Podcasts about Atara

Hi everyone! Welcome back to another episode of The Chai on Life Podcast. I'm Alex Segal and today, I am so excited to welcome Atara Weisberger to the podcast.Atara is a trailblazing health and wellness coach, personal development mentor, and co-author of the transformative book How to Soul: Navigate Your Life Path with Clarity, Inner Peace, and Joy. With a unique ability to blend ancient wisdom with actionable strategies, Atara empowers individuals to break free from emotional blocks, rediscover their inner strength, and cultivate lives rooted in authenticity and joy.She of course, has her own personal journey to getting where she is today. Her own baal yeshiva story has shaped her mission to help others find meaning and connection in today's fast- paced, often overwhelming world. As the founder of The Tribe, a holistic wellness community, Atara leads a growing movement where spiritual growth meets modern self-care. She is very active herself and is a runner, yogi and loves to explore healthy cooking.In the episode, we're talking all about her new book that she wrote with Rabbi Dov Lipman which is all about reconnecting to your soul, your real inner essence which can so easily get lost in today's world.You know the feeling you get when you go to a really good shiur? It's like everything just clicks and makes sense and you feel aligned with who you are really meant to be. That is this book.Anxieties, insecurities, awkward social interactions, social media, meetings, family dynamics and more can easily make us feel like we're not enough and can throw us off balance from knowing who we really are.The goal of this book is to remind you of your inner essence, to give you tools to always be able to get back to your soul and to feel like you're really living a connected life in the true meaning of the word — not the 2025 version.In the episode, we speak about -Atara's journey to writing this book-Her main goal that she wants readers to take away from it-How to connect more deeply to your soul and how to get back to it when you feel like you've strayed-How to find balance and meaning in religious halacha and how that goes hand in hand with spirituality and a real relationship with Hashem-Why the struggle and the process of growth is the way and why growth is never linear-Practical tools to utilize in this world to get you back to a more spiritual place-How we can make peace with social media and living a life in a technological world without making it black and white-Cultivating more emunah and bitachon with the wisdom that she shares..and so much more!If you want more from Atara, visit Howtosoulbook.com — at the bottom you can get two free heart-opener meditations. To get in touch, you can email Atara at Atara@howtosoulbook.com.

For today's episode, I am joined by Atara Glazer from alternative hard rock outfit Plastic Rhino, who joins me to discuss the Plastic Rhino's latest single "I Rise," all things LA, and the live music experiences that altered her life forever. ✨ MORE ABOUT PLASTIC RHINO ✨Plastic Rhino is an alternative hard rock duo based in LA made up of Atara and Jack Glazer. For nearly a decade and a half, the duo has contributed some of the most unique and enticing output in the hard rock sphere since their debut in 2013. Their latest song "I Rise," is out now. ✨ KEEP UP TO DATE WITH PLASTIC RHINO ✨Web: https://www.plasticrhinoband.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plasticrhinoband/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/plasticrhinoTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@plasticrhinobandYouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCvsetGTdha6kt41qqpmBSpotify: open.spotify.com/artist/7FXugc5Lme1dHnjxD88do4✨ CONNECT WITH IZZY ✨Blog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://agrrrlstwosoundcents.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/channel/UCv6SBgiYCpYbx9BOYNefkIg⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠instagram.com/agrrrlstwosoundcents/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠twitter.com/grrrlsoundcents⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Send us a textIn today's episode I am joined by Atara Weissberger—author, speaker, and holistic health coach—whose new book How to Soul invites us on a powerful journey of healing, faith, and self-discovery. In this conversation, we dive into the heart of her message: what it means to live from the soul, how to navigate pain with grace, and how to return to your truest self.And stick around for the end of the episode, where I'm joined by Rabbi Dov Lipman—educator, former Knesset member, and passionate voice for Jewish unity—for a powerful Torah takeaway that ties everything together with wisdom and perspective.Whether you're on your own healing path or simply curious about the intersection of wellness and spirituality, this episode is one you won't want to miss.YouTube: https://youtu.be/RHKfKesE2xg- - - - - Holy Health Podcast:Email: Holyhealthpodcast@gmail.comInstagram: @holy_healthpodcastwwwwHolyhealthpodcast.comHoly Health Official Podcast:https://www.buzzsprout.com/589555/9876240Holy Health YouTube Account:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrYPOvFawrjhH_2U7r61M2QMusach Haguf:Instagram: @darapt613@holy_healthpodcast- - - - -This podcast has been edited by Yakir Abelow of 'YA Joker productions'For more information contact:https://wa.me/c/972586918089Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ya_jokerproductions/

My Music with Graham Coath: Atara / Plastic Rhino – Sausages, Spiritbox & Screamo DogsHello my little lovelies! In this delightfully offbeat episode of My Music, your host Graham Coath sits down with the unapologetically brilliant Atara – the voice and energy behind hard-hitting alt-rock duo Plastic Rhino – to talk about everything from jazzercise-inspired music videos to dreams of opening Monsters of Rock.

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Are you struggling with fatigue, pain, or mental health issues that seem to have no clear solution? You're not alone. In this eye-opening episode of the I Am Pain Free podcast, I sit down with Atara Parkinson, a marriage and family therapist with a unique approach to healing.Atara shares her personal journey from debilitating fatigue to vibrant health, and how it led her to embrace an integrative approach to mental and physical wellbeing. Her story will resonate with anyone who's felt frustrated by conventional medical approaches that often fall short.Key Insights You'll Gain:The crucial link between mental health and physical wellnessHow mineral deficiencies can impact your mood and energy levelsThe importance of a holistic approach to healing that addresses body, mind, and spiritPractical tips for boosting your energy and improving your overall healthDiscover Natural Solutions for Common Health ChallengesAtara offers valuable insights on:Combating fatigue: Learn about nutrient-dense foods and lifestyle changes that can dramatically boost your energy levelsImproving mental health: Understand the role of nutrition and metabolic health in managing anxiety and depressionEnhancing overall wellbeing: Explore the power of integrative approaches that combine traditional therapy with holistic health practicesResources to Empower Your Health JourneyLearn about findaspring.com, a resource for locating natural mineral water sources in your areaDiscover the potential benefits of brain spotting, a innovative technique for processing traumaExplore the concept of "structured water" and its potential impact on cellular hydrationThis conversation with Atara Parkinson will challenge you to think differently about your health and provide you with actionable steps to start feeling better today. Whether you're dealing with chronic fatigue, mental health struggles, or simply want to optimize your wellbeing, you'll find valuable insights in this episode.Ready to take control of your health and explore natural solutions that address the root causes of your symptoms? Tune in now and start your journey towards holistic healing and vibrant living.

What up, Beasts! Get ready for a mind-blowing conversation with Atara Parkinson, a marriage and family therapist turned health coach who's on a mission to bridge the gap between mental and physical health. She shares her personal story of burnout, binge drinking, and the wake-up call that led her to discover the power of minerals. We talk about the wild ways stress, diet culture, and postpartum struggles can throw our bodies completely out of whack, and how getting your minerals in check might just be the missing piece to feeling like yourself again. Plus, we go deep into why your body is basically begging you for nutrients, not punishment, and why bacon might just be the secret superfood we all need (yes, you read that right).We also dive into the sneaky signs of mineral imbalances like sugar cravings, brain fog, and that fun little habit of mentally spiraling about your morning alarm screw-up. Atara breaks down the crucial four minerals (magnesium, sodium, calcium, and potassium), how they impact everything from stress levels to decision-making, and simple ways to start rebalancing your body without feeling like you need a PhD in nutrition. If you've ever felt like your cravings, moods, or exhaustion are running the show, this episode is your permission slip to stop fighting your body and start fueling it the way it actually needs. Tune in, take notes, and maybe, just maybe, embrace the bacon.As always, I hope something lands with you today. I hope something you hear tugs at your heart strings and/or I hope you laugh.Bio: Atara is a licensed Marriage and Family therapist and has been practicing in the field of mental health for 14 years. She's continued her education by becoming a certified integrative practitioner. Her current passions include holistic healing, supporting postpartum mamas, Brainspotting, therapeutic intensives and educating on the role of minerals for brain health and nervous system regulation. Revitalization and rebalancing client's are core goals in Atara's work. Music by Prymary: Sean Entrikin (my hot husband) on guitar, Chris Quirarte on drums, Smiley Sean on keyboards, Rob Young on bass, and Jaxon Duane on vocals.Connect with Atara!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atara.parkinsonFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61565419883298Where can you find me?Linktree: https://linktr.ee/beautifulbeastwithinstudiosWhat if you didn't have to fight against your body anymore? What if you could step off the endless cycle of diets, shame, and punishment into a life where food felt easy, movement felt joyful, and self-worth wasn't tied to a number? I know what it's like to feel trapped, believing that shrinking yourself is the only way to be worthy. That's why I'm passionate about helping you find another way. Through my coaching, I guide you to heal your relationship with food, movement, and your body—without guilt, restriction, or impossible standards. You deserve peace, freedom, and the chance to reveal your inner beauty.When you're ready to break free, I'm here to help. You don't have to figure this out alone - together, we can create a path toward peace with food, movement, and your body. If you're curious about what this could look like for you, click the link to my calendar and book a free exploration chat. No pressure, no judgment - just a conversation to see how I can support you on this adventure.https://beautifulbeastwithinstudios.com/exploration-chat-schedulingUnveil the Beautiful Beast Within YOU!Zoom Background:By Behr

Balancing homeschooling, traveling, and staying healthy as a therapist might sound like a lot to juggle, but with the right mindset and strategies, it's absolutely possible. Whether you're managing a private practice on the road, teaching your kids from anywhere in the world, or trying to make sure you're eating well and taking care of yourself, finding a rhythm that works can be a challenge.In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I sit down with Atara Parkinson, a therapist who has embraced this lifestyle while running a successful private practice. We dive into her approach to creating structure for her family, maintaining a thriving business, and prioritizing nutrition and self-care—even while constantly on the move. If you've been looking for ways to balance it all, this episode is packed with the best tips to help you make it work.In This Episode, We Explore…How Atara transitioned into a location-independent therapy practice while homeschooling.The biggest challenges of homeschooling, traveling, and staying healthy as a therapist—and how to overcome them.How to listen to your body and nourish yourself while constantly on the move.Simple nutrition and self-care strategies that help maintain energy and balance while traveling.How to create flexible yet effective daily routines that support both work and family life.Connect with Atara:https://www.ataraparkinson.com/https://www.instagram.com/atara.parkinsonhttps://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61565419883298_____________________Are you ready to take the plunge and become a Traveling Therapist? Whether you want to be a full-time digital nomad or just want the flexibility to bring your practice with you while you travel a couple of times a year, the Portable Practice Method will give you the framework to be protected! ➡️ JOIN NOW: www.portablepracticemethod.com/_____________________Connect with me: Instagram: @thetravelingtherapist_kym The Traveling Therapist Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/ The Traveling Therapist Website & Offers:www.thetravelingtherapist.com _____________________ Sponsored by Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! www.berries.icu/therapists Sponsored by Alma: Alma is on a mission to simplify access to mental health care by focusing first and foremost on supporting clinicians. https://helloalma.com/kym

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma e Biotech world.Pfizer and Eli Lilly are considering reshoring manufacturing in the U.S. in response to President Trump's tariff threats. Biohaven faces setbacks in clinical trials, while Roche gains FDA approval for a stroke drug expansion. Startup Delphia aims to use a precision medicine approach to target cancer cells. Industry leaders will discuss orphan drug development at the World Orphan Drug Congress 2025. Other news includes Beigene's label expansion, AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo's success with Enhertu in stomach cancer, and Atara's restructuring.

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma e Biotech world. During the latest Johnson & Johnson's Q4 earnings call, the company disclosed a total of $88.8 billion in sales for the full year. They also mentioned a shift in their acquisition strategy, moving towards smaller deals after the massive $14.6 billion purchase of Intra-Cellular. This change will see J&J focusing on single-digit billion buyouts in the future. Arrivent has joined the trend of Chinese licensing deals by potentially entering into a $1.2+ billion agreement with Lepu to advance an antibody-drug conjugate for gastrointestinal cancers. Meanwhile, Gilead is starting fresh after nearly five years into their $5 billion partnership with Galapagos, as they explore new opportunities with a spinoff company. President Trump's recent executive orders have sparked some concerns within the biopharma industry, despite most executives expressing a neutral stance towards his administration at the J.P. Morgan conference. The newsletter also covers topics such as FDA pausing Atara's programs, Chinese biotech Ascentage aiming for a $134 million IPO, and Johnson & Johnson's Spravato making advancements in the challenging depression space with monotherapy approval.Biopharma executives at J.P. Morgan maintained a neutral outlook towards the incoming Trump administration, but worries arose when Trump issued executive orders impacting the industry. Gilead's partnership with Galapagos is evolving after five years, leading to the creation of a new spinoff company. The rise of China's biopharma innovation may face obstacles due to Trump's trade policies. Other highlights from the newsletter include personal anecdotes from J.P. Morgan, Chinese biotech Ascentage gearing up for an IPO, SAGE taking legal action against Biogen, and investment trends for 2025 focusing on immunology and obesity. Notch Therapeutics announced layoffs, while companies like Akron Biotech, Visterra Inc., and Insmed Incorporated are currently hiring for various positions in the biopharma industry.

Atara Parkinson is a mental health professional, health coach and a homeschooling mama of 4 under 8Here's where to find more:https://www.instagram.com/atara.parkinson?igsh=MTY5bjd4M3Qwdjg…___________________________________________________________Welcome to The Unforget Yourself Show where we use the power of woo and the proof of science to help you identify your blind spots, and get over your own bullshit so that you can do the fucking thing you ACTUALLY want to do!We're Mark and Katie, the founders of Unforget Yourself and the creators of the Unforget Yourself System and on this podcast, we're here to share REAL conversations about what goes on inside the heart and minds of those brave and crazy enough to start their own business. From the accidental entrepreneur to the laser-focused CEO, we find out how they got to where they are today, not by hearing the go-to story of their success, but talking about how we all have our own BS to deal with and it's through facing ourselves that we find a way to do the fucking thing.Along the way, we hope to show you that YOU are the most important asset in your business (and your life - duh!). Being a business owner is tough! With vulnerability and humor, we get to the real story behind their success and show you that you're not alone._____________________Find all our links to all the things like the socials, how to work with us and how to apply to be on the podcast here: https://linktr.ee/unforgetyourself

Join Atara Parkinson, LMFT, Certified Integrative Practitioner, and Brainspotting Therapist, as she unpacks the powerful connection between metabolic health and mental wellness. In this episode, we dive into how optimizing brain-body balance through nutrition, mindfulness, and innovative therapeutic practices can reshape your mental health journey. Atara shares practical strategies, the latest science, and inspiring stories to help you nurture your body and mind for lasting emotional resilience. Don't miss this transformative conversation on holistic healing!Follow Atara Parkinson on Social Media:Instagram: @ataraparkinsonLinkedIn: Atara ParkinsonWebsite: www.ataraparkinson.com

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In today's episode we hear about the rest of Atara's experience. She talks about managing GBS and its consequences with her newborns, and the importance of nutrition before pregnancy.We pick up today where we left off last week. Atara is pregnant with her second child and is experiencing a numbness on the left side of her body. She has figured out that she should be in the emergency room and what follows is what she encountered there...

In today's episode my guest, who is a therapist, shares her experiences of four births and all the many things she learned things like holding lightly to the birth plan as she's moved from the birth center to a hospital when her cervix is reluctant to fully dilate, holding lightly the plan to return to work three months after delivery when postpartum

The Rebbe Rashab and Ahavas Yisroel. Sponsored in merit of a refuah sheleima for Refoel Menachem ben Shterna Sara and Chananaya ben Chaya Mushka.

Long hours, tight schedules, and unpredictable situations—truckers face these challenges daily, often leading to stress, decision fatigue, and sleepless nights. This episode of Enjoying Life OTR brings in professional counselor Atara Parkinson, who offers practical, science-backed tools to help you manage the mental load of life on the road. Learn quick techniques like the physiological sigh and peripheral vision exercises—simple methods you can implement today to calm your mind and stay focused.Trauma can build up over time, especially after facing tough situations on the highway. Atara helps us recognize the hidden impact of unprocessed events and how they can affect your overall health. She shares strategies like brainspotting and talk therapy to help drivers identify trauma triggers and find a path to recovery, even amidst the challenges of the road.Finding the right support shouldn't be another stressor. In this episode, we break down how to find someone who truly understands your unique lifestyle, emphasizing the importance of a supportive, non-judgmental relationship. Plus, discover the power of community support and self-advocacy in the healing process. Whether you're a long-haul driver or anyone seeking ways to manage stress and trauma, this episode offers valuable insights for a healthier, more balanced life.Atara Parkinson is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Integrative Practitioner.   Her passion is to help clients in the mind/body connection. She loves watching the physical body and mind align to impact mental health through nutrition and integrative medicine.  She supports her clients in creating sustainable vision for their lives. The goal of her work is to empower clients on gaining clarity to obtain holistic balance in mind, body and soul. She believes that a strong therapeutic connection is vital in creating a space for healing to take place. Her approach is to create a safe, compassionate, and non-judgmental space for clients to explore their lives and beliefs.   She is a member of the Enjoying Life OTR Facebook group and can be reached via email ataraparkinson@protonmail.com if we have any questions or concerns.   She is passionate about helping others on their journey.Send us a textEnjoying Life OTR: conversations that inspire curiosity, adventure, and resilience. We're honoring drivers, sharing their adventures and becoming healthier truckers. Stay tuned to discover creative life hacks and practical strategies for enhancing our well-being and making the most of our time on the road. So many exciting things are happening in our community, and we are grateful that you are a part of it. Welcome to Enjoying Life OTR! Join the Movement! See the sights, enjoy the food, take the pic and share with our community! Make the most of the opportunity and share ways to save money doing it!You are invited to share your journey with other drivers who are Enjoying Life OTR.Join "Heathier Truckers" Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/share/juAyihrBSY5kALp6/?mibextid=lOuIew Join "Enjoying Life OTR" Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/share/RstyK3SgWaKLm9Qf/?mibextid=lOuIew#HealthierTruckers#EnjoyingLifeOTRIf you have questions or would like information about being on our podcast, contact our hosts:Cindy Tunstall: EnjoyingLifeOTR@gmail.comMalinda Fox Wellington: Malinda@NomadTLC.org

B”H This episode first aired on Jewish Money Matters on December 12, 2022 Real estate, as my guest today suggests, is still some sort of boys' club. Fortunately, we have women like Atara Twersky helping change that. Atara is on a mission to help professional women understand Real Estate as an asset class, and helping […] The post 394: Demystifying Real Estate Investing with Atara Twersky (Encore) appeared first on Yael Trusch.

This week on Data in Biotech, we're joined by Amy Gamber, VP of Manufacturing at Atara Biotherapeutics, an allogeneic T-cell immunotherapy company developing off-the-shelf treatments to help achieve faster patient outcomes. As a treatment that sits at the cutting edge of options available for cancer and autoimmune disease, host Ross Katz explores how Atara is able to deliver personalized medicine that can be with the patient inside a three-day window.   Amy is clear-eyed about what works well in this field and what doesn't. We gain insight into the complexity of developing this type of cell therapy and the subsequent production challenges of manufacturing at scale. We also cover the manufacturing process, corresponding data problems Amy encounters on a day-to-day basis in her role as VP of Manufacturing, and the strategies she employs to overcome them. Amy discusses the importance of continuous quality monitoring and the need to introduce it from an early stage to see how a program changes through the development phases. She highlights the importance of data as a tool for the ‘detective work' needed to understand where problems arise during manufacturing. Finally, she and Ross close the episode by discussing the future of cell therapy manufacturing, a world where modeling enables predictive QC, the possibilities of AI, and the need to standardize data.  Data in Biotech is a fortnightly podcast exploring how companies leverage data innovation in the life sciences. Chapter Markers [1:56] Introduction to Amy and the manufacturing process at Atara, including the importance of cryo storage to facilitate faster patient treatment.   [6:37] Amy and Ross discuss the challenge of donor variability in cell therapy manufacturing and how to manage it. [12:38] Ross asks about scaling cell therapy production and the different considerations for small batch versus commercial-scale manufacturing. [15:47] Amy discusses the importance of continuous quality monitoring, highlighting the value of tracking metrics to ensure quality control and identify improvement opportunities [18:46] Ross moves the focus to automating data collection, as he and Amy emphasize the need for more efficient data access and analysis for timely decision-making. [20:50] Ross and Amy explore the data challenges biotechnology companies face, including the problem with manual data processes, creating feedback loops, and regulatory compliance. [25:16] Amy explains how Atara addressed manufacturing efficiency challenges, the importance of ‘detective work' to understand problem causes, and the process of solving them.  [33:28] Ross and Amy examine how to use data to gather meaningful manufacturing insights, particularly identifying true signals when analyzing small datasets. [36:33] Ross talks about predictive QC measures as the solution to the point Amy makes about being able to guarantee product quality from the outset. [37:31] Amy gives her perspective on the future of biotech manufacturing, the role of AI, predictive modeling, and the need for standardization in the industry. Download our latest white paper on “Using Machine Learning to Implement Mid-Manufacture Quality Control in the Biotech Sector.” Visit this link: https://connect.corrdyn.com/biotech-ml

Atara (alias name and Ai masked voice) and 2 of her kids struggle with ADHD. She asks Dr. Z how to navigate it. This episode also explores how we can cope with mental health challenges and help educate our children.    To be a future guest (yes, we can distort your voice): Please visit LivingLchaim.com/podcasttherapy     You can explore the world of mental health with our other show "That's An Issue": https://plinkhq.com/i/1607752110/e/?to=page   Reach out to Dr. Z here: Child and Adult Psychological Services, PLLC Email: Info@caapsgroup.com Office: (718) 338-4477   Lchaim.

