MrEricSir

Local

Bay Curious, AroMa, and Frightwig at The Chapel

MrEricSir

October 25, 2026

As guitars wailed and the band belted out vocals in the dimly lit venue, I wondered if I might see a ghost. Would the spirits from the great beyond be disrupted by the earsplitting noise?

Spoiler alert: I did not see a ghost.

The “Haunted Riot” show at The Chapel last night was a quirky conceptual mashup that didn’t entirely blend into more than the sum of its parts. The show, presented by KQED and KEXP, combined two things you wouldn’t normally put together: a ghost story and punk rock.

The night opened with a surprisingly empty room of “early bird” night owls, with Olivia Allen-Price from KQED’s cheekily named Bay Curious recounting a spooky story — a story about the very building we were in!

This isn’t news to many locals, but the gist of the history is this: after San Francisco evicted the dead and moved the bodies to Colma in 1901, the local funeral homes moved to the Mission District, especially on or near Valencia Street. This was a simple convenience as there was a streetcar line at the time that could be used to move the caskets and funeral guests alike all the way south to Colma.

Many of those funeral homes are long gone, but the buildings they once inhabited have since been reused for various other purposes — including The Chapel, a small entertainment venue, which is located inside of a former funeral chapel as the name suggests. (Prior to the venue, it was the home of the since-defunct New College.)

Supposedly a mysterious figure occasionally appears, sometimes pulling pranks on the bartenders or guests in the bathroom. There was even a video clip of one alleged encounter. Allen-Price ended the story with a warning that the dead tend to appear on nights with a lot of noise.

And with that, it was time for the music portion of the night.

Oakland-based performer AroMa was first up, delivering a show I can best summarize with the word “energetic.” They (AroMa is an individual who identifies as non-binary, not a band) erupted onto the stage with white lines of face paint and a fishnet top with tight pants and metal-topped boots, looking like a cross between Siouxsie Sioux and Bad-era Michael Jackson.

They belted out songs while frantically dancing, backed by a far more subdued drummer and DJ. I’m not exactly sure what genre — if any — would quite capture their music. If anything it’s too varied to fit neatly into a conventional box. A comparison I can’t help making is to Faith No More, where it sort of slides between alt rock/punk and R&B.

I felt sort of sorry for them because the bulk of the crowd only showed up toward the end of their set. There was one extremely enthusiastic older fan who was obviously really into it, with the rest of the crowd sticking toward the walls and nodding or tapping their feet.

If there’s a lesson here it’s to not be afraid to be yourself. Whoever that may be.

Next up was the San Francisco-based all-female punk group Frightwig. This band inspired a generation of women to start their own bands in a genre dominated by men, and are legends in their own right. If AroMa was the fresh-faced opening act, Frightwig — which formed in 1982 — were the wise elders. By the time they took the stage, the place was largely filled to capacity.

While they may be firmly in the gray-haired set and certainly weren’t jumping around the stage, they still brought classic punk energy to the show. Between songs poking fun at insecure men and protesting the constant wars, they took a few general jabs at politicians in general but nothing too specific — probably for the best as I think we’re all tired of hearing about that deflated gas bag in the White House by now.

The crowd was noticeably fired up throughout their set. Towards the end they brought fans on stage to dance along while holding protest signs.

Looking back, I’m forced to conclude that history lessons and punk rock are an awkward mix that — like a bad smoothie — just don’t blend. The audience was far more interested in the music. Of course, if any spirits were haunting the place that night, perhaps they felt differently — maybe I should have brought a Ouija board to ask for their opinion.

events, Music, photos, punk, san francisco, videos
Misc

Every Thing Computer

MrEricSir

October 24, 2026
As my fingers slid over the rubberized computer mouse anatomically shaped like a vagina, a disquieting thought crossed my mind: did I accidentally walk into a David Cronenberg film?

No.

I was at The Intersection of Art and Technology (tiat) for the opening of their latest exhibit, Every Thing Computer, which explores a uniquely artistic angle for human interface concepts.

This is a wild exhibit. Other highlights include:
- Computers that sing in harmony (see video)
- An interface shaped like a coyote’s paw
- A giant escape key that emits an audible “ow” when you hit it
- An AI-based newspaper that writes itself based on phone calls
- A reimagined early 90s Macintosh Classic with a glass window and separate tough screen
…and the list goes on.

The weirdest one, in my opinion, was impossible to take a compelling photo of as it was a small plastic box filled with dirt. Yes, a dirt-based interface. Why not?

I think there have really only been three innovations to home computer interfaces in my life that have withstood the test of time: the mouse/touch pad, the game controller, and the touch screen. Everything else is either a variant of the above, or never gained mass adoption. Yes, I know the Wii Remote could probably go on that list but it’s a narrow use case, and yes, voice interfaces potentially belong on that list but they’re still too inaccurate and cumbersome to use regularly.

