The day before Thanksgiving. You've got nothing going on. Your friends have real family to hang out with. Your dickbag cousin's in town and wants to hang out. He's down to go to a bar and “catch up”—you'd rather not.  So what's there to do?

Get high on Mission Street and laugh at jokes.

That's right, our pals over at The Business are bringing you an evening of home-cooked jokes, just like grandmother used to make [zing!].  And what the line-up they have:

It is an All Thanksgivinged Eve to remember at the Dark Room this week, as we welcome a cornucopia of guests to the Business. From Los Angeles, we have Aparna Nancherla and SF native Emily Maya Mills, and from New York City, we have Alameda's own Emily Heller! Holy shit, if the Wampanoag had brought this kind of lineup to the Pilgrims back in 1621, they all would have died of laughter! And probably scurvy or rickets, because medicine was very primitive back then. […]

We've also got regular Businessman Sean and Bucky, the gravy to this holiday smorgasbord. Also expect surprise guests, cardboard hand turkeys, pumpkin-based snacks, and one thousand six hundred and twenty-one laughs. $5, no wampum.

It goes down tomorrow (that's Wednesday) at 8pm at The Dark Room Theater.  No wampum.

[Facebook / $5 / Weed not included]

I've got your Mission Friday night adventure all laid out. Some Mission filmmakers made a film in the Mission (and Wyoming)  and are premiering it tonight at an oldschool Mission cinema, and then they're throwing an afterparty at a Mission warehouse. “The Advice Of Strangers” is a stylish film about a starry-eyed lover on a drunken search for a girl after an New Years Eve party. The film was made on an $80,000 grant, so it looks decidedly unshitty, combining both gleaming color and epic high-contrast B&W.

Watch the trailer and buy discounted $5 tickets here on their Kickstarter. You'll get admission ito the premier at The Victoria Theatre on 16th between Mission and Van Ness, as well as a swanky afterparty nearby. Tickets are also available at the door, but bigger donations net you photographs from local artiste Alex Greenburg.

A typical 3-D film costs you $20 that goes directly up the nose of some ass-hat in Hollywood. For much cheaper you get a full night of homegrown entertainment, and you get to keep that money in town.

People talk a lot about the local art scene. Well here it is. Make it date night, roll up with your bros, or wear your black film buff turtleneck and go by yourself.

Slideshows and short films start at 7:30pm before the feature. Facebook Event with details here. And that ticket link again.

No one here is going to argue that bars are charities, but there have always been a few accepted customs in Mission bartending: PBR doesn't cost more than two bucks, pours should always be strong, and shuffleboard is a pickup game to be enjoyed by anyone willing to signup for the next round.  It's these simple rules that have ensured the neighborhood remained a safe haven for broke, drunk slobs for years.

Well, the recently-opened sports bar/shrine to delicious Pittsburgh-style gluttony, Giordano Bros., has broken the tradition, not only charging Medjool prices for mediocre beer, but by imposing a fee for a few rounds of shuffleboard.  Heresy!

I probably shouldn't be too pissed—it's not like anyone with a shred of dignity and a basic appreciation for decor would ever go here anyway.  But it's a slippery slope, my friends.  Next thing you know, bars will be asking us to pay for pool.

There's a lot going on here, but I'm pretty sure muralist Elliott C Nathan is trying to tell us that watching tv will lead to rainbows of robots and mechanical birds and casual whimsy.