Vanessa + Raina/Valkyries, Say Less, Part 2 (S9E2)

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1, with the origin story of Raina and Vanessa's show, Valkyries, Say Less. It goes something like this … The two went to the first-ever Valkyries game, technically a preseason game, at Chase Center, in 2025. Once she discovered discounted tickets, Vanessa got about 20 friends and fellow teachers to join in. Then folks from the Valkyries cme to Vanessa's school, Roosevelt Middle School in the Richmond, for a career fair day. She was decked out in Valkyries merch that she'd already made and had been selling. Vanessa told the team reps how she'd gotten 20 people to buy tickets for the preseason opener. The reps replied, asking whether she'd ever considered season tickets. Once the info was on the table, Vanessa realized that it might be a possibility, even on a public schoolteacher's salary. She convinced the group going to the preseason opener to go in on season tickets with her. Game day came, and Vanessa compares it to her wedding day. Excitement was all around her. After the game, Vanessa connected with Raina to talk about the experience. Raina shared that, during the game itself, inside what would later become known as Ballhalla, they were scrambling to find information about the players, most of whom were completely new to them. Vanessa knew of the French players (there were three on the team then), of course, but that's about it. Vanessa remembers Raina having the idea for a podcast, based on their simple desire to learn more about the players and share that info. Raina's story is a little different. They grew up on men's basketball and were skeptical that the WNBA could bring it. Unlike their friend Vanessa, they weren't a "founding guard" (early season ticketholder). And so that preseason game was a massive wake-up call for Raina. They were in shock. The experience was profound, and she needed to better understand and process it. That's where Vanessa came in. On Mother's Day 2025 (May 11 that year), Raina went to Vanessa's house and the two recorded an intro in the basement. They started with that idea of researching Valkyries players. They wanted to use their roles as educators to teach themselves and other fans who might be hungry for that information. It was casual. They quickly realized that they have different voices and approaches, but excellent chemistry. They published that immediately. It was an introduction episode. Then came time for a second episode, and that meant work. They decided that each episode would be dedicated entirely to a single player. All good teachers know the value of games as learning tools, and so they integrated playfulness into their new show. At this point in our recording, Raina casually mentions that their dad, Eddie Mast, played in the (M)NBA back in the day. What? Raina expounds on that to explain that for them, learning player stats was a ritual growing up. It meant going to games vs. not going in those days. All to say that player stats and info come second-nature for Raina. Vanessa and Raina soon found out from their new side hustle that, every episode, they fell in love with a new player, having researched that player thoroughly. We shift the conversation to talking about the inaugural Valkyries season in 2025, which we all agree was bananas. Vanessa recalls being at Ballhalla when Golden State clinched the playoffs. She went home and booked a hotel in San Jose (because of a scheduling conflict, the first and only playoff game last year took place down there). She talks about the high highs and the immense joy surrounding our WNBA team. She'd just come out of three months plagued by severe back pain right around the time of that preseason game last year. She relishes the community that came together immediately, and is excited that kids and young people get to experience it, too. I ask Vanessa and Raina whether, like I do, they ever challenge folks in their lives to watch or go to a Valkyries, folks who might otherwise not be into basketball specifically or sports in general. They both say they have. I'll echo what we all say: If you're able, go to a game at Ballhalla. I challenge you not to have a smile on your face. It's so much more than what's happening on the court, though lately, that part doesn't take anything away. It's seeing all generations, all ethnicities, all gender expressions, and everyone is fucking happy. It's really something. An added bonus for Vanessa and Raina is, of course, getting to know each other better and becoming better and better friends. For the Valkyries second season this year, Vanessa and Raina decided to add video to their show. They started media partnerships with friend of this show Broke-Ass Stuart and Merci SF, a local online media org. They got press passes, meaning they can sit in the media section (alongside our