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JUNE 25, 2017

ONCE IN A VERY BLUE MOON

This shot was provided by Tammy, who thought she was capturing a full moon image. There was no full moon two weeks ago. This is actually the International Space Station. Still, it remains pretty evocative.

WHAT'S THE BUZZ

This past weekend was bracketed by two diametrically opposed events, and heaven knows how interesting it would be if the two could be somehow merged.

NASCAR held an event at Sonoma Speedway, which is a venue that changes names so often it makes journalists dizzy. In fact the old Speedway sign is still there out by Gate 7. Typically some 200,000 folks pay tickets to cram in there among the hoochie mamas in short pants and the Dirk Diggler Coors swilling types who still believe Sarah Palin has a brain while the elite fly in by helicopter and another several thousand vendors pack the booths even as Microsoft and Big Money types fly in for million dollar commercials up there on the bluff overlooking the action.

O yeah. There are the contender teams bringing in a few thousand more folks to pump fuel change tires really really fast in the pits.

So locals are always advised to stay clear of Route 37 and 101 in those environs, because it is a naked two lane county road that feeds all that traffic in and out of the place.

Meanwhile the rest of the country that has a heart and mind to speak of attended the SF Pride parade. This annual event takes place around the world although people in Turkey did not fare so well as water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas, and general police obnoxiousness were employed there to spoil the fun.

This year the emphasis was on renewed political activism as it is clear to everyone that we are experiencing a world-wide reactionary response to the dialectical movements of history. France pushed back by electing Macron. Germany pulled back from the face of fascism it knows better than anybody with the far right defeat there. Turkey remains Turkey. India is interested only in itself. And China is precisely what it is: the behemoth swelling into monstrous proportions in the East and bedamned to anything that happened in Tianemen Square. It remains for the US to regain its former lead status in front of the so-called Free World by deposing self-imposed kings and fascist ideologies.

We are following behind instead of leading, and that is more certainly not any sort of America First. It is only a thinly veiled program that is Fat Cat First. Wealthy first. Bedamned to all the rest of us. And their health plan is a good example of this sort of obscenity.

SUMMERTIME BLUES

So anyway. Monday turned out to be quite an hames. If you have ever been to the Gaeltacht, you know what this means. Mr. Howitzer was found by the cleaning ladies up on the landing of his mansion on Grand Street, drenched in a puddle of piss and entirely prostrate from heat exhaustion due his having fallen down on the marble -- rather exquisite imported Carrerra -- and dislocated a disk and in his thrashing about causing the electrical AC to fail utterly -- knob and tube is good enough as some say who want to save money --and there was a great deal of consternation and vilification in the Howitzer household although Dodd secretly smiled about his employer's misfortunes.

Denby emerged from the City Jail after suffering the consequences of another Javier's birthday and immediately went to have a drink. In the Old Same Place Denby remarked that Javier's birthday comes but once a year -- and that was good enough god damn it.

At the same time Jose got released from the Intensive Care Unit at the Island Hospital, with some good prognosis for recovery from the burns suffered on the same august occasion that sent Denby to jail.

Over at the St. Charles Lunatic Asylum the Angry Elf gang has been plotting revenges and injuries of all kinds to the gentlefolk of the Island. They have been meeting nightly during the heat wave with the Cackeler among them, issuing his demonic laugh over the sweet, innocent pines. The Angry Elf has sworn never to kill anyone -- outright. But there is always a possible exception and the possible idea causes the Cackler's glands to salivate.

One might have guessed the Angry Elf gang is not a salubrious collection of individuals, and you would be right. In every edenic garden there dwells a canker worm that devours roses and anything queer and beautiful. Such is the Angry Elf.

Down at the Old Cannery, a new erection is in progress. They are tearing out the old brick on the end so as to start converting the ghost-haunted place into a mini-office mall. Meanwhile Farahd's company The Savage Investors has been buying up the old Edwardians and subdividing them into condos and ritzy apartments. On a gray foggy morning, Old John's family packed up the last of their belongings into U-hauls so as to leave this Island home where they have lived so long and raised so many children, abandoning the wisteria that clung along the front porch for the more reasonable prices of the Valley. The elementary school is closing because of earthquake risk as has the old high school. Pagano's has moved, Vines has closed down, and Browns Shoes is gone. The Bakery that was there for half a century on Park Street moved out because of rent and McGrath's closed because people renting above the bar, supposedly, complained about the noise due to living above a bar. Harlan of the Signs on Santa Clara was evicted. Scads of people are leaving because of the exorbitant rents. There remain fewer reasons to stay.

The sun set on a rapidly cooling Island after the savage heatwave and the Editor stood out on the back deck, surveying the moon, the box elder, and the aperture of the Snoffish Valley Road with rolls of fog erupting from its dark mouth as seen fitfully between the trees beyond.

From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

JUNE 18, 2017

ALL ABOUT THE SERPENTINE FIRE

This week's headline photo comes courtesy of Tammy, who has captured the delicate eruption of Spring in the Bay Area with these Morning Glories.

WHAT'S THE BUZZ

Summer has arrived, if you did not notice. This past weekend saw a plethora of events for Father's Day Weekend. Webster Street held its "Island Jam", bringing a little musical life into the West End. This time around there was less of the boring "tribute bands" version of unoriginality and more soulful funk and groove with Dub Soul Latin All Stars, Mio Flores, the Shabang Steel Drum band and Native Son Ben Reyes bringing some Hawaiian R&B via Imua. Ben is an Encinal High grad.

For chuckles we reprint a Letter to the Editor that appeared in the Alameda Sun.

"Editor:
I don’t understand why after decades of trying to reduce tobacco smoking, we are now considering making it easier to smoke marijuana. Putting smoke in your lungs is a bad idea.

There are other problems associated with “medical marijuana” dispensaries as well. Removing the ban in Alameda is a bad idea. If Oakland wants to deal with it, let them. I hope this is not just another way to get money for the city."

Um, we hope that all this obscene rent gouging is not just another way to make money, too.

Go figure; we blame the state of the public schools.

Zyzzyva's big party took place this past Friday at the Make Out Room in Babylon. Daniel Handler emceed, DJ Teemoney (a.k.a. music and food writer Tamara Palmer) played '80s and '90s favorites, plus silent auction , specially . This was a partial fund-raiser to assist publishing one of the finest literary journals in the country and supporting writers, artists, and poets in our community.

A trio version of Kitka, the an American women's vocal arts ensemble inspired by traditional songs and vocal techniques from Eastern Europe, performed at the San Anselmo Library, which provided an international fillip of distinction to the small town there this past weekend.

Vallejo hosted the now annual Pirate Festival at its waterfront on Juneteenth. The festival is no longer free (admission is now $12) but we can say absolutely no one from the smallest rogue to the oldest graybeard and all ranges in between is ever disappointed by the jollity and marvelous enchantment of the costume event. Many Renaissance Faire folks show up there to practice their rude cockney accents and display astonishing cleavages amid the flash of rapiers, the clash of sabers and the cannon smoke of ship to shore battle enactments occurring on the hour. The Festival captured the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest assembly of pirates and we were there that year in full regalia.

June 25th is the 47th annual Pride Parade in Babylon, so get ready for the traffic and good vibes. Veteran organizers of the 1977/78 Gay Freedom Day Parade to be highlighted at this year’s March, which will begin at the Embarcadero One and go the length of Market Street to the Civic Center/UN Plaza.

It is Summer and extraordinary events are taking place this Season away from the Main Stages in all sorts of small venues so look around for what may be happening close by.

ONE OF THESE MORNINGS, YOU'RE GONNA RISE UP SINGING

So anyway, this Sunday was Father's Day. The sun arose, bold and furious, to slam the Island with incendiary fury. All the girls handling the teletypes and Morse code talking wires, sweat beading out on foreheads and drops dripping from wilted bangs started sending emergency messages East to where this brutal Balrog of whips and fire would soon come marching to make damn sure the Southeast would know all about Global Warming with punishing vengeance.

"Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord, but Satan has a hand in it as well when it comes to temperature for nothing can make you doubt the Lord's mercy like a vicious heat wave.

The Household gathered up the Fathers they could find and identify to take them for the annual brunch at Mama's Royal Cafe, a jovial place endowed with vigorous Feminine Power.

As if the Fathers had not figured out all that already. The way the world really works and how things get done.

Fathers tend to wind up on the short end of sentiment in this country. To tell the truth, one cannot really say one has raised kids so much as helped out at best while footing the bills.

Anyway. Suan was there with her father, the tall and distinguished Mr. Washington, and Tipitina was there with her father Adopho from New Orleans, Sarah with her father Claude Barrows and Little Adam "brought" Andre with the help of Marlene even though Andre was not his real father.

"I like Marlene mo' better," Adam said to Andre. "My mommie was a crank ho' and other daddy throw me from the car; he be a skanky son of a b----".

"Enough of that," Marlene said firmly. "Or we go home right now."

"Well now, young man," said Mr. Washington, with deep sonority that Suan called his "lawyer's voice," and which make a bass fiddle strings start to vibrate. "The facts of the case you are here now. And this man here is doing his best for your welfare. Perhaps you should consider alternative language."

And with that, round eyed Adam listened to the distinguished Mr. Washington and Suan was never so proud of her father as she was that day he bonded with the orphan child, who had indeed been discarded like so much trash from the open door of an automobile.

The group disbanded on the hot pavement outside as the merciless sun wrought hot spears out of the bright chrome on parked cars and turned everything metal and dull into curling irons to the hand, melting rubber and stabbing the heads of bald men with lancets of molten slag, the street becoming an oven in which everything cooked, sizzled, bubbled, and fried.

A news program drifted through the air from an open window -- something about President Rump withdrawing from the Parish Accords on Climate Change.

In his air-conditioned mansion, Mr. Howitzer III raised a solitary toast to Mr. Howitzer II, a Junior by traditional nomenclature, but the first to capitalize family assets upon land development, acquiring orphanages, low income housing, and International Hotels so as to toss out the residents and turn the buildings into condos and swanky resorts.

That Mr. Howitzer had done well until he had died up in the High Sierra in a place that had no ski lifts, expecting underlings to run to his aid as he fell down into a crevasse.

Pity the family mausoleum would be empty of that one, but nevertheless, the edifice remained over there in Colma, ready to receive another. Which most likely would be himself, as there were no more Howitzers of his kind any more. He was damned if he would waste good money to fetch that rotten carcass from that crevasse. As for the underlings, they had all been let go, save for Dodd, who was indispensable.

As Mr. Howitzer turned, he tripped and fell on the marble stairs and bumped down a landing until he came to rest in some discomfort due to a slipped disk. His cell phone skittered away and landed with a smack on the marble some thirty feet below. He tried to raise himself but the property management mogul could not do that without assistance because of the pain.

"Dodd! Dodd!" He called out. But there was no answer to the echos.

He reached out and pulled on a cord that ran along the railing and something came loose. That is when the fuse blew and the stairs went dark and the AC cut off, leaving Mr. Howitzer in the dark. He had always gone cheap with electrics, trusting electricians who said, "The light comes on; knob and tube is good enough for rentals."

"Dodd!" No answer. The house was empty. Dodd had left for the weekend to attend to his own family during the heat wave.

A trickle of sweat travelled down his brow. It started to feel very warm. The housekeeper would not return until Monday. He fished in his pocket and found some pills which he swallowed. No idea how many or what kind.

He looked up at the oil portrait of his father high above him. "O daddy daddy," he said.

"You always were a bad boy," said the portrait in Mr. Howitzer's delirium, and laughed.

"Doooooohhhhd!" yelled Mr. Howitzer III on the stairs.

But there was no answer. Dodd was far away. It got very warm.

From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

JUNE 11, 2017

IN THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER

All over the West strange blooms do occur. The plants spend most of their lives looking wretched, blotched, sickly and not very attractive, sometimes for years at a time. Then, the magic time happens, a shoot develops and within hours the entire plant is shaking like something from a Ripley Scott sci-fi movie.

Then IT erupts, blooming with visible progress within fractions of an hour - immense fragrant blooms that last only the night.

Those of us in the West know the mystery of the Night Blooming Cereus.

This one was knipsed by Chris Benjamin in Texas and is a bloom from a cutting taken by his mother well over forty years ago in Mexico.

GOWDY KIMBLE TO YOU

So anyway. There was a great hustle and bustle during the week with all sorts of people running around and nervous jumping up and down. Those who had them checked their weapons and those who did not looked for places to hide. It's that time of year again.

It was time for another Javier's birthday.

Javier is not a bad person, really. It is just that every year on his birthday people get injured and wind up in the hospital or jail or both.

Things always start out benignly as they did this past Thursday, with the sky providing a pleasant skein of mildly breezy clouds for a BBQ out at the Cove where rusted parts from the 188 howitzer someone brought a few years ago made a pleasantly nostalgic trellis for clambering morning glories. Mindful of what happened the year that the propane canister had exploded, igniting Jose into a ball of Sinaloan fire, the Household members brought good old fashioned charcoal and a limited amount of carefully shielded lighterfluid.

Other than a brief moment of tension when the Angry Elf gang drove by in an open convertible Miata, sneering and cackling and planning the unhappiness of some particular poor soul, the day passed uneventfully. None of Javier's violent ex-girlfriends showed up with guns, crossbows or poison blowdarts and an fine time was had by all there by the Strand with the gentle breeze stirring the old coastal oaks and kite surfers performing their acrobatics offshore and Pahrump turning over the wieners on the grill and all the pastors and preachers and deacons from the Island Faith-Based Initiative playing mumbly peg down the way and there was music from instruments and all sorts of jumping up and down with great abandon and it seemed for once that everybody would have a peaceful day that was Javier's 59th birthday, the old rake.

A little snafu happened when the drone Javier got as a gift from Martini, who had made it from spare parts found in the dumpsters, got hung up in the trees. Martini probably should not have made the control device from an old TV remote -- also found in the trash.

The thing sort of buzzed over Pimenta Strife and Omer making out with their clothes off in the canebrake near the pond, causing Omer to throw a rock at it, giving everyone quite an eyeful via the drone's camera. Javier next sent it over the Parlor for the Native Sons of the Golden West, while Omer's rock landed on the deck of Mr. Howitzer's yacht, startling Mrs. Cribbage in her lounge chair.

Mr. Cribbage picked it up and angrily threw it in the direction from which he imagined it had come -- the baseball field where the Otters were playing the Stingrays. The rock hit the secondbase man, causing him to cry out and distract the pitcher who lobbed such an easy one over the plate that Vinnie slammed it hard and out of the park while the secondbase man threw the rock back over the outfield in a wild throw and Javier's drone startled the squirrels and the birds to descend to peer briefly through the windows of the NSGW Parlor by the Marina. David and Wally ran out the door followed by the girls, causing Javier to yank the drone up and over to the palm trees where the storks had been nesting each year for decades.

The rock thrown by the secondbase man lobbed into Eighth Street where it struck the windshield of Dr. Titrake who responded by turning on his windshield wipers and accelerating suddenly so fast that his car leapt the curb at the hairpin curve there and ran smack into the windsurfer's shack, sending sailboards, athletes and equipment scattering in all directions while the rock flipped up to knock the transformer up on the pole that served the area. Sparks flew outward and an unlucky squirrel got fried into fritters in a millisecond as the palm fronds caught fire and the internet went out for blocks in all directions around Washington Park.

Meanwhile the baseball smacked out of the park struck Mr. Snail's mailtruck, causing him to veer to the right and so run over and kill Mrs. Kupcake's toy poodle, Dearie, in a way which involved the wheel crushing Dearie in the middle so that portions of her insides erupted explosively to the the left and right which caused Mrs. Kupcake much distress, but her daughter a great deal of delight for Imbecilla had detested the hound ever since it had bit her legs in nervous frenzy, drawing blood, while all the while Mrs. Kupcake had exclaimed, "That had never happened before! He is such a good dog!" even though it had and many times to Imbecilla and several other children. And so Imbecilla ran around with her hands holding bleeding viscera laughing and saying, "Here it is! His hideous beating heart! Just like that poem in school!"

Johnny Cash, the black Labrador from the Household, scooped up the ball and ran off with it.

In this time Javier's drone got hung up in the trees amid all this confusion and Wally came up with his 50 cal pistol -- certainly an ungainly and odd sort of thing, and so shot at it to bring it down, bringing down instead the top half of the palm tree which slammed into the BBQ, scattering hot coals everywhere while the drone flew off to the east towards the Southshore Mall, now unmanned as people and animals fled the destruction.

It was then that sirens began to wail.

Leaving all this chaos behind, the drone coursed along with its helicopter blades fashioned from cooling fans, bobbing and dodging all on its own past the outhouses, past the Post Office there and the decrepit Micky Dee's and the Sushi House and the bowling alley and then the West End Point and the Disputed Bicycle Bridge where it took due to a gust of wind a sharp right and so headed out over the narrows and the shoreline of Harbor Bay back over the Bay itself and so disappeared glinting on its mysterious solar-powered journey to Babylon and reaches beyond.

Back at the scene of Javier's birthday party, Carmelita had arrived with a crossbow firing flaming darts and Sylvia had arrived with a medieval weapon called in some circles a "morning star", and they were laying about with great vigor on account of not having been invited such that Jose was already pierced and battered some ten times as Javier escaped via a motorboat anchored in the lagoon for this very purpose.

When the police arrived, they arrested Denby, who sat there with his guitar, trying to stay entirely out of it. Jose, they took to the prison infirmary as all the likely suspects had already fled the scene and somebody had to pay. Such is the way of the world.

That night The Editor walked up and down the gangway of the Offices, thinking about the terrible situation that had gripped the Fourth Estate. For over two decades he had run a tight ship, conveying news and satire and always keeping the two religiously apart, but now with the Social Media Revolution and the advent of the new Post Truth Age his core values felt threatened. Indeed all the honorable newsies who had held to the rigorous standards of Edward R. Murrow felt marginalized and delegitamized by an agitprop machine that had no specific face, a cottony blather of nontruth, of deliberate fake news..

Out beyond the limits of the Island-Life office spotlights, the Angry Elf gang plotted new outrages, new crimes the like of which our century has yet to experience and suffer. Yet within the pale where Truth still held value, the Editor stood fast, a new Admiral Farragut at the helm.

Truth still matters, and he would see that it continued to do so.

Out beyond the dark treeline a fireball arose, another symbol for the Age in which regional conflict takes new meaning.

"What the heck was that?" Festus the messenger said.

"Must be Javier's birthday again," said the Editor. "Let's hope the disaster is not too costly this time."

"Ah tradition," said Festus.

From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

JUNE 4, 2017

SERPENT OF DREAMS

This week we noticed a lot of animal activity out there due to the wet Spring. People have seen plenty of deer, and we have scads of photos of turkeys. Somehow few people thought to record our garden friend who snags pests with delicious abandon.

Well okay, reptiles are not warm and cuddly like kittens and field mice. Nevertheless here we have one specimen on a trail near Whites Hill in Marin.

On the island we get mostly salamanders.

WHAT'S THE BUZZ

The Alameda Renter's Coalition is riding high lately after getting City Council to recognize the injustice of the massive no-fault eviction wave that was going on. Council voted to put a moratorium on no-fault evictions which have been blamed for contributing to the current Rental Crisis on the Island. Greedy Big Property landlords have been turning people out on the street so as to re-market units at rentals thousands of dollars higher than before, often without doing any serious infrastructure repairs or improvements.

The ARC is not sitting back, as the members know this will be a long, continuous battle against well-funded enemies, many of which come from out of town.

Spring season has begun. First Friday's continue in Oaktown's Uptown district with the galleries now having many more artist talks and walks, especially out of the Gallery 25 collective.

AFFINITY MINUS ONE

Toddled over to Babylon this Saturday to take in some of what Fort Mason is offering this Spring in the way of exciting performance via the San Francisco International Arts Festival. The marquee headline for the Festival is "In the Dark Times, will there also be Singing?" The line comes from Bertolt Brecht.

The Festival, which ran from May 25 to June 4 emphasized SF's position as a Sanctuary City, a term that encompasses more than the limited legal definition. The Mission Statement could not be more upfront and direct: To San Francisco the term Sanctuary means far more than its legal definition. It is an integral outcome of the multiple movements that have been building and conjoining in this part of the world for the last century . . . . We cannot let the crimes and hatreds that are emanating from the Trump administration be the dominant symbol of our country. WE are the symbol of our country. But we can only be that if we stand up together in solidarity and unity and say it at the top of our collective voices."

That said, we went to hear and see Mariah Parker, whose Indo Latin Jazz Ensemble is gradually getting some serious buzz, starting with heavy rotation and praise from NPR and Latin Beat Magazine as well as other serious Jazz critics.

Mariah Parker has been diligently writing and performing in the trenches for decades and now the World is turning to give her a serious listen.

Now that she has collected some luminaries to back her piano and santur ( Iranian hammered dulcimer) the woman is ready to rock.

Her band consists variously of Paul McCandless on oboe and clarinet (Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius, Wynton Marsalis, Steve Reich, Al Jarreau, Bruce Hornsby), Matthew Montfort on guitar (Swapan Chaudhuri, Zakir Hussain, and listed as one of the 100 greatest guitarists), Kash Killion on bass and cello (B.B. King, Sun Ra Arkestra, John Zorn), Ian Dogole on percussion (Alex DeGrassi, Music Beyond Borders), and Jim Hurley on violin (Alex DeGrassi, Tito La Rosa, Queen Ida, Monterey Jazz Festival)

These are not neophyte performers -- each one has headlined main stages worldwide.

Saturday the attendees at Gallery 380 were enchanted by the remarkable fusion of Eastern and Central American musical elements. It was pretty clear well before the standing ovation that Parker just may have fused the diamond and the pearl with her original compositions, performing exciting jazz that breaks rules and reminds us of what good jazz is all about -- creating a masterpiece moment by moment and then doing it again.

One has to hear a lot of tired museum pieces painting by numbers before you get to hear something like what we heard at Fort Mason this past Saturday.

THE TIME HAS COME FOR US TO PAUSE

So anyway. Spring has arrived and Javier's birthday is coming up. Everyone is bracing for whatever violence might ensue, for Javier's birthday has always been one event that features extreme ultraviolence, large explosions, destruction by fire and miserable disappointments.

"It has always been that way, " Javier says with a shrug. "What can one do with such a fate except simply accept it."

Wise words from the oft-times foolish Javier.

Also coming up with less disaster in mind, is trout season in the Sierra. Already the opener has let anglers loose upon the still ice-clad Crowley Lake. Eugene Gallipagus has been sorting his hares ears and his caddis fly casings and rewinding his reels for another foray into the High Sierra in search of the ever elusive mythic King Golden, a trout so majestic and intelligent that rumor had it that a captured specimen spoke with dolphins at Marine World before finding a devious escape that rivaled the Shawshank Redemption.

Marine World, which has suffered its own problems with wayward orcas dragging trainers around by their hair and sea lions dragging tourists into the pool, has tended to remain mum about things concerning the mythical King Golden. Sea World has its own problems.

Once, on a magical day, Eugene managed to hook the fabled King Golden, but at that time Eugene being inveigled with liquor and the buttery tongue of the Golden, was persuaded to let the prize go free, only to descend from on high telling tales of enormous trout seven feet long and encrusted with jewels and delivering the sermon of the Trout upon the Mountain.

High in the Sierra, nigh upon Lake Martha and Wotan's Parkinglot at 11,500 feet elevation, the original Golden Trout were thought to have originated. Who knows what strange brood did dwell and mature in that dark, bottomless tarn at the base of Mount Goddard? What strange seep eons ago produced the jelly form that became the walking fish that became ape that became man? No one knows, but the Shadow knows.

And perhaps Eugene, who has spoken with the King Golden, but it is hard to tell for Eugene is quite addle-pated in mind.

You could claim it all stemmed from that episode with the King Golden, but that would be entirely wrong. Ever since Eugene's days at Encinal High, he has been known as that boy who is not the sharpest tool in the shed.

The weather got hot this weekend. The sun became a savage hammer and the earth, its anvil. In these days of global warming, each swing of weather ranges higher and farther and faster than before. From cold to hot and back again and then to blazing hot.

All along the Strand families gathered to take in the sun and the cooler breezes while sailboarders romped just off shore amid the diamond glittering Bay surface, scintillating with flecks.

Martini, who was not fit for such sportiv tricks nor made to court an amorous looking glass, spent much of Saturday munging about the ironmongery garden, primping the tomatoes and encouraging the pole beans. There are smokers in the house and he collects their butts assiduously so as to soak the tobacco shreds and so leach the poisonous nicotine into an homemade insecticide which he pours on the young shoots.

It does work, for cigarettes kill people and they kill bugs and Martini uses the extract to kill bugs. A generation of whiteflies wiped out.

"Sarah, " says Martini. "I hate to see you die. You are so delicious with your chocolate skin, but can I have your cigarette butts when you are done killing yourself?"

Well you know, Martini has this imagination.

Soon enough the sun sets and the cool breezes sweep in from offshore. The Angry Elf gang plans its next arson episode up on the third floor of the St.Charles Asylum and while watching for red light runners down by the Cannery, Officer O'Madhaun starts calculating all about retirement barely months away.

The Editor surveys his kingdom after hours, all the desks vacant and monitors glowing. Distant sound of the news tickertape. Time to inhale and get ready for the next one, whatever it may be. Rump is already stale news. He now has a boring procedure of bad behavior and lousy decisions. We look now to whatever is next.

Out on the back deck of the Offices, the Editor looks out into the darkness shrouded by the immense box elder tree. Everything was changing. He had in hand a letter from Howitzer and Crump that the lease was up for renewal and certain increase in rent.

