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We’re excited to announce the launch of “Voices from the Hill” a podcast dedicated to showcasing the incredible talent right here in our literary backyard. As a proud member of this vibrant community, Telegraph Hill Arts & Literature believes our local authors deserve a platform to share not just their published works, but the stories behind them.
If you’re a Bay Area author interested in being on the show, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us at submissions@telhilit.org.
Welcome to Voices From the Hill, celebrating the vibrant literary voices of the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm your host, Jennifer Barone, along with Joseph Carboni, owner of Telegraph Hill Books. Each episode, we sit down with a local author to explore their creative process, inspirations, and the unique stories that shape our community.
Jennifer Barone:Today, I'm excited to be joined by local legend and storytellers Stuart Schuffman, aka Broke-Ass Stuart, author of the book, The Worst of Broke-Ass Stuart, twenty years of love, death, and die bars. For over two decades, Stuart has comical life in San Francisco for The Examiner, SF Gay, and more, and even ran for mayor and received over 20,000 votes. Today, we'll talk about his journey as a writer and a world traveler and with a long time love affair with the city of San Francisco. What inspires him to continue to live and write in the Bay Area. So let's jump in.
Jennifer Barone:Stuart Schuffman, Broke-Ass Stuart. Welcome to Voices from the Hill.
Stuart Schuffman:Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me.
Jennifer Barone:Yay. I'm so excited about your book. Let's kick it off. We're having a beautiful passage.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. This is gonna be great. It's a a bit about North Beach, really. So I read a lot about bars because I've had different columns about bars. But as you'll see, it's not like go here, drink that.
Stuart Schuffman:It's like a story where the bar is kind of the main character. So this one's from my when I had a column in seven by seven called the weeknighter because weekends are for amateurs. And so this is from 2014. So it's about Columbus Cafe, which is down the street from here. It's different ownership now, and so I don't think the the toe I'd mentioned the drink tokens.
Stuart Schuffman:I think they still do it, but it might be a different deal. So I don't know. So just keep that in mind. The first time I went to Columbus Cafe was with a con artist named Nelson. Well, at least I least that well, at least that's what he said his name was.
Stuart Schuffman:I guess I'll never really know his real name, not that it matters. It was also this around the same time that I became broke ass Stuart. This was in the early two thousands. I was 22 and working at Z Cioccolato, the candy store down the street around the corner from Columbus Cafe. It was here that I conceived the idea for the first broke ass Steward's Guide to Living Cheap Lousine, a little 30 page pamphlet that launched my life in such a bizarre direction.
Stuart Schuffman:Nelson was my manager at the candy store, one night, after rotating the hats of taffy, wrapping up the fudge, counting the register, sweeping the floor, and locking up, we went to Columbus Cafe. Alfonso came with us. He and Nelson were co assistant managers or some shit like that. On the walkover, he told me, yeah. It's been a while since we went to Columbus Cafe.
Stuart Schuffman:A few months back, Nelson and I were about to get in a fight with some douchebags, and all of a sudden, he reached down and pulled out a gun out of his boot and started waving it around. The place went crazy, and we ran out of there. I haven't been back since. He's he's a good guy, though. He just gets a little crazy when he drinks.
Stuart Schuffman:I soon found out that Alfonso also got a little crazy when he drinks. They'd both been in the military, and it seemed every third time I went out drinking with the two of them, there was a point of the night where a fight almost happened. Luckily, Nelson had stopped carrying around his gun by the time I started working in the candy store. Walking into Columbus Cafe that first time, I realized that my relationship with it would be a lot like my relationship with Nelson and Alfonso. It'd be a lot of fun, but there would also be the possibility of things very quickly getting out of hand.
Stuart Schuffman:That's just how Columbus Cafe was and still is really. The bartenders have incredibly heavy hands, and drinks are cheap, so drunkenness comes on fast and hard. Plus, have the best happy hour in the city. For every drink you buy, they give you a token so you can redeem a free drink next time. The tokens don't expire.
Stuart Schuffman:Back then, you could redeem these tokens at any hour, whereas now you can only redeem them during happy hour. Either that or the bartenders just liked us since we spent so much time there. Bars are a lot bars are a lot like people in the sense that sometimes you can understand everything about them from the first second you meet. I could tell I was gonna love Columbus Cafe. First opened in 1936, it served many longshoremen who were in San Francisco at the time.
Stuart Schuffman:Columbus Cafe has always been a working class bar with a devoted clientele. While in recent years, San Francisco has dramatically shifted from blue collar towards Google collar? Have they invented that yet? Columbus Cafe still manages to attract people that span the entire range of the socioeconomic spectrum. I've sat at that bar under the neon beer signs, sports gear, and nautical memorabilia, tippy bag pints with everyone from Hells Angels to tourists and from plumbers to whatever you call those slick fucks you work in finance.
