Filtra per genere
- 584 - Danny Montoya/Butterfly Joint and Café, Part 2 (S6E15)
In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. After getting his credentials, Danny bounced around, teaching at a couple of San Francisco public schools before landing at Live Oak (a K–8 school in Potrero Hill). He stayed teaching kindergarten and first grade there for a total of 11 years.
We shift gears in the recording to talk about how Danny met his wife. Full disclosure: I've known Erin Feher since around 2004 when we were both in the Journalism program at SF State. Back in 2020, Erin reached out to me on behalf of her new orgranization—REPCO, or Represent Collaborative. Periodically, our podcasts run on REPCO and it's been an honor to collaborate with them. Check them out and donate if you're able.
Danny and Erin met around the time I lost touch with Erin (2005, when I graduated from State). He was DJing and the night Erin and some friends walked in, Danny broke one of his own rules by talking to a woman at a bar he was deejaying. Their first date involved riding bikes around SF.
Years later, they had their first kid. Erin had to go back to work before Danny did, so he was able to stay home and take care of their infant. But after a year, he was both itching to do something and needed to when his wife got laid off. And this is how Butterfly Joint was founded. It married his two passions—woodworking and teaching.
The first location was on Mission Street and lasted there for years. But when Danny and his wife moved their little family to the Outer Richmond and found a new-to-them community there, he decided to bring the shop with him.
Danny shares the story of opening the café and learning to make vegan donuts. These days, the café is open every day. Donuts are now his No. 1 seller. They focus on hyper-local goods and like to do pop-up events once a month.
Follow Butterfly Joint and Café on Instagram. Visit them at 4411 Cabrillo. For those with kids who are interested, go to their website.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 14 May 2024 - 37min - 583 - CAAMFest w/Thuy Tran (S6 Bonus)
The 42nd annual CAAMFest kicks off tomorrow, May 9, in The City. In this bonus episode, meet CAAM's Festival and Exhibitions Director, Thuy Tran. Hear about how Thuy ended up in San Francisco and working at CAAM, the history of this Asian-American media organization, and this year's film, food, and music festival, which runs through May 19. Visit the CAAMFest website for more details.
Wed, 08 May 2024 - 17min - 582 - Danny Montoya/Butterfly Joint and Café, Part 1 (S6E15)
In this episode, meet and get to know Danny Montoya, who owns and operates Butterfly Joint and Café in the Outer Richmond. Danny starts his story by letting us know that, growing up, he had family in The City and visited a lot from his various homes in Southern California. He was born in Burbank and grew up in Santa Clarita Valley, where some of his friends still live. He was immersed in punk and skate cultures from a young age, and once he had friends who were old enough to do so, they drove "everywhere" to skate. His parents, both of whom are from Colombia and met in LA, divorced when Danny was 5. He and his older brother went to live most of the time with their mom in a trailer park. This was Danny's primary residence from age 5 to the beginning of ninth grade, and he says it shaped him deeply. He started skating at the trailer park when he was 8. At this point, Danny and I go on a sidebar about what skating and skate culture did for us as people. He did a lot of street skating and was one of the younger kids in his crew. He's quick to point out that he was also way into basketball. He skated until he was 10 and didn't pick it up again until high school. Thanks to a friend, he got into music when he was in junior high. His step dad and mom got married before Danny started high school, and he moved with them to Valencia, California. In his sophomore year, he started skating again and was going to hardcore shows in Hollywood and San Diego. Danny was the first person in his family to go to college. He says it wasn't a question of whether he'd go, but more of where. It boiled down to SD State vs. SF State, and he chose (wisely, I might add) to come up to The Bay. Danny's mom gave him and his brother lots of freedom, he says. They went on road trips up here unsupervised several times to visit a friend who lived in the dorms at SF State. And so by the time he entered college, at age 17, he already had friends here. He spent five years at SF State and graduated in 1994. After earning his bachelor's in Education, Danny worked on getting his teaching credentials. He taught for a couple years at public schools in The City. After that, he did preschool observation at Tule Elk Park Early Education School. The young woman he was dating at the time worked at Live Oak, a private school, and got Danny an after-school job there. Soon, he started subbing at Live Oak while also doing work-study at SF State. He got his credentials and ended up teaching for about a decade. Check back next week for Part 2 and Danny's story of leaving teaching to start his own woodworking and design studio for children grades kindergarten and up—The Butterfly Joint. We recorded this podcast at The Butterfly Joint and Café in the Outer Richmond in March 2024. Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 07 May 2024 - 38min - 581 - Nathan Tan, Part 2 (S6E14)
Part 2 picks up where we left off in Part 1, with Nate's arrival at SF State and his counselor's suggestion that he switch his major from Business to Art. Nathan graduated from State in 1994. With airbrushing becoming popular around that time, he and his buddy E had opened an airbrush store in the Bayview that did quite well. Nathan wasn't even 20 yet.
The store on Third stayed open about a year and a half, he says. At this point in the conversation, Nathan and I go on a sidetrack about how we both approach life and big decisions. He says he tries to stay open to opportunities, to seize them when appropriate.
He still lived with his parents after graduation and didn't have a job lined up. At this point, we cycle through many jobs, good and bad, that he had over the years—Atari (game tester), American Design Intelligence Group (graphic designer), Mervyn's (graphic designer), Gymboree (boys' clothing designer), Zutopia (clothing designer), and Duty Free Stores (product/souvenir designer).
He still worked at DFS when 9/11 happened. The months and years following that event saw a decline in sales for the company. He was on paternity leave following the birth of his first son when he got a phone call—he had been let go.
But whatever pain that might have brought—after all, Nathan had an infant and a mortgage—it proved to be the impetus for him to start what this year is celebrating its 20th anniversary. New Skool Clothing and Accessories is his line of SF-inspired clothing for all ages.
We end Part 2 with Nathan's response to this season's theme on the podcast—We're All In It. He mentions the mentoring he's been doing at Hunt and Gather Gallery in the Inner Sunset. And he says he's at a point in his life where he wants to help and give back.
Follow New Skool on social media @newskoolSF and Nathan's personal accounts @nate1design.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 30 Apr 2024 - 35min - 580 - Nathan Tan, Part 1 (S6E14)
In Part 1, meet and get to know Nathan, who today owns and operates New Skool Clothing and Accessories. Nathan's parents are both from Myanmar, but fled their home country during years of political upheaval. They landed in England, where his mom's mom already lived and where Nathan was born in the early Seventies. He, his older sister, and their parents then moved to the Bay Area, where their dad had family, when Nathan was three. He attended preschool in The City, but then his parents moved their young family to Daly City, where they could afford to buy a house. His dad started his own business, and his mom worked at a bank, and that was enough to enable them to buy a famed Doelger home just south of San Francisco. Nathan went first to Peabody Elementary for one or two years, then to Westlake for second through sixth grades. After this, his parents enrolled him in a Catholic school to finish his junior high years. Around 1983, he started high school at St. Ignatius in The City and that ended up changing his life forever.
He soon met Eustinove Smith, who was already a graffiti and hip-hop legend in SF. Nathan was just getting into hip-hop himself. He shares some insights on the genre's evolutions, from the East Coast to out West. Some kids were graffiti writers and DJs at his new school, and Nate (as he was starting to be known) started breakdancing and listening to the hip-hop.
Nate had dabbled in art as a young kid, but his art matured when he hit his teen years, especially after he met his new best friend, E (Eustinove). Nate imparts some wisdom about the evolution of graffiti-writing styles at this point. His buddy E got a crew together and they hit the streets. The new crew called itself Master Piece Creators (MPC). Nathan became Nate1, E was Omen2, and their buddy Rodney was Orco. Spots around SF they hit up include several "hall of fames," which are spaces where people paint both legally and illegally. MPC ended up doing many "productions" all over town. He says when he graduated high school, it was never a question of leaving The Bay. Nate got into SF State, where he majored in business at first. But it took a counselor's advice to get him to switch over to art. Check back next week for Part 2 and the continuation of Nate's story. Check out the goods over at New Skool. We recorded this podcast at Nate's home and studio in the Sunset in February 2024. Photography by Jeff HuntTue, 23 Apr 2024 - 31min - 579 - SFFILM's Anne Lai (S6 Bonus)
In this bonus episode, meet SFFILM Executive Director Anne Lai. Learn all about Anne's upbringing, what drew her to California, her stint with the Sundance Institute, and her arrival in 2020 in San Francisco at the famed San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM).
Anne will walk listeners through the history of this 67-year-old festival, the oldest such event in North America. Then she touches on some highlights of this year's festival (April 24–28), including the Opening Night screening of Didi, the feature-length debut of Bay Area filmmaker Sean Wang.
Please visit sffilm.org for more info, including showtimes and tickets.
We recorded this podcast on Zoom in April 2024.
Fri, 19 Apr 2024 - 23min - 578 - Mitchell's Ice Cream, Part 2 (S6E13)
Part 2 is the story of how open-mindedness met opportunity. It's also an explanation for how an ice cream store opened by someone named Mitchell came to carry several flavors familiar to both the Filipino- and the Latin-American community. Brian shares the story: The Asian flavors started around 1965 when a customer and friend of Larry Mitchell's introduced Larry to the Gina Corporation in Philippines, who process and package the fruits Mitchell's uses to this day in many of its ice cream flavors. They started with mango puree, a fruit that his friend had to introduce Larry Mitchell to. He liked it and was open to the idea of incorporating it. After mango, it was ube (purple yam), macapuno (sweet coconut), buko (young coconut), langko (jackfruit), avocado (which I tried recently and is DELICIOUS), and mais y queso (a Filipino flavor). Many of these flavors were familiar to Marlon, who'd emigrated from the Philippines shortly before he began working at Mitchell's. He says that he was surprised and delighted to see those flavors in his new city. I share my own story of finding Mitchell's and we talk about those well-known, long-ass lines often seen running down San Jose Avenue. Marlon tells us that, in addition to standard flavors and the Asian and North and South American flavors, over the years, Brian has concocted some cool ice cream combinations that remain on the menu to this day. In the mid-Seventies, Mitchell's got its products into stores. And in the late-Seventies, they got into some local restaurants. Then, in the 2000s, several local Thai restaurants began using Mitchell's in desserts (fried banana with their coconut ice cream, for example). I ask the trio how they feel about Ben and Jerry's and other competition. The fact that Mitchell's is a family business and one that's been around so long leaves customers passionate about their local ice cream parlor. On that topic, it's worth mentioning that Marlon met his wife, Wanda, at Mitchell's when she started working there shortly after he did. They've been married 32 years and both continue working at Mitchell's to this day. We end the podcast going around the room to hear what Linda, Marlon, and Brian think about our theme this season: "We're all in it." Photography by Jeff Hunt We recorded this podcast at Mitchell's Ice Cream in February 2024.
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 - 24min - 577 - Mitchell's Ice Cream, Part 1 (S6E13)
This oh-so-San Francisco story begins with two brothers and a dairy farm at Noe and 29th Street. Larry Mitchell and his older brother Jack opened Mitchell's Ice Cream in 1953. Five years earlier, the building that now houses the well-known ice cream shop was going to be torn down for the widening of San Jose Avenue. The Mitchell family fought those efforts and a compromise was reached—The City would turn and move the building. The old liquor store that had been on San Jose was no more. That space sat empty for a couple years until Larry Mitchell decided that he wanted to do something with it. His parents had a small dairy farm on Noe and 29th Street. There was a parlor called Garrett's Ice Cream out on Ocean Avenue that was doing well. Larry and his brothers saw an opportunity. A salesman from Foremost Dairy taught them how to make ice cream, which they sourced from Foremost. Larry, his brothers, their dad, and some friends built the store out and it opened on June 6, 1953. Initially, it was a small operation. But in 1956, they built a bigger, newer freezer, and it just took off from there. Through the years, they've done their best to keep up with demand. The ice cream has always been made on-site. Larry Mitchell's oldest daughter was already alive when the shop opened. His second daughter, Linda, who joined us for this episode, was born in 1954, a year after the store began operations. His youngest kid, Brian, who also appears in this episode, was born in 1961. Today, Linda Mitchell and Brian Mitchell are co-owners of Mitchell's Ice Cream. Marlon Payumo, Mitchell's operations manager, is originally from the Philippines. He left his homeland with family in 1987, first landing in Guam, then on to San Francisco in 1988. Marlon had been in The City for two weeks when his friend came to visit him at his aunt's house, where he was staying. The friend brought some mango ice cream and a job application. Marlon interviewed, got the job, and has been with Mitchell's ever since. He was 19 when he started. Mitchell's was already popular when Marlon came on. Linda, Brian, and Marlon all agree: The long lines were even worse then! We talk about the frozen yogurt craze of the Eighties and how they dabbled in it but let it go to refocus on their crown product—the ice cream. Linda started working at the family business in 1991. By then, they were the only ice cream shop in the Mission, but their product wasn't in many stores just yet. Brian started back in 1979 after high school. He went to college on the Peninsula and worked at the shop on weekends. He got a degree in business management and came on full-time in the early Eighties. Linda's story of how she ended up at the family business is that their Aunt Alice, who had been Mitchell's bookkeeper/customer service rep for some time, was retiring. Linda had worked in banking for a while, and she'd lived in Florida and Texas, but it was time to come home. Linda took over their aunt's job. In the early Nineties, Mitchell's had about 30 employees. Today, that number isn't too much higher—they estimate it at around 40. They succumbed to the coffee/espresso craze of that decade. But that, too, didn't last long. Check back next week for Part 2 and more on the legacy and history of Mitchell's Ice Cream with Linda, Brian, and Marlon. We recorded this episode at Mitchell's Ice Cream in February 2024. Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 09 Apr 2024 - 22min - 576 - Photographer Chloe Sherman, Part 2 (S6E12)
In Part 2, we hear about Chloe's first photo show, which took place at The Bearded Lady. Chloe describes The Bearded Lady as a hub, a place to do and get everything you could possibly need. It and the Kiki Gallery next door were both on 14th Street near Guerrero. Another queer artist, Cathy, liked Chloe's show and suggested that she go to art school. And so Chloe got into San Francisco Art Institute. She had a darkroom at her home and sometimes printed at Harvey Milk Photo Center in Duboce Park. But she was able to do so much at her school. At this point in the podcast, Chloe and I talk about photo editing and what that process was like in the analog film days. I name-drop Photoworks and Chloe mentions the photo labs at Macy's, then we end with Chloe's acknowledgement that people are embracing film again. I ask Chloe about the 2000s. Her daughter was born and they left The City, finding a new home in the East Bay to raise her kid. With the shift from film to digital, Chloe struggled to keep up and her life priorities changed. We talk about so many places that were important to the queer, dyke, and lesbian scenes closing in the Millennium. People from that scene started having kids and some pursued careers in other cities. Many wanted more space and couldn't get it in The City. The Dotcom boom happened, and folks were bought out or got priced out. That leads to a sidebar on the recent resurgence we're seeing here in San Francisco. There's Mother Bar of course, where we recorded, and Chloe mentions other new queer art spaces like Schlomer Haus Gallery. We wonder whether the pandemic was a correction event. The conversation shifts to how Chloe's photo book, Renegades, came about. Early in the pandemic, when everyone stayed home, her daughter came back from college to live with her. Her daughter saw Chloe's photos and told her to start an Instagram account. She did, but of course her daughter set it all up. They scanned many, many photos and started to post. The reaction was endearing and intense and overwhelming, she says. Chloe says it was like a high school reunion, with so many of her friends from the Nineties reemerging in her life on social media. The aforementioned Schlomer Haus Gallery saw what was happening and reached out looking for queer artists to show in their new space on Market. And so Chloe got a solo show in 2022. That show, Renegades San Francisco: The 1990s, set the stage for her book of the same name. That 2022 experience was still so new to her. But at the show's opening, people reconnected with one another and the work took on a life of its own. Chloe says people were in tears. They took photos of their photos that were in the show. 300+ people attended the opening that night and many of those went to the after party at Mothership Bar on Mission. "We all just showed up like nothing ever happened," Chloe says. Younger people at the opening told her, "This is why I moved to San Francisco," speaking to the scenes depicted in Chloe's photos. Renegades San Francisco: The 1990s the book is available at local bookstores like City Lights, Fabulosa Books, SFMOMA, and Green Apple. It's also available online. Go to Chloe's website for more info. We end Part 2 with Chloe's interpretation of our theme this season: "We're all in it." There's a special shout-out to photobooths. Follow Chloe on Instagram to stay up to date on shows and book signings. Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 02 Apr 2024 - 37min - 575 - Photographer Chloe Sherman, Part 1 (S6E12)
Chloe Sherman's eyes are intense, but not the way you might think.
Chloe, who's been taking photographs since she was young, was born in New York City. Her mom and her mom's mom were both New Yorkers, and her dad was from Chicago, with his family going back generations there. When she in was grade school, the family moved to Chicago, where Chloe was raised by aunts and grandparents as well as her parents, just like she had been in NYC. It was the Seventies and her parents were hippies. They soon headed west, taking their family to Portland, Oregon, where Chloe spent the rest of her grade school days. Chloe says the move was fine, but that she felt like more of a city kid, and so it took some adjusting. She and her brother visited back east a lot. He ended up going to college there, and Chloe started school in Connecticut and then Boston before realizing that she'd become a West Coaster. We talk about life in Portland, how it's easier to be collective-minded and communal because it's more affordable than bigger cities. This of course has an effect on who's drawn to cities like Portland. With an abundance of young people, folks tend to band together. Chloe ended up going to Portland State. One weekend, she took a trip to San Francisco after reading about our city in a zine she got at Powell's Books in her hometown. We take a conversational detour at this point to talk about zine culture back in the late-Eighties and early Nineties. In high school, she had dabbled in dance and music, but knew she didn't want to pursue either performing art. She says she loved art and did some photography, but got more serious about that after high school. In those aforementioned zines, she learned all about the bike messenger culture here in The City and was captivated by it. On that weekend trip down from Portland, she visited Lickety Split Couriers, which was Lynn Breedlove's bike messenger company. Chloe ended up working at another messenger for two weeks, but soon gave that up entirely. "San Francisco is instant death if you're not a pro," she says. We talk a bit about bike messenger culture in SF back in the Nineties. The service was essential to downtown during dotcom, but you'd hardly know it these days. Breedlove told Chloe, "Go to the Bearded Lady Cafe," which she did. And it changed her life forever. It was there that she found her community. Chloe moved to San Francisco right after that visit to the cafe on 14th Street in the Mission. She lived with friends until she finally got her own place in Lower Haight. After Chloe was established here, friends from Portland followed her to The City. Her world was expanding around her. She says that she looks at photos now from back then and sees concentric circles of friends. The SF Dyke scene flourished through the Nineties. But then people grew up, got priced out, and The City changed. Many businesses closed with those changes. Check back next week for Part 2 to hear more about that thriving, bustling, Mission lesbian scene that Chloe captures so well and so prolifically in her photography. Photography by Jeff HuntTue, 26 Mar 2024 - 30min - 574 - Mark DeVito and Standard Deviant Brewing, Part 2 (S6E11)
In Part 2, we pick up right where we left off in Part 1. Mark was walking around the Mission taking down numbers of places with "for rent" signs. A resident in one of those spots leaned out the window and invited Mark in to see the place. Mark reveals that he and his wife still live in that same apartment 20 years later. Paul Duatschek lived nearby in the Mission. He and Mark were introduced by a mutual friend at Bottom of the Hill. Soon enough, Paul was coming in regularly to Luna Park on Valencia, where Mark managed and bartended. His new friend kept urging Mark to carry his homebrew at the restaurant, something Paul most likely knew couldn't happen. The same thing happened when Mark opened his own place—Dr. Teeth (now simply "Teeth") on Mission. It was around the time of two major events—his 30th birthday and the dissolution of his band (see Part 1)—that Mark decided to branch out. He ended up opening several other alcoholic-beverage-heavy establishments around SF: joints like Wild Hare, Royal Tug Yacht Club, Soda Popinskis, Cease and Desist. But it was at Dr. Teeth that Paul, by now a pretty damn good homebrewer, would pressure his friend. The idea was that Paul knew beer and Mark knew how to open places. They hired a branding company to help come up with the name, while they also poured Paul's homebrew at parties. They got a good reaction to the product, but encountered challenges finding a spot. Eventually, Craigslist saved them. Today, Standard Deviant lives on 14th Street just off Mission in an old body shop. They signed the lease in 2015, built the place out, and opened in 2016. The brewery produces around 2,000 barrels a year. The conversation then turns to San Francisco craft brewing. When Mark and Paul decided to work together, there were about 10 craft breweries in SF (places like 21st Amendment and Magnolia, to name just a few). A year or so later, when Standard Deviant opened its doors, that number had doubled. Mark says of the entire operation that it's about the place as much as it is the beer. I for one can attest to that. We end the podcast with Mark's response to our theme this season: "We're all in it ..." PS: An exciting bit of news dropped since we recorded back in December. This fall, Standard Deviant is opening its second location in San Francisco’s Pier 70. For reference, we featured this exciting new area of the bayside waterfront back in Season 4 Episode 20. We recorded this podcast at Standard Deviant Brewing in the Mission in December 2023.
