Extreme Heat Continues In San Diego County Mountains And Deserts

Speaker 1: 00:00:00 Monsoonal moisture may bring rain and thunderstorms. To me, Speaker 2: 00:00:04 Thunderstorms will become active over our mountains and maybe even spill into some of our deserts over the next couple of days. Speaker 1: 00:00:12 Kavanaugh with Jade Hyman, this is KPBS midday edition predictions on the future of remote work in San Diego. Speaker 2: 00:00:28 On average, we have more tele workable jobs than other parts of the country. We have about 39% of occupations that are considered tele workable Speaker 1: 00:00:39 Formers San Diego mayor. Kevin Faulkner talks about his chances in the recall election and a Comic-Con origin podcast is released called Comicon begins that's ahead on day and passive heat warning remains in effect for San Diego's mountains and deserts through this evening. In fact, most of the Western part of the country has been caught in the grip of a relentless heat way. For most of this month with record-setting temperatures from Seattle to Phoenix. And yet if you live in the coastal regions of San Diego, you might not have noticed it both daytime and nighttime temperatures have been mild and comfortable. So when will the Western heat wave break and will San Diego's coastal reprieve last? And what about the chance for some rain tomorrow? Joining me is national weather service meteorologist Alex tardy. Speaker 2: 00:01:40 Welcome. Thanks for having me on Speaker 1: 00:01:43 It. Hasn't been getting in the Eastern mountains and deserts of San Diego. Speaker 2: 00:01:46 So starting over the weekend, especially on Sunday, compared to Saturday, we saw temperatures in the desert shoot up to over 110 there, one 15, and then for the mountain areas, we're talking eighties and nineties. So barely any relief in the mountains. It looks like today will be the hottest day out there. We're talking temperatures near 1 17, 1 18 in the deserts. Speaker 1: 00:02:09 Extreme heat also affect the east county areas like Lakeside nest. Speaker 2: 00:02:14 So some of it's going to reach into those areas, but at best we're talking, you know, around 94, our far Eastern suburbs and inland areas, it's a similar heat wave to what we had last week. Just not quite as hot Speaker 1: 00:02:29 For people closer to the coast. The weather has been great. I mean, if you don't mind a Marine layer in the morning, we've had a real pattern though, of June gloom this year, Speaker 2: 00:02:38 The weather has been great on the coast. We're kind of been spoiled with. What's been going on still lots of sunshine, even though low clouds and fog lingered in the early mornings. So we're not talking about a whole day of fog and clouds, but enough to keep us cool. Keep those temperatures knocked down at night. And during the daytime, is Speaker 1: 00:02:57 This Marine layer likely to around much longer? Speaker 2: 00:03:00 I think it will. Uh, so our water temperatures are only in the upper sixties, maybe 70 at best. And so the difference between that cooler water and that hot air, we just talked about in the mountains and deserts, that's what forms and keeps our Marine layer, but it does look like it in this heat wave. And as we go into 4th of July, we'll keep at least some of that Marine layer around now monsoonal Speaker 1: 00:03:22 Moisture is predicted to move into San Diego county tomorrow. Will we see rain and thunderstorms? Speaker 2: 00:03:28 Yeah, so the monsoon flow usually kicks in in late June or early July. What that means is the wind direction allows moisture to come in from Mexico, from the Baja region of Mexico, from the south. So we're seeing this big upper level, high pressure area. That's usually starting to anchor over the desert Southwest. It's now sitting over Portland and Seattle giving extreme, almost unbelievable temperatures up there on 110. Uh, so the wind flow around that is going to bring up some tropical moisture to us. So not a hurricane, but tropical moisture. And that's what the monsoon flow does. And that looks like thunderstorms will become active over our mountains and maybe even spill into some of our deserts over the next couple of days. Yeah. Let's Speaker 1: 00:04:13 Talk about that. Heat dome you referred to, that's been sitting over the Western states, what's causing it. Why is it lasting so long? Speaker 2: 00:04:20 Well, usually this time of the year, what causes it is the desert areas like Phoenix and Las Vegas. They receive a lot of sunshine before the monsoon develops and the land, the desert area, the sand gets really hot. And that's what usually forms the main dome of high pressure that we're talking about. But in this particular case, it's quite unique. We've been tracking it from the Northeast and new England. About two weeks ago, then it moved over to the middle of the United States and they had excessive heat then last week and moved over the desert Southwest. And we broke all time records like Palm Springs, time, 1 23 salt lake city, 1 0 7. Now it's shifted up into the Pacific Northwest. So almost everyone has had their share. And we're talking about all time records up there. Well, it looks like will happen though, is it'll shift back down to where it normally is in the desperate Southwest as we go into fourth child weekend. But that just means hot for our deserts and continued hot as we get into July. Is there some Speaker 1: 00:05:17 Connection between this prolonged heat wave and the drought that most areas of California are experience? Speaker 2: 00:05:24 We do usually see a connection. I think we've seen some of that in June already, and maybe even in late may where the areas that are much drier than they usually are, which is right now, central and Northern California, but it's expanding as we know into Southern California, after this last dismal, dry 50% of average winner, we see a connection though. Cause like I mentioned, the high pressure of the heat dome really likes the deserts because they have very little precipitation. They heat up rapidly this time of year with the high sun angle. But we're seeing some connection to Northern California where the heat waves are worse than they normally are because of the dry conditions. So the short answer to your question is, yeah, there is a connection it's not direct, but there is a connection between unusually dry areas and excessive or prolonged heat weights. Alex Speaker 1: 00:06:11 Watched the longer range forecast for San Diego. Speaker 2: 00:06:14 I think, you know, we're going to get our turn as we get into July and especially August here, even in San Diego. So it's going to be a long summer, unfortunately, a lot like 20, 20, several heat waves, probably all the way into September. And unfortunately at least one or two of those are going to start affecting us here on the coast. Looks like it's going to be later in July, but still the summer is early and it looks like much above average. Temperatures are other words, more heat waves than average all the way through the summer. So a really long summer. So we're going to be talking about, you know, flex alerts and high fire danger and just plain excessive heat for a long time. Speaker 1: 00:06:51 Okay. Then I've been speaking with national weather service, meteorologist Alex tardy, Alex. