Mission Mission

Stephen Elliott is raising money via Kickstarter to make a feature length film of his novel, Happy Baby. Tonight he launches the campaign at 6pm at The Makeout Room (3225 22nd Street) with all kinds of rad entertainment:

Music by Jill Sobule

Comedy by Caitlin Gill

Yo Yo mastery by Doc Pop

Readings by Bucky Sinister and Lorelei Lee

A brief talk by Josh Bearman about how his Wired magazine article became the movie Argo

And a screening of Mr. Gracie, a five minute movie based on Happy Baby

Hosted by Stephen Elliott

Happy Baby is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen Elliott, edited by Dave Eggers and originally published by McSweeney’s.

To purchase advance tickets just make a $20, or more, donation to the Happy Baby Kickstarter campaign.

 

[photo by Doc Pop]

Here in the Bay Area many of us are probably feeling good about last night’s main election result. Obama won. (Spoiler?)

I think it was an exciting night for our country. Especially that it was decided and not dragged out and brought through various legal möbius strips. Personally though, I’m feeling dismayed by the overall results of the state propositions. We really want to keep the death penalty? We don’t think that consumers should be able to have questions about what’s in their food answered? Well, at least 30 passed and it’s not all on George Lucas’s shoulders to save education.

Yet I’m excited overall that our country generally seems energized to head in a direction that I think is best. It was a good night for LGBT rights, people overcame voter suppression and intimidation to get their voice heard, and we re-elected a president who best represents the majority of the people in this country, not just the most privileged. If this sounds like very careful, faint praise, it is. In last night’s acceptance speech, President Obama once again set the standards perhaps impossibly high for what we’d like to expect from his presidency. He mentioned really taking care of our returning veterans, LGBT equality, a lot of feel good things that I really wanted to hear. Does he believe in those ideals? I think he does. But how much will he actually do? How much can he do?

[November 3rd, 2008]

Four years ago our neighborhood exploded with joy and celebration when Barack Obama won the first time. This time around, not as much. While I think most of us are grateful that we didn’t see the chaos that followed the recent World Series win, maybe we were still a little underwhelmed by the relative quiet. The Castro partied. And why not. But the HOPE and CHANGE that we felt four years ago feels a bit more like PERSIST and SUSTAIN at this point.

And keep hoping.

Anyway, the rest of the internet has much better election breakdowns than you should expect to find here. I’m just rambling. Elections are big and broad and complicated and it’s all still sinking in for me. Feel free to ramble on in the comments. If you haven’t yet, check out Mission Local’s great coverage of our neighborhood’s experience of voting day.

For now I’m hanging on to the little things, the things immediately around me. Things like the picture at the top of this post, taken this morning. Doc explains:

It was an extra gloomy walk down Market Street this morning until I reached this Muni stop full of schoolkids cheering along every cyclist that came their way. Perfectly lined up along the bike path, the kids started reaching out their palms for some extreme high five action. Even the most serious bikers popped a smile at the scene. Perhaps in a post election world, this is a sign of pedestrians and bicyclists finally coming together .

Delightful.

Meligrosa sent along a cool card she made that you can print out and stick your proof of voting sticker onto:

She adds:

hola all;
I made this little card for the United States 2012 presidential election, which is tomorrow Tuesday, November 6th.
VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! Laminate it, bike it as a spoke-card, postcard it, read as bookdivider Etc.

// Get the (4x) set per letter-size sheet on Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/112253114
Print › share › use them as you’d like.
xxom

And we all know where to vote, right?

Our buddy, local filmmaker Sean Gillane recently completed his first feature film, shot mostly in the Mission (in apartments, Lone Palm, Dolores Park, etc.). CXL premieres Saturday 11/11 at 8:30pm at Cinema by the Bay.

Support local film!

This poignant and darkly comedic debut feature from Sean Gillane focuses on Nolan, an aspiring writer who feels stuck. He is frustrated with his career, his relationships, the world and ultimately with himself. Unable to keep from displaying his considerable disdain, he focuses on everything wrong in his life as he treads the same dissatisfying paths. When he meets the stunning and unpredictable Cassie, she invites him to let down his guard and enjoy the world around him. Nolan slowly gives in to Cassie’s exuberance, but just as he begins to change his perspective, circumstances conspire to throw his already fragile psyche into turmoil. Turning even more deeply inward, Nolan attempts escape, but must ultimately face his life as he has made it.

From last night’s Dia de los Muertos procession.

Prescribed me a burrito.

Yeah, so people were super psyched about the World Series win and went overboard with their celebrating (or used it as an excuse), burning and breaking stuff. When all that is said and done though, this is the image that I have stuck in my head from last night:

Watching our team dominate. In a bar with friends and neighbors, leaving seats empty as we stand in support, cheering on Sergio Romo as he does his thing and takes out Miguel Cabrera.

Today our team came back home to get celebrated in person.

Hunter Pence.

(via bodieswork on Instagram, who is also my mother)

Romo and the trophy.

(bodieswork)

And here’s a timelapse of the whole game, from the POV of fans watching in Civic Center, sent to us by Nick.

We swept the Tigers!!! Really, though, our city is the last city we should want to destroy, right?? I mean, we won! I just high fived the world!!

This guy is a model for how we should react to such an epic victory:

P.D. Bird and her morning espresso.

This recently discovered tagger, apparently going by A-Hole, appears to be posing quite the interesting challenge to our collective moral judgement. This simple statement, straight and to the point, gilded even, is all at once a pure proclamation of existence (a caveman’s hand on the cave wall), an exclamation of artistic relevance (applied with an assumption of importance, that is without permission, and to a highly trafficked area) and finally a rebuke and rejection of the original motivations for its very existence. The A inside the circle being a clear representation of an “A Hole”, standing in for @$$#ø¬∑ which stands in for “ass hole”, builds an inherent impenetrable wall against any outside criticism. You don’t appreciate this? Well it’s too late to sound off, the artist has already made judgement on him or herself! Your opinion is inert.

Well done, asshole.