Let Love Rule - Lenny Kravitz Page 0,20

wore a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and Converse sneakers. Blacks, Latinos, and whites were all mixed together. Now I was surrounded by a tribe of blond-haired blue-eyed boys with hair down to their asses and a string of puka shells around their necks. In L.A. it was all about Hang Ten and OP shorts and Vans tennis shoes, which was really confusing, because in New York we called them sneakers. In California, there were other new words being thrown around, words like radical, gnarly, and dude.

The musical mix was different, too. I dug Elton John and fell under the spell of the Beatles, but I wasn’t used to rock ‘n’ roll radio. Fortunately, I discovered 1580 KDAY, a Black AM station that featured familiar funk and soul, and funnily enough it was the first place I ever heard Bowie. To me, David Bowie’s “Fame” was as funky as anything by the Ohio Players. In fact, before I saw a photo of him, I thought Bowie was Black.

Like her dad, Mom made sure I stayed on a spiritual path. She took me to Aunt Joan’s church, Unity by the Sea, on Fourth Street. The minister was a woman, Dr. Sue Sikking, who preached the progressive lessons I’d heard at Grandpa’s Science of Mind churches in New York. Aunt Joan had a powerful set of pipes, and limitless range. Sitting next to her, I was moved by how her angelic voice sailed over the choir and filled the entire sanctuary. At the end of the service, we sang “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” Then the entire congregation hugged. After the service, we walked over to Zucky’s, a Jewish deli on Wilshire Boulevard, for pastrami on rye.

My ultimate adjustment to Southern California, though, happened not as a result of church or even Mom’s TV show. It happened because of a specific and beautiful man-made object: the skateboard. Before L.A., I’d never even seen a skateboard, much less ridden one. Now the skateboard gave me that feeling all kids yearn for: freedom. In New York, I had been free to hop on buses and subways. Getting around there had been a breeze. Compared to L.A., New York actually felt compact; L.A. was spread out. New York was vertical; L.A. horizontal. And a kid in a horizontal city needs a horizontal mode of transportation. The skateboard was the perfect vehicle.

Also the coolest. The skateboard was king. Southern California was skateboard central. And, man, I was ready to ride.

Jeff Ho’s shop on Main Street in Santa Monica was to skateboards what Manny’s Music in Manhattan was to instruments. It was the hot spot for surfers and skaters. Ho was all about style; he was known for his colors and airbrushing. His boards looked like candy; you wanted to eat them. Like Popsicles, they faded from purple to green to orange to yellow.

I came on the scene at a huge moment. It was the birth of Dogtown and Z-Boys. Skateboarders were learning to move like surfers. A hobby had suddenly become an art form. Wes Humpston was one of the pioneers of the movement. His little brother Mike, my schoolmate, brought a prototype of the Dogtown board to class. Little did I know that board and logo would become holy grails of skate culture. Wes was a visionary who turned empty swimming pools into practice fields. The dude became world famous.

I was on the sidelines. I never came close to becoming a champ, but the board let me smoothly glide into this new teenage culture. It let me adjust to California. It made me feel part of what was happening. But mainly it gave me mobility. I could finally move around. I took to it naturally. When I got halfway good, I could fly down the streets of Santa Monica, down to Venice, slide by the beach, and get where I needed to go in a hurry.

My first board was a Bahne with Cadillac wheels and Chicago trucks. An early classic. Eventually I moved to a Zephyr with Bennett trucks and Road Rider wheels, which now had precision ball bearings, making for an extra smooth ride.

I also got hooked on pinball machines. In my mind, pinball and skateboarding went together. Something about perpetual motion. I’d skate over to the arcade at the Santa Monica Pier and play those metal-legged monsters—Bally’s Elton John Capt. Fantastic, KISS, the Rolling Stones—until my last quarter was gone.

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The first season of The Jeffersons turned the show into a