DECEMBER 26, 2016
ALL THINGS STRANGE AND WONDERFUL
This week's image comes from distant Marin where a local knipsed this
shy fellow peering from behind a tree in front of his house. Perhaps getting
ready for Santa's midnight ride.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
If you were wondering about the hubbub around 825 Taylor in the West
End direction, let it be known that the 150 year old oak tree that used
to grace the campus of Maya Lin Elementary was uprooted during the recent
storm and now is no more. This Oak was the remainder of what had been
an entire forest that spread its branches over the Island during pre-Spanish
colonial days.
Hazmat hubbub in Berkeley around 7th Street on December 22nd was due
to an Ammonia gas release from Bayer labs. Issue was quickly contained.
Murder, she said. You knew we could not slip by a year with things as
they are and no murders on the Island. Our rate stands at about 1.33%
per year, which means those left a quarter dead or more have months to
go. Or we are losing a lot of midgets. Okay, all jokes aside, Donna Marie
Qualls, 55, was ordered by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman
to return to court on Jan. 5 to have a date scheduled for her trial after
being charged with murder.
Qualls is accused of killing 73-year-old Emmanuel Emmett Christy at her
apartment in the 700 block of Buena Vista Avenue in Alameda shortly before
10:20 a.m. on Dec. 3, 2015. Alameda police Detective Alex Keden testified
that Qualls called 911 after the shooting and told a dispatcher, "I
shot him. He's been hurting me and he told me to give him money."
Keden said when he went to Qualls' apartment a short time later, he found
Christy lying on his right side on his bed with a gunshot wound to his
left ear area. Christy was pronounced dead at the scene.
As in a lot of family disputes there is a lot of he said, she said, but
this time it is all she said. Mostly, our Islanders travel over the bridges
to get offed, but we cannot fault a fellow for dying in his bed, so to
speak. As traffic worsens, we expect this routine will change the percentages
significantly as murderers and victims find it more and more difficulte
to get around and unable to afford the high rents.
California no longer has the official stamp of wierdness. Ms. J. Moos
of CNN will have to look elsewhere for her coverage of the outre and the
bizarre as this week comes a cropper with lunacy across the board in the
Heartland.
A brief survey shows a woman in Clairsville, Ohio, really wanted some
nachos. So much so, she put an ad on backpage.com offering sex for $60
and some cheesy chips. She demanded them four times during one ill-fated
meetup with an undercover officer who promptly put her under arrest.
A New Jersey Police officer was under investigation for walloping a man
dressed in a bunny suit who had arrived at the station to answer for an
outstanding warrant. The bunny's brother caught the incident on video
(of course), including the cop's delivery of at least two hearty slaps
to the head. But he was so cuuuuuuute . . .
The Pasco County Sheriffs Office (Florida) is looking for some
help identifying an accused robber whose unique taste in disguises even
has deputies scratching their heads trying to figure out if its
a man or a woman.
According to the agency, the robbery in question took place at the Holiday
Gas Station, 1937 U.S. 19, around 8:30 p.m. Dec. 14. A person dressed
in a military-style pilot jump suit walked into the store and told the
clerk to put up her hands. The robber, who also happened to have a beard
drawn on with marker, then demanded cash, an email from the sheriffs
office said. The robber did not display a weapon or even imply there was
one, the sheriffs office noted.
While its often recommended people stop and smell the flowers,
taking time out to pet cats can lead to arrest.
At least that was the case for a Boca Raton man last week who, in the
middle of fleeing police, stopped by a home, asked for water and the proceeded
to lay down and play with the homeowners cats.
All that happened after the man is accused of taking $2,000 out of a
friends wallet following a night of partying, according to UPI.
The man then crashed a Lexus into multiple vehicles, including a cop car
and a fire hydrant, before he bailed into a residential area.
At that point, both the Boca Raton and Delray Beach police departments
were on his tail.
The man walked up to Candace Noonans back sliding-glass door and
let himself in, saying he was a landscaper working next door. He asked
her for a glass of water and she obliged, First Coast News reported.
When she returned with the water, the man was lying down on the floor,
playing with her cats.
It was odd, very odd, First Coast News quoted Noonan as saying.
When Noonans husband tried to question the man, he fled outside
and tried to get away from police by diving into the Intracoastal Waterway.
The crew onboard a police boat landed the catch that resulted in an Aug.
28 trip to the Palm Beach County Jail.
Daniel Pinedo-Velapatino, 21, now faces a long list of charges, including
burglary of an occupied dwelling, three counts of drug possession, three
counts of assault, hit and run, and grand theft auto, among others.
The woman with the cats declined to press charges.
Alamedas beloved Tap Dancing Christmas Trees were a part of the
90th annual Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade Thursday in New York City.
The locally based dance troupe has joined the parade in years past and
has always been well received.
This past week we had only six persons put on 3-day hold at Villa Fairmont,
probably because all the crazy people stayed out of the rain. We saw one
cat bite injury, one DOA of natural causes, a couple peeping Toms, one
child cruelty issue, and quite a lot of petty thefts and burgluries, which
tends to happen at this time of year. No assaults or strong arms this
time around, thank heaven or His Noodliness.
That is just some of the news from around the country as we lumber, toddle
and stumble to the end of a wildly inane and hair-pulling 2016.
IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER
So anyway, the Solstice passed in the penumbra of the last Supermoon
of the most dolorous year of 2016, which saw DAESS stomping all over the
people of the Middle East while committing heinous atrocities, the drift
around the world toward right wing extremism and in this country a resurgence
of the most vile, fascist tendencies this country has ever harbored, the
deaths of some 25 or more brilliant lights of earth in music and the arts,
the entire Arctic circle melting into the ocean and worse besides.
Nevertheless, there remain bright spots and of course the cosmos and
the universe continue to revolve. Trump and his minions may have seized
power, but the sun abides.
The Solstice passed with little complaint. Terry's Wiccan coven met out
at Crab Cove to celebrate the turning of the year and for this time, Eunice
the Moose remained in her paddock.
Old Gaia sits there on the rickety porch of the world. Now is the time
when Gaia tilts her weathered face creased with valleys, arroyos, hills,
deserts, plains, mesas, continents and the liquid seas of her deep dark
eyes towards a gaze at her son, Phoebus Apollo riding in his bright chariot
as she sits and rocks ever so slowly in the ticking wicker chair, the
folds of the quilted Universe draped across her lap, the rocking becoming
the dance of Shiva, the creaking rails marking the ever ceaseless count
of time's advance, ticking each second, each century, from the first moment
of creation until that rocking chair stops at the moment of that last,
terrible, motionless silence.
Some people confused by Astrological hoodoo believe in this day and age
the season warms as the earth spins closer to the sun -- nothing could
be further from that deception, unless it be the foolish nonsense of Mercury
Retrograde, the classic illusion, for nothing moves with surer purpose
than the planets.
As Gaia turns her face toward the light, her ravined face gradually warms
with measured steps, deep shadow covering the valleys of her eyes, all
the world warming up under rains that will welcome the Spring and life's
renewal, and everything is precisely where it needs to be right at this
moment while Phoebus Apollo gallops in his low-rider at an angle to her
repose, harder to see, longer by degrees in his daily journey, a sort
of side-show to beat all side shows.
After the longest night of the year, the shortest day, the hours advance
and second by second the light returns to the world. In the half-light
of the Underworld Persephone looks up from her shattered pomegranate and
waits for her time to return to her mother while above the world endures
a cold season of frost upon the land.
The Annual Xmas pageant at The Church of Our Lady of Incessant Complaint
went well, as the continued good relations between the Catholic parish
and the Lutheran Parsonage continue such that talent is allowed to traverse
minor boundaries and petty differences -- according to Reverend Nyquist,
we all are worshipping at the same altar; it is just some people toy with
more distractions than others while doing so.
Father Danyluk is of the mind that a few Lutherans in the choir always
improve things, and a few stringers of sea bass from a successful fishing
expedition is not so bad a tithe to pay so as to achieve harmony that
is both spiritual and musical.
At Mr. Howitzer's the holiday party on Xmas eve went on into the early
hours -- everyone was jovial about the recent elections and Dodd had to
refill the punch bowl some four times until he was all out of fresh juice
and mixer and wound up pouring in gallons of vodka from CVS and grapefruit
juice to make up for it.
This did not matter so much and Mrs. Cribbage became quite wobbly on
her high heels until she fell into the coi pond.
Because of the long school break, Ms. Morales actually caught up with
her work for the semester and she and Mr. Sanchez had cookies and tea
with brandy and they fell asleep together in the easy chair, Ms. Morales
in his lap all curled up while the lights of the holiday tree blinked
off and on.
Over at Marlene and Andre's, Martini and the crew had gone out to find
a holiday tree more than a week ago and the best they could find was a
sort of haphazard, lopsided, sickly and largely barren sort of thing that
had been discarded from the lot located at the Presbyterian church. They
had pulled their red flexible flyer wagon around to the Unitarian lot,
but those trees all were potted plants like ficus and azalea, which did
not sit well with the crew for its outlandishness.
So they came around to the lot and looked with longing at the tall trees
that cost a fortune of many dollars. Each emptied out their pockets and
all together the crew came up with something like twelve dollars and fifteen
cents and there were no trees for sale which cost anywhere near that.
So with tears in their eyes they turned away from the brightly lit tree
lot filled with noble firs and douglas pines and the busy man running
back and forth with the saw and the plastic tape and they turned to go
when Jose noticed the scraggly fellow left by the dumpster, waiting to
be cut up and tossed in.
Javier stood up the tree which had lost much of its foliage and they
generally agreed that something could be done with it, allowing a great
deal of padding and so this tree they loaded into the flexible flyer transport
to be brought back to the Household.
There the tree was placed into the washbasin tree stand and bolstered
with cinder blocks and soon draped with all sorts of orniments found around
the house and in the garbage and by the end of the evening the Household
enjoyed a proper holiday tree, good for all occasions and all faiths.
For it is not the tree that counts, but the love that went into its decoration
that matters the most.
That magical night, the opossum who had dwelled for a time in the bole
of a previous tree emerged from the fireplace to snarfle around the house.
From far across the water the train wail ululated in waves from the light-studded
gantries of the Port of Oaktown, letting its cry keen across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista
flats and the open spaces of the former Beltline, through the cracked
brick of the Cannery with its leaf-scattered loading dock and its weedy
railbed and interstices of its chainlink fence, dropping slowly over the
basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park as the locomotive click-clacked in
front of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling
out of shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to parts
unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
DECEMBER 18, 2016
HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN
This week we provide a painting supplied by Carol, an artist living in
the Gold Coast area.
THIS ISLAND-LIFE
Hear tell that the action folks are gathering to wish good-bye to Jim
Oddie, who appears to have been an independent voice on Council. Naturally,
anyone genuinely free of influence is in for a hard road, and Oddie was
subject to severe mudslinging funded by deep-pocket interests. Across
the board, nationally and locally, it does appear that the Bad Guys won
this time.
Once again another bank was held up on Otis. And, grimly, we notch another
murder on the Island with the shooting death of Antwaun Williams of Oakland.
Posts on Facebook said that Williams had gone bowling at the AMF South
Shore Lanes, 300 Park St. According to the posts, Williams may have been
an innocent bystander caught up in a fight between others at the bowling
alley.
The incident occurred in the bowling alleys parking lot around
9 p.m. last Saturday, Nov. 20. Williams was transported to Highland Hospital
in Oakland, where he later died, police said.
The Alameda Police Department received an assist from the Alameda County
Sheriffs Department whose deputies helped collect evidence at the
scene. Police are investigating several cars seen leaving the scene after
the shooting.
Including Williams murder last Saturday, Alameda has had 20 homicides
in the last 15 years. The city averages 1.33 homicides a year. This does
not include islanders who are murdered outside of city boundaries. Those
number about 20 or more.
BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE
So anyway, after the recent dockwalloper here caused havoc in northern
Marin and flooded a few streets here, a cold wind blew all the dark clouds
away to leave frosty mornings. It was 30 or so down the peninsula and
up in Marin it hovered in the valleys there around 31.
All of these numbers are in the plus digits above zero, so you folks
up north can remain smug about it all. Still, for us coastal Californians
this is pretty nippy, especially since most of us do not have insulation
or central heating worth the name to warm up our rooms with their charming
14 foot high ceilings.
The seasonal break has begun for schools in the Bay Area and now parents
everywhere have bouncing, energetic kids to handle when normally those
kids would at least have homework to hold them in thrall. Andre took a
walk with Little Adam looking for useful things left on the curb. Things
that could be fixed up and sold again for a few dollars. They returned
along the Strand, looking this time for driftwood and the elusive sand
dollars, which had become smaller and smaller in recent years.
Once Andre had found sand dollars three inches in size and because they
were so common he had lost them. Now, all you could find were the size
of quarters.
The remains of the last Supermoon waned above as they returned. Andre
commented "There's the Man in the Moon! He has been so clear lately."
"How did he get there," Little Adam said.
"He has always been there, looking down and with that mysterious
face."
"O!" said Little Adam.
Back at the Household, they had bread soup to warm themselves up and
they listened to the rats scurrying below the floorboards.
Because of the cold someone suggested they get Martini to go down there
to see if he could fix the old heater unit.
"O I do not think that is such a good idea," Martini said.
"Lets go out and steal an Xmas tree!"
condom wrappers, IUD's, sparkly C-rings, underwear
So a party was got together with mittens and scarves and the Flexible
Flyer wagon and saws and Martini and Pahrump and Jose and Javier and a
few others went in search of an holy tree and they found one in a lot
that had been cast off and had lost most of its needles on one side and
it was somewhat crooked and dirty but Martini thought it could be worked
with and Pahrump felt it had soul so this sorry bedraggled thing that
had been rejected was brought back to the Household and was soon ensconced
in the Xmas washtub basin and decorated with all sorts of gaudy tinsel-like
things, like condom wrappers, IUD's, sparkly C-rings, underwear, tinfoil,
beer tabs, bottle tops, computer parts, and made-up ornaments and Filo
crap. It did not look so horrible in the half light allowed in that bad
abode and so even the cast offs of the world had their own cast off to
celebrate the Solstice.
The usual crowd at The Old Same Place Bar was swelled by an influx of
people come in to seek solace and companionship as Padraic turned on the
TV above the bar to the channel covering the Electoral College events.
The normally energetic bar was subdued as people nursed their Gaelic Coffees
(so named because Padraic was certain no decent Irishman would sully the
Water of Life with so many base ingredients as coffee, brown sugar and
-- horrors! -- whipped cream.
Everyone was there to see if the Faithless Electors would rise up in
rebellion, a rebellion reminiscent of that of 1776 and that there would
be great protest and opera of all kinds with people shouting and history-making
speeches and men dying on their swords out of honor, but they were sorely
disappointed in the drama. The Electoral College possessed, collectively,
no great honor and the candidate who had received far fewer votes than
the opponent by some three million was appointed President.
Another appointed President. Not elected, but appointed.
That night the comet burned bright in the brief moment before its certain
evaporation. But there in attendance were not only Papoon, the Slightly
Mediocre Liberal Candidate, but also Babar, the Very Conservative Candidate
who had actual and real ties to royalty, something for which the Conservatives
have always salivated.
They were both sad and depressed and Babar said it best, "My friend,
tonight, both of us and the Country are the losers here. Neither the reasonable
nor the flippant have won anything. Instead we have gotten what some of
my party have wished for all too much and without thinking about what
it really meant."
"My slogan has always been, 'Not insane'," Papoon said. "It
was the thing that made me different from all the other candidates. Lunacy
has been chosen over me and not for any good reasons, and that is really
depressing," Papoon added.
"Do you really think he will build a two thousand mile wall and
make Mexico pay for it?" Babar said.
people will say how could you not have known
"Of course not," responded Papoon. "The wall will be far
longer and higher than anything ever seen and built entirely within our
own hearts." He paused. "And we will be the ones who will pay
for it. In forty years time there will be another Man in The Glass Booth
and another Nuremberg and people saying how could people who generated
such civilized philosophy and intellect create such an evil and the fingers
will point and people will say how could you not have known about the
camps, the cattle trains, the extraordinary renditions, the extermination
chambers?"
Both of them looked to the place where Old Schmidt used to sit. Someone
had laid a wreath on his favorite barstool. His favorite expression had
been, "I know nossink! Nossink! Nossingk!" So tragedy had descended
to bad comedy. But Old Schmidt knew what was to happen; he had seen it
take place before with a demagogue propelled by extremists seizing power
and usurping the industry of any entire nation. He had tried to warn everybody,
but now he was gone.
on to the Glory of the Flag's allegiance
Up on the frosty hill, Mr. Steif caressed his 1914 semiautomatic as he
glared at the shut door to the Greek Orthodox temple where Wally's son,
Joshua the whistleblower, had taken refuge. Soon, Mr. Steif, thought to
himself, soon I will get a clear shot at him. The time is right now and
I will be gone down the hill and vanish into the bureaucracy of paper
and secrets, all my movements accounted for and alibis established and
then it will be off to the next project in Russia. Soon, I will kill Joshua
and we can move on to the Glory of the Flag's allegiance once again.
Soon, I will kill him.
Beneath the chilly waters of the Estuary the Captain of the El Chadoor
observed all these things and wept.
The First Mate queried him and he responded that he wept for America.
"Why do you weep for this infidel country," asked the First
Mate.
"Because I had hoped that they would help free us from the iron
grip of the mullahs," said the Captain. "Now, they are just
the same as everybody else."
"I will pretend I did not hear that," said the First Mate.
And so the El Chadoor pulled down its periscope and dove down and glided
out through the Golden Gate to the open sea, running silent, running deep
on the waning night of the last Supermoon of the year 2016.
In the window of Marlene and Andre's Household a garbage tree glittered
and sparkled for all the world to see, giving cheer to any passing by
and saying simply, "Here against all odds doth hope and peace abide."
The frost gathered on the car windows all up and down the block and the
moon, the serene moon, gazed down upon the former Empire with equanimity.
From far across the water the train wail ululated in waves from the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, letting its cry keen across
the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena
Vista flats and the open spaces of the former Beltline, through the cracked
brick of the Cannery with its leaf-scattered loading dock and its weedy
railbed and interstices of its chainlink fence, dropping slowly over the
basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park as the locomotive click-clacked in
front of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling
out of shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to parts
unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
DECEMBER 11, 2016
BUCKETS OF RAIN BUCKETS OF TEARS
A dockwalloper swept on through and left a brief moment of glory over
Bungalow Court in the East End near Jackson Park.
There is a crack in everything; that is how the light gets in. At least
according to poet Leonard Cohen.
FOR A DANCER
In memory of the 36 artists who died in the recent Ghost Ship live/work
space fire. The artists lived there because of the inhuman rental crisis
that is destroying communities and businesses all over the Bay Area.
Cash Askew, 22, Oakland, Calif.
Jonathan Bernbaum, 34, Berkeley, Calif.
Matthew (Em) Bohlka, 33, Oakland, Calif.
Barrett Clark, 35, Oakland, Calif.
David Cline, 24, Oakland, Calif.
Micah Danemayer, 28, Oakland, Calif.
Billy Dixon, 35, Oakland, Calif.
Chelsea Dolan, 33, San Francisco, Calif.
Justin Fritz, 29, Berkeley, Calif. who lived her life as Riley Fritz
Alex Ghassan, 35, Oakland, Calif.
Nicolas Gomez-Hall, 25, Berkeley, Calif.
Michela Gregory, 20, South San Francisco, Calif.
Sara Hoda, 30, Walnut Creek, Calif.
Travis Hough, 35, Oakland, Calif.
Johnny Igaz, 34, Oakland, Calif.
Ara Jo, 29, Oakland, Calif.
Donna Kellogg, 32, Oakland, Calif.
Amanda Kershaw, 34, San Francisco, Calif.
Edmond Lapine, 34, Oakland, Calif.
Griffin Madden, 23, Berkeley, Calif.
Joseph Matlock, 36, Oakland, Calif.
Jason McCarty, 35, Oakland, Calif.
Draven McGill, 17, Dublin, Calif.
Jennifer Mendiola, 35, Oakland, Calif.
Jennifer Morris, 21, Foster City, Calif.
Vanessa Plotkin, 21, Lakewood, Calif.
Wolfgang Renner, 61, Oakland, Calif.
Hanna Ruax, 32, Helsinki, Finland
Benjamin Runnels, 32, Oakland, Calif.
Nicole Siegrist, 29, Oakland, Calif.
Michele Sylvan, 37, Oakland, Calif.
Jennifer Kiyomi Tanouye, 31, Oakland, Calif.
Alex Vega, 22, San Bruno, Calif.
Peter Wadsworth, 38, Oakland, Calif.
Nicholas Walrath, 31, Oakland, Calif.
Brandon Chase Wittenauer, 32, Hayward, Calif.
NIGHT MOVES
So anyway a dockwalloper moved in to saturate the place real good and
then moved on, giving the impression that more was to come. The Meteorologists
are saying a massive dockwalloper will smack into the Bay Area on Tuesday.
Somber was the mood everywhere. In the Old Same Place bar, Padraic, Dawn
and Suzie wore black armbands for Old Schmidt who had suffered an heart
attack in the bar a few nights ago.
he learned all his family had been executed
Old Schmidt had been a regular for many years, offering anecdotes and
witticisms while smoking his pipe. He had been part of the little known
and seldom reported German Resistance during the Third Reich, for his
family had been Socialists who had fought against the early Nazi Brown
Shirts in the streets before the Putsch had put Hitler in power. His father
had sent him as a young boy out of the country before the final, failed
assassination attempt. Friends had got him from France to Spain with the
world entirely aflame. He made his way to Portugal over the mountains
and from there eventually to America and Camp Richie in Maryland, where
he learned all his family had been executed. He was good with his hands
and always worked hard and so became by turns a carpenter, an electrician,
a potter, a mechanic, a saxophone player, and a beatnik.
Propelled by rumors of wild and crazy and liberated people and the energy
of Patterson New Jersey, whose namesake poem proved to be more exciting
and beautiful than the actual article, he bummed Westward Ho! heading
toward the rising sun of Chet Baker.
He liked San Francisco, with its unruly dockworkers and militant unionists,
its working fishing fleets, its elbows on the table manners and its rough
Democratic egalitarianism, and so he stayed through the end of the Beats
into the Summer of Love, which he liked even better, for the pleasure
of the company of Amber and Florence and Virginia and Ellie and Amy, Margaret,
Yvonne, Sam, Lucy, Anna, Diane, and a couple of others whose names he
had difficulty remembering amid the demonstrations, the rioting, the extraordinary
music, the purple haze, the lava lamps, the smoking ganja, Black Power
salute, the Panthers, the Vietnam War, the manifestoes, the joyous upheaval
of it all.
Eventually, he and San Francisco changed. And Baghdad by the Bay, the
City that Used to Know How, became by degrees, almost without notice,
the City that Used Knowhow, callously and without heart or soul.
A City that operates on image . . . runs the risk of shattering.
A City that operates on image, instead of its Heart, like any mirror,
runs the risk of shattering. Patty Hearst, then Jonestown, then Dan White,
and far too many bodies to speak of and drugs ruining the high, Schmidt
stood in the ruins of an apartment and looked to see how the high water
mark of the Beats and the Sixties had sloshed up against the foundations
of Fear and Loathing only to ebb away, leaving the line of where things
had been up there on the walls where the words of the prophets had once
announced the Revolution. Perhaps the same Revolution for which his own
parents had once struggled and died.
He bent down to touch the cold neck of Mimi, one of the most beautiful
women he had ever met, and saw she was dead. From that place he fled to
the far reaches of the planet. To Mongolia, where he chatted with yaks.
To Majorca. To Egypt, home of the Pyramids. To Baghdad, cradle of civilization.
To China with its hanging mountains. To the Philippines and Bangkok and
to the innumerable islands of Malaysia. To long-suffering and now healing
Vietnam. To the Silk Road. To the tracks of the Orient Express. To the
stupendous plazas of Stalingrad. To the ice mountains of Kamchatka.
And that girl, that girl you knew
Yet something always called him back and to the Bay Area he returned,
as many do, looking to find something somehow lost here, some emotion,
as if one could fish down in one's trousers or in a cupboard to locate
that absent token from Playland by the Beach or Laughing Sal and bring
it up again, shiny and new and startling again in one's palm. And that
girl, that girl you knew would dance and swirl again in your arms.
But the City that Used Knowhow had tossed its own forget-me-nots into
the garbage. The drinks were neon, the Embarcadero now a superb model
of cleanliness, and busses loaded with tourists from places like DesMoins
and South Park cruised down the Tenderloin, gawking and taking pictures
of the colorful people. And even Herb Caen and the Bushman of Fisherman's
Wharf had both died.
Now reduced in circumstances, he moved to the Island, which at that time
was not such hot property, and possessed a few of its own charms. And
so he had lived out his days, tinkering with mechanics, fixing the bikes
of neighborhood kids, adjusting clocks for neighbors, puttering in a garden
of fava beans, tomatoes, squash and roses.
That night, Suzie the barmaid who had never had enjoyed much luck in
love herself, held Old Schmidt as they waited for the ambulance, and so
the old man died in the arms of Suzi after his outburst concerning America's
recent failure to keep its noble experiment going.
Old Schmidt had seen fascism. He had seen how it began with rural discontent
and disinformation and misleading of simple folk with propaganda and how
it led to violent struggle and pogroms and armed gangs, proceeding to
seizure of the resources of an entire nation, which then are perverted
in the name of hatred of otherness and foreigners and immigrants and irreligious
to conduct concentration camps and use of registries to round up any sort
of groups labeled as undesired.
This is how genocide begins. It starts entirely reasonably
That is how fascism takes root. This is how genocide begins. It starts
entirely reasonably. We have this threat with which we must deal most
severely. We must build a wall. We must round up the illegals and ship
them via cattle cars somewhere. We must have a definitive, strong-armed,
Final Solution.
One thing can be said: although Old Schmidt saw his worst nightmares
return again, he did die in the arms of a beautiful girl.
Outside the bar's windows, beading with condensation, the cold winter
air swept down the street. The air was laden with promise of more rain
and possibly more relief of snow to the parched Sierra. So this air had
a dual quality of hope for life as well as threat to those who humped
along with their stolen shopping carts and their rags, seeking some shelter
under a freeway overhang or church door. In the Johnson Center those tramps
who had managed to secure bunks sat there before lights out and stared
at one another, each wondering who among them would not survive another
one to Spring. Winter means something different to these fellows.
At Marlene and Andre's Household, the shutters had been pulled tight
and the drapes drawn and the company there settled in for what looked
like a long, cold, wet one. Because of the obscene rental situation over
fifteen people had clustered together in the one bedroom cottage held
for lease by Marlene and Andre. Bunks had been nailed up in the hallway
and Jose slept in the hall closet while Suan used the couch when she was
not working the Crazy Horse Saloon and Occasional Quentin slept under
the coffee table. Javier used a portion of the fireplace when he was not
sleeping with one of his murderous lovers. He liked to choose lovers that
were murderous, because of the excitement, but most people felt that this
process had a limited lifetime, so to speak.
The nearly full, immense moon rose over the Bay in a sky made dramatic
by dramatic, emotional clouds. The entire heavens had turned into a grand
opera of striations and reefs of dense matter. But the moon resided majestic
and serene and larger than ever before. Nations come and go. Governments
collapse and crumble and in the desert a shattered monument stands on
whose pedestal words have been writ that say, "Look on my works,
ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch
far away.
Down below in the crawlspace the rats scurry and hurry about the long
dead heater assembly and vent, which was wired long ago by a nonunion
electrician directly into the mains without a shunt, shutoff switch, fuse
or solenoid. Every once in a great while a rat comes sniffing along and
touches the wire and there is a minor explosion of sparks and smoke and
squeak and the world is minus one more Norway rat.
Mr. Howitzer cannot be bothered by the trivialities of proper electrical
supply that mainly serves tenant needs and wants. He has greater and larger
and more personal things to consider in his daily routine. If the lights
come on, then the electricity works and that is all he cares about. As
for heat, let them wear sweaters and tough it out. Stiff upper lip and
all that.
Another rat flares up in sparks and up above Tipitina says over the backgammon
board, "What the heck was that!"
And Pahrump says he heard something as well, but nevermind. Just a rat.
From far across the water the train wail ululated in waves from the light-studded
gantries of the Port of Oaktown, letting its cry keen across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista
flats and the open spaces of the former Beltline, through the cracked
brick of the Cannery with its leaf-scattered loading dock and its weedy
railbed and interstices of its chainlink fence, dropping slowly over the
basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park as the locomotive click-clacked in
front of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling
out of shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to parts
unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
DECEMBER 4, 2016
THE LEAVES WERE FALLING JUST LIKE EMBERS
This week's image comes from Carol in the Gold Coast and is of a shot
out through the 3rd floor landing balcony door. We picked this one, thinking
of the Rolley Salley song "Killing the Blues" and also of lives
lost recently in the art warehouse fire in Oaktown.
CH,CH, CH, CHANGES - APOLOGIA
It should be no surprise that the format has suffered some changes and
the reporting has been slim for the past year. We have not been able to
cover events as often as we would like and the calendar has become defunct.
And it is a strange sort of reality that says things like this venue --
variously termed over the past 20 years an e-zine or blog -- produce a
singularly ephemeral effect on the world. Although readers may include
journalists, celebrities, and even law enforcement officials, everything
we write now and you may read -- or not -- will have probably no more
lingering effect than a pebble tossed into a cataract, with a brief "klink!",
followed by the white noise of everyday life.
Well,for what it is worth, let us say it anyway. Because it is the doing
and the telling, not the effect, that is important.
Staff members have been threatened, subject to violence and harassment
and advised by the local police to move. It became dangerous to appear
in public or travel along habitual byways. This is because we offended
a small-time Napoleon who lives on the Island and he has reacted with
uncharitable anger and with malice. All jokes about the fictional Angry
Elf Gang aside, there is a sad reality to this sort of thing and for some
officials the Island has become No Country for Old Men.
When the police advise you to move, you do not argue and it is pointless
to kick up a fuss. We are writers, artisans, teachers and musicians, not
comic book heros or supermen and -- witness the recent national elections
as well as Germany in 1932 -- sometimes the bad guys win. At least for
the duration.
It may be years before the people who cause so much grief on the Island
are brought to justice, and as in the case of things like Meyer Lansky
-- who ordered the St. Valentines Day Massacre, may never ever be caught
and tried successfully. One cannot rely on ultimate revenge or justice.
We will, however, not give up. We will not stop writing and we will continue
to skewer pomposity, false sentiment, bad art, bad manners, bad politics,
hubris, and everyone who misuses the Habit of Power. We will continue
to labor tirelessly on behalf of those denied voice in public affairs,
and those who could use a defense against cruelly, more powerful opponents.
This is a war against humbuggery and facism, but we do not pick up firearms
in this war, choosing instead to employ language, arts, music, humor and
kindness.
Just as it is impossible to be truly great without magnaminity, a fact
missing in most recent discussions about "greatness" -- whether
greatness of country or your own "karass" -- we believe we must
see our own face in the face of the Other, or surrender both greatness
and humanity. Surrender, therefore, is not an option.
A POCKET FULL OF MUMBLES SUCH ARE PROMISES
So anyway, now that the dust has settled and the smoke from the battlefield
that was this year's Annual Thanksgiving Poodleshoot has cleared from
the air and Sarah Palin has been sent back to her guarded Nebraska compound
where GOP officials keep her safely doped up behind asbestos-line walls,
things are returned to something similar to normal, or what passes for
the New Norm on the Island.
