Please Happy

SoCal Kid Fights Global Warming.

I posted this on Facebook, so all my “Friends” have seen it already, but I feel compelled to post it here as well. My first public radio story aired on KQED’s The California Report on August 1. Thank you, Alec and Victoria Loorz, for putting up with my home invasions for the last several months! And thank you, Victoria Mauleon, for helping cut my story down from 11 minutes to four!

This just makes me love them more.

I want to bathe in NPRness.

Thank you, Gizmodo, for showing me this in all its auto-tuning splendor.

Again, another first radio story. Maybe the second one I ever did. Again, recently posted on Southern California NPR station KPCC.

It’s about psychic José Ledesma whose South Central L.A (city of Vernon) business has taken off in the past year. He’s a character. Tried to get in touch to let him know the story published. Apparently, some Moroccan family has paid Ledésma’s way to Africa for some private tarot readings and über secret cleansings.

Glad I got in while he was still around.

Photos by Jake de Grazia.

Psychic Brings in the Money from 89.3 KPCC on Vimeo.

Psychic José Ledesma helps clients with woes – from health to wealth. This audio piece comes from Lauren Whaley, a graduate student at University of Southern California, who finds out what it takes to get the money flowing back into her life.

Two things:

1. I am a vegetarian.
2. My favorite food used to be bacon.

I can understand the love for bacon, the familial gatherings around burgers, the comfort of pork chops at Granny’s house.

But.

Well, for one, industrial farming is not good for you (stuff they inject into the animals, meat mixed together from different farms, meat cleaned with ammonia), not good for workers (bad conditions, poisonous substances) and obviously not good for the cooped up, injected animals.

But, that’s not the point of this story. The point is the cute and creepy art painted on the outside of a pork packing plant in Vernon (near South Central L.A.).

I made an audio story about it last semester – one of my first radio pieces ever  – that was recently posted on Southern California NPR station KPCC.

Photos by me and Jake de Grazia.

Profile of the Farmer John pork packing plant in Vernon, Calif. from 89.3 KPCC on Vimeo.

One of Jake’s friends, his future cousin-in-law actually, is starting a podcast series. It’ll feature music lovers talking about their favorite songs, telling stories about songs and music and then playing them. He sent us his, about Frank Zappa’s “Peaches En Regalia.” We LOVED it.

Inspired, we postponed our rainy outdoor adventure and made a recording. I interviewed Jake, then we edited it together together. It’s about a Ween song called Buenas Tardes Amigo (which you’ll hear at the end of Jake’s words). The final version may have The Spinto Band playing underneath the audio track to add some pizazz.

The podcast is called The Closer.

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