Downtown San Jose Nightlife

Another downtown San Jose business has bitten the dust. The latest casualty is ViVid nightclub. In case you are a stranger to the South Bay's nighlife scene, ViVid was always dependable to classy up the South Bay with D-list celebrities such as the chick from "Rock of Love," the chick from "Flavor Flav" and Vivid porn stars (apparently, there was no affiliation).

But don't shed too many tears -- Pearl nightclub has already moved into the shell of the former club, which was located on South First Street.

As you can tell by the promotional flyer, Pearl nighclub is going to be an equally classy joint. I honestly don't know where to begin on this -- the purple fishtank rocks, the mispelling of "world wide," the fact that the girl in the purple dress(?) looks like she is about to pass out from too much booze or the fact that it's bragging about transplanting "Orange County" into San Jose.

Thank you, San Jose clubs, for slowly killing downtown San Jose. I wouldn't blink an eye if all the clubs downtown closed tomorrow. I prefer to see the funky, bohemian art scene blossom into something beyond South First Fridays. I'm not saying we need to obliterate all forms of nightlife in downtown, I just ache for something more sophisticated than the Playboy playmate of the year.

San Jose Mercury News

I thought the front page of today's Merc looked pretty nice, don't you?

One hundred days down, 1,361 left to go

One hundred days down, 1,361 left to go

Obama is approaching his 100th day in office, and soon, everyone and their blog (including this one) will pick apart every move President Obama has made, placing him and his administration under a political microscope.

So, with a hundred days under his belt, how has Obama faired? Let me break it down …

Economic Crisis: B
Who would have thought when Obama announced his run for the presidency the war in Iraq wouldn’t be the most pressing issue facing America? Since that snowy February back in 2007, the economy is in the toilet, people are losing their jobs and it seems morale is at a new low. For his handling of the economic crisis, I give Obama a B. Kudos for a stimulus bill that would create jobs while focusing on green technology, but I ding him a grade for approving bailout packages for the auto giants.

War in the Middle East: C
Were still in Iraq, aren’t we?

International Relations: A
Obama has employed Hillary Clinton to be the goodwill ambassador to the rest of the world. Since taking office, both Clinton and Obama have reached out to the international community to repair the bridges Bush burned. Since Obama’s election, the United States is no longer the laughing stock of the world. Kudos.

Accessible Government: B
With weekly YouTube addresses, an updated blog, e-mail blasts and an easy-to-use White House Web site, Obama has made it a point to open up the government and make it accessible to all. I also applaud his efforts for trying to get the public involved with policy change, asking people to e-mail their concerns to the White House. My only complaint is that he hasn’t e-mailed me a response about my concerns of the rise in homelessness.

Pirates: A
Perhaps the most memorable event to occur during Obama’s first 100 days was the hijacking a ship by Somali pirates. He resolved the situation, calmly and quietly – something I don’t think our former president would have done.

All in all, I give our America’s 44th president a strong B for handling everything from the economic meltdown to piracy with aplomb and poise. He was elected in a time where the country was left in shambles. In these first 100 days, he’s begun picking up the pieces. Let’s hope in the next 100 days he’ll be able to put some of them back together again.

Bay Area Sports

It was a good weekend for Bay Area sports fans. High notes include wins for the Sharks, Giants and A's, plus Michael Crabtree being drafted by the San Francisco 49ers.

The lows include Brian Wilson blowing it in the ninth and the Oakland Raiders being, well, the Oakland Raiders.

But being a girl and all, I was excited when I caught sight of the new duds the 49ers will be wearing this season.

The team unveiled their new uniform, and it's going back to the cherry reds. Of course this comes the season after I invested in a Patrick Willis jersey. I would much rather own a classic-looking jersey then the standard red and gold.

SJSU alumnus brings true story to a crescendo

This article appeared in the April 23 issue of the Spartan Daily.

Andrea Frainier interviewed Steve Lopez on April 15 and participated in a college conference call with Joe Wright on April 7.


When Steve Lopez first caught sight of Nathaniel Ayers playing a classical tune on a downtown street corner, he thought he had found the perfect human-interest story for his next column. Lopez had no way of knowing he was about to embark on a journey with a former Juilliard student whose bright future was derailed by mental illness.


