Discusses: Dr. Jessie Vallejo and Music Academia Pt.1

Part 1 of our interview with Dr. Jessie Vallejo.

In this episode, Adam, Leandro, and Kurt interview Dr. Jessie Vallejo, an Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology and Director of Mariachi Ensembles at Cal Poly Pomona. We delve into the fascinating evolution of the educational system, particularly with the advent of revolutionary new technologies, and how these changes have shaped the way we learn and teach. We also explore how different cultures can permeate and absorb into music academia and the benefits of better access to academic institutions for students and local communities. Additionally, we touch upon the profound impact of COVID-19 on performers who make a living with music, and of course, we have some generally fun conversations.

Also check out https://www.worldmusictextbook.org/ for an online and open resource for teaching and learning ethnomusicology and musicology.

Be sure to like and subscribe, and check out our podcast through our link below.

justonesong.start.page Music:

"One More Sunset" Written and Performed by: Adam Orozco and Kurt Boehmke

Cover Photo by Angel De Leon and Jason Muñoz of Climco
Logo by Wolfgang Alexander
Edited by Kurt Boehmke

Episode Transcript

(00:15):
That's how what an intro? Apretty great what is it? Welcome to
another episode of What is Adam?Baby? There you go? Did you
hear that? Okay, yeah,we're up and running. Welcome to just

(00:35):
one song. It's working tonight.We have was that Leo? I can't
hear you because you speak it wasLeo. Yeah, that's it. That's
as loud as it goes. I'mreally up in this. How's that?
Yeah? That's perfect. I'm gonnasound a little bit almost directly into it.
How about we have a great night. We have a we have doctor
Jesse's like a wonderful evening from calPoly Pomona. She is the instructor,

(01:02):
one of the one of the esteemedmusic professors. All of my peers from
cal Poly Pomona hold her in greatesteem. I have yet to meet someone
who has not enjoyed any of yourclasses. And I think Leo, Adam
and I I think our first yearthere was your first year there. Yeah,

(01:23):
so we're part of your inaugural class. Yeah. I feel like we
were the breakfast club, which wasmy favorite. It was early enough,
it was eight am, and I'mnot an early person. So no,
there's not much you can learn outof one bloodshot eye, just have an
So we all we all enjoyed eightam together. So we did a nice

(01:47):
cold. We had an opportunity tomake that happen, Yeah, to make
komis. Yeah, I mean wewent to a horse We went to the
horse school. Oh yeah, theydid have like a brewery and fermented.
Yeah, but they're they're brewing forlike the brew bros. They're not brewing

(02:07):
the good stuff, not for research, you know, not for research purposes.
Should have been that was That wasmy first college experience outside well apart
from community college. That that wasmy very first time in like a university.
And I was like, oh mygosh, this is eight am.
This is how it is. Butit was a great class, great professor,
and eye opening and we're glad tohave you here, doctor b Thank

(02:30):
you so much for being available.So you just got back from Texas.
What city were you in? Iwas in Dallas, Okay? And you
saw the eclipse? Oh I did. I made sure I did. So
that's awesome. What was that theonly reason you were in Texas for?
I did that on the preposition that'sokay. I feel like colloquially, you

(02:52):
know, when we're speaking that that'scommon, but if you're writing your paper,
then I would then I would judgeyou as you should. So yeah,
So I was trying to figure outwhere I would go for the eclipse
because it also passed through my hometownin Syracuse. And when I was invited
to Southern Methodist University to get sometalks there, they gave me some choices

(03:16):
for dates. So I figured Dallassometimes probably is not as gloomy as Syracuse.
So I decided to go to Dallasat that time, and then I'll
go home to see my family ina couple of weeks in New York.
So, yeah, great, whatwere you talking about at Southern Methodist University.

(03:36):
Yeah, I gave a few guestlectures. I talked about like approaches
to teaching mariachi for pedagogy students.They have a really great music program at
SMU, so a couple of theirclasses, their choral methods class, and
then their like second year like sophomoremusic and students who are just going out

(03:57):
to like observe classes and things Iwanted to know more about, Well,
how do you how could you teachmariacci? How are we teaching mariacci?
And then I also gave a talkfor a Latin American music seminar and then
their equivalent of World of Music.So it was it was a busy two
days. That's awesome. You're makinga lot. You have a question.