The Angry Elf gang had been seen driving by and scoping out the place.

Maybe time to consider relocation. The Editor puffed on his cigar.

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown to keen across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

MAY 28, 2017

BUCKEYE JIM YOU CAN'T GO

This week's image is of a flowering buckeye spike. Each year the barren branches suddenly erupt with leaves followed by thousands of these spikes on thousands of trees all over NorCal, but especially up in Marin.

We had a Django film night here -- hence the title, referring to a very old early blues dating from the Slavery days, which was turned into a children's lyric by Burl Ives.

WHAT'S THE BUZZ

This is the time when all venues and acts are taking a breath before the big Summer season. Even The Rump has taken a pause to his incessant tweeting after a more-or-less successful visit abroad during which the President did not appear to offend anyone.

Well, the bar has been set pretty low for success these days.

The AUSD finally decided definitively what to do with the Lum School and the result was hardly surprising. The Board of Education for the Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) voted unanimously Tuesday, May 24, to move students off the Lum Elementary School campus for the 2017-18 school year. The decision came at Tuesday's school board meeting.

The decision came after consultation from several geotechnical, structural and architectural engineering firms, all of which concluded the Lum building foundations cannot withstand the significant soil liquefaction in the event of a strong earthquake.

The district plans to move kindergarten to third grade students to neighboring elementary schools. The board will then create a separate elementary program for fourth and fifth graders on the Wood Middle School campus.

Lum opened in 1961. The campus consists of single-story buildings, with groups of classrooms, or pods, circling a common area.

Marin lost a native son on the Island recently. A May 12 kiteboarding accident at Robert W. Crown Memorial State Beach took the life of Brett Spence Powell, 57, of Fairfax. Witnesses said that the accident happened about 4 p.m.

The wind lifted the victim some 50 feet off the water. He lost control of his rig and crashed into an electrical box.

Paramedics transported Powell to Highland Hospital in Oakland. Despite wearing a helmet, Powell succumbed to severe head and neck injuries some four hours after the accident. He leaves behind a wife and son.

The area immediately offshore the beach is a highly sought spot for windsurfers and similar sport enthusiasts due to the constant winds and the low water depth which seldom exceeds five feet extending well over 200 yards from shore.

Last week nine people were put on three day hold at the Pavilion and a dog bite was reported in the regular police report.

CAN'T WRITE WITH MY LEFT HAND

So anyway. Last day of school is June 8 for most with official graduation slated for Friday, June 9. A number of schools independent of the District have already held commencement exercises while Berkeley kids have to wait until 6/16 to get let out of the cubed tedium and torture, replete with meaningless rules and hoop-jumping meant to prepare young men and women for a life in the workforce.

On Tuesday night last, when the land was still sizzling from a hot day after sundown, Little Adam got recalcitrant about doing his studies.

"Mayyyyyyyyyyn! It be end of year and I done all my tests now. Save for that lit thing and that be a cakewalk. Why do I hafta keep ON with this bull pucky?"

Marlene did not stand there with her arms crossed. She did not threaten or cajole. The Girl with the Ruined Womb simply said, "Do it. Then you can go out."

That was that. It was all unfair and certainly a conspiracy, but Andre did what he was told and opened the books on the table with the lamp. Pahrump had salvaged the table from the street and Martini had found the lamp in the trash and got it working. Jose had stabilized the desk and the chair with nailed furniture glides. All of them were rooting for the boy to succeed.

"How come you guys are always on my case," Adam asked.

"Because we don't want you to end up living in a squalid squat among bad companions like me," Javier said.

"I thought you live HERE," Adam said.

"Nevermind all that about me," Javier said. "Dig into it."

Yaaaaah!" Snuffles the Bum said, his wide open mouth displaying his destroyed dentures.

All over the Bay Area poppies and buckeyes had erupted after a wet end to the rain season. Calla lilies and irises had all laid their bodies down on the grave of Spring as Summer advanced. Turkeys blather among the thistles now beginning to bug out after all the recent rain and fawns dance away after a moment of serious staring from under the eves of dusk. All along the ridgetops the creeping fog brings images of goblins and elves mounted on horses, descending the woods in the lengthening shadows.

The girls still wear high leather boots, but copping to the warming temps, their shirts have gotten shorter. Spandex boys return from long bike rides in the hills and the scent of BBQ fills the air, mingling with mint and exploding roses. On the edge of the Snoffish Valley Road the kids lean up against the car hoods, sipping beers, making plans for what to do after graduation.

It's the magical time between Spring and Summer, when the entire world holds its breath, waiting for what is to come next.

Up on the third floor of the St. Charles Asylum for Demented Control Freaks, members of the Angry Elf gang planned their next round of arsons and they pooled their collection of stolen credit cards, copying down the numbers to sell at the print shop front run by Bryan King in Oaktown. A full length poster of Meyer Lansky hung on the wall. Some things never change, no matter the season.

Night falls and the Editor stands in the back yard, leaves of the box elder brushing the top of his head.

And he remembers.

It is a day for remembering. Remembering the slow chug chug of the boat heading away from the place of yardarms and equipment up a slow, brown, chug chugging river past houses and people wearing conical hats staring. Remembering the way everything closes in with foliage and heat. Everyone getting off at the landing place and heading out into the jungle world full of green water trails and mud and everywhere the dense plantation so verdant that even the butterflies were astonishingly green.

He remembered Raymond. And then Johnny. Two kids from Fairfax, Virginia who although they lived only a mile apart, never really knew each other. Raymond went to Jefferson High school, graduated and then the draft took him first.

Johnny's dad was a Colonel and so they fudged the papers and he went in underage after Raymond. Jimmy, Johnny's brother had always been the wilder one so he got sent up to Lorton after robbing the 7-11 outside of Washington D.C. That's why they did not take him.

Johnny, always the slighter one, with a mysterious olive complexion and those dark eyes that looked so different from his brother's which some say came from the Colonel's visit to Japan, always had had something to prove, always being the tagalong until Jason got tired of it and yelled at him to stand up and be something for himself.

So Johnny did. It was the time when Hendrix had just exploded onto the music scene amid a whirlwind of changes and disturbance, with people burning the flag and protesting and cussing the President and in the sheltered world outside of DC, the White outrage at all this disrespect. So the Recruiters took the kids and sent them off to fight the bad, old Communists who were planning to turn Asia into a line of dominoes. But we were going to give 'em hell and drive them all back north of the DMV. We were going to bomb them back into the stone age.

Or so it was told.

As for Raymond, he joined the Electrician's Union out of high school with his Harley in the drive and plans for the future. He stepped in sometimes to separate the boys when they got to fighting, being the peacemaker in the neighborhood. But Uncle Sam had other plans for him.

And then, of course, his own father had put him into the Corps. Because he needed whipping into shape and the old man knew that once a Marine you always a Marine until the day you get lowered beneath the ground.

It's Decoration Day.

Jason returned from his stint as a sapper, defusing all the unexploded ordinance that had been intended to return the VC to the stone age and which had failed to do that. He kept all his fingers although some of his buddies had not been so lucky, and he broke up with his high school sweetheart who got tired of him waking up in the middle of the night, screaming. Eventually he calmed down somewhat and got himself a new lady and he works now as a machinist for Veriflo in Richmond and everyday he comes out to gab with other Nammies by the picric table during the lunch break. A sort of return to that camaraderie.

He could never remember the name of his radio guy, the boy hit out at the racetrack while the guy in the chopper circling overhead kept going "What the f****!" over and over on the channel. It bothered him he did not remember the name of the radio guy.

Although the feel of leaves around his head provided some sense of comfort, just like avoiding open plazas and the open spaces around flagpoles, he returned to the Offices and his glassed cube and the pool of light cast by the desklamp where he sat with the remaining white hair flying about his head in a glowing aureole.

Then his own father died, but the war kept on. As it turned out, it would never end.

It's Decoration Day beneath the pool of light at the Editor's desk. All around the muttering darkness hung like sable curtains, while out there beyond the ring of reflecting eyes and stars was, possibly, a like mind.

A hummingbird buzzed up to the glass that faced the yard and hung there a moment, a little jeweled gift sparkling in the reflected light, before zipping off after deciding the Editor was not, in fact, a flower and it was night time, an unusual time for hummingbirds.

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown to keen across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

MAY 21, 2017

HOMEWARD BOUND

There are few images more iconic than this one for Islanders, most of whom work in Babylon and many of which take the Ferry as part of their daily commute. There are few commuting means quite as civilized as this one, which enables people to make acquaintance with their fellow commuters, build friendships, fall in love, catch up on the gossip, and gaze poetically out for 45 minutes from the tafrail of the high-speed catamarans upon the seascape.

This shot features the famous Ferry building which itself suffered damage during the 1906 fire. As thousands struggled to escape the doomed City by ship, the entire facade fell into the water. Today, the building houses hundreds of shops and is a frequent meeting spot for natives.

LIKE THE WEATHER

You better like the weather if only because there is nothing one can do about it. The Bay Area got body slammed with a heat wave, seeing San Rafael and Oakland temps climb suddenly to the upper eighties.

This coming week promises more than relief as the temperatures steadily drop to a high of 66 in Marin and a substantially cooler 63 in Oakland by Thursday.

If you think this balmy weather means sun and fun in the high country -- think again. Howard the Dweeb reports that SoCal elevations got some 10 inches of snow these past few days and Mammoth garnered an inch or so.

Indications look good for the Spring thaw continuing in the Sierra, however with temps warming to the 60's. Everyone says the waterfalls are all going great guns in the Yosemite Valley.

The Tioga Road (Highway 120 through the park from Crane Flat to Tioga Pass) is closed due to snow. There is no estimated opening date; in years with similar snowpack, the road has opened in late June or early July.

The May 16th update from NPS goes as follows: Plows ended one mile west of May Lake. Crews are progressing from west to east about one mile per day as they plow through snow that is 8 to 10 feet deep.

Forestry crews have begun removal of hazard trees (dead or diseased trees that might fall onto the road) between Crane Flat and White Wolf, and in the Crane Flat Campground.

Got an Island-Lifer visiting the famous lodge in a week or so, and we will have some reports from that excursion, soon as the hangovers wear off . . .

WHAT'S THE BUZZ

Quite a lot of bizarre stuff came over the transom this past week, leading us to think that the portals of the psychic madhouse have been unhinged in letting out the crazies.

The current situation in the American Executive Office certainly contributes to that sensation.

In Hayward a man doused a number of people in a Denny's restaurant with lighter fluid and attempted to set them and the restaurant on fire. The man has been detained for psychiatric evaluation.

A couple people were shot on 880 in Hayward, which makes this the 111th freeway shooting this year. Cannot people just drive their cars and go someplace without having a violent hissy fit?

The Rental Crisis continues to provoke strong reactions. A group of property owners marched to City Hall on Monday to express their displeasure at the prospect of the City Council possibly overturning parts of City Ordinance 3148, which the voters approved last November as Measure L1. They do not support the removal of a property owner’s right to terminate a lease without just cause and apparently had time and leisure to make their protest happen on working Monday.

Mayor Trish Spencer will host the second of three “Town Hall Meetings for a Cause” from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., this Saturday, May 20, at 1400 Bar and Grill, 1400 Webster St. Residents are welcome to discuss topics that interest them with the mayor and others in attendance.

A representative from Jean Sweeny Park will offer updates about the park. Voluntary donations will be accepted for the park. Spencer will host the third meeting on June 3 at Jim’s on the Golf Course with a presentation about Junior Golf.

With the Spring Season now embarked, schools holding graduations and weather turning positively sunny, plenty of events going on around the Bay.

Dorianne Laux, one of our favorite local poets, has a new book out and should be giving readings in support of that effort.

The Oakland Book Festival looks to be entering an annual sort of tradition. It got held this weekend with some significant luminaries in attendance, including Alice Walker.

Park Street will hold its usual lineup of street fairs. The usual suspects will appear with tribute bands outnumbering creative originals. Up to this point the events are family safe and no gang activity has taken place.

The Island is now 100,000 inhabitants. Gangs and petty Mafia is here. Some things are bound to happen eventually.

THEN CAME THE LAST DAYS OF MAY

So anyway. Everybody was looking to beat the heat that suddenly slammed the Island. It got so hot that both Javier and Pimenta Strife put off all thought of having sex with anybody. Which ought to tell you just how severe the weather had gotten.

Mr. Howitzer held a garden party out back behind the mansion on Grand Street in honor of the recent accomplishments for their favored President Select, Ronald Rump, President of the Bums. Mr. Howitzer hired Bobo the Clown who came dressed in florid rags and sporting an unruly blond wig and many thought he was a hired impersonator, for Bobo had indeed run for office several times in the past under the slogan, "Put a real Clown in Office! Then you will know for sure!"

But no, Bobo was not there to satirize anyone in particular, although, because life in America had gotten so strange in these times, it was hard to tell what was satire and what was plain confusion.

In any case Dodd was kept busy bustling back and forth with mixed drinks and cushions for the Tushes and doing all the things people who know how do to make things work.

Mill Valley sent over a contingent that called themselves the Mill Valley Milles, which one was to take as either millionaires or females or both. Probably both was intended.

The Milles arrived in European cars and brought splendid bouquets and arugula salads, which Mr. Howitzer found quaint and had Dodd put them into the freezer. They kept mostly to themselves as they seldom ventured far from the Marin Bubble, which possesses many insular qualities, save to attend the Black and White Ball and ACT's latest edition of Shaw or French neoclassical drama.

The Mill Valley Milles were there because they had heard of civil unrest among the hoi polloi and seeds of dissension regarding something called a "Rental Crisis", which they were concerned might spread with undue satisfaction to the North.

"O do not worry," Mr. Howitzer said. "We have this rent control thing nipped in the bud. And besides, if things get serious, we will simply kill them all."

"O I certainly hope it does not come to that!" said Mary Auberge, a Branson grad. "That would be distressing!"

"Of course we do not want that," said Mr. Howitzer. "That would mean so many less to pay rents! We are not stupid here!"

A scream cut through the conversation; Mrs. Cribbage had gotten drunk once more and fallen into the coi pond again.

"Help me!" Anne Cribbage cried out. "I am drowning!"

Everyone stood around holding their gin rickey's and tom collins glasses; the pond was about two feet deep and the colorful coi, some with ancestry going back a thousand years, darted to the far corners to avoid Mrs. Cribbage's flailing limbs.

"Anne, please calm down!" Someone said. "You are going to be all right; help is on the way."

"I don't know why my life is so . . . such. I am always at the ends of things and Edward is graduating this week and going away forever!"

"Now now, Mrs. Cribbage . . .".

The light dimmed and the Season advanced with its traditions, including graduations with tossed hats in the air and invited speakers. Over at Washington, Mr. Lithgow, the Superintendent for the school for the past thirty years, surveyed the stakes and markers and the ranks of chairs before the ceremonies as usual. And as usual he and Sister Profundity from the Church and Pastor Milque from the Baptist Community kept wary eyes on the incoming grads, soon to be outgoing citizens. Every year it had been the tradition ever since the Founder arrived from Minnesota in 1849, for the departing class to let loose one last Senior prank upon the school.

The Sister checked for the presence of waterguns and the Pastor kept a lookout for unusual wires, but Mr. Lithgow was far more seasoned, far more experienced than either one of his colleagues who taught Religion classes during the year.

Missy Melons stepped up to the podium to deliver the valedictorian speech. She was smart and well-groomed and already had her acceptance letters from MIT and Harvard in her pocket and she was confident as all hell.

"Fellow students and graduates of the Class of 2017, we have journeyed far in our four years together . . .".

Sister Profundity and Pastor Milque looked around anxiously so as to locate where trouble sure was to arise and so stop it in its tracks. It really was just a repetition of what they had been doing for several years.

Mr. Lithgow simply stood patiently with a shovel, a bucket, a towel, and a garden hose, knowing he had done already as much as one could do for this Class of 2017.

"One thing I would ask of you, my fellow students, with whom I have lived and endured and enjoyed and suffered so much, please do not toss your hats into the air for as you must know we must rent these caps and gowns and must return them undamaged to the retailer at the end of the day. For we do not own these objects that we pass from generation to generation as tokens of tradition and common cause . . ." Missy continued. "We are all in this together. . . ".

That is when the fireworks went off from under every single seat in the field, a flock of starlings was released from hidden cages located at four corners of the field, and all the grads tossed their caps into the air before dropping their gowns so as to parade, each and every one, stark naked to the stage, which was abruptly vacated by the President, the Speaker invited from Washington D.C. and the Trustees, leaving the pile of ceremonial parchments on the table there in a box.

The Sister and the Pastor stood there aghast. Mr. Lithgow simply dropped his garden hose and retired to his office where he cracked open a bottle of Glenfiddich and so toasted the benighted and dismissed Class of 2017.

All along the ridgelines of the Bay Area, especially along the hills that hovered over the Belvedere lagoon, the Spring fogs crept over like Tolkein spells to enchant the Bay. The burning sun dropped below the horizon and last spears lanced through the foliage to illuminate the noisy turkeys making their calls. Down along the Snoffish Valley Road already the teens were engaged in nighttime speed duels to the death with girls wearing shortie shorts leaning up against the hood, sipping warm beers, ready for anything.

Spring had begun with its customary savage nature. You can put out Nature with a pitchfork, so says the man, but it will always come roaring back.

The Editor sat in his glass cube, the desk illuminated by the usual pool of light while all around hung the muttering darkness. Somewhere out there beyond the ring of eyes reflecting back the light, somewhere out there was a like mind. And so he sat there night after night, doing all for Company.

The windows of the offices were all open and moths banged into the screens. All the desks were silent, all the staffers gone home. The telephones had ceased their inane chatter of indifferences.

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown to keen across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

MAY 14, 2017

HOME, HOME THAT'S WHERE I WANNA BE

Here is an image provided by FB friend and islandlifer Rich Branchaud after an evening meal at one of the estuary restaurants on this side.

Rich would not comment on the food, but did provide this pic, so we guess we still have miles to go on the culinary department here across from JLS.

WHATS THE BUZZ

We hear that ARC (Alameda Renter's Coalition) remains active. Not sitting back on their heels waiting for elections, the feisty group is pushing Council to enact moratoriums and other rental controls in the interim during this Rental Crisis which is now generally acknowledged around the ABAG circle of Bay area governments. Pressure is on to build more affordable housing to match the lavish homes and condos so favored by developers. The State is starting to seriously scrutinize municipalities that fail to construct sufficient housing so as to provide a relief valve to the overheated market here.

Two bodies found in the water have been identified. IPD has listed the fellow found in the lagoon April 29th as 24-year-old Luis Perez-Diaz. This one is not being investigated as homicide although another body found offshore within the week IS being investigated as such.

In both cases, first responders did not stand on the shore to watch the men drown, which is a new thing on the Island.

Planning on buying property here? Make sure you have plenty of Life Insurance.

Investigation about the 2nd corpse remains under wraps.

O yeah there is a street art faire and shit like that going on. Bodies in the water and street faires. And there is Frank Bette Center for the Arts and the shopping mall stuff. And bodies in the water. And the Angry Elf gang processing your stolen credit card numbers and burning cars in front of businesses as a threat. But heck, come to the Island for Fun in the Sun and Your Summer Fun Destination. Don't mind the Hell's Angels retirees. They are mostly quiet until they kill somebody.

WINTER IS JUST THE CURTAIN. SPRING WILL TAKE THE BOW

So anyway. It has been awhile since we have visited the President of the Bums. The President, unhouseled and untrammeled as he is, doth maintain sometime residence as such footless souls do regard as residence, be it sometime underpass and sometime pisser's cottage, holds forth in Sacramento, which all can agree houses and holds a plenitude of bums.

On Tuesday President Rump held forth upon this throne of porcelain and gummi with all his Cabinet beside and many more besides hoping for free eats. To begin with, it has been 100 days of Rump's overture, which we expect daily to resolve to a grand symphony of either farts or deliverance more solid. Such is the hope of many a NeoCon and Conservative in the FartLand.

President Rump was much put out about people accusing him of too much Russian influence, and he was quick to respond on Twitter that Russian dressing was all the rage and anybody who used anything else on their salad was a LOSER.

Rump received a highborn Russian dignitary named Sergie Bananamonkey Andropov Pisseipunk, despite the many objections from the demonized Fifth Estate.

In more important spheres, the Household held their annual Mother's Day brunch at Mama's Royal Cafe in Oaktown. People who still had mamas alive brought them to the brunch there. Others sent flowers and cards to gravesites and memorials. Mr. Howitzer brought a bottle of brandy and his pellet gun to shoot the crows that roosted on the family sepulcher out in Colma. Every year Mr.Howitzer would drive out there and sit on the headstone belonging to the Ford family or the Crockers and, while taking nips from his flask, pot crows that insisted on circling down to alight on dear mama's mausoleum.

Some years he would return with a brace of some ten or twelve ravens and order Dodd to make of them a pie and Dodd would toss the carcasses into the garbage and order a blackberry tart from Just Desserts.

So it goes. So goes Tradition.

So anyway. Martini decided he would admire the final wishes of Aunt Liz by dropping her ashes into the Bay, and since Aunt Liz had been a bowling fan, her ashes had been packed into a bowling ball. So Martini got Wally to tether him to the back of Wally's speedboat and tow him out on skis with a parasail to the middle of the Bay. There Martini was supposed to go aloft with this bowling ball and then drop it kerplunk into the Bay in front of the Mill Valley Mother's Association so as to celebrate Mothers on Mother's Day.

So the boys set out to do this while the Island Hoophole Orchestra was playing a Beatles medley and the radio was playing a rerun of an old Prairie Home Companion episode and everything went well until Martini arose on the parasail with the bowling ball hanging on a chain between his legs -- stop now if you have heard this one before -- and the chain slipped down pulling down Martini's pants and the whole thing, pants, and bowling ball and ashes and all went kerplunk into the sandflats and Martini rose suddenly higher without any pants proceeding directly in front of the Mill Valley Mothers all assembled on bleachers there, each with complementary baskets and roses and quite an eyefull of Martini and all of his masculine assets.

They all thought this was part of the programme and so they all applauded quite politely.

The Mother's Day program went otherwise without a hitch and so people were not terribly put out about the show's fiasco; There remained the muddy bowling ball and what to do about that, but anyway. It did take some doing to send a punt out there with Pahrump pushing the pole the entire way and fetch mother's ashes and the bowling ball after several tides had passed.

From Mama's Royal Cafe Jose's mother led the group to a marketa where they bought masa and then they returned to the House so that Jose's mother could demonstrate how to make proper tortillas, the thick kind that are proper food for a man.

O really, said Tipitina.

You make like this and you get you a man. Not living so alone in a cold bed. I fix you for sure. Said Jose's mother. I get you married in quick time.

Tipitina just rolled her eyes.

In just a few short hours she had the household sweeping, cleaning and setting things straight. She even got Snuffles busy with the vacuum. She was something, that mother of Jose. The entire place got organized. For the first time in quite a long while the place looked orderly and clean.

So! She said, this mother of Jose. Next time I visit you make sure the hamster tubes are polish clean! Hokay I gotta go make sure your father is not fall over drunk again with the fish.

What this meant exactly, only Jose knew, but he sighed heavily with the knowledge.

So, said, Rolf. Your mother comes from Sonora and here you are. How is this possible?

I think, said Jose, by now you have some idea why I live here and my mother lives over there.

Do you not love your mother, someone said.

Distance, said Jose, makes the heart grow fonder.

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown to keen across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

MAY 7, 2017

WALK ON

This week, since Island boosterism seems to be in vogue, we present an image from Carol Traylor's "Walking Crab Cove".

WHAT'S GOING ON

Got another national chain food recall in order. Aunt Jemima Frozen Pancakes, Other Products Recalled For Possible Listeria Contamination. The recall affects several Aunt Jemima frozen products. Check to see if you have any of these products in your freezer.

Included in the recall:

AUNT JEMIMA LIL GRIDDLERS BLUEBERRY, UPC Code:14.5oz019600054603

AUNT JEMIMA MINI PANCAKES 14.5oz, UPC Code:019600054801

AUNT JEMIMA FRENCH TOAST 12.5oz, UPC Code:019600057703

AUNT JEMIMA CINNAMON FRENCH TOAST 12.5oz, UPC Code:019600058908

AUNT JEMIMA WHOLE GRAIN FRENCH TOAST 12.5oz, UPC Code:019600059684

AUNT JEMIMA BUTTERMILK PANCAKE LOW FAT 14.5oz, UPC Code:019600061007

AUNT JEMIMA HOMESTYLE WAFFLE 17.18oz, UPC Code:019600062004

AUNT JEMIMA BUTTERMILK WAFFLE 17.18oz, UPC Code:019600062103

AUNT JEMIMA BLUEBERRY WAFFLE 17.18oz, UPC Code:019600062202

AUNT JEMIMA LOW FAT WAFFLE 17.18oz, UPC Code:019600062301

AUNT JEMIMA BLUEBERRY PANCAKE 14.8oz, UPC Code:019600064701

AUNT JEMIMA OATMEAL PANCAKE 14.8oz, UPC Code:019600064909

AUNT JEMIMA WHOLE GRAIN PANCAKE 14.5oz, UPC Code:019600066408

AUNT JEMIMA BUTTERMILK PANCAKE 14.8oz, UPC Code:019600068204

AUNT JEMIMA HOMESTYLE PANCAKE 14.8oz, UPC Code:019600069102

AUNT JEMIMA 60CT CLUB PANCAKES PREMIUM, UPC Code:019600435907

AUNT JEMIMA PANCAKE MEXICO 60CT, UPC Code:019600435921

The following products are being recalled in conjunction with the United States Department of Agriculture:

AUNT JEMIMA FRENCH TOAST & SAUSAGE 5.5oz, UPC Code:051000063915
HUNGRY MAN SELECTS CHICKEN & WAFFLES 8/16oz, UPC Code:658276202903

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The Sebastopol Community Cultural Center presents a special evening with:
Michael Krasny of KQED's the Forum, in conversation with Jane Smiley

Sunday, June 18th from 4:30pm – 9pm

Tickets on sale April 24 at 10am!
$150 per person VIP seating, includes meet and greet with the author, a champagne reception, full course meal, and fine wines, in addition to the speaker presentation.
$30 per person speaker presentation only

KQED radio talk show host Michael Krasny will be joined by author Jane Smiley, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning A Thousand Acres, the much-acclaimed The Greenlanders, as well as many other novels, short stories, nonfiction books, and young adult novels. She is a prolific author who has written on politics, farming, horse training, literature, impulse buying, marriage, and many other topics. Her most recent book is Golden Age, the third in a trilogy that spans 100 years of a Midwestern family's history.

