Mission Mission

The esteemed Eric Fischer brings us scans of BART plans from 1962. This shot looks south down (and under) Mission from 23rd towards 24th:

The Look of Rapid Transit: 24th Street Mission station

The interesting part (outside of the fact that the BART station was to be so brilliantly lit that men wearing hats would cast stark shadows) is the street photo up top — it was taken from the NW corner of 23rd and Mission, looking south towards Bernal. (Click the image for a big-ass high resolution version.)

Particularly striking is the utter lack of trees (even on the slopes of Bernal).

Lots of donuts though:

Matching shot from today.  The trees make it hard to compare, but changes a plenty. (Click to enlargify.)

Zooming in towards 24th (above the epic car) we see the epic “Smile Awhile” bar:

A more clear view is available from the south.  It should quickly become clear what that sign represents today:

Much more on the history of 24th and Mission, both imagined and realized, over at Burrito Justice from a few months back.

This band No Age played at that sweet Grass Widow show the other night, and they were pretty amazing too. Drum-playing frontman Dean here charmed the crowd all night with a lot of cute banter. Before one song he exclaimed, “I love playing this song!” How cute!

At one point, he mentioned that the night before they’d opened for the Foo Fighters at Wembley Stadium in London. (Wow, right? From Wembley to the Rickshaw Stop in the space of 24 hours?) He said the crowd there sort of looked at them blankly the whole time, “like we were the weirdest band in the world.” The crowd at the Rickshaw Stop booed and hissed and shouted that this was lame, but Dean offered a word of caution, and a life lesson to an all-ages roomful of impressionable punk rock youth and snooty punk rock elders. “No, no, it’s not lame, it’s just how it is,” he said, “They just don’t know. They don’t know what you know.”

I thought that was nice. People need to be more accepting of different tastes. I’m tired of people getting all bent out of shape when I say I like Lady Gaga. But it’s great that he imparts that wisdom while also acknowledging that punks do in fact know a little something extra about the world, because we do, and that’s important.

A choice quote from some Mission Local coverage of a recent fatal shooting in the Mission:

“There’s a lot of gang banging, a lot of prostitution,” said one law enforcement official who asked not to be identified. “I’m not surprised that violence has popped up there. And then you have the hipsters coming around to the nightspots. There’s a lot of people looking for drugs, so that all works well together. It makes for a thriving community.”

Read on.

[via The Tens]

[Photo by The Secret Alley]

What a shot! (The first one. The second one is kind of a yawner.)

This is why you should be hanging out at Thieves Tavern during the day.

Recently Rob from Thieves Tavern, over on 14th near Valencia, suggested we stop by the bar some weekday afternoon and try out some good old fashioned daytime drinking. They’re opening at noon during the week these days, so if you fancy yourself a little too rough around the edges to do your work in a coffee shop you can take advantage of their wi-fi and impressive whiskey selection. Also, if you can afford to drink coffee from Mission Beach Cafe you can also afford to walk across the street and Irish up that double cap. (note that soy lattes do not actually taste good with whiskey) Or you can just start drinking early and find new and creative ways to overtip, like the happy gentleman above.

Bonus fun fact about the whole Thieves bar empire: apparently Dirty Thieves over on 24th and Treat changed its name to The Blind Cat due to the owner losing a bet. Of course people still call it Treat Street, and they haven’t changed the sign so it’s all very confusing. I still think of Thieves Tavern as the Hush Hush, so whatever.

Angela was playing Hangman with a 3rd grader the other day. Kids say the darnedest things, in games of Hangman, when talk of pizza is involved. I love pizza. [link]

Grass Widow were one of the openers for No Age the other night at the Rickshaw Stop. They totally held their own playing in between two more aggro bands (Rank/Xerox and No Age), and won me over forever by covering Mannequin by Wire. Here they are playing the same cover at Bottom of the Hill a few months ago:

Seriously, check them out next time they’re playing San Francisco (they’re locals!), before everyone discovers them and they blow up or something. Hey Noise Pop, thanks for putting together such an awesome line up.

Snapped on the wall outside of Bender’s:

“Stony”? I guess he didn’t wake up in time to get to work. On the bright side, he didn’t meet the cruel fate of his bros:

I guess that sold-out Wavves show on Saturday was a tad bit sloppy. David Downs reports:

By the closing track, Cooper was so frustrated with his own playing he knocked over his cymbals early. He finished without them, at which point he chucked his sticks into the crowd, and stormed off. Williams yanked off his guitar, hurled it through the drum kit, stalked off and punched Cooper in the back. None of this looked rehearsed.

Whoa! I’m sorry I missed out. I thought that backing band had decided to go straight and act more professional after working with Jay Reatard for so long. Read on for more Wavves antics, and some Best Coast problems too.

[Fast forward to 1:40 or so in the above video for an explanation of why there's 1:40 of Marilyn Manson's "Beautiful People." And for another two minutes after that you can watch a black screen as Wavves plays in total darkness while begging for the stage lights to come on.]

Part of reworking the site was combing through 4 years of Mission Mission posts. There has been some good stuff. Every 1st, I’m going to bring you this month’s posts of yesteryear!

2010

• SF Gate got its feelings hurt by Mission bartenders, cried to mommy about it
• It snowed last year, too! If you count white stuff falling from the sky as snow

2009

• Guy went to Safeway, watched asshole hit his girlfriend, kicked dude’s ass, and (probably) later slept with asshole’s girlfriend
• Magic Curry Cart got it’s start

2008

• Little Star Pizza tried to reason with taggers
• Two safety-conscious individuals got married in bubble wrap

2007

• We saw the earliest incarnations of viral sidewalk marketing