This is Startup Storefront. Hollywood does not treat all filmmakers equally. Despite being a critically acclaimed director, Fanny Grande funded extremely difficult to find funding for her new movies. The major studios saw Latino movies as a niche market with very little broad appeal. That's why Fanny and her husband, Nelson Grande, founded Avenida Productions, a movie studio in the heart of LA. They're providing equal opportunity to filmmakers to fund, film and distribute their next big hit. In this episode, we spoke with both Nelson and Fanny Grande about why crowdfunding campaigns fail. Why Fanny is the top crowdfunding coach for creatives across the country and why they created their own streaming service. And thank you to Catfootware for sponsoring this episode. They're a premier shoe company that empowers builders and doers to reframe the world to create something more meaningful. And on that note, grab your popcorn and please take a seat. The movie will begin shortly. All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to the founders of Avenida Productions. Thank you guys for joining. Either one of you can take this, explain a little bit about the company. What do you guys do? Yeah, thanks. We are a non-traditional movie studio and our mission is to democratize access to Hollywood specifically for underrepresented communities. And the way that we do that is by providing solutions for funding, production and distribution. What made you aware of the problem that you're trying to solve? Were you guys in Hollywood? Were you trying to become actors yourselves? What was the thing where you were like, okay, this is a real problem? Well, both Nelson and I are actors. We started acting. I actually grew up in Venezuela. I've been acting my whole life. Were you born in Venezuela? I was born in the U.S., but I grew up in Venezuela. Okay. I'm from Peru. I was born in Peru. Oh, yay! South America! So when I moved to the U.S., you know, the situation in Venezuela was getting really bad. So my parents are like, we're out of here. So we went to the U.S. and I was so excited because it was gonna be closer to Hollywood. You know? Did you come right to California? I moved to Denver, Colorado to go to university. So closer to Hollywood, but not quite. Yeah, well to me it was like the same country. I didn't realize how big it was. We moved to Massachusetts and I still don't know why. Yes. So we ended up in Denver, which by itself was a huge culture shock from the Caribbean to there. But when I was in college, I wouldn't get cast in any of the college plays and I'd be like, why? I don't understand. Even like the local stuff. Yeah. So the dean of the college pretty much said, well, you know, people are not gonna, she literally said, people are not gonna believe you can play these roles because I'm a Latina. You should go to the Latino theater company in town.  I'm so backwards. It's backwards. So, you know, I did join the Latino theater company in town and I met a community of people that, you know, felt excluded. I did have one professor in college that said, listen, you have to just write your own stuff. So when I was in college, I started writing plays and then I wrote my first short film. Well, as soon as I graduated, I moved to LA and obviously the issues that I was facing in LA were a lot bigger here. Right? Every Latino actor and creator that I met, writers, directors, we're facing discrimination when it came to Hollywood. And the few roles that were available or are still available are usually negative stereotypes, you know? And I'm like, I don't want my community represented this way, especially because I come from Latin America, like we have lawyers and teachers and, you know, we're all Latino. You mean you don't import them from the U.S.? I don't have them. So I was like, wait, I'm pretty sure we have them in this country too. And obviously we do, right? Yeah, it's not like California's view of a Latina. There's a lot of diversity in what that means. Exactly, but not in media. And it's, you know, to this day, if you turn on the TV, we're usually the criminals or something like that, or the props. So I decided to keep creating films and to cast my friends, actually I cast Nelson in one of them. Yeah, nice. One of the first films we got, 15, 16 years ago. More like 20, but sure. All right. So that's how we met. Yeah. And, you know, I kept making these short films and winning awards and like major festivals like South by Southwest, but I still could not get a representation as a filmmaker or as a filmmaker. So you won South by Southwest? Yes. And I still could not. And no one was still, No! I mean, people should be lining up to... That's what I'm saying. When you wonder why or when you ask them why, are they honest with you or are they kind of like, look, you're, I don't even, the way I don't even know if they're like, maybe you're just a niche product, niche market, and it's just not big enough. That's what they think of it. We're niche, we only speak Spanish. You know, we're 20% of the population. Like we've been here forever. We're not just new immigrants and even new immigrants, eventually you wanna see themselves represented, you know? So a lot of people say, well, it's cause you gotta, you have to film your first feature length film. That's why you're not getting ahead. I was like, oh my gosh. Okay. The time I was a single model too. So the solution is make a movie? Yeah. Like a full... Yeah, I'm like, how am I gonna... There's always one more step. Yeah, there's always one more step. Oh, that's what they would say. So I'm like, okay. Okay, so I wrote a feature film and then I started pitching it to studios, production companies, et cetera, et cetera, with my resume of all these awards. And they're like, well, why is it in English? Why is it not said in East LA?   I was like, we're speaking English right now. Like we're a huge portion of the population. We don't all fit in East LA. Like I wanna tell a story about an American family that just happens to be a Latino family, you know? So I just could not get a green lit. So I heard of something called crowdfunding. I didn't know what that was at the time. This was 10 years ago. So I went to the community and I said, okay, everybody, I'm gonna make a movie that's gonna represent us in a positive light. No stereotypes, right? So a lot of people from across the country gave me a little bit of money. And it was awesome because I raised enough money to make a film. How much did you raise? It wasn't that much. It was about 50K, right? To make a feature film. A feature because that's like. She was doing budget. Oh yeah. That is, yeah. Well, I had to have more fundraisers after that. But the beautiful thing about this process was that I actually filmed it in Texas in a border town. And people had seen the crowdfunding campaign on Facebook and social media. So a lot of people showed up. So I didn't have to pay for one extra. I didn't have to pay for any locations. That helps a lot. My picture cards. So that money went really, somebody even said, hey, I have a crop duster. This is before drones. So they showed up on set with their crop duster and your camera man in the back of their truck. That's literally what happened. And my DP was like, okay. So he flew and I had aerial shots in my first feature, which was unheard of back then, you know? And the movie came out really beautiful because he was a labor of love. What's the name of the movie? It's called Homebound. Homebound. You can still watch it. Yeah. But then nobody would buy it. Like there's no distribution. They were like, well, there's no celebrities. I'm like, okay, I can't afford, we have two JLo and Sofia Bergara. They're not gonna do my movie. I'm trying to make celebrities. So I went back to the community because by this time, some of many people were invested in this movie, right? I went back to the community and I said, okay, this is the situation. So people started requesting the film at their local movie theater. Now it was really beautiful. Really nice grassroots movie. Yes, so I toured the whole country and that's how I finally sold the film. I sold it to two companies actually and it's still going strong. Like the movie's still going eight years later. And, you know, other filmmakers started seeing what I was doing and they're like, how'd you do that? You know, especially Latino filmmakers, right? So I started sort of like, at the time I was part of the board for Nosotros, which is the oldest nonprofit for Latino Hollywood. And it was founded by Ricardo Montalban. So I had access to so many filmmakers and so I started helping them with their projects as a hobby kind of because I had, you know, had to work, I had two kids that was doing my own thing. And at the time, Nelson and I, even though we've known each other for a very long time, he saw me coaching people and helping raise all this money. And he was like, babe, what are you doing? This is a business. Yeah, I saw how she was hustling. And I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. You know, there's a lot of money moving through this here. I was like, we need to capture this. And it's, you know, it's a combination of a perfect business, but on top of that, doing something that's helpful and aligned with the passion of what she's been doing for several years.  And he came from business. So I was like, no, I don't want to do this. I don't want to charge people because this is like a social service I'm doing. And he's like, you don't understand, you can have it both. You don't have to have five jobs and do that. You can actually have a business with a social cause. And you know, because that's where he comes from. So he brought all that. And because I trusted his experience, I was like, okay, let's do it. Yeah, I mean, it was great because we started off and within a month, I had already quit my job. Okay, what were you doing before this? So we were both actually... I mean, we have many, many different jobs. Primary jobs, you know, as an artist, you know, you have a million different jobs. But we were actually both working for a mutual friend and colleague as directors reps for directors for commercials. So that's actually where we learned that we work well together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was actually pretty vital in our relationship overall. And then once you realize like you could monetize, like what is the first step in doing that? And so is it just setting up entity and then like taking a fee? Yeah, so what we started off with was because, you know, the biggest need is funding. You know, there are a million, million, million great amazing stories and projects out there on paper. But without the funding, none of it goes anywhere. So crowdfunding was our biggest first service. To date, we've raised millions and millions of dollars for how many hundreds of projects now. And then is it on Kickstarter? Like, what do you... Yeah. We started using other people's platforms, but as of February, we launched our own. Oh, nice. Congratulations, what's it called? At South by Southwest, we launched it. It's called Support Our Story. And is it just Latinos or have you guys branched out? It's for anybody, but I will say most people that use it are members of underrepresented communities. We're all about diversity and inclusion. That is our niche, that's our fight. That's what we thrive. And we're very proud of this platform because we just launched, we already raised close to half a million dollars for projects. The success rate is 96% compared to the other platforms. And what we did was, you know, because I was coaching people how to crowdfund, we sort of took that knowledge and we put it into the platform.  