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Of all the candidates in the Oakland Mayor's Race, Former California State Senator Don Perata, a Democrat, is the one who has the mosts: most experienced, most talked-about, and most controversial. Don Perata  Don Perata's controversy and scandal has been so well-reported it seemed the East Bay Express' Robert Gammon paid his bills from it. Indeed, Perata's controversies have clouded his ability to explain his case to be Mayor of Oakland, which is what this video interview is about. This video interview is Perata's platform, just as I've created for every other Oaklander running for any office. I've known Don Perata for at least 17 years, and have seen a different side of Perata than what's painted elsewhere. When I was a columnist for The Montclarion, Don Perata was an Alameda County Supervisor, and before that he was a school teacher. Then, as I worked for the last two Mayors of Oakland before Ron Dellums, Perata became California Ass

On Monday, Greg Harland, a candidate in the Oakland Mayor's Race, was kind enough to open his Oakland Hills home to talk about why he's running for Mayor of Oakland and his view of how Oakland needs to be changed. The full 23 minute interview is on video above; what's presented are some highlights of our discussion. Again, the style of this blogger is to give a candidate a platform, not to attack them. Greg Harland is a mild, smooth, white, bespectacled business man who grew up in Oakland, California for most of his life, since 7 years of age. Harland graduated from Oakland High School, class of 1964. He lost his father, a pilot on the USS Yorktown, in a crash at Alameda Naval Air Station when he was a boy. Harland grew up from hard times that he's reluctant to openly talk about, to, with the help of friends, the business entrepreneur he is today. Why run for Mayor of Oakland? Harland got the idea to run for Mayor of Oakland while sitting at the dinin

An update in the case of the Angry, Violent, SF Luxor Cab Driver who tried to physically remove this blogger from Luxor Cab #1046 License number CA 8L46060, a white Ford Crown Victoria. The assault report was filed and San Francisco Transportation Authority staffers reported that it was sent to the San Francisco Taxi Cab Commission. As of this writing, there has not been a follow-up phone call, but the report was filed on Friday and today is Tuesday. But given this blog series was first posted last Wednesday and it's six days later, and information to me explains that Luxor has seen the blog post, there has not been an apology from anyone representing Luxor Cab in San Francisco. Meanwhile there has been a sudden development of comments from the same person using different YouTube accounts. Cool, but if this person represents Luxor Cab San Francisco, they're advocating against free speech rights (in this case, the right to say the cab driver's problem was he wanted

San Francisco TV Station KPIX Channel 5's Mike Sugarman discovers the Sony camera at BART . On Friday of last week, on the way to Cafe Americano to meet a friend, Mike Sugarman - the long-time San Francisco KPIX Channel 5 (CBS) News Man, who interviewed this blogger when the focus was bringing the Super Bowl to Oakland in 1999 - was struggling with a new Sony Betacam camera that he was given to use for a story about the planned BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) 15 cent fare decrease (which he and I disagree about.) I stopped to help Mike and suggested he restart the Sony camera; he did and it worked. So, in turn he interviewed me as part of his segment. That was Mike's first time with the camera on his own. For 31 years Mike Sugarman worked a story assignment with a camera person. But in the age of smaller media budgets, reporters like Mike Sugarman are learning to be, well, something like video bloggers, using the camera to make the news themselves without a came

This San Francisco event annoucement comes from Gary Meyer, the owner and operator of The San Francisco Balboa Theater and the Co-Director of The Telluride Film Festival, who you may remember from this video interview earlier this year : Sent a press release announcing the exclusive debut of a new concert film featuring Bruce Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band this Thursday June 17th at the Balboa Theater in San Francisco with two shows at 7:15 PM and 9:15 PM. This YouTube video gives you a preview. It's from the very show the concert film is based on: Here's the extensive press release: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND CONCERT FILM PREMIERES AT BALBOA JUNE 17 TO BENEFIT MELANOMA RESEARCH Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band in "LONDON CALLING: LIVE IN HYDE PARK” will have it exclusive San Francisco area Premiere on Thursday, July 17. This one night only benefit will have two showings at 7:15pm and 9:15pm. The showings will benefit th

