The Most Famous Broke Man in America

Broke-Ass Stuart showed up in San Francisco with a notebook, a hangover, and no money--then turned all three into a twenty-year career. The writer, publisher, and man-about-town, Stuart Schuffman, built brokeassstuart.com from a photocopied zine into one of the city's last independent local news outlets, ran for mayor, hosted his own IFC travel show, and, on October 17, 2025, even had an official San Francisco holiday declared in his honor by the Board of Supervisors.

His new book, The Worst of Broke-Ass Stuart: 20 Years of Love, Death & Dive Bars, brings together two decades of writing about San Francisco and the people who make it interesting. It's part memoir, part collection of stories, and a look at the artists, activists, weirdos, and regulars that have shaped the city over the years.

Join us for a conversation about staying broke on purpose, building an independent media business, running for mayor with no money and no shame, why dive bars still matter, and what it feels like to have the city you love give you your own holiday.

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Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We were all hipsters. Hipsters were like junkies where like everybody wasn't one but yourself. You know, like you ever thought of junkies that go, he's the one, he's got the problem, not me, man. You know? Then with hipsters, like, oh, I'm not a hipster, but he's a hipster.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

When was the last time you heard somebody describe something as underground? That word used to mean something. For decades, we had this idea that there was mainstream culture up here, and that there was a weirder, more experimental culture below it. And that the best things about our society, the weirdest, the funkiest things in our society would sort of ferment down there, ferment in the underground, and then they would percolate up to mainstream culture. The beatniks, the hippies, the punks, even the hipsters, all of these movements started off underground until they bubbled their way up, sometimes violently, to the surface, and became part of our mainstream culture. But then something changed. And now that's gone. The underground is dead. Yes, we live in a very fragmented society. There are a lot of reasons that this happened. Some mix of public policy and a lack of affordability, and of course, as always, social media, but the effect of it matters a lot more than the cause. The effect is that our culture has lost some essential quality. Our culture has lost the ability to make weird, interesting things. Nothing is hidden anymore. Everything is trying to go viral. Everything is trying to catch more sunlight. We have lost, for lack of a better word, and to complete the analogy, we've lost an essential funk to our culture. I wanted to have someone on the podcast that understands this really well. Somebody that's actually lived the death of the underground. That's why I wanted to have on Stuart Shuffman. Stuart, or broke ass Stewart, as he's more commonly known, is an icon of the early 2000s blogging and zine culture. Stuart started one of the most successful blogs anywhere in the country. He started an entire movement of people talking about weird, interesting things that were going on in their cities. But in the intervening years, Stuart has seen the culture shift and the business model shift with it. Stuart has seen this become a harder and harder living to make.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Yeah, you know, and so like I, you know, but I think I was always, always I was I'd probably asked my mom, but I was like always kind of on my own trip, uh beating my own drum. But luckily I never got beat up about it, you know. Like I was lucky that I was like, uh I got this little smile on me, and like I'm quick-witted and clever and made you laugh instead of beating my ass, you know? Yeah. So I was like in high school, junior high, and I was like a super popular kid, but not in the popular crowd. I was trying to like, you know, the skaters and the stoners and the preps and all this stuff, and just kind of, you know, hung with everybody.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Um, who were your guys? Like, who were the people that because I mean for me, I'll tell you Bourdain was one of them. But who were your people that you kind of looked up to growing up?

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Uh I mean Bourdain was later on, but I was like my my twenties. Um, you know, real young, like you know, like junior high, like Hendrix the door, yeah, Jim Morrison, that kind of stuff. And then I remember being like, you know, like 15, be like, man, 27, that's it. That's since it's an old enough time to die, you know? Where it's uh it's a terrible idea. Yeah, that's there's so young, 27. Um, you know, Bob Dylan, you know, that kind of stuff. You know, uh dude.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Alex just Alex just had a mini stroke because you mentioned Bob Dylan. Oh yeah. Now the whole podcast is gonna be you would be like, do y'all know about Bob Dylan? I half my life is dedicated to understanding Bob Dylan.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

I think half Bob Dylan's life is dedicated to understanding Bob Dylan, too. Yeah. And the other half is is dedicated to obscuring Bob Dylan. Right, right. Um, there's this great um maybe like 10, 15 years ago, there was this uh Victoria's Secret commercial that came out. He's a Bob Dylan song. All these people were like, Bob Dylan, what the fuck? You're selling out. I can't believe you're letting your your stuff on a ladies' underwear, you know, Victoria's Secret. And then this old um interview service for like 1964. And they're like um, Mr. Dylan, uh, if you ever to sell out, uh, what would it be too? And he's like, uh, I don't know, ladies' undergarments, you know? I was like, dude, has he been thinking about that for like 50 years?

SPEAKER_02 5:18

Just that got it. Dude, uh, I'll do a quick aside. My one of my favorite reason Bob Dylan lines is when the Nobel committee is trying to give him the Nobel Prize and they keep trying to get in touch with him, and he won't pick up the phone for like months and months, he won't pick up the phone. And then finally, like, I don't know, the New York Times or somebody gets a hold of him, was like, hey, Bob, like the the Swedish whatever embassy is trying to get in touch with you. Like, are you what's going on? Uh and he just said, uh, well, I don't know who they're trying to talk to you. I've been right here. And that's all I said. I've been right here. But anyway, coming back to you, man. Um, tell me about tell me about showing up in San Francisco. Do you remember your first day in SF?

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah. Um I think I'd flown up from San Diego because I went to college in Santa Cruz. Um I think I've been in San Diego for a little while, and I came up here. I moved up here for an internship at Bill Grant Presents, which no longer exists, but they used to throw all the concerts, you know, at the Fillmore and the Warfield and Shoreline and all this stuff. Uh, they became uh clear channel about them, and then the people who started Another Planet, uh, who now do all the concerts, they split off from them and started another planet that that next summer. Um, so it was summer of 2002. My friends picked me up at the airport, and uh remember we went to somebody's house. Uh yeah, because that's been San Francisco multiple times before, but this is like when I first moved here. Yeah. I remember went to Dubose Park and like saw it. Like I was like, those two dogs are humping each other. They're both male dogs. Even the dogs are gay here, you know? Like, and then somebody had weed growing in the backyard. I was like, this town's incredible, you know? And then I moved up. Yeah, my first place was at Hayt and Masonic. Is that Hay? No, Hayte and Hayt and what's yeah, a couple down from Masonic. Um Hayden Baker, one of those. Um directionally challenging. Yeah, like you could you could say any street, I would believe. It was Hayden Central. That's what it is. It was Hayton Central. Um, yeah, I moved there in like uh oh four. Oh two. Oh two. And I just like the cities for me.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Yeah. Well, to describe, because that's a little bit before I got here. Um what was San Francisco like in 2002?

SPEAKER_00 7:12

I I describe it as the time between gold rushes, you know, like because it was like you had the the dot-com had like popped and like zipped around like a balloon, like right. And then you have this period of like all right, people like we we dodged a bullet. I think everything's okay now, guys. Yeah. Narrator, it was not okay. Uh at least not shortly afterwards. So yeah, um, you know, uh and so it was still full of like weirdos and queerdos, and like, you know, you just like be uh walking down the street and meet someone new and smoke joints with them, you know, like um at least that's what my experience was. Um although I barely smoke weed now. Um, you know, and it was just kind of just like lots of interesting quirky people because like you could still like work four nights in a restaurant a week and do your weird art shit on the side and survive. Yeah, you know?