Palin is kept locked up because the GOP is terribly concerned that there
not be another loudmouth idiot spouting nonsense in the public sphere
while cloaking themselves in the mantle of Ronald Reagan. One is enough
already.
Paul Ryan is worried that somebody is going to march around with a clipboard
and a checklist keeping tabs on all the ridiculous promises that got made
during the elections. That poor man just wants to run the Country as if
it were still sane. Ah innocence . . . .
So anyway again. Melody Minton wearily let down the drawbridge to allow
traffic to pass once again and returned to her home to enjoy leftovers
-- once again -- for Melody was charged, once again, with maintaining
the bridge during the Holiday each year to prevent Rules violations and
further bloodshed from the sometimes sanguine event.
In the Old Same Place Bar, Padraic offered up a toast.
"Here's to Emergency Room Staff, EMT's, nurses, bridge tenders,
radio hosts, firemen in their firehouses and police in their cruisers
made to work the 24x7 shift to cover the Holidays. First Responders get
medals and plaques from time to time, but few think about these folk pushing
the broom, virtual and real, every Holiday while most folks are noshing
on pie and pudding. To them is the proffered paper plate covered with
aluminum foil or saran wrap along with a plastic cup of non-alcoholic
fizzy water, which sometimes goes the entire shift untouched. Because
there is work to be done."
A few were mindful of what had recently happened in that place to Old
Schmidt and the discussion began quietly among the tables of contacting
kin and whether there would be a wake.
Recent rains left the Island somewhat dank with wet surfaces in some
places, while bright sunshine has cut through to brighten up the long
Alameda that is Central Avenue with its oaks still standing despite those
who wish for their idea of sense to overwhelm beauty. In the distant hills,
striations of heavy fog settle into the vales between the suddenly green
hills, green after the recent rains, exhuberant and joyful, and mornings
reveal magical kingdoms shrouded by unseen elvish power, waiting for the
time to release.
In the hours before dawn, those hours the artisans, writers and First
Responders know, a solitary planet burns with ferocity to show that She
still abides despite all rumors to the contrary.
The day begins and while scattered cloud and bare tree bones announce
the onset of the cold Season, bright sunshine gilds the damp walls and
drys out the walkways.
At Marlene and Andre's Household all the members are scampering like
hamsters to snag up seasonal work which comes around here more regularly
than the changing of the leaves. UPS is hiring now and so is USPS. There
are the warehouses that serve Macy's and the Big Box stores all looking
for linemen and union forklift operators. For a while, life is good, or
better than horrible, which is true most days of the week. Martini and
Pahrump are reconditioning the old Flexible Flyer wagon that is the Household's
chief transporter, so as to go fetch another somewhat questionably legal
xmas tree.
Some people have expressed astonishment that such people as Marlene and
Andre inhabit this Island of some 100,000 souls. Let it be known that
Marlene and Andre and all of their household lived on the Island long
before the sushi bars and the fantan restaurants and the hoity toity chalets
and the presumptuous fern salons. They were here when the sailors roamed
Webster and tattoo parlors gave the place some distinction and Roosters
was not a fake imitation of a roadhouse.
The Islanders are still here, just like the original Ohlone are still
here and not going to go away just so some effete palefinger visitors
can enjoy their neon cocktails undisturbed by the idea of responsibility.
This truth is just as true in Fairfax and Mill Valley as it is in Fremont.
Martini cobbled together a number of circuit boards destined for e-waste,
wired them all together and strung them along the outside fence and porch
and hooked up this assembly to house current. To give him credit he blew
out the mains only twice before getting the thing to work through an old
Lenovo power brick and and when it did, everyone came outside with their
glasses and cups of 99 cent wine and gazed at the splendor of his LED
accomplishment - the best holiday lights on the block, all blue and red
and amber and blinking like insane monkeys.
So they stood there, the Household, and the fog rolled in to blanket
the Bay and the foghorns sounded and people down the street started playing
with their laser pointers, bouncing signals off of the clouds and signalling
UFOs that some kind of intelligence remained here on earth, because for
a lot of people things were seriously in doubt right about now.
Ms. Morales, the schoolteacher for Longfellow, looked out of her bedroom
window and saw red rays darting up into the heavens, and she thought this
is a fine thing. Finally, people are starting to try to signal something
to God about what is going on down here. We really could use some help
right about now as it looks like things are going to get a lot worse.
"What are you looking at?" Mr. Sanchez said. Mr. Sanchez had
married Ms. Morales some three or four years ago -- it was hard to remember
just when -- but he did possess some privileges still after their courtship.
Such as the right to ask questions.
"People are trying to talk to god," Ms. Morales said.
"Is god giving any answer?" Mr. Sanchez said, who lost his
first daughter long ago in a train accident in the Phillipines.
"I am not sure," Ms. Morales said.
"Did you expect an answer?" asked Mr. Sanchez. "You know
God normally says nothing back."
"I am not sure," Ms. Morales said.
"There you go," Mr. Sanchez said. "It is all faith."
"It would be nice," said Ms. Morales. "If someone got
an answer back."
"God says nothing back, but I told you so," said Mr. Sanchez.
From far across the water the faint sound of the train ululated in waves
as the locomotive trundled from beneath the light-studded gantries of
the Port of Oaktown, letting its cry keen across the waves of the estuary,
the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats and the open
spaces of the former Beltline, through the cracked brick of the Cannery
with its leaf-scattered loading dock and its weedy railbed and interstices
of its chainlink fence, dropping slowly over the basketball hoops of Littlejohn
Park as the locomotive click-clacked in front of the shuttered doors of
the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of shadows on the edge of town
past the Ohlone burial mounds to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
NOVEMBER 27, 2016
SOLE SURVIVOR
This fellow was photographed in Woodacre some miles north of here where
the reporter indicated that an entire flock of turkeys travelled daily
in front of her door, but that a week from Thanksgiving, the birds all
seemed to disappear.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
Save that it rained, all the news sucks and it is very likely that things
will get worse. So let us go direct to the 'Shoot.
THE 18TH ISLAND POODLESHOOT AND BBQ
As per Tradition, on the day of the 17th Annual Poodleshoot, rosy-fingered
Dawn arose from the horizon's dark bed and pushed back the shutters of
night to allow Phoebus to mount his golden chariot and so, preceding the
day, she trailed her gauzy banners across the firmament, traveling across
the yard from the battered old half-moon privy hard by the weeds to the
house back porch, leaving behind a sort of dew after her passage. Gently,
she flushed, and gently she tugged upon the coverlet, and gently she kissed
the eyelids of the sleeping Padraic, but he stirred not. Gently she nudged
the man, who only mumbled and snorted as he remained held fast in the
soft, wooly folds of Morpheus. Playfully, she noodged him once again,
but he remained walking in that shadow kingdom of the somnolent God.
Her fingers becoming rays of sunlight, turned the dial so as to allow
the sweet strains of muse Calliope to thrum the air as guided by the goddess
Rosalie Howarth of KFOG, but Padriac snored and stirred not.
Then Dawn reared back with her rosy fists upraised and brought them down
heavily to smite Padraic a mighty thwack, and that got him up all right,
for Dawn O'Reilly was not a woman to be trifled with at any time of the
day. And so Padraic bestirred himself to make ready for the Annual Island
Poodleshoot and BBQ.
So it was that Padraic rolled out the barrels of the Water of Life and
set up the Pit for this year's festivities under bright, chill skies,
which had cleared from the storm clouds for the day, once again down by
the disputed Crab Cove where servants of the Dark Lord had been plotting
to seize the land so as to build yet another series of Dark Fortresses
not unlike Cirith Ungol.
The ceremonies began with the traditional playing of the Paraguay National
Anthem, as arranged by Terry Gilliam, and performed by the Island Hoophole
Orchestra accompanied by the Brickbat Targets chorale ensemble.
This was followed by the devilish meisterwerk composed by PDQ Bach entitled,
"Die Sieg der Satanische Landentwickler", an adaptable work
which allows insertion of alta-contemporary chorales at the whim of the
Conductor.
The ensemble group which has made something of a name for itself by inventing
entirely new parts for voice, consisted of Mayor Marie as Conductor and
Councilperson Izzy as soprano alla triste in the Misericordia segment
and Councilperson Daysog as mezzo soprano mournful did a fair version
of Iago's treacherous soliloquy, with Councilperson Frank in his basso
triumphale reprising last year's performance in the esoteric work La Chambre
à l'arrière Enfumee Boogie.
Mayor Trish Spencer appeared en masque, performing the aria "The
Hapless Burgermeister" with Councilperson Jim Oddie following in
the role of Flip-Flop.
Frank Matarrese thoroughly nailed his role on Black Sabbath's "Land
Pigs", but flubbed the Eroica segment which features the "Young
Man Taking a Stand" soliloquy.
Many reviewers have called this piece amazingly impossible to accomplish,
and quite a pastiche. The East Bay Express found "this game of smoky
backrooms is too much to believe." Karen D'Souza of the Contra Costa
Times has called it "devilishly complicated" and "hard
to believe it goes on. And on. And on still more," while Jim Harrington
has called this performance, "the most dreadful rubbish since the
last time I wrote a mixed review. I never fully approve of anything but
this gave badness a new name."
The Chronicle, always more reserved due to the heavy influence of conservative
ACT in the City, has commented, "It should be interesting to see
how well this thing floats in the future amid this stormy time for companies.
We almost were convinced Trish Spencer was really a City Mayor. Is her
portion supposed to be farce or tragedy? We were confused the entire time."
Of course, their theatre/music review got mixed up for that issue with
the economic report and the elections special, so the meaning of that
is up to interpretation.
The East Bay Express got the dates wrong on its Calendar section, so
they had no review.
The Examiner, as usual, ignored Reality and talked about the batboy who
had been abducted by space aliens.
In any case, after spirits had been revived with a sloshing round from
the kegs, the Hoophole Orchestra launched the proceedings with spirited
instrumentals. The elaborate instrumental section performed Sousa marches
and works by Debussy in true Island tradition, and featured vocals as
well as strings, horns, thorns, woodwinds, and bloodhounds.
Performing on the Pushy Manager Organ were Carol Taylor and Rachel Linzer
of St. Charles.
Brian King and Toshie of Park Avenue performed upon the Mendacious Dieben
and Sneaky Pete while Little Nichtnutz executed the Shoplifter with Stolen
Keys until the Tac Squad entered with fanfare and removed them for questioning.
Neal of St. Charles noodled on the Meyer Lansky Kazoo and stamped his
tiny feet for percussion while The Henchmen crooned Barbershop Quartet
style behind bars.
Paul Ryan (R) of Washington DC did a standup job upon the Howling Organ
Stroker, while Barbara Boxer (D) wowed everyone with the Swan Song Flammable
Pedalpushing Accordion with broken boards. This complemented Kristin SweetMarie
Coomber (ENG) and Jessica McGowan-Vanderbeck (USA), both with Incendiary
Bustier Spritzers. Nice pair, those gals.
Jessica was joined this year by her newlywed husband, Sean, who pounded
vigorously upon the Bald Curate's Pate.
Antimacassars and doilies were supplied, as usual, by James Hargis, who
also performed the Effexor Waltz.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice performed a nice duet with
Colin Powell entitled "What's 'A Matter Wich You All?"
Once this essay at musical endeavor was done to everyone's great relief,
the Native Sons of the Golden West, Parlor 34 1/2, gathered in a circle
for their Invocation, led by Doyle McGowan of San Francisco, and chanted
in the language of E Clampus Vitus.
The men, wearing their ceremonial robes and colorful fezzes, moved in
a circle with their pinkies interlocked, first clockwise, then anti-clockwise,
before intoning, "Heep heep Hepzibah!" before all jumping into
the air simultaneously. They then sang their parlor charter song, "Die
Launische Forelle," After they had done this, they moved again in
a circle as before, concluding by bowing deeply, dropping their drawers
and thence emitting a sort of 21 gun salute.
After the ritual pouring of Wild Turkey libations, the Official bugles
were blown by Pat Kitson of Mountain View and Tally of Marin, upon which
the hunters moved out into the field. Soon the air was filled with the
gleeful holiday sounds of AK-47s, the cracks of freshly oiled Winchester
rifles, the occasional crump of percussion grenades, cries of "Poodle
there!", and the homey whoosh-bang of old-fashioned home-made bazookas
and modern RPG's. In short it was a jolly, fine beginning for a Poodleshoot
with splendid weather.
This year, the White House representation was headed by John Podeski
and Loretta Lynch. Donald Trump could not attend, although he did send
as representatives David Duke, Rocky Suhayda, and Cabinet appointee Kim
Jong-Un.
Vladimir Putin expressed his great disappointment in not being able to
attend, however he repeated his admiration for the Electoral Appointee
Mr. Trump, sending a number of Cossacks to represent for him before heading
on to Miami to the SOA for Special Training in Information and Toenail
Extraction.
Some expressed surprise at the International Flavor of the Poodleshoot
this year, as well as its great popularity.
Indeed the Poodleshoot, now into its 18th year had acquired the august
status of Tradition in America. There is much that is thoroughly American
about the entire celebration, which conflates love of firearms, sanguinivorousness,
rebellious behavior, ecstatic jumping up and down, questionable music,
and gleeful destruction. One is hard put to imagine the genteel French
-- genteel save for people from Marseilles -- or the logical Germans engaging
in any such activity. Certainly not the pothead Dutch or the sensible
Italians with their meatballs and pizza. Even the dog-loving Thais, along
with the Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese would not engage in such pursuits,
as extreme as any of those peoples may be from time to time, for they
have been around for thousands of years and so already have their own
traditions.
The Japanese have their Kanamara Matsuri, and the Chinese have their
jook and Gum Lung. The Indians of India have curry and vegetarianism,
which precludes Poodleshoots along with BBQ, and they have their seemingly
interminable conflict with the Pakistanis to provide national venting,
while the Burmese still need to outlive Yul Brenner.
The Koreans enjoy their kim chee with boshintang, which serves to infuriate
French actresses who cannot abide the sauces.
The entire Middle East is bat-wacky insane at the moment, providing plenty
of opportunity for sport killing of each other, which allows a form of
protection for the dogs that live there. No one has seen a poodle in the
vicinity of Dar es Salaam for well over two thousand years.
As for South America, the Uruguayans exuberantly BBQ guinea pigs during
their festivals, dressing them up first in cute, adorable costumes before
quickly gutting them, so there is sensibility here of caring which is
quite touching. In Brazil, no gaucho worth his salt would waste his riata
upon something so lowly as a poodle. Heavens no. And as for the United
States of Mexico, dear, beloved, benighted Mexico with its drug lord problems
and Jesus on a tortilla, well, the Mexicans have enough problems without
creating another by means of a poodleshoot. Besides, most Mexicans possess
common sense, gnoshing upon sensible pupusas and ceviche accompanied with
Modelo.
People south of the border do not drink beer every day, but when they
do . . . well, that is another story.
But you did not come here to read about them furriners and their furrin
ways. You red-blooded Americuns came here to hear about to the most famous
18th august and most distintuished traditional Island Poodleshoot Bar-B-Que
and Massacree in three part harmony amid these most distressing times
in which a most ferocious hairpiece set upon a savage mouth of immensely
loud proportions has seized the body politic in its teeth so as to worry
and shake and punish the Democracy that used to be.
You came here to forget all that nonsense and engage in some red-blooded
seriously rambunctious poodleshootin' and charcoal grilled Fifi dripping
with savory Southern Dixie barbeque sauce.
Things began to get a bit wonky when Carlos Tunt IV, came around the
corner at Wood Middle school and let loose a surprise blast from his modified
Mossberg loaded with explosive-tipped slugs. He saw some motion and some
fur and teeth and responded with gut reflex
"Pow! Pow! KerPow!"
There was a sort of flash and a smoking bundle of bloody fur shreds flew
up and then down through the air, landing near the revolving playset.
Wally, an official Scorer, came over to view the kill and became immediately
distraught.
"This aint no poodle!" said Wally.
Carlos begged to differ.
"It's got the breed right here on the tags," Wally said. "You
gonna be fined, dude!"
"What the heck," said Carlos. "I saw motion on the field."
"Looks to be a terrier, dude!"
Several hunters ran past with a brace of bleeding Russian Blues strung
up on a pole, all heading for the BBQ pit.
"I didn't mean nothin'," Carlos said.
"You just slaughtered somebody's pet; you oughta be ashamed! Look
at this here mess that once was an honorable dog!"
"Aw mannnn!" Carlos said. "Give a feller a break for once."
"Carlos, you are a vile, disgusting, pernicious, deceitful, immoral,
peripatetic scumbag," Wally said. " You are lower than a whorehouse
toilet scrubber and worse character than an alt-Right Neo-Con which is
about the same quality. And just wait until I get to listing your worse
features."
"Wally, give me a break. My job don't pay, Jennie needs an operation,
Rachel needs glasses. Lori needs a Bat Mitzvah. Bobby thinks he is really
a girl and he wants a Bat Mitzvah too. I am about to lose my health coverage
from Obamacare just when the intestinal polyps are overwhelming my esophagus
and the car needs newer tires. I didn't mean to shoot the little feller.
Now now, little guy . . .".
Carlos bent down to pet the lifeless carcass. "Really sorry about
blowing yer snout off like that. What's yer name little feller?"
He turned over the tag still attached to the collar. "Weewee?"
"His name was Weewee?" asked Wally.
"His name was Weewee," said Carlos. "Says right here."
"Weewee.
"Yeah. Weewee."
"Who the hell names their terrier Weewee?!" Walter said. "Throw
him on the barbee and get your asshole putrid self out of my sight."
Over by Littlejohn Park a contingent of Big Property folks mixed it up
with Common Renters in a melee that distracted from the main goings on
as many of the Big Prop folks were also notorious poodle walkers. There
was all sorts of nose-bashing, nasty name calling, rent control sorts
of things and not a body was left unscarred by the apparatus of dismay
and disrespect all around. Marie Kane was seen wielding a morning star
all about her, causing real estate agents and clerks to flee in all directions
from the deadly circle of her wrath as she strode wearing a breastplate
of brass and a sturdy helm of horns and steel.
Further to the East, Batallions of Alt-Right NeoCons arose not unlike
the demons arisen from the dragon's teeth sown by Jason in times of old.
They were armed with megaphones and spiked clubs and water cannons and
with them were the Mouth Trolls that were large lipped creatures with
great mouths and gullets and teeth and tongues that wagged devilshly and
they confronted the Bernies who had their organics and Truth.
But the Post-Truth Era had arrived.
And the noble Bernies were driven back and they fell in the marshes,
swallowed up and the rest went into the mountains which became their homes,
although their homes had been in the flatlands, valleys and farms, and
in the mountains they continued their defiance against the Loud-Mouths,
who initiated pogroms and purges and evil cattle cars trundling to smoking
destinations as in the heathen days of old. Among them were raving Russian
bears of immense size that slavered and ravened with gleaming teeth.
At Standing Rock drivers sicced ravenous poodles on human beings and
the water cannons attempted to douse the homefires of the Lenapi, which
in the oldest language means, The People.
And so it was that the Shoot became all of the Country and the Goddess
wept to see her beloved Democracy so much abused by rude and unlovely
hands.
All across the Island the bonfires of Evil lit the dancing, triumphant
Trumpers with their poodles celebrating their great victories over the
decent and the good.
Down by Crab Cove the Wiccans made a last desperate stand to call upon
the Goddess in their hour of need. And the need of the Country, for Democracy
wept. Not since 1864 had she wept such bitter tears, for her death was
in the balance and life is desired by all.
On the Night of Shattered Stars, the night of mist and rain and cloud
that divided the heavens, the Goddess extended her hand and those of false
sentiment, the poodle walkers and the brown shirts and the false toupees
were driven back and a time was allowed for a short while for the People
to attend to their families and heal the wounded and help those in need.
Because if the Country is great, then great means taking care of its
own. That has always been called 'Great heartedness'. Any country which
cannot is not great at all. That country is a pitiful thing.
And from beneath the surface of the Estuary the periscope of El Chadoor
observed all of these things. And the Captain of the Iranian spy submarine
sent decades ago to spy upon the Port of Oaktown wondered, "Is this
the end of the American Experiment of 400 years?"
From far across the water the faint sound of the train ululated in waves
as the locomotive trundled from beneath the light-studded gantries of
the Port of Oaktown, letting its cry keen across the waves of the estuary,
the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats and the open
spaces of the former Beltline, through the cracked brick of the Cannery
with its leaf-scattered loading dock and its weedy railbed and interstices
of its chainlink fence, dropping slowly over the basketball hoops of Littlejohn
Park as the locomotive click-clacked in front of the shuttered doors of
the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of shadows on the edge of town
past the Ohlone burial mounds to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
NOVEMBER 20, 2016
LIKE A BIRD ON A WIRE
This week's headline photo comes from Tammy and is of a common sight
in the colder climes where people set out feeders to help the local population
get through the bleak midwinter. Tammy hails from Michigan where it does
get cold indeed.
NOVEMBER'S GOT HER NAILS DUG IN DEEP
Upcoming shows and such include a concert by Mariah Parker's Indo Latin
Jazz band at the new Freight and Salvage January 22 in the new year. Mariah
is a multi-instrumentalist composer who will perform herself on the piano
and the santur.
Dee Dee Bridgewater holds the nights before Thanksgiving at Yoshi's here
on the warmer side of the Bay. Robert Cray will do 12/12 and 12/13 and
for NYE we see the Stylistics ushering in the new year.
Locals Primus will occupy the Fox in Oakland for NYE, sailing you in
on seas of cheese with maybe an elephant or two.
Tickets for Metallica at that venue on the 17th top $485, so do not expect
to see us there.
Sweetwater in Marin continues to host live shows and Justin Townes Earle
will show up 12/2
Steve Kimock and his band will hold forth from 12/30 through 12/31, but
the NYE gig is sold out there.
We were hoping to check out Phil Lesh's Terrapin Crossroads, but the
calendar for December is mostly blank, including NYE, which is generally
bad business and discouraging.
Generally speaking, the Season looks bland and lackluster in this time
of Post-Truth reality just before the storm of fascism hits. It is like
everyone is collectively drawing artistic breadth and pulling back to
take time with families before the effects of the hard storm coming begins.
Not much out there save for that ridiculously priced Metallica gig and
a too-large number of "tribute" bands.
In the political arena, everyone remains in a state of shock, even among
Republicans, who surely and reasonably fear that a two-year radicalized
President who represents the most reprehensible aspects of American bad
character will lead to a nasty backlash, just as Bush caused only a short
while ago.
BACK ON THE TRAIN
So anyway. A set of dockwallopers pounded the marinas and rooftops, driving
everyone indoors to shelter among friends and family. It has been a long,
hard, vicious drought and now the sweet, blessed rain was pelting down
with promise of more to come. All the shopping-cart ladies who steal from
the recycling bins vanished from the streets, taking with them their stolen
carts piled high with illicit bottles, leaving the ground to steam upwards
in clouds between the black lamp posts with the violence of the downpour.
Water sluiced along the curbs to cascade down the storm drains and collect
in pools all over the Island pushing along all the detritus of Fall until
everything is swept sparkling clean, taking along one last leaf left to
drift, one last leaf, letting go.
Next week the Annual Island Poodleshoot and BBQ kicks off with its usual
mayhem, but this time the organizers are exceptionally well prepared with
Red Cross wagons, ambulances, fire extinguishers and even updated Poodleshoot
rules.
Eugene has taken down his Anti-Poodle Blunderbuss, inherited from his
father and started cleaning and polishing his gear, making sure the Flaying
Knife is especially keen.
Mr. Terse and Mr. Spline, who very much enjoy killing things, especially
if they may be helpless, cute, and intelligent to know what is happening
to them, have also been preparing their personal armaments for a day they
are sure shall be celebratory as well as sanguine on account of the recent
elections.
In the basement of the Old Same Place Bar, Padraic and Dawn have been
stirring the still mash, making barrels of Padraic's official Usc que
bah, the Water of Life, and the pungent scent permeates the neighborhood
for blocks in all directions.
Now DST has ended and the days start later and end earlier. Because of
the weather, a sort of grey pall hangs overhead, lowers the sky. At the
bus stops parents stand with a sometimes strained sense of needing to
let go, watching the little ones climb aboard wearing their yellow boots.
Time will come for letting go. The Almeida clan all getting bigger with
each passing year, handing down clothes officially as each year passes,
one generation to the next, in a ceremony held on English Boxing Day,
Gilberto giving his soccer shoes to Filiberto, who gave his pants to Alicia
who handed down her nightshirt to Ana who passed on her shorts to Jorge
who handed t-shirts to Yolanda who passed on her shift to Yvonne who allowed
her apron to go to little Santiago who no longer was a baby any more.
Why Boxing Day? asked Mrs. Almeida, stirring the bacalhao. We
are Portuguese-Americans.
"Why not Boxing Day?" said Pedro. "It is as good as any
other day to say goodbye and let go of old things."
The Elder Mr. Larch moved slowly across the room to stand at the window,
looking out at the wet pavement and the trees on Alameda Street. His son
came for a visit and they talked. Maybe they talked about his son's business
which was doing exceptionally well in these pushy times. Had something
to do with curing pushy people.
Two tea cups remained on the linoleum table in the kitchen. He could
not remember what they talked about. Sarah had always reminded him. She
had sat right there with her hair done in a gray bun.
He had to pee and it was trouble. The light in the bathroom was crinoline
white and the toilet was white.
He stood in the dining room and the picture of him wearing his uniform
still stood on the piano. He and Sarah had played the piano together,
with him doing the right hand and her doing the left and they added embellishments
back when this old house had been packed full of life. That was after
he had returned from France and survived D-Day and all that splashing
through the shallow water with the machine guns going like mad. Explosions.
Sound. Toilet flush.
He stood in the foyer, but forgot for what he was going out. Never mind.
Chestnut Grocery not the same since it changed hands.
His son said why don't you pickup that Spanish class at the Mastic again.
See your old buds over there. But there were not so many of them alive
any more. Why don't you get involved with politics? You used to like that
stuff.
In the bedroom the photographs. Abu, his last dog, a terrier. Turned
out to be the best dog to his surprise. Everyone should own a terrier.
Devoted as hell and take no guff. Damn right.
Sarah at Heart's Desire Beach. All the urchins running with shovels.
His gold watch from the Agency on the dresser. Everybody had enjoyed
the joke; gold watch for retirement as intentional cliche.
Pictures of the kids. Larry as a baby. Malphesia glowering beneath angry
teenage bangs.
Picture of him with Paul when they had climbed Mount Whitney before the
quota system got put into place.
Him planting a sequoia with the Park Service when he had did that.
Mr. Larch sat on the bed and watched how the lights from the neighbor's
yard moved the shadows across the wall and thought about rivers he had
crossed in his life.
He stood up painfully with aching joints and went out the back into the
dank, cold yard with the wind stirring the bare branches of the box elder
and he listened to the sounds of the night and felt the cold seeping in.
A tattered skeleton left over from Halloween swung from a tree in the
opposite yard. Cloud wrack passed overhead, revealing an handful of stars,
gradually clearing until the night sky offered itself in all its stunning
beauty like the body of a woman.
Time, he thought, to let go.
"Yoo hoo!" shouted a female voice from over the wall. "Mr.
Larch, I just finished making an apple pie!"
"O for pete's sake!" said Mr. Larch with irritation.
"It's me! Lulu your neighbor! I just made some pie and it's hot!"
"I hate pie," said Mr. Larch.
"No you don't," said Lulu. "Everybody loves apple pie!
And I have fresh ice cream from The Scoop! Come on over!"
Old damn busybody, thought Mr. Larch. But then he said, "What kind?"
"What kind what?"
"What kind of ice cream?"
"Raspberry!" said Lulu. "And rhubarb. It's from The Scoop
on Drake!"
"Well all right then," said Mr. Larch. "I'll be over in
a second." Given everything going on, now would be a good time for
rhubarb pie, but he guessed he would settle for something a little different.
For now.
In the Old Same Place Bar much of the talk was about the recent elections
and what it all meant for Islanders. Spraypainted swastikas had appeared
overnight on walls at the high school and Old Schmidt sat morose on his
stool so that even his moustaches drooped and his pipe sagged. Suzie overpoured
liberally so as get him to cheer up but nothing worked.
"Ja, I remember dose days," he said. "The Brown Shirts
with their knifes and clubs, scaring people. Dreck! And now it all comes
back again. And in America! Damals war der Fuhrer der 'Strongman' und
der Trump genauso!"
He stood up. "Here in America where we come for freedom to get away
from all that evil! My people fought against der Hitler; we tried to kill
him and when we failed all of us died -- executed! Two thousand of us!"
Old Schmidt pounded his cane on the wood floor.
"Easy, easy old man," Padraic said.
"I haf come to the end mit zis! I stand and fight Fascismus! America
must rise up and resist tyranny! It has to! . . Or it dies! Ach . . .
"!
Old Schmidt turned pale and clutched his chest. He began to fall backwards
until Eugene jumped up to catch him in his big arms. Everyone jumped up
and the room became pandemonium.
All in that room later said they felt the presence of The Adversary.
"He is having an heart attack," said Borg Rubbitsom of the
massage parlor A Touch of Wonder. "Call 911!"
While Dawn called 911 the company laid out Old Schmidt on the floor.
Suzie put her sweater under the man's head and knelt beside him holding
his hand. Sweat beaded up on his forehead.
"You must resist, America! You must resist fuer die Kinder. Fuer
die Zukunft. You must resist even if you fail; otherwise they will only
remember you as ones who went along with it. For all of Time. History
will not forget. Believe me, I know. . . ".
As the sirens wailed closer, Old Schmidt shuddered, coughed and breathed
one time and then not again as Suzie continued to hold his hand. The sirens
abruptly stopped outside and a whirlygig of lights streamed through the
open door even as a shadowy form floated outwards across the threshold
past the EMT's rushing in with their equipment, too late. The Adversary
had left with his charge.
From far across the water the faint sound of the train ululated in waves
as the locomotive trundled from beneath the light-studded gantries of
the Port of Oaktown, letting its cry keen across the waves of the estuary,
the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats and the open
spaces of the former Beltline, through the cracked brick of the Cannery
with its leaf-scattered loading dock and its weedy railbed and interstices
of its chainlink fence, dropping slowly over the basketball hoops of Littlejohn
Park as the locomotive click-clacked in front of the shuttered doors of
the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of shadows on the edge of town
past the Ohlone burial mounds to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
NOVEMBER 13, 2016
[issued late due to illness]
SPIRITS IN THE NIGHT
This week we include an archival photo from our correspondant in Mexico
City, a photo of an art project entitled Spirits of Guantanjuahao. Given
the porosity between the worlds at this time and this time's strangeness,
we think this image appropriate for the end of the Democracy experiment.
An legion mourning what could have been.
UPDATES
Please note that the new, revised 2016 Poodleshoot rules have been posted.
This time, they even have been spellchecked while sober! So enjoy. Everyone
is invited.
SHOULD I CRAWL DEFEATED AND GIFTED ?
So anyway it appears obvious that the bad guys won. There is no local
news this evening because all local news has been wiped by a national
disaster. The rent control measure M1 was defeated, as was the silly competing
measure presented by the Big Property people.
Already across the country the American version of Brownshirts are marching
with their fists raised. Improbably, Petaluma saw a contingent of folks
waving Confederate flags while ignorantly threatening people who desicrate
the American flag with charges of treason.
