brides, baseball, chanting and compost

friday night:  went to ariel’s offbeat bride v2.0 book reading in the upper haight (backstory: we’ve been online friends for years, via hooping, and have met up in-person a few times). i’ll admit that when i arrived i wondered for a second why i was there, actually (outside of seeing Ariel, but i didn’t necessarily have to go to the book reading for that), as i have zero intentions of being a bride (yes, still. please let us not talk about it AGAIN.) and i have already been to see her do this book reading once, when it was first published.  as i listened to the reading and the questions, i flipped through the current issue of sports illustrated swimsuit issue (aside: swimsuit models are so much better to look at than runway models. duh, you might be saying. but i spend most of my time looking at fashion, not men’s magazines.)

it was when Ariel started talking about how the main reason she started and continues her interest with OBB even though her marriage is way past that i perked up, and remembered why i continue to read (ok, SCAN) the OBB website even though i don’t intend to get married.  weddings entail and wrap up so much of our culture, from fashion to what we hold sacred (not that those are totally separate), and the process of planning a wedding isn’t just about where/when/who/whatdoiwear; as many brides and grooms have discovered, really complicated cultural questions can come up (case in point: there is currently a very long live email thread on one of my womens’ lists about changing your last name, sparked by THIS link suggesting doing so could have negative impacts you might not have expected).  weddings are a bit of microcosm of culture, and since i’m super into cultural habits/themes/rituals etc, it makes sense that it interests me. plus, i find out about all the hot underground fashion designers/dressmakers that way (i am not however, reading Offbeat Mama, even though I understand the same thing applies (parenting is a much about culture as it is about offspring), it holds almost no personal interest for me.) the book reading was lively and amusing, and it was great seeing how much people are enjoying the Offbeat Empire and good to see the Electrolicious family in real life again.

saturday morning was an absolutely glorious sunny spring day, jay went mountain biking, and i found myself in another context that you wouldn’t usually find me: a baseball game. it was my longtime friend JB aka Windigo aka The Fox’s birthday, and a bunch of us went to the A’s game to celebrate. the first 8.5 innings were fairly uneventful, game-wise, but the group of 20ish people assembled amused ourselves quite well. and then, in the bottom of the 9th, the A’s pulled it together and somehow managed to load the bases and score 2 runs to win the game. the crowd went wild! it was great.

later that afternoon we went for sushi at Ozumo and then that evening, jay and i donned the only green outfits we had (yes, my wardrobe is fairly monochrome: black) and went off to celebrate the birthdays of 3 of our favorite women in a emerald city themed birthday party that only sort of got busted by the cops. WTF, SoMa? not even midnight on a saturday night and you’re telling us to turn it down? jeesh. sometimes it’s just too hard to party in this city.

yesterday was also glorious, so we headed north to China Camp State Park in marin and jay and the neighbor went mountain biking while i took a leisurely 2-hour/5 mile hike. i found myself doing this thing where i have imaginery conversations with people about things that have not happened, as if i need to prepare a script in case it does. i won’t get into the topic, but at a certain point i literally said to myself “why are you thinking about this and not something good?”, at which point i developed a little chant to try to empty my head and also provide a bit of a rhythm for hiking faster, like a march. it went something like “shoulders back! chin up! irises! green plants! blue sky! sunshine! the hum of the insects. shoulders back! chin up!….” yeah, i know it’s weird maybe, but sometimes chanting is the only way i can stop my brain from going all kinds of directions, and even then i noticed that i was thinking about things while chanting. actively trying to clear your mind is difficult.

we returned and stuffed ourselves silly @ Vik’s chaat, still the best Indian in the bay. they have instituted a 3-part solid waste system of compost-recyclable-trash (THANK YOU, VIK’S!), and it was amusing, sitting next to the waste station, to watch all of the people who looked like they’d never encountered such a complicated system in a restaurant stop, read the signs, and then sort their waste, *usually* correctly. it’s amazing how effective some signage can be, and i’m betting that a number of people learn something new about waste disposal when they go there, and not just greenwashing to make yourselves look better. this is an example of DOING IT RIGHT.

and then went home and watched The Life Aquatic.

life is good. the end.

words about oakland

this has been slapped in large typewriter print on 8.5×11″ paper onto telephone poles all over my neighborhood, and i’ve been reading it/meditating on it while waiting for the bus at peralta and 24th street all this week. thx to oaktownart.com for typing it up (and for all the other stuff about oakland art/music/food they’ve been posting too…). i added some line breaks, because i wanted to.

