The Indie Mart Sunday

What promises to be a most epic Indie Mart, THE Indie Mart is this Sunday at Thee Parkside.

Drinking and shopping have had some really hilarious results for me before. Like that time I bought bowling shoes at Buffalo Exchange. So come on y’all- get your local consumerism on. From noon to 6.

Plus the *fabulous* Roslyn will be there! AND they even advertise that there will be NO BULLSHIT, as well as ample roller skating opportunities.

Official Copy and all that:

The Indie Mart is back for another Summer Street Fair. Bringing you the best in local designers, makers, vintage, local rad stores, skateboards, zines, rock tees, local authors, bakers bringing you sweet treats and about everything else you can think of. 75 vendors, a more select group and a bit smaller so there’s more room to roam and party. D.I.Y. demos every hour form 1pm on. Photobooth. Killer BBQ. Drink specials like whoah. Cheap beers.

And all new, all local bands- 123 Picnic (experimental pop), Red, White and Drunken (a new spin on 90s boy band covers) and Era Escape (Top Gun rock) and one more we are firming up.. Rad DJ’s like- Resident DJ Sarahdactyl, the Magnificent 7 and Mother Barry bringing you lots of old school punk rock, some rock and roll, a little metal and a few surprises to make you shake your ass.

ADDED FUN: ROLLER SKATING FROM 1-5PM. RENTALS $5- AND YOU CANT BE DRUNK. WONDER DOG RESCUE AND PUPPY ADOPTION! PIRATE CAT RADIO! ME ON SKATES WITH PUPPIES! OK MAYBE NOT. FUN FUN FUN FUN. MORE FUN!

NO SPONSORS. NO BULLSHIT. JUST GOOD SHOPPING. GOOD FOOD. GOOD MUSIC. GOOD DRINKING. GOOD PEOPLE. GOOD ALL DAY FUN. THE INDIE MART.
Sunday August 16th
12-6pm, all ages
at thee Parkside
17th& Wisconsin Street
Take the 22 right there or ride yo’ bike!
Plenty of parking.
$2 suggested admission for a whole day of partying, shopping, free music & good times.

Meaningful Events @ the Roxie

Right down the street from the Victoria Theatre -yet a whole new spelling of Theater- is the Roxie (the Mission’s other movie theater).

Every year the Roxie is the San Francisco home of the 48 Hour Film Festival- this is a daunting and awesome project where filmmakers are given 48hrs to complete a film with a short list of requirements. Really actually completely created in 48hrs; conception, screenplay, filming, editing, post-production- 2 days not a minute more. This year the only constraints were that every film had to feature a character named Claude or Claudette Green- Guitarist, feature a hat in a pivotal way, and include the line “I believe anyone can change.” Also, every team is assigned a different genre. The entries are randomly grouped together into 4 different series. I was fortunate enough to see a very kick-ass series B last Wednesday. It was marked improvement in kick-ass ness from this event last year. There’s still time to catch a likely kick-ass series D (Monday June 15th 7 & 9:30) and E (Tuesday June 16th also 7 & 9:30) You get to vote on your three favs and the winner of all this gets some large amount of money.

I’d like to give a shout out to my favs- Hat the Musical, and Little Dead Claudette- solid work y’all.

While in line, I noticed another film festival is currently going on at the Roxie, Another Hole in the Head (Independent Film Festival, Two weeks of Sci-Fi. Horror, and Fantasy!) Very appropriate name for a city that has a gang load of independent film festivals, as well as unmistakably a perfect fit with the horror theme. I do love myself good genre film! OK, honestly I once wrote an honor thesis on horror films, so this film festival was intriguing to me for very obvious reasons.

While waiting in line I browsed a hard copy of the schedule. Many a quizzical, eye-catching descriptions jumped out at me:

“In this classic slasher flick, sadistic college boys are taking their fraternity rush to murderous extremes. Behind the usual binge drinking, mirrors of cocaine, and the proverbial “disco inferno” are terrible ritualistic killings.”

“FRAT HOUSE MASSACRE pours on the gore, the shock, and the screams with refreshing ingenuity. (You’ll never forget the mantrap resulting in a pitchfork to the skull.)”

I mean honestly, what’s not to like?!

Some other highlights:

“This just raised the bar in disgusting and insane film. ”

“You need to have an appetite for the absurd, the disgusting, and the deranged for this one.”

“You will laugh until you wet yourself. I am not kidding.”

“BLACK DEVIL DOLL goes where no puppet has gone, with gutter humor, exploding bodily fluids, and one of the most erotic car wash scenes you’ll ever see.”

Man. Sign me up!

Some titles include, “Ninja Pussy Cat” and “Run Bitch Run.”

PLUS this is actually running Monday-Thursday of this week. You totally still have a chance to catch “Black Devil Doll.”

Sure it’s one of the weirdest spaces of any Theater/Theatre I’ve ever been in. They are always having cool events and showing a shit-ton of movies that even I haven’t heard of. I watched the presidential debates here last November.

Plus it has at least this much colorful history:

Other names for the theater:

• The Poppy 1912-1916
• The New 16th Street 1916-1920
• The Rex 1920-1926
• The Gem 1926-1930
• The Gaiety 1930-1933
• The Roxie 1933-present

(Thanks to Wikipedia for this. And for so much more.)

Want even more colorful history?

“In the late 1960s with the decline of its neighborhood, The Roxie became a pornography theater. In March 1976, community leaders Robert Christopher Evans, Dick Gaikowski, Peter Moore, and Tom Mayer bought the Roxie, remodeled it, and turned it into an art and independent film center.”

