Mission Mission

Spotted by jerhodes on 14th and Valencia.

(link)

Photographer Jesse Friedman late last night published a flurry of photos of fireworks lighting up the Mission sky. See the whole set here.

Seen on 15th Street, near South Van Ness.

Credit to NAL?

Late yesterday morning, a silver PT Cruiser allegedly sped through a red light, hit a father and son out for a bike ride, and sped away. There were tons of witnesses, but none of the ones who stuck around actually recalled a full license plate number.

If you were there, and can help, please get in touch.

Full press release (includes contact info, case number, etc.) after the jump:

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On Sunday, we did a post about a flyer that had been showing up around the neighborhood encouraging neighbors to report prostitutes, pimps and johns to the authorities. Its comments thread has been going strong all week, with numerous debates about cleanliness, criminality and sex workers’ rights getting fierier and fierier.

Yesterday afternoon’s exchange between a prostitute named Rhonda and a neighbor named “zinzin” makes for an especially great read. Rhonda gets things rolling:

It’s so easy to become a prostitute when you are an attractive young woman. You get cruised all the time. Too much time. It’s annoying, and much better to learn how to negotiate early on!

Why not *talk* *to* *the* *prostitutes* We have voices. We have brains, we are human. Don’t make decisions for us, don’t talk badly about us, don’t treat us like helpless victims, and please don’t make any decisions for us. Talk to us instead.

See the rest of the dialogue (including an epic open letter to prostitutes in the neighborhood and beyond).

We decided on Drew’s story, probably because it blends humor and excitement with horrible, horrible violence. Also, Drew strikes the right tone, coming across not as a transient dabbler in San Francisco, but as someone who calls this place home.

For his troubles, Drew will receive an S-Castro t-shirt from MuniShirts — blue ink on a light blue American Apparel adult medium. His story starts like this:

I’m riding the bus down Market street in Civic Center around midnight sitting near the back door when a middle-aged homeless guy in the very back starts lighting up a cigarette. The driver yells to him “You can’t smoke here”. Homeless guy flips him off and puffs away. Driver says “No you don’t; not on my bus!”. Driver slams on the brakes at Market between 6th and 7th, gets up, walks down the aisle, rips the cigarette out of the guys’s mouth and throws it out the window. “Out!”, the driver yells.

See how it ends.

Capp St. just continues to amaze.  The other night, around 1:30am, there was quite a commotion on the 700 block of Capp.  Looking outside my window, I notice that a number of my neighbors have their heads sticking out their windows staring down the block.  Suddenly I spot a vehicle that is parked perpendicular the flow of traffic with its high beams on two males punching each other.  By the time I stuck my head out my window, one of the guys has his hands around the other and is attempting to choke him.  Fairly disturbingly, the chokee goes between groaning and yelling “get your hands off my neck!”

Finally the guy being choked gets his foot on the other guy’s stomach, pushes him off, and they resume yelling and fighting standing up.  After a couple of minutes of punching, kicking, choking and pushing, I find my camera and start filming (tragically the film was too dark and could not be brightened, but you can still hear the audio).  The car that was parked, highlighting the show for all the on-lookers, apparently became bored and drove off.  For another two minutes, they proceeded to fight and the guy who was formerly being choked has had hit shirt ripped off.

After being knocked to the ground once again and enduring another round of choking, the chokee escaped, running down Capp St. wearing nothing but a pair of jeans.

Amazingly, the other guy decided not to flee the scene!  Instead, he stood around playing with his cell phone for another minute until a number of cops showed up, put a spotlight on him, cornered him, began questioning him and searching the area for weapons.  Inevitably they let him go.

In spite of all the onlookers, no one seemed very willing to jump in (myself included).  Talking with a few neighbors revealed a common fear: getting stabbed for helping out.

I spent some time in Berlin last month, a lot of it riding bikes, and it was tremendously enjoyable: Dedicated bike lanes, little fear of theft. But it is different. Everybody’s on old clunkers bogged down with a thousand pounds (er, a bajillion kilograms) of fender, chain guard, off-road tires, baskets, bells, whistles, etc. So we go slow.

In San Francisco, biking will get you to your destination faster than driving. In Berlin, biking will get you to your destination a little bit faster than walking. But it’s great.

Didn’t see a lot of fixies (or helmets for that matter). Just now Kevin from Everything is Everything sent me a link to this GOOD story:

Berlin Gives Fixies das Boot

You can’t ride your fixie, but you can drink beer on the subway, so it all evens out I guess. Thanks, Kevin!

I thought this “thrift-store formal” was a joke when I first learned about it, but apparently there will be a vegan prom next weekend in the Mission.  Luckily there will be an open bar so you can drown away the memories of not having a date in high school.

In other news, I cannot wait for the upcoming “Carnivore Middle School Dance.”

(link)

Yesterday the New York Times published a phenomenal piece on the street food explosion in NYC and its resulting turf war.  Given our own street food renaissance, it is interesting to see how our east coast friends are handling a similar situation: a hazmat truck stand-off, narcing, threats of settings each other on fire, and black-market permits.  Oh, New York…

(Link.  Illustration Credit – Elwood Smith, New York Times)