Mission District

Behold the Creation of a Tamale Lady Mural in Clarion Alley

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Earlier today, a crowd of Twitters, 'grammers, dumbfounded rubberneckers, tourists, and Uptown Almanac bloggers watched paint dry at the mouth of Clarion Alley.  What for?  To take in the creation of a new mural honoring Tamale Lady.

Here's how one of the artists described the project in a press release:

Three Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP) muralists and organizers—Megan Wilson, Jet Martinez, and Roisin Isner—will be painting a mural honoring the legendary Virginia Ramos, aka, “The Tamale Lady.”

Ramos recently had to shut down her Tamale Lady operation, and the Mission misses its Vagabond Abuelita! In response, an Indiegogo campaign has been launched in order to raise enough (beer) money for our Tamale Lady to get back into business. She can't quit, so she's going legit!

As you may recall, back in June, the Tamale Lady was unceremoniously kicked out of Zeitgeist when the Health Department became mean over her famed trashbag tamales.  Fortunately, Supervisor David Campos' office immediately began working to legalize her operation and launched a fundraiser to help her open a brick-and-mortar shop, which has struggled to surpass 20% of its goal.  Now it seems the local arts community is rallying to carry her campaign the rest of the way.

Anyway, based on the outline, it looks like we'll soon be seeing a recreation of the Tamale Lady's 2009 birthday flyer when we walk down Valencia:

In the meantime, you can swing over to Clarion Alley and watch them work.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Beauty Bar Imposes $500 Charge for Twitter Employees

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

At yesterday's “Lyft & Uber Support Group” meeting (??) at Beauty Bar, the staff instituted 100x surge pricing for all employees of San Francisco's premier bird-branded start-up—a pretty bold action considering “Barbie's Malibu Beach House” was deemed “neighborhood enemy number one” by the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project during the last quasi-class war.  I guess it's all hunky-dory between the torch-and-pitchfork crowd and Beauty Bar now?

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Jack Spade Reps Accused of Getting Pushy, Pressuring 16th Street Merchants Into Signing Petition

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Ahead of this evening's Board of Appeals meeting to re-hear Jack Spade's building permit application that is currently suspended (more on that meeting below), a team of Jack Spade representatives have been going door-to-door, allegedly pressuring businesses to sign the above petition supporting the business.

The petition claims Jack Spade will do a lot of incredible things—reduce homelessness, vandalism, and violence; they even imply the store's opening could help drop the notoriously high murder rate along 16th. However, the petition casts Jack Spade's hopeful location as a long-blighted empty storefront, neglecting to mention that Jack Spade had a 25-year-old vibrant community bookstore evicted to obtain the space.

One 16th Street businessman, who was visited by a salaried Mission District Jack Spade store manager and Mission Merchant's Association President Phil Lesser, who is also a paid consultant of Jack Spade, said when he refused to sign the petition, Lesser became “agitated” and demanded the business at least remain neutral.

Another business that is actively campaigning to stop Jack Spade had a much more jarring interaction:

I got a visit from Dan Lakhman [Director of Marketing and Creative for Jack Spade]. He along with the [Jack Spade's store manager] and [Phil Lesser], and said “you can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Phil explained that he will turn out support for Jack Spade in droves at the hearing and that he's never lost a case. He then went on to list them, counting on his fingers.

Dan went on to explain that they were going to pursue this, that they would win, and how the community felt about them was not a consideration. 

Dan actually called Jack Spade a “small business.” Ugh. It was maddening.

(Jack Spade still refuses to talk to Uptown Almanac, so we couldn't get their side of this.)

These sort of tactics cast the results of Mission Local's survey of 16th Street business's opinions on the matters in a telling light.  With so many businesses refusing to state their opinion, perhaps Jack Spade's goon squad is having an impact?

If you are interested in going to tonight's Board of Appeals meeting, it begins at 5pm in Room 416 in City Hall.  Kyle Smeallie, one of the organizers of the campaign to stop Jack Spade, had this to say of the importance of tonight's hearing:

The hearing is important because Jack Spade has done everything in its power to avoid it. Simply put, Jack Spade doesn't want to hear from the community. By misrepresenting its corporate structure, Jack Spade convinced the City last year to not consider it formula retail, denying the public the right, granted by City regulations, to have a say in the approval process. The VCMA believes this was an error, and they're concerned about the precedent it will set: If Jack Spade is allowed to sidestep the rules, other chain stores will follow suit, gaming the system to effectively eliminate the public approval process. That's why the VCMA, in its appeal, is supported by organizations like Causa Justa :: Just Cause, PODER, and La Raza Community Resource Center, as well as Supervisors David Campos and John Avalos. They're less concerned about the business implications, but they all recognize the importance of making sure the surrounding community is heard when big business wants in. For those who agree, speaking out at the hearing on Wednesday is essential to making sure the appeal moves forward.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Google Glass and Breastfeeding, Together At Last

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Look, we get it: trashing Google Glass is played out.  Ever since a glass-eyed Joe Shuttlebus strolled into Shotwell's, San Francisco came together and decided that emaciated nerds who motion like Cyclops to read text messages are the epitome of Valley hubris.  We had our laughs, scoffed at the price point, quickly conceded we'd like to try them on someday, and started to move on.

