A great record shop is like a time machine, a portal to another world. In the right hands, these spaces are capable of fostering a deep connection to the overlapping worlds of music and art, and nurturing a community around expression. In our ever more technological world, they stand as meaningful anachronisms made modern by new generations of listeners, reaching beyond the digitizing of music and performance and grounding us in the aural physicality of music.

Such is the scene at Dark Entries, a new shop and gallery in the Tenderloin. It’s the work of Josh Cheon, a longtime DJ and founder of the archival and reissue label Dark Entries Records. Housed inside a former tattoo parlor at 910 Larkin St., not far from where Cheon has lived and worked for a decade, in the historically queer Tenderloin neighborhood, the shop officially opens its doors to crate diggers Saturday, Dec. 10

“I always imagined this as being a place where someday we could host events,” said Cheon, who acquired the space in early 2021 when rents dropped amid pandemic uncertainty. “It’s a modular space, and I want to keep it in flux.”

Josh Cheon, a longtime San Francisco nightlife DJ and founder of the archival and reissue label Dark Entries Records, is opening a record shop in the Tenderloin. Photo: Carlo Velasquez / Dark Entries Records

This block of Larkin has become something of a “corridor of art,” Cheon said, anchored by the Magazine SF (home to the Bob Mizer Foundation) and the Moth Belly Gallery.

“Before the Castro was gay, this was the gay neighborhood — the first gay pride parade in America was on Polk Street, and the first gay riot was here as well,” Cheon said. “The Gangway, the oldest gay bar in SF, was right down the street. I knew I wanted to be here, in the tenderloin, to keep it queer… and to host artists and events in the space that reflect this history.”

To further the art gallery aesthetic, the record shop’s visual identity is anchored by two original collage works from Gwenaël Rattke, a Berlin visual artist represented by Romer Young Gallery of San Francisco.

Josh Cheon’s Dark Entries Records is located at 910 Larkin St. Photo: Carlo Velasquez / Dark Entries Records

The shop will offer titles from the Dark Entries catalog — more than 300 releases since 2009 — as well as favorites from Cheon’s expansive personal archives, collected over his decades of work as an archivist and DJ. But of particular focus at Dark Entries is the music of Patrick Cowley, a San Francisco electronic music composer and recording artist. Thanks to several posthumous releases, his body of work — and influence — has only grown in the 21st century, some 40 years after his death.

An early victim of the AIDS pandemic, Cowley became famous as a composer and performer in collaboration with Sylvester, the iconic San Francisco disco chanteuse. Cowley composed Sylvester’s 1982 hit “Do Ya Wanna Funk?” which rose to the no. 4 spot on the Billboard dance music chart, and toured the world as a member of Sylvester’s live band in 1979. Other notable Cowley tracks from the era include a remix of Donna Summer’s iconic Giorgio Moroder-penned single “I Feel Love” (dubbed the “definitive” remix by MixMag), as well as the original composition “Right on Target,” performed by San Francisco singer Paul Parker. It reached no. 1 on the Billboard dance chart shortly before Cowley’s death in the autumn of 1982.

Exploring the sonic world of the late EDM pioneer Patrick Cowley

Patrick Cowley, a San Francisco electronic music composer and recording artist, died November 1982. Now 40 years later, his music is a focus at Dark Entries, a new record shop in the Tenderloin. Photo: Dark Entries Records

In his lifetime, Cowley released just three solo LPs: “Megatron Man” and “Menergy,” both from 1981, plus “Mind Warp,” composed and released in 1982. And things might have ended there, if not for Cheon’s label.

In 2007, Cheon, then a member of local queer DJ collective Honey Soundsystem, was introduced to John Hedges, the former owner of Megatone Records, the San Francisco music label founded by Cowley and Marty Blecman in 1981. By the mid-1990s, the Independent label was sold to Unidisc Records, a Montreal company that owns the publishing rights to a diverse coterie of late 20th century performers.

But Hedges’ private collection included unreleased Cowley recordings on reel-to-reel tapes. Songs from those tapes emerged in 2009 as the album “Catholic,” issued by Berlin-based Macro. Cheon avidly spun Cowley’s music at underground parties across San Francisco, and his work with Honey Soundsystem put him in contact with people from Cowley’s inner circle, including family members, patrons and collaborators.

