The Nest

Finding personal space within the family dynamic is difficult. A lifelong exercise. We all do it differently. Those of us who grew up in big, chaotic families might have a kind of strategy that means seeking isolation and order. When I was a kid, I made friends with girls who were only children. I liked going to their houses where it was quiet. The refrigerator was always full. No siblings to battle for food and attention, and where you could sit and have a meal that was prepared for you by a mom who had more time than your mom ever did.

My house growing up was never boring. There was always action. I had four brothers and a sister, so tons of cute boys around, more testosterone than estrogen. I gravitated towards the action, but also needed isolation to regulate my energy.

And that's exactly what I created as an adult: a life overflowing with action, tons of grown-up kids and their friends busy at the studio on Market Street. They need help with projects or to figure out their budgets or to listen to their arguments about how to fight gentrification or how to dismantle capitalism. Though Zoe and her friends balance it out, my home life is still dominated by male energy. I seek isolation from it at The Nest.

The Nest, where I sit right now, is so quiet. I'm listening to birds waking up. At night, I hear the train whistle blowing through West Berkeley, and that's all I hear. I don't need earplugs and a black-out eyemask to sleep. I am even weaning myself off sleeping pills.

Joe visits The Nest. The kids visit The Nest, especially when they need to do laundry. My lover visits The Nest. The Nest is neat, and spare, and has only my things. Things that were once buried in the family home in Bolinas, and before that in Portland, or San Francisco, or Los Angeles. The Nest is a place where my visitors come to regulate against their personal chaos, internal and external.

The Nest is by invitation only, but there is always room.

Mid-Market Update

Trash Night on Stevenson

When we moved into our studio space on Market Street there was one sweat shop in this building and a weird Chinese import storefront. And us. The rest of the building was empty, had been for years. Stevenson was (and still is) crack alley. Hustlers of all stripes lurked (and still lurk) in the no-man's land between Civic Center and Powell Street, our block. Lost tourists clutched (and still clutch) their Juicy Couture bags and briskly walked toward their hotels wondering how they suddenly found themselves off course, in front of our building.

All of that is still the same, except there are other people there too now. Young people with money who are from somewhere else. And they are serious about making more money than you or I have ever thought about making. Or maybe we have thought about it, but not like these kids. They are determined to actually get it, like, this year.

Over the last three years, Joe and I filled two floors of this building with artists who could otherwise not afford to live in the City. For a long while, it was just us and the sweat shop. But the building is not empty anymore. Now there is "Hash Map App Labs" taking up one whole floor. College dropouts camp out up there to learn how to build apps in three months.  On the now posh sixth floor is "Advisor" or The Company That Supports the Back End for Apps. More rich kids, a little older and even more serious, and also from somewhere else. These people are not artists.

Stevenson is still the best destination in the City for having a psychotic breakdown, finding crack or heroin, or getting your cocked sucked by someone who needs money to purchase crack or heroin. Even Stevenson is rapidly changing. Two buildings have been rehabbed already on our block, and it means one thing: more rich kids flooding in to push up the price of real estate.

We talk about gentrification around here. It's tough to be the first wave of gentrifiers, usually artists. You can develop a sense of indignation for being an early adopter who makes a shitty place livable, when in come the rich kids to buy 300 sq foot condos for half a million dollars. But what can you do? You are just a part of the problem.

Is it a problem? Depends on who you are.

We hope the crack fiends and trash pickers can help keep it real around here.