Mission Mission

Facebook post by Eden Brower.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod are San Francisco legends in my book. Glad to know I’m in good company with Robert Crumb and Terry Zwigoff. Why don’t you join this elite club of ragtime, early jazz, and blues fans and get down to Atlas Cafe on Saturdays 4-6pm?

Don’t forget we interviewed inverviewed Mr. Zwigoff in 2012! He was a delight.

Judging from the music video of latest from Atmosphere, security seems pretty tight at Viracocha on Valencia and 21st. Keep that in mind next time you’re thinking about shoplifting that moss-covered log with the Edison bulb screwed into it.

[via Mission director and dumpling enthusiast Pete Lee]

Sure, triangular region of “La Lengua” was acknowledged first by the blogs, the Examiner, CBS local news, and even Google.

But when the real estate folks catch on, it somehow feels… wrong.

Maybe we should call it “the Really Oblique Trapezoid”, in step with recent trends? Or the “2nd Amendment Flats”. You know, because of the gun store and Eagle Donuts.

Poor lil guys. Help Theo out?

[via flyering]

The nice-ification of 24th st. and Mission continues: first we saw the reclaimed wood makeover for that crusty old Micky-D’s, now the fencing is starting to come down on the mysterious construction at the 24th st. BART Station.

The big reveal? A skate park. OK maybe not exactly a skate park, but c’mon. Those rails and steps probably have every kid in a 5-mile radius reaching for their boards. I’d dare say it’s one of the best unintentional skate parks since the Tenderloin’s US District Court Northern District Of California.

There are other changes in store, including a bizarre obelisk structure next to the stairs. It’s hollowed-out inside and appears to have an entrance so who knows what it’s real purpose may be… BART jail? Communications tower for contacting the mother ship? It’s anyone’s guess.

[2nd photo via BART]

…they’re cleaning them.

[at Embarcadero Station, thanks to reader Rob for the submission!]

Personally, I prefer to travel via dinosaur or warp whistle.

[via Joshing Uno, prints available!]

Here’s something you might not know: the cartoon biz as of late is no stranger to Mission/Bay Area talent.

Take Bob’s Burgers, for example. Do those Mission-style Victorian buildings in the background art look familiar? That’s because they were designed by local artist Sirron Norris. The character design in the show was done by none other than Jay Howell.

Regular Show, a hilarious Cartoon Network show about a couple of 23-year-old dudes who are also animals, features the writing/storyboarding talent of local indie comics darlings Hellen Jo, Calvin Wong (my bro!), and Minty Lewis (additional voice talent)! I have it on relatively shaky authority that pages of Mission Mission may have been source material for the cutting-edge fashions in this episode:

More recently, Jay Howell has announced his own show on Nickelodeon called Sanjay and Craig… with and additional Mission bonus: music by thee Oh Sees!! Check out the awesome promo for it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7nP1p7MARw

Granted most of these jerks have moved to LA to, you know, actually make a career out of art. Zinefest doesn’t pay the bills. Still, let’s take every opportunity to claim all the credit for their talent just like Modesto tries to do with George Lucas.

Tierra Mia Coffee, a southern California-based coffee shop, is moving into the Mission and Valencia storefront formerly known as Caffeinated Comics and more recently the short-lived Way Out Cafe. It seems well-loved in LA, but running a cafe in that location has so far bombed. We’ll see if they can overcome that curse and San Francisco’s general coffee snobbery.

Personally, I’m not interested in any coffee beans that haven’t passed through the digestive tract of an Asian palm civet.

We love rad maps of San Francisco, and here’s one I haven’t seen before: “Secret Histories Map of San Francisco“. It’s so rad, in fact, that we will excuse the unfortunate misspelling ”Delores Park”.

A note from the artist Deth P. Sun, who debuted this piece in 2009:

Marci and I and a bunch of other friends were asked by the San Francisco Arts Commission to make work around the theme of “Trace Elements”. The idea around “Trace Elements” or what I took from it was how people don’t know about the history of things that they might pass by on the street, or how things got to where they were at and how things might have been forgotten (yeah, like Frodo and the Ring, only not). So I thought I’d make a Secret Map of San Francisco.

On the site, there are a lot of close-ups and more detailed information, some which you might know (Golden fire hydrant!) and some that you might not (the fortune cookie was invented here!). Give yourself an hour to take it in this afternoon.

I guess this begs the question: where can we score a print?

[DethPSun via Emily Heller]