Not only did California remain part of the Union during the Civil War,
but the Confederate flag is a symbol of the worst treason America ever
experienced in that a group of men took up arms against the United States
so as to seek its dissolution.
Meanwhile other parts of the country are seeing KKK rallies and similar
scum shouting with loud triumph with some claiming the Great American
Experiment is over now. Now, going forward, there will be no difference
between this country and any other.
While Clinton may have been just as bad for the economy as Trump surely
will be, and the likelihood of either one facing impeachment stands pretty
much the same, the two of them represented very different aspects of America.
Trump represents an older, deeply ingrained intolerant and mail-fisted,
loudmouth, bully America which earned this country much of the animosity
it faces today around the world. He is divisive and unlikely to hold a
second term, or even finish the alloted four years due to his habitual
criminality which the media deplorably allowed to sink beneath water he
intentionally muddied with outrageous statements.
Clinton, for all her faults, was an inclusive progressive figure that
allowed many different kinds of people to stand behind her. Obama is blamed
for a lot of things, but being a modest man, has not trumpeted his accomplishments
enough, and for all the antipathy of the Rust Belt, they forget that it
was he who rescued the entire Auto Industry when it was on the point of
collapse. He pretty much lifted the Nation from the worst Recession since
1939, turned around the deficit, and accomplished a great number of other
things, even leaving out the Affordable Heathcare Act.
So just as in Germany of 1932, the majority stayed home from the polls
on the first election day in the Spring, resulting in a failure of the
goverment to form a unified majority coalition and producing a second
election on November 6, which only served to destabilize the Republic
-- because of that a terrible demigogue swept into power. Meanwhile the
zealots and the bigots laugh and dance on the edge of the volcano even
as the flames leap higher.
SPEED TRAP TOWN
So anyway, a collosal supermoon rose this weekend to shine down with
perfect equanimity upon the frost that clung to the tollgate, spiffy Victorians
and the tumbleboard shacks, the open swards and the trees, the legless
beggars and the sleek stepping from limosines. On Friday night old friends
crept through the gates to take a swim in the still heated community pool
as the waters rippled blue and silver from side to side.
There was a great celebratory party at Mr. Howitzer's as all the real
estate magnates drove up in their European cars to hand the keys to Dodd,
who handed them to the hired boy who parked the cars while Dodd saw to
the food and drink and ran himself off his legs all night while the Hoity
Toity misbehaved in joy at the defeat of the dreaded Rent Control Ordinance.
Up on the Hill, Mr. Steif celebrated quietly in his own way with a flask
of Makers Mark in one hand and his Glock in the other, calm and confident
it would not be long before he had Wally's son, the whistleblower Josua
dead to rights.
At the Household of Marlene and Andre, Marlene doled out the evening
ration of bread soup. They were collecting goods for the upcoming Thanksgiving
feasts. Marlene and Jose would stand in the long line at the Food Bank
to get free turkeys and trimmings. Pahrump and Martini and Javier would
be doing banquets for the Elks, the Native Sons of the Golden West, and
for the Eagles.
The nights had gone chill and now all the folks who slept outside during
the summer had gathered to the old abode where Marlene and Andre kept
house.
Out on the sealanes, Pedro motored his boat, El Borracho Perdido under
the brilliant moon, trying to get out beyond the super swells so that
he could lay down the lines. He listened to where his old favorite radio
program featuring the Lutheran televanelist used to occupy the dial, but
the old man had retired. Instead a group of kids carried on with something
of the old format. They were good enough, but he missed that old man's
stories about a mythical small town.
The new emcee sure was talented though. A bit too earnest at the moment,
but time and radio will wear the edges off you. Both in the performer
and in the listener. Soon, his boy Gilberto would be big enough to come
along and he would appreciate this younger performers.
Pedro had to give himself pause. Gilberto had been old enough for a couple
years. It was Filberto that would be old enough . . . mios dios! He had
been old enough since fifteen already! How time flies. Time waits for
no man but fruit flies all over -- that was a joke. You can laugh now.
Ferryboat just looked at him from the base of the wheelhouse corner.
Everybody's a critic. But the moon was large and beautiful over the magic
ocean and music filled his senses.
Pedro tilted back his head and sang loudly,
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of loooooooooovvvvvvv . . . .
Tugboat began howling at this point and Pedro stopped.
"Would you please?" Pedro said.
On the mainland the moon shone down dispassionately on all. It shone
on the frost bristling off the bridge stanchions at the entrance to the
Island. It shone on all the winners and all the losers. It reflected in
the windows of dark and silent downtown and shone on the stone bench monument
To All My Dumb Friends. It danced on the rooftops of the renters and the
landlords and it kissed the lips of sleeping lovers and scoundrels and
children as it stole through the windowpanes all over the little American
town which faced an uncertain future.
From far across the water the faint sound of the train ululated in waves
as the locomotive trundled from beneath the gantries of the Port of Oaktown
with their 1000 watt lamps, letting its cry keen across the waves of the
estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats
and the open spaces of the former Beltline, through the cracked brick
of the Cannery with its leaf-scattered loading dock and its weedy railbed
and interstices of its chainlink fence, dropping slowly over the basketball
hoops of Littlejohn Park as the locomotive click-clacked in front of the
shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of shadows
on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
NOVEMBER 8, 2016
ISLAND-LIFE SPECIAL ISSUE
BODISATTVA BLUES
So anyway it is past 9pm here in the Golden State with things looking
grim. The Island-life news offices are all chattering with typing and
printing and phones ringing like mad.
At one point the Editor stepped out of his glass cubicle and surveyed
the maniacal efforts of his staff to make sense of it all.
At the end of the night history will have been made, but then in 1932,
a nasy little Austrian also made history by way of a putsch that seized
control of a government. At that time nobody thought it amounted to much.
A few years later and several millions dead, it proved to amount to a
great deal.
Normally, the Editor looked out over the busy newsroom and felt heartened
by the efforts of the Fourth Estate, excited by all the hubbub and flying
paper, but this time he felt a world weariness about everything that was
happening.
The clock ticked forward and the date came in and the reports got torn
apart. This day would come with a new and terrible dawn, he felt afraid.
From far across the water the sound of the train ululated in waves as
the locomotive trundled from beneath the gantries of the Port of Oaktown
with their 1000 watt lamps, letting its cry keen across the waves of the
estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats
and the open spaces of the former Beltline, through the cracked brick
of the Cannery with its leaf-scattered loading dock and its weedy railbed
and interstices of its chainlink fence, dropping slowly over the basketball
hoops of Littlejohn Park as the locomotive click-clacked in front of the
shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of shadows
on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
NOVEMBER 6, 2016
AMERICAN TUNE
Had a lot of choices for headline photos this week, but really only one
photo matters. This one comes from Tammy.
It is dreadful that the two opposing camps can agree only one dreadful
fact, albeit for different reasons: that it is terrible that the country
consists of such an high percentage of imbeciles.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
Someone found and published a collection of German Nazi-era photographs
that featured the homelife and domesticity of KZ Commandants with their
adherents, Nazi bureaucrats with their families out on picnics, and banal
family outings of Gestapo leaders. All the photos present a bland, middle-class
sort of normalcy, save for the background knowledge of their subjects.
In one photo, a line of wives of (KZ) concentration camp managers sit
on a bank with empty bowls and spoons and mockingly disappointed expressions
with the legend in German "No more blueberries!"
There is no news but News. In a few days a few Americans will determine
the fate of the Country, and in far more draconian fashion than ever before.
In addition to the Golden State's own 18 Propositions, we have the President
and Senate and Congressional seats in contention and places like San Francisco
are facing a whopping 25 additional measures on which to deliberate --
none of them trivial.
The big local front page item was about the Cessna pilot who made an
emergency landing on the defunct Naval airstrip where no plane has landed
since 1997. Otherwise the several small fires indicate the continued activities
of the Angry Elf Gang while the fish tank club continues to meet to talk
about what fish eat and do most of the day.
Yes the high school will continue to put on "The Princess Bride"
and the Library will continue to celebrate its decades of service with
worthwhile programs, and the quilting group will still meet to spin their
yarns and the Poetry group will discuss Aristotle's aesthetics, but the
truth is that after this election, this Country will never be the same
again.
It has changed, in fact, already. Just the idea that half the country
consists of imbeciles has become common knowledge.
Somewhere, some photographer will be lining up a group of women with
empty dishware and cutlery, and the legend will be just as ghastly as
it was in some other place long ago and someone will continue to argue
persuasively that "extraordinary rendition" is not a problem,
but part of the Solution. Like building a new Berlin Wall. Or causing
several million people to disappear because of their ethnicity.
NOVEMBER'S GOT HER NAILS DUG IN DEEP
So anyway. Denby sits up these nights with a candle he has lit for somebody
each night ever since the last Noche de los Muertos. He sits on the edge
of his bed with a glass of wine in the room he lets underneath the stairwell
to the Asylum and strums an outlaw love song. Eventually he lays the guitar
aside, gets into bed and turns out the light before suddenly remembering
something important.
Damn, forgot to take off the shoes again!
After he takes care of that problem, he goes back to bed and falls asleep.
He will be all right in a little while.
After Denby struggled back to his rented room upstairs in the St. Charles
Lunatic Asylum to recover from this year's Crossing during the last night
of Los Dias de Los Muertos, Eugene Gallipagus took down the long box from
the shelf and unpacked all the camo equipment and brushes and oils and
everything that evoked the scent and memory of autumn.
Yes, that special season has come upon us when the air turns brisk with
scents of apples and chimney smoke and thoughts turn to traditions and
season rituals. Dick and Jane go gaily scampering through the fallen leaves
with ruddy cheeks and panting breath hand in hand, leaping over babbling
brook and rain-damp fallen tree, each dreaming of popping a few rounds
into a Fifi, blasting the stuffing out of a silver-haired poo with their
brand new polished thirty ought six.
God! It is such a magical time! It is glorious America in Fall!
Yep, that much anticipated Island event is nigh upon us once again, the
Annual Island-Life Poodleshoot and BBQ.
We will be posting the official rules presently in the sidebar. For now,
last year's rules are up there to give you an idea of what this dreadful
celebration is all about.
What is the Annual PS&BBQ? Well, everyone is invited. It is a solidly
American tradition and we love traditions around here.
In the Old Same Place Bar, there is a chatter and a clatter from within.
Every time Padraic passes the snug where he put the new lease with its
rent increase, he snarls, then sighs.
At the Marlene and Andre's household, the place has been packed, all
the wanderers and lost having come home to roost as the night air turned
dank and chill with the rains and the return of the heat-sapping fog.
As the night eases along with a smooth stride, spinning its watchchain
in a loping stride, horns moan through the fog across the wide expanse
of water and the snores of sleepers drift up from cots and sleeping bags
and sofa and closet, every nook and cranny occupied of that bad abode.
The rustling in the big ginormous habitot run goes quiet as Festus and
his pals tuck in.
In the back, Marlene lies curled up against Andre, head on his shoulder,
her black hair splashed out on the pillow, asleep and at peace.
Somewhere beneath the house, the old central heating unit that Mr. Howitzer
paid for cheap to purchase, and cheaper still to install by the drunken
Depuglia brothers emits a small flame and a shower of sparks from the
failing igniter unit. There is a faint hiss from leaky gas lines dating
back to 1904 and the opossum underneath snarfles and snuffs in the far
corner away from the scurrying rats who occasionally fall victim to the
poor electrics in the central heating core.
Hard by the Old Cannery, Officer O'Madhauen sits with a styrofoam cup
filled with sour coffee, musing on the future and watching for red light
runners. They will be coming to develop that Cannery and turn it into
a warren for the Latte crowd, a slather of Yuppies scarfing raw fish and
fancy neon colored drinks. None of them any like the kind that loaded
munitions from those now desolate docks. Scarface Tom and Malone and James
the Jerk. Guys he had hauled in fighting and cursing every step of the
way when they got into the drink on Webster which sported garish strip
bars and tattoo parlors back in the day. It was rougher when the Navy
had been here.
Now here he was, slamming them down for stop signs and failed blinkers.
Just a couple more years to retire and he was out of all that. If the
bottom had not dropped out a few years ago and he not gambled better,
he would be occupying a lounge chair long since.
High in the Oaktown Hills, Mr. Steif also held a styrofoam cup of bad
coffee while caressing the form of the modified pistol he kept on the
seat, watching the doors of the Greek chapel across from the Mormon Temple
where the whistleblower Joshua had supposedly holed up.
On Joshua, Mr. Steif had placed all the blame for Bengazi, for the failure
of the Alaska pipeline, for the Global Warming concern, the supposed triumph
of universal health care -- which Mr. Steif especially despised -- and
the influx of immigrants tainting the American Race.
How Mr. Steif longed to kill Joshua, Wally's son. It was all due to the
Sixties of course and all that terrible music. But when Il Duce, el Trump
took over, he would make all of them dance on the end of a string to a
different tune.
And as the star of Venus began to rise and outshine Mars, Mr. Steif dozed
off in his black, armored SUV.
Then, the train ululated from far across the water as the locomotive
trundled from beneath the gantries of the Port of Oaktown with their 1000
watt lamps, letting its cry keen across the waves of the estuary, the
riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats and the open
spaces of the former Beltline, through the cracked brick of the Cannery
with its leaf-scattered loading dock and its weedy railbed and interstices
of its chainlink fence, dropping slowly over the basketball hoops of Littlejohn
Park as the locomotive click-clacked in front of the shuttered doors of
the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of shadows on the edge of town
past the Ohlone burial mounds to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
OCTOBER 30, 2016
WALKING AND A TALKING
This week's image comes from Carol, an artist who lives in the Gold Coast.
Normally she works in pen and watercolor but sometimes her eye wanders
about to capture Island sites and sights. This one is of Crab Cove and
has the appropriately moody feeling for the season.
WHATS THE BUZZ
By the time most of you read this, it will be all over for the screaming
and the crying. The losers will be sitting at home with their families
having an eggnog while perusing the hustings maps of disaster. The winners
will be roistering in DC hottubs and ordering pizza and hookers by the
dozen.
As for the Country, well, we generally always trend to the loser end
of things at the end of the day, no matter whom you support.
The VBMs should all be in the mail if not arrived by now and Tuesday
shall be a day of hollow victories when the brass ring comes round.
A brace of wharf sizzlers blew through town along with at least one dockwalloper,
which ought to make some parched folks feel a little better. It is too
little at the moment to turn back the drought but it is better than a
kick in the teeth and we shall not complain.
We had some suspicious car fires, due no doubt to the Angry Elf Gang
trying to put pressure on late payments, and a few power outages. But
everything waits for the results after November 2, when we either approve
rent control or delay approving rent control until the next time.
Remember this: there was blood on the stairs of City Hall due to this
rental crisis matter, which simply will not go away, although some people
would stop up their ears and clasp hands over their mouths. You can kill
it this time, but it will just come right back. Nothing will be the same
on the Island after that blood which was spilled, no matter what the election
says.
Mayberry RFD's vision does not have space in its limited mythology for
blood on the steps of City Hall.
WE ALL WAITING ON A TRAIN
So anyway, once again Denby lost the annual drawing of straws. It was
a Bulwar-Lytton sort of night, dark and stormy and full of portent. The
rain had been falling ever since the top of the page. Once again, for
the 18th time, Denby had been selected to cross over to the Other Side.
The Editor escorted him out the door of the Island-Life Offices, cigar
clenched as usual between his teeth. "Don't forget to find out who
is going to become the next President of the United States," the
Editor said. "That would be a real coup for our newsroom."
Denby sighed. "Afraid I don't have the hoo-ya spirit right now."
The Editor swished his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.
"In that case, pity for you." The man clapped Denby on the back.
"Get along now, boy! And best of luck to you."
As the iron bells tolled and the last vestige of summer fled yammering
into the cold dark out of which a darker cold breeze blew, Denby put on
put on his coat and he put on his hat and so walked out the door, this
year the same as the last, with people gathered in fearful little knots,
whispering among themselves as he went. "Sure glad it's not me."
As in all Traditions, there is a sense of repetition, of revenance, each
time the ritual is repeated.
It had been raining intermittently heavily the past few days, and the
pavement remained wet. He thought, with dismal feelings, this was a wretched
detail to pursue. The only thing that could make it worse would be if
it were raining.
As the clock struck midnight, a leaden assault of water drops pelted
down, and Denby pulled up the collars of his raincoat and tucked under
his impermeable rain hat.
From the offices he walked down to the bayside and came to the path that
borders the Strand. He follow this for a ways as a wet wind caused leaves
to skitter across the pavement. The street extended in both directions
from the shadow of trees that hid Crab Cove to the distance hidden by
a gray mist thrown up by the rain. No one else walked this path and the
beach below extended silent and deserted on this night. Eventually he
came to a stone wall. He could not remember a stone wall being there,
about two and a half feet high and extending for infinity in both directions,
but this one seemed to have been there for many, many years, with scraggly
weeds crowding up against lichened stones.
As in years past, as he approached the Portal, the Voice bellowed to
him from some echoing deep cavern.
"Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate!"
There was no gate or path through, but something called from the dim
otherside and so, hesitating a moment to leave the relatively well-lit
path, he slogged through the sand before the wall and stepped over into
a dark mist and a voice echoed in the darkness a second time, "Lasciate
ogni speranza voi ch'entrate!" and the words flamed inside the skull
as if poured in molten steel.
For pete's sake. As per Tradition, dammit.
A large owl, about two feet tall, perched on a piling and scolded him
with large owl eyes.
"Hoo! Hoo! Hoooooo!"
Okay, okay. Poor choice of words.
On the other side the ground sloped down as usual to the water for about
thirty yards, but he could not see the far lights of Babylon's port facilities
or the Coliseum. A dense, lightless fog hung a few yards offshore, making
it appear that the water extended out beyond to Infinity. The rain had
stopped but the sky above was filled with black cloud and boiling with
red flashes of lightening and fire.
All up and down the strand he could now see that countless bonfires had
been lit, as is customary among our people in this part of the world to
do during the colder winter months along the Strand, and towards one of
these he stumbled among drift and seawrack.
Sitting around that fire, he recognized many faces. And many more all
up and down that beach.
"si lunga tratta / di gente, ch'io non avrei mai
creduto / che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta"
Strange words in another language reverberated inside the skull: "si
lunga tratta / di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto / che morte tanta
n'avesse disfatta" echoing and echoing down long hallways of
mirrors into eternity
A small child, barefoot and wearing a nightdress ran past and disappeared
as quickly as she had come.
At the bonfire's edge a bright familiar voice greeted us, "Denby!
Back again so soon?"
A sort of pale glimmer drifted towards him over the dark sands, a woman
dressed in white with frizzy platinum blonde hair. She reached out with
her left arm. But her hand went right through his arm, leaving a clammy,
cold sensation.
"Hello Penny." Denby said.
Several little girls, all between the ages of six and nine ran barefoot
across the sands between them and vanished into the misty beyond.
"Well, here you are again," Penny said. "I see from recent
events you are approaching closer to the Final Crossing. How is your health?"
"O, I have had a few hitches and such. Be seeing a doctor about
things soon," he said.
Penny shaded her eyes as if seeing something inside something.
"That vomiting blood is no good you know," she said. "I
always thought you would come here in some way more spectacular."
"There is still some time for that," Denby said. "Any
idea who is going to become President of the United States?"
"Depends on the year you are talking about," Penny said. "I
don't think it matters much to me, now, so why should I care?"
A little girl dressed in pinafores ran up and said "Boo!" before
scampering off into the darkness.
"Some people think its important."
"O don't be so lugubrious!" Penny said laughing. "You
are so geeky and inapt."
"Inept. I am told I am inept," Denby said. "And tone deaf."
"Whatever. Come along with me and meet some people!"
Down at the water's edge some people were preparing to go. His friend
Michael Rubin had discovered only an hour before the obulus in his mouth
and gone immediately down to the landing to wait for the Crossing. Others
were holding up the golden coins they had found, the fee for the Passage.
"This seems a great exodus," Denby said.
"Yes, this year has been a year of unusual harvesting," Penny
said. "How I long to go with them!"
From across the Strand came a parade of lights. They were the Lights
of Earth.
First came The Greatest saying loudly "I float like a butterfly
and sting like a bee. I wonder if they ever will remember me."
After him came several others all going down to the landing where the
stone pier jutted out into the black river. A man came along with a skullcap
and along with him was a man who bore the look of a survivor and they
were talking to each other about serious things, matters of State and
of entire Peoples.
Then followed a man wearing a large headress of eagle feathers and his
clothes were buckskin and he held himself as a king.
There followed behind a number of writers, and then followed musicians
who played their instruments as they descended to the quay.
A deep voice started singing:
Hearts of fire creates love desire
Take you high and higher to the world you belong
Hearts of fire creates love desire
High and higher to your place on the throne
The little girls who appeared out of the edge of the darkness laughed
and danced in circles around him as he walked down to the stone quay.
After this royalty strode a thin White Duke. He stumbled in front of
Denby and when he looked up Denby could see he had one green eye and one
blue.
"You must be the man who fell to earth," Denby said and the
man laughed as he arose.
"David, Any idea who is going to be the next President of the United
States," Denby asked, figuring he might never get a chance to query
such a person.
David paused for a moment, thinking. "I am afraid of Americans,"
he said and then walked on down to join the others.
Don't believe in yourself
Don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes
with death's release
I'm not a prophet
or a stone age man
Just a mortal
with the potential of a superman
I'm living on
I'm tethered to the logic
of Homo Sapien
Can't take my eyes
from the great salvation
Of bullshit faith
If I don't explain what you ought to know
You can tell me all about it
On, the next Bardo
I'm sinking in the quicksand
of my thought
And I ain't got the power anymore
The stone quay was crowded now with former lives and from far across
the black water came the glimmering of the wheels of fire that were the
ferryman's eyes as he approached.
A lean man with wild hair and wire-rim glasses and who had a guitar strapped
across his back. approached Denby.
"Hello Denby, said the man.
"Hello Paul," Denby said.
"We met only briefly once before," said Paul. "You ever
get that poetry magazine together?"
"Well sort of. It lasted a while and then died away. Could have
used that poem you read that day in the Haight."
"Ah well. Life is full of half finished sentences. If you see Chad,
tell him I am sorry about the thing that happened with his girlfriend
at the time."
"I guess its not serious enough a matter to keep you here any longer,"
Denby said. "Any hints as to the future for us is up top?"
Paul thought for a minute. "A Small Package Of Value Will Come To
You Shortly," he said and grinned as he turned to descend, singing
as he went.
A three girls in pinafores ran by barefoot and vanished just as suddenly
into the mist.
"Everyone is leaving now," Penny said sadly. And the Ferryman's
skiff approached the landing. The waiting souls handed over their obolus
and stepped aboard and they were all singing in harmony.
Go take your sister then by the hand
Lead her away from this foreign land
Far away where we might laugh again
We are leaving, you don't need us
And it's a fair wind
Blowin' warm out of the south over my shoulder
Guess I'll set a course and go.
The souls had all loaded on board the skiff. So many. Hard
to believe that death had undone so many. And yet the Ferryman stood there
waiting, his eyes wheels of fire, when along the Strand came a man with
black curly hair and wearing a purple robe that shimmered aloft behind
him as he strode along.
Dig if you will the picture
Of you and I engaged in a kiss
The sweat of your body covers me
Can you my darling
Can you picture this?
Dream if you can a courtyard
An ocean of violets in bloom
Animals strike curious poses
They feel the heat
The heat between me and you
How can you just leave me standing?
Alone in a world that's so cold? (So cold)
Maybe I'm just too demanding
Maybe I'm just like my father too bold
Maybe you're just like my mother
She's never satisfied (She's never satisfied)
Why do we scream at each other
This is what it sounds like
When doves cry
The man paid his fee and took his place on the skiff with the others
and the Ferryman turned his awful head with a great sweep of sparks and
poled away from the stone pier.
Soon only Denby stood there on the shore with Penny, shimmering in white.
"Someday I will cross to the other side. But now is not my time."
She shrugged. "O well! We should dance after all this music! Come
on!" Penny said, laughing. Lighting and thunder split the ragged
clouds overhead.
"It is storming up there," Denby said.
"Silly! Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It is about
learning to dance in the rain!"
Little girls came running out of the edges of the dark and they joined
hands with Penny to dance around the still blazing campfire there.
"Who are these girls," Denby said.
"They are the Daughters of the Dust," said Penny. "They
are the ones not yet and maybe never will be, or they were the possibilities
never born. They are all yours; are they not delightful!
One lithesome girl of about ten ran up to Denby and stared up at him
with big round blue eyes. "Papi!" she said, and Denby fell to
his knees. But she was only vapor and quickly melted from his arms.
An iron bell began to sound and Penny broke away from her dancing.
"Time is up already," she said. "For now you cannot stay
here. Looking at the way things are going, I am guessing you will be coming
down soon enough. If not the Angry Elf's gang then your own health."
"Yeah, well, a lot of people thanked me for saying "fuck you"
to that gangster's face."
Penny let out a peal of laughter. "Common sense was never your forte!
They thanked you because they were too afraid to say it themselves. And
for good reason!"
The iron bell clanged more insistently and the little girls danced in
a circle, bare feet flashing across the sand.
"C'mon Denby. Time to go."
The two of them walked slowly up the slope towards the wall.
"I can't go any further," Penny said. "Nor can they unless
released." She indicated the girls who had followed them.
"Penny, I should not have let you go," Denby said.
"O don't be so lugubrious! Silly man! Fling yourself into life while
you can. Learn to dance, and above all," and here Penny sort of blushed
and smiled. "Above all practice your singing. Practice a lot!"
She leaned forward to kiss him as he turned to face the Portal and he
felt the wet slap of rain laden wind and suddenly he stood there all alone
on the pavement with the rain pelting down and his face all wet and his
chest tight as if bound by leather straps, shaking and sobbing.
He walked slowly back through the storm and let himself into the Island-Life
offices where the Editor sat, waiting.
"You're wet," said the Editor.
"Sounds like a line from a rock musical," Denby said.
"So, any idea who wins the election?"
"Somehow it never came up," Denby said as he shrugged of his
sodden coat and hat to hang them on the rack.
"Rather bad this time, I gather," the Editor said.
"You've been to Hell and back." Denby said. "You ought
to know."
"Vietnam was a physical place long ago and it is all changed now,"
the Editor said as he brought out the scotch and glasses. "But yes,
it was no picnic."
The two men sat there in the darkened offices, drinking seriously.
After a while, Denby said, "I just wonder how the hell am I supposed
to learn how to dance with my leg all busted up the way it is."
The Editor stared at Denby. "You are a very weird fellow,"
he said.
"What other kind of person goes to that place year after year,"
Denby said.
The two remained silent after that, each thinking about the dead and
the past and the future.
The long howl of the throughpassing train ululated from across the water
where the skeletal gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with
their ghastly spotlights as the infernal wail quavered across the spectral
waves of the estuary, over the riprap embankments, over the haunted grasses
of the Buena Vista flats, and over the twilight zone of the former Beltline
railway; the sound of the train keened through the cracked brick of the
defunct Cannery with its ghosts and weedy railbed and hellish chainlink
fences as the spooky locomotive click-clacked past the shuttered doors
of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on its mysterious journey to
parts unknown and strange.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a spooky week.
OCTOBER 23, 2016
ALL THE LEAVES WERE FALLING
This week the headline photo comes from Carol, an artist who lives on
St. Charles Street in the Gold Coast.
Rather emblematic of the season.
ELECTIONS ENDORSEMENTS
This continues last week's elections coverage
STATE PROPOSITIONS
Proposition 51 Education $9 billion in bonds for education and schools
Proposition 52 Healthcare Voter approval of changes to the hospital fee
program
Proposition 53 Elections Projects that cost more than $2 billion
Proposition 54 Accountability Conditions under which legislative bills
can be passed
Proposition 55 Taxes Personal income tax increases on incomes over $250,000
Proposition 56 Tobacco Increase the cigarette tax by $2.00 per pack
Proposition 57 Trials Felons convicted of non-violent crimes
Proposition 58 Education Bilingual education in public schools
Proposition 59 Campaign finance State's position on Citizens United v.
Federal Election Commission
Proposition 60 Movies Require the use of condoms in pornographic films
Proposition 61 Healthcare Prescription drug price regulations
Proposition 62 Death penalty Repeal the death penalty
Proposition 63 Firearms Background checks for ammunition purchases
Proposition 64 Marijuana Legalization of marijuana and hemp
Proposition 65 Environment Grocery and retail carry-out bags
Proposition 66 Death penalty Death penalty procedures
Proposition 67 Business reg Prohibition on plastic single-use carryout
bags
Proposition 56 is the Tobacco tax proposal that requests $2.00
increase in taxes for the cancer-inducing drug.
A "yes" vote favors increasing the cigarette tax by $2.00 per
pack, with equivalent increases on other tobacco products and electronic
cigarettes.
A "no" vote opposes increasing the cigarette tax by $2.00 per
pack, with equivalent increases on other tobacco products and electronic
cigarettes.
Here is another Proposition which features substantial disinformation.
The No people are Big Tobacco, unsurprisingly. Similar measures are on
ballots in four other states.
To kibosh one lie: this initiative does not change how the 87 cent tobacco
tax is allocated. Rather, the measure would add an additional $2.00 tax,
bringing the total tobacco tax up the $2.87 per pack of cigarettes. It
would increase the excise tax on other tobacco products equivalently.
Proposition 56 would change the definition of "other tobacco products"
in state law to include e-cigarettes.
Revenue from the $2.00 tax levied by Proposition 56 would be distributed
through a four-step process:
Step 1: use new revenue to replace old revenue lost due to lower tobacco
consumption resulting from tobacco tax increase.
Step 2: use next five percent of revenue to pay the costs of administering
the tax.
Step 3: allocate $48 million to enforcing tobacco laws, $40 million to
physician training to increase the number of primary care and emergency
physicians in the state, $30 million towards preventing and treating dental
diseases, and $400 thousand to the California State Auditor to audit funds
from the new tax.
Step 4: allocate 82 percent of remaining funds towards services related
to Medi-Cal, 11 percent of remaining funds towards tobacco-use prevention,
5 percent of remaining funds towards research into cancer, heart and lung
diseases, and other tobacco-related diseases, and 2 percent of remaining
funds towards school programs focusing on tobacco-use prevention and reduction
So people claiming it does not contribute to efforts to stop smoking
are simply lying; in addition, a major deterrent to smoking shall be the
effective increase in costs to maintaining the habit.
The tax never had anything to do with the schools or insurance companies.
In fact we can find no reasonable objection to the Proposal.
We endorse Proposition 56. Vote yes.
Proposition 57: The California Parole for Non-Violent Criminals
and Juvenile Court Trial Requirements Initiative, also known as Proposition
57, will be on the November 8, 2016, ballot in California as a combined
initiated constitutional amendment and state statute.
A "yes" vote supports increasing parole and good behavior opportunities
for felons convicted of nonviolent crimes and allowing judges, not prosecutors,
to decide whether to try certain juveniles as adults in court.
A "no" vote opposes increasing parole and good behavior opportunities
for felons convicted of nonviolent crimes and favors keeping the current
system of having prosecutors decide whether to try certain juveniles as
adults in court.
Proposition 58: Bilingual education in public schools
Vote yes against xenophobia.
