To set myself up before my big drive to the LA I finally had my new car stereo installed. I say finally with such exasperation because for x-mas of 07 I received a brand new car stereo from my parents...which was promptly stolen from my truck while parked right outside my house in San Francisco...not cool. I of course didn't have the money to immediately replace the replacement stereo so I went stereoless for over a year until x-mas of 08 my parents lovingly decided to buy me another new car stereo, which as I mentioned above I finally had installed at the Best Buy on Du Bois avenue in San Rafael.
The process went exactly as I imagined it would go. I dropped of the car explained what happened to the install guy. He asked me if any cables had been ripped out. I explained to him that no cables had been ripped out because why? Because the SOB who stole the stereo had so much time to carefully remove the stereo nothing was unnecessarily moved or broken in my vehicle. I left my phone number and bounded off to Borders where I was looking forward to using a gift card I got as a gift god knows how long ago. I was feeling very productive on this day.
My time killing travels around San Rafael on foot eventually brought me to the mecca of all time killing establishments...Starbucks. Starbucks in my eyes is a different dimension to the universe. The seating areas look like green rooms from the 70's where all the famous comedians and actors hung out before and after sets and railed lines of blow while drinking their stiff martini's. The coffee is good enough, while not great (and I have a serious issue with their chocolate) it is much better than your garden variety Folgers or Yuban. The always too young to actually go out on a date with female staff members are nonetheless enjoyable to converse with while waiting for whatever ancient Roman sounding drink you just ordered, and of course the clientele is always so sophisticated with their laptops, and way too serious looks on their faces.
So after I order my medium tuxedo mocha with whip cream I choose my cushy seat in which to inspect the smell of my cocaine and then decide to use the restroom. This is where the whole story gets interesting...and the entire reason for a post...everything I've written up to this point just got me here...
I'm standing (which is also to say I'm peeing) in the bathroom and looking straight down as my urine splashes way to loudly into a bowl of water that could probably look cleaner is never that exciting. So I decide to gander around at the bathroom decor. Once again Starbucks is so sophisticated one would expect nothing but the finest of decors for their bathrooms.
Overall the bathroom was much less plush then the seating arrangements in the cafe but to my left hanging on the wall were three fairly simple yet geometrically sound paintings. I assume IKEA merchandise but I'm not one to sell anybody short. They were interesting enough to look at while my penis is in my hand to say the least.
As I'm staring at them I notice some tagging (or graffiti depending on your view of that practice). If your not familiar with the practice (or art) of tagging then your probably to old to figure out how to work the internet to find blogs but I'll indulge. People, groups, gangs, organizations, etc. will tag something (a wall, a car, a billboard, doorways...etc.) to tell the other taggers that they've been there or it's their turf.
As a disclaimer if you read this and you are affiliated with such a group or are a person who tags please feel free to leave a comment containing any information about the underworld of tagging. I don't confess to be an expert, in fact I'm not even on level 2 of understanding anything about how tagging works and what it represents. I know the absolute bare bones about the subject.
This is the tagging part of the message. The author left us P I Z to identify who they are. I am a firm believer that if you can't read the word the tagger left or don't know who that is than the message wasn't intended for you. The painting themselves are random and allow a lot of room for interpretation by the viewer. If your wondering why the tagging is hard to read it's because Starbucks attempted to wash off the graffiti left in their bathroom and an employee took a scrubber to it. To no avail however...as you can see.
I decided to take this picture because I was using a camera phone and an old camera phone at that. It is equipped with no flash and the lighting wasn't the greatest, plus the tagging was faded due to the attempt to erase it off the face of the picture. Here is a close-up of the tagging aspect of this message. P I Z...any takers on what it means or who it is...?
Now your getting an idea of how these paintings were laid out in this bathroom. This is the second painting from left to right and the second part of the taggers message DON'T DO written on either side of the very nice coffee mug with a star on it. Subtle but cute Starbucks coffee. I apologize for the difficulty in reading the DON'T on the left side. There was an obvious attempt to erase this part as well. On to the next photo...
Same action here but this time it is a close up of the word DO on the bottom right side of the second painting...quite the mystery we have here so far...
P I Z DON'T DO
The conclusion of our taggers message is now in sight. As you can see the word GRAFFITI is written in the bottom middle of the third and final painting (from right to left). Interesting placement don't you think...
As I'm staring from a few feet back at all three of these paintings with this taggers message written in permanent marker on the bottom of them I just started laughing. Oh, I was done peeing at this point, just FYI. I find it hilarious that someone took the time to write their identifier tag P I Z on a 2 x 2 painting in a Starbucks. It's natural human progression to look at the other paintings so it's safe to assume that the tagger knew every person who saw any part of the message would read the entire thing...and he/she chose DON'T DO GRAFFITI. That's ridiculous.