Listen to this compilation of our award-winning series Remembering Pittsburgh, exploring how the horrific shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue affected the Jewish community in Pittsburgh, the U.S., and around the world. In the four-part series, we take listeners behind the scenes of how the Pittsburgh Jewish community continues to rebuild and honor the lives lost on October 27, 2018. The anniversary came during the same month as the most lethal attack on Jews since the Holocaust: Hamas' October 7 massacre of Israelis. Rising antisemitism has led to the murder of Jews around the world, from Pittsburgh, to Paris, to Israel. All forms of antisemitism must be countered to ensure a safe and secure Jewish future. Listen to the entire series at AJC.org/TreeofLife. Episode Lineup:  (0:40) Eric Lidji, Carole Zawatsky, Howard Fienberg, Marnie Fienberg, Belle Yoeli, Anne Jolly, Ted Deutch Show Notes: Music Credits: Relent by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com),  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Virtual Violin Virtuoso by techtheist is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License Tree of Life by Nefesh Mountain Shloime Balsam - Lo Lefached Hevenu Shalom - Violin Heart Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War: Jewish College Student Leaders Share Their Blueprint for Combating Antisemitism Matisyahu's Message to His Fellow Jews and to the Israel Haters Trying to Cancel Him Unheard, Until Now: How Israeli Women Are Powering Israel's Resilience 152 Days Later: What the Mother of Hostage Edan Alexander Wants the World to Know Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Episode Transcript: Manya Brachear Pashman: Last month, the Senate earmarked $1 million in federal funding to create a curriculum for students about antisemitism and other forms of discrimination and bigotry. The recipient of that money? An organization that knows the consequences of that hatred all too well: the newly imagined Tree of Life, an education center dedicated to ending antisemitism that emerged after 11 worshipers inside Tree of Life synagogue were murdered by a white supremacist on October 27, 2018.  This week, we are presenting a compilation of our award-winning series Remembering Pittsburgh, which launched on October 5, 2023 -- right before the October 7th terrorist attacks in Israel.  Listen to the series at AJC.org/TreeofLife. __ Episode 1, which originally aired on October 5,  takes you inside the Tree of Life building before it was demolished to make way for a new complex dedicated to Jewish life and combating antisemitism.  Eric Lidji: Pittsburgh definitely is not forgetting. It's ever-present here. There are people who are healing and doing so in ways that, at least from the outside, are remarkable and very inspiring. And there are people who I'm sure have not fully reckoned with it yet. Carole Zawatsky: It's all too easy to walk away from what's ugly. And we have to remember. We can't walk away. Manya Brachear Pashman: Five years have gone by since the horrific Shabbat morning at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue, when eleven congregants were gunned down during prayer – volunteers, scholars, neighbors, doing what they always did: joining their Jewish community at shul.  Today, we take you to the Tree of Life building that stands on the corner of Shady and Wilkins Avenues in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood to hear from two people in charge of preserving the artifacts and memories of the vibrant Jewish life that unfolded inside those walls until October 27, 2018.  Manya Brachear Pashman: In early September, our producer Atara Lakritz and I visited the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood. Squirrel Hill, where Jews have settled since the 1920s, is quite literally Mister Rogers' neighborhood. We were there to interview those touched by the events of October 27. But it didn't take us long to figure out that everyone there had been affected in some way.  All along Murray Avenue, in 61C Cafe, at Pinsker's Judaica Shoppe, at the Giant Eagle supermarket, when we told people why we were there, they all had a story, an acquaintance, a connection.  Later, walking through the glass doors of the synagogue felt like we were stepping through a portal, traveling back five years, when life stopped, and the reality of the hatred and terror that unfolded there began to haunt every step.  Atara and I were invited to accompany a final group tour of the building before it closed in order for preparations to begin for the building's demolition. The tour was painful, but we felt it necessary to share with our listeners.  As we left the lobby, we were told to take the stairs to the left. The stairs to the right were off limits. Someone had been shot there.  We were led to a small, dark storage room where chairs had been stacked for guests. A handful of people had hidden there as the shooter continued his rampage, but one man walked out too soon, thinking it was safe. When first responders later came to get the others, they had to step over his body.  In the kitchen, there were still marks on the wall where the bullets ricocheted when he shot two women hiding underneath a metal cabinet. The calendar on the wall there was still turned to October 2018 with a list of activities that were happening that week posted alongside it.  And in the Pervin Chapel where seven people died, pews punctured with bullet holes and carpet squares stained with blood were no longer there. No ark either.  But remarkably, the stained glass windows remained with images and symbols of Jewish contributions to America, the land to which the ancestors of so many worshipers once inside that synagogue had fled to and found safety. Those windows will be carefully removed by the son of the man who first installed them 70 years ago. And they will return, when the reimagined Tree of Life rises again.   Carole Zawatsky: The tragedy is a Pittsburgh experience. But it's also every Jew's experience. It shattered for so many of us our sense of security in America. This is our safe haven. This is where we came to. Manya Brachear Pashman: Carole Zawatsky is the inaugural CEO of the reimagined Tree of Life. Since November 2022, she has overseen the development of a new complex on the hallowed ground: an education center dedicated to ending antisemitism, including a new home for the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh; a memorial to the lives lost that Shabbat morning; a dedicated synagogue space where the Tree of Life congregation can return. Carole Zawatsky: What can we build to enrich Jewish life, to remember this tragedy, and to show the world that we as Jews should not be known only by our killers and our haters, we should be known by our joy, our celebrations, our rituals, our resilience. __ Manya Brachear Pashman: Next, hear from the son and daughter in law of Joyce Fienberg, one of the 11 victims. In this second installment of our series, we sit down with Joyce's son, Howard Fienberg, and his wife, Marnie, as they share their journey of mourning and resilience. After her husband and mother died in 2016, Joyce Fienberg started each day at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, to recite Kaddish, the mourner's prayer. Even when she was no longer officially considered a mourner as Jewish tradition prescribes, 11 months, she continued to attend services each morning at the synagogue.  That's why Howard Feinberg knew his mother Joyce was at Tree of Life when he heard there had been a shooting there on the morning of October 27, 2018. It would be more than 12 hours before he learned she was among the 11 killed that day.  Howard and his wife Marnie are with us now from their home in Northern Virginia. Howard, you followed your mother's example and recited kaddish for 11 months. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience? That experience of saying Kaddish and mourning for your mother, and also can you share with our listeners why it felt like the mourning period was extended? Howard Fienberg: I felt a huge amount of support everywhere I went, in order to be able to say Kaddish every day. Which for someone who was not the most observant of Jews, it was a big lift to be able to do that every day. In fact, even when traveling in disparate places, that I could always find, somehow, be able to pull together 10 people to be able to say Kaddish was a big deal. And I wanted to make sure that no one would struggle in similar circumstances as well.  Obviously, initially, in Pittsburgh putting together 10 people was not a particularly big lift. Because the community support in that first week of Shiva was phenomenal. But it's not an easy thing in many congregations, and I think we are fortunate in mine that we always seem to pull it out every day. But I want to make sure that it happens. So in practice wise, that's one of the biggest things, my involvement with the synagogue, and prayer.  The broader extension of the mourning period, in a way, was a result of the constant delay of the trial for the monster that committed the massacre. And that was a result of both just the general usual procedural delays that you would expect, combined with COVID excuses that dragged things out during the trial. And once a new judge took over responsibility for this case, things suddenly snapped into gear and it moved forward. And we're particularly grateful for the judge in this case, just for his very no-nonsense approach moving forward. Manya Brachear Pashman: Can you talk about whether the guilty verdict once it did take place, and a verdict was delivered, how that verdict changed anything for you and your family? Howard Fienberg: It was a matter of relief, to a great extent. I sat through almost the entirety of the trial, heard and saw all of the evidence. A lot more than I expected to and ever wanted to, but I felt duty to do so. From an outside perspective, looking at it all, you would say this is a slam dunk case, lined up for all the federal hate crimes that were involved. And at the same time, I was in doubt until the jury came back and said, all said guilty. It's just the nature of things. I was on pins and needles. Massive relief afterwards and the same thing with the final verdict and sentencing. Massive relief for us and our families.  And that did allow…nothing's ever closed. You don't finish feeling the loss of somebody, especially when they're taken in, you know, horribly violent terrorist circumstances. But you move from segment to segment. So the same as we do in the year of mourning, you're moving from shiva, which is one kind of thing, to the 30 days, and then to the end of the mourning period. And this was moving to yet another period. And what exactly this is and how long it will be, I don't know. But we're figuring that out as we go. I certainly feel a lot more relaxed. Marnie Fienberg: Feels a little lighter. Howard Fienberg: Yes, definitely lighter. Manya Brachear Pashman: That's good to hear. That's good to hear. I am curious, you said you felt a duty to listen to those details, even though you didn't want to. Can you explain why you felt that sense of obligation? Howard Fienberg: Part of it is, somebody in our family needed to. And it wasn't something that I wanted everybody to sit and hear and see. And I specifically told friends and family as much as I could, to stay far away and said, as much as you want to know, I'll let you know. But otherwise, it's horrific. And it wasn't anything that I would wish for anybody to see and hear. But at the same time, it's the reality of how my mom died. And what the circumstances were, what was going on with the antisemitic conspiracy theories that drove the monster that killed her. And what did he have in mind, and what was his intention, what did he plan, what did he do? These were important things.  And the bigger picture, which I didn't even know going in, was the extent to which the police in Pittsburgh were so heroic. And while they were not able to save my mom, they saved other people, including friends of ours, and people who are now friends, who would not be alive if those cops had not tried to charge at the front door trying to charge the building and getting shot.  And then the SWAT teams going into the building, and in a couple cases getting almost murdered themselves, trying to rescue the people that were inside. And they did rescue some people. And those people would most likely be dead if the SWAT had not rushed in. Equipment wise, they were not ready ordinarily for this sort of situation. But they went in anyways because they knew they needed to, and they didn't hesitate. And that's the kind of thing that you can only understand, having gone to the trial and learned what went on.  ___ Manya Brachear Pashman: In the third installment, we look back at how horror drew people to solidarity. We interviewed Belle Yoeli, AJC chief advocacy officer, as well as others who showed up for Shabbat.  Belle Yoeli: We saw hundreds of thousands of people show up. And we saw pictures later, after the fact, and videos, and people making speeches, and just so much solidarity. This was captured on the news. I think it really stands out as one of the most amazing responses to antisemitism that we've seen in modern history. Manya Brachear Pashman: On October 27, 2018, Americans witnessed the deadliest antisemitic attack in this nation's history. The senseless slaughter inside a house of worship devastated and shocked American senses because it was simply unAmerican. But the aftermath of the atrocity became an American moment when so many people showed up – showed up with hugs, showed up with flowers, showed up with prayers for their Jewish neighbors.  The most visible expression of this came a week after the massacre with the unprecedented turnout of people of all faiths at synagogues across the nation as part of AJC's #ShowUpForShabbat campaign. Together, Americans sent a message that hate will not prevail. Belle Yoeli: Everyone wanted to do something, and the entire Jewish community mobilized to make this happen with the understanding that as AJC has always said that antisemitism is not just about the Jewish community. It starts with the Jewish community, but it's a threat to democracy, and the murder of Jews in their religious institution is such a breaking, a fracturing of everything that the United States stands for, everything that democratic society stands for. Manya Brachear Pashman: Today, Belle Yoeli is the chief advocacy officer for AJC. In 2018, she worked as the chief of staff for then AJC CEO David Harris. David had spent nearly 20 years counseling European leaders on the rise of antisemitism in their midst, calling their attention to violent crimes against Jews when conflict erupted between Israel and their Arab neighbors. Belle was on her way to a nephew's birthday party when she got the call on October 27 about what had happened in Pittsburgh. She remembers sobbing in the car on the phone with colleagues as they all grappled with the reality that whether they were regular shul-goers or had just happened to go to synagogue to celebrate a friend's bar mitzvah that day – it just as easily could've been them. For many, what they needed now was to go to shul and not be afraid, and to see others, not just their own community, but others of all faiths in the pews alongside them. What they needed most now was to know they were not alone. So they drew up a plan. Belle Yoeli: A couple members of our staff actually kind of simultaneously came up with a similar idea, which was that we need to, more than anything, rally non-Jews to come and support the Jewish community at this time, and what better time to do that than the following Shabbat. Manya Brachear Pashman: Dubbed #ShowUpForShabbat, the social media-based campaign called on both Jews and those of other faiths to flock to synagogues that coming Shabbat on the weekend of November 2 in support of the Pittsburgh Jewish community and all of American Jewry. The response across 80 countries was astounding. Manya Brachear Pashman: We connected with people who showed up that Shabbat five years ago, and ask them what the experience meant to them.  Anne Jolly: An important part of what we proclaim is love God, love your neighbor, change the world. And so we believe that means, we show up for each other. We can't love each other without being present with each other. So we have to be together. You have to show up. Manya Brachear Pashman: Episcopal Bishop of Ohio Anne Jolly was serving as the rector of St. Gregory Episcopal Church in Deerfield, Illinois in October 2018. A former hospital chaplain, she was sitting in her office when she heard the news break that Saturday morning. Her first call was to her friend and colleague Rabbi Karyn Kedar down the road at the Reform temple commonly known as Congregation BJBE. Rabbi Kedar had recently preached at St. Gregory and then-Pastor Jolly was scheduled to deliver the guest sermon at BJBE the following Friday night. Anne Jolly: I called her and we talked and we prayed. And I said to Karyn, I think probably you need to preach on the Shabbat following the shooting at your temple and she said, ‘I want you to do it.' She said ‘I think I think we need to hear your voice and that the congregation needs to hear you. Rabbi Kedar I think thought that to hear a voice of someone who is not Jewish saying aloud, We love you, we care for you. We believe we are all created in God's image together. And that means we need to show up for each other. It means we need to be present with each other, that to hear that from someone who was not part of their community might be more powerful, more impactful, and more important for the community here at that time. Manya Brachear Pashman: When Bishop Jolly arrived that following Friday she did not expect her sudden sense of fear when she encountered armed guards. Anne Jolly: I didn't realize I was afraid until I walked in the door. And I stopped and had to take a deep breath and realize that I was afraid because I was entering into a space of people who have long been afraid. And that I had never had to experience that before in that way. And I wasn't really afraid for my congregation the same way I was for my beloveds in the synagogue, that they had more of a reason to be afraid than I did. And that was all the more reason for me to be there, and to be present with them. Manya Brachear Pashman: Bishop Jolly credits that night at BJBE for the deep connection that formed with the congregation. In fact, she returned to BJBE many more times to celebrate Shabbat. Precisely a year later, the members of the Jewish congregation showed up at her door after a pumpkin patch at St. Gregory had been destroyed by vandals. Anne Jolly: There were a bunch of them that came to our patch and we were talking about it and they said, ‘We just wanted to show you that we are supporting you. And they were worried that that vandalism had been an act of aggression against us. And I just thought it was kids. And that was a really clear distinction of how our worldviews are different. For them, a vandalism thing would, of course, of course, be something hateful against them. In this case, it was children, it was just teenagers being dumb. But it reinforced that understanding that for them, fear is always in the background because of the violence perpetrated to them – again and again and again. ___ Manya Brachear Pashman: For this closing episode of the series, I sat down with AJC CEO Ted Deutch, who served as a congressman at the time of the Tree of Life massacre. We discussed this anniversary and its parallels to the October 7 attack on Israel, when once again Jews were murdered just for being Jewish. Ted, where were you on the morning of October 27, 2018 when you heard about the Tree of Life?    Ted Deutch: I was a congressman who represented Parkland, where the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas took place. And the morning of Tree of Life, I spoke to a group of high school students from all around South Florida, who participated in a program about how they can become leaders in the community. I spoke with them about what had happened a few months before in Parkland, and what I had seen from high school students in Parkland and how they responded and how you stand up to violence and try to stop it and how you respond to evil and how important it is to use the power that you have as young people. That was literally what I was doing right before I walked out of the Florida Atlantic University auditorium and saw my phone start to buzz with news of Tree of Life. Everything that I had said to the students in the discussion, that really difficult conversation we had with these students who shared with me their fears of violence, their fears of going to school–those fears hit home really hard for me and for the Jewish community.  Manya Brachear Pashman: So in our first episode of this series, our producer Atara Lakritz and I went on the last tour of the Tree of Life building. You also walked through the building back in June, before many of the artifacts had been removed. Would you mind reflecting on that experience? Ted Deutch: I couldn't help but think of my synagogue where I grew up on the other side of Pennsylvania in a lovely community, like Pittsburgh. I was struck that, forget that this was a synagogue, I really couldn't stop thinking that it was inconceivable that that kind of horrible tragedy could happen in a community like that.  And walking through the synagogue and seeing the site where hatred, and antisemitism, and manifestations, the worst manifestations of antisemitism were brought to this lovely place, in this wonderful synagogue. It was overwhelming to think about what was happening that Shabbat and the fear and terror that people felt as that was happening. That was number one. Secondly, I walked into the main auditorium where they were gathering all of the things that hadn't yet been taken away to be used in the museum and the memorial that's going to be constructed, that haven't been given back to families.  There were lots of things that are just not identified, they don't have families to return them to. And to see tallaisim and tefillin and all kinds of items that are used for Jewish rituals and Jewish customs just sitting on this table where they didn't know what they were going to do with them because the synagogue that existed there, the life that existed there, that simple, wonderful community, that was gone. It was gone.  That community will never be the same. And I think for our community, for the Jewish community, we're really never gonna be the same after what happened there. Manya Brachear Pashman: You were telling me before we started this conversation that they gave you something during your visit. Ted Deutch: As I walked through, and they saw how moved I was by this massive display. They came over and made such a kind gesture to me. And of all of the gifts that I've received in all of my travels, as a member of Congress, and now as CEO of AJC, I don't think there's anything that's as meaningful as the tefillin that they gave me. I don't know, obviously, I don't know whose it was. And it may well have been someone that was a synagogue member years and years ago. But the connection that I felt at that moment to that community at Tree of Life and the connection that I felt thinking about, not just Tree of Life, but tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people throughout our history.  And knowing that I was going to return to New York, I was going to have the opportunity to join the Jewish community around the world in overcoming these tragedies, and making sure the world understands why these kinds of attacks will never, they'll never work, they'll never, they'll never defeat the Jewish community. As we endure this really challenging time now in Israel, I've been thinking the same thing. We've gone through a lot in our history, and we've constantly, constantly overcome, and have grown and have learned and have continued to enrich the world. As Tree of Life rebuilds and will help shape a national and international conversation for years to come about fighting antisemitism. And as we continue to do our work and as Jews around the country and around the world go through whatever security measures they have to to go to synagogue and to drop their kids at day school and Hebrew school and for people to show up for programs at the JCC, there is a defiance that I felt at that moment that is perhaps the most important thing I took away from that day. Because it was awful. But I'm not going to dwell on how terrible it was. We're going to think about every way we can to honor the memories of the lives that were taken, and to strengthen the Jewish people in their memory as we go forward. Manya Brachear Pashman: We planned this series and invited you to speak before the October 7th terrorist attack in Israel and the war with Hamas that has unfolded since. At first we wondered whether we should even proceed with this series. How could we focus on anything other than Israel at this moment? Of course, the parallels between the Tree of Life and October 7th are all too stark– Jews are once again being targeted simply because they are Jewish. Can you share your thoughts on this difficult moment for the Jewish people? Ted Deutch: That sense of unease that all of us felt when we heard that story, like how could that possibly happen in the United States, really, it's an unease and fear that we feel when we've watched what's happened in Israel and when a horrific and brutal and barbaric attack takes place against our family, our brothers and sisters in Israel, we feel that here, and especially when it was, it was unthinkable what happened with this Hamas attack. Just as somebody shooting up a synagogue was unthinkable in America, it again, it puts us on edge, and it makes us redouble our efforts. Not just to fight antisemitism, but to really bring the community together. What I've really been proud of since this terrible time in Israel began is the way that AJC has responded, not just in putting out meaningful information to help people get the facts and get through this, and to fight back against lies. But the way that we've really worked to bring the community together.  There are 16 million Jews in the world, out of eight and a half billion people we need to stick together. Moments like Tree of Life remind us of that, and what's been happening in Israel absolutely reminds us of that. That informs so much of what AJC does, and has done in response to Tree of Life and certainly is doing in response to the current situation.

I'm very sorry for my absence. My son and I fell very sick with a stomach bug and we are finally back rejoining the world. That was rough. Thanks for your patience. Whenever I'm sick I am reminded of the quote: “A healthy person wants a million things. A sick person wants just one.” This made me want to tell the story of the medical therapy ATA188. A month ago I shared the story of an incredible invention that will cure the terrible pain from Sickle Cell Disease. Miraculously, there are now two drugs approved by the FDA that completely cure this disease. It is truly incredible. But we also discussed that the drugs Casgevy and Lyfgenia are priced at $2 million to $3 million per treatment! A shocking price tag to say the least. It's understandable why someone might look at that price tag and get angry with the company that is selling the products. How dare they charge millions of dollars for something that is supposed to help cure people? This brings up a big hairy question: How much should medical treatments cost? How should they be priced? In the case of these two drugs, the alternative treatment for the patients costs $4 million over a lifetime and doesn't provide relief from pain. So even at $2-$3million, the new treatment is less expensive, better for the patient, and saves the patient from a lot of ongoing pain. But even so, I can totally understand why someone would still look at the $3 Million price tag and think that the pharmaceutical company that is selling the drug is a money hungry monster. I get it. But not all drugs that are tested are successful like Casgevy and Lyfgenia. Take for instance, ATA188 from Atara Biotherapeutics. ATA188 is an immune therapy designed to treat multiple sclerosis (MS). This therapy is working on the newly developed theory that MS might be caused by the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in someway. This really cool study of over 10,000,000 military personnel showed a strong correlation between EBV and MS. ATA188 hoped to use healthy t-cells to target EBV cells to reduce or halt the progression of MS, offering a new approach to treating this chronic disease.I have two close family members that suffer with MS so I have been following this treatment fairly closely in hopes that it could offer some answers and potentially a solution for my loved one. Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.A little history on drug/therapy development: Medical treatments like drugs and immunotherapies like ATA188 usually involve many partners and organizations that work together to test and develop these medical inventions. For ATA188, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute were involved. Atara Biotherapeutics was the company that was commercializing the technology. What does this mean? Well basically the universities are often the ones that invent the new therapy or drug but they aren't that great at testing, getting FDA approval, and bringing the drug/therapy to market so that patients can buy the product to help them. So usually the Universities partner with a company or a bunch of investors to help get the innovation from the lab into the real world. That's where a company like Atara Biotherapeutics comes in. Atara enters into a licensing deal with the University and the people that invented ATA188 where, in most cases, the University/Inventor give the company a license to commercialize the invention, and in exchange they get fees and royalties if the product is sold to customers and patients. But, the catch for Atara Biotherapeutics is that now they must pay for the testing and trials that go into getting the drug/therapy approved. This can take a very long time and cost a hell of a lot of money. For instance, the phase 1 trial for ATA188 was way back in 2017. As you may recall, in most cases there are 3 phases of trials. I'm greatly simplifying this but in general here is what the trials do: * Phase 1: Get a small group of people, give them the drug/treatment, make sure it's safe and test what dosage to give. * Phase 2: Get a larger group of people and make sure it's safe and figure out what the best dosage to give is. * Phase 3: Get an even larger group to test that the drug is safe and evaluate how it compares to the alternative treatments on the market and placebo. All of us in the MS community were thrilled when we saw the results of the Phase 1 trial. 9 of the 24 people in the trial had improvement in their disability! This got a lot of us very excited that we may finally have some relief for MS patients. Of course, this early trial data got Atara Biotherapeutics excited too! With this result they wanted to put more money into funding Phase 2 trials. Here is how they designed the Phase 2 study: “The Phase 2 EMBOLD study for ATA188 is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled dose-expansion trial designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ATA188 in patients with progressive multiple sclerosis (PMS). The study, which began with the enrollment of the first patient in June 2020, aimed to measure changes in disability measures compared to baseline, particularly sustained disability improvement (SDI) over time. Additionally, the study included multiple measures of patients' function as well as various biomarkers.”So to recap the timeline, the phase 1 study started in 2017 and the phase 2 portion of the study didn't start until mid 2020. This is one of the things that contributes to the cost of drugs. It just takes a long time to test them and make sure they are safe. Not only did it take 3 years from phase 1 to phase 2, but phase two itself was designed to last 2 years. Sadly, in November of 2023, we got the first results from the Phase 2 trials and they were bad. The therapy had failed. Here is the technical jargon: “ATA188 did not meet its primary endpoint of change in confirmed disability improvement among patients with non-active progressive multiple sclerosis after 12 months of treatment. A 6% disability improvement was observed in the ATA188 group at the 12-month findings, which was significantly lower than the 33% observed in the Phase 1 study. The expected rate of confirmed disability improvement for patients on placebo was 16% at 12 months, exceeding the 4% to 6% expected rate.”Basically, after 6 years of testing and a lot of hope and promise, the people that received the treatment in the study did WORSE than those that received a placebo. Somehow 16% of the people that received the placebo got better but only 6% of the people that received the treatment. How could that be? How could people that didn't get any treatment (placebo) do better than those that got the treatment? — We don't know. But this is exactly why we do these tests. Not only do we have to make sure they are safe, but we also have to make sure that they perform better than a placebo. So what happens with ATA188? It's not certain yet. Atara Biotherapeutics has fired 25% of their staff including a VP and their Chief Medical Officer. The severance payments to those employees alone, just for firing them, was more than $4million. So how much did Atara Biotherapeutics spend on ATA188? It's not easy to tell exactly how much was spent on ATA188, but what we do know is that Atara spent a lot on research and development: * In 2020, the total R&D expenses were $244.65 million.* In 2021, the total increased slightly to $282.001 million.* In 2022, the total slightly decreased to $272.533 million​ Now of course, not all of that money was spent on ATA188 and these are just 2020, 2021 and 2022 numbers. So lets be very conservative, let's say that $150,000,000 was spent to test ATA188. I think that is a very conservative number, but I can't be sure. That money is now gone. $150,000,000 out the door, never to return. Not only is the money gone, but several medical professionals spent their time and effort for almost 7 years working on the testing for this drug. That time and effort is all gone now. Where did the $150 million come from? Atara is a publicly traded company meaning that anyone of the public can purchase shares in the company. The owners of the company are the ones that lost the $150,000,000. Take a look at their stock price: Anyone that invested in Atara for the past 5 years, most likely lost a lot of money. So why did they invest? They invested because they believed ATA188 would work. Maybe they were suffering with MS so they wanted to put their money into a company that might provide a cure. Maybe they were just money seeking investors that read the Phase 1 study, got excited, and thought they could invest in the next Novo Nordisk stock that was going to the moon! Whatever their rational, the investors that put money into Atara were the ones that took the financial risk to test ATA188. They risked their own capital to see if this treatment could help other humans. On this bet, they lost. This drug failed and it probably cost them about $150,000,000! An incredible amount of money. Hard to imagine really. It's estimated that only 1 in 5,000 drugs/therapies that are tested make it to human clinical trials. And of the drugs / therapies that make it to human clinical trials, only 1 in 10 will ever get regulatory approval. That's about a 0.002% chance that a therapy may be approved! So why would anyone take the risk with their own money when there is only a 0.002% chance of success? It's easy to answer: They invest for the chance to make a lot of money. Think about it like this…Let's say you are in vegas and you walk past a slot machine that says there is a .002% chance of winning. If you put in $1 you have a .002% chance of winning $10. Would you do it? Probably not. But what about $1 bet for a .002% chance to win $1,000? Well now it's a bit more exciting. What about $1 bet for a .002% chance at winning $1,000,000,000? That's a great bet to take! As much as we like to think of medical inventions as being altruistic inventions that are solely accomplished by the brilliant scientist in a lab - that's not how it actually works. The drug and therapy discovery and invention process is a beautiful dance between several parties. The universities and government providing foundational support and investment, the government evaluating the safety and effectiveness of the treatments, business people establishing companies to commercialize these inventions, and investors providing the financial support to fund the testing. So how does this all relate to the $2-$3 million Sickle Cell Therapy treatments? Thanks for sticking with me as I got to the point. While I can see how someone would look at a $3million treatment and be shocked and outraged - we need to keep in mind how many ATA188's are out there. How many drugs were tested that never saw the light of day? How much money was spent on developing drugs that didn't get approved? We must keep that in mind when thinking of healthcare costs and drug costs. There is a delicate balance that needs to be struck for a healthy society. We don't want our health care costs to run out of control and eat up our economy. But we also want to make sure that we keep incentivizing new invention and drug discovery. In order to do this we need: * scientists that are incentivized financially to keep inventing new treatments* investors that are incentivized financially to keep investing in new treatments. I firmly believe that we need both of these things in order to maximize our society's ability to invent new medical breakthroughs. As much as we like to hope that our medical inventions are done by noble scientists that don't care about money - that doesn't seem to be the reality. Some people argue that we need to remove the “profit motive” from healthcare in order to serve patients better. I can sympathize with this view because it makes emotional sense. You don't, for instance, want someone deciding who lives or dies based on how much money they have. I totally understand that argument. But when it comes to medical invention and discovery, the profit motive is a very important component in my mind. To me personally, I think the investors that risked $150,000,000 of their own money with the hopes that Atara would invent a cure for MS are heroes! They risked a lot of their own capital in hopes that it would help other humans. It didn't work out this time and they lost all or most of their money. But if that investment had worked out, for me personally, I would hope that every single investor in ATA188 would be rewarded for their risk by getting filthy rich. Not because they are “profiting off the sick” but because they were the ones that invested in making the sick healthy. And to me, that's the kind of investments we should be rewarding as a society. Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

