Storied: San Francisco

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...

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 d idn't know what she was doing. But she winged it. A customer saw her inexperience and helped her out with some sage advice. The co...

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 New...

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 lightwei...

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...

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 weeke...

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 w...

​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...

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...

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, whic...

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 Pa...

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 i...

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 esse...

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  Mi...

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 performa...

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 i...

Hi! This is a short bonus episode to fill you in on some recent stuff. Learn more about what we have planned as we wind down Season 5 and get ready for our first art show in more than three years! And join us next week for an all-new episode about the Bayview Opera House.

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 lik...

​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...