Storied: San Francisco

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 recognize or remember Kundan from ... Season 1, Episode 40, Two Storied Nights, and Hungry Ghosts. She's been a friend of the show since that fateful day in 2018 when I waltzed into Zam Zam with Bitch Talk on their Bourdain Crawl. But, podcast-wise, it's never been about Kundan. We learn that she was born in San Jose and raised in Fremont. She went to college in San Diego, and after she graduated, was off to Paris and then New York. She returned to The Bay around 2004. She says that SF was always close to her Bay Area roots. She's an artist (an amazing artist, I must say) who pays the bills by bartending at Zam Zam. Sameer Gupta was also born in San Jose. When he was around one year old, his family began moving roughly every couple of years. His dad was in tech and took jobs all over the world. While his family was in Japan, Sameer picked up playing music. He says he "caught the bug" there and started playing drums. When his family came back to the US, he stuck with drumming. It wasn't what his parents expected of him, but they encouraged him nonetheless. He went to college for music, where he was immersed in Western and Classical styles. He was gravitating more toward jazz, though. He played jazz through his time in and after college, and then he found Indian Classical music. Sameer moved to New York City and stayed for about 15 years, long enough to form a music collective. A little more than a year ago, he returned to the Bay Area. Then we hear how Kundan and Sameer met. It's a story that goes back to their respective childhoods. Their dads worked together before either of them was born. Their families lived in the same neighborhood and knew each other well. The two ended up in high school together. Beyond their families' histories, Sameer and Kundan both ran in creative circles around this time, and naturally gravitated toward each other. Both Kundan and Sameer are the only creative people in their families, and we get to hear how that informs the art that each of them creates. They recognize the abundance of creativity in their culture, but distinguish themselves as individuals who set out to make art their life's mission. And Sameer speaks to the example that folks like him and Kundan can set for the next generations, who see more possibilities than they might otherwise. Having grown up the entire time in the Bay Area, Kundan says she more or less always felt the influence of Indian culture. And Sameer talks more about what it can mean for their families to see them making a life out of art. Then the conversation shifts to this weekend's inaugural Color Your Mind Festival. Sameer and Kundan intentionally invited young artists to be part of the event. There will be art, music, crafts, books, and more. Sameer says their intention is for the festival to be "adventurous," not what people might think of as a traditional Indian event. They want it to be approachable for as many folks as possible. The festival's music will include North Indian Classical (think Ravi Shankar), South Indian Classical, and Sameer's group, the Jupiter Project. There will also be dancing between music sets. Follow Rootstock Arts on Instagram. We recorded this episode in collaboration with Bitch Talk Podcast at Medicine for Nightmares in the Mission in June 2024.

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 three kids, all five and younger, and her things and split. The battered wives' shelter helped get them out of New Orleans and to San Francisco. Z has some memories of New Orleans, but they're coupled with trauma. When they landed here, they didn't really have people. His mom and her kids stayed at the bus station for weeks, and Z remembers a man giving them his lunch more than once. There's a poignant story of the brown paper bags that those meals came in and how Z has used similar bags for Rize Up breads as an homage. The family ended up at a shelter and his mom started to imagine what her new life could be. Z's mom got jobs and took classes. They lived in The City for six years and then moved to Chico. Z spent the rest of junior high and high school in that northern Valley town. The day after he graduated, he left for Santa Rosa to go to junior college. It was close enough to San Francisco that he could come here easily and often, which he did. In addition to school, he taught gymnastics, something he'd begun in high school. But because of his height (he's 6' 3") and relative inexperience, he decided that teaching was a better route for him than competing. He also rollerbladed. Like, a lot. He says kids would come into his gymnastics classes asking Z to teach them how to do flips on rollerblades. Never mind that he didn't know how to do that ... yet. One of these kids brought in a video of what he had in mind, and it was the first time Z saw people doing all these incredible things on rollerblades. Eventually, this led to Z getting sponsored to skate. It took him on a journey he never could've imagined. He started traveling, around the US, around the world. It became his life. He built skate parks, for roller blades, bikes, skateboards, whatever. Looking back on his time as a pro rollerblader, Z says that he owes the hardship of his young years to the fact that it doesn't take a lot to make him happy. When he started seeing the world, he didn't take it for granted. He was grateful for the opportunities it afforded him. Time spent traveling gave way to more time running businesses. And with a little more income came the opportunity to cash in on a life's dream—Z moved to San Francisco. He found a place on Bush between Van Ness and Polk. And he brought a small distribution company for rollerblading products with him. But when the 2008 recession hit, the business started to feel some serious pains. Check back next week for Part 2 with Azikiwee Anderson. We recorded this podcast at Rize Up Bakery in the South of Market in June 2024. Photography by Jeff Hunt