Patrick Cowley, a San Francisco electronic music composer and recording artist. Photo: Dark Entries Records

One was Maurice Tani, who met Cowley in the early 1970s at City College. “We just called him Pat,” recalled Tani, speaking from his home in Berkeley. Together the duo collaborated during late nights at the campus electronic music lab, and later in studios and early home recording setups across the city. Tani contributed bass and lead guitar work to dozens of Cowley recordings, and kept several boxes of reel-to-reel tapes of Cowley’s compositions following his death.

Another collaborator was John Coletti, who in the late 1970s helmed Fox Studios, a gay pornography studio in Los Angeles. Coletti worked with Cowley on the soundtracks to several films, offering a home for the composer’s original instrumental and atmospheric works, music little heard outside of the late 20th century gay film subculture.

Dark Entries Records is publishing Patrick Cowley’s personal journal, “Mechanical Fantasy Box: The Homoerotic Journal of Patrick Cowley.” Photo: Dark Entries Records

Over the last decade, Cheon has worked with Coletti, Tani, and others to restore, digitize, and release Cowley’s forgotten oeuvre to growing public interest. This work includes hosting nightlife events, promoting the music on social media, publishing Cowley’s intimate personal journal (“Mechanical Fantasy Box: The Homoerotic Journal of Patrick Cowley”), and making his work available to streaming services, all of it under the Dark Entries Records banner.

Along the way, Cowley’s life and work have been reappraised by the contemporary music and cultural press, with major features in Pitchfork, the New York Times, the Guardian, Art Review and on NPR. There are nine Cowley albums now available via Dark Entries, all prominently featured on the shelves at the new shop.

Dark Entries Records released Patrick Cowley’s “Malebox” last month. Photo: Dark Entries Records

The latest, “Malebox,” released last month, is a collection of demos — whose origin story reads like episodic television.

Tipped off to their existence by a follower on social media, Cheon went from haggling with distant descendants of a Megatone Records owner on Craigslist to poring over decaying boxes of tapes in a South Bay storage shed.

“The roof was collapsing, raccoons had made a nest inside, and every single box had some kind of excrement in it,” recalled Cheon. “It’s a miracle we were able to get any tracks from it.”

For Cowley fans, it’s roughly the equivalent of pulling a van Gogh painting from a garbage can.

The album’s centerpiece is “Low Down Dirty Rhythm,” recorded in the fall of 1979. The track wobbles and thumps with a palpable, unshakable sense of rhythmic sleaze; thrilling and sensual, it’s impossible to dislodge from one’s head, requiring repeat listenings. Accompanied by vocalist Jeanie Tracy (a backup singer in Sylvester’s live band), this track anchors Cowley not just as a burgeoning hitmaker cementing his powers, but as a pop compositional auteur nonpareil, evoking the better-known work of multiplatinum legends like Nile Rodgers, Giorgio Moroder and Prince.

Tape loops and layered hand production help provide an organic feel essential to these recordings, what Tani describes as “a frothy combination of synth-based beats with traditional percussion layered on top.” Cowley’s music is a reflection of a place and time, of overlapping San Francisco subcultures and gay liberation, but it also expresses the fascinating sonic milieu of pre-digital dance music in the 1970s and early ’80s.

Patrick Cowley, a San Francisco electronic music composer and recording artist, was 32 when he died in 1982. Photo: Dark Entries Records

Tani calls it “a melding of art and science — experimental music in every sense.” A time of four-track analog tape recorders and magnetic tape sequencing cut by razor blade and splicing block, of great hulking synthesizers like something out of Mission Control. They say each of us now walks around with more computing power in our pocket than it took to land a man on the moon; one can only imagine what Cowley might have done with a copy of Pro Tools.

Cowley was just 32 when he died, with multiple songs on the dance charts and a herculean body of work already on tape. Cheon is keenly aware of the reactions his reissues have engendered from Cowley’s contemporaries: his bandmates; his surviving family; the people who knew him throughout his too-brief life as a composer, friend, brother and son.

“It’s like a double-edged sword,” he said. “There’s excitement but also incredible sadness because he was stolen so early. I feel like I’m a custodian for lost and unreleased music.”

