Haters

Epic Hater Charges Lavish Underachievers $30 to Quietly Judge Hipsters in Dolores Park

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Vayable is a website in which qualified and unqualified people alike sell “tours” of various urban experiences—tours such as being homeless for 24 hours in the Tenderloin, or riding a longboard through Berkeley.  Think of it as an OkCupid for people who want to have 2-6 hours of awkward conversation with a stranger that doesn't result in sex.

Well, now said tours have made their way to the Mission and its sloping mating grounds, Dolores Park.  But the tours of Dolores aren't being offered up by people who 'get' the park.  Oh no.  Take the $30 and two-hour-long “I Came, I Drank, I Judged”:

Do you ever notice that on a beautiful Indian Summer afternoon, all the beautiful people come out and play? I don't. I'm fairly certain that the reason why Dolores Park is so popular on the weekends is that it's a wonderful place to go when you need a boost in self-esteem.

Feeling like an underachiever? Look at those kids slacklining - someone tell them there's no real world application for that BS. Feeling frumpy? Everyone is in hoodies and one-size-too-tight leggings. Feeling retarded? There's always someone who's high on a mystery and acting acting retarded-er. It's the perfect place to people watch, and more importantly, judge to your heart's content.

I'll bring some wine and cheese and teach you how to pair them, as we judge the hipsters around us - because everyone knows that Confucius said, “Judging is best done when you're stuffing your face and getting drunk.” So come out to the park, we'll imbibe, we'll indulge, and we'll JUDGE the crap out of everyone sitting nearby.

For: People that want to partake in wine and cheese… and judge those hipsters in the park.

Cost Includes: Wine in a red cup. Red wine. This is california. We drink full bodied pinots. Get a little culture will ya? Sheesh. Also, Cheese. I'll be bringing a blanket.

I take issue with almost all of this—mainly that smug tour guides give everyone who downs wine and cheese in the park a bad name.  And what kind of bullshit is that?  There's nothing I love more than cruising by the park after a long day of summertime work and enjoying a nice jug of Carlo Rossi while sucking the nitrous out of cans of Easy Cheese.

But it goes beyond that: if everyone goes to the park to boost their self-esteem, then what does that say about you and the guy who's violently jacking-off under a blanket sitting next to you?  You go to the park and belittle 'frumpy' girls just to feel better about yourself; meanwhile, the dude with his goddamn gear in one hand and the meth pipe in the other is plenty happy with his life and those girl's—including, coincidentally, your—looks.  Has this semen-spewing lunatic found the secret to love and happiness amidst an ocean of depression, unemployment, and chunky thighs?  Or is this tour just being offered up by some sad sack who can only get people to hang out with them in Dolores Park by masquerading as a tour guide?

You can draw whatever conclusion you'd like, but what I'm saying here is you'd be better off spending that $30 on a bag of crystal and a bottle of Jergens.

[Photo by Josefine Karlsson]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Taqueria Vallarta Re-Opens, But For How Long?

— By Zach Perkins |

I love Vallarta. Or rather, I LOVED Vallarta. Few people were as pissed as me when the 24th St Taqueria was shuttered in September for health violations. And no, I don't want no pigeons, but pigeons aren't half as bad as what I found on my return visit following their re-opening this week. 
 
As I first walked in, I was taken back by how clean and well lit the place looked. It was still the same Vallarta, but with a fresh coat of paint and a notable effort put into cleaning. The biggest difference was how uncluttered it seemed, aided primarily by a second archway being opened up to connect the kitchen/register area to the 'dining room' previously inhabited by their pigeon mascots. 
 

Vallarta: Come for the tacos, stay for the media piracy.

 
Now, I'd like to tell you how great the $1.75 tacos from the cart by the main entrance still are.  Really, I would.  For the sake of science journalism blogging, I purchased a single pastor taco. I went into the dining area, snapped a quick photo of some lady selling bootleg DVDs and video games out of a suitcase, and sat down to eat.
 
And that's when I saw it. Black as night, thick as a needle and wiry as hell. There was no mistaking it; I had pubes in my pastor. Human pubes. At best they were from someone's armpit, if not their genitals. 
 
So that's it Vallarta, you're dead to me. I wept long and hard for you when the health inspectors closed your doors in September, but I will shed no tears for you now.  
 

HUMAN PUBES YALL

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Zero Drugs Taken At Burning Man Due To Police Presence

— By Jon Skulski |

Captain Steve Grabowski and Lieutenant Sarah Jones are up for promotion after leading a valiant police effort that has eliminated drug use at the event known as Burning Man.

