Michael Drummond/Senior Staff

More than 40,000 Bay Area residents took to Shattuck Avenue on Sunday in celebration of Berkeley’s second Sunday Streets event.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Shattuck Avenue closed to cars and welcomed pedestrians and cyclists instead. Between Haste and Rose streets, participants could engage in a variety of activities, including live art and salsa dancing, as well as watch various performance groups.

“It’s about getting people to experience their urban environment in a totally different way and appreciate Berkeley in a new way,” said Sunday Streets Berkeley director Emunah Hauser.

The event is organized by Livable Berkeley, a coalition which strives to make Berkeley a more sustainable place, and a few partner organizations. According to Hauser, more than 150 organizations and activity leaders, including several UC Berkeley clubs and organizations, participated in Sunday Streets.

Sunday Streets drew people not only from Berkeley but from surrounding cities as well.

“It’s a really special feeling to have so much of a main street shut down,” said Oakland resident Tina Marie. “People look at each other differently. You’re taking people in.”

Because the street was closed off, several bus lines scheduled detours and added temporary stops near University Avenue and Oxford Street.

For Berkeley resident Michael Marchant, the absence of cars created a safer environment for his children.

“We look forward to any of these events where they block off streets to cars,” he said. “It makes it easier as a parent if you don’t have to worry about traffic.”

Hauser said this year’s Sunday Streets had a larger focus on transportation outreach than last year’s. Bay Area Bike Share allowed people to test bikes, and goBerkeley, a pilot program aiming to improve transportation in the city, asked for feedback from residents about public amenities.

To focus on physical activity and active transportation, Livable Berkeley does not invite street vendors to set up booths. Instead, many stores along Shattuck set up tables themselves, providing free samples or selling smaller store items.

Belli Osteria, a restaurant which does not normally open on Sundays, set up a pasta-making demonstration. Its co-owner Damien Morrison said Sunday Streets increased the restaurant’s exposure.

While some businesses had lines out the door, others saw a decrease in customers.

“There are plenty of distractions, so probably not as many people want to hang out in the comic book store,” said Mike Courtright, an employee at Fantastic Comics. While Courtright saw some new faces in the store, he saw fewer of his regular customers.

Sunday Streets, however, does not come without cost for the event’s organizers. Hauser estimates the event cost about $65,000 this year.

Although fundraising and private sponsorship cover a large part of this cost, Berkeley City Council pledged in January to provide Sunday Streets about $59,000 to split between 2013 and 2014.

Councilmember Kriss Worthington predicts the council will continue funding the event for subsequent years. Still, he feels the city’s contribution is a little high.

“It’s unfortunate that the other longtime community events don’t get more funding,” Worthington said. “This event gets as much as 20 other city events, so there’s a degree of unfairness.”

But for Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, Sunday Streets is “money well spent.”

“Everything shouldn’t be business,” Capitelli said. “Sometimes we should just celebrate as a community, and that’s important.”

Contact Tahmina Achekzai at tachekzai@dailycal.org.

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You have love on your jacket,” said a man next to me.

I nod and keep staring out the window. He is a foot taller than me. The canvas coat he wears is stained with grease, and he smells like a gutter. Moments earlier, he said he had served in the Army. I’m scared.

We were both riding the 1 back to Berkeley on a sunny afternoon. Earlier that day, I had gone to Oakland to read and wander around alone because no one was back from winter break. For a few bucks in Downtown Oakland, I could get a Banh mi sandwich and artisan coffee. I went there every day for a few weeks, even though I’ve had friends tell me they’ve been robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight a block from the 19th Street BART station. I’ve read about local shootings with blood-spattered graphics in the local paper. I’ve seen police with masks, shields and clubs barricading the streets during protests.

Although Oakland is famous for its routine violence, I would live there if given the chance.

A guy no older than 18 who looks really faded slinks over to the Army man and mutters, “Why are you in my spot? Do you think you’re tough?” Then he pushes him. The standoff begins. Passengers clutch their grocery bags. The people sitting in front try not to look. High school students speculate about who is going to win. While others relocate, I can’t because the combatants are standing between me and the door.