Tue, 19 Mar 2024 - 36min - 573 - Mark DeVito and Standard Deviant Brewing, Part 1 (S6E11)
Mark DeVito, co-owner and COO of Standard Deviant Brewing, wouldn't last a day in a police lineup. But it might not be his curly handlebar mustache that gave him away. Mark has an outsize personality, to put it mildly. And back in December, I sat down with him and one of the SDB dogs, Beans, at the Mission brewery for what turned out to be quite the wild ride of a recording. In Part 1, we learn about Mark's upbringing in smalltown New Hampshire—Hopkinton, to be specific. It's still a town-with-no-stoplights small. The summers were hot and the winters cold and snowy. After hearing about two rather unfortunate stories from Mark's elementary school days, we move on to his teen years. He learned to play drums from a neighbor who taught music at his school. His parents placed him in a preparatory boarding school for high school, where he found an entire room full of instruments where he and his friends could play. And play they did. They formed a band that started playing around the area. We go back a little so Mark can share his Italian grandparents' story of migrating to the United States and landing in Boston, where his dad grew up and where Mark soon found himself after high school. The gigs, mostly Grateful Dead covers but eventually more like jazz improv with a Miles Davis influence, were stacking up for Great American (named after a grocery store chain and having nothing to do with 9/11). After his college years, some band members went their separate ways. But Mark and one of his buds decided to take a chance on San Francisco. Mark had visited and was blown away by the natural scenery and human creative energy here. Which, duh. And so, in 2004, he moved here. From 2005 to 2010, Mark would spend around five months a year touring the country from his new hometown. The story of how he found a place to live—where he's still at today with his wife—is remarkable only in the sense that it doesn't really happen that way anymore. He was walking around the Mission taking down phone numbers written on "for rent" signs in windows when someone leaned their head out one of those windows and asked Mark if he wanted to see the place. Check back next week for Part 2 with Mark and the story of Standard Deviant Brewing. We recorded this podcast at Standard Deviant Brewing in the Mission in December 2023. Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 12 Mar 2024 - 37min - 572 - Doug Styles, Denise Coleman, and Huckleberry Youth, Part 2 (S6E10)
In Part 2, we really get into the meat of what Huckleberry Youth is and how it got started. You know, I keep finding out ways in which our city pioneered things for the nation. I recently saw the upcoming Carol Doda documentary and learned that she was the first topless dancer in the US. And in this episode, we hear from Doug and Denise something very important that Huckleberry Youth did before anyone else. And of course, at the time they did it, it was illegal. 1967 is also known as the "Summer of Love" in San Francisco. And that meant young people from all over the country and world flocked to our city to find whatever it was they were looking for. Not all of them were lucky. Many faced hardship, having trouble finding shelter, making friends, and getting sick or addicted to drugs. A group of faith-based organizations and folks in the nonprofit world got together to do something about it, and Huckleberry House was born. But back then, both being a youth runaway was illegal, and, if you provided shelter for a runaway, it was considered aiding and abetting. Huckleberry House was the first such shelter for runaway youth in the country. But all it took was one complaint from a parent. SFPD raided the house and arrested youth and staff alike. Now they needed a lawyer, and they found one in a young man named Willie Brown. The future mayor got the charges dropped, and Huckleberry House reopened in February 1968. It has been in legal operation ever since. Denise and Doug talk about several programs that Huckleberry Youth has established over the years. One such program was HYPE, established in the 1980s to help young people with HIV/AIDS. They give thanks and respect to Huckleberry's own Danny Keenan—the first to say, in effect, "We need to have kids talking to kids" to address problems like young people who are sick. I bring up the fire at their Geary Boulevard administrative offices back in 2019 because I witnessed it (I live not too far from there). The office had been at Geary and Parker for more than 30 years. The fire in front of Hong Kong Lounge 2 destroyed memorabilia and photos at Huckleberry's office, but they were able to save a lot too. During COVID, Huckleberry House stayed open and even took in new youth. Partly because of the fire, they had been moving a lot of admin stuff online before the pandemic, so they were able to make that transition. The conversation then shifts to kids who come to them addicted. Huckleberry gets those youth into its justice program, known as CARC (Community Assessment and Resource Center). Denise tells this story, because she was at Delancey Street when the program started in 1998 (see Part 1 of this podcast). It turned out to be too much for that nonprofit, and so they handed it over to Huckleberry 2000. Doug and Denise estimate that the program has helped at least 7,000 individuals, and possibly as many as 10,000. We end this episode with Denise and Doug responding to our theme this season: "We're all in it." Go to Huckleberryyouth.org to donate and learn more about all that they do to help underserved youth in San Francisco. Photography by Jeff Hunt We recorded this podcast in December 2023 at Huckleberry Youth's administrative offices on Geary.
Tue, 05 Mar 2024 - 36min - 571 - Denise Coleman, Doug Styles, and Huckleberry Youth, Part 1 (S6E10)
Huckleberry Youth, the non-profit providing care and housing for underserved youth, celebrated 50 years back in 2017. In Part 1 of this episode, we meet Huckleberry consultant/advisor Denise Coleman and the organization's CEO/executive director, Doug Styles. Denise was born at what is now Kaiser's French Campus on Geary. Denise, who is Black, shares the story of the hospital making her dad pay cash for their labor and delivery services, while it was obvious that white folks were allowed to make installment payments. Born and raised in the 1950s and Sixties, Denise and her family lived in the Haight/Ashbury neighborhood, as it was known then (now we call it Cole Valley) on Belvedere Street. She has three sisters and a brother, her dad worked two jobs usually, and her mom stayed home. She describes a childhood that was fun, filled with activities like roller skating, skateboarding, and homemade roller coasters. Denise was a teenager during the Vietnam War and took part in protests. She describes a history of friction with her mom. When Denise was 16, one of her sisters OD'd on drugs. Still, despite the trauma that came with that, she graduated high school from St. Mary's in 1973. At this point in the podcast, Denise rattles off the San Francisco schools she went to. After high school, she joined some of her cousins and attended the College of San Mateo. Denise never thought about or wanted to leave the Bay Area, she says. In an apartment on the Peninsula, she and her cousins had "the best time." After obtaining a two-year associate's degree, Denise says she wanted to go to SF State, but didn't connect with it, and so she started working instead. For two years, she flew as a flight attendant for the now-defunct Western Airlines. After that, she collected debt for a jewelry store, then worked as a credit authorizer for Levitz Furniture in South San Francisco. Denise says she got hung up in the crack epidemic in the Eighties. She started with cocaine, and that led to crack. She was an addict for eight years. She got herself into a rehabilitation program at Delancey Street and stayed in the program for seven years. Her time started in SF, then took her to Santa Monica, North Carolina, and New York state. In 1998, Denise decided to leave Delancey Street. She got a call from Mimi Silbert, the Delancey founder, with an offer to work at their new juvenile justice program in San Francisco. Denise said no at first, partly because she wanted to stay in North Carolina. But after some persistence from Silbert, in 1999, she said yes and came back to her hometown. After seven years away, The City had changed. And so Denise helped to establish Delancey Street's Community Assessment and Referral Center (CARC). After its first year, the organization realized that they didn't have the capacity to run the program. Delancey Street asked Huckleberry Youth to take it over, and this is how Denise ended up at Huckleberry. Doug Styles was born and raised in the Richmond District. He was too young to remember the 1960s and mostly grew up in the Seventies. Doug says he had a lot of fun as a kid, describing riding his bike to the beach and back by himself. He shares the story of going to a late movie in the Mission, so late that when he got out, there were no buses. And so he walked home through the Mission, through the Fillmore, to his home in the Richmond. He also rattles off San Francisco schools he went to, including Lowell. Doug was in school when the SLA kidnapped Patty Hearst. He was at Everett Middle School when Dan White assassinated George Moscone and Harvey Milk. He speaks to tensions in The City around this time, and Denise joins in to talk about the day of the assassinations. Doug graduated high school in 1983 and went to UC Santa Cruz, where he majored in theater. He moved to Massachusetts, where he found work in a theater. After a short time out east, he came back to San Francisco and tried unsuccessfully to get into grad school. So he enrolled in a masters program at CIIS for drama therapy. Following that degree, Doug went back east, this time to Connecticut to work at the VA's National Center for PTSD. After another return to the Bay Area, he got his doctorate in clinical psychology. At the VA, Doug had worked with adults, but the jobs he found here had him working with youth. He had a job on the Peninsula for 10 years, during which time he became a father to two kids, which he says changed him more than anything else. One day he saw that the Huckleberry Youth executive director was retiring. Doug applied and got the job, and has been with the non-profit ever since. Check back next week for Part 2 and more on the history of Huckleberry Youth. Photography by Jeff Hunt
We recorded this podcast in December 2023 at Huckleberry Youth's administrative offices on Geary.
Tue, 27 Feb 2024 - 36min - 570 - Lester Raww and Anita Beshirs, Part 2 (S6E9)
We begin Part 2 where we left off in Part 1. Anita had been away from their Arkansas college town and missed Lester. Upon her return, she went to see him and they soon shared their first kiss. Soon after that day, Anita had a pregnancy scare, and so Lester asked her, "Would you marry me if you are?" She said yes, but ended up not being pregnant. It didn't matter. They got married anyway. It was 1990 and they were both 22. Lester had a semester to go in college, which meant that the young couple couldn't live together or he'd get kicked out of the Christian school. He had started his first serious band—Cosmic Giggle Factory. Anita worked at Captain D's, a regional seafood chain fast-food joint, and then at a hotel. They moved to Little Rock a few years later. Eventually, she landed a job at Spectrum Weekly, an alternative paper in the Arkansas capital. Looking back, they say that they really loved their community there. After four years in Little Rock, and after Bill Clinton got elected, they decided to leave before they would begin to hate it. Spectrum Weekly closed and Lester's band broke up. They took these as signs to leave. Neither of them had ever been to San Francisco, but knew that they wanted to be in a city and many people they knew and trusted had good things to say about SF. Anita was working with an ESPN producer and through them met a person who lived here and offered them a place to live. So they packed up their Geo Prism, sold a lot of stuff, and maybe had $500 between them. It was November 1994. Upon arriving in the Bay, Lester worked at Tower Records and Anita found work at a temp agency. She had "toyed" with art while living in Little Rock and picked that up again in SF. But she says she didn't take it too seriously until around 2015. She worked several academic and corporate jobs that she didn't like until around that time, when Annie at Mini Bar gave her a show there. She ended up being in a show at Mini Bar every year for the next four years. One day in 2018 or so, Anita was at Fly Bar on Divisadero and learned that the owner needed someone to do art shows there. "I wanna do that!" she told them. Her first show at Fly was based on travel photography. Anita ended up curating shows at Fly until the pandemic, and had become involved in the Divisadero Art Walk. When COVID hit, the other Fly curator left town and Anita took over. She also did shows at Alamo Square Cafe, which stayed open during the pandemic. As other places started to open, she expanded her venues. When Annie left Mini Bar and Erin Kehoe took over, Anita reached out and they decided to alternate curating art shows at the bar (where we worked with Erin to do Hungry Ghosts in summer 2023). Anita has since added even more venues, including Bean Bag Cafe, and says she has moved around $50K of art in five years. This leads us to Anita's newest thing: KnownSF, which will officially launch later this year. For her shows, she likes to have one artist whose first show it is and one artist 50 or older. She says she wants to stick with the venues she's already showing at. Stay tuned and follow KnownSF on Instagram. Then we get to Lester's band, The Pine Box Boys, who recently celebrated 20 years of existence. When he first moved to The City, Lester had a hard time getting music going. He was dealing with confidence issues, which didn't make anything easier. He enrolled at SF State, got a degree, went into a teaching credential program, and started meeting people. Through some of these new teacher-to-be friends, he started playing with a band that was already established. He says he was stoked to play a show in San Francisco, but that band fizzled out and broke up. But Lester and another member kept playing together. It was a noisy, abstract band called Zag Men. As Lester tells us, the saying went, "If the Zagmen are playing, nobody's getting laid." He started creating soundtracks to silent films at ATA on Valencia. He was teaching and doing music on the side. Pine Box Boys started in the same studio space at Fulton and McAllister that we recorded this podcast in. Lester showed his buddies some blue grass stuff he'd picked up when he was younger. And we learn that his mom used to sing him to sleep with old British murder ballads when he was a kid. So, Lester taught these friends some of those darker songs. At first the band was a side project to his side project at ATA. But Lester points to the 2000 movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? which sparked a general societal interest in Americana and genres like blue grass. People began to want to hear Pine Box Boys more than Zag Men, so Lester went with it. They played Cafe du Nord a lot and eventually started touring, both the US and Europe. Lester quit his teaching job and from 2006-2009, the band kept touring. They started to put out records (look for a new one, their sixth, soon). Eventually, he started teaching again, and when he got into school admin work, it ate into his music, but not so much that he had to quit. During the pandemic, they did some streaming shows and online festivals. Eventually, when it was safe, they played a handful of parklet shows. He and Anita were regulars at Madrone already. Anita had an idea and asked Spike, who owns Madrone—what if Lester did a residency at the art bar? And so, the first Sunday of the month became "Apocalypse Sunday." November 2023 marked the two-year anniversary for the monthly show. Lester tries to always bring different genre bands in to play with his own. Mark your calendars! We've been to a few and they're a lot of fun! We end with Anita and Lester responding to this season's theme on the podcast: "We're All in It." Anita points to wanting to see neighborhoods, which are thriving, mingle more and get to know each other. Lester ends with a rather choice quote about casseroles. Photography by Jeff Hunt We recorded this episode at Antia's art studio on Divisadero on a rainy day in January 2024.
Tue, 20 Feb 2024 - 54min - 569 - Anita Beshirs and Lester Raww, Part 1 (S6E9)
Anita Beshirs was born in Batesville, Mississippi, because the small Southern town her family lived in didn't have a hospital. Welcome to our Valentine's 2024 episode all about Anita and her husband, Lester Raww. In Part 1, we'll get to know Lester and Anita through the stories of their childhood and early adult years. Anita's dad was a Church of Christ minister who, along with her mom, never drank or even took medicinal drugs. Anita is the third child in her family (she has two older brothers) and when she just two years old, their parents moved them to the Cameroon jungle on missionary work. The family lived in Africa in a house made of concrete blocks and with a tin roof. Anita spent the first six years of her life with no TV or radio and so she was forced to make her own fun. She was home schooled by her mom because her dad was busy doing his church work. After four years, the family returned to Mississippi, now in the college town of Oxford, where Anita started grade school. She says she didn't want to go to college right away because she didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. But her parents insisted that she go to Christian college, which meant a school called Harding University in Arkansas. This is where Lester and Anita met, but more on that after we hear the story of Lester's early life. His mom grew up in Florence, Alabama, near the Tennessee River and not far from Muscle Shoals. She moved to Florida and met his dad, who was a fighter pilot in the Navy. Lester has one older brother, born not long before him. Their dad was in and out of Navy and the family moved around, first to San Diego, then back to Flordia, and finally to Virginia, where Lester finished high school. Because his family was also in the Church of Christ and his brother had gone to Harding, Lester chose the school, mostly as a way to escape life in Virginia. He had grown apart from the church when he was 13 and a friend introduced him to things like books by Robert Anton Wilson and William S. Burroughs, marijuana, and prog rock. Lester started playing guitar around this time, but we'll get more into that in Part 2. Anita and Lester remember first meeting in their first year at college in the campus quad. Anita's first impression was, Oh god, this guy is such a freak. They didn't date for another four years, but hung out with a lot of the same people. Then, in her sophomore year, Anita spent a semester abroad in Florence. She came back a changed person. At this point in the conversation, we hear them each describe was they were like as young adults. Anita says she was a bit of a prankster, but Lester's stories take pranks to another level. Because of their respective shenanigans, they were each "dormed" at Harding, which was the school's form of detention punishment. We all share a hearty laugh over this. Anita says that at Harding, it was the first time in her life that she was popular. She was recruited into a social club (their version of Greek sororities) and was a rising star in Christian leadership. She liked it enough, but again, Italy changed her. Slowly, she stopped believing in god and Jesus. Lester shares stories of how they and others would sneak in drinking and smoking cigarettes while at Harding. Slowly, Anita was finding a new identity and crowd of friends, including Lester. She left Harding for Ole Miss but went back because she figured out that she could graduate faster at Harding. The couple really started hanging out regularly in their fourth years of college. Both had dated others and in fact, Anita set Lester up with some of her friends. Lester had never got serious with anyone at Harding, though. It was Anita's goal to get out of Harding unmarried. Her future husband wanted to move to New York to pursue a music career, and she was just ready to live a little, wherever. She broke up with her boyfriend in early 1990 and soon after this, the two got together. Check back next week for Part 2 and the conclusion of our Valentine's 2024 episode. Photography by Jeff Hunt We recorded this episode at Antia's art studio on Divisadero on a rainy day in January 2024.
Tue, 13 Feb 2024 - 46min - 568 - Vandor Hill of Whack Donuts (S6 Bonus)
Something awesome happened near the Embarcadero.
In Season 4 of this show, back in 2022, we featured SF born-and-raised vegan donut maker Vandor Hill. His pop-up (at the time), Whack Donuts, was gaining some new fans and new spots for him to sell his delicious sweet treats.
But now ..
Now Whack Donuts occupies a corner spot of EMB 4, just across the walkway from Osha Thai and near the padel courts and water fountain of recently renamed Embarcadero Plaza. How did this happen?
Well, Vandor got himself into two city programs: Vacant to Vibrant and Ujamaa Kitchen. And it was his acceptance to Vacant to Vibrant that helped him to get and keep his nook in EMB 4. Vandor and I hung out one day in January to catch up on life since April 2022. This bonus episode comprises our conversation that day. Whack Donuts is open 8 a.m. - 2 p.m., Tues.-Sat. Vandor often does special drops and monthly flavors. But if you're looking for sweetness for your sweetie (or yourself, let's be real), he'll have a red velvet cake vegan donut for Valentine's as well as a special "Love in a Box" 3-pack or half-dozen. Follow Whack Donuts on Instagram. Photography by Jeff Hunt We recorded this podcast at Whack Donuts in the Embarcadero in January 2024.Thu, 08 Feb 2024 - 20min - 567 - Artist Melan Allen, Part 2 (S6E8)
Part 2 begins with how Melan thinks of herself as an artist. "Art is therapy," she says. It's how she knows herself. "If I cannot create, I cannot be myself." She's been creative her whole life. She wanted to be a tap dancer early on, pointing to Shirley Temple as inspiration (by the way, Temple was originally from Santa Monica, but died in Woodside). Melan even did drag for a while. But she found painting around four years ago and decided then that she's not doing anything else after that. She cites her mom's love of cooking and baking shows as another inspiration. Back in the day, before Food Network and competitive cooking shows, it was just PBS. Melan watched a lot of Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, and Martin Yan. She says that she watched these shows more than the Saturday morning cartoons most kids her age were glued to. She also loved cookbook illustrations and says they've been a big inspiration for her. Melan talks about the "Muni Raised Me" show at SomArts last year, which she was part of. In the podcast, she describes her Muni paintings that were part of the SomArts show ... they involved dim sum, burritos, and Irish coffees. Then our conversation evolves into a discussion of Muni and what it can mean to life in The City. Plans for 2024 include hibernating. She says she needs to paint, that travel in 2023 pulled her away from that. She's looking for new things to paint, so if you've got ideas, drop her a line. We end the podcast with Melan riffing on our theme: "We're All in It." Follow Melan on social media: Instagram/TikTok We recorded this podcast in Patricia's Green in Hayes Valley in December 2023. Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 06 Feb 2024 - 24min - 566 - Artist Melan Allen, Part 1 (S6E8)
Melan Allen is a third-generation San Franciscan. In this episode, we get to know this born-and-raised food artist whom I met last summer at Fillmore Jazz Festival.
