Mission Mission

My buddy Josh from the Mission SRO collaborative alerted me to a community teach-in and press conference going down tomorrow at Dolores Street Community Services on Valencia between 20th and 21st.  Here’s the what:

San Francisco city officials and low income housing advocates will launch the newly expanded 311 that will benefit the more than 18,000 SRO residents throughout the city.  Formerly utilized mainly for outdoor issues (potholes, graffiti, parks, etc.), 311 has now been expanded to address building issues, such as pests, inadequate heat or water, blocked fire exits and more.  Advocates and city officials will be hitting the streets to get the word out and encourage residents to utilize the new service.

The event kicks off at 9:30 a.m.   District supervisors David Campos and David Chiu will be in attendance, among others.

The Mission SRO Collaborative program is an interesting one, and one whose efforts we’ve been happy to highlight in the past.  The non-profit provides outreach and education to residents of Single Room Occupancy (SRO, duh) hotels in the Mission, of which there are around 50, housing around 2,000 people.

It’s nice to hear there are organizations remedying all the shitty SF homelessness.  Me, I just work for the Internet.  The Internet doesn’t help anyone.

Check it out if at all interested.

I know.  You want to do your part for Haiti, but you’ve already stuffed your face to the limit with Bi-Rite bake sale goodies and texted 90999 from your mom’s cellphone at least twenty times.  Well, there’s more!

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief in Haiti is hosting a benefit tonight at El Rio (Mission @ Caesar Chavez) featuring quite a diverse collection of musical performances.  Headlining is Brass Menažeri, a frenetic, cascading rhythm of Serbian, Macedonian, Greek & Rajasthani Roma.

Other acts include the percussive jazzy stylings of Ezra Lipp and Ofir Uzier; Sean Lee with some one-man-banjo old timey twanging; Arthur Adams strumming some Haitian pop guitar (H-Pop>J-Pop?); and of course the Mission’s own La Corde opening everything up with some loud punk rock.  Makes sense, right?

$1 PBR and $2 well drinks!  Determine your own legacy of generosity at the door with a sliding scale that starts at only $5.  The music begins promptly at 8pm.

We all had a laugh at “Ecosexuality” a couple of days ago, but as it turns out, it’s a real thing and the event in question will be in the Mission at the Lab on Feb 13!

In celebration of Valentine’s Day and this new decade pregnant with possibilities for change and transformation, acclaimed performance artist and sex educator Annie Sprinkle and her partner, interdisciplinary artist and activist Elizabeth Stephens, take you on a joyous and inspiring journey as they explore, generate, and celebrate love through art. They will weave their amazing stories, share some dazzling images, and do mini-performances about their experiments in romance, artificial insemination, breast cancer, sex education, performance art weddings, and other love-inspired projects. Currently investigating “ecosexuality,” these two dynamic women are mapping a new field of research they coined “sexecology” — the place where sexology and ecology intersect. Perhaps you’ll discover that you, too, are an ecosexual.

There will also be an erotic cake contest. Go ahead and fork over the 7-10 dollarónes just so you can sit in the back, cross your arms with a smug half-smile, and act like you are sooo above this. More info at the Lab.

(Hey, if this is your bag, it’s none of my business. It’s 2010 and we are a kinder, more sensitive Mission Mission.)

URGENT! Mission SRO Collaborative is collecting toys for about 100 kids in need because Toys for Tots came up short this year.

These kids are seriously gonna have a shitty Christmas if you don’t help out. And I’m not talking about like when you were 8 and your mom fucked up and got you a Go-Bot instead of a Transformer. We’re talking no toys AT ALL for these little tykes. At this rate, these kids might prematurely stop believing in Santa (or black Santa) which will have some serious social ramifications (decreased cheer/goodwill towards man, disbelief in the easter bunny and muppets, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria).

Help stop the downfall of society now. Here are the details:

We need Toys (nothing fancy, just simple things like action figures, dolls, games, puzzles…you know the real stuff) by (This is the URGENT part) Monday 12/21 at 3pm.

How to get them to us: We are at 938 Valencia St. between 20^th and 21^st and we will take donations of Toys at any time between 9 and 6pm.

If you can’t stop by or need to make special arrangements, call me Jorge Portillo at 415-671-5089 or someone here at the Collaborative 415-282-6209 ext 16, 12, or 19 or email me at jorge@dscs.org or facebook or portillomail@gmail.com and I will personally see to it that they get here!

More at Dolores Street Community Services. Thanks Laurie @ Mission Locatl for the tip.

Okay, no pressure or anything, but the New York Times says there’s a Chihuahua surplus in the Bay Area, so we should probably all go out and get one, because we all live in a traditionally MEXICAN neighborhood and these dogs are from MEXICO.

So anyway, my theory is that everyone in the Bay Area saw the trailer for Beverly Hills Chihuahua and was like AW FUCK NO re: these little shits and returned their pups to the pup store.  Another classic Norcal vs. Socal debate.

Go ahead and share this one in your Google Reader with the note “Bitch is crazy. I miss Allan.”

Impressive feat of strength.

