Storied: San Francisco

Risa Iwasaki Culbertson was born in Japan.

In this episode, meet and get to know Risa, one of the 12 artists in Every Kinda People, our group show at Mini Bar. Please join us this Sunday, Oct. 19, from 4–7 p.m. at Mini Bar for our Closing Party happy hour. Some of the artists will be on hand, as will friendly bartend...

Listen in as I chat with Broke-Ass Stuart about, well, a lot of stuff. But we also talk about Stuart’s new book, The Worst of Broke-Ass Stuart: 20 Years of Love, Death, and Dive Bars.

The book is available at your favorite local indie bookstore and also at Bookshop.org. And get very affordable tickets for next Friday...

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1.

To get us caught up to what Lisa is doing these days, we go back to her arrival in The Bay. Her work at the prop shop led to some other jobs, but competition was fierce and she sought a way to integrate art into the labor she undertook. She found it when the producti...

Lisa Davidson is an ironworker with Local 377 San Francisco. Her team currently does ironwork on the Golden Gate Bridge. But we’ll get to that.

In this episode, S8 E3, meet and get to know Lisa. I first did that back in May at our Keep It Local art show at Babylon Burning (thanks, Mike and Judy!). Someone at the part...

Listen in as I chat with Joanna Lioce all about the new Mabuhay Gardens.

Joanna is booking monthly shows in the new legendary North Beach punk venue through the end of the year. Get tickets for the Oct. 3, 2025, Mabuhay Gardens show featuring Kelley Stoltz, White Lightning (PDX), and The Boars at EventBrite.

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Although it made all kinds of sense for Shrey to move halfway around the world to go to art school, he says it was "an uphill battle” convincing his parents of the plan. Still, his mom was and is a champion of her son and his art.

It was 2018 and Shrey was 20. We tal...

Shrey Purohit is the kind of person everyone should know. Not know about (although obviously that’s what this podcast aims to do), but know personally.

In this podcast, Episode 2 of Season 8 of Storied: San Francisco, meet and get to know Shrey. A few of his art pieces are up at Mini Bar through Oct. 19 in our Every ...

Part 2 picks up where we left off in Part 1. Marga had just arrived in San Francisco and lived in a collective house with a lesbian and two gay men ("of course, the decorations were fabulous"). It was a bit of a party house, known for throwing spectacular Halloween fests. Marga talks about collective living, chore charts and stuff like that. Eventually, the woman Ma...

Marga Gomez grew up in Washington Heights, New York City, immersed in a family of Spanish-language entertainers.

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 1 of Storied: San Francisco. I first learned of Marga more than a decade ago, through comedy and performance circles I was adjacent to. Because I don’t have the world’s best me...

Listen in as I talk all things off-season and the upcoming eighth season of Storied. Topics include:

• The 2025 Listener Survey, which is up until 9/1/25. Take the survey and you could win a Storied: SF zip hoodie!
• The “Every Kinda People” art show at Mini Bar. Opening night is 9/4/25.

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Carolyn and I talk about making decisions and intentionality vs. circumstance, need, and necessity. We then go on to talk more about Carolyn’s lifelong love of sports.

She shares the story of her maternal grandmother coming from The Philippines to live with them and ...

Carolyn Sideco’s story begins in The Philippines.

Her dad, Tony Sideco, was born on the island of Cebu in 1938. Her mom, Linda, was born in Paniqui in 1942. By the time Carolyn’s mom was born, the Japanese occupied The Philippines. Young Tony worked for the electric company, which sent him to Paniqui. He soon met his...

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Dregs shares the story of the day he started doing graffiti. It was also when he began experimenting with rapping.

Dregs talks about all the “cool shit in The City” back then, the early 2000s. From sports and music to the aforementioned underworld of San Francisco, S...

Listen in as I chat with Gaelan McKeown (director of the SF Art Book Fair) and Lisa Ellsworth (director of Development and Strategy at Minnesota Street Project Foundation) as talk all things 2025 San Francisco Art Book Fair.

We recorded this podcast at the Minnesota Street Project Foundation in The Dog Patch in June ...

Dregs One is a lot of things, including a podcast host.

In this episode, meet and get to know this prolific AF graffiti writer, hip-hop artist, and Bay historian. Dregs starts us off with the story of his parents.

His paternal grandmother was abandoned as a child. Her...

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Young Ed was studying at UC Davis and exploring his sexuality. He didn’t consider himself bisexual, and instead thought that everyone was fluid. But he thought he had made a choice—that is, to be heterosexual. Part of that decision is that Ed always wanted a family of his own, and therefore, partnering with a woman ...

Listen in as Megan Rohrer and I reconnect after nearly four years to talk all about their new book, San Francisco’s Transgender District. Look for it on Arcadia Publishing in August at your local bookstore.

We recorded this bonus episode outside the front door of the Golden Gate Theater in the Transgender District in...

Ed Center and I begin this podcast with a toast.

I’m proud to call Ed my friend. I met him a couple years at The Social Study, where we recorded this episode and where my wife, Erin Lim, bartends. From the first time I spoke with Ed, I knew I liked him. His energy and humor and intellect and heart are all boundless. ...