Mission Mission

Our new favorite thing to do at Bender’s: Examine the dozens of funny confiscated (or donated or maybe discarded?) IDs encased in three custom-made tabletops across from the food counter. Some are funny because the pictures are funny. Some are funny because the names are funny. Some are funny because the quality of the forgery is funny. At the very least, you’re sure to at least find one that looks like someone you know.

Our new second favorite thing to do at Bender’s: Eat burgers at the bar’s free Sunday afternoon backyard barbecue.

Previously on Mission Mission:

You Heard it Here First (and then the Chronicle caught on): Bender’s Bar Great for Low-Key Nights Out

Bars of the Mission: Bender’s Bar

Photographer Deb Zeller, who books shows at the Make-Out Room and runs Playing in Fog, just published these photos of some cute puppies she met in Guatemala. Aww! A bunch more here.

Previously on Mission Mission:

Funny Photo of Puppy All Tarted Up for Carnaval

Puppy Pals Reunite at 16th and Mission (Video)

Tonight from 6-9pm, Little Tree Gallery is serving free Trumer Pils, in conjunction with some art or something. Further details via funcheapSF here.

Photo by tom ferris.

This here is an outtake from Be Afraid: San Francisco’s Parking Stencils of Doom, a photo essay by Telstar Logistics‘ Todd Lappin set in the Mission District. In it, you get to see one of DPT’s stencil technicians in action!

Photo by Telstar Logistics

Asked where to get good Chinese in the Mission, Drew answered:

For good Chinese takeout I go to Hung Yuen on 22nd between Bartlett and Valencia. Their trilingual (Chinese-English-Spanish) menu is very amusing, and the food is quite good. You can even watch Hung Granny making the pot stickers by hand.

Link. I’d like to meet this Hung Granny. I think I’ll go right now.

I don’t know, man. And that website they mention is kind of boring. Zzzzzz.

Photo by hailtothethief21. [via Mr. Saucy explains it all]

Previously on Mission Mission:

Live From New York: Wheatpaste Hillary in an Obama ’08 Hat

The Water Front screens tonight at the Roxie as part of Laborfest‘s International Working Class Film & Video Festival. Some publicist was supposed to drop off a screener, but they didn’t, so here’s the boilerplate:

This powerful film by Liz Miller tells the story of the destruction of Highland Park, Michigan, the birthplace of mass production and good paying union jobs for hundreds of thousands of workers. The destruction of this industrial powerhouse leads to corporate schemes to save the city by privatizing the water system. Homeowners start receiving bills for thousands of dollars and face the shutoff of this basic necessity. Some bills reach $10,000. The film follows Vallory Johnson who turns her anger into organizing a grass roots campaign for affordable water as a basic human right.

The literal criminal destruction of tens of thousands of homes in the Detroit area is a stain on the history of the United States. Obviously there is no oil in Detroit, just human beings.

Link to official site. [via funcheapSF]

Mission Mission pal Michelle D. recently (kind of) went to a concert at Million Fishes Arts Collective:

[I]t has the most intimate, living room feel that i’ve experience in a venue, granted i didn’t stay for the music. i was almost intimidated to go inside, because it felt like i was intruding on a private party, with a smallish crowd murmuring conversations that got absorbed into the couches and the living room aura. perhaps that’s also part of the reason i didn’t stay — i felt like once the music started, it might feel too intimate a setting to be able to relax in anonymity and leave when i so pleased without turning heads.

For the record, Michelle was trying to see Ash Reiter, but Ash had already left the stage by the time she arrived. Anyway, is she right? Is Million Fishes the homiest place to see live music here in our humble purlieu?

Photo courtesy of Million Fishes.

Over at the Free Farm Stand, Tree extends an invitation to one and all to maybe go blackberry picking this weekend:

The black berries on Bernal Hill are ripening and I was thinking of checking them out in more detail and possibly picking them if they are ripe enough on Saturday possibly in the morning. Please contact me if you are interested. I will also harvest plums and loquats in the Secret Garden the same day.

Link. In the same post, Tree also has some interesting things to say about a possible communication breakdown within San Francisco’s urban gardening community. Like why shouldn’t behemoths like Slow Food Nation join with smaller projects like Free Farm Stand or Graze the Roof to form an all-encompassing sustainability superbeast?

Photo by Top-O-Towner.

Previously on Mission Mission:

Who Wants to be an Urban Farming Intern?

Treat Street Treats

Just read that Yum Yum House is closed for good. Never ate there meself, but always liked the signage. Where’s it gonna end up? Anybody else vote for on the wall at Bender’s next to the old Leather Tongue signage?

Photo by Jeremy Brooks.

Update: In the comments, codesmith poses another question…

WTH? First Firecracker and now Yum Yum. Where’s a person to get some half decent Chinese in the neighborhood now?