Beast Blog

August 2/3 - The Ashby Arts District

South Berkeley is taking some steps forward in becoming a vital arts community. On August 2 and 3rd, the incipient Ashby Arts District will feature a special benefit performance.

There will be music and puppetry from Rosin Coven, Russian music performances, and presentations by neighborhood artists. The Ashby Arts District sees it'self as the funkier, "off-Broadway" cousin to Berkeley's more upscale Downtown Arts District.

Come celebrate!

Film Fans Rejoice - Night of the Hunter Mania

This weekend and next week, the Pacific Film Archive has a special treat for film lovers.

On Saturday, July 26th, there's CHARLES LAUGHTON DIRECTS THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER: A PRESENTATION OF OUTTAKES FROM THE FILM. And on July 30th, they're showing the film in pristine condition.

I had the delight of seeing this presentation last year in Los Angeles, and wrote it about it (with lots of pictures). If that doesn't encourage you to go, nothing will.

Preparing for National Night Out

I was forwarded the following email. It was sent by a neighborhood-active southwest Berkeley woman to a reporter at the Berkeley Daily Planet:

Hi Angela,
I wanted to let you know about what we hope will be a big event for National Night Out on Tuesday, August 5th in Southwest Berkeley. You can get some info on NNO from the Berk PD website. With many of the recent shootings, violence, drug arrests, etc. in the neighborhoods of SW Berkeley we recognized California Street as a common denominator for a lot of the crimes and problems. Some of us got together to discuss this and called our group "California Corridor". Our desire is to have healthy neighborhoods to benefit all. We include members of the Alcatraz Neighbors Assn, the Lorin District Neighborhood Assn, Lorin Safe, 63rd and 62nd St neighbors. Our plan is to have events for NNO at three locations, 62nd and 63rd St at California St, on Alcatraz at California St, and a staging area on California St from Woolsey to Fairview. We hope to have food, music, socializing and strolling among the locations.

We communicated with members of ROC (Russell, Oregon and California). They are having a potluck in Grove Park 1730 Oregon at 6:30. At 7pm they will have a stroll, encouraging members to bring flashlights, singing voices, signs and walk to California St joining us at Woolsey. Our hope is that at Woolsey and California we will have news media to give us some coverage for the neighborhood participation. Can you help us? We have appreciated your excellent coverage of the "border wars" so much.

Oakland - Up the Creek?

Using Oakland's largely-unknown Berlin Creek as the central metaphor, writer John Fall provides a meandering and quirky look at his city of residence (or should I say city of citizenry?), contrasting the low-key needs of his community with high-profile incidents such as sideshows and senseless murders. An essay that benefits and suffers from its author's heartfelt approach.

Historic East Bay Panoramic Photos

Got some time at work? Browse the Library of Congress' "Taking the Long View", an exhibition of panoramic photos.

Beast-ers will likely be interested in Berkeley and
Oakland. (They don't seem to have much else from the Beast.)

City CarShare on Piedmont Ave

From their latest newsletter:

PIEDMONT AVE IS THE PERFECT PLACE FOR A POD

Oakland's newest pod opens next Friday, July 25, 2003, in the Piedmont Avenue neighborhood of North Oakland! The pod is located in the City of Oakland parking lot at Piedmont Avenue and 41st Street. It is right in the middle of Piedmont Ave's Commercial District, with easy access to AC Transit service and ample bicycle parking nearby. And yes, the rumors are true . . . this pod will feature a brand new Honda Civic hybrid vehicle, just like the one at the Tenderloin pod in San Francisco. If you have not had a chance to check out hybrid vehicles before, now is the time!

City CarShare's sincere thanks once again go out to the Oakland City Council and Public Works Agency for working with us to expand the program in Oakland. Onwards to bigger and better car-sharing in the Bay Area!

Illegal Art - Music, Film, and Performances

This was submitted to the Beast Blog:

* Digital Mix: A Special BayFF Celebrating Illegal Art

On July 25th the Electronic Frontier Foundation will host a night of music, art, and conversation to celebrate digital culture. Hosted at the Black Box in downtown Oakland, this special BayFF will bring up-and-coming artists of electronica, digital film, and illegal art together with leaders from the cyber-rights movement. Lawsuits and legislation have become the weapons of choice for dealing with file-sharing and cultural recycling ("sampling"); come out and discover what all the hype is about. Between laptop music, hip hop, and industrial performances, you will hear from
people who are fighting to protect new forms of expression and cultural distribution from the attacks of the entertainment industry. This is an all-ages event.

