Mission Mission

Looks weird, right? That’s because it’s supposed to be in ALL CAPS but it’s not. Our pal TK of 40 Going On 28 did some digging and came upon a horrible truth:

“In 2009, the city adopted something called the Federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which says street signs are harder to read in all capital letters.”

[...]

DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THIS MEANS? We will slowly convert citywide to boring, lowercase signs. In fact, we may be the last generation of San Franciscans to enjoy ALL CAPS street signs. I wonder how long before there aren’t any left.

Sad beans! Read on for more pics and analysis.

(Although, I used to write all the captions to my photos on Tumblr in all caps and then my friend Tag made fun of me for it so I stopped, and I think my Tumblr got better because of it somehow. Maybe San Francisco will get better too?)

[Photo by rickinsf]

Our pal Doc Pop, often a proponent of digital technology over analog, has been experimenting with film lately, and today he mashed digital and analog up by making a batch of killer GIFs from photos he took with some crazy old camera with four lenses.

Amongst all the crummy old loaner cameras in the Noisebridge dark room I found a Nishika N8000, a camera that shoots 4 side by side lenses that trigger simultaneously to capture multiple points of an object. These cameras shoot on common 35mm film, but the final process of printing on lenticular prints is a bit of a pain, so I decided to try my hand at animating each shot as a .gif.

Read on for the rest of the pics and a thorough explanation of his process.

Apparently the West Oakland station is closed due to a fire under the tracks and no trains are going from SF to Oakland or vice-versa. The station placards are suggesting that riders find “alternate means of transportation.”

So I guess this means that if you work in Oakland, today’s a snow day for you! Most people I spoke with in that situation are simply going back home. Vic, what are YOU gonna do?

I swear, every time I ride BART something crazy always happens. On the other hand, look at these sweet vinyl seats and non-carpet floors! At least they’ve got that going for them.

UPDATE!!! Way more coverage over at SFist.

Previously:

• Crazy Train BART Ride

Old World Food Truck will be serving them up at Mission Dispatch today, along with:

tempeh reuben, Chicken schnitzel-wich special, potato and cheese pierogi..and now homemade salt, vinegar and smoky paprika chips…oh and did I mention some SodaCraft soda to wash it all down!

Dang.

Josh Heller and 30+ of his closest friends are spending the summer in Moscow, ID. In order to escape the stresses and expenses of big city life, they have converged on the small college town (population 23,000) for a summer of day hikes, art projects, and general summer fun. Working with the town to organize public events, the communers hope to create a temporary community of creative types that will hopefully recur in the coming years. We spoke with Josh as he was setting up shop in his new home town.

MM: How’s it going so far? What are you doing in terms of organization? Is there a schedule?

JH: I’ve been meeting with business leaders and city council to talk about venues and places that we can have events. So we have some more formal things that we are working on actively. We have a kickoff event scheduled for June 16^th. [Communer] Nicole Kelly is a fiction writer – she’s been helping set up a fiction reading series. Christin Lee, who’s been really helpful, is trying to set up a gallery showcase for studio art. So we have those kinds of things.

For things that are a little bit less formal, we really want for people who are coming to make it a participatory event. So if you have a skill or an interesting background, we want to have presentations or talks to involve other people and what they’re doing. Those things are still in the process, based in a lot of ways on who’s coming.

Then we have the very casual, which is pot lucks and happy hours and camping trips.

MM: Tell me a little bit about the launch party.

JH: Well, this summer, we’re trying to make three big events that are incorporating the summer communers and the local community. By the way, we weren’t sure where we were gonna go, and choosing Moscow was just the best decision. The people here have been so supportive and so excited for us to be here. So for the first party that we’re going to do, it’s a meet and greet and way to introduce the people who have just arrived to the local community. There’s a university here, so there’s already an academic community and an arts community.

MM: What are your aspirations for the summer? What would you love to see happen?

