Berkeley Reporter

by Steed Dropout
Aug. 16, 2016

You are perhaps more likely to be mugged or murdered on the Berkeley Southside street where I live than in Berkeley’s serene Elmwood District, which is a mere hop-skip-and-a-jump away.

In the Elmwood, neighbors posting on a neighborhood website tout, “enjoy the Berkeley lifestyle.” This might include a stint cat-sitting in a mansion, being a nanny, household cook, computer coach, or Koi-pond-tender.

You might score a free photo album, bird house, baby bath-tub,storage closet, law books, keyboards, moving boxes, guinea-pig cage, or a Blue-Nose Pit Bull.

In my neighborhood, we sift through detritus dumped on our neighborhood streets, and if we find a bauble or two, we proclaim it street-score.
Continue reading “Mugged, Murdered, a Mere Hop-Skip-Jump from Serenity” »

by Steed Dropout
Jul 10, 2016

Photo by Ted Friedman

Solutions to Bay Area homelessness rolled off the presses like EXTRAS, recently, as major media ganged up on homelessness.

Even as demands for homeless services explode, San Francisco, reportedly, was giving its all to take a bite out of the crisis.

Huddled between Oakland and Albany, tiny-land-mass Berkeley, with its frazzled homeless communities on the Southside and near the freeway, seems to have accepted homelessness as a life-style—for someone else.

Continue reading “Berkeley: The Homeless Mind” »

by Steed Dropout
June 28, 2016

A TALE OF A BERKELEY BUSINESS EMPIRE

Ed Monroe’s Blondies. Photo by Ted Friedman

Telegraph Avenue street artist Ed Monroe’s hand-to-mouth life-style took a paste to the mouth recently when he lost free pizza for life at Berkeley’s Blondie’s Pizza.

Blondie’s was sold recently to a longtime employee.

Blondie’s was the 1960s (“Make Pizza Not War!”) love-child of the nine store Rasputin music chain and other enterprises of Berkeley’s titan of Telegraph trade—Ken Sarachan.
Continue reading “Free Pizza Ain’t What It Used to Be” »

by Steed Dropout
May 27, 2016

Photo by Ted Friedman

A lot of bedrolls have been unfurled since “Is Berkeley a Hilton to the Homeless?” appeared in the Berkeley Daily Planet five years ago.

That piece, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, suggested that Berkeley was an oasis of homeless services and compassion.
Continue reading “Is Berkeley A Hilton to the Homeless? Part 2” »

by Steed Dropout
May 16, 2016

Mario Savio, a founder of Free Speech Movement, back at Sproul; his spirit trickle’s down to a new generation of Berkeley protesters. Photo by Ted Friedman.

YAKETY-YAK, WE TALK BACK

We’re sick of all your flak.
Push us, we push back
Yakety yak we talk back

While Berkeley’s hotel industry-sponsored visitor’s bureau touts: “come for the culture, stay for the food,” it might more realistically suggest, ‘come for the food, stay for the demo!’

Or, ‘Come for the political action, and bite it.’
Continue reading “Berkeley’s Protest Lifestyle” »

by Steed Dropout
May 6, 2016

A TALE OF TWO PERPS

Home-run head-dent averted. Photo by Ted Friedman.

The sentence “Southside perps get royal treatment” needs some treatment itself. Perps is a cheap shot, and royal treatment an exaggeration.

Yet, in scores of my photos of Southside arrests, there is a theme: our cops treat crime suspects kindly and with protectiveness to match their mottos, “Protect and Serve.” I can’t count the times they yelled at me, “get out of the street.”

Two recent Southside incidents make my case.
Continue reading “Southside Perps Get Royal Treatment” »

by Steed Dropout
April 26, 2016

PEOPLES PARK AT 47

WAVY AT EIGHTY

A joint with Jesus. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Funky Nixons were smoking a joint with Jesus.*
Continue reading “Decline of Hip” »

by Steed Dropout
April 21, 2016

ZERO TOLERANCE TOUCHING

Stephanie Nicolle Garcia, right, surviving. Photo by Ted Friedman.

As U.C. Berkeley belatedly curtails sexual harassment, with forced resignations, firings, and other sanctions, the radical group, “By Any Means Necessary, (BAMN)” could claim a victory, of sorts.

And BAMN claimed such a victory to me, this week in Sproul Plaza, where I ran into one its most effective spokespersons, Stephanie Nicole Garcia at the BAMN table.
Continue reading “Sexually Harassed by Cal Clowns” »

by Steed Dropout
April, 14, 2016

New sign blows smoke. Photo by Ted Friedman.

CODY’S COMEBACK, OF SORTS

Cody’s Books is sort-of-back, after a nearly twenty year Rip-Van-Winkle.

Cody’s Books, deceased 2008, has stood empty ever since–a big chunk of a blighted block at Telegraph/Haste. With nearby Moe’s Books, and the Caffe Mediterraneum, Cody’s formed an historic triangle harking back to Berkeley in the fifties.

The Bally-hooed book and author-talks center could re-open (softly) by week’s end, as a used books and records store.

Whether the opening is timely depends on what the Cody Building owner Ken Sarachan’s staff call’s ‘Ken time,’ a timing system of starts,stops, and reversals. “I can do something Ken wanted only to have him change it,” says a staffer.
Continue reading “Cody’s Books Mad Comeback” »

By Steed Dropout
April 9, 2016

WHERE TO GO WHEN YOU HAVE TO GO

Former Berkeley Art Museum. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Let’s say you’re Southside, seeking restrooms. Yelp is no help.

We have held off our restroom recommendations for decades, not wanting to cause a stampede at our favorite piss destination.
Continue reading “Guide for the Pooplexed” »