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 ..read more

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 sffilm.org for more ..read more

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 ..read more

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 Mitchell's Ice Cream 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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 h ..read more

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 ..read more

Mark DeVito, co-owner and COO of Standard Deviant Brewing, 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 he ..read more

Huckleberry Youth, the non-profit providing care and housing for underserved youth, celebrated 50 years back in 2017. In Part 1 of this episode, we meet Huckleberry consultant/advisor Denise Coleman and the organization's CEO/executive director, Doug Styles.   Denise was born at what is now Kaiser's French Campus on Geary. Denise, who is Black, shares the story of the hospital making her dad pay cash for their labor and delivery services, while it was obvious that white folks were allowed to make installment payments.   Born and raised in the 1950s and Sixties, Denise and her family ..read more

We begin Part 2 where we left off in Part 1. Anita had been away from their Arkansas college town and missed Lester. Upon her return, she went to see him and they soon shared their first kiss.   Soon after that day, Anita had a pregnancy scare, and so Lester asked her, "Would you marry me if you are?" She said yes, but ended up not being pregnant. It didn't matter. They got married anyway. It was 1990 and they were both 22.   Lester had a semester to go in college, which meant that the young couple couldn't live together or he'd get kicked out of the Christian school.   He had s ..read more