Podcasts about right as

Business owners hire people to work in their businesses. But you left the job for a reason right? You did not want to be an employee any longer. Can I assume that? Because you were working for someone else’s dream. Right? As a Realtor-Preneur – or a Realtor Entrepreneur, (yes you hear it here first. I have coined this phrase here on 4X Formula Radio) But this is such an important distinction that we need to talk about it. You have made a conscious decision to get out of the J-O-B. right? *** check out my FREE book for new real estate agents *** 4xformula.com

Brian Wiley and Steve Rausch get into the legalities of mask mandates that are being implemented all over the country. We know that there are many citizens that will refuse to wear masks because of their "individual rights". Government can't force me to wear them. Right? As it turns out, yes. The duo gives Supreme Court examples and explains why your individual rights don't include unlimited rights. Your rights halt for the common good.   Brian Wiley, Financial Advisor www.treecityadvisors.com Steve Rausch, Attorney www.capitalcitylawoffice.com   Boise: www.therealmoneypros.com www.kboi.com Fresno: www.therealmoneypro.com www.kmjnow.com   Hosts & Guests: Hazen Armstrong, CPA www.robbinsarmstrong.com Steve Marsh, Medical Insurance www.medicalplansofidaho.com Steve Cilley, Owner www.ataraxispeo.com Jeremiah Bates, Financial Advisor www.treecityadvisors.com Alexandra Lundgren, Financial Advisor www.treecityadvisors.com   Infrequent Guest: Diane Wilson www.mysocialsecurityanalyst.com

QUICK MATHS The Johns have been Business of Machining it for 4.38 years (3.38 years recorded to be exact). ROI Envy Sometimes you get a machine, crank out parts, and make money right away. Sometimes you have to invest time to develop reliable processes and workflows. Grimsmo reminds himself that the KERN is not a job shop machine. THAT HAS TO BE A KERN FILTER! Click Image Below for Full Post   The question is, "how do you cheat the KERN and push it beyond those limitations?" Although the machine is incredibly accurate, Grimsmo still has to chase tolerances. To him, that's proof it's not just about the brand of the machine, it's about tooling, the machining strategy, and various factors that come into play when making parts. Finding out those limitations is key to getting the most out of the machine tool. BITE-SIZE KERN? When Saunders asked Marv if the Datron could outpace a KERN, the answer was revealed in this hilarious Instagram post. However, to Saunders, in terms of footprint, rigidity, and usability, the DATRON is pretty much a bite-size KERN. Full Grimsmo Evolution Grimsmo shares his story about trying to make a perfect carbide detent press with a PCD endmill. Sometimes entrepreneurs must be willing to bail on an idea or process that isn't working despite sunk time or costs. Full Grimsmo is starting to expand its meaning to more than just being in love with an idea. Leadership Strategy and Tactics TOOLHOLDERS  The Johns discuss REGO-FIX, shink fit, and hydraulic tool holders. Saunders adds that moving away from the bootstrap mentality is tough but it is necessary in some cases. If you buy the beat-down, cheaper version of what you need, that may create a negative perception of the process or how the equipment should be cared for--and that could cost more than buying the new item! TruePATH + CAMplete  Grimsmo shares a "pucker moment" on the KERN. Saunders expresses his burning desire to have machine tool parameters set in CAM to avoid having to manually change them. While talking about TruePATH and CAMplete, the one thing they caution is to make sure you don't get used to ignoring the warnings! JOHN: Cycle Start! ST-20Y: "I'm sorry, John. I'm afraid I can't do that." Saunders has a HAL 9000 moment where the lathe REFUSES to make a part! Let's just say it has to do with a spindle thermometer and a specific IF, THEN loop. Scrapping Parts for Warm Ups - No Big Deal, Right? As an entrepreneur, your attitude can push the business to unimaginable heights or it can blow up in your face. A seemingly innocuous approach to warming up a machine tool could end up translating to a major case of apathy and huge costs in wasted material for Grimsmo. TORNOS - BARS. BEATS. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. What do you do when the machine's been making great parts all day long? You stay at the shop until 4am and feed it! Fraser confirms that the Tornos didn't stop running from Friday morning until Saturday afternoon. URBAN LEGEND Saunders shares an urban legend about a machine at IBM 30-40 years ago that, once commissioned, NEVER turned off the spindle for the entire duration of the machine tool's life. IF ANYONE HAS HEARD OF THIS, E-Mail businessofmachining@gmail.com        

Booked All Night: Twitter . Facebook . Instagram Sign Up for the Newsletter and get a heads up on who's coming to join us so you can ask your own questions. Visit Our TeeSpring Visit BookedAllNight.blog Follow Jess: Twitter . Facebook Follow Maggie: Twitter Follow Dan: Twitter Follow Dallas Woodburn: http://dallaswoodburnpr.com/ We're joined by Dallas Woodburn, author of the recently released THE BEST WEEK THAT NEVER HAPPENED. After her parents’ bitter divorce, family vacations to the Big Island in Hawaii ceased. But across the miles, eighteen-year-old Tegan Rossi remains connected to local Kai Kapule, her best friend from childhood. Now, Tegan finds herself alone and confused about how she got to the Big Island. With no wallet, no cell phone, purse, or plane ticket, Tegan struggles to piece together what happened. She must have come to surprise-visit Kai. Right? As the teens grow even closer, Tegan pushes aside her worries and gets swept away in the vacation of her dreams. But each morning, Tegan startles awake from nightmares that become more difficult to ignore. Something is eerily amiss. Why is there a strange gap in her memory? Why can’t she reach her parents or friends from home? And what’s with the mysterious hourglass tattoo over her heart? Kai promises to help Tegan figure out what is going on. But the answers they find only lead to more questions. As the week unfolds, Tegan will experience the magic of first love, the hope of second chances, and the bittersweet joy and grief of being human. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bookedallnight/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/bookedallnight/support

You Are the Light of ChristAt the Feet of JesusMatthew 5:14-16Pastor/Teacher: Ken DelageMercy Hill Community Church2020.04.19 Well, good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us this morning. Open your Bible, if you've got it, to Matthew 5. And if you don't normally attend Mercy Hill, let me just say thank you for being with us this morning. We really see it as one of the silver linings of this time that some folks who aren't, for whatever reason, able to join us in person, have been able to join us online and we're really glad you're here. Perhaps, Lord willing, a few of you would be able to join with us when we do get back together, Lord willing, as soon as He enables that time to come. Total Darkness So, we're in a series going through Jesus’ greatest sermon, His Sermon on the Mount. We're in Matthew 5. We’ll be looking at verse 14, but before I get into it, I just want to welcome another special group of guests who are with us this morning, and that's the kids. Kids, thanks for doing church with us again. You guys are, like, setting records for how many sermons you've listened to in a row. Right? I'm really glad you can be sitting there and listening with Mom and Dad and considering these things together. Hey, I want to start by asking you a question: have you ever been in a cave? Have you ever been, like, in a real cave, like, a deep cave; you go in and go underground? Now, I got to go in a cave a while back with my family; it’s called Grand Caverns. It's in Virginia, but it’s not real close to here. And, you know, you go in and they take you on a tour of this cave, and it is deep. And you walk and walk and walk, and the walls are all rocky and, kind of slimy, kind of wet. Right? And it kind of smells, I don't know, like the underground; whatever that smells like. You know what they did to us? After, like, 20 minutes of walking way deep into this cave, they turned the lights out. Let me tell you what, it was dark. I mean dark. Like, you think it's dark in your room at night, but listen, there was no night light. There was no light down the hall. There was no little glow from the alarm clock or a little moonlight, starlight through the window. We're talking no light. Total darkness. Inky, pitch blackness. You know, that can be kind of scary. All of a sudden you feel, sort of, turned around, isolated, alone. You don't know where to go, what to do. You know, the passage before us, Jesus is talking about darkness, but it's a scarier darkness. it's a deeper darkness. It's a darker darkness, because He's talking about spiritual darkness. But the good news is He's also talking about spiritual light; a better light, a more important light, a more brilliant light than the light that our eyes can see. So, this is good stuff that we get to look at this morning. So, let's begin by just looking at His words together, giving attention to what He said, and then we'll seek to explain it and understand it. So, Matthew 5. We’ll be in verse 14 down through verse 16. Follow along as I read this. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” So, I want us to consider what Jesus said. I'm going to give us an outline that we can, kind of, follow along to help us as we go. The Absence of LightSo, point number one, the absence of light. Jesus uses a couple of word pictures in here to describe what this light is like, and one of them is a word picture of somebody lighting a lamp in a house. Now, you know, we don't light lamps in the house very often anymore, but it's roughly equivalent to turning the light switch on, Right? I mean, you know, they would have a little oil lamp with a little wick. They’d have to actually, physically light it, and having done that, they would not cover it up because that wasn't the point. Right? In the same way, we don't turn a light on and cover it up. In fact, we put lights in the ceiling or up on a stand and it gives light to all in the house. So, why did people a long time ago do this? Because it was dark in the house! Right? I mean some things have changed but some things haven’t. Right? And so, what this is pointing to is the reality that it is dark in the world. If we are called to be lights in the world, the implication of this and the word pictures that Jesus used, is that without the light of Christ in the world, it is dark in the world. Friends, that is a long, solid, and terrible reality. Jesus said He is the light of the world over in John 8: “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” He is the only light of the world. And if there's a corner of the world, so to speak, where the light is not on, there's not an alternative light. There's no “spiritual match” that can be lit to see dimly. There's no flashlight or, you know, cell phone; where you can turn that little bright light on, on your cell phone. There's no alarm clock by the bed. There's no other source of light in the world, and apart from the light of Christ, it is inky black. It's cave darkness. And this matters. This matters because spiritual darkness obscures the most significant and important realities in life. It obscures things like: why do I exist? What's the meaning of life? What's the purpose of existence? Who am I? Who is God? What is truth? What is eternity? What should I be about in preparing for the end of my days? All of that is lost in darkness when there is no light. All of that is obscured. The Light Inside You So friends, before we get into the main part of the passage, which is the call of Christians to be light, I want to first ask: do you have that light inside of you? Do you have the light of Christ shining in you? Most people, who I'm talking to, can talk well about light. Maybe you've grown up in a Christian home, maybe you’ve been around Christians and you know how to talk the talk, you know how to talk all about light, you’ve heard all about light. Friends, there is a difference between hearing about light and seeing. You know, I watch these YouTube videos—I think they call it a “V-blog”, a video blog—this kind gentleman does, he just kind of tells us about his life, right? And I watch him because he's blind and he's helping sighted people understand what it's like to be blind. And I just find it fascinating to hear about the world as he experiences it. One of the things he talks about is the idea of color and, you know, people told him all about color, so he can tell other people all about color. He can say things like, “The sky is blue,” and, “The Sea can be blue,” and “Ice can be blue,” and, “Eyes can be blue,” you know. He knows all of those true things, but blue he doesn't know. Blue is just a word, just a concept floating out there. He's never seen. He doesn't know. Friends, is the light of Christ a word to you, or is it illuminating you? There is all the difference in the world. Seeing is different than hearing about sight. Looking at the sun is different than having it described to you. Friends, you cannot hope to be a light to others until Christ is the light within you. So friend, if you don't have that light within you, let me encourage you to cry out to God today and ask him to give you the light that you need, that you could see God clearly. Maybe you've experienced it where other people seem so sure, but inside you’re like, “I just don't know. I can't get there.” Call out to Him. We are not the light of the world. We can't make light in our hearts. Jesus is the light of world and He came so that you could see, so that you could have light. So, call out to Him. Ask Him for this. This is a request pleasing to God. He loves to answer these kinds of prayers, so keep asking until he does. And you'll know when He does because you'll see. The Essence of Light Alright. So. good. So, we talked about—the reality of this passage is that it's really calling Christians to be light in the world. Jesus knew that his days on earth were numbered, that He had less than—at least less than—three years at this point of living and ministering, and that He was equipping His disciples to carry His light in them to the world. So what does that even mean? What is light? What is Jesus talking about? Well, that brings us to our second point. So number one, the absence of light. Number two, the essence of light. The essence of light. What is the essence of light? What does Jesus mean? Well, you can see the answer in verse 16 if we read it together. “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” There's a parallel in the passage. It says, “let your light shine so that they may see your good works.” Light is good works. What is the light of the believer? It's the life of the believer. It's the life, which is living out good works in the presence of others; good work seen by others. That's light, but okay, but then what are good works? What does Jesus mean there. Well, good works, this is a broad category. This is everything a believer says and does because they're following Jesus. So, everything we would say because we follow Jesus, you know, words of praise and adoration unto God; words of worship unto Him; words of encouragement to those around us; words of love and compassion; words of correction; words in defense of truth; words in defense of the weak; all of these things fall under the broad category of good works, but good works certainly tends towards the action side, doesn't it? It’s works, after all. So, these are works of worship unto God, right? Of time spent in His presence, of sacrificing unto Him. These are actions and works towards our fellow men, of loving those around us; giving generously to those who are in need; defending those who are weak; giving meaningful care to those around us; all of these things are good works that the believer is called to walk. And so, it's, kind of, just living out righteousness, publicly. If you've been with us, you know, we went through the Beatitudes, all of these Beatitudes—being hungry and thirsty for righteousness, being merciful, being pure in heart—all these things lived out in front of others. That's good works. And what the Passion says, is that those works are transformed into light. So, you do something that is a work—you're caring for somebody in need—and that care has a luminescent quality to it. That work tends to turn the light on and people can see differently. Friend, you are called to live a life that is illuminating in a dark world, that's casting light and casting out shadows around you. So, this is what the essence of light is: it is living out good works in a way that's not hiding them, but rather, that’s public, so that others may, in fact, see and give glory to God. The Presence of LightSo that brings us to point number three, the presence of light. So, we've had the absence of light, the essence of light, and now the presence of light. What is the presence of light bring? What is the impact of it? “…let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Let your light shine so they may see. What’s the effect of light? In a word, sight; that's the effect of light so that they may see. Now, what are they going to see? They're going to see your good works, but that's not all they're going to see. Because they see something in your good works—which I find profound and wonderful—they're going to see your good works and give glory to you. No! That's not what they're doing. They're seeing your good works and they're giving glory to your Father in heaven. This is remarkable, because most of those around us have decided that there is no Father in heaven; that God isn't real; that God doesn't exist; that if He does exist, He hasn't made Himself known; you know, all those arguments that are out there in a world which pushes away the knowledge of God. And someone who has spent their life pushing away the knowledge of God and convinced themselves that God isn't real, they see your good