Stuart Schuffman:There are usually a few woo girls chirping out their meeting call by the jukebox while someone is getting taken into town on the pool table. Columbus Columbus Cafe can be everything to everyone so long as you like bars that are divey, dark, and don't take shit from anyone. One day, a few months after I started working at his eat chocolatto, Nelson completely disappeared. And when he did, he took a lot of people's money with him. It wasn't until it wasn't till then that any of us realized everything he said was total bullshit.
Stuart Schuffman:His whole background, all his stories, even his name. Apparently, he'd stolen the identity of the real Nelson from a guy he'd bunked with in the military. I guess that part was true at least. Besides making off with money from the shop, he'd also borrowed money from pretty much everyone he knew besides me. I didn't have any to lend him.
Stuart Schuffman:I never saw Nelson again and a little while later moved on from stealing candy and became a waiter pasta pomodoro down the street. While I'll never know who Nelson really was, I'm eternally thankful that he turned me on to Columbus Cafe. Well, and the fact that I never let him borrow any money.
Jennifer Barone:Wow. Z Cioccolato , Columbus cafe, and what was the name of the
Stuart Schuffman:pasta? Pasta Pomodoro. Yeah.
Jennifer Barone:Oh my goodness. You work, like, almost all over the neighborhood.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. Yeah. I've been all over. I've been here for almost twenty five years in city, so I had a lot of different jobs.
Jennifer Barone:We were talking a little bit when you first came in about, like, how the city view is constantly evolving. You said it was, like, a living organism Sure. Essentially. Are there places that you've really just like, your heart loved and felt really connected to you that were maybe, like, established in the city for a very long time and have that flare to it that just that, like, has them that closed down for some reason you felt
Stuart Schuffman:Oh, yeah. Your heart? So so many. I mean, just right right off the top of head. The Gold Dust Lounge and Lefty O'Douls, both both closed because of the same piece of shit.
Stuart Schuffman:His name is the fuck is his name? John Handlery. Fuck you, Handlery. He's a he he likes to style himself as the Donald Trump of Union Square, some fucking guy whose whose daddy left him all this property and this piece of shit. What he did is he took these people people whose families had long standing relationships.
Stuart Schuffman:Like, the the Golda Stalin has been since, like, twenties. Left the Abdul has been there since the nineteen forties or fifties. These were not just, you know, legendary places. These were the a part of the heart and soul in San Francisco, one of the few places where locals and tourists could get together and hang out drunk and shoot the shit and, like, you know, people were visiting could feel what the real San Francisco felt like. And this fucking guy, left the duals still sitting empty, and then he, shut down, the Goldust Lounge show, like, Forever 21 or some bullshit like that could go in there, which isn't even there So fuck you, Henle Reed.
Jennifer Barone:Union Square. Like, can we talk a little bit about Union Square? Because, like, the last time I went down there, was horrified. And, of course, like, it seems to be an area downtown San Francisco that the news, like, the national news keeps, like, picking up and, you know, using as an example to, like, bash San Francisco. And, of course, you're a lover, and I'm a lover.
Stuart Schuffman:Right.
Jennifer Barone:But, like, talk talk about that, like, downtown area, and what's happening for you there?
Stuart Schuffman:Fox News and that shit needs San Francisco. They need us. They need a punching bag to say, look what these fucking psycho homos are doing, you know? They're coming for your kids and your guns, you know? They they need us because they need to continue to scare their readers and their watchers into, solving their bullshit.
Jennifer Barone:So you can get so sensational.
Stuart Schuffman:100%. Don't don't get me wrong. Union Square has problems. It's very empty, and it's because of greedy landlords mostly because and and a lot of them are, like, multinational corporations. They don't care.
Stuart Schuffman:It's just like a rounding error for them. Right? But then the the pieces of shit like John Handelry, although he probably won't lose that much because, you know, once again, there's tax write offs for for losses and whatnot. They're just sitting empty, you know, until they get a a bigger buyer, know, a bigger renter or whatever. But, I mean, look, this whole quote unquote doom loop San Francisco thing, it's like this was going to happen anyways because the nature of commerce has changed.
Stuart Schuffman:Right? Downtown San Francisco was built for nineteen o seven. It wasn't built for 2025. Right? So this was gonna happen anyways.
Stuart Schuffman:The pandemic just sped it up. The good news is that since it all happened at once, we have it's an opportunity to to rethink things and see what we could do better. First and foremost, what you saw, like, with downtown, Lower Manhattan after 09:11, they're like, oh, shit. Maybe this shouldn't just be all, like, big skyscrapers for fucking finance pros. Pros.