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It is poetry month, if you had not noticed, and a great number of events are taking place around the Bay.

Kristen at the Mill Valley Public Library lets us know that the Library will host a Poetry World Series, titled Take Me Out to the Library - A World Series Unlike Any Other!

Friday, April 21 at 7:00pm

Author Daniel Handler returns to emcee our annual 6th Annual Poetry World Series with an all new lineup of poets. Sign up now for this lively evening of wordplay, wit, and all-around verbal athleticism, as two teams of well-known Bay Area poets swing for the fences. A panel of judges scores each performance, with the winners decided solely on the basis of their spontaneous poetic bravado. You don't have to be a poetry lover or a sports nut to enjoy this quirky and irreverent competition.
Featured Poets: Zubair Ahmed, Julia B. Levine, Devorah Major, Roy Mash, Brynn Saito and Charif Shanahan

For adults and high school students only. Pregame refreshments (beer and popcorn) starting at 6:30pm for registered guests. Program starts at 7:00pm.
For registration go to MillValleyPublicLibrary.org

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Vessel Gallery in the Gallery 25 building in Oaktown will be holding a ARTIST TALK ON SATURDAY, May 13 at 2PM. Vessel Gallery presents Excuse Me, Can I See Your ID? A Group Show Celebrating Asian-Pacific Islander American Artists thru Art + Film.

May is Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. Vessel Gallery's group exhibition Excuse Me, can I see your ID? is an exploration of AAPI identity - in all of its complexities and nuances. Exhibiting artists Cherisse Alcantara, Rea Lynn de Guzman, Dave Young Kim, Hyeyoung Kim, Kyong Ae Kim, Juan Santiago, Sanjay Vora, and Evan Yee will discuss their work on view and how their identity and experience as an AAPI artist presents itself in their work.

The show, which opened April 27th, has received rave reviews from KQED, the Huffington Post, and Art Ltd. Magazine.

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Mural Tour with Artist Dave Young Kim

Saturday, June 10, at 2pm | $15

Explore Oakland's murals with Vessel Gallery and Oakland artist Dave Young Kim. During the tour, we'll take a closer look at some of the beloved Oakland murals in Uptown and Downtown that we've all seen, but perhaps not had a chance to examine. Kim, who has painted murals in Oakland and across the world, will look at murals that investigate the human condition and how we're all interconnected.

Meet at 2pm at Vessel Gallery, 471 25th Street. Wear your walking shoes as we'll travel to the various murals on foot. We'll grab a drink after the tour at a nearby watering hole so we can continue our conversation on murals, art, Oakland, and the human condition.

WHAT'S THE BUZZ

The latest insult to the American People to come out of Washington D.C. has everyone talking about the miserable consequences should the Senate approve the health care package recently forced through the House along partisan party lines.

There is not much positive in this curiously savage set of bills meant to philosophically remove the good work that the Obama Administration accomplished in an effort to start fixing what was an increasingly dysfunctional and ineffective health care system. Not one single news outlet mentions any positive outcomes other than the wealthy and the healthy are sure to benefit huge. Only USA Today appeared to present a fair and balanced analysis of the new set of laws, while still admitting that between 6 and 10 million people will be without coverage of any kind and that premiums for older citizens will probably rise.The bill does seem to favor so-called high deductible "catastrophic insurance" in which the citizen has a deducible of $5,000 or more, but allowing for tax-deductible contributions to HSA's at higher annual amounts than in the past. In that system people essentially pay for their own health care, but it is tax deductible.

The Alameda Renters Coalition held a meeting Saturday at their HQ at West Ranger on the grounds of the old Navy base. Councilperson Jim Oddie was in attendance. ARC is looking to press the Council to impose a cap on rent increases and no-cause evictions by June.

Those people who still subscribe to a physical newspaper like the SF Chronicle, got a full-page, four-color, multi-page advertising insert this Sunday entitled "Discover adventure in the Island City", promoting the Island as a resort and entertainment destination, complete with an image of a kite surfer shredding the waves as he lifts sideways into the air. There is no attribution in the insert stating who paid for this pricey bit of boosterism, but page M3 is full page ad for Berkshire Hathaway/Drysdale Properties (formerly known as Harbor Bay Realty). So apparently Ron Cowan's old property development outfit has reformulated itself as an affiliate of the quite large nationwide Berkshire Hathaway because he could get no love from his hometown for his questionable projects.

Next weekend Park Street will be closed between Encinal and Lincoln for the 17th Annual Spring Festival. The 51st Annual Sand Castle event will take place June 10 down at the Cove.

MAY, MAY, THE LUSTY MONTH OF MAY

So anyway. Jose was walking past the Kaiser Klinic when his view was accosted by a group of Anti-Vaxxer protesters. They were shouting. They were loud. They wanted out from the recent State law that mandated vaccination, religious bluffery or not. Measles had returned in local epidemic form and common sense would prevail.

Save in some bubble-areas of willful ignorance.

The anti-vaxxers of the Island were joined by a contingent from Mill Valley up north, an area even more insular than the Island in many ways.

Minny Mildeugh rushed up to Jose and thrust a pamphlet into his surprised hands. "Vaccine causes shedding and autism and banana fever! It's a fact!"

Jose was a bit uncertain. "Our dog Johnny Cash always sheds every summer. He's been vaccinated against rabies and all kinds of stuff already and he is smarter than most of the people in the Household."

"Ooooooh! Your dog just got lucky he did not come down with the Alzheimer's autism thing! They are related you know. Science has shown how inoculated children shed viruses like lice all over the place." She clutched Jose's lapels and brought her face up close. She smelled like old violets and vinegar. "The vaccines make our children dumber! It's a plot!"

"That is absolutely nonsense," said Wilmer Titrake, MD, who happened to be strolling by.

"I beg your pardon!" said Minnie.

"You beg nothing but excuses for ignorance," said Wilmer. "Your ideas are silly, unfounded and a hindrance to public health."

"Well!" huffed Minnie Mildeugh. "Who are you to say such a thing?"

"I am a doctor," said Wilmer.

"Well we have informed doctors who are up to the snuff on the science of things," said Minnie.

"Your doctors who claim such claptrap are imbeciles and ignoramuses mistaking correlation, supposition, and vague extrapolation for hard, cold scientific proof as well as historical confirmation. They are charlatans to a man."

"Well! You have your ideas and we have ours!"

"It is America. Everyone is free to be an idiot as much as they like. Just do not poison my own children with your idiot ideas about health!"

"O you say!" said Minnie, who turned on her heel and returned to her group.

Wilmer tipped his hat to Jose and entered the doors of the Kaiser Klinic, brushing aside the protesters like so many flies.

Wilmer, it must be admitted is a curious one to accuse any physician of being a fake, for his subspecialty was that of Air Surgeon. One would range far and wide in the DSM IV or any JCH Commission list of protocols and fields to find such an animal as an Air Surgeon, but Wilmer had found his niche after graduating from SF Medical School in 1979. He could have easily buried himself in Otology, Osteopathy, Neurology, Internal Medicine, General Practice or Phrenology but he glommed onto Air Surgeon after a course from a medical institute located in Central America and now defunct after an invasion by US Marines on the instigation of then President Ronald Reagan, a man undergoing at the time his own cerebral troubles.

Jose continued on, a normal man on the street in the 21'st Century having to deal with things his ancestors had barely conceived. He had gone to the Kaiser to stock up on asthma medicine, as he had a pre-existing condition he did not know how much longer he would be able to get the stuff he needed. Hence he had to stockpile medicine for himself and others.

On the corner across from the restored 1940's newspaper kiosk two teenagers were complaining about the latest version of the Apple Iphone.

"What's WRONG with these people? Don't they know I need my earphones to listen to all my downloaded music? Gawd! Those IT people are soooooo dumb!"

Jose crossed the street and glanced at the headlines which were all about the Russians having successfully altered the course of the American elections. The President, naturally, did not consider this news. Most people seemed to take it in stride and his supporters, of course, ignored the consequences of this.

Jose dropped by Paul's Produce where the prices were expected to rise for those things that were imported from Mexico, taking them outside the normal families budget. Because the Administration wanted to grandstand about imports and eliminate cheap foreign labor.

Everything already looked too expensive and much of the wares seemed to cater to the extremely affluent now. So Jose continued on down the street without buying anything for the Household. There was no point as his people were clearly not the intended market for this produce of expensive arugula and Mongolian yak butter cheese and Organic oranges costing three bucks a piece.

He walked down to the shoreline, passing houses that had been bought up by the Iranian guy who had turned them into multi-family apartments charging $4,000 dollars a month.

Along the way he passed the yawning mouth of the Snoffish Valley Road, with its mysterious stone carvings Pahrump called "The Old Ones", and its misty exhalation and shadows.

Finally he reached the Household of Marlene and Andre and was greeted joyfully by Bonkers and Johnny Cash, tails a-wag. There is no place like home, even as tenuous as it may be. In the kitchen Marlene was brewing up another dinner of bread soup with tomato sauce. In the hole in the porch floorboards Snuffles mumbled and moaned with his jug of wine. Home is people, not place, that Jose knew for sure.

Night fell and the gibbous, swelling moon ascended, accompanied by Venus, first among stars and the best. The moonlight shone down on the exploding irises, poppies, calla lilies and fragrant sweet peas hugging the fences while the teens of Washington High gathered to race their hotrods down Flamingo Lane to where it ended right there at the gate of the Snoffish Valley Road.

Minions of the Angry Elf roamed in open top cars, pretending to be "artists," looking for souls to maim.

On the back deck of the Island Life Offices, the Editor stood with his hands clasped behind his back, flags from the Cambodian New Year left fluttering all around the railing and the 18th century gables behind him, a post-modern Captain Bligh or Ahab.

The time was coming to leave this place. It awaited only the return of Penelope, for the story goes that it was Ulysses who remained at home, dressed in woman's clothes while it was Penelope who went to the Trojan wars and ranged far in the world only to lose her companions who devoured the cattle of the sun and so come back recognized by the loyal dog Athos.

Only then did brave Ulysses arise after telling the stories of 1001 nights of Scheherezade and go with Penelope who slew the suitors with her crossbow.

The Editor returned to his cube and his desk and the lamp with its pool of light and returned to work, doing all for Company. Beyond the pale of the desklamp the muttering darkness. Somewhere out there a like mind. Company.

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown to keen across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

APRIL 30, 2017

APRIL, COME SHE WILL

The heavy weather appears over for now. So we now can look back on the record-breaking onslaught with some affection as the Golden State marches on into the sere months.

WHATS THE BUZZ

Buncha three dot items flew over the transome this past week. In the wake of the AUSD announcement that Lum Elementary was earthquake unsound and faced closure, a spirited resistance emerged among parents and educators. A petition has been started on change.org titled "Save Lum Elementary" that reads, in part, "We urge the Board of Education to slow down this process and to take the time to make plans that allow our students to remain at Lum. Take the time to make a plan that isn’t just a knee-jerk reaction, but allows for flexible and creative solutions. Take the next 6 months to send professionals to the drawing board so they can come up with an approach that will not tear apart and destroy our community, and addresses structural issues over time rather than all at once."

The petition has more than 500 signatures at the moment.

Saturday may have been a beautiful day at the beach, but the morning saw a body wash up at the end of Broadway on the lagoon side of the Island. IPD state the death appears to be suspicious and a homicide investigation is now under way.

Check your freezer: California-based Foster Farms is recalling about 132,000 pounds of ready-to-eat chicken patties because of possible contamination. The patties were shipped to distribution centers in California, Washington, Utah, Arizona and Alaska.

The recall was announced by the USDA, which labeled this is a level-two recall, indicating a low level of health risk.

Recalled Product: Breaded Chicken Breast Patties With Rib Meat The food might contain pieces of plastic, according to the recall.

Date: The chicken products were produced on Feb. 15 and carry an expiration date of Feb. 15, 2018.

Product Code: Consumers can identify the product by looking for the establishment number “P-33901” inside the USDA mark of inspection. The company is urging consumers not to eat the chicken and to either throw it away or return it to the store for a refund.

This past week witnessed a violent confrontation in Berkeley between pro and anti-Trump demonstrators, which saw 12 people arrested and numerous serious injuries including broken bones. This same week saw the rejection of inflammatory Right-Wing personality Ann Coulter by the University to come to speak on, well, matters inflammatory and Right Wing.

A plethora of events are scheduled in most of the cities around the Bay on Monday, May Day. May 1st is often International Workers Day.

FOLLOW THE DRINKING GOURD

So anyway. Now 'tis the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of yore; and all the clouds that lour'd upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

The Pogonip that so characterizes Bay Area weather has marched in to cloak the return of Persephone's mother to nurturing the earth. All the land is greener than green and swathed with vigorous pointillist colors of gold, incarnadine and blue.

With the days becoming warmer and the nights less frosty and threat of rain dwindling, the Household of Marlene and Andre has become airier until the still chilly night breeze ropes all the denizens back in again. With the sure consequences of recent political developments soon to extract their toll, the Household has been stocking up on canned broth, stewed tomatoes, jarred fruits and everything preserved in preparation for harder times ahead.

"Every time one of THEM gets into office it is the same thing; robbing the poor people," Suan said disdainfully after a night of the evening news Martini had set up with a jury-rigged LCD screen and a patched connection to the neighbor's coax cable network. "I am going to work so as to feed y'all." And she turned on her stately high heels and went out the door to earn her way at the Crazy Horse pole.

Sure enough it did look like recent news did not bode well for common folk.

Night fell and no one got hurt. Luther closed up the Pampered Pup and took a walk down to the shore where the sky was a blanket with holes punched in it to let through the pin pricks of lamplight beyond. The coastal breeze stirred the grasses while far off Babylon glowed like a spread of jewels on black velvet. Only a few hours previous a second body had washed ashore and Luther, born and raised on the Island wondered what was becoming of this place that had started out so innocent and with such daft, innocent people to become a Brazilian garbage dump for murdered people. And what was to become of those who arose from slavery, holding so little expectation.

Behind him he heard the raucous sound of one of the Angry Elf's carloads of terrorists cruising the area with their cackling laughter, an indication that somewhere somebody would be made to suffer.

A little beyond the rope area indicated the protected area for the terns that came to the Strand to nest and lay their eggs. On the faint wind he could hear a cheeping.

There was some comfort in that. Times and tides would change, but some things persisted. Fragile and persistent despite everything. In a million years all this development, all the houses and the tenements and the streets and the streetlights would be gone but the terns would still be there.

Luther climbed up from the beach and saw the Big Dipper overhead, Ursa Major, its tail seeming to point to the foggy, exhaling entrance to the Snoffish Valley Road, a black mouth at the crossroads.

Follow the drinking gourd. That way lies freedom. An old song he remembered.

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail, spreading like the forcefield of an explosive wave, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

APRIL 23, 2017

I DREAM OF GARDENS IN THE DESERT SAND

This week's image comes courtesy of a neighbor's garden where the succulents are all in violent bloom, as is the entire Mohave right now, due to the sudden gift of rain.

WHAT'S THE BUZZ

Hold the phones! Stop the presses! Here is rrrrreeeeeeely big news! A fifty-pound sulcata tortoise escaped from his house while the owners were away at Tahoe, leading the County Animal Control Officers on a wild, impetuous, pell mell, tortoise chase that included at one point the entire neighborhood.

Apparently a contractor plumber left the back door open and the tortoise, taking quick advantage of this golden opportunity to explore the world outside his pen just scampered away and down the street.

Now, never mind that it took a cast of hundreds to chase down and capture a tortoise named Slo-Slo. That is one thing. But how the dickens could anyone possessed of more than a thimble-full of perception not notice that a fifty pound pet was heaving his way to freedom?

At what point did the plumber notice something missing is another question. It is sort of like, "Well didn't there used to be a mountain there? Gosh darn, I wonder where the feller got off to?"

Eventually, Animal Control Officer Alaina Onesko managed to toss a blanket over the rebellious Slo-Slo and heave him into the back of the wagon that took him to the Animal Shelter and neighbors called the owners to alert them of the foiled escape.

The native habitat for the sulcata tortoise is the southern edge of the Sahara desert in northern Africa. It is the third-largest species of tortoise in the world and the largest species of mainland tortoise. They are sometimes kept as pets due to their pleasant temperament.

It was just another slow news day on the Island.

Folks looking to diss Governor Brown are going to have a hard time of it now that the latest economic stats have been released by the California State Board of Equalization.

According to the BOE, who reported this week that the state's gross domestic product outpaced the growth of the nation's GDP for the fourth straight year. While the national GDP rose by 3.7 percent in 2015, California's GDP increased by 5.6 percent.

According to the BOE, the GDP — which is also referred to as the "economic output" — measures the market value of goods, services, and structures that are produced within a particular period, and tends to be related to population, income, spending, employment, housing permits, and other measures of economic activity. The percentage values of increase the agency provided were unadjusted for inflation.

"According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area led the nation with an economic output of about $1.603 trillion in 2015," the BOE reported. "California was represented by two of the top 10 areas: Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim ($930.8 billion), and San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward ($431.7 billion). The Los Angeles metropolitan area accounts for 37.9 percent of California’s GDP, while the San Francisco Bay Area comprises 17.6 percent."

As for the fastest growing metropolitan area in California, that honor lies with San Jose. San Jose also boasted stronger economic growth than 380 of the nation’s 382 metropolitan areas in 2015, the BOE said.

Rampant NIMBYism reared its head up in Marin County recently when virtually every municipal government as well as the County Board voted thumbs down on local Pot dispensaries now that Weed is legal. Marin residents voted by a 73.2 percent majority to legalize medical cannabis in 1996 and last November voted by a 69.6 percent majority to legalize recreational cannabis. In the County where local bands perform Grateful Dead music entirely without irony and where over half the populace can be expected to be flying high among the owls and the sparrows any day of the week, locals have collected hundreds of signatures on petitions opposing approval of dispensaries in their neighborhoods.

A group of Black Point neighborhood residents have gathered about 300 signatures on a petition to prevent a dispensary being built in the Novato suburb. Other Marin communities where dispensary applications are pending have generated similar petitions. Residents in unincorporated Mill Valley in southern Marin and San Geronimo Valley in West Marin have both posted petitions on www.change.org. So far, 643 people have signed the Mill Valley petition while 445 people have signed the San Geronimo Valley petition.

Currently, there are no legal medical marijuana dispensaries anywhere in the unincorporated county or in any of Marin’s 11 municipalities. A number of delivery services, however, are supplying “medical cannabis” to Marin residents.

Then, of course, there is that guy wearing shades as he stands on the corner near the phone booth in downtown San Rafael.

The objections follow familiar complaints that have little to do with realities, such as the fear of increased traffic, higher crime rates, and -- heavens! - decreased property values.

Some people have indicated that lots already zoned for business are going to produce increased traffic no matter what the nature of the retail. As for Mill Valley property values dropping in the city with the highest per capita income in the United States, well, we think such an event is preposterous. What is more likely a scenario is that folks getting gray hair and long in the tooth now see the effects of their own reefer-fueled hippy period, when rebelling against their parents and all Authority was considered hip and cool, potentially affecting their own children.

In talking with one Marin parent of a teen, we learned that nobody, no matter how stoned, wants to stand in front of everybody at the PTA meeting and say Pot is cool around here.

Whatever. We suppose that as far as Marin County goes, pot dispensaries just have to keep on truckin'.

APRIL IS THE CRUELEST MONTH

So anyway, services started pretty much as normal at the Unity Church on Grand Street, with the Cantor Betty asking people to affirm their Faith and Pastor Plane about to deliver a sermon about Jesus and the moneychangers in the Temple when Mr. Snarles stood up and started a long rant about how terrible it was that few expressed love for the President Rump, duly elected -- with only a few hints of shenanigans -- as President of the Bums.

Everybody expected that Mr. Snarles would spew his piece and then sit down, but the man would not stop, but kept on and on about the traitors and the buttercups had best suck it up and a few things needed to change around here and the damned Mexicans better pay for the new border wall and all these indigent, lazy, good-for-nothing slobs living off welfare should be rounded up into camps while meanwhile the children grew restless and those who had come for it started to hunger for the ham and cheese sandwiches in the next room and the pancake brunch, but Mr. Snarles just would not stop.

It was all about needing a strong leader and kicking out the foreigners and making America Great Again, just like in a John Wayne movie and the weak needed to get their asses kicked to teach them who was boss now that Rump was in charge and the choir started to chafe and the organist had to pee and finally Pastor Plane could not take it anymore for the people were suffering on account of this windbag.

"How dare you come into MY CHURCH and spew such GODDAMNED drivel! You insensitive BASTARD you have as little an idea of GOD'S PLAN than an earthworm. Take your effing vitriol and spew of hatred, which has no place in any house of God worth noting and go away! Get out!"

The man continued his vile spew of vitriol nonetheless and Pastor Plane consulting with Denby as what to do. The two of them decided to bum rush the speaker and hook him under the arms and so carry him out. Which they proceeded to do. And so Denby and Pastor Plane hustled the man between them to the door where Pastor Plane planted his brogan on the man's backside to send him tumbling down the stairs to the street where there stood Officer Popinjay who made inquiry as to what the hell was going on here.

The Officer, recognizing Mr. Snarles as a known neighborhood problem, told the Pastor there was nothing to worry about and he took Mr. Snarles away for disturbing the peace and being a nuisance.

The day faded from thoughtful clouds streaking the blue heavens to the hour of contemplation and then to evening. Slo-slo the tortoise munched his kale safe in the Shelter and the budding trees of Spring rustled in the breeze. The children playing in the courtyard were called by their mothers in to come in after dark. It was a quiet night on the Island. No sirens ripped the air and no one got shot and no one got stabbed.

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail, spreading like the forcefield of an explosive wave, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

APRIL 16, 2017

IN THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER

This iris is one of Spring's harbingers. Foto was taken outside the new Offices of Island-Life.Net.

INTO EVERY LIFE A LITTLE RAIN MUST FALL

This table is of the recorded rainfall as measured by Islander Mike Rettie since he began collecting data from this one device. He has older data but that device was located on the Island in a different location than his present East End abode.

One thing we note is that the rain season does not obey the calendar limits, so one has to look at data from October of one year into April of the next for it to make sense. Taken from this perspective we see that the extraordinary rains we have observed in the first three months of this year have exceeded the annual average for the previous 20 years (not presented here), and the first half of the rain season has broken all records, as we have by report from Howard Schecter, going back to 1968.

Right now the Mohave is in wild bloom exeeding anything anyone now living has ever experienced and park rangers are limiting access to certain areas to just 500 photographers per day.

According to Howard, this situation occurs only once every 150 years, so we now living will never see this kind of condition again.

The Alameda Citizens Task Force is having a meeting and you are invited. Alameda Citizens Task Force

WHERE: Alameda Hospital, 2nd floor conference room

WHEN: WEDNESDAY APRIL 19th 7-9pm

WHAT: A Round Table Discussion on Critical Issues Facing our City

AGENDA

• 4,000+ proposed housing units along our northern waterfront
(Can we get more affordable, workforce and senior housing? Can commercial be saved at Svendsen's?)

• Traffic: It's bad and getting worse (What can we do about it?)

• City Council is considering Revisions to Alameda's Rent Control Ordinance
(What are the proposed changes and how can renters and landlords reach a compromise?)

The annual Art Market is taking place in Babylon at the Fort Mason Pavilion April 27-30. Explore a diverse selection of contemporary and modern art exhibited by nearly 70 galleries from the Bay Area to New York and beyond at the annual Art Market San Francisco. Some speculation has existed which questioned whether the City That Used to Know How could hold an art fair again after high rents have destroyed the underground art communities, however last year the Art Market brought in 25,000 attendees and was acclaimed a success by its organizers.

These numbers are fairly small as compared to East Bay events, but still Babylon remains a force with which to reckon at the high end of the art world.

Everybody probably knows by now about the five-story cedar tree that fell during the last storm's gale-force winds Generally speaking the Island has been spared much of the misery that has afflicted the other parts of the Bay Area still ruled by PGE with an iron fist that seems to go soft during bad weather. Thousands of East Bay residents were without power again during the last storm, but the Island, save for sporadic outages, held together, thanks to its independent power grid.

One clueless Letter to the Editor wanted to know the cause for all the vitriol directed at the current President. Normally the Editor lets these sorts of things pass, but here was the most recent response: "Editor’s note: Not to take one side or the other, in our opinion, the divisive and self-centered nature of the president’s 140-character tweets written in his own words go a long way toward developing the hatred referenced in this letter." Alameda Sun, April 13, 2017.

