Episode 585
with Lauren Fleshman, Joey Clift, and Who Is She?
Record-breaking runner Lauren Fleshman unpacks her New York Times bestseller, Good for a Girl, a part-memoir, part-manifesto which challenges the male-built sports system; comedian and writer Joey Clift chats about his new Comedy Central digital series Gone Native, which delves into the weird microaggressions Native people are up against; and Seattle-based indie supergroup Who Is She? performs a cover of a Le Tigre song... which actually got them fired from a sports arena gig. Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello share what records our listeners would like to break.
Lauren Fleshman
Professional Athlete, Entrepreneur, and Writer
Lauren Fleshman is an athletic force to be reckoned with. As one of the most decorated American distance runners of all time, having won five NCAA championships at Stanford and two national championships, her professional sports career is hard to beat. Alongside her successful history as an athlete, Fleshman is also a talented writer. Her debut book Good for a Girl: My Life Running in a Man's World is part memoir and part manifesto that follows the story of how she fell in love with running and the struggles of being a professional female athlete. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times and Runner’s World. She is the brand strategy advisor for Oiselle, a fitness apparel company for women, and is also the co-founder of Picky Bars, a natural food company. Website • Instagram • Twitter
Joey Clift
Humor Writer and Comedian
Joey Clift is a comedian, TV writer, and enrolled Cowlitz Indian Tribal Member. With a knack for humor, his writing credits include Spirit Rangers on Netflix, New Looney Tunes on Cartoon Network and Molly of Denali on PBS. He also created, wrote, and directed the Comedy Central digital series Gone Native which delves into the weird microaggressions Native people often deal with, and his award-winning short films have screened everywhere from Just For Laughs to The Smithsonian Museum. But his finest work is being the founder of LA Underground Cat Network, which is a 15,000-member strong Facebook group for Los Angeles comedians to share pictures of their cats. To be clear, he doesn't hate dogs, but he's really more of a cat guy. Website • Instagram • Twitter
Who Is She?
Indie Supergroup
Known for writing songs that are both "spunky and violently catchy" (Vice), Who Is She? is a Seattle-based indie supergroup featuring members of Tacocat, Chastity Belt, and Lisa Prank. The talented trio was first started as a song-writing and friendship project based on the missed connection ads when Robin Edwards (Lisa Prank) and Bree McKenna (Tacocat) were living in bedrooms next door to each other at legendary Spruce House. The two Seattle music celebs then enlisted their friend, Julia Shapiro (Chastity Belt), to play the drums. They released their debut record, Seattle Gossip, on Father/Daughter Records and have a new album on the horizon. Website • Instagram • Twitter
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Luke Burbank: Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It's going actually really well this week. I had to take a minute to consider. I like to be honest with you at the top of the show, but I can report it's going really well. Are you ready for a little "Station Location Identification Examination"?
Elena Passarello: Well, now I am.
Luke Burbank: Now that you know things are going well for me. (Yeah!) This is the part of the show where I quiz Elena on somewhere in the country where Live Wire is on the radio. She's got to guess what I'm talking about. Now, there's some bird notes in these clues, and I'm thinking that might help you, because you are. You're the biggest bird expert that I know. Now, first thing, the city that we're talking about is actually pretty young. It was only incorporated in 1999, and it is, in fact, spread across 13 islands. (Hmm.) There are some some hard to find birds that like to live in this city or at least pass through the Antilles. Nighthawk, Gray King, Birds, Black Whiskered, Vireo and burrowing owls.
Elena Passarello: Is it a Florida key of some sort?
Luke Burbank: It is the key of Marathon, Florida. Where we're on WKWM. You've done it again. Passarello. So shout out to everybody tuning in down there in marathon. Should we get to the show?
Elena Passarello: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: All right. Take it away!
Elena Passarello: From PRX. It's.....LIVE WIRE!
Elena Passarello: This week, runner and author Lauren Fleshman.
Lauren Fleshman: Sports are built around the male body and male performance norms is that you work harder, you get better, you know you get out what you put in. But for female bodied people, when we go through puberty and our bodies change, we have a different normal.
Elena Passarello: And comedian and writer Joey Clift.
Joey Clift: The Venn diagram of L.A. comedians to pro wrestlers, there's a small amount of bleed over. There's a few wrestlers who do comedy. There's a few comedians who do wrestling.
Elena Passarello: With music from Who is she? 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 across America, including all the way down there in the Florida Keys. We have a really fun and fascinating show in store for you this week. Of course, we asked the Live Wire listeners a question in honor of our guest, Lauren Fleshman, who has just an incredible record setting runner type. We asked, what record would you like to break? And we're going to hear those responses in just a few minutes. First, though, we've got to get to the best news we heard all week. (Best, Best News) This is our little reminder at the top of the show. There is some good news happening out there in the world. You just have to look for it. Elena What is the best news that you've heard all week?
Elena Passarello: Listen to this amazing story from Fauquier, Virginia, where there's a fifth grader named Liam at Pearson Elementary. And a couple of weeks ago, Liam was being a good student and looking through his text book. Their fifth grade class had recently been talking about the rock cycle. Do you remember the rock cycle?
Luke Burbank: That's like when he asks if you can smell what the rock is cooking.
Elena Passarello: Yes, that's exactly right.
