The Margin Call crew attempts to solve the mystery of a blood-soaked mattress found on a street in Oakland, which leads to a discussion about homeless encampments, real estate, gentrification, and mayoral politics. This may well be the first in a series about displacement in the San Francisco Bay Area, so stay tuned.
Russell Morse: 00:10 Greetings all and welcome to Margin Call podcast and editorial meeting for Kwest On Media. I’m your host Russell Morse. I want to go ahead and introduce everybody. We have an open editorial meeting tonight, but before I do that, I just want to let everybody know tonight’s show, was supposed to feature Sheerly Avni, our old friend Shirley Avni. I saw her last night, as you all know, she’s living in Mexico City. We wanted to have her on because she was with the migrant caravan in Mexico City. They stopped off and she had all kinds of fascinating insights as, as only Sheerly can report. And I saw her last night. We went to a party, you know, she was talking for seven hours straight and I should have stopped her from talking because about an hour before the show tonight, she sent me a message. She was like, I can’t, I can’t talk, I can’t make a sound with my voice.
Russell Morse: 01:07 I ruined my voice last night, whatever. We were at a party. So she had to elevate her tones in order to be heard. Apparently, her voice has been eroded. So we’ll have Sheerly on another time. I definitely want to give her a chance to share those stories, but I wanted to let you guys know. We were hoping that Sheerly would be here. I hope no one’s too disappointed. She’s an old friend of the show, obviously and a friend of all of ours, but it gives us an opportunity to have our full open editorial meeting. I want to welcome everybody. Ann It’s so nice to see you. Welcome, welcome. And everyone, please feel free to go ahead and you can unmute yourselves now. Welcome. And Charlie is here. Welcome Charlie. And Silvano who you’ve been on the show before, but you’ve been on the show as an international guest calling in from Germany, but now you’re back in the Bay Area.
Silvano Pontoniere : 01:58 I’m back in the bay area, briefly
Russell Morse: 02:01 Somewhat less exciting than Germany.
Silvano Pontoniere: 02:04 Whatever dude.
Russell Morse: 02:05 But it’s still, it’s still a pleasure to have you. And of course behind the curtain, Eming, keeping us all on task. So welcome everyone. We agreed that we would start with Charlie with a story that sadly sells itself. I have my own thoughts and theories about this, but I don’t know very much about your insights, the Charles, but this is a story that started with a photograph of a homeless encampment and involves a bloody mattress. Is that, is that correct? Charlie, you want to tell me how you came to this and what the significance of this event is here?
Charlie Jones: 02:44 Well, basically I was on my way home from therapy. I was taking my normal route home and, uh, as I’m walking under an underpass there’s a continuous, a homeless encampment. They come in and cleaned it up and shut it down. They restart it, cyclical.
Russell Morse: 03:12 This is an Oakland.
Charlie Jones: 03:13 Yeah. And I’m walking. I’m walking under this underpass and there’s this huge fucking, like queen size mattress, halfway between the street and the sidewalk and it is bloody as all fuck. And the flood is like not dry is still new is you can kind of see it congealing on the mattress. The mattress was the, at the very least physically traumatic happened on that mattress.
Russell Morse: 03:52 So you took a photograph. That’s how I heard about this is that you took a photo.
Charlie Jones: 03:58 So, what was interesting to me is that the homeless encampment has been cleaned out. Everybody was gone. Everything was gone except for this mattress and speak into a young lady. Uh, the mattress had been there three days by the time I walked up on it. So as the third day, so a, for it to be that bloody was, you know, just a really jarring sight, be the fact that I learned later that it was there for three days and that the blood hadn’t dried yet. Letting me know exactly like how much blood was lost in that particular incident.
Eming Piansay: 04:44 Three days? I don’t believe that…
Charlie Jones: 04:49 I have no reason to disbelieve her because like I said, she lives on the block and she walks under that underpass daily.
Russell Morse: 05:00 Whether it’s been one day or three days….
Charlie Jones: 05:21 You could see the mattress was folded in toward the middle. Like you, you could see that somebody had been kind of wrapped in that mattress.
