Ports of Call! Invite you to join us now on another voyage to Ports of Call. Come sail with us in fancy while you sit comfortably by your fireside. Our steamer has just weighed anchor and heads for Peru, our Port of Call. Just below the equator on South America's Pacific coast is Peru, land of the ancient Incas, cradle of one of the world's great civilizations, scene of the blackest treachery in new world history, land of the towering white Andes, and the green inferno of the steaming Amazon jungle. Sailing along the Pacific shores of South America, our steamer swings into the harbor of Call! Peru's principal port. A brief ride of a few minutes brings us to Lima, the capital of Peru, a city of white wall red tile buildings set in the middle of the green Remark Valley, beneath the eternal purple and white of the towering Andes. Here in Lima, during the days of the Spanish reign, was the cultural center of the new world. Here in the city of the kings, already old 300 years ago, was Sebelia transplanted to the western hemisphere. Across its wide streets strode Spanish cavaliers, lace-flounce wrists always close to their thin blades of Toledo steel. Here sat the grim-lipped priests of the western Inquisition. Under the barred windows of thick-walled Baroque palaces, love-sick youths strummed soft guitars to dark-eyed Castilian beauties. Gayety, romance, wealth. Spanish Peru danced light-heartedly through the 17th and 18th centuries, danced on the broken bodies and the crushed souls of a conquered race. The courtly minuet of the Spaniard was a dance macabre for the once-proud Inca. At a time when Europe slumbered in the ignorance of the Dark Ages, the Incas achieved an incredible civilization, as they extended their empire north beyond the equator, south to include Chile, east to the jungles of the Amazon, a territory of more than a million square miles. Without the aid of machinery or beasts of burden, other than a gentle dharma, the Incas built a system of roads eight feet wide throughout the empire. Magnificent palaces, the walls of which were built without mortar, yet constructed so carefully that a knife blade cannot be inserted between the stone block. The first suspension bridge in the world's history, so strong that an army of 12,000 men passed over it. An irrigation canal 12 feet deep and 400 miles long, causing the desert to bloom by the water brought from the snowfields of the Andes, 16,000 feet above sea level. Poetry, similar to the Japanese Tanka in effect, and as lyrical as Keats or Shelley. Drama is tremendous in its climaxes as the Greek tragedies. Government, which operated for centuries upon the fundamental basis of social concept, which is today called a modern experiment in Russia. All these the Incas had, and one thing more. Wealth, untold wealth from the minds of the Sierra. Copper, silver and gold. Gold in fabulous quantities, brought into platters of amazing thinness, worked into magnificent jewelry set with precious stones. Gold, the symbol of their god, the sun. The curse of that other god who called it the root of all evil. The industrious, peaceful Incas knew nothing of that other side of the world where gold was considered not the symbol of god, but of the devil. Knew nothing of Christopher Columbus, nor of the horde of gold seekers who followed him to New Spain. Knew nothing of the plight of Montezuma in Mexico. And nothing of the faith that was in store for them, when in 1532 they hospitably welcomed to their country a little band of Spaniards under Captain Pizarro. Upon his arrival in Peru, Pizarro learned that the Inca Atuafa was but 10 days ride away, and throwing caution to the winds determined to travel into the interior to pay his respects to the emperor, at the same time observing his chances of conquering the land. Unmolested by the natives, Pizarro led his band of 180 soldiers to narrow defiles where an ambuscade would have meant death. Led them up into the high mountain passes, on into the green valley of Cajamarca, where Atuafa was enjoying the baths. Holding within the town, Pizarro sent his lieutenant, Fernando de Soto, ahead to announce his arrival to the Inca. Emperor and adventurer met in the magnificent encampment of the Inca. A comrade emperor bearing the salutations of Captain General Pizarro, soldier of the great king of Spade. You are welcome to our country white and bearded foreigner, and we hope that your stay will be a pleasant one. A captain Pizarro would be privileged if the great emperor would honor him with his company at dinner this evening. We are observing it fast today, but tomorrow if the captain pleases, we will attend him. The captain will be the most happy of men. I shall convey your imperial majesty's message to him, I read your permission and I'm tired. Well, Fernando? Captain Pizarro, it is impossible. Impossible? Why impossible? The man is a bodyguard of a thousand soldiers armed with lances of copper and bows and arrows. I care not for lances of copper. Did you see any gold? See, gold, huge gold buckles, gold plates, gold through dazzle the eyes of the king himself. And did he accept my invitation? For tomorrow he is observing a fast today. But I assure you, Captain Pizarro, your plan is impossible. A small troop will be as nothing against those fighters. You talk with the tongue of a woman, Soto. We came for gold and we will get it. But, of course, tested in Mexico we can do here.  That is just why I dare touch him. Once we make him prisoner, half the battle is won. The people will respect us once we show them that their god is powerless against us. Then we can claim the gold of this land for the king and ourselves. I think it is a full-hearted plan, Captain. You may think what you like, but you will obey my orders. See, Captain. Here is the plan. We place our cannons at opposite sides of the plaza. Hidden in the small side streets will be cavalry and detachment of foot soldiers. At the signal of Santiago and at them, we attack the bodyguard from all sides, kill them and capture the income. But should we be overpowered? We will not be overpowered. These heathens have never seen a horse. They have never heard a cannon or a musket. They will be too frightened to resist. Not so hasty, my son. What is it, Father Valverde? You're forgetting your loss for gold. Our mission is to convert these children to the teachings of the church. That is your duty, not mine, Father. And I insist that I be permitted to perform it.  But Father Valverde, I am here to conquer these lands for the king of Spain. And I am here to save these souls for Almighty God. Very well, Father. You may attempt to convert to here. The following day, a little before sunset, the royal procession of Atualpa entered the gates of the city, unarmed, as evidence of their hospitality and friendliness. The entrance of the Inca was accompanied by more regal pomp than the Spanish adventurers had ever witnessed. A band of menials came first, removing all obstacles, even the smallest sticks and stones from the path of the emperor. Then came the heralds announcing the approach of the Inca. Then the nobles and princes of the royal blood, glittering with gold ornaments and jewels. Finally came the royal palanquin, studded with plates of silver and gold and lined with the feathers of tropical birds. Seated within upon a throne of solid gold was the Inca atualpa, magnificently attired in a rich purple garment of the finest bicuna, wearing a collar studded with huge emeralds. As he approached the Spanish quarters, Father Valverde, crucifix in one hand, Bible in the other, came out to greet him, began without ceremony to acquaint him with the basis of Christianity, the story of Jesus, the doctrine of the Trinity. And Father, my son, understand that my Holy Father, the Pope, has given to the great white king of the land of Spain across the distant sea the right to conquer the lands of this new world and has sent me to convert the natives to the way of the truth and delight. We are here now to accomplish this mission. Captain Pizarro to claim these lands for his king and I, to convert you and your people to the one true faith. My son, walk not further in the darkness and scene of the event. I have shown you the light. Come, follow me, pledge your spirit to Christ and your allegiance to the great king and Holy Roman Emperor Charles of Spain and he will ever after aid and protect you in this life just as Christ Jesus will greet you in the life year after. Enough, I have heard enough. Are you asking me to be the vassal of another? Of Charles the Holy Roman Emperor. I am the greatest prince on earth. I will be vassal to none. But your soul too. Peru is mine. I am the Inca. I am the child of the son.  My God lives here above us in the heavens and watches over his children. I would not exchange a kind and powerful God for one who cannot control his own creatures. Where did you learn these ridiculous things? Here in this book, in the Holy Bible. Let me see it. A holy Bible. It is a book of lies. An illogical trumpery if it teaches what you have said. I want none of it. My son, it is a grieve of sin to desecrate the Bible. The Inca to Alper is above sin. The Inca to Alper is God himself. Go to your Pizarro and tell him and his henchmen to leave my domain at once. And I forbid you to speak of this God of yours to any of my subjects. You have had your turn. Now it is ours. Wait, my son! Wait! Screaming their battle cries, the Spaniards fell upon the Indian host, slaughtering right and left as they struggled toward the litter of the Inca. Stunned by the sudden bedlam of the noise, by the never-before-heard rattle of musketry and roar of cannon, heroically the nobles of the Inca's court defended the person of their lord with their naked breasts. As quickly as they were cut down, new ones took their place. In half an hour it was all over. The tropical twilight quickly deepened to night, drawing a merciful curtain of darkness across a scene of horrible carnage. Ten thousand Indians had been massacred, though not a single Spaniard was so much as wounded. That night, Atahualpa kept his appointment with Pizarro. He dined with the conqueror, not as a welcoming potentate, but as a prisoner, a stunned, uncomprehending prisoner who understood but one thing clearly that his captors coveted his gold. You seem to admire the golden goblet from which you drink white Christian. It is very beautiful. For my freedom, I will pave the floor of this room with gold. What say you? Do you have this great room with gold? Perhaps it is not enough. Very well. I stretch my hand as high as I can above my head. I will fill the room with gold to that height in exchange for my freedom. Accept it, Captain Pizarro. Look, the room is fully 17 feet broad and 22 feet long. Agreed, worthy Inca. When you have filled this room with gold you shall go free. To the farthest parts of his empire Atahualpa sent demands for his ransom. Slowly the porters filed back to Cajamarca bearing their precious burdens. Gold floors were ripped up. Golden cornices pulled off temples. Bases, bowls and goblets were sent. Slowly, week after week, the booty grew. Finally Pizarro melted down the ransom and distributed it among his men. A ransom of 15 million dollars. The highest sum ever paid kidnappers in the history of the world. But Pizarro broke his pledge to Atahualpa. Still the emperor remained imprisoned. Pizarro fearing for the safety of his men where he released. Then came a rumor of the native uprising. Pizarro sent Hernando de Soto to investigate. But the soldier to investigate. But the soldier to investigate. But the soldier to investigate. But the soldier to investigate. But the soldier to investigate. But the soldiers were growing restive. They demanded Atahualpa's life to ensure their own safety. A travesty of a trial is he. A travesty of a trial is he. A travesty of a trial is held presided over by Pizarro and father Valverde in which Atahualpa is accused not only of fomenting a rebellion against the Spaniards but of such irrelevant charges as having more than one wife. The court is quick to reach a verdict and Pizarro himself brings it to the Inca's quarters. Inca at Atahualpa, the court has reached a verdict. Yes, they have found me innocent. They have freed me. No, they have found you guilty. Guilty. And sentenced you to be burned at this stake. Is this the civilization of which you boast to burn an innocent man at this stake? There is one choice. If you will embrace Christianity and be converted, your sentence is to be commuted to death by strangling. A much less painful method.  