Proposition 59: State's position on Citizens United v. Federal
Election Commission
This one is a no-brainer that strikes at the heart of the foolish, irresponsible,
and badly legal conceit that a Corporation is the same as a Person, endowed
with the same rights, same benefits, and same prerogatives as a legal
citizen -- but without corresponding accountability.
You think the Death penalty or life sentences are okay? Well then. Put
Enron to death and put Chevron behind bars for over 40 years, securing
100% of their income for the State. Vote yes on prop. 59.
Proposition 60: Require the use of condoms in pornographic films
This is stupid, weird, unenforceable and really a bad waste of taxpayer
resources. What is going in the minds of the blue-haired people who pushed
this forward? Vote no, if only for decency's sake.
Proposition 61: Prescription drug price regulations
A "yes" vote supports regulating drug prices by requiring state
agencies to pay the same prices that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
(VA) pays for prescription drugs.
A "no" vote opposes this measure regulating drug prices by requiring
state agencies to pay the same prices that the VA pays for prescription
drugs.
This initiative was designed to restrict the amount that any state agency
could pay for drugs, tying it to the price paid by the U.S. Department
of Veterans Affairsan organization that falls under certain state
laws regarding drug price negotiations. Specifically, it would forbid
state agencies to enter into any purchasing agreement with drug manufacturers
unless the net cost of the drug is the same or less than that paid by
the VA. The measure would apply in any case in which the state ultimately
provides funding for the purchase of drugs, even if the drugs are not
purchased directly by a government agency. The measure only applies to
the purchasing of drugs by state agencies and does not apply to purchases
made by individuals. Medicaid managed care programs would be exempt from
drug price regulations required by Proposition 61
Prop 61 continues the groundswell of medical establishment reform that
was partially initiated by the national Healthcare Affordability Act.
It is a clearly needed set of controls on a Big Pharma industry that has
for years been able to extort any amount of money from people, organizations
and local governments at will. Obviously Big Pharma does not like this
bill and so they have devoted multimillions to their campaign to defeat
Prop 61.
The recent uproar about the price gouging over the EpiPen is one small
example of how unregulated prescription pricing causes misery.
We say vote yes.
Proposition 62: Death penalty
A "yes" vote supports repealing the death penalty and making
life without the possibility of parole the maximum punishment for murder.
A "no" vote opposes this measure repealing the death penalty.
There is another death penalty related measure, Proposition 66, that will
appear on the November 8, 2016, ballot in California. If both measures
pass, the one with the most "yes" votes would supersede the
other.
The arguments pro and con have been rehashed for dozens of years, so
we will not repeat most of that. We support repeal of this and other draconian
penalties for the duration until inequities in the system are ironed out.
It may be that the inequities will never be ironed out, but if that means
a permanent moratorium on State sanctioned murder of innocent people,
we are all in favor of that.
Are there some people so incorrigible, so evil, that no amount of rehab
and reflection will change their mental state? Sure that is true. But
killing them causes no remorse and no justice.
Let us repeat this fact: Killing an evil person who murdered somebody
sweet and innocent is never ever going to bring that good person back
alive. That is just a sad, inescapable fact. Vote yes.
Proposition 63: Background checks for ammunition purchases
A "yes" vote supports prohibiting the possession of large-capacity
ammunition magazines and requiring certain individuals to pass a background
check in order to purchase ammunition.
A "no" vote opposes this proposal to prohibit the possession
of large-capacity ammunition magazines and require certain individuals
to pass a background check in order to purchase ammunition.
In July 2016, California enacted legislation to regulate the sale of
ammunition. The legislation requires individuals and businesses to obtain
a one-year license from the California Department of Justice to sell ammunition.
The legislation also requires sellers to conduct background checks of
purchasers with the Department of Justice.
Proposition 63 would require individuals who wish to purchase ammunition
to first obtain a permit. Dealers would be required to check this permit
before selling ammunition. The measure would eliminate several exemptions
to the large-capacity magazines ban and increase the penalty for possessing
them. Proposition 63 would also enact a court process that attempts to
ensure prohibited individuals do not continue to have firearms.
Proposition 47 of 2014 made stealing an item that is valued at less than
$950 a misdemeanor. Therefore, stealing a gun valued at less than $950
is a misdemeanor. Proposition 63 would make stealing a gun, including
one valued at less than $950, a felony punishable by up to three years
in prison
Okay so here is a mix. Let us first say that some of us on staff own
firearms and they were purchased for the purposes of deterring crime --
you can say what you think about that as being effective. Some of us on
staff abhor guns and wish they were entirely banned -- you can say what
you want about Amendments and Rights and stuff.
We think this Proposition is a mixed bag that contains some good stuff
and some unworkable stuff. Unfortunately we do not think a one time background
check is going to be effective. We actually do not think a continuously
active background check per purchase will be effective either, as criminals
and citizens will simply amass large armories of stealable, incendiary
ammunition. It is a well-intentioned but bad idea. Citizens stacking large
crates of ammo in their closets and basement just means bad news for firemen
and other first responders answering an emergency call.
Eliminating large-capacity magazines will have some minor effect, but
unfortunately would not have had the slightest effect on most of the mass-killings
recently publicized. In looking at several gun battles in Oaktown we found
that thugs supplied with 50 round magazines managed to hit not one single
live person during their exchanges. Fortunately. Why? Because nutcases
with 50 rounds don't bother to aim, while cops are trained weekly, and
sometimes daily, to group their shots effectively. It is as simple as
that.
We ARE in favor of increasing penalties for stealing weapons. Actually,
we would like to send those people to Saudi Arabia where they know how
to handle thieves, but that is a minor portion of this Proposition, which
should have been three Propositions instead of one.
We think this Proposition, which sounds good, is really too good to be
true. People can own all the guns they want, just make bullets difficult
to come by. Actually a $2 cost per round might be more of a deterrent
than a background check, come to think of it.
We advise voting No on Prop 63.
Proposition 64: Legalization of marijuana and hemp
A "yes" vote supports legalizing recreational marijuana for
persons aged 21 years or older under state law and establishing certain
sales and cultivation taxes.
A "no" vote opposes this proposal to legalize recreational marijuana
under state law and to establish certain sales and cultivation taxes.
Proposition 64 would allow adults aged 21 years or older to possess and
use marijuana for recreational purposes. The measure would create two
new taxes, one levied on cultivation and the other on retail price. Revenue
from the taxes would be spent on drug research, treatment, and enforcement,
health and safety grants addressing marijuana, youth programs, and preventing
environmental damage resulting from illegal marijuana production
O for Pete's sake people, it is the year 2016. EVERYBODY has smoked pot,
including prosecutors, judges and cops. States that have legalized Pot
have enjoyed windfalls of economic benefits. Just vote yes, along with
several other states which have similar measures on their own ballots
for this election.
The long-form ballot summary is as follows:
Legalizes marijuana under state law, for use by adults 21 or older.
Designates state agencies to license and regulate marijuana industry.
Imposes state excise tax of 15% on retail sales of marijuana, and state
cultivation taxes on marijuana of $9.25 per ounce of flowers and $2.75
per ounce of leaves.
Exempts medical marijuana from some taxation.
Establishes packaging, labeling, advertising, and marketing standards
and restrictions for marijuana products.
Prohibits marketing and advertising marijuana directly to minors.
Allows local regulation and taxation of marijuana.
Authorizes resentencing and destruction of records for prior marijuana
convictions
What is attractive about this version of the Pro-pot Prop as opposed
to other years, is that the bulk of the income proceeds derived from the
15% tax will be devoted to studying the effects of the new law and to
establishing regulation methods to be employed by CHP and other agencies
to prevent damage caused by supposedly greater numbers of people walking
and driving around stoned.
We endorse this Proposition 64. Vote yes.
Propositions 65 and 67: Grocery and retail carry-out bags
A "yes" vote (Prop 65) is a vote in favor of redirecting money
collected from the sale of carry-out bags by grocery or other retail stores
to a special fund administered by the Wildlife Conservation Board.
A "no" vote (Prop 65) is a vote against redirecting money collected
from the sale of carry-out bags by grocery or other retail stores to a
special fund administered by the Wildlife Conservation Board.
Another measure relating to grocery bag consumption, Proposition 67,
will appear on the November 8, 2016, ballot in California. Approval of
the measure would uphold the ban on plastic grocery bags and allocate
revenue from state-mandated charges on bags to grocers for covering costs
and education. If both are approved, but Proposition 67 receives more
"yes" votes, this allocation provision would supersede Proposition
65's allocation provision.
In 2014, the California Legislature approved and the California Governor
signed Senate Bill 270 (SB 270). The bill is on the ballot as Proposition
67 due to the successful veto referendum signature drive by the American
Progressive Bag Alliance (APBA). APBA is also the sponsor of Proposition
65. Proposition 67 would mandate stores to charge 10 cents for recycled,
compostable and reusable grocery bags. The charge would be spent on covering
costs and educating consumers.
These two items are enough to give any thinking person a headache. Add
to the mix the information that all carryout bags, regardless of where
the revenue goes, are loss-leaders for the stores -- they never make any
money on any bags, plastic or paper. It costs stores an average of .13
- .15 cents per bag, so the concept of the stores raking in greedy profits
is silly. It remains to be said where the money goes when stores do charge
something for a bag.
in comparison:
Proposition 67: Plastic bag ban
A "yes" vote is a vote in favor of upholding the contested legislation
banning plastic bags that was enacted by the California State Legislature
under the name Senate Bill 270.
A "no" vote is a vote in favor of overturning Senate Bill 270.
So essentially, Prop 65 redirects bag money to a fund. Prop 67 bans plastic
bags, and when paper bags are sold, allows the stores to keep the amounts
charged. Although California would become the first state to ban the sale
of plastic single-use bags, in 2015, Hawaii entered into de facto ban
on non-biodegradable bags because all of its counties banned the bags.
Washington, D.C. prohibited non-recyclable plastic carryout bags in 2009.
Hopefully this sorts things out. We trend to support Prop 67 and look
a bit awry at Prop 65, largely because of how we see the funding flowing.
Proposition 66: Death Penalty revisions
A "yes" vote supports changing the procedures governing state
court appeals and petitions that challenge death penalty convictions and
sentences.
A "no" vote opposes changing the procedures governing state
court appeals and petitions that challenge death penalty convictions and
sentences, and would keep the current system for governing death penalty
appeals and petitions.
Proposition 66 is designed to shorten the time that legal challenges
to death sentences take to a maximum of five years.
There is another death penalty related measure, Proposition 62, that will
appear on the November 8, 2016, ballot in California. If both measures
pass, the one with the most "yes" votes would supersede the
other.
As of 2016, California was one of 30 states in which the death penalty
was legal.[3]
In 1972, the California Supreme Court ruled the states capital
punishment system unconstitutional. However, in 1978, Proposition 7 reinstated
the death penalty. Voters rejected an initiative to ban capital punishment,
titled Proposition 34, in 2012.
Initiative design
Instead of the California Supreme Court, Proposition 66 would put trial
courts in charge of initial petitions, known as habeas corpus petitions,
challenging death penalty convictions. The judge who handled the original
murder case would hear the habeas corpus petition, unless good cause can
be shown for another judge or court. Petitions would be appealed to California
Courts of Appeal, and then finally to the California Supreme Court. The
measure would require the habeas corpus petition process and appeals to
be completed within five years after the death sentence. Trial courts
would replace the Supreme Court as the judicial body that appoints attorneys
for habeas corpus petitions. Inmates on death row would be required to
work, subject to state regulations, under Proposition 66. The measure
would require 70 percent of earnings from work be allocated to debts owed
to the inmate's victims. The state would be allowed to house death row
inmates in any prison, rather than the one death row prison for men and
one death row prison for women.
Californians to Mend, Not End, the Death Penalty, also known as No on
Prop 62, Yes on Prop 66, is leading the campaign in support of Proposition
66. We agree the Death Penalty needs mending -- just that Prop 62 does
not do the essential things that are needed to resolved the inequities
inherent in the system. The best parts of the Prop are already in Prop
62. We just do not think shortening the path to executing a bad decision
is the way to go. Sure, taking 20 years or lengths of time the criminal
dies of old age before execution date is something of an absurdity, but
perhaps it is that way because it is recognized how flawed the decision
process happens to be to start with.
One thing we note that others have not: it is generally a bad idea to
go mucking with legal processes so as to save money and become "more
efficient." Until "guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt" becomes
a reality, tampering with the execution process, which occurs at the end
of the entire dog and pony show, is not going to "fix" anything,
other than make some hardcore right wingers smug about "getting tough
on crime."
We say vote no, but vote no with a clear head.
LOCAL MEASURES
COUNTY OF ALAMEDA
Measure A1 - ENDORSE YES
Alameda County Affordable Housing Bond to provide affordable local housing
and prevent displacement of vulnerable populations, including low- and
moderate-income households, veterans, seniors, and persons with disabilities.
The measure will require a two-thirds majority countywide to gain approval.
In response to what is referred to as a severe shortage of housing that
is affordable for lower income households in the county, the Alameda County
Board of Supervisors voted to place the $580 million general obligation
bond on the ballot.
The cost to property owners would be $14 per $100,000 assessed value.
The $580 million would be divided into two pots. In the first, $120 million
would be used to fund homeowner programs, such as down payment assistance
loans, and home preservation loans. To allow access for middle income
homebuyers looking to purchase in high costs areas such as the Tri-Valley,
this program would be available for households with incomes up to 150%
of Area Median Income.
Median income in Alameda County for a family of four is $97,500, for
an individual, $68,300.
The remaining $460 million would go to a rental housing development fund
to support new construction and preservation of existing affordable units
targeted to low income residents. It would include an innovation and opportunity
fund that could be used for activities such as land and market rate unit
acquisition.
No serious opposition has been expressed to this measure by anyone.
Measure B1- ENDORSEMENT WITHHELD
Maintains the existing Alameda Unified School District parcel tax for
seven years, without increase, to maintain high-quality Alameda schools
by protecting small class sizes, core academic programs, neighborhood
schools, and retaining excellent teachers.
A similar measure with the same name narrowly lost in 2012. Well, it
comes down to the question, do you want good schools or not? If you do,
you must pay for them. End of story.
Measure C1 - ENDORSE YES
Extends the existing Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit)
parcel tax at current levels to preserve essential local public transportation
services, including those for youth, commuters, seniors, and people with
disabilities, while keeping fares reasonable.
Measure RR - ENDORSE YES
BART bond to keep BART safe, prevent accidents/breakdowns/delays, relieve
overcrowding, reduce traffic congestion/pollution, improve earthquake
safety and access for seniors/disabled by replacing and upgrading 90 miles
of severely worn tracks, tunnels damaged by water intrusion, 44-year old
train control systems, and other deteriorating infrastructure.
CITY OF ALAMEDA
The City has three measures on the November 8, 2016 Election, as well
as the following offices: Two Councilmembers, City Auditor, City Treasurer.
Running for Office:
City Council
*Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft, councilmember, Alameda
*Tony Daysog, councilmember, Alameda
Jennifer Roloff, businessperson/parent
Lena Tam, former councilmember, Alameda
Malia Vella, educator/attorney
Well, of these we suppose Marilyn we can endorse. Tony we sort of endorse
if only because Roloff comes off as a nitwit. Lena Tam has been around
and is capable and we endorse her whole heartedly over Tony and Jennifer.
We know nothing of Malia Vella other than she sounds like she does her
homework and applies herself intelligently, which Jennifer Roloff does
not. We would pick Malia over Tony who has shown a bit of toadyism when
it came to rent control.
City Auditor
*Kevin Kearney, city auditor, Alameda- ENDORSE
Mike McMahon, former school board member, Alameda
City Treasurer
Jeff Bratzler, financial planner
*Kevin Kennedy, city treasurer, Alameda - ENDORSE
School Board (Choose 3)
Ardella Dailey, college professor
*Gray Harris, appointed board member, Alameda
Matt Hettich, flight attendant/parent
Anne McKereghan, businessperson
Dennis Popalardo, attorney/parent
Jennifer Williams, attorney/parent
Measure K1: Utility Modernization Act- ENDORSE YES
The Utility Modernization Act (UMA) updates the existing Utility Users
Tax (UUT) and confirms the annual transfer of funds from Alameda Municipal
Power (AMP) to the City, which will protect core city services without
raising taxes. The UMA will allow Alameda to maintain its high quality
of life, including funding for police, fire and emergency response, street
and sidewalk repairs, park maintenance and library services.
Measure L1: Rent Stabilization Act - Vote NO
After working with tenants and property owners for months, in November
2015 the Alameda City Council adopted a temporary moratorium on rent increases
over 8% and on any action to terminate a tenancy except for "just
cause". In March 2016 the City Council adopted the Rent Review, Rent
Stabilization and Limitations on Evictions Ordinance, to stabilize rents
and limit the grounds for terminating tenancies. In August, the City Council
submitted to voters a confirmation of this ordinance, which is on the
November ballot as Measure L1.
People in favor say, "let the system prove itself." It has
proven itself to be unworkable. The evidence is clear that even when L1
measures have been in place, the landlords ignore them because this thing
has no teeth. It does not work, it will not work, things continue to decay.
We urge you to vote NO.
Measure M1: Charter Amendment to Establish Rent Control, a Rent Control
Board and Regulate Termination of Tenancies -VOTE YES
Signatures gathered for a petition by the Alameda Renters Coalition were
verified by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters and were more than
what was required to place this measure on the ballot.
If you have not been asleep since blood was spilled on the steps of City
Hall during a Council Meeting on the Rental Crisis you know what this
is about. It is about the people being very angry at what has been going
on with the destruction of our communities by outside landholders. The
most attractive provisions of this measure involve limiting the hell-for-leather
breakneck speed of causeless evictions. This version of rent control is
not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction and it does provide
some measures of protection for the small landholder looking to supplement
income which we might not see again in succeeding measures should this
one fail.
Whew!
That is 18 State Propositions, four County Measures, three City Measures,
several City offices and that is just Alameda this time around.
Then there is the President, Senator and re-electing our reps, who happen
to be, luckily, Rob Bonta and Barbara Lee.
Take the day off, go vote, then have a drink while watching the news.
Hopefully we all will not be needing several rounds to put us under when
it is all over.
YOU TURN ME ON LIKE A RADIO
(Corrected)
So anyway, the season lapsed into ominous leaden sky days with swirling
Blakean skies that threatened each moment to plunge some terrifying chiaroscuro
god with his finger pointed down. Beatrice came out to find that the finches
had created a terribly defomed baby with twisted legs that would never
survive, which seemed a bad omen. So she drowned and buried it and removed
the soiled nest from the cage.
While the Almeida family combined their efforts to construct costumes
and turn their designated "safe house for Halloween" into something
frightful (but not too frightful) the Native Sons held their annual Monster's
Ball at the parlor location hard by the marina.
Witches are the new IT girls this year, due largely to the lack of imagination
in movies. We are done with pirates, vampires, ghosts and ghostbusters,
and Rocky Horror characters. Spiders remain good for decor along the walls,
but nobody wants to dance with a spider any more than one would want to
dance with an octopus. We do seem to have quite a lot of zombies of the
brain-eating kind, which is only logical in the years after the last Bush
Administration devalued gray matter to such an extent. And this election
seems to be encouraging quite a lot of brainless people to emerge from
the woodwork.
Gilberto, who was born long after Judy Garland had passed on, was hammering
together pieces of conduit for a Tin Man costume. Filiberto was soldering
-- with supervision -- a Wall-E suit. Alicia was going as a Minion, and
would be watching over little Santiago, dressed as a mini-Minion. Ana
was going as the fembot from Ex Machina while Ana wanted to be R2D2 but
only because the costume was easier to make than that other thing with
the English accent from Star Wars. Jorge couldn't decide between Chappie
or Iron Man from the Avengers, but both of those required too much work
and help from his older brothers. He eventually decided on a basic zombie
with brains a la carte.
The shindig at the Native Sons of the Golden West started off quite serene.
Lionel, dressed as a distinguished vampire, escorted Jacqueline who came
as Morticia from the Addams Family sitcom.
Mr. Spline came as his hero Col. Armstrong Custer, while Cmdr. Stiffstik
entered the door as his hero, Admiral Nimitz. People thought they were
a couple, but the truth is, they were both straight and pretty narrow
and neither could find dates and they thought Cmdr. Stiffstik was portraying
George Patton.
Mr. Spline showed up as James Bond, but because of the way he was dressed,
people thought he was Edward Munster or Lurch.
Besides the usual feral female cats, a schooner's worth of pirates and
assorted space aliens, the hall overflowed with families from an entire
block on San Antonio, each dressed as a GOP candidate for President, the
Sanchez family dressed as a bag of marshmallows, the Island-life Editor
as Ben Bradlee, several members of Congress dripping with blood and looking
a bit vampirish, four President Assads, a baker's dozen of hastily done
DAESH fighter-thugs carrying scimitars, a plethora of medical workers
in hazmat suits, which made for drinking the punch through the respirator
masks a dicey proposition, and at least one premature, but hopeful, Xmas
present.
Denby, dressed as a court Foole, got into the spiked punch and after
five or six rounds sat weeping about having to go to Hell or someplace
like it next week while Tinker Bell stood there trying to console him.
She was as cute as buttons and she knew it.
"Nice hat," she said. "Why don't you come upstairs and
take off your pantaloons." she said, then added, "You can keep
your hat on."
Lynette and Susan came as an Harley Davidson engine and as a biker chick,
respectively. Pimenta Strife strode across the threshold in 6 inch stiletto
heels and a set of angel wings with a diaphanous tunic that left little
to the imagination and it was pretty obvious she had a Brazilian wax job.
Instead of a date she draped the end of her barbed tail over her arm;
she knew she wouldn't go home alone.
Given the eclectic mix it was inevitable that an argument would ensue,
and ensue it did close to midnight, after all the guests were well lubricated.
The Harley engine got into it with Dwight D. Eisenhower over women's
rights to choose what they want to do with their own bodies and DDE would
have none of it. Donald Trump got into it, siding with Eisenhower while
a woman in a Hazmat suit tried to remove her facemask to help the Harley.
Bernie Sanders stood to the side and offered the comment that the problem
was that corporations had a stranglehold on the throat of America.
Several of the GOP candidates began bickering among themselves about
the best way to make everything and everybody Conservative and a Gerrymandered
District lay down on the floor to explain how it was done and a couple
marshmallows tripped over his legs and fell down too. The hazmat woman
finally ripped her mask loose, saying, "Now if you don't have a uterus
. . .", but she never finished as her elbow accidentally wacked a
livid Ron Paul who threw a wild roundhouse punch that, true to the Tea
Party Movement, missed its target by a mile, striking instead a hapless
Congressman vampire, sending his false teeth flying.
Things quickly descended into a savage, atavistic brawl with costume
tearing, wookie hair pulling, robotic parts sent skittering, and facemask
pulling that would have any NFL referee in shock and awe. Col. Armstrong
Custer stepped into the melee which grew to involve some twenty-five people.
There he stood and removed his colt pistols and then discharged them at
the same time while pointing to the ceiling. A little plaster fell down
from above where everyone could see two neat, brand new bullet holes.
"You brought live ammo to a party! You've taken this military industrial
complex thing too far!" said Dwight D. Eisenhower. "Are you
crazy?!"
The door opened and a girl, about seven or eight walked in. She was barefoot
and wearing what looked like an old-fashioned nightgown with a Peter Pan
collar and her dark eyes were very large. The time had just passed midnight.
The girl walked through the crowd and the heaped up bodies up to Morticia,
who had stayed clear of the fray along with Lionel, and stood in front
of the woman. This is what she said.
"Please tell them to stop. I can't rest. Please. It hurts."
That made them all feel pretty sheepish. Well, of course. Late hour.
Neighbors and all. It was a wonder no one had called the cops. Poor child,
trying to sleep.
The little girl looked somehow familiar, with her dark hair tumbling
down in sleepy curls, as if she evoked something seen on a poster or the
side of milk carton. She stood there, holding the most serious expression
on her face, then turned and walked out of the door, down the steps and
over the breakwater down to the wharves with the full moon lighting everything
up quite clearly.
"Good god! She's going in!" Someone shouted.
Several people erupted from the hall, led by Susan B. Anthony followed
closely by Colonel Custer and James Bond. They all stopped short when
they all saw what happened next.
There, the little girl stepped off the edge of the wharf and, walking
on the quiet water with only minor ripples spreading outward from her
small feet, kept on going out across the cove then over the top of the
gentle swells, and glimmering faintly as if lit within by a candle, continued
to walk on the surface of the water out into the middle of the Bay and
there vanished as all of them stood there, watching.
"Effing A!" said Eugene, who was dressed as a caddis fly nymph.
Everyone else was as quiet as the grave. "Didn't something like this
happen last year?" Everyone else remained as quiet as the grave.
"What's it like in Hell," Tinker Bell asked Denby.
"It really sucks," Denby said.
Just then the long howl of the throughpassing train ululated from across
the water where the skeletal gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood eerily
glowing with their multi-kilowatt sentry lights, quavered across the spectral
waves of the estuary, over the riprap embankments, over the haunted grasses
of the Buena Vista flats and over the twilight zone of the former Beltline
railway; it moaned through the cracked brick of the defunct Cannery with
its ghosts and weedy railbed and chainlink fences as the dark locomotive
click-clacked past the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront,
headed off on its mysterious journey to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a spooky week.
OCTOBER 16, 2016
HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN
This week's photo, courtesy of I-Lifer Tammy, was a no-brainer pick from
the files.
We finally got body-slammed with a good couple of dockwallopers, although
we are hearing that snow is sparse up in the Sierra due to high temperatures.
Nevertheless, we can take all we can get for drought-parched California
at this point. This ought to be welcome for the firefighters handling
the late season burns.
THIS ISLAND-LIFE
Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 6, which means youll
want to turn your clocks back before you go to bed Saturday night, Nov.
5.
Okay so the big news, besides Mayor Trish putting her foot into it again,
is going to be the same for the next four weeks - The Elections.
The Free Library held its annual sale with good attendance and that is
always good news. We always scarf up some good deals trolling the cafeteria
tables laden with goodies. Continuing to provide good stuff, the Library
will host a viewing of the final Presidential Debate this Wednesday from
6:00-7:30PM. So if you want to come out and cheer or boo with your neighbors
this is just the ticket.
This time the debate is being held in a Western state on our timezone,
so don't be late.
Voting has begun here in the Golden State. VBM/absentee voters should
all have gotten their packets by now.
We have quite a raft of Propositions this time around, with a now familiar
pattern of competing measures that cancel each other, so some homework
is in order.
There are a couple places to go to sort through the morass and get some
objective opinions. We like KQED's online breakdown which tailors the
info to your zip code so that you don't have to read about Marin's high
density housing issues if you live in San Jose.
Another source from year to year has been the League of Women Voters
who do a really slam-bang job of collecting all the spew and sorting it
out for the Islanders in particular. LWV.
Those looking for more Bay Area and definitively Liberal viewpoints need
only to google the defunct Bay Guardian which rises from the dead to provide
a Voter Guide for 2016.
The Chronicle always supplies an opinion, which although it may be wrong,
is always well organized and well-informed at
The Chron.
THE BREAKDOWN
PRESIDENT
If you do not know who is running for President, please take your meds
and go back to bed.
ENDORSEMENT FOR PRESIDENT
ENDORSEMENT: Hillary Clinton, DEM.
Yes, she is not perfect and a vote for her reeks of business-as-usual,
and there some items about which Republicans profess unease, namely Bengazi
and the questionable e-mail server.
About that e-mail server: This sphere happens to be the main day job
for one of our inhouse reporters who deals with goverment email systems
all the time. This is what our main inside has said: Look. None of the
administrators have the slightest clue how e-mail works and they simply
do not have the time to research this stuff. They rely on staff to keep
abreast of requirements. It is nonsensical to expect someone at the level
of National Secretary of State to keep track of the mechanics of how their
telephones and email work. Yes you do have to make sure fax machines do
not spit out secure information without some controls, but you hire people
who are supposed to know what they are doing and you have to trust them
to do their job when you are off making deals with Saudi Arabia and making
sure China is not about to invade somebody. When push comes to shove,
this reliance on staff means the administrator will give them the benefit
of the doubt and fall on their own sword rather than blame anyone handling
the nuts and bolts of day to day operations.
Do YOU know how your email works and how it flows? Can you even name
YOUR own email server? Heck, how can you expect someone who is jetting
all over the world on behalf of the US to keep track of that?
A private email server is set up precisely to ensure that communications
remain secure, not the other way around. Both Bush's had one so it is
a bit hypocritical to point fingers at Clinton for this. There was no
criminal intent. She was not sneaking around whispering to herself that
she could now turn into Edward Snowden and sell all this secret information.
People who accuse her of criminality have not pursued the logic the Justice
Department made during its intensive investigation. There was no intent
to commit a crime because the Secretary just does not know about how email
works. Same as you. Same as everybody. And she preserves enough decency
not to toss any of her staff upon the griddle, taking the heat and full
blame if there be any.
And there is a similar process going on with the Bengazhi accusations.
It is all resembling an accusation against the CEO of Ford for failing
to see all the bathrooms are stocked with toilet paper.
Which comes to one reason we endorse Clinton. We look at her record because
she has one. In fact Clinton has an honorable record of public service
going back to the 1970's, while her opponent has none at all.
She has been in the trenches for decades while the Donald has just entered
the arena capriciously by way of having a lot of money, most of which
was inherited. He does have many personal attributes as a man and a person
that are reprehensible -- but we are willing to put all that aside, if
he only demonstrated some capacity, some capability.
Trump has never done that.
Donald Trump has not demonstrated administrative capability. He has not
done well as a businessman, has failed to pay debts and failed to pay
contractors for work honestly performed. Most of his ideas about the economy
and immigration are not original -- they mimic the Republican Party line,
so that is just a matter of whether you agree or not. He touts Trickle-Down
economics, which has been proven not to work, but that again is a matter
of ideology. Bad ideas or not, like the American-Mexican Wall, the ideas
matter less than the ability to execute them, and to execute ideas of
any stripe you have to be able to galvanize capable people and enact compromise.
You have to prove you can do it and he has failed time after time, from
casino ot casino, from pageant to pageant.
While Clinton might, at worst, be just business as usual, Trump would
be a national disaster of proven incompetance at a time we are engaged
in dubious battle with entities that have sworn to destroy us. This is
NOT the time to start experimenting with Washington "outsiders"
and strange fringe elements like Trump.
Can it be any clearer than that?
US SENATE
NO ENDORSEMENT
We have unusual riches in our choice for California's junior Senator.
In both candidates we have experienced women with substantial legal and
goverment experience. And to cap it with cherries, both are accomplished
Women of Color.
Kamela Harris has the endorsement of most of the Democratic Party, and
her name is familiar, and she has raised $10 million more in campaign
funds than her opponent so she is likely to win this election. It does
appear that the National Party has groomed her for the next step up.
We believe that Loretta L. Sanchez, currently U.S. House of Representatives
has a long future in Golden State politics, which has gone on now a full
20 years already, but looking at the forces arrayed in this election we
think she will have a hard sell to take office. We wish her well wherever
she winds up in politics, as we see her as an experienced and capable
person with her heart in the right place. Anyone other than Kamala Harris
and we would have no hesitation supporting this person wholeheartedly.
It is a logical step up, looking at her career, to move from Congresswoman
to Senator; well not this time.
In any case, either candidate would do well to fill the shoes of the
very capable Barbara Boxer whose worth can be seen by the enmity by which
so many radical NeoCons place on her.
