The parents of a missing 21-year-old man who was last seen in Hayes Valley are asking for the public’s help in finding him.

Sean Sidi, pictured above, was last spotted on Tuesday, when he visited a former teacher at the International High School at 150 Oak Street. Around 1:30pm he phoned his father and told him he was catching a bus to “the park.” His phone was last detected near Baker Beach before it went dead around 2pm. Sean has not been heard from since.

seansidi.com

According to a website set up by his family, Sean is “medically fragile,” having suffered a severe traumatic brain injury several months ago. They describe him as 5’5″, 120 lbs, with dark brown hair and eyes, and of caucasian/asian decent. He was last seen wearing a black and gray hooded North Face jacket, blue jeans, and black canvas shoes.

Anyone with information can leave an anonymous tip at seansidi.com, or contact SFPD Sargeant Ann Mackenzie at 415-734-3268.

Tomorrow, a special art marketplace will take over the Proxy Project on Octavia.

Dubbed “Everything Must Go,” it’s described as “one part art exhibition, one part yard sale… featuring all things temporary. Works will investigate the idea of impermanence, the temporary, the fleeting, being present and seizing the moment.”

The event will involve nearly 20 RISD-affiliated artists offering their items for sale (cash only), with the artists keeping 100% of the proceeds.

“Everything Must Go” is scheduled for 9am to 3pm, with an afterparty at the Biergarten. So if you’re interested in some temporary art, be sure to swing by Proxy tomorrow and check it out.

If you’re interested in Hayes Valley — and apparently you are, given that you’re reading Hayeswire — then head on over to tonight’s monthly meeting of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association.

Tonight’s agenda includes presentations by the Executive Director of the New Conservatory Theatre at Van Ness and Market, and the new Executive Director of the African American Art and Culture Complex at Fulton and Webster. You’ll also hear from the curator of a new exhibit coming to the SF Public Library, and get a sneak preview from some of the artists themselves.

There will also be news on upcoming events like SF Pride and Juneteenth, and updates from HVNA’s various committees.

This all happens tonight, from 7pm to 8:30pm, at the Hayes Valley Playground clubhouse at Hayes and Buchanan.

You’re invited to join Supervisor London Breed and our local SFPD Captain on a community walk around Hayes Valley tomorrow evening.

From 5pm to 7pm tomorrow (Thursday), Breed will be joined by SFPD Northern Station Captain Greg McEachern on a stroll meeting merchants and residents around the neighborhood.

According to Northern Station:

“What the walk does is put us face to face, partnering community and the police, to really see and talk about how we can partner to make the community safer. The plan is that virtually every neighborhood will have a community walk at some point throughout the year and will have the opportunity for face to face communication on concerns you may have.”

The walk will start at 5pm at the playground at the corner of Hayes and Buchanan. Anyone who lives or works in Hayes Valley is welcome to attend.

To cross the threshold of the nearly unmarked Smuggler’s Cove is to leave Hayes Valley and enter a tropical fever dream. And, if it’s possible, things are stranger than usual at Smuggler’s Cove tonight. Is that a shriner’s meeting at the bar?

No, it’s an induction ceremony into the Cove’s exclusive Rumbustion Society.

Mysteriously sporting his own red fez, owner Martin Cate begins to explain: “A tiki place should have a great sense of escapism. Throw your phone in that waterfall over there, that’s what it”s all about.” But in a Hawaiian shirt surrounded by the vintage tiki décor he’s collected for 15 years, Cate looks right at home.

The exotic backdrop of Smuggler’s Cove (650 Gough) is fitting, considering that rum — the bar’s liquor of choice — is a spirit you could practically sail away on. Made in 200 countries on 6 continents, “every rum tells a story,” says Cate, whether that’s the story of an island’s tradition or a region’s colonization. “It’s got adventure, it’s got romance, it’s got tragedy, it’s got everything.”

It was in recreating exotic cocktails from the 40’s and 50’s that called for blends of many rums that Cate learned the spirit’s nuances. “No Manhattan’s ever asked for 3 kinds of rye, so you taste all these rums neat and you see they’re really different. Then you ask why.” That question led Cate to form the Rumbustion Society, an education and appreciation program unique to Smuggler’s Cove.

So that’s what the fez wearers are: rum aficionados who have attained the Rumbustion Society rank of “Guardian of the Cove.” There are more than 30 Guardians according to Cate, who punningly refers to himself in the society’s hierarchy as “Potencate.”

The Guardians began as “Disciples of the Cove,” trying 20 one-ounce pours of various rum styles with a punch card to keep track of them. After another 80 rums, checked off on a list kept behind the bar, the final rite of passage before guardianship is a hazing ritual and an oath of allegiance.

And that’s why the Guardians are gathered here tonight.

“I hereby declare and solemnly swear,” begins Cate as two Guardian candidates place their hands on a bottle of some very expensive rum, “that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.”

