Hank the White Pelican with a breeding bump on his bill (Photo by Stephanie Benavidez)

Oakland blogger and photographer Fragmentary Evidence had some lovely pictures of white pelicans on the lake last week. Brown pelicans are common in these parts, but white pelicans are a rarer sight. We wondered what was bringing the white pelicans to Oakland, so we called Stephanie Benavidez, Oakland’s official naturalist at her office on the shores of Lake Merritt.

Benavidez said that for the past two years a flock of pelicans has been coming to Lake Merritt during the summer months to spend time with Hank, the lake’s only permanent white pelican resident. Hank arrived at Lake Merritt several years ago after a park ranger in Oregon called Benavidez to say that he had a badly injured white pelican who will never fly again and needed a home. Would the Lake Merritt Wildlife Refuge adopt Hank? Bring him down, said Benavidez.

A couple of years after Hank moved to Oakland, a second white pelican landed in the lake. For a summer, the pair fished together until it was time for the visitor to move on. She returned the next summer, and the summer after that. For a time, she brought a larger entourage with each visit. Last summer, Benavidez counted more than 20 white pelicans on the lake. This summer there were 13. She doesn’t know for sure, but she guesses they winter in Oregon.

If you want to see them, hurry down to the lake. Hank’s friends will be leaving any day.

The label “foodie” has always been annoying and is now certainly tired.  Nevertheless, some people still insist on using the term to describe folks who devote an inordinate amount of time and money to food.  Leaving aside the dedicated restaurant patrons and chef groupies, it’s true that some of us construct our schedules and our budgets around procuring the best ingredients we can afford and then preparing them in often time-consuming ways.  This leaves one with less time for work, social networking, reading and exercise. The reward is the ability to look into a friend’s refrigerator and sneer at the pre-bagged lettuce or snicker at a co-workers’ reports of what they had for dinner the previous night.

However, even the most dedicated and snarkiest home cook eventually runs into time constraints, which necessitate curbing the two or three times a week trips to the farmers’ market and the nightly three-hour forays into the kitchen. Nevertheless, with the opportunity to shop at farmers markets five days a week between Oakland and Berkeley, there’s no real reason for even the most casually food-conscious not to go the seasonal local route for their produce, especially now that summer’s abundance is approaching its peak.  With some forethought, it’s entirely possible not only to shop just once a week at the farmers’ market, but to return with sufficient provisions for six nights of dinner and leftovers for lunch.

Below are menu suggestions which center around summer produce which is very near its zenith. Only the Sunday dinner should take more than 60 to 90 minutes to complete.  Note that three of these meals include meat.  If you are a vegetarian or just can’t afford to eat high quality meat three times a week, you can either increase the quantities of the vegetables or add cheese, eggs or legumes to get your proteins.

Part of the trick in planning a week of meals featuring fresh produce is to use the most perishable vegetables first. Nearly all produce is best when used as soon as possible after picking.  However, if you can only go to the market once a week, it helps to know which veggies can stand a few days in the crisper and those which should be eaten right away.

What to buy:
Zucchini/summer squash
Lettuces
Torpedo and cippolini onions
Cucumbers
Corn
Eggplants
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Meat


Saturday

Lunch: BLTs: As the weather manages to warm up, tomatoes will reach their peak, and nothing beats BLTs with perfect tomatoes and lettuce.  Prather Ranch and Highland Hills farms sell bacon at Oakland and Berkeley farmers markets.  For the perfect BLT, don’t forget to pick up some eggs and make your own mayonnaise while the bacon is cooking.  Try sliced cucumbers as well for a BCLT.  Frankly, when the tomatoes are at their peak, and I’m busy, I’ll eat BLTs three to four times a week.

Dinner:  Corn on the cob, green beans, grilled steaks or chops

Nothing suffers more quickly than corn once it’s picked.  It really must be eaten the day that’s purchased.  Green beans, especially the pricey haricot verts that are available now, also go down hill quickly.  Cook them the day you buy them; either steamed or quickly boiled in the same heavily salted water (it should taste like the sea) you’ll use for the corn and then quickly shock them in ice water to stop the cooking and set their color. Dress the beans with a vinagrette, plain butter, olive oil, or nothing at all.

Summer means grilling and nothing goes better with corn on the cob and fresh green beans than a steak or chops done on the grill—beef, pork, lamb and don’t forget to try the trendy goat.  Any leftover meat can be combined with your tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers and used for delicious sandwiches during the work week.

Sunday

Brunch: Onion Frittata

Farms near the coast are still producing excellent spring onions. Slice and sauté a pound of cippollini or red torpedo onions in olive and butter until wilted and reduced. The goal is to drive off the water and concentrate their flavors.  Beat six eggs together, add the onions, pour into a 10-inch straight sided skillet and place in a 300 degree oven until the eggs set. That should be about 25-30 minutes. Then run under the broiler to lightly brown the top. Frittatas are easier than omellettes and can be eaten throughout the day while you read the Sunday paper.


Dinner: Eggplant and tomato pasta sauce: Eggplants are beginning to show up in quantity with the warmer weather. Anyone who claims not to like eggplant just hasn’t had it cooked correctly.  Don’t be afraid of eggplant.  There are any number of ways to combine eggplant and tomatoes for pasta sauce.  My personal favorite comes from Marcella Hazan and involves slicing the eggplants into rounds, salting them for 45 minutes, rinsing and drying them, then frying them in about ½ an inch of vegetable oil.  While the eggplants are salting, prepare a simple tomato sauce with a bit of sautéed garlic and red pepper.  Chop the fried eggplant into sticks and add to the sauce off the heat with some fresh parsley.  Spaghetti is the best choice for pasta.  Obviously this dish is likely to take more than 90 minutes, but not by much—and besides, it’s Sunday.  If your reluctant to do all that frying—here’s a good alternative

Alternatively, you can make homemade baba ganoush  with your eggplants.  You’ll need tahini, lemon juice, garlic (try it roasted), cumin, olive oil, red pepper and a food processor.  Recipes abound on line for baba ganoush, so experiment.  It’s hard to mess this dish up, and any homemade version bears no comparison to the bland paste available at the store in those little plastic containers. Baba ganoush bonus:  you can eat it all week for lunch.


Monday: Cucumber yogurt salad and braised greens with roasted new potatoes

It’s often hard to get excited about cooking after the first day back at work.  The following meal can be cooked in under an hour if your knife skills are decent and your oven heats up reasonably fast.

Cucumbers are abundant now and the following salad turns them from an accessory into main feature: Slice one pound of cucumbers into 1/8 inch rounds. Shred ½ cup of onion on a box grater. To ½ cup of whole milk yogurt add white wine or rice vinegar, salt and cumin to taste.  Oregano, basil, tarragon or herb of your choice is optional.  Mix shredded onion into yogurt dressing and combine with the cucumbers.

I usually avoid greens (chard, kale, dandelions) during the summer as there’s usually so much else available now, and winter usually means greens for days on end.  However, greens are good for you, fast to prepare, and until shell beans come into full force are worth keeping on your menu.  Prepare the greens while the oven is preheating and the potatoes roasting.  Alternatively, the greens could be eaten with rice, faro or any grain of your choice.   

Tuesday: Caesar salad and burgers:

It’s summer in America; if you eat meat, then you should make burgers. They can be made in no time and all the trimmings are in season. The grass-fed beef available in the farmers markets or at better meat counters makes outstanding burgers—just don’t overcook them.  If you see ground lamb, by all means try lamb burgers.  If you’ve shopped on Saturday, the ground meat should be fine until Tuesday in your fridge.

Non-meat eaters can always go the veggie burger route or just eat twice as much Caesar salad which certainly makes a meal in itself.

Caesar salad may be the perfect burger accompaniment.  The Little Gem lettuce grown by some farmers is outstanding in a Caesar, but regular romaine works as well.  Recipes for Caesar salad are myriad, but I’ve always been partial to the Bay Wolf version reproduced here. 

Market Hall in Rockridge carries salt-packed anchovies—a must for Caesar salad


Wednesday  Sautéed zucchini with basil and ricotta and fresh fettuccini

Unlike eggplant, few people are scared of zucchini; however, most people are uninspired by this most common of summer vegetables.  Like eggplant, the trick is proper cooking.  Zucchini has a high water content which often produces bland and soggy results.  It must be sautéed over adequate heat to drive off the moisture and slightly carmelize its sugars.

Finely chop one shallot and 4 to 6 cloves of garlic
Slice or julienne 1.5 pounds of zucchini.
Chiffonade of basil—about half a cup
1/3 lb of ricotta salata crumbled

Saute the garlic and shallot in 3-4 tablespoons of butter or olive oil over medium heat until translucent
Add zucchini and a couple of pinches, stirring until zucchini starts to give off water and barely browns—taste it as you go.  This should not take more than five minutes.  Off the heat mix in the basil.  Taste for salt.  Optional—oregano, red pepper, squirt of lemon juice

Get the pasta water boiling while you prepare the zucchini.  When the zucchinis are done, cook your pasta and toss with zucchini and cheese in the sauté pan. Fresh pasta is preferable, but dry pasta will work as well.  

Thursday: sausage and peppers sandwiches

Peppers are just starting to show up in the farmers markets, although the cool weather has delayed their full glory. The sweet Jimmy Nardellos at some stands are especially good, if a little pricey.  Peppers can be roasted whole in a 400 degree oven until the skin is charred and the pepper collapsing.  Place in a paper bag until cool enough to peel. Remove the skins and seeds and slice length-wise.  Sausages are available from both Prather Ranch and Highland Hills at Oakland and Berkeley markets.  If you cook them in the oven, make sure to turn the heat down to 300 after cooking the peppers—don’t massacre your sausage.  Sauteed onions and a nice roll complete this meal which can also provide yummy leftovers.

If you don’t eat meat, then a sliced mozzarella, a crumbled feta, or even a semi-soft cheese would go nicely with the peppers and onions.

The idea of the Oakland Mountain Challenge began as a craving for some topography. The idea of running another loop around Lake Merritt or the usual course around neighborhood streets did not feel appealing. So I grabbed my stack of EBRPD maps and I went to work trying to come up with a running route that met the following criteria:  it had to be trail running, it needed to have some ups and downs, and it had to be long, but on the mellower side of burly so that I could finish it in an afternoon.

Of course, curiosity played an important role in my decision. After reading the maps for a while, I realized that I had never been through the Grass Valley section of the Anthony Chabot Regional Park. The section of trail, from the Clyde Woolridge Staging Area at the top of Golf Links Road, north on the Grass Valley trail, to the MacDonald Staging Area on Redwood Road, which is roughly five miles long, was intriguing because it was a transition between two heavily traveled areas. Sometimes there is a reason why people don’t like going to an area; other times, it’s just that they are too far from a parking lot. Either way, I was going to find out. Five miles, though, hardly seemed enough for an Oakland Mountain Challenge, so I threw in a loop on the West Ridge Trail of Redwood Park for good measure, making the total running distance about 12 miles.

Before the run could begin in the middle of a summer day, I had to handle some logistics. I stashed my bike in some tall weeds at the Grass Valley Trailhead, drove back to Redwood Park, gave the map one last look, and took off up the hill.

I am a distance runner because it usually takes me a while to warm up, find my stride - and get into an efficient rhythm. Sometimes when I’m running, I think of my body as a human metronome. My legs are the tick-tock arms, my breathing corresponds to the swing of the legs, and my heart settles in to a baseline that relates to the speed of the machine. Running up a sustained steep hill, though, the metronome definitely feels busted.  The heart and breathing are moving way to fast for the slowly tick-tocking legs.

Sure enough, at the top of the hill, now on the rolling ridge, I start to feel my body become lighter, and my stride longer. I look around when the brush opens a window and see that I am up high, my craving for topography satisfied. To the west is the small cleft of land, Redwood Valley, with a meandering stream.  The dark lushness of the towering trees contrast the dry shoulder high brush of the Ridge trail. For a minute I have this vision of little Sierras. Eventually, I feel myself being pulled down into the valley -- by gravity and by the magnetism of the cool shade the redwoods provide.
 
Down a steep ravine and among the dappled light of the big shade trees, the ground is spongy, and the trail well maintained, perfect conditions for flying. I’m at my appropriate cruising speed now, the worry of the concrete running shoes and the trailing parachute all forgotten. Running along the Stream Trail, through the belly of Redwood Park, I think about the route ahead and feel like I can run like this forever.

I get shot out of the trail, back to the park road, pavement and sunshine. I had stashed some stuff in the main section of the park. I had a small pack with a water bottle, some food, and a camera. I also forgot to leave my helmet with my bike when I dropped it at the other trailhead.

I cruise down Redwood road for a while and meet up with the MacDonald trailhead on the other side of the street. I’m happy to be back in the shade, but all the elevation I just gained and lost in Redwood Park has to be repeated on this side of the road. I definitely got my wish of running hills. The climb up from Redwood Road is slow. I’m maybe five or six miles into the run and wishing I were back on the cool, fast Stream trail.  After a mile or so of steady uphill, I find myself at the head of Grass Valley and the subtle, rolling descent that will take me to my bike. The view is drastically different from the other side of the road. Looking south now, I see the yellow and green hills. This section of trail is all maintained fire roads, and if I was using second and third gear before, now I just put it in neutral and let my legs go. I think it’s for this feeling that most runners run.  There are certain motions that the human body seems well designed for, an effortless full running stride is one of them. When the work seems effortless, and the mind is wondering elsewhere, running becomes relaxing and, at times, easy.

This section of the trail seems real quite, desolate almost.  I’m happy for the solitude, I not sure if it’s for the sake of solitude, or because I am running and wearing a bicycle helmet.  After a while I see my first people, I have to slow down at a cattle gate, where a man and his kid are out for a walk.  He looks at me with a grin and asks if my bike broke?

The trail is lower now, nestled in a valley, crisscrossing lesser trails and cattle gates. There are signs everywhere that this area is managed by cattle. Eventually, I run into (literally) a few of the beasts huddled under a grove of ancient and gnarled oaks. I’m in Bort Meadow now, and if not for the giant power lines overhead, the meadow could be deep in the back country, but instead it’s a few miles from the city, just over the ridge and down the hill.

As I near the Clyde Woolridge Staging Area, and the end of the run, I pass a few more people and a few more stares at the helmet. I find my bike where I had left it and hop on to ride back along Skyline Road and then down Redwood Road to my car. Again more hills, up Skyline and then down Redwood. I’m very near the end of the ride, when I get passed by three cars that feel like the must have blown by me a 100 mph. Their sudden appearance and disappearance spooks a deer that was foraging at the edge of the woods. The deer bolts for the road, right in line with my own speedy path, then second-guesses and darts back into the trees. I laugh out loud, sure that if I had made a different decision, the story would have been more like “biker and deer collision of Redwood Road leaves biker wishing he had brought his helmet.”

Zakiya Harris saw that the traditional environmental movement, that big green behemoth that encompasses everything from hybrid cars to farmer’s markets wasn’t connecting to many black and brown young people. As the burgeoning so-called green economy was being hailed as the salvation of the broken “old economy,” young black and brown people were in danger of being left out. Never mind that that bounty of jobs installing solar panels and managing electric car stations was slow to materialize, Harris set out to bridge the gap. It was with this goal in mind, that Harris founded Grind for the Green with Ambessa Cantave a few years ago. Grind for the Green uses hip-hop culture (not just hip-hop music) to engage young people who might otherwise be indifferent to the main messages of the traditional environmental movement.

