Being Cool

First, rental prices in San Francisco pushed restaurants out into the streets, creating a fleet of trendy, $4-a-taco mobile eateries that just couldn't cut in the rough-and-tumble brick-and-mortar world.  Now the fashion world is catching up to the foodies, bringing Top Shelf Boutique right to the doorstep of San Francisco's sunburnt and weed-addled fashion community.

With the way rents are climbing, pretty soon every restaurant, business, bar, and apartment will have wheels and a chassis.  Time to bulldoze SOMA and pave a fantastic parking lot with WiFi hotspots and cappuccinos?  Oh wait...

[Photo by B.Shigley]

Previously on Uptown Almanac

• Blue Bottle, La Cocina, and the Commercialization of Dolores Park

Three of Uptown Almanac's "plugged in" readers forwarded along this article from your podiatrist's waiting room rag of choice, Travel + Leisure, which--drum roll, please--anoints San Francisco the third best American city for hipsters!

Done patting yourself on the back/pointing at yourself saying, "not my damn fault"?  Okay, good.

This is amazing news to any Bay Area cool kids concerned with how they collectively stack up against other locales in the eyes of the elderly.  Only Seattle and Portland surpassed our hallowed streets, and I'm pretty sure Seattle died of a heroin overdose 15 years ago and Portland... well Portland has probably one of the best PR campaigns on television right now.  Also, who cares about Seattle and Portland?

The city which we're most often measured up against, New York City, didn't even crack the top 10.  That's right, NYC sits ugly down at the #12 spot, behind Portland (Maine), Austin, Denver, and San Juan, Puerto Rico--that last one being this biggest diss of them all.  I mean, who knew Puerto Rico was even in America, much less a tropical hipster haven?

Of course, the problem with this magazine's list is the scientific method used to make it.  Namely, they didn't use a scientific method. From the intro:

[We] ranked 35 metropolitan areas on culturally relevant features like live music, coffee bars, and independent boutiques. To zero in on the biggest hipster crowds, we also factored in the results for the best microbrews and the most offbeat and tech-savvy locals.

Basically, they defined the undefinable not by the exaggeration in their collective eye roll, but by their fancy tastes in beer, coffee, and iPhone apps?

Whatever, man.

Anyone want to take a vay-cay to Puerto Rico and scope out some off-shore hipsters?

[Pic via DIE HIPSTER SCUM]

From what I'm told, getting thrown out of The Uptown into the dark underworld of drug abuse and prostitution (aka Capp St) is a rite of passage for any 'Mission Hipster.'  Once a guiding light in a sea of chaos, The Uptown has transformed itself into the intersection between a clogged Dolores Park toilet and a chichi Tijuanna donkey show.  That is to say, I love the place.  But getting ejected from a bar with that has urine-scented couches for seating is hard work.

Take one Friday evening some weekends ago. By the time I walked in the door at 11pm, I was told there had already been four fist fights, a pool cue snapped in half in an effort to procure a weapon, and someone had their cane confiscated by the bartender for repeatedly beating people with it.  Yet, no one was asked to get the fuck out.

Let that soak in for a minute.  Some cripple was stripped of his right to mobility for relentlessly bashing people with his gimp stick, but the bartender was good with everyone staying put.

Clearly, getting tossed was going to be no easy task.

After procuring my eviction elixir of choice (tequila, with a Tecate back, naturally), I sat my peace, love, and cruelty-free vegetarian ass down in a puddle of piss-warm beer (let's be honest, it was probably piss) on the bench next to my friends.

"I dunno what you're talking about, everything seems pretty chill."

"Just wait, this game of pool is about to end.  Some motherfucker is definitely getting punched."

And right they were.  Within minutes, two guys had leapt to their feet, ripping their shirts from their bodies sending buttons flying everywhere.  But the scene had become so commonplace that the bored bystanders couldn't even be bothered to watch as shit unfolded.  It wasn't until the two actually started sparring that someone jumped in to break them up.

At this point, the bartender silently popped her head into the room, glared, and went back to slangin' drinks.  The gladiators dressed themselves with their tattered rags and retreated to social comfort of their respective crews.

That was the story of the night.  People started shit, the bartender-cum-substitute teacher pussyfooted around the situation, and so on and so on.  No one was getting asked to leave.  No sir--no way.  Fights?  Pssh, people get shot, like, for real outside.  Who gives a fuck about some swinging fists?

But then some crazy psycho girlfriendpersonsomething came into the picture and bros'll-be-bros turned to bona fide shitshow.

Whoever said whatever to her is unbeknownst to me, but the blonde-haired twig-like CCA-wannabe lost her shit.  Grabbing everyone's drink in the vicinity, at least a dozen in total, she started throwing them at her boyfriend's feet, shattering every single glass on the ground in a spectacular display of inaccuracy and athletic ineptitude.

As the lovers barked at each other, the courageous bartender came over, janitorial gear in tow, and politely requested the pair "calm down" as she swept up the mess.  But such a request was denied--denied!--by the Bonnie and Clyde of shitbaggery.  The dude, ever so offended, pulled his pants down to show what he thought of the fucking place while the bartender escaped back to the bar:

One samaritan, rightfully concerned by the shards of glass everywhere, approached a nearby dog owner to warn her about the paw-mangling hazard and suggest she carry her pup out.  The conversation carried on friendlily enough when outta no where the human puppy lighthouse was shoved. Then punched.  Then pushed up against the wall.

"MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

The girlfriend was back and mad as hell: how dare someone point out the aftermath her glass-shattering aggression?

My idiot friends and I traded looks that silently communicated, "Maybe this shit is starting to get out of line?," and "I'm pretty sure Bender's doesn't have a cover tonight."  With that, we started chugging back our beers to make an exit.

Then, another roar at the pool table.  The couple, once again bored with battering strangers, were trading smacks.  Shit was getting tired--these guys needed to fuck it out and get over it.  So, like the adults we are, we spontaneously started chanting "FUCK! FUCK!" at the quarreling sweethearts.  The back of the bar agreed, anxiously hoping anger would make way for an unplanned amateur Kink.com iPhone shoot, and quickly jumped in on the chant.

Right then and there, the bartender leapt over the bar, right index finger snarling in my direction, "You! Get the fuck out!"

"Me?  ME?! Take one look around..."

But who am I to argue with the authority of a bartender?  So I threw up my hands in the most exaggeratedly perplexed way possible and headed towards the door.

As I made my way out of the bar and looked back at the psychotic CCA lover trying to choke the life out of her shitbag messenger boyfriend on the pool table, I realized I finally made it--I finally had been kicked out of The Uptown.  By doing almost nothing at all, I accidentially cracked the code for what it takes to get tossed.  I didn't need to punch anyone or destroy bar property or touch my bum to the furniture; all it took was whipping a thirsty mob into a demanding chant for a public display of hate sex.

The seemingly impossible task of getting booted out of the shittest Mission dive happened.  A true life achievement unlocked on an otherwise hollow Friday night.

After all, it's not every day you get thrown out of the bar you named your blog after...

Previously on Uptown Almanac

• Dive Bars Dropping PBR and Tecate to Reduce Vandalism

This is weird. I was taking a break from refilling my various whipped cream dispensers (I like to bake) to causally play a game of Ouija by myself and I heard a clinking in the other room. 

All the cansisters had fallen to the floor and were arranged in an odd manner. Wonder what this means

Previously on Uptown Almanac

• "Hey, Did Someone Order a Dozen Boxes of Whip-Its?"