Podcasts about Koreatown

 George Lee Jr., an LA elementary school teacher, shares his journey from a challenging upbringing in Koreatown to becoming an influential educator. He discusses the importance of mentorship, understanding students' backgrounds, and the impact of education on personal development. George emphasizes the need for teachers to connect with their students beyond academics and to create a safe and supportive environment. He also shares memorable teaching experiences, his daily routine, and advice for aspiring educators, highlighting the significance of digital literacy in today's educational landscape.Chapters (00:00) Introduction and Background(10:03) Upbringing in Koreatown(20:07) School Experiences and Challenges(27:12) The Impact of Trauma on Learning(30:17) The Role of Teachers as Mentors(32:44) Building Relationships with Students(35:07) Creating Opportunities Beyond the Classroom(41:24) Becoming the Teacher You Never Had(46:38) The Responsibility of Educators in Underserved Communities(54:43) Memorable Teaching Experiences(57:09) Cultural Relevance in Curriculum(01:00:26) Advocacy for Students(01:01:38) Advice for Aspiring Educators(01:07:56) Daily Life of a Teacher(01:15:48) Recognition and Impact in Teaching

Opie kicks off a rainy Monday with a wild mix of stories and rants. From an exclusive clip of Steve Jones revealing the Sex Pistols’ inspiration for The Who’s “Who Are You,” to a deep dive into why local news is a soul-crushing waste of time (meat cleavers included), this episode has it all. Joined by Ron the Waiter, they dish on Koreatown adventures, UConn’s championship dominance—shouting out Paige Becker and Coach Gino—and debate Trump’s tariffs as the stock market trembles. Plus, doggy poop livestreams, Cooper Flagg’s NBA future, and a sprinkle of Soul Glow nostalgia. It’s unhinged, it’s real, it’s Opie Radio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale joins the show. Over black cod and monkfish soup, Gavin tells me cooking for Serena Williams on his TV show ‘Dinner with Gavin Rossdale' (love the name!), his bestie Jack McBrayer, and I share a special thing we have in common (hint hint: it's someplace we lived). This episode was recorded at Soban in LA's Koreatown. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"New year, new me." That's the mantra that 17-year-old Angel City FC forward Casey Phair has going into the 2025 NWSL season. The youngest player on the team, Phair was understandably a bit shy throughout her rookie season, but now with a year of experience under her belt, she's ready to make an impact in year two. She joins the Urban Pitch Podcast to discuss her growth as a player during the offseason, bonding with her fellow young teammates, and learning valuable lessons from veterans like Christen Press and Sydney Leroux. In addition, we chat about her experience on the South Korean national team, and getting to hang out in Los Angeles' Koreatown. Timestamps (01:15) Angel City FC's outlook for 2025 and Casey's growth (12:00) The bond between the young players at Angel City (19:44) Who's on AUX duty in the locker room and general vibes within the team (23:30) The Korean population in LA and her favorite places to hang out in Koreatown (30:50) Going to Korea for national team duty and interacting with fans (38:03) Angel City's commitment to fashion and the best dressed players on the team (42:33) Before/In/After 2007: A new quiz show (47:34) Turning pro instead of going to college and the dynamic with her family (57:04) Thoughts on the new Angel City FC kits Cast Hosts: Ramsey Abushahla, Julio Monterroza, & Brigitte Flores Producer: Roy Cho Subscribe to our newsletter for more interviews and latest news on street football, freestyle, and urban culture, read more about soccer culture on our website, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook.

Midlife is not a time to slow down. It's an opportunity to redefine what's possible! In this empowering episode, Lesley Logan sits down with fitness and lifestyle coach, Heike Yates to discuss how women can embrace aging with confidence, take bold action toward their goals, and stop dimming their light. Heike shares her personal fitness journey, the importance of mindset shifts, and practical steps for staying active and strong at every stage of life.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:How societal expectations impact women's confidence as they age.The mindset shifts needed to embrace midlife with strength and joy.Why taking messy action, no matter how small, leads to transformation.The power of community and accountability in achieving personal goals.How to reconnect with your past dreams and take steps toward them.Practical fitness and self-care tips for midlife and beyond.Episode References/Links:Heike Yates Website - https://heikeyates.comHeike Yates Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pursueyourspark Heike Yates LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/heike-yatesHeike Yates Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/heikeyatesGuest Bio:Heike Yates is a Midlife Health and Fitness Expert with over 35 years of experience. She makes wellness and fitness simple for midlife women, turning midlife challenges into easy, actionable steps that help them truly thrive. Heike's approach goes beyond just fitness and nutrition; she focuses on helping women get out of feeling stuck or in a rut, guiding them to get stronger, develop a resilient mindset, eat better, and boost their energy. As the founder of ‘Pursue Your Spark,' Heike also hosts a popular podcast reflecting her mission. Outside of coaching, she's an avid triathlete and adventurer, always seeking new challenges in the great outdoors. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS!Check out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSoxBe in the know with all the workshops at OPCBe It Till You See It Podcast SurveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates MentorshipFREE Ditching Busy Webinar Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!Lesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable Pilates Follow Us on Social Media:InstagramThe Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channelFacebookLinkedInThe OPC YouTube Channel Episode Transcript:Heike Yates 0:00  When I look around and I see us in midlife where we feel so defeated by what we used to be able to do. Oh, I used to play tennis and now I can't. Women feel so defeated and so sad about what they're no longer able to do that it's time that we, or I, step up to the plate and say listen, it is not that bad. There are choices, but it comes down to the choices that you need to make and you need to see yourself in a different light.Lesley Logan 0:34  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Lesley Logan 1:17  Hey, Be It babe. Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast. I've got a great interview for you. This is going to be a fun, uplifting, inspiring, take action, but all for you. And I'm excited for our guest today, Heike Yates, because she is you. Maybe she might be older than some of you, she might be the same age as some of you, but she is you. She is us. It's really nice and refreshing to talk with someone who has had all the obstacles. She's been through all the things, and is on the side where she's able to look at life in a way that allows her to live the life that she wants to have and really have fun with it. And so I'm excited for you to get to hear her and be inspired by her. And also I think you're gonna have some fun little one-liners to write yourself, write down and remind yourself that you freaking rock and that we're gonna talk about not dimming your light. So here is Heike Yates.Lesley Logan 2:11  All right, Be It babe. This is gonna be fun, ladies. I have been actively searching for guests that specifically speak to the age group that is pretty much listening to this podcast. And so I'm really excited, because our guest here today is an expert at that. So, Heike Yates, can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at?Heike Yates 2:30  Hey, I'm Heike Yates, and I have been a coach for 40 years and a Pilates coach for 20 of those, and I work specifically with women in midlife, and I hope you really feel better about yourself, feel stronger, healthier, more confident in your body, and not feel like you were held back. I want you to feel like you're thriving and not listen to all the other things you hear on social media that's are wrong with you. I want you to feel right in your body and right about the things that you think about yourself. In a nutshell, that's what I do. Lesley Logan 3:07  I mean, isn't that what we all want? But why is it so hard?Heike Yates 3:10  Because we're told something is wrong with us. You look around in social media, everybody tells us that we're not skinny enough that we're not lean enough, that we're not pretty enough, that we should use all these products to make ourselves better in life, and so we start doubting ourselves.Lesley Logan 3:33  But I feel like that probably starts when we're very young. So by the time we're midlife, it's been years of doubt of ourselves.Heike Yates 3:39  And it's also, I think, particularly through perimenopause and menopause, as we're going through the shift, things are getting worse because our bodies are changing and life is beyond our control. You think about sleepless nights. How many women can relate to not being able to sleep, not even because of the night sweats, just because we can't. And you wake up in the morning and you're whooped and you're barely functioning. And so menopause is a big dip, in my opinion, when it comes to these doubts, even getting deeper and stronger, and we feel like we're stuck.Lesley Logan 4:21  So how did you get to where you wanted to focus on helping women with this? And how did you get to be this expert? Let's go on your journey for a moment. What led you to this? Heike Yates 4:30  I'm a mom of two adult children now, and when I was pregnant with my first one, I had gained a lot of weight, namely 50 pounds, and at that point, I did not know what exercise means or can mean to a woman's body, or how to actually do it. I grew up in Germany and exercise is part of what you do. You walk to the butcher, you walk to the grocery store, you bicycle to the beer gardens because I'm from the south of Germany, in Munich area, and so exercise is part of your life. When I was pregnant and I gained 50 pounds, I had really no clue how to lose the weight and feel comfortable again in my skin. I mean, I love my son, I love my husband, but I felt out of shape. I felt yucky. And a friend of mine said, come on, let's go to the YMCA where we can take dance classes, because most women love to dance, and I'm no exclusion. We took this class, and it was so much fun. We did some dancer-cise, as it was called back. Then we did weights, and we did core work, and there was this group of women, and you can just picture this, we're in the basement of a church where you show up with your boom box and a yoga mat rolled up, and you had to bring your own weights into the room. Everybody, of course, had their little spot, so you had to make sure, as a newbie, that you didn't take their spot. And then the instructor hit play, and back then, we still had the tapes to pop the tape in, hit the go, and off we went, and the routines were pre choreographed. So as I learned later, over the period of time, you learned a routineLesley Logan 6:09  Like a Zumba class, kind of. Heike Yates 6:11  Like Zumba, exactly, but it was called dancer-cise, and that's how I got started, and I really loved it. And I was asked to become a teacher for the YMCA and their programs, and I wasn't sure if I could actually do this. Me, who's never exercised, hop around in front of all these people. I was like my husband encouraged me, no, no, you can do this. I think in the back of his mind he was just thinking, get her out of the house, get her away from the baby and the husband, and I started learning how to do these classes, and as I started to learn the routines, I felt really confident. I felt proud of myself. And I started to get to the point where I had to audition, because you just couldn't teach, you had to audition. Lesley Logan 7:01  Right, right, right. You gotta get someone to say, like, yeah, you actually do know what you're doing before we let you do it for other people. Yeah. Heike Yates 7:08  So I auditioned and I bombed, and I had no idea why I bombed. And she said, You know, I can't let you teach you don't hear the beat. And I said, What the heck are you talking about? I'm perfectly. Lesley Logan 7:21  I've been doing it. Heike Yates 7:22  I've been doing it. And she said, every now and then, you hit the beat. I had no idea what she was talking about. And she said okay, here's what I'm talking about. And I still didn't get it. Now she didn't know, and most people don't know, I'm deaf on one ear, and that affects my perception of sound. And so she took my hand and she put it on the speaker, and she said now, feel the beat. It was like a light bulb went off. That was the beat. And so I practiced my routine with the hand on the speaker, first to feel the beat, and then tried to remember where the beat was. And over time, I trained my one good ear to find where the beat was, and I passed the test. I was so, so proud of myself. And you know, it's a disability that is not visible, and it can relate to people with hearing problems. As we get older, we don't hear well. So with that said, once I passed that test, there was like no stopping me, Lesley. I just went for everything, pre post-natal classes, step aerobics, if anybody knows about step aerobics, then slide came along. We did slide, and then kickboxing, Tai Bo. So I did all of these classes and became a personal trainer, and then eventually started teaching yoga for three years, and then I discovered Pilates and fell in love with Pilates.Lesley Logan 8:48  I mean, we love Pilates around here.Heike Yates 8:51  We sure do. Who does not love Pilates? And so all of this was my career path, but along the way, I used everything I've learned, and I became a bodybuilder. So I was on stage with those big muscles, building muscles, and competing in body building competitions to running ultra marathons. So my longest distance is a 50-miler, JFK 50-miler here in in the area. And then I became an Iron Man triathlete.Lesley Logan 9:18  That is amazing. You do all these things and this is all part of the journey in kind of getting to where you are today, right? So you did Iron Man, those I can't do because I can't get in the water. I'll be real. I can swim, you guys. Open water swimming is not my thing. I can understand that. I just don't like when I can't, whatever's touching me, I can't see it. It's my own problem. You know, we all have our own fears. That's fine. So then what? How old is your kid at this point? Where are you at in creating your thing that helps women in midlife?Heike Yates 9:53  You know when you think about that as we get older, so now my kids are 32, one's 35 and I'm a grandma of almost three year old, so I want to stay fit for her as well. But in the meantime, it's midlife, past menopause, past all the hormone changes, so I'm postmenopausal, but what do I get? Arthritis in my knee. I have a bad knee. I have a bad shoulder, so I have to stop running because of that, I have some arthritis in my neck, and Pilates, of course, is perfect for all of this to help me strengthen my body and function. So now I'm looking for different things to do physically and so I can swim. I learned to swim just because I wanted to be an Iron Man. I'm not comfortable in the water. I'm a super slow swimmer, but I can do it. So I can, you know, do Aqua bikes. So I bike a lot. I do a lot of strength training, low impact exercises, and that helps when I look around and I see us in midlife where we feel so defeated by what we used to be able to do. Oh, I used to play tennis, and now I can't. Women feel so defeated and so sad about what they no longer able to do that it's time that we, or I, step up to the plate and say, listen, it is not that bad. There are choices, but it comes down to the choices that you need to make, and you need to see yourself in a different light.Lesley Logan 11:28  Okay, I agree. So how do we actually go about seeing ourselves in a different light? Because, for example, I have a client that I was teaching yesterday, I know we've been working on her strength, because she's had a bad foot that's been going on, we worked on her strength, and I was able to say oh, look, that's gotten so much better. And she's like, really? And I was like, yeah. We see ourselves every day and so we don't always see the changes that we're making. I feel like it'd be so hard to see ourselves in different light. How do you think we should go about doing that? Or how do you coach people on doing that? Heike Yates 11:57  I tell them to take a really good look at what they really want, not what somebody else tells them they want. (inaudible) as somebody else tells them they should be, but what they really want. And really get clear on, you know, I know it sounds so cliche, but the why? Where do I want to be in where I am right now in my life? Look at this. Look at not what you can't do, but look at what possibilities are there. Lesley Logan 12:26  Yeah, so I just got back from the retreat in Cambodia, and we did some breath work, and I had them visualize a year from the day of the retreat. And I was like, what do you want your life to look like? And Heike, the question of what do they want stumped half the women. They don't know what they want. They haven't been allowed to want things they have been raised or over time had to make so many compromises of themselves and what they want so to just even dream of what they want, you can't even get past the first question, then it goes to the spiral of, I don't even know what I want. What do you tell people to think about if they don't know what they want? What if they're just stuck on that one question? Heike Yates 13:09  You know, I think that's a good time to start journaling. Start writing down your thoughts. Maybe you're envying your friend. Write it down. I want, what she has, whatever that is, if you can't think of it yourself, look around you, and I always say, oh, what exercise should I do? I'm like, what does your friend do? Do what they do. Try it out. Or if you go on an Insta and you see a cool workout, I did a cool workout the other day. I did a bungee workout. I've been wanting to do that bungee workout forever, and I finally signed up for it, and I took that class and say okay, taking action, no matter how messy the action is. Even if you don't know what you want, but if you don't try anything, you will never find what it is that lights you up. Lesley Logan 14:02  Yeah, no, I agree. Like, even figuring out what you, trying things out and figuring you like, I don't want that, is actually very helpful. Helpful for getting closer to what you want and what you like and what you need and getting to know yourself. Okay, so we should change how we look at ourselves, and what was the other part of it? Heike Yates 14:18  When we look at ourselves, we gotta be really honest with what we want, or, like you said, which is also a good way to look at it, is what we don't want. I'm like, try things, go places, but do take action. And don't sit there and wait. And I find so many women don't take action. They sit there all frozen and do nothing and hope that the universe will provide some answer. It's okay to, air quotes, fail because we never fail. We try something. We may not like it, we may not be good at it, but it doesn't matter. We need to take action to move forward in life, and especially in midlife where, as you pointed out, we've been imprinted with these thoughts and feelings and habits that we should have and should behave.Lesley Logan 15:12  I'm thinking about some of the amazing women who listen to this show, who are action takers. If they're listening to this podcast, they're clearly ready to soak up information to make changes in their life. No one would listen this podcast unless they wanted to. We're literally saying be it till you see it so you have to take action. And I also know, because I get to meet a lot of our listeners, you can take action and then there is an obstacle, especially for the women of this age group. Their parents are getting older, and their kids are growing up, so they're that sandwich generation where they're taking care of two different groups of people. And so it can be, if they have five minutes of themselves, sometimes that's all they have. And so sometimes it can just feel almost like they're actually failing, because they're they set up these things, and they took two steps forward, and then something happens that takes them out of it. Something happens medically, with their partners or with their parents or with their kids, and then it can just feel like you're being selfish. Just, you know what I mean? We probably agree at the same thing. Self-care isn't selfish care, but when there is an emergency, when there is these obstacles, it is hard to do that. What are the habits or the things that you lean on in those moments, because it can just sometimes feel like things are crashing around you? Heike Yates 16:24  Have an accountability partner. Seriously, my clients that I see in person, they come in and say Heike, you're the only hour this week I allow myself to do what I want to do. And of course, they unpack all the other stuff that comes with it, like the aging parents and the teenage kids. You basically mentioned these two groups, which happened to me this week after I got back from vacation. It was like a tsunami of information, but it's the only time that they said no, you're there for me, you're waiting for me, and you make me feel important. You make me feel that I don't have to be feeling guilty taking the time. I don't have to fear the fear of repercussions, because I was selfish and took care of myself, and afterwards, they're like, I feel so much better. I'm so glad I came. Lesley Logan 17:23  Yeah, no, I agree. Like, accountability can be so key. It's also just part of like, feeling like you're in community and you're not alone. You are past perimenopause and all that, looking back, because I think that's when we get to connect all the dots. How can more women in midlife really enjoy embracing that change? Heike Yates 17:41  Again, it goes back, be honest with yourself. Start finding what your dreams are and your wildest dreams, I know it sounds so simple or difficult, however you want to look at it, I don't know what I want to dream of, but we all have dreams. We all have secrets that we don't tell anybody, because we feel that they're ludicrous. Why me? I shouldn't be wanting this. Keep that dream alive. I know when we started, before menopause, before the kids, before the marriage, the divorce, the whole mess that comes in the middle is we had a dream. My dream was always to travel the world and all through these years, and I've been where you just came from, your retreat in Cambodia. And I love, love, loved it. Angkor Wat was amazing. And I just came back from Japan. Lesley Logan 18:37  Japan is a wonderful place too. I like it. Heike Yates 18:40  Oh, my God, never been, so my dream from before all of this, when I was 23 was to travel the world. I took a little hiatus with being a mom, with building my career, with building my businesses, with doing all of that. But as the kids got older, also, the more I learned about how to care for my parents, we live both in Germany, and how to deal with that side of parents aging, I felt that it is really important to look back at that dream. It's like, what was it? And you'll figure out a way to do it. And the way I always think about is when you have a dream, I'm not going to tell your listeners, okay, pack your bags, go to Japan tomorrow. It takes baby steps to plan it all. I mean, it took me now two years to plan this trip. Even we had COVID, and we had all that, but I planned this trip with my husband, and I told my parents where we were, and my kids don't care, because they're all grown and but it's that dream that we have, and I know everybody has a dream, whether it's starting a knitting club or gardening the hearts out of your garden. It's not about the big audacious goals that we hear like, oh, she went to Japan. Look at her. No, it's about what it is that lights you up?Lesley Logan 20:10  Yeah, I think it's really, thank you for sharing that it took two years, because I think we can sometimes struggle with how quickly something should happen, and we can get hard on ourselves that the timeline isn't going as quickly as we think it should, or it probably should, giving ourselves permission to take three years to do something that usually takes some people a year, just because you've got other things going on. And that's where that accountability partner can come in handy, too. Heike Yates 20:37  Yeah. And when you think about this, it's baby steps with everything, your body changes through menopause. Well, you can lose weight if that's your desire, which, personally, I don't like to talk about weight loss a lot, because that's like the number one thing on social media. Everybody wants you to do, is lose weight, but feel better, feel stronger, you know, be able to walk further, to do the 100 without stopping. It's like the little things that we can do. And it takes time. It takes time. Lesley Logan 21:07  How do you get your mindset wrapped around the transformation that you're going to be taking? Because I do think that it can be, let's just say someone also had the dream of traveling the world, and they did take a break of travel because they were a mom. Now they're trying to do it again. How do they get out of the shame and judgment of I didn't use travel in any of these years, and I've got to start up again. And it can feel overwhelming, because to become the traveler again, be someone who can pack their bags, if you're not used to it, it's not the easiest thing to do. My mom traveled to Cambodia, maybe been 10 times or 12 times at this point, but my mom came for her first time. It was her first international trip. I got to watch what it was like to be a first time international traveler, because I do it all the time. I travel the world all the time. It's easy for me, but for someone, it's their first time, or they're just getting into it. I was like, wow, there's a lot more to think about for that. So how do we embrace that mindset, of that transformation that we're going to do?Heike Yates 22:01  I think a lot of times we hold ourselves back by saying that I'm not deserving of it. I think that's really the root of like, my mom just came to visit. She's 82 and she's really bad knees and a bad back. And I said, you know, come visit me here in the States. You haven't been to my new house, and she's not a world traveler by all means. Her travel is sort of like going on the bus tour. And we laid out a plan. She was so nervous. She's like, oh my god, do I have to sit there for eight hours? No, no, you have an aisle seat. So this goes into the how do I get out of? Plan it. We got an aisle seat. I said, you just tell the flight attendant that you need to get up every now and again, and then you walk around a little bit. And then at the airport, we made sure that she had wheelchair access, which she was adamantly not wanting to have, because she's strong and she's only 82 and she can do all this. And I said, Mom, imagine you have to schlep your suitcase. There's somebody that helps you, and they drive you around. And then she finally agreed to it. So she arrives in Washington, DC, with the biggest smile on her face while this dude is pushing her in the wheelchair, schlepping her suitcase. And she says, this is really great.Lesley Logan 23:22  I love that. I love that. Heike Yates 23:26  So it's planning. You are allowed to have the things you want to. Then start planning. Start planning. Again, baby steps. What is the list that the thing that I need the right now that gets me to where I want to go. And I have another little story on that. I ran the marathon in the Antarctica. Lesley Logan 23:47  Cool. Heike Yates 23:48  It's a. Lesley Logan 23:49  Okay, but hold on, don't forget your story. Is there a view, or is it the same for 26 miles? Do you know what I mean? Like, like, does the scenery change? Because that would be a, really, is it just penguins the whole time?Heike Yates 24:00  It's basically nothing. And the race is like from one research station to the next. We basically ran from Russia to China and back. Lesley Logan 24:13  Okay. Heike Yates 24:14  I don't know how many, how many times it was the most boring part of the race, really.Lesley Logan 24:21  All right, anyway, because I'm just like, wow. And then it's like, hold on, it's just ice, right?Heike Yates 24:27  There's nothing there. It's ice and gravel and snow. And you see a penguin every now and again. And that's, that's, that was the race (inaudible).Lesley Logan 24:33  That would be the hardest marathon. Because at least when I ran like, LA Marathon, at least every part of LA changes. I was like, oh, now I'm in Chinatown. Now I'm in Koreatown. Now I'm here.Heike Yates 24:44  Nope, nope, nope. Most boring marathon ever, and we're so glad we were done. But the package around it was super cool, because it was a whole trip. But the trip is very expensive, and when I told my husband that I wanted to do this he's like, we can't afford it. So I said, here's the deal, so for three years, I put away money every month that I comfortably could put aside towards the trip. Three years. And after three years, they said, here, sign up, pay the first down payment. And I had the money for the first down payment. I had the money, actually, for the second payment that was due a little while later, and then we chipped in the rest. And my husband's like, you have all this money? I said, "I planned." This is really what I wanted. So when you're thinking of I want to get out of the rut. I'm stuck in here and I want to follow my dreams. It's like, plan for it, and then follow through. Put your money where your mouth is. Yeah, you know, I saved my money and I said, we got there, and it was a trip of a lifetime. It was on freaking believable. Lesley Logan 25:54  That's really cool. I mean, that's, I think I'm worried about the marathon, but I'm sure, like, the whole thing sounds even better than all of that, what are you the most excited about right now?Heike Yates 26:04  I am the most excited about on publishing my first book. Lesley Logan 26:08  Cool. Heike Yates 26:09  I wrote my first draft. I'm in the moment trying to find a publisher or somebody who can help me edit my book and get everything together. And I, just before this interview, I talked to another publisher, and I'm trying to make a decision of who I'm going to go with that helps me publish my book.Lesley Logan 26:25  Oh, cool. Are you self-publishing, hybrid publishing? Looking for an agent? Heike Yates 26:28  I'm checking out all possibilities. And today was the agent that does a lot for the book, but it's also I talked to somebody today finally that understood what my book is about and could relate to the content. I'm trying to publish, again, a book for women in midlife. The book is all about getting out of the cages that hold us back and out of the rut and feel like ourselves again and tell us to do that. And not everybody gets that. I've talked to publishers who are like, oh, yeah, this is a menopause book for women. No. So even I, you know, like everybody else, I look around I see what's there. So that's what I'm most excited about right now. Lesley Logan 27:13  Yeah, we had a guest on a couple years ago, maybe it's a year and a half ago. Anyways, she went through 100 rejections on her book before it got published, but it was published in multiple languages when it was published, and it was the best publisher, but she had to find an agent and a publisher who understood what she was trying to say, and thank you for sharing that story, because I think a lot of times we can have an idea, and if you put it in front of the wrong audience. That wrong audience, it could be a family member, or one of your best friends, but they're not the audience for that idea or for that thing, and they could still love you, and they could still be an awesome person, and they could still say something shitty that makes you go, oh, but we have to be, I loved your response, it's like, no, that's actually not it, because we have to be able to be discerning and like, actually, you're not hearing what I'm saying, and that's okay. I'm going to move on to someone else who's going to hear what I'm saying and celebrate that. Heike, we're going to take a brief break, and then we're going to find out how people can find you, follow you, or work with you. Lesley Logan 28:11  All right, so if people want to follow the journey of this book, if they want to pursue their spark with you, where can they get more of you? Heike Yates 28:19  Literally, Google my name. Heike Yates, H-E-I-K-E Y-A-T-E-S. You'll find me everywhere and anywhere on social media, or Pursue Your Spark, either way, you'll find me everywhere on social media. Super simple to get in touch with me. Lesley Logan 28:34  That's awesome. Well, you know what? You have a name that no one else has, I think. I'm sharing my name, like my exact spelling and my exact name, with a lot of different people, and it's a little I'm like, how did that happen? I spell it differently than everyone else, but there was a travel author in the UK when I was a child that has my name, and I know, so very jealous. Okay, well, you've given us really, actually, some great little tips and takeaways, to be honest, people, if you're listening to this, you're probably like writing these things down. But because we cannot skip the Be It Action Items, bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted, steps people can take to be it till they see it, what do you have for us? Heike Yates 29:11  Okay, as I said already, dream big, bold dreams. Take action with small, I like to call them baby steps. Break down those baby steps even into smaller steps, and connect to your why, to your core, to where you were before life happened, before things changed for you. What do you want to do and stop, which is what I love to say, stop dimming your light and move on and enjoy life. Lesley Logan 29:47  Yeah, we don't have to dim our light. There's a lot of people out there trying to play with the dimmer as it is. Don't need to help anyone. Oh, gosh, Heike, this is such a pleasure, so fun, such an uplifting conversation. I am excited to hear how everyone else, what their takeaways are and how they use these tips in their life. Please let us know. Let Heike know. Let the Be It Pod know. Send this to a friend who maybe needs to hear these words, because sometimes, maybe we want someone to be our accountability partner or we want to be their accountability partner, but they may need a reminder first, and so I think maybe sometimes it's often easier to give your friend the advice through a podcast. And then, yes, they'll get to the end and they'll hear this, and they'll hear that we told you to share it to them, and then they're gonna know what the jig is. But you know what, they'll thank you for it, because they'll have stopped dimming their light because of this. So let us know. Share this with a friend until next time, Be It Till You See It. Lesley Logan 30:37  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.Brad Crowell 31:20  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 31:25  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.Brad Crowell 31:29  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan 31:36  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.Brad Crowell 31:39  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

