Celebrity

It’s Official: Karl the Fog Loves Bernal Heights, Wants to Visit More Often

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Karl rests before visiting Bernal Hill in Fogust, 2014.

It’s August, which is often called Fogust around town, for reasons that shouldn’t be hard to understand if you look out your window right now.

From street level, the seasonal fog that descends upon San Francisco is cold and dismal, but in recent years it’s also become hilariously funny, thanks to @KarlTheFog, the pseudonymous Twitter account that has given our signature weather pattern a name, a voice, and a vastly more lovable persona.

Some recent examples:

Of course, most of Bernal Heights lies in the City’s “Banana Belt,” the swath of eastern neighborhoods that Karl the Fog visits somewhat less frequently. Nevertheless, we’ve always suspected that Karl has a misty soft-spot for Bernal Heights, and that’s now been officially confirmed.

This week, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Heather Knight published an exclusive celebrity interview with Karl the Fog, which included the remarkable revelation that of all the neighborhoods in San Francisco, Karl the Fog loves us best.

Check it out:

Q: What are your favorite San Francisco neighborhoods and haunts?

Karl: Obviously I spend a lot of time on the western side of the city, but some of my favorite neighborhoods outside that area are La Lengua (the section of the Mission bounded by 24th, 30th, Mission and Guerrero streets) and Bernal Heights. Great people out there. I can’t reach them often, but when I do, it’s worth it.

Awwwwww. Thanks Karl! We love you too! Although, to be honest, we think our relationship tends to work best when we maintain a little distance.

PHOTO: Top, Fogust 2014, by Telstar Logistics

How to Win at Valentine’s Day and Help the Cortland Flower Lady

/ Todd_Lappin / 1 Comment

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Alert! Alert! Alert!  It’s Valentine’s Day!

That means its time to celebrate the mostest-specialest people in your life and spread love throughout the galaxy. Bernal neighbor and sex-positive celebrity Annie Sprinkle tells Bernalwood how you can do right by your sweetie today AND help the Cortland Flower Lady — all at the same time! Annie says:

Many neighbors around Bernal Hill know and love Danhi, the flower lady, who spreads her love year-round selling (and giving) us all beautiful flowers in front of the liquor store at 439 Cortland, at the corner of Wool.
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Last week Danhi had a car accident and really needs to raise money to pay for car repairs. (Luckily she is OK otherwise.)

On Valentine’s day Danhi will have beautiful, creative, abundant bouquets for excellent prices. Buy them for yourself, or for your Valentine(s).

Denhi will be there today, Feb. 14, from 11 am until 7 pm, or possibly later. Find her in her in full bloom on the corner of Cortland & Wool (catty-corner from Good Life Grocery).

Spread the love!

Happy Valentine’s Day,
Annie

PHOTO: Danhi the Flower Lady (right) with Neighbor Beth, courtesy of Annie Sprinkle

Neighbors Gather on Bernal Hill to Celebrate Prince

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RIP Prince. You were amazing, and you left us far too soon.

As San Francisco mourned the death of Prince last night, Mayor Ed Lee announced that the lights on City Hall would  glow purple, and your Bernalwood editor received a sad text message from one of the paternal units from the Bernal Dads Racing Team:

Uh, so no Prince on Bernal Hill?

This was Obviously Unacceptable, so within a few minutes a sound system was conjured and a power source was procured, and at about 8:30 your Bernalwood editor was ordered to transmit a call to action:

An hour later, the sound system was up and running on Bernal Hill, and a cozy group of people gathered to listen to Prince’s music. The weather was warm(ish), the moon was full, Prince’s music filled the air, and City Hall glowed purple on the horizon. It was lovely. Here’s a quick taste:

PHOTO: Top, a classic Prince moment in Bernal Heights, shared on Bernalwood, January 6, 2011

Play Ball! Neighbor Matt Nathanson Sang the National Anthem at Yesterday’s Giants Season Opener

/ Todd_Lappin / 1 Comment

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Yesterday was Opening Day for the 2016 San Francisco Giants season, and Bernal neighbor and rockstar-in-residence Matt Nathanson was there to sing the national anthem. You can watch it here.

A few hours later, the Giants went on to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 12-6, with help from a Hunter Pence grand slam. So to recap: Neighbor Matt sang the national anthem, and the Giants crushed the Dodgers. Coincidence? Hold that thought.

