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Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Lauren Fleshman, Joey Clift, and Who Is She? (REBROADCAST)
00:51:55
This episode features runner and author Lauren Fleshman, comedian and writer Joey Clift, and music from indie supergroup Who Is She?
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A
Hey there. Welcome to Livewire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. This week on the show, we're gonna be talking to one of the most decorated American runners of all time, Lauren Fleshman, who won five NCAA championships at Stanford and then two national championships. We're gonna talk about her debut book, Good for a My Life Running. Then we're gonna chat with comedy writer Joey Clift about his new digital series Gone Native on Comedy Central, which delves into the weird microaggressions that native people often deal with. And then we're going to round things out with some music from the incredibly fun Seattle indie supergroup who Is She? And we're going to get the scoop on what really happened when they sang an unflattering lyric about Jeff Bezos at an NHL game at Seattle's Climate Pledge arena, which was named by Amazon. We've got a great show this week, so stick around. It all gets started right after this. Hey, y'. All. Each week on the Sam Sanders show, we ask big questions and offer hot takes about the pop culture we're obsessed with. Like, should we be allowed to talk at the movie theater? Are stadium concerts boring now? Is it time to stop making bingeable tv? Join me and a bunch of comics and journalists and celebrities as we make sense of the zeitgeist, or at least make fun of it. The Sam Sanders Show Wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube.
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This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out odoo@O-O-O.com that's O-O-O.com.
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A
This episode of Livewire was originally recorded in April of 2023. We hope you like it. Now let's get to the show.
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C
From prx, it's Livewire. This week, runner and author Lauren Fleshman.
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B
Sports are built around the male body and male performance norms is that you work harder, you get better, you know, you get out what you put in. But for female bodied people, when we go through puberty and our bodies change, we have a different normal.
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C
And comedian and writer Joey Clift the.
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D
Venn diagram of LA comedians to pro wrestlers. There's a small amount of bleed over There's a few wrestlers who do comedy. There's a few comedians who do wrestling.
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C
With music from who is she? And our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello. And now the host of Livewire, Loo Burbank.
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A
Hey, thank you so much, Elana Passarello. Thanks to everyone tuning in all across America, we have a really fun and fascinating show in store for you this week. Of course, we asked the Livewire listeners a question in honor of our guest, Lauren Fleshman, who is just an incredible record setting runner type. We asked, what record would you like to break? And we're going to hear those responses in just a few minutes. First, though, we've got to get to the best news we heard all week. This is our little reminder at the top of the show. There is some good news happening out there in the world. You just have to look for it. Alaina, what is the best news that you heard all week?
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C
Listen to this amazing story from Fakir, Virginia, where there's a fifth grader named Liam at Pearson elementary. And Liam was being a good student and looking through his textbook. Their fifth grade class had recently been talking about the rock cycle. Do you remember the rock cycle?
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A
That's like when he asks if you can smell what the rock is cooking.
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C
Yes, that's exactly right. That's okay.
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A
They're teaching that in school now. Interesting.
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C
Okay, yeah, it's a pro wrestling unit that all fifth graders in America have to go through.
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A
Sure. I would actually believe that. But okay.
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C
I don't remember the rock cycle, but I remember that there are three different types of rocks, igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary. And each one, I guess, goes through the rock cycle at different times. And Liam was looking through his textbook at the rock cycle part, and he noticed that the entry with the picture for the igneous rock fit the description of the sedimentary rock and vice versa. So the textbook had actually gotten the illustration and the descriptions wrong. And so he went and talked to his teacher, Ms. Porter, and bless Ms. Porter's heart, she did what I would have done. She was like, oh, I must have taught it to him wrong.
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A
She assumed that she had just misguided the students as opposed to creating super students.
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C
Right, right. She actually was making some of the most amazing fact checker students on the planet. She did a little further research and she confirmed that no, she taught them right. The textbook had it wrong. And so she called her instructional lead person. They got in touch with the textbook company and the textbook company, Five Ponds Press, wrote a handwritten letter back To Liam thanking him for being so vigilant. And then Liam got shouted out in his school superintendents. Basically his equivalent of the best news at the school district there. It's called three great things. And my favorite part about this story is Ms. Porter sort of bragging on Liam, and then she says, he is easily one of the smartest students I have, and he has no problem pointing out when he sees something that's wrong. Apparently, he doesn't mind correcting her several times.
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A
This has put some wind in his sails. I think that hand is going to be permanently up Tracy flick style for the rest of the school year.
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C
Well, you know, my French textbook in high school said that a picture of Katharine Hepburn was a picture of Audrey Hepburn. And I told my French teacher, and she didn't do anything about it. She was like, sit down and do your homework. So I'm just glad that the system is a little more open for these Tracy flicks.
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A
We can get, you know, we can get good, accurate information from all kinds of places, including even maybe the. The students.
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C
Absolute mon.
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A
The best news that I heard this week involves a woman in oakley, California. Her name is Livier Reynoso, and about 45 years ago, she was living in jalisco, Mexico. She was turning 15, and she wanted to have a quinceanera, but it didn't work out for whatever reason back then. And so as she was approaching her 60th birthday, Liviere thought, why not have my quinceanera at age 60?
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C
It's a quadruple quinceanera.
