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themostexpensiveboningknife · 3 years

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2020

Failed party, money in drawer, communicate, move house, move boxes, drive in van, walk to shops, buy noodles, think it’s the end, see whole bus of soldiers in Beijing, new area, walk in darkness, think about leaving, leave, think its temporary, in taxi, post stupid photos, check and check again phone, think people with goggles on my plane are over reacting, take off my mask to eat, keep taking off to loosen, arrive back in London. Tube. Cold. Pub. Party at WeWork. Exhibition at Dulwich Gallery. Farringdon. Drugs and drinks. Brockley, South east London. DJ. Ethiopian food. Morley’s Peckham. Walking on the River. Photographer friend’s house. Canal cycle. National Gallery. Car crash, Dalston. Omar Souleyman. Corsica Studios. Meet girl, back to my friends, back to hers, sex. Morning up to mum’s best friends birthday, Covent Garden restaurant. In a van, Sunday roast. Chisenhale Gallery. arebyte Gallery. Getting worse in China, seems nice and easy and calm in England. Camberwell beers and more. Second-hand book shops, Charing Cross Road. Courtauld. Leafed through a book about a man who lived his entire 86.5 years in East London. Still talking to the same girl back in China. Both believe I’ll be back soon. Chicken wings. West London, meal. South London pub. DJing somewhere inside. Kent, see grandma. Rave, Bermondsey. Friends from Israel and Germany arrive. More drinks, more drugs. Mixing friends. Gay bar in Bethnal Green for old friend’s birthday. Acid, confused and hilarious. Tate Britain. Serpentine. Cranes on the bridge. Liverpool Street film screening. Feels shallow, but good. Begin regular E Pellici sojourns. Primrose Hill with Dad. Beer festival with Keaton and co. Peckham, school friend’s house, bad vibe. More drinks, more drugs. Working on first music compilation with Slowcook and Fafa. Begin watching all of the Studio Ghibli movies. Watching Breaking Bad. At some point have huge argument with my brother, it went like this: He came home from work and I was sitting watching Breaking Bad, he asks, “Have you been like that all day?” I either took it in the wrong way or picked up on a sly dig. It was probably me, but at this point I was pretty self-conscious and worried about going back to China and whether or not I would have a job back there. Was getting surprisingly pissed off with my brother mentioning his work, felt like an affront to me. Weird. He goes crazy (he has a short fuse), punching a wall, ready to fight me. My mum is pretty upset. A few days later I go into his room and try to patch things up. Turns into a deeper chat. He feels like I haven’t been a good brother to him, he gives the example of not looking out for him on his first days of school. I say I’m sorry, it’s because I’m a bit scared and insecure. In retrospect I regret a little laying so much weakness on the table, seems his interactions/ways of acting around me have changed a bit. Still not sure how I feel about it all. Considered getting a gold tooth with Matthew. Play with cats, enjoying them more and more. Rave in Dalston, good music from Asia and beyond. Looking at magazines. Not doing much work at all. Being out and about instead. Go to Norfolk. It’s beautiful, but get way too drunk on first night, sick everywhere, wake up naked in sick. Massive fucking shitshow. Majority of people there have no choice but to act weirdly around me now, which is understandable. Still some nice aspects. One girl there surely hates me a lot. Tate Modern. Art stuff by self is good. Corsica Studios, semi-art, semi-music event. Mr. Bao for first time of many. Radio in Tottenham. Take drugs. Pubs. Drive to Asda with brother to stock up on food. It’s March and the reality of the pandemic is hitting. More canal cycling. First and only group chat on Zoom. BH Funk. Probably have taken cocaine and messaged one of three or four girls numerous times by now. If there’s one, in the cold light of day, horrible and disgusting thing I’ve done too much this year it’s this. Incessant messaging of poor girls that I know will react (although increasingly they don’t, I manage to alienate even close friends in this way). Southbank and The Mall with Nick. Reading about Wuhan. List of good texts. Continuing to do some writing. Making WeChat posts for guī WeChat, including mix series and miniessays. Greenwich park with Matthew. Grime quiz online. Delivering food regularly for my mum’s school. Hackney Marshes with Luan. Epping Forest with Mum and Dad. By this point probably have woken up feeling sorry for myself in Ludo’s flat, after untold amounts of alcohol and cocaine. Online rave. Beijing artists only mix. Go to Switzerland, pass through Italy on the way. Its breath taking, the mountains, the expanse of scenery, not used to it. Climbing up mountains with no one around. Rolo and Patrick and Rita smoke too much weed. I really, really, really still hate smoking it. Feel a bit annoyed how long we spend sitting around while they smoke, but this is way outbalanced by the uniqueness of where we are and the beauty all around. Producing more and more, actually getting somewhere. Cooking more and more food. Reading more and more, like: Black and British, The Corrections, Real Fast Food, Bass, Mids, Tops, Zadie Smith, Olivia Lang, Graham Greene, JG Ballard, Monica Ali, Mo Yan, Jenny Zhang, John le Carre, Naked Lunch, Nabokov, Bukowski, Zora Neale Hurston, Wiley, Bitcoin, Murakami, Judith E. Butler, The Painter of Modern Life, Maupassant, Chekov, Video Art, Gravity’s Rainbow (couldn’t finish), Anaïs Nin, The Net Delusion (couldn’t finish), The Establishment and how they got away with it (couldn’t finish), Roddy Doyle, The Secret of Scent, General Intellects, Women In Love, The Intelligent Investor, Lyndon Johnson. Victoria Park more often than I can remember. To Chrissy’s house. Mile End Park. Very regularly sitting on the river in Wapping. Bring the chessboard and play Ludo sometimes, people smile and look at you differently when you’re playing chess and drinking beers versus just sitting and drinking beer. I May Destroy You. Industry. The beautiful wide expanse of Hackney Marshes. My incessant quest to reach 1000 followers in Instagram. More cycling, and I hate to say it but it really was: Here there and everywhere. Margate with my Dad to see my grandma in hospital and saw the Turner Prize exhibition. Light blue like scrubs, the sky and sun felt eternal. Swimming in dirty water. Make a DJ mix of old 2000s Road Rap. Eat cheese in Peckham. Cycle along the canal north, keep going and going through Tottenham, past Enfield keep going, it’s mad how quickly it becomes quiet fields on all sides, arrive to some kind of lake, swim and then back to the centre of town. Outside a Hawksmoor church in Shadwell ate chicken with Karim and Ludo. DJing. From my bedroom window saw a big crane in the middle of the night sitting on the canal. Begin developing the second DCCY compilation this time with BULLY magazine. Go to a house in an old school in Camberwell. Discover new secret riverside spots in East London. Finally give up my apartment in Beijing. Mile End park. Cycle further and further East to a pedestrian bridge I didn’t know existed. Get onto the beach and into the Thames water. Interview Akito. Begin writing more, after few months of wiling away the summertime. My friend Emmy gets married in Rwanda, I give him some money as a wedding gift which he tells me he used to buy his wife’s dress. Protests in HK always on TV. Get more into finances, crypto and trading, and just saving in general. Had sex with an old friend. Now meeting a girl I first knew years ago in Beijing. More secret river spots. Keaton has his baby, Noah. More times on Hackney Marshes. Barbican conservatory. Watching more films, try to watch all the films of some directors including: Jia Zhangke, Bong Joon-ho, Edward Yang, Wong Kar-wai, Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Decide to watch all of the infamous lauded series, go through Breaking Bad, The Wire and The Sopranos. Go to the seaside for a few days, camping also. Henry Wu album launch in a car park in Bermondsey. Go to visit Keaton’s baby for the first time. Good photography exhibition at Photographer’s Gallery. Go to Wallace Collection again. August. Go to Berlin. Swimming in Berlin lakes until I get an ear infection. It makes me drowsy and lethargic, but still seems to spend all my time cycling around the city. On one night cycle for hours to a rave on the outskirts of the city. Like a lot the abandoned airport in Berlin. Oh yeah, vaping. Found a dead bumble bee. Speak with Nevin about projects. Write a piece about the future of the art world for a magazine being started by Nevin’s friend in Canada. Go to Lithuania. Walk around Vilnius, get too drunk by myself. Get to the Curonian Spit and Nida, beaches and new friends. For the Nightlife Residency project. For a short while life is like on a desert island of new food, new people, new locations, quiet and new meaning. Go to the Russian border on the beach. Cycle to the road boarder and get stopped by the police. Go nude on the beach for the first time. Sauna, sand dunes and forests. DJ out for the first time in ages, this time with Nono. To Kaunus and try nice and stodgy Georgian food for the first time. Hackney Wick back for party. Meet a ginger girl online and go on a date. Wallace Collection again. Free beer and pizza. White Cube. National Gallery, Titian. On BBC Radio London with my Dad. Riverside beers. Saw a lost swan near my front door. Meet Keaton near his work, one of many times. Making more and more music, getting better. Decide I need more organisation and clarity, put everything I’ve done on a blog. More or less long since given up on my job at M Woods. But don’t really begin looking for anything new because it’s still sunny. At some point I start getting benefits money. Go to see La Haine in the cinema. Someone blocks me on WeChat because of me. Some pub somewhere. Sunday walks and breakfast with my parents. Go to an exhibition in Woolworth Road with Muzi. Realise how nice it is to run to Victoria Park along the canal. Vicky Park in general. Dinners at friends’ houses. Museum of London. Walking with Michael in some countryside near London, surprising how quickly things turn green. Break onto a pier in Wapping with Jack. Battersea Park. Tate, Bruce Nauman. Old Street Weatherspoon’s with Keaton, drugs. Central London cemetery. Chinese in Camberwell. Chinese in Aldgate. Italian in Camberwell. More and more exercise, running, weights and yoga with my brother. Sadie Coles. Nick, Central London. Gucci Mane. Hampstead Heath more because Ludo and his flatmates are nearby. Ludo’s now house more for days and nights of you guessed it. Borough Market more, with Emma. Alexandra Palace walk and famous sandwiches after. Tate Britian new lights. More time at Muzi’s. Signing up for cycle courier. LYL Radio show. Shave head. Take acid and it hurts my stomach. Camden Arts Centre with Muzi. Christmas party with friends. Birthday. Cake with Muzi, presents and Indian takeaway from family, walk in Vicky Park with Ludo and Karim plus battered sausage and chips. Christmas at home nice and warming meal. Evening to Ludo’s place with more friends. Boxing day with Matthew, pints and then more at his house in Peckham all night long. Next day is tough! Giant turkey sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey curry. Buy first NFTs. New Year’s Eve stay in at Muzi’s, one drink and a cake.

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momentsinsong · 5 years

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Moments In Song No. 020 - Frankliin

“Moments In Song” asks people one simple question, “What are you listening to?” We believe that you can learn a lot about an individual and their experiences based off of the music they love. For every installment we ask someone to make a playlist of 10 songs they’re listening to, whether it be something new they stumbled upon, or a song they’ve always loved, and explain the story behind their choices. We aim to show that no matter where we come from, what we do, or what we look like, music has the ability to bring us together.

Fresh off of the release of his first EP REFLECT, Frankliin shares a playlist full of songs that invoke old emotions and remind him of why he started making music. We talk to the DMV Producer/DJ about his Metal beginnings, what makes a genius, and the balance between being creative and working a 9 to 5.

Listen to Frankliin’s playlist on Apple Music and Spotify.

Words and photos by Julian.

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Julian: What was the thought process behind making your playlist? I know you said earlier it really hard to fit 10 songs on there.

Frankliin: Dude! Picking 10 songs is hard. I even struggle with my DJ sets trying to get like a 45 minute set together. That’s already hard enough, so just 10 songs was like “Fuck.” So my main thing is I wanted all songs that I have some sort of emotional attachment to. So like even some of those songs I’ve fallen in love to. Each one is something that is routinely in my head. Also I just wanted to exhibit some of my talented friends. I’m like, “Y’all are really out here making stuff like this and still homies.” That’s crazy to me.

I noticed that really only the last two songs are more upbeat, while everything else seemed more chill and introspective. Would you say that you did that on purpose, or did it just kind of end of like that? Like that’s just where you are in life right now?

Oh 100%. Even in my live sets I always want an upward progression. So that’s why I kind of wanted to start off kind of calm, because that’s more of the stuff I listen to on a day to day basis. I feel like anyone who knows me would describe me as high energy, but when I’m by myself I’m usually chilling out. I kind of wanted this playlist to reflect that. And then towards the end I wanted to give people something to bop their head to. I don’t know, I just like ramps. Shout out ramps.

Earlier you said the Baby song on your playlist was shown to you by your brother because at that time your parents were not fucking with Hip-Hop. Was it all Hip-Hop/Rap , or was it just new music in general?

I mean my parents liked Hip-Hop, but they were trying to shelter me. I was definitely sheltered a lot growing up, and my brother was not. So he would always show me shit and be like, “Don’t tell mom and dad I showed you this,” which made it even better because you’re doing shit you shouldn’t be. I have this profound memory that will not leave, and it’s fine that it won’t. My brother was driving after taking me to go see a movie, and where I live it’s near a swamp, and so we were driving through it and it’s pitch black, and then that song came on. As soon as I heard it, I was like, “What the hell is this?” It just matched the mood, the pockets they were choosing, the percussion. Everything the Clipse, Pharrell, The Neptunes made always just blows my mind. Even now that music is still ahead of its time. That’s definitely been something that was an initial influence, that’s resurged now with time.

With your parents having that view on music, how’d they feel once you started making music? And has that view changed since then?

So if it were up to my parents, I’d continue being an engineer working a 9 to 5, with a health care plan, a steady girlfriend, thinking about marrying and having kids, just simple shit. They’re baby boomers, and that's what they wanted, and that’s what they expect I wanted. There’s nothing wrong with parents that want you to be happy, but I’ve had a taste of those things and I don’t want it. That’s been a point of conflict with that. Long story short they were not happy with it. Even though I’m not anywhere close to where I want to be, I feel like now with me traveling and making money from it, they’re starting to warm up to it. Every time I do a show my dad is like, “Are you getting paid?” It’s never, “Oh was it fun? Did you have a good time?” it’s just “Are you getting paid?” But now my dad is 100% for it, he’s come to shows and stuff. My mom is still warming up to it. She’s even freaked out about me leaving the county, so me going overseas for shows, she lost it.

But I feel like you doing shows overseas, and releasing full projects that are being well-received, will eventually get things to click with them.

Yeah. And also I just had to learn to be like, “Fuck what everyone else thinks. Do what you want.” Like literally last night I had a conversation with Juice the bouncer at Velvet Lounge, shout out Juice, and we were talking about geniuses and stuff like that and he was just like, “I really don’t think there’s such a thing as a genius. It’s just people doing what they wanted and not giving a fuck about the status quo.” Which is why people think they’re so revolutionary and ask why they didn’t think of that, and it because you’re following the status quo.

When did you start making music, and then at what point did you realize you could actually do something with it?

I started making music when I was like 16, I’m 24 now. Time fucking flies. I never really did it seriously, my main thing was always school. I have a degree in engineering and that’s all I was focused on. I literally didn’t have summer vacations except for like 2 weeks, and those were a dope two weeks.

Really? What’d you do the rest of summer?

I literally went to space camp dude.

I mean that’s kind of cool.

I mean it was cool until I asked some dude how much do you make working on spaceships and he was like, “We don’t make enough, stop asking me questions!” and that just killed my dream as a little kid.

How do you not make enough building spaceships?

He probably did, he was just being a jerk. And at that age you’re super impressionable, and experiences like that can fuck you up. That dream kind of died with that moment. So the music thing basically started with my friends and I listening to Metal, and then wanting to start a Metal band, and so I started playing bass. That was in middle school, and we were listening to bands like Asking Alexandria, Suicide Silence, I Set My Friends On Fire, and that’s how I got really into music. And then with time and with skateboarding, I got into electronic music. Me and friends would be messing around on FL Studios and this NuMark Mixtrack Pro he got from a thrift store for like $100. We’d be passing it around between the 5 of us and that’s how I learned to DJ. We would be producing together, trying to impress each other, and everyone was lowkey pushing me the hardest. It wasn’t like I was trying to be the best, it was just that I was having so much fun.

Was this still in Middle School, or was this High School now?

This is High School. It was all just fun in the beginning, and then I kind of gave it up when I went to my first year of college. I was just so focused on school and everything, and I was trying so hard and I just sucked so bad at college. I was a 4.0 and up student, and I went from that to losing my scholarship. In high school I was good with girls and then when I went to college I couldn’t get a girl to save my life. It was like everything that defined me just didn’t happen anymore. The only thing I really still had was music. It was either after my Freshman/Sophmore Year, I was just like I can’t fucking do this anymore. I had never had a summer off since I was in 6th grade. I told my mom I wasn’t taking summer classes and that I needed some time, and that was met with a lot of resistance. After that is when I did my first show as Frankliin, and that was at the Creative Block with Kleonaptra, it was her first show too. Afterwards I was like, “Damn, I’m trying to do this more.” I still wanted to do school, but then with time I wanted to do music more. I still planned to finish school, for myself and for my parents, and now that I’ve finished school I’m at a point where I’m doing the rat race of the 9 to 5 life. Whenever I’m doing this music stuff, or these tours, I never feel anywhere near as alive or satisfied doing anything else. I’d take the pay cut any day it if means I could do that. Without hesitation.

You said earlier that your playlist is made up of songs that invoke some sort of emotion in you. What would you say is the emotion you're trying to invoke with the music from your latest project, REFLECT?

I really wanted to step out of my comfort zone and put out something that felt like a piece of me, a fragmented story I always wanted to tell. REFLECT is a pretty on the nose name for it in all honesty. Each song is like a window into a relationship, whether it be my own, or spoken by the featured vocalists (LIA, xxpetejames and Martin. J. Ballou). Although it may seem kind of bleak, I feel like it’s conveyed that you can come out from tough times as a better more seasoned person.

