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I just got this email regarding this event at Rasselas Jazz Club on December 28th: Concerts for Change – Benefiting Homeless & Hunger Featuring some of the Best Jazz Funk Bands in the Bay Area: Messy Guest Quartet (jazz, funk)                                       Dec 28 th An up and coming high-energy band that will keep you dancing. Fil Lorenz Soul-Kestra, 14 piece soul-jazz-funk orchestra.    Jan 25 th A world-class band, impeccable, and limitless in its capabilities. Joe Bagale, with an 8-piece band and unstoppable grove.    Feb 22 nd These guys will make sure your booty is shakin' & souls are breaking. Free Ticket Raffle:  visit  Progressive-Alliance.org  to find out more. Ages:     All Ages until 10 pm , After 10 pm 21+ Only Cost:      Only $9 on line , and Only $12 at the door Dates:    Sundays Dec 28 th, Jan 25 th, Feb 22nd Time:     doors 7 pm, show 8pm Place:     Rasselas Jazz Club & Restaurant 1534 Fillmore Street  bet: Geary & O’Farrell Or

I had the pleasure of sharing my iReport story with CNN's anchor Richard Lui who's a fellow Cal=Berkeley graduate like myself. The original video on CNN is below and I told my story live today at CNN Headquarters. Thanks to the CNN iReport team and to the  producers at CNN.  Original video:

I just read the East Bay Express' Chris Thompson's blog about the fact that Mayor Ron Dellums still has not named a City Administrator.  That's because the one person Dellums wants -- former City Manager Robert Bobb -- reportedly asked for $350,000  !  That's too much for the cash-strapped City of Oakland to stomach.  

More at San Francisco Business Times: : “Moody's Investors Services on Thursday rated MediaNews Group Inc. -- owner of 29 newspapers in Northern California -- as being in “substantial risk” of default on its debt. Denver-based MediaNews owns the Oakland Tribune, the Contra Costa Times, the Argus in Fremont, and the San Jose Mercury News, among other local papers. The ratings service downgraded its “corporate family rating” of the privately held media company to Caa3 from B3 on $962 million in debt. It also lowered its “probability of default” rating to Caa3 from Caa1.” -- And the Trib's plan to charge money to online readers for content access is not going to stop this slide.

More at Editor and Publisher : “CHICAGO David Cohen founded the newspaper group in California that became Silicon Valley Community Newspapers (SVCN), and became its principal owner and CEO when it was spun off as a separate group. It grew from six to 11 weeklies. When Cohen sold SVCN to Knight Ridder, he stayed on as group publisher and retained the position when the weeklies ended up with MediaNews Group as part of its acquisition of the San Jose Mercury News. But now Cohen joins the large ranks of newspaper veterans laid off by the brutal industry economy. In a literal exit interview with his newspaper, the publisher told reporter Dale Bryant he understood the move. ”

More at SFGate.com : “(12-25) 16:54 PST -- It's difficult to say what is more remarkable about the hallucinogenic interior of the Fox Oakland Theater: the Moorish details that flood the ceilings and walls, or the fact it survived decades of neglect. "It's a wonderful glimpse of the past," said Kurt Schindler, a principal of the Berkeley architecture firm ELS. "These picture palaces were about glitz. They were designed to take you into another era, offering fantasy and escape." Schindler's firm is one of many consultants that had a hand in bringing the Fox back to life. It reopens Feb. 5 - a little more than 80 years after its premiere and 43 years after the theater last was used with any sort of regularity.”

I've actually heard a lot about the Hot Toddies, but never seen them. So here they are at the Uptown Night Club on Telegraph Avenue. Wonder when they'll be back?

I love this kind of video and considering that we're all traveling it's appropriate for this time of year. A Southwest plane coming in for landing in Oakland and where one can see East Oakland below.

More from The Oakland Post : “The young people based their findings, which they presented to board members Nov. 18, on a survey they conducted of 1,000 youth in West Oakland, Sobrante Park, Cherryland and Ashland. In West Oakland, 91 percent said drugs were a problem, and 8 percent said violence was a problem. In Sobrante Park, 73 percent said violence and drugs were a problem. When asked how violence can be stopped, the majority of young people said they needed more jobs, sports and dance groups, and a recreation center,” -- Old news at the Post, but needs to see the light of day.