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 herself wanting to take care of her community in other ways than what nonprofits were offering. She and her father had been estranged, but after leaving work, she joined him on a trip to the Middle East. The two were joined by Reem's youngest sister on a visit she calls "transformative." Besides gaining insight into who her dad was as a person, she truly discovered and fell in love with the food of her people. She knew right away that she wanted to create that feeling for others. Her Syrian family took note of her interest, and took her to bakeries in that country to get a glimpse of the kitchens after-hours. She returned to the Bay Area wanting to do two things: To combat tropes and negative stereotypes about Arab culture and people, and to do that by creating a sense of hospitality. Those two ideas would eventually form the foundation of what Reem's California does today. But she had to begin somewhere, and so she enrolled in a baking class at Laney College. Out of that class, she got a job with Arizmendi in Emeryville, where she got experience in a co-op and a kitchen. She started forming the idea of what her place would be, and while that came together, she settled on basing it around man’oushe, the street food of her people. Over a number of years and various kitchen and bartending jobs, Reem took as many entrepreneur classes as she could. The last of these was with La Cocina. The program helped steer her toward more practical, lower-cost methods of doing business. And that's where the saj comes into play. It's what Reem uses to make her man'oushe. "It's like an inverted tandoor," she says. An uncle in Lebanon was able to have two custom-made sajes for Reem. They arrived and that's what set it all in motion. They were approved for the 22nd and Bartlett market and the farmer's market at the Ferry Building around the same time. At both locations, they served Arabic tea and played Arabic music, creating that vibe Reem had been seeking. Within 16 months, they had grown from one market to five. Then La Cocina told Reem that it was time to take the operation brick-and-mortar. The first location was in Fruitvale in Oakland in 2017 and lasted a couple of years. Then, after a brief foray into fine-dining, the women owners of Mission Pie asked Reem if she wanted to take over their spot at Mission and 25th. She said yes and started doing the work to get open. And then the pandemic hit. Once the Mission location was able to open, Reem's California did better than a lot of nearby restaurants, partly because the food lends itself to take-out so easily. But for Reem, not being able to share space and that hospitality that was at least as important as the food itself was hard. Still, they found ways to connect with the community. In 2023, they opened a second location in the Ferry Building. They started appearing at Outside Lands a few years ago (and will be there again this year). Reem decided to start transitioning the business to a worker-owned model. Visit Reem's Mission location, 2901 Mission Street, Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and again for dinner from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. The Ferry Building location is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Follow them on social media at @ReemsCalifornia and follow Reem herself @reem.assil. Her cookbook, Arabiyya, is available on her website. We end the podcast with Reem's interpretation of this year's theme on Storied: San Francisco—We're all in it. Photography by Jeff Hunt

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. The area around that major thoroughfare is one of the most polluted corridors in the state. Because she comes from an area subject to what she refers to as "environmental racism," she sought to make a statement in the northwest corner of The City. "Ancestral Futurism" was a phrase that perfectly summed up her goal: "We cannot repair the present until we acknowledge the harm of the past." The land where Spanish colonizers established the Presidio was already inhabited by Native people, of course. Those people lost their land to the Europeans. They were murdered, pushed out, disenfranchised. For Favianna, the space is now one where we can talk about that. Tosha Stimage was born in rural Mississippi. College got her out of The South and to Ohio, where she studied art and design. After graduation, she spent a bit of time in Colorado, where she worked with kids doing art therapy. Then grad school brought her to the Bay Area: She started at CCA in 2012. She's been an artist since she was a kid, and that didn't change after grad school. One of the ways that art manifests for Tosha is in flower arranging. She had a shop in Oakland, but was forced out by gentrification. Now, she's got her shop, Saint Flora, back open for business in The City as part of SF's Vacant to Vibrant program. After the unveiling of Ancestral Futurism, Favianna and others realized that they needed to make it an annual event and bring in other artists. They also decided that it was important to honor native plants and animals along with the native humans of the area. For this year's iteration, Favianna invited Tosha to add her own interpretation to the ongoing project. After she was selected, Tosha started visiting the park, meeting people, and doing her homework. She began to notice the intention and care that went into plant programs already going in the Presidio. Right away, she felt it was something she wanted to be part of. Tosha gave her contribution the name "Superblooms" in part to honor that natural phenomenon. It also speaks to the resilience of the plants she chose to include in her art—checker bloom, Chilean strawberry, and California poppy. All are beautiful, of course, but they all have histories in the Bay Area. This Sunday, July 14, from 12 to 3 p.m., Tunnel Tops will host a launch party for Tosha's Superblooms. Activities that day include: an art unveiling with Tosha, hands-on art activities for all ages, a living floral Installation, free plant starters, DJ sets, and a show and tell with the Presidio Nursery. Attendance is free. For more info, visit the Presidio Trust site. We recorded this podcast at Tunnel Tops park in June 2024. Photography by Felipe Romero

