STONER DUDE QUITE A VOCAL RAIDERS FAN

Nearly a week after Raiders cornerback Charles Woodson delivered his
powerful hit, Michael M. of Alameda leaned back and took one of his own.

"You can try to be philosophical about it," he said, drifting through the
misty rings of memory, "but basically it all comes down to this: The
Raiders got robbed."

Michael M. is not a bitter man. He is not an angry man. But he is a rabid
Raiders fan, known to local radio listeners by his mellow-sounding moniker:
Stoner Dude.

Over the past two years, he has created a cult following on the Ticket 1050,

the all-sports radio station, which he calls most afternoons to share his
views on everything from the nickel back to the nickel bag. He often signs
on with a signature sound: a deep inhalation on a bong.

"Am I really smoking? Maybe, maybe not," says Stoner Dude. "I like to leave
that as a mystery."

Like a poorly executed screen pass, Stoner Dude's character was slow to
develop. It was born a few years back, when retired basketball great Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar was pulled over on suspicion of driving under the influence of
marijuana.

Hearing Jabbar get raked over on the sports call-in airwaves, Michael M.
rang to his defense. "I had to," he says. "They were giving stoners a bad
name. "

Former Ticket 1050 host Bob Frantz encouraged Stoner Dude to keep calling.
The name got known, and now he gets recognized on the street.

"People will come up and say, 'Hey, what's your real name?' " says Stoner
Dude, who often wears a Raiders jersey with his radio handle emblazoned on
back. "I say, My first name's Stoner, my second name's Dude."

The past few days, of course, his thoughts have been consumed by Saturday's
controversial call in the game against the New England Patriots, which sent
the Raiders' season up in smoke. Stoner Dude wasn't hallucinating -- he saw
what every Raiders fan saw. Charles Woodson hit Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

Tom Brady appeared to fumble the ball.

"To say that wasn't a fumble is an atrocity," says Stoner Dude. "But you
can't dwell on the anger or the frustration. One world, one love. And you
can quote me on that."

BURNING DESIRE: The story of Stoner Dude helps dispel a nasty stereotype --
that all Raiders fans are drunken rowdies. Clearly, some prefer to smoke.

It also cuts against a common perception -- that stoner dudes lack motivation.

Michael M., for one, hopes to parlay his pot-smoking persona into a
profession in TV or radio. "I'd like to be an on-air personality," he says.
"I'm a stoner with ambition."

MORE THAN A PRETTY FACE: While we're at it, let's do away with another
misperception -- that cheerleaders aren't the brightest lights on the field.

Piedmont High's cheerleading squad just earned top academic honors from the
North Coast Section, the regional organization of high school athletics,
for compiling a group grade-point average of 3.48. Piedmont's football team
followed close behind, with a 3.02.

Gimme an A . . . well, make that a B.

GIMME AN A-FRAME: Or, better yet, gimme an arch-shaped Thermoshelter, a
highly unusual, highly heat-efficient home that Point Richmond architect
Don Mill is helping his brother, Ian, build in Arlington, near the El
Cerrito border.

Don holds the patent on the Thermoshelter, and the one he is building is
the first of its kind in the United States.

Though the construction material looks like Styrofoam, it's actually a more
environmentally friendly form of insulation -- one part resin, 50 parts air.

To learn more about it, check out Mill's Web site: www.thermoshelter.com.

GIMME SHELTER: Or, better yet, give me tighter surveillance. So says Leah
Kopels of Oakland, who wonders if post-Sept. 11 Bay Bridge security is
slacking off. A few months ago, drivers got accustomed to seeing armed
National Guardsmen standing alongside Humvees near the toll plaza.

But last week, Kopels says, she saw a lone sentry leaning against a Jeep.

What's next? she worries. A hippie reclining in a VW Beetle?

Or maybe Stoner Dude sleeping in a van?