She was in entertainment -- the "family business" -- and with a famous uncle (高凌風)… but it was only a matter of time before Lareine Hsu (徐瑞蓮) decided it was time to make a switch. As the chef of a new and noteworthy Danbi in Los Angeles' Koreatown, Chef L now makes waves with her cooking. She talks swapping careers and what sustains her. Hosted by ICRT's Hope Ngo. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

David Joonwoo Yun has a great story to tell. As one of the partners of New York City Korean restaurants C as in Charlie and Kisa, he's been at the center of Korean cooking in NYC for a minute. But how did he get here? And how did he and his partners eventually redefine Korean cooking one banchan at a time? We dig into his great story in this terrific episode.Also on the show we have a great conversation with journalist Mehr Singh, who speaks about her recent TASTE reporting digging into Gen Z cheesemakers. We also talk about her career, and some memorable stories.Do you enjoy This Is TASTE? Drop us a review on Apple, or star us on Spotify. We'd love to hear from you. MORE KOREAN FOOD EPISODES:This Is TASTE 391: Koreaword with Koreaworld with Cote and Coqodaq's Simon Kim [Apple]This Is TASTE 390: Koreaworld with Eater LA Editor Matthew Kang [Apple]This Is TASTE 388: Koreaworld with Doshi's Susan Kim [Apple]See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In light of bad people trying to destroy the very fabric of our country, this month we're highlighting that which they want to destroy. We'll be covering some of our favorite ethnic enclaves of Los Angeles including Little Ethiopia (16:22), Historic Filipinotown (32:55) and Koreatown (51:25).

Send us a textRodney King was stopped for speeding in California the year before and savagely beaten after he resisted arrest. It was all caught on video by a bystander and the police were charged for excessive  brutality while trying to subdue King. When the police were acquitted by an all white jury in another neighboring county from where the crime had occurred the city of Los Angeles exploded.  There were riots , looting, and fires all over the downtown area, and after the death of a rioter in Koreatown, the tensions mounted as the riot moved over into the Korean section.  In this episode, we will relive the riots both in real time, and thanks to the L.A. TV Station KCAL, through the eyes of some of the people 25 years later in their series reliving the L.A. Riots. We will hear from Mayor Tom Bradley, Governor Pete Wilson and at the end of the episode we will hear President George H. W. Bush as he addresses the nation in an attempt to bring calm to the disorder he was facing, all of which is occurring just six months before the 1992 Presidential Election.  Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcastsThanks for listening!!

In this “Where Are They Now?” episode, we catch up with alum Junyoung Myung (MHC '15), who followed yet another of many career paths in heritage conservation: research and teaching. His exciting work blends architecture, design, heritage conservation, and technology—from teaching undergrad architects about adaptive reuse, to training AI to identify architectural styles, and much more. He's also finishing his doctoral dissertation, which explores how generations of Korean immigrants and Korean Americans created a unique ethnic urban landscape in Los Angeles. It builds on his master's thesis, Values-Based Approach to Heritage Conservation: Identifying Cultural Heritage in Los Angeles Koreatown. Jun talks with co-host Trudi Sandmeier about working with residents to identify overlooked places of memory and meaning, using digital technology to advance the field, and inspiring the next generation of architects to embrace heritage conservation.Photos, links, and transcript on episode pageConnect with us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn!

Jonnie Park, better known as Dumbfounded, has a truly interesting Origin story that starts in Argentina, and ends at Koreatown in L.A.! We dig deep as he recalls finding his way immigrating through the Mexican border, to his early teen years emerging as a world-famous battle rapper, to his sights setting in on being an Emmy award winner. All of this while staying true to his Korean culture and his deep roots as an icon of Koreatown. Let's get into it!

In this lively episode of “And Now We Drink,” host Matt Slayer sits down with the vibrant and unapologetically candid Paige Bundy for an unforgettable conversation filled with laughter, revelations, and a fair share of shenanigans. As the drinks flow, Paige and Matt dive into a myriad of topics, including the intricacies of modern dating, the unique culture of Los Angeles, and their personal experiences that have shaped them along the way. Paige doesn't hold back as she shares her journey from her southern roots to the fast-paced life of LA, complete with anecdotes of past relationships and the lessons she's learned. With humor and honesty, she talks about the challenges of trust and emotional independence, offering listeners a glimpse into the life of someone constantly evolving and embracing change. The duo also touch on lighter topics, like the unexpected twists of a night out in Koreatown, complete with popcorn, tequila, and an ill-timed Uber ride. Their banter is both relatable and entertaining, as they navigate through tangents with ease, embodying the spirit of the show—two friends having open, honest, and often hilarious conversations over drinks. This episode is a rollercoaster of emotions and anecdotes that highlight the complexity of human relationships, personal growth, and the ever-present humor found in even the most mundane of situations. Grab a drink, settle in, and enjoy the ride with Matt and Paige as they bring a refreshing mix of wit, wisdom, and a dash of chaos to your day.   Check out Bluesky's First 3rd party verification service. www.bskyverified.social to apply    Cover your shame in our wares. New Merch! anwd.net/merch The Patreon is full of exclusive content and directly supports the show. patreon.com/mattslayer   Subscribe to the youtube youtube.com/andnowwedrink

The watch world is a funny place where even before you meet someone, it's often you follow one another online knowing well you'd be friends even had you met at a bar down the street. I guess in a sense, Instagram serves as a virtual bar for watch geeks like myself. Adam Craniotes and I met through the Social Media platform where he shares his self-deprecating humor, his admiration and allegiance to David Hasselhoff, and of course his pseudo-public humiliation of his children. I happen to adore his relationship with his kids, but we're here to chat all things watches, his writing career, his collecting journey, and of course his Acura MDX with the Sport Package. Of course none of this would've been possible had he not routinely met a friend at a little upstairs bar in the Koreatown neighborhood of Manhattan. That bar was called Red Bar, and so the watch group was named. Please enjoy my conversation with its founder, Mr. Adam Craniotes.

Hi Everyone! Today's special guest is Aram Kim, children's book author and illustrator. Here is more about Aram. Aram Kim [ah-rahm: both a's sound like those in the laughter sound, haha] is a writer, illustrator, and designer of children's picture books. By day, she is an Art Director in the picture book team at Macmillan Children's Publishing Group. At all other times, she writes and illustrates her own stories. She is the author and illustrator of Tomorrow is New Year's Day and Sunday Funday in Koreatown. Learn more about Aram at: https://www.aramkim.com/ Thanks for listening!

So Yun is a Korean American filmmaker. Her debut film Liquor Store Dreams is an incredible and intimate portrayal of two Korean American children of liquor store owners in Koreatown, Los Angeles, who set out to bridge generational divides with their immigrant parents. The film pulls us back to the 1992 LA riots, which is a personal, heartbreaking childhood memory for many of us. In this conversation, So Yun shares that her inspiration and motivation in filmmaking is rooted in witnessing and experiencing injustice and wanting to change the world in her own way. Through her work, she builds bridges between communities, identities, and generations.  So Yun tells us about the process of filmmaking, the importance of using our voices to stand up for ourselves and to educate others, and the differences in perspectives for Koreans of the diaspora compared to Koreans in Korea.  So Yun's IG Leah's IG Watch Liquor Store Dreams on iTunes Watch Liquor Store Dreams for free on Kanopy with library card

Al Chang, a distinguished filmmaker from Los Angeles's Koreatown, is passionately pursuing his dream of crafting authentic narratives in the film industry. With a background that includes 10 years of service in the U.S. Army and a deep connection to the post-L.A. riots culture, in addition to being a dedicated husband and father of four, Chang brings a unique perspective to his work. Currently pursuing his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) with an Editing emphasis at Chapman University, Chang is an emerging talent in the world of filmmaking. His journey began with a passion for editing, which eventually led him to write and direct his own short films, driven by the desire to create entertaining short films. Despite the challenges of balancing life as a full-time student, husband, and father of four, Chang continues to push on, proving that creativity can thrive even in the busiest of lives. https://www.instagram.com/4lcfilm/ Listen to previous podcast interview with Al Chang: https://www.wildsoundpodcast.com/the-film-podcast-by-wildsound/2024/1/18/ep-1091-filmmaker-al-chang-viral Subscribe to the podcast: https://twitter.com/wildsoundpod https://www.instagram.com/wildsoundpod/ https://www.facebook.com/wildsoundpod

Ann McFarren is the founder and CEO of Glamnetic, a Los Angeles-based beauty brand that specializes in magnetic lashes, press-on nails, and eyeliners.Ann immigrated from Thailand to the U.S. when she was 7, joining her mom in a small California town where she was one of the only Asian kids in the area. Although she felt different and self-conscious, she found comfort and a sense of control in wearing false lashes, which helped her feel like she belonged. In 2019, Ann identified a gap in the beauty market for magnetic eyelashes, and with no business experience, she taught herself everything from product development to marketing, and founded Glamnetic from her small LA apartment with just a few thousand dollars. To get her business off the ground, she bootstrapped it, even offering free pizza to anyone willing to help pack and ship products. In July 2019, Glamnetic launched, and by 2021, Ann had sold over 1.5 million sets of nails, generated $50 million in sales, and achieved all of this while remaining completely self-funded.In this week's episode, Ann opens up about her tough childhood in Thailand, the challenges of moving to the U.S., and the lessons she learned about stress and resilience. She shares how she went against her family's expectations and made the bold decision to leave pre-med in college to pursue her passion for art and entrepreneurship. Ann discusses the early days of building her business from her Koreatown apartment, how creativity and visualization helped her manifest her goals, and the exact steps she took to create her first product – from finding suppliers to marketing the product with no money. She also shares how the business grew exponentially since its launch, and the challenges that come with that, how she navigated imposter syndrome along the way, how her definition of success is ever-changing, and so much more.In this episode, we'll talk to Ann about:* Ann's childhood and upbringing [03:17]* Moving to America and witnessing a new life for herself. [09:33]* Life as a Thai immigrant and family expectations. [10:46]* Pursuing a career as an artist. [12:35]* The inspiration behind Glamnetic. [17:11] * Funding the first order and launching with 100 units. [22:39]* Early launch strategy & hitting over $1M monthly. [25:30]* Hiring the right people is crucial for growth. [33:06]* Approach in handling business challenges. [39:11]* How Ann met her business partner. [42:42]* Challenges in scaling the business. [45:59]* The evolving definition of success. [52:32]* Visualizing to manifest goals. [57:10]This episode is brought to you by Beeya:* If you or anyone you know have been struggling with hormonal imbalances and bad periods, go to https://beeyawellness.com/free to download the free guide to tackling hormonal imbalances and to learn more about Beeya's seed cycling bundle.* Plus, get $10 off your order by using promo code BEHINDHEREMPIRE10Follow Yasmin:* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yasminknouri/* Website: https://www.behindherempire.com/Follow Ann:* Website: https://www.glamnetic.com/* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glamnetic/* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themodernartista/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of "Sleepless in Singapore," I recount the final leg of my road trip down the West Coast of the United States, from San Francisco to San Diego, Tijuana, and back up to LA, ending in Death Valley. Our journey begins with a car swap fiasco at the LA Airport, where we end up with a convertible Chevy, perfect for cruising the Californian highways. San Diego offers us a culinary delight at Tacos El Gordo and a vibrant night at the Gaslamp District, while our brief Tijuana adventure is marked by a border-crossing mishap and a memorable breakfast at Georgina Restaurante. Back in LA, we explore iconic spots like Griffith Observatory, Venice Beach, and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, indulging in local flavors at Petit Trois and a Korean BBQ in Koreatown. Our drive through Death Valley is a scorching experience, with temperatures soaring to 49.2 degrees Celsius. The trip concludes with a Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas and a return to Philadelphia for the 4th of July celebrations, before I finally head back home to Singapore.

