Mission Mission

This really long sentence by local blogger anadromy paints a bit of a picture:

The guys running it seem cool and I’m glad they’re able to charge $11-13 (wut?) for slender burritos that don’t ever fill me up (plus extra for chips!) and still be so busy that it takes damn near half an hour to prepare an order (so that if you’re on Divis and you’re really hungry and you think to yourself, “Well, I’m near that place Little Chihuahua that I’ve always found expensive and overrated but I might as well give it another try” and you wait in line for what always feels like five minutes too long and then you remember almost the instant you order and the smiling guy behind the counter says “should be about ten minutes” that he is in fact a goddamn liar and that the place is so full of people who obviously just stepped off a Google shuttle that you’re not going to get your food for long enough that you might as well have walked the extra half mile to genuinely delicious and also much less costly Mexican food on Church Street) but come on, folks.

Oh and:

We don’t really think it’s good do we?

[link] [Photo by Tamara R.]

UPDATE: According to some responses on our Facebook page, it’s good for vegetarians…

[via Finch Linden]

In the New York Times last month, author Ada Calhoun wrote a great piece about how we feel about our neighborhoods as they change:

I think there’s more to these “the city is dead now” complaints than money. People have pronounced St. Marks Place dead many times over the past centuries — when it became poor, and then again when it became rich, and then again when it returned to being poor, and so on. My theory is that the neighborhood hasn’t stopped being cool because it’s too expensive now; it stops being cool for each generation the second we stop feeling cool there. Any claim to objectivity is clouded by one’s former glory.

I know this well. As a teenage girl in the 1990s East Village, every door was open to me and my friends. There was no party we could not crash, no person we could not make out with and no intoxicant we would not be offered. The city was ours. In the pre-Giuliani era, a fellow East Village woman reminds me, “You could still piss on the street.”

And check out this line:

I remember what it felt like getting ready to make something exciting happen, to feel a sense of the city and time radiating out in all directions, like the spokes of a wheel, with me and that night at the center.

I remember when the Mission felt like that. (Hence those photos up top from back before decent phone cameras.) (I’m turning 35 in a couple months, maybe somebody younger should take over this blog?) (Anybody know anybody good?)

Seriously, read the whole thing for a lot of great points that might change your mind or make you feel better, including a great note about Keith Haring.

[via kottke.org]

This Saturday at Pops Bar is SADDERDAY! Your favorite emo, pop-punk, scream, post-hardcore and indie from the 90s & 00s ALL NIGHT! As an extra bonus, DJ Kevin Kannibal and Ashley Suicide are giving away tickets to the Senses Fail/Silverstein concert at the Regency Ballroom on November 27th. Get ready to sing, scream, cry and dance. It’s Sadderday!

Check out this week’s entertainment line up at Pops Bar:

11/17/15 TUESDAY

Trivia Tuesdays

Pops Quiz

$2 to play

8:30-10:30PM

Join us every Tuesday of the month and test your wits at Pops trivia night “POP’s Quiz” where your brain may get stump on categories such as Pop’s culture, Sports, Movies, Music and more, with little snippets of audio and visual effects too! So come on in for some good ole fashion competition and a night of drinking with the crew! It is a 2 dollar cover and winner gets the pot!! so tell friends and family because the more peeps the steeper the cash prize is!!

MUSIC THERAPY

Electro-Cumbia Breaks, Hip Hop, Nu Latin Beats

9PM-1:30am

No Cover

21 UP

11/18/15 WEDNESDAY

Spike’s Live Piano Karaoke

Every 3rd Wednesday 7-10pm with Karl on the Keys

WHATEVER WEDNESDAY

9PM-1:30AM

Whatever Wednesday is YOUR PARTY, literally. You got DJ skills? Have you been itching to show ALL your friends? Its your turn to take over the night and mix it up. Send us your request, your best mix and we’ll see what we can do to get you your turn.

Email: tom@popssf.com

No Cover

21 UP

11/19/15 THURSDAY

Happy Hour Entertainment 6-9pm with DJ Sektor spinning Retro Thursday.