Russell Morse: 05:30 Okay. All right. Hold on. Here’s, here’s what I’m going to come in. I didn’t see it. I only started photograph, right. Talk to anybody else. But I, I put some thought into this, right? I didn’t just glance, but I have, I have a counter narrative. I just know how much that head wounds can bleed, right? Like, that’s a lot of blood, but it’s also shocking. I’m sure lots of people here have their own and their own experiences with blood. When you can have a tiny cut on your head that will bleed out so far that it will look like a murder scene. Right. And I, although whoever left that blood on that mattress, let’s say somebody had a head wound, you know, maybe someone wasn’t taking care of themselves. Then maybe somebody drank a lot and fell asleep. Then this is, I’m speaking from experience here. You can pass out with a head wound and bleed on a mattress. I think there are a lot of different explanations for a blood soaked mattress that maybe don’t involve necessarily an assault or a crime or one person hurting another person.
Charlie Jones: 06:39 As somebody who personally knows, people who have had babies on mattresses. I’m perfectly aware of all of the different ways that blood could have ended up on that mattress, but it was two things that really stuck out to me that made me feel as though it might’ve been like evidence. You know what I’m saying? One was the, it’s kind of a point of impact, like a splatter spot and then, you know, everything else was just soaked. And then two. There was…
Russell Morse: 07:20 What did lose Charlie? He was getting too close to the truth. FBI kicked in the door. I think there’s a greater, how about this: crime or no crime? There is a greater social relevance here, which is one what happened to this homeless, right? Like why was this a place that was safe for people to stay for a certain amount of time and then it’s not safe for people to stay there for a certain amount of time. Two: let’s say there is no crime. It’s just a bloody mattress laying in the street. That’s not healthy. What is the priority? Uh, you know, for community safety and community health to take care of something like that. Certainly, Charlie’s not the only person who noticed a bloody mattress laying in the street in a community where people live. I can see what’s happening here and this is a potentially… And
Charlie Jones: 08:26 Anyway, it was, there was a hand print.
Silvano Pontoniere : 08:33 Maybe it was just some like really nasty people having sex
Russell Morse: 08:35 Naw, I don’tk now man. That’s a theory. I don’t want it to shoot it down. There are just so many explanations that I think it’s foolish for us to say like it was bloody sex. It was murder.
Silvano Pontoniere : 08:53 I remember, I remember one time my dad had a nose bleed and he straight up soaked two towels. He went to emergency room for it, but like a nose bleed an insane amount, you know.
Russell Morse: 09:13 Somebody has a bloody nose passes out. I got your blood splatters, right? Sneezes…
Eming Piansay: 09:20 What is this Kwest On CSI all of a sudden?
Charlie Jones: 09:20 There was splatter on one section, and a huge area where blood had soaked in with a space in the middle where it was less soaked where the body would have been land, but there was also a handprint situated, on the opposite in other mattress and facing in a way that the person laying there wouldn’t have been able to do.
Russell Morse: 09:51 Charlie, I just want to point out here that you’re already using words like: the body.
Charlie Jones: 09:59 Hold on first and foremost, whether or not it got up and walked away or it was taken to a hospital… There is also a hand print situated in a way that the person laying in that space couldn’t have done it. And there’s a heavy, heavy crease in the mattress going straight down that makes it looks like the mattress was completely folded over and there’s no blood anywhere else around this mattress.
Silvano Pontoniere : 10:41 I don’t understand this part. Why, what’s the folding of the mattress?
Russell Morse: 10:46 Charlie thinks they are disposing of the body with the mattress…
Silvano Pontoniere : 11:05 I just, I dunno, it doesn’t just, it’s not, it’s not clicking for me, you know?
Russell Morse: 11:10 Yeah. But that’s why it’s the, it’s the question that keeps on giving because there is no easy answer. My question, Charlie, and I’ll repeat it because it might’ve been while we lost you for a second crime or no crime, murder or murder, uh, what is the larger social relevance here? Right? Like, what is..
Charlie Jones: 11:33 The larger relevant, at least to me, is that I was asked by several people to submit the photo to different local news outlets. Right? I decided not to because it was the day before the election…
Russell Morse: 11:48 Somebody would have found a way to blame the immigrant caravan for a bloody mattressin the street or something like that, but able to eploit this bizare, unexplained event in a way that could have changed public opinion, that’s fair.