Pounding the pavement

Lopez, who attended SJSU from 1973 to 1975, credits his stint at the Spartan Daily for igniting his passion for journalism.

"I got a great education at San Jose State," Lopez said, "and I'll never forget the influence of my teachers and advisers on the Spartan Daily."

Initially, Lopez wanted to be a sports writer, but after working as a general assignment news reporter for the Oakland Tribune, Lopez said he fell in love with news reporting. In 1982, he began his career as a columnist.

He eventually landed at the Los Angeles Times, where he became famous for a series of columns about a street musician who lived on the streets of Los Angeles' Skid Row.

"On that particular day, I saw this guy playing the violin that was missing two strings," Lopez said. "He looked like he was homeless, and the music sounded pretty good."

That guy was Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a homeless schizophrenic who once was a rising star at Juilliard.

Lopez soon learned about the musician of Skid Row. How Ayers spends his days pushing "Little Walt Disney Concert Hall" - a shopping cart filled with soiled clothing, a sleeping bag and sticks used to scare away rats - from the slab of cement he sleeps on in Skid Row to a noisy tunnel where he serenades passers-by.


New York state of mind

Ayers, now 58, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at the age of 21. Growing up in Cleveland, he discovered his passion for music when he was introduced to the double bass, a bowed string instrument, in middle school.

It became apparent Ayers was a natural musician. Whether it was the double bass, cello, violin or trumpet, he latched on to any instrument he touched.

"I was always in awe of how well he can play," said Jennifer Ayers-Moore, Nathaniel's younger sister. "Once he started playing music, he became extremely serious about that."

Ayers attended Juilliard on a scholarship as a double bassist, but in 1972, his third year at the university, hallucinations and paranoia set in. Ayers left school and went home to Cleveland to live with his mother.

"My mom did everything," Ayers-Moore recalled. "She reached out to every service, every hospital, every doctor. She tried to talk to everybody she possibly could."

Ayers-Moore said her mother even resorted to shock treatment.

"I remember her sitting there looking at him and the doctor, being like, 'OK, this is going to be it. He's going to come back out the son I once had.' But that didn't help. When he came out, it seemed as though if his behavior was worse," Ayers-Moore said.

Ayers left Cleveland and traveled to Los Angeles in 2000 after his mother died.

"It was very hard," Ayers-Moore said. "The only thing I could do was pray and believe he was going to be OK. I have had the same cell number since they came out. I never changed it just in case he would call."


Striking a chord

Over the course of 2005, Lopez wrote almost a dozen columns about Ayers, providing glimpses into the mind of a paranoid schizophrenic.

Ayers spoke to Lopez unhinged, uttering whatever popped into his mind. Juilliard. Yo-Yo Ma. The Cleveland Browns. Beethoven. Ayers always circled back to Beethoven.

Lopez chronicled his efforts to persuade Ayers to move off the streets and into a supportive housing community.

"I would ask myself when it wasn't going particularly well if it was worth me sacrificing so much time from my job and from my family," Lopez said.

But each time Lopez was tempted to abandon his efforts, Ayers seemed to make progress. He began to trust Lopez more and show gratitude for his help.

Ayers also inspired Lopez to reflect on his own life.

"He got me thinking about my career," Lopez said. "He got me thinking about the courage it took for him to get through this. He took me into a world I knew little about."

Lopez said he joked that Ayers would have done better hooking up with a journalist who possessed a better understanding of classical music. But Lopez had the insight to know how much a VIP tour of the Walt Disney Concert Hall would mean to Ayers.

"I wanted to meet Nathaniel," said Adam Crane, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's director of public relations. "I didn't know if it would work out, but we decided a rehearsal would be the best situation for Nathaniel to come into, because it would be the first time he'd been in a concert hall for years."

Crane said he was amazed when Ayers immediately started talking about music.

"He talked about conductors and clearly knew what he was talking about," Crane said. "I jumped in the conversation with him, asking him all these questions. Steve was standing there, smiling."

A musician himself, Crane offered his cello to Ayers.

"Nathaniel came into my office and played my cello, and I turned to Steve at that moment and said, 'He really has it,'" Crane recalled. "After all those years of not being in (a musical) environment and just being on the streets, you don't know if he still has it, but he had it."


Lights, camera, action!

"I just thought it was an inspirational human-interest story," Lopez said. "When I wrote the first one, I had no idea that it would be the beginning of a couple dozen columns and it would lead to a book and a movie."

