Activism

Ninja Stars: An Ineffective Zombie Deterrent

— By Zach Perkins |

IT COULD HAPPEN HERE!

Today, the City will hold a hearing where pro-zombie hoards will undoubtedly attempt to strip High Bridge Arms, a Mission St gun shop, of their permit.  As someone with a morbid fear of the zombie apocalypse, I stand firmly against the closing of High Bridge Arms, the City's one and only legal purveyor of firearms.  

When the armies of the dead start their long march from Colma to San Francisco, we need High Bridge's cache of firearms on hand for looting. Without them, we'd be left with only novelty swords and ninja stars looted from Chinatown tourist traps.  This is just poor city planning.  Hopefully 'Gun Tottin Gavin' will step in and initiate a new Zombie Preparedness Initiative with TWELVE GAUGES FOR ALL YALLS.  

PROTIP:  Don't loot a gun store unless you're sure the owners have either fled or been zombie-fied.  Looting gun shops with living owners will result in your ass getting shot off and handed to you, and then re-animating moments later as an ass-less zombie. You n00b. 

CHINATOWN IS DOOMED!!!

COMMUNITY MEETING ABOUT DOLORES PARK TONIGHT Y'ALLLLLLL

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

RUMOR HAS IT THAT COLD BEER COLD WATER WILL BE THERE SELLING THREE DOLLAR PEEBURRS

If you've been reading the San Francisco shitternets over the past few days, you might have heard there is going to be a community meeting tonight at 6pm at the Mission High School cafeteria (I'll be sitting by myself at the back of the cafe, eating the PB&J and yogurt my mommy packed me).  In spite of the fact I'm almost certain this will be a pointless shitshow in which geezer neighbors outnumber the majority demographic of park users, Bevan Dufty utterly fails at running a meeting, ignorant stereotypes of “hipsters” are tossed around and facts are reinvented so the blame for the trash in the park can be put solely on 20-somethings, I do honestly believe it is important for the readers of this blog to go.  Why?  To fight against exactly what I fear will happen.  Last fall when similar meetings popped up, the under-35 crowd was outnumbered by anti-fun warriors 15:1 and it led to another summer of crackdowns.  If you truly care about your right to enjoy an afternoon in the park with a squad of out-of-touch cops rolling through your park on dirt bikes, make the effort to tell Captain Corrales to get with the times.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

300 Hipsters Resist Police Control of Dolores Park

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Last night was certainly a showdown in Dolores.  At 10pm, the cops rolled through the park to kick everyone out, only to immediately head out to 22nd and Capp South Van Ness to deal with an outbreak of gang violence.  At 11:30, as Dolores Park neighbor and reader Michael noted, the police came back in greater numbers to finish the job:

The police closed the park at 11:30 with multiple cop cars, sirens, megaphones, etc.  A cop-woman was shouting for 20 minutes straight in a plaintive tone.  About 300 people stayed to protest, and the cops just kept shining bright lights at them until they left… sad state of affairs. The Sept .1 community meeting should be a fucking hoot…

You know what was more disruptive than the sound of partiers? Sirens and megaphones. Egads.

A quick Twitter search indicates there was also a Rolling Stones sing-a-long during the protest.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Cool Kid Causes: Alcoholics for Music Education

— By Zach Perkins |

Every child deserves a crack at the cliche “one time at band camp” line.  But for those of us who went to public schools, we know all to well that music and arts programs are always the first to get cut when the district's budget runs dry.  

But there's one thing that never seems to run dry around here: ALCOHOL.  The good folks at Education Through Music - Bay Area, knowing that San Francisco's most renewable resource may very well be its insatiable appetite for booze, have assembled a crack team of ETM Young Associates (we're talking 21+ volunteers, not Elementary School Kids as hilarious as that would be) to guest bartend at Elixir tonight.

From 9pm to 2am tonight, you can harass some people I know while they feebly try to apply white-collar job skills to bartending (with the best intentions).  Be sure to give the asian one extra shit (and tips) because she thinks she's too cool for SF and plans to move later this week.  Feel free to tell her that I sent you.

Facebook event thingy is here.

