Berkeley Reporter

by Steed Dropout
Jan. 12, 2015

BERKELEY REPORTER APPEALS TO READERS

Do you know this man? Sketch by Martin Schwartz. Photo by Ted Friedman.

If you recognize this man, who opened a short-lived cafe at what is now Amoeba, in 1992–please let us know.

Berkeley Reporter’s previous piece reported an attack on Berkeley’s Peoples Park iconic mural on Amoeba’s North wall, at Haste and Telegraph. Now we seek more info on an attack on the mural in 1992.

Tentative info from knowledgeable sources has provided this much background:

In 1992, a quarrelsome South side character (Saladin?) opened a restaurant (Marrakech?) in what is now Amoeba, an independent music and video emporium. The would-be restaurateur was known as a South side trouble-maker even before he donned his chef’s outfit.
Continue reading “Do You Know Berkeley Cafe Owner Who Mugged Teley Mural in ’92?” »

by Steed Dropout
Jan. 5, 2015

SPRAY-PAINT VANDALS VICTIMIZE THE PEOPLES

After the attack. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Say it ain’t so, Joe.

It stood for forty years on the North wall of Berkeley’s Amoeba Music, Telegraph and Haste. It was as reliable as grandfather’s clock–a tribute to the founding of Berkeley’s Peoples Park, 1969, and those who founded it, blisters and all.

The “Peoples” in People’s Park became an intentional editors’ nightmare when park founder’s left out the possessive in Peoples, “because no one owns it,” I was told. The mural depicting all that had seemed an aging sacred cow of Berkeley.
Continue reading “Peoples Park Mural Mugged” »

by Steed Dropout
Dec. 23, 2014

ONE WEEK, RIOTS–THEN TELEGRAPH RETURNS TO “NORMAL”

Doris Moskowitz cleans up Moe's after recent protests. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Tienda Ho, formerly a few doors from Berkeley’s oldest espresso, was a classy womens’ clothes shop with a branch in Santa Barbara. “Our Berkeley customers were intimidated by the neighborhood,” a Ho owner told espresso, explaining Ho’s decision to close its Berkeley location on a block of Telegraph Ave. swollen with transients.

The Ho Location recently opened as an artsy tea purveyor. Trouble followed, last week, when an unstable Telegraph habitué harassed a tea-shop customer and followed her to the Caffe Mediterraneum.
Continue reading “Berkeley’s Avenue of Thrills” »

by Steed Dropout
Dec. 15, 2014

OCCUPY CAL REVIVES TO JOIN NATIONAL PROTESTS

Day 7, Cal Berkeley Black students--historic march through the affluent Elmwood District. Photo by Ted Friedman.

One week of protests do not a movement make. Unless this week’s protests have DNA from the long-running occupy movement of 2012–which first roused long-silent Cal Berkeley students to renewed activism.

This reporter has logged at least 30 miles walking with protestors as a photo-journalist.
Continue reading “FIRST LOOK AT TACTICS IN BERKELEY’S FUCK THE SYSTEM PROTESTS” »

by Steed Dropout
Dec. 9, 2014

2 NIGHTS OF VIOLENCE REDRESSED BY CAL

Photo by Ted Friedman.

“The whole system is corrupt; shut it down”–a popular protest chant

Moni Law, a Berkeley activist/attorney, spoke at the start of the first night of a three-night [Update: four night] protest against questionable police tactics exonerated by grand juries.
Continue reading “3rd Time Was The Best Time: Berkeley 4-Days of Protest” »

by Steed Dropout
Nov. 30, 2014

Riot watchers watching Oakland freeway riots last week watched Oakland earn the title, Demo City, USA–where an anti-property-rights-anarchist faction destroyed property and fought with cops, as America watched.

Berkeley photographers, reporters, and news editors were tuned to their police scanners to be ready if Oakland style protesters, who had had their way with cops and property in Oakland…tore up Berkeley.

A SHORT HISTORY OF RECENT TELEGRAPH AVE. RIOTS

Revived student activism. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Revived student activism began more than two years ago with Occupy Cal, as UCB outdid the local Occupy, where many local protesters left for more action in Oakland.
Continue reading “Demo City, USA” »

by Steed Dropout
Nov. 28, 2014

Telegraph Ave. Thanksgiving.Photo by Ted Friedman.

Thanksgiving Berkeley-style basked in balmy unseasonable weather, the warmest Thanksgiving in years, according to temperature averages. Although Riots ran rampant next-door in Oakland, rioters failed to march their well-trod route up Telegraph to Berkeley.

Some disappointed Berkeleyans mused that perhaps Berkeley was slipping as second Demo City in the USA, but the slippage was probably the absence of student demonstrators–who were gone for Thanksgiving.

In search of award-winning Thanksgiving Berkeley photos, this photographer promised an editor “something dramatically different.”
Continue reading “Berkeley Cools, then Heats Up–Thankfully” »

by Steed Dropout
Nov. 26, 2014

BERKELEY’S BURGER ROW

Photo by Ted Friedman.

Two years ago, Berkeley Reporter reported on the latest college food oddity to hit Telegraph Avenue–Sh*t on a Stick. Only we didn’t cop-out with asterisks back then. The piece developed a cult following online, where some believed every word on the stick.

Now we have another such poop-scoop, as the business on which the original story was based adopts its de-stink technology for hamburgers–sh*t on a bun.

Berkeley Reporter learned today that the business on which sh*t on a stick was based is preparing to add the Sh*tty Burger ™. The sh*t burger will go for $10.95.
Continue reading “Berkeley’s Sh*t on a Stick, the Sequel” »

Berkeley Peoples Park Protest Scores Win Against U.C. Berkeley

by Steed Dropout
Nov. 22, 2014

HATE MAN RETURNS TO THE MOVEMENT

Hate Hits the Streets protesting. Photo by Ted Friedman.

As major media covers a continuing sit-in by Cal Berkeley students protesting inevitable fee hikes (the hikes have already been adopted), a small band of Peoples Park residents–protesting a recent Peoples Park ban on cardboard and tarpaulins–has won its demands, Berkeley Reporter learned Friday afternoon.

“We, were all set-up here,” said the protest organizer, Hate Man, 77, sounding almost disappointed to be breaking up his encampment on a walkway alongside University Police Headquarters in Sproul Hall.

“We just got set-up here,” Hate complained.
Continue reading “Berkeley Peoples Park Protest Scores Win Against U.C. Berkeley” »

by Steed Dropout
Nov. 17, 2014

NOV. 12 FOSSIL FUEL PROTEST

Stop Frying. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Any South Side radical would tell you that student participation is the key to a successful political movement.

The battle for People’s Park in 1969, the Free Speech Movement, and an Anti-Apartheid movement 24 years ago that lasted six months and got UC Berkeley to divest from South Africa’s stocks. All these were student movements that got results.
Continue reading “Big Demo on Berkeley’s South Side” »