May 31st, 2014, 7:03 pm
NOTE: I did this interview a few years back and we covered a lot of territory. The interview is quite long, taking place over the course of two days and two separate posts. Took me a LONG time to transcribe all of this but I'm really excited about this because I love her books. I connected with her on Twitter and after awhile I brought up the idea of doing an interview and she was cool with it.

Below I've included just some of the book related info, including her thoughts on digital media, and if you want to read the full interview, there will be links at the bottom for Part 1 and Part 2 of the full interview.

Would love to get your thoughts on this, anyone who reads this. Have you read any of her books? Had you heard of her before this post?

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SFCB: Your book “Do or Die” which was an inside look at the Los Angeles gangs The Bloods and The Crips, was an incredible read, and was dramatic, humorous and scary often at the same time. Talk about how you first came to write a book about Los Angeles gang members, which was not necessarily the world that you had grown up around.

LEON BING: I grew up in a very different world, in Northern California, and went to boarding school and then on to University and I didn't really have any idea that the world of gangs existed, until years and years later. I mean we all have seen movies like Blackboard Jungle, but still, that wasn't a gang, that was just unruly kids.

Then I started seeing these little snippets opposite the weather map in the Metro section of the L.A. Times, and it was always this little squib that read two black youths shot dead in South Central L.A. And it always made me sad and a bit angry, because I knew if these were two white youths, shot dead in Beverly Hills, it would supercede every other headline.

But obviously, the black kids were just the ultimate in disposable. so I had just really begun to write, and I had no idea at all what I was doing, But I, through a friend, met a deputy probation officer, and I rode with him for one day for all his cases. And I just sat quietly and listened, and at the end of each interview, I asked if I could come back alone for an interview, and everyone said yes. So within a day or so I set off alone and it was like a fall of dominoes. One interview led to another and another and another.

And word spread that I was okay, that I was kind of, walked like I talked, I guess, and certainly I was no threat. And so that was it.

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SFCB: Yeah I had read an interview where you talked about how if they sensed fear in you, or if they had thought you were afraid of them, that that would have been a problem.

LEON BING: Yes, it would have been, and I didn't know it. Nobody had said "don't act afraid" I just wasn't afraid. I mean these were American teenagers, and I figured the worst they would have done was back talk. But I didn't feel, growing up either, I wasn't a teacher, I was just someone who wanted to know how these kids felt being unwanted in their own country.

SFCB: I think that a lot of the wonder of the book when it came out, wasn't necessarily that someone had gotten that close, rather that someone who was the polar opposite from them. I can't remember if there was a photo of you on the back of the book's dust jacket or not, but when I first saw the book and the author's name was "Leon Bing", and figured it was some guy or something, and then I saw your picture and was thinking, "wow".

I know I wasn't expecting that, and I think that was an added aspect to it where it was like "wow, I would never have expected that someone like Leon would go in there and have them open up to her so much."

LEON BING: Well, I don't know if it was just me that they would open up to, I think they would have, most of these kids -- and I hate using "they", it makes them sound like carpenter ants, you know, and each kid is different of course. There are really smart kids and really dumb kids, there are mean ones, there are great ones, you know it's just real life.

So it wasn't just me, I think because most these kids were teenagers, no one ever really asks teenagers what their opinions are. They're pretty much told to do their homework and keep out of the way. No one really asks, "So what do you think about what's going on in Washington?" you know? (laughs) I didn't ask those particular questions, I didn't ask them about politics, but I did want to know how they thought and felt, and particularly about being such an unwelcome part of society. I mean the only time these kids are welcome are on the front lines when there's a war. And the war with each other made me nuts, because I used to very often say, 'oh what are you doing, you're killing a kid just like yourself!" he'd say "No, He's my worst enemy", and I'd say "no, no, no, he's not your worst enemy, believe me."

SFCB: Well you point that out, and that kind of goes to my next question, as you’ve said, one of your initial thoughts was that you’d see newspaper articles buried in the back of the paper about gang members killing each other, and it struck you as outrageous, as if these were kids from Beverly Hills (or Pasadena, as you wrote about in your second book Smoked), it would be on the front pages

And I think that unfortunately that stretches across the media in not just gang violence. You had the case of Jessica Lynch, the American soldier who was ambushed during the Iraq War in March of 2003 and was injured and taken prisoner. When Lynch,a blonde white woman, came home there was this wall to wall coverage of her and she was singled out as this great story. Meanwhile in that very same attack with Lynch, was Shoshana Johnson (A Black single mother) who was also injured and taken prisoner with Lynch, as well as Lori Piestewa (A Hopi single mother from a poor background) who was killed in the attack, and neither of those two were given the attention that Jessica was.

Then later I read in the last few weeks where there was a controversy because Shoshana actually got a smaller pension than Lynch did, and there was a lot of controversy over that, and the official storyline over that was that her injuries were not as debilitating as Lynch's, and I guess the pension was based on the long term recovery, or living with your injuries or something like that. So that was the official story, but still that comes off as kind of wrong.

LEON BING: It's very wrong, and the "official story" is always one where if you dig deep enough, it's very unusual.

SFCB: It's like Pat Tillman. That one was one where ...

LEON BING: Friendly fire, and that went on for a year at least.