Today's daf is sponsored by Rivka and Martin Himmel in honor of the birth of a grandson, son to Binyamin and Atara.  ׳׳וראה בנים לבניך שלום על ישראל׳׳ Why did Rabbi Elazar hold that a cuti can't marry a cutit?  How far back does a man need to check the lineage of the woman's family he is planning to marry? It depends on whether she is from the family of kohanim or not.  Why does one need to check her family but she doesn't need to check the man's family?  There are all sorts of people whose family lineage doesn't need checking. Why? 

Today's daf is sponsored by Rivka and Martin Himmel in honor of the birth of a grandson, son to Binyamin and Atara.  ׳׳וראה בנים לבניך שלום על ישראל׳׳ Why did Rabbi Elazar hold that a cuti can't marry a cutit?  How far back does a man need to check the lineage of the woman's family he is planning to marry? It depends on whether she is from the family of kohanim or not.  Why does one need to check her family but she doesn't need to check the man's family?  There are all sorts of people whose family lineage doesn't need checking. Why? 

This month, we mark the five-year anniversary of the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting at the Tree of Life. On October 27, 2018, 11 worshipers were murdered for solely being Jewish, in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. As the first installment in a four-part series, we take you inside the Tree of Life building before it is demolished in the coming months to make way for a new complex dedicated to Jewish life and combating antisemitism. Hear from Carole Zawatsky, the CEO behind the reimagined Tree of Life, and Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish Archive, as they explain their mission: to preserve artifacts and memories so that the story is preserved forever. Carole shares her commitment to honoring the victims, and Eric discusses the challenges of documenting an ongoing tragedy. Together, they emphasize the power of bearing witness to history and the healing strength of remembrance. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.  Episode Lineup:  (0:40) Eric Lidji, Carole Zawatsky Show Notes: Music credits: Relent by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com),  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Virtual Violin Virtuoso by techtheist is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License Fire Tree (Violin Version) by Axletree is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License. Al Kol Eleh (backing track), with Yisrael Lutnick Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us. Transcript of Conversation with Eric Lidji and Carole Zawatsky: Eric Lidji: Pittsburgh definitely is not forgetting. It's ever present here. There are people who are healing and doing so in ways that, at least from the outside, are remarkable and very inspiring. And there are people who I'm sure have not fully reckoned with it yet. Carole Zawatsky: It's all too easy to walk away from what's ugly. And we have to remember. We can't walk away. Manya Brachear Pashman: Five years have gone by since the horrific Shabbat morning at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue, when eleven congregants were gunned down during prayer – volunteers, scholars, neighbors, doing what they always did: joining their Jewish community at shul.  This is the first installment of a series of episodes throughout the month of October devoted to remembering and honoring the lives lost that day and reflecting on how the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history changed those families, changed us, and changed our country.  Today, we take you to the Tree of Life building that stands on the corner of Shady and Wilkins Avenues in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood to hear from two people in charge of preserving the artifacts and memories of the vibrant Jewish life that unfolded inside those walls until October 27, 2018. In early September, our producer Atara Lakritz and I visited the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood. Squirrel Hill, where Jews have settled since the 1920s, is quite literally Mister Rogers' neighborhood. We were there to interview those touched by the events of October 27. But it didn't take us long to figure out that everyone there had been affected in some way.  All along Murray Avenue, in 61C Cafe, at Pinsker's Judaica Shoppe, at the Giant Eagle supermarket, when we told people why we were there, they all had a story, an acquaintance, a connection.  Later, walking through the glass doors of the synagogue felt like we were stepping through a portal, traveling back five years, when life stopped, and the reality of the hatred and terror that unfolded there began to haunt every step.  Atara and I were invited to accompany a final group tour of the building before it closed in order for preparations to begin for the building's demolition. The tour was painful, but we felt it necessary to share with our listeners.  As we left the lobby, we were told to take the stairs to the left. The stairs to the right were off limits. Someone had been shot there.  We were led to a small, dark storage room where chairs had been stacked for guests. A handful of people had hidden there as the shooter continued his rampage, but one man walked out too soon, thinking it was safe. When first responders later came to get the others, they had to step over his body.  In the kitchen, there were still marks on the wall where the bullets ricocheted when he shot two women hiding underneath a metal cabinet. The calendar on the wall there was still turned to October 2018 with a list of activities that were happening that week posted alongside it.  And in the Pervin Chapel where seven people died, pews punctured with bullet holes and carpet squares stained with blood were no longer there. No ark either.  But remarkably, the stained glass windows remained with images and symbols of Jewish contributions to America, the land to which the ancestors of so many worshipers once inside that synagogue had fled to and found safety. Those windows will be carefully removed by the son of the man who first installed them 70 years ago. And they will return, when the reimagined Tree of Life rises again.   Carole Zawatsky: The tragedy is a Pittsburgh experience. But it's also every Jew's experience. It shattered for so many of us our sense of security in America. This is our safe haven. This is where we came to. Manya Brachear Pashman: Carole Zawatsky is the inaugural CEO of the reimagined Tree of Life. Since November 2022, she has overseen the development of a new complex on the hallowed ground: an education center dedicated to ending antisemitism, including a new home for the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh; a memorial to the lives lost that Shabbat morning; a dedicated synagogue space where the Tree of Life congregation can return. Carole Zawatsky: What can we build to enrich Jewish life, to remember this tragedy, and to show the world that we as Jews should not be known only by our killers and our haters, we should be known by our joy, our celebrations, our rituals, our resilience. Manya Brachear Pashman: The founding director of the Maltz Museum in northeast Ohio, Carole has spent the last 30 years developing programs and education around the Holocaust and genocide, and overseeing projects that explore Jewish heritage from a national perspective and through a local lens. She led our tour. On October 27, 2018, the congregations of Tree of Life, New Light, and Dor Hadash, which all met in separate areas of the large, multi-story building, had just ushered in the new Hebrew year of 5779. Young students at the Hebrew school had written their own personal Ten Commandments that the teachers had hung on the walls of an upstairs classroom. Carole Zawatsky: Don't egg your neighbor's house, respect your parent. Every one of them said: Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not kill. And those 10 commandments that they wrote in their little student handwriting were thumbtacked up on the wall in the very classroom where the gunman was apprehended. Manya Brachear Pashman: Before the rebuilding of Tree of Life begins, Carole's no. 1 priority has been preserving the artifacts and remnants that bear witness to what happened. Artifacts include the ark, damaged by bullets, the Torah scrolls, which were remarkably unscathed but for the handles. The list of whose Yahrzeits fell on that day, still on the podium; and, of course, the children's artwork and the wall behind it. Carole Zawatsky: In the work happening here, and in my role as the CEO, I constantly ask: ‘Am I doing it right? Am I doing enough?' And preserving the evidentiary material was incredibly important to me, that we have the physical evidence to bear witness. And as that drywall in the classroom in which the gunman, the murderer, was apprehended, was coming down, I found myself asking: ‘Have I saved enough? Will this story be preserved forever? Have we done everything we can?' Manya Brachear Pashman: Helping Carole with this Herculean effort, is Eric Lidji, the director of the Rauh Jewish Archive at the Senator John Heinz History Center, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Museum, in downtown Pittsburgh. Eric has been collecting documentation and evidence for the archive since October 28, 2018.  Painted stones left in memory of the victims, hand-made signs, pamphlets, and prayers from vigils, sermons from interfaith services. But also a pair of tennis shoes, a guitar, a framed leaf from the Raoul Wallenberg Tree planted in Israel, a cross affixed with Stars of David -- all individual expressions of a community-wide anguish. Eric Lidji: Even before I entered the building, we knew that there were going to be pieces of the building that had historic value. Since late 2018, I've been in the building numerous times, dozens of times, doing work there. And it sort of culminated in this opportunity in early June, where we were allowed to go in and identify pieces of the building that became historic that day, and figure out how to get them out. Manya Brachear Pashman: This is no simple job for anyone involved, no less for Eric, who is accustomed to handling archival materials from generations past, not the present. Eric Lidji: It's hard for me to disentangle the work of pulling these things out of the building with the knowledge that these families that I've come to know and love, that this is sort of directly related to their loved ones passing. Pittsburgh definitely is not forgetting, it's ever present here. There are people who are healing and doing so in ways that, at least from the outside, are remarkable and very inspiring. And there are people who, I'm sure, have not fully reckoned with it yet.  The stories that we're used to telling at the archive, they move much slower. You know, when you get records from 75 or 100 years ago, that's in motion too, but it's moving very slowly. And you can kind of sit there and watch it, and understand it. And get some sense of what it might mean. But when you're living through something, it's changing constantly, all around you. And it's responding to things in the world. And it's responding to people's internal resilience and their ability to grow. When I look out at the community, I see a lot of different stories. People are in a lot of different places. And it's going to be different on a month like this, where we're saying Yizkor. And it's going to be different in the early stages of the trial versus the late stages of the trial. It's assimilated into our lives now, it's a part of our lives. Manya Brachear Pashman: In 2019, Eric and journalist Beth Kissileff assembled an anthology of raw reflections by local writers about the Tree of Life massacre. It included only one essay by someone inside the building that day: Beth's husband, Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of New Light. Eric also contributed his own essay. He wrote: “I have no special insight into why this attack happened, or why it happened here. I don't know what would have prevented it from happening here or what would prevent it from happening again somewhere else. I don't understand the depth of my sorrow or the vast sorrow of others. I asked him if four years later he would still write those words. Eric Lidji: I feel the same way. You know, there's a second half to that paragraph, which is that, I do have the materials and I can describe those. The premise of an archive is that at some point, we'll all be gone. And when we're all gone, our things are what speak for us. And at the moment, there's a lot of witnesses here, emotional witnesses, I mean, who can testify to what this means.  But there's going to come a time where they won't be there. And our job, I say our, I mean everybody's, our job in the present is to document our experience. So that when we're not here anymore, people in the future have the opportunity to have access to the intensity of the feelings that we had. That ultimately is how you prevent complacency. And so I don't claim any, I don't understand anything in the present. But I do understand the records. And I hope that we're being a good steward and custodian of them so that in the future, people have the opportunity to have access to real human feeling and so that they can really understand what this experience was like for people who were alive today. Manya Brachear Pashman: The Rauh Jewish Archive has collected and preserved thousands of artifacts and documents, but no physical or intellectual access has been granted yet. Cautious care has been taken to make sure families and survivors are ready and know what's involved in making the materials available to the public. Once that happens, a trove of electronic materials will be uploaded to the newly launched October 27 Archive, which will become the public face of the collection. The electronic catalog will help individuals, schools, and institutions such as Tree of Life to tell the story they're trying to tell.  Carole Zawatsky: We're the only generation to bear witness to this. The next generation will not bear witness. Their children will not bear witness. We have a moral obligation to ensure that these lives are remembered and memorialized, and that we as Jews and as citizens of this earth remember what hate looks like and work toward a better world. It's all too easy to walk away from what's ugly. And we have to remember. We can't walk away. Manya Brachear Pashman: The Tree of Life building is now a shell of what it once was. The stained glass windows will soon be removed for safekeeping until the new building is ready to welcome them back. As the demolition crews arrive to remove what's left, Carole's focus has shifted. Carole Zawatsky: Our focus now is truly on working with our architect, working with the exhibition designer, and forming a new institution. This is an incredibly special moment for us, as we come together and continue to crystallize our mission, our vision, and form this new institution that will be a significant part of the Pittsburgh community, along with the national community. Manya Brachear Pashman: The architect for the project, Daniel Libeskind, a son of Holocaust survivors who is renowned for his redesign of the new World Trade Center site, has described the spiritual center of the Tree of Life as a Path of Light, which connects and organizes the public, educational, and celebratory spaces. Carole Zawatsky: We can never as Jews allow ourselves to be defined by our killers. And I'm delighted to be working with Daniel as our architect and his concept of bringing light into the darkness. Vayehi or, let there be light. We have to bring light back to the corner of Shady and Wilkins. And side by side with tragedy, as we have done throughout all of Jewish history, is also celebration. To have baby namings and B'nai Mitzvot. Celebrate Shabbat and celebrate holidays side by side. That this is the most Jewish thing we can do. When the temples were destroyed in Jerusalem, what did we do? We recreate. And that is the strength and resilience of the Jewish people. Manya Brachear Pashman: Carole also continues to build a multifaith donor base, comprised of foundations and individuals from Pittsburgh and across the country, to raise the $75 million needed to make the reimagination a reality, ideally by 2025. The reasons why donors give vary, but in most cases they're deeply personal. Carole Zawatsky: The events of 10/27 are personal for everyone. For those people who tell us: I heard the gunshots from my kitchen. I was with my children. From people across the country who experienced a sense of loss of safety. To non-Jews who say: I have to have something to tell my children why some people don't like their friends. What did I do? How did I help be a part of the solution? Manya Brachear Pashman: For generations, the Jewish people have confronted antisemitism in its many forms. But through it all, the Jewish calendar continues to guide the community through celebrations of life and beauty and wonder. Carole describes it as the bitter and the sweet.  Carole Zawatsky: I've had on occasion, a Rabbi, a funder: ‘How are you doing? How do you get through this?' And for me, there's often a soundtrack in my head. And one of my favorite Hebrew songs is “Al Kol Eleh,” and through the bitter and the sweet. To me, it is the definition of Judaism. And it's the definition of what we're doing. Manya Brachear Pashman: Do you mind sharing a bit of that song with us now?  Carole Zawatsky:  Al hadvash ve'al ha'okets Al hamar vehamatok Al biteynu hatinoket shmor eyli hatov Al kol eleh, al kol eleh. Manya Brachear Pashman: This podcast is dedicated to the 11 lives lost on October 27, 2018: Joyce Fienberg,  Richard Gottfried,  Rose Mallinger,  Jerry Rabinowitz,  Cecil Rosenthal,  David Rosenthal,  Bernice Simon,  Sylvan Simon,  Daniel Stein,  Melvin Wax,  Irving Younger.    May their memories be for a blessing.

Yom Kippur Farbrengen with Sheli Atara Mann

Rencontre animée par Gisèle Sapiro Interprètes : Michel Zlotowski & Lior Silberstein Au chevet de son père mourant, Atara recueille les propos confus de cet homme qui l'a élevée avec sévérité. Il l'appelle Rachel, du nom de sa mystérieuse première épouse, s'adresse à elle par une vibrante déclaration d'amour. Troublée, Atara retrouve sa trace et réveille chez cette femme âgée un douloureux passé dans la lutte armée clandestine. Rachel n'a rien oublié de ces années de résistance contre les Anglais, avant la fondation de l'État d'Israël, et surtout pas le prénom de celle qui aujourd'hui se présente à elle. Mais de qui Atara porte-t-elle le nom ? La rencontre entre ces deux femmes bouleversera de façon inattendue leur existence et liera à jamais leur destin. En sondant magistralement l'âme humaine, Zeruya Shalev montre comment l'histoire collective d'une société fracturée bouscule les liens privés. À lire – Zeruya Shalev, Stupeur, trad. de l'hébreu par Laurence Sendrowicz, Gallimard, 2023. – Gisèle Sapiro, Peut-on dissocier l'œuvre de l'auteur ?, Seuil, 2020.

Atara (Hermann) Lasky developed an eating disorder when she was in 8th grade. In this episode we delve into her story of her battle with this awful illness.  She is joined on this episode by her mother, Chani Hermann, Associate Director at Yachad, and her father Daniel Hermann, a clinical psycologist in Bergen County. We are listing the contact info for Atara, her father and her mother.  If you or someone you know is struggling with this, they are more than welcome to reach out to them for guidance and help. Atara Lasky - +1 (917) 409‑7790  Chani Hermann - Chani.herrmann@gmail.com Daniel Hermann - daniel@newjerseycbt.com _______________________________________ ► Alpert & Associates  Need Financial Planning and Life insurance? Call Moshe Alpert! Email: Moshe.alpert@nm.com for a free consultation, or head to Moshealpert.nm.com                                Or call                          718-644-1594 _______________________________________ ► Collars and Co For the best-looking and most comfortable dress shirts in the world.. Special Discount for first responders and Hatzalah Members! Use promo code: MMHeroes for 20% off your order of over $150. Collarsandco.com   For everyone else, Use promo code: MEANINGFUL for 15% off! ______________________________________ ► Torah Umesorah Share your story with us. Take a few moments to recall a moment where a Rebbe or Morah went beyond the call of duty. Send us that highlight that still makes you smile or tear up.  Torah Umesorah is launching Share Hamaalos  Share a moment, a highlight ,or a story, Join the effort. Inspire others. Share your story.  sharehamaalos.com Share your story via email or video: sharehamaalos@torah-umesorah.org Call in and record your story: 718-766-4554 ______________________________________ Subscribe to Meaningful Minute on WhatsApp:  WhatsApp Subscribe Link ____________________________________ Subscribe to our Podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2WALuE2 Spotify: https://spoti.fi/39bNGnO Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/MPPGooglePodcasts Or wherever Podcasts are available!   Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/meaningfulpeoplepodcast Like us on Facebook: https://bit.ly/MPPonFB Follow us on Twitter:https://twitter.com/MeaningfuPplPod   Editor: Sruly Saftlas Podcast created by: Meaningful Minute   For more info and upcoming news, check out: https://Meaningfulminute.org   #jew #jewish #podcast #frum #rabbi #frumpodcast #meaningfulpeople #torah #mitzvah #hashem #Mentalhealth #jewishpodcast #israel #AtaraLasky #nachigordon #jewishpod #Momobauman #anorexia #eatingdisorder #Story

Sheli shares about her connection with the Rebbe.

