Pedicab Hearsay (San Diego)

By Justin Howard

Pedicab Hearsay offers the reader an inside look into a growing phenom. In 1972, a three-wheel tricycle was featured at the Seattle's World's Fair. By 1996, San Diego, CA depicts one story following a musician who seeks aspirations utilizing the Pedicab industry as a springboard. Detail accounts of the inner-world and its customers introduces a mass amount of characters who caught Pedicab Fever along the way. From the innocent to the Freebird, the whole truth is not given. No contempt charges will be made. The only guarantee is that the pedicab industry has scatter across America for a reason - capitalism's last stand and a push toward independent means. The Birth of the PEPOR (Professional Entertaining Pedicab Operating Rider) is a money game. The greatest hustling machine on earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781365874727

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Pedicab Hearsay (San Diego)

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, to include audio or visual recording or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

Copyright 2016 by 2B1 Entertainment

Published in 2016 by Justin N. Howard and printed, bound, and packed by Lulu Press Inc. 627 Davis Drive Suite 300 Morrisville, NC 27560.

Front  and Back cover design: Justin N. Howard

Pedicab Hearsay

Birth of the PEPOR – Book One

This book is dedicated to me three daughters – Ashly, Machaela and Whitney – to ask forgiveness for not knowing the unbelievable waves we all ride in our lifetime.

Special Acknowledgements go out to Moms and Pops who taught one how to accept a soul for being one. Major props to me older brother the Chief who’s got me back for any situation, especially in severe financial need. To me younger brother - Ole Bo – the Richard Pryor of the family. The laughs are non-stop whenever he is around. To me older brother - Dr. Yancey - the scholar of the bunch. The writer on social racial dating and more, one needs a thesaurus to understand his words. To me children who all carry the high quality spiritual being inside and so glad u three are nothing like your mom or your dad. To all me nieces and nephews who stay connected to your uncle (a  to Candace Rose and her family) ... And to all the Taylors out there (to include Dee in Vegas) – a great deal of me character comes from this side of the family. Let it be known, so much grace goes out to the all the pedicab operators and those associated with pedicabs to allow me to interview them for this tale.  Without your openness, the pedicab timeline may have been lost in developer hysteria. We offer grace to u …Grace to all the souls I have met during this adventure whether they are out of town visitors or not, the life was like a fast moving film in real life. So, try to keep up as one move’s on go …

Pedicab Hearsay

By Justin N. Howard

The Back Story … then comes …

BOOK ONE – Birth of the PEPOR

1)                       Law Smith

2)                       Welcome to the New Dayze’

3)                       Hard Core Riders

The Back Story

Ringing in the days of the new, countless tales fall under the political correct category. This is not one of those tales. Codes with poetry confusion lie ahead for the brain to transmit. The strategy cannot be used in a comic book, for in one’s life, the secret ways bring stillness in and out of the … glorious path.

Mid-August 1984 - 2B1’s brother breaks his ankle during a football practice just before the high school football season began. This event literally changed the course of 2B1’s life. On a scorching hot summer day, at the school where legendary Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams played high school baseball, the injury occurred at Balboa Stadium (where the only San Diego Chargers team has ever won a football title - 1963 AFL title). 2B1’s blood brother – 3X3 - had his left foot planted in a hole while running and kept running snapping his ankle in heartache fashion. 2B1 missed that day dealing with eligibility issues to join the team. He could practice, but couldn’t wear pads and participate fully in team activities.

Since 2B1’s younger brother was out for the season, the desire for 2B1 to play high school football dwindled. As a young child, 2B1 dove into music beginning with singing in the church choir as a second grader as well as the elementary choirs in upper middle school. His talents loomed foretold by a physic reader at age seven. All thru high school, 2B1 splashed in music as the school’s bass player.

Not known for athletics, as a young child 2B1 enjoyed a fat Pillsbury Dough Boy kind of body with very little muscle to show his natural strength. 3X3 was stronger and carried the physique of a superior athlete. Unlike 2B1, 3X3 developed into being a successful all-star baseball player from age ten onto past high school.