SFCB: And the whole time they were building him up as... I mean he was already a hero, you know, you didn't have to embellish that. Yet they wanted to sort of put a positive spin on something that was getting a lot of negative reaction. Like to say "hey, look at this guy, HE'S the reason why we're doing this." But it's like, they didn't have to do that, it's just disheartening.

LEON BING: You know, there's just so much that goes on that just makes me want to scream. And of course the media -- of which, I guess I'm a part, although I try to hold myself apart and only write about those things that really get me going, and a lot gets me going. But I won't feast upon a story as though it were carrion, and I were a bird of prey or you know, a vulture. I just won't feast on an article like that story, it has to be one that I kind of devote all of my attention to.

And as tragic as Pat Tillman and those other stories are, they were -- I was not as aware of the Hopi Indian, I would have thought that they would have been all over that, but I think I was writing another book at the time, and when I write I just absorb myself in that subject, you know, and I watch the political news and that's it.

SFCB: And, you know, there are some people I know who I’ve shown your books to, and the book “Smoked” about the white kids who had killed their girlfriends gets a reaction of “oh wow, it's crazy!” and yet “Do or Die” gets a reaction of almost --

LEON BING: -- oh well, you know THEM...

SFCB: -- you know how THEY are.

LEON BING: Right, which is, you know, blatant racism.

SFCB: Well I don't know if it is a conscious thing, but we've seen that so much in society where it's almost become expected. It's like "Well....yeah, that's what they do, you know? I mean ... what do you want?" And I don't think that the people that I was talking to, I don't think that it was a conscious thing, it was a product of --

LEON BING: It's a knee-jerk reaction. There's no thought behind it, it's the same reaction when you go to the doctor and he taps your knee with the hammer. Your knee and your leg moves. It's just knee-jerk.

The killers in Smoked, those teenagers, those murders were so much more craven, then any gang killings. Gangs killed perceived enemies. I don't mean that as if it's right, but they kill those they perceive as their worst enemies. You know, I've so often said to somebody "You're killing a kid that's just like you, what is the matter with you? Stop it!" You know, because I was down there four or five times a week, for two years in the gang neighborhoods, and got to know people very well. And I talked completely openly with them, I didn't just ask the questions.


And this snippet about digital media as it pertains to ebooks.

SFCB: There has been a lot of discussion by authors and readers about the advent of digital media as it pertains to books. There are authors who are steadfast against the idea of having their books be read on a digital device like a Kindle or an iPad and see it as the downfall of literature, yet begrudgingly submit their books for the medium, and then there are others who wholeheartedly embrace it, and see it as the future.

Where do you fall in that debate?

LEON BING: Well I think it's probably very much the future, but I also feel that there will still be books. I think it's going to be much more limited, but I think there will still be... you know I still prefer the heft and the feel of a book. A real book in my hand. I've never, since I learned to read, picked up a book to read without smelling it. I love the smell of the paper and the ink.

SFCB: That is great.

LEON BING: Every book I pick out, it's automatic that I smell it. And then I read it. And my older books smell so wonderful. Not of mold, I take very good care of my books. I don't dogear a book, and when I find a dogeared page in a library book I have a fit. I use bookmarks, because I read more than one book at a time.

But how I feel about it [Digital Media] makes little difference, it is what it is. Will there be more books on Kindle and iPad, of course there will. They can hold a thousand one hundred books! People won't be schlepping books from place to place and many people like that. You know me, I move every book myself and put it away before I move. I mean I don't do it alphabetically, I'm not that OCD. (laughs) But I still know where, I'd say, 94% of my books are. I can go right to a book.

SFCB: When I first got one of the original Kindles I was excited about the idea of reading on there, just because it was something new. You can’t beat the real thing though, and holding the book in your hand, turning the pages, smelling it, you can’t replace that.

However in the area of quantity? I have an iPad with 64GB of memory on it and that will hold a whole library of books.

LEON BING: See, that's wonderful!

SFCB: And that's not to mention the ones that are stored in the cloud that don’t count against the storage cap. While I like the idea of feeling the book in my hands, smelling the paper and that “new book smell”, --

LEON BING: But what if you lose it? I would go insane!

SFCB: Yeah there's that. But there’s also something to be said for carrying thousands of books in your pocket or in your backpack. And I used to be homeless, so the idea of having all those thousands of books at your fingertips, it's kind of enticing I have to say.

LEON BING: Well of course it is. One imagines standing in line at the DMV with a Kindle, it's so much easier.

SFCB: So do you ever see yourself getting one?

LEON BING: Sure! Of course I'll get one. I mean there's other things that take precedence, but of course I'll get one. And I'll use it until I get tired of it, and if I don't get tired of it I'll just keep using it. But I will always buy books. I live in a city that is a book city. There are dozens of wonderful book stores and used book stores. My mother wouldn't even walk into a book store with me because that's two hours to three hours gone like that.

Fortunately I'm with someone now who's just like me. And we'll both go into the store and go our separate ways, and meet every hour, and just keep going.


To read the complete interview, please go to the following two links (both go to my personal blog) to check it out. Let me know what you think, folks! Thanks.

PART 1: http://www.searchingforchetbaker.com/20 ... -leon.html

PART 2: http://www.searchingforchetbaker.com/20 ... on_31.html
May 31st, 2014, 7:03 pm