After a little back and forth between the two contenders, they calm down. Oddly enough, I was mildly comforted by the excitement of the high school students. Their excitement made me remember that in high school my friends and I got riled up by fights like this. After my sophomore year, however, I transferred to Chaffey High School, where my chances of going to college were significantly better. The school was unreachable by public transit, so every week day my parents drove my twin brother and I across town until we graduated.

I have a similar privilege now. I live in Berkeley a block away from campus and can bike, bus or BART to Oakland whenever I want. The livelihood of Oaklanders, rich and poor, isn’t a concern for me — the cross-town hipster, the tourist.

Although I hella love Oakland, I am wary of this attitude, common among us affluent college students and ex-San Franciscans. Will we affluent people embrace what we love about Oakland by barricading it off from what we don’t? Will all of us continue commuting long distances by car so that a major portion of our public space remains in the form of roads? To what extent will the city’s growth and prosperity bypass those who were born and raised there?

These questions are concerning, because cities in the East Bay can fund projects such as downtown revitalization that cater to tourists and professionals and not residents of low income. This model of economic development will empower constituencies that don’t value an integrated public transportation network but instead favor semiprivate one we have now.

While generation after generation of kids, such as the high schoolers on the bus, is recruited by gangs, Oakland still has yet to initiate an adequate poverty-alleviating program. Instead, city funds continue to primarily serve middle- and upper-income residents. The new wave of college students and young professionals — the “nouveau riche” — into Oakland will intensify the city’s inequality if services such as affordable and public housing are not secured via public policy.

I am fortunate enough that when I encounter violence, it’s shocking. For the high school students on the bus, such incidents occur so frequently that they seem more like a game. Unfortunately, in a gentrified town, these incidents are used to stigmatize poor people as inherently violent. But both rich and poor wish to avoid such violence.

When the Army guy pacified the fight by commenting on the graffiti’s shadow that spelled out love, I looked into his eyes and saw he was more scared than I was. Clearly, the Army man wanted to get off the bus just as much as I did.

A moment later, one of them suggests he has a weapon. At the next stop, I leap from my seat out the door. Walking away, one of them said, “Man, that nigga’s going to get it,” and he took playful swings at no one in particular.

I was shaken up but glad. Glad that super-faded kid targeted the man in the Army instead of me. And glad that, unlike the other passengers, I had no groceries or job to commute to. That winter, I took my time reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s whirlwind of a novel “The Autumn of the Patriarch” for a class next semester.

I can get off the bus whenever I want.

The post ‘Love’ in a bus appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The bill, AB 10, will raise the state’s minimum wage from the current level of $8 an hour to $9 an hour by July 1, 2014. The next increase will be implemented Jan. 1, 2016, bumping up the minimum wage to $10.

Brown signed the bill at a ceremony in Los Angeles, where he was accompanied by members of the California State Assembly and dozens of workers.

“It’s my goal and it’s my moral responsibility to do what I can to make our society more harmonious, to make our social fabric tighter and closer and to work toward a solidarity that every day appears to become more distant,” Brown said in a press release.

The Public Policy Institute of California reports that more than 6 million California residents were living under the federal poverty line in 2011. At the same time, the cost of living in many cities in California is well above the national average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Because of the state’s high cost of living, Berkeley City Councilmember Jesse Arreguin strongly supported the bill.

“This bill provides a long overdue increase to help working families and working people in the state,” he said. “I think it’s a huge step forward.”

The city of Berkeley does not have a minimum wage. Since May, however, Berkeley City Council has been considering a proposal to implement a citywide minimum wage of $10.55 an hour.

After the state bill’s approval, Arreguin met with a representative of Berkeley’s Commission on Labor to discuss the relationship between AB 10 and the city proposal.

A 2013 report by the city’s economic development manager, Michael Caplan, suggests that many people may not be able to afford living in Berkeley. According to the study, only 17.1 percent of those who work in Berkeley are city residents.

