Michael "Spike" Krouse/Madron Art Bar, Part 2 (S6E21)
Storied: San Francisco
Part 2 picks up where we left off in Part 1. Spike shares details of his West Coast road trip, the one where he shopped for a city to move to and possibly lay down roots. It was 1993 and, of all those West Coast cities, San Francisco won. "The energy, the feeling that you belonged, the creative draw," they all contributed to Spike's decision to move to The City. "This is where I wanted to be," he says. He had $600 to his name, which was possible back then. He rented a basement room and got a job at SF Golf Club as a caddie. Spike saw an ad for a creative assistant at an...
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Michael "Spike" Krouse/Madrone Art Bar, Part 1 (S6E21)
Storied: San Francisco
Michael "Spike" Krouse's arrival on this planet was something of a miracle for his parents. In this episode, get to know the founder of (currently one of my favorite places in San Francisco). Spike's dad, a fighter pilot who flew missions in World War II, was much older than his mom. He flew for the Navy when the U.S. went to war with Korea as well. He ended up stationed in Alameda. When he retired from the Navy, in 1967, he took a job in Las Vegas, where the pay was good and the housing was affordable. His dad was director of operations for a nuclear test site in...
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The Anchor Brewing Union (S6 bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
Patrick Costello used to work at Anchor Brewing, where he was the production lead for the bottling and keg lines. He was also a member of the Anchor Brewing Union, where he served as a shop steward—essentially the union rep on the floor. Anchor's union was part of Local 6 of the ILWU. But Patrick wasn't exactly born into all of this. His mom and dad met at a house party in the Mission in the 1980s. Patrick's dad was stationed in the Presidio and his mom came here from Nicaragua. His dad wouldn't leave his mom alone at this party, or so the story goes. They were married at a church in...
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Azikiwee Anderson/Rize Up Bakery, Part 2 (S6E20)
Storied: San Francisco
Z had started a family whom he had to leave when he toured for rollerblading. It didn't take long for him to feel that he should be home—both to be there for his newborn son and to assist his partner in raising him. Being back in San Francisco, Z started searching for the new him, the next phase. Adding to his new role as father, he enrolled in culinary classes at San Francisco Cooking School. Compared with other things he'd gotten into, this was much more intense. Z was learning from others, rather than making it up "on the fly." But he took to the kitchen right away. He ended...
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Rootstock Arts' Color Your Mind Festival (S6 bonus)
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 this Saturday, July 27, 2024 from noon to 5 p.m. (This episode was created in collaboration with Erin and Ange from .) We start with Kundan. Long-time listeners will recognize or remember Kundan from ... , , and . 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...
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Azikiwee Anderson/Rize Up Bakery, Part 1 (S6E20)
Storied: San Francisco
From a young age, Azikiwee Anderson left his heart in San Francisco. In this episode, Azikiwee (everyone calls him "Z"), the founder of , 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...
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Reem Assil/Reem's California, Part 2 (S6E19)
Storied: San Francisco
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...
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Tosha Stimage and Favianna Rodriguez of Superblooms and Ancestral Futurism (S6 bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
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...
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Reem Assil/Reem's California, Part 1 (S6E19)
Storied: San Francisco
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...
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Rachel Ryan, Honey Mahogany, and Marke B./The Stud Collective, Part 2 (S6E18)
Storied: San Francisco
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 ... 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...
info_outlineWhen we sat down to record with this week's podcast guest, John Law, he launched right into the research he did to get to know us better before meeting us. For the next seven minutes, we were delighted to hear John's telling of Ep. 15 storyteller and Mission Creek houseboat resident Sarah Davis's first LSD trip. Hold on tightly for this doozie of a meta-Storied podcast!