Today marks the beginning of our inaugural Fremont Restaurant Week, a celebration of Fremont’s diverse culinary offerings and local small businesses. From March 17-26, enjoy 10 days of exclusive menu offerings from 40+ restaurants all over the city. Here’s a preview of the special offers you can enjoy in the coming week:

Pictured above from left to right: Prix Fixe Seafood Dinner (Market Broiler); Chaplee Burger and Afghan Potatoes (De Afghanan Kabob House); Mutton Momos (Momo & Kebab); Tonkotsu Shoyu Ramen (SOJO Ramen); Restaurant Week exclusive brew, Top of the World Brut Blonde Ale (Das Brew)

Visit the official webpage for the full list of participating restaurants and specials. Be sure to submit a photo of your receipt dated March 17-26 and upload a photo of your meal to Facebook or Instagram using the hashtag #FremontRW2023 for a chance to win a daily giveaway or grand prize! Fremont Restaurant Week is brought to you in partnership with the Fremont Chamber of Commerce, Yelp Bay Area, and Papé.

I’m still in Manhattan, performing in Oakland resident Ishmael Reed’s off-Broadway play now at Theater for the New City.

I’m not a New York tourist, I’m more like a working resident. Acting like a New Yorker.

That’s not to say I’m brash or rude, but when it comes to whether or not there’s protests over the possibility of an impending Trump indictment, most New Yorkers seem more concerned with when the cold weather is going away, not when Trump is going away, or with any repeat of Jan. 6.

And if anyone wants to “take back the government” in the name of Donald Trump, I’d like to see them take on the NYPD.

I’m actually still quite immersed as an actor in Ishmael Reed’s “The Conductor.” In Reed’s play, a fictional Indian despot’s actions impact Indian Americans who face a wave of xenophobia and are forced to flee to Canada on an “underground railroad.”

Hence, the need for a “conductor.”

Turns out everyone who is feeling some heat may need to flee the U.S.

“The Conductor” runs through March 26. Get tickets so see in person or live-streamed here:

https://theaterforthenewcity.net/shows/the-conductor-2023/

Reed wasn’t so prescient to include the possibility of a Trump indictment (or four) in a storyline but  I now wonder if the twice-impeached former president of the United States will soon need a “conductor.”

To get to Canada? After all that he’s said about Justin Trudeau?

I was thinking out loud on this issue with Asian American Studies Professor Daniel Phil Gonzales on www.amok.com (Episode 489/481).

We go straight to wondering if Trump will get convicted for any of the cases that are brewing. From minor to major, they include the hush money/Stormy Daniels/falsifying of documents case in New York; the voter fraud and possible racketeering case in Georgia; the Mar-a-Lago stolen presidential documents case; and possible federal charges connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

If Trump is ensnared in any or all of them, would he even have the courage of a Martha Stewart to don a matching orange jumpsuit? Or does he just flat out leave the country?

Gonzales says he leaves. But to where?

I think Trump has his Putin parachute ready under his left arm. And under his right arm, there’s his North Korean parachute fashioned together with love letters from Kim Jong Un.

Ah, a former president in exile because he dared to be president again?

That’s the narrative the Republicans are drumming up, as if all this is simply a political “witch hunt.” We won’t know till we see any official charges.

Republicans can opine about the legal process, but it’s another thing to intimidate the New York DA with threats of congressional investigations.

What’s worse is that law-and-order Republicans can’t see their blind spot when it comes to the respect for the rule of law when their own fearful leader is the possible perp.

Trump’s reaction was simply to go off half-cocked, not even knowing what the charges are. But most appalling is his “go to”—the call for violence.

“Protest, protest, protest,” Trump wrote in his social media posts over the weekend, prompting calls for “civil war” among his base. Trump respects the law so much, his best response to a possible indictment in New York is to throw a dictator’s tantrum.

This is a man who doesn’t understand American democracy and didn’t deserve to be president even once.

And it’s not just the GOP leaders under Trump’s spell, but even some in our communities still supporting the twice-impeached former pres.

When it comes to Asian Americans running for president, Nikki Haley is still mum. But there’s one presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, the anti-woke Indian American rushing to Trump’s defense.

“This will mark a dark moment in American history and will undermine public trust in our electoral system itself,” Ramaswamy said, undermining a standing criminal investigation by  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

We should all be rooting for Bragg, a Harvard College and Harvard Law graduate who grew up in Harlem and knows what it’s like to be stopped by police for no good reason other than one’s race. Bragg has said his prosecutors will not be intimidated.

If Bragg’s indictment comes down this week or next, Trump will be treated both like a former president, and a common criminal. No man is above some kind of perp walk, right?

