Posted on 12/06/2016 10:51:25 PM PST by BenLurkin
The footage and photos, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, shows the living quarters of some of the residents of the building known as the Oakland Ghost Ship.
While photos on the art collective's website show an eclectic and creative space for artists and musicians, the reality of life behind the scenes in this dilapidated building is horrific.
Dark and dingy rooms don't look fit for humans, with exposed electrical wires and panels, venting pipes and piles of junk and old clothes everywhere.
Tenant Shelley Mack, who disclosed the pictures to DailyMail.com also revealed that there were three fires while she lived there - in late 2014 and early 2015 - caused by faulty electrics.
'They were small fires. There were no sprinklers so everybody was just aware, if you smelled smoke you would go look and put it out.
'They were isolated fires, a transponder blew up and electrical sockets got overloaded, everybody was very aware that the place was a fire hazard, it was filled with old dried wood and wooden furniture.
'There were power cords and extension cords hooked up to extension cords everywhere. To get across all the place to heat and light all the trailers. Everybody would plug in and they'd get overloaded, refrigerators and microwaves and cell phones, lots of electrical equipment and massive stereo equipment, any system would have been overloaded.'
...
'To be honest I didn't think it was going to last this long before it went up or somebody shut it down.'
Mack recalls how one doorway was blocked because it led to the property of a neighbor who'd been in a dispute with the operators.
The 58-year-old jewelry maker who lived there for four or five months leaving in February, 2015, became so angry at the conditions that she began to log...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
He outdid himself in his latest offering.
That may be true, but there are precious few swastikas in that image (I refuse to play Where's Waldo Adolf).
The Nazi swastika points clockwise and is rotated 45° left.
Benign swastikas generally are unrotated and may point clockwise or counter-clockwise. E.g., the Hindu version is unrotated, points clockwise, and has additional dots.
Outside the Krautisch context, the swastika generally means good luck. Here, for example, is a Navajo version, unrotated, counter-clockwise:
The swastika is just a shape.
Someone took a picture of my man cave?
Hacksaw Ridge is pretty good. Hollywood condensed because the full story is even more unbelievable. But still very well done.n
You would still have to be mentally ill to go into that place for any reason including a ‘free concert’.
It’s not about deserving.
It’s about playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes.
Cause and effect is like gravity. The stupid can pretend to ignore it but it sure as heck won’t ignore them.
So this was a cleansing fire.
Hippies who prefer to live in squalor than to go out and get education and a decent job. How much of their so-called ‘art’ did they sell?
Darwin’s Law in effect.
First, the shrine appears to have a real human skull and a real ape skull. I wonder if those were from Asia, and if so, would the shipment have been illegal.
I have been present in situations when circuits were overloaded in an office. On those occasions, the circuit breaker always tripped before anything overheated. Therefore I wonder if there was a circuit breaker, and if so, was it the “old style” which can be circumvented by using a coin. I believe that it could be negligence if someone put together wiring without adequate circuit breakers.
So many clueless millenial ravers were attracted to this. The impoverished artists who lived there seemed to have a more concrete notion of how dangerous it could be. The millenial ravers seemed to lack a situational awareness of the cumulative risks of the location that they had willingly entered. It seems almost inconceivable that adult attendees would not somehow suspect that the event was not permitted and at a location that did not have the proper building code for such an event. My own thinking is that they derived enjoyment from attending events that are portrayed as avante-garde to the point of being legally and physically risky. The death themed murals, altars and rituals seem to be designed to advertise that avante-garde risk to unsuspecting members of the millenial community.
Most of this might not have mattered had the millenial attendees had some common sense. However, in any town and city there seems to be a category of folks who are almost totally separated from science and technology. These people would be clueless if presented by an emergency because they have no hard skills. Furthermore, these people with no hard skills are not generally aware that their lack of hard skills places limits on their common sense and situational awareness with respect to risk. I think this is a predictable outcome of the dumbed-down educational system that focuses on modern but unproductive themes of building up self-esteem and promoting social justice for protected classes, to the detriment of teaching science and technology. One can observe the effects even in the language of the 58 year old artist who complained about malfunctioning electric “transponders” though admittedly it seems enough in this particular case to get the essential message that she wanted to convey across.
Finally, in general, I think Oakland has less of a social awareness of the danger of fire than San Francisco. I believe that this lack of social awareness of the danger of fire carries forward into Oakland government. Oakland seems to have escaped big fires in much of its early history. In contrast, San Francisco had at least 5 fires from the time of its founding through the early 1850s, leading to a relatively tough approach towards building codes and enforcement from that point forward with respect to fire safety from the early days of the city’s existence.
Oakland should beef up its fire and zoning inspections in anticipation of more widespread problems in the next big Hayward earthquake (which is now overdue).
A fire was probably best for that place.
Among Oakland’s dozens of artist warehouses is one called Deathtrap
By Rachel Swan Updated 10:23 pm, Monday, December 5, 2016
SFGate
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Among-Oakland-s-dozens-of-artist-warehouses-is-10712732.php
Oakland warehouse artists fear crackdown could put them on street
By Otis R. Taylor Jr. Updated 7:10 pm, Monday, December 5, 2016
SFGate
Opinion
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Oakland-warehouse-artists-fear-crackdown-could-10702122.php
You gotta love the convenience of having the propane tank for your personal water heater - right there with you on the bathroom floor.
What could possibly go wrong?
This kind of life is nothing new. I spent several years in the late eighties and early to mid nineties on the road in various forms - from hitchhiking across the country to playing in rock bands.
These types of enclaves existed then in most major - and many minor - cities. The locations of which might surprise some... They’d take over abandoned buildings and warehouses to live in and party until they all moved on or they were thrown out.
Then there were the large groups of hippies that traveled all over and squatted in national parks for weeks at a time - the “Rainbow Family”. I have a very funny story about my interaction with those guys...
Trust me - it was just as bad then if not worse. And given everything I saw and know about the underground culture, it’s amazing to me that there haven’t been more incidents like this. If nothing else, they are very good at keeping their business to themselves for the most part.
Where were the city building and fire inspectors especially when there had been numerous complaints about conditions in the building? Obviously many in the community were aware of the appalling conditions, but the city was not aware.... sounds like either government incompetence or more likely someone was being paid off to look the other way. This building and its conditions are so typical of hippies
Just after the fire, ABC news showed the interior before the fire. I got a glimpse of a hanging swastika which suddenly disappeared from all news photos. Wonder why.
Depressing situation in so many ways.
For transgender victims, respect starts with using name they chose
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/For-transgender-victims-respect-starts-with-10778941.php?ipid=articlerecirc
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