The Original Sideshow – Yay Area: Part II

The first time I ever heard mention of a "sideshow" (or anything like it) in a hip-hop lyric was in 1993 when I got Too Short's new album "Get In Where You Fit In" from The Wherehouse on McHenry Ave. There's an interlude in the song "Just Another Day", between two of the verses, where Short talks about the guys in Oakland doing donuts on the freeway and driving all crazy in parking lots. I was a freshman in high school at the time, and I used to put that song on repeat every day when I got home from school. In 2005, more than a decade later, my girlfriend (later my wife) and I bonded over our mutual love of the new Bay Area "hyphy" movement; an East Bay hip-hop shift that achieved fame by utilizing specific lingo made famous by artists like Mac Dre and E-40. They talked about "ghost riding the whip" (putting your car in drive while getting out and walking along side it), going "dumb" (dancing in an awkward manner), and riding in your "scraper" (another word for car). It was a local terminology that eventually turned into its own geographical sound. The "sideshow" was the underground parking lot party where all of this action went down.

It turns out, however, that before Oakland had its own scene of wild youngsters gettin' "hyphy", nearby Foster City—a planned community meant to be clean, peaceful, and perfect in every way—was going off in the 1970s. The 1979 film Over The Edge (featuring the debut of Matt Dillon) is actually based on "real" events inspired by an old San Francisco Examiner article called "Kids on a Crime Spree", a piece about the restlessness of Foster City teens. Apparently, the planners of Foster City never considered the fact that the community offered little to no entertainment for its younger residents. Having grown up in Modesto, I can tell you first hand that teenage boredom leads to creative mischief. That tension is the subject of Over The Edge. The film was so controversial that it never saw an actual theatrical release, but has since gone on to legendary status in the annuls of cult cinema. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain actually noted that the iconic song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was based on the film and his love of watching it as a child. Having never seen Over The Edge and only recently discovered that it was based off the town next door, my wife and I decided it was time to sit down and give it a go. Unavailable on any paid streaming service, I would have to order the actual DVD and have it shipped.

As many of you know, I love to pair alcohol not with food, but with CINEMA! I had to go Bay Area old and new for this one, so I grabbed a bottle of E-40's new Sluricane, a bottle of Moet Ice Champagne from the cooler (the first Champagne meant to be drunk on the rocks), and decided to whip up some Sideshow cocktails.