I don't think before I type's Comments

Every few years, some hilarious video that completely savages a San Francisco subculture surfaces.  The last time we saw a video of that caliber was way back in the Fall of 2009, when 'the BBC' reported from Dolores Park.  Herpes in the park!  The Bi-Rite line!  Apathatic 22-year-olds! Anti-American Apparel activism! Iraqi-Japanese fusion restaurants!  Ah, it was good stuff.

Of course, we've been in a YouTube low ever since.  Making fun of the Mission has gone from an elevated art form to a boring list of stereotypes.  Shitting on the Haight stopped being funny when CW Nevius started campaigning for Sit/Lie.  And the Marina is just, well, the Marina.

But out of nowhere comes the bros behind "BillyGoatProductions", who were clever enough to just take a camera and a microphone and let the Marina speak for itself.  Don't get me wrong, this video is fairly subtle--it's not a bunch of quick clips of punchlines delivered with a British accent--but what it is happens to be highly amusing.

Also, the soundtrack makes me want to take shitty drugs and dance.

Doug over at Ice Tubes spotted this curious device in a USF parking lot the other day and wondered how the hell anyone would lock their board to this thing.  Thanks to the magic of the 'world wide web', Doug discovered that anyone skating and carrying a padlock can put their board between the rack and padlock the rings together, apparently keeping your board safe from thieves (unless they take your trucks off, of course).  Even though I doubt anyone ever actually uses these things, it's at least a step towards legitimizing the sport (which I'm sure will infuriate everyone, skaters included).

(link)

Doug over at Ice Tubes spotted this curious device in a USF parking lot the other day and wondered how the hell anyone would lock their board to this thing.  Thanks to the magic of the 'world wide web', Doug discovered that anyone skating and carrying a padlock can put their board between the rack and padlock the rings together, apparently keeping your board safe from thieves (unless they take your trucks off, of course).  Even though I doubt anyone ever actually uses these things, it's at least a step towards legitimizing the sport (which I'm sure will infuriate everyone, skaters included).

(link)

This happened.

Excuse me while I shiver alone in the dark and process this for awhile...

The following screenshots are taken directly from the email that I, and undoubtedly the entire Mission has now received from Uber, a towncar taxi service that uses an iPhone dispatching app. The content was not edited in any way. They really wrote this and distributed it, probably with the belief that it was a good idea.  The entire writing staff of Uptown could spend an entire weekend addressing this, line by line.  Every sentence warrants commentary and satire. But of course I, like everyone else, was so completely and utterly shocked that I just had to post it in its entirety and inadvertently aid in their marketing...  

Maybe they thought they were being ironic. But if their goal was to appeal to 'MIssion hipsters' through irony, they failed.  The whole thing just shows a complete lack of understanding of the demographic's sensibilities. All 'ZOMG they dont kno whut a hipstar is!' nonsense aside, this is still only $5 off of a ride that they would charge you about $45 for. No iPhone dispatch app is worth that. Just get a cab.

(Thanks UberCab, way to jump the shark)

Sonic Youth may not be the Dead Kennedys, but I'm sure no one would complain if they threw a concert in Dolores.

(photo by westbymidwest)

Street reporter/walker Jenny Wilson reports spotting Emeril and an Authentic Entertainment Productions crew setting up at the Irish Coffee crackhouse Buena Vista Cafe this morning.  Emeril has previously worked on 'Authentic' Ent's Food Network series Best Thing I Ever Ate, so this is probably for a Season 5 episode of that show.  Get over to the Marina and gawk at the biggest food celeb of 2k3.  BAM! (that is what he says, amirite?) 

Have a spare $95 and a burning desire to freak out all future house guests?  This disturbed chicken carcass could be yours!

A few weeks ago, I was hipped to the fact that there's an antique and design mall on Bayshore and Industrial in the Bayview.  Admittedly, I don't venture south of Cesar Chavez too often, but the fact I've lived a 10 minute bike ride from such an giant treasure chest for the past three and a half years and never known about it blew me away.

