I just heard about Tribe TV at the Review party last night, so please excuse me if I'm chiming in unaware of what's been discussed before.

I mean to just lurk but I had to jump in here and call "hooey!" on this post. I've lived all over SF for the past 10 years, and moved into the Mission 2 years ago. The Mission District you describe may be one aspect you'd see on a Friday night, but is a surprisingly myopic condemnation of a very large, multi-faceted, constantly thriving, dying, replicating and reinventing neighborhood.

The Mission, like few other SF neighborhoods, is deep with layers of diversity that co-exist without necessarily meeting. Walk down just about any 3 block stretch with open eyes and mind and you'll come across at least 10 of the following:

- a working-class Latino family strolling with their kids
- a schmancy ethnic-fusion theme restaurant
- day laborers patiently waiting for work
- homeless people of all ethnicities camped out in the meager shelter of an unoccupied doorway
- a 99cent store
- a small art gallery
- two Rolo-dressed, well-toned men trying to decide if they can still hold hands outside of the immediate Castro
- a low-budget performance space
- 3 taquerias
- some girl wearing a cool pair of eyeglass frames who you decide really is hip
- some girl wearing a poncho who you decide is trying to hard to be hip
- a drug dealer
- a pimp
- a junkie
- a prostitute
- a junkie prostitute and her drug-dealing pimp
- some girl who thinks YOU are trying too hard to be hip
- a roving mariachi band
- a group of Marina-types walking just a hair more quickly than normal
- an expensive women's clothing boutique
- a group of older former hippies on their way to a community meeting at the New College
- a very drunk early-twenties couple having a stupid fight on their way home
- a 15 yr old tattoo shop with a 50yr old tattoo artist
- a tranny hair salon
- a group of nuns buying cheeseburgers
- a diverse-array-of-live-music supporting bar (e.g Amnesia)
- a mallternative 80s-music-playing bar (e.g. Beauty Bar)
- a 40 year old low-end furniture store
- a Salvadoran sitdown family restaurant
- a grotesquely adorable biracial lesbian couple with matching noserings
- a really fucking scary looking crazy man
- a group of born-&-raised-in-the-Mission high school kids
- someone's abuela
- someone that stops your heart for a second, by beauty, fear, shock, repugnance, or compassion

The trust funders are pretty damn few and far between, in my experience, and the posers are a mere fly in the carnitas.

Having been squeezed out of a great apartment myself during the dotcom boom, (even while I benefited from the boom itself), I hear your pain. But it's over, man. Let go of that old perspective and take a new look at what's around you. The Mission is still very much alive with weirdness and opportunity.