Libsyn Directory

Woody LaBounty, Part 2 (S7E11)

Release Date: 04/08/2025

Storied: San Francisco

Listen in as I chat with return guest about his latest book, Epicenter. The photobook beautifully captures the skateboarding scene at the Embarcadero from 1990 to 1993. The accompanying IRL photo exhibit for Epicenter has been extended through Sunday, Jan. 25, at 201 Jackson St. More info . Here’s the last episode we did with Jake, all about his previous book, Right Before My Eyes: We recorded this podcast over Zoom in December 2025. Photo of Jovantae Turner by Jacob Rosenberg

Artist Hollis Callas, Part 2 (S8E9)

Storied: San Francisco

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. The “bootcamp” post-college and early career experience Hollis had at Creative Circus was interesting—she found herself seemingly taking it more seriously than many who’d come right out of a four-year program. She also balanced getting engaged and married in this time. Every year, Hollis’s grad school organized portfolio reviews with advertising agencies in either New York or San Francisco. Luckily for all of us, the year it was her turn, Creative Circus took students to The City. Once here, they met folks from big firms, including...

Artist Hollis Callas, Part 1 (S8E9)

Storied: San Francisco

We’re baaaaaaack! Happy New Year, y’all! In this first episode of 2026, meet and get to know San Francisco artist . Hollis first came across my radar a few years ago when she won a contest to design our city’s new “I voted” stickers. I soon learned that she’s something of an artistic fixture in one of my adopted neighborhoods—The Inner Richmond. So I sat down with her one afternoon in November to learn more about her life. In Part 1, Hollis, an artist, illustrator, and designer, begins sharing her life story, which started in Atlanta. She grew up in the same Georgia house where...

A Year-End Chat with Friend-of-the-Show Vandor Hill of Whack Donuts (S8 bonus)

Storied: San Francisco

Listen in as my friend Vandor Hill and I wrap up his second year of Whack Donuts’ brick-and-mortar location. This is Vandor’s third appearance on Storied: SF. Here are the other two episode’s we’ve done with him: We recorded this podcast at in Embarcadero 4 in December 2025. Photo by Jeff Hunt

Lex Sloan, Henry S. Rosenthal, and The Roxie, Part 2 (S8E8)

Storied: San Francisco

In Part 2, we pick up right where we left off in Part 1. Continuing her history of 3117 16th Street, Lex notes that “The Roxie has lived many lifetimes.” She describes the Eighties and Nineties as busy times for the theater. They ran a series of Werner Hertzog films in that era. Akira Kurisawa visited for some of his movies. Many local films and film festivals took place at The Roxie. Frameline was set there. San Francisco and the greater Bay Area were becoming something of a cinema mecca. The aforementioned Roxie Releasing ended up helping the business in times when ticket sales weren’t...

Lex Sloan, Henry S. Rosenthal, and The Roxie, Part 1 (S8E8)

Storied: San Francisco

When you tell friends you’re going to see a movie at The Roxie, there’s an almost palpable envy that sets in for them. In this episode, meet Lex Sloan and Henry S. Rosenthal. Lex is ’s executive director and Henry is on its Board of Directors and the chair of the theater’s capital campaign, which we’ll get to. In the meantime, if you’d like to help keep a bona fide San Francisco landmark in its rightful home until the end of time (they’d sure love you to, and so would I), donate to the Forever Roxie fund . We start with Henry, who lets us know that the “S” in his name stands...

Neighborhood Basic Bitch: The Mission District, w/H.P. Mendoza and Bitch Talk (S8 bonus)

Storied: San Francisco

Listen in as I join and of to chat with about all things Mission District. We wax poetic about H.P.’s home hood, spinning yarns about the infamous neighborhoo'd’s past, present, and future. We recorded this podcast at in (duh) The Mission in November 2025. Photo by

Randall Ann Homan and Al Barna of SF Neon, Part 2 (S8E7)

Storied: San Francisco

In Part 2, we pick up more or less where we left off in Part 1, hearing the story of how Randall and Al came to love all things neon. Their enthusiasm kicked into high gear when they started noticing neon signs coming down, and they decided to try to do something about it. That something started with documenting the signs. And with that came a bit of a learning curve, especially around photographing artificial lights at night. Over the next five years, they captured and captured and captured, getting as many extant signs as they could find. Randall had some book design experience under her...