Three in custody after a high-speed pursuit ends with a violent crash. Also this evening: residents in a landslide area of Rancho Palos Verdes now fear losing their homes; and claim and counter-claim about an LAPD officer punching a man during a traffic stop.    

“My own life has been defined by a search for lesbian spaces.” So says journalist June Thomas, whose new book “A Place of Our Own” explores third spaces for queer women, places that are not work or home. Tracing the history of lesbian bars, coffee shops, bookstores, communes, sex stores, vacations and softball teams, Thomas argues for their importance in community building, political organizing, friendship and love — then and now. We'll talk with Thomas about her new book, and we'll hear from the founders of two California LGBTQ groups — Queer Run San Francisco and HOT POT in Los Angeles' Koreatown — about how they center and create community for queer women of color. Tell us: What have queer women's spaces meant to you? Guests: June Thomas, co-host, Slate's "Working" podcast; author, "A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women's Culture" Chloe Morizono, producer, KQED; founder, Queer Run San Francisco Jordyn Sun, creator of HOT POT, which puts on QTBIPOC parties in LA's K-Town

Originally Dropped in 2021OG CHINO: Korean Cholo, Tour Manager, Artist, Owner of Escala“Seoul born, Bogotá raised, L.A. grown, Brooklyn aged.”In this episode OG Chino talks about his journey of being born in South Korea, spending his formative years in Colombia then moving to Los Angeles where the Latino / Cholo community embraced him. From LA to Dallas to NYC, to globe trotting as the tour manager for the The X-Ecutioners and back to LA where he opened Escala, a LA Colombian Korean restaurant in Korea Town.RIP ROC RAIDA & SAD EYES*Side note this convo happened April 7th, so before the protests, uprisings, and massacres in Colombia. That's why it wasn't discussed. Links on how to help can be found below. #soscolombiaQuestions/Comments from the audience:Brian KimWTYM EP 28 guest Maricel SisonRakaa During The Supernatural Bear corner, The SNB sums up his Tio OG CHINO's life while basing on his mama's Spanish skills.Episode linksOG CHINOEscala Chaz BojorquezMike NardoneStinkfishElaine H. Kim(Not Just) Knee Deep by FunkadelicColombia LinksMultiple Organizations and campaignsAfro Unidos WTYM is brought to you byWord To Your Mama Store: Use code WTYM at check out to receive 10% off any order ritzyperiwinkle.comWTYM Patreon PagepanoplyBPO : Mention WTYM and get your 13th month of service free.DONATEAVAILABLE WHERE EVER YOU CONSUME PODCASTS

BOOPAC SHAKUR: Jim stumble upon a BOOPAC video in the wild and we realize that we have never watched a Boopac Shakur video before! Pause Compilation: A boxing press conference went off the rails as the questions had to keep being halted with a AYO PAUSE! Legacy Sequels: We discuss the recent Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F release, which begs the question are there any good legacy sequels? FUCK YOU WATCH THIS!, THE BEAR!, GHOST TOWN!, THE SPECIALS!, GREEBLING!, GROYPER!, MAGA CHUD!, SHITLIB!, KOREA TOWN!, GORDON RAMSAY!, LET'S GET IT STARTED!, STARING AT MY PHONE!, WHAT A WEEK!, BOOPAC!, DOOM SCROLLING!, BOOPAC SHAKUR!, IN THE WILD!, BLOWING OUNCES OF PIFF AND CONSTANTLY SMOKING HIGH AS KITES USING RELLOS!, MYTHICAL!, BIDEN WHISPERS!, IMPRESSION!, ROBERT!, REAL NAME!, PEDO HUNTERS!, SLAPPING!, BEAT UP!, TIRES SLASHED!, VIGILANTE!, MONTAGE!, WRONGFULLY ACCUSSED!, DOORDASH!, TERIYAKI MADNESS!, MURDERED!, JOKER!, BATMAN!, AYO PAUSE!, TEXT TRANSCRIPTS!, GAS STATION!, HUMILIATED!, 15 YEAR OLD!, LYING!, ENTRAPMENT!, TO CATCH A PREDATOR!, BUSY!, JACOB!, CATFISH!, EFFORT!, CONVINCING 15 YEAR OLD!, WHATSAPP!, WEED!, PONTIAC MICHIGAN!, NO DIDDY!, TAKING IT ALL IN! INNUENDO!, COMING!, COBRA KAI!, SEASON 6!, FAKE LOOKING!, LIGHTING!, NETFLIX!, BEVERLY HILLS COP!, AXEL F!, SEQUELS!, LEGACY SEQUEL!, BORING!, JARRING!, CAN'T CHANGE!, NOSTALGIA!, JUDGE REINHOLD!, EDDIE MURPHY!, PEPE!, GROYPERS!, LOCKED IN BIDEN!, TIME STAMP!, BIDEN DROPS OUT!, KAMALA!, DEEP STATE!, BIG MIKE!, MICHELLE OBAMA!, AOC!  You can find the videos from this episode at our Discord RIGHT HERE!

Podcast Episode 158: The Craziest month in US Presidential history In this episode today, Rohan and David discussed the following: 1. Impact of Recent Events on the Presidential Campaigns: They discuss the fallout and implications of President Biden withdrawing from the presidential race, and the potential implications for Vice President Kamala Harris as the frontrunner. 2. Tech Disruption: Microsoft Outage and Cybersecurity Implications: They explore the causes and consequences of the recent Microsoft update that caused major disruptions, including cybersecurity concerns and its broader impact. 3. Real Estate Trends: Austin's Housing Boom and Market Dynamics: Rohan and David analyze the unprecedented influx of apartment units in Austin, Texas, and its impact on rental prices, housing market saturation, and investor strategies. 4.Investment Trends: Blackstone's AI Infrastructure Initiative: They discuss Blackstone's strategy to become a leader in AI infrastructure investments, including data centers and renewable energy, and its implications for the real estate and tech sectors. 5. Future of AI in Consumer Behavior and Industries: Following the above they also discuss the transformative potential of AI, focusing on autonomous driving technology, drone deliveries, and their expected impact on consumer behavior and industry landscapes. 6. Financial Stability and Banking Liquidity: They now explore the liquidity risks highlighted by the high ratio of uninsured deposits in major banks like JP Morgan Chase and Bank of New York Mellon, and their potential implications for financial stability. 7. Urban Real Estate Market Insights: David and Rohan analyze the most expensive cities to buy homes in the U.S. for 2024, including San Francisco, New York City, and other major metropolitan areas, discussing trends, affordability challenges, and investment opportunities. 8. Impact of COVID-19 on Real Estate: They discuss how the pandemic has affected real estate prices and market dynamics, with a specific focus on urban centers like New York City and Los Angeles versus suburban and rural areas. 9. Property Development: Exploring the challenges and opportunities in large-scale property development projects, using examples like the Oceanwide Project in downtown LA as a case study. Fun stuff and reviews: Entertainment and Media Reviews: Reviewing recent movies like "The Beekeeper" and TV series like "Horizon" or other media consumed by the hosts, discussing their plot twists, themes, and entertainment value. (27:48) Restaurant and Food Reviews: Sharing experiences and recommendations from dining in various cultural districts like Koreatown, focusing on the atmosphere, cuisine, and overall dining experience. (30:09) Book Recommendations: Discussing books related to finance, Wall Street culture, or any other genres that the hosts have recently read, such as "Straight to Hell" by John. (35:16)

Buckle up for a wild ride through Koreatown with Iliza Shlesinger! From Korean BBQ mishaps to droll encounters in LA, 'Iliza's LA Locals Laugh Fest' packs a punch you don't want to miss. Ready for an uproarious comedy adventure? Click now at https://foqnfunny.com for the best in comedy TV shows, stand-up specials, and loads more! Love what you're hearing on FOQN Funny? Go a step further and become a member of FOQN Funny+. Enjoy exclusive perks and never-ending laughter. Join now at: https://plus.acast.com/s/foqn-funny. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join Iliza Shlesinger as she hilariously navigates Koreatown's charm, from quirky food combos to the vibrant streets of LA. Each corner turns into a punchline in this uproarious episode. Craving more belly laughs? Click over to https://foqnfunny.com and get your fix of comedy gold! Love what you're hearing on FOQN Funny? Go a step further and become a member of FOQN Funny+. Enjoy exclusive perks and never-ending laughter. Join now at: https://plus.acast.com/s/foqn-funny. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sponsored by: http://www.PMTLIFESTYLE.COMOptimize Your Training With: ONNIT Supplements: https://bit.ly/pmt-onnit--In Episode 158 of the Pu'u Muay Thai Podcast, we sit down with Coach Ryan Ughoc and Kru Ed Gonzalez at Teep Studio in Scottsdale, Arizona, for an inspiring and deeply personal conversation. Ryan, who runs Pu'u Muay Thai Santa Barbara, and Ed, the chief instructor at Pu'u Muay Thai in Ventura, share their incredible journeys into martial arts and how it has profoundly changed their lives.Ryan opens up about hitting rock bottom while living as a drug addict on skid row in Los Angeles and how he found redemption through martial arts, reconnecting with his childhood practice of Judo and ultimately finding his way to Muay Thai. His story is a powerful testament to the transformative power of martial arts.Kru Ed Gonzalez, who grew up near Korea Town in Los Angeles, discusses his early years in Tae Kwon Do and Boxing before discovering Muay Thai. Training with legends like Buakaw, Ed's journey highlights the dedication and passion that martial arts demand.This episode is more than just about fighting techniques; it's about resilience, redemption, and the life-changing impact of martial arts. Join us for an emotional and motivational discussion that proves no matter how far you fall, you can always rise again with the right mindset and support.Tune in to hear these inspiring stories and learn how Muay Thai can be a path to personal growth and transformation. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and comment below with your thoughts. Follow us for more powerful stories and insights from the world of Muay Thai.Support the Show.Submit your Questions, Shoutouts, and request to be featured: https://podcast.puumuaythai.com

Derricke Dennis comes on the show with the latest on Trump's "Hush Money" trial as the jury continues to deliberate in NYC.  John rehashes the fight for a new trial for Scott Peterson, led by the LA Innocence Project. KFI's Blake Troli joins John to discuss the woman who was arrested again for attempted kidnapping in Koreatown. Attorney Lou Shapiro comes on the show to talk about what he thinks the verdict on the Trump "Hush Money" trial will be as we await the jury's verdict. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jason and Mike are on a journey to get a vegan meal deal in Koreatown.  Meanwhile,  they talk about the Washington Post's ranking of vegan bacons, beyond meat lashing out at vegans and Emo straight edge vegan icon Davey Havok.

Elizabeth Kott and Lara Marie Schoenhals haul popular aesthetic cores. Also discussed: Equinox toiletry brand placement, Koreatown spa recs, and a Too Niche mention on Armchair Expert. Thank you to Magic Mind: get up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one time purchases with code TOONICHE20, visit https://www.magicmind.com/tooniche Thank you to Osea, use code NICHE for 10% off at OseaMalibu.com Aesthetics dictionary Follow us: @this_is_tooniche, @larzmarie, @elizabethott Get in touch! toonichepodcast@gmail.com

A transformational live-on-locational supersensational IDOCstravaganza! First we go to a Los Angeles Photography Club Cameras and Coffee meetup in Koreatown to talk to folks about their cameras and dogs. Then we SPAN THE GLOBE to interview Jo Geier, proprietor of Mint and Rare, a phenomenal camera shop in Vienna, Austria. You won't want to miss this one, so TOON IN!

On this week's menu: a follow-up conversation about South Korea's soft power and how cultural influence - especially through food - can amplify a country's presence beyond its own borders and into a “global mainstream”. Lending us their informed perspective are chef Deuki Hong and food journalist Matt Rodbard. They've co-written the New York Times Bestselling book KOREATOWN and have now released a delicious sequel KOREAWORLD. So they know a thing or two. Watching the full video episodes on YouTube. Check out KOREAWORLD: Penguin Random HouseFollow Deuki:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deukihongFollow Matt:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattrodbardFollow Us:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fulldiscoursepodTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fulldiscoursepod Follow the host Josh:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejoshelkin TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thejoshelkin YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thejoshelkinThis has been a Diamond MPrint ProductionProduced by Diane Kang and Melisa D. MontsProduction Camera and Audio by Jeff LeuPost-Production Sound by Coco LlorensProduction Assistance by Melanie D. WatsonGraphics by Claudia Choi

In 2024, the most radical act imaginable is telling the truth. Nellie Bowles has done just that with her new book, Morning After the Revolution. She lays out in painful but funny detail the madness we've all just lived through that almost no one will talk about. Bowles is too nice to humiliate the New York Times outright; she was their “golden girl,” after all, once upon a time. But her book humiliates them all the same, just by doing good reporting and telling the stories they refused to tell. In one riveting, tragic, hilarious passage, Bowles describes what happened at the Wi Spa in Los Angeles:“Wi Spa billed itself as “a convenient and affordable place to de-stress and be pampered,” but one summer week in 2021 it became a site of great stress because of one (allegedly, partially) erect penis that had manifested in the women's room.”She continues: “The spa, in Los Angeles's Koreatown, has separate men's and women's areas where people go naked. The penis went bobbing through the women's space. The penis had been seen soaking in the women's communal soak pools. Women enjoying their spa time were upset. One went to the front desk asking for help, saying there were children present and that there was a man in the bathroom. The front desk could not help. The person with the penis had a California driver's license that listed their gender as “female.” The penis was white, and some of the women who didn't want to see it were black Hispanic, which in the summer of 2021 might have helped draw knee-jerk public sympathy, but apparently did not.”For a movement afraid of harm being done by mere words, they seemed to be perfectly comfortable with real harm being done to young girls, to women in sports, and pre-teens sucked into “gender-affirming care.” Bowles doesn't just describe what happened at the spa; she tracks down the sex offender himself and discovers that, yes, he'd done it deliberately, and, yes, he was erect while doing so. But was there ever any major reckoning in the press? No.I quickly searched the New York Times for “Wi Spa,” and of course, there was nothing about this scandal, even though it was such an interesting story. Why didn't they want to touch it? Because it called into question their absolutism about “trans women” being women. The Times should be as thoroughly humiliated by Morning After the Revolution as NPR should be after Uri Berliner's essay. They no longer care about chasing the story at all costs. They only care about serving the ideology at all costs. It shouldn't be surprising that the Times and other “prestige” outlets would pan Bowles' book and attempt character assassination on her. What else are they going to do? Admit that they gaslighted Americans and allowed themselves to be manipulated by a “Lord of the Flies” contingent of crybaby brats who felt unsafe around reporters like Donald McNeil? Will they come clean and admit they essentially work for the Biden administration as a slightly more sophisticated version of Joe and Mika? Not a chance. The publisher isn't taking their criticisms seriously, nor should they. Instead, they celebrated their takes:The negative reviews read like a chapter in Bowles's book. The Washington Post's Becca Rothfield disguises her resentment and embarrassment by casting Bowles as the condescending elite. The lady doth protest too much, methinks:She writes:The real question is not about whether there are “Narrative Enforcers” at the New York Times, as Bowles alleges, but why there is a market for so many books like this, even though they are all so predictably indistinguishable from one another. Bowles's book appeals for the same reason that other conservative memoirs of political “growth” do: because they reassure their readers that progressivism is not a genuine political philosophy but an almost biological byproduct of youth, like acne. Bowles and her ilk are thereby absolved from contending with the principles of those who oppose them, or from seeing their political nemeses as rational moral agents.Then there is Laura Kipnis at the New York Times, whose CV reads exactly like Rothfield's: academia, awards, universities, citations, more awards, more citations. They could be the same person. She writes, “By fringe, she means trans. She's peeved that some trans women are trying to redefine feminism in ways that seem to her to be anti-woman, resents that lesbians risk being erased by trendy all-purpose queerness and fears that as a married lesbian mother she will have her own rights swept away by anti-trans backlash. Given the Dobbs decision, all precedents are possibly imperiled, but the culprit isn't transgender-rights activists. It's the religious right and the Supreme Court, both of which get a pass from Bowles, as do Donald Trump and every elected Republican.”And there it is, the message loud and clear: those bad people on the Right are the problem, not us, not the crazies who have destroyed nearly every great thing about American culture, and have destroyed feminism. Not will. Have. It's been gutted. It no longer exists. And then we get Mollie Fischer, yet another carbon copy of the same kind of writer/thinker/activist at The New Yorker:What can we expect from someone whose last article was “Why We Choose Not to Eat, Can the decision to forgo food be removed from the gendered realm of weight-loss culture?” This is the sad, silly fact of what the Left has become once it aligned with power, wealth, and politics: boring. Insular. Naval gazing. Michelle Goldberg decided the review in the Times wasn't enough and wrote an entire op-ed about Bowles:“There are aspects of the New Progressivism — its clunky neologisms and disdain for free speech — that I'll be glad to see go. But however overwrought the politics of 2020 were, they also represented a rare moment when there was suddenly enormous societal energy to tackle long-festering inequalities. That energy has largely dissipated, right when we need it most, heading into another election with Trump on the ballot.Trump Trump Trump. The closer anyone gets to Trump, the farther away they get from the MISSION. It's one or the other. You've read 1984. You know the deal. Love Big Brother or you'll be another enemy of the state. You'll be Goldstein. You'll be unpersoned. The reckoning I waited for is never coming. I know that. Just as I know many of my friends will never apologize or ever have any awareness of what they went along with. I knew that back in 2020 when a local news station told the story of Sue and her 100 year-old mattress store. I was screamed at by my friends for even mentioning it.Now, many of them must feel a combination of fear and shame but would not dare risk their place in utopia to talk about it, even if more and more people seem to feel comfortable doing so. So down the memory hole it will go.As Bowles said in her appearance on Bill Maher, there has never been any apology or acknowledgment of what we've just lived through. We're owed at least that much, not just for how they treated their own reporters, editors, or researchers at the hands of fanatics but also for the stories they refused to tell that the American public deserved to know.In their podcast, America This Week, Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi discuss the short story Christmas Not Just Once a Year, by Heinrich Böll. The story is about mass delusion and why almost no one can or will put a stop to it because it's just too hard.When I think about what's happened to this country and I try to find something that is horrifying enough to warrant a comparison to what happened in Germany, I land on “trans kids,” this bizarre new idea that has been normalized in our culture to the point where all schools, all institutions and all politics on the Left are going along with it, even though it sends children down a dangerous path they can't come back from.I'm not saying it's as bad as the Holocaust, but I am saying the madness is on par with what people have gone along with at the worst moments in our history. That's why Sweden, the UK, and other countries have backed way off of “gender-affirming care.” It's almost Pride month. They will fly the flag at elementary schools right next to the US flag. What chance do any of these kids have? With so many parents so afraid to stand up to the activists lest they be called a “bigot,” we're left with few choices when it comes to November 2024. If you want this stopped, you can't vote for Democrats. Yet, Nellie Bowles probably will. She is a lesbian married to Bari Weiss, and pregnant with their second child. But at least she is a voice the New York Times can't ignore. How did a book like this even get published anyway? We all know the rules. Sensitivity readers and activists posing as staffers are constantly breathing down the neck of the editors to ensure full compliance.Enter Thesis, an adjunct of the Penguin Group that launched in 2023, that was “committed to publishing bold ideas that shape tomorrow's discourse.” You might call them the first major “heterodox” publishing house that hovers in that sweet spot outside the clutches of the “woke” Left but still enough inside as not to cross the Trump line.They are ahead of the game, joining a growing group of voices just before the inevitable counterculture revolution hits. Expect to see more like them and more voices like Nellie Bowles.At the end of the book, Bowles mentions how someone she knew ended their friendship because she refused to cancel a colleague. Now that story is in print for all time. That woman will have to live with being one of the bad guys, even if it will be years before she realizes it. // This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe

I went to Koreatown today and did a little stretching. This is the result. Oh, and Kendrick Lamar released new music, too.

