Congrats to Danny as he took 2nd place that day!

Congrats to Danny as he took 2nd place that day!

Deu no NYT hoje:  Seeing San Francisco from a different angle

A materia fala sobre uma parte do sul da  cidade que ainda nao explorei aqui no blog: Bernal Heights and Glen Park. Ao que parece, lugares interesantes e bem diferentes do resto da cidade. Vou tentar ir ate la logo que der.

PS: desculpem  pelo computador com teclado americano, sem acentos. Arrumo logo que voltar pro meu.

On the site for his ugExplode record label, you can see that Weasel Walter, who’s been a Bay Area resident for the past few years, is up and moving to New York.

Sad news for us.  It was nice having him in town, playing in bands and in pickup improv ensembles, stirring the pot to create regular live gigs at places like The Uptown, releasing CDs that make apartment neighbors call the police at 2:00 a.m.

But like so many other musicians from so many other places, Weasel (I’m using his first name here, as if we’re best buds) hears the call of NYC. He’s leaving next week.

It’s the natural cycle of the Bay Area music scene — and it’s the same in hundreds of other places, I’d imagine. It takes a lot of work to keep a scene going when the economic returns are slim, when alcohol-serving venues are reluctant to host oddball music, and when local authorities are downright hostile to DIY events.

(Sure, the letter of the law requires permits and fire exits, but for some of these shows, you’re talking about 40- and 50-year-olds sitting in chairs listening intently to quiet, crystalline music.  The legal codes set for punk/metal fire-and-brimstone acts shouldn’t have to apply there. Granted, Weasel’s stuff  isn’t exactly quiet most of the time, but his free jazz doesn’t draw a pit-warning crowd either.)

The good news: Weasel will be able to work with NYC artists more regularly, including trumpeter Peter Evans and guitarist Mary Halvorson, both of whom he’s recorded with recently.  As an ongoing, working trio, they’ll be immense. Radio WFMU got a taste of the possibilities earlier this year.

Best of luck, Weasel!

A Modern Times, Rafael, Sunday, noon. Leave it to Charlie Chaplin to call an extremely anachronistic movie Modern Times. Why anachronistic? Because it’s a mostly silent picture (with a recorded score) made years after everyone else had started talking. Why Modern Times? Because it’s about assembly lines, mechanization, and the depression. Chaplin’s tramp moves from job to job and jail to jail as he tries to better his condition and that of an underage fugitive (Paulette Goddard, his future wife and the best leading lady of his career). Free

C- Oh My God, Lumiere & Shattuck, opens Friday. This documentary on religious attitudes has its interesting moments–enough to keep it from being a complete loss. There are times, especially when filmmaker Peter Rodger takes his camera to parts of the world where religious conflict has turned violent, that the drama of his subject overshadows the clumsiness of his approach. But a lack of focus, overwhelming music, some poor choices of interview subjects, and too strong a focus on Rodger himself, all but sinks Oh My God.

A+ Double Bill: North by Northwest & To Catch a Thief, Stanford, Friday & Saturday. The A is for Alfred Hitchcock’s light masterpiece, North by Northwest. Cary Grant plays an unusually suave and witty everyman mistaken by evil foreign spies for a crack American agent, and by police for a murderer. And so he must escape almost certain death again and again while chased from New York to Mount Rushmore. On the bright side, he gets to spend some quality time with a very glamorous Eva Marie Saint; danger has its rewards. Not as thoughtful as Rear Window or Notorious, but more entertaining than both of them combined. Catch a Thief is more like a vacation on the Riviera than the tight and scary thriller one expects from the master of suspense. Not his best work by a long shot, but it has a few good scenes and thus sufficient fun.

A Double Bill: Double Indemnity & All About Eve, Stanford, Tuesday through Thursday. In Double Indemnity, rich but unhappy (and evil) housewife Barbara Stanwyckh leads insurance salesman Fred MacMurray from adultery to murder. Not that she has much trouble doing it (this is not the MacMurray character we remember from “My Three Sons”). A good, gritty thriller about sex (or the code-era equivalent) and betrayal. All About Eve explores the sordid ambition behind Broadway’s (and by implication, Hollywood’s) glamour. Anne Baxter plays the title character, an apparently sweet and innocent actress whom aging diva Bette Davis takes under her wing. But Eve isn’t anywhere near as innocent as she appears. Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Kai Massaquoi is seen here at the basketball courts at James Logan High School, were he spends time playing hoops, in Union City, Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009. Massaquoi a refugee from Guinea witnessed family members executed, spent years living in rehab clinics and camps before his family moved to California six years ago. Massaquoi recently graduated from James Logan High School. (Photo: Anda Chu/Staff)

There are many things about Gbessaykai Massaquoi that distinguish him from his friends. One is the twangy music he switches to when they get out of the car.

No one understands why this West African refugee, who has survived war and peril, likes country music band Rascal Flatts.

“We listen to hip-hop,” Massaquoi says. “Then, when they leave, I listen to country music. It’s soft. It calms you down. The sound, the melodies of it, just keep you going.”

American country songs distract him from violent memories and daily poverty. The music and other pastimes — basketball games each evening, long hikes through the trails above Hayward — are salves.

“All that stuff, it keeps me busy, stops me from thinking about the past,” he said.

Massaquoi, who goes by the nickname Kai, was a young boy when armed men stormed his family’s home in Monrovia, the Liberian capital that in 1996 was ravaged by chaos and urban slaughter.

“They asked, ‘Where’s Mr. Massaquoi?’ My stepmom said, ‘He’s not here.’ They said, ‘We came to kill him.’”‰”

Born in Guinea to parents who fled from conflict in neighboring Liberia, his father had been a driver for Samuel Doe, the Liberian president who was executed by rebels in September 1990 — two months before Kai was born.

That made his family a target as fighters allied with rebel warlord Charles Taylor waged a brutal war to take over the country. Uncomfortable in Guinea, which had been flooded with refugees from years of bloodshed in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the family returned to Liberia because they thought they would be safe. They were wrong.

Assailants ordered the oldest brother to rape his stepmother — right now, they demanded, in full view of everyone. The brother refused and was shot dead on the spot.

Massaquoi, then 5, remembers sprinting outside and toward an uncle’s nearby home as bullets fired in his direction. It is one terrifying memory of many.

“I’m surprised that I’m here, that I actually made it to America,” said Massaquoi, who turned 19 this week.

Massaquoi will not share some stories, but he will say this: Along with witnessing the war, he was recruited to become a part of it.

“It was about tribalism, it was about religion,” he said. “Most kids, they join the rebels for revenge. ‘You killed my mom, you killed my dad, so now I’m going to kill you.’ That’s why the war kept going on for 14, 15 years. Just too much blood. Too much.”

Desperation and abductions also pressed thousands of boys to join the fight, wandering in bands and factions — some of them sponsored by government leaders — that battled throughout the northeastern counties of Liberia and across the forested border with Guinea.

“His story is not the only one in the U.S. and I would wager not even the only one in Oakland,” said P.W. Singer, an author and researcher with the nonprofit Brookings Institution. “You’re talking about a global phenomena. Let’s put it this way: There are roughly 300,000 active child combatants in the world.”

Burdened by wartime stories his family advised him not to divulge, Massaquoi will not talk about being a child soldier, only about how he got out of it.

“Me and my friend Prince, we decided to just get out of there,” he said. “While they were advancing, going toward the gunshots, we retreated.”

