I think it started when the fire truck crashed into Radio Valencia. Looking it up, I'm surprised to see this was as long ago as 1994.
I think it probably has something to do with musicians not being able to afford to live in SF any more, and everyone moving to Oakland. Just a guess, though.
You know, Lubbock has much the same problem: all the interesting jazz and improv shows are in Oakland.
That was funny Matt.
This is not an expression of surprise.
Yes, but that's of little consolation when it'll take upwards of 70 minutes, assuming I encounter no traffic, and a trip across the bay bridge, each way, just to go to 21 Grand.
But if you want to lend me yours, that's cool too.
I suspect Ogged's point was something like, "don't be a lazy bastard."
Also, if memory serves, Ogged loves cars and thinks those of us who prefer cities and walking/public transit are all insane.
I couldn't remember if you had a car. No B, I'm all for walkable cities, but I love long leisurely drives.
Seriously Ben, why are you taking the Bay Bridge? I'm almost certain that's a much slower route than going over the Dumbarton and going up 880. (Although traffic on 880 going North is awful during rush hour.)
Because that's the route google maps gives, and I am a slave to google maps. Though when I looked at it last, I did think that it couldn't be much faster than the basic route you suggest.
You use google maps directions to get around the area where you live?
You use google maps directions to get around the area where you live?
No, that doesn't work.
You use google maps directions to get around the area where you live?
I don't actually live in Oakland or in San Francisco, nor have I been in the area very long.
12: if you put in my actual address, it takes you via the 101. Strangely, if you put in an intersection not very far at all from my actual address, it gives your directions. Here's a link with my zip. My conclusion: google maps is a little bitch.
Yeah, sometimes I do put in directions near me to get the route I want.
Further response to 11, the theory is that google maps has done the hard work of developing an algorithm to find the shortest route from place to place, so even though I could look at a map to figure it out, it's easier to do it online. I don't think it's strange at all. The SF bay's a big area.
If you know the route you want, why are you asking Google Maps for directions?
"The area where you live" = the bay area. And yeah, the algorithms those mapping sites use are apparently not very good.
If you know the route you want, why are you asking Google Maps for directions?
Because my knowing is general (880 not 101) but not specific (take the Broadway exit).
the theory is that google maps has done the hard work of developing an algorithm to find the shortest route from place to place
The problem is that it's an algorithm that doesn't actually work very well, especially in heavily built-up areas.
19: If I knew the route I wanted, I wouldn't be.
I'm just surprised, is all. I very rarely use the automatic directions on those mapping sites, because they tend to suck.
Because my knowing is general (880 not 101) but not specific (take the Broadway exit).
I knew that; I was just being a little bitch. As opposed to 14, where I was liveblogging a moaning tortoise.
22: yes, we gather that. I don't see what's so surprising about my use of google maps—the bay area comprises multiple cities; it's not as if I could really have gained much familiarity with it from nine months spent mostly in Palo Alto.
You know, Ben, in some ways you and I are very different people.
Yeah, you go out frequently and are well-known at all the local laundromatsnightspots, while I tend to stay in a narrower ambit.
Next up, let's see if we can put Ben on the defensive about his choice of socks.
Actually that's already been done.
I was so so confused by your post until i clicked through and realized that 21grand(.org) is different from 200grand(.com).
and id agree with ogged and almost always recommend dumbarton-to-880. except that i hate the 880, and there are certain times of day when google would be right (because the 280 can be the freeway of infinite speed).
you could always caltrain-to-bart and use the time "productively"... even if it will go from 70 minutes to two hours, and even then you'll be stuck in oakland overnight if you dont leave by midnight.... but, really, we have great transit here....
The short answer to Ben's original question: Because the East Bay fucking pwns! We rulz!
JM beat me to it. Oakland roolz, everybody else droolz.
Ogged, there can't be too many Persiranians living in South Coffeyville. We've identified you now.
there can't be too many Persiranians living in South Coffeyville
There can, and there are.
I'm in the East Bay, att3nding ur impr0v c0ncertz.
What was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or anything if I like but not there, there is no there there.
If you have no idea what route you want to take it's definitely worth trying google maps and yahoo maps and mapquest, since they often given different routes. Then you can adjust accordingly. I think from OKC to Lubbock one tells you to go south to Wichita Falls and then west, one tells you to take the interstate to Amarillo then south (my preferred route), and one gives you a wacky Etch-a-Sketch diagonal route.
Ben, need I remind you that I would sometimes drive from Milwaukee to Chicago for a show? You're obviously not a real fan.
But Matt, I have reading to do, and any minute at which I am not, or could not plausibly begin, doing that reading is another minute in which my abject badness as a student and human is confirmed! You, as a professor, had no significant claims on your time.
Now if you lived in Berkeley it'd be three, maybe four BART stops to those concerts, or a quick cab ride if it's late.
In other words, it's God's punishment for your choice of university.
For people looking for interesting music in the Bay Area, I must plug my friend Cornelius Boots and his bass clarinet quartet "Edmund Welles". They are not strictly jazz -- in fact, Boots was doing chamber music covers of Radiohead tunes before Brad Mehldau or Christopher O'Riley -- but they are phenomenal and weird. And he plays in both San Francisco and the East Bay.
Great minds think alike (w-lfs-n's first post ever).
"Cornelius Boots" is a pseudonym, right?