Luke Burbank: That they're teaching that in school now. Interesting.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, It's a pro wrestling unit that all fifth graders in America have to go to.
Luke Burbank: Sure, I would actually believe that, but okay.
Elena Passarello: I don't remember the rock cycle, but I remember that there are three different types of rocks, igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary. And each one, I guess, goes through the rock cycle at different times. And Liam was looking through his textbook at the rock cycle part, and he noticed that the entry with the picture for the igneous rock fit the description of the sedimentary rock and vice versa. So the textbook had actually gotten the illustration and the descriptions wrong. So he went and talked to his teacher, Miss Porter. And bless Ms. Porter's heart, she did what I would have done. She was like, Oh, I must have taught it to him wrong.
Luke Burbank: She assumed that she had just misguided the students as opposed to creating super students.
Elena Passarello: Right. Right. She actually was making some of the most amazing fact checker students on the planet. She did a little further research and she confirmed that. No, she taught them right. The textbook had it wrong. And so she called her instructional lead person. They got in touch with the textbook company and the textbook company, Five Ponds Press wrote a handwritten letter back to Liam, thanking him for being so vigilant. And then Liam got shouted out and his school superintendents, basically his equivalent of the Best News at the school district there. It's called Three Great Things. And my favorite part about this story is Miss Porter sort of bragging on Liam. And then she says he is easily one of the smartest students they have and he sees he has no problem pointing out what he sees, something that's wrong. Apparently he doesn't mind correcting her several times.
Luke Burbank: This is put some wind in his sails. I think that hand is going to be permanently up. Tracy Flick style. Yeah. For the rest of the school year.
Elena Passarello: Well, you know, my French textbook in high school said that a picture of Katharine Hepburn was a picture of Audrey Hepburn. And I told my French teacher and she didn't do anything about it. She was like, sit down and do your homework. So I'm just glad that the system is a little more open for these. (Absolutely) little Tracy Flicks.
Luke Burbank: We can get you know, we can get good, accurate information from all kinds of places, including even maybe the students. The best news that I heard this week actually came sort of from last weekend, but I'm including it. I don't even know if it's the best news, but it was maybe the most funny thing that I saw. I don't know if you saw this, Elaina, but, you know, Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live, it's sort of co-hosted by Michael Che and Colin Jost. And it just so happened that last week's episode fell on April Fool's Day. And so Michael Che somehow told the audience when Colin Jost wasn't there yet, to not laugh at his jokes, to not laugh at Colin Jost as jokes as they're about to go on live national television. I want to play you what it sounded like when Colin Jost told a joke. Okay, like: "Trump will Reportedly surrender next week. But his lawyer, Joe Tacopina, who Trump definitely calls Joe Tapioca, said that the president will not be put in handcuffs, though he would consider wearing fake breakaway handcuffs and a Superman t shirt."
Luke Burbank: So it was kind of a tepid response. This is what it sounded like when Michael Che told a joke. "Trump is reportedly being charged with 34 counts of business fraud. Business fraud is also what they call the Trump costume at Spirit Halloween." It's like a torrent of laughter. You can watch Colin Jost just melting on live television. This is the point where Michael Che finally had to explain to Colin Jost what was going on. "And I told him not to laugh at you for everything."
Luke Burbank: Basically the entire rest of the weekend update just was canceled because they were just laughing so hard. All calling jokes could talk about was how traumatized he was by this. He thought his mike wasn't on guard and profusely sweating.
Elena Passarello: I mean, that must be a literal nightmare that someone like him has had in his past. Right.
Luke Burbank: Right. A stress dream. It's certainly a stress dream that I have. And mostly why I'm bringing this up, Elena, is because this is my formal request to you on the show that you never do this to me at a taping of Live Wire because my fragile ego would never recover. Like that feeling of just being out in space as a performer. And you're seeing jokes that, you know, should elicit at least some kind of response. And it's not happening. I mean, again, I hope he didn't break Colin Jost with this, but it was pretty funny.
Elena Passarello: Well, I mean, the one cure for that is to teach young people, because I have dropped so many jokes that have been met with complete crickets chirping, that April Fool's joke would be fine for me.
Luke Burbank: So you're now you're basically immunized against bombing in front of audiences, because sometimes in your role as a college professor, you've had this experience. Except Michael Che didn't tell your students to not laugh.
Elena Passarello: It's just the way that they are or the way that my jokes are. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: That that's the best news, weirdly, that I heard this week. All right. Let's invite our first guest on over to the show. She's one of the most decorated American runners of all time, having won five NCAA championships at Stanford and two national championships. Her debut book, Good for a Girl My Life Running in a Man's World is part memoir, part manifesto regarding the treatment of women in sports, which is something she knows all about. Publishers Weekly calls it a rousing call to action. Take a listen to Lauren Fleshman, recorded at the Holt Center in Eugene, Oregon, right here on Live Wire. Lauren, welcome to the show.
Lauren Fleshman: Thanks for having me.
Luke Burbank: When did you figure out that you were just way faster than like the other kids?
Lauren Fleshman: I just grew up in a neighborhood full of kids and like, all these dead end streets. And we played disorganized sports all the time. And. And I was hard to catch. So I, you know, for a wide range of ages and kids, I was like, I'm pretty good at this. And then I stole a lot of bases in softball. So, yeah, it's always been a source of pride.