Koreaworld is here! It's a new cookbook from Deuki Hong and TASTE's Matt Rodbard, and this week we are looking at the modern Korean food movement from all angles. Today we have a great interview that has been years in the making. Matthew Kang is the longtime editor of Eater LA and is plugged into all things in LA's Koreatown. In this conversation, we get into the big topics of the day in Los Angeles and have a spirited NYC vs. LA Koreatown debate. The Koreaworld crew is hosting book release events in New York City (April 24), Los Angeles (May 4), San Francisco (May 10), and many other cities. Check out all the cities and dates. See you out there!Do you enjoy This Is TASTE? Drop us a review on Apple, or star us on Spotify. We'd love to hear from you.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kristen den Hartog's book, "The Roosting Box," takes a look behind the walls of the Christie Street Veteran's Hospital in Toronto, also known as the Dominion Orthopedic Hospital. For nearly 30 years, the hospital treated thousands of injured soldiers. And as Jeyan Jeganathan discovers, the hospital was a place filled with the aftermath of war, but also a place of invention and healing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever feel that pang of guilt when you finally score a kid-free getaway with girlfriends? How about when you go away to a conference and that means missing your son's trumpet solo? Big confession. I recently went to a conference and missed my kid's solo. Yep, I felt mom guilt especially while I watched the livestream, but as a mom of three, I knew I was doing my best and that this conference (ironically the Mom 2.0 conference) was a big deal for my book and business. And (further justifications) it wasn't an on-stage solo in front of an audience...it was a Saturday morning classroom solo in front of a teacher. All of this to say, yes, mom guilt still continues to pop up for me when I pick career over family (and it doesn't even happen a lot!), and yet it's a constant juggle. So imagine this: what if you had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live in another country without your family to explore your childhood career dreams? Sounds impossible? Would that make you feel guilty? This episode tackles the monster called "mom guilt." Enter Alicia Fernandez Miranda, a super-achiever mom of twins who decided to hit pause on her high-powered CEO career at 40. We delve into her story and ask the lingering questions: Does mom guilt ever truly fade? Is self-care a selfish act, or a necessity? Most importantly, can our actions teach our kids valuable life lessons that words simply can't? Tune in to episode 225 for an honest conversation that will empower you to embrace motherhood on your own terms. Let's connect on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/ In This Episode You Will Uncover: -How to navigate the guilt of pursuing your own passions as a mom, especially if it means taking time away from your family. -The importance of role modeling and showing your children how to live a fulfilling life, even if it means taking risks. -Why it's better to try something and fail than to never try anything at all. This Episode is Perfect For You If: -You're a mom who feels stuck in a rut and longs to pursue your own interests. -You're wondering if it's possible to chase your dreams while still being a good parent. -You're looking for inspiration to break free from self-doubt and create a life you love. Key Points: -Many moms struggle to find inspiration for pursuing their own dreams because the media often portrays women who achieve success without children. -The guilt of leaving your family can be a major obstacle, but sometimes the risk of not following your dreams is greater. -By taking action and showing your children how to live a fulfilling life, you can inspire them to do the same. -It's okay to fail, and in fact, it can be a valuable learning experience. Taking time for yourself can ultimately make you a better parent. This episode is brought to you by Fertile Imagination: A Guide for Stretching Every Mom's Superpower for Maximum Impact, which reached the #1 spot as an Amazon bestseller in both the motherhood and women and business categories! Woo hoo! And if this episode deeply resonates with you, then you are definitely invited to read my book, Fertile Imagination! In my humble opinion, I believe double-fisting Alisha's book The What If Year and mine, Fertile Imagination, would make for an epically fun weekend of reading. Dive into Alisha's adventures and live vicariously through a fellow mom, and then turn to my personal framework to help you think about your best first step on getting your imagination fired up about your own adventure! As I alluded to earlier, this episode tackles the struggle of mom guilt that tugs at our hearts, even when we deserve a getaway or break from adulting! I've been there too! Moreover, I, Melissa, share a vulnerable moment straight from my book, Fertile Imagination, where I spent Sundays unlocking a surprising talent. And guess what? It was totally worth it! Intrigued to discover your own hidden mom superpower? Head over to https://www.melissallarena.com/fertileideas/ and grab a FREE chapter of Fertile Imagination. It's your guide to maximizing your impact as a mom. Imagine achieving goals you never thought possible, all while rocking motherhood on YOUR terms. Download your free chapter today and ignite your fertile imagination! https://www.melissallarena.com/fertileideas/   Official bio for Alicia Fernandez Miranda ALISHA FERNANDEZ MIRANDA is the author of My What If Year, featured on Good Morning America, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and as one of People's Best Books. She is the host of podcasts Extra Shot with Alisha Fernandez Miranda and the award-winning Quit Your Day Job. Alisha also serves as chair and former CEO of I.G. Advisors, a social impact intelligence agency that consults with the world's biggest nonprofits, foundations, and corporations on their philanthropy and social initiatives. A graduate of Harvard University and the London School of Economics, her writing has appeared in Vogue, Marie Claire, Insider, Romper and Huffington Post. Originally from Miami, Alisha currently lives in Scotland with her husband and children. Follow Alisha on Instagram @alishafmiranda and her website at www.alishafmiranda.com. TRANSCRIPT Alicia Fernandez Miranda. I am excited to have you on the podcast, and I feel like you need to like stamp my passport. Where are we going? Where are you located? Let's chat. Let's chat. Thank you so much, Melissa, for having me. I am in Edinburgh, Scotland right now. Behind me, it's like hurricane force winds blowing outside, which is sort of typical, typical Wednesday for January in Scotland. Yeah, kind of, sort of like, uh, Canada, actually,  so it's, it's interesting, but Alicia, I am so excited to have you here. When I saw your profile, cause I know you're going to be attending probably like mom 2. 0, right? Yes, I'm going to be there this year. I was like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's like this like twinsie of me somewhere in, in Europe. So that's a good thing. Cause I want to eventually land there. But when I saw that you wrote the book, my what if year, I was just like, Holy mother of guacamole. This is so cool. Like, this is like really, really cool. So why don't you share with listeners just a little bit about my what if year, and then we'll go into maybe like what has stopped a lot of moms from pursuing their own what if years. Totally. So  I guess the story really kind of started for me in 2019. I was living in London. I had done the expat thing. I grew up in Miami  and moved to London in 2008. I was the mom of my twins who were eight years old at the time. I was CEO of a business I had founded with my husband and we were kind of consulting to the biggest foundations and wealthy people, companies, nonprofits, all on social impact and philanthropy and how to give away money a bit better, which was an interesting job. And I sort of, I had done. All of the things that I had said I was going to do in my life. I had my list. I had checked everything off my list and I found myself approaching 40 and thinking, oh my God, is this really where I want to be? Then of course, feeling horribly guilty about. Thinking, is this really where I want to be? Which we can definitely talk about. Cause I think a lot of moms can relate to that.  And I just sort of had this moment where I was like, what, what, what were all the things that I didn't do that I had maybe always wanted to do? And is it really too late to try them? Or could I do this crazy thing, which is to take a year and through a series of little small. Sabbaticals, I was calling them, could I go try out all the jobs I wanted to do when I was a kid and never got a chance to do the things that I really loved, like working on a musical or working in the art industry. And so that was my what if year. It was an attempt to explore these paths that I never got to explore and to do internships at the jobs I had always dreamed of doing. So all of that sounds like so theoretically amazing. It's like, I want to just the, the abort mission, but, and I guess you could say on life and I just want to go and be in Cirque du Soleil. That's what I wanted to do. Actually. I have that in my own book, fertile imagination. I didn't do it just let's just to be clear. You haven't done it yet. That's true. I am working on mobility, so you never know what's up for me. But that was like my thing, right? I was like, Oh, how cool would it be Cirque du Soleil?  And, and I have other, I have a list of other things too, but there was, there was nothing, I never saw any woman, certainly any mom, Nor any Latina do something where she was away from her kids for such a long time during a time when they still needed her,  right? And 40, my goodness. So 40 years old, like how far could someone go 40? I'm just curious from your own perspective, like what sort of things were like, okay. Within the realm of possibilities for a mom versus what you did. I mean, it's such a good question because the guilt was real and the  feeling that my primary responsibility was always to my family, no matter what, even if that meant putting myself further down the list. It was just, I had just accepted that. I had accepted that that was the case. Without really stopping to think, what are the implications on my family? If I am a person who is not happy with my life and not feeling complete in myself or full in myself. So, I mean, of course, who are the people that had done this kind of like, They press the abort button on their life, right? Okay, you have like Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote Eat Pray Love, not Latina. Didn't have kids, I don't think either.  But she went, she took a year. She went to eat pasta in Italy and to India. And then she went to Bali and fell in love with a hot surfer. And that was the end of that book. But that was not a possibility for me. Neither was the Cheryl Strayed Wild. Also not Latina. Also no children. Because there was no way I was going to sleep in a tent for like a year at a time. But again, she left to deal with her grief. And she walked the Pacific Coast, the Pacific Crest Trail. And this idea of literally blowing up my whole life, that was off the table for me. Because I love my children. I love my husband. And I was so conscious that whatever I did was going to be  at best inconvenient for them. And at worst, a really big deal. for their day to day lives, if I was going to leave and go try these things. And so I was very, very conscious of that. It wasn't like I was just like, Meh, screw you all, like I'm going off to Italy to eat all the pasta. So when I started thinking about what this experience was going to be for me, I had a plan. I had, Months of planning, of fitting everything in, of figuring out who was going to pick up my kids from dance and soccer on the different days when my husband had to work, of organizing everything, of figuring out how to do my internships at the same time as their vacations from school, so they could come with me and join me. This was like a beautiful color coded plan because I wasn't willing. To really throw their happiness out. I could never, I could never have done that to them and I couldn't have enjoyed myself if I knew that that was the case. Now, of course, I say all of this and then I'll tell you my first internship started on February 29th, 2020. So all of my careful plans went completely out the window as soon as the pandemic hit, but definitely.  I was very, I was putting myself first, but only to a certain extent. I was very conscious that I didn't want my kids and my husband to be collateral damage somehow to my desire to go and chase these opportunities.   And it's so interesting because it's, it's true. Like, it's like, who is it that you look towards as inspiration for what's possible in your life? And me too, for, for some odd reason, I don't know if it's just like a quirk, but like, I look at these like billionaires that have no children whatsoever that are men as like, Oh, why can't I be like Tom Bilyeu?   And it's like, Hello, you have three kids, two of whom are identical twins who are 10 years old. You live in Austin and there's just no way for you to create a fitness bar or a protein bar without high fructose corn syrup without breaking some nails, right? Cause the machinery that Tom  broke and used, I wouldn't do.   So it's, it's just a weird, it's super weird, right? Like what a, what an interesting thing to kind of compare yourself. Those articles that are like advice from successful CEOs. And one of the things that, and they're almost always men. And one of the things that they'll say is get up an hour early, get up at 5 AM to start working and start your day and exercise and clear your head.   And I'm like, if I'm getting up early, I'm making breakfast for people. I'm feeding the dog. The kids are getting ready for school. So that's, that's not possible in my life. I think you can be a successful CEO, by the way. And still have all those responsibilities, but that model, that inspiration, it's, it's not really meant, I think, for people like us, at least it hasn't been historically.   Yeah, which is why we have to kind of carve our own path. So as a mom with two kids who were eight years old, who started this adventure right when the pandemic hit ultimately. And at that, you started with. theater as your first internship, which I think listeners can now appreciate had a big hiatus, right?   During that time,  how did you sort of navigate the mom guilt? And then also just like the regular guilt, because this was a very unique timeframe. And I'm saying that 1000 times unique once in a lifetime  timeframe. Right. As far as being away from family when there was a lot of uncertainty and fear. So why don't you share a couple of stories about that?   I felt,  I felt, I felt so guilty at every point. I mean, I felt guilty for even thinking that I maybe wanted to. A life that looked different because I had been brought up to always be grateful and appreciative of what you have and what you have been given. My dad was a Cuban immigrant. I grew up in a family where that story of we left everything to come here and give you a better life.   And you need to work hard to get to the point where you don't ever have to do that and be appreciative and grateful for everything we've done and what you have. That was my. like cornerstone mythology of my entire childhood. So I felt guilty even for, for thinking.  This thought that I was unhappy, that was like something that I shouldn't be, I shouldn't be thinking that.   That's just being ungrateful for everything I have. And so I felt guilty even from the inception. I felt guilty about doing something that was about putting my needs, even for a short period of time ahead of my family, even though I did not abandon them completely.  I felt guilty about all of those things.   And I like to joke always that my dad is Cuban and grew up Catholic. My mom is Jewish. And so I have the most guilt. I have Catholic guilt and Jewish guilt. It's like all the guilt forever.  But at the same time, I could recognize, finally, after a lot of thinking and soul searching, that I was not in a good place in myself.   I was not happy. I was not being the best mom I could be, or the best wife I could be, or the best me that I could be. Because I felt like I was treading water in my own life, and I was living a life that I had signed up for, but wasn't right for me anymore. And so, really, I got to the point where it felt like the risk of not doing something was greater than the risk of doing something.   And this worry that I was always going to feel this way, or maybe even worse, became so great that I just knew, I That it was going to be worth the kind of short term inconvenience for my family as it, as it was going to be worth it to have this experience. Now, right before I left, like the night before I left, my husband and I were sitting on the sofa, and at the time, You're thinking back like late February 2020, China had already been in lockdown for a month.   Italy had gone into lockdown. Iran was, I think, in some sort of lockdown. But there was still, people were still saying like, oh, it's going to be contained to these three countries. This is not going to spread. It's going to be very small. The idea that the pandemic would have happened on such a scale was so far from our heads.   But I did have a conversation with my husband and I said, do you not want me to go? Do you want me to stay behind?  And then I held my breath. Because I was so worried he was going to say, yeah, I think you should stay, which I was going to be devastated if that was the case. Theater was like my dream, the dream of the all the dreams.   It was the dream to be able to be part of a production. And I had these incredible opportunities to be part of two shows about to open on Broadway and off Broadway. And so I went and then. The whole time I was there, I kind of had my fingers in my ears until the very end. Things were getting worse.  My husband was definitely freaking out.   And I was like, nothing's happening.  Everything's fine. This is all going to blow over. It's not going to be a big deal. And it wasn't until things got really bad. That I decided to leave. And then the following day, before I got on my plane, they announced that all the Broadway theaters were closing for what was initially going to be a period of, I think, four weeks.   And then of course ended up being, I want to say 21 months altogether before everything got back to normal. normal.  But yeah, I mean, I was a little bit in denial and I, I, the thing is I felt guilty anyway. I felt guilty, but I did it anyway. Right? Like that's how I navigated the guilt. I never stopped feeling guilty.   I just knew that it was important. And so I was able to push the guilt to the side. and do what I knew I needed to do.  Yeah, and,   and I was wondering about that. So like, kind of like exposure therapy, like, do you feel that it got a little bit easier the first time you're like, Oh, okay, everybody survived.   And then the next time and the next time. So do you feel like it got easier during that time?   I don't know. I don't know that it's gotten easier. The first time I went on a work trip after the twins were born, they were about  not quite 18 months old, I think. And I had a new job that I had started and I went to China and my husband was in, we were in London at the time with the kids and I flew for a kajillion hours to get there.   I got there like in the middle of the night and I pick up the phone to call home and it's like a disaster zone at home. Like, They've already been to the, the emergency doctor with my daughter who has like a horrible cough and her nose is blocked and she can't breathe the, and now Carlos is starting to feel sick and I was so upset and like, I have to get on, I have to get on a plane home.   I have to go home right away. And of course I couldn't do that. I had other responsibilities. He was like, look, it's going to be fine. You don't need to come home. You're not going to get home in time anyway. Continue with this trip. So I've always had that fear that something has gone wrong. And sometimes stuff has.   I went to Paris once on a girl's trip with my daughter and my son broke his arm. And thank God he didn't need surgery, but he was in the emergency room with my husband for several, I mean, like stuff has gone wrong. Even in the book, as soon as I get to New York on my internship, my kids have terrible food poisoning and they have thrown up all over the house.   They're all three in bed together, my husband and the twins and. He eventually they had to get that room professionally cleaned before I got home because it was so it was so disgusting. Okay, so stuff goes wrong. It does go wrong. It still goes wrong, and I don't know that it gets easier because my kids are 12 now, and for whatever reason, it feels like they miss me more sometimes when I go away.   Now, I don't know if it's that they're better able to articulate how they're feeling than they were when they were little or what. So it's it's.  I know that things are going to be okay. That has changed. I know the more times I do it, that everybody will survive. But I'm not sure it really gets easier. The thing that is easier is that I've seen The positive impact of taking these moments for myself, whether it's a work trip that I need to do, or just going to spend a weekend with my girlfriends because I haven't seen them in a long time, or sometimes meeting my parents somewhere that I wasn't able to do.   I mean, they're so rejuvenating. They helped me reset. They helped me come back into my life and myself, uh, feeling better and doing better all around. And I think that's, what's gotten easier because I know that it's worth it. Yeah.  So even if I still feel guilty about leaving them and I still worry about what's going to go wrong, I know now that I've done it so many times for really fantastic experiences that I would do it again.   And I think anyone that's listening, that's inspired by this, I think you don't have to necessarily. Go away for an entire year. We could do this like baby steps. What I mean? It's like you nurse your kid or you bottle feed your kid and then you introduce solid slowly. So it's kind of the same idea for us.   I know in my case, in my book, Fertile Imagination, like I decided to actually take storytelling classes at Magnet Theater in Midtown in Koreatown. Love it. Yeah. And it was nine Sundays and I was coming from Connecticut. I like to call it fancy town, Connecticut, and it was a schlep, right? And so the whole idea is I know that on Sunday, technically, if I followed a certain script, like I was supposed to be at home, I don't even know, either washing the walls or like being at a soccer field or like something, right?   Making pancakes for somebody, for sure.   Right, in the shape of their desired animal farm person, right? Or whatever. I'm thinking dinosaurs and I'm just saying animal farm. I'm like, I'm a city girl. I can't help it. So yeah. And it's kind of like just doing that, like on weekends, for goodness sakes, it's not saying I'm out an entire year, but you could work your way up.   If you start noticing that, wait a minute, when I got back home and I saw my kids, I was happier.  I had stories to tell, what I mean? So there, there are benefits and it's not all one sided, but it takes courage because then, yeah, maybe, maybe you are not the mom who's doing the things with the other moms and you might feel a little bit like an outsider, but again, was it worth it?   And what I'm hearing from you, Alicia, is that it was worth it to actually take action in your life that might go against what. Other individuals may have done before with children that are Latina. And so I'm curious in terms of really what your, my, what if your experience showed your kids, like, why do you, what do you think is the difference?   Right? Cause we could tell our kids like, Hey, when you turn 40. I mean, granted it's very far ahead, but like 40, that's so old. I know. Right. So, okay, fine. So, Hey, when you go to college, you could do a gap year, for example. Right. Like that's something that I've heard people say, and, and that's one thing, right, you're saying it to them, but what if you actually like did it yourself?   And so for you, Alicia, like, I know they're still young, they're 12, but what do you think is the difference between showing versus telling? A. K. also how to write a good   book.  I mean, I think, okay. So I remember like when my kids were, when they were babies, I was like, I'm never going to let them eat like junk food because I grew up only eating junk food, but if I eat junk food, my kids, turns out they also like some junk food.   Now we don't eat a lot of junk food, but. There's only a certain point that you can tell your kids, wouldn't you rather have this carrot stick than a pack of McDonald's French fries. If you're sitting there eating the McDonald's French fries, they're going to realize that maybe you're not being completely true and authentic to yourself.   So I do think that kids receive information so much better. From modeling and from you showing them how to do it. And the thing is that my kids went on this journey with me. They were, I was away for different parts of it, but even the times that I wasn't with them, we were talking on the phone every day and then I would come home and talk to them about what I was doing.   And subsequently they got to come on my book tour. They've heard, heard me talk about this book more than I'm sure they'd ever liked to in the world, but they. watched me decide to do something different. They watched me try my hand at these varied jobs, many of which I was very bad at, like very, very bad at.   And they watched me fail, and they watched me dust myself off and stand back up and go back the next day and do the thing.  To me, that is the most important lesson that I hope they have taken from this and that I try to instill on them is that  it is better to try something and fail at it than to not try anything at all.   That you are not going to be good at everything and that's okay. And that the most important thing in your life is not necessarily picking the job, doing it perfectly and sticking with it on that path, no matter what happens, then no matter how you feel and that they know that when they're adults and hopefully have families of their own, that they are important people, both my son and my daughter and their needs also matter.   And I just was in the U S last week. Doing a bunch of different work things and some fun book stuff and my son and I had, I had, I did a talk at the IFC, the International Finance Corporation for my what if year, it was amazing. And the day before my son was like, why can't you just tell them you're sick and cancel and come home early because I want you to come home so you can come and see my hockey match.   And I was like, okay, so not only would that be. Completely setting aside my responsibilities, but also I want to be here. This is important to me. I want to be able to share this experience with people. This is why I did it. Why I wrote the book. Not why I did the internships, but why I wrote the book. And so, no, I'm not going to tell them I'm sick and come home early because this is important to me.   And making sure that they are seeing me choose myself sometimes, I am hoping is going to give them that Permission or awareness that when they get to a point in their lives, when they are caring for other people, too, that they know they also can choose themselves sometimes. And that's okay.   Yeah, I love it.   I think, I think what you said as far as like the, they saw you maybe like,  Either fail or, or have errors and stuff, but then like, decide to like, get back up again, like watching you do that. I don't think it, I don't think it could be replaced with words. I mean, that's like resilience in action. That's resilience while mommy ing.   Yeah, resilience while mommy ing, I love it.   Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's just like, it's beautiful. And, and I witnessed it with my own mom because she has a mental illness. And so every time she'd get into an episode, she had to like dust herself off in, in very dramatic ways. But then it gives you a sense as a kid, it's like, huh, I'm related to that.   Maybe I got a little bit of that in me too. Right.   100%. There's beauty. That's how I, I think, I think that  a large part of the reason I have  such resilience, and I do feel like I'm a very resilient person, so far so good, is because I came from a family that I, I grew up hearing all of the stories of my grandmother, my dad, and his siblings, and my, my grandfather, and how they, how they, you know, Left everything behind.   They left Cuba with a suitcase each and nothing else and moved to a country where they didn't speak the language and they had to just pick themselves up and they had, they had no other choice but to do that. And that, knowing that that's part of me, that's inside of me somewhere,  has always made me feel A lot more capable of dealing with challenge, I think, because I know there's got to be something in there that came from them that is propelling me forward.   And I know that I have that, and I want my kids to know that's part of who you are. You come from a long line of people who have failed at things and had to move forward, and that is, I think, the best gift that I could give them, if that's a realization that they take from this whole thing. Definitely. I love it.   Alicia, where can people continue to follow your story and purchase the My What   If Year book?  Well, you can get my book anywhere that you get books. You can get it at a bookstore. You can get it online at bookshop. org or Amazon if you want. You can listen to me on audiobook if you enjoy this. It's me reading it, so it's basically just like nine hours of this or however long the book goes for.   And you can find me on my website, which is aliciafmiranda. com or my Instagram at aliciafmiranda. And that's A L I S H A I'm named after a shoe store. It's not because that name has anything to do with anything else.   I love it. Fun facts. Appreciate it so much, Alicia. Have an awesome Scottish day.   Yeah, well, let's see if I can survive the wind and rain.   Thank you so much for having me. Oh, thank you.   You're awesome.  That was great.   Here are the three things that really stood out for me in terms of this conversation. The first one is, it's true. I have seen a lot of non Latina moms who decide to actually go and live in Europe or press abort mission on their lives, like that we see in the media.   But there's not too many Latina moms who have been portrayed, not even in Hollywood, as making this idea okay to choose yourself every once in a while and not have to struggle with so much mom guilt and let it hold you back. Second point is there is this point where if you really think about it, When you weigh the risk of doing something for yourself versus not doing something for yourself, there's that, that point where the risk of not doing it might outweigh the risk of doing it and the inconvenience of doing it.   When I lived in Australia with my family, when we all went abroad, it was highly inconvenient to sell every single article of furniture that I had. It was highly inconvenient to find brand new schools, but The risk of not doing it would have meant that my kids would have never been exposed to a completely different culture or side of the world.   And for that, I'm grateful. Here's the third point. In terms of, you know, does it get easier, right, with mom guilt. So Alicia said it best in that it might not get easier, but you do appreciate the fact that things will be okay.  Having more. evidence that things will be okay if you choose yourself and you're away from your kids just builds your confidence and gives you this sense that, okay, I might be feeling this emotion of mom guilt.   However, as in the past, things have been okay. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation. And I want to hear from you. Like, do you suffer from mom guilt? Is it particularly hard or when it's unrelated to doing something that you have to do, like building your business? Like, what if you wanted to all of a sudden take tennis lessons?   Like, is that the point where thickly? Let me know on Instagram at Melissa Llarena. I would love to hear from you.