Chat-based AI could sort of count as a new human interface if you squint at it; but it still requires some other medium like a keyboard or voice control to actually interact with at a physical level.

Most other ideas have come and gone, like the J-key mouse, or were never released at all, like Atari’s crazy Mindlink device.

What makes a successful controller is something I’ve put a lot of thought into over the years, even iterating on some prototypes for a controller aimed to be used while lucid dreaming. There are far more unrealized or unimagined possibilities than those that have been tried.

In a nutshell, that’s what I enjoyed about this exhibit — the creative freedom that comes with the art world means that the technology doesn’t have to actually “work” in order for it to be amusing, or possibly even inspiring to the audience.

Note: To avoid getting erroneously blacklisted as a porn site by Google, etc., I’m not including photos of the vaginal mouse.
ai, art, museums, san francisco, technology, tiat, videos
Local

Small Change Arcade: New arcade in the Excelsior District

MrEricSir

October 18, 2026

Working my way through the crowds of kids, dancers, and street food vendors at Sunday Streets, I looked up and there it was, like a giant shiny coin floating in the sky: Small Change Arcade.

This small shop on Mission St. near Persia Ave. in the Excelsior District contains twenty or so classic video and pinball arcade machines. They’ve only been open for a few days, and the excitement hasn’t worn off judging by the crowds.

In addition to the games, there’s a small back patio (currently unused) and a workshop area. The owner confirmed that yes, in fact they do repair machines in-house, and are looking to sell arcade machines in the future. Which sounds like a fun job — to me, anyway.

There’s also allegedly a cat. However, I was unable to confirm this during my visit. Possibly my fault for not bringing fish. Or a laser pointer.

Definitely drop in if you’re in the area. You have nothing to lose but a few quarters.

arcade, cats, excelsior, photos, pinball, san francisco, videogames
Local

The Civic Joy Fucks live punk show

MrEricSir

October 12, 2026

You will likely have to click through to see the above video thanks to YouTube’s obnoxious embedding policies.

Mayor Daniel Lurie, crypto investor Chris Larsen, and disgraced former district 8 supervisor candidate/cafe owner Manny Yekutiel took to a small Tenderloin stage to perform a boisterous punk set about how much they love the police and the surveillance state. They are known as The Civic Joy Fucks.

In reality, this group of pseudonymous punk pranksters performs entirely in-character, wearing pantyhose masks that make them look like deranged bank robbers. You can follow them on Instagram and listen to their demo album on Bandcamp.

The show featured three wildly energetic punk bands, opening with Fun Control, followed by The Civic Joy Fucks, and rounding out the night with Drugs.

It’s been ages since I’ve seen any live show in the Tenderloin. I think the last time was either at the now-defunct Edinburgh Castle Pub or when I was dating someone who lived in the area. Regardless, that was long ago.

Punk and its assorted offshoots are never really about the music; it’s more of a performance, often associated with some type of statement delivered sarcastically. It’s sort of like a board game night — are you there to play Dungeons & Dragons, or are you really there to hang out with your weird nerdy friends?

Sticking with that analogy, the weird nerds here are those hyper-attuned to San Francisco’s political sphere, with the target ostensibly being the Civic Joy Fund, a sort of quasi-slush fund financed by the mayor’s wealthy friends to promote a sanitized vision of San Francisco.

It’s a cycle we’ve seen before.

To say this was a throwback would be accurate, but would fail to capture the frantic feeling of the evening — warm bodies crammed into a small sweaty space on a cold night as the weird, rebellious spirit that represents the real San Francisco pounded against our eardrums.

events, humor, mayor, Music, photos, politics, punk, san francisco, satire, video
Local

Brick Exhibition: LEGO Fan Experience

MrEricSir

October 11, 2026

At a storefront in the Stonestown Galleria mall, a small toy store selling LEGO sets hides a mysterious space behind a black curtain. With the $22 ticket I’d bought from Fever, I was ushered past the curtain as though I were entering an exclusive secret venue — but it was really just the back room of a toy store.

To be clear it’s really just a temporary gallery, hastily assembled to showcase custom LEGO sculptures. Each room has a theme, falling into three main categories: models of real buildings, imaginary places from books and movies with a heavy emphasis on Disney and Star Wars, and Nintendo and Pokémon characters.

Oddly, the Nintendo and Pokémon characters were clearly unlicensed as the plaques featured creative names that danced around specific trademarks, like “Italian Ghost Hunter” for Luigi, “Electric Mouse” for Pikachu, and “Italian Dinosaur” for Yoshi. This raises a few questions: Is Pikachu a mouse? Is Yoshi Italian? I don’t have the answers here; perhaps someone can fill me in.

