Mission Mission

It was like the 1996 Summer Olympics all over again, minus leotards, plus anonymous challengers, and all in an arena traveling up to 80 miles per hour. Thank you, BART gymnasts, for the best BART ride ever!

[Amazing photos via Jess]

And the first inductee is . . . our pal George “Butternuts” Duran, one of Rhea’s longtime behind-the-counter warriors. In case you were wondering, he gets his nickname from the basketball court where he is quite the beast and will taunt you by yelling “Butternuts” every time he busts a shot in your eye, reminding everyone that his stroke is smooth as butter.  Yes, sometimes basketball sounds dirty.

Another notable catchphrase of his destined to be lost in the annals of folklore is “WAMU!”  This is uttered anytime he hits a bankshot off the backboard into the hoop, because even though we’d usually be playing on the weekend, the bank is still open (zing!).  Curiously, when WAMU got absorbed by Chase back during the financial crisis, the new name didn’t quite stick, so we just kept kept yelling “WAMU” anytime an inappropriate bankshot found its way into the hoop.  Of course, there are now newer, younger players who came through after the bank went under and consequently have no idea what we are talking about.

But that’s how folkore works, right?  RIP Alan Dundes.

Everyone’s got stories to tell, but sometimes the people with the most interesting ones don’t have a way to tell them, or perhaps don’t even know that they can.  Enter Streetside Stories, a Mission-based non-profit that’s doing some amazing work with local kids.  Check out the video to see if it’s something with which you might want to get involved.

Are you South Asian? Our friend Amit Gupta might need some of your sweet brown bone marrow. Are you not South Asian? Chances are someone else needs your bone marrow too.

To put the odds into perspective, if you need a bone marrow transplant and you’re caucasian, the chances are 8 in 10 that you’ll find a suitable match. If you’re Indian, it’s more like 1 in 20,000. Help Amit and others smash those odds by stopping by Project One tonight and submitting a sample. All you have to do is fill out some paperwork and swab the inside of your cheeks with a Q-tip. Bring your brown friends!

Project One is at 251 Rhode Island St. and the event goes from 7-10:30pm.

New trends in sitting: using your bike lock cable as a makeshift footrest.

So says our pal Deep, who you may remember came home Saturday night to discover that the plyceratops mural in front of his house had been graffiti bombed.  Well, that just gave him an excuse to hang out the next day (which happened to be a lovely sunny Sunday–nice work Indian summer!) with his buddy Adrian again to fix it.

Moreover, in doing so, they actually made it better, adding an additional dinosaur and some other small stuff to cover up parts of the offending tag.  I’m quite inspired by the deep philosophy here:  If someone tags your shit, tag it back!  You can complain all you want and you’ll probably even be right, but the best way to have an effect on the community is to get your hands dirty and do something about it yourself!

There must be something absolutely alluring about this particular trash can at 15th and Valencia that makes it the detritus destination of choice for passerby despite the stark emptiness of its cohorts across the street.  Luckily, we were hipped to its widely regarded esteem when we noticed the gentleman walking ahead of us finish his coffee and, noting the fullness of the receptacle, nonetheless elected to toss his finished cup at the base of this bin rather than hold on for an extra 10 seconds and deposit it in the empty one across the street.

Surely there must be something magical about this garbage can that compels pedestrians to favor it over others even when at maximum capacity?  Unfortunately, an exhaustive search revealed no unicorns or leprechauns.

We did find an empty box of Lucky Charms, however.

Previously:

It takes a crane

Memo to all aspiring San Francisco mayoral candidates: whichever one of you does this first is totally getting my vote.

Link.

(Thanks J-man!)

The other day we were lamenting how all our friends always move away, and somebody said something about how the reason for this is that it’s so hard to “settle in financially” in San Francisco. Our buddy Sweet T (not pictured) took issue with this, and explains why in the happy little play below. Perhaps you’ll see yourself in one of its protagonists:

The median income of SF households is $81k. SF households; not residents. Which means that if you and your roommate together make around $40k, you’re at the median. Any ambitious, hip young thing out there with a four-year degree and a little ambition can find a “real job” with promotion potential that brings in at least $40k per year. Unfortunately, here’s how it typically plays out:

We open on the El Rio patio, 4:30pm on a Tuesday.

Hip Young Thing: Man, this freelancing gig for the Guardian doesn’t pay shit. I need to make some more money if I’m gonna’ be able to pay me rent.

Less Hip, But Gainfully Employed Young Thing: You have a degree, right? There’s gotta’ be something else out there.

HYT: Naw, there’s nothing in this economy.

LH,BGEYT: Well have you looked?

HYT: No I haven’t looked. There aren’t any jobs to look for.

LH,BGEYT: There are literally thousands of employers in the Bay Area.

HYT: I’m not a computer programmer or whatever. It’s all techster shit.

LH,BGEYT: Not every job at a tech company is filled by an engineer, you know. Places like Zynga or whatever need copywriters and human resources people and all that, too.

HYT: That’s corporate bullshit. I don’t want to work for the man.

LH,BGEYT: Well, what about the state or the city?

HYT: I said I don’t want to work for the man.

LH,BGEYT: I thought corporations were ‘the man.’

HYT: They’re all the same man, man.

LH,BGEYT: I see. What about a non-profit?

HYT: There’s too much competition in this city for that type of work.

LH,BGEYT: Well have you applied to anything?

HYT: No.

LH,BGEYT: What did you do this morning?

HYT: I woke up a little after noon…

LH,BGEYT: …What time?

HYT: Like, 1:30. And then I went and had breakfast with some friends, and bought some new sunglasses. After that, I went home and wrote on my blog for a bit, and then I met you here for a drink.

LH,BGEYT: So, you didn’t spend any time looking for a job that will pay you enough to make your rent?

HYT: There aren’t any fucking jobs that don’t suck.  I just need to move to New York. It’s too expensive here.

LH,BGEYT: Yeah. It definitely is.

…AND SCENE…

["New sunglasses" pic by C'mon Pony]

Am I overreacting here or is this a legitimate complaint? Keep in mind this has been going on for months, and I assumed he would eventually figure it out, but the lack of adaptation compelled me to do some playful prodding.

See it bigger here.