[via Big Old Goofy World]

Now please enjoy this long list of “history”-themed posts about the Mission and SF…

Congrats, grads!

[via Alex]

From a Dusted Magazine top-10 list by musician Leyna Noel Tilbor:

This one time at Jack’s was the best show any of us had been to in a Very Long Time. Jack’s is a neighborhood place, not too on the scene, and you can tell because moms are there, and gangster looking tough guys, and hipsters, and fun people in general. It’s two dollar buds so that might have to do with the fact that its is popping off. I’ve seen broken glass, broken mirrors, and douche bags walking on tables. If it were a house party, the cops’d come. But Thursdays belong to DJ Purple, his incredible Karaoke with a capital K, and his deep purple velvet (velour?) blazer. There is not a proper stage, just an area by the door crammed with screens and fluorescent-fur-covered wireless mics. DJ Purple is damn unfuckwithable; you have to literally run up to catch your song as it’s starting because Purple doesn’t pause or call roll. He DJs the karaoke songs so they run right into one another. Really embodying the music major grad years later, DJ Purple rocks a saxophone, playing leads on every song and adds pitch-perfect vocal harmonies, unsolicited. This one particular Thursday, I’m rolling in a crowd three-deep — myself, my man Daniel, and his housemate Neale — and we’re enjoying the mayhem. Neale only does songs that have key changes (usually ends up with Neil Diamond). Yours truly sang NIN’s “Closer” with a perfect stranger/gothy lady who seemed timid about the chorus. A duo of Latin dudes did “California Love” and the WHOLE PLACE IS DANCING, I mean getting down. They’re getting in everyone’s faces and it looks just like MTV. A tall kid in skinny jeans just channelled Bowie with “Heroes” and it’s truly epic. Feeling so ebullient. To intensify the vibe further “Bohemian Rhapsody” comes on, and it’s a ridiculous, the tender togetherness in this bar. Swaying and singing loud, as if we were in a pub. Then, the song crescendoes just before the Wayne’s World freakout part and a mosh pit erupts. Neale, who is from Baltimore and hell-bent on being “rowdy” grabs me and throws me into the pit. Though in sneakers, I get caught terribly underfoot in the pit, and there’s a sudden alien pop in my right foot. Hop out of the pit stunned, alas, the problem in my foot is real and we aim for the ER. I’m mostly super-bummed to leave the dance floor. Hours and X-rays and Vicotins later the three of us consummate the bizarre awesome journey of the night with 5am peanut butter shakes at Sparky’s.

Read the rest of the list here.

[via DJ Purple on Twitter] [File photo by Vic Wong maybe?]

Maybe political activism is the problem, maybe white people are the problem, maybe the Internet is the problem, maybe Christianity is the problem — or maybe there is no problem. Maybe we all just need to chill. In the comments section of the “Dear White People” post, commenter Haza Anaya says:

The author is being silly… it ain’t your party, and so you cant keep people out! I’m Mexican (from Ciudad Juarez), and my whole family was always welcoming and open to other people, whether it was our American white friends, or our buddies from Japan, etc., and we would always invite them to participate however they saw fit. This idea of getting snooty about people “doing it wrong” is ridiculous and not part of our culture. It’s very important to not be so delicate about such things. Like my abuelita (grandma) used to say “el que se enoja, pierde!”, “whoever gets mad, loses”. If you were at my Mexican family Day of the Dead party, complaining about people appropriating our culture like you are, you’d get lots of eyerolls. And the drunken white hipsters would get served another cerveza, cuz at least they’re in the right spirit of celebration. You’re asking for people to “challenge” these so called colonizers? To “boycott” their events? Instead I challenge people like you that get butthurt. I find your indignation laughable. I’ll appropriate some foreign culture and give you this quote from our Chinese brother Confucius: “He who takes offense when none is intended is a fool. He who takes offense when offense is intended is a bigger fool.” Perhaps learn one of the cultural lessons we celebrate on the Day of the Dead: Don’t take yourself so serious, cuz we’re all going to die someday! Live life! Love! Celebrate! [link]

[Photo by Rusty Hodge]

A number of readers pointed us to local writer/performer/mom/activist Aya de Leon‘s blog post titled “Dear White People/Queridos Gringos: You Want Our Culture But You Don’t Want Us – Stop Colonizing The Day Of The Dead”:

Dear White People (or should I say Queridos Gringos/Gabachos),

Let me begin by saying it is completely natural that you would find yourself attracted to The Day of The Dead. This indigenous holiday from Mexico celebrates the loving connection between the living and our departed loved ones that is so deeply missing in Western culture. Who wouldn’t feel moved by intricately and lovingly built altars, beautifully painted skull faces, waterfalls of marigold flowers, fragrant sweet breads and delicious meals for those whom we miss sharing our earthly lives. I understand. Many cultures from around the world celebrate these things, and many of them at this time of year. As a woman whose Latin@ heritage is Puerto Rican, I have grown up in California, seeing this ritual all my life and feeling the ancestral kinship to this reverent, prayerful honoring of the departed.