“Everyone recognizes that it can’t be business as usual, we need new answers,” said Harris.

One of the new answers is Fresh Fest 2010, which is billed as the “largest youth-led eco-music festival in the nation.” It’s happening this Saturday in Mosswood Park. The Coup’s Boots Riley will host a day of performances from Erk the Jerk, Nu Dekades, and solar-powered spinning from Pete Rock, among others. In addition to music, there will be food, and demonstrations of the sort of green tech that may ultimately lead to well-paying careers. Fresh Fest 2010 will be one more on-ramp for young black and brown people to make their own path in the global environmental movement.

Entry points for the hip-hop generation into the broader world of environmentalism are too few, said Harris. She said that the 11th-Hour-Melting-Ice-Cap-Flooding-Cities pitch doesn’t work with everyone. Harris advocates a more holistic message. Harris said that her constituency is motivated by solutions and a connection to the earth that is as spiritual as it is political. “We acknowledge the indigenous and grandmother wisdom that’s inherent in our communities,” said Harris. For young black and brown people, a heart connection to the earth is a vigorous alternative to the compartmentalization and infighting of what Harris has dubbed the environmental non-profit industrial complex. It sounds simple, but Harris has no illusions about the difficulty of her charge. “Until that heart connection happens,” said Harris. “You can’t address the issue.”

What: Grind for the Green, Global Exchange, and the Get Fresh Coalition: Fresh Fest 2010
When: Saturday, August 14 12pm-6pm
Where: Mosswood Park, Broadway and MacArthur Boulevard
How Much: Free

ACT 2 of It’s Own Nothingness: Corps: “Its Own Nothingness”
Video & photography by Ariel Baron-Robbins, Tad Beck, Peter Dobey, Sarah Filley, Elizabeth Orr & Joey Petropoulos

Contemporary art, particularly that which is in any significant part conceptual in nature, is intrinsically tied to the study of philosophy. As Sarah Thornton posited in her best selling art expose Seven Days In The Art World that art is a sort of “...alternative religion for atheists...For many art world insiders and art aficionados of other kinds, concept-driven art is a kind of existential channel through which they bring meaning to their lives. It demands leaps of faith, but it rewards the believer with a sense of consequence.”

The art event as ritual is what she is driving at here and one can find ample evidence in our local art scene of such happenings as Burning Man or the recent Sun Ceremony at the Berkeley Art Museum. Such events perform an essential evangelical function breaking down barriers between audience and artist and stand as great middle ground between art walks like the art murmur and more immersive experiences like an art talk.

This Friday, Act Two of the epic three part exhibition “In Its Own Nothingness” will present performance based artworks that aims to make a physical manifestation of Sartre’s notion that one’s own being and perception of reality is a representation of nothingness, i.e. the transience that comes with the passing of time and aging, the inevitability and unyielding nature of concept of change.
   
In Act One, artist Peter Dobey presented an Marina Abramovic style take on confrontational performance art. Various scenes were staged on repeat as if reality had become a scratched dvd skipping about disjointedly, and in a demented fashion: in one room an apparent gallerist weeps and breaks down, loudly queening. In another darkened room, another man evokes campfire stoners precariously balancing a flashlight - a most banal effort elevated with no certain reason or design.

Dobey’s “Minute” video is somewhat similar to his now finished performance piece and can still be seen. Sarah Filley’s “Prayer Rope” strung about the gallery’s expanses at various points is fully realized in it transformation of the space and grounded recontextualism of her accompanying video documentation which succeeds as being alternately sensual and meditative - an intriguing combination that reinforces the themes of Sartre’s notion of the being as a creation of what was.

Ritual performances will continue to be held with one by Elizabeth Orr this friday and on Saturday, August 21st at 6pm with Act 3’s “Allness Emerge” Butoh-inspired experience directed by Tbird Luv, featuring ritualized dance, video, and performance. Those looking for answers in the form of ritual would be well advised to attend.

Krowswork
480 23rd Street

Art Murmur reception: Friday, August 6, 6pm-10pm

Between Currencies featuring Erik Parra

A residency at The Marin Headlands Center for the Arts holds much currency in the established art world of museums and galleries. For many artists like Barry McGee it has served as a launching point. Every year, a guest juror selects the best work of those artists who did not get a residency for exhibition at The Marin Headlands. Last year, Erik Parra was one of those artists selected by noted Oakland based curator Kimberly Johansson.

Parra’s current body of work is an exploration of  the “tangled layers of artificiality eminent in both the medium and the message- between black and white and RGB, history and desire, question the relevance of a search for American authenticity.”

I recently had the opportunity to talk with artist, educator and curator Erik Parra about his show. Here’s a portion from our recent wide-ranging discussion of blurred intentions and the mythical icons of an America ever in transition.

Theo Konrad Auer: So where did the title for the show come about?

Erik Parra: I am really interested in American myths and how they are communicated and the fact that there is some slippage concerning those myths - for instance one of the works in the show: It is an image of a football stadium and it has colored bit of paper emanating spectrally  from it in an almost rapturous fashion. The piece is about social catharsis compare the experience of sports culture to In our society a successful athlete is the ultimate for a lot for people.

TKA: Galleries and Stadiums are our new chapels!

Erik Parra: Exactly! My mom is really religious and for a while there - when I was younger - if I just went to a museum on Sunday I wouldn’t feel so bad about lying to my mother’s about not going to church. It is a very fine line between a secular event in which  there is ascension and a religious event where the whole audience is engaged and there is a call and response and there too is an ascension. Then the conversion is what are we worshipping: Why this sports figure? Why this diety? I am trying to get at the tension of the American myth of the self - made man. If we are so self made, then why are we all seemingly following something or someone?

TKA: What was the process that went into making this body of work?

EP:  I am drawing figures in the collage process. For some of the pieces I trace outlines of the photo and then make stencils to add colored paper on top of the images. For a lot of the collages you are at the mercy of what you find, so I just spend lots of looking and collecting. For the drawings, there is regular practice in the studio where I sit and sketch, take notes , clear my mind and reevaluate from there. Themes and motif eventually emerge, and from any given group of drawings I take one or two to make finished works.

TKA: How long did it take you to make the work, from start to finish?

EP: It takes me about 34 years..!

TKA: Ah! Haha! The Picasso answer!

EP:  It’s hard to say, because I work between three different mediums (Painting, Drawing and Collage) at the same time. For me, each body of work leads to another. A lot of works have shredded paper in them - that started in 2008 when I was making these paintings in which I really trying to inject a paint application that was truly “contention.” I was really trying  to see how I could fuck a painting up. You throw paint on a canvas and have no control over it, but how could this happen in collage. I found that was what I was trying to do in collage and I came to this notion that if I take this stack of paper and just hack at it with an xacto - knife that it will evoke the same same sort of contingency. I starting making stencils to give these eruptions shape.

TKA: So the work has a topographical element?

EP: Exactly, for example, in my piece “Tasting” the contents of the cups actually comes from behind the paper giving a sense of weight and 3 dimensionality. I am interested in navigating the spectrum of control to contingency, but just not in a linear manner.

Johansson Projects, 2300 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland

ArtMurmur reception: Friday, August 6th, 5pm – 8pm

Art@TheOakBook is proud to announce the first comprehensive survey of solo and collaborative work by Oakland-based artist Daniel Healey.

Coming off the heels of several critical acclaimed group exhibitions such as “Double Exposure” (2008, Blankspace) and the 2009 edition of the juried Bay Area Currents, Art@TheOakBook gallery director Theo Konrad Auer, saw this as an apt time to give this artist a new platform to further his dialogue between between aesthetics, conceptual content, and audience interpretations.

As the artist put it, “I'm using very conventional materials more often found in office supply stores or in the shipping world. I think that using utilitarian objects connects the average viewer into a self-referential relationship. I am trying to open up dialogues between products and how the process affects the creation of art.”

Utilizing everyday materials like Paper, tape, #2 pencils, cardboard, foamcore, and glue displacing their original function(s) until they reach their own potential in a new “dysfunctional” way.

“In my world, paper serves our need to communicate, pass information, denote a thought, sketch, draw. Cardboard is the barrier between manufactured goods and the world. It's a funny throw away layer of skin protecting the goods beneath. Foam core is used for the display of posters with information, presentations, and for building architectural models. Glue is used to "fix" the objects that fall victim to their own fragility and disorder. Collaborating with found books and other artists (Darren Hawk and Damon Smith) causes a different relationship between order and disorder. A lot of my work is also dealing with this core theme of making and developing order out of chaos. [I start] with a simple idea or process and repeat it until a structure emerges.”

The three  ***  being the title of the show ties together these footnotes. The show uncovers the many sides of my repertoire (painting, drawing, found object procuring, collaborative, and video) the first time in a single show. Although I feel all of my different series deal with things on their own concepts and imagery, one gets the sense that they connect in many ways. Disparate on some levels and cohesive at the same time.

Join us for our two receptions this August 6th (6pm-9pm) and September 4th.

423 Water Street, Jack London Square

Photo by Jack Gescheidt

About two months ago, passerby at the corner of International Boulevard and 42nd Avenue in East Oakland found themselves being followed by a fawn not more than a few days old and bleating in clear distress. The baby deer was too young to know she should be afraid of humans. She was lucky her mistake didn’t cost her.

Someone called the police, the police called county animal control, and animal control called Lila Travis at Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue. Travis drove down to International Boulevard and coaxed the fawn into her car. Once in the safety of the animal shelter, the fawn thrived. She’ll soon be released into the wild. Now, the fawn's rescuers are about to be "released into the wild," as well. They need your help. Read more at Today in Montclair.

Stephanie Benavidez

It makes sense for a city with redwood forests, tidal estuaries, and a massive saltwater wildlife refuge in the heart of its downtown, but when Oakland created the position of City Naturalist in 1948, it was a pioneering move in a field that would come to be called urban ecology.

The person who holds the job today is like a children's book character, a contemporary philosopher, an urban guru, a teacher, Dr. Doolittle, and a community activist rolled into one taciturn, middle aged woman. Stephanie Benavidez may know more about the creatures and plants that we share our city with than any other person.

When you live in the city, it's sometimes easy to forget about nature. The noise, the fear of crime, and the fast pace obliterate a connection with the natural world. City naturalists, therefore, are dealing with an audience that have very little or no context for understanding the lessons they have to teach. While it may seem a daunting task, Ms. Benavidez explains her job as, “It’s showing them a different way of looking at things”.

Today, Oakland’s only full-time, year-round naturalist spends her time keeping tabs on the wildlife and educating the public at the Rotary Center on Lake Merritt. Ms. Benavidez also coordinates school programs and summer camps.

There is also the occasional need for a wildlife-whisper. Those are the odd times when a skunk is stuck under a bed in Montclair, an albino raccoon is stealing cat food, or a deer is trapped in a backyard. That's when it helps to have a naturalist to call for a consultation.

In the 1950s and 60s, the municipal naturalist position was a major part of Oakland’s parks and recreation department. The bird-banding program at Lake Merritt was so popular that it eventually became a model for the Fish and Game Department. But over the years, tight budgets have scaled the naturalist positions down to one.

No one is talking about bringing back a full corps of city naturalists, but with complicated environmental policy decisions becoming an increasingly larger part of public discourse, more people are recognizing the importance of environmental literacy. Ms. Benavidez says that today’s youth suffer from “Nature Deficient Disorder.”

Every now and then, City Council wonders if Oakland really needs a naturalist, says Ms. Benavidez. But with three decades of former students prepared to defend the importance of the position, the job has been spared. For her part, Ms. Benavidez says she sees her work pay off when the kids who participate in summer “use their imaginations” under the redwood canopy in Joaquin Miller Park.

I woke up one Saturday morning feeling like Juan de Fuca, and so I went looking for an Oakland version of the Strait of Arián. Like some old school explorer obsessed with inland waterway shortcuts, I took to the tidal creeks of Oakland to answer one simple question: Could I ride my kayak on a full flood tide through the city? I woke up one Saturday morning feeling like Juan de Fuca and so I went looking for an Oakland version of the Strait of Arián. Like some old school explorer obsessed with inland waterway shortcuts, I took to the tidal creeks of Oakland to answer one simple question: Could I ride my kayak on a full flood tide through the city?

The journey began, as most journeys these days do, with a drive to the airport. Right off Hegenberger Road, along the Martin Luther King Regional Shoreline, I found a suitable launching site for my kayak. I left the shore under the shadow of the coliseum and the ripping hum of jet traffic and pulled through some early morning glassy water.

The timing of my little exploratory mission coincided nicely with the tides. The full moon meant more dramatic tides, the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows. This translates to a good time to float up and down tidal creeks provided you are going in the right direction at the right time.

I paddled out around the point of Arrowhead Marsh, impressed by the number and diversity of shorebirds. There were the usual bay birds: the ubiquitous gull, the cormorant (a.k.a river turkey), and the noble heron. There were also at least half a dozen species of birds I can’t pretend to know the name of, and at least one kind of bird I’m sure I’ve never seen before, a kind of long, skinny-legged oriole.

Paddling through a salt marsh is a lot like what I envision walking through the Serengeti would be like. Being shrouded in spartina and cordgrass, while different types of exotic looking birds forage and sing all around. My brief, African daydream was shattered, however, by a thud. My bow whacked a gigantic piece of floating trash. After paddling the Arrowhead marsh, which is known in birding circles as a stellar spot to view all types of migrating avian creatures, I was amazed that they are not all choked, strangled, or otherwise damaged by the trash interwoven with the marsh grass.

Given its proximity to I-880, Hegenberger Road, and the city in general, the salt marsh suffers. Rather than the nursery of the sea, the marsh sadly resembles a liquid highway median in need of some cleaning. The fluorescent potato chip and candy wrappers clashed with the muted tones of shorebird feathers and mallard’s heads.

As I left the marsh and headed toward the mouth of Damon Slough at high tide, I was confident that this was the best time to try to float up it. The entrance to the slough is between the dead-end of 66th Avenue and a finger of parkland that juts out into the estuary. The beginning of the slough is about three car lengths wide at high tide. It turns out that the traditional logic of riding the tides up and down tidal creeks may not apply in an urban setting.

I had not accounted for the bridges and overpasses that just barely pass over the surface of the water. Right at the mouth of the slough was a pedestrian pathway, which may have easily been paddled under when the tide was low, but when full it presented a risk of decapitation. I paused for a moment and weighed my options. It wasn’t like I was entering a sea cave on an unprotected coast, with pounding surf and uncertain swells. Instead, I was just trying to squeeze under an overpass on a calm morning.  An old man walking his dog watched as I bent down low and started to pull myself along. It was then that I noticed that even if I did get through, an even lower bridge spanned the slough only a few yards ahead.

I decided, while crouched in my kayak under the overpass, that the path through Damon Slough was not going to get me very far. I paddled back out the way I came.  I was dejected but not defeated. I turned my bow north and headed along the shores of the city’s industrial area. The volume of trash choking the critical habitat of the marsh was staggering. The scene reminded me of what I had heard of the reefs, lagoons, and atolls surrounding places like Kiribati, which are dying a slow death of trash infestation. The dramatic hype of the environmental devastation surrounding the oil spill of recent weeks is ironic compared to the chronic litter condition that in the end, will be far more lethal.

