S1: Love cannot be constrained , modified or conditioned by anything which exists for it has the nature of creation. Love is always free. Infinite giving of freedom. Nothing which is in existence can prevent love from being loving. You're listening to the Parker Edison Project and Project Project. Good morning. This is season two of the Parker Edison Project , where we examine tenets of culture and show you the ways they play in our day to day lives. This episode deals with two things that are omnipresent in American culture guns and drugs. Less than two weeks ago , there was a major tragedy in Buffalo and another this past Tuesday in Texas. Before I get started , I want to send a prayer and acknowledge both with a quick moment of silence. I recorded these interviews maybe a couple of weeks ago. They're sitting on my desk and I could have gotten this episode out right after the Buffalo incident , but frankly , I couldn't deal with it. It was hard. I was very much okay on the surface , but subconsciously I just needed to process it. A strange and almost adverse thing that occurred is amidst the recent events , I felt even more compelled to become a gun owner. Perhaps because if this is the trend , I want to be ahead of it. My original idea was to find a black owned gun store and talk with the owner. But it turns out there are none near SD. What a surprise , right ? One of the questions I wanted answered was why do gun stores even sell assault rifles in urban areas ? There are no animals there to hunt bigger than a pigeon or a possum. I can maybe understand handguns for protection. But why assault rifles ? As I was asking around to find a black gun store owner , one thing I immediately noticed was everybody I talked to had a story about guns , and they were all firsthand. Same thing with drugs. Everyone had a direct experience of some kind with both , which essentially jumpstarted the topic of this episode. Heaters and lighters. Heaters. A street named for guns and lighters. A common companion piece to drugs. And as I'm writing this right now , I just heard a rap lyric that reminded me of how often drugs and guns run together.
S2: So it's been fun to only drink beer. Gin makes me thin , unable to think where in the sea makes me think of my enemies getting covered.
S1: Got shooting at a ghost.
S2: And my uncle having a gun told us , you only pull it out when you going to use it.
S3: I would say like Columbine was a big thing. I remember when I was a little kid and it was all over the news. I don't remember my parents really talking about it , but I just remember it was like a big it was a big deal at the time , like a mass shooting like that that I had heard of.
S2: That was in the eighth grade. 14 , 13 , 14.
S1: That's Michael Davis. His nickname is Q after the Omar Epps character in the movie Juice. We grew up together. He's telling the story. One of our earliest experiences.
S2: On Girls Birthday Party Tell him everything was good when we had his feet under his shirt or something. Until you spotted that he was spotted too. After you pointed it to me , like , Oh , it was time to go on. We had his piece on the shirt like it was Matthew.
S1: The memory you just shared illustrates how , from a young age city , kids are forced to pick a position in street politics. The truth is , you might not want to run with the quote unquote bad guys , but you have to form some kind of relationship with them because you're sitting together in classes every day. My first guest is a rare and unique social phenomenon. Here's a guy who grew up in the thick of street life and chose a completely different trajectory for himself. What's special about him is he never left. He implemented all the knowledges he acquired right in the place he grew up. He brought it all back to the soil and not that cliche safe space where Hollywood personalities pop up with security for publicity. He's in the spots where it gets really real. He's got a foot in the boardroom and a foot on the block , and he's thoroughly respected in both. I went to his neighborhood to talk to him about firearms , and we even touch on whether I should become an owner.
S3: That's also my title in a nutshell. I'm a drummer. Mm hmm. There in many bands. But shout out to wild side. Shout out to the word love a lot. And shout out to my band SEAL's rhythm section. Shout out to men for Christ. Shout out to Mount Zion Baptist Church and many , many others. Shout out to DJ Artistic. Shout out to D.J. Bar one.
S1: Good dudes.
S3: And and many San Diego Hip Hop five K. I'm the chairman of the Hip Hop Health and Wellness 5 a.m. Festival Co-Chairman. I'm a marketing strategist. I am an advisor to the Board of directors for the Starlight Ball , which is the amphitheater in Balboa Park. I am a manager , property manager for an independent living facility for young men between the ages of 18 and 26 that are navigating through mental illness. I serve as a protector , big brother , father , uncle , figure for those young men that live in my home. Shout out to the Groves family. What I do for a living is I inspire , motivate , elevate all while being sober.
