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NOE_REASON

                                              April 28, 2012

I've never really liked Noe Valley all that
much-- few people who identified with the Mission
District did-- but in their way, the Noe Valley
locals have always seemed to be fighting to hold        Dangerbaby and I spent
on to what remains of the neighborhood's                about 15 years living
character, and they deserve some credit for             in an apartment in the
having at least half a clue.                            ass end of Noe Valley:
                                                        we were far enough
                                                        from the 24th Street
                                                        main drag that Mission
     While there is a                                   Street (over by
     Starbucks on 24th                                  Mitchels) seemed like
     Street, the local        And 24th Street           the main street.
     merchants don't want     sports the
     any more chains.         flagship Global
                              Exchange outlet.   Dangerbaby was the
     When another                                manager of that
     bookstore threatens                         Global Exchange
     to close, people      Just the fact         for awhile.
     step in to try to     that it has
     save it.              a few bookstores              She presided over
                           left is remarkable.           it's expansion when
                                                         it moved up the
     When the organic            Not to mention          street from it's
     grocery closed-- the        the fine 24 hour        original garage
     Utah-based management       donut shop...           setting.
     was blocking a
     unionization effort--
     the locals formed a
     Saturday farmer's       AFTER_THE_FLOOD
     market (with a Mona
     Caron mural
     overlooking it, no
     less).


         Then, there was the
         "Mikey Tom" affair...           In general, this is a common
                                         phenomena: when you're
            MIKEY_TOM                    tempted to start whining
                                         about how some neighborhood
                                         in San Francisco sucks, you
                                         end up throwing in so many
                                         caveats that you start
                                         feeling ridiculous for
                                         complaining at all.


                                         Never the less, I can't say
                                         I feel bad about leaving
                                         the old neighborhood.  When
                                         all is said and done, it's
                                         a rather straight, mildly
                                         dull, upper-middle class
                                         place. Yes it's very Nice,
                                         but it gets tiresome being
                                         the weirdest guy in the hood.

                                                      LEAVING


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