The San Francisco Mime Troupe, Part 3 (S8E21)

Listen in as I chat with German Gonzalez, musical conductor and principal director of the Golden Gate Park Band, now in its 144th year. We recorded this podcast in Golden Gate Park in June 2026.

In Part 3, we hear from Keiko and Michael about the history of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. In the late-1950s, a San Franciscan named R.G. Davis taught a class in movement—mime, dance, physical interpretation of stories … that sort of thing. A performing troupe sprang out of that class, and it was known as the R.G. Davis Mime Troupe. It was the era of the early Civil Rights and Anti-War movements, and the troupe became more and more political, basing much of their work around social issues of the day. The group started off doing silent mime work, but shifted later. Michael offers us the definition of mime at this point—"the exaggeration of everyday life in story and song." Not all mime is silent. As the audiences kept getting bigger and bigger, Davis's troupe realized that they needed to abandon the silent style. They dived into doing commedia dell'arte with more and more masks and colorful decorations. Classic commedia almost always involved stories around class—think servants vs. rich assholes. The Davis troupe started writing mimes about civil rights, women's rights, workers' struggles. And they realized that changing their name to "San Francisco Mime Troupe" was a wise move. The newly named SF Mime Troupe played around California. They went to the Midwest and East Coast. They were getting bigger and bigger and getting more and more attention. In the early 1970s, they decided to become a collective. R.G. Davis left at this point. But the troupe wanted to practice what it was "preaching" on stage. I ask Michael to tell us the difference between a collective and a co-op—basically, a co-op is shared ownership of an entity. A collective is simply the way of running the thing. It doesn't necessarily speak to ownership. Keiko joined the collective as an actor. Soon after that, she helped to build props and design costumes and sets. I ask Keiko and Michael to explain the "why" part of getting involved and staying with SF Mime Troupe. Keiko takes us back to her childhood, when her parents took her to anti-war protests regularly. She cites that as a foundation for why she was attracted to the work that the SF Mime Troupe had been engaged in already for so long. She believes in the power of the people to come together and overcome whatever is thrown at us. And the fact that there's a theater company, where she could combine all her passions, didn't hurt at all. For Michael, it goes back to the first SFMT show he saw. It was Factwino vs. the Moral Majority. It's a show about free speech and manipulation. He was hooked. He'd be a fan forever. Then, he got that audition. He agrees with Keiko about the mime troupe community, but Michael goes a step further—he points to that camaraderie he finds with audiences. He appreciates being able to express his passion for politics regularly. The Mime Troupe aims to be topical and newsworthy with whatever is going on at the time. But some things just keep repeating themselves. War, capitalism, the continued deterioration of a livable climate. Michael talks about taking pride in the collective's diversity—race, age, economic levels. And this sets the SF Mime Troupe apart from other theater companies. Then we start talking about what going to a Mime Troupe show can do for audiences. It can inspire and empower showgoers. It can also help them feel less alone in dark times like the present. Michael talks about how, as a performer, they need to leave the audience wanting to take action, that the revolution can't only happen on stage. Because Storied is my show, I assert that San Francisco isn't the liberal bastion that many here (and away from here) believe it to be. Michael takes that idea a step further to talk about the difference between being a social liberal and an economic liberal. This town is full of social progressives. On economics, not so much. He feels, and I agree, that many folks here hold conservative economic opinions and hide that in their social progressivism. We end this segment of the recording with my assertion that the only reason our local politicians don't admit that they're Republicans is because you can't win that way here. Michael agrees, and goes off on that point, much to my delight. Keiko speaks to the sacrifices that artists living and working in San Francisco have to make. And Michael describes SF as a suburb of Silicon Valley, with many here espousing the belief that tech can solve everything. For the record: I do not believe that tech can solve everything. We wrap with Keiko talking about the Mime Troupe's new season, which kicks off this Friday, July 3, and runs through Sept. 7. The show is called Wreckage, a musical tragicomedy. Keiko is busy learning roles and making costumes for her castmates. Michael steps in to talk about the show in more depth. We're in a time where people feel like everything is falling apart—economics, the environment, relationships, hope. What's gonna be left when it's all over? The show asks us all, "What do you have to let go of to move on?" Find out more and donate at the San Francisco Mime Troupe website. Follow them on Instagram @sftroupers.