Melan's grandparents moved here in the Sixties and lived in San Francisco until the 2000s. Her mom's mom came to SF from Texas and was part of a mass migration west, when her mom was very young. In our conversation, Melan says that she sometimes wonders what it would have been like if she had grown up in Texas instead of The City. Her dad was born here and raised in Western Addition/Hayes Valley. Her mom also grew up in that part of town. Perhaps naturally, when the two met and started to raise a family, they stayed in the area. Her family was there until Melan was 16, in fact. Even though she no longer lives there, Melan says that this hood is home, even though it has changed. "It's like your first love," Melan says of her hometown. "It feels like growing up in Oz." She left The City when she found herself complaining about changes. Rewinding a bit, Melan shares the story of her family getting evicted from her grandma's house in Ingleside when she was 19. She had wanted to move out on her own anyway, but wasn't sure how. And so, as it turns out, this unfortunate event forced her to become an adult. She's the middle kid of three, with one older sister and one younger brother. Melan says that she and her siblings are all different, that they did their own things, and that she is the only artist among them. Her dad is a playwright and her mom's a hard-core crafter. Melan says that she has always been creative, that creativity and expression were fostered in their home. Her mom collected/hoarded things, and Melan thinks that's where she got her own propensity to pick things up off the street. She feels like she can "McGuyver" anything. We end Part 1 with Melan explaining that she's consistently cookie-decorating at her home in the East Bay. At the time of our recording last December, she was also making fake cookies out of clay. She rattles off some of the other projects she's currently working on, and ends by proclaiming, "I have to have a lot of space." Follow Melan on Instagram @melanmadethat. Visit her website here. Photography by Jeff Hunt We recorded this podcast in Patricia's Green in Hayes Valley in December 2023.Tue, 30 Jan 2024 - 26min - 565 - Katie Conry and the Tenderloin Museum, Part 2 (S6E7)
Part 2 is a deep-dive into the history of the Tenderloin, which we began toward the end of Part 1. Katie digs into the infamous Compton's Cafeteria Riot and shares the background and what lead to that fateful event. After the moral crusaders successfully passed new laws essentially controlling the lives of women, the Tenderloin bounced right back thanks to Prohibition, when the neighborhood's nightlife effectively went underground. Katie says that in the 1920s and Thirties, the TL was the glitzy, seedy nightlife capital of the Bay Area, replete with bars and restaurants, some of which doubled as gambling halls and brothels. Then came the 1940s, and World War II impacted all of San Francisco, especially the Tenderloin. Many servicemen were housed in SROs in the TL before leaving for the Pacific. This situation allowed gay members to explore their sexuality. And it was this that established SF as a Gay Mecca. Interestingly, the Army gave servicemembers a list of places not to go in the Tenderloin, and the smarter ones took that as a map of where to go. Then-Mayor George Christopher had it out for the TL. His brother had gotten into some trouble in the hood, and the mayor blamed the Tenderloin itself, calling it a blight and generally scapegoating the area. He led a crack-down on gambling, removed the cable cars, and created one-way streets. By the time the Fifties rolled around, many came to see the TL as a hood to get away from. But just a short decade or so later, in the 1960s, a significant migration of young people to The City began. Many queer folks landed in the TL and soon found that churches in the neighborhood were a safe haven, especially Glide Memorial Church. From this point in the story, Katie shifts briefly to discuss the museum's work with Susan Stryker, a trans historian and director of Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria (2005). Stryker rediscovered and wrote a history of the riot. She described Glide as a "midwife" to LGBTQ history in San Francisco. In the early Sixties, sex workers didn't have legal means of employment. Many of them frequented Compton's because it was one of the few places in town that served them. The joint was frequented by trans women, sex workers, and activists on most days. Then, in 1966, SF cops raided the place. The story goes that a trans woman poured hot coffee in a cop's face, and all hell broke loose. It came to be seen as a militant response to police harassment. Screaming Queens was the first public program at TLM. In 2018, the museum produced an immersive play about the riot called Aunt Charlie's: San Francisco's Working Class Drag Bar. Katie takes us on a sidebar about Aunt Charlie's, the last gay bar in left in the Tenderloin. TLM's plan was to produce play again in 2020, and they've been hard at work since the pandemic to bring it back. They now have a space on Larkin to produce play year-round, so, stay tuned. We end the podcast with a discussion about the new neon sign outside the museum. Katie explains that TLM is a fiscal sponsor of SF Neon, a non-profit doing neon sign restoration, walking tours, and other events. We recorded this podcast at the Tenderloin Museum in November 2023 and January 2024. Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 23 Jan 2024 - 30min - 564 - Katie Conry and the Tenderloin Museum, Part 1 (S6E7)
In Part 1, we get to know Tenderloin Museum's executive director, Katie Conry. She's originally from Oceanside, California, just outside of LA, where her parents are from. They were both teachers but were priced out of the big city, a situation all too familiar around here. Katie left home as soon as she could—when she was 18 and it was time to go to college. She had felt lonely and alienated in her hometown. But almost from the moment she arrived in Berkeley, she loved it and felt connected. In the 20-plus years since, she hasn't left the Bay Area. She moved across the Bay to San Francisco after graduation in the mid-2000s, settling in the Mission, the neighborhood she's lived in ever since. Katie and Jeff reminisce about several Mission spots they both frequented around that time. In the early 2010s, Katie got a job at Adobe Books, helping the bookstore raise money to make the move from 16th Street to its current spot on 24th Street. In that fundraising process, the store was turned into a co-op and its art gallery a non-profit. This experience is how Katie started in events and working with artists. She later worked part-time at museums like the California Academy of Sciences, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, and The Exploratorium, working on private events for those institutions. Katie was originally hired at the Tenderloin Museum as their program manager when the museum opened in 2015. The next year, she became its executive director (Alex Spoto does a lot of public programming now). From here, we dive into the history of TLM. It was the brainchild of journalist and activist Randy Shaw, who was inspired by what he saw at New York City's Tenement Museum. The non-profit that runs TLM was formed in 2009 and they opened their museum doors to the public in 2015. The permanent collection in their gallery spotlights stories of working-class resistance movements and marginalized communities. The museum was successful early, largely because of its public programming. They sponsored showings of the film Drugs in the Tenderloin (1967), which turned out to be very popular. From here, our discussion pivots to the history of the Tenderloin itself. Katie shares that it (not the Castro) was the first gay hood in San Francisco. It was a high-density neighborhood filled with affordable housing, a liminal space in an urban setting. Then we hear the story of the neighborhood after the 1906 earthquake, which destroyed just about everything except the Hibernia Bank building. The Tenderloin was rebuilt quickly, though. The Cadillac Hotel, where the museum is located today, opened in 1908 and was meant to house folks who were working to rebuild The City. The single room occupancies (SROs) left people hungry for entertainment, of which there was soon plenty. Women were living on their own in the Tenderloin, and in response, moral crusaders came after them. These high-and-mighty types had successfully shut down the sex-worker presence in San Francisco's Barbary Coast in 1913, forcing members of that industry to the Tenderloin. And so, perhaps naturally, those same crusaders came after sex-industry women in the Tenderloin. The first sex-worker protest in the US happened in the TL after Reggie Gamble stormed a church and gave an impromptu speech. But it wasn't enough. Those same self-righteous white men effectively shut down the Tenderloin in 1917, an occasion for which TLM did a centennial celebration in 2017. Check back next week for more Tenderloin History in Part 2 of this episode. We recorded this podcast at the Tenderloin Museum in November 2023. Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 16 Jan 2024 - 31min - 563 - Singer/Songwriter Meredith Edgar, Part 2 (S6E6)
We begin Part 2 with my asking the question everyone wants to know: Is "Meredith Edgar" her real name or a stage name? You'll have to listen in to find out. Then she shares the various day jobs she's had over the years, some worse than others. She worked a little retail, then got an esthetician's license and worked in dermatology. Meredith says that she's always wanted to help people. That work eventually drove her to go back to college, which she did at St. Edward's in Austin, where she earned a degree in psychology. While in Austin, she worked at the SIMS Foundation, a mental-health non-profit for musicians in the area. An internship there led to a job, one she describes as one of her favorites to this day. Then, thanks to my propensity for chatter, we dive into a sidebar on Austin and whether folks in that city do a good job of taking care of their own. Meredith is quick and correct in pointing out that, like here, Austin artists and musicians often get priced out of a city that's always becoming more expensive to live in. After that, Meredith tells us about her time in Italy for a stint, which inevitably leads to another sidebar, this time on Spain and Italy. And finally, after all that set up, I get to share my story of discovering Meredith. Meredith was married, but then divorced. She had lived in Venice, but after Italy, she moved back to The City she was born in ... just before COVID hit. She managed to find a job and an apartment just in time, though. When the pandemic did take hold, she started doing live streams on Instagram. She had really wanted to give her music a push, and like many musicians, took to streaming as a way to continue connecting with audiences. Once it was safe, Meredith started playing masked shows in outdoor places, something she says "really saved" her, both socially and creatively. She had been living alone and feeling that isolation that the pandemic exacerbated for so many of us. Now she says that she's got herself to a good point. She's summoning patience and has managed to find community here. Meredith recorded an album at Women's Audio Mission in 2021 and hopes to record again this year. She says that among writing, rehearsing, recording, and playing out, the latter is her favorite. We end Part 2 with Meredith's response to our theme this season: "We're all in it." The songs you hear after our conversation ends are: "Louisiana Rain" and "Blue." Catch Meredith at any of the following upcoming shows: Jan. 11 at Rite Spot (I'll be there!) Jan. 21 at Spec's Jan. 25 again at Rite Spot We recorded this episode at Royal Cuckoo Organ Lounge in the Mission in November 2023. Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 09 Jan 2024 - 36min - 562 - Singer/Songwriter Meredith Edgar, Part 1 (S6E6)
Discovering Meredith Edgar is one of my best memories of 2023. In Part 1 of this episode, get to know this singer/songwriter who was born in San Francisco. Her parents had been here a while, but soon after giving birth to Meredith, the family moved around a bit, first to the South, then to the Northeast, and finally, back to the South Bay. "Silicon Valley" was vastly different than the other places Meredith spent her early life in. When her family moved there, she was in third grade and happy to be in a more diverse place. She ended up spending her middle and high school years in the South Bay, eventually spending more and more time in The City. Music was always an integral part of Meredith's life. As she puts it, her parents have "eclectic taste in music." She says that there was always music playing—at home, in the car. Her dad also played guitar. Meredith started playing violin at 4. Later, she joined her junior high choir. And by the time high school rolled around, she had started playing guitar, writing songs, and playing out. "Out" at that time meant open mics at Red Rock Coffee in Mountain View, and Meredith shares the story of her first time doing that. She says that she's deeply grateful to have found music, fast-forwarding to tell the story of her dog's passing away in late September of this year and how playing helped her grieve. Then we go back again to her late-teen years. Meredith was ready to not be in the suburbs anymore. She and her friends came to SF to go to shows or go dancing at spots like Pop Scene (330 Ritch) and 1984 (Cat Club). When she made the leap north to live in The City, she didn't play out right away. But the South Bay band she was still a part of fizzled out. When she first got here, she was in a bad relationship that also eventually ended. After that, Meredith's music picked back up. She worked at Macy's in cosmetics and shares a fun sidebar about kittens and puppies up for adoption over the holidays at the department store. Around 2007 or so, she picked up music yet again, writing, playing out, doing solo shows, playing originals and covers. She preferred to be solo because of her desire to be self-sufficient. We end Part 1 with a chat about her siblings. Meredith's brother is six years younger than she is and is an artist here in The City. Her sister is a year older than her, but didn't grow up with the family. In fact, they didn't know about her until Meredith was 18. She says that they're good friends now. Check back next week for Part 2 and a bonus episode of Meredith playing a few songs just for you. Meredith's website Follow Meredith Edgar on Instagram We recorded this episode at Royal Cuckoo Organ Lounge in November 2023.
Tue, 02 Jan 2024 - 31min - 561 - Wrapping Up 2023
Join in as Jeff talks about ...
Our brand-new-ass Storied: SF hoodies! For a limited time, grab a hoodie at pre-sale prices (a $40 donation'll do it). Let us know your size (we have XS through XXL unisex) and address, and we'll send back our fleece-lined love and appreciation! Venmo/PayPal Updates on Michelle and her involvement in the project A look back at some of the more memorable, impactful episodes of the year (not to take anything away from those I didn't mention) A quick rundown of some of the exciting things coming up in the first few months of 2024!Happy New Year, y'all!
Thu, 28 Dec 2023 - 23min - 560 - Bill English, Susi Damilano, and San Francisco Playhouse, Part 2 (S6E5)
We begin Part 2 with talk of how Bill and Susi’s love of the work needed to get SF Playhouse started really helped them overcome any fear that might’ve hindered them. Their first brick-and-mortar spot on Sutter Street was meant to be retrofitted. The landlords wouldn’t lease it to the new acting company, but they’d rent it cheaply one month at a time. To get themselves up and running, they staged a play they’d done before, one that was good for the holidays that were coming up.
The play was It Had to Be You by Joe Bologna and Renée Taylor. To drum up ticket sales, Bill and Susi would walk down to Union Square, where there used to be a spot folks could line up for discount theater tickets. They handed out SF Playhouse flyers and it taught them that they had sales acumen and hustle.
That original space had a hole in the ceiling, which made it cold. But Bill’s day job in these days was carpentry, which he learned doing set building. Susi came in with her business background, which we learned a little about in Part 1. She set up the books, but also acted in plays. Both of them directed and acted, in fact.
Susi still worked her day job as a CPA, but became an indie contractor, and then an HR professional. She did all this to support her theater work at night. Fast-forward four years and Bill had phased out of carpentry. Susi had so many ideas of what they could do with their space—she wanted real seats, not fold-ups. They painted, hung Christmas lights for ambience, and handed out blankets to theater-goers.
Their first “season,” which they now admit wasn’t a true season at all, ended with a staging of The Glory of Living by Rebecca Gilman, a popular play at the time. Bill describes it as a dark, difficult play, which he liked. He felt it challenged the audience. He says that the nature of the play required critics to come because no one in the Bay Area was staging it. Artistic directors came, probably wondering why SF Playhouse dared to do it.
As luck would have it, this all helped to put them on the map. The Chronicle called it an intriguing play and young theater company.
Susi had wanted to do Thrill of the Kill, a play about a group of suburban housewives whose husbands had locked themselves into a meat locker in the basement. The dilemma: To let the men out or not? This time, the Chronicle said: It’s good, better in fact than the New York production of the same play. Bill had wanted to play El Gallo in The Fantasticks, so they got another director and did it. They got some bigger Bay Area names to act in it, and it ran all summer.
They remained in that first location for three years, until the retrofit work finally happened. They were bummed to leave and were told they could come back once the work was completed. But when that day came, the landlords informed them that to move back in, they’d need to pay five times their previous rent and fork over $1 million up-front. They balked at such a ridiculous sum.
But as luck would have it, a spot became available across Sutter, and they moved in in 2006. They stayed on Sutter from then until 2012, when the space inside the Elks Lodge building on Post opened. They pounced and have been there ever since.
SF Playhouse was established as a non-profit theater from Day 1. Susi thought it was the way to go. Doing so meant that could get donors and subscribers and at least aim to break even.
The spot on Post opened as they were doing Fair Lady at their old location on Sutter. It was so popular that they were turning folks away. Time for a bigger theater, they decided. The space on Post had been empty for years. It was originally an Elk’s Lodge meeting hall, but had been converted to a 700-seat theater toward the end of the 20th century. Bill had always imagined 200-250 seats as the ideal capacity. He’d learned about non-profit theaters from various trips to New York.
Susi shares the story of what they encountered when they took over. The Elks had created it, but it had a bad energy when SF Playhouse came in. An Elks bartender told Susi that the place had ghosts … and they gave off bad juju. Susi connected with a friend of a friend who could look at the space. This person wanted to left alone there for two hours. She came back from that and told them some of the spirits were angry and others excited. And so this person invited those who weren’t happy to leave, while those creative ghosts who were happy could stay and help. Susi says that when she came back after this, the place felt great and has ever since.
Then we talk about the current run of Guys and Dolls at SF Playhouse (which my wife, Erin, and I saw and absolutely loved). Bill, who’s directing the show, describes it as a satire on black-and-white thinking and the polarization so prevalent in our world today. This leads us to discuss Bill’s idea of the theater as an “Empathy Gym.” Visitors come to see another point of view. Everything that SF Playhouse does comes out of that idea.
In addition to visiting their website for tickets and info, you can call 415-677-9596 or email info@sfplayhouse.org. They’re on Instagram and TikTok @sfplayhouse.
Thu, 21 Dec 2023 - 38min - 559 - Susi Damilano, Bill English, and San Francisco Playhouse, Part 1 (S6E5)
Susi Damilano was born in Germany and raised in the South Bay. Many of her German aunts married US servicemen, but Susi's mom married a German man and the family soon moved to Silicon Valley.
Susi shares a history of that area, noting thatnot too long ago, it was primarily orchards. Growing up, Susi would cut through those orchards to get to school. Now that area is housing.
She grew up in the 1970s and graduated high school then. As a young adult in the '70s and '80s, Susi visited SF often and says she always dreamed of living in "the big city." She would listen to her parents’ stories of racing down hills and being escorted home by cops, and got excited. Susi and her friend who had a car would drive up to The City and up and down Polk Street, cruising and people-watching.
Despite the allure of San Francisco, she ended up going to college in San Diego at SD State. She liked it there enough—the weather, the people. An accounting major, she says that the job market wasn't great in that area, and so she returned home to the South Bay and got a job at CPA firm in San Jose, where she worked a handful of years with clients like the fledgling Apple Computer.
Still, she couldn't shake wanting to live in SF. She found a job at another CPA firm, this time in The City. She lived in the Marina on Chestnut and was there during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Susi loved being here and got her taste for theater from reading Herb Caen columns. She started going to live theater and loved it. Around this same time, she was getting burnt out on her accounting job. A friend dared her to dream what else she could do. She decided that she wanted an Oscar, even though she didn’t act (yet). To get started, Susi took an acting class in Sunnyvale.
Then we meet Bill English, Susi's husband and cofounder of SF Playhouse. Originally from Evanston, Illinois, Bill spent his high school and college years in Tempe, Arizona. Then it was back to Illinois for grad school at Northwestern in Evanston.
Bill says that he was an instrumentalist earlier in his life and never thought much about theater. He played in orchestra his freshman year at ASU for a theater production, and it was here that he was “hit by lightning.” From the orchestra pit, he looked up and decided that he wanted to be on stage.
He tried out for and got some roles, first backing and then eventually, lead parts. He had always been a singer. Bill says that both his parents are musicians—his dad was a band director, in fact. He decided right away that he preferred the stage to playing music.
As a kid, Bill came to San Francisco from time to time with his family and loved it. He says that he always associated SF with theater. He didn’t end up pursuing theater after college, but instead played piano in rock and country bands. He moved around a bit, from Chicago and Phoenix to LA and eventually The City.
This was the early 1980s and he had just had a daughter, which meant he couldn’t do music anymore. In his limited spare time, Bill tried out for some plays. And he's been in it ever since.
At this point in Part 1, Bill and Susi share the story of their meeting. It was the late '90s, and Susi was taking an acting class at the Jean Shelton school here. Bill had studied there, too, and they had some friends in common. Their first meeting was on a street outside a theater. She was starstruck but figured he had no idea who she was. Susi volunteered to work concessions to get a theater ticket, which is where she first crossed paths with the young performer. She thought: That guy’s cute!
Over the next couple of years, she started seeing him at parties. Bill came to a show, and Susi was there with one of his friends. The friend asked if Susi wanted to join them (after the show) for a drink at a spot across the street from the Clift Hotel. At the bar, Bill was bemoaning the lack of new scripts, but a friend of Susi’s had one that needed producing. And so Susi told him as much. She recalls his reaction being something along the lines of: “Sure. I've heard this before.”
But Susi followed through and sent him the script in the mail. She got an answering machine message from him soon after this saying that the script she'd sent him was good. He also complimented her for following through. He asked her to dinner, and it turned out to be their first date ... sorta.
This was 1997, the same night that Princess Diana died (August 31, to be exact). They and a couple of friends were soon involved in a play that doubled as their courtship. They were married in 1999. After the run of the play, they were all still friends and decided to start a little theater company. They called it DreamStackers. And that company evolved into San Francisco Playhouse in 2003.
Check back this Thursday for Part 2 on SF Playhouse and Bill and Susi.
We recorded this podcast at SF Playhouse in November 2023.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 19 Dec 2023 - 25min - 558 - Rudy Corpuz and United Playaz, Part 2 (S6E4)
In Part 2, Rudy picks up where he left off in Part 1, talking about the origin of United Playaz and a race riot at Balboa High School back in 1994.
Rudy gathered those students who'd been involved in the violence to talk and determine their own solutions. And that's exactly what they did. They told Rudy and other adults that there was nothing to do at the school, and out of that discovery, the school implemented many programs to better engage kids.
In 2005, Mauricio Vela gave Rudy the blessing to bring United Playaz to Rudy's home hood of South of Market. Rudy shares that story of first getting funding, then getting their building on Howard Street. They moved in around 2008/2009. And in 2015, UP bought the building.
We talk about the origin of UP's motto: “It takes the hood to save the hood …” That story starts in New Orleans post-Katrina, where Rudy saw what the people were doing for themselves to recover when officials at every level failed them. The phrase was inspired by what he saw there, including drug dealers, drug users, and "thugs" helping out in the community against unimaginable tragedy and stiff odds.
Today, UP has chapters all over the country, but their scope has evolved over time. Rudy shares a story of having talked with Stanley "Tookie" Williams, who was in San Quentin at the time. Tookie told Rudy to "work with the little kids," not just those at the high school level. Nowadays, as Rudy puts it, they work with every age group, “from the elementary to the penitentiary (their prison re-entry program).” Some in UP programs had been locked up for 30, 40, and 50 years. Some of them work with young kids today.
We end this podcast with talk of changes in the South of Market, the massive gentrification in that neighborhood that's occurred over the last several decades, and the relationships Rudy has built to counteract that.
