RIP Franchises of our youths

[cranefly]

I stopped at the Sunnyvale Fry's in mid-July, almost didn't go in, thinking it closed.  There were only about 5 cars in the huge lot.  Even though this was noonish on a Sunday, still, from past experience it should have been busy.  I went in, grabbed something, was first in the checkout line.  But it took ten minutes to check out.  There was only one checkout clerk, and she was chatting with the customer she had just helped.  They were discussing Macys and other store closings, and the clerk showed no interest in cutting it short just for me.

Anyway, that Fry's location is prime real estate, and it's huge.  Later I did a google search, wondering if Fry's was in trouble, but didn't see anything.

But now the truth of the matter begins to emerge -- though I don't think that article mentions the Sunnyvale Fry's.

[King Bob]

Their customer service was never good. No one I know enjoyed going there. Add the fact that hard core computer geeks don't want to have face to face interaction and it's going to go bad.

[Drunk Monk]

Yeah Frys service always sucked but they were they last newsstand in a fremont to carry our mag. That died years ago tho.

Meanwhile...

KFOG radio station going off the air: 'We knew this was gonna happen'

Amanda Bartlett  | on August 26, 2019

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Photo: Chris Hardy, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE



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FILE - Longtime KFOG DJ Dave Morey in 2001.

Alt-rock radio mainstay KFOG 104.5 is signing off after 36 years on the air.
On Monday, the San Francisco station announced it would flip to a simulcast of KNBR-AM sports radio on Sept. 6, leaving longtime "Fogheads" with just over a week to savor the sounds of artists like Jefferson Airplane, Green Day, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Smashing Pumpkins.

A statement released by Cumulus Media explained that the expansion of KNBR would offer sports fans another place to tune into "high-profile personalities and in-depth coverage of the Bay Area's favorite teams," plus a stronger signal and broadcast range.

"It's never easy to say goodbye to a station, and we want to thank the staff, listeners, and advertisers who together made KFOG the legendary and beloved station that so many of us in San Francisco had the opportunity to enjoy," said Doug Harvill, vice president and marketing manager of Cumulus San Francisco.
He added that Cumulus is excited to bring KNBR to a wider audience.
KFOG's morning radio fixture, "The Woody Show" took to Twitter to [url=https://twitter.com/TheWoodyShow/status/1166075759229886464]share their feelings on the news.
"We knew this was gonna happen the minute the company who owns KFOG sold the 97.7 San Jose frequency," they wrote. Their stint on KFOG was actually their second, originally airing in San Francisco on "Live 105" 105.3 KITS in 2006.
"It's an impossible task when nobody can hear the radio station. Without San Jose and east bay, you can't compete. That said, we love ya! Listen to the podcast!"

Fans and listeners were devastated.

"Not even a proper burial for KFOG?" one Twitter user responded to KNBR program director Jeremiah Crowe when he shared his excitement for the station's growth. But it's somewhat standard for the radio industry, which is traditionally unceremonious when dropping DJs and programming.
KFOG was one of the few surviving links to San Francisco's rich history of free-form radio on the commercial dial. At its peak, it was once ranked seventh out of up to 40 radio stations owned by Cumulus Media. The station began as KBAY-FM in 1960, operated under Kaiser Broadcasting as an instrumental feel-good listening station.
The call sign switched to KFOG four years later and it became a rock station in 1982, famously snubbing mass-appeal bands in favor of psychedelic tunes and emerging artists.
It was a people-powered station that rewarded its fans with tickets to private in-studio concerts, compiling the intimate sets for 22 years on an annual CD called "Live from the Archives." The proceeds were donated to local food banks.
KFOG also put on an annual concert and fireworks show – the KFOG KaBoom – for nearly 16 years, drawing upwards of 350,000 people to the San Francisco waterfront. It attracted artists like Melissa Etheridge, Collective Soul and Train.
In 2018, Rosalie Howarth – the last of the longtime KFOG DJs – announced she would be leaving her show "Acoustic Sunrise" after 34 years. She had been involved in the Bay Area music scene since she ran away to Haight-Ashbury for the Summer of Love.
Her final words on the air: "You guys have been the best, and we were the luckiest ones."

They’ve sucked since Emory left. The Woody show is lame. But still...

[King Bob]

That is kind of sad. Nothing left but ClearChannel crap. I never listen since bad reception on my commute, but many fond memories.

