Monday, January 28, 2013

Fanfest Re-ignites A's Fans' Fervor

Politics & social justice are important...but today, I'm talking about baseball!

Sunday morning in late January is not when you expect to find thousands of baseball fans getting together, but think again when the town is Oakland! Two months before the season opener against Seattle Mariners at the Coliseum, 10,000 fans turned up for this year's Oakland A's sellout Fan Fest.

Roaring cheers welcomed the 2013 team in the Oracle Arena and echoed their farewell standing ovation after last October's Game 5 AL playoff loss to the Detroit Tigers at the Coliseum. Chanting "Let's Go Oakland!", fans welcomed Billy Beane, AL executive of the year, Bob Melvin, AL manager of the year, along with mascot Stomper, and many of last year's stars -- including Yeonis Cespedes, Josh Reddick (whose beard may soon rival that Brian Wilson's across the Bay at AT&T Park), Coco Crisp (catch his retro Afro), and a dozen or more players to the opening chapter of the 2013 season.

Melvin said the Fanfest recaptured the deep faith the A's felt from fans whose cheers kept them on the field even as the Tigers celebrated their victory at the first base dugout.

The right field bleacher veterans greeted newcomers Chris Young (centerfielder acquired from the Diamondbacks) and shortstop Hiro Nakajima to the team. Young drew the most questions, including a fan's request to dance the Bernie (which he did with Reddick), and what flavor pie he liked best (Young nervously glanced at Reddick and behind a curtain for the walk-off ritual that hopefully awaits him this year).

Comcast commentators Shooty Babbitt and Casey Pratt fed questions to a panel including Melvin, Beane, Reddick and Young. Melvin said Young, whom he had coached in Phoenix, knows how to push all his buttons. And Beane diplomatically said Young was his choice of any baseball player in either league that he wanted to join the team off-season.

One serious question to Beane and Melvin focused on second base - where Scott Sizemore, Jemile Weeks and Adam Rosales will duke it out in spring training to replace traded Cliff Pennington. The GM and manager said that was still a question mark, but they felt good about the choices already on the team.

Go A's!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Women start "pop-up" stores in vacant Oakland storefronts

A group of inspired women, part of a Women's Initiative for Self Employment Program, has opened fledgling businesses, called "pop-up stores", in empty store fronts in Oakland and nurtured them far enough along to sign leases in these tough economic times.

In the lobby of the Paramount Theater where community groups manned stalls before the Jan. 19 tribute to Martin Luther King Jr, one flyer promoted several new stores in the Downtown and Uptown that began as "pop-ups" and now have become successful enough to sign leases.

There are so many positive initiatives to highlight here - uptown and downtown - and I hope to put a spotlight (or flashlight) on some of it to spread the word.

Shoe Groupie Boutique at 1621 Broadway bills itself as a hub for free thinkers, creativity and footwear - where founders Dion Bullock and Candice Littlefield espouse a belief in self-expression through footwear. Check out this feature about them in Oakland Local.

Betti Ono Gallery - "pop-up goes permanent" - has reopened its flagship art gallery at 1427 Broadway with support from local artists, residents and property owner Andrew Brog. Anyka Barber, gallery director and founder, says opening a business in Oakland "has been about showing what is possible, rolling up our sleeves and doing the work to help this city become a place where we can all thrive."

OwlnWood at 45 Grand Avenue is the brainchild of owner Rachel Konte to offer international brands, vintage products and local design influenced by Rachel's Afro-Scandinavian heritage. Stop by, shop local and spread the word!

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Foot-Stomping Gospel in Oakland Honors MLK Jr.

Gospel music often conjures up images of Southern Baptist churches like West Hunter Street in Atlanta, not necessarily downtown Oakland and the hallowed art deco hall that is its massive Paramount Theater.

Foot-stomping, hand-clapping, soaring gospel music made an evening of sharing the dream for the exuberant crowd that filled 3,000 seats at the Paramount to celebrate and honor Martin Luther King Jr with a tribute aptly called, "In the Name of Love".

