Matt's Writing

Oakland Unseen - Fall 2013 print version Oakland Unseen features fake news stories and satire in the tradition of The Onion about life in Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area. The Fall 2013 print edition is being released on October 4 at the 25th Street Collective in Oakland from 6-10pm. See the Oakland Unseen website for more details. Oakland Unseen front page Copies of Oakland Unseen ready to deliver

By Joe Sciarrillo Asemara, an asylee from Eritrea, is sitting across from me at my desk at an immigration law clinic in San Francisco’s Mission District. Bouncing her one year old baby on her lap, she’s wearing a traditional zuria dress with a white shawl lightly draped over her braids and shoulders. Like many Eritrean and Ethiopian immigrants whom our office works with, she recounts living through two wars, persecution by Eritrean authorities, and surviving a trek of being smuggled from Brazil up through Central America to Mexico, and miraculously making it across the U.S. border with the help of coyotes. The irony of Asemara sitting there, is that despite all of the obstacles she’s faced so far, her next task seems insurmountable -- to find affordable housing in San Francisco. A worker working on a new construction project in San Francisco’s SOMA district. African immigrants have found it especially difficult to find affordable housing in San Francisco. Immigrants and ref...

In anticipation of the January 1, 2013 publication of the photobook  Bay Area Underground , I'll be running excerpts of news coverage to complement the photos in the book. The book covers the major cultural events and social movements in the Bay Area over the past five years, and no single issue was as polarizing in Oakland as the shooting of unarmed Oscar Grant III by a BART police officer on New Year's Day 2009. Below is a transcript of a news dispatch by Joe Sciarrillo about the January 30 and February 28, 2009 marches in honor of Oscar Grant. This report originally aired on the DJ Matt Werner show on Fresh Air: The Alternative on  March 3, 2009  ( right click to download  the podcast and skip to 44:15 to hear this report). January 30, 2009 Oscar Grant protest. Photo by Joe Sciarrillo On New Year’s Day 2009, a 22-year-old African American man named Oscar Grant was fatally shot by a police officer of the San Francisco Bay Area train service...

Matt Werner reading at the 25th Street Collective in Oakland. Photo by Joe Sciarrillo I'm reading Wednesday, November 28 at the Oakland Main Library from my book Oakland in Popular Memory about what's been happening in the East Bay's art and music scene over the past few years. The book features interviews with 12 artists and musicians from Oakland and artists who've influenced Oakland artists. Here's a piece about the book in the East Bay Express . The book reading is from 6-7pm tomorrow at the Oakland Main Library in the Bradley C. Walters Community Room. I'll also briefly talk about my next book project, a book of local photography covering Bay Area social movements titled Bay Area Underground . Matt Werner answering questions at book reading in November, 2012. Photo by Joe Sciarrillo

The three-day Eat Real Festival brought out thousands to Jack London Square to eat real food and learn food-making crafts. With temperatures in the mid-70s on September 21-23, ice cream was one of the most popular items, but the all-day festival had dozens of food trucks featuring every type of food one could want--from Hawaiian, to American mac and cheese, to Asian fusion food. In addition to food, there was live music, and indoor DIY exhibits on everything from butchery to making sourdough. Also, many East Bay shops were selling jam, chocolate, and other locally-made food in an indoor market. Walking between food trucks, I smelled fried lumpia, Indian curries, and tacos. I heard the humming of small generators strapped to the front of the food trucks, and the sound stage in the background. It was cramped during Saturday afternoon, with swarms of parents and children, and people gingerly navigating their bikes through lines people craving paella and BBQ. The event website bi...

"I must warn you before we begin: I'm an unapologetic Oakland snob," said Don Tyler, a former Oakland High School history teacher, as we began the walking tour of Old Oakland. A group of twenty gathered for the  City of Oakland walking tour at G.B. Ratto & Co. International Grocers , one of the oldest family-owned businesses in Oakland, California. Many of the tour attendees had lived in Oakland for quite some time, but wanted to learn more about what it was like before 1906 and when it was a frontier town. Tyler referred to San Francisco as the "West Bay" and preferred to call the East Bay by a more-fitting name: "the continental side of the Bay." The tour focused primarily on the architectural history of Oakland's oldest storefronts from the 1860s and 1870s. But far from being a tedious architectural tour, Tyler weaved in stories about the personalities of Oakland's early powerbrokers, some of whom had delusions of grandeur and Ka...

Joaquin Miller (Courtesy Oakland Public Library, Oakland History Room.) Over the past year, I’ve overheard Oakland natives complaining about the influx of hipsters moving to Oakland. However, this trend is as old as the city itself. Poseurs have been coming to the East Bay since the pioneer days. Today we honor one of these famous poseurs, Joaquin Miller, on his 175th birthday. Joaquin Miller was known as the “Poet of the Sierras,” and lived in a white cottage he called “The Abbey” in the Oakland hills from 1886 to his death in 1913. He earned his fame as an eccentric poet who told tall tales, and as a fashion icon. His house and hillside monuments now make up Joaquin Miller Park . Read the full post about this Oakland fashionista on the Oaklandish blog

Pedalfest lived up to its billing as one of the "biggest celebrations of the bicycle in regional history." An estimated 20,000 people attended Pedalfest at Jack London Square on Saturday, August 18, 2012. The cycling extravaganza and street fair at Jack London Square boasted many highlights, including a bicycle rodeo, bike parade, folding bike races, WhiskeyDrome (a mini-velodrome), and the Clayton Bikes Stunt Team doing backflips and other X Games-style stunts. Bicycle enthusiasts from all skill levels were in attendance, and some brought one-of-a-kind concept bikes. There were also plenty activities for kids, such as a bike obstacle course and experimental bikes for kids to ride. The event went from 11am to 8pm, and already by early afternoon, thousands were in attendance, going to the vendor's booths and listening to live music. Click here for photos of the event on Google+ By Matt Werner, author of Oakland in Popular Memory. Email Matt at editor[at...

