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Brett Cline/The Lost Church San Francisco, Part 1 (S6E17)

Storied: San Francisco

Release Date: 06/04/2024

Sharing Stories: Keoni Washington (S7 bonus) show art Sharing Stories: Keoni Washington (S7 bonus)

Storied: San Francisco

This bonus episode is presented in collaboration with the Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund. ​ gave some peace of mind to aspiring boxing champ Keoni Washington, who became parent and breadwinner to his brothers after their mother passed  away early in the pandemic. We meet him at the East Bay apartment he shares with three of his brothers.  Keoni received rental assistance from Season of Sharing Fund in 2023, which has allowed him and his brothers to stay in their home. If you want to hear more profiles of help and hope, go to . And if you want to find out how you can...

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Frameline Film Fest's Allegra Madsen, Part 2 (S7E4) show art Frameline Film Fest's Allegra Madsen, Part 2 (S7E4)

Storied: San Francisco

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Allegra was bartending at Second City in Chicago. The day of her graduation ceremony, at Columbia College Chicago, she packed up all her belongings and drove to LA with a friend.   Allegra really wanted to be in California. Not yet totally sure about what she was gonna do, she took the plunge, so to speak. She'd realized that she wasn't going to pursue art. But she figured, correctly, that in addition to the warmer climate, there would be opportunities to seize in Los Angeles. But Allegra soon found that the challenges of a pre-smartphone...

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Frameline Film Fest's Allegra Madsen, Part 1 (S7E4) show art Frameline Film Fest's Allegra Madsen, Part 1 (S7E4)

Storied: San Francisco

Allegra Madsen has a Polaroid photo of her birth. In this episode, meet and get to know Allegra. Today, she's the executive director of  film fest, the biggest LGBTQIA+ movie event in the world. She might disagree, but Allegra is a big deal. (Quick side note: As we kicked off our recording, Allegra expertly solved a Rubik's Cube. No bigs.) We begin with the story of how her parents met. Allegra's dad is from Chicago originally. He taught transcendental meditation (TM) and moved all over the world. Eventually, he landed in Virginia, where he met Allegra's mom, who is from there...

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Jacob Rosenberg and the Bay Area Hip-Hop + Skateboarding Scenes of the Nineties (S7 bonus) show art Jacob Rosenberg and the Bay Area Hip-Hop + Skateboarding Scenes of the Nineties (S7 bonus)

Storied: San Francisco

Jacob Rosenberg had a front-row seat to some rad SF/Bay Area history. In this bonus episode, the filmmaker/storyteller shares some of that history, especially as it relates to his upcoming book, Right Before My Eyes. Jacob was born and raised in Palo Alto. He grew up in the Seventies and Eighties. His parents moved there from the East Coast and Midwest to raise kids in an environment that matched their liberal values more. He started skating in the Eighties and would visit Justin Herman Plaza/EMB in The City with his skateboard but also his camera. He was one of the first to capture the...

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Nicole Salaver, Part 2 (S7E3) show art Nicole Salaver, Part 2 (S7E3)

Storied: San Francisco

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1, with Nicole's move to New York. She didn't necessarily have a plan for this cross-country relocation, but she dove in head-first nonetheless.   Nicole of course turned to Craigslist to help her find a roommate. But she also hopped on FB Marketplace, which is where she eventually found someone. She moved in with an old friend from theater to an apartment in East Harlem on 125th Street.   She considers her time in NYC "epic." She learned a lot, she grew up, she did laundry in the snow ... character-building, all of it. She...

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Nicole Salaver, Part 1 (S7E3) show art Nicole Salaver, Part 1 (S7E3)

Storied: San Francisco

​Nicole Salaver is the kind of person I wish I had met long before that happened. In this episode, meet Nicole. She's the program manager at  these days. But her San Francisco roots go way, way back. Her maternal grandfather came to the US in the 1920s. He was one of the first Filipinos to own a restaurant and pool hall in Manilatown (please see our episode on ). He was a manong who lived at the International Hotel. Stories that Nicole's mom has told her were that he was more or less a mobster, paying off cops to keep his place safe. Nicole's maternal grandmother came...

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D9 Supervisor Candidate Jackie Fielder, Part 2 (S7E2) show art D9 Supervisor Candidate Jackie Fielder, Part 2 (S7E2)

Storied: San Francisco

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1.   Jackie considers it an honor to have worked for Lateefah Simon, who's running for Congress in the East Bay for the seat currently held by Barbara Lee. Jackie was tasked with writing memos, and she took that job and ran with it, digging deeply into the weeds of policy. What she found in the existing systems of that time piqued her curiosity around what it might mean if she herself were to enter the fray. Her life up to that point formed her world views, as these things tend to do. But the policies, she says, ticked her off.   She...

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D9 Supervisor Candidate Jackie Fielder, Part 1 (S7E2) show art D9 Supervisor Candidate Jackie Fielder, Part 1 (S7E2)

Storied: San Francisco

is quick to credit her ancestors with her life and where she is now that she's 30. In this episode, meet Jackie, who's running to be the next District 9 supervisor. District 9 includes the Mission, Bernal Heights, and the Portola. She begins by sharing the life story of her maternal grandparents, who are from Monterey in Mexico. Her grandfather worked in orange groves in Southern California, while her grandmother was a home care worker. She also did stints at See's Candies seasonally. Sadly, both grandparents passed away when Jackie was young. But she learned more about them as she grew up....

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SF Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, Part 2 (S7E1) show art SF Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, Part 2 (S7E1)

Storied: San Francisco

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Aaron talks about volunteering at a nonprofit in The City called the Trust for Public Land, where he learned about land acquisition for parks and open spaces. Through that gig, he got a paid internship and eventually, a job. In fact, he met Nancy, the woman he would later marry, there. He eventually moved into Nancy's apartment in North Beach, his first apartment in SF. The move came shortly after the couple visited Nepal to climb in the Himalayas. It was October 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake happened.   We fast-forward to 2000,...

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SFFILM's Doc Stories 2024 w/Jessie Fairbanks (S7 Bonus) show art SFFILM's Doc Stories 2024 w/Jessie Fairbanks (S7 Bonus)

Storied: San Francisco

Around this time last year, I covered my first film festival, SFFILM's Doc Stories. The screenings and other events all took place at The Vogue Theater, which is just a short walk from where I live. Long story short, I was hooked. Since then, I've covered SFFILM's International Film Festival, , and  this year. And so I wasn't going to pass up a chance to speak again with Director of Programming at SFFILM Jessie Fairbanks. In this bonus episode, Jessie talks about this year's Doc Stories, the 10th such festival that SFFILM has put on to celebrate documentary...

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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.