[Drunk Monk]

That is kind of sad. Nothing left but ClearChannel crap. I never listen since bad reception on my commute, but many fond memories.

All is not lost.  There's still college radio, NPR, a few struggling indies like KKUP and that Bollywood music station. That's what's dialed in on my car radio.  I still enjoy the randomness of radio for my commute.

[Greg]

I listen to BOB when I head to the Cruz.

[Drunk Monk]

I listen to BOB when I head to the Cruz.

My Cruz presets are a different channel than my SiValley presets.  BOB, Hippo, classical, UCSC, KKUP & KSQD. 

Remembering Emeryville’s mudflat art — and why the mud won out
The mudflat sculptures delighted freeway drivers for years, but their time was limited by restoration efforts on the bay

Bill Van Niekerken Aug. 28, 2019 Updated: Aug. 28, 2019 4 a.m.
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38

1of38A dragon made from driftwood, shown on May 29, 1977, was a favorite of motorists approaching the Bay Bridge.Photo: Dave Randolph / The Chronicle 1977

2of38Art sculptures made from driftwood and wood scraps on the Emeryville mudflats, shown on Aug. 29, 1986, were easily seen from the freeway and Bay Bridge approaches.Photo: Chris Stewart / The Chronicle 1986

3of38Some sculptures made from driftwood, such as these shown on May 29, 1977, were intricate.Photo: Dave Randolph / The Chronicle 1977








































Decades ago, being stuck in gridlock on Interstate 80 near the Bay Bridge carried a touch of whimsy, thanks to art created from driftwood along the Emeryville mudlfats.

With memories of the artworks as inspiration, a recent trip to The Chronicle’s archive turned up dozens of photo negatives and prints of the sculptures — many previously unpublished in The Chronicle.

Here’s a little history:

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The sculptures started going up in 1960, when a class from the California College of Arts & Crafts set out to build something from the driftwood on Bay Farm Island, near the Oakland Airport.

“The first derelict sculpture expedition set out on a Saturday morning in 1960, armed with what were considered necessary tools: hammers, saws, hatchets, ropes, a bagful of various-sized nails and several cases of beer,” William Jackson wrote in The Chronicle on Feb. 7, 1965.

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“We just started picking up pieces of driftwood and nailing them together with no idea as to what we would end up with,” teacher Everett Turner said. “After a while, however, someone noticed it was beginning to look like a ship, so we made it a ship.”

After the class “finished what we set out to do,” Turner said, “no one seemed interested in taking it up seriously. Maybe because we had sore backs and sunburns.”


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Remembering the Leslie Salt Mountain: Bay Area’s odd, glistening landmark


But two years later, California College of Arts & Crafts student John McCracken saw photos of the expedition.

“The pictures really excited me ... turned me on!” he told Jackson. “I wanted to try something like it, and I knew just the place, the Emeryville mudflats.”

He’d been there many times to collect driftwood for various projects, including tabletops and lamp bases. He started working on sculptures in the mudflats two to three times a week and was surprised when he arrived one morning to find several new sculptures that were not his own. In early March 1965, vandals destroyed about 30 of the sculptures, but within weeks students from the college had built a phoenix and more from the driftwood.

For the next two decades, the mudflats played host to dozens of entertaining, ever-changing art pieces, all visible to commuters as they made their way along Interstate 80.



“Tremendous dragons, huge camels, knights in fantastic armor, a giant Edith Ann, plywood castles, cactus, missiles, thistle, madonnas and prima ballerinas have burgeoned at one time or another,” Chronicle columnist Margot Patterson Doss wrote in 1977, describing the art she found on a walk through the mudflats.

But it wasn’t just sculptures on the mudflats.

“Environmentalists have become concerned about the level of junk — including driftwood, bottles, cans, bookshelves and mattresses — that has accumulated at the crescent along Interstate 80 between the Bay Bridge and the Emeryville peninsula,” Chronicle writer Marc Sandalow reported in 1987.

“A massive logjam of wood at the northern corner of the marsh has become a better home for rats and wild cats, biologists contend, than for the 90 species of birds that depend on the fragile environment.”

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When a shoreline cleanup effort was proposed, crews promised the art pieces would not be touched — but their presence wasn’t entirely welcome. The artists’ foot traffic was damaging the ecosystem as well.