“Whatever minimum wage we adopt should exceed the state minimum wage,” he said. “It is much more expensive to live in Berkeley than in other areas of the state.”

Contact Tahmina Achekzai at tachekzai@dailycal.org.

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Phoenix Delman /Staff

Growing up in the Middle East during Operation Desert Storm, I could only dream and imagine about how different life in the United States would be. Yet, 20 years later in Oakland, it feels almost as violent as the warzone my family and I tried to escape.

It has been about one year since seven students were killed in a deadly massacre at Oikos University in Oakland and the shooting involving 26 innocent lives at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. that both shook our nation to its very core. Thirty-three lives were stripped from this Earth because of senseless, twisted acts of violence.

Every year, more than 30,000 people are killed in the U.S. from firearms, and it comes at a cost of billions of dollars in health expenditures. The issues surrounding gun violence, a leading cause of preventable death, are complex and deeply rooted, which is why we must take a comprehensive public health approach to reducing its menace on society.

Despite the clear horror of these events and demand for action from the public, Congress has still failed to move forward on comprehensive gun violence legislation. Each passing day that Congress delays action, more communities bear witness to the endless episodes of gun violence. This ugly reality will continue to intrude upon our communities across the country, including our very own Alameda County, unless meaningful action is taken by our lawmakers.

There are several critical pieces to any legislation that Congress must pass in order to reduce the staggering toll of gun violence and ensure the safety of our community.

First, our legislators must ensure that federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have adequate and unrestricted funding to conduct research on the causes of injury and deaths from firearms, as well as how to prevent these tragedies. They must also ensure there is adequate data available to design targeted gun violence prevention strategies. We can achieve this through a nationwide expansion of the CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System, a state-based violent-death-prevention tool that links data from public health, law enforcement, medical examiners and social service agencies to create a more complete picture of the circumstances surrounding violent death.

Second, our safety also depends on the passage of life-saving measures that would ban the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines and mandate background checks for all gun purchases. These measures enjoy broad appeal among Americans. According to a recent Gallup poll, 91 percent of Americans favor background checks.

Additionally, state, local and community-based behavioral health systems must also have the resources they need to provide much-needed mental health treatment to those in need. About 82 percent of Americans support increased funding for mental health services for youth, according to a recent Gallup poll. Unfortunately, funding at the federal and state levels for mental health continues to be threatened by cuts. The Affordable Care Act provides comprehensive coverage for mental health and substance use disorder services as part of its Essential Health Benefits, but we must still ensure funding at the federal and state levels are not jeopardized.

Our school policies must also promote a positive school climate to support the social, emotional and learning needs of all students to maintain a safe environment. To achieve this, schools and communities need resources and support for comprehensive measures in school-based prevention, early intervention strategies and preparedness initiatives to prevent gun violence and prepare our communities and schools in the event of an emergency.

As an advocate for public health in Alameda County, I am pleased to see that President Obama has included many of these provisions in his plan to reduce gun violence. Now it is time for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and other representatives to push Congress to act now. I cannot afford to wait. Nor can we all afford to rely on the status quo and still assume that our nation’s children are safe in school, on our city streets or in our homes. It is time we place public health before political interests and recognize that this effort will require the great resolve and political will on behalf of our nation’s leaders.

The violence that takes place in Oakland every single day batters our communities and has everything to do with public health. Just recently, Gloria Crowell, District 4 commissioner representing Supervisor Nate Miley on the Alameda County Public Health Commission, highlighted the need for renewing our county’s level of commitment and effort to address the issue. Not too long ago, Supervisor Miley brought together police and safety officers, along with other community organizations in order to collaborate on how to most effectively solve our community’s gun violence and public health crisis. Such efforts should be applauded and expanded upon.

Now is the time to work together to ensure evidence-based public health principles are at the heart of all our efforts to reduce gun violence-related injury and death, as it is both an imperative and a national priority to ensure the safety of our nations’ rich and valued diversity.