Then the call by 3X3’s friends challenged him to perform well for San Diego high school football too. He obliged, but asked 2B1 to join, even though, 2B1 did not have the athletic prowess of his brother. 2B1 lacked arm strength and the speed needed to compete at a high level in sports. What gifts 2B1 did carry is a superlative talent in music which meant rhythm and soul. Emotion and passion filled the room when the band performed at his high school functions. If - 3X3 - had the quality of rhythm on the ball field, then 2B1 possessed those same qualities in music and on stage.

So, August ’84, a sweat hog humid night, with 3X3 in a cast, he talked their mother into the usage of the school wheelchair at the first pre-season game. She had been working at the infamous high school as a low-level office administer giving the responsibility for 2B1 to return the wheelchair back to the nurse’s office when the game was over. This was 2B1’s senior year. Catering to a potential star on crutches, coming from a military type of family, one needed to follow orders to avoid ridicule.

The boy’s mother, a black conservative religious woman, shielded them from all the evil she deemed not worthy to discuss. During their earlier years, when a movie like the Exorcist came on the screen, 2B1 and 3X3 were not allowed to watch (but their older brothers could). At the time, the film had been one of the first truly uncensored movies that went way over the top in sexual matters overlapping an evilness of a tortured inner spirit inside a human. Leaving the room completely, 2B1 and 3X3 wondered why they had to leave the room but never really questioned the rule for a child’s mind travels so fast to forget what the fuss is all about. Now and then, their moms released a Let Loose side where she would have a couple of glasses of wine or some other cocktail - laughing, whooping it up.

That August night, after San Diego High loses the game, 3X3 hands 2B1 the wheelchair. For some strange reason, the ride that was to take them back had left 2B1 behind. Skimming and searching hard for the ride home, 3X3 had gone on without 2B1. Soon the campus emptied, and a high school senior from an old-fashioned black family became stranded on the outskirts of the precarious downtown area.

At first, the feelings of anger and resentment filled a pool of mind-tainted illusions knowing there were reasons for everything. Had 2B1 taken too long returning the wheelchair? Had 3X3 not try to get the ride to wait?

Downtown San Diego in 1984 was not the glitter of the 21st Century. This finicky night, where an unforeseen trip transpired, would be the first true look at downtown San Diego in a light as never seen before. The San Diego Trolley began its operation in 1979, a 24-hour service from downtown to the border. Yet in 1984, there had yet to be an Orange Line and hiking through the streets late at night was no slice of cake.

At the height of its mid-1980’s era, the guns, drugs and gangs (as well as much more) were still climbing in numbers of murders, and other crimes that blasted Southern Cal with a storm of conflicting struggles versus peaceful solutions.

In the 1980’s, the Piru Bloods controlled Skyline, Five Nine Brims (Bloods) were beginning to fade but still held on to Encanto, while the Syndicate Mob (Bloods) aka Syn-doe Mob occupied the Lincoln High School district.  The misfortune for the Syn-doe Mob was that the group bordered with the Neighborhood Crips which ranged from 45th to 47th and from Market Street to Logan Avenue. From 45th all the way to downtown, another set of Crips known as The Coast or West Coast Crips ran this territory. In between all the black gangs were the Barrio Logan legendary Mexican gangsters and coyotes, the Shelltown Posse in National City and the Mexican Mafia in South Bay. Gangs ruled the streets from Los Angeles County to Tijuana, Mexico.

The boys lived down the hill from Skyline Park of the Piru Blood’s domain on the unique border of San Diego and the City of Spring Valley - 15 miles from San Diego High School (known as a Crip-bred school). In Skyline, this really is a middle class area of town with a few gang members who resorted to the Any means necessary hustle game. Hard to spot opposing gang members in Skyline, people could still get jumped or robbed, but the amount of violence in Skyline couldn’t compare to areas like Lincoln Park where there is a corner known as the "Four Corners of Death" right down the street from Lincoln high school. 2B1 decided not to walk the 15 miles through the concrete jungle madness on a 91 degree humid night.

