One of the distinctive features of the expansive East Bay city of Oakland is the amount of churches that dot its wide landscape from Deep East Oakland to North Oakland, and of course West Oakland. Churches are everywhere --every few blocks in most parts of Oakland it seems there's a church building.

What's so wonderful about these churches is how they range so widely in architectural styles and types.

Each church boasts its own unique structure and they vary from the fancy to the functional. 

If time allows, it's fun to leisurely travel Oakland's streets and take in their beauty.

Click on this website for a list of many (not all) of the churches of Oakland. But really, you don't need a guide to find them.  Go anywhere in Oakland and you'll pass a church within no time.

West Oakland (the red part in opposite map of Oakland) is a good place to start where there's a church on every second or third block. As a result the churches of West Oakland play a key role in defining the image of this East Bay neighborhood. However, with the fast advancing gentrification that's been going on in West Oakland in recent years, many longtime residents may be forced out due to rising real estate value. 

Hence economics would dictate that many of these little West Oakland churches, most of which draw a steady but small congregation every Sunday, will in short time become an endangered species, so if you want to see them in all their beauty do it now.

George Carlin died earlier today (June 22, 2008) in Los Angeles. He was 71 years old. The truly unique and always outspoken American comedian/social commentator/actor, who had a history of heart problems, died of  heart failure at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica at approx 6PM today. 

Unlike so many comedians who tend to tone down their act as the years slip by or as they become more famous & widely accepted, George Carlin consistently kept his work  on the edge by always being brutally honest and darkly satirical as he routinely tackled such targets as religion, culture, politics, and the hypocrisies of America.

The ever anti-establishment Carlin will probably be best remembered for "The Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV" routine of his (found on his Class Clown album) in which he tested the limits and challenged the government regulated words that dared not be uttered on television (or the radio).

In 1972 in Milwaukee at a show Carlin did this routine, uttering those seven "dirty" words from the stage, resulting in his arrest for disturbing the peace. The same routine, when played on American radio, led to the 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language.

Personally, I loved everything he ever did that I got my hands on: records, books and filmed performances-- three video clips of which are included below. One is the aforementioned "The Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" from a 1978 concert. Another is the wonderful "Modern Man" from more recent years, in which he does an inspired piece about modern technology (great for mixing over beats because of its poetic flow) and another amazing recent piece - the no-holds-barred "America Is Tyranny" in which Carlin tells it like it really is today in the messed up United States of America.

Love him or hate him, Lil Wayne (aka Weezy) is the man of the moment with his anticipated new album, Tha Carter III (Cash Money/Universal) released earlier this week which broke sales records - selling close to half a million units on the day of its release. And with an approximated million copies sold within the first week - it is guaranteed to be the number one Billboard pop chart  topper. Undoubtedly the album will also go on to become one of the top selling releases of 2008. 

"It's doing really well here. It got a whole bunch of hype of course. But what is interesting to me is the diversity of Lil Wayne fans," reports Marques Newson from the hip-hop department at the Amoeba Music Hollywood store. "I was on the register Tuesday, the release date of the new CD, and there was literally every type of person buying it, every race and age you can think of.  Not just young guys like you might think...but like 40 or 50 year old white women or 60 year old black women."  

Speaking of age, what is most significant about Lil Wayne, a long established rap star  who just recently scored his first pop hit with "Lollipop," is that he is only 25 years old but has been putting it down in the rap game since he hooked up with the Cash Money Records crew when just a teenager.  Besides Lil Wayne's regular full length releases (it's three years since his last official album Tha Carter II) and the countless cameos he makes on other projects, there are a ton of mix CDs featuring his music, including DJ EFX (not to be confused with Raul "DJ EFX" Recinos -- veteran Bay Area hip-hop/house/ tribal/electronic DJ/producer), who recently dropped the popular Before The Carter Vol. 2.  The mixtape only helped fuel interest in the artist's official June 10th release that is clearly geared for crossover pop success with such high-profile collaborators as Jay-Z.

On top of all this, Lil Wayne recently wrapped up filming a part as a student-athlete in the forthcoming movie The Patriots with Forest Whitaker. So Dwayne Michael Carter (his real name) looks set to be a huge, huge star. Of course, the far-from-humble Dwayne has been calling himself "the best rapper alive" for quite a while already which, note, is one of the reasons he causes so much ire in others. Another reason he gets hated on in hip-hop circles is that the often clearly buzzed Weezy (cough syrup is one of his favorite poisons, as well as weed and E) will utter, or rather slur, some of the dumbest, most unprofessional things at the most inappropriate times (i.e, in recorded interviews), like when he recently told Foundation magazine that mix-tape DJs suck ("Fuck you if you are a mix tape DJ" and "I created the mix tape game" were two of his quotes).

When you think about, it all holidays are basically the same -- days of celebration, all similar,  just with different names.

Father's Day, Mother's Day, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, Memorial Day, BIrthdays and the million other "days" that we celebrate are all pretty much one and the same thing: days where we stop to celebrate life, sometimes past, but usually present. 

It's about the love...for life: a time to sing out on the positives and to vow to live each day to the fullest.

Hence I think it appropriate on this "day" (or any) to re-watch that celebratory scene from Hal Ashby's 1971 film Harold and Maude (avail on DVD @ Amoeba) in which Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort's characters sing Cat Stevens' "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out."  Immediately below that clip is Cat Stevens performing "Father and Son."  Another appropriate Father's Day song is the 1991 hip-hop single from Ed O.G. & da Bulldogs "Be A Father To Your Child."  The third video below is "Father and Daughter" which is "animacion con acuarela por Michael Dudok de Wit," and below that  is "Father's Day Poem: to Dad" -- a stop motion animation by YouTuber indiestopmotion.