Mission Mission

The Hard French Winter Ball is rapidly approaching, and while there’s still a few tickets available, the deadline to nominate your 2013 Hard French King and Queen is tonight at 6pm:

We’re looking for extraordinary folks from our community who are smart, sweet, artsy, crafty, committed, bold, big-hearted, and of course, self-identifiably sexy and know how to shake their tail feathers!  Ultimately, it’s a chance to honor the folks who tend to put in more than they get back, to say thank you for being part of what makes our community so great!

Wait, you don’t even know what the Hard French Winter Ball is all about?  Well, just imagine 1000 folks from SF going down to Santa Cruz to party on the boardwalk at the Coconut Grove Grand Ballroom!  Check out all the details here, get your tickets here, and don’t forget to nominate those beautiful friends, lovers, crushes, and all-around heroes here!

Now that daylight savings is about to kick in and the sun in starting to set on our glorious Indian summer, that also means that the best daytime party in the Mission will be bidding farewell for the season, but not before one last blowout bash!  It’s all going down this Saturday, Nov 3, with festivities starting as they normally would on the El Rio patio before transitioning to Public Works at 10pm for a glorious afterparty featuring our pals Midnight Magic all the way from the clutches of Sandy in NYC.  And don’t forget to bring your dancing shoes, because these folks will MAKE YOU DANCE!

And the best part is that we’re offering two (2) free tickets to whomever can submit the best photo or story in the comments that embodies just how rad Hard French really is.  Or just post your rad Halloween costumes!  The contest ends promptly at 6pm on Thursday (tomorrow), so you better get cracking!  Also, don’t forget to check out all the details as well as RSVP and invite your friends here.

Oh, and did I mention that these folks will make you dance:

Just in case you’re unable to get all that deviance out of your system at the Folsom Street Fair this weekend, the afterparty is going down at Public Works this Sunday starting at 3pm and they’re closing down Erie Street to make it a danceteria block party featuring a collaboration of three of San Francisco’s most notorious underground queer collectives: Honey Soundsystem, Hard French, and Some Thing!

However, leave that ball-gag at home because this afterparty also comes complete with a goddamn FOOD COURT!  The fare speaks to either your naughty or nice side:

Good Cop:

Mr. Nice, up and coming environmentally sustainable gourmet food truck, will be providing the lighter side of things. 10 flavors of Three Twins Organic Ice Cream and its sausage and hot dogs made exclusively for Mr. Nice by Compass Star Catering. If you’ve been a good boy, maybe you will get one of the limited edition Folsom Frankfurters Mr. Nice is cooking up just for our event!

Bad Cop:

Angry Man Eats is taking all this S&M real serious for its part in the Folsom Deviants Food Court. Armed and ready with its signature ass-kicking Chicken and Waffles. Alongside the regular menu, patrons might need a safe word if they order the “Corporal Punishment Chocolate Waffle.” An Angry Man Liege Waffle on a stick dipped in rich chocolate with black and blue sprinkles on top.

Check out all of the details like DJ sets and other stuff here!

Congratulations to Cyd for this epic photo that pretty perfectly sums up the Hard French experience and serves as the winner of our free ticket photo contest!  We’re sure you and your friend will have a similarly magnificent time this Sunday, because Pride is finally upon us this weekend and Hard French is ready to celebrate like never before with a whole lineup of DJs and other fun stuff in additon to special guest Erase Errata!

And for the rest of you who might not remember all the details, check them out here!

I’ve expressed my love for Hard French in the past and have been exhorting you all to see what the fun is all about for some time, and now you have the perfect opportunity:  The Hard French 2011 Pride Party at Public Works on Sunday, June 26th!  They folks behind this weekly afternoon party are kicking it up a notch for Pride with DJs and live performances by some of the fiercest acts in the Bay Area.

The best part is that we’re giving away two free tickets to whichever MM readers post the raddest Hard French photo in the comments below!  Include a link to the photo (and a caption if you’re clever) and we will announce the winner at the beginning of next week!  If you have a Facebook photo, be sure that it’s set to “public” so everyone can see it, or just post it on Flickr or something.

Oh my.  I almost forgot to mention that the special guest will be Erase Errata!  Check out the full press release after the jump:

[Photo by Keep Drowning]

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If you’ve never experienced the magic that is Hard French, the wildly irreverent courtyard party thrown at El Rio on Saturdays, then you clearly aren’t doing this whole “livin’ in the Mission” thing right.  Luckily, this Saturday is your big chance to ameliorate that transgression, as Hard French is teaming up with Stay Gold and Mango to throw the most hella gay dance party afternoon of the year (so far) from 3-8pm.  Not only will there be rad jams and most likely a glitter kiddie pool, but your admission ($7-500 sliding scale) will help save the Dyke March which is in danger of being cancelled this year (and possibly forever) due to serious financial difficulties.  Check out all the deets here.

You’ve been warned, so don’t screw it up this time.

[Photo by Primo]

Jorge P. sent us a note about the inaugural event for a cool dance/BBQ party he’s throwing at El Rio:

The idea behind the event is that we want to modernize, takeover, revamp, trick out, revive, do up, the Outdoor Afternoon Dance Party Scene in the Mission… We want a party for everyone, a party, where drag queens mingle with lesbians, leather daddy’s soul dance with cholas, sharps share hot dogs with activists, jocks make out with twinks, brown meets white meets purple meets gay guy meets ladies meets q and everyone leaves with excited feelings for the next party.

The party is being Dj’d by Resident DJ newcomers and soul music wizards Dj Carnitas and DJ Brown Amy. They along with the rest of the Hard French crew are our music curators and throughout the summer, promise to bring it! with live bands, guest dj’s, performers and the like. All in the spirit of the maximum that is Mission SOUL Afternoon Dance and Food.

BBQ and Soul music! A bunch of subcultures which I’m not familiar with!! Sounds like a cool way to spend a Saturday. See the flyer for details.

Only thing is, I don’t know what the French have to do with it. Some say that the term “barbecue” comes from the French “barbe à queue, meaning “beard to tail” which sounds like how you would grill a hipster furry. That’s right, I made a crack about cannibalism, hipsters, and furries! If you were offended by all three simultaneously, we’d like to hear from you.