contributing producer and my wife, Erin Lim) and attend pregame and post-game press conferences. They've hosted watch parties at Rikki's (and had another one last night at Richmond Republic) and have done community trash cleanups around Chase Center. Raina speaks to the beauty of collaboration, and how they couldn't do this alone. And they talk about watching their friend Vanessa blossom beyond being a mom and a teacher. They give a shoutout to Rikki's and Sara Yergovich, who bartended the day we recorded. Rikki's had only recently celebrated their first anniversary when last season started, which is amazing. I'm proud to call Sara and Danielle friends of Storied: SF. I mention BOUNCE, the rise of women's sports, from KALW (shameless plug as Erin hosts that show). Vanessa and Raina drop Eric Apricot's name. He's the author of Valkyrie Nation, my own go-to publication around anything WNBA. Valkyries, Say Less and Valkyrie Nation are now collaborating on a book they're calling Love Letters to Ballhalla. And Vanessa mentions Maya Goldberg-Safir, author of WNBA Rough Notes on Substack, and all-around cool person. I go on a sidebar here about talking to random people all over The Bay about the Valkyries, how infectious it all is, and how easy it is to get swept up by everything Valkyries. It also transcends generations and race. I love it. When we recorded, in late-August, the Valkyries were in second place, behind the Minnesota Lynx. They ended the season there, barely, after a franchise-historic comeback win in LA against the Sparks. As of this writing, Minnesota has been eliminated in Round 1 by the New York Liberty, making the Valkyries the de facto No. 1 seed in the playoffs. I ask Vanessa and Raina to talk about this incredible season, only the second in team history. I ask, straight-up: Is it Gabby Williams? Yes, but that's not the entirety of it. Raina talks about how Gabby has thrived here, and done so in a leadership role. They also mention the bond among all the players, something that's grown stronger over the course of this season. And they point to how the coaching staff is respecting player health differently and better this year. Maybe I'm giving our city and metro area too much credit, but I bring up a quote, recent at the time, from head coach Natalie Nakase. She talked about the love among Valkyries players. For me, that's a very SF/Bay Area thing. I'll take it. There are many ways to find Vanessa and Raina and Valkyries, Say Less. Their website is valkyriessayless.com, and it's a great place to learn about events they're either putting on or are a part of. Follow Valkyries, Say Less on Instagram @valkyriessayless and Threads @valkyriessayless. Having met their goals for Season 2 (press passes, interviewing players), Vanessa states her Season 3 goal of offering her meditation workshops to the team, in French and in English. Rad.

When Vanessa Hutchinson-Szekely and Raina Mast aren't going bananas about the Golden State Valkyries, they're teaching kids in San Francisco. In this episode, meet and get to know Vanessa and Raina, cohosts of the Valkyries, Say Less podcast. We begin with Vanessa. Her parents met in San Francisco in 1970. Her mom came here the year before from her home country, France. In her mom's first month in The City, she met the man who became Vanessa's dad. She had just finished photography school back home, and planned to return to France. But fate wanted a word with her. Vanessa's dad grew up on the East Coast. Before he settled on creating stain-glass works, getting to know his own artistic bent, he came to San Francisco to explore that side of himself. He met Vanessa's mom. They were young artists, they were in love, and the rest is history. About a decade later, in 1979, they had a kid—Vanessa, their only child. She talks about being on the cusp between Gen X and Millennial, but considers herself mostly Californian/French. With her parents, Vanessa spent (and still often spends) summers in the French Alps. Both being artists, Vanessa's mom realized that between herself and her husband, one of them needed a job that offered health insurance. And so she went to a temp agency. That allowed her dad to pursue his stained-glass art. He later designed the stained glass in the Mrs. Doubtfire house. A lot of his glass art still exists around North Beach. Vanessa grew up amid all that art here in SF. But at the time, she might not have appreciated it like she does today. Eventually, she moved to New York City for college. She was drawn in by the romantic version of NYC depicted in movies and shows. After her time at Columbia University, Vanessa moved to LA to teach. She always knew she would come home, but wasn't sure when. After 11 years away (four in New York and seven in Los Angeles), she came back. She was 30 and had met the man she would later marry. It was time. Riffing off