works and it is as though a light has turned on, and all of a sudden, “zapped”, is what God is like right there. That's what He's like. He's like that. Oh Glory. Oh, give glory to Him! This is a wonderful reality. See, here's why this functions: because your good works are only partly yours. They're yours in that you do them, but they're His because He empowers them. He empowers all the good works that we do; God's power lies beneath every good work. His goodness flows through every good work. His righteousness is being expressed in your righteousness. When you love, His love is seen. When you care, His care is seen. When you show concern for justice, for the poor, for the weak, then the concern of God is seen for justice and for the poor and for the weak. See, your good works are ultimately His good works. I'll tell you what's true about me. If you see good works in me, you can be sure they didn't start here. You can be sure that those are coming from Him, that all the good that we have comes from Christ. Friends, this goes back to the idea, right? He is the light of the world. So any light worth shining is that light which, ultimately, we’re reflecting from Him. He's the source of light. Friends, Christian, what grace is ours? I mean. come on. Just consider what God has done for us. I mean, it's not like we were the likely candidates for this. It's not like we had a bunch of good works lying around when God came. No! We had a bunch of wicked works. A bunch of sin and shame. Evil. God saved us despite our wicked works and He saved us out of our sin. He saved us by Grace. He rescued us. He redeemed us by his blood. He made us righteous as a gift, for we’re justified. And now, He's kneading that righteousness into the dough of our lives. He's working it out into our lives, such that it's even seen by others. Of course, it's not perfect yet. Of course, we're not always perfect in our good works, in our righteousness, and yet, the Scripture is clear. They exist now and others may see by them (Mt. 5:16). This is a tremendous work of grace! Consider what God has done in you, dear saint, and consider this, that He's not done. Right? As much as He has brought us up out of darkness and into light, oh, so much more awaits. The best is yet to come; for you, for me, for every believer, because we're going to see Him as He is, and we’re going to be like Him, and the light that was just begun in us will be filling us. Holiness will reign in resurrected bodies, in eternity. Glory to God. How good is God to us? What cause of praise and gratitude is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He didn't leave us in darkness. He brought us to light, and He's taking His from one degree of light to another until we are with Him in glory with unveiled faces. Praise be to God. Responding to the CallSo, how would God have us respond to this passage? So, what's the call of this passage? I think the call is relatively easy for us to discern. You pick it up on your first reading, right? We're to be that city on a hill that's not hidden. We're to be that lamp that has been lit and placed, strategically, to give light to all in the house. And then it says, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” So, we're called to let the light of Christ—which He's given to us—shine through us. And I think that's probably the best way to, kind of, summarize it; allow the light of Christ within you to shine through you. Allow the light of Christ within you to shine through you. So, if you're going to allow the light of Christ within you to shine through you, what can we be about? How are you going to do that? Stay Near to ChristTwo thoughts as we close. The first thought: If you're going to allow the light of Christ within you to shine through you, stay near to Christ. Stay near to Him. He is the light of the world. If you want to be giving light to others, you got to be receiving light from Him. Stay near to Him. Draw near to Him each day. We are but dead branches apart from the vine that is Christ. Oh, be connected to that vine on a daily basis, be drawing your life from the vine that is Christ, be drawing the light from the vine that is Christ, that His light would dwell within you. Friends, this is Christianity. This is being dependent on the Holy Spirit every day. We’re not just filled with the Spirit on day one and then we move on; no, we need the Holy Spirit of God every day. If you want to be a light in this world, then the first thing you're going to confront is the darkness that still hides in the corners. Oh, call out to the Spirit of God. Ask Him to be at work within you, illuminating Christ afresh to you day after day after day.Let Your Light ShineAll right, so allow the light of Christ within you to shine through you by, first, saying you’re in Christ and then, second, by not hiding your light. There's the picture in here of putting the light under the basket. I am convinced that this is very tempting for most, or probably all, of us at different times to, in our concern for our own reputations, not want to draw, kind of, uncomfortable attention. And friend, make no mistake; this is not about exalting ourselves and showing off. That's not what this is. There is a “living out loud” that were called to, a working out our salvation in public and in private, wherever we are, simply, consistently, humbly, in a way that does not bring glory to us, but brings glory to your Father who is in heaven. Oh, saints, that is the heartbeat of the believer; to give glory to God who is in heaven. So, don't hide your light. Allow your works of praise to God and love for others to be seen, in season and out of season, wherever you are. You know, we talked a minute ago about all that God has done for us through the gospel. Listen, if you want to be one whose light shines, this comes from the place of gratitude. This comes from the place of amazement at what God has done. All right, so allow the light of Christ within you to shine through you by, first, saying you’re in Christ and then, second, by not hiding your light. Friends, He has done great things for us. Allow that to fuel your heart, your desire to be a light to those around us. That will fuel your desire because you will see others in darkness and you will remember what that's like, and you'll want life for their sake. But friend, it's also going to fuel when you recognize, “Oh, here's an opportunity to give glory to my Father who is in heaven. I could bring glory to Him right now by doing this.” O’ Lord, would you use us? O’ Lord, would you use us to bring glory to your name? Friends, Christian, allow the light of Christ within you to shine through you, because there is this tremendous effect at the end of it. It gives glory to your Father who is in heaven. That's worth it. That's wonderful. That's amazing that sinners like us could be used in that way. Oh, allow the light of Christ within you to shine through, that others may see, that others may have light, that God may receive glory, because our Father who is in heaven, He is worthy of all praise. He is worthy of all honor. He is worthy of all glory. May God be pleased to use us to glorify His great name. Closing PrayerLet's pray. Father, that is our prayer this morning; that you would use us to bring Glory To your great name. Lord, if there's anyone here that doesn't know you, I pray that they would come to see you for the first time. Would you do that? Have them call out to you, humble themselves, call out to you and meet them with the light of the world. And Lord, use us, your people, to bring glory to your name. We are a Spirit-dependent people; we can't do this on our own. We rely upon the light of the world to be life in this world. So, we invite you, Holy Spirit, fill us afresh today Lord, I pray for Mercy Hill. Fill us afresh today and each day, that we would live as lights in the darkness unto your name and your glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen. Amen.Friend, great to be with you this morning. Looking forward to the day when we can be in the same place together, but God is good to give us this opportunity; give Him praise for it. May he meet you this week with the light of Christ. Amen.

  Let's Talk about Annual Physical Exam... On this week's episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry I am here to start off men's health month with an episode on just what to expect during your annual wellness exams. Last week on the empower yourself for better health series, I talked about the biggest reasons why men are dying earlier is that we are just unaware of our health statuses. Our lack of going to the doctor, being educated on what are our biggest killers has attributed to the majority (8/10) top 10 leading causes of death worldwide to all disproportinately affect men greater. In fact it would likely be 9/10 if not for the fact that Alzheimers usually increases with age but we are dying to soon to experience it. The annual physical exam is the most appointment you can make when you see a doctor because it allows the doctors to essentially check you from head to toe on what is going on. It is also where we can discover the most problems so it is extremely important to make sure your friends and family members are listening to this episode so they know what to expect. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and share the episode with a friend or family member. Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, Soundcloud, iHeartRadio, Spotify Sponsors: Lunch and Learn Community Online Store (code Empower10) Pierre Medical Consulting (If you are looking to expand your social reach and make your process automated then Pierre Medical Consulting is for you) Dr. Pierre's Resources - These are some of the tools I use to become successful using social media Links/Resources: Empower Yourself Series - Episode 65 Social Links: Join the lunch and learn community – https://www.drberrypierre.com/joinlunchlearnpod Follow the podcast on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/lunchlearnpod Follow the podcast on twitter – http://www.twitter.com/lunchlearnpod – use the hashtag #LunchLearnPod if you have any questions, comments or requests for the podcast For More Episodes of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry Podcasts https://www.drberrypierre.com/lunchlearnpodcast/ If you are looking to help the show out Leave a Five Star Review on Apple Podcast because your ratings and reviews are what is going to make this show so much better Share a screenshot of the podcast episode on all of your favorite social media outlets & tag me or add the hashtag.#lunchlearnpod Download Episode 112 Transcript Episode 112 Transcript... Introduction Dr. Berry: And welcome to another episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry I’m your host, Dr. Berry Pierre, your favorite Board Certified Internist. Founder of drberrypierre.com, who start the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry as well as the CEO of Pierre Medical Consulting, helping you empower yourself for better health with the number one podcast for patient advocacy. This week we bring you episode 112, the focuses on men and their wellness exams. And of course if you listen to this on the month of June, it is men's health month. And if you happen to catch my recent live series on Empower Yourself for Better Health where I essentially kind of lay out the fact that men are dying out here because they're not aware of their health and you know, I hope to put a charge in someone's battery or you know, someone's relative, spouse, somebody to like really push the mill, friends and family members that we have to go get their routine checkups. And a few I want to check out drberrypierre.com/youtube where you can check out that most recent episode where I go through the top 10 causes for death in men and I really kind of lay out the law that says like, Hey, we really don't have any excuses to deal with the issues that we're dealing with now. So check if you have the chance. So again, today we're going to be talking about the wellness exam. The annual physical exam. Most people call it and a lot of times is probably the only way you can actually get your significant other, your brother, your father, your cousin. It's usually the only time you can get them to come into the doctor's office, right? Because again, a lot of times I don't see them very often but if I can almost see him one time, it's usually for their wellness exam. So I want you to just take a little step back and take some tips on what to expect for the physical exam and you know, understand why we might like crunch a lot of things in there because sometimes, especially with our male patients, we understand that that the likelihood that they're going to come back at sometimes kind of low. So we want to take advantage of it when we got a chance. Before I want to go I do want to give a shout out to Dr. Coreos who is a friend in the social media space. She actually runs the hashtag somedocs. And reason why I love her is the fact that she is champion physicians to want to get on social media and really take advantage of all of this stuff that it offers. You guys know for a long time I've really been championed that bill that says like, no, we have to get on social media. Our patients are on social media. And if you want to be respected, if you want to be accredited in your patient’s eye. Again, not talking about accredited in the physician’s eye where you know, you have a couple of journal articles and do some poster presentations and you may speak at a medical conference and two. Because for the most part, most of your patients don't care about that, right? One because they don't go to those conferences. They don't read those magazines so they don't even know. But would they do knows that they check their Twitter, they checked their Instagram and they check their Facebook, they checked their YouTube and you're not there. So she's a big part of this promotion and you know, making it okay for your physicians to one get on social media. And another thing I love about her is that with her hashtags somedocs. If you have a blog posts and video posts, whatever, and you feed tag or she will actually retweet it and kind of share it out. So again, thank you Dr. Coreos for that. I'm definitely much appreciated it. Just wanted to make sure I gave her a nice one shout out because she's definitely helped the show grow for the Lunch and Learn community. So it definitely appreciative all our efforts. So getting back, we're talking about episode 112. We’re gonna talk about men. We’re talking about the annual wellness exam. And sit back for great episode and I'll see you guys later. Episode Dr. Berry: Alright guys. So this is episode 112. This is gonna be a solo episode. And it's funny because obviously if you've been rocking with the show for quite some time, you know and that we started out as a solo episode. This is something that we do and I think we do well. And when we made the change over this past season, season three, we really wanted to make a concerted effort to get the best of the best when it comes to topics of discussion, especially for Lunch and Learn community. And I was very fortunate enough to do that. We've got like two months, almost two months in a row of just amazing guests and like I said, definitely happy for all of their expertise and their support and you know, does the knowledge that they kicked over these past couple months. But I am back with a solo episode and it's funny because actually this episode was going to be a group episode as well, but I was unable to connect with this week's guest. His schedule was busy. My schedules is busy so we were unable to connect. But we'll definitely make sure, you know, we get them onto the shows at some time. Right. We'll, it'll happen for sure. But of course this is June. We're talking about men's health and this episode we're talking about the wellness exam, the quote unquote the physical exam that a lot of times it's the only time I can see some of my male patients and it's something that a lot of times as a physician we kind of cherish and we really take advantage of. Because we understand that if I don't order these tests and I don't ask these questions, there's a chance I may not see this patient in front of me for another year. And for most of my patient specialized outpatient medicine, most of my patients, that's exactly was the case. They were like, doc, I love you but I'm not coming to see you more than once a year. So get whatever you need to get, do whatever tests you to do, ask whatever question you need to ask while I'm here cause it ain't happen. And once I leave and I respected it and I love that. And that definitely took advantage. So what I want to do is first, you know, do you listened to the episode 65, right? Empower Yourself for Better Health Series where I talked about how the lack of awareness and our health has been killing us. And like us, I mean men, right? It's been absolutely killing us. And I talked about top 10 causes of death in that episode. So go ahead, check that out on the YouTube page. But when we stress all of these different factors here, a lot of these things can sometimes, and I hate to say it, but a lot of them could be avoided if they would just comfort a checkup and they would just come and see regularly. And that's why we take so much advantage when we do have you in our office. Right? Because we don't know what's the next time you get to come see us. So if you listen, right? If you're able to get that at your male, father, your cousin, your relative, your friend, spouse, whatever. If you were able to get them to the office, right? Like what should they expect when they get there? Right? I think that's always a question at hand, right? It's like this unknown cloud of secrecy, right? Again, they don't go to the doctor often and a lot of times it's out of fear. Right? And a lot of times it's out of this superhuman attitude that men tend to have. Like, I'm not sick, I don't get sick. I'm okay. Like nothing's bothering me. I think one of the most important questions that we'd like to ask, especially in a hospital setting is do you have any medical history? Right? As usually our questions, right? And