Connect with Frankliin:

https://twitter.com/iamfrankliin

https://www.instagram.com/iamfrankliin/

https://soundcloud.com/iamfrankliin

Connect with Moments In Song:

https://www.instagram.com/momentsinsong/

https://twitter.com/moments_in_song

https://tinyurl.com/MISAppleMusic

https://tinyurl.com/MISSpotify

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purplesurveys · 5 years

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459

Ok I’m sorry but these name surveys have turned out to be loadsa fun for me so let me just take another one lmaooooo.

I honestly find it therapeutic since it allows me to reflect and look back on all of the people I’ve crossed paths with before, whether for better or for worse :) Sorry if I’ll repeat names/explanations, I’ll do my best to remember more stuff about them!

aaron: Already mentioned this in the last survey, but he’s a part of my high school friend group. He was one of my first guy friends ever and he was very nice to me from the very beginning; always made sure I felt like I belonged in a crowd. Also studies in UP and I think he is taking up sports science because he wants to go on to med school. abby/abbey: This is my mom’s name. She goes by the first spelling. I know an Abby from high school; she studies in La Salle now. adam: I don’t know him personally but there used to be a dude from WhatCulture Wrestling (a popular YouTube channel) named Adam – he was my favorite to watch until he got caught in a major fuck-up and was booted from the group. adel adrienne ajee

ajla alan: I have an uncle named Allan. He was part of my dad’s friend group in college; they met each other in their org. He was in every birthday party when I was a kid, but I don’t see him anymore now because his family already migrated somewhere else. alex: Broad comm student who plays the guitar and sings well; I haven’t talked to her. I also knew an Alex from 6th grade and she was just...not a very bright student. She had to move because I don’t think her grades reached the standard in my school, and now I think she lives in California. If not there, then somewhere else in the States. Alex is a fairly common name here, though, and I know I’ve missed out on a bunch of other Alexes.

alexa: Again, another girl from high school. Was a cool girl and a party girl from the very start. Like I said in my past survey, she lives in Australia now. alexis alexzandria alicia: My friend Alliyah’s boss, who she has a huge crush on, is named Alicia but she goes by Alice. alisa allie/ally: Gossiping fake loser from our rival journ org who does nothing but spread black propaganda about our org to keep people from joining ours – when she talks to us, though, she’s super nice. I’m so fucking happy she’s graduating because she has such a toxic personality :( allison: Former prof in Comm 100. Wasn’t very good but I had a crush on her from the very first lecture. She had a serious car accident in the middle of the sem and had to wear like a nose brace thing for the rest of the sem. alycea/alycia alyssa: I rode the school bus with a girl named Alyssa but I was much closer to her older sister Alex. There’s also an Alyssa from broad comm and I was classmates with her in my political science, history, and broad comm classes for this semester. She’s the niiiiiiiicest girl and would always help me out if I have missing notes or whatever. amanda: Girl from my org who’s taking up engineering. I was her VP last semester, but she had personal problems and so she wasn’t able to work much under me. Whenever she did, though, she was always reliable. Quiet girl, a little socially awkward. amari amber andrew: I first met him at a rally/protest I attended in 2017. Hit it off well right from the start because I saw that he was wearing a wrestling shirt, so we bonded over WWE that day. He plays the guitar and has released his own EP, is a junior DJ at one of the hip radio stations in Manila, and has done his fair share of hosting gigs. He used to take up engineering but shifted to journalism as he likes it better. Is very adventurous and amiable but tends to get too friendly; some might find it tiring but I honestly think it’s just his personality. He was my groupmate in communication research and I thought he was decent. angela: My best friend’s name is Angela. We first met each other in Grade 1 when we were 7, and we became friends after I stabbed her palm with a newly-sharpened pencil. She still has the pencil mark today. anna: Anna is a popular secondary name in the Philippines, but no one actually uses it as their main name. anne: Same with Anne. annie: My grandma’s best friend who used to come over the house every Sunday. Like I said in the past survey, I’m honestly not sure if she’s still alive lol. She was already pretty old when I was still very young. anthony aasad ashley: I *think* I have a distant cousin named Ashley that I first met at a family reunion last year. But let’s be real, Filipino families are huge and I don’t even know if I remember her name correctly, if she’s even an Ashley. aubri: One of my closest friends in high school was Aubrey. We were very, very close in junior year until she dropped a bomb on me that her family was migrating to California by the time we start senior year. We don’t talk anymore because of the distance and the timezones, but I’ll always be there for her no matter what. Incredibly talented dancer and figure skater. She’s in UCLA right now and as far as I know she is killing it over there. austin autumn: I know an Autumn from my wrestling fandom days. I think she was a redhead, but I don’t remember anything else. barbara becca: A girl from broad comm. She was one of the principal actors in one of the productions we did for BC and she has a really cute laugh. Super elegant; she reminded me a little bit of Audrey Hepburn because she was really graceful. She’s the older sister of my orgmate Rita, who’s from psych. ben beth bethany betty: I have a friend-ish named Bettina. Betty’s kind of like a goofy nickname; she actually doesn’t use it but I think it still counts. I’ve known her since first grade; she peed her skirt in our first day of Grade 1 and I remember her crying a lot. She had a wild TV show phase starting from Grade 5 and she was into Nicole Kidman, Paula Abdul, Kara DioGuardi, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Stana Katic, Kate Walsh, etc etc etc and a bunch of shows like Private Practice, Grey’s Anatomy, Castle, Suits etc etc etc. She was super shy, very awkward in person so I’m glad her love of TV shows and actresses sprung her into life for the most part. She’s in UP Manila and I think too busy to get into fandoms now. bijan bobby bram brandon brandy breanna/brianna: Brianna is my friend Pat’s middle name. I honestly used to be so envious of this name of hers because I thought it sounded really nice, but now I think it kinda sounds like a bratty name hahaha. brendan brian: I have an uncle named Bryan, but we aren’t related. He’s my mom’s cousin’s husband. He’s VERY shy and likes to keep to himself or his kids at family gatherings but turns really cool when he’s had a little to drink. brittany/brittney/brittni brock brooke bruce buck cameron camille: Nice girl from my childhood school bus. There’s an unofficial norm in private schools in that when you’re older, you get to be mean to the younger kids. Not her. She was always nice and include us second graders in her antics in the bus, even though she was several years older. I was bummed when I found out they moved to the States. candy carina: I used to ride the school bus with a Carina but she was much younger. I was already in high school when she was in kindergarten. She’s the younger sister of Carissa, who I always found to be pretty weird. Anyway, these girls were clearly rich and pampered; they had a nanny ride with us in the bus. carly: I had an Internet friend named Carley; she was my first online best friend. We met here on Tumblr in like 2012 and got close because we were both huge fans of Stephanie McMahon at the time haha. We would video-call EVERY afternoon when I would come home from school while she would get ready for school (she’s from Pennsylvania). Eventually she’d disappear off the face of the earth and stopped talking to me but resurfaced a few months later. She’d continue to do this like 10 other times until I got tired of getting my hopes up of having her back. She’s tried reconnecting with me again on DMs but I just ignored it cos I knew there was a good chance she’d just cut off our communication again. We’re still Facebook friends and she’d pop up on my news feed from time to time, but that’s it. carol: I have a great-aunt named Carol. But my grandma has so many sisters that I honestly do not remember which one she is. carrie cassandra: I had a batchmate named Kassandra, who went by Kasey. Really bright, sweet, intelligent girl. She moved to Singapore in 7th grade. She was very, very simple and very kind to everyone and you wouldn’t be able to tell that she’s crazy rich. Her dad’s a top exec for a famous food and drink company and she lives in the same village I do–their house is guarded 24/7. cassidy chantel charlotta chelsie: Chelsea’s part of our high school friend group and is also crazy rich. We always hung out at her place because her house is huge. She’s very maarte, which I cannot really translate to English...the closest term is probably high maintenance hahaha; but she’s very sweet and generous and kind too. cheryl chris: One of Gabie’s best friend is a Kris. Other than liking outdoorsy stuff like going to the beach and hiking which is all I know about her, I think she’s also half-American. christopher: I have an uncle with this name but like I said his nickname is Perry. He works abroad like my dad (his brother-in-law) and my dad’s sister (his sister-in-law). cienna clare: Guidance counselor for several grade school levels. Understandably, she is very maternal. I once had a nasty fight with another girl and we had to be sent to her office. clarissa: Went to school with a Clarisa. We first met in Grade 4 because she rode my school bus, and instantly clicked. She was very nice, very sweet; she was simple to the point that, like Kasey, you’d have no clue how rich she was. She lives in a huge mansion now but she lived in a huge house before that as well, it’s crazy. Really, really sweet and she would give the best hugs. I played table tennis a lot with her in high school too. She studies in Miriam now but I’m not so sure about her course. claudia: Already said a lot about her in the last survey. Popular girl her whole life. She still goes to a bunch of parties but she is so much nicer now than she was when we were younger. cody cole collin corey corinne: One of my former teachers named her daughter Corinne. I think she’s 8 this year. courtney crissy: Chrissy was one of my very best friends in preschool and grade school. She looked Chinese even though she had a Filipino-sounding surname, and I was never sure if she had Chinese blood or not. She was boyish so she was very rowdy, liked to play rough, and punched other girls if she got pissed; but other than that she was very quiet and shy. She was constantly on the basketball team too. Eventually her family moved to Canada. crystal dallas dan danielle danika: An orgmate that worked under my committee two semesters ago. She’s from business ad and was juggling another org so she wasn’t very active at all to begin with. Her performance just plummeted every month and she ended up ghosting my org last semester–never replied to anyone when we tried to check up on her. I was very mad at her until she restarted contact with us recently and explained how tumultuous stuff suddenly got in her personal life and mental health that she had to take care of herself for a while, which we all understood immediately. She’s coming back to the org this year and we’re more than ready to welcome her. She’s very charming, goofy, and kind. She has a very life-of-the-party personality haha. danny: I have a friend-ish named Dani that I met through Angela. We all sat at the same table during the senior ball at Ateneo in 2016 so we got to talk then. She played volleyball in high school and she studies in San Beda now. She wants to take up law school so I think her course is in political science. darious david: Pat’s boyfriend from Serbia and Patrice’s boyfriend from economics HAHAHAHA. Also a sucky groupmate from my comm res class who did absolutely nothing to contribute in the final paper that Hannah and I worked our asses so hard for. dean deanglo derrick destiny devin dillon donna dwayne [Random survey-taker note: these are all very Western names...] emie emily eric: My godfather is an Eric. Like my Tito Allan, he also met my dad through their college org. He’s an exec in a bank now and is suuuuuuper rich. Has a daughter named Arya which he could’ve named after the GoT character but am not really sure about that. everette felicia gabby: Wildly popular name. 1) My girlfriend’s name is Gabie; 2) there was another Gaby in my high school batch. 3) I have a friend from the Tumblr wrestling fandom named Gabbie who was really good in Photoshop – we study in the same school but have never met each other. 4) I have a high school batchmate whose little sister is a Gaby, annnnnddd I also just remembered that 5) there was another Gabbi in the wrestling fandom who also made good edits at the time. gerald gina guliana gloria: Do last names count? Hahaha. Gloria is the surname of my instructor in my class in international relations just this past sem. He’s a new faculty member but is craaaazy good at teaching; clearly knows what he’s talking about. He was passionate about his subject and I always admired that about him. I was really sad when class had to end. grace: I have a great-aunt named Grace; he’s my late grandpa’s sister. She’s really...quite fabulous; she has connections with super prestigious people and has a fancy wardrobe. She’s the only Filipino grandmother I know who goes by ‘Nana’ to her grandkids, which I note because Nana is like a super Western thing afaik. She has drama queen tendencies though and can be sensitive to a lot of things lmao. gracie hannah: One of the close friends I’ve made in college so far! Our first meeting was when she and Macy moved from UP Los Banos to the Diliman campus (where I study) and the three of us enrolled in our classes together. I was closer to Macy first, but eventually me and Hannah got a stronger friendship. Best groupmate, workmate, and David Archuleta fan I know. Sings great and plays the piano great. An absolute angel. hasan hawa hayley: I only know a dog named Hailey lol. heather: Someone from my high school batch is a Heather! We were never in the same cliques but she is one of the friendliest people I know. She knows how to talk to anyone which I appreciated. We bonded over One Direction in high school and she also confided in me a few times about her relationship and how her parents forbade her from seeing her boyfriend because he was trans. She also studies in my school now, taking up business economics. We barely see each other but say hi whenever we do. holly hunter ibro isaac isaiah jack jackie: One of my aunts has a relative named Jackie and I literally only found this out earlier when we met up and caught up with each other. jacob jacquelin jaden: A kid of my mom’s best friend is a Jaden. He was named after Jaden Smith because he was born during the time the Karate Kid remake made big waves. jake: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I had a garbage instructor with this name. This dude was in charge of my weekly crying binges and panic attacks because I was never sure if I was gonna pass his class. He seemed to enjoy giving all of us failing marks too which made me hate his piece of shit ass more. He’s supposed to be really good at what he does but I guess knowledge just does not always translate well in the classroom. Ended up passing his class, but now I’m cursing his ass forever. james: I have a younger cousin named James. I’ve only met him twice; once when he was a newborn, and then when he celebrated Christmas 2018 with us. His family’s lived in New Zealand and Vietnam since 2008, which is why we never get to see him, and why he does not remember me at all. janai janveia jared jason jay: My uncle is a Jay; he’s my mom’s brother. I disowned him as my uncle many years ago. He’s a terrible drunk, a disgusting smoker, and an annoying freeloader. I tried giving him a chance before, but after I found out that he drunkenly punched a cat once, I ignored him forever. Sometimes my mom and grandmother would ask me to acknowledge him at family gatherings, so I’d have to begrudingly do so; but other than that he’s out of my life. jazmine: There was a Jasmin from my old school. She’d always been very artistic and she was into K-Pop very early on. She’s taking up linguistics in my school now. jeana jeanette jen: Girl from the now-ancient Tumblr wrestling fandom. She’s probably the biggest and most passionate wrestling fan I know as she would follow both the mainstream and indie promotions the last time I checked up on her. She was kinda vain and kept on taking selfies while captioning each one as ‘ugly.’ I remember that she has a dog she really loves, and that she lives in Boston. jeralyn jerry jesse jessica: Meh, annoying girl from high school. I’m sure she’s nice(?) but her personality just didn’t click with me. She was too vibrant and too friendly that it almost seemed fake; but what do I know, I never really made the effort to know her better other than bonding over 1D here and there. jim jocelyn jodi: I know a Jodee from my old school. Spoke straight English, is intelligent, but is a huge goofball and very mischievous/rebellious. She was a smartass and liked testing the teachers’ patience whenever she can, but she always did it in a very funny way I think. She was often called to the guidance counselor’s office for having relationships with other students (I went to a Catholic all-girls’ private school, so this was obviously not allowed) but she always stood her ground about it and was never afraid to fight back. She had a phase of unhooking our bras in like 5th grade. joey: My blockmate has a younger sister named Joey. I think she is also studying in UP. john: The cousin I’m closest to is named John, but it’s not his preferred name. jonathan jordan josh: I know two Joshes, but only because they are boyfriends of a couple of acquaintances. jossie julia julie junior justin: I went to school with a girl who initially went by Justinn, but like she all wanted to start calling her by her other name, Ria, as we grew older. I also briefly rode the school bus with a girl named Justine, but we didn’t talk much. kailyn kaitlyn kaleb: Chelsea’s brother is named Caleb. kali karrie karli kasey: Oh, I guess Kasey (under Cassandra) falls under this too lmao. kasahwn katarina: Not exact, but Katrina’s a fairly popular name where I live. My cousin’s boyfriend is named Katrina, my aunt is a Katrina (but she goes by Bianca), and I also went to school with a Katrina even though her nickname is Cheenie. kate: Already talked about this in the last name survey. I met Kate through my org; she’s a huge joker/goofball, is naturally very friendly, and has an awesome wardrobe. When she’s bored and we both aren’t doing anything, she puts makeup on me. Works very well but is also a huge partier HAHAHAHA. katie: This is my nickname for Kate, if that counts. kayla: There’s a Kayla in my college, but her course is in broad(cast) comm(unication). I remember her very well because she is the first person I EVER talked to when we had our freshman orientation in UP. We didn’t become close after that. She’s pretty, has nice clothes and hair, is part of the popular circle, and she’s part of streetdance which is like one of the cooler orgs on campus. kelli kent: I have a younger cousin who’s a Kent. We used to be close when we were both kids, but now we’re shy towards each other. He was obsessed with dinosaurs when he was younger, like 5 or 6. kerna kevin kiana: I have an orgmate named Kiana! SOOOOO pretty and has like the clearest skin. Very simple and down-to-earth. Is nice but can kick your ass because she has a black belt in taekwondo. She’s smart as hell and I’m pretty sure she’s graduating as magna cum laude, besides the fact that she’s going to UP Law right after. kiley kim: I also have an orgmate named Kim :) He’s the sweetest guy ever, and is just so easy to talk to. He has a really cute relationship with one of the org’s alumni. I didn’t get to bond with him much but am sad all the same that he’s graduating this year :( kimberly: Went to my old school with a Kimberly but she went by Kim. Was one of the rougher, lesser-behaved kids. She was a demon in grade school. Not quite sure how she’s doing now. She’s my friend on Facebook but can’t really care less about her life updates. kirsten kristy kyle: Kyelle is a kinda good friend of mine. He’s from the same circle, but we aren’t close in particular. He’s very nice though, very silly and likes to goof around. laila lain: I used to have an orgmate named Laine. She was our VP for External Affairs two years ago. She’s now in law school. leah: Cheenie’s mom is a Lea. She’s probably the best mom friend my mom made from my school hahaha; she’s known me since I was 4. lexi: I have a high school batchmate named Alexa but I think she goes by Lexi, judging from her Twitter name. Is naturally quiet but gets very friendly when you get her to open up. Easy to talk to. liam: Liam is my youngest cousin, I think. He was born in 2014 or 2015. I’ve never seen him, because he and his family lives in New York. I’ve only ever met his big sister. :( lilly: This girl I was classmates with for a journ elective. I found her to be verrrrry pretty and she had the biggest, most piercing eyes; until I found out that she was one of those die-hard Catholics who are vehemently pro-life. She once defended a fraternity whose members were confirmed to be misogynist, sexist, racist, homophobic and transphobic pieces of shit in a leaked groupchat simply because she believes in ‘forgiveness.’ She caused another ruckus two weeks ago when she made known her pro-life views well known. I wanna unfriend her ass so bad but she just keeps making all the wrong opinions that I just wanna stay and watch her get schooled by my less-than-thrilled college mates hahaha. lina liz: If I remember correctly, there was an Elizabeth from my wrestling fandom who went by Liz. She lives somewhere in the UK, had reddish hair, and was in love with John Cena lmao. She would sometimes make edits too. loren: Other than the Lauren I mentioned in the previous survey, I also had a friend named Lauren from the Tumblr wrestling community too. She was one of the first friends I made. She was two years older than me, fancied Andy Samberg earlier than anyone else, had a cool room, was obsessed with cats, and loved tie-dye stuff. lydia lyndsey lynnette macaila mack: JM’s dad goes by Mackey, if that counts hahahaha. He’s a lawyer and a college professor. mckenzi macey: I went to high school with a Macy and now she’s in college with me too. She used to study in UPLB but moved to Diliman after a year, since she always planned to take up journalism (she didn’t pass the cutoff initially, so she had to stay in LB for a year before she moved). I was very close with her throughout high school, but idk, she’s just never been in a good place mentally so our friendship is very up-down-up-down. I tried to reconnect when we were reunited in college, but she’s found her crowd now so I’m happy for her nonetheless.