S1: How many years of sobriety do you have.
S3:
S1:
S3: And when I say bottom , I mean there's only up to go. That means that you realize that only God or your higher power can pick you up with your will and the support of a program that I like to say , a Alcoholics Anonymous. And my sponsor , Joseph Dore , now playing a very , very , very , very monumental role in showing me a new direction in life.
S1: I think we're in a Lemon Grove area right now.
S3: The home base was Lincoln Park. That was home base. But I grew up with a single mom. We live in Lemon Grove. We lived in Paradise Hills. I lived in downtown San Diego as an adult , and I still travel a lot with music and entrepreneur shit. But I like to say all of San Diego is my home base. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. The topic of this episode is split right down the middle , and part of it is drugs. And you actually just kind of touched on that for a second. But the part I came to chat with you about is guns. I want to know. What's your first memory that involves a gun ? Clark.
S3: Clark can ultimately slip. What's going on , bro ? You know , growing up in San Diego. Gun violence , especially. And I'm a 1979 baby , but I guess you could throw that into the 1980s , baby. Gun violence is all around us , but I think that it hit close to home in 1992 when my big cousin , Tamika Henderson , got gunned down by her boyfriend. That was my first reality check. Gail was 13 years old and I have a family member that I grew up with personally. That's when I had to definitely wake up to the reality that guns kill us. 13.
S1: 13. Yeah.
S3: Yeah.
S1: 13 has big topics for a young man. Absolutely.
S3: Absolutely. And outside of , you know , just attending the funeral and getting the initial word , I never learned how to cope or express how I felt about that. This is the first time that I can recall actually having a conversation as an adult about that experience at 13. You know , this is a prime example of how important having these type of discussions , especially as black men are in today's society.
S1: I agree. I agree wholeheartedly.
S3: Okay. So what I'll say is this I'm not want to be caught lacking.
S2:
S3:
S1: You are known and seen as such a positive force in the city. And we hear so much about youth from urban areas being pulled into the fast money lifestyle.
S3: But in regards to the pitfalls of street life. I'm.
S1: I'm.
S3: Absolutely a praying grandmother and a powerful single mother. Shout out to my mom and happy belated Mother's Day to all mothers , but specifically to my mother , Andrea Louise Dixon , a.k.a. Punky. She did everything in her will to keep both. Tiffany , my younger sister , and I are away from street life , so I like to say sports , but because I've been so little for so long , I had to find other areas to grow my activity outlet. So that included San Diego Junior Theater and now ball park and learning stage production both on the stage and behind the stage. And then I've always been a drummer since two years old. They gave me drumsticks. But finding a calling in the orchestra pit at San Diego Junior Theater led to me learning how to play in an orchestra pit for four shows. So that kept me busy at an early age. In addition to that , I started my first job at the San Diego Housing Commission at age 12. So there was no sitting around the house in my household. There was no there was always something to do. And there was always a new circle of friends that weren't really entertained by the street life that I could credit my mom and my village for protecting me with.
S1: In your opinion , is there a positive role for guns that they can play in the black community.
S3: When utilized to protect and serve a purpose free , trigger happy people ? I don't support that , but I do believe that all visionaries deserve protection.
S1: I'm kind of on the fence right now and I'm trying to decide whether or not to become a gun owner. I never have before. 44 now. And , you know , we're in a very unique time.
S3: Let me ask you this , too , and I want to purposely interrupting you before you get into your fourth thought. Do you understand your triggers ? I'm talking about emotional triggers. Yeah. Okay. Yeah , okay.
S1: All right. I'm heavy into therapy these days. Okay. Good.
S3: Good.
S1: Yes , sir. Yes , sir.
S3: All right , so just understand the correlation behind your triggers and the trigger. Etc. Once poor can be life or death , right ? Guns are for everyone. That's why you hire security guards. That's why you have surveillance. That's why you protect your chess moves. But let's not live in this false sense of reality that you can be in a grocery store these days , a movie theater at a concert , and someone will just mass shoot. But I'm going to fast forward to something , so definitely keep your seatbelt on. Okay.