SPEAKER_02 8:00

It's uh it kind of blows my mind how much San Francisco culture gets built between the gold rushes that we go through these gold rushes where we absolutely annihilate culture. Yeah, right. I mean, I guess you could argue anything's culture, and then like there's still some culture being built, just not a culture that anybody wants to be part of. But then that blows up, and then we spend 10 years rebuilding a culture and then we go right back to it.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah. I mean, look at the pandemic. Yeah. I mean, it was terrible what happened with the pandemic, right? But all of a sudden, people who didn't want to be here, people who were just here for work, they left.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

And suddenly for the first time in like a decade, people could at least move laterally.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

You know, like, oh, cool, I I can move out of my apartment and get one just, you know, maybe a little better at a cheaper price because fuck the landlords right now, because they're for the first time in a decade, they're sweating, you know. And you know, obviously when we're back in another weird ass boom now, which is the weirdest boom.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Yeah, this is this is probably one of the stranger ones. I um I think but you you you just touched on something really big, man, which is like uh this great piece in the Atlantic a couple of years ago about how like you can trace a lot of America's problems to the fact that people don't move cities anymore. That it's become a much more stationary country. And if you look at like the percentage of people they moved, and there was a quality that used to exist when I think you got here, even I would say when I got here, which was like, no, you you felt to like San Francisco's more your vibe, or you were out looking for like other weirdos like yourself. So you would show up to San Francisco and you build a community and all that. And now we kind of just don't do that as much. It just but the cities, this city, but most cities just don't allow for that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah, yeah. When I when I moved here, um people moved to like because they wanted to be in San Francisco.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Um, you'd meet one dude from DC, then you meet four guys from DC because they all moved out to together.

SPEAKER_03 9:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

You know, now it's like you meet somebody like, yeah, oh yeah, come meet my friends from the tech office I work at. And you know, we we don't go out ever, you know?

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

I mean, granted, you know, this is that's a gross generalization. Yes, you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

No, but it's it's true. It it I think um I people are always surprised by how much San Francisco has its own meme. Like it is actually the the cartoon people have of San Francisco is actually pretty true.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah, I mean, out of I've got this uh problem where I always do really cool projects and they're poorly timed. Um I'm really good at that. Like, for example, when I had my television show, it was like it was a really good show. Yeah. And then if it had been like two years later, it might still be on because two years later streaming happened.

SPEAKER_03 10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

You know, but we were still playing by the old television rules, you know. But um I did I did a web series in 2019 called Shaky Ground. And it was a um like Portlandia for San Francisco, and it was funny, you know, um, because there was so much lampoon. And then like we're like, all right, cool, we gotta put some stuff out, we got a lot of good press out of this, we're gonna let's see, we're doing another season, and then 2020 happened.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

And then yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Jeez.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Well, tell me this.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

So when you showed up to the city, right? Um what was the underground culture like? Like, were you aware of that or how did you get introduced to it? Yeah, what did that feel like?

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Um, was I aware of it? I try to find it, you know. There was, I mean, in 2002, the real underground culture was uh like warehouse rapes, I think. You know, and I wasn't I that was I wasn't that I've still never so here. Here's my thing with raping. Like I've always liked the people and liked the drugs, I just didn't like the music that much, you know. Like I was like all right, when's the next song? Is this the next song? Is it still the same song? I don't know. Um uh and so yeah, but I love the people, I love the drugs, and so like you know, when I first got here, I just hung out with people I knew and explored the city, and you know, but I guess more tapped into underground culture, you know, as the years went on. And then uh let's see, in 2004. 2004, I moved into this house. Um, it was 1907 Golden Gate, 2003, 2004, it doesn't matter. 1907 Golden Gate. And um, I was the last new roommate there before we got you know evicted to the LS Act. But uh my friend Miss Pull, I she's now my friend, uh she was there for 20 years. I was at the time I was 23 and she was 50, and there was four other people in between. So it was like a whole spread of ages, and it was like this house was like the ultimate like bohemian San Francisco house. Um, I did I knew about Bernie Man beforehand, but then I moved in there and like, oh, these people all helped start Burning Man. Yeah, you know, and um so yeah, P so what the Kirkoffney Society, who that's what Burning Man came out of, that was like their clubhouse back in the day. And so like uh I was I was the last new roommate to move in there before we got evicted. And I didn't realize this part of it until recently that Broke Ass Stewart was the last project to come out of that house.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, because I mean like other projects like Burning Man came out of that house, you know, like um and it was this weird, like Victorian like mansion with like a secret passageway. It was like fucking funky and weird. Yeah. Uh quick side note. Um, recently, uh a few years ago, these people they reached out to us, they reached out to me and like, yo, we found this article that was written about the place we live here now. And so me and P and 917 They said 1907 Golden Gate, yeah. Wow. P's in her 70s, I'm in my 40s, right? I'm in my 40s, P's, maybe 70. So me and her go back to this house, right? And they'd like, you know, the people who the landlords had gutted it, like, man, it was used to get this weird, funky, windy, like two-story maybe Victorian yeah, like dark wood paneling, you know, like and uh like there was when we were there, there was a guest bedroom and an art studio and like all kinds of two living rooms.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Without even having been in that house, I know exactly what it smelled like, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Yeah, yeah, funky. You know, like and like um and so we had me and P went there and it was cool. These people were really lovely, they were all like um interest, they're like interesting and interested. Uh but they you know, they all work, but they're like, Yeah, we work in crypto or they work, we work in AI. And it's like they they were all like creative people, but the thing that brought them here wasn't the creative people part, it was the uh the working AI part, you know?

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Well, yeah, man. This is this is the sore spot for me that I think we're gonna keep coming back to. But I wanna I want to get a little bit more the the origin story first before I start like ranting and trying to get you to rant. Um how did you you started Broke out Stuart, the story that I've heard is you're working at uh that like candy shop in the Chocolato, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

And Hella Haunted, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Hella haunted. I want to be worried about that too. But somebody hands you a business uh business card that said travel writer on it, and you're like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna be this.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah. So um uh the woman who uh well, a guy who grew up my neighborhood in San Diego, uh, he was he was visiting, he walks in, I was like, Oh shit, Andy, what's up? And um, the woman who's now his wife, uh, she, you know, she's they're walking out and she gives me her business card and I said, travel writer. I said, shit, I want to be a travel writer. And you know, uh, when I was 23, we didn't have TikTok. The cool thing I had to TikTok was making a zine. Yeah, you know, and so like uh I made a zine, broke guys stewards, got living cheaply in San Francisco and sold it on my backpack. And then it got popular. I, you know, I was in like 20 or 30 stores. I did all the distribution by bus pass and backpack, you know. And wow. I mean now looking back, I'm like, how the fuck? First of all, how did I have time to do that back to you? But I was 23. I was like, I worked in a restaurant. Well no, I worked in a candy store and then a restaurant, and I hung out with my girlfriend and maybe played video games with my friends. What the fuck else did I do? I don't know. Now I don't know how I have the time for that.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

Well, like the zine scene at the time was as I understand it, like pretty tied to the underground scene, right? Like it was or maybe even part of the underground scene.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Yeah, I think so. I I wasn't really part of it. I've I'm not a big uh I'm not a big joiner. Um, you know, you know the old the old thing, uh I don't want to be part of any club that'll have me.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Grandma Marks, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah, yeah. I uh absolutely I kind of I feel the same way, like you know, like I'm just I'm I'm not I don't want anybody's fucking internal political drama. Yeah, like cool, you guys are all like fucking each other and also hate each other and all work together. I don't want to be part of it, you know? Like and so I I I've never really I've been had my little toes in many, many, many, many scenes, but I've never been fully into any scene, you know. That makes sense. And so um I I'm sure there was a whole like zine scene here. This was like just after the 90s, this was 2000. The zine came out in 0 uh 4, I think. The zine came out in 04. Um, and so um, yeah, but I knew of zines, I didn't know many other zine sters. I just knew that like I just don't the means of productions were in my hand this way.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Yeah. Well, dude, um the moment that I understood what Graduate Marx meant by why would you ever want to be a member of a club that would have you as its member is when I joined the Bob Dylan fan club on Facebook. I took one look at those good people. I was like, I don't want to be in this club. Like I am as big a Bob Dylan fan as you can get, but I don't want to be around any other Bob Dylan fans.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah, I mean I've been involved with lots of different political clubs and stuff to that, and I was like, cool, I'll give you my 10 bucks a month, but I don't want to show up to another fucking meeting, you know. Like I would pay 20 bucks a month and not have to show up to the meeting. I uh I I'm also disappeared. I'm at the age where like if anybody asks me to move, I'm just gonna be like, is there a Kickstarter I can put in for? Like, is there a GoFundMe? I I'll give you 50 bucks if I don't have to help you move, you know?