There’s also a Macy in my org who worked under my committee for a year before she moved to finance. Quiet girl but was always nice to everyone. She’s also graduating this semester :( maddie madison margo: Went to elementary school with a Margo but she preferred to spell it as Margauxe lmao. We became close for a while because we rode the school bus together and she would lend me the other half of her earbuds so we can listen to Ashley Tisdale’s Headstong and Vanessa Hudgens’ V every day (this was when High School Musical was peak popular). She sort of had a tumultuous family life here until she moved to Hawaii a few years ago. I think she may have moved to California now too. maria: Again, this is like the base name for like half of all Filipina girls. It’s so common that it’s just simply shortened to ‘Ma.’ because everyone knows what it stands for. marina marisa: Kayla’s middle name is Marissa. marquis mary: Macy’s first name is Mary. mathew: I know a bunch of Matthews from both high school and college but they all go by Matt. The one I remember the most is Matthew from another high school friend group who was close with my group. Our group was invited to their Christmas party, and they had a gimmick that each member of their group was gonna be paired with someone from ours, and it was gonna be a costume party. I was paired up with Matthew (but they called him Cho), but I never went to the party so I never got to meet him. I’m sure he’s nice, though. matt: See Mathew. maura mechelle: I have an orgmate named Michelle. She’s clumsy, kinda awkward, but she does it in a very cute way and we all love her because she’s so funny haha. She passed the toughest med school program in the COUNTRY but chose journ in the end. Is the most Chinese Chinese-Filipino girl I know. megan: I know someone whose middle name is Megan but she goes by a different name. melissa: Hahahahaha. I knew a Melissa all right. Freeloader. meredith mersadies micah: I was classmates and friends with a Micah in grade school. My parents and hers were close, so we became close too. She was very smart but I remember her to be deathly afraid of walking on beams when we had to do it in PE. She moved schools in the fifth grade, and she studies in UST now. michael: His full name is Michael, but Mike is a guy I almost went out with in high school. Wasn’t really attracted to him, but he’s like super smart so it was a huge plus point for me lol. I also have an orgmate named Michael but we all call him Elis. He’s unreliable. miranda: If surnames count, Gabie’s best friend’s last name is this haha. molly monica: Some girl who went to my old school but transferred schools early on, like in 2nd or 3rd grade. She was Gabie’s childhood friend though so I still hear from her from time to time. She’s in UP now too, but I don’t know what course she’s taking. morgan nashid natasha: I went to high school with a girl named Natasha, but she goes by Tashie. Huge girl and a beast at softball. Can be a big softie but she has weird mood swings too (and when she’s mad, she’s quite violent) so I just tried not to piss her off while we were still in school together lol. nate: Yeah he’s in the same college as me but I know zilch about him other than he’s supposed to be really good in making films. nathan neema nichole: Annoying younger busmate who graduated high school this year. nick: Nick is the codename I gave to one of my first crushes. Obviously not his legit name so I don’t think this counts. nicholas olivia paige preasia preme prisilla: When I was still applying for AIESEC, Priscilla was assigned as one of my groupmates. I was originally iffy because she didn’t get online to work until like 11 PM, but when I did see her start working, she was a GODDAMN BEAST. Amazing. Did everything I assigned to her. When I met her in person the next day, she spoke very well and was very put-together. My respect for her soared even more after that. I dropped my application soon after for unrelated reasons but it was a pleasure working with her. Last I heard, she’s a councilor-elect in her local college’s student council. rachel: My math teacher in Grade 1 was a Rachel. I don’t remember her at all, except for the fact that when she found our class noisy one day, she completely stopped talking and mimed everything for the rest of the 45-minute period. raheim raven: Creepy, weird dude from my org who’s always looking for a dick to suck. I’m not even trying to insult him, he’s just perpetually thirsty and makes sure the whole world knows it for some reason. ray renee: Sweet, intelligent, hilarious girl from my high school. She’s very makwela, which in English means zany/funny. Her dad is a national basketball coach so it’s no surprise she followed in his footsteps. richard riley rita: Sweet, sweet girl from my org. We all just kinda naturally flock to protect her from bad influences or creepy people because she just has such a sweet soul. She’s my successor VP in my committee. robby: I have an Uncle Rob, but he doesn’t go by Robby. He’s the husband of my aunt (my mom’s cousin). He’s from New Zealand and has a Masters or a PhD in film theory, I don’t actually remember which. ryan: I used to see him a lot at a relative’s house until I was like 8. I’ve never seen him since and don’t actually know how he’s related to us or me lmfao. sabrina samantha: I have a younger cousin named Samantha. Sam was born and raised in New York but visited the Philippines last year and I was primarily in charge of taking care of her. She’s just the cutest darling I’ve seen and has the most perfect accent ahuhuhuhuhuhu. She likes My Little Pony. sara sarica sean: Someone from a lower batch in high school has this name. I never knew her but we follow each other on Twitter loooooool. secilia seliena: My older cousin’s first name is Selina but she goes by her second name, Bianca or Bia for short. We were inseperable as kids but we grew shyer as we grew older :( shannon shauna: Gabie’s orgmate. That’s all I know. She liked my tweets in the past but that’s the most contact we’ve made. shayna shelby sherry seirra skylar spencer steven stevey susan: I have an Aunt Susan. She took care of me my whole childhood; fed me, gave me baths, all that stuff when my mom was too busy with work. She got run over by a hit-and-run motorcycle when I was 9 and she was never the same after. She was crankier and had violent outbursts. tamara: I went to school with a Tamara; her nickname was Tammy. She was a gentle giant; like she was a naturally big girl but was very soft-spoken and SUPER shy. We got close for a while in 4th grade but her paths differed not long after. tashryha taylor tayshaun terrell tiffany: I had a batchmate named Tiffany. She was kinda mean in grade school but got nicer as we got older. I never really got the chance to know her well. tori trevor trisha: Another high school batchmate. All I remember was that she would cheat on tests by changing her wrong answers when the teachers would give our results back so they could correct it for her. Also a big Justin Bieber fan lol. trista tylik vanessa: There was a Vanessa in an older HS batch but she went by Via; she just graduated college yesterday but that’s all I know. There’s also a Vanessa in my sister’s HS batch; she’s half-German and that’s also all I know. victoria: Some girl I had a class with was named Victoria but it’s her middle name; we all called her Kristine. wally will wyatt zach: Another guy from the wrestling group I was in. He was one of the older dudes so I was more scared of him than the rest. zachary: Same answer as Zach. I think this was his whole name. zoey

#survey #surveys #ok this'll probably be the last one because THESE ARE LONG

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britishchick09 · 3 years

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danger force christmas special livewatch

welcome to the final livewatch of 2020, ‘chapa kills santa!’ ...jk it’s called ‘down goes santa’ (same thing right?). without further ado, let’s dive into the chaos of ‘the best story of christmas’!

the little pre-show channel bumper has a kid skating on tp... ONLY IN 2020!

the theme at the beginning of the ep is ‘deck the halls’ aww :)

chapa: “did you get a job at nacho ball?” bose: “i got a career at nacho ball.” eyyyy ;D (also how does he have a job isn’t he like 12?)

OH NOES THEY HAVEN’T DONE XMAS THINGS TOGETHER!! :O

chapa: “i’d say that’s an emergency, MILES!!!!!!!” oh boy will there be screaming chapa in this??

also since she cares a lot about christmas stuff maybe she won’t be the one to kill santa?

chapa: “no i don’t love christmas” BOIIIII

mika: “you took a long time to answer that question.” lol :D

SUP RAY

why does ray sound so creepy when he says “oh you wanna hear a... christmas story?”

OMG RAY DON’T SHOVE CHAPA OUT OF THAT CHAIR BRO

ray: “do you wanna hear the real christmas story?” the kids: “NO!!” lol :D

OMG RAY HAS THE BOOK IN THE HEADER PIC! :D

also all the kids said ‘ew!’ at the sight of it they really don’t want this story huh

story: “the first one was generous and jolly. the other was hot and fun.” lol

santa’s bro was named crampus wut

OMG SCHWOZ JUST SHREDDED THAT GUITAR YO!!! also hello george harrison’s lucy nice seeing you here :)

crampus wanted a jet ski and spent 1000 years on the naughty list where does this take place

this story is awesome not gonna lie :D

ray got the book from the truth store lol

story: “one day in the mid 90s” CLARISSA IS THAT YOU???

santa was lured to the desert with ‘promises of fish tacos, motocross and illegal fireworks’ lol

‘dill-weebs’ lol

santa and anti-santa fought in an abandoned mall lol

that was such a great story! :D

miles: “i don’t believe any of that!” ray: “CRAMPUS TOUCH!!!” miles: *SCREAMS*

and ray walks away with an evil laugh... >:)

mika’s sweater is so cute! :D

YO SCHWOZ JUST MADE AN XMAS TREE AND PRESENTS APPEAR IS HE MAGIC THO???? :o

and the audience cheers! :D

MIKA JUST KICKED A LITTLE TREE AND SCREAMED YO MIKA!!!

schwoz: “the big man will be here soon!” bose: “you mean shaq?” lol :D

schwoz cleans santa’s sleigh how cool! :D

there’s a corn lady in a corn truck ICE CREAM TRUCK WHO??? I DON’T KNOW HER

ooh the gums can be used to transform their civilian clothes too!

RAY AND CHAPA BOUGHT ALL THE CORN OMG :O

awww ray did it for chapa’s christmas love! ♥

ray: “our pants are down. we’re exposed!!!” ???

OHHH IT’S ‘P.A.N.T.S’ :o

is santa gonna land in the man’s nest without protection?

YO I WAS RIGHT CHAPA DID KILL SANTA!!!!!

SANTA’S ON FIRE OMGGGGGGG

santa’s beard is gray now is he my dad lol

chapa: “WE SHOT SANTA CLAUS!!!” out of context that line is so sad yet still hilarious

why did the meme airhorn just play

YO CRAMPUS ANTI-SANTA IS REALLLLLL

crampus: “it’s party tiiiimeee!!!” lol

the intro happened 10 AND A HALF MINUTES INTO THE 22 MINUTE EP what a record! :o

why did ray return with a big af senpai ball of yarn and needles

ooh the kids brought back strawberry ice cream :o

miles’ actor’s name appeared just as he was on screen coolio :D

there’s a sign on santa that says ‘none of your buzyness’ NUNYA WHO

also miles and chapa say ‘buzyness’ like nunya lol

CHAPA’S FREAKING SCREAMING ABOUT HER KILLING SANTA YOOO

santa doesn’t know who he is HO HO NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

chapa keeps zapping ray when she disapproves what he says YO CHAPA

YOOO SANTA’S MISSING!!!

bose is a mechanic apparently coolio :D

they’re getting christmas day off BUT NOT XMAS DAY

CRAMPUS LIKES THE MEME HORN YOOOOO

bose: “it could be worse!” *sees crampus* “hey, i was right, it’s worse!”

crampus: “where’s my brother uglies!” his watch: “sick burn, crampus that stings!!” lol

CRAMPUS IS GONNA DESTROY CHRISTMAS NOOOO

crampus can teleport coolio :D

the side effects of catching crampus are ‘hotness and diarrhea’ why :(

mika: “OH MY GOD SHUT UUUUUPPPPP!!!!!!!” SAME MIKA SAME

ray: “don’t say anything!” bose: “he left!” ray: “...seriously”

BOSE WHY DID YOU SAYYYYYY :(((((

YO CRAMPUS TURNED BOSE INTO A PUNK SKATER YO :o

OMG RAY HAS A TAZER GUN SANTA’S DEFINITELY GONNA DIE

ray: “news is boring” indeed it is

on the newscrawl it says orphans were hit with a sack of presents who

the newsman said ‘in part 2 of our news-’ AND THERE’S A PART 2 OF THE SPECIAL EYYYY ;D

miles and mika transformed to applause! :D

punk bose thinks taco tuesday is the best holiday lol

english orphans are on the news WHY

HOLD UP are those the orphans from one of the previous eps???

the english boy sounds like schwoz when he’s crampus-fied lol

english girl: “percy you know i only have one lung!” ...omg

crampus is putting his hands all over the xmas sack AND IT’S SO WEIRD WTF

news lady: “now that you’ve found the sack of presents you can give them to the orphans!” ray and chapa don’t sound too thrilled with that...

DON’T CRAMP THE NEWS LADY NOOOOO

it’s 8:28 pm when ray and chapa are at the news station NOT A LOT OF TIME LEFT TO SAVE SANTA!!!

the news people, orphans and crampus with energy drinks: “TACO TUESDAY LIFE!!” news guy: “LIFE SPELLED WITH A Y!!!” ray chapa GET THESE GUYS BACK FAST!!!!!!

CHAPA JUST HIT CRAMPUS WITH HER POWERS YOOOO

aaand it didn’t work :/

news guy: “looks like this story will be c-c-c-continued!!!!” indeed it will! :D

onto part 2!

YO MIKA AND MILES WALKED INTO SANTAS DANCING TO AN EPIC ‘UP ON THE HOUSETOP’ EPIC

the main santa lady almost sounds like nat from bob’s burgers :D

did schwoz just speak russian??

YO HE’S SINGING IS THIS A MUSICAL NOW???

schwoz: “♬ you’re never too cool for the holidays! ♬” yay! :D

bose: “rule number sleighven-“ i thought crampus hated christmas WHY THE XMAS PUN DUDE??

schwoz gave bose a candy cane AND IT TURNED HIM BACK YAS!!!! :D

bose: “♬ i used to love these as a boy... ♬” schwoz: “♬ you’re not a man... ♬” lol :D

bose’s singing isn’t the best but schwoz is great! :D

bose is happily helping yay! :D

AND THE SLEIGH IS BACK!!!!!

the magic of christmas is tossing people a wrench lol :D

YO SCHWOZ JUST CARRIED BOSE AND CALLED HIM BOSIE! ♥♥

did bose just say ‘i still have these gross dimples’??? DIMPLES ARE ADORABLE BOSIE

an hp ad just played TWICE IN A ROW WHYYYYY

mika and miles look great as santa! :D

all the santas think they’re the real santa lol

real santa’s a rapper dj now lol :D

OMG HE HAS A RAINBOW HAT LOVE YA REAL SANTA!!!!! :D

the santa lady just got a text from a 909 number is that the swellview version of 1-800?

santa lady to crampus: “who are you and what’s your number?” WOAH WOAH LADY YOU DON’T WANNA DATE THIS DUDE BRO

the lady didn’t change when crampus touched her WAS IT THE GLOVES???

mika used her shouting powers on crampus AND HE’S IN HIS UNDIES GROSS CRAMP :(

the santa lady likes crampus’ max body spray WHY LADY????

the into for this ep is 7 and a half minutes in and this is more like it! :D

i skipped the intro last time BUT IT’S AN XMAS THEMED ONE YAS!!!! :D

ray: “outta the way poor people santa just got his christmas bag!!” ray stop

also the card for ray’s actor appeared when he spoke cool :D

YO WAS RAY CRAMP-IFIED TOO????

...no he’s just being ray

OH NO THERE’S A BALLOON CALLED ‘PARTY TIME’ CRAMP’S COMIN’ TO GET U!!!!!!!!

santa lady: “why do i get thrown through a door at this party every year?’ either you’re drunk or you just like slamming yourself through doors???

schwoz calls crampus ‘crampooss’ and it’s just his accent but it’s super funny :D

AND THAT HP AD PLAYS 2 TIMES IN A ROW AGAIN UGHHHH

crampus got away WITH EVERYTHING SANTA NOOOO

bose: “things can’t get worse!” news guy: “things just got a whole lot better...” bose: “see?” news lady: “for CRAMPUUUSSSSSS!!!!” bose: “...they got me.” lol silly bose! :D

crampus’ message is ‘rap, rock, love and CHRISTMAS HATE’

schwoz called italy ‘itallee’ lol :D

the world wide news anchors are just the swellview ones with accents lol :D

bose sees all those anchors being infected AND ALL HE WANTS IS A RUSSIAN HAT

oh hello ray

ray: “why didn’t anyone tell me lake swellview was frozen?” chapa: “,,,it’s december.” lol :D

bose called the infected people ‘crampas’ lol :D

schwoz pronounces christmas ‘christmuss’ :D

909 is san bernadino AKA WHERE THE STORY TOOK PLACE OHHHHH :O

they have to go to the abandoned mall OMGGG!!!!!!!!!

the kids really don’t want ray to take a coal bath

crampus called the santa lady ‘babe’ ARE THEY A THING????

santa: “can i get nexties for a massage?” ...nexties?