her seven years of teaching middle school in LA, which she started when she was 22, Vanessa came back and found work with the SFUSD, where she's been since 2008. We go on a sidebar about raising kids in San Francisco, something I didn't do but Vanessa did and wants more people to do. She and her Valkyries, Say Less cohost, Raina, met through a mutual friend. Vanessa's version of their meeting 10 years ago is that they were both invited to a party at that mutual friend's house. Vanessa saw Raina and thought, Damn, that is one cool-looking person. We'll hear Raina's version of that story later in Part 1. We end Vanessa's segment by hearing about her SF schools, a must for born-and-raised folks. She's quick to note that she only went to one school for K through 12—the French-American International School. Then we turn to Raina. They grew up in Pennsylvania Amish country, where they played basketball and ran track. They're from Easton, the town where Crayola crayons are made. Raina says the company would often survey town folks to help name new colors. Easton is 1.5 hours away from both New York City and Philadelphia. Both cities called to them, they say. They lived in New York City, Puerto Rico, and Upstate New York. Then they joined friends on a cross-country road trip, looking for a place to call home. After 13 years of Catholic school, they never really felt like the fit in back home. I ask if, like me, Raina is a recovering Catholic. They say they are fully recovered, in fact. Remarkable, especially for a queer woman. Brava! Being one of five kids in their family, with three brothers, was another challenge. Raina's oldest brother was the artist among them. Eventually, they took another trip across the US. New Orleans tried to grab Raina, and possibly almost did. The other choice was San Francisco, but they didn't move here right away. When it came time to move here, their family was shocked not at all. The first visit happened in 2001. There's a really funny story they share about driving through SF and ending up in Sacramento before they realized it. With no GPS and only paper maps, they circled back and this time, exited off the bridge to San Francisco. A few years later, now pregnant, they started thinking, Where do I wanna raise this kid? That's when SF really drew them in. Their younger brother lived here already, with an apartment in the Marina. There are stories about getting bested by The City's hills and wearing sandals and wondering why they were so cold—classic newcomer to San Francisco stuff. Despite all that, they loved it. In 2014, they made the leap. Since arriving to live here, they've lived in the Mission, the Haight, and nowadays, they call the Richmond home. Before their move here, they applied for art school and teaching fellowships at the same time. The teaching gigs they got offered health insurance and more stability, so they chose that path. Today, they are able to walk parallel paths of art and education. They've taught art, but these days, it's Spanish classes. Going back to their meeting story, Raina and Vanessa are both creative folks who also teach. As creative people with not a lot of money, a DIY mindset set in for them individually and together. It's what propelled and inspired them to start their podcast—Valkyries, Say Less. Vanessa speaks to being on the same "teacher rhythm," meaning time off at the same time, stuff like that. Raina adds that, both being Gen Xers, they grew up without women's sports being what it is today. We end Part 1 with Raina's version of meeting Vanessa, who would later be their podcasting partner. Right away, Raina thought Vanessa was very stylish, mostly owing to her French heritage, as they later learned. In May 2025, channeling Raina's music-recording background, Vanessa's podcasting knowledge (she has a meditation show), and both of their love of women's sports, and with the kickoff of the first WNBA team in The Bay, Valkyries, Say Less was born. Check back Thursday for Part 2 with Raina and Vanessa. We recorded this podcast Rikki's Women's Sports Bar in August 2026. Photography by Jeff Hunt

Listen in as I talk with Kate Campbell, cofounder of WhoDidWhat?, a congressional accountability tracker. Their website goes live October 12. Once it's up, folks all over the country will be able to access their congressperson's voting recording, committees they serve on, any petitions with their names on it, and a score that the site gives them. It will launch covering a single topic, but an important one—how members score on the Epstein Files. Please register to vote or check your registration by October 19, the last possible day to do so in California. Follow Who Did What on Instagram @whodidwhattracker. And donate to this nonprofit's Kickstarter, up through Oct. 3, here. We recorded this podcast at 540 Bar in the Inner Richmond in September 2026.