Ken Russell Coelho and Michael D. Campbell are commissioners on the Alameda County Public Health Commission

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Oakland Art Murmur/Courtesy

Last Friday, art, music, performance, food and thousands of people exploded onto the streets of Oakland for the first Oakland First Friday Art Festival of the semester.

The event now boasts upward of 20,000 visitors, but its beginnings were far more modest. The original First Friday in January 2006 was an art crawl presented by the eight associated galleries, which they called Oakland Art Murmur.

OAM has come a long way since then. It now has about 30 members, and while it still participates in First Friday, the management and organization of the event are now under the responsibility of a distinct First Friday organization. From the Saturday Stroll gallery walks to fundraising events to programs in schools, OAM is aggressively moving into new territory and will continue to evolve and grow in pursuit of its mission: to bring art to the people of Oakland.

The Daily Californian talked with David Abernathy, who became the new executive director of OAM in June and is now charged with steering the organization forward.

The Daily Cal: Can you tell me a bit more about your background?

David Abernathy: While I was working at (an) investment bank, I took on a position … for a tech startup. And then I quit the investment bank and the tech startup right before the big financial collapse of 2008, which was sort of a fortuitous accident.

(In 2009, I helped) start a financial services and consulting firm for the medical cannabis industry. We launched that firm and ran it from 2009 to 2012. In 2012, I volunteered to help bring Oaksterdam University back after they were raided by the federal government.

DC: How did you get connected with OAM?

DA: I heard that they were looking for a new executive director, and I had previously co-founded and helped run this arts organization. I have always been passionate about the arts, especially because I am not an artist (myself).

DC: Where do you think that passion for the arts comes from, then?

DA: I’ve always sort of been impressed with (art) just because a talent for creativity, especially visual creativity, has never been one of my strong suits … I also like the fact that it’s a way for a lot of people who don’t fit the standard paradigm of academic success to find a sense of fulfillment in their own lives through producing art and sharing it with the world.

We have a very narrow definition of academic success in this country, generally speaking — one that is based on Industrial Revolution-era thinking. As manufacturing jobs become more and more scarce, and as more and more jobs are being outsourced overseas or taken over by computers and robots, we really need to find new outlets for human productivity. I think that art is one of those outlets that almost by definition has to remain in the human realm.

DC: What do you think OAM has done for Oakland in the last five or 10 years in that regard?

DA: Certainly, we have made the country more aware of the fact that there is a huge and thriving arts community in Oakland. We’ve made Oakland more aware that there is a huge and thriving art community in Oakland.

Many of these galleries are only open a few days a week, and they often struggle to survive … A lot of the galleries end up not making money at all … but they’re still important to the atmosphere in Oakland. They help bring in visitors from other cities and even other states to spend their money in Oakland. They help raise property value in Oakland — and just add to the beautiful and wonderful diversity that Oakland has.

DC: OAM has changed significantly since its inception. Can you discuss where OAM is now and where you could see the organization being in 10 years?

DA: One of the first things we did when I came on as executive director was to have the board vote to remove all geographic restrictions other than the city of Oakland. We’re in the process of taking on quite a few new galleries in areas of Oakland that previously were not covered in OAM.

The stated mission of OAM has remained … it’s to promote awareness of and participation in the visual arts in Oakland. One of the things that I’m very actively pursuing is figuring out ways that we can more broadly pursue that goal … We’re going to be launching quite a few initiatives to help existing organizations with — as well as eventually launch our own — charitable outreach programs to try to develop new audiences for the arts and spark interest in the arts among Oakland’s youth.

DC: What goes on during First Friday — crazy activity in the street, the shooting last spring, etc. — can often get conflated with the organization OAM. Do you think that the massive growth of First Friday has been overall positive or negative for OAM?

DA: My opinion is that it has been very positive. Among our members, there are a variety of opinions about whether or not (First Friday) is good for their individual galleries. A lot of our members think it’s absolutely fantastic and love it; some of our members think it’s a little too high-energy and not in line with their specific target audiences for their art.

DC: What do you think is the best part about that First Friday walk?