Indeed, Tani believes “this music would have been lost without him. Without Josh, Pat’s stuff would still just be in my attic. He’s the curator. His work has been so incredibly important.”

Josh Cheon, founder of Dark Entries Records, said he chose the Tenderloin for his record shop because, “Before the Castro was gay, this was the gay neighborhood. … I knew I wanted to be here, in the tenderloin, to keep it queer.” Photo: Carlo Velasquez / Dark Entries Records

A great record shop is like a time machine, but no glimpse at the past is truly meaningful without the context of the present. Dark Entries Records serves as a hub of connectivity to San Francisco in an earlier era, drawing a through line to the role of art and music in city life today. It is a reverent platform for the work of Cowley, who at last is being recognized as one of San Francisco’s great composers.

“For a gay man who suffered from AIDS, whose music sat in boxes for decades after his death, the depth and range of his sounds are incredible,” said Cheon.

Forty years later, inside a new record shop on Larkin, San Francisco, can continue listening.

Dark Entries Records Grand Opening Party: DJ sets by Carlos Souffront, Topazu and Jeremy Castillo. 6-9 pm Saturday, Dec. 10. 910 Larkin St., SF Updates on Instagram @darkentriesrecords. www.darktriesrecords.com

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Nonalcoholic cocktails and liquor are eating up a ton of market share throughout the country and the Bay Area is doing more than its fair share of that work. Whether it be the nonalcoholic nanobar at Valencia Street’s Hawkerfare or any of the litany of bars in San Francisco with nonalcoholic options, the region has tons to offer those who prefer to stay sober. New York-based nonalcoholic bottle shop Boisson took note, and on or around September 26 will open its first San Francisco shop at 333 Hayes Street. The location is across the street from Bill Graham Auditorium and up the block from Civic Center’s vegetarian restaurant Ananda Fuara. And while Los Gatos has its own nonalcoholic bottle shop, and the Outer Richmond may well get a nonalcoholic speakeasy to pair with sober hangout Ocean Beach Cafe, Boisson marks the first dedicated nonalcoholic bottle shop and wine outlet in San Francisco.

The online retailer launched in New York in 2021 and, after opening five shops there and three in Los Angeles, it has set its eyes on San Francisco. “Outside of the first two core markets, San Francisco was obvious for us,” says Nick Bodkins, Boisson co-founder and CEO. “We had hundreds and hundreds of emails asking when we were coming to San Francisco.” (Though the business may be angling to attract the athleisure-sporting denizens of Hayes Valley, the shop is right off of Market Street and cuspy with Hayes Valley at best.)

The company says they’ve increased sales seven-and-a-half times over in 2022, which is probably in part due to the fact that about half of millennials report reducing their drinking habits in recent years. The nonalcoholic trends and products coming out of Napa and Sonoma are specifically interesting to Bodkins; the former French Laundry couple running All The Bitters are making primo alcohol-free bitters, for example. He’d like Boisson to be the neighborhood store that carries these sometimes hard-to-find products.

Boisson will offer a veritable trove of non-alcoholic wines, spirits, and beer. boisson

A spread of non-alcoholic cocktails at a Boisson pop-up. boisson

For him, proximity to California producers making alcohol-free wine is a huge part of the motivation for coming to the Bay. “It’s actually not just grape juice,” Bodkins says. “It started as full-strength wine, and this dealcoholization process is not new.” Bodkin says many people don’t realize nonalcoholic wine is actually conventionally-made wine with the alcohol removed. The process has been around for a long time, he points out, likely because of an arcane tax on wines with more than 14 percent alcohol content, which has given winemakers cause to artificially lower wine’s alcohol content — way before it was cool. Proxies is one such nonalcoholic wine he loves, alongside Blurred Vines and distilled hemp spirit the Pathfinder.

Tastings, three to five times a week, will be a part of the weekly life at the shop, and Bodkins wants to invite regional and national producers to show their drinks, though local delivery will be an option, too. He says he’d like to get a series of local restaurant and bar partnerships on the docket; the company’s partnership with Rosewood Sand Hill, through which Boisson stocked the luxury hotel in Menlo Park with nonalcoholic beverages, is one example of what Boisson will look to expand. These relationships are well-established with New York stockists Eleven Madison Park and Jose Andres’s new restaurant at the Ritz Carlton. He’s also proud of the all-electric, carbon-offset vehicles the company will use for deliveries.

