Berkeley Reporter

by Steed Dropout
February 25, 2013

Editor’s note. This is Dropout’s second screenplay for Berkeley Reporter. Back in July, he riffed on Sunset Boulevard and an allegedly murdered People’s Park dog.

CAST-OUT JESUS, THE MOVIE

Open on small South side Berkeley apartment, overlooking the Bay. Narrator takes us on tour of his street-score, lovingly describing each item.

Voice-over: “Berkeley Street Score has furnished seventy percent of my apartment swag.”

“A cotton-filled Mr.Peanut, looks down from cedar shelves, it’s tiny feet poking out of the red British scaled-down phone booth. ”

VO: “it was only last year, I gave Peanut a sponge bath, cradling the small doll, like when I had held my tiny daughter. Now I’m playing with dolls, I intoned regretfully.”

“VO: “One of the three amigos of Bugs, Mr. Peanut bottle, Spark Bibo (reads from box )

Reading from Spark Bi-bo box:

“Bibo is god monster with intelligence. He has two big eyes, and he knows very well what people want to do. he cannot speak, but only Bi-Bo.”

“When there is any danger happened, he will speak . the top part of his head will light up and his hip will make many colorful smoke to survive because this smoke is stinking.”

Left to right: a hapless clown, BiBo, Bugs, Mr. Peanut bottle, and a distant, Pinnochio. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Rejected Jesus Saved by Jew” »

by Steed Dropout
Feb. 12, 2013

WHEREVER YOU ARE

I’ve been pushing a “goodnight sweetheart promotion” on my magazine-like Facebook, where we have an editorial policy favoring me. Here at BR, I’m the big cheese, a real Citizen Kane.

Now I’m throwing my weight around at my own Facebook. My Facebook, my rules.

Ted Friedman Berkeley Facebook.

My promotion derives from Jimmy Durante’s “Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.” In the 1940s Durante met a waitress in Calabash, North Carolina and vowed to make the name Mrs. Calabash famous.

Why? The Calabash angle was a moniker — now we say brand — to make your brand original. And here I am borrowing.

I discovered good night sweetheart by serendipity, a weird confluence of events. I have always liked the sophomoric sentiment of this old crooner’s favorite. While searching, I came across some of the most amazing covers of goodnight.

The best was a college student’s, ohhyea09.

I first became smitten with Good Night Sweetheart in 1959, when we first serenaded a brother’s pin-girl (now it’s nailed girl) at Sigma Something or Other at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
Continue reading “Good Night Mrs Callabash and Good Night Sweetheart” »

by Steed Dropout
Feb. 8, 2013

“Why do you punks make me do it?” — Robert Ryan in Nicholas Ray’s 1952 On Dangerous Ground.

Purloined food, public defecation, wee wee, and an (almost) stolen cop car were featured entertainment at Berkeley’s naughty Cafe Mediterraneum a few weeks ago.

Craig Becker, Cafe Mediterraneum’s feisty impresario has brought more entertainment to his Telegraph landmark coffee shop, cheap eats center, and recently — beer and wine — than any rowdy road house.

After more than half-a-dozen altercations, Becker’s fight record (6-0), if not his methods, would be the envy of any fighter. Sometimes he must think “why do you punks make me do It?”

'Coconut,' left. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Why Do You Punks Make Me Do It?” »

by Steed Dropout
Feb. 7, 2013

SHRINKING JOURNALISM

One of the first victims of shrinking journalism is the feature story, followed closely by investigative reporting, and narrowed beats.

Still I lumber on, turning out feature after feature. Why do I do it?

Because I am a feature writer through and through. I was feature editor of my high school newspaper, a feature writer on the Daily Illini, and my hometown newspaper.

When I returned to journalism recently, I resumed my features slant.

What is that slant? Hard to say, it’s mostly a gut feeling feature writers get when they sense a strong feature angle. Writers such as Damon Runyon, Steven Crane, Studs Turkel, and Stanton Delaplane had the knack.

Me and my Shadow series. The lonely feature writer. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “In Berkeley: The Last Feature Writer in USA” »