(04:21):
I had a comment, No,I know, Leo. My question was
just on on like that. Ifeel like you're on the cutting edge of
of like this as being like acollegiate study, like do you see that?
Do you do you find that?Is that a cat? I thought
that was your arm? There wasa we have the cameras on, folks,

(04:46):
Oh my god, we can seeit was just a cat that looks
like and it. Adam made surethat to let us know that it was
a Vietnamese cat too, because that'swhere you got the cat. Yeah,
adopted. Oh that's great pet adoption. We should we need to get a
pet adoption plug anyway. See howwe stay on topics so easily. I

(05:11):
haven't adopted Purple Boxer Mix since she'swonderful, so but yeah, so cutting
edge of Maria Ashki in colleges,right, yeah, yeah, I mean
there have been people who've been experimentingwith it for you know, a number
of years, and in some cases, you know, at least a couple

(05:35):
of decades in terms of like Texas, Like Texas is its own thing with
music education, right, and thenI'm trying to figure out how we can
make it work at like a teachingoriented school that's not very like competition oriented.
So I yeah, I feel likein some ways it gives me some

(05:58):
freedom even though I don't have ofthe like you know, pipeline or you
know, kind of like a programthat where you have a team of teachers
and like a way to kind oflike an established way of recruiting people like
you know bands do and doctor Baduahas, right, you know, I
feel like, even though I don'thave that structure, I have the freedom

(06:23):
to kind of reimagine what I woulddo, right, And so that's what
I've been doing in planning, youknow, studio lessons and juries and levels
for somebody who comes in like withmore mariachi experience than anything else. When
did you begin there more money incompetition schools? Oh my god, Leo,
please, your question is more relevant. Mine was not a subject changer,

(06:46):
but not on purpose. Leo Plice, Well, I would you mentioned
competition schools and I was just thinkingof what that show where we just watched
a show about like cheerleading schools,Like we get so much money for like
competing not that like like music competitions, but maybe there is. Is there
more money, and I mean thereis, but there's also so much more

(07:12):
pressure. You know, you basicallyare working within a sports model, and
you know, and I love sports, So I'm not the type of person
to sit there and say, oh, you know, sports don't belong in
education. Like I loved playing sportsand being in athletics, but I think
that there's a way that you know, I wouldn't want my job hinging on

(07:34):
if I win enough competitions or placefirst at whatever state competition. So I'm
really glad I can just kind ofhave it a little bit more relaxed in
terms of job security, and thenI can focus on, you know,
teaching the music the way i'd liketo, working on skills that might take
a little bit longer to develop.There there would be more money and more

(07:57):
fame and all sorts of things involved, but there there would also be a
lot more pressure that I'm really happynot to have. It seems very non
sustaining too, and like the amountof the meritocracy around competitiveness and music.
It like is it's ironic to mebecause like I got into music because it
didn't seem like a meritocracy and likeany kiour form, so like the competitive

(08:20):
nature of it, nothing wrong withit, totally fine if you're in a
competitive marching band whatever, but it'scool that you don't have that added pressure
of like it just seems not sustainable, like it feels like it like most
people have a stroke when they're likefifty, because it's a lot I'm not
sure if I've heard of any Mariacciteachers having that, but I know it's

(08:43):
it's a it's a grind. It'sdefinitely a lot of a lot of things
happening. So would you ever thinkabout bringing it Mariacci Moore into the modern
Sorry about that cart no, no, Adam, please you go go.
Well, I get to meet alot of people from all over the world,
and I've been meeting a lot morelike Mexican like the locals, and

(09:09):
yeah, they really seem to betaking mariachi music and kind of liking to
mix it in with the E.D. M. More. Do you
think you could bring fusion of thatkind of stuff or do you think you
guys more shows, right, moreshows and stuff for your concerts with kind
of melding things together, because thatthat's kind of how music has been in

(09:31):
the past, right. Yeah,So I would say for fusion. Let's
see, when I when I playMariachi music, I feel like Mariacci it
mariachifies anything, right, Like I'veI've played Idle Vice for Schwarzenegger when I
played at his home, or Iplay uh bad Moon Rising or something like

(09:54):
that. Right, So I thinkthat uh, Mariacci lends itself to sort
of blend in with other genres.And when I teach it, you know,
I try to make sure I teachyou know, this is what Mariachi
is. But at the same timethat we were a school group where we
have a lot of room for creativity, right, And so we we did

