Storied: San Francisco

Ed. note: This podcast is the first of a series of podcasts we'll do all throughout the Major League Baseball season to celebrate the Giants' 60th year in the San Francisco. In this episode, cameraman Josh Keppel talks about the last game of the regular season for the San Francisco Giants in 2001. It was roughly a month after Sept. 11, and he and a reporter were sent to PacBell Park (now AT&T Park...

In this podcast, Brian will play the first song he ever heard Mike Coykendall, with whom Brian collaborates on several musical projects, play. It was a show at Bottom of the Hill. Brian found the show in the Guardian, a now-defunct weekly here in San Francisco. Mike played that night with his band The Old Joe Clarks. The song is called "Built Right on the Ground." To wrap up Brian's three-part Sto...

Welcome to Episode 24, Part 2. In Part 1, Brian talked about arriving in San Francisco in the 1980s, playing music and sleeping on the streets, and some of the people he met back then. In this podcast, he'll talk about playing some open-mics, forming bands, and the importance of independent radio stations. The song he'll play in this episode is called "Makes Me Think of You." If you missed Part 1:...

In the 1980s, Brian Belknap landed in San Francisco after traveling around the Northeast. His first stop was Fisherman's Wharf, which wasn't as "Disneyfied" back in those days. Brian's hustle was playing music for tourists, then packing up and finding a place to sleep. Often, his bed was also on the street. In this podcast, Brian will share stories about his early days in San Francisco. He'll talk...

Allison Biddinger is a disaster program specialist for the Red Cross. In this episode, Allison shares stories of her work in response to some of the more recent and notable residential fires in San Francisco. If you missed Part 1, please listen here: Allison Biddinger's Early San Francisco (Mis)Adventures Film photography by  Michelle Kilfeather

Allison Biddinger moved to San Francisco from a small town in Idaho about 15 years ago. Back when everything in the city was shiny and new to her, she learned first-hand that things like "street fairs" often come with their own SF definition. In this podcast, Allison, a disaster program specialist with the Red Cross, will share this and other tales of her early days living in San Francisco. Check...

Though he works part-time at a hospital, music is a big part of John's life. Whether it's the venue calendars he constantly checks out, the hundreds of live shows he's gone to over the years, or his show on Radio Valencia , Tighten Up Your Wig, music is, as he puts it, a good friend for John Binder. Also, and this comes up about halfway through this episode, but if anyone listening does know when...

John Binder is an internet radio DJ at  Radio Valencia . It's one of those oh-so-San Francisco gigs, one that springs from his love of music. But John also loves San Francisco, the city he's called home since the 1990s. In this episode, John will share observations and stories about life in the city. His is a fresh take, because despite more than two decades here, he's not skeptical or curmudgeon-...

In Episode 21, Part 1, Myla Ablog shared stories of moving to San Francisco and learning to navigate the dating scene here. That eventually lead her to try online dating. In this podcast, she will talk about a relationship that started on the internet. Everything was roses with this guy who turned out to be quite a bit different from Myla, until dark aspects of his personality starting coming to l...

Born and raised in Stockton, wetlands biologist Myla Ablog went to college in Humboldt. She enjoyed her experience, but the pull of the Bay Area was too much to resist. She moved here after graduation and soon after that, she joined the dating pool. In Part 1 of Myla's episode, we'll hear some of those early adventures she had in the San Francisco dating scene of the 1990s and 2000s. ​Check back T...

Sunny Haire moved to San Francisco in the 1990s. He quickly made friends, and they found plenty of places to drink, especially in the Mission. But something was missing. In 1997, Sunny and Lila Thirkield opened the Lexington Club at the corner of 19th Street and Lexington. With its renovated original bar sign, the Lexington would go on to serve as a drinking spot for lesbians and queer women until...

In the last episode, we left off with Randy Burns talking about how the AIDS crisis affected his group, Gay American Indians. In Part 2, Randy will tell us about trips he took to DC and New York in the '80s and '90s to raise awareness to LGBT issues. He'll end with the story of his trip from the East Coast back to San Francisco.