My thoughts were stuck on the condition of the marsh as I settled into an even pace of paddling. I was on the lookout for evidence of oil-spill, but besides gnarly tar balls or gleaming slicks, I wasn’t sure what else to look for. At one point I thought I saw a dead duck. On closer inspection, I found what looked like the tribal markings on the underbelly plumage of a waterfowl, was really just the zigzag pattern on a discarded couch pillow.

I eventually came to the mouth of another creek. I found out later that its official name is East Creek Slough. I dubbed it Paper Cup Creek, because of the few hundred disposable coffee cups that line its shores.  Again, there was another pedestrian bridge right at the mouth, but this time it arched a little, so I was able to sneak under. I paddled a little further up the creek and came to a rather larger obstacle: I-880. I had been mentally preparing myself for this moment. I knew if I found an inland waterway I would have to deal with the freeway. If space and water permitted I could squeeze under. If not, I would have to consider a suicidal portage across the many lanes of traffic. Running across a highway in bare feet carrying a wooden boat, only to gain access to the water on the other side can only be seen as a political act. I just wasn’t feeling political on this particular morning.

As I approached the overpass, I could see that there were about two and half feet of space between the water and bottom of the concrete that formed the bridge. I hesitated slightly and then took a couple of big pulls, ducked down on the deck of my boat, and propelled myself under the humming road. The length of this artificial tunnel was maybe fifty feet, and since using the paddle was a little difficult, I pushed myself along with my hands on the concrete above my head. I popped out the other side and hoped briefly that the creek wouldn’t fill much more, because returning to open water might be impossible.

The creek on the east side of I-880 branched; one fork followed the highway in what looked like a giant drainage ditch. The other fork flowed into a concrete channel with a big fence and some buzzing electrical wires on one side and a few homeless camps on the other side. The channel was full of frantic ducks that were trying to stay far away from me. After a few hundred yards, the walled channel made a quick jog to the north. From here, the water flowed on, but my progress was blocked by a giant pipe. The constricted spot in a concrete channel surrounded by quacking ducks represented the farthest point inland that I was able to go. In order to leave I had to make a multi-point turn, surrounded by the agitated ducks. I headed out the way I had come. I went back under the freeway, down Coffee Cup Creek and out around the marsh and back to my car.

Miami has alligators. Anchorage has bears. Oakland has mountain lions.

But unlike the predators of those other cities, mountain lions are rarely seen. The big cats don’t turn up lounging on the diving boards of backyard pools, or sauntering down Broadway. Even Dee Rosario, a ranger at Redwood Regional Park, has never seen a mountain lion after 30 years in the park. But he knows the lions are there. “None of the Rangers have seen them because we are always working or making noise,” says Mr. Rosario.

While rangers don’t see the mountain lions in Redwood, others do. In 2009, there were more than half a dozen sightings. This year, said Rosario, there have been zero. Counting the cats is not an exact science. After someone reports that they have seen a mountain lion, a biologist from the East Bay Regional Park District contacts the person, and tries to make sure they didn’t really see a deer, a dog, or some other kind of cat.

Mr. Rosario says that despite the lack of hard evidence, by piecing together information gathered from hikers’ accounts, he thinks the Redwood population is “doing well.”  In the past two years, there have been a few sightings of one or two cubs, meaning that the population has all the factors needed to support a growing population.

At first glance, a place like Redwood Park may seem not seem the best place for a mountain lion to be in. After all, a mature male mountain lion may have a home range of 100 miles, and is able to cover 25 miles in just one night of hunting. While Redwood Park offers miles of trails for a quick outdoor fix, it is hardly a desolate, uninterrupted wilderness. However, the presence of mountain lions in a near-urban setting makes sense when you consider the predator-prey relationship.

The favorite food of a mountain lion is deer. And in the hills of Oakland, there are plenty of deer. The lions of Redwood have also been known on occasion to eat a feral pig that has wandered over from the East Bay Municipal Utility District land that borders the park to the east. Since an adult cat can eat a deer a week, and since there is a lack of predatory competition -- besides cars -- it is possible that the 1839 acres of Redwood Park may provide plenty of habitat for mountain lions. Add to that the corridor effect of the arrangement of other East Bay Regional Parks, and there is plenty of reason to believe that there are a number of healthy lions roaming the hills.

The only way to know the exact population of mountain lions in Oakland or the East Bay would be by conducting a study that would involve radio collaring and tracking their behavior and ranges for several years. All East Bay Regional Park people contacted while trying to track down some mountain lion information were in favor of a study, and thought that participating in one would be interesting. However, both the funds and the initiative are missing.

Despite being extremely reclusive, mountain lions receive an enormous amount of bad press. So, one can’t blame people for conjuring up images of stealthy predators stalking hikers at dusk. While there have certainly been some dangerous interactions between mountain lions and people in California, there is a greater probability of being killed by a neighborhood dog.  Mountain lions, rather than being a grave threat to hikers, are valuable to the local ecosystem both physically and intrinsically.

A little preparation can easily turn a tense encounter with a mountain lion into an opportunity to witness rare wildlife. In case of a run-in with a lion, the East Bay Regional Park Service suggests: do not run away, look big, and make some noise.  

Two of my favorite haunts in Oakland are the parks in the hills and the estuary. What I wondered about, though, is what connects them. I’ve covered much of the city’s streets in cars, in buses and on foot, but traveling block by block doesn’t provide a sense of Oakland’s landscape. The city rests on giant folds in the earth on the side of a slope falling to the Pacific Ocean. In order to understand Oakland’s geography, I figured I would have to walk it.

I decided to start at the city’s highest point, and walk until I hit the estuary. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but what I found is a part of the city that evoked a sense of wilderness (fish in creek pools, screeching hawks, and the shade of giant forests), one of the best examples of riparian habitat in the East Bay, and a flood plain that became Fruitvale Avenue.

First, I had to find the highest point in Oakland. I thought a simple Google search would deliver the answer. Instead, the search turned up things like “highest peak murder rate in 1992”. After finding other inconclusive Internet information, I visited the topographic map collection at the Oakland Public Library. It turned out that Grizzly Peak, with an elevation of 1,754 feet, is just barely within the city limits and would work as my starting point.

To reach the goal of ending up at the estuary, I figured I could follow some of the natural drainages leading to the bay. I eventually decided on following the Palo Seco creek to the Sausal creek, which meets saltwater near the Fruitvale Fishing Pier. Most of this decision was based on the fact that these creeks are mostly still above the ground, while large parts of other East Bay creeks flow through culverts or engineered structures.

Making my way to the top of Grizzly Peak one Saturday morning, I found myself bushwhacking, and at points crawling on my stomach through dense growth.  From a little parking area, right off Grizzly Peak Road, the actual Grizzly Peak doesn’t look like much. If you’re not looking for it, the peak’s easy to miss.  But crawling through the brush to reach the summit – only several hundred yards from my car – gave the whole ordeal some authenticity. It was only later, when I approached the peak from the road, and not the park, that I saw it was an easy jaunt to the top.

So there I was, pinned to the ground by some bramble brush, when I heard the sound of the Tilden steam train. As the whistle blew, the clouds hid the sun. It was a strange start to the trip. I eventually untangled myself and headed down Grizzly Peak to begin the walk.

The first section required a bit of navigating through the roads and trails of Tilden Regional Park. Every few hundred feet there was a decision to make: to turn, to follow a trail, to go down a road. Eventually, though, I made it out. I passed the camping Boy Scouts and steam train goers, and found a trail that followed the ridge of the hills south, along the fringe of Oakland. I continued this way for several miles, and was enjoying the vistas of the Siesta Valley, and Mount Diablo to the east, and the occasional shot of the Bay and the city below to the west. The hills were quiet and peaceful. A hawk’s cry replaced the train whistle. It was a sound that would reoccur at regular intervals throughout the journey.

Somewhere over the Caldecott tunnel, there is a grove of oak trees that are old and weathered. They stand over the tunnel, and look out at the valley that Highway 24 snakes through. After the oak grove, but before Sibley Regional Park, the forest changes from predominately oaks and ferns on rolling hills, to a denser, darker forest of eucalyptus and Monterey pine.

Past the volcanic peaks of Sibley, the trail, still following the ridge, dips down into Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve. Here, the plants are all native. It’s an ecological island of what the local flora must have looked like before the aromatic eucalyptus and Monterey pine invaded.

Down in a little valley in Huckleberry, I lost my sense of place. Live oaks and Bay laurels shade giant ferns. The dale was quiet and inviting. I wanted to stay, but I pressed on.

By the afternoon I was well into Redwood Park. The hawk was still occasionally making its sounds from above. Somewhere around the Chabot Space and Science Center, I started making my way down the hill. I crossed Skyline and was in Joaquin Miller City Park. Somehow, I managed to travel in a circle for a while, even though I was convinced I was heading downhill the whole time. At times, I could see through the trees to the city and the estuary below.

I continued down, and eventually met up with the tiny trickle of the Palo Seco Creek. This part of Joaquin Miller Park is distinctive from anything that exists above it on the hill. Redwoods and hemlocks that are young, but tall, dominate the little creek valley.  As the trail continues down, the sides of the hills press tighter and grow steeper – like a funnel – pulling me into the creek bed and towards the bay.

Right before the Palo Seco crosses Highway 13 and meets up with Sausal Creek, ivy begins to dominate the landscape. Initially, the ivy growing between the redwoods and up steep ravine walls lend the landscape an almost tropical feel. But then it becomes evident that the ivy, perhaps run rampant from someone’s backyard, is choking the native under-story. Ivy is a problem here and Friends of the Sausal Creek, a group of folks concerned with the ivy imperialism, are having a volunteer work session to try to restore some native habitat on September 29.

The sound of people thwacking golf balls at the Montclair Driving Range told me I was near the place where the Dimond Canyon Trail meets up with Sausal Creek. The upper section of the canyon seems untouched. The creek flows even in late summer. But part way down, the Works Progress Administration projects of the 1930’s, which were intended to control the flow of the creek, start. It’s interesting, a bit of history, overgrown and retaken over by the flow of the creek. For a while, the trail is in the creek bed. You can hop from rock to rock, stopping long enough to grab handfuls of wild blackberries.  The trail eventually crosses El Centro Road, and heads down into Dimond Park. The creek in this area used to be dammed up and used as a swimming hole; now, however, the park is home to a public pool. Civilization.

It’s here that Sausal Creek goes underground in culverts and roughly follows the path of Fruitvale Avenue. I continued on down Fruitvale, where taco trucks replaced the blackberry bushes and landscaped hedges replaced the native vegetation. The walk is flat and paved, but the land around Fruitvale used to be home to willow groves, which gives Sausal creek – sausal meaning willow in Spanish -- its name.

In the mid-1800s, the area I had just walked through, Joaquin Miller Park, and Redwood Park were heavily logged to provide building material. Oakland’s first sawmill was on the Palo Seco creek, and the huge logs were pulled on skids down Fruitvale Avenue.

The sky took on the golden glow of the end of a day, and after walking many blocks, I reached the estuary. I located the confluence of Sausal creek, which now flows out of a culvert big enough to drive a car in, right next to the Fruitvale fishing pier under the bridge. Without knowing, you would need a divining rod to know that a creek runs under Fruitvale Avenue, but it is definitely there.
 

A while back, I read about the possibility of fishing in Lake Temescal.  I need to admit upfront that I am a bit of a fly fishing snob. I should also admit to not being a very successful angler.  Still, when I think fly fishing, I think trout and a cold alpine lake at the end of a hike.  That being the case I don’t often get a chance to wet a line locally.

But having some time in the middle of a scorching day, I grabbed my fly rod and headed up to Lake Temescal. I was inspired by reading an article about fly fishing for warm water catfish, and after learning that they are most active in the bright light of midday, I figured it was an ideal moment to persuade a catfish to nibble on a big old woolly bugger. In the winter, the East Bay Regional Park District stocks the lake with trout. And around this time of year, they start dumping in the catfish.

While whistling, “… the catfish are jumping and the cotton is high…” I tied on my first snot green wet fly and gave it a few casts.  No luck.  I decided my cast was a little rusty, as the woolly bugger wasn’t really going to the places I was trying to send it.  I was also thinking back to the article I had read, which went on at some length about how smart catfish are. They are smarter, it seems, than their cousins the trout.

Standing on the banks of Lake Temescal, trying to devise ways to outthink a catfish, I was pretty stumped.  If I were fully dedicated to the sport, I would have been out in the middle of the lake in a float tube, plying the deep warm water.  Instead I was circumnavigating the edges of the lake and trying different colored buggers.  I noticed that when I was pulling in a light crimson colored fly I had the most interest from a school of small fish. But since they were about the same size as the fly, they may have been just confused.

Even without the knowledge of ichthyology and entomology required of a true fly fisher, it is always just fun to get in a few good casts.  A more devout angler, or at least one with better luck, might find Lake Temescal a good fishing hole.  According to signage and some local knowledge, the lake is stocked with rainbow trout in the cooler months, channel catfish in the warmer months, and occasionally large mouth bass.

Another option, for those of us with out of practice casts, are the Leona casting pools in McCrea Park. Apparently, this is the fly fishing hangout in Oakland.
 

Photo of Argentine ant courtesy of Global Invasive Species Database

The first colonists arrived a century ago, probably as stowaways on a ship carrying coffee. From an invaders point of view, they could hardly have landed on a more hospitable shore than the San Francisco Bay. They disembarked and took control.

Known to scientists as Linepithema humile, the Argentine ant is one of the world’s great colonizers. And this is the time of year when Oakland residents, and other Californians from Ukiah to San Diego, are reminded that their cities are built on top of an underground empire, whose size and population we can only guess at.

So much about the Argentine ant is a mystery. The handful of scientists who study it are not exactly sure why the bugs come streaming from their nests into homes when the weather turns hot and dry as it has in recent days, but Dave Holway, an ecology professor at the University of California, San Diego thinks he has an answer. The ants are looking for moisture.

Unlike other ant species, Argentine ants are highly opportunistic, says Mr. Holway. They can set up a nest almost anywhere, they can even camp out in tunnels burrowed by other types of ants. In the dry season they follow moisture. When it rains, they flee flooding. But it is not their adaptability that makes them so interesting, he says. It is their highly aggressive nature, and ability to eradicate competing ant species that fascinates him.

More Worlds to Conquer

Not only do they push out other ants, scientists have fingered the Argentine ant as the culprit behind a decline of the horned lizard population in Southern California. In addition to California, and large swaths of the South, the Argentine ant has colonized parts of the Mediterranean and Australia. Colonies have been discovered in New Zealand, where local officials hold up California as an example of a worst-case scenario if the invasion isn’t stopped.

The native habitat of the Argentine ant in central South America contributed to their success in other lands, says Mr. Holway: “It’s like growing up in a tough neighborhood.” Not only are they surrounded by other fierce ant species on their home turf in Paraguay and northern Argentina, but they are subjected to frequent floods.
While the Argentine ant is merciless when it meets members of a competing species, in California, they are noted for their passivity when encountering one of their own. An Argentine ant from a colony in San Diego could be dropped in the middle of an Oakland nest without a fight.

Supercolony

This behavior has led scientists to speculate that a so-called supercolony extends from Mendocino County down to Baja. Other researchers have raised doubts about the supercolony theory, and the answer ultimately depends on one’s definition of supercolony. And who really cares where the boundaries of a colony lie, so long as they don’t encroach inside the house.

