Mission Mission

I caught this brave commuter on Mission and 20th. No sticking to the safer, less bumpy Valencia for this tall rider, no sir.

Before I go into the top Mission Mission post of 2010, I’d like to tell a story.

I didn’t have a dog or cat growing up. Instead, my parents got us a pair of hamsters. While these little critters aren’t blessed with the talents of learning tricks, episodic memory, or establishing meaningful relationships with their masters, you can put them in a ball and watch them roll around for a couple of hours of entertainment.

We never named them. One was a shy, chill hamster, and the other one was basically a big asshole. At first the bully beat up on chill guy. Then the chill hamster got pretty big and kept the other one in check. This was a good time that I refer to as the “time of serenity”.

The bully hamster didn’t take to this arrangement and eventually started putting in extra hours on the wheel working out. He got stronger, faster, and meaner. When the time was right, he came back in full force. Thus, “the reign of horror” began. The brutal beatings occurred on an nightly basis, culminating in the bully hamster gnawing off the genitals of the other.

My point is, there are some things that can’t be unseen. A hamster’s disfigured, bloody stump of a crotch is one of them. This year in the Mission, a lady shitting on her house is another.

1. Mission Resident Shits on Her Own Apartment Building

Short story: An anonymous reader caught his upstairs neighbor shitting in the alley of her apartment building.

Long story: When this one showed up in our inbox, we had a lot of questions: Who shits on her own house? Who takes pictures of someone shitting her own house? Did she, you know, wipe? These are important philosophical questions.

Perhaps more baffling than the actual act was the reaction by some of our commenters to the effect of, “Hey! Stop picking on this lady for having a bad day.”

Bad day? I mean, I’ve had to go pretty bad on the road a few times but I’ve always managed to deal with it in a socially acceptable manner. One would think that when you’ve made it to your house, you’ve done the hard part; getting to your bathroom is cake. But I’ll spare you any more, the entire scenario was dissected thoroughly with the 80+ comments here.

Little did we know that this story would captivate San Francisco, even earning us an award for “SF’s Best Photo/Twitpic” in the SF Weekly’s 2010 Web Awards (you can see our fitting reaction at sexpigeon). To use a tired cliche, “only in San Francisco” could a photo of an obeise lady dropping a deuce be considered “the best” of anything.

In the end, I’m not sure what we should take away from this. However, I will say this: we probably need more public bathrooms in the Mission, and less people with high-resolution digital cameras.

Happy new year!

This week, Mission Mission brings you a recap of the top 5 posts of 2010. Can you guess the number one post of the year?

Hey, I already told you it’s not BART Boner. Is it Details on the American Apparel Hearing (NSFW)? Almost. That was the number one post in terms of traffic. But dude, that is so 2009. American Apparel was already chased out of the Mission by an angry mob who was probably wearing their stuff the whole time. Not that you care, the real reason you looked at that post was the hot pixxx of Sasha Grey when it popped up in Google. That’s ok, we wont tell.

3. San Francisco Has Banksy Fever!

Right before Banksy’s first film “Exit Through the Gift Shop”  premiered across the US, all sorts of Banksyesque street art started popping up in all the major cities including NYC, Detroit, and San Francisco. The Mission was hit a couple of times during this promotional surge at Mission and Sycamore (see above) and Valencia between 19th and 20th above Amnesia.

Initially, there was doubt about whether or not the pieces were authentic. Commenters battled it out while other pieces popped up in Chinatown, North Beach, SoMa, and even Alcatraz. Everyone suddenly thought graffiti was just swell. Camera clutching tourists loitered in the middle of Valencia street. Reports came in that he had a private shopping session Self Edge and had stayed in the Mission for 4 days. So apparently Banksy likes Mexican food, gentrification, and really expensive uncomfortable jeans that you’re not supposed to wash for a year.

Inevitably, the works were augmented, defaced, and mocked by other local street artists. Local business owners saw the tourist potential of keeping the pieces pristine and inadvertently got themselves in the art restoration field. This brought up the tired debate as to what constitutes legitimate street art and petty vandalism. Meanwhile, Banksy watched it all go down from his luxury secret lair and LOL’ed.

Banksy’s film is now on Netflix, by the way, and he insists it’s not a prank.

2. Lady Gaga Causing a Scene at Rosamunde

We’ve had our share of celebrity sightings in the Mission this year. To name a few: Glee lady, Molly Ringwald, Margaret Cho, Dave Chappelle, and Steve Jobs.

The one that topped our charts was Lady Gaga’s unexpected appearance at the new Rosamunde location in the Mission. It started as a rumor, but was pretty much confirmed when pictures and first hand accounts came in. She was allegedly in search of an authentic Mission burrito, but got sidetracked when she saw a sign advertising “sausage”. This amused her enough to stop in, confirming that the pop star is, in fact, a 12 year old boy.

