Mission Mission

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of checking out Mark Growden in an intimate house-concert setting at the Porto Franco Art Parlor. He opened up with with this haunting improvisation on the bicycle handlebars.

It sounds like the type of music that would be playing in the background while an elderly Asian man explains the spiritual journey I’m about to take, shortly before being attacked by bandits from a neighboring village.

Mark’s new album, St. Judas is great and it was recorded completely live, after he and the band took a week-long retreat in the woods rehearsing and speaking to wild coyotes.

Previously:

• Mark Growden @ The Porto Franco Art House This Friday

I keep noticing this bit of sidewalk stenciling in front of a house on Valencia between 20th and 21st.

It’s not in S. Pigeon’s “Codes Of The City” guide, so I can only assume that this is the meeting place of an underground club where swingers try out all the latest non-standard sex positions. You heard it here first. Knock on their door and ask for an application if you’re interested. (Don’t really do that)

The battle for edgy chalk sign supremacy rages on at Frjtz, who is still in the lead for unpronounceable restaurant names.

Previously:

• Bowel, Please
• You Should Come In. Yeah.
• Regalito: “Made By Real Mexicans”
• Oh, Come On

This new Reggie Watts video is pretty awesome:

That clown guy is Jeff Seal and he used to live in the mission, so save your “not the mission” business. Also, it’s meta-as-fuck, there are beards, and features street art so it’s basically the Mission.

Kari alerted me to the fact that she’ll be telling a story at next Monday’s Porchlight SF storytelling series at the Verdi Club. I hadn’t heard of it, so I looked it up:

Porch light brings together an eclectic mix of storytellers for evenings of entertainment and inspiration. Each storyteller tells a 10-minute tale about a specific theme, without using notes or memorization.

It sounds almost exactly like the Moth, which I love because I’m a public radio podcast fanboy. That’s right, I’m staying perfectly goddamn true to Mission yuppie form. Seriously, if I was a chick I’d probably be crushing on Ira Glass, but I guess I’ll just have to settle for the less-dreamy Terry Gross.

The theme for Monday is “Beware: Stories Of Danger”.

Monday, March 15th, 8 p.m. (Doors open at 7 p.m.)

Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa Street, San Francisco

General admission tickets: $12.

From Peter R.

From the always exciting SE corner of the mission… a car somehow managed to flip itself over this morning on Cesar Chavez at Hampshire. I keep looking at the picture but can’t figure out how this happened…

Hope everyone’s ok. Careful out there, drivers.

My friend Emma spotted this sweet tank top at Golden Plaza Trading on Mission and 23rd.

I have a soft spot for Engrish T’s, which are among my peoples’ best export, and jokingly mentioned that “I need this in my life”. So of course minutes later she went and bought it for me. Now what should I do with it? Sew it into beer cozies? Give it a Turkish friend who just had a kid?

This, and more lovely DoLoPa (see what I did there?) shots courtesy of Linus Shentu.

Update: I think we’re being virally marketed to: http://hipstergirlsinmustaches.blogspot.com/

Well what did you expect to see? I’d personally like to see more lens flares, but it’s still pretty moving.

Walker Dukes’ artist bio:

I do Television shots for fun and make artistic pieces from them as well as more traditional photography and photoshop. My background is film photography from the time I was a kid. I have a BS (no kidding) in Radio and Television Production in 19??? from the University of Florida (Go Gators) {think ? and the Mysterians}. I studied art, photography, PhotoShop and graphic design at various times during the 20th Century at City College of San Francisco. I also currently like to meditate and do a breathing exercise called the 20 Connected Breaths. I like to think it helps me clear away some of the toxins that occur during this life.

(via the always fascinating Flickr Mission District pool)

Some folks decided to build a treehouse in the outer Mission’s McLaren park and want to invite you to do stuff there and take pictures. You know, for the environment. Here’s a clip of their craigslist ad:

Last week we built a tree house in McLaren park just off of Sunnydale Ave behind the school. It is rather sturdy, can hold up to four people and has an overhead tarp to protect inhabitants from rain. This treehouse was created with the intentions of imagining how the world might look if we don’t stop climate change.

This treehouse is free for use 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Please feel free to conduct any activities you like in this space. We ask that if at all possible that you take photos of your use of the treehouse or send us an email to talk about your thoughts and feelings on this project.

As an entrepreneur who advocates for sustainability, I’ve worked with a lot of businesses but CarbonClick are the best company we’ve used so far.

(via Kasper Hauser. This one is real, unlike the ads on their alternate-reality khraigslist)