North Beach / Chinatown

[Photo by Jeremy Brooks]

According to tastr, Church Key "[takes] beer so seriously that they’ve been ‘cellar aging’ four loko circa 2010, waiting for just the right moment to unleash a tasting party for the ages."  Considering some internet random with a cellphone was able to get access to their basement, I'm guessing "the right moment" will be whenever "someone" liberates the case from its neglectful owners. [link]

Last time I was at Alameda's Pacific Pinball Museum, I failed to notice this 1964 William's pinball machine themed around our prime city.  Certainly the machine was fun to play, but the artwork by then Chicago-based game manufacture was real highlight.  Ignoring the fact that they depicted the Golden Gate Bridge as having four towers, the city is essentially represented as Chinatown with a harbor, cable cars and white women dancing in the streets.

From what I understand, this sort of racist and misogynist imagery wasn't uncommon in older pinball machines.  After all, these machines were made to be played in the back of seedy, smoke-filled bars by all sorts of disreputable badasses.  And, you know, what kind of self-respecting badass wouldn't want to look at a caricature of Chinese person while smacking a ball around with flippers.  Even so, this machine exemplifies how SF was marketed in the 50's and early 60's: experience the exotic wonders of 'the Orient' while riding the cable cars and scoring 10 points when lit.

Previously on Uptown Almanac

• The Pacific Pinball Museum: An Ideal Place to Squander a Saturday Afternoon
• BIG NEWS in Pinball

View from the top of Coit Tower via William Hereford

Recently, my buddy Will posted the picture above on his blog. He took the photo last time he was in San Francisco on business from Brooklyn, and on his free time managed to venture all the way to the top of Coit Tower. Well, color me lazy because I've lived in SF and the Bay for around 20 years now and have never so much as looked up when I pass by Coit Tower. I guess it's just one of those tourist things that you think you'll get to someday, but really, you could actually care less to ever experience it. For example, when I lived in New York my friends would visit and would want to go to the Statue of Liberty all the time. If you've ever lived in NY, most would agree that venturing to the Statue of Liberty would be just as much torture as having to spend multiple hours in the Times Square M&M's store (my own personal hell). So, when friends would suggest that the Statue was something that they wanted to see, I simply would tell them that there are terrorists there, and if they wanted to see it they'd have to risk it by themselves. Once I took a friend on the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue "from a safe distance," but I digress. This post is about the Coit Tower.

After seeing Will's photograph, I totally have a new outlook on Coit Tower. First, it has sick-ass views and, after skimming its Wikipedia page, it has a pretty interesting history involving a cross-dressing, cigar-smoking woman amassing a fortune gambling around town.

I can't wait to put off visiting the tower for another few years.