July 11, 2024 • 48 mins
Dramos deep dives into trending stories from the last couple weeks including multiple Latina legends having their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame being defaced, the terrible Biden/Trump debate, Puerto Rico's struggle with electricity, a Latino artist making waves and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Love me talking about talk here we go. He said,
you live in life as a gringo, where you question
where you fit in every time you mingle, they say
you do this with not a fingo. Yes, hello, and
welcome to another episode of Life as a Gringo. I
am Dramas, of course, and it is Thursday, so I
(00:28):
mean it's time for our Thursday Trends episode flying solo
on today's show, because I feel like I've been just slacked.
I not not that I feel like I've been slacking.
I know I've been slacking and not slacking on purpose,
but just a lot going on. We had Tuesday. I
want to bring you, uh the new episode of The
Street Stoic as we kick off. They just be Social
(00:50):
Club the new version of it via Patreon. Again, it's free.
Shout out to everybody that DM me that wanted to
join to get the link and still open at DJ Drama.
I'll send it to you. It's free. Ton of stuff
on there already and I'm gonna continue to add to
it as the weeks and you know, forever goes on basically.
And then we were off last week because of the
(01:10):
holiday for fourth of July. And yeah, I just I'm
like itching to just sit down and talk to myself
for a minute. I guess, you know, as vain as
that may sound. So I wanted to just you know,
cover a bunch of things that I feel like I've
missed over the last couple of weeks, not having done
(01:32):
a fresh episode, you know, from start to finish. Also,
I want to keep a big shout out and this
is what we need to have more of, right. I
was randomly on the micro Tuda podcast network YouTube channel.
That's where you can find the video version of this
podcast if you ever want to check that out. It's
mostly just me sitting in a chair and then like
(01:53):
random shots of my dog walking by and ruining everything.
So if you're into that kind of thing, please feel
free to subscribe to the YouTube channel watch the video
version of the show. But I was reading randomly like
a comment that was left on one of the episodes
and shout out to her. I don't know the remember
her name off the top of my head, but she
was saying, you know, she listens to the podcast even
(02:16):
though she doesn't particularly agree with my political views, and
I thought that was so beautiful, Like, to me, that
is what we need more of in this country, in
this world is the idea that we can have opposing
viewpoints on things and still coexist together and still enjoy
each other in some capacity, right. I think for me,
(02:40):
the older I get and the more I dive into
topics that are sensitive, like politics, I try my best.
I'm not always you know, perfect at it, but I
try my best to come at it from a point
of view of I'm not trying to be right. I
am giving you information, and then I'm giving you my
digestion of the information, all with the goal of trying
(03:00):
to get to what I feel like is the best answer. Right.
I'm never trying to at least my goal is to
not be trying to win, like an argument or debate.
My goal is how do we get to the best
answer possible? And sometimes it might be, you know, the
best answer could be counter to what I've personally believed, right,
and I have to reprogram my mind, or I have
(03:22):
to concede and listen to other points of view, or
just understand that many of the topics that we speak
about are incredibly nuanced and there isn't just one answer, right.
That's why we have so many different political ideologies. And
viewpoints on what works or what doesn't work, whatever it
might be. So I just wanted to give a shout
out to anybody who is doing their best to keep
(03:43):
an open mind, like especially during really difficult and polarizing
times that we live in today, where listen, we don't
all have to agree on every single thing, but as
long as we're coming about it from a place of
respect and a place of genuinely wanting the best for
you know, humanity, and specifically when talks want to talk
about this podcast, our community, our culture. That's my goal
(04:04):
is to be you know, bringing out the best of
our community for our community. And I'm not always right.
I'm never gonna claim to be. I'm passionate, right, and
I try to give you my take on things, and
I try to be as informed as I possibly can.
But I'm not always going to be right, and that's okay.
Or we're not always going to agree on the best
(04:24):
solution for things. Right again, there's not always just one solution,
especially when we're talking about really complicated issues like politics
and social issues and whatever it might be. So I
just want to take a moment to shout out to
that listener. I really appreciate you for for tuning in
and keeping it open mind, and you know, I think that's,
you know, something we all could be a little bit
(04:45):
better at, right, myself included at times. Now, with that said,
let's let's talk about what we're going to be touching
on in today's episode. Really said here, I mentioned this
as like a celebratory moment last month, one of you know,
a really amazing figure from our community getting a star
(05:08):
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Unfortunately, that star was
vandalized along with another gigantic prominent figure from our community.
So we'll touch on that. I haven't done a podcast
since the Biden Trump debate, so I'm going to just
touch on what I've been thinking with that. And also
I've been, you know, really heavy on this topic about
(05:29):
Puerto Rico and the struggles with the power grid and
the power company Luma. So there's been an update on
that which is not a positive one, but we'll talk
about it. I want to make sure I touch on
it and then on a positive note for our me
hint that segment. I found this story and I just
(05:51):
think this is a really great example. And I was
talking to somebody via R just be social club. I
was doing a one on one conversation with them, and
I'll keep short, but they were having like a breakthrough
moment in their career that came as a result of
them being shown a path that was different than the norm,
(06:12):
that they didn't realize was available to them and that
most people around them didn't realize was available. And I
thought that was so beautiful, especially in twenty twenty four,
the level of opportunities that we have to do things
in a different way, right. And I've always been somebody,
I mean shit, my life is built around the idea
of finding a different way to get to the results
(06:35):
I want right and not getting stuck on the traditional
path that many take to get there, right. And to me,
I found a story that I'll share farm you hit
that segment that I think is a perfect example of that.
Somebody finding a way to live through their art that
is in non traditional way. And hopefully you know sparks
maybe something in your head of a different way you
(06:57):
can look at your path and what you're wanting to do.
So we'll talk about that and we hit this segment.
But first and foremost, as we always do, let's get
to that nitty gritty, the nonsense, the bs. In a segment,
we call for the people in the back, say a
lot for the people in the say a lot of
the people in the say a lot of the people
(07:24):
of All right, we'll start here Hollywood the Walk of Fame.
Jenny Neveda, I got her star last month and sadly
somebody has vandalized it. Right, So I'm pulling this story
from NBC News. They say the Hollywood Walker Fame stars
of and not just jeneviev Jennieveda, also the legend that
(07:49):
is Selena. Both of them had their their stars vandalized
not once, but twice this week with black spray paint. Now,
of course, this has caused outrage from the community. From fans,
some of whom I was watching TikTok literally took it
(08:09):
upon themselves, which I love this shit. Man, there's the
type of stuff I'm talking about, like we put the
power down hands right. They took it upon themselves to
go to the star and clean it up. And Anna Martinez,
who's the vice president of Media and Talent Relations at
the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, told NBC News that the
first incident of vandalism took place on Monday, the Hollywood
(08:30):
Chamber of Commerce had the stars professionally cleaned and then
notified the police, but sadly, which is like fucking psychotic.
The next day she realized that Selena and Jay Hideveda's
stars had been painted over again. And listen, I'm not
in the market of conspiracy theories or you know, just
talking out of the side of my mouth here, but
(08:53):
two Latina's stars being vandalized. I mean, I can't help
but feel like this had something to do with the
fact that they were not only Latinas but also Mexican
in a country in a time period where the anti
immigrant rhetoric is at an all time high, where Mexicans
are taking the brunt of a lot of hate, I
(09:16):
can't help feel like this is somehow motivated by some
good old boy wanting to make a point here. And listen,
I'm open to being wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I
hope they find the person and it's, you know, not
some random white person who hates Latinos. But I'm going
to go out on a limb here, in my personal
(09:37):
opinion say smells like this was racially motivated. And again,
I mean, listen, this is obviously a crime where thank god,
like nobody's life has been put at risk. But it
does show you the effects of the rhetoric that is
happening in our current society around immigrants, around those from
(09:58):
places like Mexico, that it bleeds into things like this
where people feel the need to disgrace the legend and
the just the honor and the memory of people like
Selena and Jenny Rivera, you know, for no reason whatsoever, right,
(10:21):
And it's disgusting. I think there's obviously no way around that,
and you know, hurts my heart, makes me fucking sad
to see that. But it's more of the product of
the current world that we live in, and this is
a tame version of the product. Right, It could be
much worse, and we've seen it be much worse. And again,
(10:43):
you know, rhetoric and ideas have real world implications, especially
when they're coming from people with gigantic platforms like Donald
Trump and the rhetoric we often see on the right,
which leads perfectly into the debates that no one wanted,
(11:06):
that everybody hoped would be something that could hang their
hat on. If you are somebody who is supporting Joe Biden, sadly,
it turned out to be worse than we could have
ever imagined. Again, if you're a supportive of Biden, to
be honest with you, beyond even just being a support
of Biden, it was terrible. I think if you are
(11:29):
anybody who has any faith, any belief system, or what
you know, like if you're an American, or if you shit,
I mean, it's a dark moment for America as a
whole to watch these two men talk a bunch of nonsense.
