WCS 20 Oakland ways through Sactown eyes

Naked men in the locker room say the darnedest things

¨I see they ran you out the Bay Area.”

I recognized dude before I saw him: The Opinionated Sacramento OG. Street smart and kind of haggard. A little gravel in his voice, not much book learnin’ in his head, but fierce in holding his POV.

“Yeeeah,” came this other elder voice, from a far set of lockers. This other half-dressed man, too, is Black. Only, his sound is resignation. ¨It’s a shame what happens when you don’t join the gang,” he said.

The Piedmont section of Oakland is where I write this. Last week I was in downtown Sac, about to exercise at that gym outside the arena, changing in a mirror. The conversation got me thinking about crimes big and small.

So fortunate I am that no one’s ever given my pedestrian ass any trouble on these West Coast streets—discounting that nutter who aimed to stab me in Hollywood. I know that others struggle with robberies, car break-ins, and other non-violent crime in this endlessly interesting town.

And, apparently, the dysfunctional have run that nice old man out of the place.

The Opinionated Sacramento OG is thinking about voting for Trump.

“Kamala’s a millionaire!” he says. “Been a millionaire.”

As I get dressed and he unspools a litany of gossip and half-truths, I think about how I digitally scoffed at and disdained my sister for throwing some digital Illuminati content my way and how my folks can be so gullible, still. Even though I am with him on the veep.

And there’s the crisis of male friendships among middle-age men. The post-Covid loneliness lingering among us all. That stuff was in my eavesdropped Sacramento locker room conversation about The Bay Area.

“She ain’t do shit for me, ain’t none of ‘em done shit for me in my 68 years,” the Sactown OG said. One has to respect the point of view.

The ten come after this message from that mural 👇🏿

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Downtown Oakland

One of my favorite past romantic partners let me know this weekend that they’re transitioning. They were a week out from top surgery, and I was remarkably unsurprised by the news.

I’ve promised this person that I’d never write about them, so there shall be no anecdotes here. Let me say though that so many people I know—especially folks under 40–are questioning their gender identity; it’s fun to imagine what the future will look like.

Wednesday’s West Coast Sojourn podcast guest is the voluble Badly Licked Bear, and they’ve got lots to say about our unblackmailable future.

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10 A decade of Song Exploder

Whenever I say a podcast is my favorite podcast I probably only mean that it’s among my loose top 20. I consume hella podcasts and sometimes get caught up in the excitement of media evangelism. Having said that, Song Exploder is truly one of my favorite pods. The how-it-happened episodes on classic Fleetwood Mac and Mobb Deep bangers offered insights on songs I’ve always admired. The show though is most powerful when it’s introducing me to music.

For Song Exploder’s 10th anniversary, creator and host Hrishikesh Hirway looks at a collaboration that was intended as a lark, but became durable pop.
Song Exploder

• The lyrics of The Postal Service’s “The District Sleeps Tonight” are “the eulogy for this relationship,” according to Ben Gibbard, who made the record by volleying discs back and forth through the mail, early 2000s-style, with his partner in The Service, Jimmy Tamborello, aka Dntel.

• The Postal Service’s only album has sold over a million copies.

Lil Hit

• A bit more than two years ago, cultural critic Michael A. Gonzales brought to the world’s attention the work of Diane Oliver, a young writer from the 1960s. She wrote stories about the horrors of racism in America and died at 22. In 2024 the literary world is talking about her short stories.
  Bitter Southerner

• Last Sunday, an Oregon man was found frozen in his 4Runner, at the end of an alley off W. Antler Avenue in Redmond, Washington.
  Bend Bulletin

9 What is this polyamory of which everyone is speaking? And micro-cheating?

Copycat journalism was on display in its most unadorned form when New York’s guide to ethical screwing around came out. The comments section informed as well as entertained. The View, The New Yorker, and Wall Street Journal jumped in with their takes, and even The Christian Post was out here sayin’ they were hip to polyamory before it was cool.

When the capitalist pile-on has turned the sexual landscape this confusing, it’s best to kick back and hear what Dan Savage has to say.
Savage Love