Venture into Oakland: a photo essay

"Hey Shilpi," I turned to her as we leafed through the records I had salvaged from the discard pile at Rasputin, "I've really enjoyed hanging out with you for the last week, but we've really just stayed at your apartment the whole time. I feel like I just haven't risked my life enough. How would you like to visit the top city for homicides in the United States?"

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea, Ben. What if we get killed?"

"But there's a cool band playing a free concert!"

"Let's go!"

This is essentially the conversation that passed between Shilpi and I today as we debated what to do this evening.

Here we are entering the streets of Oakland:

We exist.

Clearly, by the expression above, as I emerged from the subway into smog-filled streets I was ready for battle. But I was in no way prepared for the grim view that greeted me:

  

Realizing that perhaps we had gotten ourselves into a situation that was more dangerous than we could handle but with nowhere to go but forward, Shilpi and I adopted our own modes of self-defense. My weapon of choice: intimidation. Here I am deterring potential assailants by adopting the persona of a gangsta:

Shilpi was not convinced. I tried a different pose:

While Shilpi would only concede a "better," her preferred mode of self-preservation could hardly be considered viable. She hoped to use camouflage by posing as a tourist:

While I suggested that perhaps posing as a tourist, which is something of a rarity in Oakland, would in fact make her a more likely potential target, she was quick to counter that, unlike gangstas, the police help tourists:

Not to mention, Shilpi pointed out, she kinda looks black. And I definitely don't. I had to concede that Shilpi was, in fact, smart. And that was final.

Eventually we made our way to Jack London Square.

Here, I posed on a railing at the dock pretending to be pensive. And then I crossed my arms and smiled while Shilpi moved onto the dock as well.

Oh look, there's Shilpi:

Finally, we saw what we came to see, the jazz/hip-hop group Shotgun Wedding Quintet:

That's right, for those of you who didn't notice, we saw a hip-hop band. Made up of only white people. In Oakland. That's all I have to say about that.

To regain some street cred (while searching for an ATM so that we could buy a CD from the band that was actually pretty good) Shilpi leaned against this signpost.

While we almost got run over by a train on the way (apparently, in Oakland trains just go in the middle of the street instead of having separate tracks), upon reaching the ATM, we discovered that while I had enough money in my account to pay for the CD, I didn't have enough to pay for the ATM fee. So we returned to the show where Shilpi managed to barter three dollar bills, six quarters, and a BART ticket with $1.75 left for a copy of the CD. Score.

Finally we headed back to the 12th Street/Oakland City Center BART station, where Shilpi went the wrong way and had to run back up the down escalator to make the train to which I had leisurely strolled. Another point to Shilpi.

Bye bye Oakland, hello Berkeley:

...not the homicide capital of the country. Mission accomplished.