DA: Absolutely the diversity. Diversity in every sense. The diversity of the art that’s represented. The diversity of the people that show. And that diversity is not just racial or ethnic diversity … Geographic diversity — people come from all over the place. Socioeconomic diversity. Diversity of age. Everyone from babies to senior citizens enjoy Oakland First Friday.

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Josh Escobar/Staff

Last night I was invited to a customary media dinner for two at Desco in Old Oakland. Desco is the new, refined Italian restaurant a block west of 9th Street and Broadway. For a guest, I brought my roommate, Cameron Hearne, who was moving out soon. We talked what we planned to do for our last year at UC Berkeley as he drove us to Oakland.

At Desco, they have outdoor seating by the London Plane trees and a full bar, a wood oven, long and small tables inside. Their ambiance made it feel as though we were guests inside a modern Victorian home. It was relaxed and unimposing, as classy as it was cool. They sat us at a bench with back pillows next to the front windows, and gave us menus. From Piemonte to Sicilia, their wine list draws widely from Italy. The staff knows how to pair drinks, so we had one with every course.

For the antipasti, we had a Venetian spritz and glass of lambrusco from Emilia-Romagna with prosciutto di parma; for the paste, a glass of zuani collio bianco vigne with their signature casonsei (pronounced |cass-on-say|). The casonsei, hands down one the best pasta dishes that I’ve ever eaten, is egg pasta wrapped around extremely juicy and soft pork, doused in brown sugar butter and topped with grizzled pig cheek (which my roommate referred to as the most perfect piece of bacon. It’s technically not bacon but perhaps, more poetically, you wished that all bacon tasted this way). By the end of the second course, my roommate and I were in food heaven.

Casonsei at Desco. Photograph by Josh Escobar.

Between courses, Juan Morante, the manager, told us that Desco had opened last Monday and that it had branched off of Donato Enoteca in Redwood City. He pointed out the owner and chef, Donato Scottin, who wore a white, double-breasted jacket and a toque. Chef Scottin looked but a few years older than us. Later, our waitress told us that Chef Scottin is from Bergamo, a small town in Northern Italy where casonsei is a specialty. No wonder the casonsei was phenomenal.

A couple were laughing at the bar and saying sweet nothings to each other. The clientele around us was business professionals and groups of friends who looked like they had been out of college for a few years. Desco is ideal for dates, birthdays, and visits from your parents. The entrees and pizzas are priced at $11-20; desserts, drinks, and appetizers at $7-12. The serving size and the richness of each course make it easy to share.

The ambiance is refined but welcoming, so it felt natural to enjoy a long dinner. As we did, we thought about life after college. It was exhilarating. Cameron, a microbiology major, pointed across the street at the perfect building for his dream-firm. I wished that I had a grown-up job so I could lounge on the patio of Desco, taking swigs of their refreshing Venetian spritz on a sweltering afternoon. For our last two dishes, we had red wine – renato ratto langhe nebbiolo – with their funghi e erbe (pizza topped with sautéed mushrooms, fresh herbs, tomato sauce and fontina), followed by their Angus loin tagliata with grilled potatoes and fresh arugula. The pizza was soft and delectable. The Angus was soft and juicy. It was prepared sous vide, which means it was cooked in a sealed bag steeped in warm water. Like the casonsei, we were taken by its utterly delectable taste. We liked the look of it from the second it hit the table, and let our inner carnivores indulge.

Sitting back against the bench, we gazed out the broad windows next to us for a view of the sunset in August. The dinner was long but each dish was rushing. Altogether, it was a feast. By the end of it, we didn’t know where we were. We got lost several times on the way back home. Having taken the wrong freeway, we ended up on the Bay bridge where we held up the line fumbling for cash for the toll. We had tipped our waitress down to our last dollar.

In the end, everything turned out okay. Cameron put on Imagine Dragons as we drifted through traffic on the drive back to Berkeley. Although we had been lost, I thought it was suiting after a great dinner to take in epic views of San Francisco at night; the new, majestic Bay Bridge on the rise.

