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 Hunt

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.

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.

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

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

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 Hunt

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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/PayPalUpdates on Michelle and her involvement in the projectA 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!