He and his friend fled from Liberia into Guinea, washing up in a river and cutting their disheveled hair before looking for refuge in the town of Yomou. Sometimes they had to steal or rob to get what they needed to survive.

“It was very hard for us to live normal, act normal,” he said.

They made their way to the refugee-filled border town of Gueckedougou and later to Conakry, the capital, where Massaquoi eventually entered a rehabilitation center before being transported to a refugee camp near Dabola. It wasn’t until just before coming to the United States that he was reunited with most of his family.

“As soon as you let it out, you feel free,” he said of his stories. “That’s what my family doesn’t want to do.”

The burdens of his past are compounded by the fact that many Liberians have been hesitant to forgive and move on, or are still afraid of what could happen to them, he said. It was children like him, they whisper, who killed or mutilated their relatives.

“Even when I go to a party, I hear it — ‘That kid was a child soldier’ — I hear them,” Massaquoi said.

More than 200,000 people were dead and untold thousands maimed by the time Liberia’s civil wars finally concluded with Taylor’s ousting in 2003.

“Like other child abuse, when it ends, that person may be scarred by that experience psychologically as well as physically, but it doesn’t mean that they are somehow lost forever,” Singer said. “It’s an experience that’s going to shape them, but it doesn’t mean they can’t get past it.”

Massaquoi’s first stop in the United States was Torrance, where he moved with his aging father and siblings when they arrived as refugees in fall 2003.

As he turned 13 and entered classrooms for the first time in years, Massaquoi had trouble adjusting. His father, frustrated by signs that the neighborhood gang culture was influencing his son, sent Massaquoi north to live with an aunt he barely knew. By age 17, the teen moved out of the house, rooming in Hayward with Lisa White, a cousin who had grown up in Texas.

They both had lost their mothers to illness. Friends sometimes lent them gas money, and they signed up for food stamps. When their apartment went up for sale last month, they prepared to sleep in a car, then reluctantly moved back with their aunt, paying $600 to sleep on the couch and floor of her converted garage.

“We don’t have bad credit, we just don’t have any credit,” said White, who hopes to find a new apartment soon. “Sometimes I ask, when was the last time anything good happened? And I can’t remember.”

White juggles caregiving work with studying engineering at Chabot College and enjoys both. Massaquoi, unemployed for months, has signed up to learn welding next year. He could make easy money selling drugs, his friends tell him. He changed his number to stop their calls.

“I don’t want to keep making mistakes. I made enough already,” he said.

The teen was struggling to get through high school more than a year ago when Sharyl Larson, a teacher at the Union City adult school where he was making up a course, first spotted him in a classroom with his head down.

She chatted with him, asking what was wrong. They were questions that few adults had ventured to ask Massaquoi since he moved to America.

“She said, well, ‘Kai, I’m here, whenever you need my help, just let me know.’ She’s been a good friend,” he said.

Graduating from James Logan High School this year was one of his most hard-fought accomplishments. Massaquoi knows many languages — French, Kpelle, Mandingo and Arabic — but English was not his best, and he failed the state high school exit exam the first two times he tried.

On the third try, after studying hard, he passed it, meaning he could graduate. The day he found out about his score was one of the greatest of his life — not since he was 12, when he found out he was moving to the United States, did he feel so hopeful, he said.

“He’s been through a lot,” said Larson, who is no longer Massaquoi’s teacher but remains a friend. “He’s going through hard times right now. But he manages to get up every day to look for work and take care of his business.”

The ebullience that rests beneath Massaquoi’s serious outlook was on display Sunday, as Larson invited Massaquoi and White over for an early Thanksgiving dinner at her Oakland home. The friends joked, discussed their challenges but also the possibilities they have for the long lives ahead of them.

“I think he will survive,” Larson said. “If the past means anything, he’ll be able to get through anything.”

Source: Inside Bay Area

Vejam porque o outono é a melhor época pra estar em São Francisco:

No jardim de casa

4:20pm

Noite tão clara, que dá pra ver os farois dos carros na Golden Gate

6:00pm, noite fechada

Happy Thanksgiving pra vocês!

Patrick Cress’ Telepathy — Alive and Teething (Telepathic, 2009)

Telepathy is a longtime hidden gem of the local jazz scene, and it’s too bad more people haven’t checked out the way Patrick Cress and Aaron Novik bounce sax/clarinet lines off one another in this energetic quartet. I got to see them live back in June, and as I’d mentioned then, they’ve got a live album out.

Most tracks feature a hard-punching middle-tempo. Tim Bulkley’s drums lay down solid smacking beats that both horns can play off. This lays the foundation for some terrific group work.

The main theme of “The Workout” is chipper and snippy; I love the snappy attitude in the way the sax clips short the first quick note in that line. For Novik’s solo, the band seems to spread out, offering a nice wide space without necessarily slowing down much — elbow room. “Metal Telepathy” buzzes low to the ground (baritone sax plus bass clarinet?) and rocks out with some raspy soloing in front of a busy rhythm section.

So, you don’t get full-tilt Spy Vs. Spy speedballing, but you do get catchy tunes with a heavy stomp to them (sometimes in an odd time signature) followed by solos that blaze and sear, with Cress and Novik egging each other on. Or, sometimes, they’ll solo together in intertwining lines.

The composing certainly draws from players like Ornette Coleman and Tim Berne, but it’s also got Klezmer and world-music twists to it, for a vaguely Eastern European tinge sometimes.

“Powder Monkey” (track 2) features the kind of sinewy, twisting melody I’ve come to associate with these guys. (And it’s in 10/8, I think.) “Optichism” comes in with a languid snakelike pulsing, a vague touch of Asia. It’s the kind of track that’s slow in spirit but not physically slow in tempo, and the theme serves as a launching pad for what eventually becomes a lurching maelstrom.

“Teething” opens the album on the right foot: a chugging little composition that quickly hits a hiccup, a preplanned bump in the groove as it shifts from 6/8 to 4/4, if I’m counting right. That’s followed by an energetic group-soloing stretch. “Hi Hi Pizza Pie” is a seven-beat rhythm with a swingy melody, richly harmonized between the two horns.

Things close out with “Annika’s Lullabye,” a sweet little melody that leads into a free and open-ended, but still sweetly soulful, improv section. It’s like a gospel-tinged free jazz, not far removed from the free jazz of the ’60s. You can hear the crowd noise during the quieter segments here.

wear plaid while you shop on November 27th to show you support for local and independent businesses!!

About Plaid Friday

The name Plaid Friday celebrates the diversity and creativity of Bay Area independent businesses. Envisioned to be the independent business alternative to the big box store “Black Friday”, Plaid Friday is designed to help raise awareness about shopping local and supporting the local economy.

Although the designation of this day is a new concept, the movement towards supporting the independent spirit and “Indie” Businesses of the Bay Area has been growing and expanding year by year. In early 2009, The East Bay Express launched a monthly guide to shopping local called the Indie Resolution, where patrons pledge to spend money at local establishments. Other local movements include Buy Local Berkeley, Oakland Grown and Oakland Unwrapped. Plaid Friday was created by two local independent businesses, Blankspace Gallery and the Compound Gallery, as a way to tie into this movement and elevate the awareness of the abundant and thriving independent businesses located in neighborhoods throughout the East Bay.