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. The suburb where they moved was predominantly white, but Reem's household was vibrant in Arab culture. Her parents didn't want the family to forget their roots. They were in Massachusetts because that's where the jobs were. But Reem's mom's family all came to California, which ended up having quite an effect on her. Her grandparents went to Northridge just before the 1994 earthquake that devastated that area. Reem says that, every summer, relatives from all over the world, including her and her family from out east, converged on her grandparents' home in the San Fernando Valley. She talks about the strength of that Arab culture in her home and among her relatives in California, but also, of reconciling that with the fact that she was a latch-key kid, especially when her mom went back to work. Reem was immersed in US culture, but felt those strong roots of her ancestors. In the late-Eighties and early Nineties, Reem was into Ska and "alternative" music, but also hip-hop. "Growing up Palestinian, you're aware of the world in a different way," she says. She's always had an affinity for justice. She talks about a history teacher she had in high school who had a big influence on her. In that class, she learned much more about the Civil Rights movement than anyone can get from a textbook. She went on several trips with that class, including to the Deep South. Being embedded like that, talking with people who lived the movement, had an enormous effect on Reem. In 1994, she joined her family on a trip to Gaza. She was 11 and the experience "wrecked" her. The stories she heard in the South resonated and reminded her of what she knew about her mom's homeland. Reem is the oldest of three sisters and says that hers was a very feminine household. As a kid and teenager, she had an affinity for cooking and baking. But as she navigated her more formative later teen years, she rejected the idea of women in the kitchen. Food would come back much later in her journey. She had just begun college at Tufts University in 2001 when her parents got divorced and 9/11 happened. She and other Arab folks had always dealt with Islamophobia, but that ramped way, way up after Sept. 11. That and her being the first to leave her house put a strain on her parents' relationship as well as her own life. She rejected the US-centric foreign policy ideas she was hearing and being taught at Tufts. She visited Lebanon and Syria in 2002, and when she returned to the US, she developed what she thought was a parasite. She couldn't eat. That affected her studies and her social life. It all coalesced and devolved into depression, and this further negatively affected her relationship with food. Reem quit college and made her way to California. At first, she considered her grandparents' place in Southern California. But she figured that LA would depress her further. An aunt, a white hippie from Humboldt, and an uncle who was an activist lived in Daly City, though, and felt more her speed. She didn't know much about the Bay Area other than an impression she got earlier in life when she came out for their wedding. They were the main attraction. She arrived in 2002, just as organizing around the then-proposed invasion of Iraq was taking place. Her aunt and uncle worked during the days and went to anti-war meetings at night. Reem went with them, and she cites these experiences as helping raise her out of that funk she'd been in—it lit a fire in the activist part of her life. While all this was going on, she'd also visit farmer's markets with her aunt...

