← Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Jon Mooallem, Jenny Nguyen, and Laura Veirs (REBROADCAST)
00:52:24
This episode features New York Times Magazine writer Jon Mooallem, chef and bar owner Jenny Nguyen, and music from singer-songwriter Laura Veirs.
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- [00:03]
Luke Burbank
Hey there. Welcome to Livewire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. This week on the show, we are talking to the writer John Moualam from the New York Times Magazine. His latest book of essays is called Serious Face. And it explains, among other things, why you might not want to text your friend a picture of a Spanish bullfighter that you saw somewhere and tell them that this person looks exactly like them. Also, how poetry can save your life if you are injured in rural Alaska. Plus, we're going to meet the chef and bar owner, Jenny. We behind the world's first sports bar that plays only women's sports on the televisions. It's called the Sports Bra, which is an amazing name and also happens to be right here in Portland, Oregon. Then we're going to hear some music from friend of the show, the one, the only, Laura Veers. So that is the plan. We have an amazing show in store this week. Don't go anywhere. It all gets started right after this.
- [01:00]
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- [01:30]
Luke Burbank
This episode of Livewire was originally recorded in August of 2022. We hope you enjoy it. Now let's get to the show.
- [01:38]
Elena Passarello
From prx, it's Livewire this week, writer John Moualam.
- [01:51]
John Moualam
He has a face that's as dreary as a third class funeral on a rainy day. And what I realized with that is this bullfighter who's my exact tw apparently was just renowned for his ugliness.
- [02:04]
Elena Passarello
Chef and women's sports advocate, Jenny Nguyen.
- [02:08]
Jenny Nguyen
Here we are. We're a space that is dedicated to showing women's sports, right? But there isn't any possible way that we're able to show 24.
- [02:16]
Elena Passarello
7 Content with music from Lara Viers and our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello. And now the host of Livewire, Luke Burbank.
- [02:30]
Luke Burbank
Hey, thank you so much, Elena Passarello. Thanks to everyone tuning in all over the country. We have a great show in store for y' all this week. First though, it's time for the best news we heard all week of Course, this is our little reminder at the top of the show that there's some good news happening out there in the world. Alaina, what is the best news you heard all week?
- [02:56]
Elena Passarello
Okay. Kitty cat news from Kentucky.
- [03:00]
Luke Burbank
It's been a week since one of us checked in on the kitty cat beat, so it was a hard time.
- [03:05]
Elena Passarello
I know I have a hard time not making all my best news feline related, but this was pretty good. There's a woman in Ashland, Kentucky, named Randy McGlone who recently got herself a new recliner. Tried it out for a couple days, decided that it wasn't for her, called the company, and they took it back to their Big Sandy superstore warehouse. And she was like, ah, back to the drawing board. Wait a minute. Where's my cat?
- [03:29]
Luke Burbank
Oh, no.
- [03:30]
Elena Passarello
And she looked around, and her house isn't that big, and she has a cat that she's very close to. She calls it sort of like in the vein of an emotional support animal named Inky. Inky already had used up one of Inky's nine lives by being in a fire when Inky was a kitten. So Inky doesn't have any whiskers and has a really interesting fur pattern and burned paws. So a real survivor cat and also a real emotional cat for Randy McGlone. So back at the warehouse at the Big Sandy superstore, they unload this recliner, and all they see is this little black lightning bolt that just shoots into the bowels of the warehouse. They call Randy, and they're like, I think we have your cat. She goes down there, and she calls and calls and calls in this big warehouse, and she can't find Inky, and she goes back again and tries and tries to find Inky. She goes back again, and this is a warehouse. Doors are opening and closing. Things are going in and out. There are plenty of recliners to hide in.
- [04:29]
Luke Burbank
Inky can't navigate the doorways because Inky doesn't have whiskers, which we know are, like, an important sensory part of the cat's deal.
- [04:36]
Elena Passarello
That's right. But three weeks later, Randy thought her cat was gone. They finally managed to trap Inky at the superstore. They called her, she came over, and now the cat is reunited, and this.
- [04:50]
Luke Burbank
Woman has decided to just buy futons going forward. Just something with less pillows on the floor. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like a tatami room. Something where the cat cannot get wedged in a hidden space.
- [05:02]
Elena Passarello
If they want to hide certain kinds of cats, you really can never find them. They're so flexible and, like, good luck.
- [05:09]
Luke Burbank
Speaking of hidden animals, can I just tell you about the best thing that I saw this week or heard about? I didn't actually see it, but I heard about a chinchilla named Mr. Bean who was hiding in the bag of somebody that I was flying with. I was flying home from Chicago recently, and we had had no end of, like, weather delays and hassle, and everyone on the flight kind of bonded because we had, you know, been through so much. Planes, trains ing and automobiles ing.
- [05:38]
Elena Passarello
Right.
- [05:39]
Luke Burbank
And the person next to me, she mentioned that she was. She goes, I'm sneaking an animal on this flight. I go, what? She goes, yeah, I have a chinchilla named Mr. Bean in the bag. She showed me some pictures of him on her phone, and she was like, he's my son. He's my everything. I was like, where do you get a chinchilla name, Mr. Bean? She goes, well, I'm a teacher in Chicago, and he was the class chinchilla.
- [06:01]
Elena Passarello
Oh, she went through security, like, surreptitiously.
- [06:05]
Luke Burbank
We were way past security. We were at the gate.
- [06:07]
Elena Passarello
Oh, my gosh.
- [06:08]
Luke Burbank
And Mr. Bean had made it through security and was ready to take this flight from. From Chicago to Portland. And the idea that this teacher had basically taken Mr. Bean home, because that happens with those classroom pets where it's kind of like there are no takers. I think he was, like, 8 or 9 when she took him home. So it was not a young chinchilla. And they have now bonded so well and to such a degree that they're just like little ride or die for each other.