Performers:
~ Kat5
~ Meanest Man Contest
~ Uprock
~ Mochipet
~ Freshblend

Speakers:
~ Fred von Lohmann (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
~ Glenn Otis Brown (Creative Commons)
~ Ray Beldner (Illegal Art)

Sponsored By:
~ XLR8R Magazine

Where: Black Box at 1928 Telegraph Avenue
Oakland, CA
When: Friday, July 25th, 8 p.m. - 2 a.m.
Cost: $5 suggested donation
All ages welcome
Easy BART access @ 19th St. Station in Oakland

Upcoming South Berkeley Civic Meetings

Thursday, July 17, 7:00pm
Town Hall meeting about Community Policing
South Senior Center
2939 Ellis Street (at Ashby)
Questions and comments will be taken in written form.

Thursday, July 24th, 7:30pm
Russell, Oregon, and California Streets Meeting
MLK Jr. Community Center
1730 Oregon Street
Agenda:

San Pablo Avenue Speedway

The Chronicle writes about AC Transit's new 72R line, which hauls ass down San Pablo Avenue, and which can, among other things, send signals to traffic lights to make sure they remain green so the bus can get through.

A couple of weeks ago, the folks at SF Cityscape wrote about this, and offer some tasty transit links. SF Cityscape is a webzine about urban design, and chock full o' goodies worth reading.

It's Your Move Games

I read on OgreCave that there was a collectible card game based on the excellent "Game of Thrones" series of books by George RR Martin. Not only that, but the game won the Origin award for best CCG of the year. So I set about calling game stores in my area to find a starter card deck so I could give it a whirl. I called from San Rafael to Palo Alto, with Berkeley and Oakland in between, to no avail. The Ogre Cave editors, kind fellows and East Bay residents themselves, recommended I look for "It's Your Move," a game store that just opened up in June, at Telegraph and 51st street in Oakland. I couldn't find them searching the web.

The Ogre Cavers lead me to visit "It's Your Move" in person - next to the Temescal Cafe, I found a very pleasant young games store, with eager, knowledgable proprietors. Their most popular items are the German board games (like Settlers or Puerto Rico), but they also stock role-playing games, collectible card games, dice, minatures, the Wiz-Kid adventure figurines. Geek heaven. And they run open role-playing sessions a few nights a week, so you can drop on and get your geek fix.

They had my cards, I was happy. But they still don't turn up in Google, so I'm going to link to their web page here, and hope that future game store hunters in the East Bay can find this useful outpost: http://www.itsyourmovegames.com/

Woofin' and Hoofin'

This Sunday, The Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society hosts Bay to Barkers. A nice walk and a good cause. Indiana (pictured below) will see you there!

Nomad Cafe - $7.50 for a Sandwich?

So, I went back to the Nomad Cafe last week for lunch, and saw that the sandwich that once cost $5.50 now cost $7.50. That seemed rather steep for lunch (I can't see paying more than $5.50 for a sandwich, really), and so I wrote to the Nomad folks to voice my displeasure. The proprietor wrote back. It's a thoughtful response, addressing some community issues, so I asked if I could post it to the Beast Blog, and he said yes.

Peter, I really appreciate you making the effort to share your feelings about our price increase (as well as your previous mention of our business on the beastblog listserv). If it troubles you to see our prices increase, imagine how I must feel. The whole purpose of me leaving my $150,000-per-year Hollywood film industry job and going into the cafe business (!) was to invest in my local community; to bring my earth-friendly, arts-and-community-oriented aesthetic down from my global cyber-community to a local scale, in real time and space, in my own neighborhood.