Stuart Schuffman:And they've made it, like, mixed mixed live you know, mixed use. So it's, housing, retail, and offices. Right? That's what they need to do with Downtown San Francisco is bring in more housing because, once again, that model of of of living and and working, it was nineteen o seven. You know?
Stuart Schuffman:We need to integrate that.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. Well, you ran for mayor and got, like, over 20,000 votes.
Stuart Schuffman:Almost 20,000 votes. Yes. Yes.
Jennifer Barone:Almost 20,000 votes, which is I think a lot. You know, this is not not like, you know, this anyway, was this one of the reasons that made you run? Like, what what made you get into that arena as a writer? Well, out of all
Stuart Schuffman:the stupid shit I've ever done, it was probably the smartest. You know? You know, it was it was a great you know, I looked at it as like it was an art project. It was political street theater
Jennifer Barone:Okay.
Stuart Schuffman:In the best way possible. And the only way I could have actually lost that election is if I had won that election because I would have had to be mayor. You know?
Jennifer Barone:What Like, what would have happened
Stuart Schuffman:if you
Jennifer Barone:had become mayor? What would you have done?
Stuart Schuffman:Oh, well, luckily, there's nothing there's no scandal I could have done that would have been more scandalous in the beginning of, you know, elected. So but, you know, nobody else when I when I got in the majors, nobody else seemed to be running. And, like, there there's no, like, mainstream candidate or, like, you know, big candidates. So I like, this is a perfect opportunity to, like, use the platform to get the word out about things that, need to be talked about that wouldn't be talked about otherwise. And so it was great for that.
Jennifer Barone:What what did you feel, like, needed to have a highlight on it?
Stuart Schuffman:Know, gentrification, displacement, the human poop on the street. Mhmm. Because, you know, solving homelessness is well, a, we know how to do that. We just need to tax billionaires, and that that's longer story. That's also more complicated.
Stuart Schuffman:But cleaning up the poop is not that complicated. You know? Fucking bathrooms, porta potties, you know? And so some of the stuff I talked about in my campaign then got rolled out later on, like, you know, like, the pit stop campaign and all that stuff, you know? So, I was able to, you know, speak truth to power and do it in a fun, engaging, funny way.
Jennifer Barone:Mhmm.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. I was talking to Jenny yesterday about this concept of using activism, but creatively. Like, I don't think people think about that a lot of times, like bringing an art bringing your art into it and making it fun, making it creative in a somewhat immersive way. But if you had to give, like, some advice to, like, younger writers who maybe also wanted to make a difference with their work, like, what would you tell them?
Stuart Schuffman:Well, there's the the old Emma Goldman quote. I don't wanna be part of any revolution where I can't dance. You know? I might have gotten it wrong, but it's along those lines where it's like, if if all you are is this hard nosed politics all the time, hard nosed activism all the time, you're gonna only attract people who are just like you are. You know?
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. You need to make them laugh. You need to you need to make it fun because, like, zealotry gets boring. Mhmm. You know?
Stuart Schuffman:Like and so we we can still fight for these things while still, you know, make it enjoyable and and, like and and that's how you bring more people into it. You know? If if you're if all you're doing is putting out content around that, you're gonna attract a smaller group whereas, like, if you things do things that are more engaging, bring in more people that can then get your message.
Jennifer Barone:So you developed this persona around broke ass Stuart. Is is it because, like, did that persona come on because this is such an expensive, you know, city to live in, but you're also an artist and a writer? Like, tell us, like, how did that come to be?
Stuart Schuffman:If I knew that I'd still be doing this, when I was when I was 23 when I started doing this, if I knew I still doing this when I was 45, I might have chosen a different name. It can be limiting. Like, it's like when people, like, never heard of it. It's like, oh, yeah. This is BrokeAss Stuart.
Stuart Schuffman:They're like, why would you say that? He's right in front of you. You know? And, you know, with my website, we have a lot of advertisers when we're lucky. And, you know, if you don't if you're not familiar with it, you feel like, you know, the Ford Motor Company, you're like, why would I wanna advertise something called broke or ass?
Stuart Schuffman:You know? So it's it's a complicated I've a lovely relationship with the name, but it's very catchy. People remember I was broke. I was working at Pasta Pub. I was working at down the street.
Stuart Schuffman:And this woman came in. This guy from my neighbor growing up in San Diego came in, and the woman who's now his she gave me her business card and they're leaving. It said, travel writer. I said, I wanna be a travel writer. So I I said, we went and invented Brokeback Stuart.
