The Parkway!

I have been really slow on the blog front and my hopefully valid excuse is that I have been studying for the GRE and doing grad school apps and all that fun stuff. That means it is even more essential to follow me on twitter, so you get updates when something really great comes up that I don't see listed enough other places. Such as the opening block party that is being thrown by the Parkway on Wednesday!

If you are new to Oakland or if you've been living under a rock - The Parkway was an amazing Oakland institution; a theater that showed super cheap movies which you could watch while sitting in couches and eating pizza and drinking beer. It shut down a couple years ago and there was lots of drama, and bla bla bla - the bottom line though is they are reopening on 24th between Broadway and Telegraph and that is awesome news for Oakland peeps.

HERE is the info on Wed. Officially they open on Nov 30th. Word.

Help Numi Celebrate Their New Foundation (It'll be fun....)

Numi is having a FREE Foundation launch party in Oakland on 10/5 in conjunction with Numi Tea's 13th anniversary and it should be sweeeeet- music, drinks, photo booth, costumers, silent auction, and great company. All you gotta do is RSVP. Hopefully they will have some Coconut Pu-erh on hand... so so good!

Fund This Project: Farley's Parklet

An example, click on the picture for more!

There is a really great new site called Things We Start, which in the realm of crowd-funding, helps you spend your limited mula supporting local projects. I took a look at some of the Oakland possibilities today, and there was one that stood out - Farley's Parklet. At the time of writing they are about 2/3rds of the way toward their goal of $5000. Help push them over the edge!

donut savant = yummmmmm

I read about the 3 week old -donut savant- in the East Bay Express and knew I had to try it ~ NOW

Final verdict? Amazing!

Instead of full sized donuts, here you will find something more akin to large sized donut holes. They have a huge variety - which was as exciting as  frustrating because I wasn't able to try one of each like I wished I could!

I settled for the Maple Salt (my favorite), Dusted Chocolate, German Chocolate, Apple Crisp, and Chocolate Frosted. Each was delicious. And even though it sounds like I was being a huge fatty, and fine maybe I was a little, because they are just a few bites each, I left satisfied but not feeling like a grease-ball. The atmostphere could use a couple tweaks to make it feel like more of a place you's want to stay awhile, but otherwise this place gets two enthusiastic thumbs-up from me.

So what are you waiting for? Make you way down to 1934 Broadway and delight in these little balls of pleasure today!

 Tip: They make fresh batches throughout the day, so ask them which ones are still warm!

Art Murmur March 2nd: Free Beer, Wine, and Beats + Cool Peeps

Check out Oaklandish  this Friday. They are throwing a Record Release Party for local DJ Dion Decibels with free wine and beer. Should be sweet, or should I say Sweeeeet :)

Mix CD debut and sets by DJ Dion Decibels
Opening act by Antique
Live performances by 1-O.a.k. and Do Dat
Art by Jeff Meadows
Free (and freestyle) haikus by Mario
Food from FiveTen Burger
Drinks from Linden St. Brewery and Urban Legend Cellars

And for a great review of some other openings happening this Art-Walk check HERE

Oakland Restaurant Week!

Just around the corner is Oakland Restaurant Week! Great time to try out all those spots that you keep reading about, but never have time or money to indulge in.

My favorite picks, all of which involve drink specials (coincidence?):

Disco Volante - RW Deal: $30 for a three course dinner, including a carafe of house wine.
Grand Tavern - RW Deal: $20 for a two course dinner or $30 for a four course dinner, with all drinks at happy hour prices.
Seison - RW Deal: $20 for a three course dinner, $30 for a three course dinner plus a bottle of house wine.
Spice Monkey Cafe and Restaurant - RW Deal: $30 for a three course dinner, including a bottomless glass of house red or white wine.

Redevelopment Funds

At its best, SweeeeetOakland delivers local political news in addition to info about super-amazing-rad-beyond-belief events (if I do say so :). We have therefore been doing our best to research and keep abreast of the Redevelopment Funds Court Decision that is causing tidal-style waves through the city's government at this very moment. As usual, others have done a more fantastic job of covering it than we have the ability to, so following is a quick summary and some good links:

It goes something like this - Redevelopment funds are a form of Tax Increment Financing. Basically that means that you are borrowing money with the idea of using it to make improvements which will result in increased revenue in the future - equal or more than the original loan. So I borrow money, build a park in an abandoned lot, housing values in the area rise, I collect more in property tax, which pays for the loan, and everyone wins (in an ideal world at least).

