Mission Mission

Previously on Mission Mission:

• Bad Graffiti

Remember that community meeting about Dolores Park last week?  Well, a good outcome of the meeting is that there is a solid group of volunteers forming with the specific goal of helping keep the park clean.  They’ll be meeting a number of times every month to help make the park beautiful.  Unfortunately they are not maintaining an email list, so who knows how their long-term organizing efforts will end up being, but you can show up tomorrow to get involved.

Our first meeting, a WORKING MEETING, will be this Sunday, Sept. 20 from 2-4 pm at the Liberty Bell at 19th and Dolores. If possible, wear green or white T-shirts to stand out, as we want people to notice what we’re up to, and to make a visible difference. We chose this time precisely because we want to be working in the park when there are a lot of people around. Bring gloves, litter grabbers, etc. if you have them, but we’ll have plenty of supplies provided by Rec&Park and Dolores Park Church, so don’t worry if you don’t have anything to bring. We’ll spread out and do litter pick up, graffiti abatement, raking around trash receptacles, and anything else that helps beautify the park. Before we go to work, we’ll briefly discuss the latest Rec&Park improvements in the park, set a date for our next meeting, and discuss where we go from here.

I have been seeing this unthreatening clan of French-fashion-loving vigilantes around Mission St. more and more lately.  Funny thing is, the infamous economic activity of the street has continued undeterred since “The Guardian Angels” decided to make the street their new home.

According to Don’t ask me, I just work here, a few members were camped out at the 24th street BART station yesterday while someone was shot and killed a few blocks away.  So, what are they really achieving?  Has anyone ever spotted these guys beating up a crack-dealer or do they just stand their with their arms crossed while glaring through their Oakley’s?

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Jackson West over at the SF Appeal, who just moved to to the neighborhood and therefore isn’t qualified to have an opinion, gives his two cents about Dolores Park and the community meeting the other night:

…A few dozen others arrived, most from the blocks directly around the park but a few from further afield in the Mission and beyond. And everyone did admit there was a problem, at least with trash. Other problems cited included the bathrooms, hipsters, Mexicans, irrigation, wind, people who don’t own property next to the park, Critical Mass, politicians and, despite all these apparent defects, too many people.

And that, friends, is the essential irony. For a park that is “dying,” it is quite popular! Internationally so. Leaving the younger crowd counter-intuitively arguing to maintain the status quo, and even the older crowd admitting that it’s a better place than it was at some arbitrary point in the past when it was ruled by gangs and drug users, as opposed to now.

But there was a clear generation gap, with the introduction period amounting to one-upsmanship as to who lived closer and longer. The implication being that somehow factoring proximity and longevity mathematically lent one’s point of view more weight. Which it does not. Especially when it is matched with complaints about people and their sense of entitlement.

Read on…

Peep this!: no one who writes Mission Mission* owns a real camera.  Clearly we love lo-fi photography, but occasionally it would be nice to have a dSLR to take pictures with.  Since we already have our two strikes, we cannot risk getting caught breaking down the door to Ritz with baseball bats, so looks like we’re going to try and buy one all legit.  This, and other future upgrades (hint!), cannot always be done for free.  Time to raise money and have fun at the same time.

• Afterparty at Bender’s featuring swag, cakepops, tamales, brownies, grilled food, PBR, and some dumb-ass passed out in the bathroom.
• Prizes from Headline Shirts, Rickshaw Bagworks, Self Edge, the U.S. Federal Reserve and others!
• We’ll also be raffling off a hella badass matte black Valencia Frame from Mission Bicycle Company.  All participants are thrown in the raffle.

Sunday October 4th.  All the awesome details are here.

We have a facebook event too.  Yes, facebook events are lame as shit, but it would be nice to know how much food to bring.  Oh, the horror.

* except Ariel.  Damn edge cases

This poor cat looks like it is about to be molested.

Corinna, everybody’s favorite Greek Mission resident, is currently spending a month in Europe, where she has already had to bear witness to the most disturbing trend in European animal cruelty.  We all hope she’s okay.

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Drew, whom is still one of my favorite SF bloggers, had a net-level run-in with some strangers outside his apartment:

…so as I continue to walk up the stairs, the guy and his friend are walking awfully close to me. Don’t get me wrong, I like to hold hands with strangers and even get freaked from behind by them like at the Prom during slow jamz (the use of the letter “z” in the word “jamz” should be mandatory). But it felt a little weird. So I do the awkward scared white guy thing and just walk a little faster while also thinking in my head about how they teach girls to carry their keys in between their knuckles as a weapon in case of rape. I’m not sure that’s an “awkward white guy” thing as much as it’s a “really? you thought of how to not get raped?” thing.

So as I’m walking up to my apartment, I just casually walk in to my place and go to get a glass of water. And at this moment, I realize that one of the guys is in my kitchen. And at this moment, I realized I was their drug dealer.

Read on.

Previously on Mission Mission:

• Drew Goes to Dolores Park

I quickly swung by Dolores Park last night and noticed “the soccer field” was sectioned off with yellow tape.  Are they finally fixing the irrigation?  Maybe it was a crime scene?

When I got my sandwich, I was so damn hungry that I forgot to take a photo. Tears.

Hot tip!: Mai is now selling Banh Mi sandwiches.  Not only is there a tasty vegan version, it’s her mother’s recipe.  Mothers always make delicious food (except my mother.  Sorry Mom!), so you know it is good.

Critical Datas:

• $7 limited delivery
• Made with love and rat poison*
• Vegan / veggie / meat versions
• Meat changes weekly
• twitter

Full disclosure: I ate this sandwich for free.  Anyone who wants me to hawk their wares on the blog, I take bribes in all forms (although I cannot promise I won’t be honest.  Brutally honest).

* rat poison is opt-in only

Official Mission Mission file photo of me. I enjoy lying on the floor of Tartine Bakery and having photos of me uploaded to flickr that make me look high.

Looks like I am Broke-ass of the week, which means you can read a little about my marginally interesting life, retch at my failed attempts at humor, and see me leverage my psychic abilities.  Ain’t self-promotion fun?

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Prior Broke-Asses on Mission Mission:

• Allan
• Brock
• Laura
• Frat-party