As for the inspiration behind these choices, Bodkins cites being a father to an 11-month-old daughter. “My daughter wakes up at the same time whether I’ve been drinking or not,” Bodkins says.

Boisson (333 Hayes Street in San Francisco) will open the week of September 26. Hours of operation will be noon to 8 pm Sunday through Thursday, 11 am to 9 pm on Friday, and 10 am to 9 pm Saturday.

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The post Boisson, San Francisco’s First Devoted Nonalcoholic Bottle Store, Is Opening Close to Hayes Valley appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Nonalcoholic cocktails and liquor are eating up a ton of market share throughout the country and the Bay Area is doing more than its fair share of that work. Whether it be the nonalcoholic nanobar at Valencia Street’s Hawkerfare or any of the litany of bars in San Francisco with nonalcoholic options, the region has tons to offer those who prefer to stay sober. New York-based nonalcoholic bottle shop Boisson took note, and on or around September 26 will open its first San Francisco shop at 333 Hayes Street. The location is across the street from Bill Graham Auditorium and up the block from Civic Center’s vegetarian restaurant Ananda Fuara. And while Los Gatos has its own nonalcoholic bottle shop, and the Outer Richmond may well get a nonalcoholic speakeasy to pair with sober hangout Ocean Beach Cafe, Boisson marks the first dedicated nonalcoholic bottle shop and wine outlet in San Francisco.

The online retailer launched in New York in 2021 and, after opening five shops there and three in Los Angeles, it has set its eyes on San Francisco. “Outside of the first two core markets, San Francisco was obvious for us,” says Nick Bodkins, Boisson co-founder and CEO. “We had hundreds and hundreds of emails asking when we were coming to San Francisco.” (Though the business may be angling to attract the athleisure-sporting denizens of Hayes Valley, the shop is right off of Market Street and cuspy with Hayes Valley at best.)

The company says they’ve increased sales seven-and-a-half times over in 2022, which is probably in part due to the fact that about half of millennials report reducing their drinking habits in recent years. The nonalcoholic trends and products coming out of Napa and Sonoma are specifically interesting to Bodkins; the former French Laundry couple running All The Bitters are making primo alcohol-free bitters, for example. He’d like Boisson to be the neighborhood store that carries these sometimes hard-to-find products.

Boisson will offer a veritable trove of non-alcoholic wines, spirits, and beer. Boisson

A spread of non-alcoholic cocktails at a Boisson pop-up. Boisson

For him, proximity to California producers making alcohol-free wine is a huge part of the motivation for coming to the Bay. “It’s actually not just grape juice,” Bodkins says. “It started as full-strength wine, and this dealcoholization process is not new.” Bodkin says many people don’t realize nonalcoholic wine is actually conventionally-made wine with the alcohol removed. The process has been around for a long time, he points out, likely because of an arcane tax on wines with more than 14 percent alcohol content, which has given winemakers cause to artificially lower wine’s alcohol content — way before it was cool. Proxies is one such nonalcoholic wine he loves, alongside Blurred Vines and distilled hemp spirit the Pathfinder.

Tastings, three to five times a week, will be a part of the weekly life at the shop, and Bodkins wants to invite regional and national producers to show their drinks, though local delivery will be an option, too. He says he’d like to get a series of local restaurant and bar partnerships on the docket; the company’s partnership with Rosewood Sand Hill, through which Boisson stocked the luxury hotel in Menlo Park with nonalcoholic beverages, is one example of what Boisson will look to expand. These relationships are well-established with New York stockists Eleven Madison Park and Jose Andres’s new restaurant at the Ritz Carlton. He’s also proud of the all-electric, carbon-offset vehicles the company will use for deliveries.

As for the inspiration behind these choices, Bodkins cites being a father to an 11-month-old daughter. “My daughter wakes up at the same time whether I’ve been drinking or not,” Bodkins says.

Boisson (333 Hayes Street in San Francisco) will open the week of September 26. Hours of operation will be noon to 8 pm Sunday through Thursday, 11 am to 9 pm on Friday, and 10 am to 9 pm Saturday.

