Berkeley Reporter

by Steed Dropout
Dec. 27, 2011

As I have tiresomely noted in my bio-tag following numerous people’s park articles in Berkeley Daily Planet, I have lived a half block from world-famous People’s Park for thirty-one years.

Here’s some of the people’s park articles.

I arrived, 1970, in Berkeley, one year after the bloody battle between hundreds of police and students and townies for what has now become sacred grounds in Berkeley — People’s Park. You could say, I was DOA (dead on arrival) because, even then, I was looking for escape.

Supposing myself under surveillance for my activities with the Hawaii Resistance, a late sixties Oahu-based anti-draft, anti-war movement, if not at risk from the U.S. Naval Reserve (inactive), which could have re-called me to duty, I wanted nothing to do with radical politics.

Gawkers and dreamers. Homeless man an on right schemed to claim bricks from felled Sequoia building, across street,but his plan was doomed from the start. The bricks are too polluted to claim. They are now part of a pile still - nearly a month since the big blaze - awaiting Berkeley officials' clearance for removal.
Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Berkeley’s People’s Park and Me — Who Else?” »

by Steed Dropout
Dec. 20, 2011

Who am I now?

A formerly homeless reporter in Berkeley, Ca, or a “self-important” nobody with problems?

Dr. Tim, a friend of ten years has ended our friendship, saying I’m self-important. He called to ask if I’d read some lit book. I replied with, a world-weary rasp, “I’m too busy to read.” I was writing my latest yarn.

“That’s because you’re too self-important.” He always screams into the phone, because a stroke 15 years ago left him severely disabled. After flaming me, he hung up.

I could here discourse on the importance of self importance, but anyone could make the case. In short, self-importance is a relationship with someone you love. Do you want friends with low self-importance?

Ford Mustang flips near Telegraph Avenue. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Blog Fog: Lost In a Blog” »

by Steed Dropout
Dec. 16, 2011

Wednesday I attended the meeting I expected to be kicked out of. Instead of being kicked out, I was allowed to attend, to contribute, but not to write a word about what I had seen or heard. A reporter’s nightmare, but you do fill out your stories with the forbidden fruit as background and depth.

Sometimes you just have to suck it up. I have several stories I am sworn not to tell. Why is that? It’s because the sources you gain outweigh the sources you would lose, and all just for for one story.

Now “off-the-record,” on the other hand, is just bullshit. I had one source, so jittery, he threw in “off-the-record” after every utterance. You can be sure he wants to get his point across in print.

Still I was frustrated, and I vowed to write about the meeting in this log. But what if someone, a wrong someone, actually reads my fucking blog. Can I say that on my fucking blog? So let’s just let the whole meeting cool off, until I feel it’s safe to write about it. Okay?
Continue reading “Off the Record, and Other Games Sources Play” »

by Steed Dropout
Dec. 15, 2011

I wondered around downtown feeling sorry for myself and wondering if my low mood would improve in time for me to get kicked out of the meeting, as I expected. The meeting, the Beer Committee, a seat-of-the-pants sub-committee of Occupy Berkeley, was billed as “closed” to the public. Reporters are the public.

A mild anxiety attack ensued when I realized I might have the time, place, or date wrong. Good thing I worked that out, because I was not carrying my anxiety med (Lorazapam). I missed two key meetings recently. I checked with the Jupiter’s manager, where I got some background on Jupiter’s wild popularity.

There seemed no good place to meet at Jupiter, but then I discovered, the super-pub had expanded in the rear for additional outdoor seating. I took some pics, and left to snoop around the neighborhood some more.

Bank of America Plaza, where Occupy Berkeley was born in early October, was freeze-dried empty. The twenty seat semi-circle next to a bus stop, was no longer filled with the likable homeless people, who had co-operated with OB. Even Sister Adriska, chained to her spot, had been frozen out. I hope she she found shelter.

Occupy Berkeley tent tramp. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Downtown, Down-Beat Reporter Hits Bottom” »

by Steed Dropout
Dec. 13, 2011

I was recently overwhelmed by my ever-growing list of upcoming stories — all self assigned, and wanted to drink myself into oblivion or resign. On my plate was a closing of a neighborhood supermarket, built in ’59, and a South side landmark, an editor-requested piece on Micah M. White, a Berkeleyan for a year, who ignited the international occupy movement.

To that list add a crime piece on stalking.

True to form, I just wanted to drop out. But the stories are just too good.

Why does the man seated near the card table matter? He's Micah M. White, co-founder of the international Occupy movement. He later denounced my writings at the general assembly. Weeks later I came back with 'Of Mice and Men, Micah and Me,' which dominates one of my logs from a sinking ship. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Of Mice and Men – Micah M. White and Me” »

by Steed Dropout
Dec. 5, 2011

I am 72 years old, formerly homeless, but now a reporter — since 2009 — with the Berkeley Daily Planet, Berkeley, California.

While covering a major fire, last week, at the century-old Sequoia Apartments on Berkeley’s world-renowned Telegraph Avenue, I met one of my readers. Whenever I meet my readers, I am always flattered.

berkeleyreporter.com

Somewhere over the rainbow. Does the rainbow portend better times for Berkeley's center, Telegraph and Haste, or will the 'death-blow' from the fire at the Sequoia Apts., above, drive a stake through the heart of world-famous lower Teley. Stay tuned, dear reader, as Steed Dropout tries to revive what he has called 'Berkeley's Center'. Photo by Ted Friedman.

To think, they’ve turned away from YouTube, and Facebook, and the the New York Times, to click on the Planet. More amazingly, they are able to navigate the Planet and find my articles.

When I delivered, and later reported for my hometown paper in 1958, my paper owned the afternoon paper, too, so our 65,000 readers had to read me, although, strangely, I never met anyone who said they’d read me.
Continue reading “Berkeley Daily Planet Reporter Survives 35-Year Rip Van Winkle Act — Awakens to Reborn Journalism Career With His Hometown Paper” »