When you go to Desco be sure to order the casonsei and tortoni di cioccolato con salsa al caffè, a chocolate cake that skates in a lake of espresso and creme. Desco had just opened a week ago, but it warrants an experience worth savoring.

Desco is located at 499 9th St, Oakland, CA 94607. Call (510) 663-9000 to make a reservation.

The post Desco in Old Oakland appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Andria Lo/Courtesy

Zarouhie Abdalian, recipient of the 2012 Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art Award from SF MOMA, has her first solo exhibition with the Berkeley Art Museum’s MATRIX Program, presenting three pieces that show the subtle and dynamic relationship between sight and sound and interior and exterior spaces. Her SECA Art Award Project, entitled “Occasional Music,” will be displayed at the Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in Downtown Oakland from Sept. 14 to Nov. 17. Since coming to the Bay Area from Philadelphia to pursue graduate school, Abdalian has established herself as an up-and-coming artists in the East Bay art scene.

The Daily Californian: What aspects of the Bay Area, or more specifically Oakland, do you find compelling and made you stay after graduating from California College of the Arts?

Zarouhie Abdalian: First, the relationships I’ve built during graduate school with other artists and writers helped me stay after graduate school and helped make the transition fluent. My partner also went to Mills College. In addition to having the exciting art and music scene, Oakland specifically is the only place besides my hometown that I feel connected to. It has much to do with the working and art community, as well as other communities that I have been able to connect with. More importantly with me, I work with elderly folks in nursing homes, and connecting with an older group of people who’ve lived in Oakland their whole lives has been very important and one of the reasons that I decided to do a public art project.

DC: How did your experience as a CCA graduate student affect your art and career path, and what do you recommend for aspiring artists interested in these types of graduate programs?

ZA: One of the strengths of the programs from CCA is the connection you make with your peers and also with other colleagues in the community through advising units for the semester … Forming these relationships with others in this big and diverse community where people are making lots of different types of artworks made the experience very productive. There is also a curatorial program, and that was important, because the first shows I did were from people who were in the curatorial program, some of whom I still work with.

For aspiring artists looking at schools, look for schools with bigger communities that perhaps includes writers and curators. This will be helpful because these are the people who you will be working with when you become a professional artist.

DC: As an artist, what is your process for conceptualizing and building these pieces for these exhibitions?

ZA: No matter what the project is — whether it’s going to be more discrete objects or sculptures or something that’s a large installation or topic-specific — I tend to start the same way, which is trying to get as much information about where and when the exhibition will occur … Before beginning at the Berkeley Art Museum, I just sat around the galleries looking and observing the site. I try to get a sense of the time at which the exhibition will occur to gain the broader context of it … Then I start working with materials that I find interesting or inspirational during the research process. This involves messing around with the materials in the studio and thinking about how they will relate to the site or to each other.

DC: How does the Bay Area location reflect upon your other more location-specific works, such as your SECA Art Award project?

ZA: The SECA project, which is called “Occasional Music,” could probably happen at various times. But it is very specific to the neighborhood. These networks of bells on rooftops really made sense with me with the architecture of Downtown Oakland and how the area around Frank Ogawa was used in recent history and is continued to be used. The work is meant to be viewed within the context of this specific location, whereas the MATRIX project was meant to be viewed as individual objects and within the context of the MATRIX program.

DC: You’ve stated in the past that you were impressed by the Frank Ogawa Plaza for being a site for protests, such as the Occupy movement, and a public meeting place. What else made you choose this site specifically for your “Occasional Music?”

ZA: The idea for “Occasional Music” was one of those rare times I thought of materials and the general idea of what I want happening before I know the site. Thinking of these bells and neighborhoods, I tried to think about other places, but it didn’t make sense until it was in downtown, where it is a traditional place for bells to appear. But also looking at the specific architecture in Frank Ogawa Plaza, it is designed already to act as a center point and a gathering place. I position the bells at points to roughly make it the center where you might hear all the bells in a cacophonous way from the plaza, and outside of it you might hear more individual sounds.

