What is the best San Francisco TV show of all time?
Chronicle Culture Critic Peter Hartlaub recently rediscovered what he says is the best, the short-lived 'Midnight Caller,' which followed a cop-turned-late-night-radio-host as he offered talk therapy to the Bay Area over the air waves and solved a crime or two.
Now, we're looking for Chronicle readers' picks. Choose your favorite scripted series set in San Francisco from the list below and tell us why it deserves the crown.
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San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Why I traveled hundreds of miles to this disappearing California wine region
For a long time, my only association with the city of Rancho Cucamonga was as the setting of the defunct Comedy Central series 'Workaholics.' If you've seen the show, which follows a trio of stoners who flit between their office-park telemarketing job and subdivision rental home, you might find it impossible to believe that this San Bernardino County city could have any connection to wine. But Rancho Cucamonga and the surrounding Cucamonga Valley is in fact an essential landmark on the map of California wine. Once the epicenter of the state's early wine industry, it fell victim to urbanization in the mid-20th century until its vineyards all but disappeared. The Cucamonga Valley's rise, fall and, now, possible redemption is the subject of a major story I published on Wednesday. I hope you'll give it a read. In today's newsletter I want to explain how I came to write about this beleaguered southern California wine region, hundreds of miles outside of the Chronicle's typical coverage zone. I started hearing mutterings of Cucamonga (and not just on the 'Workaholics' subreddit) a few years ago. Winemaker Abe Schoener, formerly of the Scholium Project, told me he was relocating from Napa to Los Angeles for the express purpose of working with Cucamonga Valley vineyards like Lopez Ranch. When I visited Raj Parr at his winery vineyard in Cambria, he poured me wines from his Scythian Wine Co., a brand he created just for Cucamonga vineyards. Suddenly, I noticed, a lot of producers were making Cucamonga wine: In addition to Parr and Schoener, there's Scar of the Sea, A Tribute to Grace, Herrmann York, Carol Shelton and Municipal Winemakers. And I'd read Frances Dinkelspiel's excellent book 'Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California,' which devotes an entire section to the salacious early history of wine in Cucamonga, where the battle for control of one revered vineyard resulted in five murders. Probably, somewhere, there was a story there, but I didn't know enough about Cucamonga to really know what the story was — certainly not enough to convince my editor to send me down there. Sure, it's got an interesting past, but what was the news hook? Former Chronicle wine editor Jon Bonné had written an article about Cucamonga in 2014, depicting the area as the wine-region equivalent of a ghost town. It seemed like this was a story for the history books, not today's paper. But then last fall I got a call from Erik Castro, a talented Bay Area photographer who has shot many wine stories for the Chronicle over the years. (He also made all the photos for Bonné's book 'The New California Wine.') Erik had been spending time down there with Schoener, documenting the 2024 harvest at Lopez Ranch and vinification at Schoener's urban winery in Los Angeles. He provided me with a key piece of information: Lopez — the largest remaining vineyard in the Cucamonga Valley, planted in 1919 — had been sold to a plastics manufacturer and was slated for development. Just as it was gaining renown with these up-and-coming winemakers, it was going to vanish. There was the hook. In March, I drove down and spent a day with Schoener, treading through the sandy soil at Lopez, whose gargantuan, leafless vines resembled tumbleweeds swaying in the wind. We visited the vineyard that he calls Maglite — because it's next to the flashlight factory — where scattered, century-old vines blended into the scraggly landscape. (It's known to others as the Francis Road Vineyard.) If there hadn't been a small crew pruning that day, I wouldn't have clocked it as a vineyard at all. I understood why Erik's photojournalist eye had been drawn to this place, with its unexpected, incongruous visuals. This place has none of the typical wine-region romance. The Cucamonga Valley is a seemingly endless expanse of logistics hubs and chain retail. It's home to the largest Amazon warehouse in the U.S. And yet the few hundred acres of vines that improbably survive, remnants of the Cucamonga Valley's former glory, are hiding in plain sight. Still, I didn't really get the full picture until I returned in May, clocking a single-day roundtrip from SFO to Ontario International Airport, to spend the day with Domenic Galleano. The owner of the valley's last commercial winery, Galleano has made it his life's mission to save the last of the region's vineyard acreage — and maybe, I learned, even expand it. To write about wine is to write about a sense of place. This story is about the potential erasure of a place: the transformation of a slice of earth from something distinctive and extraordinary — a wine paradise unlike any other — into something colorless. This is a common American tale, unfolding in small towns, suburbs and cities across the country. The question becomes whether anyone is interested in preserving the local color. In the Cucamonga Valley, a few people are. This story is about them.
