Mission Mission

The Director of the San Francisco Tenants Union, Ted Gullicksen, died suddenly in his home the night of October 13th or morning of October 14th. There will be a memorial service this coming Sunday at Mission High. I didn’t know Ted personally, but when my mom and I were wrongfully evicted during dotcom1, the SF Tenants Union was very supportive. Ted and the Union have provided assistance to so many San Francisco residents over the years.

More about the memorial and Ted here. Donations in his memory can be made to the Tenants Union, or to the fund for Falcor, his dog, who needs medical care.

The first bar I ever went to (besides with my dad as a kid) was the Uptown. It was a great experience, just what I always thought a bar would be like: Dark, damp and a little scary. I felt totally at home. Last week the owner, Scott Ellsworth, passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. I didn’t know Scott that well, but the couple times we talked he was always really friendly, and very supportive of the weird artsy place my buddies and I were building across the street. He ran a bar that didn’t have a cocktail program or a dress code. He ran a bar where you could sit down, have a shot and a beer and chat with familiar regulars. Inside the Uptown I’ve stored paintings during a scavenger hunt art show, made business deals, broken up fights, maybe gotten in a fight, tried in vain to get up the nerve to talk to a girl, watched my team dominate the World Series, and seen Sean Penn close it down.

[via Facebook]

The Bold Italic has a great tribute to him today, which would have been his 60th birthday.

In 2011, when I posted a picture of “KiTOS”, the letters on the back of the bar, Scott wrote in to tell us that it stood for the previous owner’s names, Kim and Tony. Let’s just say now it stands for “Keep in Touch, Ol’ Scott.”

I worked at Fayes Video on 18th Street from the late 90′s into the mid 00′s. The woman who set herself on fire on Dorland Street last weekend, later passing away at a burn center, was a regular customer during that time.

You can read a bit about what happened as well as reflections by members of her family (in the comments) at Mission Local. After the jump, the co-owners of Fayes and I each share a few thoughts about Colleen.

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