for my men, I'm usually keen on asking, okay, if you say you have no medical history, what is the last time he saw a doctor? Because it's very easy to have no medical history if you've been avoiding us for five to 10 years. Right? Like if you haven't seen a doctor, and again that five to 10 years, may sound crazy to some of my Lunch and Learn community members. But I know some people who have not seen a doctor in five to 10 years, like that's just the way they're rocking and you know, God bless them, right? God bless them that something's not clicking up on the inside that we don't know about. But let's say you know, it's been five, it's been 10 years, right? And they haven't seen the doctor. And of course when you ask them to have any medical history, they say no cause they really don't because no one's ever told them. Right? But you are able to get this person into your office and you're able to get the quote unquote physical exam, right. Because first of all, let me tell you something. The physical exam, the actual physical part is, you know, the easiest part that probably takes like three to five minutes at most. But what's most important is all of the ancillary questions you're gonna ask your patient in front of you why you got in there, right? So why you got them there, right? And I always like to start head to toe, right? So first and foremost, for people who may not be familiar with the annual exams, right? The annual exam is the doctor's appointment that you go to, it's usually your longest doctor's appointment and not only is it a long the doctor's appointment, It usually has a whole bunch of labs are kind of associated with it, right? So that's usually when your doctor orders lasts for just about everything. And we're going to talk about those labs later. But it's one of those ones where your doctors has to take advantage and get you, you know, while you're there. And they really liked it, you know, strike while it's hot. So they order every test as every question because they aren't sure if they're not going to see you again. Right? And for some people was honest, right? I used to take care of patients who are in their 19, 20, 21-year-old. Like I don't want to see you in my office more than once a year. Right? Cause there's really no reason, especially if you have no medical history, that you should be seeing me that often. Not say that you can come to me if you, you know, you have a cold or you know, get sick or I'm not saying that. But they were just coming just for like a regular checkup and you have no medical history. You're not taking medications. Right. I don't expect you to be seen more often then, you know, once or twice a year. Right. Maybe you might see him every six months just to kind of keep them in the loop, but you're not seeing them any more than that. So you have your male, right? Let's just, we'll call the male Berry. Right? So Berry, you know, finally mustered up the courage and he makes the doctor's appointment, right? And I talked about this before. A lot of times what pushes Berry to making a doctor's appointment is they have a person like Maria screaming in their ear saying, hey, you need to go see the doctor and they finally do it. Or there's something, some sexual dysfunction issues going on. And Berry's frustrated and he's like, no, I gotta go see a doctor. I got to take care of this. Right? I've seen a commercial, I can take a blue pill and I'm good. I need someone to prescribe a blue pill. So those are usually the top two reasons why, you know, men tend to go to the doctor's office, at least in my experience. So you know, you're able to get buried to come to the doctor's office and you know, he's in a waiting room and you know, he finally get stay room and now he's ready. So usually what tends to occur, especially in your annual wellness exam is. Your doctor usually does a head to toe approach, right? In terms of how am I going to assess this person, how am I going to see what's going on? So usually, obviously from head, we start. I always like to check for vision issues, right? As men, because we're so machismo with it, right? Like wearing glasses is like this taboo thing that a lot of us don't like to do unless we absolutely have to do it. And for the most part there's a lot of diseases that are kind of manifesting with vision issues. So a lot of times when you're thinking, we're just asking about your vision and vision history is because we want to make sure that it may not be contributing and contributed to from another disease like high blood pressure or diabetes, which is very common. So we tend to ask for a vision issues. We want to make sure your eyes are checked. If you wear glasses, you want to make sure he got that done. And we want to make sure you're eating well. And again, the eating well is goes along with the bowel habits because we know the older you get, the more likely you are to have these issues with bowel and bowel dysfunction. And if you're one of my 50 year old gentlemen, right, or 45, depending on your race, right? Uh, and really just kind of varies but just kinda in general, you know, its colonoscopy time, right? And again, it's one of those times where we want to make sure the plumbing is working all the way through and through. Because one of the top 10 leading causes of death for men is cancer, right? So colon cancer is something in screen, when you hit that age because it is something that we should be preventing as long as you get a regular checkup. So a colon cancer is a big one, right? So again, I know I skipped down, but like, so we're checked the vision, now we're checking the heart, right? And the heart exam. Not only goals or just you know, just for listening, but you know, we're checking the blood pressure, we're checking your heart rate. Usually when you came in, right? We want to make sure that you don't have this underlying problem that could lead to disastrous effects that rock. Like I tell people all the time, blood pressure is one of those things that your body can deal with and deal with it a lot until it can't. And once it can't, now we're talking about stroke. Now we're talking about heart attack. Now we’re talking about disease in the feet, right? Like you can't feel and you're foot, right? That’s what happens when your blood pressure becomes such a problem that your body says all right, yeah I'm done. And so making sure that your blood pressure's fine, right? Because again, blood pressure is one of those things that you don't really feel symptoms from low blood pressure, especially when it's high, until it's a problem, right? If you're at the point when you're starting to feel symptoms because of blood pressures on the high side, you need to go see your doctor immediately, right? If you're listening to this and you know when your blood pressure is high, like you can feel it. That means I need to go to the doctor because you should not be feeling it. And if you're at the point where you're feeling when your blood pressure's high, that is a problem. So for heart, we're talking about blood pressure, we're talking about a heart rate. I kind of move actually for men, right? And not important for women. Is that the prostate exam? And this is something that I think personally scares men a lot, not only from doing regular checkups, but because of the prostate exam and the digital administration of the endoscopic scope. I think a lot of men dish, you know, shy away from that whatsoever. And it's funny because I've had men who meet the criteria who meet the age. And I said, okay, all right, let me, uh, let me check your prostate, see how that's doing. And they get stage fright, right? Hey, it's so, it's such a terrifying thing for them, right? It's very weird. I in that instance, right. Especially when you know cancer's a leading cause of death, right? All we have to do is this, there's physical exam tests that we do in our office. And of course it was sometimes was hanging out with blood work, right? But in our office, and you still refuse, you know? Yeah. I'm kind of weary of your decision making. So that's definitely something to think about, especially when we're doing about the abdominal pelvic exam is in the men at certain ages need to be checked for prostate, right. In large prostates. Now I've always said this a lot, that a patient will always tell you what's going on before you have to do any tests, right? So most of your patients, if they're going to talk about, you know, in large prostate, they're going to tell you urinary symptoms, complaints, they're gonna punch in that direction. That still doesn't mean you're not supposed to check but they will kind of point you in that direction to make sure you're going in the right way. So talked about the eyes, we talked about the mouth, we talked about the heart, talk about the abdomen, the lungs as well. Lungs is a big one. I know a lot of you may have seen these COPD commercials. Again, COPD top 10 leading causes of death for men. And you may have seen COPD commercials where this random person is sitting by a lake and because of the COPD medication, now they can breathe again and they can go outside again. And that's all great and dandy, but they don't tell you that usually the patient has COPD because they were a smoker and they were smoking for five years, 10 years, 20 years or they always kind of skip that part, right? That's always tell my patients like you can't skip the fact that this person was smoking for 20 years. Right? So it's not surprising that they're going to have some lung issues. So making sure that your lungs are working well, make sure you're not getting shorter breath easy. That is something you want to be very forthcoming with your physician. And for men, I could tell you what tends to happen with men is that we're so secretive, right, that we're so secretive to our family members, to our friends. So that's why we don't go to the doctor in the first place. But you would think once they get to the doctor's office, this, the veil of secrecy would leave? Nope. A lot of them are secret to the end. Like this to the point where you almost have to call them out like, hey, you know what? Maria sent me over here and said you were having issues with your bowels, but yours ain't they're not. Which is true, right? More often than not. If a person, if a male is sent over to the doctor's office by a female relative, a spouse, someone who says like you need to go to the doctor's office, a lot of times they'll, they'll be in the room with you and not because you know, they don't trust you. It's because they don't trust that their partner is actually going to tell them all of the problems. And that happens with men a lot. We tried to internalize everything and you know, try not to seek help and you know, that's where problems definitely will arise because of it. So I think, so we've talked about heart, we talked about lung, I talked about abdominal pelvis. We talked about the eyes making sure eyes are check as well too. And we had Dr. Candrice who talked about skin cancer, a couple of shows back. So again, the importance of, making sure there's no weird moles or rash or anything that your, your family members kind of played off. We don't want that. So making sure, and again, your skin exams, your regular physician can definitely take care of that while they got you here and kind of move. And if you need something else then see to the dermatologist. So skin exams, definitely an important one as well. And I think last but not the least, is it comes some of the blood testing. So what actually gets tested when we go to get our physical exam? So I could tell you this from a slew of tests, right? We don't have to mention the names because the names that are really important is what they're looking for. Some of our testing, right? We'll look for signs of inflammation, we'll look signs for infection. Some of our tests within that will check to see how stable is the person's blood count is? And blood count is a very important a number to think about because if you have this patient who's coming in and they're giving you symptoms concerning that, they may be bleeding somewhere. You want to make sure that blood count is good. And stable. So blood count is definitely something that thinks about. And then we check for your electrolytes. We check for potassium and we check for sodium, we check calcium, chloride. We check for all of these different things here because we want to make sure your electrolyte nutritional status is adequate because if not we have to take care of it. And we'd take a look at the kidneys. Kidneys are important. You'll notice when I stop and mentioned the disease is because it probably hits the top 10 diseases that killed men every year. And kidney disease is definitely in that ball park, right? So kidney disease, and again, this is a routine test. Again, I know my patient Berry's not going to come for another year, so I got to make sure I get all of these tests done while I got him here. So again, we're checking for kidney function, we're checking for electrolytes, we're checking to make sure your blood counts stable, we're checking to make sure you know the signs of inflammation or infection. And then, moving all, we check for the big gun right? We talk about cholesterol. Cholesterol is a big one for us, right? So we want to check your cholesterol, make sure your cholesterol was doing well. And we had previous episodes where we talked about the thoughts of cholesterol and good and bad, and what medications to take. We're not going to do this here. Moving forward, we checking for your diabetes? Diabetes is one of those things. It's one of those, and I wrote a blog post about this. It's a disease I probably not wish would not wish on my enemy, right? Because there's not a system that's not affected by diabetes. And I think what's happening, it's probably our fault, is that when we talk about diabetes, especially in the General Public Forum, a lot of people focus on the sugar aspect. Like, oh yes, my sugar is high, but they don't realize for us, right? When we hear your sugar's high, I hear, wow, you have concerns that you're going to have some vascular damage, right? Because diabetes is an extremely fast schuller disease, right? It affects the heart. It affects the legs, it affects obviously our kidneys, brain too. So every system that can be fed through the blood system, right, which is everything diabetes can effect, especially when it's uncontrolled. So we're checking for that. So again remember and the test that we run lets me know how well you did in the past three months. So not one of these things where I have to be concerned that this like oh maybe a little bit false or you just had some cheeseburger the next day. Like that's not going to necessarily change this testing here and may adjust your cholesterol testing but it's not going to change that you're testing for your diabetes or how severe your diabetes is. I will sometimes check for thyroid as well cause I want to make sure, and again I'm, I'm kind of foreshadowing get right cause I want to make sure all of your hormones are regulated correctly cause we've already seen that when your hormones are not regulated correctly. Because thyroid is out of whack, it doesn't matter if your hormones get back into that normal rhythm. Your thyroid has to be a normal rhythm as well. So thyroid hormones, a big one as well that we checked quite often. We've checked the urinalysis. Your urinalysis is a big one. And it's big one because it's cheap, but it tells us so much information, right? Urinalysis can tell me if you had blood in your urine, right? You're now tell me if you have an infection. Urinalysis can tell me if you have a stone in your kidney. So all of these different things that your urinalysis does a great job and educating us on, and it's a cheap test as a quick test. Definitely, something that I always like to glean information from. Last but not least, and this is the big one, right? Testosterone levels. Because I know, especially for my men, someone's gonna want to know about testosterone, right? They're gonna want to know about, you know, artificial mutation of testosterone when needed. So a testosterone levels. And usually, it's not, it doesn't come with the annual wellness exam. But if you're giving me complaints and concerns that sexual health may be affected. I'm going to do something about it, right? So I will check a testosterone level just to make sure all your hormones are kind of in line. So that's really the big crux of the annual exam for my men and I really try to kinda hit home all of the big take-home parts to really to let you know that it's not a difficult thing to do. It's not a test you need to be scared of. And I think knowing the answer, right? Because I think a lot of times when we talk about disease processes, some people just don't want to know the answer. But when it comes to, you know, taking care of your health and taking care of your wellness, you have to know what the answer is, right? Because we have no choice because it's killing us, right? And I hate to be doom and gloom, but I really want to stress the point, especially when you have this month of June and you know, everyone's hype about men's health month, but I know what's next month comes around, people ain't going to be at hype anymore. So I want to like make sure I'm shouting it from the rooftops, the importance of getting our stuff together men. So again, I want to thank everyone for listening with me - Dr. Berry. We’re back with a solo episode like I missed you guys. But again, I want to thank you guys for all your support, has been absolutely phenomenal in this past season, this season, right? Season three that we're in as far as the support and effort and people downloading and people leaving five-star reviews. You now had a chance leave that five-star review for me and you guys have a great and blessed day. I'm going to see you guys next week and next week we do have a special guest, right? So you don't have to worry about hearing my voice again solo. Next week we do have a special guest. Because like I said, we like special guests. You guys have a great and blessed day.   Download the MP3 Audio file, listen to the episode however you like.