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The post Boisson, San Francisco’s First Devoted Nonalcoholic Bottle Store, Is Opening Close to Hayes Valley appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

A small storefront on Grant Avenue is bringing a taste of Amsterdam — and ancient Egypt — to San Francisco. Professor Seagull’s Smartshop, which opened in North Beach this April, is a cross between an art gallery, a witchy herb shop and a modern cannabis dispensary (except you can touch the products).

Psychedelic art covers the walls and sleek Scandinavian-inspired shelves hold a tightly curated selection of loosely controlled herbs. But instead of the typical variations of cannabis, the shop is devoted to lesser known psychoactive and psychedelic sacred plants from all over the world. 

While the first of its kind in San Francisco — and according to the owners, the entire country — “smart shops” are ubiquitous in Europe, especially Amsterdam, and refer to stores that sell herbal remedies, hangover cures, botanical samples and “nootropics,” or brain-enhancing substances. Although there are other stores selling herbal supplements such as kratom, owner Benjamin Manton says his store is different since the focus is solely on the use of plants and products with psychoactive properties.

The chalkboard sign in the shop window advertises items such as San Pedro and Peruvian torch cacti, which you might be familiar with if you’ve ever embarked on a vision quest in the desert. But the first product to catch my eye is a bag of brilliant blue and yellow petals, which I’d soon try myself, in addition to experimenting with damiana, wild dagga and Mexican dream herb tea.

The exterior of Professor Seagull?•s Smartshop in San Francisco, Calif. on May 19, 2022. The shop specializes in obscure and legal psychedelics.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Benjamin Manton is the owner of Professor Seagull?•s Smartshop, works on a display inside his store in San Francisco, Calif. on May 19, 2022. The shop specializes in obscure and legal psychedelics.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Professor Seagull’s Smartshop. Credit: Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Manton, who owns the shop with his wife and looks a tad like a younger version of the store’s namesake/logo (if you squint and are on psychedelics), tells me the petals are from an Egyptian blue lotus. 

“The ancient Egyptians would steep it in wine and drink it during religious ceremonies and parties,” Manton says. “But you can also make it into a relaxing tea.” 

The flower, which some call the sacred blue lily of the Nile, is depicted in countless ancient temples and writings throughout Egypt, Greece and parts of Asia. Its ubiquitous depictions suggest that the lotus helped the ancients connect with the divine through its hallucinatory effects and was an important part of ceremonies around sexuality. Given that it increases circulation, the petals are thought to be powerful aphrodisiacs. It also has reported health and psychological benefits, thanks primarily to the apomorphine compound found in the plant that stimulates the body’s dopamine receptors. Historians believe the ancient Egyptians used the flower as traditional medicine, and in more modern times, its active compounds have been utilized to treat anxiety and even Parkinson’s disease. 

Benjamin Manton is the owner of Professor Seagull’s Smartshop in San Francisco on May 19, 2022. The shop specializes in obscure and legal psychedelics.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Plant medicine for the psychedelic-curious

In the U.S., blue lotus has not received FDA approval, but it’s also not a controlled substance, so it is legal to grow and sell. The same goes for the rest of Professor Seagull’s inventory: Everything is legal in California and most other states — at least in the form it’s displayed and sold in the store and online shop. 

The mescaline that can be extracted from San Pedro and Peruvian torch cacti is illegal, but in their cactus form, they’re just attractive house plants. There’s also Mimosa Hostilis root bark, a major ingredient of ayahuasca, which doubles as a popular natural dye for soaps and fabric. 

“We are providing these products in the form they are legally allowed to be presented,” Manton tells me over email. “Some items we can talk openly about in terms of historical use and dosage. And some things are sold explicitly for growth as a houseplant or for arts and crafts supply.”

Of course, what you choose to do with your house plants and art supplies is your own business.

“It is our hope that the city or the state will decriminalize psychedelic plants soon so that we can begin to have more open and honest discussions with our clients about the history and potentials of these plants,” Manton writes. 

