Today we have Josh Tehee on the show. Josh is a journalist, podcaster, and music critic. Josh is one of those people that follow to keep a pulse on the culture of Fresno. As you might expect, this is a wide ranging conversation, and I hope you enjoy it.

Links:

Music 

Turnstile

Deafheaven

Sun Umbra

Books 

Dune Messiah Frank Herbert

Blogs/Sites  

The Fresnan 

Brooklyn Vegan 

The AV Club 

Aikido Discussed 

Video

The Nine Club 

Two Minutes to Late Night 

Links 

Aikido of Fresno

Josh’s Substack

Our Patreon Page 

Today we have Dr. Rong-Huey Liu on the show. Hailed as “a phenomenal, expressive oboist”, Taiwanese American, Dr. Rong-Huey Liu is one of Southern California’s most active oboists. She holds principal positions in the Long Beach Symphony, Los Angeles Ballet Orchestra, Reno Chamber Orchestra, Fresno Philharmonic, and Riverside Philharmonic. Dr. Liu has played all over the world and has worked as a studio musician in Hollywood. She holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California. If you listen to this podcast, you know that I love classical music so this conversation was as fun for me to produce as it will be for you as a listener.

Books

Marcel Tabuteau by Laila Storch
Casals And The Art of Interpretation by David Blum

Our Patreon Page

Today we have Andreas Borgeas on the show. Borgeas is a State Senator who represents the Eighth District of California. He has worked in numerous international professional and academic capacities; including, as a Fulbright Scholar, Contributing Fellow for the Woodrow Wilson Center, Policy Specialist Fellow at the US Embassy in Kazakhstan and as Commissioner on the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Andreas began public service as a Fresno City Councilman and member of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors before being elected in 2018 to the California State Senate. Andreas is Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee and Vice-Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with other committee assignments. This is a wide-ranging conversation that covers a lot of interesting and diverse topics. I hope you enjoy it.

Books

Peter Mansfield, The History of the Middle East

Elliot Ackerman, James G. Stavridis, 2034: A Novel of the Next World War

Our Patreon Page 

Today we have Venita Blackburn on the show. Works by Venita have appeared in newyorker.com, Harper’s, Story, McSweeney’s, Apogee, Split Lip Magazine, the Iowa Review, DIAGRAM, Foglifter, Electric Literature, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Paris Review, and others. She was awarded a Bread Loaf Fellowship in 2014 and several Pushcart prize nominations. She received the Prairie Schooner book prize for fiction, which resulted in the publication of her collected stories, Black Jesus and Other Superheroes, in 2017. In 2018 she earned a place as a finalist for the PEN/Bingham award for debut fiction, finalist for the NYPL Young Lions award and recipient of the PEN America Los Angeles literary prize in fiction. Her next collection of stories, HOW TO WRESTLE A GIRL, will be published in the fall of 2021 by MCD books.  She is the founder and president of Live, Write (livewriteworkshop.com), an organization devoted to offering free creative writing workshops for communities of color. Her home town is Compton, California, and she is an Assistant Professor of creative writing at California State University, Fresno.

Venita's Website 

Outline of Topics

Book Recommendations 

James Baldwin Everything

Toni Morrison Sula

Marjorie Liu Monstress Vol. 1

Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone This Is How You Lose the Time War

Brian K Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, and Matt Wilson Paper Girls 

Venita's books Black Jesus and Other Superheroes and How to Wrestle a Girl

Our Patreon Page 

Today, we have Bridgette Boothe on the show. Bridgette is the director of the Fresno Bully Rescue. Bridgette and her team are doing great work to home some of the most misunderstood dogs.

Topics Covered: 

Where do you like to eat in Fresno? 

What are some of the most common myths about “pit bulls”? 

How did foreclosures lead to the creation of your organization? 

What would we need to do to get to a be no-kill city or county? 