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having us on again, Speaker 3: 00:07:03 Many people have been working remotely for the past year or so, and now that things are opening back up only 10% of surveyed San Diego businesses expect the bulk of their staff to work remotely three days a week or more. Why is that? The pandemic proved working remotely can be done. So why aren't more employers offering that kind of flexibility. Joining me to answer that question is Antoinette Meyer. SANDAG is director of mobility and innovation. Antoinette welcome. Thank you. Happy to be here. Yeah. So during the pandemic shut down, there was talk about how remote work would change the way we worked for good, but your findings show that businesses don't expect such an immediate change. Tell us about Speaker 2: 00:07:44 That. Well, I would say that there's definitely going to be a change. We're going to see more remote work than we ever saw prior to the pandemic. However many employers are anticipating that a large portion of their workforce will return to the opposite at least on a part-time basis. So prior to the pandemic, you know, 68% of employees had never worked from home. And then during the pandemic, we found more than half of employees that we surveyed, um, were working from, from home, moving into the future. There will still be a large percentage of employees that work from home, maybe one to three days a week. Um, but there is an expectation by employers that employees will return to the office, um, on an occasional basis this Speaker 3: 00:08:26 Week, again and analysis by tech investors came out that said San Diego has more remote friendly jobs than any other startup city in the state. How does that fare with what SANDAG found? I Speaker 2: 00:08:38 Think those results are actually consistent with our surveys. So, you know, it varied a lot by industry and occupation and that the industry is the tech industry. That was part of the survey you referenced, definitely has more remote options. Um, you know, I think, um, Sureno, we saw there were higher rates of telework happening before the pandemic, um, during the pandemic and expectations for the future are higher than you see in some of the other occupations where telework just isn't as easy of an option for employees, Speaker 3: 00:09:08 But just 10% of surveyed businesses expected the bulk of their staff to work remotely three or more days per week. Speaker 2: 00:09:16 Right. That is correct. But if you break it down by industry, you see that professional technical scientific services, those, all those, all of those industries expect to have higher rates of teleworks when you look at all employers in the region, yes, 10%. But when you actually look specifically at that industry or those industries, um, you see higher expectations for telework in the future. Speaker 3: 00:09:41 And, and what about sectors that are less likely to offer remote work? Talk to me about those. Speaker 2: 00:09:47 Yeah. So looking at the service industry, so food service, healthcare support, um, repair services, transportation services, all of these are, you know, occupations that can't really be done from home. When you look at the San Diego region, our analysis shows that while on average, we have more tele workable jobs than other parts of the country. We about 39% of occupations that are considered tele workable, um, in our region. But that's, you know, that is 1% of occupations that can't be done at at home. And you think about, you know, industries in our region that are critical, like hospitality and tourism. Those, those are not jobs that can be done easily at home. So there's definitely a limit on telework in our region. Speaker 3: 00:10:31 Yeah. And for those particular sectors, you know, they're there for obvious reasons, um, the option to work remotely isn't available, but in talking to employees and employers, was there anything that surprised you in terms of, of some, uh, places and establishments that well that will not offer remote work? Speaker 2: 00:10:50 Um, I don't know that it was particularly a surprise. I think, you know, prior to the pandemic, we had talked to employers about teller. We have a program that promotes telework to employers in the region as a way to reduce traffic congestion and employers prior to the pandemic. And clearly this didn't change during the pandemic. Many of them feel like they really need to see their employees working to believe that they're working to believe that they're being productive and not distracted by, you know, other activities. And so that's what we heard through our survey, as well as that, while employees felt like they were much more productive working from home, that the quality of their work was better when they were working from home employers didn't have the same perception. Um, so I wasn't so surprised by the results even after having, you know, more experienced a year and a half, those having, you know, their, almost their entire workforce remote most of the time. And it seems that, you know, employers still feel that way. Speaker 3: 00:11:43 Is that, how does the idea that employees can't be trusted to manage their own time? Sit with employees? Speaker 2: 00:11:51 I think that's certainly employees, morale, you know, many employees felt like they were working harder and longer hours at home. If you think about, you know, when you're, when your office is maybe right next to your bedroom, it's really easy to just jump online, to take calls when you're not commuting to work and home from work, you may start your day earlier and end your day later. And so people were getting burnt out, putting in a lot of hours. So then to hear from managers like, oh, I don't feel like you were quite as productive. Um, you know, when you were working from home or the quality of your work, wasn't that good, that can certainly impact, you know, employee morale. What Speaker 3: 00:12:25 Did employees say about what they liked about remote work? Speaker 2: 00:12:29 Well, there's a cost savings for employees, um, and, and employers reported that too. So that was an area of similarity. Um, employees reported better work life balance, um, greater job satisfaction. Um, so those, those are the, those are the key reasons that employees like to work from home, but both employers and employees agree that teamwork is difficult. Communication and coordination is difficult. So, um, there are some areas where both employers and employees have similar opinions about telework. It's just the productivity and the performance. Um, that seems to be an area where there's some differences of opinion. Hmm. Speaker 3: 00:13:05 You know, if venture capital backed companies are embracing remote work, as the analysis by tech investors found, do you see them setting a trend in the future for companies who aren't as open to that concept Speaker 2: 00:13:17 Today? Well, you know, it's a very tight job market right now. It's really difficult to recruit and hire talent employees have more options. And they're looking for, you know, the best offers in terms of salary and benefits. So if companies start to see that they're going to attract and retain more qualified candidates and that their competitors are offering remote work as a benefit, I think that will definitely be a factor that influences them. Speaker 3: 00:13:41 And did businesses indicate whether or not they expect to offer more remote work options down the line as a, is it trending that way, but at maybe a slower pace than initially expected? Speaker 2: 00:13:52 Yeah, absolutely. So we still have 40% of companies that are saying they are, they intend to offer remote work to at least one of their employees one day per week. So that's, that's much bigger than what we saw before the pandemic. And it's about 27% of employers that offered telework, but it's not going to be offered to every single employee and it's not going to be every day in most instances and Speaker 3: 00:14:15 Remember work opportunities vary among certain demographics. Can you talk to me about Speaker 2: 00:14:19 That? Yeah, absolutely. So telework, um, was definitely much more prevalent among higher wage earners and professional services. So, um, employees that work in tech or architecture, engineering, um, are much more likely to have the ability to telework and these are higher wage jobs. We found that households earning over a hundred thousand dollars a year, did more telework, lower income earners working in the service industry like food service. For example, transportation, healthcare support had fewer opportunities to telework. We also saw in terms of race and ethnicity, telework was much more prevalent among white and Asian professionals than Hispanic. Um, and, and black professionals Speaker 3: 00:15:04 There. Some ways in which remote work helps close the wage gap or bring equality or equity between men and women in the world. Speaker 2: 00:15:12 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think, you know, one of the reasons that, um, we are embarking on a digital equity strategy and action plan here at SANDAG is because having broadband access is opportunity. It's access to