San Rafael and the Oakland Court story

The other day i was referring to San Rafael, not San Leandro.

the other day, I told a vagabond that had had his dog taken by the police based on what I believed to be a misunderstanding, that I would help him get his dog back. I had promised to do this 2 weeks earlier as well. I woke up very early and got to the train station at 7:30 AM, after about a 35 minute walk. My friend, who is generally coherent, had always treated his dog well, and it was friendly, well fed and loving to his master at all times. He arrived at about 7:40, telling me he had had to get some medicine.

Although he had expected six different people to show up, only me and another woman, who I recognized as a person who was "there" when things are going bad for the destitute of spirit (and sometimes mind). She had her own problems to deal with that day, but was taking some time to help this genleman, who I call "the Rev," because he sometimes babbles about the bible and has introduced himself as the "the Reverend ____ _____," using his real name, which I won't be publishing.

So, she gives the Rev a 20 to buy a breakfast, takes his papers and says she has to take a bus and "she'll be right back." It is 8:30. At 9:25, at my instigation, we finally leave, realizing she is not coming back with the papers we gave her to copy. We had told her that we needed to meet someone at 10:00 at the Ashby station, so, we took off. Luckily, she was there, and so was the other person, the owner of a local nightclub, who had a note also guaranteeing the Rev's ability to take care of his dog.

We go to the Oakland courtroom where the Rev has to address charges of animal cruelty, in the opinion of all of his friends unfounded, about some nonsense about him "forcing the dog to drag a cart," which is utter tripe.

Unfortunately, the Rev has a "bullet" in his lung, from some former shooting incident 2o years earlier, and he starts wincing in pain, muttering about the "transmission waves" coming from the top of the building. We sit in the pews for about 2 hours. He practically keels over in the court, and, when finally ready to deal with the judge, is limping along, moaning in pain, and talks incoherently to the judge. "receipt, paper, dog," he says with no connecting language. The judge, a grey haired woman with a sense of humor yet at the same time a surly and "no poppycock" personality, immediately tells the Rev to sit down in the jury box.

After another few minutes, we are escorted outside, where in the corridor, the Rev is informed through his anxiety hyperbole that he has to get finger-printed before any other action can take place. You can see the wincing nature of the DA informing him of these facts in his face. He is trying to be nice to the crazy, incoherent man.

As soon as we get outside, the Rev becomes totally coherent again, and, when we suggest he go into the police station and get his fingers printed, he says, "i will do it on Monday, right now, my stomach hurts too much." We are both at this point exasperated, and finally, I throw up my hands and take off.

The Rev is totally coherent, the courtroom actions in no way reflect on his capability as a person who can take reasonable care of himself and very good care of his dog, and the level of fear that he had that caused him to react in this anxious way is solely due to the harsh nature of the building and the charges leveled against him. On the other hand, I have only so much time to give to folks that won't help themselves, and i'd say it's more than most.

Later, the Rev bought me a lemonade and thanked me for showing up and showing the DA that others besides himself respected his ability to take care of himself and the dog. So, I hope I helped.

Not everyone is a stereotype, but some folks actually work towards it.

yesterday was a hard day. I was directed to a very posh community, in what turned out to be a semi gated community. Now, i don't want to disparage everyone in this neighborhood, but the neighborhood itself was painful, weird and unfriendly in a way that no other part of the city even comes close to.

First, the first house I went to had a nice woman who full understood the connection between art, business and hippy-traveller/entrepeneurialism that I was driving at. I'm on my pal's computer, so, I'm not sure I spelled that last one right, but whatever. Anyway, the very NEXT house, the lady looked at me sort of coldly and said, "we require tags for this part of the city. I was like, fine, good luck, as I always say. Three more houses down, a 17 year old comes to the door, I say, "are your parents available?", and before he can even say yes or no, he catches himself, actually lies to my face, says no (yes, I see them) and says, "what's this about?" I said, "If I can't get a straight answer, I'm leaving." he actually apologized for lying and shut the door! Next, I stop at another house, the lady says the same thing, "you need a tag in this part of the city. I say, well, I'm a traveller, and are the other folks creative, doing their own thing, or just selling magazines? She tells me they aren't, but it doesn't matter. Fine, good luck! And I move on.

I have to add here, I have NEVER heard this before in SIX MONTHS of working in Oakland and Berkeley.