Charlie Jones: 12:04 There would have been people who were willing to exploit it. There would have been people who would have just been jarred by the site and by that, by extension, you know, uh, all homeless encampments are bad.
Russell Morse: 12:15 That’s good. Right, right, right.
Charlie Jones: 12:19 So in my mind. This was just something for me and my friends and followers on the Gram, Facebook and shit to kinda look at it and think about.
Russell Morse: 12:30 Like basically like the first 20 minutes of Boys N The Hood when he says you want to see a dead body, say hey guys, check it out. And they’re like, okay, cool. You know? And then they, they get arrested for stealing candy.
Silvano Pontoniere : 12:46 I got a question though. So you’re saying everybody was prompting you to give it to the news. What? Why the fuck the news bro? Like why not the cop? Like what?
Charlie Jones: 12:57 There were a couple of people, there were a couple people who said, you know, police, but anybody who really knows me knows…
Ann Bassette: 13:09 Your story, that’s so deep. That picture stuck out. It was fresh. It was something nobody else has it. Nobody else is going to post. But we want to see it, right? So my question what are the homeless encampment antics? Like what, what, what, what are the things that they kind of like beef over?
Russell Morse: 13:39 Another important point. Similar to what Charlie’s saying is like, is this isolated item gonna lead people to draw unfair and undo conclusions about a homeless camp, right? Like would this even if nothing else happens
Charlie Jones: 13:58 Because the gainfully employeed motherfucker could have dropped that mattress off in that spot.
Russell Morse: 14:15 Even me, I was like, Oh yeah, if you’re drunk with a cut on your hand, you pass out. Right. How, what does that say about my own assumptions about people who might live in a homeless encampment?
Charlie Jones: 14:23 I have the benefit of experience in this case. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a body or evidence of a body that’s been dumped.
Charlie Jones: 14:39 I partially grew up in East Oakland I’m from the, what I jokingly call the-want-to-see-a-dead-body-days when I referred to my childhood, to my children when you referenced the Boys N the Hood. That was, that was an experience I had quite a few times.
Russell Morse: 15:02 That’s something that we associate with 30 years gone. Right. Murder rates that just don’t exist anymore. Right. This is an aberration now, right?
Charlie Jones: 15:18 This is an abberation now, right. Not so much because I want to say the night before Thanksgiving, two or three years ago, I can’t remember, three years ago, I didn’t go to a sunrise ceremony. So it was two years ago. I was driving on 5-80 with some friends on the way to our hotel before the sunrise ceremony the next morning. And there was a full, you know, there was a body wrapped bloody body wrapped in a sheet on the side of the highway. And when I saw it, you know, I pointed it out to the other people the car.
Russell Morse: 15:57 Not to say that there aren’t the bodies in the world, you know. This is, could be many possibilities. Here’s my, here’s my conclusion and here’s why this is, you know, could potential future interest for us here as a group. Could this be our Serial moment? Could this be that causes us to build a multi episode podcast trying to solve…
Charlie Jones: 16:51 I’m looking forward to getting some kind of answers. I have some neighbors who have actually started to put in some real queries.
Silvano Pontoniere : 17:01 What happend to the mattress?
Charlie Jones: 17:02 The people in the full body suits came and got it.
Silvano Pontoniere : 17:17 How quickly, how long did it take them to get it out there to pick it up? And who called them? Did you, did you call it? What was the…
Charlie Jones: 17:24 Oh no, no, no. I posted the photo to Facebook and several of you know, upstanding community members did what they do, they do got an action.
Silvano Pontoniere : 17:37 You mean you posted it and then how long after you posted it did these, these people in the Hazmat suits come out?
Charlie Jones: 17:45 Next day.
Silvano Pontoniere : 17:45 Okay.
Ann Bassette: 17:49 That’s a long time.