“This is not just a piece of empty land — even though it suggests oozing mud and nothing else,” said Nicki Spillane of the [url=https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Wildlife-experts-hope-plan-to-relocate-Oakland-12400031.php]Golden Gate Audubon Society. “It’s a lot more than that. There are large species of shorebirds and other water fowl. There is something about the location and the food source that attracts a lot of species.”



A decade later, in 1998, the derelict art gallery reached the end of its run — and the mudflats would get more thorough cleaning.

Caltrans used a helicopter to haul out 80 dumpsters worth of trash from the mudflats — plastic and glass bottles, rotting wood ties, creosote-soaked utility poles, a number of grocery carts — along with the remnants of dilapidated driftwood art.

Restoration continued on the mudflats, seasonal wetlands, coastal prairie and coastal scrub areas. In 2006, the area was dedicated as Eastshore State Park.

A wheelchair sculpture made from driftwood and wood scraps on the Emeryville mudflats, shown on July 23, 1981, was easily seen from the freeway and bridge approaches.

[Greg]

I remember the Leslie salt mountain. Never saw the art.

[Drunk Monk]

I remember the Leslie salt mountain. Never saw the art.

Cargill salt is really close to Tiger Claw.  If I take the industrial corridor to Dumbo bridge, I pass right by it.  They have a salt mountain.  It's not as impressive as the old Leslie one, but it's significant.

Ever read Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky? I thought I reviewed that here but a search only turned up that horrid Angelina Jolie flick. It's a remarkable read and a lot takes place in Fremont.  It makes this argument that Cali wasn't really born of the Gold rush.  It was the industrial salt rush, predicated by a Silver rush, which was actually far more profitable than the Gold rush.  There's some crazy tales of salt mines carved into subterranean cathedrals accessible by rollercoaster.  Fun read, especially because I spent a decade and a half living in Fremont and still work there.

[Drunk Monk]

KFOG is doing this retrospective 10@10 thing, playing old shows from Dave. It’s giving me major AFS flashbacks - being rude to knicker boys, huffing barge cement, trying to peg coworkers with clipped tangs - those were the days.

[Greg]

Thanks, millennials.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Kurlansky’s *Salt* was a great read. Perfect example of a thorough history of an obscure/mundane thing.

[Drunk Monk]

I'm told the final song that KFOG officially played live was Brokedown Palace.  

[Drunk Monk]

KFOG to go out with day of tributes to Dave Morey and the glory years

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[img]data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="676px" width="1024px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>[/img]KFOG disc jockey Dave Morey. Photo: Chris Hardy, The Chronicle
KFOG, the legendary San Francisco alternative rock music station, plans to mark its last 24 hours at 104.5 FM with a daylong tribute to its glory years going back to its launch in 1982 on Thursday, Sept. 5. The special radio show comes after the announcement last week that Cumulus Media, owner of 104.5 FM, would switch programming to KNBR sports talk, ending KFOG’s run on Friday, Sept.6.


Every hour on the hour on Thursday, from 6 a.m. through midnight, will be a rebroadcast from morning-drive host Dave Morey’s famed feature “10@10,” in which he selects 10 songs from one year between the mid-1960s and 1990s and plays them commercial free, interspersed with news clips and other cultural trivia. Depending on the year and how long pop songs were in that year, the segment can last up to 45 minutes, said KFOG program director Jacent Jackson.
Each set is introduced by “10@10” emcee Don Pardo and the 10@10 Orchestra, and concludes with a reading of each title by Morey and his “Best of Set” award. And while Pardo will say, “Let’s do it all again, tomorrow, Dave,” listeners will only have to wait half an hour for the next segment. In between each, the station plans to play selections from “Live From the Archives,” its annual CD, along with rare unreleased tracks from its promotional concerts in the KFOG “Play Space.”
Back when radio still ruled, every artist who came to town stopped into the KFOG studio, including the Allman Brothers, Indigo Girls, John Hiatt, Elvis Costello and Counting Crows. These shows were attended by KFOG devotees, known as “Fogheads,” and some of the best performances made it onto the annual CDs.
“Thursday is for the Fogheads. That’s why we are doing it,” said Jackson, in reference to the estimated 80,000 registered Fogheads during the peak of the radio station’s tenure. “We’re going to take KFOG’s best elements and play them all the way till midnight.”