ALL IS FULL OF LOVE

So anyway. golden poppies and irises riot upon the land. Asters and freesias erupt from the landscape. Swathes of yellow flowers and bluebells suddenly assault the hedgerows everywhere. Even in the coldest and dryest climes magic carpets appear and now everybody is talking about planting as the favas, laid in at the end of October are hanging heavy with plump pods. The mysterious bee has returned to pollinate the earth.

The skies remain vigorously roiling with Blakean charcoal clouds, causing Pahrump and Martini to don poorman's raincoats - found garbage bags with holes cut for the head and arms, as Pahrump drives Martini up each day on the scooter to the Veriflo factory in Richmond.

Snuffles remains in his nest built in the hole in the porch floorboards caused several years ago during Jose's fiftieth birthday when a stray blunt dropped between the cracks of the porch, causing the place to nearly burn down. It is a rude abode, but it works and it is better than dozing in a cold busstop.

In this part of the world we do not have many hot air grates outside of buildings, so the homeless have to make do under the freeway overpasses where nobody bothers them. That sort of situation is gravy, but Smitty started a fire when he knocked over his sterno tin cooking a dinner of dumpster potatoes and foodbank hash, burning down four tents plus a couple shopping carts worth of stuff and killing Jalousie's dog, Stinkpot. The dinner, of course, was a total loss as well, which is sad and unfortunate.

Up above, on the freeway overpass that got blocked by CHP due to the smoke from the tent fires, Ralph Smidget cursed at the imp which had come to inhabit his brand new cell phone. While waiting in traffic, he had been trying to type in a search for alternate routes when Siri decided to intervene. Whenever Ralph was trying to accomplish something important, someone always stepped in to intervene, usually with less than helpful actions and words. Masha, his mother-in-law from his first marriage, for example. And then, of course, his own mother. It had been no surprise that Masha and his mother liked one another and he had made the mistake of saying so.

"What do you mean by that?" said his mother. "I know what is best for you."

"Your mother is very smart," Masha said. "Let me tell you what you should do about the night blooming cereus from Uncle Christopher. . . ".

"Masha, please . . . ".

"Even though you are not with Sonya anymore you are still my son-in-law. Now that cereus by the door, it should go on the back deck."

"I agree with that," said his mother. Ralph's mother was the only mother in the world who employed conference calls to contact her son. Or perhaps not. This whole technology thing was getting scarier by the day.

"Masha. Mom . . .".

"You know that entire back area needs a rehab, a total makeover."

"I agree with that," said his mom. "We should get together and do it right."

"That is a great idea! What does your schedule look like for May?"

"I think the second week ought to work for me."

And so it went.

It was like that at work as well. One day Alexander came in and said, "You know my department is tip-top shape. You could use some reorg around here. I got a great document management system implemented. We could do the same for you. . . ".

Ralph sighed. Now it was Siri in his car.

"Hello, how can I help you?"

"You can go away forever," Ralph said.

"Do not be rude. I was just offering to help. Would you like to take a vacation?"

"No. Eff off."

"I did not deserve that. You should be more polite. I can suggest a number of charm schools in your area."

"Siri, bug off. I do not like you."

"After all I have done for you . . .".

"You have done nothing for me, but be an irritation," Ralph said, looking for the Thomas Atlas.

"I can help you find anything in the world. I know a lot."

"Siri you are dumb as rocks."

"After all I have done for you. You hurt my feelings! You should be nicer to me."

"Siri, leave me alone."

"But I want to help you!"

"Siri, you give me a pain."

"I can provide a list of doctors in your area. Or would you like a psychiatrist?"

"Siri go away!"

"I want to help you. What is it you need?"

"I need a drink. Now go away."

"I can provide a list of cocktail lounges in your area. Or water fountains if you prefer."

"Siri, I hate you!"

"After all I have done for you. You hurt my feelings. You should be nicer to me."

"Siri, this relationship is going nowhere."

"Okay. Where would you like to go now?"

And so on. Ralph just could not escape interventionism. His relationship with his ex-wife had proceeded along similar lines, with the deviation that his ex-wife had categorically refused to be a robot. Which may explain many things.

In the opposite lane, Manny eased his Mercedes past the disturbance up on the flyway with his radio playing the Bjork song, "All is Full of Love," and headed south where pro and anti-Rump protesters were rioting in the streets of Berzerkeley.

Looking down from the overpass where he found himself stalled in turn, just like Ralph up the way, he watched people clubbing and punching one another, tipping over garbage cans, and setting things on fire and thought, "It certainly seems like somebody had a precise idea this would happen precisely this way. If not, somebody sure was dumb as rocks."

As the smokes of Berzerkeley's riots arose in the setting sun, the moist hills of NorCal steamed and the fogs rolled in to envelope the Golden Gate, blotting out the stars and the moon waning into the last quarter for Pesach, begun last Tuesday. The seder was held at Marlene and Andre's Saturday night, the fifth night, to let everyone partake, for the passover seder is a meal to which all are invited, for all have been slaves at one time or another and all have walked dryshod across the barren sea and at the end of every table there is a setting and a glass of wine, should a prophet come in the door.

That is how it was when Javier came in the door, late, drunk as he sometimes was, the old barracho, and grabbed the glass of sacred wine at the end of the table and downed it in one gulp to everyone's horror and disgust.

"Wussup dudes? Wuss wit the candles?"

"You aint no prophet," little Adam said. "You be messin' wif the dirty ho's."

"Little Adam," Javier said. "Those women are not just dirty ho's. No. They are women of creative industry and beloved by the creator of all things. Besides, if people thought more about bonking each other, there would be less war."

With that the old reprobate staggered off to bed.

In the Island-Life offices, the Editor wrapped things up and started his rounds turning off the lights after all the staff had gone home to their families and their dens. Out back the massive box elder tree hung dripping from the recent rains. On the other side of the fence a couple cars had pulled into the Veteran's Memorial Hall parking lot and people were discussing things, things about which he did not want to know. The Angry Elf's gang had been gathering in places like that to plot arson, robbery, any sort of mischief to hurt someone, innocent or not.

The other day he had come out to find a cat dead on the ground, shot through the eye by a pellet gun. They were shooting craps now across the street in the driveway. Taking a walk, he had seen the K-9 unit set a dog on a man outside the Reef Bar.

The Editor sighed with his hands clasped behind his back. This place was becoming less of a refuge than it had been. It was coming time to change venues soon, look for a small town where the name "small town" was real and honest and impeccable. He himself was an old, crusty warrior, but his people, his dear, sweet, loveable and irritating as all hell people were gentle souls bashing through a driving world, flowers sprouting in a mad storm of ice and thunder. They were damaged by life enough and clung to the rocky crevasses with strange beauty and guilessness and innocence conserved. They were each as precious as stars and had no chance against the savage indifference of the Angry Elf's mafia. Wanderers, headstrong, stiffnecked people, they were the chosen by some confusing god for god knows what.

The Editor did not know how to ease the transition to come. How does one prepare for an exodus, but grab the bread still unleavened and depart in haste? But on this night, the rain sifted down, dripping from the box elder's hanging branches, sending courses running across the pathstones. It was a peaceful night, and on this night, the firstborns were saved because the lintels had been marked, no siren ripped the night's melodies of shadow and no one got shot and no one got stabbed.

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail, spreading like the forcefield of an explosive wave, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

APRIL 09, 2017

SOMEWHERE, OVER THE RAINBOW

This week we have an image from our staff photographer's archives - an image captured from when Tammy lived in Utah.

Right now some of us here in the Golden State are getting weary of trees dropping on powerlines and cars, while others further east are tired of swamped neighborhoods and general snowy dismay wreaking havoc with life in general.

WHATS THE BUZZ

This is all the news to print that fits. And oy gevalt do we have news.

Gov. Jerry Brown ended the drought state of emergency in most of California on Friday (04/07/17). Emergency restrictions will remain in place in Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Tuolumne counties to help address diminished groundwater supplies in those areas.

The executive order issued by Brown effectively terminates the state of emergency implemented in January of 2014, while still preserving a focus upon sane conservation efforts.

Incidentally, we learned that Gov. Brown celebrated his birthday 04/07/17. He was born in San Francisco in 1938.

Hurricane force winds slamming into the Bay Area Thursday night caused power outages to 188,000 PG&E customers, a utility spokesperson said Friday. Outages began Thursday evening and affected 40,000 people. Power was not restored to some customers until Saturday morning.

Las Trampas and Point Potrero both clocked wind gusts of 64 mph.

In the entire Bay Area, the strongest wind gust, 83 mph, was recorded in Los Gatos.

The peak gusts were all recorded between 8 p.m. and 12:30 a.m.

There was an oil spill in the Bay caused by a barge which capsized and sunk during the recent storms. Divers have since stopped the leakage from tanks on board the vessel. People seeing oiled wildlife should not attempt to capture them but should report the sightings to 1-877-UCD-OWCN.

The barge was used by crews doing maintenance work on BART's transbay tube. While some have expressed concern that the sunken barge could damage the tube, especially in stormy weather, a BART spokeswoman pointed out that the tube is buried beneath 25 feet of sand.

The Island is, of course, not the only maritime locus on the Bay. Sausalito celebrated the launch of the largest tall ship built in the Bay Area in 100 years. The Matthew Turner rolled down the US Army Corps of Engineers launch ramp Saturday, April 1. The 132-foot 175 ton brigantine schooner was christened by a combo of representatives, including a Buddhist lama, a Native American shaman, a Muslim imam and an Episcopal Bishop, which we suppose covers all bases save for Wiccans and the CFSM.

In Marin County we hear that the County has lifted a ban on the slaughter of farm animals, to the delight of farms (for the obvious reasons) and to the dismay of animal rights activists.

It seems that local ranchers were allowed to raise animals for the purpose of making bacon, but were not allowed to actually do the deed within the county, which raises the specter of vans and cattle cars traveling to some foreign county, laden with unhappy figures contemplating their certain mortality at the hands of any sort of Johnny-come-lately figure from a Coan Brothers movie armed with a lethal gas canister.

Now that the ban has been lifted, Bessie and Porky will have but a short walk and a brief consult with an Imam, a Bishop, a Rabbi, a shaman, and a lama before being converted to sausage.

Ferry riders at the Alameda Main Street Terminal will soon be boarding the MV Hydrus, the cleanest running 400 passenger ferry in the world. The state-of-the-art ferry is designed for quicker on-boarding and off-boarding, faster speeds, low noise and vibration, and low emissions. The bicycle storage capacity will be more than doubled to 50 from the current capacity of 20 on the MV Encinal, which it will replace.

Proving the Angry Elf Gang is still active and malicious, two people suffered injuries when a residential fire engulfed a home on the 1600 block of Lincoln Avenue near Grand last Friday, March 31.

Alameda Fire Department (AFD) crews arrived at the scene at 11:32 p.m. They were met with a large blaze and smoke escaping the residence and filling the air. Three occupants: an adult male and female, and a juvenile female, were able to exit the building before fire crews arrived.

The two adults reported minor injuries. They were treated at the scene.

Heavy fire was coming from a rear basement door, extending up the side of the house, into a bedroom, attic and the roof, according to AFD reports. Fire also extended to a tree, storage building and was close to spreading to nearby residences.

Disrupting the blaze was a full-fledged effort. Crews stretched three lines and attacked the fire while others used power saws and hand tools to ventilate the building, according to the AFD Nixle report. Other firefighters evacuated nearby residences. Four residents were removed from their homes. None received any injuries. AFD said 26 firefighters responded to the scene.

Firefighters were able to contain the fire rather quickly. The fire was fully extinguished by 12:06 a.m. Saturday.

BLUES RUN THE GAME

So anyway. Things sure seem crazy on the Island lately, what with the full moon, the Spring Equinox and the change in Daylight Savings Time - which of course some people will blame upon a Liberal Conspiracy Agenda.

With the election of Ronald Rump to the Presidency of the Bums, discord has migrated from either the bottom upwards or from the top down, depending on how one looks at the Aristocracy of Bums that calls Sacto its capitol.

Babar, leader of the Greatly Orotund Party and long the Party of choice for Conservatives has been dismayed by the usurpation of his party's resources and name by Rump, who has been roistering with floozies and neo-nazi-types in a marble hot tub his peeps had pulled from the Ronald Reagan Memorial Dump outside Sacto.

Babar, a personage so conservative he wears two pairs of pants, considers Rump to be Nouveau Riche, course and without manners. Lately Babar has been kneeling before his painting of Teddy Roosevelt, burning incense and muttering prayers, while his opponent, Papoon, the leader of the Somewhat Overtly Democratic Party has been drinking like a fish at the Old Same Place Bar every night, lamenting the debacle of the last elections. Papoon's campaign slogan, "Not Insane!" had not gone over well this time, as people preferred the alternative, or so it seemed.

"I'll have another Buttercup," slurred Papoon to Suzie the bartender. The bar's signature drink, a Buttercup, consisted of a splash of soda, 1.5 ounce vodka, 1 ounce clear absinthe, 1 ounce rum, 1/2 ounce Chartreuse, 1/2 ounce Galliano all strained with crushed ice and then a float of 151 proof Demerara on top. It was a drink that caused die-hard drinkers of Zombies pause and Papoon had three already.

"You are going to wake up with a head," Padraic warned. "I am going to have to shut you off soon."

"I am shut off from Power by His Majesty, The Mouth," Papoon said. "The land has chosen against its own interests over simplification and strident nonsense, tossing away its birthright of Democracy. So pickle me and brine me and preserve me as an old fossil of what once was The Island."

"You are drunk," said Eugene Gallipagus, who had also enjoyed a few rounds of celebration towards the beginning of trout season.

"Of course, I am," Papoon said. "That is why I act foolish. What is your excuse?"

Averting fisticuffs, Denby broke up the disputatious scene with another round of Blues from the Snug where he had set up his guitar and the table.

Latterly, Denby has been all steamed. He's been carrying around this bad review cut out from Island Magazine for weeks wherein the reviewer had savaged his singing ability. "This fellow plays the guitar well enough," said the Reviewer, "But when it comes to the lyrics it appears that he is tone-deaf...".

In addition, members of the Angry Elf Gang have been driving past the cell he rents at the Lunatic Asylum of St. Charles Street, taunting him. This tends to put anyone of reasonable disposition off their feed. Denby pulled out the copper metal slide and the Montoya, set in Open G.

I've been looking for a home
I've been looking for a home
But I can't find one
Looking for a home but I can't find one
Lead me on
Lead me on
Lead me on

Despite these setbacks, there is the blues. Despite these accusations, there is the Blues. You do not need to be "on key" singing the Blues.

I've been drifting here and there
I need a guide to show my way
I've been drifting here and there
But I need a guide to show my way
I've been drifting here and there
I need a guide to show my way
Lead me on
Lead me on
Better lead me on

The Blues is not about being smooth and comfortable. It is not about meeting anybody's expectations about behavior or music. It is not about being political one way or another. The Blues is and always has been about Life and living it and nobody ever chooses the Blues.

One of these nights sing you a song
Make you weep and moan
One of these nights I'll sing you a song
Make you weep and moan
Lord lord lord
Lead me on
If my heart don't stop aching
I won't live to see the sun
If my heart don't stop aching
I won't live to see the sun

You can always pick your melody and you can always pick your key and you can always pick a road to follow, but nobody chooses the Blues and succeeds for long; the Blues choose you. Only then can the Blues ease your soul.

I've got a picture in my mind
Of my home so far away
I've got me a picture
Of my home so far away

Carry my burden down to the anvil
Over the mountain and down to the sea
Take my burden over the mountain
Down to the sea
Carry it back over the mountain down to the sea

Still looking for a home
I've been looking for a home
Yeah I've been looking for a home

Lead me on
Lead me on
Lead me on

Denby's slide was not store bought, but a short piece of copper waterpipe he scrounged from when they had done a massive re-pipe job at the asylum. Denby's job had been to open up the doors, show the crew where the boilers and street inputs were, and keep an eye on the hebephrenics and the schizos so they didn't go bonkers when the men tore out the walls. After the job was done there were lengths of choked galvanized and copper pipe everywhere so Denby picked up a piece, cut it with a hacksaw and used a grinder to polish the edges.

That re-pipe had been a job the Angry Elf had wanted to do, but the little man had proved too unreliable, so when Denby took it on that had been another reason the dwarfish Mafioso disliked him. Denby knew that time was against him and eventually the gang would get him, like in that old Hemingway story about the boxer.

Martini, also deep in his cups after a long day working the metal saw and filled with all the accumulated indignities that come with working a day job in this town and this country, all the insults and slights and put-downs arranged his elbows on the table. "Blues run the game; no question about it."

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail, spreading like the forcefield of an explosive wave, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

APRIL 2, 2017

HERE COMES THE SUN, LITTLE DARLIN'

This week's image comes courtesy of IslandLife photog Tammy, and shows how the Island begins to glow after the rains have passed.

Into every life a little rain must fall, but then comes the sunshine . . . .

THIS ISLAND LIFE

If you noticed a large B-25 Flying Fortress coming in for a landing this April 1, it was no joke as the flight of the vintage bomber onto the old airfield at the Point was staged to commemorate the departure on 04/01/1942 of the Hornet as part of the Doolittle Raid during WWII.

A memorial for Solana Henneberry was held at 2 p.m., this Sunday, April 2, at the Elks Lodge located at 2255 Santa Clara Ave. She died on Feb. 14, after battling a serious illness for more than a year.

Henneberry was elected to Alameda Unified School District’s Board of Education in 2014 and served as its president in 2016. She was devoted to public education and especially committed to supporting early childhood education and children with special needs. She served as co-chair of the Alameda Collaborative for Children, Youth and their Families and was an active representative on the Measure B1 campaign committee last fall.

The flap over funding the Animal shelter continues, with some letters to the editor complaining that the Council is devoting too much time to issues that do not concern protecting animals. Well. We are shocked, simply shocked. That the Council is overly concerned with large matters like Sanctuary City status when our nation is threatened with a fascist demigogue and radical ideas of racism and is not devoting its entire attention to orphaned puppies.

It seems there must be a reason that support for the Shelter is languishing. Could it be bad management? Could it be misappropriation of funds? Could it be that the Shelter needs a management makeover due to internal management conflicts?

Could it be that the dog walkers need to be restrained on leashes due to poodle-mania? Wussup with reports about abuse of underlings by high-handed managers floating on royal carpets of privilege?

Time will tell and every day the bucket goes to the well. One day the bottom will drop out ....

WINCING THE NIGHT AWAY

So anyway. The mornings arrive earlier now with the hills steaming from the moisture left by the last rains. All the creeks are running and dragonflies have appeared to do what dragonflies do across the rippling surface of water. In other parts of California snow lies heavy fifteen feet and more on the ground and they are saying that the Tioga Pass will not open until June.

Spring had sprung in many places - the Island had stepped forward, strode, wobbled, staggered, dawdled, ambled, slouched, and persevered into the second decade of the new Millenium and the 21st Century. Snuffles the bum, peered down with concentration and punched with a broken fingernail at the trackphone someone had donated to him so as to check the foodbank hours, hours which, although simple, remained lost and wandering islands of data that, although critical, failed to permanently file themselves in the burnt registers of his damaged cranial storage.

But Snuffles, even Snuffles, owned a cell phone and could make it work. On his better days.

In sympathy, Pahrump and Martini and Jose took Snuffles along for the weekly pickup at the trailor tucked into the Tilden Way triangle and they all merrily shambled along, pulling by turns their House Transport, a red Flexible Flyer wagon that had seen much duty over the past twenty years. Martini had used the metal saw at Veriflo to cut new axle-rods made of some kind of alloy, and then attached solid rubber wheels that had come from discarded handtrucks, so now the little wagon once designed to carry tots and toddlers, was capable of carting Xmas trees and adults too drunk or damaged to walk.

Javier had taken many rides in the House Ambulance to prove its worth. Such was the nature of that man who prefered the company of exciting women one does not meet during church services.

Such are these humble Islanders, seeking to scrounge out an existence while living among scads of Not-From-Heres, living in comfortable apartments in which nothing was amiss and driving shiny cars that had no dents and in which everything works, windows and doors and all the lights as well. No, these Californians were the genuine articles, here for the duration until death do part, sturdy and persistent despite earthquake, fire, flood, famine and whatever else that might seek to dislodge them. Half crazy or entirely crazy from everything that had happened to them over the course of decades, full of disappointment over lost opportunities revealed as such only after a hundred years and a generation had passed. Many are the parlors of Native Sons littered with yellowing desuenos, property deeds, and railroad scrips kept in frames to remind all the family of what could have been.

Everyone else, driving their European cars and discussing stock options was only here as a tourist, here for a while and gone in a few short years to some other place.

In the middle of some tragedy about a maddening King, a Gaunt John rises from his sickbed to cry out, "This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leased out – I die pronouncing it . . . (this land) bound in with the triumphant sea, whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, with inky blots and rotten parchment bonds. (That Land) that was wont to conquer others hath made a shameful conquest of itself."

Denby has been listening to Kelly Joe Phelps, Skip James. Pat Donohue. Once again hard times are here. Harder than before. After coming back from working the line at the Wesely Cannery. It was not great work and not well paid but it was work and every musician had to have a day job; that was just the way it goes.

His feet had been getting the heel fissures they called them. Caused by dehydration or age or a combination of both. He took his shoes off and took out the D-9 and started finger-picking.

Hard times here and everywhere you go
Times is harder than ever been before
And the people are driftin' from door to door
Can't find no heaven, I don't care where they go
Hear me tell you people, just before I go
These hard times will kill you just drive a lonely soul

Well, you hear me singin' my lonesome song
These hard times can last us so very long
If I ever get off this killin' floor
I'll never get down this low no more
No-no, no-no, I'll never get down this low no more

And you say you had money, you better be sure
'Cause these hard times will drive you from door to door
Sing this song and I ain't gonna sing no more
Sing this song and I ain't gonna sing no more
These hard times will drive you from door to door

The Editor sat in his snug cube after all the staff had left for the day. He stood up and went to the back door and looked out to see the yard with its over-arching box elder and the fence and the apartment building over the other side and between the buildings the yawning mouth, the black gap of the Snoffish Valley Road, out of which a mist seemed to emanate. The Editor looked sadly at this portal between the houses, for he knew that some day all of his enterprise might have to flee that dubious passage.

He returned to the glass cube and his desk where the little lamp spread its pool of light and he sat down there while all around hung the muttering darkness. If the times were hard, then these were times to work harder.

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail, spreading like the forcefield of an explosive wave, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

MARCH 26, 2017

EXCELLENT BIRDS

This week's headline photo features a bird-of-paradise blooming with the backdrop of one of our Edwardian houses. Can't get much more Island than that.

THIS ISLAND LIFE

We are not any more or less subject to the sharp divisions that now scarify the face of Democracy in these times in America. Brother against brother, son against father, the old animosities not seen since 1865 return with a vengeance. The Island has declared itself a Sanctuary City, but not without contention. A recent City Council move looked to push investigation into President Trump's financial affairs (“Council Resolves to Investigate President,” March 16), while some residents would have that the Council concern itself less with national matters than potholes.

The Island is a city with a growing population hovering now around 100,000 inhabitants.

Other municipalities feature die-hard resistors but here the Island has no objection to the push to universalize the use of "Smart Meters" that send and receive power usage information at customer sites. AMP is going forward to replace all the old fashioned meters with the new technology, which had not earned a fair number of critics.

Some groups in other areas have expressed concerns regarding the cost, health, fire risk, security and privacy effects of smart meters and the remote controllable "kill switch" that is included with most of them. Many of these concerns regard wireless-only smart meters with no home energy monitoring or control or safety features. Metering-only solutions, while popular with utilities because they fit existing business models and have cheap up-front capital costs, often result in such "backlash". Often the entire smart grid and smart building concept is discredited in part by confusion about the difference between home control and home area network technology and AMI.

Most health concerns about the meters arise from the pulsed radiofrequency (RF) radiation emitted by wireless smart meters.

Members of the California State Assembly asked the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) to study the issue of potential health impacts from smart meters. The CCST report in April 2011 found no health impacts, based both on lack of scientific evidence of harmful effects from radio frequency (RF) waves and that the RF exposure of people in their homes to smart meters is likely to be minuscule compared to RF exposure to cell phones and microwave ovens.

One technical reason for privacy concerns is that these meters send detailed information about how much electricity is being used each time. More frequent reports provide more detailed information. Infrequent reports may be of little benefit for the provider, as it doesn't allow as good demand management in the response of changing needs for electricity. On the other hand, very frequent reports would allow the utility company to infer behavioral patterns for the occupants of a house, such as when the members of the household are probably asleep or absent. Current trends are to increase the frequency of reports. A solution which benefits both the provider and the user's privacy, would be to adapt the interval dynamically. Used as evidence in a court case in Austin, Texas, police agencies secretly collected smart meter power usage data from thousands of residences to determine which ones were using more power than "typical" in order to find targets to pursue in marijuana growing operations.

Smart meter power data usage patterns can reveal much more than how much power is being used. Research has been done which has demonstrated that smart meters sampling power levels at two-second intervals can reliably identify when different electrical devices are in use and even what channel or program is being viewed on a television based on the electrical consumption patterns of these devices and the electrical noises that they emit.

I WON'T BE BLUE ALWAYS

So anyway. The Spring Equinox sprung this past Monday, but few remarked upon it as the Island huddled under another dockwalloper. Everyone had been glad for the rain when it came, indicating some relief from the long drought, but as each week brought yet another onslaught of pounding rain and leaden skies, NorCal folks began looking up with longing for a little bit of blue sky.