Aside from checking out the sculptures, there are two activities: hunting for hidden Spider-Man minifigs on the sculptures, and a children’s play area with boxes of LEGO bricks. Given the ticket price, the latter might justify it to some who want to keep their kids busy without the hassle of owning LEGO sets, or just to gauge their interest level before committing to a purchase.

The hidden Spider-Man hunt was fun, even if it didn’t always make sense — why would Spider-Man exist in the Star Wars universe? I’m probably overthinking this.

My recommendation: The ticket price feels out of line with the entertainment value. If you can find tickets half off on Groupon or something, it might be worth considering; otherwise, skip it.

art, events, lego, photos, stonestown, toys
Local

Humanoid robot deathmatch at Rek Arena

MrEricSir

October 11, 2026

“California was worried that our robots were too dangerous — so we decided to PUT FUCKING SWORDS ON ‘EM!” the announcer screamed from the cage as a stagehand removed the sheaths from the blades on the pair of 6-foot tall humanoid robots.

As the fight started and the robots exchanged quick jabs, Terminator-style robot T-REK threw the dreadlock-haired Rektile against the cage in front of me, wind rushing out through the cage from the motion. Rektile briefly stumbled as it got back into action. But it was quickly over — after getting knocked down repeatedly and springing up shockingly fast, in a violent blink-and-you’ll-miss-it collision, Rektile ended up immobilized on the arena floor.

T-REK was victorious, and did a little dance to celebrate.

This was the final fight of the night on Friday, October 9th, with each fight pairing up robots with increasing in size and agility. Each robot was controlled by a human with a wireless gamepad — not AI.

From what I gathered chatting with attendees, many in the crowd had invested in Rek Robots and were here to see this early public fight. The company, which has a showroom on the second floor, had recently found itself in legal trouble after having its robots fight a human. I guess “come on, live a little” isn’t technically a legal defense when you have robots built for factory work beating someone up.

Obviously, the fight with the human was not a deathmatch. Then again, when two robots are fighting, what does “death” even mean? Is that different than getting knocked out? These questions are either very deep or very stupid, or possibly both.

According to one investor I spoke with, the goal of these fights is to inspire kids’ interest in STEM education the same way the space race did back in the 1960s. While the audience was a blend of local software engineers and night owls, there were a few kids — and even a baby.

You might be wondering what this costs: the tickets to this event were $69/person. I wasn’t exactly prepared to spend that much, but it was also something I immediately knew I had to go see.

My recommendation: While this certainly isn’t a series I can see myself attending regularly due to the steep ticket price, it’s one of those things you can’t find anywhere else. I think this will appeal to a very self-selecting group. If you’re in that group and can afford the ticket, go for it — before Rek gets sued out of existence.

events, photos, robots, san francisco, tech, video
Local

The Metreon: Upper floors

MrEricSir

October 10, 2026

As the elevator doors slid open, I came to a place I’d never explored: the semi-secret upper floor of The Metreon — the floor above the movie theaters, a private event space known as The Aviary (formerly City View).

Last month I wrote about the “backrooms” of the Metreon’s movie theater on the third floor. Recently I got an invite to Google’s Startup Week, which was hosted on the fourth floor. As the name suggests, this was squarely aimed at the tech crowd. I was ostensibly there to see Google X’s Astro Teller, an old guard Silicon Valley visionary. That talk did not disappoint.

But my hidden motive was to explore the only space in the Metreon I’d never been to. Well, except for that one time they forgot to lock the elevator and I wound up there by mistake (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it).

The interior of the upper floors is mostly a blank floor plate with a boring white side hall where the bathrooms are located. There’s also a food prep area back there somewhere.

More interesting, though, is the balcony. Perched above Yerba Buena Gardens, you can see Moscone Center to the south, and SFMOMA straight ahead. It’s a pleasant balcony. Without the tech crowd flooding the space, one could imagine nesting somewhere like this in an upscale apartment or hotel.

What surprised me the most were the original escalators — still intact — branching down past a subfloor to the movie theater below. This lost part of the building is hiding in plain sight, rarely (if ever?) used, dating all the way back to the Metreon’s opening day in 1999.

As a side note, there is technically a subfloor above the Aviary level; however, I don’t know how to access it — it’s for staff only, from what a little bird tells me. Perhaps I’ll find a way to explore that in the future.

Next stop… the roof?

google, metreon, photos, san francisco, urbex
Local

Full Queer Wrestling at Folsom Street Fair

MrEricSir

September 29, 2026

Aye lads and lassies, let me tell ye a tale o’ the wild land of leather, rope, and displays of depravity I encountered while sailing… oh, sorry.

I went to the 2026 Folsom Street Fair dressed as a pirate this year. As one does.