On their crowdfunding. Yeah, on their actual crowdfunding platform. Because it's a real hustle. Well, a lot of people don't realize it. It's not just like, put it out there and let the social media do the work. It's like, you need to be front and center. You actually have to campaign. That's why it's called campaign. And that's the thing behind it. The number one reason crowdfunding campaigns fail is because of lack of information and guidance. On top of that, there's an abundance of information online because there's different several types of crowdfunding. You have equity crowdfunding and then you have product crowdfunding and then medical bills and all of these other things. But what we do is we focus specifically on artists. And artists crowdfunding, which is for reward space crowdfunding, you know, you don't get equity, you just get incentives, is very, very different than any of the other types of campaigning. So when we focus specifically on the creators and we provide them with this coaching, it's a game changer. We're raising what, four times the amount of the competing platforms. And you think that's why? Because you've sort of used solely for the failure. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're looking at the data. We're looking at the data again this morning. We're always on top of it, looking at what's actually the driving force behind it. And it is the information. And we have anonymous feedback from our campaigning clients. And it's all about the coaching. And the information. So what's the playbook that you've set up? Because like we've talked to a lot of founders who have maybe done a one-off crowdfunding and like that takes a lot of effort. But for you both, having done this so many times and specifically for artists, is there like a set playbook that you go by and that you coach them through? Like, okay, you've got to feature this in your video. You've got to do this amount of posts about it. Like, you know, talk us through that. You know, I'm the top crowdfunding coach for creatives in the country. So I sort of just took everything. Legend. Yes. Let's go. Kind of out of necessity, right? I didn't know this was going to be a skill. Yeah, sure. We've just gotten funded in the beginning. None of this would have been necessary. But things don't work out so that you can figure stuff out. So I did notice that certain things worked for everybody. Those are the things that we added to the platform. But that being said, we do have a lot of coaching in the platform that not everybody gets. So you're not going to get the same coaching as you are. Why not? Because it's triggered by where you are in your campaign process. So some people are like, oh, they really planned it well and they raised, you know, 50% of their goal on the first day and then that's it, it stops, right? So the coaching for them is different than somebody who's doing it steadily and, you know, wins at the end. So we have the technology that we created triggers depending on where you are, depending on your... So every step. Yeah, there's several points of recognition. Do you have to do with the, you know, ton of different types of metrics? We also have live coaches. So a lot of times when people get stuck or they just want to talk to somebody, they can actually talk to somebody for an hour, 30 minutes. It makes a huge difference on their campaign. The best one I've ever seen and, you know, just a small data point is this person kept raising, raising, raising and they were like, if I get to within 10% of my goal all we're like a bear costume. Yeah, we do a lot of that. And so somebody, you know, and this was years ago. We have to paint their hair, their face. Some people shave their heads. Not women, they had like, we had a client that had shaved his beard for years. So it's like, I promise you, if you post it, you're gonna shave. Once you get to $20,000, people are gonna give, especially your family. Boom, he got it. It's amazing that kind of spectacle works. We're gonna do that with Nick. We're gonna shave his head. But you gotta be like, you gotta be, you gotta be game. You gotta be like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna have fun, because people- It's the conviction that people respond to. Exactly, and the mission of your project. Okay, what are you doing with this project that's gonna transform the way your community is portrayed? At the end of the day, that's really what fuels people. So then once they have the money, that's how they meet the goal and then they're out to like make the movie what happens then, how are you guys involved? Phase two of the pipeline here. A lot of our clients are like, I have all this money, I can't afford any place. Yeah, so that's why we've created our studio. That's why you have your own studio. We have our studio, standing sets. And it's close by, right? Yeah, it's just south of Echo Park. It's called Filipino town, so it's under Beverly. I tell people it's next to the, it's close to the Tommy's out there, the original one. That's usually a landmark most people recognize. Yeah, they're from LA, absolutely. Because again, most of these communities and creators don't have access to these type of facilities, we wanted to incentivize and give them access to the place. So we put this place together and the cool thing about it is that we thought of all the amenities. We have, you know, hair and makeup room, changing rooms, makeup stations, production office. We just had a dedicated fire line brought in for remote directing if needed. Just, we pretty much put together everything we wished we had. Yeah, you put it in there. We put it in there for creators. With standing sets, we have equipment.  You have a chapel, too, right? Yeah, yeah, a chapel. And a jail cell. People tell us, oh man, I could do my whole thing. Right, yeah. People start adjusting their stories around, like, what's everything that's there, it's great. It's cool because we've seen it dressed up in so many different ways already and people bringing their own creative looks to it. It's really cool. And it's just fun to see the different looks that the sets have. I'll say people walk into it and cry because they don't think they have access to a place like that.  Like, it's really like, wow, okay, so our passion really is helping people's dreams come true and we're just doing what we can. Okay, two things here, right? So I'm a real estate developer. In doing that, I meet with entrepreneurs and to some extent, I'm like literally building their dreams. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of pressure to doing that. It's a lot.  It's a yes and no, right? It is, it's a yes and no because listen. You're comfortable with it. Business, yeah, business. We signed up for this. Listen, Hollywood's a tough industry.  And top of that, you know, being an entrepreneur in that industry is another thing. But I think that the reward has been just so astronomically fulfilling. People have come to us and said like, I've been trying to make this movie for 10 years and within one year of contacting you guys. My movies on Netflix or whatever, you know? Yeah, that's powerful. So do you guys help them with that too? So you get- If they want, yeah. Okay, explain that part to me. So once we have it made and we want to get it into distribution. So you know how I told you like at the beginning, people started requesting my film at the local movie theater? Well, that platform that I used is no longer around so we launched our own. Which is like, you need the solution? We got it. So we have partnerships with movie theaters and filmmakers can do one-off screenings as long as they pre-sell enough tickets to cover the cost of the screening. Okay. And then- How much is that? How much is the screening typically? Depending on the theater. Sometimes a matter of selling, you know, 60 tickets, 70 tickets, we'll cover the fee. And then on top of that what we just- Is that like two grand? Like- It depends on the region or our nation. Yeah, if you're going downtown L.A. or outside of L.A. or depending whatever, you know, city we're in- The whole market is 500 bucks, you know. But some- But here's obviously 3,000. So it'll be like 500 to 5,000. 500 to a couple of grand, it's more common. But it doesn't cost the filmmaker anything. They're just using their social media and the coaching we give them. And then by the end of the year we're launching Avenida TV. She's going to be- By the end of this year. By the end of this year. Wow. Let's go, what is it? American Latino platform? American Latino network, yeah. Nice. Congratulations. And why? Is that a fast channel? Or what do they call those? Is that what that is? It's a streaming like- Okay. Like one of those. So we're already approved on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku, iOS devices in Android. And people listening, it's like an app they can just download. Yeah, no, yeah. Smart TV, boom. Yes. Okay. You can be on your smart TV or on your computer. It will be. It will be. How long has that been in the works? For a long time. I can imagine. Because all these projects that have been created over the six years, many of them have not been able to be so old, the same experience that I had. Because all the times, oh, where are your celebrities? Like you can't afford a celebrity at this level. Or- Do you ever talk to these celebrities and are they willing to have a conversation and just say like, look, play ball. Just we don't have the money, but like- Oh yeah. Like John Leguzan was that client of ours. He's done two crowdfunding campaigns. So the celebrities we do work with are the ones who want to tell their stories their own way. They want to like- Right, they want to E.P.A. Well, it's like the Latin history for morons. I mean, that was his story in a very unique way. Yeah, and he did that. I don't know if you saw the campaign. Phenomics. It's like a comic book. And that got picked up by a huge publisher. And I think his goal is to turn that into like, he wants like Latino superheroes out there, you know? Yeah, he goes to, so in San Diego, there's a place called Barrio Logan and in Barrio Logan, they do Comic Con, but they do it their way. They call it Chicano Con at Border X. Yeah, Border, yeah. That's where we had their meet and greet. The meet and greet with John Donner. Yeah, for the campaign we were at Border X. So we brought Border X to the city of Belle. I know. That's our development project. David, so much. Yeah. That our chat of year is something else. Really, really, really. And his wife has brujas. Yeah, that's really cool. But that concept is, you know, it's, so we went to an event where I met the founder of Comic Con. And so he went through how he got started and for him it was really, it was a really crazy story to think about today, but the story basically is something in the effect of, he was a weird kid, weird in quotes in that, in the society then where he wanted to dress up as his favorite superheroes. He connected with them, but he was weird. And then by putting himself out there in the world, he realized there was other quote unquote weird people like him. And then he was like, let's all meet and be weird together. And this little seed turned into Comic Con and it was really small at the beginning and then it grew and then Disney acquires Marvel and now Marvel movies are being made at a rapid clip with a lot of funding. And all of a sudden this turns into an empire. And for him it was no more than just, he just wanted to be weird with his friends that were also weird. That's it. And so when I think about Chicano Con, I'm like, here we are again. It's the same exact thing, right? It's people little by little by little, getting donated comic books. But why does Chicano Con exist? Because it's really hard for our creators to have a platform of Comic Con. So it's on a response to, all right, we wanna