That’s never happened before in history. Will it make him more popular? That’s Chris Rock’s spin. But no democracy-loving American I know would ever vote for an indicted outlaw for president.

And once Bragg lights the wick, it should clear the way for Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis, another African American with a keen sense of justice, to explode on the scene.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has decried all the politics and said he just wants to see equal justice for all. What a hoot.

We all do, especially those of us in the BIPOC community, where equal justice is too often hard to come by. Ask Tyre Nichols’ family in Memphis.

Me?  I can’t wait to see the first presidential mug shot.

NOTE: I will talk about this column and other matters on “Emil Amok’s Takeout,” my micro-talk show. Occasionally Live @2p Pacific. Livestream on Facebook; my YouTube channel; and Twitter. Catch the recordings on www.amok.com.

Ms. Florence Agnes Blackburn was born Sept. 29, 1936 in Houston, Texas. She went on to be with the Lord God on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. She was the youngest of four children born to Mr. Percy H. Amos Sr. and Mrs. Brunella Mullone Amos.

Florence A. Blackburn a.k.a. “Florencia” was a woman of faith and many talents. She was baptized at St. Nicholas Catholic Church and School, the first Black parish located in Houston Texas.

While her family’s roots are firmly in the Cane River Creole community of Louisiana, she knew California to be home since 1942. Her parents owned and operated the first African American service station in Berkeley, California. It was there where she learned about automobiles, learning to drive by 14 years old.

When her parents moved to Anchorage, Alaska in 1952; Florence stayed in California with her siblings, Percy Amos Jr., Yvonne A. Miller and Lucille R. Amos. She attended Lafayette Elementary School, Hoover Jr. High, Holy Names High School and San Francisco State University where she majored in Biological Science.

Upon graduation she enjoyed a long career as a histologist at Highland Hospital, Oakland, California from 1959 to 1980. Florence continued her education earning additional degrees from the College of Alameda and a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of California in Berkeley 1999.

Everyone has dreams, and for Florence that dream involved fashion. She opened her boutique on Grand Avenue in Oakland. It was there she was able to pursue one of her many passions bringing her garments to life and “Florencia” was born!!

Later in life she went on to hold several positions for the City of Oakland including Litter Enforcement Officer, where she enjoyed working to discover who had dumped their property illegally. When Oakland closed that department, she worked as a library assistant at the MLK Branch before transferring to West Oakland Public Library and retiring in 2018. The library had been her second home among all those books.

Lady Blackburn was initiated into the Knights of St. Peter Claver in 2005, originally part of Court #121 St. Andrews-St. Joseph Catholic Church before transferring to St. Columba Court #127.

Making St. Columba her home, she served as a eucharistic minister, member of the Hope for Haiti Ministry, as well as on the scholarship committee. Ever the social butterfly, Florence enjoyed Wednesday morning church service and the Haiti White Party where she got to show off her amazing fashions. She was also a member of the Creole Heritage Center at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, which is celebrating its Silver Jubilee.

A few of her other passions included cultivating her backyard garden where she grew a large variety of vegetables, plants, flowers and herbs. Here she also hosted her friends on Thursday nights, enjoying her homemade wine and famous gumbo. She loved traveling to the islands and especially to Texas, spending time with her four great-grandchildren, telling them scary stories while they would laugh, act scared, run and hide.

She was preceded in death by her parents Mr. and Mrs. Percy H. Amos Sr.; older brother Percy

1. Amos Jr. and her nephew Kendrick “Jerry” Miller. She is survived by her sisters Yvonne A. Miller and Lucille R. Cole; her two children, Sheila R. Payne and Dino G. Blackburn, grandchildren Pamela P. Palmer, Stephen F. Payne, Mikaela D. Blackburn, and great-grandchildren Kyra R. Payne, Kruze Z. Payne, Olivia S. Palmer and Grant W. Palmer and the many nieces and nephews who loved her.

She will be greatly missed by family and friends.

Florencia (GG), Forever our Guardian Angel!!

Memorial Service

Saturday, March 25, 2023

11:30 a.m.

St. Columba Catholic Church 6401 San Pablo Ave.

Oakland, California 94608 Celebrant Father Aidan McAleenan

Final resting place St. Augustine Catholic Church Cemetery, Natchez, Louisiana

To be determined!!

Zoom link Funeral Mass for Ms. Florence Blackburn:

Time: Mar. 25, 2023, 12 p.m. Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join the Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84373171098?pwd=NU9Qa2dtSDV0T2dTVXRlOVdvWlA5dz09 Meeting ID: 843 7317 1098

Passcode: 1898

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Meeting ID: 843 7317 1098

Passcode: 1898