Neighbor Matt got a pretty swell souvenir out of the deal:

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Neighbor Matt sang the national anthem at a Giants season opener. Historians will note he also sang it in 2010, and we all know how that turned out. Coincidence?

We think not.

PHOTO: Top, via Jason Snell. Hat Tip: kc!

Bernal Native Carlos Santana Says the Super Bowl Needed More Local Bands

/ Todd_Lappin / 7 Comments

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One of the best things about the conclusion of Superb Owl 50 is that we no longer have to hear all the complaining about Superb Owl 50. Yet with that said, celebrity Bernal Heights native Carlos Santana took to Facebook yesterday to grumble that there wasn’t enough local flavor at the Super Bowl 50 halftime show:

Dear NFL/CBS….I would like to take this opportunity to thank you both for including me as a part of your Super Bowl entertainment. I do feel compelled to point out to you that the Halftime Show should have included some of the local iconic bands that the World would have loved to see perform. Bands like Metallica, Steve Miller, Journey and yours truly. We would have rocked the Half Time Show and done the SF Bay Area proud. This is just an invitation for you to consider iconic bands as part of your Half Time entertainment. Real live music, real live vocals, and give the audience real live chills.

Carlos Santana

Estimados NFL/CBS….Me gustaría aprovechar esta oportunidad para agradecer a ambos que me incluyeran como parte del entretenimiento de la Super Bowl. Me siento obligado a señalar que el espectáculo del descanso del partido debería haber incluido a algunas de las icónicas bandas locales que a todo el mundo le habría encantado ver actuar. Bandas como Metallica, Steve Miller, Journey y quien les habla. Habríamos hecho estremecer el espectáculo del descanso y habríamos enorgullecido al área de SF Bay. Esto es tan solo una invitación para que consideren a las bandas icónicas como parte de su entretenimiento del descanso del partido. Música real en vivo, voz real en vivo y estremecer realmente a la audiencia en vivo.
Carlos

Preach!

Actually, the Superb Owl 50 halftime show would have been an excellent opportunity to stage the Mullen Reunion Tour, harkening back to the days when Santana and a few early members of Journey all lived under the same roof on Mullen Avenue.

Even better, we could have hosted one hell of a homecoming after-party in Precita Park, with Santana jamming on the little mound just west of the playground until the whole park smelled like cannabis and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Santana is right; that would have been fantastic. Let’s do it next time.

PHOTO: Carlos Santana’s Facebook profile pic

Hillside Supper Club Team Invades the Kitchen at James Beard House

/ Todd_Lappin / 8 Comments

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The James Beard Awards are the Oscars for the culinary trade, and the James Beard Foundation is its Academy. Earlier this month, chefs Tony Ferrari and Jonathan Sutton from the Hillside Supper Club on Precita Park were invited to New York to cook a special dinner at the James Beard House, and it was quite a big to-do.

Of course, Chef Tony and Chef Jonathan also live right around the corner from the restaurant, so the glory bestowed upon Neighbor Tony and Neighbor Jonathan — and, by commutative extension, the entire Dominion of Bernalwood — is even more sweet.

Neighbor Tony’s brother Austin traveled to NYC to participate in the festivities, and he tells Bernalwood why the James Beard Dinner meant so much to Team HSC:

Hillside Supper Club has been a close watcher and member of the James Beard Foundation for a while. When Tony was in college he earned a scholarship from them, and with that scholarship he traveled to Europe to indulge in his culinary dream. The James Beard Foundation is a non-profit culinary foundation founded by James Beard. He was a food writer, teacher, ad cookbook writer. Think, Julia Child; except the male version. The Hillside Supper Club team was invited to cook at the Beard House based upon our cooking style, our inspiration, and hard work and dedication. It is probably one of the best events we will ever do in our culinary career, to be honest.

Jonathan Sutton, Austin Ferrari, and Tony Ferrari at James Beard House, NYC

Cooking a James Beard Dinner is sexy accomplishment, but the hotness doesn’t stop there. In fact, like a big, wet, dripping maraschino perched atop a Tcho chocolate almond cake with amaretto cream, smoked sea salt, and candied almonds, Neighbor Jonathan took the sexy one step further recently when Marie Claire named him one of the 11 Most Eligible Bachelor Chefs in America. Seriously:

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Rawr!

Bernal ladies, if you’re hungry, you know where to find him in the kitchen.

