Megan Rohrer’s Book About San Francisco’s Transgender District (S7 bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
Listen in as and I reconnect after nearly four years to talk all about their new book, . Look for it on Arcadia Publishing in August at your local bookstore. We recorded this bonus episode outside the front door of the Golden Gate Theater in the Transgender District in June 2025.
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The Village Well’s Ed Center, Part 1 (S7E17)
Storied: San Francisco
Ed Center and I begin this podcast with a toast. I’m proud to call Ed my friend. I met him a couple years at , where we recorded this episode and where my wife, , bartends. From the first time I spoke with Ed, I knew I liked him. His energy and humor and intellect and heart are all boundless. I’m hella drawn to people like Ed. His story begins in Cebu in the Philippines, with his maternal grandmother. Her family was poor and her parents died in the Spanish Flu of the 1910s. That loss plunged the surviving family members into what Ed describes as destitute poverty. Following that tragedy,...
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The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot Play, with Shane Zaldivar and Saoirse Grace, Part 2 (S7E16)
Storied: San Francisco
In Part 2, we start off talking about the underground nature of trans and drag safe spaces such as Compton’s back in the Sixities, and well before that. Because of this, precise records of places and events are often hard to come by. Saoirse also speaks to the human psychology of needing other people to act in order to justify joining an action. Of course, everyone’s threshold for this varies. Shane joins in to talk about how queer history is the story of fighting back against hate when there’s nothing left to lose. Folks on the frontlines of these battles don’t always plan the fights...
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Frameline49 with Allegra Madsen (S7 bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
I joined and of for another sit-down with Frameline Executive Director to talk all things Frameline49. If it weren’t obvious from that moniker, this year’s is the 49th annual Frameline film festival, the largest and longest-running LGBTQIA fest in the world. After listening to this bonus episode, please browse the , buy tickets, get your butt in a theater seat, and let’s continue to uplift the LGBTQIA community through art! We recorded this bonus episode at the offices in South of Marked in June 2025.
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The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot Play, with Shane Zaldivar and Saoirse Grace, Part 1 (S7E16)
Storied: San Francisco
Saoirse Grace was one of the first successful in vitro pregnancies in Massachusetts. In this episode, Saoirse is joined by her Compton’s Cafeteria Riot play costar, Shane Zaldivar. The two share short versions of their respective life stories and how they got to the Bay Area and San Francisco. Then we dig into the history of the Compton’s Cafeteria riot, followed by a conversation on the play about the riot, their roles in it, and the actual lived experiences of trans people today. Saoirse, who plays Collette in the play, was born in Boston and grew up a little there, and a little in San...
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Kyle Casey Chu, aka Panda Dulce, and “After What Happened at the Library” (S7 bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
Kyle Casey Chu, aka Panda Dulce is a fourth-generation Chinese-American. Her twin brother has autism, and the two went to Jefferson Elementary in the Sunset because the school had a good inclusive special education program. Kyle says that from an early age, she fought for her twin, all the way up to teaching classmates ASL to be able to communicate with her brother. After one year at Lick-Wilmerding High School, Kyle transferred to School of the Arts (now Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts) to major in music. She went to Sarah Lawrence College in New York after that, where she majored...
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Mike Irish of Emmy's Spaghetti Shack, Part 2 (S7E15)
Storied: San Francisco
Part 2 picks up right where we left off in Part 1, with Mike’s move to The City. It was 2021, around the brief lull in COVID cases before Omicron hit. Full disclosure: This part of my episode on Mike has way more content about me than most of what I publish here on Storied. I guess you’ll just have to deal. Mike knew he could fall back on bartending here while he figured out his next gig in his new city. He’d taken one of what he calls a “big swing” with his move to New York City when he was 18. Now was time for another big swing, this one in San Francisco. He worked briefly at a...
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Homeless Children’s Network (S7 bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
Welcome to this bonus episode about (HCN). Malik Parker is the director of the Jabali Substance Use Disorder (SUD) program at HCN. He is originally from Fayetteville, North Carolina, but his mom is from Oakland. He left NC for The Bay the day after he graduated high school in 2011. Cameron Smith is HCN’s director of Afrocentric programs. He is from Columbus, Ohio, but has been in SF for more than 10 years now. Cameron came here on a whim; he had a friend who needed a roommate. His first job in The Bay was in San Jose at the YMCA as a basketball ref. He knew then that he wanted to serve, to...
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Mike Irish, Owner of Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack, Part 1 (S7E15)
Storied: San Francisco
Mike Irish is his actual name. Welcome to my episode with the current (it no longer works to say “new”) owner of one of my favorite places in San Francisco—. I’m not sure where to begin, but I suppose a sprinkle of backstory can’t hurt. Back in 2022, I recorded an episode with , then the owner and forever the founder of Emmy’s. It was a fun interview, and through that chat with Emmy, we discovered that we had been across-the-street neighbors in the Mission back in the early 2000s. Fast-forward to summer 2024 when I applied to be on and rated Emmy’s as my No. 1 pick among the...
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Misstencil, Part 2 (S7E14)
Storied: San Francisco
In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1, with Misstencil at a new school half a world away from her home in China. Her time in Switzerland started off in business school, a topic that she admits she’s not the best at today. Aside from school, she visited other parts of Europe. She got a job in Switzerland, but called her family back home as much as she could afford to. One call she had with them around the new year one year had her feeling like family members were passing the phone and no one wanted to talk with her. She then learned that her grandfather, the one who had raised...
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!