Compton Cowboys

It makes me think of my friend Randy Sabby.

He, he runs and is the, sort of the main face behind Compton Cowboys, which is-

Okay.

Yeah

Like, we are, like, you know, obviously it's a metropolis, but it's also such a, a rural place, and it, it, it's a country place where, like, people who have horse backgrounds and all walks of life can, can make sense of that.

But yeah, B- Big Ant as a character, you know, when I used to work at The New York Times, I wrote a story about a group of friends called the Compton Cowboys, and that led to sort of a, a book and, and, and a film thing, and that sort of got me thinking about, you know, the presence of, like, Black cowboys.

And y- you know, like, in the past, I think four or five years, we have seen that on, on screen in, in sort of different ways.

But, but for me it's like this Big Ant, which is actually, you know, modeled a- after somebody real na- named Big Ant, you know, who's a close friend of mine, is someone who, who works at a horse ranch.

Oh, man, I think y- yeah.

Y- y- you know, like, for a lot of us who, who were born and raised here, I think I just wanted to reflect the world that I grew up in and the sort of conversation, the questions that I had about LA, right? Like when I was a New York Times reporter, writer, you know, I, I did stories about the Black Panther cosplay community here in LA which is, like, so cool.

You know, I did a story obviously about the Compton Cowboys, right? Like, did a story about this really cool community of southern Mexicans, of, of Oaxacans who, who play this really beautiful ancient game that they've been playing for, like, thousands of years and generations and, you know, I just wasn't hearing about that or, or reading that in The New York Times, and it was really cool.

And, and that sort of like in this roundabout way has helped me kinda get here, you know? Where it's like story and narrative and, like, inquiry is what continues to, like, drive the work that I do today, you know? And it was really beautiful to have that experience to represent LA at The New York Times.

Okay, home.

Of the Compton Cowboys.

Hey, California.

We love the Compton Cowboys.

I didn't even know we had Compton Cowboys.

It's a horse riding team.

I had no idea.

And Beth Behrs.

We have Diane Lane, the Compton Cowboys.

Randy.

Randy is incredible.

But I do think they bring us back into something elemental and they ground us and they allow us to see something that perhaps we started losing in ourselves and they bring

that back.

It's actually interesting, because as you were speaking, I was thinking of this really cool, profound thing that Randy Savi, who we both know really well, Compton Cowboys, he said to me, and it always stuck with me, he said, if we forget the horse, we forget ourselves.

If society... endeavors to forget the horse that we will inherently forget ourselves.