This story originally aired on September 8, 2018. Some people report to work purely for the paycheck. For others, the job itself plays a big part in their identity. Gregory Blackstock is a man who knows both sides of this coin. Blackstock is autistic and for decades, he eked out a living as a dishwasher at The Washington Athletic Club. It was a place that treated Gregory very well, but he found the work difficult to get through. "I just wanted to get away from drudgery," said Gregory. Today, at

This story originally aired on September 8, 2018. Wes Browning has held an impressive array of jobs at Real Change, the newspaper distributed mainly by homeless vendors: He’s been a columnist, an artist, circulation specialist, public speaker, and so on. He’s also been homeless three times and struggled with his mental health, so he understands the paper’s vendors better than most. But go back in time in Browning’s resume, and you find an even wider range of jobs: taxi driver, teacher,

This story originally aired on September 8, 2018. Growing up on Mercer Island, Mark Rose was captivated by rock n’ roll. And like most kids, he wanted to be a part of it. But unlike most kids, Mark did end up in the music business. He didn’t make it as a musician, but instead worked on the business side of things. But because of his close association with the musicians, he ended up living a lifestyle very much befitting a rockstar: drugs, alcohol, incessant partying. And like a lot of rock n’

This story originally aired on September 8, 2018. Sara Jamshidi grew up in Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution . She remembers when her mother could wear sunglasses and mini-skirts on hot summer days, before the new fundamentalist government made laws about what women could and could not wear. As a teenager Sara found small ways to rebel against the dress code, and the morality police who enforced it: She wore high ponytails underneath her hijab that let her hair show through the scarf, and

This story originally aired on September 8, 2018. Iain Heath had just caught a break. As an early employee of the data visualization at Tableau, he stood to make a bundle when the company went public in 2013. And for the first time, Heath realized he could quit his day job to pursue his passions. He says he asked his boss whether he was planning on leaving, too. His answer: No. “[He said] ‘I don’t know what I would do with myself.’ I realized that a lot of people, their job defines who they are,

Last week, the Senate intelligence committee released a report on how Russia targeted U.S. election systems in 2016. The report’s release happened to follow Robert Mueller’s appearance before lawmakers, during which he warned that Russia made multiple attempts in the past to interfere in U.S. elections, was doing so currently, and would certainly do so during upcoming campaigns. Security always has been on the minds of people who administer elections at the state and local levels. Decades ago,

Occidental Square begs you to stick around. Matthew Lewis says his food truck is part of the reason why. "It didn't look like this when we first started," Lewis said, walking past brightly colored chairs, lights strung between trees, and the glass facade of restaurants.

This show originally aired on June 16, 2018. This week, stories of positive things coming from otherwise negative places. First, music journalist and author Charles R. Cross talks about how a bad economy helped produce the grunge music movement. Then, how the author of the light-hearted Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books actually had a pretty rough life. A mother finds a way to pay tribute to her artistic daughter who battled mental illness. We take a tour of a Seattle neighborhood that decades ago had

This story originally aired on June 16, 2018. Real estate. It’s a hot topic in the Northwest right now. A white-hot market like Seattle’s creates winners and losers, depending on which side of the transaction you happen to be on. These days, you’d probably rather be a seller than a buyer. But back in 1985, when Merlin Rainwater and her husband bought their place, the roles were reversed. They were able to score a little bungalow on the East slope of Capitol Hill for just $50,000. “There was this

This story originally aired on June 16, 2018. Every Tuesday night, St. Paul’s Episcopal church in Seattle opens its doors and invites people living with mental illness and homelessness to come in and create. In the unique art space they can paint, knit, play music or find their own creative pursuits. The Karen Korn Project was founded by Pastor Kae Eaton and Patricia Swain, in honor of Swain’s daughter Karen. Karen died from suicide in November of 2014, after struggling with mental illness and