Michael L.
Anyone who follows my writings knows that I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In fact, I lived in a variety of apartments in San Francisco with Laurie throughout the late 1990s and 00s before we purchased a home in the Laurel District of Oakland. I have lived in North Beach, two separate residences in the Richmond District, and the Excelsior in SF. Now we own a place in the Oakland foothills and I love our neighborhood, in part because I love good food.
I am actually kind-of a skinny guy. I do not really eat that much, but I used to cook for a living and know a thing or two about deliciousness. The worst food on the planet comes from people with money and the best food comes from the poor. Nobody on this planet eats worse than the ignorant rich.
I live on the cusp of rich people and poor people. If I look east, toward the Oakland hills, I see the homes of the wealthy. If I look west, toward downtown, I see ghetto between here and there.
Downtown, itself, is actually doing pretty well and Oakland, in general, while always struggling, is seeing some very interesting development in various spots around the city and Laurie and I are even considering buying into Oakland's waterfront area just opposite the cute island town of Alameda, which, itself, is just east across the Bay from San Francisco.
I am not jumping into anything, but we shall see. One thing is certain, more and more white, middle-class, upward-mobile yupsters are buying housing in the East Bay because San Francisco is just too damn expensive. The median home price there is now upwards of one million dollars and it is turning San Francisco into a ginger-bread town. I love the place but, year upon year, it is becoming more a tourist destination than a place for people to live... but this has been going on for a long time.
In any case, come next month we are having the Laurel Street Fair, which actually takes place on MacArthur Boulevard but who is counting?
This is a little video concerning the upcoming event that one of my neighbors put together and it says a lot about the best of human diversity.
People from a huge variety of backgrounds can, in fact, live in harmony. We have not seen a whole lot of JayinPhiladelphia recently, but I know for certain that he would agree with that sentiment.
This is diversity in its positive aspect.
Not only do I get to see these beautiful women dance, but I am within a stone's throw of great Chinese good, great Soul good, great Indian good, great Japanese good, great Pakistani good, and a new joint that just opened up down the road called Sequoia that is bringing the regular American diner to the next level.
This, obviously, is not my usual kind of post. I am not bitching about the heinous Obama administration and its loathsome foreign policy in the Middle East and I am not fretting over what I have to say that it might be more acceptable to university professors or the editors of news.
But sometimes it is nice to look out your window and know where you are.
{This piece is for Jay.}
Go Giants!
Go A's!
We live where we are and, I have to tell you, I am exceedingly happy to live where I do.
The Giants play in AT&T Park while the A's play in the Oakland Coliseum, otherwise known as "the bunker."
The park is beautiful. The bunker is not.
I've actually learned to appreciate the bunker. I cannot get sushi - not that I would ever want to eat sushi there - but the fans are one hell of a lot more fun. These are not polite upscale yuppies, but rowdy working-class people who scream their bleeding heads off.
In fact, I am becoming more and more convinced that there is a direct and mathematical correspondence to the downfall of the United States and the lack of baseball brawls in recent decades.
:O)
What does it say about the character of the United States if we are no longer having baseball brawls?
Anyone who knows anything about American baseball knows about the ugly rivalry between the noble New York Yankees and the insidious Boston Red Sox.
In 1973 the Yanks slugged it out with the Sox and Red Sox pitcher, Bill Lee - who I actually have considerable fondness for - claimed that seeing the Yankees fight was like watching a bunch of women sling around their purses. I am paraphrasing, but this is essentially what he told the Boston press at the time.
Three years later, in Yankee Stadium, Yankee third-basemen, Graig Nettles (a palooka, for sure) absolutely kicked Bill Lee's ass.
He was later quoted as saying something like, "I just did not want Bill to think that he was being hit by a purse."
Debate Magazine