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Like that's hilarious, dude. Um, well, tell tell me this like, why do you think in those early days? Um, and I I don't want to hear like humility on this, honestly, because when I moved to the bay, broke S. Stewart was it was impossible to not know what broke S. Stewart was, or I guess who broke S. Stewart was. What year was this? Uh this would have been 2011, 2012. Um why do you think it took off? Why do you think you took off so much so quickly in those early days?

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Uh I'm personable and charismatic. Uh very humble. Um, I mean, I think that I I you know it's a weird thing looking back to to remembering like when you were part of the vanguard and what that felt like, and then now to be part of the old guard in a way. Do you feel part of the old guard? I think so. Yeah. I mean, the vanguard is now making fucking little movies on their phones, you know. Um, and it's fine, it is what it is. You know, um, you can't very few people can be part of the vanguard forever. You maybe you get Madonna and like, you know, David Bowie and he's dead. So, like, you know, like um so but yeah, so at the time, like I was definitely part of the Vanguard, like blogging was new, and I was like, you know, had really in 2011 I had my own television show, you know. Um, and so it was just like and um I had very I was very good at mastering the techniques of using the tools that existed at the time to get my messages out there, you know? Because there, I mean, for for for my little monkey brain, it was easier than like the shit now. I don't have to sit now, I have to like sit there and master editing something with my, you know, a movie with my thumbs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Well, um who do you think was um you might actually know the exact answer, but who was the target market? And I know you weren't thinking in these terms, but like who was buying the zine? Who were the people reading the stuff that you're putting out? So 2011 or when?

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Oh, just just when you said um when I started, I don't know, is uh anybody who like uh hipsters like me, I think. Yeah. I don't know. I think I can call myself a hipster now, right? Is it I don't know? Yeah, sure. I was we were all hipsters. Hipsters were like junkies where like everybody wasn't one but yourself, you know. Like you ever thought of junkies like oh, he's the one, he's got the problem, not me, man. You know, then with hipsters, like, oh I'm not a hipster, but he's a hipster. Yeah, uh, I think looking back, we were all hipsters. Yeah, I I I don't think I ever heard somebody self-identify as a hipster. Right, right. Yeah, now that the head that's a whole nothing actually, yeah, I was a hipster. Yeah, exactly. I was hipster guys. Um, so um, yeah, I mean it was other, you know, probably young uh people who were wanting to explore the city, um back in the zine days, you know, and then um who lived here or were visiting, you know. I I've got friends to this day who I met because um a husband and wife from Australia. It's funny, uh, this woman she's like, I'm visiting from Australia, and we uh loved your zine. We want to take you out. So I'm thinking like, oh, maybe it's multiple women, you know? I'm like, I can meet some girls. She's over with her husband. I was like, She has a husband. Uh we ended up being really good friends with them, and then and they got uh then they divorced. And uh the husband actually married a very good friend of mine, uh, who uh from Santa Cruz in here, and so we're all still friends. Oh wow. Uh but yeah, but I'm gonna have them to my zine, you know?

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Yeah. Well, I think that you know, you were saying earlier that you always mistime things. I can't imagine timing broke ass steward better than you did. Well, I mean, you know, late-stage capitalism is great for broke people, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

If you want to like put something out there, you know.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

Yeah. Uh well, dude, you just nailed another head, which is like you need broke people for broke ass steward to work, right? Like for the thesis to make any sense, you need broke people. And I don't think we have very many of them anymore here in San Francisco.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

I mean, well, the funny thing, well, yeah, we're all kind of broke, but uh except for the people who like are very not broke, and that there's a lot of that here. Yeah, and the the weird thing is like, you know, we've definitely uh when I say we, I don't mean like the royal we, and I say I'm talking about we like broke asked where it isn't organization because there's many writers and there's like you know, I've got a business partner and you know, uh there's lots of people involved. Um you know, this you know, it's just me, but like ever since we launched the website, it's been multiple people involved. And over the years, we've kind of strayed from just being about you know cheap shit, because like, you know, as I've gotten older and matured, uh, so is my audience, and you know, so is what I'm interested in, you know. And so we've you know we've gotten much more into like activism and like local politics and and you know, big P politics, you know, like and um activism, getting people to give a shit, you know, you know, l labor shit, uh worker rights, you know, that kind of stuff. And yeah, which uh in a way kind of always ties back to like people don't want to admit they're broke, but like when we live in an oligarchy like we do now, we're all broke unless we're rich, you know. Like here's the thing you make you're making $200,000 a year, you still ain't rich, you know. Like you at you have more than me, but uh you're not actually part of the 1%. You're still you're you're like working, you're not poor, but you're not you know you're not you're not working poor, but you're like not working rich. Yeah, I don't know, you know, like no, dude. That that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

I I I'm curious if you always had that like understanding of the world, because you know, at some point you're doing a travel show, you get in like book deals, you know, Anthony Bourdain comes to town and and you're like you're showing him around. You know, at some point this thing's really working, right? Did you ever feel like you were betraying your audience? Did you ever feel like you're betraying the premise of what you were doing because you were starting to be not as broke anymore? And it's literally in the like maybe that's a dumb question, but I just wonder if you ever felt like, oh man, I wonder if I can still write about this stuff um as truthfully now that. I'm starting to get kind of successful.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yeah, a couple of things. First, I didn't show uh Bordane around, I just you know met him and we talked for a while, you know. Fair enough. Um, but I mean, even like people equate like um creative success with commercial success, and that's not necessarily the true. I've been very, very successful creatively. I've been not very successful commercially.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

You've called it the worst business model in the world.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a fucking terrible way to make a living, you know? Like it's a good way to make a life. Yeah, bad way to make a living. A lot of zine billionaires out there. Yeah, they're right. I'm so rich in zines. I mean, Aaron Comet Bus is probably the guy who's done the best through zines, and like, you know, he still sells zines for five bucks. So I don't know how that guy does it. He's he's he's maniac, he's great. Um that's actually one of my favorite coolest moments. Like I back in 2011, I was in Brooklyn. I popped into the bookstore that Comet Bus owns, and like, I don't know, and he knew my zine. I was like, You know my zine, you're Aaron Cometbus. It's so cool. Yeah, but um um yeah, I I wasn't making enough money to ever feel like I was betraying my fucking people, you know. But you know, I uh I've I've celebrated, um, like actually purposely celebrated, getting out of the service industry a few times. The first was when I like cool, I'm gonna write for Lonely Planet, I'm a travel writer now. Yeah, fuck you, restaurants, never gonna see you again. Six months later, back in restaurants, you know? Yeah. 2011. I got my own TV show. Fuck you, restaurants. Yeah. Six months later, back in restaurants. They're working in bars, you know. Like, yeah. So, you know, first of all, moral stories don't ever celebrate getting out of the service industry. Yeah. I'm still I still work once a week as in a restaurant, you know, just because like, you know, uh writing's a terrible way to make a living, like I said. And like uh I can I can make a living off Brookest Steward if I just like if I ate in, I never traveled, you know. If I want to go out and eat, I want to travel, see things, I work at a restaurant once a week, and it's great. That that that's my extra money to do what I want with, you know.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

Yeah. Well, okay, dude, I'm I'm really curious about this part. This is the only part where I'll like ask you to kind of give people advice. Sure. Um, not not I think I think there's a lot of stuff that people will will want to learn from you, but I don't want to put you in that position. The one thing that I do want to kind of get your advice on for other people is like I asked, I texted Abe, um, our mutual friend who connected us, right? Um, Bay of Barry A meme's uh fame. Um, and I said, yeah, I'm talking to Stuarton. What should I ask him? He said, Stuart is one of the only creatives I know that has been able to stay in San Francisco and keep making art in San Francisco for at this point going on three decades, right? And I I've been thinking about that in preparing for this, because I do wonder, like for whatever reason you have been able to uh build this comfort with like, hey, look, my art form, my creative output needs to stay. And if that means that from time to time I need to go work at a restaurant, I need to go bartend for six months, a year, two years, then I'm just gonna do that. But I'm what I'm not gonna do is stop making art, right? And I mean, is this why why aren't more people able to do that? Why is that um because I I'm trying to think about other people I know, and I literally I only know you.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