DC: What kind of public responses or discussions do you hope you’ll arouse through your sound project in Frank Ogawa?

ZA: While I’m finishing this program, it seems elaborate, but I’m hoping the experience at the site doesn’t feel that elaborate. Understandably so, there was a broad range of associations with the ringing of bells. Historically, they’ve been used for various purposes — shift changes, alarms, the passage of time — so I think how the viewer recognizes the signal of the bell is determined by those associations and also within the context of Downtown Oakland.

There is also a possibility that these bells just become a part of the background noise in the city from the competing sounds. I have my own personal hopes for what happens, but I think it’s more interesting to just see what actually happens.

The post East Bay artist takes a musical look at Oakland appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings/Courtesy

After a decade of studio silence, Oakland-based hip-hop ensemble Hieroglyphics have released The Kitchen, an album that serves up a reminder of why the nine-man group has solidified its presence in the underground hip-hop scene and beyond. Though the album boasts a meaty helping of 17 tracks, each one is able to distinguish itself from the others as a sizable portion worthy of fulfilling any fan’s hunger.

While the lyrics and rhymes of the Hiero crew are definitely part of what keeps the album varied, the production is the secret spice to this record’s recipe. Each track offers a beat different from the last, chopping and cutting up a vast array of beats and samples. While Hiero deserve credit for the well-crafted beats, the album’s guest producers were the Sacramento DJs known as the Sleeprockers. Without a doubt, the production wouldn’t be as saucy or diverse if both parties had not collaborated the way that they did. Tracks like “Exciting,” with its synth hook, are reminiscent of an eight-bit video game gone thug with the Hiero crew laying down rhymes sharp enough to slice the track’s beefy bass. “All As Above So Below” uses soulful backing vocals over a thick beat with crisp chimes and a sample of the opening lyric from the Beastie Boys hit “Paul Revere.”

While the album has a variety of flavors, some tracks share a few similar ingredients. “Livin’ It Up” and “Nano Salt” both share a funkalicious groove with the spicy horns on the former complementing the reverb-rich synth on the latter. Much like culinary recipes, though, a few common ingredients don’t necessarily imply identical dishes. Overall, with its smooth rhymes and crunchy beats, The Kitchen is a definitive reminder of Hiero’s stance in the hip-hop world. As the chorus of “Immortals” states, “Hiero ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

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Derek Remsburg/Senior Staff

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. Those words never rang more true until we heard that the Safeway on College Avenue closed its doors yesterday, July 8. The grocery store, located on the Berkeley-Oakland border, will stay closed for a year to make way for a newer, bigger (and better?) store.

Meanwhile, Cal students who frequented that Safeway are going to come back in August not knowing what to do. While there certainly are alternatives, such as Trader Joe’s, some of us grew attached to this store. Maybe this is why:

Bus access. If you lived in Unit 1 or 2, you could easily hop on the 51B, get down College, buy your groceries and miscellany and get back to your dorm in an hour (in that idyllic realm where AC Transit schedules and express checkout lanes collide — it has happened). Now you have to figure out where the other grocery stores are around Berkeley. We challenge you to find the easiest bus route to them.

Shopping dates. Whether it was planning a meal with someone special, stocking up with your roommates or buying that tub of ice cream by yourself, Safeway was a sweet escape on those Sundays when you had nothing better to do than study. College does crazy things like that — turning chores into fun. And it was once so easy with that bus route.

Frat boys will flounder? We’re not sure where you party planners will stock up on “supplies” now. But being the resourceful Bears that you are, we imagine you already have alternate sources of spirits lined up.

Living on the edge. You liked to tell people that you ventured over to Oakland for the day even though Safeway was in a relatively safe place during the day. Also, it wasn’t really that far into Oakland anyway. It was on the border, after all.