JH: The project is grounded in economic realities. If you live in the Mission right now your rent will be seven or eight hundred dollars for a room. Right now I’m living in a three bedroom house for 650 dollars. So, in the center of the country we can live way more affordably. The goal for summer commune is to help people realize that if you’re a creative person, especially in this era of mobile work, you don’t need to live in Brooklyn or Los Angeles or San Francisco. My hope is that we can create communities that we appreciate in places that are not as expensive to rent. And then obviously if you’re talking specifically about the regions where creative people live, we have gentrification and other things that are the result of this economic push. And so we’re just looking for alternatives to that.

So my aspiration would be that hopefully this idea would spread and people could do it on their own and do their own thing wherever they want.

I think it has potential to, at a minimum, be just a pretty fun summer and, at maximum, change the dynamics for the way that we interact as a global community, or something like that. [Laughs.] The possibilities are endless.

We’ll check in with Josh as the summer progresses to see how it’s going. They’ve got a Facebook page and a Tumblr if you’d like to follow along. So hey, if you just lost your job or got evicted, or if you’re just looking for a change, head to Moscow! Hang out!

[photo]

[pic by Hélène Goupil]

Mission Local has a write up about last night’s meeting with Supervisor David Campos, local business owners and residents. The owner of La Victoria Bakery wants to turn it into “a Latino-themed lounge and a coffee bar,” and Elixir’s owner wants to expand the 150+ year old bar into a space next door.

There are a whole lot of places to go to in the Mission if you’re looking to get drunk. Would a few more really make more people drink more alcohol? Maybe they would, and for many people from other neighborhoods an evening in the Mission means they’ll be staggering home by the end of the night.

Why is it so crucial to so many businesses that they be able to sell alcohol? Besides the markup, wouldn’t it be nice to think that there could be a thriving restaurant, bakery or foods store that just didn’t happen to have any alcohol? Dosa claimed that they needed to have hard liquor to stay in business on Valencia, and the city agreed. In the case of the corner stores, it really just seems like booze is what drives people in and makes sure they spend a lot more than if they just wandered out with a pack of gum. Considering the high rents in the neighborhood it makes sense that you can’t run a business on gum sales.

Are these businesses offering good enough times without alcohol? Or maybe the question is do they offer something that is greatly enhanced with it, and missing something without it? Would you go bowling if there was no liquor or even beer? Oh, and by the way, have you ever seen a movie . . . on booze?! You would probably go eat a dinner without alcohol, but probably spend at least a third less.

The business owners may have a good point, but in the end I think the biggest issue is that nothing loosens a grip on the wallet like liquor. People will pay more for anything when it’s part of the package, and they’ll do it with much less hesitation. Just throw on some fancy words like “muddled” and “artisan” and you’re in business.

Reader Jason tipped us off to the new restaurant taking the place of Siam Saigon at 29th/Mission. And it’s another Thai restaurant! Just what this city needs, right?

The new place, slated to open on July 1st, is called Thai Idea and is vegetarian/vegan only, and I’m excited because I love me some fake meats (please, save your ammo for taggers). The menu includes exciting offerings such as “Wing Bomb” (crispy veggie chicken and homemade sauce topped with crispy basil) and “Firedcracker Balls” (sic) (veggie Ahi tuna roll, panko deep-fried, mayo mustard & spicy sauce). Sounds fun!

Here’s the deal, straight from Flavorpill:

Join us at the Elbo Room on Thursday, June 14 from 7-9pm when we team up with arts nonprofit Root Division and Southern Sandwich Co. for a Food Truck Happy Hour, and that’s exactly how you’ll be getting your grub on. Better yet, Sapporo Premium beer is on tap, so you can whet your whistle while you chow down and get down to a DJ set from Water Borders.

But you must RSVP here!

I’m glad the guy behind the “average neighbours” sign posted what can only be described as a long-winded artist’s statement (with an inexplicable Young Jeezy shout-out) because it led to some new light on the original “bad neighbors” saga. To bring you up to speed, Schmidt’s moved into the corner a couple of years ago, the upstairs neighbors didn’t like it and posted a “bad neighbors” sign, and the guy across the street didn’t like the sign, so he posted his own sign last week.