Benjamin Manton, the owner of Professor Seagull’s Smartshop, shows off some recent cuttings of San Pedro cactus in San Francisco on May 19, 2022. The shop specializes in obscure and legal psychedelics.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Manton sees potential in the store to serve as part of the solution to San Francisco’s (and the country’s) mental health and addiction crises. 

“In the future we hope to be a place where therapists can send their clients for information and access, and where practitioners can come for local access to sustainably sourced plant medicine.”

For now, the Mantons are focused on providing transformational experience through plant medicine and art, as well as being a resource for harm reduction. In addition to providing safer alternatives to party drugs, such as Kanna, which Manton says is being used in place of cocaine and MDMA, the shop offers test kits from DanceSafe to test recreational drugs for adulterants, such as fentanyl. 

Manton gave me a tour of the shop with a matter-of-fact, professorial air that is so knowledgeable and nonjudgmental, and I end up leaving with four bags (and more than 100 grams) of various teas and smokeables that promise to ease anxiety, aid sleep and dream recall and invoke euphoria. At just $40, a similar haul at a cannabis dispensary would cost at least three times that, yet many of the items I purchased boast similar effects and benefits. 

Some of the herbs that can be consumed in a tea or smoked at Professor Seagull?•s Smartshop in San Francisco, Calif. on May 19, 2022. The shop specializes in obscure and legal psychedelics.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Mimosa Hostilis Root Bark available at Professor Seagull?•s Smartshop in San Francisco, Calif. on May 19, 2022. The shop specializes in obscure and legal psychedelics.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Several different Yerba Matte products available at Professor Seagull?•s Smartshop in San Francisco, Calif. on May 19, 2022. The shop specializes in obscure and legal psychedelics.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Some mushroom infused coffee available at Professor Seagull?•s Smartshop in San Francisco, Calif. on May 19, 2022. The shop specializes in obscure and legal psychedelics.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

A selection of products at Professor Seagull’s Smartshop. Credit: Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

My week of plant discovery

Back at home, I begin a week of plant- and self-discovery. The first order of business is making blue lotus wine, which just requires adding 15 to 20 grams of petals to a bottle of wine (after you pour a little out or have a glass to make room), setting it in the refrigerator and giving it a shake every day until you’re ready to drink it (anywhere between two days and two weeks). I used half a bottle of grocery store cabernet that I had lying around, but any kind will work. Manton suggests not using anything special, since the lotus will alter the taste.  

Then I roll up joints of damiana, which is native to parts of the U.S., Mexico and Central America, and wild dagga, which grows abundantly in southern Africa. Both are said to produce a light, cannabis-like high. Wild dagga can enhance color perception, so tonight I turn to these while I paint instead of my usual sativa. 

As I prep the canvas and the light floral-smelling smoke fills the space, I feel a familiar buoyancy, like I’ve taken a baby hit of weed. The taste is reminiscent of black tea and the psychoactive effects are decidedly subtle. It’s really all I need though — just a slight nudge into flow state. It’s nice to avoid some of the side effects of cannabis, such as misplacing the paintbrush I’m holding or randomly obsessing over something embarrassing that happened seven years ago. 

Next I light up the wild dagga. The bright orange dried petals don’t grind that well, so it makes for a looser joint. The spicy smoke burns the back of my throat slightly, but I’m too lost in mixing satisfying globs of paint to care much. I’m a little bit more excited by the way the paint drips down the canvas and my strokes seem a bit bolder and more confident. The day’s worries wash off my brush in vibrant swirls.

Then it’s time for a cup of Mexican dream herb tea and bed. The mixture is unpleasantly bitter on the back of my tongue, so I add honey. A few minutes later I feel deeply relaxed, like I’m hovering at the doorway of sleep with none of my usual effort to get there. Soon I easily drift off into a land of chaotic dreams. 

A display shows some of the obscure and legal psychedelics available at Professor Seagull’s Smartshop in San Francisco on May 19, 2022.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

I drank the tea before bed a few more nights this week, and each time my sleep was filled with cinematic dreams, some of which took on the quality of “Everything Everywhere All at Once”. Dreaming of surfing atop trash cans and other oddities was an interesting journey, but I was ready for a vibe change. And a glass of wine. So on the sixth day, I decide the blue lotus wine is ready. Internet searches tell me two weeks produce the most potent effects, but I figure one week is the correct level for a Thursday evening of horoscope writing (and my personal emotional state). 