jobs, it's access to services, it's access to education. There's a digital divide in the region right now. So in terms of equity, you know, expanding affordable high quality broadband service is going to be essential. Um, I also think in terms of equity in the workplace, you know, with greater work-life balance and more flexibility in your schedule, it's obviously going to be easier for parents, right? And generally women have a lot of the responsibility when it comes to childcare and picking kids up, dropping kids off, getting them to their after school activities. So certainly the ability to work remotely allows for women to balance those activities, balance, being a parent and doing their job. I've been speaking Speaker 3: 00:16:11 With Antoinette Meyer. SANDAG is director of mobility and innovation. It's when I thank you so much for joining Speaker 2: 00:16:16 Us, it was a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Speaker 1: 00:16:30 This is KPBS midday edition. I'm Maureen Kavanaugh with Jade Heinemann airstrikes ordered by the white house this weekend against Iran backed militias indicates that the U S is still heavily involved in that area of the world. However, plans remain underway to pull us troops out of Afghanistan. This September, the white house and Congress are vowing to help thousands of Afghans who face retribution for working with the American military during two decades of war, but KPBS, military reporter, Steve Walsh says a special visa program designed to bring them to the U S is badly backlogged Speaker 4: 00:17:10 Before coming to San Diego. In 2017, Ali Rasuli was a translator working with us Marine special operations, outside Kabul, a risky job that made him a target of the Taliban. Though. He left the job to take a safer one as an accountant with an American contractor in Afghanistan, he still felt threatened Speaker 5: 00:17:29 In two occasions. Like two people came to me and say, okay, I know you from somewhere. Speaker 4: 00:17:34 He denied being an interpreter for American forces, but after he was approached, the second time, the same Speaker 5: 00:17:39 Nights we moved, I quit my job. And I called my, uh, employers out. Now we're going to work for this company. They, even that employer didn't that I used to work for the, uh, us Speaker 4: 00:17:52 Now that the U S is preparing to withdraw. Ruseli says he feels betrayed. He is Harare. One of the minority groups, which is often targeted. He still has family in Afghanistan. Speaker 5: 00:18:04 So these are like the 300 commandos, like Afghan commandos. They surrounded the Taliban. So a couple of days ago Speaker 4: 00:18:11 Now every day he watches videos on YouTube of the Taliban driving unopposed into Afghan city. Speaker 5: 00:18:18 It doesn't make any sense to me at all. I mean, absolutely this is wrong. They shouldn't leave the country until we have a rational piece, at least. I mean, there, Russell Lee Speaker 4: 00:18:28 Was allowed to come to the U S through the special immigration visa program. Visa is set aside for people who worked with the U S government Noah Coburn, a political anthropologist at Bennington college says the us depends on local contractors in Afghanistan, but has really never had a plan to handle the fallout when their lives are threatened. Speaker 2: 00:18:48 And that's very much a part of, uh, I think the way the U S have views these global entanglements, um, trying to keep them temporary, trying to keep them economical, but not thinking through what some of the longer term repercussions of them are. Speaker 4: 00:19:01 American troops on the verge of pulling out. Coburn says there's a real potential for people to be slaughtered, especially members of minority groups who backed the us, the Biden ministration indicates that they will try to evacuate the Afghans to a third party country while they await their us visas. There is a backlog of roughly 18,000 applications, not including families, but the process is so slow that many more people well gave Speaker 2: 00:19:28 Up. So if I've got the Taliban threat, that is really imminent, um, I'm going to be, uh, not applying for this. Uh, and I've interviewed several people who have forgone the application process because it's a waste of time and waste of money for them. Speaker 4: 00:19:43 Afghan community in San Diego is tiny compared to other immigrant groups in the city. The area took in tens of thousands of refugees at the end of the Vietnam war. More recently, Iraqis and Syrians, not counting refugees. The entire backlog of special immigration visas is roughly 18,000 [inaudible] car car. It was a medical interpreter for the American military in Kabul, before he came to the U S in 2014, he now works with Jewish family services in San Diego, counseling, other immigrants from Afghanistan, Speaker 6: 00:20:17 They're coming here. They are thinking like, when I go, everything will be easy for me in America, but the first year it's difficult for them still Speaker 4: 00:20:25 It's been worth it. He says back in Afghanistan, working with the Americans was nearly the only option for thousands of Afghans. But for many that option ended when they were threatened by the talent Speaker 6: 00:20:36 In general. This is that the situation is not getting better right now. So the only way is if peace camp in Afghanistan, that that will be a solution Speaker 4: 00:20:46 At the almost no Afghans are coming into San Diego. A combination of the visa process being slowed under the last administration. And more recently complications caused by COVID in the U S groups who resettle Afghans in America wait for everything to reboot. Fearing time is running out. This Speaker 1: 00:21:07 Story was produced by the American Homefront project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans funding comes from the corporation for public broadcasting. Joining me is KPBS military reporter, Steve Walsh, Steve, welcome to the program. Hi Maureen. In what ways, other than translators have Afghans work to help the U S military? What well Speaker 4: 00:21:32 They do just about everything from building the basis, the cooking to administrative duties, they they're out there driving trucks. At one point, the ratio of, uh, of contractors to us troops was about four contractors to one troop. But, you know, the interpreters are the most vulnerable people like, uh, Ali Rasuli. They were patrolling with Marine special forces that are out there on a daily basis. He kept his face covered, but he could never be sure that he wasn't seen in some unguarded moment. Speaker 1: 00:22:04 Now us ever tell the people who work for them, that they will be taken care of if they are threatened by groups like the Taliban, or if the U S I Speaker 4: 00:22:15 Mean, well, this program is known the special immigrant visa program. Um, but, uh, you know, the U S really never had much of an exit strategy here. They thought that America was going to win the war and that they were going to make AF Afghanistan safe for the Afghans. At some point, they did know that people were hiding their identities arriving at bases well before sunrise. So they weren't seen by people in the surrounding villages. You know, I was told the British actually do this very differently. They use third party nationals, just like we do, but they keep, uh, the same group of people essentially bringing them into the British military so they can receive benefits and a medical help for long-term injuries. They also know who's working for them. The us doesn't really do any of that. Speaker 1: 00:22:58 Us forces are scheduled to be out of Afghanistan by September 11th of this year. Of course, it's 20 years after the attacks on America. You mentioned YouTube videos are already showing the Taliban retaking, Afghan cities. Can you tell us more about, Speaker 4: 00:23:15 You know, you can go on Al-Jazeera or look at Afghan TV. Um, you can even look at social media, you can see the, um, the Taliban going into a smaller cities outside of Kabul. Also the, uh, the Taliban and the Afghan government are both Pash tune, or at least a majority Pash tune. So there's a real fear by some of the other groups like the Harare or those Becks that they'll become the target. Once the, uh, the