Russell Morse: 18:13 There a lot of avenues here to explore what is. We just have to talk about the existence of this compless emcapment, if this is part of your walk home, Charles and you can talk about whatever observations they are and then we can also talk about the rise. Like as crazy as I think San Francisco in the Bay Area was and Charlie and I are roughly the same age when we were kids, right. There was a lot of violence, there was a lot of poverty. There certainly weren’t homeless encampments the way that there are now, like that isn’t a development and offshoot, a consequence of a change in real estate. Like in the eighties, maybe it was maybe it was like Gang Land and like the height of the crack epidemic, but at least people had a place to live or crash or whatever. So this homeless encampment is the new iteration. It’s an interesting story on its own. I mean I didn’t really, I didn’t hear that…
Charlie Jones: 19:02 You would see maybe one or two people would have a setup under an overpass or something somewhere…
Russell Morse: 19:10 Where there’s no shortage of homeless people. But the idea of like encampments…
Charlie Jones: 19:14 I think. I think another huge difference. Is it because San Francisco used to be known as sort of like a hub for the traveling homeless. Yeah. But this is like these homeless people in these tents are San Franciscans.
Russell Morse: 19:33 So there are people who are from there, the people who have, you know, a life of vagrancy that may have brought them to San Francisco. That’s what you’re saying.
Silvano Pontoniere : 19:42 They’re not vagrant. They’re like real fucking homeless.
Charlie Jones: 19:47 Yeah. I recently I reconnected via Facebook with a close family friend that I hadn’t spoken to in many years. And my cousin, I found out, um, that he died. He was basically killed. He was burned in a homeless camp, in San Francisco.
Russell Morse: 20:21 This is incredibly vulnerable population perhaps the most vulnerable population. Really high concentration of people with mental illness. Really high concentration of people with substance abuse histories. Obviously poor people, really no recourse if something were to happen to them. It’s not so crazy to think that a crime could be committed that the police are interested in investigating because these are not…
Charlie Jones: 20:46 That’s exactly what happened with my cousin. He was basically murdered by somebody who burned them alive. And the police is like, oh, just accidental fire and the homes are there.
Russell Morse: 21:01 I was a little bit, I was surprised, not surprised to learn, but I’ve associated these cameras with San Francisco. But Charlie, you’re saying this is an oakland. There are other concentrations, other homeless encampments like this throughout the Bay Area in cities outside of San Francisco proper
Silvano Pontoniere : 21:25 Oakland’s got some bad ass camps. Like, like San Francisco has got little encampments all over, but Oakland has some fucking big ones.
Charlie Jones: 21:32 There’s one in East Oakland where people are literally living in a sink wholel.
Russell Morse: 21:42 What’s the population here? How many tents? How many people is it 10, 10, 20 people? What are, what are we talking about?
Charlie Jones: 21:48 Well, when you get to certain situations. Okay, so there are Oakland, like city sanctioned, a homeless encampments all.
Russell Morse: 21:59 Hold on, let me ask Ann. Let me ask you really quickly, I know you’re in Vallejo. Is this as far out as Vallejo, do you, what’s the homeless population like where, where you’re living?
Ann Bassette: 22:10 I’ll say two things. So today I go to Walmart, we have like a neighborhood Walmart which is like a grocery store and there’s all this like vagrants and odd people like in front of the store. Crazy people dancing in the parking lot. So they’re obviously like loaded and then there are there’s a constant, how you say it, like RVs parked in the lot, so you’re like, this place is weird. And then you have people inside who are, you know, dumping the change within the slots, the Coinstar type things, which is fine, but all of a sudden gives you this kind of like indication like this is this Walmart for some reason is attracting a different kind of crowd. And what happens is I guess in Vallejo this one’s off of Sonoma and like as Serran there’s a bus stop. But like we don’t have a lot of bus stops here just yet. There’s a system and but a bus that means something. And then the other thing was there are two hospitals close by and so, and then like I think there’s also a facility like maybe a shelter or something like that. And so you’re like, oh, it’s interesting to see that this is something that’s only attracted to this kind of portion of Vallejo.
Russell Morse: 23:33 How long have you been living there now?
Ann Bassette: 23:38 I don’t know, maybe four years now.
Russell Morse: 23:44 Has there been a chang? Is this a new development that there’s a rise in the homeless population there? Or is it kind of always been there?