We recorded this episode at the United Playaz Clubhouse in South of Market in November 2023.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 12 Dec 2023 - 26min - 557 - Rudy Corpuz and United Playaz, Part 1 (S6E4)
In Part 1, we meet Rudy Corpuz, a born-and-raised San Franciscan who grew up in the South of Market. Rudy's parents came to the US from the Philippines before he was born.
His dad was in the army, which was his ticket to this country. And he brought his wife and some of Rudy's older siblings with him. They went first to Boston, then to Seattle, folllowed by San Pedro, California, and finally, to San Francisco.
The family's first landing spot in The City was Hunters-Point. The family then moved a little north to the South of Market. Rudy is the youngest of nine siblings.
His early days in SOMA took place in the 1970s and ‘80s. He recalls many other ethnicities and lots and lots of families living in SOMA back in those days, and says that he learned a lot from his neighborhood. He ran with a crew of kids that spent a lot of time on Market Street going to shops, arcades, and theaters.
He fondly recalls a South of Market community center called Canon Kip, where he'd go as a kid to play basketball, attend study halls, engage in other forms of recreation, and go on field trips. Rudy cites his time at Canon Kip as playing a role in his current work with United Playaz.
At this point in the recording, I asked Rudy to rattle off San Francisco schools he's attended. The list includes: Buena Vista and Patrick Henry elementary schools, Potrero Middle School, and Mission High School.
In addition to his native SOMA neighborhood, Rudy spent a lot of time in Potrero Hill, getting around mostly on Muni busses. This was the mid-'80s/early '90s, i.e., the crack era. Rudy shares that he both sold and used the drug. His usage got bad, to the point that he crashed. He points to the death of his dad in 1987 as a major contributor to his behavior. He didn’t know what to do with the pain of losing his dad, and so he turned to drugs.
Rudy got busted in 1988 and was sent to adult jail. For the next several years, he was In and out of trouble (and jail). It took him a while, but eventually, he figured out that he was broken. Around this time, an adult at the Canon Kip community center offered to get Rudy into City College. He was still in a low period, but when he got to CCSF, he was blown away by the abundance of "pretty women" he saw there. He and I had a hearty laugh about that.
He got a part-time job convincing other teenagers to go to CCSF, and discovered that he liked helping people. In 1994, while waiting for a job assignment, he spotted a posting on a job board. "Gang Prevention Counselor (Filipino)." A light bulb when off. He got the job, which was based in Bernal Heights.
In his new gig, Rudy was tasked with finding Filipino gangs in Bernal/District 11. This brought him to Balboa High School, where h saw plenty of fights and sideshows. The school's principal told him that she needed his help.
After a big riot between Filipinos and Blacks on Oct. 8, 1994, Rudy got the kids who had been involved to sit down together at a table. And they were the ones who came up with their own solutions.
They called it United Playaz.
Check back next week for Part 2 and the history of the non-profit.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
We recorded this episode at the United Playaz Clubhouse in the South of Market in November 2023.
Tue, 05 Dec 2023 - 26min - 556 - Traci Ramos and Boozenation Podcast, Part 2 (S6E3)
In Part 2, Traci tells us that, after six months in Australia, during which she had put her things in storage here in The City, she came back and got those things right back out. She got a place to live and a job, both of which were relative easy back then.
But, she says, SF was getting weird and crowded. It was the late-‘90s, so the dotcom boom was well under way. She started working at different restaurants as a server. Then, after some shorter travels abroad and a cross-country road trip, she got an office job. That lasted four-and-a-half years. She wanted a house in San Francisco and was trying to save up for that. Then, another economic bottom fell out and she was out of work.
This was followed by a low period in her life, one that involved a lot of drinking and amassing debt. When she became too broke to travel, Traci got a job serving at Cha Cha Cha in the Mission and climbed her way out of debt.
At this point in the recording, Traci rattles off a handful SF bars she’s worked or filled in at.
Then I briefly share my own story of finding Boozenation, and Traci shares how she found us (how she found Bitch Talk, to be perfectly honest). Her story involved seeing us at The Saloon days before the shutdown in 2020. And it was the pandemic that inspired Traci to start her own podcast about bartenders and service industry workers.
Two years later, Boozenation is going strong. When I asked her what’s next, she told me that in 2024, she wants to dive into some of the darker issues around the service industry, things like wage theft, sexual harassment, sexual assaults that anyone who works in the industry is all too familiar with. Traci says that she wants to take her time in the New Year and do it right.
We end the podcast with Traci rattling off some of her favorite spots around town. They include, but are not limited to:
Find Boozenation Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and traciramos.com.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Thu, 30 Nov 2023 - 27min - 555 - Traci Ramos of Boozenation Podcast, Part 1 (S6E3)
In Part 1, we meet and get to know a bit about Traci's past. She grew up in Modesto. Her dad’s family is Puerto Rican and they arrived in the Central Valley from the East Bay. Traci's mom’s mom came to California via Mexico and Spain, while her mom’s dad is Native American, Cherokee to be exact. That man, Traci's grandpa, his mom had three sets of kids from three men, but grandpa didn’t talk about that.
Traci is an only child. She and her family visited the East Bay when she was a kid, but they didn’t really come to San Francisco. Traci says her impression of the East Bay is that it was like Modesto, but more crowded and noisier.
Sometime after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, Traci came to The City to go to SF State, where she graduated from the school's BECA program around 4.5 years later. She says that the decision where to go to college ultimately came down to SF State or Sac State. But in the end, she wanted to be in SF.
She and friends had been coming to The City to see shows and concerts. Here, she rattles off quite an impressive list of bands she saw back then, including Duran Duran at The Fillmore.
At State, Traci lived in the dorms, which, after the quake, were showing obvious signs of damage. To her young mind, it didn't matter. She was where she wanted to be. She had always loved the fog, most likely owing to the intense summer heat in Modesto.
While in school, she worked around town in cafes and restaurants. After graduation, she had saved up enough money to buy a one-way ticket to Madrid. She travelled around Europe a bit for a year, then came back to SF and worked various jobs.
Then, a year later, Traci picked up again and went to Australia, this time on a round-trip ticket.
We end Part 1 with some of Traci's fondest memories of New Zealand and the ways that that island nation compare to California.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 28 Nov 2023 - 31min - 554 - Joanna Lioce and Vesuvio Café, Part 4 (S6E2)
Part 4 starts off with me and Joanna doing the math trying to figure out how long she's worked at Vesuvio. Turns out it's right around 20 years.
She started out as a waitress. The woman who was supposed to train her ended up not showing up that day, and Joanna really didn’t know what she was doing. But she winged it. A customer saw her inexperience and helped her out with some sage advice.
The conversation moves on to cover many of the ins and outs of serving vs. bartending. She says that, back in the day, yelling matches happened at Vesuvio sometimes, but that it's much mellower these days.
Then we get to the pandemic and their eventual closure. Vesuvio was Joanna’s only job at the time, one that had her working five days a week. She says that many regulars, folks who live alone, weren’t sure what to do when the bar had to shut down. Like many of us, they thought it would be only a week.
So Joanna borrowed her parents’ car and drove up to Cloverdale to spend what she figured would be a short time with friends. She ended up staying there for four months.
Vesuvio reopened in late 2020, but closed again in December after a positive case from one of its staff. In January 2021, they opened for good. And when they did, Joanna says it was like starting over.
Now we get around to chatting about Wacky Wednesdays, the music shows in Kerouac Alley which effectively (and finally) prompted us to do an episode on one of our favorite spots in The City.
Joanna gives context to the situation that inspired her to create the music events. Bars weren’t busy. Things were weird. Everyone felt anxious. “Let’s do something fun,” she thought.
She had run an art fair in the alley pre-pandemic, for which she scheduled bands and vendors. She used that idea as a base for what became Wacky Wednesdays. She asked friends's bands to play. They said yes. She approached the bar about paying bands. They said yes. (These days, Vesuvio has sponsors for the events.)
In 2023, there were 13 shows and 29 bands. They're currently on hiatus for the winter, but will start up again next June.
It turns out that Chad, a bartender at Vesuvio, as well as some others she knows, knew how to do sound. The shows would be free—no tickets—and bands are OK to cancel if need be.
The shows were a hit right away. In fact, someone is making a zine about them and they've gotten good press.
Joanna assures us that Wacky Wednesdays are coming back in the summer of 2024 and says she already has a wishlist of bands she'll try to book for the alley. For more info, follow Joanna or Vesuvio on Instagram. Or just do yourself a favor and go meet a buddy for drink at the coolest bar in The City. Once they start again, calendars will appear at Vesuvio.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 21 Nov 2023 - 26min - 553 - Joanna Lioce and Vesuvio Café, Part 3 (S6E2)
In Part 3, we meet Vesuvio bartender Joanna Lioce. Originally from Newport, RI, where her dad was a rock critic, the family moved to LA when he got a job with the Times down there. They landed in Orange County, in fact, a place Joanna left as soon as she could.
In fact, the day after she graduated high school, Joanna went to Europe. While she was away, her dad got a job at the San Jose Mercury News and her mom, a pediatric nurse, worked as a public-health official in Berkeley. Joanna was in Europe shortly before Sept. 11, and though she had planned to stay overseas longer, the event made her wonder … but mom said “don’t come home.”
On a family trip to Ireland when Joanna was 8, she had decided that she wanted to be a bartender. Now it was 2002, and she dropped her bag at a hostel and got a bartending job at O’Shay’s Merchant, a pub across the street from the Brazen Head in Dublin. She stayed in Dublin until Christmas, then returned to SoCal, where she had fronted a Riot Grrrrl band called Julia Warhola. But by now, several band members had started doing heroin, so she quit the band and moved to the Bay Area where her family was.
Joanna first went to school in the Peralta System in the East Bay, then she got into SF State, where she eventually got her degree. She also finished college at Cambridge in England to study Shakespeare. While going to SF State, she moved to the Mission, specifically 18th and Linda near the Women’s Building. She found the place through a Craigslist ad and ending up with six roommates, none of whom she knew previously. Her room set her back only $400, but she wasn’t feeling it.
From the Mission, Joanna moved to Lower Haight. And 13 years ago, she settled in to her place on Nob Hill, where she lives today.
She had a job, hosting then bartending, at Stinking Rose in North Beach. She liked it all right, but when her boss gave credit for a makeover of the bar that she had done to a male co-worker, she knew she had to leave. She gave her two weeks’ notice and went for a drink at Vesuvio. While there, a bartender she had befriended offered her the job. She was 21. It was 2003. She’s been working at Vesuvio ever since.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 14 Nov 2023 - 27min - 552 - Janet Clyde and Vesuvio Café, Part 2 (S6E2)
In Part 2, we hear how Janet got a job cocktail waitressing at The Mab, that infamous old punk club on Broadway near Vesuvio. Mab owner Ness Aquino hired her for that and she dug it. She had been to many shows in LA when she lived there and loved the scene. She lived in the Basque Hotel at 15 Romolo, made good money, and stuff was cheap back in the late '70s.
Janet describes herself as a lightweight, which meant she couldn’t really hang out as late as most people around her. Eventually, she wanted to do more than cocktail, so she got a job bartending at Coffee Gallery on Grant … on the 6 a.m. shift, no less. The manager of Vesuvio saw her opening Coffee Gallery one day and asked her to open for them instead. This was 1979.
In addition to her 6 a.m. shift at Vesuvio, Janet worked a few other jobs. Then she started working more at Vesuvio and liking it more and more. Early morning patrons, many of them merchant seamen, often comprised the “Dawn Patrol,” guys coming in from nearby SROs that didn’t have heat. Cocktailing was hard, and it got old fast, so she switched back to bartending.
As we learned in Part 1, the Feins had taken over at Vesuvio around 1967 or 1968, and they brought in Shawn O’Shaughnessy around that time to establish the aesthetic of the place. Janet tells us that the place feels mostly the same today, though they’ve added stuff here and there over the years.
At this point in the conversation, we take a sidebar to talk about Ron Fein’s aesthetic and discipline. His intention was always to keep the joint looking and feeling more or less consistent, employing a discipline not to chase trends to that end.
Ron’s son and daughter eventually became more involved. But seeing an opportunity and acting on it, Janet and her family have co-owned Vesuvio with Fein family since 1997. She invokes the saying, “Sweep the floor to own the store.” Janet has also been Vesuvio’s principal manager since ’97.
The conversation shifts to talk of the pandemic, which she says was “almost an extinction event” for the bar. But Janet believes that Vesuvio was small enough to get control over the situation. She’s quick to point to federal, state, and even local help, describing it as “invaluable.” It was The City’s government that came through in letting them operate outside in the alley.
And that leads us to Whacky Wednesdays (a bit of a tease of next week’s episodes … stay tuned). Janet says the shows have been so much fun, but she of course wishes they had more space in Jack Kerouac Alley. They really helped to raise spirits during early days of the pandemic. In 2021, not much else was going on by way of live events. But more of that in Part 3 next week.
We end Part 2 with my asking Janet what it means to her to be part of a San Francisco institution like Vesuvio. Listen in for her answer, which I loved.
And check back Tuesday for Part 3, when we’ll meet longtime Vesuvio bartender and Whacky Wednesdays creator Joanna Lioce.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Thu, 09 Nov 2023 - 26min - 551 - Janet Clyde and Vesuvio Café, Part 1 (S6E2)
This episode is six years overdue. That's because Storied: SF got started in a booth upstairs at one of our favorite spots in all The City: Vesuvio Café. In Part 1, we sit down in that same booth where it all began in 2017 to chat with Vesuvio co-owner Janet Clyde. We begin with a talk about what a great place for bars San Francisco is. Janet brings up touristic spots we love, as I had joined my wife for Irish coffees at the Buena Vista just before our recording in North Beach. Then Janet begins to lay out the history of Vesuvio. The location was originally an Italian bookstore called Cavalli Books, which moved first to the current City Lights spot, and then over to Stockton Street. Then, probably in the 1930s or early '40s, a woman known as Mrs. Mannetti opened Vesuvio as a restaurant. In 1948, Henry Lenoir bought the place from her and turned it into a bar.
Lenoir was a Swiss/French bon vivant. He ran it as Vesuvio through the end of the 40s and into the 50s. But by the early '60s, with the Korean War, the place changed as society changed, and Henri wasn’t feeling this generational shift at all. He sold the place to Ron Fein, who brought on Leo Riegler to run the bar. Riegler had run Coffee Gallery on Grant, which served beer and wine only. He was an Austrian bon vivant, and he came to Vesuvio and overhauled the bar. Ron Fein hired Shawn O’Shaughnessy to give the place the look and feel we're all familiar with to this day. O'Shaughnessy was inspired by Japanese art, aliens, and other worlds. Janet talks about the “I’m itching to get away from Portland, Oregon” sign, which hangs over the entrance to Vesuvio and which O'Shaughnessy derived from a postcard. We then shift the conversation a little to talk about Vesuvio and the Beat Movement. The bookstore across the alley became City Lights in 1954 when Lawrence Ferlinghetti took over. And that brought writers into the bar. Before that, according to Janet, Vesuvio was a Bohemian hang, really a cross-section of San Francisco. People who worked at the nearby Pacific Exchange (later known as the Pacific Stock Exchange), insurance salespeople, advertisers ... Janet describes the place as “suits and ties having a really good time …” When she arrived, in the late 1970s, the area was home to punk clubs, strip joints, bars, restaurants. Janet had hitchhiked from LA with the intention of landing in Seattle. She was born in Missouri but raised near Cape Canaveral, Florida. She left her family there and moved to LA but never really dug it much. A trip north in 1978 changed her life forever. Check back Thursday for Part 2 with Janet Clyde. For more on the history of Vesuvio, read this article on Found SF. This podcast was recorded at Vesuvio Café in North Beach in October 2023.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 07 Nov 2023 - 26min - 550 - SFFILM's Doc Stories (S6 Bonus)
Earlier this year, I got to see a couple movies as part of the 66th annual San Francisco International Film Festival. It was awesome. SFFILM, the non-profit that puts the festival on each April, is kicking off its documentary mini-fest tonight. This bonus episode is a quick chat with Jessie Fairbanks, SFFILM's director of programming. Enjoy our talk and go see some killer documentaries this weekend! This episode was recorded over Zoom in October 2023.
Thu, 02 Nov 2023 - 21min - 549 - Chef Eddie Blyden, Teresa Goines, and Old Skool Café, Part 2 (S6E1)
In Part 2, Teresa shares how she came to find out about Chef Eddie Blyden through a mutual friend. She was persistent in her efforts to track Eddie down, and once she did, she asked him to teach the youth in the nascent Old Skool program, which was still taking place at Teresa’s house.
Eddie agreed to join the Old Skool crew and he brought in other SF chefs. They did supper salons and pop-ups as well as gala fundraisers with as many as 250 guests. Chef would cook outside the events, which were volunteer-run and meant to raise money for their own brick-and-mortar space. Later, years after Eddie had moved on and as she was preparing for the 10-year anniversary of the Old Skool spot just off Third Street, Teresa reached out again to her chef friend.
Eddie Blyden was born in Nigeria. His dad was born in Sierra Leone, and his mom was from Massachusetts. He has lived in the US, the Virgin Islands, Africa, and Europe. He was living in Zurich, Switzerland, when a friend told Eddie he was opening brewery in The City. This is what brought him to the Bay—he moved here to help open 21st Amendment.
Eddie says that he has remained here for nearly three decades because of the beauty, the proximity to so many diverse landscapes, the food scene, and the laid-back way of life we enjoy. After they opened 21st Amendment, he left briefly to work in Philadelphia, but came back to work at Magnolia Brewing as they were ramping up to open The Alembic.
He lists off many restaurants and hotels, in SF and the East Bay, where worked for years before going private as well as doing some catering.
The Old Skool chef tells us that the menu at the supper club was inspired by the youth who've worked there, drawing from several family food lines from Central America and other parts of the world. He cites three challenges of running the kitchen at OSC: 1. the food itself; 2. working with youth around the food; and 3. the youth and their life challenges. He enjoys it to this day, pointing to what he considers a “village of people, adults and youth.”
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 17 Oct 2023 - 28min - 548 - Teresa Goines and Old Skool Cafe, Part 1 (S6E1)
Welcome to Season 6 of the Storied: San Francisco podcast! We really couldn't dream of a better place to kick things off than Bayview's Old Skool Café. In Part 1, we meet Teresa Goines, the founder and president of Old Skool. Originally from Tucson, Teresa spent a lot of time growing up in the country (which we call desert) outside Tucson.
She left to get a bachelor's degree in psychology at UC Santa Barbara. She had planned to become a therapist, citing her father's severe disability with instilling a caretaker mentality in her from a young age. She had always wanted to alleviate suffering in others. But after college, Teresa had an opportunity to work with youth in the Santa Barbara County prison, as she was also interested in law enforcement. She says she wanted to mitigate trauma at its source. In her time spent time with incarcerated youth, Teresa heard stories of mere survival over hope and promise. Many inmates got few or no visitors and no mail. These were 14- and 15-year-olds. Teresa felt like society had thrown them away, but despite it all, they were hungry for love and opportunity. Teresa started a career exploration program for the youth where she brought in firefighters and computer programmers and took kids to the local city college. Through these efforts, she saw them starting to hope. But as soon as they were released from prison, they'd go right back to the street economies they were familiar with. Many youth would tell Teresa that they wanted to be back in prison, because it was safer there and there's more love. Thinking about how to stop this cycle is what led to Old Skool Café. But how she got there is its own story. She lived in Guadalajara for a stint, and then went to New York City for a job opportunity that ended falling apart before she began. This was 2001, and her original start date was Sept. 10. A college friend who was from San Francisco and moved back here after graduation told her, "Come here." Teresa decided to try it ... "for a year." Upon arrival on New Year's Eve 2001, she worked in a gang prevention program and Head Start. The vision of Old Skool started coming together in 2004, with dinners set in her home at the outset. At the end of 2005, she quit her job to do Old Skool full-time. To inform the nascent operation, Teresa listened to incarcerated kids talk about what they got out of being in gangs and translated that to its themes: belonging and purpose. She wanted to offer those ideas in different forms and the ideas came in three parts: 1. She wanted to break the cycle of going back to jail, 2. She saw that SF is a foodie city and that we love music here, and 3. The City is a tourist destination with a huge hospitality industry, and hospitality jobs can be taken just about anywhere. It didn't hurt that servers get tips in cash, and cash competes with life on the street. The more introverted youth could be back of house at a restaurant, using their creativity and focus back there and seeing people up front love what they do. Teresa always saw room in the operation for entertainment. She noticed that her youth crew included comedians, poets, dancers, and singers. To secure a space for Old Skool outside her home, Teresa connected with local church leaders, who told her that churches needed to get behind her vision. A group of Bayview pastors had a place in mind and gave Teresa a good deal on rent. Eventually, she had a chance to buy the building that housed Old Skool, and so she learned how to raise money. One donor gave them $300K, which allowed them to get a matching loan for the same amount. Old Skool paid off its loan at the end of 2019, right before the pandemic. In terms of what's next at Old Skool, Teresa points to their growing team of adults and youth, both formerly incarcerated and kids from the foster system. Folks in other cities have reached out asking for an Old Skool of their own, and now the SF team has a chance to explore that. We end Part 1 with Teresa expressing how very important it is to them that Old Skool Café is rooted in San Francisco. Old Skool's hours are as follows: Happy hour every Wednesday from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Dinner Thursdays through Saturdays from 5 to 9 p.m. Visit Old Skool's website for more info and to sign up for their newsletter. Follow them on Instagram. And look for Part 2, when we'll hear more from Old Skool Chef Eddie Blyden, next week wherever you get podcasts. We recorded this podcast at Old Skool Cafe in the Bayview in September 2023.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 10 Oct 2023 - 36min - 547 - S3E46, Part 2: Photographer Marcell Turner
In this podcast, Marcell picks up where he left off in Part 1. He talks about work he almost got before landing a dream job. Marcell shares the story of how he got started taking pictures when he was a kid.