Franchesca Ramsey, also known as Chescaleigh, is an American comedian, activist, television, and YouTube personality, and actress who has appeared on MTV and MSNBC. Join Michael Jamin and Francheca as they explore her path to success, lessons learned, and what it takes to make it in Hollywood.Show NotesFranchesca Ramsey's Personal Site - https://www.franchesca.net/Franchesca Ramsey on Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchesca_RamseyFranchesca Ramsey on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/chescaleigh/Franchesca Ramsey on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@franchesca_leighFranchesca Ramsey on Twitter - https://twitter.com/chescaleighAutomated TranscriptFranchesca Ramsey (00:00:00):No. You, you never, you never know. And, you know, on the topic of Nose and Failures, I went to the red carpet for the Emmy's in 2008 and I swore that was gonna be my big break. I thought, I was like, I'm never going back to the chamber. Like I, I remember my boss.Michael Jamin (00:00:15):So you went as what?Franchesca Ramsey (00:00:17):As I was a red carpet reporter for.com. Oh yeah. I was on the red carpet. I interviewed like Kathy Griffin and Neil Patrick Harris. And I sang with Josh Groin. Like I had the best time. Right. And then I had to fly back to Florida and go to work. And I was heartbroken. I thought I was gonna get an agent. I thought I was gonna, I just thought like, this is it. I'm, I'm making it. And I did not make it.Michael Jamin (00:00:42):You're listening to Screenwriters. Need to hear this with Michael Jamin.(00:00:50):Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to another episode of Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I have a wonderful special guest today and she's extremely inspiring. And if you want to be a screenwriter, you need to hear how this woman broke in because it floored me. I'm here with Franchesca Ramsey and she has all, she's a multi-talented person cause she's an actor or writer performer. But she started as a YouTuber.Franchesca Ramsey (00:01:13):I started on the internet. It's honestly, it still blows my mind when I say it. But the internet opened so many doors for me and I could not be more proud of the career that it's helped me build.Michael Jamin (00:01:26):And you have so much. But I think what's most, like, I wanna talk about all your successes, but to me, what I really interested by are all the failures that led up to yourFranchesca Ramsey (00:01:35):Success,Michael Jamin (00:01:36):. Cause this is not overnight. No. that you made it.Franchesca Ramsey (00:01:39):No, absolutely not. And I really try to be transparent about those things because I know how it is when you're on the other side and you're watching people have all of these wins and you're comparing yourself to them and you're suing that everything is going their way. And the reality is, more oftentimes than not, there are so many nos behind the scene before they got to the yeses that you're getting to watch and experience. Right. So I, I've had a lot of them. ,Michael Jamin (00:02:09):We're gonna go through 'em, but lemme just tell everyone how we met. Cuz we only met on, on Friday. On Friday. I'm not big on Twitter, but I checked it for some reason, fate told me to check it. And someone had tagged me in a tweet saying, there are two screenwriters you need to follow me and you and your your, your Twitter is tr is is ChecheFranchesca Ramsey (00:02:26):Lee. Yeah,Michael Jamin (00:02:27):Chely. Which is, which is Lee's probably your middle name.Franchesca Ramsey (00:02:29):Lee is my middle name. Yeah.Michael Jamin (00:02:31):Okay. And so they tagged me and you and I, I didn't know you, so I was like, oh, look at her. And I clicked on your link and then I, and I realized, oh, what, you got a huge following and you have some interesting, you talk about interesting things. So I follow you. And then later that day, literally that day, I'm picketing cuz run, strike the Disney lot. And then you call out to me cuz you recognized me.Franchesca Ramsey (00:02:49):Yeah. Oh my God. I mean, I, I mean I, so I started following you on TikTok. It's been a while. I'm still pretty new to TikTok. I think I've only been on there like a year. I'd begrudgingly joined. I was one of those mm-hmm. . and so there's not a lot of TV people on there. Right. And the thing that I was saying to you at the Disney lot was, I appreciate that you have demystified the, the process and the business because there are a lot of people who love and enjoy television, talking about the business, and yet they have never worked in the business. And you come from a place of, yeah, I have sold shows. I've worked in hit series. I, you know, you've done so many things. And just being able to see someone who knows what they're talking about, but again, is making it accessible, is really inspiring. And it really is in line with the ethos of my work.Michael Jamin (00:03:39):And and you do all of that. I wanna talk about, jeez. Well, actually, actually, I should probably say how everyone knows you. Okay. Yes. You've done a ton. You first of all, you were a correspondent on the Nightly Show with, with Larry Wilmore, who Yes. It's funny I know so many writers and he, I, I think of him as a sitcom writer because he's written, he's a writer. Yeah. But he's also a performer's. Like you're singing yourself. He's a multi-talented person, but also decoded on m comedy Central. Mm-Hmm. Franchesca Ramsey (00:04:05):Mtv. Mtv. Decoded. Oh,Michael Jamin (00:04:06):Mtv. Yeah. Okay. I, Carly, which you did one season on Yeah.Franchesca Ramsey (00:04:09):The reboot. I, yeah, I did the first season of the reboot.Michael Jamin (00:04:12):Right. And that must have been, oh, I don't wanna talk about that. Yeah,Franchesca Ramsey (00:04:16):Yeah.Michael Jamin (00:04:16):We'll talk about that. We're gonna get into all that. You, you wrote for the Oscars in 2020. Mm-Hmm. you were, you were recurring on superstores an actor, right?Franchesca Ramsey (00:04:24):I was, yeah. I was recurring, recurring for 12 episodes in season six.Michael Jamin (00:04:28):Wow. That's, that's, that's,Franchesca Ramsey (00:04:29):Yeah. And I did that and I did that while I was a writer, producer on iCarly. So I had They didn't let you leave? They did let me leave. And I had many a times that I was on set at five o'clock in the morning to shoot, to go to shoot a superstore. And then I still had to get my outline and on time , and I did it. Oh my God.Michael Jamin (00:04:51):But, but Oh, and but you started mm-hmm. , even before this, you had a, you had a viral video Yeah. That went on YouTube.Franchesca Ramsey (00:04:58):Yeah. So I, I started making YouTube videos when I was in college. Not to date myself Right. But my senior year of college, YouTube was founded and I started making YouTube videos. And I had my very first viral video in 2012, which was Shit, white Girls Say to BlackMichael Jamin (00:05:15):Girls. Oh, you started, but you didn't start in 2012.Franchesca Ramsey (00:05:17):When did you start? No, I started in, I started in 2006.Michael Jamin (00:05:20):And then, right. So you had many, you did years of not making viralFranchesca Ramsey (00:05:25):Videos. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I was working as a graphic designer. I worked I worked in beauty and fashion mostly. So I worked at Maybelline, I worked in the package department. I was Photoshopping eyelashes on packages. The mascara does not make your eyelashes that long. , that was me. And then I also worked at Anne Taylor and I was working at Ann Taylor when I went viral in 2012.Michael Jamin (00:05:50):But did you not, did you, like when you were in high school, in college, did you want, I mean, guess, did you wannaFranchesca Ramsey (00:05:55):Be a writer performer? Yeah, no, actually I wanted to be an actor. I went to a performing arts middle and high school. There are a number of alumni from my high school. The person that most people know is Eric Andre. He's a comedian. Right. He was a year older than me. And there are a lot of us from my high school that are still in the business. And I went to college for acting. I went to the University of Michigan, but I left largely because I was struggling after losing my acting scholarship. I had a scholarship my first year, my second year I didn't. And I got a job. DidMichael Jamin (00:06:26):They, could you a scholarship for only one year? IsFranchesca Ramsey (00:06:28):That how works? Well, it was so it was not a need-based scholarship, meaning that it was not based on your parents' income. It was a talent based scholarship. So I auditioned for the school. I got a scholarship my first year. And then after that, the whole faculty voted on who got the scholarship. And because I was only a sophomore, I didn't know everybody. So most of the people that got the scholarship the next year were like juniors and seniors. So I was working part-time at school. I worked for the School of Public Health. I was working on their website. I was a self-taught designer had a bootleg of Photoshop and I'd gone to H T M L camp in middle school. And so I was like uploading files and shit, and I was getting paid 20 bucks an hour. And I was like, yo, this is it. I was like, maybe I should be a graphic designer. . So I left Michigan, moved back to Florida, which is where I'm from, and went to design school and was Oh, really? Studying graphic design. Yeah. And, you know, just I always kept a blog. I'd had a website since middle school. And when YouTube came out, I was like, yo, this is, this is really neat. ButMichael Jamin (00:07:34):This was just cuz you wanted personal expression.Franchesca Ramsey (00:07:37):Yeah. I just thought it was cool. I'd always, I was on live journal and I had dreadlocks at the time, and so I was always like taking photos of my hairstyles and like doing tutorials and just writing about my daily life. I mean, before, before there were digital cameras, I had like a scanner. And so I would go and get my photos developed and then I would scan them and I would post them on my little website. And it was just, I've always been a journaler. I've always like really loved, like just keeping track of my life. I am an only child, so I, I just like, I, that's just always been my form of expression. And so when YouTube came out, I felt like it was the perfect combination of all the things I was already interested in. Right. So I started making YouTube videos in 2006.Michael Jamin (00:08:21):But, and some of those, cause I went, I I scrolled down. You got a long list.Franchesca Ramsey (00:08:24):Yeah. I have so many .Michael Jamin (00:08:26):And some of them were just like, oh, here's, here's how I do my hair. And here's like, yeah. But then you started venturing off into more scripted, you know,Franchesca Ramsey (00:08:33):Compliment stuff. Yeah. I mean, so honestly what happened was I was watching Eric become a successful standup, and I remember him calling me and him saying, there are no black girls in New York doing standup. And I was like, really? And he was like, yeah. Oh my, this is my bad Eric. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got it. You got you. They're so funny. You should be doing this. And I was like, oh, I don't know. Like, I've never done standup. Right. And so I got a copy of the Comedy Bible, which is a great book that I recommend. Okay. And I used it to write my first standup set and was doing comedy in, in Miami and was making sketches and trying to promote my comedy career via YouTube. AndMichael Jamin (00:09:14):Was that working? I mean,Franchesca Ramsey (00:09:15):Yeah, it was. I mean, I was, it's so interesting because where we are with social media is just like, it just feels so accessible now. But like back in my day, I didn't know anyone that had a website. Right. And I had business cards that had my website, my YouTube on them, and I would go to comedy shows and I would say like, oh, you should watch my YouTube channel and like, get on my email list. And, you know, when I would do competitions at the Hollywood Improv, like I would send out emails and I would say, please come to my shows. And did people I Yeah, they did, they didMichael Jamin (00:09:51):Come. So these are your fans would come basically people who were on your email list? JustFranchesca Ramsey (00:09:55):People that I would, I would, I would, if you met me somewhere, I was asking you to be on my email list. Really. And after I graduated college, I got a job as the communications manager at the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce. So I was doing all of their graphics and PR stuff. And so I was learning how to write press releases. And so like, I was using that to build my online community for my YouTube channel. Right. And I, yeah. And I entered a YouTube contest in 2008, I guess. Yeah. 2008. It was the Red Carpet Reporter contest. Really? And I went to the Emmy's. Yeah. And I I You,Michael Jamin (00:10:33):You entered and you won?Franchesca Ramsey (00:10:34):I entered and I won. And I, I , I really used the things I learned at the Chamber. Like I sent out a press release about myself, , to like, local news. And news was on like my local news. Wow. I threw a party so people would vote for me. Like .Michael Jamin (00:10:52):So this is like, it was a lot. Cause so many people say, well, you know, how do I get an agent? How do I, people expect agents, managers, producers to make their career. And that's not what you are doing. No,Franchesca Ramsey (00:11:03):No.Michael Jamin (00:11:03):You're doing it yourself and you're not asking for permission, you're doing it.Franchesca Ramsey (00:11:07):No, I, working at the Chamber was really eye-opening for me because I learned so much about the power of networking. Right. I always had business cards. Every time I would meet someone like a tip that I learned was I would keep a little sharpie in my bag and I would write a interesting tidbit about them on their, on their business card. And then I would email them and I would talk about something that they had said to me. So like, if you said, oh, I gotta leave for my kid's soccer game, I would email you and I'd say, it was really great meeting you at the, the Coffee with the President event. I hope your kid, you know, killed the soccer game. You know, some, just something like that. And then people would be like, oh my gosh, she was so thoughtful. Like, yeah.Michael Jamin (00:11:44):But these are people who you, you don't, are are these people that you think that can help you? Like, who are these people you're meeting that you want their business card, that you wanna wanna email them? No, they'reFranchesca Ramsey (00:11:52):Not, they're not people that I think can help me. Like, I, I just think of it as, you know, when you meet someone and you connect with them, it's not necessarily that they're gonna help you get further mm-hmm. . But like, if, if we have a connection and we like each other, like maybe there's a world in which we work together, or Yeah. I've got this, I'm doing this contest and I need as many votes as possible. And I met you at an event and we got along, or I'm doing standup now and I'm like, Hey, you know, remember I was kind of funny when we met, like come to the standup,Michael Jamin (00:12:22):But how often would you, if you met, I don't know, let's say, I don't know how many people we've met in a month, let's say it's a dozen. How often are you contacting them to stay in touch to let them know they'reFranchesca Ramsey (00:12:32):Live? So I was, so, so again, I was working at the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce, which is a membership organization for small businesses. Mm-Hmm. . And we would put together events. We had a weekly coffee with our president every Friday. We had dinner galas, we had golf tournaments. We would go to like, opening of businesses. Like we were doing events all the time. And at every event I was just like, hi, hey, nice to meet you. And I was just meeting as many people as possible and I was doing some of this on Company Jam. I was sending emails and being like, Hey, I met you at this event, can I put you on my email list? You know? Right. soMichael Jamin (00:13:06):I How did you get to be so smart about this though? I mean, like, like did someone teach you this or is this like, I'll just gonna, I like thisFranchesca Ramsey (00:13:11):Idea. I, I will say I learned a lot from the Chamber because we had we had like a women's group and we had like a young professionals group. And because I worked at the Chamber, I was there for all of these events. And I will also add, this was my first job outta college. I am still friends with the people I worked with at the Chamber. I'm still friends with the members that, you know, I met when I did my book tour in 2018, I was able to do it at a bookstore that was one of the members of the chamber when I, you know, I was like trying to get something together. And the bookstore was like, yes, we will absolutely buy copies of your book. We remember you. Right. And right. And it's, I think oftentimes people think about networking for like, these selfish, you know, I'm gonna move forward.(00:13:57):Right. But if you come from a genuine place of just getting to know people and, and showing real interest, my dad always says, be interested. Not interesting. Right. Actually, just like getting to know people and connect with them, you will find that people are like, yeah, you know what? I could throw you five books. You know what? I got a place that you can host a comedy show a actually I will buy a book. Like, people wanna help you. And I was really fortunate I got that job not knowing what it was. And I say all the time, it really like laid the foundation for me when it came to the power of networking and that people like who, you know, really does help you get ahead. But it also enriches your life and your career.Michael Jamin (00:14:38):But how else did it help you knowing any of these people later? Like how, how else did it, you know, materially Okay. I get, yes, you had a and you could, you could do a signing at the store, but how else did it help you?Franchesca Ramsey (00:14:50):I think just helped me to see people that like believed in me. You know, when it was time for me to have comedy shows and stuff. And especially there's so many places where you have to ha bring 10 people. Oh, okay. You, you, you gotta do a bringer show if you're gonna get on stage. And so, you know, kind of corralling my email list to get people to come and support me when I did that YouTube contest and I needed people to vote for me. Right. I, there was a member who had a nightclub and so I threw a party at the nightclub and it was genuinely me just being like, can I throw a party here? And they were like, yeah, no problem. Your, are your friends gonna buy drinks? Right? Yes. . So I set up little laptops and I had people voting for me at the party and Wow. And I, and I won the contest.Michael Jamin (00:15:35):So these are just so small, little, little unexpected ways that just pay that just pay off. But you don't know how or whenFranchesca Ramsey (00:15:41):Yeah. Pay off. No, you, you never, you never know. And, you know, on the topic of knows and failures, I went to the red carpet for the Emmy's in 2008 and I swore that was gonna be my big break. I thought, I was like, I'm never going back to the chamber. Like I, I remember my boss. WellMichael Jamin (00:15:57):You went as what? AsFranchesca Ramsey (00:15:59):I was a red carpet reporter for people.com. Oh yeah. I was on the red carpet. I interviewed like Kathy Griffin and Neil Patrick Harris and mm-hmm. , I sang with Josh Groin, like I had the best time. Right. And then I had to fly back to Florida and go to work and I was heartbroken. I thought I was gonna get an agent. I thought I was gonna, I just thought like, this is it. I'm, I'm making it. And I did not make it. I went AndMichael Jamin (00:16:24):How did you get that job to begin with? The, you know, the red carpet shop? I, because you didn't have an agent?Franchesca Ramsey (00:16:29):I, I entered the YouTube contest. So theMichael Jamin (00:16:31):Contest that was just from that.Franchesca Ramsey (00:16:31):Okay. Yeah. So you had to send in a video of you doing an interview. And I interviewed like my boyfriend at the time and my dog. And then I, you know, I was in the finalist and then I went on the streets of Miami Beach and I just interviewed people. Right. And and then it was voting. So then I, you know, I was doing all, I was hustling to get votes.Michael Jamin (00:16:50):It's so funny cause you are not shy. I mean, no, like, that's how I met. I mean, right. And good for you and good for you. I mean, who else is gonna advocate for you, if not for yourself? I think people want agents. Like they want an advocate. Well be your own advocate. HowFranchesca Ramsey (00:17:02):About that? No. Yeah, no, it's totally true. And look, I, I, I did that red carpet reporter contest and I, you know, I was kind of thrown to the wolves in that nobody was helping me. Right. interview people. They gave me a list of potential celebrities and I watched as many shows that were nominated as possible. I wrote jokes. There was a person under the camera poking me in the leg being like, you gotta hurry it up, wrap it up, wrap it up. I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I just was going for it. And I really thought, and my videos were, they were funny, the clips were viral. I was doing great. And then nothing happened. Like, it was it,Michael Jamin (00:17:39):Did they ask you back the year later? Or No?Franchesca Ramsey (00:17:41):No. Nothing. No. They didn't even do the contest again. It just, it just was over. I thought people, people.com was like, we loved you. And I was like, great. Do you wanna hire me? And they were like, no, ,Michael Jamin (00:17:53):No. What makes you, why, why would you think we wanna hire you ?Franchesca Ramsey (00:17:57):I was so heartbroken. I moved, I moved to New York the next year, Uhhuh, and I did kind of like the little tour. Like I went to the people offices. I got all dressed up and I was like, remember me? I won that contest. And they were like, yes. When like, what, what do you want? I was like, I, I thought I would get a job. .Michael Jamin (00:18:14):Really? Yeah. And so then what happened? So, okay, good, good. , you got, you're here and then you fell back a couple pegs. That's fine. And then what happened?Franchesca Ramsey (00:18:21):Yeah, so I was kind of pounding the pavement in New York. I did all sorts of jobs. I stuffed envelopes for like a a temp agency. And, you know, I'd gone to school for graph graphic design and I was going to lots of events in New York. Like I went to social Media week in New York. Right. And I met a guy at Social media. He probably was trying to date me in, in hindsight, I had a boyfriend. Right. But I met this guy at Social Media Week and he worked for a creative temp agency. And he was like, oh, well I can help you find a job. And I was like, really? And he was like, yeah. So as this, at this temp agency, I was just doing design for a bunch of different places. So I did some design for the botanical gardens. I had to ride a hour plus train up to the freaking Bronx. Mm-Hmm. . And I was, you know, pushing pixels around for the for the botanical garden. I also worked for this place that did like a big book of I guess it was like a, it was like a fashion book that got put out every year. I, I don't really remember what it was, but I was, you know, just doing a lot of photo editing and stuff. And that's, and then I got the Maybelline job through a friend.Michael Jamin (00:19:32):But that wa I, I wanna, but Okay. But then all the while you're still putting out YouTube videos, right?Franchesca Ramsey (00:19:36):Yeah, I was still making YouTube videos. I was usually like waking up early and editing. I was stealing my neighbor's wifi so I would upload before I went to work because Uhhuh, that was when nobody was on the internet. Youtube was very slow back then. So Yeah. You to like, leave your computer uninterrupted to upload videosMichael Jamin (00:19:57):And, but, but pe people were slowly finding you at this point, or no?Franchesca Ramsey (00:20:01):Yeah. I mean, I was building a little bit of an audience cuz I was making those hairstyle videos. And remember I had had a website in middle school and high school. Right. So I had, I was building my audience. Like I was in this live journal community called, oh no they didn't, which was like a gossip community. Uhhuh . So I posted my videos there. I was in a dreadlock community called Get Up, dread Up, and I would post my hair videos there. And, but atMichael Jamin (00:20:28):Some point you, you decided to make a leap Cause you you had that one video that went viral.Franchesca Ramsey (00:20:32):Yeah, so actually before that, I entered another contest in 2011 called the YouTube Next Up Contest, Uhhuh . And and I won that contest. It was a contest to find like YouTube's next big stars. Right. And it was me and 25 other people. And we each won $35,000. Nice. And we spent a week at YouTube learning how to like better produce our videos and we got new cameras andMichael Jamin (00:20:57):Out here YouTube and, and my, inFranchesca Ramsey (00:20:59):New York? InMichael Jamin (00:21:00):New York. Oh, New York. Okay. Yeah. You know, my partner and I ran a show by from Renton Link.Franchesca Ramsey (00:21:04):Oh, well yeah. I love them.Michael Jamin (00:21:05):Yeah. They're, they had a show, YouTube offered them money, like a lot of money to make a sitcom and they hired us to, to be the right to run.Franchesca Ramsey (00:21:11):Oh, cool. Yeah. No, I love, I love them. I was in one of their, I was in the old collab video with them years ago. Oh wow. Yeah. So I got to meet so many YouTubers from that, and actually my current writing partner, I met her through the YouTube. Next up she was a freelance producer at YouTube and they put us in little teams and had us make YouTube videos, Uhhuh. And she and I, she and I really hit it off and we stayed friends. And the, the year after I did next up is when I had my first big viral video. And I really believe that next up taught me a lot about, you know, tentpole content. Like thinking about my content around holidays and special events and trending stories and finding ways to infuse my personal voice. And so I started kind of like changing my content right. Where I was just doing hair stuff. Right. And I was doing random comedy things, just being more focused.Michael Jamin (00:22:03):And what was your focus?Franchesca Ramsey (00:22:04):Well, my focus was more of looking at trends and finding ways to infuse myself in them uhhuh. And looking at what everybody's talking about and how can I put my own unique spin on it. Right. And so what happened was, there was a viral video called Shit Girls Say. Right. And it was a guy in a wig just doing a bunch of different things that girls say. And there were lots of parodies. There was like, shit, black girls say shit, moms say shit, dad say, and I was trying to figure out, I was like, I wanna do one, but I don't know what I wanna do. And I had gone home for the holidays and I was at a party, a Christmas party mm-hmm. and everyone was drinking and I was not, because I was the designated driver. And as my friends were getting drunker, people were starting to say some things to me that just were at the time things that a lot of my white suburban friends would say to me.(00:22:57):And I wouldn't think twice about, but because I had this video in my head, I was like, oh, maybe this is the video. People were like touching my hair and, you know, just saying things that I don't believe were coming from a bad place. Right. But I was like, something is in this. But I was like, I don't know, like, I don't know what to make this. It's like, I was like, shit black girls say, I was like, shit, white girls say, and I hate to even say it. My ex was like, maybe it should be shit white girls say to black girls. And I was like, no, that doesn't make sense. The the meme is shit. Girls say so it has to be that. And my ex was like, why, why does it have to be like that? And I was like, I dunno, I don't, I really wrestled with it. And then I thought, well, maybe that's what it'll be. So I wrote down all of the things that people had said to me. Right. I shot the video, I uploaded it before I went to work. And by lunchtime it had like a million views. And my email was just like blowing up. My phone was just like going nuts. No one at Ann Taylor knew I made YouTube videos, Uhhuh . And I was like freaking out. It was like, what? The frick is happening?Michael Jamin (00:24:02):Freaking out. Because you were worried you were just in trouble, Atara, or what? No,Franchesca Ramsey (00:24:06):No, I was just freaking out in the sense that I was feeling overwhelmed because my inbox was suddenly, you know, NPR wants to interview you and the Huffington Post wants to write something about you. Yeah. And like all of these agents and S n L reached out to me and they were like, we would love for you to audition for S N L. And I was like, what the f I was at work while this was happening. Wow. And I was like crying at my desk and, and my coworkers were like,Michael Jamin (00:24:31):What is all like tears of joy. No tears.Franchesca Ramsey (00:24:33):Yeah. Tears of joy, but also tears of like, I'm very emotional. I was very, I was just overwhelmed. Like, I don't know how to handle this. And, butMichael Jamin (00:24:43):That video is, is wonderful. Yeah. obviously I watched it, but were you, I mean you were making a statement?Franchesca Ramsey (00:24:50):Yeah. I mean, I don't think I knew I was making a statement. I thought I was just genuinely, I thought I was making a video about being from West Palm Beach, going to private school, where oftentimes I was the only black person in my class. And having my friends who were well-meaning say things to me that I knew made me feel uncomfortable, but I wasn't really sure why.Michael Jamin (00:25:14):You weren't sure why?Franchesca Ramsey (00:25:15):I wasn't sure why, but I knew I, but I knew there was something funny about it. Right. And I, and I think my surprise was realizing that I had captured a universal experience that other black people and just marginalized people in general experience where people in their lives are like, you're different from me. And they're acknowledging it in a way that is not necessarily malicious, but it does still feel uncomfortable.Michael Jamin (00:25:39):But, but some of them were kind of cringy. Some were like, Ooh, did someone, some of them really say that to you?Franchesca Ramsey (00:25:45):Like, oh my god, really? Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. And, but that's also what was incredible to me about it is because the comments were like, this is my life. The comments were saying, I am the only black girl in my school in Idaho, and this has happened to me. And, and I'm, I'm watching these comments coming come in and realizing like, oh, I did something with this that I didn't anticipate. Yeah. I, you know, I got invited to be on Anderson Cooper. They did a whole segment about me in that video. I had never been on national television before. And, and, and I, I was like, I had no agent. I had no help. I did my own makeup, which mm-hmm. I think I did good. But like, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. And I stillMichael Jamin (00:26:25):Have How did your friend, how did your friends react to it though when they saw it?Franchesca Ramsey (00:26:29):Oh my God, they thought it was amazing. My whole, I I mean this was, butMichael Jamin (00:26:32):But they were the ones who said these things to you.Franchesca Ramsey (00:26:34):Yeah. And they were like, this is really fun. One of the girls that like was the main culprit came with, with me to Anderson Cooper .Michael Jamin (00:26:39):But aren't they supposed to apologize for, I mean, they're not supposed to think it's funny. They're supposed to say, I'm sorry. I said those things.Franchesca Ramsey (00:26:45):, you know, I, I I think it's also just a symptom of where I was in my life because at that time now we talk about privilege and microaggressions in a way that feels, you know very forward thinking and, and progressive. And in 2012, we were not. Right. And so again, while I knew that those comments made me uncomfortable, I did not have the language to explain why. Right. And I, and I did not believe my friends were malicious, and I still don't believe that they were malicious. It's just a symptom of your privilege. And that is something that people do all of the time, right? Mm-Hmm. , like straight people do that to gay people. Right. Gay bodied people do that to disabled people. Like cis people do that to trans people. It happens across every dynamic and, and every identity. And so I don't think my friends, some of them did feel like, oh my God, this makes me like look bad. Right? But I didn't have anyone that felt like, oh, Francesca hates me. Like, everybody knew I was making comedy content. Mm-Hmm. . And a lot of my friends that were sharing it across all backgrounds were like, oh my God, this has happened to me. Or Oh my God, I need to check myself. Because Right. In the context, this doesn't seem great. Right.Michael Jamin (00:27:59):Do Now I imagine putting yourself out there, cause I know what it's like, it exposed you to backlash too. And myFranchesca Ramsey (00:28:07):God. Oh my God, yes.Michael Jamin (00:28:09): What, what and what was that like for you the first time? And what's your advice? For me itFranchesca Ramsey (00:28:13):Was r it was really hard. It was really hard. So that video got about 12 million views in the first week. Right. And, you know, again, today 12 million views maybe. Doesn't seem like a lot.Michael Jamin (00:28:24):No, it's a lot. It's aFranchesca Ramsey (00:28:25):Lot. I mean, I, I, you know, TikTok, people are blowing up all the time, but it was really big for me. Right. But again, because I was talking about race, there were a lot of people that were uncomfortable and there were people that were calling me a racist. They were saying that I hate white people and you know, this is not right. And if it was reversed and, and I, for better or for worse, am very accessible. So I was in the comments, like fighting with people. I was arguing back and forthMichael Jamin (00:28:52):And why? So that's the thing.Franchesca Ramsey (00:28:54):Yeah. And I, and I do youMichael Jamin (00:28:55):Should you do that?Franchesca Ramsey (00:28:57):No, I, I think you really have to pick your battles mm-hmm. . And I think that, I think that there are some people that are always gonna dislike you no matter what. And they always have, they already have their mind made up about you. Yeah. And so you have to decide like, what is the purpose of me engaging with this person? And for me, especially on Twitter, even if I engage with someone who I disagree with, if I think I can make a broader point about the misconception, or I can clarify something, or I can use them as an example of how to better defend yourself on certain topics, I'll do it. Versus there are a lot of people I just don't engage with at all. ButMichael Jamin (00:29:37):You, I I'm gonna guess I'm taking a wild guess though. I'm gonna guess that you've never once changed anybody's mind.Franchesca Ramsey (00:29:45):I dunno that that's, I don't, I I'm gonna push back and say I don't necessarily think that that's true because I got a lot of emails from people that said that I did change their minds. Really. But I think, but I think it's, again, it's also a matter of what your approach is. And it also has to be somebody who actually wants to have their mind changed. There's a difference between somebody that just wants to argue. Right. And someone who genuinely says, I don't understand this thing and I want to, and I think whether it's online or in real life, we have to be better at gauging the difference because it is a waste of your time to argue with the person who already has their mind made up. Mm-Hmm. versus to engage with the person who says, you've made me think about this differently. I'm not sure I agree yet, but I'm like close to figuring out if, if I could be.Michael Jamin (00:30:31):And that makes you feel good knowing that, I mean,Franchesca Ramsey (00:30:34):Yeah. I mean me, it'sMichael Jamin (00:30:35):Exhausting. That's all. Yeah.Franchesca Ramsey (00:30:37):It isMichael Jamin (00:30:37):Exhausting. It really is.Franchesca Ramsey (00:30:39):It is exhausting. But I think what that video taught me about myself, and it really kind of shaped the direction that my content went in Yeah. Is that there's a lot of, that comedy is really powerful, that we can tell stories that we can tell the stories of people that don't necessarily see themselves represented and feel like they're being heard. We can expose people to new ideas. Mm-Hmm. , we can get people to think about the world that they inhabit and how they move through the world differently. And I realized like using comedy to talk about serious stuff is something that I wasn't seeing other people do on YouTube. And so I really started like shifting my content Yes. In that direction.Michael Jamin (00:31:19):That's almo. Would you say that's kind of your brand now? I mean, what? Whatever that means.Franchesca Ramsey (00:31:23):Yeah. It was, and I'm, I don't know. It's hard. I'm trying to get out of it if I'm being honest.Michael Jamin (00:31:28):Why? Okay. Yeah. Why?Franchesca Ramsey (00:31:29):Because it is exhausting. Because, because as a black woman moving through the world, I'm constantly being asked to justify my existence and educate people mm-hmm. and talk about serious topics all the time. Right. So then to do that for my job is, is dually exhausting. And, and I, I struggle with it because I know I'm good at it. Right. And I know it's important, but it takes a lot out of me. Yeah. It ta and, and you know, like, I'm dealing with this right now with the writer strike where I'm making a lot of content about the strike because I think it's important. But I'm also being asked and pulled and every direction where people like, explain this will tell me this, well, it makes sense, da da da da da. And I'm like, this is actually my livelihood. Like this is not just a trending topic on Twitter. Like this is about how I'm gonna continue to make a life for myself, you know?Michael Jamin (00:32:21):But Okay. So you're, are you're still, are you still making original content on YouTube? No. No. Why not? I think you should Franchesca Ramsey (00:32:29):I have, I have a, cause I, I have a complicated relationship with YouTube Uhhuh. I guess the, the best way to say it is, you know, after, after, after I went viral, I got an agent. I left my day job, I started auditioning and, andMichael Jamin (00:32:45):The, and the, I say want, I wanna slow it down. The agent reached out to you?Franchesca Ramsey (00:32:49):Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. And I will also add that prior to that, I had made DVDs of all my standup and all my sketches, and I had mailed them out to every agent in New York. And not one person got back to me.Michael Jamin (00:33:03):This is exactly what Okay. So I do a, a monthly webinar, free webinar where I talk about Hollywood and how to break in, this is exactly what I talked about yesterday. Yeah. Is that you have to make them beg Yeah. If you're begging them, it's not gonna happen. Right. It's not gonna happen. Right. They have to look at you like you are, like you have dollar signs on your face Yeah. And you're a big bag of money. And when they see money on your face, they'll come after you. Yeah. Which is what they saw with you. Okay. This isFranchesca Ramsey (00:33:27):Someone, it was like the, it was like the year prior I had sent out those DVDs and I did not get one person to get back toMichael Jamin (00:33:33):You. Same person, same talent. Yeah. You just didn't have the platform yet.Franchesca Ramsey (00:33:37):Yeah. And then suddenly everybody wanted me. So then I, you know, I got this agent and, you know, I got the opportunity. I, I met with a manager and she said like, what's your dream? And I said, I want my own TV show. AndMichael Jamin (00:33:50):She What kind of show, by the way?Franchesca Ramsey (00:33:52):Well, I didn't really know. I just knew I wanted a show. And she looked at my YouTube channel and was like, well, we should pitch like a sketch show. So I was out pitching the sketch show, nobody bought it. Mm-Hmm. . And one of the places I went to though was M T V. And M T V was like, well, we really like you. We have this show about feminism and and pop culture that's doing really well. Would you be interested in developing something similar about race? And I was like, yeah, that sounds cool. So I met with this production company called Corn Neighbor Brown. Mm-Hmm. , we started developing what then became M T v Decoded mm-hmm. . And, you know, I, Dakota has opened so many doors for me. I'm, I'm so proud of that show. But I dealt with so much harassment because of that show so much. And YouTube, for Better for worse, did not really support me. And, and I, and I, and I really struggled with that becauseMichael Jamin (00:34:45):What kind of support were you hoping to get from them?Franchesca Ramsey (00:34:48):Well, people were making death threats. Oh. People were taking my content and they were editing together videos of me to make me say that I hate all white men and I hate all white people. Oh my God. And I think people should die. And, and, and, and YouTube was like, well, you know, it's not a copyright violation. And I was like, how is this not a copyright violation? Like, soMichael Jamin (00:35:07):What do you do when that hap what do you do when that happens?Franchesca Ramsey (00:35:10):I mean, what I did was I ended up walking away. I mean, I did it for six years. And again, I am so thankful for all the doors that it opened, but I had to ask myself like, is this worth it in terms of what I want? And what I want is to be a comedy writer. I don't want to be a professional educator. I don't want,Michael Jamin (00:35:29):But I imagine you were also monetizing this from YouTube. You were making monies, right?Franchesca Ramsey (00:35:32):Well, it was MTV's content. So I was not making, I was making a flat rate on every episode. I was credited as executive producer because I had developed the show. So I was being paid as the host and executive produ producer, and I was paid anytime I wrote an episode mm-hmm. . And I wrote about, I'm gonna say I wrote about like 50% of the episodes, and then I got hired on the nightly show. Right. So I was on TV and I was doing Dakota at the same time. So we brought in writers. Right.(00:36:02):so I was making a flat rate. I wasn't making, I wasn't making a ton of money. I I I, I worked part-time jobs. I worked as a writer for Upward for three years. Mm-Hmm. , I was speaking at colleges, I was doing like little TV things here and there, but I was M T V was not paying all my bills. Right. and so when I really like took a step back and looked at where I wanted to go in my career, I was like, I just don't wanna be an internet personality for the rest of my life. Mm-Hmm. . And I don't wanna be the girl who just talks about race. And I was like, I'm glad that this is given me a platform and opened all these doors for me. But I would meet people and they would, they were surprised that I was funny. And, and I would say, well, I'm a comedian. They're like, no, you're not. I see you onde coded. And I'm like, right. Well, Dakota is like an educational show. I'm, I'm not, I'm not know. But the thingMichael Jamin (00:36:54):Is, people say to me, I'm afraid about, like, they're not even in the business yet. I'm afraid about being put into a box. Right. I'm afraid of about doing this one thing that getting stuck in the box. And my attitude is get in a box first. You know, you need to get work.Franchesca Ramsey (00:37:06):Yeah. Get in the box first. Yeah. And thenMichael Jamin (00:37:07):You worry about getting out of the box.Franchesca Ramsey (00:37:09):Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I, and I would, yes, I, I agree. Like, and if, for me, I didn't know I was getting into a box. I was following what was being successful for me and what I was enjoying and what I was good at. And I did that for six years. You know, I was on the nightly show. And, and even that, like, I started for a minute. I was like, oh, I think I wanna be a late night host. And then I was realizing like, oh, this is really hard. Like mm-hmm. talking about the news and, and, and writing about news, writing about what's happening in the world and trying to put in a funny spin is just a, it's hard. It's so hard. And again, I learned so much, but I think what I really learned was, I was like, if I have a TV show one night a week, I don't wanna do five nights a week, .Michael Jamin (00:37:51):But even on your channel, which I poked around, I was like, oh my God. Like you interviewed Michelle Obama. I was like, what? Like what? How did that come about? ?Franchesca Ramsey (00:37:58):Yeah. I mean that was, that was through YouTube. I, so, because I was so active and I had won that Emmy's contest and I won that next step contest, like I had a relationship with YouTube, like I would speak at events there. Mm-Hmm. one time they had this party where they had an airplane circling LA with like celebrities. And I hosted the plane. Like I was speaking over like the, the speaker in the plane. It was so weird. It was very fun. But like, that was because of YouTube. And so they would regularly reach out to me and say like, oh, we're doing this event which you hosted, or would you speak on this panel? Or whatever. SoMichael Jamin (00:38:36):Leaving, it must've been very hard for you because on the one hand, they were good too. You on the other hand,Franchesca Ramsey (00:38:41):Yeah. I mean, I wasn't getting paid for a lot of those things. Like I Oh really? No, no, it was justMichael Jamin (00:38:45):Exposure.Franchesca Ramsey (00:38:46):Yeah. It was just ex it was exposure. And that was also part of it. Like, that was me making a conscientious decision that I wasn't gonna do unpaid work anymore. Uhhuh. . But I started saying like, okay, cool. Like, you guys are happy to have to fly me out and have me speak on a panel, but I then have to run back to my hotel room and like write these articles because I'm, I don't have money. You know? And like, my visibility, I think a lot of times people think like, oh, I see you everywhere. So that must mean you're making a lot of money. That must mean you're, you're, you're crushing it. And that's just not always the case.Speaker 3 (00:39:23):Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not gonna spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.Michael Jamin (00:39:47):But even on your videos of, on your YouTube videos, you were mon like, cause you can't monetize them. Yeah. You just didn't, you weren't getting a lot. That'sFranchesca Ramsey (00:39:53):No, I wasn't, I I was never one, I was never consistent largely because I always had a regular job. Like I, I tried being a full-time YouTuber and I just, the money is so inconsistent. It's a once a month paycheck. Yeah. And you don't know how much it is because some months you have a really good month and your views are really up. Other months your views are really down. The, I don't know what they're like now, but at the time your ads did not automatically come on your video. Sometimes the ads wouldn't show up for like a day or two. Uhhuh . So if you got all your views in those first two days and then they dropped off by the time you got ads, you didn't make any money.Michael Jamin (00:40:30):Oh, interesting.Franchesca Ramsey (00:40:31):And then there's like certain times of year that were really good, I was always trying different things. Right. Like I was making Holiday vi, I made these Christmas card videos. I made these videos that you were supposed to send to people for their birthday. I did Parodies, lady Gaga came out with a song. So I did a video for like, you know, I stayed up all night like editing this video. So Yeah,Michael Jamin (00:40:50):You did Gwen Stefani, you sounded just like her. Yeah. I was like, that was great. I wouldFranchesca Ramsey (00:40:53):Do all these impressions and I was, I was just realizing that the amount of hours I was putting in were not, it wasn't paying off for me is what I was realizing. And that was a big part of my transition into like, I want to be in tv. Right. That's always been the goal. You know, I, I went to acting school. I didn't know I was gonna become a writer and, and I was so glad that I was doing that, but I was like, this is, I don't wanna be on YouTube for the rest of my life. I don't wanna make videos in my apartment. I don't wanna make videos about my life. I want to work in tv. So really focusing on that, and again, doing Decoded was awesome, but I realized what I have to do is I gotta get a sample. Right.(00:41:36):Like I have to, I have to put together a packet. Like I have to start doing the things that are gonna move me into the next phase. Mm-Hmm. . And I think kind of to your point about being in a box, I think you have to be open to, if you're in a box or people are seeing you one way, being open to saying, what else can I do? And like, how can I show people that I'm more than this one thing? Mm-Hmm. and taking that risk and believing in yourself is really scary. But it's essential because I could have done decoded for the rest of my life and I don't want to do that ,Michael Jamin (00:42:11):You know? But then, so iCarly was prob was your first scripted? Yeah.Franchesca Ramsey (00:42:15):And then it wasMichael Jamin (00:42:16):What, so how did you get that? Cuz that's a big leap you have toFranchesca Ramsey (00:42:19):Write. Yeah. So before iCarly, what did I do before iCarly? So I did the nightly show and then I sold a pilot to Comedy Central. Mm-Hmm. . And the pilot was with the same producers that did Decoded and it was kind of like a late night sketch type show, Uhhuh . And we didn't go to series. They actually gave us a mini room and I did not know it was a mini room at the time. I was just happy that I was getting a writer's room. And so we wrote 10 episodes of the show. We didn't go to series. I wrote a book. Right. I did a book tour.Michael Jamin (00:42:54):And how, how did the, how did the book come about? Which the book is called, well that escalated quickly, , which I imagine and the memoir and memo, it's memoir Mistakes of an Accidental Activist, which is Yeah, that's a perfect idol. Cause I think that's exactly what you were, right?Franchesca Ramsey (00:43:08):Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it, it really was a collection of essays about a lot of the mistakes that I had made in communicating with other people on the internet and talking about things that were important to me and all the lessons that I had learned along the way. And after Shit White Girls say Went viral, I had a number of people reaching out to me, asking me to write a book, but I just didn't know what I wanted to write a book about. TheseMichael Jamin (00:43:32):Were agents or publishersFranchesca Ramsey (00:43:34):Literary agents saying like, you should write a book. And I just didn't know what I wanted to write a book about. I kept putting it off funny. And then after I was a nightly show was still on the air and I, I decided, I think I wanna give this a chance. And I finally had initially I wanted it to just be called Accidental Activists and that was gonna be the title. And I started putting together a book proposal and meeting with literary agents. And I met this great literary agent and she gave me like really good notes on my proposal. She really ripped it apart . Mm-Hmm. . And I was so happy because I had felt like she was the first person I talked to that wasn't like blowing smoke up my ass. She was the first person that was like, this is good, but it could be better. Right. and so she and I worked together for like two months on the proposal and then we went and did a number of meetings. I think we met with like six publishers andMichael Jamin (00:44:28):I And you didn't wanna write it first, you wanted to pitch it first as get it sold first?Franchesca Ramsey (00:44:32):Yeah. So in with non-fiction, you don't have to write it first. With fiction, usually you do have to write it first. Right. If you've written a book before the fiction proposal usually don't have to write the whole thing. But for non-fiction you usually write like two or three chapters mm-hmm. and then you do like a summary of what the book is about and a bio and who you are and, and why this book and you know, what are books that are in the same family as yours and Right. What your plan for press would be and all that stuff. And I'm, you know, I went to school for graphic design, so I made like a really beautiful book proposal with like photos and Oh wow. Artwork and I drew all these little charts and graphs and stuff cuz that's kind of like, I love infographics. And so yeah, we went to maybe six or seven publishers and I got four offers. Wow. And they went kind of head to head and my agent was pitting them against each other. Wow. yeah. And I got a six figure book deal, which was a big deal. .Michael Jamin (00:45:30):That is a big deal. Yeah.Franchesca Ramsey (00:45:32):And thenMichael Jamin (00:45:33):Did they help you, what, you know, promote it, put you on tour?Franchesca Ramsey (00:45:36):Yeah, so I mean, that's part of when you work with a publisher is they have a a publicist, like an in-house. I was at Grand Central Publishing, so they had a publicist and we did a photo shoot for the book. And I spent my own money, like I got a publicist. I also had a website built for the, for the book. And then we did an eight city book tour and I got cities added because I really wanted to do something in Florida where I'm from. And that was where I reached out to some of my contacts from the chamber and got my local Miami bookstore.Michael Jamin (00:46:09):Why these, the only eight cities, though. Like, what, when they say they're putting on tour, like, I don't know.Franchesca Ramsey (00:46:14):Well, they looked at, they looked at the analytics from like my Facebook and my Instagram and, and my YouTube to see like where my audience was at. Okay. And they used that to pick what citiesMichael Jamin (00:46:25):And then people came out. Yeah. And, and you read, you read and signed books.Franchesca Ramsey (00:46:28):Yeah. Yeah. So I kind of, I picked, I reached out to friends in different cities and I had different people as kind of like my co-host in each city. And it was awesome. But it was, it was exhausting. It was really exhausting. And I was doing that at the same time that I was doing my comedy Central pilot. And all of this is to say that like, in that moment I thought like, I'm making it. I was like, I'm making it. I'm like, I'm about to be like a star .Michael Jamin (00:46:55):That's what I would think. But you know,Franchesca Ramsey (00:46:56):It wasn then my showed didn't go. No. Cause then I showed it didn't go. ButMichael Jamin (00:46:59):That's normal. Most shows don't goFranchesca Ramsey (00:47:01):Right. But I didn't know that didn know that. I, I, I didn't know that. I, I thought I'm a failure. Especially because, like, really think about it. Yeah. Well, think about it this way. When, when you, when a pilot gets announced, right? I, this is my first time having a, having a pilot ever. Mm-Hmm. , a pilot gets announced and people that don't work in TV think that means you have a TV show. They're like, where is the show? And I'm like, oh, well I'm making the pilot now. And they're like, well, when does it come out? I'm like, I don't know. It hasn't been ordered a series. So like, people were writing articles about me, like 10 Reasons Franchesca's gonna change late night. And like, we need Franchesca's show. And like, she's amazing. And Larry Wilmore had gotten canceled. So it was like Franchesca Ramsey's gonna be the only black woman late night host. And like all of this hype was coming for me, and my book was coming out and, and, and, and my publisher was really like, this is it. We're gonna time it with the show. And then, and youMichael Jamin (00:47:54):Were believing this too.Franchesca Ramsey (00:47:56):And I was believe of course I was, of course I was believing it. I was like, oh my God, I want this so badly. Yeah. You know? And and hindsight is 2020. Like it was not the show for me. I'm glad that I didn't end up making that show because I, I really don't wanna host a late night show about identity. Right. I, I thought I did, but I don't want to anymore. And so like, when it didn't go to series, and then, well, we, we did the mini room and, and that was kind of like a consolation prize, but even then I was like, it was another year of staffing and, and, and putting the room together and trying to figure out what the show was, and then waiting around for Comedy Central. And then they said, we're not going to series. They were like, well, let's sell it somewhere else. So I was like, shooting these sketches. And we,Michael Jamin (00:48:44):That doesn't, that doesn't happen. . Right. But that so rarely happens, but, okay.Franchesca Ramsey (00:48:47):Right. Well, especially because other networks are like, well, you didn't want it. Why do we want it?Michael Jamin (00:48:51):Yeah. We don't, they don't want damaged goods. You don't,Franchesca Ramsey (00:48:53):You don't. You didn't want it. So now you think I'm gonna make the show. Like, yeah. Right. Again, and I'm just kind of like, I, I'm just like, I'm just going along. Right. Like Right. I'm going and taking these meetings and, and you know, you have meetings and they're like, we love you. You're amazing. You're great. We're passing, you know, .Michael Jamin (00:49:09):Yeah. Yes. I know. All those meetings. .Franchesca Ramsey (00:49:11):Right. And so I was just like, I was just like, oh my God, my career is over. And I got a writing job on yearly Departed, which is was a late an end of the year comedy show. Mm-Hmm. . And that was through Twitter. BES Calb, who was our showrunner, followed me on Twitter. We were friendly, and my reps were like, Hey, there's this late, this end of the year comedy special, do you wanna take a meeting? I took the meeting and Bess was just like, I love you. I think you're super funny. She had read my sample and yeah, it was kind of, it was like a series of eulogies for different things throughout the year. Uhhuh .(00:49:54):And we did it over Zoom Oh, wow. During the Pandemic. And I was still auditioning, and that's when I booked Superstore. I booked Superstore while I was doing Yearly Departed. So I went to LA to do Superstore and it just worked out that it was at the same time that yearly was gonna film. So I got to go be on set and, and Seeba happened. And and after being here for Superstore again in the middle of the pandemic, I was like, I don't really wanna go back to New York. Right. What if I just stay ?Michael Jamin (00:50:25):Well, you, but you're married, aren'tFranchesca Ramsey (00:50:26):You? I was, I got divorced. You was? Okay. I got divorced in 2019.Michael Jamin (00:50:30):Okay. So you don't have to worry about your husband coming overFranchesca Ramsey (00:50:32):Here. No, no. We got divorced before, before I got hired on that show. Yeah. I mean, right. Like the year before the pandemic. Right.Michael Jamin (00:50:42):And then how did I, Carly come about then?Franchesca Ramsey (00:50:45):My managers were just like, Hey, you know, I, I told them I wanted to staff. Right. And so, yeah, I took a meeting with Ally Shelton, who was our showrunner, and again, she read my sample. And I think what she really appreciated was that I had this background as an internet person and mm-hmm. You know, Carly is an internet person personality, and I had actual experience and dealing with trolls and dealing with going viral and Yeah, of course. Live streaming and course bands and social media course. And so Allie was a perfectMichael Jamin (00:51:18):Choice. Yeah.Franchesca Ramsey (00:51:19):Yeah. Allie was like, you really understand this world. And I I came, I went into my meeting and I had watched episodes of iCarly and I pitched some ideas as for what I felt like would be the direction that I would be interested in going in. And and prior to that, I had my friend Shameka that I mentioned that I had met through YouTube. She and I had sold a pilot to Fox. And so I learned a lot about the scripted process through that. Right. Just through development. It was with Kay Cannon and and Kay is amazing. I learned so much from her.Michael Jamin (00:51:55):But was it intimidating for you to be, cuz now you're in out of your element again, you haven't done scripted, soFranchesca Ramsey (00:52:01):It, it wasn't intimidating. I, and I, again, I really feel very fortunate because I was able to work with a friend of mine that I had known for, you know, almost 10 years. And she and I had made YouTube videos together and we had come out to LA for pilot season as actors and we got an apartment together. And through the audition process we were like, all of these scripts are bad, we could fucking do this. Right. We were like, we could write a script better than this. . Yeah. Right. And so we wrote like a treatment. We didn't even write a full script. And then we, through our agents, went and took a bunch of meetings and we met with Amy PO's company. Mm-Hmm. . We, we went to Kay Cannon, which is K and l. We went to a whole bunch of places, but Kay and Laverne, her business partner, we just, we just loved them. And they were like, we wanna develop this with you. And so they really taught us how to develop and structure a scripted pitch. ThatMichael Jamin (00:52:57):Was the Fox show.Franchesca Ramsey (00:52:58):Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I had never pitched a scripted project before. Everything was like sketched late night. Yeah. Variety. And so yeah, off of that, again, we didn't go to series, but we wrote the pilot. And so I used that as like a sample, even though I'd written it with someone else. And then I had a sample that I'd written by myself, and then I had like all my decoded videos and I had sketches from my Comedy Central pilot an