YO DID THE SANTA LADY DATE RAY????? :O

UGH the hp ads AGAINNNNNN

YO the lady has cardboard cutouts of bts in her bathroom YOU’RE NOT DAN AND PHIL WITH THE 1D PIC

909 reminds me of ‘one after 909′ and that’s a lot better than this place!

bose got ‘ultra dark sick glasses’ OH NOES

AND MIKA WAS SILENCED WHILE CHAPA WAS TRAPPED IN CHAINS NOOOO

miles is still standing GO MILES!!!!! :D

crampus said he and miles could be friends awww :)

...did crampus just say ‘your call t-mobile’

santa lady: “oh god THEY’RE FIGHTING OVER ME :D’ no they’re fighting for the other santa MS LADY

ray cried at KUNG FU PANDA????

maybe ray can give his jet ski to crampus to redeem him

OH WAIT THAT’S FROM THE STORY OMG :o

THE JET SKI SHALL REDEEM!!!!!

ray said ‘oh gross that’s mine’ to miles’ (and my) suggestion :/

WAIT RAY HAS 4 or 5 JET SKIS WHY

GIVE CRAMPUS THE JET SKI RAY COME ONNNNN

mika says muffled things and ray completely understands her lol :D

RAY GAVE CRAMPUS THE JET SKI KEYS YAAAS!!!!

OMG CRAMPUS IS BACK!!! and he kind of looks like henry??

the hp ad played but the 2nd one had text this time so that’s cool i guess?

santa still doesn’t remember oh noes :o

bose could lift the sleigh and miles could teleport to different houses AND CHAPA IS RUDOLLLLLPHHHH!!!!!

bose said the ‘guide my sleigh tonight’ to mika lol :D

christmas is ‘taco tuesday’ but better :D

the kids are great as santa

miles: “merry christmas you filthy animals!” ooh home alone reference

a button down shirt and a ball made the news anchors transform back aww :D

AND THE ORPHAN GIRL LOVES A TOOTHBRUSH PENCIL

all 7 members of bts are next omg why can’t it be blackpink

YAS THE SPECIAL WAS THE BEST STORY I GUESSED IT RIGHT!!! :D

and mika is still muffled

RAY IS IN LAKE HAVASU AZ REFERENCE!!!! :D

crampus looks like freddy mercury

and he’s with ray and santa! :D

that was a fun christmas special and it’ll certainly be a classic! what a way to end 2020 livewatches! :)

#livewatch #the last 2020 livewatch is a fun end to a crazy year! :D

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sharedhistorypodcast · 5 years

Link

SHARED HISTORY EP. 001 - CHER’D HISTORY

It's our pilot episode! Cass and Nat go colonial and then modern as they learn about two amazing women from American history: Sybil Luddington and Wilma Mankiller. Also notable: Cass drops her first Nic Cage reference, DJ Rip drops his first beat, and Nat drops her first teacher name. Let the bits begin!

Follow Shared History on Twitter & Instagram and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

Support us on Patreon. Become a patron of Arcade Audio and let ‘em know you love us.

Sybil Luddington’s Ride Sybil Luddington’s Statue

Wilma Mankiller Wilma Mankiller with President Clinton

Sources for Wilma Mankiller story: Biography.com, WomensHistory.org, New York Times, Wikipedia

Original Theme: Garreth Spinn Original Art: Sarah Cruz

TRANSCRIPTION...

Rip Camillucci 0:03 Welcome to arcade audio.

Natalie Younger 0:28 Welcome to shared history

Cass Maher 0:31 where the points are made up and the history doesn't matter. Or so you thought,

Natalie Younger 0:37 yes, this is a shared history, the podcast where we are going to talk and just tell each other's story, a little story about history that maybe wasn't in your history books

Cass Maher 0:48 that probably should have been brought.

Natalie Younger 0:50 Yeah, probably should have been. I'm Natalie Younger.

Cass Maher 0:54 I'm Cass Maher.

Natalie Younger 0:55 And on the ones and twos

Cass Maher 1:01 is our producer, Rip.

Rip Camillucci 1:03 I got my full DJ set up here. It's about to get lit, y'all

Cass Maher 1:06 just wait till the beat drops halfway through the podcast, and we're not gonna tell you

Natalie Younger 1:10 it's gonna get turnt.

Cass Maher 1:12 It's a drinking game. Whenever the beat drops, y'all have to take a drink.

Natalie Younger 1:14 Yeah

Cass Maher 1:15 Please don't do that.

Natalie Younger 1:15 and then you have to call your high school history teacher and apologize.

Rip Camillucci 1:20 All on your way to work.

Natalie Younger 1:23 This is our first episode. So enjoy our wackadoos

Cass Maher 1:27 We're shaking our sillies out.

Natalie Younger 1:29 Cass and I started this podcast because we both are big old history nerds. And

Cass Maher 1:34 Natalie was going to write a book.

Natalie Younger 1:36 And then that was a lot of work.

Cass Maher 1:37 And I was like, 'No, you're not.'

Natalie Younger 1:40 It'd be a lot easier. And I'd be a lot less beholden to proper citation if I justtalked into a microphone with a friend of mine.

Cass Maher 1:50 Also, I'm picturing if the book was basically just like you're writing it out the way we're talking. Yeah. Be so incoherent.

Natalie Younger 1:57 Mm hmm. Yeah. And so I knew that Cass is a big old nerd. And we also have just been needing to hang out.

Cass Maher 2:05 Yeah, Natalie,what's our shared history?

Natalie Younger 2:08 Oh, I'm glad you asked. Cass, Rip and I are all improvisers and comedians in the currently sunny city of Chicago,

Cass Maher 2:19 the one sunny day we'll get all year

Natalie Younger 2:20 Yeah, and we're going to be inside talking into microphones during it. And yeah, we met, we met at a improv show where we played really obnoxious Minnesotan and church ladies,

Cass Maher 2:32 all of our names were Carol,

Natalie Younger 2:33 Yeah and it was magical immediately. And we were like, We need a Hangout. But we both over commit ourselves. So the only way that we could trick ourselves into actually hanging out was by making it a project.

Cass Maher 2:46 Natalie, I'm busy, I can't let's write a sketch show together, that'll be good. What if we do a podcast?

Natalie Younger 2:52 Great.

Cass Maher 2:54 So almost a year and a half after,

Natalie Younger 2:56 after we said we should hang out, we finally are hanging out at the not a show. And it's still work related. So the way that this shenanigans will work is we have both chosen a person or an event, I believe we both did people from history, and we're just gonna, you know, tell each other about it. I know for me personally, I was really excited about focusing on women and people of color in history, because I feel like especially in-- Well, no, in all history--I was gonna say, especially in US history, they're not given the page count that they should be.

Cass Maher 3:36 Yeah. And a lot of their accomplishments are passed off to your other people.

Natalie Younger 3:42 But for this episode, we gave ourselves a theme and our theme was women and US history. I had to remember. And yes, I did it correctly.

Cass Maher 3:53 Yeah.

Natalie Younger 3:57 So yeah, so we're just going to tell you a story. That's this is a story time with your friends Cass and Nat and Rip.

Cass Maher 4:05 the reason why Natalie is not doing a book, and we're doing it this way, is again, as previously stated, we're both nerds. So we like are doing the research. But also we are not professional historians.

Natalie Younger 4:18 Oh, yeah, hashtag disclaimer.

Cass Maher 4:20 So some of this may be embellished or maybe not 100%. Correct. But you're going to get the basic gist. And we're mainly just going to talk about what we

Natalie Younger 4:32 Yeah, this podcast brought to you by the internet and our

Cass Maher 4:36 subjectivity

Natalie Younger 4:37 and yeah, and our memories a little bit. Yeah. Mostly the internet and subjectivity.

Cass Maher 4:45 Kidsdon't cite this in a paper.

Natalie Younger 4:47 Yeah.

Cass Maher 4:49 Cool. Well, I'll kick us off.

Natalie Younger 4:50 Yeah, do it.

Cass Maher 4:52 So I chose someone who I had briefly heard about and only pretty recently, feel like you may have heard of this person, since you are kind of a history buff. Sybil Ludington.

Natalie Younger 5:07 I don't believe I'm familiar.

Cass Maher 5:10 Oh, my gosh. Sybil Ludington is a badass bitch. So Sybil Ludington was a young girl during the American Revolution

Natalie Younger 5:22 Oh was she a Daughter of the American Revolution

Cass Maher 5:24 One might say she was. And Sybil's claim to no fame was she had

Natalie Younger 5:32 That's so sad. I'm sorry.

Cass Maher 5:34 Getting real. She had a Midnight Ride akin to Paul Revere.

Natalie Younger 5:40 Okay

Cass Maher 5:42 but unlike Paul Revere, Well, I'll tell you Sybil Ludington's story and then tell you how Paul Revere didn't quite stack up. Paul Revere is a great man. But Sybil Ludington, kind of

Natalie Younger 5:55 Good hat. Great hat on that man.

Cass Maher 5:57 Yep. Love the lantern. So Sybil Ludington was 16 years old when she did her ride. And she traveled twice a distance of Paul Revere at in more in a longer time span because Paul Revere

Natalie Younger 6:13 I thought you were gonna say in like, half the time. Because when women do it, we get it done more efficiently.

Cass Maher 6:18 Well, it was kind of -- I'll explain it. So, she rode 40 miles, which is about 65 kilometers, which means nothing to anyone but

Natalie Younger 6:27 I'm so glad that you transferred it to kilometers. We are in the United States.

Cass Maher 6:31 I every time I every article that I researched, it was like 40 miles about 65 kilometers and I was like no one needs that.

Natalie Younger 6:38 This is for our fans abroad.

Cass Maher 6:40 Oh, yes. You're welcome.

Natalie Younger 6:42 Our budding audience abroad.

Cass Maher 6:45 So yeah, so she was born in 1767. And by the time the revolution hit, her father was a leader of their local militia. And they got word that there a nearby city of Danbury, Connecticut. They lived on the border of New York and Connecticut and they got word that Danbury was going to be attacked by the British and her dad being a militia man was got this Intel and was like we need to gather the militia. They were all home on their farms. And Sybil was like I can do it. So he's like dope.

Natalie Younger 7:31 I think you said this, and I miss it. Where is Sybil? Is she in Danbury?

Cass Maher 7:35 She's in in your New York. So it was called. It was called Fredericksville, the city she was in, which is like, like an hour north of New York City...by car which they didn't have, but they renamed the town Ludingtonville because of her.

Natalie Younger 7:56 That's a mouthful, though. They could have just named the town Ludington.

Cass Maher 7:59 Yeah,

Natalie Younger 8:00 like that's already a town name.

Cass Maher 8:01 Yeah. Like right there

Natalie Younger 8:03 Literally Luddingtown

Cass Maher 8:05 Full stop

Natalie Younger 8:05 What if they named it Ludingtonton and

Cass Maher 8:06 Ludington town

Natalie Younger 8:08 Ludingtontown

Cass Maher 8:09 Yep,

Natalie Younger 8:09 That's in the UK. That's 100% in the UK.

Cass Maher 8:11 New Ludington town. Yes anyway so so he got this Intel all the militia was spread out on their farms. And it was they got this at like 9pm so it's dark out and keep in mind they're in New England and so this is not like we're sitting in the the great all God's country Midwest, very flat very easy to see and know where you're going there like fully wooded and it's been raining. It's dark out and it's all muddy. And it's it's this is a hard ride to make. So she jumps on her horse, Star. I felt that was important to know the horse's name

Natalie Younger 8:53 Yeah that horse is a goddamn hero

Cass Maher 8:55 right? And they said she she had a stick, like a pointy stick. That's all she had to like prod her horse and stuff. And she rode she hit four towns. Now keep in mind, Paul Revere got to Lexington stopped and had a drink with Sam Adams

Natalie Younger 9:16 Like you do.

Cass Maher 9:16 waited for his friend. What is it, Samuel Dawes?

Natalie Younger 9:21 Yeah, Paul Revere is using the buddy system.

Cass Maher 9:23 William Dawes. Yeah, he was just like, chilling until William Dawes showed up. And William had the same message. He's like, you guys, guess what the British are? Oh, hey, Paul. What's up? You tell him about the British coming. That's what I was saying. So they hung out how to drink and then we're like, Let's go together. Paul Revere never made it to the town that he was supposed to.

Natalie Younger 9:42 Where was he supposed to go?

Cass Maher 9:43 He was supposed to go to

Natalie Younger 9:45 I don't know any of this. I'm trash with US history.

Cass Maher 9:48 Yeah, but but I don't know what the final town but he got intercepted by the British. Okay. And he was with his friend William Dawes and Samuel Prescott. And they escaped. Paul Revere didn't they confiscated his horse. So he technically didn't finish the ride

Natalie Younger 10:03 what was his horses name?

Cass Maher 10:04 They don't know because he didn't own a horse at the time he had to borrow someone else's like a hack

Natalie Younger 10:09 Just bummin' a horse.

Cass Maher 10:11 I want you all to know I think Paul Revere is amazing. But in relation to this story, it just doesn't.

Natalie Younger 10:15 He doesn't need it. You don't give him the praise. Everyone's like great. He gets it.

Cass Maher 10:19 So he didn't finish his ride. He took time to like hang out with Sam Adams. And then he had to walk back to Lexington where they said he caught the end of the battle. Like it's kind of it's kind of a downer. Great. So anyway, at the end, he was 41 at the time. So Sibel was a 16 year old girl, she made a 40 mile ride in pouring rain, treacherous mud woods that are really easy to get lost in. And she actually got intercepted by a British officer who tried to pull her from her horse. She fought him off with her pointy stick- with her stick. And the reason she had this deck was to you know, proper horse, which friends be kind to animals. But also she didn't get off a horse the whole time. She didn't have time to like, jump off the horse and like knock on the door. Hey guys, sorry.

Natalie Younger 11:09 She was she like rapping on the doors

Cass Maher 11:11 She was rapping on the door while she's on her horse going from house to house like dope British are here, y'all know I gotta hit three more towns. Um, and she has she

Natalie Younger 11:22 activate your phone tree.

Cass Maher 11:25 So yeah, so she gathered 500 militia between the times of 9pm and Dawn which I don't know what that is five 6am it was still dark.

Natalie Younger 11:33 It depends on the time of year

Cass Maher 11:34 It depends on the time of year, Did they have daylight savings time yet? Did Ben Franklin screw us all over by then? Yeah, and I'm looking at my notes. Yeah, so she fought off several British officers. I think a highwayman stopped her too and got 500 militia. The by the time the militia was gathered and made it to Danbury they, they weren't able to save the town. But by that time, most of the people knew so most of the people had gotten out of Danbury

Natalie Younger 12:11 So it was kind of like a ghost town that the British were invading.

Cass Maher 12:13 Yeah, they I think I mean, some people still died and they burned down a few buildings. The reason the British were going there was to intercept like ammunitions and supplies and stuff. So I think they were able to get like, most of that stuff out clear the town a little bit. And when the militia got there, they were still able to force the British to retreat.

Natalie Younger 12:38 Oh, cool.

Cass Maher 12:38 Yeah. into close to the New Jersey sound. Which you guys all know where that is. Yeah.

Natalie Younger 12:45 Sounds like it's in New Jersey.

Cass Maher 12:48 Nailed it. They were they were able to force them to retreat, which then is like known as the battle at Ridgefield, so I don't know that at all. But that was mentioned basically,

Natalie Younger 13:01 I mean, if Sybil wasn't there. We don't care about it anymore for the purpose of this podcast

Cass Maher 13:04 Basically, they did their jobs. Sybil was a bad ass. She was 16 years old. She had 11 brothers and sisters.

Natalie Younger 13:13 That's too many.

Cass Maher 13:14 So there's this really cool story of her dad was in there. This was before the ride. Her dad was like in their home and a bunch of British loyalists. 51 British loyalists were approaching the house to like, capture her dad. And it was just like him, I think they had one guard or patrolman. So Sybil like planted candles all around their house, and she lined up her brothers and sisters and had them march in like a military formation. So all the British loyalists saw was all these candles, and then like faint outlines of like marching a small army of 12 children, and they and they didn't so and then they they went away. They're like, Oh, there's too many people. We can't fight them. We've got 51 they've got a full troop. And that was Sybil.

Natalie Younger 14:08 So theatrical Sybil, the drama!

Cass Maher 14:11 Right. Like that's like, have you ever seen the Patriot where they like make all the scarecrows? Screw Mel Gibson. But she did that but real life and better.

Natalie Younger 14:22 It's like, but but for real and better. And without anti semitism.

Cass Maher 14:29 Woof. We'll get into that in a different podcast. Yeah. Also, her mom and dad are first cousins, which doesn't really matter. But I thought that was funny and weird. Yeah.

Natalie Younger 14:39 That's a product of the times

Cass Maher 14:40 a product of the times. So so she was she made, God, a 40 mile ride at 16. overnight in the rain. That's hard. And fighting off a British person. Just let me tell you, I've done that before, it is hard. And yeah, she was. She was thanked personally by George Washington, which was a big deal. Y'all know how obsessed with George Washington everyone was.