But there are a few things you probably won’t miss about this Safeway. Like the strangers who liked to hang out front and ask for money (not a big deal though — it’s Berkeley). The aisles were a little too small, but that’s typical of a city grocery store. And sometimes you might have been tempted by the Powell’s candy shop across the street. Who are we kidding? The negatives definitely outweigh the positives if you ever went to Safeway on College. Any other ideas about what you’ll miss? Let us know in the comments!

Contact Jessica Rogness at jrogness@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @jessarogness.

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“So how long does it take you to get to school?”

I get asked this more often than what my major is or what my plans are after graduation. When I tell people I live an hour away, they usually guess that I drive and park somewhere near campus. I don’t drive. I take BART and the bus every day, in differing proportion to each other, based on how much money I have.

I live an hour away from campus for a few reasons. The first is that rent is cheaper outside of Berkeley, and Fremont is even cheaper than Oakland. The second is that I live in a communal household whose members commute to San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Corte Madera, Newark and Berkeley. Simple math: Traveling from Fremont BART to Downtown Berkeley and back every day costs $8.70. With class every day of the school week, that’s $43.50 per week — or $174 per month. This is cheaper than the combined costs of gas, parking, insurance and vehicle maintenance, but let me be frank and tell you that there are times that I just ain’t got it.

Enter the life-saving Class Pass. Most Cal students use the card to get around town, to catch a quick ride to class and to make those trips out to Target and Ikea a little cheaper overall. For some of us, however, the Class Pass makes the difference between getting to school and missing out. There have been quite a few days so far when I’ve traveled 60 miles for $0, paying only in lost time.

Riding BART is a mixed bag. Sometimes it feels luxurious and urbane. Everyone is quiet — headphones in and books on their laps. Every morning, I see people praying or meditating. In the afternoon, I see people nodding off or taking off uncomfortable shoes to switch to sneakers at night. Sometimes it’s chaotic, with drunk Raiders fans or gaggles of kids on field trips. Sometimes there are ranting crazies or people vomiting, and the ride hardly seems worth what I’ve paid for it.

Long bus rides are entirely different. The bus lines that snake down the East Bay pass through a dozen school districts in six cities and towns. Teenagers are on and off at every corner. The homeless pile on quietly, tucking their carts and bags away, meekly seeking passage or a place to sleep for a while. The glass and aluminum bus rattles and beeps and thumps over roads in poor condition, and we lurch and careen across country roads as we crawl through downtowns and in and out of BART. It was hard at first to train myself to read, to concentrate, to block it all out and to focus on something to not only pass the time but to make use of it. After a year of commuting, the bus could catch fire before I put down my book. I can sleep through three towns with my bag wrapped around my knees to protect my laptop. This road is mine; we know each other.

Last semester, I was having a conversation with a new friend. He and I came from very different places, and the more we talked, the more apparent our differences became. He asked the constant question: How do I manage to live so far away, and how do I commute? I told him that I normally took BART but that I was flat broke that particular week and had to ride the bus to and from school.

“Wow,” he said. “How long does that take?”

“Three hours each way,” I told him, breaking off eye contact. “But I get all my reading done for class, and there’s not much there to distract me. It’s not so bad.”

He laughed a little and made a small, futile gesture. “There’s no way I would do that. It’s not worth it.”

I didn’t know how to respond at the time. All of my experience flooded into me: dropping out of high school when it wasn’t worth it and working retail, year after year, on my feet and without a voice. I thought about the sacrifices I made to go back to school and the years in community college spent working full-time and hardly sleeping at all, fueled by the promise of transfer. I thought about the hours I’ve spent waiting for buses and trains to come, counting the hours and minutes before I’ll be late to class; I thought about the winter mornings when I leave the house before dawn and get home after sundown and the summer days on buses with no air conditioning and tiny, scummy windows.

I wish I had told him then, and I hope that he reads this now. This is my story. This is how I get to school every day. This is not a complaint, because attending this school is worth it. If I had to walk, if I had to camp out in People’s Park, if I had to ride the bus for twice as long, it would be worth it.

Meg Elison writes the Monday column on financial issues affecting UC Berkeley students.Contact Meg Elison at melison@dailycal.org.

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