I think it depends on what your desires are for your life. You know, like I mean, the things that allow me to do this are are a few. Um, first of all, I have rent control, right? I'm not competing at a market level uh for a place to live. Um and then actually, you know, I've been I've been in my place for over 14 years. And actually, right now my wife and I are buying a uh you know a BMR, a below market rate place. So when when they talk about building affordable housing, that's what they're talking about. So we're buying into the affordable housing program. And so that's great. We'll be able to like really be here, you know. I mean, we're really here, but like uh we'll be able to like not worry about ever getting evicted.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

But your roots in it.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Yeah, you know, and and it the the program is weird and convoluted and maybe could be a little bit different, but like regardless, we'll be able to buy a place in San Francisco, yeah. It's just crazy. At like a you know, at something that would be like a Fresno price, you know, uh, which is what we could avoid is Fresno, honestly. Um so rent control, I don't have kids. Uh that's that's a big one. Uh I don't have a car. So there's no car payments, gas payments. Uh, and most more than I'm healthy. You know, that those things change. I can't do this anymore, you know. So, you know, um and honestly, most people who like most people who are professional artists, you know, or or artists, you know, loose term, you know, creatives, uh most of them probably have some other work, you know. You're a professional professional photographer, also probably shoots weddings. You know, like someone, you know, depending on what you what your career your craft is, you have to probably do some of it on the other side to like do something else to keep that afloat. And um some people uh don't realize that, I think, you know, and also people forget that like when your your art becomes a job, it's a job, yeah, you know, and people it's it's a it's a it's a mental shift, you know. To do the thing you love for work means the thing you love is a job now, you know? Yeah, and that's not always happy for you. And some people realize that earlier like, cool, I just want to paint for fun and I'll just go work at Google. That's cool too, you know. Like, um there's this like me, like this like cartoon, maybe it was the oatmeal. I don't know what it was. This like cartoon was like a split screen, and it's like an it's like an artist who's painting, and the artist has this thought bubble. It's like, and I just wish I could make some more fucking money, you know? And then the the other uh side of the thing is like a business person, it's like yeah, man, I just wish I could make art, you know?

SPEAKER_02 27:24

Like I think um I think that's exactly it. I I do think that there's something lost. Also, I'm curious if you agree with this, that there was a sensibility that I think when you and I were grown up um existed of this this idea of like gilded squalor, I think is the the term, right? That there was beauty in being broke, yeah. If it meant that you were like living by your principles and you were, you know, uh creatively fulfilled, et cetera, et cetera. And I think again, maybe I'm just older and everybody around me is older, but it feels like that's kind of dead.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

I think it's just because uh are you in your 40s? I'm not. No, I'm in my 30s. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's just you're older. Yeah, you know, like, yeah, I'm 45. I mean, I'd like to be less broke, you know. Like, yeah, uh, you know, it's I do I need like a Lamborghini? No. But I'd like to like not stress as much, you know. It's not as cute when you're 45 as it is when you're 25, you know? Yeah. Um, so yeah, I don't I think yeah, I think it's just it's less attractive as you get older anyway. Because when you're 20s, you're like, fuck it, whatever, dude. I I hang out with my friends, I go to the bars, I fucking, you know, I do my shit that I want to do, and like if I get to make my art, great, you know. You have different you have different needs as you go as you get older, different wants, you know.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

I I I think I think that's definitely true. I but I also think that like virality, the concept of virality had something to do with that, right? Because I think like I get served a lot of content. My wife's an artist, and I so I get served a lot of videos because I forward them to her, and so then Instagram thinks I'm into it. Um, a lot of these videos about like how to suddenly break it as an artist. And not they're not talking about like, hey, how do you build an audience of a few hundred people that love your stuff and will support it, you know, like patrons. They're talking about like how do you go fucking viral? How you and give Jet McCoons overnight? Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, I think like that is like some switch in the society when it became like, oh well, at any point, especially at any point for any creative, you could hit it big and you could all of a sudden be the fucking trillionaire, right?

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Like I don't know how for how many people that actually ever happened, but I think that when once that entered the like public consciousness, right? I do think there are fewer people who are like okay with just like, hey, look, maybe making my art means that I'm gonna be broke forever.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

I mean, I think part of that is getting older too this for me, it's getting older too. Because like in my 20s when I was starting off, I was like, dude, yeah, I'm gonna blow the fuck up. Uh you know, by the time I was 30, I already accomplished a lot of stuff I wanted to do. Like, you know, get paid to travel the world, write my own books, have my own television show. I did all that by the time I was 30, you know, and I still didn't make any money, you know? Like, and so uh I I uh I think you have to get uh okay with the fact that like this is um your job, you know, and like maybe maybe something will blow up one day, sure. But I for me personally, I have I have to keep creating for sanity purposes. Like, you know, I've done, you know, since you know, you know, I ran for mayor, which was an art project, you know, like almost 10% of the vote. Yeah. I uh, you know, I've made two web series, you know. I'm always working on some kind of project because I have to create. Yeah, that's just who I am. Um and uh, you know, there's always a part of me that's like maybe this will be the one that blows up. Sure. But also you have to be okay with the fact that like there's a lot of working artists who just get to make art and make their thing and like make a living doing it. And that's because being able to make a living doing what you do, what you create is that's one of the biggest gifts in the world, you know, and not many people do that.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Um I promise the last time we'll bring up Bob Dylan. Yeah, you can talk about Dylan a lot. Yeah, Dylan said um a man is rich if he wakes up in the morning and goes to sleep at night, in the middle, does whatever the hell he wants. Yeah. And I just I'm sure I butchered that, but I I think about that all the time. Um I guess he also said, Um, uh, you do what you life is a bust, life is a bore, you do what you must do, and you do it well. I think about that all the time with in the context of art. It's just like I I feel like when I talk to you, you have to do this. There's no way you can't not do this, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Um I have I'm I'll I'll be doing something creative no matter what. Um right now I'm a little like oh what's the word I'm looking for? Um I don't know, I'm a little like uh annoyed with my where I'm at because like I'm so busy working that I don't get to do the creative stuff as much as I want to. Like I barely get to write anymore because I'm busy running this stupid fucking business. You know, you know, someone's gotta, it's it's me and my business partner, and we do 80 jobs, you know. Yeah. And then, you know, we have, you know, really great people like Abe and and and Bunny and Jake who like write for us and make videos and stuff, but like there's a lot more that I would like to be doing creatively for broadcasts because I just don't have to I have to edit. I have to do business development, I have to do sales, I gotta do fucking, you know, all these things. Yeah. I don't really do what I want to as much.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Well, dude, tell me about the um tell me about like the these kind of like intervening years a little bit, right? Where you start off and it's you taking the muni and like dropping off your zines at all these different places, right? And then at some point, and that you know, that that that blows up and you're getting like a bunch of offers from industry, things like that. Um, and then like at the same time, sort of the ground under you, San Francisco starts to shift, right? All of a sudden we're in the middle of another gold rush and like the early 2010s at Uber and Airbnb and all that kind of stuff. Um the sense I get, and I've been I've been reading your stuff for a while. I think I think I've heard you refer to it as like the hard years, right? Um, I think I read that somewhere. Maybe I just made that up in my head. But like kind of the harder years of this business, starting maybe around like, you know, in the 2010s when this second tech boom starts. Like, what was that like for you? Like, when did it get what has been, I guess the simplest question there is like, what has been the shittiest part of this like 20 plus year broke ass tour journey? Warm Intro is brought to you by WeFunder. WeFunder created this thing called the community round that lets you raise money directly from your community. So instead of going to VCs and rich people, angel investors, you can go straight to your friends and your family and your customers. And, you know, this is not a traditional ad read. I used Wii Funder for my company three times. We ran three rounds in Wii Fund and we raised over a million dollars. And I found that it completely changed how everybody felt about our business. Our customers all of a sudden didn't feel like they were just customers. They felt like they were owners in the business. They shopped with us more, they told their friends about it. My team felt like what we were doing was important because our community had shown up to invest in us. I tell every founder I can find to go raise a WeFund around. Especially for companies that care about community, there is nothing greater you can do than letting that community invest. Go to WeFunder.com slash join to check it out.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

The shittiest part.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

The hardest part.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

The hardest part is uh figure out how we're gonna make money every month to pay everybody. Yeah. You know, that's it. That's the hardest part.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

And was there is that problem better now, worse now than it was earlier? Yeah, where are you at with that journey?

