OAKLAND

https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/pedro-pascal-oakland-freaky-tales-18617164.php

Pascal plays Clint, a debt collector who finds himself in the middle of a chaotic massacre at a house in Oakland. NBA All-Star Floyd (played by Ellis) has taken revenge on a group of Nazi criminals who’d been tormenting the punks at Gilman and have robbed Floyd’s home. The scene, a bloodbath of martial arts mayhem, was a true exercise in indie filmmaking, and more important, a great time, according to Pascal and Ellis.

Angus Cloud's final film, I believe

In-N-Out has never closed a location, until now

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/23/food/in-n-out-oakland-closure-crime/index.html

This really bums me out... I was just there on New Years Day, sitting out on the patio with friends

Quinn's Lighthouse in Bay Area to close after 40 years

https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/bay-area-quinns-lighthouse-closure-18637850.php

Used to love going there at happy hour back around 2011-2013, had a bunch of friends who lived down at the 5th Ave Marina and we would bike over to Quinn's and be insanely smelly punks just getting slammed in that bar. Excellent place.

Yeah, I think the downstairs restaurant had more or less closed for good during the pandemic, but the upstairs was still pretty bumping... it's too bad

I was regularly at Quinns 15 yrs ago, as my wife's family had a boat in a nearby moaring.

Went last year again and it was sad. No peanuts and the food quality was terrible.

I am sad it is closing. I imagine they have a huge challenge w.r.t. the unhoused in the neighborhood but it was definitely on its way out a year ago.

My dream job at age 18:

Smoakland is looking to hire a “Content Creator / Cannabis Tester / Blunt Roller” to sample pot products and to “roll, test, and perfect the art of blunt rolling,” according to a post on Indeed. The listing says the role pays a healthy $80,000 to $85,000 a year and includes full benefits as well as discounts on pot products.

Applicants for the role are required to have five or more years of experience consuming cannabis products.

this seems crazy as the legal weed industry is completely falling apart.. maybe it's just an advertising stunt

Wait, the legal weed industry is falling apart? How so?

just one of many examples:

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-03-26/fall-of-med-men-shopping

Quinns reopening btw

SF is celebrating its first ever Weed Week later this month. Perhaps the market is contracting a bit but it's not going anywhere at least in the Bay

https://sfweedweek.com/

420 in GGP is canceled due to sharp declines in sponsor funding so there's that:

https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/organizers-cancel-sf-420-festival-hippie-hill-19369272.php

Wait, the legal weed industry is falling apart? How so?

I have an acquaintance who's pretty involved, and he explained how the growers are forever being shafted by the distributors and/or retail outlets, who don't have the money to pay up

The state is taking a huge cut via taxes, which of course they said they would do.. and this keeps the underground economy healthy. I know a dude that has a regular route of customers he delivers to, people who would never set foot in a legal dispensary. Be careful what you wish for

Quinns reopening btw

hell yeah

yeah I don't think legal weed is going to go anywhere but it's well on the way to being utterly consumed by corporations.

yeah, and states like Oklahoma & New Mexico have been overrun with Chinese-owned grow house operations, often using trafficked labor.. that's how you end up with $40/oz. weed when it was $50 for an 1/8 oz. thirty years ago... the little mom & pop growers of yore can't compete with that

I'm not a big fan of THC myself, but I think two out of every three people I know regularly use edibles ("gummies") which seem to me the best thing to come out of legalization. Easier to control dosage and is way more appealing to the types of people who don't want to be smoking for whatever reason (health, stigma). A lot of those people use delivery services AFAIK.

yeah, I know quite a few folks on the CBD gummies.. you can even buy a version in liquor stores here

A friend has been allowing his teenage kid to use them, to help with ADHD

https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/high-times-shuts-down-pot-shops-california-19385787.php

"California’s cannabis industry struggles to survive, with massive distributors going belly-up, tax revenues sinking and dispensaries closing across the state."

I have to say, the MedMen dispensary on San Pablo Ave & 40th looked more like a Verizon store than a head-shop... I know they're trying to appear 'legitimate' but it was really uninviting

i dislike most dispensaries for this reason. the ones in LA were particularly annoying. I like Berkeley Patients Group (the first in the country, I think) and try to stick with them.

i went to one downtown when i was visiting a while back and had left my carts at home and i hated the whole experience, even moreso than the medical experience here in PA which is not great

never ever go into a medmen

Not great, Bob?

MedMen bankrupt: https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/medmen-bankruptcy-19429105.php

Yeah, I just walked by the... branch? on San Pablo and noticed that it's empty

What an uninviting place that was, it looked like a stripmall verizon store

(oh wait I just said the same thing upthread)

I think it used to be a verizon/ some form of cell phone store tbh

Perhaps too obscure, but does anyone know why the freeway underpass on MLK around 55th or so is the site of large scale radical poster wheatpasting? Like… it isn’t one poster every pillar for the length of the road until Berkeley… it’s densely concentrated postering in a two block radius.

Today was several Palestine posters (2-3 different designs) and one for worker solidarity

not too far from a number of radical spaces, right? Long Haul, anything left at Omni, a ton of radical houses and holdouts

Yeah see I am guessing there is a radical house in that 2 block radius because the block postering doesn’t show up in the immediate vicinity of Omni, and Long Haul is further north …it’s kinda near Purple House but …

It’s like it’s more “proof of concept” than a full on campaign