OAKLAND

Defense attorney Curtis Briggs says jury has acquitted Max Harris and was unable to reach a verdict for Derick Almena, per @jersiegel at the courthouse.

— Sam Lefebvre (@Lefebvre_Sam) September 5, 2019

So question is, do they retry?

can't say I'm surprised, lengthy deliberations don't usually result in guilty verdicts

I'm not surprised either.

Jury was “hopelessly deadlocked” 10-2 with 10 voting for guilt

— Don Clyde (@ClydeDon) September 5, 2019

shoulda gone with that initial plea deal. high profile jury trials are never a sure thing.

Harris struck me as mentally challenged in some of the things I read so I'm not extremely surprised by that. Not that surprised by the hung jury on Almena either though I believe he should have been held accountable in some manner. But I also believe the building owners should be held accountable as well.

so yes they should retry Almena. dunno if they will.

they won't. they fucked this up good.

Gotta say I’ve attended and/or thrown enough parties in sketchy spaces that I have a fair amount of empathy for the defendants in this case.

Did your organize shit parties in places that were complete firetraps though? sketchy is one thing; tinderbox is another.

i have no idea why that says 'shit parties' though perhaps that is an apt question. that's what I get for posting when I haven't slept in 36 hours.

Almena will be retried.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Retrial-for-man-in-California-warehouse-fire-that-14492604.php

Also in the news: the NY Times says our ball park is the ugliest in MLB

but charming

ive been there 3-4x, id say you got off easy

They now want to do the upscale waterfront ballpark thing, which is a political morass and will likely result in corruption, grandstanding, allegations of racism, embarrassingly bad communications with the community and cringeworthy PR campaigns

In other words— Oakland government at work

A's almost moved to Fremont in 2006 (& again in 2011). The Giants won't let them move to SJ so they're trying to get as close as possible. Considering the 49ers moved to Santa Clara (a San Jose suburb) and the success of the Sharks in downtown SJ, I would imagine a deal will be made within a decade and they end up down there.

The ballpark proposal mockup is very weird
https://s.hdnux.com/photos/77/13/57/16563198/31/gallery_medium.jpg

49ers Santa Clara move has been... entertaining

Xp everything to do with trees ... wtf ... like huh?

I was wondering where they got all of them

the colliseum was a toilet even before the plumbing started fucking up.. I still love it

wait, are they trying to move it to the Port? that looks very similar to one of my favorite places in Oakland. if they're going to try to fuck up Harbor Shoreline Park, I'll move back out there and start the campaign against the city, baseball, and anyone who gets in my way.

ok okay, they just want to fuck up some of the nastier, more interesting stuff around Jack London square.

it's absolutely astounding how so much of a city can turn into an absolute fucking shithole so quickly.

Gotta say I’ve attended and/or thrown enough parties in sketchy spaces that I have a fair amount of empathy for the defendants in this case.

― DJI, Thursday, September 5, 2019 4:14 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Did you block exits? How about rely on a single staircase made of recycled pallets?

I mean, I do prison abolition work and am not convinced of the efficacy of sending anyone to jail, but I also lost several friends— one of them a dear friend— in the fire, and the negligence of these guys was pretty abysmal...

and i write that as someone who has put on a fair number of basement and warehouse punk shows, raves, and etc. in my life. NOTHING that i ever put on even approached the level of Ghost Ship. Nothing.

which speaks to the problem of the city and media narrative, painting all such spaces in the same light. anyone who went to the old East Nile space on 8th street or the Church knows that those spaces had several exits, they weren't blocked, and the spaces inside weren't relying on completely shoddy construction for all attendees to move in and through the spaces.

Those spots that T mentions were also both at ground level. East Nile was pretty safe (safer than some legal clubs)... the Church a bit less so ... but it is the challenge of trying to find a venue for a show that can hold 50 -100 or so people in Oakland ... people get desperate and end up doing shows at places like that

I do prison abolition work and am not convinced of the efficacy of sending anyone to jail, but I also lost several friends— one of them a dear friend— in the fire, and the negligence of these guys was pretty abysmal...

OTM -- people asked me what I thought of the verdict, and it was like ... it's a loss whichever way it goes ... the prison system gets more fodder or the criminal negligence of these dudes goes unrecognized for posterity ... neither option will bring back Ara, Jsun, Barrett, Joey and everyone else

Would defer to the Oakland/SF longtimers on this one; it doesn't fully click for me as a read for reasons I'm not sure about but there's a lot in it that does.

https://harpers.org/archive/2019/12/gimme-shelter-ghost-ship-fire-san-francisco/

are you looking for pedantic fact-checking or ...? I'm only in the 1st section and the writer is definitely taking "poetic license" in terms of conflating things, which, in the spirit of what he's saying aren't necessarily "wrong" but it's a case of "this place didn't really start doing shows until 2017; this place used to do a lot more shows but in 2016, shows were few and far between" ... in terms of the "types" of spaces, what these examples represented, I'd say he's poetically correct.

oh, he's also talking about 2007/2008 type stuff too -- damn, that was like a lifetime ago for me. For me, things were very different then (for some reason I now have a Pulp song stuck in my head) ... I wonder if I know these people, personally? I definitely know/knew people like them ... I remember a few instances of fundraisers immediately post GS where the intent wasn't clear and it looked kinda shady and at least one person was accused of stealing the money?