Randy Burns arrived in San Francisco from Nevada in 1974. He was here to go to SF State, but he soon connected with out gay and lesbian American Indians, with whom he would go on to found the organization Gay American Indians. In this episode, Randy will talk about founding the group and how the AIDS epidemic affected them in the mid-1980s. We recorded this episode in February 2018 at Emperor Nort...

You could say that John Scott has done it all. He's certainly done and seen a lot over the years, starting out as a radio DJ back in Iowa. His career has largely been in broadcasts of some sort, but he's also had quite a ride playing guitar in several rock bands. In this episode, John will talk about the media scene and its history in San Francisco. He'll walk us through some of the highlights of...

Falling in love with San Francisco is like a snowflake. Whether you're born here or become a transplant, we all find our own way to the heart of the city. For BFF.fm founder Amanda Guest, it was no different. In this podcast, Amanda will tell the story of a 2009 all-nighter in the Mission with her friend, Mission Mission 's Allan Hough. Along the way, she discovered enough surprises and felt so at...

BFF.fm founder Amanda Guest first visited San Francisco as a kid with her family from Massachusetts. Her first trip here as adult was in 2007, when she came as part of the Game Developers Conference. For Part 1 of Amanda's podcast, she'll talk about some of those times spent in the city before she had the experience that ultimately inspired her to move here. We recorded this episode in BFF's studi...

Ryan Akerberg had been in San Francisco for only a couple of weeks when his friend from Boulder, Colorado, tapped him on the shoulder in a cafe. That random meeting eventually resulted in Ryan's owning a company. He has now been washing windows with Intelligent Window Cleaning for nearly 11 years. In this episode of Storied: San Francisco, Ryan talks about what it's like to be a small-business own...

Ryan Akerberg  moved to San Francisco 12 years ago from Colorado, and Iowa before that. Like many of us, he arrived without a job or a plan to make the gobs of money that are required for city living. With his background in bartending, he decided to try for a job in fine dining. This episode of Storied: San Francisco is all about Ryan's first job in the city. Check back Thursday for Part 2. Ryan a...

Broke-Ass Stuart does and has done a lot of things. He moved to San Francisco in 2003 and started his website,  Broke-Ass Stuart's Goddamn Website , in 2004. He's had a national TV show, hosted a talk show, and in 2015, he ran for mayor of SF. In this podcast, Stuart will tell a few different stories from around the time that he came to San Francisco from Santa Cruz. In addition to other things, s...

H.P. Mendoza makes music and movies. He's quite good at doing both. But video games are another love of his. Several years ago, he started an arcade. That's right, a video game arcade. In this podcast, H.P. will share the story of how Mission Arcade was born. We recorded at H.P.'s house in the Mission in December 2017. Film photography by Michelle Kilfeather

H.P. Mendoza, director of  Colma: The Musical ,  I Am a Ghost , and the upcoming  Bitter Melon , loves video games. In addition to music and movies, they are a prominent fixture in his life. In this episode of Storied: San Francisco, H.P. will talk about the origins of that love of video games. He and I also talked about a couple of the long-gone video game arcades in SF. We recorded this podcast...

It's fair to say that homelessness is Kevin Fagan's favorite beat. The veteran SF Chronicle reporter was the only beat reporter in the U.S. covering homelessness full-time from 2003 to 2006. It was during that time that he met Jill May. Episode 13, Part 3 is all about Jill. Film photography by Michelle Kilfeather

In 2003, San Francisco Chronicle editors put Kevin Fagan and a photographer on the streets, literally, to live among the homeless population in order to really capture what that life was like. In this episode, Part 2 of a three-part podcast, Kevin will talk about life on the streets of San Francisco, specifically right around the time of Super Bowl 50, in early 2016. Around 350 homeless people mov...

In October 2017, a series of wild fires swept through parts of Napa, Sonoma, Solano, and Mendocino counties, claiming the lives of many residents, leveling houses and business structures, displacing families, and killing livestock and other animals. San Francisco Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan, who had already covered many disasters in addition to writing prize-winning stories about the homeless p...

Shortly after the 2016 election, Morgan Shidler got together with friend and former coworker Harmony Fraga, who owns The Social Study. Out of their conversation that night, That's What She Said, an all-women's monthly speaking event, was born. In Part 2 of her Storied: San Francisco podcast, Morgan will talk about starting That's What She Said and the importance of having a space where women feel...