When they say “so help me rum” at the end of the oath, tonight’s candidates will receive their fez and a plaque on the wall bearing their name. But the hard part was the hazing. In a ritual customized to each candidate’s interests (they fancy themselves mixologists), the two fixed each other unappetizing drinks and raced to finish them for higher plaque order. Both looked pretty seasick.

Should you be foolhardy enough to continue, another 100 rums earn you the title of “Master of the Cove”. There are about 15 such Masters, who are invited on a distillery tour with Cate. There are 9 or 10 members of the 300 club, and to Cate’s surprise, a handful have passed 400; one is at 425.

Through the Rumbustion Society, Cate learns which rums and regions Guardians prefer, which shapes his purchasing decisions. “It’s almost like a giant focus group,” he says.

The oath complete, everyone raises a glass. “So help me rum!” chant the newly-minted Guardians, and they’re welcomed by cheers into the Society’s motley crew.

Yesterday, Hayes Valley once again served as the bridge between the Financial District and Golden Gate Park stretches of the century-old Bay to Breakers run.

We stepped into the madness to bring you the new, the old, and the nude in this year’s race across the city.

We found Elvis on Hayes, and bath time in front of Moishe’s Pippic. A herd of mariachis roamed the streets, while the day-glo teen staple of the 2010′s soaked nearly every wave of “runners”. We saw meme themes and Ganesh, sheeple running from cops, and Duffman himself… as well as the illusive serious runner post-8am.

Enjoy the show!!

Tomorrow, Biergarten hosts a relatively new tradition in Hayes Valley — the 3rd annual Ham and Eggs Fire Brunch.

As we detailed back in April, the so-called Ham and Eggs Fire originated at 395 Hayes Street on April 18th, 1906. A resident at the address was making breakfast following the 1906 earthquake, unaware that the quake had damaged the stove’s chimney. A fire ensued, and with the neighborhood’s water supply cut off as well, firefighters were helpless to stop it from spreading. It eventually consumed a wide swath of the city.

Each year, the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association hosts a breakfast to celebrate the fire, or specifically the neighborhood’s resilience in the face of it. This year, the breakfast becomes a brunch, hosted at Biergarten tomorrow (Saturday) at noon. Proceeds go to the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association.

The brunch will be preceded by a walking tour of the neighborhood, hosted by HVNA’s Larry Cronander. It’ll begin and end at the Biergarten, and will discuss the fire and its impact on Hayes Valley. The tour starts at 10am, and will finish in time for the brunch.

So if you are free tomorrow, head on down to the Biergarten, meet some neighbors, have some food, and celebrate some Hayes Valley history. A pretty great way to spend a Saturday, if you ask us.

The SFMTA will hold a hearing tomorrow to discuss adding a crosswalk at the intersection of Fell and Gough Streets.

The crosswalk would be on the west side of the intersection, crossing Fell. Currently that is the only one of the four potential crossings that lacks a crosswalk.

Tomorrow (Friday), the Sustainable Street Division of the SFMTA will hold a hearing to consider the proposed crosswalk, as well as a number of other transit-related projects around the city. The hearing is scheduled for 10am in Room 416 of City Hall.

Along with the crosswalk, a few other changes are being considered for the intersection. They include establishing tow-away zones at the intersection and removing three nearby parking spots.

According to the SFMTA, tomorrow’s hearing will allow for public feedback before a decision is made:

“The purpose of traffic engineering hearings for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Sustainable Streets Division is for residents to express their concerns regarding the posted parking and traffic changes affecting their streets. At the hearing, the public hearing officer, after reviewing the items and listening to residents, will make a decision as to whether the items are approved or not. Any interested parties are encouraged to attend.”

If you can’t attend the hearing, but live or work nearby and would like to share your opinion, you can do so by emailing mailto:sustainable.streets@sfmta.com with the subject line “Public Hearing.”

The message of “Brighter Faster” displayed on the wall behind the Proxy Project (432 Octavia) is almost synonymous with the interim-use space. Given the recent renaissance Hayes Valley is experiencing, these sky blue letters and the message they convey serve as a fitting note for our transitional neighborhood.

If you walk down Octavia towards Market, you’ll see more letters in that circus-marquee font. This piece situated at the corner of Page and Octavia spells out “Great Adventure.”

These two painting are part of an ever-growing worldwide collection of messages of positivity by UK-based street artist Ben Eine.

In the world of street art, Ben is as prolific as artists come. His street-based work is found globally from Beijing and Tokyo to New York and Mexico City. Ben — and sometimes his pal Banksy — search for an urban environment that’s just begging for a little pizzazz.

For the untrained eye, the difference between graffiti and street art can be about ambiguous as it gets. Most artists and fans classify street art as constructive and graffiti as destructive to its surroundings.

Before Ben had found his niche in the street art scene, he was just some punk painting trains in the UK.

