Mission Mission

Our pal Jeff Seal, who, incidentally, in his capacity as standup comedian, is performing Wednesday night at The Business, just posted this ‘gram of a column his teenage self wrote for his high school paper, back in high school, like 20 years ago:

[link]

The Business takes place every Wednesday evening at the Dark Room on Mission Street.

It’s still untitled, so we have time to submit some more here . . .

[another stock Mission photo by me]

Production starts in the fall for a premiere in 2014, story here.

Previous coverage here.

Maybe I’m just too thirsty/sober.

When the Vice Magazine article about social work in the Tenderloin came out last week I had a strong desire to write my own rebuttal. My main problem being the hopelessly negative view of a neighborhood with a lot of uphill battles that sits in the middle of a city of extreme wealth. The Tenderloin needs all the help it can get, and I don’t think this article helps. It’s fun to talk and write about all the cool things that other neighborhoods have going for them, as writers on this blog often do, but when the only thing we hear about the communities that aren’t booming is a tired old story like the Vice article it just seems lame.

Before I had the chance to write about it I saw the interview with Brian Brophy on Uptown Almanac, which I thought presented some great counter points and an overall reality check back to Vice, as well as a surprisingly thoughtful comment thread. I also saw the powerful response by Dregs One, which really highlighted the Vice interviewee’s lack of awareness about her own privilege and unhelpful dearth of empathy. I say unhelpful, because I think for people working with a community like the one she works with you need to have empathy not to feel sorry for your clients, but to understand how they’ve come to be in this situation so that you can help them move toward a healthier life. Maybe this person does have that awareness, something gets her out of bed and to this work every day, but it wasn’t present in the article.

Though I don’t read Vice, I understand that the writers are probably going for a tone that is “honest” in that it sounds like two friends talking with each other like they would if nobody was listening. But people are listening. Maybe the social worker in this article needed to vent after day after day of dealing with intense situations. Fine. But now that venting is a widely read article that defines this community in a lot of people’s minds. In a time when San Francisco is changing very fast and some of us are working really hard to make sure that certain communities don’t get shut out and left behind, again, this is not helpful. I know all too well that talking about blood and human waste and edgy stuff gets a lot more attention than stories of hope and triumph, at least in the demographic and mediums that this blog and Vice have in common. I’ve blogged about poop before and I’ll do it again. Even so, I’m going to take up a little internet real estate every once and a while to share other kinds of stories that I see going on in this city that I feel need to be shared. I don’t do enough to bring them to light, but here I am trying.

[picture of Jayraj by Ariel Dovas for BAYCAT]

Contrary to what the social worker says in the Vice article, the Tenderloin is not “one of the two predominately black neighborhoods left in SF”. However, the Bayview Hunters Point population in 2010 was made up of 33.7% African Americans, the largest ethnic group in that neighborhood. As I’ve mentioned a number of times before, I’ve spent almost 9 years working with people from this community at BAYCAT, Bayview Hunters Point Center for Arts & Technology. Recently, one of our former students and a current intern, high school student Jayraj Govender, created a short video for his school that deals with the the choices that a teenager faces. I think it shows a real maturity and artistic curiosity and I’m excited to see what he does next.

[Link on Vimeo]

For the last thing, in 2012 Jayraj teamed up with three other former BAYCAT students turned young adult interns from Bayview Hunters Point, Iman Rodney, Teak Stephanchild and Tiffany Jones, to create a short documentary bringing the neighborhood’s health issues to light from a young adult’s perspective, called Endangered. The project was funded by Metta Fund and produced with mentorship from Melinda James. Tiffany created all the animation for the piece.

[Link on Vimeo]

Who would’ve guessed that before Nate Silver was using his “witchcraft” (ahem, math) to forecast election results with uncanny precision, he ran a burrito blog? In true Nate Silver form, he evaluated burritos and Mexican restaurants across Chicago and ranked them using a bracket system. Math and burritos?! Man after my own heart!

And thanks to Nate Silver, we can finally settle this age-old question:

[photo by Doc Pop]

Here in the Bay Area many of us are probably feeling good about last night’s main election result. Obama won. (Spoiler?)

I think it was an exciting night for our country. Especially that it was decided and not dragged out and brought through various legal möbius strips. Personally though, I’m feeling dismayed by the overall results of the state propositions. We really want to keep the death penalty? We don’t think that consumers should be able to have questions about what’s in their food answered? Well, at least 30 passed and it’s not all on George Lucas’s shoulders to save education.

