ChevyChaseHasNothin'OnMe
VacationVille
For reasons that are way too complicated to go into at the moment, our usual friendly destination on our old street in Berkeley could not take us in this time around.
Thus, at the last minute, while we were still lounging in palatial splendor at F&L's place cliffside in Mendocino, I was forced to scramble for a Bay Area motel/hotel that would not break the bank during the highest of high (if slightly fog-frosted) tourist season.
Using Tripadvisor (which I highly recommend, by the way) we came up with the Emeryville 'Garden' Hilton, ostensibly so that I could pretend that we were actually going to an Oakland Oaks game while we instead wander around the local Ross Dress For Less and go bonkers buying cheap wine (and a three day growth?) at Trader Joes.
All joking aside, the faux-falutin' hotel that is actually cheaper than the La Quinta in Bellingham, is pretty much perfect rare occasion-type deal for C., The Two E's, and me.....Big lobby....Fancy-Schmancy sheen everywhere....Room decent, if a little noisy as it is right next to the freeway....And the two E's love all the 'amenities'....Me, I am currently sitting in a stinkin' Starbucks (which I can't believe given that I'm only a couple of miles from the gourmet ghetto and the birthplace of Peets' - although the WiFi is decent and free, as it is everywhere down here) because the kids want to go to the fitness room and the 'spa' instead of MLK Park off of Hopkins to play 'hats' with the eucalyptus shells....Oh well, what the hell....We are in 'America' after all....And when in Rome with kids-in-tow it does sometimes pay to fiddle.....Speaking of which, the busking was very fine in the truly bizarre culture clash zone that is the Point Arena Pier the other day.....
(and just so you know - Oakland is not on fire after the BART shooting verdict....Despite what the TeeVee may have told you - more on that later)
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Saturday, July 10, 2010
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7 comments:
Enjoy the BA. I'll admit that, in a fit of cowardice I stayed home on Friday. I've been in three little riots and that's enough for me. I wanted avoid the possibility of being in the middle of a young man's game. (rioting that is) I'll probably be at work in Oakland on Monday.
I sometimes dine at a locally owned cafe that has decent food, free wi fi and, like I say, local owners. I'm amazed to see people lined up at the nasty little Starbucks half a block away.
On the other hand, to wave the red flag, Starbucks pays better than most and even offers some minimal benefits for a lucky few workers.
Jon
Work Jon?
What the heckfire?! Thought you were done with all that.
Honestly, the only thing that really happened in Oakland is that a bunch of young kids took the entire thing as an opportunity to swipe some sneakers from a shoe store. Idiots yes.....But a riot?.....Most definitely not, although given the coverage on the local TeeVee you would have thought it was the coming of the Apocalypse and/or the announcement of Glenn Beck's rumoured reputation as a notorious polymath (or some such thing).
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Sorry we missed you this time through NorCal - got pushed for time between the Town and the City.
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I work two days a week, or as needed. Yeah, the TV was desperately hoping for a riot. They need to feel like something happened. I'll admit that I am amazed that you can pull out a gun and shoot a handcuffed supine suspect in the back- on television and the internet and facebook and everything- and get convicted for accidentally contributing to his demise through no fault of your own. I mean, in Canada they're still scandalized about the accidental taser death of a man. Here, that might not even make the papers.
My previous riots include a crazy cop attack on a group of Black school kids who were holding a silent prayer vigil to protest conditions at their school. We got tear gassed and chased through the streets. One of my teachers and my friend's mom got arrested. I was 14.
Some years later I was in a riot in Lorraine Ohio when 5,000 people showed up to apply for 4 jobs at a steel mill.
A bit after that I was in a riot when Indiana University won the NCAA basketball tournament.
All pretty small and, except for the cops when I was 14, not very scary.
It still seemed advisable to let Oakland sort things out for a day.
I haven't been to BC in quite a few years. Maybe we'll busk up there. Hope you had a good time down here.
Perspective is everything Jon.
Here's the weird thing....
I was actually getting ready to write a post about the difference between the Vancouver Airport and BART incidents.
Why?
Important to realize that while the 'death' in Vancouver might have been kinda/sorta accidental, the brutal, repeated tasering to a helpless man who was face down on the floor was not.
And that was caught on video too.
And the cops got together and made stuff up, including the fact that they were scared of being attacked by stapler.
And there superiors backed their lies.
And they were not charged.
And it took the Mom and her lawyer and lawmen from Poland and a few upset folks in BC, not to mention that videotape (and the fanastic young guy who shot it) to get a public enquiry going in which a retired judge finally did the right thing by exposing the quislings working for/paid by Taser for what they truly are and by rendering a no-holds-barred final report before we finally got around to thinking about charging the 4 colluding officers involved (but not, so far, their very culpable superiors).
Anyway....
I know I have the perspective of a rose coloured-glasses wearing outsider, but one of the things I find most impressive about Oakland, at least compared to so many other American cities, is that there are actually parts of town where white and black people live together (and play and work and go to school and all that stuff).
Also.
I lived down here during the aftermath of the Rodney King thing and I was really impressed by how little damage was done in Oakland, again compared to other places in the States.
Finally.
In an even more rose-coloured glasses way, when we first got here I had car troubles on the Bay Bridge, and not knowing better I actually pulled over in West Oakland....Ya, I know....We could have been ki.......But we weren't....People were as nice and helpful as they possibly could have been....(then again, I also remember the tow truck guy being absolutely fascinated by the very concept of Canada)...All of this is ironic in extreme, of course, now that we are staying in that bizarre bit of laissez-faire weirdness next door called Emeryville.
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There's a reason why we are willing to pay so much to live here and it's not the weather. West Oakland was my introduction to California and that was back in the aftermath of the Black Panther Party when the Oakland PD was rightly seen as an occupying army and white people were viewed with mistrust. Still, almost everywhere I wandered in my little white boy daze, I was usually treated with a kind of skeptical but gentle amusement. I consider it a privilege to live anywhere in the BA.
w.t.f. is a BA in the context (above) of living in one?
Sorry for the cryptology Anon-Above...
BA = San Francisco Bay Area.
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