A Decidedly Odd Return to Berkeley

A couple months ago I got together with my decidedly odd friend Jeff, his friend Kendra K, and her boyfriend Joe. Having recently earned his second Masters Degree from UNC, Jeff was making a brief stop in Berkeley on his way up from his parents' house in San Clemente to his new job in Seattle. Although we'd gotten together briefly two times while Jeff was back at Berkeley teaching in the summer of 2004, the last time I'd spent more than a couple hours with him was when we met up in Germany. So it was very nice to see him again.

I met up with Jeff at the Berkeley Rose Garden, one of my favorite places in Berkeley. He was classically wearing a shirt displaying the letters of the alphabet that ended in wxyc--indicating the UNC Chapel Hill radio station where he'd been a dj.

From there we headed over to Kendra's. Jeff and Kendra both worked at and had shows on kalx. Actually, Kendra still has a show there. Since graduating from Berkeley, Kendra has been a librarian at the university. But she's perhaps best known to the outside world for her blog and for being a close friend and confidant of a certain Dr. Frank of MTX fame.

In any event, her place was the quintisential Berkeley abode. The decor could best be described as a mixture of second hand furniture adjoining large columns of musical albums accompanied by literature, with a sampling of instruments. And all of it sprinkled with years of show-going ephemera. I absolutely loved it.

Joe joined us and we ate at the the ever popular Barney's. Joe's nearing the end of his extended stint as a graduate student at Berkeley. Also active in the music scene, he's has been heavily involved at Gilman for quite a while.

I believe the original plan for the evening was to attend Punk Rock Joel's annual pop punk birthday party show. But having embraced the opportunity to converse face to face, we'd missed the first couple hours of the show. Sleepily I meandered back to the south bay, while the others went on to the show.

Returning to Berkeley to meet with Jeff was a fond reminder of days past. For a few hours that day, Berkeley almost felt like home again.

A few pictures:


Jeff


Kendra and Joe


Me


Jeff, Kendra, and Joe


Jeff and Me