(11:51):
I mean literally, we have two men up there arguing
about who would beat the other in a game of
golf at a presidential debate. These are the two men
who are vying for your votes to be the president
of the United States, arguably one of the most important
positions in the entire world, and they're sitting there debating
(12:15):
one another on who would beat the other in golf. That,
right there, minus anything else, is a really scary sort
of rejection of where we are as a country. Regardless
of what side of the aisle you fall on. I
don't care if you are a Trump lover, that should
(12:35):
not be something you're excited to watch and feel confident
in his ability to leave the country Now on the
other side of it, Biden, after months and months and
months of the Democrats sort of clutching their pearls whenever
somebody would would talk about his age or his cognitive
(12:56):
ability or whether he was up for another four years
of the job, Democrats had their worst case scenario come true.
Biden was horrendous, couldn't, couldn't put together a coherent sentence,
couldn't even my biggest thing, and that I didn't even watch.
(13:19):
I literally I tuned in and I had to tune
out after after a short period of time because it
was just it was nauseating to watch what was going on. Right,
But my whole takeaway is like one of the biggest
issues for Democrats that is like a strong issue where
it's in their favor, is the topic of abortion, because
abortion majority of this country is in favor of a
woman's right to choose right. So that was like, if
(13:42):
there's one thing that Biden should have been sharp on,
rehearsed on, ready to go, it was that topic. And
I watched as he fumbled through an incoherent sentence on
the idea of abortion, literally leaving me just confused about
what the fuck we were even talking about. Like he
couldn't even conceptualize his point of view on the topic
(14:02):
of abortion and his stance and his plan for Rob
Wade and all these things, like couldn't coherently put together
why it was important, right, And that was enough for me.
I tuned out right after that, where I was just like,
you know what, this motherfucker Kendey hit the right. The
kim hit the most important talking points that are his
strong suit, right supposed to be his strong suit, and I,
(14:23):
like many other people, I mean, I've been saying this
for since he announced he was going to go for reelection,
and the Democrats decided to go, you know, to be
uncontested with it. That was the wrong decision. Again an
example of the Democratic Party failing the people by presenting
them with a candidate that they were actually excited about.
(14:44):
This is to me the same thing that happened in
twenty sixteen when you had Hillary versus Bernie, and the
Democratic Party very obviously stood behind Hillary and pushed that through.
And to be fair, in my opinion, I was a
Bernie supporter. Had Bernie have got the nomination, I don't
think we would have experienced Donald Trump as president, and
(15:05):
you would have thought that the Democrats in that shocking
loss would have learned their lesson, but no, they did not.
They are going to weekend at Bernie's. And I apologize
if you are, you know, too young for this reference,
but they're gonna weekend at Bernie's. Biden's corpse across the
finish line if they have to what. Meanwhile, they have
(15:25):
other people who are very competent and I think are
making a name for themselves on a national level, like California.
California's Governor Gabritt Newsom. She had even Kamala Harris, I
was a Kamala Harris fan. I mean, I haven't loved
her as vice president, but she's an incredibly intelligent woman
who I think would be a great option as well.
(15:48):
But Democrats, for the most part, you have some people
talking out and Biden now is really standing strong in
the fact that he's not going to step down. A
lot of people thought that he might over the last
week or so. We'll wait and see on him at
but it's again a failure of the Democratic Party to
deliver the people what they actually want to do, the
(16:09):
will of the people, and it's a showcase that you know,
the party that's supposed to be progressive and all these things.
They are still stuck in their old political games and agendas.
At the end of the day, right, they're playing political
games at the expense of the rest of us and
shit the free world as we know it. Possibly. Now,
with that said, I will vote for Weekend at Bernie's
(16:33):
Joe Biden being dragged across the finish line over Donald
Trump any day of the week because of what it
means for our democracy as a whole. This is what
I think people don't realize. Joe Biden may not be
your favorite candidate. He may have supported or not done
(16:53):
things that you wish he did, but at least Joe
Biden believes and honors the idea of democracy. Donald Trump
does not. I mean, we're even the Supreme Court decision
that we saw about Donald Trump having immunity. Donald Trump
put into place radical Supreme Court justices who have now
(17:17):
created all types of doubt and made a clown show
of what is supposed to be one of the most
sacred groups of people in this country, the Supreme Court,
that they're supposed to be unbiased, you know, nope, not
not have any partisan bias. When very obviously they do
with the decisions that they're making, and they are shit.
I mean even outside of the decisions they make in court,
(17:39):
they're you know, going on boat rides and they're fucking
taking all types of kickbacks, like there's no legitimacy to
our Supreme Court anymore, which they sad and scary thing.
But the decision they made in regards to one of
Donald Trump's many ongoing court cases is saying Donald Trump
has essentially ultimate immunity in certain circumstances while under while
(18:01):
while being president, essentially right, and the sort of analogy
people are making saying that it means Joe Biden could,
if it's in an official order as president, essentially could
order the assassination of Donald Trump as president of the
United States and not be held liable for it. This
(18:24):
is the type of things that Donald Trump is pushing
for folks. That's a dictatorship, the idea that a person
can't be held liable for their actions because of the
title they hold. That's what happens when you have an
ultimate dictatorship. That's what Russia has right with putin where
they're not even real elections, where they kill their political
(18:45):
enemies that's legitimately what Donald Trump and the Republican Party
are showcasing that they want to be the future of
this country how we handle things. Right. There's even the
Project twenty twenty five, which I'm sure a lot of
people seeing going around on social media. And there are
(19:08):
people on the right who are proponents of the idea
of basically eliminating like federal government employees and replacing them
with political allies essentially, right, So the people in office
are those so the people holding these positions, very important positions,
government positions, are those who are aligned politically with the
(19:29):
powers that be. It's meaning that every single part of
our federal government will be aligned with this same exact viewpoint,
and everybody's going to fall in line to essentially what
like the dictator would do. That's what we're heading towards.
That's what essentially is on the docket right now. And
I hate the fact that it's basically freedom and democracy
(19:53):
as we know it via the corpus of Joe Biden
or voting for the end of the United States as
we know it. Essentially, that's what this election has come
down to. They've forced our hand to be that right,
the Republicans have done this with their extremism. The Democrats
have done this with their lack of wanting to do
the will of the people and just want to keep
feeding us the same bullshit over and over again. And unfortunately,
(20:16):
that's the place that we're in as a country. And
while it's not ideal, it's not an excuse to sit out,
it is not an excuse to rebel. And I don't
ever want to tell people where to vote, where your
interests lie, blah blah blah, But I want you to
understand what is on the docket. Again, the country that
we all know that is imperfect, but at least is
(20:39):
a democracy that's supposed to have due process and is
supposed to do the will of the people, and it's
supposed to not be politically aligned in one direction with
one person having end all be all power. That is
all on the line right now. The country as we
know it is on the line if Donald Trump is elected.
(21:00):
And these aren't scare mongering tactics. Blah blah blah. People
are gonna write this stuff off as though they're somebody
like me is using scare tactics. It's a scare tactic
in to it's the truth, and we have to go
with what the evidence have showed us. Right, you have
people like Donald Trump, and I think Supreme Court is
viewing cases on this where they're trying to take away
(21:23):
or diminish the atrocities of January sixth, and Trump has
talked about pardoning these people. Right, they're political prisoners. These
are people who are they're treason as traders. They didn't
like the results of an election and they decided to
disgrace a government building and put the lives at risk
(21:44):
of the people in power in this country. There's no
excuse for that, right, there's no reason. That's not political prisoners.
These are traders. They don't believe in democracy in the America.
They claim to, they don't believe in what it really
stands for. And that again is what's on the docket.
(22:06):
More of that, if Trump is elected, is potentially on
the dock. And that's what makes this election so incredibly important.
And for me personally, why now is not the time
to hold the Democratic Party accountable? That's my opinion. I want,
trust me after this election, ball bets are off, but
(22:27):
right now, now is not the time to hold them accountable.
We have to do it's best for the future of
this country. And I think oftentimes in this country, as
results of societal norms in our government, we are often
stuck in a short term thinking without thinking about the
long term results. Short term, you want to stick it
to Joe Biden the Democrats. Okay, long term, you may
(22:51):
not have a country to fix, right. You may be
stuck in a dictatorship or a country that supports the
worst things human beings can do. That's literally what's on
the docket. Food for thought. Now, with that said, let's
take a quick break here and then we'll touch on
a couple more things. But yeah, we'll be right back.
