Interview: Ted Rheingold

Name:
Ted Rheingold

Introduce yourself in one sentence:
I'm an optimist with my feet grounded in reason. That makes me a rational idealist. I'm also a dog person ;>

Age and Occupation:
34, Web Engineer, Entrepreneur

Home Town:
Suburbia, New York City.

How long have you lived in the Bay Area and Where?
I moved to San Francsco in 1992. I've lived in the Tendernob, Upper Haight (Downey St. Yo!), Cole Valley, Banana Belt, Mission Bohemia, Bernal, Lower Haight, and currently Potrero Hill. Without any good job prospects after graduating from college in '92, I decided if I was going to have to struggle for work why not San Francisco for a year. I loved the Sierras and the City. In the first year I was here I signed up at 7 temp agencies and still barely got work. I finally got an admin job at CCIT for $16,800, which I got bumped up to $18,000 after I passed on my healthcare.

Favorite website:
Molly Golightly, /., CCIT, last.fm, webjay.com, Fleeting Image.

Favorite local business:
Dogster, Catster, Onematchfire, Laughing Squid, Upper Playground, Future Primitive, SF Station, 111 Minna Gallery (My wife and I got married there), Missing Link, He'brew.

What I'm currently Reading:
"The God of Small Things", "A Small History of Everything", "Blink" (Just Kidding ;)

Best Deal in San Francisco:
Used to be ushering at the Warfield. Always been the view from Twin Peaks at night. Scalp a ticket to a Giants day game, someone is always sell for $10 or less.

Favorite mode of transportation:
bikecarbusbartfoot

Best Band or Musician to come out of the Bay Area:
Holy crap that's hard!
Charles Mingus, Jerry Garcia, Charlie Hunter...
Locally: Idiot Flesh, I Am Spoonbender, Oranger, Imperial Teen, HATFYR.

Favorite local hangout:
Jack The Club, Orbit Room, Annie's, Blooms, Odeon.

Complete the sentence or thought.

SF has the BEST:
creative class, access to camping and snow, views, burritos

You've never lived in SF until:
Seen your favorite band at the BOTH, GAMH or Bimbo's. Been to Tranyshack, Ridden in a pee-drenched BART elevator. Biked down market st. during rush hour, in critical mass or over the GG Bridge. Watched the world go by from a North Beach cafe. Slept on Angel Island or a boat on the bay.

Favorite Bay area politician of past or present:
Nancy Pelosi. I voted her in in '92. She kept the presidio free of corporate takeover and now she plays major league hardball.

You can tell someone is a local here IF:
Ess Effers never get caught without a coat or pants at night.

SF would be soooo much better if only:
Tthe financial bubble didn't leach onto the innovation bubble you could buy a house for less than $750,000 or afford to live here on $20k a year. Or if BART ran 24hrs.

Best Burrito:
Cancun, or the Castellito on Church at Market

Best Restaurant:
Gary Danko, Tadich Grill.

Best movie scene filmed in or about SF:
Vertigo.

Favorite artist to come out of the bay area:
Sam Flores, Coro, Doze Green, Steven Raspa

Favorite author to come out of the bay area:
Maya Angelou, The Beats, Smarter Feller, David Boyer, Karl Sondheim, Molly Golightly.

Place you always tell visitors to check out:
MOMA, Twin Peaks, a hike in Headlands or Mt. Bruno, north beach.

Favorite Bridge in the area:
Golden Gate. Followed by Carquinez (aka The Sugar Bridge).

You have two hours and $15 bucks to kill in SF, what are you going to do:
Have lunch at Cafe Centro. If you only $5, walk to Red's Java Hut and have a burger and a beer. Or go see the trolley wheel house and museum.

My favorite Missed Connection:
"You screaming, me breaking into your appartment"

I want all the SFists out there to know:
Have you seen the restaurant 42 Degrees lately? Holy gutter punk palace batman. The place is a 24 hour party for graffiti artists, street punks and caravaners. It's like Escape From New York. And the near-equally abandoned Espirit is now one giant graf canvas.

Also it may soon cost a dollar to walk or ride over the GG Bridge!

Tell us a San Francisco Story:
Before she was my wife, my girlfriend & I went to go see Ellen Allien at Club Six last year. Due to visa issues they had to cancel her show. Our friend who worked the door at the 650 club 1015 Folsom simply said "COME HERE" so we grudging went. The line was around the corner. We really just wanted to see our friend, but even the VIP line was so hectic when we got to him all he could do was push drink tickets into our hand, ferry us inside and say "do you really not know who is playing?". We went inside and Paul Okenfold was just about to take the decks. He spun a wicked set.

Question you'd ask if you were doing this interview:
Favorite SF Non-Profits:
IDEX, Natural Step, SF Bike Org, Transportation For A Livable City, SF Late Night Coalition, GAAP.

Best Music Venues:
Bottom of the Hill, Great American Music Hall, Bimbos.