There are millions and millions of people in the city. There are people arguing in the streets. People looking out their windows to see what all that noise is about. People driving their cars, riding bikes, walking, staying put, people moving just because they can’t stand to stay still. Cowboys doing tai chi in the park. Single moms jogging. Cops giving tickets. Haters hating. Old Asian ladies playing hacky sack. Kids throwing fits on the bus. Scam artists sitting outside of grocery stores with a typewriter, selling what he calls poems. Baristas getting hit on. Hipsters calling each other hipsters. Teen girls wearing pajama bottoms and flip flops.

People are putting their trash outside of their houses, cuz Earth Day is once a year but trash day is every week. Some people are taking that trash home, sleeping on it, dusting it off, eating it, hanging it on their wall and then throwing it away again after a week.

This one kid was killed by a cop who meant to taser him. People are rioting because of that kid. This one girl is saying that it’s lame they should torch some innocent stranger’s car and this one guy is saying that some white artist hipster slumming it up in what she thinks is the ghetto being more concerned about the destruction of property than the violence against youth of color is a part of the reason that kid was killed. Oh snap, those people aren’t talking to each other after that shit!

Someone is just going to work, minding her own business. Someone around the corner used to be in a popular band in the 90’s, The Counting Crows I think. Someone is quietly doing charity work. Someone is spitting on the liars and hypocrites in the name of Jesus Christ. Someone fell asleep on the bus.

People are playing music. They’re walking down the street, rapping. They’re performing for elementary school children. They’re only playing to the sound guy. They’re making country music, city music, fifth wave ska, traditional Balkan dance songs exactly like they have been played for centuries (they imagine). They’re taking old music and adding electronic dance beats, beats antique. They’re making the newest sounds. They’re imitating their favorite bands. They’re playing music alone in their room.

Everyone’s dumpster diving. Everyone’s watching lots and lots of TV shows on DVD. Everyone’s littering like crazy. Everyone drives up on the weekends to hit up the bars. Everyone’s wearing oversized white t-shirts and baggy jeans so the cops can’t tell them apart. Everyone’s jaywalking inhumanly slow. Everyone’s having unprotected sex. Everyone’s putting up signs saying they reserve the right to refuse service, for any reason. Everyone’s playing dice on the sidewalk. Someone’s saying its a pity. Someone’s gonna call the cops if you don’t get out of here this very second. Someone else lives here too, you know.

She’s getting the shit kicked out of her. She’s singing the Dead Kennedys songs while she bikes home. She’s teaching yoga. She loves the Lord, Lordy Lord. She walks into a restaurant, sits down at a table that still have food on it and eats.

He’s applying for a job at every goddamn corporate eatery on this goddamn street. He’s waiting for the library to open. He’s telling every young woman who walks by that she’s beautiful, but in the most obnoxious ways possible. He’s going to night school so he isn’t pushing a broom when he’s forty. He’s selling bootleg DVDs and drugs.

They’re reading the Koran, books on how to fix appliances, Found magazine, Chick tracts, the whole Harry Potter series for the 2rd time and the newest issue of Cometbus.

You are being racially profiled. You’re dressing up like a goblin for your jug band’s concerts. You’re looking good! You’re hooking up with people from the internet. You aren’t racist or anything, but you won’t go to certain parts of town after dark. You’re just looking for a decent cup of coffee. You have the right to remain silent. FOR FEAR THE HEARTS OF MEN ARE FAILING.

is this the work of some white neo-beatnik from LoBot? or a conscious hiphopper from the other end of the hood? who can tell, but i like it.

Summer 2009: in bits and pieces

i haven’t done a ‘this is what i’ve been up to’ bulleted post since the end of may, which means this one covers June, July, and August. wow. so i guest that makes this a “Summer 2009″ who/what/where/when summary. much of this has already been referenced in singular posts or tweeted, but if i don’t summarize like this i lose track.

after the beautiful zimtrix wedding came JUNE:

Continue reading »

“Alien Invasion”

the Port of Oakland cranes at sunset.

Alien Invasion, originally uploaded by tony’s pics.

wow.

and sort of scary.

in the NY Times

Oakland Turns Violent Over Shooting

By JESSE McKINLEY

Protesters angry over a deadly New Year’s Day shooting of a young black man by a transit police officer erupted into violence in downtown Oakland on Wednesday night while investigators struggled to determine what prompted the officer to fire his gun into the unarmed man’s back.