Dr. Lara Lengel is a professor of communication at BGSU whose research focuses on international communication and gender in communication. She discusses her research on “Community Organizations’ Role in combating Sex Trafficking,” which she developed in Fall 2018 while an ICS Faculty Fellow. Specifically, Dr. Lengel focused on how Costa Rica has changed its laws around sex work, and the effects of that change on women, religious organizations, and human trafficking in the Americas. Transcript: Jolie Sheffer:                          Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, an associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Today I'm talking to Dr. Lara Martin Lengel, professor of communication here at BGSU. Dr. Lengel received her PhD in mass communication from Ohio University, and her research focuses on international communication and how communication can advance social, economic, and environmental justice, especially pertaining to gender and identity in a transnational context. Jolie Sheffer:                          Some of her published work includes a study on memory around wartime sexual violence, and the use of social media for social change in the Middle East and North Africa. Dr. Lengel is an ICS faculty fellow in fall 2018. The ICS fellowship program allows full time faculty to take a full semester off from their research and service obligations to dedicate their attention to an interdisciplinary humanities topic of their choosing. At the end of the semester, fellows present their work publicly and hold a community engagement event that brings their knowledge to the wider community and in turn reinvigorates their academic research. Jolie Sheffer:                          Dr. Lengel is here today to discuss the work she's performed during her semester long fellowship. While taking part in the fellowship, she studied the fraught relationship in Costa Rica between faith based organizations, FBOs, their efforts to abolish sex work and human trafficking and the government of Costa Rica's efforts to decriminalize sex work. I'm very pleased to welcome Dr. Lengel to the program as the second ICS faculty fellow speaking in our 2018-2019 speaker series. Thank you for joining me, Lara. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Thank you Jolie. Jolie Sheffer:                          It's so great to have you here, and I wonder if you could just start us off by talking about how you first began working on the subject of sex work and human trafficking in Costa Rica in particular. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Thank you. It goes way back actually to my PhD research in North Africa. I had a Fulbright grant to spend a year in Tunisia, which is a small North African country on the Mediterranean, to look at the role of women in professional contexts, most notably music, in the country. I was very surprised to learn from numerous respondents that there is still a mythical connection between public performers of music, even serious music, classically trained in the Western music tradition and so forth, to prostitution. Because of that, many of the respondents who I came to know during that year, their parents, their brothers, their sisters, or their husbands, did not want them to be in a really respected organization, which is called El Azifet, which is the first all women's orchestra in the Arab world. This tremendous organization actually was missing key voices and instrumentations from women who were just not allowed to be in the organization. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    I found this really perplexing, because there was absolutely no evidence that there was any contemporary connection between any woman getting on a public stage to sing or play the oud or the violin or piano would have any connection to sex trades at all. I learned through historical research that there may have been a connection with colonial infiltration from the French establishing pubs where women would do belly dancing and so forth, but that was completely different, and literally that doesn't exist today anyways. That was 1993-1994, so this idea of women in the public sphere more broadly as problematic bodies in space was something that has been essentially on, you know, in the backstage, if you will. But, it wasn't until first traveling to Costa Rica first in 2011 and then subsequently thereafter that I learned a very different context of women's bodies in public spaces in a very unique decriminalized sex work model in that country. Jolie Sheffer:                          When did Costa Rica decriminalize sex work? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    The law is based on Roman law, which is something I know very little about, I'm trying to learn more about it, that there is no codified law that says sex work is either legal or illegal, and thus it's not illegal, meaning it's not necessarily legal. However, what is illegal is what's commonly known as pimping, procuring people to work for the pimps, the controllers, financial gain, and also prostitution gangs are illegal and brothels are illegal. What I appreciate about this decriminalized, not illegal, model of sex work is that sex workers can choose to do this work in a relatively regulated and relatively safe environment. There was an important piece of legislation turned into law in 2013 at the Costa Rica national level where sex tourism promotion and other nuances of the broader sex trade was established as illegal under a human trafficking law of 2013. Jolie Sheffer:                          How do you see this project, and perhaps your work more broadly using interdisciplinary methods? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    It's interdisciplinary to an almost overwhelming standpoint because I started out this project as a feminist scholar, primarily in cultural studies and media studies, but have realized that I need so much more knowledge from legal studies, from political science, from the whole broad domain of human trafficking is very new to me. Urban planning, I mean, all of these nuances of disciplinary studies that are entirely new to me. My work has primarily focused on women in the Arab Islamic world, in the Middle East and North Africa, most notably North Africa, and also identity construction and safety and security and wellbeing of Muslim Americans and Arab Americans and issues of Islamophobia in the media and in interpersonal interactions and so forth. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    So, taking on human trafficking in an entirely different national and arguably transnational context, because what I focus on is men primarily coming from North America to Costa Rica, so there is a transnational component. The tourism industry, which is a whole other discipline, critical tourism studies touches upon this and so forth. The short answer is yes, very much so. It's been fantastic for me to learn about all of these different disciplines and the research strategies inherent in them, and the ways that different modes of thought, different experiences and different academic disciplines can come together in a really profound way. Jolie Sheffer:                          One of the issues that your work explorers are the overlapping but distinct terrain between consensual sex work and human trafficking. Could you sort of define those terms and explain their similarities and differences? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Absolutely. Human trafficking has several official legal definitions. The United Nations first put forth a definition of human trafficking in the year 2000. The United States government established the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, also in the year 2000, amended in 2015 with the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. So for instance, and the definitions are quite similar, but I'll give you the one from the US Department of Justice. They define specifically sex trafficking as, "Recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of an individual through the means of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of commercial sex." Human trafficking is the same definition, but instead of for specifically the purpose of commercial sex, for the purpose of any labor that benefits financially the trafficker. Then, the question about ... Jolie Sheffer:                          Consensual sex work. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Consensual sex. Certainly, it involves the age of consent in the given jurisdiction. In a place like Costa Rica that's 18, elsewhere that might be slightly different, might be slightly younger. I tend to, you know, go with the age 18 as the age of consent. It would involve two or more adults age 18 and over engaging in an act that they choose to do that may or may not involve some transactional exchange, either money or its equivalent. Jolie Sheffer:                          What are the conditions in Costa Rica in particular that drive that country's industry for sex work and/or trafficking? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    With the rise of not only the opening of borders and the increase of attention to the tourism industry, just the general neoliberal capitalist push the past 20, 30 years have added to this as well. It is very much a balance, and I think the authorities understand that decriminalized sex work is what brings a lot of people and a lot of money into that country. Being a Catholic nation, they just don't want to talk about it. Jolie Sheffer:                          That's a really fascinating way of thinking about this research site for you, as perhaps offering indicators for countries like the US and what paths might be possible in the future. In touching on religion, another element of your research is the study of faith based organizations. Can you first explain what an FBO is, and what their goals looked like in Costa Rica for addressing both human trafficking and this increase in sex tourism? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Under the Bush administration, I believe it was the year 2000, there was a specific move to support financially nonprofit organizations that have faith as a mission or they're emerging from a particular religious organization, and so forth. It's been very problematic and contested because, for all kinds of reasons that I can go into further if you wish, but the fact that churches are not taxed, that adds to the contentiousness of this particular move to support faith based organizations. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    In in the US context, a faith based organization more often than not is constituted officially as an organization under IRS code 501C3, which is the broader code to designate a nonprofit organization. They are a subset of nonprofits, essentially. As I said, they may be directly affiliated with a church, they may not be, and because of that legislation or that recodification under tax code in the year 2000 under the Bush administration, they've had more leeway to get funding at the federal level as well as from individual and group donations and so forth. There's been quite a growth of FBOs since that year, so now we're going on about 20 years, nearly 20 years of a different funding structure for these organizations. Jolie Sheffer:                          How are they approaching the subject of sex work in Costa Rica? What are those organizations that you're looking at, how do they tend to respond to the decriminalization that's happening there? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    It's challenging for me to respond to this question because, in many ways, the FBOs that I've come to know and have interacted with are doing really important work. One in particular that I've written about and talked about has set up afterschool programs for at risk youth, in particularly impoverished areas in Puntarenas Province, which is fantastic. What I would invite them to consider doing is being a little more open to the fact that they could support women who continue to work in the sex trade. There seems to be a very clear, perhaps unstated, but a very clear effort to convert people from sex workers to post sex workers, rather than support people who are continuing to engage in sex work. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    This is even more the case, there's a fantastic scholar by the name of Megan Rivers-Moore, an anthropologist who has done amazing work, particularly in San Jose, the capital city of Costa Rica. One very recent article that she had published in Signs, the feminist journal, focused on her ethnographic work with a particular FBO in San Jose that would just not help current sex workers at all. Her research in San Jose confirms that that's pretty much the case across these faith based organizations in San Jose. I don't yet have definitive evidence because I haven't met with every single FBO in Puntarenas Province which is my particular site, but from the field work I've done thus far, that seems to be consistent. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Another thing that I find interesting is that most of these organizations, even though they are operating in a predominantly Catholic country, are not Catholic organizations. They tend to be, although they're quiet about their organizational affiliations, they would be commonly constituted as evangelical, and that, I would assume when you were mentioning the fraught relationships with FBOs, the national government, local government, and sex workers themselves, that that is part of the fraught relationship. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    There's a lot of God talk in their mission, and as a person raised Roman Catholic, I don't reject that entirely, but I can see why the one FBO that I've had most interaction with, they actually say publicly on their site that they tend to not have as much interaction with sex workers as they would like. Well, they're probably turned off to the way that they're stating their mission and going about their work. Again it's fraught, it's sensitive, and as a researcher I don't feel it's my place to go in and give some advice. If it's asked for it, I will certainly give it. But, I think their way of communicating their religious identity hurts their purpose. Jolie Sheffer:                          Well, and that really also speaks to what you're talking about with tourism as well as the FBOs are also kind of North American organizations coming into another nation with ideas about how things ought to be done. Then, for the most part going back, many of them sort of there for short times to do volunteer work of some kind and then go back home to North America. I imagine that creates certain tensions between local people, whether it's local elected officials or local women engaged in this kind of sex work that that may feel like outside interference. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Absolutely, and that's not just the case in a place in what's known broadly as the global South like Costa Rica. But, it's also the case here in the US. There are numerous sex workers who are highly critical of what they call the kind of do-gooders. Right? People who have very good intentions, but do not have a fundamental understanding of the socioeconomic and cultural context in which sex workers operate, the marginalization that they have experienced that has either occurred since they've chosen this work or what led them to this type of work and so forth. That's absolutely the case. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    It's hard for me to be a white, essentially middle class feminist and critique white middle class feminists. I do have, I would humbly suggest, more lived experience understanding financial insecurity than perhaps many middle class feminists and activists and advocates who are doing this type of work. But, that certainly, as you said, increases the tensions between sex workers, those persons who can be most helped by support, and the people who have a vision for how they want the world to be. Right? The vision is not bad. Right? Much of the goal of faith-based advocates in trying to mitigate trafficking, either sex trafficking, human trafficking more broadly, or sex work even in a decriminalized consensual domain is that they're upset about demand. Right? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    The one FBO that I've touched upon during this discussion, the founder was inspired to create the organization after overhearing a conversation with two men talking about who they were going to do, right, once they got to Jaco, this particular beach town, and she was unsettled by that. I understand that. I'm unsettled by these conversations as well, but I don't think trying to end demand is feasible. Whereas, someone like that person thinks it's possible. It's a wonderful goal, but I don't see that as possible. Jolie Sheffer:                          One of the issues clearly is about differing attitudes about what the effect of decriminalization of sex work is. Right? On one side, you have those who argue that all sex work is in some way non-consensual and therefore is part and parcel of human trafficking. Could you sort of explain a little more about that position, and you know, what are its potential merits, and then the ways in which you might or might not agree with that? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    I would like to quote, not directly because I don't remember it word for word, but a very profound response to a similar question posed to a sex worker in London. The question also focused on, how can you participate in an industry that is notoriously patriarchal and capitalist. Her response was, what work is not a part of patriarchal capitalism? I thought that was really actually quite brilliant, because there are so many professions, careers, jobs, labor that are socially and culturally sanctioned. Sex work is absolutely not, but we're all operating in problematic systems. Maybe there are some careers that fall on the outskirts of that, and I honor those people who have found those careers, and even a fantastic life as is the case of what we do as professors, there's still constraints. I think that's the best way that I can respond to that question, is to actually, you know, amplify the voices of current sex workers on that topic. Jolie Sheffer:                          You quoted the statistic that 70% of the world's poor are women. Part of what you're talking about are throughout much of the world, women are impoverished, they lack education and resources. And so, sex work is often one of the few areas to earn money without resources, training, things like that. That seems to be part of what your argument and what those who seek decriminalization believe is, make it safer rather than driving this stuff further underground. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    One small aspect but one fundamentally important aspect is the flexibility of deciding when you work. Right? As a former single mother, I can tell you, you know, how challenging that can be. I was very, very fortunate to have a profession that would allow me to take my child to a pediatrician or to stay home with an extended case of mono or strep. Think about the number of women in this country and elsewhere that would quickly be fired from their job for caring for a child. It's absolutely awful, and especially in a place like the United States. I had my children in the United Kingdom where there's far more support overall for parents to care for their children in a time of need than there is here in these right to work states and employment at will context. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    That's one way that perhaps white middle class women can look at sex work in a new perspective. It would be important for them, I would argue, to think about their own histories. If they were ever under threat of losing not only their job but their home, their livelihood because they had a sick child. I would guess most have not. I don't want to apologize for being critical of some of the people who are at the forefront of this type of work. As I said, it's good work, but I think having a much more nuanced perspective of financial insecurity would be really welcome for the people doing this type of work. Jolie Sheffer:                          Again, that speaks to your ongoing commitment to listening to the voices of marginalized peoples; economically, socially, and other ways rather than presuming to speak for them. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    There's a very profound statement that I hear more and more frequently in peaceful public protests, etc, and policy debates, "Nothing about us without us." Put the people most effected at the table to help forge new debates, new dialogues, new perspectives, and ideally, policy and law that can help people who are most disenfranchised. Jolie Sheffer:                          Right. We've talked a lot about consensual sex work. I want to shift gears now and talk about, what are the issues that drive human trafficking both locally here in Toledo and internationally? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Okay, thanks. At the heart is economic injustice and patriarchal capitalism. If a person who chooses, who makes this horrible choice to be a trafficker can acquire, can coerce, can fraud a person into their domain to the tune of on average globally $90 and we can talk about how that money is spent, et cetera. You don't necessarily buy a slave in the 21st century as one dude in the 19th, which actually costs quite a bit more, if you correct for the inflation, cost inflation over the past 200-some years. Whatever the case, 90 bucks to own an enslaved human being. Profits vary greatly depending on national, local, regional context. But in the US, for instance, a sex trafficker can make on average between $10-15,000 per month per enslaved person. The factor is money. Right? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Human trafficking, and in particular sex trafficking, is the most profitable industry, be it an illicit industry, it is the most profitable industry in the world next to drug trafficking. That's the factor. It's money. What's interesting about human trafficking, trafficking in persons currently being the second most profitable industry, I would unfortunately predict that that will easily transcend and take the number one spot, primarily because drugs are a finite commodity. You sell a drug, it's used. You sell more, right, but you still have to get more product. Whereas, a person can be sold many times a day, and hundreds of times a month, and thousands of times a year. It's awful, but it's profit, and that's what fuels this. Jolie Sheffer:                          What are some of the things that ordinary citizens can do to be more aware of who might be at risk of being trafficked in our own neighborhoods? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    There are strategies that I'm hoping to continue to develop and share in workshops with middle school and high school, even elementary school teachers. I have some planned in January in honor of human trafficking awareness month. Health practitioners are starting to be trained and starting to gain awareness about how to identify a person at risk. The estimations are as high as 80% of people who are trafficked have visited a health practitioner, either in an emergency room, urgent care, a nurse practitioner, et cetera. What kind of questions can those health practitioners ask to help identify someone at risk? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    It's very difficult because traffickers are experts in psychology and experts in threats, both explicit and veiled. Someone who's being trafficked will likely not admit to that on the first interaction with someone, say a teacher or a health practitioner. It takes time to develop trust and it takes the effort to understand how to communicate with someone who is experiencing trauma and whose lives and whose family's lives are under threat if they disclose that they are a trafficked, enslaved person. The understanding of how to communicate with others is important, but that takes some time. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    More doable at the outset strategies are to understand how to identify the victims from, you know, if one sees signs of bruises, which again that might be difficult in this winter when everyone's covered up. Eye contact, lack of eye contact may be evident. If a person, usually a young person is uncomfortable saying where they're from, where they live, where they might be going. If they seem to have very few possessions. If they have no identification on their person, no money on their person. I think it's important to connect this question with studies of traumatology. Right? How can we identify a person who's currently or surviving post-trauma and try to understand what that looks like. They may be malnourished. They may just have a look of fear on their face and so forth. There are various ways, but it's very subtle. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    One of the things that I think is really important and I hope to be developing this in the upcoming year, is some type of peer to peer mentoring and identification of young people at risk. Because I'm 54, I'm old, I don't know who's talking to who on social media, et cetera. Even teachers will not necessarily be privy to that. However, if I'm a 12 year old girl and I sense that my friend or an acquaintance is expressing something of concern via social media, how can I report that to someone who can help that person? Jolie Sheffer:                          Well, that leads me to another question. I mean, I think we tend to have ideas in our minds about who the victims of trafficking are and it tends to often be someone from another country who might look different than us. But, really, thinking about trafficking being a worldwide phenomenon, it's happening here in our own community. Who are the typical victims of trafficking, if there is such a thing? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    I think one of the things from this entire project that has disturbed me the most is the notion of what is called boyfriending. Like, to boyfriend as a verb. I had never heard this even, you know, just before a few months ago. Traffickers will put specific types of recruiters in the field, and those fields may in fact be our backyard. They might be high school football games. They're certainly at malls at, at shopping malls, and that's very much the case in a place like Lucas County. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    I do want to take a moment to commend the Lucas County Human Trafficking Coalition and police officers, both Toledo police and also the FBI, who've actually done a really good job at identifying and convicting traffickers in the Toledo area. That primarily emerges because Toledo has ranked as high as third in the nation for a hub of human trafficking. Now, that was some time ago. These statistics are difficult to assess. It may be contentious, but the first time that there was a full study of recruitment and trafficking of human beings in the Toledo area, which was I believe 2006, it was ranked as third after places like Los Angeles, New York, et cetera. So, it raised a lot of attention, which is great. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Back to this recruitment idea of boyfriending. It would be, presumably, an attractive, most likely attractive young man in the age range of the targeted population, young girls, young women. They actually pretend to be their boyfriend and tell them beautiful things and make them feel good. Jolie Sheffer:                          To those young women, they believe it is their boyfriend. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Yeah, absolutely. Jolie Sheffer:                          They don't see it as pretense. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Right, because it happens over time, and it's not until that girl or that young woman or that woman is kind of snared into what they think is a proper relationship that the violence, either verbal, physical occurs, followed usually with immediate effect by putting them out into the sex trade against their will. What disturbs me the most about this is that, when I was saying a few moments ago that traffickers are really good at psychology, they prey on vulnerability. They can sense when a young person is not feeling great about themselves and that doesn't necessarily have to be in a face to face context. I mean, if somebody puts out on social media, "Oh, I'm not feeling very pretty today," or something, that's sending out messages for recruitment. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    I'm a person who has suffered with very severe depression since that age range, since around eight 12, 13. I think back to, you know, could I have been a victim? Could I have believed one of these boyfrienders? It's really horrifying. If anything, in a local context, that's what I'm most committed to trying to help raise awareness and do whatever I can to mitigate this. Jolie Sheffer:                          Because, basically what you're saying is, and in your work with local middle schools and high schools, is that really anyone could be a victim of human trafficking. Anyone who is young and feeling vulnerable, insecure. Right? Who isn't at that age? We all have a responsibility to sort of be on the alert and to try and intervene. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Absolutely, absolutely. It goes hand in hand with cyber bullying. It arguably goes very hand in hand with the opioid epidemic. There are so many intersecting phenomena that exacerbate this crisis. Jolie Sheffer:                          What kinds of advocacy are you seeing either locally or internationally in regard to human trafficking that seems promising to you? Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Well, just the example of Lily's Wings. The play co-written by Roxanne Schroeder-Arce, Dr. Jo Beth Gonzales, and in collaboration with their high school students. Using drama, theatrical, filmic, televisual drama to help raise awareness about something like human trafficking as well as all kinds of potential ills; climate change, et cetera, is a way to really reach out to people. Young people are not going to read the trafficking and persons report of the US Department of Justice, they're just not. But, they're going to pay attention to this play that they see of the case of one of the scenes of which is a boyfriending scene of a boyfriend who looks lovely and is saying all the right things, and then that one little moment changes where you see him grab the woman's arm and you get a sense, it's a very visceral sense of how this type of process works. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Certainly, creative practice; art, visual design, performance, art, theatrical performance, et cetera, is a fantastic way to enter people into a dialog who may not be a part of this dialogue. Certainly, efforts at middle school and high school levels across this country, and arguably across Western Europe as well and elsewhere, will help raise awareness for not only young people but their parents, their teachers. As I mentioned, these new efforts to help raise awareness with health care practitioners are great. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    And, to continue to have open discussions of with people who are at the forefront. Right? Again, not nothing about us without us. People who are survivors of trafficking as well as people who are currently engaged in the consensual sex trade. Because, one of the key problems is a conflation between human trafficking and consensual sex work. I think there are moral issues that problematize and create these mythical blurred boundaries between forced labor and consensual labor. I think, you know, and all of this is relatively new and most people hadn't even heard of the concept of contemporary or modern slavery as it is often called until a few years ago. So, great things are happening, much more needs to happen, and I'm honored to be a part of these efforts in any way. Jolie Sheffer:                          Thank you so much Lara. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Dr. Lara Lengel:                    Thank you so much, Jolie.