Americans pull out, Speaker 2: 00:23:44 Does the U S believe Speaker 1: 00:23:46 That the present Afghan government and military are strong enough to stop the advance of the Taliban? Well, Speaker 4: 00:23:53 You know, that's the official word. So many details of how this war will work are still unannounced. Now, keep in mind yet they're scheduled to pull out on September 11th, but, um, really the Biden administration is really signaling hard that most troops will be out by mid July. So the deadline is really ticking here. So the questions are, uh, you know, can the Afghan government come up with some sort of power sharing arrangement that will allow the government to survive potentially averting civil war, will the us provide money for contractors to maintain us equipment and keep Afghan poor forces supplied? You know, they, they talk about providing air support, but, uh, you know, they really haven't come up with a concrete plan for how to do this. Now, on the other hand, Afghanistan has been at war since the Soviets invaded in the, you know, the late 1970s, early eighties. And there is some thought that getting rid of all these outside influences may actually help Afghanistan, though. We're not really seeing that so far, at least with the level of violence and with the amount of Taliban, uh, incursions we've seen in the last several months. Speaker 1: 00:24:58 Now, when the U S withdrew from Saigon back in 1975, there were scenes of chaos as people who worked for the Americans scrambled onto helicopters in a last minute effort to get out. Is there a chance we'll be seeing something like that in Afghanistan, maybe Speaker 4: 00:25:15 One of the scenarios is being contemplated is that the Afghan government will survive on its own momentum for six months, maybe to a year until their equipment starts to break down. And they can't be repaired or peace talks to the Taliban were on for months. And then they break down. That's where the minority groups are worried that that's when they will become the target. So by coming up with a solution, for people who worked most closely with the Americans is SIV program, they're trying to avoid, I think, a fall of Saigon situation, where people are rushing to get, get to the U S embassy while the Taliban are at the outskirts of Kabul. But we know that many more people, there are many more people who work with the Americans than ever applied for the SIV program, which, you know, slowed to a snail's pace in recent years. So, yeah, we could, we could see a rush if things really, really go south. Speaker 1: 00:26:06 Now, San Diego was the U S resettlement location for thousands of Vietnamese refugees, and then thousands of Iraqi and Syrian refugees. Should we expect to see that kind of influx of Afghan refugees, Speaker 4: 00:26:18 Especially immigrant visas are the backlog is about 18,000. Their families are about another 30 or 40,000. So the number of visas is capsule. That's not really a potential to have what happened after Vietnam, unless they changed the rules. So members of Congress have a press, the administration to do more. So what happens if there's a humanitarian refugee crisis? That's, that's going to be an open question though. The war in Afghanistan just has not attracted the kind of attention that the war in Vietnam did. It didn't, encaptured the, the American Magination even the way Iraq did over the course of these, these 20 years. It's hard to imagine that we would see a public outcry that would be necessary to let in hundreds of thousands of Afghans into this country, right? At the last moment, when we really haven't been paying attention to this war for the last 20 years. But on the other hand, there were a lot of Afghans who put their lives on the line to help the American military campaign. And we painful to watch if we see widespread slaughter, once the U S finally pulls out, Speaker 1: 00:27:17 Speaking with KPBS, military reporter, Steve Walsh, Steve, thanks a lot. Thanks Maureen. Speaker 3: 00:27:31 There are many people campaigning to replace governor Gavin Newsome in the recall election, but the one who many political observers think could be the governor's most formidable challenger is Kevin Faulkner San Diego's, former mayor Faulkner a Republican talks about tackling such issues as homelessness, California report, ho Saul Gonzalez spoke with Faulkner about his gubernatorial bid. Speaker 2: 00:27:53 We need a governor who's going Speaker 7: 00:27:54 To solve the problems that is facing our state and somebody who can really roll up their sleeves, um, and get results. You know, as mayor of, of San Diego, I was known for as being a problem solver. And I think that's what Californians want right now is a governor. Who's going to jump right in tackle the big issues that I think our state is facing our state right now, in terms of affordability, livability, uh, homelessness, public safety, uh, reopening our schools. Um, I think that California's want a change at the top and they want a governor. Who's going to get results. Let's talk about your Mark Key initiative that you've introduced, which you're calling the largest middle-class tax cut in California history. Uh, you want to essentially reduce, uh, state income taxes for individuals earning $50,000 or less. You want to do the same for families earning less than a hundred thousand dollars. Speaker 7: 00:28:48 What do you think would do for the state? Well, I think it's going to make it more affordable, um, and particularly for, for our families and folks that need it the most. Um, when we look at the sky high cost, and what's the, what is the solution from our friends in Sacramento, it's always, we want to raise taxes. And so when the solution from Sacramento is always, we want you to send more money. I have a vastly different view. If we continue with that, we're going to continue to make it unaffordable for Californians to raise their family here. And so it's not about sending more money to Sacramento. It's about allowing Californians to keep more of their hard-earned money in their pockets. Because if we don't, if we continue to increase costs on California families, it's going to be unaffordable to live and raise a family in California. Speaker 7: 00:29:36 When you, um, got into this race, California was in the grip of the pandemic. Things looked really grim, but as we sit here today, the state is opening up. COVID cases are down. The state is a wash in money from tax revenue. So what's the problem that has to be solved with a recall of governor Newsome, because we have a governor and an administration that is not addressing the real issues that people care about. I mean, we just talked about fought the pandemic that fought the pandemic. What's your question? Sure. I'm sorry. The question is, I mean, they put in place programs to fight the pandemic and we're getting through that. Now. We all wanted California to get over the pandemic. And again, I think what we saw in the frustration of Californians is we had a governor that constantly changed the rules of the road, constantly changed the metrics, and yes, we have to protect lives. Speaker 7: 00:30:28 And we also have to protect livelihoods. And the fact that this governor, Hey, we had businesses open and close five and six different times. We have our public schools are still, still not fully reopened. That's what I'm talking about in terms of a governor that hasn't stood up for Californians and doing the right thing, would a governor Faulkner have done that Newsome did not do, would have followed the science. The fact when the governor shut down outdoor dining during the midst of this with absolutely no science behind the transmission spread of COVID-19 in an outdoor setting. And that's what I'm talking about in terms of the leadership that matters the most to California. And as we come on, the other side of COVID-19 and folks are seeing, you know, the second highest unemployment rate right now in the country, as we are seeing violent crime rise in virtually every city in California, these are the things that require leadership. Speaker 7: 00:31:23 And it's not about partisanship. I think most California's don't care. If you have an R or a D next to your name, what they