Mission Mission

Once a girl asked me to meet her under the “pepper tree” in Dolores Park. This sounded like a solid plan, compared to my usual method of sending a million vague texts back and forth on arrival.

Once I got to the park, I realized there were a lot of trees in the park and I didn’t have the faintest idea what a “pepper tree” looks like. Hell, I didn’t even know pepper came from trees. Then I leaned against a palm tree in frustration and wondered, “is a palm tree really a tree or is it just an oversized monocot?”

It turned out that the pepper tree is located near the tracks on fruit shelf section of the park. I was late, and by then my date had found another guy to hang out with who had an adorable dog. My fate was sealed.

On the bright side, if you take this bi-lingual tree tour put on by Friends of the Urban Forest, you’ll never have to go through what I did:

Join us on Sunday July 11 for a free two-hour tour of the beautiful trees in and around Dolores Park.  Chris Ingram, owner of Mr. Prune Tree Care, will lead this bilingual (English/Spanish) tour.  Chris is an ISA Certified Arborist as well as a pruning and horticulture instructor throughout the Bay Area.  Meet at the J Muni stop at the lower corner of the park at Church and 18th streets.  The tour starts at 11:00 a.m.

[thanks Alexis for the tip, photo by Noah Berger]

Looks like Valencia is getting some official flyer postin’ posts on those halfsie telephone poles. With this increased visibility, maybe now we’ll finally find Grease Lightnin’ the parrot or stop staring at our cell phones.

Mr. Eric Sir has the scoop.

More bike lane desecration! Well if a government institution does it, I guess that makes it ok. This feat is particularly impressive given the difficulty around getting past those mailboxes.

Well, at least he’s not blocking the whole lane like the last guy. Must be a cyclist when he’s off duty.

Previously:

Freshly Painted Green Bike Lanes on Market Apparently Not Quite Enough

My favorite soju-slingin’ bar Amnesia has been redecorating, and it looks like they are going for a nautical theme. They are soliciting donations for items such as:

-Old Steamer Trunks (antique big leather and metal kind)
-Large docking rope
-Lamps, lanterns with nautical appeal
-Ship wheels
-portholes (round frames or windows)
-Chandeliers (send a picture first!)
-old, thin barn wood
-Any wooden barrels of any size
-wooden ship figure heads
-old model ships
-old ships in bottles
-taxidermy of the nautical variety… fish, sea birds, etc
-any other sort of old-timey nautical nonsense that seems appropriate for our cozy chamber.

This seems like a somewhat odd request from a place that’s across the street from a goddamned pirate store, but who am I to judge. Contact them amnesiasf (at) gmail.com if you’ve got the goods.

(via Mission Locatl)

It’s been a long-standing revenge fantasy of mine to set up a decoy bike and equip it with GPS from a cheap cell phone. Then I’d wait for it to get stolen and track it down to the source: some kind of crime kingpin guy with an eyepatch living in a mansion in Russian Hill. He’d know the jig was up and there would be an epic chase ending at the top of Sutro Tower. Then there would be a high-altitude fight scene involving crossbows and I think you can fill in the rest.

Unfortunately, thinking over this scenario further, it never seemed to make logistical sense. I mean yeah, maybe I’d track the bike to an intersection in Bayview, but then what? Knock on every door and ask, “uh, did you steal a bike recently?” then mace the dude on the spot if he answers yes?

Good thing the SFPD is teaming up with the SF Bicycle Coalition to do these sorts of sting operations for us. Sometimes it’s best to leave things to the pros.

SFAppeal reports:

The sting operation pilot program will begin later this summer and will target the Richmond district, according to Esparza. A decoy bike will be set up with a transmitter and once it is stolen, police will be able to track the bike to the person in possession of it. The SFPD will also continue keeping an eye out for stolen bicycles on Craiglist and in Bay Area pawn shops.

So basically if you want your bike to be safe, park it in the Richmond for the next couple of months.

Get the rest of the scoop at SFAppeal.

The California Honeydrops are the latest band to be featured on Chasing the Moon and it’s my favorite installment yet. If you haven’t had a chance to see them yet, it should give you a good idea of what you’re missing. Good thing I wasn’t at this filming, because I probably would have knocked over a boom mic dancing.

From Scott McDowell:

This band is world class fresh! The California Honeydrops are the real deal: transforming any dull scene into a world class dance party. Lech Wierzynski leads killer a band that includes pianist Chris Burns, drummer Ben Malament, bass player Seth Ford-Young, and saxophonist Johnny Bones. Working on this episode was especially tough because none of us could stay seated during the editing/mixing.

I love that second tune. If you told me it was a lost Sam Cooke side I would have thought twice about it.

Previously:

The California Honeydrops Talk BART Busking

Coming down from a burrito high is the worst. If you find yourself in NYC needing quick fix, there are apparently options.

When a bartender heard that we were from San Francisco, he raved about Dos Toros in Union Square.

Another staff member who claimed to be from Berkeley (and later proved this by knowing intricate details of student co-op living) confirmed that it’s pretty awesome, so I checked it out. This is a taqueria modeled directly after the bay’s own Gordo Taqueria by two fellows from Berkeley who wanted to bring bay area burritos to NYC.

Here’s what their carnitas burrito looks like:

First of all, the pierced and tatt’ed young lady who wrapped my burrito really didn’t know what she was doing. Her end folds were way too big pushing all the contents to the middle. She tried to cover things up with an exaggerated triangle fold to bring the edges in, but this just resulted in burrito contents shooting out of the tip at a higher velocity after the second roll. The whole structural integrity of the burrito was therefore compromised, as you can see from the cracking of the overloaded bottom half:

This was a far cry from the burrito wrapping mastery one would see at any taqueria here, but I was in a forgiving mood. Maybe she was new here.

Anyway, when I could keep the burrito from spilling everywhere I thought it tasted really good. The carnitas meat was moist and flavorful. If I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the humidity and tourist swarms outsides I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about this being a bay area burrito. It’s really hard to be objective on the matter, of course the Mission in me wanted to hate it, but honestly I didn’t.

One of the guys working there must have picked up on my SF-ness because he asked, “did we pass the test?” Yeah, I think so. In any case, you’re definitely better off there than the Chipotle Mexican Grills that seemed to be everywhere.

One takeaway from this experience is that NYC is clamoring for a good burrito. Just about every NYC resident I talked to had heard of or eaten at Dos Toros. Other SF businesses are opening franchises in the area, so it doesn’t seem out of the question for taquerias to follow. Here’s to El Farolito East in 2011.

Hey guys, Mission coffee really is that good.

Spotted this Four Barrel love at Maialino, a fancy schmancy pasta place in NYC’s Gramercy/Flatiron neighborhood. Also, Gramercy Tavern, a top rated restaurant around the corner proudly serves Blue Bottle.

Turns out my coffee backup plan of bringing everyone beans from SF was completely unnecessary.

Look! A delightful little parklet in NYC!

I spotted on 7th Ave & 28th. Once again, the Mission is the trendsetter.

Previously:

Parklet on 22nd and Bartlett

Looks like our pal and favorite experimental photographer Walter Dukes has moved on from the critical “superimposing disembodied celebrity heads and reflective orbs into photos” phase of his career to the wonderful world of retina-searing HDR photography.

Love it or hate it, one thing is for sure: you’ll still be able to see it after closing your eyes for at least 10 minutes.

Check out his flickr for more.

Previously:

Translucent Rita Hayworth Bust Floating Above Mission Dolores Next To Reflective Orbs