Mission Mission

Remember when you were 13 and tried to make your own motorcycle out of duct tape, aluminum foil, and stuff laying around your backyard? I’d hate to spoil it for the strange bearded dude that works on this thing, but it usually ends in a broken collar bone and a pile of twisted metal.

(Fell and Van Ness)

Photo by dreamyshade.

(via reader James P.)

Tonight is your opportunity to a) support the arts and b) get yourself out of that Valentine’s day hole you’ve dug.

The Poetry Store is featured at Secession gallery’s show opening tonight, enhancing already awesome photos by Armand of Mission Loc@l and Julie of i live here: SF.

Armand + Silvi

Julie + Silvi

Freshly crafted poems in bottles go a long way, guys:

Secession, on Mission between 29th and 30th (across from Safeway). The opening runs from 6:30-9:30.

Elizabeth Gilhooley (American, 1981-), Immovable Iconography, 2010, trash receptacle, washtub, bicycles, GAP bag, 4.5′ x 6′ x 5′, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO.

Emalie found this abandoned sea shell at 22nd and Folsom, obviously left behind as cataclysmic flood waters receded back to the ocean from whence they came, leaving the ark ready to repopulate the world.

Emalie take lots of nice pictures, but they’re all locked up in her Facebook (is that grammatically correct these days?).  Free your pics, Emalie!  That goes for all the rest of you, too.

Previously: Catholicism Strikes Again

Chasing the Moon is a great video podcast that highlights local bay area bands. The performances are filmed in HD and recorded in a professional studio one block away from the best Vietnamese sandwiches in town. I’m serious about the quality of these productions; they make Nirvana: Unplugged In NY look like it was filmed in Super 8. Ok maybe not, but that shit looks good considering their budget of no budget.

In the pagan tradition, the podcast is posted every full moon, which works out to just about every 28 days.

This past Saturday, I was fortunate enough to sit in during their session with the Nice Guy Trio, a very unique jazz group on the Mission’s own Porto Franco Records.

The Nice Guy Trio in action. I had little reason not to believe that they are actually nice.

Producer Brian Berberich and recording engineer Scott McDowell do all of this work out of the goodness of their music-lovin’ hearts. They see is as an opportunity to keep their industry chops up and promote the awesome local music that’s going on.

The atmosphere at the session was really professional and they seemed to have things streamlined well. If they were stressed out, they hid it well. Once things got rolling the whole filming and performance took less than an hour.

Spectators sat in a corner of the studio on comfy cushions from the couch and were asked to stay quiet during recording. Restraining applause until "CUT!" was actually really difficult and awkward.

Chasing the Moon is expanding to do monthly premiere events with live performances at the newly opened Viracocha on 21st and Valencia. Their first was on Jan. 29 and you can expect to see more soon. The Nice Guy Trio premiere will be in 2 or 3 months.

Thanks to Brian, Scott, and the Chasing the Moon team for hosting and chatting with me! More pictures after the jump.

Update: Brian had this to add:

Elijiah Pahati is actually the biggest reason Chasing the Moon is so great.  He is the Director, Director of Photography, and Editor, and is why everything looks good.  He is also our partner, every bit the owner Scott and I are.

So yeah, props are due to the Directory Elijiah Pahati! Sorry for leaving him out.

(more…)

Even if we assembled a think-tank supergroup of the most cynical Mission bloggers whose sole purpose would be to come up with the best Marina zingers that the world has ever seen, there’s no way we could have come up with anything more absurd than the real thing:

(via that up-and-coming blog BoingBoing, almost as big as Mission Mission)

Update: I feel like I owe this to the Pad. Here is their explanation (via James Fallows):

I’m only sorry the intention of this drive was unclear to you. Actually, our drive was a part of a bigger organized effort spear headed by the founder of JADE yoga mat, during the weekend of the annual San Francisco Yoga Journal Conference. JADE asked studio owners, teachers, students alike to give up their old or used mats so that the thousands of suffering people in Haiti may have somewhere softer the  ground to sleep.

So yeah, it’s a misunderstanding, but you gotta admit it’s a funny misunderstanding. Like that time my math professor wrote that equation “f=avt” on the board in a way that looked like “f=art”. The class had a giggle, he set the record straight, and got over it.

These really work for me, people. Don’t you just want to dive right in?

Photos by Marijke J.

This beauty awaits you on 16th and Guerrero. Now all you need is a ManBearPig suit and you can put the finishing touches on your “the Shining” themed guest room.

(via MrEricSir)