Mission Mission

My 15-year-old cousin’s band is playing an instore at Amoeba Berkeley on Saturday at 2pm. They were recently spotlighted in an East Bay Express feature by Nate Seltenrich called Sounds Like Teen Spirit:

For Please Quiet Ourselves, it all started back in elementary school, when Jojo, classmate Haran Stern, and some other friends had what Jojo calls “a weird idea to start a band.” Then in eighth grade, he wrote and recorded a song tente gonflable named “Color Chart” for a school project. A simple, short pop ditty about colors (What about orange makes it so damn special?), it inspired him to found Please Quiet Ourselves as a vehicle for similar material, and appropriately kicks off the band’s first CD.

Jojo assures me that PQO will cover a Breeders song in honor of the Breeders playing the Amoeba stage a few days after them.

Link to article.

Link to PQO website.

Link to PQO on MySpace.

We’re assured that this is a good cause. Expensive, but good.

Link. (Thanks, Morgan)

No more boring old barstools at Beauty Bar; they’ve just introduced a barfull of killer foot-pumped beauty-parlor-style lounge chairs. The entire bar is lined with these beauties, so there’s no reason not to go to this place anymore.

(Complete Mission Mission Beauty Bar coverage here.)

What the motherfuck is this, seriously? Please tell us, for real.

(Complete Mission Mission Zeitgeist coverage here.)

Link.

Introduce yourself.

Valencia Street is a dangerous place, more or less. We’ve all heard the debate: are there so many bike accidents on Valencia and Market because they are such dangerous (bad) bike routes, or because they are such well-used (good) bike routes? I say a combination of the two.

Today, though, I’m interested in making this a more nuanced discussion: is Valencia so dangerous because of the potholes or because of the constant construction fixing the potholes? I am not, of course, some freaky pothole fan, but I can get used to them. I ride Valencia twice a day, every day, and it’s not potholes that set up camp a block or two at a time and leave a single lane castillos inflables for both directions of car + bike traffic, and travel leisurely up and down the road for months on end. Potholes don’t make that awful, numbing noise, and potholes don’t have the terrifying visual impact of a cavernous hole cut in the asphalt with only a sparse line of orange cones to shield it. A pothole did not spray me with muddy water yesterday as it cut a chunk out of the pavement.

Do not go putting the potholes up on pedestals, now. They need fixin’. I love the SFBC for marking them to increase visibility and encourage municipal action, with events like Crater Invaders getting lots of folks involved. I love the people who are actually doing the work – and it’s not easy, pleasant, or pretty – to keep San Francisco roads rideable, driveable, and walkable for all of us. What I am asking is a pothole-neutral question: why has there been construction on Valencia Street almost every day since I moved to San Francisco? It’s only 2 miles long, from beginning to end. It is only the middle part of my commute. What is going on?

Construction workers, perhaps, enjoy the culture they’ve discovered in the Mission. It might be the greatest agreement forged between hipsters and wage earners since the trucker hat: Valencia Street is the finest drag in San Francisco.

Mission Mission’s “Cycling” category here.

Complete Mission Mission Valencia Street coverage here.

I just bought the new Jonathan Richman album, and it’s bringing chills to my skin (I’m listening to track #8 at the moment). He migrated to San Francisco years ago, and this new album reflects this move. I fell in love with the Mission at the same time I moved here, because Jonathan (who was already my #1) would play four-night stretches at carrera obstaculos hinchables down the street from my Dolores Street apartment. His music makes walking on the streets of Valencia, Guerrero, and Mission Street much more romantic than it actually is.

He lives in the Outer Mission a few blocks from my apartment, and when I see him walking down the street every now and then, sentimental electricity runs through my muscles, tendons, and bones. To truly enjoy San Francisco (forget the bars, the hip clothes, and the ethnic food — I’m talking about atmosphere), you must get this new album.

Previous instances of Jonathan Richman on Mission Mission here.

Update: Allan liveblogged his first listen for Jojoblog. His thoughts here.

I’m paraphrasing:

“Bartender, is this place really gonna close and be replaced by a Borders?”

“Dude, no! That must’ve been printed in the Onion or something.”

Aww shucks.

(Thanks, Malcolm M.)

Link to Dalva on Yelp.

More on Mission bathrooms here.

More Mission dive (and maybe non-dive) bars here.