The Oakland Parking problem of high ticketing rates, high parking ticket prices, and aggressive parking enforcement practices in low income areas continues. This blogger just received an email from Nick Mitchell, a PhD. candidate at UC Santa Cruz, that he asked me to print in full. Oakland Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, who's defended Oakland's parking practices very loudly in the recent past, should read and explain this one. I also have a somewhat nightmarish story about Oakland parking drama. I live in West Oakland, and I love my neighborhood, but the parking ticket situation is starting to get absurd. Last year, my registration sticker got stolen. I didn't notice this until I received a ticket for not displaying it. Never mind the fact that my registration was fully up to date. Having one's sticker stolen, I guess, is a ticketable offense, and one that resulted in my receiving $70 tickets on two different weeks. The thing is that the CA DMV is slow and

For this blogger, 2010 California Primary Election Night will be remembered for an emotional, stirring speech by Kamala Harris, now the California Democratic Representative in the race for the Attorney General seat now held by Jerry Brown, and an angry, irrational, and racist cab driver who really should be off the streets of San Francisco , or at least not allowed to drive a cab. It started at 9:15 PM PDT as I walked up the escalator at The BART Embarcadero Station to Market Street on the side in front of the San Francisco Federal Building. The initial plan was to walk over to the cab stand on Drumm Street in front of the Hyatt Regency. Then I saw a white cab drive slowly by, so I yelled "Hey taxi" and on cue, the cab slowed more and turned from the second lane to the first lane and to me. I clapped my hands in delight, opened the door, and got into the cab. That was the end of my joy. Angry Luxor Taxi Driver  I told the man to take me to Delancey Street w

The latest news from the Oakland Mayor's Race comes in the form of a communication from Don Perata's Office specifically stating Perata's intentions with respect to participation in Oakland Mayor's Race candidate debates or forums. The letter states the following: I regret that I will not attend any mayoral forums until the official filing deadline for mayor has closed and the full field of aspirants is known. Holding mayoral debates before all candidates are declared is undemocratic and misleads voters. In particular, Mayor Dellums has yet to announce his intentions as is his right as an incumbent. The mayor is running for re-election until he says he's not, or when filing closes in August. Ron Dellums has served our community for almost four decades. He's well entitled to such consideration. Sincerely, Don Perata. Presumably, Perata's statement also applies to Oakland At-Large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, who's not offically said she&

California Attorney General Candidate Chris Kelly's people have smartly bought up a lot of Internet ad real estate in promoting Kelly's run for the seat currently held by Jerry Brown. But enough is enough. Chris Kelly's ad appears on the top of this blogger's SFGate.com / San Francisco Chronicle website blog. It wasn't placed there after consultation with this space, so here's the message: ZENNIE ABRAHAM IS NOT VOTING FOR CHRIS KELLY. I'M VOTING FOR KAMALA HARRIS. Ok. And yeah, screaming. Chris Kelly does not have the connections or the experience to be a good top lawyer for California; Kamala Harris does. Being California Attorney General is not an issue of evaluating the legal impact of Facebook code, as was the case when Kelly was Facebook's legal representative. Being California Attorney General is about knowing who to call, when, and why to accomplish an objective for people in a region. There's little if anything in Chris Ke

Make it seven competitors in the Oakland Mayor's Race upcoming debate as Don Perata bows out of the Thursday, June 10th Oakland Mayoral Candidates Forum sponsored by 100 Black Men of The Bay Area. But what's interesting behind the reason, according to a very good source , is that the Perata camp gave a weird reason for not wanting to participate in what they thought was going to be an Oakland Mayor Candidates Forum in September, even thought the source claims Perata was not asked officially to do so. The Perata Camp said that as current Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums had not actually announced what he was going to do, run for another term as Oakland's Mayor, or not (even as some have told this blogger he was going to run again), Perata didn't think it was fair to participate in any forum. Seriously. At the time, the source was surprised Perata was going to be in the 100 Black Men-sponsored forum. Perata is not going to be there as of this writing. That's a mi