I’ve done enough plant medicine to know that set and setting are major components. So as I run the seductive purple liquid through a strainer, I regret not making plans to take the concoction to a party, or at least share it with a close friend. 

But Mercury is retrograding hard, I’m riding a grief wave, and deadlines are looming, so the best I can do is spend a night in with a blank Google doc and my feelings. 

Taking cues from the ancient Egyptians, I say a meditative prayer to the blue flower, asking it to lift my spirits enough to let me write what I need to, or at least just enjoy my own company, achy heart and all. 

The wine tastes extra floral, but I don’t mind it. With a few summer fruits added in, it’d make a good sangria.

Half a glass and 20 minutes later, I’m crying over nothing and everything. The ancient Egyptians used this concoction for sex rituals, and crying is its own kind of release, so maybe it’s working. Then for a reason I can’t pinpoint, my tears just as quickly turn to belly laughs. 

Maybe it’s the moon, the wine or the lotus, but suddenly I’m buzzy with phrases and so many nonlinear thoughts that I write rough drafts for two separate articles almost simultaneously. Something like euphoria, or just momentary relief from heartache, moves me to dance. Alone in my home studio, I’m filled with love for myself and the plants that are there for us through all of life’s chapters. 

Amy Copperman is a writer and artist based in Oakland, Calif. Find her on Instagram.

More psychedelic San Francisco

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April 29, 2022

After more than 60 years in business, a barber in San Francisco’s Sunset District will be closing up shop for the final time on Saturday.

Ralph Catalano has made a living at the corner of 18th Avenue and Irving Street since 1961, one haircut at a time.

“When I first started here, if I was making $100 a week it was a big deal,” he said. “I was doing 12 hours a day. I would start at 7:00 in the morning and work until 7:00 at night, 5 days a week. So, I did a lot of haircuts.”

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The post San Francisco Barber Closing Up Store After 61 Years – ‘It is Been A Good Life’ appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The stolen devices were all traced back to one location: A Quickly boba tea shop on Larkin Street right in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco.

Quoc Le, 41, was arrested Monday and faces at least a dozen felony and misdemeanor charges of “possession of stolen property.” Le’s wife is the owner and franchisee of the Taiwanese-based chain; she has not been charged.

And on Tuesday, in a stunning revelation, Boudin announced his arrest was part of an operation known as “Operation Auto Pilot” — which uncovered an “massive global operation” of car thefts and illicit electronic sales that reached as far wide as Vietnam and Hong Kong.

“Auto burglaries in San Francisco have, for at least a decade, been one of the leading categories of crime. We know that it’s had a devastating impact, not only on our own residents, but on … the entire tourist industry.”

In 2021, there was a total of 20,663 “theft from vehicle” incidents reported to police — a 39 percent increase from the year before, but lower than the peak of over 31,000 in 2017. Only a fraction of them lead to an arrest, Boudin said.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin speaks to reporters in San Francisco, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020.

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press 2020

How the sting worked, Boudin explained in a press conference Tuesday afternoon, feels ripped out of a “Law and Order” episode.

Under Operation Auto Pilot, which has been in the works for at least two years, “bait cars” were placed in “strategic locations” throughout San Francisco with high rates of car theft — Japantown and Alamo Square among them.

Inside these vehicles were bags of electronics, embedded with tracking devices. The goal was not to arrest thieves on the street, Boudin said, but to see how far this trade of stolen goods went. “The goal of this operation was to map out the flow of stolen goods in San Francisco and beyond, to identify the networks that are moving millions and millions of dollars of stolen goods from cars in San Francisco around the country and the world.”

Where those devices traveled to was stunning. Not only did they find these decoy devices and other stolen goods led to the Larkin St. location of the stalwart boba franchise, but stolen devices were found as far as Europe and Asia.

Boudin said the team wrote and secured over a dozen search warrants that let them dig through “financial transactions and shipping activity.”

“Large volumes” of wares were being shipped to Texas, he added.

In all, Boudin said that his team of individuals gathered 130 boxes of electronics from the Quickly — and hope to find more connected to this network of car break-ins. He alluded to “numerous locations under surveillance that are storage operations” for these rings.