(23:14):
All right, we are back, and I want to get
into Puerto Rico and Luma, the power company, right, and
I had talked about this a couple episodes ago. I
talked about it on my social media as well. A
lot of angry people. When you have an opinion, man,
it's just a crazy thing. I mean, that's what they
always say, your your skin folk an always you can folk. Right,
But Luma has decided to suspend sixty five million dollars
(23:39):
worth of maintenance projects. Now I am reading this from
I believe it was NBC News was ap article. They
say the private operator of Puerto Rico's power grid confirm
Monday the deferral of sixty five million dollars worth of
maintenance and improvement projects in the US territory, with some
repairs being postponed for at least a year because of
(24:00):
budget constraints, putting at risk the already troubled grid and
sparking wide spread outcry. They go on to say some
of the deferred projects include maintenance of more than one
hundred thousand light posts, fire mitigation, and repairs on underground circuits,
among other improvements. Luma Energy's head of regulatory affairs, Madio Utado,
(24:24):
told the Associated Press on Monday that the suspended projects,
which he aims to bring back next year, risk more
outages across the island. Quote. The risk is always that
there will be more failures in terms of public lighting,
he said at a budget hearing on Friday. Rudo said
Luma Energy prioritize other tasks based on quote professional judgment
(24:47):
quote unquote, which they consider calculated risks. The lack of
fire mitigation puts the grid at risk as hotter temperatures
sees Puerto Rico, increasing the chances of wildfire's disrupting the
power lines. Now, he went on to say, quote, we
make judgments based on what we have available and what
our goals are. And quote, although it entails continuing the
(25:09):
quote an end quote, and continuing the quote although it
entails a risk, it's an acceptable risk. End quote. Okay,
you know what I've learned in my life. When people
don't aren't able to really give you a very straight
and direct answer that you're able to easily digest, they're
(25:31):
usually full of shit. So when they say something like
professional judgment, Luma is using professional judgment and prioritizing other
tasks over their promised maintenance repair that they were supposed
to do, that's how you know they're full of shit
because of what is what is your professional judgment? What
(25:58):
does that mean? You had a hunch that is you
creating a nondirect answer as to why you have failed
the people once again. You promised sixty five million dollars
worth of baitenance repairs improvements, and you're postponing it a
(26:19):
year because of what professional judgment quote unquote professional judgment,
you're prioritizing other projects. Interesting, very interesting, especially at a
time where blackouts are becoming a major have been, but
(26:40):
even more of a major concern because of how often
they're happening. Now, you had a member of the US
the House of Representatives who's also running for governors saying
his sus Manuel or theist saying, quote, it's unacceptable that
Luma Energy can unilaterally decide to suspend crucial tasks. It's
evident that LUMA continues to fail and its responsibilities, and
(27:01):
that no one in the government of Puerto Rico is responsible.
Now I want to focus on on on that last line.
There no one in the government of Puerto Rico is responsible. Yes,
where is the government? Where is the government? Outrage when
LUMA promises to make sixty five million dollars worth of
(27:23):
improvements and then, because of professional judgment, decides, you know what,
let's let that thing wait for another year, on the
back of having a widespread blackout of the entire island
literally just weeks before. I want to like, the level
(27:45):
of fucks that LUMA doesn't give is goals for me.
The way that they can literally have just shpited the
bed and had an entire island wide blackout and then
weeks later say we're also not going to I know
you guys are pissed off about the island wide blackout,
but also we're just not gonna do the repairs that
(28:05):
we promise at least for another year. You guys be
fine with that, right the balls the balls on on
Luma to be able to say that with the straight
face and sit out there giving quotes and be okay
with it, that shows you they have zero fear of
the public backlash. They have no cause for concern that
(28:26):
the government is going to hold them accountable. Literally, they're
the Wild West of not giving a fuck and everybody's
just taking it. That's insane to me. Again, just weeks
ago you had international headlines about the entire island having
(28:47):
a massive blackout. People protested, people are annoyed, and then
you can come out with a straight face and say
you're not going to do the repairs that you promised.
Bro Tuma is is on some other energy. I gotta
respect it. I hate them, but I have to respect
these zero bucks that they give, honestly, because it's wild.
(29:11):
That's incomprehensible. Now, on the other side of things, what
are you know, the people of the local government doing right,
So you have Governor Pedro Beluisi activating the National Guard
to help with the energy crisis and ordered an investigation
into the June thirteenth blackout. The Energy Bureau is also
investigating and directed Luma and Janetta pr to submit a
(29:33):
plan to stabilize the islands electrical network. Okay, listen, even
though I think it's a BS investigation, I also have
to be fair publicly, they're saying the right thing. Biluisi,
who has been an absentee governor, is publicly saying the
(29:55):
right thing. They're ordering an investigation to the blackout. What happened. Also,
people are in my comments like, oh, you know, Puerto
Rico's grid has always been terrible for a long time.
All that is is true, but there's also other things happening. Yes,
it hasn't been a stable grid for a long time,
(30:16):
in need of repairs, even prior to Hurricane Maria. Hurricane
Maria ruined that even more. But it has gotten worse
under Luma, or at least you're paying more money under
Looma for no reason whatsoever. So investigations need to happen.
So if that's actually happening, which again, you can't trust
(30:36):
a corrupt government. Who's probably getting kickbacks from Luma to
do an investigation. But we got to take them for
their word at this point. But this is more to
the case of what I said. You start suing people,
you start bringing that, you start bringing them up and
have to report to Congress, right and and just like
you know Facebook, you know execs have to talk in
(30:59):
front of Congress and be grilled about what they're doing.
We need to see more of that. We'll see what
happens again. Maybe maybe this is a move in the
right direction. They're telling us what we want to hear
about them getting investigated and having to submit plans. Great,
but you actually then need to have people with a
backbone in office who are going to follow through on
(31:20):
this and not just give us these fake bullshit investigations.
At the end of the day, but let's see what happens.
Let's see vote. That's all I could say. If you're
able to vote and Puerto Rico vote, tell your family
this is what's on the docket. Now, with that said,
let's move into some positivity here. We will talk about
artists who I think is just doing incredible things in
(31:42):
army hint that segment. But first to take a quick
break and then we'll be right back, all right, So
I'll leave the link to this in the show notes
if you want to dive into this. I just thought
(32:03):
it was a really cool I don't know, it's it's
a really cool showcase of the opportunities that are available
to those who want to create an avenue for their dreams. Right,
and again, this is an artist. You can insert whatever
fucking thing you do, but let this be an inspiration
as to how you can make money and make a
living off of your art. Now you have Bobby out
(32:27):
of Arado. I don't know why i'd promise saying I
was gonna try to put some spanners sauce on it.
Obviously failed at that one. But Bobby Alvarado, who is
an artist, is a street artist, right, And he's actually
a Cheetos ambassador, right, so his his whole thing. He's
a traveling muralist, and he is trying to inspire others
(32:53):
through his art essentially, right and giving back is what
he's saying. Right, And I mean again, I'm not going
to dive into like the entire of his story. Right.
He designed like a bag here for Cheetos. He's doing
these different murals and things like that. He's traveling around
(33:14):
the entire world. He's an El Salvadorian artist. And the
reason I brought up this, hey, it's fucking awesome. I mean,
listen it. Cheetos as a national brand, international brand, big
gigantic brand, and they're putting money behind somebody from our
community who's doing their art and it's beautiful. And I
(33:34):
think for me, this is a launching point for a
bigger conversation. Right, we live in a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
world that is complicated and incredibly difficult at times, but
also we as creatives, as entrepreneurs, as people who want
more for our lives, we have so many tools and
(33:55):
resources at our disposal that previous generations never had. And yes,
it's more saturated than it ever was. But as with anything,
you can either choose to live on the negative side
of the street or crossover across the street and look
at it from the positive side and say, I have
(34:17):
a chance to create a business and a life for
myself theoretically without ever having to leave the house. And
we've never been able to do that before. Backstory when
I was first starting out in music, and I'm not
going to dive down my entire biography here. But I
used to play in bands, right. I was a drummer
and I was a vocalist for a band, and I
(34:39):
started I got into my serious band when I was
about eighteen years old. We started it, and at that time,
we did have technology, right, We had things like MySpace available.
Dating myself a little bit here, but I would I
would book tours literally around the country as an independent,
unsigned artist before before you know, being like independent was
(35:00):
the norm. We were booking tours self, booking tours around
the country literally utilizing MySpace and technology that there was
at the time, right, which again we're a step ahead
of the previous generation who didn't even have the possibility
to do that. Right. But our generation we needed record labels, right,
wasn't it. You can't even get things onto like iTunes
(35:20):
and all that at the time, you know, that was
barely even the thing. But people were still buying CDs.
But even then it was like impossible to get distribution.
There wasn't unless you had a record label. Uh, And
at that time that avenue to get signed and discovered.
Labels were looking for bands who had, like, you know,
a decent MySpace following and we're touring basically, so bands
(35:45):
who were out on their own already creating a buzz, right,
And I mean that's kind of the precursor to what
we live in now. But we actually had to physically
go out on the road and somehow, some way scraped
enough change from each gig to have enough gas to
(36:06):
go out and spend a month traveling the country trying
to make new fans. We would literally go to at
the time, there's a festival called the Warp Tour. We
would sneak in and sell CDs. That's how we funded
some of the tour, like you know, but these are
the precursor. We literally, like the only way of really
connecting with people and getting the attention of record labels
to assent to the next level was to get out
(36:27):
and touch people, to get out and play as many
shows as possible, and network and make those connections all
those things, right, and again, the previous generation before me
had it even harder. But my point is now, if
I'm an artist, or you know, I'm using music as
my example, I'm a musical artist, I literally hypothetically don't
(36:47):
ever have to even play a show to build a career.
And there's a lot of artists who are doing that.
