May Day 2013-Oakland

DSCN0064, a photo by eric.louie on Flickr.

By Eric Louie

May Day 2013 was once again marked with a march for immigrants through Oakland’s Fruitvale district.

The Wednesday, May 1 afternoon event drew a crowd that spanned several blocks along major streets. While speakers on a sound truck led the march, many others including communists and anarchists also brought their ideas.

Organized labor was involved, with the Alameda County Labor Council reporting in a press release that there are 500,000 immigrants in the county Of those, 124,000 are undocumented.

Marchers headed east from Fruitvale BART along International Boulevard. They stopped at the Mi Pueblo, a Bay Area chain, where there have been protests over participation in the federal E-Verify immigration check system. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union and others have a campaign to organize Latino and Asian supermarket workers.

The march headed back along Foothill Boulevard. There were police, including a helicopter, but no physical confrontations. Eventually it ended back at the BART station with some drumming and dance.

Filing Taxes At Midnight

tax, a photo by eric.louie on Flickr.

By Eric Louie

Last night I was that guy dropping off my taxes at the post office open until midnight. A tradition every tax day, this time it was the Hunters Point post office where, with a half hour to spare, a small but steady stream passed through.

It was a chilly, windy night with workers taking envelopes from the curb under generator-powered lights. The line inside for people like me who had to calculate the postage was about a handful deep. I’ve done many news stories on the deadline filers, and figured I document taxes 2013 (for the 2012 year). I was going to do it myself, but when I told the folks what I was doing they graciously offered to help me out. Thanks to Mary for being in the photo!

No matter how many times I say I won’t, it’s a good bet that I’ll be at some post office on tax day. My first job was selling newspapers as an independent contractor, which means not having taxes taken out and owing the government money. So I was never in a rush to do them. This time I happened to be in San Francisco finishing them at my parents’. I’ve even filled out forms in the parking lot when I worked in Stockton. It’s not just the extended hour ones that I end up at. When I worked in Pleasanton I remember going there in the evening after work, probably because I finished it the night before and had to use the office printer.

Last year, actually a Tuesday the 17th because of the Emancipation Day holiday, I ended up going to the big facility in West Oakland. Occupy Oakland members and the post office union were demonstrating against cuts. There was about 100 people when I got there, and a bunch of food out. This was also around the height of clashes with police, and I was interested since this was a federal facility instead of city streets. It was peaceful. I was actually headed to the East Bay and thinking about going there this year, but they closed at 10 p.m. In related news, the Postal Service recently dropped its plan to end Saturday service after not getting Congress’ approval.

Stereotypical Asian photo, or two San Francisco Giants World Championships!

giants 2012, a photo by eric.louie on Flickr.

By Eric Louie

Good luck to the 2013 San Francisco Giants, who start the season today against the Los Angeles Dodgers! Here’s a picture of when the 2010 and 2012 World Series Championship trophies came to Hayward.

It’s actually considered Oakland A’s territory, but considering there’s a lot of San Francisco folks like me who can’t afford to live in the city, there’s probably a lot of Giants fans who live in the East Bay that even remember when we had no baseball championships. That includes the 1989 World Series, when we got swept by Oakland, which no one remembers because of the whole major-eathquake-hitting-during-the-game thing.

I got this photo after finishing three days of delivering the Central City Extra throughout the San Francisco Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, and then an editorial meeting. I thought I would go home first, but ended up running late and just staying on the BART train to go straight there. I don’t think I showered that day, and for sure was full of newspaper ink.

They ended up charging $20 for the photo, more if you wanted a nice frame or something. It was in city hall and supposedly they weren’t allowing outside photography. Some people did, but I was by myself and had no one to ask anyway. This was different from the first championship, when they did it on a free pre-registered basis at the Comcast studios as part of some fan appreciation day. They put it on facebook and you could download it. I didn’t know it cost money this time (other than a couple dollars donation to the local Junior Giants team) so I went to the bar to think about it first. There I saw a guy who had been 86′d before get arrested after he would not leave. He had just walked in and was pretty peaceful about it. I don’t know what happened before, but the bartender wouldn’t serve him and did give fair warning before he called the cops.

I even told the guy he should leave, since it was just a bunch of dudes there on this weekday evening and there was no reason to stay. But he insisted on somehow pleading his case for a beer. So much for my efforts at crime prevention. I then looked on my phone to see if there was a free way to get the photos, but the only previews I saw had a big “X” going across as a watermark unless you paid the download fee. It was about the same as buying the photo, so I decided to suck it up and pay for it. A guy next to me was on crutches and asked for some kind of discount. Staff gave it to him for free right there. That was cool.

3 Hunglo and Hickey in Concord

3 Hunglo and Hickey in Concord, a photo by eric.louie on Flickr.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Earlier this week these recordings of legendary San Francisco band Hickey came my way. It included a 1997 recording of a Valentine’s Day show at Komotion, which I thought would be a cool present to you. http://remoteoutposts.blogspot.com/2013/02/hickey-ultra-heliocentric-underworld-of.html

It also reminded me of the time my band played with them in Concord. I tell this story a lot, so I thought I put it on my blog.