Maria Finn is a forager, chef, event producer, author of a fantastic cookbook called Forage Gather Feast and fellow Lagotto Romagnolo dog parent who also happens to be a neighbor of mine on the houseboats in Sausalito. She is founder of The Institute for Ecosystem Based Living and Flora & Fungi Adventures. You can find her on the web at floraandfungiadventures.com and mariafinn.com. Maria's Intersections story about swimming in San Francisco Bay—and getting more comfortable with being uncomfortable—takes place at Fort Point in 2019.

Listen in as I talk with Roberto Hernandez, founder of the SF Lowrider Council. The council is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year. And their Lowrider Parade and car-hopping contest will take place in the Mission this Saturday, Sept. 19. We recorded this podcast at Roberto's home in the Mission in August 2026. Photography by Tyrone Malow Diaz

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1, with Dave's time in Europe to get away from being drafted to fight in Vietnam. By that time, with a couple years at City College taking photo classes under his belt, Dave had built a portfolio. He took all his gear with him because he didn't know whether he was ever coming back. His French cousin had a friend whose mom worked at the US Embassy in Paris. Dave got about a dozen photos into a group show at the American Culture Center there, his first public showing. Through another connection, he was able to print photos for the show at the Sorbonne. The National Library of Paris ended up acquiring all of Dave's photos from that show, and they're still there today. Lodgings with his French family were barely adequate, and definitely crowded. He had a friend, also a draft dodger, living in Scotland. And so Dave decided to move to the UK. He and his cousin had bought a car together, and he ended up taking that car to Leeds in northern England. Locals there took Dave in, and so he stayed there, rather than Scotland, for another half-year. We go on a sidebar thanks to my out-of-left-field question about Dave smoking cigarettes when he lived in Europe. We also talk about partying as a young person over there. At the end of 1971, Dave returned to The Bay. It was safe by then, he says, because there were so many other draft dodgers. He shares a tidbit about how, before he left, if you had gone to the intersection of 19th Avenue and Lincoln, you would see at least half a dozen young men holding hitchhiking signs that said, "Canada." A few years down the road after Dave's return, Jimmy Carter granted amnesty to all the draft dodgers. At our live event, he next showed a photo from Mission and 18th Street that shows, among other things, Lakeside Liquors, Dave's family's business back then. His dad and a partner owned and ran the place, and Dave worked there. His dad also owned a laundromat on the block. His dad claimed that his was the first full-service, coin-op laundromat in The City. It was 1957, and we'll just go ahead and take his dad's word for it. As a young man, Dave learned to fix those washing machines and dryers, which he says "were always breaking down." And that's how he got his first taste of appliance repair, a career he spent 25 years in. When his dad retired in the Eighties, Dave opened his own joint—Little Hollywood Launderette on Market near Laguna. But by the time he opened Little Hollywood, unattended laundromats were fading in popularity, for various reasons. So Dave included attendants and wash-and-fold service at his place, as well as a dry cleaner next door. He ran Little Hollywood from 1989 until 2007. Dave shares the story of a music video that was shot mostly inside Little Hollywood. A then somewhat up-and-coming artist called Del the Funky Homosapien shot the video for his song "Made in America," directed by Michael Lucero, in a funky laundry spot on Market. Read all about that in this story from Hieroglyphics. Dave's behind-the-scenes story of that video shoot is fun. Back in his repairman days, Dave would travel from the Mission to the Western Addition regularly, as well as trips out to the Sunset and Richmond districts. He got to know his city even better. He knew all the laundromats, including the spot that would eventually be his own. In 2007, Dave decided to retire. That gave him more time with his cameras. Three years later, his parents really started aging and needed more and more care. To help out, Dave took over running his dad's businesses when he was no longer able to. He did continue taking photos during this time, though. In fact, he'd been taking photos since his return from Europe back in the early Seventies. Photographers from Dave's era didn't commonly show their work. They had boxes full of negatives instead. Eventually, though, someone turned Dave on to a photo-sharing site, and he acquired a scanner and went to work. He enjoyed it, and leveled up on the scanner. He set out to scan all of his negatives. He spent the next roughly 10 years