S2: Okay. Okay.
S3: 2010 , the mother to my child was shot four times. She was hanging out at 2 a.m. ish in Emerald Hills at a park. And she was with a friend of hers. She was seven months pregnant. I went to work and got a phone call. You know. Hey , daughters , moms. All on the news , man. Is everything okay ? She got shot. Wow. You know , I was extremely enraged by the fact that she was hanging out in southeast San Diego at that time of night. Pregnant , but yet two assailants came out of the park. You shot her four times. They had to induce labor. So you're talking about the impact of guns. It's lived at my front door and I'm still working through the pain and coping and learning through sobriety , how to accept things that I cannot change. But yeah , I just want to let you know that I've been impacted by guns.
S1: But just. Just in case they want to get a hold of you , man , social media and whatnot. Was wish a hand to help me. Absolutely.
S3: Absolutely. And thank you for your guidance on that Instagram. You can follow me at. Carry on CEO. That's carry0m CEO. That's carry on CEO. Also for Instagram , please follow at SD. Hip Hop five K. That's the number five at SD. Hip Hop five K.
S1: For the thank you for your time.
S3: Many Blessings on Blessings Carry On is my moniker and I mean that to you , to your vision. And I'm grateful for your gifts , your talent to our community.
S1: Thank you , brother.
S3: Stay blessed. Peace.
S1: Peace. Peace.
S3: Peace.
S1: I'm still on the fence as to whether or not all are myself. It's a big deal to me. Carlton Express supported my thinking about such a heavy decision. Another thing he mentioned was his sobriety. I didn't say it then , but that's something he and I share. I've been an avid user of recreational drugs for a long time. For personal reasons , I've been abstaining for the last 910 months. I just want to take a break for a while. I'm not even on a complete break. I just kind of changed my drug of choice. I consult within the pot the chemist who tailor fit a culture tea tonic and tincture to me to specifically repair my nervous system. When we come back from commercial , you hear from a gentleman who's doing something similar. He's administering some ancient plants in the sacred way that they were intended. It's a rather insightful conversation. Stick around.
S3: Stay tuned for more of the pep.
S4: You are listening to DJ Move. Yeah , it's me. I'm not so serious. Radio on KSM AM 1320 in Oceanside streaming worldwide and here , right here in San Diego at Palomar College Radio.com. And you can also find us on the tune in and live 365 apps under K KSM. Hey , folks. My name is Bob Surratt. I'm a librarian and host of Listeners Advisory , the San Diego Public Library Podcast Listeners Advisory is the audio access point that connects users with Staples services , facilities and staff. Tune in twice monthly for a mixture of narrative driven segments , in-depth interviews and roundtable discussions about everything from professional recommendations to community centric matters. Find us wherever you get your podcasts or at my SD pal Dawg Forward Slash Listeners Advisory.
S1: And now back.
S2: To the PPE. PPE.
S1: There's a subtle degree of classism in rap music. For instance , if you're on a major label , you're successful upper level. If you're on SoundCloud , you're considered low level or lo fi. Same thing with drugs and medication. Drugs are for the low class. A medication is for the upper class , but they're made from the same ingredients and result in the same effect. To extend that metaphor , cannabis is mainstream now. It's been commercialized like rap music. Big money dispensaries are like record labels. They really don't care how you use it as long as they get paid. Meanwhile , mom and pop growers that move it look down on like unsigned underground rappers see this wrapped this really just like selling smoke. My next guest , he doesn't rap. He's a fan of it. He wouldn't say he's a healer. But after sitting with him , I might. It's a gorgeous day to day , and I really appreciate your time.
S5:
S1:
S5:
S1:
S5: To be honest , the phrase or the term that works best for me is like a guide or a Sherpa. Sherpas are the gentleman you pay if you want to trek through the Himalayas. Usually you know Westerners who are coming to the mountains , who aren't adapts to the altitude , who don't know their way around. They'll hire a Sherpa who's lived in those mountains for a very long time , knows them like the back of their hand. It's not a real good professional term for what I do. There's one other term that I like that comes from. It's a Spanish term , and the term is could in that could intro is a healer , but a healer who works with more natural healing modalities , a healer who works with plants as opposed to a doctor that you would find working in a hospital.
