Mission Mission

[Not actual sign design by Steven Weinberg]

There’s some healthy debate going on in the post about the movement to keep Jack Spade out of the Mission, but there’s no doubt that our buddy Leef Smith, owner of Mission: Comics & Art, is the real deal. A San Francisco native, Leef is dedicated to maintaining a community space to show art, create art and of course talk about, read, discover and buy comics. Now he’s asking for our help to raise some funds to build a new sign so people can spot the store more easily.

He’s looking good on getting his goal, but if you really want to kick this starter into gear you can sign up for your own event at the store!

You’ve probably heard that Adobe Books had to leave their 16th Street location recently, and relocated to a new location on 24th Street. You’ve probably also heard that Jack Spade, an upscale retail store that is a spin off of Kate Spade which is a subsidiary of Liz Claiborne, was planning to move into Adobe’s old location well before Adobe had even publicly conceded to leaving. (For reference, check out Kevin’s reporting here)

Well, a bunch of “Valencia Corridor” businesses are opposing Jack Spade as a formula retailer brand from a multinational company, and therefore not a part of the Mission community. The opening of a store like this will pave the way for more companies to take root in the neighborhood, and push out the local businesses. Makes sense to me.

I’d also add that they really only appeal to a certain kind of well moneyed, overly groomed young urban professional scenester, but that’s pretty much the Valencia Corridor in a nutshell.

Anyway, you can sign their petition here, and the event should be fun, with proceeds going to “support the Stop Jack Spade campaign”.

More unintentional street art uncovered.

[pic I took of gunk on the ground]

[sketch I was moved to draw]

[questionable childhood inspiration]

In response to the news of the production of the new ape movie in North Beach, Christopher Forsley shared a piece on our Facebook page where he tells of spending a sunny day watching all the apes movies to date, and fearing an actual ape attack in San Francisco:

I laughed until the childish and trite political commentary steaming off those piece of shit flicks knocked me out with a smell so disturbingly thought provoking that I couldn’t help but ask questions about the state of American culture – questions like this: When did our nation regress to the point that our intellectual cravings are satisfied by generic, diluted, substance-lacking yarns like the Planet of the Apes flicks?

Read on.

Scenes from set- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. #film #sf #set #sanfrancisco pic.twitter.com/rR91bvyoWZ

— SF Film Commission (@Film_SF) July 28, 2013

Our “Apes”. #film #sf #sanfrancisco #PlanetOfTheApes pic.twitter.com/le4O8vpZSN

— SF Film Commission (@Film_SF) July 28, 2013

Great shot! RT @AlexSavidge: North Beach looks like a disaster. Luckily it’s Hollywood magic, filming scenes pic.twitter.com/3x41d9NI4y”

— SF Film Commission (@Film_SF) July 28, 2013

Meanwhile, the reviews are coming in for Blue Jasmine.

Cool short video piece by local filmmaker Bradley Tangonan. Tight editing.

Some context, via BART’s press release:

A milestone in public outreach for BART’s Fleet of the Future project comes July 23-26, when a full scale mock up of two-thirds of a train car interior will be set up for public viewing at MacArthur Station in Oakland.

You can kick the tires (metaphorically; after all, this is a wooden model of the interior of the car, and BART trains don’t have tires) between 2 pm and 7 pm from Tuesday – Friday on the concourse level of the station, in front of the multicolor peacock-feather-looking mural. BART has built the plywood model to give the public a sense of the proportions of the new cars, possible configurations of seats, placement of bike racks and handholds, so visitors can share impressions about these and other new features. Those going through the model will fill out a survey to give their feedback. Nearly 10,000 people have shared feedback so far on the project by attending other events, taking online surveys or emailing comments.

Our friend Meli sent this one our way, wondering how long till these show up in Dolores Park: The Blandito, the burrito pillow.

Thanks, Meli!