Randall Ann Homan and Al Barna of SF Neon, Part 1 (S8E7)

Storied: San Francisco

The story of how Randall Ann Homan got her name is a unique one. In this episode, meet and get to know Randall and her partner, in life and in neon, Al Barna. Today, the couple are all about all things . But we’ll get to that. When Randall’s dad was a teenager, he saved a young girl named Randall from drowning. After saving the little girl, he taught her to swim. Years later, when he had his own daughter, he carried the name forward. Randall Homan grew up in Goodyear, Arizona, just outside of Phoenix. The town was named for the tire company, and it was where, back in the day, the eponymous...

Saikat Chakrabarti, Part 2 (S8E6)

Storied: San Francisco

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1, with that fateful visit Saikat took to The Mission. He and friends worked a lot, but didn’t have a lot of money (sound familiar?). To learn The City and have some fun, they signed up for as many walking tours as they could find. After a few months living in Park Merced, Saikat relocated to The Mission—16th and Hoff, specifically. Esta Noche was nearby, and it’s where he saw his first drag show. A buddy worked with Saikat to build a web wireframing tool (think the basics of web design, the skeleton of sites, so to speak). They knew some...

More Episodes

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1, with Woody's brief time at UC Berkeley across The Bay. During that one year of college, he lived at his grandmother's house in the Outer Richmond. His parents had recently split up, and both his parents moved, separately, to Marin.

In fact, Woody says, his parents' moves north forced him to think about and start to consider that San Francisco was and would perhaps always be his home. Time has proven that to be true, of course. But to his young-adult mind, it just felt right for that moment. He'd spent a little time in Marin, and it wasn't a fit for young Woody.

A decade or so later, now married and with a kid, Woody and his wife moved to Durham, North Carolina, for nine months. It was yet another not-San Francisco town that provided a contrast with his hometown and reminded him how much he wanted to be here.

After that brief stint in college, Woody decided he wanted to entertain, and so he enrolled in a clown school run by Ringling Brothers in Florida. He got work with the PIckle Family Circus back in The City. He did a lot of vaudeville with them and even went to Japan and on other tours.

It was during his time in the circus that Woody met his wife. Nancy had a boyfriend at the time and was headed to Spain to teach English. Two years later, she returned to The Bay and Woody was single. Their first date was at Rock and Bowl, the spot on Haight Street where Amoeba is today. They walked down Haight after that to Mad Dog in the Fog. When they left Mad Dog, Woody knew it was love when Nancy asked him, "Where can we go play video games?"

In 1997, they had a baby, their daughter Miranda. That effectively ended the Performer chapter of Woody's life. Nancy is a midwife, and he needed to be flexible enough that he could watch his daughter while his wife was working.

After that stint in North Carolina, Woody came back with a renewed purpose—he decided to devote his life to letting people know how great San Francisco is. It would start with The City's past, and how that history informs the present and helps chart a path to our future. This led to the establishment of the Western Neighborhoods Project.

David Gallagher was married to a woman who Woody had performed with. David and Woody formed a board with a couple friends also interested in SF history. They settled on being a nonprofit and built a website, something that was pretty novel at the time. They interviewed folks and shared stories of the west side of town. They also had (and still have) a podcast.

Woody was with WNP for 20 years, until just recently. He talks about how the main objective of WNP was to gather as much forgotten history of the west side of San Francisco as possible, and then to make that available to as many folks as possible so that they might understand what came before and what could be possible in the here and now.

We take a sidebar to talk about the so-called Doom Loop, especially as it relates to hearing from friends and family who aren't in San Francisco, but will ask us things like, "What the hell is going on out there?" Not to diminish the real problems facing our and other cities, bu that media trope is tired and was always nonsense.

We talk briefly about the Outsidelands Podcast, which started way back in early 2013. Woody is no longer directly involved, but it's in good hands with WNP Executive Director Nicole Meldahl. Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.

From WNP, Woody joined SF Heritage, where he works today. SF Heritage's mission is "to preserve and enhance San Francisco’s unique architectural and cultural identity." Nowadays, Woody is the CEO and president of the nonprofit, and he says that in that role, he "doesn't get to do a lot of the fun stuff," being more on the business side as he is. Still, he of course believes wholeheartedly in the organization's mission—it was what drew him to SF Heritage, in fact.

We end the podcast with Woody's take on our theme this season—Keep It Local.

We recorded this episode in Mountain Lake Park in March 2025.

Photography by Jeff Hunt

TOPICS