S1:
S5: They may be suffering from some form of illness that Western medicine is having a very hard time resolving. They may be going through a particularly challenging time in their life. It could be emotional , psychological. Physical and I work with traditional plant medicines in order to treat the body and the mind in the spirit.
S1:
S5: I spent a lot of time and energy participating in that world. So to date , I've drank ayahuasca more than 30 times , and that opened my life's journey up to other plant medicines. And so it was after about five years of very deep personal practice that wasn't limited to just ayahuasca , but also involved Budo , which is five amino DMT also involved combo , which is a poisonous frog venom that comes out of the jungles of the Amazon. Some very deep work with MDMA , also with psilocybin. It just started to become clear to me that my place was as a facilitator and a facilitator as a guide or as a Sherpa to help other people navigate these experiences.
S1:
S5: The work I do is highly focused. My ideal client is somebody who has come to me through another one of my ideal clients , and I'll just leave it at that. Just because of the nature of the work that I do , I work solely off of referral bases and I work with in some small circles.
S1:
S5: I have a broader team of highly skilled professionals around me. And when someone comes into our care , we work very diligently to figure out what the proper protocol for them is. That includes initial contact. That includes the initial introduction and conversation intake. It includes the work we do itself with the plant medicine or listen , direct medicine , and then also all of the follow up integration. So it's a very involved process. So the first phase is luminosity , which is a cleansing and clearing that takes place at all levels of being as they get close to the work. Let's say ayahuasca in this instance. So there has to be a cleansing and clearing in the individual's life that begins with their diet. Diet includes media intake , food intake. In general , we coach them to get quieter with themselves , to retreat within themselves , to become more self aware and self-reflective. And then we have the ritual itself. And depending on the medicine , that's anywhere from a three day process to a two hour process. And then the final phase is what's called community loss or what could also be termed as integration. Integration in an indigenous sense is when you leave , you leave the mystery , you leave the ritual , you leave this altered state of consciousness , and you go to the elders in the community , go to the aunties and uncles , and you talk to them about your experience. So it helps ground you back into the culture and the community at large. And in order for that to take place , you need individuals around you who've been there and who have done that. These are the three phases defined and prescribed and discovered by a famous anthropologist , a guy named Victor Turner. He wrote a very profound book called The Ritual Process , where he discovered the underpinnings of ritual work and why it's effective in indigenous cultures all around the world.
S1: In a very tangible , physical sense is the work that you're doing.
S5: They have a body , they have a mind , and they have a spirit. The mind in the spirit are a little bit harder to capture , with a yardstick and with conventional scientific measuring tools , you know. But as an individual , you can experience your thoughts and your feelings and your emotions. And we have this overriding sense that we are more than just a body. Indigenous medicine works at all three levels of our being. It treats the body , the mind and the soul. Whereas Western medicines limitations is that they are focused entirely and completely on the body. I sometimes think of it as true medicine , as a medicine that's working at an even deeper and more sophisticated level than Western medicine , because I don't believe it's very wise or very. He's skilful to leave the mind or the soul out of the equation in life.
S1: Wholeheartedly agreed. Is it a requirement that practitioners in your field partake in their own psychedelic experiences ? Yeah.
S5: Experience matters. Not all of the people who participate , who are guides are always as as deep in the medicine. It's really important to do your do your research and be very sincere about who you choose to work with. You also might want to look at the life of the person that you're working with and get a sense of their friends , get a sense of really who they are and the people who they're surrounded with.
S1: You mentioned ayahuasca a second ago , and I've been hearing a lot about ayahuasca and DMT experimentation in pop culture.
S5: And now that the secret is out and celebrities and people in influential positions are starting to drink this medicine , and more and more people are coming to this medicine. I don't have any reservation to it. I have a lot of faith that that this medicine has its own innate intelligence and that it's guiding its own path through human consciousness.