BFF.FM Night

9PM-1:30AM

Rotating DJs from local BFF.fm radio! This week: Hang the DJ with ZeroOne

Join us for a night of post-punk, power pop, and new wave. Cold beer, cool people & rad music.

Come support local community radio.

No Cover

11/20/15 FRIDAY

Haight Street All Stars

If you are looking for a good time, Todd’s rock and roll band, “The Haight Street All-Stars” will exceed your highest expectations. Featured at the Haight Street Fair this year, the blues/rock sensation, “The Haight Street All-Stars” will keep you dancing throughout the night. Playing songs to the likes of James Brown, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Albert King and many more. “The Haight Street All-Stars” are fun from beginning to end. Come on out to enjoy some soul in San Francisco !

Cult of Choice
9PM-2AM

A night dedicated to those of us who turn the music up unreasonably loud in our own living rooms just to feel the vibration, who stand feet from the stage attempting to understand how the guitar player gets that sound, who travel to places around the world because of the music that was born there, who connect with music as their own unique form of worship.

We have many a musical cult to choose from, and every 3rd Friday, we do our best to honor them all. From T.Rex to Tinariwen, John Holt to Howlin’ Wolf, Baris Manco to Merle Haggard, Ann Peebles to Arthur Russell, Rza to Ranking Dread, Fania to Fela.

Cult of Choice is hosted by a ragtag group of record collectors and music appreciators with the sole intention of sharing music with you. So come listen, dance, and even talk to us! We’d love to tell you all about who you’re listening to.

This Week

Record Selections by LP, Lord Cromwell, & casias

Live hiphop performance by Brothers Amor & Karen Less

No Cover

21 UP

11/21/15 SATURDAY

COMOLOCO

6-9PM

COMOLOCO is rich blend of rock, funk , reggae and cumbia, with always a very danceable Latin influence, this band offers a vibrant show that will get people to dance.

SADDERDAY EMO NIGHT

SADDERDAY

an emo/pop punk/scremo/electro dance party

DJ Kevin Kannibal and Ashley Suicide

Get ready to relive the days of white belts, myspace, and bangs. Lots of them. We’ll have a bathroom photobooth for your next profile pic, a wall for posting emotional updates, and a costume contest for the best scenester. Expect music from all your faves like Alkaline Trio, Thrice, The Faint, Get Up Kids, Boys Night Out, Taking Back Sunday, Moving Units, and many many more!

9:00pm-1:30am

No Cover

21 UP

POPS BAR

2800 24th Street @ York

San Francisco, CA 94110

www.popssf.com

When we heard the ”The Wicked-ly talented, one and only Adele Nazeem,” (aka Idina Menzel – i.e. Elsa from Frozen, Elphaba from Wicked, Maureen from Rent) was coming to San Francisco with her latest Broadway Show If/Then, we knew we had to take this opportunity to see the star live. Growing up Rent-heads, we were even more pumped when we learned that her fellow co-star, Anthony Rapp (who originated the role of Mark in Rent), was also part of the star-studded tour. So like the musical fan-girls we are, off we went to the Orpheum to see two of the voices that helped us get through middle school.

Idina Menzel and Anthony Rapp in If/Then

Brittany: I can’t believe that likely the only time I’ll ever see Idina Menzel and Anthony Rapp live, I didn’t feel like giving a standing ovation.

Katie: I know! Idina Menzel was amazing! She’s ridiculously good, but I couldn’t stand for an ovation either. Why are either of them in such a mediocre show?!

B: I wonder if it’s an early mid-life crisis thing? If this show really speaks to her as a 44 year old woman who’s feeling “I’ve done all these things with my life, but is this really where I want to be?” It’s hard to believe she’d have regrets though, given she’s one of the most famous women in American theater. Although breaking up with Taye [Diggs] would make me question my life decisions too. I actually like the idea behind the show; the little decisions you make end up changing the course of your life, but the execution was kind of corny.

K: Totally corny. The structure of the play just didn’t really hold up for me, bouncing between one possible fate and another. Of course, she’s gonna end up with the love of her life in both story lines. Fate? Really?

B:  So true. Aside from one or two songs the music isn’t that memorable either.