Both sides of Michael Gene Sullivan's family are from Detroit. In Part 2, we get to know Keiko's fellow SFMT collective member. Michael was born in Livonia, Michigan, a small town outside of Detroit. His parents met at a summer camp, but we need to rewind a bit before we get to that. When his dad was a boy, he was kidnapped. Yes, really. He and his brothers, all Black boys, were taken from Detroit to work on a plantation in Louisiana. One day, three years later, a car pulled up to the plantation. Some people got out of the car, grabbed Michael's dad and uncles, and threw them into the car (not minding the trauma these boys had already been through or might be experiencing in the moment). Much to the boys' relief, their mom was in that car. She'd been looking for her sons the entire time. They made it back to Michigan, but the effect of having been kidnapped and missing key years with his family stayed with Michael's dad. Michael characterizes his dad's side of the family as old-school gangsters. His mom's family were upper-working-class, many of them with jobs at Ford. The aforementioned camp was in Detroit and it was designed to bring kids from all different economic levels together. The camp held a dance, and his dad found himself with all the boys on one side of the room—on the other side, the girls, of course. No one had started dancing when one of the girls suddenly got up (on a dare from a friend), walked over to the boys, and sat in Michael's dad's lap. That girl was his mom, of course. They danced, talked a little, then had to separate. The next summer, at the next camp, the two met again. Then it happened again the following year. Eventually, they started dating and fell in love. Michael's mom's family wasn't too pleased, given the criminal aspect of his dad's family. But his mom was a bit of a rebel and went with love. The new couple settled in Detroit. They had three children—two girls and a boy, Michael, their youngest. His dad did radio work in the Army and his mom studied art. When dad got out of the service, he parlayed the tech work he'd learned into the infant industry. He got a job with National Cash Register, who relocated the family to Los Angeles. Michael was three when his family moved to California, so he doesn't have distinct memories of that. With the move to LA, his mom started doing more and more art, sculpting and painting. His dad worked a lot, but the couple also started getting involved in politics. They went to protests, rallies, Black Panther meetings. Michael shares his family's story of being at a protest against LBJ's visit to Los Angeles. It involves a family of five plus their pet rabbit climbing a tree. The next year, 1968, was a presidential election year, and Michael's mom worked for the Bobby Kennedy campaign. She was there on primary night, June 5, when RFK was assassinated. She was in the same room, even. Soon after that, the FBI showed up at their house looking for witnesses. To make up for known failings around the JFK assassination, the agency moved to protect witnesses around this tragedy. They sent his mom back to Detroit. The rest of Michael's family stayed behind. The FBI gave Michael rides to school in that time period. Two weeks later, when his mom returned, his parents decided to move the family to San Francisco. It was originally planned as a temporary visit, but they never left. The first place his family landed was The Sunset District. He was seven, and started school in San Francisco. From there, the family moved to Bayview, Western Addition, back to The Sunset, over to The Richmond District, and back to Western Addition. I ask Michael to list his SF schools, and he obliges. Now settling into the Bay Area, Michael's family kept their political interests. He recalls his parents taking him with them to a Black Panthers meeting. His dad was now working in Silicon Valley as a diagnostic engineer. Michael's mom had given up creating her own art and shifted to film publicity work. Michael has always been a passionate person. When he was a kid, he and his sister got into film. He was also deeply interested in history. He wanted to be a history teacher when he grew up. They planned to make movies together. They wanted to remake Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but recast as two Black kids. At school, the kids considered Michael shy. When he got to Marina Junior High, he decided on the first day of school that it wasn't for him. And it wasn't difficult for him to transfer, because his family had that habit of moving around The City. Michael asked his mom to drive him around town, and when he saw Roosevelt Middle School, he loved the building's architecture. So, he transferred there. He shares the story of another transfer student, who arrived in his last year at Roosevelt, a girl so pretty he developed a crippling crush on her right away. We'll get back to that. He and his crush ended up going to Washington High the next year. He still wouldn't/couldn't talk to her, but they were both in band. She ended up in a theater group called Street of Dreams Theater Company. Michael's best friend was also in the group, so he was around them a lot. Michael still had his sights set on being a history professor. That, or he would write horror short stories. One day, a teacher more or less forced him to sing in choir. His crush was also in choir. And he ended up joining Street of Dreams