Ann Bassette: 23:51 Sure. So this part I think is like a steady spot and I think there’s an influx. And then what I learned when I was taking Carpool and they were saying how they are actually giving tickets to people to, uh, from the city or in those areas and shifting them to Vallejo and Fairfield . You only heard this as a rumor, but to hear that as kind of like a fact..
Russell Morse: 24:22 rrally quickly. You’re saying their RV’s that are parked in the parking lot at Walmart. Isn’t that a common occurance at Walmart anyway? Since a lot of them are open late.
Ann Bassette: 24:35 There are two different kinds of RV parker’s right. So what I’ve learned was in San Mateo people are parking along, um, San Mateo all the way to Palo Alto. The parking along El Camino there, they own a home in Stockton, but they’re, they don’t want to commute two hours there and two hours back. So they’re living in their RV like those three, whatever, four to five days a week and then, and then going back home to their home that they own one.
Russell Morse: 25:06 This is one person that you’re talking about or are there several people?
Ann Bassette: 25:09 No! You can find them along like El Camino because that’s like a strip and there’s certain regulations where you can move. All you need to do is move the parking spot…
Russell Morse: 25:18 And these are people who are employed and people who have a home. But they just don’t live close enough to their jobs that it makes sense for them to commute everyday. And this is the solution to that.
Ann Bassette: 25:31 That’s bananas, right? Yes. That’s one. The other one is like they come from Stockton and then they park wherever they can so that they’re not sitting in that crazy traffic or doing that crazy long commute. The RVs in Vallejo those aren’t those kinds of commuters. You know what I mean? Those are the bashed out windows. Let’s put a garbage bag over it and then like, I don’t know, it’s different. It’s definitely, you
Russell Morse: 26:03 You mentioned Walmart and I don’t think this was actually a Walmart retail or it might’ve been Target. Um, but this is something that I saw, I don’t know, maybe a year ago that tents had to be locked up in certain, like certain retailers decided to lock up tents because they were such a high value item that they were being stolen and I thought it would at least in San Francisco and in the Bay Area. And I thought, well that’s really pretty profound. That’s indicative. It’s like you can’t afford to rent something anywhere in the bay area. It’s like, okay, fine. Then I’ll live in a homeless camp. It’s like I can’t afford the tent, you know, it’s like a certain level of desperation. And I think the association with the, with the loc,k was like, wow, that, that they were, I guess that there’s some, there’s in the nefarious aspect, right?
Russell Morse: 26:52 It’s like, instead of acknowledging this problem and saying like, people are so desperate for a place to live that they’re stealing tent from Target, uh, it’s like, no, we need to lock them up. Not that tents should necessarily be free, but I just thought that was like a very loaded development. There was a lot in there to unpack, right? Like that people are so desperate for a place to live that they were stealing tents from Target and in huge numbers. One, one final point just to kind of put things in perspective because this does relate to our, our primordial ooze at New America Media as soon after the economic decline, which is now exactly 10 years ago, right? 2008, Sandy, read something about a tent cities that were going up in Atlanta or like outside Atlanta and Georgia. Right? And she was saying, you know, her theory at the time.
Russell Morse: 27:47 And again, famously, you know, write the headline first and then go report to so that it matches the headline, you know, in her mind she said, okay, this is the direct result of this economic decline. Now it’s the Grapes of Wrath and people are living in tent cities on the side of the road. And I was dispatched “Russell go to Athens, Georgia to find this tent city interview people while you’re there. “Uh, I went, I went to Athens, Georgia. I went to the tent city. I wrote a story about it. But what I found was, you know, the same vulnerable group of people that we might find in some of the tent cities in San Francisco, people with mental illness, people with substance abuse who didn’t. There was no way for society to incorporate them. They’ve kind of been pushed further and further out. And they actually did live in the woods. in their own tent and camp. It became its own story. But what’s interesting to me is that that tent city hoax was a hoax that was reported by CNN at the time because it fit in with our fears. Right. Oh, you know, the economy fell apart, everyone’s going to be homeless now. People are living in tents cities, but the reality is now the economy is quite healthy, right? Full recovery and then some, right. Uh, and there’s, there’s evidence of that all over San Francisco and everywhere else, you know, unemployment is at an all time low and yet now is when the tent city emerges, right? The tent cities and it can’t mince, don’t emerge as a consequence of some kind of, you know, catastrophic economic event. They emerge out of capitalistic success. Like this is all the measurable, every measurable factor including the employment rate, a GDP, all of that ends up.