I can do nothing. You are found guilty. Guilty? But of what? Foughting a rebellion against me and my command. That is not so. Of that I am innocent. When your lieutenant Disoto returns, he will tell you there is no such rebellion. You are also found guilty of immorality. Immorality? What is that? You have more than one wife. But that is the ancient custom of my people. How can you try me for that? And we have found you guilty. Furthermore, the court has found you an improvident ruler and has decided that for the good of the people, you must be put to death so that the people may receive without interference the benefits of civilization under the rule of the king of Spain. But how have I been an improvident ruler? My people have been happy. They have had food, clothes and shelter. Since we have arrived, your people's condition has been deplorable. There is not enough food. Their riches have been removed from their storehouses and treasuries. But only removed that I could pay you for my freedom. In the opinion of the court, it was inconsiderate of you to treat your subject so. I cannot understand. You do not speak clearly.  The court's opinion is final. My people need me, white Christian.  I am innocent. I swear it.  And I will pay you double the ransom. I can do nothing. Tomorrow evening at sundown you will be put to death on the stage. No, no. Don't burn me. It is our custom to burn heretics. However, think it over. The garat is quicker. If you will permit yourself to be baptized, you may die by strangulation. Bewildered, confused, helpless, Otto Alfa at last chose the less painful death. And on the afternoon of August 29th, 1533, he was baptized by Father Valverde as one Otto Alfa. And at sundown of the same day he was executed. And the following day, as Mass is being said over the Spaniards' first South American convert, hard-riding Hernando de Soto returns from his scouting expedition. Capitan Pizzoro! Capitan Pizzoro! What is this I hear? Otto Alfa was executed last night. But why? The court found him guilty of treason against the king of Spain. It was not guilty, Capitan Pizzoro. There was no uprising. The natives are peaceful. I am relieved to hear that. But why? Why didn't you wait for my report? We are safer, Fas. Inco was a great man. And I've been here.  Your remarks are insubordinate, de Soto.  The end sometimes justifies the means. Never when honesty is met with black treachery. We will pay for this, Pizzoro. All of us someday will answer for this hideous deed. The Soto spoke the words of a prophet, for there was not a single member of that cutthroat crew of conquistadores who did not sooner or later meet with a violent death. For the next 200 years, Peru was the mint of the Spanish Empire, sending across the ocean galleon after galleon of gold and silver bars, mined by the conquered and enslaved Incus, whose number during this period was reduced by five million the cruelty and hardships imposed upon them by their captors. But a new era was dawning. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire and Diderot had left their impression on the world. In 1778, the American colonies to the north heeded the voices of these political prophets and dumped English tea into Boston Harbor. In 1789, the Sankulat bourgeoisie of France tore down the Bastille and erected the guillotine. Liberty was a word with a new meaning. South America heard the joyous chorus of freedom from across the seas, heard the multitudes marching to independence, singing Yankee Doodle and Marseillais. One by one, the colonies revolted, proclaimed themselves independent nations, but still in Lima the viceroy of the king of Spain, Rue Supreme, quelling the patriots with the cunning tricks known to the Inquisition. Then from Chile, General San Martín marched at the head of the Liberating Army of the South and in Ecuador, Bolivar, the Liberator, planned his attack from the north. Events moved rapidly. The viceroy fled for his life and on July 28, 1821, General San Martín faces the population of Lima in the Plaza Mayor. From this moment, Peru is free and independent by the will of the people and by the justice of their cause, which God defends. On the islands off the coast of Peru and on the cliffs along her desert shoreline, roost millions of seagulls. For untold centuries, these birds have been manufacturing the basis of Peru's national economy and the source of one of the bitterest wars in the Western Hemisphere. Their product is guano, a fertilizer rich in nitrates. The conquering Spaniards knew nothing of the value of this material, did not realize in their avaricious hunger for gold that these deposits, some of which covered the islands and the cliffs to the depth of 50 feet, would someday yield a fortune beside which their golden loot would seem the small change falling from a child's china bank. Peru first came to know the importance of its guano deposits shortly after she gained their independence. Vast shipments were made to Europe. Here for the digging was to be found material which sold for as high as $100 a ton. The nation went wild. Wealth that could be scraped from the earth's surface. Wealth so prodigious that the citizens were relieved from the payment of taxes. For a score of years, Peru lived on the mortgage income from her guano deposits. It was a lot of contracts given to foreign extractors of the precious stuff. But just as the Andean mines have been gutted by the wastage of exploitation, so the guano deposits diminished. Attacks of 10 thin towels was placed upon the guano. The powerful shippers refused to pay it. Nitrate deposits had been found in Tarapacá, the southernmost province bounding upon Chile. Shrew, the nitric magnets dangled this prize before the ambitious eyes of Chile. Cozy belly were trumped up. Latin American patriotism whipped to a fever heat by the guano capitalists. And in 1879, Chile and Peru went to war, a war which started as a war of the 10 thin towels, and which soon came to be known as the War of the Pacific. From the first, Peru was badly beaten. Antofagasta, the Pacific province of Bolivia, fell in time to the marching beat of Chilean soldiers. Tarapacá was soon occupied. Tacna capitulated. And the last stand of the Peruvian army was made on the Moro of Arica, which stands in the bay of Arica. Here, the badly decimated Peruvian force receives its last orders from Colonel Boliñeci, the gallant commander. Soldiers of Peru, the Chileans have sent me an envoy under a flag of truth. They demand that we surrender. No, we'll never surrender. We'll never surrender. Ah, my comrades, that is what I wanted to hear. That is what I told the Chileans that we would fight to the last cartilage. Hold the flag up high, Manuel, so that the others may see it. That's all very well, but what a way to do. Colonel said we would fight to the last cartilage, but I have but three left, and I have but six. Never surrender to Chile. Here, take my carbon. Use it. That is useless, Manuel. Look, the Chileans have gained the top of the Moro. We must surrender or be cut to pieces. Never. They shall not take the flag of Peru. What are we to do? They are upon us. We are but a handful, Manuel. Give the flag. Let them know that we surrender. Never.  Here, give me the flag, then. I'll signal no one shall disgrace the flag of Peru. Manuel, where are you running? Where you've fallen to the sea and been drowned? What is the matter? I shall not have surrendered the flag. Manuel, come back! Come back! Thus, the great legend of the War of the Pacific, Manuel L. L. Arte, the color sergeant who preferred death in the sea to surrendering his country's flag to the enemy. Thus, the stuff of which Latin American patriotism is made, the dry tinder of hatred which lies dangerously under the hot equatorial sun. The War of the Pacific settled nothing. Chile, victorious, took her nitrate fields in Tarapacá and also the two provinces of Tacna and Arica. And by the terms of the Treaty of Antón, agreed that the population of these two provinces would, at the end of ten years, conduct a plebiscite to determine whether they remain Chilean or return to Peru. But the plebiscite was never held. And for fifty years, the Tacna-Arica question was a running sore in the side of South America's body politic. Only to be solved in 1929 when, after countless discouraging attempts, President Hoover achieved an amicable settlement between the two enemies, whereby Chile was to retain Arica and Peru was to regain Tacna. So, after half a century of ill-feeling, the road was finally opened toward a brighter future for these two neighbors under the equator. Our visit to Peru is drawing to a close. From Lima, we take the railroad across the Andes, climbing tortuously upward, winding through tunnels, crossing deep gorges until our train reaches the highest point on the highest railroad in the world, 16,500 feet above sea level, where it enters a tunnel underneath a mountain which rises thousands of feet further. Down the western slope of the Andes, we roll, passing mining towns constructed of solid mahogany logs dropping to Timberline, on down to the Montana of eastern Peru. Gradually, the flora and fauna change. On this damp, eastern slope of the Andes grow great stands of mahogany, the monkeys chatter from the deep-bind matted jungle, and gay topical birds screech their outrage of the intruder. As we approach the world's greatest river, through groves of rubber trees, we are passing through one of the wildest topical jungles in the world. Finally, the jungle gives way to a bustling modern city, Iquitos, Peru's Atlantic Seaport, a deep-water harbor 2,000 miles into the center of South America. For to Iquitos, one of the world's great rubber ports, come ocean vessels all the way up the Amazon from the Atlantic Ocean, and here we board our steamer, which will take us back home once more. We have enjoyed our visit, Peru, and in the spirit of your famous and splendid hospitality, we say, Hasta la vista. We invite you to come with us again next week at this time, when we journey far from home to another of the world's exotic ports of call.