Time for another theater review by Katie and Brittany. Look, we do these because the three of us love theater and want to get more people under 50 interested in getting out and seeing something. This review may not do that, but don’t be turned away! Theater can be “dope” and “fresh”! Anyway, here’s their review:

Stage Werx often has fun shows. We can often be bitter. So when we heard about How to Make Your Bitterness Work for You, a solo comedy written and performed by Fred Raker, we figured we should check it out. The small theatre was packed with eager audience members ready to be brought along on this self help guru’s seminar journey. Over drinks after the show we discussed if How to Make Your Bitterness Work for You worked for us…

Katie: That show, and it’s bitterness, wasn’t really working for me. Was it working for you?

Brittany: It was working for me in so far as, I totally believed we were at some sort of a self-help guru talk. But I didn’t know how I had found myself there, because I thought I had gone to see a piece of theatre. Which I understand was the point of the spoof, but I found it equally compelling to a self help guru talk (which is to say not compelling).

K: I wish he had more interaction with the audience. Like when that audience member left, I wish he had called it out, but instead he got really awkward.

B: Right, at least in the portrayals I’ve seen of these sorts of seminars, the self help guru people do shit like making the audience repeat after them. And some of the audience was naturally doing that, and he didn’t react to that audience feedback.

K: I think it was humor and a piece for older folks. The older people in the audience were laughing and having a good time, and then I looked at people closer to our age in their 20s and 30s and they were as lost as we were. Some words that indicated it was humor not meant for us; “Buxom Blonde”. WHO SAYS buxom blonde? “Smarmy,” isn’t that from the 40s or 50s? There were others too.

B: I felt like I was watching something that was written 20 years ago, but then bizarrely he would drop a reference to Facebook or text messaging which seemed totally out of place. Most of the references I did not get, or at least they didn’t resonate with me.

K: The way he said “I wanted to plant a big wet one on her,” it sounded like my grandpa! I mean, not really because my grandpa didn’t speak English, but he’d have said something like that.

B: It felt like he was talking about a mid-life crisis, and was approaching these issues the way a 50+ year old would, which I couldn’t relate to.

K: The older audience, which was 90% of the audience, seemed to really like his impersonations and were laughing a lot. It’s hard to judge this play, because I don’t think it was written for us. He was a very believable self help guru though. He did that well.

The Verdict: How old are you? Over 50? Great, you’ll probably love it. Under 40? Do you have parents in town for a summer visit? Great, take them! It’s totally parent friendly, and they’ll probably think this show’s a “hoot”. Otherwise save the $15.

The Drama Talk: Fred Raker makes an incredibly believable struggling self help guru. If you’re not into self help gurus, you probably won’t like this show. We wish he had gone farther and turned it into a fully interactive seminar, but as it was it fell short for us, especially since much of the humor seemed geared towards an audience born before 1960. If you were born before 1960, or are into self help gurus, and decide to see this show, get there early if you want a good seat. Also, there’s no intermission, so just be prepared to hold it if you decide to get drinks at their adorable concessions nook.

The Drinks: We went to Thieves Tavern and wanted drinks with bitters, to match the bitterness theme of the evening. Katie got a Sazerac. She learned she doesn’t like Sazeracs. Brittany got a Manhattan (for the cherry of course) and remembered that Manhattans are a great way to banish bitterness.

How to Make Your Bitterness Work for You runs every Monday and Tuesday night at Stage Werx Theatre through August. Tickets are available on Brown Paper Tickets.

Marta Franco has the story of the “Naked BART Man” over at Mission Local.

[Photo by Marta Franco]

“I was giving out flyers of the show, and somehow I started thinking that my friends were pulling my leg and everybody there was pretending,” he said. “And I don’t know how, but I got naked and I was performing and I saw the people taking photos of me and I thought, ‘I’m at the Cirque du Soleil, I’m the great Yeiner, from Colombia’.”

She says that he hadn’t eaten or slept for four days and had a history of suicidal depression. The story also ties into possible political maneuvers by BART workers negotiating wages.

Read the story here.