- [06:38]
Elena Passarello
Oh, my gosh.
- [06:40]
Luke Burbank
Mr. Bean made it to Portland safe and sound. So I'm not advocating for sneaking pets onto flights, but I'm just saying it was pretty memorable and cool for me. As an plus, I didn't know how cute chinchillas are. I think of a chinchillas being sort of hamster. Like, they got these big, old cute ears. They got very big eyes kind of. Yeah, their eyes. Big, giant eyes are like a Disney character or something.
- [07:01]
Elena Passarello
Did you see that JetBlue photo of a flight attendant just carrying a gigantic cat up and down the aisles going, is this your cat? Is this your cat?
- [07:11]
Luke Burbank
That would happen if I tried to sneak my cat Bubbles, onto a flight. She would escape within and be giving Inky a run for their money in terms of using up lives. So Inky the cat only being on life number seven, and Mr. Bean the chinchilla flying cross country. That's the best news that we've heard. All week. All right, let's get our first guest on over to the show. He is a writer at large for the New York Times Magazine, and he was the person behind the surprisingly listenable podcast, the Walking Podcast, wherein he would just record himself walking around Bainbridge island in Washington, where he lives. What we want to talk to him about, though, is his exceptional new book of essays. It's titled Serious Face. It covers everything from monk seals to the former skydiving entrepreneur who's been building his dream city in the desert of California, calling it the center of the world. John Moualam joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater. Let's take a listen to that conversation. Hello, John.
- [08:29]
John Moualam
Hi.
- [08:30]
Luke Burbank
Welcome back to the show.
- [08:31]
John Moualam
Thank you very much.
- [08:32]
Luke Burbank
This book, Serious Face, is just such an absolutely wonderful read. It's a collection of essays on a variety of different topics and things that you've reported on in your life over the years. One of the questions that you pose in the book is why are we not better than we are? You said that's sort of a question that you've been trying to answer in one way or another throughout your career. What do you exactly mean by that question? Why are we not better than we are? What are you trying to explore?
- [08:55]
John Moualam
Yeah, well, first I'll say so I kind of borrowed. Well, I didn't borrow it. I stole that line from a poem by a poet named Eric Trethewey, which I had read like 25 years ago and just kind of still is rattling around my head. And, yeah, I think that's when I had to sit down and think about what tied a lot of these pieces together. It did seem like that was a question they were all driving at in one way or another, not necessarily in a moral sense. Why are we not perfect angels all the time, but just even as functional machinery? Why is it that I was supposed to check that my water heater wasn't leaking before I left the house this morning and I didn't do it?
- [09:31]
Luke Burbank
Did that really happen to you?
- [09:32]
John Moualam
That's a true story. But yeah, I just think that we're. In some ways, it's like when you really can step back, you see, like, a lot of us are kind of bumbling around and more inept than I think we generally realize. But the problem is we can imagine better ways of doing things. We can imagine sort of the perfect way to do everything. And so a lot of the stories in the book are about this kind of breakdown between theory and practice, when people are really trying to accomplish something great. And Kind of just can't get there.
- [10:00]
Luke Burbank
One of the early essays in the book involves you and some buddies heading out to Alaska for a kayaking trip, and things did not sort of play out the way you were expecting. What happened?
- [10:12]
John Moualam
Yeah, we were kayaking in Glacier Bay, which is a really remote part of Alaska, and had been rained in one day. Weren't able to get in the boats that day because the water was too rough. So we decided to just kind of hike around after the rain had died down, and a very large tree fell over and landed on my friend and knocked him into a river. That's the short version of the story.
- [10:34]
Luke Burbank
But, I mean, what makes it so compelling is, first of all, your friend was, it turns out, injured, very sort of gravely. And you're also in the absolute middle of nowhere. And also, like, no offense, but one of your friends was sort of an outdoor guide. But the other two.
- [10:52]
John Moualam
Exactly. My friend, whose name is also John, was the one who was injured, and he was the one who had all the experience and know how. You know, we were his guests. I mean, I should say he's okay. We got. We got him out.
- [11:05]
Luke Burbank
Yeah.
- [11:06]
John Moualam
And the Coast Guard came through a kind of freak series of coincidences. We were able to get word to the Coast Guard. But, yeah, I mean, that's a perfect example of this question is like, you know, somehow everything worked out, but it was not because we were, you know, perfectly capable, you know, competent people. It was a lot of luck. It could have easily gone different ways. And it was just sort of, like, repeatedly kind of just like trying to not let the current emergency take us all under and then getting to the next emergency.
- [11:35]
Luke Burbank
You turned, as is so often the case in emergencies, to poetry. Yeah.
- [11:39]
John Moualam
Yes.
- [11:39]
Elena Passarello
The first aid kit was poetry.
- [11:41]
John Moualam
Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, you really want me in a crisis because. Yeah. There was a moment in this whole adventure where my one friend had. Had gone back to our campsite to try to get a hold of this radio and reach some help. And I was left alone with my friend John, who was just laying on the forest floor completely immobilized. And, you know, I had this sense, like, probably mostly from movies, you know, you're supposed to talk to the person who's kind of going in and out of consciousness and just kind of try to pull them back. But, you know, I didn't have a script for that. Right. Like, you actually need to say things. And I initially started kind of, like, bumbling around, and at one point I apologized because I thought I'd overstayed my welcome with his family at Christmas one year, I was sort of like cleansing myself of my, you know, and I realized, oh, this is messed up. Like, I don't want him to think I think he's dying. Right. So.
- [12:30]
Luke Burbank
And that's also not how that's supposed to work. It's the person who's dying who's supposed to get some stuff off their chest, not the other person who's basically fine.
