Storied: San Francisco Jeff Hunt

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 his own business, and his mom worked at a bank, and that was enough to enable them to buy a famed Doelger home just south of San Francisco.
 
Nathan went first to Peabody Elementary for one or two years, then to Westlake for second through sixth grades. After this, his parents enrolled him in a Catholic school to finish his junior high years. Around 1983, he started high school at St. Ignatius in The City and that ended up changing his life forever.

He soon met Eustinove Smith, who was already a graffiti and hip-hop legend in SF. Nathan was just getting into hip-hop himself. He shares some insights on the genre's evolutions, from the East Coast to out West. Some kids were graffiti writers and DJs at his new school, and Nate (as he was starting to be known) started breakdancing and listening to the hip-hop.
 
Nate had dabbled in art as a young kid, but his art matured when he hit his teen years, especially after he met his new best friend, E (Eustinove). Nate imparts some wisdom about the evolution of graffiti-writing styles at this point. His buddy E got a crew together and they hit the streets.
 
The new crew called itself Master Piece Creators (MPC). Nathan became Nate1, E was Omen2, and their buddy Rodney was Orco. Spots around SF they hit up include several "hall of fames," which are spaces where people paint both legally and illegally. MPC ended up doing many "productions" all over town.
 
He says when he graduated high school, it was never a question of leaving The Bay. Nate got into SF State, where he majored in business at first. But it took a counselor's advice to get him to switch over to art.
 
Check back next week for Part 2 and the continuation of Nate's story.
 
Check out the goods over at New Skool.
 
We recorded this podcast at Nate's home and studio in the Sunset in February 2024.
 

Photography by Jeff Hunt

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 info, including showtimes and tickets.
We recorded this podcast on Zoom in April 2024.

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. He liked it and was open to the idea of incorporating it. After mango, it was ube (purple yam), macapuno (sweet coconut), buko (young coconut), langko (jackfruit), avocado (which I tried recently and is DELICIOUS), and mais y queso (a Filipino flavor).
 
Many of these flavors were familiar to Marlon, who'd emigrated from the Philippines shortly before he began working at Mitchell's. He says that he was surprised and delighted to see those flavors in his new city.
 
I share my own story of finding Mitchell's and we talk about those well-known, long-ass lines often seen running down San Jose Avenue.
 
Marlon tells us that, in addition to standard flavors and the Asian and North and South American flavors, over the years, Brian has concocted some cool ice cream combinations that remain on the menu to this day.
 
In the mid-Seventies, Mitchell's got its products into stores. And in the late-Seventies, they got into some local restaurants. Then, in the 2000s, several local Thai restaurants began using Mitchell's in desserts (fried banana with their coconut ice cream, for example).
 
I ask the trio how they feel about Ben and Jerry's and other competition. The fact that Mitchell's is a family business and one that's been around so long leaves customers passionate about their local ice cream parlor. On that topic, it's worth mentioning that Marlon met his wife, Wanda, at Mitchell's when she started working there shortly after he did. They've been married 32 years and both continue working at Mitchell's to this day.
 
We end the podcast going around the room to hear what Linda, Marlon, and Brian think about our theme this season: "We're all in it."
 
Photography by Jeff Hunt
 
We recorded this podcast at Mitchell's Ice Cream in February 2024.

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 something with it. His parents had a small dairy farm on Noe and 29th Street. There was a parlor called Garrett's Ice Cream out on Ocean Avenue that was doing well. Larry and his brothers saw an opportunity.
 
A salesman from Foremost Dairy taught them how to make ice cream, which they sourced from Foremost. Larry, his brothers, their dad, and some friends built the store out and it opened on June 6, 1953.
 
Initially, it was a small operation. But in 1956, they built a bigger, newer freezer, and it just took off from there. Through the years, they've done their best to keep up with demand. The ice cream has always been made on-site.
 
Larry Mitchell's oldest daughter was already alive when the shop opened. His second daughter, Linda, who joined us for this episode, was born in 1954, a year after the store began operations. His youngest kid, Brian, who also appears in this episode, was born in 1961. Today, Linda Mitchell and Brian Mitchell are co-owners of Mitchell's Ice Cream.
 
Marlon Payumo, Mitchell's operations manager, is originally from the Philippines. He left his homeland with family in 1987, first landing in Guam, then on to San Francisco in 1988. Marlon had been in The City for two weeks when his friend came to visit him at his aunt's house, where he was staying. The friend brought some mango ice cream and a job application. Marlon interviewed, got the job, and has been with Mitchell's ever since. He was 19 when he started.
 
Mitchell's was already popular when Marlon came on. Linda, Brian, and Marlon all agree: The long lines were even worse then! We talk about the frozen yogurt craze of the Eighties and how they dabbled in it but let it go to refocus on their crown product—the ice cream.
 
Linda started working at the family business in 1991. By then, they were the only ice cream shop in the Mission, but their product wasn't in many stores just yet. Brian started back in 1979 after high school. He went to college on the Peninsula and worked at the shop on weekends. He got a degree in business management and came on full-time in the early Eighties.
 
