Episode 580
with Scott Aukerman, Sarafina El-Badry Nance, and Family Worship Center
Comedian and writer Scott Aukerman brings his wildly popular improv podcast Comedy Bang! Bang! to book form and reveals how a goofy name and an occupation is really how a character begins; astrophysicist Sarafina El-Badry Nance explores her own universe as a woman, a scientist, a cancer advocate, and a one-time swimsuit model in her book Starstruck: A Memoir of Astrophysics and Finding Light in the Dark; rock ensemble and faux cult Family Worship Center perform "Snake Dance" from their new album Kicked Out Of The Garden. Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello share the alter egos of some of our listeners.
Scott Aukerman
Writer, comedian, and host of Comedy Bang! Bang!
The man, the myth, and the very funny legend Scott Aukerman is the host of Comedy Bang! Bang!, a podcast featuring today's funniest comedians, and now he is also the author of a book of the same title that brings the beloved and hilarious podcast characters onto the page. Alongside his renown hosting, he is the co-creator and director of the web series Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis, which was expanded into a feature film for Netflix. Aukerman also created, hosted, wrote, and produced the parody talk show Comedy! Bang! Bang!, which aired on IFC for five seasons, and is, in fact, not the same as the podcast (we promise).
Sarafina El-Badry Nance
Astrophysicist and Author
Sarafina El-Badry Nance is an Egyptian-American astrophysicist, analog astronaut, and women’s health advocate. She has been awarded fellowships by the National Science Foundation and her work has been featured by the BBC, NPR, National Geographic, and more. Sarafina is one of Forbes’ “30 Inspirational Women” and was on Forbes’ list of “30 Under 30” and the Arab American Foundation’s “40 Under 40.” She lives in Berkeley, California, with her partner and their dog, Comet. Her new book Starstruck: A Memoir of Astrophysics and Finding Light in the Dark is out now!
Family Worship Center
Musical Guest
Family Worship Center specializes in a strain of redemptive, 1970s-styled rock n’ roll that recalls the Rolling Stones, Leon Russell, The Band, and Delaney & Bonnie. The band formed in 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee founded by prophetic visionary, singer-songwriter and keyboardist Krissberg, but it has since relocated to Portland, Oregon. In 2020, Family Worship Center released the EP Sunday A.M. (2020) recorded by Grammy-winning producer Eddie Spear (Rival Sons, Blackberry Smoke, Lukas Nelson), and featuring musicians associated/who have played with The Band, Deer Tick, Ringo Starr, James Brown, Keith Richards, and Foxygen, among others. The Family’s latest offering—it’s first long player—Kicked Out Of The Garden, features a core band of devoted musicians, and was produced by Portland go-to producer Cameron Spies (Spoon Benders, Shivas) who specializes in what he calls “mid-fi.” Kicked Out Of The Garden was tracked in Portland with additional recording done in Philadelphia and Ukraine.
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Luke Burbank: Hey there, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It's going great. It's time for the game that is sweeping the nation, Station Location Identification Examination.
Elena Passarello: Everybody's playing it. It's like the new pickleball.
Luke Burbank: It's better on your knees, though. This is where I give Elena a little quiz about a city or town somewhere in America. A place we're on the radio, and she's got to guess where I am talking about. All right. This city actually changed its name in 1901 to reflect the fact that a river and a bridge separates it from Canada.
Elena Passarello: Well, that rules out about 25 states. Uh, maybe more.
Luke Burbank: So just think cold, upper Midwest. [Elena: Okay.] Connected to Canada. It's also the city was known as the icebox of the nation for its cold and harsh winters.
Elena Passarello: That's got to be some kind of, like, Duluth, Minnesota area vibes.
Luke Burbank: You're in the right state.
Elena Passarello: Oh, is it International Falls, Minnesota?
Luke Burbank: It's International Falls. [Elena: Yeah!] Elena Passarello, continue to impress me. That's where we're on KITF.FM, that's part of Minnesota Public Radio. Shout out to our friends in International Falls, Minnesota. All right. You ready to do the show?
Elena Passarello: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: All right. Take it away.
Elena Passarello: From PRX, it's Live Wire. This week, comedian, writer and podcaster Scott Aukerman.
Scott Aukerman: Essentially the joke of the show is, is that I don't know how these insane people get booked on the show. We have an open door policy where anyone can come in.
Elena Passarello: And astrophysicist and author Sarafina El-Badry Nance.
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: You know, a task of human existence is recognizing that everybody has their own universe and it's how to reconcile yours with theirs.
