I grew up in a white conservative suburb outside of San Francisco. Concord was still a pretty rural place when my family moved there in 1962. Though our neighborhood seemed pretty good at the time, as an adult I've come to understand it was a fairly rough white trash… Read full post »

 

I knew going into the Occupy Oakland May Day Strike that it could be a rough day. I kept trying to talk myself out of going, and as it was, I couldn't get myself to show up until 11:30 AM. I had a feeling of dread; I was pretty sure… Read full post »

 

 

A few days ago I saw a tweet claiming that an affinity group of Occupy SF called SF Commune would be “liberating a building” on April 1st. I clicked on the link and learned that this appeared to be a real plan, and not a hoax April Fools joke.… Read full post »

 

Monday, March 5 saw two different, yet complimentary protests regarding education that came to California's State Capitol, Sacramento.

At 10AM, an annual event called the March In March took place. Thousands of students, along with teachers, parents, and concerned citizens, marched fr… Read full post »

 

  

There were a couple of attractive sounding Occupy actions in my area for Valentine's day. One of the things that sounded enticing was they were both very peaceful sounding. They made for a good day off, and a productive way to spend Valentine's day as a single person.… Read full post »

 

Valentine's day can be a pretty strange, weird and charged day. Not really a holiday, and it's not much fun if you're single. I've been single about 5 years now, and it's been quite a progression. The first year, I went into a See's Candy store, bought 1.5… Read full post »

 

 

Aquapy Lake Merritt

I spent a lot of Monday on the couch, sleeping, replenishing and decompressing from the weekend. After the long day of Occupy on Saturday I was beat. I'm not complaining, and it felt like a productive kind of tired. But, there was a lingering uneasiness, a… Read full post »

 

 

Saturday, Occupy Oakland had their largest action since the Port Shutdown in December. It was “Move In Day”, and the intention was to Occupy a vacant building. I wasn't really sure how I felt about this action, partly due to the necessity of the Occupiers having to ke… Read full post »

 

 

Friday, Jan 20^th was a day of national Occupy Protests named Occupy The Courts. These demonstrations were in protest of corporate personhood, and took place at Federal courthouses in about 80 cities, including Oakland and San Francisco. In San Francisco, an ev/… Read full post »

 

Last week's Republican Debate was hard to watch if you're gay. At least it was for me. I quit midway through Mitt Romney's condescending response to questions about gay marriage. What those guys are all saying is I am lesser than them.

It's a morality play based on scriptures,… Read full post »

 

 

January 8^th was the 1 year anniversary of the Tucson shooting that killed 6 people and wounded 13 others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Throughout the country a “Too Many Victims Lost To Gun Violence” Vigil took place to remember that, in at least 68 cit… Read full post »

 

  

Yesterday morning, I woke up at the unnatural hour of 4:30 AM to get to the first part of the Occupy Oakland shutdown of the Port Of Oakland. This was a part of an attempt to close all the ports on the West Coast. It took me a while… Read full post »

 

Thanksgiving. Thankfulness. Gratitude. What are we blessed with? What am I blessed with?  Finding myself in the midst of upheaval, at one of several ground zeros in our broken country, I still take moments to pause and reflect on the goodness in the world, the kindness I have found in… Read full post »

 

 

Saturday afternoon Occupy Oakland had a march. It wandered through downtown, to a school in the Grand Lake district, then back downtown to establish a new camp. This time the camp was set up at 19^th and Telegraph in an abandoned parking lot.

The march was a fine… Read full post »

 

This past Tuesday night, I went to Occupy Cal to show my support for a short while. I arrived just as the students were finishing their general assembly and they had decided to set up tents on the steps of Sproul Hall later. After the violence that had been… Read full post »

Have you ever spent time waiting for someone close to you to die? Then you know the feeling of being mired in an unknown void, where one doesn't know if it will be that weekend, that afternoon, that hour. A sickened feeling deep in your gut, that premonition that something/…

Read full post »

Yesterday a new Occupy Protest was started at UC Berkeley, at Sproul Plaza, in front of Sproul Hall. They’ve named themselves Occupy Cal, and they are protesting the high costs of the UC college system. Some students put up a few tents, which ended up being taken down by… Read full post »

 

 

_{Written at 9 PM, Wed Eve, the day of the General Strike by Occupy Oakland:}

Last night the wind was whipping around Oakland in an ominous way. Doors kept banging around in my apartment, and I fell asleep hoping nature wasn't setting things up for another difficult day here.… Read full post »

 

Tuesday of this week was one of the bleakest days in Oakland’s history. The events I covered on that morning were terrible enough, what happened later that evening was unforgivable. The thing I had seen on the faces of the officers that morning, the look of hate and anger,/… Read full post »

 

 

 

Today is a sad day in the city I love, Oakland. This morning at 2:45 AM I received a text message that a raid was imminent at the Occupy Oakland camp at Frank Ogawa Plaza. I had promised myself I would go any hour of the day. I… Read full post »

 

 

 

The Avenues Of Occupation

He was hallucinating animals again, animals lurking and preying, animals shape changing and species changing. These adaptations, these reminders wandered in and out of consciousness. That afternoon, a lioness was sitting on a high chair behind his… Read full post »

  

  

 

Though I call Oakland my hometown, I grew up over the hills in the suburb of Concord. Next door to Concord is Walnut Creek, a fairly bland but pleasant middle to slightly upper middle class town. It has a nice shopping area downtown, with a Nordstrom and a… Read full post »

 

 

Oakland has been my home for 23 years. I love its diversity, its culture, its weather. I love my neighborhood, where everyone mixes, and where I can walk to just about everything I need. When I learned the Occupy movement was coming here, I was glad, satisfied that Oakland… Read full post »

 

 

 

Democracy smiled a little yesterday. It's face was about 600 people strong, people of many ages and walks of life, people with one thing in common, that they felt it's finally time to say something.

Here on the west coast I've been becoming aware of the movement… Read full post »

 

Yes, YouTube is handing out big money for high quality, radical new entertainment content. And I have the inside scoop on one high paying video!

Last week, I got an email from them to apply for revenue sharing for my video of the various protestors at the Racist… Read full post »