Scenes of Gentrification #1

14th and Broadway, Downtown Oakland, not Long After Midnight

Angle 1: The Gift of Gab

Hey man
lemme use your phone real quick?
I just gotta
make a call real quick

Angle 2: Stern Words, Extra Dose of Hood, For Effect

Nigga
gimme
yo
goddam
phone
…
before I

Angle 3: Alternatives

IPhone In hand, nothing to say: somebody’s snatchin
hand grips real tight, can’t get it loose: somebody’s catchin
hell.

Black and white swoops in: somebody’s runnin
Black and white not around: somebody’s runnin
Temper tested: somebody’s gunnin
Not arrested: somebody’s gunnin

Repeat:
…nigga listen:
yo goddam phone…

Bread and Roses: Or What Does It Mean When the Bread Is the Rose?

I’ve been trying to learn how to bake bread recently. I started with pizza, and am now onto bread, partly because I enjoy making things and partly because I eat a lot of bread. My wife and I calculated that we spend about $35-40 a month on bread. Another inspiration is that my father and stepmother also recently started baking bread (on a regular basis) using a starter that my grandmother, my dad’s mom, actually used. She passed away on New Year’s Day at about 12:30am–we had just flipped the 1-9-9-9 to the 2-0-0-0, but a friend of the family who has been using this starter for many years, and prior to my grandmother’s death, is still using it. So recently she gave a handful of the dough back to my dad and stepmom. First, I was intrigued by the fact that bread could “live” for so long, and that strangely I might touch what my grandmother touched, eat what she ate.