also participate. The thing is Latinos buy one in four movie tickets. We consume the most media. We are almost 20% of the population. We only get about 5% of roles and they're mostly negative stereotypes. Behind the scenes we get about 2% of roles. And what if we were the seventh largest economy? Yeah, if we were our own country, we'd be the seventh largest economy in the world. So what we're doing is smart because there's a whole community that doesn't have representation and we're gonna fill that gap. And that's what we're doing. Even with beer, I remember just in the small way, right? So it's like, we're bringing this Latino brewery to a 98% Latino community in Bell. And here's the coolest part for me. So it's like, that's cool enough. But the coolest part was then there was a kid who ended up working there as like a beer tender. Latino kid, all of a sudden he's like, oh, they're gonna teach me how to make beer. I'd never even thought of that. And now he's literally, he works for George Lopez at his brewery as the master brewer. And it's like, you asked that kid five years before that brewery was there, if he'd ever been in beer or ever been working at a bar, he'd been like, maybe I'll work at a bar as like a bar back, but never like a master brewer, you know? And it changes life, changes kids' life. Creating opportunities in your community and showing them what's possible. It's just the exposure. It's the exposure. We have a lot of interns. So we have internship programs where we partner with local high schools and colleges. And we've had kids come through and one of them decided, cause you know, we just build our sets. And he was helping us with the props, like removing the labels and designing the labels and stuff because you can't show actual brands.  Oh my gosh, wants to make, I wanna cry. You know, for somebody to be like, this is it? This is it for me. You know, it's like, wow. And why shouldn't we? Like it's such a large industry that we should participate in. Especially here in LA when there's so many Latinos here. With the majority. You gotta try to keep us out to keep us out. Yeah, it's gonna be a conscious decision. And so then from your perspective, just in terms of like getting the distribution, what's the hard part with the networks? What are they not understanding? What is the fight that you guys are always fighting? You know, number one, I feel like they just don't value us, number one. Cause we're consuming so much already. I feel like the mentality is like, if it's not broke, why fix it? What does it say, right? So in a perfect world, you view it like the Latinos should vote with their eyeballs and by doing that, they should only watch or they should really like be more aware, I guess of what they watch. That's interesting. I hope if every Latino TV or the majority of Latino TVs is portrayed as the criminal. Like that's gonna affect how we're perceived as a community. But to me, most importantly is our kids, right? If all you see on TV or the movies is somebody that looks like you who's always committing a crime or something, you know? Or who's not from this or American, like we're American too, you know? We're always the other. We're always portrayed as the other. So that is what we want to transform. That's what we're working to change because it affects how our kids, what you just said. If you see it, you can be it, right? Yeah, it's a huge impact on it. And I'll give you a very vulnerable share from myself. I grew up wanting and trying as a kid to be white. Like to me, even within the culture, the Latino culture, a lot of it's like, be like the white people or things like that, things that are said. So for a kid to feel like he isn't, to be aware that he isn't enough and he's considered an other is, I mean, it's traumatizing. I didn't get to actually understand the impact of it. I'm gonna say to like my late 20s, you know? This is something that I've actually had to like undo in myself and realize that I had self-worth and that I was capable of doing things. And so to be able to give kids a different, a different, you know, just a different experience. And it's already happening. Listen, it's starting to happen. I agree with that. I mean, the same thing. I grew up, so we moved from Peru to Massachusetts and we moved into this neighborhood that was like a third of third of third. It was like the most diverse place on the planet. Oh, wow. It was crazy. The difference was all the Latinos, they were Puerto Rican.  Oh, yeah. And I was like, oh. Like in LA, we're all Mexican. You're all Mexican. I'm a Mexican. Yeah, I don't care. What part of Mexico is that? I bring it over to the globe because there's no Google. So I go to the globe and I'd be like, I'm from right here, Peru. And they're like, oh, how'd you get here? You know, they're like blown away. And I'm like, there's Puerto Rico. Yeah, I was like, Puerto Rico's over here. Do you see how these things aren't the same? But they didn't get it. And so I just got bucketed into this thing. But I think media has a lot to do with that. Oh, 100%.  People fall into stereotypes. And so for me, it was like, oh, he's Puerto Rican. And then I wouldn't dress Puerto Rican.   I know white kids that are dressing like grunge and punk rock. So like, what are they dressing like if I'm dressing like a white kid?  And I'm like, I just wear what I wear. And then I'd have to do this thing where, what was weird to me is it was always like, I never took it personal. I was always like, oh, that's interesting. Like it was almost like an anthropological. Like a third person. Yeah, yeah. And so I was like, I'd ask them. It made me curious. So I'd be like, oh, so how should I dress?  And I'm like, oh, okay. But like, but then, but why? I was like, have you ever met a Peruvian? They're like, no. And I'm like, do you know how Peruvians dress? They're like, no. And I was like, they dress like me. Do you see the difference?  I was like, yeah.   You're all like learning on the fly. But it was like, it was this weird thing. And I went to high school and then it was like, it was even more on display, you know? Cause in high school, everyone's finding their personality and all this stuff. And so now you're wearing like different sneakers and you're really like experimenting. And it was just, I just remember it being like, man, it's hard to fit in, right? It's hard to like, who are you really? Down to being told that we're not American. I don't know about you. If you grew up in Peru, right? To us, America is the continent. Like why are North Americans more Americans than South Americans? So I'm always like, wait, I don't understand. You know, if you look at the history, America of Spoogee never even made it to North America, you know, like, is he not big? But it's cultural, it's all cultural. You get to see the programming though. It's really the programming of like TV. We talk about this, like even with food, right? It's like, I've never seen fruit roll-ups and gushers in my life until I went to first grade and I'm sitting with all these five-year-olds around me and everyone's opening their lunchbox and I have like real food and they have not real food. And I'm like, where is this coming from?  Saturday morning cartoons. Oh, look at all the programming. I think you're asking your mom, can I have those things? They were like, crack. I'm like, these things are delicious. But at the same time, you're like, totally, yeah. But you realize the programming. That's what I became very aware of. I was like, oh, it's what they're watching means what's in their lunchbox, interesting. And then you realize brands on everything. Or like, if you own the eyeballs, you own, no, people think they have free will, but, no, not so much. Well, we just influenced. And you know, also it's cultural constructs, right?  This is who, and we all do it. We do it too. Everybody does it. It's, I think it's part of the nature.  And they're like, it's the same people. They're just different colors. It doesn't make any sense. I think it comes down to just culture, right? Culture and I also put some of it on human nature. Listen, everyone wants to feel validated and special and what we do is we all plan up. We, you know, we find ourselves groups and you try to find how your group is better than another group. And I think that all stems down to like insecurities, you know, a secure person really just doesn't care about that stuff. It's the ego you gotta get rid of. Yeah, yeah. For you guys, do you think anything's changing on the distribution side at all? Yeah. We're getting two seasons of stuff. I think what's happening is the conversation is changing. The conversation is changing. Is the boardroom changing more women? No, so there's not enough of us in power, right? Yeah, the decision makers. Yeah, so there's still this worthy other. That's still very prevalent. This is why we're doing what we're doing because our goal is that people will understand like, hey, we're just American as you are. We just have different, and we're not a monolith obviously. We're so different within our own community. So the issue is that there's so little content being created for the community that one thing comes out. We expect it to represent everybody. Like you just mentioned a show and you're like, ah, I don't know, it's not my cup of tea. It's like I completely get it. Or gentrification. What was it called? Hentification. Hentify. I understand, but it's not meant for every Latino in this country to identify with it. I had, there's a lot of people that were like, oh my God, this is the first time I ever saw myself. For me, when I saw one day at a time, the remake, to me, I was like, oh, this is like me. This is how we talk, because you know, they're Caribbean, you know? That's funny. But because there's only one at a time, it's not gonna, like Mayans, for example. That's obviously not my culture at all. But people love the show and it's only the fifth season. Thank God. And for me, my philosophy is like as Latinos, we just gotta watch anything Latino, just so that we can send us a strong signal to Hollywood. Hey, we want, and then there'll be more options. Because right now what's happening is like, we get two shows, then I can get marketed properly. And after the first season, maybe the second if we fight hard enough and, you know, they'll give us the second one and then it gets canceled. So, but also as an audience, as audiences, we have to support these creatives. The fact that Hentify got made is a freaking miracle. Cause I talked to the creator a couple of weeks ago and she was telling me, I was like, oh my goodness, a miracle that he even got made. So, but when he comes out, we're like, oh, that doesn't represent me. I'm not gonna watch it. Oh yeah, but you, what did you say? But Nelson's like, oh, it doesn't represent you, but you watch Star Wars? What? Base? No. So while you were talking about this, I, everyone will tell you, I don't watch television or watch movies at all. I've never watched a Star Wars. And I've never watched any major movie. And I joined this tennis club where everyone there is like this Hollywood producer that's makes everything on TV. And I'll like freely talk about my opinions on their shitty show. I'm like, yeah, I saw like five minutes and then they're like, oh, I wrote that. And I'm like, yeah, it could have been better. I'll spend more time next time. At that point, you have to just own the joke. But this is the thing, like I don't watch any of this. And I'm maybe starting to consider, maybe this is why, maybe because when I watch these things, like I don't need people in these stormtrooper outfits. What's the point of that? Like I'm not high, I'm not on acid. I don't understand. It's called entertainment. I know. The fantasy of it all. But it's the whole