Apparently a ghost outbreak occurred near Mission and 17th St. today, but it was already contained by the time I arrived at the scene. The ghosts are gone, all that was left was the Ghostbuster’s car.
Scary stuff. Stay safe, everyone!
No word as to whether this is related to Slimer’s visit to Valencia back in 2010.
John Law’s Doggie Diner head trailer is a mobile landmark in San Francisco. This evening they happened to be leashed on Valencia outside Stage Werks.
Anyone who’s lived in San Francisco for a while knows the story behind the doggie heads; they were the mascot of a local fast food chain called the Doggie Diner. After the chain went out of business in the 80′s the heads seem to have ended up various places. For example one of them is mounted on a pole in the median of Sloat at 45th Ave.
You never know when or where the doggie head trailer will appear. It’s kind of like Frank Chu, except that Frank Chu’s signs tend to make more sense than the concept of eating food that was cooked by a dog. Yuck. But hey, I’m not in marketing.
Remember when I told you that Martin’s Emporium, the skull shop on 16th St between Guerrero and Dolores, was going out of business?
Turns out I lied. Well, okay I didn’t lie so much as that was really their plan at the time. But after two years the For Sale sign is gone from the window. According to their Facebook page, Martin’s is coming back!
I know, it’s been difficult living without a source of skull jewelry and trinkets. I hope you’ve been maintaining a detailed shopping list.
On Mission near 17th there’s a handwritten sign in a store window that reads:
Make
Copy’s
Key’s
Q: Can you spot the gramatical errors on the above sign?
A: No. There are so many problems it’s impossible to assign a concrete number. For example, should the sign say “We make copies of keys”? Or maybe it could simply read “Keys copied”? Regardless, there’s more than one correct answer. The only thing we can say for certain is that apostrophes should not be involved.
“YOU ROCK” proclaims a cardboard sign at 15th and Minna.
But that’s not any old piece of cardboard, no sir. It’s an album cover from a record; the soundtrack to Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrenece, composed and performed by Yellow Magic Orchestra keyboardist Ryuichi Sakamoto.
I mean, like, duh.
The URL on the bottom of the sign takes you to LoveYou2.org, a blog about a project to spread positive messages to the world in an endless variety of mediums and formats.
The piece I found is part of a series documented in this blog post. Looks like there’s a few others around the neighborhood I have yet to locate.
If I find any more of this series I’ll update this post with locations.
UPDATE Jan 17: This one featuring The Best of Édith Piaf is on Capp and 16th on the fence outside the Walgreens parking lot.
Chains? U-locks? Bicycle frames with built-in locking mechanisms? Sure, you could use any of these methods in prevention of bicycle thievery. But one enterprising local has apparently discovered a new way to secure your bicycle: toilet paper.
If potential thieves can even spot your bike under the shroud of TP, will they be able to tear through it all before the cops arrive? Probably not — as anyone who’s ever suffered a TP attack can tell you, it takes a while to clean it all up.
Unfortunately, the TP method has several drawbacks:
Unless a solution can be found to these issues, toilet paper cannot be recommended for bicycle security.
(Spotted at 16th and Albion.)
Lately Clarion Alley has been hit by wave after wave of vandalism. Yes, this is why we can’t have nice things.
I’ve been curious as to how long it’d take before the wonderful Lone Star Swan mural would get defaced, and unfortunately I now have the answer. Over the past few days, some piece of human shit came in and spray painted their fucking tag all over the entire mural.
Taggers are like dogs that use spray paint to mark their territory instead of urine. At least piss washes off, a fact that places taggers a few steps below dogs in the intelligence ladder.
If you taggers insist on ruining art, at least have the decency to replace it with something meaningful. Perhaps a new piece, or some kind of social commentary? For fuck’s sake, it’s not that hard to add value instead of just shitting on other people’s work. Grow up.
Mission District sushi joint Yo Yo has jumped on the Gangnam Style bandwagon as part of their effort to add a few Korean dishes to the menu. Bimimbap is a traditional Korean dish which, as far as I know, has nothing to do with horsey dances or yelling at women’s butts.
While it’s perhaps a few months late to jump on this particular fad, the dish itself looks promising. If anyone’s tried it I’d be curious to know if it’s any good.
Legendary director John Waters sent a holiday card to the Roxie Theater recently, pictured above with a fantastic illustration of Waters himself. You can check it out on display in the ticket window at the Roxie.
As you might recall, Waters’ connection to the theater is that he helped out with the Roxie’s fundraiser last month.
The memorial pictured above recently appeared at Katz Bagels on 16th St. Founder Burt Katz died last week. He was 81.
As you may know, Katz Bagels has several locations around the city. Some have been rebranded with new menus (Nectar, for example) and the 16th St location recently did a stint as “Pizza 16″ before reverting to Katz Bagels.
You might also recall the 16th location was once home to a bagel UFO which was later moved to storage in a parking garage.
My understanding is that Burt’s son Mike has handled the day-to-day business for some time, so I doubt we’ll see any major changes.
Rest in peace, Mr. Katz.