Josiah Luis Alderete: Poetry, Community, Café Babar, and El Stoner Burritos
Josiah Luis Alderete is a poet, performer, and bookseller, and has been an essential part of the Bay Area literary community for over 20 years.
Josiah Luis Alderete is a poet, performer, and bookseller, and has been an essential part of the Bay Area literary community for over 20 years. He began writing poetry in the kitchen of his mother’s Mexican restaurant in San Rafael, and his first collection, Baby Axolotls & Old Pochos, was recently published by Black Freighter Press. He’s co-owner of the bilingual bookstore Medicine for Nightmares in the San Francisco Mission neighborhood. He’s hilarious and deep, and I’ve always wanted to hear more of his stories.
People know you as a poet and performer, as well as a literary organizer of the Molotov Mouths spoken-word group, and the reading series Speaking Axolotl. And of course Medicine for Nightmares. But for many years you also ran a taqueria in Marin County, in downtown Fairfax. What year did that begin?
I opened up the taco shop in 1999. My mom still has her restaurant in San Rafael, called Casa Mañana. She opened that in 1979, which is why we actually moved out of the city. Also, her and my dad’s relationship had finally exploded. I grew up in the kitchen. When I had the chance to open up my shop, I knew that my ma’s name had been ringing out there for years, and there was a clientele there. If I was going to open up, where would I do it? And at the time, Fairfax was still a very bohemian place. A lot of the old hippies, it felt good. I opened it, same name, Casa Mañana.
I had my people who worked there for years. My little brother, my sister. I also was really lucky, I had relationships with some of the folks who worked at my ma’s place, I was blessed, man. I was there almost 20 years. But it was a serious thing, navigating a brown taste in a sea of whiteness. Marin is one of the whitest places in the Bay Area, but it was interesting.
Yeah, very white, and Fairfax is sort of Ground Zero of Caucasia. There’s just something about the white arrogance of wealth. It’s a weird entitlement, even just the way people walk across the street.
It was very prevalent there. With the white hippies, the older they got, there was a return to conservative values, while still keeping this cosmic awareness. This one familia, they were a couple, a white guy and a French woman, they had this group, they played Arabic music. They were huge, they played at The Sleeping Lady all the time. They lived up the street. They started this campaign about noise ordinance in downtown, because the bars, the nightlife, was supposedly disrupting the town. it was cascading up the valley and it was disturbing their sleep. These were places they played at.
They were musicians.
Yeah, yeah, of that community.
…and they’re complaining about the music.
About the noise, yeah. I was like, what the fuck, you know? That arrogance has always been there, it was a very funny thing to see.
What was some of the specialty things on your menu, that you offered up to Fairfax?
I called it Chicano food. I took my mama’s traditional Mexicano stuff, and I did a Pocho spin on it. I had the burros, but they were all named after famous Chicanos, Mexicanos, right? There’d be like, the Chewbacca burrito, ’cause I always thought Chewbacca was Mexican. There’s a misconception that the American cultura takes over the cultura that’s coming here. But it’s really, the cultura takes the American and embraces it, creates something that’s them, and here. Burros are as American as you get, bro. The Cali burros, that’s not something you get in Mexico. So I did my versions of that. There was a Frida Khalo, a Chupacabra, there was a Cesar Chavez. I had El Stoner, it was a burrito with pico de gallo and ground chips, and yucca, with a green sauce.
I took the recipes and sauces that my ma had done and just did different things. I did a lot of moles, and pupusas. Mole for me is one of those comfort things, like peanut butter and jelly, or pepperoni pizza. It’s a ritual. That’s one of the cooking things where I’m doing a serious ritual. But in the 20 years that I owned my shop I never made my own mole. I went to my ma’s restaurant and stole hers. Just to be honest.
So just to clarify, this was not a taco truck by any means. This was a sit-down place where people would hang out, right?
It was a taqueria, without a doubt. It served food. But there was also a bookshop in the corner, with Chicano writers, and Love and Rockets comics, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Pictures of Chavez, Pancho Villa, that was part of it too. People would come in, and the clientele was all white. We would have interesting conversations. They learned about Latin cultura, being there, and looking at stuff on the walls: “Who’s that lady?” Some of them were just waiting for their enchilada, they don’t remember any of that shit. But some of them do.
