Mission Mission

On Saturday Red Bull sponsored some cycling festivities downtown. I missed the race, but saw some stunt stuff, and turned down more than a few free Red Bulls.

The whole time, all I could think about was that time our friend Alex Barkett transcribed from memory a big chunk of the dialogue spoken by Red Bull’s announcers at that soapbox derby they hosted in Dolores Park a couple years back. When I got home I looked it up, found my post, but was sad to see Alex had taken his blog down, and that the masterpiece I was remembering might be lost forever.

Luckily for us, he had it stashed away somewhere, and agreed to send it over so that we might publish it here for posterity. I’m not sure if it exactly sums up this past weekend’s events, but it probably captures some of the tone pret-ty well. Anyway, it makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. Here we go:

Stu, is this great or what? This is great Jay! It fuckin’ rocks to be here right now in San FRAN-CISCO!!! Give it up for these fans. Let’s hear the fans. Whoooooooooo! Hahaha. That’s right. We’re here in Dolores Park. Red Bull bringing it to us so hard right now with the Soapbox Derby in DOLOR-ES! Whooo! Let’s throw it down to my boy Shiboya. Shiboya! Wassuuuuuuuup?!

Yo, yo this is Shiboya here. Ha ha HAH! RED-Buuuuuuull!!! I’m on the ground here with Skeeter. Say wassup Skeeter. WASSUP!!! Hahaha. Skeeter’s here reppin’ Team ESPN College Gameday. Give it up, give it up! Lot of fans out here. Red Bull baby. Now Skeeter, I gotta ask, on a scale of 1-10, how well is your team gonna tear up this race here today?

A million! We are gonna fuckin’ uh…like, uh….tear it up! YEE-AH! Give it up!

Hahaha, aight Skeeter, aight. You heard it here, a million baby! Can’t wait to see this go down. Back to you Jay.

That was Shiboya with Team ESPN College Gameday. Wow. 1 million. That’s high. That’s a high number Stu, what do you think? Can they deliver? I don’t know Jay. It’s gonna be tough. Whenever we do the 1-10 question, we never get an answer below 12. So there’s some good competition out here. Red Bull brings it hard baby! Skeeter told us earlier he expects his car to reach 200 miles per hour. That’s fast. Wow. Can they do that Jay? Stu, I don’t know. Average speed has been about 16 so it’s a lot. It’s a lot. Here comes the skit. Let’s see what they got for us.

Alright alright! Here comes Skeeter. Whoa! Where did he get that blonde wig? Halloween stores look out! This guy is comin’ for yo’ wigs!!! Hahaha. Red Bull baby. What’s he doin’ now? Ooooh. Crackin’ a beer. They are shotgunning beers. Oh man. Insane. IN-SANE. Red Bull Soapbox Derby here in San Francisco. Keepin’ it real. Alright that was the skit. That was it. Don’t know how the judges will score that. Here they go.

That is one giant football racin’ down the street Stu. Yes it is Jay. The question is this Stu, are they gonna hit the jump? Are they gonna make it to the jump. Can they get there? To the jump. It’s all about the jump. Well the track is pretty straight. Everyone makes it to the jump. But I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s gonna be insane. Here they come. Heading for the jump. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand. WHOA!!! No way! Major air! Red Bull style air. Takin’ it up a notch. Wow Stu. That jump is about 1 foot higher than the rest of the street. Team College Game Day went about 6 inches before those front wheels hit the ground. IN-SANE AIR!

And here they come to the finish line. How are they gonna stop the car? This is gonna be crazy. Let’s see what happens. Let’s see what happens. They are comin’ in hot. And…45 seconds was the time. They’re slowing down. Slowing down. Turning left and right to slow things down. And they come to a smooth stop. Wow. Impressive. Wait! What’s this? Oh no! They’re tipping over! Tipping, tipping. Oh. That giant football just spiked itself! The fans are applauding. Some of them. That was crazy. Don’t know how the judges are gonna score that. 45 seconds. Good score. That puts them about 15th place. Team ESPN College Game Day layin’ it all out. Let’s give it back to Shiboya. Shiboyaaaaaa!!! Where you at?!

Hahaha. Yo yo this is Shiboya here. Crazy run right there. Give it up fans! SAN FRAN-CISCO!!! Whoooo. Hahaha. Red Bull bringin’ it to us all day long baby. Back to you Stu.

