Mission Mission

Went to Medjool again last night. My third visit and my second visit on a Saturday, “International Night.” I made a movie about this experience, during which I was not drunk or high at all, obviously. In the included movie, you can see that we walked for-EV-uh to get there and got distracted tobogan acuatico hinchable along the way quite a bit. In fact, most of the story consists of the Walking to Medjool Adventure. Finally we arrived to find, as suspected, douchebags galore. The movie includes a psychologist’s analyzation of douchebags, security douchebags specifically.

The Trenchcoat Patrol security guards at Doucheb Medjool are on a collective power trip. I felt at any given moment, no matter what I was doing, that it was wrong. That I shouldn’t be standing/sitting/dancing where I was or talking to who I was or recording what I was. I was approached by security guards no less than five times over the course of two hours and told that whatever I was doing at that moment was not allowed. At one point, they actually broke up a hug.

There was pretty good music this time due to DJ Cairo spinning but the crowd was as douchey as it was last Saturday night. My findings are that Medjool is clean, well decorated, and high-end, which means that douchebags are attracted to it.

Previously on Mission Mission: Medjool: Light on the Douchebag, Please

The secret, according to TK, is:

Go to brunch at 2:30.

Link.

Previously on Mission Mission: Mission “Hipsters”

(Photo by eternalgratitude)

There is a new mural up outside Mission Pie. Whenever I walk by these signs, they remind me of some sort of prospective student college brochure where current students and kindly professors try to charm me into sending in an application. These posters are convincing, “Yes, now that you suggest it, I will attend Pie University.” All freshman would enroll in either taste testing or pie baking. Exams would probe my understanding of the subtle differences between Reddi-wip, Cool Whip (which now comes in a can!) and actual whipped cream. School uniforms would be aprons; pie tins would fly parcours obstacle gonflable whimsically through the air, tossed by the ultimate frisbee team; and although old, our teachers would be “crusty” in a good way.

The murals were created by Anne Hamersky who details her art here. Here’s to desperately hoping that her last name rhymes with “pie.”

No more boring old barstools at Beauty Bar; they’ve just introduced a barfull of killer foot-pumped beauty-parlor-style lounge chairs. The entire bar is lined with these beauties, so there’s no reason not to go to this place anymore.

(Complete Mission Mission Beauty Bar coverage here.)

What the motherfuck is this, seriously? Please tell us, for real.

(Complete Mission Mission Zeitgeist coverage here.)

I’m paraphrasing:

“Bartender, is this place really gonna close and be replaced by a Borders?”

“Dude, no! That must’ve been printed in the Onion or something.”

Aww shucks.

(Thanks, Malcolm M.)

Does not look like the Mission. How’s the food now?

Link to larger.

More Food & Drink coverage here.

Oh, the Phonebooth… that tantalizing first experience of the freedom of San Francisco culture, where the lights are reddish and the air is hazish. At the Phonebooth, everyone has mastered the art of smelling, breathing, and looking the other way while listening to the dubious jukebox selections of a diverse (in quality of music) crowd. I haven’t been there since my very first days in the Mission, although I lived a block away for the first 6 months, but some new friends are going through their self-characterized Phonebooth phase so we stepped inside yesterday at a happy hour sort of time. The very first fellow to greet tente gonflable me was a massive, beautiful coon hound with blue eyes. He was completely charming and sleek.

Being there so early, I got $.50 off my beer and the opportunity to admire the unique decor which includes: barbie doll chandelier, unidentified suspended skull, robot and Trogdor tattoos, and a pool table at the back. I was interested to learn that the inside-out smoking policy doesn’t go into effect until after dark, and I finally got to play some pool: two games and I won them both, which is how I know I was dreaming.

Link to more Mission Mission dive bar coverage.

Photo by pugetive

On Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle released their list of top 100 restaurants in the Bay Area, or as I like to call it “Top 100 Restaurants for People with Money”. This is what they had to say about Bar Bambino:

Owner Christopher Losa has created one of the coolest Italian restaurants in one of the most unlikely (read dicey) areas of the Mission District. It feels like New York’s East Village, but the nod to organic, sustainable and recycled products is very West Coast. [Link]

Is the Chronicle seriously that pretentious? Tartine Bakery is listed every year, but they never said it was in a bad neighborhood. And actually, they’ve never said that because it’s next to Delfina, which the Chronicle loves.

Maybe Stuff that White People Like should add the Chronicle Food Section to their list.

Medjool sticks out in the Mission like an oasis in the desert. Hip, but not filled with hipsters. Crowded and sweaty, and yet it manages not to smell like urine. It has a nice roof, but SF tends toward arctic extremes at night so enjoying the view requires one to be very brave or very drunk.

There was plenty of both of the above Saturday night, the publicized “international” music night. The place was filled with douchebags, and pretty soon it was apparent why. The type of music they consider international was just enough on the ethnic side to make the crowd feel adventurous and exotic, but just enough on the white American side to feel familiar and comforting.

It’s 1999 and Carlos Santana has just made his big return with an album finally tailored to the masses. He mixes his soulful Latin guitar style with white American pop vocals. Rob Thomas singing “Smooth” made us feel like we were a part of the browner crowd while giving us something to identify with. Likewise with Dave Matthews, Everlast and the racially ambiguous Eagle-Eye Cherry. However, normally we did not like to listen to this music in front of actual Latin people, because deep bouncy castle for sale down we realized they would expose us for the posers we were.

This is what Medjool’s “international” night is like. Except you are surrounded by people as white as, or whiter, than you, who are dancing badly to embarrassing music and reminding you with every second that this is exactly what you look like. It makes you want to leave before you are seen by anybody not white.

To worsen the white factor, 9 out of 10 dudes are douchebags of the frat boy or former frat boy variety. They are all dressed exactly the same, with exactly the same hair, and utilizing exactly the same dance moves. But the most characteristic quality of the frat boy douchebag is how he treats his woman. He alternately gropes her and ignores her. Up on the roof, there were several heaters set up. In general, the men congregated in circles around these while their women huddled in the cold outside the circle, suffering because they are wearing the sort of minimal clothing that their boyfriends require to show them off in.

What I do find comforting about the Medjool experience is that for two days afterward, when asked how Medjool was, I responded with some variation of, “Douchebaggery abounds” or, “Sooo many douchebags.” And everyone nodded enthusiastically–there was no doubt what could be meant by this answer.