Peapod Represents Haiti, Bernal in the House

April 28, 2010

Peapod is a worldwide youth music program started by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas.  Last year they worked with the Adobe Foundation to open branches in Oakland and Redwood City that give kids access to video and music production equipment.

In addition to mentoring in the performing arts, youth participants will receive structured multi-media training in video, audio, photography, design and art, enabling them to creatively express their points of view on vital issues and contribute to social change in their communities.

The aim of the campaign is to nurture self-expression, creativity, community involvement, and digital literacy among young people — the kind of education these organizations feel is critical for today’s youth.

The Redwood City kids wisely chose the top of Bernal as a location for their rather awesome “Stand Up For Haiti” video to support earthquake relief efforts.

Click to get to the Vimeo HD version (and choose the HTML5 player button to save your CPU).

Click for more on Peapod, and Adobe Youth Voices.

Note that Partners in Health (PIH) is the Burrito Justice approved vector for Haiti donations. The rainy season is about to start and they need all the help they can get.

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Wah! Snort-snort-snort. Rwaah-oh-oh!

February 6, 2010

Oh dear god this is awesome.

The urge to create ringtones is strong in this one.

And these are extremely accurate transcriptions.  I would love to be in the meeting where they decided on the spellings.

“Aaahowhaaahow?”

“No, no, no, you’re thinking Aargharghoo. It’s Ahhowwwahow.”

And of course there are others. It’s a trap!

We’re passing through the magnetic field!

I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

While you can’t mix in your own music, you do have the Mos Eisley Canteena soundboard which is pretty epic in its awesominity.

I take this opportunity to repeat a question I asked from the early days — which bar in the Mission would Han most likely shoot someone in?

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Mother Mother at Cafe du Nord Wednesday

August 18, 2009

Mother Mother, my favorite band, headlines tomorrow at Cafe Du Nord! A nice step up from them opening there last time (but their gig at the Hotel Utah was pretty epic, like seeing them play in your garage).

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Do yourself a huge favor and buy tickets now before the big blogs pick up on this and you are sitting alone in your room on a Wednesday night. That’s no way to live. (Tragically I am out of town so there will be two more tickets available — such are the sacrifices I am willing to make for my faithful readers.)

Anyway, two albums, both solid. Some of the most arresting vocals I have ever heard.  A couple of examples:

Polynesia (2007, Touch Up)
Body of Years (2008, Oh My Heart)
Mother Mother Myspace Page

(And doesn’t the lead singer Ryan sort of look like Brock, but with more hair?)

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Important Blogging Discoveries

August 7, 2009

Believe it or not, I read blogs that don’t involve Mission history, food, and maps, shocking as this may seem.

One blog I greatly enjoy reading is “40 Going On 28” by TK (a Mission man who appears to be in his late 30s but is actually 40 and complains about things). WARNING: Do not read this blog while drinking fluids, as there is a good chance you will laugh and spew a beverage over your keyboard (generally not covered by AppleCare).

While TK’s blog covers widely ranging topics, you may not realize that he is in a band and is in fact one of America’s great music researchers.  Just today, during a lyrical deconstruction of Steve Miller’s Take The Money and Run, he made a significant music discovery — there is a discontinuity in Steve Miller’s story line!

We have the criminals and the crime:

They headed down to, ooh, old El Paso / That’s where they ran into a great big hassle
Billy Joe shot a man while robbing his castle / Bobbie Sue took the money and run

We have the crimefighter:

Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas / You know he knows just exactly what the facts is
He ain’t gonna let those two escape justice / He makes his livin’ off of the people’s taxes

Go Billy Mack!  (Maybe he can find DB Cooper too.) But suddenly, we jump to the conclusion:

Bobbie Sue, whoa, whoa, she slipped away / Billy Joe caught up to her the very next day
They got the money, hey You know they got away / They headed down south and they’re still running today

What the hell!  Clearly something happened between Bobbie Sue and Billy Mack, but what?  I prompted TK on this critical gap of the criminal history of Texas, and thankfully he was able to make updiscover the missing lyrics.  Read his blog to discover the details of the epic battle between Bobby Sue and Billy Mack.

Another blog I greatly enjoy reading is Mock Duck, by Dan, a Mission expat living in Prague. He’s a design guy and comes up with many wide-ranging and excellent posts on wide ranging topics from lost urban artifacts to bacon.  He also has a musical bent and has written about Celine Dion (Canada’s Weapon of Mass Destruction) and more importantly multiple posts about Blues Brothers (what I consider the last, great American musical, never mind one of the best movies of all time).  Here we have a Polish Blues Brothers movie poster:

polish blues brothers

It so happens that I am also a sucker for well-designed posters and am particularly fascinated by communist/socialist poster art (something Telephone and Soup were kind enough to humor).  Dan has an entire post on Polish movie posters, describing how “the country emerged so devastated from WWII that it took much longer for TV and other communication technologies to make serious inroads, so the poster maintained this weirdly elevated status through the 60s, 70s and 80s.” These posters prove how constraints can inspire greatness.

polish butch cassidy sundance kid

However, I do require more posts about the pnuematic tube network that ran in Prague up until floods in 2002.