He goes on to talk about people's reaction to his art over the years and the film he's in the process of making about his life as a Black father, photographer, father, and yes, filmmaker.
Please visit Marcell's site and be sure to check out all the photos and videos he's collected there, of the Bay Area and other parts of the country and the world.
He ends the podcast talking about why he left San Francisco to live in the East Bay and his hopes for The City moving forward.
We recorded this podcast in Yerba Buena Gardens in December 2020.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Thu, 07 Jan 2021 - 33min - 546 - S3E46, Part 1: Photographer Marcell Turner
Marcell Turner found his home in San Francisco. In this podcast, the photographer shares the story of his childhood in Southern California. He skateboarded, loved punk rock music, and breakdanced in his teen years. Then, a road trip up north with a friend was all it took for Marcell to relocate up to the Bay Area. We recorded this podcast in Yerba Buena Gardens in December 2020.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 05 Jan 2021 - 24min - 545 - S4E3, Part 2: Matt Gonzalez
This one's pretty much all about San Francisco politics 20 years ago.
Matt talks about how it was that he ended up running for political office to begin with. He walks us through Tom Ammiano's write-in campaign for mayor in 1999 and Matt's eventual ascension to the Board of Supervisors the next year.
What brought him into my sphere was Matt's run for mayor in 2003 against Willie Brown heir-apparent, Gavin Newsom.
Other topics discussed in the podcast include:
Matt's decision not to run for re-election to the Board of Supervisors his 2008 run for VP with Ralph Nader how he got started doing collage artWe end with Matt's thoughts and hopes for what comes next in San Francisco.
Related Podcast Hillary Ronen, Part 1 / Part 2
We recorded this podcast over Zoom in March 2021.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Thu, 08 Apr 2021 - 29min - 544 - S4E3, Part 1: Matt Gonzalez
Matt Gonzalez's life could've turned out very different. Born in McAllen, Texas, and raised there and across the river in Reynoso, Tamaulipas (Mexico), Matt recalls spending a lot of time camping and playing football when he was a kid. His family moved around a bit—Louisville, Baltimore, New Orleans—before returning to South Texas, where Matt finished school and played more football. The sport eventually took a back seat to debate class, and he decided to go to college at Columbia in New York City. Matt talks about arriving wide-eyed in New York. He spent four years getting his undergrad, with summers in Maine and Minnesota leading camping expeditions. Then, he decided to come to California for law school. Check back Thursday for Part 2, when Matt will share more memories from his roughly 30 years in San Francisco, which he begins to touch on here. We recorded this podcast over Zoom in March 2021.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 06 Apr 2021 - 30min - 543 - Mini Bar, Part 3 (S5E20)
In Part 3, we meet Mini Bar's Operations Manager, Erin Kehoe. Erin is a sixth-generation San Franciscan. Her uncle researched family history, which was complicated by the fact that her grandma was orphaned. When you consider time in the state of California, her family history goes back here to when it was part of Mexico. Much like John, she was born at Kaiser on Geary. In fact, Erin says, John's mom could've delivered her and her twin sister. She comes from a lineage of twins, actually. Her mom was one of four sets of twins. Erin's dad was a firefighter with the SFFD, though the family lived down in South San Francisco when Erin was young. They did spend lots of time at her grandma's place in the Sunset, the same house her dad and his brothers grew up in and which the family sold only recently. Erin remembers trips into The City when she young to go to places like Ghirardelli Square, the Emporium, and I. Magnin department store. They went to some football games at Candlestick, but not so much Giants games. She says that she grew up somewhat sheltered until, as a teenager, she and her twin sister discovered goth and industrial music. She recalls stories of calling in to Live 105 for ticket giveaways and how her mom would drop her and sister off at places like Slim's. Around the time they turned 18, the sisters started going to clubs and places like the Trocadero. This got her into the SF nightlife scene, and she says she "never looked back." But her job at Mini Bar is her first bartending gig. Erin did work in the service industry for 20+ years, at joints like the Peppermill in Daly City, B44 and Café Bastille on Belden Lane, and then at both the original and the current location of Bar Crudo. That restaurant's 2009 move to Divisadero is how Erin started coming to Mini Bar. She met John quickly and right away, he wanted her to work at Mini Bar. Only problem was—she didn't bartend (yet). Fast-forward to 2021, when her friend Susan was bartending at Mini and asked Erin yet again to consider coming on, which she did. Four months later, they asked her to manage the bar. Erin takes her work seriously, and she thinks that she was someone Mini Bar could count on. She picked up the bartending side quickly, but didn't know where to start with curating art shows. And so, she went through archived Mini Bar emails and found people she recognized. From there, she put together a show, and then things started rolling. Erin soon met Anita Beshirs (curator of the current show at Mini Bar), and the two are good friends now. She says she's honored to be part of art and community. When the conversation shifts to our upcoming show, Hungry Ghosts, Erin mentions that she had wanted to branch out and try something different. Joining forces with a podcast feels for her like the beginning of something new at Mini Bar. We end Part 3 with a chat about the current show at the bar, which Erin says "is very SF." "Around Town" features Jack Keating, Millie Kwong, Missstencil, Anne-Louise Petersson, and Danielle Bellantonio. "Anita crushed it," Erin says, congratulating her friend. We agree. We hope to see you all at Mini Bar on August 17 at 6 p.m. for the opening of Hungry Ghosts. Thanks for listening throughout our fifth season, and we'll see you soon!
Tue, 18 Jul 2023 - 23min - 542 - Mini Bar, Part 2 (S5E20)
We open Part 2 with a discussion on the nature of neighborhood bars. An opportunity arose for John when he left the corporate world. His then-wife, Sommer Peterson, reminded him of his idea to open a bar when she also left the 9 to 5. Sommer researched spots in the general area of Divisadero and stood in lines at City Hall. After scouting a couple other locations, they found the current spot, which looked like it would work. Sommer and John worked out an agreement with the landlord and they got to work building the space out to become a bar. John's childhood friend, Nerius Mercado, asked to be part of this new adventure, and came on as a co-owner, which he remains to this day. Molly Bradshaw, whom you might remember from our episode this season about Mission Bowling Club, was a good friend of Sommer's growing up. Molly knew bartending and also wanted in. The four formed a partnership and signed the initial lease in early 2008. John and I go on a sidebar on Divisadero neighborhood history at this point in the recording. We also delve a little into John's personal history. He lived at McAllister and Masonic as a kid before his family moved, first to the Inner Richmond and then to Anza Vista. We trace some history of the Mini Bar location. When they signed the lease, there had most recently been an artist who lived there and effectively turned it into a live/work studio. Before that, it was a produce market. And before that, according to one patron, it used to be a Black video store run by her dad. Sommer and John had talked about making it a community space and the importance of art that comes from the neighborhood. They talked with neighborhood groups about their plans to get feedback and share their plans. Shortly after signing the lease and starting the build-out, they ran into issues. A neighbor wanted money to drop his protest of their opening, which put the approval of their liquor license on hold. They were forced to stop the build-out while they waited for an ABC hearing in Sacramento. At the time, Mark Leno was SF's rep in the state legislature, so John reached out to his brother to see whether they had any connections. Leno sat on the SF Nightlife Commission then. The very next day, John got a call from ABC to let him know that they would issue a provisional license and work on the build-out could resume. A week later, on Friday, August 15, 2008, Mini Bar opened its doors to patrons. They hadn't yet established a price list, a little hiccup in the face of the enormous task of building a bar from scratch. John asked his partners to call nearby bars and restaurants to see what the market rate was, which pushed the opening back by a whole hour. No bigs. John ends the podcast talking about the importance he places on having clean bathrooms. That's where patrons spend alone time, after all. "Respect them in their alone time, and they'll respect you back," he says. Not a bad way to run a business. Check back next week for Part 3 with Mini Bar's bar manager and one of its two art curators, Erin Kehoe.
Thu, 13 Jul 2023 - 25min - 541 - Mini Bar, Part 1 (S5E20)
Welcome to the final episode of Season 5! We saved a special one for last for a good reason. Mini Bar is, of course, where we're having our first art show (Hungry Ghosts) in more than three years. But it's also a neighborhood bar, and neighborhood bars are such a great symbol of the beating heart of San Francisco. Our whole dang thing, Storied: SF, was founded in a neighborhood bar, in fact.
In Part 1, we meet Mini Bar co-owner John Ordoña. (Nerius Mercado is Mini's other co-owner.) John was born in the very maternity ward at Kaiser on Geary where his mom, a Filipina immigrant, worked. He was the third of three sons to his mom and dad, both from the Philippines. Born into a Catholic family, John attended school at Star of the Sea and then Sacred Heart, where he was part of the last boys-only class at that school. He grew up in 1970s and 1980s San Francisco. John shares a funny story about being young and seeing TV ads for the Planet of the Apes show and news stories about the SLA's kidnapping of Patty Hearst. He'd hear the SLA described as "urban gorillas [sp]" and his parents would exploit this misunderstanding to get John to behave. Then John goes on a sidebar rattling off many of the notable incidents in San Francisco in the late-'70s. John says he went to the "hat trick" of Catholic education in San Francisco, as he later attended USF for college. In grade school, he played some sports, and especially took to basketball and boxing. He shares stories of his dad taking him to Newman's Gym in the Tenderloin at Leavenworth and Turk. He loved it and eventually needed to get there without parental accompaniment. This meant riding the bus to, not through, the TL. He spent some time at City College before getting into USF, working jobs including one at a fledgling company called Esprit, run by Susie and Doug Tompkins. He answered phones at Esprit's 900 Minnesota Street office in Potrero Hill and loved it. John said he still runs into Susie Tompkins Buell from time to time. From right after high school until the end of college, John partied and went clubbing a lot. Over the years, he also worked at Dryer's and Levi's to help put himself through college. He got offers to move to New York City and thought about it, but never took the leap. For a while, the idea of opening a bar was in the back of his head. John shares a story about his dad showing him and talking about drinking spots around The City when he was a kid. "Bars are a great business to open," the elder Ordoña told his son. Check back Thursday for Part 2 and the story of opening a tiny neighborhood drinking hole and art bar on Divisadero. We recorded this episode at Mini Bar on Divisadero in June 2023.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 11 Jul 2023 - 27min - 540 - The New Babylon Burning, Part 3 (S5E19)
In Part 3, we pick up where we left off in Part 2, with Mike's story of arriving at Bluxome Street early in the morning on Dec. 4, 2022. His San Francisco legacy business, Babylon Burning, was on fire. Mike recounts the SFFD firefighters taking care when breaking into the 63 Bluxome art gallery doors that led to Babylon Burning. It was Mike, his wife Judy, and his brother, Clam's, gallery, and it was special. Firefighters also saved finished orders that were just inside the doorway to the screenprinting shop. Some fire had trickled in, on the ceiling and in the back of the shop. But most of the damage came from water, as is the case in most fires. They saved as much as they could and got to work getting that stuff to storage. Rains were on the way. But their friends, Balboa Theater owner Adam Bergeron and his wife, told them it was time to go home and sleep. They took their friends' advice, but Judy was already at work looking for a new spot. They lucked out getting an insurance broker that Mike had an immediate connection with. Judy liked him, too. Meanwhile, the task of salvaging what there was to salvage and getting it into storage began in earnest. The heavy rains didn't stop them. The work was under way. Once they got the main business computer out and back to their coworker, Seth's, apartment, they could really get things going again. Friends with much smaller shops offered their spaces. They now credit their team, their friends, and the community with helping them keep the big ship going. They also got a lot of help from the folks at San Francisco's Legacy Business Program. Judy was working with the realtor and they began looking at spots around SoMA. They brought the broker to the old Babylon site so he could get an idea of who they were and what they were looking for. They ran through a checklist of things they needed—enough power, gas, walls that could be fashioned into a gallery. After only three weeks, they found 939 Howard Street. It seemed too big at first. And the landlord's construction crews stored equipment there, so it was hella cluttered. But they liked the front room and could already envision a gallery there. There was a strange middle area that intrigued them. And the back provided ample space for their new shop. Mike and Judy brought Seth to see the space, and it lifted him out of a funk he'd been in since the fire. They knew that they had to show some big-time love to everyone who got them out of the wilderness and into this new phase. In late-May, they threw a party with music, art, a taco truck, and filled with members of the community who love Babylon Burning. Jeff was there. It was magic. Now that they're operational, they're planning more events, including a July 29 benefit for The Stud collective, as that group continues the search for a new permanent home. Follow Babylon Burning to stay up to date. And please consider them for any screenprinting needs you might have. Also follow Gallery 939 for updates on art shows and other events.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Wed, 05 Jul 2023 - 42min - 539 - The New Babylon Burning, Part 2 (S5E19)
When COVID hit, in March 2020, Babylon Burning kept working. In Part 2 of our episode on San Francisco's oldest screenprinting ship and their new location on Howard Street, we talk with owners Mike Lynch and Judy Tam-Lynch about the several years of hardship that lead to their new location. It started with the worldwide shutdown back in 2020. They were lucky enough to already have orders from essential businesses around The City. Two that Mike cites are Cheese Plus and Balboa Theater. Then they started to pick up schools around town. And then, the City and County of San Francisco. And so on, and so on. We rewind slightly to establish the COVID timeline for Babylon Burning:
Love Letters to The City (our show), Jan. 11 thru Feb. 14, 2020 first citywide shutdown, initially for two weeks, March 17 stay-at-home orders extended through May, March 31Around the time that PPP loans started to disburse, they had been coasting in low gear, doing just enough business to pay their employees and their landlord. Those loans saved them, just barely. Winter 2020 brought more shutdowns and hardship, but they weathered the storm. Vaccines started rolling out, and that provided another upswing. Toward the summer of 2021, they started doing outdoor shows and other events on Bluxome Street (Jeff went to one of these and they were awesome). These street parties made it feel like they had turned a corner. The new clients—essential, small SF businesses and schools—came back for more. Thanks to the boom in business, they were able to retain or replace their staff, some of whom have been with Babylon Burning for more than 15 years. And the printing veterans are able to teach the rookies. They were coasting along, recovering from the deepest impacts of the pandemic. And then, on December 4, 2022, a whole new tragedy struck. Early that morning, Bay Alarm called Mike. "You have an active fire at your shop. It's pretty bad." (Coincidentally, there had been a small arson fire outside the shop door about three months earlier, which prompted Mike and his crew to check up on their fire insurance.) Mike raced down 280. As he approached the Sixth Street off-ramp, he could see the fire. It was bad. Really bad. As he turned the corner onto Bluxome, the small street was lit up with flashing SFFD lights. He was brought to tears seeing it all. The fire had run through the upper levels of the building and its roof. The fire department used 500,000 gallons of water to extinguish the flames. Mike ends Part 2 with a vivid description of firefighters' efforts atop ladders to put the fire out while also risking the entire roof's collapse. Check back next week for Part 3 and the conclusion of our episode on the new Babylon Burning. We recorded Part 2 of this episode at Babylon Burning on Howard Street in SOMA in June 2023.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 27 Jun 2023 - 39min - 538 - The New Babylon Burning, Part 1 (S5E19)
Welcome to the penultimate episode of Season 5! We're revisiting our 2018 podcast with Babylon Burning's Mike Lynch in Part 1. Part 2 next week will be a talk with Mike and his wife, Judy, about their new location on Howard Street. We'll also chat about their new art space: Gallery 939. We recorded Part 1 of this podcast at Babylon Burning in the South of Market in August 2018.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 20 Jun 2023 - 27min - 537 - Bayview Opera House, Part 2 (S5E18)
Part 2 catalogs Smiley's journey out of high school and into the world of jobs and being a young adult. Then we get to her time at BVOH, which began about four years ago. It started with an entry-level job, which she didn't mind doing because it got her foot in the door. Built in 1888 by the Masons, the then-designated "South San Francisco Opera House" was a spot for them to meet and host performances. Acoustically, that intention shows to this day. The opera house also has dressing rooms with direct access to the stage (which Smiley told me is not a common feature in buildings of this kind). With the Great Migration and its influx of Black shipyard workers here in San Francisco, the building became more of a community center. It also changed demographically, from white folks to members of that Black community. But, in Smiley's words, over the years, the building "wasn't loved on," and fell into some dilapidation. In the 1950s, The City wanted to tear the opera house down and build apartment buildings ... until Ruth Williams said "no." Black Panther free breakfasts happened there. People met each other there. Performances like plays and dance classes happened on the regular. Voters cast ballots there. In 1966, SFPD officers shot and killed a young Black boy named Matthew "Peanut" Johnson, sparking a riot. The opera house was hit with several hundred bullets in the ensuing melee. Things were so bad for Black folks in SF, James Baldwin filmed Take This Hammer just outside the opera house in 1964. As Smiley puts it, Bayview Opera House "has always been a place for history-making and Black culture." In 1989, an organization was formed through the SF Arts Commission to manage programs at the building. The opera house was established as San Francisco Historical Landmark No. 8. Over the years, it changed hands several times, and in 2015, a multimillion dollar grant was secured to do much-needed renovations, including a new outdoor amphitheater that came in handy during the pandemic. 2023 has been all about re-inviting people inside. There are world premieres of operas and films. The calendar is full. See for yourself. We end the podcast hearing from two folks who've been through BVOH's Tools of the Trade program: Joe Kool and Miss White, the First Lady of Frisco.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 13 Jun 2023 - 22min - 536 - Bayview Opera House, Part 1 (S5E18)
In Part 1 of our episode on the Bayview Opera House, we sit down with opera house Programming Manager Ashley Smiley, (who goes by "Smiley"). Smiley shares how her family ended up in San Francisco. Her mom was born and raised in SF, but her mom's mom, a mixed-race woman, came from Texas. Her family was run out of that state by the KKK. That family landed in the Hunter's Point area and ended up in the Fillmore. Her maternal grandfather came here from Haiti via boat. Upon his arrival, he bought property in San Francisco, as that was possible at the time. Smiley's grandparents met each other at Polytechnical High School. Her grandfather was a longshoreman, but also a musician and songwriter. Her mom went to Galileo, then SF State, and now works for The City. Smiley was born at a rather conspicuous time in history — just a week after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. Her mom says that there was a 5.4 aftershock at the time of Smiley's birth. Smiley grew up in Ingleside mostly, and remembers going to the Bayview Opera House a lot early in life. Her family moved around The City, and she rattles off a list of the different schools she went to. It was at Lafayette Elementary that she did her first theater show — Pirates of Penzance. She mentions her "Jewish momma" from this time, an early mentor. After attending her first major theater production, she became something like obsessed with the production aspects of live performance. She'd played instruments and was a cheerleader, but she found her passion in performing arts. She carried that passion into her middle school days, where she started doing spoken word and poetry. Work she'd done at her church gave her a background in writing, and she used that to springboard to performing words on stage for people. In high school, when she went to Lowell, she started doing bigger and bigger productions. It was during this time that she was immersed in Black culture and identity, and she learned that it was something she needed to lean into. She says that it was "super empowering." On the flip side, these experiences contradicted what she had previously believed about the world, namely, that racism had more or less been solved. She had wondered why older Black folks were so upset. And so, at the same time that she was discovering her own confidence and pride of being a Black woman, she was starting to see the complexities of racism in the US and San Francisco. Lowell, she says, had a lot to do with this realization. We end Part 1 with Smiley confessing to how much time she spent away from her high school, the bulk of it at the Brava Theater in the Mission. She did spoken word and hip-hop with the Colored Ink group. Meeting and witnessing performances by so many of her inspirations left her thinking, I gotta be in this world. And now, she is. Please join us for Part 2 next week, when we learn more about the Bayview Opera House and Smiley's time there. We'll also meet two performers involved in opera house programs. We recorded this episode at Bayview Opera House/Ruth Williams Memorial Theatre in June 2023.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 06 Jun 2023 - 31min - 535 - Season 5 Home Stretch BONUSTue, 30 May 2023 - 04min
- 534 - Friends of the Urban Forest, Part 2 (S5E17)
In Part 2, Brian and Zeima start off with a discussion of "green gentrification" and how, being a community-based non-profit that plants trees, FUF aims to mitigate that. We hear all about how plantings work, starting with FUF's community engagement team identifying areas delineated by grants and specifically targeting disadvantaged parts of The City. Another criteria is simply areas that look like they could use trees. The team walks block to block, collecting addresses so that FUF can then send postcards to nearby residents. They do a site assessment, species consultations with residents, purchase trees, and choose a spot to host volunteers on planting days. We saw the last parts of this process on May 6 when Jeff attended a planting in Lower Nob Hill. FUF averages 18 plantings a year, putting 20–45 trees per planting into the ground. They planted around 1,120 trees last year, and they maintain 2,000+ trees annually from previous plantings. Maintenance lasts 3–5 years, depending on species. In its 40-plus years, FUF has planted around 65,000 trees, which is about half of all street trees in San Francisco. We discuss the various ways that "trees are essential infrastructure," from providing lower temperatures during extreme heat events to carbon dioxide offsetting and more. This past year, FUF planted 100 more trees than The City lost in total, and that was before this winter's storms, which brought the highest amount of precipitation in at least the last decade (probably longer). Harsh winds took down trees in soil oversaturated from all that rain over a relatively short period of time. This all makes FUF's work that much more important, now perhaps more than ever. Action items Friends of the Urban Forest would like you to take include:
don't take street trees for granted volunteer donate talk to elected officialsPhotography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 23 May 2023 - 23min - 533 - Friends of the Urban Forest, Part 1 (S5E17)
Friends of the Urban Forest exists on the premise that there are "no trees in San Francisco." That of course isn't the literal truth. But we'll get to that. In Part 1 of our episode on FUF, we sit down with Tree Planting Program Manager Zeima Kassahun and Executive Director Brian Wiedenmeier to chat about the non-profit's 42-year history of making San Francisco greener. We learn a little about Zeima and Brian's lives, where they're from, how they ended up moving to The City, and what brought them to FUF. Then Brian and Zeima talk about the history of Friends of the Urban Forest. This conversation includes the fact that, upon colonization of San Francisco, there were very few trees, most of which were located in and around the no-longer-existent Mission Bay. We work our way up through industrialization, urbanization, and the advent of car culture to set the stage for what a group of neighbors and friends were up against when they founded FUF in 1981. Please join us for Part 2 next week, when we'll dive deeper into San Francisco's need for more canopy cover and what Friends of the Urban Forest, with its 40-ish staffers and hundreds of volunteers, is doing to bring that about. We recorded this podcast in April 2023 at the FUF office in the Presidio.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 16 May 2023 - 20min - 532 - The Women's Building, Part 2 (S5E16)
In Part 2, Maria speaks about the many types of events that have taken place at the Women's Building over the years. This includes: poetry readings, quinceañeras, baptisms, weddings, even a Green Day show and other punk shows in the '90s. It's also served as a safe space. Many non-profit community groups have come out of the Women's Building. La Casa de las Madres and the Women's Foundation California are two examples. Then Kristen talks about what's happening at the Women's Building these days. Rooted in leftist/Marxist philosophy since Day 1, they respond to community needs and meet people where they are. This includes so many people, such as women just arriving in the US or San Francisco. Staff at TWB help these folks learn the landscape of The City and give them tools they might need for themselves and their families. There is an array of resource clinics offered at TWB, from help with legal and tax issues to a food program. They help undocumented women, who are the most vulnerable and susceptible to workplace abuse. They offer housing resources and also do advocacy on affordable housing issues. The conversation shifts to TWB's work since the election of 2016 ... this includes their immigration clinic and family reunification program. Last summer, after the US Supreme Court overturned 50 years of precedent and Roe v. Wade, the Women's Building joined the California Coalition for Reproductive Freedom. They've been working on legislation, including 2022's Prop 1, which codified abortion access in the state. On issues around menstrual health, they co-sponsored SB 260 ($20 for menstrual health products), which is in committee now. Kristen and Maria speak to the need to think of issues around reproductive health holistically, whether it's birth control, menstrual health, menopause, abortion, or other topics. We end the podcast with a shout out to Women's Building volunteers as well as a call for more volunteers. Please follow and engage with the Women's Building online and over social media.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 09 May 2023 - 31min - 531 - The Women's Building, Part 1 (S5E16)
This episode is all about the Women's Building, a structure on 18th Street in the Mission that has served so many purposes for more than 50 years. In Part 1, we talk with two members of the Women's Building staff—Maria Arteaga, Women's Building content specialist/social media manager, and Kristen Acosta, their community engagement coordinator. Maria starts us off by sharing her life story. She was raised in Puebla, Mexico, and was there until she was 28. That's when she went for PhD in Barcelona for four years, followed by a stint in Zurich, Switzerland. After Maria's partner moved to San Francisco for work, she visited and loved it here. She arrived in March 2019, soon discovered the Women's Building, and the rest is history. Then we hear from Kristen. She's from El Paso, Texas, originally. She went to college in San Antonio, worked there a little after graduating, then made her way out west with her partner. Kristen volunteered at Glide and St. Anthony's before her arrival at the Women's Building. She first volunteered, became the receptionist after that, and then moved into her current role. Both guests share the history of the Women's Building, which goes back more than 50 years, when a group of activists formed the San Francisco Women's Centers. Soon in need of their own venue to hold events and generally be able to do more, they found their current home on 18th Street. Fun fact—back in the day, Valencia Street's Dovre Club lived in the corner of the building. We go through some of the intentions and accomplishments of the building. From the outset, the aim was to be collective and inclusive. Maria says that the founders were the "original intersectional feminists." The first Black lesbian conference in the US was held there in the 1980s. Over the years, there have been many programs at the Women's Building for the LGBTQ and Latinx community, in addition to poetry readings and other art events. Check back next week for Part 2 with Maria and Kristen all about the many things that go on at the Women's Building these days. We recorded this podcast at The Women's Building in April 2023.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 02 May 2023 - 29min - 530 - Club Fugazi, Part 2 (S5E15)
In Part 2 of our episode on Club Fugazi, we welcome guests we're not totally sure are human.
