Tripping Out on the Architecture of The Outer Sunset along the Great Highway.

17 08 2009

I spent the first part of last weeks Sunday Streets just riding my bike up and down the mostly deserted Great Highway and getting reacquainted with all my favorite houses out here. This stretch of road is what turned me onto Outer Sunset house watching several years ago. The houses out here have a lot of character and each one tells a different story.

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This house would be perfect if you were a superhero type that fought crime with a hovercraft type vehicle that kept getting tagged up every time you parked it on the street. Problem solved. Just park your vehicle on the roof and then bogie on down.

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This house is quite amazing. It takes up three lots lengthwise and is two lots deep but still manages to be modest in its space consumption. Check out that front lawn. It’s like Vietnam down there with succulents large enough to eat a small child.

She was originally built in 1949 by architect Ernest Born as his personal home and then later added onto by Aidlin Darling Design. It’s quite possibly the sexiest house in The Outer Sunset. You have to check out her photo spread in The New York Times to really appreciate her glory.

Photos courtesy of Dwight Eschliman.

It’s a fantasy of mine that a porn star exhibitionist type of girl moves in here one day and converts that third floor room in her bedroom/playspace.

Speaking of which, Mika Tan, if you’re looking for a house in San Francisco I found you a fabulous spot right by the beach.

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The house that Viagra built.

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There’s a lot of circular windows embedded into the homes out here. I think some of the architects went over the top on driving home this whole “we all live in a yellow submarine” theme.

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What’s that on the roof of the blue guy? Is that an antenna? Or maybe that’s an anti prop-8 art piece. I have no idea.

And check out how the green guy has boarded up and colored over his submarine window on the 2nd floor. “Yeah, we all live on the beach. I got the memo. Now get the fuck out of my house you stupid submarine window”

There are houses that have seen better days.

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There are houses that are painted like the doodle pads I used to scribble on my peachy folder back in junior high.

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Dudekoff!

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Our house, in the middle of our street
Our house, was our castle and our keep
Our house, in the middle of our street
Our house, that was where we used to sleep

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The Life is the Great Highway House

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The Jolly Green Giant House

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And John Law was taking his dogs out for a walk.

Thank you, Outer Sunset.

Thank you for helping to keep San Francisco weird.


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Saint Stupid’s Day Parade. 2009. FREE

8 04 2009

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I checked out The First Church of the Last Laugh’s 31st (!) annual Saint Stupid’s Day Parade last week. Wow, they’ve been doing this for a while now. Every April Fools Day they do a march downtown. On weekends they march through North Beach and on weekdays they march through the Finical District. Since I don’t have a job I spent my Wednesday afternoon marching with my people through the Finical District

John Law bought out his Doggie Dinner heads.

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This was the second stop at The Tomb of Saint Stupid. Perfect spot to rock out.

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The Doggie Diner heads followed us to Battery Street.

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Wavy Gravy gonna go get mellow y’all.

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This was the third stop at the statue of the bare butt mechanics.
I loved the guy getting all Braveheart at the top of the statue.

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LOTS of photographers with their power lenses.

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That’s very much a Burning Man thing that I had forgotten about. I would be standing around and people would get naked next to me and then instantly there’s a swarm of paparazzi type activity that makes me not want to be a photographer anymore.

I love this montage. Say hello to contestant #1. Let’s hope he has a sense of humor.

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Say hello to contestant #2. Looking sharp and looking for love.

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And here’s contestant # 3.
That looks like a yummy salad there, buddy. Smile for the Internet.

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What’s funny is that even though the couple at the end got it, contestant # 1 still looks oblivious. Let’s hope he has a sense of humor.

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And this was a scene straight out of Animal House. The parade is led down this dead end. Notice the mini-van that is trying to back out.

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Yep. This looks like a perfect place to jam. Let’s rock out!

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Waive goodbye to the mini-van as it backs up through the parade.

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Love the Free Bernie Madoff sign.

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I worked in the Finical District about 10 years ago. Amazing how timeless this area is. During the weekday it’s packed with stressed out people and all that collective road rage energy. Then on the weekends it’s a ghost town. The Finical District is like San Francisco’s Bermuda Triangle, or at least it has the same weird and haunted energy to it.

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This is stop # 7 at the Banker’s Heart.

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I just now noticed that the guy in the white with the flagpole is not only wearing the exact same tennis shoes as I am, but he built his entire look around those shoes. Nice one, brother.

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Bringing it back home to Embarcadero Plaza.

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It was kind of a goofy, fun, stupid parade in the great tradition of most eccentric San Francisco fringe type gatherings, but really it’s no more absurd than what goes on every single weekday in the Finical District with people dressing up in their suits and ties and wasting their lives away in cubicles while out economy has been run into the ground by organized crime derivatives bandits.

Go put that run-on sentence in your pipe and smoke it.


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Categories : FREE, San Francisco art and adventure