The kids down there, they’d read the books, hang out. We did poetry readings, bands performed on the porch. Musicians in that neighborhood would bring me their tapes, we’d play them on the stereo. In these spaces, you got a restaurant, you got a bookstore, but they’re also these spaces where people come and exchange ideas.
I’ve heard that you are 100% San Francisco, that your parents actually met in North Beach, right?
Back in the day, North Beach was known as Little Mexico. It was this long strip of Latin American clubs, really beautiful bars. There was a whole Spanish vibe to it, too. A whole flamenco scene there. My ma worked at a club called El Sinaloa, which looked like some fucking thing out of a Martin Scorsese movie. My tía was a ranchero singer named La Norteñita, it was amazing. She got a job singing at El Sinaloa, she got my ma to work there, they had a little apartment above, where they lived. And my ma met my dad at El Sinaloa. He was one of those suave waiters with the cool high-waisted jackets. My pop’s Tejano. Real piece of shit. They met there, that was it. I still have a feeling that I was conceived in the apartment upstairs. I walk by there now, it’s weird, like I’m home in some way. Also my tía, years later, opened up a Casa Mañana right across the street from City Lights. That was the first time I came across City Lights, because I would go visit her in the early ’80s.
So speaking of the 1980s, let’s talk about the poetry scene at Café Babar in the Mission. Babar was pretty legendary in the SF lit underground. Bruce Isaacson, who started Zeitgeist Press, was one of the people who first started doing poetry readings there. It was located on the corner of 22nd and Guerrero, which is now the Liberties pub. How did you get involved?
Bruce Isaacson was the reason I found that place. I was at City Lights, in their zine section. and I pulled out Bad Dog Blues, which is one of Bruce’s books. A yellow book with a little cartoon dog on the cover. I loved it. And on the back, this little bio, blah blah, “He performs at Café Babar Thursday nights.” And there was a picture of a poet on the stage at Babar. What the fuck is that place? I was a baby, I was one year out of high school. I’d been transported to Marin County, I lived my entire school education not hearing one brown writer, not listening to one moment of poetry that wasn’t from a dead white male. As a niño, I had a notebook and I always wrote shit. I didn’t know it was poetry but I was writing it. I knew poets were around, but it seemed so otherworldly. And here’s this guy telling me, this is the address, you can go.
A couple of our friends and I went the following week. It had to be ’89 or ’90. We drove down there, and these poets were, like, shouting shit. It was crazy. There were poets in the audience yelling at them, they were yelling back. Shit was thrown. I was like, this is poetry! Everyone knows the story: the corrugated metal fence in the back room, you stood in front of it and you read your poem. There was always this giant burlap bag of peanuts. If the grumpy poets didn’t like your shit, they’d start throwing peanuts against the wall. We left that place, and that night we’d been saved in church. I kept going back.
It’s funny. Today, the poetry scene is so supportive, you know: “You got this!” They go up there, and, “You go, you go!” It’s lovely, and it’s very positive, therapy-wise. But that doesn’t make you a good poet, man. Back then, this shit was therapy, bro. Throwing the peanuts, like, “Fuck off! Shut up!” I know I sound like a grumpy old man to young-uns nowadays. It sounds cruel when I tell this story, but those poets were doing it with some form of love. It looked aggressive, it felt aggressive, but there was something there, where you’re schooling that poet, man. You’re not doing that poet any favors by telling him, “Go in, go deep.” I have heard this poem about gentrification two thousand times: “This poem is called, ’Gentrification is bad.’” Yeah!! (mimes throwing peanuts)
It was like, the act of throwing the peanuts said, “You can do better.” The heckling and teasing was almost like an act of encouragement in a way.
Yeah, yeah. It was beautiful. It’s hard to tell that to the Gen-Zers these days. I love my poets, but it’s hard for them. It’s an interesting thing.