Elena Passarello: With music from Family Worship Center and our fabulous house band, I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello, and now the host of Live Wire, Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Hey, thank you so much, Elena Passarello. Thanks to everyone tuning in all over the country, including International Falls, Minnesota, we have a really fun show in store for you this week. We're talking about improv and things like that, and so we asked the Live Wire audience a question. We asked them to describe their alter ego. We're going to hear those responses coming up in just a bit. First, though, it's time for the best news we heard all week. This is our a little reminder at the top of the show that there is good news happening out there in the world. Elena, what is the best news you've heard all week?
Elena Passarello: Okay. I'm about to introduce you to my new favorite thing. [Luke: Alright.] It's new to me. It's actually been around for, like, almost four decades, but it's happening on five continents. It's starting to happen in the United States. It's a thing that began in Japan, known as tiny forests or pocket forests, or if you live in the UK, wee forests. And that's when someone takes or a group of people take unexpected small space of land, like part of a landfill or the area around an industrial space and they basically rebuild an entire ecosystem in this very small space from the ground up. They restore the soil, they engage in really dense planting of native species, and it usually requires immediate and frequent community involvement. And the cool thing about it is when you build a mini forest really quickly in a small space, like a few acres, it grows so much more quickly than a traditional sized forest would. A forest like this can grow in decades what takes a century for a regular sized forest to do. And you can see these forests all over the place. There's one in a corrections facility in Yakima, Washington. [Luke: Oh, wow.] There are hundreds of them in India. And within like two or three years, new species come and inhabit it. They provide amazing shade to pavements and they change the landscape of, you know, these tiny little pockets of your community in a way that pays off really, really fast. So, I can't wait to just wormhole my way through this whole phenomenon, which is just so cool.
Luke Burbank: I'm not saying anything particularly groundbreaking, but I just know for me, when I actually go and commune with nature, when I find myself in a forest environment, something physically feels like it kind of changes for me. So the idea that that could exist for more people, maybe in more urban environments, in places where it's harder to get to what we think of as the forest. That's incredible.
Elena Passarello: Yeah. Yeah. Just imagine all the people in that automotive plant who get to go to a forest now on their lunch break.
Luke Burbank: Yes. Hey, speaking of growing things, that's also related to the best news that I saw this week. It involves a couple from Pratt, Kansas, Lee and Renee Wilson. Now, you're married, Elena, you know that anniversaries can be sometimes challenging when you're trying to figure out what to get your spouse. And, you know, anniversaries can be kind of feel like a lot of pressure. So Lee and Renee were about to celebrate their 50th anniversary. They're high school sweethearts living out there in Kansas and Lee remembered that Renee's favorite flower is the sunflower.
Elena Passarello: State flower of Kansas.
Luke Burbank: That is absolutely right. I didn't know that until I read this article. But so what Lee and his son did was because I should mention also he's a farmer is went out and on their land secretly, along with his son, planted about 80 acres of sunflowers.
Elena Passarello: Just the seeds?
Luke Burbank: Just the seeds. This equals about roughly 1.2 million sunflowers. And he and his son are just out there, I presume, like pretending each day when they came home, like they had just been planting, I don't know, whatever corn, whatever they were growing in Kansas. And Renee had no idea it was going on. And this summer, all 1.2 million sunflowers bloomed.
Elena Passarello: Oh, my gosh.
Luke Burbank: As a gift to her. And she was just absolutely blown away, as you might imagine. Now, people have been coming all over to Highway 54, just outside of Pratt, Kansas, where the Wilson Sunflower Field exists, all as a really thoughtful, sweet way for Lee Wilson to make sure his wife, Renee, felt really special on their 50th wedding anniversary. She said that it did make her feel incredibly special. She said it was the perfect anniversary gift. By the way, they met at a roller skating rink when they were in high school and Lee says he knew immediately that she was the one for him. So. [Elena: Aww]. Also, a lot of pressure on the rest of us when it comes to the anniversary game, Lee.
Elena Passarello: I'm going to buy David a bag of David's Sunflower Seeds for our anniversary. That's where I'm going.
Luke Burbank: Bring it full circle. So, all right, a little love blooming there in Kansas all these years later. That is the best news I heard all week. All right. Let's get our first guest on over to the program. He started his career with the HBO sketch comedy show Mr. Show with Bob and David. Then he went on to start an improv radio show, which was called Comedy Death Ray in Los Angeles. That became an improv TV show called Comedy Bang Bang. And now it's a book called Comedy Bang! Bang! The Podcast: The Book. When you read the book, it's less confusing than it might seem. Scott Aukerman is also one of the creators of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis. He directed the film version of that project as well, and he joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon, to talk about it. Here's Scott Aukerman on Live Wire. Hello!
Scott Aukerman: How are you? Let's hear it for this band, right?
Luke Burbank: Is it nice for you, as a host typically, to be in the guest seat?
