Photo: Pride colors on display at Oracle Park, pic by me
They tell me it’s June, which means I last sent this newsletter a really, really long time ago. I’m sorry about that — it just felt really unimportant and then things got a little busy, then really busy, and now it’s now.
I also think I put way too much pressure on myself to make this more than the weekly byline round-up it was always intended to be. Then there’s the whole Substack being a monster thing too. It just all made it really easy to not send this week after week. But people have (kindly) asked for its return, and I’d definitely love to ensure folks who like my nonsense have an easy way to find it, so I’m back!
I’m going to be embracing the bare-bones aesthetic I should’ve been ok with at the start, so expect short emails with links to my stories published that week. If that doesn’t appeal, I promise not to look at my unsubscribe rates for the rest of the month.
But if it does, here’s one super-sized edition to help bridge the gap of going radio silent since November.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE LAST SIX MONTHS
Aimee Mann is one of the artists I admire most in this world, so speaking with her last December for a story about her album, Bachelor No. 2, turning 20 and getting a new vinyl pressing for Grammys.com was pretty much a dream come true.
In February, I spoke with some of the key artists and figures behind the legendary East Bay punk label Lookout Records ahead of a series of Zoom performances put together in the label’s honor for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Another big moment with the same paper: getting to talk to Green Day’s Mike Dirnt in March, where he spilled the beans on the band’s newest venture: Oakland Coffee House. More Datebook highlights: my first film review, a profile on film critic Mick LaSalle, one with local poet James J. Siegel, and another on rock critic Joel Selvin.
Those latter two stories also dovetail with my recent (and much welcomed!) opportunity to review books as part of my freelance tenure with the San Francisco Chronicle. Thus far, I’ve reviewed a debut novel, an anthology about staying (and sometimes leaving) San Francisco, a posthumous travel guide from Anthony Bourdain, and Michelle Zauner’s truly incredible memoir, Crying in H Mart.
Did I also review Zauner’s new album (released as Japanese Breakfast) for Variety and give that a rave too? Sure did!
I’ve also, as you might imagine, written a lot about cannabis and other drugs. I tried a little-known (but very intriguing) substance native to Southeast Asia called kratom and wrote about it for SFGATE. I also wrote another story there about the world’s first psychedelic peer support line, now operating in San Francisco!
In the same vein, for my weekly cannabis column with SF Weekly, I’ve spoken with a number of cool folks doing interesting things in the cannabis/drug space, including ex-NFL star Marshawn Lynch, former Golden State Warrior Matt Barnes, boxer Karim Mayfield, and Cookies kingpen Berner. I also covered the Muslim perspective on cannabis, spoke to the director of a new Hulu documentary about finding Sasquatch in the Emerald Triangle, dug into the role of organized labor in the cannabis industry, and gave Prohibition-loving Marin County (which also happens to be my home) an overdue tongue-lashing too.
Okay! Definitely forgot some stuff but that’s a pretty good summary of what I’ve been doing since I last bothered you. Moving forward, you can expect far shorter versions of the above on a weekly basis. Thanks for caring and please stay awesome!