Don Perata  The Oakland Mayor's Race which once featured ten candidates - Ron Dellums, Don Perata, Don MacLeay, Jean Quan, Greg Harland, Maya Dillard Smith, Terrance Candell, and an tenth person who's still not ready for prime time - is now down to nine. Sources who know her told this blogger Maya Dillard-Smith has elected to drop out of the race. Not to be mean, but to be critical, Maya Dillard-Smith stood a better chance in the Oakland Mayor's Race with a real website and a good Internet strategy. She did not have one. Her only real Internet marker was a Facebook page called "Maya for Mayor." The problem with the growth of Facebook is anyone thinks that a Facebook page can do as a serious Internet marker. It can't and it doesn't. When you do a Google search for Maya Dillard-Smith, a website that reads "Maya Dillard-Smith for Mayor of Oakland" should pop up. It doesn't because there's not one. A simple website, or a free

The Oakland Mayor's Race finally has its first official candidates forum. This Thursday, May 10th, 100 Black Men of The Bay Area will host the "Oakland Mayoral Candidates Forum" at the First Unitarian Church at 685 14th Street in Oakland from 6 PM to 9 PM. Yes, all of the candidates will be there as of this writing. If Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, who has not made an official statement on his future in or out of Oakland, does not show up, don't take it as a sign he's not going to run. It's June and we've got a lot of time before November. We also have a lot of candidates: ten. So many that my sources tell me 100 Black Men almost made a mistake in not inviting all of them. At first, 100 Black Men extended invitations to three Oakland Mayor's Race participants: Don Perata and Oakland Councilmembers Jean Quan and Rebecca Kaplan. But the other candidates got wind of the event and literally raised hell, threatening to crash the party and present th

The spaces available on Union Street The 2010 San Francisco Union Street Festival is history and while it was an overall success, the crowds Sunday were less than in the past and once the tents were folded and the people went home, the empty store fronts were on display once again. To be sure, new and great restaurants like the home-away-from-home eatery called The Brick Yard at 1787 Union St (at Octavia) , and replacing The Bayside Bar and Grill at a space that sat empty for two years, and the upcoming "Unwind" just down the street, promise a brighter future for Union Street, the way still has a long trek to make to recover its past luster. There are over 20 spaces for lease along Union Street as of this writing, and overall it looks like a ghost town almost totally devoid of the vibrant street scene that once attracted thousands of people. Union Street lacks a book store and a movie house. The Apple Store was not aggressively pursued by the neighbor association;

Social Broadcasting OK. To the view of this blogger, the term "Social Networking" is not only inappropriate, it's illogical. The correct term is really "Social Broadcasting" and if more people thought that way, they would understand how media has really changed over the last two decades and how to take advantage of the tools available to them. Two events led to the use of the term Social Broadcasting for this blogger. First, on April 10, 2008, James Earl Buck used Twitter to get out of an Egyptian jail. What happened was that Buck, a University of California at Berkeley, or "Cal student", was in Mahalla, Egypt reportedly covering an anti-government protest when he and his colleague Mohammed Maree were arrested. While being transported to jail, James Earl Buck used his cell phone to send a message that read "Arrested." (If it were me, I'd have sent a tweet rather than a message.) Eventually, bloggers and friends at Cal and

On Wednesday, Oakland City Attorney John Russo sat down to talk about the need to legalize marijuana use, the Golden State Warriors, the Oakland A's, and World Cup Soccer. The result is this 14 minute video interview , the latest in a string of nine videos Russo has done with this blogger, and friend. In this one, John Russo talks about his support for the legalization of recreational marijuana use in California. The vote to cause the legalization of marijuana use is on the November ballot in California. According to a recent poll, 37 percent of potential voters use marijuana. John Russo is the first elected official to openly support the legalization of marijuana use in California. Why does Russo support legalization? "Well, Russo said, first, number one I think marijuana prohibition has been a demonstrated failure at this point, no different than alcohol prohibition in the 1920s." Russo says it's also "cooler" for the young to use marijuan