After numerous calls, both parents were severely drunk that night to drive. She suggested going over to a not-so-close friends that the boys called Aunt Jean (not blood related). Over the years, she would send 2B1 and 3X3 to get their Jeri curls done there. Rarely did they stay over to kick it - more of a business deal than anything else. Once, Aunt Jean had the bad-ass Wes Chandler from the San Diego Chargers over there doing his Jeri hair. A nice woman and very genuine, nevertheless, where Aunt Jean lived, was a ghetto within a ghetto. Her place had mad roaches coming from everywhere - out of cereal boxes, in the fridge, just a complete nauseating home.

So, stranded on the outlaw streets of downtown San Diego for 2B1, wide-eyed, but not too nervous, for the very first time in 17 years on the planet, he tranced down Broadway.

Why did this moment change 2B1’s outlook on life? The night heightened a major recognition of the description of what tough love really means. A feeling that hardens the soul defending the guilt on why me?

At 11pm, 2B1 decided to go to the nearest beach. A joking matter today, but 2B1 had thought the beach was only blocks away.

San Diego and its short blocks, the darken streets would make the blocks seem a little bit longer with special characters that roamed or peered - casing the corners for unproven lost souls. As a fat body slug, 2B1 sort of blended in with many fat body slugs. Crusted cracked out females prostituted the streets. Transvestites, pro hookers and pimps, drug thugs and peep show hosts as well as the homeless trying to get anyone’s attention for their business. Men in Navy white uniforms bellowed and chuckled in gay like manners. The heat didn’t seem to bother the walking containers. The streets carried an awful stench filling the nostrils of unwanted sewer torture.

After seeing these streets from TV and the movies, no show could provide the essence of the truth that bestowed the human eyes. Softness floated above the smell as if these streets are not really as hard as the conservatives make it to be. Even with the threat of death or incarceration, reality indicated that a very small percentage of folks during this era reflected the TV drama episodes.

It would be a little after 3pm Sunday the following day when 2B1 moms finally came to the rescue within the realm of concrete lovers.

2B1 never played for the football team and would stick to music. 3X3 would go on to become a star high school athlete receiving numerous write-ups from the local papers.

Yet, what happened from that terrible August escapade was the notion of conservative values and all the lectures on doing things the military way compared to the crazy lifestyle of the streets exuded variance. Raised in a military glossy family, there were no lovie-dovie scenes from 2B1’s past. No sensitive moments that garners a teary moment (except when a girl struck out 2B1 out in little league baseball). Before 5th grade year, the family had moved thru much of San Diego County areas to include La Mesa, National City and Chula Vista during every school year. 2B1 began his early years of schooling without creating relations with other young school children kept away from the wickedness and the loving.

Their mother, prior to her receiving her college degree, would at times hold on to three jobs at once. She left the boy’s father when 2B1 was only 2 years old. Some holidays, there would be pancakes for Thanksgiving with not too many toys for Christmas. Much of those days, the brothers hoped of not getting any whoopings. The difficulty of trusting people had an unconscious narrative of not coexisting as a sad group. Amusement was present all throughout. The boys loved their mother and grandparents dearly.

2B1’s grandfather (on his moms side) served the Air Force 30 plus years, while his blood father (known as Big AC who 2B1 only saw twice ever) did - a shady - 20 years. Similarly, his moms signed up four years in the Air Force reserves, with older brother Big V also serving 30 years … yes, in the Air Force.

Big AC would never take part in the boy’s lives. Their mother was way too proud to get any financial assistance from Big AC and raised four boys much of her lonesome in 2B1’s toddler years.  Dress-right-dress, forward march was the theme of the household. The boy’s step-father (2B1 mom’s 3rd and last husband known as ‘POPS’) had been a WWII Vet and did some years in the US Army. Pops had shellshock from all the bombing that took place during his military tenure. 2B1 eventually served in the US Army a few years following high school.

Much of what is being revealed to the reader is what has been told to many pedicab On-Go customers conducted by 2B1 on a pedicab rides.

Born at old Balboa Hospital (which dates back to the 1930s) - Born in the summer of 1967 – the year of the Summer of Love, the building today rests on President’s Way across from the World Beat Center inside Balboa Park. A peaceful place and a safe haven for the numerous … 2B1 … born amongst the weeds of … GRACE. Only time could tell such an aptitude story plunging into - ONENESS.

This is a storyline detailing the inner world of the pedicab commerce trade during 2B1’s time inside the industry. Before moving forward, let’s speak a little more about ‘Pops.’