Mr. Holway has newly published research demonstrating that the ants are following water when they stream into homes. His research found that ant populations increased by 38 percent in well-irrigated plots. Mr. Holway says that one way to limit the presence of Argentine ants near one’s home is to water the lawn less frequently.

Old Enemies, New Battlefield

And another remedy of sorts may be on the way. After a century of being the biggest bully on the anthill, the Argentine ant could be facing competition. An old foe is making its way north. The red imported fire ant, from another tough neighborhood in Latin America, has been spotted in San Joaquin County.

Oakland is rapidly becoming the city of A Thousand Farms, with spades turning up soil in backyards and empty lots all over town. Most city gardens are not planted in former toxic dumps, but the issue of legacy pollution and urban farming is an important consideration before sitting down to dine on those plump heirloom tomatoes.

According to Nathan McClintock, a PhD candidate at Berkeley, and a local food justice and community food security activist, it is a good idea to check out your soil before planting. (McClintock has written several interesting papers on urban farming in Oakland.) There are two ways to investigate your soil. The first is to do a mail-away soil test. The Ecology Center in Berkeley has a list of soil labs, firms, and universities that will perform tests for a fee. City Slicker Farms, who build backyard gardens in West Oakland, use the University of Massachusetts soil test. For nine dollars, the lab will do a basic soil analysis. The two-page report contains all the information a weekend farmer needs to know. Another mail away test, A & L Labs will also perform tests for specific metals and contaminants. These labs will also analyze pieces of dehydrated plants, so if you have a lone citrus tree and are curious about the health of the fruit, you can send a chunk away to the lab.
          
McClintock explains that the two pervasive concerns for backyard gardens in Oakland are the atmospheric deposition of lead and zinc. Since freeways and major thoroughfares criss-cross the city, it is likely that most backyards are affected by depositions. The lead comes from pre-1980 leaded gasoline, while the zinc comes from wearing tires. Another issue is what McClintock calls “old hazard stock”, a reference to things like lead paint chips and gasoline dumps behind the garage.

McClintock has tested over a 100 sites in Oakland for lead, and has found that levels are lower than expected. But he says that lead levels are very site specific, and can vary widely even in a single location. Below is a map of lead levels in West Oakland. McClintock said a map of the entire city will be finished later in 2010.

It's considered safe to eat produce from soil with a lead content of 300 parts per million or less.

Another way of investigating soil is through land use maps. The land use history of a neighborhood, street corner, or section of town, can better tell you if your garden is at risk. Studying this history may also tell you what kinds of toxins or metals to be looking for. The City of Oakland has land use and zoning maps on their website, or you can check the EPA’s enviro-mapper by zip code for potential hazards.
          
All this should not scare the urban-back-to-the-landers. While it is important to know what lurks beneath your soil and while it is more than likely that most backyard gardens have some sort of legacy deposition, not everything found in your soil is dangerous. Lead, for example, is found in all soil. It's just a matter of the concentration that is important to know. According to City Slicker Farms, who have done more than 90 of these mail away tests, only about 10 to 20 percent come back with medium lead levels and less than a handful have high lead levels.
          
There are plenty of solutions if you are concerned about your soil. The most basic is to simply build a raised bed above the ground. City Slicker Farms recommends building a planter box about a foot off the ground, and if you are extremely concerned, you can just keep building higher. The bottom of the box can be lined with plastic and filled with organic compost. Another tactic recommended by McClintock is to use plants that are bio-remediators. Sunflowers and Indian mustard, for example, are considered hyper accumulators and will actually take-up metals like lead from the soil. Amending your garden with mature, stable compost will also help dilute any contaminates and make them less bio-available.

The upside of getting a soil sample done, is that usually the reports come with recommendations, so even if you have a finding of low levels of metals or contaminants, the lab will tell you what your ph levels are, and what kinds of amendments - like fertilizers and nutrients - you need to make your tomatoes extra tasty and your roses bloom bigger.
 

Grocery stores are for wimps.  Why rely on a farmer, when you can find plenty to eat just a short walk into the Oakland wilds?

Or, maybe berry picking is simply a good excuse to go outside. Blackberries abound in Oakland, but you have to know where to look. Since the plants are some of the first colonizers when humans start whacking vegetation, they often grow right next to trails.  The first berries of the season will soon be ripening, while secondary and tertiary growths promise a bounty of fresh, juicy berries later in the summer. Start scouting trails now for spots to return in July

Every man, woman, and child should have their favorite berry patch.  My favorite Oakland berry patch is along the Dimond Canyon hiking trail.  Along parts of the trail, the berry bushes that thrive next to Sausal Creek are high overhead. In other parts, they are a wall to wall bramble of berries, a perfect home for a family of black bears.  The upside to urban berry picking is that you don’t have to worry about ursine competition.

When harvesting berries I always work from the top of the bush down, selecting only the perfectly ripe ones, and leaving the rest to mature.  Blackberries are easy to harvest because their color indicates readiness.  It might be a good idea to bring along a long sleeve shirt, as some of the biggest berries are protected by the sharpest thorns.

Since I was picking berries at the beginning of the season, I harvested a modest half-bucket. I like to leave some ripe berries on the plants, so that some are still available for animals that rely on them.

Because of the way that blackberries grow out of the blossom, there is a sort of remnant fuzz that sticks to them.  This is easily removed while washing, and the odd bit of fuzz left here and there will only add a little texture to the finished jam product.

Since I wasn’t going to consume all of the jam in one sitting, I got some little Ball jelly jars and prepared them for canning.  This is a process of washing, heating, and eventually boiling.  While most canning instructions and recipes call for specialized gear, it is a fairly low-tech endeavor and easily accomplished with little more than a big pot.  While I was heating the jelly jars, I mashed up the washed berries, added two tablespoons of pectin powder, and boiled the mixture.

When the berry/pectin mixture had boiled for a few minutes, I added a few cups of sugar.  I wound up using far less than the three and a half cups called for in the recipe I was following.  As I was measuring it out, it seemed a bit excessive.  You should probably just use a little trial and error in this department.

After the sugar had dissolved in the boiling fruit and the mixture boiled a little longer, I ladled the jam into the jelly jars that were soaking in hot water. When all the jam was in the jars, I topped them with canning lids and rings, and put all of the jars in a big pot to boil for about 10 minutes.

I then removed the jars and let them cool.  You can test the center of the jar to see if you got a good seal by pushing in the middle of the lid.  If the lid does not move or make that pop sound, then you have a good seal and your jam is preserved.  Through the course of aging, the pectin may change color and consistency.  This is normal.  If your jam smells funny, however, then it’s no good. You'll have to start over, or go to the store and buy your jam.

Three Lukes from Pete Glover's First Junk Pirate Show in 2006

The summer art season has opened with a bang in the East Bay. New shows in Oakland easily eclipse the recently closed SF Art Fair. Mind you, the return of a commercial art fair to the Bay Area is welcome, and many of the galleries represented offered up some great work. But, when "tasteful" is the first word that pops up in your mind's news ticker, you know something is just not quite right. A sculpture court and scores of temporary display walls that offer no experimental art, video work or conceptualism fails to represent the local art community. Our art scene dwells as much in the humble artist-run spaces as it does in the airy expanses of a well-appointed commercial gallery. This month, I've chosen two shows in Oakland spaces where the premium balance is tilted towards the artist instead of the collector. In one case, the artist is the collector.
 

21 Grand’s 9th Annual Art Sale

Come July, 21 Grand will reach its 10-year anniversary, which is quite old in gallery years. It's aged well. Their list of past exhibitions reads like a who's who of my favorite local artists of the last decade: Sean Aaberg, Steven Barich, Lexa Walsh and many, many more. 21 Grand has hosted many great music acts over the years as well, including the folks from the experimental rap collective Anticon, and a Sonic Youth side project. Their annual benefit art sale features a ton of brilliant artists - many of which we've featured in this very column - here's but a few: John Casey (who did up a great tee shirt in their honor), Steven R. Barich, Sarah Filley, Nathaniel Parsons and Daniel Healey. I wouldn't miss their 9th annual art sale. It could be your last chance to get affordable works from some of the rising stars of our local art community.

21 Grand, 416 25th Street, Oakland
ArtMurmur reception: Friday, June 4th, 6 pm – 10 pm

Pete Glover's Junk Pirate
The Compound Gallery & Studios
1167 65th st.
ArtMurmur reception Friday, June 4th, 6 pm – 10 pm

Pete Glover is a man of many hats and he wears them well. As a artist, curator and filmaker he has quietly distinquished himself in recent years. His recent collaborative film with noted artist David Choe has been screened from parts far and near to acclaim , and even greater are his own found and self-created works, which for me strike at an anthropological impulse, though I am sure he would put it differently. His latest Junk Pirate show of found ephermera and other kitschey treasures actually tops his last, which was easily among my top ten shows of 2006. Shoot, I even bought two pieces from it! Here's a conversation I recently had with Glover.
 
Theo Konrad Auer: In your first Junk Pirate show there was a distinctive anthropological element that was for me both engaging and entertaining. One work held a selection of three Luke Skywalker figures from years
past to now - as time went on the toys grew ever more Apollian, ever more muscular and ideal - what does that say for you, about our society?

Pete Glover: -"3 Lukes" was the pinnacle. I'll be lucky to create something that awesome ever again. When that came together, all my thoughts were on just presenting a small collection of Luke Skywalker action figures to show how the design has changed over time. The humor was in the way the figure changed, from the simple style of 1978 Kenner figures to ridiculously hulking muscle-man of the more modern design. It totally betrayed the character, who is supposed to be a naive farm boy. Honestly, I was not at all concerned with what commentary on society was being made, other than maybe how strange and humorous these things are when presented this way. I guess the real questions in what commentary the toy manufacturers were trying to make.
 
TKA:  What were some of the anthropological findings you encountered this time around?

PG: I'm just finding lots of junk, and then arranging it and presenting it. I may be being forcefully naive, but I'm not really seeing the Junk Pirate work in term of anthropology. I usually don't think about the work as being clues to the culture that created it; I think of it as being about the objects themselves.
This time around there is really just more of the same... framed junk... just LOTS more. Lots of weird and strange things. Some nostalgic bits. Some found personal ephemera. Just a big collection of collections. If you like a bunch of crazy crap on the wall, this is the show for you.
 
TKA: You also a filmaker and to this particular series of works you
often bring a narrative - would call it a meditation on American consumer culture?
 
PG: I definitely would NOT call it a "meditation on American consumer culture". It may be that, but I wouldn't call it that. My work in film, as well as my other visual art like drawing and such, aren't really related to the Junk Pirate work. Or, at least, I haven't really found the connection yet. Over time something will likely emerge, but right now that stuff is pretty independent of Junk Pirate. All these collected objects have a story to tell. Both popular, collective associations as well as individual tales. I pretty much choose to ignore these stories and just have fun collecting and displaying. Narratives emerge when things are grouped together and exhibited, but I make an effort not to try to make blatantly obvious juxtapositions.

TKA:  You have found much of your materials at one of your jobs - at
a "Junk Store" - what are your top three craziest things you have discovered
there?

PG: Hey, don't reveal all my secrets! I've seen lots of crazy, inappropriate things out in the thrift store world... Sex toys, drugs, domestic animal pelts, straight-up gold, machetes... I guess the top three would be a human skull, a giant jar of smelly dreadlocks, and a bunch of boxes of live ammunition. I keep a running commentary on all the finds on my Tales From the Junk Store blog.

One of the oddest things I've gotten was a huge collection of used matches. That's right, some crazy hag saved all of her used, burnt matchsticks for years, then carefully bagged them and donated them to a junk store. I was just dumbfounded. Put that up on the wall and you got something more compelling than 98 percent of the contemporary art out there today.

TKA: How did it take to collect all this stuff?

PG: I started collecting most of the junk for this exhibition immediately following the last show back in 2006... so about three and a half years. Some collections just take years to take shape, while others come together lightning fast.

Like the Cassette Color Wheel... once I got the idea for that piece, I found almost all the cassettes in about two weeks. Since then, I don't think I've seen any colored cassettes at all. I guess it is all mindset. Once you know what you are looking for, the objects just present themselves.

TKA: This show will have an most unusual method of sales. Could you
elaborate?

PG: During the Junk Pirate Exhibition, we like to "Roll the Dice for the Price". Basically, I had some special, custom dice made with various dollar amounts on each side. The collector commits to buying the piece, and then we roll! No turning back. I'm also introducing some special prize dice this time, so the low-rollers can get in on the action for just a few bucks and win some Junk Pirate merch. Gambling and art, together at last.

TKA: You'll be showing slides of found photos. What are a couple of the most evocative for you?

PG: I started doing found slides and 16mm found footage projections during the performances of my friend's band in the past year, and it ended up being pretty fun and popular.

Aside from found slides (educational, personal snapshots, corporate presentation, etc.), I also chop-up 35mm education film strips to make my own slides. My favorites are the ones I get that relate to anti-drug propaganda. When you take a single image from those, without the larger context or the accompanying audio elements, you basically just get a lot of trippy drug imagery. Always a hit during the live rock-and-roll performances.

That's a big part of the fun with found art, taking things out of their original context and representing them, either as art or just as something fun or strange. The slides are great because it is a simple way to shuffle between hundreds of images. They're going to be projected in a pretty awesome way during the Junk Pirate show as well.

TKA: Tell us about your longrunning zine and book from which this show shares a name.

PG: I started Junk Pirate about 5 years ago by making photocopies of interesting images on the office copier after work. These turned into zines, which I eventually self-published as a book. There will be a new issue of the zine debuting at the show. With the publications, the website, the blog, and the art shows, Junk Pirate has turned into lifelong project that threatens to consume me. Without a doubt it has turned into a lifestyle. It's no longer something that I'm doing, it is something that I have become.

 


 

You’ve heard of events in Silicon Valley where groups of venture capitalists gather to hear people’s pitches for innovative new businesses and technologies. And in the end, the VCs reward the best of what they’ve heard and seen with funding. You might also have heard of organizations like Kiva or Grameen Bank, which use micro financing to help the rural poor and low-income entrepreneurs in developing countries. 

Sussu Laaksonen, a Finnish scriptwriter and event organizer who now lives in West Oakland, and Kris Vagner, an artist and the former co-owner and programs director of Fireplace Gallery in Reno, have decided to team up and apply a combination of the two approaches to help the local art scene. They’re throwing a party where artists who make the cut will present their ideas and proposals for the art they’d like to create. The guests, who will primarily be entry level art patrons buying tickets in the range of $20 to $35, will vote for their favorite pitches over soup and beer. The winner will take home the proceeds from the evening. Very appropriately, the event, which will be held in West Oakland, is called Sugar Mama. 

The two do not take any credit for the idea, innovative as it is. They heard a story on National Public Radio (NPR) about Sloup, a monthly soup dinner in St. Louis where people gather to raise money for artists. “No one’s doing it here, so we decided to do it…with a little spin on it,” says Vagner.

They're hoping to pull in patrons from the Bay Area tech and business communities who might not already be circulating in the art world to support the arts.  

The amounts they raise at their first Sugar Mama event might not be huge, but they will be available immediately, unlike most grants out there. “I’ve received government funding,” says Vagner. “I appreciate it and it’s accessible, but it often can take a year to go through the process.”

Kris Vagner, the co-founder of Sugar Mama

And here, the money from the patrons goes straight to the artist. There aren’t any administrative cuts and nothing’s going into their own pockets, says Vagner.

