Groger’s Western Goods would make a nice restaurant, vs the Western Museum it is now.

and thanks for your answers. they seem honest & open, which i appreciate.

seems to me you’re an accomplished promoter of events that have a sort of subversive political / art twist. a hooker-upper. a generator of interest. a facilitator of sorts. and for the most part….of things with meaning.

events. subversive. political. art. ideas. meaning. that’s all cool. the class action suit, i mean….that’s fab. i didnt know about that one.

thing is, your effective & compelling “punk rock p.t. barnum” thing – which again, i think is swell – is completely antithetical to the holier-than-thou, mission-as-delicate-flower (barf), faux “community struggle”, white enclave building, competition-limiting thing that is this whole anti-AA shenanigan.

this isn’t an event. it isn’t a showcase. it’s nimby-ism masquerading as activism. it’s gentrifiers decrying gentrification. it’s hollow, and it’s a sham.

ah well, i wont go on. i think you’re a cool guy that does cool things. really.

but i think you either got duped or compromised yourself on this one. it’s not good for the hood man. it’s good for your friends maybe, and for a limited time maybe…but not for the hood.

maybe we can work together on something sometime though. i think it would be fun.

all the best.

zz

As for spotlights and attention whore I’m guilty. Ya got me.

I do stand in front of a lot of people. I really do. Come over to my house. Go to my trash folder. Look at the hundreds of emails. Hundreds. No shit. When I send a thing out to my list, I need to carve out 3 hours to respond. All that, but only 20 people come to the Ask Dr. Hal Show. And so it goes. But as for self-appointed leader guys, you could do worse. Whadda ya want me to do, nothing? Stay at home? Be gentler? I can take all the lumps. I don’t mind. I don’t really need the attention. I get so much attention. But it’s a muscle. So I like to use it. To do stuff like this:

http://www.defenderofjustice.com

That’s 54 million. I cost City Tow fifty four million dollars. That’s a class action law suit that i put together in like 10 hours. With 2 full page ads. Easy. Showboaty? Sure. I even profitied. I put in the ad for everyone to send me a dollar. I spent like $4,000 and got $6,000. Eveeryone sent $20. I gave the money to Black Rock ARts Foundation.

The Sewer thing wasn’t my thing either. Brian Mconnaly. Great guy. Just needed a push. I ran for mayor because Jeremy Pollock said that it would help him get laid. Really. That’s just how things roll.

I’m now going to adrress the question from Johnny O:

What’s the solution to empty storefronts?

When the property owner sees that rents are going down, not up. He/she will stop warehouseing. We already saw this in NY and Seattle. We know how it works. I think the thing to do to stop warehouseing is slam dunk NO CHAIN STORES. Even ones that help the little childrern.

That’s why we all need to do victory laps and talk about this as much as possible. To let them know that the chain stores are never comming.

That’s what I got. I apologize if I’m loud and abrasive. I’m just trying to be effective. Effective is good. Loud is annoying. Warehouseing is bad.

As for my dog in the race, I have lifelong, dear frineds who own shops on Valencia. 5 and diamond. Clothes Contact. Cyclops tatoo. Amnesia. New sound Audio. U Save Plumbing. As well as things that I have hunderds of voulenteer hours like ATA. I have an intensly strong bond with Ritual. I also have designs to open a business of my own on Valencia, some day. I have owned 4 business’ in the mission. I own my building on Army adn Mission.

Now as for where is my bullhorn when people are dead or Latinos are gentrified… I’m right here. I just can’t jump on every fight. Your invited to call me. My phone number is all over the web, just search for it. I was asked to help out the Bush Sewage thing. I was asked to help with the AA thing. If there is something that I can be of service for, just let me know. I’ve got some tools you can use. And I never say no.

But if you guys really wanna hate me, I can help you.

I’m a Libertarian!

So, Chicken John, here’s your chance to be constructive and proactive — what’s the solution to the empty storefronts? What’s the incentive that moves a property owner to rent vs letting their property sit empty?

And i have no clue abput Chicken’s personal finances or history. But really…buy out with what funds? All these “I can’t get a space on Valencia” folks all talk about scrimping and saving and putting their lives on the line, and barely hanging on in the face of great corporate big box adversity.

Fuck…. I just posted about 2 properties in the hood for sale. Why not go buy those? Oh, wait they’re on mission. Too….ethnic.

And I personally don’t have an issue with the pursuit of wealth. I spend a lot of my time doing that. Taxidermy mice be spendy.

I don’t even mind trust fund kids. Fuck, I wish it was me.

But I agree that it shouldn’t be veiled, and particularly not behind a smokescreen of “activism” or “community building”.

This is not to say that folks with monty can’t be activists or community builders…but liars are liars no matter how they spend their time.

“Well I own my building. So I’m not going anywhere. It changes things when you not renting.”