like, for me, it's like I love documentaries, love those. And that's probably why we have this podcast where we talk to real people about real things. Well, if it is a truly a volume game, and I would imagine that you are somewhat constrained by how fast you can crowdfund and how, like, you know, crowdfunding probably has a limit. You're probably not gonna raise $200 million in crowdfunding. So have you either considered doing like an outside capital raise like a Series A or something like that for Avenida to, you know, you're coming out with this new app platform, are you looking to expand the volume of shows that you can put out to be competitive with like a Netflix or other streaming service? Oh, absolutely. So, you know, we're never gonna try to go after the same general market as Netflix is because what we are, we are gonna be producing a lot of our in-house studio productions. We also have partnerships with other creators who have shows existing on other platforms who are excited to come over to Avenida TV and have exclusivity there because it's more fitting. And on top of that, you know, we're working out deals with them. So yeah, we are gonna have original, Avenida TV original programming on top of licensing a bunch of other content. But when you're talking about capital raise, so Latinos only get 1% of VC funding. And I haven't been telling everyone, we're part of the 1%, just to throw them off, but yeah, but not that 1%. We're part of the 1% of the Latinos that receive funding. So even in that space, because you know, we have a business, we are to start up with the tech component. And this is a whole new ball game for us. We have, so we are in the middle of racing in the seat round, so thank you for asking. If anybody's listening. How much are you raising? How much are you raising? Why not? We're doing, on our seat round, we have a million left. We already have 600 that we raised. So who right now is like investing? Like who are your capital partners? Are they mostly just like angels or Latinos? Latitude Ventures, they are amazing. Latitude Ventures. Yeah, they are. These are Latino VC. Yeah, they've just been the most amazing partners. They get us, they understand the need and they know the market. You know, they have partners that are funding that fund. And they took a risk and they're very happy with where we are. And because media is something that impacts every industry. It really is, believe it or not. I feel like Silicon Valley is a little bit more open to what we're doing because we're disrupting an industry and the people in that industry generally don't want to invest in what we're doing because it's- I can say that. You know? But people in tech do see the value of it, you know? So that's kind of like the people we're talking to. And individuals, individuals who are believing what we're doing. So are you raising as a platform? We're all- The full ecosystem, yeah. Yeah, and that's one of the questions most people ask. They said, oh well- That's the hard part. Yeah, because they want to know what they're investing in and they want that to be simple. The whole ecosystem. So at the end of the day, you're not investing in one movie because that's really risky. You're investing in this platform that allows people to tell a story. It's like an index fund of sorts. It's almost like an incubator, right? But you're actually investing in a movie studio, right? So you have ownership of a little bit of ownership of the whole system, but also like the content that's getting created. And that's what's exciting for investors. And it's very unique what we're doing. Oh yeah, all of it. It's very unique. Is there a valuation or there's no valuation? Yes. We're not gonna tell you right here, but do you want to invest? Because I'll give you my deck and everything. This is how I invested in this drink-a-part. It happened real time, live. Yes, we have a valuation. We have partners, we have... Actually, last week I completed the Stanford Latino Entrepreneur Program. David Tavella did that, yeah. Yeah, he did. Yes. Which I just found out he sent me a message. He was like, oh, I'm class of 2020. And what they're doing is sort of like what we're doing with that program. They have 75 entrepreneurs twice a year. And that's their solution for growing the American economy by empowering Latino entrepreneurs. Because all these studies that have come out show that we are the spine of the economy as entrepreneurs. So it's an investment in the economy. And I mean, also the future looks to it. I mean, the average age of a Latino right now is 11 years old. Wow. 11. That is a future of Latino buying power. That's just gonna grow. He's very young. Oh yeah. And that's also I think why we're catching up in all these industries, because we're so young as a community. But there's some studies that say in like, 20, 50, one in five kids is gonna be a Latino kid. What has been the hardest part when you go raise capital today? I think it's very similar to what's happening in Hollywood. Is it a cultural disconnect? Like not understanding like, well, we tried that before and it hasn't worked, you know, get to Latinos. I'm like, yeah, but who, you try it. You don't have the relationships that we have, you know? Also not the understanding and the sensitivity to it. There's a huge disconnect and even in the projects, people throw projects our way, they're like, hey, well, there's this movie. And I'm like, well, there's a lot of just mismatch in the movie. And I'll give you like a quick example. Say, well, we tried this movie out and it didn't work out. It's like, they don't understand that we come from different countries. You'll see, there'll be scenes where there's a mariachi plane and then, you know, and then a matador will come out. It's like, wait, that's Spain and that's Mexico.  And it's like, y'all just kind of crossed over three different countries. Don't understand, don't really understand why Latinos are getting behind it. The protagonist is from Michigan. Yeah. Why? Yeah. With the Cuban accent. Yeah, they will speak English, like maybe a little Spanish at home. But let me tell you something. People do see the opportunity. It's there, because we're a huge buying power. It's just a matter of like educating So in my head, I'm always like, okay, cool. How do you give people like cookie crumbs to the big picture, right? And so do you think it starts, maybe you've already tried this, but do you think it starts small where you're just kind of like, hey, like I can imagine maybe they're using a cooking show, let's say.   Like, oh, don't worry about it, just use the quinoa. And then all of a sudden like, no, where's it from? Oh, it's from Peru. And then it's like, oh, maybe we feature like a farmer from Peru. And then all of a sudden it's like, but it's their idea. And so even with, if there's a show, you just kind of go like, oh, maybe like the coffee and they talk about the coffee in a way that's like, from Cuba or something simple in that way that kind of gives them the idea that they can build over time of like, oh, maybe there's something here, maybe there's a partnership collaboration that I had to consider. Who's day? The makers of these things today. So like- Oh, the studio system? The studio system today. Oh, no. Yeah, there's, you know, the instant response still goes back to what's been attempted and didn't work. Yeah. That's why I have billion remakes. There's no original stories, but there is. There's a lot of talent in this town, in the whole country. There's a lot of talent. I remember we were talking to H, my wife was on HGTV on these, on like a show and they wanted us to do a show, my wife and I. And so as we're doing, cause they wanted to get more diverse, funnier. Yes. As I'm talking to them about doing the show, which is like no money, by the way, I'm like, I make way more money doing what I do for a living. Why would I do your show? And then we're going down this road and they're like, you guys sound too hip. And then I'm like, I sound too hip. And then they're like, we don't like what you wear. And I'm like, I'm wearing neutrals. Like, like I am right now, as a matter of fact. Like this is not, this is a neutral thing. I don't understand why you think I'm like, too hip with my clothing. And then I started that wonder. And so I was like, who's your viewer?   Like, sir, can you be less brown, sir? Yeah, I'm like, oh, your average, okay, and like middle America, I imagine. And then if you watch the commercials in H-E-T-V, you actually pick this up because it's like life alert. Yeah. Adult diaper. A stair climber device. Yeah.  Yeah. Right? But then I realized what the networks are solving for is like, they don't want to take any risks, zero risks. They just want the rinse and repeat of what's working. We'll just do that. And it's a bummer for creatives. But I get it. I get the CEO doesn't want to be fired. They're playing it safe. They don't want to be fired. But there's an opportunity in that. Their return. For any new network. I mean. To own that domain. One of our movies has to make to get on the green is so little compared to one of these Marvel movies. That's why they make a billion of them.  I've been, just to remind you, I've been advocating for 20 years. I started in a nonprofit where we advocated, that was the plan. Let's, you know, I would go to meetings with studios every year and they would give us the numbers. And every year our numbers go down. I don't know how, cause they weren't even there to begin with. All we would ask is like, okay, can you cast two people? Two Latinos? One of your shows?  If you look at the Emmys, the Emmy nominations, this is the first year 200 Latinos submitted to be considered. Cause you have to submit only two Latinos got nominations, two. Which two? What were the shows? It was Oscar Isaac and For Moon Knight? Domingo from, no, he got, no, from that other one, it's like the marriage, like he's married to a Chastain or whatever. Oh, I can't remember the name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And him. And then Domingo, he's on Euphoria for like a guest star. Okay, okay. He's amazing. But we had a lot of talent. So it's not for lack of talent. It's just the process of getting the nomination. The studio has to campaign for you. There's a lot of money involved in it. A lot of the 200 submissions were self-submissions, right? Actors were miraculously made into a show and they're like, okay, I'll just pay for it myself, but you know, you can't compete with. So as it is, as the system is set up right now, it's very difficult to break it. This is why we're sort of building our own system. But what's happening is now some of the bigger players are coming to us like, oh, how'd you do that? So you have talent. So that is actually our goal is to grow and build a pipeline of so much talent that a major Hollywood studio or a company like Metta or somebody like that will come in and buy us, right? And then we'll be inside. Yeah, we're going for acquisition at this point. The thing is by the time anyone gets to learn how to understand this company and this network that we're going to release, it's just going to have so much traction that it's just the quicker way to go. Have you ever spoken to the founders of Univision? Yeah? Or like Tyler Perry, even? Tyler Perry is more in alignment with. With what you're doing? Yeah, that's ultimately what we're aspiring to do. We want to be him when we grow up. Look at this man. He started? Did you guys chat with him at all? Not yet, but we've talked to his former partners. Yeah, that is somebody we want to talk to. So if you're listening. But let me tell you, he's given to a couple of our crowdfunding campaigns. So that's really exciting. Yeah. So with every other arm of your company that you've got and going back to the awards show problem, have you ever thought about creating your own awards show? We get asked this often. Yeah, listen, yes, not something soon is immediately, but we've actually, we've absolutely talked about it. We've sort of like anything our clients tell us there's a need for. We sort of like, okay, we'll do it too. But you know, the funding, production and distribution of arm of the company, that's what every studio has. We're not unique in that way, except that we use unique ways to get those done. I think for me, it'd be great to maybe partner out with like the Alma Awards who have been around for a long time or the Golden Eagle Awards who had a track record, but nobody would sponsor them. And they're no longer in the air, but maybe something that's already in existence. We will partner up and highlight the work. When you think about your entire journey, like what has been like, if there's one story that just really captivates all of it or like the hardest part where it was about to be over? And then. Oh man, how many times has that happened as in the business, in the life of an entrepreneur?  