It's mostly this guy's fault.

Jackson West, who was the first editor here at SFist, got the ball rolling with this post, "The City that Knows How." He helped to grow the site with his wit, feel for the city, and a small group of contributors. As we zero in on SFist's third anniversary, we thought it would be a great time to see what Jackson's been doing since he last graced these pages, as well as a few other SFist "graduates" (in other words, Eve Batey's up shortly!). Mr. West deigned to answer a few of our questions:

1. What are you up to these days? Where can people see your writing?

In this age of narcissistic individualism, everybody has to be their own f--king brand. So much for collective bargaining.

Thankfully, I've been at jacksonwest.com since the turn of the century. If you want to go back, back in time, check out the hilarity hosted by the Internet Archive. Webrings were all the rage!

The latest iteration is powered by all sorts of "Web 2.0" nonsense, like Yahoo Pipes and Feedburner, because I'm a trendy motherf-er.

2. Are you still reading SFist with any frequency? Has it morphed into something fairly consistent with what you thought it would be?

Honestly, SFist is the one site I'll actually type into my browser location bar to check up on. Even when I was in New York, I was reading SFist instead of Gothamist (because frankly, the last two times I'd left town sh*t blew up).

It's been fun to watch new voices emerge and change the texture of the site -- I'll be lurking for good, don't you worry! But I'm especially proud that I can still hear so many familiar voices. My goal was to help build something that would last, and despite my best non-efforts, it did.

3. What's the ugliest thing in San Francisco?
The ugliest thing in San Francisco is the Serra which penetrates like an annoyingly urgent erection Don Fisher's GAP building. That it's visually matched with the cloyingly whimsical Cupid's Span proves the truth that "money can't buy taste." Just look at the SS Wilsey, which hosts trashy fashion shows for the chauffeured set of a certain age in our public park.

To me, the tide of privatization washing over The City is so much less intellectually, philosophically and aesthetically pleasing than the Rivera-inspired muralistas and WPA-sponsored Sergeant Johnson work from San Francisco's blue-collar zenith. The best public art right now is being perpetrated by graffitos, who are being choked by the golden cord of "quality of life" laws.

Photo taken at at Zeitgeist by Timothy Shey