Welcome to our interview show in which we interview LGBTQ guests who are important contributors to our community. We want to acknowledge that All Things LGBTQ is produced at Orca Media in Montpelier, Vermont, which is unceded Indigenous land. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the All Things LGBTQ interview show. As people who are regular viewers will know, for the past several months, All Things LGBTQ has been promoting an upcoming series of town hall forum that being sponsored jointly by the member organizations of the LGBTQIA Alliance of Vermont and joining us today are two of the people who have been instrumental in putting those forums together. And the first is the director of communication and development, doesn't that sound impressive, of the Pride Center of Vermont. Welcome back, Justin Marsh. Thank you. Well, I think this is actually only the first time I've been here as Justin. I think you're correct because the other two visits might have been in a very well-known persona who we will have to invite back on in the near future. But first I want to start by giving a acknowledgement at the Pride Center of Vermont. If you are not familiar with the services they provide, please go on to their website and Facebook page because they continue to evaluate need and expand the services available to LGBTQ plus Vermonters. But for today, I want to talk with Justin about you and the Pride Center was instrumental in ensuring that these town hall forums happened again this year. Why was it important that the forums happened again? And what is it that the Pride Center was hoping would be the result of the forum? Yeah, so in late 2019, I know that you and Brenda Churchill were instrumental in getting all of the very first town hall series going and I was lucky enough to be a part of that down at the Bennington and Brattleboro sessions. And what was great about seeing that and meeting queer people in those spaces is that we as a statewide organization, the Pride Center of Vermont, we are located in Burlington. Of course, it's very hard to conduct statewide services from one central location, especially when it's in the northern part of the state. So for me, it was just really great to meet folks in those counties and to have conversations with them. And so when I was finished with Pride 2020, which was so different than of course all the other prides, I was actually talking to my therapist and I was like, what am I going to do? I kind of crashed after Pride. And I was like, I just feel like I need something to kind of keep me sustained in this work. And that through our conversation was picking this up and saying, okay, there's no reason why we can't do these town hall forums in the zone that we're in now Zoom. So why don't we just, I'm going to try to go do this. And so what I knew I wanted to do was kind of par-bake the concept. Of course, you and Brenda had done so much work last year. But I wanted to make sure that if I brought this back to folks, that there was enough for people to latch on to. So I worked with a UVM student, Matt Hagberg, and Matt and I conducted this whole outline. We were going to do them all right off the bat. Actually, we would have been done by the time this is airing now, because I was on a fast track to make it November and December. And once I brought it to the group, we realized I was going way too fast. So we slowed it down. We reworked things. And it's just really nice to see a truly collaborative project among all of the organizations. And again, the point being to really connect with folks in all the parts of Vermont. I have this thing. I started at the Pride Center in 2018. And I'm a Long Island County resident. And it was my, I say it probably at least once a week at work. And that's that we really need to work on being statewide. And we need to, there's 13 other counties in the state that need our work and support and services. And we do our damn best trying to get out to them, but we could always do better. So this is, this is part of that. So you've talked about this being a collaborative effort, which is greatly appreciated. Now, could you talk a little bit about this year, obviously because of COVID, it needs to be virtual events. They can, they cannot be in person, but there was also a decision to move away from making them geographically based to issue based. Can you share a little bit about what that conversation was like? And then what are the issues that were decided upon? And how was that decision made? Sure. So firstly, the, the collaborative effort with the LGBTQIA Alliance of Vermont, the main sort of groups that are really working hard on making this come to fruition are out in the open, which is based on in Brattleboro and outright Vermont, which is the youth organization based in Burlington, the Pride Center, and of course, Rainbow umbrella of Central Vermont, which Rachel will get to later. But I just wanted to put that out there that those are the kind of the main players in this. When I brought it to everyone, I had, Matt and I had sort of concocted this very geographically based outline. And we were going to do Chittenden County, and this comes, goes back to my whole, like we need to be in those other counties. So I was thinking very county oriented, making sure that everyone in their little part of this beautiful state had time set aside for them. So that Chittenden County, which is so different than many of the other counties in the state, didn't sort of steal the spotlight. And when we, when we discussed it in the group, we kind of had this idea of, and it was certainly not my idea because I was thinking very county oriented, but someone said, why are we sort of zeroing in on county when in this sort of atmosphere of everything being digital, we for once do not have those physical boundaries of space. We can talk about aging. We can talk about rural queerness in ways that are not tied to where we get our mail. And so I think that that is, was a really, it was smart because we did shift our whole frame of thinking in the planning process. And we threw out that whole idea of everything depends on where you live because a lot of what we were seeing in 2019 was that a lot of the issues that were happening in Bennington were the same issues that were coming up in St. John'sbury.  And I think that what we found is that we can talk about this at a statewide level. And the issues that happen in one community are very apt to be happening in another community because so much of Vermont looks similar. So how did you arrive at what are going to be the actual issues that are going to be the focus of the individual forums? Yeah, I mean, that was quite the process. I mean, of course, as you know, but we, we sort of started with everyone sort of popcorning ideas of what are some items that seem really that are coming up in conversations that we're having throughout the year with community members that seem to be kind of those hot button topics that we need either more support around or more resources or legislative changes, things like that. And so what we, what we ultimately after, you know, a lot of back and forth that we, we landed on six topics. And those topics are health justice, housing, rural queerness, youth, aging, and racial justice. And between January 21st and in late February, we'll be doing all of these once a week and really taking our time and having different facilitators and different participants. You can participate in all of them if you want. But it kind of allows folks to, to really pick and choose, you know, some people are very, very passionate about housing and housing equity and access to housing. And of course, price of housing, right? That's a big one. So they might want to just go to that one, and they may not be in a place to really have a lot to learn or a lot to talk about when it comes to aging or something like that. And so they can really choose where to put their energy. If they really want to go to all of them, which like I do, of course, I mean, I'm not everyone, then they can certainly do that. But then also we decided to do a, like all-encompassing caucus at the end that'll actually be on what is town meeting day here in Vermont. And that's the first Tuesday in March. And we're going to have our own little queer town meeting. It's going to be great where we're going to recap all of those six sessions. So if you don't go to all of them, you can still go to that last one and get kind of up to speed on what was discussed. Okay. So if I wanted to participate and I have an interest in, oh, so what were those, you know, forums again in the days they're happening, you will have a link on the Pride Center site that will let me know the schedule and then connect me with registration information. Yes. We're going to be using PrideVT.org for the town hall as sort of a central hub. That's our, that's the website we use for all things Pride in Vermont, which happens in September. So right now it's kind of just a shell of a website that we were using pretty heavily over the summer. And so we're going to re, rehaul that for the, for the town halls and that will be kind of the central home where you can register for the events. And we're going to, we're going to make sure that folks are, we want the people in the room who we trust and know are part of the community and can add valuable content to the discussion. And so we do want to have a way for folks to register so that not just anyone is allowed access into these meetings because we know how that can happen in the, in this day and age. And so if you have other questions and dates and everything like that, you can go to PrideVT.org for that information or just contact me and I'm glad to talk to you about it. And as you had referenced, part of the conversation is that these forms are intended for LGBTQ plus Vermont. So that, you know, in the organizing, all of the sort of security considerations are being taken into account to ensure that this is a safe space for queer Vermonters to come and talk about the issues that are of importance to them. And I know that all things LGBTQ and rainbow umbrella will also have links to the pridevermont.org site to ensure that people have updated information and access to registration. And with that, I'm going to move to the person who is actually our first interview on all things LGBTQ load those four plus years ago. Please welcome back Rachel Desletes, one of the co-founders of Rainbow Umbrella. Welcome, Rachel. Thank you, Keith. And thank you to Ann and Linda for having both Justin and myself on to talk about the queer town meetings. This is, and it's fun to come back.  That's a good run. Because neither one of us look a day older. No, of course not. We're as youthful and vibrant as ever. So since it's been a while since you've been on, you want to share a little bit about rainbow umbrella. Oh, I do want to talk about rainbow umbrella. I know you do. Go ahead, girlfriend. Okay. So, Keith, I know you know a little bit about this story, which is, you know, when more of us in central Vermont were retiring, we were less interested in traveling, you know, a lot of times it was Burlington, but it could have been anywhere in Vermont to attend social and cultural events.  