I literally could, and we used to have to go
to a studio by the way, to record and do
all these different things right, and print up We used
to have to print up CDs because again iTunes all
that wasn't really a big deal. You had to have
physical CD. So we have to spend all that money,
right Anyway, My point being is this, in today's version
(37:12):
of that, all we as a band would have had
to do was put out videos on social media and
get good at social media, create content in our practice space. Basically,
if we wanted to write and never actually have to
leave the house, never actually have to go out and
buy a van trailer and figure that out and be
on the road and making no money and doing all
(37:32):
these things, we literally could create a career from our hometown, right,
because that was the other thing was like, in order
to make a name for yourself, you had to leave
your hometown back in the day. And what I'm trying
to get at here because I'm about to go down
like fucking you know, memory lane over here. We live
in an era now fast forward. Bands musicians don't even
(37:55):
need a record label. In fact, record labels are becoming
more and more a relevant unless you are trying to
be Taylor Swift. Outside of that, you don't need a
record label. Radio is irrelevant. You can become big on
TikTok and develop a fan base and be fine and
stream crazy numbers and be good. Right. My point being this,
(38:18):
we live in an error where the avenues for you
to find success are incredibly diverse and endless. You just
have to be creative in the way that you approach
your art and the way that you approach trying to
make a living off of it or your entrepreneurial adventure
(38:39):
or whatever it might be. Right, the opportunities are there,
you just have to look at it from a different
point of view. Now, forget what's been done, forget what's
the norm. You have to ask yourself, what am I
not seeing? Where does the opportunity lie? Right again? I
started this by mentioning somebody that I was doing a
(39:04):
one on more one on one mentorship call with from
the Just Be Social Club, and she was telling me
about a career opportunity that popped up. She had been
looking to figure out what's the next step in her career,
and it was something that nobody around her even realized
you could do right without divulging too much of her
personal information. She works in like the field of science
(39:29):
and was full time salary under a specific company. What
she didn't realize was she actually could create her own
full time opportunity and sort of dip and dab into
different aspects of what she does. Instead of reporting to
one place every day, she could have a couple different
sort of a day here, two days there, three days there,
(39:51):
and she could sort of build her own full time job.
And what she had to do then and look for
was look for grants that are out there for people
in her field that could then supplement that full time income.
And I hope that makes sense. Essentially, you're like looking
for different sponsors to supplement your full time salary, right,
(40:15):
And yeah, maybe it's a little bit more work because
instead of getting paid from one avenue, you sort of
have like, let's say, three or four people covering what
is your salary. But within that is more flexibility and
freedom because technically you don't work directly under one person,
you don't answer to one person, you don't have to
be at the same place every day. You're probably able
to have a bit more flexibility in your time and
(40:36):
schedule because the grants are buying into you rather than
you're getting hired by somebody. I hope that makes sense,
And truthfully, that's much of what I do. I have
multiple streams of income, but I work with multiple brands
as well, and that's how I've been able to create
a salary that works for me. Right, That's why I DJ,
(40:57):
That's why I do the podcasting. I invested in in
a U Hault business, right, I you know, have been dipping,
dabbling in some other entrepreneurial ventures, right, and combining all
of those, I've created a salary that I'm happy with
that gives me freedom and flexibility. And I bring up
(41:17):
somebody like this because he's a muralist who traditionally, if
you're like an artist, you're lucky if maybe locally, you know,
like you'll get hired to paint the inside of a
juice you know, a green juice place that just opened
up or something like that. Right, many people are surviving
off of those types of gigs. But again, in today's
(41:38):
day and age, he has the ability to be discovered
outside of his sort of regional environment. I'm assuming he
got popular on social media in some sort of way
to get discovered by Cheetos. And now through this, you know,
being a brand ambassador for Cheetos, he can travel around
the world doing murals, right, And I know he's giving
(42:00):
back in different ways as well. But my point being this,
the opportunities now are vast. Right as an artist, Let's say,
like I don't know, twenty years ago, maybe more, you
had to hope to have your stuff discovered by like
a gallery owner and they would play on a show
for you, and then you'll try to sell paintings and
(42:21):
blah blah blah. Right now it's like, bro, you show up,
you paint, you post on social media. You do you
know you learn social media? Well, right, that's a part
of it, Like educate yourself on what works because the algorithms.
It's it's at the end of the day, what I've
begun to learn, not saying I've mastered it. But all
of this stuff is science. All this stuff is blueprint.
There's a formula to it. You have to learn what
(42:41):
the formula is and get good at it, right, and
it's available to you via YouTube, university, and there's plenty
of consultants and things like that that exists. Right, But
I'm sure this guy got good at social media or
something he posted did really well, and now the opportunity
to be a full time artist is happening on his
own terms. Right, He's going a non traditional path. He's
(43:03):
a brand ambassador of a fucking potato chip company as
a muralist, and I'm sure again this is funding his
lifestyle for the time being. My point being, how many
opportunities are out there for us if we just get
creative and stop thinking about the traditional path and understand
that we can create our own path and mix and
(43:25):
match different things. We again just have to be creative
with the outlook that we have and the way that
we can get there. And let this just be again
an example of how you can build the life you
want in a way that goes against what other people
consider to be the normal path. Right, there is no
there is no normal anymore. What's whatever you craft and
(43:48):
whatever you create, it's out there for you. You just
have to find the opportunities. You have to think differently.
What's not being done? How can I think differently than
what everybody else has done? That's that's I guess my point.
What I want to spire hopefully spark with somebody like this.
And yeah, just amazing stuff again, Bobby Alvarado. I'll put
(44:08):
the link to his full article in the show notes.
That's really cool. There's a little video about his work
and and and you know what he's doing if you
want to check it out and get some more inspiration. Now,
with that said, let's tie everything we talked about today
in a neat little boat in a segment we called
conclusion to time for conclusion soon. All right, I'll keep
(44:31):
it short and sweet here. I feel I always say that,
but this is why we can have nice things. Jenny
Niveda and Selena's Hollywood. The star on the Hollywood Walk
of Fame vandalized not once, but twice. More evidence of
the world that we live in today. I mean, listen,
maybe it's coincidence, but what are the odds to Mexican icons.
(44:57):
They're the stars that were vandalized here, not once but twice.
Terrible again, more sort of product and repercussions of the
current climate that we live in, the anti immigrant sentiment
that happens, and more reason why we have to stay
politically activated and active and motivated, I should say, Biden
Trump debate not a great thing to keep you inspired
(45:19):
to stay active politically, but again, democracy is on the ticket.
That's what it comes down to. I'm not happy about
the choices either, but I believe in a democracy. I
don't want to see us. I don't want to see
how bad it could get With Biden, at least, you know,
the rule of democracy will always come first, and that's
(45:40):
why I'm voting Biden. And then in Puerto Rico with Luma,
I mean, listen, And then on a positive note, that
article with like the governor calling for an investigation right
and them being demanded to submit plans and things like that,
I hope that that's real. Am I pessimistic, yes, because
the government of Puerto Rico has show me any other
(46:00):
reason to not be pessimistic. On the other side of it,
LUMA has, you know, almost impressively displayed their level of
not giving a fuck about the people. As they are
prolonging these sixty five million dollars worth of maintenance products
they had planned for about another year on the backs
of continuous rolling blackouts and a massive one that happened
(46:21):
just weeks before. We need to do more. I don't
have all the solutions out of all the answers, I'm
passionate and I just want to figure out a way
to do more. And I know that talking about it,
I know that proposing my viewpoint and make proposing any
ideas I might have hopefully again just keeps this conversation
(46:43):
going and trying to be proactive and solution orients is
what my goal always is. And then this this amazing
article with the street artists who's partner with Cheetos Again,
so I'm thinking outside the box. You want to do
something your art, think outside the box. Last thing I'll
say is this, I come from the background of radio.
(47:05):
Radio as we know it is dead. People are gonna
hate me for saying that in my industry, but it
is so for me. If I want to be a
personality who speaks, I need to go the non traditional route.
Like this is an example. If I'm saying, oh, I
loved radio growing up. I always want to be a
radio personality. But it's twenty twenty four. That's not really
(47:26):
the future of it anymore. Is the traditional path that
I thought it would be? What's the alternative? Podcasting, twitch,
social media, streaming, all that stuff, right, that's the new
radio and that's what I mean. You have to train
your mind what is the new version of the thing
that I want? That's how you have to stay ahead
of the curve. Want I want to do X? Is
(47:48):
that a real thing in twenty twenty four? Or what
is the new version of X in twenty twenty four? Right?
What does that look like in twenty twenty four? And
that's where you focus your attention. Stop trying to redo
things or stop trying to go down the path of
the old model. And again, this is your art, this
is your career, whatever it might be. You can't keep
following the old model. The old model is outdated in
(48:11):
almost every sector of every industry, every path you could
think of. The old model is dead, it's dying, it's
on the way out. What is the new version of
the thing I want to do? And how do I
begin to go down that path and utilize the opportunities
that I have via technology. That's how you have to
start training your mind to think. That's what I'm trying
to get at. But that said, thank y'all so much
(48:33):
for tuning in. I will catch you on Tuesday with
a brand new episode. So then stay safe and we'll
talk soon. Life as a GREENO is a production of
the micro Through podcast network and iHeartRadio
Love me talking about talk here we go. He said,
you live in life as a gringo, where you question
where you fit in every time you mingle, they say
you do this with not a fingo. Yes, hello, and
welcome to another episode of Life as a Gringo. I
am Dramas, of course, and it is Thursday, so I
(00:28):
mean it's time for our Thursday Trends episode flying solo
on today's show, because I feel like I've been just slacked.