How are we gonna do this? How do we make payroll? How do we make payroll that's happened in the past? It's like, how do we do this? But we have a couple of key things. Integrity, do work with integrity because people can sniff that a mile away. If you do good work and you have integrity, there are good people around here who will understand what you're going through and they will, you know, it'll come through. And for us, it's just, there's just no other option. This isn't a side hustle. This isn't a hobby. For us, this is more than just a business. This is a lifestyle. So one of the hardest parts I think I can share is that getting the attention of potential investors and partners because those generally are outside of our community. So that has been the biggest challenge when we don't have as many at bats as anyone else. We have to be tighter and more spot on every time we go up to the plate. I do think also like during the pandemic, it was very difficult for us because we weren't allowed to be at our space. We had a smaller space actually. And we tried doing the business. Everybody from their home, you know, it just wasn't working out. It was very tough for us. But crowdfunding, it's online. So I figure out a way, like we were like, we had no money in the bank, but like we're gonna close our doors. But we figure out, wait, crowdfunding is online. People are, we have a captive audience. Right? So I called. So we called all these clients that had paused their campaigns because they're like, I don't want to ask people for money during that freaking world pandemic, but we figure out a way to still crowdfund successfully, not from ego or like, okay, how do you say that your project is actually gonna help this industry? And you know, at the end of the day, crowdfunding is perfect because you're asking for $5, $10 at a time. Yeah, yeah. They're not spending it at their local, you know, establishments in their neighborhood anymore. So they have it. So we pivoted and we figured out a way and every single one of our campaigns was successful. Throughout the entire pandemic. And we're talking through March of 2019. All the way through the years and every single campaign was successful. That's when we started building our. To moving to our studio space during the pandemic. Well, a little crazy, but you have to be, right? Perfect. We just talk to the guys, we're like, how are we, how do we just work out? We're like, well, there's no one to tell us no. And somehow that just works. We just believe like, all right. That's true. Let's jump and God's got us, man. I will just figure it out. We got a lot of faith. We definitely have a lot of faith. We're like, I feel like when you have integrity and you have good intentions and you have a good idea, like you just sometimes have to signal to the universe. All right, here we go. Yeah, we hold each other accountable a lot. Like we hold each other accountable, like business partners, you know, we're married to each other, but if there's something that needs to get done or something that is, is there a little side on the gray area? We're like, no, no, no, let's get this right. This is how we've always operated and we keep each other in check. And at the end of the day, it's almost clear as day on how important it was to stay straight and keep that integrity. I'm rooting for you guys. I'm a big fan. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you both so much. Appreciate it. Thanks for this water. This is great. Hey you. Yeah, you listening. Thank you so much for making it to the end of the episode. Make sure to follow us on Instagram, subscribe on YouTube and we cannot wait. See you next week for another great episode. Cheers.


Mathematics begins with the process of counting, so let's think about what this process actually is. And so mathematically, formally, what we're looking at is that the number of objects in a set is a particular property of the set, which we call the cardinality of the set. And it's some property of that set, and again in modern mathematics, we don't necessarily try to define what something is, but rather how it relates to other things. So again, you can think about this cardinality as being the number of things in the set, but again we don't really want to use that term. We'll indicate the cardinality of the set. There's two ways of doing this. We either indicate it N of A, which kind of suggests the idea that this is the number of things in A. As we'll see, notation persists because it reminds us of something useful. The other way we indicate cardinality is to throw our set name inside two vertical bars. Now again, we don't really care what things are. We do care about how they relate to each other, and so here's the key idea of cardinality. Two sets A and B have the same cardinality, if and only if. This is a definition. It works both ways. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the elements of the sets. What does that mean? Well, what it means is that every element of A can be associated with a unique element of B, and every element of B can be associated with a unique element of A. Now, because mathematicians like to talk, we'll throw in a couple of other equivalences, we'll say that if we do have two sets with a one-to-one correspondence, well, they have the same cardinality. We also say that the set A is equivalent to the set B, and we're going to write either this form here, A squiggle B, A is equivalent to B, or because we have just defined them as having the same cardinality, we're going to indicate that the cardinality of A is the same as the cardinality of B, and then again, informally, we can think about both sets A and B as having the same number. Now, here's a very important thing to notice. At no point have we ever counted the number of elements in the sets A and B. Well, how do we then count things? Well, let's take a look at an example. So, here's a good example that we can take. Let S be the set of things that are U.S. states, and let C be the set of things that are the capital cities of U.S. states, and we want to show that the cardinality of S is the same as the cardinality of C. Now, before we go on, let's consider what we might think about as a bad solution. And a bad solution looks like this. There are 50 U.S. states, there are 50 U.S. capital cities, so the cardinality of S is the same as the cardinality of C. And the reason that this is a bad solution is that this has nothing to do with our definition of cardinality. We're saying that the, we want to show that the cardinality of S is the same as the cardinality of C. If you're going to show something in mathematics, what you want to be able to do is refer back to what it means for these two things to be the same. So, let's get rid of that bad solution and put in a good solution. So, let's think about this. We want to show that the cardinality of S is the same as the cardinality of C. And so, it is often the case that it's useful any time we do a show problem in mathematics. Let's consider what the definition is. So, going back to our definition, the equality of our two cardinalities, cardinality of S, is the same as the cardinality of C. What we want to do is we want to show that every element of S can be associated with a unique element of C and also that every element of C can be associated with a unique element of S. And what this does is this establishes the one-to-one correspondence between the sets S and C. And as soon as that one-to-one correspondence exists, we know that the two sets have the same cardinality. So, thinking, thinking, thinking. Well, let's start off with this side. So, every element of S, well, S is the set of U.S. states. So, I'm going to pick an element of S and pick an element of C, which are the capital cities of U.S. states. And what I'd like to do is I'd like to associate a U.S. state with a specific capital city of a U.S. state. So, thinking, thinking, thinking. Well, well, it's often easier to organize our thoughts if we take an example. Let's take the state of, oh, I don't know, New York. If I want to associate a state such as New York with a unique capital city, well, what would I do? Well, I would probably associate the state of New York with, let's see, what's it, the Tallahassee. That doesn't really make sense. Ask any almost normal person to do this, which is to say, you know, almost everybody. And if you're going to match a state to a capital city, it would be reasonable to match the state to the capital of that state. And you may want to think about this for yourself. Is it true that that state capital is unique? Well, sure, every state has just one state capital. Now, we have to also go to the other side. Every capital city has to be associated with a unique element of S, a unique US state. And so again, we want to match a capital city of a state to a state. So if I were to take the city of, oh, I don't know, Tallahassee, and which is a capital city, this is not a geography class. So if you didn't know, Tallahassee was a capital city, I'll tell you that it's a capital city. And let's see, if I want to associate that with a unique state, how about Oregon? Well, much more likely a normal person would say, well, we might as well match the capital of the state to the state that it's the capital of. And again, this is not a geography course, but points if you remember that the Tallahassee is the capital of the state of Florida. So there I'm going to match a capital city to a unique US state, namely the state that it's the capital of. And every US state gets matched to a unique capital city, namely the capital itself. And to tie it all together, we throw down a concluding statement and we say something like, well, there is a one to one correspondence. Here it is. And the important thing is that all of this is part of the solution. Since there is a one to one correspondence, then the two sets are equivalent. And the cardinality of the first set is the same, is equal to the cardinality of the other one. Now, one important thing to note, again, to emphasize, we did not come to this conclusion by talking about the number of states and US capitals. What we did is we showed that the two sets were related in this way that gives us the one to one correspondence. And the significance of that is if I change the question very slightly here, let S be the number of states in 1850, and C be the set of capital cities of US state in 1850, you'd still be able to answer this question even if you didn't know how many states there were in 1850. Which again, emphasizes a very important idea here, that showing that two sets have the same cardinality is independent of knowing how many things there are in either set.


