Dogg practiced rapping freestyle. “I said, ‘I’ve had a long day, man. I don’t feel like hearing that sh*t,’” Varnado reflected. “At 15 years old, he said, ‘Pops, one day the whole world gonna know who the f*ck I am.” And he was right. Now, he wants to help return the favor with Detroit Mailman. “The whole world gonna know Pops,” Snoop Dogg said.
through. Vernell was one of us.” Coincidentally, when Kiszczak became postmaster about a decade ago, Boyd was the very first customer she met. He was mailing donations for a Christmas charity drive, part of his humanitarian work post-gang life. Boyd, 60, was a gang member and gang leader from age 10 to 45. Behind the façade of fast cars and flashy jewelry was a high-stakes game that could end in an instant with life in prison or an early grave. He endured and overcame that life in the very neighborhood Varnado used to deliver mail. “Rob [Boyd] is my godson,”
“I felt the world should know his story,” Boyd explained. “Papa Snoop has been in the background of his son’s career all these years. I said, ‘Damn, Pop! You need to get in the foreground!’” That mailman story aims to be the voice for other mail carriers who went through the same tribulations and show people they, too, can have a successful mail career — any career they want. And that’s the central tenet of Boyd’s nonprofit that teaches life skills to at- risk and incarcerated people. “The motivation is to show people
that you can be whoever you want to be,” he said. “Pop was a working man way before his son became a star. He wasn't waiting on nobody to get rich or famous.” Stamp duty Varnado got home from Vietnam in 1970. He didn’t think he’d see any more comrades die when he joined the U.S. Postal Service as a mail carrier a month later. Twenty-five years delivering the mail proved he was wrong. “Being a mailman, you can get killed,” Varnado told InMaricopa . “I’ve had two or three coworkers get killed. It’s a dangerous job.” Carrying the mail near Hollywood from 1970 to 1985, people looked down on Varnado. It was a pedestrian route of gang houses, and during that time, Snoop Dogg joined the Rollin’ 20s Crips gang in Eastside Long Beach. Fearing for his son’s safety and seeking a more affordable place to
Varnado said. “He’s family, man.” Signed, sealed, delivered Boyd produced the Keep It Real Show on cable television for 15 years. It was an MTV-style music video program in L.A. where he interviewed hip-hop legends like Ja Rule, Ashanti, Jadakiss, Ginuwine and Danny Boy. He was among the first producers to air Snoop Dogg’s music videos years before his first No. 1 hit Drop It Like It’s Hot was released. Perhaps the writing was on the wall for Detroit Mailman. It’s all come full circle, and that circle ends in Maricopa. “We were going to do the premiere in Detroit first, but we decided we’re going to have it in our own backyard in Maricopa instead," Boyd said. The film premieres Jan. 28 at the Maricopa High School Performing Arts Center.
After decades running the streets of Los Angeles, Snoop Dogg (right) and his dad (left) turn their attention to Maricopa, where their family biopic premieres next month.
Going postal Varnado kept that blue and white safari hat adorned with the “sonic eagle” that USPS issued him in 1995. He’ll wear it on a trip to Maricopa from his home in San Diego this month. “I’ll be down in Maricopa real soon,” Varnado said. “When I get there, I want to go out on a [postal] route.” Maricopa Postmaster Sharon Kiszczak is ready to make his wishes come true. When the two met earlier this year working on Detroit Mailman, Kiszczak realized Varnado’s wild tales of mail carrying were more universal than he may have originally thought. “We had an instant connection,” she told InMaricopa . “His stories of being in the postal service are the same stories we all went
Although USPS employs 250,000 fewer mail carriers than it did when Varnado joined the ranks, there are still more than half a million postal workers in the country including dozens in Maricopa. The Maricopa Post Office advertised a mail carrier job opening Nov. 10. Perhaps the person who occupies that vacancy will go on to serve in the postal service for decades as Varnado did — with all the riveting stories that come with it. With a little help from Detroit Mailman, that just might come to be. “A mailman’s job is moving the mail,” Varnado said. “Anything can go wrong any given day on your route. But people expect you to be there. So, you bring the mail on time, and be there for them — like family.”
make ends meet, Varnado relocated the family to Detroit. In lieu of gangbangers, the city was “like a drug-infested warzone full of hustlers,” Varnado recalled. “Being a mailman in Detroit back in them days, it was dangerous,” he said. “I’ve been caught up in shootouts. I was around drug dealers every day.” Run-ins with cops and federal agents happened daily. Varnado wanted to keep his head down and show his son the key to success was a good work ethic and honest living. But unlike in Los Angeles, mail carriers in Motown were greeted with respect. That’s why Varnado still remembers the names of each member of the 470 families on his route. He also remembers fishing on the river by the Detroit Free Press one afternoon as Snoop
December 2023 | InMaricopa.com
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