Summer 1983...was a hot summer.
I will never forget it. When you grow up hanging around the streets, you do pick up and adapt not only to the some of the good things, but to some of the bad things. Although my mother had a strong and influential hand in teaching me to do the right thing, sometimes I didn't always make the best choice for myself.
Summer 1983 was the summer that I would experience just about every side of the rainbow of life, and thought I was on top. I thought that I knew it all. Little did I know that I still had a lot to learn. Working at the newspaper I would meet and greet the public relations persons for nearly every politician or celebrity who wanted to set up an interview for their client. Sometimes this got me access to inside information to things long before the general public would know. Once again my basketball play and association with underground clubs and now the more private and swanky, E Speakeasy gave me a sort of hush the whole room celebrity. The trade conversation for insider gossip or access to other celebrity parties would always start with them saying to me, "Oh you work at E Speakeasy? Wow. Do you think you could get me in?"
Three of my best male buddies at the time were Anthony (Tony) Conti, Oscar (Junito) Rivera and Darren (Crush) Washington. We had all been friends since the 7th grade. Even though our lives had taken different paths, we still could always get together at different times and have some fun. Tony and Junito were cousins. However, Junito and Crush were both straight up drug dealers and belonged to a drug dealing gang. Herc had become the kingpin of the gang. I limited my hangouts with them to establishments north of Houston street, since most of their street corner battles had taken place south of Houston, over by Allen and Pitt Streets, as well as up and down the Bowery.
When we were younger we all witnessed and attended some of the original outdoor park and underground rap DJ rap parties. With the help of our older siblings and relatives we had up in the South Bronx, we were able to attend and witnessed the birth of rap and hiphop in the mid 1970's. The outdoor park parties were called "Jams" back then. Anyone could attend. The DJ's would plug their equipment into a street light pole, have his two turntables and just let the party start. As long as trouble makers didn't attend the venue, everyone would have a good time. We were just youngsters and attending a party or two thrown by the originals like DJ Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, and Grand Wizard Theodore, to name a few, was like an adventure.
Unfortunately, although these outdoor events generally attracted the overwhelming number of fun loving and good natured people, they also attracted some of the bad elements in the neighborhood. Bad elements like thieves and drug dealers would show up and sour the park parties. Therefore outdoor parties, soon turned into more indoor events for increased safety and monetary reasons. Sometimes even those additional indoor safety precautions indoors fell apart and trouble kept following the music, the crowds...and the money. For the next 10 to 15 years that shadow of these dark elements would continue to follow rap music, as it evolved. But during that period, from it's beginning and into the 1990's, it was still taboo to "like" or "listen" to for mainstream America. Little did people realize that the essence of rap had already seeped inside the souls of people throughout America, white, black, rich, poor and the world. It may have still been considered taboo for the mainstream, but it was still selling records and CD's by the millions.
You see once the genie had been let out of the bottle, with Sugarhill's "Rapper Delight" hit in 1979, there would be no way of putting it back in.
So from 1979 to the early 1980's everyone knew names like the Sugarhill Gang and even Grandmaster Flash and his Furious Five. However, by 1983 newer names began popping up like Run DMC, The Treacherous Three, Doug E Fresh , as the record deals offerings, aka - the money - began to increase. These newer guys were really 3rd and 4th generation rappers, one just building off the innovation or breakthrough of the other from just a few years earlier. What started out as a outdoor street event to have fun, and maybe earn a little money and noteriety, had now began evolve into an enterprise to earn a quick blast of thousands, maybe millions dollars - if you really knew the record business and could avoid the pitfalls of street life or bad contracts.
For work I dressed up in a shirt, tie and sport jacket. For basketball training I was sporting my then still popular Adiddas sweatsuit, short basketball shorts (not considered short at the time, just upon looking back) and of course my Adiddas high tops. For my casual wear, well, I wore what was popular in my neck of the woods at the time. I had a gold "plated" Seiko watch, a gold medium sized rope chain, mock neck shirt, and had made the switch over from Lee bellbottom jeans to Sassoon straight legged, designer jeans...and of course my Adiddas.
One day George Cooper invited me to his penthouse apartment on Lexington avenue to have a sit down talk with me. Being that he was a man who mixed in all sorts of worlds, legal and illegal. Good and bad. However, this one day in June he laid out some knowledge to me that I initially took as him being too parental, when I already began to think of him as like an older brother, taking me around the high and the mighty in NYC, showing me the ropes. I wouldn't understand until later on that the good in him was just trying to save my life, and that he was doing the right thing by imparting his wisdom to me.
"Trever," he said to me, "Not all gold things in this world are golden. You come here to my penthouse wearing that dopey gold plated rope chain and watch, thinking you're showing some form of financial and social success that you've obtained in just 17 years of living. Actually, living on the Lower East Side, you're just opening yourself up an early death because someone else might want that chain off your neck more than you wish having it. They might even kill you to get that chain and watch. I heard you got the scholarship to Syracuse University for basketball. I know you're going to be up there playing with that Pearl Washington and that 7ft freshman Rony Seikaly. Them guys are going pro Trev. You're good, but you're not going to go pro. You should have taken that scholarship offer from New York University, stayed close to home where me and Gus can help ya, and just stay away from those friends you call buddies who aren't going to go anywhere. They'll all be dead before you even graduate college."
I didn't want to hear his words. But it was the same words my mother and father had said to me, even though they were separated. No matter what circles I traveled, I always found time for me and my boys. So at that moment, I didn't want to hear what Mr. Cooper was saying either.
Then the next couple of things he said to me would prove to be monumental things that would affect my life for forever. "Trever," he continued, "See that watch over there. Put it on." I looked at it. It was a square faced silver watch with the name Tissot on it. The watch didn't look "hip" it looked whacked or not very stylish. "Trever that watch is worth 100 times more than that fake gold watch you're wearing, plus it's a great conversational piece and will probably get you more ass than your fake gold watch. You might even make the 500 club one day. It's a $2000.00 watch. Wear it every time you work at E Speakeasy, and when you hang out with me. The company that makes it is over 130 years old."
The watch was sitting on the table next to his personal computer, an Apple SE, which was basically a 9 inch monitor and attached keyboard. It was state of the art at the time.
"No, you can't have that computer, but that envelope is for you. I had my lawyer draw it up. I'm giving you some stock in that Apple company. I got it when it was at $2.75 a share. I'm giving you 5,000 shares of the 45,000 I bought. It's a custodial account, which is being held by my lawyers office. The contract stipulates that you must have a college degree, be over the age of 21, and have a full time, tax paying, legitimate job before you can take ownership of that stock. Otherwise within 15 years, the earnings will go to a charity. That could be worth ten of thousands of dollars to you when you graduate, or you let it mature a little - say another 10 years - and it could be worth more than that. Maybe a million. All that gold on a white piece of paper. Either way, I want you to graduate college and do something positive with your life, not sit on your ass bartending and hanging out all night with drug dealers. You can do this. One more year of high school and then four years of college. You can do this."
I thought my summer was had started out as crazy as can be with Mr. Cooper hitting me left and right with knowledge, a watch and some silly computer stocks. I really didn't think much about it. But, by the end of that summer, things had gotten really crazy and my life really turned upside down. I would not only be running from reality, I also would be running from myself...
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