Alameda Native History Project

Category: Archives

  • Zombie: The Incident At Bloody Rock – Forewords

    Cover art.

    Publishing Notes

    Originally posted to a Google blog called “Gabriel Duncan’s Zombie”, in 2011; which was re-syndicated from my original websites LonelyOcean.co.uk; and LonelyOcean.net [check the WayBack Machine]. I know that this story was written in 2006, finished and published shortly before the release of the film adaption of Richard Matheson’s book, I Am Legend.

    I know it’s important to distinguish my work, Zombie: The Incident at Bloody Rock, from other works. But, the book I Am Legend, and the movie, “I Am Legend”, are important to distinguish from each other because:

    1. The book, I Am Legend was a racist white man’s response to Integration; the basis for the idea of “White Flight”; and he called all the zombies “vampire n-word’s”.
    2. “I Am Legend“, the movie, uses the premise of HIV being re-engineered to cure cancer by replacing malfunctioning cells with healthy cells, in some sort of CRISPR-esque way; oh yeah, and the main character is an African-American (Black) U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, and a Virologist–which is a far cry from the racist white guy hiding in his house, and performing mideval experiments to discover the best way to kill these …. vampire n-words. [What the hell. Seriously, the racism was barbaric. But, *spoilers* the main charecter in Matheson’s book was ultimately tried and executed for crimes against new humanity. …Which is sort of how the movie ends…. Sort of. That’s why the ending is a little weak, with the outro monologue. Sorry, my opinion.]

    Zombie: The Incident at Bloody Rock

    This is a story about the cure for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus; coupled with a mysterious enzymatic (bioenhancer) package, which became the catalyst for a zombie apocalypse. It’s got all the trappings of legit psuedo-science; plus some dark-corporate-money influence!

    This story is written from the view point of someone who watches his brother become one of the first people to receive the Miracle Cure. This story takes place at a remote Children’s Research Hospital, in Northern California; on the eve of the roll-out of the Miracle Cure. It’s all so promising. So hopeful. Until the kids start getting sick.

    This is the first of a series of at least three parts.

    The second part is being written now. Third part is already outlined.

    Some things I want to note:

    1. These zombies are re-animated through an anaerobic, chemical-electrical process that somehow leverages the components of the body for fuel, in an ultimately degenerative process.
    2. The idea of using a re-programmed RNA virus made the most sense. The other possible candidate was a prion-type genetic mutation.
    3. This idea has a twist:
      • People who were previously infected with HIV seem to regain most of their higher brain function.
      • Those who are not infected with HIV-1 or HIV-2 become the most basic, hyper-violent version of zombies.
    4. The primary influence behind this variant of Zombie Disease is the idea of augmentation. Something I’ve seen in the Resident Evil universe, specifically the series of books by S.D. Perry. And even Borg maturation chambers, to a certain extent.
    5. The book Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic medicine and Toxicology. Vol. 1, by Becker et al. was my main source material for the matters of death and dying; and, of course, Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers, by Mary Roach.

    Anyway. That was the brief introduction to the universe of what’s officially known as Gabriel Duncan’s “Zombie”.

    Stay tuned for Chapter 1.

  • Alameda Native History Project Wiki MOVED TO https://nativehistoryproject.org/wiki

    Alameda Native History Project Wiki MOVED

    The ANHP Wiki Has Moved

    Please update your links.

    The new URL is: Https://nativehistoryproject.org/wiki

    This concludes the AlamedaNativeArt.com Service Announcement.

  • Keeping the Design Fresh & Adding Functionality

    Keeping the Design Fresh
    Adding Functionality

    https://nativehistoryproject.org/ Logo variations. AlamedaNativeArt, #AlamedaNativeArt, AlamedaNativeArt.com.

    I’ve been performing some copy editing, graphic art production, and user experience design, to make the website more user-friendly. Also because images can convey information in a way that is not as readily available as print.

    I try to make sure to optimize for both Desktop and Mobile views. If you’re wondering why the website doesn’t look right in Tablet view, that’s why.

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  • AlamedaNativeArt.com Series Schedules Announced

    AlamedaNativeArt.com has several, concurrent, series and galleries being published right now. Here’s a break-down of what you can expect.

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  • Growing Up on the Alameda Indian Burial Mounds

    Growing up on Court Street, in Alameda, I found a large bone. It looked like a vertebrae. It was laying in the dirt, underneath the deck, in the backyard.

    My parents told me it was a cow bone; something that the owners of the house before left behind. Or their dog. –Or it was their dog.

    But it was large–like I said–but not “cow-bone large”….
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  • AlamedaNativeArt.com is LIVE!

    YES!! I finally finished working on most of this site. I think there might be a couple of buttons that don’t point to anything. (Please let me know when you find them.) But the main, navigational things, all connect. Victory!

    And this is running on a content-delivery network, so it should be reasonably fast. Some servers are probably still caching.

    This website is optimized for Desktop and Mobile views. I really tried to make sure this looks good on a cell phone. And that it’s easy to navigate.

    Stuff I still have to do:

    East Bay Parks

    • Write Mission Peak article;
    • Start creating Park Galleries, and,
    • Park write-ups;
    • Create a production and release schedule for these articles — probably weekly.

    Photography

    • Flesh out both sections, in general;
    • Add more Urban Photography.

    Art

    • Add Handmade Art section;
    • Update links from Etsy to Handmade Art section.

    Writing

    • Haunted Alameda – Add decent Introduction.
    • Zombie: The Incident at Bloody Rock – Make some teaser stuff.
    • Generally create a production and release schedule for both series.

    Stay tuned. There’s more coming soon!

  • What is the “Urban Reservation”?

    The Urban Reservation

    Parsing History from Actuality

    First post. And a definition of the concept of an, “Urban Reservation”.

    The Urban Reservation, to me, is a place that can be quickly defined as analogous to the American idea of the “ghetto“. The distribution of ethnicity is unimportant; the defining point is that these areas do not offer enough food [external], jobs, or services (ranging from water & sanitation, to healthcare.)

    Let’s be clear, though: American Ghettos were created by Redlining, Segregation, “Black-listing”, White Flight, just… rampant racism.

    Here’s an article from EconoFact.org, “Concentrated Poverty and the Disconnect Between Jobs and Workers“, which is pretty detailed. I pulled together a couple of other articles, and linked them at the bottom of this page.

    Other forms of ghettos exist. Some rural areas closely match the defining properties of ghettos. The only difference is that these areas suffer because of low population density–State and Federal funding is usually allotted by population; therefore, less populated areas receive less funding. Smaller populations also do not attract large corporations. Industry in rural areas is generally mineral, and agriculturally based; and introduces pollutants, and negatively impacts community and environmental health in myriad ways.

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