Scott Aukerman: No, it feels weird. I feel like we should switch.
Luke Burbank: I'm sure the crowd wouldn't be mad at all. They'd be like, Can we get a real host here? The beginning of this book, there's a very nice introduction written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. [Scott: Yes.] It's very complimentary to the show and then you turn to the next page and there's a rebuttal to Lin's comments written by "Weird Al" Yankovic. How did that come together?
Scott Aukerman: Well, Al was the bandleader on my television show. And so he — I knew he wanted to do a rebuttal to someone because that was a bit we talked about. He goes, I would love to do an intro, but I think I want to do a rebuttal to someone. So I just kind of...threw it out there to Lin-Manuel Miranda, like...wrote a random email knowing.. that..he was sort of a fan of the show, like, Hey, do you want to do this? And Weird Al will write a rebuttal to you—
Luke Burbank: So, he knew that it would it was to be rebutted.
Scott Aukerman: Yes, exactly. And so that so they both—it was one of the greatest experiences on this book is I just got an email one day from the two of them saying, Hey, we wrote that thing. Here you go. And it's in the book. It's incredible.
Luke Burbank: I just keep getting emails about penis enhancement. [Elena: From Lin-Manuel Miranda.] That's the weird part. That is—
Scott Aukerman: It's like follow-up emails from your surgeries or?
Luke Burbank: It really has to do with me missing some of the payments. I did it on layaway. [Scott: Oh, okay.] Lesson learned. Can we talk about the kind of early days of Comedy Death Ray? [Scott: Sure.] When it was on Indie 103, what was the show? I mean, I know it started out as something you were doing in clubs in L.A., and then you did a radio show about like, what was the show like in its earliest days as a radio thing?
Scott Aukerman: So I was producing a live comedy show in L.A., which had a lot of stand up comedians, and it also had a lot of comedians doing characters. And when I say characters, meaning they would come out as fake people that they had created, sometimes they would be doing impressions. And so when I started doing this podcast, it was a radio show. I thought it was just going to be kind of like me interviewing comedians, sort of like what we're doing right now, but like switched and—
Luke Burbank: Really angling for this side of the table.
Scott Aukerman: Well, first of all, like, both of you have high back chairs and I have nothing.
Luke Burbank: It's a power move.
Elena Passarello: Yeah.
Scott Aukerman: But then around the sixth episode I had on one of the comedians who did characters at my show, Andy Daly. And so he did a character and I was just sort of like doing a talk show host thing where I was asking the questions. I knew his bit really well and I was setting him up. But then we just started improvising. I started asking weird questions that he wasn't prepared for and he started improvising. And that became sort of what, the show. I went home and I said, Oh, that was really fun. So the show became me having on comedians playing fake people and us just improvising conversations. We totally threw out anything that where we knew where it was going. For maybe the first year, some comedians would like, text me, Hey, I think my bit is going to go this way. Nowadays, I ask them their name and their occupation, and that's all I want to know. [Luke: Really?] Essentially, the joke of the show is, is that I don't know how these insane people get booked on the show. We have an open door policy where anyone can come in, but it really is like these incredibly talented comedians like Paul F. Tompkins, who I know was on this show a lot, and Lauren Lapkus and they come on and they do these characters that are just insane people. But we also have a celebrity on who is there, who has to deal with that as well. [Luke: Right.] You know—
Luke Burbank: Which is part of the really the sort of delight of the show is hearing the famous person trying to interact with you.
Scott Aukerman: You don't really hear that in normal talk shows where a genuine celebrity, like a Jon Hamm or someone, has to be on next to an insane person who's— and asking them questions about their lives. So it's— yeah, I think it's an interesting format.
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Scott Aukerman. His book is Comedy Bang! Bang! The Podcast: The book. We've got to take a quick break here on Live Wire, but don't go anywhere. We will be right back. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX coming to you this week from the Alberta Rose Theater, right here in Portland, Oregon. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We're talking to Scott Aukerman from Comedy Bang! Bang! and Between Two Ferns. On Comedy Bang! Bang! you have on a series of, you know, people who are improvising characters and stuff, but I feel like the character of Scott Aukerman, host of Comedy Bang! Bang! is also, to some degree a character. Do you think of it that way?
Scott Aukerman: Yeah, I mean, there are shades of it, especially on the TV version of it. It was a super enhanced version of myself, as I like to say, but it really is the I'm playing up the most annoying parts of my personality, pretty much so. But I think a lot of it is because when people do press tours for things like I'm doing for this book, you get asked a lot of the same questions and you can, you know, tend to zone out and celebrities kind of go on roads. And I feel like my job is sort of to get them off balance and ask them questions they've never been asked before and a lot of that is just me pretending I haven't read their thing or I don't know where they're from or and just having a joke interview, essentially.