I finally checked it out the other day and it's definitely a solid resource if you have to outfit a new apartment or squander an afternoon while your grandmother is in town.  The place is full of pretty much everything: paintings, old pictures, beer taps, cheap furniture, A GIANT FUCKING HORSE, a mansion bird cage, cataloged magazines, old 1980s TRON toys, Giants and 49ers memorabilia, swords that cost $40 (yes, swords), Michael Jackson dolls, books, shelves dedicated to porcelain frogs and pigs, old photography equipment... basically anything remotely interesting that you could expect to find at an antique mall.  However, what really stuck out to me was the quantity of old San Francisco photographs, paintings, and postcards in the place.  Almost all of them priced below $30.

Anyway, I ended up spending two hours in this place and barely saw half of it.  So if you're the type of person to get sucked into places like this, be warned.  In the mean time, I snapped some pics of some of the more interesting SF-related stuff I found (plus a few other random items for good measure):

Apparently 1910 tour buses were not the gimmicky diesel-burning "cable cars" we see driving across the bridge today.

One booth has thousands of magazines and indexed advertisements, incase you have been in the market for matted 1950's cigarette advertisements.

I'm not sure what exactly this means, other than it is $15 well spent/

However much this costs, it can't be enough.

The Golden Gate Bridge, etched into a case.  Undated.

It appears that coke breaks meant something entirely different in 1951.

Ah, problems of the past.

Photograph of the Bay Bridge, undated.

Sutro Baths and Cliff House, circa 1920.

Considering the sheer amount of Pabst, Hamm's and other various SF brewery memorabilia in this place, I cannot think of a better place to outfit a bar.
 

The SF-Oakland Ferry, circa 1880.  There were a few more pictures in this set from this period, including troops in the Presidio and a street scene in Chinatown.

What would you rather own: this gorgeous lamp or that painting of Lombard?

Photograph of the James Flood Building before the 1906 Earthquake.  Market & Powell.

A 1909 newspaper clipping of 24th and Diamond, Noe Valley.

A poster from 1959, back when Hamm's was brewed in SF. $5.00

Postcard of the California St. hill, circa 1905.

Willard the Wizard may have nothing to do with San Francisco, but he does have the one mighty mustache.

1906 Earthquake refugees in what is now the beginning of the Panhandle, at the Mckinley Statue.

And, like every good antique mall, the SF Antique Mall has a couple of friendly cats napping in the sunlight.

I have no idea who is hanging all these yellow birdhouses around town, but it sure does strike me as a neat project.  Just building birdhouses, climbing trees and telephone poles, and nailing 'em up.  But, why?  Just on a whim?  To hang up some nice street art with an actual purpose?  Get a master's degree? To give our tough winged S.O.B.s a little shelter?  To get tweeted about?

Regardless of the reasons why, I've spotted a solid half-dozen of this birdhouses get hung up around the Mission and SOMA over the past few weeks.  From the photo above, left to right, top to bottom:

  1. Corner of 21st and Valencia
  2. The abandoned gas station at 23rd and Valencia
  3. Corner of 23rd and Valencia
  4. Outside Homestead at 19th and Folsom
  5. Corner of 22nd and Shotwell
  6. Corner of 4th and Bryant

Has anyone noticed these houses outside these areas?  More importantly, anyone come across birds using them and/or feral cats hanging around?

This monstrosity was spotted on SocketSite.com, some SF real estate site that I've never heard of, but have become strangely captivated by over the last 14 minutes.  This hideous pic begs several questions.

  1. Is it 'shopped? Horrendous reality or horrible hoax?
  2. Where the fuck is it??  Commenters on SocketSite have yet to conclusively determine it's location.  
  3. Why?  DEAR GOD, WHY???

Grab your pitchforks SF neighborhood organizations.  This blockheaded piece of architecture is starting to put the term 'NIMBY' in a whole different light for me...