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 Tribal Thumb, who were affiliated with the Symbionese Liberation Army ... and that space is rumored to have been one of the places that the SLA kept Patty Hearst—oh, San Francisco), Rachel guides us on a tour of the original location of The Stud, which was opened by Alexis Muir (a trans woman) in 1966. Muir ran the OG Stud, also on Folsom west of the current location, for several years. Originally, it was a kinky/leather/cowboy/Western bar. It was the same year, just months before, that the Compton's Cafeteria Riots took place. Just a few years after it opened, The Stud shifted themes to more of a queer hippie bar. But one thing that helped it stand out from the get-go was its inclusivity. The Stud remained in that original spot on Folsom until 1987. After Muir, a group of Milwaukee hippies who were also affiliated with Hamburger Mary's took over ownership. After this group, toward the end of the Seventies, another group took over. In 1987, following a dispute with the landlord, The Stud had to move. They found a spot on Harrison at Ninth that had previously been a nightclub. We fast-forward a bit to revisit Marke, Rachel, and Honey's introductions to The Stud, which all took place at the Harrison location. Keeping with that spirit of inclusivity that had been a hallmark of the place since its opening, they all feel that it was the one place at the time where any segment of the queer population could feel at home. In 2016, over Fourth of July weekend, The Stud's then-owner, Michael McElheney (who'd owned the place since the late-Nineties), announced that he was selling the business. The building it was in had been sold, the new landlords tripled the rent, and McElheney was ready to retire. But, as mentioned in Part 1, Nate Albee already had a plan in place. Within the first week of McElheney's announcement, the fledgling collective presented the plan and it was accepted immediately. The group was already around 20 members strong. Honey and Rachel talk about other SF collectives and worker-owned businesses that they turned to for guidance and inspiration—Rainbow Grocery, Arizmendi, and the now-closed Lusty Lady. Marke says that, from its origin, the collective also wanted to serve as a beacon for how to do this elsewhere in the queer nightlife space. On New Year's Eve 2016, The Stud Collective threw its Grand Opening party. The place never shut down between the previous owner and the collective taking over, but it felt right to celebrate the takeover. Then, a little more than three years later, COVID hit. The rent was already exorbitant and they had decided to try to find another place. Once it became obvious that the shutdown was going to last longer than we all thought, they got out of the lease at the spot on Harrison, and even threw a funeral online. It wasn't an easy decision, but it turned out to be a unanimous one for the collective. The Grand Opening Night at the new location took place this year on April 20 (haha?) and was themed "Stud Timeline." The first hour, which began at 6 p.m., was Sixties, the second hour was the Seventies, and so on. The Cockettes were there. Queer elders showed up. There were also first-timers. It was a big deal, and the night was emotional for them all. I asked them to plug events at The Stud during Pride, and Rachel obliged on behalf of the group: Friday, June 28, "Forever" with (co-op member) Vivian ForevermoreSaturday, June 29, "Les Femmes," a celebration of dolls, twinks, and bimbosSunday, June 30, a "marathon party" with a drag show hosted by Princess Poppy We...

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 that to put himself through college. Sometime in those four years of school, he realized that his dream of writing for a local newspaper or weekly was damn near impossible. Also, it was the height of AIDS and Detroit didn't have much of an infrastructure around that. His best friend bought two train tickets and told Marke, "Pack your bags, we're leaving for San Francisco tomorrow." That didn't sit well with Marke at the time. He wasn't crazy about SF back then—he hated hippies, hated the Beats. He had visited with his family at 14, when he tried to run away from his parents and take a cable car to the Castro. That, of course, didn't work out so well (try the F-Market trains, kid). Despite his dislike of The City, his desire to get out of Detroit got him on that train. Two-and-a-half days and a couple bags of potato chips later, Marke arrived. It was the day after Pride 1994, and he's been here ever since. He saw a gay scene that was too white and mainstreamy. But he found his people—other people of color, into alternative music—at The End Up. His first time at The Stud was on a Monday hip-hop night. Immediately, he felt he had truly arrived. Years later, in 2016, Rachel Ryan and another co-op member asked Marke and his husband, David, to join their collective. They've both been members since then. Then we turn to Rachel Ryan. Rachel grew up in The City, Noe Valley specifically. Her parents put her in Live Oak School, back when it was located in the Castro. That experience helped to shape Rachel—her kindergarten teacher was young and gay and had bleach-blonde hair. He was an early role model for her. Her liberal family moved to Marin for that oh-so familiar reason: San Francisco became too expensive for them. But her dad's work was headquartered near The Eagle in South of Market, and Rachel spent some time with him in that area when she was young. She thinks back on her time in Marin fondly, from the access to nature to the freedoms her parents were able to grant her. But at the same time, her parents were protective of their daughter—she was free as long as she was with her older brother. Rachel got into swing dancing at a young age. She'd come to The City to go to swing clubs in the Nineties. But once her older brother and his friend graduated high school and went to college, that ended. College for her meant UC Santa Cruz. And after graduating there, she moved back to San Francisco right away. Today, she lives really close to where she grew up. Growing up, Rachel carried bisexual shame. She felt at times that she wasn't gay enough, but also found herself immersed in queer culture through friends. Then, in 2009, a trip to The Stud changed everything. "These are my people," she thought. Years later, Rachel and her people started noticing the closure of more and more queer bars and spaces around The City. Their friends were getting priced out of San Francisco more and more frequently, and they were fed up. The previous owner of The Stud, Michael McElheney, announced that he wanted to retire and sell the bar, and Rachel, Nate Albee, and some other of those friends seized the opportunity. The newly formed Stud Collective took over in 2016. Next up is Honey Mahogany. Honey's parents fled Ethiopia for San Francisco as refugees. She grew up in the Outer Sunset just off Taraval in the Eighties and Nineties. Her parents put her through Catholic school for K–12. It was a rather sheltered, quiet childhood, one where she could walk to aunts' and uncles' houses in the same neighborhood. For college, Honey moved...