Luke Burbank: Was it a sort of a trick to try to take this podcast and make it into something that worked as a book?
Scott Aukerman: The concept of the book is every single character who's been on the show submitting pieces for a book. So we're not breaking the reality of it. The comedians who are playing the characters are not saying like, Oh, I'm just the comedian. Everyone— you sort of have to know what's going on when you read it, but when you know that it's all comedians who are playing fake people submitting things to be in a book, I think it really came to life and it's all new material.
Luke Burbank: How did you decide which characters were going to get in the book? Cause I don't think it's everybody from the universe of the show.
Scott Aukerman: Yeah I had to beg everybody.
Luke Burbank: Wait. I assumed that it was like you had. You had a long, long list of submissions and you had to winnow it down. You're saying—
Scott Aukerman: No, I—
Luke Burbank: It was work to get these people that are in the book to do even the minimum.
Scott Aukerman: It was an ongoing conversation of, How many pages do we have to fill, really? I mean, it would probably not surprise you to learn that there is not a lot of money in books. And so, you know, especially with, I think, 50 contributors on the book, you know, no one did it for the money ever. But it was me definitely like chasing people down, going like, Hey, Paul F. Tompkins, can you write me three more pieces? Because I just found out that we have four more pages that we need to fill. Please, please, please. And everyone saying, Okay, fine, I'll do it for you. But yeah, it really was down to the last wire where suddenly I found out right before the deadline that we had two more pages that we had to fill. And I just wrote to three comedians and said, Can you write something this afternoon for me? And they did it.
Luke Burbank: I mean, I do love the art in the book is amazing. I mean, it really is a visual kind of adventure because there's so many different formats that are used in ways these characters are presented. I was wondering, can I just read some of the names of some of the characters that are submitted for the book? And then can you just for people that may be unaware, can you just describe kind of like, what's that person's deal, that character's deal through the book? [Scott:Yes.] How about Martin Sheffield Lickly?
Scott Aukerman: Okay. Martin Sheffield Lickly is a an entertainer from the 80s. He was a new wave band singer whose son died. But he sings very facile songs like The Ship of Love is one of his songs where he talks and everything is a metaphor for like, we're on the ship and the ship is a kiss. And then he ends every song after about a minute by singing my son's dead.
Luke Burbank: How about Bob Ducca?
Scott Aukerman: Bob Ducca? Yeah. Bob Ducca is— he's my ex-stepfather who was married to my mother for nine months, and he's a hypochondriac. And he essentially writes really long lists of these insane ailments that he has.
Luke Burbank: What does he have? I was listening to a episode Earth Sign dementia?
Scott Aukerman: That's Seth Morris. He is— he's so incredibly talented at coming up with these incredibly rich backgrounds for his characters.
Luke Burbank: How about Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber?
Scott Aukerman: Well, that's a real person that we have now been making fun of for 14 years. And the real Andrew Lloyd Webber, his musical just closed, I think, this week on Broadway, his musical Bad Cinderella.
Luke Burbank: Wow.
Scott Aukerman: And I wrote to Paul F. Thompkins, who has been portraying him for 14 years, and I sent him the link to the article and he said, Well, this just clears the way for my musical Worst Cinderella.
Luke Burbank: So Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, the version on your show is Paul F. Thompkins. How many characters, give or take does he do on the show? Is he— you're like your MVP?
Scott Aukerman: Yeah, he is. He's is. He does the best of episodes with me at the end of every year where we—it's the only time we break the reality and we talk about all of the comedians who are on the show and the process that goes behind it. But I believe there's a wiki online that I think he has like 100 characters or something that he's played. He's, he's really exceptional at it. And he never did characters before Comedy Bang! Bang! [Luke: Really?] I just asked him one day I was like, Hey, would you ever want to do a character on the show? And he went, That sounds fun. And then he's now the best at it. It's incredible.
Luke Burbank: That's incredible. I assumed he had a whole background in improv long before.
Scott Aukerman: No, he had never done it before. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Wow.
Luke Burbank: That's amazing. Are there characters that don't work and then they never make the air or we only hear them one time?
Scott Aukerman: Yes, there are a lot of one time characters. I am proud that there is a one time character in the book, actually. [Luke: Which one?] Little Dammit Man.
Luke Burbank: I can't see why that didn't work.
Scott Aukerman: I, to be honest, I don't even really remember what his deal was other than he said— he was a little boy who said, Damn it, all the time. This feels terrible. 30 years in the biz and it still hurts every time.
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Scott Aukerman from Comedy Bang! Bang! The new book is Comedy Bang! Bang! The podcast: The Book. You also are the co-creator of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis, and you directed the episode. Yes, I believe that's the exact amount of applause.