I caught my fiancé looking under the bed for monsters. I'd never seen her do this before. Usually we climb into bed the same old way we always have, throw off the big pillows, and get in. But this time, I suppose she thought I was still in the bathroom, but I was behind her and I saw her look under the bed for monsters. It was the type of look my parents did when I requested, scared and clutching the blanket to my chin. She wasn't looking for anything. She didn't get down on her knees and start searching. There's nothing even down there. It's about half a feet off the ground. She pulled back one flap of the comforter, leaned down and looked, confirmed something, and then crawled into bed. When she saw me behind her, she blushed a deep red. Did you just? I don't know why I did that. I'm sorry. Don't apologize. It was cute.  So was there anything down there? No.   Three weeks ago, there was a severe storm and our whole town had a blackout for about a week.  Katie and I ate cans of food. We cooked with a makeshift fireplace. After a while, we just swallowed our pride and lived at our neighbors, the bombings, who, for some reason, had electricity. The worst of it, thankfully, was that our window in the attic blew open.  It was a bit after that she started complaining about hearing skittering in the walls in the attic, under the floors. I said it was possible that the hurricane scared some vermin into our house for shelter.  The second time I caught her looking under the bed, I didn't say anything. But the third time, well, the third time I brought it up. So I feel like there's something you're looking for. Did you see something? No. No. I just, I don't want to talk about it. I sure would like to. Do we have bed bugs or something? Have you been getting bit? You don't hear that scratching at night? No, I don't. Is it in the floors? I think it's under our bed. Scratching up. Scratching at us. I've never heard that. Alright, then maybe I'm just hearing things. She crawled into bed and got under the covers. I crawled in and kissed her. I listened for scratching but didn't hear anything. The thing is, I watch a lot of horror movies. In fact, it's my job to work on and in horror movies. I work in the special effects department and I'm surrounded by prosthetics and clays and synthetics. I read horror scripts and stories every week. I never take things home. I didn't show Katie because I know she doesn't like it. But here's the idea. In horror movies, the husband never believes the wife. It's called the Cassandra Paradox. Way back when in the Greek times, this girl Cassandra was cursed and when the Trojans were invading or something like that, nobody believed her. It's a classic plot device and horror stories and I made a promise to myself that I'd always believe Katie if she got scared about something. But the thing is... I don't hear anything. I woke up to brightness, a flashlight on my face. Katie was standing across the room. Do you hear that? I listen. Is it raining? The storm's coming back, she replied. The storm coming around the first time was, in fact, an odd occurrence. We live in a small little pocket outside of New York City and I commute by train to my effects warehouse. It's deep November now and these tropical storms from the Atlantic are making less and less sense, particularly since they're isolated just over our town and a couple miles beyond. It won't be as bad. It sounds light. The scratching gets worse when it rains, Katie says. She shines the light towards the bedroom window and for a moment my heart turns to ice. A face stares back at me through the streaked glass, but then I realize it's my own reflection. Just help me look around the house, okay? I think of Cassandra.  Nobody believed her. Yeah, of course, I said. There's a strange feeling of forced déjà vu when you examine your own house with a flashlight. If we turn on the lights, they'll scatter, Katie says. And so we don't. Instead, we look at every corner and crease and floorboard with the flashlight we got from this hardware store. You notice different things. I didn't know there was an outlet there or that the banister over here was warped. Look at those splotches on the ceiling. Wow, how long have those been there, et cetera, et cetera. I don't want her to be Cassandra, but I also don't want this to happen every night. I broach a subject. You know, babe, if you don't feel comfortable staying here, you can probably stay at the bombings tonight or until we get this figured out. I'm not staying at our neighbor's place. I'd look crazy. She says, wearing the $5 flip flops, a senior frogs t-shirt and a flashlight. God, I love her. The bombings love us. They have a giant house and they love company. I said, I'm just not going to bed. I'm not tired anymore. You go to sleep. I'll just hang here and watch Netflix. She replied, you're just going to watch TV on the couch all night.  It's fine, seriously. I don't want her to be Cassandra. And I think screw it. I won't get a good sleep knowing she's out here anyway. All right, I say, I'll stay with you. So we turn on Netflix and she wraps herself up in a blanket. I open a beer and sit down and throw my legs up on the coffee table and I'm asleep in about two seconds. When I wake up, she's gone and it's raining a hell of a lot more. Netflix isn't asking if I'm still watching. And then I spot that the cable box is blank. The power's out and the house is dark, beyond dark, and I can hear the rain pound loudly against the walls and the roof. Strong winds come and it almost sounds like the house is trying to whistle. There's a draft somewhere, a window's open. I feel for the flashlight on the coffee table, but it's not there, Katie. I call out nothing. I get up and feel my way back through the house. My eyes are starting to adjust to the darkness and the black walls are now lightening to a deep gray shapes start to come out of the woodwork. Whatever light the moon is casting is all I got to go on as I shuffle slowly through the house, feeling the cold walls and cold hardwood floor. When I get to my bedroom, things go from bad to worse. From the lights of the window, I can see in a dull blueish gray that the bed is on its side. Moreover, it's on its side and the floor beneath the bed is gone or rather cracked. The stone foundation and pipes are laid bare, twisted shadows of metal and masonry. The wood is splintered upwards.  Katie, I say louder. The rain clatters hard against the window. Across the lawn, I can see at a cockeyed angle the bombons. They have electricity.  I didn't want to sound panicked, but I did. And I am. My voice betrayed me and hearing it made me worse. Then another draft of wind comes and the house gives a raspy noise. I feel for my phone against the wall and I take it off the charger. The power went out and because of that my phone is at a measly 4%. I put on the flashlight and start moving through the house. The bathroom is clear. The living room is clear. The storage room and garage is clear. And then I feel the wind, the cold, wet wind.  We never fixed it.   And I notice something that doesn't make me feel very good. From the steps of the ladder is a black sludge, a dripping sludge that catches the light of the flashlight and has a shine more like oil than mud. I climb up the ladder and now I'm in the attic. And I see something else. The black garbage bags, my sorry idea for a fix, are blown off flapping in like a pirate's flag, like it's trying to escape the wind and the rain. And on the ground is a cheap flashlight from the hardware store. It's flickering out. It's one bright light, now a dying orange. I run to the window, Katie, I call.  The rain pelts my face, soaking my hair and t-shirt. I scream her name again, but the rain quickly stomps it out and the wind buries it alive. It's been two months now since the storm came and took Katie. I'm now at Dave Bauman's house. His wife said a girl's night and so we're tying one on. I'm drinking bourbon neat and he is too. It doesn't get any easier. He said, I just need to know. I say, I look into my drink, it's brown and I can see myself just barely. When it came and took our children, I thought I was going to die. Just die right then and there. How'd you get better? I ask, I didn't. Dave says he takes a large sip from his drink and exhales. Father Rodriguez said it was critical and it happened to everyone. We all have to give up someone to the storm, he says.  I ask him why both? Why both? And he looks at me and asks, which son did you want to keep?  I don't know if it was fair or not, but it's shut me up. I believed her too, I say. I really believed her and, like, I feel the tears sting my eyes. My jaw tenses up, I take another drink of the bourbon and as soon as I set it down Dave fills it back up. Do you know about Cassandra? I ask Dave and he practically keels over laughing.  Once he stops, he takes another drink. Man, he starts. We always believed. As soon as Tanner, that's the youngest one, started coming to us about hearing scratching. My wife and I were like soldiers on patrol. We did everything we could to stop it. And honestly, I think that made it worse.