I not not that I feel like I've been slacking.
I know I've been slacking and not slacking on purpose,
but just a lot going on. We had Tuesday. I
want to bring you, uh the new episode of The
Street Stoic as we kick off. They just be Social
(00:50):
Club the new version of it via Patreon. Again, it's free.
Shout out to everybody that DM me that wanted to
join to get the link and still open at DJ Drama.
I'll send it to you. It's free. Ton of stuff
on there already and I'm gonna continue to add to
it as the weeks and you know, forever goes on basically.
And then we were off last week because of the
(01:10):
holiday for fourth of July. And yeah, I just I'm
like itching to just sit down and talk to myself
for a minute. I guess, you know, as vain as
that may sound. So I wanted to just you know,
cover a bunch of things that I feel like I've
missed over the last couple of weeks, not having done
(01:32):
a fresh episode, you know, from start to finish. Also,
I want to keep a big shout out and this
is what we need to have more of, right. I
was randomly on the micro Tuda podcast network YouTube channel.
That's where you can find the video version of this
podcast if you ever want to check that out. It's
mostly just me sitting in a chair and then like
(01:53):
random shots of my dog walking by and ruining everything.
So if you're into that kind of thing, please feel
free to subscribe to the YouTube channel watch the video
version of the show. But I was reading randomly like
a comment that was left on one of the episodes
and shout out to her. I don't know the remember
her name off the top of my head, but she
was saying, you know, she listens to the podcast even
(02:16):
though she doesn't particularly agree with my political views, and
I thought that was so beautiful, Like, to me, that
is what we need more of in this country, in
this world is the idea that we can have opposing
viewpoints on things and still coexist together and still enjoy
each other in some capacity, right. I think for me,
(02:40):
the older I get and the more I dive into
topics that are sensitive, like politics, I try my best.
I'm not always you know, perfect at it, but I
try my best to come at it from a point
of view of I'm not trying to be right. I
am giving you information, and then I'm giving you my
digestion of the information, all with the goal of trying
(03:00):
to get to what I feel like is the best answer. Right.
I'm never trying to at least my goal is to
not be trying to win, like an argument or debate.
My goal is how do we get to the best
answer possible? And sometimes it might be, you know, the
best answer could be counter to what I've personally believed, right,
and I have to reprogram my mind, or I have
(03:22):
to concede and listen to other points of view, or
just understand that many of the topics that we speak
about are incredibly nuanced and there isn't just one answer, right.
That's why we have so many different political ideologies. And
viewpoints on what works or what doesn't work, whatever it
might be. So I just wanted to give a shout
out to anybody who is doing their best to keep
(03:43):
an open mind, like especially during really difficult and polarizing
times that we live in today, where listen, we don't
all have to agree on every single thing, but as
long as we're coming about it from a place of
respect and a place of genuinely wanting the best for
you know, humanity, and specifically when talks want to talk
about this podcast, our community, our culture. That's my goal
(04:04):
is to be you know, bringing out the best of
our community for our community. And I'm not always right.
I'm never gonna claim to be. I'm passionate, right, and
I try to give you my take on things, and
I try to be as informed as I possibly can.
But I'm not always going to be right, and that's okay.
Or we're not always going to agree on the best
(04:24):
solution for things. Right again, there's not always just one solution,
especially when we're talking about really complicated issues like politics
and social issues and whatever it might be. So I
just want to take a moment to shout out to
that listener. I really appreciate you for for tuning in
and keeping it open mind, and you know, I think that's,
you know, something we all could be a little bit
(04:45):
better at, right, myself included at times. Now, with that said,
let's let's talk about what we're going to be touching
on in today's episode. Really said here, I mentioned this
as like a celebratory moment last month, one of you know,
a really amazing figure from our community getting a star
(05:08):
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Unfortunately, that star was
vandalized along with another gigantic prominent figure from our community.
So we'll touch on that. I haven't done a podcast
since the Biden Trump debate, so I'm going to just
touch on what I've been thinking with that. And also
I've been, you know, really heavy on this topic about
(05:29):
Puerto Rico and the struggles with the power grid and
the power company Luma. So there's been an update on
that which is not a positive one, but we'll talk
about it. I want to make sure I touch on
it and then on a positive note for our me
hint that segment. I found this story and I just
(05:51):
think this is a really great example. And I was
talking to somebody via R just be social club. I
was doing a one on one conversation with them, and
I'll keep short, but they were having like a breakthrough
moment in their career that came as a result of
them being shown a path that was different than the norm,
(06:12):
that they didn't realize was available to them and that
most people around them didn't realize was available. And I
thought that was so beautiful, especially in twenty twenty four,
the level of opportunities that we have to do things
in a different way, right. And I've always been somebody,
I mean shit, my life is built around the idea
of finding a different way to get to the results
(06:35):
I want right and not getting stuck on the traditional
path that many take to get there, right. And to me,
I found a story that I'll share farm you hit
that segment that I think is a perfect example of that.
Somebody finding a way to live through their art that
is in non traditional way. And hopefully you know sparks
maybe something in your head of a different way you
(06:57):
can look at your path and what you're wanting to do.
So we'll talk about that and we hit this segment.
But first and foremost, as we always do, let's get
to that nitty gritty, the nonsense, the bs. In a segment,
we call for the people in the back, say a
lot for the people in the say a lot of
the people in the say a lot of the people
(07:24):
of All right, we'll start here Hollywood the Walk of Fame.
Jenny Neveda, I got her star last month and sadly
somebody has vandalized it. Right, So I'm pulling this story
from NBC News. They say the Hollywood Walker Fame stars
of and not just jeneviev Jennieveda, also the legend that
(07:49):
is Selena. Both of them had their their stars vandalized
not once, but twice this week with black spray paint. Now,
of course, this has caused outrage from the community. From fans,
some of whom I was watching TikTok literally took it
(08:09):
upon themselves, which I love this shit. Man, there's the
type of stuff I'm talking about, like we put the
power down hands right. They took it upon themselves to
go to the star and clean it up. And Anna Martinez,
who's the vice president of Media and Talent Relations at
the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, told NBC News that the
first incident of vandalism took place on Monday, the Hollywood
(08:30):
Chamber of Commerce had the stars professionally cleaned and then
notified the police, but sadly, which is like fucking psychotic.
The next day she realized that Selena and Jay Hideveda's
stars had been painted over again. And listen, I'm not
in the market of conspiracy theories or you know, just
talking out of the side of my mouth here, but
(08:53):
two Latina's stars being vandalized. I mean, I can't help
but feel like this had something to do with the
fact that they were not only Latinas but also Mexican
in a country in a time period where the anti
immigrant rhetoric is at an all time high, where Mexicans
are taking the brunt of a lot of hate, I
(09:16):
can't help feel like this is somehow motivated by some
good old boy wanting to make a point here. And listen,
I'm open to being wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I
hope they find the person and it's, you know, not
some random white person who hates Latinos. But I'm going
to go out on a limb here, in my personal
(09:37):
opinion say smells like this was racially motivated. And again,
I mean, listen, this is obviously a crime where thank god,
like nobody's life has been put at risk. But it
does show you the effects of the rhetoric that is
happening in our current society around immigrants, around those from
(09:58):
places like Mexico, that it bleeds into things like this
where people feel the need to disgrace the legend and
the just the honor and the memory of people like
Selena and Jenny Rivera, you know, for no reason whatsoever, right,
(10:21):
And it's disgusting. I think there's obviously no way around that,
and you know, hurts my heart, makes me fucking sad
to see that. But it's more of the product of
the current world that we live in, and this is
a tame version of the product. Right, It could be
much worse, and we've seen it be much worse. And again,
(10:43):
you know, rhetoric and ideas have real world implications, especially
when they're coming from people with gigantic platforms like Donald
Trump and the rhetoric we often see on the right,
which leads perfectly into the debates that no one wanted,
(11:06):
that everybody hoped would be something that could hang their
hat on. If you are somebody who is supporting Joe Biden, sadly,
it turned out to be worse than we could have
ever imagined. Again, if you're a supportive of Biden, to
be honest with you, beyond even just being a support
of Biden, it was terrible. I think if you are
(11:29):
anybody who has any faith, any belief system, or what
you know, like if you're an American, or if you shit,
I mean, it's a dark moment for America as a
whole to watch these two men talk a bunch of nonsense.
