The East Bay Idler

 

 

 

   The East Bay Idler

 

 

 

Pink Moon Quest

 

 

 

Trees in Downtown Berkeley Park

on a crystalline day 

 

 

 

So central and busy

for much of my history in Berkeley

Today it seemed like a forlorn island 

where a few lost souls take refuge

 

 

Berkeley high school let out

and things livened a bit

skateboards echoed through the park

Down the Campus Pathway

 

 

 The landscape is more becoming

with less gardening going on

 

 

 

 

A perfect spot for an idle at 4:20 

The air is cool but the sun is strong

and the wind is deflected

 

 

 

 

Down through campus

familiar sights steaming away 

Despite everything so

irreversibly altered in the past few years

 

 

 

Old arboreal acquaintances 

 

 

 

Among the oakwood trees 

people are still rather scarce

 

 

 

 

 Iranian restaurant window

glass globe arabesque

 

 

 

 

Orderly Chinese internet cafe 

Predominant social life in Berkeley

in the 2020s

 

 

 

 

Score!

Everyone is happy

Everyone is laughing 

Pink Moon Indica 31% thc

from Seth Rogen's operation

Just in time for the 50th anniversary

of the release of Nick Drake's album

Pink Moon

 

 

 Tiger balming

 

 

 

 

Doorway in Chinatown

Make-shift cartoons on riot boards 

with a New Year good luck packet attached

Inscrutable

 

 

 

Enigmatic vacant lot in Chinatown

No campers ever breach the cyclone fence

Never offered for sale

I'd like to visit its hermetic tranquillity

 

 

 

 

Formerly rumored to have been 

a nefarious cop bar

 

 

 

 

Admirable building actually

 with blood on the floor perhaps

 

 

 Maybe is just an ordinary place these days

 

 

 

 End point is as usual

The Estuary

Back sail & odd new yellow building

on the Alameda side

& tat bizarre tank-like structure

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cold weather came next day  

Afro-gallery

 

 

In memory of

Betty Davis

Muse of Miles

 

 

 

 

 Voodoo Mouse

 

 

 

 

 Ummagumma

 

First they came for Basquiat

Look out, Jasper Johns!

 

 

 

Year of the Tiger 

every Chinese person

needs to be one these days

in this fierce locale

 

 

 

 

 

No takers at the picnic table this chilly day

a welcome smoke spot nonetheless--

sunshine and little wind

 

 

 

 

It's good old Old Oakland

in late Winter

 

 

 

 

 

Shadows of bare trees 

on 8th Street 

Solitude & mindfullness

on my afternoon walk

 

 

Nothing scares me

I live in West Oakland 

(barely West Oakland) 

 

 

 

Ye old matchstick pile

disappeared over New Year

So as industrial as ever

I resume building my mound

 

 

 

 

 They say, 

get rich or die tryin 

I opted out

 

 

 

 

 

Down here again 

dressed for chilly weather

 

 

 

 

Mount Tamalpais

ever thus

 

 

 

Shadows lengthen

on the Ferry Landing lawn

the urge for going

makes itself felt

 

 

 Network of trees and shadows

I move within

 

 

 

TOKYO!

I'm guessing

 

 

 

 

Bookstore window in passing
always on the road

Cold all week
hail stones even
snow on the elevations

February 2022

Life By the Water in Winter

 

 

 

Life By the Water in Winter

The Port of Oakland 

 

 

One somber evening

in January

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a short walk from my pad

I'm down here at least

once a week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cloud formation 

 

 

 

Saltwater estuary dusk

 

 from the

house of Cognac

 

 

 

I have revived my custom

 to enjoy a tiny tipple

every so often

There's a vast booze mart down here

were I copped something nice

 

It has a softening effect

on the edge of one's nerves

Coast Guard Manoeuvres

 

 

Turn this thing around 

to fuel up

 

 

 A sensitive vessel 

without doubt

 

 

 

Warm day on the Bay vibe

I don't wave 

as would a rube

 

 

 

About face accomplished

onward, Guardians of the Coast

Stop all the polluters and the tax-evaders

Board the pirates the traffickers the poachers

& all the cruel smugglers

Port Fire Station

The firemen are up to something

 

 

They've been working on the roof

and have summoned a ladder truck 

It seems they are attaching large numerals

facing upward

Perhaps for helicopters to see

and so to land

 

 

 The San Francisco Ferry pulls

into the landing

 

 

 

 

 

Passengers board eagerly 

with a firm belief that San Francisco 

can still be magic 

on a Saturday Night

Lake Merritt

 

My other wildlife refuge

here several times a week

sometimes for a brief respite

other times for a few hours

 

 

 

At little as a half-hour sitting by the water

works wonders

No distractions except 

for the occasional image capture

 

 

 

 

Being peaceful

 

 

 

 

 Sometimes the sky

 

 

It's Martin Luther King Day
A motorcade drives by

 gospel singing on a flat bed truck
live and loud

 

 

 Lots of diving birds migrate here

for the months of short daylight

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert W. Crown memorial

State Beach Park

Alameda 

 

 

 

Just perfect weather

above average for February 

I've got bluegrass in my ear buds

Radio KPFA over the web

 

 

 

The lowest of tides

teeming with life

 

 

 

In winter when the sunlight is brief

seaweed grows out of the sea

onto the walkway 

which sometimes lies underwater

 

 

Plump ground squirrels

feed and frisk

They watch to see if I have food

as they come and go from 

underground burrows 

 

 

 

 

I came later in the afternoon

to find it as gloriously deserted

as I had hoped

 

 

 

 

 

To commune 

with a mystical moon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friends enjoy the last of a sunny day

perched facing the marina

 

Preternatural quiet prevails

when my radio show is over

and I say farewell to my fond

smoke spot bench of yore

 

 

 Make my way back

the way I came

 

 

 

Webster Street

 

 

 

 

Botticelli  tchotchke

 

 

 

 

As seen through a mirror

in a window

 

 

 

 

 

 

 In graphic Alameda

 

Another hometown USA

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow will be
Saint Valentine's Day

 

 

 

 

 Alameda regulars observe a different holiday

sit mesmerized by football screens

watching an interminable spectacle

 

 

 

 

At the neighborhood corner pub

 

 

At Santa Clara and Webster
an extended police action is in progress
And I just missed a bus so I must wait here 
full term until the next one comes
I counted four Alameda police cars, 
two all black unmarked cars and a Sheriff's vehicle
Apparently a fairly serious incident occurred on a bus
sitting dormant now as matters are endlessly sorted out

An old Navy base town with a conservative,

 not to say authoritarian, streak

Alcohol on sale everywhere yet 

there are no cannabis shops in sight

 

 

Onward

January-February 2022