Vagner and Laaksonen met through a mutual friend at a party less than a year ago. They kept running into each other and started discussing ideas -- some in person and some over Facebook. They realized that they cared about the same things and really enjoyed connecting people.

“A big part of our motivation is that we know a lot of people are interested in supporting art, they couldn’t donate a million dollars to MOCHA, they want to know what they can do with $20,” says Vagner. “This is for people who otherwise don’t have an avenue to support the arts, who’re thinking, ‘I would like to support something cool, but I don’t know how to do it in a way that my money’s going to be used in a way that’s interesting to me.’”

The party’s going to be held at the Myrtle Street Review Headquarters in West Oakland, another name for Sussu Laaksonen’s home.

If you’d like to get tickets, go to sugarmamaparty.blogspot.com/

If you’re an artist and would like to send in your proposal (they’re going to pick six finalists), here are the guidelines from Sugar Mama. The deadline is June 3.

Send a brief proposal to sugarmamaparty@gmail.com. Include the following:
1. Your name
2. Your contact info
3. Tell us what you’ll do with your Sugar Mama grant (Include a general description of the project you’d like to fund and a list of items/supplies/services you’ll spend the money on and their estimated costs.)
4. Give us a little background information about what you’ve been working on that led you to this project and how your idea unfolded.5. Include images, audio, video or a url that will give us a good sense of your general style and/or a project you’ve completed in the recent past. 6. Paste or attach your artist’s resume/bio. (Your resume will not weigh heavily in the selection process. We’ll use it mainly to cull a few highlights so we can better introduce you to our guests.)
 

Vigi Molfino and Dannae Washington cooking Thai catfish soup

If you suspect that a healthy cooking class would be heavy on the lecturing and light on the flavor, Vigi Molfino’s weekly class in West Oakland will prove you wrong. That is not to suggest that Vigi is opposed to holding forth. Last Tuesday, half a dozen people stood around the stove in the DeFremery Park rec center while Vigi, a born teacher, talked about cooking and eating.

Here’s a sampling of Vigi’s wisdom:

Use limejuice instead of salt.

Strawberries have more vitamin C than oranges.

Brown rice is full of selenium.

Drink something hot with your meal.

You don’t have to spend more than $50 to make a delicious feast for 10.

Vigi wasn’t the only one doing the talking. At the center of the kitchen was a simmering pot of Thai catfish soup. The class had made the soup and the accompanying brown rice and salad together. It was only the second class, but the group was tight.

The bonds that form when people cook together are what drew Judi Townsend to Vigi’s class. About a year ago, she had been visiting relatives in Brownsville, Tennessee. Cooking with her aunts, uncles, and cousins reminded her that something was missing in her life in Oakland. “It brought up all these memories,” said Townsend. Townsend and her husband, Jay Townsend, rarely cooked at home. Dinner for the Townsends was usually prepared food from Whole Foods. She enrolled in Vigi’s class, and convinced her reluctant husband to come for the second class. They just signed up for their second session. The recipes and Vigi’s tips are great, but it’s the camaraderie in the group that brought them back.

The Townsends planted a garden, they cook every day, they eat healthier food, they spend more time together, and they spend less money. The Townsends’ experience is what People’s Grocery, a non-profit dedicated to bring healthier food to the East Bay, hoped would be the result of free cooking classes. With the help of her assistant, Dannae Washington, Vigi’s been teaching classes for nearly two years. She’s been a premed student at UCLA, a goat rancher in the Central Valley, and the cookbook buyer for Cody’s Books in Berkeley, but it was while working at a jazz club in San Francisco that she ventured into catering. Her catering company, Yungi Yungi, which means water lily in Swahili, helped pay the tuition at her daughter’s private high school.

The rich Thai catfish soup served last Tuesday only tasted pricey. For her cooking classes Vigi keeps every meal under $50. She instructs her students to buy a good chef’s knife, a paring knife, a good saucepan, a frying pan, and a pepper grinder. She doesn’t use butter or sugar, except once when she made a cranberry apple crisp: “You have to use butter for a crisp.”

Classes are held at: deFremery Park 1651 Adeline Street
Tuesdays from 5:30pm - 8:30pm

The next session begins July 6th 2010. The sessions fill fast so get your application in soon. Contact Vigi: vigi@peoplesgrocery.org Office:(510) 652-7607 ext.25 to sign up.

 

Back in the fall of 2009, the Oakland Zoo got a new female eland from the Wild Animal Park in San Diego. Called Etana, the eland joined two other females in the zoo's African Veldt exhibit, so it was something of a surprise when Etana started showing signs of pregnancy shortly after her arrival. Last month, she gave birth to Bali, the zoo's fourth female eland. "We did not plan on breeding the females we currently have at this time, but we welcome the new calf," said Nicky Mora, a spokesperson for the zoo.

Zookeepers are slowly introducing Bali to the enclosure where she will spend her days with giraffes, vultures, cranes, and other creatures native to the African savanna. Read more about elands, and the zoo's fascinating account of Bali's birth and first days in Oakland.

Mike Hannigan (right) and Sean Marx with Nell Newman, founder of the organics line at Newman's Own, at an event in Oakland a few years ago.

Many years ago, a man was walking through the aisles of a grocery store looking for spaghetti sauce. He found the shelf with the many different kinds and brands of pasta sauces. One of them stood out. It was priced no more than the others, but had a bold sticker announcing that profits from the sale of the bottle would go to charity. The brand was Newman’s Own. The man, whose name was Mike Hannigan, had spent many years working with companies like Xerox to sell office products. He was also someone who grew up in the 60s and 70s when, for many people, social activism was just a normal part of life. He remembers thinking, “Boy, I bet I could develop this in the office products space.”

He went on to do just that. Mike Hannigan founded Give Something Back (GSB), an office products company, with his friend and former colleague, Sean Marx, back in 1991, with their pooled savings of $40,000. This year, Give Something Back is on track to hit $30 million in sales, he says.   

The difference between Give Something Back and a company like Staples or Office Depot is that while they all sell the same products, Give Something Back donates a percentage of its profits to charitable causes that the customer opts for at the point of sale.  To date, it has given 78% of all profits to charity, say its executives. This gives them an inherent competitive advantage, believe the two founders. “Most people would prefer doing business with a company that has a positive impact on the community, all other things being the same,” says Hannigan, who is president of the 90-people-company. 

His belief is echoed by the many graduates who are streaming out of business schools with degrees specializing in social entrepreneurship. Companies like Ethos, Odwalla, Clif Bar, Honest Tea and of course, Newman’s Own, have proven, repeatedly, that business with a social agenda isn’t necessarily a bad idea.

When Hannigan and Marx launched their company, the concept of using business for social good wasn’t as widely accepted and/or practiced. Their big challenge was eliminating assumptions that selling products with social benefits would cost more. “We’re a hard-nosed business in a touch marketplace,” says Hannigan. “We expect customers to make no compromises or sacrifices.”

He says the fourth sector of the economy has emerged as a force since the other three -- private enterprise, government, and non-profit -- sectors have not provided answers for equitable distribution of wealth. He calls it the “for-benefit enterprise,” private enterprise that includes a social component.

For him, it seems like coming up with ways to contribute to the community is almost something of a passion. It’s also really good marketing, and an efficient use of resources. For example, GSB has 15-20 trucks that go out to deliver merchandise to its customers. Hannigan came up with the idea that instead of coming back empty, the trucks could pick up e-waste from the customers they visited, and through an arrangement with a recycler, the company could offer customers one more service that its competitors did not – all this while doing its bit to save the planet.

Another program, Paper = Food, donates a dollar to a local food bank each time someone buys recycled paper from them. The food bank is typically in the same county as the consumer. GSB's executives say it’s raised about $80,000 so far for food banks.

But their most ambitious social program might be their school supplies initiative, through which they’re trying to provide free school supplies for 170,000 kids in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. So far they’ve managed to prepare 120,000 backpacks simply by leveraging their control over their supply chain.

Hannigan’s ambitions to give back to the community dovetail nicely with his ambitions for his company. He wants to grow the company he founded in his Oakland living room into a billion dollar company.

He doesn’t doubt they’ll get there. Until then, he’s busy advising other start-ups who want to work with similar business models – some in the US and some in places as far away as Switzerland and Japan.

You can meet Mike Hannigan at the Indie Awards party on Friday, May 14. The Indies celebrate local businesses and artists and honor the best among them. Give Something Back is one of the finalists this year. For more on the Indies or to buy tickets, go to oaklandunwrapped.org/indies/  

Oakland Indie Awards
Friday, May 14, 5.30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Jack London Pavilion (inside Jack London Square)
$20

They believe in fairies. They find magic in the mundane. Wait – they create magic in the mundane. Sarah Holmes and Rain Anya, two aerial arts performers who have a Tinker Bell air about them, are co-founders of the Paper Doll Milita. This is a group of performers using physical theater, aerial arts, acrobats and other artistic forms to tell stories. This is where theater meets the circus. The performances are intimate -- and the performers are very committed to their craft.  

Sarah, Rain and two friends founded the Paper Doll Militia in Santa Fe back in 2006. If you like the name, the credit goes to Bob. No, Bob isn’t one of the founders or even one of their friends. “He is the collaborative tissue between us,” says Sarah. When they’re just throwing things out, and something comes up that’s a great idea that works for everyone, they say that Bob came up with it so that there aren’t any egos attached to their work, explains Rain. 

They worked well together as a team, but Santa Fe began to feel small to Sarah and Rain.  “We were obsessed - we wanted to do circus all the time, and wanted to move to a place where there’s more of a circus community,” says Sarah. 

The Bay Area fit the bill. Thanks to the San Francisco Circus Center, it has developed into the biggest circus hub in the country. In 2008, Sarah and Rain moved to Oakland to open a new chapter in the life of the Paper Doll Militia. They are now artists in residence at the Kinetic Arts Center, a West Oakland fitness and circus arts space offering classes and performances. 

Rain and Sarah met in Santa Fe, but neither of them are from the area. And neither of them started out wanting to be circus performers. Rain grew up in a small town called Jupiter near West Palm Beach in Florida, singing, dancing and acting since she was 8 years old. She moved to Santa Fe when she was 18 for a musical theater program at the College of Santa Fe. She started going to a weekly trapeze class in her second year of college and stumbled upon a political circus group called Wise Fool. She discovered the world of circus and physical theatre. “I discovered a whole other world,” remembers Rain. “The possibilities of how to be a performer seemed to be expanding.” It was at Wise Fool that she met Sarah.

Sarah grew up in south Portland, Maine and ended up in Saint John’s College in Santa Fe to pursue a degree in Philosophy. But all the talking and reading began wearing her down and began teaching kids at an elementary school. She also joined some trapeze classes. She enjoyed them so much that she began teaching trapeze arts to her students. Soon, aerial arts felt a lot more important than philosophy -- and gradually became her career.

When Sarah was looking for a partner for a double trapeze set, Rain introduced her to a friend, Westin McDowell. Rain already had a partner in Colleen Mckeown. The four of them began to collaborate and formed the Paper Doll Militia. 

In a time when the name Cirque du Soleil is almost synonymous with circus, this group isn’t trying to emulate them. They prefer smaller and less lavish performances, where the emphasis is on storytelling. They look up to some other European and Canadian groups. James Thierree, the French performer, writer and director, who is also known for being Charlie Chaplin’s grandson, is top of their list. So, it’s no surprise that their goal is to grow the Paper Doll Militia into a full fledged company, and to take it to Europe -- to places in France, Germany, Greece and Scotland, where “they have really good circus.”

As OakBook reported a few weeks ago, the rate of collisions involving bicycles in Oakland has kept pace with the rise in bicycle commuting. Just as the percentage of people commuting by bike in Oakland doubled between 2000 and 2008, the number of reported bike accidents rose from 120 to 160. What’s not keeping up with the increased interest in bicycle commuting is bike safety.

After all, one doesn’t need a license to ride a bike. But, as bicycle safety advocates like to say, you drive a bike, you don’t ride it. And driving a bike safely in a busy city requires a little education.

Dave Campbell, program director for the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, is at the forefront of bike safety in Oakland. The EBBC runs bike safety classes, and is in the middle of a two-year grant aimed at helping law enforcement in the East Bay direct bicyclists to safety classes.

For example, if a police officer in Fremont sees a bicyclist doing something dangerous, the officer can hand out information about the EBBC’s bike safety courses along with the citation. Campbell says that what’s most effective in getting bicyclists to classes is allowing police departments and courts to dismiss tickets, if offenders can show proof of having completed a bike safety class.

Those programs are not the norm, however, says Campbell. The Oakland Police Department is still deciding whether it wants its officers directing unsafe bicyclists to EBBC classes. While OPD runs occasional stings targeting bicyclists who ride on sidewalks, enforcing lawful bike riding is not a high priority.

But why wait until you get a citation, or worse, have an accident to sign up for a bike safety class? Enroll now.
 

Despite a still-developing network of bike routes and an unfortunate abundance of potholes, Oakland boasts the 7th highest number of bike commuters in the country with slightly more than two percent of the population riding a bike to work. The city ranks a notch below Washington D.C. and just above Tucson. Portland, it will be no surprise to learn, is at the top of the list with nearly six percent of that city’s residents pedaling through the rain to work.

Between 2000 and 2008, the number of bike commuters in Oakland grew by 76 percent, according to data from the American Community Survey. The national average during the same period was 48 percent. To build on this growth, Oakland’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Program is focusing on improving bike access to transit hubs. The focus now is on the MacArthur Bart station. 

According to numbers from Bart, the MacArthur station has the fourth highest number of riders arriving by bicycle. Fruitvale is number one. Between 1998 and 2008, bicyclists to MacArthur station increased by 128 percent. West Oakland Bart saw the biggest increase, with bicyclists climbing from 30 to 200 over the decade.

Jason Patton, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Manager for Oakland’s Community and Economic Development Agency, hopes that three new bike lanes connecting Piedmont Avenue to Emeryville through MacArthur Bart Station will encourage more people to bike to Bart. “The entire station is surrounded by fairly daunting streets. With improved access, we are going to start to be able to reach a whole market share that’s not comfortable now,” said Patton.

On Tuesday, the Oakland City Council will likely accept around $250,000 from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to start work on two of the proposed bike lanes, and to study possibilities for a bike lane on 40th Street between MacArthur Bart and Emeryville.

Oakland’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Program ran into neighborhood opposition last fall after discovering that residents had landscaped the median on 40th Street, which would have to be removed in order to make bike space for bike lanes. Patton said that his department is working with residents now to find a solution.

There’s less controversy on the other side of Telegraph Avenue where the city is proposing to remove one traffic lane on MacArthur Boulevard between Telegraph Avenue and Broadway. “I think that most people feel that MacArthur Boulevard doesn’t need to be six lanes,” Patton said.

Another bikeway will link Webster Street to Piedmont Avenue via 41st Street.

Expanding Oakland’s network of bikeways is a painstaking process. Over the last three years, some seven miles of bikeway have been added in small increments, some no more than a tenth of a mile. Patton said the pace is about to pick up, with 32 miles of new bikeway slated for the next two years.
 

Like lovers and prophets, serious collectors live in a world where there is no such thing as a coincidence. Consider the story of how Barry Barsamian came to be in possession of the I Love Lucy lustre. Barsamian, an Oakland native, was visiting his cousin in Los Angeles when he found himself with some to kill on Melrose Boulevard. There was something in the West LA air that day that reminded him of the time he first met Lucille Ball. Over the years, Ball had become an acquaintance before she passed away in 1989.

