My Top 10 and the Stories I Tell Subscribers First

Every week, I narrow the Bay Area down to ten things worth considering. Then I take newsletter readers inside the drive, event or Sunday gathering that showed me where the magic really is.

The Bay Area does not have a shortage of things to do.

“The Top 10 tells you where to go. The stories from the road show you what I found and newsletter readers get them first.”

— Mike MacPherson

It has a discovery problem.

There are concerts, festivals, plays, museum programs, neighborhood events, family activities and strange little local happenings everywhere. The difficult part is sorting through all of it and deciding what is actually worth part of your weekend.

That is why I publish a Top 10 every week.

It is the heart of the SF Bay Weekend newsletter.

Each week, I go through the weekend calendar, look beyond the biggest names and narrow everything down to ten events I believe are worth knowing about. The list might include a major concert, a small theater production, an outdoor festival, a museum after dark or something happening in a town you have not visited in years.

I also include my hidden gem and my family pick the things that could easily get lost underneath the larger events.

One recent list led with a deep partial lunar eclipse watch party at Chabot Space & Science Center, then moved through GalaxyCon, an outdoor production at Woodminster and a sand sculpture contest at Drakes Beach. That range is the point: one list can take you from a major convention to an Oakland observatory to a foggy stretch of Point Reyes.

The weekly selection is published on the SF Bay Weekend website too. You do not have to subscribe to read it.

But when you join the newsletter, it arrives in your inbox each week, ready when you are deciding what to do. You do not have to remember to check the site or work your way through hundreds of listings. I have already done that part.

The Top 10 tells you where you might want to go.

The other part of the newsletter tells you where I went.

The Stories That Begin After I Leave Home

Over the past few weeks, those stories have come from my drives through the Delta.

The entire trip began with a recommendation from JM.

That is the point of JM’s Playbook. JM knows the place, the person or the road that most of us would pass without noticing. He told me to head into the Delta and make Fat Lou’s Café in Walnut Grove part of the day.

So I followed the playbook.

Along the way, the Delta Farmers Market became much more than a walk through rows of produce. Behind it was a self-serve wine and beer bar I did not know existed, live music and the kind of place that makes you stop and ask, “What exactly did I just find?”

At Fat Lou’s, the barbecue was only part of the story. I learned about Lou’s family and their history in the Delta. Then Lou told me where to go next.

That recommendation led to Tony’s, the historic town of Locke, the Dai Loy Museum and Al’s Place, where a conversation with the bartender turned the dollar bills pinned to the ceiling into a story I never would have learned from reading a menu.

By the time I headed back toward Clayton, one recommendation had become four stories. I brought barbecue from Fat Lou’s back to JM as a reward for sending me on such a good trip in the first place.

None of it came from a carefully built itinerary.

It came from taking the recommendation, asking another question and leaving a little room to miss the turn.

Those drives were the beginning of this part of the newsletter. They are not the limit of it.

On NFL Sundays, Clayton Is the Destination

With football season arriving, some of my Sundays will move from the Delta roads to my home base: Ed’s Mudville Grill in Clayton. JM and I will be there for Sundays at Ed’s. JM is behind the bar every Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., with football starting at 10 and every game available all day. But the stories will not simply be about what happened on the television. They will be about the people, rivalries and small moments that turn a neighborhood sports bar into a community.

Ed’s is the anchor. Clayton is the experience. Some Sundays I may step outside between games, wander through downtown and then return to Ed’s. This is my home, my spot and my community, and I want to share it. Ed’s may be a great place to watch an NFL Sunday. The larger discovery is that Clayton may be a great place to spend one.

Another weekend might take me to a concert, a museum, a street fair, a restaurant, a college football game or another road I have never driven before.

The setting will change. The idea will not.

I am going out there, seeing it for myself and coming back with the part of the story you cannot get from an event listing.

Newsletter First, Website Later

These personal stories will appear first in the newsletter.

Some may eventually be expanded or published on the SF Bay Weekend website. But newsletter readers will get them first, while the experience is fresh and while the next weekend is still waiting.

That is what “exclusive” means here. I am not going to send subscribers a shortened copy of something they already read on the website. I am going to give them the first version of the story—the observations, conversations, recommendations and moments from wherever the weekend took me.

The website answers what is happening around the Bay Area.

The newsletter gives you ten things worth considering—and then shows you where I went myself.

One email. Two reasons to open it.

Ten curated picks for planning your weekend.

And a story from the road, the event or Sundays at Ed’s that subscribers receive first.

You do not need to do everything on the list.

Just pick something. Go somewhere you have not been. Take the long way home once in a while.

It’s out there. Let’s go find it.

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