We brought a facelift, a kickstart, to this neighborhood. We created a top-end presentation where nobody would feel alienated. We have kids, old people, people of all ethnicities and orientations, some who have been neighbors for years, interacting with each other for the first time! We have internet, live music, art. Last night our installed artist, Caleb Kenna, gave a narrated slideshow presentation based on his photojournalistic experiences in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Morocco, Thailand, Cuba. Weekly, several writers' groups gather to discuss their latest projects. This Sunday, we are catering in-house to a group of 30 supporters of the Kucinich for President campaign. Next month, hip-hop animators from West Oakland will be installed at the cafe and making multimedia presentations. We are a crucial, vibrant community crossroads. Today I spent three hours with the Coordinator of Oakland's Facade Improvement Program, canvassing the neighborhood, attempting to get City monies dedicated to Nomad Cafe's neighbors for the improvement of their businesses.

Last week, we were officially certified by the City of Oakland's Green Business program as a green business. We are implementing measures to conserve energy, water, and materials and to cut pollution. We use safe cleaning products that are mixed using an enclosed system which protects employees from spills and splashes and cuts the chances of a spill to the City's storm drain system. 95% of the waste produced at the cafe is compostable, and is recycled through a local food waste recycling program, or directly to our customers. ALL of our coffees are 100% Fair Trade, Organic. Our teas are certified organic. All of our dairy, and the majority of our produce, are organic and sustainably-produced. Our smoothies are made with fresh-squeezed juices and organic fruits. Our food, in particular our sandwiches, are EXTRAORDINARILY high-quality, delicious meals, and are served with a side of roasted potatoes and a fresh, organic fruit garnish. They and all of our foods are labor-intensive to the point of being insupportable even at the higher cost. We are in fact in the planning stages of a move toward more "grab-and-go" foods that can be prepared in advance (on premises) without compromising quality, while allowing our customers, many of whom have busy lives, to get in and out quickly.

The Earth-friendly aesthetic applies to my employment practices as well. My full-time employees are very well-paid for coffeehouse employees; they are fully benefited with medical, dental, vision and paid vacation, as well as large yearly bonuses. I provide special work opportunities for local, socially-disadvantaged teens. We donate all of our leftover pastries to the nearby Women's Refuge. All of these sustainable and arts-and-community-based business practices come at a very high cost. I am not an independently wealthy man. If I do not pass on enough costs to make this a break-even business (we are still nowhere close), the business will be gone within months, and your question will be moot.

... [omitted by request of author]

Given these considerations -- and not intending to sound patronizing -- how do you justify NOT paying that much money for a sandwich at the Nomad Cafe? We know we can't please everyone, nor fit everyone's budget; all we can do is try to survive, and try to remind people like you of all the reasons to support a business like ours. We really would like to have your business, even if you have to limit it to special occasions. God knows the economy has most of us in that position these days.

Thanks again for your patronage. I hope we can see you back at the cafe often.

Christopher Waters

Recidivism Happens

The Oakland Tribune may be a pathetic rag, but at least one newspaper is writing worthwhile stories about the city. The L.A. Times Magazine's cover story Listening to Oakland discusses how the hard-on-crime, lock-em-up stance California began in earnest in the 80s and has escalated through the present day has lead to disastrous long-term effects on the community.

It's probably the most important thing you'll read today.

Cinema al Fresco

Summer's here, and the East Bay has a number of outdoor cinema opportunities....

Jupiter in Berkeley opens tonight (July 2) with "The Great Train Robbery" and other silent classics. They haven't posted their schedule on the site, yet, but their ad in the paper lists:

• Eye Candy - Beatdown Thursdays, various shorts and visuals, presented on two screens
• Weekly independent films - Sunday, July 6, "Channel X: The Movie" A Hip-hop Animation Festival
• Animation Tuesdays - Tuesday, July 8, Hip-Hop Animation presented by Alfonso Amey Designs

Pyramid in Berkeley begins its films on July 19th, with "Swingers", and then on July 26th they'll show "Office Space".

And don't forget the Liberation Drive-In the last weekend every month in Oakland. According to the site:
"FUTURE THEME-NIGHTS INCLUDE:
July 25 & 25: Socio-Political Night for the Headz, w/ GNN and other video activists!
August 29 & 30: Hip-hop Night w/ Style Wars, the Freshest Kids, Sydewayz, and more."