Linda's story of how she ended up at the family business is that their Aunt Alice, who had been Mitchell's bookkeeper/customer service rep for some time, was retiring. Linda had worked in banking for a while, and she'd lived in Florida and Texas, but it was time to come home. Linda took over their aunt's job.
 
In the early Nineties, Mitchell's had about 30 employees. Today, that number isn't too much higher—they estimate it at around 40. They succumbed to the coffee/espresso craze of that decade. But that, too, didn't last long.
 
Check back next week for Part 2 and more on the legacy and history of Mitchell's Ice Cream with Linda, Brian, and Marlon.
 
We recorded this episode at Mitchell's Ice Cream in February 2024.
 
Photography by Jeff Hunt

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 I talk about photo editing and what that process was like in the analog film days. I name-drop Photoworks and Chloe mentions the photo labs at Macy's, then we end with Chloe's acknowledgement that people are embracing film again.
 
I ask Chloe about the 2000s. Her daughter was born and they left The City, finding a new home in the East Bay to raise her kid. With the shift from film to digital, Chloe struggled to keep up and her life priorities changed.
 
We talk about so many places that were important to the queer, dyke, and lesbian scenes closing in the Millennium. People from that scene started having kids and some pursued careers in other cities. Many wanted more space and couldn't get it in The City. The Dotcom boom happened, and folks were bought out or got priced out.
 
That leads to a sidebar on the recent resurgence we're seeing here in San Francisco. There's Mother Bar of course, where we recorded, and Chloe mentions other new queer art spaces like Schlomer Haus Gallery. We wonder whether the pandemic was a correction event.
 
The conversation shifts to how Chloe's photo book, Renegades, came about. Early in the pandemic, when everyone stayed home, her daughter came back from college to live with her. Her daughter saw Chloe's photos and told her to start an Instagram account. She did, but of course her daughter set it all up.
 
They scanned many, many photos and started to post. The reaction was endearing and intense and overwhelming, she says. Chloe says it was like a high school reunion, with so many of her friends from the Nineties reemerging in her life on social media.
 
The aforementioned Schlomer Haus Gallery saw what was happening and reached out looking for queer artists to show in their new space on Market. And so Chloe got a solo show in 2022. That show, Renegades San Francisco: The 1990s, set the stage for her book of the same name.
 
That 2022 experience was still so new to her. But at the show's opening, people reconnected with one another and the work took on a life of its own. Chloe says people were in tears. They took photos of their photos that were in the show. 300+ people attended the opening that night and many of those went to the after party at Mothership Bar on Mission.
 
"We all just showed up like nothing ever happened," Chloe says. Younger people at the opening told her, "This is why I moved to San Francisco," speaking to the scenes depicted in Chloe's photos.
 
Renegades San Francisco: The 1990s the book is available at local bookstores like City Lights, Fabulosa Books, SFMOMA, and Green Apple. It's also available online. Go to Chloe's website for more info.
 
We end Part 2 with Chloe's interpretation of our theme this season: "We're all in it." There's a special shout-out to photobooths.
 
Follow Chloe on Instagram to stay up to date on shows and book signings.
 
Photography by Jeff Hunt

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 her grade school days.
 
Chloe says the move was fine, but that she felt like more of a city kid, and so it took some adjusting. She and her brother visited back east a lot. He ended up going to college there, and Chloe started school in Connecticut and then Boston before realizing that she'd become a West Coaster.
 
We talk about life in Portland, how it's easier to be collective-minded and communal because it's more affordable than bigger cities. This of course has an effect on who's drawn to cities like Portland. With an abundance of young people, folks tend to band together.
 
Chloe ended up going to Portland State. One weekend, she took a trip to San Francisco after reading about our city in a zine she got at Powell's Books in her hometown. We take a conversational detour at this point to talk about zine culture back in the late-Eighties and early Nineties.
 
In high school, she had dabbled in dance and music, but knew she didn't want to pursue either performing art. She says she loved art and did some photography, but got more serious about that after high school.
 
In those aforementioned zines, she learned all about the bike messenger culture here in The City and was captivated by it. On that weekend trip down from Portland, she visited Lickety Split Couriers, which was Lynn Breedlove's bike messenger company. Chloe ended up working at another messenger for two weeks, but soon gave that up entirely. "San Francisco is instant death if you're not a pro," she says. We talk a bit about bike messenger culture in SF back in the Nineties. The service was essential to downtown during dotcom, but you'd hardly know it these days.
 
Breedlove told Chloe, "Go to the Bearded Lady Cafe," which she did. And it changed her life forever. It was there that she found her community. Chloe moved to San Francisco right after that visit to the cafe on 14th Street in the Mission.
 
She lived with friends until she finally got her own place in Lower Haight. After Chloe was established here, friends from Portland followed her to The City. Her world was expanding around her. She says that she looks at photos now from back then and sees concentric circles of friends.
 
The SF Dyke scene flourished through the Nineties. But then people grew up, got priced out, and The City changed. Many businesses closed with those changes.
 
Check back next week for Part 2 to hear more about that thriving, bustling, Mission lesbian scene that Chloe captures so well and so prolifically in her photography.
 
Photography by Jeff Hunt