You can’t walk through San Francisco’s Castro District without your eyes being drawn to the towering marquee. The words “CASTRO” shine in bright, flashing neon over this proud queer neighborhood. But get a little closer and you notice that some of the neon lights are out, and there aren’t any people around. The front of the theater seems as deserted today as it was during the COVID-19 pandemic. What gives?

While the rest of the country cools off and settles into fall, the Bay Area has a couple of months of warm weather that seem designed for a trip to an old-fashioned amusement park. For generations Bay Area residents have sought fresh air, community and thrills. Many of these parks are gone now, and their ultimate demise was the result of a very Bay Area problem: sky-high real estate values.

What did he say his name was? Oh fuck!

Despite its popularity, there remains some mystery around Monterey Jack’s true origins. Though it may have the name “Monterey,” the town of Pacifica lays claim to the iconic cheese.

When worlds collided and I co-produced and hosted a professional wrestling show at KQED public media in San Francisco.

Scrumbly Koldewyn is one of the founding members of a hippie drag troupe active in San Francisco. The Cockettes were only around for a few years, beginning in 1969, but left a whole catalog of performance tape, photos, and lore in their wake.

Today, Koldewyn lives in Oakland in a gorgeous bungalow where his living room takes a backseat to his office. It's a little messy, full of papers, pictures, and memories centered around a baby grand piano where Koldewyn writes and plays music effortlessly.

"The next drag superstar..." RuPaul pauses as the music swells. It's March 3, 2009 on the inaugural season finale of RuPaul's Drag Race. That premiere season, when the show was on Logo, was before Drag Race was cool. The camera cuts around the room as Ru surveys the scene. It's a perfectly executed, dramatic reality TV finish, designed to draw out the moment until everything goes quiet and RuPaul finishes, "...is Bebe." Cameroon-born drag performer BeBe Zahara Benet let out a scream at Ru's pronouncement and drag herstory was made.

In describing Grammy-winning recording artist and activist Melissa Etheridge as a "Lesbian Rock Goddess," it's a title she likes. "That's perfect!" she replied. "But, I think people would be surprised to know I am just a girl from the Midwest."

San Francisco’s trash cans have problems. From debris littering the streets around them, to the — more often than not — broken recycling compartments, these green garbage receptacles are past their intended life span. In 2022, San Francisco is nearing the end of a years-long replacement process designed (in part) to clean up San Francisco’s streets, and years of corruption.

In a small church a few blocks away from the Castro — during the height of the AIDS epidemic — a much lesser-known activist was fighting to provide comfort to a dying congregation of LGBTQIA Christians.