Thanks Shiboya. Jay, can you believe we’ve still got 34 more teams to go? I can’t Stu. I can’t believe it. Let’s give it up to our sponsors. Red Bull baby! And how ’bout these after parties. After parties goin’ off everywhere. Everywhere. Extreme Pizza in the Mission is gonna be off the chains. Thick and thin Pizza on 16th and market is already jumpin’ boyee. And how about Uncle Vino’s Pizza in Union Square, all you can eat croutons tonight. Alright Vino! Really throwin’ it down. Okay here we go. Next up is Team Cargo Shorts. Team Cargo Shorts. Come on fans, give it up for Cargo Shorts! Red Bull baby. GIVE! IT! UP!

So, that was a riot. Why’d Alex quit blogging? “I was tired of getting viagra comments (useful though they are!!!!!), so I decided to just take the whole thing down.” Smart.

[Photo of Storts by 3NRON] P.S. Busy weekend for Storts, right? Here he is on Sunday.

UPDATE: Check out this great shot by Erika:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgcZWaLUXLY

The press release doesn’t explain how exactly this relationship came about, but for some reason Bob Mould has begun DJing regularly at Flour and Water. Here’s the skinny:

Music begins at 5.30pm and will extend throughout the entire evening; Mould will join flour + water in celebration at 9pm.  Come and meet the artist!

Bob Mould DJ nights are the first in a series of artist DJ collaborations at flour + water.  We have teamed up with NoisePop to bring these exciting DJ nights to you.  These evenings are sought to deliver what flour + water does best: pasta, wine and loud music.  From Mould’s play list on May 2, look to enjoy a little Ringo DeathStarr, Dum Dum Girls, No Age and Foo Fighters…just to name a few.

No Age AND Foo Fighters?? I thought you had to choose one or the other. I guess Bob Mould knows best.

Full press release after the jump:

(more…)

The Fog Bender reports:

right when i got off work yesterday i saw smoke rising from the freeway and heard sirens coming from all around so i raced to this pedestrian overpass right next to where the smoke was coming from.  i got there right in time to catch a picture of this white VW bug just moments before firemen extinguished the flames.

[link]

I had to double back when I walked past this bike.  It may not look so big in the photos, but seriously, this bike dwarfed the car behind it.  I didn’t get a chance to see who it belonged to, but judging by the size of this thing, that person would be hard to miss.

Now let’s all watch some vintage Mummies:

Whoa, sweet Trouble Makers bumper sticker too:

Now let’s all read a vintage Troublemakers interview I did.

Without that big iconic awning full of big cartoon tortas.

The least these guys could’ve done is put up a more bulbous awning, with big cartoon Italian pastries on it.

UPDATE: Our pal Jacob L. just wrote in with another pressing concern re: this new awning:

Can we talk about the side of this awning on the 21st side?  First of all, it says “Um ! !”…do they mean “Mmmmm!!”, as in this is delicious…or are they puzzled about something?  Also, I am pretty sure “trees leches” is not the type of cake they are going to specialize in there…tres leches possibly, but milk trees cake doesn’t sound as good.

Here’s your daily dose of enthnomusisnobbery. Those guys walking around the Mission with guitars? Not Mariachi. Mariachis wear the Three Amigos getups and feature violins as the lead instrument (not just trumpets), according to this informative video:

It goes on to point out that if you want the real thing, you gotta go to San Jose or LA.

Use that on your next date at Cava 22 to impress. Here’s some sample copy: “Actually, this doesn’t quite fall under the Mariachi idiom.” Be sure to use an extra nasal and high-pitched voice when you say “actually”.

SF Appeal reports:

A female driver and her one-year-old passenger were hospitalized this morning after she crashed into a fire hydrant in San Francisco’s Mission District, police said.

The woman struck her 1995 Toyota Camry into a hydrant at the intersection of 23rd and Mission Streets at about 4:15 a.m., San Francisco police said.

The one year old suffered life-threatening injuries, and was taken to a local hospital. The driver was also taken to the hospital, with injuries that were not life threatening, police said.

Car accident victims who sustained injuries may read this CBD review to find cannabis products that can help provide pain relief.

Read on.

[via Grand Coffee and Ariel Dovas]

We all know a grilled cheese is 10,000 times better with avocado on it. So what do you do when your favorite bar runs out? Send someone to the taquería up the street for an avocado side and some green salsa:

Makes the tots better, too.

The old feud.  Who will win?  Parking in the Mission is a nightmare.  I had a car when I first moved to the neighborhood.  After my first week living here, I had amassed 3 parking tickets and quickly decided that having a car in the Mission is a luxury reserved for royalty and visiting heads of state.  Many years of bicycling later, I’m quite pleased with my decision, even if day trips to Point Reyes are a lot more difficult to pull off now.