(11:51):
I mean literally, we have two men up there arguing
about who would beat the other in a game of
golf at a presidential debate. These are the two men
who are vying for your votes to be the president
of the United States, arguably one of the most important
positions in the entire world, and they're sitting there debating
(12:15):
one another on who would beat the other in golf. That,
right there, minus anything else, is a really scary sort
of rejection of where we are as a country. Regardless
of what side of the aisle you fall on. I
don't care if you are a Trump lover, that should
(12:35):
not be something you're excited to watch and feel confident
in his ability to leave the country Now on the
other side of it, Biden, after months and months and
months of the Democrats sort of clutching their pearls whenever
somebody would would talk about his age or his cognitive
(12:56):
ability or whether he was up for another four years
of the job, Democrats had their worst case scenario come true.
Biden was horrendous, couldn't, couldn't put together a coherent sentence,
couldn't even my biggest thing, and that I didn't even watch.
(13:19):
I literally I tuned in and I had to tune
out after after a short period of time because it
was just it was nauseating to watch what was going on. Right,
But my whole takeaway is like one of the biggest
issues for Democrats that is like a strong issue where
it's in their favor, is the topic of abortion, because
abortion majority of this country is in favor of a
woman's right to choose right. So that was like, if
(13:42):
there's one thing that Biden should have been sharp on,
rehearsed on, ready to go, it was that topic. And
I watched as he fumbled through an incoherent sentence on
the idea of abortion, literally leaving me just confused about
what the fuck we were even talking about. Like he
couldn't even conceptualize his point of view on the topic
(14:02):
of abortion and his stance and his plan for Rob
Wade and all these things, like couldn't coherently put together
why it was important, right, And that was enough for me.
I tuned out right after that, where I was just like,
you know what, this motherfucker Kendey hit the right. The
kim hit the most important talking points that are his
strong suit, right supposed to be his strong suit, and I,
(14:23):
like many other people, I mean, I've been saying this
for since he announced he was going to go for reelection,
and the Democrats decided to go, you know, to be
uncontested with it. That was the wrong decision. Again an
example of the Democratic Party failing the people by presenting
them with a candidate that they were actually excited about.
(14:44):
This is to me the same thing that happened in
twenty sixteen when you had Hillary versus Bernie, and the
Democratic Party very obviously stood behind Hillary and pushed that through.
And to be fair, in my opinion, I was a
Bernie supporter. Had Bernie have got the nomination, I don't
think we would have experienced Donald Trump as president, and
(15:05):
you would have thought that the Democrats in that shocking
loss would have learned their lesson, but no, they did not.
They are going to weekend at Bernie's. And I apologize
if you are, you know, too young for this reference,
but they're gonna weekend at Bernie's. Biden's corpse across the
finish line if they have to what. Meanwhile, they have
(15:25):
other people who are very competent and I think are
making a name for themselves on a national level, like California.
California's Governor Gabritt Newsom. She had even Kamala Harris, I
was a Kamala Harris fan. I mean, I haven't loved
her as vice president, but she's an incredibly intelligent woman
who I think would be a great option as well.
(15:48):
But Democrats, for the most part, you have some people
talking out and Biden now is really standing strong in
the fact that he's not going to step down. A
lot of people thought that he might over the last
week or so. We'll wait and see on him at
but it's again a failure of the Democratic Party to
deliver the people what they actually want to do, the
(16:09):
will of the people, and it's a showcase that you know,
the party that's supposed to be progressive and all these things.
They are still stuck in their old political games and agendas.
At the end of the day, right, they're playing political
games at the expense of the rest of us and
shit the free world as we know it. Possibly. Now,
with that said, I will vote for Weekend at Bernie's
(16:33):
Joe Biden being dragged across the finish line over Donald
Trump any day of the week because of what it
means for our democracy as a whole. This is what
I think people don't realize. Joe Biden may not be
your favorite candidate. He may have supported or not done
(16:53):
things that you wish he did, but at least Joe
Biden believes and honors the idea of democracy. Donald Trump
does not. I mean, we're even the Supreme Court decision
that we saw about Donald Trump having immunity. Donald Trump
put into place radical Supreme Court justices who have now
(17:17):
created all types of doubt and made a clown show
of what is supposed to be one of the most
sacred groups of people in this country, the Supreme Court,
that they're supposed to be unbiased, you know, nope, not
not have any partisan bias. When very obviously they do
with the decisions that they're making, and they are shit.
I mean even outside of the decisions they make in court,
(17:39):
they're you know, going on boat rides and they're fucking
taking all types of kickbacks, like there's no legitimacy to
our Supreme Court anymore, which they sad and scary thing.
But the decision they made in regards to one of
Donald Trump's many ongoing court cases is saying Donald Trump
has essentially ultimate immunity in certain circumstances while under while
(18:01):
while being president, essentially right, and the sort of analogy
people are making saying that it means Joe Biden could,
if it's in an official order as president, essentially could
order the assassination of Donald Trump as president of the
United States and not be held liable for it. This
(18:24):
is the type of things that Donald Trump is pushing
for folks. That's a dictatorship, the idea that a person
can't be held liable for their actions because of the
title they hold. That's what happens when you have an
ultimate dictatorship. That's what Russia has right with putin where
they're not even real elections, where they kill their political
(18:45):
enemies that's legitimately what Donald Trump and the Republican Party
are showcasing that they want to be the future of
this country how we handle things. Right. There's even the
Project twenty twenty five, which I'm sure a lot of
people seeing going around on social media. And there are
(19:08):
people on the right who are proponents of the idea
of basically eliminating like federal government employees and replacing them
with political allies essentially, right, So the people in office
are those so the people holding these positions, very important positions,
government positions, are those who are aligned politically with the
(19:29):
powers that be. It's meaning that every single part of
our federal government will be aligned with this same exact viewpoint,
and everybody's going to fall in line to essentially what
like the dictator would do. That's what we're heading towards.
That's what essentially is on the docket right now. And
I hate the fact that it's basically freedom and democracy
(19:53):
as we know it via the corpus of Joe Biden
or voting for the end of the United States as
we know it. Essentially, that's what this election has come
down to. They've forced our hand to be that right,
the Republicans have done this with their extremism. The Democrats
have done this with their lack of wanting to do
the will of the people and just want to keep
feeding us the same bullshit over and over again. And unfortunately,
(20:16):
that's the place that we're in as a country. And
while it's not ideal, it's not an excuse to sit out,
it is not an excuse to rebel. And I don't
ever want to tell people where to vote, where your
interests lie, blah blah blah, But I want you to
understand what is on the docket. Again, the country that
we all know that is imperfect, but at least is
(20:39):
a democracy that's supposed to have due process and is
supposed to do the will of the people, and it's
supposed to not be politically aligned in one direction with
one person having end all be all power. That is
all on the line right now. The country as we
know it is on the line if Donald Trump is elected.
(21:00):
And these aren't scare mongering tactics. Blah blah blah. People
are gonna write this stuff off as though they're somebody
like me is using scare tactics. It's a scare tactic
in to it's the truth, and we have to go
with what the evidence have showed us. Right, you have
people like Donald Trump, and I think Supreme Court is
viewing cases on this where they're trying to take away
(21:23):
or diminish the atrocities of January sixth, and Trump has
talked about pardoning these people. Right, they're political prisoners. These
are people who are they're treason as traders. They didn't
like the results of an election and they decided to
disgrace a government building and put the lives at risk
(21:44):
of the people in power in this country. There's no
excuse for that, right, there's no reason. That's not political prisoners.
These are traders. They don't believe in democracy in the America.
They claim to, they don't believe in what it really
stands for. And that again is what's on the docket.
(22:06):
More of that, if Trump is elected, is potentially on
the dock. And that's what makes this election so incredibly important.
And for me personally, why now is not the time
to hold the Democratic Party accountable? That's my opinion. I want,
trust me after this election, ball bets are off, but
(22:27):
right now, now is not the time to hold them accountable.
We have to do it's best for the future of
this country. And I think oftentimes in this country, as
results of societal norms in our government, we are often
stuck in a short term thinking without thinking about the
long term results. Short term, you want to stick it
to Joe Biden the Democrats. Okay, long term, you may
(22:51):
not have a country to fix, right. You may be
stuck in a dictatorship or a country that supports the
worst things human beings can do. That's literally what's on
the docket. Food for thought. Now, with that said, let's
take a quick break here and then we'll touch on
a couple more things. But yeah, we'll be right back.
