Poway, CA 92064
“I remember the way when we used to play.” — “C.P.K.” by Unwritten Law
You don’t think it will happen to your town or to people you know.
Until it does.
“I used to drive by every morning on my way to school.”
“My friend’s kid goes to daycare there.”
“I lived across the street.”
WHAT THE FUCK.
Poway??
We all know Poway, even if you don’t.
The suburb of a major city. Has a few notable residents. Wikipedia tells me the population is about 60,000 but if I had to guess, I would say 5,000. It keeps growing but still feels like a small town. “The City In The Country,” it says on the Welcome To Poway sign.
Tony Gwynn and Phillip Rivers lived there.
Tom and Bobby got kicked out of my high school. One went on to start a ginormous rock band and the other stars in a show on ABC.
Charley made it to the PGA. A kid a few years younger than me won 8 million bucks playing poker. Not bad.
One of my buddies used to brag that Stephanie Seymour saw him naked several times. (She was his babysitter back in the 80’s, long before she ever met Axl Rose.)
Some of my best friends were in some of the greatest, never made it (but almost made it) rock n’ roll bands. If you didn’t go away to a fancy school and if you lived on the “other” side of town, you played shitty punk rock. I blame Blink. They made it look easy, even though of course it wasn’t.
Poway has a skate park now. They didn’t when I was a kid. Maybe I could land a kick flip if they did. I would skate my Mike McGill board or ride my Dyno GT to Procopio’s baseball card shop on Poway Road in search of a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card. A few years later a Music Trader moved in to the same shopping center and changed everything.
Me: “Hi — there’s a song on 91X that goes ‘you and me, have a disease, you infect me…’
Music Trader Guy: “Yeah kid, that’s Bad Religion. The album is Stranger Than Fiction, but you should really buy Suffer. Wait. Have you heard NoFx? Social Distortion? Jesus. Let me guess, you love Green Day? Ugh.”
Years later, I really wanted to be on the radio. I sent a demo to 91X. I was 19 and had no idea what I was doing.
FYI — every radio station has a program director (the boss) and a music director (the second boss.)
I got a call from the second boss.
I was selling cell phones at North County Fair, the giant mall a few miles north of Poway. “AllState Cellular, where cellular is what we sell.” Catchy jingle.
My future was not looking good. My phone lit up with a 619 number. (I was proudly 858.)
“Hi — is this Rick?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Hey man — this is Chris Muckley at 91X. I got your demo.”
HOLY FUCKING SHIT.
“It’s good — but you are trying too hard. Do you want to do commercials or do you want to be a DJ?”
“I want to be a DJ.”
“Cool — you sound pretty good. Keep working on it. It’s not there yet, but just relax and talk about the music.”
“Ok.”
“Stay in touch man.”
Chris was SO cool.
After that, I went to work at a country radio station and later got a gig at a small indie rock radio station. A few years later, I ended up at 91X. Chris was moving on to a new gig and to this day, I don’t think he remembers that phone call, but I do.
It really did change my life. You have to understand — 91X was IT. As far as I was concerned it was the only radio station that mattered. And for the dude at 91X to say I was at least decent at being on the radio, that was all I needed.
And guess what?
Chris was from Poway.
I don’t know if there’s something in the water or what, but it’s a special little town. Actually, there’s something in the Carne Asada for sure. Visit “The Barn” at 2am and you’ll see what I mean.
Poway has its fair share of problems too. Always has. When I was growing up, it seemed like every year a few kids died. Car crashes, suicides, accidental overdoses from the parents opioids, you name it.
Full disclosure — I had a pretty decent run during high school. I was my class president every year. For some reason, 20 years later, I’m still a little embarrassed by that. Not sure why. Probably because I don’t really fit the mold of a “class president” these days. Maybe I never did, and maybe that’s why I was elected. I never had a clique — I was friends with a bunch of different groups. I think they just felt sorry for me. “Man, Rick really likes this shit. I guess we should vote for him again.”
You could say I was a bit naive to what “Poway” was all about. One year the class president above me came back from a San Diego Leadership Conference. Evidently when talking about issues on campus, she told the group “I’m not sure — we don’t have enough parking and I guess there’s a lot of trash in the quad after lunch.”
After a few seconds, a class president from a different school said “Are you serious? All my friends go to Poway to get coke.”
Clearly we didn’t understand all the sides of the Poway we loved so much.
During our sophomore year, we were behind the bleachers at the football field building homecoming floats.
(By the way, we took first place all four years. The other classes hated us for that but whatever — my dad was really handy with a Skilsaw. So was Ryan Boone’s dad. Thanks guys.)
We got word that even though we were volunteering to build the floats, we would still need to buy a ticket to the homecoming game. No free tickets for us. It wasn’t a huge deal — but I had to deliver the news to a group of kids that were working really hard to make this float as awesome as possible.
I won’t say his name, but I remember one kid said, “Look Rick — we can buy our own tickets. It’s not like we live in Garden Road or something!”