L. Gaga ordered white wine and did not actually stuff a sausage in her mouth. She bullshitted with the staff and admired homemade jewelry for over two hours while being reminded by her bodyguards about her dinner reservation at somewhere fancy. The Rosamunde staff urged her to check out El Farolito for that burrito she craved. With that she left. Perhaps to go to El Farolito where, if it’s anything like Flour and Water, she was told wait in line like everyone else.

Previously:

Top 5 of ’10: #5: Livin’ La Bebida Loca; #4 KKKontroversy

First Coda, now SoCha.

SoCha Cafe on Mission and Valencia is switching ownership and starting Jan 1st will not continue to host free nightly live music. The spot was owned by the same guy who owns Revolution Cafe, and for a long time they shared calendars and performers. I don’t blame them, the music part never quite took off and it always seemed like more of a sleepy study cafe rather than a live music venue. Most people didn’t even seem aware that this place even had live music.

If you haven’t been to a show there, tonight Classical Revolution is having their last weekly residency there. They have been holding down the gig for about 3 years. It’s an open classical chamber music jam. That’s right, classical music folks “jam” too!

This week, Mission Mission brings you a recap of the top 5 posts of 2010. Can you guess the number one post of the year?

If you guessed BART Boner, then you’re wrong! That was posted in 2008 so it doesn’t count. Although, admittedly it’s still up there. Probably because we make way too many off-hand jokes re-linking it. We really should stop doing that. After this post, I mean.

5. FDA to ban Four Loko Nationwide

It used to be at every corner store, now you can only find it in the stockpile under Andrew Sarkarati’s coffee table. Four Loko became national sensation among party people in 2010. Why? It was cheap, first of all. In this economy we all need to cut corners wherever we can. It was also ironic, which is apparently an excellent reason to do anything this year. Perhaps most importantly, it’s loaded with alcohol. This malt beverage contains about twice the alcohol as your typical brew-dog and had a flavor that can only be described as carbonated liquified jello shots.

So why is the government and media being such a drag, man? The stuff is a allegedly marketed to kids. Check out all those fruity flavors and colorful packaging! They might as well serve that swill out of foil-lined bags like Capri Sun. Our own Ariel Dovas even saw the a youngster going loco over Loko on MUNI. The idea of kid-friendly alcoholic beverages isn’t exactly anything new. When I was a young pup trying to fit in, I thought beer was totally gross. The solution? Zima. Dizgusting.

So farewell to Four Loko, we hardly knew you. Say hi to Sparks for us in drinky heaven.

4. Spurned Scenester Sullies Sightly Street Art

Local tagger KKKatie is no stranger to controversy, what with the whole scribbling quasi-racist stuff on public and private property. She also apparently doesn’t care much for our 25th president William McKinley. That is, like, so anti-American.

This year she drew the most ire in the Mission when she enhanced a Chris Lux mural with her own artistic vision inspired by what you might see scrawled on the door of a high school bathroom stall. Apparently there was some kind of beef between the two. The mural was restored in one day, but still, this marked the beginning of the end for KKKatie. She was condemned by the street art community and her friends. Finally, at Bay to Breakers, she was caught allegedly spray painting on a dude and threatening to accuse him of rape if he did anything about it. In the end, she was acquitted of any actual hate crime charges, but got slapped with 11 counts of vandalism.

Of course, as with anyone you put in the spotlight for a bit, KKKatie has her fans, crediting her as some kind of disutopian, punk-rock folk hero. But most of us think she’s more likely a chemically imbalanced young lady off her meds. I suppose only she (and perhaps her lawyer) knows for sure.

Looks like one of our beloved F Market cars broke free from it’s tracks, evolved a set of wheels, and headed for the big apple.

Here’s its baby picture.

[via minimalist steampunk star wars ukulele photo repository Boing Boing]

Merry Christmas to Philz!

The priciest cup in the Mission just got pricier. Starting January 1st, a cup will set you back 25 more cents, while a pound will cost an extra buck. Hey, they’ve got to offset the cost of the cocaine they sprinkle into each scoop somehow.

Jacob Jaber invites you to email him directly if you have questions or concerns at jacobjaber at philzcoffee dot com where you will likely get the autoreply of, ”It’s the economy, guys.”

Head over to anthonybrown’s Flickr for the scoop.

According to this, the boy’s bathroom at the Knockout contains an hidden elevator to planet SR388. Remember to pick up the ice beam before you head over.

Too late for this season, but Dore Studio will totally spice up your Christmas greetings next year.

Mission DIY Hackerspace Noisebridge is at risk of shutting down early next year unless they get some financial help. If you haven’t checked it out, I strongly urge you to do so. They are at 18th and Mission and it’s a great place to work on any kind of DIY project you can think of be it hardware, software, or even cooking. If you dig the space, you should become a full-fledged member and use the facilities.

They have a cool 5-minute talk series every 3rd Thursday. It’s totally fun. It’s like TED‘s cocaine addicted, disorganized, less-influential little brother.

Noisebridge was also behind the hilarious Juggalo science fair at the Warfield this year. So if you don’t help them, this may be the future of San Francisco:

Hit up this link to donate or inquire about membership.

[via Uptown Almanac]