Health and Hair ft. Jessie Santiago and Cal Bigari ***DISCLAIMER: KB ONLY*** This podcast is a series of interviews with medical providers, mental health professionals, community members and advocates. Each interview represents the opinions of the individual. Individuals may use different terminology than what you’re used to. The intention is to educate not discriminate, and we welcome positive and constructive feedback. Please keep in mind; this is not a replacement for medical care or advice. I am simply presenting my views along with educational information that will be both evidence based research and external networks that have an impact on LGBTQI and nonbinary health care. Consult your provider for any medical or mental health concerns. My name is Kerin “KB” Berger and welcome to Queer MEDucation! ***INTRO MUSIC***  ***INTRO TO EPISODE: KB ONLY*** Welcome back to Queer MEDucation. Special thanks to our friends at Kaleidoscope Health. For LGBTQ and nonbinary folks, accessing healthcare presents a number of challenges. Knowing that your provider is a safe space can be a game changer. Show support for your LGBTQI and nonbinary patients and colleagues by wearing a Kaleidoscope Health pin on your white coat, daily attire or ID badge. Order pins at www.kaledioscopehealth.org Today’s episode focuses on the relationship between LGBTQI and nonbinary health and hair. Have you ever felt uncomfortable getting your hair cut? Have you ever walked into a barbershop and they didn’t know what to do with you? Was getting your haircut ever triggering? In this week’s episode we chat with the owners’ of Salon Benders’ about creating affirming spaces that encompass bravery. As a queer person, getting your hair cut is so much more than a hair cut. The physical and mental health outcomes are tremendous. Please enjoy. ***INTERVIEW: KB, JESSIE SANTIAGO, AND CAL BIGARI*** KB:                 I'm here with some friends from Salon Benders'. Why don't you introduce yourselves? CB:                  Hey, I'm Cal and my pronouns are he, him, his and I am co-founder of Salon Benders. JS:                   And I am Jessica Santiago and the other founder of Salon Benders. Pronouns she/her. KB:                 Well, thanks for being on the show today. Can you tell us a little bit about what Salon Benders is and what that means? JS:                   Yeah, so basically we are a space that is, I'm queer and trans competent and we do hair for everyone. Um, but we, we like to call ourselves a straight friendly place instead of the place. Um, so we basically, you know, try to keep up with all of the lingo and tried to keep up with all the, um, all of the stuff that you know is important. Um, yeah. And so, and also like trends and styles too. Like, um, having somebody come in here and say, this is my gender expression and I'm not quite like, um, I had someone yesterday, like, I'm not quite femme. I'm not quite masculine. I'm not quite, I'm kind of somewhere in between, but I want to look like this. And to be able to say that to someone and for them to not have any questions of like, well, what does that mean? Um, I think that that's really, that's really powerful. And that's kind of, you know, that's my end of Benders' and my responsibility is really like nailing people's image and helping them express themselves, um, and the way that feels really valuable or valid to them now. KB:                 That's awesome. CB:                  So, Jessie is the greatest hairstylist who has ever touched KB, CB, JS:    CB:                  She's amazing and, so good at what she doesn. Um, and when we started talking about the concept, um, it just was, was perfect because what she does is, is excellence. Um, and uh, and she is a gender been bender herself. She is very, she/her., but she is fierce She is loud. Um, she has all of the things that we tell women not to be. And I love it. And it's amazing. UMM. And so, so we came together and created, um, Salon Benders, which is a place of, of excellence for a community of excellence. Um, and it's a place where expression and love, uh, is really the heart of everything that we do. So JS:                   He might cry. CB:                  I probably will several times KB:                 Cry away, if I could give you a tissues I would CB:                  I'm loud and ugly crier. So that's a good thing is yes, KB:                 Next time on the pre checklist. I'll put tissue box please. CB:                  We do have tissues in the salon because I'm not the only one that cries. Okay. How many people have cried here to today? JS:                   Two. CB:                  Okay. Well actually if we can double that. KB:                 Probably happy tears. I would imagine. JS:                   Mostly happy tears and like some sometimes just like an overwhelming amount of gratitude just was like, oh my God, I can't believe I work here. KB:                 For sure. For sure. CB:                  It's a form of expression. So sometimes the expression comes through tears and giggles and yeah. You know? KB:                 Yeah. So how did you all come up with this concept of a queer friendly, trans friendly salon? Like what did you, why did you think it was important? Where did it come from? JS:                   Well, okay. It's kind of in story form. Um, so I worked at a hair salon. I worked in Manhattan Beach, California, which is kind of like, um, it's kind of, I should be very careful. It's conservative, it's a conservative town in my opinion. And um, and so I was, I was having conversations that were just not super valid to my experience of life and just like, you know what I called them like rich people problems, like, oh, I can't, I couldn't drive my Bentley today because it, so I'm driving my Range Rover, whatever. And I'm like, what? Like, and that kind of conversation was just starting to like really, really challenged me. So I would come home from work and would lay on the couch and be like, I can't do this anymore. I'm going to quit doing hair. Like I can't, I just can't do this anymore. And he would say to me often, like, you're, what you're doing is so important. Like you're doing, you're helping people with their image and all of these things. And I'm like, but am I like, is that a real thing? And it was kind of his idea. He was like, why don't you market yourself to more queer and trans folks instead of, you know, the folks that you have been working on. I think that you would like have more of a joyful experience. And I just kind of judged that. I was like, I don't think that that I can do that because I'm not trans and I, how can I possibly speak or help someone with a trans experience if I don't have one myself? And, uh, he's just like my biggest cheerleader ever. And he's like, well, you're good at what you do and you don't have to have a trans experience to give a really amazing haircut and to listen to how someone wants to be. How has someone, how the way somebody wants to express themselves, you know, you can listen to that and you can that. And I'm like, yeah, you're right, I can do that. And so it was really just the real conversation that he mentioned that we were like, okay, that's where it really started is that tiny little car. You remember that conversation? We had car. CB:                  I do. Yeah. And I, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't just like the Bentley conversations and whatnot. It was like fat shaming and body shaming and expression shaming that was really, you know, packaged up in that. And we started talking about expression and how, you know, she's got a huge background of, um, of meditation and wellness and spirituality in that sense. And that is what the essence of her hair practice is, is about expressing something beautiful that is inside and allowing it to be shown on the outside, whereas that wasn't, that wasn't really truly being captured or appreciated in her, um, in her realm. And I said, there's a community. KB:                 So I guess what's, what's your role in all this, Cal? Like where, how did you decide to come together with this vision, this inspiration, build what you're building now? CB:                  Like Jesse said, seeing an amazing resource and, um, and the capacity to serve a community that is really underserved and my own experience as a, as a trans masculine person. So I was raised and identified female for a very long time. Um, and then once I started my transition and started growing a beard and grooming myself, I didn't know how to navigate. I was terrified of barbershops, like barbershops really affirmed my gender identity, but it was also horrifying to me because there was so much gender performance that was happening there and there was so much masculinity and I didn't yet, um, I wasn't taught that, you know, I wasn't taught how to groom my beard and I wasn't taught the social cues of like, I was still trying to talk to people in the men's bathroom and they're like, no, no, no, you don't talk to anyone. That is totally against the rules here. So going into a place that was like totally male dominated, like I learned, I learned, okay, don't, don't speak, say as few words as possible. I also had a high voice and a different growth pattern of my facial hair that I was afraid of being clocked. So I have, um, you know, a lot of fear about being in this space and, um, and just saw a huge opportunity. KB:                 What, what is gender performing? Can you, I don't think I've ever heard that term before. You used it in the context of the barbershop. CB:                  Uh, gender performance. I don't know if I'll do it justice, but I'll communicated as I know it. Um, we're all constantly performing gender in some way or another as been told. Um, don't do that. That's not ladylike. You're, you've been cued that you're not performing gender "properly". Right. Um, so I think as a, as a trans person, gender performance feels like something that has to be taught, um, are for me as a trans person, I had to relearn my gender performance because I was taught to perform in a certain way, sit with your legs, cross, don't speak too loud, don't eat so messy. Um, a lot of things about like taking up space that women are not supposed to do. Um, so I had to learn a different, a different way to, um, to be perceived as male in my community. And I still don't perform gender, um, properly, if you will. And so I'm generally perceive as a gay man. Um, and then they're really confused when I have this beautiful feminine partner. Um, they're like, wait, but I thought you were a homosexual. I'm like, CB:                  It's like the best part. It's so fun. JS:                   I think your boyfriend is gay. Yeah. So what if he is. CB:                  Because they're reading my gender performance as feminine. JS:                   Right. CB:                  Um, I'm perceived as gay, we clack feminine with gay and it's just all fun to play with and in my perspective too. So, um, I don't know. Did that answer your question? KB:                 Totally! I mean, I guess so. So then your personal experiences, your communication with Jessie, you had this conversation and then you then what? I mean you just decided to, okay, we're going to quit our jobs and, and when did you really decide to kind of go for it? JS:                   Yeah, what you just said was like, I mean, it really is a decision. Like we, um, we decided, uh, in February (2018) we decided in February that we were going to do, this was the right after my birthday. And he was like, let's just do it. And I was like, okay, first things first we got to find a space. So from February to April, we searched for a space and that was our very first thing that we did. Um, we just kind of like roll the ball and started looking at rental spaces, commercial spaces. Neither of us had ever owned a business. We had no clue, what Everyone:        JS:                   We still have no clue what we're doing. We're like, how is this still open today? So they just decided, um, to start to and I was just like, let's just go step by step. Like we have a space. Then the next thing we do is decorate it or build it out. And the next thing we do is, you know, um, uh, business licenses and cosmetology licenses and all of these other things and like, so step by step it, I like in this thing to having a child. Nobody was given a manual. Nope. Even if you study child psychology or you studied early childhood development when you were a kid, like all bets are off, right? The heck you're doing. And I think it's the same as owning a business. Like you can study business all day long. I've been cutting hair for 17 years. I know how to do that. But like even if you, you study business, you still will need to know, like, you still have no idea what you're getting ready to get into. So we just decided and we let it teach us. And we're still kind of letting it teach us. KB:                 The concept of your space and what you were looking for, and you know, was it just any old place or was it a symbolic? I feel like that's a huge decision to make and you have to almost have a very specific vision for, for what's, to build a space like what you're building. CB:                  Oh my God, I love this things that we're in. The coolest thing, well let's say it was really important for both of us, um, to have a community driven space, a space that felt comfortable for people to just chill at, a place for people to not have to gender perform necessarily, um, or to perform in whatever way they wanted to. So, um, and just feel really comfortable in their expression. So we wanted a place that felt really ooey gooey and really nice and comfy. Um, and we found this space and that's a whole other story. But this, this space is a, we call it the teapot because it has a giant teapot on top JS:                   It's a hundred year old building. CB:                  Yup. It has a crazy rich history and it has been through its own transformation, um, many, many transformations. But essentially it was going to be ripped down. Um, the city had deemed it a public nuisance. There was, um, a whole bunch of folks, um, making their home in here, um, JS:                   AKA squatting. CB:                  Yup, they were squatting. Um, yeah, so they were, they were going to knock it down and our landlords actually purchased the building and um, and with the historic committee renovated it back up to its original. Um, it's whole original, beautiful, like in its best self. And that just was so perfect for us because, um, because of what that means for, for the Queer and Trans specifically community is like, we see that the Trans Community and the, I'm giving this really big overarching umbrella and we know there's a lot of like variation within this, but a lot of oftentimes the trans community is this kind of forgotten community that is not given the power, um, or recognition that it actually has. Right. And that's what happened to this space was no one was paying attention to it and no one was tending to it and no one was telling it. It was beautiful and powerful and amazing. And so it looked like trash. You know, it was, it was really falling apart and it wasn't in its power. Um, and of course it has these beautiful bones. It has this immense power and all it needed was, was folks to come and, and say, we see you, we got you, and we're going to help you build up. And there's a really beautiful power parallel there. Um, I think when this community is really honored for the power that it has, we believe that the capacity that we have to change the world and make the world a better place is UNfreaking believable. Like it's just an unreal, just like this space, what it's turned into. KB:                 I love that comparison, that, that transformation idea of the physical space, the physical person and all the, you know, the bones need, needs some tender loving care. But ultimately with some TLC can see how beautiful it can fall becoming. Yeah. I love, I love that comparison. That's awesome. JS:                   It's kind of perfect. That this is our, I mean like I see this, this space as our first space. Like I actually like Salon Bendors and needed this to be its first space because of all of the symbolism and all of their amazing ooey gooey energy that's in here. Um, and if we don't happen to keep this space, we know that, that we want to bring that energy with us in our next place. And if we open up to Benders or three Benders or however many, we still want to keep kind of like that, that, um, unique feel to the space. So even if it's like, you know, a new modern place or something like that, but keeping some kind of like really unique vibe to it because this is such a unique concept, you know? KB:                 Definitely. JS:                   Our building has to also kind of reflect that a little bit wherever we are. KB:                 Yeah. And I think it probably always will, whether it's modern or historic or contemporary it, you know, it's all about what's on the inside really. So I love the, and CB:                  I want to say one other thing that's on the inside that is really freaking awesome is beautiful, beautiful wood, um, hand crafted built by queer women. JS:                   Basically everything in here was, uh, created, built, made, um, sewn together. Like literally I designed every single thing in here. Um, was, was made by Queers and Trans folks, space for whole, we gave work to, to our own community and we searched high and low for them. KB:                 Yeah. Was that a hard thing to find? JS:                   No. Yeah. I mean it was, it at first it was, I was like, what, how am I going to find the like a wood worker or contractor? I mean how am I going to find all of these people in our community? And it just took literally asking like I had never really asked my community for anything and said like, Hey, I need this. And as soon as I did, people started showing up. So I thought it was going to be harder than it actually was. Okay. KB:                 Interesting because we think of like social media as the ultimate outlet of finding things and Google and all that stuff. But it's, it sounds to me like something that's unique about the queer community is the word of mouth and the smallness of it in a way where, you know, I know my personal experience of starting this podcast and this idea, anybody that I asked to be part of it is excited and they're excited because when you talk about it, you, you feel something different that maybe you know, a non queer person may not understand or feel. And that's the beautiful part about the community aspect. JS:                   Totally. Yeah, we have an amazing community with some amazing, amazing people inside of it. And like we have to, we have to build each other up KB:                 For sure. JS:                   And bring that brilliance out. And it's, it's the same thing that we're doing with hair. You feel like, oh you come in here and you feel like your hair's fine. Great. Let me, let me hook you up. KB:                 Yeah, totally. How you do think hair and health kind of go together and, and what that means maybe for you personally or maybe for some of your clients? JS:                   My Gosh, I just got goosebumps. I feel like this question is so loaded. KB:                 It's super loaded. Like I feel my own experience, you know, you know, asking that question. So I'd love to hear you know, you