Oakland relies a lot on this financing, in past years, using redevelopment funds to pay for almost half of the salaries of it's city employees. This year because of fiscal projections we (Oakland) budgeted close to 200 (rather than the historic 1000+) positions out of these funds, including half the mayors salary.

It gets complicated because the Tax Increment Financing process mostly doesn't take place directly through the city. Instead there are Redevelopment Agencies which envision these projects, access the funding, and then funnel some of the money back to the municipality after of course taking a cut for their own purposes.

Last week the California Supreme Court ruled that these agencies, in their current iteration, need to be shut down. That means the delivery of funds to local government is now severely in question. Many or all of the employees whose salaries are paid from these funds, or whose job is involved in it, will be getting lay-off slips soon.

What will take the place of the disbanded agencies is still up in the air, so continue following this story, educate yourself about it, and when it comes time to build something like them again, lend your voice to the discussion!

Links:

Overview and History 

Sad that this is happening

Good that it is happening

Rock New Years Eve 2011-2012 in Oakland

Thanks Don Hoekwater!

It's that special time again, when we all unload way too much money to try to have a better story to tell than our friends - New Years!! I long ago realized that the best narratives usually come from the people with no money who end up drinking too much 4-loco (RIP - tear tear) and smoking crack for the first time in a whorehouse in West Oakland. I mean, try telling your story of the $200 party with n-sa, n-sa, n-sa music and "open bar" where you got three drinks all night cause the lines were so long to someone with the prior one - you're not gonna win.

I was going to put together a list of recommendations, somewhere in between smoking crack and watching fireworks on TV, but so many fine people and publications have already rocked that job, that this time I am just going to link you to them. Each source provides a variety of ideas which should meet the dual tasks of providing you with a splendid NYE story, while meanwhile not breaking the proverbial the mint (bank? piggy bank?). For New Years Day I curated a few of my own picks.

Night Of

The Bar Crawl Route on Public Transportation from Living In the O

Some of the Bigger Events by Oakland Local 

Some Randoms from Clubzone

The Expensive from Inside Bay Area

The Outlyers brought to you by the infamous East Bay Express 

Mac and Cheese+ with the East Bay Loop


Morning After

Dollar day at the Horse Races

Monarch Butterfly Walk in Ardenwood Park (do advanced search to find deets)

Bottomless Mimosas at Hobnob (all the Oakland bottomless places I called will be closed :(

Opulent Temple After Party - Totally worth going to the city for


And FYI - Bart will be continuing its NYE tradition of running till 3am.

November 9th-13th: Guide to Oakland Happenings

Lots of great events coming up!

Before we get into that though, check out the short video above.  I took it the other day as the Berkeley Occupy movement marched down Telegraph to converge with the Oakland contingent.

Was a great day, nighttime as most of you know by now was somewhat of a different story. I was there when the Mercedes ran a guy over that we all thought was dead, and when the police let the driver go and people started breaking windows I headed out. My roommate stayed, and stumbled back at 3pm sobbing from the tear gas and the emotional weight of what he had just witnessed. Pretty crazy. Stay safe Oakland!

Nov 9th: Lykke Li at the Fox - I personally like her more than a Little Bit, but I can see why some people think she is super annoying too! Oh, and in case you haven't figured this out yet, at the Fox there are always tons of scalpers, which end up scalping themselves within half an hour of a show's start when they begin selling tics for less than face value. Check it-

Nov 9th: Van Jones - one of Oakland's coolest citizenry, will host The Contract to Rebuild the American Dream at the Humanist Hall between Broadway and Telegraph on 27th St. If you are part of the Occupy movement, or have sympathies for it, but wish it was more directed, this should be a worthwhile investment of your time.

11/11/11: Bay Area Localize is hosting a conference/forum - about community resilience, namely about how the more we are self sustaining, but better off we will be in various calamities, from economic depressions to earthquakes. This will give you the opportunity to find out more and help set their agenda. $7-10 donation includes lunch.