With Lucy on his brain, Barsamian spied through the window of a closed antique shop a porcelain and glass object known as a lustre that he instantly identified as part of the I Love Lucy set. He resolved to return the next day when the store would be open to verify the piece’s authenticity. Sure enough, the prop house that supplied numerous television shows, including I Love Lucy, had been nearby. Subsequent digging confirmed what Barsamian knew the instant he saw the vase: It was Lucy’s.

What’s remarkable about this story from Barsamian’s perspective is not that he was able to identify an obscure piece of backdrop from a decades-old black and white sitcom. For a man who saved milk money to buy "TV Guide" every week when he was a kid, there’s nothing special about that. What was amazing was that he was on Melrose Boulevard thinking about Lucille Ball when he saw the object. That’s magic. “I looked in the window of the shop, and I felt like a truck hit me in the chest,” recalls Barsamian.

Barsamian is a serious collector, and now his amazing trove of Hollywood memorabilia is on display at the Metreon in San Francisco. Among the scores of items in the exhibit are Mary Pickford’s porcelain breakfast set, Judy Garland’s dress from The Wizard of Oz, a pink appliqué gown that belonged to Princess Grace, and one of Lucille Ball’s wigs from the 1960s comedy - Yours, Mine, and Ours.

Barry Barsamian with Dorothy's dress and Toto Lookalike

Barsamian was born in Oakland and still lives here -- although his friendships with numerous figures from Hollywood’s past take him to Southern California frequently. “This was my hobby, but it’s turning into my job,” he says. Barsamian adds that because he is seen as a serious collector, committed to preserving Hollywood history, actresses trust him with their possessions.

As a student at Skyline High School, Barsamian performed in South Pacific with Tom Hanks. But Barsamian didn’t pursue a career in the movies. After graduating from college, he worked for television news stations and has a successful career in public relations and marketing.

An Oaklander at heart, Barsamian’s preferred movie night includes the Grand Lake Theater and dinner afterwards at Crogan’s in Montclair.

Hollywood Legends: The Barry Barsamian Collection is open to the public on the ground floor of the Metreon, Wednesday through Sunday from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, and $8 for seniors and teens. 101 4th Street, San Francisco
 

A photo of an AC Transit route supervisor from the agency's archives

There was some confusion at the city’s bus stops Monday morning as riders confronted AC Transit’s service changes. There are new bus lines, new routes, and new stops, which combine to equal an 8.4 percent reduction in services to the nation’s largest bus-only transit system.

There are some upsides. Some routes, which had duplicated old streetcar lines, were changed to reflect East Bay travel patterns of 2010 rather than 1920. Some busy lines will have more buses running for longer periods, and transfers will get an extra 30 minutes before they expire.

Still, there’s no hiding from the fact that AC Transit is hurting. Perhaps to remind us of its golden age, the agency launched a very cool history page not too long ago. The archive is loaded with old photos, annual reports (administrative salaries for 1959-1960, before service launched, were $84,000), and brochures.

It seems as if the agency always had to fight a prejudice against buses. The old marketing materials include references to transit liners (buses), and an experimental 262-horsepower leviathan called a “freeway train.”

Photo by Jerry Ting 

I’m so pleased to share my first hike with you. While I typically enjoy dusty, rustic and dramatic trails around the (East Bay Regional Parks) district, this one is a favorite that should appeal to anyone.

Let’s count the positives:

• Long, flat, paved trails
• Secret picnic spots
• Birds and wildlife, including a very rare visitor, everywhere
• Beautiful bayside vistas

It’s got to be Martin Luther King Regional Shoreline. A few minutes gazing across the water will have you pinching yourself in disbelief that this setting is deep in an industrial neighborhood. Almost any time of year is a good time here, but during winter the feathered visitors are too numerous to note. From diving ducks to waders, geese to hummingbirds, towhees to house finches, birds and the calming influence of water are the attractions for me.

Although there are a couple of entrances to the park, my favorite is the Damon Slough trail head at the western foot of Oakland’s 66th Avenue. Getting my wheelchair out of the car and ready, I heard a Canada Goose honk as it flew overhead. Broken clouds quietly passed in a gentle breeze, which urged me on. A construction project closed the trail to northbound hikers, but with several creeks and sloughs on the southbound route, I figured I couldn’t lose. It was nearly high tide, and the aroma of the Bay drew me closer.

The first item to note was the smooth and wonderfully flat paved surface. For this wheelchair hiker, the easy roll on this path was hard to beat. Today was about birds, not pushing up hills. That’ll come later. 

I’m a fan of water in our parks. This Shoreline has no shortage. In the first 20 yards I was on a bridge crossing Damon Slough. I stopped for 10 minutes to watch a couple of my favorite wading birds, a godwit and a stilt, walk together along the north bank of the creek. Each had its chosen route – the godwit picking bugs off the rocks while the stilt dropped its head under water to feed. Several ducks watched, from the ubiquitous mallards to pintails and canvasbacks – again, in the first 20 yards.

Bold ground squirrels raced each other across the trail in front of me. As I moved closer, they scurried into their holes. I expected to see more members of the raptor community, given the abundance of fresh squirrel, and they didn’t disappoint. Rolling south from Damon Slough, I heard my first Red Shouldered Hawk. Usually seen in pairs, the urgent squawk of these hawks is unmistakable. It was difficult to travel more than a few yards before some natural wonder presented itself.

But roll I did, south toward Elmhurst Creek, the next crossing. Between these creeks were some wildflowers that weren’t aware it was still midwinter. The abundant rain and above average temps had fooled them into believing it was time to bloom – and I was better for their failure to read the calendar. I’ve been here in the spring and the flowers are delightful and inspiring.

I’d chosen a route on which I’d travel a little more than 3.5 miles when my hike was finished. For those intimidated by mileage figures, please take my word for it – you’ll never imagine you’ve walked or rolled that far for the natural distractions found in abundance. I passed a team of volunteers from Save the Bay planting native grasses and some native flowering shrubs, like monkeyflower. They’ll be planting through March, and they keep a small facility at the shoreline to start the plants and acclimate them - before placing them in the marshy ground. I made a note to return once the weather turns warmer and plants start blooming – it’ll be a sight to behold.

Once past Elmhurst Creek, it’s just a short stroll to San Leandro Creek, which runs in from the south. I sat on the observation platform overlooking the marsh near the main parking lot on Swan Way, just north of Doolittle Drive. The marsh was filled with ducks as well as two Great Blue Herons and a Black Crowned Night Heron. From this platform, I managed to sight only three of the endangered Clapper Rails, frequent visitors to this wonderful shoreline park. Listening to them “clap” their beaks during nesting season is a draw all by itself. It was almost the topper of the day.

However, the high point this day was as I was near the end of this stretch of trail. A familiar “peep” from high above found an Osprey gliding in quite the Osprey–ish fashion –in wide circles, rising effortlessly in elevation without so much as a flap of its huge wings. I had hoped to see a dive as it went fishing for lunch, but had to be content with watching this beautiful bird glide overhead.

At the fishing pier, I turned back. Being in no hurry, I stopped several times to view the drama of the marsh as each creature stakes its territory or finds a partner. I watched as several hummingbirds took advantage of some blossoms on a tree, talking to each other as they hovered, drinking nectar. The roll back was easy, where one could concentrate on all the happenings around them instead of tiring from steep hills.

Parking is limited at the Damon Slough gate, but there’s always a space at the Swan Way entrance. The Bayside parks are at their best this time of year, so please don’t delay your visit. I look forward to sharing stories about your next visit!

This article has been published here with permission from the East Bay Regional Parks District. Follow Bob Coomber's adventures on their site.

You look like a stylish fellow, how would you describe your look?

Whatever’s comfortable for me is what I’m putting on. Do your own style. That’s the great thing about Oakland, everyone has their own vibe.

Do you live in West Oakland?

No, I live in East Oakland, but I’m all over West Oakland. I love it here.

What are you doing here now?

I park here to take BART to my job in the city.

What do you do?

I’m a forecaster for Del Monte.

So you have to predict how many canned tomatoes people will be eating in six months?

Try five years. If I’m right, I look brilliant.

Best thing about Oakland?

Lake Merritt, and the diversity. I lived in Portland when I worked for Nike, but I came back to the Bay to raise my kids.

David Parker, interviewed on Wednesday around 5:30 p.m. at the West Oakland Bart Station.

One might wonder why a group of people that got together to save a local iconic film theater would get involved in raising money for a documentary about rap therapy for kids. The theater in question is Oakland’s beloved Parkway Theater, which shut down last year, and the documentary is the Beats Rhymes and Life Film Project, filmmaker Kerri Gawryn’s second film, which in an ideal world, she would want to premier in the re-opened Parkway. But first, the film needs to be finished. And second, the Parkway needs to re-open.

“We decided to fundraise to show that there’s still a group willing to support the theater,” says Peter Prato, community organizer who has been working with I Like the Parkway, a community group dedicated to facilitating the re-opening of the Parkway Theater, for the past year.

“It’s not too difficult a line to draw supporting a film that benefits our community by bringing attention to something positive in Oakland and the theater being reopened. It sends a clear signal to the city and anyone interested in opening a business that there’s a group of people in line ready to support the business when it opens,” he says.

And in a time when producers are looking at Oakland to be the backdrop for TV shows about pimps, this film is about something positive in Oakland – about a rap therapy after-school program in Oakland High School.

For this film – her first feature-length film -- Gawryn teamed up with Beats Rhymes and Life, an Oakland group of mental health professionals, educators and community artists that addresses the psychosocial needs of youth of color. She and her crew captured the stories of three of the after-school program’s participants on film.

“What surprised me was how willing the students were to work with us and how willing they were to come to the program every week,” says Gawryn. “It was an after-school program from 3.30 to 6.30 on Friday… I felt it was unrealistic to expect teenagers to come every single week. It was testament to how excited they were to be part of the program -- the youth kept coming every single week.”

She got a lot of footage of the characters she wanted to follow – 170 hours. She saw how the kids responded to rap therapy and learned to trust each other. They came from different schools, and didn’t know each other before they joined the program. By the end of it, they had developed strong bonds.

It was the story Gawryn had hoped to find when she had set out to make her film.  She had begun her journey wanting to make a film that allowed teenagers to tell their stories themselves – their stories of they learned to cope with everything in their lives. She decided to use hip hop as the lens to tell the story through “I wanted something that would resonate with them, and thought of hip hop. Youth are drawn to it - it connects with young people. That was my inspiration for wanting to do a film around this concept.”


Kerri Gawryn

The San Francisco State graduate began researching youth programs around the Bay Area back in 2006 and was drawn to Oakland because of the sheer number and quality of the youth organizations that were based here. She met Tomas Alvarez, the founder of Beats, Rhymes and Life, in 2007 and they agreed to collaborate. So in 2009, when Alvarez got funded to run a year-long rap therapy program at Oakland High, she decided it was time to get the cameras rolling, with or without funds.

Grants, friends and family and other supporters helped her gather around $10,000. But she needs to raise around $50,000 to $60,000 just to get the job done. For her film to be perfect, she would need $100,000. The East Bay Community Foundation has offered a $10,000 matching grant toward the completion of the film. The deadline is March 15, and Gawryn is pulling out all the stops. So is the I Like the Parkway group, which is running a fundraising campaign to help Gawryn get to $5000. Its members are asking people to donate the price of a Parkway ticket -- $6 – to Gawryn’s film. And the big fundraiser bash is coming up, too, on March 12.

This could be a film like any other, but it’s becoming something bigger. Because to many in Oakland, like Peter Prato, this is a film that is a story of what Oakland really is, which is often very different from the Oakland seen in the paper’s headlines.

“It’s geared to an audience that loves Oakland as well as one that doesn’t know Oakland,” says Gawryn. Her film shows Oakland through the experience of the youth, she points out. It’s about how these kids, who do not come from the affluent parts of Oakland, are shaped not just by the violence they see but also by the strong and positive vibe of community and the desire for change around them.  

For the Love – a hip hop soiree
Friday, March 12, 7 p.m., After party at 9.30 p.m.
The New Parish, 579 18^th Street (at San Pablo)
Speakers include Pat Kernighan (District 2 Councilmember), Alicia Romero (Principal of Oakland High). Performances by A-Plus from Oakland-based Hip-Hop collective Hieroglyphics, Bicasso of Living Legends, DJs Platurn of Oakland Faders, and Pam the Funkstress from The Coup. 
Tickets:$50 at Brown Paper Tickets ($25 for artists and teachers). All proceeds will go towards the completion of the film. 
For more on the film and to see the trailer, please go to brlfilmproject.com

As you might have figured out by now, Oakland is excited about Amy Sarabi. The California College of the Arts graduate has survived six episodes of Project Runway’s seventh season. To cheer her on, various City Hall officers and departments came together with local fashion designer Skylier Blanchard-Crowder to host a viewing party for her. Here are some images from the evening:    

www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1332642752649&ref=mf#!/video/video.php?v=1332642752649&ref=mf

Alex Maynard wearing The Chain

About a year ago, Alex Maynard spotted a large gold chain at the American Apparel store on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. It was flashy and retro. He wanted it. “I got the chain because when I was a kid in the ‘80s, there was no way my parents were going to let me where one,” he said. “All the cool, older guys were wearing those big ropes.”

The nostalgic purchase turned into more than a slightly ironic accessory. Maynard, 30, a poet and a bartender at Adesso on Piedmont, began photographing friends wearing the metal rope with his iPhone. He then started asking strangers to pose with the chain around their necks. In the end, he had more than a 160 photographs of people, mostly in Oakland, sporting the chain. The result is a portrait of a diverse and complex city somehow linked by a common chain.

OB: What do you call the project?

AM: I call it “We’re All in the Same Chain.” It’s a play on the West Coast Rap All-Stars rap, “We’re All in the Same Gang.”

OB: Did anyone refuse?

AM: Some people did. But it was more because they didn’t want their picture taken than because they didn’t want to wear the chain.

OB: When did you realize you were working on an art project?

AM: It didn’t take long before it sparked something off. People would come up to me at the bar, strangers – friends of friends – and ask to see the pictures. It got kind of a cult following.

OB: You have a picture of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., the publisher of the New York Times, wearing the chain. Are there any other famous folks in the series?

AM: He’s probably the most well-known. My ultimate goal is to get Don Perata. He comes into the bar.

OB: Where are you going to take “We’re All in the Same Chain?”

AM: My car was broken into, and the chain was in one of the bags that got stolen. So the project might continue, but I won’t be the one taking the pictures. The chain had already turned more silver than gold.

Big Q

Donna

Manuel

Josh Nishihura

Katya and Margaret

Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr.

Jasper

If you want to see the full series of "We’re All in the Same Chain,” go to the bar at Adesso and ask for Alex.

Back in the 1970s, 175 City workers maintained 900 acres of parkland. Today, Oakland’s public works agency has 72 full-time employees tending 1,350 acres of parks, medians, and open space. 

The department is stretched so thin that last March, City officials announced that 212 locations would be designated non-priority. These neighborhood parks, medians, plazas, and other areas lost their trash cans and are no longer gardened. But a volunteer organization working to help maintain Oakland’s parks reports that the situation is not as bad as it might be. 

Volunteers from the Oakland Parks Coalition interviewed public works officials who said that City employees are working more efficiently and Oaklanders “are stepping forward as volunteers to help fill the gaps.” The OPC is careful to note that more volunteers acting as park stewards has only been anecdotally recorded.