Luke Burbank: And you were you write about in the book that your school would for gym class. You'd run the mile like, every week.
Lauren Fleshman: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: By the way, it sounds way more. We were juggling scarves at Daniel Bagley Elementary School, and I was going on in Southern Cal, but, like...
Lauren Fleshman: Yeah, you're probably more coordinated than me then, but I'm faster.
Luke Burbank: Debatable, but like, you were running that mile and were you just beating everybody back then, too?
Lauren Fleshman: I was. I was. And then this one week in eighth grade, after spring break, they would post the results of the fastest times and always had the fastest time. And and. And then there was someone ahead of me. And his name was Rocky. And I had beat him for two straight years. So it didn't make any sense. It was devastating. That's actually what the whole book is about. That's that's the climax right there. Look, I don't want to spoil it.
Luke Burbank: I could imagine that people might note that you went to Stanford, you're this incredible runner, and they might sort of, I will admit I assumed a certain life for you that you had just based on how I perceived you, that I read the book and it was like you really loved Steve Prefontaine because he was like a gritty runner, you know?
Lauren Fleshman: Yeah. I loved his, like, working class vibes. You know, if I could grow a mustache like that, I totally would've.
Luke Burbank: Did you want to be She Fontaine?
Lauren Fleshman: Yeah, I did. My aunt used to call me She Fontaine as a joke, and I pretended to hate it.
Luke Burbank: But, like, I mean, you grew up. Can we talk about the household that you grew up in? A little bit? Like, what did running mean to you?
Lauren Fleshman: Running was a lot of things. I mean, it was. It was a way to be in my body. It was way to feel powerful. It was exploration. Like our cross-country team would go all up and around the mountains of our town. And and so it was I mean, it was really like freedom, friendship, all those kinds of things. But it was also once I became good at it and I plugged into the sports system where these big rewards like scholarships and championships, it was a way for social mobility, class mobility, free college, like really life changing.
Luke Burbank: Well, I mean, the big part of this book is kind of your journey, you know, through college and then into the pros. And you you hit a point where you plateaued. Mm hmm. And that's happens to a lot of elite athletes where you're putting in the same amount of training, maybe even more, and you're just getting a different result. What was that like emotionally, mentally, for you to to have that plateau, period?
Lauren Fleshman: Yeah, it's tough because I think the main example in sports- sports are built around the male body and male performance norms is that you work harder, you get better, you know, you get out what you put in. We have all kinds of refrigerator magnets along those lines. But for female bodied people and we go through puberty and our bodies change, we have a different normal and it involves a plateau and sometimes a little bit of a dip before we can start rising again, adjusted to our new bodies. And and then we peak in our mid-to-late twenties and beyond. But that's not common knowledge. And that was a big motivation for writing this book, is that when female athletes are going through these changes, a lot of times coaches, well-meaning coaches and parents and teammates have them barking up the wrong tree looking for answers like maybe it's something in your head, maybe you just don't care as much anymore. Maybe you're not motivated, maybe there's some problem that and there's really no problem. People just need to be patient and let female body people develop through those years and stay healthy. And the best is yet to come.
Elena Passarello: I learned something from your book that I had never thought of before as a non-athlete is an understatement. But what you're talking about creates this cycle of athletes that female bodied athletes that explode, but they just can't sustain it. And that's kind of the culture of.
Lauren Fleshman: Yeah.
Elena Passarello: Athletes at this upper level.
Lauren Fleshman: Yeah, it's it's pretty ubiquitous across a lot of levels, to be honest. It's like as soon as your body starts to change, our culture views that as a negative in sport. For women, it's like this very exciting time for male athletes. But for women it can be like, Oh, you know, I hope my body changes in a way that still works or that someone's still viewed as successful. And we have this very mistakenly narrow view of what success can look like, what excellence can look like in a female body. And and that leads to a whole outbreak of eating disorders and, you know, mental health problems beyond that. And it's all very preventable. And so I write about this because it's like a very common problem, but it's something that with just a little bit of consciousness raising of really basic stuff, honestly, like periods and boobs really like if we can just kind of all be more aware of these things.
Luke Burbank: I want to I want to ask you a little bit more about that and about your journey and some really interesting things that you write about happening to your body as you were moving through this in a moment. I've got to take a quick break. This is Live Wire. We're talking to Lauren Fleshman. Her latest book is Good for a Girl coming to This Week from the Hult Center in Eugene, Oregon. Back in a moment. Welcome back to Live Wire. This week come to you from the Center for the Performing Arts here in Eugene, Oregon. I'm Luke Burbank. Here with Elena Passarello, we're talking to Lauren Fleshman about her book, Good for a Girl. One of the things that really helped you in your career, you write, was that you just had like a higher pain tolerance and other people. Yeah. And that that went down a little bit at a period of time when you were starting to, you know, lose weight to try to to to sort of get faster.