All kidding aside, Maya Kesselman Cruz and Dominic Cruz are two super-talented cast members of Dear San Francisco. Now a married couple, Maya and Dominic share the stories of their lives in circus arts, which go back to San Francisco's Circus Center. Maya started there when she was 10, roughly 20 years ago. Dominic hung around the place with his older siblings, as he was a little too young to get started.
Their life paths crisscrossed all over North America and Europe over the years. Based in Brussels, Maya and some other performers started a side circus company and invited Dominic to be part of it. Just before the pandemic, the two were getting ready to start a new show before having to scrap those plans to shelter in place.
When Gypsy Snider and Shana Carroll invited them to come back to their hometown and be part of a show paying homage to San Francisco, they couldn't believe their luck. They got married in 2021.
The entire cast of Dear San Francisco are so incredibly talented and passionate, about their work as well as the city they live in. Whether you think you need it or not, the show will energize something in you. Do yourself a favor and go see it.
Special thanks to Kayla Anchell, who did sound design on this episode.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 25 Apr 2023 - 31min - 529 - Club Fugazi, Part 1 (S5E15)
When SF natives Gypsy Snider and Shana Carroll hatched their idea for a show in the space once occupied by Beach Blanket Babylon, they set out to pay homage to their hometown. The result was Dear San Francisco, a high-flying, loop-jumping, juggling, acrobatic love letter to The City. In Part 1 of our episode on Club Fugazi, where Dear San Francisco takes place seven times every week, we sit down with Co-producer and Executive Director David Dower. David shares the history of the space, going all the way back to its founding in 1914, up through its time as a dance hall and lecture hall, to its setting for Thelonious Monk's Alone in San Francisco (recorded there), and in 1974, its service as a home for Beach Blanket Babylon. Then David shares Gypsy and Shana's backgrounds in circus arts, which trace back to San Francisco's very own Pickle Family Circus. From there, we go to Montreal and Cirque du Soleil, out of which the 7 Fingers Creative Collective was born. Just before the pandemic, Beach Blanket Babylon wrapped up their 45-year run at Club Fugazi. When Gypsy and Shana heard about the now quiet and dark hall loved by so many all around the world, the idea for Dear San Francisco was born. Forget what you might think when you hear the word "circus." There are no rings or unicycling bears here. Instead, acrobats and trapeze artists literally hurl themselves through the air while also sharing personal stories and their deep, deep love for San Francisco. Go. See. This. Show. And check back next week, when we meet two current cast members of Dear San Francisco—Maya Kesselman Cruz and Dominic Cruz. Part 2 drops next Tuesday. We recorded this episode at Club Fugazi in North Beach in April 2023.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 18 Apr 2023 - 23min - 528 - Mission Bowling Club, Part 2 (S5E14)
In Part 2, we begin with the decision to open MBC. Molly had known her friend Sommer Peterson since high school, and Sommer had a long history in her family with bowling. The idea was hatched in 2010, and on Jan. 1, 2011, the two signed their lease. Molly acknowledges help they got from joints like Albany Bowl and Serra Bowl and we pay homage to Sea Bowl in Pacifica, which had announced its closing the day before we recorded. They had looked at a couple other spots around The City before settling in the Mission. The location was formerly Centennial Electrical Distribution, and it needed lots of work right off the bat to get it ready to be a bowling alley. Molly is quick to acknowledge that the vision was there from the beginning, mostly from Sommer. From the outset, they paid special attention to service and detail, wanting people to feel that they didn't necessarily have to bowl to have a good time at MBC. The kitchen was another new aspect of running a business for Molly, and they got Anthony Myint of Mission Chinese Food as a food partner early on. They opened their doors in March 2012, 14 months after signing the lease. The conversation then touches on folks who've worked at MBC then gone on to open places of their own. The partial list includes: Victory Hall and Parlor, Casements (S3E47), Brass Tacks, North Light in Oakland, and Mothership. Then we talk about the pandemic. Molly's background in public health helped, and they used time when they had to close to the public to clean and paint. Because MBC needs all four elements—food, drink, bowling, and events—to operate, they didn't fully reopen until March 2021. Molly credits her crew, who she says were great through it all. We end this episode with a tease of something we're cooking up for late summer, and then Molly's thoughts on what a rebirth of San Francisco could look like.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 11 Apr 2023 - 33min - 527 - Mission Bowling Club, Part 1 (S5E14)
There's an awesome little six-lane bowling alley tucked into the heart of the Mission. In this episode, we get to know Molly Bradshaw, owner of Mission Bowling Club. Molly traces her steps from coastal Mendocino to Citrus Heights when she was in second grade. She spent the rest of her youth in the Sacramento area, eventually going to punk shows in Sacto and at Gilman in Berkeley. Molly's grandparents came to California in the Great Migration to work in Richmond. Some of her ancestors lived in Berkeley, some in East Oakland, and Molly would spend summers in the East Bay. After high school, she wanted to go to college and be independent. She lived in what was then known as Squaw Valley (now Palisades Tahoe) for a summer, went to grad school from 1997 to 1999 in Seattle, then moved back to the Bay and started bartending. Around 2007/2008, Molly opened Mini Bar with some friends. In Part 1, she speaks fondly of Divisadero and its history. She and her fellow owners of Mini Bar did lots of community outreach before opening, and we think the fact that the bar continues to be a popular meeting spot 15 years later speaks to those efforts. Please join us for Part 2, when Molly will share the story of opening a bowling alley a little more than 10 years ago. That drops next Tuesday. We recorded this episode at Mission Bowling Club in March 2023.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 04 Apr 2023 - 31min - 526 - (rerun) Dragonspunk and the Bayview Farmer's Market
We're rerunning this episode we did with Isaiah and Dani from Dragonspunk about a year ago for a good reason. These two are spearheading an effort to bring a farmer's market to the new Southeast Community Center in the Bayview.
To learn more or get involved, please go to the Dragonspunk site. And enjoy getting to know Dani and Isaiah!
Tue, 28 Mar 2023 - 27min - 525 - 826 Valencia, Part 2 (S5E13)
In Part 2, Kavitha and Byron talk about the nonprofit’s relationship with and support of students from San Francisco public schools. We hear all about really cool projects that the kids engage in, from publishing books to producing podcasts.
Then we talk about the expansion that 826 Valencia has undergone over the years. In San Francisco, they’ve opened two new nonprofit learning centers that each have their own uniquely themed stores up front. And they’ve gone national, with spots in nearly 10 different cities around the US.
We end with some thoughts about the future of 826 Valencia.
They’ll be at Spark Social every Sunday next month starting on April 9.
And we all know the address of their Mission District location. But these are the addresses for their digs in the Tenderloin and Mission Bay:
180 Golden Gate Avenue at Leavenworth 1310 Fourth Street at China BasinPhotography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 21 Mar 2023 - 33min - 524 - 826 Valencia, Part 1 (S5E13)
We've been wanting to do this episode for years.
826 Valencia is a non-profit whose aim is to help young people write creatively. They’ve operated out of the space at the address in their name since the early 2000s. For Part 1, we sat down with 826’s Director of Volunteer Engagement Kavitha Lotun and Pirate Supply Store Manager Byron Weiss to discuss their respective stories of moving to San Francisco and the origins and mission of 826 Valencia.
Check back next week for Part 2 of our talk with Kavitha and Byron.
We recorded this podcast at 826 Valencia in March 2023.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 14 Mar 2023 - 32min - 523 - Manilatown Heritage Foundation, Part 2 (S5E12)
This story, as Caroline Cabading so elegantly frames it, is about the longevity of struggle.
Part 2 picks up with Caroline sharing the story of her grandfather moving her family out of Manilatown and into the Fillmore, where she grew up two generations later. To her, the neighborhood was family. This was post-"urban renewal," but she still found plenty of folks with makeshift music studios in places like garages. She credits the neighborhood with her own lifetime in music.
Then we do a deep dive into the history of the International Hotel. It was an SRO (single-room occupancy) hotel on Kearny at Jackson that was part of a de facto network of such spots running from wine country to the Central Valley. Seasonal, migrant workers (mostly immigrants) stayed in these SROs throughout the year. And at the I-Hotel, many FIlipinos eventually settled and made it their permanent home.
But as so often happens, especially around here, greedy developers wanted to raze the building to make way for ... a parking lot. After years of organizing and fighting the effort to displace them, scores of people were evicted in the middle of the night on August 4, 1977.
The group that tenants had formed to fight eviction stayed tight, gathering every August at Kearny and Jackson to commemorate. Nearly 20 years later, as an opportunity to rebuild on the site became more and more realistic, the group morphed into the Manilatown Heritage Foundation.
In 2005, the new building opened. Today, on the ground floor, there's a living museum dedicated to Manilatown and I-Hotel history. Above that is housing for low-income seniors. And this is where that longevity Caroline emphasizes comes into play.
We end the podcast with Caroline's telling us what all goes on in the space at 868 Kearny. In addition to the museum, she says that it's a space to learn Filipino art, music, and culture. The foundation invites the public to visit and share in the rich history that is Manilatown, San Francisco.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Sound design by Kayla Anchell
Tue, 07 Mar 2023 - 26min - 522 - Manilatown Heritage Foundation, Part 1 (S5E12)
Nearly 100 years ago, the stretch of Kearny Street from Jackson south all the way down to Market was filled with Filipino shops, restaurants, and SRO hotels. Perhaps most notably, the International Hotel (I-Hotel) was located at the intersection of Kearny and Jackson. Today, that space is occupied by a residence for older folks, some of whom have connections to the last of the mostly immigrant population who were evicted in the middle of the night from their homes at the I-Hotel in 1977. It's also home to the Manilatown Heritage Foundation. In Part 1 of our podcast, our guest, foundation Executive Director Caroline Julia Cabading, guides us through her own fourth-generation Filipina history in San Francisco. Caroline lays out the history of U.S. imperialism and capitalism that sought cheap Asian labor and therefore brought Filipinos, mostly men, to this country for migrant work in Northern California. As they aged, those young men later settled in the I-Hotel, forming a community and chosen families until they were unjustly thrust from their homes by a real estate developer (sound familiar?). Check back next week for Part 2 and more of our chat with Caroline Cabading. We recorded this episode at the Manilatown Heritage Foundation in February 2023.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Sound design by Kayla Anchell
Tue, 28 Feb 2023 - 25min - 521 - Good Vibrations/Antique Vibrator Museum BONUS! (S5E11)
Welcome to this bonus episode! There was just way, way too much good stuff we cut for time out of Parts 1 and 2 to just let lie on the cutting room floor.
We begin with Jeff's suggestion about what Good Vibrations' mission is and Carol Queen's expounding on that. Carol discusses what Good Vibes stands for and against in this world. We chat about how the stores welcome folks of all sexual and gender expressions. And we end with topics like Masturbation Month (May) and how Carol is, indeed, in the Masturbation Hall of Fame.
Thu, 23 Feb 2023 - 15min - 520 - Good Vibrations and the Antique Vibrator Museum, Part 2 (S5E11)
"San Francisco is miraculous," according to Good Vibrations staff sexologist Carol Queen. We couldn't have said it better ourselves.
This episode picks up where Part 1 left off, with our chat with Carol. We cover topics like the founding of Good Vibes and its creator, Joani Blank. Blank, who appeared on several enemies lists for her feminism and activism (hello, good trouble), and started the tiny sex-toy shop in the Mission as a direct response to women learning more about their own sexuality and feeling more comfortable in their bodies. The business grew and grew and now has shops on both coasts.
The rest of Part 2 really has too many topics to cover here (keeping in mind your limited time), so please have a listen and enjoy!
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 21 Feb 2023 - 32min - 519 - Good Vibrations/Antique Vibrator Museum, Part 1 (S5E11)
Happy Valentine's Day!
This episode is all about San Francisco’s Good Vibrations because, well, duh. It’s also about Good Vibes’ Antique Vibrator Museum.
To guide us, we meet Carol Queen. Carol is the staff sexologist, a title she earned with her PhD in the subject. Carol grew up in small-town Oregon, just south of Eugene. She says she was interested in sex as long as she can remember, despite what those in her community might have thought about that.
Childhood and early adult visits she made to the “big city” of Eugene helped her find community and solidify her outsider, activist status. Eventually, she went to college there, although she had graduated high school early and arrived in Eugene at 16 years, far too young to go to bars.
Despite that prohibition, Carol found her people, though it wasn’t always easy. She considered herself queer, but folks in LGBTQ circles cast her out, claiming her bisexuality meant she didn’t belong. It was another hurdle to work hard to overcome.
Eventually, she met likeminded folks who slowly branched out into different areas of study. But they all had one thing in common—a desire, through whatever avenues, to change minds and laws and bring about more acceptance and equality for their fellow LGBTQ folks. She credits the backlash to Anita Bryant as well as eventual mainstream acceptance of AIDS as a real threat to everyone with helping her and her friends win some early victories.
Carol and I do a short sidebar on some of the more recent efforts by the right in this country to ban books and legislate language, including so-called “don’t say gay” laws in places like Florida.
We return to the conversation to hear that enrolling at Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality is what brought Carol to San Francisco. And we end Part 1 with Carol's impressions of San Francisco, first upon visiting, and then later, when she went to IASHS, moving here.
We recorded this episode at the Good Vibrations/Vibrator Museum on Polk Street in January 2023.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 14 Feb 2023 - 31min - 518 - Gumbo Social, Part 2 (S5E10)
In Part 2, we continue our talk with Dontaye. He dives into his own history of cooking and working in restaurants. It starts with a program he got into in high school that had him serving meals to non-English speakers in Burlingame and goes up through his time doing an externship at Delfina. Delfina happened while Dontaye went to City College, but the story of how he got connected is more direct than that. We talk in some depth about Delfina, including a nurturing environment that its owners, Craig and Annie Stoll, have created. Dontaye also was able to go to France as part of his program at City College, which happened during his externship at Delfina. He ended up being on the team that opened the first Pizzeria Delfina. Then we really dive into gumbo. Dontaye remembers the dish being made regularly at his house, and he describes lively scenes involving his grandmother as the conductor, working at a cast iron skillet slowly developing the roux. Many years later, Gumbo Social got its start when Dontaye wanted to do something food-centered to bring people together. He wanted something edgy and controversial but also appetizing. He started making gumbo for friends with shellfish allergies, for example, which had him tweaking the recipes a little depending on who would be eating it. Because the gumbo was being served at private gatherings with friends and loved ones, the social component was baked in. He was falling in love with it all. With pop-up days starting in the morning, they needed a breakfast item—the breakfast sandwich was born. Originally, it was meant to feed the farmers at the markets, but it was so popular that they added it to the menu. He never envisioned a restaurant. But he started to crunch the numbers for the pop-up, and around that time, an opportunity presented itself. It's pretty much as simple as that. Gumbo Social will open its doors on Third Street this spring. Follow them on social media or check back with us for an exact date.
