Mission Mission

Ooh, this sounds fun!  New local volunteer travel agency Humanitravels, who specialize in sending clients to Peru and Guatemala on volunteer vacations, is opening its doors for the first time and to celebrate are holding an urban scavenger hunt in the Mission:

Participants will race around the neighborhood solving Latin America and volunteering based challenges. We’ll use the richness of the neighborhood to fuel the hunt. Some clues will be found in Mission murals, other in local non-profits, others still in local businesses which are also contributing grab bag prizes.

There’s loads of prizes as well including local restaurant gift certificates, discounted trips and random dollar store finds.

If you’re  not doing anything on Saturday come out and join!  The fun starts at Reaction Restaurant (2183 Mission St. @ 18th) and lasts from 2pm – 5pm!  Check out the Facebook event page for more details.

[Photo by joelaz]

Tomorrow (Saturday) the Mission Neighborhood Center is hosting live poetry and storytelling about “the Mission and beyond”. They’re raising funds for their GED program, and all the money goes straight to their students’ testing fees.

Help out the kids! $10 later they’re that much closer to glory! You were a kid once too, someone probably gave you ten bucks.

Precita Valley Community Center at 534 Precita Avenue, 8-11pm.

Chrome gear on the cheap AND free beer? It will be a happy Friday indeed:

Bags $45, Shoes $20 – great deals! (Up to 80% off.)
Sale starts at 10:00 am on Friday, April 15th – get there early to get the deals and come back for FREE beer and music at 5:00.  Chrome SF, 580 4th Street @ Brannan

I’ve been to a few of these Chrome events before, and not only are they a good time, but I’ve also snagged some pretty sick deals in the process (bright yellow messenger bag, you can do no wrong).

Tomorrow (4/15) from 6-10pm a new non-profit, Art With Impact, is having a fundraiser at Noma Gallery.

There will be music from DJs, Wam Bam Ashleyanne and DJ Radius. You can be involved in some kind of live video performance piece, plus enter a raffle and eat and drink your little heart out.

It sounds pretty rad. you can get tickets here.

The annual Cesar Chavez Parade starts at 11am on Saturday at 19th and Guerrero, and culminates at 24th and Treat for a big block party with lots of food, music and crafts.

So besides having a nice little Saturday out being festive and whatnot, what does this mean for you? It means watch out for those pesky paper “NO PARKING” signs that seem to pop-up when you’re not looking and then your car gets towed, when just yesterday it was totally cool to park there and now you’re out $400.

But seriously, block parties are awesome. Bring on the BBQ!

[via FunCheapSF]

[Photo by Eli the Bearded]

Local filmmaker Garry Bowden‘s new short film “Saturn Rising” premieres tonight at The Roxie. Along with the short there will be poetry readings, an art show and a live performance by Wild Child, whose music is in the movie.

Show starts at 7:30pm, $10 tickets.

Check out the trailer:

The Dave Hillyard Rocksteady 7 played an afternoon show at Bender’s last year and they are making a stop there again this Sunday.

This all-star group features members from the two of the best traditional ska revival groups of the ’90s, the Slackers and Hepcat. They will be joined by living legend and percussionist Larry McDonald of the Skatalites, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Toots and the Maytals, and Lee Perry. Expect heavy instrumental reggae and rocksteady sounds with Dave’s signature jazzy chops.

Free rocksteady and BBQ! Does it get any better? The show starts at 1:30pm 3pm at Bender’s on 19th and S. Van Ness. Here’s the event page, and a snippet from the last show:

Update: Dave says the show actually starts at 3pm.

Not sure how I missed this (oh yeah, I was in ‘nam), but WNYC’s Radiolab did a live taping at the Mission’s Brava Theater last week, hosted by another heavy hitter in the podcasting scene (and SF native!), Jesse Thorn. Illustrator Jay Sacher was there, and whipped up an excellent illustrated review at meathaus.com.

If you haven’t heard it, Radiolab is like the this American Life of science radio. They take a broad science topic, like “symmetry” in this case, and do a number of stories on it. Jay points out that their production is a bit cutesy and they sometimes glaze over the real science to drive their narrative home, but I maintain that it’s still an entertaining show and you should totally add it to your podcast list because it will totally impress people “in the know”.

Head over to meathaus.com for the full piece.

[Thanks for the tip, Suzanne!]

Two Sundays ago it was raining pretty damn hard in the middle of the day. I ducked out of the storm at Mission Comics and Art where I got to watch a delightfully geeky discussion group about how lame the Star Wars prequels were and how epic Jeff Smith’s Bone series was. My kind of people! While I was there, I was finally able to pick up the Comic Book Guide to the Mission.

It’s a really great, intimate look at the Mission from the eyes of local artists. The book covers a lot of ground, including stories about being a lawyer dude trying to fit in at Pop’s, the hunt for the best taco, an anthropological observation of you-know-what-sters, and the history of Mission murals. Oh, and dating of course:

Speaking of Mission Comics and Art, Leef Smith and co. are hosting an art show featuring original panels from the CBGTTM. That would be a swell time to buy the book and meet some of the artists. It’s this Saturday, April 2nd  at 7pm. The store is on 20th and Mission.

FUTURESTATES is an ITVS (Independent Television Service) project which asks filmmakers from around the country to make a short film projecting a possible future for their city. For the first season I produced Tanuj Chopra’s PIA, which looked at the personal issues of San Francisco’s android population. The second season is now rolling out and I was lucky enough to be a producer on Remigration, a vision of the future for San Francisco’s working class, by local filmmaker Barry Jenkins’ (Medicine for Melancholy).

Tonight at Public Works (161 Erie Street, near Mission) ITVS holds their launch party for the new series. Two of the shorts will be screened, and series manager Karim Ahmad will lead a Q&A with writer/director Jenkins. The event is free, but you have to RSVP here.

Check out the Remigration trailer below, and you can also see the full (20 minute) movie here!