Lauren Fleshman: Well, yeah. And in distance running in a lot of like these leanness sports people fixate on weight as this the most important thing like they look at this physics formula and they're like C pounds of weight and movement, whatever. And there's so many other things at play, especially in the female body when you you may lose those 3 lbs or whatever, but then your menstrual cycle becomes disrupted. And when you have menstrual dysfunction, then you have this whole host of problems in your body, like we think of the menstrual cycle as like for reproduction and whatever. Like it's it's about so much more than that and that we don't educate people on it. Like most coaches can't even say the word period without a euphemism, so much less know all the things that it does. And so one of the things that menstrual dysfunction causes is a decrease in pain tolerance, a decrease in recovery time, compromised immune function, increased anxiety. I mean, racing is stressful enough if you're increasing your anxiety because of menstrual dysfunction, it's not helping you in the short term or the long term.
Luke Burbank: Well, so then, I mean, what would be a potential solution for this? Because we're talking about running and people want to be the fastest. Yeah. How do you restructure the sport so that people are able to take care of their bodies but still be competitive because people still want to win, right?
Lauren Fleshman: Yeah, they do. And it's tough because the person you're watching winning that everybody's celebrating. You can't tell what's going on underneath the skin. And it takes time for, you know, the bone degradation and the tendon weakening to show up. And so and then by the time that person is struggling with health problems, there's already a new person at the top. Because you do you can always but you can get a short term advantage from rapid weight loss. And that's what's happening. And so it is like a little bit of a tough cycle to break. So I think really it's about education. It's about getting people to truly understand the risks of these behaviors and the law. And most of all, like people, if people knew they'd be compromising their relationship with food and body and food, especially the thing you need to do multiple times a day for the rest of your life. If coaches and teammates, if we were all more aware of the stakes, like the long term stakes of our well-being, I think we would intervene sooner. And intervening and eating disorders sooner is correlated with higher likelihood of recovery. But there's no policies in place right now.
Luke Burbank: Still.
Lauren Fleshman: Still to manage eating disorder recovery. And so you have coaches that don't know what to do or maybe are even exploiting these athletes for a short term benefit and kind of replacing them with the next ones that come along. And that's the situation we're in. So I think we need to have mandatory coaching certifications to coach female bodied people where they're educated on these basics. And I think we need protocols in high school and the NCAA for intervention with eating disorders so that you take the individual choice away from coaches just like we've done with concussions like it used to be like an incident by incident decision. Is this head knock bad enough or can you really get out there because the game's close, like it takes that off the table. Now you have to follow a protocol that's in the best interest of athlete health.
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Lauren Fleshman about her book, Good for a Girl. I was really shocked by a statistic in this book about the way that female athletes in college perceive their own bodies, because these are about as elite as you can get from an athletic standpoint. And it was shocking to me the percentage of them that feel like they need to, quote unquote, lose weight.
Lauren Fleshman: Yeah. I mean, it's over half of these, you know, quote, fittest bodies in the NCAA. Over half feel that there's that their body needs to be changed. And over 90% of those think it's to lose weight. An average of 13 and a half pounds, which is like a leg, really. I mean, it's like it's shocking to think that that is what's living inside people's minds, the static on a day to day basis, not just in their sport, but when they're in class, in the relationships, like you're wandering around your life every day thinking that something's dramatically wrong with you. And that's not obviously just athletes. That's ubiquitous, especially among women in our culture. But we have to you know, we have to do something about it.
Luke Burbank: If some of these things you're talking about were instituted and it meant that times actually like times were slower. Mm hmm. Would that be an okay outcome in your mind?
Lauren Fleshman: Oh.
Luke Burbank: Being healthier just meant we're just not going to run as fast because we don't want to die. Would that be an okay outcome?
Lauren Fleshman: Honestly? Yes, absolutely. 100%. Like, we make choices like that all the time. I mean, I the irony of this is the NCAA was created originally because so many athletes were dying in football when they started having college sports that they created the NCAA to reduce deaths by creating rules that protected athlete health. So that's why they're here. It's become more about like not giving athletes free cars and whatever other things we talk about. But but yeah, we we just need to hold them accountable for what is already in their mission statement to do. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: You went pro after college and you write, it's like very different being a runner or a professional runner than it is being like a professional basketball player or a team sport. Cause it's like you, you are the team and you have to find somebody to endorse you to pay for these trips you've got to take. You're basically betting on yourself. It seems like a fairly solitary existence. What was it like for you?
Lauren Fleshman: Yeah, it was really solitary, actually, and I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore, to be honest. But it was it was like a I missed team a lot because I fell in love with running because of my team. You know, exploration, adventure, companionship. Belonging in college was a similar experience. I mean, there were a lot of difficult moments to that as well, you know, given the subjects we're talking about in this conversation. But that companionship, friendship, being in it together for a common goal is like so hard to be. And and so I missed that. And I feel like I've realized I'm a social exerciser. So people are always surprised, like it's hard for me to even just regularly go for runs as a retired athlete, like to even do any exercise because I'm.
Luke Burbank: Glad that is such a relief.
Lauren Fleshman: Yeah, yeah. Shoot. I'm like I.
Luke Burbank: I think everyone hearing this feels extremely better about their life right now.
Lauren Fleshman: Yeah, I'm like, no better than my five year old. I'm just like, are my friends doing it okay? My friends are doing, I'll do it.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. A lot of your professional track career took place in other countries, and I got the sense that the, you know, the rest of the world thinks about, you know, track and field and running events sort of differently than we do over here. And I don't mean here. Eugene, Oregon, This is its own ecosystem. But you know what I mean? Like, what do you think accounts for that?