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Uh ask me next month, you know? Like uh you know, it it it all depends. I I didn't realize, I mean, I didn't make this like my full-time job until like uh let's see, see here, um, in 2015 when I ran for mayor, is when I cut down to like one shift a week or something like that, at a restaurant or a bar, I think. Before that I was like, you know, two to three to four shifts a week. Um, and then I was, you know, didn't have time to do that running for mayor and it just made it all work somehow. And then um so yeah, I mean it's one of those things if I knew like it's like if I knew now, if I knew then what I know now how to how to monetize, I would have monetize better back in the day, you know. But I hate fucking talking about that, you know, especially back then. I was like, man, fuck the money, we're just gonna make the cool shit, you know? Yeah. And I got my tips from last night, we're fine, you know? Whereas then now you're just like, fuck, man, I still gotta make money. You know, make want to do the cool shit, you know? Yeah. So um didn't think about it, the money part of the much. And that's also part of being young, I think, and just like idealistic, like I, you know, creating for the sake of creating, and I'm still creating for the sake of creating because I have to create, but it's now I still have to think about like, well, I gotta pay bills too. I'm about to have a mortgage, you know.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Did um has any part of you in the last like coup two decades, as you've kind of gone through these like the the troubles of running a business? Has any part of you been like, no, I'm yeah, I'm doing it because I have to keep creating? Yes, but also I have to keep doing it for San Francisco. Cause there's just not enough of this going on.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Yeah, I think so. But then I'm like, man, shut up, Stuart. You know, you know, like you're able to self-aggrandizing or something. Yeah, you gotta put that take out all of San Francisco on your shoulders, you know? Like uh kind of do, man. I mean, yeah, I mean, yes and no. I mean, I I you know, I'm I think you know, I'm doing it for the culture, I'm doing it for um for the for the people that are here, you know, and for the city. Um and you know, and I think that's why we have a pretty solid, amazing group of supporters on Patreon is because they they don't want to see it go away either. You know? Join the Patreon if you're listening, if you're watching, join the Patreon.

SPEAKER_02 36:47

Everybody listening, please go join the Patreon.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Seriously, or else the shit goes away. Yeah. Um, because you know, selling shirts works sometimes, makes some money. You know, we sell ads and stuff, but like Patreon's what really keeps us sustainable or close to it, you know. We could be more sustainable for sure. But I mean, that's the only like steady money we have every month is is Patreon.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Um do you think the changes in San Francisco between um 2002 and like 2026, like who's here, why they're here, how much money they're making, what they're up to with most of their day, do you think that has made the business model any harder?

SPEAKER_00 37:25

I don't know. I mean, on one hand, like, you know, people need excess money so they can give money to Patreon, you know? So but uh at the same time, I mean I don't know. Um people have to, you know, it helps to have money around. Uh because like look, if you if you know people who advertise with me, like want to sell tickets to events, you know? So it's like cool. You need people to buy tickets to events for these fields and to advertise with me. So like, yes and no. It depends on what you know what the goals are. I think, you know, um the business model, it's just a shitty business model, you know, that's what it comes down to. Yeah. It the the the uh business of media is broken. Uh media as we know it is actually in the process of a major shift right now and in terms of like how it's created and how it's consumed. Major shift. Uh a shift that like people, that it's like a loads and lifetime kind of shift, I think. Uh that we're shifting. Like the it's we're going through the kind of shift that that was like also the shift from like print to digital. Yeah. We're making we're having a shift like that right now where the open web, as we know it, is dying. And no longer uh between uh AI has a lot to do with that. Uh the platforms being so greedy and trying to keep all the traffic on them is part of that too. So whereas like, you know, articles that like five, six years ago we would have done that. We got like, you know, 30,000 views, we'll maybe get like, you know, 1,500 views now. 3,000 views if we're lucky, you know, because just like the that that's changed. Also, people don't read like they used to, you know? So the model of the media is changing. So we're we're adapting too. So we're trying to do more video and more like, you know, ship. Look, for the for the world of uh of information, the shift to short form video is terrible. It's terrible for information. Taking the what would normally be like a 2,000-word article with citations and links, make it into a 30-second video is not good for the information ecosphere. Yeah, you know, uh, but that's where fucking things are going. And so you have to adapt or die, you know? And uh trying to figure that out is uh is a whole ass thing.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

Did I uh I heard you say that on a podcast one time, and the first thing that made me think of was I cannot I had watched way more reels in my life, just given how many you watch in like one sitting. Like I've watched way more reels in my life than I've read articles at this point, because every sitting is like 200 reels, right? Um, but I cannot tell you one reel that meaningfully altered the course of my life. I can give you like 10 articles that changed how I think about the world.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

And I think like people sometimes there's this tendency that I think people have to chalk everything up to like, ah, people getting older, every new generation or every every generation thinks that its generation had it right, and then now things are shifting and they're just like old and grumpy about it. No, but there are also categorical shifts, right? There are also like points that once you go past them, something like material changes about the world. And I I do think like I'm not even asking for like a pre-social media world. I'm just literally talking about before Instagram had short form video, before every panel had short form video. Like that was still, if you compare, like, I mean, it's still called the app, it's still called Instagram, but my usage of it is totally different. It used to be primarily, right? It would be like I'd be following my friends and like I'd be following you, and it was pages that were that I wanted to see that were interesting to me, and I like I was could curate my feed. And now it's whatever the algorithm deems is correct for me, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:53

Yeah, it's crazy. Um, and that algorithm is a black box that nobody knows what's in. Yeah, and the few people have the levers and they can they can you know fuck with it however they want uh to create the most amount of profit for themselves. And it's and it's it's a wild thing because like let's say let's just go backwards and time and you know, when it was newspapers, sure, you could have enough money to have more paper boys selling more newspapers, right? But you couldn't one person, one company couldn't change the the entire way that newspapers are consumed, right? Or how we have sure in shame may not be a a monopoly, but it's also not not a monopoly, you know, like for fuck's sake, you know. If we had any fucking system of government that actually gave a shit anymore, we'd be breaking meta up. It should be broken up, you know? A lot of Google should be broken up. Sorry, not sorry, whatever. Like these are fucking these are monopolies. Yeah. The fact that like a handful of companies have the have the monopoly on our on our entire way we consume information, should should be criminal.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

Um, I agree completely. Break them all up. Um, I I want to ask you like the because there's so many different things that are like all connected, but they're kind of uh they're all separate. There's the kind of the technological aspect of this, right? Where like we've yeah, the just the way in which information is getting created and distributed is materially different now than it was. There is the political aspect of this and where we haven't really had meaningful antitrust in, I mean, basically in our lifetimes, right? Um, but then there's I'm really curious about the cultural part of this. And again, it's it's not clear to me like if the culture affected the politics and the technology or or the other direction or what how anything started. But I all I can tell is that the culture is different now. I think people I'll try, I'll put out a thesis that I actually don't think you're gonna completely agree with, but I you know more about this than I do. So I w I want to get your take on this. I think that our culture has gotten much more fragmented, but and people take that to mean that it has gotten more complex and layered. But to me, those are very different things. To me, fragmented is is all it's flat. It's all, yeah, everybody has their own little niche. We have we we live in a billion niches, but it's all within the same kind of general realm of like, yeah, we're all still trying to work the algorithm, we're all still like fighting in this weird like affordability battle, right? We're all still trying, like it's all just still, it's actually much flatter culture now. Whereas I think if you go back to even the early 2010s, right? Um, we had, I think, a much more there was an actual underground. There was an actual fringe. And I think that that is, I hate to say it, I wish it wasn't this way, but I don't think that that really exists anymore.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

Like maybe, maybe it's where just like you you now you you used to have to earn it.