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00:00 - Good Morning00:09 - Omer.8MinDaf.com00:16 - US Tour01:36 - Emails09:04 - Sponsor.8MinDaf.com10:51 - Amud Aleph41:18 - Amud Beis48:53 - Have a Wonderful DayQuiz - https://kahoot.it/challenge/007907537--Today's shiur is sponsoredMr Eli Stefansky: L”n Menachem Toporowitz מנחם מענדל ע"ה בן יבלח"א יהושע דב&לע״נ חיה בת יוסף&לע״נ זכריה בן משה&Refuah Shleimah Rav Eliahu Ben Zissel Devorah&L'ilui Nishmas My Father, R' Yisroel ben R' Dov, May today's learning be a Zechus for his Neshama and a source of comfort for the family.Tzirel, Avrohom Mayer, Yisroel Dov & Asher Zelig Farkovits&Arnon Ahronov: In memory of my father in law Rabbi Murry Maseltonר מרדכי בן שפיקה&זכות דניאל בן יעל to surpass his goals at work bekarov BH!&Steve Melnick: Avraham Moshe Ben Shalom A"H&David Kramer: לז״נ יצחק אייזיק בן יעקב סנדר הכהן. Uncle Ira. Who yearned for doing the avoda&Jonathan & Chaya Lasson: In Honor of Rabbi Dovid & Arielle Lasson on the Birth of Twin Girls, Atara & Chana. And...in Honor of Reb Fishel Gross for All He Does for the Baltimore Community​​---Turning of the dafGreg HaberFor ופרנסה בריאות הצלחה ברכה for my entire family, Rav Eli &everyone learning the daf