Lauren Fleshman: Well, I think there's a lot of history. And also there's like these cities that host their one big event every year, and it's become like a festival environment. People are invested in it. Here in the U.S., we like to move races around like we move our national championships from place to place. It's hard to gain traction. Plus, we we have a really big country, but if you go to a place like Rome, always hosts this big track and field meeting and it's always packed. And there's 14 different countries that have races like this in the Diamond League. And I think people just look forward to it every year, you know, And also they have gambling and alcohol. So that's also.
Luke Burbank: You know, that could really add something to these track events here in Eugene. There is some really real talk in this book, real talk about, you know yourself about your teammates and like injuries that they sustained because they were not menstruating. You talk about your father's alcoholism. What's the response been from the people in the book? Did you get permission from folks that you wrote about?
Lauren Fleshman: The people who I didn't get permission from. I changed names and identifying characteristics for, and I tried to only include stories about people that were imperative to the larger mission of the book to stop these things from happening. And so but yeah, it's been a lot of anxiety still, even with the people who I had permission and I did interviews with when I sent them the book, I was just like, Oh, you know, but these are all people that care like they care deeply. And the thing that I've heard from so many people that I've sent it to, that I talked to early on, like I kind of started to think I imagined it all, you know, And it was so good to read your book because I'm realizing, like, I didn't imagine it. How messed up is that?
Elena Passarello: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: What's harder, writing a book or like running a 5k at a sort of national level because one lasts for like for you like 15 minutes. The 5K. The other is like what, like 15 months, 15 lifetimes.
Lauren Fleshman: Like three years, the 5ks definitely a unique kind of pain. It's like a little bit of like an icicle in the eyeball for 15 straight minutes.
Luke Burbank: But God, I wonder why more people aren't into track with that kind of sales pitch.
Lauren Fleshman: But yeah, writing a book was just like a lot of slow loneliness. And like I said, I am a social person, I'm a social exerciser. It turns out I probably also need a job where I'm around people, so I'm going to do some reevaluating home and approach the next writing project.
Luke Burbank: I know you have a couple of kids and you have a daughter, right? I dare you. Hoping that she becomes a competitive runner.
Lauren Fleshman: What part of my motivation for writing this book is that when I thought about the potential of my daughter becoming an athlete, I felt scared. Even though sports brought me the life I have, which I love and brought me so many great memories. And I'm not alone in that. These teammates that I reached out to and talked to about this with their kids, they had the same fears. But I think that putting this out there and trying to raise consciousness about these issues, having coaches respond, parents respond, athletes respond. It is changing the way people think about like the typical female experience and what we need to make space for in sports. And so I do feel more safe about my daughter participating if that's what she wants to do.
Luke Burbank: Right on. It's a great book about running and life by Lauren Fleshman. It's called Good for a Girl. Lauren, thanks for coming on. Live Wire That was Lauren Fleshman, recorded live at the Hult Center in Eugene, Oregon. Her book, Good for a Girl: My Life Running in a Man's World is out now.
Luke Burbank: Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines offers the most nonstop from the West Coast, including destinations like Hawaii, Palm Springs and San Francisco. And as a member of the OneWorld alliance, Alaska Airlines can connect you to more than 1000 destinations worldwide with their global partners. Learn more at Alaska AirCon.
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire. For each week we ask our listeners a question in honor of Lauren Freshman's incredible accomplishments. We asked our listeners What is a record you would like to break? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What are folks saying?
Elena Passarello: I love this one from Brian. Brian would like to break the record for fastest traveler through TSA. There should be a reward of itself, right?
Luke Burbank: I feel like I might actually be able to qualify, at least for the regionals on that because I travel so much for work that I have just every nanosecond planned out.
Elena Passarello: My dad, Tony, friend of the show that was a traveling salesperson his whole life, and he his goal was always to never stop walking. Once you get out of your car, you walk through TSA, you walk through the thing, you walk through the line and you walk onto the plane.
Luke Burbank: I love it. Just like a cartoon character who's sleepwalking and passing through each barrier unknowingly. That's great. All right. What's another record that one of our listeners wants to break?
Elena Passarello: Oh, this one's charming from Kevin. I would like to break the record for person who makes my wife laugh the most.
Luke Burbank: Aww. So that's a relationship that I think is going to do just fine. I mean, what we don't talk about enough is that most of a relationship is just trying to make the other person laugh. That's like 98% of.
Elena Passarello: It and not in the bad way. Not like by like, you know, laughing at them.
Luke Burbank: At them or being laughed at.
Elena Passarello: Or if somebody is, like, laughing maniacally like, hello, honey have a good night?
Luke Burbank: Ha ha ha.
Elena Passarello: Ha. I don't want that kind of laughter.
Luke Burbank: I know that tells you that you may be married to the Count from Sesame Street.
Elena Passarello: Which actually, I mean, he could get it, so.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, absolutely. Yes. This is the show where we say the Count can get it. Sure. One more record that one of our listeners would love to set.
Elena Passarello: Okay. Here's one from Michael. Michael says, Escape the Pina Colada song by Rupert Holmes. That is the record that Michael would like to break.
Luke Burbank: Okay.
