Mission Mission

[Photo and title by Alex Lane]

Starts at 6:30am and we’re all invited! Pop’s is doing coffee, Irish coffee, Mexican coffee and BACON BLOODY MARYS all morning (and every morning). Sit around, drink and drink, and watch some live radio being made!

Here’s the official invitation:

RSVP and invite your friends!

Seen in the Saint Luke’s Hospital pharmacy, this is the perfect anniversary card for your loved ones.

Photo via @down4keeps

-Miles Harrison

I’m out of town on Sunday night, so I can’t make it. Here’s an email I wrote to some friends just now:

Hey guys, I just heard about a concert I think you should attend. Baby Gramps at the Chapel on Valencia Street, Sunday, November 22nd. He’s this old (like oooooooold) dude who plays old (like oooold) songs on a big old guitar. I saw him once by accident at Amnesia in like ’05 or so, and I’ve been trying to see him again ever since, but it hasn’t happened. He’s REAL old, but tremendously entertaining, and I bet it would be well worth the hardship of going out on a Sunday evening. I think he was friends with Lou Reed.

Tickets and more info here.

In the New York Times last month, author Ada Calhoun wrote a great piece about how we feel about our neighborhoods as they change:

I think there’s more to these “the city is dead now” complaints than money. People have pronounced St. Marks Place dead many times over the past centuries — when it became poor, and then again when it became rich, and then again when it returned to being poor, and so on. My theory is that the neighborhood hasn’t stopped being cool because it’s too expensive now; it stops being cool for each generation the second we stop feeling cool there. Any claim to objectivity is clouded by one’s former glory.

I know this well. As a teenage girl in the 1990s East Village, every door was open to me and my friends. There was no party we could not crash, no person we could not make out with and no intoxicant we would not be offered. The city was ours. In the pre-Giuliani era, a fellow East Village woman reminds me, “You could still piss on the street.”

And check out this line:

I remember what it felt like getting ready to make something exciting happen, to feel a sense of the city and time radiating out in all directions, like the spokes of a wheel, with me and that night at the center.

I remember when the Mission felt like that. (Hence those photos up top from back before decent phone cameras.) (I’m turning 35 in a couple months, maybe somebody younger should take over this blog?) (Anybody know anybody good?)

Seriously, read the whole thing for a lot of great points that might change your mind or make you feel better, including a great note about Keith Haring.

[via kottke.org]

When we heard the ”The Wicked-ly talented, one and only Adele Nazeem,” (aka Idina Menzel – i.e. Elsa from Frozen, Elphaba from Wicked, Maureen from Rent) was coming to San Francisco with her latest Broadway Show If/Then, we knew we had to take this opportunity to see the star live. Growing up Rent-heads, we were even more pumped when we learned that her fellow co-star, Anthony Rapp (who originated the role of Mark in Rent), was also part of the star-studded tour. So like the musical fan-girls we are, off we went to the Orpheum to see two of the voices that helped us get through middle school.

Idina Menzel and Anthony Rapp in If/Then

Brittany: I can’t believe that likely the only time I’ll ever see Idina Menzel and Anthony Rapp live, I didn’t feel like giving a standing ovation.

Katie: I know! Idina Menzel was amazing! She’s ridiculously good, but I couldn’t stand for an ovation either. Why are either of them in such a mediocre show?!

B: I wonder if it’s an early mid-life crisis thing? If this show really speaks to her as a 44 year old woman who’s feeling “I’ve done all these things with my life, but is this really where I want to be?” It’s hard to believe she’d have regrets though, given she’s one of the most famous women in American theater. Although breaking up with Taye [Diggs] would make me question my life decisions too. I actually like the idea behind the show; the little decisions you make end up changing the course of your life, but the execution was kind of corny.

K: Totally corny. The structure of the play just didn’t really hold up for me, bouncing between one possible fate and another. Of course, she’s gonna end up with the love of her life in both story lines. Fate? Really?

B:  So true. Aside from one or two songs the music isn’t that memorable either.

K: All the songs pretty much sounded the same to me. The play sounded like one generic – extremely well sung – song. Other then Idina Menzels beautful voice, nothing really stood out to me. Overall, I was expecting to be more wowed.

The Verdict: If you’re a Idina Menzel or Anthony Rapp fan, it is really awesome to see them live. Otherwise, if you’re only going to drop Broadway Tour kinda money once this year, we’d say skip it.

The Drama Talk: Idina Menzel is flawless. Anthony Rapp is so fun to watch on stage. Although we didn’t come into the theater knowing her as well, LaChanze was also stellar. The rest of the cast is not nearly as strong as these three, and since the supporting roles are pretty big parts, it made the show feel uneven. The play itself wasn’t a hit for a reason. The music doesn’t make a huge impression, and the show feels a bit disjointed as it jumps from one possible life to another.

