Unfortunately, the artist's face is in the frame.  Stop thinking this show is all about you, bro.

I had not been in a riot since Boston's first World Series victory in decades, but let me say this: Oakland doesn't fuck around.  Everything was pretty mellow, minus a few minor incidents, until about 7:45.  Then the police decided they needed to disperse the crowd and all hell broke loose.  Looting, vandalism, fights, and even more police storming the crowd.  By the time the night was winding down, I had seen 5 dumpsters lit on fire, at least 2 dozen burning trash cans, the police beat no less than 3 people, and one flash grenade thrown into a crowd.

As things got really violent, some rioter figured out how to start cutting power to all the traffic lights and lamp posts in the area.  After the second instance of cutting the power, a man in the same group as me stuck his 9mm in the air and shot it off.  At this point the police decided to break up the crowd yet again and everyone ran towards Sears.  At this point, people were taking out their leftover 4th or July fireworks and shooting them off into the crowd.  In the mayhem, a car driving by threw a M1000 in my direction, blowing up right by my leg but.  I was fine but it hit another man behind me so badly that he couldn't even walk from the shock.  That's when I left.

Eventually everything got tagged.  However, it all started with this AC Transit bus.

Very quickly after the protest spread, the police quickly fled the area, as did the AC Transit bus pictured above.  In the mayhem, a deaf lady was run over by a vehicle and she was refused help for quite some time.

Before the mayhem, many people treated the entirety of Oakland like it was Sunday Streets.  For example, it provided a rare opportunity to get your photo taken while kick-flipping in front of riot police.

Police moving in.

The news media basically jumped on every act of violence, literally sprinting to the slightest bit of chaos.  Pictured is the media busting a nut over a small hole made in a Subway sandwich shop window.

The moment people started looting the Foot Locker (sorry for the shitty video).

You've probably already heard by now that people looted a Foot Locker.

This man was sad for the Foot Locker.

A riot is no excuse to use a freewheel.

Getting serious.

This girl was laying in front of the police line.  I guess they felt the best way to get her out of the way was to kick her down.

The police were getting much more hostile at this point.  While they threatened to use tear gas, they didn't end up doing it.  However the started pushing the crowd back soon after this video. 

After a glass bottle hit a police officer, they threw a flash grenade into the crowd.  It landed on this Telemundo news van.

This is about when I really considered leaving: some guys lighting fires didn't like that this cameraman was filming it so they attacked him (and obviously I filmed it because I'm a moron.)  They got him to the ground and started kicking him.  What I didn't film were people breaking up the fight and getting the guy away.  Three people from the initial attack decided they wanted to destroy his camera and went after him again.  They hit him a few times and eventually broken the lens off another photographer's camera who was trying to break up the second fight.  Eventually the cameraman ran toward the Fox Theatre.  A cyclist went after him and the cameraman pushed him off the bike and kept running.  The police stood by and did nothing.  Eventually the cameraman ran to the riot police with two other men in pursuit until the riot police let him go through the line.

People eventually decided that Foot Locker was not enough and looted Sears.

What with their new future-bridge logo, the possibility of Larry Ellison buying the team, and the above information from the obviously hilarious Warriors beat writer Marcus Thompson it seems to leave little doubt that King James will be announcing his signing with Golden State tomorrow night. I know I shouldn't be posting about sports on San Francisco's number one rated hipster blog, but seeing as I almost got beat up by one of the Uptown writers for talking smack about the Red Sox last week, I figure it's okay.

Check out yet another amazing documentary from California is a place.  This time about about a 20-year-veteran car salesman from a non-defunct Alameda car-lot.

Big Vinny from California is a place. on Vimeo.

Once upon a time, he was a local celebrity. He earned his nickname after doing a tv commercial for a Round Table pizza named The Big Vinny. For over twenty years, he was the face and voice of a successful used car business in small town Alameda. He sold and he sold and he sold and Californians drove away happy. Today, everything has changed. The business is dead. The lots sit empty. Big Vinny is out of work. But he still remembers the good times.