Then someone had to do this:

Yeeeee-ikes.  Someone would eat at West of Pecos and still feel responsible breastfeeding their baby while that sludge is passing through their body?

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Philz Dedicates New Coffee Blend to SF's Outlaw Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Sheriff Ross “Mugshot” Mirkirami is finally getting the recognition that he deserves, and it's not in the form of an impeachment hearing all about him either.  VC-funded startup Philz Coffee has just dedicated their latest brew to the Sheriff's Department.

Called “Ten-Eight,” the police code for “in service,” we're told the blend packs a mean punch when taken straight.  And for the real Ross special, you order two 10-8s, thus making a 10-16 — the code for “domestic disturbance.”

UPDATE: Phil writes us denying this was specifically named after Mirkirami, telling us the blend was made with “no one particular person in mind.”

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

And Here's a Robot Workin' It For 20% Off

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

I'm yet to figure out if Betabrand is a clothing store or a party pad that hasn't gotten around to hanging three greek letters above their doors.  Regardless, the hands down highlight of this weekend's Sunday Streets was watching a robot party on a runway for a discount on socks.

[via @robotdanceparty]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Wise Sons Deli Confronts Rumors That People Eat There

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Wise Sons Deli has been long famous for their building-wrapping lines and also their challah French toast.  But it turns out their reputation for long waits and slow service has been detrimental, so they took to the Chronicle to clear up their linephobic would-be customer's misconceptions:

When Wise Sons opened last year, the place pretty much had a permanent line. And like many restaurant openings, things got smoothed out over time, but it’s hard to shake those first impressions and stigmas.

“One of the biggest misconceptions: People say, ‘you’re always busy, there’s always a line, I can never get in.’ It’s not true anymore,” says [owner Evan Bloom]. “There’s a line at times. But how do you let people know that they can come in for breakfast? And that the restaurant is not as crazy as it was the first six months — and the food comes out fast. We continue to grow as a restaurant and as first time restaurant owners…”

According to Wise Sons' Leo Beckerman, their interview with the Chronicle was conducted while Beckerman was “plunging the toilet,” which, honestly, is one of the most beautiful statements about the level of respect the Chronicle commands these days.

Anyway, feel free to read on if you find yourself plopped down on the toilet and hunting for something to look over.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Woody Allen's Contempt for San Francisco?

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Reviews for Blue Jasmine, Woody Allen's latest film, are finally coming in, and the critics can't help but notice Allen's supposed contempt for the city he shot he shot the film in.  Consider The New York Times' review, which outlines San Francisco's place as an humdrum refuge for New York's down-and-out elite:

Jasmine, née Jeanette, having reinvented herself, had risen to become a member of New York’s elite but, with everything gone, has come to San Francisco to move in with her sister, Ginger. For Jasmine this isn’t a comedown, it’s a catastrophe — everything is. When she first walks into Ginger’s apartment, she stops dead, as if paralyzed by its unspeakable ordinariness.

It’s hard to know if Mr. Allen shares Jasmine’s shock at Ginger’s place. (Mere mortals will note the ample square footage, natural light and fireplace.) With a series of sharp contrapuntal flashbacks that move forward in time — Hal and Jasmine in their empty new Park Avenue apartment and then later presiding over a dinner bathed in light so burnished golden calf must have been on the menu — Mr. Allen illustrates just how drastically she’s been humbled.

Gawker takes it a bit further:

Jasmine's presence in Ginger's modest apartment quickly grates, as Jasmine dispenses unwanted advice about Ginger's various working class boyfriends and crummy surroundings. Among other things, Blue Jasmine is a weird, inexplicable portrait of San Francisco. Allen shoots a series of throw-away touristy scenes and then a seedy grocery store, a clinical dentist's office, and nondescript restaurants. His disdain for the West Coast is obvious, but his uninspired indifference to San Francisco in Blue Jasmine is far less amusing than, say, the playful contempt of Los Angeles he put on in Annie Hall. In Blue Jasmine, San Francisco is painted loosely and tritely, and it suffers in comparison to Allen's careful portraits of New York.

Mind you, those crummy surroundings are the Mission District.  The so-called “modest apartment” sits behind the old Force of Habit record shop at 20th and Lexington—and would assuredly fetch three-plus thousand dollars a month if put on the rental market today.  However, it's widely known that Allen chose the significantly shittier corner of 14th and South Van Ness to act as the apartment's exterior location, suggesting he intentionally set to make the neighborhood look grodier than everyone knows it actually is.

It's staged as a clever, if not slightly dishonest way to introduce viewers to the city: dumping the fine-looking Jasmine out of a cab onto a four-lane urban freeway littered with crummy car lots, opposed to tree-shaded, single-lane street the apartment sits on in reality. (As the Times describes the scene, “[As] she stands with her monogrammed luggage on a nondescript San Francisco sidewalk, she looks frightened, alone — like someone who could benefit from some kindness. Instead, she waves off a stranger and, posing a question that’s as existential as it is practical, demands, “Where am I, exactly?”).  Surely this is set to depict Jasmine's unmistakeable fall from grace as definitively as possible, but the reviews suggest the joke is on San Francisco.

Blue Jasmine opens today in New York and Los Angeles.  San Franciscans will have to wait for a limited release at the Clay Theatre on August 2nd.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

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