To be honest, when I finally did go up there, it took me months and months. And I read the worst, most angst-y young person poem. The title was called, “Roses aren’t the only thing that hurts.” And you know what happened to me? Not one of those poets threw a peanut. I’ll never forget this, I asked David West, who was beautiful, the first poet that I heard reading poems about everyday life. I went over to him and I was like, “I’m gonna read, I’d like you to give me ’feedback’ at the end.” I went up there, I was terrified, and I did this terrible poem, and I looked over at one point and he was over in the corner and he had his eyes closed, rocking back and forth. And that to me, man, he’s listening. That meant so much.
What was your impression of this group of poets?
Babar was a convergence of poets from different areas. Julia Vinograd, the bubble lady from Berkeley, back in her prime she was amazing. There was the great Q.R. Hand. Jack Micheline was living here in the Mission at the time, so he’d show up, yelling and saying shit. I’d be like, wait, that’s Jack Micheline? Vampyre Mike Kassel, of course. Hilarious. David West. David Lerner was a monster. Just this giant crazy man. It was this group of insane-looking people, it almost looked like a pirate ship, right? It was either David or Bucky Sinister who said, readings at Babar were a cross between a strip show, a freak show, a poetry reading, a comedy show, and a junkie pad. I’m paraphrasing now.
For me, the one who really did it, was Bucky. He would jump up there, he was a baby, probably in his early 20s, he had a leather jacket, and the porkpie hat. His stuff sounded to me like crazy Bible street stories. This was amazing. He was a preacher’s son, but I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t talk to these people for months. I’d just go in there really quietly and sit in the back, and look at them all.
This was a weekly event. So every Thursday, you’d drive all the way down from Marin to the Mission, just to see this show?
It was our thing. I’d have my friend Keith Ross with me. This Puerto Rican kid from New York who was also stranded in Novato at the time. He kept asking us for knishes. But that art thing, that connection you feel from somebody else, when art really does something to you? The poetry—that shit is dangerous. It’s like something they’re gonna confiscate from you when you’re in an airport. The Babar poets helped me unlearn all that stuff I basically got poisoned with in school.
You also gotta look at the context of the Mission back then. There was a literary renaissance here. I don’t say that lightly. You think of the poets from El Salvador and Nicaragua, the revolutionary poets that were here. On Valencia Street, there were four independent bookstores. The Chameleon bar was open, there were readings there, at Galería de la Raza on 24th, at Modern Times, at La Casa del Libros, which was the only Spanish-language bookstore in the neighborhood. Right next to La Rondalla.
La Rondalla restaurant, with pitchers of margaritas, the deer-hunting photos on the walls. It was like you were at someone’s house.
Yeah, with the Christmas shit everywhere. I loved it because right outside, it had the notorious payphone that had been in existence since, basically my dad did coke deals on it in the ’70s. It was probably the last payphone that would let you take callbacks. La Rondalla, man.
But at the time, there was so much literature happening on the streets. And the Mission encouraged it. La Boheme on 24th, I’ll never forget walking past there, and Q.R. was out in front, spitting poems on the street. I was like, holy shit, it’s like that same feeling. That’s poetry, man, it’s out there in the wild, it’s running free, it’s on the street.
Me remembering the city the way it was back then, helps me to forget a lot of the way it is now. And I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good thing.
So this idea of doing poetry readings in public places. During the pandemic, I was in North Beach, picking up some food to go, and it was the craziest thing to see your face sticking out of a second-story window at City Lights. And you’re reading poetry out of a bullhorn! And it’s for anybody who walks by. It was like, yes it’s a pandemic, but City Lights is still going strong.
It was beautiful. The first poet we had was Tongo [Eisen-Martin]. He made it rain. For me, that’s the essence of it. People go to a poetry reading, and whether they like it or not, they have an expectation of how they’re supposed to react, or what they’re supposed to do. But if a poet’s sneaking in on ’em, man, if you’re reading it on the street, it just comes to them. There it is. What is that person saying? Oh shit, is that a poem? We had Tongo at that series, Leticia Hernandez-Linares, Barbara Jane Reyes, Alan Chazaro read there.
During the time I was at City Lights, they let me do poetry readings. I was responsible for the Latinx poetry shelf upstairs for awhile, where I featured Latin, Chicano writers. For me, having the opportunity to work there was a chance to brown up the place. I felt like they let me do that in a really beautiful way. That’s why I have so much love for them, man.