Elena Passarello: That song, if you listen to the lyrics of that song, it is nuts. Two people that don't want to be married to each other anymore. Put a cheating ad in a paper, discovered that they did it to each other and then just laugh it off.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, just walk him. Walk slowly into the sunset, pina coladas in hand. Just. You know what? Just when you're at the karaoke bar and you dial that one up, just sing your little heart out. And let's not focus on the narrative.
Elena Passarello: Right? There's so many songs that are like that.
Luke Burbank: Exactly. All right. Thanks to everyone who sent in a response to our listener question. We've got one for next week's show as well, which we will reveal in just a few minutes. In the meantime, let's get our next guest on over to the program. He's a TV writer and enrolled Cowlitz Indian tribal member. Most recently, he created, wrote and directed the Comedy Central digital series Gone Native, which delves into the weird microaggressions that Native people often deal with and what we all can do to try to cut that stuff out. His award winning short films have also screened everywhere from the Just For Laughs Festival to the Smithsonian Museum. Joey Clift joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. Check this out.
Luke Burbank: You and I were emailing last night, and I believe you said something like, I don't want to make working out my entire personality, but I am emailing you from the treadmill. Can you elaborate on why that was the case?
Joey Clift: Yeah, so I, for the first time in my life, have gotten a personal trainer to get in shape for my first and only professional wrestling match in a few weeks. As you can tell, I'm a very neutral armed weakling.
Luke Burbank: So this is radio. I mean, you could be like Ric Flair for all they know.
Joey Clift: Actually. Everybody listening at work, I'm jacked on seven feet tall.
Luke Burbank: Who are. Wait, who are you wrestling? How did you get, like, involved in this?
Joey Clift: Okay, so I am wrestling three really great wrestlers, Leroy Patterson, Peter Avalon, and Howdy Price. They wrestled for a lot of different TV companies and the reason that I'm wrestling them is that there is a the Venn diagram of L.A. comedians to pro wrestlers. There's a small amount of bleed over. There's a few wrestlers who do comedy. There's a few comedians who do wrestling. And I'm friends with a few of these wrestlers. They know that I'm a huge wrestling dork, and they invited me and a few of my friends to guest on a comedy pro wrestling web series called Being the Elite. And basically they brought us in because one of them was doing a storyline where they lost their hat, they were trying to get their hat back, and they brought me and my friends in as the Hat Boyz, three guys who like hats and our experts about hats. Of course.
Luke Burbank: That's your wrestling back story.
Joey Clift: Yean, that's my wrestling back story. Huge hat enthusiast.
Luke Burbank: I feel like you're going in as an underdog
Joey Clift: Yeah. No, I think I'm going in to win. I'm going. Look, I'm took a personal trainer. I emailed you from the treadmill. I'm trying really hard at this. So, of course, the web series ended with us getting beaten up, No question. And now we want revenge. That's pretty much the the pieces on the table for it.
Luke Burbank: Other than trying to build your body into the beef castle that we here at the Albatros Theater can all see. You've been writing and directing a series of digital shorts for Comedy Central called Gone Native. How did that all come together?
Joey Clift: So the Gone Native came from a few years ago. A few friends of mine were posting on Facebook about a protest against the the Washington DC NFL team, which previously had a name that was a little racist. Okay, a lot racist. And somebody commented on the post saying something to the effect of I just got my DNA test in the mail and it says that I'm like 1/64 Indian and I think the team name is fine. So everybody lay off.
Luke Burbank: Did you find that argument unpersuasive?
Joey Clift: Oh, yeah, I definitely read it. And I was like, Wow, you makes a lot of good points. Good take, bro. And I really wanted to have something to share with this person to, you know, maybe explain to him why what he was saying wasn't the best thing, but the only things that I could really find were like longer think pieces and things that like, I'm not going to convince a random Facebook person to read an eight page think piece about this. So instead I created an animated short called Telling People You're Native American When You're Not Native is Like Telling a Bear You're a Bear When You're Not a Bear. The title is 24 words long, basically a Fiona Apple album title. And, you know, I created that kind of to like, hopefully educate people like that, you know, through jokes and an easy to digest way about, you know, just like micro-aggressions Native folks run into. And you know, I originally made it just to kind of play at a comedy show in Los Angeles. It did really well. So I submitted it for the festival circuit. It did really well there. And then I got connected through a thing called the Yes And Laughter Lab to people at Comedy Central who, you know, really dug it. And they brought me on board to make a bunch of other shorts. And eventually this got native digital series, which is just a slew of shorts about native stuff that annoys me.
Luke Burbank: Like what are some of the other things that you're tackling?
Joey Clift: So one of the shorts is about, you know, non-natives using the term spirit animal calling meetings, powwows and things like that. And the short is called every time you say that something is your spirit animal, you have to give every Native American person, you know, $25. And then we've got another short it's called Dear Legendary Horror Author Stephen King, Instead of Using Indian Burial Grounds in Hour Books, Have You Thought About Using European Burial Grounds? Because Europe's terrifying. Paris is built literally on a mountain of human bone, right?
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Has Stephen King heard about this? Because I feel like you make a pretty compelling argument that he needs to come up with a new trope, right?