K: All the songs pretty much sounded the same to me. The play sounded like one generic – extremely well sung – song. Other then Idina Menzels beautful voice, nothing really stood out to me. Overall, I was expecting to be more wowed.

The Verdict: If you’re a Idina Menzel or Anthony Rapp fan, it is really awesome to see them live. Otherwise, if you’re only going to drop Broadway Tour kinda money once this year, we’d say skip it.

The Drama Talk: Idina Menzel is flawless. Anthony Rapp is so fun to watch on stage. Although we didn’t come into the theater knowing her as well, LaChanze was also stellar. The rest of the cast is not nearly as strong as these three, and since the supporting roles are pretty big parts, it made the show feel uneven. The play itself wasn’t a hit for a reason. The music doesn’t make a huge impression, and the show feels a bit disjointed as it jumps from one possible life to another.

The Drinks: Since the show was slower than we hoped, we got some sparkling wine at intermission. Skip the main bar in the lobby and head straight to the Blue Room near the entrance to order drinks, that is if you didn’t think ahead to pre-order before the show started. 

If/Then runs through December 6th at SHN’s Orpheum Theater. There are currently tickets available on Goldstar for $40-60. SHN is also doing a new “mobile lottery”, so if you’re feeling lucky go to the SHN website, download the app, and try to win $25 tickets (you can buy up to two if you win). Otherwise, you can buy tickets directly from SHN which will run you from $40-$200+ depending on the seats.

Looks like a nice neighborhood, and like a part of SF you probably haven’t explored enough, right?

(Check out brand-new San Bruno Avenue Corridor Manager Luke Spray‘s Instagram account for this photo and more right here.)

I watched most of A View to A Kill on TV in a hotel room last night. It was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, but it contains a pretty entertaining car chase through San Francisco, some cool stuff with the bridge next to AT&T Park — and a fight scene atop the Golden Gate Bridge:

AND one of the fighters (the supervillain trying to destroy Silicon Valley) is a young, blonde Christopher Walken:

It’s a pretty great cast actually:

Terrible movie though. (But maybe you should watch it.)

Now, not very related, but let’s rock:

Author Ocean Howell wrote this book about the beginnings of the Mission as we know it today, and is giving a talk about it at the library this weekend.

Here’s a blurb about the book:

In the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, residents of the city’s iconic Mission District bucked the city-wide development plan, defiantly announcing that in their neighborhood, they would be calling the shots. Ever since, the Mission has become known as a city within a city, and a place where residents have, over the last century, organized and reorganized themselves to make the neighborhood in their own image. In Making the Mission , Ocean Howell tells the story of how residents of the Mission District organized to claim the right to plan their own neighborhood and how they mobilized a politics of place and ethnicity to create a strong, often racialized identity–a pattern that would repeat itself again and again throughout the twentieth century. Surveying the perspectives of formal and informal groups, city officials and district residents, local and federal agencies, Howell articulates how these actors worked with and against one another to establish the very ideas of the public and the public interest, as well as to negotiate and renegotiate what the neighborhood wanted. In the process, he shows that national narratives about how cities grow and change are fundamentally insufficient; everything is always shaped by local actors and concerns.

And here’re details on the talk:

“Do cities make neighborhoods or do neighborhoods make cities?” (Eric Avila, University of California, Los Angeles.)  Ocean Howell discusses his new book, Making the Mission, challenging assumptions about the complex relationships that shape neighborhoods, as well as the historical narratives.

When
Saturday, 11/14/2015, 11:00 – 12:00
Where
Latino/Hispanic Rms A & B
Main Library
100 Larkin St.

[link]

In more Mission related news, a new restaurant opens up in Bernal Heights.

We were able to get a copy of the menu.

-Miles Harrison

I was intrigued.

I put in my $2

I went with the Peanut Butter and Thai Chili (Mae Ploy)

The sandwich came out.

Precision Peanut Butter / Crustless Italian

Not bad for a sandwich made of peanut butter and Thai chili sauce. (fanta not included).

Here’s a video of the process:

Located in the heart of the Mission on Cortland Street in Bernal Heights, the Bistrobot resides in  Andi’s Market.

-Miles Harrison