Oakland!

Hot Jam For The Rapture: Kreayshawn's "Gucci Gucci"

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

When someone sends me an email that starts out with “Chick rapper out of Oakland. Fresh.” and I see a pair of tattooed white girls with thick glasses and feather earrings, I start retching.  But damn, this shit is definitely fresh.  Just check out some of the lyrics:

Yeah you can kiss the ring but you could never touch the crown
I smoke a million swisher blunts and I ain't never coming down
Bitch you ain't no Barbie, I see you work at Arby's
Number 2, supersize, hurry up I'm starving

And

The editor, director, plus I'm my own boss, 
so posh nails fierce with the gold gloss
Which means, nobody's getting over me
I got the swag and it's puffin out my ovaries

I, for one, am glam I got to experience this song before End Times.

Fellow UA contributor Josh Constine also notes:

Unlike most of today's rap lyrics, “Gucci Gucci” discusses Bay Area staples that didn't exist in the G-Funk era. With name checks of Twitter, Google, and Adderall (you know, so kids can study hard, get into one of those elite universities, and score a job at these tech companies), Kreayshawn reformats hip hop cliches about drugs and success. The jam is clearly for a modern audience that are more likely to be in the age range of Eazy-E's illegitimate children than his fans.

Full lyrics at the top of the comments, because yer deaf.

Oakland's Latest Mac n' Cheese Spot Opens Today

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Looks fancy.

I've been on a mac n' cheese kick lately, so it's worth noting that the City of Oakland, aka the new Mission District, is home to a new mac restaurant, Homeroom.  Plenty of solid meat and meat-free options, reasonable beer prices despite a lack of canned beer for sale (!!!), and, naturally, Vegansaurus! is all sorts of pumped for their vegan mac:

Oh hellllll yeah. Finally some vegan mac and cheese action up in this joint! I know of only two other places serving vegan mac and cheese in the entire Bay Area: Souley Vegan (some people love it, some people leave it) and Herbivore (If you held a gun to my head and forced me to eat either Herbivore mac and cheese or Hazel’s dog shit, I’d think reallllllly hard. And then I’d eat the mac and cheese but GOOD GOD, it’s the funk). If you know of others, please let a fat vegan know.  Anyway, Homeroom (adorable name) is opening on 40th street in Oakland on Tuesday, Feb. 15

Thankfully, Homeroom is a mere 6 minute walk from the MacArthur BART station, so you can stuff you face cheese and carbs and be back at the 500 Club before the horrifying reality that you left San Francisco sets in.

(link)

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Oakland's ZooLights is Girl Talk For Children

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Reader Neb sends us his take on Oakland Zoo's holiday light show:

Dating a girl who lives outside the Mission has its perks, such as having access to a car and getting driven places.  However, this past weekend we were a little too optimistic and ventured to the Oakland Zoo for the ZooLights Holiday Light Show, after saving a whopping four bucks off the $7.50 tickets from Groupon.

On a Saturday night, we were the only 20-somethings by 10+/- years and were surrounded by long lines of double-wide strollers. After a romantic couple’s photo on Santa’s lap for $5, we decided to warm our hearts and hands with hot chocolates. The scalding hot beverages didn't include straws or lids making for an exciting situation with kids running all around in the dark. Having done the loop around the park admiring outlines of giraffes, crocodiles, and tigers in holiday lights, it was on to the famed Lightshow.

Watch the bootleg clip for yourself, but the plot was basically a Girl Talk show for kids with flashing candy cane and animal lights.  PROTIP: go high.

Cool Kid Travels: Oakland

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

About a month ago, I jumped on the Alameda/Oakland ferry at the Ferry Building and took it to Jack London Square.  The ferry is a lot like traversing the length of the Oregon Trail, only you are on water, shivering in the fog, and chugging gin & tonics.  Anyway, I stopped of at this place called Merchant's Saloon.  It's a lovely place full of neat stuff like a platform full illuminated by black lights, a piano covered in tags, lots of lovely signage, cheap 24s of PBR, and, of course, graffiti.

While you think that might be enough to get it a '4 out of 5 neon pairs of wayfarers' review, it gets even better: they have a urine trough.  That's right, I said urine trough.  See, when you sit at the bar, you'll notice there is a tiled trough with a drain in the middle.  “What's that for, Kevin?”  Well, as the name “urine trough” would suggest, it is there so patrons of the bar can urinate right at their bar stool.  Yep, no need to even get up from your seat in this place, just piss while taking another shot of Jimmy.

Ahem.  Sorry, that was longwinded.  My point with that story is that Oakland is a treasure chest of pure awesomeness.  So stomach the trying 8-minute tube ride across the bay and expel your bladder at the bar.