Jennifer Holliday headlined the evening on January 19 - the 11th year that Oakland and Living Jazz have given a musical tribute to MLK Jr. Her passion was steamy and the performance electrifying. Holliday is a Grammy Award winner best known for her Broadway hit Dreamgirls, and to its credit Oakland produced an ad hoc group of local musicians - two back-up singers, three brass horns, drummer, pianist, two guitarists and a synthesizer - to rock the Paramount with a world-class singer like Holliday. The musicians had one three-hour rehearsal with her, and together it was an amazing event.

Holliday capped an evening with Terrance Kelley leading the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir and the Oakland Children's Community Choir. A special treat was the veteran jazz duo of Tuck and Patti, her velvet voice and his mellow guitar closing out the first half of the program and setting the stage for Holliday.

For those of you who were staying in to prepare for the NFL conference playoffs, or those who just felt it was not worth making the trip downtown, it's your big, big loss. A wonderful and amazing, uplifting evening for Oakland and everyone who could share the dream.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Can We Stop Shooting Each Other, Please?

There's crime in the big city. Then, there's our big city...

Image Source: StopHoustonGangs.org
When I moved back here a couple years ago, I knew there were a lot of murders in Oakland, but I figured (perhaps naively) that they were mostly gang-related. A recent outbreak of shootings in Oakland, less than a month after the Newtown, CT elementary school shootings, bring the issue of gun violence closer to home and impossible to ignore.

I was driving home on Friday afternoon last week when I came across a police roadblock in Glenview, Oakland. Police had roped off the corner at Canon and Wellington where earlier that afternoon, the body of a young man had apparently been dumped by the roadside. His name was Larry Lovett, he was 31 from Stockton and formerly of Oakland - no apparent ties to the neighborhood in the lower hills of Oakland, just dumped there. That was only the beginning. Within a few hours three other murders were recorded in Oakland, and by the end of the weekend, there had been 15 shootings, all in one city - ours!

Theories abound about the firearms rampage that left four dead in one day. Was it rival gangs duking it out? Apparently the same type of AR-15 assault rifles outfitted with high-capacity drum magazines (what was used in two of these four shootings) have been used in what the East Bay Express says is an ongoing feud between the Case Gang and Money Team.

A few weeks earlier, in the same neighborhood of Park Boulevard, 27-year-old Clifford Snead was shot dead after getting off a bus. He was the father of a young son. No other explanation. It doesn't make sense.

A new coalition called SAVE, which stands for Soldiers Against Violence Everywhere, is holding local rallies at murder sites around Oakland to raise awareness.

Zachary Carey, pastor of the True Vine Ministries, is working with SAVE to pray at these sites. "When you hear about violence in America on the news, the tagline associated with it is gang-related,” Carey said. “Then if you're living in Montclair, Piedmont, Walnut Creek then you're like, ‘I'm not involved in a gang, that'll never happen to me.’ But the reality is people that are being murdered now are not gang-related, they're innocent bystanders, they're collateral damage. So if they can be collateral damage, guess what, so can you and I.”

Carey's words are pretty chilling...if that doesn't make you think it's time to get involved, what does?

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Causa Justa - Because Unity *is* Power

When I was in school, a teacher taught me that the world divides into the haves and the have nots, and that economic self-sufficiency is security for those who have managed to climb into and remain within the circle of haves.

One uplifting and positive energy aspect of living in the Bay area is the attention and political will often focused on the have nots, of which there are many: those who have no home, who have no job, who have no legal right to remain in the USA, who face mortgage foreclosures and who suffer from slum landlords.

Just Causes is a group that works in East Oakland, West Oakland and the Mission District of San Francisco to put the spotlight on the plights of these have nots. A merger in 2010 of St Peter's Housing Committee and Just Cause Oakland brought about this multi-racial grassroots organization which describes its purpose as "building community leadership to achieve justice for low-income San Francisco and Oakland residents."

Take a look at their website and look for their bilingual occasional newspaper, "Just Cause|Causa Justa." If nothing else, its headlines tell armchair liberal haves that someone out there is fighting for justice - spelling out how the Dream Act can help children of illegal immigrants to qualify for Deferred Action to achieve lawful immigration status, or how to fight the national housing crisis that claims homes from hard-working families facing foreclosure.

Just Causes is full of the plights of have nots, and it shines a light on issues that can respond to good will and positive energy that are trademarks of the Bay Area.