It's not D.I.Y. it's DIY ... editorial oopsie

Yeah I figured you'd at least know some of the folks under discussion, however indirectly. I do appreciate how he makes his finances clear throughout, and that there's no sense this piece will solve the longer-standing issues.

Idk if I actually know the people in the story -- tableisthetable is more likely to -- places, scenes, yeah ... though again, pedantry, when they walk down a street and he lists three venues that used to be there, two of them were in the same building. it is weird to see a local facebook group I'm in get written up in Harpers tho

Pretty sure the band mentioned is either P.I.N.E. or VVD WNDWS who I saw with Chelsea/Cherushii (RIP) a couple times.

i'm only part of the way through and while I won't say this guy's story isn't true (I had someone who worked for me who was living in the loft of some terrible warehouse in Fruitvale for quite a while) some things seem off; in 2016 I don't believe that 'NOBE' area near Night's Inn (basically near McArthur Bart) had homes selling for over 2 million.

My studio warehouse is right behind that Home Depot though and that area really got to be miserable for a while, huge encampments, the worst being ones that spilled over into the onramp to 880; I'd drive out of there and have to drive super slow on that onramp for fear of running over someone, because sometimes people were just standing in the middle of the street doing god knows what. that encampment and the one closer to my studio under an overpass are gone; and the scrap yard across the street from our studio has been emptied out and condos are going in there. We'll see how this goes.

in 2016 I don't believe that 'NOBE' area near Night's Inn (basically near McArthur Bart) had homes selling for over 2 million.

not on the Oakland side near there -- maybe further north in Berkeley -- that area I always associated with Temescal creep -- like 'NOBE' was the 50's and up. There are/were a number of triplexes/fourplexes that had once been single family homes that I can see selling for over 2 million with the goal of condo conversion.

yeah maybe that's what he means. anyway though this was a good article.

I mean, I read this more as memoir than journalism, so I feel less "picky" about details being contextualized in a misleading way (e.g. the $3000 rent in Oakland being for a full-size 1 bedroom apartment, where considering he chose to live in a "tiny home" it would have made more sense to compare to average rent for a studio, which is lower, but still ridiculous). Of the two other warehouse show venues listed at the beginning (besides Ghost Ship), Dildo Factory has like one residential room (maybe two), and Heco's -- no one lived there, unless Heco lives there now, though he didn't live there when he was married (which he was for years -- I recall there was an article about real estate and artists that featured him and his now ex-wife who I think was either a real estate agent or a house stager or something -- she was in the band Toychestra). Heco's was a firetrap though ... I've had so many conversations w/friends in my age group about "if there had ever been a fire at Heco's we would be dead" -- though there was window access onto the neighbor's roof -- sometimes there'd be shows where people would bbq on the roof, climbing in/out through the window.

Cross posted from the SF and what to do in it thread:

Oh hello there Bay Area, I'm headed your way on x-mas day, staying until I think Jan 1? Got a hotel deal in SoMa but that will just be sleeping place; we'll spend a good chunk of time East Bay scoping out neighborhoods for Becoming Californian in approx 2021.

I have some Oakland/Berkely questions, should I ask them here or in the Oakland thread (which is currently addressing far more significant topics than Becoming Californian)?

FAPs on either/both sides of the bay between xmas and new year?

― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Sunday, December 1, 2019 6:25 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I guess one thing to work out is how to spell Berkeley.

― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Sunday, December 1, 2019 6:26 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

3 year anni of GhostShip fire yesterday... sorry Quincie we're still haunted. :-(

Quite understandably. A sad memorial.

Ask away!

I live in Berkeley fwiw.

OK first East Bay question (with context)

Horse options are looking pretty good in Castro Valley and Pleasanton (and possibly even close to Berkklee and Oakland).

Question(s):

1) What's the southernmost Oakland neighborhood that doesn't feel like a suburb? Walkable to groceries, restaurants, transit, other city stuff?

2) Realistically, how long would it take by car to get from downtown Oakland to Castro Valley and Pleasanton (weekend traffic vs rush hour)?

1) maybe Fruitvale?
2) to CV, probably 25 minutes max with no traffic. Not sure about Pleasanton, I never have to go out there.

I'll note that Fruitvale is kind of a funky area and not always the safest place though it's better than it used to be. You may want to just look at the Lake Merritt area.

Gotcha. That horse commute sounds great; I currently do 45 minutes, which can be more like an hour with traffic.

Are Piedmont and Rockridge painfully bougie or?

Full disclosure: I'm pretty painfully bougie myself