Mission Mission

My friend Sole ran across this on her way to work this morning. I guess they hadn’t opened yet though.

Street Food meet Street Drink.

[Thanks Sole!]

Now with more gender-specific curses than ever before!

(Thanks Christian!)

In an effort to help out the city of San Francisco as well as all of us Muni riders, one Mission resident and his crack team of programmers took to the internet and did in one weekend what city officials said would take 5 years to complete. SFGate has the details:

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has every intention of spending a few years and untold dollars creating its own, more robust version of the tool. But the team hacked together the basic parameters of the SMART Muni app in a 48-hour stretch in late July, fueled by pizza and beer.

Read on.

Previously:

• Pink-clad superhero team unsticks a stuck Muni bus
• Man vs. 14 Mission vs. being punched in the face
• Flight to San Diego faster than Muni ride from Lower Haight to Downtown

I’ve only met Amit Gupta a couple of times, but I could tell right away that he is one of the most charismatic, creative, and talented guys in the Mission. You may know him as the founder of Photojojo, a site full of great photography projects and products. He also happens to be the roommate to some other awesome people.

Amit was diagnosed with Acute Leukemia two weeks ago and has started treatment. He will need a bone marrow transplant, but South Asian donors are severely underrepresented.

Here’s how you can help:

1. If you’re South Asian, get a free test by mail. You rub your cheeks with a cotton swab and mail it back. It’s easy.
2. If you’re in NYC, you can go to this event. If not, encourage your NYC friends to go.
3. If you know any South Asians, please point ‘em to the links above.

South Asia means India and surrounding countries, in case you missed that day in class.

For more details, see Amit’s blog.

Update: Even if you’re not South Asian, do it anyway. Many other minorities are underrepresented in the donor pool and need help.

Shine On is next big thing! It’s a new indie pop night at Public Works on first and third Wednesdays, featuring some beloved local DJs hipping us to a very special era in rock history. DJ Jamie Jams fills us in:

We’re going for a late 80s, early 90s, UK indie vibe, drawing heavily from Smiths influenced jangly guitar pop (Smiths, Wedding Present, Stone Roses, early Primal Scream) but also more underground cuts from Sarah Records, Creation Records, Slumberland Records, Rough Trade Records and Factory Records.

The idea is to use that as a reference point and mix in all the classic garage, girl groups, punk and post punk stuff that influenced the C86 movement, with the 90s, 2000s, and current bands that draw from that sound. There’s also going to be a baggy/dream pop/shoegaze element as we follow the late 80s musical progression.

If we stick around long enough, we might even drift a bit into acid house territory, but I think its going to take a few nights before we start dabbling in that more than a little bit.

Here are some pertinent details on tonight’s inaugural edition:

Matinee film screening, 9pm-11pm. This month’s film: Upside Down: The Story of Creation Records.

$5, Free with RSVP before 11pm. $3 Olympia cans and cocktail specials all night. $2 shots before 11pm.

RSVP and invite your friends here.

After the jump, a handful of relevant tracks, in YouTube video form, hand-selected by Jamie Jams himself. Thanks, Jamie!

(more…)

Treasure Island Music Festival is a two-day party in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. It rules every time. This year’s is coming up October 15th and 16th:

Saturday:
Empire of the Sun
Cut Copy
Death From Above 1979
Chromeo
Dizzee Rascal
Flying Lotus
Buraka Som Sistema
Battles
The Naked & Famous
YACHT
Shabazz Palaces
Aloe Blacc
Geographer

Sunday:
Death Cab For Cutie
Explosions in the Sky
Beach House
The Hold Steady
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Friendly Fires
St. Vincent
The Head and The Heart
Wild Beasts
Warpaint
The Antlers
Thee Oh Sees
Weekend

I mean, it’d be worth the price of admission for Thee Oh Sees alone. But if you want, you can enter to win a pair of free two-day general admission tickets by posting a picture of yourself making your best “I want to go to Treasure Island” face on our Facebook wall or to our Tumblr submit form. One winner will be chosen based on merit. Contest closes at noon on October 12, 2011.

Or just skip all that and buy tickets here.

Our buddy Jeff Seal just made this:

A delite-ful picture film full of fun and folly. It stars a Brooklyn ‘bicycle messenger’ and a mysterious lovely lady! Will he be able win her over or will he be stopped short by the gypsy’s curse? Running time: 14:43. Rated PG-13 for magic, unsafe cycling, and adult situations.

We were walking down Valencia this past Saturday evening when someone passed us from the other direction carrying a fairly standard ordinary metal chair.  Not too odd, until someone further behind yelled “CHAIR!!!” quite loudly, which caused the first to drop the chair and hurriedly walk away.

The voice turned out to belong to a waiter from Grub down the street who collected the chair and started walking back to the restaurant.  When asked what had caused the commotion, he explained that someone had simply grabbed the seat from an outdoor table as they were strolling by and tried to walk away with it.  They had gotten about a block and a half away before getting spooked by the pursuing waiter and dropping the loot.

Does this sort of thing happen often?  I also remember sitting in the Gracias Madre front patio area eating an overpriced but delicious nopales taco when a person who looked like late ’80s/early ’90s Robert Smith passed by on the sidewalk, then doubled back and into the patio to nab a few of the decorative blankets piled before the front windows.  All I did was chuckle that time, and the waitstaff didn’t seem to notice.

A blanket I can understand given San Francisco’s schizophrenic weather, but this begs the question:  Who steals a chair?

Get ‘em while they’re hott! Available now at Pushbike.

[via Pushbike on Facebook]

Here in the Mission we saw the scene from afar, but it looked a bit gnarlier up close, as you can see — and it displaced a bunch of nice people. Thankfully, a bunch of other nice people have set up a benefit tonight at Peacock Lounge:

$10 at the door. Music, food, beverages all donated to support the Relief Fund for our neighbors.

FEATURING…

- Food by Memphis Minnie’s, Wing Wings, Chilli Cha Cha, Rotee, Rosamunde, and more

- Beer courtesy of Mad Dog in the Fog, cocktails from the Peacock Lounge bar

- Three Twins Ice Cream, back doing what they do best — scooping the cold stuff

- A raffle of amazing prizes, slated to include:

• Gift certificates to Animal House, Blackbird, Idle Hand Tattoo, Merch, Three Twins, and Uva Enoteca, as well as acupuncture treatments and massages from Thriving Life Wellness

• A pack of clothes and accessories from D-Structure

• A gift bag of chocolates from Nosh This

• Bags of fabulous cleaning products from SF-based Method

• A longboard and vintage-style cooler from our friends at Pabst Blue Ribbon

• An expertly-curated selection of books from Booksmith

• Top-shelf beverages from Danny Coyle’s

• A gift certificate and invitation to a soft-opening party for upcoming Lower Haight restaurant Maven

• And more!

That’s TONIGHT, October 4th, 7pm-10pm at the Peacock Lounge. Bring lots of friends (and cash), and we’ll handle the rest.

Most importantly, it’s at the PEACOCK LOUNGE. How often do you get a chance to party inside that mysterious place? RSVP and invite your friends here.

[Photo by Devon Chulick / SFist]