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A
Exactly. So she got the gang together over at St. Anthony Catholic Church in oakley. That's where things started with a morning mass, and then they meandered over to a local family ranch to have this big get together. She had a bunch of her friends fly in from all over. I didn't know this, but I guess part of the celebration is something called the court of damas, and her court all dressed up like Disney princesses.
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C
Oh, yes.
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A
So liviere was Tiana from the princess and the frog.
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C
Oh, yeah.
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A
She said, when I saw the princess and the frog, I knew right away that's who I was gonna be for my quinceanera.
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C
The fact that she was only, like, 48.
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Right. Her other friends were. Let's see, there was bel from beauty and the beast. There was Cinderella. There was mirabel from encanto.
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C
Oh, yeah.
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And what's that song? We don't talk about Lin Manuel. We don't talk about Bruno. There was also a mulan and a Snow White. Just imagine all these gals, fabulous. Roughly around the age of 60, dressed up in these, like awesome outfits. For Livia, having her quinceanera after all these years, they asked her for the local media how she felt about this whole thing and if she had any advice for folks. And she said, don't be embarrassed. People are going to talk, but it's okay to have a good time. Woo.
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D
Yeah, right.
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C
Word.
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A
That's a principle for a life well lived. So shout out to Livia Reynoso. Congratulations on turning 60. She also had some health issues that had the doctors wondering if she was actually gonna make it to 60. So this was like an extra special quinceanera. Princess and the Frog. Live youe Best Life. Live your party that went down there in Oakley, California. So congrats to her. That's the best news I heard this week. All right, let's invite our first guest on over to the show. She's one of the most decorated American runners of all time, having won five NCAA championships at Stanford and two national championships. Her debut book, good for a My Life Running in a Man's World, is part memoir, part manifesto regarding the treatment of women in sports, which is something she knows all about. Publishers Weekly calls it a rousing call to action. Take a listen to Lauren Fleshman, recorded at the Holt center in Eugene, Oregon, right here on Livewire. Lauren, welcome to the show.
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B
Thanks for having me.
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A
When did you figure out that you were just way faster than like the other kids?
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B
I just grew up in a neighborhood full of kids and like all these dead end streets and we played disorganized sports all the time and I was hard to catch. So I, you know, for a wide range of ages and kids. So I was like, I'm pretty good at this. And then I stole a lot of bases in softball. So, yeah, it's always been a source of pride.
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A
And you were, you write about in the book that your school would, for gym class, you'd run the mile like every week.
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B
Yeah.
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A
By the way, sounds way more. We were juggling scarves at Daniel Bagley Elementary School. I don't know what was going on in Southern Cal, but like, yeah, you're.
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B
Probably more coordinated than me then, but I'm pastor, I guess.
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A
Debatable. But like, you were running that mile and were you just beating everybody back then, too?
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B
I was, I was. And then this one week in eighth grade after spring break, they would post the results of the fastest times and I always had the fastest time. And then there was someone ahead of Me and his name was Rocky and I had beat him for two straight years. So it didn't make any sense. It was devastating. That's actually what the whole book is about. That's the climax right there. I don't want to spoil it.
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A
I could imagine that people might note that you went to Stanford. You're this incredible runner, and they might sort of. I will admit I assumed a certain life for you that you had had, just based on how I perceived you. Then I read the book and it was like, you really loved Steve Prefontaine because he was like a gritty runner too.
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B
Yep. I loved his, like working class vibes. You know, if I could grow a mustache like that, I totally would have.
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A
Did you want to be Chi Fontaine?
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B
Yeah, I did. My aunt used to call me Chiffontaine as a joke, and I pretended to hate it.
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A
But, like, I mean, you grew up. Can we talk about the household that you grew up in a little bit? Like, what did running mean to you?
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B
Running was a lot of things. I mean, it was a way to be in my body. It was a way to feel powerful. It was exploration. Like, our cross country team would go all up and around the mountains of our town. And so it was. I mean, it was really like freedom, friendship, all those kinds of things. But it was also, once I became good at it and I plugged into the sports system where these big rewards like scholarships and championships, it was a way for social mobility, class mobility, free college, like really life changing.
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A
Well, I mean, a big part of this book is kind of your journey through college and then into the pros, and you hit a point where you plateaued. And that happens to a lot of elite athletes where you're putting in the same amount of training, maybe even more, and you're just getting a different result. What was that like emotionally, mentally, for you to have that plateau period?
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B
Yeah, it's tough because I think the main example in sports, sports are built around the male body and male performance norms, is that you work harder, you get better, you get out what you put in. We have all kinds of refrigerator magnets along those lines. But for female bodied people, when we go through puberty and our bodies change, we have a different normal. And it involves a plateau and sometimes a little bit of a dip before we can start rising again, adjusted to our new bodies and. And then we peak in our mid to late 20s and beyond. But that's not common knowledge. And that was a big motivation for writing this book, is that when female athletes are going through These changes. A lot of times coaches, well meaning coaches and parents and teammates have them barking up the wrong tree looking for answers. Like maybe it's something in your head, maybe you're just care as much anymore, maybe you're not motivated. Maybe there's some problem and there's really no problem. People just need to be patient and let female bodied people develop through those years and stay healthy. And the best is yet to come.