- [12:39]
John Moualam
You know, that's a really good point. I'm going to add that to the list of things that did not go right that day. But, yeah, so I had these professors in college who had insisted and required us to memorize poems. And so, yeah, so the first one I reached for was the Shampoo by Elizabeth Bishop, which is a love poem she wrote for another woman about washing her hair. And so there I was reciting that to John. And, you know, I went through some more hits, some Robert Frost, some Auden. And I didn't realize at the time I would not have been able to tell you it was that long. I thought it was maybe a matter of minutes. It turns out for an hour and a half, John and I were there before anyone came back to help us. And I think I was doing poetry most of that time.
- [13:26]
Luke Burbank
And he told you later that actually was really great for him in that moment. It was really helpful.
- [13:33]
John Moualam
Yeah. I mean, that was another really surprising thing about being able to talk this out all this time later was I had this image of myself as, you know, pretty helpless. And. Yeah, and I think John was really grateful for it. He told me that if he had to almost die on the floor of a forest, he'd love for me to be there next time, too.
- [13:55]
Luke Burbank
This is LIVEWIRE from prx. We are listening to a conversation with the writer John Moualam about his latest collection of essays, Serious Face. We've got to take a quick break, but when we get back, John is going to read one of those essays about his face and its resemblance to a certain Spanish bullfighter, which John didn't take as a huge compliment. Don't go anywhere. More LIVEWIRE in a moment. Hey. Welcome back to LIVEWIRE from prx. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We are at the Alberta Rose Theater here in Portland, Oregon. We're talking to John Moalem. His new book of essays is Serious Face. The essay that you've written about your face and the face of a famous Spanish bullfighter was actually in the New York Times Magazine. I'm sure a lot of People here got a chance to read it. It's a really incredible piece of writing, and I was wondering, could you maybe read a little bit from that particular essay in the book?
- [15:07]
John Moualam
Sure, yeah.
- [15:08]
Luke Burbank
Now, friends of yours started sending you photographs of this particular bullfighter that they would see photos of in Spain. And what was his name?
- [15:16]
John Moualam
His name was Manolete, although I didn't know that at the time. It was two friends who had been at a restaurant and seen this photograph on the wall and sent it to me immediately because the guy looked just like me. They were really freaked out by it, as was I. I saw it, too. You don't often normally see this about yourself, but I couldn't deny it. He looked exactly like me.
- [15:36]
Luke Burbank
And then. So you wrote about it, and maybe we could hear some of that.
- [15:39]
John Moualam
Sure. Yeah. Well, so I'll just say that my face is very crooked for the listening public at home. My jaw is kind of going in one way, my nose in the other. I say in the piece. So I'm never kind of really looking straight at you, no matter which way I tilt my head.
- [15:55]
Luke Burbank
I think it's beguiling for those.
- [15:57]
John Moualam
Thank you. This is all just a trick to get people to tell me I'm handsome.
- [16:00]
Elena Passarello
Yeah.
- [16:02]
John Moualam
All right. So this is a part of the piece where I stop talking about the bullfighter's face and start talking about my face instead. No one appreciates my face with more uncontrollable gusto than dentists, though more than once I've endured one calling in a colleague from the other room to come have a look. They peer at my X rays with giddy concentration, as though pressing open a fresh book of Sudoku, and sometimes ask me to get out of the chair and stand against the wall so they can get a few shots with a regular camera, too. I was in my mid-30s before I realized that these demoralizing portrait sessions weren't a standard part of a dental exam. Every time I see a new dentist, it's the same they get like archaeologists before a dig, eager to know what sort of ruined structure is hidden under there, imagining all the physical dysfunction and pain that I must be living with and the many diagnostic tools and specialists that could be gathered behind the project of setting it. All right, they aren't wrong. My jaw is so misshapen that I can feel it wriggle out of joint whenever I open wide enough for a hamburger or a yawn and then bonk back into place. And the gums on the left side of my mouth are wearing away at a distressing rate, since those teeth apparently clamp together long before the ones on the other side can connect and therefore do most of the chewing. But my only serious complaint has been the headaches, a small genus of pains that have wracked me periodically since childhood. There's a particular kind of dull headache that sprouts under and above my eyes like mold. There's one that presses and holds its weight against my face from inside, like a tantruming toddler squatting against her bedroom door to keep the world out. There's the throbbing one that hangs around diffusely for hours and only produces pain when I focus on it, like a pang of guilt. Maybe none of this makes sense. These headaches molder at the periphery of language in a nonsensical cloud of synesthesia and memories. Purple pain, newsprint colored pain. Pain that has the turgid heft of Greek yogurt or smells like the inside of an umbrella. Pain that funnels me back to one gloomy Sunday afternoon from my childhood splayed on the carpet watching Steve Martin in the jerk on channel 11. Does anyone truly comprehend the pressures roiling inside their own head? As far as I understand it, the source of my headaches is probably my sinuses, which over time were narrowed and crushed like a plastic straw as the bones of my jaw and nose grew into them out of alignment. But I can't say for sure. At a couple of different points in my life I've gotten motivated to better diagnose and even fix these problems, shuttling around for exploratory scans and consultations. Doctors have proposed plastic surgery to straighten out my nose, or surgically breaking my jaw and resetting it. After walking me through the complete cartography of the human face in an anatomy textbook, one postulated that perhaps my flattened sinuses could be bored open wider with lasers. I actually didn't even know that's a real thing when he said it to me. I didn't know until the other day that that's a real thing.
- [18:50]
Luke Burbank
Really?