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

You know, you have to use, you know, you want to be part of that subculture, you have to you want to you have to earn it. Now anybody can make an Instagram reel about it and like change the course of that fucking thing's history. You know, like um, you know, uh a good example is uh, you know, there's this really in Mexico City, there's this great uh punk rock flea market that's been on for uh decades, since the 70s or the 80s, right? And um uh I've been to it a few times. I've been there, it was there in 2015, I was there a couple years ago. I love Mexico City, it's one of my favorite cities in the world. Same. And then this and the flea market's fucking cool. But like, you know, and I'm guilty of this. I also made like an Instagram reel about it, and it did really well because like, well, and I also uh part of it is that I I do feel like, well, I'm definitely not part of the Mexico City punk rock underground myself, but I've been in enough like underground scenes where I do feel comfortable in these scenes, and I feel like in a way, at least culturally part of them, even if not that particular underground culture scene. And so I yeah, it's I definitely made a scene, I mean made an Instagram reel about it and did very well. But I think like any fucking random Joe off the street who has no context to it could also do the same thing and make a reel about it, and it could go viral, and suddenly like the people who are materially involved in this scene could get like you know, disenfranchised from it, you know? And like we we were all, I mean, like I said, I I could be part of that too, you know. But like that's so where it used to be like you had to earn earn your stripes to be part of a scene and get access to it. You know, anybody can just you can just find it on on reels on TikTok.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Dude, I think uh one really big place you see it is like uh literally the hook for like 50% of the reels I get served is some version of like I'm not gonna gatekeep. No, gatekeep. Gatekeep more shit. Like we had culture. Uh when did it become such a bad thing to fucking keep some shit to yourself?

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Word. I I I agree. Like um I think gatekeeping gets a bad rap, but hold on for a second. Um, I think we need a I want gatekeepers again. Like I like I don't think that like, you know, like the trip advisor of the world is is the worst version of of a travel uh resource. Every asshole has an opinion. Well, the Mona Lisa didn't smile at me, so fuck her, you know. Like, you know, like I don't know if that's a fucking fun. But you know what I'm saying? Like there's so there's we've had some really funny articles on our website about like what's it like like uh trip advisory reviews of like the of tourist spots and like like the Golden Gate Bridge, zero stars, you know, like that kind of shit's hilarious and insane, but people are serious about it, right? Yeah, so I think there should be gatekeeping. I think there should be a a wider diversity of what who the gatekeepers are. Because you know, traditionally it was people like me, you know, like white dudes, you know. I think there needs to be a a wider version of that, wider, not whiter, a wider version of that, right? But uh there me I think there should be experts and people's expert opinions should be valued, you know, as opposed to like Joe from Wisconsin likes sloppy Joes. Yeah, and they don't serve them at Zuni. So like fuck Zuni, you know, like that kind of shit.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

Well, dude, you know who definitely agreed with us was our boy, Anthony. Bourdain, yeah. He uh there were very few groups of people he hated as much as uh Yelp Elite. I think that that's what they're called, right? The Yelp Elite's to me that was I've been like barking up the street for so long and nobody cares. But I think to me, the whole thesis of Yelp is flawed. Because like at some level, you could argue that you know, the kind of thing that you started broke ass steward with, and there were so many of these like really great publications around the world that were like trying to do that for their own communities, right? That thing in if there was like one major parasite that started to replace it, it was Yelp and you know, whatever Yelp adjacent apps. And I think people again, people think of that as the same thing. People were like, oh, you know, Steward used to recommend stuff to me, and now I have 50,000 strangers recommending stuff to me. It's not like something really big shifted there. I I still think about it like does a three-star Yelp restaurant get to exist in our world anymore? Like, can something be for some people and not for everybody? Like, dude, at this point, it's like even I'm guilty of this. Like, if I ever find myself on that hellish app and I I'm looking up a food and uh spot to eat, I automatically just gloss over the one with the spots that are rated below like four stars. Like, as if am I a fucking five-star podcast? Am I a five-star human? Like if this idea I think you are. Okay, okay, thanks. That's we should end it there. But like, I really I'm like, do these places still like do they not have a right to exist anywhere? Can you not just be a mom and pop shop that, like, okay, you know what, your food is really spicy, and it's only for people who like really spicy food. And that was the whole point of it. And you never had to worry about some fucking asshole coming in and being like too fucking spicy for me and then rating it zero stars. Like, dude, I've literally seen reviews. I mean, just an extension of what you're saying with the TripAdvisor thing, where I've seen reviews of places that are just like, I only give five stars at places that blow me away. So here's two stars. Like, dude, imagine if I walked into your office, like where you're an accountant or or whatever you do, and I said that. I'm like, I only give five stars accountants that blow me away. And you give out a two star, and it's literally now that family is gonna struggle to make rent next day. It's to me like that when we shifted from a culture of curators who were like, you know, it talking to their professionals, talking to their audience about a sensibility that they shared to the fucking algorithm, aggregating millions of things and just assigning scores. And then the people that won in that economy were the people who were not who were good at making food or whatever, the people who were good at making marketing, working the algorithm, especially, right? Like, dude, you remember like in 2010, 2011, like all of a sudden these restaurants started to pop up that like you walked and you were like, This place is like uncomfortable to be in physically, but I can tell that it's like perfect gonna look perfect in the photographs as well. Yeah, yeah. Like the fucking neon signs, that that's like nobody wants to stand next to a neon sign at like 9 a.m. in the morning, but it looks really good on Instagram. And so then it was everywhere. Like it it was it's crazy how much like that shift happened and nobody talks at it. People think it's we're living in the same world, whereas we're not. Like it's we're surrounded by businesses and people that are successful because they're good at working the algorithm and not because they're good at what they're supposed to be.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Yeah. Um, I've a funny like uh dovetail into that whole thing is um everybody who's been everybody who's been in San Francisco long enough has a story about how they're almost a millionaire.

unknown 50:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

Mine is that I was offered a job at Yelp when there was like 13 employees. Yeah. And I was like, no, I'm sorry, I'd like to make zines and work in a restaurant instead, which I did. Yeah, I would not be broke as steward in multiple ways if I had if I'd be like, cool, I'm an employee 14 at Yelp. Yeah. I'd be rich as steward for sure. But uh yeah, but you would be richer, but San Francisco would be much poorer if you I'd be such a more probably a boring person. Who knows? Or maybe I would have made crazy money and done some weird ass shit with it. I don't know, but like I probably wouldn't have some weird shit. But like I who knows? I mean, I wouldn't have had the very rich life that I've lived otherwise, though. You know?

SPEAKER_02 51:02

Okay, this is I do want to like stay on this. I'm sorry I keep making you talk about like the broader culture and like my own complaints about it. Sure. But I do like, I think, dude, again, back to the name of this whole thing, back to broke ass steward, right? I think that when I was growing up, there was like there was charm to this idea of uh, yeah, no, you you wanted to make a better living. I'm I'm still to be clear, what I'm not saying is that people need to be okay with the fact that they can't afford basic needs. That is 100% not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is like at a as a culture, we had this understanding of like, all right, yes, we should try to help people do better, A. And B, if you're not doing very well, you're not like a worse person. It's your life still has like charm. There's still like that, if anything, you have like a vantage point that somebody that's doing very well doesn't have just yet. And I think that we've not only have we made it harder to be poor, we've made it like a borderline cultural sin to be poor.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

What's crazy is you have everything, every signal in our world says buy, buy, consume, consume, right? Backs out your credit cards. But as soon as you do, I can't believe you fucking did that. Yeah, you go to hell, you poor person. You have credit card debt, you dumb motherfucker. You know, like it's crazy. It's like it's really like a mixed signals.