I'm at a final house, on the corner, a women comes to the door, a woman that appears to have some class. I give her my short spiel, which takes at most 15 seconds, but she cuts me off in the middle and says "no thanks." Ok, Great. I say good luck. I'm walking away, and this woman takes the time to come back out of her door, and call down to me, "excuse me sir, sir..." I spin around, "let me guess, " I say, "I need a tag?" She nods. I look at her and I say, "I've been doing this for six months in the city, and I have never heard this before, yet I have heard it three times in this neighborhood. Do you know what that tells me about this neighborhood?" She looks at me and says, "no, what?" I respond: "I'm not going to tell you, you figure it out." At which point she ran inside, probably to call the police on the surly itinerant artist in her midst.

There are many wonderful, lovely folks in Oakland, and a little later, I was down by the Grand, talking with an old black lady. I told her I had been in this specific, though it shall remain nameless, neighborhood. She rolled her eyes. "The rich," she said, and told me where there were more mixed neighborhoods where, despite any other form of rejection, people treat each other with decency and don't lie to avoid conflict as a family value. I don't have a problem with rejection: I do have a problem with people who lump a 46 year old scholar/musician/artist with 16 year old ghetto youth that sell crooked magazine subscriptions. On the way to a neighborhood that looks clean, where did so many residents lose all their class? The other neighborhoods, with all their good people, struggling to get by and good, even if they reject me, to a humble artist, makes this one, despite all it's fancy lawns, pretty houses and clean children, look bad, filthy and dirty.

Some places may look nice, have pretty lawns, even have access to good schools, but the class of people in them is so low, that I think it would be an embarrassment to raise one's children there, for fear that they might become as crass as their neighbors.

Kudos to Hammid

My pal Hammid let me scan a few toons today. I worked for 2 hours and made nothing, then made 40 in the last 20 minutes. I have to go farther afield i think, since i was just here a year ag0.

New Cartoons!!

Here are a few toons from the times just before I left for the gathering. Some are rehashes of my older work.

Is this for real?

Well, this is an older Version of Max, but since I'm sort of having some problems (read, I don't feel like paying for scanning right now), this is some fun from the past.

Not too perfect, but just so.

Well, I'm not sure we can see this picture all that well. in fact, I just realized, it's not fully done, but, being at Kinko's, we'll have to live with it. Life in the tent is going ok, and sales of cartoons are good.

The life of an itinerant cartoonist

Well, again, not able to send pictures, but the day has been interesting. I broke my bike, walked all over town, and played some music this morning. I've pretty much spent every available dime on my bike, but it didn't stop me from drawing two new cartoons today. Hector has been becoming more and more of a main character. I had him talking with Oscar, without Max present.

It's over when it's over

Great. No apartment soon, but at least I got my tooth pulled. Sheesh. They say that toothache was the leading cause of suicide in the middle ages. I'm not surprised. I'm going to do some parts of North Boulder tonight. Looks like my deposit is going to be gobbled up with all sorts of minutae, which is pretty unfair, since I've only been here 2 months! I've lost $570 in deposits in the last few months due to unscrupulous housemates and renters. That sort of sucks. Well, in the worst case scenario, I will go to the west, live in my tent, and scan these into some Kinko's machine.

Life isn't Easy

What a lousy three days. First, I hurt my back sitting wrong! Jimininies! Then, my toothache has gotten really bad, so, I have to go the Dentist and spend another 140+ dollars on saving my face from extreme pain. Then, yesterday, I took a major spill on my bike! Needless to say, I haven't been out since Saturday, and I'm hoping to work tomorrow.

A drunk follows me to my bike

Not a great day. I worked for 2 hours, made 9 bucks, and my last door was a dangerously aggressive drunk accusing me of "plaigarism." The guy accused me of stealing from R. Crumb (he neglected, of course, to even look at my work) and then acted more and more belligerently, following me around and over to my bike, asking if I "paid royalties" to R. Crumb. He was pretty drunk, and I told him so, telling him that he was acting crazy because he was too drunk. He did mention that "his own" stuff was original, so, I guess he might have been trying to communicate he was an artist, albeit in a weird, violent, offbeat sort of way. I simply walked away from him as he followed, he made a threatening comment about my bike, and then I left, sort of in a huff, but also feeling alive in the moment. I'm getting a little worried about retaining a place to live, but I will try to keep new cartoons coming in any case once every few days, although I can't promise anything if I end up out on the west coast again, living in my tent.

If you can remain calm while others are going crazy: maybe you just don't get the situation.

Second day out, I have to remember that I'm not all that healthy legwise, and I have to work from around 4:45 to 8:30 to make it. Otherwise, the sun and the pain tire me out. I did make 22 bucks in 1.3 hours, so, even at the hot part of the no one is home part of the day, i'm doing ok. I met a sweet school teacher and a nice woman who had my cartoon from last year still up on her refrigerator. The latter told me that she loved the cartoon, and happily bought one of my booklets.