Exciting to be here today to unveil yet another beautiful mural that tells the story of Columbia. It tells specifically the story of the African seed and American son and the role that individuals, indeed, some very small and young individuals even played in helping shape the arc, not just of our city and our state, but of democracy in this country as we know it. Using this as an opportunity to elevate some amazing artists, the talent that we have in this community. And using this as an opportunity to pull the entire community together as the city council debated just different ways to capture this moment. And it's a moment that we've been living in and Dr. Donaldson will probably speak about the work we've done with Columbia. The SC63 over a project that was supposed to last maybe a year and now has gone for nearly a decade. This has been an opportunity, I believe, to pull people together in a very meaningful and special way. And obviously, the role that education plays and the integration of schools plays in helping define the American experience is unique and special. Of all the pictures, and I think when I first saw this photograph, it wasn't that long ago, relatively speaking, it immediately became iconic for me and having it captured in such a vivid way in this fantastic neighborhood is special. For those of you who may not be familiar with the entire effort that's being led by our Parks and Rec Foundation in partnership with one Columbia inspired by the work of Columbia SC63 and fully endorsed unanimously by our city council. This is being done in every single corner of the city, every single corner of the city. And this mural, the pursuit of education highlighting the desegregation of Rosewood Elementary is a very special piece of the puzzle. And we are celebrating every single one of them as if it were the only one. And we're so excited to be here at Valencia Park today. So I'm going to yield the microphone to my friend and our councilman, Will Brennan, who we sat through a number of different meetings as we were planning exactly what this vision would look like as we went forward. And Will really stood in the vanguard to make sure that we did it and we did it right and everything we do, even when we have difficult conversations, our results in our conversations ought to be edifying, ought to be focused on bringing people together, ought to be focused on speaking to our much better angels. And Will led boldly in that discussion. So my friend, Will Brennan. Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for those inspiring words about our great city and the rich history that this amazing, wonderful mural represents. To everybody out there, thank you for coming today to District 3. Ed, thanks for coming to District 3. The South Kilburn neighborhood and this wonderful park. Valencia Park is truly the pride of this neighborhood with Michelle and the crew back there. I see it. Thanks so much for coming out today. And we're excited to have this great piece of public art here that tells such an important story to the history of our city. We're honored to have Dr. Bobby Donaldson expand on the history of this piece of public art, which creates the foundation for many future generations to educate them on the important history that took place in our Richland County Schools. Many of those schools are still standing and they still welcome with open arms all children. The mayor and my fellow council members believe it's important to tell the story of our history. Our public art initiatives throughout the city, they do a wonderful job of that. And of course, I couldn't go without thanking the artist, McClellan Douglas, fellow Dreer class of 98 alum, for sharing his passion and his vision with us in this city. We as residents of the city of Columbia, past, present and future, we are strong. We are resilient and we are one. Of course, my name is Henry Simons and I'm the assistant city manager for operations for the city of Columbia. Special thanks again to our mayor, Steve Benjamin for allowing this vision to come to life. We are grateful for all of our council members that are present with us today. They endorsed this project and we are so excited about what this is going to bring to our community. Today is the third public art dedication and of course each location is designed to tell a story about African Americans that were connected historically to their communities and how they influenced culture and society. So today we continue to celebrate the very essence of their courage, the very essence of their commitment and their unwavering determination and we highlight their collective contributions. We're grateful. So the baseball field behind me actually was a place where I played baseball as a kid and also coached in my later years. It reminds me of the days of my youth. It reminds me of how much I enjoyed playing the game of baseball. But today, as I look behind me, there's another reminder. There is now an opportunity for this current generation to be educated, to understand more of their history about the civil rights movement and how children can appreciate their past and how they can appreciate the decisions that were made back in 1964 that allowed them today to have more liberty in the pursuit of their education. For this, we are sincerely, sincerely grateful. This project was facilitated and funded through the Parks and Recreation Foundation. Of course, as the mayor indicated earlier, we partnered with Dr. Bobby Donaldson, who is the director of the Civil Rights History and Research for the University of South Carolina and has worked there as a professor for 20 years. You'll hear from him in just a moment. He also serves as the lead scholar for Columbia SC 63. Our story matters, which is a history initiative that chronicles the civil rights and social justice struggle in the city of Columbia. So we are aligned this project with some amazing work that's already been done all around the city. We also partnered with Lee Snailgrove, the executive director of One Columbia for Arts and Culture, and Lee is also a member of the Parks and Rec Foundation, which he has helped us facilitate this project in that capacity. We take pride in what we have accomplished with this initiative, and we are sincerely grateful. So I definitely want to acknowledge Fred Monk, who's the chair of our Parks and Recreation Foundation. Fred is here with us today. Fred, thank you so much for your presence on today and your support. And leadership, I also want to acknowledge our Parks and Recreation Leadership Team, the entire team. I won't get into saying names today, but they are here. Thank them so much for all their leadership and commitment to this project. And as Councilman Brennan has shared special thanks to McClellan Douglas, our featured artist for capturing the very essence of what we asked for. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Douglas. And again, thank you all for your presence on today. Now this time we'll have Dr. Bobby Donaldson come and provide some additional remarks. And of course we have the principal here of Rosewood Elementary School. Thank you so much for being here today. We're grateful for your presence also. So we'll have Dr. Donaldson come at this time. Thank you very much, Mr. Simons. Good afternoon, everyone. The date was March, May 17, 1954. A lawyer who was housed in 1119 Washington Street received a telegram that the United States Supreme Court had ruled in the case of Brown versus the Board of Education that schools in this country should be desegregated, that segregation was unconstitutional. That lawyer's name was Harold Boulware. He was featured in the first mural that we celebrated a few weeks ago. Mr. Boulware helped to organize a legal campaign in South Carolina that led to a landmark case called Briggs versus Elliott, based in Clarendon County, South Carolina. The Briggs case was the Thrust case, the most significant case of all the cases argued before the Supreme Court in the ruling of Brown v. Board of 1954. Several weeks later, a young woman from east over South Carolina sits on a city bus in Columbia, and she is accosted by the bus driver, and she files a lawsuit against the bus driver and SCENG. Her name is Sarah Mae Fleming Brown. Last week, we honored Ms. Brown at an unveiling in Woodland Park. Ten years after the Brown v. Board ruling and after the case of Sarah Mae Fleming, there were a group of parents in Columbia who were led by a woman named Majesca Monteith Simpkins. They were part of a group called the Richland County Citizens Committee, and they wanted to make sure that the schools of Columbia follow the dictates of the United States Supreme Court. It was ten years after the court said all schools should be desegregated with all deliberate speed. It took South Carolina decade to catch up with the Supreme Court ruling. In July of 1964, the Richland County Citizens Committee gathered in the sanctuary of the Second Nazarev Church on Elmwood Avenue. Ms. Simpkins and those parents came together to discuss, is this the moment? Is this the time to compel Columbia to follow the Supreme Court ruling? And on that evening, they said, this is the moment. This is the time. 1964 is the year. And then Ms. Simpkins said, if this is the moment, if this is the time, who shall we send? Who shall open the door? Who shall climb the steps in 1964? And there were parents there, and there were children there who said, send us. We'll go. They called the role of people who might open those doors and climb the steps. They called the name of Brenda Fuster, Oliver Washington Jr., Harris Wheeler, Eric Wheeler, Wilbert Harper, Margaret Cleo Taylor, Morris Newman, Bernadine Scott, Clarence Scott, Cheryl Frazier, Timothy Fuster, Jablonsky Frazier, Amos Fuster, Pamela Cleveland, Evelyn Cleveland, who's a large figure in the mural. Eugene Turnipsey and the young woman on the far right going through the gates of the school Rosewood, a young woman named Cynthia Turnipsey. And we're fortunate that Cynthia Turnipsey is with us today. Ms. Turnipsey, would you please stand? She's among those who entered the gate. And I see Cheryl Frazier Lycith, Oliver Washington Jr., all of those persons who in that first cohort of those who entered the gate, will you please stand? So I think Ms. Frazier went to hand and Mr. Washington was among those the first to desegregate Jura High School. And all those family members of those 20 plus persons who entered the gate in 1964, will you please stand? Thank you very much. Then the Turnipsey's and the Cleveland's and the Fuster's entered the gate on August 31st, 1964. There were photographers who captured that moment. A classic photograph exists now in the Library