Chauvis.com

Last week I had to make an emergency call to the Oakland Police Department to report a break-in in progress to my dwelling. Unfortunately this call took 15 minutes to get an operator! This operator also happened to be the nearby CHP office which had to then transfer me to the Oakland PD (a few more minutes). This kind of response is absolutely unacceptable! Will it take doubling the 911 budget? If so, it must be done NOW! Another sad fact is that this isn’t the first time I’ve had an over ten minute delay in reaching 911.

All extra city services as parking, parks, libraries should take a back seat to the 911 operations. If it takes the city government having the National Guard come in to fill the slack it should be done immediately.

In Oakland, a terrorist, hoodlum or maniac could go on a shooting spree and kill hundreds of people until the police are notified. A person can die in a medical emergency well before the ambulance arrived.

Mayor Brown, Oakland City council, you must DECLARE A STATE OF EMERGENCY NOW! Fifteen minutes to get a 911 operator at several different times is a symptom of a total break down of emergency city services. Do the right thing and call in reinforcements!

Recent construction at the Uptown Oakland location 25th and Telegraph has created a Tunnel of Terror! Pedestrians have to walk under the scaffolding with a giant black sheath on the outside.

What lurks inside? One of the many drugged out crackheads that dwell nearby? A whacked out panhandler looking for some cash for the liquor store next door? A gangsta hood looking for your wallet? If some loser doesn’t accost you,the stench of human waste, garbage or construction debris can harsh your mellow real fast!

Apparently Handicapped parking (signified by the blue sign with an icon of a wheelchair) isn’t for people that are mobily challenged by wheelchairs anymore. Apparently you can talk your doctor into giving you a Handicap permit just for being fat, or walking without pep. By these standards over 50% of the population is now eligible for such privileges.

Why does one get the perk of parking close to a huge store like Costco when you are going to walk several hunded yards inside? As you can see in this video, everyone can walk fine and several subjects are seen easily loading the giant containers or heavy flats of cans they bought at Costco.

It’s the opinion of Chauvi’s that this program be scrapped and new permits be issued to only those that need wheelchairs or some kind of mobilty assistance. At this rate there are going to be no parking spaces for those truly in need with wheelchairs, or let’s just rename this parking area as “Lame Parking”, because being fat, slow or old isn’t Handicapped!

Sometimes the spring cleaning bug hits certain households in Oakland. This can result in some spontaneous, large piles of refuse on the sidewalk. Why bother taking care of your old throw-aways when you can just dump it outside and let someone else deal with it?

This ‘yard-sale’ was seen in a neighborhood in West Oakland. Hope your neighbors don’t do this…

Ah, the remember the ‘good old days’ when you could pull into a gas station and receive prompt, courteous service right at your car? Well, there’s a new version of Service Attendant at the Chevron Station at 2200 Telegraph and Grand in downtown Oakland!

Within moments of pulling into this station and getting out of your car, a service representative will come out to greet you! Is he going to ask if you want your tire pressure checked or your windows washed? Nope! He’s going to tell you a story and shake you down for your cash! Do these guys work for the station? The gas station doesn’t seem to do anything to discourage them, they must be in some kind of affiliate or proxy service arrangement!

Chauvi’s has noticed that women get special treatment and will be escorted wherever they walk around the station by these Service Attendants.

Sorry the photos are of poor quality. We will update with one of our newer cameras soon!

It is time we focus our scrutinizing eye on the many, shabby, sub-standared dwellings that dot the cityscape of Oakland. These multi-user dwellings are hives of crime and filth. The residents don’t seem to show any pride in their residence and the owners poorly maintain them. Some have turned into hives of crime and neglect. Many of them need to be leveled and replaced by market rate lofts or condos.

This months Hive Hall of Shame winner is next to the newer Telegraph Lofts on 24th and Telegraph. Walk around the block to 25th st. and you can see that this is quite a different place. The first thing you notice is the stench, then the garbage that’s strewn about. What a disgusting place. There’s usually matresses and discarded appliances in the back too.

I sometimes park my car near 24th and Telegraph in Oakland’s edgey boho district. It seems there is an unusually high level of pidgeon poop on my car whenever I park around here. In fact there’s pidgeon shit all over the place! I noticed that there seems to always be a pile of bread crumbs and some water dishes on the sidewalk across the street from The Telegraph condos.

