John Densmore

I was born in Santa Monica in 1944 (my mom was born here, too — 1904), and I've never experienced how hot at night it was the other night. I mean, lying in bed sweating at 11 p.m. because it's still 80 degrees is not Southern California weather....

Years ago, I started a fund for Native American students and one for African-Americans. I tell you this not to toot my own horn, but to underline that in my opinion — people of color are the soul of America. The oppression they've endured, and still come out with hope — is inconceivable. As the brilliant Ta-Nehisi Coates says in Between the World and Me, “The black diaspora not only was just our own world but, in so many ways, the Western world itself.”...