Natalie Younger 15:10 He was the first celebrity

Cass Maher 15:11 he was the first celebrity

Natalie Younger 15:12 American celebrity

Cass Maher 15:14 before they before we came up with our presidential system and everything like George was they wanted to make him their king. Yeah, he was deified like know, if you got to see him. It was like touching Beyonce. So the fact that he personally thanked this 16 year old girl was a huge deal. And, and, and then she just went off to live a quiet life. She got married, she had a bunch of babies. And and she died at age 77. And no one knew about any of this. No one talks about it.

Natalie Younger 15:51 That's a long life for that time.

Cass Maher 15:52 Yeah, right. Um her great grandson, or her grandson or something, was the first one to write it down. And this didn't get published until like 1880 or 1900. So I don't do math that that's almost what like 100 years.

Natalie Younger 16:08 Because they were at that point. I feel like they were like, oh, oh, but But Paul

Cass Maher 16:13 Yeah. But Paul

Natalie Younger 16:16 we can't admit that we were wrong and that we gave all the credit to a mediocre middle aged white man.

Cass Maher 16:23 and so her grandson wrote all this down. And it was like well known history in the town. Like they renamed the town about her. And then it wasn't until this woman historian and like the 1880s found about this story and published it and some magazine or article. And there's this awesome statue at the halfway point between her ride of her on a horse. And like the horse

Natalie Younger 16:47 Fighting a British man?

Cass Maher 16:48 The horse is kind of reared up and she's got her like, she's got her stick in her hand. And she's like, waving it and it's this awesome statue that no one's going to see because it's in the middle of Connecticut like wilderness. But God what a badass broad

Natalie Younger 17:03 That is dope. You know, I've never heard of her.

Cass Maher 17:06 She's really really cool.

Natalie Younger 17:08 I am admittedly very I am. I am quite literally trash with US history.

Cass Maher 17:13 Same

Natalie Younger 17:13 because our country's young and we study things that don't matter in school.

Cass Maher 17:18 Yeah. And then they hit the like,

Natalie Younger 17:20 sorry, Mr. Dolan,

Cass Maher 17:21 they hit these. They hit these like, these random highlights of you know, like Paul Revere has been mythologized.

Natalie Younger 17:30 Yeah.

Cass Maher 17:30 Also during the American Revolution, like, there's no way we should have won that war.

Natalie Younger 17:35 Oh, no,

Cass Maher 17:36 like we had, we had no troops who were all you know, like, like underground - ya know if the British like suspected you they would take out and so I feel like a lot of what helped us win was this like mythologizing and like, you know, the American Revolution was basically just like a inspirational basketball movie where there's that the coach gets, no seriously, it's like it's a buncha it's a bunch of ragtag group that shouldn't win and shouldn't make it to the state finals and then Denzel Washington comes out and he gives a "You Are Titans" gives an inspirational speech and it's - somehow it works

Natalie Younger 18:19 And then we all flap our wings. We all end

Cass Maher 18:21 Americans are all heart

Natalie Younger 18:23 And we quack

Cass Maher 18:23 And not a lot of planning. I feel so so yeah.

Natalie Younger 18:27 Yep, that tracks

Dude that's cool. Ludington, Sybil Ludington

Cass Maher 18:34 only one D which through me - that's not important, but

Natalie Younger 18:40 It's just just the one D

Cass Maher 18:41 is just the one D because the the town name was so long, they had to cut a D just to make it shorter

Natalie Younger 18:46 Jesus. Well, I'm going to go into mine now. Just because we're talking about Sybil Ludington, and what a what a proper name, segue to the most badass name, even though it's not for the correct reasons ever. I am here to tell you the story of Wilma Mankiller.

Cass Maher 19:10 Fuck off. Is that a real name? Or did she change it?

Natalie Younger 19:15 That is her real name. It is a however, it is in reference to a tribal military rank.

Cass Maher 19:25 Got it

Natalie Younger 19:26 And geographic region, but I think it's the military rank first, and then the region she grew up in was named for that. Because of her for her grandfather, neither here nor there. So Wilma Mankiller full name Wilma Pearl Mankiller, because you got to soften it a little. When your lastname is

Cass Maher 19:49 Wilma Mankiller.

Natalie Younger 19:51 When your last name was man killer, you gotta throw a little pearl in there. So I'm jumping, jumping forward in time, to the most of the story takes place in like the 60s 70s. But Wilma Mankiller was born in November 18 1945 that's a day after my husband's birthday. Not in 1945

Cass Maher 20:15 your husband's middle name is also Pearl, which is bizarre

Natalie Younger 20:18 is crazy. In a town I can't pronounce in Oklahoma,

Cass Maher 20:24 show me

Natalie Younger 20:25 Tahlequah?

Cass Maher 20:30 Well, I mean, it's got a Tahlequah. Yeah, there's no way I would have been able to pronounce it better. I just wanted to see it

Natalie Younger 20:36 The confidence, though. She's a descendant of the Cherokee Indians. And they were so there in Oklahoma, because they were forced to leave their homelands, you know, hashtag Trail of Tears, Forced to leave their homelands, to make way for white settlers in 1830s. So she's the descendant of the Cherokee Indians who were relocated there. And then she was kind of subsequently relocated, but she is the sixth of 11 children, big families on this episode, and she grew up on Mankiller Flats, which is located near Rocky Mountain Oklahoma, which I don't know where that is, either

Cass Maher 21:20 Mankiller Flats

Natalie Younger 21:21 Man killer flats.

Cass Maher 21:23 I can already see this movie

Natalie Younger 21:25 Right? You see, like the title pop up?

Cass Maher 21:27 That's like john Ford western action going on

Natalie Younger 21:34 yes. So So I believe that like, I believe that her grandfather, great grandfather had this tribal rank, and therefore that was his last name, or considered his surname. And he he owned like several plots of land and mankiller flats. So the land is indirectly named for her, not her for the land.

Cass Maher 22:00 geography lesson here as well

Natalie Younger 22:02 you know, just doing what I can. So she was she was grew up on mankiller flats, before moving with her family in 1956 to San Francisco, California, as a part of the Federal relocation act to move Indians off of the reservations and into large cities. Because the government can't make up their mind. They're like first Native Americans please move out of your home territories over here. You know what? Now you're all in this place. We'd rather have you in big cities. Let's move you over here. One biography said that they moved in hopes of a better life and they were a poor family with like 13 mouths to feed

Cass Maher 22:39 Also I feel like every history book is like, they throw on "they moved in hopes of a better life" to soften, to 'pearl' you know, that relocation forcibly

Natalie Younger 22:51 well and then another another bio a read said that was her dad Charlie's idea and that her mother Irene was not into it and did not want to go to San Francisco

Cass Maher 23:00 mom's always like "Charlie, I swear to God"

Natalie Younger 23:03 "This is my home Charlie."

Cass Maher 23:06 You wanna Man Killer?

Natalie Younger 23:09 All biographies basically said that, like Wilma didn't want to leave Oklahoma got it. Which I guess lends to spoiler alert she ends up going back to Oklahoma at some point. But so they go to California and hopes of better life but you know, guess what? California was still rough economically even in even in the 50s San Francisco was very expensive.

Cass Maher 23:30 California was never really killing it, I feel like California was a rough place for a long time

Natalie Younger 23:36 Yeah. No, they still were like impoverished in in San Francisco - maybe - I'm just gonna blame tech bros is even though this is the 50s

Cass Maher 23:48 Guys, check out this rotary phone

Natalie Younger 23:51 and surprise, surprise, loaded with discrimination against Native Americans. But reluctance aside it was in California that Wilma first got into activism. I guess I should have started with Wilma Mankiller is a

Cass Maher 24:07 Native American activist.

Natalie Younger 24:09 And the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation

Cass Maher 24:12 we are gilding so many lilies -- wait she was the first female chief

Natalie Younger 24:16 uh huh

Cass Maher 24:16 Wilma!

Natalie Younger 24:18 But, so, activism has been like a through line in her entire story. So they they moved to California. Her first like foray into activism was with San Francisco's Indian center and leader with, and this was a really dope story that I got to then go off on a tangent on, the Native American efforts to reclaim Alcatraz Island. So in...

Cass Maher 24:45 Alcatraz is so cool. I'm sorry. The Rock?

Natalie Younger 24:50 Great Nick Cage movie totally by him as a chemist.

Cass Maher 24:52 I love that movie

Natalie Younger 24:54 Yeah, so Alcatraz has been closed. The penitentiary had been closed in 1964. And been declared surplus federal property. And no, that was in 64, the penitentiary close in 63. And, according to the Treaty of Fort Laramie, in 1868, between the US and the Lakota, all retired, abandoned, or out of use Federal Land could be was, was by right could be reclaimed by the Native American tribes that had been forced out of it to begin with

Cass Maher 25:24 Hell yeah.

Natalie Younger 25:26 So in 1964, well, in 1964 a small group of Sioux demonstrated on the island for like four hours, and they were like, "Hey, can we have this back?" And then in 1969, from November 69, to June 71. So for 19 months, a bunch of American Indians from various tribes and their supporters occupied to the island, and like, lived there. Until they were like, forcibly removed by the US government.

Cass Maher 26:02 Shocker

Natalie Younger 26:02 So they were like, where there was,

Cass Maher 26:05 That's a through line here too.

Natalie Younger 26:08 Yeah. So they, their, their -- Their argument was that they that the Native American people should get Alcatraz Island back

Cass Maher 26:15 Because this in your peoples law, Americans.

Natalie Younger 26:19 Yeah. And they use the they use the Treaty of Fort Laramie as like their precedent. Yeah. legal term. Yeah, so. So this was going on and, and Wilma was was intrigued by it and like, kind of like inspired by it. She would make food and meals and bring them to the people on the island and raise money for their causes. And, so it was in San Francisco that she got like super into activism. But first marriage, she got married at 17. It was 1963. Her husband's name is Hector Hugo Olaya de Bardi. Which I just wanted to say but he doesn't matter.

Cass Maher 26:57 That is a fun name.

Natalie Younger 26:59 right? A lot of names.

Cass Maher 27:00 Hector Hugo.

Natalie Younger 27:01 Hector Hugo Olaya de Bardi. And they had two daughters, Felicia and Gina.

Cass Maher 27:08 Lot of great names in this story

Natalie Younger 27:09 Good names in this story. But it's all this....wait. Yeah. Okay. So she got super into the occupation. She was very intrigued by the occupation of Alcatraz prison. And her husband was like, "Hey, why don't you just remain a traditional housewife?" And she was like, 'Nope, I mean, my name is man killer. So"

Cass Maher 27:33 what do you think, Hector Hugo?

Natalie Younger 27:35 Hector, I don't gotta listen to you. My last name is man killer and I got shit to do.

Cass Maher 27:39 I do what I want.

Natalie Younger 27:40 I don't need no man. Also, they got divorced later anyway, which is why I keep saying he doesn't matter.

Cass Maher 27:46 checks out.

Natalie Younger 27:47 sorry, Hector. So she said, Oh, that time I have this quote, quote, "when Alcatraz occurred, I became aware of what needed to be done to let the rest of the world know that Indians had rights too" and this is when she went like all in on activism. So she took night courses and and like, got her bachelor's while working on as a coordinator for like Indian programs in Oakland public schools. And she did all this stuff in San Francisco. But then like the second she divorced Hector, she was like, "bye I'm going back to Oklahoma. because I never wanted to leave Oklahoma in the first place."

Cass Maher 28:21 Cuz California in the 60s suuuucks.

Natalie Younger 28:23 Um, yeah. So she goes back to Oklahoma and remains living on Cherokee reservation in 1977. And she brings her daughters, she's like "byeeee...she's like their man killers now, we're leaving"

Cass Maher 28:40 Come to my flats.

Natalie Younger 28:41 Yes. Come to my These are my flats.

Cass Maher 28:43 These are your flats now.

Natalie Younger 28:44 These are my These are my sensible flats.

Cass Maher 28:46 Everything the light touches is your

Natalie Younger 28:49 I imagined the light touches a lot on flats, not a lot of peaks to cast a shadow?

Cass Maher 28:54 That's a lot of light, Mankiller.

Natalie Younger 28:57 So she goes back to Oklahoma in 77. And resumes activism in Oklahoma. In 79, I believe is when we begin a trend of Wilma almost dying.

Cass Maher 29:10 Jesus

Natalie Younger 29:10 So, in 1979 she was in a serious car crash she was driving back from I think she was getting her master's. And she was driving back and had to like - from classes to where she was living. It was a long drive late at night. She has like what tried to like around a car or another car tried to go around the car and she gets in a serious had a head on collision. That like she was like in physical therapy and had to have like 17 surgeries and whatnot. But she lives, the driver of the other car does not live, the driver the other car is her best friend. So she gets in a head on collision with her best friend. And then after after recovering she was diagnosed with my my mya...I'm a doctor... myasthenia gravis, a chronic neuromuscular disease that makes speaking and simple motor functions increasingly difficult and can lead to complete paralysis. So that's like basically when she's kind of recovered from the car accident she gets diagnosed with that

Cass Maher 30:15 it's hard to be an activist when you can't talk very well.

Natalie Younger 30:17 Yeah. And there's, but there's, i guess i Cherokee vision of being of good mind which to Mankiller she took it to mean like thinking positively about what happens in your life and kind of taking whatever comes your way and and still doing the best to serve others. So she heckin' kept going. which becomes a theme it because she also had a kidney transplant, breast cancer, and lymphoma and I read one bio that said that she actually had to have two kidney transplants. So by the time..

you only got two of those

so she had no original kidneys

Cass Maher 30:51 in in the 70s

Natalie Younger 30:52 not made with original parts

Cass Maher 30:53 I don't want to get a 17 surgeries in the 70s

Natalie Younger 30:57 Yeah. Big ups to her brother Donald for the kids a donation. At least one of them. I don't know where the second one came from

Cass Maher 31:04 Donny, your mankiller but you saved this woman.

Natalie Younger 31:08 Aww what a great logline for Donny's life story. But this isn't about Donny

Cass Maher 31:16 No.

Natalie Younger 31:17 So after not dying like the first time, question mark, she took charge of the newly created Community Development Department of the Cherokee Nation. And the core of her activism in Oklahoma was kind of around what she called like self help projects. Basically, she would she would design projects that would for like rural communities that would help better them, but they were like designed to be like where you're going to help better yourself like this, you it's they would do the she would design projects to like get the community involved so that they could play a role in their own betterment and help solve their own problems and whatnot.

Cass Maher 31:55 Teach a man to fish

Natalie Younger 31:56 Yeah. The most notable one was a project in Bell, Oklahoma. It's a small village on a reservation where volunteers from the community helped construct an 18 mile long water system because they didn't have fresh water and repair dangerous housing. So that was the one

Cass Maher 32:13 was this woman just exhausted all the time?

Natalie Younger 32:16 from probably from almost dying constantly.

Cass Maher 32:18 Yeah. Hey, hold on guys. I have limited speech and motor functions

Natalie Younger 32:23 and every cancer

Cass Maher 32:24 let me get my masters also running rural outreach development programs with probably no funds and

Natalie Younger 32:32 and raising two, I'm sure, badass daughters

two Mankillers.

Yeah, two mankillers -- takes a lot out of you

Cass Maher 32:38 damn, all well thinking positive thoughts.

Natalie Younger 32:40 Yes. So the project at Bell, the water system, got her recognized in Ms. Magazine as Woman of the Year in 1987. So good for her

Cass Maher 32:49 it better.

Natalie Younger 32:50 And she met her, she met her second husband working on that project cuz I believe he was a volunteer she recruited. His name was Charlie Soap.

Cass Maher 33:01 So many good names.

Natalie Younger 33:04 It's a good name. It's a good-- Charlie soap.

Cass Maher 33:06 He should have taken her last name.

Natalie Younger 33:08 He was a full blooded, Native American -- full blooded Cherokee. And was totally cool with her not being a traditional housewife. I'm sorry, I'm hating so much on Hector.

Cass Maher 33:20 Hector Hugo.

Natalie Younger 33:21 But so all of that is just like that's before she even did what she's like most known for.

Cass Maher 33:26 Oh, we haven't even hit that yet?

Natalie Younger 33:28 We haven't hit her becoming chief.

Cass Maher 33:29 Oh, that's right.

Natalie Younger 33:30 Yeah. So she became she became deputy principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in 83. And then the principal chief resigned in 85. He resigned to take a position in like the some Federal Bureau Bureau of Indian Affairs or something. Something

Cass Maher 33:49 bureaucratic

Natalie Younger 33:50 bureaucratic and seemly, incorrectly named. And, and so. So she became the first female principal chief of the modern Cherokee Nation by like, just default because she was deputy. Yeah. And at that, I think at that time, and still, the Cherokee Nation is the second largest tribe in the US after the Navajo but yeah, so she just took over for him because he left for the other role. Yeah. So she had to run for reelection. So she ran for reelection in 87. And even though she had already done the job, had a hell of a time. Like faced a lot of opposition.

Oh, yeah.

Not for any like, particularly like stances, but just because she was a woman.

Cass Maher 34:38 Yeah. Cuz clearly she had done the work and had proven she can do her job.

Natalie Younger 34:43 She done the work at that point for two years

Cass Maher 34:44 you know that word 'electability' that we keep hearing?

Natalie Younger 34:50 Yeah, like her car is vandalized, she was threatened. And what's weird about this is that I guess like, in traditional Charokee culture, like women play a vital role in social and political issues like and women are women. empowered women are like a normal thing.

Cass Maher 35:07 Yeah, it's not a matriarchal society. But they are

Natalie Younger 35:09 No, there's like a balance

Cass Maher 35:11 But they are very valued.

Natalie Younger 35:14 So, in one of her in her autobiography, Mankiller argued that like European conquest, disrupted kind of that idea of balance between the two genders in the Cherokee Nation, and,

Cass Maher 35:27 and also a lot of Native American tribes believe in multiple genders, that there are multiple genders.