Stuart Schuffman:And it was just like little zine. And, you know, it was just like a thing. I was broke. Everybody knew I was broke. We're all, like, 20, you know, early twenties straight out of college and wanted to see if we were collect the knowledge, but the other something that we could share with everybody, and that was a zine.
Jennifer Barone:And then here you are a game written for Lonely Planet. Like, what other Haunting Nails Traveler.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. Examiner. Examiner, Seven by Seven. God.
Jennifer Barone:So you went from that zine to, like, all the major travel publications.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. I mean, I did. That industry changed a lot. But, yeah, I I I became a travel writer. Know?
Stuart Schuffman:Had my own travel television show in 2011. Mhmm. I had my own line of travel books. It's funny. I I accomplished it's weird when you accomplish most of what you wanna do by the time you're 30, and you're like, fuck.
Stuart Schuffman:I still gotta work in a restaurant. You know? I still gotta bartend.
Jennifer Barone:Is that an aspect of because the city is just, like, so overblown in terms of, like, food is expensive, housing is expensive. Like, it's hard for an artist
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah.
Jennifer Barone:To live here. So there is this niche that you're serving where you're advising essentially, like, the up and coming artists.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. It's it's it's weird because, like, I I've been doing this for a long time. I've I've I've decided a long time ago to to live a creative life. Yeah. You know?
Stuart Schuffman:And it's a shit way to make a living, you know, but it's a good way to make life. And I for where I was going.
Jennifer Barone:Well, I wanted to ask you, how, like, what's the broke ass wisdom that you live by every day? Like like, what what is guiding your life as an artist here?
Stuart Schuffman:It's hard. You I think you just decide to do it. You know? You commit to it and, like, you know I mean, at this point, what else am I gonna do? You know?
Stuart Schuffman:Like, you know, when when when you devote yourself to a creative life, you know, and and making a living that way, you realize there's peak years and and plateau years. You know? The peak years are years I put out books or at my television show or ran for mayor. Right? And there's plateau years, which are the years after as you're building up the next peak.
Stuart Schuffman:And, hopefully, each plateau is higher than the previous one after each peak, you know? At least that's what I tell myself.
Jennifer Barone:So you have, like, you have broke ass goals. Yeah. And, like, a broke ass vision board.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. I mean, I have so much I wanna do, so much I'm trying do. I'm always doing side projects too, you know?
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. But what's next for you? Like, what's next on behind
Stuart Schuffman:I know. I mean, I'd love to do another television show. That was great. I'm working out. There's there's projects I'm working on that I don't wanna talk about because I don't wanna, like, push myself.
Stuart Schuffman:Sure.
Jennifer Barone:But I you
Jennifer Barone:know keep it underground.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. And I also don't wanna seem like they're selling wolf tickets either. You know? Right. But I mean, you know, past, you know, decade, did a a 2014, 2015, we did a a a live variety show that was kinda like a David Letterman show called the Time to Late Show at Grow Best.
Stuart Schuffman:We're also here in North Beach. It was at Doc's Lab, which no longer exists. And So
Jennifer Barone:it could potentially be political now with people like Jimmy Kimmel getting axed.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. Company's always political and, like, you know, they'd like to say. We had I mean, our our guests were, like, Boots Riley, Carrie Byron from Mythbusters. It's a pretty big guest. It was a great show, but then lost Dean because we never could make any money, and then I ran for mayor, and then I, you know, so so and so.
Stuart Schuffman:But it was great while we're doing it. Maybe we should bring it back. And then 2019, I did a web series called Shaky Ground, which was a kinda like a Portlandia for San Francisco, and then the pandemic happened. That was that. You know?
Stuart Schuffman:I'm really good at making things, and I keep waiting. Something sticks so I can continue to making things and make a little bit more money. I don't need to be greedy. I just wanna make a little bit more money. You know?
Stuart Schuffman:Just enough so
Jennifer Barone:something stressful. Totally, though.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. For fuck's sake. You know? If you're a rich person, can you buy broke ass? Do it for me.
Stuart Schuffman:Give me just a couple million dollars. I'll be cool, man. You know?
Jennifer Barone:Know. Like, I saw an Instagram post that you posted recently, and somebody I I just started dying laughing, but, like, one of your probably friend readers was like, man, you're still broke. Like, time to move out of San Francisco.
Stuart Schuffman:Years ago so 2020 was my fortieth birthday. Uh-huh. And it was the middle of pandemic. And so we did a a roast. Lovely, very funny people came and roasting me online.
Stuart Schuffman:We did it online and the whole thing. And one of the funniest, Nato Green, local comedian, he said he said one of his bits was he goes, I've never seen someone try to sell out so hard and fail so miserably as broke ass stewards. This is very funny.