of Congress of those students climbing those steps. In the original photograph, there is a marker on the right hand side of the Rosewood School Gates, which I think is still there. There were two young white boys who were seated on the steps as Ms. Turnipsey and her cousins entered the gate. Above the head of the young white boys was a marker that said, erected by the people for the benefit of the children. Erected by the people for the benefit of the children. Today this mural is erected, installed, funded by the people for the benefit of the children. Thank you and please join my colleague, Lee Snelgrove. I have the hardest job here because I always have to follow Dr. Donaldson. And I scribble my notes like the night before and he's got decades of work putting his together. So in this mural, I was thinking about my relation to this mural and I thought about the role of public garden. So my son attends Rosewood Elementary. He's a kindergartener there. And this year would have been his first year. There was a day they intended in person. I had to take him there and walk him, not up the steps, but to the door or close to it. And he had to go up and do it himself and he had to be brave enough to walk up those stairs. And I had to be brave enough as a parent to let him do that and know that he was going to be safe for that day at the school. I had the advantage and the privilege that I knew that he was going there and he was going to be safe. And he was going to be cared for by his teachers and he's going to have friends very quickly. It was different for these students. It was very different for their parents. They didn't know what it was going to be like that first day. They probably didn't know what it was going to be like for the rest of the days that they were going to have to attend and they were going to have to stay with it. And I recognized their strength and their courage and their resolve because I see this photograph and I've seen this mural now. And I can see what challenges they had and what decisions they had to make. And it's my ability to see these images that I can better understand the life of these Colombians that were my fellow Colombians even if they are the Colombians of the past. And I can feel their burden and recognize how difficult the decisions that they made were. And that's the power of images and that's the power of these stories and that's the power of public art. It can teach us this empathy. It can demonstrate someone's bravery and it can tell an important story about who we are or who or what we care about and what we want others to know about us. And I'm excited that we have this in the Rosewood neighborhood and the South Kilburn neighborhood. And so I want to thank the mayor and city council and the city manager for recognizing the power of public art in a neighborhood setting like this. And I want to thank Dr. Donaldson and Mr. Simons for all their effort in putting this project together. I want to thank Todd Martin and Abedin Kelly who helped me usher through and make sure every artist had everything they needed along the way. Thanks to the Parks Foundation and the Parks Foundation Board. And thank you to the Rosewood community and the South Kilburn communities and Rosewood Elementary and support for these kinds of public projects. And certainly thank you to McClellan Douglas for his work on this mural and for being an artist that travels the country and represents us as Colombians. So I'll let McClellan come up and say a few words too. So you guys I'm not as great at orators as you might are. I like to usually let my artwork speak for itself. But I do appreciate the opportunity to speak. First I just wanted to thank everybody who put this project together throughout the city. I mean I think it's a really bold initiative and I think it was very important. I think you all deserve a round of applause. Everybody that had everything to do with this. This is an important project. A thought stayed in my head the whole time I was painting this. And it was you know this is around the time you know my parents were in school and you know they might have had a couple black kids in their class. But they don't have the experience that I had growing up and you know being able to work side to side in class with with my fellow black students.  Black and brown people should be able to see themselves in public spaces and really feel like they are part of this community. And I'm really humbled to be given an opportunity to shine a light on these kids who I can't imagine what that must have felt like at that young age to walk up there. And like you know Lisa like this parents must have felt to leave them leave them there. And you know these past couple years I've been you know I've noticed that though we have made some progress we still have a long way to go. And I'm just really humbled to be able to add something that is shines a light on the black community. And I want you know I think it's very important that the black and brown community in Columbia see themselves everywhere and feel like they're part of this community because you are. And I love you all thank you. It's profound in a number of different levels my friend. Thank you for sharing your gift with us. I am a believer that God gives every single one of us a number of gift gifts. Once you find that gift it's our challenge to use it to benefit the world. So McClellan thank you. Thank you for the boldness of character that these young students felt many many moons ago kicking down the doors for each and every one of us to hope we live up to our God given potential. So it's it's it's my honor to invite you all up. Let's cut the ribbon here and let's continue to open new chapters to Columbia's future every single day by properly recognizing our past. I bless you. Let's get this done. All right.


Let us solve more problems related to Nicollum method of division where the base is greater than divisor Particular problem that I want to share with you which will solve more concepts for us is going to be 147 Divided by seven. So let's just try to solve this using Nicollum method So first of all, we will have to find out the supplement divisor And the supplement divisor is going to be 10 minus 7 is equal to 3 Now the first thing that we do is we create three parts of the page We write our divisor seven On the left hand side and below that we write the Supplement divisor as three now we will write 147 like this one Four and seven because the rightmost part gets only one digit because the base that we have chosen has only one zero in it Now let's put this horizontal line here and then bring this one down and then we'll multiply this one by three So what we're doing here one times three will write the result below four and the result is Seven now we will again use this seven and multiply with three. So let's multiply Seven with the three and we get 21. We write this result here like this And the result we get is 28 and we already know that we cannot have two digits in the last column So we will cancel this two out from here and we'll write two here and Now because we have gotten this two in the central part We will again multiply this two with the supplement divisor three So two times three which is six. We will write the result here on the right hand side and on the right hand side We get 14 and on the central part we get 19 Again this 14 is two digit numbers We cannot have this one and we have to move this to the central part and because now we have got one as A new member in the central part. We will have to multiply this one with three again so we get one times three is equal to three and on the right hand side we have Seven as a remainder and 20 on the central part. We can see that the remainder is seven We can see that seven is equal to the divisor. We still need to divide that by seven Now because we are stuck in a problem like this There is something called Compliment of the remainder now how we can find this compliment of the remainder We write this seven that we've got as zero and seven and then we think about the base we borrow one from the left-hand side and Subtract seven from the base the base is going to be ten So we write one below this dotted zero and once we subtract that seven from ten we get three but we put a Sign like this a small cap on the head of three which also means minus three So you could also read this as ten minus three basically So we are writing the seven as thirteen with a negative sign for three So basically is ten minus three. So we just replace that seven with something like this which is This and now we can again continue cancelling this one out putting it on the central part and Then multiplying this one with the supplement divisor Which is three again and this gives me three as a result and I write the result On the right-hand side and so the remainder that I get finally because the cap three is minus three We get zero as a remainder and 21 as the quotient so that's why here quotient is 21 and remainder is is zero


Observed value. This is the measure that we use that we that we have in an experiment or some type of applied setting. So it's the data that we capture, right? What we actually see, right? There may be some other stuff like what really happens, but we can only record what we record, right? So think of it in terms of condom use. If I want to find out how many condoms someone used, I could do several procedures. I have an observed value procedure, right? So how many condoms did you use? I can't watch you directly engage in the sexual act in the research setting. That's just not okay. But I could count the number of condoms that were left over in your garbage can.  So the actual value might be totally different, but the observed value is what it is. So in any experiment, in any study, you only really have that observed value. So we want to make sure that our measurements are as direct as possible and it gives us a more believable, more reliable, more valid sort of experiment.


about depression well i mean the common uh common tips you would get is uh become active get active organize your room make your make your space more organized and decluttered also smile more exercise eat better okay associate with people who are happy don't watch sad movies or or scary movies or you know dark movies watch happy but watch comedy uh listen to music that is upbeat okay so that's the all the convention stuff that you hear all the practical wisdom that you hear that you can do any uh anytime you want and all those things work so use our remove negative energy frequency play this luck boost frequency that we're playing right now use our regenerate frequency and basically ignite the fire back in your life