Russell Morse: 29:36 Everything’s up, but we have so many more people who aren’t sheltered. Right. That’s, that’s interesting to me, right? It, it flies in the face of everything else. I know it has a lot to do with displacement and gentrification even though that’s a really loaded term that would take forever to unpack or, and the desirability of cities versus communities where people wanted to live. But that’s, that’s a, that’s a change and it’s something worth exploring. I don’t know if one of us wants to take a crack at writing it, but it’s an idea that should be in the air that we should be thinking about. Why is it that there are more unhoused people when the economy is booming, you know? Uh, and part of it could be any, you know, what Charles was talking about make there’s a lot of evidence of that in New York City, a lot of homeless homelessness in New York City.
Russell Morse: 30:21 Tons and tons of new development, but a lot of the units that are sold are uninhabited because they’re, um, you know, bought by foreign investors and just used as capital or a place to store money and they don’t actually have someone living in. So there are a lot of different factors here. Again, plenty of room for our serialized podcast. Should we get that off the ground and I know Eming really really wants to edit it, so I’m just going to pitch it and we’ll keep you posted. Before we call it a night, the bloody of mattress went places I couldn’t dream of. First of all, I thought it was going to be a five minute conversation where Charlie’s like somebody got murdered on that mattress and I’m like, you, don’t know it could have had a bloody nose. And then that was the end of it and instead, it turned into really an enlightening conversation about so many of the social issues that we’re trying to unpack here on the show. Uh, so I want to see if there are any burning desires. Is anybody have stories before we get out of here? Anything they want to pitch.
Eming Piansay: 31:22 Ann has one. I got receipts! I know you have a story!
Russell Morse: 31:24 That was the voice, the voice of God jumped in. Yes, Eming is God in this….
Ann Bassette: 31:36 So I’m inspired to write a piece for your technocracy portion. But I’m not like into In bitcoin or whatever, things like that. I guess what I am working on. I have this super amazing young baker. He’s like 27 who opened up a shop here in Vallejo and he is dope. His family is included. He makes really pretty cakes. They are super duper classy and an inspiration to like entrepreneurs the growth of Vallejo and other like pastry chefs. I think it’s a field and I think people are really excited about it and I’m really excited to be documenting him. So I’m doing that right now.
Russell Morse: 32:37 What are you doing? Are you filming? Are you, do you want to write a profile? How do you, how do you want it to look? What kind of story is it?
Ann Bassette: 32:42 Sure, sure. It is something I’ve already started and we started filming, uh, like what his shop looks like. We’re inside but with the family were with like that, that what the fuck does this look like to run like a family run bakery? Right. I think when you think of it, it’s like, you know, like chef Ramsey, like a kitchen nightmares, you know, but it’s not scary like that. I’m, like I said, it’s clean, it’s fresh, it’s modern, but like it’s in what’s really happening. Like I do photo video stuff and I’m always at weddings and things like that and like people are ordering these cakes and they’re paying the price for it. It’s dealt that, this guy, he’s been doing it for 10 years. His family was all into it, but now it’s like there’s a storefront and people are walking and he’s been open for like four months.
Russell Morse: 33:37 So yeah. So I’m excited to like talk to him to see who he is, what it’s about. But it’s genuine. It’s family, it’s very Vallejo. Do you commute by ferry? Do you take the ferry from the city out.?
Russell Morse: 34:10 Annie B being in Vallejo. Well, I have to take the ferry to San Francisco, which means um, I want to drive. That’s about an hour and a half to two hours sitting in traffic unless at Carpool. Um, but if I take the ferry, it’s now like $13 each way. There’s no like pass because you like took it in the morning and now they’re like upping up the price for parking. So it’s a trip Vallejo hell knows that there is an influx of San Francisco people coming this way. So yeah, the commute’s nice, you’ve got a nice ferry boat. Um, you have like a table if you want to like type or whatever.