Officers Grabowski and Jones receiving accolades for winning the War on Drugs at Burning Man.

Over 50,000 artists, musicians and others wishing to experiment with “radical self-expression” gather at Burning Man each year. The event is a haven for the strange and bizarre and is notorious for the use of drugs such as LSD-25, MDMA, and Cannabis.

“Our mission here is not to stop young people from having a good time but to protect them from getting hurt.” Captain Grabowski places handcuffs on a young woman. She was found in possession of a drug testing kit, a tool used to determine what kind of drug a user has bought. “We are in the business of harm reduction,” says Grabowski.

Richard Thomas, an event attendee known as ‘The Postman’, regrets spending his summer building his sculpture ‘El Pulpo Mechanico’, a two story mechanical octopus that spouts fire from its arms.

Richard Thompson's 'El Pulpo Mechanico' which will not pay the pickle man.

“It’s not like I can pay bills with a mechanical beast,” says Thomas. “I’m not going to send my three year old daughter to a state school just so I could blow some people’s minds. That’s just irresponsible.” Thomas has plans to open a chain of furniture stores.

Gabriella Martinez, Director of Admissions for UCSF, has seen the impact first hand. “We have had a 153% increase in enrollment for our MBA program while the Art department is struggling to fill enrollment for next year,” says Martinez. “We can’t thank the Nevada Highway Patrol enough.”

The next Burning Man will begin on October 1st, 2012. There are preliminary plans to change the venue to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

#OpBART Detractors Miss the Point

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

In my vast experience of standing on the sidelines and gawking at protests, I've noticed that there are generally three types of rallies: 1) winning the hearts and minds, 2) building awareness, and 3) catharsis and opportunism.  The first type of protest is fairly obvious: most anti-war protests attempt to do this through speakers and music in public parks, although they generally miss the mark.  Protests designed to build awareness generally use spectacle and absurdity to give the media something to talk about, as exemplified by the Arab Spring, the Mission's anti-gentrification protests of the late 90s, or various street art campaigns.  Catharic protests exist merely to burn it all down when people feel like they have nothing left, and maybe get a new pair of shoes.

People somehow manage to convince themselves that protests are designed to win public support and forget about other potential objectives, which is why at first glance, #OpBART appeared to be a complete failure.  No signage, no organized message, no speakers, no obvious rallying point, no clear objective, less than 100 people turned out, and the 5 idiots from Oakland that carry around a banner covered in Swastikas and anarchist circle-As hijacked a protest about free-speech, turned it into a protest against cops with guns, and began marching down Market Street roughly 30 minutes after the protest was scheduled to begin, fracturing any critical mass that could have been established.  Then to top it off, they closed off the Ferry Building and access to BART to the majority of San Franciscans.

However, as the obviously irritable and impatient people such as Jason Permenter seem to miss, the goal wasn't to win over the hearts and minds of mid-Market coffee snobs and downtown accountants.  That's not why websites were hacked, personal information leaked, and public transportation crippled.  No, the fact of the matter is no one in this city would be talking about egregious violations of our right to assembly and free speech unless a few dozen sexless nerds in Teva sandals and Vibram toe shoes made it so Jason had to take the bus home for work.  Admittedly a fate worse than death in San Francisco, but it's only one day.

(Also, deeply sorry to use a hashtag in the post title.  This is truly a sad day.)

Hey 7X7 SHUT THE FUCK UP pt. 2

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Reader Adam sent us his thoughts about the latest issue of 7x7 Magazine:

you read this article?  the whole thing warrants derision, but read these two paragraphs in particular:

I hadn’t considered the synergy between SF’s two biggest cultural pillars until recently. It took dining at Bar Tartine with a friend who wishes to go unnamed—a tech venture capitalist invested in some of the city’s top restaurants. That night, when I started talking in wonderment about the surge of restaurant openings in SF, recession be damned, he politely suggested I get my head out of my dinner. “What boils my blood,” he said, between bites of duck leg cabbage roll stuffed with liver, house-made sauerkraut, and dried cherries, “is that people in the artist community have never understood the connection between capital and the arts. And they take it massively for granted.”