Natalie Younger 35:34 That's fair.

Cass Maher 35:34 That's dope.

Natalie Younger 35:36 so yeah, so she just felt that having a female chief was like a good - a small but strong step back to achieving that gender balance.

Cass Maher 35:46 Oh, that's awesome.

Natalie Younger 35:47 That they used to have traditionally before Europeans came and fucked up everything,

Cass Maher 35:53 man, we kind of did a lot of that...fuckin up things.

Natalie Younger 35:57 Yeah. Shared History: What did what did...

Nat & Cass 36:02 How did white people ruin this / How did the whites ruin everything?

Natalie Younger 36:06 I mean, that could literally be the tagline of most things.

Cass Maher 36:11 Most history books.

Natalie Younger 36:12 most history books. But obviously she won the election in 87. Ran again for reelection in 91. Won again. And then retired in 95. Because

Cass Maher 36:26 Girl needs a break! Oh my god,

Natalie Younger 36:29 she cited illness and I'm like, I feel like ill health... you, you carried through a lot ill health. You get to--You don't need a reason to retire.

Cass Maher 36:38 Wilma you couldn've use ill health as a reason to retire a long time ago, you're tired.

Natalie Younger 36:43 Like you've you've done enough.

Cass Maher 36:45 You did the work.

Natalie Younger 36:47 When she was chief she focused on like education and job training and health care

Cass Maher 36:51 a lot more of that, like, self sufficient.

Natalie Younger 36:54 Yeah, helping yourselves. She also worked with the federal government to pilot like, more self governance of Native American tribes. She worked with the EPA, and she, she, I love this, "She worked to improve the image of Native Americans while staunchly combating the misappropriation of Native Heritage."

Cass Maher 37:16 Oh my god.

Natalie Younger 37:18 Yes.

Cass Maher 37:18 That's a big task.

Natalie Younger 37:20 Yeah.

Cass Maher 37:20 Especially in the 70s.

Late 70s and 80s, trying to be like, "yes, we agree. We're important and our culture and our heritage is impressive and important. Please stop taking it as your own."

Yeah. Village People

Natalie Younger 37:35 Please stop buying your children dream catchers.

Cass Maher 37:39 Hey, Coachella take off the headdresses.

Natalie Younger 37:42 Yeah, I had a dream catcher as a kid. And I'm like, I feel bad about it.

Cass Maher 37:47 I went to summer camp, and we made them all the time with like yarn and stuff.

Natalie Younger 37:52 What a beautiful piece of heritage that you made...your traditional yarn dreamcatcher. But yeah, so by the end of her tenure, like the budget for the Cherokee Nation was like 150 million dollars. And they and the membership population had like doubled. And yeah, and then after leaving office, because she was like, "Guys, I don't feel great. And I've done a lot. I'm tired," and then retires and immediately is like, still lecturing. Still like, like, authors, several books.

Cass Maher 38:29 She's a woman who's like, you know what, I'm gonna take a break and focus on me. All right, I've got a rally coming up. We're gonna have some speeches and some outreach stuff.

Natalie Younger 38:39 I gotta teach a class at this local college. I think she taught at Dartmouth, that's not a local college,

Cass Maher 38:46 Of course she did

Natalie Younger 38:46 you know, small college, Dartmouth

Cass Maher 38:48 casual you ever heard of Dartmouth?

Natalie Younger 38:49 ever heard of it? You wouldn't hear of it, it's very small.

Cass Maher 38:53 Do you know what she got her master's in?

Natalie Younger 38:55 I do not know what she got her masters in.

Cass Maher 38:57 I'm sure it was some sort of, like, like, women's lib or like, you know Poli Sci, it was probably like a double masters. But like "I don't need to talk about that. I got work to do."

Natalie Younger 39:10 Yeah, yeah, she's like, "I don't need it. I'm just here to like, help you help you. I just want to help you help yourself." She received numerous honors, appropriately so.

Cass Maher 39:21 Thank God.

Natalie Younger 39:23 One of which being the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which she received in 98. So it would have been with Clinton. Yeah, there's a bunch of other people who got that, I think a Rockefeller got it that year. Because Rockefeller is gonna Rockefeller,

Cass Maher 39:40 Lean and Rockefeller.

Natalie Younger 39:42 Lean with it and Rockefeller it

Cass Maher 39:43 He worked so hard accruing his millions.

Natalie Younger 39:46 Yeah, I mean, thanks, as an art kid. Thanks, Rockefellers, for being patrons of the arts. Thank you, Rockefeller, specifically for the hit TV show. 30 Rock. You did it David Rockefeller. Thank you.

Rip Camillucci 40:04 Thank you for your address.

Natalie Younger 40:06 Yeah, thank you.

Rip Camillucci 40:07 Wilma Mankiller completed a master's degree in community planning at the University of Arkansas

Cass Maher 40:13 checks out thanks, Rip.

Natalie Younger 40:14 Yeah,

Cass Maher 40:14 Thanks producer Rip

Natalie Younger 40:15 Rip on the ones and twos and the actual facts

Cass Maher 40:18 beat dropped.

Natalie Younger 40:21 That was a--

Cass Maher 40:21 drink

Natalie Younger 40:27 --that was....that was a beat drop that we were talking about. It's just it's just Rip dropping a fact.

Rip Camillucci 40:34 Oh, yeah, we call facts beats here on Shared History.

Cass Maher 40:38 Hey, you got the beat on that? Yeah, let me drop it real quick.

Natalie Younger 40:42 Yeah, so that's, uh, that's Wilma Mankiller. She is sadly no longer with us. She passed away in 2010 of pancreatic cancer

Cass Maher 40:51 wait, when she was born, she was born in 34? 45

Natalie Younger 40:54 45. Yes.

Cass Maher 40:56 How old is she? What's math?

Natalie Younger 40:57 I'm bad at math. What is that? That's a 6--

Nat & Cass 41:01 That's gotta be 75?

Cass Maher 41:05 Sybil Ludington outlives her

Natalie Younger 41:06 Please hit the comments with better math than we can do.

Cass Maher 41:09 Sybil Ludington outlived her if that's it

Natalie Younger 41:10 Yeah, that's insane

Cass Maher 41:11 But also, she did a 40 mile ride at 16 and had plenty of time to chill after that. Yeah.

Natalie Younger 41:16 Also, did Sybil Ludington have every cancer?

Cass Maher 41:19 Probably not.

Natalie Younger 41:21 And like no clean drinking water?

Cass Maher 41:23 Oh, God

Natalie Younger 41:23 and or Well, I was gonna say or electricity but Sybil Ludington didn't have electricity.

Cass Maher 41:28 But she's good at riding a horse. No Sybil, you are awesome. And we thank you for your service to this country. Also, Wilma was probably just like, "another kidney? Cool. Go ahead. Do what you gotta do. Doctors. I'm working. Yeah. Can I have like a standing desk while you're doing all this?"

Natalie Younger 41:44 Yeah, I have plans. So can we just like Hurry up this second kidney transplant?

Cass Maher 41:51 I just hate hearing these stories. When it's like, oh, she was busting her ass and so overqualified. And doing the work and it doesn't even seem like a footnote. Because I've never heard this in anything.

Natalie Younger 42:06 Yeah. When I like i was -- i hate US history. So I was like, trying to figure out who I was gonna talk about. And I really wanted to do, I really want to do a woman of color. And I was like, Oh, I found so many activists are women of color in this country. It's insane. And also 100% justified and believable. And there should be many more activists that are not people of color because they need to stop doing all the work for us.

Cass Maher 42:38 Like a nap. Let me help. Yeah.

Natalie Younger 42:41 But uh, I started, I read just like a little blurb on her. And I was like, I wonder if there's like, enough here. And then I got into this and I was like,

Cass Maher 42:51 and Wilma was like, "hold my beer."

Natalie Younger 42:53 Yeah.

Cass Maher 42:54 Cuz I'm working. I can't drink right now.

Natalie Younger 42:56 Yeah, I can't drink right now. I have things to do. I have communities to rebuild.

Cass Maher 43:02 Oh, my God.

Natalie Younger 43:03 I have impacts to make. I have--

Cass Maher 43:06 and I have like several illnesses

Natalie Younger 43:07 tribes on Alcatraz to feed. And two beautiful daughters.

Cass Maher 43:12 and two beautiful daughters.

Natalie Younger 43:15 Who are also probably very smart.

Cass Maher 43:16 Yeah. I wonder what they're doing now.

Natalie Younger 43:18 well tune in next time....I do want to read, I have a quote because Obama issued a statement after her passing

Cass Maher 43:27 drop that beat

Natalie Younger 43:28 because she passed away during his presidency. He said, "as the Cherokee nation's first female Chief, she transformed the nation to nation relationship between the Cherokee Nation and the federal government and served as an inspiration to women in Indian country and across America." And he stated "her legacy will continue to encourage and motivate all who carry on her work." I just any opportunity to quote Obama I'm going to take

Yeah, Yes, we can.

Yes. We could.

Cass Maher 43:58 Oh, wompwomp.

Natalie Younger 44:02 On that note,

Cass Maher 44:03 Yes, we will. Yeah.

Natalie Younger 44:08 But yeah, I just, I just really liked that her story was one riddled with disease and great names.

Cass Maher 44:16 Seriously, can we recap some names quick?

Natalie Younger 44:19 Charlie Soap

Cass Maher 44:20 Charlie Soap. Hector Hugo

Natalie Younger 44:23 Mankiller

Cass Maher 44:24 Wilma Pearl

Natalie Younger 44:25 Wilma Pearl Mankiller

Cass Maher 44:26 Irene and what was Dads name?

Natalie Younger 44:28 dad's name was Charlie as well.

Cass Maher 44:30 Oh, yeah. And Donny mankiller and

Natalie Younger 44:33 Hector Hugo Olaya de Bardi and Felicia and Gina. And Donny, Donny and his kidney.

Cass Maher 44:41 Donny and those kidneys.

Natalie Younger 44:42 Donny and those kidneys.

Cass Maher 44:43 Wow.

Natalie Younger 44:44 Yeah, I'd never heard of her.

Cass Maher 44:46 No.

Natalie Younger 44:47 But that's what we're here for.

Cass Maher 44:49 That is why we're here to share history with y'all

Natalie Younger 44:54 dude, I-- reading about this too, also, like I went down so many rabbit holes because like I could do it whole episode just on the Occupation of Alcatraz because it's like, I just think it's really interesting. It should be the plot for the sequel to The Rock. And it's like so interesting and like and also sad. Because I mean, they're not, they aren't there. But still just, now it's just like a tourist destination. But yeah, I'm glad that like you did like a rebel because I almost did one that was more about like colonial days.

Cass Maher 45:33 Yeah.

Natalie Younger 45:34 I'm glad that like, it just so happened that you went colonial and I went within the last century

Cass Maher 45:40 Started with the colonizers and ended with the

Natalie Younger 45:42 Yeah, started with start started with the colonizers and ended with the indigenous people. With the native people.

Cass Maher 45:49 Yeah, you and I aren't huge history buffs or I mean US history buffs.

Natalie Younger 45:54 No.

Cass Maher 45:56 I think part of that is it's so hammered into us in, like grade school and stuff. And it's very much like "look at how great..."

Natalie Younger 46:08 I would love to study US history in a different country. Like I would love to like study. I wish I'd studied abroad.

Cass Maher 46:16 Yeah.

Natalie Younger 46:17 And taken like a US history.

Cass Maher 46:19 Yeah.

Natalie Younger 46:20 I don't know that. I wanted to that. I would care too much to take the US history. Like, in like if I had like, if I was like in London. Likfe if I was in England. I don't think I'm

Cass Maher 46:29 --all right. So our cousins got mad at us. And they threw a hissy fit. And we love our tea and they threw it all away.

Natalie Younger 46:38 Yeah, they threw away all of our tea. It was a really rough time for us.

Cass Maher 46:41 Yeah. No, it'd be awesome to get the outside perspective. I'm sure a lot of the bullet points would be the same, but the tone would be a bit different.

Natalie Younger 46:49 Yes. And I'm sure that like, also, yeah, just other countries of, other nations have been around so much longer.

Cass Maher 46:57 Yeah. Americas real young.

Natalie Younger 47:01 Yeah, we BBs

Cass Maher 47:02 Yeah.

Natalie Younger 47:02 I once student taught in -- when I was in high school, I student taught an eighth grade US...seventh grade? seventh grade US history class. Shout out to Mr. Cheney whose not gonna listen to this but if he did, I would lose my mind. I loved that man's class. I, he, I like student taught with him. And I had to teach. He taught US history. I wanted to student teach history. And he happened to be my cooperating teacher and it was US history. And I was like, ugh. But I had to teach you the Declaration of Independence. And I taught it as a breakup letter. Because when I was in middle school, everyone I broke up with I did it via note. So it seemed like it would resonate with the seventh or eighth graders in the audience to teach breakup letter.

Cass Maher 47:57 Dear Britain, it's not me. It's you.

Natalie Younger 48:02 we slid this into Britain's locker

Cass Maher 48:04 will you let us have own country? Check Yes, No or Maybe. They said no. We changed that

Natalie Younger 48:10 We're gonna do it anyway. Yeah, we, we crossed-- they said no, but they did it in a pencil, so.

Cass Maher 48:16 PS there's a map on the back of this ...bring it back to Nic Cage.

Natalie Younger 48:22 PS here's where we hid all of the treasure.

Cass Maher 48:25 Say what?

Natalie Younger 48:27 Tray-sure

Cass Maher 48:28 Yeah, US History was always really boring to me because we are such a young nation then it's like cool. We're spending like 12 years in school going over a little bit of this where it's like when you do you know European history or-- that's really the only history we get. You literally got thousands a years on that, so it's like a little variety.

Natalie Younger 48:48 I took a class in high school that was a golden age of the Mediterranean and we like started at like Mesopotamia and like went through the Renaissance?

Cass Maher 48:59 which you probably barely got to touch on anything

Natalie Younger 49:01 Yeah, it's just like--

Cass Maher 49:01 because so much happened inbetween that... cool. They made a painting, statues.

Natalie Younger 49:07 Big wooden horse

Cass Maher 49:07 Split from a lot of churches, bunch of schisms

Natalie Younger 49:10 Yeah we're going to spend one week on all of the schisms, we're gonna cover all the schisms in one week. I will lightly touch on some on some papal orgies in that. There will be there will be an episode of this podcast where I'll cover papal orgies. And then great everyone had the plague and now it's modern day.

Cass Maher 49:33 Cool. If you want to learn any more about this take a really hyper specific elective.

Natalie Younger 49:37 Yeah. Or watch Mamma Mia....to learn about the golden age of the mediterranean. The true Golden Age of the Mediterranean.

Cass Maher 49:46 I feel like this podcast is like the Mamma Mia historic, historical, you know, it's like we're going to talk about this but we're just gonna, we're gonna have fun. and maybe sing a little

Natalie Younger 49:54 and no one can see it but we're definitely wearing huge bell bottoms and platform shoes

Cass Maher 49:58 but there also is a strobe light where Rip is behind on the ones and twos.

Natalie Younger 50:01 Yep. And Rip is wearing like a real like plunging neckline with just chest hair. just magnificent chest hair.

Cass Maher 50:09 Yeah, it's...I wish you guys could see this. It's Fabulous. Yeah.

Natalie Younger 50:14 he's doing this for just for us.

Cass Maher 50:16 Yeah. He spent a lot-- he bought all this equipment just for this

Natalie Younger 50:20 Yes. All this AV equipment.

Cass Maher 50:22 Yo, great story

Natalie Younger 50:23 Yeah so that's the story of Wilma Mankiller. That's Yes. Sybil Ludington. I'm surprised I had never heard of because

Cass Maher 50:28 Yeah, because she

Natalie Younger 50:30 because she's a white woman.

Cass Maher 50:31 She's a white woman. She is like, I feel like she is always, not always, but it is a little more well known Female history. I feel like you can hear abou--you have a better chance of hearing about her. But it would always be like, there's this chick named Sybil, she's good at riding a horse.

Natalie Younger 50:48 "She did it first"

Cass Maher 50:53 Wow, we that was a lot of history.

Natalie Younger 50:55 Yeah, I hope everyone learned.

Cass Maher 50:57 Thanks for sharing.

Natalie Younger 50:58 I hate you so much.

Cass Maher 51:00 You said Wilma Mankiller wrote a memoir.

Natalie Younger 51:06 She has an autobiography.

Cass Maher 51:07 I'm gonna be reading that.

Natalie Younger 51:08 Yeah, I didn't write down the title. But shout out to women's history.org and The New York Times and Wikipedia for for being my major sources.

Those are your citations kids working on your papers.

Thus brings us to the conclusion of the first episode of shared history. Thank you for sharing this with us. Rip doesn't have his mic in front of him, but he just let out the heaviest of sighs.

Cass Maher 51:41 So, if you guys want to get a hold of us, our Instagram and Twitter handles are @sharedpod.

Natalie Younger 51:48 Or you can email us any corrections questions or suggestions of stories or events or people you want to cover in a future episode at [email protected].

Cass Maher 52:00 And the password is

Natalie Younger 52:01 Cass no

Cass Maher 52:02 Oh, no. We don't share that? Great. I should note that shared is spelled like

Natalie Younger 52:10 the word not the name? Not Sonny and?

I was gonna say it was Sonny Cher. No, it is spelled s-h-a-r-e-d. Yes, I wanted to do a Cher bit.

Rip Camillucci 52:18 Cher'd history spelled like Sonny and Cher will be the Patreon bonus series where it's just all Cher stories

Natalie Younger 52:26 and that'll always bring us back to

Nat & Cass 52:28 Mama Mia...on that, note.

Natalie Younger 52:33 Thank you and good night.

Cass Maher 52:35 Good night.

