Archive for the ‘Mission’ Category
by Mark Pritchard
August 8th, 2008 @ 10:44 AM
Courtesy SFist — which provided a huge public service by untangling the stupidity of Muni publishing dozens of proposed route changes on dozens of separate PDFs — here are all the proposed changes to Muni routes posted to SFist’s Flickr set. SFist rules today.
Among the several radical changes:
- Bryant Street is totally out of luck. No more service in the Mission District or South of Market. That means that if you wanted to take a bus to or from the Hall of Justice — like if your car was towed and you wanted to get it back — you have to catch a bus on Folsom and then walk two blocks.
More changes after the jump
Tags: Byrant, Haight, MUNI, PotreroHill
Posted in Cole Valley, Commuting, Haight, MUNI, Mission, Potrero Hill | No Comments »
by Mark Pritchard
August 2nd, 2008 @ 4:51 PM
Neighbors of Dolores Park (the park, not the restaurant) are getting grouchy about the large crowds gathering there on nice weekend days. Like the thousand fans of The Breakfast Club, shown last weekend, or the crowds of gay sunbathers from up the hill.
Worlds collide in the 13.7 acre swath of green on the border between the Castro and Mission Districts and directly across the street from Mission High School.
Speaking of crowd scenes, UC Berkeley journalism professor and prolific magazine journalist Cynthia Gorney has a piece in tomorrow’s NYT Magazine about merging at freeway lane reductions, a subject near and dear to anyone who has approached the Bay Bridge on 101 in San Francisco or driven through the Caldicott Tunnel. The latter clusterfuck provides her main example. She writes about “sidezoomers” versus the benefits of feeling virtuous while choosing to wait in the “lineup” of cars that are already in the correct lane. The online version has many nifty multimedia graphics.
Tags: Dolores Park, EastBay, Mission District, Traffic
Posted in Castro, East Bay, Mission, cars | 1 Comment »
by Mark Pritchard
July 26th, 2008 @ 8:17 AM
I was invited last night to attend a rather San Francisco1 event — live tag-team nude model wrestling at the Fortress of Pornitude, Kink.com. The local web porn provider — whose purchase of the early 20th century Armory building caused a small stir in early 2007 — streams and webcasts more than a dozen porn channels2 featuring nubile women (mostly) and men doing forceful, lascivious things to themselves and one another.
NB: Most of the links in this post from here on are NSFW and shouldn’t be clicked if pornography offends you. The language in this post after the jump also contains NSFW descriptions.
The all-girl wrestling match was held, with a live audience3, as part of kink.com’s Ultimate Surrender channel, which consists exclusively4 of this wrestling-as-porn subgenre.
Like many, I was curious about the Armory, a former National Guard facility which sat as an abandoned hulk over Mission Street for thirty years before the porn company moved in and cleaned up the building. And the prospect of watching several naked women cavort wasn’t unpleasant either, so I was quick to accept the invitation of Thomas Roche, an acquaintance from the erotica-writing game, who works there.
post continues after the jump
Tags: Armory, Dia Zerba, kink dot com, nude wrestling, porn, wrestling
Posted in Cults, Development, Entertainment, Mission | No Comments »
by Sean Bonner
July 23rd, 2008 @ 8:13 PM
Tags: Mission
Posted in Mission | 1 Comment »
by emgollie
July 14th, 2008 @ 6:57 AM
I always get a little nervous when I see San Francisco listed on the front page of the Sunday New York Times travel section. A haute restaurant here, a travel deal there: frequently their writing about places outside of the greater New York area seems to have an air of superiority. When I was in Chicago they ran a piece about Wicker Park that seemed condescending (to the effect of “Look at these funky people who live here! How quaint.”)
Yesterday’s piece on Valencia Street, “Hipster Hunting Ground,” wasn’t quite as offensive, but it still seemed to view the Corridor through a Brooklyn lens. The Curiosity Shoppe, Paxton Gate, Spork, and Ritual Roasters were all featured, and fairly. I was surprised, however, that Dosa was featured while Range didn’t get a mention; the same for Little Star (maybe I’m just a sucker for the jukebox and heirloom tomatoes). The piece, while limited in length, doesn’t capture the neighborhood’s character and even gets lazy toward the end: “Like the street itself, [Amnesia's] lineup is full of surprises.”
Tags: new york times, valencia street
Posted in Best Bars, Best Cafes, Mission, Shopping | Comments Off
by Kaili
July 12th, 2008 @ 4:29 PM
Ask yourself:
1) Do I LOVE Zombies?
2) Would I like to support local filmmakers?
3) Do I absolutely NEED to see a movie where a free puke bag is handed out?
IF you answered yes, Yes, YES!!! Then please proceed to the Victoria Theater at 16th and Mission for a limited theater release of RETARDEAD!

