Mission Mission

Bat Bombs, your guide to tags in and around New York’s Lower East Side, just spotted this cheap Ribity knockoff.

Right? Or was Ribity so trashed one night he forgot how to spell his own name? Or does this have something to do with Marc Jacobs too?

P.S. Be sure to check out Bat Bombs’ “Why?” page.

Previously:

Ribity Makes Virgin Mary-Like Appearance on Sole of Area Man’s Running Shoe

Telstar Logistics just published a photographic guide to some of San Francisco’s most truly dazzlin’ pieces of neon signage, and a couple Mission District favorites are in there. See the light.

The San Francisco Guardian Angels brought their stoic brand of street justice to the Mission on 9/17 and posted the patrol log today.

Did you think standing around in a line with your arms folded neatly is all it takes to be an Angel? Think again! They also do litter clean-up:

Same old story, the bad guys see us they run that way and they this way, but they leave and it calms down. But we just don’t leave that fast, the second team stays posted up at the BART STATION while the first team checks the alleys. First team then arrives back to the BART STATION to the second team to advise us, they pick up dirty needles and that the alley is all clear.

Special shout out to 16th St. Walgreen’s, everyone’s favorite crime-fighting resource:

Next we get to our rest stop WALGREEN’S, bathroom break, smoke break, and water break. If we did not do this or if we did not have this Resource, we could not stay out as long as we could.

Read the rest of their patrol log at the SF Guardian Angels blog.

Tomorrow night, Friday 9/24, at Coda on Mission and Duboce, a 14-piece supergroup of San Francisco bay area musicians are getting together for a some sets of good old Ray Charles music. The arrangements were done by guitarist Mike Irwin Johnson, of the local bebop group 8 Legged Monster. The band will be called, simply, RAY BAND.

I’m told that every female singer in town was interested in one of the three coveted Raelettes pantomiming backup singer spots. And who who wouldn’t be? They ended up with Allegra Bandy, Rashida Clendening, and Karen Fremont, who all look great in long gloves.

So who plays the part of Ray Charles? Well if you were to ask me to choose someone, I’d say the soul-dripping Lech Wierzynski from the California Honeydrops. Turns out I’m not alone. I don’t know how far Lech is going to take this role. Will he be wearing dark sunglasses and jerking spastically to the music? Will he stumble around after the show and feel up ladies wrists to determine whether or not they are hot enough to shack up with later? (It’s in the movie Ray, dude. Netflix it.)

The show starts at 10pm and costs 10 bucks. Tickets and more info here.

Update! Mike informs us that Lech isn’t Ray tonight. Instead, Dylan Germick of PLANET BOOTY will be filling the chair!

Sexpigeon jokes that it might be a portable hummingbird feeder, but he would like to know for real.

Go Climb a Rock is an expertly curated parade of vintage photographs of granola-eaters hiking around in the woods. Or it usually is. This week, they published this shot of a couple of very modern-looking girls hanging out atop Corona Heights Park.

At first I was like, “What is this thoroughly modern tableau doing cluttering up an otherwise–” And then I realized: no Transamerica Pyramid. They’re a couple of hippies, way back in the stone age, climbing a rock. But they look just like us!

The more things change, the more they stay exactly the same, right? I saw both those pairs of sunglasses at Buffalo Exchange the other day, I swear.

Met these guys on the strip last night after they had cycled through Flamingo and gotten chased out by the security guards.  One of ‘em was on the phone trying to meet up with the rest of the gang to find out the next spot to hit up.

For the Flamingo run, phone guy was the leader and picked the route through the slots on the fly, scattering drink girls and bronzed, pot-belly’d Medicare recipients in his wake.  Meanwhile, middle finger dude carried the rearguard, security officials nipping at his heels.  Celebration by track-stand up the escalator.

For anyone wishing to join them on their cyclical adventures:  these rapscallions can sometimes be found at SF Bike Polo by 21st and S Van Ness (since they got kicked out of Dolores) when they’re not terrorizing Las Vegas casinos.  Tryouts next weekend!

(original photo via Telstar Logistics)

In the comment section of the Cinema Latino / Crown Theater article, reader “like a fox” brings us this interesting tidbit in my response to my plaintive wail, “Could you imagine something like Oakland’s The Fox in the Mission?”

Your wish is granted. The *other* theater across the street – New Mission – is slated to become a music venue – with the Fox being the model. Unfortunately, the New Mission doesn’t have the architectural splendor of the Fox. Don’t know how the funding or permitting is going, sorry.

Gus Murad’s club and height limits are well known, but the idea of a Fox-like entity in the Mission is a new one to me.  Any readers with more information?

(More Mission Street theater history porn here, and more pictures inside of New Mission here.)

Even over a century ago, bikes were hot stuff in SF. Streetsblog tells us all about it:

The bike clubs organized century rides around the Bay Area and annual “Bike Meets” where the fastest cyclists would compete against each other before large audiences. One of the biggest ever was during the 4th of July weekend in 1893 when an estimated 20,000 spectators would jam a special track built at Central Park just south of City Hall to watch the scorchers as they hurtled around the loop.

Daaang! I guess cycling isn’t a newfangled hipster fad after all. I mean, look at that dude up there… one of the original cool dads.

Read on for even older pics, talk of “boneshakers” and more.

[Thanks, Joshua!]

Ramona Emerson’s latest Things San Franciscans Like column is up, and it’s a keeper as usual. It’s called “Things San Franciscans Like: Not Being San Franciscans,” and it contains stuff like this:

Everyone you meet in San Francisco is champing at the bit to tell you how they’re not from here, and will try to insert their own place of origin as often as possible:

“Do you know where the bathroom is?”
“I’m from Eugene.” (Which you shouldn’t necessarily take as a ‘No’)

This is like a siren’s call to other people from Oregon, and someone nearby will be obligated to ask if this person perhaps knows their cousin’s cat Misty.

Read on.

Map scan by Carrie.