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C
I learned something from your book that I had never thought of before as a non athlete is an understatement. But what you're talking about creates this cycle of athletes that female bodied athletes that explode, but they just can't sustain it. And that's kind of the culture of athletes at this upper level.
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B
Yeah, it's pretty ubiquitous across a lot of levels, to be honest. It's like as soon as your body starts to change, our culture views that as a negative in sport. For women, it's like this very exciting time for male athletes. But for women it can be like, oh, you know, I hope my body changes in a way that still works or that someone still views as successful. And we have this very mistakenly narrow view of what success can look like, what excellence can look like in a female body. And that leads to a whole outbreak of eating disorders and mental health problems beyond that. And it's all very preventable. And so I write about this because it's like a very common problem, but it's something that with just a little bit of consciousness raising, really basic stuff, honestly, like periods and boobs, really like if we can just kind of all be more aware of these things.
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A
I want to ask you a little bit more about that and about your journey and some really interesting things that you write about happening to your body as you were moving through this. In a moment. We've got to take a quick break. This is Livewire. We're talking to Lauren Fleshman. Her latest book is Good for a Girl, coming to you this week from the Holt center in Eugene, Oregon. Back in a moment.
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Hi, I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor of.
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A
The New Yorker and host of the.
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B
New Yorker Fiction podcast.
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A
On the podcast, I ask a great contemporary writer to select a favorite story.
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B
From the magazine's almost hundred year archive to read and discuss. Together we delve into the story, exploring its themes, its style and what makes fiction work. You can listen to authors like Ottessa Moshfegh talk about why we write story or attaching a story or creating a story. Is this inclination that we all have to stop spinning and you can hear writers like George Saunders discuss the nature.
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D
Of storytelling on the first read. You accept these things as descriptions and.
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A
They make you see the scene.
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D
But every line is a chance to inflect the reader's mind.
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B
You'll discover new favorite authors and read old favorites in new ways. Episodes of the New Yorker Fiction podcast are released on the 1st of every month.
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A
Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to livewire. This week coming to you from the Holt center for the Performing Arts here in Eugene, Oregon. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. We're talking to Lauren Fleshman about her book Good for a Girl. One of the things that really helped you in your career, you write, was that you just had, like, a higher pain tolerance than other people and that that went down a little bit at a period of time when you were starting to, you know, lose weight to try to sort of get faster.
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B
Well, yeah, in distance running and a lot of like these leanness sports, people fixate on weight as this, the most important thing. Like, they look at this physics formula and they're like, see pounds of weight and movement, whatever. And there's so many other things at play, especially in the female body when you, you may lose those three pounds or whatever, but then your menstrual cycle becomes disrupted. And when you have menstrual dysfunction, then you have this whole host of problems in your body. Like, we think of the menstrual cycle as like for reproduction and whatever. Like, it's, it's about so much more than that. And, but we don't educate people on it. Like, most coaches can't even say the word period without a euphemism, so much less know all the things that it does. And so one of the things that menstrual dysfunction causes is a decrease in pain tolerance, a decrease in recovery time, compromised immune function, increased anxiety. I mean, racing is stressful enough. If you're increasing your anxiety because of menstrual dysfunction, it's not helping you in the short term or the long term.
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A
Well, so then, I mean, what would be a potential solution for this? Because we're talking about running and people want to be the fastest. How do you restructure the sport so that people are able to take care of their bodies but still be competitive? Because people still want to win, right?
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B
Yeah, they do. And it's tough because the person you're watching winning, that everybody's celebrating. You can't tell what's going on underneath the skin. And it Takes time for the bone degradation, degradation and the tendon weakening to show up. And so, and then by the time that person is struggling with health problems, there's already a new person at the top. Because you do, you can. Not always, but you can get a short term advantage from rapid weight loss. And that's what's happening. And so it is like a little bit of a tough cycle to break. So I think really it's about education, it's about getting people to truly understand the risks of these behaviors. And the long. And most of all, like if people knew they'd be compromising their relationship with food and body and food, especially this thing you need to do multiple times a day for the rest of your life. If coaches and teammates, if we were all more aware of the stakes, like the long term stakes of our well being, I think we would intervene sooner. And intervening in eating disorders sooner is correlated with a higher likelihood of recovery. But there's no policies in place right now to still to manage eating disorder recovery. And so you have coaches that don't know what to do or maybe are even exploiting these athletes for a short term benefit and kind of replacing them with the next ones that come along. And that's the situation we're in. So I think we need to have mandatory coaching certifications to coach female bodied people where they're educated on these basics. And I think we need protocols in high school and the NCAA for intervention with eating disorders so that you take the individual choice away from coaches, just like we've done with concussions. Like it used to be like an incident by incident decision. Is this head knock bad enough or can you really get out there because the game's close, like it takes that off the table. Now you have to follow a protocol that's in the best interest of athlete health.
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A
We were talking to Lauren Kleischman about her book Good for a Girl. I was really shocked by a statistic in this book about the way that female athletes in college perceive their own bodies, because these are about as elite as you can get from an athletic standpoint. And it was shocking to me the percentage of them that feel like they need to, quote, unquote, lose weight.