At 8 a.m., the station will also play an hour-long broadcast of morning drive host Morey’s farewell show from Dec. 19, 2008. In the minds of many Fogheads, this is known as “the Day the Music died” because Morey retired to seclusion in the Midwest. Though “10@10” and other features continued without him, fans contend the station was never the same.
In addition to Morey reruns, throughout the day there will be segments and memories from other popular on-air hosts, including Rosalie Howarth, Big Rick Stuart, Irish Greg and Dave Benson, a longtime KFOG program director.
At 5 p.m,. there will be a second hour-long tribute show, this time to the late M.Dung and his popular Sunday night “Idiot Show,” offering a chance to recall Dung’s Wolfman Jack-like slang and well-worn slogans like “Aaaaway, baby.”
During the last hour, starting at 11 p.m., the station will play Morey’s original sign-on when the station went live in 1982.
The entire tribute is previously recorded. The current on-air staff, including No Name and Dayna Keyes, and Danica Lopez, said their farewells on Wednesday, Sept. 4.
An all-day tribute to a station that is going away is very rare in radio, Jackson said. Most of them just flip the switch, but in KFOG’s case it will be to KNBR sports radio, a simulcast of its ongoing AM programming at 680 AM.
“We have an opportunity to say goodbye, and we wanted to do it in a way that gave a legendary rock brand some dignity,” said Jackson

[Drunk Monk]

This might not have much meaning for y'all but I ate plenty of Fat Slice back in my Dead daze when I used to work (and play) at a lot of Greek shows.

Fat Slice Pizza permanently closes in Berkeley after 34 years
By Susana Guerrero, SFGATE
 Published 10:52 am PST, Wednesday, November 13, 2019

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Fat Slice Pizza in Berkeley has permanently closed its doors after 34 years in business.

It’s been a bad month for Berkeley restaurants. In a matter of days, a few businesses located on the stretch of Telegraph Ave. near the UC Berkeley campus closed, and now Fat Slice Pizza is the latest restaurant to join the list.
Fat Slice has closed its doors after serving college students for the last 34 years, as first reported by Berkeleyside. A message on the business’ website stated the closure.
“After 34 years in business, we are closing our doors permanently. Thank you to all of our customers over the years, we will miss you and we will miss Telegraph Ave.,” the message reads.
According to Berkeleyside, one of the reasons that led to the closure was a lack of foot traffic coming into their shop.
“We weren’t making money,” Chris Pisarra, a manager at Fat Slice Pizza, told Berkeleyside. “Telegraph Avenue has changed. It’s been bad for years. The last eight months, we haven’t made a profit.”
It’s unclear if the businesses informed its customers about their plans to shutter. We reached out to Fat Slice for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.
On Yelp, Troy. L. wrote, “I have been coming to Fat Slice since the 80's while shopping for vinyl on [Telegraph]. I'm so sad to see this place go, great pizza and [an] even better hang.” He added, “[Too] much is changing in the East Bay.”
The Fat Slice Pizza closure comes just days after other Telegraph Ave. business closures. Last Monday, Bacheesos, a family-owned Mediterranean restaurant, closed after 18 years. A five-story, mixed-use complex expected to open next year will go in its place.
Three blocks away, another local business anticipates its closure to make way for a five-story apartment complex. Longtime restaurant Fondue Fred, found inside the dining and retail plaza at 2556 Telegraph Ave., confirmed that they would close as the entire plaza awaits demolition. Their last service is on Dec. 22.
"The culture of the city is changing," owner Laleh Heravi told SFGATE after citing the popularity of food delivery apps as well as Cal students — the bulk of her business — choosing to eat at chains or on campus rather than at small local restaurants. "There's nothing wrong with it. Everything has its limits. Our time is just... we are done."
Gail Giffen founded Fat Slice Pizza back in 1986 after noticing the lack of businesses serving single slices of pizzas. According to Berkeleyside, Pisarra, who is also Giffen’s husband, said that she started the business from the ground up and had no previous experience making pizza.
Throughout the years, Giffen’s restaurant became one of the go-to spots for college students. It will be remembered for serving huge slices at affordable prices.

SFGATE digital reporter Madeline Wells contributed to this report.

I still haven't found a replacement for KFOG on my CRV radio dial.  Filled the slot with some oldies station (and by oldies, I mean 70s-80s pop - our music) but I hope to change it when I find something more listenable.