TWINS! What's more exciting than that?Join us as we find out the scoop of what life is really like living with a twin. In this episode, we talk about many topics including individuality, jealousy, and sensitivity. Our first interview is with twins, Sarah and Miriam, from Lakewood, NJ. Next we meet their big sis, Ahuva, who gives us a perspective many of us haven't thought of before. Lastly, we meet identical twins, Atara and Tehilla, from Baltimore, MD.If you enjoy this episode, remember to rate and subscribe on whatever platform you listen on.7:24-Sarah and Miriam's Interview18:21-Ahuva's Interview28:20-InKredible Tips for Interacting with Twins30:52-Atara and Tehilla's InterviewRemember to send all responses, questions, comments, and ideas to ikidspodcast@gmail.com.Make sure to follow InKredible Kids on your favorite podcasting app, so you never miss an episode. Be sure to rate the podcast and drop a review!Explore our website: https://inkrediblekids.org/.................................................................................................This episode is sponsored by Pompomz Personalized Gifts. Use our code PODCAST for 10% off your purchase at https://pompomz.com/. Follow Pompomz on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/pompomzgifts/. .................................................................................................This episode is also sponsored by The Motivation Congregation Podcast. Join their WhatsApp status here: https://wa.me/message/ZE6RVXJW7HAXH1. Listen to their podcast here: https://open.spotify.com/show/6uAtZk1wzE3K8BZhZ2haJE?si=pPmCjcTuRJ2ArnMTjXdnzw..................................................................................................You can be a sponsor too! If you are interested in sponsoring an episode as a zchus for something dear to you, email ikidspodcast@gmail.com.Support the show

Hey Kids!Join us as we talk about sports, or athletic activities, as we call it.First we meet Atara, a skilled gymnast from Houston, TX. She has worked hard at gymnastics, while also continuing to learn how to deal with her anxiety. Next we hear from Coach Parry from Baltimore, MD, who shares about getting kids to love sports and believe in themselves. Finally we meet Reuven from Toms River, NJ, who gives us insight into what boys do at recess and how sports makes them feel.If you enjoy this episode, remember to like and subscribe on whatever platform you listen on.7:40-Atara's Interview20:52-Coach Parry's Interview*30:49-InKredible Skit32:36-Reuven's InterviewRemember to send all responses, questions, comments, and ideas to ikidspodcast@gmail.com.Make sure to follow InKredible Kids on your favorite podcasting app, so you never miss an episode. Be sure to rate the podcast and drop a review!Explore our website: https://inkrediblekids.org/.................................................................................................This episode is sponsored by Shaya Preis of Prime Insurance. Call/text/whatsapp Shaya today at 732-648-6808.You can be a sponsor too! If you are interested in sponsoring an episode as a zchus for something dear to you, email ikidspodcast@gmail.com.*Coach Meir Parry of Believe and Achieve:  basports32@gmail.comNY based camp: http://www.machanechaim.com/Support the show

Sheli speaks about how to utilize the trait of severity in healthy relationships. Sponsored by Ariella Serach Tokum in honor of Eliyahu ben Refael, in honor of an aliyah for his neshama. Lilui Nishmas Eliezer Lipman ben Yehoshu

In December 2022, Atara Biotherapeutics' Ebvallo received European Commission approval as the first-ever therapy for adults and children with EBV+ PTLD. The ground-breaking approval represents the first approval of an allogeneic T-cell immunotherapy ever, globally. Atara Bio's CEO, Pascal Touchon, talks to Cell & Gene: The Podcast's Erin Harris about the biopharma's path to regulatory approval, commercialization plans for Ebvallo, an in-depth look at EBV+ PTLD, the connection between EBV and serious diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS), and much more.

The Life Sciences Industry is ready to face communication, regulation, and innovation challenges. In this episode, Matt Neal, Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs Operations at Atara Biotherapeutics, talks about his work introducing innovative technology for data management to evolve the regulatory operations and submissions space. Matt also explains why he believes that communication with the patient community, bringing company information to an accessible platform, and standardizing the language in work environments can accelerate the innovation process in life sciences. Tune in to learn how Matt Neal is getting rid of the waste in Life Sciences to improve the industry! Click this link to the show notes, transcript, and resources: outcomesrocket.health

B”H Real estate, as my guest today suggests, is still some sort of boys' club. Fortunately, we have women like Atara Twersky helping change that. Atara is on a mission to help professional women understand Real Estate as an asset class, and helping them invest, so that they can spend time doing the things they love with those who they love. Atara is the founder and principal owner of Ascendo The post 296: Demystifying Real Estate Investing with Atara Twersky appeared first on Jewish Latin Princess.

ATARA, aka Johannes Saam, is an Academy Award-winning creative technologist, futurist, and web3 artist.With two decades innovating in visual effects and film, raised by 80s and 90s movies and video games, he's an explorative creator of generative art, and most recently as co-founder of a new NFT collection ~ DALL-E Punks.Reimagining the iconic CryptoPunks through a visual AI engine stack to create a new interpretation, reflecting the traits of the originals, such as hoodies, cigarette and eye patch ~ only that each image is now totally unique, and the eye patch prompts turned into pirates.In this episode we talk about his visual effects career in the film industry, exploring creativity through coding, mathematics and technology, the latest from AI generative platforms such as DALLE-2, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, and we go behind the scenes for the creation of DALL-E Punks.SPONSORSZerion combines every corner of web3 in a simple and intuitive app for self-custodial humans. Discover the hottest NFT collections, track your DeFi rewards, and vote in DAOs across 10+ chains. Get started at zerion.ioLens Protocol is the open-source tech stack for building decentralized social media applications. A permissionless and transparent social graph that is owned by the user. Lens is the last social media handle you'll ever need to create. Visit lens.xyz

Atara on a TallisSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/ten-minute-halacha/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Bonus Content: Emet from the 2022 Phonic Fiction Fest.   Produced as part of the original audio drama festival Phonic Fiction Fest, Emet was written, recorded, and produced in just 48 hours. It won numerous awards by the voters in the festival, including top prizes in Story, Acting, Original Music, the Horror-Fantasy category, and was voted Best Overall out of all 25 entries.   A transcript can be found here.   Content Warnings: Fantasy horror, death & suicide, loud noises, references to blood, disease, and cultural oppression.    Credits Producer, Editor, Sound Designer: H.M. Radcliff of Packhowl Media, The Madness of Chartrulean, & Tales for Howling at the Moon.   Lead Writer & Director: W. Keith Tims of Alien Ghost Robot Creative Media, The Book of Constellations, The First Episode Of, The Love Talker.   Voice of Duncan, Composer, Contributing Writer: Aud Andrews of The Madness of Chartrulean and his Bandcamp site.   Voice of Atara, Contributing Writer, Songwriter "Atara's Lullaby": Noelle Rose of Dragon Shanty.   Voice of the Golem, Translator, Jewish Folklore Consultant: Sivan Raz of sivanraz.com.   Editing and Sound Design: Magnus Carlson of The Nebulous Saga.   Special thanks to Cole Weavers of The Town Whispers and Nathan Lunsford of The Storage Papers for founding and running the Festival.

Sheli gives over her perspective on how to have to put a positive spin on occurrences in life.