PHOTO: Top, Hillside Supper Club on Instagram

Bernal Writer Ponders the Fate of the California Dream

/ Todd_Lappin / 9 Comments

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In case you missed it over the weekend, Bernal neighbor Dan Duane had a very prominent, very thoughtful piece about the fate of the California Dream on the front page of the Sunday Review section in Sunday’s New York Times.

Neigbor Dan writes:

All over Northern California, there is a profound mood of loss: Oakland, long a bastion of African-American cultural life, has seen housing rental rates jump 20 percent this past year; San Francisco’s lesbian bars are closing, and the Castro gets less gay by the year.

Then there’s the shock of raising kids with public schools ranked among the worst in the nation, and public universities that have more than doubled in cost since 2007. Most of my outdoor pleasures are still available, but it’s getting scary with the desertification of subalpine ecosystems, Sierra snowpack at a historic low, as much as 20 percent of California’s once-majestic forests at risk of dying, and freeway traffic so ubiquitous that it can be soul-destroying just getting out of town to see all this stuff.

The real estate market, in the meantime, has become so bizarre that my funky little neighborhood is already beyond the reach of young doctors and lawyers — techies only need apply.

This may sound like the stuff of yet another nostalgic lament about the unsettling pace of change in California, but Neighbor Dan is too self-aware to fall into that dead-end trap; He knows people have been writing “California is over” essays for as long as there’s been a California.

Instead, he comes to a more nuanced realization: that the same dyanamism that makes California so unique is also what makes it so heartbreaking. As Dan puts it, “California has been changing so fast for so long that every new generation gets to experience both a fresh version of the California dream and, typically by late middle-age, its painful death.”

Whoa. Here’s Neighbor Dan’s essay. Don’t miss it.

Oh, also, Star Sighting!!! As destiny would have it, Bernalwood ran into Neighbor Dan on Sunday afternoon on the other side of town. We’d read his essay in the morning, so it was a locavore privilege to be able give him a big Bernal high five-later that same day:

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If you see Neighbor Dan out and about, we encourage you do the same.

PHOTOS: Telstar Logistics

Star Sighting: President Obama Hangs Out with the PizzaHacker

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Wow. Did you know that the fabulous President Barack Obama eats pizza from Bernal’s own PizzaHacker — just like us?!

It’s true. InsideScoop reports that POTUS enjoyed some of Jeff “PizzaHacker” Krupman’s sublime pizza goodness during his recent visit to San Francisco:

Remember when President Barack Obama was in San Francisco two weeks ago?

Well, it would appear that the leader of the free world ate very well.

[Below] is a photo from the private event during Obama’s first night in town (Friday, Oct. 2) — and it features quite the eclectic and talented mix of characters from the San Francisco food and drink world [including] Jeff Krupman a.k.a. the Pizzahacker (flannel shirt)

Photo or it didn’t happen?  Well, here’s the proof!

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Hat tip: Neighbor Robert

PHOTO: Group shot, Justin Buell via SFGate

Star Sighting! Videogame Pioneer Nolan Bushnell Spotted at Red Hill Station

/ Todd_Lappin / 4 Comments

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Famous creators of the videogame industry dine at Red Hill Station… just like us!

Neighbor Robert was on paparazzi patrol last week, and he filed this star-studded report:

It was very cool to see Nolan Bushnell, Atari founder and godfather of video games (shout-out to Pong!), at Red Hill Station last Friday night. He was in town for the Google I/O conference, and while in town he decided to dine at Red Hill Station.

Turns out his wife, Nancy, is a major LA foodie and visited Red Hill Station for dinner recently with her brother, a longtime Bernal resident. Nancy was so taken with the restaurant she made sure he paid a visit.

Nolan loved the food, the staff, the whole Bernal vibe, and when introduced to the chef, Taylor Pedersen’s eyes widened and he said he owed Bushnell a huge debt of gratitude. As a child of six, Taylor used to sing for quarters just for the chance to play Atari classics like Asteroids and Battlezone one more time.

PHOTO: Neighbor Robert

Tonight: Bernal Dads Star as Crash Test Dummies on BBC’s “Mud, Sweat and Gears”

/ Todd_Lappin / 3 Comments

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RF MS&Ge

If you’re a fan of the astonishingly popular BBC car show Top Gear, you probably know that Jeremy Clarkson, one of the presenters of the show, was suspended last week for getting into a scuffle with one of the Top Gear producers. And while Jeremy Clarkson is suspended, Top Gear is off the air.