Scott Aukerman: Two woos. Three claps.
Luke Burbank: That's right. And if I understand right, you directed the episode that was with President Obama. Is that is the Internet?
Scott Aukerman: Oh, oh Barry? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Luke Burbank: That was the longest half second of my life. I was like, Did I? Am I thinking of the wrong Scott Aukerman. So you're directing the episode with Barry on it. And the of course, for folks that haven't seen the show, it's unbelievably funny, but it's just an absolute savaging of the guest by Zach Galifianakis saying the meanest things and asking the meanest questions. How do you— like who do you negotiate out with the questions for Barack Obama for that show?
Scott Aukerman: That was a unique one because every single other episode we've done, we have insisted on the guest not knowing what the questions are in advance. Even Hillary Clinton, they really wanted us to give the questions to her. And we kind of— we were in a position where we kind of said, like, we're just not going to do it then. And they caved. [Elena: Wow.] So, but we tried that with Barack Obama. And for about a week they entertained it, and then at the end of the week, they said there's no chance in hell that a sitting president of the United States is going to do this without knowing what the questions were about. It turned into a great experience where his speechwriters actually wrote some jokes for us. And we, you know, did our process and wrote it. It was the only one that we did that was partially scripted. They improved around it. But even then, you know, it's so funny because doing the show with Zach, Zach is a really super nice guy in real life and feels genuinely bad saying these things to people. There was a joke in the Obama one: How does it feel to be the last Black president of the United States? [Luke: Oh.] and I— that I would say 5 minutes before we were supposed to to tape the episode, we were in the map room of of the White House being being yelled at, by the way, by staff, because we were sitting in Abraham Lincoln's chair it was very, anyway [Elena: Holy crow.] But Zach said to me, like, hey, I'm going to cut that joke. I can't do that joke to him. And I was like, Oh, no, no, no. That's one of our best jokes. You have to do it. And I finally I finally got him. I said, you know what? It's in the prompter already. And Barack Obama's rehearsed his response to it. You're going to throw him off if you cut it. And he went, Oh, okay. That's a good point. And so he did it. But that's that's our relationship, I'm constantly having to plead with him to do the funniest jokes because he just genuinely feels terrible saying them.
Luke Burbank: That's a perfect example, that joke of I think it's important for people to understand who the joke is on with that joke.
Scott Aukerman: Barack Obama.
Luke Burbank: Exactly. Scott Aukerman Everybody. That was Scott Aukerman right here on Live Wire. I feel like I need to give everyone some context. If it felt like that ended kind of abruptly during the live show recording, we decided to play this probably overly elaborate game with Scott called Between Two Urns. We were very excited about this bit going into it, but it kind of bombed. So we cut it, which is why the end of that interview sounded slightly weird. But the point is, Scott's hilarious book, Comedy Bang! Bang! The podcast: The Book is very funny and it's available now, so please do check it out. This is Live Wire from PRX. Of course, each week we asked Live Wire listeners a question since we were talking about improv with Scott Aukerman, we wanted to know if our listeners have an alter ego. We asked them to describe their alter ego. Elena has been collecting up some of those responses. What are you seeing?
Elena Passarello: How about this one from Andrew. Andrew says that he'd like to have a Superman slash Clark Kent sort of situation where after work, his alter ego causes chaos at all hours of the day instead of saving people. A straight up menace to society. But instead of crime, crime, it's just petty things like unscrewing caps in the grocery store and whatnot.
Luke Burbank: I see. The bad guy whose origin story is actually pretty tame.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, it's a kind of a merry prankster villian. [Luke: Right. Right.]
Luke Burbank: His mom wouldn't let him take, like, two packets of ketchup, you know, from the Wendy's when he was a kid. So now he just takes all of the packets of ketchup from the Wendy's.
Elena Passarello: Oh, wait. I think that's my origin story.
Luke Burbank: Mine is I didn't know that they even sold condiments, like in a full container when I was a kid, because all the condiments in our house were nicked from various fast food restaurants. It was typical to open like four packets of ketchup with your like, fish sticks, that all said Arby's on them or something. What's another alter ego of one of our listeners?
Elena Passarello: Oh, Laney's alter ego is Petunia, the owner and operator of a 1920s speakeasy. Petunia wears a full three piece tailored suit and a glittery top hat. Petunia smoked cigarets from a long holder and always books fantastic nightclub acts. [Luke:Wow.] That's intense.
Luke Burbank: I feel like what that really points out is the key to any good alter ego. It really starts with the name. [Elena:Yes.] Petunia is a very solid name for your alter ego. Once you have that, that's the hard part, then you can kind of reverse engineer the rest of the personality.
Elena Passarello: Closely followed by the hat. I think you need to have the hat very soon as well.