Help us celebrate by supporting participating shops on Friday, November 27th and throughout this Holiday season.  benny & I will be offering free shipping when you purchase more than one item on our etsy store through Cyber Monday (11.30.09)!!  Also keep a look out for new low cost shawls for holiday gifting we will be listing this weekend!

Also look for the special plaid placards at your local shops. Many of the participating businesses are offering specials for Plaid Friday. Check out all the participating businesses after the jump!

participating businesses…

1-2-3-4 Go! Records
423 40th Street
Oakland, CA 94609
www.1234gorecords.com
510-985-0325
10% off all merchandise
Plaid Friday Hours: 12pm-7pm

17 jewels salon+spa
4801 telegraph ave
oakland
94609
www.17jewelssalonspa.com
510-653-1059
Offering 10% off on all bumble and bumble haircare products. We will also be drawing for a $105 valued shampoo and conditioner combo from bumble and bumble when you prebook your next salon or spa visit.
Plaid Friday Hours: 10am-7pm

AC Clothing and Bags
www.acafterglow.etsy.com
Free large pouch or wrist bag with every purchase of $50 or more, gift wrap and personalized cards to recipients available upon request free of charge, shipping included on all orders.
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

ALQUIMIA handmade jewelry
alquimia.etsy.com
Free U.S. shipping on any order placed on Nov. 27th
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Art in a Box
Art Subscription Service featuring Bay Area Artists
Sign up in person on Plaid Friday and hand pick your first piece off the wall.
Sign up at The Compound Gallery, 6604 San Pablo Ave, Oakland, CA 94608
www.artinabox.net
Plaid Friday Hours: 12pm-9pm

art@theoakbook
423 Water Street
Oakland CA 94607
www.theoakbook.com
510-967-3250 and 510-761-3418
Plaid Friday Hours: 2pm-6pm

ATOMIC GARDEN
5453 College Ave.
Oakland Ca 94618
www.atomicgardenoakland.com
510-923-0543
offering 15% off on California based designers/products and offer cookies and refreshments
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am-6pm

Aunt Bucky
| bedding | decor | apparel
www.auntbucky.com
831-475-0904

Awaken Cafe
414 14th Street
Oakland, CA 94612
www.awakencafe.com
510-836-2058
Plaid Friday Hours: 8am to 1pm

Bella Ceramica
3982 Piedmont Avenue
Oakland, CA 94611
www.BellaCeramica.com
510-601-7938
check their website for special promotions on Plaid Friday
Plaid Friday Hours: 10am-6pm

Bella Vita
5407 College Avenue
www.bellavitahome.com
510.653.1639
A unique boutique featuring a mix of new and vintage items with a focus on local and independent designers.
Stop by for shopping and holiday treats. Hope to see you!
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am-6pm

Bittersweet Cafe
5427 College Ave
Oakland, CA 94618
www.bittersweetcafe.com
510-654-7159
Plaid Friday Hours:: 8am-9pm

Bittersweet Cafe
730 Camino Ramon, Suite 120
Danville, CA 94521
www.bittersweetcafe.com
925-837-9900
Plaid Friday Hours:: 7am-9pm

Blankspace Gallery
6608 San Pablo Ave
Oakland, CA 94608
www.blankspacegallery.com
510-547-6608
Special reception 6pm-9pm for Holidayland indie gift sale of local artists, designers and craftspeople, photo booth, prizes and
a free gift for the first 50 people to spend $25 or more
Plaid Friday Hours: 12pm-9pm

CC Star Accessories
ccstar.etsy.com
$2.00 off all regular priced cuff bracelets, coin purses, and zipper pouches.
$1.00 off all brooch sets. Vinyl bracelets – Buy One, Get One Free! 1/2 off with the purchase of any regular priced cuff bracelets! Clearance cuffs – Buy one, get one 1/2 off!
Enter “PLAID” in the “Message to Seller” at checkout at to be refunded the discount amount.
Does not apply to gift certificates, custom, or shipping.
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day. Offer good November 27th-30th.

The Compound Gallery
6604 San Pablo Ave
Oakland, CA 94608
www.thecompoundgallery.com
510-655-9019
Special reception 6pm-9pm for Holidayland indie gift sale of local artists, designers and craftspeople, photo booth, prize and
a free gift for the first 50 people to spend $25 or more
Plaid Friday Hours: 12pm-9pm

Cultural Crossroads
www.shopculturalcrossroads.com
Free shipping on all items purchased on Nov. 27th
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Donna Lee Retro
www.etsy.com/shop/donnaleeretro
10% discount on everything
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

The East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse
4695 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA 94609
www.creativereuse.org
510-547-6470
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am-6pm

Enter Eden
www.EnterEden.com
Buy 3 Enter Eden Sea Salt Soaks and get the 4th one FREE!
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Expanded Pathways
3409 Grand Avenue #7
Oakland CA 94160
www.expandedpathways.com
510-332-3980
Sessions by appointment only. Offering an amazing rate for a 60-minute Intuitive Energy Healing session of $40! That’s over 1/2 off, and my way of saying “Thank You” to my clients over the holiday weekend. It’s a great way to de-stress after all that shopping and recover from the Holiday.
Plaid Friday Hours: 9am-6pm

Ezme Designs
www.ezmedesigns.com
10% off any orders and a free bird magnet.
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Farley’s East
33 Grand Avenue, Oakland
510-835-7898
www.FarleysCoffee.com
Plaid Friday Hours:8am-6pm

Form Vintage Modern
5330 College Ave
Oakland CA, 94618
510-757-3755
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am-7pm The Hat Library
1946 Broadway
Oakland, Ca 94612
www.thehatlibrary.net
510-465-6523
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am-6pm

Heart’s Desire Jewelry
www.heartsdesirejewelry.com
20% off every order placed on my website that day. Enter promotional code : OAKUNWRAP
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Herringbone
1527 Shattuck ave. Berkeley, 94706
www.herringboneshop.com
510-649-9442
Cody will be available for treatments the same hours. We will be offering 20% off EVERYTHING in the store Plaid Friday only.
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am-6pm

ISSUES
20 Glen Avenue
Oakland, CA 94611
http://issuesshop.com/
510-652-5700
Plaid Friday Hours: 9am – 8pm

It’s A Grind Coffee House
555 12th Street Suite 105
Oakland, CA 94607
510-268-9902

Plaid Friday Hours: 7am-7pm

It’s Your Move Games & Hobbies
4920 Telegraph Ave
Oakland, California 94609
www.itsyourmovegames.com
510-547-4386
Plaid Friday Hours: 10:3oam- 8:30pm

Jazzy Crafts
3325 Castro Valley Blvd
Castro Valley, CA 94546
510-583-1422
Free gift with each purchase. Plaid Friday Hours:10:30am-7pm

Jen Zahigian, Photography
www.roadsidephotographs.etsy.com
Free Shipping on all purchases made Nov. 27. Type “Plaid Friday” in the Buyer’s Message
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Johansson Projects
2300 Telegraph Ave
Oakland CA 94612
www.johanssonprojects.com
510-444-9140
Exhibition is Earth Engines
Featuring works by: Barry Underwood + Oliver diCicco
10% discount on full inventory of artwork for one day only
Plaid Friday Hours: 12am-6pm

