on a sunday morning, i set out to find sting rays in a stream that connects the bay to lake merritt with my friend m. a week earlier he came upon an enormous mutant fish swimming along the grill of a filter that guards a levee that keeps the stream at a safe level. it’s a stream mostly forgotten or unknown to locals, running through outlying parts of oakland chinatown and the oakland embarcardero.

ive suspected all along lake merritt was a salt water lake, despite having sometimes a smell that could rival stagnant washes in cebu city. its mini pier where you can rent boat rides, including a gondola, is flanked by small dark mollusks under floating mallards. the bay empties out into the lake through another filter that keeps out large sea weed, among other things, among other creatures. it is no wonder people dont know.

m took pictures of the sting rays. we spotted at least four, scavenging shallow waters making dusty smoke. they are like alien sea creatures, ufo’s, flying machines with malleably beautiful wings gliding through the water. and cute at the same time. they looked pet-able. like they could almost make barking sounds.

since im not as fast with taking photographs, i settled with taking photographs of the area. as we walked along the bank of the stream, we trespassed into bridges and structures marked close to the public — basically right under highway 880. a homeless encampment sat quietly around the corner. over towards the bay, an abandoned fire station stuck up out of the landscape burnt and empty next to the flea market. trash was somewhat contained in little piles, in holes in the ground. don’t get me wrong, there was trash everywhere. but somehow, someone took the time to place them in recognizable grouping, saying to anyone who comes upon them: put your trash here.

there were two pieces of graffiti art on one of the supporting structures of the freeway:

a lovely evening in oakland
rocky lives

sting rays, highways, mutant fish, trash and graffiti. they co-exist in oakland along a possibly polluted stream that empties into lake merritt, a lake flanked by working class on one side, middle class on the other, upper middle class just beyond. further down the highway is the ghetto. and further down is the harbor, the piers that recieve and send consumer goods from all over the world.

i didnt want to have to deal with another reminder that the human condition is complex. i wanted to enjoy my day. so m and i went down to the cheap vietnamese restaurant in chinatown where he ordered a vietnamese sandwich and i ordered pan-fried shrimp complete with head and tail over rice, which i ate without inhibition, which he thought was disgusting — which i completely ignored.

we proceeded to talk about the humanism movement which produced the renaissance in europe. i decided to just forget about my environmental concerns.