Let me continue by saying that it is completely natural that you would want to participate in celebrating The Day of The Dead. You, like all human beings, have lineage, ancestors, departed family members. You have skulls under the skin of your own faces, bones beneath your flesh. Like all mortals, you seek ways to understand death, to befriend it, and celebrate it in the context of celebrating life and love.

I understand.

And in the tradition of indigenous peoples, Chican@ and Mexican-American communities have not told you not to come, not to join, not to celebrate your dead alongside them. In the tradition of indigenous peoples and of ceremony, you, in your own grief and missing your loved ones have not been turned away. You arrived at the Dia De Los Muertos ceremony shipwrecked, a refugee from a culture that suppresses grief, hides death, banishes it, celebrates it only in the most morbid ways—horror movies, violent television—death is dehumanized, without loving connection, without ceremony. You arrived at El Dia De Los Muertos like a Pilgrim, starving, unequal to survival in the land of grief, and the indigenous ceremonies fed you and took you in and revived you and made a place for you at the table.

And what have you done?

Like the Pilgrims, you have begun to take over, to gentrify and colonize this holiday for yourselves. I was shocked this year to find Day of the Dead events in my native Oakland Bay Area not only that were not organized by Chican@s or Mexican@s or Latin@s, but events with zero Latin@ artists participating, involved, consulted, paid, recognized, acknowledged, prayed with.

Certain announcements of some of this year’s celebrations conjured visions of hipsters drinking special holiday microbrews and listening to live music by white bands and eating white food in calavera facepaint and broken trails of marigolds. Don’t bother to build an altar because your celebration is an altar of death, a ceremony of killing culture by appropriation. Do you really not know how to sit at the table? To say thank you? To be a gracious guest?

Read on for more on the politics of it all, and how Halloween used to be spiritual before white people let it get commercialized.

[Photo by Rusty Hodge]

Here in the Mission, gentrifiers still have about 4 months left til “soldiers” “come out gunnin’” for “hipsters and the yuppies” as promised by some graffiti on a neighborhood wall.

In NYC, it’s already happening. Gawker reports:

Two Brooklyn women have had enough. This weekend, Precious Parker, 30, and Sabrina James, 23, allegedly forced their neighbors out of their Flatbush apartment building at gunpoint.

According to a police source who spoke to the New York Daily News, Parker and James knocked on their neighbors’ door around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday and “held a 34-year-old man, a 37-year-old man, and a 25-year-old woman at gunpoint demanding they move out or be killed.” The trio complied, and Parker and James squatted in their apartment until police arrived. Cops say one of the women told them she didn’t like “that white people were moving into the area.” [link]

No blood was shed, and Precious and Sabrina pretty swiftly ended up in jail, but… it’s happening.

(In 1891.)

[via @bagaun]

• Stabbing victim attacked by 5 men at 16th and Mission
• Local tagger really stickin’ it to hipsters
• A discount arsonist attempted to burn down Foods Co.
• City Hall will finally revise fascist anti-arcade game legislation
• Large, intentionally messy game of Twister in Dolores Park
• This creep was arrested for impersonating police, kidnapping immigrants for sexual assault
• 28-year-old man shot and killed at 16th and Valencia

Impeccable work so far, Andrew!

And then this week (possibly today) you’ll meet Chris Bunting and Luke Spray from Roll Over Easy, the best morning radio show in town. They share a passion for San Francisco that is refreshing and infectious, and they’re so good at talking all about it (whether at the bar or on the radio or anywhere else). So we asked them to hop aboard, and I can’t wait to see what happens!

By way of further introduction, here are each of our 21 most recently used emoji, as of about 9:45 last night:

Be sure to look for their work here on the blog, and definitely tune into the show, every Thursday morning from 7:30-9:30 on Mission-based BFF!

(I only have a horse in there because I was telling someone about a horse-and-arugula pizza I had in Berlin one time.)

Is this an effective use of spray paint? Circle one: y/n

Enhance:

This is my fair warning to the hipsters + the yuppies!!
Get the [fuck?] Up Out the MISSION!! Before this [shit?] starts getting UGLY!!
you got 6 Months, Keep it Kickin!! If you don’t, it won’t be funny!
I Guarantee my Soldiers will GLADLY Come Out GUNNIN!!

Graffiti in #SF warning #hipsters and yuppies to leave the Mission or risk being killed. #KTVU pic.twitter.com/zLAsqNiPbp

— Jacob Jimenez (@OneTakeJake2) July 18, 2014

Cool Dads

Hipster-related comment of the week, courtesy of Aaron Mayfield-Sunshine:

hipsters cannot be 30 or 40 something. 32 is the max! after that you become a cool dad.

