Fear and Loathing in Oakland

There’s a sign on a hillside south of Oakland near the connection with Interstate 5 that says, “Thank you, Jesus.”

It doesn’t say thank you for what, but having lived in the Bay Area most of my life I can say with certainty that they are thanking Jesus they are not in L.A.

They are grateful for having been placed, by whatever means, in San Francisco, Oakland and even San Leandro, which seems to have dreadfully little to thank anyone for.

You might be surprised that this kind of parochialism still exists up there, but I am here to tell you that it does.

I spent a few days in Greater Oakland over Thanksgiving and found myself engaged in a series of arguments that revolved around whose city was best.

There is something about Los Angeles that invites debate, especially in the Bay Area, although I have found this also to be true in other cities I’ve visited, as far away as Dar es Salaam.

It usually begins with someone saying, “You from L.A.?”

How they know this is beyond me. I don’t wear an earring, my jeans are not torn out at the knees, my hair isn’t purple and I don’t hold my crotch while singing the national anthem.

But I sigh and say yes, I’m from L.A., and in a matter of minutes I find myself on the brink of a fistfight with someone I don’t even know, defending a city that defies defense.

My travail up north became acute in a San Leandro bar I think was called the Why Not Club, where I awaited a friend from high school days.

Nothing else would ever get me into anything called the Why Not Club.

For those unfamiliar with the Bay Area, San Leandro is a city south of Oakland whose essential dullness places it in a category of municipalities led by Burbank, Cleveland and Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Nothing exciting has ever occurred in San Leandro, and nothing exciting is ever likely to occur there.

I was approached at the aforementioned establishment by a man who, moments earlier, had been drinking a beer and reading the comics, which is not an unfamiliar sight in town.

Lacking world-class perceptions, he did not guess I was from L.A., only, as they used to say around Boot Hill, that I was a stranger in town.

Saloon protocol demands a certain degree of social intercourse at the railing, however class distinction might elsewhere divide us, so we talked.

It seems Bo, which was his name, had lived in L.A. once and been fired from his only job here, creating an antipathy toward us that continues to this very day.

Bo hates L.A., hates everyone who lives in L.A. and, if the truth be known, hates anyone who does not hate L.A.

It became clear, as our conversation progressed, his hatreds were heightened by the fact that, two days hence, the Bay Area’s seemingly indomitable 49ers were to meet with the highly domitable L.A. Rams.

I don’t think Bo was convinced the “Niners” would, as he put it, “stick it to us,” and this laced his hatred with a certain amount of trepidation. Right, fear and loathing in Outer Oakland.

Football is a sport that attracts those whose childhoods were marred by a combination of poor toilet training and an allergy to mother’s milk.

The result is a glandular dysfunction that breeds a taste for mindless physical violence which, of course, is what pro football is all about. To paraphrase Gore Vidal, simply winning isn’t enough; someone must die.

This pathology was manifest during my entire time in the Bay Area, but it wasn’t until that encounter in San Leandro that I became aware it was rooted in the forthcoming match between our respective football teams.

By the time my friend, an unfrocked journalist gone into retail carpets, arrived at the Why Not Club, Bo and I were going at it to such an extent others were about to intervene.

I can’t believe it now, but I was red-faced with rage defending a football team whose quarterback I could not name to save my life.

When I told my friend this, he expressed surprise, not that I was engaged in a barroom argument but that I would argue in favor of L.A.

Then he too, like a mad dog loose from his harness, went into the attack.

He is a one-legged Irishman with severe emotional problems, and his rage quickly rose to match my own.

L.A., he declared, was a city of whores and leprechauns and ought to be wiped, like Sodom, from the face of the Earth.

I would never assault a one-legged person, even of Irish extraction, so I left the Why Not Club, never to return.

The my-city-is-better-than-your-city debates continued for the next two days until the Rams, of whomsoever the team consists, toppled the Joemontana people and a terrible silence descended over God’s Country.

I’m not sure Jesus is responsible for that too, but when I left Oakland I thanked him just the same.