Ever since we started fakeRICH we have made an effort to not be the story. We have done our best to not overshadow the events, the artists, or the art we are covering. Though we have tried to never become the focus, if you have heard of fakeRICH, you have probably heard of Mykal, and to a lesser extent Myself (Joseph, Joe) and Mark.

However, with all the articles we post and all the photos you see, there are tons of stories behind them…So here is a recent one from a couple weeks ago…

The Cambroghini is a black 2006 Toyota Camry. It is the latest in a line of fakeRICH vehicles that have taken us on many adventures and crusades. Mykal is usually driving; its just the way it happened. When we first started this I was usually drunk by the time it came to go out, so Mykal had to drive, and now its just the way it is.

Anyhow, two Thursdays ago Myke pulls up in the Cambroghini. He has his hat on, hooded jacket, and is freshly shaved (somewhat). I get in. A typical start to the night. We go pick up Adam Frankel out in Orange and hit the 5 North. We just recently started doing Crimson on Thursdays out in Hollywood which is where we are headed.

We get to Crimson and do our thing. Take photos, talk, enjoy the music; it’s a blast as always, but we leave a bit early. Steve Aoki is spinning at The Heist down the street and we want to get there to meet up with Paul, a fellow fakeRICH cohort, who happens to be doing some video work for Hyphy Crunk.

Here is the problem: The Heist is at capacity, and even with all the Blackberry and texting skills we have, getting in is near impossible. So while we walk to the Cambroghini Adam decides he may as well get a little more Crunk Juice in him. Unfortunately we don’t have any Crunk Juice and Adam has to make do with some good ole Jack Daniels that happens to be waiting in the trunk of the car.

Adam takes the bottle, shrugs, and takes a nice swig. Myke abstains from the enjoyment of that delicious beverage, since he is the driver, and I, well I don’t drink anymore (if you’re a cute chick and wanna know why, feel free to ask, anyone else [fat chicks], you don’t need to worry about it).

Right then we get the text “I can get you in but you have to come now! where are you?” Adam texts back, “On Hollywood.”

This is where it gets fun.

We weren’t on Hollywood, in fact we still weren’t in the car. We were on Schraeder which is about a mile or so from The Heist…

Now here is something some people don’t know about Mykal. He can drive. Not like drive, how you and I do it. Myke, can drive the shit out of a car. If you need to get somewhere fast, Myke is who you want driving. Gone in 60 Seconds type shit.

So we hop in the car and Myke starts up the Cambroghini. We are out of the parking lot before I can snap in my seatbelt. He makes a right, makes another right, I hear cars honking, people screaming and I swear I heard someone yell “Stay off my lawn you stinkin kids!”, but I could be wrong…

In just a few blurry seconds we’re gunning it down Hollywood Blvd. He’s weaving left and right. I’m just enjoying the ride. And BAM! He hits the breaks. Adam takes another swig as if this is normal. I wonder if Adam looked around for cops.

Adam gets another text: “Hey I can’t get you in. They are being stupid at the door.”

Adam reads it out to us; we deflate, like a bounce house that was over loaded. In the last 20 seconds we covered almost half a mile, hit 80 MPH (I know this because Myke was making a point of announcing his speed “30, 40, 50….70! EIGHTY MILES PER HOUR!” Screaming like only Myke could), and now it was for nothing. Adam throws the bottle of Jack down behind the driver’s seat, “No need for that anymore,” is what that action implied, though he didn’t say it.

Adam, though somewhat deflated, didn’t give up completely and kept working the phone. At this point I’m thinking of places to eat. Myke is making his way to the right lane to get on the 101 South…On our left side I see The Heist pass by. “Little 16 year old cute Mexican chick, I’ll see you next week,” I think to myself.

“Hey. He said he can get us in but we have to go RIGHT NOW,” Adam says with just the slightest hint of a slur.

Myke, in all his driving glory, and with the confidence of an English Professor in competition at a Spelling Bee where his only opponents are the “special” kids who pick up trash during lunch says, “OK.”

I just smile.

I know what that “OK.” means. It means much more than just OK. It isn’t the OK you give to your parents when they ask how you’re doing. It was not the OK you give during a conversation you’re not really listening to. It was more like the “OK” you give to a girl who you just had sex with and is now getting dressed in your room; she is about to leave your house because even though you didn’t ask her to stay over it’s obvious you don’t want her to stay and she says, “Sooo… I guess… I’mmmm gonna go home now?” and you answer, “OK.” with ever so slight a smirk. It was an OK with a hint of joy, mixed with contempt for anyone that thinks that what you are about to do is completely ludicrous. If I know Myke, and I doo, he loves any challenge that has to do with the ridiculous.

So Myke said “OK.” And I just held on.

A u-turn at this point is impossible, not that he couldn’t pull it off, but there are cops everywhere. So he gets in the left turn lane and pulls in the last side street on Hollywood, where Tommy’s is, right before the 101. With our heads on swivels we scan for cops, there are none.

Adam: “Dude, he said we have to be there right now, just drop me off in front and I’ll wait for you guys to park.”

Me: “Sounds good.”

Myke: “Alright.”

Now we’re flying down this street and we come up on this intersection. I know Myke is driving way too fast to make the u-turn. The pedestrians to our left are just a blur.

Then I hear “crrr.” It’s the sound of Myke pulling the e-brake.

I feel myself being pushed back into my seat by the centrifugal force of the e-brake u-turn. I hear the cheap tires squealing, secretly I’m waiting for them to burst. I see both Myke’s and Adam’s heads leaning towards the left as their bodies try to compensate for the turn. After only what could have been only a half a second their heads snap back as Myke completes a flawless e-brake maneuver. And he floors it; tires barely getting traction.

