All stories about "Oliver Hartman"

We recently covered some important historical beatings that have been thrown down in the Big Onion. Continuing with more contemporary violence, we have created a new list that unfortunately includes appearances by the NYPD, international terrorists, and a serial rapist. As with our post before, we chose events based not solely on the scale of the violence, but also their later impact. (photo)

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Visitors come from far and near to experience the magic of New York City. The last thing they want is for their starry-eyed vision to be extinguished in a fiery supernova, which is almost exactly what happens when a trip is interrupted by unplanned vomiting. We want you to enjoy the city without restraint, but hope that our efforts to keep dry cleaning bills down, ambient air (more) breathable, and puking in its proper place (model-frequented restaurant bathrooms) will prevent unnecessary burst-outs. So, to save your vacation we have compiled a list of tourist destinations that warrant a warning. Leave us a comment if you have "Ralphed", or even just thrown up in your mouth and swallowed it, at a tourist destination not on the list. (photo)

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Everyone knows about frat boys. And if you shared a campus with them perhaps you preemptively distanced yourself from day one, or maybe encountered repeated rejection, or maybe even joined via an elephant walk. Whatever your particular history has been with fraternal institutions, it's never too late to (re)discover, if even briefly, the tribal part of you who should have been a poli-sci major devoted to poker, baseball, "ice" beer, and drunken swordsmanship. The good news is that at this stage there is no need for harrowing "character building" pledges of commitment. Just bring territoriality, a loud voice, an entourage, and willingness to pursue the basics: booze, biddies, and brawls. (In addition to this post, a nice resource is our beer pong listing.) (mjparnell/flickr)

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Coming up with a list of fights occurring in this city is an endless task. Just the other night in the Meatpacking district a gel-wearing d-bag exchanged blows with a pair of gym arms stuffed into an AX shirt with a head (also gelled). And about a month ago this man died after throwing down at a Dunkin Donuts in Queens at 3pm. So, to make our job easier, we focused on some of the big beatings, historically speaking. If you have something with more weight than cell-phone throwing celebs or BAC-over-.08% fisticuffs, please do tell. (photo)

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We all know when you have something important to tell someone you care about there is only way to do it: pay someone else to say it. And by say it, I mean sing it. Yes, a singing telegram: antiquated, awkward, awesome. They were born in 1933 as an effort to rebrand telegrams, which up to this point were relaying messages that were utilitarian ("Meet me at railroad station Monday stop), bad news ("Your son is dead stop") or both ("Meet me at railroad station Monday stop Pick up remains of dead son stop"). But singing telegrams have always a novelty. Sadly, the public never became enamored with them, and the telephone boom of the 60's nearly extinguished them, both read and sung. But things are changing. Recently, in a San Francisco cafe, a duo delivered a singing telegram for a zombie-loving recipient. To fulfill their order, they dressed as zombies with blood on their clothes, alternated between singing and groaning, and then proceeded to eat his brain.

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Although they are breaking restaurant conventions and Health Code regulations, "Secret Cafes", nomadic kitchens with migratory cooks, are popping up all over the place, including in San Francisco. Traditional restaurant culture isn't in jeopardy, but at least people are embracing the occasional breath of fresh air. At secret cafes, chefs can break free from a constraining menu and diners can engage with each other. What makes these hidden hotspots popular is that they combine an intimate potluck with a refined private bohemian club without the risk of a guest bringing a dud dish or a fixed location that attracts hordes of scenester lemmings. Best of all, is the ever-tantalizing hint of exclusivity and ego-petting for the participants. The result is a super supper experience that challenges the dining status quo.

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It's no surprise that a series of brick-paved switchbacks lined with mansions and flower beds between Downtown and the Marina receives more attention than a tree-shrouded luge track in a nameless section of Portreo Hill. Even though these streets share the same sexy (not really) curves, one has been catapulted to fame, while the other remains cloaked in obscurity. Lombard Street, as you know, has been featured in movies, put on postcards, and is visited by a depressing number of tourists. It's really not that great, but that hasn't prevented it from becoming one of the most famous streets in the United States. I've never heard anyone mention Vermont Street at 20th. But I don't blame Lombard for trumpeting its distinguished Russian Hill location, cable car access, and proximity to the unforgivable Ghirardelli Square. However, even as a shameless media whore of a street, it should stop boasting about something it doesn't rightly own -- its title as "The World's Crookedest Street."

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Watching a film in a gray-walled leviathan stadium while your tympanic membranes are stretched to the max courtesy of THX and your patience reserves are drained by text-messaging kids is sometimes worth the $10.50. But unless you want to see Tony Ja triple roundhouse a scar-faced bad guy in a tux off of a skyscraper, visiting a place where there's a sofa, or a dining table, or some real ambiance that celebrates the beauty and glamour of the silver screen is always a better choice. To help yourself escape puke-pattern carpeting, unhealthily large servings of popcorn, and vest-wearing high school employees, refer to this list of venues -- an expansion on our previous rundown of the same topic. These places are mostly limited to one or two screens and skew independent, foreign, documentary, cult, and classic in their selections.

