locker room until the next bell rang and we went to our next class. 

Since this was California, it didn't rain much. And on the days when it didn't, I would sometimes decide to skip gym altogether, joining a few other boys walking around the grassy field for an hour until it was time to go to the next class.

If recent storms in California had happened back then, I would have considered those storms a blessing.

Compton And Los Angeles Are Separate Cities

In the New York Times obituary (July 4, 2025) of the prolific hip hop choreographer for films and TV, Dave Scott, who grew up in Compton, California, and died in Las Vegas at age 52, Compton is described as "the city in South Central Los Angeles." I've lived and attended public schools in both places and know, if the obituary writer doesn't, that Compton is a city near Los Angeles, not in Los Angeles.

The obituary writer would have been on firmer ground if he or she or they had written that Compton is a city located in Los Angeles County.

Being Black And Gay In Los Angeles

"There was a time, my uncle Syl [a retired actor in Black Gay Hollywood] once told me, when gay men in Los Angeles lived as much, if not more, on the margins as black folks. But if things got too hot, white gays always had the option to go back into the closet, back to passing themselves off as masters of the universe. Not so their black counterparts, who at the end of the day were still black, still on the outside looking in."--LAPD detective Charlotte Justice (fictional character), from Inner City Blues by Paula L. Woods (W.W. Norton, 1999), Page 269.

I am always amazed that black women writers like Paula L. Woods and Gloria Naylor are more open to including black gay and lesbian characters in their fiction than many of their black male peers.

Dr. Dre's Mom's Long Road Out Of Compton

It was about twelve years ago when I came across a copy of Verna Griffin's memoir, Long Road Outta Compton: Dr. Dre's Mom on Family, Fame, and Terrible Tragedy (Da Capo Press, 2008). Browsing through the book in the library, I learned she was born in the same year as me (she's three months older) and attended the same high school, Centennial, in Compton, California. I'm sure we were classmates in some of the classes but I don't remember her. I looked for her picture in a yearbook, but I was unable to find it. She may have dropped out due to giving birth to Dr. Dre at age 16 in 1965.

Now I want to track that book down, probably at New York's famous Strand Bookstore. They are sure to have copies in stock. When I get it, I want to read it from cover to cover. Perhaps I can gain some insights into how she managed to rise above the gangs and street violence of Compton and successfully raise a son who is rich and famous and who has helped put the city on the map as well as raise ten million dollars to build a performing arts high school in Compton.

Should Compton Become The New Brooklyn?

 I don't know if Aja Brown, a young African-American urban planner, is still the mayor of Compton, California. Assuming that she is, I will point to an article that appeared on Los Angeles magazine's website dated October 2, 2013. (I accessed the article on February 5, 2019 while looking for anything about the city I once called home in the 1960s.)

What caught my attention, you ask? It was Ms. Brown's prediction, her desire, her belief that Compton will be the new Brooklyn. Disheartened, she said, by "the impact rap has had over Compton for decades," she wants to "rebrand our community."

As any mayor worth his or her salt would do, Ms. Brown touted Compton's many assets: "We're 15 minutes from downtown [it's not clear if she's talking about Los Angeles or Long Beach or both], the port and LAX. We're surrounded by freeways and have light and heavy rail and great institutions....We're ready to have a renaissance."

Let's hope that that renaissance she favors doesn't displace the city's  current residents. I don't know if Ms. Brown has ever been to Brooklyn. But before Compton is turned into a hipster's destination, she should bear in mind the many longtime Brooklynites, like the African-Americans living in the Crown Heights section, who had to leave because the area became too gentrified, too hip, too expensive.

There's an old saying, be careful what you wish for, you may get it. 

A Secret Police Ritual

For those of us outside of law enforcement, there are police rituals known only to cops. One of them is the K party, mentioned in Michael Connelly's crime novel, The Late Show (Little, Brown and Co., 2017), featuring Renee Ballard, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. (The book is a page-turner.)

What is a K party, you ask? It stands for kill party. Connelly describes it this way: "It had once been a secret tradition for officers to gather and drink after one of them had killed someone. It was a way of releasing the tension of a life-and-death encounter."

Connelly probably learned of this "secret tradition" of the LAPD during his time as a newspaper reporter.

It's not far-fetched to assume that such a ritual still exists in the LAPD and other big-city police departments. I'm sure it would be almost impossible to get a police officer today to admit to its existence or their participation in one, fearing the reaction of the public as well as elected officials.

It's also not far-fetched to assume that tensions between the police and the black community being what they are, for the members of that community to say that the "K" in K party stood for the Klan, as in the Ku Klux Klan.

A postscript: The late show referred to in the book's title is presumably what the LAPD in real life call the 11 pm to 7 am shift.

Zsa Zsa Gabor Slapped A Cop

Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, who recently died at the age of 99, several years ago slapped a police officer during a traffic stop in Beverly Hills, California. If she had been a black woman, the outcome would have been fatal.

Looking For Work Via Television

On city-owned WNYE/Channel 25 in New York, there was a weekly program called Job Hunt that aired right after the 2008 financial crisis that caused mass layoffs and housing foreclosures across the country.

Each week different guests would discuss a particular job-search topic and critique the job-search strategy of that week's job seeker who was someone the New York Daily News had profiled in its Monday career section.

As the job seeker spoke of his or her job search goals, they would appear on-camera from different angles. This approach reminded me of the time my mother went on TV seeking employment as a domestic worker. This was in the early 1960s when we were living in Los Angeles.

She went on the John J. Anthony Show, which was an advice show broadcast from a studio at 1313 North Vine Street in Hollywood. I think the show was on Channel 9, KHJ-TV. As I sat in the studio, I could see her image on the black-and-white monitors. They wouldn't show her whole face, unlike the Job Hunt broadcasts. The camera would focus on her hands, her mouth, maybe a side view as she was being interviewed by John J. Anthony's wife. Mrs. Anthony was so short that she had to sit on a telephone book behind a large desk.

In a far corner of the studio was the psychic Criswell, who might have been a regular feature of the show. His famous line before each prediction was "I predict...." Years later when I saw the biopic Ed Wood, about the world's worst film director, and starring Johnny Depp as Wood, the actor portraying Criswell brought me back to the time I saw him in the flesh.

After my mother's TV appearance, I vaguely recall her receiving a few job offers. You could say that John J. Anthony (1902-1970) whose real name was Lester Kroll and who at one time had been an actor, was doing back then a forerunner to today's video resume.

I often wonder if that particular show was recorded and if so, does it exist in some vault somewhere? For all I know, it might be on YouTube, like everything else these days.

PBS To Air Documentary On Slain Mexican-American Journalist

Shortly after Mexican-American journalist Ruben Salazar's untimely death in 1970 at the age of 42, I received from the Los Angeles Times a booklet containing some of his columns for the paper. In the back of the booklet was the eulogy delivered by Times publisher Otis Chandler at Salazar's funeral.
Said Chandler: "He [Salazar] was a fighter, a firm believer that all men, regardless of color or language barrier, could, in the end, live together peacefully and productively in our city.


"But he knew that before this could happen," continued Chandler, "the Anglo community had to understand the basic problems in the minority communities."

The Los Angeles Times published an article (January 8, 2014) that reported that on April 29, PBS will air a documentary called Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle. I eagerly await the broadcast of this documentary about a courageous and important journalist whose name and work should never be forgotten.

No doubt public radio's On the Media will do a segment on the documentary prior to its scheduled airdate.