By Eric Louie

In the years after high school I had a band, 3 Hunglo. One of our early shows was at the Time Out Sports Bar in Concord where a guy named Tony was trying to have shows on off nights. We ended up getting a Tuesday show with Hickey. It was 1997, I think.

A local hard rock band called Toxic Love was the third band. Despite even Tony’s suggestions, they insisted on playing first, which sucked, since us and Hickey were from San Francisco. No one from the city is going to Concord, especially on a Tuesday night, even if it is free. But that’s what happened, and the bar was essentially empty when the rest of us played. I remember the Toxic Love folks, whose bassist/singer used a wireless connection for his instrument, and the friends they brought left while we played.

So when Hickey played, there really was no one but our band and a couple guys at the bar. I remember thinking Hickey talked a lot between songs. It included mentions of mullets, which the Toxic Love guy had. Too bad he wasn’t there to hear that. In a joking threat, Hickey said they would play a 20-minute song about the creation of the world, which I later learned was “In the Beginning.”

One of the guys at the bar, who really was in a cowboy hat, then got pissed and said he didn’t want to hear that in his bar. I guess noisy, loud punk doesn’t mix. He wanted to fight, but his friend calmed him down before anything real happened. He would have had to walk across an empty bar, and never got out of his chair. Not like anyone wanted to fight anyway.

That was the first I had seen Hickey, and we talked to them after. The next week or so I saw them in a packed San Francisco Mission District warehouse. I think it was Komotion, on 16th near Harrison street. I mainly knew places by location rather than name, and also only remember going there a couple times. Soon after Hickey broke up, and there were other bands the three members made that I saw.

I then moved to Stockton, so I wasn’t around a lot. Then I heard Matty Luv, Hickey’s singer/guitarist, died. I didn’t know him really well, but I was really sad to hear that. I knew a lot of my friends were close, and also that it was a big loss to to the local music scene that is still a big part of my life.

There’s a Web site with Hickey and other Matty Luv music free at http://www.mattyluv.com.

KOFY’s “The Big Dish”

KOFY’s “The Big Dish”, a photo by eric.louie on Flickr.

Here’s my appearance on the KOFY-TV20/Cable 13 show “The Big Dish.” Watch the video here! I make a seafood chowder in hopes of having it served at Pacific Catch in San Francisco. If I lose then I just have to make it for you myself.

 

Duck Egg Crostini

century.egg, a photo by eric.louie on Flickr.

Duck egg crostini

This is my own idea, inspired by my girlfriend at 18. She grew up in Taiwan and liked to mix preserved Chinese duck eggs, which also go by names like pei daan and century eggs, with tofu, soy sauce and sesame seed oil. I don’t remember what we put it on originally, but I added the crostini and green onions part. The idea is to mix tastes like salt, the nuttiness of the sesame oil and freshness of green onions, along with textures like soft tofu and crunchy toasted bread.

The eggs, widely available at Asian stores, are traditionally preserved by being covered with alkaline clay. Today there’s new methods.

Ingredients

• Two century eggs
• One package soft tofu
• Three teaspoons soy sauce (adjust to taste)
• One teaspoon sesame seed oil (adjust to taste)
• A couple green onions for topping
• Two to three rustic French baguettes. This makes a lot.
• A bit of olive oil

 

Directions

• Crack and peel the eggs. Chop them into small pieces and put in a bowl. The preserving process makes the whites turn black and gel. It may have a slight sulphur smell, but that’s normal, and they didn’t go bad. Remember, they’re preserved.
• Mix in soft tofu.
• Add sesame seed oil.
• Add soy sauce.
• Mix together and let sit.
• Chop the green onions.
• Slice the baguettes. Coat with olive oil and toast.
• After toasted, put on the egg mixture.
• Top with green onions and serve.

   

Peach-Plum Bread Pudding

Peach-Plum Bread Pudding, a photo by eric.louie on Flickr.

Peach-Plum Bread Pudding

Bread can get old quick. Either unintentionally unused, bought on markdown or given away to the community, coming across a not-so-bakery-fresh loaf happens. Here’s an easy recipe that turns old sourdough and readily-available fruits to a hearty, hot dessert paired against plain vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients

• 1 loaf old sourdough bread
• 1 quart milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 can peaches
• Three-quarters pound of plums
• Half teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• Vanilla ice cream

 

Directions

• Cut bread into small pieces. Mix with milk and let sit one hour.
• Mix everything else but the ice cream (eggs, sugar, peaches, plums, nutmeg and cinnamon).
• Grease a pan and set oven and 325 F.
• Put mix into pan. Put pan into over one hour.
• After one hour, heat to 370 F for 15 to 20 minutes to develop crusty parts.
• When done, turn off oven and take ice cream out to thaw.
• Cut pieces and serve hot with a scoop of ice cream on the side.