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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

Nikki Raney has advice for Tila Tila Tequila is a celebrity who's very familiar to readers of this space. The combative reality TV show star, and former wife-to-be of the late Casey Johnson, loves to get in the mix with people.  First it was Perez Hilton and now its Nikki Raney. Nikki Raney is a star blogger and journalist at Zennie62.com .    But before we look more into that and her row with Tila Tequila, some background on Tila Tequila from this space' perspective. In the middle of accusing San Diego Chargers Linebacker Shawne Merriman of assault, when he was just trying to stop her from driving drunk, this space revealed what Tila said about herself : "i like people who are really fucked up...I am very high strung and suffer from multiple personalities...I do a lot of things that are self destructive. I try not to...I am also bi-polar so that should explain my irratic postings." Here's the video on the entire incident between Merriman and Tila Teq

YouTube , Yahoo , MySpace , Metacafe , DailyMotion , Blip.tv , StupidVideos , Sclipo and Viddler Oakland, CA - Note. This was originally posted on Memorial Day, 2009. It's worth reporting as this blogger prepares to make the same trip in 2010. I went to my stepfather's burial place today. Even though I was really ill, I forced myself to go and place flowers at his grave site as I've made it a habit to visit him on Memorial Day each year. He fought in World War II. But this time, I took my biological father's burial flag with me. Both my father and stepfather died in 2005. To some who are anti-war, the title of this video-blog will upset them. It should not. I'm against war and always have been, but the reality of my life is that both my late father and stepfather fought in World War II, and in my father's case, Zenophon Abraham Sr. I have his name (he lives in Chicago), and I am the proud owner of his neatly folded burial flag and two bulle

Arrington and Carol Bartz New York, NY - (Zennie62's trip to TechCrunch is sponsored by Christine Smith Associates, Inc. , the Premier Female Contractor in NYC.) Yahoo!'s CEO Carol Bartz is known via Fake Carol Bartz on Twitter for getting off the occasional "F-bomb." But even with that, one doesn't actually expect a person to live up to a Twitter persona created by someone else. Not the case with Carol Bartz; she did. Bartz, who's taken a beating from a very critical Michael Arrington in TechCrunch, walked into what TechCrunch Co-Editor Eric Shoenfeld called "the lion's den" and talked with Michael for 25 minutes. While we have the entire 25 minute interview, this exchange on video was the talk of TechCrunch Disrupt and served to solidify Carol Bartz' combative reputation. To set the stage, Arrington was pressing Bartz on the idea that the best companies are often "single-revenue-source" producers, and was implying

To characterize Oakland Mayor's Race Green Party candidate Donald Macleay as upset that U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein (D - California) endorsed former California State Senator and Oakland Mayor's Race candidate Don Perata for Mayor, is an understatement. Donald Macleay, who I now give the name "Donny Mac," and who I interviewed here .... ...is just plain pissed off. Macleay fired off this hot letter to me just 10 minutes ago and that I'm about to present to you for inspection below. Indeed, Don sent the letter to a number of media people, which means he really was hopping mad over the issue and wanted to pick a fight or draw attention to himself or some combination of both. That's politics. It's also necessary. The problem Donald Macleay has is he's a "Don" like Perata, so his name gets lost in the sea of Don. Call this a scream for help from someone lost on a castaway island in Oakland politics. Donny Mac's competing in

In a great online video Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland's President & CEO, Bertram Lubin, MD, talked about why parents should bring their kids to Children's Hospital. He says the main reason is "You get a feeling of warmth. That you're around people who care about your children. The children are why we are here." In all, Children's Hospital has 58 videos in its well-designed YouTube channel . What's missing is a link to a blog where the videos can be housed in an online publication. In this way the videos can have another source of viewers and not just the channel itself. The channel also needs to group the videos in playlists. I could go on, but the videos themselves are excellent. The videos come together to show and tell a compelling story about a great environment for both parents, kids, and employees. And as a note to Children's Hospital, my request to be a friend on YouTube is still outstanding; friend

Sunshine The Clown  The month of June means San Francisco Festival Season and that means events like The Union Street Festival and San Francisco institutions like The San Francisco Sunshine Flower Girl. The San Francisco Sunshine Flower Girl , is "Sunshine The Clown" and appears at San Francisco festivals from Union Street and the North Beach Festival, to The Folsom Street Fair. But one thing happened at Union Street last year which should not happen to the San Francisco Sunshine Flower Girl: harassment from so-called festival representatives. What the San Francisco Sunshine Flower Girl is make flower balloons for money, and not a lot. But the nature of what Sunshine The Clown does such that she's mobile. Asking Sunshine The Clown to get some kind of festival booth permit, which runs into the thousands in some cases, is anti-business. The San Francisco Sunshine Flower Girl should be hired by the festival producer to add to the ambiance of the event. Let