Luke Burbank: Yes, precisely. Okay, One more alter ego before we move on.
Elena Passarello: Okay. Listen to this one from Pam. Pam says, My alter ego is a camp counselor. They can build a fire with sticks, turn any challenge into a catchy ukulele tune, wake up, perky and ready to take on the day. And they have a great nickname like Possum Patty. This is– so alter ego usually means that your opposite self, right? So I wonder if this person who imagines being this plucky camp counselor is actually just like...
Elena Passarello: Eeyore...in human form in real life.
Luke Burbank: Right. Because, yeah, this alter ego sounds pretty rad, you know? Plucky camp counselor. [Elena: Very perky.] Thanks to everyone who wrote in a response to this week's listener question. Our next guest is an astrophysicist and also advocate for women's health. She's been on a simulated mission to Mars, and now she's adding author to her impressive resume. Her new book is Star Struck: A Memoir of Astrophysics and Finding Light in the Dark. It documents the journey that she has been on, discovering the wonders of outer space and also the kind of heavy reality of being a woman working in STEM here on planet Earth. From sexism to imposter syndrome, she has encountered a whole variety of things. Sarafina El-Badry Nance joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater to talk about her book. Take a listen to this. Sarafina, welcome to the show.
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: Thank you so much.
Luke Burbank: The book starts by saying, effectively, the universe is not how we see it or how it appears. What do you mean by that?
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: So there's this notion that, you know, for those who haven't read the book, the sort of narrative is interspersed with these, you know, short segments about the universe. And there are parallels that I try to draw between, you know, what's happening out there and what's happening internally within us and amongst people that we interact with. And I think this idea of perception and perspective is something I really try to investigate because, you know, we think we observe things and then we draw meaning from them. But oftentimes there's so much more there.
Luke Burbank: Do you think that that the misreading of how the planets move, like one of the things as you talk about how we sort of think that the sun is going around us. I mean, I understand that we don't live in a heliocentric universe. Even a mass communications major knows that. Or sorry, we don't live in an Earth centric. Do we live in a heliocentric universe? But here's my point.
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: You got there.
Luke Burbank: My point is, I sit. I sit out in my yard and I watch the sun go like this. And it feels to me like the sun is moving through my sky. [Sarafina: Mm-hmm.] Do you think it makes us humans more self-centered? I mean, we know we're not the center of the universe, but we feel like it in a way. Like our misunderstanding of basic kind of planetary movement.
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: I think everybody is the center of their own universes. Like, we are all, you know, experiencing the world with us at the center. And I feel like, you know, a task of human existence is recognizing that everybody has their own universe and it's how to reconcile yours with theirs and connect with them and and find meaning in that.
Luke Burbank: I was surprised at how much public radio appears in this book. Felt very seen as a public radio show because you're a little kid, you're in Austin, you're in your the back of your parents Volkswagen. And what is it? [Sarafina: Stardate.] Stardate is playing on the radio. Yeah. And you're just, like, fascinated. What was it about that that so captivated young age?
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: I was a really, really cool kid where I would listen to NPR and be like, Yeah. So, Stardate Radio was my favorite show, and there's something about bringing the night sky, which we all experience, to Earth and communicating, you know, all the intricacies and sort of that perception. You know, I'm a little kid looking up and I see, you know, a star or a planet. I don't know what that means. But Sandy Wood on Stardate can explain it to me and all of a sudden the immediacy of it changes. And I feel again, it's about connection. I feel connected. I felt connected because of that show.
Luke Burbank: Did you feel like as a young woman, in particular, a young woman of color, having this interest in science were people sort of welcoming to you as you were expressing this interest or telling you this is not for you?
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: Yeah, I think I overwhelmingly heard the narrative that this was not for me. I was a kid at science camp. I told you all I was very cool. So, yeah, I went to science camp and I got to meet an astronomer for the very first time. I was 10 or 11 years old, and I ran up to him and I was like, I want to be an astronomer when I grow up. And he quite literally verbatim, said, you know, No, you don't. This is not for you. Yeah, I know.
Luke Burbank: How do you then, as a, you know, a young person having some adult in a sort of a position of authority say, this isn't for you, where do you— how do you find it in yourself to think, it is for me or to keep pushing? Because a lot of people would just be like, Well, I guess it's not for me.
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: I feel like so much of the book and, you know, as I reflect on my journey, carving out a place for myself in astrophysics is internalizing that narrative and then trying to disentangle myself from it. So, so much of the I think that messaging, it's like, yeah, it's that one instance that sucked that was really hard to hear, but then it sort of becomes insidious. And for me, it did show up in the way that I, you know, would present myself in classes and choose to, I don't know, challenge myself and feel like I belonged in math and science classes. And so I think I've had to learn that that narrative, that teaching is that somebody else's view. And that's not my reality and that's not the reality that I'm going to accept. That's not the reality that I'm going to pay forward to, you know, the next generation of young women and young women of color.
