“Once a punk, always a punk; Expect nothing, cherish everything.” Los Angeles native David Leandro "Leo" Rial-Alvarez takes these mantras to heart. But what do they really mean to an eighteen-year-old Latino Millennial dealing with the suicide of his close friend Aqua, a trainhopper girl, at his going-away party on the morning of his flight to college in New York City? Especially when he left behind Astair, his childhood love, and all his other California friends in the process?

Back in the long-ago summer of 2009, it has only been one year since that fateful event, which left Leo and the rest of the Toxic Kandi Family reeling with deep questions about mortality, personal identity, true love, and how there can be such a thing as too much ketamine.

A subcultural coming-of-age tale, Curb Children embarks on an epic odyssey through strange, vibrant portions of the Los Angeles countercultural underground, circa the late 2000s—as recalled through the 20/20 hindsight of a thirty-two-year-old Leo in the year 2022. Rounded off with nostalgic, magical “dreams” guided by a punk-rock angel, Leo’s deceased Tio Angel, Curb Children shows what the past—and future—once held for a group of idealistic young Millennials at the turn of the century as they dealt with loss, rekindled camaraderie, and an uncertain future. (Shaped, of course, by the hard-learned lessons imparted to them by their twentieth-century Baby Boomer and Gen-X trailblazers and mentors.)