Interview: Pepito Pea
SFists tends to make a lot of lists around the New Year. The format is easy and you feel that just by making a list you have accomplished something. Even if you never actually do anything on those lists. Thus, Pepito Pea’s lists of answers to SFist’s questions were very welcome. Pepito’s love of the East Bay seems to be enveloping enough to take in anything good, and that’s something that SFist definitely resonates with.
For everyone who is working on MLK day (and who isn’t really), we suggest taking a five-minute personal vacation to watch this video. Pepito is a former member of The Clarendon Hills, and the clip was made about their 50th show. Best part is Pepito and co have no idea who the “manager" is, or where he got is new Mercedes. Hilarious.
Name
Pepito Pea
Introduce yourself in one sentence
I like spectacles: both of the eye-wear and social variety.
Age and Occupation
28. A generally bad influence.
Home Town
Chicago.
How much time have you spent in the Bay Area?
7 years. I arrived here as a late-adolescent college drop-out with nowhere to live. I spent a summer in West Oakland sleeping under a desk in an independent printing press warehouse up around Adeline and 26th (Punx with Presses R.I.P.). Then, a brief stint shimmying through the lounge windows at 3am to sleep on the couches at Spens Black Hall on UC Berkeley campus. I also did hard time for a number of years imprisoned on Bay Farm Island in Alameda. Thankfully, I am back in Oakland now-- down town, right by the lake.
Favorite website
1. Arts & Letters Daily: Almost as good as the New York Review of Books.
2. Underneath Their Robes: The Entertainment Weekly and People magazine of the mighty Supreme Court and glamorous federal judiciary.
3. Crooks and Liars: I don't watch TV news.
4. Board Game Geek: Monopoly, Pictionary, and Cranium, this isn't.
5. Oaklog : Oakland represent.
Favorite local business
1. African Food Truck at the Ashby Flea Market: Heaven on a plate that is well worth the hellish wait in line.
2. Lebron Salon: Cute girl who cuts devastating hair for a bottle of fancy beer.
What I'm currently Reading
1. "The Stories of Vladmir Nabokov" - Nabokov
2. "Blackhole" - Charles Burns
3. "Elitism. Secrecy. Tradition." - B.C. Org
Best Deal in San Francisco
The free toll to cross the bridge back into the Promised Land that is the East Bay.
Best Deal in the East Bay
The UC Berkeley undergrad dormitory dumpsters the morning after all the freshmen move back home for the summer.
Favorite mode of transportation
Bipedalism.
Best Band to come out of the Bay Area
1. The Mummies
2. Crimpshrine
3. The Blastrocks!!!
4. Jawbreaker
5. SKYE
Favorite local hangout
1. Count Grishnackh's Manor: Party central.
2. Old Oakland Farmer's Market: It doesn't get any better than sunny Friday afternoons with a delicious samosa in hand.
3. Lanesplitters: Late night pizza.
4. Secret Pinball House: Look for the purple light on Friday nights.
5. Movie Bus.
You've never lived in Bay Area until you've:
1. Attended a 2am guerilla dance party deep inside the Cal Trains tunnel.
2. Eaten panda in China Town
3. Ideally, you've never lived in SF and call the East Bay home.
Favorite Bay area politician of past or present:
DELLUMS.
SF would be soooo much better if only:
It was OAKLAND.
Best Restaurant:
Cha Ya: Vegan Japanese cuisine. Simply exquisite.
Best movie scene filmed in or about SF:
"Heartbreak of the Midnight BART": An emotionally riveting documentary on the triumphs and tragedies of BART riders barely making (or missing) the last BART across the Bay.
Best thing to do in the city in the summer:
1. WAKA kickball.
2. Midnight Mass with Peaches Christ.
3. Street alley bowling behind 924 Gilman.
4. Pitch dark basketball at the Berkeley Marina.
Favorite artist to come out of the Bay Area:
Clowes.
Worst artist to come out of the Bay Area:
Tomine. (yeah, he smartly hightailed it to New York City.)
Favorite author to come out of the Bay Area:
1. Cometbus.
2. Kacznsky.
3. Didion.
Worst author to come out of the Bay Area:
Eggers (yeah, he is technically a carpetbagger from Chicago-- like me.)
Place you always tell visitors to check out:
The Carls Jr. at Embarcadero Plaza on Tuesday nights at 6 p.m.
The Power Exchange.
Favorite Bridge in the area:
High Street bridge. Unjustly overlooked and underrated.
You have two hours and $15 bucks to kill in SF, what are you going to do?
Sneak onto BART; Escape to Oakland. Hit up two-for-one movie night at the Parkway. Pocket the remaining $10.
I have found/sold/bought the following on craigslist:
A lonely Swedish fish.
Tell us a San Francisco Story:
1. Last summer, a late night roller skating dance party broke out in an empty Pac Bell Park parking lot complete with generator and DJ. These need to happen more.
2. I once drank $1500 worth of fine wine poured by the illustrious hand of Belinda Chang.
3. My next door neighbor was the tragic Mary Jesus (now Patron Saint of rent control.) My last encounter with her was the rainy night she purposely set her apartment ablaze. With huge flames and billows of black smoke pouring out of her apartment, she calmly informed me: "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm killing myself."