Luke Burbank: Now, I have to say, when I picked up your memoir, which, by the way, is Star Struck: A Memoir of Astrophysics and Finding Light in the Darkness by Sarafina El-Badry Nance, who is our guest here on Live Wire. I thought this person is a little young to write a memoir. But then I read it and I was like, This person's done a lot of living. Like, you know, I mean, one of the things you write about in the book is that you found out that you have the BRAC2 genetic mutation. [Sarafina: BRCA2. Yeah.] Yeah, which, greatly increased your chances for developing cancer. I guess you learned this when your father developed cancer?
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: That's right. Yeah. So my dad was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer when I was 23, and his was extraordinarily fast moving and he was stage four when he was diagnosed. So he was a really good candidate for genetic testing. He got tested, was positive. And then about six or eight weeks later, I also tested positive. You know, I learned I have an 87% lifetime risk of breast cancer. So it's almost a certainty. And I have a 30% risk of ovarian cancer. I mean, it's such a overwhelming thing to learn, especially at a young age. And I was so worried about my dad. And, you know, I put off grad school for a year and I sort of oriented myself around his care. And once he was stable, I was able to reflect on my own journey when I learned I could get a preventative double mastectomy. That was actually such a liberating thought. I mean, there was so much agency wrapped up in that decision, and so it reduced my risk of breast cancer from 87% to less than 5%. [Luke & Elena: Wow.]
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: [Elena: Awesome.] Thanks. Thank you.
Luke Burbank: Now, the thing is, you, in the aftermath of this, did something pretty extraordinary. I was at a coffee shop here in Portland. I was doing some research on you while reading the book, and I typed your name into the Internet and the first thing that came up was a very large picture of you in a bikini posing for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: I honestly love that, actually. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: How did that all come together?
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: So I had three surgeries in one year, and my last surgery was during COVID. I think it was it was an extraordinarily difficult, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally process. You know, I sort of had to really lean on my community and one of those friends reached out and said, Hey, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit is putting out a call for applicants to be in their issue. And I was like, oh, cool. And I had never done any modeling or anything like that. You know, I'm in my UC-Berkeley little cubicle doing math. And, you know, I was just like— the application process was actually submitting a video where you talk about yourself for a minute and you share your story. And for me, the most sort of empowering part of that process was just submitting the video and saying, Hey, I'm a scientist. I, you know, advocate for women's health. I had this thing happen to me where I talk about breast cancer and I talk about, you know, what it's like to reclaim my body after a surgery like that. And when I submitted the video, I was like, that's the important thing. You know, I was able to do something scary, and no matter what happens, I did that for myself. And then I got the call that I got it. And I was like, What? Are you sure?
Luke Burbank: Did it feel different than an astrophysics class?
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: Yeah, it was literally like leaving my, like, fluid mechanics class to, like, go do this shoot. And no, but I think, you know, it was sort of this like double life that I lead for a second. But in reality, when I think about it, it's all the same thing. I am trying to grow. I'm trying to, you know, be a voice. I'm trying to show people that women don't have to fit into boxes, that women can do math and go model in a bikini and go, you know, to Mars and do all of these things. And as long as the passion is there, as long as, you know, somebody is curious and interested and, you know, wants to try something, they should be able to go do it. And I think that hearkens back to those voices, you know, those those people who told me, you know, this is not for you. Nobody gets to determine what's for you. You get to decide that.
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Sarafina El-badry Nance, astrophysicist and Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. How do you think about the vastness of space? Because I think for a lot of people, myself included, it's so beyond what any of us will ever experience here on this planet that I personally just tend to kind of shut down because it seems too big to comprehend. But you live your whole life trying to comprehend it. How do you stay engaged with it when it's so literally astronomical? What's going on?
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: That's a very common response. I basically, when I talk to people about the vastness of space, there's two camps. There's either, Oh my God, the vastness is so cool and we're so small. And how awesome is that? Nothing matters. That's the camp I'm in. And then the other—
Luke Burbank: Catch me after a few drinks. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Right— right there with you.
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: The nihilism really peaks through. And then the other camp is, I'm scared basically, by how big and vast everything is and how little we know. And people shut down. I think for some reason, for me, I am literally enchanted by not knowing. I think there's something is sort of like pioneering about being at the, you know, Star Trek fans out there, you know, like the final frontier. Like we are literally—
Luke Burbank: There are no Star Trek fans here. This is not— this is not that kind of vibe.
