Storied: San Francisco

Part 2 picks up where we left off in Part 1. Spike shares details of his West Coast road trip, the one where he shopped for a city to move to and possibly lay down roots.   It was 1993 and, of all those West Coast cities, San Francisco won. "The energy, the feeling that you belonged, the creative draw," they all contributed to Spike's decision to move to The City. "This is where I wanted to be," h...

Michael "Spike" Krouse 's arrival on this planet was something of a miracle for his parents.   In this episode, get to know the founder of  Madrone Art Bar (currently one of my favorite places in San Francisco). Spike's dad, a fighter pilot who flew missions in World War II, was much older than his mom. He flew for the Navy when the U.S. went to war with Korea as well. He ended up stationed in Ala...

Patrick Costello used to work at Anchor Brewing, where he was the production lead for the bottling and keg lines. He was also a member of the Anchor Brewing Union, where he served as a shop steward—essentially the union rep on the floor. Anchor's union was part of Local 6 of the ILWU. But Patrick wasn't exactly born into all of this.   His mom and dad met at a house party in the Mission in the 198...

Z had started a family whom he had to leave when he toured for rollerblading. It didn't take long for him to feel that he should be home—both to be there for his newborn son and to assist his partner in raising him.   Being back in San Francisco, Z started searching for the new him, the next phase. Adding to his new role as father, he enrolled in culinary classes at San Francisco Cooking School. C...

Welcome to this bonus episode with Kundan Baidwan and Sameer Gupta . Kundan and Sameer talk all about the Rootstock Arts ' event Color Your Mind Festival , which is happening at the Yerba Buena Garden Festival this Saturday, July 27, 2024 from noon to 5 p.m.   (This episode was created in collaboration with Erin and Ange from Bitch Talk Podcast .)   We start with Kundan. Long-time listeners will r...

From a young age,  Azikiwee Anderson  left his heart in San Francisco.   In this episode, Azikiwee (everyone calls him "Z"), the founder of  Rize Up Sourdough , shares the story of how he got here. His dad was a famous drummer who got hooked on heroin while touring. When he returned home from the tour, the problems at home began. He started physically assaulting Z's mom.   And so she packed up her...

Part 2 picks up right where we left off in Part 1, with Reem describing finding the anti-imperialist women's soccer team. Through that, she met her partner, who's now her co-parent.   Reem worked in the nonprofit sector until around 2010, when she burned out. She'd moved to Oakland upon her return to the Bay Area, though she was still connected to The City through her work with AROC. She found her...

In 2022, the Presidio Trust asked  Favianna Rodriguez  to be an activator, as the trust was preparing to open its Tunnel Tops park. Favianna recommended that the folks building the park employ color and visual art to transform the space. They were supportive of her ideas. And with that, Ancestral Futurism was born.   Favianna grew up in Oakland next to the 880 freeway, where she still lives today....

Reem Assil  has created a restaurant in the Mission that serves some of the most beautiful, delicious, and activist food of any new spot in San Francisco in a long, long time.   Reem was born and raised in her early years in a Boston suburb. Her dad is from Damascus, Syria, and her mom is from Gaza, Palestine. Both were refugees in 1967. They met in Beirut and emigrated to the East Coast of the US...

In Part 2, we dive into the story of how The Stud Collective pulled out the seemingly impossible—they found a new home in South of Market.   After a quick history of the space at 1123 Folsom (a leather bar in the Seventies called The Stables, Julie's Supper Club, a sports bar, a restaurant called Radius, and a vegetarian restaurant called Wellspring Commune that was a front for a cult called The T...

I'm super-stoked to do a podcast all about  The Stud  and folks from the collective who run the place!   In Part 1, we start with  Marke B . Many longtime listeners will remember Marke from his Season 3 Storied episode. In this go-round, we get a condensed version of his life story and how he made his way to San Francisco.   In his hometown of Detroit, Marke threw raves and made enough money on th...

In this bonus episode, meet and get to know Frameline Film Festival 's Executive Director Allegra Madsen . Allegra was born and grew up in southern Virginia. As she says, "It was hot, it was humid, it was Southern." From a young age, she fell in love with movies because it was so hot outside. She'd escape to theaters, where she could bask in the AC and watch movies all day long.   She left that ar...

Part 2 begins with a chat about how, when we were both younger and just arriving in San Francisco, neither Brett nor I had any idea that we'd be here so long.   After living on Market, Brett moved back to the Mission, where he's lived ever since. His great aunt passed away and left him some money. It proved to be enough for a down payment on a space on Capp Street just off 16th. 65 Capp Street is...

Brett Cline  is, as he puts it, from the "Deep South." But he's such a California kid that by that he means Southern California.   In Part 1, get to know Brett, who for the past decade or so has run  The Lost Church  performing arts theater. His life began in Orange County, where his parents ended up after meeting at UCLA and traveling around the world when his dad was a pilot in the Navy.   Brett...

Hear the conversation I had in January with my favorite young Bay Area band, Peaboo and the Catz. Follow them on Instagram  @Peabooandthecatz Subscribe to their YouTube channel: Peabooandthecatz Photography by Paolo Asuncion

In Part 2, Mike, Paolo, and Rachel share the story of how TNT Traysikel came to be. We begin with Paolo, who describes the Mission art opening where he and Mike met. Besides having similar "falling in love with San Francisco" moments, they soon learned that back in the Philippines, their brothers had been friends. They hit it off pretty much right away.   Mike learned that Paolo worked on films, i...

In this episode, we meet the humans behind the artistic and cultural project that is the TNT Traysikel .   We start, in random order, with Mike Arceaga . Mike was born in the Philippines and moved to LA with his family when he was 10. He says that the transition from his homeland to LA was difficult. The family first landed in Highland Park, which Mike points out wasn't hip then. That's where he g...

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...

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.

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 a...

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...

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 da...

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 tou...

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 Phili...

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 w...