Training and education  

Fresno Bully Rescue's Website 

Our Patreon Page 

Today we have Jes Therkelson on the show. Jes Therkelsen is a documentary storyteller, filmmaker, photographer, and educator who has been telling the stories of others for over fifteen years. His most recent project, a short documentary film entitled One Step At A Time, follows three men as they overcome drug addiction and homelessness in California’s Central Valley. The film was an official selection of The Big Tell, a national film contest and film festival, featuring undiscovered stories from California’s Central Valley sponsored by the Central Valley Community Foundation and Bank of America. Therkelsen’s CV is a fascinating collection of experiences and projects across the world. This is a great conversation where we dig deep into narrative, filmmaking, travel, and much more.

His Website 

Documentaries 

Dick Johnson is Dead 

Nobody's Business 

Books

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Ways of Seeing John Berger 

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari 

Today we have Kevin Meikle on the show. As Director of Aviation of the Fresno Yosemite Airport, Mr. Meikle is the Chief Executive Officer Central California’s aviation system, which includes Fresno Yosemite International and Fresno Chandler Executive airports. FAT is a small hub airport served by seven domestic and two international airlines. FAT has enjoyed 70% growth since the Great Recession in 2010, accommodates 2,000,000 passengers annually and continues to grow. Chandler is the largest general aviation airport in Central California and serves as a reliever to FAT. Mr. Meikle has served Fresno airports for 19 years. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in architecture from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, is a licensed architect, and has over 40 years of experience in the design and construction industry. Mr. Meikle is also an instrument rated pilot and has been flying for 35 years. 

Topics Covered:

Our Patreon Page

Welcome to Fresno’s Best Podcast, I’m your host Jordan Mattox. Today we have Ryan Jacobsen on the Show. Ryan Jacobsen, of Easton, is the CEO for FCFB.

Jacobsen is no stranger to Farm Bureau or agriculture. He is the fourth generation of two Fresno County farm families and previously served as FCFB's governmental affairs coordinator and as the organization's membership coordinator, beginning in 2004.

Jacobsen is an honors graduate of California State University, Fresno with a master's degree in business administration and a bachelor's degree in animal science. 

He currently serves as president of the Fresno Irrigation District Board of Directors, secretary/treasurer of the Kings River Water Association, chair of Fresno County's Agricultural Lands Conservation Committee, and serves on the boards of California Farmland Trust and the Rotary Club of Fresno.

This may be one of my favorite conversations because Ryan is such a charming, knowledgeable and down-to-earth guy. There are probably places where we could have disagreed, but Ryan has such a powerful diplomatic and level headed approach that I was immediately disarmed. And the reality is is that we found agreement on many of the things we talked about. An awesome conversation with a powerful leader in Fresno.

Links: 

Fresno County Farm Bureau

David Mas Masumoto

Victor Davis Hanson

Our Patreon Page 

Today we have Dr. Kathleen Schock on the show. 

Dr. Schock is the host of Valley Edition. A Fresno native, Dr. Schock has a bachelor’s in international relations from the University of Southern California, a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley, and a doctorate in educational leadership from Fresno State.

Dr. Schock has more than 20 years of experience in journalism and communications. Her background includes working as a News Associate for NBC News in New York and as a general assignment reporter for KGPE in Fresno.

In addition to her work at Valley Public Radio, Dr. Schock teaches journalism at Fresno City College and serves as the advisor of The Rampage, the college’s student-run newspaper.  

As many of you know, I love talking to journalists and this conversation found its way from International Relations to Tap Dancing, from Octavia Butler to what makes an NPR voice distinctive. Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Kathleen Schock. 

Links:

Valley Edition Podcast

Books:

Octavia Butler 

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson 

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

Patreon Page 

Today we have Bryan Harley on the show. Bryan is the executive director of CMACTV, a non-profit organization created to help citizens, schools, non-profits, public agencies and others better connect with our Fresno/Clovis community through the use of media. Bryan also has a lot of experience beyond the camera and an IMDB worth perusing. We talk about film, media literacy, pizza in Fresno, and more.

CMAC's Website 

Our Patreon Page