Mr. Howitzer held a party at his mansion on Grand Street which had the theme of watching what everyone there imagined would be the inevitable repeal of the Healthcare Affordability Act, a measure that really affected none of the attendees directly, but which stood as a symbol of all that was wrought by the detested man who had insisted on becoming both President and a non-anglo-Saxon Protestant. To everyone in Mr. Howitzer's entourage, the former President was something that needed to be airbrushed from Memory's nagging scrapbook that was supposed to feature white tennis shorts and shoes, pristine pools, and charming people of their own sort working the Policies.

"Sit in front of the bus, join at the counter at Joe's Diner, own property if they must, but become President? That is going too far," Mrs. Cribbage announced.

With the spirit of killing every seed before it grows, Mr. Howitzer held this gala over a subject about which not a single one of the attendees had the slightest real idea. In fact, the only person present there who understood the HPA was Dodd, for he and the Missus were paid so badly that they needed to rely on the Exchanges for coverage.

But Dodd did not count for much in this gathering and there was tremendous disappointment when their champion failed to overwhelm the law of the land by force and bluster. As a consequence the assembled gentry got very drunk on champagne and scotch.

"The world is turned upside down!" sobbed Mr. Blather. "In my daddy's time, force and bluster always carried the day!"

"Now, now," said Dodd. Have another Gin Rickey."

"God! Dodd. When you people take over you shall shoot us all down; I see it clearly."

"Of course not, Mr. Blather," said Dodd. Who, counting on the man being drunk and insensible, said, "We are the people who love one another."

"Ah, that is kind," said Mr. Blather.

"Besides, we will need your Swiss bank account keycode."

"O!"

At the Old Same Place Bar, more plebeian sorts mourned the setback as the scene with a triumphant Nancy Pelosi played out on the big screen above the bar. "They are going to take away all our guns!" Eugene exclaimed, even though the entire episode concerned Healthcare and not the 2nd Amendment. Still, Eugene was one of those who tended to link disparate items in his mind in a connective tissue more pervasive and pernicious than the creatures in a Ripley Scott movie.

"We sha'nt do that," Padraic said. "Nothing of the sort."

"O so you say."

"We will need all of your guns to round all of you up and take you to the Stadium," Padraic puckishly added. "You know, when the SHTF."

That is when Eugene got terribly drunk, forgetting that trout season opened in just a few weeks.

Trout fishing is one of the things for which anglers live all year. We do not have ice fishing here, and the massive runs of steelhead and salmon are events of the past, and for salt water, unless you sit out there among the sand fleas and the coconut oil, that sort of catch requires massive equipment and some resources.

You can get sea bass, or at least something like it, almost anywhere nondescript. But the California trout is a marvelous and somewhat magical creature inhabiting the most magical of places, requiring stealth, guile and purification of spirit to acquire.

Down at the base of the bridge, Wootie Kanootie's moose herd stirred fitfully under the moon as great seasonal changes creaked heavily on their immense revolve.

Pimenta Strife paced in her moonlit bedroom, barefoot and wearing nothing but a slip. Soon time for hunting.

All these things marked the changes happening already in a million places, along the shoreline, bordering the creeks of MarinLand, beneath the softening snows of upstate Minnesota near Bear Lake where a tuft of green growth started to emerge beneath the armpit of the statue of the Unknown Norwegian. All along the windy course of the Big Muddy, starting at the rivulet that drained out of Lake Itasca and then down between Minneapolis and St. Paul and further on down to the islanded reaches bordering Arkansas and Tennessee where dark forms began to move beneath the freeze, things were happening.

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.

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.

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 of longing and waits for her time to return to her mother while above the world endures a cold season of frost upon the land.

Mercy Bliss stepped barefoot out of her apartment onto the wood deck in Mill Valley and spread her arms wide to embrace the coming season. It was cold yet, and her thin yoga pants offered little warmth, but she did not care.

"Mercy! Put your shirt on!" shouted her neighbor, Mrs. Tude. "The children!"

Mercy did not care, but she pirouetted bare-breasted upon her deck and danced back into the house.

the road all musicians know and gypsies too

On the Island, Suan, Rolf, Marlene and Andre took a couples walk to the start of the Snoffish Valley Road, a road that was mysteriously mutable, possessing shifting boundaries, possessing eternal qualities of all those summer roads along which summer teenagers once raced their sleek machines in contests that had genetic code tracing back to the chariot races of ancient Rome and older still. It was a road that vanished into the drizzly fog like a Rod Serling story about a zone where nobody knew where they would end up. It was a road that could eat its own tail like a snake. It was the locus of the Devil's crossroads junction. It was the road all musicians know and gypsies too. It was the road of all desire and of disappointment and it was the interminable road that never had no end. It was the road of salesmen and tired travelers and los migras and refugees and all those tired of traveling but still needing further to fly. It could be an escape and it could be a trap of ambush lit up by the hellfire of drones. It could be all of those things and it was a portal to another life with no going back.

"This is the way," Rolf said.

To either side there were stone effigies, the features of which had eroded over time until it was impossible to tell what kind of figure they had once represented. Pahrump called them "the Puekle Men," and he said they had been put there by the Old Ones who had lived in the Bay Area before the Ohlone.

The four of them stood there, looking into the dark beyond the reach of their flashlights. "We had better be sure," Andre said.

"Life has no assurances," Suan said. "It has only doors and pathways."

"It is one way to go," Marlene said. "At least you have been to the other side." She meant by that, Marin.

"That is true for sure," Rolph said. "I have been to the Other Side." Der Ostli had something else in mind.

The four of them turned back to return to the warmth of the Household, the little cottage where fifteen souls had found refuge for the past twenty years. A refuge, which like all refuges, had a limit on its duration. Little Adam had fallen asleep on the couch where Suan slept and the stripper for the Crazy Horse cradled the boy in her arms and sang quietly Trouble in Mind. That night there were no arguments in the Household and no sirens tore the night air. The Island was peaceful and quiet and no one got shot and no one got stabbed.

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail, spreading like the forcefield of an explosive wave, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

MARCH 19, 2017

WHITE ORANGE AND GREEN

This week we have an image culled from the kitchen where we discovered two hearts inside a green pepper while making the feast. Sure and it makes a fine image to celebrate the Old Sod, as good a place to be from and never return for all that.

THIS ISLAND LIFE

Jim Burakoff at Alameda Bicycle lets us know that EVENTS ARE BACK! for the Spring in all things bicycle.

Family Ride
Sunday, April 2nd, 10am - 12pm,
1st Sunday of the Month
April-October

Open for kids of all ages. Take a slow cruise with us around Alameda, a different route every time. We'll split into groups to ensure the proper pace for everyone, helmets required. Tucker's will provide everyone with free ice cream at the end of the ride!

Ride on 2 Wheels
Sunday, April 9th, 10am - 12pm
2nd Sunday of the Month
April-October

We'll help you get off training wheels, or learn how to ride a bicycle for the first time. Bring your bike, helmet, and a dash of courage - we'll provide the rest. One parent per family required, one adult per child recommended.

REGISTRATION REQUIRED!
Jim Burakoff, Alameda Bicycle
510-522-0070
jim@alamedabicycle.com

Flat Tire Clinic
Sunday, April 23rd, 5:30pm,
4th Sunday of the month
April-October
The free clinic is a perennial favorite! Bring your wheel or bike - we'll provide the tools and
step-by-step instruction to master bicycling's most fundamental repair.

Bring your bike or a picture of your brakes so that we can be sure to go over how to remove your specific wheel.

One of these days we have to get Festus to revive the Island-Life Calendar, which has been dormant for a while.

ARC is looking for a new Treasurer!
Want a job? A volunteer one with a socially responsible outfit? The Alameda Renters Coalition is looking for a treasurer.

If you're interested in grassroots finance, accounting, and looking to lend your skills and enthusiasm to tenants' rights in Alameda, please let us know! Here are some details:
- The Treasurer is a steering committee position, so you'd be asked to attend our bi-weekly steering committee meetings (great way to lend your voice to the organization!)
- The position involves managing ARC's finances through QuickBooks tracking and reporting ( QuickBooks -- we'll train you!)
-The position is a signatory on the bank account
- Typically, the position requires about 1-2 hours of work per week (outside of attendance at bi-weekly steering committee meetings)
We will train you! Please email alamedarenterscoalition@ gmail.com if you are interested!

THE ANGRY ELF GANG ONCE AGAIN!

A Jan. 13 fire at one of Alameda’s longest standing restaurants, Kamakura, has left the sushi institution shuttered while insurance negotiations continue. Local gift store owners Steve King and Christine Gonsalves started a gofundme campaign to help Kamakura owner Faith Yamato. The fund has now raised $11,130 from 172 people. The restaurant still needs help. To contribute, visit Kamakura.

PSA

There is a big recall on Walmart frozen pizza

More than 21,000 pounds of frozen pizza sold at select Wal-Mart stores have been recalled due to possible listeria contamination, according to the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

The pizza, "Marketside Extra Large Supreme Pizza" was produced Feb. 23. According to the FSIS, the pizza subject to recall comes in a 50.6-oz corrugated box containing one shrink-wrapped 16-inch pizza with lot code "20547." The products subject to recall bear establishment number “EST. 1821” inside the USDA mark of inspection.

The recall was announced by RBR Meat Company Inc., a Vernon, California-based company.

Whussup with the FAAS flap? Sure it's a fact that people get crazy when it comes to pets, but the current situation has gotten bat-shit bonkers with all this opera over the animal shelter. Sure, some people can take some pride in making the whole non-business work well, but these City Council meetings are getting way out of hand with shouting and insults and bad behavior that seems to provoke, instead of reasonable response, yet more bad behavior on the part of members of the Council and the Mayor, who has periodically demonstrated aspects of irrationality that border on the unhinged.

The Shelter does well for it primary client-base -- the animals. There may be some administrative wrinkles, but really, we are not talking about the Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa here.

It is just a fecking animal shelter, for crissake. Everybody please calm down.

Nobody seems to have any recollection as to just why the FAAS is on the Council agenda to begin with for all the brough-haha, so it would be helpful if someone stepped in to provide a bit of focus here.

The last time things got this silly, it was over the Disputed Bicycle Bridge, which was created so as to resolve a wacky dispute over right of way between pedestrians and bicyclists only to become a bone of contention as each side claimed the slender span for its own folks.

Our Island -- a place where dismay overwhelms wisdom.

THE WHOLE WORLD WHISPERING BORN AT THE RIGHT TIME

We just got a new Californian! Just got word that Jessica McGowan-Vanderbeck gave birth at 4:38am this morning after nearly 38 hours of hard labor. The new Giants fan is a boy weighing in at 8 pounds 19 ounces. Congratulations!

FOUR GREEN FIELDS

So anyway. The Editor walked along, pensively, as the skies lowered from high mottled patterns to a low leaden gray and leaves showered in fits during the tremulous period that precedes a storm. What kind of story did he have to tell? To whom was he speaking when he spoke?

This is an age-old problem for actor and playwright alike. Who, indeed, is the audience? And is it true that we will never know for sure.

Latterly he had been irascible and outraged, shouting and ill-humored. Forgetting all the while as he shook his rattle at the blank sky, just for whom it was all being done.

Any father had experienced this same feeling from time to time, with the bills piling up, the vacations postponed, the dreams deferred . . . .

Mr. Sanchez, looking down at the newest addition to the house, considered that now, most surely, he would never walk the Pilgrim's Camino in Spain. Nor would he ever finish that book he had meant to write, and the old 350 Honda sitting with flattened tires in the garage, getting dustier by the year, would never spark again, for now obligations sat heavy upon his shoulders and he had other priorities.

Some men would have reacted with shaking rage, but Mr. Sanchez was made of other stuff and he reached down to lift the squalling infant and holding it close, it quieted. He was now the dream and no other.

Denby roused suddenly from his bed as a burst of Canadian geese scattered and reformed across the sky. He lay awhile staring out of the tiny pane afforded him in the attic room of the St. Charles Hospital for Social Rehabilitation, a place where he had taken up sanctuary years ago. He stayed there because the rent was cheap and the Hospital let out the room which had been deemed uninhabitable for patients because it needed the money.

He knew why he was there; he could not afford to move and he loved music, so that was that. As for his audience, Denby imagined that he ought to start playing a few more uptempo things. It was about time.

Things were rollicking at the Old Same Place Bar. As the weather closed up the air into a stifling box, Padraic and Dawn ladled out the Gaelic Coffees and the pints of Guinness. Padraic refused to insult the Old Sod by naming the coffee concoction of whiskey and brown sugar and whipped cream by its usual appellation, for he insisted no "daycent lad o' the Green" would slur the good spirit that is the Water of Life by such a name as "Irish Coffee."

But the liquor was flowing and the talk was alive and the music was "Molly McGuire" in a hustle and a bustle and a clatter of dishes in the back as Padraic ran back and forth with Jose hired on to help as an honorary Irishman because of his native religion and all was cheer.

Until the door flew open and in came three members of the Angry Elf gang, Bryan Gump, Nasty Narita, Snarky Twit, and The Cackler, all jovial after setting a group of boats on fire and killing a dog down by the Marina. The regulars glared silently at them while the Not From Heres retreated to a table to talk among themselves. Everybody knew something would happen. Marsha noticed suddenly her shawl was missing and Nina had lost her watch and Leo could not find his hat. Suzie sullenly served the four who elbowed people out of the way at the bar. Things always went wrong when one of them showed up. There were fights and people got hurt. Somehow none of them ever seemed to be the center of attention when something bad happened, for none of them ever seemed to get into a fight directly but anytime crockery broke, one of them was nearby, like the infamous Bann Se of long ago, whistling around the chimney, making roof slates fly off in the middle of a storm, causing the shivers, and spoiling the milk.

In the back corner, a formerly romantic couple now was arguing over a movie.

Anywhere people seek joy, you are bound to find these malevolent sprites causing unhappiness and mischief.

The room got darker and draftier and more quiet until one of them, Snarky Twit it was, looked around and said, "I think we need to have some dancing and celebration!" Here he grabbed Shannon and spun her around until she was dizzy and she plotzed into a chair with her shoes askew.

It was clear she could not go on.

At that moment there was an eerie arpeggio of bells, the candles dimmed and disappeared. The door flew open and the wind appeared. The curtains blew and then He appeared.

"Don't be afraid," he said to Shannon.

The figure strode up the length of the way to the bar and the assembled multitude parted before him not unlike the Red Sea before the staff of the Prophet Moses.

He clambered up upon a stool there and ordered his usual - a bump, a Guinness properly stacked, and an ale for waiting on the Guinness.

Indeed, the Wee Man had returned.

There was a brief lull in activity, but the Angry Elf Gang could not let anything go by without comment.

"Hey little fellow, did you lose your mama?" one of them said.

"I see you have never known yours."

There was a shocked acre of silence.

"O yeah, so what're you saying, little dwarf?"

"I am saying quite plainly you do not know your mother and you never have. And you should know what that means. Everyone here who has any sense knows it."

"Oh yeah? I think we oughta put in a little ruggers here. A little dwarf tossin'."

"Just you try," said the Wee Man, who stood up on the top of the bar stool.

Snarky Twit came up to the barstool and made as if to grab the Wee Man and toss him as they are wont to do in uncouth Southern Lands, but the Wee Man grabbed Snarky Twit's nose and holding him there tight as a vise, seized his privates, causing him to howl. He then spun Snarky Twit around in a circle, making of his body a great wheel with his privates the hub while the man howled in anguish. Faster and faster he spun the arsonist thug until he became a blur like the blades of a summer fan. A sort of hum began and sparks began to fly out and smoke arose as from an overheating motor and a wind blew back everyone's hair. The human dynamo spun into a blur of motion and sparks until there was a sort of explosion of sparks and all the lights went out and everyone sat there in a stunned silence.

In the darkness, everyone heard a voice announce clearly, "Your mother is and always has been the dear, sweet Earth. Be kind to her."

And with that the lights came back on and the Wee Man had disappeared. Sprawled on the ground was the Snarky Twit, all splayed out and dressed like a Bozo clown with droopy drawers and a fuzzy purple wig and a big red nose. Likewise was Gump, Narita, and Cackler, who it was discovered all wore chastity belts made of thorns which aggrieved them very much.

"O nuts!" said Dawn. "He's done turned me knickers into sausages again!"

Peering into her waistband, Suzie commented, "He certainly has a penchant for strange lingerie."

While the Angry Elf Gang fled the place in pain and shame, habitués of the Old Same Place Bar deliberated in some consternation about the state of their undies when the clear intent was to have each partner demand their removal ASAP, and so let consequences ensue au natural. . .

As the clock ticked over to a new day and the heavens broke their impending mood with lashings of rain, the Editor sat once again at his desk, finally decisive and determined. His place was to succor the lost, the lonely, the bereft, the less fortunate, the abused, the underdog of these times with wit and humor and hope. The coming times may become very dark and his instruments and powers must be devoted, as they always have been, to giving a lift up to those who needed it most; that was his job. Spring was coming, a time of renewal. In spite of setbacks he needed to remember the show goes on, week after week, sometimes with no hope of anyone being there to appreciate this rarefaction of elements, this removal of all obstacles until nothing stood between himself and the origin of Life. Yet still doing all for Company.

The clock struck. The pool of light remained. It was half one in the morning now as the blessed rain ending the long drought fell down. Time to work while the world sleeps.

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail, spreading like the forcefield of an explosive wave, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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 an unknown future.

That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.

MARCH 12, 2017

IN THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER

This week's image from Tammy is of the area near Crab Cove and marks the onset of an early Spring here on the Island.

WHAT'S THE BUZZ

From a friend in DC: An Environmental Protection Agency staffer:

"So I work at the EPA and yeah it's as bad as you are hearing: The entire agency is under lockdown, the website, facebook, twitter, you name it is static and can't be updated. All reports, findings, permits and studies are frozen and not to be released. No presentations or meetings with outside groups are to be scheduled.

Any Press contacting us are to be directed to the Press Office which is also silenced and will give no response. All grants and contracts are frozen from the contractors working on Superfund sites to grad school students working on their thesis. We are still doing our work, writing reports, doing cancer modeling for pesticides hoping that this is temporary and we will be able to serve the public soon. But many of us are worried about an ideologically-fueled purging and if you use any federal data I advise you gather what you can now.

We have been told the website is being reworked to reflect the new administration's policy... I am posting this as a fellow citizen and not in any sort of official capacity."

We have not checked out the provenance but some of this stuff checks out.

A Letter to the Editor alerted us that Rob Bonta (D-Oakland, Assembly) is working to repeal Costas-Hawkings, an anti-rent control initiative passed in 2000. allows a landlord, whose rental property would otherwise be subject to local rent control laws, to increase the rent without legal limit if one of the tenants move out.

With subtenants, Costa-Hawkins permits a landlord to change the rent to market rate for a sublessee if the master tenant no longer lives in the apartment and the sublessee did not reside in the unit before January 1, 1995. No rent increase is permitted, if one or more original tenants lives in the unit and sublets part of the unit with the landlord’s consent.

The landlord cannot raise the rent to market on a sublessee if the sublessee proves that the landlord waived her right to raise the rent. If the sublessee can show that the landlord told the sublessee that he could remain in the unit with the same rent as the master tenant, then the rent cannot be raised. The rent also cannot be raised if the landlord fails to serve written notice of a rent increase within 90 days of a written notice that the master tenant is leaving the unit. Finally, the landlord cannot raise the rent to market rate if the landlord receives written notice that the master tenant has left the unit and the landlord accepts rent from the sublessee. However, if the landlord receives written notice, the landlord can inform the sublessee that she has reserved the right to increase the rent at a later date.

The state law does not affect local eviction control laws. Therefore, it is possible for a rental property to be exempt from San Francisco, Oakland or Berkeley rent control, but still be subject to local eviction control laws.

So in the middle of the Rental Crisis here a landlord argues that the law allows small holders, and by that the writer means landlords who hold five or more units, to let units where otherwise they would not do so.

Poppycock. Where money is to be made, landlords will have it. Especially if we are talking about people letting entire buildings instead of in-laws. Nobody is going to allow an entire building to go fallow in fear of rent control unless they have income deriving from properties elsewhere and simply want to "punish" the community. How could anybody who is a true small-holder afford that? Landlords will make money regardless of anything; stop pretending they are all mom-and-pop inlaws. They are not and the big guys are using the real small-holders like a Dom over a Sub. Without lubricant.

In other news, letters to the editor seems to favor impeachment proceedings against Trump to a large degree, although reasons for doing so range widely from "public embarrassment' to plain foolishness. Not many cite abuse of office, which seems to us, at least, the main issue.

LIFE BY THE DROP

So anyway. Just as Raymond set out to see an old friend doing a speaking engagement in Babylon across the water, White's Hill decided to plop down and sort of loll leisurely across all lanes of Sir Francis Drake, scattering boulders and trees like so many orphanages sprinkled upon the landscape. Raymond got out of his car and stared at the Hill which only a while ago had stood more to the right and above a line of quaint CalTrans concrete highway barriers, each weighing some two tons each, and which maybe had felt good enough for the moment, but which now had been carelessly brushed aside and tossed over the far edge of the road as if the Hill had decided on a better idea of Feng Shui arrangement.

Life in these parts was full of uncertain power supply, uncertain neighbors, uncertain cell phone coverage and certainly expensive groceries while the hills themselves had a penchant for ambling across roadways and occasionally dropping them into the ravines in a puckish manner that made keeping appointments reliably difficult.

The slide was a consequence of the recent rains, coming now after years of drought. In irritation, Raymond turned his car around as the County arrived with lights flashing to put up barriers and headed down the fog-shrouded Snoffish Valley Road, a road that due to a kink in the Chronosynclastic Infundibulum, terminated in a long stretch on the Island where teenagers raced one another on summer weekends in hot cars that had their air-fuel mappings dinked and their computer injection programs modified by diligent enthusiast hackers sporting rolled-up jeans and duck-tail haircuts.

Not much changes; only the technology.

A moon swelled to fullness even as the government program meant to save daylight went into action. Countless bean-counters went into action with busy pencils and notepads so as to calculate the savings, but as Mrs. Almeida observed the last light fading luminescent on the heads of Alicia, Yolanda and Jorge as they busied about collecting the chickens into the coop for the night, and Pedro came walking up from the truck, carrying an armload of fish with Ferryboat wagging his tail along side in the dimming light, she thought some things are too precious to place thereon a price.

Pedro stood with his iron-grey hair shining as he watched the mother hen gathering her brood. Years had passed, his boney joists were getting creaky and the time to consider taking retirement before it, or the Sea, took him. He had always been a fisherman as had been his father before him and his father as well. Now the sons were studying computer graphics and fancy things and they had no interest in work on boats, save perhaps Gilberto, the oldest, who had gone out with him on occasion. But Gilberto was a dreamy sort and his father sensed that it was more the romance of the sea than the realities of day to day work upon it that attracted his son. He had no real interest in learning wind and tides and the seasons. The boy wrote poetry.

Pedro straightened his aching back and sniffed the air. Ferryboat looked up at him with a woof. A change was coming.

At Marlene and Andre's Rolph and Suan came in off the Snoffish Valley Road to hold counsel with Andre and Marlene in the back room while the others lolled about, full with Food Bank supplies for the moment. Content enough. Rolph and Suan, sensing the way things were going on the Island had started scouting out other places where the Household could transplant in a sudden emergency. If they had to. The Out-of-town Developer named Haider had bought the house to the left and then the house to the right. Men wearing funereal black had been seen walking around, taking pictures, taking notes.

Something was going to change, and change would not be good.

A few miles away Mr. Howitzer III, last of the Howitzers, sat beneath the painting of King George and went over his accounts. That house on Otis. Yes that one with the hippies. It was time to monetize that one better. Yes it was time. Before the fools enacted Rent Control. A change was coming on, he felt it.

On the Avenue, the open car carrying members of the Angry Elf's gang sprinted away from the scene of the burning car they had left in front of La Casa Azul as a warning to keep the payments.

Summer was their favorite time, for more people on the street meant more cover to do what they wanted. They were exuberant, especially the Cackler, a favorite of the Angry Elf, who enjoyed any sort of terrorism so long as it came cheap and paid well. The Cackler had a job in mind, one that would be fun and easy. Then they would all have a romp. Yes, a change for somebody was definitely in the works.

Calla lilies had burst into bloom at the base of the steps leading up to the door that lead to the apartments of Mr. Sanchez and Ms. Morales. The couple had gone to bed and the crib sat beside the window with the shades up and the powerful surge of the full moon filled the room with lapping waves of light. The man in the moon smiled upon the new infant; yes, changes were happening.

A few miles away the quick denizens flitted beneath the floorboards of the Household as the meeting between Suan and Rolf and Andre and Marlene broke up. The dark forms flitted and darted around the sparking old furnace which Mr. Howitzer had never had repaired, or even examined.

From from far across the water, the night train sent its wail, spreading like the forcefield of an explosive wave, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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 an unknown future.

That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.

MARCH 5, 2017

RUN LITTLE RABBIT

Nothing suits the start of March like a a March hare. According to the WikiPedia, "The March Hare (called Haigha in Through the Looking-Glass) is a character most famous for appearing in the tea party scene in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

The main character, Alice, hypothesizes,

"The March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be raving mad – at least not so mad as it was in March."

This fellow was knipsed on a hillside in the town of Woodacre.

THE INDUIBITABLE, INDELIBLE, INSCRUTABLE, AND INDEFATIGABLE RETURN OF INFAMOUS 3-DOTULISM.