scanning (in fact, he adds, he's still scanning to this day). Through those early photo-sharing websites, Dave started to make connections in the SF photo community. Eventually, Troy Holden reached out and asked Dave to be in a photo show at Cha Cha Cha, back when the Mission Street location was still open. A year later, he met Adrian Martinez at Michael Jang's open studio in the Richmond District. Adrian, Troy, and Dave formed the San Francisco Photography Club. He figured he could serve as a mentor to the many younger members of the group. But it turned out the other way around. Dave points to the young photographers in the club that came from punk rock and skateboarding backgrounds (communities that are near and dear to my heart, as I spent countless years of my childhood and early adulthood in both). Dave considered their art to be edgy and good. It reminded him of work by Ken Hayman, who in the Eighties published Hip Shot. Those young photographers' style wore off on Dave, and point-and-shoot street photography is what he mostly does today. At this point in the conversation, Dave points to the inspiration of Hamburger Eyes, a photo magazine founded by Ray Potes in San Francisco in 2001. There's an exhibit up at the SF Public Library's Main Branch through Sept. 24 celebrating a quarter-century of this amazing publication's work. Dave has one photo in that exhibition. Dave talks about another of the photos he shared that evening, which is also available in the gallery on this page. It's a photo he took of the moving of a Victorian house out of the Western Addition during the so-called redevelopment (read: gentrification) of that neighborhood. The next photo he showed was from Candlestick Park in 1989. Next is an example of Dave's street photography—a photo from a Nineties Pride Parade, taken near City Hall. I ask Dave whether he ever shoots color photos, because everything of his I see is black-and-white. He says that in the early days of digital cameras, he shot some color. He ended up shooting about 10 years of digital color, and he liked it. But the lure of film and black and white was too strong. Dave sold all his digital cameras. He says that, nowadays, smartphones do just as well as or better than cameras did back then. Today, he uses vintage cameras, vintages lenses, and black-and-white film, a combination that gives you a look and feel that you just cannot recreate with a digital camera. The last photo Dave shared that night at Warfield Commons is the most recent one. It's of folks and their cars at Ocean Beach, near to where Dave lives today. He says that his love of cars and car culture dates back to the Sixties. Back then, there were no stoplights on the Great Highway. It was like a drag strip (something you'll also hear about in our bonus episode on SF lowrider culture tomorrow). He shares fun stories of taking his mom's car, picking up friends, and joining the racers out near the ocean. They'd stay until cops chased them away, at which point they would head to Daly City and go to Pip's, a drive-in that existed back in the day. Please follow Dave on Instagram @daveglass_foto. Special thanks to Mel Baker and the team at SF Public Press for hosting and producing the live event where we recorded this episode. Look for Dave's exhibit at the San Francisco Historical Society next summer. It should stay up through the rest of 2027. Photography by Nate Oliveira/Shoot First SF

Dave Glass's Polish parents met at a displaced persons camp in Europe after World War II. In this Season 9 inaugural episode, meet and get to know Dave. A born-and-raised San Francisco, Dave joined me back in August in the SF Public Press office/studio at Warfield Commons to record the first-ever Storied: San Francisco live episode. Our talk that night comprises this episode. Dave's mom and dad got married at that camp in Germany and had their first kid, Dave's sister, there. The young couple wanted to come to the US, but had to wait another five years in Europe for that to materialize. Finally, they made it, via the port of New Orleans. Their American sponsor lived in Stockton, which they made their way to by trains and buses. Dave's dad later told him that when they arrived in California, Stockton looked to him like all cowboys and Mexicans. The family's sponsor owned a ranch, and the arrangement was that Dave's mom and dad would work there. One day, his dad's boss sent him to San Francisco, an hour or so away, for supplies. One taste of The City, and his dad knew he had to move his family here. It was early 1951 and Dave's mom was already pregnant with him. The family made the move to the big city regardless. They settled in the Western Addition on the corner of Webster and Fulton. This was before redevelopment, mind you. In addition to its sizable Black population, there were also a significant number of European refugees in the neighborhood, too. Dave fondly remembers being a little boy and going to the Ukrainian bakery at the corner of