- [18:50]
John Moualam
Yeah, I thought he was. I was like, what's with this guy anyway? But to be honest, I've never earnestly considered pursuing any of these doctors recommendations, just nodded along inertly with my misshapen face as they spoke. Somehow every intervention has felt so pointlessly ambitious, so laborious, so dramatic. For better or worse, these problems feel normal to me. And the truth is, I started to identify so deeply with the peculiarities of my face that the idea of correcting those imperfections eventually became unthinkable. Looking in the Mirror. I try to imagine every part of me pointing flawlessly forward and wondering, who would I be then? When I was younger, I worried I was ugly. But by the time I turned 30, there was even a measure of perverse vanity involved. I'd come to appreciate my face so much that I was willing to live with the pain of having it attached to my head. And that's why, reading the first Manoletti biography on my kitchen floor the night it arrived, it didn't upset me to learn how allegedly grotesque my doppelganger was and how unrepentantly and universally this face we shared was ridiculed. I was able to brush it off, even wrest some wry amusement from the discovery. And that felt good. Good to feel unthreatened. Good to recognize that a kind of genuine acceptance and equanimity had apparently been growing inside me from an odd angle all those years. In short, that night I felt myself freely loving who I am and was proud. But then I read the rest of the Manolette biography.
- [20:18]
Luke Burbank
It's John Mooallam here on Livewire. The story of Manoletti and his life is fascinating, as detailed in this book. Also, you point out that science right now is that really our sinuses serve no functional purpose other than ruining our lives if we have sinus problems.
- [20:43]
John Moualam
Yeah, I got really curious about sinuses, like, what are these things? Why do we have essentially these empty spaces in our heads? And, yeah, as it was explained to me, it's this sort of case of, you know, not everything in evolution does a job right. Some things just happen, and then they're not hurting anyone. They kind of stick around. And so we've got these things in our head just clogging up with snot all the time, and there's nothing we can do about it.
- [21:06]
Elena Passarello
That's what I think is so cool about this book, though, is because it seems like you got the photos of Manolete years and years ago, but the essay itself takes us to all of these different places. Like, I don't know, I'm assuming you didn't think you were going to be spending this much time in the. I can't say. The annals of sinus studies, maybe. The sinuses of sinus studies.
- [21:25]
John Moualam
Yeah, it's true. I mean, well, the first thing was I got this photo. I mean, I think it was. It was almost 15 years ago now, and I got this photo and I just had this photo on my phone, and I'd show it to people and I'd be like, check this out. And everyone would laugh. And it took me years before I even thought, like, well, who is this guy? Maybe I should figure out who this guy is. And so, yeah, I saved the book. I finally got this biography of him and. And it arrives and I rip it open. I'm sitting on my floor, and the first sentence I read, literally, I open up the book, I crack the spine, and I look. And the first sentence I read, it says, he has a face that's as dreary as a third class funeral on a rainy day. And what I realized with that is this bullfighter, who's my exact twin, apparently was just renowned for his ugliness. Like, people just could not stop talking about how ugly he was. Even people who really loved him, they would always tack on some cheap shot about call him old big nose or something. So then I had to sit with that for a few years. And then I was like, well, how can I write about sinuses? No, I'm. But yeah, no, you're right. I think in many ways it's like, even though I think having done this kind of work for so long, I kind of go through the world thinking that everything is potentially a story, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a story right then and there. There's a lot of stuff sloshing around that kind of has to wait for the right moment.
- [22:42]
Luke Burbank
I'm wondering how it feels to you to have the reaction that this piece has had. Lots of people been talking about it, not the least of them. Jamie Lee Curtis, apparently is now your new, like, PR person. What is going on? What is happening with you and Jamie Lee Curtis?
- [22:55]
John Moualam
Jlc. You know, I just. I got a really nice note from Jamie Lee Curtis. And, you know, it's fun when she's celebrities, you know, but now. But yeah. So she's been kind of championing the book online, which. Which I'm very grateful for. And it's. I don't know what more to say, but thank you, Jamie Lee Curtis.
- [23:20]
Luke Burbank
I guess the nature of my question is, you know, you have written a lot of really incredible essays, but they're often about other people. A guy who decides to build a town that he's calling the center of the universe in Felicity, California, named for his wife. When you write a piece like that and people say, hey, that was a great piece, that feels good. But when you write a piece that's literally about the inside of who you are, and they say, this really moved me, that must be an intense experience.
- [23:42]
John Moualam
Yeah, it's really special. I mean, I think it's like I don't really understand how to interact. I mean, it's nice when I get an email. Like I've gotten some really beautiful emails from people and that's always great. And yet I know better than to like kind of go actively seek the feedback to the piece online.
- [23:59]
Luke Burbank
When I finally saw Manalete's picture, I thought he was quite handsome. Kind of got a little Vincent Gallo type situation going. Which as your twin by extension means you are also a handsome person. John Mooallam well, thank you. And more importantly, my phone and computer autocorrect many words now to Mualam Same.
- [24:17]
Jenny Nguyen
What?
- [24:18]
Luke Burbank
I don't know how you did that. Like that's the mark of success.
- [24:21]
Elena Passarello
That's Jamie Lee Curtis.
- [24:23]
Luke Burbank
That's the JLC book.
- [24:24]
John Moualam
Yeah, that is. That's the jlc. Yeah, right there.
- [24:26]
Luke Burbank
John Mualam, everyone. The book is Serious Face. That was John Moualam right here on Livewire, recorded at the Alberta Rose Theater. His latest book, Serious Face, is available now. Hey, special thanks this episode, Christian Asher Christian is part of the Livewire member community, doesn't just share my middle name, although that is important. Christians also, maybe even more importantly, generously supporting our show with a donation each month. And we're super thankful for that because it's how we are able to keep doing Livewire week in and week out. So thanks, Christian, for keeping the show going. Livewire is brought to you by Powell's Books, a Portland institution since 1971. Powell's offers a selection of new and used books in stores and online@powells.com sometimes checking your email, let's be honest, can be a little stressful, but we want to change that. Over here at Livewire. We want to make checking your email more joyful with our weekly newsletter, which is only good news. That's all we do over here at the Livewire newsletter. We got sneak peeks and deep dives on upcoming events, details on where you can join us live, new episode drops, and even more than that, getting this drop of joy. It's super easy, too. You head over to livewireradio.org and you click keep in touch. It takes like 30 seconds, 25 if you're speedy. So help us help you have a little more fun in your inbox with the latest from the Livewire newsletter.
