🏁NKO Club | Vol. 15 🔥🚒 Stay In The Fight, Los Angeles 🔥🚒

01 A Note on the LA Wildfires..

My Mom called me this past weekend and we chatted as we usually do…I heard the wind ROARING in the background and she said “yes the Santa Ana’s are here and they are super bad” “But Mom its so late in the year for Santa Ana’s how is that possible?!” “All I know is that most of the county needs to be very careful it’s been so dry here and you know how that goes…”

When my family moved to California as a kid I will never forget it. As we our moving trucks unloaded at our home in Santa Clarita (north Los Angeles aka the “other” valley) the skies were a deep Sienna-Burgandy tone and ash rained down upon the moving boxes. Quite literally I thought California was secretly Hell and we moved from Atlanta only to find out where the underworld begins. It smelled of a bonfire like I’d never experienced before, the kind that accosts your nose to the point your brain feels charred and fueled with smoke while your eyes burn and tear.

What I didn’t expect that first week in California was to actually fall in love with the city. It would be the place I learned to drive, to travel all the mountain and back roads to get to auditions, to marvel at the glorious coastline on the PCH and visit friends beautiful homes for summertime sunsets and beach days. When my mental health got bad in college I’d pop in my red VW Beetle and drive all the way up the PCH to Temescal or Topanga Canyon and hike those quiet and peaceful mountains until I felt like the salt air and vistas over the marine layer brought me back to life for a little bit. I would go to Pasadena to visit friends or taunt UCLA during our rivalry games at the Rose Bowl or stop by and celebrate a friends baby shower at their Craftsman bungalow in the Pasadena hills they had in the family for decades. Los Angeles had pocket upon pocket of mini-magic, of PREDOMINATELY hard-working, California-proud residents who were creative doers, dreamers and joyful souls secretly so happy we all knew we got to live in the most beautiful place in the USA.

Wildfires were a very “normal” occurance. Every 4 years or so would be a doozy where school got cancelled, you get an evacuation notice and you post up at a friends house or hotel for a slumber party only to return the next day and see the charred black hillside after watching the lines of firefighters on the fireline like ants along a Tsunami-sized wall of flame. In a real bad one, our Canadian friends would send down their Super Soaker planes to drop gallons of fire retardant on the blaze and we would watch in exhilarated joy like we were extras in a real life movie where the heroes successfully battled the “evil invading” flames every time. Within 6-9 months, the charred hillside, blackened like an alien-landscape, would sprout these beautiful bright green buds of plant life and within 3 years the hillside would be bountiful and filled with wildflowers and gorgeous brush again.

This time, my friends, is not like what any of us have known before. This time, the plot twist and hero’s turn hasn’t come but instead…it’s a wake of shock and heartbreaking devastation.

While my parents relocated permanently to the Palm Springs area (thank GOD I may add as it’s very difficult for “sand” and water-retaining plants to burn) most everyone else I am close to in Los Angeles has evacuated, lost power and sadly at current count over 6 people I know personally have lost EVERYTHING. Their home completely engulfed in moments when hurricane-force Santa Ana winds (80 mph+) mixed with incredibly dry and overgrown brush to completely decimate the Palisades and Altadena. The planes and helicopters cannot fly low and perform drops in such winds so all that anyone could do was flee and pray the winds could die down. That beach house along PCH and the family owned eateries we’d grab a bite at to “wait out traffic” …completely gone. Many of my friends from USC who worked so hard to afford their first home in LA who JUST moved in a mere year ago with their miracle baby…complete rubble. And the hardest part, this story isn’t just for one community, this story is the same for literal THOUSANDS of people. The businesses, the grocery stores, the mom and pop taco spot, the churches they got baptized and married in…these are communities and with the blaze goes the space that hold their memories. The whole city is affected or knows at least 1 lovely person who lost EVERYTHING.

It’s taken everything to not want to hop on the first flight and go help but if I go I’d only be taking space and a place that a truly displaced family needs to help start piecing what’s left. In place of that and being ironically freezing in snow in the D.C. area, currently my contribution has been a cycle of the following: texting everyone I know to check in, sharing links and resources I have access to to those who lost it all, coordinating with the NKO Club team to share resources on IG and our IG page to hopefully make an impact, donating to as many Go Fund Me pages as possible but feeling overwhelmed at the sheer mass of them, coordinating with friends in LA doing volunteer efforts to connect dots to access for goods, shelter, animal boarding etc. And for every Angeleno know this: nothing we do can ever feel like it’s enough, but damn is everyone trying to give their all and THAT is the LOS ANGELES I KNOW.

The positives are abundant in this wake of travesty: a whole fleet of Firefighters from Mexico bravely assisting fire crews from over 6 states (they come with swag too as any Californian like me get chills seeing these videos of the men marching the wireline to booming Mariachi music), out northern neighbors again sending their best fleet of super soaker planes and Air Tankers and performing insane Top Gun maneuvers to take out these fires. I have seen literally everyone I know activate and take in foster pets, donate clothing and open their homes to strangers who need a place for them and their children to rest their heads, I’ve seen mental health professionals provide free care and service and restauranteurs like Jose Andres and more provide free meals and support to the fireline and it just continues on!

LOS ANGELES ISN’TJUST LOADED RICH, HOLLYWOOD FOLK (dare I say most of the “Hollywood” people I know are incredibly humble, kind and quite modest). It’s quite the contrary, in fact. Filled with working class and HUSTLING families, “black sheep” dreamers of the family moving west to build on their heart’s calling, brilliant minds developing the next technologies the world needs, families looking after the home passed down from generations, entrepreneurs and founders and musicians and just your “normal” American citizen. Wealth & class, race, religion, political affiliation…it didn’t matter with these fires, as it doesn’t truly matter in life: we all are inherently valuable, purpose-filled and precious and at any time, something can come to rock our world to it’s core to make us question everything. 

LA is a strong city, a talented city, a one-of-a-kind place and the next chapter will be difficult for everyone. Be kind, be assistive and supportive, be a representation of what GOOD does exist in the world and be a light through the blacked smoky shadow that is cast over Los Angeles, my home. In tragedy, find the helpers and my friends, I pray for you and for us all…to be one.

Links to resources are below and continually on the @nkoclub instagram. We will be dropping a special product this week and ALL NET PROCEEDS will go towards supporting fire relief charities and services for those in Los Angeles so keep your eyes peeled for another email.

Lastly, and most importantly, if YOUR FAMILY or someone you know DIRECTLY is personally affected by the fires and has lost their home, please respond to this newsletter directly as I would like to coordinate support for you personally.

04 FIRE RESOURCES:

Click the photo below for direct access to our list of resources, ALSO check the @nkoclub highlights for even more resources available there. Stay safe, stay kind, be a helpful light in the world. MORE WAYS TO HELP COMING SOON!