Potrero

Call It A Comeback

Occasionally Read Blog Relaunches

That’s right, your neighborhood naysayer is back on the beat — bringing you the kind of low-quality content you’ve so sorely missed. We’re talking hard-hitting reporting on startup founders, business closings, liquor-store cocktails, and the moment-by-moment movements of Dolores Park rangers. You know, the important stuff.

We’ll still cover all the same golden oldies you’re used to, as well as tackle the larger issues facing our great city. Because we live in San Francisco too, and you deserve better than Nextdoor.

Tips can be sent to holler@uptownalmanac.com.

[Photo: Jano Avanessian]

Jumping the Fence at Potrero del Sol

At Toad & Salmon's 9th Annual Chili Bowl last weekend—which we unfortunately missed because we weren't paying attention—Demarcus James hopped La Raza Skatepark's fence after eating it twice. Rad.

(And if you want to see a bunch of other fish-eyed footage from the competition, Thrasher has some solid coverage.)

[Video by JJ San]

Sadie's is BACK

It looks the owners realized naming a bar “The Unresolved Love Life of Evelyn Lee” is awful beyond irony, so they returned the old Sadie's Flying Elephant signage from years ago.  Smart move!  Hopefully they'll bring back the board games and bottomless free popcorn too?

Fuck the Mall at Indie Mart

The San Francisco Street Food Fest returns to the Mission on Saturday, so we're certain you'll be looking to escape the neighborhood for a bit.  And what a better way to do it than celebrating the 5th anniversary of Indie Mart at Thee Parkside?  They're promising “food and drink and babes,” 100+ local DIY makers selling their hot wares, as well as performances from Ty Segall and Bobb Saggeth.  Also, no organic pig roasts.

Three bucks, starts at noon on Sunday!

Shoe Company Pays Madman to Drive Around San Francisco

In case you have been wondering about the reason for the new tire tracks all over San Francisco we've been seeing recently, it turns out that DC shoes (which I think is an American Eagle for skateboarders or whatever) filmed some sort of a drifting reinterpretation of Bullit.  And if you can get past the fact this is a giant commercial, it's not a bad watch.

(And should you be interested, JJ San has a bunch of shots from the video's filming in Potrero Hill, including the crazy helicopter-camera-thingy they used to get the aerial shots.)

(Thanks for the tip, Jeff!)

San Francisco Music Video Death Match Week, Round 3: Huey Lewis And The News - I Want A New Drug

As a kid born in the mid eighties, 90s music videos hold a very special place in my heart. But none of the San Francisco-centric videos we seen on Uptown this week can stand up to this juggernaut - Huey Lewis and the News' 1983 hit 'I Want a New Drug'. Otherwise known as “that song they ripped off in Ghostbusters”, the quasi-local Huey Lewis and the News produced a San Francisco-centric video that still resonates with the lives of many residents today.

Let's start at the beginning of the video. After a particularly rough Whiskey Wednesday that ended with the procurement of 1980s-caliber blow from a bartender at legendary SOMA hotspot Caribbean Zone, 'young' Huey (he was 34) wakes up disheveled and hungover in the middle of the afternoon. Huey dunks his head in ice water while repeatedly declaring his great need for a new, less adverse chemical substance. Not long after, he realizes that he's late for his own show, hops in his piece of shit vintage (even for then) Karmann Ghia, and speeds down Potrero Hill. This is where things in the narrative start making a lot less sense… 
 
Huey makes it to a ferry boat in the nick of time. He downs an entire box of alka seltzer, which is served to him by a bow tie wearing waiter cause fuck it it was the 80s and why the hell not have bottle service on a commuter ferry. Dude probably offered him blow too, but Huey is still hungover and, at least for the next 48 hours, is convinced that he needs a new drug. Rocking a bright ass red suit, Huey starts getting sideways glances from the cookie-cutter Patrick Bateman corporate stand-ins (aka: future fans) who are apparently also really late for work. It won't be until 1986 that Huey realizes it's hip to be square and tones down the colors of his wardrobe. 
 

PICTURED: Hypothermia and non-SAG/AFTRA day rates

 
At this point, it seems like the LA-based director of the music video becomes disappointed by the overall grey-ness of the Bay Area, and asks his location manager if there's any way they can “make the Bay look more like Santa Monica”. Their casting director obliges, and the Bay is then decorated with supermodel caliber girls in bikinis, 'sun bathing' on speed boats in 50 degree weather.
 
Once arriving at his destination (Oakland? Larkspur?), Huey boards a helicopter so that he can immediately fly back to San Francisco, the city that just came from in a pretty big hurry. Huey either literally had a 'new drug' waiting for him in Oakland that he desperately needed to pick up before his show, or his Groupon for a helicopter tour was set to expire that morning. 
 
The rest of the video is pretty standard stuff. Huey makes it to the gig; his Rick Rubin looking tour manager gets pissed that he's late; Huey crotch thrusts into the face of an improbably hot girl in the front row; three clones of Huey Lewis play saxophone together, and San Francisco pop culture history is made. 
 

PICTURED: Two Huey Lewis clones and KevMo on the right.

Xiu Xiu Playing Bottom of the Hill Tonight!

The last time I saw Xiu Xiu was something like eight years ago in what seemed like a senior center auditorium in the middle of Cambridge.  While half the audience scoured the place for the assumed residents' cache of painkillers, Jamie and one of his revolving cast of bandmates wooed over the crowd over what had to be the worst PA system of all time.  A grand time was had by all and after the show we all went out for malt shakes and new walkers.

But that was something like eight years ago.  Since then, Xiu Xiu has gone through even more members, and now we have songs like “I Luv Abortion” to deal with.  And I don't exactly think they're making a habit of playing shitty auditoriums with rattling windows anymore, but that's probably not a bad thing.  So should you want to see one of the only good things to come out of San Jose in 15 years in one of the city's more beloved venues, head over to Bottom of the Hill tonight.

Mission Cliffs Opening New Bouldering Outpost in the Dogpatch

They've been dropping hints on Facebook all day, following a “big news” teaser on Monday:

As you can see, they're not exactly being subtle about it.  Tweezer Trippel is a brew from Magnolia, which is opening a new brew pub on 3rd and 22nd.  And obviously you don't need a belay card if you're bouldering.

So while there hasn't been an “official” announcement yet, it seems as though there'll be a new bouldering gym on 3rd Street sometime soon.

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