And then we invited other individuals from particularly central Vermont to get together to see if there was at all number one an interest in planning events, or were we doing it just for ourselves. And then also we wanted to be able to foster our community and also increase our visibility here in central Vermont. So we started inviting people in different towns and almost believe it or not, almost everyone in central Vermont from different towns came to the meeting. We even had some people from Caledonia County. And so we met twice a week, I mean, twice a month, good heavens twice a week, twice a month. And we started to organize social, political and, and then to intellectual events. And they were happening in our backyard, which was really much easier. And this was back in 2015. By easier, I met travel time because a lot of us didn't want to drive in the evening, which was a serious issue. So what's also worth noting about Rainbow Umbrella, unlike some of the other organizations that Justin talked about or mentioned was that we did not have brick and mortar, meaning we did not have a building to operate off. We didn't even have money to be able to sponsor these events. So if you think back in the 60s, and most of us who were part of Rainbow Umbrella lived through those years, it was a lot of grassroots organizing. And that's what Rainbow Umbrella, that's how they organize themselves in organized events. So we relied on members to volunteer their time. And so we function in a very unusual way, especially for 2015. So we didn't, as I mentioned, we didn't operate out of physical space. We relied on donated space since we hadn't applied for a grant and didn't have money. And then when a little money came in from some of the events, we then were able to pay some type of stipend. But some of these places were the usual, you know, the library, they were always welcoming, the senior center, and at times we met in our home. And so the other thing that happened is that since we didn't have any money, we really were relying on using our own money to jumpstart a project. So it was grassroots organizing at its best. And believe it or not, that is still how we operate today. So one of the reasons that the LGBT town for meetings are so important are, you know, first of all, it speaks to our community here in central Vermont because of the way we organized. And it also, it's our beginnings of collective action at a local level. It looks a little bit different now than it did in 2015. But we're still involved in bringing events to our community. And the town meetings are really one of those offerings. So on February 18, Rainbow Umbrella will be facilitating a discussion on aging, which will be one of the six town meetings statewide that Justin mentioned earlier. So that's, I was going to say it's spoken like the true grassroots organizer and activist that I've been working with and growing old with for longer than either of us care to admit. Also, I wanted to do just a brief acknowledgement that all that Rainbow Umbrella has a Facebook page so that people can go in and look at what are the current activities that are being supported because I know there were women's discussion groups, there are book groups that are forming, etc. So you had mentioned that Rainbow Umbrella will be helping to facilitate, you know, the forum on aging. Why a forum on aging? Well, you know, of course, when we first started, we were thinking that we were looking at events and forming some type of membership that would be for folks in retirement age or let's say even 55 and older. So, you know, the aging is, you know, right there the top of our list and what that looks like, because we're looking at some, we want to create something that's a little different than what our parents experienced. So there are a lot of, you know, several reasons why we wanted to have aging as one of our issues for this year's town meeting. And, you know, we live in a time when the aging population is rapidly rising. And this is nothing new, this has been going on for a while. And when this is compounded with a lower birth rate, you know, this could be a little concerning to folks. And so in recent years, the population in the, the rise in aging population has really come into focus. And it's a great concern, especially to economists. So that, and this is not just a U.S. phenomenon, this is, you know, a global issue. I mean, when you look at China and what's happening there, you think that we'd be paying more attention to these issues. But looking at the U.S. numbers, because, you know, in getting ready for today, I've been also, you know, for our town meeting, I wanted the town meeting, I wanted to be a little bit prepared with some numbers. So those of you who are interested in numbers such as myself, you might find this interesting. But in 1950, the percentage of people over the age of 65 was 8% of the total population. Now this is in the U.S. only. By 2020, and that's the year we've just left, which many of us don't regret, that the percentage more than doubled to 16.9%. And that's just in seven years. Now that doesn't sound like a whole lot. But when you look at those who are of the age of minority and those over 65, you're looking at a middle that's being squished. It's, you know, not as big as one would think. So, and I just read the other day that in 2015, the percentage of people over 65 will be 22% of our total population, total population again, in the U.S. So that's almost a quarter of our population. So this does have a serious impact in the workplace, but also in how we think about retirement. I know that when I first started to think about retirement, I was well into my 40s. And in part, that's because I was working in the world of non-profit. And therefore, I wasn't making enough money to think about retirement, let alone save for retirement. So then I started to talk with friends when I retired, that is. And to just have a better sense of was I the only one who wasn't thinking and preparing for retirement. And the overwhelming majority of people that I spoke with said that they just happened to land a job that included some type of retirement package. Essentially, it was sheer luck.  And so it really was incumbent upon us as individuals to be taking more responsibility for what that was going to look like. So now we are living at a time when the average life expectancy in the United States is 79 years. And when you look at the percentage of people living in the U.S., who will be over 65 in 2015, we're looking at 22% of the total U.S. population. And I just read yesterday that the United Nations is projecting that in 2050, there will be 3 million people worldwide who will be 100 years old and over. So that's only 30 years from now. And, you know, that it really exclude any, you know, or many of the developing countries. So again, you know, you can sort of think or understand why economists are concerned that when you look at the age of minority and then anyone over the age of 65, you know, we're living a very small middle. So we do have not only shrinking incomes, but we also are facing a shrinking middle workforce. So I think, you know, I think it's important that, you know, this is we need to move forward and think about this not only for those of us who want to retire or who are retired, but even folks who are, you know, new to the workplace and be thinking about not just now, but also, you know, at least start thinking or talking about what is retirement going to look like, because believe me, when it happens, it's like, it's a little scary.  What are you hoping that people who are participating are going to gain from their participation in the forum? Well, in this age of zoom, I loved what Justin had to say. Yeah, it's bringing us all together.  And one of the things that I love about Vermont is that it has annual town meetings. I used to live in Plainfield and they were the best.  But it doesn't address the issues specific to the queer community. And this is really an important time. You know, it's a great opportunity to really to connect with other queer folks in Vermont, and to also have a place where there's an equal place for us to be able to at the table so that we can talk about specific issues that impact us and have a voice.  So I think that's one of the one of the greatest feature. I mean, certainly everything that Justin mentioned earlier, but the other thing is, is that we're a small state. And although we're a small state, we also are divided by a mountain. So by having these forums and zoom, it allows us to connect with folks from all over, regardless as to where we live. So, you know, we have people living in rural areas, and then we also have people living in urban areas. And these are two very different and distinct, you know, concerns and issues. So we want to be able to look and acknowledge at all the voices and be able to find ways to have people have an option to be able to age in place. And this is a great opportunity for that to happen. And then the usual suspects, you know, we are always looking at, we, you know, the alliance has been very instrumental in bringing things to the legislatures here at the state house. And when we needed, when you, when we were facing, you know, the elections of 2016, and we started thinking about God, we need to protect ourselves, you know, to protect the rights and the the rights and the protections that we had fought for and had won over the years, we didn't want to lose those. And we also wanted to be able to take a position. So we were in a prime, you know, place to be able to fight the bigotry and hatred that was existing and already was growing in numbers. So we wanted to be able to come as one united voice, both at the statewide level and then when it warranted at a national level. And with that, thank you to both Justin and Rachel. I look forward to engaging in some active and inspiring conversation in the town hall forums. Again, we will be listing the connection to the pridevermont.org site where you can get additional information about the actual forms, their dates and registration information, all things LGBTQ and rainbow umbrella on our Facebook pages will have those links as well. So with that, thank you to both of you and I look forward to some interesting conversations. Thanks, Keith. Buddy, I'd like to welcome writer of poetry novels and other interesting forms of writing, which we'll talk about later. Welcome, Celeste Castro to the show. Thank you so much, Linda. How are you doing? Doing pretty good for Friday night. Really? I'm going to first read your bio if that's okay with you so people can get an idea about who you are. So Celeste Castro is an American Mexican owned voices author from small town rural Idaho, where most of her stories take place. She grew up with learning disabilities, though she always kept a journal. When she was a young adult, court ordered volunteer work to help her find her way community outreach. In 2009, she graduated from Seattle University with a master's in public administration. She began writing fiction in 2005. Her writing credits include Homecoming, Bella Books, 2017, Lex Files, Bella Books, 2018, and We've Got the Power, Briss Books, 2018, The Taking, Bella Books, 2019, and Prize Money, Interlude Press, 2021. That's your new book. In addition to fiction, she's a staff writer with Hispanic Dotes, an online magazine for Latinx writers, where she publishes essays and poetry. So that's pretty impressive, I got to say. Thank you. And your new book is coming out in May of 2019. Yep. And what is that about? Well, Prize Money is, I bill it as a rodeo romance. And so it takes place on the summer circuit rodeo. It's about a two time world champion, barrel racing world champion, who meets somebody on the circuit, another character who's an equestrian stunt woman who's fresh off a Hollywood blockbuster. And when her family needs her to come home. And so she's brought home to take her dad's place in the rodeo. It's kind of a family run business, they're bullfighters. And so these two characters meet at the rodeo and it's a chance meeting book. And it's a pure romance, which is a book that I've never written a pure romance before. I've written paranormal, a fantasy. My very first book was a sweet romance, but it had a little bit of a natural disaster in it. So I don't kind of count that as a sweet romance. And so it's got a happy ending and a lot of action, a lot of Wrangler butts, a lot of mentions of Patsy Klein and Dolly Parton and all those sorts of things that go along with the rodeo. I'm really excited about that one. I really love Dolly Parton. Yeah, hope me too. Did you see her Christmas special? I didn't, but I did see a special of hers on, I think it was Netflix. They did like a biography or Oh, cool. That's pretty cool. Yeah, she's an amazing. Yeah, she is. And you work and you do some work with Hispanic Dots. So tell us about that. Is that like an online magazine or? Yeah, it's an online magazine, Hispanic Dots. And I saw their a tweet from them. I guess it's been a year and a half. My first, yeah, been a year and a half since I saw that. And I was kind of look, I wasn't really looking for an outlet for my poetry and essays and things like that. But this seemed like the perfect outlet for that. And so I submitted something to the their art issue, which was could be anything about art. And so I wrote about the art class that I took very first freshman year of college and Mrs. Mason's art 101. And one of the very famous artists, Bosch, and his stuff is just all over the board crazy. And it was the first time that I just kind of saw that. And it kind of tied it back to my college experience and how kind of wild I was took me six years to do college, by the way. And so so they, I submitted it, they accepted it. And then I submitted again the following month. It's every month has a different theme. And they reached out to me Cindy Tovar is the founder and asked if I wanted to join them. And I said, of course, I was so excited about it. And just to have that a place to talk about all things related to my identity and my family, my family's featured a lot in there growing up as a little kid. And my favorite post I did was flash fiction about a memory that I had when I found my grandmother's wig under the sink.  