Nov 12th: 

Art Murmur Saturday Stroll: Visit many of the same galleries with less hipsters drunkenly stumbling into you (sorry if it was me! :)

Dashe Cellers Paella Fiesta: This is more expensive than I usually like to feature (Lykke Li too for that matter, don't you know we are in a recession??!!) but it promises to be a lot of fun, and if you buy a case you get your and a friend's ticket cost refunded. For those on a budget, still craving wine and Paella on Sat check THIS.

Kinetic Steam Works: Roll Out: If you do one thing on Saturday, do this! Please is awesome, always provides a good time. $10-100 sliding scale.

Nov 13th:

16th Street Station, West Oakland Open House/Party: This station was the final west coast terminal of the transcontinental railroad - CRAZY! Come eat, drink, and check it out. If you end up hosting an event there ($2500 donation to its restoration= event space) please please please invite me!!

Hope that all sounds good! Peace Oakland-

October 13th-19th Guide to Oakland Happenings

The blog is back! I'm going to start out a bit slow, posting once a week about upcoming events. If there is anything cool that I find out about last minute I'm much more likely to post it on twitter at: http://twitter.com/#!/sweeeeetoakland.

I'll do these weekly posts for a couple months. If people are checking it out - awesome, I'll keep it up. If not I may go back to just tweeting... So if you love this, or alternatively if you think I'm wasting my time, let me know!

Oct 13th: Soul of the City hosted by one of my all time favorite nonprofits, and definitely one of the most active in Oakland, the Ella baker Center. They will be sharing their list of strategies, priorities, and voting recommendations for the coming elections, so swing by Somar after work and grab a drink, meet some cool peeps, and get edumicated.

Oct 15-16: Treasure Island Music Fest. They still need some volunteers Sunday which would get you a free ticket for Saturday. You can email Jerry at oslvolunteers@gmail.com to sign up, but do it quick! There is a good festival guide HERE

Oct 16th: Joaquin Miller Native Plant Sale. Nuff said...

     and

Temescal Farmer Market 

    and

Mini Maker Faire - Awesome crafty, arty sort of event. Been to similar one before and it was sweeeeet!

Additionally the SF Documentary Fest is going on this next week, with events in SF (duh) and also Berkeley. Being in the middle of the two it seemed relevant.

Peace!

Direction for Tomorrow's Art Murmur

First:
Check out Miss California and the promised-to-be awwww inspiring lighting of Jack London Square


Second:
Velo Wonderland: Bike and Art Party
Bicycle-themed and recycled art curated by local artist Margo Rivera-Weiss. Enjoy snacks from Spice Monkey and beer from Linden Street Brewery. DJ Olga T will be spinning music all night long.


Third:
Meander among the more southernly Art Murmur galleries that you never make it to, starting with the art space that is celebrating its opening next to the Layover. For a map of these galleries see HERE

Eucalyptus Invades Oakland Hills

I love hiking in the Oakland Hills, and not being incredibly familiar with my Bay Area native vs invasive plant species, I assumed that the pervasive Eucalyptus were part of the natural environment. Not so. In fact eucalyptus is not just invasive, but is causing real problems for the traditional flora.

"The bark strips, and that along with the leaves and branches that litter the floor of a eucalyptus grove contain chemicals that inhibit the growth of other plants. This litter is also flammable, and under some conditions can produce drifting burning materials. For example, the intensity and difficulty of the Oakland Hills fire was partially due to the high density of eucalyptus trees."

With this in mind I finally understand this girl's reaction, which I witnessed recently when hiking in the Hills (Love ya baby!). For more information see HERE.

Follow me on twitter so you always know about the latest updates..... http://twitter.com/sweeeeetoakland

Kiva Rocks!

Many of you already know about Kiva, but for those who don't: Kiva is a fantastic organisation which does microfinancing mostly in developing countries, mostly funded by direct investments by people like you and me. They are celebrating their 4 year anniversary this coming Tuesday in Berkeley, and have a fun night planned for anyone who would like join. The cost is $20 and includes local food and wine, not to mention entertainment. You can purchase your tickets HERE. If you have the money, pay the $20, if you're broke as a toad, save five with this code: KFF

Halloween - Updated

UPDATE

Free cab rides home

The spoookie time of year is here again, and with it a myriad of happenings. Whether your cup of tea be blood-bathed haunted house, or smiley faced pumpkin patch, the following should provide you with some direction.

