First Friday....Another prediction

Each first Friday of every month there is an event in downtown Oakland called Art Murmur. The epicenter of this monthly extravaganza is at 23rd and Telegraph Streets in downtown, but it's expanded out over the years. This has been going on for a long time now. Exactly how long I can't say, but I know Geri and I have been going to First Friday for at least 5 years.

In the beginning this event was very cool. It was more of an organic underground art scene. Different galleries would open up, and people would be out browsing around looking for interesting, cool, different art, if such as thing exists. There were a lot of gypsies musicians playing in the street, some of them quite good. It was all very relaxed and mellow, and then it became popular. The streets were cordoned off, traffic diverted, the police presence became the norm, lots of licensed food trucks on the street. A big happening, in fact the biggest of it's kind in the country. Oakland was written up from coast to coast and around the world, hailed as the new mecca for art and creativity. It went from a few hundred to 10,000 people, seemingly overnight.

The organizers of this event and Oakland's inept city officials have struggled with it's viability. Is it too big, how do we control a crowd this size, who pays for the security and the clean up, do we allow open drinking on city streets? Oakland historically has had an extremely poor record of dealing with crowds.

There was an event called the festival by the lake that was held in Oakland each year, around Lake Merritt. Then the violence hit, people killed, no more festival by the lake.

I quit going to First Friday when I could no longer find a parking space. This has been a couple of years now. I don't like crowds, large numbers of people, anywhere, but especially in Oakland.  Last month someone was killed, shot down, and people were wounded, gang fight. I've been saying that this would happen for a long time now, and I'm sorry to say I was right.

Here is my prediction, it will happen again. Maybe not this month because the city will be on high alert, but the precedent has been set. I don't mind gangsters killing each other. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. It saves us all a lot of money if you ask me. It's much cheaper to bury these men than to keep them incarcerated for the rest of their lives. I know this sound insensitive, but these aren't what you would call upstanding citizens. They don't care about anyone else so why should I care about them?  Bullets go where they go, and they don't always hit their intended targets. That's the problem, innocent people get hurt.

Art Murmur will die, and it will die because of a few people. So, go now while you can, but what you might want to include in your requisite hipster outfit along with the baseball cap, Converse high top sneakers, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, tight legged jeans, and head phones attached to your little computers, is a bullet-proof vest and some riot gear, because you're going to need it.

You know what they say in Oakland, "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight."

Peace,

Make Food/Not War


Food Consumption:

Breakfast: Cereal, banana, blueberries, soy milk, herbal tea w/one sugar.

Lunch: Small chicken sandwich, 4 crackers w/peanut butter

Dinner: Pasta w/turkey bolognese sauce, Brussel sprouts, lemon chicken, water

Snacks: trail mix

Exercise: 6 miles walking