San Francisco Citizen

You can thank the New Deal for the Coit Tower Murals on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. The Marriott hotel chain thinks these images are worth a look, so check them out next time you’re in the area.

Worthy of note is this section from Coit Tower’s first floor shown below. Click to expand: 

See how respectful everybody is of the paparazzi (Italian for “photojournalists”) rushing in avec tripod to make a little money off tragedy? That’s quite different from these days, when you can get Bjorked for simply saying hello.

Nowadays, if you point a camera at Seal (Mr. Heidi Klum) and try to greet him, he might ask why he would “shake hands with scum.” Ouch.

And whatever you do, don’t try snapping photos of Matthew McConaughey while he surfs down in Malibu. Cause the Malibu Pump House Gang just might mass up and take you out. (And let’s not even talk about Barbra Streisand’s place down there. By all means, shutterbugs, stay out of Malibu!)

Old Matt McC. must really hate the paps, as he cameo’ed in the dreadful Mel Gibson movie Paparazzi (directed by Mel’s hairstylist from Lethal Weapon!) back in ought-four. In fact, lots of stars must hate the paps, given the large number of famous people who appeared in this “amazingly arrogant, immoral film.”

But some of the less famous actually dream about being followed around by a paparazzo. So much so, that they even pay for the privilege. And you can do it also now that Celeb For A Day has a San Francisco office. It’s only $500 for half hour of snapping, so sign up today and bring back the happy times when everybody got along with the paparazzi. Hurray!