Imperfect Paradise

Part 3: The Star Garden Topless Dive Bar reopens as a union strip club, but the fight doesn’t end there. What happens after the victory? LAist Producer Emma Alabaster has the story.

Here are some resources that informed our reporting:

• Working It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex  (In particular, the essay "White Supremacy in Organizing" by Domino Rey)
• Yes, A Stripper Podcast
• Unequal Desires: Race and Erotic Capital in the Stripping Industry by Siobhan Brooks
• Tits and Sass: Service Journalism by and for Sex Workers

Click here for more resources 

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Part 2: When the Star Garden strippers go public with their union campaign, they get pushback from the club’s management and a group they didn’t anticipate - other strippers. LAist Producer Emma Alabaster reports.

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Part 1: In 2023, North Hollywood’s Star Garden reopened as the only unionized strip club in the U.S. LAist Producer Emma Alabaster tells us the behind-the-scenes story of the workplace conditions that pushed the dancers into action. 

CONTENT WARNING: This episode includes sensitive content about sexual assault.

For sexual assault and harassment support and resources, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673, which is a service of RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network).

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Imperfect Paradise Host Antonia Cereijido speaks with philosopher and author of Elite Capture: How The Powerful Took over Identity Politics (And Everything Else) Olúfemi O. Táíwò. They examine the question: are identity politics over? It’s a question that was raised and we began to explore with Imperfect Paradise’s Nury & The Secret Tapes series. Antonia examines that question more deeply with Táíwò and presses him on why he believes identity politics have failed to deliver on their promise to create greater social equity and what he thinks is the more effective political alternative. Antonia’s conversation with Táíwò kicks off the first Imperfect Inquiry, a recurring Imperfect Paradise segment in which Antonia interviews thinkers, experts, and stakeholders on themes, issues, and questions that we examine on the show. 

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Yoga's "Queen of Conspiracy Theories" Part 4: RFK Jr. - The Presidential Candidate for Wellness Conspiracists?
A year after Yoga’s “Queen of Conspiracy Theories” first release, Imperfect Paradise host Antonia Cereijido explores a new, unexpected chapter in this story with Conspirituality podcast host Matthew Remski, Politico journalist David Freedlander, and LAist Correspondent Emily Guerin, who reported the series. This episode examines how the conspiracy theories, once relegated to a subset of yoga and wellness communities, are being brought into the political mainstream through the presidential candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is campaigning on a mix of conspiracies from both the wellness world and the far right.

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Part 3: Kundalini Yoga’s #MeToo Moment
In early 2020, just as fears about coronavirus are worsening, women begin accusing the founder of Kundalini Yoga, Yogi Bhajan, of sexual assault. Guru Jagat’s surprising response sets the stage for her radicalization during the pandemic.

CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of Sexual Assault

(Original Air Date: Jan. 18, 2023) 

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Part 2: Kundalini Royalty
Katie Griggs, a young woman from rural Maryland, discovers Kundalini yoga in her early 20s and goes all in. She transforms herself into Guru Jagat, a beloved and controversial yoga and wellness influencer in Los Angeles. In this episode, her friends, family, and coworkers grapple with how she changed in the final years of her life. And we explore the connections between yoga and conspiracies like QAnon.

(Original Air Date: Jan. 11, 2023) 

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Before her sudden death in 2021, Guru Jagat had become a famous Kundalini yoga teacher based in Los Angeles. But as the global pandemic grew, she started talking like a far-right coronavirus conspiracy theorist. What does her journey down the rabbit hole tell us about the appeal of conspiracies in the yoga and wellness community?

Yoga's "Queen of Conspiracy Theories" explores Guru Jagat’s rise to fame and follows along as she responds not just to the pandemic, but to a #metoo movement scandal that rocked the Kundalini yoga world in early 2020. It also explores themes of misinformation, how a healthy distrust in government and medicine can turn dark, the "relativism around truth" in the wellness industry and the influence of social media on radicalization.

The series first came out in December 2022. We're republishing it because it's one of our favorites and remains relevant. We've updated the series with a fourth episode.

In this first episode, Guru Jagat starts the pandemic with an understandable skepticism of official medical advice, but quickly grows to embrace an array of far-right conspiracy theories. 

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This week, Imperfect Paradise, the show about hidden worlds and messy realities brings you an episode of Jo Piazza’s - podcast Under the Influence with Jo Piazza.
Last December, Jo had LAist reporter Emily Guerin on to talk about Imperfect Paradise: People vs. Karen, the story about a white mom-fluencer who falsely accused a Latino couple of a crime and their fight to hold her accountable
If you haven’t listened to Imperfect Paradise: People vs. Karen yet, we encourage you to binge the series. In this episode you'll hear Jo and Emily get into some behind the scenes details that went into making People vs. Karen, and a deeper discussion into the role social media played in this story.

Binge all Imperfect Paradise episodes here. 

Listen to Under The Influence with Jo Piazza. 

 

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This week, Imperfect Paradise is featuring Part 3 & Part 4 of a four-part series from How To LA. 

HTLA host Brian De Los Santos and producer Evan Jacoby are taking a closer look at L.A. Mayor Karen Bass's "Inside Safe" program. They also recap some of the big questions we've asked throughout the series, and bring a new question to many of our guests from the previous episodes: "What should the relationship be between mutual aid volunteers and government agencies?"

If you want to learn more about mutual aid in Los Angeles, check out Evan's reporting on LAist.com

Or, if you want to learn about mutual aid groups in your neighborhood and maybe join them, check out these resources:

Los Angeles: 

• https://mutualaidla.org/get-involved/
• https://thepeoplesproject.la/get-aid/

National:

• https://www.mutualaidhub.org/

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains strong language and includes sensitive content about drugs, rape, suicide, and death.

For substance dependency and mental health support and resources, call SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or text 988.

Guests in Part 3: Nono, unhoused resident of an Inside Safe motel in Palms; Nick Gerda, LAist Unhoused Communities Reporter; LA Mayor Karen Bass; Councilmember Kevin de León of Council District 14; Councilmember Nithya Raman of Council District 4; Hawk, U.S. Veteran & Skid Row Resident

Guests in Part 4: Aria Cataño, founder of WaterDrop LA; Ndindi Kitonga, founder of Palms Unhoused Mutual Aid (PUMA); Councilmember Nithya Raman of Council District 4; Benjamin Henwood, PhD, professor of social policy and health at the University of Southern California

Music in Part 3 episode composed by: Chris Schlarb, Dexter Thomas, Evan Jacoby, Geir Sundstøl, Meitei, Ricky Eat Acid, Woo

Music in Part 4 episode composed by: Dexter Thomas, Evan Jacoby, Ill Considered, Meitei, Nala Sinephro, Ricky Eat Acid

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Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live.

This program is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

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