It’s been years since I’d been to Folsom, and the tone this time was much more positive. Perhaps it was the unusually sunny afternoon, or the variety of events going on. Or maybe it was all in my head, which (again) was wearing a pirate hat.

Of everything going on, to me there was one clear standout: the wrestling.

This was my first experience seeing Full Queer wrestling. For those familiar with Hoodslam/SlamTown, it’s very much along the same lines, and one of the competitors on Sunday was Hoodslam founder Dark Sheik.

Some of the not-strictly legal wrestling moves on display included karate kicks, strangulation with barbed wire, and cannibalism. To be fair to the referees, one of them was a victim of the aforementioned cannibalism.

While I’m no wrestling expert, the same concept of “kayfabe” comes about all the time in art and comedy: presenting something ridiculous as though it were real, then getting the audience to play along.

In a case like Full Queer, wrestlers would get boos from the crowd if they were presented as a villain, they trash-talked San Francisco, or their persona didn’t match the gender-bending theme.

I got really into the crowd participation aspect, leading people to join in my chants of “Bite his dick off!” and “Death to America!” — the last one because… look, you had to be there.

comedy, folsom, folsomstreetfair, lgbt, photos, san francisco, wrestling
Rant

Immersive art…?

MrEricSir

September 27, 2026
Spotted on Mission Street
- Is this immersive art?
- Is it a participatory installation?
Why or why not?

I know I sound like a broken record on immersive art sometimes, questioning what the term means when it’s been stretched so thin as to become meaningless.

So imagine my surprise when I came across the above. What started as a Mission Street ad has succumbed to a type of (accidental?) participatory art.

Quite a bit of effort has gone into the collective act of defacing this poster.

Does this make it immersive? I would argue that it does. The act of participation is by its nature immersive, the call to action driven by the same invisible instinct that tells us to write on bathroom stalls with a Sharpie.

The bigger question: is it art? Here, I think the answer is amorphous. While it didn’t start out as art or even with an intention to become art, one could easily argue that the very nature of participation has transformed it into a collective, temporary art piece.

What is art, after all, if not a form of experience?
art, immersive, photos, san francisco
Misc

Los Angeles 2026 wrap-up and stray observations

MrEricSir

September 25, 2026
Taco trucks lining the streets of DTLA at night

I never planned to become a regular in Los Angeles, but here we are. This visit started out as a work trip to Long Beach, followed by a few carefully planned days off.

My goal with this vacation was to have new experiences, and I think that worked out: if you told me six months ago that I’d be flying an airplane over SoCal, I would have thought you were crazy — yet it was the highlight of the trip.

Even the best laid plans can fall apart. I’d planned on trying a tasting menu at the chef’s table in an upscale new restaurant as part of an Airbnb Experience. The chef was ill and it was called off. No big deal though — I always maintain a list of backup plans as a contingency.

Some other thoughts and observations in no particular order:
- Long Beach reminds me a lot of Oakland: lots of working class blue-collar types, a big shipping industry, and a lot of places that aren’t really walkable.
- On that note, despite several Metro Rail extensions, Angeleno as a whole still have a huge problem with their car addiction. If the city is going to pull off the Olympics sustainably, the only viable option at this late stage is to go all-in on bus rapid transit.
- Staying in DTLA is pretty easy for me these days since I know how to find my way around, and some good food spots. Guisados is my go-to place for tacos with fresh, handmade tortillas. That’s the secret that elevates a typical taco into a great one.
- I hired a professional photographer to get some shots of myself in LA at night — the photographer turned out to be from the Bay Area too. Small world.
- I went on a tour of Union Station with the LA Conservancy that was sort of a mixed bag. Part of the building was closed for maintenance, and the guide could have been a lot more mindful about directing us around all the noise and skin-searing sunlight. Still, it was cool to see parts of the station I’d never seen before, and learn about parts I’d walked right past before — like the prop ticket counters from Blade Runner.
- I was sworn to secrecy on some aspects of this one: I booked a ticket to a “tea speakeasy.” It’s a relaxing spot where the proprietor serves as much tea as you’d like for a flat fee, there’s live music, and plenty of opportunities to socialize with strangers over board games and art projects. Doesn’t get much more LA than that.
- LAX’s new “people mover” tram still isn’t open just yet. A vision of LAX that’s not clogged with traffic is almost impossible to imagine, but hope may be here soon, as they were testing it out while I was there.
As a pro-tip for getting around LA, try relying on Uber and Lyft only for the last mile if you can; the LA Metro (buses, light rail, and subway) is dirt cheap at $1.75 so the savings are real.

Oh, and I still haven’t made it to that alien church. Maybe next time — Los Angeles has the strangest ways of drawing you back.
los angeles, photos, public transportation, tacos, travel