After an afternoon of peaceful demonstrations and a memorial service, protests turned chaotic after dark as a small clutch of protesters set trash cans and cars afire and busted windows on police cruisers and storefronts. Police in riot gear responded with tear gas and billy clubs and at least 14 arrests were made, according to local television reports. Several major downtown streets were closed, and helicopter footage showed small groups of protesters roaming through the city’s deserted center. There were no immediate reports of injuries, but sirens continued to echo into the late evening.

Mayor Ron Dellums pleaded for calm as anger continued to build in the city’s black community over the shooting of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old butcher’s apprentice who was shot in the back while lying on the platform at the Fruitvale station of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.

“We’ve got to have a real investigation that people can have confidence in,” said Mr. Dellums on Wednesday night. “And my sense of it is that part of this reaction is that people have lost confidence.”

Mr. Grant, who had been involved in a scuffle aboard a train after leaving a New Year’s Eve celebration in San Francisco, died at a local hospital several hours after being shot. The bullet, which had passed through his lower back, ricocheted into his lung. The officer, Johannes Mehserle, resigned on Wednesday, but investigators said efforts to interview him about the circumstances of the shooting had been rebuffed by his lawyers and police union leaders, according to Linton Johnson, spokesperson for the transit districtThe incident was captured by at least four cellphone cameras held by passengers on a train idling next to the platform. The videos, which have been widely broadcast and streamed online, show Mr. Grant lying face down when Mr. Mehserle, 27, pulls his gun and fires a single shot. Mr. Mehserle looks stunned for a moment, and then handcuffs Mr. Grant with the assistance of another officer.

John Burris, a lawyer for Mr. Grant’s mother and his live-in girlfriend, said he had asked Tom Orloff, the Alameda County District Attorney, to consider filing criminal charges against Mr. Mehserle.

“If you can’t file charges in a case like this,” said Mr. Burris, “I don’t know what kind of case you can file in.”

Mr. Orloff said he was still investigating the case, as was the BART police department. Federal law enforcement were also reported to be looking into whether Mr. Grant’s civil rights were violated in his killing.

be the change we wish to see….

Obama Biden, Oakland Riots, originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk.

Posing in Front of a Burnt Out Car, Oakland Riots, originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk.

this is my car after the riots

at least they didn’t set it on fire, originally uploaded by obi-j.

“it’s not a riot, it’s a protest”, she said

so, yeah: all the windows in my car, parked RIGHT NEXT TO THIS ONE ON FIRE, were smashed.

in case you missed it, on new year’s day, a BART policeman shot an unarmed man in the back.

and obviously, people are pissed.  there were protests all over today, and this one got way out of hand. the earlier part of the protest included a candlelight vigil and very peaceful. i know that, and that was the right thing to do. it’s just really unfortunate that what it spiraled into was completely counterproductive and violent.

i wasn’t there to participate in the protest. my friend and i had parked downtown to have dinner before we went dancing, and just got caught in the middle of it, like 3 times over the course of several hours between our dinner and dancing (but i twittered what i saw in real time!—>).  we initially moved from one restaurant location @ 8th street/Broadway to another one @ 13th/Franklin to avoid the protest, which i thought was fairly peaceful looking, but it eventually followed us uptown and got more violent, and when we left the 2nd restaurant i couldn’t get to my car because it was being blocked by riot police. we just figured….what can we do? and went dancing. it was actually really nice to have this safe-feeling dance space to walk into after being surrounded by so much negativity and anger, and we danced hard. if armageddon or somesuch ever really does happen, can someone please just throw a party?

during the invocation, the speaker told everyone there was a riot going on outside and to be really aware and partner up when leaving, and some valiant defender of active democracy interrupted with”it’s not a riot, it’s a protest”.  had she been outside?  THAT WAS A RIOT. it was hard for me to keep quiet.

anyway, i figured it would all be gone by the time we were done, as this thing had been going on for HOURS already,  but when we left the ballroom @ 19th/Broadway there was a huge crowd of police and protesters and ambulances right outside, and when we got back to my car it had been smashed.  i guess i’m an idiot for not realizing it was going to get that out of hand and move all over and not getting the fuck out of downtown, but when we parked at the 2nd restaurant, there was no sign of the protest in that area, and it had seemed like it was dispersing. WRONG. it’s still going on now, i’m sure, after midnight. actually, i was invited to join the protest with some friends, and i was like “NO FUCKING WAY”, so i guess part of me did know it would get out of hand. more than anything i didn’t realize it was going to last so long and cover so much of the city.

i have a lot of thoughts in my head about this right now - about what options we have to stand up for justice besides rioting in the streets, about what to do with our anger, about violence begetting violence - but i need to go to bed so i can get up and deal with my car before i go to work tomorrow.

or maybe i need a day off.