William ‘Pops’ Taylor Jr., arrived in San Diego in 1939 at the age of twenty. A sharp dressed and extremely handsome, he and his two brothers would bare several children and still to this day, the Taylor family is sprawled all over Southern California, Alabama, Kansas, Georgia and Tennessee.

Pops, after leaving the military, he enjoyed the climate and chose San Diego as his resting place. Long before the days as a pedicab operator, he articulated to 2B1 that when he arrived back in 1939, … Black folks lived in La Jolla and the white folks lived all throughout the downtown area … This included the Encanto area (known as the Enchantment Hills back then) and beyond. With the exception of Imperial Ave from 19th to 32nd Street, white folks and Mexicans pretty much dominated the city commerce Pops was talking about.

Imperial Avenue would be known as the Harlem of the West. Legendary black entertainers while on vacation frequently came down from on all sides of the world to entertain and party (a quick stopover before entertaining/partying south of the border).

Born and raised in Memphis, TN, Pops carried a southern drawl sound. His past life before meeting the boy’s mother was that of a playboy. He was the man with all the cool respectful personality traits of a cowboy’s heart. He traveled to Los Angles regularly (to see his many children and a variety of women) on business and pleasure. A true rough rider, he was idolized by upcoming hustlers to learn the game.

The 2nd grade year for 2B1 had been the first time ever meeting Pops. The man drove a 1965 El Camino (one of his three vehicles) with the funny horn sound that wailed out like a giant kazoo. Five years later, he would marry their mother and the family settled in the Skyline area.

Moms and Pops began taking in foster kids starting with 2B1’s 5th grade year approximately about the same time she returned back to Night College. Within a few years of living in Skyline, the household retained as many as six foster children.

An array of foster children stories was truly unbelievable. And just the same, the stories were factual. Sexually abuse children, battered children, mentally ill children, children who wet the bed at age 14 and so much more, the activity in the home kept Pops alive and busy. The goal was not to be military hard - but his yelling increased over the years took its toll as the foster children wore him down.

Yep – 2B1’s household coevolved as a very unique, manly, and hard at times home.

One day, it was time to go get a job, away from the foster care madness. By that broiling humid August night, 2B1 worked at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium as a snacks vendor. 1984 – The year the San Diego Padres won the National League Pennant earning their first trip to the World Series versus the powerful Detroit Tigers. This would be 2B1’s first job.

The privileges of seeing all the players before and after the games just because 2B1 had access inside, the value lesson regarding fame came by. Coming across the likes of O.J. Simpson, Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford, receiving a baseball bat from Carmelo Martinez as a gift, getting a glimpse of professionals such as Daryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden, shaking hands with Marcus Allen helped avoid the fanatic level people go through when meeting a famous person. There were times when 2B1 would see Tony Gwynn’s wife Alicia and all her children, including young Tony Gwynn Jr., would wave and keep moving along shouting out POPCORN – PEANUTS HERE!!

Yeah, working for the stadium was cool as a youngster. One of 2B1’s best memories in life occurred viewing the post-season home run Steve Garvey hit against the Cubs. Seeing the projection of the ball while standing down the right-field line screaming hollering and jumping up and down before the euphoria at the old Murph captured the fans. At any rate, the vending job was only part-time and 2B1 had to move on.

Upon graduating from high school, surprisingly, 2B1 temporarily gave up music.

Instead, 2B1 tried community college in Chula Vista, but uh … no. While working the graveyard shift at Burger King, sleep deprivation set in and school was not going well.

Then came the ‘Let’s try to be a drug dealer’ thing, but uh…no. 2B1 didn’t have the balls to stand out in zombie land at 3am risking mad time behind bars. Getting ripped off by friends and the users themselves, one has to be ruthless to be a drug lord.

Up next arrived a part-time teacher’s assistant position. Unfortunately, the stipulations were that one needed to be enrolled in college to work as a TA. 2B1 began working as a laborer dragging tree branches to clear fire breaks. The life was headed in the wrong direction.

Suddenly, hope in Big V appeared. An offer to leave the city and venture to Great Falls, Montana, 2B1 worked as a pizza delivery driver. Running in the cold to lose the