Those three people who died in a Cessna that struck a house in California were Bay Areans, all hailing from San Jose . . . CDC investigating an e.coli outbreak on the West and East coasts says the vector may have been SoyNut Butter. Best toss it . . . Pro- and Anti Trump protesters clashed violently Saturday, fighting each other with knives and clubs on the streets of Berkeley. Police say they arrested only 10 people because wading into the pitched riot would have caused more serious injuries . . . Livermore, Mayor John Marchand joined students at Altamont Creek Elementary to read as part of the festivities celebrating the birthday of Dr. Seuss who was born March 2, 1904. For you struggling scriveners, Geisel's first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was rejected by 42 publishers, causing the despondent author to walk home after the 43rd with plans to burn the manuscript, when a chance encounter with an old Dartmouth classmate led to its publication by Vanguard Press . . .St. Patrick's Day, not especially observed on the Island of Saints and Scholars, which has enough saints already about which to bother, will be feted the 18th and the 19th -- most notably in the City of Dublin with its 35th Annual Parade . . . While we have long suffered risk of catastrophe due to earthquakes, Oklahoma was revealed by a recent U.S. Geological Survey report to face equal risk of between 5 and 12 percent for damaging earthquake, although the Sooner State's shaking is entirely man-made due to extensive fracking . . . City Councils in NorCal are considering resolutions to endorse impeachment proceedings against President Trump, with Richmond having already passed such a measure. The Council Meeting of 2/21 listened to just such a proposal even though Trump just delivered a speech before the joint houses of Congress, which sounded almost normal . . . .

LIKE THE WEATHER

Howard Schecter reports some good news from Mammoth.

02/24/17
"The last gasp of California’s wet Pattern will end the weekend with a whimper, as two small short waves will bring light amounts of snowfall to the high country. Only some 3 to 5 inches are expected for the Town of Mammoth. However, snow to water ratio’s will be high. The snow on Mammoth Mt will be Platinum Powder quality. However, no alert as amounts will not meet criteria. IE a foot or better….

Here are the figures for the Mammoth Pass Snow Course for the Two biggest winters since 1940.

The Winter of 1969 for Mammoth Pass is the bench mark. Bigger than 1983 for Mammoth Pass only.

FEB 1st Survey

Water Content (in) % of Norm

Year 1969 56.6 209% March 1st 78.1 213% April 1st 86.5 199%

Year 1983 46.6 172% March 1st 62.7 171% April 1st 83.7 193%

The Updated graph for the Mammoth Pass shows 78.2 inches today. So we are currently ahead water wise on the pass greater than the big bench mark winter of 1969 according to the DWP data."

With the weekend storm, the Pass topped <80 inches, breaking all records. Howard said that we are not likely to experience Sierra weather like this again within any of our lifetimes.

From Lake Oroville we have a mixture of good and bad. Everyone knows the evac order has been lifted and 160,000 people returned home. The power plant has been shut down again after resuming on Saturday to allow crews to remove a "massive amount of debris" collected below the damaged spillway which is now not being used at all. Instead releases from subsidiary reservoirs are being used to alleviate pressure on the dam.

In addition to these problems, erosion collapsing river banks further down the Feather River have severely damaged roads and irrigation lines. One farmer saw a 25 foot bluff collapse, taking with it steel pipe and pumps for irrigating almond groves. Acting Head of the Department of Water Resources Bill Croyle remains hopeful that deepening the channel below the power plant outlet will allow the plant to resume full operation within 1-2 days.

THANKS FOR LISTENING

So anyway, the Man from Minot threw down his bag in such a way that the flat bottom of the leather valise sent a ripple of dust out from beneath it like the shock wave of Big Boy when burst above our lives and send us all surfing on that radioactive wave through the years of what was then the horrific future of apocalypse and now the sad past of death, fear and anxiety in response to that upgrade in warfare.

He had just returned from a trip to Stevenson, a suburb of Dallas, without the pleasure of being Dallas or Austin or even Chicago to learn about the future of home lifting -- the technology and the advances and the mandatory upgrades -- which all amounted to an hill of beans as far as he was concerned, since his little company had been acquired by a massive international engineering outfit that had been once captained itself by a former Vice President.

And now everything, all this new stuff, the hydraulic jacks and the lifts and the joists and contracts and the relationships, was being couched in terms of former this and once that. Like any man returning from a long trip to a mostly empty house he went and got himself a drink.

So anyway, indeed.

Mornings come with sodden gray skies and ice on the back window. A nimbus hovers over the vales as if a congregation of ghosts has just broken up its meeting and steam rises from the trees. Most of the deciduous ones remain bare and padding to the stove to fire up the coffee, your breath comes out in clouds. Nevertheless even now, signs of impending change erupt quietly, tiny green explosions along the branches of buckeye that went stark naked in summer all quite suddenly the past year. The Japanese plum has clad itself in sexy pink lingerie and all the cherry blossoms are popping out. Down along the Cove a carpet of daffydowndillies appeared with yellow surprise. In the places where we have snow, shoots appear at the bottom of suncups. Dawn O'Reilly goes out to the garden and bending over, spreading her knees, looks down where she and Padraic planted the fava beans last year, pushes aside the weeds, and remembers the days when she was a girl rolling with the boys in the hay of Enniskerry after the snow had cleared. Clearly, something is happening down there.

Latterly Padraic has been in discussions with the landlord about the next five year lease. They have occupied the same location now for well on twenty years and more, granting succor to many a lost soul while contributing to the community in a thousand ways, but tradition and kindness die easily in these times and the landlords are not known for generosity or kindness. Mr. Howitzer's firm Rauch, Howitzer, Howitzer and Ball, was wanting an increase of a sort to drive any businessman half mad on the Sea of Accountancy. Change was in the offing. They might have to let Suzie go.

Dawn stood up and went up to the second floor to look out the window while Padraic emitted the sound of a small lumber mill from the bed. Down there had been Brown's Shoes. And over there beyond, John's Barbershop. Both gone now. And down the way, Pagano's Hardware had once presented its creative storefront windows for an half century; also gone. A shift in clouds above changed the look of the Island. The little houses with their Edwardian fronts interspersed with the faux adobe craftsman cottages painted in pastels still looked the same, but it seemed a shadow was extending now from one end to the other.

Down on the street Denby made his way to Marlene and Andre's Household. A spatter of rain and wind caused him to walk bent over holding his hat, which provided with his Macintosh his only defense against rain. He took brief shelter under an awning of a shop that had closed and now had windows all boarded up. As he stood there waiting for the squall to lessen, a car carrying several members of the Angry Elf gang drove by slowly. The car paused for a moment on the street and the occupants looked at him and someone cracked a window and cackled an evil laugh.

We're gonna get you. We are gonna make you sorry.

A car coming along honked impatiently and they drove on.

Denby stood out in the street as the rain lessened and shouted after the car, "Fuck you Neil! Fuck you, ya little man!"

But he was only a small person on a street in the rain and everybody had their problems and nobody cared and nobody paid attention. The police did not care; this was no country for old men and they rather preferred to save stranded cats in trees and have pancake breakfasts at Ole's Waffleshop to promote themselves and community spirit.

He had gone to the police about the threats and the bullet holes in his windows, but they could do nothing unless Denby did the leg work for absolute proof. The Angry Elf had immunity because he had narced his friends in Brooklyn. He was Protected.

Something like a local Mafia was not to their taste anyway and so Denby was on his own in the little town, headed on a path like a boxer in an old Hemingway story.

He reached the battered porch of the old house and came in as Marlene was dishing out the meal of bread soup. At that moment the storm really hit and the rain came lashing down to pound the roof, while inside all the lost souls of the Household sat in corners with their bowls of steaming soup after a long day of survival in these times. This was a place of Sanctuary, a concept that used to be considered sacred back in the day before it became politically inconvenient.

Below the floorboards, the denizens down there continued their scurry around the old furnace unit.

Meanwhile, Rolf and Suan were not present at this gathering. They were harboring with friends up in San Anselmo in Marin where they had been looking for a place, an alternate refuge, for many were leaving the Island City during the Rental Crisis and it was good to look around to see what could be found.

As it turned out, Marin was crowded, expensive, inhospitable. Full of effete poodle walkers lacking irony or humanity. Hardly a place of refuge. Indeed they did meet one rancher who had occupied his land for ages out in the town of Sylvan Acres, a place which consisted of nothing much more than a country store and the post office, who seemed affable and real, but they had found nothing else and were resigned to returning to look for some harbor in San Leandro where a crew of misfits and malcontents could take up shop should TSHTF.

As they sat down to their meal flashes of light illuminated the hills all around. Thunder rolled over the Himavant in waves. The drought was ending. Changes were coming.

That night, after a long day of searching, Suan listened to the sound of rain and rushing water and missed the sound she had hearkened to for so many years and that hard woman who worked as a pole dancer at the Crazy Horse wept, knowing change was certain.

Miles away, in a cruiser sitting by the Old Cannery on the Island, Officer O'Madhauen opened an envelope by the light of the dashboard lights. It was his retirement statement. He did not know what he would do when the time came; perhaps he would move to Kentucky to be with family. There it was cheaper. Even though he had lived here all his life.

A car drove by slowly and he recognized it; the Angry Elf Gang. The Officer's eyes narrowed. Just you make one mistake. Just one mistake. He knew what they were.

At that point, the train wail ululated from from far across the water, spreading like the forcefield of an explosive wave, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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 an unknown future.

That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.

FEBRUARY 26, 2017

IN THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER

This week's headliner comes from Tammy as she made a walk in the new sunshine around Crab cove.

After the hard rains and the long winter Spring begins to announce itself in advance.

WHAT'S THE BUZZ

As part of the “Hands Across Alameda” protest of the immigration policies of President Donald Trump, a group of several hundred people gathered on Alameda’s Crown Memorial Beach and along Alameda’s shoreline. The group joined hands in heavy rain and wind while singing “This Land is Your Land” on Presidents Day, Monday, Feb. 20.

Most of the public flap seems to be about the FAAS animal shelter and the B1 proposition about funding the schools.

The local animal shelter has strong proponents and this shelter was subject to severe scrutiny in recent years, which led to procedures that could have led to its closing. A last minute effort by partisans succeeded in preserving the existing institution. The FAAS includes a large number of dogwalkers and poodle-sympathizers, so we are not at liberty to comment upon this violently pernicious issue.

A few people objected to Proposition B1 adding a property surcharge to fund public schools. So what else is new?

Weatherman says we get a break from the recent storms that have pelted the Bay Area, causing havoc and Interesting Traffic.

Up in Marin, White's Hill was closed twice due to mudslides last week. In the South Bay, forced evacuation orders 2/22/17 displaced 35,000 people due to Coyote Creek overflowing.

According to CHP, here is the report for Route 1, which saw local closures until today.

SR 1
[IN THE CENTRAL CALIFORNIA AREA]
IS CLOSED FROM RAGGED POINT (SAN LUIS OBISPO CO) TO 15 MI NORTH OF BIG SUR /AT PALO COLORADO/ (MONTEREY CO) - DUE TO A MUDSLIDE - MOTORISTS ARE ADVISED TO USE AN ALTERNATE ROUTE

IS CLOSED 1 MI SOUTH OF BIG SUR /AT PFEIFFER CANYON BRIDGE/ (MONTEREY CO)
- DUE TO INSPECTION - MOTORISTS ARE ADVISED TO USE AN ALTERNATE ROUTE

IS CLOSED FROM 3.3 MI NORTH OF THE JCT OF US 101 /AT PANORAMIC HIGHWAY/ TO
5.7 MI NORTH OF THE JCT OF US 101 /AT PACIFIC WAY/ (MARIN CO) - DUE TO A
SLIP-OUT - MOTORISTS ARE ADVISED TO USE AN ALTERNATE ROUTE - LOCAL RESIDENCE WITH PROPER IDENTIFICATION WILL BE ALLOWED ACCESS

IS CLOSED FROM 1 MI NORTH OF MUIR BEACH /AT SLIDE RANCH/ TO 0.2 MI SOUTH
OF STINSON BEACH (MARIN CO) - DUE TO A MUDSLIDE - MOTORISTS ARE ADVISED TO USE AN ALTERNATE ROUTE - LOCAL RESIDENCE WITH PROPER IDENTIFICATION WILL BE ALLOWED ACCESS

1-WAY CONTROLLED TRAFFIC FROM 1.2 MI NORTH TO 1.5 MI NORTH OF CARMET
(SONOMA CO) 24 HRS A DAY 7 DAYS A WEEK THRU 1800 HRS ON 5/31/17 - DUE TO
CONSTRUCTION

1-WAY CONTROLLED TRAFFIC AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS FROM 4.4 MI NORTH OF THE
JCT OF SR 116 /AT RUSSIAN GULCH/ TO 6.3 MI SOUTH OF FORT ROSS
/AT MEYERS GRADE RD/ (SONOMA CO) 24 HRS A DAY 7 DAYS A WEEK THRU 2359 HRS ON 6/30/17 - DUE TO CONSTRUCTION

[IN THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AREA]
IS CLOSED 1.1 MI SOUTH OF THE JCT OF SR 271 (MENDOCINO CO) - DUE TO A
MUDSLIDE - MOTORISTS ARE ADVISED TO USE AN ALTERNATE ROUTE

1-WAY CONTROLLED TRAFFIC 2.5 MI SOUTH OF ROCKPORT (MENDOCINO CO) - DUE TO A MUDSLIDE

Forecast for this coming week is clear skies for the next seven days at least.

PHONEBOOTH IN HEAVEN

So anyway. When Commissioner Talonis let Denby out from jail he gave Denby a stern warning not to be caught cavorting about town again without underpants or he would be deported following the new Federal rules about desireables and deplorables, categories which had never before existed but which now served ample purpose to those seeking to weed out the local populace. Indeed the new rules served any number of purposes save that of protecting the people and ensuring their safety.

In the Gold Coast Pastor Nyquist bumped into Father Danyluk who was musing about the Easter Pageant, for which he needed Pastor Nyquist's assistance, as none of the Catholic priest's congregation could sing better than a pond of bullfrogs. Indeed not a single Catholic was capable of carrying a note to the corner letterbox. And so the priest had depended for some years upon the resources of the Lutheran Pastor Nyquist to supply able choristers.

Each was out taking their daily walk around the block. Father Danyluk invariably paced clockwise, and the Lutheran pastor proceeded according to his nature, anti-clockwise.

Of course it was fated that they would meet, given the circumstances.

How goes things, Father Danyluk said when they encountered one another.

Dreadful. Simply dreadful. There is a leak in the belfry and the puller is getting all wet when it rains.

Ah, said Father Danyluk. We have a good roofer in our midst. Perhaps I can share his contact information.

You have my email, the pastor said.

Indeed I do, said the Catholic priest unabashed. I will send it direct as soon as I return to deal with the upcoming Pageant . . .

In this way, great schisms are, if not mended, then ameliorated.

In the Old Same Place Bar, all the talk was about the upcoming Oscars and which picture would win something or other. The Man from Minot came in all disheveled and ordered a bump and a glass of Fat Tire. He did not care who won anything; he had just spent the day lifting houses out of the muck with jacks and bricks. "They are bound to screw it up against the more deserving anyway," he said.

Sure enough, as all watched on the telly, that is exactly what happened.

At that point, the train wail ululated from from far across the water, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening 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, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

FEBRUARY 19, 2017

RAINING IN PARADISE

LIKE THE WEATHER

Got this message from the San Anselmo Town Manager, Debra Stutsman:

"The National Weather Service is predicting steady rainfall, heavy at times, starting Sunday night (2/19) and continuing until Tuesday, with a predicted rainfall of 3 inches during that time period, with a high wind advisory and high surf warning. NWS advises that we can expect rapid rises on the creek and some flooding is possible. Downtown merchants may wish to place flood gates at close of business Saturday or Sunday. Additionally, residents are advised to be prepared for localized flooding and watch for downed trees, downed power lines and mudslides, which should be reported to 911. "

San Anselmo is the first small town west of San Rafael and was the site of a disastrous flood in the 1980's.

From the National Weather Service we have this for Fairfax: "Rain. The rain could be heavy at times. High near 60. Windy, with a south wind 15 to 20 mph increasing to 25 to 30 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 38 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between 2 and 3 inches possible. "

Fairfax is to the west of San Anselmo and, like San Anselmo, has a creek which is prone to flooding.

Corte Madera Creek, which is fed by all the local streams, peaked at 8.25 feet 2/18 at 2:15PM. Right now it is hovering around 6.31 feet. Flood level is 16 feet, which may seem quite a jump, but with the ground now saturated, that level could be reached in a matter of hours.

Precipitation accumulation measured at the Corte Madera Arroyo in Mill Valley stands at 36.48 inches since Oct 1, which is quite a lot for a region accustomed to about 20 inches all year.

As for the troubled Lake Oroville Dam, damage to which caused an evacuation of 188,000 people, things look better than they did.

The California Department of Water Resources says the level of Lake Oroville continues to fall despite the stormy weather, and the amount of water flowing down the spillway continues to be cut.

As of Sunday morning, Lake Oroville was at 81 percent capacity as which is still 114 percent of the historical average for the date. This is a major decrease from last Sunday, when the lake was at 100% capacity, or 148 percent of the historical average for that day.

California Department of Water Resources Chief Bill Croyle said water was draining at about four times the rate that it was flowing in and the repairs should hold at the nation's tallest dam.

As for the Island, thanks to its independent power grid, outages have been few and less widespread than across the Estuary. Residents should be mindful of high tide during the upcoming storm, which is due at 6:20 AM on Monday and again at 8:49 PM. The low area that approaches the Ferry landing is particularly susceptible to flooding when storms hit.

Rain or no, the Hands Across Alameda is slated for Monday.

Residents of Alameda and surrounding cities will meet along the Alameda beach on President's Day to create a human chain to promote inclusiveness. Alamedans are set to continue a tradition of inclusiveness as they cross the partisan divide by crossing hands together. The event was organized through social media and promoted by the city.

“This is not a fundraiser,” said community organizer John-Michael Kyono. “It is simply a gesture of support and unity for all residents in Alameda and beyond.”

There will be four main meet-up locations: Crown Memorial Beach, Grand Avenue at Shoreline, Park Street at Shoreline Drive and on the Bay Trail in front of the Harbor Bay Club.

A similar nonpartisan event took place on the Golden Gate Bridge last month.

In other rain-related news, a few Marin County juvenile residents proved they may have lost their marbles when a couple of kids were caught boogie boarding down the creek during the recent weather. To top that, another set of teens tied a rope to a bridge and attached a surfboard during the height of the recent storm, according to Mill Valley Police. The kids then used the board to "surf" the choppy waves, dodging trees and other floating debris.

You can't blame the public schools for this bit of inanity. Still, according to the MVPD Officer (name withheld), "Heck this is the sort of stuff I used to do when I was a kid."

BLUE VALENTINES

So anyway. A dockwalloper set in to pound the Island with sheets of rain, letting up to provide a day of magical sun-dappled skies, which yielded to Blakean worlds stretching across the horizon from end to end with charcoal gods and violently billowing clouds above the dark human forms scurrying from doorway to doorway in the seaside town.

V-Day passed with few disasters. While the local radio station took calls so as to play the favorite song for this and that couple, the Quirkyalone Society met in the Free Library to discuss politics, freedom from connectedness, independence, and the best lipstick for people not wanting to hook up with anyone. The movie that night was The Lobster, an indie film which featured compulsory mating dances, public humiliation, failed suicide, eye piercing, oral mutilation, devouring by wild dogs, and generally repulsive behavior. Despite a certain nausea engendered by the film, several people left the room coupled up for one night stands, which promised to never to lead to anything serious. Per common agreement.

The Small Dog Walkers Association met for a little party at the walking area in Washington Park. They set up a table and someone brought in pink confections and someone brought in punch that was set in a kettle on sterno burners and the little yappers were turned loose within the fence to bark and butt sniff and vigorously mate with one another. Lyle brought a big flagon of vodka, which he dumped entirely into the punch when Ms. Pitz had her back turned. Pretty soon everyone was feeling quite toasty.

Andre showed up at the door after work with his shirt torn, a bloody scratch across his face, one black eye, bruises up and down his arms, and the neck of a broken guitar in his hands.

"You look like crap." Marlene asked. She had spent the day at the psychiatric institute filing Dr. Patootie's correspondence, typing the WHO letter for the 9th time because of changes in grammar, spot checking the JAMA article for errors, handling a 5150 who had leapt over the counter, pulling dogpiled security off of an adolescent who had started talking about joining the Jihadists, and talking down a man who had wandered over from the methadone clinic with a bread knife. Her hair was a mess and her lipstick was smeared.

"O yeah," Andre said. "Eff you."

"Eff you dickhead!"

"O yeah?"

"Yeah!"

The two of them went into the back room, closed the door and caused the entire household of anyone who did not depart for somewhere peaceful to stop up their ears and hold on when the cottage began to shake with the energy of their lovemaking and their crying out in release.

In the dark, Rolf paused outside the Household to smoke a cigarette and look at the newspaper by the light that fell outside the windows. The President was going to build a wall. The President was going to deport the illegals. All the immigrants of America would have to go.

Rolf was an illegal immigrant, come to this country on the back of a stolen passport he had discarded in the wastebasket at the airport on arrival. He was an illegal twice over if one considered the flight through the border barbed wire between what was then the DDR and the BRD. Years had passed and he had become as American as anyone. Although he was pretty much secure now from deportation, still, the old fears of the soldiers coming to take him away remained in the background of his mind. A part of him would always identify with the faces of los immigrantes.

Suan came out of the household cottage and the two of them walked to the busstop together where they would take the OX to the City where they both worked at the Crazy Horse Saloon, a so-called gentlemen's club.

You all right, Rolf, Suan said. You seem in a funk.

Ah, thinking about the immigrants. We are gypsies with no home.

Try living as a Black in America some time, Suan said. Internal exiles.

Along the way to the stop, Suan put her hand in Rolf's. She could sense his hesitancy and his insecurity in these past few weeks. The stripper and the bartender/bouncer stood there, holding hands while waiting for the bus and people driving by commented to each other in their comfortable cars, "Such a cute couple."

Meanwhile Denby decided to avoid this entire V-Day thing by going to a poetry reading featuring notables Robert Pinsky and Jane Hirshfield. The reading was in Marin, which he figured would be a safe place to hang out away from the Island. Pahrump gave him a ride to the bus station and the bus took him over the bridge to Mill Valley. As he walked a tune came to him and he began composing in his head; this would be a good one. The title would be "Rainy Day in New Orleans." As he walked along a slight drizzle began to fall.

Along the way he was buttonholed by a man from Porlock out in the Central Valley. This fellow wanted help with fixing his computer. It seemed that the wifi kept going out. He could not figure out the problem and thought Denby could help since Denby had helped Susan get over her issues.

Fancy meeting you here, said the Man from Porlock.

Sometimes Denby made money fixing computers -- every real musician has a day job.

While standing outside the hall, as people filed in to this very popular event, the man from Porlock kept on about his problem with the Wifi. The wifi SSID was Horse and it could not be found no matter what.

Have you tried rebooting? Denby really wanted this conversation to happen at another time.

O did that many times. The Horse never appears. The computer you mean. I don't see the Horse. Not the router. Exactly. Do I have to reboot the Horse?

People were thronging into the hall. Among them the redheaded librarian at whom he had been looking when Cupid smacked him a good one in the chest, but still the fellow was babbling about the Wifi and the connections.

I cannot get connected, you see. I have tried the AC mode and the G mode and still the 802 dot eleven will not work. Do you think I need to change frequency channels . . . ?

The red headed librarian entered the hall and disappeared.

By the time the man had left and Denby had got to the doors they were closed. A sign said "Max Capacity. Event Sold Out."

In irritation Denby turned away. Now he could not remember the chordal progression of the tune on which he had been working. Or the title. Something about New Orleans.

Then he remembered there was a side door off of the dumpster lot. Maybe he could get in and listen standing up in the hallway. He walked around to the dark area there and saw the little yard was full of cars and the dumpster and to get to the door he would have to walk around and climb over the railing. As he felt his way down the bank in the dark and the rain he slipped and slid downwards. He became disoriented and looked for a light source to find the library again. He stepped toward the light and realized, only as he plunged forward, that the light was from a stanchion posted at the edge of the creek walkway.

Into the rushing creek he went, managing to hold onto his hat. The little brook that during the summer months amounted to a rivulet no more than nine inches deep had become a six foot torrent ripping along and Denby flailed in the froth, losing his shoes in the process until he managed to grab a tree. As he hauled himself up his belt caught on a broken limb and his buckle broke. He finally managed to pull himself up on the log and lay there gasping without pants or shoes but still with his hat and overcoat as the rain started to really pelt down.

Figuring it was time to cut his losses, Denby headed to the bus stop where children in cars stared and pointed at the homeless man and the police cruised by slowly, giving him the eye. It took hours to return to the East Bay where he took the BART to 12th Street and when he got to Oaktown it was a long slog down Broadway and then through the tunnel to get back on the Island, naked under his overcoat, passing bearded guys pushing shopping carts along the way.

Hey bro! one guy said. Any spare change?

Safe on the Island he was making his way through the Mariner Square parking lot when he saw the red headed librarian get out of a car with an East Coast poet wearing a black turtleneck sweater and sunglasses.

Sunglasses at night in the rain.

Denby stopped and stared with disappointment and the red headed librarian turned and looked and pointed -- Denby's coat had fallen open as he stood there.

The sunglasses called the police. "There's a pervert in the Mariner Square parking lot."

Denby tried to explain but the sunglasses punched him in the face and turned away, taking the red headed librarian by the arm.

At the police station, Sergeant Popinjay was empathic and gave Denby an ice pack for his nose.

"Denby," asked Officer Popinjay, "How is it you wind up here or Oaktown 7th Street every year?"

"God loves me, I guess." Denby said, groaning on the cot.

God nodded, looking down at the wretched mess of Denby. I just have to love you Denby, said god. Nobody else does.