want is somebody who's going to actually tackle these issues. It's about action. Not about rhetoric, not bringing you any new news. When I say California is a very blue state, is there anything kind of seen as typically liberal blue state, California, that you want to roll back that you think has gone too far from Newsome's plan for all electric automobiles to it's really easy to vote in California versus other states. Is there any of that that you don't like, and you think, you know, what enough of that time to time to go in reverse look, and as you know, I'm not somebody who really gets caught up in labels. Um, but I'll give you an example of, I think, you know, the policies that some across California has supported, which is this whole defund, the police movement. Speaker 7: 00:32:16 I think that's incredibly wrong. I think it's incredibly important that we have the best men and women who wear a badge, protecting our neighborhoods. And if we want that to happen, you have to give them the tools, the resources, and the training to be successful. And that costs dollars. And that's why, yes, this past summer, when I had hundreds of protesters out in front of my personal house, uh, yelling at, and my family, every name at the book and defund the police and only strengthened my resolve not to. And in fact, I increased the budget by 7% because I want our officers to have the best support and training. And I got that passed through a super majority Democrats city council. Again, I think these are things that are common sense. Let's talk about a figure who still looms large in American politics, Donald Trump, um, you voted for him again in the last election. Speaker 7: 00:33:05 You say you voted for him because he was good on the economy, but what do you say to voters out there who may like a lot of what you say, but they say, but they, they hear that and they go, that's a bridge too far for me. He voted for Donald Trump again, I'm sorry, Kevin Faulkner. Um, I just can't cast my ballot for you because you supported that, man. You say, I think what a lot of Californians are looking for is a governor. Who's actually going to get results on the issues that you and I have been talking about, uh, that issue kind of transcends policy proposal, X, Y, or Z, that Donald Trump was an existential threat to this country. And yet you voted for him. You would say what? I think that there's room for folks who voted for the Republican or Democrat. I think what Californians want right now is a governor. Speaker 7: 00:33:49 Who's going to roll up their sleeves and actually make a difference on the issues that they care about. And I believe that that's what California's want right now. They don't want to have to, I want a debate on, on, you know, national politics. They want a governor. Who's gonna stand up, reduce the cost of living a governor. Who's going to actually get homeless and tent encampments offer sidewalks. I think that's what California's are looking. How are you going to get homeless and cabin software sidewalks? Exactly. I'm going to take the exact same model that we were able to do in San Diego. I set up a series of shelter networks in San Diego, by the way I picked the locations, uh, as mayor and we provided all the help, the wraparound services and the support. Uh, and when we did that, uh, I insisted that we do not allow tent encampments, uh, on our sidewalks. Speaker 7: 00:34:33 It worked. And I intend to take that exact same approach, which if you distilled it down is that I believe that every human being has the right to shelter and we need to provide that shelter. And when we do, I believe that they have an obligation to use it. And I enforced that obligation as mayor. So go to the shelter. If we provide one to you, homeless person on house person, or there will be a consequence to you, namely you won't be allowed to pitch your tent on the sidewalk essentially, is that right? Yeah. You have to provide the incentives. You have to provide the location and you have to provide to your point, the consequences as well. You describe yourself as a problem solver. What exactly is your ideology? Because for better or worse, that's important to us. A lot of people. Yeah, look it. Speaker 7: 00:35:19 And as mayor, I was known as, as a, as a problem solver who can, who can get things done. I mean, my, my entire tenure, uh, is mayor of San Diego, the second largest city in our great state, a Republican mayor who had to interact with the majority Democrat city council. And I'm a big believer that virtually all of these issues that we're talking about, it's not about partisanship. It's common sense. And you can either stand up and address them or you can't. And that's why I feel so strongly. You know, how do you win in California? You win. By addition, you win by bringing Democrats, Republicans and independents together with a vision and a goal that says, we want our state to get back on track. We don't like what we're seeing in terms of affordability and livability. And they want a governor who's going to tackle these head on. Speaker 7: 00:36:02 So it sounds like in other words, you're saying, if you want a culture warrior, I'm not your guy. Is that right? What I'm saying is, is Californians want a governor who's going to stand up and actually give results on the issues that matter to them the most. And that is our quality of life. And that is our ability to be able to afford to live here. And the fact of the matter is, as we have seen this past year, we actually losing population. As we see, we have lost a congressional seat in California. People are voting with their feet, they're voting with our feet because our state is too expensive. And we have a governor that doesn't seem to realize that that's the price Speaker 3: 00:36:47 You're listening to KPBS midday edition. I'm Jade Hindman with Maureen Kavanaugh, Matthew Klickstein and Christopher Tyler are self-described geeks who have loved Comecon from afar. Glickstein attended one Comecon with a documentary crew and Tyler who hails from Australia was never able to go, but their passion for geek culture led them to create a new podcast, taking a deep dive into the origin story of the massive pop culture, convention, KPBS arts reporter, Beth Amando speaks with creator and writer Klickstein and writer and producer Tyler about their six part Comicon begins podcast. Speaker 8: 00:37:26 Comic-Con begins just debuted. And this is a new podcast. But before we talk about the podcast, I am just curious how each of you first got introduced to common console. Matthew, why don't you start Speaker 2: 00:37:37 I'm from Southern California originally? So Comicon was always in the air when I was growing up. I grew up in the late eighties, early nineties down there. So I was always very well aware of what it was even before it became the massive monumental cultural institution. It became about 10 years later, of course, in the late nineties and early two thousands, I actually am a bit of a cheater. Uh, I've never been to San Diego Comic-Con except once it was, it was very difficult to go if you are a norm, you know, so to seek. So I didn't get to go, uh, in my formative years, but I did, when I did go, it counted because I was working on a documentary about TVs, Mark Summers, from unwrapped and double dare. I'd been working with him for a few years on various projects. I did a book about Nickelodeon. Speaker 2: 00:38:25 He was very involved in, and I actually got to go with him in a small group that I brought, and we were filming kind of the behind the scenes of mark being there as part of Nickelodeon's anniversary of double dare. So although it was the one time I ever went to Comicon, I had full access badges. I was there with a celebrity. So although it was my one-time at comic con, it was a, I certainly saw a lot and did probably everything you could do at a Comicon. Uh, and that, that was a very, uh, regulatory and eye opening for me, especially as someone who had written a lot about it and the culture that was there. So it was a really good kind of in the field exploration. So the one time I went, but I think it counts and Christopher, so while Matt grew up very close to the San Diego Comic-Con I grew up quite