A proposal to raise awareness about abortion medication availability at CA public universities. Koreatown group demands accountability surrounding a stalled museum. LA Angels play first home game of the season tonight. Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.com.Support the show: https://laist.com

In this update for J.T. the L.A. Storyteller Podcast we reflect on our two year Anniversary Party for the Making a Neighborhood newsletter at local Bellevue Park, which included a dazzling Healing Circle by Koreatown and Pico-Union’s very own Monica Garcia, MFT. To subscribe to the Making a Neighborhood newsletter for free, please do soContinue reading A DAY WITHOUT AN IMMIGRANT IN LOS ANGELES (’06 EDITION) →

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Host Miko Lee speaks with Asian American creatives and Pulitzer prize finalists performance artist Kristina Wong and playwright Lloyd Suh. They reflect on how the covid lock down impacted their work and ruminated on how built communities can arise in times of hardship. One is creating work that explores the times we live in and the other is delving into the past. Each share their creative process and why art matters to them.   Show Note Links Kristina Wong's Website Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, at A.C.T.'s Strand Theater (1127 Market St., San Francisco) March 30 – May 5, 2024. Kristina's Radical Cram School  Lloyd Suh's bio The Far Country BY LLOYD SUH at Berkeley Rep. March 8 – April 14, 2024   Show Transcript Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   Miko Lee: [00:00:28] Good evening and welcome to Apex Express. I'm your host, Miko Lee and tonight we get to hear from two Asian American creatives. Both are Pulitzer prize finalists who have had their work presented around the country. They reflect on how the COVID lockdown impacted their work and they ruminate on how built communities can arise in times of hardship. One is creating work that explores the times we live in and the other is delving into the past to lift up stories that might be missing in history. Each share their creative process and why art matters to them. Tonight, join me as I talk story with performance artist Kristina Wong, whose show Sweatshop Overlord opens at ACT's Strand Theater on March 30th and with playwright Lloyd Suh whose show The Far Country runs at Berkeley Rep until April 14th. First up is my chat with Kristina Wong. Welcome Kristina Wong to Apex Express.   Kristina Wong: [00:01:24] I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.   Miko Lee: [00:01:27] We are so happy to have you as the performance artist, writer, creator of Kristina Wong's Sweatshop Overlord, which will run at ACT from March 30th through May 5th. Yay!   Kristina Wong: [00:01:36] Yes, that's eight shows a week, one body. Just me, everybody. Just me.   Miko Lee: [00:01:43] One woman show. Excellent.   Kristina Wong: [00:01:44] No understudy. I've been looking for an understudy. But apparently the theater doesn't think it works as well if someone else goes around saying they're Kristina Wong. So, I gotta stay healthy. For you!   Miko Lee: [00:01:54] That would be interesting, though. I would actually love to see a multi-people Kristina Wong version. That'd be really interesting.   Kristina Wong: [00:02:02] Yeah. There are enough Kristina Wongs on this planet to do that, but can they do what I do? I don't know.   Miko Lee: [00:02:07] I don't think many people can do what you do. [Kristina laughs] Okay, so I want to start with the question I ask many many people, and this is a big one: who are your people and where do you come from?   Kristina Wong: [00:02:21] My people, so many questions. Well, the people that I was born into, I'm third generation Chinese American, Toisan on my father's side and Cantonese on my mother's side. And we were a San Francisco family. Both my parents were born in San Francisco, went to San Francisco high schools. I went to San Francisco. Now I live in Koreatown, Los Angeles, my alternate Asian universe. I will say that those are the people I was born into. When I was growing up in middle school and high school I was somewhere between a theater kid who also liked making prank calls and was constantly trying to figure out who my people were and what my clique was cause I don't even know if I would totally fit in with the theater kids. And then when I got to college, I discovered radical solo performance work and activism and finally could put, like, words around things that I had been told, “We don't talk about it. You just get really good grades and then just become successful and that's how you deal with that,” you know? But was introduced to interdisciplinary art and naked performers and people putting all their trauma out there in beautiful theater ways. Now as an adult, as I tie it back into the show, Kristina Wong Sweatshop Overlord, my people are the aunties. This community of aunties that I found myself leading for 504 days during the pandemic. I somehow found myself, as many artists did, non essential and running a mask sewing group and needing people to help me sew masks. And a lot of those happened to be aunties, a lot of them were Asian women who had mothers and grandmothers who were garment workers. And we had learned how to sew as survival skills that were passed down to us. And those of late have become my people. And that's the story of the show.   Miko Lee: [00:04:16] Kristina, can you step back for a moment and just tell how that got started? How did Auntie Sewing Squad in the very, very beginning, how did it get started?   Kristina Wong: [00:04:24] March 12th, I was doing what I thought was my last show on earth. For some reason, there was a community college in Sacramento, American River Community College that had not canceled its classes, that had not taken its classes online and I had one last show on the books at 12 in the afternoon. I was doing a show called Kristina Wong for Public Office. I actually ran and served in local office in Koreatown, Los Angeles, where I live and was doing a big campaign rally show about what it meant to run for local office. And the idea was the show was going to tour all of 2020 as we led up to the November 2020 elections. And I sew my set pieces and my props. So you imagine all this American flag bunting made out of felt that I've sewn on a Hello Kitty sewing machine. And so this really ridiculous, like an American flag threw up on the set. Like that was my set. And the show is not going well, the students are very distracted. As it turns out, they are receiving a text in the middle of my show saying we're going online until further notice. So I suddenly have no income. No tour. I'm back in LA. I'm hiding inside my apartment as we all are. Going, “Why did I choose to do this with my life? Why was I so compelled to become an artist? What is my purpose in all this? Why, why did I choose this unessential work?” But then I couldn't feel sorry for myself because there were people who are risking their lives to deliver mail, to work at the grocery store, to go to work every single day at the hospital. And I see this article that I'm tagged in on Facebook saying that hospitals have no masks and are looking for home sewn masks. And the whole culture of mask wearing was so, you know, unheard of at this point and I looked at my Hello Kitty sewing machine and I was like, well I've never sewn medical equipment before. I've sewn my sets. I've sewn a giant vagina costume. I think I can make medical equipment. And I was just sort of called like Joan of Arc to sew. And I made this very naive offer to the internet where I said, if you're immunocompromised or don't have access to masks, I'll get you a mask. I didn't have the materials to do this, but I just offered this because it felt like that's what you were supposed to do in this moment. We were all connected and as strong as our weakest link.   March 20th is when I sewed my first mask. March 24th, I was like, okay, I need help because there's no way. One day when I was sewing nonstop all night, I made about 30 masks. That's not enough to fulfill the list that was exponentially building in my inbox. So I thought, okay, I'll make a Facebook group, and sort of offload some of this work to other people who might be sewing who could help me. And I make the group in a rush. I call it Auntie Sewing Squad. I don't realize our acronym is ASS. I start to add my mother into the group, her friends into the group, all sorts of folks are in the Facebook group. And as it turns out, you can't just start a Facebook group and expect people to just sew, so I, [laughs] so I find myself having to figure out how do we get the materials? How do we teach people how to sew these masks that none of us have sewn before? How do we teach people how their sewing machines work? Because some of them haven't touched their sewing machines in decades. And how do we vet these requests for masks, because a lot of people are panicking in our inbox, and we kind of have to create a system where just because someone's going, “Please send as many as you can,” as many as you can might mean 10 masks, it might mean 300. And are they just panicking right now and they think they need that many masks, or, you know, like, so we just had to make a lot of decisions and it felt like in those first days we were playing God, trying to figure out well, If we've only made a finite number of 15 masks today, who gets them, right? And obviously you're going to look at who's at most risk. So, so this was supposed to just be a two week thing, right? This was supposed to be a thing until the government got the masks off those cargo ships and got them to everybody. This was before masks became a bipartisan thing and a politically polarizing thing. And the group just kept going because we found beyond hospitals there were a lot of very vulnerable communities that could not even afford the cheap masks that were showing up on the market. And we're talking about farm workers, folks seeking asylum at the border, indigenous reservations. We sent a lot to the Navajo Nation and to the Lakota tribe in North and South Dakota. So this ended up going on for over 500 days. It became a community of over 800 volunteer aunties, all sewing remotely, all working remotely. We developed this whole system in which we could respond to the high COVID rates that we were witnessing and to communities that were being adversely impacted, either because they had no access to healthcare or no access to clean water.   Miko Lee: [00:09:03] That's an important one.   Kristina Wong: [00:09:05] Yeah.   Miko Lee: [00:09:06] How many masks did you end up creating?   Kristina Wong: [00:09:08] We ended up sewing in total, what we recorded was 350,000 masks were sewn and distributed. We also rerouted hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment to a lot of those places. The thing is, like, in a crisis, and I have to remind us, even though it was four years ago, because we forget so many of the details, if you saw an article that farm workers were getting hit by COVID, you don't, you're not going to just send a bunch of masks to some address you find online, right? Because not everyone's checking their mail, not everyone might be at that office address, you're not clear who might distribute those masks once they arrive. So we had to do a lot of work in terms of calling and working with other mutual aid organizers and these communities and figuring out like, well, what is the actual impact? How are you getting these masks around and how many can we send you at least to hold you over for a week or two, right? Like, yes, there are you know, hundreds of thousands of farm workers, but we're not sitting on a ton of masks that we just, you know, that come out of our butt and that we just have like we actually like sit down at our sewing machines and cut and sew these things. So—   Miko Lee: [00:10:13] And you had to research and make the connections—   Kristina Wong: [00:10:16] Make the connections. Yeah. And some of those requests shifted into full on other kinds of aid. So the Navajo reservation had volunteer sewing groups, but they didn't have access to sewing supplies. I'm in Los Angeles where we have a garment district and we were looking at a map going, well, in theory, someone could drive round trip across a very long day, you know, to, to lessen the risk of exposure. And so our first truck over wasn't, you know, just a van filled with masks, but a van filled with the supplies that they could use to sew masks. And then we learned that only 30 percent of that reservation has running water. That when multigenerational families were getting COVID, there was nowhere to quarantine, so they requested things like tents to quarantine and buckets to make homemade hand washing stations. First it was sewing supplies, but we did about eight runs back and forth to the reservation during the pandemic to get supplies to those mutual aid organizers who could get it to people. I helped secure like a big soap donation from Dr. Bronner's. It was like, we just thought it was just the masks, but we basically stepped in all of structural racism and systemic you know poverty and all the ways the system was broken and it had already left behind a lot of indigenous communities and people of color who are getting hit like super hard by this pandemic. So ASS, our unintentional acronym, Anti Sewing Squad, that's sort of what we fell into was going from, okay, we're going to make a few masks to full on shadow FEMA.   Miko Lee: [00:11:51] Yeah, not even just sewing squad, but sort of a superhero squad. Let us come in where the government has failed and help where we can. It's incredibly powerful. Thank you for doing that.   Kristina Wong: [00:12:02] Yeah, I don't know if I would have done it again, honestly, even though out of it came this incredible show, but if you told me at the top of this, this is actually going to go on for 500 days, I don't know that I would have done it. Like, it was so exhausting, and that's also sort of a joke in the show, is people kept going, “Oh, you aunties, you're heroes, you're heroes!” and I'm like, oh my god, like, heroes are what you call the people who do the work no one wants to pay for apparently, because [laughs] this is, this is, this is, this sucks. This sucks. Like, we don't want to be heroes. We want our systems that, like, we, we just saw how everything failed us in this moment. Capitalism failed us. The medical system failed us. Just all these things that we're supposed to step in, in these moments of crisis didn't work. What I witnessed and why I made a show about this, is I've witnessed how community steps up and I witnessed how these aunties showed me this generosity I've never witnessed in my life. Like most of the friendships I have in Los Angeles are because someone does something for a living and that, serves me and my job in a certain way, right? They're very transactional relationships. And I witnessed people who I had no idea who they were before this moment, willing to come to my house, brave this very unknown pandemic, to pick up a roll of elastic, to sew for a total stranger, risk their life going to the post office to mail these things, right? And so to me, that's, what's worth celebrating is this opportunity that I think that we all had as humanity to witness that this was our moment to all come together, I would say we lost that opportunity and we've just become resentful and whatever, but I, I feel like Auntie Sewing Squad showed me a glimmer of the generosity that was possible. And for me, that's worth celebrating. And the only reason why I feel like it's worth reliving the pandemic. In a 90 minute show.   Miko Lee: [00:13:54] Every night for multiple nights.   Kristina Wong: [00:13:56] Yes, eight nights a week. What am I doing? The show is so, you know, people are like 90 minutes. So long. It's like, it's because the pandemic was so long. I would have loved to cap this at 45 minutes, but this kept going. It kept going.   Miko Lee: [00:14:09] How many members are there in the Auntie Sewing Squad?   Kristina Wong: [00:14:12] I would say. We had and they were all involved in different capacities. I mean, like some of them may have been involved for all of a week before, they got pulled away by their families or job obligations. But we had about 800 different aunties coming in and out of the group. Not all of them were sewing, some of them were organizing spreadsheets, making phone calls, some of them were driving aunties. We had a huge system of care aunties, led by our Auntie Gail and basically, people who couldn't sew who felt really guilty would [be] like, “Can I send you all a pizza?” Which was really necessary because a lot of these aunties were operating on survivor's guilt, right? Of feeling like, well I have this privilege of being able to stay at home while my mailman risks his life to get, you know, get me the mail. Because it's really hard to go to sleep when you know that you at your sewing machine an hour longer could possibly save someone's life. But we also needed to encourage these aunties to stop and rest. You can't just tell people, okay, sew a bunch of masks and expect them to stay motivated to do it. We had aunties who lost family members to COVID. We had aunties who are falling into their own depression and getting isolated. So much of this group wasn't just about like, while we joke it's a sweatshop, a lot of it was this entire community that supported each other, cared for each other. We'd have zoom stitch n bitches where we'd, you know, the aunties would, I was working out this show on Zoom, never thinking that it was going to premiere off Broadway, to basically just entertain the aunties while they were at their sewing machines. Like we were this whole system this became this weird ad hoc family that supported each other through this very strange time. And that was sort of the staying power of why people stayed involved is because they'd never experienced community like this either, which was just all pure generosity. I feel like I'm describing a cult, and I sort of am, but whatever. It's a cult called ASS, so it's fine.   Miko Lee: [00:15:59] Well, a unique community that came together to address the harm that was happening. It's beautiful. Can you go back in time, roll us back in time, to how you first got politicized? I heard you say that about college, but is there a moment that happened for you?   Kristina Wong: [00:16:16] I think I was always a little politicized. I just never really had the language and education around it. When I was 12 years old in our middle school, there was a science lesson plan contest and we basically prepared a science lesson plan and taught it to another class. And my partner and I, we did something about saving the planet and just doing a deep dive. This is the nineties, right? Like how much we were screwing with our planet. And I think I still don't know that we all know the lesson, but I was like a little Greta Thunberg, you know. I just didn't know how to be an activist. It was like, do I collect cans that are thrown on the street? Like, how do I, how do I do this? Like, how does this equate to actual change? And I think that's, I think we have some more of those tools and we're also cognizant about how frustrating those tools are to implement and see happen. But that's, I think the first time I realized I was an activist and it wasn't until I got to college and was introduced to, I didn't know what Asian American Studies was I was like, what? Why would you study that? Like, what is that? I had no idea that Asian Americans have had a whole political history that has worked alongside the civil rights movement and, I had no idea I could put words to the microaggressions I'd expressed my whole life and that I could actually challenge them as not being okay. I went to UCLA. I feel like that's where a lot of people figure out that they're Asian American. That's also where I began to understand the political power of art. What I had understood of activism before that point was marching in rallies, screaming at people, berating people to recycle. But, you know, it's not sustainable. It's exhausting. It makes people want to avoid you. And it's an emotionally depleting. And so being introduced to artists, just sort of sharing their lives and their lives as having political power to put forward and to put meaning to was really incredible to experience like performers. I think some of the first performers I saw just like put themselves forward and all their flawed ways was actually kind of profound and incredible. That's where I was drawn to making art as my sort of form of protest and activism.   Miko Lee: [00:18:26] Is this where the roots of the Radical Cram School came about?   Kristina Wong: [00:18:29] Oh, yeah. Yeah. So Radical Cram School is my web series for children. You can find it on YouTube. And where that started was one of our producers, Teddy Chow, his daughter Liberty had come home and they, at that point they were living in Ohio where they were one of the few Chinese families there. And the daughter said, “I wish I wasn't Chinese.” And Teddy was like, “Can you go talk to her and her friends and make her proud?” And I was like, “You know what? I said that too when I was a kid.” And so somehow this blew up into us like, well, let's create a web series for kids, specifically for Asian kids, because I feel like Asian Americans and kids don't really. We just sort of, the tools we are offered politically don't really have our face in them. Like, we don't really understand where we fit in a political movement, and how to be an ally to black and brown movements. And I was like, let's do a web series where we gather Asian American kids and it to me was a little tongue in cheek. And I feel like a lot of me being in a bubble of other progressives in Los Angeles feels like I can lovingly poke at this idea of a cram school where we're trying to quickly teach Asian kids about the entire world of what's overwhelming and oppression in the setting. And so that became Radical Cram School which went on for two seasons and was completely decried by right wingers like Alex Jones. So I would say that's a success.   Miko Lee: [00:19:53] I think it is so delightful and funny. It's a little mix of like drunk history with Sesame Street.   Kristina Wong: [00:20:00] Yes. Yes. That's exactly what we were going for and I feel like I'm very lucky at some point in my lifetime. Yes, it didn't happen until college and like post college was introduced to all these incredible Asian American activists, many of us who are still with us right now. And this history and I feel like it's worth sharing.   Miko Lee: [00:20:21] The child that inspired the whole series. Was she actually in it?   Kristina Wong: [00:20:26] Liberty. Yes, she was in it. She's in it. She's both in the first and second season.   Miko Lee: [00:20:29] Was it mission accomplished in terms of having a sense of pride of being Asian American?   Kristina Wong: [00:20:35] I think so. It's always ongoing, right? Like I think pride, you don't, you don't get it once and it stays forever. It's something that we like, as we constantly learn to like love ourselves and appreciate what we have. And we're also part of growing a community too, right? Like, it's not just like, Oh, I'm proud. I found my pride at 13 and it stayed. Like, we always feel like kicked to the curb constantly and challenged. And I think, like for me, this pandemic was a really challenging time for Asian Americans. As we witnessed like the backlash, the hate, like how backwards it was that people would equate. Do you remember early on when people were like, can you get COVID from Chinese food? Like, it was just so like, what happened?   Miko Lee: [00:21:13] I mean, the whole Kung flu virus.   Kristina Wong: [00:21:15] The Kung flu, China virus, like all these these just sort of racist associations with it are like, are constantly challenging to our sense of pride. So hopefully having that web series out there will be these touchstones to remind Asian American kids that we exist. We're here. There's a basis. We're not building this from scratch and we may be recording it from scratch or constantly trying to remember this history into existence. But, to me it's a verb, right? The verb of finding pride is always active.   Miko Lee: [00:21:44] I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about how you, you often in your work play with gender expectations around Asian women from, you know, like you mentioned before sewing on your Hello Kitty sewing machine, which I have a Hello Kitty sewing machine too.   Kristina Wong: [00:21:59] Yes. It's a good machine. I don't know if it's a Janome.   Miko Lee: [00:22:02] It's actually incredibly practical. It doesn't have the bells and whistles, but it works. Yeah but I remember your big vagina MC for Mr. Hyphen America. I can't believe you sewed that on one of those tiny machines. And then, you have this web series about taking down how white men can date Asian women. And then the other thing is your fake porn site. Can you tell us about that?   Kristina Wong: [00:22:23] Oh, that's like That's 20 years of projects you've just named. Well, my very first project out of college, year 2000, still had dial up internet, my friends, was called BigBadChineseMama.com. You can still look it up. And this is before there were search engines, SEOs. And if you look for Mail Order Bride on Yahoo, because Yahoo was the search engine of choice at the time, it showed up in the top 10 search results for Mail Order Bride. Now, you know, if you look for porn, clearly outnumbered, yeah. So that was like my first project. And a lot of that came out of like me being kind of a depressed college kid and trying to use this thing called the internet to research stuff for my Asian American women class. And all I was finding was pornography and was like, Oh my God, [laughs] we have to like intercept this somehow. And like always feeling like I was not good at being a girl, right? Like the standards for being a good Asian girl, were the extremes. It was like Miss Chinatown, Connie Chung, and then these porn stars that would show up, you know, on these Google, on these searches and that was, that's it, right? So a lot of my projects have been about like being awkward out loud and being uncomfortable out loud and leaning into publicly embarrassing myself, but saying that it's my work.   Miko Lee: [00:23:45] And how has your family responded to your work? You grew up in San Francisco.   Kristina Wong: [00:23:49] Yeah. Oh, they didn't like it at first, but they love it now because I'm a Pulitzer Prize finalist, my friends.   Miko Lee: [00:23:54] Oh, how did that feel to get?   Kristina Wong: [00:23:56] So crazy! You know, I entered, anyone can become a Pulitzer Prize contender. Like you just need 75 dollars and then you mail your entry in and the committee reads it. And so six years before I was a Pulitzer finalist, my friend Brian Feldman and I, we entered our respective plays. Mine was The Wong Street Journal, his was a very experimental piece called Dishwasher. His entry was like two pages long and we were up against Hamilton, which ended up winning. And my mother was so excited because she'd only seen my play, you know, like that was the only play she'd ever seen that year. And she was like, “You're going to win. You're totally going to win.” Which was great that I had her confidence, but I was like, probably going to go to Hamilton. And I actually got a press pass, and I went to Columbia College, where they announced the winner just for press in person, and I happened to just be in New York at that time, and I had prepared three speeches. One, if I won, a speech if I was a finalist, and then the speech if I lost. And I read all three speeches outside after Hamilton was declared the winner of the Pulitzer. So that day when they were announcing it, my, that same friend Brian was like, “Good luck today.” And I was like, “What are you talking about?” And he's like, “They're announcing the Pulitzers.” And then they were announcing it online because you know, it's 2022. And I was like, they're not going to give it to me. I do solo work. I'm an Asian woman. They've never given an Asian woman anything in the drama category and my phone just started exploding at lunch when I was in Chinatown having lunch with some friends and I couldn't believe it. I was just like freaking out and it just feels so dignified, right? And I'm not exactly a dignified person. So I'm like, [laughs] you know, I was like, “Oh my God, this is going to look so good on Tinder. Holy crap, this is crazy.” So it's, I'm still shocked when I look at that by my name. I'm like, this is so weird. But it's just funny because yeah, I entered as a joke six years before, and then I was on the committee the following year reading the applicants. So crazy things happen, folks. Crazy things can happen.   