In this week's episode, Randall has Josh Poertner on to talk aerodynamics. In a wide-ranging conversation, the two touch upon Josh's time as Technical Director at Zipp, involvement in the development of computational models for rotating wheels, early collaboration with Cervelo founders Phil White and Gerard Vroomen, founding and leadership of the product brand Silca and The Marginal Gains Podcast, and ongoing consulting work with elite athletes and teams. Silca Website  Marginal Gains Podcast Episode Sponsor: Logos Components  Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Silca - Josh Poertner [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. This week on the show, I'm handing the microphone back to my co-host Randall Jacobs. Who's got Josh Portner, the CEO of Silka on the shout out a wide range in conversation about the sport and high performance. Many of you may be familiar with the storied Silka brand. It's been around for close to a hundred years. But josh took over back in 2013 with a mission of merging the highest quality materials and craftsmanship with cutting edge design and manufacturing When you visit the Silca website, you notice a tagline, the pursuit of perfection, never settling, always improving. And I think that embodies how Josh approaches the sport. . So I'm excited to pass you over to Randall to dig into this conversation. Before we jump in i want to thank this week sponsor logos components Yeah, I've been itching to get back on a set of six 50 B wheels, and I've been waiting for my logo's components, wheels to arrive. They literally just arrived last night and I'm super stoked. But yet disappointed because I have to go away for the weekend and I won't be able to actually ride them until sometime next week. I chose the Atara six 50 B model. As you know, I'm sort of big on the big tires, big fun philosophy. So I've been eager on my unicorn, which I've been riding on a 700 SEASET for a while now. To get into the six 50 bees again and see what a six 50 by 50 combined with that rock shock fork is going to yield for me on the trails here in Marin. You guys may remember. Me sitting down with Randall, talking about what makes a great gravel wheel set and everything that went into these logos component wheels. I encourage you to go back to that conversation because whether or not the logo's wheel set is for you or not. I think Randall does an excellent job of teasing out. All the various considerations. You should be having when considering buying a gravel wheelset, It is no small expense when getting into a carbon wheel set, but the team at logos has endeavored with their direct consumer model. Uh, to make it as affordable as possible and make them as durable and high performing as anything out there on the market. I written wheels designed by Randall for the last three years. So I'm super excited. To see his latest vision come to fruition. With these new wheels and I'll have them underneath me soon enough. I encourage you to check them out@logoscomponents.com. Randall's also an active member of the ridership community. So if you have questions for him, feel free to join us over there at the ridership and connect with other riders. I seen people paying that their wheels have arrived so you can get some real, real people answering your questions. About whether they're enjoying the wheelset and how they perform, et cetera. And I'll have more on this in future additions. At this point. I'm going to hand the microphone over to Randall. And i hope you enjoy this conversation with josh [00:03:30] Randall: Josh Portner, thank you for joining us on the podcast. This is a conversation I've been looking forward to for quite some time. Some deep bike nerdy is probably about to ensue, so, uh, let's dive, let's hope. Dive right into it. [00:03:43] Josh: Well, thank you for having me. Always, always up for some deep bike. Nerdy. I like that. [00:03:49] Randall: So a number of our listeners will already know who you are, but just give folks a high level summary of what you do now. [00:03:55] Josh: Oh gosh. So I own Silca, um, or I own Arrow Mind, which, uh, owns the Silca brand and trademark, um, and, and all that that entails. And then we also have a, uh, we own Marginal Gains, which is a podcast and a YouTube channel. And, um, Yeah, our goal is to, a mind works with a lot of pro riders, pro teams, world tour teams. Um, you know, we do everything, Excuse me. We do everything from, you know, performance consulting, uh, modeling, uh, you know, setting up our record attempts for people or, or helping them design our record attempts. Um, you know, we do tire pressure work with pros. We do equipment choices for teams. We think some of the most interesting stuff we do, um, is around where like, uh, teams or national federations don't trust the equipment they're getting from somebody. And they'll come to us and say, you know, the, you know, bike brand X says that this does this, and our writers don't think so. Can you tell us what's true? And. We'll find a way to make that happen. So we, we've had some pretty interesting ones of those with, uh, particularly around the Olympics with the national federations. You know, no, nobody wants to have another Under Armor speeds skating suit, uh, situation, , right? Where all the, all the athletes think something is true and therefore it becomes true and, and nobody knows. And so, um, you know, so we do a lot of that. Arrow mind does that, essentially. And so that's a lot of the performance work I was doing in my old world. I was technical director at ZIP for almost 15 years. Um, and, and then Silca is the product arm of the company. Uh, that's probably how, you know, most people know us. You know, we make pumps and tools and, and, but we also make a lot of crazy things that people look at me and go, Oh, where the hell did that come from? Well, that probably came from some project or another. We did it in the Arrow Mind side of the business, Um mm-hmm. . So that's how we've gotten into sealants and lubricants and 3D printing and, and all sorts of other craziness. Right? That's sort of how the one flows into the other. And then, you know, Marginal Gains is a podcast and, and YouTube channel where we talk about it all and, and we, we typically with a, a team or a company have like a two year. Secrecy period on a technology. And then after that we can do something with it and, and talk about it and tell the story. So, you know, it's always, it's always fun to go through those periods where like, Oh, thank God we can talk about that now, . Cause you know, we're talking about it internally all the time. And, and you're like, Oh, can we put that in the podcast? I don't know. So, so that, that's what I do now. We, I, I play with bikes basically. [00:06:34] Randall: Very, very cool. And, um, when you talk about the consulting work you do, is this kind of full stack performance consulting, is it very a focused, is it all technical sides, including say, like bearing drag or, or things like this? Is it, um, obviously positioning falls into Arrow Nutrition. Like where, where do you, ooh, where does your domain physiology start? [00:06:57] Josh: And I draw the line at physiology, you know, there's a whole, there, there are people who are, are like my equivalent in that world. And, and my God, I can never even dream to. You know, clean their shoes. So, um, no, you, you need someone to talk physiology, you know, And I'll, I'll pull my phone out and we'll call Allen Li or somebody, you know, Yeah. With a bunch of contacts. But, uh, you know, Alan's one of my favorite go-tos for things like that and be like, Oh dude, I've been over my head help . You know, [00:07:21] Randall: he, he's, um, he's actually been on the pod before, but Craig interviewed him, so I might bring him on in the future to do, you know, my, my more kind of nerdy type of interview. Alan's great. Yeah, no, [00:07:31] Josh: he's, he's a lovely guy. He's a lovely guy. And, and I just love, I mean, he, you know, like I find myself pretty quickly sometimes getting into places where people's eyes just glaze over, like, what the hell is this guy talking about? And, you know, I love that Alan can do that to me in about 30 seconds, you know, we're talking about the stuff that he does. You're like, Oh, whoa, shit, way over my head way. I, I didn't even recognize the last four words that you used in that sentence, . And, uh, so it's, it's awesome to be able to be surrounded by people with that. But no, you know, we. The stuff that they come to us for. I mean, you know, when I left sip and started soak, of course everybody and their brother, you know, came and said, Oh, design us a wheel. I'm like, well, like I can't do that for a couple years. But also I'm kind of just done with that, you know, like I've lived that life. I, you know, it, it was fun. But, you know, we, we continually updated wheels for 15 years, but it, it really is kinda like doing the same thing over and over again, you know? And, and so it just wasn't fun for me. So, you know, they'll come and say, um, you know, help us design this cockpit, or we, we do a lot of, with our, our in-house, uh, 3D titanium printing, we do a lot of custom cockpits for, uh, teams, riders, things like that. You know, where we laser scan the rider, get the position, lock that down to the wind tunnel, design the part, 3D print it, um, you know, stuff like that, that, that's really exciting. We, we'd get a lot of, you know what, um, You know, help us optimize for this time trial at the tour or the Olympics or whatever, where, you know, what tires should we run and we can, we have systems and tools and, and spreadsheets and a million other things that we can, um, Yeah. Help, help them determine. And then a lot of times we, you know, we get companies coming to us, um, really just wanting to know, like, you know, if, like, which of their sponsor products should they use and when should they go off sponsor? You know, you'll see that a lot at like, the tour where, excuse me. Um, you know, like they, they ride the sponsor correct product, you know, 98% of the time, and then they're gonna sneak it in here or there when it's really critical. So, you know, what, what are those really critical points? And then, you know, if, if they're gonna risk getting in trouble or outright get in trouble, like it needs to be worth it, right? And so they might come to us with like, okay, you know, we need. I need a time trial tire for this rider for this day. You know, what should we do? And, and we'll help him with that. But yeah, you know, if you, if you were a, a brand, uh, or a world tour team there, or approach our athlete that wanted to go to the win tunnel, you know, you might pay us to come along. Um, a lot of what I do too is kind of fun is just act as like a fly on the wall in these team to sponsor interactions. You know, I think I was probably at half a dozen wind tunnel tests last year where I really had pretty much nothing to contribute other than being the neutral third party in the room, um mm-hmm. you know, so that everybody was comfortable that everybody was. Comfortable . [00:10:26] Randall: Well, I would imagine there's a mix of the, uh, the political, if you're talking about, you know, what should be using our own sponsors gear versus slipping something else in all the way to, um, balancing the competing goals of say, like comfort and pure power output on the bike versus aerodynamics. Um, if you're talking about a time trial position. Yeah. [00:10:47] Josh: Oh yeah, for sure. And, and I think even down to, you know, and I think as much as we love to talk science and testing and, and try to be as scientific as possible, I mean, this stuff is really, it's emotionally hard. It's politically hard. It's, you know, companies will bring new equipment in, they're with their engineers. I mean, those guys and girls want that stuff to work so bad. And you know, sometimes you just see things coming out where, Oh yeah, that's clearly faster. And you're like, Well, actually, the way I would interpret that is it's probably about. The same, um, or mm-hmm. , you know, let's, let's rerun that test or, um, you know, it's always, I don't know, it, it, they, they like, people like to get themselves in these loops where, you know, Oh, we did this and it's 10 seconds faster and it's that, And I feel like back in the, you know, when I was with zip, we did this a lot during the Lance Armstrong area and he was writing our disc and, and we were coming in as consultants for the first probably five tours or whatever. And um, you know, every wind tunnel test you'd get to the end and they would have this chart that's like, we just made him 90 seconds faster. And it's like, look guys, that. There is no 90 seconds faster. I mean, you know? Mm-hmm. like, like that is not gonna happen. You know, you, you just did a whole bunch of stuff that's not sustainable that he can't hold his head like that. Mm-hmm. that helmet tails gonna come off the back, you know, I mean, cuz he, people do things like, Oh, oh, the helmet tail moved, rerun. You're like, Yep guys, when you ride in the real world, like the tail's gonna move. Like you don't, you know, people like to, they select data, um, without even realize they're selecting data. And so, you know, it is, it's just good always to have a third party in the room. Um, you know, it's kinda like funny story, you know, back to, you know, my zip days, how Firecrest came about, you know, Firecrest was literally the name of the prototype that, that kind of blew all of our minds. And the reason the prototypes had weird bird names was that we had to double blind them across engineers because you just didn't want anybody. Kind of, you know, having an effect on their product, right? I mean, we all, you know, we all fall in love with our children, right? . And, and in this world, like you, you can't love your children. Um, and you have to be willing to kill them when they're not good. And, um, you know, we would do this double blind thing where we would like assign them all a number and then we would assign bird name, these bird names a number, and then we would randomize it and then they would get all put up. And then nobody really knew whose idea was what, when you were in the tunnel. Um, that's necessary, right? Cause you're, you know, you can be your own worst enemy at that stuff. I think we've, you know, we've all been guilty of that a time or two in our lives. But, uh, you see it all the time, particularly in these performance, um, improvement coaching type things where, you know, people just wanna will something into existence even when it's not. Yeah. [00:13:38] Randall: Well, and I can see, um, you know, the marketing oftentimes has it much more, uh, presented, much more like a, you know, this is just, it's physics. It's more, it's more exact, it's more, um, it's more controlled. And, um, there are competing variables, particularly when you have, you know, a monkey in the middle. You have to, this, this, you know, this animal needs to be comfortable. This animal needs to be fueled, This animal needs to be able to control this machine through a varied environment. And that varied environment may be varying in real time if weather changes or things like this. Um, and so there's just all these competing interests. And so when you see, you know, I often laugh at like, You add up all the different arrow benefits that, you know, different companies claim for components and you should be doing. Right. Right. You know, you might be looking at, um, uh, relativistic effects potentially at some of the speeds you'd be able to achieve. Uh, Jen, just like how, how many watts can be saved. Totally. Being a little bit facetious there. [00:14:37] Josh: Yeah. No, no, it's totally true. I mean, and I still have this photo somewhere, I think I even showed it a couple years ago on social media. But as this, this really great photo that I love that ended up, um, on the wall at the Texas A and Wind tunnel, but it's me with next to Lance Armstrong, um, in the, what became the Nike Swift spin suit, um, that had been flown down there from, you know, Seattle. And it's, uh, oh God, the guy in from his book college or whatever he calls him, and then a guy from Nike, so it's the four of us. And I'm kind of standing there like doing, you know, like pointing at something on his back and it, like, a college student took it for the school newspaper and then they had him autograph it and it ended up on the wall. And so like, Oh, that's me. You know, it's kind of funny. But, but the real story there was that suit, you know, they were paying like 3000 bucks a meter for this suit. They'd been putting it on a mannequin in the tunnel. I mean, it was gonna save three minutes per 40 k. And you're just sitting like going, guys, like, I, I mean, just quick doing the math, like three minutes for Lance Armstrong, you know, like the guys already, That's not possible. And, and of course we get it. We put it on him. Um, the whole thing, you know, it, it's, it's cool, it's fancy, it was very red and it does nothing. I mean, it literally, we were, and the Nike people are there and they're like, Oh, that's not possible. It, it can't do nothing like whole. Let's run it again. Okay. Now get 'em out of it. Put 'em in the normal suit. Run that one. You're like, it, it just doesn't do anything. And, and they just kept going. Well run it again. Well do this. Let's, let's close pin it up. Let's tighten it. Let's, do, you know, I mean, I bet we, we lost two hours trying to make that stupid thing look like it would do anything. You know, And again, it's, it's just people being people and we've all done it. But [00:16:21] Randall: I hear like something of stages, of, stages of grief. Like, you have your baby and like first it's denial, and then you, then you have bargaining. Yeah. Yes. Put so much into this. Yeah, that's exactly, [00:16:32] Josh: that is exactly what it is. And, and you know, the, the crazy reality with that one was, you know, three months later at the tour, they launched it anyway, and they said it saved three minutes and he , you know mm-hmm. . And we, we. It, you know, I just had to laugh. I mean, I remember, you know him, you know, winning whatever one of the time, trials by like a minute and like going, No. So Nike's essentially saying he would've lost that time trial by two minutes had it not been, had he not been wearing that suit. Come on guys. Um, yeah. [00:17:00] Randall: Well, and I think that, that maybe that's, um, you know, headline number one from this interview is don't believe everything you read, especially if it's coming from a party, has a financial interest in it. [00:17:10] Josh: That is true. That is true. Yeah. I, I, I tell don't, don't even believe yourself. Right? I mean, truly like you, you are a bad, um, a bad predictor of things and, and you're a bad feeler of things and nobody wants to admit that. Um, but it's just true. You know, that's, I've been preaching that gospel for, for years. But, you know, I mean, 90, I, I would say 90% of the things you. That you feel when you're on your bike. Total, total crap. Um, and, and we know that cuz we, we've done blind testing with riders. I mean, like unbelievable world class rider. And if you blind them to what they're actually riding, they can't tell you almost any Yeah. Um, you know, all that perception, but still, but the stories away, the [00:17:56] Randall: stories we tell ourselves are powerful. There is a strong placebo effect. Oh, for sure. Uh, for sure. But it has to be acknowledged that that is the placebo. And if you actually had those beliefs about things that had genuine benefits, you would get both, You would get the actual [00:18:11] Josh: benefits. Yes. The, the most powerful thing in the world is a placebo that actually works. Right. , where you get, it's like a, it's a double whammy benefit. Um, and so yeah. That, that's where, you know, I mean, in a nutshell that's a lot of what, you know, I've made my career doing right, is trying to help, help sway people towards the, the, the placebos that, that actually do have a, a, a benefit for them. [00:18:34] Randall: So this has the conversation going in a slightly different direction than I was anticipating, which I'm really enjoying. So I've been, I've been diving into this lecture series from this guy Robert Sapolsky at Stanford. It's on, um, the, uh, uh, behavioral biology, and it's looking at all the different ways in which studies go wrong. And so there's like, you know, beliefs about something, uh, for a long period of time, you know, eminence, people in the field, uh, promulgate these, you know, these ideas. And then it's shown that, you know, the study was, was not, uh, taken, uh, done properly or what have you. And so I'm curious, let's dive more into things that go wrong in the study of aerodynamics and, um, maybe kind of the edge of, say, human performance where interfaces with aerodynamics [00:19:17] Josh: Hmm, ooh. Interest. So, I mean, a, a good. I would say career defining for me, example of that was, um, you know, we, from like 2009 to 2012, we were really all in on developing, uh, CFD for the, for bicycle wheels. And it, it just wasn't working right. Everybody was talking about it and showing papers, and, but I mean, it just, the reality was like the CFD just never looked like the wind tunnel. The curve shapes were different. The data was, we're, we're talking It [00:19:47] Randall: wasn't mid, mid [00:19:48] Josh: nineties, right? Oh, no, Mid, mid late two thousands. Yeah. Like mid, late, late [00:19:53] Randall: thousands. Okay. Yeah. And you're not using, you're having to develop something ground up or you're having to, uh, adapt something from Desso or, or one of these bigger [00:20:02] Josh: vendors. Yeah, So I think the question at the time was, you know, how do you, how do you really properly model the spinning wheel in, in flow that's also translating, right? And you look at. You know, all the CFD stuff with aircraft, um, you know, there's no rotational flow, you know, and then you look at, there's special models that people have built to look at, like, um, turbine jet, turbine engine combustion or whatever. But those are incredibly unique. And they're also, you know, there's RO flow rotating, but in a different access and Yeah. [00:20:36] Randall: The F1 guys perpendicular access. [00:20:38] Josh: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so, and then you got the F1 guys who weren't really modeling, um, they were modeling the rotation of the wheels, but they were doing it by modeling a rotational component at the surface of the tire. So you were, you weren't essentially like spinning the wheel, you were just saying, Oh, there's a induced rotation a about this surface. Um, which has been in the, the solvers forever. So [00:21:02] Randall: in interesting, this is taught because the, those wheels are traveling so quickly, especially the top of the wheel. If you're doing 200 miles an hour, the top of the tire is traveling at 400. And so you're having sign significant turbulence at that interface, right? Well, [00:21:15] Josh: and you, you have like Magnus effect, right? You're actually getting pressure differential top to bottom, um, you know, from , the direction of the wheel spinning. And so, you know, we, we could do stuff like that pretty accurately, right? You know, you could look at the, you know, a rotating baseball and, and predict the direction that's gonna curve. I mean, things like that were possible. But, you know, every single, and, you know, my God, I used to get, I still do occasionally, but I, I used to probably get 20 PhD papers a year from kids all over the world. Um, you know, Oh, what do you think of my paper on, you know, CFD of bicycle wheel? And we're like, Oh, it's beautiful pictures, but your data's crap. Um, . And it just wasn't figured out. And, and in 2009, I, I met a guy, Matt, uh, Godo, who's a triathlete, but he also worked for a company called FieldView. And they had built all of the CFD automation for, uh, Red Bull F one, um, and probably half the F1 grid, but his, his big account was Red Bull. Um, and he, I met him at Interbike and he had a paper that he was working on. He said, I think, I think I might have figured this out, but I really need to be able to like, Like, build a wind tunnel in the computer and then look at it so we can directly compare them back and forth. And, and so we, we did that. We published a paper at the a I a, which was at MIT that year, and it went over really well and people liked it. And we published another paper the next year, um, at, at the a i A conference. And that went well. And then we got this big grant, like an $80,000 grant from Intel, um, to really tackle this problem. Cause the, the head technologist at Intel at the time was a guy, uh, Bill Fry Rise, and one, one of the coolest guys I ever met. Um, you know, the kind of guy who, whose resume just has like a five year period that says like Los Alamos , like, [00:23:01] Randall: okay, you're cool. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Not, not allowed to talk about it. What do you do? Yes. Uh, yes, exactly. . But, [00:23:08] Josh: uh, but he was a cyclist and he was some senior, somebody at Intel. And, and, um, And they, they gave us this money and we, we, we really went hard at this and we ended up developing a, essentially all of the little nuance details. Uh, we did it in star ccm. We post processed it in field view. I think we processed it on like a thousand cores, which for 2010 was, you know, a lot. Right. [00:23:33] Randall: Um, and these are, these are, um, CPUs and not GPUs for that era. Right. A lot of the stuff of that era GPUs now, right? [00:23:40] Josh: Yeah. Yeah. I remember we, yeah, I mean, that was the beginning of, uh, that was the beginning of the cloud. It was pretty cool, like 2008, 2009, people were still traveling. I remember at one point in that process there was discussion that like, we might have to travel, um, to, Oh God, what is it? The, the university over there in Illinois had a huge, had like a 1200 core machine and they're like, Okay, we, we might have to go there and, and buy, you know, two days of time. And then as that was happening, cloud. Kind of the beginnings of cloud was there. And I remember we, we met a guy who had a cloud thing, and they had just been bought by Dell. And, uh, we were at a conference and he's like, Oh, no, you know, with our, our thing, What was that called? But, uh, with our thing, you, you can just do it like up in the ether. We're like, Whoa. You had never heard of that before. Yeah. Um, it was just exciting times and, and, uh, but, but we, you know, had this great team. We pulled it together. I mean, that's really where Firecrest came from, right? It was, it was largely designed using, um, Hundreds of iterations of capes predicted to be fast, uh, using this cfd. And, and ultimately we won. We, we became like, I think the first non university and non-governmental group to ever win a, uh, uh, innovation excellence award from the Supercomputing Society. So it was pretty cool. Salt Lake City's like this huge super computing conference and you know, it's like darpa, this and university of that. And it was like these four guys from this bike brand and, you know, was, uh, it was a pretty cool experience. But, but in that, so that's like a huge tangent. No, [00:25:17] Randall: no, this is, this is great. And, and just to take a, uh, stop for a second, CFD computational Fluid Dynamics software that is used to model complex multi-variate systems where there's second order effects and, you know, fluids and, and things like this. So anyone who's not, uh, who's not with us on that, like complicated software for complicated system models, in your [00:25:39] Josh: ideal world, it's like a wind tunnel on your laptop, right? In the, in the George Jetson's version of things. It, it's the wind tunnel on the laptop. And in the reality of things, it's kind of more like, eh, it's about as good as guessing most of the time. But, but, but sometimes it's really good at finding certain really specific things. So I won't, uh, I won't knock it too hard, but why the thing I wanna [00:25:59] Randall: dive in a little bit [00:26:00] Josh: here. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, yeah. Well, let me, so let me finish the, the thing that we discovered in this process that was super cool. Um, was that once we had all of these transient, we were solving for all these transients, um, and we really started looking at not just like the, you know, the, the side force or the yaw force or you think of um, you know, the whole thing with like wheels and handling, right? This all came out of this project cuz you could, you could predict the steering torque on the wheel, which, you know, none of the balances being used to test wheels at the time even had torque sensing, right? You had drag side force and lift, but none of them had the rotational components in there. And so that for us at first was like, oh shit, we've never thought about torque cuz we weren't measuring it. Right? It's sort of one of those, yeah, like you've biased your study all along, but then the big one was looking at the predicted, um, data and there were all of these, uh, harmonic effects. and we kind of looked at each other and we're like, Oh my God, every wind tunnel you've ever been in, Right? The first thing everybody discusses is, you know, what's the, what's the, the time across which you're taking the data and at what frequency? And then you're averaging that data, right? Cuz we're all after a data point. And you could look at the tunnel data and the CFD data, and when you pulled them out of their point form into their wave form, essentially you could see the harmonics kind of lined up, the frequencies match when, oh shit, we've been averaging out a really important piece of data for 30 years. You know, this harmonic thing is big. Like what's your, [00:27:39] Randall: your standard? So it's operating on a, it's operating on a frequency that is smaller than the sample rate. Or how [00:27:46] Josh: was it essentially? Essentially we were just idiots and we were just, we were just time averaging the all of that out. Right. I mean, it's, you know, if you need to Okay. Any wind tunnel you, you went to in the world and be like, Oh, well, we'll take, we here, we take data for 30 seconds at, you know, whatever, a hundred hertz, 60 hertz, 120, or whatever it is, and then we'll, we'll take an average. Oh, okay. That, that's fine. Got it. You're averaging out in there is real, um, uh, like amplitude changes, uh, largely due to vortex shedding is, as it turns out with bicycle wheels. But a lot of that high frequency handling stuff, particularly as wheels get deep, um, , sorry, I'm in, uh, I'm in our studio, which is off of our kitchen and somebody's lunchbox just, just leapt off of the top of the [00:28:34] Randall: refrigerator. Um, yeah, sometimes I'll have a niece or nephew come in screaming, so No worries. Yeah. So, but, [00:28:39] Josh: uh, but no, we, we realized there, there was a, a. About a factor of five difference in amplitude between wheels in terms of that, those oscillating effects. Right. Which typically it's just, it's generally vortex shedding. And the CFD can predict that really well, right? Where your little pressure builds up, sheds off, sets off a counter rotation that sheds off. Um, but as a, as a cyclist, you, you feel that as the wheel, you know, kind of oscillating left to right. Um, and we, and let's, let's for 20 years, you know, [00:29:12] Randall: Yeah. So you're just taking the, the lump, you know, 30 seconds averaged out data and saying, Okay, it gives you this amount of benefit and you're not seeing those. Um, I mean, really what we're talking about is, uh, you know, instability that may. Or, you know, otherwise result in, in control issues on the bike. And I want to take a moment to just like, define some terms, uh, because not, you know, many of our listeners are not overly technical. Um, but uh, I think some of these concepts are easy enough to get your head around, like, so, you know, describe at a very high level you're talking about vs. So, you know, maybe describe lader flow and flow attachments and vortices sheddings. How, how does this, how does this, uh, how can you understand this without a, a technical background? [00:29:59] Josh: Oh, those are awesome questions. Okay. So Lader LaMer flow is kind of what you. What the, the world wants you to think of in the wind tunnel. You see the wind tunnel picture and they've got like the, the 10 lines of smoke and they're all kind of flowing together cleanly and beautifully. That's, that's meant to, to evoke lam or flow, right. That if you were to drop a, a smoke or a particle in there, that they would all flow in lamini, you know, like sheets of paper. Um, yeah. Uh, so, so [00:30:29] Randall: it's going in a straight line. Smooth, [00:30:31] Josh: controlled, Predictable, yeah. Flow. And it, it follows the contours of the thing that it's flowing against. So, [00:30:38] Randall: so kinda like water flowing down a river sort of thing. It's not perfectly laminate, but it's all going roughly in the same direction. And there's not a lot of water [00:30:46] Josh: in a pipe disturbance, you know, would be in a pipe better example, presumably pretty laminate, right? And then you start to add stuff, you know, water in the river. Now you're, you're, you know, you've got a rock and now all of a sudden there's a disturbance and it starts to swirl. Um, and so you, you get into, you know, more complicated types of flow. I, I think the, the big ones, you know, for us to think about are, you know, most, so most drag that we deal with comes from, um, uh, pressure related things. So you either have like the, the high pressure on the front of the rider, right? The wind that you're pushing into this when you stick your hand out the car window, right? The mm-hmm. the air you feel hitting your hand, you know, that's, uh, that's a pressure drag, uh, in the positive direction. And then you have the flow, the vacuum in the back. Yeah. The flow will detach off of the object and that'll create a vacuum behind. And so that's a suction drag, um mm-hmm. . And then when you have something like vortex shedding, it's when, uh, the, the. Description I ever have for vortex sheddings. If you've ever driven an old car with, uh, like the metal antenna on the hood, you know, at some speed on the highway, that antenna starts vibrating, oscillating sideways, which is like the last thing on earth you think it would do, right? Like your brain's like, well, it should just keep bending backwards with speed. Mm-hmm. , why is it going sideways? Well, that's that you get this thing where you have a little, uh, a little curl of flow will kind of detach more on one side than the other, and that creates a side force. Mm-hmm. . But in doing so, the suction that that has now left behind will pull a similar vortex from the opposite side. Mm-hmm. . And that creates an opposite side force. And so you get these, see an oscillation, you get these oscillations and uh, you know, that's, it's huge in architecture and mm-hmm. , it, it's why you see so many of those super tall buildings or kind of have pyramid shapes or might have some sort of like, feature that spirals down them to, to kind of break that up. I, I live [00:32:46] Randall: in Boston. We actually have, um, a skyscraper here that was flexing so much, the windows were popping out. This is, you know, decades ago. And, you know, it's still, you know, they have this like funnel of air that's going through there and just the nature of the shape of it and how air gets funneled in, it was causing enough torsion to, um, you know, cause window de bonding. Um, so yeah. That's crazy. Uh, so then, you know, think applying this to the bike and particularly a wheel, um, you know, this is the biggest effect is, is presumably your front wheel where you're having this oscillation, this shift in pressure from one side to the other at a very high, high level, um, that's causing instability. It's making it so that you may lose control of the bike. It's not predictable. [00:33:34] Josh: Yeah. Correct. Correct. And, and the, the other thing we learned through CFD that it was doing, which is not obvious until you think about it, but so you think of the. So you might have, say it that the trailing edge of the front half of the rim, you're, you, you set up a little vortex shedding situation. Mm-hmm. . Um, and so you've got a little side force, but it's kind of at the, the trailing edge of the rim there. Right? So it's got a little bit of leverage on your steering, but the other thing that's happening is that alternating attachment and detachment of flow, um, changing the side force, but you're a side force at an angle. So there's a lift component, right? Which is how the drag is being reduced. And as that happens, what, what's also now changing is what we call like the center of pressure. And the center of pressure. You think of like the wheel from the side, like, like the sum, the aggregate of all the, the arrow forces on that has a center point about which it's balanced. It's kinda like a center of mass. Um, you know, so it's, it'd be center of pressure. Well, that center of pressure when you have. Shedding happening somewhere that's now moving forwards and backwards and very [00:34:40] Randall: rapidly [00:34:41] Josh: as well. Potentially, Yeah. Rather rapidly. I mean, and, and when you really look, look in on it, it, the frequency actually can be quite close to, um, the, uh, speed wobble frequency, right? Which is somewhere in that like three to four hertz range. Uh, which also happens to be really close to the frequency of human, uh, shivering, which is kind of cool's why you're more likely to, to speed wobble when you're really cold. Um, [00:35:05] Randall: and not everyone just push will have experienced speed wobble. But if, you know, if this is basically your, you, you hit a certain resonant frequency of, of the frame based on the frames geometry, uh, the head tube angle, the what are the factors that go into that, [00:35:20] Josh: Uh, it's top tube stiffness is big and so, yeah. Yeah. And it's actually this speed wobble's. Interesting. It's. It starts as a residency issue, but it's really a, it's a hop bifurcation and, um, a hop B. Okay. And so, yeah. And so what you have in a hop, uh, bifurcation is you essentially have two st two stability, um, would be the best way to think of it. And you are jumping from the one to the other. And so like, right up until that, so the [00:35:48] Randall: system wants to be in one state or the other, but not in the middle [00:35:51] Josh: and there's no middle. Right. And, and what's, what's so cool, like, like early in, um, uh, early in covid, you know, we were all talking about this, you know, what is it the are not value, the, you know, like if it's above or below one. And when you, you line that out that are not, when are not crosses one, it's a hop bifurcation that looks just like the speed wobble, bifurcation, I mean the graph. It's amazing how like, cool those things, you know, mathematically you're like, Oh yeah, that's exactly the same as this. It's just here, it's in a, you know, you get the exact same graph if you're looking at, um, Uh, wing flutter in an aircraft, uh, in the wing tunnel. Mm-hmm. , similar bifurcation problem, but yeah. So you, you, you have essentially two states and the system can get tripped from one end into the other. And in the one the bike is stable and wants to go straight, and in the other it wants to oscillate because each oscillation mm-hmm. is setting up the, the counter oscillation. Um, and so like, it, it's, you know, in resonance it's more of like a runaway you, you think of like the, how that's tradition. Yeah. It amplifi forcing. Yeah. It, it just keeps growing and growing and growing. Um, and in this one it just, it, it, it's not growing and growing, but it just trips you into this spot where like it's really bad. Um mm-hmm. and it will just shake the crap outta you at the front end. And um, and in fact motorcycles quite [00:37:07] Randall: scary. The high performance motorcycles will sometimes have a steering damper for this very reason. Um, because you'll, yeah, you'll get these speed wobbles. And so the damper is essentially making it so there's some exponentially increasing resistance. Um, I, I know you know this, I'm explaining it for our, our audience just in, you know, cause again, I wanna keep bringing it back down to earth, but, you know, having just like your, your suspension, you don't just have a a just a spring, you have some sort of damping circuit so it doesn't feel like a pogo stick. Um, which is a related effect. Um, but, uh, very cool. And are not for our listeners as well. [00:37:47] Josh: Funny. I hadn't thought about that. I haven't thought about that in like two years as we were talking like, Oh, I remember now. That was, uh, yeah. Yeah, that was, uh, But what or not was the, um, Oh shit. It was the. The contagion ratio or whatever, like how, how many people, each person would transmit to mm-hmm. And so if it's, which makes sense, right? If every person's gonna transmit it to 1.1, it grows. If you're gonna transmit it to 0.8, it, it dies. Um, [00:38:12] Randall: so the analogy here is that, that the increasing amplitude of that, you know, those pressure differentials, sending it to the, the system to one state or the other and causing that increasing oscillation, Is that a exactly correct characterization? [00:38:26] Josh: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like you, you can take it right up to a line, um, and you don't have a problem. And then as soon as you cross the line, you're in a different state. Mm-hmm. . And, and that's where I think, you know, speed wobble for those of you who've experienced it or chase tried chasing it on a bicycle, um, you can solve it sometimes with like, the stupidest stuff. Um, you know, one of the, the common ones is to just put a little bit of like, um, like, like a heavier bar tape or a little bit of lead weight in like your, um, Uh, your plugs. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . You can oftentimes change it with a tire pressure or a different tire cuz you can add just enough damping at the contact patch. Um, that it just pushes it up high. You know, if, if, cause typically what people will find is like, Oh, it's, I'm totally fine. Then I hit, you know, 38.5 miles an hour and all hell breaks loose. Well. Mm-hmm. , you change the mass at the top of the system a little bit and maybe you've now pushed that point out to 45 miles an. but if you never go 45 miles an hour, you've affected, that's not a problem. Right? Yeah, yeah. Like, oh yeah, I [00:39:28] Randall: fixed it. I think another example that people may have experienced too is like, uh, sometimes you'll have an issue with your car that, you know, won't notice except that certain speeds and it's because of those speeds. There is some, you know, oscillation that's happening. If it's a tire and balance or something in your drive train or the like. Um, you know, I've, I once had a vehicle that was really good up to 60 and then like 60, 61, it was problematic and then it would smooth out a bit after that and it was just like this wobbling effect that would balance out beyond that, that speed. Um, alright, so then bringing things back down to earth. Um, this is delightful by the way. I, I could do this all day, . Um, and I, I hadn't quite appreciated. Um, the, the basic r and d and like basic science and tool building that you were involved in. Uh, so. That's, its its own topic. That's probably not one for, for a podcast of this particular [00:40:22] Josh: def. Yeah. I, I will say on that, I think that's the part that I think never, you know, the marketing never really tells that side of the story cuz it's just too complicated. Yeah. But if you're, if you're out there and you're, you're into this stuff, like that's the fun stuff. Like, I love launching product and, and the product itself. But like, that crazy journey to get there is usually like, that's where all the fun is happening. And, and, and typically cuz we're, you know, you're doing it wrong, like 90% of the time you're like, you know, it's just can be months or years of like, we suck, you know, this doesn't work, we're getting our sasses kicked. And then you, you know, if you persevere long enough, you will come out the other end and it's like, wow, we, we needed all that stuff. Like, we needed to get our heads handed to us over and over again, or we never would've figured this stuff out. Um, Yeah. I really, really enjoy that part of, um, of, of technology development or whatever you wanna call it. [00:41:16] Randall: Yeah. Basic, like real basic r and d right down to building the tools that you need to do the r and d you want to do, um, Right. . Yeah. Very cool. And obviously like the compute power and the, the algorithms available and, you know, the switch to GPUs and all these other things that have, um, changed since you were developing that make it such that today's models are both vastly more powerful and still yet trivial in complexity relative to the system itself. [00:41:44] Josh: Yeah, totally. [00:41:46] Randall: Yeah. Um, well let's dive into some more practical topics. So let's talk about like, alright, so a lot of our listeners we're the Gravel Ride podcast, right? So thinking about that particular experience, um, what should, what are, what is worth, um, a gravel rider thinking about. Uh, with relation to arrow. Uh, so things that can be done that will improve aerodynamics, but then not take away from the ride experience that a lot of riders are after, particularly when they're going to grab, you know, they wanna be comfortable, they wanna have a good time, they wanna have good control over a variety of different terrain and so on. So what are the arrow? Um, and, and they don't wanna look silly, so they might not be, want wanting to wear a skin suit or something like that. Not that it looks silly, but, but you know, a more, a more serious enthusiast type of rider. Uh, what are the Yeah, what are the things to think about? [00:42:36] Josh: Oh, gosh. That's, that's a good question. Um, I mean, I think it really depends on, on what. Th the particular rider, you know, is after, I mean, are you, are you racing? Do you wanna go fast? Do you wanna not get dropped? Mm-hmm. , um, you know, do you need to carry stuff? I mean, I would say one of, one of the big ones that I, I just see and, and you know, we, we make a ton of stuff in our company and one of, one of them being bags. And, you know, we're constantly accused of not making bags that are big enough. And so I've been on this mission for a couple years of like, you know, what is in there, , Like Really? Mm-hmm. what's in there. Yeah. And it is amazing to me just how much crap people are carrying. You know, you, you open some of these monster seat bags, it's like, man, just because you bought it doesn't mean you need to fill it or use it. Um, you know, it, and, and absolutely there's, there's like time and place for it. But, um, you know, I. Some of the stuff like that, like, Oh, okay. You've, you know, do you, you show up on the local gravel right here and you know, people look like they're, they're almost like bike packing, like mm-hmm. , you just don't need, you know, it, it's a 40 mile loop, you know, that starts and ends at a bike shop. Like, you, you don't need to bring a bike [00:43:49] Randall: shop with you. Well, you, you need your coffee grinder, you need your, your mini stove and you need your neuro press. Yeah, Yeah. Um, different experience. You know, let's assume that we're going after like a performance rider who's, um, like doing, doing, you know, a hundred, uh, a hundred mile events than they're, they're training for it and they wanna squeeze out more performance, um, out of their existing setup. Or they're considering, you know, what bike to get, what wheels to get, what, um, how to set it up, even considering bike fit. Yeah. Or, you know, clip on arrow bars and the, like, what are the different things that people can do and what are the compromises and so on. [00:44:24] Josh: Yeah. I mean, the, I, I think certainly for gravel. The one clear cut, no compromise. Better all around product that I can just always recommend is like a, an arrow top drop bar. I mean, it is amazing how much faster those things are than round section bars. I mean, any really, you know, like pro vibe or the zip fuca or whatever, you know, there's, I think every company makes one. It's that big, you know. Oh, it's hu I mean it like wind tunnel speeds. It's a flattop bar can be like 28 to 30 watts. I mean, it's nuts. Yeah. Cause you're, you're replacing round covered in tape with something that's like pretty thin and shaped Well, sure. Or it can be massive, but, but the, [00:45:05] Randall: I didn't, cuz the cross sectional areas is not that big compared to, you know, the rider and the, the rest of the bike and so on. Some [00:45:12] Josh: No, it's, it's, well and in gravel it has the double effect of being, you know, shaped or ized in the direction that is also gonna add compliance, right? Yeah, yeah. And, and comfort. And so you, you know, it's one of the few products I can really look at and go, okay, that thing is more arrow and more comfortable and has more service area for your right. I mean, better all around. Um, that's a pretty easy one to, to go with. And, and similarly, you know, if you've, you've got the money. I mean some of these, the, the integrated cockpit solutions that are out there are even faster, right? Cause it's just even less. Stuff in the wind. Um, so let's talk you, let's [00:45:48] Randall: talk about that. That's big, a big serviceability compromise and, and you know, fit can be a concern with that too cause it's harder to swap components and so on. How much of that is coming from, um, simply not having the cables running into the down tube? Like, can you get the vast majority of those benefits with cables coming out from, say, underneath the bar? If they're tucked in on the bar or even coming out from the bar and dropping underneath the stem into the, the headset from there? [00:46:14] Josh: Yeah. Yeah. My, my rule of thumb for cables that I always use cuz it's so memorable is, um, You know, Greg Lamond versus Fon in the 89 tour time. Mm-hmm. , So 2020 kilometer time trial. Um, the eight second gap, there was more or less equivalent to Fons ponytail, Right. As we, we loved to joke about a cyclist, but was also the equivalent of one number two pencil length worth of cable housing. So, and [00:46:46] Randall: this is, and this is true even if the cable housing is say, in front of the head tube, so it's going to be disturbed by the head tube anyways, cuz you're getting the drag off of it. Be, you see what I mean? Like, so I, I'm trying to hone my understanding of the [00:46:59] Josh: Yeah. I mean, you think, Yeah. So I, I would think, uh, good way to put that would be that, Yeah. Putting, putting a slow. Crappy thing in front of a smooth thing, you're, you're still getting the drag of the slow, crappy thing. Yep. Um, and you may actually be worsening the flow, um, on the arrow thing. So Yeah. Got it. Absolutely. Still, you still have that effect. Um, you know it, and it's hard to say, you know, in some cases, you know, it's, it's close enough or it's just in like the goldilock zone where it's a good distance away where you're like, Ooh, we can kind of make them disappear. And they become, you know, uh, a almost like the cable isn't there, but that's not typically what we see. And typically, you know, you, you throw a bike in the wind tunnel with that and then you rip the cables out and you run it again and you're, every time it's like, Oh shit. Big difference. Difference. You've, in [00:47:50] Randall: terms of watts, like a few watts here, like, so, so the handlebar is the big one, you said as much as 30 watts at wind tunnel speeds, which granted gravel riders generally are, are, we're [00:48:00] Josh: not going that miles an hour. But you, Yeah, you we're out for a long time. Yeah, but you are out there for a long time, so you don't have the speed. But yeah, you, you definitely have the, the, the potential time saving. So, yeah, I, you know, hidden cables. I agree with you. Total pain in the ass. And, you know, my God, I've spent a career working on world tour bikes and, and you know, Ironman, world champion bikes and things like that. And I, I feel everybody's pain, you know, people are always like, Why is the industry doing this to us? Like, like, Well, cuz you want it and cuz it works. I mean there's no, like, it, it's a pain in the ass, but it works. Mm-hmm. . So anywhere you can get rid of cable. get rid of cables, um, you know, skin suit. I have to say not everybody loves it, but man, it can be a huge, huge difference. Uh, I mean, you look at, you know, we were just out at lead, uh, Leadville and Steamboat, and you know, all the top. Guys at Leadville and skin suits now, cuz it, it makes that big of a difference. Um, arrow bars can be huge and, you know, I think that's, that's one I I think everybody's got their own sort of flavor that they like. But, you know, to me, like for gravel, a stubby, a stubby bar that has functional pads mm-hmm. , um, really can be worth it just because it's a different hand position and it, it's enough that it, it's effectively changing your, kind of, your whole torso position and it, it, it's just giving you a, a break all around. Right. It's different pressure points in your shammy for the time that you're using it. It's different, you know, muscles in your back. Um, I think there's a good, this is the, the extent of my physi physiological knowledge, but I, I think it's good to, to mix things up. Um, like that. I, I know a lot of people have kind of gone to these super. Narrow, stubby, I don't even know what you call 'em. Like semia bars that Yeah, [00:49:46] Randall: mini arrow bars. [00:49:48] Josh: Nowhere to put your, nowhere to rest your weight. And, and it just feels like everybody I know using those is constantly complaining about their wrists, you know? Um, and so I, I, again, not a physical, but the change [00:50:00] Randall: in the change in frontal area, um, is that just an unmitigated benefit or are there circumstances where you can reduce frontal area and, you know, have a negative result within the realm of, you know, changing a Roger's position? [00:50:16] Josh: Yeah, you know, a lot of it depends on your, your baseline and, and how good you are. Positionally, I think, you know, when, you know, we do a lot of position training with top athletes and you know, the. The best place you can be that's not an arrow bar is on the hoods with level forearms. Mm-hmm. , right? Like that's the, and and ideally with relatively narrow bars, [00:50:37] Randall: so, and perpendicular upper arms as well, presumably, [00:50:40] Josh: or give or take. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it is, it's, you're gonna roughly get there depending on what the rest of the position looks like and, you know, obviously different body shapes and whatnot. But yeah, I mean, you think horizontal forearms are keeping that pretty much out of the wind. Mm-hmm. , Um, and, and they are also keeping it, it's just hard to hold that position, um, with, in a way that you're also still opening your chest. Because, you know, you were really trying to keep air from getting blocked up under the chest. And when you get a rider doing that, they just always kind of form, which I say always, I'm sure there's some counterexamples out there, but they, they almost always, um, kind of adjust their back and their shoulders in a way that they kind of turtle their head a little bit. You know, the head comes down and you're just kind of now pushing more air up over the body and less down into it. Um, but from there, arrow bars are almost always an improvement, right? Cuz you're narrowing the arms, um, you know, you're tightening things up even further and now you're pushing more flow around the sides, um, and less into the chest and less into the hips. And there's some physiological things. You know, people, you know, wide hips, big hands, certain shoulders, certain back shapes, right? That's why we go to the tunnel, you know, it's, it. 90% of the time, you could look at somebody and go, Oh, do this, this, and that, but man, 10% of the time it looks good and you run it and you're like, That's not good, We can just find a different solution. Um, [00:52:10] Randall: yeah. So air bars are huge. Another thing that we're starting to see is, uh, so BMC has their new cas uh, uh, line. They went with a super narrow, uh, handlebar, so narrow at the hoods, and then, you know, flare at the bottom. Uh, that seems like another thing that again, is, Well, I mean, on the one hand, yeah, you're getting narrower, but on the other hand, you're also closing up the chest and maybe, you know, you're not getting as much oxygen, like air turnover or something. Or like, are there issues where I, so [00:52:38] Josh: I, I have been beating the narrow handlebar drum for 25 years. Um, you know, I am yet to actually see or be told by a real physiologist that that whole. Oxygen lung thing that we were all told as juniors is true, is an issue. Um, yeah, I I've just, yeah, we've just never, I mean that, that I know of and I'm sure somebody out there will say, Oh, here's a paper. But, you know, I, I know whenever we've studied it, looked at it, we've looked at it with athletes, I mean, look at what's happening at the world tour. A lot of that is, you know, we've been beating that drum. I'm starting to see that for years, and people are doing it and they're winning. Um, so, you know, and I wonder [00:53:17] Randall: why aren't we seeing it with extreme flare as well, like a compound flare at least, so that you can still keep a, you know, a reasonably vertical lever position because then you could go even narrower and have, um, still have the leverage for the descending and so on. Is that a [00:53:32] Josh: tradition thing? Yeah, I, yeah, I think some of it's that. I think some of it is just, you know, how far do you really wanna push the uci? Um, [00:53:42] Randall: you know, oh, the UCI cares about the flare in your bars. [00:53:46] Josh: Oh, they will. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I think there are actually rules putting some limits on that, but yeah, at some point it's gonna look funny enough that you're gonna draw attention and they're gonna go, Wait a minute. Um, and, and you know, we've, we've [00:53:58] Randall: seen them, I've got a 28 centimeter wide bar with huge flares on there, and I've got specially made levers that come off of it so that I can actually still touch them from the job. [00:54:07] Josh: We have seen it with, I, I can't remember the name of that bar, but I think it's out of Belgium or something. But it's got like, you know, uh, 180 millimeters of reach, um, super narrow with long, and you can kind of lay your forearms. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember seeing that and they quickly were like, Nope, that's out. Um, so I, you know, I think we just, people are, people are cautious. I think the, the setups that are working now, um, are very largely built around that, uh, three T track bar. I can't remember what it's called, but, uh, I know. You know, it's got that kind of cool like wing, like gulling shape to it, but it's super narrow, arrow tops, um, relatively vertical, uh, drops. But, but that's a bar that the ucis allowed for years, right? And so I think that as a, you know, when, when conversations are happening behind closed doors, that's the kind of thing of like, Oh, well this looks enough like that, that if they call us out, we, we go in there and be like, Well, it looks a whole lot like this thing that you've allowed for 20 years. Um, you know, we, we have tons of those conversations. Yeah. So, so I, you know, I, I think, but I, I will say, I, I think too, that's where, um, you know, a lot of people might look at the pro tour and things that they're writing. Oh, well if this worked, they'd use it. You know? I mean, that was what people told us when we were building zip in the early days. Well, if they worked, the Pro Pros would ride it. I'm like, Yeah, but they. They don't know what they're, they don't believe in aerodynamics. You know, they, the pros, they don't riding [00:55:34] Randall: super skinny tires at super high pressures cuz they felt faster for a long time, even though, you know, at least, well, you know this better than than I do. I mean, the data has been saying for quite some time that it's more efficient. Never mind the accumulated fatigue that you get when your body's just being, you know, rattled at, you know, high frequency over the course of many hours. [00:55:56] Josh: Yeah, yeah. No, it's, you know, that I would say they're quite often the last, at least as a group to change. Right. But you, you are seeing it now. I mean the, you know, and, and, and you know, the team like Nios hiring a guy, hiring Dan Bigham to come in and, you know, you, you are seeing some changes, right? Uh, that when teams are bringing full-time people like that in, um, we are gonna start moving the needle there, but it's still a delicate dance with the. With the UCI and, and all the sport governing bodies, right? Nobody, You hear it all the time. Nobody wants a repeat of the whole fna. Uh, I don't follow swimming, but I was the technical, uh, committee director for cycling at the World Federation of Sporting Good Industries. And, uh, at the time when FNA Band banned all of the super tight, uh, swimming suits, and it was just a cluster, right? I mean, they just came out and said, Nope, you've pushed it too far. We're done. And if the whole industry was sideways with like, we've invested millions of dollars in this and the records are breaking, and people wanted and on and on and on, and they just said, Nope, you're done. And, uh, I think it took them five years to under undo all that damage. You know, I mean, you just wanna [00:57:11] Randall: something parallel with running too with, uh, carbon fiber insoles and like what is, what is allowed in terms of the amount of spring that can be delivered and so on. Um, Yeah, I, I see, I see them showing up on my local run. And, um, I might have to get a set just to keep up with the people I used to beat, to keep up with [00:57:29] Josh: It's totally true. [00:57:31] Randall: Uh, that's, I mean, that's, that's, to some degree, that's the nature of the game. And that's why in, in significant part, that's why the gear is as good as it is right now is because, you know, people are looking for, as you would say, those marginal gains. Um, yeah. Um, I wanna dive in. So, uh, I want to put, bring in a few, uh, listener questions. Uh, so we posted in the ridership that you were gonna be coming on, and so we had some folks asking questions there. Probably the biggest one that came up was, um, talking about, you know, we've, uh, Craig and I brought up the rule of 1 0 5 or 5% on the podcast before, but, you know, citing, citing it, it's not a deep understanding, uh, at all. So tell us about how that emerged in. How it applies. Um, you know, particularly in the gravel scene where you're looking at tires that are much bigger. Um, and I mentioned, uh, earlier that, you know, specialized as a video for their reval wheels where they're running a a 42 mill tire on i, I think a 35 or less external rim, and they're claiming some arrow benefit. Does that seem plausible? Is there, uh, given, given, given what you have seen in the wind tunnel and in your modeling? [00:58:41] Josh: Yeah. Um, yeah, it's totally plausible and I guess, we'll, we'll start with rule of one. Oh, so rule 1 0 5 was really, you know, I, I realized pretty early in my career that you had to come up with sort of rules of thumb for things or nobody would listen to you Mm-hmm. and, you know, spent two years traveling Europe trying to sell Arrow. Sell World Tour or pro tour at the time, uh, directors and team owners on aerodynamics and you know, I mean literally got thrown out of every single team, team over there. Uh, I mean, it was just, we just got laughed out of the room. Just imagine [00:59:20] Randall: any of those team directors could have just adopted it at that time and had this huge advantage and didn't, [00:59:26] Josh: uh, that was, I mean, I always said, you know, Uli at srm, thank God, you know, he was developing his thing. And when I walked in to pitch Reese, um, he was alrea