Jed York San Francisco 49ers Team President and Owner Jed York was reported as implying that the San Francisco 49ers NFL Football Organization would move to Los Angeles if they did not win approval to build a new stadium in Santa Clara, California this Tuesday, June 8th. This blogger had the pleasure of meeting Jed York at Former San Francisco City Hall Staffer Hala Hijazi's June Professionals VIP event last night, Thursday, at The San Francisco City Club. Late for the event, thus missing York's presentation, I made up for it by having an informal conversation with him afterward. It was a great moment, with other event goers who also hailed from York's hometown of Youngstown, Ohio coming up to express their warm wishes. But I had to ask him if he intended to move the San Francisco 49ers to Los Angeles. "The San Francisco 49ers will remain in the Bay Area," York said. Moreover, York said it directly, clearly, and deliberately. York told me he's o

Movie product tie-ins are common and many new products are aimed at kids. That's why the news of the McDonalds Shrek glass recall is so terrible. But first, thank the Office of Congresswoman Jackie Speier for the discovery of the problem. According to the San Francisco Chronicle via the Associated Press , there were 12 million McDonalds Shrek glasses on the market: all of them must be recalled after a discovery by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The glasses are tainted with Cadmium, a carcinogen that can cause "long term adverse health effects." While that's in the recall notice, along with the news that the discovery came from the Office of Congresswoman Jackie Speier from California, that news is buried way down deep in in the Associated Press article. The article also makes it seem as if the Consumer Product Safety Commission made the discovery. You have to read the entire, long work to see that it was Rep. Jackie Speier's office wh

Also: city of oakland, cA, sf bay area race relations, san francisco, california, rockridge and race, black white oakland Rockridge, Oakland, CA  Oakland, CA - Fresh from a visit to my doctor's office that didn't go as I would have liked (I was told, really ordered, to lose 20 pounds and gave a large vial of blood with the fear of the unknown report to come), I decided that I needed to relax. Normally, a trip to the gym would be the next stop but that's not relaxing, really. Fitness work is just that: another kind of work. The fantasy of having a glass of whiskey at a Rockridge, Oakland, California restaurant next to Rockridge BART - the owners I've known for a long time - seemed like a fun idea. Not meeting anyone; just totally spur of the moment. So I arrived from Rockridge BART, walked in, and noticed the lower level bar area was totally redesigned. The bar itself was smaller than before and two people took up most of it. The bartender, a nice Lat

"Outside Lands" the popular festival set for San Francisco's Golden Gate Park August 14th and 15th 2010, just released its schedule today. The 2010 Outside Lands list features former Grateful Dead members Phil Lesh and Bob Weir of Furthur, The Kings of Leon, The Strokes, My Morning Jacket, Phoenix, Social Distortion, Al Green, Gogol Bordello, Nas and Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley, The Levon Helm Band, Cat Power, Empire of The Sun, Wolfmother, Bassnectar, Chromeo, Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, The Temper Trap, Pretty Lights, Janelle Monae, Amos Lee, The Devil Makes Three, Tokyo Police Club, Beats Antique, Rebith Brass Band, Wild Beasts, and a host of other bands. Here's the presentation video listing them all : Tickets for this popular festival of music, food, and wine go on sale Wednesday. Visit SFOutsideLands.com for more information.

This is The Grove in The Marina in 2007! One of the top-listed posts at SFGate.com is by San Francisco Chronicle Food and Restaurant Critic Michael Bauer, who rightly asks why laptop and cell phone use in restaurants make patrons angry. Before weighing in on that, this blogger's compelled to point out that the photo used in his post was taken in 2007 at at The Grove on Chestnut Street and Avila Avenue in San Francisco's Marina District. The Grove is specifically designed for laptop users. I discovered The Grove for myself in that same year of 2007, while attending a screenwriting class in Fort Mason, nearby. The attraction was that the vast majority of patrons were using their laptops for work. That habit continues today, even as the Grove's recent remodel makes it less favorable to use as a office away from home. That was an awful move, the design change. There are fewer seats for internet work, and more for just lounging. Or it seems this is the case; more