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 area as soon as she could. That meant Chicago for college. She wanted to be a writer. Columbia College in Chicago was known as more of a film school, which meant she was on the periphery of movies in her time there. After college, it was on to Los Angeles, "as everybody does." Allegra worked in some art galleries and museums, with the goal of trying to get to San Francisco always in the back of her mind. As a kid growing up, she read a lot of Beat Generation writers (where were the women of the Beat era?). CCA was the draw that got Allegra up to The Bay. She studied contemporary art curation, focusing on how you can use art to build community. That was 20 years ago, and she's been here ever since. Then our conversation shifts to Frameline and its nearly half-century of history. It is the largest and longest-running queer film festival in the world. It's also the largest film event in California (hear that, LA?). It all began in 1977 on a bedsheet in the Castro. It was a time when there were no prominent images of queer people in media. Frameline 48 will take place all over the Bay Area. Check their website for a complete lineup. Allegra goes through a few of the events that she's excited about. The one I'm perhaps most hyped up for is next week's Juneteenth Frameline kick-off block party. In addition to many other aspects of the evening, the Castro Theatre's blade will be re-lit for the first time since that building underwent renovations. See you all at Frameline 48! We recorded this podcast over Zoom in May 2024. Image courtesy Frameline

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 the address of the original location of The Lost Church, and happens to be where Brett and his family live today. Then Brett shares the story of meeting his wife, Lost Church co-owner Lizzy. In 1997, he went to Burning Man for his first time, an experience he relates in detail. He went back in 1999 and that's when he met his future wife. Despite her being eight years younger than him, Brett noticed that Lizzy was much more mature than he was. Days after Burning Man, she visited Brett in San Francisco from her home in Sacramento. They eloped in Tahoe two months later and have been together ever since. Lizzy went through quite an adjustment in her new home on Capp Street. Brett then goes on a sidebar about his many musical adventures. He started a band with people he had met in his time at SF State in the Music program. They played out, most regularly at The Rite Spot. But they broke up and Brett got sick. He joined the stagehands' union to get health insurance. It was around this time that he and Lizzy decided to start their own band, this time with the explicit intention to tour. They cut up the Capp Street spot into multiple studio spaces to rent out to others. Lizzy and Brett lived and played music in one of the small spaces they had created. Juanita and the Rabbit was born. And they toured ... for most of the next two years. When they got back, Lizzy and Brett decided to try to have a kid. Around that same time, Brett had been having a not-so-good time with the stagehands' union. Lizzy was working as a stylist for photo shoots, making good money. This all allowed Brett to build out his own theater at the Capp Street space. The plan was to do "ridiculous" rock 'n' roll musicals. Then we get into how they came up with the name "Lost Church," which Brett says isn't as good a story as many people want to hear. Brett had his own record label, was doing sound design for video games, and wanted to get into sound for movies. His website was split into the two halves: half record label, half his sound design work. For that site and to encompass all that he was doing at the time, he had a few names he was kicking around—The Last School, The Lost School, The Last Church, and The Lost Church. He liked them all because of their community vibes. He's never been a religious person, but for him, the idea of church meant more. He settled on "The Lost Church." At first, though, it was just for his own creative endeavors. Visiting his website, you were directed to either "The Lost Church of Light and Sound" or "The Lost Church of Rock 'n' Roll." When he and Lizzy decided to turn their space into a theater, the name was already there. Brett talks about their intentionality of creating a theater-like environment for musicians, one with seats for the audience and the bar in a separate room. Then he shares stories of some of the first performances of the newly minted Lost Church. He says he's not sure how people found him, but shortly after those early shows, musicians started emailing him wanting to play there. (Brian Belknap came in early and Brett hired him to host shows). Then Brett dives into the story of why The Lost Church had to uproot from its original location. They survived for years without permits, mostly because they never envisioned it lasting long. Once the Entertainment Commission visited and pointed out all the shortcomings, they started to realize how much it would take to get the space up to code. By the time COVID hit, Brett and Lizzy had already started thinking about a new spot. They had opened their...