And it's a great big huge beehive wig. And I turned it into a little short story written from the perspective of a little kid who finds it and puts it on. And it's like a time machine.  And so that's kind of, I do some fun things like that with Hispanic Dots. Wow, that's really that. And that must be, that must have been really funny to find. It was funny, I guess that's a word for it looking back now, but you should remember opening, I shouldn't have been snooping. I was opening it and just, oh my God, you know, it's just shocking. Do other people write for this? I mean, is it collective? Yeah, it's right to the right for this group, or is it mostly a group of already people who are already doing it, you know, like a cooperative or collective? Yeah, that's a really great question. So it's anybody that identifies as Latinx can write for it. There's a handful of staff writers. So those are writers that have signed on and are committed to submitting monthly. And then it's open to anybody that wants to guest, they just like guest write. So those are, we get those every now and again, there's some names I recognize that don't submit every month, but maybe, you know, a couple times a year, three times a year. And, and so we just opened it up. We had some staff writers that needed to step away for a little while, and we just added a couple of new staff writers. But you can find all of our bios on Hispanic Dodes website, and then a link to the archive of our work. Very good.  Yeah, rural, I say rural Idaho, because it was pretty darn rural. Caldwell, Idaho, if you ever ever heard of it, I usually say it's by Boise. I want to say like, maybe 12, I'm so bad at like distance, maybe 12 miles from Boise. So it's, it's probably more than that. I don't even know. I'm so bad at that. But hopskipping a jump from the Boise airport, farmland. And so, you know, I remember when we got our first like fast food restaurant, it was a Taco Bell. So that was a big huge deal.  And we, I grew up kind of sheltered. My dad is a preacher. And so, I'm the youngest of four, we're all preachers, kids and everything that goes along the rebellious nature, sneaking out, all those sorts of things I had. So grateful for my older siblings, two older brothers and a sister who kind of helped me navigate and did a lot of partying. And, you know, I didn't really, I didn't really discover who I was until I left to go to college, which was in Washington state. And I think looking back, like I was, I was a big tombo, I'll tell you, people would always say, Oh, you have a really, you know, good looking son there. And you know, and my mom would be like, Oh, that's our daughter. You know, so I looked like, like a baby dyke. I was looking at those pictures, looking back, my friends knew we didn't talk about it. I just don't think we knew how back then. I graduated in 1997, put a little, you know, little insight as to when I grew up. But it just, we were just going to school, just trying to get through trying to fit in and rebel in our own way as kids do that go to Christian school their whole life. And but the friends that I that I had, and I grew up with, know who I am today, and are except me and except my wife. And I guess it kind of, I'm glad that I have them. And I don't know what that would have felt like had I gone to like maybe a public school where there was just a lot more people. But my graduating class was like 32 people. And so it was very small. And your parents were okay when you came up with them and all that? They were after a while. I think my, my dad was the more accepting than my mother was. And a lot of people so I think it would be the other way around. My dad's a preacher and all that. But he lives and breathes acceptance. And he's, he's one of my role models. I write a lot about him in Hispanic Dotson. You know, mothers, we all have mother issues, I have a lot of mother issues, but you know, you only got one mother and she is accepting of me and my wife and you know, came to my wedding and both of them did and we're all, we'll get along now. Not that we didn't get along, but it's just, you know, it's there's there is a little bit of rockiness there for a little while.  So you work and write. So how do you write all these great books and work? That's a really good question. Back before I'm new to Chicago, I've lived here a couple of years back when I started writing, I lived in Seattle. I had kind of a weird schedule where I worked for four hours and then I at the University of Washington. And then I worked at a farmer's market. And so I had a period of time where I worked part time during the year. And so that was really easy to make time for my writing. But then when it was farmer's season, I don't know when I did that. I think I did it on the weekends and like we didn't do a lot on the weekends. And now I can remember some conversations my wife said, Are you writing this weekend? Because I really like to go wine tasting. So I think I just kind of fitted in where I could. And this past year, 2019 was when we moved to Chicago. And I was lucky enough to take that whole year off to get us settled in our new apartment. And so I wrote all year. And I actually wrote two full length novels. One of them was prize money and then another one. And so I feel like I did a lot then. And I'm finding now that I have a working again, I'm finding it really hard to find time for it. And I don't know if it's because I'm doing actual work from home and then like, Okay, I'm done. And you know, I get my other computer and pull it out. And it's like, Oh, another screen type of thing. It's actually been kind of a challenge for me. And I don't think I'm alone in that. And so you're on zoom for work then. And yeah, yeah, it is green day and night like that. Yeah, it has been feel like you really need a break from that. So, so when were you married? 2016. Yeah, in Chicago, it was in October. And the Chicago Cubs were in the World Series. And so the Chicago was just crazy and fun and, you know, very, just electric in the feel of it. And so we plan that we plan for the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series on our wedding, not really, but so that was kind of cool. Yeah. Anne and I, she got her a PhD at University of Madison in Madison, Wisconsin, and we used to go to Chicago a lot.  And I also like Seattle too. It's an interesting city, although it's gotten pretty expensive by Yeah, it really has. So, did you find that it was easy or hard to write with learning disabilities? Do you find it gave you some advantages or disadvantages? It had to overcome? You know, I think that I've never been short of imagination, which looking at my journal collection, I save them all. That's pretty clear. I think the thing that's been really difficult is the grammar and the sentence structure, you know, I took English 25, 025, which is the English you need to get into college. I took that a number of times before I was able to get into the class that counted towards, you know, college credits. And I took that one three times. And I think that it just that part of learning like the structure has been, I'm feeling that now going through edits and how to set things up. And I do beta reading for other authors. And I can see clearly like, they're very, oh, I grew up writing, you know, and I started writing in third grade. And this is so and so is English class. And you know, I never really had that because it always felt like not a chore, but like this thing that I had to overcome. But the imagination is there. And I like to hold on to that because when I get like that draft back from the editor, that's like the stories there, the sentence structure, that's another story, you know, and so but but that's okay, because I think, I think sometimes that can be fixed and that can be learned, you know, and which I'm learning right now. But I guess growing up, never read a lot, never did formal writing a lot, but did have an active imagination. And why romance?  So why that one? Well, I, I just happened to, I found, I got a Kindle, and I was like, wow, I can get books immediately. So that kind of piqued my, my reading a few years ago and just started reading so much. I read a lot of Stephen King when I was growing up, I really liked that and that mystery and horror. And I really don't know how I ended up finding lesbian romance, but it was like this beam of gracious, glorious light, you know, that I found this really cool genre and read Found Jerry Hill and read most of her work and learned about all the different authors writing in that genre. And I guess I really like it, lesbian romance. I, in terms of my own writing, I kind of bill myself as lesbian themed fiction because I'm kind of branching out to other types of stories, not just romance, but that's kind of where I got my start and the kind of books that I like to read. And the characters, I know you said they were based in Idaho, around your hometown. Are any of them based on people that you actually know? Or, I mean, I know you can't probably say, oh yeah, that's my friend Alice, but, but it's kind of based on your life there and the interactions with people. Yeah, I wouldn't say, I think what's based in Idaho is more the setting. So the physical landscape, what it feels like to live there. And I have a really deep sense and connection with the landscape and in the cornfields and the, and the stone fruit and the hops and the vineyards and the beautiful mountains. And I connected a lot with nature growing up and fishing and being outside. And so that's really where I'm, where I'm coming from when I write books that are set in Idaho. The characters are like what I envision it could be like there. It's no secret that it's a very conservative part of the United States of America. And so I kind of populating the state of Idaho with more lesbians one book at a time. So that's kind of my secret agenda. But in terms of if these characters are based on anybody, not really. They're kind of just, they're just there. And I guess I know how to give them the background of what it's like to live there and grow up there and be, and be something, be something in terms of what they do as a profession. But yeah, and I guess the experiences of a lot of them are set in nature, you know, like prize money is, is set on in the rodeo scene. Lex viles is set on nature preserve. And so that's kind of that's that's a correlation. And for my last question, I'm just going to ask you who are your influences? Who did you who do you really like? I mean, it could be anybody or, you know, like you felt like helped you along, whether personally or reading or in any way. I would say I'm going to say Jerry Hill because that's when I got it into my brain that like, I want to try writing a story. And so she's a big influence on pushing me to actually put something on paper. And I also want I think a lot of the influences and support that I have right now come from a group of individuals that beta read my work and have helped me be just helped me craft my stories that they're there to bounce ideas off of a couple of them come from Bella books, which is taken shepherd and Kate Haddock strong, who I met through through Bella and through Twitter. And I'm so grateful for their their friendships and also to have them to be able to bounce ideas off we read each other's work, we explore all sorts of things. So that that has really given me a lot of confidence and I know that they see have seen me grow as a writer and I've seen them grow grow as well. I also want to recognize, I guess I do have a English teacher that helped me, Mrs. Pritchard, who was the third time I took English 101 and I finally passed it. And so I don't know what she did, but I guess she was just very patient and helped me help me pass it. And it's like, Oh, I got that done. And so little, little did I know that I would continue to write and do it for fun versus for college credit. Does she know? No, I don't know. I she might still be at Boise State. Maybe she's retired by now. Well, that's that's interesting. So why don't you tell us your books that are out now and maybe just a little bit about what they're about. And we will have it up for people to be able to go to your website and order books and to see more about you. So just briefly, if you don't mind, yes, the three books you have. And I'll have you one again when your new book comes. It'll be very exciting. Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so talk about the books now. Yeah, just just a brief little thing.  Okay. Okay, well, the first one is called Homecoming. It's one of those where somebody comes home, they've been avoiding home for a very long time, and they find love there, set in Idaho. And the next one is Lex Files, which is a paranormal romance. And actually, this one is is inspired from a lot of different things.  But that that's kind of where I drew the inspiration for that one. And the taking is it's a portal, kind of a book of portal fantasy. The main character steals an amulet and it transports her to another realm. And she learns that she has powers that she didn't know about.  It's one of I'm envisioning three of them, I got the second one plotted out in my head, just got to put it to paper. But so that one, those three are available. And then really excited for prize money coming out in 2021, my rodeo romance and also very excited to work with a new publisher interlude press. And they have been extremely supportive and I'm really happy with the move that I made. I also want to plug a couple of other things. I am involved in an anthology with a couple of other writers, a couple of them I mentioned, taken Shepherd and Caged Strong with Bella books, it's wedding themed, it's coming out in June, I believe of next year. And so I have a penny dreadful included in that one. So it's not quite a romance, but it's a penny dreadful. And then the other one, another anthology, this one is with Bold Strokes books. And it's called In Our Words, a career stories from black indigenous and people of color. So I wrote a book, a short story called Pale Moon Rising. It's kind of about a cryptid and some bird, people that I don't even know what they're called, but they like research birds, I guess bird, bird researchers. But it's about the Puchen, which it's kind of like a vampire, it's kind of along the lines of like, you know, Bigfoot and Swamp Thing. And so cryptids. And so I'm really excited about those like a lot coming out next year. So I'm going to be very popular. And we're looking forward for these being out in the world. Well, you are very prolific and very exciting to have you on the show. So we'll have you back. And thank you so much for coming. It's been a wonderful interview. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks to all things LGBTQ. Yay. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you in two weeks. But in the meantime, resist.


ThinkTek Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. Welcome all back to ThinkTek Hawaii's human-humane architecture here from Honolulu, our capital in our sometimes-in-parrel paradise. And recently, it's full forces of nature, hurricanes. We're approaching Olivia, which is on the edge of being a hurricane, but our folks on the east coast heading the Carolinas is way more severe. That's Florence, category five hurricane. So I have my recent guest on the show, Chris Ford, who is heading there mourning the death of his father. So Chris, please stay safe out there. And since this show on this Tuesday falls on 9-11, we cannot not remember what has happened 17 years ago, which is an event where more human forces were involved. And that's the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. So this being an architectural show in about Hawaii, I was sort of struggling to find the right way to deal with that. And slide number one, please, up. I went to our most commercial bookstore, which is Elamuana. And I'm sorry to say we have lost our architectural chapter, and we got merged with arts and photography. And at the very bottom left, you see what is left. And one of the books was one World Trade Center, which is not exactly the replacement building because the two footprints got left and made into a memorial, but the tower next door, which you see at the top left. But many, including me, think that this tower doesn't have the same level of innovation, which the original one had. So I don't want to talk about that one. And I found something that gets close, I think very close, because the architect Minoru Yamazaki built two buildings on the island, and one actually shortly before the World Trade Centers, which were built in 70 and 72. So we're talking about a building he built in 68. And it was looking for the most appropriate post-occupancy evaluator. And I found him an almost emerging, ambitiously emerging practitioner, Joey Valenti. And so Joey, welcome on the show. And you are remotely on the show because you're known, I think, to Kauai. And some of the shows are featured here on the top right through your Albezia project. And you're currently traveling on that related wood innovation brand around the islands. And you're chasing, or the hurricane is chasing you and trying to get your way out. So thank you for taking your time, actually currently at when the audience here is wind. This is in the windy, easy breezy Kona Airport on the big island. So welcome, Joey. Thank you, Martin. And I'll try to block the wind as best I can. Thank you very much. And so again, an update on your project will happen probably with my fellow host at the head start of that thing. We want to talk about, and I collage this in a way that I'm saying maybe this building or this part of the building in the middle of that page here might have been an inspiration for that building. And let's go to the next slide and basically check out. I'm almost to say, you know, this is where you currently are. This is somewhere out in the woods. But where is this exactly, Joey? So this is actually on the 1350 Alamoana. So the above the parking garage podium. And it's a very nicely laid out swimming pool, barbecue amenities, fitness center. Yeah. And I made a reference to the recent show with the Soto Brown, which we call re-archineering. So this is sort of in the interface between architecture and landscapes. Late number two shows what you just explained. Next slide, please. That is basically the pool, it's kind of camouflaged behind the sort of circular hedge. Next slide, number four is nice walkways meandering through this very sort of jungly landscape. And you know, the architecture almost sort of being an integral part. And next picture, number five is an outdoor gathering space right in the building and in the park under the building, I should say. So but the way to actually get into the building is the next slide here. And this is approaching, you already said, the name of the building is simply its postal address that's very understated, very humble. It doesn't have a fancy Hawaiian nice name or how they do it today, a theme name. This is very simply dry cut, typical for the sort of understated mid-century, just naming it with a number of the building for 1315 Alamoana Boulevard.  So I thought this is a nice pair of two vintage sort of symbols of their time matching each other. So let's go into the building and next slide. Where are we there? Joey? This is the lobby, the front lobby entrance as you walk into the building. As you can see here, right, it's what kind of features do you see and you guys are proud of? I think a key feature that speaks throughout the design is the natural ventilation. So you can see the levered system above the entry and exit doors. Yeah, let's turn around sort of 45 degrees. This picture, this is looking into the lobby, reminds me very much of these glorious American days of mid-century. This reminds me of the Emelco or Standard Oil Building in Chicago, Edward DeRail Stone, which we have a building on campus by stone that we will do the next show about. And so this is very sort of classy, yet understated. It's not to try to bling and overdo it like in the lobbies of these days. It's very subtle and humble and elegant, but yet very impressive, I have to say. And we have known each other before from working at school together, but when I was checking out the building on my own, I got as far as the doorman, the security guy, and he was suspicious of this guy checking out the building maybe even before, because of the tragic background of Yamazaki buildings having become victims of attacks. And you saved me and helped me out because you were coming out with your partner and okay that and say this guy is okay, you can let him roam and actually all the pictures we're seeing here, I was able to take thanks to you. So let's check out the building. Let's go up the elevator here next picture and see we're here on a typical floor plan and I pulled this from the website from a realtor, including the text. And it's almost like they feel a little bad when they say this is a more traditional design building compared to its super luxury neighbors. And we want to point out in the show that that's nothing to be ashamed of, that's something to be proud of. I put in the North era, which is very important to fully appreciate and understand the building. As we can see it's a double loaded corridor, so it isn't the ideal with a single loaded corridor that we love the most. But it's open to the Malka end of the hallway and you know this picture I took of that little feature where the floor plan is narrowing, it's sort of echoing some of the details on the exterior that we're going to get to in a little bit. And why don't you walk us through a sort of a typical unit and with that let's go to the next slide, slide number 10. Okay, so that last image you saw was the third floor, I believe as you would walk out and there are units on that on that bottom level, but it takes you out to that grassy night that you had showed earlier. And then what you're seeing in the following image is a typical unit. So it has the original kitchen, which is a semi enclosed space and my my renovated so that that kitchen has been opened up and we have a peninsula once you change some things in the wall. And speaking of experience, if we turn around now 180 degrees, we're looking inside out. Next picture, please. And now that that takes you to the outside line, each unit is equipped with a nice space that has I think 100 and something square feet of exterior space. And that seems very much like an outdoor living room, like a perfect lanai. And next picture, number 12 sort of shows that this element is sort of does multiple things at the same time, the sort of convexing out allows you to stand at its most, you know, outside, and it's almost like you're flying, but then this sort of concaving in towards your neighbors, the dividing slab avoids that you can actually sort of peek around into your neighbor's unit. So it's very clever to design and it also gives this sort of very rectangularity of the building a pep and a spice of of of sexy curves, right? Mm hmm. And so let's go back in next slide and explain a