North Beach / Chinatown

Coitus Interruptus

— By Jenny Wilson |

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.

Taking Care of a Banksy is Hard Work

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Over the past few months, I've seen dozens of photos of this shopkeeper maintaining the prized Banksy on the side of his establishment.  Scraping off stickers, washing off spraypaint, painting the wall around it; you'd almost think he created the art himself.

I'm sure Banksy can't help but laugh at this peculiar situation himself.  Had this piece been put up by anyone else, it'd be deemed vandalism and painted over immediately.  Instead, his artwork is cared for through paint bucket and tagging attacks, gratis.

(photo and title inspiration by Brandon Doran)

Giants Tribute Murals Popping Up Around Town

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

I guess it was only a matter of time before muralists got into the celebratory spirit.  Mark Bode, who happens to have a cracked-out website, painted the piece pictured above on Columbus at Powell.  Unfortunately, this crappy cameraphone pic shot from inside of a bus is the only complete shot of the mural, so we're all going to have to wait for some flickr friends to schlep up to North Beach to take a better photo for us.

pic by MrCleanSF

Another unknown artist put this piece up on the side of a building on Geneva, just south of McLaren Park. Since it features Brian Wilson looking like he's about to stare an orgasm into a woman and a Japanimationed Lincecum, I'm going to have to deem it “good stuff.”

(Bonus!  Don't forget about Precita Eyes' “Vamos Gigantes” mural painted in 2007, which is almost impossible to really take in from the street.)

Cool Kid Travels: Eau de Crooklyn?

— By Jenny Wilson |

Last week I was in Brooklyn and stumbled across Bond No. 9's latest scent “Brooklyn.'” The Brooklyn perfume consists of a combination of grapefruit, cardamom, cypress-wood, geranium leaves, juniper berrie, cesarwood, leather and guaiacwood, (wtf is that?)  and for a mere $220 you can actually “smell like” Brooklyn. Don't really know where they came up with this weird ass combo to encapsulate the scent of the “edgy metropolis.” To me Crooklyn smells like wasted youth and decaying bodies but, I guess that really isn't marketable.

If San Francisco's neighborhoods were bottled up into different perfumes, what would these neighborhoods smell like? And what is the price you'd have to pay to smell like them?

Mission: Taco trucks, piss, cheap beer, expensive coffee, trustafarians. Price: One call to your parents to please, please, please let you use daddy's Amex one more time.

Haight: Drum circles, midwestern runaways that didn't get the memo that punk is dead (see: dirt, b.o., and dreadlocks), bong loads, DMT. Price: Panhandle for 48 hrs straight and pray some unwitting tourists feel bad for your 3 dogs.

Marina: The scent of entitlement, hair product, fake tanner, axe body spray, shame, chest bumps! Price: The cost of running for mayor.

Tenderloin: Crack, garbage, meth, cheap blow jobs (see: rotting teeth), poor life decisions. Price: Eagerness to give cheap blow jobs.

Noe Valley: Upwardly mobile snobbery, babies, french bulldogs (read: shit), the new car smell. Price:  Raising 2 kids, paying for private school, a vasectomy

Sunset: Isolation, depression, pseudo suburbia. Price: Moving anywhere else in the city

Castro: Rainbows, unicorns, leather daddy's leather, lube. Price: An evening at Boy Bar.

Chinatown: fish, lost tourists, the dirty 30, dumpsters. Price: Shitting yourself.

North Beach: Pizza! bros, day old strippers. Price: One lap dance.

If you have anymore ideas go ahead and throw them into the comments, and if you want to add anymore neighbs that I didn't cover, i.e. Pac Heights (I'm not sure what rich smells like) go ahead and do it.

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