This operation puts into question one of the tentpole advertisements made by the campaign to recall Boudin, in which former prosecutor Shirin Oloumi alleged that Boudin “dissolved that unit and prevented me from collaborating with the police.” (A report from progressive local outlet 48 Hills said that Oloumi, in her resignation letter, alluded to Operation Auto Pilot and commended its future success.)

Boudin responded to the recall effort explicitly in the presser. “There’s lots of people who are long on money and short on facts who have criticisms of this office,” he said. “I couldn’t be prouder of the work that our team is doing and has done with this operation.”

The operation was conducted in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security, SF SAFE and local law enforcement. It is ongoing.

Le will be arranged in court Tuesday afternoon.

Editor’s note: This article was updated at 4:05 pm, May 10, to correct information about the owner of the Larkin Street Quickly.

The post San Francisco automobile housebreaking kingpin used Shortly boba store as entrance, DA Boudin says appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

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Frank’s Floral Shop, an 87-year-old florist at 19th and Irving, was burgled on the night of September 6 and then set on fire, its owner told SFGATE. The alleged burglar only took $8.

Sona Pehlivanian has owned Frank’s Floral Shop since 1987 or 1988. She can’t remember exactly because her original business license was destroyed in the fire that burned down much of the historic business.

At the time the store opened, Pehlivanian was a single mother raising a young son.

“With [my customers’] Support and trust, they gave me peace of mind, a good job, allowed me to build a safe place for myself and my son,” she told SFGATE by phone on Wednesday.

San Francisco police said they were investigating the fire, which was ruled suspicious. The investigation remains open and ongoing. SFPD said the store was locked and secured at the time of the closure. No arrests were made.

Frank’s Floral Shop began as a flower stand on the 19th and Irving before Frank took over a brick and mortar shop on Irving St. in 1821. He, his wife and children lived upstairs, Pehlivanian said.

Pehlivanian isn’t sure yet if she’ll rebuild.

“I’m caught in the middle now. It’s a painful experience both ways,” she said. “In order for me to reopen, remodel, the landlord needs to fix the place, but how long will that take?”

The outpouring of community support has been overwhelming, including a recent GoFundMe that raised more than $40,000, Pehlivian said.

“This guy not only burned my heart, he burned the hearts of so many people,” she said.

Anyone with information about the burglary or fire is asked to call the SFPD Tip Line at 1-415-575-4444 or send a tip to TIP411 and begin the text message with SFPD. Tipsters can remain anonymous.

The post 87-year-old San Francisco flower store was burgled then set ablaze. Solely $8 was taken. appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The generosity of a Lower East Side bagel shop artisan was repaid with a brick in the face.

The 63-year-old victim had just offered a cup of coffee and a bagel to a local beggar when the attack began, as shown by police.

The violence quickly escalated, with the assailant first threatening the victim with a chair, then hitting the handyman with a vacuum cleaner, and finally hurling the brick at his receding victim.

No arrests were made in the case as the craftsman was treated for a cut on his nose from the projectile, the managing director of Kossar Bagels & Bialys said on Tuesday.

The victim came up to him and said, ‘You should carry on. We can get you a bagel, we can get you a coffee, ‘”said the manager. “Because that’s what we usually do when you see a homeless man out there. … The guy was apparently offended and unfortunately attacked one of my boys. “

The confrontation started in front of the store and then continued behind a nearby store, the police said. The victim, who tried to fend off the attacker with a stick, was treated at the New York Presbyterian Hospital in Lower Manhattan for a cut open nose and a bruised wrist.

“He was really shaken because nobody expected that, you know?” Said the manager of the handyman. “He went to the hospital and was examined to make sure everything was okay.”

The manager said the homeless man showed up at the store on Grand St. last month and another shop clerk saw the suspect arrested near a train station at 8:20 a.m. last Wednesday, prior to the attack. He’s still in the neighborhood, but manages to escape the police when the store clerks call the police.

“Personally, I think I hope they get it just because people with mental illness need help,” said the manager. “Let’s get them help.”

Police officers are asking for help from the public to identify and track him down. Anyone with information is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls are treated confidentially.

The post Panhandler hurls brick in face of Decrease East Facet bagel store handyman appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

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