Mama Buzz Café

“Coastal Oil: Deep Mystery.” Splashed across the front page, the dark, murky tease of a headline makes a huge deal out of our uncertainty about oil reserves around U.S. shores. It feels like I’m watching Fox News. Are we seriously talking about where to find more oil? Tell me this is a joke… not some slick, twisted joke.

Also slick and twisted is Mama Buzz Café, at 2318 Telegraph, where I drilled for my coffee this morning. Entering to smooth Roots beats, I pumped out Tiger by the Tail coffee (don’t know what that is but it muddy and does the trick). Mama Buzz is exactly that, the mother of a buzz in Oakland. This is a tangible nexus for the Art Murmur crowd, and I pecked at my laptop with gutter punks, hipsters, artists in stained pants, and felt like I was sitting in the secret breakfast spot of every good pulp novel detective. Free wifi, plug-ins galore (you mean a place that actually wants me to sit here as long as I want???), and a back porch if you want to breath fresh air (or smoke) while you dig into the latest zine. The girl next to me brought in a whole box of blueberries to go with her coffee. As I sat, the music flowed smoothly from Roots to Talib Kweli to Arrested Development. The dining room, with its hipster survey of seats from church pews to 50’s diner chairs, doubles as an art gallery, and the walls are lovingly covered by some of the best, unframed art that Oakland has to offer. Want to know what the scene is producing these days? Come get your buzz on right here.

As for the headlines, there are some amazing stories about eradicating child slavery in Nepal and drug firm buyouts. I can’t take the headlines today. They don’t make sense. “I read the news today, oh boy…” sang those Beatles, and that’s kind of how the morning went. Luckily, Mama Buzz was there to rub the aching head.

Enjoy your break slow, dear reader. After all, if the front page is our mother, we’ll be sliding through the morning on oil, spending our energy pondering corporate takeover ethic. Mama!!!

Breakfast in the Bay: Making sense of waking up since Tuesday, 2008.