Former City College student creates a modern day planner

By Lulu Orozco

The Guardsman

The new year calls for extreme weight loss plans, free movie nights, free food and better organizing habits. Former City College student Stephen Kovacic has created a single reference book made up of fun, free and useful information about San Francisco. His new daily organizer and reference guide, The Poor Bastards SF Almanac, will help manage your 2012 needs, cravings and demands.

The 108-page planner is a nifty little book filled with black and white pages that you can easily customise to your liking. It’s full of insightful knowledge and useful resources, including a list of free events and attractions at the Golden Gate Park, a need-to-know late night bus map, the times of the last BART trains, and just in case, a guide on what to do about an overdose.

To keep your wallets happy and your hunger satisfied there is also a guide to $1 oyster happy hours (eight of them), free curry Tuesdays and various food truck meet-ups and locations.

“I was compiling information for the LGBT center. My job ended and that’s when I started putting this together. I went through archives at the San Francisco Chronicle, made tons of phone calls and begged my friends to do art for me,” says Kovacic.

The planner also comes with a CD compilation of 16 local bands such as the Dont’s, FpodBpod, the Jaunting Martyrs and Justine Lucas, who designed the front cover and contributed to the books inside design. Brendan O’Loughlin’s track titled Monkey Brains is from a previously unreleased solo project and is exclusive to this CD compilation.

“I have lived in San Francisco for 10 years, within that time I’ve been collecting bands I’ve taken from my friends. I started to put together a bunch of songs I really loved. A lot of them are by my friends, they are all hidden San Francisco gems.” Kovacic said.

While working on this project Kovacic expressed his idea of having people flip through the pages of his planner and finding useful information that they would actually use if they had it their hands.

His insight on the Perfect 5th and Frequencies of the notes (in Hertz) chart and explanation comes from former harmony classes taken at City College.

The Poor Bastards SF Alamanac planner is available at the City College bookstore annex, Modern Times and Green Apple bookstores. The book is also available for purchase online at SFalmanac.org. The CD compilation can also be heard on the almanac website.

Kovacic is taking art submissions for next year’s 2013 planner at SFalmanac.org.