- [26:23]
John Moualam
Foreign.
- [26:29]
Luke Burbank
This is Livewire. As we do each week on the show, we have asked the Livewire listeners a question this week in honor of Jenny Nguyen, who we're going to talk to about starting her dream business, the Sports bra. We asked the listeners, describe your dream business. Elena has been collecting up those responses. What do you. I see you're already laughing. What are the people saying?
- [26:51]
Elena Passarello
Three words from Mark in terms of Mark's dream business. Hot tub testing.
- [26:57]
Luke Burbank
Hot tub testing.
- [26:59]
Elena Passarello
I mean, let's think this through, Mark. Like, what do you. You go to people's houses and get in their hot tubs. Is that what we're talking about? Or are you in, like a. A quality control, like, warehouse?
- [27:09]
Luke Burbank
Right. And then the other problem is that, sure, if you're in the Goldilocks zone, that's great if you only get to test hot tubs that are the right temperature. But, you know, they also have to figure out what's too cold and what's too hot.
- [27:20]
Elena Passarello
Yeah.
- [27:21]
Jenny Nguyen
All right.
- [27:22]
Luke Burbank
What's. What's another dream business that one of our listeners would like to start?
- [27:26]
Elena Passarello
Oh, this is a pretty good idea from Erica. Erica says I want to start a business where people upload pictures and stats on their dogs. And then when I feel like having a companion on my nature walk, I will select and borrow their dog for the afternoon.
- [27:41]
Luke Burbank
That is a great idea.
- [27:43]
Elena Passarello
Right? You could be like, oh, I really need, like, a long walk. Pick a Rhodesian Ridgeback if you just kind of want to take like a small. Maybe like a Cavalier King Charles.
- [27:52]
Luke Burbank
I don't know. Right. As a dog owner throughout my life, of course, I loved walking my dog. But there are also the days when you just don't have time for it. Maybe you're not feeling well, you're too busy. And it would be a huge favor if somebody wanted to take your dog, run them through the woods for 10 miles and bring them back all tired and content.
- [28:09]
Elena Passarello
I've told you about the dog bus that used to go around Corvallis and pick up dogs and take them to the woods and exhaust them and then bring them home. And the dogs would jump on the school bus and they all knew their assigned seats.
- [28:19]
Luke Burbank
That is adorable, but that's a business. This sounds more like a volunteer organization. Somebody who wants to walk a dog and somebody who has a dog that needs walking.
- [28:27]
Elena Passarello
It's like a dating service.
- [28:28]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, exactly. It's like Hinge, but for pet owners. All right, one more dream business idea from our listeners.
- [28:36]
Elena Passarello
Okay, here's one from Maggie. Maggie wants to open a soup restaurant with rotating daily soups and a ton of side options. Garlic bread, salads, and fries. It sort of sounds like the soup counter from Seinfeld, only people are nice. And maybe you can sit down.
- [28:56]
Luke Burbank
I'll Tell you what, I eat a lot of soup, even in the summertime, and I don't think there are enough dedicated soup restaurants. If Maggie was able to start this business, I would be the first customer.
- [29:07]
Elena Passarello
What do you call it? Superstars.
- [29:11]
Luke Burbank
Super bad at coming up with restaurant names. That would be my contribution to it. I always wanted to start a restaurant that would also. You could eat in a recliner, and then when you were done, you could recline and take a nap.
- [29:25]
Elena Passarello
The immediate nap that follows. Yeah. And you just peace out.
- [29:28]
Luke Burbank
Like 10, 15 minutes to sleep this off. Then I'm ready to go. No, I will not leave this Denny's. I am napping. All right. Thank you to everyone who wrote in with responses to our listener question. We've got an audience question for next week's show, which we're going to reveal at the end of the day, today's program. So stick around for that. Speaking of dream businesses, by the way, our next guest had the courage to completely defy her parents advice during the pandemic when they said do not open a sports bar in Portland, Oregon, in the midst of a pandemic. But this was not just any sports bar. This was the Sports Bra, the world's first sports bar that we know of anyway, that exclusively shows women's sports on the television. It's already been a huge success. They raised over $100,000 on Kickstarter to get it going, and they've gotten all kinds of news coverage from all over the world. And in the process, they've been able to draw attention to the gender inequality in terms of which sports are getting televised. Her name is Jenny Nguyen and she joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theatre. Take a listen to Jenny. Thank you for making some time in your schedule you did to be here. I live not far from the Sports Bra and I drive down Broadway every day and there is a line out the door. And I just think, I think this has been too successful. You might need to shut it down. It seems like a lot of work. I mean, that place is a hit.
- [30:59]
Jenny Nguyen
Yeah, it's been pretty incredible. I overwhelmed, really.
- [31:03]
Luke Burbank
Let's kind of go back to. For the four people in America who haven't heard the story yet of the Sports Bra, it's an amazing one. So you and some friends and your partner were out watching an NCAA finals game in the women's bracket, and it was a great game. It came down to the wire, but there was one thing going on in your experience was that the audio wasn't on in the Bar. Because this was women's sports, right?
- [31:30]
Jenny Nguyen
That's correct. Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's a really common experience for anyone who's a women's sports fan that goes out to go try to watch it on tv. And it's like, okay, you go to this space and There's a million TVs on. None of them have your game on. So it was the same in this particular case. And when you think about the NCAA finals, like, to me, I mean, basketball's my jam. So it's like the biggest game of the year. And so we roll in and there's like a dozen of us, and the game's not on. Something else is on the main screen. And so we just asked to have One of the TVs changed, and they kind of put us over into the side, and it's like a small TV in the corner. And we are kind of used to that. So we watch the game, we have a great time, and it ends up being, like, one of the best games ever. And afterwards, we were just out in the parking lot milling around, talking about how great a game it was. And then somebody was just like, yeah, it would have been better if the sound had been on.