far away. Speaker 2: 00:39:11 I grew up in Australia, so I didn't have the opportunity to go to go to a San Diego Comic-Con I grew up just watching a bunch of movies, wanted to be a filmmaker, all that sort of stuff as most movie fans do. And so when I moved over here, it's a lot of that was because of my, my love of, of movies and love those fandom. And that's kind of what we get into a lot in this documentary, and also admit that I've actually never been to San Diego. ComicCon I've actually only been to San Diego once. Speaker 8: 00:39:39 What led you to create this podcast? And what was it that made you decide that this was the time to kind of delve into comic con and its origin? Speaker 2: 00:39:49 Um, I had been trying to write a book about nerding geek culture, uh, such as it is for a few years, actually, and ended up putting together a project that went into many different directions. Ultimately came out as a book in China a few years ago, um, and was really just sitting on a lot of this material, a lot of this research and a lot of this passion to help tell the story of the modern nerd, the modern geek, what it means, how it intersects with social issues, how it intersects with global issues, how it intersects with economic issues, corporations, technology, and so forth. Um, and through that process though, I'd become very good friends. As I often do with an interviewee for that project, when the all who was one of the original committee members, so to speak of Comicon was very involved in the early days. Speaker 2: 00:40:36 And about almost two years ago, now we were talking about working on a project together and suddenly I said, what am I doing? Talking with you about all these other things we should obviously do the oral history of comic con and through a lengthy process of about six months, we kind of talked about what it could be. She wanted to make sure she could trust me with this story. There's a good reason that something like this hasn't really been done before is because a lot of them are very private people. This is their legacy. We knew we wanted to focus on the personalities behind the common economies were longtime friends of Wendy's and she didn't want to get in trouble for doing it wrong. I didn't want to get in trouble for doing it wrong. So I was doing all of this research. We trying to do it as a book. Didn't really work out as a book because boom, boom, boom. All of a sudden COVID is starting to happen. And around the same time I was talking with an old friend of mine, Rob Schulty who had re rose risen up in the ranks in the audio world to becoming a producer at Sirius XM. And he said, you know, we're looking to do some original content over here. What would you think about maybe doing something with your comic con project with us? Wendy was fine with it and the rest went from there. Speaker 8: 00:41:43 And Christopher, what was it like compiling all these interviews and kind of waiting through all this information and research? Speaker 2: 00:41:50 Well, Matt did a good job of, of kind of giving us what he wanted from these interviews. So we said to him, cause we, I think we ended up doing what meant 40, 50, 60 interviews, something like that. And a lot of them were an hour plus. So there was a lot of content there. And then it was up to Rob and I, we kind of split each episode. I took, you know, episode two, four and six, it took one, three and five. And then we kind of just went through when and paid everything down to a manageable size. So it was just a whole lot of back and forth between me and Rob and Matt and trying to figure everything out. But eventually we got there and we're pretty happy with how it's sounding and we're happy with the length and all that sort of stuff. Speaker 2: 00:42:26 So all this hard work that we put into it over the last year of finding the right clips is, is worked out well. Yeah, Beth, I have to say that we wanted this to be the ultimate deep dive into the history, not only of Comic-Con, but of fandom and so-called geek culture and really pop culture itself. So we knew we were going to have to talk to 50 or 60 people. We pulled all this archival stuff from files. We were given a lot of things from San Diego state university and people like Mike Towery and Alan light. So really the hardest thing was, as Chris just said, going through and I had originally put together a document that was, I think, four or 500 pages for Chris and Rob to go through. And they were really tasked with going through it. And as he said, paring it down. Speaker 2: 00:43:12 Cause otherwise that first cut would have been something like 50 hours. Uh, so it was a real group effort and uh, we're very, very proud of everything that came together. It would not have happened without this team. And I'm so very, very proud of everybody for the work that they did. And just following on from what Matt was saying about all these different interviewees, I think it's really important because we want it to celebrate everyone who was involved with Comicon in the early days. We didn't want to just talk about Comic-Con as a whole and how it became what it became. We want it to celebrate the people behind Comicon. And so we wanted to make sure, you know, if, if someone had a role in those early days, we wanted to bring them on. We wanted to hear this story. We want to get them involved in this project because in the end, Matt said it perfectly to me like a couple of months ago, he said he wants this project to be for the people who were in this documentary, just as much as for everyone else. He wants this to be something that they can listen to and look back funnely to what they created. And I think that's kind of what we've managed to do. There might only be the one in the, be certain interview ways that only got a couple of lines here and there in the, in the documentary. But as long as we can have them in there and, and recognize their contribution to come on, I think that was really important. Speaker 8: 00:44:24 And Matt, I wanted to ask you about the structure of the podcast. I appreciate how many people you interviewed. And I found their stories about the origins Comicon really engrossing, but most of the time the speakers are not identified. And I found that to be problematic. I know that in a podcast you can't do lower thirds. So how did you decide on the structure and creating this montage of voices? Speaker 2: 00:44:46 We wanted to keep it very engrossing and almost kind of immersive. So though overall, there's an arc that is beginning, middle and end. We start, you know, with the prehistory of the con and end up with, you know, today we do bounce around a little bit in the middle because we wanted to kind of delve into different themes and concepts. So the second episode, for example, although it's more or less chronologically in order, it really focuses more on the characters, the people that we talked to as well as how they were impacted by being teenagers in the sixties and seventies, before we move on to the next episode. And of course the fourth episode is all about founder shell door, which I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit later, but that too is something that maybe could have been done a little earlier, but we wanted to keep it dynamic and keep it moving a little bit more unpredictable. Speaker 2: 00:45:32 So that was very important for us. But I do think that goes to what you just said with your second comment and trust me, obviously, that, that kind of thing has come up before we really talked about how are we going to deal with that? We actually had every single person say their name and kind of roll in, in Comicon. If every single person said what their role is, they would have been talking for 10 minutes. So that was a little difficult. And also we wanted it to flow. We really wanted there to be a narrative flow, but we wanted to keep it entertaining and accessible at the same time. And it would have really broken up that flow if we kept saying over and over and over again, who everyone is, especially one of the things I was really appreciative that Chris and Rob did in particular was they did such a great job of sometimes two or three people would be telling the same