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B
Yeah, it's over half of these fittest bodies in the ncaa. Over half feel that their body needs to be changed. And over 90% of those think it's to lose weight. An average of 13 and a half pounds, which is like a leg really. I mean, it's like, it's shocking to think that that is what's living inside people's minds, the static on a day to day basis, not just in their sport, but when they're in class, in their relationships. Like you're wandering around your life every day thinking that something's dramatically wrong with you. And that's not obviously just athletes, that's ubiquitous, especially among women in our culture. But we have to, you know, we have to do something about it.
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A
If some of these things you're talking about were instituted and it meant that times actually, like times were slower, would that be an okay outcome in your mind? If people being healthier just meant we're just not going to run as fast because we don't want to die, would that be an okay outcome?
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B
Honestly? Yes, absolutely. 100%. Like, we make choices like that all the time. I mean, the irony of this is the NCAA was created originally because so many athletes were dying in football when they started having college sports that they created the NCAA to reduce deaths by creating rules that protected athlete health. So that's why they're here. It's become more about not giving athletes free cars and whatever other things we talk about. But yeah, we just need to hold them accountable for what is already in their mission statement to do.
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D
Yeah.
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A
You went pro after college and you write it's like very different being a runner, a professional runner, than it is being like a professional basketball player or a team sport. Because it's like you, you are the team and you have to find somebody to endorse you to pay for these trips you've got to take. And you're basically betting on yourself. It seems like a fairly solitary existence. What was it like for you?
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B
Yeah, it was really solitary, actually, and I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore, to be honest. But it was, it was like I missed team a lot because I fell in love with running because of my team. You know, that exploration, adventure, companionship, belonging, and college was a similar experience. I mean, there were a lot of difficult moments to that as well, you know, given the subjects we're talking about in this conversation. But that companionship, friendship, being in, in it together for a common goal is like so hard to beat. And, and so I missed that. And I found like, I've realized I'm a social exerciser, so people are always surprised. Like it's hard for me to even just regularly go for runs as a retired athlete, like to even do any.
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A
Exercise because I'm like, God, that is such a relief.
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B
Yeah, shoot. I'm like, what?
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A
I think everyone hearing this feels extreme, extremely better about their life right now?
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B
I'm like, no better than my 5 year old. I'm just like, are my friends doing it? Okay? If my friends are doing it, I'll do it.
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A
Yeah. A lot of your professional track career took place in other countries. And I got the sense that the rest of the world thinks about track and field and running events sort of differently than we do over here. And I don't mean here, Eugene, Oregon, because this is its own ecosystem. It is, but you know what I mean? What do you think of accounts for that?
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B
Well, I think there's a lot of history and also there's like these cities that host their one big event every year. And it's become like a festival environment. People are invested in it. Here in the US we like to move races around. Like, we move our national championships from place to place. It's hard to gain traction. Plus, we, we have a really big country. But if you go to a, a place like Rome always hosts this big track and field meeting and it's always packed and there's 14 different countries that have races like this in the Diamond League, I think people just look forward to it every year. And also they have gambling and alcohol. So that's part of.
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A
Oh, you know, that could really add something to these track events here in Eugene. There is some really real talk in this book. Real talk about, you know, yourself, about your teammates and like, injuries that they sustained because they were not menstruating. You talk about your father's alcoholism. What's the response been from the people in the book? Did you get permission from folks that you wrote about?
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B
The people who I didn't get permission from, I changed names and identifying characteristics for, and I tried to only include stories about people that were imperative to the larger mission of the book, to stop these things from happening. And so. But yeah, it's been a lot of anxiety still. Even with the people who I had permission and I did interviews with, when I sent them the book, I was just like, you know, but these are all people that care. Like, they care deeply. And the thing that I've heard from so many people that I've sent it to, that I talked to early on were like, I kind of started to think I imagined it all, you know, and it was so good to read your book because I'm realizing, like, I didn't imagine it. How messed up is that?
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A
What's harder writing a book or like running a 5K at the sort of national championship level because one lasts for, like, for you, like 15 minutes, the 5K. The other is like, what, like 50 months, 15 lifetimes?
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B
Like three years. The 5K is definitely a unique kind of pain. It's like a little bit of like an icicle in the eyeball for 15 straight minutes.
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A
But, God, I wonder why more people aren't into track with that kind of sales pitch.
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B
But, yeah, writing a book was just like a lot of slow loneliness. And like I said, I am a social person. I'm a social exerciser. Turns out I probably also need a job where I'm around people. So I'm going to do some reevaluating how I'm going to approach the next writing project.
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A
I know you have a couple of kids and you have a daughter, right?
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B
I do.
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A
Are you hoping that she becomes a competitive runner?
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B
Part of my motivation for writing this book is that when I thought about the potential of my daughter becoming an athlete, I felt scared. Even though sports brought me the life I have, which I love, and brought me so many great memories. And I'm not alone in that. These teammates that I reached out to and talked to about this with their kids, they had the same fears. But I think that putting this out there and trying to raise consciousness about these issues, having coaches respond, parents respond, athletes respond, it is changing the way people think about, like, the typical female experience and what we need to make space for in sports. And so I do feel more safe about my daughter participating if that's what she wants to do.