Nothing at all wrong with that — I bet ATA wishes they could have bought years ago. But it needs to be out there as he defends the plight of the oppressed store owner dealing with rent increases.

leave chicken alone. he’s spent the last 10 years hurling himself into already existing spotlights and doing silly dances. it’s to be expected, and has little effect on anything. welcome to sf politics. everyone’s a whore for attention & self-advancement.

@ chicken

i’ve really loved some of the things you’ve done over the years…running for mayor, the sewage plant thing. really, comedy / activism is a skill, and you’ve done it well. not to much consequence, but i always thought that was the idea. it’s been quite…art-like.

but i gotta say, it’s a little fishy how you’ve positioned yourself as some self-appointed “leader” in the mission, only AFTER this bullshit AA thing provided a safe, easy, meaningless spotlight into which you could hurl yourself.

your use of the word “we” and your assuming the mantle of “organization and struggle” seems overly dramatic to me. and less than sincere.

i mean, where was your bullhorn when 15 people got killed in the hood last summer? where was your bullhorn on MLK day when folks were out in rubber gloves picking up crap on capp & mission & shotwell? where was your bullhorn when we had to beg local businesses for donations to build alioto park on 20th? where was your bullhorn 10 years ago when extant latino businesses got ousted so we could have $5 coffee and taxidermy mice?

out doing an art-like project, i am assuming. which is cool. but let’s call it what it is: self-involved.

i personally think your comments are mostly right on, but they’re bathed in such obvious quest for self-promotion, it all rings a little hollow in my humble opinion.

i hope i’m wrong about your motives, but history says i’m not. time will tell, i guess.

1. Don’t your personal relations require a disclosure before you come with an overly simplified economic discussion of market forces? I’m just saying, you know, as you’ve all taken this down a path that no one else has yet discussed– I guess by your royal decree that it’s “all over”– that mayhaps we should inquire as to why you might be so concerned with storefront warehousing and its threats to existing businesses. I’d also be interested to know if these relations in any way influence your need to smokescreen Ritual’s complete lack of employees which in any way reflect the actual makeup of the neighborhood for which she feels so much PLUR?

I mean to ask, you know, don’t you have a dog in this race, and do you jump when it barks through its jowls?

2. What clown suit will you be wearing when you lead the fight against storefront warehousing? I’d like to ready and marshal my forces, collecting together my seltzer water and cream pies, so I can get be present at the moment when you bring yet another completely valid issue into the sewer of your self-entitled egotism. I’d like to be there, lending a hand, when you delegitimize and actively damage another worthy cause with your hilarious mix of aging Burnerisms and warmed over Political Irreverence.

There are 28 storefronts empty on Valencia. How many are being warehoused we will never know. But lets do the math:

$2,500 a month = $30,000 a year.

$10,000 a month is $120,000 a year.

So if you sit on your storefront (that today is worth $2,500 a month) for 5 years, you lose $150,000.

Then, if you rent it for $10,000 a month… it only takes you 15 months to break even.

So if you can afford to not write a 10 year lease for $2,500 which would net you like $400,000 (with increases, let say for arguement)

but instead hold out for 5 years until it’s worth $10,000 a month (or $600,000)

that’s $200,000 and 5 years without having to deal with a tenant. And if you write a lease (usually 10 years with an option)… it’s a hassle.

So if you don’t see this already happening, I think we should just agree to disagree and stop talking. Because this is already totally happening. We’ve all seen it happen before. No one wants fancy over price boutiques only. We all want fun, cool, interesting stuff. But that’s not the arguement.

The arguement is that the store rents are gonna go up, the apartment rents are gonna go up and there is no shortage of billionaires to come kick the millionaires out. AA would have been the best thing for cafe’s and restaurants nearby in the short term. But the only cafe that can afford to stay in business in a mall is Starbucks. That’s why only Starbucks is in malls.

Everyone can insult everyone else here in the safety of your keyboards and such but there are major problems here in the mission. People who are passionite about the mission will hopefully help out with the problems. But it doesn’t help us if they lose their leases and apartments to skyrocketing rents. Then we got new people. It’s all different.

And as for the mission being host to new mothers, your just showing your age. Both me and you wouldn’t have time for this if we had youngins’. Mr. Other Other mayor sounds a little bitter. It happens bro. People have kids. Kids go to parks. Bums are kinda fun, but kinda weird for kids. You should go play with the kids in the park. It’s fun.

Sorry for the long post.

“they never stop roasting their coffee!”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ari/3257919964/in/set-72157613427360580/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ari/3257092777/in/set-72157613427360580/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ari/3257922398/in/set-72157613427360580/

Who made them?

http://againstamericanapparel.wordpress.com/

That place is frozen in time — from the little I’ve been able to piece together, the owner passed away in the late 90′s and it hasn’t been touched since.

I love those cowboy posters in the windows though.

(For those new to MM, this thread has some good historical perspectivewith great commentary from zinzin, guero and others. )