in order to be closer to her. They graduated, and within the following year, Michael was artistic director of the company. He started doing more and more with Street of Dreams, eventually directing shows. Both Michael and his crush, whom he could at least talk with now, if not look in the eyes, were at City College and also joined a group of friends singing at the Renaissance Faire. By then, she'd had a couple boyfriends and he a couple girlfriends. Then the two decided to go on a "test date." They even shared a "test kiss" that night. A year later, they were dating. And today, they're married and have three children. Around this time, Michael's dad took him to see a show by the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Theater was still fairly new to both of them, and Michael was blown away. He even saw Keiko performing in a show back in the day. Because he'd had some acting experience, once there was an opening, he auditioned. But they told him he was too young. Eventually, they had an actor call in sick and asked Michael to sub. And so he stepped in. It was 1988, and Michael toured with SF Mime Troupe. And he and his wife have been with them ever since. Check tomorrow for Part 3, when Keiko and Michael will share the history and legacy of the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

Keiko Shimosato Carreiro was born in the Bay Area … the Boston Bay Area. In Part 1 of this episode, meet Keiko. Today, she's a longtime member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe collective. But her story goes back to her parents' migration to the US from Japan after World War II. Keiko's dad got a Fulbright scholarship to come to this country. He studied medicine. Her mom came to visit the US for one year, but in that time, met Keiko's dad at a Japan Society picnic in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Two weeks after they met, her dad proposed, and roughly a year later, they had their first child—Keiko, named thusly because she was conceived on Cape Cod. Because her dad was doing his residency in Boston, Keiko was born in Cambridge, just across the Charles River. She spent the first 15 years of her life in the Boston area, frequently going to protests of the war in Vietnam with her parents. Keiko also attended "Burn Your Bra" rallies in Harvard Square. Her family comprised the only Asians in Lexington, where they lived. Keiko and her sister were the only Japanese school kids in the district. Perhaps because of that dubious distinction, reporters approached Keiko when she was very young to ask her what she thought of the US war in Vietnam. On the other hand, there were white Americans who welcomed Keiko and her family. Her mom had a sponsor, an American woman who had been a journalist in Japan during WWII. And her dad came here on a Fulbright scholarship, after all. Both had plans to return to their home country, but meeting and considering that Japan was still something of a war-torn country, they decided to settle in Massachusetts. Before they knew it, they had three daughters. We shift the conversation to talk about Keiko and her sisters and their sibling relationships. Keiko sees the demands from her parents on her, as the oldest child, being the highest. Going younger in age among her sisters, the demands lessen. I know this all too well, being the youngest of three boys myself. Keiko and her youngest sister didn't get along when they were young. Maybe it was the seven-year gap in age. But through the experience of Keiko caring for her aging and dying parents, and then losing their middle sister after their parents' passing, the two became and remain close as adults. Midway through her time in high school, Keiko's dad moved his family from the Boston area to Iowa. There was a job opportunity there, but the main reason to leave went back to racism. Her dad didn't feel that he was appreciated at the Boston area hospital where he worked. Going from afternoons in Harvard Square to her parents' new house amid corn fields and barns was a shock, to put it mildly. Keiko also had to say goodbye to her boyfriend back home, which, at 15, was of course devastating. In her new city, the only place Keiko felt comfortable and welcomed was in high school band. She'd been playing flute for some time and wanted to go on to study music in college. There were no Asian grocery stores in Iowa City at the time. Keiko's parents helped to open the first of those. Later, folks from Vietnam, Korea, and some Southeast Asian countries arrived. And when they got there, there were food shopping options available to them. Keiko graduated high school a year early and went to the University of Iowa. Fueled by a desire to escape a cruel world in school, she also started taking college-level courses before graduating high school. The university gave Keiko a full music scholarship to study there, in fact. For fun, she took an acting class amid her music studies at UI. That acting class flipped a switch for Keiko. It felt more like what she wanted to do, more than music did. Eventually, she changed her major to interdisciplinary arts, which freed her up to take classes like dance and creative writing. I take us on a sidebar here, mentioning that I believe it's more important to find something you enjoy doing than it is being quote/unquote good at it. Then Keiko shares the story of how she transported herself from the corn fields of Iowa