San Francisco News Blog

​Mr.Burbuja's Laundromat, located on the corner of 24th Street and Florida, is home to one of the weirdest and most unexpected pieces of artwork on the popular shopping corridor. The building's side boasts a painting of the business's namesake, an anthropomorphic washing machine who is way stoked on getting his basket of clothes clean. (This publication granted the painting "Best Laundromat Mural" in the 2009 Best Of issue.) But recently Mr.Burbujas isn't half the "man" he used to be. Literally. Half the mural, which is painted on wooden boards and affixed to the wall, has been pulled down. The remaining half of the mural has been defaced by a tagger.

This isn't the first time Mr.Burbuja's sunny visage has been marred by spray paint, but taggers had previously limited themselves to filling in the white tiles of the checkerboard patterned floor in his fantasy-mat filled with laundro-people. This time someone has scrawled a big, ugly mess over his arm and beloved basket of laundry. Seriously, people-- is this necessary? And what's up with the rash of taggers disrespecting spaces that are already occupied with art? (You may take issue with my extending the label of "art" to Mr.Burbujas. Let me assure you, you are wrong.)


​Mr.Bubujas is just a block away from the Galeria De La Raza, a non-profit arts organization that uses a billboard on the side of its building to host a rotating display of digitally produced artwork. After spotting the carnage that took place steps away, it made sense to check on the latest installment, Ghetto Frida's Mission Memories. Sure enough, it had been bombed, too, although apparently not by the same person.

Though it seems unlikely that the jerks who messed up Mr.Burbujas and Frida will be reading this, it only seems fair to warn them that in their audacious haste they have incurred the Pox of Mr. Burbujas. Your clothes will never come completely clean. They will always smell faintly of mildew and deodorant residue. There will always be one red article of clothing in with your whites. You will lose one sock every time you do laundry.

Ok, so I just made that up. And you probably don't seperate your whites.(Does anybody do that in real life?) But seriously: You Suck.

Revel in the glory of an intact Mr.Burbujas.

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