story and they would really be cutting back and forth. Speaker 2: 00:46:20 And if we kept stopping that with who's talking, it would've really interrupted that flow. So all I can say is some people are okay with that kind of thing. Some aren't we do say who every single person is at the end of every episode, we do have transcripts with, I personally went through just finished two days ago, even after launch making sure all the names are spelled right and everything, because I knew people would be meticulous about it. So if people want that extra resources there, but the last thing I'll say is, um, you know, they're all different kinds of oral histories. And I think some of the best ones, the punk oral history, please kill me by legs McNeil or some of the really early ones, even about ed Sedgwick. For example, they too, don't say who every single person is. They have a glossary in the back. Speaker 2: 00:47:02 And I think for the same reason. And so I was really looking at traditional and kind of gold standard oral histories and saying, yeah, some people might not know who so-and-so is or who so-and-so is, but a, it would break up the flow otherwise. And B that's not really the point here. The point here is this is the story of these people, of this community, of this hub. And everyone's kind of speaking for everyone else. And there really is a Rosh Amman effect here. And if someone hears something, I don't know if that's necessarily true or not, you know, they can look it up or look into it more, hopefully the listen to the show a few different times. So we really want to have that kind of interactivity with the audience. And, you know, some people might have a problem with it. We understand that, but hopefully people will get why we did that and that we wanted the flow to be organic. Speaker 2: 00:47:47 And they're really beautiful. We wanted the story to be the important element rather than who was telling the story. Even though we do want to celebrate everyone who was a part of the documentary and who was, who had this involvement in Comic-Con in the early days, we want to be able to tell a story. We want to be able to, you know, that's, that's the focus of, of this documentary rather than just who's talking. And sometimes you can, you can tell certain voices here and there who's talking, but for the most part, it is hard to tell, but we're hoping that that doesn't matter because the story that we're telling is, is compelling enough. Hopefully that's the, that's the goal. If I may, Beth, to just to just to interject something that actually one of our main featured interviewee Scott Shaw said, who I know Beth, that, you know, and probably a lot of people in the San Diego community know, and people listening to this in fandom at all know, Scott was one of the big names that we were so excited to have involved in this. Speaker 2: 00:48:35 And he's been extremely supportive, but he said something, when that came up with a friend of his, he said, look, when you're walking around the floor at Comic-Con, you don't know who everyone is, you, you can't tell what every single person is that they're doing. I mean, it's a crowd, it's a bit of a explosion in grand central station, if you will. And we really wanted to have that feeling of, you know, there's so much going on and you're kind of looking at everything and experiencing everything and there's archival stuff and there's different people talking. So on one level that's that I think is true and the other is, might seem a little lofty, but really this is a lot of where our heart was that we wanted this to be when you're in fandom, when you're at Comicon, for the most part, obviously there's some delineations, but for the most part, when you're in fandom, when you're at Comicon, when you're in geek culture, everyone is the same. Speaker 2: 00:49:21 Everyone is a fan. We even have stories of famous people having to wait in line for eight hours. I mean, you know, some of them are allowed to go on the back, but not everybody. Um, so we really wanted there to be a sense of whether you're hearing Bob or rent talking, or you're hearing Neil Gaiman talking, they're, they're kind of coming from the same place they are fans. And it doesn't matter if you know who Bob rent is, or even if you know who Neil Gaiman is, because they're both telling stories about not only the con, but their connection to fandom. And we really wanted to kind of have this almost kind of flattening effect of it almost doesn't it really doesn't matter. Who's taught because they're just, as Chris said so eloquently, they're telling you stories. Now I do want to say for anyone listening to this right now, when there are a few moments where it was kind of important for someone to identify themselves or be identified because we're talking about specific person, we did work very hard with our narrator, bring Stevens who comes in every now and then for a little bit of extra contextual stuff to say, she'll, she might talk about somebody and then say, here is that person. Speaker 2: 00:50:20 So we, we were aware of every now and then we needed to identify someone for the story to continue organically. In those cases, we would either have brink say their name or other, other people will be talking about that person. And then you would hear them talk. And it was clear that was the person they were talking about. So we did kind of have some clever little moments like that as well. It wasn't totally a free for all. Speaker 8: 00:50:41 You do have an upcoming episode focused strictly on Shel Dorf. Who's one of the founders and it is described as kind of this rash Amman kind of storytelling. Talk a little bit about that particular episode and kind of the challenges of putting that together. Speaker 2: 00:50:58 This is one of the, the, uh, this is one of the episodes that rubs started off with. So Matt kind of went through, found all the good stuff that he wanted to kind of reference in regards to show Dorf. And obviously half the people that we interviewed seem to really like him, half the tables seem to not like him at all. And that's the name of it is shell dolphin. That's why it was so important for us to sort of have an entire episode focused on him and who he was and all of his antics. So that sort of stuff. But it was really interesting and unique episode because we weren't, there was sort of no, no arc, right? A lot of the other episodes you're telling a story you're telling, um, you know, you've got a beginning, middle and end all that sort of stuff for episode four, which is the episode focusing on show doff. Speaker 2: 00:51:39 There isn't really any of that. It's just stories about shell memories of shell, who he was, all that sort of stuff. And it was really, it was a really moving episode. I, uh, I think Matt did a great job of not only funding the clips for us, but also, you know, asking the right questions to these people as well. That's, that's one of the most important things. If you want to get good answers to, to, uh, to all these questions, you have to ask the right question and that's what Matt was able to do. So when he came to us with all of these clips, it was, it was pretty easy for us to go through and, and fund the right ones that hit the right tone and all that sort of stuff throughout it. So from our point of view, it was pretty easy, but Matt kind of did the, the grunt of the work, um, in, in getting us the right clips. Speaker 2: 00:52:21 It was Beth, absolutely. The episode we were most nervous about there's no question that and anyone who hears it and we know some of the interviewees who've already listened to it and gave us some great responses to it. Everyone seems to really enjoy it. But, um, you know, we know that there's some harsh statement said in, in that episode. And also I think there'll be some people who will be surprised who's team shell, and who's not team shell. We knew this was a bit of a bugaboo for a lot of the people we talk to. There's a lot of protection around shell. Uh, it was, it was a topic we wanted to make sure we handled correctly. We did not want it to be, Hey, geography. Shell had a lot of problems. Shell did a lot of things he should not have done. And shell had, you know, some