A year into his friendship with Ayers, at the urging of his editor, Lopez began to write "The Soloist," a book explaining his emotional journey with Ayers and how he helped Lopez rediscover his passion for storytelling.

As Lopez started to pen his book, DreamWorks Pictures became interested in putting his story on screen. The film, starring Robert Downey, Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as Ayers, makes a few Hollywood embellishments - for one, Lopez is a single father.

"It was a little bit difficult to get used to at first - that I'm divorced in the movie," Lopez said. In actuality, Lopez is married and a father of three children.

The essence of the movie, though, is the friendship between Ayers and Lopez and putting a human face to mental illness.

"The movie is wonderful, because it's going to say a lot to the public - something that I have dreamed about saying for a very long time," Ayers-Moore said. "Now it has a national audience to say that mental illness may not be what you think."

Director Joe Wright ("Pride and Prejudice," "Atonement") said Ayers changed his view on schizophrenics.

"He has made a quite extraordinary commitment to music and has made music his life, and I find that very inspiring," he said.

Wright said both Lopez and Ayers were involved with the making of the film. While Lopez worked closely with screenwriter Susannah Grant ("Erin Brockovich"), Ayers offered a different kind of support.

"He was around while we were filming a fair amount," Wright said. "He would often be on the edge of set, playing music."


Looking toward the future

Leading up to the premiere of the film, Lopez has crisscrossed the country sharing the inspirational journey he has taken with Ayers.

"He's somebody who had me thinking about my role as a citizen of the world," Lopez said.

Last week, Lopez made the trek to Capitol Hill to speak with congressional aides about his friendship with Ayers, mental illness and supportive housing, which he said is a proven program that helps those who suffer from mental health problems.

"I felt honored to be invited by them to speak about my experience," Lopez said. "All of this I owe to Nathaniel."

Also inspired by her experiences with her brother, Ayers-Moore established the Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Foundation in 2008. The organization focuses on helping gifted individuals who suffer from mental illness.

"In my mind and in my heart, it's been going ever since my brother was sick," she said. "I just thought it would be very foolish to let this opportunity pass by."

Through programs designed to keep the spotlight on mental health issues, the foundation hopes to encourage other mentally ill artists to share their gifts to the world.

"I know what music does for my brother," Ayers-Moore said. "Now, when I see him play, it's more of an emotional thing for me, because I know that when he's playing his instrument - he is in his element. He's where he wants to be, and that's where he has peace away from mental illness."


Mental Illness Help Centers

When dealing with mentally ill homeless individuals who pass through SJSU's campus, Los Angeles Times columnist and SJSU alumnus
Steve Lopez urges students to show them compassion.

"I wouldn't encourage anybody to necessarily adopt someone," Lopez said. "Everybody has this confl ict of 'OK, do I give them a dollar or do I not?' I think giving someone a dollar doesn't help them. I think knowing where they can get more substantive help and passing it along to them is more useful."

And the answer isn't necessarily a shelter, Lopez explained. He advocates supportive housing, a community-based treatment that is cost effective and a proven way to help break the cycle of homelessness.

Here is a list of organizations in the San Jose area that cater to individuals with mental illness:

Alliance for Community Care
438 N. White Rd.
(408) 254-6828

Catholic Charities
2625 Zanker Rd. Suite 200
(408) 468-0100

Emergency Housing Consortium
2011 Little Orchard St.
(408) 294-2100

InnVision Julian Street Inn Program
546 Julian St.
(408) 271-0820

Mental Health Advocacy Project
Law Foundation of Silicon Valley
111 W. Saint John St., Suite 315
(408) 294-9730

This article appeared in the April 23 issue of the Spartan Daily.

I exited the Montgomery St. BART station and began my trek to AT&T Park.

That's when I saw her.

Dressed in soiled clothes, she looked uneasy on her feet, as she swayed back and forth in place. She held a lit cigarette in her left hand, and a rat in the other.

I looked on in horror as she carried a casual conversation with her rodent friend, raising it to her dirty face so she could talk to it eye-to-eye.

The woman was obviously homeless, and with the way she talked to the rat, she probably suffered from a mental illness.

According to a survey published by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, 22 percent of the homeless individuals surveyed suffer from a mental illness.

