Mission Mission

Our pal Inna saw her life flash before her eyes this morning:

Ok not even funny anymore – I just had a terrifying moment with a Google bus turning from 24th onto valencia that nearly killed me and one other person. We had the green light still – it was very clearly green, and he just plowed into the intersection. Cars stopped and honked, people screamed, and even google’s minions waiting in line to board the thing looked up from their phones.

I don’t even know what to do – who do I complain to? Who will listen or care? It’s simply not safe for these gigantic buses to have complete reign of the streets. It’s a terrible feeling to not feel welcome in your own city- this is the icing on the cake.

I also experienced a harrowing moment last week while biking north on Valencia approaching 25th Street.  One of the behemoth buses pulled up alongside me and then tried to beat me to the stop on the NE corner, almost pinning me to the sidewalk.  Luckily I was able to maintain control of my bike and sprint past it, but damn!

I don’t drive, but if I did I would be livid with these buses.  I routinely see a tech bus chilling at a green light waiting for another tech bus in front of it to finish its business at the stop located across the intersection.  So imagine you’re stopped behind a bus at a green light and it just sits there for a couple minutes while the lights cycle through, and finally when the first bus is finsished unloading or dropping off or whatever does that green-light-chilling bus cross the intersection and awkwardly pull over in just enough of a diagonal to continue blocking the street.

Did we really kill the 26 Valencia Muni just so these giant out of-control buses could run wild?  I know it’s a broken record at this point, but just remember that these buses are another example of something that incoveniences (and sometimes endangers) the public and whose only benefit is increasing profit for private companies (by enhancing their recruiting efforts and employee productivity).

Essentially, all the buses really do is transfer the extra minutes that their employees would have to wait if they took regular public transportation along to everybody else.

Previously:

• The Google Bus: “If you want an iPhone, a Facebook profile, and Google Maps, this is part of the price you’ve gotta pay”

Well here’s what I get for never reading the comments (it’s like the #2 rule of blogging) — rock ‘n’ roll legend Mike Watt commented on a post of mine back in 2013 and I didn’t know about it til this week.

On the occasion of Thee Oh Sees’ 3-night residency at the Chapel this week (which concludes tonight), I was looking through some old coverage and came upon “Here’s an algorithm up your asshole,” our report from the time they opened for Iggy and the Stooges at a tech conference in a park in San Jose.

(Went back through the photo archives and found this shot, by our own Jess Kelso, of Watt making the low flow, back there behind Iggy.)

Here’s what Watt had to say:

people,

petey on bass for the oh sees was truly a righteous man but taking nothing from the man w/a beat in his hand for the stooges. glad to work the at a park where besides all the silicone whatever this article already talks about but where a nightmare like the last cali lynching ever was…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_Hart

on bass, watt

Know your history, people!

To wit:

And nowadays we just take it for granted.

[via Alamo Drafthouse San Francisco on Facebook]

That’s my official review. Last night was awesome. Try to go tonight if you can. Or get tickets for their August dates at GAMH when they go on sale tomorrow.

[Photo by Cosmic Amanda]

I mean, if you want.

Just remember, there’s more to San Francisco than just Pop’s Bar and St. Francis Fountain and Dolores Park.

(Just another friendly reminder, like that post Those times when you realize you still love this place.)

And I’m seeing the new Oh Sees tonight!

In our lengthy, pictorial profile from back when they first opened (more than 3 years ago, wow!) we reported that Cervecería de MateVeza, the little corner brewery at 18th and Church, had a big fridge full of all kinds of interesting to-go beers. 

Not no more.

Instead — we’re happy to report — they’ll can any of their house drafts, on the spot, just for you. One customer, one can. 

It’s high-quality beer, and 32 ounces of it, so it’s pricier than a can of Foster’s. But Foster’s tastes like shit.

(Also, the 32-ounce thing comes in handy when you’re sitting up on the hill and it tips over and spills — you may lose several ounces of beer, but you’ve still got like 27 ounces of beer.)

From a certain news source:

Palestinian Man Marvels At How Much Childhood Refugee Camp Has Changed

AL-SHATI, GAZA STRIP—Saying he hardly recognized some of the makeshift buildings and piles of rubble he played in as a child, Gaza native Ramzy Abu-Dhubah told reporters Tuesday he was struck by how much the refugee camp he grew up in has changed over the years.

As he walked through his “old stomping grounds” in Al-Shati, a 0.3-square-mile camp currently home to 87,000 displaced Palestinians, the 36-year-old remarked how the whole area seemed more bustling and crowded to him now than it did when he was a boy.

“So many of the spots where I used to hang out are gone, and they’ve all been replaced by new homes—I guess this place has really been growing,” Abu-Dhubah said as he pointed out a demolished concrete structure filled with improvised mud-brick shelters that had not been there when he left Gaza in 1999. “This used to be an empty lot where I’d play soccer, but there’s got to be a few dozen families that have moved in here now. They put in one of those big ration-distribution centers, too. My buddy Ibrahim was telling me that’s where pretty much everyone goes to eat these days.”

Read on for lots more.

[Photo by Google Maps]

I’m sitting on the hill in the park just now when a guy comes barreling down the walkway behind me yelling about how mad he is and how nobody better turn around and look at him or else he’ll get violent. 

A couple of high schoolers get in his face and call his bluff and they both end up socking him. (And then they grab their shit and disperse quickly.)

The guy continues down the hill toward the intersection of 18th and Church, and he somehow ends up with a picket sign. (It was not Frank Chu.)

He’s letting out these shrieks of pain or dread, and once in the intersection, he hurls the picket sign at an oncoming car, and then continues on to the sidewalk where he shrieks again, throws a female pedestrian to the ground, and then runs off up Church Street.

Update: The picket sign was one of these…

Trenches and rubble — it’s like a warzone.

Should be done any day now.

Meanwhile:

It’s like 90 degrees out here, where is everybody?