Mission Mission

Looks like this would be useful for a variety of purposes, from cleverly infiltrating Kink.com to unscrupulously picking your neighbor’s peaches, but in the end you will probably just run out of gas looking for parking.  Kinda looks like fun, though, in an Indiana Jones at Disneyland kind of way.

[Photo by Mike W.]

If you’re too timid to make the trek out of the Mission tonight to check out Berlin ping pong at the Rickshaw, never fear, because there’s something for you at the Knockout instead!  Local faves Terry Malts (who even get to use their real name this time!) are joined by The Smell, Broonies, and Life Stinks for a rad night of rock & roll.  Sadly, Nu Sensae had to drop out at the last minute, but the rest of the lineup is sure to knock your socks off!  Come out and get weird!

RSVP and invite your friends here!

When it comes to your usual array of Dolores Park activity enthusiasts, you’ve got your hula-hoopers, your tightrope walkers, and the occasional acrobatic troupe which may or may not feature people walking on stilts.  And then you’ve got our pal Chris Kalani, who has a request for our readers:

Find me more people who can do this with me in the park.

As much as I would love to join him, there’s just no way I’d ever be able to attempt that unless a soccer ball was involved (and then I’d probably blow it anyway).  But there must be some of you out there!  I mean, we don’t want Portland to outdo the Mission!  C’mon, who’s up for some tricks in the park?

[Link]

Hot on the heels of our most recent gustatory adventures in fun food combinations, we present the perfect marriage of Asian and Latin cuisine. Take some of the tastiest and MSG-laden seaweed around and dip it in some of the best salsa our neighborhood has to offer (from La Palma of course), and voila! A pan-Pacific party for your palate!

Previously:

• Guacamole and Indian pizza lettuce wrap recipe
• Hot dog recipe
• The Sushirrito
• CHINITO!

As fun as it may be to leave clothesline booby traps for cyclists attempting to traverse the narrow gap between the parked cars and moving cars, if you forget to flip it, some bigger car will always come around and do it for you.

Via our pal Jake, who pithily adds:

San Francisco: “A place to grow up.”

UPDATE!!! Commenter Jaime Q has the following to say about this:  ”I took this picture two years ago at B2B and it is still going around. I never got credit for it though.”

It’s been way too long since the last Lusty Lady party at the Makeout Room, so if you haven’t made the trek across town to visit, now’s your chance to check out all the fun here in the Mission!  And if you have to remind yourselves why the Lusty Ladies are so rad, please refer to our pal Josh’s piece for the Bold Italic.

RSVP and invite your friends here!

The following BREAKING PIZZA NEWS comes courtesy of MM reader Jason K:

Pizza Di Mano (3331 24th Street) is closing on May 25th.

New owners, Popo’s Pizza and Brew, will take over immediately thereafter. Popo’s is the same owner as the former West Oakland location. He’ll be serving unique pizzas (Mango Prosciutto for one!), BBQ Ribs, Rotisserie Chicken and they will be brewing their own beer.They will re-open on June 1st.

I for one was never a fan of pizza from poor Pizza Di Mano, despite my initial hopes back when they opened over two years ago.  Even multiple Jamesons across the street at the Attic weren’t enough to sway me once I had tasted the uninspired pie.  While this new place doesn’t appear to be offering slices and consequently won’t be challenging Arinell for the best slice in SF crown, perhaps they can offer Serrano’s some healthy competition. Because everyone knows you can never have too many pizza places in the Mission!

If you’re an artist who’s been looking for the perfect gallery in which to show your stuff, now’s your perfect opportunity with the first juried exhibition over at Gallery Hijinks!  They’re looking for works from all over the world and for any medium, and there’ll be live performances from sound artists and lectures from local artists like Renee Gertler.  Plus, they’re having an auction at the end of the month for all unsold works starting at 50% of the price!

Check out all the details here!

We were all pretty bummed to find out a while back that Valencia Playground and Pool was closing for renovation that would take over a year.  While we welcomed the idea of modern improvements like a new turf soccer field and futuristic playground equipment, there were also a number of concerns voiced by the community regarding access to these improvements, since the other recently created soccer fields in the Mission (Garfield and Franklin) have replaced the free-form pickup nature of the sport with rigid scheduled blocks restricting use that are a massive pain in the ass to reserve.

While efforts were made to reach out to the primarily-Latino footballers who played in this park and agree to a compromise on when the area would be available for free use, there was some skepticism as to whether the new allotments and enforcement would be fair.  Well, starting next week we finally get a chance to see how it will all work out, according to Patrick Hannan from the City Fields Foundation:

The full park will open later this summer but the new soccer field will “officially” re-open with a small ribbon-cutting ceremony at 930am on Tuesday, May 22 followed by some soccer play with the students from Everett Middle School. The soccer field and Valencia Street play area will remain open through the rest of construction.

Please join us! Should be a nice event and you can be among the first to try out the new soccer field.

Of course, not everyone seems happy about the news:

What’s the deal with every new playground not having shade? I can’t wait for this place to open, but it will probably take 5 years for whatever stupid little tree they put in to grow enough to provide shade. I’ll just have to take an umbrella.

and

I guess Im the complainer here. I hate this park. First they “accidentally had to cut down all of the beautiful huge mature trees. Then they removed all grass with cement (I mean side to side, front to back). Then they put in a bunch of kids shit even though there is a full great kids area just a few feet away. I hate it.

And those both seem to be reasonable points.  What’s your take on the situation?

Previously:

• They’re closing the park
• Valencia soccer sucker punch melee
• Mission Playground adds new concrete rubble pile play area
• New wave Valencia playground sprouting
• The sun sets on the playground of the future