Jennifer Barone:Well, I now we talked about that you're married now. It's been a few years. Congratulations. But, like, I you know, I've always wanted to ask you and curious, like, how is, like, having the title broke out, Stuart? Like, how did that land with the ladies in San Francisco?
Stuart Schuffman:Well, luckily, I'm locally famous, so it helps. You know? Like, if it was just some rando, like, like, who the fuck is this guy? But, like, literally, I'm sure, like, most women that I met on on, you know, the dating apps and all that stuff, most of them already knew who I was when they reconnected. You know?
Stuart Schuffman:Mhmm. And it's so funny because, you know, date dating has changed a lot. You know? I guess I'm 45. So, like, I met, like, all my all my serious girlfriends before my wife, Kyla, I met them, like, in person.
Stuart Schuffman:Like, I met my first serious girlfriend on the bus, seventy seventy one bus here in San Francisco. Aw. That story is in this book, in chapter about love and lust. Met her on the bus in San Francisco, and then I met two other girlfriends at concerts in Golden Gate Park. And then I met my wife on on Bumble, of all places.
Stuart Schuffman:It's kinda crazy.
Jennifer Barone:Maybe you should remember about, like, broke ass dating tips. Like so, yeah, if somebody had a budget, right, and they came here, they're in their twenties and struggling artists, where would you tell them to, like, go out on a date? Like, take someone out on a date, like, get a nice meal? I mean, it's very expensive
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. I mean
Jennifer Barone:to have a meal there.
Stuart Schuffman:You could just, like, you know, grab a bottle of wine and, could together a little picnic and go to a park.
Jennifer Barone:Oh, that's so
Stuart Schuffman:amazing. Know? Grab a couple bottles of wine and then go on a walk afterwards. You know? Like, that little drunk meander.
Stuart Schuffman:You know?
Jennifer Barone:Do you have, like, a a a, like, recommendation for a restaurant, though? Like, where you feel like you could go to this restaurant, you know, and you'll get a lot for your money?
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. I mean, there's I mean, there's a bunch of Yamo down in admissions grade. I mean, there's only it's like like, you know, two ladies in a walk, you know, like, and, like, it's like maybe seven seats, but it's fantastic. It's been there forever, and it's so cheap. And, I mean, you know, don't get an ambiance, but you're not paying for ambiance anyways.
Stuart Schuffman:You know, you're paying for good cheap food. And then you can go from there and wander up, you know, if that's at Dolores Park or to a to a bar or whatever, you know. There's there's still some some great places that are inexpensive, you know.
Jennifer Barone:And you read a lot about dive bars at Saint City, and you're having your book release party at Killawatt Bar.
Stuart Schuffman:Yes.
Jennifer Barone:What is one of your a Killawatt Bar aside because you're having your book release there. But what is, like, one of your absolute favorite go to dive bars?
Stuart Schuffman:So my mean, I the so many, but I I mean, Specs and Vesuvio are, like you know, I used to call Specs, Vesuvio, and Tosca the the holy trinity of SF dive bars, but Tosca is no longer a dive bar, unfortunately.
Jennifer Barone:They've they've amped to that.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. Now it's, fancy restaurant. I'm I'm glad it still exists, but I do miss when I was a dive barker. It was pretty special. There's a
Jennifer Barone:bullet hole in the back wall. Have you ever noticed that?
Stuart Schuffman:It would not surprise me at all.
Jennifer Barone:I'm like, where what's
Jennifer Barone:the story around that? Well,
Stuart Schuffman:to I find Jeanette and ask her. So she doesn't own it anymore, but Jeanette was a character. True story. Years ago, right before Jeanette sold the place or left and then maybe turned over to the restaurants that is now, I was sitting there. She's she's she's a pistol man with a friend of mine, we're having drinks with her, like, the short end of the bar.
Stuart Schuffman:And this guy walks up to her and says he's like, sorry to interrupt you all, but, you know, know, this is my favorite bar whenever I'm in town. I come here. You know, I'm coming to town from such and so. Thank you for this bar. And she goes, who the fuck am I?
Stuart Schuffman:Can't see him talk to my friends here? Yeah. She was a character. She's around still. Think I haven't seen her in years, though.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. I mean, I Specs, it was super like, you know, I jokingly my wife and I joke that, like, a euphemism, like, oh, I'm going out North Beach means I'm getting fucking hammered. Because, like, there's so many great bars here. It's it's it's still, like, it still feels like a real neighborhood. You know?
Stuart Schuffman:It's small. It's compact. You walk around, see it, but you know I got a lot of friends over here who work bars, they own restaurants or shops, cafes, yada yada. It's it's a great neighborhood and good place to drink.