Tue, 07 Feb 2023 - 28min - 517 - Gumbo Social, Part 1 (S5E10)
Dontaye Ball has brought gumbo to San Francisco. Now, he's doing everything he can to make it this country's national dish. In this episode, we meet Dontaye. Born and raised in The City, Dontaye has lived with gumbo just about his entire life. Often served at big family meals, he remembers fondly that while gumbo might've been the center of the culinary realm, it was always more about being with family, friends, and those he loved. Started as a pop-up a few years back, in late-2022, Dontaye was able to secure a brick-and-mortar spot on Third Street near the neighborhood where he grew up. Gumbo Social is set to open this spring, and we can't wait. In Part 1, Dontaye talks about the importance of gumbo and what it means to him. He tells us all about the crew he's assembled to assist him on this mission, including his two sons. Until the spot on Third opens its doors, find Gumbo Social at the Sunset Mercantile market every Sunday. Tell 'em we sent ya! Check back next week for Part 2 and more from Dontaye Ball. Special thanks to Kayla Anchell, who did sound design for this episode. We recorded this episode at the future Gumbo Social on Third Street in the Bayview in December 2022.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 31 Jan 2023 - 26min - 516 - Mother Bar, Part 2 (S5E9)
We start Part 2 talking, briefly, about the 2016 election. Then we move on to COVID and how the pandemic affected Thee Parkside. In a word, it was devastating, but Malia and her crew rose to the challenge. They had opened La Lucha coffee from the front window of the joint in 2015, and were able to keep that going. Because of Parkside's kitchen, they were considered essential and so were able to be open when other bars weren't. But, as Malia points out, it was a "constant state of pivoting." It wasn't only the always-changing federal, state, and local regulations around COVID, but she and crew trying out different things until they got to what worked. Even though they made it, COVID got Malia thinking about community. Her friend, photographer Chloe Sherman, had been posting photos of queer San Francisco through the years. The photography revealed for Malia what had been lost, not in the pandemic, but through gentrification over decades. This inspired her to start doing research on the history of lesbian bars in The City. At this point, Malia dives into some of that history, including the 40-some-odd lesbian bars that existed in San Francisco between World War II and the 1990s. She touches on the bigotry and discrimination of the lesbian community over the decades and what it meant to overcome that and operate a business, even here in The City. Seeing a void, Malia sought to re-establish a space in San Francisco for womxn and femme-centered queers. With a word in to her realtor, incredibly, the spot on 16th Street in the Mission that used to be Esta Noche was available. Signs? Signs. Opened in 1979 by gay Latinx men who were tired of going to predominantly white bars in the Castro, Esta Noche thrived for 35 years until 2014, when a new liquor licensing fee was imposed and they were unable to raise enough money to cover it. Bond bar opened soon after and ran until its owner sold to Malia earlier this month. Everything is set for Mother to open its doors on Thursday, Feb. 2. Malia speaks to the fears of doing what she's doing. Not one to seek the spotlight, she feels an intense pressure to get this right, to defy what seem like odds in these times. We applaud her efforts and look forward to seeing Mother thrive for many, many years.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather and Jeff Hunt
Tue, 24 Jan 2023 - 28min - 515 - Mother Bar, Part 1 (S5E9)
San Francisco is about to get its first new LGBTQ bar in a long, long time, y'all.
In this episode, we'll meet Malia Spanyol. Currently, Malia owns Thee Parkside. She was born in Honolulu and went to ASU in Tempe, Arizona. But she hated it and came to San Francisco in 1989 just before the big earthquake that year.
Malia was already out and was here looking for her people. She worked, went to school at SF State, made friends, and explored the town on her motorcycle. It was a "great time to be gay in SF," the early 1990s.
She was always going to music shows, art shows, poetry readings, and parties, mostly in the Mission. "Valencia Street was dirty" then, Malia says. She worked in a dildo factory and lived in Hayes Valley. On her way to work, she and friends would drive down Valencia in a t-top, out and proud as fuck.
At her job, Malia learned bookkeeping and helped friends and small businesses do taxes. She seized an opportunity to become a business owner herself when she bought Pop's Bar with friends in 2003. Lil Tuffy, who some of you might know from this podcast and his show posters, came in and became the manager at the bar.
Malia ran Pop's for 10 years, from 2003 to 2013. In 2007, she found out about an opportunity at Thee Parkside, a spot with more to offer—food, a stage, an outside area. And so she capitalized. As Malia notes, the area around Thee Parkside was very different then—more blue collar.
She learned Muay Thai around 2007 and fell in love with the sport. Her coach asked her to open a new gym and she did.
Check back next week to hear all about Malia's newest adventure—opening Mother, the newest queer and femme-centered bar in The City.
We recorded this episode at Thee Parkside in Potrero Hill in November 2022.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 17 Jan 2023 - 25min - 514 - Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, Part 2 (S5E8)
In Part 2, we pick up our conversation with Cody about Rainbow's bulk section. There's even talk of "The Bulk Section at Rainbow" as a spinoff podcast. Then we move on to the cheese department. Gordon Edgar is a name you should know if you even remotely tolerate cheese. With Gordon at the helm, Rainbow has won many, many awards for its cheese department. If you're anything like me, you know exactly why this is true. The rest of the podcast includes our talk about how Cody worked at a health food store in Sacramento before moving to San Francisco in 2006. In 2007, he started at Rainbow in the package department. We go over what it takes for Rainbow employees to become worker/owners as well as the decision-making process at the 200-ish-employee store. As with Other Avenues and Arizmendi, Rainbow offers its worker/owners flexible time-off and vacations and generally a very positive work/life balance. Cody speaks to the idea of Rainbow expanding to other towns, but says the feeling is that communities should create the thing they need. To that end, Rainbow has been known to seed-fund new co-ops. We end with perhaps my favorite Cody quote, one that I believe sums up our series on co-ops in San Francisco: "Collective effort makes change."
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 10 Jan 2023 - 36min - 513 - Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, Part 1 (S5E8)
In this episode, we kick off the new year by resuming our series on San Francisco co-ops. This one is all about Rainbow Grocery Cooperative. To guide us, we'll meet Cody Frost, a marketing and creative strategist at Rainbow for the last three-and-a-half years. Cody has been a worker/owner at Rainbow for almost 16 years. He grew up in Carmichael, California, just outside of Sacramento, in the 1980s and '90s. He pursued art in his early twenties and had friends in Sacto, where he moved around 2004/2005. Then he heard about an effort to make a new art space in The City in 2005 and moved here in 2006. That space turned out to be the Secret Alley, a place near and dear to our hearts. Cody first got a job at Bi-Rite, where he worked for a year before landing the gig at Rainbow. At this point in the recording, we dive more deeply into Rainbow history. It starts with a faith-based group that used food for community support and political activism in 1970s, the People's Warehouse. Many co-ops, including some that are still around today, were created out of that group. Rainbow's original location, which first opened its doors in 1975, was on 16th Street between Guerrero and Valencia in the Mission. Back then, groceries and a general store were at separate addresses. They moved in the '80s to 15th and Mission and combined stores. Then, outgrowing that space, Rainbow found its current location in 1995 and opened the next year following renovations. We end Part 1 talking about the co-op's incredible bulk-food section. We recorded this episode at Rainbow Grocery Cooperative in November 2022.
Photography by Jeff Hunt and Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 03 Jan 2023 - 30min - 512 - Arizmendi Bakery, a Worker-Owned Cooperative, Part 2 (S5E7)
In Part 2 of our episode with Arizmendi Bakery, we hear from baker/owners Lizzy Harvey and Aeri Swendson. Lizzy shares her story of being born and raised in San Francisco, leaving for college and coming back, and what, besides baking, she's up to these days (namely, circus and aerial arts). After her return to The City, she was teaching here and got a grant to teach English for one year in Córdoba, Argentina, where she ended up cooking a lot, especially chocolate. Upon her return to the States, she looked for a job to help her pursue her new love. The collective/cooperative aspect of Arizmendi was a bonus. She was a candidate pre-pandemic, and ended up being voted in in March 2020. Timing, y'all. Aeri grew up outside of Seattle and moved to SF for college (SF State) in 2003. She lived in the Sunset during college and became a customer at Arizmendi. Aeri worked at Green Apple on Clement and taught gymnastics after graduation before getting the job at Arizmendi 11 years ago. She had baked virtually all her life and knew a little about co-ops before coming on. She speaks to, among other things, the incredible life/work balance that a job at Arizmendi allows its baker/owners.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 13 Dec 2022 - 22min - 511 - Arizmendi Bakery, a Worker-Owned Cooperative, Part 1 (S5E7)
Several of the worker/owners at Arizmendi Bakery on Ninth Avenue have been there since the place opened 22 years ago. Around half of them have worked there for two decades. Continuing our series on San Francisco co-ops, this time we travel to the Inner Sunset and this special place that serves up so many delicious treats. Whether it's a morning pastry, an evening vegetarian pizza, or an delicious cookie for dessert, Arizmendi has got you covered. In Part 1, Sue Lopez speaks to her own history as well as how the original spot in the East Bay, Berkeley's Cheese Board Collective, spawned what today is a Bay Area group of cooperative bakeries. The conversation covers such topics as: what it meant for a co-op to expand to more than one location; the differences among Arizmendi/Cheese Board locations; how the Ninth Avenue location brings about new menu items; the cooperative movement of the late-1960s/early 1970s; the meaning of the name "Arizmendi"; opening the spot on Ninth Avenue, which was the third in the collective group; and the Inner Sunset community. Check back next week to hear the stories of a couple other baker/owners of Arizmendi. If you missed it, please go back and check out our episode with Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative. Resources mentioned in the podcast: NOBAWC This episode was recorded at Arizmendi Bakery on Ninth Avenue in the inner Sunset in November 2022.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 06 Dec 2022 - 31min - 510 - Giving Tuesday w/Bitch Talk Podcast! (S5E6)
In this special episode, Jeff and Erin (Bitch Talk Podcast) talk about what it means (and costs) to run our respective shows, with a special shout-out to BFF. Then we plug all the wonderful non-profits we're supporting this year.
We want YOU to support us and all of them because none of us can do any of this without each other. Anything you can give is deeply appreciated.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 29 Nov 2022 - 12min - 509 - Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative, Part 2 (S5E5)
In Part 2 of our episode on Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative, the conversation starts with food, food systems, and how humans can better steward the land and sea in our daily and collective lives. Celia talks about how, with co-ops, money generally stays in the community. After a quick aside for Jeff's lasagna story, we discuss food preservation and distribution, the myth of food scarcity, and the idea of growing food in urban centers. Then Celia tells us about some other new co-ops opening in the Bay Area before sharing what it was like for her and Other Avenues during thepandemic. She says that the biggest challenge was the keeping up with and enforcing the ever-changing rules. Resources La Via Campesina Regenerative Agriculture
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 22 Nov 2022 - 24min - 508 - Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative, Part 1 (S5E5)
Celia LoBuono Gonzalez joins us on the show this episode to share her story and that of Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative. Part 1 starts off with Celia sharing the story of her life up to the point of getting a job at Other Avenues. From there, we pivot to the colorful and, we think, important story of food in San Francisco and the Bay Area starting in the 1960s.
From a collection of neighborhood clubs called the Food Conspiracy, whose motto was, "If you can't walk to Food Conspiracy, it's time for a new Food Conspiracy," to the People's Food System, which included Other Avenues, Rainbow Grocery, Veritable Vegetable, and other co-ops that don't exist anymore, there's proof all over today that cooperative models work. We like the sound of that, in fact, compared to competitive businesses.
Other Avenues' doors opened in 1974. By 1987, a hybrid system of worker and community management was adopted. And the worker-owned model that exists today started back in 1999.
Check back next week for Part 2 and more with Celia LoBuono Gonzalez.
Resources US Federation of Worker Coops
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 15 Nov 2022 - 25min - 507 - Alemany Farm, Part 2 (S5E4)
There's wine grapes being grown in San Francisco. In Part 2, Christopher tells us all about the 280 Project, a viticulture apprenticeship and wine school. He partnered with a winemaker from Napa, a professor at UC Davis, and others back at home to bring BIPOC, LGBTQIA, and people who feel marginalized and want to learn anything at all about wine together to do just that. The 280 Project is a very hands-on adventure, with apprentices taking frequent field trips, learning how grapes are grown from the ground-up. They also cover winemaking as well as the financial side of things. Then we take a walk through Alemany Farm, starting with their outdoor kitchen. Christopher talks about the importance of location for the farm and kitchen, situated as it is between a gentrifying and affluent neighborhood and a housing project. To the south and east, it's a virtual food desert, with corner stores and chain fast-food most abundant. Up the hill in Bernal Heights, it's quite a different story. We chat about the idea of using parts of Golden Gate Park to cultivate the land and grow food for the people. It's what some call "food parks," and it's not as radical an idea as you might think. Another project Christopher is working on is a Black indigenous seed bank, which he tells us about. Besides providing seeds, it would be a repository of people and their food stories and histories. Count us on board for that. Then our tour takes us up to the vines, appropriately. We end our little journey at the greenhouse. We want to thank Christopher for his time talking with us and showing us around. Shout out to Isaiah Powell of Dragonspunk GRO for introducing us to Christopher and the 280 Project.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 08 Nov 2022 - 28min - 506 - Alemany Farm, Part 1 (S5E4)
Christopher Renfro moved to San Francisco 16 years ago and ran into a lot of what some might call luck.
In this episode, we talk about Christopher's work with Alemany Farm. The largest agricultural site in The City, volunteers grow, harvest, and distribute vegetables and fruit from the 3.5-acre plot just below Bernal Hill. He also tells us about the work he and Haley Garabato began with the Feed the People Collective, which operates out of Alemany Farm and feeds unhoused folks around town.
Check back next week for Part 2, when we'll learn all about Christopher's work with the 280 Project. We'll also take a walk through Alemany Farm.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 01 Nov 2022 - 24min - 505 - San Francisco Cemeteries, Part 4 (S5E3)
In Part 4, we meet Rob Thompson, federal preservation officer at the Presidio Trust. Rob shares the history of San Francisco's pet cemetery, which dates back to 1952.
The pet cemetery sits in a part of the Presidio known as Cavalry Bowl, which for a century was dedicated to animal management when the Presidio was home to the U.S. Army. The cemetery was established by Army families during that time, until they left in the 1990s. Since then, the only burials there are what we decided to call "illicit" burials.
We end the episode with a walk-through, where we encounter the colorful names and epitaphs of a wide variety of around 420 animals.
This episode concludes our series on San Francisco cemeteries. Thank you for listening.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 31 Oct 2023 - 33min - 504 - San Francisco Cemeteries, Part 3 (S5E3)
In Part 3, Courtney tells us all about Alma deBretteville Spreckels, the San Francisco sugar baroness who built the Legion of Honor at Lincoln Park, the cemetery-turned-golf course in the northwest corner of The City. From there, we recount the history of the "Big Four" cemeteries, which were located in and around the intersection of Geary and Masonic.
Then we hand things over to Kathy McCall, director at the Presidio's San Francisco National Cemetery, one of two graveyards that remain in San Francisco today. Among notable burials there:
38 Medal of Honor recipients 450 Buffalo Soldiers Maj. Dana Crissy Lieut. John David Miley Pauline Cushman Fryer Phillip Burton Maj. Gen. Robert Tryon Frederick Maj. Gen. Frederick FunstonCheck back next week for Part 4, the final podcast in this series. It will be all about the rich history of the pet cemetery, also located in the Presidio.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 31 Oct 2023 - 36min - 503 - San Francisco Cemeteries, Part 2 (S5E3)
In Part 2 of our four-part series, we first hear from Courtney Minick of Here Lies a Story about the parking lot just outside of Mission Dolores.
Then we meet Andy Galvan, the Mission's curator. He tells us all about his work and his Ohlone/Bay Miwok ancestral connection to the place, including the graveyard. We end this episode with a walking tour of the graveyard, which Andy guided us on. Among others, we encountered the graves of:
Francisco Sánchez Charles Cora and Belle Ryan Bernals Tanforans De Haros Arguellos Mary Church EllisWe wanted to let you know that, tomorrow afternoon (Oct. 12) at 12:30, there will be an online discussion of the history of City Cemetery at Lincoln Park and its recent city landmark designation. Register here.
Also, on the evenings of Oct. 28 and 29 and again on Nov. 4 and 5, Andy will lead flashlight tours of the Mission Cemetery.
Check back next week to hear the history of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco's Big Four cemeteries, and the National Cemetery in the Presidio, which still exists.
Thu, 26 Oct 2023 - 31min - 502 - San Francisco Cemeteries, Part 1 (S5E3)
San Francisco's cemetery history is rich, to say the least. It goes something like this:
Mission Dolores cemetery Yerba Buena cemetery San Francisco National Cemetery (in the Presidio) City Cemetery/Golden Gate Cemetery The Big 4—Calvary, Odd Fellows (including the Columbarium), Masonic, Laurel HillIn Part 1 of the four-part series we're doing on San Francisco Cemeteries, we'll meet Courtney Minick of Here Lies a Story. Courtney will serve as our guide through this history. Along the way, we'll meet folks who work with the cemeteries that are left over here in The City—the one at Mission Dolores and San Francisco National Cemetery. We'll take walking tours of the Mission and the pet cemetery in the Presidio. Interestingly, as we were putting these episodes together, the Board of Supervisors' Land Use Committee voted unanimously in favor of granting City Cemetery landmark status. Now the matter goes before the full board sometime this month. The timing! Look for the remaining episodes in this series over the next several weeks.
Tue, 24 Oct 2023 - 27min - 501 - Musée Mécanique, Part 2 (S5E2)
Funny thing: Do a podcast like ours long enough, and the most random and randomly awesome tidbits will pop in and make the cut. Last episode, it was the Doc Ellis "LSD" perfect game that MLB doesn't like to talk about. In Part 2 of this episode, it's New Orleans and P.T. Barnum. Musée Mécanique owner Dan Zelinsky shares the story of how his dad, Ed, bought the collection of the original San Francisco owner, George Whitney, and ran the Cliff House location until around 2002. Ed Zelinsky found the spot at Pier 45 just before he passed away, in 2004. Whitney inherited a collection that showman P.T. Barnum brought to San Francisco from New Orleans. Much of it lived at Playland at the Beach before moving to the Cliff House, where it remained until around the turn of the century. Condemned building, fires, and pandemics later, Musée Mécanique thrives today at Pier 45 in Fisherman's Wharf. Part 2 concludes the history of the place and our episode all about it. Hear more from Dan as well as visitors Brian and Michael, from New Jersey and New York state, respectively. Join us next week as we kick off a series on San Francisco cemeteries!
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 27 Sep 2022 - 17min - 500 - Musée Mécanique, Part 1 (S5E2)
It can get really loud inside Musée Méchanique. Walk in the place and you're immediately transformed, in both time and space, to another world, another era. The magic almost slaps you in the face, hitting all five senses at the same time. And you can't help but feel the nostalgia coursing through your veins. In Part 1 of this episode, meet the arcade's roller-skating owner, Dan Zelinsky. Dan traces the history of the place back to his dad, Ed Zelinsky. Ed started his penny-arcade machine collection in 1933, but the story is complicated, filled with twists and turns that involve New Orleans and P.T. Barnum. We talk with a couple of tourist visitors to Musée Méchanique who found the place thanks to some cameos in The Princess Diaries. Then Dan shares the story of how he acquired the infamous "Laffing Sal."
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 20 Sep 2022 - 16min - 499 - McCovey Cove, Part 2 (S5E1)
Bear with us a moment. We're gonna go stats nerd on you. As of the publication of this episode, the San Francisco Giants have played a total of 1,892 games at the stadium known these days as Oracle Park. Each of those games sees a minimum of 27 at-bats for Giants players. That leaves us with at least 51,057 chances for a hitter to send a home run ball into the waters of McCovey Cove. And it's happened a mere 97 times. That's something like a 0.19 percent chance that any batter will accomplish the feat. And on the very day this July when we boarded the Canoecycle, lo and behold, we got a splash hit. Hear all about it from the human in a kayak who got that Lamont Wade, Jr.'s, home run ball and more, as we present the second part of our podcast on McCovey Cove.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 13 Sep 2022 - 18min - 498 - McCovey Cove, Part 1 (S5E1)
Here we go. Our first episode of Season 5 was recorded out on the water. McCovey Cove is familiar to Giants fans, whether you've been in the water or not. It's that tiny waterway nestled between the ballpark (PacBell Park, SBC Park, AT&T Park, Oracle Park ...) and the strip of human-engineered land across the way. Baseball players sometimes hit baseballs out of the ballpark and into the water. Balls can land in the cove "on the fly" (directly from the air) or on a bounce. When this happens, much like a group of koi racing for crumbs, humans in kayaks paddle and vie for the floating sports balls. It's a thing. A whole thing. In this podcast, we first meet our captain on the water that day, Jay Broemmel. Jay introduces us to McCovey Cove Dave, perhaps the most famous of those vying for souvenirs six months a year. In Part 2 next week, we'll meet some more people out in kayaks on the cove that day. And there will be a surprise ... something that doesn't happen at just every Giants home game. Thanks for listening.
Podcast transcript here. We recorded this podcast in McCovey Cove in July 2022.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 06 Sep 2022 - 18min - 497 - Welcome to Season 5! (S5E0)
Folks, we made it.
