Mission Mission

Alternative Design Studio‘s store front was a little racier than usual when I saw this last week.  Nice rack too.

I experienced it all at Litquake:

The Good: hearing the phrase “earnestly pimpled.”

The Bad: heat so intense upstairs at the Elbo Room I had to leave, thus allowing me to hear the phrase “earnestly pimpled” downstairs.

The Ugly: I like cats but damn cat (Yelp informs me his her name may be Ripley), you need some hair!

Any writers that blew your socks off? Strange characters? Anyone else notice and/or find refreshing that the average age on Valencia rose about 20 years last night?

Reader Cyn has a question for us:

I have a deck that overlooks Clarion Alley. This morning, at 4:40 a.m., we were woken up by 21 gunshots. Does anyone know what happened??

Can anyone enlighten us on what went down in one of our favorite muraled alleys?

Although I see washing machines and laundry carts on the inside, I’m still hoping it is a publishing house for all things tissue and handkerchief related.

Sitting on the good old bus 49 over the weekend, I came across something that is rarely seen in San Francisco – a bus driver who fought for his fare. All too often the driver doesn’t even glance at my MUNI pass and I go for days without actually needing it, wondering why I even waste the $45 dollars each month. That is a lot of ice cream at Bi-rite, well, not really all that much.

But this driver was tenacious. He kicked a middle aged man off the bus for using a senior pass. When someone got in through the back door, the driver refused to budge the bus until this man showed him his transfer. Because this man pretended he didn’t know the bus driver was talking to him for a full minute (sitting down), flashed his transfer (and sat back down), went to the front of the bus to show his expired transfer (and sat back down), and then finally came up with the necessary $1.50 (and sat back down!), we sat on the street for a good 3 minutes not moving. My ride from 26th street to 16th street took 15 minutes.

On one hand, I had places to go and things to see.

On the other hand, I was secretly happy.

But then I think about how incredibly long it would take to get the bus moving if everyone went in through the front door: stops at 24^th and 16^th street would probably take at least an extra minute or two. And then I get angry at the people who go out the front door who have clear access to the back doors and who are in no way physically challenged. I am even occasionally upset with the old people who insist on pulling carts everywhere – if you have enough gumption to pull a wheeled basket up onto the bus, you are strong enough to exit through the back door.

Bus rides are often long and angry for me.

And then I read how poor MUNI is, and how they are thinking of raising the monthly fare. Couldn’t I just send 10 people to the front of the bus to pay their fare and add my extra $15 dollars that way? Maybe by making people follow the few simple rules about entering, exiting, and paying fares, not only would we have a better funded system, but is possible it would no longer be one of the slowest public transport systems in the nation.

I need a bike.

Although no one actually died last night at the Literary Death Match, I died a little on the inside when my least favorite competitor actually won the final prize, a cardboard crown. The night featured a whole host of characters – and the other three d. matchers (Tom Perrotta Tom Barbash, Rhea De Ross-Wiess, and Damion Searls), all of whom had written some extraordinary pieces provided a laugh a minute. Maybe next time the winner should be chosen based on merit rather than who can find an audience member with a belly scar. Just a thought?

I often forget how rewarding hearing authors read their own works can be. Promoted heavily at this event was Litquake when a Deathmatch that will rate even higher on the Richter scale will occur on October 6 and whose last hurrah, the Litcrawl, takes place in the Mission on October 11 and is FREE!

I heard whispered rumors of such a phenomenon, and so I decided to walk into the lion’s den. I stepped into Mission Pie and demanded an answer from the teenager behind the counter. With darting eyes and a hushed voice, he confirmed that this is indeed the case. Mission Pie will soon expand into more than a sweet treat store: pizza is on its way!

Apparently, a new kitchen or something unimportant like that has to be finished and it won’t be done until probably late this year, but I didn’t really hear the specifics. I was in a pizza haze, imagining a late night slice on the way home from BART, laughing joyously with a friend. There may have also been a warm breeze in the air and a friendly bum on the sidewalk.

Has anyone told Serrano’s?

Is chicken pot pie next?

Will Mission Mission ever get sick of Mission Pie stories?

If, as Wikipedia says, “the Care Bears’ ultimate weapon is the ‘Care Bear Stare,’ in which the collected Bears stand together and radiate light from their respective tummy symbols,” then I think the Care Bear Stare just got a whole lot more powerful with the help of an atom bomb.

Scare Bear? Beware Bear? Despair Bear? Ooooh, the delicious possibilities.

Another Hole in the Head Film Festival starts tonight with a selection of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy films.

I just watched Exte: Hair Extensions (with subtitles), a j-horror film playing at Roxie Cinema tonight at 5pm:

Given that the first line in the movie is, “My nose hair is out of control lately,” the movie got off to a great start. Luckily, it had the elements I look for in all my movies: a crazy dude who wears wigs, an innocent girl who enjoys narrating aufblasbarer park her life, and possessed hair. Still, what I liked best was that the storyline isn’t all about hair growing on tongues and death (although there was quite a bit of that), it actually dealt with some real issues – ie abortion, child abuse, and the black market organ trade.

Kinda interested in seeing too. Who doesn’t love a good mockumentary?

Sunset Magazine’s Idea House has a for sale sign out front. After talking to the man with the keys, I learned it is not the main house that is on the market, but the smaller apartment attached to this amazing house. He offered to show it to me, apparently mistaking my jeans for a cocktail dress. So, if anyone is willing to loan me, say a million dollars (it is listed at $995,000), I will be saving a bundle on heating and water bills – I should be able to repay you sometime in the next couple hundred years.

Perks: windmill, solar panels, blue kitchen, front row parque acuatico hinchable seats for Garfield Square soccer games.