But first, here’s a snippet of the “average neighbour” guy’s comment:

I posted that sign. It is in response to the bad neighbors sign, which apparently exists as a means to establish a new status quo of sign/neighbor/relationship commentary.

Every night I look out my window at what used to be a beautiful view and is now a snarky, insipid, whiny symbol of everything that is passive-aggressive about our city and it’s typical inhabitants. I can no longer watch a simple sunset without being forced to reflect on how babyish the members of my community constantly are. For two years now.

Victims.

…

I urge all of you to view the Smitzs’ ‘bad neighbors’ sign not as a perfectly ugly window into the most entitled and obnoxious voice of a truly ugly-on-the-inside person, my neighbor. See it as a commentary on the nature of advertizing and it’s divine, invisible power over our…

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You get the idea. Now I don’t know whether to smile at what I thought was a light-hearted gag or to punch a wall.

Revisiting the original “bad neighbors” thread, I discovered that the roommate of what we all probably assumed to be a crazy person told a lucid side of the story 6 months ago. I don’t know if they ever got their fair shot after the Mission Loc@l article, so here ya go:

The Mission Local blog post linked in this article is biased and one sided. They didn’t even attempt to get my roommates side of the story, yes I live with the “bad neighbors lady”.

We lived in beautiful harmony with the El Faro market for years. They cooked in the back and there was never any problem. One day the landlord decided to take a stab at running a restaurant and evicted our convenient little market/ take out food place downstairs. He got some partners to front for him and open a beer bar in it’s place. We protested and got the neighborhood together to sign a letter, we successfully put a hold on the beer and wine license.

About a year went by and we were contacted by David Peirce and his wife, believe her name is Christine Schmidt, about how they wanted to take over the space but our hold on the license was still in place. Should have smelled a rat there. They promised us that they cared about the other people in the building and that they’d be good neighbors. they said we could always talk to them about any problem and that we’d always get a healthy discount when we ate there. I love beer and German food so I was falling in love with these guys. I talked my roommates into retracting their objection to the alcohol license.

Within a week Schmidt’s installed some loud equipment on to the roof of our building that made our whole flat shake like a bus was going by non stop for 16 hours a day…

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There are two sides to every story. Looks like they tried to work it out in person and when they ran out of options, resorted to creative stationary. The tenants have allegedly been there for over 10 30 years and probably enjoy some baller rent control, so I doubt the building owner is too interested in conflict resolution in lieu of waiting to see if they get fed up enough to move out.

We’ve all had noisy neighbors before, how much should you be expected to put up with it? I used to live in a great, cheap 1-br apartment on Fell and Van Ness next to the Rickshaw Stop. I tried to accept the thumping bass and folks pouring into the street at 2am as city flavor, but in my 2+ years there I never got used to it. Eventually, I just got up and moved. Not everyone has that luxury.

In any case, it’s sad that a lot of people in this city don’t pay attention to their neighbors until they hate them. Go leave a fruit basket next door tonight.

Update: Mission Loc@l did a follow up with the tenant that we missed a few weeks after the original story. Here it is. (thanks Rigoberto Hernandez)

Tumblr user woolfshirt has been impacted by Muni’s rerouting of buses onto SVN:

If you live in the Mission, you’ll also know that they’ve temporarily rerouted the 14 (and the more benign 48) to a mostly residential strip of South Van Ness. One of the stops happens to be right in front of my door. My stoop is now a bus stop. I didn’t think this would bother me until the Popeye’s bags, melted popsicles and cans of King Cobra started showing up on my stairs. Next, we found empty wallets and purses. A few weeks later, a crack smoker decided to take up residence on our stoop. And lately, some creeper* has taken it upon himself to sit on our steps as he waits for his morning ride and make disgusting comments as I’m leaving my apartment.

[...]

So in short, fuck you Muni. Fuck you litterbugs. Fuck you creeper. Fuck you purse snatchers. I know this bullshit is temporary, but I’m soooo tired of it and I needed to vent.

Read on for further details and a relevant photo.

[Map by Mission Local]