S3E15, Part 2: Marke Bieschke on His Life in San Francisco
Release Date: 04/23/2020
Danny Montoya/Butterfly Joint and Café, Part 1 (S6E15)
Storied: San Francisco
In this episode, meet and get to know Danny Montoya, who owns and operates 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...
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Nathan Tan, Part 2 (S6E14)
Storied: San Francisco
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...
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Nathan Tan, Part 1 (S6E14)
Storied: San Francisco
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...
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SFFILM's Anne Lai (S6 Bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
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 for more info,...
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Mitchell's Ice Cream, Part 2 (S6E13)
Storied: San Francisco
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....
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Mitchell's Ice Cream, Part 1 (S6E13)
Storied: San Francisco
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 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....
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Photographer Chloe Sherman, Part 2 (S6E12)
Storied: San Francisco
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...
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Photographer Chloe Sherman, Part 1 (S6E12)
Storied: San Francisco
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...
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Mark DeVito and Standard Deviant Brewing, Part 2 (S6E11)
Storied: San Francisco
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...
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Mark DeVito and Standard Deviant Brewing, Part 1 (S6E11)
Storied: San Francisco
Mark DeVito, co-owner and COO of , 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...
info_outlineMarke Bieschke arrived in San Francisco in the mid-'90s, got a place to live, and got the first of a couple of dotcom jobs. Those were the days ...
Today, Marke is the publisher and arts editor of 48 Hills (fundraiser here). He's also part of a collective that owns The Stud, San Francisco's oldest gay nightclub (fundraiser here). In this podcast, Marke shares the stories of his two-and-a-half decades in the city. He ends by reflecting on how the community has reacted in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
We recorded this podcast on Zoom during quarantine in San Francisco in April 2020.
Photo by Jeff Hunt