Welcome to the fifth season of Storied: San Francisco. For five years, we've highlighted humans—artists, doctors, teachers, small business owners—who make this place what it is. Now we turn our attention to places around The City that do exactly the same—help create the mystique around this complicated, beautiful, wondrous place we all call home.
In this prequel episode of sorts, Jeff will reminds everyone why we do this crazy show in the first place. He'll talk about the pivot from people to places, the updates we've made to our website, and let everyone in on why we chose to include an acknowlegement of the first humans in this area in every episode, including this one.
Check back next week when we present Episode 1: McCovey Cove.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 30 Aug 2022 - 08min - 496 - S2E15, Part 2: Sarah Davis on Building a New Houseboat and a Community
The thing about houseboats is ... they sometimes sink. In Part 1, Sarah told us how the houseboat she and her brother grew up on with their dad sunk in Mission Creek. In this podcast, Sarah tells the story of how the three of them built a new houseboat, the one Sarah lives in today with her daughter down near the ballpark. She goes to describe efforts to get more active spaces built in the surrounding neighborhoods, areas that seemingly grow and change overnight.
In case you missed Part 1, please go back and listen.
We recorded this podcast on Sarah's houseboat in Mission Creek in February 2019.
Film photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Thu, 14 Mar 2019 - 21min - 495 - S2E15, Part 1: Sarah Davis's Childhood on a San Francisco Houseboat
Sarah Davis grew up unlike most of us. After her parents split up when she was young, her dad eventually decided to live in a houseboat down on Mission Creek. He brought Sarah and her brother with him part-time.
In this podcast, Sarah describes growing up on that houseboat (she still lives in a houseboat, albeit a different one, on the creek today). She talks about some of the colorful characters who were her neighbors, and ends this episode on her parents, whose lives involved the art and music scenes of San Francisco in the '70s, '80s, and on.
Join us again Thursday, when Sarah will talk about building the houseboat she currently lives in and shares details on the city's houseboat community today.
We recorded this podcast on Sarah's Mission Creek houseboat in February 2019.
Film photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 12 Mar 2019 - 26min - 494 - Special: Eden Stein of Secession Art and Design
Like many businesses, Secession Art and Design had to pivot in 2020. In this special episode between seasons, Secession's founder, Eden Stein, shares stories of opening a gallery in the Mission/Bernal 15 years ago. Starting Aug. 4 and running through Aug. 7, Secession will celebrate 15 years of business with a four-day pop-up up the hill on Cortland. Details about the event can be found below and on Secession's site. Eden grew up in Santa Rosa and moved to The City in 1999. In her hometown, she did a zine for many years called 7th Street. Her work on the zine helped her travel the country and to Europe. When she moved to San Francisco, she ended up on Mission Street across from El Rio. She went to SF State and worked at The Drug Store, which back in the day was a vintage store. Eden rented a booth there and sold vintage jewelry. It was her first inspiration to working with artists as a business. During this time, Eden became a teacher at a pre-school in The City. She got close with some of the parents, even nannying a little bit. One of the parents owned an architecture firm on Mission Street. He offered that space for Eden to do holiday art pop-ups. She was also selling jewelry, both vintage and some she made herself, at street fairs around town. These were the seeds of what would later become Secession. The original location opened in 2007. Then, in 2014, Eden lost her lease and miraculously managed to find a new spot a little further north on Mission. There's a fun overlap with Season 4 guest of the show Emmy Kaplan in the story of Secession's move. Earlier this year, after nearly two years of moving the gallery and events online, Eden gave up on her shift to things like 20-minute goat hugs in the gallery. The pandemic proved that her family's spot a few blocks from the gallery was too small, and an opportunity for them to move back to her hometown opened up. But that wasn't the way she wanted Secession to go out. As mentioned earlier, from August 4 through 7 on Cortland Street, Eden will be hosting a pop-up to celebrate 15 years of Secession Art and Design. Details: Featured Artists: Amos Goldbaum, Andreina Davila, Dianne Hoffman, Heather Robinson, Hilary Williams, Jenny Feinberg, Joshua Coffy, Nate Tan, Nathalie Fabri, Olena McMurtrey, Phillip Hua, Rachel Znerold, Silvi Alcivar, Shannon Amidon, and Stephanie Steiner. Hours: Thursday, August 4: 12-8pm Friday, August 5: 12-8pm - Anniversary Party 6-8pm Saturday, August 6: 12-8pm Sunday, August 7: 12-6pm Address: 307 Cortland Ave (at Bocana), SF Photography by Jeff Hunt
Thu, 28 Jul 2022 - 43min - 493 - (Special) Jeff on His Move to SF and the Recall
In this postseason special episode, Jeff reflects on his 22 years in San Francisco. Looking back brings us to today, where there's still so much to love about The City, but there's also plenty of fuckery, including yet another right-wing–originated recall.
Here are some resources if you're still on the fence about how to vote by June 7. Hint: Only one SF media outlet is for the recall, and we won't bother mentioning who it is because they're terrible:
48 Hills Bold Italic SF Chronicle (paywall) SF Bayview Mission Local Bay Area ReporterPlease vote no on H. Peace, y'all.
Wed, 01 Jun 2022 - 12min - 492 - City Gardens Series: Caitlyn Galloway of the Greenhouse Project (S4E49P2)
In this, the last new episode of Season 4 of this podcast, Caitlyn picks up where she left off in Part 1. She and a friend she'd been gardening with started selling salad mix and herbs to places like Tartine and other nearby restaurants. They also established a small CSA for folks in the building where their garden was as well as a few neighbors. The success of this project had them thinking on a larger scale—they wanted to establish a commercial farm. Of course, that's not so easy if you intend to stay in a city like San Francisco, which they did. They also decided not to go the non-profit route, preferring rather to keep things manageable and adopting more of a co-op model.
Around 2010, they found a plot of land in the Excelsior that had once been a creek and was surrounded on three sides by backyards. They tracked down the landlord, who lived in LA, and convinced him to lease the land to them for one and a half years.
Clearing the land and readying it for gardening took some time. But owing to the creek that used to flow through it, the land was fertile and nutrient-rich. But of course, there were challenges. Zoning was among the first. So they worked with The City to address issues around that.
Little City Gardens was born. Three years or so into the project, her partner left San Francisco, but Caitlyn stayed on, enlisting more folks to help out. They ran Little City for another nearly four years, growing and selling vegetables, flowers, and herbs. They sold to even more restaurants than before, had an ongoing presence at farmer's markets, and expanded their CSA.
When the lease ran out and the owner went to sell the land, they tried to get a trust to help buy it. But it didn't happen. A private school purchased the land in 2014, and LCG worked with them for two more years. Then Little City Gardens was no more.
It was 2016 and before Little City closed, Caitlyn found the Friends of 770 Woolsey, a group of Portola neighbors dedicated to gaining the rights and raising the money to purchase a square block in the neighborhood that, until the 1990s, was a working greenhouse.
Caitlyn shares a deeper version of the history of the lot than she laid out in Part 1. The greenhouses that today are relics were built in 1922 by the Garibaldi family. At the time, there were a couple dozen such locations in the Portola. The greenhouses shut down in the '90s, as we've mentioned, and the Garibaldis sold the property in 2017.
In 2021, the developers who bought the lot made an offer to the community to buy it. The offer is time-sensitive and expires this July. And so, the Friends of 770 Woolsey and the Greenhouse Project are raising money to that end. You can donate to that effort here. You can follow both groups on IG: Friends of 77 Woolsey and Greenhouse Project.
We end this episode and this season of Storied: San Francisco with Caitlyn's thoughts about what it means to still be here in The City, fighting not only to stay, but to make this seven-mile-by-seven-mile plot of Earth better for all the humans, plants, and animals who share this space.
We thank you for listening, this season and the three that came before. In the coming weeks, we'll be rerunning episodes from our archives, so be on the lookout for those. We'll also pop in from time to time with messages about whatever's on our minds. We encourage you now as we always have to share with us and fellow listeners what's on your mind as we move ahead to whatever's next for this city we all love to hate and hate to love. Peace.
We recorded this podcast at the Greenhouse Project in the Portola in April 2022.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Thu, 12 May 2022 - 32min - 491 - City Gardens Series: Caitlyn Galloway and the Greenhouse Project (S4E49P1)
There's an unused square block in the Portola District that's Ground Zero in the fight over land in San Francisco.
In this podcast, we learn all about the Greenhouse Project. Volunteer Caitlyn Galloway shares some of the history of the block bordered by Woolsey, Bowdoin, Wayland, and Hamilton streets as well as the efforts underway to reclaim the area as a green space in The City's southeast side.
Then we hear about Caitlyn's life and how she got to this moment. She was born in Union City and raised there and in Livermore, where she went to high school. Her extended family has been in the East Bay for several generations.
Once she was old enough to ride BART without an adult, she and her cousin would come into San Francisco to go shopping around the Powell station. When it was time to go to college, she chose Santa Barbara. Despite a lot of what Caitlyn calls "sameness" there, she found pockets of people she could relate to, people who had different ways of living—punks, hippies, folks who worked at co-ops.
Caitlyn started working at a food co-op in Santa Barbara around the same time she began to garden there. She was still in school and all of these activities started to shape Caitlyn's worldview, especially around food and land.
After graduation, she moved to New York City, partly to get away and partly to ready herself for a move to San Francisco. She found work as a gardener at a landscaping company, where she worked on rich people's gardens around town. Caitlyn also worked on some green roofs in New York, well before the trend that would emerge later.
Two years into her time on the East Coast, she decided that it was time to come back to California. She missed a number of things—people, a smaller-city vibe. But perhaps more than anything else, California sagebrush drew Caitlyn back to her home state. There was no question of where in the state she'd be.
Upon landing in San Francisco in 2007, Caitlyn apprenticed at New Bohemia Signs, a hand-painted sign shop based in the South of Market neighborhood. Through her work there, she met and befriended someone who was gardening and growing vegetables in a backyard in the Mission. Caitlyn soon joined her new friend in gardening.
We end Part 1 with a detour of sorts, when Jeff and Caitlyn discover that they were neighbors 15 years ago or so.
Please join us for Part 2 and the final new episode of Season 4 this Thursday.
We recorded this podcast at the Greenhouse Project in the Portola in April 2022.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 10 May 2022 - 33min - 490 - Photographer Doug Salin (S4E48P2)
In this podcast, Doug picks up where he left off in Part 1. He shares stories of his Jewish family's escape from Nazi Germany and their journey to the U.S. His dad went to Basel, Switzerland, first. So many of his friends died in World War II that, after the war ended, he came to New York. Being highly educated and speaking five or six languages, he got a job as an editor at the Academy of Sciences. An uncle had immigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s, landing in Minnesota first. An ambidextrous artist, he could draw with either hand. He was also a storyteller and puppeteer. Eventually, he made his way to North Beach. Despite having eight or nine different names and honoraries, people knew him by the name Wolo. He did some work in the Central Valley for the WPA, caricatures here in The City, and was a fixture in his neighborhood in the '20s and '30s. Wolo had a regular spot in the Chronicle pre-Herb Caen. "I Saw You There" was a caricature of the day from somewhere around town. Readers who spotted themselves in the art could go to the Chronicle and collect a prize. Wolo is perhaps most famous for his designs at the now-shuttered Van Ness restaurant Hippo Burger. His nephew (Doug's dad) came to join him here, and that's how the Salins arrived in San Francisco. Doug considers his mom, who was born and raised in San Francisco, to have been a Bohemian. She was a poet and an artist herself. His dad was quite the dresser. Doug isn't sure of the exact story of how they met, but those factors make sense for the two of them to have connected in North Beach. However they met, they got married and moved up to San Rafael, where Doug and his brother were born and raised. His dad was a printer and his mom came into San Francisco to the binderies that were here back in the day. Doug has fond memories of coming to The City and going to Playland at the Beach. He especially loved the enchiladas at the Hot House. As a kid, Doug loved walking around with the postal-delivery guy and later got his own paper route. He hung out with a lot of adults whose jobs he was curious about. He went to college at Santa Clara University, as mentioned in Part 1. He shares a wild story of driving to The City from the South Bay in 1974 and almost running out of gas during the fuel crisis that year. After his time at Macy's (also covered in Part 1), Doug went out on his own as a photographer, specializing in architectural lighting. We end this podcast with Doug's thoughts on San Francisco losing its color and his hopefulness that it can get it back. We recorded this episode at Doug's house in the Sunnyside in April 2022. Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Thu, 05 May 2022 - 32min - 489 - Photographer Doug Salin (S4E48P1)
Doug Salin has trouble doing anything longer than one hour. In this podcast, the career photographer shares his life story with us. We recorded in Doug's house in the Sunnyside, the same place we met and talked with ex-San Francisco poet laureate, Kim Shuck (Part 1 / Part 2). Kim is Doug's life partner, in fact. These days, Doug works as a robotics mentor for high school students in The City. He's been doing photography since he was four. He began college studying physics, but that didn't excite him. Somewhat by accident, he fell into mechanical engineering instead. He soon became the photo editor of the college newspaper and yearbook. Doug figured he was destined to work in journalism. But someone he knew mentioned heading up to San Francisco to see if there were any photo jobs for him. He wasn't planning to stay in San Jose, so he came up and met Paul Hoffman. Hoffman connected Doug with Macy's in Union Square, where there was an opening in the store's in-house photo department. He had no experience in commercial photography, but figured what the hell? He ended up getting the job and worked in the company's dark room, which was located inside the store. Then someone asked him to help with "paste-ups," which was more like the work he did for his college yearbook. About a year later, the photo department was looking to remodel their area of Macy's. Doug took a look at the plans and suggested something different, more efficient. They ended up going with Doug's revisions. Shortly after the renovations were made, Macy's named Doug an assistant studio manager. He still wasn't taking photos in that situation, though. But in his experience of managing photographers, he picked up what he needed along the way. We rewind to hear a little about Doug's German and Austrian Jewish ancestors and how they ended up in California. Please join us Thursday for Part 2 and the continuation of Doug's story. We recorded this podcast at Doug's home in the Sunnyside in April 2022. Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 03 May 2022 - 29min - 488 - Educator Christopher Coppola (S4E47P2)
In this episode, Christopher picks up where he left off in Part 1. He tried college up north for a couple years, but that ended when he lost his scholarship. His dad knew a guy at the San Francisco Art Institute and encouraged Christopher to come see the school. The idea was that he would finish his education learning how to make movies.
On that visit, Christopher met George Kuchar, who would later become Christopher's mentor. He went on to get a BFA from SFAI. We chat about the various neighborhoods he lived in back in those days and the stories that came with them. Then Christopher tells us all about some of the fights he was in here in The City when he was a kid, one on a moving 22-Fillmore.
Christopher ended up graduating from SFAI, and the only person he had at the ceremony was his brother Nicolas (Cage). Afterward, the two went out on the town to celebrate.
We back up a bit to hear the story of how Christopher's parents ended up in Southern California. His mom's family came from Illinois. And his dad's ancestors came from southern Italy to the U.S. August came to UCLA, where he met Christopher's mom. Her family had an in-law house, and soon, August's brother Francis lived in it.
After graduating, Christopher made some films that he describes as "maybe pretentious," but Nicolas's agent liked them. They wanted him to come back to SoCal, but he wasn't interested. He got involved with producer Dino De Laurentis, and shares some of those stories with us. Christopher was able to navigate pressures from outside and get some of his more arty cinematic techniques into his early movies.
Next Christopher contrasts his lives in San Francisco and Los Angeles/Long Beach. Today, he lives mostly in the Bay Area and teaches at SFAI, which he talks about. Then he shares the story of how he and his sons made Sammy & Quinn, his most recent short.
We end this episode with Christopher's thoughts on what it means to still be in San Francisco.
We recorded this episode at the San Francisco Art Institute in April 2022.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Thu, 28 Apr 2022 - 35min - 487 - Filmmaker Christopher Coppola (S4E47P1)
Christopher Coppola wants to tell you about his dad.
In this episode, the filmmaker from the very famous filmmaking family shares his life story with us. Born and raised in Long Beach, he and his brother, Nicolas, spent a lot of time in San Francisco with their uncle, Francis.
Christopher starts things off with his dad, August Coppola. According to him, August carried an old family tradition of creativity and "stick-to-it-iveness" into the modern era. His long career in education brought him to SF State, where he was the dean of Creative Arts for many years.
He takes us on a sidetrack into some of the possible reasons that there's so much creativity and passion running throughout his relatives as well as his ancestors who date back to southern Italy.
Then we head into another sidetrack, this time about Christopher growing up in Long Beach with an ill mother and a younger brother who later became a household name. The story involves the two youngsters misidentifying their own Chinese zodiac signs.
The next sidetrack involves stories of Christopher riding with motorcycle gangs. This leads to one of his movie ideas—Biker McBeth.
We talk about the origins of Coppolas in Northern California. It all started with "Uncle" Francis. Following the success of The Godfather, he moved to San Francisco. His brother (Christopher's dad), August, later followed suit. Because their mother was ill, when Christopher and his brother, Nicolas, were around 8 or 9, they were often sent up to The City to spend time with their aunt and uncle.
Christopher speaks fondly of his Aunt Eleanor. They called her "mother aunt." During their stays in SF, she would give the kids allowances and send them on their way around town. People would ask if they were "those" Coppolas, which of course they weren't. It bothered both brothers when they were young, but Christopher learned to let it go.
We end this episode with Christopher's tales of his and his brother's mischievous, creative lives in Long Beach and how San Francisco served as a sanctuary for them. Check back Thursday for Part 2 and the conclusion of Christopher Coppola's life story.
We recorded this podcast at the San Francisco Art Institute in April 2022.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Tue, 26 Apr 2022 - 31min - 485 - Emmy Kaplan of Emmy's Spaghetti Shack (S4E46P1)
Emmy Kaplan and her friends in the restaurant business just wanted somewhere to go after their shifts.
In this podcast, Jeff fulfills a 20ish-year dream meeting and recording with Emmy, the namesake behind Emmy's Spaghetti Shack. Today located on Mission Street just below Cesar Chavez, the restaurant recently celebrated 21 years in business.
Emmy was born in San Francisco and shares her and family's stories with us. Her mom is from Alameda. That family goes back generations in the East Bay, coming from places like Germany, Scotland, and Ireland. Emmy's mom came to SF State in the '60s—"a real, bona fide hippie."
Her parents met at SF State. Later, her dad was a cable car driver. His family also went back a few generations here in The City. Both her parents were young free spirits, and didn't stay together for very long. After having Emmy and her brother, they split up. Then her mom took Emmy and her brother up to Sonoma, where Emmy grew up.
Later in life, her dad owned several restaurants in the Mission—Bruno's and Mission Villa, to name a couple. When she was a kid, Emmy would often join him at his restaurants. When she was 17, after splitting time between The City and Sonoma, Emmy moved back to her hometown.
As a teenager, she started working in restaurants, first in Sonoma, and later, in San Francisco. She realized that she needed to fend for herself at an early age. Without going into too much detail, Emmy says that her teen years were "wild." She and her friends were punk rockers—they went to shows and got into trouble, as you do. Her mom threatened her with either incarceration or joining her brother in Europe. She chose Europe.
Her time overseas taught her that the world is a big place. When she got back home, her priorities had shifted. She graduated high school early and worked a lot in The City. She toyed with art school, but that didn't stick. She took a business class at City College, where she pitched an idea that essentially was the restaurant she has today. The idea didn't go over well in class, though.
She worked at the Flying Saucer, a long-gone restaurant at 22nd and Guerrero. It was while Emmy worked there that the first location of Emmy's Spaghetti Shack opened.
Check back Thursday for Part 2 and more stories from Emmy Kaplan.
We recorded this podcast at Emmy's Spaghetti Shack in the Mission in April 2022.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tue, 19 Apr 2022 - 21min - 484 - City Gardens Series: Maggie Marks of Garden for the Environment (S4E45P2)
In this episode, Maggie picks up where she left off in Part 1, with her taking over programming duties at GFE 10 years ago. She dives into the story of how GFE was founded more than 30 years ago amid a historic drought in California. The intent was always to create a teaching space, something that distinguishes GFE from other gardens around The City.
We talk about biodiversity and how that's such a motivator for the work they do at GFE. That coupled with things like native vegetation means that the garden itself, for passersby, might not always be what we tend to think of as "beautiful." But, as Maggie points out, the plants are doing exactly what they need to do—living in a symbiotic fashion with other plants, animals, and insects.
Maggie goes over how the garden has responded to the pandemic. They had to cancel (postpone?) a live event they had planned to commemorate 30 years and switched their education programs to Zoom. Needless to say, something was missing.
The upside was that they were able to reach more people virtually during the pandemic. In 2021, for the first time in three decades, they offered their "Get Up" program online. Maggie expresses her gratitude for the advances in technology that the pandemic forced onto GFE.
Garden for the Environment is open to the public every day from dawn until dusk. Follow them on Instagram.
We end this episode with Maggie's idea of what it means to still be here through it all.
We recorded this podcast at Garden for the Environment in the Inner Sunset in April 2022.
Photography by Jeff Hunt
Thu, 14 Apr 2022 - 27min
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