to the best city in the world—San Francisco. It involves a theater company in Canada. Keiko had married her clown teacher while still in college. He was Canadian, and the theater company called for him. But he wasn't home and so they asked about her. They told her they didn't like to separate couples, so they invited both of them to join. Keiko and her now-ex met this horse-drawn theater company in the middle of its tour (where else?) in California. For the next year-and-a-half, she and her husband traveled with this theater company doing shows of a political nature, mostly around climate issues. That caravan stage company ended up staying in the Bay Area. For Keiko, the thought of returning to Iowa to finish her master's program, especially in the winter, was not attractive at all. She got a job here as an actor in a children's theater company and decided to stay in The City. In 1986, the San Francisco Mime Troupe held auditions for The Dragon Lady's Revenge. Keiko tried out and joined the collective that year. Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of our SF Mime Troupe episode. In it, you'll meet Keiko's friend and fellow collective member Michael Gene Sullivan. We recorded this podcast at the SF Mime Troupe studio in the The Mission in June 2026. Photography by Marcella Sanchez

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. While in college at Marymount, Theo ran the Boys and Girls Club program with Phillip Redd. He liked the connections and impact he had made in SoCal, and wondered whether he could do the same at home. This was back when Barack Obama was first running for president, and there was a prevailing sense of hope and possibility pervading life for a lot of folks. And so Theo moved back home. He transferred to Notre Dame de Namur in Belmont after his sophomore year, and got a degree there three years later. Upon his arrival in The City and concurrent with his time in college in The Bay, he got involved in SF politics serving on commissions and boards. It helped him really dig in to living here. Then-mayor Newsom appointed Theo to the Youth Commission. He had done yet another documentary in high school, this time on homelessness in The City. That got the mayor's attention. "The Homeless Orchestra" compared the crisis of the unhoused population to the inner workings of an orchestra. The mayor took that doc to Davos, Switzerland, and showed it at the World Economic Forum there. Young Theo talked with folks like Tom Ammiano and Matt Gonzalez for his movie. He lived near his transfer college, Notre Dame de Namur, in Belmont on the Peninsula. After class, he'd hurry back to San Francisco for Youth Commission meetings. He also sat on the Southeast Community Facility (SCF) Commission. Theo and I go on a sidebar here about how we use the tools at our disposal—tech, government—for better and for worse. From his place on the SCF Commission, Theo joined the commission on community investment and infrastructure. They oversaw the development of Hunter's Point Shipyard, Mission Bay, the Transbay Terminal, as well as a few other spots around The City. They worked on housing in those areas and approved 3,000 units, one-third of which were affordable and 250 that were set aside for formerly houseless families. Theo, his mom, and his brother had moved to Third and Newcomb, near the opera house where we recorded. With that move, Theo saw BVOH as a community fixture. The opera house has been there since 1888 (which we learned in our episode with them). Theo took classes there when he was a kid. Around 2010, he walked in and asked how he could get involved. He joined the board and took over years later as interim executive director after a shakeup. In his tenure as interim ED, he helped get a $250K grant for lighting and sound. They were able to give grants to artists and they launched their SF Sounds series: an artist is actually on the floor with eventgoers for those events. I ask Theo about friend of this show Allegra Madsen and her time at BVOH. After stating the obvious, that Allegra is awesome, Theo says that the opera house wants to bring back Frameline and other film fests. "You shouldn't have to leave your neighborhood to catch a film," he says. We also talk about the Hey, Auntie! gumbo contest, which I helped judge, back in 2025 and which took place at the Bayview Opera house. Then we talk about Theo's run for D10 supervisor. The campaign's premise: We can do better in the Southeast. He ran back in 2018, but he's running again because of the potential he sees for the area to dictate the kind of community it wants to become. San Francisco obviously has equitable differences among different parts of our city. Theo cites better transit, housing, and support for small businesses among the most important issues he wants to tackle. Visit his website for more info: https://www.theoellington.com/. Photography by Jeff Hunt

