Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

Crazy Korean Song: Man Raps On Steve Jobs, White People, Strips, Does Yoga On BART On Thursday November 21st 2013, I was reminded of why carry my camcorder everywhere I go, and even as I have a new iPhone 5c. At the San Francisco Embarcadero BART Station platform this Korean guy was doing a crazy rap and walking around and waving his hands, and such that (with the exception of his mention of "white people") was uninteligible and then he boarded the Richmond BART Train, headed for Oakland and the East Bay. So I the car entered behind him with the specific intent of making a video of his antics, and aside from getting to the gym and then home, of course! What you see here above is the result, as this guy riffs on Steve Jobs, Jerry Brown, Samsung stealing from Apple, white privilege, North Korea / South Korea prejudice, the DMZ, and then starts a kind of strip to his waist that my female seat mate found of interest. Then he did some yoga and gymnastics moves, and got of...

Note: First produced at Zennie62.com as: Black Students Avoid UC Berkeley Because Cal Doesn’t Go After Them Kashawn Campbell (LA Times) There has been a lot of chatter why UC Berkeley doesn’t have a larger black student base. One recent publication reported that more than half of African-American students who are accepted at Cal don’t go there because “they feel unwelcome.” The LA Times featured a story on Cal freshman Kashawn Campbell, a straight A student from predominantly-black Jefferson High School in Los Angeles, who came to Cal, and was surrounded by, as the LA Times put it “white kids, Asian kids, rich kids, bearded hipsters and burnt-out hippies.” Kashawn Campbell said “Sometimes we feel like we’re not wanted on campus. It’s usually subtle things, glances or not being invited to study groups. Little, constant aggressions.” And the LA Times reports that other black students at the table nodded in agreement. I have a lot of experience with this subject. I graduated fr...

There's a lot of Oakland News over at Zennie62.com.  From the Oakland Raiders and Oakland A's Coliseum Lease extension news, to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's dirty tricks and bullying to get Oakland Councilmember Libby Schaaf to not run for Mayor of Oakland. Visit Zennie62.com here for more: Oakland News: Raiders, A’s Coliseum Leases Extended; Mayor Quan’s Dirty Tricks On Libby Schaaf - http://www.zennie62blog.com/2013/11/25/oakland-news-raiders-as-coliseum-leases-extended-mayor-quans-dirty-tricks-on-libby-schaaf/

This is the latest in the weekly construction update for the Transbay Transit Center.  The giant complex which will serve as the new transit hub for much of the Bay Area will be finished in 2017. Here's the latest construction updates: Weekday Work ( 11/18/13 – 11/22/13 ):  Night Shift: Transit Center Construction Activity: Western Transit Center Site (Between First and Second Streets ):  Construction of the Transbay Transit Center is underway and is scheduled Monday through Friday between the hours of 6:00 AM to 6:30 PM . However; materials delivery (reinforcing steel) is scheduled daily between  3:00 AM and 5:00 PM . General maintenance of equipment, material deliveries and clean-up will also be performed between the hours of 3:00 PM to 11:30 PM . Trucks and equipment will enter and exit from the construction gates located on Howard Street (between First and Second Streets) and at First Street (between Mission and Howar...

Radio Bar at 435 13th St, Oakland has "Girl Dancing On Bar Thursdays." And if you're wondering is this is male lookie thing, as the video shows, women are spectators too. Radio Bar always has some interesting entetainment, from this to special movies on a high screen. In Oakland? Check out Radio Bar.

The Grand Avenue Bar & Restaurant scene has really picked up in 2013. The latest addition, Penrose, opens today with a beer party at 6 PM at 3311 Grand. That's next to Monkey Road Cafe and on the opposite of it, but the same side of the street, there's The Alley. Across the street is The Boot and Shoe Restaurant, The Lucky Lounge, Connie's (awesome burritos), Ordinaire (a new wine bar), Samurai Sushi, and past the Boot and Shoe there's iKaros, Bankok Palace, and Neecha Thai. On the other side of Grand from Neecha Thai is Yang Chow Restaurant (which delivers good chinese food). If you want great deep dish pizza, then head up Grand past Elwood to The Star. If you want the best Vietnamese Food there's Miss Saigon, on the same side of the street as The Alley, and next to Smitty's Bar. There are even more great eateries like Grand Lake Terrace, and Camino even further up Grand, too. What's interesting is that for all the talk about Oakl...

