『Storied: San Francisco』のカバーアート

Storied: San Francisco

Storied: San Francisco

著者： Storied: San Francisco
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今ならプレミアムプランが3カ月 月額99円

2026年5月12日まで。4か月目以降は月額1,500円で自動更新します。

概要

 A weekly podcast about the artists, activists, and small businesses that make San Francisco so special.Copyright 2026 Storied: San Francisco 社会科学
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  • 415 Day 2026 (S8 bonus)

    415 Day 2026 (S8 bonus)
    2026/04/21

    Listen in as I chat with guests at 415 Zine's 415 Day celebration at Madrone last week.

    Find the guests of this bonus episode:

    Mackenzie C Kirk

    • https://www.mck-film.com/

    • @m.c.k.film

    Carrie Cotini

    • https://carrie-cottini.squarespace.com/about

    • @carrieann22

    Mike Bruno

    • https://www.mbrunophoto.com/

    • @mbrunophoto

    Allison/If n Wendy

    • @ifnwhendy

    Stephanie

    (no online presence)

    Spike

    • https://madroneartbar.com/

    • @michaelspikekrouse

    • @madroneartbar

    Fredo

    • https://www.fonzerelli415.com/

    • @fonzerelli415

    Laine

    • https://www.teatimewithlaine.com/

    • @teatimewithlaine

    Find 415 Zine on IG @415zine and https://www.415zine.com/.

    We recorded this podcast at Madrone Art Bar in April 2026.
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    30 分
  • Kiri the Japanese Fire Truck, Part 2 (S8E16)

    Kiri the Japanese Fire Truck, Part 2 (S8E16)
    2026/04/16

    In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Todd has just learned the process of importing automobiles into the US. He had one under his belt. He was ready for more.

    He'd learned about older Japanese fire trucks and set his sights. He was still going to Japan frequently, and began to make "car friends" over there. As could be expected, there's quite a subculture around cars in many countries, and Todd had found his in his home away from home.

    He found a tiny Japanese fire truck on an auction site, but the going price went out of his range of comfortableness. Normally, he'd need his family's backing to make a move for another automobile. But this time, they were let down that he didn't get the car. And with that, Todd decided to skip auction altogether and instead work with an importer in Sacramento.

    We sidebar a little here for Todd to talk about how Japan incentivizes exporting its slightly used cars all over the world. He brings this up to mention that, when shopping for a Japanese car to import, thanks to a robust selling market, you have a good idea of what you're gonna get.

    Working with that importer, there was another fire truck that caught Todd's eye at auction, but he let that one go, too. Then that same truck ended up on a Japanese used car site with much better photographs, and together with his importer, they pounced. Kiri had served a tiny mountain village, and despite being 30 years old at the time, had only a couple thousand miles on the odometer. And because it had served as a vital utility vehicle, it had been well-maintained. The asking price was well within Todd's comfort zone. Then began the process of getting Kiri to California, a whole other ballgame.

    One snag was that the buying process got underway the first week of March 2020. Yep. The world shutdown and so, Todd thought, did getting his new red fire truck home. But in July that year, the importer called him one day and said, "Your truck is here." Kiri looked pretty much like it looks today—a signature red coat of paint, lights, sirens. But it didn't come with firefighting equipment. Todd supplied that on his own.

    Emblazoned on the door of his new fire truck was the name of the Japanese town it had served before retirement—Kirigamine, a mountain town in Nagano prefecture. Todd, who's visited many times since buying the truck, compares the tiny town to Pescadero along the coast. Todd goes on a tangent here to explain why, as he himself learned along the way, Kiri the car is so small.

    Then I share my reflection on that time in the world. I got married about a year later (in 2021), and my wedding took place outdoors and in the streets of San Francisco. I remember how happy it made people we passed, and ask whether Kiri, once it hit the streets, had a similar effect. Todd goes into some depth about the serendipity and sense of wonder Kiri evokes when he drives his fire truck around.

    Todd says he gets a lot of requests to bring Kiri to birthday parties, but he isn't accepting those at the moment. (He jokes that when you start seeing him at parties, it means he isn't doing too well financially and has turned to his fire truck to help him through tough times.) He will, however, bring the truck to parades and other civic events. He says that since he first rolled Kiri out, it has served as a bridge between Japanese people and the Bay Area. In addition to Japanese and Chinese folks taking delight in seeing Kiri, Todd says that members of our local low rider community have been drawn in as well.

    Kiri's flashing red lights work, but Todd is reluctant to use them, mostly because you're not supposed to. He says that in Japan, fire trucks like Kiri use their sirens/PA system to double as public service announcement speakers. To get their PSAs into Kiri's (and other trucks') system, an input jack was fitted. Todd is able to connect his own player through the same input, and has been loading various messages into Kiri's PA system, including what you heard in the intro to Part 1.