little bit sort of the the extended layout of the of the units. So this looks like a patient through a unit where they've opened up that space between one of the bedrooms. And if you look at that open door on the left, the previous image of outside lanai, you have this open living floor plan that's adjacent to the kitchen. And then in this specific unit, you have a partition of opening that has allowed a much larger space between the unit and the bedroom. And we have to say, although we see that nasty machine out on the lanai, which is sort of not supposed to be there, which is a single, you know, AC unit, but they were actually designed to be work without AC. We're talking 1968. And so AC wasn't as dominant and predominant yet. And the building was designed in a way to actually naturally ventilate itself sort of by climatically air conditioning itself. And you told me that, you know, for sure, the original owners, you know, many of them have always been doing that are still doing it. And we're hoping that through the show, we can encourage more to do it because that's sort of a USP, something specific that all these new towers, they're designed in a way you can't do this anymore, right? So that is not a disadvantage in the sort of re sort of appreciation of natural ventilation and of biochlamatic design. This might be a classic to that degree. And I want to point out this, what you explained to the right, it's a very clever setup because you see this sort of set of two windows and then you see this closet. And, you know, this is something you would never find in modern buildings where it's all about the view, which is a little absurd because the more you know, buildings you build, the less view you have. But they always go about the view. So they end up being nothing but glass and you get blasted. And here he puts a closet, you know, towards the view. And why did he do that? We could jump to the next next image. Yeah. You can actually see the vertical fins that are exactly. Thank you for teaching us biochlamatic design one on one buildings facing east and west. The shading device has to be vertical versus if you're facing south, it has to be horizontal and north. You don't need anything. And that's building is demonstrating that pretty cleverly here. And since it's south, east and northwest, you need a little bit of both. And so these horizontal overhangs do a little bit. At certain times of the day and mainly and majorly the vertical ones. So zooming out next picture again, hopefully now people watching the show look at the building differently. This isn't just a formalist approach. This is a formalist approach. And so the architecture has a biochlamatic genetic code that is basically making up an experience. And I allow myself again with your project going on, you're going along the same lines.  So I've been a resident. So you probably the genetic code was sort of seeping into your system. And you're living it and jump to the next picture, which is another biochlamatic aspect of the building that is doing really well. We're on 16 exactly. We are now looking at the we're looking at the entirety of the building. And I put in the the north arrow again, because I wanted to point out the macro aspect of climate, right? So this building, this building is is running Maoka Makai. So it is not blocking the predominant winds. They are created that way and go that way, which unfortunately reference to other shows here on the on the bottom right, the symphony at the top, which is becomes a microwave and then the new affordable tower and Kapiolani Boulevard. They both violate that very important simple rule of buildings having to run Maoka Makai so you don't block the urban fabric. And when everyone puts that building blocking the wind, you don't get any wind anymore. So these early masters because they're biochlamatic masters, they just knew that. And obviously, then with the through the introduction of oil, we afforded ourselves to basically unlearn that, which is sort of unfortunate. So let's move on to the next slide, because this building is also a product of something we're returning to because I know that you're working with a great team of multiple disciplines. And so you're sort of undoing the sort of pretty fatal development of architects. Star architecture where the architect is the mastermind and the other ones are minions. And here, one of the creators of the building was a legendary engineer, Dr. Alfred Yee.  I had to miss that, unfortunately, because I was in Germany over the time. So the next slide, please, I had a chance to meet him once before he then passed away that long ago. And he was involved in all these marvels. You see East-West Center, IBM building, Kahala Hilton, Arizona Memorial, Frank Fazel building. You name them all. And you see another one at the very top that we want to point out. This is his other project, which you want to point out at the very end. So next picture is I got an appointment with Alfred Yee. And he was looking at a building that we're doing in my tree texture class, Primitivo 1. And next picture is, again, extending that sort of team building, basically integrated project delivery. We call that in the discipline. We have a bunch of gentlemen here, Howard Wick, my host fellow, Socrates Baratacos from the Honolulu Fire Department, and Scott Wilson, AIA. And we get less campers on the right side. And let's jump to less, because he, next picture, here we are. And an inherent sort of inspiration for the building are his 20s that we're using. And so was Alamoana Boulevard. These closet boxes pretty much have been prefabricated elements that had been craned in. So they were pouring the floor slabs, and then craning in these. So very innovative also in its making of its architecture. And next picture is, you can see our design attribute or an evolution of 1315 Alamoana Boulevard by a climatic easy breezy, obviously pushing it to an even more extreme level. And next picture that they would appear almost like more than natural organisms in the landscape here, polemically placed, on the Alamoana Mall could be the proletarian people, power tower hosting all the low paid service people who are working in the mall. And they don't have to truck themselves out to the West and drive back in. They can stay where they basically are. So let's keep on driving Alamoana Boulevard going west in the next picture. And that shows us how you approach the building now these days. This is the more recent development next to it that used to be the seers in an open parking lot for decades. And recently, McNaughton and Kobayashi Group built this high residential development. And moving on to the next picture is driving by, passing the building and looking back. And you see something that they currently do to the building. What is that, Joey? So it's undergoing renovation on the exterior. You can see the stripes they've actually begun painting. But the initial work they did was spalling repair on the individual lanais and repainting the entire unit. So there are days of this, I think, over the next several months. Before I go any further, I was tapped on the last question. So I got a little distracted. But that was my five minute mark. I have maybe one or two minutes left to kind of wrap up before I head into the airport. All right. Well, thanks for staying with us for so long, especially under these circumstances here. So I appreciate it. So you said the justification for the color within the building board association was what? It was mentioned. I asked the GM and the design of the building. But I'm not sure on where that information was. Yeah. And this is being private investigator. It's probably the second to last question when you had to go through security.  But we were saying before the show, doesn't really matter because color is like makeup. And you can take makeup off and put it back on. And yellow seems to be the color of these days. Because the neighboring building on this side next to the round one has yellow on it. And also the new Kobayashi-McNaughton has yellow. So probably they thought everyone wears yellow. So we got to wear yellow, too, right? But we were saying maybe in the original days it was just baton-bru because these were the times. And you can sandblast that off in clear-coated at any time. But we were saying what we appreciate is that versus that previous beige washing all over the building, leaving the floor slept beige and only making these infill boxes, which are actually the closet boxes, is actually making this tectonic element of plugging in more visible. So we want to give them that. Appreciate that. The next slide is, again, from Alamoana Beach Park looking. And you see it amongst these pretty hideously hermetic, big monsters that are doing everything different than Alamoana Boulevard basically does it. So we want to encourage people to see it as a really well-aged, very sexy, mid-aged lady that is looking as good as she always did all these years. And the next picture is two of our previous guests here, Tropical Tourism guests Suzanne and Tropical Tutoring Expert Bill having dinner at one of the Nordstrom restaurants and facing Alamoana Boulevard. This side hasn't been completed in painting. And there you go. It's this sort of very classy, mid-century building that no one has to feel ashamed of. In fact, when you learn about the building, you think that is actually the coolest building. And we obviously, people who know us, we don't mean this literally, but also figuratively. So we hope people sort of appreciate or re-appreciate the building today as much as they have in the past, because the next and second to last page, which we already promised, is having there's an event because a Wi-Fi of all turns half a century. And the celebration was supposed to be at the end of this week, but it's got canceled due to Olivia as your original itinerary sort of hopping the island in the mission of your wood innovation had to be rearranged. So you're on your way back because you were supposed to be in Maui, and Maui is unfortunately most likely gonna be hit the hardest. So everything has to be rescheduled. But again, thanks for having been with us. But this picture here shows, this is one of the early episodes of the original Wi-Fi of all. And you can see, as we pointed out in the show about architects, Wi-Fi, oh, the architecture of this pioneering era wasn't just generic background, like in the current one. Oh, now we hear the winds blow. Hopefully you're still on the ground and not flying away. And so again, they were very proudly basically celebrating that building that they thought of being very innovative and unique and pioneering. And so again, we just wanna keep that in mind. And by having understood the building, thanks to you're explaining it to us, I think we're gonna appreciate the building even more. That gets us to the end of the show. The last picture here is again, we have not only one building, but we actually have two buildings by this very famous to be memorized today because of the special event architect. And the other one is at the very bottom left. I inserted that into the Time Magazine cover that he got way back. And this is Queen Emma Gardens. And Queen Emma Gardens is a little bit different. It was built four years earlier than this one here in 64. And it also had a little bit more of a social approach. And with that, it's probably even more an inspiration for your project that you're doing and what we're doing. So we're gonna talk about that. But we also wish, especially our houseless neighbors and fellows on the island to basically stay, especially safe and sound in these hours and days of nature's full forces. So Joey, thank you very much for your time. Much appreciated. Have safe travels. Excellent, thanks so much Martin. I appreciate you having me. All right, so thank you Joey. All right, so see you next week for another episode of Human-Human Architecture with the Soto Brown. It's gonna be called the Built Rainbow, Superficiality and Surface of the Architecture of UH Minoa. So be excited about that one. And until then, please stay as sexy as 1315 Elamona Boulevard and safe and sound. Bye bye.


