When I first started working with Randy and Stout Recording Studio, it was in the Avenues (80s, I don't remember which one but it was right by an amazing soul food restaurant) and International in Oakland.

The place we used to go to most often one day it was closed. Because they killed a 14-year-old and threw his body against the building and were investigating.

Bars and bulletproof glass were normal.

I always said "hi" to everyone because there, you err on being overpolite.

He luckily made enough money to move out of there before his kids got into junior high into Alameda, which is one of my favorite cities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I write about hope because all Mom saw was a chronic fuck up. Then she died and I became a smashing success in pretty much everything. But she never saw that side in me. She only saw the fuck up.

People are like "but she sees you from Heaven."

That is the biggest crock of bullshit I've ever heard. Do you really think people in Heaven just sit around and watch the world without being able to do anything about it? That wouldn't be Heaven. That would be somewhere else.

No, Heaven ain't like that. It doesn't suck.

So I write about hope. Because we can change our circumstances. With a huge "but."

That "but" is you need to act now. Not later. But now.

Because change takes time.

Yeah. I think it's true about creatives. We just do and figure out how to make it work as we're doing it.