This has created a unique celebrity opportunity for two Bernal Heights residents affiliated with the Bernal Dads Racing team. Many months ago, BBC America came looking for two crash-test dummies volunteers to participate in the filming of a pilot episode for a new TV show. The Bernal Dads – Neighbor Mason Kirby from Mullen and Neighbor Robert Freedman of Elsie – foolishly offered to participate.

Even more foolishly, the BBC signed them up to be in the show, which is called (… wait for it…) Mud, Sweat, and Gears.

Here’s how Variety describes it:

BBC America has given the green light to the new vehicle transformation series “Mud, Sweat and Gears,” hosted by UK car journos Tom ‘Wookie’ Ford and Jonny Smith. The hour-long spot will be produced by BBC Worldwide Productions for BBC America and BBC Worldwide’s new Brit channel.

In each of the eight unscripted episodes, daredevils Ford and Smith both captain a team of two fellow car enthusiasts and are given 24 hours to mutate, supersize or reconstruct ordinary vehicles to compete in stunt challenges.

Anyway, for the last few weeks,  Mud, Sweat, and Gears has aired immediately after Top Gear on BBC America. And tonight, the episode that stars Neighbor Mason and Neighbor Rob is finally set to air.

But with Jeremy Clarkson still in the dock and Top Gear on hiatus, this might be just the opportunity these two dashing Bernal Dads need to fill the void that now exists in our Top Gear-starved planet:

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The show airs tonight, March 16 on BBC America at 10 pm.

Here’s a preview. Neighbor Mason and Neighbor Rob ended up driving a mutant gold Pontiac Aztec, and apparently, they’re not very good at opening the doors:

 

Bernal Heights Journalists R00Led the New York Times Magazine. Again.

/ Todd_Lappin / 2 Comments

weil.mooallem

It isn‘t the first time this has happened, but if you happened to peruse last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, you might have noticed that the feature well was once again dominated by a pair of Bernal Heights writers. This edition featured two of Bernal’s most glamorous literary-journalism superstars: Neighbor Liz Weil and Neighbor Jon Mooallem, both of Ellsworth.

Neighbor Liz’s article is a profile of teenage running prodigy Mary Cain:

The 800 [meter] is a crushing race. Runners go out hard, then try to hang on to the pace in a showcase of will. Through the first six and a half laps of that eight-lap relay, the announcer called the event gamely, like a horse race — “Bishop Guertin! Bronxville! Achilles!” — playing up the tension, implying that anybody could win. But shortly after Cain took the baton, the race became disorienting. Everybody was running one speed and Cain — eyes down, body tilted forward — was running at another. Like watching a turntable with one record spinning at 33⅓ r.p.m. and another at 45 r.p.m., it scrambled the brain. Cain completed her first lap in 58 seconds, only half a second slower than Roger Bannister ran his first lap at Oxford on May 6, 1954, when he became the first man to break the four-minute mile. The announcer, flabbergasted, began shouting: “Bronxville! Mary Cain! Bronxville! Mary Cain!” at irregular intervals. She ran her 800 meters in 2:03.74.

Immediately following that… as part of his excellent, ongoing investigation into oddball ways that humans relate to wild animals, Neighbor Jon tells the sordid tale of Arlan Galbraith,  a man who turned pigeon breeding into a multimillion dollar Ponzi scheme:

Pigeon King International sold breeding pairs of pigeons to farmers with a guarantee to buy back their offspring at fixed prices for 10 years. Initially, Galbraith told farmers that the birds were high-end racing pigeons and that he planned to sell the offspring to the lucrative markets that support the sport overseas. Later, Galbraith changed his story, telling farmers that the birds were part of his trailblazing plan to elevate pigeon meat, known as squab, from a fringe delicacy in North America into the next ubiquitous chicken. But in the end, “they were neither,” the prosecutor said; Galbraith never sold a single pigeon for sport or meat. He seemed to have merely taken the young birds he bought from Pigeon King International farmers and resold them, as breeding pairs, to other Pigeon King International farmers, shuttling pigeons from one barn to another. And this meant continually recruiting new investors so he would have the cash to buy the pigeons his existing investors produced every month. When Galbraith’s scheme finally fell apart, Pigeon King International had almost a thousand breeders under contract in five Canadian provinces and 20 U.S. states. He’d taken nearly $42 million from farmers and walked away from obligations to buy back $356 million worth of their baby birds, ruining many of those investors.