It's either a condemnation of what they personally do, but that's not what I think it is, it doesn't make sense. Why would someone who obviously is involved in tagging/graffiti try to leave a life lesson in a bathroom? Especially one that goes directly against what they are doing...
It could also be an obvious mocking of Starbucks and the establishment that it represents as a whole. What better way to give an F-YOU to the corporate machine that Starbucks has taken so much shit for being a huge part of? DON'T DO GRAFFITI. It's subtle hilarity is only matched by the fact that Starbucks spent energy trying to make it go away only to fail. yet they didn't (or haven't yet) replaced the paintings altogether.
I love how a little person who has some artistic ability can make a lasting impression on the huge establishment that is.
Obviously the little guy is the tagger, the lasting impression is the message, as always the message is all wrapped up in a little bit of the sarcasm that is a by product of the establishment itself, and of course the lasting of it all is signified by the fact that Starbucks can't wash it off and now everyone who goes into the bathroom sees it unless Starbucks decided to replace the paintings all together which would signify a complete rejuvenation of the establishment which of course is what the tagger and the message is trying to get everyone to realize anyways.
P I Z DON'T DO GRAFFITI
Lately I have found in my life I have been faced with many different looking toilets. I recently moved out of my apartment and was staying at my folks house for most of the summer. From there I stayed off and on with a buddy who lived in a three story old Victorian house in San Francisco. This style of house of course had a different style of toilet than my parents house or ld apartment. I have just recently moved into a new studio apartment in Pacific Heights and this apartment yet again has a different style of toilet.
I forgot to mention that while I was staying with my parents they were in the middle of a bathroom remodel. The remodel was mainly focused on the shower but the toilet was removed and there was general conversation going on about all aspects of bathrooms.
The other variable in my toilet scouting is school. There are hundreds of bathrooms at SF State. I only use a handful of them on a regular basis, but one thing I have noticed about the bathrooms at State is they only get something new in them if the old thing broke. University's and their money (or lack of money). This creates some odd matches in some bathrooms. Bolts are different, toilets are different shades of white porcelain, things of that nature.
I have decided on my favorite type of toilet. One where you can use your foot to flush. Most house don't have this style of toilet. This seems obvious, most people don't feel their houses are dirty and thus visitors don't need to use their feet to flush. This trend in toilets is mainly found in public places like school, stadiums, concert halls, etc.
This toilet here is the one in my new apartment. It's an interesting design considering it is in an apartment in San Francisco. The seat is comfortable, but there really isn't enough room for my knees when I'm sitting on it reading. As you can see there is a cabinet directly in front of the toilet that sticks out quite a bit considering its placement. Due to this I have to angle myself to the right to allow enough room for my legs.
As you can see above the cabinet sticks out from the wall about five inches. Which doesn't sound like a whole hell of a lot but when your supposed to sit with your legs straight on it makes a big difference. You can see the flushing handle is one you would find more commonly in a public restroom. I don't know the story behind why this apartment had a toilet with a flush handle like that, but really it makes no difference to me. Actually its kind of fun sometime. I can kick it down with authority. Here's the same toilet from another angle.
When I'm at public places on a regular basis, such as school, I find a bathroom I'm comfortable with and I use that same bathroom every single time. I like big bathrooms because that cuts down on the chances of waiting in lines. Plus that means there is more than one stall. I generally pick the one up against a wall because that allows me to only have to deal with one being full next to me because my other side is the wall. Here are some examples of toilet set-ups at Sf State.
These are obviously urinals, which for most people are a different animal due to the lack of commitment needed. It's a whole different ball game when you have sit, bare bottomed on something than stand next to it. But notice the flush mechanism. This set-up is by far the best set-up possible for a public restroom. All you do is click it with your foot and your gone.
here is a toilet in the same restroom as the urinals in the previous picture. The flushing handle itself is a different part but the idea is the exact same. It is so obvious that you use your foot a person can't possibly touch that handle with anything else. The fact that everyone flushes with their feet does make the handle itself dirtier than it would be but the method makes flushing hands free.
Alright here is my last picture. This toilet is essentially the same as the picture above but it is located in a different restroom in the BECA building at SF State.
Obviously there is one huge difference with this toilet than the one located in the other picture. The location of the handle makes this toilet a hands flushing toilet. Now when I use this toilet as I did right before I took this picture I still use my foot to flush. it isn't impossible to use your foot anyways the handle is only three feet in the air or so. But it does beg the question why does one bathroom in the same building have a foot flusher and another has a hand flusher when the foot flusher for public bathrooms is so much better. I don't have the answer to this question but I think most people prefer the foot flushing method. I know I do.
So next time your in a public bathroom check out the flushing method. Remember when they built the bathroom they decided which way people were going to flush. As the user we can defy this assumption and flush all the time with our feet regardless of the location of the flushing handle. Stay clean and flush with your foot.