Bring City CarShare to Ashby BART

City CarShare is appealing to BART for car pod spaces at Ashby BART. They need the community to make it clear to BART how important this is. Daryl Norcutt, City CarShare's East Bay representative, sent along the following letter which you could email or snail mail to BART Director Lynette Sweet. It probably would be good to make it specific to your circumstances.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 1, 2003

Lynette Sweet
BART Board of Directors
800 Madison Street, LMA-5
Oakland, CA 94607
kduron@bart.gov

Dear Director Sweet,

Thank you for your ongoing work on the BART Board of Directors and for your advocacy of transit issues in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.

I am writing to ask for your support in bringing City CarShare to the Ashby BART station. As a frequent rider on the BART system and resident of South Berkeley, I would benefit tremendously from having access to a car-share vehicle that is nearby transit and easy to get to.

City CarShare is a local, non-profit organization that brought the concept of car-sharing to the Bay Area as a vehicle-ownership alternative. In addition to the current ‘pod’ locations at Rockridge and Glen Park BART stations, City CarShare has also put cars in neighborhood parking areas within walking distance of many other BART stations, like Lake Merritt and the Mission District in San Francisco.

Please consider locating a City CarShare pod at Ashby BART. The neighborhood would definitely use the cars, and it would also allow BART riders to more easily access the program throughout the Bay Area.

Thank you for your continued support of this important transportation program.

Sincerely,

[Your name here]

Cc: Tom Margro
Harley Goldstrom

Police Response To Shootings in Berkeley

This email just entered my mailbox:

From: "Hambleton, Douglas" Subject: RE: ROC meeting concerns [ROC Stands for "Russell, Oregon, and California Street Neighborhood Organization - ed] Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 14:44:41 -0700

Ms. Menard:

Shootings:

The BPD response to the recent shootings in South Berkeley is an excellent example of what we are trying to achieve with Community Involved Policing. We recognized the problem very quickly and then devoted extensive resources toward reducing the threat in the neighborhoods and solving the cases.

This included the combined efforts of several units in the department including the patrol teams, detectives, community services and the entire special enforcement unit. Several lieutenants have been working together on this problem and six officers have been deployed on overtime each day. We have also been giving information to the Oakland PD regarding the crimes and spending some of our time in Oakland tracking down the involved parties.

The result of this proactive police work has been many arrests, many probation/parole searches and search warrants, the recovery of guns, including automatic weapons. While the violence has stopped, we continue to devote a great many of our resources to this problem.

In addition to this hard police work, Officer Rittenhouse coordinated community outreach by notifying groups on his e-mail list and making
personal contact at local community facilities such as the YMCA, the Young Adult Project and Head Start. We also got the word out to the community through press releases and newspaper coverage.

4th of July:

The department will have over 50 additional officers on duty Friday night for the 4th of July. There will be close to 75 officers working all
together. Many of these officers have been ordered in to work on the holiday and their normal day off. One of the daytime teams will be held over for several hours past the normal end of their shift and the nightshift will come in several hours early to increase coverage. Most of these officers will be devoted to the marina and the fireworks display, which is one of the largest events in the City each year.

Patrol will be handled by the normal complement of officers. Our experience has been that most calls for service on the 4th of July are related to the concerns you have raised. Since other types of calls for service are usually lower on this holiday, officers are able to give more attention to the disturbance calls. Every other community is faced with similar issues on the 4th and like the others, we will do the best we can to keep the peace.

Unlicensed vehicles:

Officers address this problem by citing drivers and towing their cars when the law permits. Officers often tow cars for registration violations after they have been reported as abandoned. Parking Enforcement Representatives issue thousands of registration violation citations each year. If you are aware of specific cars that are in violation, please report them to dispatch at 981-5900 and an officer will be sent to handle the violation.

Loud Car Stereos:

Officers enforce these vehicle code violation when cars are driven on the streets. When the cars are parked the vehicle code does not apply. We can use section 415 of the penal code after giving a warning, but we must have a citizen who is willing to pursue the matter by making a citizen's arrest and following through with prosecution. Officers trend to focus their attention on the issues that generate calls for service. By reporting these disturbances, particularly parked cars with loud music, you and other ROC members can assist us in addressing the nuisance.

I have sent a message to officers requesting additional enforcement of vehicle noise violations.

Douglas N. Hambleton
Patrol Captain
Berkeley Police Department
2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 981-5800
dhambleton@ci.berkeley.ca.us