Mission Mission

I just got back from a couple weeks in Berlin. Berlin is fuuun! And one of the best parts is biking. They’ve got super-cute bikes (above), super-cute biking infrastructure (below), lots of epic stuff to bike to, and a citywide laid-back attitude that just makes everything more enjoyable.

Tons more nice pictures I took after the jump:

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[Photo by Carla Leshne]

VatRat1 reminds us of Hamm’s beer and it’s SF past:

The Hamm’s brewery in San Francisco opened in 1954 at 1550 Bryant Street, close to the Seals baseball stadium. The brewery closed in 1972. In the early 1980′s, the beer vats were rented out to punk rock bands, and it was a used as music studios until the building was renovated and turned into offices.

Don’t believe him? Well check out this amazing article from foundsf.org, detailing the Austin thrash band Millions of Dead Cops (MDC)  moving into the abandoned San Francisco factory in the early ’80s and repurposing the actual beer vats as living, practice, and punk show spaces.

Dave, lead singer of MDC, described the tanks as being 40′x 10′x 10′, able to house half a dozen to twelve people each, with ten or twelve vats on each of the four floors. At any given time 30 or 35 vats would be in use. Soon people started living inside the building’s hollow walls on little ledges, sometimes fixing them up quite nicely. With the bands’ energetic activity the space became a crash pad and a scene landmark for visiting out-of-town punks and punk bands, the site of after-concert parties and band practice sessions.

The article seems to indicate that the Falstaff Brewery, a couple of blocks away from the Hamm’s building, was the actual site of this crash pad. Still pretty amazing.

More at foundsf.org. Be sure to check out that awesome video, too.

Is Santa Rosa’s latest piece of public art a stunning monument to cycling, or a waste of a shit-ton of perfectly good bike parts?

Inhabitat has lots more pictures right about here.

UPDATE: It is a stunning monument to cycling built with unusable bike parts.

Marc found a little present today:

A top-drawer junkie whore left me an extra special gift pack in our sidewalk planter on little Adair Street:

Looks like someone was all dolled up and ready to party every which way with harm reduction.  They even rolled their own chemical free nicotine Buglers.  Clearly this was left from the pimp’s special reserve ho because the shit was so good she forgot she even had anything.

I hear Longshot Magazine hid 12 of these all over the Mission and will be releasing clues on the hour on where to find them! (No, not really)

Myles Cooper‘s latest music video is epic. Epic in a more modest way than his last one (the unforgettable Gonna Find Boyfriends Today), but epic nonetheless. Just look at that outfit!

Watch “Lord Love Music” here.

When I was little I used to pretend hobo vomit was hot lava, but Jenn here takes it to the next level. Maybe we can come up with a similar game for hoes on Capp Street or bros on Valencia on Saturday night.

Dave Chappelle caught me slyly trying to take a picture of him while we were each eating dinner at Pakwan.  He came over to the table and asked to see it.  Unimpressed by my photographic aptitude, he then asked me to delete it.

As I complied with his request and stammered an apology, a single grain of rice flew from my mouth and landed on the shoulder of his black sweater.  I wasn’t sure if he saw it or not, but I couldn’t take the risk, so I reached up and attempted to brush it off.  Naturally, that darn stubborn kernel wasn’t going anywhere.

Chappelle noticed and said, “I don’t even mind that you just spit a piece of rice on me.  Happens all the time.”  He pointed out that I didn’t really need to delete the photos since he was in a public space after all, but it was cool I did and that I should come outside for a real picture after he finished his cigarette.

When I walked out, I didn’t see him anywhere and figured I’d been duped by a master.  But then Mr. Chappelle emerged from a shiny black Escalade and said, “I wasn’t gonna flake on you.”  As my buddy snapped a photo of us, the beleaguered superstar muttered, “People are terrible.  There, I said it.”

Sorry for ruining your dinner Dave!  We all love you here in the Mission!  Please come back soon!

[Chappelle on 16th by jacobchills]

Photo by Phil Clark.

Hopefully they’ll still look like this for Halloween.

It was a dark and stormy afternoon, so not many riders showed up. But a handful of die-hards did, and the sun started peeking through the gloom, so we had a pleasant ride around town. SLC has a ton of new bike lanes, some good vegetarian food, is close to a lot of natural wonder, and has a neat-looking temple.

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