Here’s the thing about San Francisco — there’s the Bay Area that you know and there’s the Bay Area that I grew up in. The Bay Area I grew up in didn’t have internet culture or crazy ass social media parties or Valleywag; it was blue-collar, more diverse and we watched Dominique di Prima rapping on Home Turf every morning on Channel 4 and all knew how to do the running man when Heavy D came on. Fuck, even the social pariahs like me knew how to do the running man. (I didn’t listen to “alternative rock” until I was a sophomore in college.) And that scene still exists, you just have to know where to look for it; the Bay Area is big enough for everyone to just barely tolerate each other.

I guess this is why I really like this food vlog — because first of all, they don’t call it a fucking vlog and second, these guys are like the people I ran with in college. Also, Style Beyond Compare; I remember they played on KMEL all the time growing up.

This is the result map that came up when I typed in that I wanted to take public transportation from my house to the DMV. (Public transportation since, you know, I forgot to renew my car registration. Ooops.)

I love how it’s all, “WALK THERE, YOU FAT FUCKER.”

After two weeks here in the Mission, I think I’m giving illusions that I’m slightly more settled in San Francisco now. Some furniture needs to be sold and I need to somehow buy a drawer to fit all my clothes, but if you walked into my charming, Full House-like Victorian unit, you would say, “my, Ernie’s place looks quaint and charming” and be done with it.

But I still kinda feel like a stranger in a strange land when it comes to life in the Mission, an area of San Francisco that’s filled with hipsters and gang-bangers and crackheads and Vice Presidents of Product Development, all within close quarters, doing their best to ignore each other. Like, I somehow need to shred all my preppy tight clothes that I’m too fat and self-conscious to fit into, as well as lose my awkward baggy clothes and fraternity t-shirts I’ve had since my college days. In 2000. From what I’ve seen from people walking around the area, I kinda need a rock pullover and a lip ring, lose the oversized cargoes for a pair of those weird fucked up acid-washed jeans and a haircut like the lead singer from OK Go.

Basically, I have to look like an overweight heroin addict from the 1970’s to fit in this neighborhood. How the fuck am I going to pull that off? When someone I see around this neighborhood wears a Fidel Castro hat, they look like a hipster. When I wear one, I look like a communist.

I don’t fit in the neighborhood yet. But then again, it’s only been two weeks. And I’d still rather live here than in Fremont.