PHOTO: New York Times magazine table of contents, March 8, 2015 by Telstar Logistics

Bernal Literary Celeb Jandy Nelson Wins Fabulous 2015 Printz Medal

/ Todd_Lappin / 4 Comments

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Bernal Heights is thick with literary celebrities. You pretty much can’t throw a rock on our little rock without hitting someone who’s written a few brilliant books, or gotten some rave reviews, or won a closet full of writerly prizes. Because that’s the kind of glamorous we are.

So here’s a hot celebrity tip: The newest, most glamorous Bernal Heights literary superstar is Bernal neighbor Jandy Nelson.

Neighbor Jandy’s acclaimed young-adult novel, “I’ll Give You the Sun,” just won the Michael L. Printz Award, which “honors the best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit.”

Publisher’s Weekly (!!) describes the awesome tale of how she learned about the accolade:

Jandy Nelson had to keep a very big secret – for two whole days. Last Saturday she found out she’d won the Michael L. Printz Award for her second novel, I’ll Give You the Sun, but the announcements were not being made until Monday. “I was so taken by surprise when they called,” Nelson said, reached by phone at her home in San Francisco. “They must have thought they were giving the award to a raving lunatic. I remember hearing it was the Printz Committee, and then I started screaming. I remember they were all clapping, and that made me burst into tears. They said a lot of nice things about my book, and I screamed some more. It was one of the happiest, most exciting moments of my life.”

I’ll Give You the Sun is told through the alternating perspectives of twins Noah and Jude, which thread their way to the event that drove the once-close siblings apart. The author says the book took her three and a half years to complete. “It was very much like writing three novels in total,” she said. “I wrote Noah’s story start to finish, and I locked the file [that contained] Jude’s story. Then I wrote Jude’s story start to finish. I didn’t want their voices to blend. And I wanted each story to have its own propulsion so it would work when I combined them. Then the last year I spent interweaving their stories, and working on the book as a whole.”

Citizens of Bernalwood, you know the drill: If you see Neighbor Jandy in the ‘hood, please give her some robust congrats and make sure she gets a big high-five.

Watch What Bernal Rockstar Matt Nathanson Did During His Recent Trip to Peru

/ Todd_Lappin / 4 Comments

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Bernal Heights neighbor and rockstar next door Matt Nathanson has had a very busy year. A new album, a big tour, lots of travel… you know, rockstar stuff.  Somehow, however, he managed to squeeze in some pro bono work with the Starkey Hearing Foundation, an organization that provides assistance to hearing-impaired people around the world.

So when Neighbor Matt went to Peru recently, it was all about lending a hand with the Starkey Foundation. On his own website, Matt writes:

i joined a trip to huancayo, peru with some folks from starkey hearing foundation. our job was to fit people with hearing aids if they needed them. the company provided the devices and their service for free. they do this all around the world. i was one of the many volunteers.

i’ve been trying to write a short piece about my experience for weeks now. it’s been really hard. words kinda fail it.

if i didn’t have my hearing, i wouldn’t have music. and if i didn’t have music, i definitely wouldn’t have survived my childhood. listening to albums and seeing bands and being connected to songs was EVERYTHING to me. it still is. it makes me feel not alone. it helps me transcend my broken brain. in fact, the only reason i play music is because i love it so much. i couldn’t stay on the sidelines, i HAVE to be a part of it.

going to peru was super heavy. the people were incredible. to be in service to them, to assist in connecting them to their kids laughter, to their parents voices, to MUSIC!… it was completely humbling. and overwhelming. i felt love and gratitude towards other human beings on a level i’ve never experienced.

see? it’s really hard to put into words… so i’m glad we shot footage and made a video while we were there. it does a WAY better job explaining than i ever could.

Matt’s newest song and video are all about his time in Peru. And when you see it, it’s easy to understand why the experience was so powerful, and so difficult to put into words. Because here’s what Neighbor Matt did during his recent visit to Peru:

Matt adds:

100% of artist and label proceeds from this video are being donated to Starkey Hearing Foundation. For more information on how you can help, go to headphones.starkeyhearingfoundation.org