More at Inside Bay Area : “OAKLAND — City officials will be swimming in red ink once again when they return to business after the New Year. Mayor Ron Dellums released a budget report this week projecting a general fund deficit of $50 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2009, and $58 million the year after that. The bleak projections are due to an economy in recession and expected increases in spending on children's programs and employee benefits and pension obligations, among other things, Dellums' report said. The mayor will meet with the City Council on Jan. 12 to begin hammering out a spending plan for the two-year period beginning July 1 and to take stock of the city's fiscal picture over the next five years. "Most public agencies nationwide, as well as private businesses large and small, local and global, face a daunting financial future," Dellums said in a statement. "The city of Oakland is no exception. The economic downturn that we face is u

The sight of our President-Elect Barack Obama shirtless in Hawaii has some in a tizzy. But look, many brothers have hairless, sculpted chests, like me! My chest is better than President Obamas!

Hey, if you've never visited Saul's at 1475 Shattuck Ave in Berkeley, this week's the time to do it.  They've got a Hanukkah Dinner special I'm told is really great.  It has: Goat stroganoff (Niman's Ranch goat), Matzo crusted rock cod with fish from Monterey Market and a local fishery, Moroccan chicken tagine with organic chicken from Petaluma Farms, vegetarian tagine, spinach cumin latkes, traditional potato and onion latkes, and Niman Ranch braised. It's through December 28th.    

As of this writing, NORAD tracked Santa in Baltimore! Check out http://www.noradsanta.org for the latest Santa siting!

This is the second day of my Denver flight delay story. After not making UAL 7515, I managed to get a free room at the Marriot Residents Inn in nearby Aurora, CO. The next morning, I got up to get back to Denver Airport. This is that portion of the ordeal.

More at SFBG Politics Blog : “As the year winds down, I’d like to note what I consider to be the most politically courageous act of 2008: Attorney General Jerry Brown’s decision to reverse his position and urge the California Supreme Court to overturn Prop. 8. This was a deeply principled decision that went against Brown’s political self-interest considering the fact that he’s planning to run governor in a state where a majority has approved Prop. 8. And that political danger was exacerbated by Brown’s post-election statement saying he would defend Prop. 8, as attorneys general are generally required to do, opening him up to the dreaded flip-flopper label. But his new position is consistent with important constitutional principles (as I outlined in the Guardian almost a month before Brown adopted his new stance) and well-worth taking a gamble to do what’s right, the kind of act that is all too rare in modern American politics. ” -- And I second that award. Jerry Brown did act in a way

More at MashGet : “A federal court in Northern California has awarded Verizon $33.15 million in what the company is calling the largest cybersquatting judgment ever, Verizon announced Wednesday. Verizon filed the case against OnlineNIC, a San Francisco-based Internet domain registration company, claiming it used Internet names--663 to be exact--that were chosen to be easily confused with legitimate Verizon names, according to Verizon. It might hard, however, for Verizon to actually collect on the judgment, which was a default ruling, or one entered against a defendant who fails to answer a summons. No one appeared in court on OnlineNIC's behalf or in its defense, Verizon said.”

This is the second day of my Denver flight delay story. After not making UAL 7515, I managed to get a free room at the Marriot Residents Inn in nearby Aurora, CO. The next morning, I got up to get back to Denver Airport.

Well, after all that, the flight was so overbooked, and I was on standby, I did not get on. So, I've got to get a hotel room and stay in Denver for the night.

As I upload this new video I am still at DIA - Denver International Airport - and Gate B56 where the flight to Atlanta, United 7515, was to have departed at 6:56, but will not leave until 10 PM. The reason: bad weather in Iowa

More at SFGate : “Dellums said the city's deficit, which was $42 million this year, could balloon by 2012 to nearly $113 million, with revenues that year projected to be $456 million and expenditures at $569 million. The city has relied heavily upon property transfer taxes which have dwindled with the mortgage meltdown. Retail sales taxes are floundering while the costs of providing police and fire service and maintaining parks and other basic city services are rising.” -- This is a great time to create new Redevelopment project areas, if only to capture whatever property tax revenue we can, otherwise it had to be shared with BART, AC Transit, and other entities. Regardless, the zero-sum game is not fun and will lead to their loss. The end answer is a going to be a total bailout by the Federal Government, in some kind of way.