(23:14):
All right, we are back, and I want to get
into Puerto Rico and Luma, the power company, right, and
I had talked about this a couple episodes ago. I
talked about it on my social media as well. A
lot of angry people. When you have an opinion, man,
it's just a crazy thing. I mean, that's what they
always say, your your skin folk an always you can folk. Right,
But Luma has decided to suspend sixty five million dollars
(23:39):
worth of maintenance projects. Now I am reading this from
I believe it was NBC News was ap article. They
say the private operator of Puerto Rico's power grid confirm
Monday the deferral of sixty five million dollars worth of
maintenance and improvement projects in the US territory, with some
repairs being postponed for at least a year because of
(24:00):
budget constraints, putting at risk the already troubled grid and
sparking wide spread outcry. They go on to say some
of the deferred projects include maintenance of more than one
hundred thousand light posts, fire mitigation, and repairs on underground circuits,
among other improvements. Luma Energy's head of regulatory affairs, Madio Utado,
(24:24):
told the Associated Press on Monday that the suspended projects,
which he aims to bring back next year, risk more
outages across the island. Quote. The risk is always that
there will be more failures in terms of public lighting,
he said at a budget hearing on Friday. Rudo said
Luma Energy prioritize other tasks based on quote professional judgment
(24:47):
quote unquote, which they consider calculated risks. The lack of
fire mitigation puts the grid at risk as hotter temperatures
sees Puerto Rico, increasing the chances of wildfire's disrupting the
power lines. Now, he went on to say, quote, we
make judgments based on what we have available and what
our goals are. And quote, although it entails continuing the
(25:09):
quote an end quote, and continuing the quote although it
entails a risk, it's an acceptable risk. End quote. Okay,
you know what I've learned in my life. When people
don't aren't able to really give you a very straight
and direct answer that you're able to easily digest, they're
(25:31):
usually full of shit. So when they say something like
professional judgment, Luma is using professional judgment and prioritizing other
tasks over their promised maintenance repair that they were supposed
to do, that's how you know they're full of shit
because of what is what is your professional judgment? What
(25:58):
does that mean? You had a hunch that is you
creating a nondirect answer as to why you have failed
the people once again. You promised sixty five million dollars
worth of baitenance repairs improvements, and you're postponing it a
(26:19):
year because of what professional judgment quote unquote professional judgment,
you're prioritizing other projects. Interesting, very interesting, especially at a
time where blackouts are becoming a major have been, but
(26:40):
even more of a major concern because of how often
they're happening. Now, you had a member of the US
the House of Representatives who's also running for governors saying
his sus Manuel or theist saying, quote, it's unacceptable that
Luma Energy can unilaterally decide to suspend crucial tasks. It's
evident that LUMA continues to fail and its responsibilities, and
(27:01):
that no one in the government of Puerto Rico is responsible.
Now I want to focus on on on that last line.
There no one in the government of Puerto Rico is responsible. Yes,
where is the government? Where is the government? Outrage when
LUMA promises to make sixty five million dollars worth of
(27:23):
improvements and then, because of professional judgment, decides, you know what,
let's let that thing wait for another year, on the
back of having a widespread blackout of the entire island
literally just weeks before. I want to like, the level
(27:45):
of fucks that LUMA doesn't give is goals for me.
The way that they can literally have just shpited the
bed and had an entire island wide blackout and then
weeks later say we're also not going to I know
you guys are pissed off about the island wide blackout,
but also we're just not gonna do the repairs that
(28:05):
we promise at least for another year. You guys be
fine with that, right the balls the balls on on
Luma to be able to say that with the straight
face and sit out there giving quotes and be okay
with it, that shows you they have zero fear of
the public backlash. They have no cause for concern that
(28:26):
the government is going to hold them accountable. Literally, they're
the Wild West of not giving a fuck and everybody's
just taking it. That's insane to me. Again, just weeks
ago you had international headlines about the entire island having
(28:47):
a massive blackout. People protested, people are annoyed, and then
you can come out with a straight face and say
you're not going to do the repairs that you promised.
Bro Tuma is is on some other energy. I gotta
respect it. I hate them, but I have to respect
these zero bucks that they give, honestly, because it's wild.
(29:11):
That's incomprehensible. Now, on the other side of things, what
are you know, the people of the local government doing right,
So you have Governor Pedro Beluisi activating the National Guard
to help with the energy crisis and ordered an investigation
into the June thirteenth blackout. The Energy Bureau is also
investigating and directed Luma and Janetta pr to submit a
(29:33):
plan to stabilize the islands electrical network. Okay, listen, even
though I think it's a BS investigation, I also have
to be fair publicly, they're saying the right thing. Biluisi,
who has been an absentee governor, is publicly saying the
(29:55):
right thing. They're ordering an investigation to the blackout. What happened. Also,
people are in my comments like, oh, you know, Puerto
Rico's grid has always been terrible for a long time.
All that is is true, but there's also other things happening. Yes,
it hasn't been a stable grid for a long time,
(30:16):
in need of repairs, even prior to Hurricane Maria. Hurricane
Maria ruined that even more. But it has gotten worse
under Luma, or at least you're paying more money under
Looma for no reason whatsoever. So investigations need to happen.
So if that's actually happening, which again, you can't trust
(30:36):
a corrupt government. Who's probably getting kickbacks from Luma to
do an investigation. But we got to take them for
their word at this point. But this is more to
the case of what I said. You start suing people,
you start bringing that, you start bringing them up and
have to report to Congress, right and and just like
you know Facebook, you know execs have to talk in
(30:59):
front of Congress and be grilled about what they're doing.
We need to see more of that. We'll see what
happens again. Maybe maybe this is a move in the
right direction. They're telling us what we want to hear
about them getting investigated and having to submit plans. Great,
but you actually then need to have people with a
backbone in office who are going to follow through on
(31:20):
this and not just give us these fake bullshit investigations.
At the end of the day, but let's see what happens.
Let's see vote. That's all I could say. If you're
able to vote and Puerto Rico vote, tell your family
this is what's on the docket. Now, with that said,
let's move into some positivity here. We will talk about
artists who I think is just doing incredible things in
(31:42):
army hint that segment. But first to take a quick
break and then we'll be right back, all right, So
I'll leave the link to this in the show notes
if you want to dive into this. I just thought
(32:03):
it was a really cool I don't know, it's it's
a really cool showcase of the opportunities that are available
to those who want to create an avenue for their dreams. Right,
and again, this is an artist. You can insert whatever
fucking thing you do, but let this be an inspiration
as to how you can make money and make a
living off of your art. Now you have Bobby out
(32:27):
of Arado. I don't know why i'd promise saying I
was gonna try to put some spanners sauce on it.
Obviously failed at that one. But Bobby Alvarado, who is
an artist, is a street artist, right, And he's actually
a Cheetos ambassador, right, so his his whole thing. He's
a traveling muralist, and he is trying to inspire others
(32:53):
through his art essentially, right and giving back is what
he's saying. Right, And I mean again, I'm not going
to dive into like the entire of his story. Right.
He designed like a bag here for Cheetos. He's doing
these different murals and things like that. He's traveling around
(33:14):
the entire world. He's an El Salvadorian artist. And the
reason I brought up this, hey, it's fucking awesome. I mean,
listen it. Cheetos as a national brand, international brand, big
gigantic brand, and they're putting money behind somebody from our
community who's doing their art and it's beautiful. And I
(33:34):
think for me, this is a launching point for a
bigger conversation. Right, we live in a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
world that is complicated and incredibly difficult at times, but
also we as creatives, as entrepreneurs, as people who want
more for our lives, we have so many tools and
(33:55):
resources at our disposal that previous generations never had. And yes,
it's more saturated than it ever was. But as with anything,
you can either choose to live on the negative side
of the street or crossover across the street and look
at it from the positive side and say, I have
(34:17):
a chance to create a business and a life for
myself theoretically without ever having to leave the house. And
we've never been able to do that before. Backstory when
I was first starting out in music, and I'm not
going to dive down my entire biography here. But I
used to play in bands, right. I was a drummer
and I was a vocalist for a band, and I
(34:39):
started I got into my serious band when I was
about eighteen years old. We started it, and at that time,
we did have technology, right, We had things like MySpace available.
Dating myself a little bit here, but I would I
would book tours literally around the country as an independent,
unsigned artist before before you know, being like independent was
(35:00):
the norm. We were booking tours self, booking tours around
the country literally utilizing MySpace and technology that there was
at the time, right, which again we're a step ahead
of the previous generation who didn't even have the possibility
to do that. Right. But our generation we needed record labels, right,
wasn't it. You can't even get things onto like iTunes
(35:20):
and all that at the time, you know, that was
barely even the thing. But people were still buying CDs.
But even then it was like impossible to get distribution.
There wasn't unless you had a record label. Uh, And
at that time that avenue to get signed and discovered.
Labels were looking for bands who had, like, you know,
a decent MySpace following and we're touring basically, so bands
(35:45):
who were out on their own already creating a buzz, right,
And I mean that's kind of the precursor to what
we live in now. But we actually had to physically
go out on the road and somehow, some way scraped
enough change from each gig to have enough gas to
(36:06):
go out and spend a month traveling the country trying
to make new fans. We would literally go to at
the time, there's a festival called the Warp Tour. We
would sneak in and sell CDs. That's how we funded
some of the tour, like you know, but these are
the precursor. We literally, like the only way of really
connecting with people and getting the attention of record labels
to assent to the next level was to get out
(36:27):
and touch people, to get out and play as many
shows as possible, and network and make those connections all
those things, right, and again, the previous generation before me
had it even harder. But my point is now, if
I'm an artist, or you know, I'm using music as
my example, I'm a musical artist, I literally hypothetically don't
(36:47):
ever have to even play a show to build a career.
And there's a lot of artists who are doing that.
