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 (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...
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Misstencil, Part 1 (S7E14)
Storied: San Francisco
Misstencil was born on a mountain in China. In this episode, we meet artist and she shares the story of her life. Before we get to that, be sure to on May 23. Misstencil will be one of the six artists featured that evening, and for a very good reason. But we’ll get to that. As the Communist Party came to power in China, her dad and his family found themselves on the unfortunate side of things. His side of the family had a history as successful business people, which was suddenly frowned upon. Her mom came from a family of professors, also not favorable in the “new China.” Her dad was...
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415 Zine's Fredo and Laine, Part 2 (S7E13)
Storied: San Francisco
Part 2 picks up where we left off in Part 1. Fredo and Laine had worked for the same company for a minute, but both left eventually. That social group they’d formed with a few other artists they worked with kept in touch. Some years went by. Fredo attended a workshop for artists at in the Sunset, and let Laine know about it. She says that he asked her to be his “accountability buddy.” He says it wasn’t a question, but more a half-joking demand. Fredo shares what an “accountability buddy” is, in this sense. At the workshop, each attendee set up goals for the next year. Your...
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415 Zine’s Laine and Alfredo (S7E13)
Storied: San Francisco
Alfredo Sainz’s grandfather came to US from Chihuahua, Mexico, in the during World War II. That family then migrated from El Paso, Texas, through New Mexico and Southern California, then as far north as San Francisco. In this episode, get to know Fredo and his co-founder and co-publisher, Laine Wiesemann. We begin Part 1 with Fredo. Fredo and his brother were his family’s first US-born members, making them both Chicanos. Most of his mom’s family immigrated to the US, but many family members on his dad’s side still live in Mexico, mostly in Guadalajara. His grandfather followed the...
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Lincoln Mitchell on His New Book About George Moscone (S7 bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
Check out my conversation with previous guest as we chat about Lincoln’s new book, Three Years Our Mayor: George Moscone and the Making of Modern San Francisco. Look for Lincoln at the following events for his new book: April 29: He will be in conversation with Bill Issel discussing the book and what it can teach us about San Francisco today. Hosted by the at the Roar Shack, 34 7th Street, from 6–8 p.m. May 1: He will be in conversation at the University Club with Corey Busch, who served on Moscone’s senate staff, was a senior member of Moscone’s mayoral campaign staff, press...
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Kundan Baidwan, Part 2 (S7E12)
Storied: San Francisco
In Part 2, Kundan tell us about her decision to move to San Diego for college, where she would join her older sister, who’d been there for several years. But before that move south, she joined her sister and her sister’s friends on a backpacking adventure in Europe. After some time there, Kundan and her sister went to India to visit family there. Then she came back to go to school. What began as the study of psychology gradually gave way for Kundan to take more and more art and film classes. Eventually, she re-declared as an art major. She graduated in five years, and among the friends she...
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The 68th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival (S7 bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
Listen in as SFFILM Director of Programming Jessie Fairbanks and I discuss this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival. Topics include: SFFILM’s festival spotlight The film Please visit for more info, including where to RSVP for free events and where to get tickets for ticketed events. We recorded this episode over Zoom in April 2025.
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!