Today, Theo Ellington is the secretary at the Ruth Williams Opera House. This born-and-raised San Franciscan is also running to be the next D10 supervisor. In Part 1 of this episode, meet Theo. His maternal grandfather, Clifton Weeks, came to SF because his sister, Marie Weeks (Theo's great-aunt), had come here. Clifton and his sister had grown up in rural Natchez, Mississippi, but they came out West during the Great Migration. Their first landing spot was The Fillmore. Clifton found work as a laborer, where he helped build roads and bridges. He also did a little work at the shipyard back when it was still in The City. He had three daughters and made enough money to be able to buy a house in Bayview. Theo grew up in that house with his aunts and cousins. Theo's dad, Grant Ellington, a veteran, came here from Cleveland as an adult. While Theo isn't 100 percent sure what the story is, his parents say that they met at a party … in the Eighties, no less. Grant was a big dude, 6'5", and he commanded a presence. Grant would come by the house, Theo says, and seemed overly concerned with whether his son had a girlfriend. Theo would get that question as young as 6. His dad passed away when Theo was in high school. Theo has two brothers—one older and one younger. He was the third-youngest among the 10 cousins living in his house at Third and Palou. They grew up pre-internet, and so, like a lot of us, went out and made up their own games. He and his cousins and their friends would stay out until the streetlights came on. Theo goes an aside about one of the games they invented—"baserunner." They rode bikes and skateboards, as well. He was born in 1988 and went to a lot of school all in The Bayview. Because he's born-and-raised, I ask Theo to rattle off the schools he attended: Charles Drew Elementary, afterschool at Leola Havard, and Gloria R. Davis Middle School, where he helped make a documentary on a grant from Salesforce about the 24-Divisadero called Bus 24 "The Diversity Bus." It's very much worth watching. That experience really helped to shape Theo's perspective. He started to see his neighborhood, The Bayview, in a different light. And he saw the rest of The City. It sparked a curiosity in him—why was his own hood living in such poverty while other parts of SF thrived? Theo was in the top of his class at Davis Middle School. He began high school at Sacred Heart, and suddenly found himself at the bottom of his class. Drawing from his experience making the Muni documentary, for his junior year, he transferred to School of the Arts (SOTA), where he could focus less on academics and more on filmmaking and documentaries. When he was a kid, Theo had done some acting with American Conservatory Theater (ACT) and WB TV, back when they had a studio in The Bayview. He spent two years in SoCal at Marymount College. One aspect he appreciated as a young freshman was the townhouse dorms, which felt less like typical college dorms and more like adult homes. The move served two goals—go to college, but also, pursue his dream of working in the film industry. While at Marymount, Theo worked at the local Boys and Girls Club, where he and others helped young boys who lacked role models. The experience allowed him to see how life in Southern California was different than life in his hometown. Check back Thursday for Part 2 and the conclusion of Theo Ellington's story. We recorded this podcast at the Bayview Opera House in Bayview in November 2025. Photography by Jeff Hunt

Listen in as I chat with Frameline50 Associate Director of Programs Kate Bove about this year's historic 50th annual LGBTQIA+ film festival, which runs June 17–27. For more information, including this year's program and to buy tickets, please visit frameline.org. Follow Frameline on Instagram @framelinefest. We recorded this podcast at the Frameline office in South of Market in June 2026.

Painter George, aka George Harry Crampton-Glassanos, is fine if you wanna call him just "George." In this episode, meet and get to know George. Both of his parents came to San Francisco early in their lives. His mom hails from the East Coast and her family were all working-class folks. His grandpa was a business agent for a machinist's union in Massachusetts. That grandfather shaped George's later involvement in organized labor. (Today, he's a member of the ILWU). George never knew this grandparent who had an outsize impression on him. He died shortly after George was born. But in Massachusetts, in addition to his union involvement, he owned a store that sold records on one half and hats on the other. His dad moved to San Francisco from the Midwest to attend school at the Art Institute (RIP). He got into that school and often slept overnight on a ledge on campus. Both of George's parents were punk rockers in SF in the late-Seventies. Amazing. His dad even lived with the guitarist from The Avengers (Penelope Houston's punk band). Though they would meet later, both spent time at the famed Mabuhay Gardens back in the day. George's dad was a painter as well, and that turned out to have a huge influence on George. His parents met when his mom got a job with his dad's construction working crew. This was around the mid-Eighties. George came along in 1989. After that, his parents had two more boys, making George the oldest of three. His earliest memories are from around the mid-Nineties in The Mission. George spent time when he was a kid running around The Mission and pre-gentrification Dogpatch with his dad. They lived on 18th between San Carlos and Lexington (or, zooming out a bit, between Mission and Valencia). That's two blocks from where I lived from 2003 to 2017, incidentally. But George's family got evicted from that apartment on 18th. The building sold and the new owners evicted tenants one by one, including families like George's. Both of his brothers were born in that apartment. His dad had made modifications