Joey Clift: Yeah. I'm not sure if he's heard of it, although I. I do. I look at his Twitter and I feel like he might have sub-tweeted me because he said something about I forget the exact tweet, but it was something to the effect of just like writers should be able to do whatever with no consequence or and I was like, I think you might have watched my video and you might be annoyed.
Luke Burbank: The video where you're asking people to not be casually or maybe not even so casually racist towards Native folks with the kind of things that they say. And there's so many of those things that are ingrained in white culture that we don't even think about what the implications are. It's obviously also being played for comedy. You're I mean, the penalties that you're proposing are pretty extreme, but they're also funny. And I'm watching and I'm like, Oh, that's a good thing to remember, to not say that. And also, wouldn't it be funny if I had to give a house to someone like that would be financially crippling? And then I look in the YouTube comments and people are like, You really think I'm going to give you a house if I say that? Like, I feel like some people are not getting the comedy value of these things. And like, is that I mean, do you feel like that's still accomplishing your mission of at least bringing up the conversation for people? Because I just feel like a lot of folks are missing the point.
Joey Clift: Yeah. I think it's very funny when people think that their YouTube videos that are 2 minutes long and mainly feature a cartoon bear mauling somebody don't tackle all sides of the issue. So, you know, I guess to answer your question, I think that people get defensive whenever they feel in any way challenged or like their worldview might be, you know, being changed a little bit. And I think that for Native folks, there's a statistic by a really good native run nonprofit called Illuminative that learned through a really great study they put on that 87% of U.S. schools don't teach native history after 1900. And, you know, that's something that just like talking to non-Native folks, I definitely feel all the time of, you know, people asking me like if I was born in a teepee, if my reservation had electricity growing up and stuff like that. And, you know, I think that the people that are asking this are doing it from a, you know, not a place of malice, but a place of just ignorance. So I think that for, you know, those like YouTube commenters, there is this feeling of like their worldview is being changed by just the idea of native peoples still existing, being put into their mindset and that being something that they're just annoyed about and crabby about. And I totally get it. I remember when when Pluto was declassified as a planet, I was furious. So, you know, I totally get the idea of like something that you believed might not be, you know, accurate and feeling a little bit of anger about it. But, you know, I also think that if those are the kinds of people that are getting mad at my video, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job. Right. You know?
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Joey Clift. Got a bunch of things going, including the video series. Gone Native now. What are you hoping to accomplish with the series as far as moving the needle? I guess solving racism completely between somewhere between moving the needle and solving racism completely.
Joey Clift: Wow. That's the first time anybody has ever asked me that question. You know, I'm a comedian. I came up with, you know, ideas for videos toward stuff that I'm passionate about. And I made them because I thought they'd be funny. But I think that for me, it's less going into it with like a broad I'm doing this to, you know, shape minds or whatever, and more of a position of like a lot of really cool stuff has come out of it. Like the the bare short that I mentioned a second ago. I've seen, you know, comments from people on TikTok that have said that their kids who are native get bullied at school and for a long time they don't really know how to combat that. And now they just say, hey, you better stop bullying me or you're going to get mauled by a bear. And that I've like equipped just like native kids and like, you know, just like people with, like an easy joke that they can use as ammo and, you know, something that might be like a weird racial microaggression situation. It's like, Oh, yeah, that was not my intention when I just wanted to make a video with a guy getting mauled by a bear over and over again. But like, after the fact, hell yeah. You know.
Luke Burbank: I know that you're also a pretty deep in the world of cats. Oh, and not the musical. Although maybe that also.
Joey Clift: Also the musical.
Elena Passarello: Nice.
Luke Burbank: But do you maintain a Facebook page for celebrity cats or the cats celebrities?
Joey Clift: Yeah, I so I created a Facebook page called the L.A. Underground Cat Network, which is a Facebook page for Los Angeles comedians to share pictures of their cats. It has 15,000 members.
Joey Clift: And it's created two offshoot groups. If if you're wondering if the reason for that is drama in the first group, you are very right.
Luke Burbank: What is the drama? Spill the tea Joey Clift about the what's going on at the main L.A. underground Cat Network Facebook page.
Joey Clift: Okay, so. Oh, man, I've been waiting to vent about this. So the L.A. Underground CaT Network split of 2019 was originally the group created to share cute cat videos. And then it became, honestly, this really useful resource for, like people in the L.A. cat rescue community. And the comedians were like, Why is this useful stuff being posted? And the cat rescue people were like, Why? Why are like pictures of cats being shared? So then it created a group specifically for the cat rescue people to kind of do their thing. And then there were like people that were like, Hey, wait a second, People are posting stuff that isn't just cute cat photos in the main group. They're also posting like funny stories. I just want photos and videos. So then I had to create a third group that was like, This is just photos and videos.
Luke Burbank: Joey Clift Everyone. Yeah. That was Joey Clift right here on Live Wire. You can catch Gone Native on YouTube. And that wrestling match that he was talking about, the Hat Boyz. It happened last week, right, Alina?