- [32:25]
Luke Burbank
Yeah.
- [32:25]
Jenny Nguyen
You know.
- [32:26]
Luke Burbank
Right.
- [32:27]
Jenny Nguyen
And it was at that moment where it just clicked, where I was like, I didn't even notice. So had I gotten so used to, you know, watching women's sports in, like, a compromised way?
- [32:37]
John Moualam
Yeah.
- [32:38]
Jenny Nguyen
And that's what. That's what stood out to me.
- [32:40]
Luke Burbank
So then you and your friends started referring to this mythical sports bar that you were going to start someday that was, like, where none of the lame, sort of, like, you know, sexist gendered norms of the regular sports bar existed, Right?
- [32:54]
Jenny Nguyen
Yeah. I mean, it wasn't so blatant as that. It was more of a place for us to just go and hang out and watch games and feel comfortable, you know, like for my friends and I. And it was never going to be a place that I was planning on opening up. It was just like this fictional place that was just like, oh, you know, like, this game would be on at the Sports Bra. Or at the Sports Bra, we'd have a vegan version of this. You know, like, just random stuff.
- [33:19]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, it was like it was this idealized version where everything was great.
- [33:22]
Jenny Nguyen
Yeah. The toilet paper would never run out.
- [33:27]
Elena Passarello
It sounds like you named it early. It was the Sports Bra. Even when it was still just a figment of your imagination. Yeah.
- [33:32]
Jenny Nguyen
I'm pretty sure that, like, maybe a day or two days after that 2018 game, you know, it was just like the little seed was living in my head and I was like, mmm, if there was a place, you know, what would it be called? What would be cool? And you know, the thing that kind of stuck out to me was that it's just a sports bar. And all you're doing is you're changing the channel, which is real simple, right? So you just take like sports bar and you just change the. Change the letters and.
- [33:56]
John Moualam
Sports bra.
- [33:57]
Jenny Nguyen
Sports bra, yeah.
- [33:58]
Luke Burbank
You do have that trademarked, right?
- [34:00]
Jenny Nguyen
I do, yeah.
- [34:01]
Luke Burbank
Okay, good, because that is a billion dollar idea. The other thing too, actually, Jenny, that I've heard you say before is the sports bra is not a quote unquote women's sports bar. It's a sports bar that happens to show women's sports on the television. Why is that an important distinction to.
- [34:16]
Jenny Nguyen
Oh man, it's. I mean, I get it all the time. Are men allowed in there? And it's just like, yeah, it's not a sports bar for women, you know, it's a bar for women's sports. And so like, statistically, a majority of women's sports fans are men. So the thing is, if you like sports, you don't care who's playing it. You just like sports. But what happens is that, you know, 96% of all sports that are on TV are men's sports. So that's what people identify with and that's what they are cheering for most of the time.
- [34:50]
Luke Burbank
But I mean, something that I didn't realize until I started looking into the story was that there are lots and lots and lots of women's sports happening all the time. The issue is they're not being televised or they're streaming somewhere. So it seems like a big part of your work, along with creating the menu and the cocktail list and all the normal things about running a bar restaurant, in addition to that, you've become this sort of like content merchant who's trying to actually get the stuff to put on those TVs, right? What has that been like?
- [35:23]
Jenny Nguyen
Absolutely. I really like, if there's anybody out there that is into that, I really think that is somebody else's full time job is to find women's content so that we can play it at the bra. Yeah, like, it's really intense, you know, because one interesting thing is that there are, you know, dozens and dozens of streaming services and they know that there are people out there who are interested in these women's sports and they want to access it. And so they're Willing to Pay, you know, $4.99 a month or whatever it is, but there's so many. So even you have something as huge as the WNBA and it's playing on seven different channels. I mean, that's a huge league. And then you're talking about things like bowling or surfing or any of these smaller, like, lesser known sports or whatever. How are you gonna watch those?
- [36:13]
Luke Burbank
So is it that they're not even being filmed right now, and you're trying to get people to get out to do that, or it's. They're being filmed, but you don't have the rights as a bar owner to show the stream. Like, what are the impediments?
- [36:24]
Jenny Nguyen
The second thing, okay, so with streaming services, they pay very little money to get that content. And that's why, you know, it's $4.99 for me to watch it at home. But there's no way for a business to show it in commercial because those rights cost a lot more. But what has happened is people who have heard or the streaming services who have heard, have reached out and they're like, you know, we can see the benefit in giving you access to this stuff because it helps us to promote ourselves and to promote these leagues and these sports. And you're drawing attention to that, and so you're helping to grow it. And so it's like a, you know, scratch your back, scratch my back kind of thing. And that's what we need, I think, to get it started. Yeah.
- [37:11]
Luke Burbank
We are talking to Jenny Nguyen, the owner and founder of the Sports Bra here in Portland, which is a sports bar that exclusively shows women's sports on the televisions. Now, when you and I talked, I don't know, a month ago or so, when you were opening the place, you said that during the times of day when maybe there wasn't any content involving women's sports, you were considering leaving the TVs off as a way of pointing out this kind of lack of coverage. Where have you landed on that? Now that you've been open a month, what are you doing?
- [37:41]
Jenny Nguyen
Yeah, I mean, part of it is kind of tempering expectations a lot of people expect. You know, they walk into a sports bar and TVs are blaring 24. 7. And that's the expectation. And so, like, what I wanted to do was just to make sure that people know that here we are, we're a space that is dedicated to showing women's sports. Right. But there isn't any possible way that we're able to show 247 content. You know, there's not like running commentary, there's not tons of replays. There's not like, oh, the 1976 Arnold Palmer classic for men's sports.
