I had always wanted to return to the hills that burnt down in '91. I remember looking up in the sky that day, wondering why it was so dark, and what that big black cloud was doing in the sky...as my eyes trailed it from it's edge down, down, down, to the bright yellow crackling that consumed lifestylescovered the hillside. I remember the radio being on, a guy riding his bike in the opposite direction from us on the trail was listening to the 49ers beat the Detroit Lions, but changed it over to the news as he saw us looking out into the horizon, as his eyes tracked our line of sight and saw the famed Claremont Hotel seemingly only a few feet from being consumed by this paltry (from our distance) orange excitement. I witnessed the fire as it crawled over the hillside, as it creeped towards the coastline towards us, I witnessed the whole thing from Angel Island, sitting on my bike, halfway around from the fairy stop.
I remember being unemotional, yet sympathetic. I'd suppose that for anyone's house to burn down,				it's best that these grand million dollar mansions do, because the rich can recover from such a loss, financially if not necessarily emotionally, better

than any of the rest of us could. Of course it's always the possessions that one never paid for that are the real loss, the photographs, the letters, mementos of life we've forgotten about until we crawl up into the attic or scrounge through boxes in our parent's garage.

``Aubie, you can slow down now,'' Mike said. ``Why are you worried, you've got an airbag,'' I replied. ``Fuck you, Aubie.'' Mike retorted. ``All right, all right, sheesh, I was only going eighty.''

After the Roma Trip, Mike and I had driven up into the Oakland hills, checked out Henry Cotten's new house highlighted by big dollar signs around the big trumpet-resembling columns, though you can't quite see the detail in my picture.
Mike steps out of the car, stands in the middle of the road, waves his arms in the air, ball-fisted, shouting: ``YOU RULE!'' at the house. In theory, it's a musical instrument-themed house, has sax-bell fireplaces, but the best thing about it is that it's got dollar signs around it's trumpet staircases.

I know one family whose house that burnt down, heard smidgens of how she was in need of a place to stay now that her three story abode was black as a Yosemite marshmallow stick. One family I knew, their house was three houses away from where the fireline ended.

Another family I knew, their house was right in the middle of the fire, it was the only one within a two block radius that didn't burn to the foundation. Luck.

The Oakland hills, nothing like them.

I remember driving around when I was a kid, I remember what it was like in the years before the fire, all the trees carefully shrouding the houses, making private the backside, while still allowing the front to view the beautiful Bay.

The prettiest thing about the hills was that houses did not dominate the view. You look down towards the coastline, the Bay, look around San Francisco, look around any urban metropolis and peoplehousing, crowds out all else. In the Oakland Hills nature still had a hold. Those trees, those majestic trees. They were gone. The trees were gone but the people are still there. The houses are coming back, and the best part of the area is the part nature won't get to replace. It takes a few hundred thousand dollars and a few months to build a house, it takes a few hundred years to populate a hillside with magnificent forestry. People win, some of them do, the rest of us just have to look at the atrocities of architecture that are staking their claim up on the barren hills now.

Now it's urban ruins.

Urban ruins are so creepily cruel. New four story houses, burnt trunks and empty lots all in the same vicinity. You stand up there on the hill, just half a mile from a major freeway artery into the metropolitan Bay Area, beautiful view of the Golden Gate, what trees there are left, all to go along with a quiet community. Occasionally, Mike and I would meet people, see a kid playing in the dirt lot that used to be his neighbor's, see some beautiful woman drive by in a Volkswagon Jetta. It was the embodiment of wealth and tragedy, life at the top ruined, how at a moment we can be at the top and plummet to the bottom due to events outside of our control. Urban ruins.

It's almost poetic that it all burnt down, but rich people never learn. They hoard all the benefits, they claim the top of the throne until nature or those beneath them muster the strength to topple it. Now the hills are bare, bare of beauty. It's bare of trees, of nature, and the only thing left are a few ruins and a whole mess of bullshit art-deco and ugly Santa Fe style mansions filling the camera lens.

Why do people with money have no sense of style? The ruins convey so much more of the beauty and tragedy of life than the horrors of architecture that are replacing them. You look at houses now and wonder who would live in such a monstrosity. You trespass down someone's front steps, walk through the living room, stand on their shower, you can feel life open, past, revealed. You can feel humanity, character in the places horrid facades of wealthy ``fashion'' wasn't wealthy enough to replace.

Trees grow where bedrooms used to be. Grass crawls among the living room couch. Rain falls directly into the basement as neighbors argue about sightlines and view blockage. Life above and below, life all around. Life rebuilding, life not getting a chance to rebuild. Urban Ruins.

A.U.B.I.E.Out of OrderCool StuffWhattaview!