Interview: Cheshire

Name: Cheshire Dave

Age and Occupation: 34, Art Director

How long have you lived in the Bay Area and Where
When I was 18, I moved up here from Los Angeles to go to Berkeley. When
I graduated, I moved to Emeryville, where I've been in the same house
for the past 12 years because I have the coolest landlord ever, and my
fiancee and I have painted the shit out of the house, so until I can
afford to buy a better one, I'm stayin'. I'm proud to say I can
remember when E-ville didn't even have the Trader Joe's, let alone the
IKEA or the mall they built on top of the sacred Ohlone burial ground.
The east bay is where it's at; I've never lived in SF and have
absolutely no plans to do so. Not that the City isn't nice or anything,
but the days when I don't park in my driveway, I find a spot right in
front of my house.

Favorite website:
Typophile and Typographica, havens for font
geeks like me.

Favorite local business:
Impact Theatre. You've never
lived until you've seen awesome live theatre in the basement of a pizza
parlor, with a beer in one hand and a slice in the other. I may be
biased, since I do all the posters and shit for the company, but it
rocks.

What I’m currently Reading:
Submissions for the aforementioned theater company's program of short
plays that will round out our 04-05 season. Let's just say that all
playwrights are not created equal. But I did read a couple of very good
ones, so I'm fairly certain the show will be fantastic.

SF has the BEST:
Chocolate croissant, at Stella in North Beach. And though I don't eat
beef anymore, SF still has the best burger, at Mo's in North Beach and
Yerba Buena.

You’ve never lived in SF until:
You've had a map of your neighborhood on your fridge, with a magnet on
it to indicate where you last parked your car. Extra points for
notation of which days are street cleaning for each street.

Favorite Bay area politician of past or present:
Barbara Lee speaks for me. Literally.

Best solicitation from a pan handler:
I always appreciated the woman who used to be by the Spear Street BART
entrance back when I worked down there (she may still be there; I
haven't been there in a while). She always dressed up, makeup, the
whole bit. I say, if you're going to treat panhandling like a full-time
job, might as well dress for success.

You can tell someone is local here IF:
They refer to MUNI trains and buses by the number and the name.
For crap's sake, there's no such thing as a 38 bus that's not named
Geary, but everyone still has to say "the 38 Geary." Same with the
trains: no such thing as an N train that isn't the Judah train, but
damn if they don't say they're taking "the N Judah." And then they get
snippy if you say you're going to drive on "the 101." "It's just 101,
not THE 101!" they whine. That instantly pegs you as having grown up in
Southern California. Which totally pisses off the Giants fans,
'cause they instantly suspect that you're a Dodgers fan, and we can't
be having that.

SF would be soooo much better if only:
Restaurants like Boulevard had a free day once a month, you know, like
the museums.

Best Burrito in the City:
Sorry, the best burrito is in Berkeley, at Cancun (not connected to the
SF Cancuns).

Best movie scene filmed in or about SF:
Dustin Hoffman driving the wrong way on the Bay Bridge in The
Graduate. Also the Oakland estuary shipping dock cranes from The
Empire Strikes Back.

I want all the SFists out there to know:
that Jason Falkner is the
best power-pop musician you've never heard of.