Over 1,000 cyclists turned out for one of the most popular East Bay Bike Parties to date. At 8pm on Friday, August 10, 2012, the lower lot at Rockridge BART was overflowing with cyclists of all ages from throughout the East Bay. People were on all types of bikes: road and mountain bikes, tall bikes, track bikes, custom "Burning Man-style" bikes, and even a tricycle outfitted with a canvas frame that made it look like a food truck vending donuts throughout the ride. The ride left Rockridge BART station, going along College Ave. to the UC Berkeley campus. It went through Northside, going by the university co-ops on its way down to César Chávez Park at the Berkeley Marina. At the marina, a metal band played with a bike-powered soundsystem blasting rock for the mosh pit crowd. The crowd left the Berkeley Marina at 10:10pm to ride along the Bay Trail, through Emeryville to West Oakland. The second party stop was at West Grand and Mandela in West Oakland. After that, ride...

Boots Riley was spotted at 23rd St. and Telegraph Ave. at the start of Oakland's Art Murmur on August 3, 2012. Oakland First Fridays Art Murmur is one of the largest regular gatherings of artists, street vendors, food vendors, and performing artists on the West Coast. I asked Boots Riley what he thought about the New York Times Magazine article  "Oakland, the Last Refuge of Radical America" profiling him. He replied that he wasn't entirely happy with it. He expressed a sentiment similar to what he wrote on Twitter , that "Oakland isn't the end of an old radical movement. It's the beginning of a new one." For a good recap of the night--the art exhibits, speakers, and food--read Susan Mernit's piece on Oakland Local . For photos of the event, see my photo album on Google+ . Click below for photos of past Art Murmurs by Joe Sciarrillo and myself : July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012

Excerpt from sign posted at 23rd and Telegraph. See the full sign at the bottom. Street vendors at the July 6, 2012 Art Murmur were in for a surprise. As many were setting up their tables on the Telegraph Ave. sidewalks between West Grand and 25th Street, security officers came by with flyers informing them that next month Oakland Police will be handing out tickets to people tabling and selling art and food on the sidewalks. 23rd Street was no longer blocked off for f ood vendors in July, and food vendors are restricted to the new "Eat Up" food pod at 21st and Telegraph. The sign and flyer handed out to vendors instructs those who sell art, jewelry, books, and other hand-made items to sell them in Rock Paper Scissors or the 25th Street Collective . The issue with this is that both of those mixed-use spaces are full of vendors, and there's likely a waiting list to get in. These two venues couldn't hold the dozens of additional street vendors, which typically l...

Joe Sciarrillo was on the ground photographing the May Day "March for Dignity and Resistance" in Oakland, California's Fruitvale District. Here is his post about the march: May Day is traditionally a holiday celebrating springtime where people in many countries take to the streets to celebrate spring. In Oakland, California on May 1, 2012, thousands of Bay Area residents and progressive organizations turned out in an impressive march full of people celebrating their backgrounds and cultures while pushing for social change. The march from Fruitvale BART at 3pm, ending at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Downtown Oakland at 7pm was distinctly nonviolent and upbeat. Among the crowd were all cross-sections of the Bay Area, from Asian senior groups to Latino day laborer groups, from white hipsters and hippies to black youth on scraper bikes . With thousands of demonstrators marching, police presence was heavy, but non-confrontational. Over a dozen law enforcement vehicles foll...

Have you checked out Oakland lately on Google Maps? It's gone back to 8-bit from the Nintendo game Dragon Warrior . Check it out at http://po.st/r1HiRc .   And Streetview is even in 8-bit! Check out this shot of Downtown Oakland: http://po.st/rkzXE2 Learn more about Google Maps 8-bit for NES:

Daveed Diggs released his music video for Fresh From the Hood , the first track on his mixtape Small Things to a Giant . It features shots all throughout Oakland, starting with him and members of the Getback on BART, and then shots at Lake Merritt and other spots in Oakland. He also has a section in the middle of the video where he mimics famous album covers from Tupac, Jay-Z, Biggie, and Lil Wayne. Check out the video: Also check out my review of his mixtape Small Things to a Giant .

There's a lot happening in Oakland right now from different art movements to urban farming led by Novella Carpenter and Willow Rosenthal . Here are some photos I snapped on March 10, 2012 of the Lake Merritt Monster poster near 23rd and Telegraph and Ghost Town Farm :

How many Oakland hip-hop artists fill their tracks with Gertrude Stein references and turn nursery rhymes into extended political allegories? How many tackle issues of gentrification in Oakland? Can't think of any? Let me introduce you to Daveed Diggs. His free mixtape Small Things to A Giant shows that a new giant has stepped on to Oakland’s trend-setting hip hop scene. <p><p><p><p><p><p>&am...