— By Zach Perkins |
(via reader Natalie G)
Ski masks, once the must-have garment for terrorists abroad, are now this season's hot item on Valencia. From beating people over the head in broad daylight and dragging them around the corner to steal their iPhones, to protecting your own identity while you steal someone else's, thugs and white collar criminals agree the black baklava just can't be beat! (PUN ALERT)
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Here's a bonus wheatpaste to get your weekend started off right:
— By Zach Perkins |
It's been over six hours since mainstream news source SF Gate covered the eviction of popular sandwich shop Ike's Place and nearly three since Eater blew up the spot, but the non-foodcentric big local blogs are still eerily quiet. Instead, sizzling hot trending topics like iPhone donut finder apps, how shitty this weekend's weather will be, and tainted meat in Modesto seem to be all the rage.
Is Ike's 'old news'?
Will anyone miss it when it's gone?
If a trendy establishment closes in SF and nobody blogs it, was it ever really there?
Or are the local/hyperlocal blogs merrily building up to drop the mother of all posts and bust this Ike's story 'wide open'?
Bonus Question: Am I reading too much HRO?
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Guys, I know I'd rather lick the sidewalk then be near a 4-year-old's birthday party, but just look at that cake! That's right, the remote village of Glen Park recently came together to put on a BART-themed birthday party, featuring giant system maps, BART goodie bags and a giant BART birthday banner. You can read all about it over at The Glen Park Association.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
BIG NEWS IN HIPSTER DINING: Recognizing that everyone in the Mission is secretly a child, the newly opened Crepe House on Valencia and 22nd has stocked the place with animal placemats and crayons. This made my hungover, juvenile mind so happy.
Aren't I such a good lil' artist?(I got the gorilla)
This seriously brought me back to the good old days of eating crappy sandwiches and delicious clown ice cream sundaes at Friendly's as a child, which means this place automatically gets 5 ironic stars. Just like Friendly's, their food wasn't the best (if you want really killer crepes, go to Ti Couz), but it was reasonable for a cheap 8am breakfast.
Anyway, thank you, Crepe House, for satiating my primal urges for crayons.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Everyone, be sure to watch this lovely commentary on the food processing establishment and what we feed our children. YEAH ART!
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Yeah, present day DP has got me scurred.
Following the stabbing and beating in Dolores Park last week, local blogs are hot to remind us that things are not too bad, but Dolores Park NIMBYs are quick to point the finger and call for increased police presence. Mission Loc@l jumped out the gate with a gentle reminder of 15 years ago when it was a Norteño stronghold. But, the SF Weekly really brought the story home. Quoting an unnamed veteran cop, they paint a much clearly picture of 1990's Mission Dolores:
Dolores Park, in short, the place to score any manner of drugs any hour of the day. Cash-rich drug-dealers were held up at gunpoint with such regularity that, our cop recalls, at one point a handful of them candidly approached a group of police officers and asked if something could be done to help them get home with their drug money safely.
After reading these account of veteran police officers, it's hard not to read Dolores Park Works' NIMBY babble (Did SFPD Take Their Eye Off the Ball?) and laugh at those terrified of present-day Dolores. Dolores Park Works goes so far to blame the drinking on Tallboy Terrace for the recent violence and calls for SFPD to step up their game:
But to most of us, the park seems to have settled into an almost gentrified bohemian calm. Rules against open alcohol consumption and smoking (toke up if you got em) are rarely enforced. Fine! We seem to like it that way. Look at a typical Dolores afternoon. The scene is lovely, yes? But by 6pm, the buzzed and the woozy give way to the drunken and the delinquent who gather behind the clubhouse, next to the shed and near the bridge. Here, in this dark corner of the park up in the trees, with just a few old lampposts is where trouble brews.
Thankfully, the unnamed officer quoted by the Weekly clears this illegitimate claim up:
Residents in government housing “who caused problems in the district and Dolores Park either went to jail or got moved to wherever they got moved to,” he says. “I don't think the cops cared where they went.” The current-day hipsters sunning themselves in the park don't even know they ever existed.
Whatever problems those traversing the park have these days, they don't have the one folks dealt with in the 1990s — “Roving gangs of criminals are not waiting in Dolores Park to prey on people.”
So, there you have it people, the park is still safe, it's just that we live in a city and there's always going to be random acts of violence when you put 750,000 people in a small space.
— By Serg |
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Oddly enough, this video is hella old but no one in the Bay really watched it. Then people in Europe found it, blew it up big, and now SF is finally catching wind. From The Bay Citizen:
It’s the old filmmaker’s joke, “We’re big in Europe!”
Well, that’s certainly the case for YAKfilms’ YouTube video, “Dancing in the Rain,” which shows four men TURF dancing on the corner of MacArthur Boulevard and 90th Avenue in Oakland. The video was going viral through Europe and is now catching on in the United States.
TURF stands for “Taking Up Room on the Floor,” and it’s a form of street dancing that originated in Oakland. In contrast to other street dances, TURF aims to tell a story. And so “Dancing in the Rain” is a memorial to dancer D Real’s (he’s in the white shirt) brother Rich, who was killed in a car accident on that corner.