Most homeless people who suffer from a mental illness do not need to be hospitalized, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Services. Instead, these people are able to live in a supportive housing community.

Supportive housing provides affordable, permanent residences for individuals and families, along with a network of services designed to end the cycle of homelessness.

The Corporation for Supportive Housing is a prime example of how this country can put an end to homelessness. For almost two decades, the organization has raised money to build 23,000 housing units, which has ended homelessness for more than 28,000 individuals, according to its Web site.

This is a proven, cost-effective solution that can help put an end to homelessness in the U.S. Imagine that, an end to all homelessness.

The only obstacle standing in the way? There aren't enough of these communities out there.

Because of the recession, towns and cities across the country have seen a jump in their homeless populations. And because of the recession, towns and cities across the country are looking for ways to save money, which translates into the cutting of programs such as supportive housing.

In Santa Clara County, more than 7,000 individuals live on the streets, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That's a larger homeless population than San Francisco, Oakland, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Seattle.

San Jose may be the 10th largest city in America, but Silicon Valley is the home to the ninth largest homeless population, according to data gathered by the department.

Sitting next to San Jose's $382 million City Hall is a church that doubles as a temporary home for a dozen or so individuals who once lived on the streets.

Does that seem right? Was it right for the city of San Jose to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into a glass structure when that money could have been used to better the quality of life for every person who steps one foot into the city?

I'm ashamed to admit on that San Francisco sidewalk, I followed the example local and national governments have set - I ignored the problem and just kept on walking.

The lessons not learned from Virginia Tech

This article appeared in the April 16 issue of the Spartan Daily

It's been two years since a kid who was kicked out of a poetry class stalked the halls of a Virginia university, firing a barrage of bullets that pierced the flesh of his fellow students and professors.

The massacre of Virginia Tech took the lives of 32 innocent people. Finally, the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, ended his bitter rampage by turning the gun on himself.

In the end, he killed 30 students, two professors and wounded 25 others.

When news broke of Cho's rampage, the media descended upon Blacksburg, Va., thrusting the small city of 150,000 into the national spotlight.

Images of anguished community members, sobbing as they clutched pictures of loved ones, dominated the front pages of newspapers around the world, making it impossible for the wounds of those who were affected by the tragedy to begin to heal.

Later, information emerged that NBC received a "multimedia manifesto" from the shooter. It contained 43 photos, a 23-page written statement and 28 video clips of Cho.

"You had 100 billion chances and ways to avoid today. But you decided to spill my blood," Cho said in the video. "You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

Filled with rage, Cho confessed, "I didn't have to do this. I could have left, I could have fled, but no. I will no longer run. If not for me, for my children, for my brothers and sisters that you fucked. I did it for them."

The video clips were glimpses into the mind of a mass murderer.

People who knew Cho at Virginia Tech described him as a quiet individual who didn't socialize with others.

The video clips sent to NBC showed a different side of the gunman. Laced with anger and frustration, he listed the crimes his fellow students committed against him.

"You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience," he said.

The days that followed the massacre were a blur. Each of my professors trashed their pre-planned lessons, and instead, dedicated class time to talking about the tragedy and how we felt about it.

The ill-tempered demeanor of my strictest professor melted into compassion and benevolence. He told the class that we could approach him with any of our problems, because he cares.

But the compassion was short lived, and, after a week, life went back to pre-Virginia Tech with the same old routines.

The camera crews and reporters trickled out of town, allowing family and friends of the victims to grieve in peace. Professors dropped their overly-nice act and stopped trying to be friends to their students. The image of an expressionless Cho, holding a gun in each of his hands, faded from our memories.

And that's why it will happen again. It has happened again. In the U.S., there have been 12 school shootings since April 16, 2007. And it will continue to happen.

It will happen because lawmakers refuse to take action to get guns off the streets.

It will happen because school officials don't have the tools to recognize the Chos in their classrooms, and they are unsure of how to approach those disturbed, suicidal individuals.

It will happen because children aren't taught that it's wrong to ostracize others for how they look, what they wear or how they act.

It will happen again because we live in an imperfect society that breeds anger, hate and distrust for people who are different from us.

So today, on the two-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech tragedy, remember what you promptly forgot 23 months ago. Life is precious, and in a blink of an eye, for no apparent reason, it can be taken away.