Rip Camillucci 52:40 Thank you for playing arcade audio. play more at arcade audio.net

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

#herstory #women in history #women in american history #american history #us history #sybil ludington #wilma mankiller #native american activist #native american history #history podcast #revolutionary war history #paul revere #occupation of alcatraz #native history #podcast transcript #transcripts

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thotyssey · 6 years

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On Point With: Jen Urban

Embodying what it means to be Nightlife Cool, this performer has kept us dancing from both the stage and the DJ booth for awhile now. This year, Brooklyn has shown her love right back, with two Brooklyn Nightlife Award nominations for Best DJ on the Rise (um, really? Gurl’s not “rising,” she is very much “Here,” but whatevs) and Best Vocalist. Make way for Jen Urban!

Thotyssey: Hi Jen! How are you doing tonight?

Jen Urban: Hi! Having a great night. I’m just finishing up a DJ set, actually. I do a party once a month called “A Sunday Kind of Love” at Dream Baby. It’s always a happy, chill vibe!

Cute! Do you see any difference between DJing queer spaces versus not-so-queer venues?

That’s a great question! I am honestly surprised they are still as segregated as they are, but really I love a lot of crossover. It’s great when a straight crew from Union Pool walks by karaoke and comes in to sing, or the gay boys take over Lady Stardust. Ultimately, we are all out to have a good experience. There are great people in every scene. I strive to artistically appeal to people who like what I do, not who want to sleep with me.

Let’s get you’re story! First off, where are you from and what were you into growing up? Was it always music?

Always music! I grew up in Northern California. My parents are hippies, and where always taking me to outdoor festivals and concerts in the park. My dad used to teach me to pick out what instruments where playing in songs, and my mom always encouraged me to sing and perform. I wrote my first song when I was 7, and never stopped.

What were the artists and scenes that were influencing you in the beginning?

I was a pop kid when I was little. Madonna was huge. Later, I got really into everything from classic rock to dirty rap. I was always less interested in the genre then what a song made me feel.

A very huge musical moment for me was when I simultaneously fell in love with grunge and techno / trip hop. That was really when I realized it wasn’t about organic vs. electronic, but I wanted to combine them and find a distinct sound. I wanted to be Courtney Love and Portishead at the same time.

That would be an amazing combo! Were you in a lot of bands before The Box? In high school I was actually really focused on classical music and musical theatre, so my first band wasn’t until college. My guitar teacher John Zay and I started a band after he kept teaching me chords and scales, and I never practiced--I just kept writing songs. There was a great indie music scene in Santa Cruz. I was in a few different bands with the same group of people. My favorites were a four piece, Calle Baby Machine, and an all girl pop punk band called Estrella.

Eventually the scene got too small for me, and I joined John Zay in Brooklyn. At that point he was producing, and I made a solo album called Pass Stars and became Jen Urban, and eventually Jen Urban and the Box. The band started out as an all-girls four piece. It was a bit less dancey and more rock. We had some success in the lesbian scene and played the Warped Tour, but I was missing the drama and synth vibe I originally intended to find.

When the girls all decided to focus on visual art and move to the West Coast, I met Alan D--and I feel like my vision was realized! He is extremely talented, and we clicked from the first notes we played together. Like falling in creative love at first sight. We have been a duo ever since.

Jen Urban & The Box have had quite career. How much music have you recorded at this point, in all the group’s incarnations? I put out a limited edition EP with the girls--which is not available on iTunes, so those readers who are out there and have them, hold on tight! Lol. Alan and I have released a full length album, Urban Daydream, and an EP, Aeon Walk. We also released the single “Haunted” on SoundCloud.

We have six more tracks recorded that will be released in conjunction with a promo video for each one over the coming months, along with some re-releases and new videos. The plan is to pump up our YouTube channel while releasing new music. So instead of the traditional album release, we will be releasing a video and track each month for a year starting in June! Just in time for the BNAs!

Werk! I love your videos. I just watched the one for "21"... that stars Epiphany as the door queen!

Thank you! Yes! Lol! That was filmed at Sugarland, which will always hold a special place in our hearts! We held a very long and fun monthly residency there.

youtube

Music in the queer community, even "edgier" scenes like Brooklyn, is so dominated by commercial pop. And you rarely see musicians with instruments in queer venues these days. Is that frustrating?

I think it’s kind of a bummer, but it challenges me to perform in different ways. I have become a more versatile performer! As a solo artist and a band, I am able to do a set to tracks, or with a whole band depending on the venue. I love that freedom and challenge.

How abot DJing? When did you start doing that in BK?

I started DJing at Cattyshack in Park Slope in around 2005. I learned on vinyl, but mostly worked with CDs. I did song-to-song pop sets (still do upon request) for many. In 2012, I got really into mixing and electronic production. I am hoping to start more house and dance music-centered sets. I am producing a solo project under the name Rozeg0ld (exclusive alert!!!). I hope to release the first album for that project next spring.

We'll definitely look out for that! What’s your favorite bop to spin right now?

Kimbra, “Top of The World.”

Nice! These days, you are the Wednesday night karaoke DJ and hostess at Macri Park. What are the joys and sorrows of hosting karaoke?

Lol! It’s a labor of love. There are a lot of joys, because Macri is a chill spot and my regulars are the best! I love to sing, and it’s been great for my ego to get up there and do a mediocre performance, lol! I have to remember it’s not a show, it’s an opportunity to encourage others to do what I love to do, and just get up there and sing your heart out!

It’s hard when people don’t tip, or get frustrated with a long wait time. I really try to be fair and keep everyone in order of when they put in a request. I don’t take money to move people up, I try to let newbies sing before repeats... but generally I just try to keep things moving and fun. I also get very tired of certain songs, but if you knock it out of the park I gain a new appreciation for a song I’ve heard sung way too many times. I am truly grateful and humbled for the opportunity to work in an industry with so much competition. I love nightlife, even as a sober mom! In fact, maybe even more now.

I didn't know you were a sober mom! That seems like the most difficult type of person to be in this biz.

Yep! I have been sober for 7 years, and my partner and I have a 3 year-old girl! It has been hard to get back in the game full force, but I actually love it even more. My daughter inspires me to create better work! I do have a bit of a sugar-free Red Bull addiction, but being onstage and behind a DJ booth with all my wits about me gives me a confidence and freedom I didn’t have before. Plus, I don’t have to worry about getting kicked out of the clubs I work at anymore!

Is your daughter musical?

She is definitely a performer! She asks me to watch her “show” and sings and dances around the living room. She really likes to drum, so that’s cool, lol. She also is very drawn to the stage. She will be at our set on June 2nd at McCarren Park for the GO Green Festival at 1pm. So I’m excited for her to see what I do now that she’s not really a baby any more.

She'll be transfixed! You also DJ Friday nights at Lady Stardust, which we talked about earlier. It’s a new venue in the East Village above the bar 2A, where your gurl and former karaoke co-host Brie YOB tends bar. I was there for her Drag Race viewing party a few weeks ago, SO cute! How are you enjoying that space?

I love it! I’m so excited to work in a mixed venue with great drinks! People dance, make out, and enjoy all the food stuff in a pretty atmosphere.

I also do a monthly party there with Danielle Cardona! It’s called “Torch” and it features local dance and pop artists, not only live but incorporated into my DJ set! It’s the Third Thursday of every month, except this month it’s Danielle’s video release on 5/31!

Another great thing to look out for! And congrats so much on your two Brooklyn Nightlife Award noms, for best vocalist (Jen Urban & The Box) and best DJ on the Rise (even though you're a veteran!) How delighted and / or surprised were you when you found out?

I actually really wasn’t expecting them, because we are / I am just getting back on track. So I was so so surprised and excited and grateful. I love this community, and how we support each other. And I just want to shout out [BNA showrunners] Merrie Cherry, Ickarus, and Cameron for doing such a a great job!

I look forward to seeing you there! Okay, in closing: What's your best advice for an aspiring musician today?

I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that one! Lol. But, I can say to anyone new to the city: don’t give up! Never stop making the music you love. Write from the heart, dig deeper, and work on your art everyday! Get your music out there, and trust that you will find your people. I truly believe now after years of letting my fear and ego hold me back that the music we make is a gift to the world. A power greater then me works through me when I let it.

Thank you, Jen!

Jen Urban hosts / DJs karaoke at Macri Park Wednesday nights (9pm). At Lady Stardust, she spins every Friday night (10pm) as well as every third Thursday for the “Torch” party (10pm), and also spins “A Sunday Kind of Love” monthly at Dream baby (4-10pm). Check Thotyssey’s calendar for all scheduled gigs, and follow Jen on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & YouTube.

Vote for Jen (and Jim Silvestri / Thotyssey!) in the Brooklyn Nightlife Awards here.

On Point Archives

#onpointwith #jenurban #jenurbanandthebox

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blkwidowsweb · 7 years

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Chicago Spotlight: A Conversation with Sean Ali

DeShawn Ali, better known as DJ Sean Ali in the world of House Music, is a DJ/Producer and Label Owner. His genuine love for music started at an extremely early age. Just like most families in the city of Chicago, he was introduced to a variety of genres of music in his household. When his father was not around, he would take his dad's albums, read the credits, and listen to the music from start to finish. There was blues, jazz, gospel, R&B, soul, rock, new jack, and everything under the sun. It did not matter to him because he just simply loved music across the board. DJ Sean Ali was introduced to house music as a teenager in the mid-80's. Out of all the genres of music that he loved, there was something about House Music that he became fascinated with and passionate about. What he loved was that it had a taste of every type of music all rolled up into one. He became influenced by legendary house heads like Lil Louis, DJ Les, Danny Calco, Nu-Wave, and Alley Cats. He has a great respect and admiration for what they brought to house music and for what they were willing to pass on and share with him. He went from spinning at block parties to skating parties, school parties, block parties, to family reunions, you name it. His name soon started to become the buzz in the house music world of fellow DJs. Soon after, he would be sought after for weddings, and booking gigs at major venues like Zentra, Betty Blue Star, Funky Buddha Lounge, Smart Bar, Prop House, China Club, and Jun Bar. He thinks of himself as a stress reliever for the public. His skill has taken him to many places as well. He has traveled to places like Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, NY, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. He is also highly respected by his peers as well because he has taken his craft to new heights and he is constantly expanding and giving back the way others gave to him.

To date, Sean Ali has multiple chart topping releases beyond "Sacrifice, such as "Still Standing" with co-production by Terance James featuring Thea Denee, "Electricity" remix off the Soul Element EP, featuring Sheree Hicks, "Hypnotic" EP featuring Sheree Hicks, including a bonus track called "Magic", "Dream Come True with co-production by Terance James Featuring Sheree Hicks, "Miles Away" EP and "Green Light" featuring Sheree Hicks which made top 20 on the soulful charts, "Present To Win," Featuring Rashaan Houston, "Love Is In the Air" Remix, produced and written by Sean Ali and Sheree Hicks, featuring vocals by Sheree Hicks as well, all available on traxsource.com. Recently, along with Sheree Hicks, Sean was co-writer of Sheree's new release on House 4 Life records, the title track "Celebrate" which also had remixes by Doc Link of Liberate Records, J. Caprice, and Milty Evans.

I had a chance to speak with him about his various projects and the evolution of his career.

Black Widow: Can you tell me a little bit about your background and what part music played in your life growing up?

Sean Ali: My father was good friends with a lot of musicians and singer/songwriters from back in the day. He would take me to the record store or the musicians would come to the house. I was immersed in old school music because it was always played in the house. My dad loved to play his records. I wanted to learn more about the artists that I was listening too, where it came from and who produced it. I was always into it. That was the beginning of my musical journey.

Black Widow: I totally relate. My grandparents were jazz musicians performed with some of the greats at The Apollo and Club Delisa and we used to have a ton of people at the house! My grandma would host parties at her home with some of the singers and dancers and I would listen to their stories. It was fascinating.

Sean Ali: Right, Same here. There were times Jerry Butler, the “Chi-Lites”, some of The Artistics, and others were at our house too. I had no clue who they were until I was older.

Black Widow: So your dad was an avid music lover?

Sean Ali: Oh Yeah, he was also a photographer and worked with George Daniels at all his events too. My dad was right there taking photos and show them to me… Keith Sweat, Run DMC, LL Cool J. He would be at concerts and parties all the time. I couldn’t help but like music. My dad is my role model, so I take after him in many ways.

Black Widow: So when did you discover house music? What drew you to it?

Sean Ali: Good Question! So, Byron Stingley stayed like a few homes down from me and Lil Louis lived around the corner.

Black Widow: Oh wow! I had no idea!

Sean Ali: Yeah we are all from the same neighborhood. When I would listen to music at home, I always listened to both sides. I noticed the B-side would have a groove to it. So when I would go to parties in the neighborhoods or go around Lil Louis crib (they’d play music in the back a lot), and it would be the same music I heard at home but the B-side versions. I’d go home and dig through all the records that had a faster tempo on those B-sides and listen to them all. A lot of my friends in the neighborhood didn’t really go to house parties because they thought it was strange. You know we were more…you know… thuggish! [LAUGHTER] The house scene was preppy then!

I knew I liked the music so I decided to check a party out and I remember walking in and watching how they were dancing, how they got along and interacted with each other, how they played the music and I was sold!

Black Widow: Do you remember the first party you went to?

Sean Ali: Wow! Yeah, it was at a friend’s house. He was deep into house music. He was a few years older than us. That’s when I really experienced it. It was around 1984/1985 and I was maybe 15 years old. I heard every disco song ever at his house. I was bugging him, who sings that? Every week he’d play music at the house and I was like a student taking notes, writing down the artists who were on these records. As far as some of the larger parties, I think my first party was at the Bismarck. I used to go there on a regular. I was too young to go to Sauer’s and stuff like that. I know folks say they were there but I’m only 45 you know what I’m saying?

Black Widow: Same here! I was too young to go to any of those spots!

Sean Ali: Yeah I wasn’t even trying to get into those parties. [laughter] I’ve been to COD’s before, but I never experienced The Underground and Original Warehouse and stuff like that, but my uncles and aunts would go. I was going to the Bismarck, The New Warehouse, the Alcatraz and Elbo Room.

Black Widow: So when did you did you decide you wanted to DJ and how did you learn?

Sean Ali: About 1990/91, my neighbor was DJing and we lived across from each other. My bedroom window faced his bedroom window. DJ Boxx used to live upstairs from him.

Black Widow: Get out! All of y’all lived around each other! That’s crazy!

Sean Ali: I moved to Forest Park and in our building, we would always hear someone playing house music and we would be like who is that? All the DJs were in the city on the southside and we were in Forest Park, so it was unusual to hear house music like that. I asked a friend who he was, and he told me his name was TJ and I said, I need you to introduce me to him. I wanted to sit down with him. Even before that, I would go to friends’ houses and try and mess around a bit on equipment but back then people didn’t want you messing up their turntables’ trying to scratch and do tricks like that. I had my own equipment, but I needed someone to show me how to get started. I had a friend named Lester and Dannon who would show me the ropes but I was more comfortable with TJ because he was younger, around my age. I’d go to his house and chop it up with him and borrow records and get a feel for it. I still wasn’t serious about it though because I was too busy going out.

Black Widow: Enjoying the parties and music!

Sean Ali: Yeah I was enjoying it more than I was playing it back then. I got serious out it late 90s/2000s. I stepped away from it for a while and got into hip-hop a bit then I started promoting parties; like Ice Bar and stuff like that. The money was good but the gangs, drug money and stuff like that took me away from it. It went a different direction and I had to leave it. After I left hip-hop, I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I knew I didn’t want to go stepping every night but I still loved that club scene.

Black Widow: Yeah, you didn’t want to deal with all that extra stuff. I get it.

Sean Ali: Yeah and when I got married, I moved up north and started hanging with Chris Underwood and feeding myself back into the game a little bit but because I was up north, I was at Betty’s, The Note, Ventra, Red Dog…

Black Widow: See that’s where I was going because I was living up north back then too in Wicker Park. So I didn’t start coming south to party until about 10 years ago. Everything I did was north back then.

Sean Ali: Same here! I think the Dating game was the first time I think I was at a south side spot. Maybe around 2007.

Black Widow: So when you got back into it, who were some of your influences?

Sean Ali: Oh Wow…whew! I know people always say Terry Hunter but he was always one of my favorites. I loved his taste in music, how he produced music and how he selected and played music. It was always on point and I was never disappointed on the dance floor. Vick Lavender as well, He was another one. Vick was going to give you that soulful journey. Dimitri from Paris, Lil Louis, Gene Hunt, Gene Farris, Lil John, Grant Nelson, Masters at Work, Joe Clausell…it’s so many, I hate to feel like I’m missing someone. It was dope because everyone had their own style and people weren’t trying to be like one particular person.

Black Widow: When did you decide to get into producing?

Sean Ali: About 2006 I think. I knew how to program and produce because I was doing hip-hop tracks. I would always buy equipment, beat machines, keyboards anything that was coming out. I remember a friend was telling me I could make house music on this equipment. So, I started playing around with it and creating sounds, but I never put it out or took it seriously per say. You know I never asked a “Terry Hunter” to check it out or a “Farley” to listen and/or play it.

It wasn’t until I started to see the opportunities to get gigs dry up a bit that I realized I had to be more than a DJ. To get that visibility as a house artist, you really had to be multi-faceted. I knew I had to step my game up. DJ, Producer, Label owner…I had to at least do two out of three. I wasn’t even thinking about a label yet.

Black Widow: So the label came after?

