Life in the Central Valley - Chapter 2: Kickbacks

There is nothing that screams Central Valley nightlife more than kickbacks. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, a kickback is an unplanned party that usually takes place on a warm spring/summer evening. There is a variety of cooked food, snacks, and beer readily available to the guests. The meal spread is awesome: carne asada on deck, burgers on the grill, hot and spicy chili, etc. For drink selection, we are looking at the usual brands of pisto: Modelos, Coronas, and/or Tecates. On certain occasions, tequila is a must. As far as the guest list goes... there is not really any sort of guest list. At a typical kickback, you will usually find the family that is hosting, their extended family members, their friends, their friends of friends, neighbors, co-workers, and so on. Some kickbacks might be chill, with just a couple of buddies hanging out in a garage. Other kickbacks can get kind of crazy, and last until dawn. It just depends on the type of night and the energy of the people there. If kickbacks are unplanned, how do people find out about them? Well, it's very last minute and sometimes you may be invited to one purely out of convenience. The first kickback I was invited to was a Super Bowl watch party back in February. It was February 12 and I was driving back to Stockton from SF. The previous night I had hit the town with the boys, during OTM's monthly night out. So as you can imagine, I was already pretty gassed. Anyways, I make it back to Stockton and pull onto the street that I live on. I notice that the block is packed with cars and see that my neighbors are already getting the kickback going (it was about 4pm in the afternoon). There's maybe like 20 to 30 people in the front yard, corridos blasting on the speakers, and carne asada cooking in the background. Before I can even make it to my front door, one of the neighbors hollers at me, and tells me to come through. It didn't seem like they were asking, either. It was more like, "you better get your ass over here, and celebrate with us." Going hard in the paint 2 nights in a row was probably not the best idea I've ever had, but it was definitely worth it. Although I will say, I ended up missing an emergency episode of OneTakeRadio that night. Yeah, it was bad... we ended up re-filming another episode the following day (I think). The kickback was wild though. We had the Eagles/Chiefs playing on the TV in the garage, guests arguing over side bets, tequila shots getting thrown back one after another. Yeah, I thought my liver was going to fail, I was rocked pretty bad that night, after I got home. The highlight of the night had to be the game of tomo todo that they had going. It's pretty much a dreidel game with small-change betting involved. It wasn't necessarily winning the pot that made the game fun, but more so how hype people would get while playing. Out of all the kickbacks I've been to so far, after moving to the Central Valley, this one had to be my all time favorite.