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 was heavily into the punk rock scene in SoCal in the Eighties (think bands like Social Distortion and Suicidal Tendencies, among others). But his love of music started in fourth grade when he snuck into the bedroom of an older neighbor kid and found the first record from Oingo Boingo, a band that changed his life. They were his first brush with alternative art, and soon became a defining point of his early personality. He dabbled in the four pillars of life in SoCal: He skateboarded, surfed, listened to punk rock, and ate at Taco Bell. Brett started playing drums in sixth grade and his first band was called High Voltage. He would write lyrics and draw album covers, while his friend Mark made beats on snare drums only. His mom was always a community person. She is a christian, but not a book-burner, as he says. She started a community organization centered around school issues: Citizens Action to Save Education (CASE). She was later school board president and continued to be involved in local politics around school issues. When his Navy service ended, Brett's dad got into the corporate world. He started several aviation companies. Today, Brett sees aspects of both of his parents in the foundation of The Lost Church. As a kid, he often went with his parents to community theaters. Brett's dad plays organ, his mom plays piano, one of his two brothers played clarinet, and his sister went to NYU and became an actor and singer. In high school, Brett started playing more music and always wanted to tour, though that never really worked out. He started playing bass and singing more. In 1989, he graduated high school and went to UC Santa Barbara. His college band, St. Rusticus, had the local record for getting shut down by cops the fastest. "Three songs in, and the cops were there." Going to UCSB introduced Brett to Northern California, partly because the school paired kids from SoCal with kids from NorCal in the dorms. He'd visited SF with his family when he was a kid. It was different from where he's from, but he didn't immediately like it. In college, though, he took trips up here and fell in love. He'd come up, do mushrooms and acid, and listen to older, more-mainstream rock. He got heavily into the Grateful Dead, even touring with them, as many fans do. After college, the plan was to move to SF with his friend Davey Lyle. (Lyle did many of the paintings seen today all around The Lost Church). But in his senior year, Brett got a D in art and learned that the Spanish he took at junior college didn't transfer to the UC. And so he dropped out, got a loan from his parents, bought a computer, scanner, and Photoshop, and started making album covers for local bands. Then his dad got him an internship in London with a graphic arts company and he took it. He saw many shows there but came back after only nine months. And when he came back, he moved immediately to San Francisco. With no job and no prospects, Brett moved in with his friend Davey, who'd already made the move up. They lived in a warehouse in the Mission on 20th near Harrison, then moved to Sixth and Market. It was December 1993. Check back next week for Part 2 and the origin story of The Lost Church. We recorded this podcast at The Lost Church San Francisco in May 2024.