Plus a kick-ass marquee. Plus I’m pretty sure I saw someone drinking wine in the lobby the other day? Now that we live in a world without a Parkway Speakeasy Theater- that’s especially worth taking note of.

Michael Pollan comes to the Mission- a smorgasbord of missed opportunities

This Friday our local boy, the super fabulous Michael Pollan, will be participating in a panel discussion after a screening of the movie Fresh. Fresh the movie is a “New way of thinking on what we’re eating.” A documentary about food seemingly in direct competition with Food Inc. also in theaters, and also featuring the object of my very serious platonic crush- Michael Pollan.  I obvious will see both of these films. But tragically I will not be able to meet Micahel Pollan in person- and by meet I of course mean stare at him as he participates in a panel at the Victoria Theatre. How could I miss this chance? I’ve got tickets to see a Golden Girls drag show at the Tranny shack this Friday! Not missing that. Doy!

I’ll just have to start writing Michael Pollan fan mail. All the way to Berkeley.

Tickets for Fresh still available! Live my dream!

Sita Sings the Blues for YOU

Here again already!?

Tonight go see “An animated version of an epic Indian tale” at the best little park in the world.

Personally animation terrifies me. But regardless this looks pretty sweet. Plus any event that officially starts at “dusk” is OK by me.

Shotwell & 18th: the reason WTF was invented

What the fuck does this mean?!??!?!??!

Seriously??? Anyone have any ideas? I’ve been seeing this car parked outside of the ODC Dance Commons (Shotwell & 17th/18th) for a while now. I still don’t have any theories.

***UPDATE*** My co-worker just pointed out that this is a penis. doy!

I mean it’s still inexplicable why someone decided to make this into a jesus fish. Right?

Man Has Derogatory Nickname For Every Neighboring Town

I love derogatory nicknames for neighboring towns as much as the next person. My bay area favorites include EL Slob and Pin-hole. And of course there’s Ocean-slime, my hometown.

At a party in Albany last weekend someone asked me where I lived.

me: “the city.”

him: “the shitty?”

me: blank stare.

him: “where in the city?”

me: “the mission”

him: “the good mission or the bad mission?”

I suppose it would be a lie to say I wanted to live right on 16th and Mission. But I still say this guy is an asshole.

Overheard in Rainbow

“Would the employee who just ordered a pizza please come to the kiosk? The employee who just ordered a pizza. Please come the the kiosk.”

What a store!!!

Any business that’s closed for gay pride is OK by me…

Dear Blank,

That’s how a teenager started every letter she wrote to her imagined future husband while in high school. Ten years later she read these letters to her actual finance for the first time along with about 50 strangers at Mortified at the Make-Out Room Friday, May 15th 2009.

more about “Get Mortified“, posted with vodpod

Mortified is an AMAZING show, where bad-asses read their diaries (short stories/letters/songs) from high school and middle school. It’s breathtaking, really. In their own words, “Mortified is a Comic Excavation of Adolescent Writing, Art & Media. PS: It Totally likes you.”

Not-to-be-missed upcoming shows are June 19th and June 20th both at the Make-Out Room. I’ll totes be there. I may even see if I can find my old diary. Maybe.  Plus the Make-Out Room is a really solid space where it seems like they are always celebrating New Years Eve, and especially fitting for Mortified, the name sounds like it’s straight out of a 7th grade seven-minutes of heaven, spin the bottle game.

A couple of memorable lines from that evening:

“I want a future. I also want to try acid.”

“I don’t feel any different now, only I get adult jokes and Freud makes more sense.”

Dear Dolores Park Movie Night,

It’s downright endearing that you never know what film you are going to show until a few days before the screening.

You are totes worth all the tba’s!

Amelie in the park tonight! 8:15pm, Thursday May 14th.

Recommended game while watching this movie: blurt out whatever color you see currently dominating the screen. This def positively contributed to my enjoyment of the film this one time, plus you know that you and everyone else around you has already seen this movie hella.

Oh, Dolores Park movie night. I’m pretty sure nothing is going to top that showing of The Karate Kid. That was the see and be seen event of 2007.

Dear Dolores Park,

No words. This is clearly pretty much the most fun one can have on planet earth.

In the recent past SF Gate published one of the most horrifying news articles I’ve ever read, “Dilemma over S.F.’s Dolores Park.”

Dilemma? Seriously guys? Dilemma? Dilemma over the most amazing transcendental public space in this plane of reality?

Why ARE some people out to destroy everything awesome? Genuine cultural scene must be bad? People doing creative things, interacting with their community, and having a blast- totes red flags!

Way to pave our paradise and put up a parking lot.

Here is one line from the article that made any sense, “Some of those who use the park regularly also balked at the notion that a public park could be overused.” Hear hear.

Thankfully nearly nothing has changed in the park as a result of this article or the wrath of a group of San Franciscans who actually don’t want to be living in San Francisco. Glad this turned out to be as meaningless as that time they tried to ruin bay to breakers.

I’ll leave the final word to  Myopenbarsf- before they were shut down (waaaaaaaaaaaa!) they publicized a medley of organized events in the park from opera shows, to soapbox racing, zombie flash mobs, and hunky jesus contests:

“We like how our MOB database lists Dolores Park as a ‘bar.’ And it truly is–SF’s largest public, anything-goes, byob social scene.”

Well said.

Here’s just a taste of the glories this park is capable of. From gay beach, dog hill, hipster beach and beyond.

A spirited game of sloshball

kegs in the park

Inaccurate math in the park

cheers in the park

playing with other people's dogs: an important part of any park experience