Storied: San Francisco

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...

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 Insti...

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 he...

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...

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...

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 an...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 fo...

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...

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 ni...

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 alienate...

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 wo...

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 p...

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, impactfu...

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...

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...

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 s...

In Part 1, we meet Rudy Corpuz , a born-and-raised San Franciscan who grew up in the South of Market. Rudy's p arents came to the US from the Philippines before he was born.   His d ad 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,...

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 differe...

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 m om'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 g randpa didn't talk abo...