Webster and McAllister. Other memories from Dave's early days include vague visions of the Acme beer brewery across from his house. Dave lets us know that today, there are remnants of that building still standing. Around the time Dave started school, his family moved to the Sunset District. This is when his memories really get going. He went to Parkside Elementary, which is today known as Dianne Feinstein. Dave rewinds a little to share the story of when Eisenhower visited SF as president. Dave's mom got him, his sister, and herself dressed up. They walked down to Van Ness, where the presidential motorcade was set to pass by. He recalls the president sitting, not in the car's seat, but above it, in open air, riding down the avenue waving at folks. So much about this would never happen today. When he was 10, Dave got his first camera. At our live event, he shared a photo he took with that camera at his sister's birthday party, seen in a gallery on this page. It's one of the oldest photos he has that he took himself. At that time, Dave was just a "kid with a camera," not serious about the art whatsoever. But his dad had a Leica camera and did take photography more seriously, at least when it came to family photos. He had bartered for the camera when he lived in the displaced persons camp in Europe, and had photos from that time. Dave still has some of those pictures. We go on a bit of a sidebar here, thanks to my question about how folks got their camera film developed back in the day. We also chat about the nature of film vs. digital. When he was in high school, Dave joined the photo club and developed in a darkroom for his first time. He says it was around this time that he started to have an affection for photography. We have to mention that he went to Lowell, which came after time at Herbert Hoover Junior High School. Dave points out that, even back then, "smart" kids went to Lowell, including his sister. Dave says he more or less got in on legacy, not good grades. He brought that with him through high school, and chose to go to City College when he wasn't able to get into four-year schools. In 1969, City College's photography program was a serious one. Dave considers it blue-collar, in fact, aimed at turning students into professional photographers. Dave ended up taking photos for the school paper, something he loved doing. I ask Dave about the late-Sixties in SF, and he obliges. He was 16 when the Summer of Love happened, and living just a few neighborhoods away from the Haight/Ashbury, his eyes were opened. He and his friends would visit the Haight every couple of days. He says it got so crowded with tourist buses and people that The City made Haight a one-way street. Still, they saw bands like Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Country Joe and the Fish at small venues or outdoors in the park. We go on a sidebar here to talk about The Fillmore back in the day. Dave's first job, which he had while still in high school, was selling shoes at Kinny Shoes (IYKYK) at Serramonte, which had just opened. Dave shares a family photo and talks a little about it, also available here in the gallery. Eventually, relatives moved to San Francisco and lived nearby Dave's family, so he grew up with cousins and aunts and uncles. Dave confirms that it was the case that he and his friends, like many folks I talk with who grew up back then, pretty much did whatever they wanted after school, with the understanding that you go home when it gets dark out. His stories include building skateboards out of wooden 2×4s and roller skates. Then we talk about a significant turn in Dave's life. It was the late-Sixties and the war in Vietnam was heating up. The draft was in effect, and the number of units Dave was taking at City College had fallen below the threshold for deferment. That year, 1969, had seen more US casualties than any year prior. His parents, having escaped war-torn Europe earlier in their lives, did not want their son serving in the military in any capacity. Some of his dad's relatives had settled in Paris after WWII. They helped arrange for Dave to live there for about six months starting in the fall of 1970. Check back tomorrow for Part 2 and the rest of Dave Glass's life story. Follow Dave on Instagram @daveglass_foto. We recorded this podcast in the SF Public Press studio at Warfield Commons in August 2026. Photography by Nate Oliveira

Mani Niall is a chef, baker, author of Sweet! and other cookbooks, a food business advisor—and he was Michael Jackson's first private chef! Mani's very SF love story takes place at Uncle John's Tree near Fell and Stanyan in 2002. He writes on Substack at mjchefmani.substack.com—here's the oatmeal sour cherry chocolate chip cookie recipe he mentions in his episode.

Listen in as Jeff talks about the coming Season 9: This Is the Place. Then Jeff is joined by Intersections SF host Bowen Dwelle to talk Bowen's new show. Intersections will be part of the Storied universe beginning Sept. 9.