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It's boring to exercise in a place, or in such a manner, where receiving an elbow in the face is close to nil. You waste the endorphins that are produced anyway, and it's very un-White Men Can't Jump of you. So, whether you're a nice guy, a hustler, or a hack, here are some places to play a friendly game, dupe some suckers, or lay down a brick house, respectively.

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A marshland area settled initially by Irish, Scottish, and English during the industrial boom of the mid-1800s, the Dogpatch neighborhood, generally considered the eastern flats of Potrero Hill between Mariposa and 23rd, boasts many buildings that survived the 1906 earthquake. But most of us wouldn't really know that, since it's ill-fatedly positioned between Hunter's Point and the Ball Park. Wrestling with development in and around the Patch, this populist hood rich in blue-collar culture is a looking glass into the past and present trajectories of San Francisco. In 2003 it was awarded historic status and has been experiencing a spurt of artistic maturation and slow gentrification. Its main vein is Third Street, where the recently completed light rail runs.

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The tango is basically sex set to music, but unfortunately, before you start swooning the heeled seductresses at a Milonga you need to learn a few things like the the Floating Cortado or Super Gancho. Otherwise, you'll just look like an over-dressed, under skilled artiste, which is to say, horrific lover. To help you out here is a guide to places and spaces covering 6 days of the week. Go here to work on your lead, see some pros, and two step your way into the arms of an enthusiastic partner.

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When it's cold you can forget the beer on the counter and still enjoy it chilled or legitimately spend days in bed or justifiably skip the morning shower...all winter. But, when you can't feel your hands in your own house because the window drafts out perform the shoddy heating system its probably a good idea to hit the neighborhood hot tubs. Like any activity that involves people wearing less clothing than they would to the mall -think thai massages, physical exams, and summer camp swim tests- hot tubs are interesting (re: potential gold mines of scandal and raunch waiting to be excavated) and just maybe, relaxing. Sometimes they disguise themselves with other names like jacuzzi or hot bath, or keep the company of cold dips and saunas, but these places, sometimes called spas, sometimes parlors, sometimes bathhouses, all have the essential ingredient: hot water. Dust off your speedo, bikini, or birthday suit and jump in.

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What happens when the warm, wholesome American holiday pie is left in the hands of a city like San Francisco? I'm hardly calling San Francisco Jason Biggs, but things get sticky. A few events, like the Chanukah versus Christmas Battle Royale of Beer, have already passed, but there are some other very worthy and weird holiday options remaining -- boom-box herding, drag queen fests, and a Jewish Christmas celebration in a Chinese restaurant, to name a few.

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It's the holiday season! Say hello (with enthusiasm now!) to family movies, presents with Nana, shitty sweaters, and the ache of disappointment. This year, ditch the mental Pilates needed to answer Uncle Bud's question about what you've been up to. Sure, in reality, you've been out trying to stuff every set of stockings at your holiday office parties. But you need a ready-made set of plausible excuses, so here's a list of postcard-perfect San Francisco activities, all as sweet as sugar plums.

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Despite our city's hilly reputation and countless postcards depicting gorged streetcars laboring up hills like a Clydesdale on a rope tow, there are bicyclists in this city. But reducing your carbon footprint or jumping on the trend comes at a cost. For riders without an intimate knowledge of the streets, traversing this city can be hellish. You might easily end up immobilized, staring up a steep grade with lactic acid eagerly fulminating in your limbs. However, those in the know can use the aptly named Wiggle to avoid unwanted anaerobic exercise. Following the old Sans Souci Valley, the Wiggle begins its squirm in the Duboce Triangle and writhes its way through Lower Haight to the Panhandle, connecting the Mission and Castro to Upper Haight, Richmond, and Sunset sans exertion.

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San Francisco is known for extravagant prices and living costs that can cripple one's urban experience. But Top Ramen and tap water need not be the menu du jour, jour after jour after jour. So we spoke with Stuart Schuffman, a.k.a. Broke-Ass Stuart, who's spent a few years working for the masses, particularly the "young, broke, and beautiful", by consuming countless cheap drinks and meals and writing about them. Now, having graduated from a self-made zine to a published guidebook in its second version, his digestive enzymes and liver can sleep easy. Too bad he has already moved on to tackle New York and beyond. For a piece of the action you can go to his SF book release party at the Rickshaw Stop tonight, with $1 cover, free food, and peasant-priced drinks. More from the man himself, after the jump.

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Hold up! The Castro does secondhand shopping a little differently? Actually, not really, but truthfully it's not quite the same as, say, Upper Haight or the Mission. You'll probably pay a little more, but think of all you'll save in industrial strength detergent and post-shopping hand-scrubbing. Plus, you'll walk out the door with clothes that actually fit (referring to both boxy shirts and tight pants that cause third-party embarrassment).

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