Jennifer Barone:Mhmm. I'm originally from Brooklyn, New York New York City, and we, of course, like, have so many amazing dive bars there. But one thing that I distinctly felt was different from, coming from New York to San Francisco is the type like, characters. People who are just, like, straight up original characters, whether that be the way they dress, the way they live their life, like really crazy creative people that are just out there completely with everything, people walking around naked.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah.
Jennifer Barone:What is it? And you spent some time living in New York and wrote a book about New York. The difference between those two cities, like, yeah, what do you feel is, like, the core difference?
Stuart Schuffman:New York is the best city in the world, I think. As far as as far as what a city does and how a city functions and should be, there's nothing like New York. I've been in 30 countries. You know? I mean, 30 states.
Stuart Schuffman:There's nothing like New York City. I don't wanna live there anymore. I I prefer here. This is a better place to live, I think. But as a city is, there's nothing like New York.
Stuart Schuffman:I'm going there on book tours soon. I cannot wait. You know, when when I moved back from New York in 02/2008, I I would say it's different now, but I would say New York, it's secret swimming. In San Francisco. It's okay to float.
Stuart Schuffman:Mhmm. But that's not the case anymore because now San Francisco is just expensive as New York. But this was a a different time and a different world, really. But, I mean, just the intensity. New York is full of type a people.
Stuart Schuffman:You know? I'd say Brooklyn runs at Sam San Francisco runs at Brooklyn speed.
Jennifer Barone:Oh, I love Brooklyn. I love Brooklyn.
Stuart Schuffman:My life in New York is in Brooklyn pretty much. But Manhattan is runs at a different speed than than everything else. But Brooklyn runs at the same speed as San Francisco, I think. There's a lot of crossover. Are a lot people with one place, with the other, back and forth.
Stuart Schuffman:But there's characters in New York too. Bloody, you ride this you ride the subway, and you will see the characters. I mean, I one of of the things I miss most about New York is the subway system. They don't know what what the ride is now. Is it $3 now?
Stuart Schuffman:Maybe $2.50 still? You could take all the way from fucking, you know, JFK to to Harlem. You know? Like or
Jennifer Barone:You can get anywhere Anywhere. On public transportation.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah.
Jennifer Barone:Do you feel like that's limited here in San Francisco?
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. I mean, we're we're a peninsula. You know? We're, like, the little nubby end of the peninsula. So San Francisco itself is okay.
Stuart Schuffman:But, like, if wanna you know, if we were a megacity like Toronto or New York or or London where we absorbed the other things around us and the Bay Area was a megacity, we'd be failing at at our transit, you know, because, like, there's so much Nimby bullshit. And, you know, like, if you look at the original bar plans, they wanted to go to Marin. But they're like, fuck. No. We don't want brown and black people in Marin.
Stuart Schuffman:You know? We need a better transit in general. I think most places need better transit.
Jennifer Barone:Think LA is is kind of
Stuart Schuffman:also among those same issues. It's coming along, though. I mean, I used to have to rent a car in LA when I go there. Now I've usually I mean, I don't own a car. I've owned a car since 02/2003.
Stuart Schuffman:Right? I don't have to rent a car now anymore between, like, Uber, Lyft and stuff or the subway buses. If I what I'll do now, oftentimes, I I might take a car down to the subway from my friend's place and then take subway where I gotta go and walk the rest of way in LA. But pretty soon because of the it's either World's Cup or maybe they're getting Olympics from that, they're finally attach connecting the subway in LA to the airport, to LAX, which is it's obscene they haven't done that yet. Yeah.
Stuart Schuffman:Because that they've been working on that for thirty fucking years. But, like, they're finally, you know, doing that, which is a game changer. So LA LA still is terrible for traffic, I mean, and and transit, but it's coming along. But we if you go back and watch who watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the subtext is the killing of the mass transit in LA and making way for cars. And that that literally happened.
Stuart Schuffman:LA in the, like, in, like, the nineteen thirties had some of best mass transit in the world. And then the concrete companies for the streets and the rubber companies and tire companies and automobile companies, they bought up the public transit and they buried it to to create the fucking hellscape that it is driving Los Angeles now.
Jennifer Barone:Mhmm. That happened all over America. You know? But we should we should have I mean, they keep working on this bullet train here in California, which I hope happens. Like, a high speed train between here and LA, like, would be so great.
Jennifer Barone:We're still waiting fifteen years or something.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's who knows? It's funny. There I saw this great meme that I showed the other day.
Stuart Schuffman:It was like it was it showed, like, this, like, map of, like, what a high speed rail network in The United States could look like. And it said, if Tylenol if Tylenol really caused autism, this should be America. And it was just like it was fucking perfect. It made me laugh way harder than it should have. But, yeah, we need better transit.