As for Propositions we have 18 State propositions besides the two that
concern us locally. We are not going to get to all of them this time around.
Title Subject Description
Proposition 51 Education $9 billion in bonds for education and schools
Proposition 52 Healthcare Voter approval of changes to the hospital fee
program
Proposition 53 Elections Projects that cost more than $2 billion
Proposition 54 Accountability Conditions under which legislative bills
can be passed
Proposition 55 Taxes Personal income tax increases on incomes over $250,000
Proposition 56 Tobacco Increase the cigarette tax by $2.00 per pack
Proposition 57 Trials Felons convicted of non-violent crimes
Proposition 58 Education Bilingual education in public schools
Proposition 59 Campaign finance State's position on Citizens United v.
Federal Election Commission
Proposition 60 Movies- Require the use of condoms in pornographic films
Proposition 61 Healthcare Prescription drug price regulations
Proposition 62 Death penalty Repeal the death penalty
Proposition 63 Firearms Background checks for ammunition purchases
Proposition 64 Marijuana Legalization of marijuana and hemp
Proposition 65 Environment Grocery and retail carry-out bags
Proposition 66 Death penalty Death penalty procedures
Proposition 67 Business reg Prohibition on plastic single-use carryout
bags
Some of these are pretty obvious. Prop 64 is pretty straightforward.
If you like pot and think it should be legalized for any number of reasons,
well, vote yes on 64, expecting there will be eventual Federal fallout
as Marijuana remains a federally scheduled drug. If 64 should pass, the
supporters understand there remains an uphill battle to carry this one
forward with any seriousness. The writing is on the wall for the future
in that several other states have already legalized the drug with great
local economic benefits.
But lets take things in order with some endorsements.
Prop 51 floats another bond for education and schools.
A "yes" vote supports the state issuing $9 billion in bonds
to fund improvement and construction of school facilities for K-12 schools
and community colleges.
A "no" vote opposes the state issuing $9 billion in new debt
to fund the improvement and construction of education facilities.
We were surprised to see the conservative Budget Watchdogs organization
endorsing this one. In fact there are few opposers, with Governor Jerry
Brown coming out against its estimated 17+ billion interest cost to the
state debt. In fact all arguments against this Prop are from people who
just do not like the idea of Bonds at all. No one is arguing that the
schools do not need infrastructure support and that education is needing
a boost in the Golden State. Antis argue that the schools would be better
served by local efforts, featuring -- quel surprise! -- local bonds.
In other words, the need is there and bonds are the way to go and there
is no dodging the bullet. We endorse voting yes on Proposition 51.
Prop 52 is one of those smarmy things that is proposed and supported
by ugly people -- but probably will be necessary anyway. At least in the
short term, for that is how Jerry Brown first imagined the schema.
It concerns the hospital fee program that helps fund medicare.
A "yes" vote supports requiring voter approval to change the
dedicated use of certain fees from hospitals used to draw matching federal
money and fund Medi-Cal services. The initiative was also designed to
require a two-thirds majority vote of the California Legislature to end
the hospital fee program.
A "no" vote opposes this initiative, allowing the legislature
to change, extend, or eliminate the hospital fee program with a majority
vote.
Nothing about health care is simple these days. A minor change here produces
ripple effects that develop into a tsunami over there. This is largely
due to the changes caused by the Affordable Health Care Act, called by
its detractors "Obamacare."
Health Care was prior to the act a national disgrace and a slow motion
train wreck headed towards certain disaster. The system had not been working
for a very long time and it was getting worse and all the primary care
providers knew it. Existing Medicare provided a ready-made structure for
organized health care to be put into place. The big cajuna in this issue
has always been the answer to the question "who is going to pay for
this new coverage?"
The hospitals, faced now with the requirement to serve people they used
to send away to die, got stuck with the edict to cover medical covered
patients, who typically have less resources to pay for all the additional
bells and whistles required in hospital care. So Jerry Brown requested
a temporary imposition of a fee to hospitals to help pay for this with
the idea that the system would eventually sort itself out.
As it turned out, people that used to be sent away to die now got served
and lived and the system never circled back for a means to pay for them
beyond Medicare, which is one of those things some people in Washington
call "entitlements", as if calling something a bad name will
make it go away.
As it stands now, the hospitals are asking to keep the formerly onerous
fee system so as to avoid getting stuck with paying the full medical bill
for indigents. They are concerned that without the fee system, a more
painful process will be instituted. Like making them pay out of their
profits to care for medicare patients. Obviously they don't want that,
so they are coming out in force to support keeping the fee.
We still do not have an alternative to the fee system, as byzantine as
it is, and most sane people in the system understand this. That is why
the vast majority of folks involved with health care support the Proposition
52, even though it involves a state constitutional amendment. Without
getting into even more tedious details, let us just Endorse Proposition
52 and get on to the next one.
Proposition 53 is another squirrely one written, endorsed and
promoted by a minority interest -- in this case, just one person. Dean
Cortopassi.
A "yes" vote supports requiring voter approval before the state
could issue more than $2 billion in public infrastructure bonds that would
require an increase in taxes or fees for repayment.
A "no" vote opposes this measure requiring voter approval before
the state could issue more than $2 billion in public infrastructure bonds
that would require an increase in taxes or fees for repayment
One would think that any sort of oversight is a good idea, but wait.
Why the number $2 billion in bonds? And why is just one person authoring
this? And wussup with the libertarian back support? Turns out Dean Cortopassi
dislikes the current Governor and has issues with a couple of Jerry Brown's
pet projects which involve, guess what, exactly 2 billion in bonds each.
Okay so you dislike the Peripheral Canal and the idea of a trans-California
high-speed train and you do not like the idea of improving the water retention
infrastructure. But really.
The Proposition wants to attack bonds that generate revenue for the State,
which seems counterproductive. Because these bonds are for projects that
pay for themselves, no voter approval is required, which makes sense.
There is enough wierdness in this to make us want to stand back. Some
of the language seems designed to foist disaster preparedness upon the
local municipalities we find really objectionable.
We recommend voting no on this silliness even though the concept
as expressed is a good one.
California Proposition 54, the Public Display of Legislative Bills
Prior to Vote proposition.
A "yes" vote supports prohibiting the legislature from passing
any bill until it has been in print and published on the Internet for
72 hours prior to the vote.
A "no" vote opposes this measure prohibiting the legislature
from passing any bill until it has been in print and published on the
Internet for 72 hours prior to the vote.
This one is another ugly monkey in the litter. Just one person, named
Charles Munger, has written, proposed, pushed for and funded this Proposition.
His motives are entirely mercenary. He believes because he has money he
should have more say in government. Nevertheless this idea is not so bad.
What is the harm of publishing what you plan to do some hours in advance?
Well it does cost some money and for sure cranks and fools will be slowing
the legislative process for some bills as they grab the published literature,
however it still is generally a good move toward daylighting dark governmental
processes.
As for "lobbyists" taking advantage, we tend to think that
if those vultures do not know about legislation a good month in advance
already they have not been doing their jobs.
We say Yes.
Proposition 55, is on the November 8, 2016, ballot in California
as an initiated constitutional amendment.
A "yes" vote supports extending the personal income tax increases
on incomes over $250,000 approved in 2012 for 12 years in order to fund
education and healthcare.
A "no" vote opposes extending the personal income tax increases
on incomes over $250,000 approved in 2012 for 12 years, allowing the tax
increase to expire in 2019.
About 89 percent of revenue from the tax increase would go towards K-12
schools and 11 percent to state community colleges. An additional $2 billion
would be allocated in certain years to Medi-Cal and other health programs
This basically preserves an existing tax approved in 2012 and affects
people making over a quarter mil a year. Those folks aint hurtin' and
the revenue tops 6 billion per year. We endorse Prop 55 whole heartedly.
We will return next week with a continuation of this discussion and the
rest of the Propositions.
THERE MUST BE SOMETHING GOING ON DOWN THERE
So anyway now is the time of creeping mists over the hills and morning
streets latticed with strange elongated shadows. Creatures scuttle into
corners and leaves skitter across the road although no wind is blowing.
Colors of the world shift to reds, browns, auburns. Winds kick up after
dusk and the Ban Se roam around the trees, stirring the leaves with their
long hair as they glide invisibly between the branches. They come moaning
around the chimney and cause all sorts of mischief. At dusk the shadows
extend long across the road and the air is full of whispers, faint muttering.
Dark doorways breed tiny monsters that scuttle from one place to another.
Now is the time when the veil between the worlds gets thinner, allowing
some souls to pass back and forth, and so conduct strange enterprise.
Revenants appear and Shades speak from beyond, and the Dead walk among
us once more.
Now is also the time when the Editor hosts the annual Drawing of Straws
that will determine who among the Island-Lifers will be chosen to descend
to that land from which no man is known to return. Save for the occasional
Medieval Poet from Italy and wayward ancient Greek looking for Eurydice.
Somebody always has to be different.
As per tradition, all staffers were called into the offices to sit around
nervously as Rachel, the AA, moved with a dancer's poise between the aisles
with the cup of straws held high and each drew from the fated cup in the
form of a battered derby. As each drew in turn, they nervously palmed
their straw before comparing it to that of their neighbor and then sighing
with relief.
Rachel finally came to Denby who hung down his head.
"You know how this goes," Rachel said. "C'mon and get
it over with."
Again, as per Tradition, Denby drew again the shortest straw. It has
been so for 18 years running, that this man would always draw the shortest
straw. Those of you who know the Way of the World, know that this has
been ever so for some people. Strive as they might, the rules of Law dictate
that some folks lives shall roll easy. Others, not at all. And the shortest
straw always seems to come to the same people, time after time. That is
just the way it is.
"Again? Me? Again?"
The staff all gathered around him and patted him on the back with congratulations
as Denby began silently weeping. "Way to go old pal," they said
before walking away to mutter each to him and herself under the breath,
"Gosh darn, sure glad it aint me! Poor sod. . .".
What a team was the newsroom staff.
"You got two weeks to get ready this time," the Editor said.
"Leave your Last Wishes and papers with Anne."
Denby just looked at him.
"In case you don't come back," the Editor said. "You are
not getting any younger my boy."
As Denby sat with his head in his hands, Festus tried to console him.
"Don't take it so hard, buddy. It's just one night in the year.
You go down there, schmooze a bit with the devils -- maybe meet the Big
Guy, Old Nick himself -- and come right back. Just like that Eye-talian
poet with his Beatrice."
"Beatrice? My friend Beatrice?" Denby said, thinking of the
lanky, dark-haired woman he knew. "She's too dotty to be a guiding
muse. And I do not think she wants to be put on no damn pedestal either.
Besides, I think that was Virgil." He looked at the Editor who shifted
his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.
"I aint no damn Virgil." The Editor said. "You go by yourself,
as usual. We need the scoop on who wins the Presidential election."
After a while, no one else was left in the newsroom, save for the Editor
and Denby.
"I expect this time you shall get some idea of how the elections
are going to do," said the Editor. "Assuming you return alive
of course.
"I don't think so," Denby said. "The Dead are not so concerned
about elections."
"Well," said the Editor, puffing on his cigar. "See what
you can get. Los Dias de Los Muertos, the Days of the Dead, are
soon upon us."
"Sure boss," Denby said, with resignation."Sure."
As per Tradition, the Crossing would take place on October 31st. And
all wondered just how it would be this time. The 18th time that Denby
has crossed over to the Other Side, the Land of the Dead.
Just then the howl of the throughpassing train ululated from across the
water where the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their
multi-kilowatt sentry lights, quavered across the starlit waves of the
estuary, over the riprap embankments, over the moon-silvered grasses of
the Buena Vista flats and over the open spaces of the former Beltline
railway; it moaned through the cracked brick of the defunct Cannery with
its ghosts and weedy railbed and chainlink fences as the locomotive click-clacked
past the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on
its journey to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
OCTOBER 9, 2016
WORKINGMAN'S BLUES #2
This week's image comes from Tammy and is of the Oaktown cranes across
the Estuary with a bit of our own industrial effort tossed into the foreground.
Sometimes it is easy to forget this is an Island, it's livelihood depended
upon the water for hundreds of years and its roots are deeply blue-collar.
This is California.
THIS ISLAND LIFE
For those of you wanting to have a dispassionate view of things for this
upcoming election - seems a vainglorious wish! -- we refer you to the
Island League of Women Voters, which has been organizing public assemblies
for viewing inaugurations and debates for a while. You can view their
nonpartisan website at http://www.alameda.ca.lwvnet.org/index.html. There
you can drill down to look at the analyses pro and con for the upcoming
City initiatives as well as the national elections.
We have been consistently impressed by the nonpartisan, informative approach
from the LWV and urge everyone to check them out.
As for event items, nothing really matters much until the election. There
is a Rental Crisis and people are fighting over it and the signs appear
in the papers and in the way people talk.
Just for kicks we went up to Marin County's San Anselmo where we found
the same sort of processes going on there that are wrecking the communities
here. Of course Marin does have a few more wacky twists on the story,
but essentially the town is losing old businesses right and left and has
been unable to attract new ones entirely because of this rental thing
going on.
We went to one business where we found tacked to the display windows
numerous neighbor pleas to City Council to allow a yoga studio to install
itself there, even though permits had been denied. The would-be business
is stuck in the two-year interim by contract into paying over $4,100 per
month. In the meantime there are two rental units going for $2000+ in
what looked like a dilapidated knock-down.
How had this situation come about? The previous business, a bicycle repair
shop, had found itself breaking even year after year after ten years --
due to the high rental situation. Ultimately, the owners "aged out";
it came time to retire. An option to continue in some form existed, but
nobody in the family could see a way to selflessly continue a losing enterprise.
So they closed up shop.
BE CAREFUL WITH A FOOL
So anyway, summer left its long tenure in favor of autumn in a mood,
have chunking hissy fits these past few days and leaving the evenings
cooling off with skeins of cloud snagging bright incarnadine splashes
against fields of deep azure. Mornings begin as usual: the sun crashes
through the bent and broken blinds like an old drunk, reeling and sobbing
with a head like a brick until some water splash restores a semblance
of unwilling sentience.
Now the kids are safely back in school, safe until the next hysterical
Shelter-in-Place blares from the clarions of the IPD as part of the New
Norm, the adults are free to roam about and get into trouble, just like
they did when they were kids -- by playing hooky, cheating, stealing petty
amounts of stuff, and cursing like sailors.
Officer Popinjay has been put on high alert on reports of "suspicious
evil clowns" appearing at the edge of the woods, which has some people
very concerned. For one, no one has actually found a clown to be performing
in any sort of "evil" manner, unless it be that Bobo -- who
has been running unsuccessfully for Mayor in every election since 1984
-- may have tied on a few balloons too many. His slogan "Put a real
Clown in the White House" seems innocuous enough.
For another thing, we have had no woods to speak of on the Island for
several hundred years, so these reports may be suspect. Nevertheless,
anxiety, paranoia and nervous jumping up and down are the new normal these
days, so the Officer has been out there with his car all loaded up with
every form of weapon from the department arsenal, ready to deal with any
clown or pack of them silly enough to try to take him on.
He was over at Jefferson Park near the old Cannery where there are a
few basketball courts as well as enough trees to maybe count for a woods
thick enough to hide an evil clown if he were skinny enough. It is not
enough of an offense to arrest somebody for running around wearing a frizzy
wig, baggy pants and bad makeup -- if that were the case half of the kids
today would be cooling behind bars. But if any discernible clown were
seen by the Officer he would be sure to do something about it. So long
as it did nothing against the Department's new anti-profiling rules. He
would have to read up on that stuff again.
Life sure got difficult for the beat cop from the days he and the boys
would just beat 'em up and haul them in and slap them with resisting arrest
while figuring out something good to just charge them with to justify
the trouble.
Nowadays you couldn't even haul them in for acting crazy. So Officer
Popinjay was in a quandary about what to do if and when he caught some
clown looking evil and acting crazy. He supposed he would just have to
shoot him. That's the ticket . . . .
Several seagulls orbiting the playground came down to peck at something
on the basketball court and the Officer eyed them.
Soon enough tiny monsters will leap from doorways to scamper across the
road. Goblins will gibber and squeak and howl as vampires will flock in
black clouds to sap the life out of the decent hardworking man. Golems
will march with terrifying, inexorable determination. The unsuspecting
soul will be set upon entering the local grocery. Yes, Election Time is
upon us.
Also, in addition to that terrifying period of American Life, we will
enjoy the month-long party orgy of fantastic fabulation and role-playing
that constitutes the Halloween season.
Up the hill beneath the Mormon Temple and across from the Greek Orthodox
Chapel where Wally's son, Joshua had allegedly holed up after turning
whistleblower over the Mayor's office clandestine WC eavesdropping program
of supposedly friendly municipalities, Cmdr. Stiffstik sat in his black
SUV nursing a chai latte and alternately eyeing his loaded 45 pistol on
the seat and the door of the chapel. People were talking about granting
this treasonous ungrateful un-American hippie pinko LGBTwhateveragainstgodandnature
some kind of pardon, which severely ran Stiffstik's bristles the wrong
way. O how he longed to pop a cap into that wretched East Bay hottubber
punk. A cap to make him hurt real bad and mess up his hair and another
one to finish him off. "Go ahead, make my week," he would say.
But the door remained silent and dark and Cmdr Stiffstik sat and fumed.
Meanwhile, Joshua was returning along secret underground passageways
made years ago by the Latter Day Saints so as to provide means of escape
should the people who expressed to value freedom of religion not value
their own so much. Joshua did not spend all his time inside the chapel
but soon learned about the ways under the metropolitan area that interconnected
all of the Bay area in a vast network that had taken two hundred years
to expand, often with tunnels coming out onto BART stations with official-looking
doors marked "utility closet" and "denizen access".
That night Joshua had dined at La Val's Pizza after taking in a show by
Cal Shakes of the Tempest.
Being a hunted outlaw was for Joshua only an occasional inconvenience.
He did have to appear at the chapel now and then and shine a light through
the windows so that Cmdr Stiffstik and Mr. Steif would continue to believe
he had taken up sanctuary there. Every week, those members of Berkeley's
Alpha Tau sorority that still claimed to be virgins would come wearing
robes of white and leave baskets of bread and fruit and cheese as offerings.
He suspected that more than a few were no longer virgins, but you know,
it is the thought that counts.
Pahrump, Denby, and Jose sat in the NSGW hall amid the tattered bunting
and torn signs left by the debates of just a few hours previously. They
had been busy all night fetching and carrying for the delegates and the
candidates and they were beat to hell and still had the hall to neaten
up. Denby stood up wearily to get the mop. Jose got the broom and began
shoving piles of trash to the side.
A bevy of Mills Girls on one of their infamous Night Out escapades peered
in on a swing by in their convertible. "There's no guys in here,"
one of them said and they left, chattering among themselves like birds.
"They aint gonna have nothing to do with the likes of us, bro."
Jose said.
"Fo' shizzle," Pahrump said, still lying on his back and looking
up at the ceiling.
"It's been quite a night," Denby said. "I never seen such
bad behavior in adults. One of these days, civility will come riding back
on a white horse with feathers."
"Fo' shizzle," Pahrump said.
"It's the Bobo against the Babu," Jose said.
"Everyone should get naked and slap each other with noodles and
mud," Pahrump said. "Be more dignified."
"Who is going to win the Most Fiercest Swizzle-stick?" Jose
said.
"I have no idea who is gonna win," Denby said.
"It don't matter much who wins," Pahrump said. "We is
the ones that always lose."
"Fo' shizzle," Denby said.
"You can't say that," Jose said. "You be White."
"After tonight, I am embarrassed," Denby said. "Fo' shizzle."
"Fo' sho'." Pahrump said.
Just then the howl of the throughpassing train ululated from across the
water where the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their
multi-kilowatt sentry lights, quavered across the starlit waves of the
estuary, over the riprap embankments, over the moon-silvered grasses of
the Buena Vista flats and over the open spaces of the former Beltline
railway; it moaned through the cracked brick of the defunct Cannery with
its ghosts and weedy railbed and chainlink fences as the locomotive click-clacked
past the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on
its journey to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
OCTOBER 2, 2016
OUR HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF OUR STREET
This image comes from FB friend Stan, who has been following the progress
of a particular family that has been visiting his back yard for a while.
Family started as a rather heavy female, a male and a couple of skunks.
Here is Stan's backyard now-a-days.
Another Californian Dynasty . . .
THIS ISLAND LIFE
The Rental Crisis continues in the news, as we expected it would. An
open letter in the Sun from a combined group of interdenominational clerics
has protested the nasty evictions taking place at 470 Central Avenue,
with the ministers stating, "t is our belief that the Holy One in
Whom we all believe and call by different names stands with the residents
at 470 Central Ave. who are threatened with the loss of their homes and
communities. And we stand with them in the Name of the Holy One to call
for the restoration of justice and compassion here and now."
The leaders of faith include representatives from the Jewish, Buddhist,
Catholic, Baptist and other Congregational communities.
A pointed letter to the Editor, a bit more sober than most, asks that
people pay some attention to the local ballot issues that are being overshadowed
by the national debates going on. The writer (Nik Dehejia) mentions Measure
A1 (Affordable Housing), Measure B1 (Alameda Unified School District),
Measure C1 (AC Transit), Measure K1 (City of Alameda Utility Users Tax)
and Measure RR (BART). These are likely to affect property tax increases
going forward.
The Angry Elf gang was at it again this past week. Seems somebody couldn't
keep up their payments from the closed John Patrick's Bar. Firefighters
contained a blaze begun "in a pile of debris" behind the bar,
which also ignited three automobiles shortly before 8 AM. That is the
third major blaze ignited behind a business "in a pile of debris"
in three years in that immediate vicinity near the now abandoned Ron Goode
Toyota dealership.
ALL THE LEAVES WERE FALLING
So anyway, the summer let us go after a punishing heat wave, to allow
the fog advance in legion through the Golden Gate and over the hills,
pushed by an insistent wind, eager to be on its way. As dusk fell, the
Bann Se madly stirred the tree branches and the buckeye leaves left withered
by the long summer drought.
Sensing a change coming up, wildlife has been on the move, and all down
Snoffish Valley Road the raccoons have been advancing in packs which disappear
by magic as the coyotes gallop quickly up and over the ridge. A solitary
hare sniffs before bounding away into the high grass, silvered by moonlight.
Then come the deer, stepping with curiosity along this way with some inexperienced
indecision regarding the occasional automobile. An automobile seldom possesses
the obvious rapaciousness of a coyote, so automobiles remain problems
that need some deliberation from the perspective of the deer. And so they
will stand there in the middle of the intersection looking at you with
some objectivity and scientific detachment.
Now is the time of gray advancement, of subtle changes. Trees turn color,
but retain their leaves. Days remain bright, but sweaters come out in
the evening. Mosquitos have not been nearly so pestiferous of late. Kids
are in school all the time and work chugs along with the regular rhythm
of set things from morning to night. Pumpkins started appearing on doorsteps.
It's getting time to make cream soups and stuffed squash and hot dish
casseroles. These things are the only things that have ever required bizarre
ingredients like cheddar cheese soup, a canned thing that seemingly has
no purpose other than to be put into a substantially unhealthy, fattening,
cholesterol-building casserole loaded with a half stick of butter and
oily tuna in a bowl that often is leavened by canned peas and topped with
crushed potato chips, perhaps so as to deliberately insult the memory
of Julia Childs and every lactose-intolerant vegan in Northern Marin.
If you think about it, our parents ate stuff that certainly cut years
off of their lives what with all the trans fats and sugars, carcinogenic
emulsifiers, and old country habits. Certainly a miracle they lived, despite
the doctor's best advice, into their 90's drinking whiskey and smoking
like fiends, while you, yes you, sad sack of unfit lard whipped by a personal
trainer who knows better than you, you struggle with acid reflux, paunchy
gut, poor momentum, atrial fibrillation, cirrhosis, gallstones, arterial
plaque, lousy circulation, gluten poisoning, and GMO confusions to top
it all . . . .
Juanita stood in the kitchen wringing her hands. Someone had made off
with that recipe she had concocted for the time when the Norwegian Bachelor
Farmers had come looking for their lost Pastor Inquist. She had modified
this recipe by adding jalapenos, which had resulted in a somewhat greenish
tint, but the men had thanked her and taken off back to their homelands,
each bearing a waxed box of the stuff, which somehow began to appear all
over town in the darndest places, as if many of those Norwegians had inadvertently
left their take-away behind. Behind, as behind bushes, behind statues,
behind fountains . . .
Now this fellow from Detroit, a Mr. Jack Peppermint of the rock group,
the Peppermint Stripes, was coming to town and she wanted to impress.
She had never been to Detroit before, but she had heard it was just like
her own hometown of Sineloa, a place which had seen better times and which
hosted a people who worked with their hands in factories and where people
lived simply and well enough when they could, a place without airs about
itself and she thought she would make something along the lines of what
she imagined they had up there or over there in that part of the country.
She saw herself delivering this casserole to the back doors where they
admitted the caterers to such important venues like the Fitzgerald Theatre
in famous Minneapolis and just leaving there with a note. Por los amigos;
please share.
Now the recipe had gone dios mio anywhere and that Jose was all to blame
with his running around and mixing with that malo hombre Javier.
"Jose!" Juanita shouted. "Tu pinche malo joven . . . "
Juanita began, using the sweetest affectionate endearments of which she
could conceive, for of course although a factory girl by birth, she was
well brought up by her honest and decent abuelita.
Denby made his way past the Jim Kitson Park with its bronze statue dedicated
to Corrupted Endeavor, to the Old Same Place Bar where he earned a few
pesos a night playing Old School to an indifferent crowd of boozers. In
the back room, Dawn sat peeling the potatoes and he stood there for a
moment watching her.
"Well boy, have you never seen someone peeling the potatoes? Grab
a peeler then and pitch in if you aint so dainty."
"My Oma used to peel the potatoes," Denby said.
"Did she now?" Dawn said.
"That's right. And I wondered why she peeled the best part off,
the part they say has all the nutrients now, but it was for the folks
in the Big House to have potatoes with no skins on them. Because they
were fine."
"That is the way it is among those people," Dawn said.
"She used to sit there and peel the potatoes and she would eat the
peels as she went along."
"I know this story, my boy." Dawn said.
"During the War . . . there was not enough. During the War she had
to peel for the Big House and for her and the family not enough to live
. . .".
"Aye me laddie. That is called the Way of the World. It has always
been so. Come on now, let's get everything ready for the show tonight."
"Such a 'show'. It is only another night of drinks and some music
for people to forget their troubles for a while."
"It may be there is no other life," Dawn said. "Come along
now . . ." .
Just then the howl of the throughpassing train ululated from across the
water where the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their
multi-kilowatt sentry lights, quavered across the starlit waves of the
estuary, over the riprap embankments, over the moon-silvered grasses of
the Buena Vista flats and over the open spaces of the former Beltline
railway; it moaned through the cracked brick of the defunct Cannery with
its ghosts and weedy railbed and chainlink fences as the locomotive click-clacked
past the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on
its journey to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
SEPTEMBER 25, 2016
FIVE LEAVES LEFT
This week we have a photo from Tammy of a "donut tree", a sort
of landscaping curiousity particular to this island where the power utility
shares space with the Corporate Yard folks.
THIS ISLAND LIFE
Ron Cowan does not have a name that resonates with pleasure among many
old-timers here, and recently his real estate development outfit has pursued
several quite obnoxious lines out at Harbor Bay Isle, however we owe his
unusual commute to jump-starting the renewal of the ferry service that
dominated cross-bay traffic for over 100 years until trains got put across
the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate was completed.
Those bridges killed the enormous ferry system which had existed up until
bridges kiboshed the slower trans-bay intercourse. But in 1989, Ron Cowan
was flying in his usual helicopter commute from Marin County to the Island
when the infamous 5:05 Loma Prieta earthquake snipped the Bay Bridge and
dropped a mile-long section of the Cypress Freeway in the East Bay.
Cowan worked with Bill Lockyer (D - Cal. Senate), Willie Brown, and Don
Perata to create the Water Transit Authority that now oversees the extended
ferry system which today carries more than 2 million passengers to and
from five cities and which also forms a substantial part of the emergency
response system to disaster.
In recognition of his efforts, last Thursday, the Water Emergency Transportation
Administration (WETA) broke ground at Alameda Point for its $49.5 million
Central Bay Operations and Maintenance Facility and named the facility
after Ron Cowan.
NO MOVERAN
It is no surprise that the Letters to the Editor feature a number of
irate-in-advance protestations about the rent control initiative to appear
on November's ballot. It is interesting that the anti-initiative letters
begin with phrases like "we had planned on " and "we took
a calculated risk". Well, some sympathy can go to people who stretched
their means to purchase something that turned out, in all reality, to
be unaffordable. Of course people want to own their own home -- look how
lousy it is to be a renter in these parts -- so it can be somewhat excused
that people engaged in a little rose-tinted viewing when looking at a
future that counted as an inflexible line item income that would not only
provide substantial income, but also help pay off mortgage costs and still
provide for retirement set-by (all on the basis of a single unit).
But you know, "calculated risk" features the key noun "risk"
and as it so happened, things got economically sucky all around. You can
blame Liberals and you can blame intransigent Republicans, but who is
to blame is entirely beside the point that the average joe is worse off
than before Ronnie Raygun rehabilitated a bunch of criminals indicted
under Nixon's regime and a bunch of Democrats failed to keep it in their
pants to our cost.
It now costs $8,000 and more to move -- we just saw several households
do it -- so if you evict somebody as part of your personal economic plan,
it stands to reason that somebody needs to pay the cost to be the boss.
The renters do not have that money -- if they did, they would own their
own homes. And it is all too common, and becoming the rule, that landlords
are "retaining" 100 of the security deposits, adding further
cost to the expensive proposition of shunting services and belongings
to another place which certainly will demand yet another unrecoverable
"deposit."
Look. We have sympathy for anybody trying to make it in these times,
and there is no crime in owning property. There is also no crime in making
decisions based on calculated risk. But we assume this calculation --
because it IS calculated -- includes the options to recover should the
investment NOT payout, not achieve favorable outcome. Right now, we have
that scenario precisely.
And the big elephant in the room about which no one on either side is
speaking, is that Rent Control is neither the big problem nor the panacea.
Things are going to be bad no matter what happens in November, and Rent
Control is the least problem about which the small holders should be concerned.
As for the relocation costs, we are sorry but we cannot sympathize with
someone who is treating tenants with Baronial indifference on eviction
simply because that is the most convenient thing for the landlord to do.
Use people for months or years to pay your expenses and then turn them
out on the street to fend for themselves and have them pay their own costs
to desperately find a place to live in a heated market.
Some have said, "if you are so foolish as to live in a place you
cannot afford, then you deserve your pain."
Well, that statement applies to both landholders as well as renters.
If the house costs too much, just refuse to pay the price. It is as simple
as that. Anything said about people living beyond their means about renters
goes back the other way. While in the middle of all this, the Big Property
people, the management companies and realty firms from out of state --
and a couple residing here -- continue to make big bucks no matter who
loses. Win or lose, they will always get the commission.
At some point, people just need to stand up and say collectively, "This
costs too much. I refuse to pay." That is when things will change
as they did during the Prop 13 revolution. It might not be for the better,
but things certainly would change.