S1:
S5: I don't believe you can separate the healing experience from the people who bring you the healing experience. I think there are two aspects of a greater whole. They've been drinking ayahuasca in the jungles of the Amazon for at least six or 7000 years. It's a tradition that's considerably older than Buddhism , and so we don't need to reinvent that wheel , making ayahuasca legal in and of itself so that anyone can pick it up and play with it. That may not be the wisest decision. So the full integration of the legality of something like that is probably going to end up being a more complex situation. You know , the spirit of these medicines are always best expressed through the hands of a devotee who has really devoted their lives to working with these medicines. And , you know , the idea of the legalization of anything is funny to me.
S1:
S5: Okay.
S1: Okay. Cheers. Cheers.
S5: Cheers. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. There's some parts of that interview I couldn't completely share with you. We're talking about something deep in counterculture. And repercussions could come from divulging certain details. That speaks to the hypocrisy at play. We're smack dab in the middle of an opioid crisis. Big Pharma is making money hand over fist , recklessly distributing deadly doses with little concern for the wreckage they'll cause. And even though we're all completely aware of this , I still have to tiptoe with this interview to avoid the negative ramifications my interviewee could face for trying to help people to holistically heal their traumas. There's something really wrong with that. Really wrong with that. Anyway , pardon my soapbox. I'm to keep the show moving. My closing guess he brought us a fire track. He's a healer , but his medicine is in his music.
S2: Right now I'm in Fontana , California. Inland Empire.
S1: This episode was about drugs and guns and about the different points of views with them. You express a very unique take , the relationship with violence in your music.
S2: Yeah , it's it's a paradox.
S1:
S2: Dad's selling crack me selling drugs with my mom , my cousins on drugs. Then to a point to where I go to therapy and get diagnosed with bipolar , where certain drugs help are smoking marijuana help me are doing peyote or doing ayahuasca or some type of certifiable. And that actually helped me and brought me to that balance.
S1:
S2: Don't don't go out on this wild goose chase for this love you're looking for a searching for most likely is right in front of you. Fight this shadow king every day if you need to lay down shadows. Don't deep dark spots dumb subconscious thought that come in when you're vulnerable that that voice in your head that stops you from doing what you need to do or that gets in your way , has faith with that every single day where that. No go with my music. Yeah , that's , that's what I really , really want people to kind of to get what's.
S1: What's no games about.
S2: The first bar is the first couple bars. I told the devil not today. You got to go away. I have no time to play. That's my granny's words verbatim. So when I used to come home from shows or coming home from bouncing , you know , my granny was like , we got to get some spears off. So she would put oil my forehead , oil bottom my feet , spill oil on the door. And she made me swing the door open and close as it was. They told Devil , not the day you got to go on the play. I'm so honored that the first bars is my granny word for word. This track record no games produced by deejay , nobody of my album Grammys executive produced by my daughter Danielle. Not today Oh you gotta go away. I am not gonna play here life like people say every day. Every day I read a book never more afraid , never more to smack mama lethal way mouth If the people say what you need to say , move on to see the day twisting colorful more. Just like yesterday she was already people especially of how to fix love or how to fix. We can all agree on these. Take your time. Take care of yourself. Kind of shocked that there was some kind of some kind of commotion. So today or today , we want to say no games. No games. Oh , okay. Okay. Okay , okay. Oh , okay. Okay. Were they all were were they all were they. You know , James , you know , they I'm here to play for no games. No games. Oh , no , no , no. That's good. You know , j. You know James. Oh , good. No game of mine is. Take your time. Take care of yourself. What kind of shot that was ? That was kind of shot. So today. Today , I want you to say , hey , no games.
UU: No games. No games.
S1: Thanks for stopping in. The Parker Edison Project is produced and hosted by yours truly , Parker Edison and the Good People. That platform collection. Be sure to subscribe and catch the next episode on Apple , Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any comments or questions , visit the Parker Edison Project dot com or hit us on Instagram at the P.E. Project. My guide , Kurt CONAN , is audio production manager. Lisa Jay Morrissette is operations manager and John Decker is Associate General Manager for content. This programming is made possible in part by the KPBS Explore Content Fund. Hello. Saying that because it reminds me a Sesame Street. All stay safe out there.
