Pictures of Occupy Oakland

October 10, 2011, Day One: Rally in Frank Ogawa Plaza, which is renamed for Oscar Grant.

November 2, 1011, Day 23, Dia De Los Muertos and General Strike: Camp flourishes, people are fed, clothed, sheltered (not in houses but in tents), transformed. Thousands march on the banks. As I ride my bike around and watch the march go by, a long-time Oakland resident says to me, "It looks like the white folks finally figured out what's going on."

The phrase "Citizens United" takes on a different meaning.

The storefronts and automated teller machines of Big Banks are blocked, barricaded, taped off, and redecorated with checks demanding payment in restitution for the crimes they have committed, and imploring bank customers to take their business elsewhere.

The inevitable debate "Is non-violence a tactic or is it a way of life?" ensues. Astute observers note that buildings, like corporations, are not actually people; that predatory lending and foreclosure are forms of violence; that police killing countless unarmed black and brown people in Oakland (Oscar Grant), San Francisco (Sheila Detoy, Idriss Stelley), and elsewhere is violence; that police lobbing projectiles at Scott Olsen's head after his friends had rushed to help him is violence; and that Black Bloc as a tactic puts bystanders at risk for arrest who may not be guaranteed a quick "cite and release" if they are undocumented or have warrants, something for Black Bloc folks to consider when employing property destruction under cover of a larger march.
Despite the disagreement about the appropriate range in a "diversity of tactics," later that evening, more than 10,000 people march on the Port of Oakland in support of the General Strike. The view around the curve of the bridge and at sundown is stunning.

...and reminds me of images from Egypt and, further back, the 1936 Spanish Civil War.


(Josh MacPhee, www.justseeds.org, please support this art collective!)

Around midnight, at Oscar Grant Plaza, altars honor people whose lives were lost due to a lack of healthcare. Clotheslines are put up along with scraps of paper and pens and any and all are welcomed to speak their truth. For the first time, many are questioning consumerism.

November 5, 2011, Day 26, National Bank Transfer Day: An estimated 650,000 people (including me) join credit unions in just over a month, protesting Bank of America's proposed $5 monthly fee for ATM card use-- the latest sign of hubris from one of the world's largest banks-- and grabbing an opportunity for personal action to divest from the 1%.

November 27, 2011, (Who's counting?), Squatting rights and foreclosure activism teach-in: Punks and self-study law nerds and African-American youth share detailed and practical information on property law in California. Important connections are made between punks and long-time housing rights activists from organizations like Causa Justa :: Just Cause and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, who join forces to protest in front of the homes of people in Oakland whose houses are being foreclosed.

December 12, 2011: Another shutdown of the Oakland port is planned. Who knows what will happen next?

It's too soon to tell where this Occupy Together movement will lead and I'm not entirely sure it matters. The financial crisis demonstrated the flaws of the current political and economic system, which many of us already knew. What's exciting is the visibility not only of the critique -- media outlets suddenly using terms like "income inequality" and "corporate greed"-- but the visibility of the alternative. While the trauma of chronic homelessness and being kicked by landlords and police from camp to camp is not something I want to emulate, I do think the Occupy encampments have demonstrated that people are capable of creating spontaneous spaces in which we share food, clothing, comfort, information, opinions, solidarity, and decision-making with each other. As we said during the anti-war protests in San Francisco in 2003...

"It's not just the war, it's the way we live."

Pictures of Occupy Wall Street

Zuccotti Park (a.k.a."Liberty Plaza)," NY, October 13, 2011

Lest we should forget who is building "Freedom Tower"
and the other buildings at the former cite of the World Trade Center...

Times Square, NY, October 15, 2011

Modeling against the backdrop of Occupy Wall Street:
How quickly they Commodify Your Dissent.

pictures of San Diego

My first time in San Diego, home of a famous zoo I couldn't bring myself to go to and the excellent punk band Swing Kids and proximity to la frontera. Downtown has the look and feel of many cities, a combination of poverty and beauty and decay plastered over by shining office towers and slapdash loft-style architecture. As New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham said in the excellent documentary about his life, "If you seek beauty you will find it."


And a vegan-friendly punk tacqueria, where there were flyers on the counter for an upcoming Occupy San Diego protest, in solidarity with the Occupy Wall St. protests popping up nationwide.

And the art deco Reading Cinemas, Gaslamp Theatre.

Home

Two pieces for Coalition on Homelessness Art Auction, SOMArts, September 8, 2011

Home (with Brooch)

Home (with Pendant)

Please support this incredible organization, which has been fighting for the civil rights and dignity of homeless people and families and youth for a very long time. Through the Street Sheet, they've also long been putting out a saner narrative than the "people just don't want jobs or to accept help or are insane or on drugs" arguments as to why so many people are without housing in the U.S., and providing a way for people without housing to make money for things they need.