Link.

Previously:

“Cool Kid” not “Hipster”

Rie, llora
que a cada cual, le llega su hora
rie, llora
vive tu vida y gozala toda

laugh, cry
that to each of us our time comes
laugh, cry
live your life and enjoy it completely

[Photo by Nehemiah Lazo]

Soon after I arrived in San Francisco in 1993, directo from Sinaloa, a gang of immigrant locas, known to me as Las Latinillas, became mi familia in all senses. Meaning, they were supportive, caring and fun to be with but also complete bitches and a beautiful hot mess. Always in your face. They will snatch your new boyfriend, get you a green card and a job, trash your soul con canciones de Juanga and uplift your spirits ala Gloria Trevi, as they revere Selena y Los Dinos and eat pupusas revueltas at Balompie. All this, a la luz del sol.

And at night, we had Esta Noche. It was my friend Mario, well, I called him La Marieta, who took me there the first time. La Marieta was dying of AIDS at the time but as he put it, “Despues de la novela, vamos a esta noche mana, hoy canta La Ronnie Salazar.” You always knew you were at Esta Noche because of a huge self-portrait of a naked Joe Dallesandro with an eternal spotlight on his even larger penis and how can you miss the Esta Noche smell . . . a mix of tequila, piss, and Chanel N°5. Running into friends, making new friends and losing friends all happened at Esta Nasty. It was the place for new immigrants like myself to listen to our music, speak our language and just for a few hours not to feel inadequate. It was also the place for young Latinos, to come out at night and join the festivities of music, drag, stripers, and drinks. But las reynas de la noche were the drag queens!

The shows were amazing back then; I remember feeling so close to Mexico just by watching la flaca de Taina being Lupita Dalessio or Marisela killing it as Rocio Durcal with her legendary dresses. With La Senorita Cumbia and her body for days, you didn’t have a choice but to dance as if La Sonora Dinamita was in the house. But they were also good at impersonating anglo stars: Mohogany, a drag queen from Nicaragua used to do Tina Turner and Diana Ross and La Ronnie Salazar, whom my friend Mario loved, was the best Liza Minnelli ever. And of course her Madonna was so popular at the time. La Ronnie Salazar was the son of the original owner of Esta Noche and died many years ago, as did so many of our brothers that we lost with the AIDS epidemic.

[Photo by Nehemiah Lazo]

[Photo by Nehemiah Lazo]

If I had the chance to talk to la Marieta, I would say to him “Listen mana, nowadays we are dealing with a new epidemic that some people call Gentrification and because of that your beloved Esta Noche closed doors just last night. I wasn’t able to be there mana cuz I live in Eley now, but I asked Nehemiah por el chisme and he texted me this morning:

Marco: What happened last night, did you go to Esta Noche?

Nehemiah: Yes, I have the worst hangover!

Marco: I bet you do gurl, cuentame pues!

Nehemiah: It was packed and very emotional. The MC was Lulu Ramirez, Alexis Miranda and la Mitzy Lee started to remember all the other queenas and everyone was crying. Both Alexis and Mitzi had been performing there for over 28 years. At the end of the show all the queens, including Vicky Jimenez, said goodbye for one last time and started to sing Celia Cruz’ Rie, Llora . . . as you can imagine, we all sang along, it was so beautiful. La Per Sia also performed an original song named “Google Google Apps Apps”. The lyrics are like a protest against the hipsters and the techies.

And so Marieta, they did close Esta Noche and I really don’t know what’s going to happen with your boyfriend’s painting. Let me see if I can get it and will bring it to your cemetery in Baja California Sur.”

- Marco Castro-Bojorquez and Nehemiah Lazo, 2014.

[random Mission file photo by me]

Quit waiting around for the Real World narcissists to come to your neighborhood bar and get out there and get on this show! Then send us back some reports from the set!

UPDATE: Doc Pop notices that they’re shooting at Doc’s Clock today.

@eviloars looks like they are shooting at Doc's Clock today. pic.twitter.com/Kdcod5ihJF

— Doctor Popular (@DocPop) September 17, 2013

I guess it makes sense for the coolest shop in Noe Valley. Unless they just keep the AC on blast all the time. Then maybe it’s ’cause dogs and babies might get too chilly in there. I dunno.

Thanks, Jesse!

It’s hard to tell whether or not the author is just trolling all of us:

Morning yoga in the Mission district followed by frangipane croissant and a cappuccino at Tartine Bakery, watching the hipsters heading to Dolores Park for a day of sunshine snoozing — and another perfect San Francisco weekend has begun.

I don’t even know anymore, so you might as well just go read it yourself.

[Photo via Vogue, also on SFist]