Miko Lee: [00:26:06] I have one more question, which is, you started ASS, Auntie Sewing Squad, in the very beginning when you were making this piece about running for public office. Even though that was created in 2020, you know, we're basically having the same election again.   Kristina Wong: [00:26:19] Yeah, I know. It's a sequel. Why are we in the sequel? I hate sequels.   Miko Lee: [00:26:24] So are you reviving that piece as well?   Kristina Wong: [00:26:27] I did, I have done it a little earlier this year. There have been some requests to maybe do it before November. We will always have elections, so it's a little bit evergreen. I actually had a reality television pilot that didn't get picked up by Trutv. And it was a very self satirizing version of myself that I was going to be playing in this pilot, which was basically satirizing myself as an activist. And it did not make sense once Trump took office to satirize myself, because as it turns out, most of the world have very two dimensional visions of what an Asian American is like and would think that that's who I really was and not get that it was a loving poke at myself. And I think looking at Radical Cram School and how I play myself there can give you a sense of, this won't make sense to everybody. Right. And so I was an out of work reality TV star, and what do you do when you're an out of work reality TV star? You run for public office. So there's a lot of that humor around that era. Just, I think we've just gotten so exhausted with, right? [Laughs]. Like, why, why are these two people still here? Oh my god. This is the best we could do? But there's still a lot of public offices to run for. It doesn't start and end with the presidency or the Senate. The story of the show is like what can happen locally? There are so many local offices that would surprise you. You could literally just go to the meeting and go take the vacated seat and go around saying you're an elected official. For better or for worse, whatever that means. So, but yeah, it did get recorded for Center Theatre Group, but it's not available for streaming anymore. So they did stream it right before the election during the pandemic. And maybe it will have a few more runs right before the election this year, but I'm not sure.   Miko Lee: [00:28:07] Okay, well, keep us posted so that we know. Is there anything else you'd like our audience to know about your upcoming play at ACT, Kristina Wong's Sweatshop Overlord?   Kristina Wong: [00:28:19] I just want to say it's such a special show and I feel very lucky I feel like there's not a lot of this. There's literally pushback in the publishing world and the network TV world where they're like, we do not want you to pitch anything about the pandemic. We are sick of the pandemic. So I feel like this record of this time came under the wire. I'm told it is not annoying as many things about the pandemic are [laughs]. And to me, it's really I find a lot of humor, not at the expense of like how tragic that time was, but in that a group of aunties came together and formed this ad hoc sewing army to protect the country. And, and so this really plays out like a war movie on stage and I think really kind of gives us something to reflect on and appreciate of each other in that moment. And so that's really what I hope brings people out is this need to feel that there's something sort of comforting that we can take from this moment, because I don't know that we got that. I think we just sort of ran from that so fast that we never really reflected. I hope to see everybody at ACT, The Strand Theater on Market, March 30th to May 5th, I believe is when I close. I do shows eight days a week. I do them on weekdays. I do them on weekends. I am living in that theater, folks, and I am living there for you. So please come out. I'll see you. It's Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord. Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.   Miko Lee: [00:29:44] Kristina Wong, thank you so much for sharing your time with us. And we look forward to seeing the show and learning more about the Auntie Sewing Squad. Thank you so much.   Kristina Wong: [00:29:54] Thanks Miko.   Miko Lee: [00:29:54] This is Apex Express and you are listening to 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno, 97.5 K248BR in Santa Cruz, 94.3 K232FZ in Monterey, and online worldwide at kpfa.org. Next up, listen to the Radical Cram School where kids learn about the story of Detroit activist and American revolutionary Grace Lee Boggs. This is the project that Kristina Wong was talking about creating to help young Asian Americans have a sense of pride and an understanding of their history. Take a listen to the Radical Cram School.   Radical Cram School: [00:30:43]   Miko Lee: [00:35:24] That was Kristina Wong's Radical Cram School. You can check out more of that on YouTube, which is linked in our show notes. Next up, take a listen to my interview with playwright, Lloyd Suh. Welcome award winning playwright Lloyd Suh to Apex Express.   Lloyd Suh: [00:35:41] Hello.   Miko Lee: [00:35:43] Your new show, The Far Country, is premiering at Berkeley Rep through April 14th and we're so happy to have you here.   Lloyd Suh: [00:35:52] Thanks for having me.   Miko Lee: [00:35:53] Okay I'm going to start with a big question, which is who are your people and where do you come from?   Lloyd Suh: [00:35:58] My family immigrated to the United States, from South Korea in the early 1970s. I was born in Detroit, Michigan and grew up mostly in the South suburbs of Indianapolis, Indiana but I've lived in the New York City area for the past like 25 years.   Miko Lee: [00:36:17] Thank you so much for that. I noticed that many of your plays are based around the Chinese American experience and less on your Korean American background. Can you talk a little bit more about what has inspired your artistic play choices?   Lloyd Suh: [00:36:30] Yeah. In the past, like, almost decade, really, I've been writing about these kind of forgotten or underexplored moments in Asian American history. It's kind of very accidental and almost involuntary. I was doing research on one play and it would lead me down a rabbit hole into reading about a story that I just couldn't shake, that I needed to, you know, get in a room with peers and explore. And so one play would just kind of lead to the next, I was writing a play under commission for the National Asian American Theater Company in New York called Charles Francis Chan Jr. That play kind of accidentally became about the history of the stereotypes that kind of permeate around Asian America to this day, and where those stereotypes came from. And in researching that history, there's just so much more scholarship around now, around Asian American history than there was when I was in school. There was just so much to read, and so much that was new to me. And in the process of researching that play, I came across the story of Afong Moy, regarded as the first Chinese woman to set foot in the United States. And there was something about her story that just haunted me, that I just couldn't shake and I knew I needed to get in a room with peers and like really wrestle with it. So in the process of that play, I was researching the exclusion era and it's unavoidable, right? The way in which the Chinese Exclusion Act and the experience of people on Angel Island really serves as kind of a fulcrum for so much of what Asian America is now, right? It created geographical restrictions, legislative, economic, not to mention cultural and stereotypical. Like, it's just the foundation for so much of what we've had to navigate as this obviously, socially constructed, very important sort of attempt at solidarity that we call Asian America. What that led to was just feeling like I'm just following, you know, I'm just following this impulse. I was doing it kind of subconsciously at first, but once I became aware that I was writing this history, it became really clear that what I was looking for, in total was trying to place myself on this continuum, trying to understand, where have we come from and where are we going and where are we now. The Far Country and another one of my history plays, The Heart Sellers, which is kind of a bookend to The Far Country in a lot of ways. were written largely during the pandemic.   Miko Lee: [00:38:57] Oh, that's so interesting. And so you've sort of been on this pathway, a timeline through Asian American history.   Lloyd Suh: [00:39:05] Yeah. It felt different during the pandemic, like, right. Like, before it was kind of impulsive and it felt very organic and I wasn't always very self aware of that, about how one play connected to the other. But once you know, we were in this moment of deep self reflection just based on what was going on in the world at that time too—a pretty intense reckoning in this country over American history, over, you know, who we build monuments to, over our accounting of what it is to be an American and a contemplation about like who we've forgotten. And so it became just more purposeful in that way. It became just clearer, especially as I started to think about the ways in which, you know, I have aging parents and I have growing children and wanting to understand how do I talk about one to the other? How do I place myself and my parents and my children on this continuum of this long arc of history? That doesn't just go backwards, but, you know, it goes forward as well. That in each of these plays, there's a gesture towards the future, and then thinking about the future and when, you know, when characters talk about the future in these plays, I like to think that for actors who are, who are playing those roles, that they can feel really palpably and recognize that when these characters are talking about the future, they're talking about them. And then when audiences hear them talk about the future, they also could feel the ways in which they mean them.   Miko Lee: [00:40:24] So you're both, as Helen Zia says, lifting up these missing in history moments, trying to tell these stories that haven't been told. Also, I hear you're reflecting a lot during that time of COVID during the lockdown time on how do we rise up our stories? I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the pandemic time and the impact on you as an artist and if the rise in anti-asian hate that really started happening around that time impacted your storytelling.   Lloyd Suh: [00:40:53] Absolutely. Yeah, I mean that whole period was, it was such a bizarre time to be a playwright. I mean, it was a bizarre time to be anything, right? But the idea of writing a play was pretty absurd because there were no theaters, right? And it's like, there's no sense of, hey, when will there be theater again? Right? It just seemed—   Miko Lee: [00:41:15] An unknown, an unknown field, right?   Lloyd Suh: [00:41:17] Yeah, so it was a little silly, right? You're like, oh, your play is due. And you're like, no, it's not [laughs] nobody's going to do anything. Like, why am I writing plays, right? And I think everybody in that time was thinking about, like, why do I do the things that I do? Why do I spend the time on the things that I spend time on? And, you know, our relationship with time was just very different. So very early in the pandemic, I was like, yeah, why am I, why would I write a play? There's no, it just doesn't make any sense right now. But then as I sat with the things that I knew I needed to wrestle with, and just knowing the way I wrestle with things is to write about them, that it felt like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this anyway, even though there's no sense that theater will come back anytime soon. I'm going to do this anyway. And it became an aspirational thing. Like to write a play became aspirational in the sense that it's like, I believe that theater will come back, that we're not all gonna die, that civilization will continue, and that this will matter, right? That what I'm exploring right now, will be meaningful to myself, to my peers and to strangers, in whatever the world looks like then. And so to write aspirationally is pretty, pretty cool. It's different, you know. To be able to write with that aspiration was really valuable. And I think it's part of why and how these plays came to be the kind of plays they are.   Miko Lee: [00:42:40] I appreciate the hopeful side that you are infusing into your plays, given the time that we were in was when many people felt so hopeless. I'm wondering if because you're writing about the immigration station and Angel Island and also the Exclusion Act were, what was happening in the country around, you know, Trump saying Kung flu virus and all the stories about the elders that were getting beat up in Chinatown and, all over the country, the slurs that people were getting. Did that impact or help to inform how you're writing about the Exclusion Act?   Lloyd Suh: [00:43:14] Yeah. I think that reading the news during that time, it's very similar to reading the history, right? You can see where that comes from. I remember during that time, in a lot of news media, tended to make it seem or insinuate that this was new, that this was surprising somehow. Having been immersed in this history, it was frustrating to see the ways in which people, sometimes very smart people [laughs] not recognizing, hey, this is not new. This is ancient. This was there from the beginning. Yeah, of course, that absolutely informs everything. It feels like, yes, I'm writing history, but I'm trying to write out of time. One of the things about writing aspirationally at a time when there is no theater, is you also can't write to a specific time, you know, in the pandemic moment, writing in the pandemic moment you cannot write to the pandemic moment, right? Because you know, oh, this will not be, this is not when these plays will be seen. So you're writing for a kind of a future, right? You're writing for a time that you hope is different, in good ways, but you also acknowledge may be different in, in unpleasant ways.   Miko Lee: [00:44:15] Right.   Lloyd Suh: [00:44:16] But it's also like all of this is out of time, you know, the phenomenon of violence against Asian Americans or against anybody or against a culture is so pervasive throughout history. Right. So, it's not hard to make that or to let that exist out of time. Right.   Miko Lee: [00:44:35] I mean, the violence against the culture is deeply American.   Lloyd Suh: [00:44:38] Yeah. And feeling like it's not something you have to force. It's just something that you have to acknowledge and reckon with on its own terms, which is to say, it's not about 2020. It's not about a particular moment. It's about a long arc of history where these things come from, how they've brewed, how they've festered, how they've lingered, how they've been ignored and forgotten and buried over, and how they might be transformed. How they might be diagnosed, you know, like I think of them as wounds. In a few of these plays, characters refer to, like a sense of historical trauma as a wound, a wound that you can't recognize if you don't know where it comes from. You can't diagnose it and you can't heal it if you can't diagnose it. So part of it is like saying, “Hey, there is a wound.” When I think for a very long time a lot of cultural tradition has been to say, “Push it away, push it away. Move on.”   Miko Lee: [00:45:31] “Keep working. Don't, don't think about it. Just keep working.”   Lloyd Suh: [00:45:33] Yes. Yes. Bury it. And even generation to generation, you don't want to hear those stories.   Miko Lee: [00:45:38] That's right.   Lloyd Suh: [00:45:39] If I have a thesis in any of this, [laughs] it's that, no, we need, you need to know. You know, I think that these characters, this is too early for them to have a name for the concept of epigenetics, but I see it. I see it in tradition, this idea that it does pass down.   Miko Lee: [00:45:54] The trauma through the bloodline.   Lloyd Suh: [00:45:56] Yeah. And so like, if you're going to feel the pain, you got to know where it comes from. If you know where it comes from and if you can deal with it with people, right, with a community on a deep level, then it can be healed. And if you don't, then it never will be.   Miko Lee: [00:46:10] So do you look at most of your plays as a healing modality? Is that what you want from your audiences?   Lloyd Suh: [00:46:15] That's a great question. I mean, I think about that for myself, I would say on a certain level. I mean, I think about it as many things, but that is part of it. Yeah. Like I think about it as I need to understand this. Like, you know, like just thinking about the exclusion era. I felt like, okay, I know I need to write about this because I know we need to make sense of it for myself. I need to understand how it manifests in my life, how it manifests in what is possible for my children, how it manifests in America. So that's part of it for sure for me and for my peers, the people in the room. For audiences, I would say, especially as I've gotten older, I've started to redefine my relationship with audiences in that, like, I had a playwriting teacher once talk about how a playwright's job is to unify an audience. That no matter where an audience comes from, like whatever happened to them that day, they're all coming from different places when they gather in the theater. But through the course of the play, a playwright wants them to become one organism and have the same discoveries in the same moment.   Miko Lee: [00:47:13] Oh, that's interesting. Do you agree with that?   Lloyd Suh: [00:47:16] For a long time I did, but then I had this moment when I was writing a play for young audiences, when I found this really useful tension between like the adults who, you know, thought that the fart jokes were juvenile [laughs] and the young people who would just not understand these references that are there for the adults. And it was kind of cool because you'd feel pockets, different people reacting in different ways. And especially as I was doing some of these early history plays, I found this useful tension between people based on socio location. That Asian American audiences were just naturally responding to different things in a way that was kind of interesting. And so what I realized is if I manipulate an audience so that they're operating as one organism, they're not responding as themselves. They're not responding in as deeply personal of a way, right? So what I want is for people to bring something of themselves to it. Like, no matter what happened to them that day, no matter what happened in the news, no matter what happened in their personal life, that through the experience of watching a play, they can relate something of themselves to what they're watching, and they can bring that into the theater with them. and so, like very purposefully in these plays, I try not to unify an audience, right? Which is to say, I'm not trying to divide them, but I'm also trying to make them respond as individuals.   Miko Lee: [00:48:37] Right, because the first one actually feels like you're trying to get a cult together. Everybody should think the same way and feel the same way, as opposed to individually responding about where each of us are at and how we take in that information of the play.   Lloyd Suh: [00:48:52] Yeah, yeah. And I just find that so much more satisfying because I like to leave a lot of room in my plays, for actors, for directors and designers to personalize.   Miko Lee: [00:49:02] All the other creatives to be able to have their input to put it into their voice.   Lloyd Suh: [00:49:07] Yeah, and just even to make choices like there are moments where you could go many directions like if somebody were to ask me, “Hey, what does this line mean?” I would say, “Well, you know, like, what does it mean to you?” Right? Like it's make it yours. Every character can have secrets that I don't need to know.   Miko Lee: [00:49:22] Oh, you're doing therapy speak with the actors [laughs]. What do you think it means?   Lloyd Suh: [00:49:26] Yeah, I mean, I think it is. It's like making choices, making big choices that allow for any production to be an amalgamation of many people's real personality, their history. Like if I were to go into a rehearsal room and just spend it making everybody do what I already know, I want them to do. Then watching the play is just watching something where I already know what's going to happen.   Miko Lee: [00:49:47] Right. What's the fun in that? [Laughs]. Um, so let's come back and talk about The Far Country, which is at Berkeley Rep right now. Tell us about this play. I heard you saying that each of your plays, the rabbit hole of the journey that one discovered the other, but can you tell us very specifically about The Far Country?   Lloyd Suh: [00:50:07] Yeah, The Far Country is a play that takes place during the exclusion era, about a very unlikely family that spans across a couple of decades navigating the paper son system, and the experience of a young man on Angel Island Detention Center. The journey leading up to that and the journey leading away from it as this very unlikely family tries to build something lasting in America, despite the extraordinary legislative restrictions that were in place at the time.   Miko Lee: [00:50:36] Lloyd, can you speak a little bit more for audience members that may not know what the Exclusion Act was?   Lloyd Suh: [00:50:42] Yes, totally. The Chinese Exclusion Act was legislation passed in 1882, that restricted all Chinese laborers from entering the United States. And this was a period of time when China was, specifically Toisan was ravaged by natural disaster, war, economic disenfranchisement, horribly one sided trade agreements with the West. There was an extraordinary wave of Chinese laborers who were immigrating to the United States in the years preceding. Partially through the gold rush, partially through the opportunity to work on the transcontinental railroad. In the United States, it was a period of such xenophobia and such anger and hatred towards these incoming Chinese laborers that these extraordinarily restrictive laws were passed, the Page Act, prior to the Chinese Exclusion Act. But what also happened is the great earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco destroyed all the government records pertaining to birth records and who was there. So it created this really odd opportunity for Chinese currently residing in the United States to claim birthright citizenship, to claim to have been born in the United States because there was no documentation to prove otherwise. And if somebody was able to obtain birthright US citizenship through that process, they could then bring their children to the United States. And so what it did was it created this system whereby people who had obtained birthright US citizenship could then pretend to have a son or a daughter that they would sell that slot to so that somebody could enter the United States. And so it created these really kind of patchwork unlikely families of people connected only by paper, only by false documentation. And the navigation of that system, ultimately created this very weird community.   Miko Lee: [00:52:32] Expand on that. What do you mean by weird community?   Lloyd Suh: [00:52:36] People who were not able to be themselves, who changed their names, who at least on paper were pretending to be somebody else. Families that were not connected by blood, but pretending to be connected by blood. A community that was almost entirely male, a community that was in the United States, but not really permitted to travel outside of a particular geographical area. This was a community that was constructed in reaction to legislation, in reaction to imprisonment on Angel Island. And in reaction to the horrible conditions of that time. What's remarkable to me is the ways in which they built a community anyway, they built families anyway, they built opportunity anyway, and the resilience of that, the bravery of that, the sacrifice of that, is something that I am simultaneously in awe of, but also feel a responsibility and an obligation to build on to honor, to try and illuminate in some way to try to share with others. But also just to recognize the incredible pain of it, that they gave up everything, like really everything. They gave up their name, they gave up their family, they gave up their identity, in order to pretend to be somebody who belongs. That's the only way to build any kind of future. These were pioneers who did things that it's hard for me to imagine. But I know that they did it for us. Not just us, but for the future, for future generations, for you know, those who come after, and that is very powerful to me.   Miko Lee: [00:54:03] I appreciate that as a fifth generation Chinese American, whose family comes from Toisan, whose grandmother was on angel island under a different name because her husband, my grandfather had bought papers from her great grandfather so that they could not actually be married because on paper they would be brother and sister. So even though she had a legal right to actually be in the U. S., she had to take a whole new name and a different identity on Angel Island. So we all have these complicated stories that are part of our history. Thank you for rising that up and bringing that to the world. I'm wondering what you want the walk away message for folks coming to see The Far Country.   Lloyd Suh: [00:54:49] Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. The only way I can answer it is to go back to what I said before about wanting people to respond personally. Like I think everybody has a history, everybody has a family history, and everybody's is different, but I hope that anybody who watches this play has moments where they can think about their ancestry. About the things they know and the things that they don't know and just change their relationship to that somehow, just really reflect on it and reflect on not just their personal history, but how it relates to their definition of what it is to be an America. To add this really huge, but underexplored moment in American history and add it to their accounting of what it is to be a citizen, what it is to be an American. Cause one of the things about this history, as I'm describing the paper son process, depending on a person's particular relationship with the concept of immigration and depending on a person's political leanings, you know, some might hear my description of that and say, “Well, these are criminals. These are people who abused the system.” And I think that is a part of this history. One of the reasons it's buried. One of the reasons it's not talked about is because there is a sense of shame, societal shame, cultural shame, that these things were necessary, right? Shame is part of it. I don't want to pretend it's not, but I also want to acknowledge that in addition to whatever that sense of shame is, is a sense of pride. A sense of bravery, a sense of dignity, a sense of aspiration, what people were willing to do in order to build something for the future, for us, for their families. So a part of that is like just knowing that many of those stories still are untold, and wanting to uplift and honor, and, acknowledge, the beauty in these pockets that have historically felt painful.   Miko Lee: [00:56:48] Thank you Lloyd Suh for joining us on Apex Express.   Lloyd Suh: [00:56:51] Thanks so much. Appreciate it.   Miko Lee: [00:56:52] Please check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more about our show tonight. We think all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. APEX Express is created by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Swati Rayasam, Aisa Villarosa, Estella Owoimaha-Church, Gabriel Tangloao, Cheryl Truong and Ayame Keane-Lee.   The post APEX Express – 3.21.24 Community in Time of Hardship appeared first on KPFA.