- [38:15]
Luke Burbank
There's just so much of it has been televised. It's a mind numbing amount of content that you could always put in a VHS tape of Dorf on golf or.
- [38:24]
Jenny Nguyen
Somebody'S always talking about something. I don't know.
- [38:26]
Luke Burbank
That's where my brain went. That's Tim Conway doing a sketch. That's not even real sports.
- [38:31]
Jenny Nguyen
Yeah, I mean, with men's sports there's always like commentary. You know, I wanted to temper expectations. I didn't want guests to come in and expect what they're used to for a regular sports bar to be what we have access to. And then another thing is like, you know, 90, 95% of all sports bars are probably streaming things that they shouldn't be. And, you know, we can do that. But one, we're one entity that maybe a lot of people are watching. And two, super visible. And two, like, why would I want to do that when the point is to kind of drive home the idea that we need more representation, we need more access, we need more of.
- [39:09]
Luke Burbank
If you're stealing the broadcast of a woman's sport, that's not helping the.
- [39:13]
Jenny Nguyen
And then people would come in and be like, oh, there's plenty of women's sports on tv.
- [39:17]
Luke Burbank
Right. You know, so this has been such a success and also just something that the community has really rallied around. Has that sunk into you? Are you just thinking about intellectually but not able to fully wrap your mind around it? I guess.
- [39:30]
Jenny Nguyen
You know, I think it comes in waves. There are moments and it's like these, the small moments that sneak in when you least expect it. You know, whether it's like 10:30 and things are starting to die down and I'm having my shift drink and I sit back and I watch the bartenders do what they do, I watch my servers do what they do. And everybody is moving in the pieces that they should be. There's people sitting at the bar watching a game, and those quiet moments where I'm able to sit back and be like, you know, this is a space that I've always wanted. This is the space that I've always wanted to be in. And now that we're here, like, I can kind of create that for other people. And it sinks in, these little moments. Yeah. And then, you know, there's messages and letters that I get daily that are very impactful and it's a great way to slow down and remind me of why I started to do this.
- [40:34]
Luke Burbank
The real question is, has this completely killed your ability to play rec basketball?
- [40:39]
Jenny Nguyen
100%.
- [40:41]
Luke Burbank
Which, ironically, was a huge part of your life before this. And now you created this thing that makes it so you can't play basketball with your friends.
- [40:50]
Jenny Nguyen
100%. So I signed up for a rec league. Like, right before I knew I was gonna open. I was just like, okay, I'm gonna commit to one hour a week. Like, it'll be good for me to get physically out there and, like, sweat it out while all of this other stuff is happening. And immediately, as soon as the doors open, I was just like, you guys gotta find another point guard.
- [41:10]
Luke Burbank
Well, we're glad your talents are being used over at the Sports Bra. Jenny Nguyen, founder of the Sports Bra right here in Portland, Oregon. That was Jenny Nguyen recorded in front of a live audience at the Alberta Rose Theater. If you're in the Portland area, make sure you check out the Sports Bra and tell Jenny. Hi from Livewire. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarella. We've got to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, we are going to talk to Laura Veers about what it was like producing her own music after divorcing her husband, who was also her producer. Then we're going to get to hear some of that music, so stick around. This is Livewire. Welcome back to Livewire from prx. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Are you feeling ready for this week's station location identification examination?
- [42:11]
Jenny Nguyen
Yeah.
- [42:12]
Luke Burbank
This, of course, is the part of the show where I quiz Elena on a station in America where Livewire is on the radio. You try to guess where I'm talking about. So this place is known as the toilet paper capital of the world. The company that would eventually become Quilted Northern invented the first toilet paper here that would come without the risk of splinters. So the takeaway from this is early production methods of toilet paper sometimes left wood splinters in the rolls.
- [42:45]
Elena Passarello
Okay, well, Northern, so it's somewhere in the north. And then toilet paper. There's got to be a lot of trees around.
- [42:51]
Luke Burbank
So let me give you another clue. I like how you're thinking, but this might help, too. The French explorer Jean Nicole originally named this spot. And apologies for my French la Bay des Ponce, or the Bay of stinking waters because of the smell of the algae. But they later renamed it in favor of the color of the algae Is.
- [43:13]
Elena Passarello
It Green Bay, Wisconsin?
- [43:14]
Luke Burbank
It is exactly. Green Bay, Wisconsin, where we were on the radio on WHID radio. I'm really glad they changed the name.
- [43:23]
Elena Passarello
Yeah, yeah, good, good rebranding there.
- [43:25]
Luke Burbank
I have been to Green Bay and it is a wonderful place and I'm glad it's not called the Bay of Stinking Waters anymore. All right, shout out to everyone listening in Green Bay. You're listening to livewire. Okay, before we to our musical guest this week, a little preview of next week's program. We are going to be chatting with, well, it's public radio royalty at this point, Mr. Sam Sanders of KCRW's the Sam Sanders Show. He's also the co host of the podcast Vibe Check. Now, of course, Sam is a pop culture connoisseur. If you've ever heard Sam, you know this. So we're going to be getting him to do what he does best, which is give us hot takes on every from like why sitcoms are the pinnacle of all television or why he might be over like mega stadium concerts. Then we're gonna have a conversation with the filmmaker Sandy Dubowski about his documentary Sabbath Queen, which he filmed over a 20 year period. It follows the story of Rabbi Amichai Lao Levi who was struggling against the sort of generations of Orthodox rabbis in his family. This is the people he came from from as he was blazing his own trail as a queer drag queen in New York City. Plus, we're gonna hear a song from our favorite folk duo, the Lowest Pair. That is all next week on Livewire, so do not miss it.
- [44:50]
Elena Passarello
All right.
