Dance

Bike Kitchen Rescues CELLspace

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

A mural commissioned by The Bike Kitchen outside of CELLspace, depicting the everyday environs of The Bike Kitchen.

Angel from The Bike Kitchen hit us up in the comments letting us know that they've stepped up to save CELLspace:

Angel from the Bike Kitchen here. I just wanted to let folks know that the Bike Kitchen is going to be loaning (interest free) CELLspace $13,000 to help them keep their doors open. Back when the Bike Kitchen started, CELLspace gave us a rent-free space for about two years at the Mission Village Market (remember that place? It was the weekend flea market and warehouse/art space at 18th & Alabama. It's been replaced by mixed income apartments and is the Bike Kitchen's new home too). Anyway, we're pretty frugal and have been able to save up some cash and are stoked to be able to give back to this org which helped us get our feet. CELLspace has a pretty bright future in the Mission - it's a shame that this bureaucratic hiccup could almost bring an org like this down.

The bureaucratic hiccup, as you might recall, was the city's Planning Department (boo, hiss!) forcing them to do a whole bunch of renovations before they could reopen their doors.  Renovations that forced the space to raise $25,000 by the end of January or be faced with shutting down.  Looks like they weren't set to quite hit their goal by the end of the month, but the Mission community stepped up just in the nick of time.  Now we can look forward to rollerdisco New Years parties and magical monkey murals for years to come.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

SF Bike Party Rolls Out This Friday

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Scene from the first SF Bike Party Ride in December 2010, via Bikes and the City

After years of unexpected jealously towards our neighbors in San Jose and Oakland, San Francisco finally has its very own monthly Bike Party.  The party is much like Critical Mass in which it is a regularly-scheduled group ride (second first Friday of every month) that everyone is welcome to attend.  However, they eschew many of Critical Mass's more anarchic and, ahem, controversial practices: no riding in the left lane, stop at all lights, no splitting up the group, ride predetermined routes, and ride past all conflict.  But perhaps best of all, every month has a party theme, such as zombies and pizza sandwiches.  Yes, pizza sandwiches.  And while Critical Mass will always be king thanks to its pioneering legacy and spontaneous parking garage acrobatics, it's always nice to see an upstart bicycle dance party rolling through the city giving us a second group ride fix every month.

If you want to check out this inaugural 2011 ride, head over to the Willie Mays Gate at Giants Stadium this Friday at 7:30.

(SF Bike Party)

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

One Rave to Ruin Them All

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

I've never been one to think the garbage situation in Dolores Park is WAY out of control (compared to the rest of the city, at least), but following LoveFest or LovEvoltion or LoveCon or #love or whatever the fuck it was called, the park was left in pretty fine form.  Yeah, the picture is hard to make out, but Tallboy Terrace looked a lot like the 15-year-old white kid equivalent of Sadr City.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Aerial Fabric Acrobatics in Dolores Park

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

I'm not going to lie: I had absolutely no idea what was going on when I spotted this scene Sunday afternoon in Dolores Park.  At first, this girl spent so much time hanging upside down from this fabric that I was just waiting for some blind-folded child wielding a bat to start hitting her until candy cam gushing out.  In fact, I had to use the googles a number of times, tossing in keywords like “dancing,” “fabric,” “acrobatics,” and “Darwinism” until I finally figured out that this sport (??) is called “aerial fabric acrobatics.”

Eventually, she ascended to the top of the fabric, began wrapping it all around herself and started doing spins and twirls and other stuff that would make ordinary people projectile vomit onto the spectators below.  Good times!

Man Gets 'Way Gone' at Four Loko Flash Dance in Dolores Park

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

After pounding back 23.5 ounces of Lemonade Loko after the Dolores Park Four Loko flash dance, this dude completely falls apart.  A warning for all you cool kids out there.

(mixed with News 12's youth ad campaign for the malt beverage)

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Four Loko Brand Reps. Host Flash Rave in Dolores Park, Local McNimbydouche Gets Fucking Pissed

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Four brand representatives enthusiasts of the the buzz-worthy hipster malt beverage, Four Loko, threw down a 3 hour DJ set atop of Tallboy Terrace Saturday evening.  Best described as “fucking sick,” the party, between frequent shout-outs to “Four Loko,” “Four Loko Party Pack!,” and “Who's Loko?!,” featured music from the movie Lion King and television show “Cops,” a girl wearing a leather jacket and zebra tights double-fisting Pacificos, a couple straight outta Cape Cod, scores of dancing hipsters and one adorably pissed-off puppy:

Of course, the highlight of the party was the sideline dancers:

Inevitably, Local NcMimbydouche called the police to have the fun shut down.  Five squad cars and one police van rolled up to Dolores, assembled in attack formation and shut it down.

    

To the SFPD's credit, they actually seemed quite friendly and reasonable; not giving the DJs a hard time.  In the midst of the police “dealing with the situation,” Local McNimbydouche (pictured below) crawled out of his palace of boredom wearing his Yale sweatshirt and sweatpants to walk up to the police and DJs, point some fingers, and generally act like the stereotypical neighborhood asshole who believes he owns the park because he lives across the street.

In short, great party, fuck that dude.

UPDATE: in related news, check out “Man Gets 'Way Gone' at Four Loko Flash Dance in Dolores Park”

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

How Would You Renovate Dolores Park?

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

via Headline Shirts

Reader “12million dollar man” chimed in with his plans for the upcoming $11.7m renovations of Dolores Park:

They should just give the money to me, and i'll take care of the renovations…

We'll have an epic party where three people walk away with a new Lamborghini. A Free big mac, a free pack of smokes, and a free 6er of bud light for everyone who comes. Non stop strippers, and fireworks the whole time. We'll pay to dig up Michael Jackson's coffin and have viewings. Lady Gaga will come and sing country music. We will spray one lucky person in gold leaf.

Then when we've used up 99.9% of the money we'll use the last bit to spread some grass seeds. Renovation done.

(link)

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

TURF Dancing in the Rain

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Oddly enough, this video is hella old but no one in the Bay really watched it.  Then people in Europe found it, blew it up big, and now SF is finally catching wind.  From The Bay Citizen:

It’s the old filmmaker’s joke, “We’re big in Europe!”

Well, that’s certainly the case for YAKfilms’ YouTube video, “Dancing in the Rain,” which shows four men TURF dancing on the corner of MacArthur Boulevard and 90th Avenue in Oakland. The video was going viral through Europe and is now catching on in the United States.

TURF stands for “Taking Up Room on the Floor,” and it’s a form of street dancing that originated in Oakland. In contrast to other street dances, TURF aims to tell a story. And so “Dancing in the Rain” is a memorial to dancer D Real’s (he’s in the white shirt) brother Rich, who was killed in a car accident on that corner.

Read on.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

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