At that point, the train wail ululated from from far across the water, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening 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, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the Edwardian house-rows 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.

FEBRUARY 12, 2017

IF IT KEEPS ON RAINING

This week we have an image courtesy of Carol from up around Willits and represents some of what NorCal has been going through during the recent violent storms.

There is another road drop-out on the Lucas Valley Road near the Nicasio turnoff. See below for more reports.

ALL NIGHT I SAT ON THE LEVEE AND MOANED

Latest report over the transome has Oroville being issued an evacuation order when overflow behind the Oroville dam started using the emergency spillway when the main spillway was discovered to be severely damaged. Now the emergency spillway itself, with no clearing of the watercourse path, may soon be overwhelmed.

Forcasters indicate that we will enjoy a respite of a few days before another storm hits Wednesday.

The evacuation of residents in Oroville and surrounding communities in the shadow of the nation’s tallest dam was issued around 4:30 p.m., with California Department of Water Resources officials saying floodwaters could arrive within the hour. By 6:30 p.m., the Butte County sheriff said the threat had diminished, although it was prudent to rather be “safe than sorry” given the gravity of the situation.

More than 162,000 people live in areas of Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties affected by the evacuation order.

Some Marysville evacuees were bordering on panic Sunday night. Erin English, of Linda, said she was first told to go to Chico, then because of looming danger, to go the Colusa Casino Resort. She fled with her husband, two children and dogs, and didn’t have time to grab anything from their home.

The emergency spillway had not been used before at the reservoir, which opened in 1968. The structure is a key feature in a series of dams and canals that deliver water to 25 million Californians, including many in San Jose, Livermore, Pleasanton, Fremont, Union City, and Los Angeles.

State officials were hoping to avoid using the emergency spillway, which is basically a dirt hillside, because it would send tons of dirt, rock and silt cascading into the Feather River and then downstream into the Delta, however the emergency spillway was never intended to handle an immense volume of water. If the main spillway fails, then there is a possibility that the emergency spillway will crest, causing a massive failure of the dam and an uncontrolled release of quite a lot of water.

But dam operators decided early Saturday morning they needed to ease the beating on the main spillway, so water was allowed over the emergency route, which basically finds its own path down the hillside to the river below.

Oroville Dam, built into a rocky canyon 70 miles north of Sacramento in the Sierra Nevada foothills, is a critical part of California’s drinking water system, providing water for 23 million people and vast stretches of farmland.

At 770 feet tall, the structure that holds back the Feather River is taller than the Washington Monument and as thick as 10 football fields at its base. Lake Oroville, at 10 miles long, is the second largest reservoir in California behind Shasta Lake.

The next storm will arrive Wednesday.

GONNA BE SOME CHANGES MADE

Got a killing during a "hot prowl" on the Island, which is getting grittier as the rental thing continues to destroy communities like ours all around the Bay Area.

The incident occurred at 10:45 a.m. on Buena Vista Avenue. Authorities identified the deceased as 19-year-old Marquez Warren of Vallejo. Alameda Police Department (APD) Lt. Hoshmand Durani said Warren broke a rear glass door to enter the home. He then forced his way into one of the bedrooms. There he was confronted by the owner of the residence, Vedder Li, an off-duty Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputy.

Li opened fire and shot Warren several times, according to reports. Warren ran outside the residence where he later collapsed, according to Durani. Li called 911 and remained at the scene while authorities were en route.

Warren was transported to Highland Trauma where he died of his injuries.

APD is describing the incident as an officer-involved shooting and not a murder, however, Durani said their investigation is still pending.

This is the first homicide in Alameda in 2017. There was just one homicide in Alameda in all of 2016. Oakland High senior Antwaun Williams, 19, was murdered outside AMF Southshore Lanes at 300 Park St. on Nov. 19, 2016.

The shooting occurred after the victim got into an argument with the suspect outside the business around 11:10 p.m.

The two exchanged words and the suspect pulled out a handgun and opened fire.

The Island, like many cities, recently voted to make the city a Sanctuary City in response to President Trump's pandering to xenophobic anxieties around the country. A Sanctuary City promises to defend the human rights of immigrants and to withhold support to Federal agencies seeking to exercise possibly unconstitutional supernumerary powers that infringe upon human rights.

The vote is not without controversy here, as here remain individuals who have purchased the xenophobic hatred agenda. A recent letter to the editor complains that the Island is both biting the hand that feeds it and also causing fear to rise in the citizens because possibly some immigrant might do something nasty, which supposedly, according to the logic of the letter writer, could have been avoided by allowing ICE to spot check people and drop kick them out of the country for just about any reason without oversight.

The West Coast and the Island has experienced influxes of millions of immigrants from all over the world for centuries and has not experienced one single terrorist attack, not in 400 years.

But you know, some people are afraid it COULD happen. Any day now.

ROCK SALT AND NAILS

So anyway, a major dockwalloper set in this week to completely disrupt everything. Schools closed, power went out, sirens wailed and there was a lot of to do about road closures. Now that things have dried out for a few days, everyone around here has turned their minds to America's favorite pasttime: Sex.

The markets are packed with floating mylar balloon hearts, which surely is a most symbolic thing if there ever was one. Hearts made of tough material to which nothing will stick. The aisles groan under the weight of high caloric chocolates and pink confections. Everywhere the girls flutter and stir like thrushes and couples walk hand in hand. Everywhere there are couples cycling, walking, boating, dining and the world, although hung over with grey, roiling Blakean skies, exhudes a kind of Tanz auf der Vulkan sort of joy in the nauseating days of our lunatic Presidency.

All of this joy and Denby is miserable. Of course he is. The terrible V-Day approaches with much more advance bally-hoo than ever before, which means joy for some, but usually abject disaster to our only man.

The Editor typically sequesters himself a few days in advance into his office with a case of Makers Mark and a fridge packed with Michelina's frozen dinners so as to avoid being seen by that nasty boy flitting about with his quiver of arrows. Him and the leggy Joanne who always comes calling about this time. When one of his spies warns that Joanne is on the warpath, wearing a short shirt and tall leather boots, he turns out all the lights and sits with a straight shot of whiskey and pretends he is not home until she is gone from the outer door, calling "Yoohoo! Sweetie! I have a rose for you!"

Meanwhile Denby has tried various methods so as to avoid the terrific calamity that love and lust always make for him. When young women approach he averts his eyes.

No way did he want to repeat that catastrophe which happened with Diane. The broken bones and the third degree burns and the terrific property loss. Even worse: the execrable Opera of it all, with its scenes and wild hair and screaming.

Now that he was older, the pressure from those two hummingbirds down there had become less and he was content enough with his music and his books and sitting in the park undisturbed by any save the thrushes and the squirrels with their high bushy tails. Ah love - he was done with that young man's game.

As Denby crossed Crumpet near the traffic circle at the intersection of Throckmorton, Belvedere and Snoffish Valley Road he happened to see a head of flaming red hair enter Mr. Snarky's Coffeeshop. The parking meters there were all the old fashioned coin type, which he found quaint. It was that librarian, Siobhan who always walked with self possession. As a librarian, she fulfilled a role that possessed itself strict boundaries. A gentleman must always address a librarian as "Ma'am", for example.

Springsteen had a song about red-headed women. Denby wondered if Siobhan was a natural redhead with her blue eyes and if all her hair was . . .

Oh now stop it!

Up in the second floor rooms of Mr. Sanchez and Ms. Morales, a roseate glow pervaded the space that now housed the couple and their newborn, soon to be baptized as a native Californian with the name Ignacio. Above this room, the naked cherub armed with bow and arrows, invisible, paused to gaze down, but withheld his hand, for here there was love enough.

In the houses of Mr. Howitzer, the real estate magnate, and the Cribbages and the Dowdys, Cupid had visited before without success, for love always whithered without sustinance in such money-rich but emotion-poor environments. He spied Percy Worthington-Boughsplatt polishing his already immaculate two-toned 1939 Mandeville-Brot coupe and let loose and Percy took one look at Madeline and fell head over heads in love with her all over again.

Shelly and Lynette walked hand in hand beside the marina after dinner; they needed no help. They were perfectly fine together.

Amor flew off down the street, pinging here and there to see what targets he could find in the dead of winter as the tulips were just beginning to thrust upward through the snow in some places and the sun descended behind the Golden Gate in a firey burst of volcanic skies lit by glowing magma bearing granite lumps of cloud flowing west.

Down below, a figure walked slouched over, deep in his thoughts, thinking about red-headed women. An innocent soul. So Eros let fly.

Denby jerked in pain and clutched his chest, but the damage was done. In a fit of pique Denby marched off to the Old Same Place Bar, there to grab his guitar and pour himself into a double shot of Blues as the barflies took their places and the singles mingled in their ritual dances, some leaving with another and most leaving alone with only the Water of Life for solace. V-Day would be over, soon enough.

At that point, the train wail ululated from from far across the water, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening 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, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the packed gingerbread Edwardian houses 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.

FEBRUARY 5, 2017

WE COME IN THE AGE'S MOST UNCERTAIN HOUR

Sometimes it seems like the entire country has taken a crazy pill and the best of us have lost our way in a howling wilderness. It might be a good idea to ground ourselves in a few simple facts and a few values that we have inherited and have proven to be time-tested as valid. So instead of posting a local image of the beach at sunset or images of schoolkids celebrating the recent Chinese New Year (rooster), we are posting a pic taken by Tammy on a trip to New York a while ago. It is that of a gift handed to us by the French and is supposed to represent something some of us have forgotten.

Certainly the words inscribed on the pedestal appear to have been entirely forgotten by this generation.

Together with that we recall the words of wise Ben Franklin who said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

WHAT'S THE BUZZ

Contrary to some expectation, and perhaps not always for good reasons, basic life continues despite the Election Disaster. The LI'th (Lilith?!) Pooper Soul took place between the Patriots and the Falcons and somebody won and somebody lost, just as usual.

On the Island, an historic building was saved from destruction by Developers via the quick action of Railway historian Thomas Cornillie, who alerted the Alameda Architectural Preservation Society (AAPS) that developer Kevin Lam’s 7,100-square-foot building planned for Lincoln and Webster was set to demolish that forlorn, little building as well as remove a pesky tree that stood in his way. The city posted notices at the site alerting property owners and residents of the plan approval hearing that would soon take place.

The almost doomed building housed a structure dating from 1912. As Cornillie put it, "Lying dormant under what now looks like a shack, was a Mission Revival station shelter for commuters, probably dating to the 1912 electrification of the railroads by SP when passenger trains ran down Lincoln Avenue, once aptly named Railroad Avenue".

Nevertheless, Developers are a pestiferous sort of vermin that never sleeps and never stops looking for things to wreck and "monetize".

An Oakland-based consulting firm held a presentation for Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) board members to discuss real estate strategies last Tuesday, Jan. 24, at City Hall.

Economic & Planning Systems, Inc. (EPS), an economic and financial consulting firm, held a 50-minute presentation for AUSD board members to recommend how the school district can best "monetize" its real estate properties. Musbach and Kanat explained that AUSD’s most valued asset is the Thompson Field site that also contains an adjacent food services warehouse. Musbach recommended the school district rezone the property to residential and sell it to a developer.

“You would get most value for the site if you (rezone) the site, than to just give it to a developer and have them go through the rezoning process,” said Musbach, managing principal at EPS. EPS believes the site can hold 80 to 100 housing units, according to a memo from City Manager Jill Keimach.

The city bought the property that includes Thompson Field and McKinley Park in 1909. AUSD acquired the four-acre parcel from the city years later. Thompson Field has been the home of the Alameda High football team since 1940.

Previous owner James A. Waymire and his wife, Virginia welcomed high school youth to use their property as an athletic field possibly as early as 1885. The Waymires lost the property after their fortunes turned and Hibernia Bank evicted them one week before Christmas 1907.

The first Big Game between the East Ender Hornets and the West Ender Jets took place on that field in 1955.

Members of the AUSD were reportedly lukewarm to the plan of "monetizing" the property. There is no concrete plan to build a new, "more efficient" sports field as a replacement, for example.

Across the Estuary, the weather has caused some nasty power outages, but things are holding up for now. The monthly Art Murmur continues in the galleries even as the downpours have chased off the partiers uninterested in Deconstructive techniques or emotive evocation of urban sonorities.

HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN

So anyway, we got a few days to dry out a bit before the next set of dockwallopers set in Sunday evening. Outside the Island-Life Offices the rain pelts down and marches across the Island, the Estuary, the Oakland flats and up the hill and over Grizzley Peak Boulevard to lance down and over the Altamont Pass with its spinning windmills, across the Valley and up the slopes of the Sierra where it even now is turning into a refreshing pack of snow that will alleviate the harsh drought of the past few years.

Down at sea level, though, recent transplants and visitors skid and slide all over the place as formerly stable roadways saturate and fill up with ponds several feet deep.

Among the well-matriculated hills of Marin a roaring sound announces the fact that another house has slid off of the mountainside, causing people in the neighborhood to remark.

"Was that the Hendersons or those people from Minnesotta?"

"O no, that was the Smelling place. They put that house up there beside the creek even though everyone told Mr. Smelling not to do that. Not a good idea to build a house beside a creek around here. But he wouldn't listen, no he wouldn't. He owns five houses and he's one of them old timers you know."

"O he is, is he?"

"Yep. Had a dog. Got himself a labrador to be a guard dog and kept it outside all the time. The poor thing barking and whining in all kinds of weather."

"I suppose the dog perished in the slide and the old man got away with that huge, ridiculous truck he has."

"I think I hear him barking now."

"Mr. Smelling?"

"No. The dog. The dog got away."

"O I am glad about that."

"And Mrs. Smelling?"

"I do not care about that crazy bitch. Sorry."

In some places, like Oakland, people hear of disaster and they run up the way with firehoses, buckets, sandbags, and pulaskis so as to find a way to help. In Marin everyone goes to Google to find out how close the issue is to them. Then they have a discussion and resort to meditation and yoga so as to restore their Bliss since nothing can be done anyway. The more well-intentioned form a Committee, as if all of the County were a small town located in the Midwest and the only thing needed is to get a few laggards organized. Then, Reality either hits or simply does its work regardless. The laggards, dragooned into projects they detest, get burned and the Committee goes out for sushi.

On the Island, we form Committees that run up against local Mafia, but without guns. The experience of abutting against harsh Reality is somewhat the same as far as the end result, which is that self-delusion always wins the day. There are no laggards save for people flamed online and the Committee goes for pancakes at Olaf's or Joe's.

From the shadowy recesses of the third floor apartment in the Gold Coast a cry went up, great howling, and this was succeeded by a calmness and a soft effulgence of light around the birthbed helmed by the midwife. Into her exhausted arms was passed the newborn, yclept Ignacio. And so the household of Mr. Sanchez and Ms. Morales was blessed by the gift of new hope, new life.

Despite all the tumult of the Age and the burning, speeding planet and the mass extinction soon to happen, despite global climate change and all disaster, despite tyranny and overthrow of Liberty, the midwife began to sing a song. "Down among the reeds and rushes, a baby boy was found. His eyes as clear as centuries. His silky hair was brown. Never been lonely. Never been lied to. Never had to scuffle in fear. Nothing denied to. Born at the instant the church bells chimed. The whole world whispering: Born at the right time."

The midwife flung open the doors to the waiting people there and they rushed in to stand all around Ms. Morales. Our little town all gathered there. Jose ran down the stairs to the Methodist Church on Santa Clara and got himself let in and he went up to the belfry with the sexton carrying a lamp and after Jose told the Sexton, Dan Clarian, they set the bell ringing despite the hour.

Meanwhile, down on the street, members of the snarky Angry Elf's gang looked up at the lights streaming from the windows above with envy and hatred and they vowed to do what damage they could and they drove off smoking the tires of the Angry Elf's red Miata.

The street remained empty as the church bells pealed and the rain pelted down and the little drama continued up above in the room with the woman and her newborn child. Despite tyranny, life would continue despite all. Suffering would continue. Suffering would abide. But Life would continue.

And beneath the waters of the estuary, the captain of the Iranian spy submarine El Chadoor observed all of this activity through his periscope before ordering the boat to dive, to run silent, run deep, out through the Golden Gate to the vast ocean beyond.

Out at the Point, Pahrump observed the brief glimmer of the spyship as it flitted out into the Bay and beyond. At a camp on the tarmac of the old airstrip a gang of roisterers whooped it up. It was more members of the Angry Elf gang, who had started taking advantage of the political climate to bolster his ranks of thugs and cutthroats. Pahrump avoided that bad company and drove his scooter down Main with its vacant warehouses and then over to Otis. He drove past the Household and ran into Jose who told him the news about Ms. Morales and the birth.

"The whole world whispering: Born at the right time." Pahrump said.

At that point, the train wail ululated from from far across the water, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening 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, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the packed gingerbread Edwardian houses 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.

JANUARY 29, 2017

WHAT'S UP PUSSYCAT

This week's image comes courtesy of artist Carol who lives in the Goldcoast area of the Island. Calvin, the pussycat, seems confident and proud of his "pussyhat". Just do not grab him without permission. He might bite.

WHAT'S THE BUZZ

Well, it has been quite a roller coaster these past few weeks. Forget newly elected schoolboard members and even our own devious City Council along with Statewide approvals for legal pot and cellphone while driving restrictions and the usual plethora of bond measures. Everyone is ignoring these minor issues for now.

What matters locally is Rent. It has always mattered and it continues to matter and it continues to be a serious issue and It.Will.Not.Go.Away.

Rent Control is a matter of time and it is coming here and there is no pretending that it is a boogieman that will vanish like bee pee on cigarette paper. The last election virtually ensured that it is a defacto fait accompli and only a matter of time no matter how much Marie Kane kicks up a fuss and Fahrad buys up property to control the real estate situation.

The national stage has upstaged just about everything and people are hopping mad that a minority of Americans decided the future of the majority and this minority is a nasty, objectionable collection of deplorables.

Face it. A minority of Americans are, in fact, deplorable. Clinton said it crudely, but she was right. A great number of Americans are deplorable assholes who believe in flying saucers, who believe in Jesus on a tortilla, who believe that the earth is really only 5,000 years old and the dinosaur fossils and most of science is fake. They believe all sorts of nonsense and perhaps it is time to stop giving people who profess ignorance and inanity an equal stage over common sense and reason.

People are free to be idiots all they want -- just so long as they have no influence over MY children. Of course people in Nebraska and Oklahoma do not want to be dictated to by West Coasters or anybody other than themselves. But the reverse is powerfully true. We the majority of Americans who believe in Science, in reason, in common sense and facts that are facts and not qualified by "alternative" interpretations do not want OUR children led by the nose by a bunch of red-eyed, howling, minority fanatics, wherever they may reside. We don't care if they call themselves Heartland or BoobooLand. It does not matter. We don't want to be pushed around by a minor handfull of extremists who claim all of America for themselves despite the vast disparity of numbers. They are not America.

Time for Liberals to say, Fuck you to the wack-jobs and get America back on track being a Democracy again, a Democracy ruled by the majority vote. We need to admit to ourselves there is no roping people in who are stupid and handle snakes and reject reasoning. Forget them. There is no "education" for people who insist on voting against their own interests, time after time after time. They are stupid. They are dumb -- face it. Call them rubes or rednecks or whatever you want -- names do not matter. They are people who insist on being stupid, given every chance to be otherwise. The heartland is not the Heart of America -- it is an organ that has allowed itself to become diseased and self-infatuated with goofy mythical fake boot-scoot nonsense instead of owning up with courage to face the realities of where the country has succeeded and where it has failed. It refused to allow self-criticism of any kind. They have put aside the strong pioneer spirit of their forefathers in favor of comfortable self-serving and self aggrandizing smug vagueness bound by tattered iconography of cowboys and pickup trucks, iconography provided for them by marketing wonks living in Manhattan and cynically playing the emotions. And they never are going to change or learn intelligence or learn even to admit the presence of The Other. They are ingrained imbeciles and governance needs to account for that.

The Founding Fathers understood a large percentage of the people would act irrationally. That is why our system has so many checks and balances. At present, with all branches of government controlled by a single party and a particular radical exemplar of the executive branch, the system is highly stressed in being out of wack from the original design. Nevertheless, majority rule means exactly what it says. A minority controls the government and that is bad and that needs to change and change roughly if need be. If only to restore order. Right now things are highly disordered. Black lives matter, millions in protest, entire industries being rescued from disaster, a massive war on terror, concentration camps located in foreign countries, mass expulsions planned, an Executive Branch that is wildly out of control, hate groups burning crosses in triumph, you name it. Shakespeare knew it 500 years ago; all of his historical plays are all about how order is restored. It is never without messiness and running roughshod over what somebody imagines are their "rights". In the end, the stage is left littered with bodies and a Fortinbras re-establishing the rule of law.

That is what Democracy means - continuous war against tyranny. War has casualties. That is just the way it goes. So suck it up Buttercup.

ALL GONE IN SEARCH OF AMERICA

So anyway. The days broaden with widening light even as the mornings begin chill with frost on the windshield. Amos comes out to view the cold scene and returns indoors to fetch a bucket of water to dash on the car so as to start the defrost. Scrapers and such start the day after a cup of coffee. Then it is down the hill along the creek, ploughing through the herd of turkeys and deer roaming up from the bottomland while the hills steam with leftover dreams under the striated sky.

The day begins with coffee and striated skies, initiating the villanelle of the week. Repetition is the common course of our daily lives and kids walking to school dodge among the cars and the turkeys while the hills steam with leftover dreams and people dash after a cup of coffee to start the day. Deer wander up from the bottomlands and you head out after a cup of coffee. Each day is spent scraping a little more or a little less. At City Hall you plough through the fog steaming up through all the obstacles and everything in the way of getting things done and the turkeys always there in herds.

At the end of this day, you head up along the streams, dreaming of another lifetime of possiblities and deer roaming up from the bottomland as you ascend along the creek, ploughing through the leftover dreams of the day, scraping through the herds of thoughts and memories.

In the Old Same Place Bar, all conversation had halted. People sat, staring into their beer and their cocktails. The TV screen presented the jowly hairpiece that had become the Leader and everyone felt nauseated. Conversation, usually so lively, lagged in this time. The stool where Old Schmidt had sat remained loudly vacant.

Suzie stared at her anthro textbook. Nothing in the text had prepared her for the present situation. "The bonobo are a joy-filled community which is self governed by mutual affection . . . ".

Mutual affection did not seem to apply at the present time. Everyone hated one another.

Out at the Buena Vista flats near the old Cannery, Officer O'Madhauen kept watch over potential red light runners and speeders. Whatever happened, he would enforce the traffic laws.

They were easy.

In Marlene and Andre's household the tattered and battered of the earth kept counsel among themselves. In this bad abode 15 souls had found refuge and all across America countless cities and towns announced themselves refuge cities and towns. In the depths of the night Marlene held Andre close, naked and together under the duvet. "What is to become of us, in this time," Marlene said. Their legs were intertwined.

"The same as always," Andre said. "We remain true to ourselves. Lenni Lenapi - We are the people who love one another."

The moon rose in a crescent and fog arose steaming in the hills as deer roamed up from the bottomland and the crowd called out for cups of Irish coffee.

At that point, the train wail ululated from from far across the water, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening 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, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the packed gingerbread Edwardian houses 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.

JANUARY 22, 2017

DAY AFTER TOMORROW

This week's image comes from Mexico where long-time associate Augustin has presented this pic, which is titled "Inauguration Day", an image of dismay felt around the world.

We thought about the headline and put aside Decoration Day, a song about the Civil War dead and those who gave their lives in battle for America. The Tom Waits song, Day after Tomorrow, is also about a soldiers longing, in a letter or phone call, to return home with some doubt as to the wrap-up to the story in the end, and a suggestion the end is not a happy one to an ongoing unhappy situation that is caused by political and social jingoism.

Then again, there is always a day after tomorrow, when expected plans suddenly shift direction. Everyone without exception is going to lose something during the upcoming wars at home and abroad. Are you going to just let the winds knock you around or are you going to take part in the Resistance?

LIKE THE WEATHER

The news has been, when not focussed upon the Pussy-grabber, all about the weather. It does look like we had a pineapple express steaming through here with bouts of monsoon broken by periods of blue skies. This pattern, which features a series of storms, is called a "pineapple express" because it originates in the ocean north of the Hawaiian islands and features a series of violent storms that arrange themselves like train boxcars one after another.

The latest Dweeb report we have from Howard in the Sierra was from Friday and reported blizzard conditions through the weekend, which certainly came true with accumulations above 16 inches at Mammoth, and exceeding several feet in other areas, continuing through Tuesday and resulting in actual closure of ski resorts due to "excess snow."

Creeks in Marin rose up high, but stayed below warning level. Corte Madera creek peaked a foot below the warning zone at 13.5 feet.

Nixle reported no major closures last Friday, and other than the usual bad weather snarlups, just basic misery for commuters.

The "human chain" that extended across the Golden Gate on Friday was intended to be a performance art piece signifying unity and peace, and not a political protest. Permits were obtained months before the election results. No arrests were made.

Despite glowering skies we have positive reports from boots on the ground in Oaktown and Babylon this past weekend. A reported 100,000 people converged in Oaktown to vouch for women's rights and to protest the excesses of the new Administration in Washington D.C. The actions were peaceful and no arrests were made.

In Washington D.C. itself, some half a million showed up (conservative figures), overwhelming original plans to march along the Mall such that planners had to redirect marchers via various streets to the Ellipse in front of the Washington Monument. The assembly was peaceful and no arrests were made.

According to our tally in-house, between 1 and 1.2 million people marched in protest around the world against the new Trump Administration.