- [44:50]
Luke Burbank
Our musical guest this week is a singer songwriter known for her inquisitive and literary lyrics. She's released a dozen albums, many of them via her own label, Raving Marching Band Records. She's also collaborated with a whole range of artists including Sufjan Stevens, Nico Case, and also K D Lang as part of the super group Case Lang Veers. Her new album is Found Light. Laura Veers joined us on stage at the Holt center for the Performing Arts in Eugene, Oregon. Let's take a listen to that. Hi, Luke. Laura, it's so nice to have you back on the show.
- [45:27]
Laura Veers
Thanks for having me.
- [45:28]
Luke Burbank
How have you been?
- [45:29]
Laura Veers
I've been all right. How have you been?
- [45:31]
Luke Burbank
We've been all right. I was reading a quote from you about this latest album. I mean, you have made a lot of records in your day and you said that this album in many ways kind of feels like your debut album. Why?
- [45:44]
Laura Veers
So this is the first one that I have produced myself and I produced it with a friend named Shahzad Ismaili from New York. And my ex husband was my producer for 20 years. And so when we broke up, I had to rediscover myself as a musician independently. And it took a little bit of searching, but I'm happy with what I found.
- [46:04]
Luke Burbank
Wow. So that's a whole new way of making your music.
- [46:07]
Laura Veers
Yeah.
- [46:10]
Luke Burbank
Did you. You know, I don't want to get you to talk about anything that you don't feel particularly comfortable with, but did you find as your own producer or co producer that you made different decisions and that you liked some of the decisions better because now you were sort of driving that bus?
- [46:23]
Laura Veers
Yeah, in certain ways. I mean, Tucker, my ex, is a great record producer, and we made a lot of music that I'm proud of. But being in my own producer driver's seat, I made some decisions that I felt happy with, like, only doing a couple takes and not really doing a lot of edits, just going with the raw feeling of the music and also limiting ourselves to just a few instruments per track so that the songs themselves really came to life in a way that I felt was fresh and new for me. So, yeah, it was a really difficult experience in terms of figuring out how to parse out myself, you know, from my ex and that long relationship, which was really collaborative for so many years. Also, we have kids and houses and studios and all this stuff that we had to disentangle over a long period of time. And then I had. I wanted to be really authentic in the way that I told the story of how difficult this is, because especially when you have kids, a divorce is very painful. But also the reason people do it is because it's leading you to something better. So I did want to try in my most authentic way as a writer, a songwriter, to express the depth of that situation.
- [47:36]
Luke Burbank
Well, it would appear that the music is really finding an audience. The New York Times what to Cook this Week newsletter instructed its readers to listen to your new single while they're cooking this weekend. This is a real thing. Do you know about this?
- [47:54]
Laura Veers
You know, someone mentioned it backstage. I had heard that it was, like, recommended on the New York Times playlist, but I didn't realize it was specific.
- [48:01]
Luke Burbank
What to cook this week. You're supposed to. People are supposed to listen to the new single, and according to the New York Times, cook cheese enchiladas.
- [48:08]
Laura Veers
Okay, well, I should try that. Sounds fun.
- [48:12]
Luke Burbank
Is that the song that we're gonna hear?
- [48:14]
Laura Veers
That's not one that's like. Like pretty hard Rocker.
- [48:17]
Luke Burbank
Okay.
- [48:17]
Laura Veers
But it's called Winter Windows and It's out on YouTube. I did a video, I would like self made a video in my basement with my iPhone and was like doing a weird insane dancing. So it's on YouTube.
- [48:28]
Luke Burbank
You can check it out. This is Laura Veers here on Livewire.
- [48:39]
Laura Veers
This is one of the songs off my new album. It's called My Lantern.
- [48:58]
Laura Veers (singing)
Diamond dies burning bright in the sun, in the pine you are wonderful you are my lantern in the dark. Feet on the street, fist in the sky I watch your poetry arc you give me hope. You are my lantern in the dark, my lantern, my lantern. As night stitches night with a thousand question marks you bring me peace. You are my land lantern in the dark and the whole world's blue.
- [50:03]
Luke Burbank
Roving.
- [50:04]
Laura Veers (singing)
Like a dead eyed shark restless as the sea. You are my lantern in the dark, my lantern, my lantern diamond dice burning bright in the sun, in the park dark you are wonderful you are my lantern in the dark, my lantern, my lantern.
- [51:26]
Luke Burbank
Thank you. That was Laura Veers right here on Livewire. Her latest album, Found Light, is out now. All right, that's gonna do it for this week's episode of the show. A huge thanks to our guests John Moualiman, Jenny Nguyen and Laura Veers. Livewire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines.
- [51:49]
Elena Passarello
Laura Hadden is our executive producer. Heather D. Michelle is our executive director. Our producer and editor is Melanie Savchenko. Our assistant editor is Trey Hester. Our marketing manager is Paige Thomas, and our production fellow is Tanvi Kumar. Yasmeen Median is our intern. Our house band is Ethan Fox, Tucker, Sam Tucker, Eyal Alves, and A. Walker Spring, who also compares composes our music. Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer. And our house sound is by Dee Neil Blake.
- [52:14]
Luke Burbank
Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the state of Oregon and the National Endowment for the Arts. Livewire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank member Christian Asher. For more information about the show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to livewireradio.com org I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Livewire team. Thanks for listening and we will see you next week. Wouldn't it be amazing to have a piping hot episode of Livewire delivered right to your heart and ears each week? Well, guess what? That can happen when you subscribe to the Livewire podcast feed. And you'll get the joy of surprising conversation every week. So go ahead and do it. It's super easy. You click on the button at the top of your podcast app, and bam, you are Livewire subscribed. And if you're still, you know, feeling the love, if you're enjoying the show, hey, maybe you could hook us up and leave us a quick review that'll help more people find out about Livewire. And thank you.
- [53:37]
Elena Passarello
From prx.