Automatic

~ The story ~


I met a girl on tour and I learned. Herein she is referred to as "Her," or "The Girl."

In 2021, I was burning to feel actual life again, and excited to authentically hit the road. I was in Oakland, temporarily living at my childhood home - virtual school and pandemic days had opened wide and bled into each other unrelentingly. One of these days I abruptly got a call and promptly signed on to play drums for a pop tour, flying out to LA to get started with the week of rehearsals. As the world rebooted, it felt as prophecy. I was walking the designated path, like all my friends and mentors: conservatory - performances - tour - success.

When you're touring with a band, the main artist gets their own private room, and everyone else picks a bed. This is the norm for most of the music business, apart from the biggest acts who have enough money to house everyone solo. In this band, there were four of us, so two had to share a room. The Girl was playing bass, I was playing drums, and seemingly by devious design, they placed us in a room together. We became fast friends and eventually, obviously, got together.

Months later I went down to LA (Covina - she called it LA, but I've heard a few people argue that this isn't really LA) to stay with her while I prepped to move back to New York. Long and short, I basically joined her family. My time there was an full time internship with Latino-American culture - great food, strong family connections, and the rest.


~ MEJORAR LA RAZA ~


As I mixed and mingled with them from day to day, I slowly began to hear troubling things, always long after they happened.

A few of those instances:

The girl's brother in law (by extension - her sister's husband's twin brother) had a longtime crush on her, since high school. When I say high school, I mean that she was in high school. He was already an adult. After all those years, watching her grow from a teenager to an adult, he never got the time of day. So, he was jealous of me. A few weeks in we met at the family yard sale. I shook his hand, we exchanged some friendly words, and I answered his questions about the hat I was selling. Seemed like a cool guy. I didn't know any of the backstory at the time. A month later I found out that the night before the yard sale, he threw a screaming, wall punching tantrum, vigorously complaining that the Nigger with an extra hard R didn't deserve to be with Her. He'd waited for her all those years! It just wasn't fair.

Her sister's baby father stabbed somebody outside of a fast food restaurant while stealing their bike. Obviously, while jailed, he failed to show up for his daughter. He served his time, got out, and continued to not show up for his daughter. Instead, he showed up with drama and delinquency. After years of this pattern, they were fed up and essentially kicked him out of the family. During my time with them, I was around his child a lot more than he was. One day, he and his brother came to pick up the child. Apparently, while I was cooking inside with the rest of the family, they we're lurking outside, venomously asking questions about who I was and peering at me through the window. They were angry that a black man was allowed inside with his daughter while they had to stay outside. I went outside later that night and saw that they vandalized my 1998 Subaru Legacy L. Sometime after that they threatened violence against me, not to my face though, through text. And not to me, to her sister. Apparently they stalked me at some family events and around the neighborhood, but I never met or saw these people. I still don't know either of their names.

Her brother was friendly with me but I was told that he had a hard time letting a black person into the family. That's fine, I understand post-colonial culture and engrained racism. He fought it and let it go. Good for him. He, like many California Latinos uses the "N" word casually, a caricature of black Californian vernacular. In all honesty, I find that they use it more than we do - the frequency is akin to the "like" of the valley girl archetype. To be fair, it is in all the music they listen to, and in the dominant culture around them. Her brother loved that word. Around me though, he was respectful and held his tongue for the most part, but he did let it slip once. Unfortunately his girlfriend walked into the room right after he said it, and I decided to bring it up later when it wasn't in front of her. The Girl and I had to leave abruptly and I asked to talk to him about this when she saw him the next day. She assured me she would, and I took her word for it, but we broke up soon after and I don't think she ever did.

Her mother was nice. Her mother also casually said things like, "she has good hair for a black girl."


~ THROWING THINGS AT THE WALL! ~


My time with them was enjoyable for the most part, but a drop of paint changes the color of the whole can. It often felt like I was downrange in a riffle scope, but the scope of hunter who's finger only hovers over the trigger, never brushing it, too afraid to pull.


This installation of song and sculpture is entitled, Automatic. It chronicles my experiences with her family, and their culture. What does it mean to you?


- Matanda











Automatic, first from a public installation series, “NYC Sanctioned”