Jennifer Barone:Well, let's go back to the characters that live in San Francisco. Like, what are some of the most out there original, like, creative characters that you run into then?
Stuart Schuffman:You gotta say Frank Chu, man. The the 12 galaxies guy. It's funny. Actually, in my my second zine, maybe even my my Samsco book, I don't remember. It's a long time ago.
Stuart Schuffman:I had a little insert section where it was like it was a I spy of, like, Samsco characters. I wish I had my when I was with me, but I there was definitely Frank Chu. Mhmm. There's Joseph who dresses up like emperor Norton.
Jennifer Barone:Oh, I'm right.
Stuart Schuffman:Gives tours. Who's the original emperor Norton, for those who don't know, was the original San Francisco weirdo from, like, the eighteen fifties. There's oh, god. There's so many.
Jennifer Barone:He's a historical, like, character.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. Yeah. There's so many weirdos. It's great. I mean, there's Ant Man.
Stuart Schuffman:He not Ant Man, like the cartoon character or or the comic book character, but, like, this guy Ant. He he's, like, a Japanese American guy, I think. Yeah. And then he has, like he wears his hair up in little antlers. Or they or what are those called?
Stuart Schuffman:An antlers. Antenna. And he back in the day, Murrios in North Beach, in Upper Haight, used to be covered in his caricatures before they redid Murrios. The only the only decoration for that shady dive bar, which is amazing, was Christmas lights and then just hundreds of these caricatures through
Jennifer Barone:Mario's cigar bar?
Stuart Schuffman:No. It was Murrios trophy room up in Upper right next to right by Amoeba. Oh. Yeah. This was, when I first moved here, it like, the only bar I could afford to drink because, like, beers were, a dollar.
Stuart Schuffman:I didn't have that. You know, it was, like, 2,002. But yeah. So there's there's plenty of characters, and there's people people I don't even know. There's, like, you know, like, the classic San Francisco stories of, like, six months ago, a year ago, there's a crazy person who was, like, attacking a tourist in Castro, two naked guys jumped in and beat him up.
Jennifer Barone:Wow.
Stuart Schuffman:You know? All they're is all is, like, shoes and a cock sock, you know, like Wow.
Jennifer Barone:Can you imagine just coming across that scene and being a tourist?
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. You're like, like, they're like, everything said about this sound is true.
Jennifer Barone:Exactly. My gosh.
Stuart Schuffman:All it does, it just has to happen in Union Square and Fox News will be all over it.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. Well, some people have either, like, grown up in San Francisco or lived here for many years, but tend to feel disillusioned, like, with changes that the city goes through and the tech blooms and the crashes and all that. But after all these years living here and writing about San Francisco, do you still love San Francisco deeply in your heart, or does it break your heart sometimes or both?
Stuart Schuffman:Yes. And all the above. You know, this book's broken up into chapters, San Francisco, bars, love, death, but different different things.
Jennifer Barone:What is the death part about?
Stuart Schuffman:People die. You know? Really? I I unfortunately have this very strange skill of being able to write a fucking damn good eulogy. So I'm I'm very blessed and luckily I haven't had to write too many, so it's the shortest chapter in here.
Jennifer Barone:Have you had since all of your eulogies?
Stuart Schuffman:Mostly just by written out, not not in person. Not not Although, I'm trying to think. When my friend Angie died, and I wrote about her and she's in this book, I I think I might have read it at her at her, like, gathering at which was at Slims. That's what existed. She she worked at Slims when she died.
Stuart Schuffman:I think her mom asked me to read it. You know? I don't remember. It's a while back now. 2016, 2017.
Jennifer Barone:Do you also write poetry?
Stuart Schuffman:I do. There's probably poems in every chapter.
Jennifer Barone:Right?
Jennifer Barone:Yeah.
Jennifer Barone:What would you I mean, what is your go to art form for, let's say, when you are tapping into the emotional?
Stuart Schuffman:Probably poetry. Yeah.
Jennifer Barone:Is it where do you read it? Like, because there's so many great, like, open lakes or venues for poetry.
Stuart Schuffman:Or It's been a while since I've really done it. You know? That that I've read at the Leonard Cohen Festival because I got some stuff, you know, obviously, it's probably Leonard Cohen. There's times where I got to come up at sixteenth and Michigan at Bart, and they happen to be like, oh, it's the Oh, yeah. It's the poetry thing.
Stuart Schuffman:So I'll, you know, read to me there. Yeah. I can read something real quick here in the book.
Jennifer Barone:That'd be wonderful.
Stuart Schuffman:Let's Let's see. I gotta find it. Yeah. One thing we I forgot to put in here, we forgot to put in here was a table of contents. So Oh.