KRISTINE ONLINE
www.kristineonline.com
FREE Living Dead Dolls Pencil Toppers (Set of 3) with purchase of any Living Dead Doll (1 set of pencil toppers per order)
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Kuhl frames + art
412 22nd St.
Oakland CA 9412
www.kuhlframes.com
510-625-0123
Silkscreen concert poster show by LIL TUFFY
200 limited edition posters by one artist.
Plaid Friday Hours: 10:30am-6pm

Little Luxuries Bath and Body Boutique
391 17th Street (between Franklin and Webster)
Oakland, CA 94612
510-451-2707
www.littleluxuriesoakland.com
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am – 6pm
Offering a gift w/ Purchase of $30.00 or more
*We will also be celebrating our 1 year anniversary (there will be snacks and additional specials TBD)

Local 123 – your East Bay coffee fix!
2049 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, CA
www.local123cafe.com
We’ll be hosting free coffee tastings from 2-4pm.
Plaid Friday Hours: 6:30am-7pm

Looking Glass Photo
2848 Telegraph Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94705
www.lookingglassphoto.com
510-548-6888
Toy Camera Day: 20% off of all toy cameras, kits and accessories.
Lomo, Diana, Holga, Superheadz and more! Plaid Friday Hours: 9am-8pm

Looks Good from the Front
looksgood.etsy.com
20% off all orders placed before November 27th. Buyers must enter “Plaid Friday”
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Mangosteen
mangosteenoakland.com
Free shipping for orders placed 11/27
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Manifesto Bicycles
421 40th Street
Oakland, CA 94609
www.wearemanifesto.com
510-595-1155
LEFTOVERS event-lots of odds and ends on sale. Free gift with $75 purchase.
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am-6pm

Mercury 20 Gallery
25 Grand Ave.
Oakland, CA 94612
www.mercurytwenty.com
510-701-4620
Plaid Friday Hours: 4pm-7pm

Mignonne Decor
2447 San Pablo Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94702
510-388-5830
www.jesuismignonne.blogspot.com
www.mignonnedecor.com
On plaid Friday we will be offering a 20% discount on all items in the store (except original works of art).
Plaid Friday Hours: 11:30am-7pm

missprinty
missprinty online
Online Only
Free Shipping on ALL orders placed through 11/27/09
Available 24hours a day

The Moon
447 25th Street
Oakland, CA 94612
themoon-oakland.com
510-922-8373
There will be Tea for All! We will be making custom buttons on our button machines.
Bring in any image on paper {or fabric} you like and we’ll turn it into a button for you!
Plaid Friday Hours: 12pm-6pm

Nailphoria Day Spa
1212 Broadway Suite 910
Oakland, CA
www.nailphoria.com
510-893-2181
Plaid Friday Hours: 10:30am – 4pm

Oaklandish
The Oaklandish truck will be on the corner of
Piedmont Avenue and Pleasant Valley in Oakland on Plaid Friday from 12pm-6pm.
Free reusable Oaklandish logo tote for all purchases over $20.
www.oaklandish.com
info@oaklandish.com
oaklandishtownlove.blogspot.com
Plaid Friday Hours: 12pm-6pm

Oakland Unwrapped
www.oaklandunwrapped.org
info@oaklandunwrapped.org
Various online discounts from our Unwrapped vendors.
Special raffle for website visitors on Nov 27th.
510-663-2253

oo la la! gift & accessories lounge
386 17th Street (between Franklin & Webster)
Oakland 94612
DiaryOfAnOaklandShopGirl.blogspot.com
oolalagiftlounge@aol.com
510-452-5252
10% discount on anything in the store! Plaid Friday only.
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am-5pm

Paco Collars Store
2905 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94705
510- 848-PACO
www.pacocollars.com
20% off that day with 10% ongoing through November.
Plaid Friday Hours: 11-7pm

Pollyannacowgirl Designs
online shop www.pollyannacowgirldesigns.com
805-458-8400
Pollyannacowgirl.com will be offering 20% off all East Bay orders during all 24 hours of Plaid Friday!
Plaid Friday Hours:12pm-11:59pm

The Present Group
www.thepresentgroup.com/plaid
The Present Group is a quarterly art subscription project.
$15 off subscriptions on Nov 27th, Plaid Friday only.
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Rowan Morrison
330 40th St.
Oakland, CA, 94609
www.rowanmorrison.com
510-384-5344
We will be having snacks and drink available, with discounts on selected art books.
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am to 6pm

Rock Paper Scissors Collective
2278 Telegraph Ave
Oakland, CA 94612
www.rpscollective.com
510-238-9171
Free stickers!
Plaid Friday Hours:12pm -7pm

Ruby’s Garden Local-Grown Kidwear
Temescal Plaza next to Genova Deli
5095 Telegraph Ave. #C
Oakland CA 94609
http://www.rubysgarden.com/
510-595-5325
Free balloons and coffee/snacks
Plaid Friday Hours: 10am-6pm (regular hours)

SAGRADA Sacred Arts
4926 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland CA 94609
www.sagrada.com
510-653-7196
Enter a free drawing for a SAGRADA Gift Card
Plaid Friday Hours: 10am -7pm

Scott Courtenay-Smith Studios
www.etsy.com/shop/scottcourtenaysmith
Free shipping for any Nov. 27th orders
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Slash
2840 College Ave
Berkeley, CA 94705
www.slashdenim.com
510-665-5994 upstairs
510-841-7803 downstairs
We will be running a special on graphic t-shirts from 11/27-12/31 : Buy one at regular price and get the second one 40% off.
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am-7pm

SubRosa Coffee
419 40th street
Oakland 94609
510-452-7963
Selling locally made ceramics, fabric java jackets and other neat items. Also FourBarrel bean sales.
Plaid Friday Hours: 8am-6pm

Tikoli
Online store: www.tikoli.com
510-336-1155
Online Store 24/7
15% off with promo code PLAID09

Topps Salon Day Spa
713 Washington Street
Oakland CA 94607
www.toppssalondayspa.com
510-893-2587
Purchase the Express or Pampering PACKAGE for yourself or a loved one
and receive 20% off (ongoing specials for November and December)
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am-6pm

Tribu
6501 San Pablo Ave
Oakland, CA 94608
Offering a Plaid Friday special 2 for 1 drip coffee from 12pm-5pm for patrons who show a receipt from the Holidayland gift sale hosted by their neighbors Blankspace and the Compound Gallery
Or purchase full price items at Tribu first and get a free spin at the Holidayland Wheel O’ Bounty for a chance to win a prize.
Plaid Friday Hours: 7am – 5pm

Urban Indigo
3339 Lakeshore Avenue
Oakland, CA 94610
510-419-0451
www.urbanindigo.com
offering 10% off on Plaid Friday Palid Friday Hours:10am- 6:30pm

Vertical Home Gardens
biovertical.com
Free shipping & planting seeds for all purchases made before 12/29/2009.
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Volta Press
voltapress.etsy.com
25% off all letterpressed cards and books in our Etsy store
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

Yahzi Rose
www.YahziRose.com
50% off all Yahzi Rose T-shirts 11/27/09 only
Online Only
Available 24 hrs a day

WE artspace
768 40th Street
Oakland, CA 94609
www.weartspace.com
415-297-8869
WE will be holding a craft fair called, Stocking Stuffers featuring local artistans, designers and artists who make original items.
Plaid Friday Hours: 11am-4pm

WholeSpeak – Express your whole self.
Emeryville, CA
www.wholespeak.com
Gift certificates for holistic coaching in public speaking and self-expression.
Give the gift of empowerment and presence.
Plaid Friday special: $50/hour (50% off).
Purchase one session or packages up to ten sessions. Acting lessons also available.
info@wholespeak.com.
Available until midnight on Plaid Friday, online only.