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, including his Handsome Asians Motorcycle Club series on YouTube. In 2017, the year after SOMA Pilipinas came into existence, Mike was invited to join the nonprofits' arts and cultural group. They were looking to do a placemaking project and wanted to connect with artists to do so. At that time, Mike was already a professor at SF State. He ran the sculpture and expanded practice program there. He had done public art on his own before, and remembered Paolo and his motorcycle riding. Mike started thinking about jeepneys and the Philippines, which were relics left on the islands after years of war. These thoughts sparked the idea for a tricycle jeepney. And so Mike and Paolo applied for a grant. Originally, they planned to build it from scratch. Before Paolo's web series, he had made some documentaries. His first thought about TNT was that it, too, would make a cool web series. He didn't think of it as political in the beginning. But these were the years of the previous presidential administration (just before COVID), and in hindsight, he now sees a clearer picture of what it meant from Day One. They got the grant on the idea that that the traysikel signaled the presence of Filipinos. They wanted to take older Filipinos (manongs and manangs) to buy groceries in SOMA. And they somehow wanted to make the vehicle a roving sculpture. A friend of Mike's told them about a traysikel for sale in Modesto. They bought it, picked it up, and right away, realized that it needed a lot of work. Mike and Paolo took the whole thing apart, rewelded it, and added support. By the time the 2019 Parol Lantern Festival came around, it was ready to roll. They showed up, just Paolo and Mike, and started playing Tagalog music from Paolo's iPhone around the traysikel. People came over and sang along, which gave them the idea for karaoke. Michelle Nguyen, a vintage scooterist friend of Paolo's, designed the look of and painted the TNT Traysikel for them. Also at Parol 2019, Rachel learned about the project. As the karaoke was coming into being, Paolo and Michael thought, Rachel's an amazing singer—maybe she could be the karaoke host? She was in. And so they applied for a second grant, this time through the SF Arts Commission, to make a movie about the traysikel with a musical component. The three of them would become equal collaborators. Mobile karaoke came to be in the early days of COVID, when people really wanted to release, to be out and free and with other people. They say that to them, TNT encapsulates joy, grief (the grief of what you leave behind when you emigrate), and storytelling. Their Sidenotes project focuses on one or two people sitting in the sidecar telling stories. The TNT crew collects and archives those stories. Through this work and everything else, they recently were rewarded with a Rainin Arts Fellowship to do another film. In summer 2025, they're taking TNT Traysikel on the road. We end the podcast going around the room to hear Paolo, Mike, and Rachel's responses to this year's theme on the podcast—We're all in it. Follow TNT Traysikel on Instagram @TNT_traysikel and on YouTube: TNT_Traysikel. Photography by Jeff Hunt

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 got started doing graffiti art. In the mid-to-late-Eighties, they moved, first to the Eagle Rock neighborhood in LA, then Pomona, where, by the time he moved there, he'd become a full-fledged graffiti artist. He says it's what got him into art In high school, Mike learned technical drawing. He went to junior college, had art school on his mind. He was in a hip-hop crew, tagged ramps, and was friends with skaters, but never skated himself. He also breakdanced, but says it never took. After high school, he just wanted to get out of his parents house, and so he signed up to join the Army. But when Mike's dad found out about that, he cried and urged him to go to school instead. And so he visited San Francisco to attend a summer program at the Academy of Art University. And he fell in love with The City almost immediately. He shares the moment of coming up the escalator at Powell BART and seeing the scene on the street as the moment SF got his heart. He loved walking around the hills before art class, where he was starting to meet artists from all over. And slowly, he discovered the rest of The City by hopping on Academy shuttles. Soon after this summer program, Mike came back to visit the Art Institute. When he and a friend saw the view from the roof at SFAI, he decided to try to get into school there. Next, we meet TNT Traysikel's Paolo Asuncion. Paolo came to the US from the Philippines when he was 14. Before that migration, he had found his first girlfriend as well as a friend group that wasn't bullying him. The move abroad disrupted that progress. Paolo's family first came to Ontario, California, just outside of LA and not far from where Mike and his family were. His mom had met a family in church and she and her three kids lived with them. A family of four crammed into a single bedroom. He went to high school all over LA, first in Echo Park (before it was hip), then in the Rampart District, and at Torrance High (think Fast Times at Ridgemont High). Then Paolo's mom put him in Marshall High in Las Feliz (think Grease). Paolo's dad was a fairly famous actor back in the Philippines. But when he moved to the US to be with family, he ended up managing the apartment building where they lived and did door-to-door sales. His parents soon got divorced and his dad went back to his home country. Paolo went to Diamond Bar High School his senior year (which he says was very Breakfast Club-ish). He started playing guitar, which he says got him in with the cool kids. He even formed a band, but after high school, he went back to the Philippines, where he got his girlfriend pregnant. Then Paolo moved back to Glendale in Southern California. He was still on a tourist visa and tried to get jobs that would sponsor his work visa, which was difficult. One day, his uncle in LA asked to help him move to SF and they left Glendale at 10 at night, drove up I-5 to 580, then crossed Bay Bridge at sunrise. Looking out the windshield at the scene in front of him, Paolo thought, WHAT IS THIS PLACE? He spent a week here on that trip, during which time he had the same Powell escalator experience as Mike. Heloved it so much that he decided to move here. A friend of his uncle's got him a graphic design job and in 1996, he moved here. Last but not least, we meet Rachel Lastimosa. Rachel was born and raised in San Diego, the kid of a Navy person, which is how her dad got his U.S. citizenship. Members of Rachel's family have been in SF since the Forties, and when she was a kid, they visited here a lot from San Diego. Rachel's...