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A
Right on. It's a great book about running and life by Lauren Fleshman. It's called Good for a Girl. Lauren, thanks for coming on Livewire.
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D
Thank you.
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A
That was Lauren Fleshman recorded live at the Holt center in Eugene, Oregon. Her book Good for a My Life Running in a Man's World is out now. Hey, special thanks this episode to Hallie Seidel of Portland, Oregon. Hallie is a part of the Livewire member community and is generously supporting the program with a donation each month. And we could not be more appreciative of that support because it's how we are able to keep doing Livewire week in and week out. Hallie has just been amazing friend of the show for many years. So thanks, Hallie, for your extra special help this week in keeping Livewire 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 this is Livewire, of course. Each week we ask our listeners a question in honor of Lauren Fleshman's incredible accomplishments. We asked our listeners, what is a record you would like to break? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What are folks saying?
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C
I love this one from Brian. Brian would like to break the record for fastest traveler through tsa. That would just be a reward in itself. Right?
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A
I feel like I might actually be able to qualify, at least for the regionals on that because I travel so much for work that I have just every nanosecond planned out with the pre check and the. You know, I take it very seriously, Much to the consternation of anyone who has to travel with me who's just being unnormal.
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C
My dad, Tony P. Friend of the show, was a traveling salesperson his whole life, and his goal was always to never stop walking. Once you get out of your car, you walk through tsa, you walk through the thing, you walk through the line, and you walk onto the plane.
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A
I love it. It's just like a cartoon character who's sleepwalking and passing through each barrier unknowingly. That's great. All right. What's another record that one of our listeners wants to break?
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C
Oh, this one's Charming from Kevin. I would like to break the record for person who makes my wife laugh the most.
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A
That's a relationship that I think is. Is going to do just fine. I mean, what we don't talk about enough is that most of a relationship is just trying to make the other person laugh. That's like 98% of it.
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C
Not in the bad way. Not like, by, like, you know, laughing.
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A
At them or being laughed at. I've been down that road, too. I'll tell you, when you're laughing together, much better road to be on. It sounds like that's where that listener is.
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C
Yeah. Or if somebody's, like, laughing maniacally, like, hello, honey, have a good night. I don't want that kind of laughter in a relationship.
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A
No. That tells you that you may be married to the Count from Sesame Street.
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C
If that's true, which actually, I mean, he could get it, so.
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A
Yeah, absolutely. Yes. This is the show where we say the Count can get it.
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B
Sure.
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A
One more record that one of our listeners would love to set.
- [30:04]
C
Okay. Here's one from Michael. Escape the Pina Colada song by Rupert Holmes. That is the record that Michael would most likely.
- [30:13]
A
I got it. Okay. Okay.
- [30:15]
C
That song, if you listen to the lyrics of that song, it is nuts.
- [30:19]
A
It's edgy.
- [30:20]
C
Two people that don't want to be married to each other anymore put a cheating ad in a paper, discovered that they did it to each other and then just laugh it off.
- [30:28]
A
Yeah. Just walk slowly into the sunset, Pina coladas in hand. Just. You know what? Just when you're at the karaoke bar and you dial that one up, just sing your little heart out and let's not focus on the narrative.
- [30:40]
C
Right. There's so many songs that are like that.
- [30:42]
A
Exactly. All right, thanks to everyone who sent in a response to our listener question. We've got one for next week's show as well, which we will reveal in just a few minutes. In the meantime, let's get our next guest on over to the program. He's a TV writer and enrolled Cowlitz Indian tribal member. Most recently, he created, wrote and directed the Comedy Central digital series Gone Native, which delves into the world weird microaggressions that native people often deal with and what we all can do to try to cut that stuff out. His award winning short films have also screened everywhere from the Just for Laughs Festival to the Smithsonian Museum. Joey Clift joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. Check this out. You and I were emailing last night and I believe you said something like, I don't want to make working out my entire personality, but I am emailing you from the treadmill. Can you elaborate on why that was the case?
- [31:45]
D
Yes. So I, for the first time in my life, have gotten a personal trainer to get in shape for my first and only professional wrestling match in a few weeks. As you can tell, I'm a very noodle armed weakling. So I.
- [31:59]
A
This is radio. I mean, you could be like Rick Frank Flair for all they know.
- [32:03]
D
Yeah, yeah. Actually everybody listening. It worked. I'm jacked. I'm seven feet tall.
- [32:09]
A
Who are. Wait, who are you wrestling? How did you get like involved in this?
- [32:14]
D
Okay, so I am wrestling three really great wrestlers. Leroy Patterson, Peter Avalon and Howdy Price. They've wrestled for a lot of different TV companies. And the reason that I'm wrestling them is that there's a. The Venn diagram of LA comedians to pro wrestlers. There's a small amount of bleed over. There's a few wrestlers who do comedy, there's a few comedians who do wrestling. And I'm friends with a few of these wrestlers. They know that I'm a huge wrestling dork and they invited me and a few of my friends to guest on a comedy pro wrestling web series called Being the Elite. And basically they brought us in because one of them was doing a storyline where they lost their hat. They were trying to get their hat back, and they brought me and my friends in as the hat Boys. Three guys who like hats and are experts about hats. Of course.
- [33:02]
A
That's your wrestling backstory.