Z Cafe and Bar
Restaurant and Bar @
2735 Broadway,
Oakland, CA 94610
www.zcafeandbar.com
510-451-2905
Shoppers Relief Drink Specials: $4 Irish Coffee, $4 Mimosa, $4 Bloody Mary, $4 Hot Toddie, $4 Cosmopolitian, $4 Lemondrop, $4 Gin Gimlet, $4 Wines, $4 Beers,
Plaid Friday Hours:10am – 10pm

**A Plaid Friday After Party**

Penelope Bar and La Borinquena Mex-icatessen
Corner of 11th & Clay (555 12th St Suite 120 , 12th Street Bart Station)
Oakland, CA 94607
510-834-0404

Penelope Bar and Tina Tamale of La Borinquena are joining forces for a Plaid Friday afterparty.
Once everyone is worn out from shopping at fine indie businesses, we are inviting everyone to quench their thirst and fill their bellies with us.
$3 Plaid Friday Shots
$6 Select Signature Drinks
1 cent Indie Special shot if you wear plaid
$6 Tamale Plate with tortilla chips & salsa
Plaid Friday Hours: 6-11p

A year ago today, I can vividly remember exactly what I was doing and who I was with and the situation that I was in… and believe me at that moment I could not even fathom where I would be one year later.  I was in such a bad predicament, that I don’t even think I could look as far as three days or a week.  This year’s Thanksgiving is very special… I am at a place in my life of contentedness and fulfillment that I have not felt for a while and everything in my life makes ridiculous sense!  I am so thankful for many things but these 20 people and memories were vital to this year’s survival… I never stood alone and had all of you right beside me every single step of the way in Faith and Friendship.

Before you start reading, please click the PLAY Button… Some of you might not care for this song, but I’ve always loved it… this song came up on shuffle while I was writing this and it brought to the forefront of my mind, that although this is a love song… I really do feel this way for every single one of you…I know that you will always be there for me as you have been… and I know that regardless of what happens, YOU KNOW MY INTENTIONS and YOU KNOW that I will never fail you… You know that I will be here for you at a drop of a dime…I wish I could hold onto all of you forever even if we all intertwine in each other’s lives for a certain purpose or a moment in time… but I must thank you all for fulfilling my life in more ways than I could ever imagine… [if you are reading this on Facebook, please click on this link chrysantha.wordpress.com]

I just want you close
Where you can stay forever
You can be sure
That it will only get better
You and me together
Through the days and nights
I don’t worry ’cause
Everything’s going to be alright
When the rain is pouring down
And my heart is hurting
You will always be around
This I know for certain

1.  I am so thankful for the unconditional LOVE of my family.  My soul and foundation.  Without them I am nothing.  I am thankful that my Mother, continues to be the ROCK of my Family.  I am thankful for her strength and LOVE for every single one of us… She truly is the Individual who holds my entire family together.  It is her everyday struggle to ensure that we are all taken care of.  [Photo taken on Grandma's 98th Bday - The de Peralta Women L2R Ophelia, Cornelia, Grandma, Mildred, Archelita]

2.  I am thankful that after all of our hard work, the Family Business, that Grandpa would be so very proud of is up and running.

3.  Monica, I am so thankful for your unconditional love and support from DAY ONE!  And no joke, because you walked in a time of my life that was not so pretty, and you stood by me every single tear of the way to see me smile and hear me laugh every night before we go to bed!  You understand me and know how I feel or find the words for thoughts that I have not even thought of yet! Thank you for loving my brother unconditionally… you do not know how much that means to me… And thank you for always looking out for my family too! [Photo taken on one of our first Azul Dates, when I first moved back! remember the guy that kept pestering us if 'someone is in the bathroom?' lol]

4.  Pinsan Ashlee, I am so thankful for your love, understanding, and laughter!  I don’t know how I would have come out of the last three years and specifically the last Fall and Spring without you.  Although we no longer talk everyday, know that you always have a special place in my heart.  You are my soul’s constant gardener. [Photo Taken - January - Other than the fact that the first photo is with you in front of my FAVOURITE theatre in the world, this day is my favorite memory of you, of Us... Our drive through Tilden listening to Marley... You've brought so much soul to my Life that is irreplaceable... and we ended it with MANPUKU - what a perfect day! ]

5. Teri Anne, I am so thankful that after 12 years we are still best of friends.  I am thankful that you were able to come visit this year and I had the fortune to finally meet Jaden.  You are one of the strongest women I know, I continue to look up to you and draw strength from your daily courage. [Photo: Taken April 9th - Teri, Jaden, Auntie Faye - and LOL to you taking the photo with me pushing the stroller... yeah, the one and only 'Mommy-like' photo of me EVER!]

6. After almost 10 years, I thank God for finally bringing Nahwal and I together.  We began this summer sitting at Ocean Beach sharing our stories of heartache.  Within a month, with each other’s love, support, and “tell-it-like-it-is” attitude, we haven’t looked back ever since.  This summer would have been incomplete without you!  I have so many favorite memories of us, but I must share with you that the night (8/15) we fell asleep in the car in East Oakland and woke up on the 16th of August… I needed that Nahwal, more than you probably ever knew… you allowed me to wake up that morning at the Lake… my soul needed that to heal some hurt I still carried with me… and I love you for allowing me to.. then to top that day off.. Ghostface/Meth/Red… =)  ‘Like this Like this’… [Photos taken on our #1 Happiest Ocean Beach day ever, #2 on 8/16 Oakland, and #2 on 8/16 Minna - Meth/Red/Ghostface concert to celebrate your entrance to RT school]

7. I am thankful that my Grandmother celebrated her 98th Birthday this year!  Grandma we love you!  [photo taken on her 98th Birthday L2R: Brother, Grandma, Me]

8. Makai, you are my BROTHER.  Words cannot explain the love I have for you.  You appreciate, encourage, and unconditionally love me for everything that I am and everything that I am not.  We are going on three years and I am so thankful you are in my life.   This year, I also thank you for introducing me to Jen! [Photo taken at Meesh & B's wedding - YOU MAKE THE PERFECT WEDDING DATE!]

9. Miss JennyLowLow, I am so thankful that you entered my life this year.  Thank you for being genuine, understanding, loving, and strong.  Thank you for allowing me in your life when your Dad was ill and sharing in in his memory.  I know that everyday he looks down on you and is so proud of the Woman you have become – as I am proud of you… I am thankful for our L.A. roadtrip which put life in so much perspective for me.  I love you and I cannot wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for us. [1st Photo taken the night we met at the Beat Battle & I am so thankful that we did ... in so many ways you are the sister I never had! 2nd Photo from our beloved LA trip.]

10. Mochi, I thank you for your unconditional love.  We went through so much these last few years but you were always there to make me smile and show me love.  You have accepted me even when I was being down right retarded with the choices I was making with my life.  I could do no wrong in your eyes… I think you always knew I’d wake up and eventually fix my mistakes.  I love you and I hope you love your new home my Lil’  Mama! [Photo Taken this past September]

11. I met you when I was 18! wow… and Vikki, after all this years, I am so glad that you are still in my life, and if anything we have become so much closer.  I am so happy that you are happy!  You deserve the BEST in this world!  Also, thank you for introducing me to one of my favorite memories of this year, our camping trips… all because of Lucas! The both of you have brought so much LAUGHTER in my Life and thank you for letting me FEED YOU and your Families!  Thank You to the both of you for two priceless memories this year!!! [Photos taken on our first Bodega  Bay trip of the Year!]