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 Feher since around 2004 when we were both in the Journalism program at SF State. Back in 2020, Erin reached out to me on behalf of her new orgranization—REPCO, or Represent Collaborative. Periodically, our podcasts run on REPCO and it's been an honor to collaborate with them. Check them out and donate if you're able. Danny and Erin met around the time I lost touch with Erin (2005, when I graduated from State). He was DJing and the night Erin and some friends walked in, Danny broke one of his own rules by talking to a woman at a bar he was deejaying. Their first date involved riding bikes around SF. Years later, they had their first kid. Erin had to go back to work before Danny did, so he was able to stay home and take care of their infant. But after a year, he was both itching to do something and needed to when his wife got laid off. And this is how Butterfly Joint was founded. It married his two passions—woodworking and teaching. The first location was on Mission Street and lasted there for years. But when Danny and his wife moved their little family to the Outer Richmond and found a new-to-them community there, he decided to bring the shop with him. Danny shares the story of opening the café and learning to make vegan donuts. These days, the café is open every day. Donuts are now his No. 1 seller. They focus on hyper-local goods and like to do pop-up events once a month. Follow Butterfly Joint and Café on Instagram. Visit them at 4411 Cabrillo. For those with kids who are interested, go to their website. Photography by Jeff Hunt

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 and skate cultures from a young age, and once he had friends who were old enough to do so, they drove "everywhere" to skate. His parents, both of whom are from Colombia and met in LA, divorced when Danny was 5. He and his older brother went to live most of the time with their mom in a trailer park. This was Danny's primary residence from age 5 to the beginning of ninth grade, and he says it shaped him deeply. He started skating at the trailer park when he was 8. At this point, Danny and I go on a sidebar about what skating and skate culture did for us as people. He did a lot of street skating and was one of the younger kids in his crew. He's quick to point out that he was also way into basketball. He skated until he was 10 and didn't pick it up again until high school. Thanks to a friend, he got into music when he was in junior high. His step dad and mom got married before Danny started high school, and he moved with them to Valencia, California. In his sophomore year, he started skating again and was going to hardcore shows in Hollywood and San Diego. Danny was the first person in his family to go to college. He says it wasn't a question of whether he'd go, but more of where. It boiled down to SD State vs. SF State, and he chose (wisely, I might add) to come up to The Bay. Danny's mom gave him and his brother lots of freedom, he says. They went on road trips up here unsupervised several times to visit a friend who lived in the dorms at SF State. And so by the time he entered college, at age 17, he already had friends here. He spent five years at SF State and graduated in 1994. After earning his bachelor's in Education, Danny worked on getting his teaching credentials. He taught for a couple years at public schools in The City. After that, he did preschool observation at Tule Elk Park Early Education School. The young woman he was dating at the time worked at Live Oak, a private school, and got Danny an after-school job there. Soon, he started subbing at Live Oak while also doing work-study at SF State. He got his credentials and ended up teaching for about a decade. Check back next week for Part 2 and Danny's story of leaving teaching to start his own woodworking and design studio for children grades kindergarten and up—The Butterfly Joint. We recorded this podcast at The Butterfly Joint and Café in the Outer Richmond in March 2024. Photography by Jeff Hunt

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 and a half, he says. At this point in the conversation, Nathan and I go on a sidetrack about how we both approach life and big decisions. He says he tries to stay open to opportunities, to seize them when appropriate. He still lived with his parents after graduation and didn't have a job lined up. At this point, we cycle through many jobs, good and bad, that he had over the years—Atari (game tester), American Design Intelligence Group (graphic designer), Mervyn's (graphic designer), Gymboree (boys' clothing designer), Zutopia (clothing designer), and Duty Free Stores (product/souvenir designer). He still worked at DFS when 9/11 happened. The months and years following that event saw a decline in sales for the company. He was on paternity leave following the birth of his first son when he got a phone call—he had been let go. But whatever pain that might have brought—after all, Nathan had an infant and a mortgage—it proved to be the impetus for him to start what this year is celebrating its 20th anniversary. New Skool Clothing and Accessories is his line of SF-inspired clothing for all ages. We end Part 2 with Nathan's response to this season's theme on the podcast—We're All In It. He mentions the mentoring he's been doing at Hunt and Gather Gallery in the Inner Sunset. And he says he's at a point in his life where he wants to help and give back. Follow New Skool on social media @newskoolSF and Nathan's personal accounts @nate1design. Photography by Jeff Hunt

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.