Even the mainstream media sources such as the New York Times and National Public Radio have had to mention in most reports that many in the African community do not support the police’s position in this case, and understand that Mixon’s actions were the result of years of oppression of a whole community which has come to a boiling point.
Lovelle Mixon’s life, like that of thousands of young African men in the impoverished neighborhoods of Oakland, was over long before he was killed by police. He faced a hopeless dead end of joblessness, poverty and criminalization by a society that would rather lock up young African men than make college or jobs available to them.
Sergeant Mark Dunakin was a classmate of mine in Pleasanton, CA. He grew up in my neighborhood, in Valley Trails. In the fifth grade, I was openly jealous of his crush on my best friend Becky, and I believe he avoided me ever since, up through high school graduation. Overwhelmed by my flirting, he hid from me in the bushes, a blow to my ego, but I stayed strong. He played the trombone in the band, and was well liked in his circle of friends. I always thought he was a good guy.
I know that no one is, but I lack normal woman genes, and sometimes I feel sad about it.
For example: I do not understand the concept of hanging up clothing. Nor do I understand the principles behind making a bed. That is a lot of effort for something you’re just going to mess up again. I still contemplate hypnotherapy, to rewire the untapped anal retentive nodes in my brain, but there are few anal retentive people that I like for long periods of time, so I struggle with my limitations on my own, naturally, daily.
As I’ve stated here before, I’ve hired a house cleaner who comes every three weeks, and her expertise has brought tremendous improvement to my apartment. But what about the other twenty days between visits?
I don’t understand the philosophy behind make up and the doing of one’s hair on a regular basis. It seems boring to me. I am envious of women who prioritize this. I cannot.
Let’s move onto my culinary talents. My Grandma Cathy once said that anyone who can read can cook. I can read.
So the fiasco in the above image cannot be my fault. The recipe called for frozen spinach. Nowhere in the recipe did it say you were supposed to thaw it first. How was I supposed to know?
It turns out that normal women know these things by intuition.
It’s a 1998 Cannondale F700, purchased on eBay in 2002 for $500, while I was recovering with my arm in a sling from my first broken collarbone (on the right side). My thought was that now that I’d been officially indoctrinated into the world of cycling and broken bones, I might as well go all the way and try mountain biking.
Then a little while later, I went mountain biking and rolled down a cliff cracked my helmet and gave myself a nice concussion, and reasoned that at least when I go down on a road bike, I can blame someone else.
Since then, I’ve tried riding in the dirt several more times, with the best friends in the world who’ve all told me I’d have a much better time on a newer bike. They are so full of it. I love them.
I dreamt of fenders over a year ago, but the guys at one particular shop who that I will not mention said that due to my Cannondale’s particular design in the fork regions, full fenders would not be possible; I’d have to go with a clip-on variety that seemed more suited for a BMX bike, not a rockin’ city bike like my own, and even that would require some adapter thingy, they said, which I ordered, and have since lost, but oh well.
Oh well, because in the middle of our last rain storm, I e-mailed my friend Tim Brennan at Paradigm Cycles in San Anselmo, and asked him what he thought of fenders on my Cannondale.
“Totally doable,” he said. “E-mail me pictures of the forks, so I can make sure.”
Which I did, and within a week, my new SKS fenders arrived from Quality Bike Products (QPB) in Minnesota. Tim spent a good hour fighting with my bike to put them on — it wasn’t as easy as he had thought! — and the result is the city bike of my dreams.
In the above video, comedian Louis CK talks about how, despite modern advances in technology, human beings are more miserable than ever. He makes strong points in favor of going back to the Stone Ages, or at least the 70s, when we had rotary telephones. He claims that having our needs met instantaneously has only made us more angry and less appreciative, that our expectations for immediacy are unwarranted and unhealthy.
As a counterpoint, I bring to you the trailer from the painfully suspenseful 70′s film Aloha Bobby and Rose. I share this with you because it is a slice of life from thirty years ago, more or less, with rotary telephones and coffee served in styrofoam cups, in an age when littering was still a completely legitimate way to dispose of refuse.
The storyline is not completely clear in the trailer, however, so I shall summarize. It’s about a ’68 Camaro. It has no speaking part, and, unlike David Hasselhoff’s KITT from the 80′s Knight Rider,it has no soul, no mind of its own, and yet it is in every scene of the film, either as a subtle backdrop in which the dialogue is almost important, or as an action figure itself, performing donuts in front of dumbfounded cops. It is a symbol of the fashion and the ground pounding badness of the of the time, with little regard to the burgeoning gas shortage, emitting instead a brute and primal 8-cylinder sexiness completely lost on the Prius.
There is a secondary plot to the film, not immediately obvious, and that’s how the film’s protagonist, Bobby, a rebel with feathered hair, finds himself in deep doodoo with the Mexican Mafia because he lost a round of pool and he’s hard up for cash. Then he meets this girl, Rose, who wears embroidered jeans with a waist line up to her armpits, and they accidentally kill two people in a botched liquor store robbery (to pay off the Mexican Mafia), and then, what do they do, they run off to Mexico in Bobby’s Camaro.
I know, it’s predictable, and I don’t want to spoil the ending for you, so I will instead jump straight to my point, which is that all of the problems in the film could have been avoided if Bobby and Rose just had an ATM card and/or a cell phone — modern conveniences of our time, in other words – though my vote would be for an iPhone.
If Bobby just had an ATM, he could have told the Mexican Mafia, “Hey, I’m short 80 bucks, so I’ll just walk to the ATM machine.” While he might not have had enough money in his account, he likely would have had overdraft protection. Added fees be damned, his and his buddy’s physical well beings were on the line, and I think the fees, whatever they might be, would be worth incurring.
Even without the advent of the ATM, if he had a cell phone, he could have, at a minimum, called his buddy the next night to say, ”Look, I just messed up a liquor store robbery and two people are dead, I’m wanted for murder, I’m probably not going to make it back to the pool hall tonight, can you handle the Mexican Mafia on your own?”
As I think about it, in these delicate social situations, probably a text would be more succinct, again affirming my argument in favor of the iPhone: “Killed 2 peeps, r u cool on ur own?”
While running from the law, Rose could have called her mother, or at least sent her an e-mail, so she wouldn’t worry.
In short, this story could not happen in modern times. Everything would have been resolved with a mere push of a button. There wouldn’t have been the misunderstandings. Lives would not have been lost. There would have been less misery.
It would have been a much shorter film, and we could just watch the Camaro do donuts, and likely be just as entertained.
Sergeant Mark Dunakin was a classmate of mine in Pleasanton, CA. He grew up in my neighborhood, in Valley Trails. In the fifth grade, I was openly jealous of his crush on my best friend Becky, and I believe he avoided me ever since, up through high school graduation. Overwhelmed by my flirting, he hid from me in the bushes, a blow to my ego, but I stayed strong. He played the trombone in the band, and was well liked in his circle of friends. I always thought he was a good guy.