    Thanks to Todd's partner working in publishing, they've been making Kiri calendars, which they sell to raise money for CalFire. Get yours on Kiri's website, teenytinyfiretruck.com. And follow Kiri @teenytinyfiretruck on Instagram.
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    24 分
  • Kiri the Japanese Fire Truck, Part 1 (S8E16)

    Kiri the Japanese Fire Truck, Part 1 (S8E16)
    2026/04/14
    There's a little red Japanese fire truck rolling around all over San Francisco. But instead of putting out fires, Kiri the Japanese Fire Truck is spreading joy and inspiring smiles. In this episode, meet and get to know Todd Lappin, the human being who brought Kiri from Japan to the US—Bernal Heights specifically. We start with Todd's life story in Part 1. He has lived in the 94110 ZIP code for 34 years. But he's originally from New Jersey. "Even after 34 years, New Jersey is like a stain that doesn't wash out," he says. He grew up in what he calls the "Ohio part" of the state. I call it "the pretty part," meaning not New York City-adjacent. Todd is a self-described Gen Xer—growing up mostly in the Eighties, latch-key kid, etc. Most of the growing up happened in Hackettstown, NJ, one of the places where M&M's are made. It's not far from the eastern end of I-80, also. NYC was an hour away and Todd spent plenty of time there as a kid. In addition to being born in New York and raised in New Jersey, Todd spent one year in Oakland as a kid when his navy dad got stationed in Alameda. He's long held a fascination with cars, specifically what are known as "working vehicles." Think of them as cars people use for jobs. He appreciates the aesthetic honesty of such automobiles. Though it was and still is small, Hackettstown served as a hub for surrounding farmland and even smaller nearby towns. When Todd was in high school, one of those surrounding towns' volunteer fire department sold a Cadillac ambulance for $600. He didn't buy it, and regrets that to this day. It's his "Rosebud," so to speak. When he was young, he also started getting deep into Asian culture. For Todd, this fascination stemmed from diving more into the US war in Vietnam. He learned about Confucianism. He ended up going to Brown University for college and getting even deeper into Asian history and culture—focusing first on Chinese, then moving onto Japanese. Todd did a semester abroad in Japan, in fact. He didn't love the school part of his time there, but ended up traveling around the country on his own. Those travels eventually led him into China. After this, he pivoted from studying modern Japan to digging into ancient China, with a specific focus on Daoism. He ended up with a degree in Chinese intellectual history. Going back to Todd's Bay Area connections, besides that one year in Oakland when he was little, he'd visited with his parents when he was a teenager. When he graduated from Brown, he was dating a woman from here. But it was a high school spring break visit that really cemented it for him—this is where he wanted to be eventually. For young Todd in the Eighties, San Francisco felt urban in a way that reminded him of his time in NYC. After that, it was the beauty, the thoughtfulness, as he puts it, that hooked him. Six years or so after that spring break visit, Todd put down roots in SF. The two of us digress to talk in some depth about differences between SF and NYC. One way that Todd characterizes it is: The East Coast anoints. The West Coast creates. I can see what he means. Todd still loves Providence, RI, where Brown is. But a year after graduating and staying there, that SF "hook" pulled him here. When he landed in early-Nineties Mission (1991), it felt like Providence, so there was a familiarity to his new hometown. Zine culture was still big at the time, and Todd did a little writing, much of it journalistic. One of those gigs was to edit a book by one of his mentors—Orville Schell, who was once the dean of the UC Berkeley journalism school. Like Todd, Schell studied Chinese history and culture. So, that was 34 years ago. Todd doesn't think the 94110 has changed, or, as he puts it, hasn't changed enough. The City has grown, but the Mission and Bernal for him are mostly the same. He eventually got a job at and worked for Wired for a while. Years later, he launched Bernalwood, a blog about his neighborhood. This is where Todd's and my worlds first intersected. Todd sees blogs as a natural progression from zines—both have low barriers to entry and so foster a more-independent spirit than established or corporate news orgs. I agree, having been part of the blogging world myself. At this point, we turn to the topic of this episode—Kiri, the tiny Japanese fire truck. Todd shares that story with us all here. Going back to his pivot from studying Japanese to studying Chinese culture, Todd says at that point, he felt he was done with Japan. But in 2004, a friend who was going through a divorce mentioned wanting to visit Japan and Todd accompanied him. This trip brought it all back for him. He had enough of the language stored in his brain to be able to function and had a terrific time. With that flame reignited, Todd has visited Japan "nonstop" since then. On one of those trips, he met someone who'd become something of a "car creator," meaning he was making content around cars and publishing it on YouTube. Todd had been ...
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    31 分
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