“I tagged shit for years,” Ben told us candidly. “Painted trains for years, but I got tired of graffiti. I was going to get sent to prison, so I decided to legalize my graffiti so it wasn’t exactly graffiti.”

He started by exploring his fascination with calligraphy — particularly Germanic fonts. According to Ben, he was largely entranced by the style from a rather old bible that a friend had given to him as a present.

“I started painting roller shutters [of shops and bodegas] random letters and numbers on them,” he said. “I was just random tagging them. You never see my name. It made it not graffiti, so it allowed me to paint and not get arrested.”

Flickr/doer

Flickr/doer

Flickr/doer

Now, his letters and numbers are seen on roller shutters throughout blocks of Middlesex Street in London. It’s because of this abundance of his work that Middlesex was nicknamed “Alphabet Street.”

Flickr/AdversMedia

As the street art phenomenon began to gain traction and the attention of art enthusiasts, Ben’s positive messages started symbolizing gentrification.

“When I come to neighborhoods and tag buildings with my style, people say, ‘It’s the beginning of the gentrification process,’” he told us. “I made a street look completely different. It went from looking like shit to looking interesting.”

It’s this fame that undoubtedly caught the attention of British Prime Minister David Cameron, who gave President Obama one of Ben’s works as a gift for his first official state visit in 2010.

When we asked Ben how it felt to receive this high honor, he replied simply: “Dude, I went to Downing Street and met the fucking prime minister.”

Going from a delinquent under the law to a celebrated artist was something that Ben never comprehended when he started tagging trains all those years ago.

“I’m just like this graffiti kid who rang the doorbell to Downing Street and had lunch with the Prime Minister,” he said animatedly. “It was surreal. You know, I broke the law most of my life and then I wound up at 10 Downing Street. I never went to arts school, I just vandalized stuffed and fucked around and somehow I wound up here.”

In 2011, Ben wanted to make a splash in SF for an upcoming solo show at the White Walls Gallery (886 Geary), so the gallery scoured SF to find walls for him to tag. They ended up finding the Octavia side of the building on Page Street.

“So this is before the Biergarten and the other shit that happened [in Hayes Valley],” he noted. “At the time it was a fucking car park, so he spoke to the guys who owned the Octavia building and they were like, ‘Yeah, cool, paint it.’”

Ben paid for the scaffolding and the spray paint. He even paid $800 to get insurance.

When it came time to paint, Ben already had a concept in mind.

“Well, I travel a lot and my life is like a great adventure. Also, there’s a Biggie Smalls song called ‘Kick the Doors.’ In this song, he says, ‘I got more rhymes than great adventure.’ I thought that was pretty sick.”

It seems that Biggie made an impact on Ben, because he’s written the rap lyric in a handful of places throughout the world. Each location has a different font.

“I’ve written it in Beijing, Tokyo, Copenhagen, London and a few other places,” he explained. “Everyone takes something completely different from great adventure and not a single person has come forward and said, ‘Sick, Biggie Smalls!”

Unlike “Great Adventure,” his work for “Brighter Faster” is the only one of its kind. According to Ben, “Brighter Faster” wasn’t intended to be a reflection of the neighborhood, “it just worked out like that.”

Unfortunately, this upbeat fresco’s days in the sun are numbered. As we reported in March, it will soon be sealed away forever behind a new construction project.

Like most street art, the mural is meant to have a limited duration in the world.

“One of the exciting things about what we do is the street is our art gallery,” he said. “If you’re walking or cycling to work and turn a corner to see a painting of two policeman kissing each other; then two days later it’s gone. It’s exciting and it’s fun. It’s not meant to be there forever.”

That isn’t to say his work won’t be popping up to a city near you in the future. Ben is actually currently living in San Francisco since he moved here in 2012. Among his current projects, he’s preparing for a solo show at Corey Helford Gallery on June 18th, not to mention the debut of a scarf he designed for Louis Vuitton.

Check out Ben’s website for his latest projects and a catalog of his recent work.

This Thursday night, Suppenküche will mark a big milestone — 20 years in business.

When the restaurant opened in 1993, the Chronicle’s Michael Bauer declared it “the home of some of the best German food you’ll find in the city,” noting that it “offers much more than good food: It’s a friendly environment in which to mingle with a new crowd and relax.”

In our opinion that still holds true today, a full two decades later.

To celebrate the achievement, Suppenküche has plenty of fun in store for Thursday night. The Biergarten will be closed, and Suppenküche’s regular service for the night will be canceled. Instead, they’ll have “a special menu, special bier, special music, special T-shirts, special gifts, special decor and special friends.” Special!

Also, there will be gnome costumes. Really.

Everyone is invited to attend, though as with most nights at Suppenküche, expect the place to be packed. That’s this Thursday night, May 16th, from 5pm till closing.

Congratulations in advance, Suppenküche, on twenty years in the neighborhood!