The Drinks: Since the show was slower than we hoped, we got some sparkling wine at intermission. Skip the main bar in the lobby and head straight to the Blue Room near the entrance to order drinks, that is if you didn’t think ahead to pre-order before the show started. 

If/Then runs through December 6th at SHN’s Orpheum Theater. There are currently tickets available on Goldstar for $40-60. SHN is also doing a new “mobile lottery”, so if you’re feeling lucky go to the SHN website, download the app, and try to win $25 tickets (you can buy up to two if you win). Otherwise, you can buy tickets directly from SHN which will run you from $40-$200+ depending on the seats.

Look, you can even use this handy app to effortlessly manage your vacation rental!

I mean, I get it.  AirBnB is a really neat service.  The problem I have with it is that it emboldens landlords to act like assholes in the interest of making more money on their properties, all at the expense of real city residents’ living situations.  This isn’t about some mere pastry-rating app; this is people’s homes.

While that may or may not be an outstanding problem yet, if allowed to continue to grow unchecked and unregulated it will only embolden more and more landlords to act like assholes, and before long you’ll have a city full of $450 per night vacation spots and not much else.

So why not regulate it before it comes to that?

It’s Halloween week! Looking for something spooky to do that doesn’t involve being groped in a haunted house, but is a little more rowdy than a pumpkin patch? We’ve got you covered! Our Drama Talk and Drinks Halloween roundup is here! We haven’t had a chance to check out any of these shows yet, but they caught our eye, and may catch yours too.

Musical, Magical Halloween Comedy Kinda Boo!

Rocky Horror Show at Victoria Theater
You’ve seen the movie, you’ve danced the Time Warp, now come and see a live-stage version of the show that inspired the cult classic! Just in time for Halloween, Ray of Light’s 15th season closes out with Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show; “a special engagement full-scale production of the original hit musical that will have you shivering in antici…” Tickets are currently available on Goldstar for performances through November 4th- the show runs through November 7th, with tickets for the nights not available on Goldstar available through the Ray of Light  website.

Shocktoberfest: Curse of the Cobra (Hydrodome)
Last year we loved the Thrillpeddlers annual Grand Guignol Halloween spectacular Shocktoberfest! We haven’t had a chance to check out this year’s, Curse of the Cobra, yet, but we pretty much guarantee if you want a real raunchy gruesome good time, this show will deliver. Just be prepared for lots of nudity, fake blood, and campy gruesome stories. This show runs through November 21st, but Goldstar has some discount tickets available for this week or you can get tickets for any night on Thrillpeddlers website.

Hella Funny Halloween Comedy Festival (Cobbs Comedy)
Looking for laughs this Halloween? Cobbs is doing a special Halloween night show in partnership with SF Funcheap, in which award winning Bay Area comics will come together, in costume, for a night of Halloween humor. Discount tickets are on Goldstar or you can get them through Cobb’s website.

Musical, Magical Halloween Comedy Kinda Boo! (Verdi Club)
This show crossed our screens a few weeks ago, and we were intrigued. Something described as “a naughty dark comedy featuring mystery, magic, music and a bit of burlesque.” has to be at least entertaining, right? It’s only a three night show, October 29-31, so get to it before it’s gone. There are discount tickets available on Goldstar, and you can also buy through the KindaBoo website if Goldstar sells out.

Ghost Quartet (Curran Theater Stage)
If you missed our last DT&D review, you missed us gushing over The Object Lesson the truly spectacular show which opened the very cool Curran Under Construction series, which is happening on the stage of the Curran while it’s under construction (aptly named). The show for Halloween weekend is Ghost Quartet: “A haunted song cycle about love, death, and whiskey, written and composed by Bay Area favorite Dave Malloy”. Tickets are available on the Curran Under Construction website for performances Oct 28-31 with a special late-night show at 10pm on the 31st.

Now get out there and have some Halloween fun at the theater! Let us know if you see any of the above, and what you thought in the comments.

Congrats, grads!

[via Alex]

Just saw this on Instagram. A comment on it says:

sweet protest move, dude! now the driver who has been up since 4am gets to work OT filling out an incident report and making sure his/her bus hasn’t been damaged! the driver also gets the added benefit of being screamed at by more people who are being held up in traffic, coupled with a panic attack from thinking that the loud noise they heard was from hitting a person, until they realize it was a pylon thrown out of some fucked up misplaced anger by somebody who thinks violence solves problems 👍

[via Gray]

UPDATE: Hey btw remember cone in a hole?