Multiculturalism-My Beloved San Francisco in the Nineties. Some thoughts Millenial Woes has brought back.

Roll Call

T.M.D.-The Mack Daddies, The Most Dangerous

T.D.F.-Too Damn Fresh, Too Damn Funky, others I can't recall

A.R.M.-Always Running Muni (Municipal Railway of San Francisco) aka ARMob!

B.V.D.-Black Vandals Destroy-note, no Black members by my time in 90 or so rumor had it, I was not in that crew.

A.K.F.-Avenue Kingdom Funk-A Sunset crew I was in.

T.O.L.-The Overlords

A.I.S.-Always Into Something

T.T.P.-Tip Top Productions?

T.L.-Tenderloin-Really, though I knew some, this was an alliance of Southeast Asian kids defending themselves from all sides while trying to make clientele on stolen radios and tires and shit. You fight one, you fight all and their memory was long and accurate, unfortunately.

4812-the 4800 Block of.....Noe or shoot and 12th street, the J Church ran this spot and there was a nice donut shop on the corner. The local relatively middle class neighborhood is now quite fine but any close look at the age of the homes tells the wise 'rent control' which during the 80s-90s meant delinquents defending the hood from the Mission heads, Norteno and Sureno turf wars over this spot as well.

D.M.-Dank Mob-Associated somewhat with the 4812 heads I always thought.

5 S.P.-F.S.P.-The Five Shot Posse! What a name, Black Fillmore heads that were done tagging by 89 or 90, I heard they went all the way back to sixties gangs in the Fillmore.

XIV-Nortenos, the 'White' Mexicans, in 1969 or 68 the Surenos or XIII or 13th-formed just like the Baby Cribs of South Central....a cat broke down to some of us that Mission High School in the 1970s was where you went to get stolen shit and drugs, some hoes but really that was Polytechnic. The Southern Mexicans of I believe Reagan's programs put pressure on the native syndicates in the multi-hundreds of years old Mexican-Californian-Northerner cultural enclaves. Eventually, after our incursions in Central America we now have MS13, an allied Salvadorian cultural syndicate to the Surenos. Nortenos wear red, typically SF 49ers clothing and Surenos wear blue, typically Dallas Cowboys stuff. 

Wow, so many gangs I had some degree of separation from....or lived in fear of encountering on any bus any day or night. The adults never stopped a robbery, they knew better, a stomping comes equal opportunity in Frisco. Superheroes or Heroes, they would try to stand up for a typically diminutive White boy....and they would get beat down too. 

B.T.C.-Big Time Crime, oh yeah so this all now the lot from Visitation Valley....Samoans from the old military housing projects near the Cow Palace they also made up a lot of 

G.M.P.-Geneva Mission Posse-The cross streets of a major intersection in San Francisco in the Mission District toward the Excelsior, it might be the actually divider to the Excelsior District. Where you could find....

E.M.-Excelsior Mob....not large, not small but they had friends such as....

Vigilante Mob-named after some Philipino cultural heroes the Vigilantes....not, ever, ever to be underestimated, they were Crips...yes, various crews chose alliances based on the Bloods and Crips culture...it got complicated...

R.S.P.-Respect the Samoan Posse-Never,ever find yourself on the wrong side of a group of Samoans, unless you are already aiming.....just saying, Heaven made tsunamis and then he made Samoans.

Two-Four-One of the most dangerous Norteno cliques, the Twenty Fourth and Mission Posse....known simply as Two Four. I knew some cats down with them, I didn't know many Crips or Surenos....it kept me alive.

L.V.-Lakeview-A neighborhood technically called the Oceanview District, formerly lower rent mostly Black neighborhood that was becoming heavily Pacific immigrants and East and South East Asians. It was fracturing the neighborhood. I knew many cats from here, many were of that older, well spoken culture that liked being sophisticated.  They were competing against a lot of Section 8 types though, that wanted to be in a Black enclave and there aren't many in SF.

The odd ones....the last of the angry White guys....

S.D.I.-Sunset District Incorporated.....just White guys from the Sunset seeing their whole world go bananas on them. Heavily concentrated around the Catholic Schools, therefore seen as rich, traditionalists, hung with Skinheads....therefore seen as racists. Many were, just third to fourth generation Irish that like their Irish neighborhood and 32 fuckin' counties, right Aye! Kidding and not, lots of fuse money from that culture.

W.P.O.D.-I don't think these guys were really a gang but someone said they were a crew around Haight Street back in the day that was not to be laughed at....White Punks On Dope...if I remember right, maybe on Rancid's first they are mentioned in the Thanks To...I thought it was Rancid....yes, assumed to be racists.

H.P.-Hunter's Point....a District, historically the real, valuable land Black neighborhood that had the misfortune of a military housing project and Candlestick Park in it. Think about it.....what District is always getting funding....and always has debilitating riots and youth crime...HP! Yeah, I had school mates from there, friends....dangerous fucking place.....

F.Y.-Fearless Youth, multiethnic, taggers, house dancers, great guys, got shot at with them.

R.P.B-Real Pinoy Brothers-Philipino Bloods-Do not underestimate how quickly they will respond with weaponry

O.T.O.-Over the Ocean....Tong....yup, the Chinese didn't ever take shit, serious they would explode into a killing frenzy that made their gangs famous. Whole units in the SFPD are still probably dedicated to them....it was the lead up to Hong Kong though, shit just got a little crazy until the kabosh came down.

W.C.-Wai Chang-Translation, Fuck You Machete bitch! That's what I presume, seriously dodged a stomping from them, a bunch of Catholic Black chicks surrounded me once they had me down....later the police found a shotgun in the gangster's car....shit tons of edged weapons....this happened in broad daylight in front of Stonestown Mall...heh....in the most liberal city in the World!

When you would write you friends tags up....especially your crew mates, it was called Roll Call!

Yup, taggers suck but otherwise you had to find a way to live on the bus ride home, you had to be down.

Down, yes, it's been too long in the North. Millenial Woes has caused me to remember many things I fear still deeply. 

Being robbed is humiliating, you ready yourself for betrayal on all sides, no group is good, not even bad apples....you are all at odds....your parents vote different ways.....you all go to different churches if at all....and the gays.....well, that makes certain cultural distinctions quite clear in most of my experience. 

Immigrants....they aren't fond of gays, politically they are at odds, and many immigrants remember colonial exploits....they have stories....MAMBLA loves a cheap fare to the Philipines...eh, get me?

Okay, I am in need of other diversions and this is really just something I wrote to draw on my memories....

R.O.T.-Reign of Terror....oh, the names....King Ties, Master Troop....I think they were in R.O.T.....Fear, Dark, Joker, Force, Lost, all of these are followed by a One...like Lost One, Fear One....New York tradition.

Yes graffiti crews and gangs of 1990s San Francisco brought to you by a mark ass yellow motha'fucka' from Park Merced....the 'White Projects'.