Mission Mission

Hey, hey! Now’s your chance! Remember the way Phil Bronstein compared it to Milk? Epic. Can’t wait to watch it again.

Anyway, what I’m most thrilled about is now I can watch the opening two seconds over and over and over any time I want. (Before, I said three seconds, but I think they might’ve trimmed a beat for the home video release.)

This mesmerizing animated GIF has something to do with some Día de los Muertos festivities planned for next month. All of a sudden I’m excited for fall!

The question is, will Meli be all done up like this for tonight’s Butter Lap? Show up and find out, I suppose.

“Free paint!” Exclaimed our buddy Joe Finkel on Facebook a minute ago, “San Francisco is pretty cool.” That’s right. Recology SF explains:

Most of the latex paint we receive at the San Francisco Household Hazardous Waste Collection Facility [501 Tunnel Ave, San Francisco, CA 94134-2940, (415) 330-1400] is recycled on site and given away for free. If you would like some of our free paint, just stop by during regular business hours, 8:00 am – 4:00 pm, Thursday through Saturday.

Read on.

Thanks, Joe!

Photo by Stencil Nation.

Last month some friends took me out to this spot called Beelitz, an hour out into the countryside southwest of Berlin. It’s 60 or so beautiful old buildings, all abandoned and falling apart, and it used to be a mental hospital. My favorite of the three or four buildings we had time to explore was the one with an entire fucking old-growth forest on the roof.

I pride myself on always blogging things in a timely fashion, but I’ve been busy and I just now got around to “developing my last few rolls of film,” so I apologize for the untimeliness of this collection of extremely stunning photos (if I do say so myself), but here it is. Please trip out.

Previously:

Berlin Mystery Girl

Biking in Berlin

Reader Laurie V. wants to know:

“Cinema Latino” is what that old pillar-sign seems to say. There’s
some recent construction inside; they seem to have inserted a new
floor halfway up the structure; you can see it through those two big
holes they punched in the facade. There are some planning notices out
front but they don’t really tell me anything. Anybody know what’s
going on?

All I know is that place has really gone down hill ever since they eradicated that epic Ribity. Anybody else have the scoop?

Photo by bsii.

Building upon the deluge of nostalgic Dolores Park photos that surfaced earlier this week, MM reader friscolex clued us in to the gold mine that is the San Francisco Public Library History Center Blog.  And what a gold mine it is!  Here we have a photo of Mission High School students eating lunch in Dolores Park in 1958.  Myriad interesting things here. 

First of all, these “high school” students look a lot older than most high school students I see around these days.  In fact, they look older than most undergrads!  Perhaps they’re not really high school students at all but are merely playing the part a la James Van Der Beek.

Furthermore, I’m not quite sure, but all of these students look pretty white.  Although this may just mean that they weren’t on the city champion soccer team, I’ve got a feeling that most of their fellow classmates were white as well.  50 years later, it seems that things are a little different.

But that’s not all from the SFPL HC!  Check out these amazing early (1965) designs for BART trains!  Supposedly, BART promised “trains automatically timed to arrive at stations every 90 seconds during rush hours, [and] BART is guaranteeing everyone of its passengers a seat[!!!]“  I wonder how that worked out.

Nevertheless, the SFPL History Center is a gold mine.  Be sure to check it out and support it however you can!

Previously:

Dolores Park 20 Years Ago

More Photos of Dolores Park 20 Years Ago

Mission Soccer: A San Francisco Dynasty

SFist knows how to get in on the action.

Last fall, writer Jordan Conn spent some time with the Mission High soccer team. This week, his piece was finally published by a magazine called Good Men Project. Here’s how it starts:

The guy on the trophy looks white.

This much has been decided as the Mission High School soccer players pass around the statuette they’ve owned for four years running, the foot-tall piece of wood lined with bronze that represents their status as the best soccer team in the city.

The figure who sits atop the trophy, the one the players rub with reverence, the one whose company is coveted by all of the city’s coaches—well, he doesn’t look a damn thing like his current owners. His hair is parted perfectly to the side, too long to match Jose Guevara’s close-cropped spike and too neat to resemble Diego Tamayo’s faux-hawk. His jersey looks like it belongs on an Ivy League rugby player, with its plunging neckline and its collar folded down.

And the shorts?

“Those things are hella short,” says Jose Mendoza, laughing as he points. “You can’t be wearing those around here.”

Read on.

This is the point I’ve been trying to make lately with all my posts about Berlin and Salt Lake City. But Jim Rock really hammers it home right here:

Thanks, Jim! Hit the road, everybody!

Needles + Pens announced last night that they’ve got a new zine in stock called Evil Levi, and it’s about our neighborhood’s run-in with Levi’s over the summer. There’s a decent comment thread happening on their wall post too. Check it all out.

Image courtesy of T-Shirt Bordello.