Stuart Schuffman:It's a it's it's a hunt and peck, peck and find.
Jennifer Barone:Also, some of the friends of Sixteenth corner of sixteenth and Mission have also started this Coit Tower poetry club. Are you familiar with that? So
Stuart Schuffman:That sounds like a lot of walking.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. We had a hike.
Jennifer Barone:There's a hike, that is added into this poetry reading, but it's, first Fridays. Usually, after all the other readings have, finished, everybody goes up to the top Coit Tower and reads up there.
Stuart Schuffman:That's great.
Jennifer Barone:It's awesome. Yeah.
Stuart Schuffman:Yeah. I it's a lot of hiking. I don't know about
Jennifer Barone:that. It's a lot of hiking.
Stuart Schuffman:Yes. It's lot of hiking. It sounds fun, though. Alright. I if you give me a second, I will find something to read.
Stuart Schuffman:Okay. Here's one.
Jennifer Barone:Okay.
Stuart Schuffman:Alright. This one, it was PVC unpublished.
Jennifer Barone:I
Stuart Schuffman:wrote this about my wife.
Jennifer Barone:Oh, see.
Stuart Schuffman:I wrote this this year maybe. Maybe end of last year. I've actually haven't read it out loud so I stumble. It's beautiful sharing your life with someone. It's so beautiful sharing your life with someone.
Stuart Schuffman:The the little the little morning murmurs when they stir next to you, still sleeping but smiling, when you lightly kiss them before patting off to begin your daily routine. You share a secret language, often conversing with just looks and smirks or nonsensical noises and strangely uttered phrases that form the patois of your island of two. Sometimes you look over while they are captivated by a project and their toes twinkle asynchronously to Eirikh Badu's danger. And somehow, impossibly, your love grows deeper as you witness them so fully. When you share your life with someone, the best holiday can be a Sunday with nothing to do, interweaving your legs with theirs while watching pirated movies in bed all day, arm tickles, making them tea.
Stuart Schuffman:That feeling of coming home to your person, whether you've been gone for a few hours or weeks, is the finest kind of addiction since it's the only one that makes you feel complete. Not that you're incomplete without them, but rather the joy of being a we is when two glittering beings can join, not to fill each other's missing pieces, but to create a grander whole. The end. Beautiful. Thank you.
Jennifer Barone:I mean, part of me is feeling like after our discussion, like, something about this philosophy, right, and what I gleaned from that home of really being present for the little things and the things that are just happening kind of in the moment. But there's something maybe philosophically about being an artist being broke.
Jennifer Barone:Right. Being
Jennifer Barone:here that there's an immediacy of a presence and that people might be more important than things. How are you feeling? What's the one last piece of wisdom that you would kind of impart to people to be awake for, to be present for while being here in San Francisco?
Stuart Schuffman:Life's not about what you own. It's about what you do. You know? The things you do and how you live,
Jennifer Barone:you know, and and that
Stuart Schuffman:that how you make people feel.
Jennifer Barone:Mhmm. How do you make people feel, Broke-Ass Stuart?
Stuart Schuffman:I think pretty good. I think so. I hope so.
Jennifer Barone:Thank you so much for being here sharing your book.
Stuart Schuffman:I got a release party coming up
Jennifer Barone:Yes.
Stuart Schuffman:On October 17 at Kilowatt Bar and the Mission. There'll be drag, burlesque, live music, circus performance, and readings, and fucking rock and roll. It's gonna be so much fun. Please come out. Tickets will sell out, so so get them now on the kilowattbar.com website.
Jennifer Barone:Yes. And for listeners who want to learn more about Stuart Shiffman, aka Brokeass Stuart, and his work, you can visit brokeassstewart.com and go out and buy his forthcoming book. It's out now. The worst of Brokeass Stuart, twenty years of love, death, and divorce. Come down to Telegraph Hill Books and your local independent bookstores and demand it now.
Jennifer Barone:Thank you so much for
Stuart Schuffman:giving me the show.
Jennifer Barone:Thank you.
Jennifer Barone:This podcast is brought to you by Telegraph Hill Arts and Literature. If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow, subscribe, and leave us a review. Visit TelHiLit.org to find out about our local events such as author talks, writing workshops, and more. Consider making a donation to support our public programs. If you are a Bay Area author interested in being on show, we'd love to hear from you.
Jennifer Barone:Reach out to us at submissions@telhilit.org. Thanks again for tuning in. I'm Jennifer Barone along with Joseph Carbone at Telegraph Hill Arts and Literature. And this has been Voices from the Hill. Until next time, keep reading, keep writing, stay inspired, and come visit us at Telegraph Hill Books in North Beach, San Francisco.