Mission Mission

Ack!  Bit of a SMASH! around 6:30 this morning on 23rd and Mission.  Glass everywhere!

Yeah, I know we are a little late to the Día de los Muertos picture-posting bonanza, but how about that Michael Jackson memorial?

Heh!  Sorry ’bout that title.

Dana sends in these shots, probs leftovers from somebody’s Halloween bender:

Look at this crazy little pile of empty Rx bottles (including Oxycontin) and candy wrappers on 18th street between mission and capp

Oxycontin and Twix!  It’s robotrippin’ for adults.

Obviously this isn’t going to turn into an immigration blog because of one post, but I invited people to share their stories of real immigration struggles.  This is one of those stories:

you invited immigration stories on your blog so i figured i would share one. i’m a social worker working with immigrant youth, most of whom are undocumented.

in mid-september, an 18 year old client of mine, let’s call him carlos, went missing for two days. he was waiting for his uncle at a bus stop on 9th and market where a witness told his uncle that the police took him away. his family called the police to locate him, but could not find him. finally, carlos called his family and told them he was in an ICE detention center in arizona. apparently, an undercover police officer tackled him from behind and started asking him questions in english. he didn’t understand and this seemed to upset the police officer more. carlos said the officer hit him, put him in a police car, and took him to 850 bryant. he didn’t get a phone call until he was in arizona.

sanctuary city, not so much.

carlos and his family came to this country from honduras because their lives were being threatened. while i know it shouldn’t matter, this young man fit absolutely no “street” profile. if it had been almost any other client of mine, i might have wondered what he said to the cop or what he was wearing, but not carlos. this kid is all button down shirts and waist high jeans that are appropriately sized. he was enrolled in high school, he was an A and B student, and his attendance was great. i’ve gotten letters of support from all his teachers, sent him his transcripts, and attendance records, but the judge didn’t care about any of it.

his bond was set at $20,000, which is preposterous. the family can manage the 10% for a bondsman, but not the collateral. the alternative is to find a reduced rate or probono lawyer (impossible) to help him fight his case in detention. he would likely argue political asylum, and could spend years in detention fighting that case just to get deported anyway. all we want is for him to be breathe some free air while the wheels of justice turn, which i figured would be cheaper for the feds but perhaps not. the immigration system is uneblievably absurd and cold; they are treating this young man as if he had committed some heinous crime.

Via Box Dog Bikes.

You people are apparently going to dress up tonight. How long can I wait to decide what I’m going to be?

And where’s the party, anyway?

Jackson, via email, hits us with this craptastic news:

A power outage has hit Thrift Town and a couple of other shops near Mission and 17th, impacting Halloween costume shopping plans until at least tomorrow.

I feel like this could easily be an Onion story in which a “journalist” interviews an irate suburbanite about their exaggeratedly bad time at Dolores Park and subsequent Yelp review.  Only this is real life:

#1 – Dont buy baked goods from people here, or breathe the air in general if you work at a job where you are drug tested. I was so stoned I couldnt function correctly for days (Please See Review of Delano’s IGA).

#2 – Wild, muddy dog runs wild and drops tennis ball soaked in mud/vomit/hell on my bare legs. Steph throws ball away. Rabid great dane thinks this is fun. Runs to another blanket with a dog and recruits him to join terror spree. Three minutes later, a pack of dogs are running amuck, knocking over margaritas, stepping on the packages of boys in neon blue speedos, slobbering on small children who scream in terror. The owners watch, nonplussed. So much for leashes. Lesson: I now have a love of muzzles and a renewed disgust for all varieties of balls.

#3 – Man wearing American Airlines headphones props himself above my lady friends and I and politely smiles, yet begins to masturbate. He finishes after we squeal and laugh and point. He decides to move closer down the hill to us and go for round two. Lesson: If this is the  ”view” and “culture” everyone is raving about, count me out.

(link)

From Cranky Old Mission Guy:

CAMP seems to have forgotten the murals (and other street art) in favor of the amplified noise festival. That leaves it up to the locals to improve the view.

Farts basically act as a perfume at 16th and Mission, so don't hate.

From “Senor Hair”:

New (at least to me) signage in a storefront window on Mission @ 16th. I guess somebody’s looking to clean up the neighborhood. Let’s hear it for modest starts.