lions mouth

On a small round table in the corner of Whiskey Thieves, a smoke filled dive bar where Geary and Larkin meet, a stack of Lion’s Mouth magazines wait to be picked up by the local neighbor hood residents and bums. The Lion’s Mouth may not have an official office but this dark corner of the bar is considered home to local tenderloin magazine, which made it the perfect place to meet up with its founder. Every night more copies are picked up and the word spreads a little more about the hilarious yet extremely legit magazine.
A local resident named Rachel, who refuses to give her last name when asked, started the Lion’s Mouth roughly three years ago. Rachel, 30, just finally graduated college from San Francisco State University after twelve ridiculously long years of studying English Literature and Creative Writing. Sure, at first the magazine was just a random drunken idea a group of friends thought of one night at Night Cap Bar (see: dirtiest bar in San Francisco) but to Rachel and many others who have become part of the magazine’s family, it has become not only a second job but a first love to them. When asked about the magazines mission statement Rachel exclaims, “We actually have an anti-mission statement. Our role is not to try to write serious shit to fix problems, we are just trying to put everything out there and create awareness about the tenderloin via humor and human interest. It is also about having Lion Pride and loving our neighbor hood no matter how many zombies you see crawling the streets at 4am.” With the funny stories about crack pipes, local event coverage of sketchy street corner bum fights, random drinking mishaps at Whiskey Thieves, interviews with the tenderloin police chief and various other creative artistic forms, the magazine was an instant hit. The title of the magazine came from the San Francisco district it was created in, the one and only tenderloin. Although the streets of the tenderloin are most often covered in crack heads, tranny hookers and drunken hipsters it is very much an up and coming popular area in downtown San Francisco. Rachel has no plans of ever changing the name because it is simply a perfect fit for the magazine and it’s readers.
With the sixth issue just released, The Lion’s mouth has been published about every 3-5 months since its start up. Production times depend on the material they have collected or tabled and how long it takes them to put everything together. Rachel and her contributors all have regular day jobs and have been balancing their paying jobs and their fun magazine job very well so far. With their hard work and dedication they have been able to continue running the magazine. In fact, they have already seen a fair amount of growth in circulation. The first issue printed was 1,500 copies and now they are printing between 5,000-6,000 each issue.
As a non-profit magazine there have been some troubles with money in the past. Because they do not have much advertisement, by choice, the staff has been running the magazine with a lot of money out of their own pockets. They have considered more advertisement but for right now they are happy selling one or two $100 ads to local stores. Rachel ads, “I want to be able to print whatever I want and not have to be at the hands of advertisers.” The regular staff consists of self-appointed Editor-In-Chief, Rachel, and eight regular writers. They also have about 20 freelance contributors that submit articles when needed. In addition, in the latest issue they ran an ad for an Internship position at The Lion’s Mouth. Naturally the required skills included: answering phones, making coffee, gardening, photocopying and giving really mean blow jobs. A few weeks later, a very drunk man stumbling around Whiskey Thieves filled the position. I guess the staff will see how he works out.
Distribution has slowly spread throughout the city and now covers various bars, cafes, bookstores, clubs and music stores from the Castro to the Embarcadero. One of the best parts of the magazine is its price, totally free!!! Rachel hopes that whenever you see one around you are able and welcome to pick up one or two if you have a friend. The target reader is typically young adults in their mid 20’s-early 30’s who live or spend a lot of time in the tenderloin district. However, they do have a few older or non-TL resident readers as well. Because its writers are already paying for the magazine the recent economic changes really haven’t affected them much. The Lion’s Mouth is the only true local magazine in the tenderloin there is not much competition but there is a small about of competition with other small San Francisco publications such as Lo Card but the Lion’s Mouth is very confident in their magazine.
The future looks bright for The Lion’s Mouth with big plans for improvement including sweatshirts and various other forms of merchandise. They are also planning to finally update their website which has not been touched in about two years. They are also searching local bars, schools and cafes to look for new writers and artists to help with new material. When asked, Rachel says her favorite part of the magazine is simply “how real it is and how on point the writing about the local antics of the tenderloin is.” The Lion’s Mouth may not be the next 7x7 but it has sure put a mark on local magazine writing and looks to continue providing entertainment for the residents of the tenderloin.