I hear the cambroghini engine roaring. We come up to a stop light. Myke stops hard again. Looks left. Looks right. Then floors it again, making a right hand turn. And we’re in a missile to The Heist.

We are flying to the venue and there is parking up front at the curb. Myke pulls the e-brake again and slides almost perfectly into a spot behind the last car. Adam throws his door open and books it toward the entrance of The Heist while Myke fine tunes his parking. And I gather my senses.

I check my phone.

I didn’t hear any sirens. I didn’t see any blue or red lights besides the LED indicator on my Blackberry, but I noticed something else. A stillness in Myke; Myke is never still. One of the things I had to learn when I first met Myke was that he was always going, talking, doing…Always. When he’s excited it shows, and I knew he had to be excited because he just drove the shit out of a ‘06 Camry with shitty tires. But he was quiet, so I looked up.

I see lights, the red and blue. The flashing. The headlights pointing straight into the back of the car. Only assholes shine their high beams when its not necessary.

“Are those cops?” I asked, monotone.

“Yeah, I’m being pulled over,” the joy was gone from his voice.

I chuckled. I was nervous. Myke was nervous.

The bottle of Jack.

I moved quickly to conceal the bottle as far under the driver seat as possible. I tried using my legs, but I’m short (even on my best days) and I was sitting behind the front passenger seat. So I had to reach down and push the bottle under the seat. Trying not to be obvious, hoping they didn’t see me.

We have a friend, a cop friend, and I have asked about a situation like this before. Cops aren’t allowed to search the vehicle without consent, or probable cause. If they can’t see the bottle they may not have probable cause to search… Yeah, I really thought about that.

After I moved the bottle I sat up, put my hands on my lap and waited for instructions.

With a fist in a black leather glove the cop knocks hard on the driver-side window.

“Get outta there!”

Myke opens the door.

“What…what the hell were you doing back there!?”

I keep looking straight ahead. The cop’s partner strolls up on the rear passenger side, my side. Opens my door.

“What were you hiding down there,” he asks me while motioning towards the drivers seat with his chin.

“Nothing, just picking up my camera sir,” I say with no emotion in my voice or face.

“Get outta the car,” he says, with no hint of amusement, and a very large dose of annoyance.

I do. I look over at Myke, he’s scared and frustrated. We both know the implications of what an open bottle in the car can mean. DUI.

It’s a serious moment in one’s life, especially in Southern California, when you realize that you may lose your permission to drive. And I was pretty….”Haha,” I let out a little laugh.

The cops were motorcycle cops. The cop questioning Myke was easily 300 lbs. of pure slob. I glance over at the motorcycles, and I could tell which bike belonged to each cop. The fat cop’s bike look depressed, literally and …psychologically (poor bike).

The fat cop goes into a tirade about how unsafe Myke’s driving was.

“But sir, I really think I had enough room to perform that kind of u-turn,” said Myke, completely believing what he was saying.

The cop was perplexed. His face contorted in a look of surprise, resembling what I imagine a surprised pillow might look like. Myke was literally trying to justify his driving. I held in another laugh.

Then the fat cop looks at me.

“Come here,” he says with a clenched jaw.

I get as close as I can, he’s a big guy.

“Can you seriously tell me you feel safe with the way this knucklehead, your friend, was driving,” he asks with a hint of a Spanish accent and, knowing that I will agree with him, nodding.

“Officer, in all honesty,” at this point I knew what the right answer was. All I had to do was agree, but, I couldn’t. Myke’s my friend and I hate fat cops. So …

“….I felt completely safe with the way he was driving. I’ve been riding wi..”

Fat bastard: “You’re an idiot too! Get back over there.”

The other cop, like a persistent bout of sneezing that just won’t go away, keeps looking in the car for any signs of what I might have pushed under the seat. I know there is no way he will be able to see the bottle without opening and searching the car. So what does he do? He searches the car.

“Look what we have here,” he says in that just higher than normal taunting voice you used on your smaller siblings when you found what they were hiding from you, as he waves the bottle in front of us.

“Who’s is this,” he asks.

I stay silent. I know its not mine, but, until I know what they want to get Myke for I don’t want to take the rap. If they try to give him a DUI I’ll make some noise and claim it’s mine.

“I don’t know,” says Myke.

The cop decides to give Myke a short sobriety test. Myke passes without a problem and the cop knows he’s not drunk. While continuing to ramble on about Myke not having nearly the same amount of driving training as the himself, the cop is writing out a ticket. He lets Myke off with a fix it ticket for not having proof of insurance.

I’m still standing there freezing, wondering what they are going to do about the bottle. And then it becomes clear. While I was trying to stay warm and listening to the junk spewing out of the fat cop’s mouth, his partner was busy writing another ticket.

“Sign here,” the not fat cop says to me.

Without looking at the cop I ask, “What am I signing for?”

“For open container in a motor vehicle,” he sounds like a bad actor auditioning for a part in a hallmark movie. He seems the type to have stood in front of his mirror practicing his cop voice.

I sign.

Myke gives me a “that’s shitty” look. By this time, Adam has made his way back.

He says, “That’s shitty.”

I say, “Yep.”

The cops get back on their bikes. When the fat cop gets on his, I half-expect the bike to somehow hydraulically put down extra wheels; like you see on dump trucks. No wheels popped out.

Myke, Adam and I get back in the Cambroghini. We soak up a couple more seconds of that Hollywood silence, listening to the sirens that are almost constant on Hollywood Blvd. Myke starts up the car and we drive back home.