In Part 2, Aft joins us to chat about the band—Top Chefs. We start with the story of how TJ met Aft. A mutual friend of his and Loveberry's, Lucas Hanson, put on a show at DNA Lounge called "Liam Berry and Friends." TJ was just getting out of high school at the time. They asked him to join them on stage, something he'd never really done before. TJ had been playing smaller sets in restaurants, but joining a band at a bona fide venue was new for him. Loveberry (Liam) had met Aft at something called a "sound gig" for a set they would play as part of the effort to keep People's Park in Berkeley from being closed. They called Loveberry because he had a PA and they needed someone to run sound. Loveberry didn't really know what that meant at the time, and he might've been mistaken for a guy named Jeff whom they'd been expecting. Nevertheless, Aft was one of the few people who was nice to Loveberry that day in Berkeley. The band ended up needing a guitar player, and so a mutual friend told Aft that he should have this guy, Loveberry, play guitar with him. They agreed and ending up borrowing a guitar from a member of the crowd. Aft later invited Loveberry to a rehearsal back in SF. Afterthough, aka Aft, joins the conversation at this point. He recounts his version of that day in Berkeley. It was still early pandemic enough that folks were wearing masks. He liked Loveberry's playing that day enough to ask him over. They played a couple of shows as "Aft and His Band" or "Aft … backed up by (various musicians.)" Aft was also asked to play with "Liam Berry and Friends." At that DNA Lounge show, Aft met TJ and the trombone player Will, who's also in Top Chefs now. Aft had played in bands for years, including with a set of twins who played piano and bass. But those guys moved to New York around the time he connected with Loveberry. And soon after that, TJ and other members of today's Top Chefs. There's some collective fuzziness around when this all went down, but that doesn't matter. It was the beginning of coming out of a worldwide pandemic when time began to get totally skewed for everyone. But also, they were just busy playing music and making friends. I ask the three of them who came up with the idea to play shows on the stoop of Aft's childhood home on Scott Street. Loveberry and TJ credit Aft with the idea. Liam talks about arrangements that Aft was putting together with complex horn sections. And in those sessions, one of the musicians started a habit of saying, "Yes, chef" to Aft when he was asked to do something. That came from watching cooking competition shows. The dude was messing with Aft, so at the end of a show one night, when Aft was introducing band members, he called this guy "the top chef" to get him back. The name stuck for the entire band after that. There's a story about TJ's Filipina grandma, who lives near DNA Lounge, making Filipino BBQ on a stick and madeleine cookies for the band. TJ wasn't sure what to do with the food, so he set it out in the crowd while they played a song called, "Everybody Eats." It was a whole thing, and something Aft says he wants to bring back. I ask the fellas whether anyone has ever compared their Stoop Sessions to NPR's Tiny Desk music series. There's a resounding "yes" from all three. Then Aft shares that Top Chefs actually shot a Tiny Desk audition video on the stoop. It was early 2024, and despite not making it onto the hit public media show, they realized that they had something in shows on the stoop. In 2025, thanks to a fundraiser show, the band went to South by Southwest in Austin. After that, they played in the Haight, Hunters Point, Bernal Heights, downtown. Then Top Chefs started ramping up the quality of the videos. In late 2025, just before they planned to take a break from the band, Aft called a media day. The video of that performance went viral. Top Chefs' Stoop Sessions had arrived. It must've been around that time that my wife and I discovered them and immediately knew we'd found something special. And it was basically in our backyard. This coming Sunday, Aug. 2, they'll be at Chapel of the Flowers in Berkeley. If you're in the South Bay next weekend, they're playing San Jose Jazz on Friday, Aug. 7. There's a show in Levi's Plaza in The City on Saturday, Sept. 12. And for more shows and info, and to lose yourself in videos of past Stoop Sessions, follow @stoopsessionslive. The band account is @topchefsband. Their website is topchefsband.com. Sign up for their email list to learn about upcoming Stoop Sessions. That's the only space they share that info with folks. That's a wrap on Season 8: Every Kinda People. Thank you for listening and supporting our effort to uplift and share the stories of artists, activists, and working people who make San Francisco what it is. Photography by Marcella Sanchez