12. I am Thankful for reaching another year in Remission after last summer’s scare and for reminding me not to take my health forgranted!  I am thankful that everyday I see the blue of the sky and every night I am able to enjoy the twinkle of the stars.  I am thankful that my toes can sink in the grain of sand and feel the cool of the ocean water on my skin.  I am thankful that I am alive and full of love FOR and love FROM so many people.  Lastly I am thankful for my friend, Halline who spent my remission day with me with two of my favorite things Japanese Food (Manpuku) and Baseball.  You have to know how happy and difficult it is for me everytime 9/11 comes around every year… thank you for sharing it with me.

13. I am thankful for Tomas Alvarez walking into my life… It is very rare that I am blessed with people as soulful, aware, full of love, and purposeful intention.  In only a few months you have helped me find the balance I’ve been lacking in my nursing career by giving me a positive outlet to share my Light. Thank you for also recognizing and acknowledging the Little Things that you do… and I cannot be more grateful to all of the beautiful people that have entered my life because of you! [Photo #1 taken at BRL Anniv Party @ Club 6 / Photo #2 taken at Lake County, BRL Retreat *John's face looks like that because while we are waiting for the timer to go off, I didn't know that I was crushing his already injured finger with my feet, but he stayed silent like a trooper! LOL* / Photo #3 taken at the Cultural Comptency Summit at Hyatt on 11/17]

14. I am thankful that the stars brought me and Jaseon together… another Soul Survivor who truly understands what it means to be One. Jaseon you remind me that I am not alone =) [Photo taken at Doin' it at the Park with our dope ass matching Fedoras!]

15. One of my favorite memories this year was celebrating Spring with Ashlee and “My Ladies“… Thankful for opening the Spring season of newness in Oakland with Pinsan. [Photo taken in Ashlee's Oakland Hill's home during Sunset, March 20th - Vernal Equinox]

16. Thankful for my wonderful birthday in Hawaii this year.  One of my favorite memories of this year was jumping of the Waimea rock.  Such a great experience… all of that adrenaline rushing through your body… fear, excitement, happiness all at once… You remember how ALIVE you are… and at the end you feel nothing but AMAZING!

17. I am thankful for my FreedomBirds, my one and only chosen tattoo for this year that I share with Pinsan and will forever connect us =) … and the day I made them I aimed you: “I AM FREE, SO ARE YOU and WITHOUT WORDS the Birds symbolize our goals and Forward Movement and Freedom FROM EXPECTATIONS”.  [Photo taken @ Ricky's Tattoo on March 15, 2009; Alameda]

18. I am thankful for Oakland.  You loved me in more ways than one this past year in my happiness, solitude, and in my despair.  You gave me a breeze when I could not catch my breath, you showered my winter nights with beautiful stars and warm air so that I could sleep in the comfort of the outdoors, you introduced me to the most caring strangers who reached out to help me when I could not help myself, you gave me the Lake to vent hours of thoughts, and you showed me the beauty of diverse people who unite time and time again striving to create a better community through music, art, and social justice. Oakland you held yourself up despite so much adversity this past year and I am proud.  [Photo #1 - A walk around Lake Meritt as the people began to gather at the courthouse in the wake of the Oscar Grant murder January 21. Photo #2 Oscar Grant Rally through the streets of Oakland January 23]

19.  Bear, Bear, Bear… we have come a long way from endless talks on my couch to drunken messed up nights and bitching about our exes… =0) I am so proud of you and all of your accomplishments.  I am so thankful for you Bear, probably more than anyone when I was in my horrible state last year… It was crazy… and you stood by me… with no criticsm only encouragement.  You NEVER LET ME FALL and you held me up every single step of the way… You are irreplaceable in my life… i truly miss our Dim Sum Sundays…!  [photo taken at Manpuku... one of my favorite nights with you... I love watching you eat!]

20. I am so very thankful for my beautiful home.  My family rests their hearts in a comfortable, gorgeous, peace inspiring house that we all deserve after a very difficult two years.   We were brought here as a family for a special reason…

21.  2 +1 = 3 … and Three, that’s my favorite number… We have an undeniable connection that even though we are at compete opposite edges of this country we manage to maintain a friendship like no other..  You and I are two very unique individuals and it has definitely been influenced to the way we were raised… There is NO ONE ELSE IN MY LIFE that can share the experience of growing up by the sea…  Germaine, I appreciate all of your LOVE for me… you tap into my soul like no other.  Like I’ve said before, I could only be so fortunate to find a man like you on my side of country… Happy Thanksgiving…

22.  Peeda… I am thankful for you because there is NO ONE ELSE that I KNOW that will GIVE AS MUCH as you do right from the get… I know that your friendship is unique in deed… You also entered my life at the beginning of the storm, and I was practically a stranger, but you reached your hand out and helped me without me ever asking… I am thankful that you are in my life you are a genuine friend.. and have always kept it real with me…

23.  I am thankful, for exactly a year ago, I woke up from a three year coma — I finally chose ME and left him.  Although it was a struggle here and there to finally rid myself of this disease an unhealthy addiction, it was a year ago that I finally took the initial steps so that I could stand up against the past and move onto a better future.  And I have never been happier and more content in my life.  But I am not angry, for you taught me what Love means and what it DOESN’T mean.  Through our relationship I saw the TRUE me… I saw the amazing things I failed to see about myself for so many years… You challenged me more than anyone ever has and through all of the hardship you caused, I rose from the depths of my despair and pain and blossomed into a person I could have never imagined myself to be.  I am STRONGER, WISER, and more APPRECIATIVE of the people around me because when I was with you I LOST SIGHT of SO MANY THINGS… specially ME.  I will never ever forget to LOVE ME FIRST ever again, and I thank you for teaching me that lesson.  Today I celebrate a year of being FREE.

I was blessed enough to catch bay area beat bully egadz about a month back, as he hit up Seattle via the always solid STOP BITING night @ Lo-Fi Lounge. Dude mashed through his set on the mpd with surgical dexterity despite being admittedly sloshed, this video gives you at taste of what homie can do.

His latest and last album is called egadz is dead, and at aforementioned show he said it would be the last night he was performing under said moniker, citing a desire to move on to a new project. So treat your ears,  sample and support egadz music here or here.

Everyone, have a groovy Turkey Day!

Join me on facebook

Cheers,
Mark
oneculture
For those who love jeans

Available @ The BLUES Jean Bar (they ship WORLD WIDE!):

NOTE: the jeans run 2X larger than your natural waist size. This was done more so for shrinkage purposes, as you will lose a size after the first washing. Keep this in mind if you opt to place an order by phone. And enjoy!

1827 Union St
San Francisco, CA‎
(415) 346-4280

‎377 Santana Row
San Jose, CA 95128
(408) 899-4012

1409 Montana Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90403
(310) 656-7898

2210 N. Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60614
(773) 248-5326

My mind simply goes to my heart this Thanksgiving Eve.  This tradition of gathering around with our family and friends to enjoy a special meal that is prepared for the occasion, brings into my thoughts the real spirit of this holiday.