I literally could, and we used to have to go
to a studio by the way, to record and do
all these different things right, and print up We used
to have to print up CDs because again iTunes all
that wasn't really a big deal. You had to have
physical CD. So we have to spend all that money,
right Anyway, My point being is this, in today's version
(37:12):
of that, all we as a band would have had
to do was put out videos on social media and
get good at social media, create content in our practice space. Basically,
if we wanted to write and never actually have to
leave the house, never actually have to go out and
buy a van trailer and figure that out and be
on the road and making no money and doing all
(37:32):
these things, we literally could create a career from our hometown, right,
because that was the other thing was like, in order
to make a name for yourself, you had to leave
your hometown back in the day. And what I'm trying
to get at here because I'm about to go down
like fucking you know, memory lane over here. We live
in an era now fast forward. Bands musicians don't even
(37:55):
need a record label. In fact, record labels are becoming
more and more a relevant unless you are trying to
be Taylor Swift. Outside of that, you don't need a
record label. Radio is irrelevant. You can become big on
TikTok and develop a fan base and be fine and
stream crazy numbers and be good. Right. My point being this,
(38:18):
we live in an error where the avenues for you
to find success are incredibly diverse and endless. You just
have to be creative in the way that you approach
your art and the way that you approach trying to
make a living off of it or your entrepreneurial adventure
(38:39):
or whatever it might be. Right, the opportunities are there,
you just have to look at it from a different
point of view. Now, forget what's been done, forget what's
the norm. You have to ask yourself, what am I
not seeing? Where does the opportunity lie? Right again? I
started this by mentioning somebody that I was doing a
(39:04):
one on more one on one mentorship call with from
the Just Be Social Club, and she was telling me
about a career opportunity that popped up. She had been
looking to figure out what's the next step in her career,
and it was something that nobody around her even realized
you could do right without divulging too much of her
personal information. She works in like the field of science
(39:29):
and was full time salary under a specific company. What
she didn't realize was she actually could create her own
full time opportunity and sort of dip and dab into
different aspects of what she does. Instead of reporting to
one place every day, she could have a couple different
sort of a day here, two days there, three days there,
(39:51):
and she could sort of build her own full time job.
And what she had to do then and look for
was look for grants that are out there for people
in her field that could then supplement that full time income.
And I hope that makes sense. Essentially, you're like looking
for different sponsors to supplement your full time salary, right,
(40:15):
And yeah, maybe it's a little bit more work because
instead of getting paid from one avenue, you sort of
have like, let's say, three or four people covering what
is your salary. But within that is more flexibility and
freedom because technically you don't work directly under one person,
you don't answer to one person, you don't have to
be at the same place every day. You're probably able
to have a bit more flexibility in your time and
(40:36):
schedule because the grants are buying into you rather than
you're getting hired by somebody. I hope that makes sense,
And truthfully, that's much of what I do. I have
multiple streams of income, but I work with multiple brands
as well, and that's how I've been able to create
a salary that works for me. Right, That's why I DJ,
(40:57):
That's why I do the podcasting. I invested in in
a U Hault business, right, I you know, have been dipping,
dabbling in some other entrepreneurial ventures, right, and combining all
of those, I've created a salary that I'm happy with
that gives me freedom and flexibility. And I bring up
(41:17):
somebody like this because he's a muralist who traditionally, if
you're like an artist, you're lucky if maybe locally, you know,
like you'll get hired to paint the inside of a
juice you know, a green juice place that just opened
up or something like that. Right, many people are surviving
off of those types of gigs. But again, in today's
(41:38):
day and age, he has the ability to be discovered
outside of his sort of regional environment. I'm assuming he
got popular on social media in some sort of way
to get discovered by Cheetos. And now through this, you know,
being a brand ambassador for Cheetos, he can travel around
the world doing murals, right, And I know he's giving
(42:00):
back in different ways as well. But my point being this,
the opportunities now are vast. Right as an artist, Let's say,
like I don't know, twenty years ago, maybe more, you
had to hope to have your stuff discovered by like
a gallery owner and they would play on a show
for you, and then you'll try to sell paintings and
(42:21):
blah blah blah. Right now it's like, bro, you show up,
you paint, you post on social media. You do you
know you learn social media? Well, right, that's a part
of it, Like educate yourself on what works because the algorithms.
It's it's at the end of the day, what I've
begun to learn, not saying I've mastered it. But all
of this stuff is science. All this stuff is blueprint.
There's a formula to it. You have to learn what
(42:41):
the formula is and get good at it, right, and
it's available to you via YouTube, university, and there's plenty
of consultants and things like that that exists. Right, But
I'm sure this guy got good at social media or
something he posted did really well, and now the opportunity
to be a full time artist is happening on his
own terms. Right, He's going a non traditional path. He's
(43:03):
a brand ambassador of a fucking potato chip company as
a muralist, and I'm sure again this is funding his
lifestyle for the time being. My point being, how many
opportunities are out there for us if we just get
creative and stop thinking about the traditional path and understand
that we can create our own path and mix and
(43:25):
match different things. We again just have to be creative
with the outlook that we have and the way that
we can get there. And let this just be again
an example of how you can build the life you
want in a way that goes against what other people
consider to be the normal path. Right, there is no
there is no normal anymore. What's whatever you craft and
(43:48):
whatever you create, it's out there for you. You just
have to find the opportunities. You have to think differently.
What's not being done? How can I think differently than
what everybody else has done? That's that's I guess my point.
What I want to spire hopefully spark with somebody like this.
And yeah, just amazing stuff again, Bobby Alvarado. I'll put
(44:08):
the link to his full article in the show notes.
That's really cool. There's a little video about his work
and and and you know what he's doing if you
want to check it out and get some more inspiration. Now,
with that said, let's tie everything we talked about today
in a neat little boat in a segment we called
conclusion to time for conclusion soon. All right, I'll keep
(44:31):
it short and sweet here. I feel I always say that,
but this is why we can have nice things. Jenny
Niveda and Selena's Hollywood. The star on the Hollywood Walk
of Fame vandalized not once, but twice. More evidence of
the world that we live in today. I mean, listen,
maybe it's coincidence, but what are the odds to Mexican icons.
(44:57):
They're the stars that were vandalized here, not once but twice.
Terrible again, more sort of product and repercussions of the
current climate that we live in, the anti immigrant sentiment
that happens, and more reason why we have to stay
politically activated and active and motivated, I should say, Biden
Trump debate not a great thing to keep you inspired
(45:19):
to stay active politically, but again, democracy is on the ticket.
That's what it comes down to. I'm not happy about
the choices either, but I believe in a democracy. I
don't want to see us. I don't want to see
how bad it could get With Biden, at least, you know,
the rule of democracy will always come first, and that's
(45:40):
why I'm voting Biden. And then in Puerto Rico with Luma,
I mean, listen, And then on a positive note, that
article with like the governor calling for an investigation right
and them being demanded to submit plans and things like that,
I hope that that's real. Am I pessimistic, yes, because
the government of Puerto Rico has show me any other
(46:00):
reason to not be pessimistic. On the other side of it,
LUMA has, you know, almost impressively displayed their level of
not giving a fuck about the people. As they are
prolonging these sixty five million dollars worth of maintenance products
they had planned for about another year on the backs
of continuous rolling blackouts and a massive one that happened
(46:21):
just weeks before. We need to do more. I don't
have all the solutions out of all the answers, I'm
passionate and I just want to figure out a way
to do more. And I know that talking about it,
I know that proposing my viewpoint and make proposing any
ideas I might have hopefully again just keeps this conversation
(46:43):
going and trying to be proactive and solution orients is
what my goal always is. And then this this amazing
article with the street artists who's partner with Cheetos Again,
so I'm thinking outside the box. You want to do
something your art, think outside the box. Last thing I'll
say is this, I come from the background of radio.
(47:05):
Radio as we know it is dead. People are gonna
hate me for saying that in my industry, but it
is so for me. If I want to be a
personality who speaks, I need to go the non traditional route.
Like this is an example. If I'm saying, oh, I
loved radio growing up. I always want to be a
radio personality. But it's twenty twenty four. That's not really
(47:26):
the future of it anymore. Is the traditional path that
I thought it would be? What's the alternative? Podcasting, twitch,
social media, streaming, all that stuff, right, that's the new
radio and that's what I mean. You have to train
your mind what is the new version of the thing
that I want? That's how you have to stay ahead
of the curve. Want I want to do X? Is
(47:48):
that a real thing in twenty twenty four? Or what
is the new version of X in twenty twenty four? Right?
What does that look like in twenty twenty four? And
that's where you focus your attention. Stop trying to redo
things or stop trying to go down the path of
the old model. And again, this is your art, this
is your career, whatever it might be. You can't keep
following the old model. The old model is outdated in
(48:11):
almost every sector of every industry, every path you could
think of. The old model is dead, it's dying, it's
on the way out. What is the new version of
the thing I want to do? And how do I
begin to go down that path and utilize the opportunities
that I have via technology. That's how you have to
start training your mind to think. That's what I'm trying
to get at. But that said, thank y'all so much
(48:33):
for tuning in. I will catch you on Tuesday with
a brand new episode. So then stay safe and we'll
talk soon. Life as a GREENO is a production of
the micro Through podcast network and iHeartRadio
Host
DJ Dramos
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