In September, 36 volunteers surveyed conditions in 59 Oakland parks. The results surprised the OPC. “Most averages were…satisfactory and were generally somewhat better than 2008 averages…According to the survey comments there did not appear to be many egregious conditions in the parks. District 7, with averages consistently well over (satisfactory), had the lowest ratings. 

“This year's ratings suggest that the parks are holding their own, despite all odds. In the face of the drastic cutbacks in maintenance we expected all ratings to decline but that was not the case.”

The OPC says that the City's park maintenance budget will likely face cutbacks for years to come, and volunteers will only be able to do so much. The group calls for better coordination between City Hall and disparate volunteer organizations.

For more information about ways to help Oakland's parkland, visit the Oakland Parks Coalition or Keep Oakland Beautiful.

 

The Paramount Theater (Courtesy: BWChicago)

The Paramount Theater has been the subject of much discussion lately. And even as that continues, what strikes me how little people know about this Oakland treasure. Allow me to give you a brief history of the Paramount Theater. A note of disclosure: I serve on the Paramount Board. 

The Paramount Theater was built in 1931 to primarily serve as a movie/performance house and it did quite well. In its heyday, it attracted movie premiers and top flight performers like Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington. By the late 60’s, it was shuttered and in disrepair. It was slated for the wrecking ball and considered an afterthought.

A group of civic-minded individuals and companies, including current board members Lorenzo Hoopes and Julia Tabor, and led by Oakland civic giant Edgar Kaiser, came together to save the Paramount. They raised private funds that paid to restore the Paramount to its original 1931 glory. 

A nonprofit corporation was formed to run and own the Paramount. The nonprofit entered into an agreement with the City of Oakland by which the title to the property was deeded to the City as a civic gift with conditions. One condition was that the Paramount would be run by the nonprofit board. 

The board is self-governing, which means that it selects and appoints its members with the concurrence of the mayor and City Council, hires its general manager and staff persons, and is charged with full responsibility of operating and managing the Paramount. Initially, the City took the responsibility to pay all the maintenance, upkeep and capital repairs of the premises. In turn, the Paramount would serve as the home for the Oakland Symphony and Ballet, which at the time received City subsidies. In essence, the Paramount was to provide a home for these two City- funded programs. 

Over the next several years, the Paramount’s main function was to provide a home for these two groups. And the City continued to pay an annual subsidy for the maintenance and upkeep of the building, as well as for the symphony and ballet. 

The City did not want the Paramount to be engaged in excessive “entertainment activities,” for fear it would attract people to the Downtown area at night during the tumultuous 70s. For example, for a number of years, the City prohibited the Paramount from selling alcohol during performances. 

By the 90’s, things had changed very rapidly. The new generation of board members saw the opportunity for the Paramount to be a more active entertainment venue. Despite some reluctance, the Paramount began to book other types of entertainment shows. 

In the mid 90’s, the Paramount was faced with two related fundamental crises. The original general manager wanted to retire. Also, the City informed the Paramount that it would no longer provide it with any subsidy funds. It gave the Paramount a short timeline to become financially independent from the City and self-sufficient. 

The board acted quickly. It actively searched for a general manager with extensive promotion/theater management experience. The board found one in Leslee Stewart, former manager for one of the largest entertainment companies in the country. The Paramount expanded its staff from one to three persons.

Ms. Stewart brought her energy and entertainment industry contacts to the Paramount and greatly expanded its reach. The Paramount then set a policy to expand and book a wide variety of shows never seen in Oakland before. 

It's been more than ten years since the City ended its financial assistance to the Paramount. It has been self-sufficient ever since. Unlike other venues in the area, the Paramount receives no funds from the City. It has ensured its financial stability and has made all but the most major repairs in the building.

The Paramount Theater has always followed a very sound motto: minimize risks and maximize returns. The Paramount is not a promoter of events, but rather provides the venue, leases the space out for uses for a base rent and other fees. Any promoter using the Paramount pays for all the expenses - from stage hands, box office, clean up, security and other expenses that go with any contract. The Paramount is a union shop using local stage hands and paying prevailing, negotiated wages. 

Many people ask why the Paramount does not promote its own shows. It is real simple: putting on a show is a very expensive, capital-intensive proposition. There are many costs that have to be paid right away, before a show even gets off the ground, such as deposit to secure the acts, advertising, and other upfront costs. The promoter takes on huge risks, such as lack of ticket sales, the performer's no show, travel-related liability, in addition to a large staff and management overhead. 

The Paramount does not have the financial ability to incur such costs. As a result, we cannot afford to take the risk in the event that a show cancels or doesn't sell well, gets poor reviews or no repeat business.

Some people ask --Why is the Paramount closed all the time? Well, the Paramount is not closed all the time. It is the 23^rd most active performance theater in the country. The most number of shows done in the country are about 95 a year and the Paramount is currently at about 75. Plus the theater is used more days than just the actual shows: there must be time for set ups, rehearsals, then removal. So no, it isn't “closed all the time.” 

In addition, unlike other venues, the City does not pay the Paramount to turn on the marquee on during non-performance days. If you will recall, under Mayor Brown, the City paid over $35,000.00 to light up the Fox marquee and the additional monthly costs of operating it. The Paramount does not have that kind of subsidy to do so, but the board would be happy to light up the marquee if someone is ready to pay the bill.  

Many people question the “diversity” of the Paramount shows. We are open to anyone who wants to do a performance. Our staff is constantly scouring the country to attract shows to Oakland. We pursue any and all groups who wish to rent the Paramount and bring any production to our house. We have a special rate for nonprofits and we greatly welcome all performances to our theater. 

One only has to look at our yearly show selection to see the wide variety of shows at the Paramount: gospel plays, symphonies, dance troops, Russian ballet, Chinese acrobats, Chris Rock and other comedians, top performers like Alicia Keys, Melissa Etheridge, Bonnie Raitt, Neo, and Kem; native country performers from India, Iran, Brazil, Ireland, South Africa; and many others. 

We perform family/civic services as well - like citizenship ceremonies and graduations for just about every high school graduation in Oakland/East Bay area. Come down in May and June and see all the happy and joyous faces of grads and families. We bring children's shows and classic movie series, complete with live organ music and other old movie touches.

We do the annual holiday festival events such as the Nutcracker, Messiah, and the Interfaith Choir. We house a speakers' bureau event that has brought such people as Bill Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Tony Blair and dozens of other world figures to Downtown Oakland.

Just look at who has been at the Paramount in the last month: Tyler Perry’s new play had five sold-out performances, the Oakland Symphony, classic Hitchcock movies, comedian Mike Epps, and German cabaret singer Max Raabe.

The Paramount has adapted with the times. 9-11 hit the concerts industry badly. Also, technology has drastically changed the music industry. There are less concerts and they're more costly. Now, the primary touring shows are older groups with an established following or niche performers for narrower audiences. Think about it:  When was the last time you bought a record that you heard on the radio or after going to a concert to see a major group or artist? The big names will only play large venues, but their sales have been sluggish, too. Other performers prefer not to play smaller venues because they simply don’t make as much money. 

The Paramount board and staff are always looking for new and innovative ways to attract diverse performances to our theater. We will continue to offer a wide selection of performances that cater to all tastes and audiences. We are constantly exploring new revenue streams to maintain and grow the theater. So, come out to the Paramount and enjoy the tremendous excitement and great, diverse entertainment. 

Clinton Killian is an attorney in downtown Oakland, an Oakland resident and a former Oakland Planning Commissioner. He can be reached at: (510) 625-8823 or email: clintonkillian@yahoo.com. 

Photo of Art in a Window by Nancy Holliday.

Community is one of the most popular words in Oakland. That is, at least, how it often feels. But more often than not, it’s a word people pay lip service to. There are very few individuals who actually invest their time (and money) into figuring out how to bring people together.

So how do you really build a community? Rick and Nancy Holliday, local developers, are working on it in a corner of West Oakland. They are the owners of Holliday Development, the builders of Pacific Cannery Lofts. The lofts are built and ready. About 80 families already live there. Most developers would point to a walkway connecting different parts of the building complex and talk about how it brings people together and leave it at that. The Hollidays are trying something different. They’re trying to make sure that people who live in the lofts actually get to know their neighbors while discovering the world outside the lofts. So they’ll occasionally host events – like their October block party, which brought in people who lived at the lofts as well as people from the neighborhood, which includes Ironhorse, Bridge Housing’s affordable housing development. The block party was held in the common area between Iron Horse and the lofts. The message they hoped to send that it wasn’t anyone’s private party. They threw another party for Christmas.

But what they’ve been doing that has perhaps been the best tool to get people to know their neighbors is a little online magazine that is e-mailed to all the residents of the lofts.  The cover line says, “Who lives here?” As you turn the pages, you get your answer. Nancy Holliday visited 15 residents and wrote about them in her magazine.  The profiles are a page long, each accompanied by a photo of her subject. It is an example of what is often called citizen journalism.  

“I love photography and I love taking pictures of what their lifestyle is like,” says Nancy Holliday, creative director at Holliday Development. “I sit and talk with them, sometimes for two hours. They’re trying to feed me, show me what they’re doing, give me tea -we become friends. When I see them after that, I ask them, “How’s your business?” and they ask me, “What’s your next project?”

Rick Holliday’s interest in building a community in West Oakland comes from the time he spent in the area as a young graduate student in the seventies. He was working on his thesis project on how Oakland and Richmond were trying to increase citizen involvement at the time. He got to know a lot of West Oaklanders, many of whom are still in the area. After he graduated from University of California, Berkeley, he went on to create two affordable housing companies, Eden Housing and Bridge Housing before he launched Holliday Development. And then he came full circle back to West Oakland

But even as they start working on other projects, Nancy Holliday plans to keep doing her magazine. She also runs her Oakland photo blog and contributes to a blog that the Holliday development team runs for the lofts.  She wants to highlight the area’s residents as well as local businesses. “The community isn’t just PCL. It is the central station and West Oakland,” she says.

No one's said no to being interviewed as yet. If anything, she's got people asking her to write about them, much like a journalist in a newsroom. And the most exciting part for her -- people are actually talking to each other about her articles.

Disclosure: Holliday Development has been an advertiser with the OakBook in the past. 

Lake Merritt photographed by and copyright of (c) David Corby.

We hope you're enjoying the festive season. As we gear up for the year ahead, we're taking a short break and will be back with new Oakland stories for you on Wednesday, December 30.

Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I enjoy watching people hustle and bustle about and clog up all the streets and department stores. Even though I do not like to shop and rarely buy anything before Christmas Eve, I appreciate the energy of this time of the year. 

Although lately it has been cold here, I miss Christmas back east with the frosty air and snow falling from the skies. During Christmas season, one can almost hear the sleigh bells ringing when it snows. The cold nose and cloudy breath make me feel alive.

I also enjoy Christmas when friends and families come together and you see relatives from far away. Christmas is especially important because my two sons come home from college. I get to spend a few days with them watching football before they run about with their friends and girlfriends and do not have time for old Daddy anymore.

Yes, I still like the excitement of Christmas morning of waking up and running to the tree to open presents. Even though I am a grown man, I still get that little boy thrill of seeing presents under the tree on Christmas morning. And yes, I know they have been there for several weeks, I helped wrap some of them, and the gift itself is unimportant; but it is still a warm electric jolt seeing a Christmas tree with presents underneath early Christmas morning. I still have the Christmas present my sons made when they were about six. That warm sharing feeling makes Christmas special. 

I enjoy listening to Christmas music, both the modern songs as well as music from my childhood. My officemates are amazed that I play old Christmas music from the 50’s and 60’s and know the lyrics to so many Christmas songs. I just tell them I prefer Nat King Cole’s Christmas version to Snoop Dogg’s and enjoy listening to it every Christmas.

Christmas is also a time for reflection and to count your blessings. Every Christmas season, I spend time counting my rewards during the year and give thanks for all the good things of the past year. It may seem harder now with the troubled economy, but we all have so many blessings to count and I’m optimistic that things will get better.

I am especially thankful that my Mom has another year of good health and wonderful spirits. Four years ago, my Mom had several operations and her health deteriorated. Whether it is strong determination or just plain stubbornness, she is healthy again. Just about everyday, she literally exercises through the arthritic pain and her other ailments. I am thankful for my Mom’s strong character. Watching her deal with life’s adversities while we were growing up helped shape my character and personality as well.

I am thankful for all of my five brothers and sisters and their children, too. It is amazing, even though we are all grown, around Christmas time we revert to our childhood roles.  When I am around them, I feel like I’m 8-years-old again - the fifth child and all that entails. We all have separate lives in different directions, but at Christmas time we are all part of one family and make an effort to reach out or be with each other.

I am thankful for my two sons. They had to deal with their parents’ divorce when they were young. They survived - raised by me and my home cooking everyday. Now, they are tall, strong young men, in college and preparing to set the world on fire. I am thankful for every day I spend as their father.

Another blessing is my wonderful wife Katrina. She has brought so much positive energy, love and great influence in my life. She is truly my life partner and I am thankful for the day I met her. 

This year, we were blessed with two new additions to our family: our little puppies, Tigger and Piglet. Everyday, they bring joy and excitement to our lives. 

I am thankful for Brian (all three of them), Bianca,  Debra, Dean, Harvin, Leland, Katherine, Lawrence, Ronski, Nicole, Alex, Carlos, Monica, Priyanka, Akesh, Kruthie, Mark, Charlie, Rev Ray, and all other friends who are such a positive addition to my life. 

It is a joy to live in such a diverse area, exposed to numerous experiences, backgrounds, cultures, values, ideas, and points of view. I am also thankful for all the people who tirelessly volunteer for non-profits, seniors, healthcare facilities, animal rescues, and too many others to name who make our place a better place to live. 

Lastly, I am thankful for the gift of the baby Jesus and the salvation God has granted each of our lives. The words of the Christmas carol ring strongly in my ears: “Christ was born on Christmas day. Hallelujah”. 

Yes, I am thankful that there is a God who answers prayers in so many different names, languages, and beliefs and looks over all of us. I am thankful to receive His protection and guidance to make the world a better place to live. No matter what name we pray to Him in or how we celebrate His goodness, we all are part of the family that he created. 

Celebrate this time in the ways of your choosing. Enjoy this time with your family, friends and loved ones because Christmastime we share our love for each other. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!   

Clinton Killian is an attorney in downtown Oakland, an Oakland resident, a former Oakland Planning Commissioner. He can be reached at: (510) 625-8823 or email: clintonkillian@yahoo.com.   


 

As Jack London Square and Uptown become more popular destinations for drinking, dining, and entertainment, a new City service will link the two districts with a free, weekday shuttle running down Broadway between the waterfront and Grand Avenue.

The Broadway Shuttle is expected to begin early next year, and comes as Jack London Square seeks to become a regional culinary destination on a par with the Ferry Building in San Francisco or Pikes Place Market in Seattle. A $1 million grant from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District combined with $200,000 from Jack London Square Partners and $160,000 from downtown area redevelopment funds will pay for most of the shuttle’s first two years of operation.

This is not the first time a free shuttle linked Jack London Square to other parts of downtown. Between 1996 and 2001, a free, lunchtime service between Embarcadero and Grand Avenue ferried 1,000 passengers a day before a lack of private funding forced it to shut down. The Oakland City Administrator expects that the new shuttle will carry 2,045 riders between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.

