Dunno what to say, really.  I love San Francisco, I love the Mission District, but for some reason, I am hella burned out writing about the daily happenings in the Mission and most of my posts these days just kinda suck.  My world is bigger than the Mission.  San Francisco is bigger than the Mission.  The Mission is bigger than the Mission.  But people come to this blog for a reason and I have to recognize that.

So, Uptown Almanac is an attempt to chronicle everything that makes the Bay Area the best goddamn place in the States and the general debachery that goes along with the 20-something culture, written by some of the lousiest voices in SF.

From our about page:

The blog is made up of a few pendejos (who mostly live in the Mission but whatever):

• Bailey Genine: Lived in a broke-ass Tahoe house for three years.  Watched a toilet bowl freeze in her house and has puked off of ski-lifts.  ’nuff said.  Tumblr + Twitter.
• Brizz: The mind behind The Tens.  He also spends too much time in L.A.
• Jim Chaney: Author of a generally decent tumbleblog and twitter account.  Hails from the alright state of Ohio.
• Kate Horton: Enjoys Urkel-Os cereal.  If that isn’t enough qualification, I don’t know what is. Twitter + Tumblr.
• Kevin Montgomery: Some guy that used to write most of the entries for Mission Mission in late 2009.  He thinks he’s funny, but he’s not.  Twitter + Tumblr.
• Laura Beck: This girl writes for so many publications that there is no way in hell you’d have the attention span to read about them all.  Most notably, she’s the lead for Vegansaurus!, which is basically a Grocery Eats for white people.  Twitter.
• Serg: He’s been writing Beer and Rap before most of us lived in the Mission District.  He also writes Grocery Eats, which is basically a vegansaurus! for meat-eaters/people who hate white-people’s cooking.  Twitter.

Anyways, Kat, Vic and Ariel will be taking it from here.  Don’t worry, it’s going to be awesome.  Maybe I’ll stop by from time to time if I see something Mission-related that doesn’t belong on Uptown.  Who knows.  PEACE.

Uptown Almanac | RSS Feed

I’m always a sucker for a good intersection long exposure.  Especially when you get a ghost of a car in the frame.  But really, shit like this makes me anxious for April.  I was just laying around the park the other day, you know, the one that was sunny, and couldn’t help but feel like I was right at my summertime home.  Sure, the water in the soil soaked through my clothes, I was only offered weed once, I saw less beer than people and I couldn’t help but look at the woman buying ice cream and think “look at the balls on her” as mine climbed up into my lower abdomen for warmth.   But this park is still in the prime of its life.  All this rain and January weather has made the grass green and plentiful, geared up for a little summer-time abuse.  A midnight wheelchair race down the hill.  Irrate neighbors.  Police issuing citations.  DJs all day Saturday.  Jedi warriors standing up for justice.

Bring it on, 2010.

(photo by tkamenick)

(photo by Grim Reynard)

Black Bean and Cheese Quesadillas: a new menu item

I got news of the Weird Fish Satellite leaving Bender’s a week ago and all I could do was stuff with my face with even more seitan.  Some sort of denial.  Couldn’t even bring myself to post about it here.  Dramatic?  Maybe.  But I’ve basically been eating at this counter two to three times per week for the past year and a half–ever since Gestalt started falling apart–and I always felt like this little menu in an unapologetic dive represented everything that was wonderful about the Mission and San Francisco in general.  It always seemed like that ordering some of the best goddamn vegan food in the city from a guy that looked like he would punch your grandmother just to say he did so was an “only in San Francisco” experience.  The food was out of this world, you could almost always find a table, the beer was served in cans, pints, and pitchers, and you could even sit outside if your skin was up to it.

And then there were the fried pickles.

Obviously this isn’t all doom and gloom.  Justin, the man behind the grill, has enough chops to make sure whatever menu he eventually lands on is as epic as possible.  For the meat eaters, the burgers are still around, and from what I hear the quality hasn’t changed.  The new black bean quesadillas are definitely solid and nothing beats a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich.   But, at the end of the day, that deep-fried seitan was the jam, something that you just couldn’t get in any bar, grill, or city, and it’s gunna be missed.

Our friend Broke-Ass Stuart has been into lists lately and this is the best of the lot:

1.  There is ALWAYS a line.
Because I generally work from home during the day my hours are pretty flexible.  This means that long lines are generally a rarity in my world.  Whether its the bank, the doctor’s office, Walgreens or fucking Tartine, I rarely have to wait for more than a few minutes before I’m served….Look fucker don’t give me that mock “woe is me” crap, this is the lifestyle I’ve chosen.  You’ve chosen a job with health benefits and 401k, I’ve chosen the one with no lines at Walgreens, alright?

Anyways, for some reason no matter what time of day it is, even if it’s like Tuesday at 1pm there is always a line.  Out of the hundreds of times I’ve set foot in there, I can probably count on my hands how many times the wait has been less than 20 minutes.  What the fuck??  Who the hell else doesn’t have shit to do at 1pm on Tuesday?  they can’t all be underemployed writers who sit around in the boxers working from home all day can they?

Read on….

This feels like something I’d be more likely to see back “home” than in San Francisco.  Anyone want to go take our cable cutters across town, drag this beast back to Dolores Park, climb in, and go for one helluva roll down the hill?

From reader john:

i just want to know if he rolls in it or ghost rides it.  either way, fixed geared fools better start peddalin’ for the hills as i’m sure once this guy assembles the rest of his bike he’ll be doing some big foot-type shit all over their asses.
found it on scott and page or thereabouts.

Thanks Catherine!

This shit is off the hook!  Not only does this group look absolutely elated to be alive, we have a Walter Sobchak lookalike!  Solid.

(Oh, if this is your camera, you can holler to get it back)

I have absolutely no idea what this dance party is about but it’s a goddamn tatted unicorn smoking a cigarette.

Ha!

I always thought The Knockout was a place where people who still think Nirvana is indie went to score blow.  Turns out people dance there too!  I had been seeing these pictures pop up on flickr a lot and kept thinking “what brand of douchebag goes to a club that, presumably, hires some jackass to take photos of their trashed customers, watermarks/brands/copyrights the photo, and upload them to flickr?”  So I decided to do a little recon/spectating with the ultimate authority of Mission douchebags last night.  Dunno about it.  Felt like a more over-hyped promoted/less fun version of emo night at Pops (which is free and they serve $1 high life).  The whole time I was there nothing really notable or exciting happened.  Some drunk chicks hit the photobooth but the whole thing was mostly shouting at your friends over the DJ.  Rolled out at midnight, went to Farolito, savaged a burrito, and went to bed.

Of course, some of my friends stuck around.  Got this text this morning:

“Forgot to tell you about the girl who was peeing in the urinal as I was puking in the stall.  Told me not to turn around because she was embarrassed.”

Chris, did you get any snaps of that?

Went to Santa Cruz the other day to ride bikes/remember what 70 degree weather is like/make fun of hippies and stumbled across this beast.  Forget about that fixed gear noise, belt drives are the purest form of cycling.  I asked the owner if he liked the bike: “It’s great.  She’s ready to go whenever I want.  Don’t even have to use lube.”  Zing!

In other news, being covered in liquid horse shit is very fashion forward.

Mission Thrift keeps it gully.

(via We Built This City)

Thanks James for actually leaving your house today.

Seriously, who the fuck brings a live Phish CD to a house party?

I hope that NYE was a omen for 2010, meaning that, unlike last year, I’ll have a solid time without being continuously roadhoused.