San Francisco Chronicle
4 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Before alleged Bay Area post office crash, brother of Pat Tillman documented own unraveling online
Just days before Richard Tillman, brother of the former NFL star and fallen Army Ranger Pat Tillman, allegedly crashed his car into a San Jose post office, he said in a rambling 11-minute YouTube video that he was going to 'take down the system,' including the U.S. government. 'What I need to do is absolutely prove who I am and I will do that,' said Tillman, referring to himself as Yeshua, the Hebrew name for Jesus, and the son of God. 'As far as the next phase of the game, I know what needs to be done.' The cryptic video was among dozens that Tillman, a 44-year-old San Jose resident, posted in recent months documenting his own apparent unraveling. The videos, other social media posts and public records reviewed by the Chronicle show a record of legal trouble, mental health issues and isolation from friends and family in recent years. Tillman was arrested early Sunday after allegedly crashing into the Almaden Valley post office, sparking a fire that caused significant damage. His YouTube channel, which had 1,700 subscribers, was taken down after the incident. It was not immediately clear Tillman's remarks in the video posted last week were directly connected to the alleged post office crash. In the latest video, which has since been removed, Tillman recorded himself talking from inside a parked vehicle as traffic cruised past his window. He wore sunglasses and sported a long beard streaked with gray. He spoke about the 'spiritual realm,' ascension and making the planet evolve, while referring to Richard Tillman in the third person and laughing between bizarre statements. 'I'm not going to harm anyone physically, so there's nothing to worry about,' Tillman said. 'You guys will find out what I'm laughing about one day.' Richard Tillman is the younger brother of Pat Tillman, who left the Arizona Cardinals football team to serve in the U.S. Army after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire in 2004 during a chaotic firefight in his platoon while on duty in Afghanistan. Richard Tillman has pursued careers in acting and stand-up comedy. He also wrote a children's book series in 2015 meant to teach kindness and empathy. In 2019, his wife filed for divorce, which turned into a protracted and contentious legal battle, according to Fresno County records. The couple had two children. At one point during the divorce, a hearing was delayed because Tillman was 'in a mental health facility,' according to court records. A judge granted a temporary restraining order against Tillman to protect his ex-wife, records show. The court gave the wife sole custody of their children in 2021 and granted weekly supervised visits for Tillman. The judge also ordered Tillman to attend counseling for a year after finding that it 'would be in the child's best interest,' records show. Several Facebook posts suggest that Tillman became antagonistic toward friends and family members in recent months and years, even as they offered to assist Tillman in getting mental health treatment. 'I'm here to end you…And all your worthless friends,' Tillman apparently wrote in a message to a family member, according to a screenshot of the exchange he posted on Facebook earlier this year. In the crash on Sunday, fifty personnel from the San Jose Fire Department responded to the post office on the 6500 block of Crown Boulevard shortly before 3 a.m. Sunday and extinguished the fire within two hours, according to the agency. There were no injuries reported. Tillman was arrested at the scene on suspicion of arson and booked into Santa Clara County Jail. He remained in custody as of Monday morning on $60,000 bail, according to county records. It was not the first time Tillman had faced criminal charges. Fresno County court records show that Tillman racked up a series of misdemeanor charges starting in 2023, including for allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol, trespassing and twice disobeying a domestic relations court order. Judges issued warrants for his arrest in each case because he failed to appear in court, records show. Before that, local court filings indicate, his record included only a traffic infraction in 2015.
San Francisco Chronicle
6 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Astronomer CEO resigns after viral Coldplay ‘Kiss Cam' video
Andy Byron has resigned as chief executive of Astronomer, the data software firm announced, following widespread attention over a viral video that captured him in an intimate moment with a colleague during a Coldplay concert earlier this week. The New York company, with offices in San Francisco and San Jose, confirmed Byron's departure in a statement from its Board of Directors on Saturday, July 19, citing the need for leadership to uphold 'conduct and accountability' that reflect Astronomer's values. 'Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met,' the company said in a statement to the Chronicle. Byron's resignation comes days after a clip taken at Gillette Stadium on Wednesday showed him and Kristin Cabot, Astronomer's Chief Human Resources Officer, embracing on the venue's 'Kiss Cam' before appearing to recoil when they realized they were on screen. 'Oh, look at these two! Oh what? Either they're having an affair, or they're just very shy,' singer Chris Martin said to the crowd. The video has since drawn tens of millions of views on TikTok and provoked both public scrutiny and internal review. 'The Board will begin a search for our next Chief Executive,' the statement read. Though the company's name became unexpectedly familiar to millions this week, Astronomer emphasized that its mission remains unchanged. 'While awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not,' said Taylor Jones, Director of Communications.