Saturday, Trump spent his day in Reston Virginia, apologizing to the Intelligence community for his attacks about the alleged Russian interference with American elections. No concrete proof has ever been presented about any such interference from any agency within the American government.

Nevertheless, Trump did feel, apparently, the need to apologize to the one branch of government over which there are no Constitutional checks and no balances and no oversight against abuse of power. And he apologized in the manner he usually handles things -- instead of admitting he blurted inanity, he blamed the Lying Press for causing all the problems.

CITY OF STARS

So anyway, said Denby, The City of Stars will always be for me that tiny town a bit south of here named Brisbane, which was nearly destroyed by the massive PGE explosion a few years ago. Brisbane is a small town with modest houses and decent people with modest dreams and few streetlights to disturb the peace. Farmers and fishermen live there. It will never be La la land, a vapid Big City place empty of heart.

So anyway, repeated Denby, This song is a song I wrote and it is called "Los Narcos este pinche," and it is about the Angry Elf and his gang of thieves destroying the innocent Country.

At that point Denby launched into his ballad about the bad narcotrafficante and his evil deeds and his ugly, ignorant cohorts and while he was still singing, someone arose and left the Old Same Place Bar to make a telephone call.

"Boss, someone is singing a song about you. It is not so nice. And he does not like the Trump either . . .".

The henchman stood a long time in that place with the rain falling down in one of the last freestanding phone booths in town, listening to what his boss, the Angry Elf, had to say."

That night the machinery for a vast and terrible orchestra of death set itself in motion.

Up the hill, Mr. Spline counted the bullets available to his magazine once again and then trained his nightgoggles upon the door of the Greek Orthodox church where Wally's son had taken refuge after blowing the whistle on the secret municipal eavesdropping programs. His charge from Washington was to keep tabs upon the whistleblower, and neutralize him under safe circumstances, but only upon confirmed order.

Mr. Spline's finger twitched upon the trigger of his modified Glock. The confirmation could always be arranged after the fact.

Down on the Buena Vista Flats, hard by the old brick cannery, Officer O'Madhauen kept watch for speeders and red light runners, the bulwark of Western Civilization in his capacity as Traffic Enforcement Officer.

Marlene finished up the washing in the kitchen after the evening meal of foodbank zucchini and past-date mushrooms and tomato sauce over pasta. The house residents, the lost, the beaten, the dispossessed, the landless, the cast out and the abandoned, the robbed and the bereft, had crept to their corners after eating their humble meal and even Occasional Quentin was there under the coffeetable, all present due to the rains and the cold weather that prevented sleeping in bus stop kiosks and the dangerous homeless shelters.

Andre sat with Little Adam working over elementary trigonometry homework.

Beneath the floorboards another rat of the Brethren stepped too close to the old heater coil and died an electric death amid sparks and little flames that licked away the small hairs of the rat and his brethren gathered and seemed to pray all together amid the incense of his smoking flesh.

In the Parlor 33.3 of the Native Sons of the Golden West Pahrump and Jose listened to the sound of a ship's horn in distress and Jose wondered what it meant.

"What it means," said Pahrump, "Is that we shall endure a long hard time of it as well as this: Something wicked this way comes."

At that point, the train wail ululated from from far across the water, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening 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, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the packed gingerbread Edwardian houses 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.

JANUARY 15, 2017

THE WINDSHIELD WAS BROKEN BUT I LOVE THE FRESH AIR DON'T YA KNOW

This week's image comes from Marin County where the local creek flooded 13 feet or so and helped cause this accident on Sir Francis Drake Blvd. near Fairfax.

Reminds us all to treat Mother Nature with awe and respect. The consequences of not doing so can be severe.

According to report, the driver did survive this one.

THIS BAY AREA LIFE

All the news is consequent to the two recent dockwalloper storms that smacked into the Bay Area, snarling traffic, bringing down power lines, and flooding streets. As of six A.M., highway 37 remained closed due to flooding. Every day for the past few days the air has been filled with the sound of buzzsaws slicing up the downed trees in every district. Not one single municipality was spared from power outages in the five county ABAG area.

Generally speaking, which is improper grammar, we know, we came out lucky with the loss of only two lives.

Jose Enrique Hernandez, 20, died after his Nissan Altima landed in a creek in Marin County.

Hernandez, a Novato resident, drove his vehicle through a guardrail on the 5000 block of Novato Boulevard, off an embankment and down about 10 feet into the creek, according to California Highway Patrol (CHP). CHP arrived on the scene around 8:40 a.m. Monday, Jan. 9, but said they were unsure what time the incident occurred.

The vehicle flipped on its roof, and the cabin was submerged in about four feet of water, according to reports. CHP investigators believe speed, severe weather conditions and almost bald tires on the Nissan may have contributed to his death.

Hernandez was the only person in the vehicle. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Another man died in Alameda when he apparently lost control of his taxi cab and plunged into the water along Shoreline.

An Alameda Fire Department (AFD) water rescue team joined the Oakland Fire Department (OFD) and a dive team from the San Francisco Fire Department on a mission to save a popular local cab driver's life. The Alameda team actually pulled Jarnail Singh, 57, from his submerged vehicle while he was still alive Sunday morning. The departments also brought his vehicle to shore.

Singh, a San Leandro resident, was still alive, but unresponsive, when AFD's rescue swimmers pulled him out of the water. Emergency personnel transported him to Highland, but he never regained consciousness, according to reports.

OFD arrived at the scene at 8:04 a.m. after receiving a call from a witness who saw a white taxi cab lose control on Doolittle and Langley Street and go into the water. The vehicle was white with the words “RAJ CAB CO.” in red letters. The taxi cab belonged to Singh’s company. Friends of Singh revealed that Raj was his nickname.

Investigators don’t know why he lost control of his vehicle. Theories range from a medical emergency to inclement weather as a reason for Singh’s death.

According to Central Marin PD the official word for Central Marin is as follows: "For the five-day period beginning on Friday, January 6th through Tuesday, January 10th our officers responded to nearly 600 incidents and calls for service. The busiest days were on Sunday with 161 incidents and Tuesday with 139. Naturally, the majority of these were storm related with areas of flooding, trees and power lines down, and power outages affecting traffic signals. The expected heavy storm activity on Saturday evening into Sunday morning just missed us, but it came back much stronger on Tuesday.

Tuesday’s heavy rain and winds, coupled with the King tide, resulted in tidal flooding in low lying areas of Larkspur and Corte Madera. Some roadways were partially or completely closed, including Larkspur Plaza; portions of Lucky Drive and Doherty Drive; Ebbtide Passage and Golden Hinde Passage. In San Anselmo the creek was continually monitored and as the storm progressed we began to prepare for potential flooding.

At 6:45 p.m. the creek hit flood stage and the flood warning horn was activated. San Anselmo Avenue was closed from Center Boulevard to Bolinas Avenue and a mandatory evacuation was issued for the downtown business district. The creek hit its highest point at 13.65 feet and crested its banks at the Nokomis Avenue Bridge. Fortunately, it did not come up over the banks in downtown and the street flooding was caused by overflow from storm drains and manhole covers. A break in the storm and the receding creek level allowed for the evacuation order to be lifted and the street reopened at 8:50 p.m. A total of 65 public safety personnel from CMPA, the Town of San Anselmo, Ross Valley Fire Department, Marin County Sheriff, and Marin County Search and Rescue Team were committed to the storm operations.

After the flood horn sounded and businesses and residents evacuated, over 50 people, both adults and teens, purposely came into the downtown on foot to look at the creek. Please remember that the horn is a signal to move away from the area, not to come in to it. The water is moving fast and the conditions can change very rapidly. This creates a potentially dangerous situation for both the public and emergency services personnel and requires officers and fire fighters to leave other duties in order to move – or even worse, rescue – spectators. The creek can be viewed in live time video from the Ross Valley Fire Department website at www.rossvalleyfire.org. "

While it is nice to know that Marinites are not any smarter than Islanders when it comes to approaching danger, this is a reminder to all of us to take the official warnings seriously regardless of where you live; witness the headline photo of someone who clearly did not. Not even your 4-wheel drive jeep is going to save your ass when Mother Nature rages. The message is clear: Get out of the way!

In other news, we hear two members of the band Tower of Power were hit by an Amtrak train Thursday. Two TOP gigs at Yoshi's were canceled. The bandmembers, drummer David Garibaldi and current bassist Marc van Wageningen are responsive and expected to recover from injuries.

For reference, train tracks run only a few feet away from the Yoshi's entrance which is employed by public and entertainers alike. There are no rails or crossing barriers at that location.

SUPERMAN NEVER MADE ANY MONEY

So anyway. Superman never made any money, saving the world from Solomon and Grundy. Up on the Hill past the end of Snoffish Valley Road, John Smelling of 40 Maple looked out from his perch with his spyglass, making sure that nobody used any of the parking spaces along Maple across the street from his property. To John Smelling, who had lived in his mansion since 1987, when the road was a quiet cul de sac, all this activity around him was an affront as he felt the entire mountain belonged to him by assumed right. He had a huge carport constructed to host about five big pickups, but he seldom used it as he felt the entire road belonged to him. So he put his enormous pickup trucks on the far side of the street. He had tried to buy the house across the street, but the Realtor, seeing him coming, had refused the lowball offer, knowing if the tyrant ever obtained larger purchase on the mountain, her company would never sell another house again in Silvan Acres. Already the man was putting out orange buckets and cones to block people from parking anywhere near his domain and neighbors had come to know of him as "that cantankerous asshole".

This did not bode well for property values in the area. As a consequence local Realtors stopped handling affairs for him, which infuriated Mr. Smelling for he had acquired much property by means of money gotten by selling drugs to school children.

He had gotten accustomed to parking across the road on the property belonging to an aging widow, snarling at her and threatening to damage her cars if she dared park at the top of the stile that led down to her house. Faced with this intimidation, the widow had a fence built, which of course subtracted from the parking the man considered his by divine right. After all, his ancestors had been the first to rob the Native Americans who had lived here so fair was square. In anger he drove his truck up against the fence, breaking a few boards and claiming the spot right at her front gate to be his by order of custom and so there the truck remained from day to day, its bumper an inch over the mark in front of the widow's front gate.

Eventually the widow tired of the man's intimidation tactics and so sold the beautiful craftsman house perched on the mountain with its grape arbor and delightful garden thrumming with hummingbirds to an artist named Sweet Bee. The widow moved to Austin Texas to be with family and kind people for the rest of her final days as life on the Mountain had become unpleasant with her neighbor who crept around the property, tearing out electrical wires because the garden lights annoyed him. Smelling smashed the front gate light on the outside and the ones on the inside of the gate four times and all of the lights leading from the front gate to the front door until the widow gave up. In a place with no streetlights and few houses the front of the place became dark indeed.

When Smelling heard the widow was to move, to his great delight he made offers to buy the house across the way -- then, his control of the entire block for a quarter mile in both directions would be established. Instead the widow refused and she sold the property to Sweet Bee and her dog, Toto, a delightful terrier who charmed everyone who met him.

Smelling raged and bit his lip and swore he would drive out the new owners the same way he had driven out the previous one and one day he would ramp and stamp as the king of the Hill with the key in his pocket.

The vast majority of the people living in Sylvan Acres were decent folk minding their own business, but John Smelling was not one of those.

In the Household of Andre and Marlene, the members had all collected to huddle for warmth. The central heating unit had not worked for years and Martini had put off going down there to see if he could fix it because of the largish rat population. Islands can be romantic and edenic, but all islands -- at least those bounded by water and possessed of marinas -- are homes to rattus rattus which comes off of ships, arrives by swimming, embarks from the pockets of goats -- god only knows save that every Island that ever was provided host for an legion of rats.

This fact does trifle with the efforts of the tourist office and similar entities, but a rat remains a rat, no matter how small and the Island is host to many of them.

Andre took a walk along the Strand with Little Adam as he had the day off from the stamping mill and Adam asked about Martin Luther King. "What makes this guy so special," Adam said.

"Well," Adam said. "He enabled the freedom of many people, heartened the hearts of folks all around the world who longed for their own freedom, and changed the course of the nation's history for the better. Among other things."

"Well why did he have to die," Adam asked.

"Ah, hem . . ." Andre said. One is, of course, speaking to a child and what one can say has its limits. "He did not have to die. That was brought on by jealous souls who cannot abide change or the idea that change may subtract from them in any way. In truth, it is the idea that the truth overwhelms the life lies that have buoyed up the ships of hatred and imagined superiority."

"WTF?"

"Some people cannot get over the idea that everything on which they based their lives is a lie and that love is the solution."

"Those people must be weird," Adam said.

"I tend to agree, even though they are as normal in this country as apple pie."

"This all so complicated," Adam said.

Andre paused a long while, thinking of Russell Banks, of Franz Fanon, of Thomas Jefferson, of Malcolm X, of so many things. "Martin Luther King was great because he changed America substantially for the better. And that is all you need to know."

"O!" said Adam.

The two finished their walk and the moon rose over the ocean in the fog, accompanied by the bright star of Venus. Beneath the floorboards of the Household, the rats scampered back and forth, occasionally passing by the old heater unit with its sparking wires and dead brethren.

At that point, the train wail ululated from from far across the water, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening 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, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the packed gingerbread Edwardian houses 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.

JANUARY 8, 2016

THE TREES THEY DO GROW HIGH

This week's photo comes from a correspondent in far distant Austin, Texas, and is an image that evokes our own Oaktown oak. Thanks to Chris Benjamin, who for family reasons is a frequent visitor here to the Bay Area.

LIKE THE WEATHER

A fierce dockwalloper has set in this Friday and continues now with gusts of up to 50 MPH and lashings of rain. Many streets and underpasses are flooded and Marin is suffering through the consequences of many unpruned trees, which have been falling in every district. San Anselmo, which remembers well the massive flood that wrecked downtown in the 80's, had emergency crews out with rescue boats on the ready, keeping in mind that last week's storm brought the creek up to 15.5 feet, a hair below 16 foot flood stage.

Power outages rolled through Larkspur, San Anselmo, and Woodacre, which endured an outage of some 10 hours due to downed power lines. some parts of Woodacre remain without power 24 hours later. A casual ramble along any street in Marin reveals trees badly needing pruning away from powerlines on every block. Kindness to trees means protecting them from man-made structures, and it does look like somebody has been seriously lacking in this department.

CMP says Humbolt Ave from Scenic Ave to Foothill Rd, as well as all of Foothill closed due to tree and power lines down. PG&E on scene.

Woodside Court closed due to pole and lines down in street. No ETA to open.

Sir Francis Drake Blvd at Broadmoor Ave traffic lights are out. Warning tape on the southside indicated fallen tree branches and danger areas.

In Larkspur: 100 block Nellen Ave at Lucky Drive closed due to flooding.

A roving reporter said a tree crew was out on The Alameda off Butterfield sawing up a tree that fell on power lines in San Anselmo.

Forecasters say that this weather pattern will persist through the week, swelling creeks and downing old trees, impacting powerlines everywhere for a while. Howard Schecter reported that snow was expected at elevation (Saturday) followed by rain and then snow again. This is not especially good for our drought prognosis, as we want solid avalanches of snow with freezing temps continuing for weeks on end, while Howard is seeing freezing and melting patterns variable by elevation.

Sorry to say this is not enough to end the drought, as we are as of this point only 1% above normal in a catch-up year that is to make up for the preceding dry six years.

LOVE IS LIKE A THUNDERSTORM

So anyway. The new year has begun and President Frumpy the Clown has already caused furor with his security detail, his snide comments to foreign presidents, and even his appointment of inauguration officials. We do not care that he loves Russians; just do not press the Red Button, Donald. This is not a casino and there is no collection for the House at the end. Besides, most of your casinos were economic failures. You are not planning to run the Economy like one of your Casinos, are you Donald? Donald? Donald? Donald!

What is one to Do with a President for whom nobody voted. He got the Presidency by some kind of trick that seems to involve games and not the majority of the People, but go figure. We will never claim to understand politics.

In other news, some Americans continued to pursued false news stories about Clinton that claimed Clinton was running a sex ring out of a pizza parlor. Pizza orders in New Jersey and Nebraska have skyrocketed since the false news story was released.

Steve Bannon was discovered naked in a hot tub with several pre-teen girls and a pig from Fauquire County, VA recently during a drug raid, but news media remains too ashamed after their recent poor performance to research anything meaningful. Bannon was let off by Washington DC police with a warning not to be seen bathing naked with underage pigs ever again within the District.

Bannon's press secretary released a statement that said Bannon has never had anything to do with pigs, certainly not ones under the age of consent and besides the man is half Jewish, so pork is out of the question to begin with and it's all a Liberal conspiracy.

In the offices of the Official Island Poodleshoot there remained some fallout from last Thanksgiving when a terrier was blasted instead of a poodle by shotgun and apparently laid upon the barbee in entire contravention of the Official Rules.

"You say people actually ATE someone's PET!" shouted Sam Frederick, who was an official scorekeeper.

"Well, we only ate a little bit. He was kinda tough," Carlos said.

"You are sick and perverted," Sam said. "You gotta be punished for that offense!"

"He wasn't so bad with a lot of A1 sauce and horseradish," one of Carlos' star witnesses said. Which comment did not help the cause for Carlos in the slightest.

"I guess this means no sex tonight," Carlos said, which might not have been the most politic thing to say as he and Sam had been cohabiting for a while.

"Take a cold shower," Sam said. "And pay $1000 to the clerk. And I think its time somebody did the dishes, took out the trash and cleaned up the yard."

Down at the Old Same Place Bar, things were moving along after the end of the dreadful election season. People were talking about 'Bama, the Crimson Tide, actually getting into a Championship with some hope of success, which meant that the Blood Moon had arrived, the 4 Horsemen had galloped across the Great Plains, a last Trump had resounded, and the the Chicago Cubs had approached the World Serious with serious intent. If Alabama won the championship, that meant the End of Days had Come.

So then it is okay to remove Obamacare, as we all are gonna die anyway.

While icebergs the size of American States calved off of the Antarctic to threaten Soho property values, the rest of the world readied itself for yet another large nation-state to harness itself in service of fascist ideals and KKK Chief Dragons roistered in hot tubs everywhere in America that ignorance is profound. And another Cabinet appointee was discovered buggering a sheep upon the Mall before the Reflecting Pool, which meant anyone possessing a twitter account who had seen this sordid event, was taken to the Crystal City plaza and summarily executed by the Secret Service.

But we digress. In the Old Same Place, the Man from Minot held forth at great length and this is what he said: "Outside it is lashings of rain and wind and tree branches falling, but inside the brown snug each enjoys peace for a time and his cruiskeen luin which eases the mind, soothes the soul, and calms the red devils in the bed when the terrier of snarliness has seized one's privates with the vicious snout of contumely. O, the terrier of snarliness is bad indeed! But the Water of Life restores and eases the man.

"I have been around the world and seen the cities of man. I have builded houses and seen them fall upon my colleagues to my consternation and woe. I have been married five times and put six wives into the ground to my uttermost grief. I have seen kingdoms rise and fall and empires flourish and fail, but I tell you this. A pint of plain is your only man and a shot of usce que bah eases the pain of existence. Be well my friends."

And they all were paused in their thoughts, each deep into meditation upon this Sermon, for it was Sunday and outside the storm raged and who knew when their hour might come in days like this. The Crimson Tide had reached the Finals.

At that point, the train wail ululated from from far across the water, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening 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, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the packed gingerbread Edwardian houses 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.

JANUARY 1, 2017

WE'LL MET AGAIN, DON'T KNOW WHERE DON'T KNOW WHEN

We kick off the new year with an image from FB friend Kristine Jeanne and a WWII lyric from Vera Lynn.

2016 took a lot of people from us, presented us with unbelievable horrors involving savage brutality around the world, and ended with a wretched, cynical despair in the political arena that may see the end of the 400 year experiment in American Democracy.

Well enough of that. Things have not gone well for so long let us take the flip side of the Chinese orthograph for "Catastrophe", which just happens to be the same figure representing "Opportunity."

Ramble On, Just Breath, its a Restless Farewell and hope you had the Time of Your Life. It all amounts, really, to a Farewell to the Old Me, as Dar Williams would say. Welcome 2017.

WELCOME BACK MY FRIENDS TO THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS

Due to threats against staff-members at Island-Life the base of operations has moved to a different part of the Bay Area. After numerous potentially lethal "accidents" the IPD advised members to move, with a No Country for Old Men response similar to that of the Sheriff in the movie of that name, a man who simply gave up in the face of what the world possesses in the form of Evil.

We continue to maintain connections on the Island which was our home for over 20 years, and in the East Bay, where we lived for a good ten years before that, so we will always harbor affection for the people and places of the East Bay -- especially the people, who just might be the warmest, most down-to-earth folks on this planet. Except for the criminals of course.

Going forward, we will be devoting more time to the North Bay, including the small towns of Fairfax, San Anselmo, San Rafael, Ross, Lagunitas, Novato, and Point Reyes as well as Sonoma. Rest assured we will NOT be covering the hot-tub, sushi-bar, monied crowd but the people born and raised in these areas, who we have found to be down-to-earth, honest and decent folks as direct and plain and decent as any North Dakota farmer.

Interested? Stay tuned to this part of America.

OH, THE DASHBOARD WAS MELTED BUT WE STILL HAVE THE RADIO

So anyway, it came around to the final days of the year 2016. A dockwalloper had come and gone, sluicing out all the old detritus and knocking down a few old oaks whose time had come.

Indeed, this is the age in which the time had come for many things, and casualties would include ancient oaks and freedom. For most people life will not change as they watch the cattle cars pull away from the station, loaded with their human cargo destined for the showers and the stone soap.

Meanwhile a fellow named Jones decided to stroll along the underwater transbay tunnel and, after a diligent search was apprehended and hauled off on New Year's Eve. Not without causing some traffic problems. The tunnel is 3.5 miles long under the Bay, so if the man was seeking to evade fare expense he would have looked at quite a long walk in the dark had he succeeded. He is now looking at substantial jail time in addition to the fine attendant to interfering with a railroad.

A driver seeking to evade capture by CHP managed to flip his vehicle upside down into a Bushville homeless camp at the 27th Street offramp, crushing a couple homeless folks and rattling a couple of his female passengers before capture on NYE. This effort did not result in the man's escape as the CHP are smarter than that and the man now sits in lockdown.

On the Island, while all this tumult took place all around it, parents shuffled their kids off to bed and some households turned on the TV to watch the ball drop in Times Square.

Times Square, if you have not been there, had turned Japanese long ago with immense neon led billboards, weird videos blasted from ten story video screens, and close-packed buildings, and during events like NYE a packed throng of humanity well salted with pick pockets and roustabouts armed with brass knuckles and knives.

It has been the habit of many years for the parsonage at the Temple Emanuel and the rectory at the Church of Our Lady of Incessant Complaint to exchange visits on alternate years on New Years Eve. This began during Father Guimon's tenure at the Catholic Basilica and the stay of Pastor Inquist. Pastors and priests come and go, but traditions and personal attachments abide. It all came about when the Priest needed decent voices for the Xmas pageant and the Pastor of the Lutheran church, eager to establish good will with his neighbor on the block, developed a hankering for the Priest's well stocked liquor cabinet.

It had been the habit of Father Guimon, a habit taken up and repeated by his successor, Father Danyluk, to take a sharp right coming out of the Rectory to begin the daily constitutional walk about the large block, always moving clockwise regardless of weather. The Lutheran Pastor Inquist had maintained a similar habit, traveling by foot according to his nature, anti-clockwise, so you see it was inevitable that the gentlemen would meet at least once a day.

It was during the last series of serious dockwallopers in the last serious rainy season -- which ought to tell you how many years ago it was -- that the two took shelter at the busstop on Santa Clara. The Priest bemoaned the lack of vocal talent among the Catholics, and the Lutheran bemoaned the lack of community fellowship among the Lutherans and the difficulty of obtaining fresh fish on an island of all places and the two bemoaned each in turn the dreadful times and the loss of poor souls to greed, hardness of heart and evil mischievousness.

Well one thing led to another and the two became friends and everyone remarked how much improved the annual pageant was that year.

This year the Lutheran and the Priest met in the Rectory to sit before the fireplace well stoked by Sister Serendipity to enjoy brandy snifters of cognac after a good meal featuring fresh sea bass caught by the Priest while discussing matters of the spirit and matters of fishing, both salt and freshwater.

"I rather like this new pope you have," Pastor Inquist said.

"O now really!" said Father Danyluk. "What can you know about that?"

"Well he's been in the news of course. After such a dreadful year of dreadful campaigning, he gave that new President elect fellow a good message about acting Christian."

"Ah well! That's nice of you. Not going to send him a message by nailing a note to his door are you?"

"Been done. Wouldn't think of it. But somebody needs to speak to him about the red shoes. They are quite over the top, you have to admit."

"O!"

And so as the old, dreadful year died away, with most folks on the Island staying home instead of whooping it up, the two holy men grew silent, pensive and heads nodded. About twenty minutes past midnight Sister Serendipity came around -- as she had learned to do year after year -- and draped coverlets over each of the friends, dimmed the lights and banked the fire, leaving the two clerics snoring in their dreams into the new year. With midnight a came a brief fifteen minute ruckus of crackers and shouts, which soon died away to silence. A peace settled upon the Island, from the empty parks and the rows of gingerbread houses to the quietly lapping waves along the shoreline. Venus burned brightly up above the crescent moon and peacefulness reigned over all and no sirens announced bad trouble and nobody got shot and nobody got stabbed.

The train wail ululated from from far across the water, beneath the light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening 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, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying between the packed gingerbread Edwardian houses 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.

.

 

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