as the doers. JS:                   What a brilliant question. Thank you for that. Um, yeah, so I think there's two, there's two elements to this for, for me. Um, the way that I think that hair and health kind of come together is, is physically so I can actually physically feel in someone's hair if there is some health stuff happening, I can't diagnose anything. But after 17 years of doing hair, you kind of, you can kind of gather like, oh, this person could be in poor health for whatever reason. I don't know, but you can, you can tell these things. And then there's, there's emotional and mental health around that too. Um, and I mean I have a million stories that I can tell that kind of will sum this up. But really it's all about like you have to really look at the history of hair to really understand this. Every other culture, I mean every other culture besides American culture has some kind of depth to their hair. They have some kind of cultural like ritual or something around their hair. Like if they're unhealthy, they shaved their head and they, they cleanse themselves completely from the inside out and they're like, when my hair grows back and it is down to my hip, so we be healthy, again, like there's like all of these, these different, these different kind of like cultural things that other countries do. And Americans just use their hair like, uh, this, you know, superficial best assessory or KB:                 Right, almost like a luxury if you're going to a certain location, especially living in Los Angeles, you know, to get a trim costs sometimes $150 and it could barrier almost people JS:                   Exactly. When I think that we'd make it a little bit more accessible. Your hairstyle is, can actually provide you with some insight that you, you know, that you, you might need. Like I, I could, you know, today I was doing someone's hair and I was like, are you eating enough protein? And she's like, you know what? I stopped eating meat a long time ago and I've been feeling really lethargic and I could feel it in her hair. It was like I had done her hair before and it wasn't that brittle. It wasn't that dry. And this time around I was like, hmm. You know, and, and just that little tiny insight, I don't know, like I have no idea what's going on, but I just asked a question, you know, about her protein because our hair is made of protein. So if it's drying brittle, there could be some protein things happen in your body. And it just so happens she's like, you know what? That was what I needed to hear because I thought it was, I was, you know, bringing in enough protein, I don't want to have animal protein, but now I know I can up my dosage a little bit, you know, whatever. For my protein shake and just like, so I think there's so many ways that hair and health come together. Like I said, physically, emotionally and spiritually even and all of the things I think that like doing hair is, is so beneficial for my health and for others. Yeah. I don't know, that was not a rant. Everyone:        KB:                 The best rant. CB:                  I almost, I feel like I just heard a couple of stories that I feel it would be really amazing to share just talking about like we're queer hair and, and mental health and what some of those like cuts and things JS:                   I did, I did a haircut yesterday that it was just, I can't stop thinking about it still right now. And um, so this person comes in and she has very long hair and it's, she's, she's sits down in my chair and she just goes to cut my hair off. I mean like cut my hair off. And I was like, okay, well do you have a picture? Shows me like literally a pixie cut, like going from hair down to her hips to like the shortest hair and like right then and there, that is my first indicator of what's going on, you know, like what's happening. Why? So I sat with her for 45 minutes before her haircut and had a full on therapy session with her to see where she was and where she wanted to be like. And basically the whole thing was I have been under this hair because I have been afraid that I wasn't going to get the job that I needed and wanted. My security was literally going to be, um, I was going to have, I was not going to be able to eat if I had short hair. This is literally how her brain was going together. I needed it. This, I need this job so I'm going to grow my hair out and seem femme because I'm around people that do not like women with short hair. And she had been living like this for so long, so long and she was like, but my insides feel more masculine, although I identify as female. But my image just does isn't matching up. So it was a three hour haircut by the way. Three and a half hour haircut. And we cried many, many, many times. And we laughed. And it was like when she left, it was, I mean I just went home and just like floated KB:                 Spiritual. JS:                   Yeah, it really, it really was. And she left and she was like, she hugged me like a hundred times and was like, I love my hair. And almost like I don't give it a crap if I go to work tomorrow and nobody likes my hair because I am back, I'm back. You can see it and feel it. And I mean like, and, and honestly, this is one of so many stories, but now what was one of the fresh ones? JS, CB:            So good. So good. So rich. KB:                 Yeah. Well, I mean I, my personal story about hair and health is, I never knew what it meant to have a real relationship with a hairstylist until I knew what it meant to have a real relationship with hairstylists. Like, you know, my mom would schedule me appointments, I'd go to them, sometimes I'd let my hair grow forever. I had really, really, really long hair always. Um, and um, for me it was just kind of a task versus an experience. And when I was in Grad School, for, to be a PA, I, um, I looked up a place and looked up like queer LGBT hair people and I found Susan. And I show up to see Susan and I, my hair is down to like my mid back and I'm like, I'm ready to chop it. And I had a conversation with somebody fairly recently who expressed her experience with chopping her hair off and saying that it felt like her security blanket through my own personal stuff that I was going through. I was like, I do not want a security blanket right now. And I was always really scared to cut my hair off. I don't even really know why consciously if it was societal or my own insecurities or whatever. But um, honestly Susan changed my life every time I'd go to see her, I was excited to be there. It wasn't a task. It was a pleasure. And she listened to me. She, I mean, you're right, like touching somebody's hair, washing their hair, feeling there, the connection to their brain. I mean, it's so powerful. Um, so I, I honestly can't even imagine doing the work that you do crying every single day. JS:                   I joke about it. I'm like, okay, today's going to be the day that I go to work and I don't cry. Like it hasn't happened yet. JS, CB:            KB:                 And then the question is, when you were working in a different setting, were you having those experiences and, you know, what makes this so different I guess is the real question? JS:                   Absolutely. Yeah. No, I wasn't having these experiences. In fact, yeah, there were, there were tears but they were not tears of joy. They were tears of frustration and you know, and I like, I worked with some great people. Um, I had, uh, I had a really, really kind coworkers who I love so much and really great, amazing clients. I had like, I feel like I gathered around like the best of the best of the, of the South Bay clients and I had like a tiny little bubble. But what was happening was I wasn't seeing anyone new I, I felt like I was, I was in a bubble of where those people were sweet and kind and nice, but they weren't relating to the things that I was relating to. Like when I said that I had a trans boyfriend, I had to literally explain to every single person what that meant, which was an honor to me to be able to like share that, you know? And I was like, this is important so we should talk about it. And then at the same time, it's kind of like, at some point, I kind of want to go to work and just be like, this is my boyfriend. You know what I mean? Like I don't know. So I wasn't having the same experiences of having these mind blowing like every single day, every day, mind blowing hair appointments. It was like, hey, this person coming in for their six week hair appointment. And it was always like dynamic and lovely and beautiful and amazing. But that little, those little sprinkles on top, we're not there yet. CB:                  Like every time there's a new person on the book, it's like, oh my God, I wonder who they're going to be and what their story is going to be. JS:                   And like, oh, it's so excited. So excited. Do another person. No. Do you know that person? Oh my God. Who are they? How do they find those? What's their story? CB:                  Everyone is like a superstar that we just cannot wait to get to know. KB:                 And Cal, if you don't mind sharing the first time, maybe you had a particular getting your haircut that was meaningful or life changing or something different than just a regular haircut. CB:                  Yeah. Um, well I think I cut my hair and my mom gave me a bowl cut when I was very young. She was great. My mom and my mom is incredible. She's like one of my biggest supporters. Um, and as soon as I was able to say like, I want short hair, she was just like, okay, great and did it. Um, so there wasn't like a lot of drama and trauma around it. I was so happy. Um, I wanted to grow up to be Michael Jordan, so I was really hoping that that haircut was going to help. Uh, you know, I mean, I'm still working, I'm a b-ball skills, but I think what, what really, like the haircut experience that really has influenced me with Benders is when I first started my transition, I was so incredibly blessed to be in a community of amazing trans men. Um, I sought them out and found them immediately and ended up living with, uh, three other trans guys who really transformed and, and, and they taught me how to grow up into my own manhood. Um, and we would, um, we would sit around and cut each other's hair in exchange for six packs of beer. Um, the haircuts in the later in the evening were worse than the ones earlier in the evening. KB:                 Oh, just, just more creative. Everyone:        CB:                  Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Um, a little more flair, but it was, it was, you know, like we talked about incredibly intimate and in a great way for us to take care of each other. Um, we generally would do this on the same night that we would call it a T party. We would give each other our testosterone shots and do hair cuts for each other. And it was really like the things that we were scared to do, we would do for each other and we would do together. Um, it was really something. Yeah, I love those men. KB:                 That's beautiful. I see my, my goal is that every person on the planet has a story like that person or place or, or something that you are so comfortable, you don't even have to think about how comfortable you are. Yeah. So that's awesome that you found that. CB:                  And I just want to share one thing. Like I think that, um, you know, where I just want to like call out that we're having a very like assigned female at birth heavy conversation. And I also want to talk about Salon Benders is, is really one of, one of the most impeccable things that Jessie is at is she's a hard femme and she works really well with them and them. I mean, she does all sorts of expression. But one of the things that's really beautiful for her to, for me to watch her do is working with the Trans Feminine community. And really our, our space does, you know, we welcome all and, and we really hold femininity in a, in a, in a really strong, um, an elevated position. It's really important because just as much as it is powerful for somebody who's been told that they need to have long hair to get it cut, for someone who has not been taught how to care for their hair or their skin or their makeup or their, their, their presentation when they are able to come into a space and she says, bring your curling iron, bring your makeup, bring, bring your tools and I will show you how to use them. JS:                   Well, the fact, here's the thing, what's m stem folks, right? I mean it takes, I don't know, I'm probably, well, this is a generalization. It can sometimes take a little bit longer to do "femme things", right? CB:                  Like there's a different expectation. There's a higher expectation of, okay, you're going to be putting yourself together. JS:                   Right. And I think that like even cis women, have no idea how to care for their skin and how to care for their hair. Often time, you know, I feel like I have a lot of, um, a lot of compassion for the Trans Feminine Community because I taught, um, I started off teaching cis women how to do their makeup and skincare and like, like trans women would come in and say like, Oh, you know, shame themselves, like, I should know more about this. And you know, like I, I really am bad at my makeup and I really don't have any like routines. I don't even know what to buy. I'm like, sister, nobody does. Like, it's not as trans woman thing that you don't know how to like get her for your skin and hair. It's, you know, and so that right there is like really something that I like to, I like to talk to, to Trans Feminine folks about is that you don't need to be ashamed that you don't understand how to do your makeup and hair. Um, because most of us we have to learn somewhere and most of us did your, you know, did your mom, my mother didn't sit me down and say, this is how you do a wing tip eyeliner. They be like, what is a wing tip eyeliner? Like what are you talking about? KB:                 No idea. CB:                  And I still don't know. JS:                   Exactly. And that's, I mean, and so like I just, I feel like I'm, I really revel in my femininity. I love being female. I love the fact that like I, and the way that I am female, I like to walk into a room today. Literally I have a dress and boots on and I think like, I love that I actually got a compliment today. I was on my bike with my fanny pack on and my hat and someone said, you look adorable and sexy at the same time. And I'm like score. Like I'm killing it today. So I don't know. I just feel like the, I like to play around in femininity, whether it's someone who has short hair, someone who has long hair, someone who wears makeup, someone who doesn't wear makeup. I like to meet people where they are CB:                  It's about expressions. You want to know how to do a wing tip eyeliner, great. And if you don't, great. KB:                 Yeah, I mean I think, I think you hit the nail on the head with, you got up today, put yourself together in the way that you wanted to and you, not only did other people perceive your confidence and your beauty and your hotness, but you owned that enough where somebody noticed it. And I think that's a huge part of people feeling comfortable either with the right haircut or the wing tip or the right or the right skincare. And you know, again, creating that space where they never had the opportunity to either ask people or feel comfortable saying, I really just don't know how to do this. Please help me. Because you're constantly be, there's all this negative energy. And this negativity behind superficiality, unfortunately. And, and, and for the queer community, I think owning your expression is, is, is so much more than your physical self. CB:                  When it comes from that space of owning it and expressing it, it's not from a place of shame of I was told that I have to do this or I want to whatever. It's like truly who are you and what, what do you want the world to see of you? And how can we help? It doesn't matter where you came from or what somebody told you. It's, it's what, who, who are you, that's, that's the whole point. KB:                 Right. Exactly. And I think, I think one thing that I'm picking up is that it doesn't really matter how you identify. Um, it's understanding how you identify and understanding that it's a process of course, but you know, for you, Jessie, you love being a woman. You feel woman, but it's all your feeling. I mean, nobody can replicate that feeling. And, and I think the problem with all the negativity in the world is, unfortunately, it, it just brings everyone down. JS:                   Totally. And it doesn't allow you to play in your expression the there's not, if you're not, you do not live as a man or as a woman. It's kind of like, well you know, well like I was having a conversation with my sister that I still am thinking about and she's like, but femininity is this and masculinity is this. Like she's like, when I think of Marilyn Monroe, I think of pure femininity. When I think of Marilyn Monroe, I'm like that's a bad bitch. Like she was a curvy girl that was like, I don't give a shit what anybody says. This is who I'm going to be. This is how good and like to me that is also feminine. But I see her see femininity differently than than my sister and also everyone else in the world. So I like to just ask people like describe to me how you feel. And it doesn't necessarily have to do with masculine and feminine. You can be colors for all I care, flavors of ice cream. Like I can pick up people's expression and how they want to look just by having like a conversation. No one asks you that, hey, how did you want to be perceived today to today? Because tomorrow could be a totally different thing. And just asking someone that question has unlocked so many conversations in my chair, at least it's been pretty spectacular. KB:                 And that's what's awesome about being alive is figuring all that stuff out. JS:                   Isn't that the point? KB:                 And if you want to pretend to know what femininity is all the power to you, mark. And we did a great job. They taught everybody how we're supposed to be the movies, all that jazz. But in reality, when you're at home alone thinking about it, that's what's really meaningful. So yeah. So can you tell us a little bit, I'm going to shift gears a little bit. Tell us a little bit about not only the hair side of things, but some of it, some other things that you're doing over at, at Benders. CB:                  Yeah. Um, we have some amazing things happening and one of the many amazing things which we have invited many people from the community who are excellent in their craft to come and share their knowledge with our amazing community. So we have a beautiful backyard space. It is absolutely stunning. It has all the who we can me feels, um, that the inside of the salon has. And it feels like a wonderful little community space. And we've had a number of events back there. We've run a queer self defense class, a clothing swap. Um, yeah, we have a bike ride that we do on the first wait second, second Tuesday of every month. Yes. We have a kickball team? Yeah, we have a kickball team. So we're healing some sports team trauma wounds together. Yeah. KB:                 Yeah. That's a whole different episode. I think. JS :                  We did a GSA art show. CB:                  That was amazing to me. That's a whole other... JS:                   12 year olds coming in telling, uh, telling us about their coming out stories, um, doing arts singing. CB:                  …who are also mentored by 20 year olds who have been coming into this space so they have more on this...Anyway, there's, there's so much. Anyway, there are young queer artists. So are we. We love art. We love meditation. We were forms of expression that, um, are holistic and enriching. And, um, and you know, I, I know that like being in the bars as another sense of community, we do have our community and I'm not shaming or hating on that. That is a whole other side. But we want to kind of come out into the light and say like, let's offer something else, too, is if you only place... JS:                   Because there's tons of bars, there's, yeah, I mean I can count five bars on Broadway, CB:                  Right, within five blocks JS:                   Exactly. I can't tell you one clear space that isn't centered around alcohol. CB:                  And so that's the lgbt center. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. Which we, we love the center and we kind of share resources with them. So. Awesome. Anyway, um, yeah, if you were running some community events, we have them on our calendar. Um, and we essentially, we know how powerful it is to have space and that will, now that we have space, we want to share it with our community who took part in getting us to where we are. KB:                 I'm a cup is half full kind of gal, but I am curious to know if you've had any negative push back when you were starting Benders from, you know, family, friends, community or any kind of challenges that maybe were unexpected, um, with your excitement about this vision. JS :                  Yeah, I'd like to start off with that. I like, I like the sandwich technique, so there's, you know, the positive, negative, positive. So I'm going to start off with a positive. Our parents think we're freaking rock stars. Okay. So we told our parents and both of them are like our moms, both of our moms were like, yes. Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So that was kind of awesome. And just to have the support of your mother when you're thinking about changing your whole entire life around that gave both of us. Yeah. CB:                  Priceless. JS:                   I mean, such, such an amazing thing. So, um, but I got a lot, I actually did get a lot of, um, I don't know if I would call it negative feedback, but I got a lot of, um, I experienced a lot of doubt. So I started talking to my, some of my clients, some of my clients were amazing and so supportive and some of them come to Benders now I'm all the way from, you know, 20 miles away, which is not that far. You drive with traffic, it's getting crazy out here. So, but then there was like a breadth, the client and, and people that were like, so you really think that's actually gonna like take off? Like how are you actually going to make money doing that? That literally was my, that was like the number one question was like, how are you actually going to make money doing that? Like, so are you going to, oh, I like this one too. Are you going to let quote unquote regular people go there? Um, what regular people, they really are not going to be successful. Like, so that was, um, I mean, and I still, I still to this day get that question. Um, and yeah, so I have had, I personally have had some kind of like some, some serious doubt. Um, and, and then that's like, to me out a little bit, I can't even mind. Like there was definite, there were, there were definitely times where I would be sitting across from like three cis white dudes. Sorry. But it's true on it that are like, so y'all tell me exactly what your, you know, what your plans are. And I'm like, oh no, like do some cool shit. Like, you know, like, and they're like, yeah, that's not going to work but you're not going to be able to do that. Um, and we, I don't know that this is true 100% true, but I feel also that like when we were looking for spaces, um, when we would actually say like, this is what we're doing. I think that there were some people, landlords that were kind of like a, I don't know if we want to rent you. Not, not, maybe cause we look young maybe because this is our first business. Maybe because it was the business model, I don't know. But we definitely did get some pushback, in some, and some nos, from several people before our yes. CB:                  And, and I would also say I think when, when probed, when I would probe people about it a lot of, particularly though there were a lot of like gay identifying people who said Long Beach doesn't need that. Oh yeah. That was another thing too. Like, oh we don't need that. Like every place is a gay place in Long Beach or like, well there's plenty of gay friendly things and gay owned businesses but queer and trans is a different, you know, it's a whole different, there is, there is a lot of gay male spaces. Right? JS:                   Right. But in Long Beach there is, there is zero queer and trans places that would not have found CB:                  Not true. Wide Eyes Open Palms is the exception of that right now. There's a queer coffee shop. JS:                   Yep. So two queer places. Everyone:        CB:                  And Long Beach is really queer. JS:                   And so people were like, yeah, you're not going to really need that. But you know, it seems that there is a need for this where it's, you know, CB:                  People are not coming here saying they were looking. JS:                   So where did you find this? Oh, we yelped queer hair salons, and I've been yelping forever, and finally something popped up. KB:                 Yeah. I mean, again, like I did the same thing a couple of weeks ago before I met you guys. I looked up queer salons in LA and there's one, that I know of and that's where every queer person that goes to a salon goes to whether you're a celebrity or regular person. JS :                  Exactly. Yep. Exactly. KB:                 It's, it's such an interesting, um, concept that's hard to explain, I think to the general population, the reasoning behind why spaces are important. Um, and I think it also comes back to the question of my normal versus your normal versus other people's normals and other people never really being questioned at the fact that my normal might be different than your normal. Um, and I think once you plant that seed, it's a little bit easier to have, to build on those conversations. It's so important to have queer spaces and it's hard to explain that. Speaker 4:       Yeah. And one of the things that we like to say about our space too is that like, we do realize that it's really, really important to have when your spaces, and I,, personally think it's, it's equally as important to have a message of integration. So I like in our space, we actually do not, um, we do not call ourselves or identify as a safe space. We like to identify as a brave space. And so we like to ask people to come in here regardless of their orientation or their gender expression or who they are and come in with, with bravery on their backs if they can and be brave enough to show up as themselves and have, you know, conversations with people that may or may not look like that, you know, somebody that may or may not look "normal" to them, you know, whether they're gay, straight, queer, whatever, whatever that have a conversation, um, about, about themselves and listen to someone else. And so that, that takes some courage to do that. It takes some courage for as a straight person to walk in here and say, Hey, I like what you're doing. Can I get my haircut here? KB:                 Sure New Speaker:  That takes courage. It takes courage for, you know, someone who's, uh, who's, um, not yet currently out as trans to come in here and say, hey, I, you know, I know I look like this, but this is actually my, the name that I want to go by and I would like for you to do my hair that takes courage. So you must be brave to kind of, you know, to walk through this space, kind of, you know, saying that and I, I think that it is important for us to have queer spaces AND we want to integrate too. CB:                  And, and I think the piece that like, it is a piece of, of, of integration and the place has been intentionally designed to make queers comfortable. There is one bathroom. JS:                   Yup. Yeah. CB:                  The literature is queer. Um, you know... JS:                   We cater to people... New Speaker:  We ask people to display their pronouns. We display our own pronouns. We do the thing, you know, if, if your a credit card has a different name on it, ain't nobody going to give some weird look or whatever, you know, just this, these, there are barriers to full access to quality service that knocked down their capacity of being brave because if I've been, if I've, if I've been, you know, kind of smacked around three times, by the time I'm sitting down in my chair, you're saying your name is what, and they have to choose which bathroom they're going to go to. And there's a vogue magazine with a Victoria secret model on the Friday. KB:                 Boooo, booo Victoria Secret. JS:                   Exactly right. Like, have any magazines in our space at all. We do not even have one magazine. CB:                  And then there spaces that have things like this and they're saying, oh, we're LGBT friendly because they want LGBT dollars. JS:                   They're saying, I'm going to stop, get flag out on the front of here and, and totally say I'm okay with everybody, but there's still misgendering people and they're still not, you know, fully affirming someone's true, you know, or uh, or even trying to affirm. CB:                  Sure. JS:                   It's an expression. CB:                  The intention is there and we do. We know that that is powerful because in a day and age where your, your politicians may not be taking care of your community, we get to vote in all other sorts of ways. We need to vote with our commerce. We get to vote to with, with our expression, we get to vote to say, I like this business. I would like to like it to stay there. JS:                   I want to spend my money now. CB:                  So we, we've, we want to be very, very open about what our values are and say when here supporting us this is what you're supporting. You're supporting the queers who built this, you're supporting the families who run this. Um, you're supporting expression and, and bravery. KB:                 Yeah. I mean I think it's so multilayered. I think, you know, the biggest thing that I heard from that is you're empowering people and we're constantly being shoved deeper and deeper down, so when we try to get up, it's like, so hard to see the light. Everyone:        Yeah. You get tired of getting up. KB:                 Because you don't have the same resources as the person next to you. And that's very real. But what I love about what you're doing is you are teaching people to feel empowered and confident and confident in who they are. Um, not only physically on the outside but really just how, who they are on the inside and to express that. But it's hard. It's hard out there. JS :                  I was telling that the person that I was cutting their hair last night, um, about like when she was wanting to cut her hair really short and she's like, I did this so I wasn't visible. And I said, let's talk about your visibility, about how important your visibility is. And I had this whole conversation with her and I said, look, your visibility is important because of the people, the young kids that were in here just last night that got to come into our business and see a trans person. And as a queer woman of color, only in this amazing space, those kids saw my visibility could have changed someone's life yesterday or the day when those kids came in here. And same with Cal. Some, you know, trans folks are going to look at him and say, look like it trans child and look at, that's what trends could look like. That's what queer women of color could look like. That's why visibility is important, KB:                 Right? As great as this time is in terms of quote trans visibility, now we have to remind ourselves that what we see out there isn't representative of all trans people and it can become the norm just like everything else is, you know, put into little boxes. You know, there's so much more to the community than what you see on TV. JS :                  Right? Exactly. This is what it could look like and then you can make your own expression. You can make your own, you know, whatever it is that you want, whatever it is, however you want to be, you can create that for yourself. And that's basically the message that I, I really want to share with my community and also like with the children of my community to like, whatever you want, however you want, however you want to look. That is possible. All of the things are possible. CB:                  We have to figure out how to, how to knock that down together to do it with, you know, JS:                   At least we can talk about it openly. Like, yeah, so important. KB:                 If we can affect one person telling him it's just going to keep growing and growing. So that's exactly. So what's the future of Salon Benders? CB:                  First thing that is very exciting, which is great to talk about barriers is this week we do have, um, we do have a brand of excellence and we have put a lot of money into this business. And so our prices reflect that quality that, uh, that is the worth of what we do. And we know that not everyone in our community can access that. So what we're so excited about is I have just started an apprenticeship program. Um, so starting in the new year, I will be able to provide low cost cuts, um, for folks one or two days a week. Um, so that will, uh, be a really exciting addition and we're, we're really excited to pilot it because we know one of, one of the big things that affects our community is employability. Um, and we do believe that cutting hair is an amazing trade and skill. Um, and we'd like to pilot this to potentially in the future be a teaching salon as well, so we can help employ, um, other amazing people from our community. Um, JS:                   So Cal will be my first different apprentice. KB:                 Live and learn both of you. JS and CB:      That's right. Yeah. JS:                   That's coming up in the future, which is really, really awesome. Yeah. We're hearing the call for exercise and so we're queer movement and I just love that just having more, um, more physical activity happening together as a, um, as a group and um, KB:                 ...and not being shamed for it. Everyone:        All sorts of different body shake pay. Exactly. Yeah. CB:                  All of it is kind of transformable and it's based on what the community has come forth and saying, this is what I want to provide, or this is what I want to see. So check back with our website salonbenders.com. There's a calendar page that you can click into and see what we're doing. You can follow us on facebook or Instagram, um, @salonbenders and we're actually a farre better at communicating events via those, uh, those, those, um, platforms. JS :                  So the other thing too about the future I think is, um, my hope for the future of Benders is that we grow. I want people to bite my idea, our idea. I want people to steal this. I really do. Or I want somebody to just say, hey, I want to open a Salon Benders and perhaps we can become a franchise. Um, I want to, for me personally, I would like to, um, teach what we're doing here. Um, maybe in a public speaking for like, whether it's, whether it's for hairstylists all over, at hair shows or even just in like a beauty colleges coming in and talking about like, um, like LGBT hair, um, LGBTQIA hair, you know, um, I would like to definitely share this message as much as possible, which is why, you know, this, this podcast is really like, we're like, yeah, absolutely. I, we hope some hairstylist or many hairstylists hear this and say, Oh, I don't even know about that and get in contact with us. CB:                  And it's something that we're already doing. So we, we have already, we've already done some training for, um, for a couple of stylists, which has been really, really, really monumental. Um, and actually Kerin and I met, um, through, uh, I did some, uh, education to up and coming physicians assistants, practitioner... KB:                 Physician assistants. CB:                  ...and see, so it's something that we're already doing and we would really like to do more, and we really appreciate having Salon Benders as a platform to do education, to bridge the gap and bringing, um, more, more practitioners in many fields who are excellent in their fields, competency in queer and trans issues, and serving this community with greater care. KB:                 And you know, what I've learned is that once you start the conversation, people want to listen and they might be nervous or not know what you're talking about at first, but as long as you continue the conversation; You're right, you set an example, um, you know, for others to, to be great. So, yeah. And it's a tough time right now. I think it's hard to maintain positivity, but meeting individuals like you have really helped me to keep myself in line with all the beautiful things that are going on in the world as well. JS :                  We appreciate it. CB:                  Every shadow comes from a light baby. JS:                   The bigger the shadown, the bigger the light. Everyone:        Yeah. Yup. You know. Awesome JS :                  We really do appreciate that. Like, I, it's not that right there is worth everything. Yeah, exactly. It's just, you know, we can just touch one heart that's enough. KB:                 Exactly that. Exactly. I mean, it's tough out there. Yep. Yeah. We just beat ourselves. JS:                   We have to stick together. KB:                 Exactly. JS:                   We have to empower one another? It's not, it's like not an option right now. It's just not. We have to tell each other, how much we love each other, and how amazing we are and remind ourselves and our community how, how powerful we are. CB:                  We're awesome. JS:                   We're awesome. CB:                  We're awesome. JS:                   Best community ever. ***END INTERVIEW*** ***CONCLUSION: KB ONLY*** For information about future episodes or to contact us, please visit us at our website www.queermeducation.com or email us at queermeducation@gmail.com ***OUTRO MUSIC***  