NIGHT MOVES
So anyway, things had started cooling properly when suddenly we all got
body-slammed by an end-of-summer heatwave that steadily rose through the
weekend, which had folks scurrying to the Strand to cool off. Now that
school is back in session and we have no holidays for a long stretch into
the formal Horror Days of Winter, life routinizes. Larry Larch gets up
each morning at 5 to do his morning jog, read the NYT and have his Noah'
s Bagel before trotting off to the office. Tipitina rouses herself in
the Household to trundle out of her rented cot to pedal over to the ferry
and ride across to Babylon for another day at the office. Martini heads
out in the early hours on the back of Pahrump's scooter for his commute
to the Veriflo factory in Richmond where he worked as a sawboy, cutting
the immense 30 foot alloy ingots into workable four pound chunks.
As is customary with him, The Editor arises from his narrow cot and cranks
out 25 good ones with his chin touching the floor on each rep, followed
by 100 crunches. Then the 5 mile run out along the Strand, around the
base of the disputed Bicycle Bridge, out to Mount Trashmore and back along
the Estuary before the sun comes up. 15 more good ones, remembering the
days when he could crack out easily 100, and then a shower and the day
begins, but with a new ache around his sternum.
Before going to the Offices, the Editor looks out from The Point at the
shrouded Golden Gate and the misty headlands to the north. Musing, he
asks for help to tell the story of an ingenious man of many devices, one
who was never at a loss. He wandered far after the fall of Saigon. He
visited many cities in his travels and learned there the ways of different
men. He suffered many woes in his heart upon the sea, seeking to save
his own life and the return of his comrades. Yet even so he saved not
his comrades, though he desired it sore, for through their own blind folly
they perished fools, who devoured the kine of Helios Hyperion;
but he took from them the day of their returning. Although he longed for
peace he was kept on an Island by the goddess Calypso for many years.
These things The Editor thought while gazing across the water at the
distant, misty Headlands. He breathed the air of Autumn, the Season of
Changes. And as the seasons revolved, the year came in which the gods
had ordained that he should return home, and all the gods pitied him save
Poseidon who continued to rage unceasingly.
He entered his office and touched the long object that leaned against
the wall: crossword puzzle answer, canoe propeller, boat propulsion, sturdy
flat-blade thing. Soon it would be time to shoulder this thing and walk
with it until he came to the place where no one knew its name or its use.
It was coming to the time that he must leave Calypso's Island.
As the day's temperature rose higher to break all records for the hottest
September day ever recorded, people fled the burning streets, although
some herded their little ones to pools and other water sources. Even the
bandit lemonade stands stood empty as the land baked and kids looked for
things to occupy themselves when running around proved too treacherous.
"It's hotter 'n a witch's titties" said Jimmy. They were sitting
up in the Parkinson's tree that overhung the yard. It was okay to climb
in that tree because this part overhung their part of the property so
it wasn't trespassing.
"How you know about that?" said Jonas.
"It's what people say," said Jimmy.
"I bet you know all about witches and their titties," said
Jonas.
"I do not," said Jonas. "It's what people say."
"You like to feel 'em up, dontcha?" said Jonas. "All wrinkly
and baggy and stuff. That's disgusting."
"It's hot enough to boil an egg," Jimmy said.
"Hot enough to fry an egg you dumbass!"
"I aint no dumbass. Let's go get an egg and put it out on the curb
and watch it."
In a little while Mrs. Moreno came out the back, shouting. "Hey!
Somebody left the refridgerator door wide open! And the eggs are all gone!"
"O for pete's sake!" Jimmy said. "We better go hide. .
.".
Time on the Island that forgot Time nevertheless advanced to bring long
shadows and sun spearing the eyes of people still driving in the late
afternoon. Moms stepped out on their porches all over the Gold Coast area
to call their kids in for supper. It might be fajitas and frijoles. There
might be rice and beans. But there would be no huevos, that evening or
in the morning.
Mr. Cribbage paused in his driveway, noticing something over on the curb
as he unloaded his golf clubs and so walked over in his plus-fours to
stare down, puzzled, at a fried egg sitting there quite nonchalantly,
with no sign of egg shells around it. He looked up at the trees. Darned
blue jays, probably. They are known to be nest robbers. He then went in
for the first of several gin rickeys.
Mr. Howitzer sat at his desk in his study attending to property matters
until he came to the reciepts for the house on Otis, the one occupied
by that punk and his squalid family. Looked like the rent had not been
raised in a while and he really would be a fool in this market not to
get every penny he could out of that place. Thank heaven it was all income
for he refused to put a single dirty sou into maintenance. So much the
better. He would pop them another thousand for the cottage and they could
pay it or move out. Simple as that and best to do before that darned rent
control got passed. That it would pass, he had no doubt, for he knew Kane
realty as the prime mover against it and he knew Kane to be a miserable
incompetant boob who had botched things right and left, although he did
admire somewhat her viciousness. He set the papers aside to deal with
on the morrow. About a thousand more felt about right and he could always
jack it up again in six months or so. Maybe three.
After all, there was no rent control as of yet.
At Marlene and Andre's the Household members, living in the house owned
by Mr. Howitzer, all were sprawled outside in various states of limpid
undress until the evening winds shifted around to bring cooling air to
the land. Andre came out to strum his guitar on the deck beside the hole
created some years ago on Javier's fiftieth birthday when the house had
nearly burned down. Mr. Howitzer had never put in smoke alarms or sprinkler
systems so everyone would have died that night had not the four impromptue
firemen not fought until dawn to get the thing under control.
"Helllllllo. I've waited for you," sang Andre softly. "Waited
everlong."
Marlene came out wearing her black tee and cutoffs and leaned against
the post, her long black hair flowing like midnight. Rolph lay in a lounge
chair down below facing the Bay. Martini came around the side after dinking
in the ironmongery garden until it was too dark to see. Pahrump finished
fiddling with his scooter and Javier brought out the inevitable three
gallon jug of wine. Snuffles the bum soon joined him. Piedro had his book,
lit by a cap light fastened to the bill of his Oakland A's souvenir. Tipitina,
born in the deep south, wore a simple long dress after work and talked
quietly with Sarah and Marsha. Suan had gone to work at the Crazy Horse,
where she figured she had only a couple more years left doing the pole
thing there.
Looking out Andre noticed that almost everyone was there on a late September
evening. He knew their stories, how each one had been damaged and descended
sometimes in fire sometimes in rain to dwell there in that Household.
And then, there was Marlene, her figure now a silhouette created by the
crescent moon. Her hair dark as midnight.
Andre downtuned the bass and strummed a 3/4 time.
Xavier brought out the switchbroom and swept out a place on the deck
so he could sit down there.
Come a little bit closer
Hear what I have to say
Just like children sleepin'
We could dream this night away.
As the fragile human beings continued their lives up above the rats scurried
through the understory of the old house, flitting through the frayed wiring
and the fallen insulation and the rusting central heating unit, which
although it had not been used in a long time, still had live connections
to the mains, connections which had been installed without relays or switches
in the days before codes and inspections. And of course Mr. Howitzer was
a fond patron of that thing called euphemistically "deferred maintenance."
One rat paused to sniff the corpse of a fellow who had made the bad mistake
of chewing at the insulation leading to the still live igniter. Something
had happened here. Something was about to happen again. The rat reached
out tentatively to touch the bright copper made shiny by a ray of moonlight.
"What was that?" Marsha said.
"What was what?" Tipitina said.
"I thought I heard some animal cry out." Marsha said.
Just then the howl of the throughpassing train ululated from across the
water where the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their
multi-kilowatt sentry lights, quavered across the starlit waves of the
estuary, over the riprap embankments, over the moon-silvered grasses of
the Buena Vista flats and over the open spaces of the former Beltline
railway; it moaned through the cracked brick of the defunct Cannery with
its ghosts and weedy railbed and chainlink fences as the locomotive click-clacked
past the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on
its journey to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
SEPTEMBER 18, 2016
ON THIS HARVEST MOON
We looked about and found nobody on staff had taken recent pics of the
moon. Heavens! Indeed, heavens. We are shocked, simply shocked. So here
is an image taken of the 2015 "blood moon" over the trees in
Bishop at an elevation of 4800 feet on the far side of the Sierra during
the last Island-Life Mountain Sabbatical.
THIS ISLAND LIFE
There was a recent power outage in Oaktown across the water, but due
to our independent power company grid, Islanders barely noticed. The area
affected runs from just west of Interstate 980 to Broadway, and north
to south from 16th to 11th streets. Power was back on end of Friday evening.
While a certain bankcruptcy that affected a major Asian shipper put a
kibosh on deliveries and Port income, another service identified as Calco-C
announced that a weekly stop of vessels coming from Asia would increase
cargo volume at the port by as much as 30,000 20-foot containers per year.
This will certainly boost the area economy by a significant factor.
The new service is operated by Tokyo-based K Line, Taiwan-based Wan Hai
Lines and Pacific International Lines from Singapore. The three ocean
carriers deploy seven ships for the service. Each ship is capable of carrying
between 8,000 and 9,000 20-foot containers, according to port officials.
The weekly arrivals at the port's Oakland International Container Terminal
are scheduled to begin on Nov. 6 and should result in a boost of hiring
for longshoremen.
Friday was Mexican Independence Day, which is not exactly the day that
Mexico achieved definitive independence (that occured ten years later
in 1821) but this is the day that the revolution led by Father Hidalgo
and co-conspirators Ignacio Allende and Juan Aldama began in the town
of Dolores by ringing the church bell as a call to arms.
This date is significant to California, for as of this date, Mexico,
already diffidently interested in the northern department of Alta California,
completely abandoned its territory as it struggled to organize itself
as a new nation, leaving the California department as a defacto independent
state until the Mexican-American war of 1846.
WHATS THE BUZZ
Looking at October we see Richard Shindell has a new Cd out and is coming
to the West Coast to promote it! Yay! Richard Shindell left the USA to
live in South American when the Great Pretender George Bush was appointed
by his father's friends to be President and so has been sorely missed
around here. He will be appearing at the Freight October 6th. Expect this
one to sell out.
Also showing up for a rare appearance will be Chris Smither, a singer/songwriter
who just seems to get better and better with age. He will be skirting
the NorCal district, appearing at the Sebastopol Community Cultural Center
on Saturday, October 8th, and then the next night in Santa Cruz at the
Kuumbwa Jazz Center before heading north to Point Arena for a date on
the 11th. Smither just might be the only musician out there writing stuff
as good -- or better -- than Bob Dylan, and we do not say that lightly.
Also showing up to blow your doors off, the inheritor of BB King's Lucille,
none other than Robert Cray who will occupy Yoshi's on the warmer side
of the Bay December 12-13th. Definitely expect this one to sell out quickly.
At the Oakland Fox, we have those cute-as-the-dickens-pair Tegan and
Sarah performing October 1st. In November, Joan Baez will provide a blast
from the past on the 6th and 7th.
The Paramount goes high style with Wynton Marsalis on September 29th,
followed by Men of Soul and then Toni Braxton, each demanding an evening
that requires some dress-up so better put aside those tattered blue-jeans
to show some R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
Bob Weir looks to be getting his old bones out of Marin to pop up here
and there in the East Bay, so look for him in unusual places. Which oughta
suit the old Deadhead just fine.
The Fall highlights seem to lift up mature performers for the mature
crowd. So go dig into your old ducktail wardrobe and kick out the jams
to keep hizzoner Rock 'n Roll alive.
To paraphrase a somewhat famous radio DJ, if you don't like the music,
go out and make some of your own.
STARLIGHT BY THE SIDE OF THE CREEK
So anyway, what we hope is the final heat wave rippled through parts
of the Bay Area, spiking temps into the high nineties just a couple miles
from the coast and into the triple digits inland. Naturally, people are
saying that this weather is all unnatural and all George Bush's fault
for ignoring the climate change stuff, which is probably untrue, but as
the cuss was such an ignorant, irritating smirker lacking in all common
sense in other avenues, it is hard to avoid pinning any and all such ill
manefestations on the wimp. According to some people he caused the 911
disaster, the ebola outbreak, climate change, junk science, the oil problem,
the bad economy, the financial meltdown and the destruction of New Orleans,
and really, only the latter issue can probably be fully laid on him and
his stupid hirelings.
Due to recent events, Lieut. Steif and Sgt. Terse have been patrolling
the Island, peering into trashcans and dumpsters with guns drawn, while
Mr. Spline continues to keep an eye on Joshua, who is allegedly holed
up in the Greek Orthodox church after blowing the whistle on a number
of formerly clandestine municipal evesdropping operations. Some folks
have been looking at lobbying for a pardon for Joshua, largely because
all of this secret operative sneaky stuff costs money and he really is
a good boy scout at heart, albeit somewhat impish. News of this sort makes
Mr. Spline furious as he would dearly love to shoot Joshua for the crime
of being unAmerican and unafraid.
Meanwhile the elections fast approach and the Conservative Party has
split into the Definitively Conservative Party, with Babar as its champion,
and the Radical Shrieking Conservatives, spearheaded by Ronald Rump, who
maintains that only by shouting louder than everybody else can one succeed.
The Somewhat Vaguely Liberal Democratic National Consortium, with Papoon
running on the age-old platform "Not Insane!" has been nonplussed
by the vitriol expelled by the RSC candidate.
Many people have expressed concern unthinking nonsense has become the
order of the day, but they have been shouted down. A debate is supposed
to occur between the RSC candidate and the SVLDNC but nobody wants to
be moderator between an hysterical egotist and a miniature squirrel.
At the Household of Marlene and Andre, all the residents have started
to gather together again after the long, hot summer. Regardless of foreign
adventures with their inevitable consequences and political posturing
and all the kool aid that seems flowing from barrels these days to encourage
idiocy and blind devotion to stuff and nonsense, people still need to
get by and latterly, the folks in the Household have lost patience with
Motivational Speaker kool aid and with poltical shenanigans and all the
fear mongering that always leads to the inevitable War.
Everybody gathered around for a satisfying meal of bread soup prepared
by Marlene. Because after Obama had rescued the country from impending
economic disaster, the corporations were flush with money; so things worked
as they usually do -- nobody got paid any more than usual, but a lot of
free cheese seemed to appear everywhere, just like back in the day of
Ronnie Raygun. That meant there was plenty of parmesan and Asiago for
the soup this time.
Of course Mohammed who lived down the street with his kid Ephren, got
dragged away one day by Rump's Brownshirts and put into a cattle car,
but the State remained feeling safe and good about itself.
No matter who gets elected, it is always the quality of the soup that
matters. Because somebody always gets dragged off in a cattle car to disappear
in smoke and ashes. "Arbeit macht Frei" has not changed
as the motto in this new world order.
"Where's my daddy," asked Ephren.
"We don't know," Andre said. "Maybe District 9."
"You can stay with us," Marlene said.
"It's cool, man." Little Adam said. "I'll show you how
to make a flic-knife."
"Now Adam," said Marlene.
"Okay," said Ephren.
After the dinner was over, the kitchen cleaned up and the inhabitants
of the Household largely retired, Andre sat out on the porch with the
Tacoma and softly played Workingman's Blues #2.
"Whatever shall we do in these times," Marlene said, coming
out with the dishtowel still in her hands.
"Same as we folks have done for 5,000 years. Stand upon the palm
of the indifferent god holding us up, waiting and watching," said
Andre, "And hoping for some small mercy. We can do nothing else."
The howl of the throughpassing train ululated from across the water where
the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their multi-kilowatt
sentry lights, quavered across the starlit waves of the estuary, over
the riprap embankments, over the moon-silvered grasses of the Buena Vista
flats and over the open spaces of the former Beltline railway; it moaned
through the cracked brick of the defunct Cannery with its ghosts and weedy
railbed and chainlink fences as the locomotive click-clacked past the
shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on its journey
to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2016
DO YOU REMEMBER THE VERY 1ST TIME IN SEPTEMBER?
This week's image comes from artist Carol Taylor who likes to take pics
on her daily walks about town. Here we see a maple turning colors in front
of an Edwardian house in the Gold Coast area.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
A touch of the flu knocked down the majority of the staff these past
two weeks, but we are slowly coming back on the mend. There have been
a few staff changes, a few relocations, and some Life changes as well.
We should be back in the saddle in no time soon.
THIS ISLAND LIFE
Seems Mayor Trish has gotten herself in hot water again, a now familiar
scenario for the increasingly controversial Mayor who was elected on the
wave of change sentiment that swept all the old guard from power a few
years ago. The City charter calls for a City Hall to be governed substantially
by the City Manager, with the Mayor fulfilling mostly a swing vote position
as well as public representative presence for the City, however the idea
that the Mayor should provide leadership in times of trouble persists
and the option for the Mayor to provide substantial directional guidance
does exist. In the past some mayors have succeeded in guiding the Island
successfully through large civic projects, such as the beach expansion
that produced the lagoon, so it has been quite disappointing to observe
how the woman elected on a platform of "moderate considered growth"
has dropped the ball and sometimes goofed badly in public representation.
Some may remember that in June of 2015 Trish Spencer managed to insult
foreign dignitaries and the entire Filipino community with culturally
obtuse comments. One can take issue with a casual comment about eating
rice, but the truth is, when you prepare to meet officials visiting from
a foreign country, one had best show respect by being prepared with at
least a brief prepared speech that at least addresses easily researched
aspects of national and cultural pride instead of resorting to off-the-cuff
silliness. The Filipino visit and her unconscious verbal manhandling of
the Fire Department tend to convey a picture of an airhead who does not
take her job seriously.
The latest flap is over the botched interviews where the Mayor had the
opportunity to really shine by listing all the good qualities the Island
possesses. Instead of being the Island's prime booster, the Mayor hemmed
and hawed on reasons to love the Island and then said the schools were
a mess and then, to cap it with icing and cake, started laughing about
how deplorable the schools are.
We do not believe Trish Spencer is a bigot or against the Fire Department
or has serious objections to teachers. We do observe that she steadfastly
refuses to think about what she says and that because of that lack of
preparedness, the most public representative of the City often comes off
as a fool, which certainly detracts from those times when she does make
perfect sense.
She did make a telling statement a few months ago in response to some
people in a Council Meeting by saying, "You know, this is no small
town any more; this is a city."
Indeed when we first witnessed the police letting loose the dogs on a
man just half a block off Park Street, witnessed guys shooting craps in
the driveway, witnessed savage assault and battery in the neighborhood,
and a number of other observances, we more than realized that the Island
has 80,000 inhabitants soon to expand easily and quickly by another 20,000.
This fact may have been what caused Trish Spencer to essentially give
up. She seems to have said, "Well, you guys are so head-in-the-clouds
foolish, I can do nothing but laugh about the situation!"
Well, the woman still has a job to fill, no matter how badly paid, and
the City still has good things going for it, even though the Mayor has
trouble recalling them. The Island is not yet a lost cause and there is
time to get to work on the problems while keeping the good stuff in place.
(WORK, WORK) OH, WORK IT OUT BABY
So anyway, the days have been sunshiny but cool with mysterious breezes
at dusk. At dusk the ramparts of the pogonip come rolling over the hills
of distant Babylon and before anyone can notice, the top of Grizzly Peak
is also fortified with a thick cover of mist. We had a momentary burst
of heat, but the fog coming in this way announces the change in seasons.
People crossing the bridges pass from a gray overhead ceiling through
the Twilight Zone mid-span where anything can happen.
Bosco the pig came out to snuffle curiously the changed air of the Gold
Coast, and observed how a leaf detached in the breeze to swirl in the
air, before shuffling back into his hovel. It is what it is. Nothing a
pig can do about it.
The leaf danced in the air above the telephone lines and went down the
block to where Officer Rumsbum, no longer even an imitation officer guarding
the parkinglot of City College or protecting the basement floor of Macy's
in his retirement, stood with his hands clasped behind his back, stiffly
at ease with his cordless phone in his backpocket on the fire escape of
the building he had inherited as the son of the previous live-in manager.
He did not get paid for the position, but he did enjoy having the run
of the place and telling people what to do.
A Toyota pulled up in front of the building and started to park in the
narrow space between the two garage entrances.
"No parking! shouted Rumsbum.
The driver leaned out of the window and looked up. "Whaaa?!"
"No parking!" Rumsbum took out his phone and displayed it.
"You're gonna get towed!"
"O for Pete's sake," said the driver, who nevertheless departed.
Rumsbum had thought about moving after his retirement to Tennessee where
he had kinfolk; it was cheaper there. But he had been living in the same
room for 48 years, the same room he had shared with his mother before
she passed away due to cirrhosis. He liked being in charge here. And the
people were nice; they always did what they were told. And in a few minutes
he would move his truck from down the street to the now empty space between
the garages in front. Life was good.
The leaf sailed past a squirrel who scampered along the lines to the
pole where he leapt across to the lines passing in front of the empty
storefront where Pagano's Hardware used to be and a tree hung over close
enough to be safe haven from the Cooper's hawk that just then circled
overhead before heading southeast.
The hawk noticed activity down there near Otis and swooped down to have
a better look, but it was only Martini fussing in the ironmongery garden
at Marlene and Andre's place.
He finished checking on the bean plants and sat down to have a cigarette.
Andre came out to join him on the steps.
Martini asked howzitgoin.
Feelin' old, Andre said. Hard work, low pay, mouths to feed.
Just you wait, Martini said. Give it enough time and you will surely
feel old for real.
Tell me about it.
I remember when they pushed that 580 connector right through the heart
of Oaktown. My daddy fought them right up until the end and in the end
they just took the house by way of eminent domain. Heck I can remember
when this land we are sitting on was all water.
That was Mayor whatsisname filled all this in. Made the lagoon, Andre
said.
Yeah, old whatsisname is right. Got people so mad they set his car on
fire.
He kill himself?
No, you're thinking of Mayor Ralph. Mayor Ralph had nothing to do with
it.
The two of them sat for a moment, thinking about massive construction
projects, demolition, and solitary midnight despair while a bee clambered
over the broad face of an autumn sunflower in the garden.
You ever married? Andre asked, thinking about his own problems.
O that is a story, Martini said. I could tell you the story all about
how I met my first love at the county fair and how it never panned out
and I could tell you about a French exchange student I knew one summer,
then there was Diane of course -- can't forget that one -- and I could
tell you about Elizabeth . . . how for years . . .
Martini paused and looked down, looking like the saddest man in the world.
It's okay, Andre said.
The truth is, said Martini, I have been graced by the presence of beautiful
women, shining from inside to out. And how it ended does not matter so
much as I was gifted by knowing a few precious souls who gifted me with
their light for a short while. Let me tell you I had a vision the other
day when I was in the City. I saw a man sitting in Vesuvio's with a cup.
He was obviously from Tuscany -- I could tell. He wore a beret over hair
gone silver and a mantello and he had a walking stick leaning up on the
table and he sat there looking out the window, not seeing me but remembering
something because there was a faint smile on his lips.
I want to be that man someday, Martini said. I think the story ends better
that way. For me anyway.
The bee on the sunflower arose heavily and bumbled off over the fence,
passing a late monarch butterfly that dodged and dipped until it wandered
through Lincoln Park and over the green bench dedicated "To all my
dumb friends" and then fluttered past the front of Chad and Tammy's
bungalow where she stood chatting as the dusk light faded with an old
friend come to visit from far off Marin County where people can afford
to take things like aroma therapy seriously.
In New York City, on Christopher Street where the trees grow in a line
surrounded by cobblestones, a woman walking alone past a line of political
posters, featuring the angry face of a demagogue with an open mouth, heard
the sound of a plane overhead and looked up into the night sky. It was
an American Airlines jumbo jet leaving New York for San Francisco and
she thought to herself, "It's been fifteen years now. What was normal
now feels sometimes strange and what we used to take for abnormal we take
as a matter of fact." She put her head down and descended into the
subway.
Far away across the continent packed tightly with the masonry of States
scored and lined by the work of harvesters and combines, sat the Editor
at his desk, lit by the circle of the desklamp. There had been a nasty
flu going around which knocked people out with nausea, water poop, coughing
and general misery. The entire office had gotten it and now everyone was
coming back, tentatively, with pockets stuffed with Kleenex and ricola
lozenges.
After coming back from HIS war, the one that took place in hot, sweaty
jungles instead of hot, sweaty deserts, he had been convinced people are
just meat. Now he knew better; looking at all the trash bins piled high
with tissue paper, he knew for certain people are bags of mucus. Back
in the day of knee-britches the kids would dare one another with the most
ridiculous dare-you-cross-the-line things. Back before anyone had ever
met or seen a real communist, they all knew that Communism was a real
bad thing because of the way the Folks talked about it. So the dare came
down: would you allow yourself to be forced to join the Communists by
stepping up on a dais and swearing on a stack of bibles, or would you
rather piss on your grandma's grave and drink a quart of camel snot. While
standing neck deep in a vat of donkey poop. No! Worse! Bear poop! Neck
deep in liquid bear poop while drinking camel snot.
Kids that age know about poop. It can be said they have not left that
age so far behind which featured all kinds of smelly messes and so they
know what IS and what's SNOT.
All these childhood memories surge back with a vengeance. Sometimes these
memories surged up the front and sometimes they impelled out the back.
That's just the way it is. As the Counting Crows said, "The price
of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings."
Back in the day, when he was three years into his time at Poly High in
the City they had all gone to Playland at the Beach to take the rides
and scoff at Laughing Sal, the animated fortune teller who had seemed
so fearsome when they were younger.
When they were younger! They were older but not so much older than they
all are now.
He knew that Rachel was in the park somewhere and he fantasized about
what he would do if he ran into her. The Rachel that worked in the newsroom
had the same name and was a decent enough person, but this earlier Rachel
had short hair, hair like corn silk and eyes that were cornflower blue
and she was already on the varsity teams for soccer and cross country
and she wrote deep, incisive, biting articles for the school newspaper
which contained very few if any proofing errors and he imagined running
into her at the rides where she would say something like, "These
rides are puerile. Lets go somewhere else." She liked words like
puerile -- she had been AP 4 in English.
He went over and did not see her and so got on the whirl-a-gig thing,
which turned out to be unfortunate as something he had eaten, either the
hot dog or the cotton candy started doing a sort of slow simmer inside
him when he got off and he sort of staggered along the midway until he
came to the shooting thing and there she was and he forgot how he felt,
although he did feel sort of hot and flushed and she was so overjoyed
to see him, or so it seemed, and she said, "This stuff is so juvenile.
Lets take a walk. You look like you could use some fresh air."
So they went down to the ocean beach and she actually put her hand in
his, this girl he had watched for so long and they walked in the dark
a long ways toward the Cliff House lights and she said, "I really
like you. You are not like the others; you really get me."
She turned her face up and was standing very close, their bodies touching
and the surf was going and the stars above and the salt wind and her lips
were deliciously full and they both were young and filled with life and
he felt very hot and something clearly was about to happen.
That is when he threw up.
Much later, after his recovery from pneumonia, and after his father --
a third generation Californian Baptist of the Hellfire variety -- had
put him through a rigorous physical regimen meant to toughen his soul
and save his body -- or vice versa -- he graduated from high school and
she went on to Northwestern University in Illinois and so he joined the
U.S. Marines. Not long after that they closed Poly High and tore down
the old high school buildings.
A moth banged onto the screen window from somewhere up above in the darkness.
Somewhere out there, beyond the curtains of muttering dark night, with
the eyes all around, somewhere out there was a like mind. Somewhere out
there was another Creator of a different sort, also longing in his or
her heart. And so he sat at his desk with his remaining white hair flying
about his head in an aureole, lit by the pool spilled by the desklamp,
persisting after all these years, doing all for Company.
The moth remained on the screen and he saw clearly it was a Sphinx. It
was still warm enough to keep the windows open, but autumn was coming
on and soon it would be chill. He stood up after putting the Issue to
bed and stretched his old bones. It was coming on autumn, a chill breeze
came through the window, and the hour was late. He wondered what would
become of this newsroom after he was gone. At the end of the day, that
which remains is all we have ever done up to the point our building collapses
around us. That which we have done. And that which abides yet still.
The howl of the throughpassing train ululated from across the water where
the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their multi-kilowatt
sentry lights, quavered across the starlit waves of the estuary, over
the riprap embankments, over the moon-silvered grasses of the Buena Vista
flats and over the open spaces of the former Beltline railway; it moaned
through the cracked brick of the defunct Cannery with its ghosts and weedy
railbed and chainlink fences as the locomotive click-clacked past the
shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on its journey
to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
AUGUST 21, 2016
WHEN THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER
This week we have a portrait in sepia by Island-Lifer Carol, who lives
in the Barbary Coast section of the Island.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
School is back in session this upcoming week in all districts. Our own
Charter schools started a week earlier, but the throngs begin Monday.
So be mindful of the little monsters crossing the road in the AM and at
dusk.
News about the Island rent control initiative is spreading wider around
the Bay where other areas are starting to get restive on the same subject.
It is no joke that the current situation is a Bay area-wide crisis with
people getting evicted and uncaring landlords running wild over law and
people's rights.
Frank Bette Art Center, closed for these past three months, reopened
after some needed structural renovations to the old building.
FB is a place for older art, but the hot Autobody gallery, sometimes
called "Popups", on Park near the bridge has been going great
guns for contemporary work, partnering with other galleries over the estuary
in the "Jingletown" area for ProArts events. It is always worth
a visit up the narrow stairs.
Island-Life will shut down for a couple of weeks to allow staffers time
to re-orient their moonbeam antennae, recharge emotional batteries, heal
from various wounds, and restock the cognitive fridges with Fat Tire.
See all of you guys in the Fall.
FATHER OF MINE
So anyway, Little Adam was to start up school again and everybody in
the Household of Marlene and Andre chipped in to help out the youngster
who had endured such a bad start in life. Marlene got him a new used backpack
and Suan and Tipitina sewed on glitterstars to make it stand out. Martini
got Adama solar powered calculator and Jose gave him an important book
called "How to Defuse Aggression and Deal with Difficult People",
which everyone agreed was just the thing for learning how to deal with
all kinds of personalities encountered in California Middle School on
up to High. Javier gave him a couple narrow-rule theme books and Snuffles
gave him a pencil that had been hardly used.
The night before the First Day, Andre sat down with Little Adam in the
livingroom dormatory where five or more people slept at night and had
a talk.
"Now when you go to school know that the learning is mostly about
dealing with both the System and with people in it. The people have no
choice, so please remember to keep your knife in your pocket. You want
to be the winner in all this and remember the idea in all fights is to
be able to walk away and go to work without gauze bandages and stitches
and stuff. The other guy has no job and can afford to fight and lose,
but not you. You gotta remember you be better stuff, unnerstan? You gets
the job and you gets paid next day for workin' but not if you got a cut
on top of your head that make you look like a fool. Don't go looking for
the fight."
"I know that Broderick be there," says Little Adam. "I
beat his Juvie ass for sure soon as we meet up."
"No you not fight him," said Andre. "You already won without
a punch. He is going to Juvie and then to State House and will never raise
no family or hold a job but be complaining his whole life about things.
He is gonna bounce from school to school getting ousted each time he fights
and never make any friends.
"You gonna do right and make Marlene and me proud of you. The whole
war is already over and won and you don't have to throw any punches. You
know at the start you won already and he can feel it and he just wants
to drag you down."
"O maynnnnnnnnn . . .". Adam said, flopping down on the couch
that was Suan's bed when she was able to sleep at all. She worked the
Crazy Horse on the pole as a dancer and did not get much sleep time at
all. That seemed true for most of them theater types.
"Adam, just remember this: Two people fighting means something went
wrong, something failed along the line. You see two people fighting and
you see a sign of failure. Don't be part of failure. You want to succeed."
And then Adam said something that made the old punk's heart melt to all
the extent that it could.
"Ok dad."