issues obviously, but we also didn't want it to be as accused. Speaker 2: 00:53:13 We didn't want to attack. And we really wanted to allow people to just tell their stories. And some of them are pretty harsh and difficult, but there's also a lot of people talking about why they felt bad for shell and everyone across board agrees. Even the biggest shell haters that without Shel Dorf, there would not have been a Comicon. And he did create Comicon for the most part. And you know, but did have to step away at a point. And, um, we don't want to give too much away. Uh, but you know, his story is an intriguing one and we wanted to make sure by the way that we were running it throughout the entire series, that was something we talked about since day one. We actually talked a lot, right? When we started developing this tiger king had happened as a phenomenon. And we all talked a lot about the format and structure of tiger king. Speaker 2: 00:54:00 And we really liked that you watch three episodes of tiger king and you're all into it and enveloped in it before someone says, oh, by the way, did we mention Carol Baskin? Might've killed her husband. You know, we'll talk about that next episode. So we want to have little things like that, of what if we kind of tease or hint that there's some tension with shell throughout the first three episodes. So that by the time we get to four, we have someone actually say, so are we going to talk about shell now? And then it's like, okay, let's do it. You know, it's coming. So we want to kind of build that tension so that by the time we got there, it would be this kind of fascinating citizen came kind of analysis of the good, the bad and the ugly of shell doors. And it was also really important to us that we didn't come to a conclusion about whether the show was a good guy or a bad guy. We wanted the people who you, him to tell this stories and to let us know what they thought of him. We didn't want to come down one way or the other. And that was really important from day one. And I think we did a pretty good job of making sure that we weren't editorializing. We weren't saying well in the end show was so-and-so no, this is, this is a story told from the interviewees completely. Speaker 8: 00:55:04 Why do you feel it's important to kind of look back at this and look back at the origin of comic con what's important for people to remember about kind of this moment in time, Speaker 2: 00:55:16 As I kind of said earlier, I have been very interested in nerd and geek culture, such that as it such, that it is or so to speak. And I know even some people in our series like mark Avenir, don't even really like that term necessarily. Um, whereas others, you know, are proud to call themselves that, and that was something also we wanted to kind of deal with, but I've been very fascinated by this for years. And in fact, in a lot of ways, I like to think of this project as almost the culmination of a lot of the books I've written. A lot of the documentaries I've worked on are made. I've always trying to kind of get at how and why we as a society, we as the human race, whether we're in, you know, America or Japan or India or Antarctica or wherever we might be are connecting with this media. Speaker 2: 00:56:05 But I think one of the reasons why Chris and I connected with these people and this community, the way that we did, because obviously comics are a big part of it. And learning about learning more about your Jack Kirby's and your Neal Adams and people along those lines is that it is community. And it is this group of misfits. I mean, I've said this before, but we almost wanted to call the series first geeks or something like that. Cause we really wanted to keep the focus on the people on the community that they created. And in a lot of ways, Comicon itself was almost this afterthought. It was almost this, this side project that came out of all of these different groups of people from around the San Diego and then around the state and around the country, around the world, coming together to celebrate not only the movies and books and video games and whatnot that they were celebrating, but the people behind them and also the connection that they had to that, uh, you know, I love to quote that great scene in high fidelity when John Hughes X character actually says, you know, music, movies, TV shows, these things are important because they connect you to the people that you're going to be connected to. Speaker 2: 00:57:16 You know, this might not happen as much now that everyone's streaming everything, but I remember the day still you'd go to someone's house. And one of the first things you would do is go to their library and see what books they have or see what DVDs they had or see what CDs they have. And they would kind of let you go and look, you know, and they would do it at your house cause you're sort of sussing each other out, especially if you're dating somebody maybe for the first time, or you're looking at posters on the, oh, you're into that band too. And I didn't think anyone else was into that. And you're connecting with these people that you are creating community and that's what these people did. And a, we were so fascinated by that as almost kind of, you know, uh, humanist observers. Speaker 2: 00:57:53 It was almost like really doing sort of an anthropological study on this subculture of people who have actually now becomes the culture. And that's a lot of what the story is about. It is the culture. Now, this subculture that existed in the sixties and seventies, uh, but also, uh, you know, just how we connect to it as well. And although we don't ever talk about ourselves in this, you don't even hear any of us in it or anything like that. We didn't want to put ourselves into this in any way as would have been an easy thing to do. You can still have a sense of the people who made this really care about it and really wanted to investigate it in a way of a cultural study. And that's why I think it was very important, especially since a lot of this had not been talked about before at this depth people know about Woodstock. Speaker 2: 00:58:36 People know about grateful dead people know about the moon landing, but they might not necessarily know what else was going on in the sixties and seventies with not only Comic-Con, but this group of people all over the country, doing all this stuff with star Trek and doing all this stuff that certain movies and TV shows and building a lot of this that was going on while everything else, Vietnam and Woodstock and Nixon, everything was happening too. So we wanted to kind of fill in that gap and that's a lot of what we were trying to do with this and why we're so interested in it. Why did we feel this was a good story to tell because it's our history, it's our collective history and it's our personal history. And we look at these people as forebears of who we have become Chris and I and Rob, and some of the other people who worked on this were pop culture, historians. Speaker 2: 00:59:21 We are people who like to write about and talk about and discuss movies and TV shows and books and things. And these people that we interviewed, they were in many regards, some of the first people to ever do it on a professional level to ever do it on a national or an international level. And we want them to catch them in their stories, studs, Terkel style, Alan Lomax style, field recording style, to have them explain what was going on and the air they were breathing and what was happening when they were in their teams coming together to say, you know what, there's something really important about Ray Bradbury and we need to talk about it and we need to connect and make sure that Ray Bradbury can come and talk to us about this. So that's where it's all coming from. Again, I know pretty lofty, but Speaker 8: 01:00:03 Well, I want to thank you both very much for talking about your new podcast, Speaker 2: 01:00:07 Beth. Appreciate it. Thanks Beth. We really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much. Speaker 3: 01:00:12 That was Beth Armando speaking with Matthew Klickstein and Christopher Tyler. There are new podcast Comecon begins launched last week with episode two debuting tomorrow.