Sarafina El-Badry Nance: But yeah, I think, you know, I suffer from anxiety. And, you know, for those who might not experience that, everything feels really big and urgent and scary all the time. And when I couch that feeling with how small we are and truly how we are a blip in the cosmos and things change and the universe really doesn't care about, you know, if I missed a flight, or whatever, there is a sense of calm that grounds me and I yearn for that feeling, you know, that's what I am just sort of enamored by and excited to continue to sort of push the boundaries of what we know and probe the expanding vastness of the universe.
Luke Burbank: Well, we're very excited that this brings you calm, because for some of us it's very mind bending. But we need people like Sarafina El-Badry Nance looking out for us. The book is Star Struck. Sarafina, thank you so much for coming on, Live Wire.
Luke Burbank: That was Sarafina El-Badry Nance right here on Live Wire. Her memoir, Star Struck: A Memoir of Sstrophysics and Finding Light in the Dark is now available anywhere here on Earth where you can find books. I'm Luke Burbank. Right over there is Elena Passarello. We've got to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, you're going to hear some music from the epic rock slash maybe cult band, Family Worship Center. Coming up here on Live Wire. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. All right, before we get to our musical guests this week, a little preview of next week's show. We are going to be talking to poet and essayist Ross Gay. He is going to be talking about privilege and pain and skateboarding, which are all subjects that come up in his book, Inciting Joy. Then we're going to hear from Michelin star chef and writer Iliana Regan as she talks about her journey from farmers markets in Chicago to Michelin stars to foraging for food in the wilds of Michigan. It's all in her newest memoir called Fieldwork. And we're also going to hear some music from singer songwriter Baroque Betty. Plus, we've got to get an answer from you for our listener question. Elena, what are we asking the listeners for next week's show?
Elena Passarello: We need you to please describe your perfect weekend.
Luke Burbank: Hmm. Okay. Mine would be happening right now. My perfect weekend is just happening sooner than normal weekends. Like, let's get it going already. Okay. If you have a perfect weekend you want to describe for us, go ahead and send in your response via Facebook and what they used to call Twitter. We're at Live Wire Radio, just about everywhere out there on social media. This is Live Wire from PRX. Our musical guests this week have a pretty unique origin story. Okay, so some time ago, a guy named Andy Krissberg was traveling around the U.S. and he goes into this Nashville record store and came across this 21 page bible for a strange possibly cult like collective that called themselves Family Worship Center. And it really kind of got lodged in his brain. And so he ended up forming the current Portland based band known as, wait for it, Family Worship Center. Their newest album is Kicked out of the Garden. It's available right now. I just want to paint a mental picture for the folks listening, Elena, and you know this because you were there.
Elena Passarello: Oh yes, I was.
Luke Burbank: This— it had to be the most people we've ever had on stage in the history of the program for our musical guest.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, it's like exponentially more.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, it was like, I don't know, like 14 people on stage. They're wearing, like various blue satin robes, they're wearing white jumpsuits. There was every manner of instrument, strings, horns. It was a whole thing going on onstage at the Alberta Rose Theater. And you're about to hear it, how it went down. Right now, this is Family Worship Center on Live Wire. Welcome to the show, everyone.
Family Worship Center: Oh, thanks for having us.
Luke Burbank: I know that you must get so much— sort of so many questions about the name and it's you're probably tired of talking about it. But I will say this. When I was doing some research on the band and I was looking to watch some videos and listen to some music about, I don't know, three results in, I was just deep in like a Texas evangelical family worship center type situation. Has there been confusion?
Family Worship Center: People get confused about a lot of things about us, I think. Yeah. I think most of the bands confused about what we're doing at the time of it. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But you know, we hope the music speaks for itself and I think a lot of the times does so.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. What song are we going to hear?
Family Worship Center: A song that's called Snake Dance.
Luke Burbank: All right. This is Family Worship Center right here on Live Wire.
Family Worship Center: Band, ready?
[Family Worship Center plays Snake Dance]
Luke Burbank: That was Family Worship Center. Their newest album is Kicked Out of the Garden and you can get it right now. All right. That's going to do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. A huge thanks to our guests, Scott Aukerman, Sarafina El-Badry Nance and Family Worship Center.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer. Heather de Michele is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Mollie Pettit is our technical director and our house sound is by D. Neil Blake. Tre Hester is our assistant editor, our marketing and production manager is Karen Pan. Rosa Garcia is our operations associate. Jackie Ibarra is our production fellow and Ant Diaz is our intern. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Ayal Alves and A Walker Spring, who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Tre Hester.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation. Live Wire was created by Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff this week. We've got to thank members Sheen Wu of Portland, Oregon, and Kelly Griffin of Seattle, Washington. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to Live Wire Radio dot org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
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