Craig is on with Jim Polito talking about Thanksgiving and the ups and downs of digital privacy. How do you stop Google from tracking your location and activities? These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Related Articles: How to Stop Google From Tracking Your Location And Activities --- Transcript: Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors. Airing date: 11/20/2018 The Ups And Downs Of Digital Privacy Craig Peterson: 0:00 Hey, good morning everybody. Craig Peterson here. Massachusetts, just this week on Monday it became legal to sell recreational marijuana. Now I want you to listen to this interview with Jim and tell me if you think he's well, I don't know. Maybe he's, I think he visited a pot shop earlier this week  Unknown 0:27 Good old Jim Polito. Oh, we had a great discussion this morning about online privacy. He brought up some really great issues it talk more than I did today. So here we go with Jim Polito. Oh, by the way, everybody have a great Thanksgiving and thanks to everybody who responded to my email that I sent out to some of those subscribers about trying to have a little get together have friends to talk about this whole problem with small business and computers and security and everything so Unknown 1:00 Thanks to you, and if you haven't seen a response from me yet, that's because I'm going through I'm sending individual responses to everybody. So this is this is not just an in the blind to everybody. So hey, anyways, here we go with Mr. Jim. Unknown 1:14 He's the man, the myth, the legend. Hey, you know that he wrote code that is still in use and the internet. I'm talking about our good friend and Tech Talk guru Craig Peterson. Good morning, Craig. How are you doing today, buddy? Always a pleasure to see you. Hey, good morning, doing really well. What is no way Unknown 1:39 the snow and the cold for you is nothing. It's like, like for you. It's like you're back home. Which reminds me when his Canadian Thanksgiving Mr. Peterson well in the US they call it Columbus Day. So it's about a month earlier and with our family. We actually had another session. Unknown 2:00 You've been September because one of my daughters with along with their husband was home from Norway and they just love Thanksgiving. So I got three shots. This thing giving this year I love Listen, I would take that I would take that it's my favorite holiday. And what's interesting, Craig is that if the Canadians are celebrating Thanksgiving around Columbus Day, Unknown 2:24 the Canadians are probably more accurate or closer to the day the actual first Thanksgiving took place because it would have been a harvest festival and it was likely late September early October in 1621. So Craig I guess the Canadians have us beat on this one even though we had the first Thanksgiving yeah it's interesting there's all kinds of differences you know Canada they call all the indigenous people First Nations I thought cool Yeah. First Nation other words, there was a first or Unknown 3:00 Establish a nation. I mean, they were here the whole time. But yeah, I thought the whole thing of interest, I just love the story of that first Thanksgiving and, you know, moving the Commonwealth out of really being the Caitlyn, who else? yeah how people were finally about starving to death. It's a great story. This is not sold. And I know and I'm telling it and this is a chance for a shameless plug. Even though there's no money involved in this one on wt ag on Thanksgiving morning at 9am and on why. And on Thanksgiving morning at 7am my Thanksgiving special I actually went to you know, I'm a little bit of a history buff. I went to Plymouth Plantation and produced a one hour special on it using the reactors. They're Unknown 3:47 like I'm interviewing them in in modern day because when you go to Plymouth Plantation, they don't break character Craig. They stay in character and they become Unknown 4:00 Hey, there's and they represent actual people who were there in the Plymouth Colony and historical people. So I interviewed them and use them in it. And then I got someone from a what they call the indigenous program there a native person who runs that program of the whopping dog. And but they, they, when you see them there in the dress of the period and working Unknown 4:26 in the their homes of the period, but they they speak to you and you know modern parlance you know, they don't, they don't play act because they say, we don't have to play act. We're native people when Unknown 4:41 we were here. So with all that in mind, I want to ask you about this thing with Google because it's kind of a Unknown 4:49 it's a good bad situation. You sent me this information. So if you don't want Google tracking you Unknown 4:58 if you want your privacy better. Unknown 5:00 back, you will have to give up some convenience. You're going to tell us how you can do it with your smartphone and with with your iPhone or with your Android, but Unknown 5:10 you give up to get that privacy, the suggestions and things that Google does for you that actually I prefer, because like when I go to YouTube, I like when they suggest videos to me that are videos I'd be interested in because they know what I watch. But why don't we talk about that start with start there, Craig? Unknown 5:30 Well, it is kind of interesting, because all the major manufacturers, Google and Apple, certainly the real big ones are interested in in the whole mobile assistance marketplace. Google has something they call in a system and the idea is it really does track you particularly if you're using an Android device. So let's say for instance, that you go down to New York City and it notices that the last couple of times you've Unknown 6:00 down to New York City, you've always been in this one neighbor of us. And it goes so far as to notice which restaurants you've eaten. And in other words, which ones you went in. And you stay for a while, right? So now you go to the north, and or you go somewhere in Boston, who knows what you like, at least out in New York the different areas yourself, too. And the idea is, the google assistant will make recommendations to you based on what you've done in the past, even in other city. Wow, Unknown 6:33 that's really quite cool. It's very nice. But it's, it's the same time. Yeah, so Google knows that at nighttime. Your phone resides at 123 Main Street in Western Mass. And so now if his figured out Well, that's probably worth gym lifts right there on Main Street. Yep. And I seen his calendar that he has an appointment later on today. Going Unknown 7:00 But he has another one first. And so it figures out your route for the day. The idea is, it will wake you up. It'll tell your fingers working to do now. Here's what's going on. Yeah. How about I order to Noli for you while you're in the north and you get up here? That's where they're hoping to take this whole thing. And you know what, it's already doing some of that already, because it will Google Maps. I never assigned where home was, but it eventually picked up okay, this is home free gym. This is where he lives and eventually asked me Do you want to set this as home in your Google Maps Unknown 7:41 getting a little forward with you? Yeah, yeah. And I did only because I like to hit one button. You know, I use my smartphone is my GPS my car. I mean, these are all great things, Craig. But what you're giving up for these is privacy I'm giving Unknown 8:00 up all of the privacy and there's a part of me. I've always been the type that has said, I don't care if what people do and what people look at me look at for me because I'm not doing anything wrong. I don't care. I mean, of course, I believe in the Bill of Rights. But you know, in terms of the government, I don't care because I'm not doing anything wrong. But there's another part of me that says, Hmm, I don't know if I like this. Unknown 8:28 Think about this. 510 years down the road. We're going to have autonomous cars, fully autonomous cars. Yeah, and these things are going to be driving around and it's going to tie into your system and your system now is going to say you've got a meeting in you need a car I'm going to have a car pick you off at 10am. If you're not going to own a car. Certainly in 20 years. Most people won't have a car anymore yeah, and and it's going to show up well, it's a bad guy. nose mouth. Unknown 9:00 That that Jim is going to this meeting. And let's say the bad guy wants to frame the who, who's got everything they might need. Let's say the bad guy wants to attack you. We have already cases in New York City down in Central Park where bad guys put sensors on trees and those sensors. He texted people's Fitbit as they went by and those fit bits were then track and the bad guys were able to track the specific women in order to attach them to rob them and the other various things that might have been trying to do so all of that data being there It's one thing for marketers to have it because it might be a benefit right yeah there I think there's a benefit I don't consider it annoying when you when you want to buy a car that's when you want to see the car commercials all the time right right and and the other side of it with the government is well you know Unknown 10:00 The government gets to have a quick look at my data and say yeah, obviously Jim wasn't even he say or nearest he's not a suspect in this white cast the net that's the benefit to because now you're not getting harassed and getting pulled into the precinct again. Unknown 10:17 So, so there's some benefits there. But the, the negative parts of all of this, ours is that data essentially gets out. Look at the about 30 million Facebook accounts. Right? You reach the goal, right, right. And big data is taking all of that is selling it it's putting this together knows and it's going to be yeah and and and that's the that's the worry. You know, it's funny, you talked about the Fitbit thing because you had a few weeks ago told us about how the government didn't want members of the military when they're deployed to put on their Fitbit because the same thing could be done the bad guys in the park who were looking to attack women by tracking their shipping. Unknown 11:00 Bad guys in Afghanistan and Iraq would do the same thing to try to track our soldiers. So if I want to get off that, and I know at the end of this segment, folks we're with Greg Peterson, we're going to give you a number you'd be text My name to, he'll send you this information. But in standard data in text rates apply. But Craig, it's not that hard in the settings of your smartphone. Unknown 11:23 To stop this know there's a few things that you're going to need to do. And it does obviously varies from Android, iOS, and which version of Android you're on a better etc. But basically, you go to my activity, and that's where it shows you how you're being tracked online. And once you're in there, you're logged into your Google account online by the ways what you're doing so yes, you're going to the web Google my activity. It's showing how your tracked online and you can open that button you can set it up and change it. There's six sections in there that you're going to find it Unknown 12:00 And you can also control your Android phone tracking from there. Your phone's track tied into Google account, which probably is. Yeah, if you're an iPhone user, you can toggle off web and act as app activity, location history, there's a bunch more, this gets a little bit complicated, but we're talking about three to five minutes worth of work. Yeah, you can turn that off. And I think that's the big positive now, you should just, you know, Unknown 12:31 expect that you're not going to get all those conveniences after you do that. And by the way, folks will get you this information Unknown 12:39 in in from Craig Peterson, but you should expect to knock and have the convenience anymore, a lot of that will go away, no doubt about it, it's still going to track you if you're using the map application dapp obviously it needs to but other than that, the features the assistance and other things that you might like are really as he says it's going to go away. Unknown 13:00 Alright let's go on to something else which is getting rid of your personal information online and and you were talking about Apple CEO Tim Cook talking about need for digital privacy reform I don't know that's kind of like him talking about it's like the chicken I mean the fox guarding the chicken coop but I mean how do you will send the information but but what's possible What are you able to do well again the Apple iOS platform is your least monitor a randomized everything but it's hard to reconstruct Apple can even give it to the government okay they don't have it bottom line but as you know over time it's going to become impossible Jim you know I think we are on a ship that's been scuttled yeah and the odds were going to survive this are almost zero. Unknown 14:00 You know, from a standpoint of our privacy, it's going away. People are giving it up. We're using our credit cards all time was using Apple Pay, et cetera. And all of this is just a little bit of the time. Right? As you move from a cashless society, to an all digital society, yeah. And who knows where from man, it's To me, it's, it's scary. Tim Cook. Typing has some great ideas. And I'm glad to hear Apple really is concerned about privacy. They haven't been the best in the world about privacy, but they're nowhere near as bad as Facebook or obviously our friends at Google. All right, let's find out how to get this information. So what you do is you text My name to this number. Unknown 14:52 855-385-5553. That's 855-385-5553. Unknown 15:00 Standard data and text rates apply. Craig Peterson will not pester you. He'll send you this information so that you'll be able to do it yourself. Or at least you'll be able to have the information. Should you decide you want to do it. And don't forget Craig Peterson will be back here on Friday in the seven o'clock hour. We're going to talk Black Friday, we're going to talk Cyber Monday. We're going to talk buying online with Craig Peterson. Craig, thank you so much. And Happy Thanksgiving to you, sir. Hey, thank you. Take care. Take care. Speaking of Thanksgiving, the turkey is our final word. You're listening.  --- Don't miss any episode from Craig. Visit http://CraigPeterson.com/itunes. Subscribe and give us a rating! Thanks, everyone, for listening and sharing our podcasts. We're really hitting it out of the park. This will be a great year!  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

One of the most poorly used features on Patreon are milestones. It’s probably the name—milestone. What exactly is that? To most creators, it’s a big goal that they reach. “When I hit $2200, I’ll make a living as a musician.” That’s a good goal. But it’s a missed opportunity too. My Patreon for the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast helped me figure out Patreon Milestones. It’s not just about me. It’s about you and me working together to reach a goal. For the podcast, I setup simple milestones. “When we hit $550, I will create a two-hour episode of Celtic Flute and Whistle Music”. If this is something you want to happen, you might make a pledge. You might get excited enough to support something you already love. Easy-peasy. Right? As an artist, I find it a lot more difficult. How do I create a goal that will get YOU and other Gunn Runners excited but that is also something that I'm not already giving away. You might cheer when I become a “full-time musician”, but there’s nothing in it for you to support my music. That’s what Patreon Milestones are all about, or should be. What’s in it for you? And so we stumble. We make bad Patreon goals. Our pages don’t grow. A couple years ago, I set a pretty exciting Patreon goal. I said I would make an EP of Firefly music if I hit a certain goal. Of course, that EP turned into a full-length album that's freely available to everyone in my Gunn Runners Club. That goal was one that you and I both could get behind. I think that's what I need to do then. I need to create milestones for you. I pick a song that I want to record and that you might want as well. When I reach those milestones, I record a new single and share it with the Gunn Runners Club. I like this idea because it gets you more involved. Your generosity is the impetus to make new music happen. You see, one of my other big internal challenges is that it's difficult to sit down and record. The recording process itself isn't difficult. But there are a LOT of steps. Lets take for instance the two songs I've been planning: "Mingulay Cat Song" and "Why Do You Torture Me?". I first started recording "Mingulay Cat Song" in 2015. I don't think I snagged a recording I liked until February, a couple months ago. Meanwhile, I've been talking about releasing "Why Do You Torture Me?" since at least November last year. That's six months ago! Obviously, it's not a fast process. Recording music takes time. And if I want to do collaborations... it's gonna take even more. I'm okay with that. But it does mean these milestones can be a lot more productive. So that's my goal. The two new singles I mentioned earlier are scheduled to be released this month and next. The next milestone is for a traditional Irish song, "Molly Malone". I have a video coming out for it in a couple weeks. It has an innovative marketing idea behind it. So I hope it'll get some traction. I'll tell you more about that later. -- Thank you so much for listening. Now I want to ask you to head on over to Spotify and Follow My Music. You'll find a link in the shownotes at Celtfather.com where you can also subscribe to this podcast and download 21 songs for free.

Today's episode (#23) features Alina Mihai. Born and raised in Romania, Alina has a background in psychology, education, language therapy/communication disorders, energy work, and spiritual development. Dang. Right? As you'll hear (and as I professionally borrowed from her about page), Alina is a "Strategic Intervention Coach who believes in the power of passion, self-awareness, and authenticity." She "guide[s] and support[s] [her] clients on their journey to building a life filled with greater joy, love, and fulfilling personal relationships." Alina is a VERY passionate person. Her passions include coaching, teaching/training, speaking, writing, dancing, and designing. However, her "life purpose" is to help people - men, women and children - find their power ... their inner spark that's inside all of us. In case you missed any of the previous episodes, you can catch them here by visiting the Living Your Passion landing page. Are you ready to learn more about POWER? During this episode ... Alina talked about how passion is the PORTAL to finding your true purpose. We talked about the difference between passion and life or "true" purpose - FASCINATING! We got a bit ... deep. Ha! We talked about words - spirit, warmth, etc. Words matter. Alina shared about her thoughts on what we are born with. Alina offered some sage advice on how to find - then live - your passion. More About Alina From her About page: "I am a Strategic Intervention Coach. I believe in the power of passion, self-awareness, and authenticity. I guide and support my clients on their journey to building a life filled with greater joy, love, and fulfilling personal relationships." Links Discussed In This Episode Do What You Love | Love What You Do (my Meetup!) Passion Coaching For Men - her business Enjoyed this episode? Please consider subscribing (if you haven't already). Also, what would be really awesome? If you could rate and review the show ... and use those fancy social sharing icons below to tell the world! Alternatively, you can subscribe to the RSS feed or subscribe via email (scroll to the bottom). Finally, if you know someone who bleeds passion (or maybe it’s you), please email me at djwaldow at gmail dot com. Oh, and if you have a connection to LeBron James, please let me know. I think he’d be a great person to talk to about his passion for basketball. #DeadSerious