there, handyman that he was. And George was old enough to remember all the awesome neighbors they had. I ask George about his favorite restaurants when he was a kid. "I fuckin' ate burritos every night of the week," he answers. He'd hit up nearby La Cumbre or El Buen Sabor around 300 times a year. Whiz Burger also figured big in George's childhood diet. There was a diner across 16th from The Roxie called Aunt Mary's (George shows me a coin purse from the place while we're recording) that he loved as well. Art was always encouraged at home. George's dad would bring home boxes of fax paper for him to draw on with ballpoint pens. He'd draw and draw and draw, often of things he saw. He remembers staring out the window of their place on 18th and watching cars go by, and he'd draw those. But it wasn't until high school at School of the Arts that George really started cranking it out. At SOTA, teachers encouraged George to draw whatever the hell he wanted to. He remembers drawing a skeleton pushing a paleta cart. When George tells me he attended SOTA 2004–2008, I mention that a number of past guests of this show went there around that time. "[The school] churned out a lot of us," he says. Joe Talbot, who co-wrote, produced, and directed The Last Black Man in San Francisco, went to SOTA in that era. George goes on a sidebar to share a story of getting caught smoking pot by a SOTA vice principal. I ask him to rattle off the SF schools he went to, and George obliges. Waldorf in The Mission for Kindergarten, then a Waldorf school in Pac Heights through eighth grade. They wanted him to attend their high school, but he chose SOTA instead. The Waldorf schools also encouraged art, which George appreciated. The social dynamics could be strange, though. You'd have kids like him who got into that school thanks to financial aid being classmates with kids who lived in mansions. After eighth grade, he needed a change. After he graduated from School of the Arts, George took some classes at City College. He'd been working summers painting houses for his dad, and eventually, college tailed off so he could work more. It also gave George more time for his artistic painting. This was about 20 years ago, and since then, he's been painting murals, hanging out with graffiti painters, doing work on Clarion Alley, and working with Precita Eyes to paint various houses and walls in The Mission. I ask whether George's art has evolved over the years. After thinking it over, he talks about the influence of cars and his mom and dad's comic book collections. He loved his mom's underground comics collections, and talks about going down to 23rd Street with them to Scott's Comics and Cards and SF Comic Book Co. next door. George points to artists like Spain Rodriguez, R. Crumb, and the Hernandez Brothers as having shaped his art from a young age. He'd go to Avalon on Mission for iron-on old English letters to have put on hats. The cholo influence of his neighborhood was seeping in, and George ran with it. The gumball machines on Mission with their foil stickers also played a part. He'd take those stickers home, many with images of cars on them, and draw from them. And of course the cars cruising Mission Street caught his artistic eye. George also touches on some of the violence he witnessed in The Mission in the Nineties, when he was a kid. George and his friends got around on skateboards, beater bikes, and Muni. He's quick to point out how, back in the day, you could take the 26-Valencia if you wanted to avoid potential trouble on the 14-Mission. I ask whether George got into any trouble himself. He says mostly harmless stuff like shoplifting. That was before his aforementioned time at School of the Arts. George has mixed feelings about the art scene, and I get it. He's had his art in shows, but prefers bookstores or community-oriented spaces vs. white-walled galleries. He doesn't feel like the audience that goes to those spaces is his. When he talks about painting at home after a long day at work, I ask George to talk about that work. He's currently part of a crew painting the new container cranes in the Port of Oakland. The ILWU is assembling the cranes and George and others use marine enamels to make the cranes look good. We end the podcast with how you can find George and his art. "You can find me on 24th Street," he says. No website. He's on Instagram at @paintergeorge415. We recorded this podcast at George's home in South San Francisco in April 2026. Photography by Nate Oliveira

Listen in as I chat with Circus Bella founder and performer Abigail Munn. If you enjoy this podcast, you might also like the episode we did on Club Fugazi and Dear San Francisco. We recorded this podcast at Abigail's home in the Mission in May 2026. Photography by Jeff Hunt

Listen in as I chat with past guest Connie Chan about her run for US Congress. To learn more about Connie and her vision of representing San Francisco in DC, head to her website, ConnieChanSF.com. Please consider this episode an endorsement of Connie's campaign. And please vote, by May 26 (today) if you're mailing in your ballot, or on June 2 if you're voting in person. One of the most important ways to both advance our goals of a more just and inclusive society and to beat back billionaire/tech fascism is to vote. It's a privilege, and it matters. We recorded this podcast at Connie Chan for Congress HQ on Cathedral Hill in April 2026.