That is all.

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Sunday Streets – Mission Edition, Part II.V

July 19, 2009

Continued from Part II this morning and Part I last month.

Hello, my beautiful little pork sliders. Pal’s, doing an excellent job as always — their sandwiches taste even better while standing in the middle of the street surrounded by bicycles and strollers.

pal's pork sliders

Paper horse:

sunday streets horse

Bike crossing:

sunday streets 24th and mission right of way

Roller soccer.  (Hey, anyone up for street hockey next year?)

roller soccer

Down low:

yellow line

Lots of music:

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The Ferocious Few were quite good.

the ferocious few

Anyway, a great afternoon. I hope it turns into a monthly event.

But please, Please, PLEASE keep this going until 4pm next time around.

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David Byrne @ The Greek Theater – Encore Trickery

June 29, 2009

I was lucky enough to see David Byrne and friends at the Greek last Friday.  An epic show, despite the beer lines that rivaled the Mission Safeway in inefficiency.

While I have graduated to medium-resolution photography with my new iPhone (the auto-focus and background contrast selection is pretty damn cool), I point you to the many photographers on Flickr who were closer and had better cameras than me.

David Byrne @ The Greek Theater, Berkeley 06-26-2009

Originally uploaded by hippiesaredead

(A note to those attending a concert: If there are a thousand balloons suspended in nets above the stage, yet the band takes a bow as if to leave, DO NOT GO HOME. The concert is likely not over, and you will be seriously insulting those who inflated the balloons.)

byrne balloons

As far as I can tell, encores are devices that allow the band to go to the bathroom.  If you have to pee, they probably do too.

The DBD (David Byrne Dancers) were great, and then there was the arrival of the Extra Action Marching Band through the crowd. There was a lot happening on stage.

Originally uploaded by hippiesaredead

While I was fully prepared for the dropping balloons, the onslaught of hundreds of white beachballs bouncing down from the rear/top of the Greek was pretty damn cool:

(Oh yeah, iPhone video = pretty damn handy.)

I think at least half of the BART train that left Berkeley got off at 24th, many of whom were carrying white beachballs.

David Byrne’s blog is pretty interesting — there should be a post on the show soon.

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Fiesta on The Hill – Blue Rabbit, Tri-Tip

October 19, 2008

Our neighbors in Bernal had a cool little street fair on Cortland today. Nice to go to a fair without all the typical Marina-crap-vendors you see at every other street fair (the exceptions being the Mission, and, well, Folsom fairs).

Good food — here’s my tri-tip sandwich before it got devoured. I am blanking on the name of the green sauce — chiro something? And of course I can’t remember the name the vendor. Useful, eh?

Good live music, two stages at opposite ends of the fair. I was particularly taken by Blue Rabbit. I bought their new CD, Separate: Buy the CD
Separate

They will be doing a CD Release party at the Hotel Utah on 16 November.

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Indie Music of Mystery – Mother Mother

October 13, 2008

Burrito Justice is not just about food. It is often enjoyable to listen to music while eating food. (Mission Street Food rocked out Thursday night with portable speakers, for example.)

Anyway, as part of the Canadian Mafia, I have access to some indie music I bet you don’t know about but I think you will like as it is good and clever. (Please do not make any Celine Dion jokes. She is Canada’s weapon of mass destruction — if you piss us off, there is lots more “talent” we can deploy from Quebec. (You think we’re kidding? One word –”Cirque de Soleil”…))

Anyway, you should check out Mother Mother — they’re from Quadra Island (just off my own island, Vancouver Island). They just came out with their 2nd album, O My Heart. I am horrible at describing music but it has the good rhythm, and the guitars, and the vocals. (Crap, I had better work on this.) But their songs are solid, they have an extremely distinct sound, and damn do they build. They stick in your head, but in the good way. And then people will say, “My, what insanely cool song is that person whistling? I had better check Burrito Justice to find out, as that is the t-shirt they are wearing.” Or they might ask you. Luckily you are prepared:

Body of Years from their new album, O My Heart via iTunes, not out yet on the Amazon mp3 store

Polynesia from their first album, Touch Up via iTunes, or Amazon

Best news of all? They are playing at the Hotel Utah on Nov 5! (I just figured this until after I started writing this post – I love the Internet!) That’s a mere 7 blocks from the Mission, so it’s OK to go. And $8! That’s like 1.5 burritos. See you there Nov 5.

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