— By Kate Horton |
As birds continue to mysteriously fall from the sky across the globe, San Francisco's birds, like this lil' player, say eff that and are staying strong. Good for them.
Pigeons, on the other hand, can go fuck themselves.
(photo via)
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Cracky Old Mission Guy dropped this bomb on us yesterday:
I've lived in The Mission a long time, and I've been going to The Tenderloin a long time for various reasons, and I have started to feel like I have got it all backwards all along — I should have been living in the Loin and visiting the Mish. They are both shitholes, but The Tenderloin is more honest and less tense about it.
Now, I wouldn't rather live in the TL, but I think COMG might be onto something. Sure, the Mission might be safer and more gentrified, but it still isn't the Eden of the West Coast that it's hyped up to be. Between all the vintage clothing stores, gourmet ice creameries, and moms trying to turn Dolores Park into one big playground for their kids, it still has it's crackheads, crime, prostitution, litered sidewalks, empty storefronts, and payday loan shops and liquor stores on every corner. Yet people in the Mission are far more protective of their image than that of the TL.
Now, there's nothing wrong with some pride, don't get me wrong. But at the end of the day, residents of the Tenderloin paint murals about the grittiness of the neighborhood, whereas it's all rainbows and ice cream carts in the Mission.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
It's a Christmas miracle! Elle Ko, famous for 'standing up against a corporate take-over on Valencia' spraypainting wonderful statements like “NO MORE TRASH” and “SCAM” all over Levi's Workshop's windows, is slated to go to trial right before the holiday. And lucky for us, it seems like she'll be live blogging the whole thing.
We can only hope she doesn't miss her trial and “go 2 the slammer for 6 months,” because I don't think I can go six months without reading her gripping insights into the criminal justice system, Sit/Lie, SFO cell phone rentals, and iTunes Ping.
(link)
— By Zach Perkins |
In a cramped Oakland warehouse, covered in graffiti from floor to ceiling, a battle is raging. The air is thick with [medical] marijuana smoke while onlookers guzzle 40oz's in anticipation, their minds already warped from the sideshow freaks and heavy metal bands that opened the evening's festivities. The microphone chirps as the announcers prattle off the next bout; “…Hoodslam is proud to present, Zombie Vinny Boutabi versus Gotho the Bi-Polar Clooooooown!!!” What emerges from backstage is as absurd as it sounds and delivers the clown vs zombie gore-fest that the crowd has been waiting for.
This is not your average small time amateur pro-wrestling circuit. This is as Oakland as it gets. Hoodslam is a bizarre fusion of East Bay hipster, thug culture, metal and pro-wrestling with a sprinkling of sideshow freaks. The story lines are insane; the characters surreal. In the world of Hoodslam, zombies, cartoons and video game characters do battle against traditional luchador and WWE style wrestlers. At the moment, the Street Fighter/CAPCOM characters reigning over Hoodslam with an iron fist of tyranny. We're seriously talking about Ken and Ryu in the ring; I think that even MegaMan made a cameo at some point.
The Displayed Labors sideshow entertains between fights.
THE POINT: The aptly titled 'Hoodslam 2 FOURTH STRIKE: Tournament Edition 3D' is tomorrow. And it's free for the last time. This last show of the season promises to be a big one. Ryu will fight a masked Luchador. E Honda battles a guy in a banana costume. The 'Stoner Bros' will be pitted in a tag-team match against Carmen San Diego and Where's Waldo. Referee Pink Panther vs. Senior Official Winnie the Pooh. It goes on and on (Facebook event details here).
So tomorrow at 8pm, make your way to the 'Victory Warehouse' at 24th and San Pablo in Oakland, for Hoodslam: “The only 420 friendly, b.y.o.beer, music, wrestling, entertainment event of its kind”.
Oh, and if you actually want to know more about this bat-shit insane plot, there's a ridiculous five minute video below that explains the background of the 'Capcom Wars' and previews this Saturday in painful detail.
Again, cause yer dum: (Facebook event details here).
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Speaking of bike theft in the Mission, it sounds like shit also went down at Pop's last night. From a reader who'd prefer to stay anonymous:
major drama at pop's last night. i guess some dude caught this latino guy wearing ed hardy trying to steal his bike and started confronting him. the bartender got in the middle of it, got up into the thiefs face and started yelling at him to get a real job and stop stealing peoples shit. i started taking pictures, but the thief's buddy started yelling “this girls taking pictures! this girls taking pictures!” i went back into the bar and the friend followed me and cornered me in the bar to make sure i didn't take his pic. i have no idea if they called the cops or what happened to the bike thief because i got the fuck outta there.
For the interested, this is the same dude that we posted about back in August. Lock yer shit up, people.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
A few weeks ago, a buddy of mine cracked his bike frame in four places. So, less than a week ago, he picked up a new frame and some parts from Mission Bicycle that set him back a few hundred dollars. All good, right? Well, last night I had persuaded him to roll down the hill from Alamo Square to Doc's Clock. After a couple of pints and a pinball ass-whooping delivered by yours truly, we made our way to the sidewalk only to find his bike short a few necessary components.
While you might think the story ends there, it doesn't. His girlfriend picks him up in her car at 1:30am, they toss the bike on her bike rack and drive off. Well, at some point during the drive home, the entire rack fell off the car. As you can imagine, they couldn't find it.
In short:
Take it away, Bruce McCulloch:
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, 'Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.'
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.
— By Zach Perkins |
You didn't go to the opening of Glen E. Friedman and Shepard Fairey's Fuck You All collab at 941 Geary, did you? Dude wtf, Josh already told you about the radness. Stop being such an armchair hipster. There really aren't enough hills between the Mission and the Loin to prevent you from biking there, I promise.
And if for some reason my condescension wasn't enough, now you can watch a very well produced short doc that will motivate you to get out the door and/or make you feel like a total asshole for not having already been.
Venue: 941geary.com/
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Last night was one gnarly scene at Bender's. For some ungodly reason, the Vampires Motorcycle Club decided to do burnouts on a frozen turkey for an entire hour, which, as you could imagine, smelled lovely. Following the unbridled debauchery, they strapped the mauled carcass to some unsuspecting person's bike rack, much to the delight of bar patrons and chain smokers.
Verdict? The show was mouth-fuckingly delicious.
— By Jane Parton |
In the midst of all this Four Loko banning (then caffeine-removing) business, I found myself thinking again and again that Four Loko would never have existed and none of this would be happening if two years ago they'd just let us keep our original-recipe Sparks. I don't know if you all remember this as it was kind of a while ago, but in the wake of the Sparks formula change back in I think January of 2008 two girls made their own “bathtub Sparks” out of Red Bull, King Cobra and Pez candies. To recap, they blind taste-tested it in front of Pops and out of three taste testers, two thought the homebrew was real Sparks.
Well, history has repeated itself once again, and some dude went & made what he's calling homebrewed Four Loko. Here's the recipe:
Yeah, it's a few more steps than the Bathtub Sparks was, but the yield appears to be at least 3 servings so maybe it's worth it?
Also, on an only somewhat related sidenote, a friend of mine told me the other day that the European equivalent of Four Loko is this stuff,
Desperado Red: a delicious, wholesome mixture of beer, tequila, cachaça and guarana, all in an oh-so-classy glass bottle (which definitely would have spelled disaster had I been drinking this stuff this summer.) If the news of the Four Loko reformulation has reached France (where this stuff originates) already, they must think we Americans are colossal party rookies. Dudes, we cannot allow France of all places to believe we're party rookies. NOT OKAY.