Sean Ali: Oh yeah, I had to get the producing down first. I hooked up with a friend who was already doing great music. We decided to link up and create “Sol4orce” around 2009. That’s around the time we linked up with Sheree (Hicks). We started working on some tracks but we would only give them to a few people. We were still nervous about giving them to bigger name DJs at the time. We didn’t know if the music was strong enough yet. We realized we needed some vocalists. So, we got Lafayette Parker to do a song for us in 2010 and we tried to shop it to a few labels. I wrote the song and I remember telling my brother, we got a hit! This a runner right here! [LAUGHTER]

I remember telling folks “yo… when you see Terry (Hunter) or Ron (Carroll), let em know I got some heat!” [LAUGHTER] Thinking they are going to call me or approach me like “Hey I heard you got some heat, let me hear it” …. [LAUGHTER] That’s not how that works!

Black Widow: Nope…not at all! [laughter]

Sean Ali: I remember asking a cousin to find Sheree on Facebook because I wasn’t even on Facebook at the time. We’ve known each other for a long time. She wasn’t even thinking about doing any house music back then!

Black Widow: Right! That’s what she said when I interviewed her!

Sean Ali: Yeah, I reached out to her and told her what I was doing, and she told me what she was doing. I had to convince her that she could do house music. I told her about the sound that I was hearing in house music and sent her YouTube videos of Stephanie Cooke because I knew she would like her style and she loved it. So, I sent her a track and the next day she sent over the vocals and that’s how I got my first song with Sheree Hicks. It’s so dope because it was a song I was confident in too.

Recording with Sheree was so intimidating initially because she was already out here doing her thing with some big names. I was on pins and needles. I used to travel with her back in the day so I knew she worked with some big name cats and here I am in a studio apartment with her and engineers that were scared to mess up. [laughter] "you push the button…nah you push the button"…

No one wanted to mess up so I stepped in. I remember after it was done, she said, “I don’t like it, it doesn’t sound right. I was like WHAT! [laughter] I knew I could learn from her. I couldn’t’ act like I knew everything or like I was too good to learn. She knew people that would help me and teach me. I knew we had something special and she took me to another studio with professionals and hooked me up with a cat named Chris and he really knew what he was doing. The way he recorded her vocals left me speechless.

Black Widow: That’s dope that you understood that I’m new to this and I can still learn...

Sean Ali: It was a great experience and from that one song, I was ready to get it out there. I was confident now and I had Sheree Hicks so I was feeling myself. I remember running into Stacy Kidd at Green Dolphin and telling him about it. I sent it to him and he took a listen and loved it. He wanted to put it out and that was it after that. It was called “Sacrifice”. Sheree had this subtle and smooth voice and I knew the music was going to be different from what other producers were doing.

Black Widow: What made you decide to start a label?

Sean Ali: I got tired. Once I found my niche, I was doing songs daily. We were building our catalog and we were tired of sitting on it. We wanted to get it out there. When you go through a label it’s always, “I can’t do it for three months, or change it or I don’t like it” and then if you do put it out, you aren’t getting paid what you think you should. It got to the point where I had to learn the business side and start to handle that.

Black Widow: It was the way you controlled your art…Artistic and financial control?

Sean Ali: Yeah I wanted to know what I made, what I sold, and what’s happening with this music especially on the financial end. I wanted to see the numbers. That was one of the reasons I decided to run a label but I wasn’t sure how to go about it or even if I had time to do it. Distributors, artists, contracts, other people’s business and stuff like that. I met up with Sean Houston and then I met Monk Julius and we clicked right away. He was about business 100%. He was like start that label.

Black Widow: You had to learn the in’s and outs of the business…not just the creative stuff?

Sean Ali: Yeah absolutely. Sheree and I were at the same place at the same time. We met Josh Milan around that time too. I would send him stuff and ask for advice and he said the same thing…start your own label. I had Monk, Sheree, and Josh telling me the same thing, so I was like, yeah, it’s time. He had just started Honeycomb Music and he had someone call me and explain it to me.

Black Widow: I love that! So many people act like we don’t share information and that we don’t help one another with different endeavors but that really isn’t the case. It’s a lot of people that want to see everyone make it.

Sean Ali: Exactly!

Black Widow: That says something about the quality of people you keep around you.

Sean Ali: Yeah Definitely. Once I did and started getting paid…that was it. I was all in! That’s how “Sounds of Ali” was born. It’s been 4 years and counting now…

Black Widow: And you have no regrets do you?

Sean Ali: None at all! I love it. It’s just so dope because people ask me my opinion and want to shop music to me from all around the world. I love it! It means a lot.

Black Widow: Are you partial to a particular sub-genre of house music?

Sean Ali: This is hard. I love good house music…just good music. It doesn’t matter to me. It can be deep house, jacking house, techno house, soulful house…it just doesn’t matter the sub-genre. If it’s good, it’s good! If it’s produced right, with great sound and melody, dope artistry, it can happen in any genre in house music. I just love good house music.

Black Widow: I love that answer! That’s it!

Sean Ali: I do produce a lot of soulful house music because I love a lot of jazz sounds. That’s part of my background. That’s what I grew up listening to but I can groove to anything as long as it’s good.

Black Widow: Good music just moves you!

Sean Ali: Look, I’ve seen you dance before and your reaction to music. So I know you get what I'm saying. I see what music does to you and I see how connected you are to the music as an artist and as someone who just loves music. I saw you watching Dawn (Tallman) perform and you were in tears!

Black Widow: Yeah I had a moment! Like For real!!!

Sean Ali: Good Music…that’s what it does! That’s power! People try to be cool but I don’t care…it does something to you.

Black Widow: I’m drawn to music that moves me.

Sean Ali: That motivates me! When I see that, that motivates me to go back into the studio and get to work. I want to touch the heart and soul of people. I just enjoy all of that and it’s not just soulful house that does that. That’s just good music. It affects people in so many ways; even with the spoken word…it touches people. For example, I love Ursula Rucker…

Black Widow: OMG! I can’t believe you mentioned her! She’s literally my favorite modern day poet! I’m a huge fan of hers.

Sean Ali: Yeah she’s dope. I just dig her vibe! You know It can be done and what you and (Dee Jay) Alicia did with “Rough”, you guys took it up a notch and gave it more energy with that strong afro vibe and those drum beats.

Black Widow: Thank you so much! That’s so dope of you to say! What’s coming up for you in 2018?

Sean Ali: Monk Julius has joined the production team. You can create better with more hands! We are working a lot together on various projects, including some Afro tracks to show our versatility. We also are working with Tasha Larae from Arrested Development along with DJ Pope out of Baltimore on a track coming out on Quantize. We have Lester Jay coming out too. We got a couple of tracks out now on Traxsource. Actually, we have one coming out the same time as you guys. Jaleal Meadows is an artist under Chic Soul Music and we did two songs off of his EP that’s coming out on the 20th.

Black Widow: That’s what I love. It’s so much new music coming out of Chicago right now.

Sean Ali: I love it when we all have releases coming out. It’s good for Chicago. Terry (Hunter) got joints, Mike (Dunn) got joints, Greg (Winfield) has a #1…

Black Widow: If you look at all of the artists just right now from Chicago on the charts, it’s so different but it’s all dope!

Sean Ali: Right! Everything!! Soulful, Jackin, Afro, we are out here!

Black Widow: Yes we are creating…Chicago is creating good music!

Sean Ali: So much and we all make the city shine! That’s what it’s all about!

Black Widow: What does it mean to be a Chicago artist and represent your city?

Sean Ali: Wow that’s major! It means the world to me. I’m going to represent Chicago anywhere I go. You have to understand that Michigan Avenue used to be full of record labels back in the day. It’s so many musician’s from here who impacted the music world from so every other genres too. Chaka Khan, Curtis Mayfield, The Chi-Lites, The Stylistics, Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy…it’s so many! You can go on and on! Chicago is not just the mecca of House Music, we are a huge part of Music Culture! I feel like a millionaire being from Chicago…our history is just so rich!!! Growing up in the house scene, you have access to people who are considered legends. We have access to so much talent here! It’s a blessing.

Black Widow: Indeed we take for granted the quality of musicians and artists we have here and the access we have to them. That’s something that you don’t get anywhere else! Thank you so much for speaking with me and I wish you nothing but continued success and growth!

Sean Ali: Thank you! It was my pleasure. I love what you are doing with the site and with your music. I can’t wait to check out “Fenix”!

Black Widow: Thank you! I’m really excited about the song! I appreciate that!

Thanks for checking out my latest interview with a musical creative from Chicago! I hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time, see ya on a Dance Floor!

Black Widow

You can find Sean Ali at the following:

On Traxsource

On YouTube

Facebook: Sounds of Ali Music

Twitter: DJseanAli

Instagram: SoundsofAli

#black widows web #blkwidowsweb #house music #soulful house #sean ali #sounds of ali #Soulful House #chicago dj #chicago producer #chicago spotlight #chicago house music #chicago house music djs

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wtburadio · 7 years

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INTERVIEW: Kevin Garrett

Kevin Garrett is a talented new artist steadily rising to fame. At 25 years old, he has already toured with many artists including Alessia Cara, Oh Wonder, and James Vincent McMorrow. WTBU DJ Christina Carpio sat down with Garrett after his final show on his first headlining tour for his new EP False Hope to talk about who inspires him, working with Beyoncé, and what is to come.

Christina Carpio: When did you know that you wanted to pursue a career in music?

Kevin Garrett: Well I’d always been around music. I started music when I was very young—4 years old or so—and I started writing songs when I was 11 or 12.

CC: Songs about what? What does an 11 or 12-year-old know?

KG: Nothing. I didn’t have anything to write about, so none of those songs really ever saw the light of day. I went through high school, did the talent show and all that stuff. It was always kind of just a hobby. I was recording myself at that point, and like looping, and doing all these cool things with my guitars and stuff; that’s when I started writing. Once I got to New York for school, as soon as I got there, I just started playing, and my first show was at 3 p.m. for two off-duty police officers on a Sunday. Then the venue asked me back, and the next time I went back, it was opening for Norah Jones, so it was pretty cool. Once I played a few of those shows at that venue, I kind of realized that I could hang with this circle, and then I just started hustling. New York, and Boston too, could do this because they obviously have a very vibrant music scene, sort of the bigger metropolitan cities—something about a place. Like when I moved to Brooklyn, that atmosphere makes you run so much harder. So I write everything at home in Pittsburgh, where I’m from. The phrase I like to use is “I work in Pittsburgh, and I run in Brooklyn.” I’ve obviously written elsewhere, since I’m not home enough, but the hustle is in Brooklyn.

CC: Who are some of your inspirations or idols?

KG: I was raised on classical music because of the violin, and then if it wasn’t that, it was classic rock, like Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd—pretty much every band except The Beatles, oddly enough, just kind of what my dad was into. Then once I was old enough to buy my own CDs, I got a Ray Charles disc, then found Sam Cooke. Sam Cooke—he’s obviously not been with us for a while, but he still is the person that everybody leans on for vocal inspiration. If you listen to enough Sam Cooke songs, they all start to sound the same. But he was the first person to do those set of runs, those set of melismas, those set of nuances in his singing, and it just took soul music and gospel music to a whole new level. [Also], Otis Redding, then really old country like Hank Williams, Willy Nelson before he had the ponytails, and Porter Wagoner. I like a lot of old stuff. I think idols—we all have the same idols: Beyoncé, Beyoncé, and Beyoncé. Sam Cooke would be really cool to meet, if I could figure out how to meet him and go back in time.

CC: How would you describe your music?

KG: When I first put out Coloring, it started as a joke, because it was a reference to my favorite MUTEMATH song, “Odd Soul.” I called my music “odd soul,” because it was supposed to reference the different palette of influences I was taking in around this sort of soul-centered pop sensibility, and I’ve always been attached to that type of phrase, “odd soul,” being my music. I talk to people about it, and I’m very lucky for them to say they can’t really put a finger on it. I’m kind of somewhere in between all the Franks and the Sams and the Jameses, and that’s pretty cool because in the same way the Franks and the Sams and the Jameses are between each other, I think I’ve worked really hard to sort of carve out this sort of niche for myself, and it all started with kind of a fake tag, but now it’s very real to me.

CC: You worked with Beyoncé on Lemonade, can you tell me more about that?

KG: Yes, I was very lucky to contribute to Lemonade. It was what I will continue to only refer to as a “right place, right time” sort of thing. It was very much an honor to be a part of that album, I would say more than any of her other albums, because it was just so impactful. There were two very strong messages she was giving for women and for equality. And you know, it’s a shitty thing for me to say that I’m lucky to be a straight white male. It feels stupid saying that, but like that’s the reality of the situation, and I think we need artists like Beyoncé to make albums like Lemonade to remind people that everybody should feel lucky to just be a human, because we’re all humans. I think she did a really good job of opening up on this album, and conveying a side of her that we never see, and I’m just happy to help set the tone right at the top of the record. It was really cool to be a part of that song, and I saw her perform it at the VMAs, the only time she’s ever performed it, and it was phenomenal. I remember when I first heard it, heard her record it, I was wondering how she would sing it. What it was going to be like? But she really stuck to the vision. I think we were tapping into similar headspaces, because she wanted to sort or channel that sort of vulnerability. You see in the movie, she’s in a bathtub beside herself. It made it very real. Long story short, [I’m] very honored to be a part of that album, and congrats to her on her Grammys.

CC: So you’ve been on a lot of tours with a lot of different artist; has that taught you anything? Have you learned anything as an artist from touring with other people?

KG: When I first started touring it was James Vincent McMorrow in late 2014—a short run across the southern states, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d gone on tour with my old band a couple of times, but it was all very much the type of shows where the venue might not have even known we were there. There was no advance; there was no anything, so it was the type of thing where, “Oh this is a legit tour, let’s do this.” And every time I open for someone—continually, because I’m going to open for Mumford and Sons pretty soon—I learn something from everybody, and every time I’m on stage with my band, I learn something from them every night. All three of them are in their own way influential to me, because we play the same songs every night for a month, and Sean, my drummer, he’s been playing the Mellow Drama songs for two and a half years. It’s not very common, I don’t think, for an artist to tour an EP for two and a half years. We did “Pushing Away” tonight and it felt like we were playing it for the first time. I think what’s important on tour is to think ahead, know until the last show, there is always another show. And if you’re opening, it’s kind of important to put yourself in the headliner’s shoes. Now that I’ve been a headliner one time through, I kind of sometimes just want to go right back to being an opener.

CC: How different was it doing your own tour this time?

Obviously the shows are very fulfilling, because they’re sold out and people are coming to see you. Some opening looks, people came to see me. Like on Alessia [Cara’s] tour, there were people who seemed to know who I was by then, and same with Oh Wonder. But when you are headlining, especially since we are doing some smaller rooms in certain cities, it’s the type of thing where I can take my ear[piece] out, or I can just listen to the crowd sing the lyrics to my songs louder than I even know them. All this is to say, touring is exhausting; I would not recommend anyone to do it, but at the same time, the only way I would pursue a career in music, is to stay on the road. It’s pretty old school to do it that way.

CC: As an up-and-coming artist, who are some other artists you think people should be on the lookout for?

KG: His album just dropped yesterday, Khalid. Homeboy is 19. He’s from El Paso. I was texting him the other day, because I think I said something about him in an interview when I was at the L.A. show, and he tweeted me. He was like “Oh my god, thanks man!” And I was like, “You don’t listen to me, you don’t know who I am,” and then he DMed me and he was like “No, no, I didn’t think you listened to me.” With artists like that, you’re always kind of wary, because there’s hype and then there’s talent. With Khalid, he’s got both, and it’s incredible. The same way when I first discovered Alessia, just as “Here” was going viral, before I went on tour with her, Alessia Cara was just kind of down-to-earth, surprised that things were happening, and she still is. Khalid, he’s on a rocket ship. It’s crazy, and he definitely doesn’t know it yet but, congratulations on the new album, if you’re listening. Also, Nick Hakim, he came to Berklee I think. He’s putting out new music. He’s signed to ATO, and I’ve been a fan of his forever. Brilliant, brilliant, young man, who just knows how to write a song better than you. No matter how you look at it, any song. You give him a song he’s already done [and he’ll say], “Oh I’ll do it better man.” And he’s not boastful about it—he’s just so smart with his decisions and anything that he puts out, even the songs he probably doesn’t like. I’m like “Come on, this is just not even fair.” There’s a British guy who I love, he’s a dear friend of mine, and he’s slowly sort of building a catalogue, re-releasing some songs and releasing new songs in this sort of Oh Wonder-esque, every month sort of thing. His name is Bruno Major. He has some pretty cool songwriting connects; he’s worked with some really awesome people, and I’ve been lucky to work with him a little bit, but I really want to work with him some more. He just put out a song called “Just The Same” and it’ll hit you where you need to be hit at any given moment.

CC: Lastly, what’s next for you? Is there an album coming soon?

KG: I’ve had the concept for my album for a really long time. I’ve never really given it up to anyone. I’ve told a few people what I know it’s called. The title has recently taken on a deeper meaning, which I’m really excited about, because I think I’ve also kind of found some design pieces within it that I’m really amped on. I’m a very visual, sort of tactile learner, like creator I guess. I see things when I hear things and smell things when I hear things, some kind of weird synesthesia thing. I don’t really know. I never really think about it, but like enough people say they have synesthesia, that I think, “Wait a second, I better look into this, because you’re saying things that I do.” Maybe I have synesthesia, and that’d be pretty cool. But anyway, the album hopefully comes out sooner than later. The same thing about touring an EP for two and a half years—I’ve been touring for a very long time, so I’m trying to take my off time to sort of buckle down. Obviously not being signed, not having a label and a marketing strategy, or really any sort of PR help, has been trying to say the least, but at the same time I relish being independent. I think it’s rare these days. Something that I’ve definitely noticed is that I’ve grown in the past two years, kind of more than I ever thought I would off of two EPs, so I feel really good about where I’m at. I’m not in any rush to put the album out, but at the same time, I know we’re all waiting for it, and I’m just as anxious as everyone else is, so sooner than later is probably the answer for that.

Check out Kevin Garrett opening up for Mumford and Sons this May, and listen to his latest EP, False Hope.

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