Berkeley Reporter

by Steed Dropout
Mar. 16, 2015

“General Fuck-up.” That’s what my ROTC name tag said when I showed up for drill. Some hazing-happy fraternity brothers had promoted me to General.

ROTC was mandatory at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana 1957-61.

Here, Dropout learned he was a military misfit, but was slow to get the message.

Literature and film loves military misfits. From Abbot and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Saxophonist Lester Young–the ultimate army fuck-up, who was discharged for stowing medical marijuana in his boot-camp locker during WW2–Ensign Pulver to Stalag 17. Kurtz, (Marlon Brando), in Apocalypse Now, a major screw-up.
Continue reading “Selective Service Should Have Been More Selective” »

by Steed Dropout
March, 9, 2015

Crime scene. Weapon was wrapped in Subway bag, lower right.
Photo by Ted Friedman.

‘Purple,’ only wanted to be helpful when he was whacked with a submarine sandwich, Saturday, on Telegraph Avenue.

Recently named by one Teley businessman as “leader” of a band, of notorious slackers slouched outside a tattoo head-shop near the Caffe Mediterraneum, Purple is, at 6’2″ an imposing figure, with a thoughtful personal philosophy he shares with passers-by on Telegraph.
Continue reading “Berkeley Street “Leader” Attacked, Berkeley-style” »

by Steed Dropout
Mar. 2, 2015

SCORING IN BERKELEY’S POTSTERDAM

Doc. Bladgley--South side's savior. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Used to be, you were at the mercy of your pot dealer. Your dealer would routinely leave town.

Now you frequent a “dispensary” where you don’t score pot, or god forbid–dope. It’s medicine now.

But to score, you have to see a pot (M.D.) doc.

If you live near Berkeley’s. Potsterdam (pronounced Amsterdam), near Parker/Telegraph next door to a dispensary–you’re easily potted.
Continue reading “Berkeley Pot Doc” »

by Steed Dropout
Feb. 23, 2015

BERKELEY REPORTER IN RESTROOM BEEF WITH POLICE AT CAFFE MEDITERRANEUM

Photo of good cop investigating me for illegal photography, Cafe Med.
Photo by Ted Friedman.

Those cops coming through the doors of the Caffe Mediterraneum, as they do hella lot–those cops were coming for me.

Minutes earlier, I had been photographing upstairs at the Med. I have been publishing my photos–in several Berkeley publications–of inside the Med,since 2011; my eye caught a strange scene at the restroom upstairs. Med owner Craig Becker was seemingly about to enter an occupied restroom with his master key. He didn’t knock.
Continue reading “Berkeley’s Good/Bad Cops and Me” »

by Steed Dropout
Feb. 19, 2015

BIG BERKELEY-INN STORY WAS KNOWN FOR MONTHS

Hippy Graveyard. Photo by Ted Friedman.

A recent news story that the Berkeley Inn site, an eyesore since it burned thirty years ago–was about to be developed–long after Heaven and Earth had tried…that story was born on Telegraph Avenue and almost stayed on the avenue.

When a diligent local reporter [not me] broke the story, the gossip-mill was shocked. Shocked to think all those rumors were true.

Development of the eye-sore site into student apartments will, reportedly, trickle-down from U.C. Berkeley builders.

Rumors of U.C. Berkeley eating the town are handed out on the South side like salted peanuts. Cal is now poised to dine on the Berkeley-Inn site. The myth is winning, as Cal, reportedly, will build student apartments on the site of a beatnik hotel that was destroyed by fire thirty years ago.
Continue reading “Hippy Graveyard Too Big To Hide” »

by Steed Dropout
Feb. 16, 2015

BERKELEY SOUTH SIDE BEAT IS SMALLER THAN LIFE

Who hung this--a 40 year first--on my Berkeley Telegraph Ave. beat?
Photo by Ted Friedman.

At fifteen square feet, this newspaper beat could be the smallest in the world.

To worsen matters, there’s not much really happening here at Telegraph/Haste, the host of Telegraph Avenue. Two TeleHaste construction projects–vital to the survival of lower Telegraph–are clanging and buzzing forward.
Continue reading “Just a Postage Stamp Beat” »

by Steed Dropout
Feb. 8, 2015

Gassed in Berkeley. Photo by Ted Friedman.

How not to get gassed in Berkeley? Stay home or bring a gas mask, or neckerchief-mask soaked in vinegar, vaseline, milk or lemon juice. Try to disguise your gas protection so you are not singled out for your Mick Jagger’s “fair share of abuse.”

Berkeleyans and Cal students, who were gassed and clubbed recently at the height of the Ferguson, Mo. protests on Telegraph Avenue, may have wandered distractedly into the vortex of the protest–where they were dosed.

Continue reading “How Not to Get Gassed in Berkeley” »

by Steed Dropout
Feb. 4, 2015

Take-down on Telegraph. Photo by Ted Friedman.

The other Peoples Park Mural; you’ve passed it every time you visit Telegraph Avenue. the mural is the work of Edithe (“Edy”) Boone, 77, who installed it, overlooking the burned-down Berkeley Inn site at Telegraph/Haste, early in the 1990s.

The Berkeley Inn, destroyed by fires in 1986, was a bohemian be-hive on Telegraph Ave.
Continue reading “Beloved Mural Packs It In” »

by Steed Dropout
Jan. 27, 2015

Two new U.C. buildings hit Berkeley streets. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Even the best developments have their inevitable downsides.

The inevitable down-side to U.C. Berkeley’s Lower Sproul Development appears to force the new Eshelman Hall out into the street, give or take a few feet. The former Eshelman Hall (1965-2013) was set well back from the street–discreetly.
Continue reading “U.C. Berkeley’s Bold New Moves” »