(via The Tens SF)

Steven Seagal: Both bro and Buddhist

Laurie forwards a note from the Director of the San Francisco Buddhist Center, in order to provide us with “another side of the story.”  Read on:

Dear friends of the San Francisco Buddhist Center,
The SFBC wants to let you know about a situation that will potentially have a big effect on our ability to practice at the Center in the future (and for residents, to live in the building.)

Some of you are familiar with cafe Medjool which is just behind the Center, on Mission street. A couple of years ago they opened an unpermited outdoor rooftop bar. The reason I know this is because of the nights I spent feeling like my apartment was vibrating with sound, even with both sound windows shut, a pillow over my head, ear plugs in my ears. The blasting music and shouting from the bar also disrupted meditation classes. Over a couple of years the city was inundated with complaints from the neighborhood so the rooftop bar was shut down (the rest of the business is still happening) so things have been quiet again for several months. There is a Board of Appeals hearing this Wednesday that will determine if they can open the bar again.

Medjool has launched a “Save Medjool” campaign, claiming that the city has gone mad trying to revoke their permit for the outdoor bar (they never had one) and that neighbors and the SFBC are “whiners” since Medjool paid for the sound windows in the building (also not true.) (And their noise is far beyond the level of sound windows anyway).

“Save Medjool” signs have been cropping up in the Mission, as if it’s some kind of ‘power to the people’ thing. My guess is that people who like the bar do not know what the real issues are, that is is illegal and a hazard to the neighbors and the Center which by law has precedence because it is a religious community established here for 10 years before Medjool came into the scene. But the Save Medjool Facebook page has almost 1700 members! The page invites people to the hearing, with Save Medjool buttons to wear, and offers free transportation! So I think the meeting may be packed out with Medjool supporters.

If you want to help try to “Save the SFBC meditation hall” (from seeming like it’s in the middle of a rave or raucous cocktail party), PLEASE COME TO THE APPEALS HEARING WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 18 AT 5PM.
Wear an SFBC t-shirt (or if you don’t have one, something light blue? Or whatever!)
Location:
City Hall, Room 416, One Dr. Carlton B Goodlett Place.

Please let me know if you have any questions.
Suvanna Cullen
Director, San Francisco Buddhist Center
suvanna@sfbuddhistcenter.org

Fair enough.  Don’t forget to attend if interested, it sounds like the Buddhists may be outnumbered by the Medjoolites and could likely use the manpower.

Should we get some “Team Bro” and “Team Buddha” t-shirts printed up?

The skinny: the FCC fined Pirate Cat $10,000 and is effectively taking them off the air.  Instead, they will switch to an internet-only format and continue run the cafe on 21st.

Sometimes blockquoting a press release is just easier than reporting:

Pirate Cat Radio, a volunteer-run, community broadcasting organization operating out of the Pirate Cat Café in San Francisco’s Mission district, has ceased its terrestrial broadcast on 87.9FM in response to the latest demands of the Federal Communications Commission.

In a notice dated August 31, 2009 the FCC asserted that Monkey, the founder of Pirate Cat Radio, “willfully and repeatedly violated Section 301 of the Communications Act of 1934” and proposed to fine him $10,000 for the infraction.

By bringing to bear the full weight of the Federal government against continued broadcast operations, the FCC’s order effectively ends Pirate Cat Radio’s thirteen-year run as one of the Bay Area’s most consistent voices of protest against corporate-run media monopolies and monocultural programming.

The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934, and was given the responsibility of making a “fair, efficient and equitable distribution of radio service”, and to ensure that broadcasters serve the ‘public interest’.

It is hard to understand how fining the founder of Pirate Cat Radio, an entirely volunteer run community station, and effectively taking them off the air after 13 years, is an appropriate action and in the public’s interest There have never been any complaints over PCRs content. Pirate Cat Radio provides an important community service one that has been recognized by the Board of Supervisors in a certificate of honor. They are one of the best sources of news and regularly broadcast Al Jazeera and BBC bulletins. The news is read in every 2-hour DJ slot. They make regular valuable PSAs and publicize local events. They take an active approach to involving the community, by bringing local unsung heroes and talents into the studio. Pirate Cat Radio provides a voice and outlet for many sections of the community of the Bay Area which cannot make themselves heard anywhere else.

If the public’s interests are to be served then ‘ordinary’ people must be allowed to make their voice heard and to be allowed to express themselves creatively without regard for commercial success. The FCC’s policy instead seems to be protecting the airwaves for the big corporations to pump out their bland, homogenized wasteland offering dull limited playlists, banal chat and censored opinions. Until this happens people must continue to challenge the corporate domination of the airwaves.

Looking to the future, PCR can continue as an internet only station and the café/studio on 21^stst will continue to operate, but at least for the time being, but it cannot safely broadcast over the terrestrial FM band without possibly jeopardizing its volunteers and supporters. How this will affect the service is not clear yet, although it is true that the majority of their listeners are now online or downloading podcasts.

“Obviously this is a major disappointment,” says Monkey, “But we made a collective decision that Pirate Cat Radio must come off the public airwaves, until some method is found to change the law or get it authorized under existing law.”

(link)