Oakland Dumping is still a large, giant problem, and all one has to do is walk along Euclid Avenue starting from Grand Avenue and then to Adams to see what I mean. People leave everything from mattresses and couches to large pillows and stereo equipment. The amount of stuff just dumped on the sidewalk is so large at times, it's horrible. Just go over to 362 Euclid Avenue today and see what I mean. There is the largest single Oakland Dump I have ever seen right there. And it's the same one that I featured in this November 7th video: And in an upcoming video, I go along Euclid and show you a murderers-row of dumping examples. You can just stand on the sidewalk and look down the street - it's all over the place. If you see dumping like this, take a picture of it, and post it on Twitter with the hashtags #Oakland #Dumping. Stay tuned.

Damon Bruce with women who aren't sportscasters. Damon Bruce, a popular sports talk radio show host in the San Francisco Bay Area and for KNBR Radio, has been suspended indefinitely for his anti-woman ranting of last week. Mr. Bruce seems to think that a woman's place is not in the sports world. For more on the action, which was just made public 40 minutes ago today, Sunday, November 10th, go to Zennie62.com, here: KNBR’s Damon Bruce Suspended Indefinitely For Anti-Women Comments - http://www.zennie62blog.com/2013/11/10/knbrs-damon-bruce-suspended-indefinitely-for-anti-women-comments-15163/

Libby Schaaf I have it from several sources that Oakland City Councilmember Libby Schaaf (District Four) is considering a run for Mayor of Oakland. This is a fresh rumor that come up on Tuesday while this blogger was at two different events. It flies in the face of her original claim that she wasn’t ready to do so. In fact, Schaaf is set to run for re-election to her current District 4 Council Seat, so the rumor that she would run for Mayor comes as a bit of a surprise to this blogger. Plus, she’s a mother of two wonderful children and her husband Sal has held down the fort while Libby has worked in service to Oakland, so I would think he’s the ultimate decider in this case. Personally, I told Libby she should run for Mayor five years ago, so I think she could be very effective if she were elected. But she’s got two major road blocks in the form of current fiscal front-runner and my favorite Bryan Parker, Joe Tuman , who’s an equally formidable candidate, and the incumbent, Oakl...

Find Yourself By: Robert A. Wilkins, CEO and President, YMCA of the East Bay “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others,” said Mohandas K. Gandhi.   As he was with so many things, Mahatma Gandhi was right.   Volunteering makes a difference, not only in someone else’s life, but also in your own. I should know.   My organization – The YMCA of the East Bay – has helped a lot of people find themselves over the years.   Without volunteers, we could not exist.   Nor could countless other nonprofits.   Last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 64.5 million people volunteered through, or for, an organization at least once.   If you are one of those 64.5 million, you can, if you wish, stop reading now.   You already made a difference. But if you are one of the 73 percent of the population who didn’t volunteer to help a community group, a church, a nonprofit, a school or other organization at leas...

The San Francisco Waterfront’s very history is said to hang in the balance with Proposition B and Proposition C, but the reality is anything but that. The truth is that only one proposed development is impacted by the vote this Tuesday, and that is 8 Washington. 8 Washington will add 134 luxury condominiums on a 3.2-acre lot which currently contains a tennis club I’ve played at many times and is roughly the same land size of our home grounds in Georgia. 8 Washington sits near to the Grand Hyatt Hotel and Justin Herman Plaza, and several condo developments just roughly 80 feet behind it. All 8 Washington does is fill in a kind of weird donut hole of airspace and land. That’s it. Look, a yes vote on B or C has zero to do with any growth agenda for San Francisco – nothing. It will not solve the affordable housing problem overnight, either (Sorry, it won’t and it’s time to be honest about that, too.) It’s just one development – and in point of fact, there’s room along the San Franc...

Jen Biesty and Tim Nugent According to Zennie62.com, Shakewell, when it opens at the current Mezze space at 3407 Lakeshore Ave, will be the second “Top Chef” restaurant in Oakland, and a sign that our city’s presence as a foodie capital is only growing. “Top Chef” restaurants are those owned and founded by alumns of the “Top Chef” television show. Foodies around the World make special stops at these eateries when they visit major cities, and one friend of mine has a co-worker she travels with and who keeps a personal list of their locations. So when she’s in Atlanta, she’s already made reservations at a “Top Chef” place. In Oakland, of course, the first Top Chef restaurant is owned by Preeti Mistry and is the Juhu Beach Club at 5179 Telegraph Ave in the Temescal District. Shakewell is the name of what will replace Mezze and is owned by chef Jen Biesty and pastry chef Tim Nugent. Shakewell raised much of its funding via a Kickstarter initiative that combined 443 donors and took...