Russell Morse: 34:52 I always thought that would be a nice way to commute.
Charlie Jones: 34:57 Is there any San Franciscan resentment out there that you’re seeing?
Ann Bassette: 35:01 Yes. The beautiful part of Vallejo whoa is that um, everyone who has been here is still here like, and they’re like hella community, hella about like family and like your cousin and they know your mom and you know, things like that. Like they’re invested in their community. And so that’s why that’s why you don’t see like a Starbucks down at the theory. Right. We have something a little bit more local. That’s why you see like some jewelry right there, you know, everything is there. I mean, I think they want to make money. They don’t need to have a mall here.
Russell Morse: 35:58 How’s your trip going, Silvano? How does it feel to be back home after being in Germany? How long has it been since you were back there? Are you already over it and you want to.
Silvano Pontoniere : 36:08 I’m trying to go back. I was a little bit anxious and shit, you know, coming home is always, always causes a little bit of anxiety. There are all these expectations and feel, feel expectations yourself too. Like you gotta like represent who you are and what you’ve done with yourself in the last year and blah blah blah. And now I’m a and now I’m just kinda like, yeah, I’m over it dude. And I’m ready to go back. I’m going to, I’m going to buy a ticket. I’ll probably go back and like a week and a half. I was supposed to go back on December sixth, but I can’t. I can’t stay that long man. I mean it’s nice to be home. It’s nice to see the fam . But Dude, San Francisco’s has gone a whole other direction, man, and it’s not like it’s not coming in here. It’s just not the same dude. I don’t, I don’t feel at home, you know, and I don’t got, I don’t got, I don’t got money or time to go out and party. I don’t got friends to connect. Like it just doesn’t feel right. Like it’s cool. It’s cool to stay with my friends, see my family, but I’m not, I’m not trying to be here dude.
Ann Bassette: 37:11 That’s dope. That’s a deep ass story. That’s that chapter to to Charlie’s story.
Russell Morse: 37:18 What I’m looking at now we just look at these faces If you look at if you look at who’s here: Ann, Charlie, Eming, Silvano and myself, right when we met, let’s say, Oh, you know, whatever fifteen years ago we all lived in San Francisco, right? All of us. One way or another. I don’t know, some of us live in families. You know, I had a little apartment and now none of us live in San Francisco. Eming is in Richmond. Ann’s in Vallejo. Charlie’s in Oakland, Silvano is in damn Germany, and I’m in New York. There are a lot of, uh, economic forces that led us to leave San Francisco and a lot of cultural forces that led us to San Francisco.
Russell Morse: 38:21 That is its own, a whole podcast series. The expatriates, you know, the San Franciscans, like the, where are we now and how did we get and how do we feel about this place that we loved and we were so strongly connected to for a time.
Charlie Jones: 38:40 Willie Brown finally got the San Francisco he envisioned.
Silvano Pontoniere : 38:44 That’s real. That’s actually a really good. You’re right. That’s a really good idea, Russell. That’s an excellent idea.
Russell Morse: 38:51 I think that might be the takeaway for the day because there is another story and I’m not going to pitch it right now, but there’s a story that I’m realizing and can help out with. And I’ve talked to you about this Charlie, about ex-San Franciscans, former San Franciscans, or even further out than than you guys who are still in like really out there like Hercules and places like that.
Russell Morse: 39:25 I liked this, I like this. I’m in. This is a good idea to follow this thread. We’ve been waiting for this nugget to emerge. I’m gonna thank everybody for being here. Ann, Charlie, Silvano thanks for calling in. Thanks as always to Eming. This was a great converation.
Eming Piansay: 39:40 Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
Ann Bassette: 39:42 Aw, happy Thanksgiving!
Silvano Pontoniere : 39:42 Happy Thanksgiving folks!
Russell Morse: 39:42 Happy Thanksgiving and until next time, Kwest On.
Eming Piansay: 39:47 This episode of Kwest On media is margin call was produced in Richmond, California.