The other kids laughed. The cool kids. The rich kids. The kids I wanted to be like.
And the pretty girl I had a crush on since 7th grade — she laughed too.
But I didn’t.
“I live in Garden Road,” I said.
Silence.
That’s when I knew I was different. That there were two Poways and I was from South Poway. I didn’t live across the street from Tony Gwynn or the CEO of a fancy dot com. I wasn’t going to end up with the rich girl I had a crush on.
But, you know what?
I didn’t care.
I was proud of it. I was proud of the edge that that gave me. I was proud that my parents came from the midwest and busted their asses to give me a real shot. And I was proud of the tiny little chip it put on my shoulder.
(And a lot of those “rich kids” that laughed turned out to be pretty great people too. Hope that didn’t come across too judgy.)
Later that year…
It was around 2am and I was driving down Poway Road in my shitty truck. I think my old man paid 2500 bucks for that truck but I LOVED it. It was a 1985 Dodge Ram and that year Dodge had a version of the Ram called “The Gambler.”
My buddy Ben used to say I was “gambling” with my life driving it. Fair point.
I was almost out of gas, so I stopped at the Chevron on Midland Road to fill up.
As soon as I pulled in, I knew something was up. A few pumps away, there was a lifted truck and a bunch of dudes hanging out.
I tried to keep my distance until one of the guys noticed me…
“Nice truck pussy.”
Goddamn it.
The group of dudes started walking over, apparently to mess with me, and the leader of the pack goes…
“Wait…is that Rick Savage!?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Oh shit! He’s cool guys.”
I didn’t know what was going on, but I was VERY relieved. I looked up and recognized the dude as a kid I knew since we were 11 or 12. We can leave out real names for this part, but let’s call him Ozzy.
Ozzy strolled over and slapped five. Said “what’s up” and saved my ass.
Ozzy was THE DUDE in town. Without incriminating him, let’s just say he was certified. Since I was always cool with him growing up, when push came to shove later on, he had my back.
Again, maybe this was a special thing for Poway. Maybe he liked the fact that I was a dude trying to build something and I didn’t have an attitude. Maybe he remembered being on the same Pop Warner Football team with me.
I don’t know what it was, but I like to think he knew I was just another shitty kid from South Poway trying to make it outta there. Either way — he saved me from getting my ass kicked at a gas station at 2 in the morning.
Thanks Ozzy. Wherever you are, I appreciate you.
That was 20 years ago. I’m not sure why I’m telling these little stories. Maybe it’s to paint the picture of just another small town with the same small town tales you had growing up. We had our issues, we had the rich kids making fun of the poor kids and we had punks hanging out at gas stations at 2am.
But now it’s 2019 and we live in a world where a random dude can get his hands on an AR-15 and unload on a Jewish Synagogue. A Synagogue that was down the road from the school my mom taught special education at. A Synagogue that was a few blocks from my high school sweetheart’s house.
There’s no way to make sense of this. I guess that’s what happens now. Crazy people get guns. They shoot up churches or schools or concerts.
I just didn’t think it would happen in my town. In Poway. In a nice little suburb where pissed off kids play punk rock and skateboard. But of course that’s where it happens.
This is the new America. If you made it this far, you know I’m about to say that this is what happens when we have zero gun laws.
When I was a kid, I remember getting my dad’s NRA magazine in the mail. We weren’t a family that hunted or anything — I just thought everyone got that magazine. The NRA was a thing Dad’s knew about, it wasn’t the NRA of today. The people I knew with a gun were responsible gun owners. They could pass every background check you could throw at them.
But you know what they weren’t?
They weren’t a 19 year old that wrote anti-semitic manifesto’s online.
They didn’t read Mein Kampf in their spare time.
Now I live in West Hollywood, CA. One of the most liberal places in the world and I’m about as liberal as one can be.
Do I support the second amendment?
Yes.
Should law abiding citizens be able to own a firearm?
Sure.
But a goddamn war machine?
No.
Do you know what the bullet looks like that comes out of an AR-15?
Look at this shit:
I’m not joking — if I die in a mass shooting, please publish any and all photos of my body. I don’t think people understand what these types of weapons do. This shit annihilates a persons body. It rips through you and leaves a hole the size of a fucking orange.
Mamie Till knew exactly what she was doing when she decided to publish photos of her son Emmett. She wanted the world to see the truth.
I understand how gross and vulgar this is — but what else is left? Until then, none of these NRA bribed, soulless Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham types will understand the reality of the destruction they stand by and proudly support.
I love being from Poway. I think most of us do. I’m sad and angry and frustrated. I couldn’t sleep Saturday night so I ate some cookies, drank some scotch and just started typing. Thanks for reading. I made a playlist of a few bands that came from our town. Sorry if I missed anyone — it’s been a while since I’ve been tapped into the scene. Some of the songs are about our town. Some are about girls. Most are about girls. But they all feel like Poway.
“If I had a chance for another try, I wouldn’t change a thing. This made me all who I am inside.” — “Rite of Spring” by Angels & Airwaves