SPEAKER_02 52:23

Uh yeah. I mean, the idea of the credit score on its own is like what a fascinating like creation. But um, but yeah, dude, like I I do think that um something there shifted. I just I find that there's like we as a culture now are are are far more guilty of like uh idolizing money, and it's beyond even what we had before. Like there's if you look at a rich person showcase in like the 70s or 60s, right? Like it's like a like a fat cat that like you're not supposed to want like now you're supposed to idolize people exclusively for the fact that they're rich.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

I think this goes, at least in terms of the Z guys of culture, I think it goes in cycles. Like the 50s, it was like, oh yeah, everybody's get rich, yeah, you know, and then the 60s come around. It's like cool, this fucking smoke dope and fucking make love, you know. Yeah, the 70s come along. I don't know, the 70s were weird, but like you know, the 70s are a strange deck. Really honestly, and then the 80s, the 80s was being rich was cool again. 90s, it wasn't cool. 20, 2000s, you had like fucking like hip hop shit that made being rich really important, right? So I think it goes in cycles, hopefully, you know, right now, at least here in San Francisco. I don't know. I mean, here in San Francisco, like money's a big thing, but it wasn't all like it used to be like, yeah, we always had rich people here for sure, but it used to be like not cool, you know, like, oh yeah, you know, you're you do people who are rich, like I think they're a trust fund kid, but they just act like they're poor, you know? If another New Yorkers like that too, like, yeah, that's so and so's daughter, but she dresses like a homeless person, you know, like uh and I you see that in LA too, like and you know, but that's always been a thing. But like maybe like you get like oops, sorry, microphone. Uh you get these things now, especially like in like the world of tech where it's like people talk about like, well, here's the thing. I don't use LinkedIn. I have no reason to use LinkedIn, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:08

It's the worst place on earth.

SPEAKER_00 54:09

I don't I it's when my when my wife added me, I was like, what do I endorse you for, snuggles?

SPEAKER_02 54:13

You know, like yeah, you're very geez, kids say something. It's really weird to come across my wife's LinkedIn profile. Did you already know that person?

SPEAKER_00 54:21

Um, but like um, you know, and so like I'm not really in the world of like raising money and like uh, you know, this whole thing, although once again, join the Patreon. Um, I'm not in that world, and but like, so like you see on LinkedIn, the way people talk about shit, it's like I did this, I made so much fucking money for my bosses, you know, like uh it's all it's all it's all about how much money you know, and I and I think that's really trick trickled trickled down into like you know the conversations around, you know, obviously with tech, and there's so much money here, and then that trickles down to other parts of the conversation where I don't really care, you know. Like, yeah, it's cool you make some money. What do you do with it? Do good things with it, you know?

SPEAKER_02 54:56

You you just nailed it, man. Like, I think there's this shift that happened in our culture, right? Where you know, Gary V.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

Yes, I know I know who he is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:08

You kind of look like old Gary Vee, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

What a handsome bastard.

SPEAKER_02 55:11

Well, but I think this is the Gary Vification of our culture, right? Where are you um before I like go too much further, and we can bleep this out. How do you feel about La Russell?

SPEAKER_00 55:21

I don't really have a horse in the race, you know. Yeah, I mean, I I think uh he's he's uh cool. I think he's great things out of Bileo. The fact that like Hitler's cool, not so cool, yeah, you know, like as a Jewish person, especially. Yeah, but like I think as and as any thinking person, you know, and like I I get what he was trying to say that like all people deserve love, yeah, but like or whatever he was, but like pick your battles, you know.

SPEAKER_02 55:44

I'll I'll take even that like insane thing he said out of it for a second. And I just want to talk about like the fact of him or the fact of Gary V, right? Um my problem is not with LaRussell, my problem is not with Gary P. Like my problem is with their fans, because when I hear LaRussell fans, right, which again, like he seems like a really nice guy, and I'm really happy he's from the bay, and I'm really happy he's meeting. He's like a nice guy, he's like a very nice guy. He's like a very sweet guy. Um but uh people will tell me I have like probably 60 friends who follow La Russell, and I can promise you that none of them can name two of his songs. All they can tell you is I'm from the Bay, that's Northern Cal, whatever. Point being, like he is known as much, actually, he's known much more for being good at getting views and and selling a lot of albums than he is for his actual music. Like, literally, all these people follow him, and you're supposed to follow him and be a fan of his because he is good at getting fans and because he's good at getting money, and not because like anybody can tell me that it he's their favorite musician or that tells a lot of how does he how does anybody sell albums anymore?

SPEAKER_00 56:54

Exactly. Like that's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 56:56

No, but because it's all about growth hacks, dude. Like it was his the thing that really went viral that a lot of my friends talked to me about and it pissed me off was he did this like weird like album auction thing, which again, good for him. I'm glad some artists figured out a way to make money, but at the same time, like, can anyone tell me one fucking song on that album? Like, and it's the same thing with like I remember, you know, you remember there was a Steve Jobs book, like around the time that that he passed. And that is objectively a good book because it mixes, like, yeah, you know, he has this like passion for he wants to make a certain kind of product. Oh, and then also simultaneously that product ends up becoming big. I can be down with that idea. And then I remember I read the Amazon book after that, and the Amazon book is literally just like then they wanted to make money in this industry, and then they wanted to make, and then you'll never believe it, they wanted to make it money in this fucking industry. He said, Fuck bookstores. It's like fuck bookstores, netting down this time, fuck pharmacies, and it just goes on down the line like that. And I think again, we it's it's like a weird form of like mission creep or something where money used to be like, I am all dude, I would love to see you make a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 57:58

Truly, yeah. It'd be nice. I don't even need a lot of money, I just need a little bit more money, so I'm not so stressed out, you know. I've got anyway.

SPEAKER_02 58:05

No, but because I because I appreciate what you do for the city, your your product, I hate to call it that, but like the thing you put out into the world has consistently been amazing. Thank you. And it's it's a beautiful thing that I'm happy to support and I want to see be very successful. What I like am much less down for is some other weird, like um bizarro version of of Stuart, where like Stuart is big, nobody reads his blogs, but everybody's like, oh my god, dude, do you know how many fucking subscribers Stuart has now? And unfortunately, we live in the fucking bizarro world. Yeah. Um just yeah, I think at some point the product or the thing you were doing to make that money is to stop mattering. I think, yes.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

But I think that this is a uh just a cycle. It'll change. Like, for example, like 10 years ago, uh blogs, or 15 years ago it was all blogs, right? So there'll still be something else that comes out. Like people that are making their living doing the the doing reels right now, that'll change. Yeah, there'll be a handful of people who still make money doing that, but like right now, there's a the amount of influencers who make a living is very small. Yes, right? It's like being a pro ball player, you know, like or or a fucking you know, an Olympian, you know, like how many people get to do that, right? Uh, but it's this aspirational thing where people think they see because they see a few people do it, they can do it too. Um, but I think like this whole thing, uh there's no way that like this 30-second real thing is gonna be uh a time-tested thing forever. Yeah, you know, something else will come along. It will probably make things worse, but something it'll change, you know. Um but and and I, you know, and right now we're seeing, especially with younger, younger people, like young Gen Z people, they they they don't want to be online. They they they want like, what is a book? Can I I can hold a thing I read? You know, like they want to like go to parties with nobody has phones, yeah. So I think we're gonna see some uh a boomerang effect, hopefully. I mean, I don't know uh what that does for people, I guess who are old and in the way, who knows?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:00

But like no, but I I think I think you're spot on, man. That that's that's such a good point. Because I never remember, I do not remember anybody being like, man, I really gotta get off these zines. Like these z are really taking up all my time. I can't like I'm not spending time with my wife and kids because I'm on these zines so much. There was something about it where like you couldn't get enough of it. And it's again, you can say that for any art form, right? There is something weird when like the dominant cultural like uh vehicle is something that most people want to do less of. You know, like that. It's it's it's an odd thing that every person I know that has any level of like awareness wants to be online less.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:43