Our nation and world continues to feel the weight of a severe economic crisis, the continuing wars abroad and the fight for equality for many of us.  Yet, amidst all of this seemingly chaotic, dismal environment I have found thankfulness in my life.

I am thankful for a partner who has weathered the storms of life with me for the past 11 years and we find ourselves still growing.  Through it I have found love and found that it is not stagnant but forever growing and changing as we change.  I marvel at this continual discovery and I am grateful for him.

I am grateful for four wonderful children who weathered a divorce and a dad coming out of the closet.  Tumultuous times came upon all of us but we were able to rely on love. That pulled us through all these years and into the happiness we enjoy now.  They are the treasure of my heart.

I can not say enough about my mother and my siblings. They and their families have been anchors to me. This last year we all reunited because of the death of a sister-in-law, but out of that sadness we have become closer.  I ma thankful for them.

I am surrounded by friends across all walks of life in a sea of true diversity. I am enriched and strengthened by them.  I give them special thanks because without them I would have never been able to navigate the rough waters of life or celebrate the best moments of life.

I love my job and this life in the bay area.  It is home to me.  I am so filled with thankfulness for this place.

Thanksgiving is my song today, tomorrow and the rest of my life.

With today’s increasing energy costs, it makes sense to live in an energy efficient home. If you are contemplating a shift to the San Jose area and the home of your choice is not energy-efficient, there is no need to rule it out.

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, federal tax incentives are available for upgrades to existing homes. Such incentives have been increased to $1500 based on 30% of the improvement cost. These cover heating and air-conditioning upgrades and building envelope improvements including window insulation. 30% credits are available without any ceiling for on-site renewable products like solar hot-water, solar photovoltaic systems, geothermal heat pumps and small wind-powered systems.

The additional expenditure in upgradation of a home is worth it, in terms of savings in utility bills. Upgradation to energy-efficient standards is generally focused on improved performance and efficiency of lighting, heating, cooling, water usage and appliances. A professional energy auditor could conduct a study and furnish a report with suggestions and possible cost savings.

Get a realtor to help you find an energy efficient home

Dale Warfel is a realtor who has been working in the Bay Area for nearly 13 years. He is aware of the shift towards environmentally-friendly, energy-efficient homes and the benefits in such an investment. Dale Warfel will recommend a reliable energy audit company to study a home in San Jose or a neighborhood of your preference and evaluate the savings against increased cost of upgradation. Talk to him at 408.624.6202 or visit his website at www.dalewarfel.com. Above all, if he shows you a home you like and its not energy-efficient, don’t let that deter you.

I finally got to read and finish a book sent to me as a birthday gift by a dear friend of mine.

The story is about two very close friends, who bond as best buddies from a very young age. What is remarkable about this book that its entirely composed of letters, notes, instant messages, emails and the like.

The pattern of communication and narration is passed on as  a tradition to the next generation in the movie and spans almost the entire life of two characters: Rosie and Alex.

Due to course corrections in both of their lives, they end up living in different countries but stay in touch throughout the entire book.

I thought if the two characters had been a bit more open about their communications, they could have avoided a lot of chaos that became a part of their lives.

Also, since it covers almost their entire lives, it does take effort to complete the story as more and more variables are introduced over time. At times, I almost lost track of a few characters who made a comeback of sorts at various times.

If you are looking forward to reading a nice romantic story that needs patience, then I would recommend you read this one. Liked the style of narration, just messages in different formats and using different technologies.

I am also sure you will find instances of your own life if you have had the chance to make some very good friends by exchanging notes.

There are lots of good reasons to eat organic fruits. They are tasty because they are grown naturally without the use of synthetic fertilizers. They would have acquired nutritional elements from the soil at a natural rate which makes them healthy to eat and tasty. Locally grown produce are recommended by doctors and dieticians for consumption, as they are grown in their own season without the use of pesticides and artificial growth formulas. 

Children are more sensitive to pesticides than adults, so it’s important to order fresh fruits that are grown naturally. If you would like to order edible fruit baskets that are nutritious and healthy, contact Hi5 Produce today. This company delivers fruit baskets to all the communities residing in the Bay area, California. They don’t deliver to homes, but to offices and corporate companies. But you can take home the Home Fruit Box so that your family can get a taste of these delicious fruits. Call (408) 778-6476 or email Hi5 Produce at chris@hi5produce.com.

Come and party with UFC’s Anthony “RUMBLE” Johnson and KNOXX tomorrow at Slide in San Francisco!! Come and have a drink with us…. Lets get him drunk tomorrow!!

Take one a day and you will KNOXX out all your opponents!

Vegan Ice-Cream...Yum!

Everyone’s talking about veganism—from my college roommate to talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. Alicia Silverstone even wrote a new book about her experiences as a vegan.

That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals couldn’t have come at a better time. Author and illustrator Ruby Roth explains vegan- and vegetarianism to kids using simple text and striking artwork. Praised by Booklist as “A unique effort that is to be applauded,” this book has been discussed all over the web. If you haven’t had a chance to read That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals, or if you’ve read it and want more, bring your children by Café Gratitude in Berkeley on December 12 for a vegan ice-cream social, reading, and book signing! Admission is FREE!

December 12, 2009, 1-3pm
Café Gratitude
www.CafeGratitude.com
1730 Shattuck Ave @ Virginia
Berkeley, CA 94709
510-725-4418

To learn more about Ruby Roth, That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals, and the upcoming vegan ice-cream social, please visit www.WeDontEatAnimals.com.

I can’t say I’m surprised about this person’s alleged misconduct. My past impression was that something shady was going on, especially when I was politely told that I was no longer welcome at the budget meetings, despite being the only student representative. This was of course among other seemingly suspect courses of action, such as paying I believe it was $10,000-$15,000 for a one day meeting facilitator, while in the same year making drastic personnel cuts.

I can say that my experiences in the CC system make me think that this is not uncommon, and budget cuts made at the local level are often motivated by personal pet projects or in the name of nepotism rather than absolute necessity or even on the basis of what is best for the Community College (or district) itself. Case in point, drastic cuts were made to the athletic department of a certain CC, eventhough it was one of the most profitable departments in that the student athletes had the highest transfer rate of any other extra-curricular department. Meaning they transferred out quicker than others, not hanging around and staying in the general ed classes. Hopefully if the courts do get involved, similar past actions of this person will be looked into and investigated thoroughly.

I sincerely hope this mess gets sorted out, and quick.

ETA: In the sense of fairness, I would like to say that while I do believe some or perhaps many of these “expenses” could be justified, although they stretch the limits of the function of the position in question, IMO, they are not appropriate a) for a small regional CC district; and b) are entirely inappropriate in the face of the drastic cuts facing CCs and educational institutions in general. If you were a chancellor at Stanford, for example, then I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with international trips and expensive capital, since it is probably more necessary to maintain the image of the internationally known university with its extravagant  tuition & endowment funding to match.

This is the third report for my How Do You Jew? project on Jewish identity.

Rose Suttner Barlow grew up a Jewish girl in Apartheid South Africa, a minority within a minority within a minority. Her minority status as a Jew within the white population in overwhelmingly black Africa was obvious. Her minority status within the Jewish community was a result not of demographics, but of the traditionally limited role of women in Jewish life at that time and place. Years later, as the Apartheid system was dismantled in her homeland, Rose learned of a more diverse, inclusive Judaism and gained equal rights as a Jewish woman thousands of miles away in her adopted country, the United States.