Haunted House

The East Bay Express did such a good job summing up our Haunted Houses that I won't waste my time talking about them myself. Find their article HERE.

Pumpkin Patch

Growing up, my family would always buy pumpkins on Halloween because they were all at least half off. It wasn't until recently though that I did a cost benefit analysis, and realized we had it all wrong. If you buy the pumpkin 14 days in advance of Halloween, you pay only .50 a day for the enjoyment of your $7 melon, vs paying 3.50 for your one day of happiness. Sure there are other factors that could be accounted for, but I will spare you. All said, you might consider going to the smallish and relatively expensive Piedmont Ave. Pumpkin Patch if you want more of an authentic experience, or just head over to Whole Foods or the Berkeley Bowl for a slightly cheaper and organic gourde.

Halloween Parties

Again, why create something that is already there. HERE is a list from CBS of mostly family friendly Halloween parties. HERE are some more adult themed options.

My personal choice: Shipwrecked on Treasure Island, brought to you by an awesome burning man crew, and including many of their fire breathing art installations, and some of the most delicious music that the Bay has to offer - all till 5am.

Costume

This is one holiday which makes laziness embarrassingly obvious, or at least very expensive to hide (if you have money to spend and are not lazy look how far you could go). Though there is less than a week left, there is still time to DIY up a great, and on average, greener costume. Use THIS SITE's  instructional videos as your guide.

Happy Halloween!!

Weekend Edition: October 16, 17, 18

It's another beautiful weekend in Oakland, and with the newly minted health benefits of our crisp, rain-purified air, why not indulge a little bit more in some other vices!!

Now - Free Play/Symphony tickets
So this first one doesn't fit so snuggly into the vice theme, but there is a time limit on it, so you need to act fast! Currently they still have free tics available for the symphony tomorrow and several East Bay plays, but you need to hurry.


Friday - Pacific Brewing Company 21 Anniversary Party
From 5-11pm this local brewery will be offering music, bites, and beer for sale at the same price it was in their founding year, 1988. By my calculations, and feel free to check them yourself, that should equate to roughly $2.78 per beer. I don't know if you are such a stickler, but if you see someone presenting a tabulation to the bartender, say hello because it's probably me!

Bonus: Old Oakland Farmers Market

Saturday - Brats (and vegetarian) and Beer
The Linden Street Brewery, another one of our locals, is hosting a rare party at their place. Since they don't have a bar or restaurant on property, this event serves as unique chance to see their operations up close. In great Bay Area style they are going out of their way to make the event earth friendly, not to mention law abiding, by offering bike valet and free shuttle rides from the West Oakland Bart. In addition all food is locally sourced, and the profits benefit an organization which gives poor people food baskets on Thanksgiving. Now that I will cheers to!

Bonus: Continue along the theme of donating to the poor and getting sloshed, I mean slushed, check out the ice skating rink in Jack London Square. The $5 admission includes skate rental!

Extra Bonus: $1 wine tasting and snacks at the Wine Mine from 2-5pm

Sunday: Check out one of the several Bottomless Mimosa Brunches the East Bay has on offer
Sadly, I admit I have only been to one of them so far, the Terrace Room. Help me check out the others, or go for the tried and very very true (Terrace Room = $7 bottomless Mimosas and Bellini's, $8 bottomless Bloody Mary's).

Bonus: Sweet Crude the documentary showing in San Francisco. Right off the Powell St. Bart.

All Weekend - Treasure Island Music Festival

Next Week: Rest your poor liver!!!

Oakland Happy Hours and Bottomless Mimosas, Oh my....!

I would like to share with you my two newly created Google Maps. They can be found under If You Haven't, Do, on the upper right hand side of the page. One map lists happy hours and places with bottomless mimosa brunches, while the other lists my local favorite places, many of which are at least a little off the beaten path. I tried to put as much information about them as possible, so click on the icons and in most cases you will see a list of the hours and details.

Happy Hour and Bottomless Mimosas: Here

Favorites in Oakland: Here

I also wanted to give a heads up about my plan for future posts. Rather than my current habit of posting once or twice a week, I have been inspired to write shorter posts with more links, more often. My goal is to begin posting 4-5 times a week. That's all for now! Hope you enjoy the maps and keep checking back on them because I will continue to expand their reach. I would very much appreciate you sending me any tips at grahamhollandpatterson@gmail.com. Thank you in advance!