Gesticulating with a curried, pickled carrot, he broke it down historically. “Look at the rise of Florence. During the Renaissance, you had the combination of wealthy patrons and artists. The wealthy patrons allowed the artists to take risks that they’d never have been able to take if they weren’t provided for.” While sommelier Alex Fox poured us some Von Buhl Riesling, he continued, “And it’s no different today in San Francisco, where food has crossed over into an artistic experience. Chefs and bartenders here consider themselves artists.” I had a disconcerting flash of Bar Agricole’s acclaimed bartender Thad Vogler posing naked like Michelangelo’s David, shaker instead of stone in hand. “Even farmers have artistic status here,” my friend astutely observed. “Today in San Francisco, the wealth gets poured back into our modern-day values: the church of food.”

What pretentious cock suckers, not that there's anything wrong with that. Cock sucking I mean. But com'on. For fuck sake, their sense of self importance is so utterly baseless, it's astounding. Florence during the Renaissance? Really? They're talking pop-up restaurants and food trucks and they're comparing it to Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Renaissance. Wow. That makes this little venture capitalist parasite what, one of the Medicis? OK, right, that make sense. Good thing he broke it down “historically” for the dumb fuck author. Except he neglected to mentioned one major difference, the Medici's descendants probably still run most of Italy and large parts of the world while this guy's descendants are most likely going to be working at McDonalds when all his lottery money runs out.

I feel better now. Tx.

No, thank you.

[Sightglass Coffeee photo by Niall Kennedy]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Vandal Claims Clarion Alley Wall For Himself

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

It seems like it was only yesterday that a graffiti heart over the freshly painted A Sunday Afternoon an Dolores Park sent the entire Mission community into a tailspin of despair and outrage.  And rightly so: a bang-up mural celebrating everyone's favorite park was defaced.  But it wasn't just that the specific mural was blemished, rather it was that a mural was damaged.

Now it seems like the norm is for SF murals get covered over with tags and pieces.  Eine's series of alphabet murals along Mission Street were defaced within days by the same crew pictured above.  A quick walk down Bartlett, Market, Divis, or one of the various other mural alleys around the Mission show the same thing.  It almost seems antithetical to the core of what street art and graffiti represents: putting art out there, for free, for everyone to see and admire on their own accord.  In a sense, there's now a crew of kids acting as a gallery owners, determining which murals the world gets to check out and which should be reused as a new canvass.

It's a bummer, really.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

I Judge Your Crappy Restaurant By What Condiments You Provide Me

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

That's it, The Crepe House, I'm putting you on fucking notice.  I realize you're the Paris Hilton of French restaurants, but what the fuck is this shit?  Heinz Ketchup and Tabasco Pepper Sauce?  Are we not human?  Why must you treat your customers like dogs, feeding us the Alpo of seasonings?  Are we not worthy of hot sauce with roosters on the label or ketchup with flavor in the bottle?

Shit's about to get real in this lightly-air conditioned chain restaurant with complimentary WiFi.

Monday Night Fun

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Kelly Kate hips us to a wholesome way to spend your Mondays:

Guess what bitch? It’s Monday. Time to roll down Mission Street blasting Diplo x Lil Jon Dubstep mixes while firing two tasers out the window as you pass the haters you almost got in a fight with milling around outside Beauty Bar post Krazy Mondays.

Welcome to San Francisco, bitch.

Damn, that looks way better than my usual Monday night activities of washing dishes and watching Glee reruns.

Back to Basics

— By Ed Stevenson |

After seeing all these “die hipster scum” and “kill yuppies” tags around the Mission over the last few years, it is a refreshing change to see graffiti artists who don't paint with contrasting colors building consensus and bringing it back to the good olde days of hating hippies. Opinions may be split on our thoughts of hoodies, questionable tattoos, bad haircuts, and the public consumption of PBR, but I am sure we can all agree that Dolores Park drum circles are a dreadful development of late.

Union Street Festival Sucks Anyways

— By Serg |

http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011/05/no-booze-allowed-union-street-fair

Hey doggy I laughed when I read this sentence “The changes mean no more beer gardens and no more rock and roll music” Yeah because rock and fucking roll brings the “wilder element.” Yeah I bet it must be nuts when your heehaw ass festival gets raided by tall can wielding dave matthews fans. Ain't no dancing in this town bitches! We want to sell shitty ass freeway artwork and bracelets made out of old rocks and trash to senior citizens and sweater knots. Fucking dumb asses chewing on shitty grilled meat on a stick can't hang out in beer gardens or do whatever dumb fucking bullshit it is that they do on their lame ass stoops on Union st. Union street can suck my balls, that shit has been herbfest from the gate, amatuer hour trainwreck can stay gone. 

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