Ah, Oakland

I do feel like a slacker-- I finally navigated around this Live Journal site enough to find the "manage friends" button-- I never knew where it was! So, those of you who notice that I'm now among your friends, that was the problem-- I don't know how to use this site. I don't know why it's so counterintuitive for me.

So, Oakland. Some small observations:

If a car alarm goes off (honk honk honk honk honk honk honk) it will automatically continue for 60 seconds, and then shut off, and then 30 seconds later go off again (honk honk honk honk honk honk), and then 15 seconds later shut off. I will let you know if there is a reprise this evening of my minute of honking. It's great! So musical.

Another observation. When they tagged all the trees at the south end of Lake Merritt (the urban lake where I live) with 8x5 red paper tree removal permits, I was outraged. Then I learned more about the project, had some constructive dialogue with the project manager, and slowly found my comfort zone with the future death of all these beautiful trees (I'm not talking about the sick, ugly Monterey pines, I mean the Magnolias and Cherry Trees). Then I had a real Oakland moment-- I noticed that someone had *tagged* the tree removal permit- on a little scraggly pine in the middle of a median. So, ANY space that is somehow delineated as a rectangle is game for getting tagged? It cracks me up every time I walk by it. It makes me want to wheatpaste a variety of blank pieces of paper on vertical surfaces around my neighborhood to see if I can induce the taggers to tag. How small does a rectangle have to be before taggers pass it by? How obscurely placed?

A final Oakland moment to leave you with: the image of Huey from the Boondocks, on a huge lit-up billboard glowering down at the T-junction of International and 2nd. It cheers me up every time I'm coming home, his politically outraged scowl presiding over that portion of my walk. I'm so glad Aaron McGruder got his own show. I was a fan of that comic online before the papers around here starting picking it up. He wasn't sure he could stick with it, but here he is, with an animated weekly show. And his own billboard at the mouth of that river of urbanity, International Boulevard.

p.s. Yes, there was a reprise. At midnight on the nose. Like an infernal urban grandfather clock. Honk honk honk honk honk honk honk honk honk honk honk honk