Who would perpetuate and encourage these ‘rats with wings’? There’s already so much garbage in the ‘hood the last thing we need is pidgeon feces all over the place.

Well my answer came the other morning when I saw this person caught in the act of feeding the little buggers. Why in hell do people do this? Do they really need little animal friends that badly? I’m thinking it would be an interesting experiment to breed cockroaches near your house! They can be trained to do tricks and they keep me company! OK, this Professor is getting a little sarcastic. But to see the citizens of this struggling area (there’s a nearby Seniors home) have to walk though the filth produced by this persons actions makes this patron of civility shake his head.

It seems more and more sleepy-heads are found snoozing on BART during the morning commute. Are these people really on such a long ride they can’t stay away and need to take up the entire seat (almost always the rear seat of the train). Most commuters are to pussy-assed to wake one of these snoozers up in order to share the seat, even on a packed car!

I find it fun to give them a poke and request my right to the seat. I wonder if these folks in the Land of Nod are really just using the train to hangout. Prof. Curtains is reasonable and can understand snoozing a bit on a long commute but sacking and taking up an entire seat like you’re in a sleeping car is so gauche!

Often, this editor is coming home from an evening of burning the late night oil at the office. Taking BART, the public transit ‘train’ of the Bay Area, one must experience many forms of poor etiquette from those who are socially deficient.

Tonight I will deify my first BART ‘tard du Jour! This may become a regular ritual here at Chauvi’s, as we are returning the favor and recording for posterity these noodniks. To our readers who chosen the path of the Superior Life, let us all roll our eyes and maybe wish there were fewer of these loseurs on this beautiful planet.

This winner, is a woman riding the east bound train into Oakland from SF on Tuesday, April 4th around 11:25PM. After gabbing on their fabulous walkie-talkie style cell phone until they lost signal in the Oakland downtown tunnel, she proceeded to entertain herself and the entire train to a repetitive, distorted video game soundtrack. That the phone was turned up to full volume, while the train was silently parked at the 12th station taking on new passengers, made it the focus of all the tired commuters attention.

Congratulations, Ms. Cell Phone Gamer, you are our Inaugural Winner!

Let this be a warning that you, the annoying and culturally lacking will soon be filling our pages with mucho material!

If you have a submission, please send your photos and comments!

- B. F. Curtains

Dear Gentlemen and Ladies,

I am most honoured to welcome you to Chauvi’s, the premier magazine for the discerning chauvanist. I would like to begin by delving into the word,” Chauvinism” , lest it be misconstrued by certain uppity and militant factions, or the generally ignorant.

The word, “chauvanism” is derived from the French word, “chauvinisme”, and was named after Nicolas Chauvin, a legendary French soldier famous for his devotion to Napoleon. “Chauvinism”, in its primary usage, is a militant devotion to and glorification of one’s country; a fanatical patriotism (perhaps some of our readers have had some experience with this?).

The secondary usage of “chauvinism” is, according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, volume three: “Prejudiced belief in the superiority of one’s gender, group, or kind” (example; the chauvinism of making extraterrestrial life in our own image).

The natural, knee-jerk response of most uninformed persons is to automatically associate the word “chauvinist” with the word “male”. The authors of this magazine feel that we would be sold short by such a short-sighted stigma (say this quickly, five times). To truly understand the spirit of Chauvi’s, we are obliged to point out that the Chauvi’s “outlook” is a feeling of superiority over ANYTHING that is NON- Chauvi’s.

Simply stated, Chauvi’s is a way of life for the person who feels him/or/herself to be better than just about anyone else. In our extensive experience, the true Chauvi’s afficionado cleaves to a lifestyle that produces superior returns, on ALL fronts, to those of the “normal” or “NON- Chauvi’s”-type-individual.

Sadly, though many of our readers will imagine themselves in this class, the mathematical improbability of a person actually possessing the qualities which would make them a Chauvi’s candidate is staggering. Still, feel free to read our magazine; perhaps some of our Essence of Chauvidom will rub off on you.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank my distinguished and erstwhile colleague, Professor B.F. Curtains, whose unflagging efforts have made this publication possible. Also, I would like to thank all of the little people (of which there are many!!!) without which the aura of Chauvinism would not exist.

So read, study, enjoy, and learn! By all means, please feel free to submit an entry to our Letters Column; it will most likely be rejected as an inferior product unworthy of our magazine, but, who knows?

Warmly Yours,

FROSTY,
EDITOR