And so Andre sent Adam off to brush his teeth and get ready for bed and
at the end of the long day, he stood over him, the surrogate father who
had never enjoyed a decent father in his own life, his arms entwined with
tattoos there in the half light as Little Adam drifted off to dreamland.
He and Marlene could not have children of their own because of the damage
inflicted by their own parents, but this one would survive. Yes, this
one would succeed despite all obstacles and every setback.
The howl of the throughpassing train ululated from across the water where
the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their multi-kilowatt
sentry lights, quavered across the starlit waves of the estuary, over
the riprap embankments, over the moon-silvered grasses of the Buena Vista
flats and over the open spaces of the former Beltline railway; it moaned
through the cracked brick of the defunct Cannery with its ghosts and weedy
railbed and chainlink fences as the locomotive click-clacked past the
shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on its journey
to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
AUGUST 14, 2016
SPEAK, MEMORY
A while ago we reported on the saga of the Jackson Park bench, first
constructed and left unfinished in 1926 by the widow of a man who loved
animals, and then about the destruction of the bench during violent storms
a couple years ago.
It took some citizen involvement to have the bench restored, as there
were grumps who wanted the thing entirely removed, due to the danger of
it being a locus for illegal activity.
?!
Now really people. Fortunately whimsy and good sense prevailed and so
here we present the bench in its restored glory along with its double
entendre logo.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ, TELL ME WHAT'S A HAPPENIN'
Drove by this past week and we noticed the SWAT team raiding a house
in the 2000 block on Park Avenue in the same block as Jackson Park. Seems
members of the Angry Elf gang had been using the house as a haven for
collecting stolen credit cards, bank account numbers, and general fenced
stolen goods as well as blackmail material and extortion as well as arson
info.
You never really know your neighbors, do you.
On more upbeat news which impacts the Economy -- a subject that which
was once a hot button topic during electoral season -- we see that the
Port of Oaktown had Busiest Month in a Decade and that export volume increased
for the sixth time in seven months. Holiday shipping has not yet started,
according to a port official.
Last month the port handled the equivalent of 223,619 20-foot cargo
containers - the most since it handled 227,996 20-foot containers in August
2006.
Cargo volume has gone up across the board and may signal a spike in the
upcoming peak shipping season, port officials said.
"These numbers are encouraging and with holiday shipments set to
commence, this could be the start of something good," Port of Oakland
maritime director John Driscoll said in a statement.
Well now and welladay. From near universal financial collapse during
the Bush Administration, we turned around to this during the Obama Administration.
Can you say "Thank you"? We knew you could.
Drive slow: school in session. Students in Alameda Unified School District
head back to school on August 22, so everybody mark your calendars for
when the little urchins start scampering across the roads to catch the
bus.
Glad to hear that the spurious Agit-Prop initiative sponsored by Big
Property failed to get valid signatures for its repressive measure. ARC
is still looking for contributions to help fund the ongoing effort to
fight Big Money and get something done about the rental crisis. You can
have a look at what is going on and contribute by going to ARC
.
SUMMERTIME BLUES
So anyway. Pedro headed out toward the sealanes and the fishing areas,
bouncing along the chop in his cabin of the commercial boat El Borracho
Perdido, plexiglass windows dashing the spray to either side. Out there,
beyond the Golden Gate, the swells grew calmer in this season before the
storms of autumn and the boat rolled up and down with its lines thrown
out and the panoply of stars marching overhead. The time became devoted
to work, to doing the things one needed to do. Lines needed retrieval.
The hold needed tending. The sudden burst of incoming wealth needed sheparding
with the tools of the trade - the gaff, the rake, the spear . . . . The
Perseids began launching arrows across the heavens to assault once again
Orion's head. And the Milky Way spun out its age old stories, waiting
for the next genius storyteller to arrive. Pedro hauled about . . . .
Out in the Valley, Sanchez bucked and rolled with the ridges of ploughed
earth as he sat in his iHarvester cabin, chaffs of straw stuff tossing
against the windowpanes as he came to the turnrow. Out beyond the waves
of planted grain undulated beneath the breeze to the furthest hill under
the moonlight and with the fog rolling in, those hills islanded themselves
as the denser air settled around their banks. With the dry heat and this
pernicious drought, he had found ploughing in early morning and early
evening worked the best to keep the dust settled. It was rotation time
to keep this field fallow for a season, much as he hated to do it, but
giving the earth a kind of rest.
He paused, letting the tractor idle, having come around to the turn-row,
and he watched the first streaks of the last of the Perseids from within
the cab, where sometimes he felt as he imagined how the ancient mariners
felt, looking out over the rolling landscape and waves like hills vanishing
off to the big sky horizon of indigo and stars.
Out on Snoffish Valley Road the high fog had begin to steal the day's
warmth and the girls wore sweaters and hugged themselves above their daisy
dukes, while the guys did one peal out after another, smoking rubber to
get one last summer's heat in before it all shut down. Jason had his 454
Camaro hybrid and Roscoe had his hopped up Mustang something or other
and it was all hang on St. Christopher through the smoke and the oil,
buckle down the rumble seat and let the radiator boil. The racers all
returned to the circle and everything got quiet for a while with people
talking about school and work and stuff. Diane, wearing Bobby Brooks,
leaned on the warm hood of Jack's Valiant and sipped a warm beer in the
still soft summer night while a Bob Seger CD played from someone's console
somewhere out in the darkness. Overhead a shooting star did its thing
and the night was left hanging like a blanket with holes punched in it.
In a loft upstairs, Diane lay with Jack and refused everthing, but did
not leave, and so surrendered in the last hours of that summer night.
From outside a stranger could see the girl's arm reach up to turn out
the bedroom light. Down on Snoffish Valley Road the racers set to make
one last run for the night as the last Perseids went mad overhead in showers
of sparks.
In her snug bed, Ms. Morales rested her head on Mr. Sanchez and remembered
the scent of the fresh heirloom she had picked that day, which had spurted
juice over her and his arm. The tomato plants all looked about done for
this year, although all hanging heavy with fruit. The room brightened
briefly with the light of an asteroid falling to earth.
We are so elemental, she thought to herself as she drifted to sleep.
We are all ephemeral scent and essence and momentary lights of earth.
The scent of tomatos in summertime. . . .
Out on the sealanes, Pedro hauled in the nets and the lines, fresh catch
flopping into the hold. The way the sea swelled and the way the fog hung
about told him that soon, it would be time to drop crab pots again. The
news was about how the old Drakes Estero oyster farm was returning to
its natural state. But the crab. The crab would abide. In some form or
other.
The howl of the throughpassing train ululated from across the water where
the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their multi-kilowatt
sentry lights, quavered across the starlit waves of the estuary, over
the riprap embankments, over the moon-silvered grasses of the Buena Vista
flats and over the open spaces of the former Beltline railway; it moaned
through the cracked brick of the defunct Cannery with its ghosts and weedy
railbed and chainlink fences as the locomotive click-clacked past the
shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on its journey
to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
AUGUST 7, 2016
STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER
Nothing speaks about the ephemeral nature of life and joy than the sweet
strawberry of summer. This image is courtesy of Chris Lindberg.
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
The latest distraction is the Olympics, which now, more than ever, matters
very little. The robbery, the violence, the uncertain security that envelopes
the Olympic village this time, the Zika mosquito pestilence, and the general
disruption of the world makes this Olympics seem very unnecessary. The
entire Russian Paraolympic team was disqualified from contention due to
drug doping and daily we hear of nasty injuries and violence against athletes
due to the wildly foolish idea of hosting such an enterprise as the Olympics
in a Third World developing country where it seems the leaders are more
endowed with hubris than sense.
Meanwhile the US presidential election contest remains a joke, a run-off
between a criminal supported by the desperate and a fool supported by
the lunatic fringe of American idiocy.
Here at home, the obscene Rental Crisis continues to devour bodies and
souls. It has already produced some blood and by the intransigent looks
of the Big Property people, it certainly will spurt gallons more before
this is over. It is not going to "settle down" and people are
not "going to get used to it," any more than people get used
to getting kicked in the balls. Threats and use of officialized terror
will not work any more than it did for former President Pervez Musharraf.
The renters on the Island are furious about what is happening and even
if this election fails to produce rent control, it is inevitable that
one day it will pass with certainty, like it or not. Good legislation
or not. It is very likely that this sentiment will spread beyond the borders
of the Island, as other Bay Area counties are feeling desperately squeezed
by the greed of absentee landlords.
Meanwhile some landowners stick their heads in the sand, pretending the
old Baronial rights of peonage still apply, continuing to violate tenant
rights in direct and flagrant violation of State laws, entering premises
without notice, conducting harassing visitations, jacking rents well over
35% at will, evicting without due cause, destroying tenant property, illegally
harvesting deposits, and generally acting like civility and law do not
apply to them in the slightest.
Only recently we heard one landowner say to a tenant who complained about
the destruction of their hard-worked garden and out-of-code electrical
plugs, "If you don't like it, MOVE."
That is right. Force people to move when you are stealing their deposits,
costing them thousands of dollars to escape you so as to go over to somebody
else who will steal your deposit.
Sounds like such a deal. At some point you are compelled to stand and
fight, back against the wall.
WHEN THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER PRICKS MY FINGER
So anyway, the recent heat wave yielded to a pattern of cool air and
dappled skies in late afternoon. The fog returned to drape the golden
hills in the morning and cloak the trees where the hawk continued to cree-cree.
At dusk, earnest fawns went about their business and adolescent deer stood
in the intersections, trying to puzzle the meaning of it all as drivers
cruised slowly past, also wondering what this all means. Ears of corn
remain on sale at Paul's Produce at two for a dollar, so that means the
Fall is yet a ways off.
Teachers are talking about how their summer season came to an end on
the 15th, when the real work began again with seriousness and so the more
serious among them are looking forward to that time.
An old Irish tune lilted across the Island in the form of a Grateful
Dead song, although few remember that the tune is copped from the traditional
"Aislean an Oigfear" going back now some five centuries, but
first translated in 1792 by Edward Bunting and set in verse by Thomas
Moore in 1805 in Kilkenny.
So there is some truth to the old saying that the best of the English
was wrought by the Irish
When the last rose of summer pricks my finger
And the hot sun chills me to the bone
When I can't hear the song for the singer
And I can't tell my pillow from a stone
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own
As night fell along the Strand the strands of Pegasus began to gallop
to the West and the new crescent moon set with the flaming Jupiter for
company. Across the water the skyline of Babylon burned with usual ferocity
as the City's soul consumed its soul in lights of neon and halogen, producing
a new Hell that did not require death or travel to get to. As night advanced
across the land with engulfing shadows of strangulating fear and the sun
became ever more a distant memory of freedom and light and warmth that
once was the rule, the stars emerged in their age-old patterns of majesty.
Some things do not change.
Kathy, returning from walking the dog, pointed out Andromeda, chained
to her rock, before going inside. Denby remained out there, looking until
he found Pegasus. All the world was aflame out there beyond the horizon,
in DC and Idaho and Kandahar and Babylon and Rio de Janeiro with violence
and shouting, and the two immense front runners went at each other like
the Greeks and the Trojans, but in a short while, in a few days, the Perseids
would begin; still, it was yet difficult to find from where they would
emerge. Taurus marched argumentatively to the West and Beatrice called
from inside the house about a problem with the voicemail system, so he
left the dark to enter the light, leaving the gods to argue among themselves
in the heavens.
In the offices of Island-Life, the Editor hunched over his desk, his
remaining white hair flying about his head in an aureole lit by the lamp.
A timer stood on the desk, placed there by Jose some hours previously
before going out. The Editor continued to work . . . .
In a dank basement, the Angry Elf lit a candle in front of his shrine
to his idol, Meyer Lansky, and renewed his singular vows not to kill anyone
again this year while plotting new ways to hurt people he imagined have
dissed him in some way. He picked up the revolver at the center of the
shrine and caressed the barrel. The revolver was said to have belonged
to Bugsy Malone. Angry Elf contemplated the next punishment fire his gang
would light to get even with somebody falling behind on payments. He smiled
and replaced the gun between the candles.
At the open space where Sherman and Buena Vista come together, Office
O'Madhauen sipped his Styrofoam coffee, waiting for speeding scofflaws
and red-light runners. A brief flash of a comet or shooting star lit up
the cruiser, then all was dark once more.
Piedro stepped out of the office of Express Mess in South City to look
at the light show taking place overhead while his colleague, Xavier, cleaned
his Glock 9 and the lights of the Island across the water went dark with
people retiring for the night. There had been no need for a weapon while
working in the dispatcher office of a courier service, but you never know.
Some people want to be ready for anything.
On the Strand, Pahrump and Snuffles and Jose and Javier all fell asleep
on the sand among the bulrushes with the empty five gallon jug at their
feet, and their dreaming eyelids were crisscrossed by the streaking stars,
causing visions of a more better world free of anxiety, free of homelessness,
free of stupidity -- foolish and unrealistic visions, but visions of possibility
nevertheless.
In his apartment, the Amazing Anatolia Enigma put aside his cape and
his top hat and his cane and fed his rabbit Chechesque, before stepping
out on the balcony to observe a far more awesome magic show than he ever
could devise.
Out on the sealanes, Pedro minded the lines while overhead the Hunter
pinwheeled amid a flurry of shiny, startling arrows. He glanced at the
dark radio face, and wished that someone was still there to accompany
his lonely hours. Perhaps in October things would change for the better.
Ferryboat went "Woof!" to remind him he was not entirely alone
for all that.
In Marlene and Andre's Household, the sleepless Marlene got out of bed,
leaving her sleeping mate there and walking past the zonked Little Adam,
she went down the hall past the snoring people in the the bunks to the
bathroom where she did her business without turning on the light.
As she came out a sleepy voice said, "Who zat?" And she said,
"Shh. It's just me. Marlene."
"O . . . ! Zzzzzzzzzz . . . .".
Rather than disturb anyone else in that household of shattered lives,
misfits, and ne'er do wells, Marlene went out the back through the kitchen
and stood in the back area near the ironmongery garden that Martini had
welded together for the pole beans and the vine squashes, which now clambered
quite high. The garden planted with corn, beans, tubers, root veggies
and herbs helped supplement their visits to the food bank, as the collective
living there had little money and no one could afford the obscene rents
now charged by the landlords everywhere. So fifteen lives had found each
other and sufficient space to get out of the weather in that one bedroom
cottage. Life was often wretched and packed with horror, but in this place,
each had found like-minded souls. Beneath the floorboards, the wharf rats
scurried back and forth around the shell of the old central heating furnace.
As the Girl with the Ruined Womb stood in the garden, flashes of light
from falling stars began to illuminate the yard and she looked up in wonder.
She felt a presence behind her and Andre sang quietly into her ear.
When you wish upon a star
Matters not who you are . . . .
The punk boy from Oaktown put his arms around her and held her as the
stars fell around them.
And the Editor continued to work in his windowless cubicle deep within
the offices of Island-Life, as the timer continued to tick.
Before leaving for the night, Jose had asked if the Editor was going to
watch the big show tonight.
"TeeVee? No time for that nonsense," said the Editor.
"No amigo. It's the sky. Something special."
"Hrrmmph . . . ". The Editor wished his cigar from one side
of his mouth to the other. "What is it?"
Jose went out and returned with the digital timer. "When it goes
off, take a break and go outside. You will see." The boy then left.
So there the Editor sat, his remaining white hair flying about his head
in an aureole lit by the pool of the desklamp while all around hung the
blank darkness. Somewhere out there beyond the light was a like mind,
seeking Company. Somewhere out there in that ocean of pitch black nothingness
was a sympathetic consciousness. There he sat, constructing his meditations,
one failure after another, working hour after hour, doing all for Company.
The alarm shocked him into the next moment.
He reached out and silenced the thing and sat a moment, staring into
the void. He then got up and moved down the aisles of silent desks and
dark computer screens to the back door, which he opened to step out on
the deck and there he stood looking at the Old Fence and the trees, still
in the windless summer night. Something flared from above and he looked
up and stood with his jaw open as the heavens began the show. And there
he stood for more than an hour with his hands on the railing, looking
up. The Perseids had begun.
The long howl of the throughpassing train ululated from far across the
water where the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their
multi-kilowatt sentry lights; it quavered across the starlit waves of
the estuary, the riprap embankments, the moon-silvered grasses of the
Buena Vista flats and the open spaces of the former Beltline railway;
it moaned through the cracked brick of the old abandoned Cannery with
its ghosts and weedy railbed and chainlink fences as the locomotive glided
past the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on
its journey beyond the stars to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
'Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.
I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter,
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
Thomas Moore
JULY 31, 2016
THE MOON WANTED MORE OF MY NIGHT
A few weeks ago we enjoyed a "strawberry moon" and we have
several images on file for that event, but did not get around to posting
any of them. So to emend the error of our ways here is an image of the
moon knipsed by Tammy over Bungalow Court on the Island.
Line reference above is to "Calling the Moon" by Dar Williams.
CH..CH..CH CHANGES
You will note the new and improved masthead with staff images, done courtesy
of Beatrice, who is an artist that lives in Marin. Beatrice used to earn
a living as an illustrator and carpenter. She is the one who painted the
Fairfax "Scoop" Ice Cream Parlor sign some forty-five years
ago. She also created the paper mache cow that stands above the register.
THIS ISLAND LIFE
Lots of development issues resolved last week in a trend that will see
the Island changing its face radically for generations to come.
It looks like Francis Collins finally has the green light for his Boatworks
project. That parcel has been the site of industrial manufacturing from
1909 to 2002 when the Pacific Coast Engineering Company closed its doors.
For the past few years, Collins has been busy cleaning up the heavily
contaminated site of industrial pollutants.
The plans call for 182 residential units built on 9.48 acres. as well
as open space that includes both a community green and a concrete pier
on the Oakland Estuary.
In other action at the meeting on July 25th, the City Planning Board
approved Site As design review application. The design in question
involves surface materials, street trees, as well as street lights for
Site A and the rest of Alameda Point. The board gave Park Esquina a unanimous
nod to proceed with its project at Park Street and Blanding Avenue.
Board members also approved Kevin Lams plan for a 7,100-square-foot
building on the West End near the intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Webster
Street.
Three down and fifteen more projects to go. . .
Since we have the elections process inexorably underway, we note that
our rent control initiative is making headlines in other parts of the
Bay Area. An attempt by Big Property to shove through an initiative that
orders the Council to avoid meddling in rent issues appears to have stalled
due to questionable signatures (at least 6,461 signatures need to be validated
by the ROV, and this does not look like it will happen by the deadline).
These kinds of tactics are not surprising coming from people who are
overly used to skirting the law in practice.
The renter-friendly ordinance this initiative was intended to counteract
was approved to be on the November ballot on July 6. The renters
measure, sponsored by the Alameda Renters Coalition, would cap annual
increases at 65 percent of the change in the Consumer Price Index for
the previous year. It would also create a five-member rent control board
to enforce the regulations.
JACK OF DIAMONDS
So anyway the recent heat "dome" we have endured gave way to
the usual fogs and evening sea to shore breezes, leading to clear spangled
skies scored by the scratch of falling stars. The days proceded in a lively
march of teenagers and pickup trucks rattling down Snoffish Valley Road,
en route to pick up girls for hanging out, for swimming, for all kinds
of things only teenagers can remember.
Down on the Strand, the Almeida family enjoyed a rare holiday together
in a birthday party for Santiago as Pedro took a small break before pushing
to the end of crab season in August. And Santiago, well, of course was
an entire year older and this was an important thing. This year the crab
season started late when the Fisheries people closed the opener in November
due to toxic algae. He was hearing that razor clams were also on the short
list due to high domoic acid content around Humboldt and Del Norte.
What was the world coming to. Poison crabs and poison clams of all things
and a man has gotta work to live and they won't let him work.
Little Santiago started yelling; he had let loose his birthday balloon
and the thing now soared aloft past the trees over the inlet.
O well. Let it go Santiago. Only grief comes from too much attachment
to things that fly away. The crab shall return next year. And the clams.
And the corn shall again pierce the intense blue sky of Minnesotta, ignorant
of everything we consider important for ourselves. He tilted his hat and
let the sun caress his weather-beaten, sea-battered body.
Denby stood outside, thinking of somebody and the heavy sky was a blanket
with bullet holes punched in it.
He looked up at the sky, recalling the news release that Jack White's
3rd Man Records had just sent a turntable into space, playing Carl Sagan's
"A Glorious Dawn" sextet the entire time until the balloon lifting
this cargo burst at an altitude over 98,000 above the earth.
In a few thousand, or perhaps a few thousand years, long after the extinction
of the human race, radio waves from that transmission will reach strange
creatures living in a distant galaxy and they will wonder even as the
battered, space-riddled Voyager drifts into their solar system, bearing
a disk on which is recorded, among other things in other languages, Dark
was the Night by Blind Willie Johnson.
He paused, breathing in the night air, cool after the long heat in the
Valley where he had spent the day. Somewhere a garage band practiced in
fits and starts. Crickets rubbed their hindlegs and somewhere else somebody
practiced the horn. Music filled the night and made everything worthwhile
the way music always does. Soon, it would be time to go to bed, but not
after doing a bit of reading by lamplight. Perhaps some Paul Bowles.
At the Household of Marlene and Andre, Little Adam was put to bed and
those members who did not work graveyard shifts or weekends had all tucked
into their bunks and sleeping bags. Snuffles Johnson snored in his hole
and Occasional Quentin stretched out beneath the coffee table. The bunks
in the hallway were all filled up with silent, dark bodies. Marlene sat
up late with the light of the lamp and the old Singer machine humming
as she darned socks, fixed shirts, tried to keep the tack and raft of
this household presentable and afloat for just a little while longer during
the desperate times of the Rental Crisis.
Below the decks, around the decrepit heater unit, the rats began to scurry
this way and that, getting ready for the night of foraging. One rat paused
to sniff at the dessicated carcass of his brother who had been electrocuted
by the bad wiring job going to the central heating control unit. Beneath
the carcass there was a little glow and the delectible odor of fried rat.
But this time, the rat moved on and left his brother. Time to investigate
that later. And the little glow grew ever so slowly and inexorably beneath
the rat that was beneath the house owned by the landlord Mr. Howitzer,
who refused to pay for a properly wired and renovated central control
unit.
To Mr. Howitzer, the tenants were just so many lab rats, useful only
as a subsidy for the property maintenance.
Denby tucked into his book, lit by an Upstart Crow reading lamp he had
filched many years ago while doing construction. Now Upstart Crow no longer
existed, but he still owned the book lamp. The book was about a Western
world traveler remembering Tangier and the Arabic world.
"I relish the idea that in the night, all around me in my sleep,
sorcery is burrowing its invisible tunnels in every direction, from thousands
of senders to thousands of unsuspecting recipients. Spells are being cast,
poison is running its course; souls are being dispossessed of parasitic
pseudo-consciousnesses that lurk in the unguarded recesses of the mind.
There is drumming out there most nights. It never awakens me; I hear the
drums and incorporate them into my dream like the nightly cries of the
muezzins. Even if in the dream I am in New York, the first Allah, akbar!
effaces the backdrop and carries whatever comes next to North Africa,
and the dream goes on."
Out on her Gold Coast veranda, Ms. Morales stood looking at Orion tumbling
over the Mastic Senior Center. The Summer Session had taken a break and
now there was nothing to do save for preparing for what started in September;
an endless, unpaid cycle. What was the future. In the future, the world
would implode and creatures like Ronald Rump would ramp about with their
shouting mouths and all the stars would fall and be overwhelmed.
A bright streak lit the heavens and startled her into exclaiming, "O!"
Soon the Perseids would begin to astonish the August sky.
Mr. Sanchez emerged from the shadows behind her.
"Un problema?" Mr. Sanchez asked.
"Only a shooting star," she said. "Una estrella fugaz."
"O! Did you make a wish?"
"Tal vez. Maybe."
"Somos como las estrellas, misterioso y brillante y se han ido
rápidamente," he said. "We shine for a while and
then are gone."
"I did not know I had married a poet," she said.
"Of course you did," he said. "That is why you married
me." And then he clasped her in his arms as all the stars fell.
The long howl of the throughpassing train ululated from far across the
water where the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their
multi-kilowatt sentry lights; it quavered across the waves of the estuary,
the riprap embankments, the moonlit grasses of the Buena Vista flats and
the open spaces of the former Beltline railway; it moaned through the
cracked brick of the old abandoned Cannery with its ghosts and weedy railbed
and chainlink fences as the locomotive glided past the shuttered doors
of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on its starlit journey to parts
unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
JULY 24, 2016
IF LADIES WERE SQUIRRELS
This week's headline photo comes courtesy of Tammy and is of a local
resident termed Mr. Nutcakes.
As for the headline itself, we were deluged with ideas, from the obvious
Squirrel Nut Zippers band to Primus, White Stripes and Fleet Foxes, all
of whom have referenced the daffy fellow that acts totally crazy all the
time and gets away with it. Save for the occasional roadkill mishap.
Finally we decided on a song best known as one written by Utah Phillips
and covered by Joan Baez, among many others. The full text of the lyric
goes, somewhat cynically by a lovelorn fellow as follows:
Now the nights are so long, Lord sorrow runs deep
And nothing is worse than a night without sleep
I'll walk out alone and look at the sky
Too empty to sing, too lonesome to cry
If the ladies were blackbirds and the ladies were thrushes
I'd lie there for hours in the chilly cold marshes
If the ladies were squirrel's with high bushy tails
I'd fill up my shotgun with rock salt and nails
Well, we don't wish any harm on Mr. Nutcakes. No certainly not. For one,
he aint no poodle . . .
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
Word has it that the Angry Elf gang has been at it again. Suspicious
fire broke out 12:13 am, Wednesday, July 20, when AFD responded to a report
of a fire at Allsafe Self-Storage at 1 Singleton Ave. Firefighters arrived
on scene to find heavy smoke and fire coming from inside a single-story
row of 32 connected storage units. They pulled several hose lines and
attacked the fire and used saws and tools to force entry and ventilate
the building.
Flammable material in the storage units fed the fire. Firefighters managed
to knock the fire down by 1:15 am. and fully extinguish the blaze by 3
a.m. They were able to confine the fire to seven units, which all sustained
severe damage. The remaining 25 units sustained minor to severe heat and
smoke damage. The fire destroyed or damaged ATVs, motorcycles and
automobiles stored in the units. There were no reports of injuries. A
total of 39 firefighters responded to the fire.
On the Rental Crisis front, it is interesting that citizens in other
counties are sitting up and taking notice of what is happening here. Someone
in far off Marin recently called attention to our notice about the two
rent control items on the ballot this coming November.
This is likely to be a very hot electoral season.
Interesting also was the Letter to the Editor about the proposed hotel
on Harbor Bay and the rerouting planned for the Bay Shore Trail -- apparently
through the parking garage. Seems the letter writer is more than usually
informed and well researched on the issues. And as we last recall it was
the Ron Cowan outfit that was proposing such an hotel out at Harbor Bay.
We just wonder why Ron Cowan wants to ruin his home town and not somebody
else's in all of his projects. Ron, wussup with that dude?
Police blotter reports ten people detained for 5150 psychiatric evaluation
at John George. Crazies, we got 'em. There is a slew of burglaries, but
we expect San Leandro Police or Oaktown will collect the perps as we have
no detective department. So wanna come here and buy some property?
We do, however, actively demonstrate that we love our police. That is
in fond hopes that they will not kill somebody or watch another one of
us die over the course of two hours so as to prove a point in the budget.
As they have done in the past.
Fond hopes indeed. We are not like other cities; we pay our police not
to kill us.
AINT NO CURE FOR THE SUMMERTIME BLUES
So anyway, recent days have been filled with animal portents. Deer galloping
across the road, foxes appearing on the edge of parking lots, raccoons
lumbering up the tree trunks, hawks crying and displaying themselves with
sudden abandon.
All around the Island-Life Offices the high pitch cree-cree of a lone
hawk searching for a mate echoed through the lonely trees.
Over at the Native Sons of the Golden West, the Severely Conservative
Convention ended a couple days ago after Ronald Rump obtained the nod
for the SC candidacy for the Presidency of the Bums after a bitterly fought
primary election. The AC failed during this massive heat wave and all
the delegates flung sweat as they spoke and gestured. As part of his concession
speech, former candidate Ned "Red" Cross refused to endorse
the party's nominee due to the acrimonious nature of the Primary contest.
"I lost, I guess. And looking at what we get, I guess all of us
lost. Certainly we did lose civility during this contest."
Sound of boos and "Up yer Rump!" chants from the partisan gallery.
"But I tell ya, we agreed, we all agreed, if you remember way back
in Elementary, there is one rule we all gotta obey . . . ".
More boos and calls for an abolishment of all rules and regulation, especially
for debates and political parties that have the most money at hand.
"But I swear the main golden rule of all still stands. No mothers!
You can kick and punch like a girl, Except if you are Rhonda Rousey. You
can use loogies and wedgies, but no mothers! Aint it true? Moms are sacred!
No mothers man!"
From the side Ronald Rump responded to the concession speech with his
usual grace, magnanimity, and generosity large as elephants.
"AHHHHHH, LOSER! LOSER! YOU AINT NOTHIN' BUT A LOOOOOOOOOOSER! BLFTHFTHPT!"
Some felt the Bronx cheer was moderately excessive. Others felt that
Rump indicated true Presidential quality. It was difficult to determine
what people really felt as everyone who was not a true Rumper, as the
Rump adherents were called, had been ejected from the hall by men wearing
brown shirts and black armbands.
Some of this theater may seem strange to people not familiar with the
Lost Coast and California's hidden traditions. Every four years the bums
gather in Northern California to elect from among themselves the person
who most exemplifies California Bum values.
For years, members of the Hippie party dominated this caucus, but latterly
the Severely Conservative Party and the Pee Tardy Party have overwhelmed
opposition, largely by means of the tactic of shouting the loudest. The
SCP espouses a government that does virtually nothing, which, if you think
about it, perfectly embodies the epitome of bum values with regards to
indolence. The SCP has the motto of "Do no harm and do no work!"
The radical Pee Tardy people hold such an extreme Conservative point
of view that people should be compelled to pee less than once per day
so as to east the strain on the Infrastructure.
There were few PTP people in evidence at the Convention, largely because
gangs supporting Rump went around beating them up and setting their homes
on fire.
A lot of people with sensitive eardrums were glad when the SCP Convention
ended, only to endure the Somewhat Liberal (If You Don't Mind) Convention
that followed. This campaign also was characterized by some acrimony,
with the young Ernie supporters reacting with dismay and disappointment
when their beloved icon failed to gather sufficient delegates to become
the nominee over Hilarious Blimpton, who nevertheless made history as
the first woman in history to snag this pole spot,
The outgoing President made an appearance to endorse the new candidate.
"I am sorry I may have failed y'all. I fixed the Nation's economic
system when it was heading for a tailspin, I rescued Detroit, I reassured
our allies we are not all nutcases ready to invade other countries on
a whim, I jumpstarted renovation of the collapsing health care system
for everybody in a way even the insurance companies like, I repaired relations
with Cuba, I brokered a multinational deal on nuclear arms proliferation
with one of our former enemies in the Middle East, I also successfully
brokered bipartisan budget deals 8 times to minimize and avert total government
shutdown that would have permanently damaged the nation's international
credit, and I did a whole lotta other stuff people don't remember.
So I am sorry, I failed you; I just did not get around to giving the
White House a new coat of paint and fixing Climate Change. I guess I just
was working too hard trying to keep the Country from looking ridiculous."