Yeah, that's what addicts talk like, you know, like and they they've set up, they purposely have made us addicted to this thing. They've they've gamified it and like you know, they they've done like psychological experiments, you know, and and uh we lost, you know. Like I'm actually really I'm really proud of it. I'm I uh every you know Sunday it says my average uh amount of time on my phone uh each week. I think I'm averaging under three hours every day now. Wow, which is good because then I work on my phone half the time, you know. Maybe I don't work enough. I know, uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:12

I wasn't saying yeah to that. I was saying yeah to like the first part.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:14

But yeah, I I honestly I um I don't scroll very much. It makes me feel like honestly a little ill. I'm just like, what am I doing? This is fucking bullshit, you know. If I was a better at a better at being an influencer and shit, I would do a lot more of it. But I'm I'm burnt out on it. I mean, I I'd fucking one of the very first influencers online. Like I was doing this shit on MySpace, you know, like I was doing broadcast on MySpace. And I I intuitively got the whole thing. Cult of personality, I got it. I get that, you know? Uh and the older I get, the more the less engaged I am because I just don't want to do it anymore. I could be doing a better job, but I should it maybe to make more money. I should be doing and get more followers, but I just don't want to, man. Yeah, it's tiring, it's exhausting, it's not fulfilling.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:53

Dude, the as I understand like the decision that you've made just from the outside, this is my first time meeting you, right? As I understand what you've been doing, uh, is you've decided that you're gonna take this platform that you built off the backs of zines and you running around and and uh selling these things and writing every every happy hour review and every like cheap meal review, you you're taking that and you've decided you're gonna open it up and bring on like, and this is not a new decision, but I I see it more and more every year. You're gonna open it up to other people's voices, and you're just gonna keep doing that more. And dude, you've been ahead of the curve on a lot of stuff. Like, what was when was trans dating?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:33

Was that like uh yeah, I had I had a uh column, my friend Shekina, who's a brilliant doctor. Uh, she um is a friend of mine from college, and she is uh she's trans. And in back in 2014, I she was writing a column from a website there about uh Daniel trans. And like, yeah, I mean that that's and like no, I mean, definitely no mainstream publication was doing that. And not outside of queer publications, it's I we might have been one of the only ones. We're not a queer publication, we do a lot of queer things, but I have a lot of queer writers and stuff. But um uh we're not specifically queer, but we went probably one of the only non-queer publications that had a column like that because I was like, that's a voice that needs to get heard. Yeah, that's the actually one of the things I'm most proud about what I do is that like I get to elevate voices that don't normally get heard. You know? Um like um because what's what's the point of having a platform and people listen to if you're just gonna talk about yourself all the time, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:24

Yeah. Well, how do you feel? How do you feel day to day right now? Like uh let's say uh of a hundred percent of the feelings that you feel doing your work now, what percent of it is just frustration? What percent is like genuine joy? What percent is like a sense of responsibility?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

You don't have to list these, but like how how how do you approach your work now? Well, you know, I had you know, I'm my mid 40s now. I had like a little midlife crisis a few years ago. I was like, what am I doing with my life? You know, you know, there was a point where I was really close to being the next Anthony Mordain. You know, I had my own travel television show. I got to travel around the US exploring the weird and wonderful different cities, and it was wonderful, and I really loved doing it. I wanted to do more, but it didn't happen again. That's that's life, you know. But I was really close to being like that guy, you know, and then it didn't happen. And that was like, you know, a letdown for sure, but you can't like hang your hopes on one thing, and if it doesn't happen, you fall apart. You gotta keep doing stuff and keep creating. Um, I'm happiest and I'm creating. Yeah. You know, I'm happiest, you know. I get high sometimes, especially like the ideation part when you're like vibrant with other people, I get kind of like high off that, like, oh, and then we can do this, we can do that. How if we do this, you know? Um, and then getting to like see your ideas, ideas come to life, and whether it's a web series or like a book or like uh, I don't even know the fucking party, you know, like it's it's gratifying, you like, you know, and like um and once again, I'm there's still a part of me that's like maybe this will be the thing that blows up. Maybe I could be rich Hollywood asshole after this. Uh, but like, you know, it but getting to make up to me is is the treat, you know. Um making the thing is not always a treat. But be you know, but I think Hemiway said, uh uh, I like having written. Yeah. You know, like I don't like writing, I like having written. Yeah. That, you know, I like create. I mean, yes, the process of creating is really wonderful and and sometimes horrible. But uh the the afterglow of of putting your baby out there is pretty cool, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:19

The um I think there's a B.B. King line where you said, uh, I play the music for free, they pay me to travel. Ah, I love that. That's great. I think about that all the time, man. It's uh yeah, you get paid to put up with the bullshit, but like writing the stuff, like being broke ass steward, like that's and I've got a great life.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:37

I mean, like I've got a very rich life for not having a lot of money. Like, you know, we get invited to like restaurant openings and you know, and bar openings, and we don't we don't pay for tickets to things, you know, that kind of stuff is really cool. You know, I do a lot of barter in my life, you know. It's like, you got something cool you need help with? I got something cool, I mean, let's just do a trade, you know? That kind of I mean, I I like that. I like to be able to be part of the community and help the community out and also, you know, get supported by the community as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:00

Um dude, I'm constantly like real I just I'm just so tickled by like the the kinds of like big mainstream success that you've had that you never talk about or that you don't talk about enough. Like you have a fucking day named after you. Yeah, that's civil right. October 17th, is that right? Yeah, October 17th is broke ass steward day in San Francisco. Um by the way, congrats. I I know I'm like very late to this, but congratulations on But it's only it's less than a year old.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:33

It just happened the last October 17th. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:35

Fair enough. But um okay, I have this is my my like real last question for you. Um 40, 50 years from now, right? Um many social media uh and whatever other types of media have come and gone and we've lived through many a gold rush um in San Francisco. Yeah, some kid shows up to San Francisco 22 years old and is told, oh yeah, today's October 17th, it's a broke ass steward day. What do you hope that'll mean to that kid? What do you hope that day will mean 50 years from now?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:12

Uh go to the gold club, see some titties and eat, get some fried chicken. Uh yeah, I I I I keep joking that like, you know, if they don't name a street after me, then they might as well name like the the uh the fried chicken buffet at the gold club after me. Is it broke asked your memorial fried chicken in the titties buffet? I've actually only been there like twice, but I think it'd be really apt, you know. And what's funny is uh um a friend of mine, unfortunately, a good friend of mine, Joe Kakura, uh, who's a journalist, he passed away recently, and we had a really magnificent uh send-off for him. And um, Dixie DeLatour, who's an incredible um uh storyteller, and she does body storytelling, which is a storytelling series, she's been doing it for decades. Um, she told that joke about Joe. That they was, and I was like, that's my joke. I mean, and she I don't think she's told for me, but remember the same sympathical people that like the idea of like Joe having the um the strip club buffet named after him. I was like, we're the same person. I've thought about that too. But yeah, uh for real, though. I mean, I just hope that you know if somebody shows up and that they want to create cool shit and they're like they got I get turned on by the you know, I showed up being into the beats and the hippies and like you know, LSD and fucking you know Kenkezy and and like you know underground punk rock and like all the subcultures that make made this place beautiful and interesting and makes the world interesting, you know. And I hope that um I can hopefully get folded into that canon, yeah, you know, and then uh people can dig on that and then like you know, create more stuff that gets added to that canon, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:38

Yeah. Dude, I'll I'll end with this. So I'm gonna end by quoting you. Um this is good. Well, I heard I guess it's not a quote, but I I heard you say, you know, people keep telling you that San Francisco's dead, and you say they're wrong, you can't kill this place. Um yeah, I think the same thing's true about you. I think really, mate. I think I think the same thing's true about you. I think for as long as you're here, I think San Francisco will have a culture. And uh yeah, just I guess I'll just end with thanks, man. Thanks for keeping the lights on.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:09

Yeah, man. Thanks for thanks for uh giving a shit. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:12

Of course, man. Beautiful dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:14

All right, this is great.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:14

Story, so much. Warm Intro is produced by Jiwan Moon and Alex Sako, hosted by me, Chai Mishra. Presented to you by WeFunder.