Chelsea Matus joins The Steebee Weebee Show!! She's been a loyal employee of mine going on 3 years. We talk about: the many raises that I've given her over the years, the best "whole in the wall" food spots that she likes, her growing up in Koreatown, Austin Butler being in every movie, the Chinese guy at Yo's Aquarium on Santa Monica Blvd., Letterboxd: an application for "Film Lovers",Wagmor Dog Adoption Agency, future "Livestreams" on The Steebee Weebee Show, David Lynch's "DUNE" vs. the newer remakes, the absence of The Weirding Way: combat sound training, her experience attending YADA: Youth Academy Of Dramatic Arts, and much much more. Go this week to: www.youtube.com/steebeeweebee to watch. More: Chelsea https://www.instagram.com/chetheromantic ** Now on iTunes:  https://goo.gl/CdSwyV ** Subscribe: https://goo.gl/d239PO Little Ray promises a Karma Boost if you join our Patreon: https://goo.gl/aiOi7J Or, click here for a one time Karma Boost. https://www.paypal.me/steebeeweebeeshow/2 More Steven: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quangou Bandcamp: https://steebeeweebee.bandcamp.com/ Itunes: https://goo.gl/PSooa0 Send stuff to: 1425 N. Cherokee Ave P.O. Box 1391 Los Angeles, CA 90093 

#246: Hey, How to LA listeners! We're back with another social calendar to talk about the interesting, fun, new happenings in the city. Guests: Imperfect Paradise host Antonia Cereijido and Frank Shyong, LA Times columnist who writes about the diaspora, culture, politics. AND he shares great food content on his social channels with some of the most interesting spots to grub in LA.   Here's what each person pitched for YOUR social calendar: The Wiz at The Pantages in Hollywood until March 3. Or catch "Chicago" next. Late-night coffee shops in Koreatown!  Make staying up late cool again. Cafe Mak Awesome Coffee TPO Coffee  About Time Cafe Gardening! Take advantage of the rain, and it almost being spring 

Nancy Silverton is a chef from Los Angeles. Her newest book, The Cookie That Changed My Life, is out now. We chat about Chris' 16-hour flight to Korea, his indoctrination into the K-pop community, a trip to California's wine country, she doesn't listen to music while cooking unless she's in Italy, why she doesn't like In-n-out, a new flavor or Coca Cola, she's opening a pasta restaurant in Koreatown and a diner in Larchmont, she really be dressing, controlling the consistency of your restaurants is tougher when they're in Saudi Arabia, how she got into podcasting having never listened to a podcast before, making teens do all your work for you, she gave up cocaine and got addicted to shopping, her neighborhood in LA, oversized cookies, Waffle House, her philosophy on milkshakes, we pitch Ye Olde Nancy's Provisions Shoppe (est. 2024) the last person she comped a meal for, the hamburger of her dreams, and how she stays snatched constantly eating bread and pasta her whole life. instagram.com/nancysilverton twitter.com/donetodeath twitter.com/themjeans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