- [33:03]
D
That's my wrestling backstory. Huge hat enthusiast, as you can tell.
- [33:06]
A
I feel like you're going in as an underdog.
- [33:08]
D
Yeah, yeah, No, I think I'm going in to win. I'm going. Look, I took a personal trainer. I emailed you from the treadmill. I'm trying really hard at this. So, of course the web series ended with us getting beaten up. No question. And now we want revenge. That's pretty much the pieces on the table for it.
- [33:25]
A
Other than trying to build your body into the beef castle that we here at the Alberta Rose Theatre can all see, you've been writing and directing a series of digital shorts for Comedy Central called Gone Native. How did that all come together?
- [33:38]
D
So the Gone Native came from. A few years ago, a few friends of mine were posting on Facebook about a protest against the Washington D.C. nFL team, which previously had a name that was a little racist. Okay, a lot racist. And somebody commented on the post saying something to the effect of, I just got my DNA test in the mail and it says that I'm like 1 64th Indian and I think the team name is fine, so everybody lay off.
- [34:07]
A
And of course, did you find that argument unpersuasive?
- [34:10]
D
Oh, yeah, yeah, I definitely read it and I was like, wow, he makes a lot of good points. Good take, bro. And I really wanted to have something to share with this person to, you know, maybe explain to him why what he was saying wasn't the best thing. But the only things that I could really find were, like, longer think pieces and things that, like, I'm not going to convince a random Facebook person to read an eight page think piece about this. So instead, I created an animated short called telling people you're Native American when you're not native is a lot like telling a bear you're a bear when you're not a bear. The title is 24 words long. Basically a Fiona Apple album title of a short film name. And, you know, I created it kind of to like, hopefully educate people like that, you know, through jokes in an easy to digest way about, you know, just like microaggressions native folks run into. And, you know, I originally made it just to kind of play at a comedy show in Los Angeles. It did really well. So I submitted it for the festival circuit. It did really well there. And then I got connected through a thing called the yes and Laughter Lab to people at Comedy Central who, you know, really dug it. And they brought me on board to make a bunch of other shorts and eventually this Gone Native digital series, which is just a slew of shorts about native stuff that annoys me, like, what.
- [35:17]
A
Are some of the other things that you're tackling?
- [35:19]
D
So one of the shorts is about non natives using the term spirit animal, calling meetings, powwows, and things like that. And the short is called, every time you say that something is your spirit animal, you have to give every Native American person you know $25. And then we've got another short. It's called, Dear legendary horror author Stephen King, instead of using Indian burial grounds in your books, have you thought about using European burial grounds? Because Europe's terrifying. Paris is built literally on a mountain of human bones.
- [35:52]
A
Right? Yeah. Has Stephen King heard about this? Because I feel like you make a pretty compelling argument that he needs to come up with a new trope. Right?
- [36:00]
D
Yeah. I'm not sure if he's heard of it, although I do. I look at his Twitter and I feel like he might have subtweeted me because he said something about. I forget the exact tweet, but it was something to the effect of just like writers should be able to do whatever with no consequence or something. And I was like, I think you might have watched my video and you might be annoyed.
- [36:20]
A
The video where you're asking people to not be casually, or maybe not even so casually racist towards native folks with the kind of things that they say. And there's so many of those things that are ingrained in white culture that we don't even think about what the implications are. It's obviously also being played for comedy. I mean, the penalties that you're proposing are pretty extreme, but they're also funny. And I'm watching it, and I'm like, oh, that's a good thing to remember to not say that. And also, wouldn't it be funny if I had to give a house to someone? Like, that would be financially crippling. And then I look in the YouTube comments, and people are like, you really think I'm gonna give you a house if I say that? Like, I feel like some people are not getting the comedy value of these things. And, like, is that. I mean, do you feel like that's still accomplishing your mission of at least bringing up the conversation for people? Cause I just feel like a lot of folks are missing the point.
- [37:10]
D
Yeah, I think it's very funny when people think that they're YouTube videos that are two minutes long and mainly feature a cartoon bear mauling somebody. Don't tackle all sides of the issue perfectly. So, you know, I guess to answer your question, I think that people get defensive whenever they feel in any way challenged or like their worldview might be, you know, being changed a little bit. And I think that for Native folks, there's a statistic by a really good Native run nonprofit called Illuminative that learned through a really great study they put on that 87% of US schools don't teach native history after 1900. And, you know, that's something that just like talking to non Native folks. I definitely feel all the time of, you know, people asking me, like, if I was born in a teepee, if my reservation had electricity growing up and stuff like that. And, you know, I think that the people that are asking this are doing it from a, you know, not a place of malice, but a place of just ignorance. So I think that for, you know, those, like, YouTube commenters, there is this feeling of like their worldview is being changed by just the idea of Native people still existing, being put into their mindset and that being something that, like, they're just annoyed about and crabby about. And I totally get it. I remember when, when Pluto was declassified as a planet, I was furious. So, you know, I totally get the idea of like something that you believed might not be accurate and feeling a little bit of anger about it. But I also think that if those are the kinds of people that are getting mad at my video, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job.
- [38:44]
A
We're talking to Joey Clift, got a bunch of things going, including the video series Gone Native. Now, what are you hoping to accomplish with the series as far as moving the needle? I guess solving racism completely. Somewhere between moving the needle and solving racism completely.