"It's okay Mr. President," Hilarious said. "It seems the
SCP people -- and we know who they are -- never expected that a Black
Man could roll up his sleeves and work harder than anybody else. I guess
they expected you to be a Bum. This seems to have upset them a bit."
"It does look like they can't get over something," agreed the
President. "I am sorry I am not a good bum."
After the Convention was over, Jose, Denby, and Pahrump went to work
taking down bunting, sweeping up confetti and tossing banners into the
trash.
"You sorry that your main man Ernie Sandman didn't get the nomination?"
Jose asked Denby.
"At least he changed the process a bit," Denby said. "Never
expected the Establishment would allow him in."
"So what he do?" Jose asked
"He turned a circus that involved two red-faced people shouting
extreme inanities at each other into a three-ring." Denby said. "Which
makes for better TV.
"O!" Jose said.
As they dragged the stuffed garbage bags out to the dumpster, they heard
a high pitched "Cree! Cree!" overhead.
"What about you, Pahrump?" asked Denby. "What do you make
of all this?"
Pahrump wearily heaved his sack into the dumpster. "We been hoping
for years the White Man would just go away, watching his imaginary kingdom
shrink to the point even a people as blinkered as they cannot ignore it
any more. Now they wanna restore a kingdom that never existed in reality.
Nothing any of them gonna do will bring back our homelands and the big
steelhead runs up in the Lost Coast. This country been around for 400
years -- it can stand a little twist and tug. It aint gonna melt away
like bee pee on cigarette paper."
"Fo' shizzle," Jose said, who was significantly younger than
Pahrump.
After they were done they sat out on the front steps looking out over
the marina and the white effulgence of the waning moon, still gibbous
after last week. Everything was silvered over -- the trees, the lawn,
the houses, the boats and the wavelets out on the cove. Ship masts clinkered
in the distance although there was not a breath of air on this hot summer's
night.
"CREEEEE! CREEEEE!" came from the trees where the hawk had
found shelter.
The long howl of the throughpassing train ululated from far across the
water where the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their
multi-kilowatt sentry lights; it quavered across the waves of the estuary,
the riprap embankments, the moonlit grasses of the Buena Vista flats and
the open spaces of the former Beltline railway; it moaned through the
cracked brick of the old abandoned Cannery with its ghosts and weedy railbed
and chainlink fences as the locomotive glided past the shuttered doors
of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on its patriotic journey to
parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
JULY 17, 2016
THREE CROW TOWN
This week the headline comes from the slushpile of good stuff and features
a trio engaged in a small family spat. This one was shot by Tammy in a
series of a neighbor's roof.
Houston Jones is no longer performing as such, but if you come across
Travis performing around here, have him do the old HJ song by Chis Kee
and you will not be disappointed.
INDEPENDENCE DAY REDEUX
We had photos from an entirely different parade posted last week, but
our photobanks include a fair number of images taken of America's biggest
little small town parade. Let it be said, our Sikhs are chic. Here ya
go . . .
LIFE ON THE ISLAND
Most of the issues floating around have to do with the rental crisis
and the ongoing land development projects -- nothing new to report as
Silly Hall hunkers down for the elections and Islanders prepare to vote
on the first rent control initiative in November -- there are likely to
be others.
Bill Poland wants to develop the industrial shipping area into a tony
area featuring 275 apartments at the usual rent gouge, 125 expensive "townhomes",
and approximately 150,000 square feet of commercial space, including 115,000
square feet dedicated to maritime uses. His proposal is sitting before
City council now but he is trying to elicit warm and fuzzy feelings from
the people by way of an open letter (published in the Sun) and website
that is high on promises, but wretched in terms of detailed information.
One positive that comes out of this, is the sense that developers are
realizing they can no longer just move in with bulldozers and excavators
without informing the community any more. Which is a step in the right
direction.
More positives: Irene Dieter Construction crews recently placed a new
haul-out platform for the protected harbor seals. The platform replaces
and relocates the old dock that has been used by the seals for a while.
The idea is to provide some shelter for the seals during the expansion
of the WETA ferry facilities at the Point.
We checked a few other locations where this kind of thing has been done,
along with other measures, and it does seem to work so long as the humans
and their pets obey the keep away signs.
SUMMERTIME BLUES
So anyway, it's been overcast and positively drizzly at times around
here while other parts of the Bay Area have been awash in cool sunshine.
All over the place, wherever there blazed a patch of sun left unencumbered
by developers lifting their scaffolds, tomatoes and roses swelled in profusion.
Corn plants stood about three feet high in some yards and ruby-throated
hummingbirds zapped this way and that from feeder to feeder.
Mr. Spline got called off of the Whistleblower Watch up on the hill,
where he had been conducting surveillance of the Greek chapel in which
Joshua Rainman had taken refuge, so as to help stake out the home of suspected
Islamicists on Santa Clara. The name of the family allegedly living in
the alleged Islamacist house was Jeddah, which Ms. Felcher back in the
CIA office had found to be a name of a city in Saudi Arabia. Also the
alleged Mr. Jeddah sported a suspicious beard and had never been seen
going to synagogue or church. This, itself, was a serious omission on
an Island which sported more churches per square mile than Jerusalem.
Spline joined Simon Snark, a clandestine operative working for an agency
so secret no body knew the name of it. His security clearance badge had
the name redacted by someone with a black magic marker.
At first, surveillance was easy, because the people inside had drawn
up the blinds to the big picture window for the main room and Snark sat
there patiently with his field glasses and camera while Spline played
with the radio.
They talked together in special code.
"Cotillion?" asked Mr. Spline.
"Walrus," answered Mr. Snark.
"No foxtrot?"
"Nope. No elephant."
Conversation with Mr. Snark could be problematic, as even his small talk
had been scripted by his handlers. He talked only about the prospects
of the Chicago Cubs winning the world series and nothing else.
"I don't think you ever even lived in Chicago," said Mr. Spline.
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, you never talk about anything else."
"Are you sure about that? How do you know what I talk about when
nobody is there?"
This had Mr. Spline beat for a moment. "There are other things in
Chicago besides the Cubs."
"Like what else? What could be more important than the World Series?"
Mr. Snark said.
At this point they were joined by the red-blooded All-American Mr. Terse.
Terse was an ex-marine, but had volunteered to continued the fight against
Communism. In his mind, the Islamacists were all Communists by another
name as they were known to provide free medical care and build schools
in places like Palestine.
"The Cubs record is an American Tradition." Said Mr. Terse,
coming into the conversation late.
"Well, like the Loop," said Mr. Spline.
"Shows what you know. The Loop don't go by Wrigley Field."
"Are you sure about that? It seems to me . . .".
"Fornicating bats!" exclaimed Mr. Snark.
"Uh, I don't remember that code, . . . ".
"They closed the blinds!" Snark said, lowering his field glasses.
"O! What are we going to do now?"
"See if we can get a better view. Maybe plant a mic or two."
"Isn't that going to happen by the carpet cleaner tomorrow? Maybe
we should just stay put."
Mr. Terse was disgusted. "You CIA career bureaucrats got no ambition."
So this is how the three clandestine operatives got to creeping around
to the backyard. Essentially, the two approached the open gate along the
side, and figuring this was a too obvious approach, went around the block,
crept along the drive of the apartment house behind and came to the fence
The still fit Mr. Terse, who began each day with 50 pushups, easily scrambled
over the chainlink, followed by Mr. Spline, but Mr. Snark got his pants
hung up and he fell ingloriously into the jacaranda, knocking over a bucket.
The back door opened and the house owner peered out with a flashlight,
exclaiming over his shoulder, "Damn raccoons are into the vegetable
garden again, honey!"
The three operatives, caught, sprang into action. They rushed the door,
knocking down the man standing there and took position with their guns
drawn pointing down at the terrified man laying on the kitchen floor.
A woman wearing an apron at the sink stood there with a dishrag and a
look on her face that would have startled Edvard Munch.
A nappy-headed kid about six peered from around the corner with round,
brown eyes.
"Please don't kill my daddy," said the kid. "He's not
read my bedtime story yet."
"Don't worry," said Mr. Snark. "We are police."
"O saints preserve us," said the woman. "We all gonna
die for sure!"
"Why you come bustin' into my house?" said the man on the floor.
"We done nothing wrong. We not driving while Black even!"
"Your name Jeddah," said Mr. Terse. "That's Middle East."
"I'm from Jamaica," said the man. "And Sarah was born
in Oaktown. And the name is Jeremiah, not Jeddah."
"How come you gonna shoot my daddy?" asked the kid.
"He's a suspected terrorist." Said Mr. Spline, grimly.
"No he's not," Sarah said. "He's a landscaper."
"Moderation in pursuit of terrorism is no virtue," said Mr.
Terse.
"That sounds familiar," Mr. Spline said.
"You bust into my house wearing black suits and black ties as if
you be Mafia, knock down my husband with guns, and you destroyed the jacaranda.
Now who is terrorizing who here!"
"Pleeeeze don't shoot my daddy!" wailed the little kid.
"Now now," said Mr. Terse reaching over to a bowl on the linoleum
table. "We are here to serve and protect. Wanna cookie?" He
offered a chocolate chip to the kid.
"Sorry ma'am," said Mr. Spline. "Just a little mistake
. . .".
"Get outta my house!" shouted Sarah.
"Well okay," said Mr. Terse. "Keep alert and watch your
neighbors carefully. We are going, but do not hesitate to call Homeland
Security if you see anything suspicious."
"O for Pete's sake," Jeremiah said from the floor.
Outside the three headed for Mr. Spline's covert black SUV as lights
flicked on all up and down the block. Someone called out of a window,
"Sarah?! You and the kids all right?"
A group of teenagers came out and started filming everything with their
cell phones.
"Dang, those cameras everywhere now," said Mr. Spline.
"It's getting difficult for us to do our jobs anymore," said
Mr. Terse.
"O shut up," said Mr. Snark. "I need to change my pants."
Mr. Spline looked down. "Say even your underwear is red, white and
blue!"
"Of course it is!" Snapped Mr. Snark.
The long howl of the throughpassing train ululated from far across the
water where the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their
multi-kilowatt sentry lights; it quavered across the waves of the estuary,
the riprap embankments, the moonlit grasses of the Buena Vista flats and
the open spaces of the former Beltline railway; it moaned through the
cracked brick of the old abandoned Cannery with its ghosts and weedy railbed
and chainlink fences as the locomotive glided past the shuttered doors
of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on its journey through the Land
of the Free and the Home of the Brave to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
JULY 10, 2016
THERE'S A BRIGHT SIDE SOMEWHERE
Roving photog Tammy took this shot of a neighbor's front yard while strolling
through the Gold Coast the other day. Kinda brightens up the day.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
You may have heard there is something going on in the news lately about
police in America. Foreign countries are warning citizens visiting this
country to be extra careful around police. Riots are tearing up, once
again, the hearts of our cities. Once again, innocent people have been
slain in the course of trivial traffic stops. And once again a lunatic
has gone wild with firearms in a public place, this time specifically
targeting police officers.
That the victims are police officers should not distract from the greater
picture of now regular mass shootings in public arenas. This time police.
That time Jews. One time sausage factory health inspectors, who apparently
have no presskit of their own. Children and teachers in another instance.
So it appears that our IPD enjoyed a certain amount of community support
recently in the wake of the Dallas shootings which claimed the lives of
at least five workingmen just doing their jobs.
That is okay for what it is. Nobody should have to fear for their life
going to work. It is nice that people who are the main beneficiaries of
the stable social order provided by police express their appreciation.
It also should not distract the discourse from the two issues that are
pressing upon the entire Nation right now. Gun violence has surpassed
epidemic proportions and is causing a series of unwanted changes in the
fabric of our daily lives and much of this could be dealt with effectively
were it not for a powerful industrial lobby we do not even have to reference
by its acronym to identify.
The other issue is the horrific carnage being inflicted upon Americans
by a supposedly defensive entity that is entirely too hyped, too violent,
and too driven to employ overwhelming deadly force to resolve difficulties.
One classic case is that of Oscar Grant who was shot in the back in Oaktown
by Special Force Officers. Grant was face down with an officer the size
of a linebacker pressing his knee into his neck when Officer Mehserle
reached for his sidearm and, believing he had a taser in his hands, shot
and killed Grant.
Now, Grant, a slightly built man, was entirely subdued and at the mercy
of the police, so there was no reason to taser the man in the first place.
And so many others have died while complying fully with police and obeying
all the rules that the question begs itself to be answered, what level
of subservience is necessary to avoid being murdered in "accidentally"
or in cold blood by authorities and should we be subservient at all in
a supposedly free and Democratic society becomes a serious question. Certainly
struggling with an officer and then running away seems certain to result
in a death sentence in the United States. In other places, the police
either talk the man down or let him go so as to retrieve him later, tactics
that just do not ever seem to happen here.
We turn to Le Monde for the numbers, and it should surprise nobody that
entire world is aghast at what is going on here. Every single major foreign
news outlet, including Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El Mundo has featured
the face of the Dallas Policechief David Brown in agony over what has
happened recently and there follows images of President Obama's response
in transit to Spain for trade talks there. It was up to the French to
take apart the Washington Post's stats on the over 500 people killed by
police this year (27% Black, 52% White, 17% Hispanic). Nobody has really
done a comparative analysis of the nature of the killings, which would
of course now include the homicidal maniac holed up in the Dallas garage.
Of those 500 plus there certainly are a percentage of folks who, if not
stopped, would have certainly hurt and or killed other people.
Looking at Black Lives Matter lists for 2015 we find among the plus 100
Black Americans killed by police quite a high number of people who were
innocent bystanders or just plain innocent while detained on suspicion
while a large number of persons struggled physically with a police officer
only to lose their life, innocent or not, independent of any trial. It
seems of the mind of some Whites that if you struggle and run away for
fear of your life, as it turns out justifiably, then you are a low life
thug and deserve execution Dirty Harry style.
Well, we have only to cite Eastwood himself who has said that Dirty Harry
was an unrealistic fantasy and such a person could never really exist
in a modern, civilized society. For good reason.
There is certainly a separation of experience and understanding between
Blacks and Whites in how things really work in America today, and even
Newt Gingrich has stated that "Whites have no idea what it is to
be Black." Trump's nonsensical claim that he would prefer to be a
Black businessman (1989) because of all the "advantages" is
not so shocking, given the nature of the person who said it, but it is
disturbing that so many clueless Whites take such a statement on face
value.
Of course it is not up to any one White crusader to wreck the relative
peace and equilibrium that any particular Black family may have hacked
out of the substrate of this disorganized Society. That sort of thing
leads to nothing but discontent with failed promises. What needs to happen
is for Whites to listen and to engage, not with their own lily-white sense
of guilt so as to feel better, but to the other side that seems so foreign
to them because of distance. Foreign as it seems now, even though this
Darker side is substantially what built America into what it is today.
As for the Island, sure it is fine to reassure the Thin Blue Line for
the moment -- for they have their uses -- while also keeping in mind it
was this same department that watched a man die for two hours in the water
one memorable Memorial Day, all so as to prove a point in the budget.
And also recall that although one side did get rambunctious, it was the
police that reacted by violently spilling blood on the stairs of City
Hall during the special session on the rental crisis a few months ago.
We do feature a number of people who roam about here on the Island, showing
up at functions and flaming people online they are certain will never
accost them in person, who have a fine opinion of themselves and a certain
idea of moral rectitude and certainty that all the police do is good and
for the benefit of all, and just all so altruistic and anybody they hurt
just probably deserved what they got. Both the Police Union and the Fireman's
Union are thinking only of you and your little dog too. Barney Fife, this
Island aint no small town no more, as stated by the Mayor herself in a
meeting a few months ago. The Island is a City and its population is soon
to top 100,000 souls and acting all smug and superior at the pancake breakfast
will not play the band any more.
Again, remember this, this is a department that watched a man die for
two hours so as to make a point in the budget. Not quite Mayberry RFD,
is it?
I WALK ALONE
So anyway, the new moon Monday has evolved into a gradually waxing crescent
that hangs in the sky from midday through the afternoon into night. The
skies have been astonishingly ice-blue clear and the days breezy. A wind
kicked up midweek causing the trees to stir as the long hair of the Bann
Sé tousled the leaves and made old women take out their rosaries
to mutter spells under breath.
Mr. Cribbage hired a couple day laborers named Oso and Orlin to perform
landscaping work on his tenant property. As was usual for Mr. Cribbage
he went and fetched the guys from the pickup-point in his pickup truck
and brought them onto the property with rakes and shovels and shears and
other implements of mass destruction and gave the simple instruction "Reducir!"
while waving his arms around.
"¿Y esto?" Oso pointed at the bamboo planted by Elizabeth,
the tenant.
"Ummm . . . excavar . . . uhh poco ... pequeño, oh
heck remove it."
"Todos ello?"
"Uhhh . . . si. Todos un pequeño something. When done
. . . uh finis trabajo come see me."
Then, Mr. Cribbage went away, leaving the workers to do what they do.
Elizabeth, wearing her bathrobe, peered out the window behind the curtains
as the men went to work with a will. They had been brought to work and
they intended to work the short stretch there for a full eight hours and
then collect their pay. No sense working half a day and then standing
out at the day worker plaza again.
While Oso removed the eight-foot high bamboo curtain that shielded the
house from the street, Orlin went to work with a will upon the rose bushes,
the flowering succulents, the gladiolas, the hedge, and the blooming gardenia
as well as the jasmine clinging to the fence. As fragrant masses of branches
thick with blooms began to pile up Elizabeth rushed out.
"¡Heno! No corte todo! Deja las flores! Dejar un poco de
bambú!"
It was then that Oso noticed the scarlet and purple remains of the glads
on the ground. "O! Las flores!"
Everyone stood around looking at the piles of bright petals, breathing
in the scent of the decimated gardenia. Oso had lopped the tops of the
trillium and the reddish stalks also lay in the pile. O well.
"El jefe va a plantar aquí otra cosa," offered
Orlin. "The boss will plant something here." He wiped his brow
of sweat.
"¿Que hora es?" Oso asked.
Orlin told him and so, since it was not yet five o'clock they went back
to work decimating the shrubbery and whacking back the rose bush even
further as Elizabeth fled wailing into the house. The chief of the fire
department lived across the street and he came out to look at what had
happened. He took his hat off and scratched his head. He hailed from Louisiana.
"All be damned!" he said.
Around five, the two day workers put down their implements and
Around six, Denby came to visit and disturbed a deer which had come to
feed on the six foot pile of vegetation piled out in front of the fence.
There now was a lot of space to plant as the two workers had razed to
the dirt most of the growth Elizabeth had planted over five years. The
mighty rose bush had been thinned until it was a scraggle of branches
about two feet wide. The gardenia looked like the Gengis Khan had run
over it with his horsemen . The setting sun beat mercilessly on the now
unprotected housefront.
Elizabeth was in tears. "Why did Walter have to do that to my garden?
He could have at least told me!"
Denby shrugged. "Landlords got all the power, no soul."
"Renting sucks." Elizabeth said.
Meanwhile Oso and Orlin had headed off to the Old Same Place Bar to have
a beer and kick back after an honest days work. It was of Orlin's point
of view that it had been a good day.
"Too bad about las flores," said Oso.
"Should we go over and see if Mr. Burbage has any work tomorrow.
Last time we dug and dug for all day."
"I don't know about that," said Orlin, thinking. "Last
time there were problems."
"Ah!" said Oso, remembering.
"Too bad about that wall," said Orlin.
That day they had broken up the patio and dug trenches very deep for
a long time. It had been Mr. Burbage's intention to lay down new flags.
They had stopped for a drink of lemonade Mary Beth Burbage had brought
out on a tray. Then, there had been this big crash behind them and Mr.
Burbage had come out to see the entire hillside retaining wall had fallen
down. Some thirty feet of it made of stone. It lay in the pit they had
dug along its foundation all broken up and Mr. Burbage had looked upset.
"No worry," Oso had assured Mr. Burbage. "The rock is
all broken to small pieces. We can take out quick with wheelbarrow and
then you have your hole empty again."
"We are good workers," said Orlin. "We work harder and
longer than anybody else out there. Nobody needs to watch us."
"I don't know why Jose does not want to come stand with us on the
corner," Oso said. "He never has any good work and so he never
has any money."
Orlin shrugged. "We are good workers. We always work very hard."
Jose, sweeping the floor of the Native Son's of the Golden West Hall
after a banquet heard about what happened to Elizabeth's garden from Denby,
who helped taking out the garbage.
"Esos chicos son idiotas," said Jose. "It is better
to work smarter, not harder."
From the porch of the NSGW Salon they both could see long lines of taillights
up on the Nimitz. A column of smoke ascended from further down where a
big rig had overturned and caught on fire, blocking the freeway.
"All the dot commers are stuck in line up there," Denby said.
"Jornada de trabajo se realiza," said Jose, "And
everyone still going home at midnight. I think it is better to work smarter,
not harder."
"Tambien. I agree with that, amigo," Denby said.
The long howl of the throughpassing train ululated from far across the
water where the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their
multi-kilowatt sentry lights; it quavered across the waves of the estuary,
the riprap embankments, the moonlit grasses of the Buena Vista flats and
the open spaces of the former Beltline railway; it moaned through the
cracked brick of the old abandoned Cannery with its ghosts and weedy railbed
and chainlink fences as the locomotive glided past the shuttered doors
of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on its journey to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
JULY 4, 2016
WAVE THAT FLAG, WAVE IT WIDE AND HIGH
We put off the weekly issue a day so as to capture real-time the Nation's
240'th birthday.
This image is from the Island Mayor's July 4th Parade.
LET IT BE ME
The Summer Season is in swing and the Oaktown art scene is humming as
more and more talent flees the City that Used to Know How.
At the reinvigorated Fox, Widespread Panic holds forth for few days this
coming week.
Chris Thile takes a breather before assuming the weighty mantle of the
Prairie Home Companion as he joins banjo meister Bela Fleck July 19th.
Flogging Molly brings things down home August 3rd.
Things look sorta "meh" until the new Tedeschi Trucks collaboration
blows into town for two nights in September.
The Paramount will be hosting the Oaktown jazz festival, which oughta
do you fine.
Yoshi's West is appearing a bit schizo with Jon Cleary filling out the
slot for the Summertime Blues Series on 7/6, followed by the Ohio Players
for a couple nights and then Shawn Wayans, which is fine enough, but then
Lydia Pense shows up 7/11 for a jolting contrast. Some old school R&B
Soul fills out the schedule.
Look for Tommy Castro on 7/31 for some hot, funky blues and 8/8 for Maria
Muldaur.
The studios at Studio 25 are hopping with arts activity, with openings,
talks, walks and all sorts of exciting stuff for visual arts connoisseurs.
Vessel Gallery presents DISRUPTUS Essay and Photography by Dr. Ian Alan
Paul, monotype glass by Cheryl Derricotte, poetry by Nina Lindsay, painting
by David Burke, painting by Martin Webb, installation by Todd Laby, sculpture
and paintings by Christa Assad + Kevin Wickham, sculpture by Aaron Schuyler,
and poetry by Lynn Gentry.
INDEPENDENCE DAY
Went over the bridge to check out another small town parade. This time
we attended the parade for the tiny hamlet of Woodacre. Woodacre contains
one country store, a baseball field, a small post office, and a fire department,
but the latter is only because nobody in Marin could figure out where
to house the regional service. There are no streetlights, no sewer lines,
no school, no mayor and no home postal service. Since there are no public
buildings, people meet at the San Geronimo Community Center down Sir Francis
Drake. The total population is about 1,300 souls, including dogs.
The parade begins promptly at noon, with the firechief walking along
greeting people, followed by a fire truck. As entries line up everybody
talks to everybody. This shot reminds us that this area remains substantially
rural.
Seems a musician lives on every block around here.
The area is 91% Democratic. So sometimes it is okay to check
out a woman's rear end . . .
Olympians.
Lots of old cars around here. We looked at one and saw a
Caddilac Vee Six engine had been shoehorned into a 1929 truck. Unfortunately
the photo did not turn out.
Teddybear picnic?
Marin is the heartland for environmental causes.
It's a Volkswagen Bee-tle.
When is a horse not an horse? When it is a mule and a burro
. . .
At this point the hulagirl is seeing that the tree branches
over the road will scrape the roof of this truck . . .
No, we could not observe how the driver could see to drive
either.
This firetruck is from Stinson Beach, which is about 15
miles or so down the road and along the coast.
We have no idea what a thirty-foot tall zebra has to do
with Independence Day, but who cares.
Tossing candy to the kids.
There you have it. There was music and candy and motorscooters
and silliness and at the end of the day a fine time was had by all.
IF YOU WERE MINE
So anyway, July came bringing summer weather, with summer weather being
chilly evenings sheltered by high fog that burns off in the late morning
to yield to hot sun for a few hours. Butterflies dodge around the golden
poppies and hummingbirds dive bomb the blackberry bushes. School is out
and the teens are finding ways to amuse themselves without getting caught,
which generally involves cars, skateboards, spray cans, and, occasionally,
healthy athletic equipment.
Some of the young men and women who found they had been accepted to college
earlier began making preparations for this new beginning to their lives.
A few, accepted by either of the public systems, imagined that their lives
would not be changing much. They would keep their high school friends
and sweethearts and simply go off for a few months at a time to Chico
or Santa Cruz, LA or, for the smarter ones, San Diego. They would come
home to do laundry and drink beer with the bro's and hang with their best
buds, just like it always had been.
Then there were those heading East for the Ivie's or even further afield
to England. Luke Edger, who had spent much of his time at Encinal, Home
of the Jets (When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way. . .") getting
in trouble with Officer O'Madhauen and Officer Krumsky for tagging every
flat vertical bland surface he could find, had gotten accepted at Trinity
College to study art calligraphy, of all things,
One could say it was ironic for the boy to study letter writing at the
home of the famous Book of Kells, but it was certain he would not be returning
home to do laundry.
Gary Olafsson, who had been quite the reclusive, nerdy, writer-type for
his first few years at Washington on the East End before developing a
theatrical bent, bloomed and flowered as a stand-up comic with a routine
that featured a Lutheran pastor from Minnesota telling droll stories about
an imaginary small town. He was heading off to New York to study a year
at the prestigious Juilliard Academy with an additional scholarship from
the Rhode Island School of Design in his back pocket.
Over in Dan's Grocery there was a hubbub around the rhubarb for they
found Mrs. Olafsson flat on her back with the RISD acceptance letter in
her hand. When she had seen the news with her own eyes, she had just keeled
o'er.
Sara, Sarah-James, Aoife, Heather, and Christine, who had been inseparable
best buds ever since middle school, were now each to go their respective
ways. Aoife was heading off to Galway and the Gaeltacht to study storytelling
in Erse, Heather was heading for Berlin to study Art. Christine was going
to study Italian folk music in Verona, while Sara would be working with
the Southern Poverty Center in Appalachia. Sarah-James was going to study
hydrology at Sugar Hill Engineering.
The night before Aoife left, the group of them met at Crab Cove to pledge
undying loyalty by the light of the crescent moon and the sparkling eye
of the constellation Taurus overhead. They recalled old times and people
they had known and they drank chardonnay and remembered how, when they
were no more than eleven or twelve, they had gathered late at night in
the gymnasium to chant secret spells and levitate each other by using
just their fingertips. Something that should be impossible became true
when they were together. They each swore to meet again in a year.
So now Gary and Luke, the West Ender and the East Ender, are walking
around the lsland looking at the old haunts like the Javarama Coffeehouse
(aka, the Slut Hut") and Juanita's, wondering as they note the changes
in progress what will remain once they return from the far flung corners
of the globe. The florist's shop still had the green tile facade and the
neon sign, but it was not a florist shop inside anymore -- the shop had
closed a couple years ago and was now a boutique for handmade furniture
and high-end tchotchkes.
The Silversmith had closed, and Pagano's had moved while across the street
Ivy had retired with Ray, closing up the Vine's Garden Nursery and coffeeshop.
Gary stood on Webster and looked at the storefront that used to house
Joe's Barbershop where he had gotten his first haircut and seen his first
nudie magazine.
He was afraid that after returning from the East that the Island would
not be quite the same any more. Luke, coming out of the new Chinese restaurant
there noticed Gary standing there and walked on over to greet him.
"We never really hung together much," Gary said.
"We never hung together at all," Luke said. "But I saw
you around sometimes. You're East End."
"I don't think that matters any more," Gary said. "Now
we are both leaving."
"You went with that Masse girl a while," Luke said.
"O, Heather? We just sorta worked together. Performance stuff."
"Well, she's a fox," Luke said.
"Wouldn't mind chaining her up, if you know what I mean, but I am
sorta committed," Gary said.
"Yeah. Way it goes. I had a thing for her for a while, but you know
. . .".
"Think you will hook up with that O'Donovan girl while you're in
Ireland?"
"O . . . nah. She's too smart for me. And she'll be in the West
while I'm gonna be busy in Dublin. Besides I am sorta committed as well."
"She's pretty too, in her own way. That whole gang of them. Smart
as hell too."
"They each of them are gonna do well wherever they end up, that's
for sure. And still bein' foxy."
The two young men watched the desultory traffic and pondered the foxiness
of young women, their desirability and their attributes and their unattainability,
much as young men will do while standing on the street corner. Much as
young men have done since time immemorial.
"Well, I gotta be moving. Best of luck to you man."
"Same to you. Take care."
The two of them separated, each to pursue his personal destiny as the
light began to fade and the red star Aldebaran began to shine.
Which star was observed by the Editor from the deck behind the Island-Life
offices who consulted his electronic device. "Aldebaran is classified
as a type K5 III star, which indicates it is an orange-hued giant star
that has evolved . . . after exhausting the hydrogen at its core. The
collapse of the centre of the star into a degenerate helium core has ignited
a shell of hydrogen outside the core and Aldebaran is now a red giant.
This has caused it to expand to 44.2 times the diameter of the Sun . .
.".
"It is believed that in about 5.4 billion years, the sun will become
just like Aldebaran. It is calculated that the expanding Sun will grow
large enough to encompass the orbits of Mercury, Venus, and maybe even
Earth. Even if the Earth were to survive being consumed, its new proximity
to the intense heat of this red sun would scorch our planet and make it
completely impossible for life to survive. . . ".
The Editor closed the cover of his device thoughtfully and a moth fluttered
by to bang into the bushes.
Denby paused on his way out the door after working late on assignment.
"Wussup Boss?"
"Everything is fated to mutation," said the Editor. "Even
the sun itself. So! In that case I am going to have my scotch on the rocks
now instead of later, for it is hot at the moment."
"Whatever you say, boss," said Denby.
Out beyond the Golden Gate, Pedro reached over and switched off the radio
and sighed. His favorite variety program hosted by Pastor Rotschue had
just ended its final broadcast. The televangelist was retiring from radio
and there would be no more sermons to keep him company during the dark
hours returning from the fishing grounds.
"It's just you and me, Ferryboat," said Pedro to his cabinmate.
"Wuff!" said Ferryboat.
The long howl of the throughpassing train ululated from far across the
water where the gantries of the Port of Oaktown stood glowing with their
multi-kilowatt sentry lights; it quavered across the waves of the estuary,
the riprap embankments, the moonlit grasses of the Buena Vista flats and
the open spaces of the former Beltline railway; it moaned through the
cracked brick of the old abandoned Cannery with its ghosts and weedy railbed
and chainlink fences as the locomotive glided past the shuttered doors
of the Jack London Waterfront, headed off on its journey to parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
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