Photo by: Tom Paiva

You - say - ARTSY! I - say - CHECK!

There are so many great arty events happening soon that rather than posting each individually, I am going to cram them all (daintily I hope) into one burst of fillet-vaaaa.

October 1st : Full Moon Buy Night
Random name, but a great chance to share some of your bucks, big or otherwise, with local artists, restaurateurs, and farmers. The entertainment is sure to delight as well, with stilt walkers, fire jugglers, magicians, DIY classes; basically everything you can imagine besides ice skating. O wait, they have that too (again, random). All is taking place at Jack London. If you are going to be out of town or on your death bed (the only valid reasons for missing it), or if you just can't wait, you can always shop for awesome local goods HERE.

October 2nd : East Bay Express Annual Taste for Art

Yes it's in Berkeley, but it has plenty of representation from its more hard-core neighbor to the south. A night of :

• Small plate tastings; beer, wine, and spirit samples
• 35 artist studios exhibiting and selling locally produced art
• Film screenings, live music, aerial dance, sword fighting demos, live glass blowing

October 2nd : Art Murmur

October 8th-14th : Oakland Film Festival

After recommending the Oakland Underground Film Festival, and then driving around for an hour trying to find it unsuccessfully, I hesitate to recommend another one. Who knows, perhaps it was literally underground, and silly me, I didn't think to look there. Anyhow (grumble, grumble), the fact that this one doesn't have underground in the title surely heightens the plausibility of it actually existing. I was hoping to write a little bit more about the actual films, but their site was down when I just checked (not a good sign).

*And if you are up for crossing the bridge this weekend, don't forget LovEvolution and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. See more details a couple posts back.

**Art above is displayed in the Oakland Museum

HoodStock 2009

I first went to an event at the house where the Hoodstock Festival will be hosted this weekend, just a couple weeks after arriving in Oakland. Up until that night I still wasn't sure how I felt about my new hood. By the end of it I had jumped off the fence with abandon, and was proclaiming the glories of Oakland to anyone who would listen.

The house is in a slightly gritty neighborhood, but the people who live there are visionary. They invite bands to play in their backyard and host friends and strangers alike. They usually have a keg on tap - glasses in exchange for a small fee - but also encourage people to buy drinks at the liquor store on the corner and bring them back. The festival this weekend will offer several awesome bands, BBQ, and no-doubt, lots of drinking. Squeeze through the hipsters blocking the fence, hold your nose by the bathrooms in the hallway, and make your way into a little slice of Oakland heaven. 2523 Martin Luther King Oakland CA.

Thanks to my friend Justin for letting me know about this!

Music hanging in the proverbial air, or just air period

Anticipating something exciting in the future is often half the fun. It is with this in mind that I here reveal for your auditory pleasure (or at least the promise of it), a few other events that will be rolling into the area relatively soon. Remembering my initial point, you just might want to put them your calendar....

LoveEvolution - October 3rd ($10)

This is the Bay Area's most prolific electronic music festival, which for the Bay Area is saying a lot (consider for instance the upcoming and four-day, and slightly random San Francisco Electronic Music Festival with Oakland's very own Mason Bates performing). It should be a lot of fun, if you are into that sort of thing....

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass - October 2, 3, 4 (Free)

I am planning on going to this, although definitely dipping out on most of Saturday to attend LovEvolution. First of all, as I well know, you can't argue with free (the fact that I will pay twice as much in gas and bridge toll in exchange for a free glass of wine at some art opening in the city, rather than just buying four bottles of Charles Shaw, being my evidence) . Second, as advertised, this is not your typical bluegrass festival, although that would be cool enough to justify a visit. MC Hammer, Nico Case, Dr. Dog, Aimee Man, these are not your typical men in suits lonesomely crooning about Appalachia.

Treasure Island Music Festival - October 17, 18 (135.00 with fees for both days)

Treasure Island is only so big, so since this will be my first year going to the annual music festival there I figured I better get my tickets early before room literally runs out. I also just made this Pandora Station, which you are welcome to check out. I added all the bands from the festival, so if you don't know some of them\want to get a general sense of the kind of music that will be hanging in the air, check it out.