Retardead is a sequel to the heart-warming “Monsturd”. This movie has everything: an evil doctor, some mentally and mortally-challenged flesheaters, and the sexy Living Dead Girlz.
As I mentioned, they are handing out a limited amount of puke bags, which you may actually need in a few parts.
Last night they had a question and answer after the show.
When I asked how much blood was used, they said about 15 gallons. Now that’s art!
Posted in Art, Entertainment, Film, Mission, Movies, San Francisco, Weird News | Comments Off
by emgollie
July 7th, 2008 @ 10:56 PM
Two of my favorite things are set to convene this Wednesday: Ritual Roasters and Bikes to Rwanda, a non-profit that unites American roasters to improve the quality of life for Rwandan coffee farmers. A ping-pong tournament is set for July 9th at 5 PM at 1026 Valencia to help build five bike shops. Read: the $25 you could spend this week on big brand coffee could provide a co-op farmer with a bike toolset, including tire lever, frame pump, and wrench.
I’m a big fan of Clara Seasholtz, the founder of the organization that raises money for a low-cost bicycles that farmers use to transport supplies and 130-pound bags of beans. Seasholtz helped the group provide more than 250 bikes to farmers last year and is currently focusing on opening bike shops in Rwanda to teach communities how to care for and build bikes. She’s on a Northern California trip this week, and I admire her unique approach to using what she knows (the American coffee industry) to impact what she saw as problematic (Rwandan farmers lacking transportation to increase their marketability). Now that deserves some table tennis.
Posted in Best Cafes, Bicycling, Entertainment, Mission | 1 Comment »
by Mark Pritchard
July 3rd, 2008 @ 4:09 PM

With Independence Day on a Friday but gas prices bumping five dollars a gallon, we’re celebrating the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth close to home.
The first fireworks show is tonight at Pier 39.
The Mime Troupe’s newest musical satire making fun of conservatives, “Red State,” opens with a bang tomorrow in Dolores Park at 1:30 pm.
The Giants host the Dodgers in a three-game series at Big Phone Company Park.
Fun for all. Spend ‘em if you got ‘em! And save water!
Tags: cats, lolcat, Mime Troupe
Posted in Cults, Entertainment, Giants, Mission | Comments Off
by emgollie
July 2nd, 2008 @ 9:40 AM

The three-month-old clothing and curios shop BellJar (don’t go too dark) in the Mission is hosting a show in two weeks with work by Jon Carling. The California College of the Arts grad’s ink drawings are imaginative, and, like the shop that’s hosting him, darkly romantic. You can preview his work on Etsy before the June 26 event at 3187 16th St. If it’s anything like the last one, champagne and beautiful tattoos will abound.
Tags: Art, Mission
Posted in Art, Mission | 2 Comments »
by Mark Pritchard
June 22nd, 2008 @ 11:36 AM
I was sitting at my desk at noon today when I heard the all-too familiar sounds: rapid gunshots, then the squeal of tires as a car makes its getaway. Waited a few minutes, then went down to Cesar Chavez. Several cars were pulled over to the side, two of them with bullet holes like the one shown here. But I didn’t see anyone who was injured.
A crowd gathered, many of them gesticulating as they described the incident over and over, and then police arrived, at least seven or eight minutes after the shots were fired.
The only thing unusual about this incident was the time of day. Usually this kind of thing tends to happen more around 10 or 11 at night.
Tags: Cesar Chavez St., drive-by, sfstreets_cesarchavez
Posted in Crime, Mission | Comments Off