This city’s always been very proud of its bookstores. A few didn’t make it through the pandemic, but there have been new stores that have opened, like Telegraph Hill Books, and Et al. Black Bird Bookstore out in the Sunset expanded, and added a coffee shop.
The newer ones now, they’re doing that thing, I think it’s very smart. It’s not just a bookstore, it’s also a galeria, it’s also a cafe. Mixing together things, making these spaces available in different ways. That overlap is beautiful. We do that here at the bookstore. Every six weeks we have a different artist.
Describe to me the genesis of the Medicine for Nightmares store. This used to be Alley Cat Books, and Kate Razo was the owner. She also owned Dog Eared Books, and Red Hill Books in Bernal Heights.
Kate goes way back as far as owning bookstores in the Mission. I think she’s owned five or six. She owned Phoenix Books, too. But yeah, she lost this bookstore to me in a card game.
No, come on!
Kate’s a terrible card player.
That can’t be.
The real truth is that, I’d been doing events, Kate had been letting me use the space over the years, when it was Alley Cat. And then one day, a little over two and a half years ago, she came up to me after an event, and said, “Hey look, keep this under your hat, but I’m thinking of selling the space. Do you know anyone who might be interested? Let me know.” I’d been at City Lights second or third year by then. I got my medical, I had more security than I ever had. After having a business for 20 years, and waking up and freaking out, when the taco shop closed, I said never again am I going to own a business. It’s insane. But the minute she brought it up, I said, give me a week. And in my head I assembled people I thought I could do something with.
Tân [Khánh Cao] was the first person I thought of. Tân worked at City Lights for 15 years, she worked at Modern Times. It’s funny, she’s been part of my San Francisco landscape for years. Tongo was involved early on. JK Fowler was there. Basically, look, we want to do this, how do we do this? Kate was like, I’d like this whole thing to go through by November. This was August. By the time we started talking, it was September. And on November first we had the store. One of the things that made me say yes, immediately, was that idea of being able to continue the literary lineage that runs so deep in this neighborhood.
There’s not many bilingual bookstores left in the Mission.
That’s part of that thing, the literature here. It’s obviously Latino, but it’s also so many other things. I get to be a small part of that. And know that we’re gonna have books from poets and writers here in the neighborhood. From poets that I heard at the Galeria, at other series. And yes, it’s going to be a bilingual bookstore because of course it fucking should. It’s the fucking Mission.
So as you’re ordering and stocking the shelves, are you thinking back to what a 19-year-old Josiah might want to see in a bookstore?
I’ve seen 19-year-olds in here. I have been blessed to see these young Chicanos and Latin familia come in here and open a book by a Chicano or Latin poet for the first time. I’ve seen that expression on their faces. I remember doing that at City Lights, pulling out Jimmy Santiago Baca, and opening Martín & Meditations on the South Valley, and recognizing myself. It was a beautiful moment.
The first day that we opened the store, a Mexican mama came in with a kid, came into the back of the store, and was looking for books. It was the first day, and I was being very attentive, and I came back just to see, and she was crying. I panicked, and I ran up and went over to Tân, “A mama’s crying back there.” We thought something was wrong. We went and we asked her. And she said, “No, I’m crying because I’ve never seen children’s books that my kid can see themselves in.” These books are in Spanish, for her kid. These books have brown people in them. That was the first day, probably the fifth or sixth customer. And that filled me with so much—this is what I’m supposed to be doing. And at the end of the day we’ve made 50 bucks. It’s fucking worth it, you know?
Again going back to that idea of a bookstore as a community space, as a gathering place, as a place where you see yourself, your history, your cultura. We see people have that experience in the bookstore, but also in the events, the art on the walls. That’s all here. It’s a BIPOC bookstore. But we make a joke that we have to have at least one white-person event a month. Every once in a while we end up having two or three. Keep the whites happy.
Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore & Galeria is located at 3036 24th St, San Francisco. Here’s a great example of Josiah’s poetry, reading from “I Want to Be a Symbol for My Culture.”
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Great story, Jack and Josiah! I can never get enough stories about SF literary scene. And I wish I could've tried the Chewbacca!
Ah! Thanks for the shout-out! Josiah's poetry is amazing. The best work about the Mission