‍‍Ever been confounded by how to perfectly price your dental services? In this episode, our knowledgeable guest is Dr. Nathan Coughlin, an experienced dentist and entrepreneur, who unveils some of his best advice on pricing dental treatments. Nathan underscores the trap of racing to the bottom in pricing to compete, instead advocating for services' differentiation to significantly stand out in the crowded dental market.Diving deeper, Nathan delves into some practical applications of his advice using orthodontics practices as a case in point—where the bare offering of braces can be supplemented by additional services like dental X-rays, impressions, retainers, and teeth whitening, to name a few. He sheds light on the crucial psychological factors at play, such as aura of scarcity and the urgency, that can be generated by strategizing a limited-time offering, which in turn significantly boosts the perceived value of your bundled services.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The pitfalls of low pricing as a means to attract patients.The value of differentiating dental services from competitors.How bundling services can add significant perceived value for patients.The power of scarcity and urgency in making your offering more appealing.The impact of quality guarantees in increasing conversion rates.The ways these strategies can be implemented within a variety of business models.Give this episode a listen, and arm yourself with these game-changing strategies to set your dental practice apart and elevate your bottom line without discounting services.You can reach out to Dr. Nathan Coughlin here:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivedentist/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thrivedentistYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKVEL4Joonzyy5XBxFvXhKAPintrest: https://www.pinterest.com/thrivedentistry/‍Mentions and Links: People/Public Figures:Alex HormoziBooks/Publications:$100M Leads: How to Get Strangers to Want to Buy Your Stuff$100M Offers: How to Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Nathan, so talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Nathan: Michael, I got, I got a big one here, so you ready? This is gonna be, this is gonna be big. This is gonna hopefully change your viewers, um, or listeners attitudes towards selling treatment. So it's something that we are doing currently right now in our offices that has gained us over a hundred thousand dollars extra of production already, and we're halfway through the month.So this is how it works. So how do most dentists, business people, pretty much anybody, how do they start by setting their, um, how much they're gonna charge for something? And this is really important because how we charge for anything is how our business is gonna be ran.So what do most people do? They go, I. Okay, I'm a dentist. I just moved into a new area. Uh, I'm a brand new dentist. I wanna start making some money. I need to get some patience. So let me see. What am I gonna charge for A dental crown. And you look at the three next offices you go. Cool. This office is shoot, charging 1200.The other one's 1100. This one's a thousand. I. Need to get some patience because I'm brand new. I'm a newbie. I need to get some patience in and how am I gonna do it? I'm gonna go slightly less than everybody else, and because I'm slightly less than everybody else, people are gonna flock me. My surface is great.I'm a great dentist. My office is great. All these outstanding things and more people are gonna come in and that'll solve my problems. Next dentist comes in a couple months later, they're within a, you know, a couple mile radius. They go, Hmm, I'm a new dentist. I want to come in. I need to start charging for crowns.How much do I charge for crowns? They look at everybody and they go, cool. Nathan's charging 900. Let me go a little bit less than him. I'm gonna charge eight 50 or 800. Essentially, this is how dentists and a lot of different companies charge their products. The problem obviously is it's a race to the bottom, right?Mm-Hmm. You become mm-Hmm. The Walmarts of the world, which you become, if you become huge and massive and you have a thousand offices, you become these massive DSOs. You can actually do that 'cause you have buy power and you can get things for less and your, profits can still be there.But essentially it's a race to the bottom, right? Mm-Hmm. So we are trying to avoid this as much as possible, and you can see this happening my. Father-in-law is a dentist in Koreatown in Los Angeles. And essentially this is what they're doing. Like they're doing implants and crowns for pennies. Yeah.And so your profits get less. And I think this is almost, uh, not an unethical, but it becomes very, very difficult to deliver a great product because if your profit gets less, you can hire less quality people. You get less quality products, and everything essentially goes down. Right. But this is what the average dentist, the average business does.contrary to that, what does the average patient or consumer do? And we're all guilty of this. Say you wanna get, um, a nice white T-shirt, you go, cool. There's five companies that have this nice white T-shirt, man. They're all pretty similar and none of them really brands or they're all pretty darn similar.Let me just go with the cheapest option because I think it's gonna be. Pretty much the same, right? Mm-Hmm. And then this reinforces that same belief that we go, cool. We need to be the least expensive. We need to be the most cheap. Because look, everybody's buying from over there. The reason we do that, the reason they do that is because it's all the same.A white T-shirt is a white T-shirt is a white T-shirt. Black scrubs or black scrubs or black scrubs. A dental crown. Although a dentist or whoever thinks their crown is the absolute end all be all, I'm sorry, it's not your dental crown is just like the dentist down the street. Your feeling is just like the dentist down the street.Your cleaning is just like the dentist down the street. Yes. We do things to distinguish ourselves and make it. Better, but essentially you're the same. So how do we decommoditize what we're doing? How do we make it different so that what we are doing is not the exact same as everybody else? And I will tell you, this is what's making us a lot of money right now.So, right. Hopefully your ears are perking up because if you wanna make money, this is how you do it. So you have to make your solution different than anybody else's. So if you read different various marketing books, they say you wanna have kind of this blue ocean theory where you are providing a product that is different than everybody else.So Mrs. Smith, when she comes in the office, she can't go. Oh, but dentist down the street is doing the exact same thing as me. I can compare the two kind of like, you know, one-to-one. So they're both commoditized, so you have to do it. So it's not like that. So how do we do that on our end? I. So I will give you 90% of the tricks.I can't go into all of them 'cause I don't have enough time, but this is 90% of the tricks. Okay? So, so now what you do is you, you unbundle what you're doing and show the patient everything you're doing, and then you want to add things in there that cost you very little. But the perceived value of it is huge.So, in orthodontics, what do we do? What's the big thing that we do? We, you know, if somebody's coming in for braces, obviously they're gonna get braces. what they may also need, they may need molds so that we can make retainers, maybe we can make some X retainers. They're gonna need x-rays. They may need, you know, some equilibration of their teeth.They may need some IPR, they may need, whitening at the end. They want, may want an upgrade to clear braces. They may. Need dental treatment if you're an office that's doing both of those, and so you have this list of items, right? Mm-Hmm. And if you, if you add them up and how you present it is very, very important.But if you add all these things up, Mrs. Smith comes in, she wants braces. We say, okay, Mrs. Smith, you're gonna come in for braces. We we're really excited to treat you. I know you've been to five other consults where your we're your fifth consult. Come in here. How we do it at our office. We say, okay, yes, your braces are gonna be.Say whatever, it's $6,000. Mm-Hmm. And then we go, and what you're also gonna need is maybe some dental X-rays and some impressions. And that costs us, you know, 300 bucks. What you're also gonna want is an extra, when you're gonna need retainers. Right. That's another 500. And you know what? Because most patients at the end of treatment, when they get done their treatment.How the retainers, they'll keep those things for a year or two, lose and break and whatever. They don't get another one in. Mm-Hmm. So we like to add another set of retainers on that. Boom. That's another 500. Oh, you know what? Because you're an adult, you probably don't want those metal braces. You probably want to upgrade to clear.That's another $500. You know what, what's even cooler is at the end of orthodontic treatment, most people want to have their teeth nice and white, even though they're straight. If they're yellow, it just doesn't look good. Mm-Hmm. So we wanna throw in some zoom in-office whitening. And you know, on top of that.Because we believe that teeth that are clean, move better teeth that are cleaner, healthier, and we want everybody to have healthier, teeth. We're gonna throw in x amount of dollars for your dental treatment. So you start adding all this up, right? So you, the patient looks, their, their eyes are getting big.They, they're like, eyes just came in for an ortho consult, like, what is going on here? Yeah. And so, you know, you say, Hey, it's 6,000 plus 500, plus 500 plus 700, whatever it is. And then the total price is 10,000. If you're familiar with marketing and psychology, there's something called an anchor, right? So people get anchored to certain prices.So whenever anybody's trying to sell you anything, if they're good, they're gonna anchor your price at something high. So they're gonna say, this is the high, high price. You're like, whoa, that's high. And then when they show you their real price, you're just like, oh, that's cheap. That's easy. Yeah. You add all these things up and boom, boom, boom.It adds up to like, say it's gonna be $10,000, and then you go, but. Today, and you have to create some scarcity and urgency, which are different. You say, today we're gonna throw this all in for. 5,000, 5,500, something like that. Mm-Hmm. you have this massive perceived value, huge perceived value that in reality does not cost you much for us.We do, you know, retainers in office office, which costs us like a couple bucks. It's not, not expensive. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Up upgrade to clear braces. Not that that expensive. if somebody's coming in for dental cleaning, really that's doesn't cost us much. We're not utilizing products. There's so much stuff that we throw in there that creates this huge perceived value on by the patient.And so they're just like, whoa, this is crazy. And the beauty of this is now I. This patient can't go to another dental office. They can't go, well, no. Dr. Nate down the street is offering this 'cause that dentist is like, we don't do that. I don't, I don't know. We don't, that's not something we do and we can't do it 'cause we don't have dentists in orthodontics or we don't have whatever.And there's such a, a wide variety of combos you can do with this. depending on your dental office. What you also have to do is you have to make sure that. You are pairing that, with something that makes it scarce. And we actually do this at our office. We say, Hey, there's this product we're giving and this is crazy.Like we don't do this. Typically, we just say, braces are 6,000 bucks. And take it or leave it. You have some payment plans if you want, but whatever. Mm-Hmm. But we're doing this crazy deal that we never do and it's actually only offered for the next 15 patients. So you can take this deal right now, and we, it's here.We know it's here. Or, um, if you're worried about everything and it's like, Hey, there's no chance I'm gonna start today. We say, cool. That's, I understand that. I get that. it is only for the next 15 patients. So if you call in, I can't guarantee, which is true 'cause we do switch up our, our specials so may not be there.Hmm. So if, if you call in again, this may not be available. This is the best deal we've ever had, which is true. It is the best deal we've ever had. Yeah. And it's only good for today. So there's, there's these other ways to kind of entice patients as well to make that decision. You know, you wanna make things, I know in the dental world this is gonna be controversial, but you want things to be guaranteed.And I feel like I've seen tons of posts on this, like, don't guarantee your dentistry, this is so bad. Like, no medical people don't guarantee your dentistry. I'm like, yeah, that's, that's cool. But like we're in the real world and if you guarantee things. People are more likely to act. Yeah. So how we, how we do it, we say, I know you don't wanna make that decision right now.I know you need to talk to your husband, your spouse, your whatever you wanna do. but we have this guarantee and you want to name it something dumb, like the super smile guarantee, like something that's kind of catchy and funny and whatever you want to do it. You say, you know, if you start today and if you pay your down payment or you pay you whatever, and within 30 days you don't like your braces, you don't like your, whatever it is, come back in.We will take everything off and we are gonna give you a full, either you can do a refund or you can do a credit, or whatever you want to do, so that the barrier to entry is low. 'cause people are scared that they're gonna start treatment and then they're gonna regret it or that their husband or their wife or their significant other.Gets upset with them. And so this takes all barriers away. You create that massive value. We call it value stack. You're valuing, stacking, stacking, stacking. You cut it so that they can see the actual real price that they're gonna pay. There's a scarcity urgency. There's not that many that are gonna happen.We end this deal on. So maybe we're gonna give it to 15 people, or we're gonna end it in January 31st, or whatever it is. And then you create this guarantee and there's a couple different ways you can, you can help with the payment plans, but if you're doing that properly and you're selling each value stack at a correct method, it changes the game and.Invite your listeners to think about this. Mm-Hmm. And if you don't know, if they don't know this stat, they should think about this real hard and they should look for it. 'cause it's very easy to find if you're selling big ticket items, if you're selling ortho implants, all in fours. All in fours would be a big one.Yeah. Anything that is expensive. What is your conversion ratio, right? So say you have 10 patients that come in, 10 consults. How many of those start? And for us, it was very eye-opening, very eye-opening because we weren't tracking that. And I started looking at that and I was like. Oh my gosh, our conversion percentage is really low.Like Mm-Hmm. if we went from, say we went from 40% to 80%, the difference in our production would be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like it's a huge difference. And so you go, cool, what do we need to do to make it so our conversion percentage is higher? And that implementing this technique has ha has done that.And so we had the patience there. The problems not, was not. Marketing for us, not, was not advertising, it was conversions. You know? So some people go, oh, I need more patients. I just need to get more patients. Yeah. It's like, do you need more patients? Or it is like, do you suck at selling? Like if you're, if your patients aren't converting, like, I'm sorry doc, you suck.Like you suck at selling. Mm-Hmm. Like it's, or your front staff, somebody's not doing, not doing good. So it's not the patients coming in that you can't convert and they don't believe you. so this technique has helped us already. I think it's like we're at like 130,000 extra this month than previous. Um, we, we obviously have multiple offices in a decent volume, but, um, yeah, this has made a massive, massive difference to our office, Michael: man.Okay. So I like a, a lot of it is amazing. Now, could this work in your father-In-law's in Koreatown? Yeah. Mm-Hmm. Could this work in his, let's just say someone like that is listening and he's like, you know what, I'm gonna do this. could it Nathan: work? So I think this can work in virtually every single office.This is not my idea number one. This is somebody called Alex Hermosy. If anybody's in the, gym space, in the business space, she's a big person on, on social media. Mm-Hmm. And this is his book. If you have to look at some books, it's called a hundred million Dollar Leads or a hundred Million Dollar, um, offer.This works. Everywhere. So in his case, in my father-in-law's case, he does implants. implants are big ticket items. So you'd offer an implant, maybe combined with something else, combined with whitening, maybe combined with a night guard this stuff is cheap. Like a night guard.You can make in office, you can make a retainer in office. And these are like a couple bucks. Like this is not expensive. Mm-Hmm. So the, the important thing is to create this massive perceived value. 'cause every person in the world. I don't care if you have a billion dollars or if you have 10 bucks to your name, you want value for your money.Mm-Hmm. If you feel like you're getting value, you will stay. The moment you do not feel like you're having value, people will leave. And that's why people leave dental offices 'cause they don't feel like their money is being valued there. But if you're doing stuff that is so unique, so different, and you're creating this massive value, they cannot go anywhere else with that same value.So yes, I believe this can be done I'm sure I feel like it can be done in every office, but maybe there's an exception that I haven't haven't seen. Awesome. Michael: Awesome. Nathan, I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions, where can they reach out to you?Nathan: Yeah, you can just look at my, uh, it's Dr. Nate on IG TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest. We're else we're at, we're everywhere. So if you guys just look up my name, you'll, you'll find me. Michael: Awesome. So that's gonna be in the show notes below. And at the same time, Nate, thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning episode.Thanks, Michael.‍

Susie Stellar joins The Steebee Weebee Show for the 1st time!!! We talk about: Wi Spa in Koreatown + spa etiquette, the term: Cruising, her growing up Catholic in New England, Shucking: the process of opening the shell to reveal the delicate meat inside an oyster, Snowbird travelers in Maine, the Do's and Don'ts in dating in Los Angeles, how she rescued her dog in Mexico, her Colonial Girl Ghost, Susie's podcast: Online Forever Podcast with co host: Sidney Summers, and much much more. Go this week to: www.youtube.com/steebeeweebee to watch. *HEAD TO FACTORMEALS.COM/STEEBEE50 & use code: Steebee50 to get 50% off!!! More: Susie https://www.instagram.com/stellarsimulated Scissor Bros YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/scissorbros ** Now on iTunes:  https://goo.gl/CdSwyV ** Subscribe: https://goo.gl/d239PO Little Ray promises a Karma Boost if you join our Patreon: https://goo.gl/aiOi7J Or, click here for a one time Karma Boost. https://www.paypal.me/steebeeweebeeshow/2 More Steven: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quangou Bandcamp: https://steebeeweebee.bandcamp.com/ Itunes: https://goo.gl/PSooa0 Send stuff to: 1425 N. Cherokee Ave P.O. Box 1391 Los Angeles, CA 90093

Ep 311: Allison loses her phone in Koreatown and UAW and SAG strike updates. Allison recs Blink 182's new album One More Time, Anatomy of a Fall, lukewarm recs The Holdovers, and anti-recs Five Night at Freddy's, and Allison and Meredith rec: When Evil Lurks, and Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor, and Meredith recs The Lady Eve (1941)

His name is Ben Baller, not Ben Humble & he's here to discuss: The rebrand in progress, Prayers to RDB, the social media algorithm being broken, news sources wanting to get things right first, Elon wanting to be King of The Geeks, Twitter engagement farming & more. Then JimmyBoi (The Street's Jeweler) joins Ben from Houston to discuss: Jimmy getting COVID, how far they go back, going on a date, going to the movie theaters, doing things by yourself, political spam, jewelers copying their style, the future of custom jewelry, running with an entourage, how they move now & more.  Then Ben brings it back for the Outro to discuss: Playing golf, watching Max Holloway win, going to Chipotle, kicking it in Koreatown with Dust Brother Jordan & making the financials make sense, going to George Lopez's show at The Greek & more. This episode is not to be missed! Please support our sponsors: Use code [BALLER] at calderalab.com to enjoy an exclusive 20% OFF their finest products If you are interested in NBA, MLB, NHL Soccer, UFC & more Picks daily, weekly, monthly or single sport Signupat www.CaptainPicks.com & Follow @TheCaptainPicks on Instagram Subscribe to Par 3 Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/par-3-podcast-with-j-r-smith-ben-baller-stephen-malbon/id1665308291 Produced by: DBPodcasts www.dbpodcasts.com Follow @dbpodcasts on Instagram & Twitter Music by @lakeyinspired Available on all Podcast Platforms, YouTube & BehindTheBallerPod.com Behind The Baller Theme Music  Artist: Illegal Kartel (@illegal_kartel_mikal_shakur) Produced by: Gene Crenshaw @yuyuthemaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

His name is Ben Baller, not Ben Humble & he's here to discuss: Los Angeles & the country being in a major heat wave, the kids going to Las Vegas, Kaia's birthday coming up, being unbiased, Tucker Carlson interviewing Andrew Tate, Listening to a Robert Kennedy Jr. Interview, Adam22's situation, social media being at an all time low, BeBetter merch drop & more. Then JimmyBoi (World Class Jeweler) joins Ben to discuss: Being proud of Jimmy & his kids, fatherhood responsibilities, the hardest obstacle the overcome, where he sees his future, getting incarcerated, working towards being better & more. Then Ben brings it back for the Outro to discuss: When you'd want to have your birthday, worldwide travel, what he's watching, playing a round & joining a country club, food in Koreatown & more. This episode is not to be missed! Support our sponsors: www.betterhelp.com/baller www.chime.com/baller Subscribe to Par 3 Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/par-3-podcast-with-j-r-smith-ben-baller-stephen-malbon/id1665308291 If you are interested in NBA, MLB, NHL Soccer, UFC & more Picks daily, weekly or monthly subscribe at www.CaptainPicks.com & Follow @TheCaptainPicks on Instagram Produced by: DBPodcasts www.dbpodcasts.com Follow @dbpodcasts on Instagram & Twitter Music by @lakeyinspired Available on all Podcast Platforms, YouTube & BehindTheBallerPod.com Behind The Baller Theme Music  Artist: Illegal Kartel (@illegal_kartel_mikal_shakur) Produced by: Gene Crenshaw @yuyuthemaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John returns from a parking lot in Koreatown to tell Drew all about his experiences picketing productions on location and how other writers can get involved. We also answer listener questions, look at upcoming themed pickets, and celebrate the gains we've made at neutral gates. Links: WGA Special Pickets WGA tip line: tips@wga.org Sean Graham at WGA: sgraham@wga.org Aziz Ansari's ‘Good Fortune' Suspends Production by Samantha Bergeson for IndieWire ‘Duster', From J.J. Abrams & LaToya Morgan, Suspends Production In New Mexico by Peter White for Deadline Summary of Negotiations: WGA proposals and AMPTP responses 2023 WGA Strike Rules Strike Rules FAQ Picket Schedules and Locations Find more about the 2023 WGA negotiations here at WGAContract2023.org John on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt Email us at ask@johnaugust.com You can download the episode here.

K-pop disrupted pop culture in South Korea in the early 1990s, and later found fans around the world. Vivian Yoon was one of those fans, growing up thousands of miles away in Koreatown, Los Angeles. This week, we're sharing an episode of In K-Pop Dreaming, the second season of LAist's California Love podcast. In it, Yoon takes listeners on a journey to learn about the history behind the music that had defined her childhood.