- [39:06]
D
Wow, that's the first time anybody has ever asked me that question. You know, I'm a comedian. I came up with ideas for videos towards stuff that I'm passionate about and I made them because I thought they'd be funny. But I think that for me it's less going into it with like a broad. I'm doing this to shape minds or whatever, and more of a position of like, a lot of really cool stuff has come out of it. Like the, the bear short that I mentioned a second ago. I've seen, you know, comments from people on TikTok that have said that their kids who are Native get bullied at school and for a long Time they didn't really know how to combat that. And now they just say, hey, you better stop bullying me or you're going to get mauled by a bear. And that I've, like, equipped just like, native kids and like, you know, just like, people with, like, an easy joke that they can use as ammo in something that might be like a weird racial microaggression y situation. It's like, oh, yeah, that was not my intention when I just wanted to make a video with a guy getting mauled by a bear over and over again. But, like, after the fact. Hell yeah.
- [40:06]
A
You know, I know that you're also pretty deep in the world of cats. Oh, hell yeah. And not the musical. Although maybe that too.
- [40:14]
D
Also the musical.
- [40:16]
C
Nice.
- [40:17]
A
But do you maintain a Facebook page for celebrity cats or the cats of celebrities?
- [40:24]
D
Yeah. So I created a Facebook page called the LA Underground Cat Network, which is a Facebook page for Los Angeles comedians to share pictures of their cats. It has 15,000 members, and it's created two offshot groups. If you're wondering if the reason for that is drama in the first group, you are very right.
- [40:47]
A
What is the drama? Spill the tea, Joey Clift, about the what's going on at the main LA Underground Cat Network Facebook page.
- [40:56]
D
Okay, so. Oh, man, I've been waiting to vent about this. So the LA Underground Cat network split of 2019 was originally the group was created to share cute cat videos. And then it became, honestly, this really useful resource for, like, people in the LA cat rescue community. And the comedians were like, why is this useful stuff being posted? And the cat rescue people were like, why? Why are, like, cute pictures of cats being shared? So then I created a group specifically for the cat rescue people to kind of do their thing. And then there were, like, people that were like, hey, wait a second. People are posting stuff that isn't just cute cat photos in the main group. They're also posting, like, funny stories. I just want photos and videos. So then I had to create a third group that was like, this is just photos and videos.
- [41:48]
A
Joey Clift, everyone.
- [41:50]
D
Yeah.
- [41:55]
A
That was Joey Clift right here on Livewire. You can catch gone native on YouTube. All right, this is Livewire. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Elena Passarella. We have to take a very quick break, but don't go anywhere because when we come back, we are going to talk to a indie supergroup from Seattle. Who is she? And we're not only going to hear some great music, but we're going to hear the story on how they got in big trouble at an NHL game because they changed a lyric to be about Jeff Bezos. And it was at an arena named by Amazon.com so stick around for that. It's coming up in a minute. Foreign welcome back to LIVEWIRE from prx. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Are you ready for a little station location identification examination?
- [42:50]
C
Yeah.
- [42:51]
A
This is the part of the show where I quiz Elena on somewhere in the country where Livewire is on the radio. She's got to guess where I'm talking about. Now, there's some bird notes in these clues, and I'm thinking that might help you because you are, you're the biggest bird expert that I know. Now, first thing, the city that we're talking about is actually pretty young. It was only incorporated in 1999 and it is, in fact, spread across 13 islands. There are some hard to find birds that like to live in this city or at least pass through. The Antillean nighthawk, gray kingbirds, black whiskered vireo and burrowing owls.
- [43:36]
C
Is it a Florida key of some sort?
- [43:39]
A
It is the key of Marathon, Florida, where we're on wkwm. You've done it again, Passarello. So shout out to everybody tuning in down there in Marathon. This is the Livewire. Okay, before we get to our musical guest this week, a little preview of what we were doing. Next week on the show, we're going to be joined by Aubrey Gordon, who is the host of the hit podcast Maintenance Phase. What they do is they debunk diet and wellness trends and lore. Now, I am a huge fan of Aubrey and Aubrey's podcast and I always love getting to talk to her. We got into a conversation about the Ozempic shortage and also if people living into their 1/ hundreds in those blue zones, that's a real thing. Also, we're gonna talk to the writer and multidisciplinary artist Jean Grey about her aspiration to make a pandemic puppet show, which ended up being harder than she thought it would be. And also her years growing up in the Chelsea Hotel, which she writes about in her book In My Remaining Years. Plus, we're gonna have some music from Brazilian singer songwriter Joche, so make sure you tune in for next week's show. Support for Livewire comes from the Celeste Hotel in St. Paul, Minnesota. An independent boutique hotel, this former art conservatory and convent is on the national list of historic places for booking. And for more information, visit the celestehotel.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 Livewire Radio 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. All right, this is Livewire from prx or music. Musical guests this week are a Seattle based indie supergroup. They feature members of Tacocat, Chastity Belt, and Lisa Prank. The band started out as a songwriting and friendship project based on Missed connections ads, and they released a debut record called Seattle Gossip. Take a listen to who is she here on Livewire, recorded at Town hall in Seattle, Washington. Hello there.