Atara is an experienced attorney with expertise in securities class action litigation and securities regulation. As a securities class action attorney, her goal is to assist you in maximizing claim recoveries related to your investment portfolio, including direct claims, class action claims, class action settlement claims, derivative claims, tax recovery claims, and where appropriate to pursue whistleblower claims and other claims that will ensure and protect the integrity of the securities markets and your investment portfolio. Her clients are both private and institutional clients including public pension funds, unions, mutual funds, and fortune 100 companies around the globe. As the Director of Institutional Investor Services and Of Counsel at AF&T since 2007, and Principal at the Twersky Law Group, her focus has always been on shareholder recoveries. She works hard to ensure that all her clients understand the many different avenues of portfolio recoveries and leave no stone unturned in educating my clients on the best ways to ensure that their investment portfolio remains healthy and robust. In an area of the law very much dominated by men, she stands out as a woman you can trust and rely on to provide state-of-the-art services while always being mindful of who my client is and how best to address their needs and concerns. Each fund and each client has different sensitivities and a different approach to investing; her goal is to meet each client where they are. Atara also host a podcast called: “Pensions and Investments with Atara Twersky” providing her community of investors with up-to-date- information relevant to their investment portfolios. Assuring that the clients working diligently to continue to provide leading services while maintaining a high level of personal attention that she believes is essential to an authentic and long-lasting relationship with my clients. Unrelated to the law, Atara she also wrote a children's book, which became a book series and a brand - now the bestselling author of the Curlee Girlee book series, inspired by her young curly-haired daughter and written for all curly girls to ensure they love themselves and their hair exactly as it is, understanding that their hair is part of a greater legacy they share with those who came before them.

Atara Weisberger is a Wellness Specialist at Tribe Health, a Board Certified (NBC-HWC) Health and Wellness Coach trained at the Mayo Clinic, Cancer Recovery Specialist, and health educator with over two decades of experience coaching individuals and families to vibrant health. In this podcast you will learn: - The top issues women ages 33-55 start to deal with - Why is there not a one sized fits all approach when it comes to health - How your physical health is connected to your mental health - The top ways to fight cancer with your diet - Ways we can start improving our wellness today Connect with Atara here: www.tribecoaching.net IG: https://www.instagram.com/tribecoaching/?fbclid=IwAR3k82_9LtIWF29Z4AL6Icj7PxnJ0_83QsciNSoz5ctylOHAFtGftcQSjgo FB: https://www.facebook.com/atara.weisberger/ https://www.facebook.com/tribehealthandwellnesscoaching https://www.linkedin.com/in/atara-weisberger-mpa-nbc-hwc-321697/

  ABOUT THIS EPISODE Miriam Leah Gamliel has traveled a long journey as a young conservative girl with a passion for the performing arts, to an adult champion of these opportunities for women and girls in the Orthodox community. Learn about her personal journey, and what she is doing to change the face of female song, dance and more throughout the Jewish world. -------------------- ABOUT THIS PODCAST Jews You Should Know introduces the broader community to interesting and inspiring Jewish men and women making a difference in our world. Some are already famous, some not yet so. But each is a Jew You Should Know. The host, Rabbi Ari Koretzky, is Executive Director of MEOR Maryland (www.meormd.org), a premier Jewish outreach and educational organization. MEOR operates nationally on twenty campuses and in Manhattan; visit the national website at www.meor.org. Please visit www.JewsYouShouldKnow.com, follow us on Twitter @JewsUShouldKnow or on Facebook. Have feedback for the show, or suggestions for future guests? E-mail us at JewsYouShouldKnow@gmail.com. Want to support this podcast? Visit Patreon.com/JewsYouShouldKnow. A small monthly contribution goes a long way!! A special thank you to Jacob Rupp of the Lift Your Legacy podcast for his invaluable production assistance.  

Study Guide Yevamot 22 Presentation in PDF format Today's daf is sponsored by Rochel Cheifetz for the refuah shleima of Rabbi Chaim Wasserman, Rav Chaim Tzvi Ben Devora.  Today's daf is sponsored by Josh Blicker in honor of his wife, Atara on their wedding anniversary. "Here's to more years of depth in, marriage, Torah, and in life!"  Today's daf is sponsored by Brenda Coren and Achsah Weinberg in honor of their granddaughter, Talia Coren, on her 15th Birthday. "She started to learn Daf Yomi this past summer. We love you so much, and are proud of you too." Is the wife of one’s paternal great uncle or one’s paternal great aunt (grandfather’s sister) forbidden? Even though it is not on the list of secondary forbidden relations in the braita, it seems to be among those left off the list. All the ones in Rabbi Chiya’s list were left off as well. Ameimar permits those cases (great aunts) and Rav Hillel questions him on this based on a list of Mar the son of Rabana who had 16 – eight of the braita, six of Rabbi Chiya and these two. In the end, they add another and connect these two to count as one (great aunt) but the list of Rabana is rejected as he hadn’t signed off on it and therefore it is considered unreliable. Rabbi Chiya’s list of forbidden relations by rabbinic law is brought and some questions are asked about it. Are the rabbinic laws about forbidden relationships relevant to converts, as once they convert, they are considered born again and not actually related to their relatives? Can one accept witnesses from a convert and his brother? Does it make a difference if they share the same mother or father? All brothers through the father are obligated in yibum, even mamzerim, but not ones born to a non-Jewish woman or a Caananite slave. Any child exempts the father’s wife from yibum, even if the child is a mamzer. He/she is considered his child for all intents and purposes. For example, a kohen can become impure to the child upon death and the child receives the death penalty for hitting or cursing one’s parent. But isn’t that law only true for ones who observe the laws, not ones who sin, such as one who gives birth to a mamzer? If one has relations with one’s sister who also shares both parents, is one obligated two sets of lashes, based on two different verses or only one? This is a subject of debate and the different readings of the verses according to each opinion are brought and explained.