South Africa

Rose’s Jewish journey has been a lifelong one, and it has paralleled her physical travels away from her childhood home in a   tightly knit Jewish neighborhood in Johannesburg to Cape Town,the DeBeers diamond mines, England, Scotland, and finally to Marin County north of San Francisco, where she has settled to raise her family. As Rose increasingly engaged in the wider, non-Jewish world and encountered diversity that was heretofore unknown to her, she shed many of the communal and ritual aspects of Judaism that had never fully or satisfyingly been incorporated into her identity. It was only once she became a mother and came to live in the liberal, diverse and tolerant Bay Area Jewish community that she found that there was a way back into Jewish life that provided her meaning and purpose.

In many ways, Rose has reinvented herself Jewishly, but she believes she had done so on the basis of a strong cultural foundation. “Even though I was alienated from Jewish communal life [for many years], I was never alienated from my Jewish self,” she says. Rose’s parents became baalei teshuvah when she was in her 20’s and her mother became ill with cancer (she died not long afterwards in 1986), but this was many years after Rose’s experiences growing up with parents who were at the time ethnically and culturally Jewish, rather than shul-going shomrei mitzvot.

A South African farthing from 1960, the year Rose was born

Rose was born in Johannesburg in 1960 to a mother whose intellectually inclined family immigrated to South Africa from Lithuania and Russia during WWI, and a father who came from a more business oriented family that had been in the country for three generations. Her father was a member of the first generation in his family to go to college, becoming an electrical engineer and going into the family business manufacturing car radios (founded by his father who had had no higher education). Rose’s mother, whose own mother had been accepted to medical school and father was a lawyer, studied social work.

As a school girl, Rose attended a whites-only public school with a large Jewish student population owing to the fact that the neighborhood was predominantly Jewish. Her parents did not send her to a cheder or afternoon Jewish studies program, leaving her formal Jewish education to the once a week session in which Jewish children were separated from the other students into their own class (for religious instruction) and given workbooks on Jewish topics from which to teach themselves. The Jewish Board of Deputies had worked out this arrangement with the public school authorities, apparently leaving teachers to instruct the children out of the plan.

Although Rose’s father’s parents went to synagogue regularly (a Modern Orthodox one, which was the normative form of Judaism at the time in this particular community), her parents did not. They did not keep kosher or regularly light the Shabbat candles, but Rose and her younger brother were kept home from school on every Jewish holiday and her brother officially marked his becoming bar mitzvah.

She did participate in the Habonim Zionist youth group for a short time, though she did not attend its summer camp. Nonetheless, Rose developed a strong attachment to Israel from her first visit at the age of thirteen and from her knowledge of her mother’s close relationship with a cousin and good friend who lived there. Her self-education on the Holocaust through reading works on the bookshelves at home also helped shape her identity.

Perhaps if President Obama had been leading the seders, Rose's experience would have been more positive. It appears that the President knows how to engage a crowd, even around a seder table.

The message Rose received from her family and her community was that she was expected to succeed in secular life, but that advancement as an adult Jew was not an option. She recalls sitting at the foot of the very long Pesach seder table year after year, unable to hear anything but the mumbling of the older men at the head. The most she could have hoped for would be her eventual move to the middle of the table, to the women’s section, once she was a mother. She characterizes her Jewish upbringing and identity formation as overall positive. “I learned by osmosis by having been placed in my formative years in settings where I was surrounded by Jews.” But she adds, “The gender message remained problematic.”

By the time Rose was in late elementary school and high school, she was aware of the political situation in South Africa and that among those standing up against Apartheid were many Jews, most of whom were very secular and on the extreme left (In fact, a distant cousin on her father’s side was imprisoned on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela). Many of Roses’s teachers were Jewish and exposed their students to the situation more than was done in other schools. Roses’s classes took field trips and was twinned with a school in Soweto. Rose herself, when she was an older high school student and in college, was personally acquainted with fellow young Jews who were members of the National Union of Student Leaders fighting against Apartheid, some of whom were conscientious objectors against the military draft.

Nelson Mandela revisiting his cell at Robben Island in 1994

“You could not sit on the fence,” Rose says about Apartheid. “Either you were for it or against it.” Against it, Rose chose contribute to the cause through her profession. She studied at the University of Witswatersrand for two years and transferred to the University of Cape Town to finish her Bachelors degree in psychology and industrial sociology. Upon graduation, she went to work in industrial relations in the mining industry for five years in the mid-1980’s. Rose was a member of a team that worked as change agents at De Beers, making significant strides toward eliminating the culture of (white) managerial violence against (black) mine workers through the implementation and enforcement of newly developed policies.

A book of interviews with Jewish South African activists, edited by Rose's brother, Immanuel Suttner,

Proud of the impact she had made, Rose chose to leave South Africa with her fiance (now her husband) so that he could return to his native England to pursue an advanced degree. Although the couple left for personal-educational reasons, it is evident that the question of the quality of their future life in Apartheid South Africa was lurking in the background. Unbeknownst to them, secret talks that would lead to the dismantling of Apartheid were already underway as the two of them were packing up and departing for London.

Rose and her husband, who is not Jewish and has not converted, were married soon after they arrived in England. They remained in the UK for seven years, living in both England and Scotland, where Rose worked in human resources in the oil industry. Rose claims that although she was not associating herself with the Jewish community during those years, she “never lost touch with [her] internal Jewish clock.” When a holiday came around, it was if she had “an atavistic impulse to get off the merry-go-round to contemplate or celebrate.” In 1994, while living in Aberdeen which was devoid of Jews save for Rose, she suddenly had the desire to have a Pesach seder – just for her and her husband. So, she travelled all the way to Glasgow to buy the required pesadik supplies.

In 1996, Rose, her husband and their baby daughter left the UK to start the next chapter in their lives in California. Here, they had a second daughter, and both girls are receiving a solid Jewish education in day schools,synagogue programs, Jewish camps and youth groups. Her older daughter has already become bat mitzvah and her younger one is preparing for hers next year. The Jewish Community Center (JCC) nursery school in their town was the gateway to an active Jewish life involving not only education for the girls, but also plenty of adult Jewish educational programming and a variety of volunteer, philanthropic and lay leadership roles in the Bay Area Jewish community for Rose.

Madame A.F. Aude and her two daughters, 1899, Mary Cassatt

Rose always had the Jewish proclivity for analysis and debate, and she has applied this to her recent study of Jewish texts. She finds that her increased Jewish and Hebrew literacy has allowed her to really grow in her Judaism. Rose describes it as “a virtuous cycle. The increased literacy promotes increased engagement, which in turn leads me to yet more learning.”

Rose is very grateful to now live in a community where Jewish pluralism is celebrated. When she was a girl in South Africa, she had no inkling that the Jewish community could include anyone other than Lithuanian and Polish Jews. Similarly, she had not had the opportunity to establish close connections with people of different ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds until she went out into the challenging world of the mining industry to try to make a difference. It has been through her discovery of the other that she has been able to rediscover and re-imagine her Jewish self.

It is not uncommon for Jewish women of Rose’s generation to reconnect with their Judaism and the Jewish community through their children. It is an especially pointed experience for a woman who felt Jewishly disenfranchised as girl to be able to empower her daughters. Few women, however, have travelled as far as Rose has in order to come home.

© 2009 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.