- [46:44]
B
Hi.
- [46:45]
A
Hi. Welcome to the show. Thank you for doing this.
- [46:47]
B
Thanks for having us.
- [46:48]
A
We're soaked. Can I get a little bit more explanation of how a musical group based on Missed connections ads works? How did that work in the early days? Well, we got obsessed with Ms. Connection ads and Craig and the Stranger and started writing songs that were just based on them. So a lot of them are like.
- [47:12]
B
I saw you on the bus and I didn't say hi because I'm too shy.
- [47:17]
A
And so at what point did you. Because it sounds like this started out, you're all in other bands that have great acclaim here in Seattle. When did you realize, oh, this is also going to be a thing that we're going to do and go out and play shows and put out albums. Well, you know, me and Emily are in Tacocat and thank you. And Julia's in Chastity Belt and I'm in childbirth with her and Robins and Lisa Prank. And it was just fun to write those songs. So we just kept doing it.
- [47:44]
C
We did an album and we're gonna.
- [47:46]
A
Do another album this year. You also got. You sort of made your way into the news recently when you were playing a gig at the hockey game, the Kraken game, and there's this song by Latigre. It's My Metro Card was the original version. And in it they kind of like, well, can you tell me the story of how you ended up Doing your version of that song at the hockey game.
- [48:09]
B
Well, first of all, I'll just say we're all a little nervous because the last show we played, we got fired. So please don't fire us.
- [48:16]
A
I promise you, if they haven't fired me yet, they're not gonna fire you.
- [48:21]
B
I was in the light rail, and I was texting Bri about how we should write a version of Laticret, like, Seattle based one, because, you know, I.
- [48:30]
C
Love my orca card.
- [48:31]
B
We all ride public transportation a lot. Shout out to orca cards.
- [48:38]
A
And so we adjusted their song my.
- [48:40]
C
Metro card or by my metro card.
- [48:42]
A
To buy my orca card. And in the Latigra version, they have.
- [48:49]
C
A line to seeing Giuliani.
- [48:50]
A
And we were like, oh, shoot, we gotta update this orca card song to have a local villain. So we changed the line about Giuliani to be about Jeff Bezos, which took on a certain resonance because you were playing in Climate Pledge Arena.
- [49:14]
E
Yeah.
- [49:14]
A
Owned by Amazon or paid for by Amazon. When did it become clear to you that they were not, as they say, super stoked.
- [49:25]
B
When we were asked to not come back for the next two nights?
- [49:40]
A
Well, I feel like it immediately made you heroes to a certain segment of this city and region. So without. Without further inquisition, could we hear the song banned at Climate Pledge Arena? My orca card from who is she?
- [50:16]
E
Out the front into the air I'm ready. Cause it's my day situation it's all possible Everything is going my way. My, My orca card. My. My orca card. My. My orca card. Think I go a little but I'm gonna go far. Oh, no. Jeffrey Bezos. He's such a total jerk. Shut down all the bookstores. Billionaires do not work. My, My orca card. My. My orca card. My. My orca car. Think I go a little but I'm gonna go far. Next stop, Ballard Avenue. Next stop, looks like Spruce Street. Next stop, transfer to the next stop streetcar or link My. My orca card. My. My orca card. My. My orca card. Think I'll go a little but I'm gonna go far. Next stop, 12th Avenue. Next stop, looks like Pike Street. Next stop, transfer to the next stop. 3, 4, or link my My orca car. My. My orca car. My. My orca car. I think I'll go a little but I'm going to go far.
- [52:19]
A
That's. Who is she Right here on Livewire. Thank you. That was. Who is she? Here on Livewire. Recorded at Town hall in Seattle. Their album Seattle Gossip is available now. All right, that's gonna do it for this week's episode of the show. A huge thanks to our guests Lauren Fleshman, Joey Clift and who is she?
- [52:50]
C
Laura Haddon is our executive producer, Heather D. Michel is our executive director, and our producer and editor is Melanie Savchenko. Molly Pettit is our technical director and our house sound is by D. Neil Blake. Trey Hester is our assistant editor. Our marketing and production manager is Karen Pan. Rosa Garcia is our operations associate, Jackie Ibarra is our production fellow and Ant Diaz is our intern. Our house band is Ethan Fox, Tucker, Sam Tucker, Eyal Alves and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Trey Hester.
- [53:21]
A
Additional funding provided by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the James F. And Marian L. Miller Foundation. Livewire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloft. This week we'd like to thank member Hallie Seidel of Portland, Oregon. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, skedaddle on over to livewireradio.org I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Livewire crew. Thanks for listening and we will see you next week. Hey, if you appreciate the work that Livewire is doing to amplify riveting and unexpected voices to a national audience, and I gotta tell you, it's a big audience these days, please, please, please consider offering some monthly support by becoming a member of our league of extraordinary Listeners. Here's how it works. Membership starts at just five bucks a month and there are great perks at every level, including a special shout out on the broadcast. Impress your friends by being shouted out on Livewire. It means the world to a us and really does make it possible for.
- [54:37]
D
Us to do the show.
- [54:38]
A
So please, if you can, help, support us by visiting livewireradio. Org memberships.
- [54:51]
C
From prx.