As Living in the O writes, Oakland city officials hope to expand the service into weekends and evenings. Living in the O notes that a downtown shuttle in Los Angeles, which started in the late 1980s, now boasts six lines.

Rather than view the new service as a competitor, AC Transit is helping the shuttle get started by offering three 30-feet buses from its fleet. The buses will be given new paint jobs, and according to City staff, will be “visually attractive vehicles… providing maximum visibility and appeal to people who do not normally ride buses.”

A convenient connection between Jack London Square and its neighbors north of I-880 has long been viewed as essential to bringing about the district’s revival. City planners view the Broadway Shuttle as a first step toward realizing a 40-year-old goal of reestablishing streetcar service from the water to the northern edges of downtown.

In addition to aiding the evolution of Jack London Square and Uptown into East Bay entertainment hubs, the shuttle will simplify commutes for many downtown workers who use other forms of public transportation. For example, the ferry terminal will now be connected to downtown office buildings by the frequent and free shuttle. City planners also hope that the shuttle will attract more employers to open businesses in downtown Oakland.
 

We have to take a break from politics during this week of Thanksgiving. There are so many things to be thankful for. Let us take time to count our blessings and the goodness that we get everyday. 

Let us be thankful that we have a new police chief who is dedicated to reducing crime in Oakland. Hopefully, he gets the political backing to transform the police department, bring crime-fighting resources to the city, and change the crime culture in Oakland.

Let us be thankful for Congresswoman Barbara Lee and others who are fighting for true healthcare reform. We can no longer accept a medical system that bankrupts Americans once they become ill. How about the system used by Congress, Federal employees, VA and Medicare? Yes, single payer universal coverage. Medical care is a right, not an expensive privilege.

Let us be thankful to all for telling the President to end this war in Afghanistan. Eight years of causalities in an unfocused, no-end-in-sight war is enough. It is time to bring our troops home. We must learn the Afghan lesson that the British and Russians learned before us. Mr. President, fulfill your campaign pledge and end this war now. Bring our sons and daughters home safely. There are other ways to fight the terrorist threat than the massive build up of American troops.

Let us be thankful for Assemblyman Sandre Swanson for his principled stand against the smoke and mirrors budget shenanigans of the assembly. Are you listening, Democrats?  It’s time for true budget reform. You cannot keep putting it off. Assemblyman Swanson’s lead should be followed. Stand up for the principles that got you elected and deliver basic services like education and healthcare

Let’s be thankful for all the Oakland residents who vote in elections, participate in community groups and are truly committed to building a better city. The overwhelming majority of Oaklanders love our city and will work to improve it. We need dedicated leadership that starts at the top so that we can improve our quality of life. Hey City Hall, deliver basic services to our neighborhoods, reduce crime, improve our schools, and create jobs and services. We love Oakland and our leaders should be equally committed.

Let’s be thankful for Brian, Bianca, Shelia, April, Alex and Chip -- and all the others who have moved to Oakland. They have ignored the constant negative press and discovered for themselves that Oakland is a beautiful city. They have committed themselves to improving our schools and neighborhoods.

Let’s be thankful for the Alameda County Adoption Services, Black Adoption Agency, Alameda County Social services that work with foster care and so many other groups and volunteers who provide love and homes to our children. And to the Center for Elders Independence and all the senior groups who help the elderly enjoy their lives.

Let’s be thankful for all the organizations and volunteers who protect and provide animal services. The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, animal rescue groups, foster care families and many, many others who make sure pets get happy homes. Who can deny the joy that a tail-wagging puppy brings to a family?

Let’s be thankful to Covenant House, Boys and Girls Clubs of Oakland and all the programs that provide services to our children. Please include thanks for teachers and school workers, doctors, nurses and medical persons. 

Let’s be thankful to the Alameda County Community Food Bank, Beebe Memorial Cathedral, St. Vincent de Paul Society, Safeway, Lucky, religious groups, secular groups, non-profits, and all the volunteers and donors who provide food to the needy, not just at Thanksgiving, but year round. Based on your beliefs and affiliations, take a moment to assist your local church or religious organization and others who help families in need. Say thanks to all those pastors, ministers, religious leaders and others and their families who will be out on Thanksgiving day providing meals where needed. Regardless of your religious beliefs, you have to commend these people for the tremendous sacrifices they make for others.

Let us be thankful for all of our family members. Each one of them contributed to making us the person that we have become. Nobody’s family is perfect, but effort and heart is good. Take the time during this Thanksgiving to call your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and anybody else and just say thank you for all the help they have given you. 

Let’s say thanks to all of our friends and neighbors who we take for granted because of our day-to-day interactions. Go ahead, thank them for making your life better. 

And, I want to say thank you to my mom, my wife and sons, my brothers and sisters, and their children. They have done so much to make my life a blessed affair. 

So, during this Thanksgiving week, thank your family, friends, neighbors and even strangers. Let’s make it a better place for all of us to live. Next week, we return to politics, but this week, let’s say thanks and God bless all.  

Clinton Killian is an attorney in downtown Oakland, an Oakland resident, a former Oakland Planning Commissioner. He can be reached at: (510) 625-8823 or email: clintonkillian@yahoo.com.   
 

Photo: Sylvia Rosales-Fike, CEO of A New America. Courtesy: KQED

Immigrants come in all colors, sizes and income brackets. Some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley are immigrants, and some of the poorest members of our society are immigrants, too. AnewAmerica’s goal is to enable refugees, asylees and immigrants who have minimal access to resources and capital -- people with no money and no connections – to become entrepreneurs in their new home country. The 10-year-old east bay organization has a three-year-long, three pronged training program that it says teaches clients about business incubation, asset building and social responsibility. For the first part, the organization, through a partnership with Oakland’s Holy Names University, educates its clients in creating a business plan, accounting, corporate structures, pricing, and marketing. Sylvia Rosales-Fike the founder and CEO of AnewAmerica, chatted with the OakBook about the other two prongs and her vision. Her community corporation celebrated its tenth anniversary last night with a gala at the Scottish Rite Center. Here are excerpts from our conversation with Ms. Rosales-Fike, who is an immigrant from El Salvador.

OB: You are the founder of AnewAmerica. How did you come up with the idea for such an organization?

Sylvia Rosales-Fike: I have been working in community development for low income neighborhoods and development for 27 years or more. I realized, along with other groups of professionals in the field, that the immigrant community in general had good services in legal and social services, but the economic development field was not targeting the immigrant population.

We decided on the name, a New America, to include immigrants, refugees, and new citizens. We wanted to denote to the general population that new Americans are also part of this society. We wanted to put together an organization that would help them increase income and build assets, wealth participation, and also encourage their participation in the democratic system.

The three areas are fully integrated -- business incubation, asset management and creation and social responsibility.

OB: Do you feel satisfied with your implementation of the vision you started out with? Or did that vision change over time?

Sylvia Rosales-Fike: The concept has really developed. The core strategy was to have three elements provided as services to families in the program as a holistic package. For example - when we started, we were not sure if social responsibility was going to be welcomed by every family. Sometimes people don’t understand the concept of giving back or by being active in a democratic system, there is power that comes back to you. What we learned is that they do get it. They embrace it enthusiastically. They’re planning or implementing socially responsible project, based on where they are in the program.

As we get to know the needs of entrepreneurs of the programs, and external situations -- we didn’t anticipate this recession -- we put together strategies.

With the recession, a major need for many clients was in sales. Some had been laid off from regular jobs, others were having foreclosures. (The situation) was affecting their economy and mental health. We had to put something together to respond to the situation. We needed to help them increase access to markets and access to sales. We created an e-commerce project in collaboration with World of Good, which is a subsidiary of eBay, and another group that provides technology training. We launched a pilot program with 10 entrepreneurs. You can purchase coffee, arts and crafts, and an ecological bag by going on line.


2009 Graduation ceremony of A New America's San Jose program

OB: Could you give me some other examples of how you have responded?

Sylvia Rosales-Fike: We have 10 clients housed in the Fruitvale incubator in the La Placita building. We decided to launch green business certification program. Those who provide certification right now, the requirements are very stringent for the very small entrepreneur. We mirrored the program that would help entrepreneurs meet requirements at a lower level, and as they grow, they can meet the other requirements. That allows them to reach that growing market of consumers that are interested in buying green products. We started in January. It’s growing rapidly. We have 20 businesses that are certified.

OB: In all these years, what is the achievement you’re proudest of?

Sylvia Rosales-Fike: We celebrate our tenth anniversary this year. Just the fact we’re here. We’ve been in re cession for three years. We’re still here. We have expanded our services, and infrastructure and not only in terms of locations and office spaces. We have offices in Oakland, San Jose, and Berkeley, where we started.
We started with 20 clients, and we’re now serving 300 clients per year. 180 graduates are successfully operating businesses and many of them are moving out of poverty. That’s how we measure success.  I think of a family that came here with no resources except for entrepreneurial energy, and six years later, making revenue of more than $300,000. They’re no longer micro, they’ve bought a house.

With our strategies of development – there is not only job training but also the asset creation piece. There is a holistic change in the well being of an individual. They look at themselves differently, they walk differently, they have a different outlook towards the future.

OB: The example you just gave of the family with no resources and now a revenue of $300,000, could you identify them?

Sylvia Rosales-Fike: Julio Leiva, who owns a green cleaning service. When he came into the program, his background was that he a business in his home country of El Salvador. He tried to see how he could start a business here. He took a class, was inspired to do a business that would not require much capital from him, a green business. It expanded from 0 to $300,000 in revenue from business. He has employed more than seven individuals; he has made a commitment to fair hiring practices, also a commitment to use non toxic materials, and he will send a proportion of profits to projects he cares about in his home country. 

Full disclosure: The OakBook was one of the media sponsors of A New America’s gala.


 

Oakland Firefighters are special. They do all the things firefighters are supposed to do – like running up moving ladders and jumping into burning homes. They also do random acts of kindness – such as getting a 17-year-old cancer patient a tuxedo to wear to his prom (pictured in the photo above), a boutonniere for his lapel, the corsage for his date; such as taking gifts to school kids returning after a fire destroyed their class room at Sobrante Park Elementary School; and this month, the firefighters will be serving ice cream at Fentons Cremery.

If you go to Fentons this month and buy the Firefighter Sundae, 25 percent of the proceeds will go to Random Acts – that’s the money the firefighters will then use to do their random acts of kindness.

And if you want to meet these firefighters, you have to visit Fentons on the weekend of November 21 & 22 between noon and 4 p.m. It is the Firefighters Weekend – and Oakland Firefighters will be serving you, waiting and busing tables, scooping ice cream, serving water and coffee. 

There will be a Sundae Building Contest at 3 p.m. on both days.  And the kids will a 1967 fire engine to climb on and explore. There will also be a holiday toy drive barrel set up inside the restaurant.

Oakland Firefighters Random Acts Month at Fentons Creamery 
4226 Piedmont Avenue
http://www.ofrandomacts.org/2009FentonsFlyer.pdf

About three years ago, Lynne Twist was walking on 40th Street toward Mama's Royal Cafe with Van Jones, who was then the director of the Ella Baker Center. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the pair were on their way to lunch. As they approached Broadway, Twist noticed a group of young black men on the other side of the street. Twist saw the young men in their sagging pants and thought that they looked dangerous. She imagined that they were gang members. She thought they probably were carrying guns and knives. Then Jones ran across the street to talk to the men.

They were poets that Jones had mentioned to Twist earlier in the day. Twist was in the midst of a training session at the Ella Baker Center designed to show how white privilege can lead to crippling blind spots in one's world view. It didn't matter that Twist adopted a girl from Nigeria, her son married a black woman, and that Twist is the grandmother to five mixed race children. When she saw a group of young black men in sagging jeans on the corner of 40th Street and Broadway she saw weapons-toting gangbangers. "It just shocked me, and I was horrified by myself," said Twist.

Twist is a globally recognized activist who has spent the last thirty years working with causes like ending world hunger through the Hunger Project and raising money to improve health, economic, and political conditions for women and children. She is the co-founder of the Pachamama Alliance, which currently works in Ecuador to save rainforests and to empower the indigenous people who live within them. She also founded the Soul of Money Institute, which helps people navigate their relationship with money and how it affects the quality of their lives.

But Twist doesn’t seem the achievements of her past get in the way of her personal growth. Twist started working with the Ella Baker Center after sharing with Jones the text of the Pachamama Alliance's symposium. The symposium teaches the non-profit's mission of saving tropical rain forests by empowering indigenous people, but Jones said the material would not fly with people of color or people struggling to preserve their own existences in the poorest parts of America's cities. It was then that Twist and her colleagues resolved to change their symposium by changing themselves. It took a year of formal training, but Twist said the learning never actually ends. I found from my work with Van Jones that I've got a long way to go," said Twist.

She will be honored by the Ella Baker Center at the non-profit's 2009 fundraiser next month.

The Ella Baker Year End Celebration and Fundraiser
Thursday, November 12, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Scottish Rite Center, 1547 Lakeside Drive 

 

The shoddy workmanship that has led to the closure of the Bay Bridge for an indefinite period of time started us thinking about the bridge's builders more than 70 years ago. Who were the inspectors that judged the craftsmanship of thousands of cement pourers, welders, and fitters? The annual reports of the California Department of Public Works 1930-1937 are not online, but we did find this profile of William Reed. You can thank him everytime you cross the bridge and it doesn't crumble in the Bay.

K-Dub and Karl Watson at the opening of Town Park

The weather will eventually clear up, and if you're a skater -- the Town Park is now officially open. Photographer Christian Ericksen was at the opening on Saturday, and he says it was, "jumping off." He's got a slideshow (below) of photos that show what a good time it was.

For those of you who don't know what any of the fuss is about --Town Park is Oakland first official skate park, located in the historic DeFremery Park. The person driving this project, with some help from his friends, is K-Dub, who used to be an art teacher and has grown into a local skating celebrity. If you want to know more, here's an old OakBook article about the origins of this project.

Have you heard the story about the Silicon Valley whiz kid who got bored of the good life and decided he needed to do something that felt a little more complete, a little more cosmic? It’s Bidyut Bose’s story.

Bidyut Bose, or B.K., which is what he goes by, runs a non-profit called Niroga. It’s not as well known as some other Oakland non-profits like say, the Ella Baker Center, but it's slowly becoming more visible.

Funded by various non-profits and foundations like Kaiser Permanente, the California Endowment, the San Francisco Foundation, and the Bay Area Black United Fund, Niroga runs community programs built around the practices of yoga, meditation and breathing work -- it calls them transformative life skills. It offers these programs in schools in Oakland, Berkeley and El Cerrito, in juvenile halls like the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center and in health centers like the MPI Treatment Services at the Alta Bates Summit Hospital in Oakland.

It is widely believed that yoga and meditation calm the mind. Niroga is taking it a step further and linking it to the treatment of chronic conditions. For example -- Niroga is engaged with Kaiser’s research division to look at the effects of yoga on heart failure patients.  

“The idea that yoga and a mindfulness practice has effects on the body and mind is something I’ve actually studied,” says Mr. Bose, who grew up strongly influenced by his father’s interest in yoga.

Chugging along in his Silicon Valley career, which included stints at companies like National Semiconductor, Sun Microsystems, and Nortel Networks, Mr. Bose longed for something deeper. “A part of me wanted to get back to the conversations I used to have with my father about self realization, selfless service, and the meaning of life,” he says.