Mission Mission

That’s right: IT’S CRAB SEASON, KID!

[via Emily]

Zara, a Portuguese contributor to a travel blog called Backpack Me, LOVES the Mission. Here’s what she has to say…

Comparing it to other SF neighborhoods:

I leave behind elegantly manicured neighborhoods, to enter what I’d already dare to call Latin America.

Comparing it to Noe Valley in particular:

Baby strollers rolling into bagel shops was the world up the hill. Down here, I see brunette ladies with overloaded bags full of groceries. Cafes have been replaced by fresh fruit and vegetable stores, that display heaps of aromatic cilantro, tomatoes, varieties of potatoes and, of course, corn products in all shapes and sizes.

She tries a little experiment:

Walking around Mission, I decide to do a little experiment and see if I’d go by the entire afternoon without speaking a word of English. Absolutely no problem!

She enjoys a little flirting:

I buy a bag of tomatoes and receive a “You’re welcome, Preciosa” as an answer. I like that! I got used to a little flirting while shopping at the market in Santiago de Chile… and now a simple self check-out at the bigger supermarkets doesn’t cut it for me anymore.

She does allow that there’ve been some changes in the neighborhood in recent years, but it’s no big deal:

If it wasn’t for the hipster influx that The Mission has been receiving in recent years (and who can blame them, really… this place rocks!) I could almost forget I am in the USA.

On Mission residents:

Residents exchange words in Spanglish. They tend to be loud and laugh a lot. Like just back home.

On Starbucks:

You don’t see Starbucks around here. But you do see a church in almost every street.

Phewf! Maybe the Mission’s still got it after all! Read on for lots more pics and commentary.

Jason from local band Maus Haus wrote in to tell us about a new solo project:

i just finished a “solo” album of sorts, called Rent Control, essentially documenting my life in the mission district circa 2013 (when i wrote all the songs), shortly before relocating to west oakland.

i lived on harrison and 24th from 2003 to 2013, from age 21 to 31, and saw the neighborhood change drastically.

the record goes on personal tangents, but there are definitely some subjects of interest that your readers can relate to:

track 2 “retro city” kind of takes a look at the reinvented garage rock bandwagoneer

track 5 “life on the other side” daydreams about moving to oakland, albeit with fear

track 6 “ice cream” is about how resentful my friends and i were that humphrey slocombe moved in, bringing all these lame-os, but then we ourselves can’t resist the treats either

track 7 “in jets” quite literally tells the story of the neighborhood changing overnight, millionaires moving in, without you even realizing it, and then it’s too late.

track 8 “reasons” is an ironic spoken word meets guitar noise tirade against the new neighbors

Let’s listen:

UPDATE: They’re playing a show this weekend in the Mission! Here’s the deal…

This Sunday November 23:
J. Kick & Rent Control
(plus 3 secret bands)
AMNESIA (Valencia @ 20th)
7pm doors
FREE
FREE
FREE

[Photo by Justin, via It's Always Sunny in San Francisco]

3D City is a year long stereoscopic photography project by Doctor Popular

Walk around photographing the city long enough and you’ll end up with plenty of photos of stairs. I was building up quite a collection and thought they deserved their own post.

“I like a escalator, man, ’cause an escalator can never break. It can only become stairs.” – Mitch Hedberg

(more…)

Former local blogger Ramona takes a look at lateness:

The thing about making someone wait for you is that it communicates to them that you don’t care if they hate you. This is fine if you’re a boss or a doctor or a host at any restaurant in New York. But you’re not a host at any restaurant in New York, and you’re definitely not the boss of me. You’re my friend, or you were until you sent me a text saying that you were running a little late when you had already pushed the meeting time back an hour. You can only stretch the meaning of “a little” so far before it becomes tomorrow. Or stretch the meaning of “meeting” so far before it becomes “cancelled meeting.” (Maybe one reason my friends balk at meeting me on time is that I refer to grabbing drinks as “a meeting,” and “a binding legal agreement.”)

Why do people make plans linked to times when they’re going to act like they don’t exist? Why do they wait until ten minutes before their plans start to finally get around to looking for that winter hat that they lost in their closet last year? Why not stop making plans altogether and just say “I’ll see you sometime” and then walk around Union Square until they run into someone they know or die of a broken heart?

Read on for Ramona’s startling conclusion.

[Photo by Honey Jets]

Remember when you could buy chocolate that was not sea salted?

— marta f. (@marmotilla) November 18, 2014

[via Omar]

This is available now at the airport in Brisbane, Australia. (Obama was there over the weekend for the G20 Summit.)

(If only it were available in Brisbane, California, we could head down there right now, and maybe stop in super-cool Daly City on the way.)

(Thanks, Jess!)

Some tech company was thinking of moving to Daly City but then the employees revolted or something and it was big news. So, in a guest post for Valleywag, Daly City resident Bob Calhoun explains why Daly City is cool:

Daly City IS the dumping ground for things banned, or at least greatly curtailed, within San Francisco’s rarefied borders. Big box stores, used car lots and every fast-food chain you can think of will meet you in Daly City as you cross the San Mateo county line going southbound on Mission Street. Daly City boasts not just one Home Depot, but two Home Depots. And if that isn’t enough, there are also two Targets (if you count the one in nearby Colma)—one on either side of Highway 280. How’s that for convenience?

Now you can look at all of this seeming suburban blight and call my town a pit, but let me tell you about the tree in front of my single-family home. Every so often, a city truck towing a water tank drives up to that tree and waters it. Sometimes the city workers prune the tree as well. And you know why Daly City can afford to take such good care of these trees that line the sidewalks in front of her “ticky-tacky” houses (as Malvina Reynolds put it in the snobbiest folk hit of all time)? Because people from San Francisco take their Ubers and Zipcars up here and buy crap at our big box stores. That’s why. And we also have some pretty good libraries, parks and rec centers as a result of this exodus of sales tax revenue out of San Francisco.

Oremus mentions the Cow Palace, saying it “plays periodic host to rodeos and gun shows.” While this is true, he forgets to mention that the Moo House is also the place where Evel Knievel punched out some Hells Angels before jumping over a row of muscle cars, and The Who had to pull some guy out of the audience to play drums because Keith Moon had passed out. While the monster truck pulls and the annual Dickens Faire may only echo Daly City’s former glory, you can bet that nothing this cool will ever happen again in San Francisco. All you’re going to get there are yacht races, Oracle World, and several other monuments to Larry Ellison’s sad male ego that have a way of wasting tax payer money and tying up traffic.

Cool! Let’s rock:

Also, Daly City has In-N-Out.

Read on for more.

[Photo by Waymarking]