Do Not Fail to See Death by Stork

At the Stork Club, of course. Telegraph Avenue at 23rd Street in fabulous skid-row Oakland, Friday, September 22. Starts at 9 p.m.

First up will be Winner's Bitch, (featuring former She Mobbers, Sue Hutchinson and Suki O'Kane). Then DBS, also featuring Sue, plus me and Andrew and Tony. Then Remora, which is a Deftones cover band(!). Sounds like fun. Sure to be cheap. Always good times. And Jerry Brown lives right down the street. I always think he'll stop in, but he never does.

Have I ever blogged about the time Jerry Brown did a bunch of mescaline with my aunt and uncle in Mexico, back in the hippie days...? No? Maybe next time.

Decent Linkage

Gallery of Demonic Tots and Deeply Disturbing Cuisine.
The Zen of Costco.

Vacation Haiku

Have you heard? Haiku is HOT! Well, maybe not HOT, but definitely long-term in usage. And easy to get through. Since we visited so many areas on our 9-day vacation, I thought I'd review in Haiku.

Eugene, OR
Playgrounds are bitchin'
and the bad part of town is
only six blocks long


Eugene Friend
Standard black poodle
lives in fabulous 50s
house; brings us shoes. Gus


Recumbent Bikes
Sit down, like a chair
Lean back and relax cowboy
You are one fast geek.

 
Corvallis, OR
Picturesque and quaint
White people work at HP
and study Buddha


Salem, OR
The state capitol
Awesome children's museum
Strip malls and porn shops

 
Portland
Whoa! This city rocks
Where has it been all my life?
Please sign me up now


Portland Japanese Garden
Gravel, plants, water
Falls, streams, bridges, quiet paths
Favorite by far


Powell's Books
Gazillions of books
like some kind of book heaven
Whole Foods is nearby


Seattle
Jimi Hendrix and
Streetwise and heroin chic
Oh, and Space Needle

 
Pike's Market
Throw the fish upward
Balloon man makes a kitty
Ferries trawl the waves


My Uncle's Restaurant
Machiavelli's
It's at 1215 Pine Street
garlic sautéed greens


Vancouver
Relatives greet us
with affection and cheese cake
Canada is best

Northerly Haul

We went on this crazy-ass vacation where we hit six towns of the Northwest in 9 days. We were just talking about it in the kitchen today, marveling about how fun and outdoorsy and pretty it was and how depressing it is to come back to Oakland and find out that a woman was found the other night, beaten and on fire, in the parking lot of the arts center that we used to live down the street from. The fire department put her out and helicoptered her to Davis for burns over 70% of her body. She had been hog-tied to a structure in the lot. The arts center has been renovated for well over a year now so it's already housed some teen robbers and other criminal-types.

I know other cities are experiencing crime waves but Oakland is really in its own class at this point. It's like living in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Only we have no slayer and don't intend to get one any time soon. Our old neighborhood is full of families and working people and older people and now is home to thugs and creeps. They're preying on all these good neighbors. I worry about my older neighbors. We lived on this tiny one-block street and we knew everyone on it pretty well. We had some really excellent people on our block. Then these psycho drug dealers moved in across the street and our lives really took a nose-dive, quality-wise. We just sold our house and rent now in a nicer neighborhood. The drug dealers just pass through here and don't live by us any more. There's still crime, but no one's getting beaten over the head in the middle of the day for their cell phone. That's moving on up, Oakland style.

I'll write more about our trip. I'm just pissed right now. The trip was good. Most people are good. The bad ones just need to be better contained or intimidated or run out of town.