Is Now A Good Time?

Martina and Britney Abrahams are the sisters behind the podcast You Had Me At Black. They grew up in Bridgewater, New Jersey and despite growing up in the same environment had starkly different experiences.

After high school Martina majored in Marketing at Georgetown University while Britney studied theater and creative writing at Spelman College. Currently Martina (founder/host) lives in Oakland, California and Britney (co-founder/producer) is based in New York City. This is our conversation about their lives and how they came to start their podcast You Had Me At Black.

Show Notes:

Website – youhadmeatblack.com

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/you-had-me-at-black

Also on iTunes, Google Play, Podcast Addict and Stitcher

Instagram - @youhadme.atblack

Musical Notes:

Chance The Rapper - "Angels"

Kendrick Lamar - "These Walls"

Lauryn Hill - "Doo Wop (That Thing)"

Wicked - "Defying Gravity"

Marvin Gaye - "Ain't No Mountain High"

Photo Credit: @bklynbikesupply

Episode Mixed by Mike Benz - www.mixcloud.com/djtashtego/

Io Kleiser is an astronomy and astrophysics PhD student at Caltech and is currently a visiting student at Berkeley. In our conversation we discuss how Io decided to go into the sciences and some of the challenges that have come with that path – among them building a foundation of subject matter knowledge in order to pursue the career she wanted as well as the reality of being a female in a male dominated field. Io’s current work focuses on supernovae (which I learned is the plural of supernova) and the phenomena associated with exploding stars.

“We can’t stand for this, it’s not just because we want to have warm fuzzy feelings about diversity -- it harms the field, you could be getting rid of some of your best talent if you’re providing women with these extra challenges that have nothing to do with science.”

"It really takes a conscious effort to try to put down all that "I need to be successful," "I need to be smarter than other people," "I need to be better than other people," it's hard to put that mindset down and think about why we're all actually doing this in the first place which is because it's really interesting and because nobody's done it before."

Show Notes:

MESA Stellar Evolution Code - http://mesa.sourceforge.net/

Musical Notes:

Modest Mouse – Gravity Rides Everything

Floating Points – Vacuum Boogie

Beach House – Myth

Pink Floyd – The Great Gig in the Sky

The Juan MacLean – A Place Called Space

Photo Credit: Christian Cortés

Episode Mixed by Mike Benz - www.mixcloud.com/djtashtego/

Dolly Li is a visual journalist at AJ+ - http://www.ajplus.net/english/ - http://dollyli.com/

Dolly's grandfather was persecuted during the cultural revolution in China before her parents eventually immigrated to Brooklyn, New York.

Dolly's story explores how in two generations you can go from cultural persecution to professionally practicing free speech. Her father, who is also an artist, taught her how to draw but didn't always see art or journalism as a viable career path.

"I know I'm here because my parents dreamed a bigger dream for me . . . My ability to practice free press here is something that my grandparents could only dream of."

"Everything can be learned through practice and if you want to be a good artist you do it every day. You do it until you get it and you will get it if you commit to it."

"Things move faster than our imaginations sometimes."

Episode Mixed by Mike Benz - https://www.mixcloud.com/djtashtego/

I met Kalin while he was drawing a crowd outside of the Downtown Berkeley BART stop. He was playing the saxophone with a soul and depth that stopped me in my tracks and I had to find out more.

He studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and is a graduate of the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts. If you'd like to see him and his band live, Soul Progressions, check out upcoming dates on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/SoulProgressionsmusic/

Willee's path brought him from California to South America and back to California via New Orleans. Over the past few years he worked for the ACLU, Goorin Bros Hat Co. and studied under San Francisco milliner Wayne Wichern before beginning to make his own hats.

Willee is now a hatmaker based in Berkeley, California. He combines the practice of plant medicine with the craft of millinery to provide people with spirit helmets, his company is Hampui Medicine Hats - www.hampuihats.com

"I had a vision to make medicine hats, to make hats that would be tools of transformation."

Podcast mixed by Mike Benz

Caps for Sale (1994):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLrD34imKFw

Siggy and Joey are the instigators of DadaConf (dadaconf.com), a conference built around the idea of “Big Dada” -- think Big Data meets Dadaism.

Siggy and Joey work in the tech industry but maintain a sense of both the promise and absurdity of technology. They started DadaConf in order to bring people from all different backgrounds together to learn new skills from each other and subsequently use their newfound skills to make something really DUMB.

“It was really freeing to see some things that can be construed as progress as not really progress, but more just as motion . . . It’s like a light hearted non- or anti-hackathon.” ~ Siggy

“Creation is an act of joy in a lot of ways . . . You have to start by sucking at something. You have to start as a beginner and that’s the thing that people don’t tell you.” ~ Joey

Podcast mixed by Mike Benz. Photo by Chloe List.

DadaConf is May 6-8, 2016 at NIMBY in Oakland (8410 Amelia St). Buy your ticket here: dadaconf.com

Michelle recently received admission to London Film School and moved to London at the beginning of April to begin her program at LFS in May.

Michelle was a Digital Marketing Coordinator at Levi's in San Francisco for the past year and a half. Before San Francisco, she worked at Kinfolk Magazine and Sea Chant in Portland.

"It's like shedding skin as a snake . . . that's the way you grow."

"You have to continue looking at the unrealistic places you want to go to."

To see some of Michelle's work you can go to her website: www.mkmicho.com or find her on instagram @mkmicho (www.instagram.com/mkmicho).

Podcast mixed by Mike Benz.

Joel is a QA Software Engineer from southern Mexico (Villhermosa, Tabasco). He currently works at Endless Mobile in San Francisco and in June will be leaving to travel the world starting with a one-way ticket to India.

“I’m not sold on this idea that I should be careful about every step I take to have the planned perfect life . . . why wouldn’t I try this.”

"I want to make decisions that the future me is going to be proud of."

Podcast mixed by Mike Benz.

Allison is Head of Education at 3Doodler and currently lives and works in Hong Kong.

"You can do anything that you want but you can't do everything . . . at least not all at once."

"It's a lot of shiny objects out there."

"Nobody tells you what to do after you've turned in all your homework."

Her current side hustle is a clothing line most easily described as "Patagonia for bizwear." -- https://medium.com/raw-material/action-cures-fear-3ebb0dfba56e#.cqpf6ybvw

Podcast mixed by Mike Benz.

Jenna is a copywriter at Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco.

"It's very sad but also very empowering. The worst thing that could possibly happen to me has already happened . So in a way it kind of released me to this, that I realized I could take more risks . . . because what's the worst that could happen . . . there is none anymore."

Podcast mixed by Mike Benz.