Over the Christmas break, MAJOR DRAMA went down surrounding Harding Theater's “Lazer Cat” mural.  In short, SFist found the mural “vandalized” with two rad-looking bull heads painted over the mememural.  The internet promptly shit itself, only to discover that the Lazer Cat mural was intended to be a temporary mural, the first in series of pieces with a month of shelf life.  Out of embarrassment, Gallery Heist, who put together the mural project, took down the mural's canvas and left the abandoned Divisadero theater painted white.

Two days later, the wall is well on its way to being completely tagged over.  Adam Infanticide has a sticker declaring “I [sic] BEAUTIFYING MY COMMUNITY.”   Another from the local favorite gibberish tagger “Beer Picnics” reads, “Vampires Using Extacy”  But most prominently is the giant HYPE! tag, which pretty much summarizes the entire ordeal.  Even if the mural wasn't painted over intentionally, its demise was almost certain due to its subject matter and hype.  After all, you cannot paint a mural like that, in San Francisco, without consciously thinking about how the mural will be played up on Laughing Squid, I Can Haz Cheezeburger and other glorified Tumblrs.  At which point, it becomes difficult to tell if the mural is art, or merely someone looking for their 15 minutes of fame.  Certainly some found it to be art (I skeptically fell on this side), but without a doubt others assumed it was the latter.

I'm only surprised the mural made it as long as it did.

As I paced around Civic Center searching for a place to discharge all the whiskey in my bladder, I overheard a Santa, clutching his treasured Bud Light Lime, joyfully exclaim, “This is the new Bay to Breakers.”

Perhaps this costumed connoisseur of fine beverages is onto something.  After all, B2B is once again under pressure to 'rein it in' and have vowed that there will be no alcohol at the 2011 race.  Maybe this is the new event in which the Mission, the Marina, and Livermore can come together for an afternoon of costumed intoxication?  The events certainly are becoming similar.  Let me submit the following into evidence:

THE ROUTE: Much like Bay to Breakers, Santacon follows an established route.  However, unlike the silly bastards that organize B2B, the anarchic masterminds behind Santarchy have split up the race to the bottom into three courses, thus reducing the chances that NIMBYs will get angry at the crowds by 66%.

BONUS: Santa has cemented itself as one of the San Francisco community events that have made some sort of public declaration that C.H.U.D.s live in the Marina/Japantown, thus earn the event “props” from the other 85% of the city.  Excellent PR move.

THE COSTUMES: Just as Bay to Breakers has moved beyond the simple running outfit, Santa no longer views the simple Santa suit as adequate.  As The Dude, caucasian in hand, and the costumed individuals photographed below show, Santacon is has transcended beyond the “Santa suit pub crawl” image to a full-on costumed adventure.

COSTUMES: Indiana Jones Santa demonstrates how the use of props can bring your Santacon experience to the next level.

COSTUMES: iPod Santa shows how vintage technology can make your tomfoolery culturally relevant.

COSTUMES: Chuck Taylor and PBR trucker hat Jesus speaks volumes.  For lazy Santas, merely wearing what you would ordinarily wear, only pantless and pulling a cross, will suffice.

THE FLOATS: Just like B2B, floats are only increasing in presence during Santacon.  Sure, the Oakland-SF Ferry might be more of a literal float than some Jersey Shore-themed travesty, but this year's Polk St. parade of flannel had some of those as well:

INTERESTED ON-LOOKERS: Just as B2B has necessitated a demand for stoop and rooftop parties along the route, Santacon has grown into such a spectacle that even crackheads don their Santa hats and peer out the windows of their SROs.

DISINTERESTED ON-LOOKERS: Much like B2B has a crowd of neighbors who roll their eyes at the antics going on around them, Molotov's had this dog who was contently sleeping as 50+ Santas guzzled shots and pints of PBR.

BADASS DUDES WITH AWESOME MUSTACHES THAT LOOK LIKE THEY KILL PEOPLE IN ROBERT RODRIGUEZ MOVIES: Word.

NO WHERE TO PEE: As Kasey Smith documented, Santa also has to pee on buildings.

RUNNING UPSTREAM: Similar to B2B's Salmon Run!, in which costumed salmon run the race backwards, the result of Santarchy 'going mainstream' was Bananarchy.  Bananarchy, as you might have guessed, involves a bunch of hooligans in banana costumes running the wrong way through a crowd of Santas yelling silly stuff like “BANANAS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!”

What's the verdict?  Compared to previous Santacons I've been to, the 2010 edition seemed to involve more brown bags from bodegas and walking from neighborhood to neighborhood than hanging out in bars.  Then again, that might be because of the nice weather and the fact that the recession has made us all more broke-ass.  Ultimately thought, it doesn't matter if Santacon has “replaced” B2B; this town will just take any excuse it can get to barf its way through the Western Addition.

Andrew over at Aggressive Panhandler has already dubbed the mural “A kitten shoots at the San Francisco skyline with lazer eyes or possibly spotlights while another kitten pounces on a multi-colored dragonfly and a third kitten peeks out from below”.  However, based on the number of tall buildings, it looks like they're cats dispatched from San Francisco to take down NYC once and for all.  Who knows.

Get all the details over at AggroPA.

Andrew Dalton over at Curbed put together a pretty solid guide to the Western Addition:

Q: Local Customs of note:
A: People live in cafes here. Which is great because the beer tends to be cheaper, so we drink a lot of it and everyone is immediately more social and neighborly. Bean Bag Cafe started a $2 happy hour some four years ago (with actual beer! that tastes good!) and it set off price war that's been raging ever since. If you're paying more than two bucks a pint and it's before 8pm, then you're at Nopa and that is way too early to be at Nopa.

Also worth noting is Nemo's comment:

I lived in a great flat on Broderick and Hayes for seven years in the 80s. A block away from what is now NOPA (the restaurant). The NOPA building was actually my laundromat at the time. The best ribs were at DO City Ribs right across the street. They had bullet proof windows inside and would drop your order down into a tray (like old banks).

We used to call the hood Do Valley and Divisadero was the Rue de Do. Unfortunately after I left the name faded. It never caught on. Much better than NOPA though.

Perhaps more exciting than getting food from behind bulletproof glass was their slogan, “eat your ass off.”  The legend has it that they had a mural out front that “literally” depicted the slogan.  I can only imagine the beautiful monstrosity that building must have been.  Anyone have a picture of the place?

Read the whole thing over at Curbed. (photo by tomnono)