Yet I’m excited overall that our country generally seems energized to head in a direction that I think is best. It was a good night for LGBT rights, people overcame voter suppression and intimidation to get their voice heard, and we re-elected a president who best represents the majority of the people in this country, not just the most privileged. If this sounds like very careful, faint praise, it is. In last night’s acceptance speech, President Obama once again set the standards perhaps impossibly high for what we’d like to expect from his presidency. He mentioned really taking care of our returning veterans, LGBT equality, a lot of feel good things that I really wanted to hear. Does he believe in those ideals? I think he does. But how much will he actually do? How much can he do?

[November 3rd, 2008]

Four years ago our neighborhood exploded with joy and celebration when Barack Obama won the first time. This time around, not as much. While I think most of us are grateful that we didn’t see the chaos that followed the recent World Series win, maybe we were still a little underwhelmed by the relative quiet. The Castro partied. And why not. But the HOPE and CHANGE that we felt four years ago feels a bit more like PERSIST and SUSTAIN at this point.

And keep hoping.

Anyway, the rest of the internet has much better election breakdowns than you should expect to find here. I’m just rambling. Elections are big and broad and complicated and it’s all still sinking in for me. Feel free to ramble on in the comments. If you haven’t yet, check out Mission Local’s great coverage of our neighborhood’s experience of voting day.

For now I’m hanging on to the little things, the things immediately around me. Things like the picture at the top of this post, taken this morning. Doc explains:

It was an extra gloomy walk down Market Street this morning until I reached this Muni stop full of schoolkids cheering along every cyclist that came their way. Perfectly lined up along the bike path, the kids started reaching out their palms for some extreme high five action. Even the most serious bikers popped a smile at the scene. Perhaps in a post election world, this is a sign of pedestrians and bicyclists finally coming together .

Delightful.

[via Scene and Not Heard]

Well this is fucking unacceptable. Leo Nocentelli, guitarist for New Orleans funk pioneers the Meters, was allegedly subjected to some racist bullshit here in San Francisco last night:

I guess something could be said about a musician of Leo’s stature being put up in that notoriously sketch Travelodge (and having to pay for it himself) but still.

Some mixed reports of Travelodge’s feeble attempts at damage control are already coming in on the thread:

There is an early post on this line from Deejay Platurnipus that say’s “Just called. (Last night) They said Ginger isn’t working tonight. Lying i assume? “Manager” on hand said she’ll be there tomorrow, which I assume is also bullshit….” 
That contradicts the TraveLodge spokesperson that says not worked there in 6 months….

To be clear, it looks like Ginger isn’t the staffer that did this (being a female when the report specifies a male), but the New Parish is encouraging folks direct all complaints to her as the branch manager.

The New Parish just weighed in with this update:

…we prepaid for the rooms and when artists arrived for check in, they demanded cash deposits from 3 of 4 band members. I called police and they forced the manager to give me contact name – “Ginger Latu” was the name on the card he gave me. Incredible.

More details as we find out.

Leo Nocentelli is gearing up to play two dates at Brick and Mortar tonight and tomorrow night.

[via the New Parish]

Our pal Tag of Sexpigeon is on the ground in Charlotte right now, and the reportage he’s delivering is more heartfelt and engaging than any of the snark-filled total bullshit everywhere else on the internet:

Met some very nice locals. Things I learned:

They sure brought in a lot of police for this thing. The horses are very beautiful. We all agreed that the dappled gray horse at the front is the most beautiful of the horses. “There are a lot more cops and a lot more suits. You never see this many suits.”

The police put all the homeless people on buses a few weeks ago, took them out of Uptown in anticipation of the convention. Deposited them somewhere else.

“Uptown, pfft,” says an old-timer. “You’re just trying to be fancy.” Apparently the neighborhood name is of relatively recent vintage.

They estimate that the ratio of cops to protestors is about 2:1. Had no particular dog in this fight. Mildly inconvenienced in terms of getting home, but also entertained, happy to just stand around and take pictures for a bit. “It’s a good thing the police don’t mind pictures, because I’ve just been clicking away.”

Read on, seriously, I teared up.

Tumblr in its infinite wisdom has hired Sexpigeon‘s Tag Savage (and a few others) to cover the Republican and Democratic conventions! Like for real!

Here’s but a preview:

Ha! Me too! (And let me just point out that for years I’ve been saying Sexpigeon is the future of news.)

Follow the action here.