Hood Chronicles

Hood Chronicles — stories from the streets of Los Angeles. Real, remembered, or imagined… you decide.

March 14, 2026

Rock’a My Baby 🥷 — A Hood Chronicle

South Central. Every day we running. Every day — looking to be. Becoming. But what are you becoming? Always remembering — sometimes we are not alone. Let me light this fag once more, tilt my head toward the stars, take a puff — let it swirl into the heavens. This story? It’s about a woman… Continue reading

Hood Chronicles

Los Angeles, night, parking lot, rock’a my baby, short story, smoking, south central
March 14, 2026

The Hate of You 🥷 — A Hood Chronicle

To light another fag, to let the swirls of this smoke flow, flow through the streets of South Central. Ground control — the place where many don’t walk through to see. Today’s story? It’s that of a young woman in her twenties — she could be any girl. A woman full of anxiety, full of… Continue reading

Hood Chronicles

anxiety, body image, depression, gym motivation, Los Angeles, south central
March 13, 2026

Don’t Feed the Bad with the Bad 🥷 — A Hood Chronicle

Plastic Man meets judgement at a farmers market and learns a harsher truth: feeding bad energy just multiplies it. This Hood Chronicles entry is a choice to rebuild with respect, discipline, and faith. Continue reading

Hood Chronicles

faith, farmers-market, hustle, Judgment, Northridge, south central, survival, writing
November 5, 2025

The Boy Who Doesn’t Belong 🥷 — A Hood Chronicle

Another day, another puff of this cig — little swirls of smoke gliding between my fingers. Here in South Central I sit, on the curb, seeing. Today’s story is that of a young man, twenty-two years of age, soon to be twenty-three — a young man caught between two worlds. We’ll call him V —… Continue reading

Hood Chronicles

#pain, #rawwriting, #realstories, #streetphilosophy, #wordsofsouthcentral, blog, east la, family, grief, storytelling, writing
October 11, 2025

Then He Was Gone 🥷 — A Hood Chronicle

A puff of smoke rises from the grid of South Central L.A. Let it swirl — a signal, a ghost, a memory finding its way back through time. This story takes place in a faraway place — where casino lights never sleep, and the call girls wander the desert nights of Las Vegas, looking for… Continue reading

Hood Chronicles, Journal

books, family, fiction, grief, lasvegas, loss, south central, storytelling, writing
September 26, 2025

The Window 🥷 — A Hood Chronicle

I believe things will be. Puff goes the smoke of this cig. I don’t know why. Maybe things will improve. Tonight’s story begins as a conversation between a son and his mother. Then it shifts into something wider, something human. The boy tells his mom: I need to succeed so they can see — they… Continue reading

Hood Chronicles

depression, family, fiction, hope, life-stories, listening, love, romance, writing
August 29, 2025

Father Who Battles His Demons 🥷 — A Hood Chronicle

South Central Strike your heel three times, Dorothy — “Go home. Go home. Go home. Leave! This is not your home…” Maybe the voices will vanish, maybe the glass will stop shaking. The chants bleed through the television, vibrating the screen like a cheap coiled bed spring, a warning siren rattling the room. Donald Trump… Continue reading

Hood Chronicles

addiction-survival, fantasy, fatherhood, fiction, immigrant-stories, latino-stories-mexican-american-stories, memoir-writing, noir-writing, short-stories, south central, urban-life, writing
August 25, 2025

The Record Don’t Change 🥷 — A Hood Chronicle

Somewhere between deliveries. PHOTOGRAPHY BY ME South Central Los Angeles. A long way from the dream they project on movie screens. You can hear the crackling of the lit celluloid — projecting outwards, telling us what it wants us to see. Hollywood sells. Oh, it sells. Palm trees. Blondes. Fortune. La La Land. La La… Continue reading

Hood Chronicles

books, creative-writing, family, life, loops-of-life, love, noir-writing, spoken-word, testimony, urban-stories, writing
August 16, 2025

The Ten-Minute Return 🥷 — A Hood Chronicle

From South Central to wherever the pavement runs — snapshots of life, raw and uncut. Hollywood. The place where dreams get chased — few caught, most lost. The lights of L.A. shine so pretty, so untouchable… until you drift closer to the strip known as the Blade… B-L-A-D-E. There, the ladies of the night shift… Continue reading

Hood Chronicles

blade, fantasy, fiction, romance, south central, street-chronicles, the-blade, true-grit, urban-stories, writing
August 16, 2025

From South Central to Wherever the Pavement Runs 🥷 — A Hood Chronicle

THE BLADE South Central – Past Ten A strip of Figueroa that, in daylight, is just another stretch in South Central — schools, mechanic shops, liquor stores. The women — ladies of the night, the blade’s own night shift — are there too, scattered like shadows in daylight. At night, those shadows grow and overtake… Continue reading

Hood Chronicles

fiction, hood, life, LifeInLA, mental health in the hood, short-stories, shortsStories, south central, street life, the-blade, urban, urban-stories, writing

About Me

I’m Roberto Sanchez — illustrator, writer, and delivery driver in Los Angeles.

By day, I sell plastic bags out of a van across South Central.

By night, I draw, write, and build my life brick by brick.

I graduated from Cal State Long Beach in 2022 with a BFA in Illustration, but art has never been just school to me. It’s survival, reflection, and expression. My illustrations come slow — patience is part of the work.

I live and create out of a converted garage.

That small room became Echoes of the Garage — the place where I put words, drawings, and the pieces of a life I’m rebuilding one step at a time.

Here you’ll find journal entries, Hood Chronicles, and visual experiments that try to capture the absurd, the painful, and the human in everyday life.

This is where I put it all: drawings, words, and fragments of a life in motion.

This site is where I put it all: drawings, words, and fragments of a life in motion.