West Oakland Bike Tour

In July, I joined my friends Sarolta and Marcus on a "Historic Bicycle Tour of West Oakland," hosted by Bikes 4 Life, a local bike shop that hires youth from the neighborhood. The tour was a gaggle of mostly white folks with matching bike helmets being followed by a camera crew, staff from "green" companies spending a week together doing community service projects. We all worried at first about joining a group that would be gawking its way through a majority black neighborhood like some it was some kind of a zoo. But I also wanted to learn more about Oakland's history, and the folks running the tour were long-time residents, so we pedaled on.

The first stop on the tour was a former Black Panther Party house. In front of the house, a woman passing by stopped to ask us, skeptically, what we were doing. The answer that we were on a historic bike tour didn't seem to clear up matters, she just gave us a strained smile and looked confused. As we rode bikes to the next stop, three guys on a street corner cheered us on like some kind of parade. We, it turned out, were the spectacle.

The next stop was 16th St. Station, old home to the Pullman Porters, who formed the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, one of the nation's first black-led unions. The roof was unstable and we had to sign a waiver before going in. The station, built in 1912, suffered damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and was soon abandoned. According to Marcus, punks used to sneak in to have roller skating parties there. I could just imagine them sliding and shrieking across the polished wood floors, listening to mixed tapes of The Germs.

"Cameras, Films," Side Room, 16th St. Station, West Oakland

Now an affordable housing developer has bought the place and its adjacent lots and started building those loft-style apartments that sprung up all over San Francisco during the dot-com boom. According to the developer, HBO recently removed 20 years' worth of pigeon poop and graffiti, moved a marble staircase, and added wainscoting and elevator doors to the main hall, restoring the station to a romantically dilapidated state to film a 1930s period piece. The windows bear the painted patina of an experienced set designer, and are nonetheless beautiful.

Window, 16th St. Station, West Oakland

Elevator Door, Detail, 16th St. Station, West Oakland

The developers spoke awkwardly about the community process they had been through to determine the future use of the old train station. One thing residents and developers agreed upon, they said, was wanting to preserve the building, but beyond that, it seemed like visions diverged. Some of the ideas floated included a museum for the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, an event space, a restaurant and commercial kitchen that would serve food grown in an organic garden out front, and a space like New York's high line on the elevated tracks behind the station. There was talk of collaborating with the People's Grocery. The commitment to community involvement was well-meaning, but there were also off-color remarks, like, "There is the Revolution Cafe but otherwise there are no cafes or restaurants in West Oakland. It's a food desert." (Translation: there are no food establishments yet catering to the wealthy white people who will presumably live in these lofts).

After the tour, I asked the affordable housing developer what proportion of the new housing developments at the site were to be affordable. Something like 15-20%, he said. And what is considered affordable?Entry level prices. So, around here that would mean something like $300,000 right? Yeah. Something like that, he said. Wow, I can't imagine ever being able to afford something like that, I said, and I'm not even low-income.

After the train station, the tour continued on to American Steel, an abandoned factory used by local artists to make large metal sculptures and forms. Instead of continuing on with the tour, we veered away from the land of Burning Man aesthetics and ventured instead to Souley Vegan for mac and cheese and greens. Sarolta and I closed the afternoon on a bench, watching seagulls greet the container ships at Jack London Square, welcoming them back to West Oakland.

Jack London Square

three pictures of Atlanta and three cards for friends

Apparently this is a dyke-owned cafe but there was a 45 minute wait so we went to Home Grown instead and got vegan peach sloppy joe's.

Beautiful porch woodwork, right around the corner from Ria's Bluebird.

Detail.

Birthday card for Glenn, front cover.

Birthday card for Glenn, inside.
We sometimes take walks together around Lake Merritt and look at the terrifying night herons. They stand still it seems for hours on end, waiting for their prey. They have funny things sticking up from their heads. They scare me and yet I stare at them, transfixed. Check them out some time.

Birthday card for my cousin Serene, who turned 50. Here's to another half a century of life!

Birthday card for Erock - Happy Birthday friend! Never forget you are amazing!

Birthday card for Rob, cover - fear not...

Birthday card for Rob, inside - ...you will always be (my) king

moms

Mother's day card for the mom, who just moved to California from Hawaii and who we finally, FINALLY, found a place to live...proving once again, that things will work out if we just let them.

Cover

Cover, II

Inside