One of my favorite quotes is that if nothing changes, nothing changes. So today, we're going to talk about the one thing you need to start improving your mental health. So make sure that you stay tuned. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And I wanted to make this video because first and foremost, I'm so, so grateful for everybody who subscribed to my channel. Like it is at over 2600 and I'm like, right? There's so many people who are interested in learning more about their brain, their mind, their mental health and all that kind of stuff. So thank you so much. But along with this growth, I've been getting a lot more messages. I've been getting emails and things like that. I also have been replying to a lot of comments. And I wanted to make this video because I ask one question all the time. All the time I ask one question when people come to me talking about their mental health and ask me what they should do. And we're going to be covering something really, really important. So if you know somebody struggling with their mental health, you're definitely going to want to share this video with them. Because when I talk to people, when I work with people, I work with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who have mental health issues. Like when I'm talking to them, I ask them, I'm like, what are you doing for your mental health?  Like, there is a really good reason why I start off every video by saying we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution.  And it's all just focusing on the problem. And I'm like, what good is this? Now, don't get me wrong. It's good to find people that you can relate to, but like, we got to start talking about the solutions so that one thing that you need in order to improve your mental health is willingness. That is it. Willingness.  Ask yourself that question. Like, I can't stress enough. Like, I empathize. I empathize so, so much.  And for so long, I was unwilling to do anything about it. I've done other videos on an external locus of control versus an internal locus of control. And when I finally looked at it and said, you know what? I need to start taking responsibility for my mental health and I need to do something about it. Like that's when my willingness started to come out, right? And I was just so tired of being miserable. I was so tired of being sad and anxious and angry all the time. I was just so tired of all this stuff. So I became willing to change. But the willingness to change comes with action. There's this fun little riddle that I like when they talk about there's three birds sitting on a wire and one of them makes a decision to fly away. How many birds are left? Three birds making a decision, right? It doesn't mean jack unless you're willing to do something about it. Unless you're willing to take this action. So a lot of people ask me like, how do I do it? How do I get through this? It's like, I put in a lot of work through a variety of different ways. A lot of you have been watching my videos lately. I've done a few videos about how meditation greatly helps me. And I see so many people, so, so many people who are completely unwilling to do it. And I get it. There's a lot of misconceptions. Some people don't understand meditation or how it helps. Like something that helped me out so much was when I quit questioning everything. When people were giving me suggestions and I just did it, I was like, huh, that actually worked. Like what the heck, right? But we get so stubborn and we fall victim to our own beliefs and our own thoughts and our own ideas. But I can't stress enough. Like we cannot trust the thing that is causing the problem. So we need these outside sources to start helping us and guiding us and giving us suggestions. So the first thing I really hope that when I'm offering you suggestions with my videos, I really hope you at least try some of them. I know a lot of you do out there, right? But I will say this. Like I am extremely empathetic to people struggling with mental illness. That's why I made this channel. But I am never going to be the person who jumps in and joins your pity party. And that sounds, that sounds kind of rough. But like now that you guys are getting to know me a little bit better, like this is how I work. Like I will sit there.  I will talk to you about everything. But there comes a point where I'm like, okay, that was the problem. What's the solution? So I want you to ask yourself, like, do you have willingness? Do you have willingness to change? Do you have willingness to get better? Do you have willingness to put action forth? Right? So there's a lot of different ways to do this. Yesterday I did a video about the Huddle app. Are you willing to download that app and hop on and see if it's something that helps you? Are you willing to download a meditation app? Try it for five to 10 minutes a day. Are you willing to do that? I something I tell my clients all the time when they come in my office and they're just listening to me all the things that they're not willing to do. Here's my advice that I give everybody and I'll let you in on this little secret. Make this list, make a list of everything that you're not willing to do. All right. And then on the other side of that list, make a list of everything you are willing to do. Okay. Rip that thing in half. Get rid of the list of everything you're not willing to do and hyper focus on the things that you are willing to do. The reason why I suggest this to people is because our brains have this negative bias and we focus on that negative. But when you take that list and purely focus on the things that you're willing to do, you're going to start to see a lot more changes with your mental health. Now, something else. Like I want to build up this, this big community and I try my best to reply to all of you and answer you all the time. But I have the humility to admit that I don't have all the answers. I have some of the answers, but not all of the answers, which is why I'm so, so grateful that BetterHelp online therapy actually reached out to me and offered to provide my audience with affordable online therapy. So I have been redirecting some people there. So if you're interested, if you're willing to make a change, like please check out BetterHelp. There's a link in the description. I'll also pin a comment to it, but I have friends who have signed up for it. I know other people who use it. I've looked into it as well and researched all about it. Like I would not promote anything on my channel that I didn't think was helpful. The things I love about BetterHelp is first off, it's online, right? I know a lot of people struggle with depression and anxiety. They don't even want to leave their house, right? You can do it from your phone. Okay. Now, one of the cool things about doing it from your phone is, is that you can either text message with your therapist. You can also do video chat calls. You can also do phone calls, but they also have group therapy sessions that you can get involved with. They are licensed professionals. So they're able to walk you through different types of therapeutic techniques that are proven to improve your mental health. So this is a great way to get that support. The next thing, the reason why BetterHelp is so great too, is that it's very, very affordable. They also have a sliding scale. So if you make less money, you won't have to pay as much. Like you go through this whole online form. So just have some willingness to research some of these things that I'm offering you. Like I said, you can check down in the link, just walk through the process. Like you're not signing up for anything. Just see, just look at it. Like, are you willing to even click on a link and do a little bit of research? But one of the best things you can do for yourself is start getting therapy. So yeah, like I said, BetterHelp is extremely affordable. If you have any questions about it, like please ask them down in the comments below. If you are, if you are already doing things, like this is something I tell people to do all the time. If you're already doing things for your mental health, like, let me know. If they're not working, let me know. Because then I'm able to kind of dissect it and see, okay, well, we've tried this, we tried this, we tried this, but have you tried this? All right. So if you're already trying things like therapy or meditation or medications or things like that, if you're already trying those things and you still find yourself struggling a lot, feel free to leave comments. I'll be in there answering all your questions and stuff like that. All right. But anyways, thanks so much for watching. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up.  Make sure you click that little round subscribe button. And if you got a minute, you want to check out some other videos on my channel, you can click or tap on one of those thumbnails right there. All right. So again, thank you so much for watching.  And I'll see you next time.


table at this point with two gold medals. Antigua up there in second with the single gold medal coming from Manic Francis Bahamas. They have two medals for their own Trinidad and Tobago also with two medals and St. Kitts and Neves Grenada. They have one medal each silver for St. Kitts and Neves and the Grenada. They have one bronze.


The second principle has to do with different potentials. So it would be really great to think kind of like my fair lady or, you know, anybody can become anything, but there's a reality check there. We are born, you're born with the best genes your parents can pass down to you, right? And so based on what you inherit genetically, those things can be potentiated by your environment. So we know that, you know, not everybody can become everything. Different people and there are different gifts, you know, are going to contribute to our society in different ways. So each individual's brain is differently prepared to learn different tasks, and this is thanks to what is inherited by the genes, but also what occurs in your environment, right? So learning capacities are shaped by the context of learning, by prior learning experiences, by your personal choice, by your biology and genetic makeup, and the pre and perinatal events that happen to you. So what your parents did to you or didn't do to you and your early childhood years does have an influence, does impact to a certain extent what you are able to do then at speed you're able to do things in a classroom setting. Now that is not to say that people can't always get better. You can have these two parents who are world champion tennis players and the kid just might not have any interest, background experience, and feel, you know, too much pressure. Maybe he won't be that great tennis star. Maybe he doesn't have the opportunity to play so much or maybe he's got other interests where he's putting his energy. So you can be born genetically with a predisposition towards something and that can never be potentiated due to what happens in your environment, but the opposite is also true. You can be born with maybe average potential, but you're in such a rich environment that it just brings out the best in what you're able to do. So we know this really strange and important balance of nature and nurture comes into play here. But all of these point to the idea that we are born with different potentials and we are able to maximize those potentials based on what can occur in our environments. This is going to be a celebrate as far as teaching is concerned because here's where teaching really makes a difference. I always tell teachers it's really something I would never measure your worth as a teacher by how well your best students do because they're going to do well with, without, or in spite of you.  That is how I would measure a great teacher. And this has implications, you know, in our teaching practice. What does this mean if people have different types of potentials? What does this mean about differentiation? What does this mean about inclusion and education? It really gives us pause and actually makes us want to celebrate the fact that we have such human variability in our classrooms. So different kids are going to have different potentials, but the key thing that we have to remember, especially as teachers, is that independent of the level that a student enters, everybody can grow, right? So you might have a couple guys entering at different levels, but all of them with rehearsal, practice, training, all of them can improve. So we know that boy genius can grow just as, you know, somebody with a lower potential in a certain area can also grow. They grow with practice and rehearsal. So we have to believe in students' ability to improve, but we also have to accept the fact that not everybody is going to reach the same achievement levels at the same time and in the same way and based on the same teaching methodologies.