T-Mobile is the new Foot Locker

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Remember when the city of Oakland rose up against Foot Locker's reign of terror and thwarted their menacing plans to sell kicks?  Well, apparently Mission kids couldn't handle being upstaged by our revolutionary neighbor and opted to take over the T-Mobile building on Mission St. in order to protest Gavin Newsom's gentrification agenda.  Mission Loc@l reports:

A group of housing activists occupied the vacant second floor of a building on the corner of 20th and Mission Streets Monday night and said they don’t plan to leave unless they are forced out.

T-Mobile occupies the first floor.

“We are going to vote with crowbars,” said one protester at the rally that began at 5:50 p.m. at the 16th Street BART Station..  Unlike other anti-

Of course, it wouldn't be an anti-gentrification protest without “the vehicle of gentrification” helping transport the audio equipment:

Way to go, guys.

(Link - all photos Mission Loc@l)

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Let's Stop Gentrification, Bros!

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Not sure how legitimate these activists are.  Any real protest warriors would know that they should start their protest at the 24th & Mission BART station, conveniently located next to a Foot Locker.  Seriously, didn't these guys learn anything last week?  Raid a shoe store and suddenly your cause is on CNN.

The Riots Following the Verdict in the Mehserle Trial

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

I had not been in a riot since Boston's first World Series victory in decades, but let me say this: Oakland doesn't fuck around.  Everything was pretty mellow, minus a few minor incidents, until about 7:45.  Then the police decided they needed to disperse the crowd and all hell broke loose.  Looting, vandalism, fights, and even more police storming the crowd.  By the time the night was winding down, I had seen 5 dumpsters lit on fire, at least 2 dozen burning trash cans, the police beat no less than 3 people, and one flash grenade thrown into a crowd.

As things got really violent, some rioter figured out how to start cutting power to all the traffic lights and lamp posts in the area.  After the second instance of cutting the power, a man in the same group as me stuck his 9mm in the air and shot it off.  At this point the police decided to break up the crowd yet again and everyone ran towards Sears.  At this point, people were taking out their leftover 4th or July fireworks and shooting them off into the crowd.  In the mayhem, a car driving by threw a M1000 in my direction, blowing up right by my leg but.  I was fine but it hit another man behind me so badly that he couldn't even walk from the shock.  That's when I left.

Eventually everything got tagged.  However, it all started with this AC Transit bus.

Very quickly after the protest spread, the police quickly fled the area, as did the AC Transit bus pictured above.  In the mayhem, a deaf lady was run over by a vehicle and she was refused help for quite some time.

Before the mayhem, many people treated the entirety of Oakland like it was Sunday Streets.  For example, it provided a rare opportunity to get your photo taken while kick-flipping in front of riot police.

Police moving in.

The news media basically jumped on every act of violence, literally sprinting to the slightest bit of chaos.  Pictured is the media busting a nut over a small hole made in a Subway sandwich shop window.

The moment people started looting the Foot Locker (sorry for the shitty video).

You've probably already heard by now that people looted a Foot Locker.

This man was sad for the Foot Locker.

A riot is no excuse to use a freewheel.

Getting serious.

This girl was laying in front of the police line.  I guess they felt the best way to get her out of the way was to kick her down.

The police were getting much more hostile at this point.  While they threatened to use tear gas, they didn't end up doing it.  However the started pushing the crowd back soon after this video. 

After a glass bottle hit a police officer, they threw a flash grenade into the crowd.  It landed on this Telemundo news van.

This is about when I really considered leaving: some guys lighting fires didn't like that this cameraman was filming it so they attacked him (and obviously I filmed it because I'm a moron.)  They got him to the ground and started kicking him.  What I didn't film were people breaking up the fight and getting the guy away.  Three people from the initial attack decided they wanted to destroy his camera and went after him again.  They hit him a few times and eventually broken the lens off another photographer's camera who was trying to break up the second fight.  Eventually the cameraman ran toward the Fox Theatre.  A cyclist went after him and the cameraman pushed him off the bike and kept running.  The police stood by and did nothing.  Eventually the cameraman ran to the riot police with two other men in pursuit until the riot police let him go through the line.

People eventually decided that Foot Locker was not enough and looted Sears.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

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