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I I'm a big fan of Joey's on social media, so I was so happy to see a picture of the three Hat Boyz making evil poses in front of an Arby's sign. Of course, because it's a big hat. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: If you want to see how that all went down, you can check out Joey's Twitter account where he's been documenting all of it. It's @Joeytainment. All right, This is Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Elena Passarello. We have to take a very quick break, but don't go anywhere because when we come back, we are going to talk to a indie supergroup from Seattle.,Who is She? And we're not only going to hear some great music, but we're going to hear the story on how they got in big trouble at an NHL game because they changed a lyric to be about Jeff Bezos, and it was at an arena named by Amazon.com. So stick around for that. It's coming up in a minute.
Luke Burbank: Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. Before we get to our musical guest, a little preview of next week's show, we are going to be talking to our friend, the writer Jon Mooallem. He writes for The New York Times magazine. His latest book of essays is called Serious Face. It's really incredible. And it explains, among other things, why you might not want to text your friend a picture of a Spanish bullfighter that you saw somewhere because you think it looks exactly like them. This happened to John Mooallem. Plus, we are going to meet chef and bar owner Jenny Nguyen, who opened what might be the world's first sports bar that only plays women's sports on the televisions. It's called the Sports Bra. So let that sink in for a minute. One of the great sports bar names of all time. It just so happens to be right here in Portland, Oregon. Then we're going to hear some music from our friend, the one the only Laura veers. And as always, we're going to looking to get your answers to our listener question. Elena. What are we asking the listeners for next week's show?
Elena Passarello: We want to know. Nay, we have to know what is your dream business? And I like that this is open. So this could be a dream business that you yourself would like to run or a dream business that you'd like to patronize. I'm assuming.
Luke Burbank: Or a dream you had about a business that makes no sense, right? Like, I don't know. I was at an espresso stand with snakes. All right. If you've got an answer, send them in. We're all over. The social media is at Live Wire Radio.
Luke Burbank: All right. This is live Wire from PRX. Our musical guests this week are a Seattle based indie supergroup. They feature members of Taco Kat, Chastity Belt and Lisa Prank. The band started out as a songwriting and friendship project based on missed Connections ads, and they released a debut record called Seattle Gossip. Take a listen to Who Is She? Here on Live Wire, recorded at Town Hall in Seattle, Washington.
Luke Burbank: Hello there. Hi. Hi. Welcome to the show. Thank you for doing this.
Who Is She?: Thanks for having us here. So.
Luke Burbank: Can I get a little bit more explanation of how a musical group based on missed. connection ads works? How did that work in the early days?
Who Is She?: Well, we got obsessed with the missed connection ads and like Crazy and The Stranger and started writing songs that were just based on them. So a lot of them were like, I saw you on the bus and I didn't say hi because I'm too shy.
Luke Burbank: And so at what point did you because it sounds like this started out. You're all in other bands that have great acclaim here in Seattle. When did you realize, Oh, this is also going to be a thing that we're going to do and go out and play shows and put out albums?
Who Is She?: Well, you know, me and Emily are in Takaka and.
Luke Burbank: Right.
Who Is She?: And Julia is in Chastity Belt and I'm in Childbirth with her and Robbin is in Lisa Prank. And it was just fun to write those songs. So we just kept doing it. We did an album and were going to do another album this year.
Luke Burbank: You also got you sort of made your way into the news recently when you were playing a gig at the The Hockey Game, The Kraken Game, and there's this song by Le Tigre. Well, it's my Metro Card was the original version, and they kind of like, Well, can you tell me the story of how you ended up doing your version of that song at the hockey game?
Who Is She?: Well, first of all, I'll just say we're all a little nervous because the last show we played, we got fired. Please don't fire us.
Luke Burbank: I promise you, if they haven't fired me, they're not going to fire you.
Who Is She?: I was on the light rail and I was texting for you about how we should write a version of Le Tigre the like Seattle based one, because, you know, I love my orca card. We all ride public transportation a lot, Shout out to Orca cards. And so we adjusted their song, My Metro card by my metro card to buy my orca card. And in the Le Tigre version, they have a line dissing Giuliani. And we were like, Oh, shoot, we got to update this orca card song to have a local villain. So we changed the line about Giuliani, to be about Jeff Bezos.
Luke Burbank: Which took on a certain resonance because you were playing in climate pledge arena. Yeah. Owned by Amazon or paid for by Amazon. When did it become clear to you that they were not, as they say, super stoked.
Who Is She?: When we were asked to not come back for the next two nights? Well.
Luke Burbank: I feel like it immediately made you heroes to a certain segment of this city and region. So without without further inquisition, could we hear the song banned at Climate Pledge Arena? My Orca card.
[My Orca Card by Who Is She? Plays]
Luke Burbank: That was Who Is She? Here on Live Wire, recorded at Town Hall in Seattle. Their album, Seattle Gossip is available now. All right. That's going to do it for this week's episode of the show. Huge thanks to our guests, Lauren Fleshman, Joey Clift. And who is she? Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather Dee. Michelle is our executive director. Our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Our assistant editor is Trey Hester. Our marketing manager is Paige Thomas. Our production fellow is Tanvi Kumar, and Yasmin Madeon is our intern. Our house band is Ethan Fox, Tucker, Sam Tucker, Al Alves and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer, and Our House Sound is by Neil Blake.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the James F and Marion L Miller Foundation. Live Wire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank member Allie Sale of Portland, Oregon for more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast skedaddle on over to Live Wire Radio Dawg. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thanks for listening and we will see you next week.
Elena Passarello: PRX.