(10:16):
that collaboration with Julian Separati or doctoryou know, he has his doctorate in
that's a musicology too, and hispartner Amelia Halberson and and so we released
down Smithsonian Folk Ways. So thatwas a fun It was like a country
rock vallid you know, fusion ofall sorts of things. So yeah,

(10:39):
I think I think it's great,you know. Yeah, we saw I
saw the Yamaha article mentioned it,which we need really quick. Doctor Vaejo
was you were you were one ofthe top forty educators for twenty twenty four
top forty forty under forty baby fortyunder forty awesome, and they mentioned they

(11:03):
mentioned that they brought that up too. It was called the best goddamn band
in Wyoming. Yeah, can youtell me talk more about that project.
I'll read what it said, whichI guess is a quote from you if
I can read my own handwriting,tied together some of the overlapping experiences of

(11:24):
Asian Mexican and Central America music inthe Pomona area. Gino Latinos you say
Asian Mexican, well kind of some right, Yeah, it's this project
where it started with doctor Soperdi's work, and so he released the album that

(11:48):
it's on nineteen seventy five, andhe released that video, that music video,
it's like one of the first singles, and it came out after I
moved into Pomona. So right atlike January twenty twenty, I decided to
move to Pomona or December nineteen,twenty nineteen, I decided to move to
Pomona. I was sick of thecommutes. You know, I really like

(12:11):
downtown Pomona, like I know,you know I have. It's rough around
the edges in some ways, butI like like my neighbors. I like
the community. I like that it'sartsy. I like that it's like a
city that can and we all hopeit can. And so I moved here,
and I was walking around town listeningto that album, you know,
early on in the pandemic. Sothis came out in twenty twenty one,

(12:35):
and so I couldn't stop listening tothat song. And I noticed that in
the first the first verse was amention of Pomona, and because it was
about the fair Plex and when itused to be an assembly center, and
so, you know, I wasgoing through all sorts of you know,

(12:58):
feelings, I guess, as weall were uring the pandemic and reflecting on
life and our life decisions and youknow, what could we do to survive
or help others during the pandemic.And also at the same time, I
was performing at the fair Plex forchildren migrant children who were stuck at the
border, separated from their families andthen were put into essentially an assembly center

(13:22):
again eighty years later to you know, be reunited with our families at least,
so at least it wasn't as traumaticat the fair Plex, and you
know, what they went through wasprobably really awful, So, you know,
really emotional time. And I thinkI reflected a lot on music and
what it meant to me, andlike should I have studied medicine instead.

(13:43):
I almost went to be a scientist. And I reached out to Julian after
a while because I was like,man, I can't stop listening to your
song. There's so many overlaps withhistory with you know, different ethnic groups
and our experiences in Los Angeles andthe Pomona area, Like can I cover
this for the Mariacci because it youknow, it works so well as a

(14:05):
corrido or like a ranchera you knowtype of things. So he was he
was totally fine with me. Hegave me the blessing to like record a
song. And then doctor Mary Denicoin she was in sociology, but she
just moved to Waii and she supportedhaving him come and give a residency and

(14:26):
work with the students, and sothen we made the recording for the Smithsonian.
So it was such it was liketwo years in the making for my
involvement in it, and just anabsolutely fun project that you know, made
me cry, sometimes made me likefeel really joyful. Sometimes I met new
friends out of it, And Ihope the students had a really valuable experience

(14:48):
recording and meeting him and learning fromhis work. So, yeah, the
journey of that is wild too.And can you talk a little bit more
to you actually performed? Did didyou perform at these assemblies where kids were
separated from their families? Yeah,so I performed they based The mayor of

(15:13):
Pomona, Tim Sandoval, had askedme if I could help get them,
like a Mariocti group together to goperform for the kids, and so he
did a bunch of things to helpsupport what the you know, there were
so many people involved in the center, or it was an emergency intake center

(15:35):
technically speaking, so he helped setup like haircuts, and then he wanted
entertainment, so we went and playedfor them for like lunch and then later
the daw Center with Margaret Mitchell.She also helped coordinate some of the performances.
So I performed for them three times. Every two weeks you had like
new kids coming in. Usually ittook about two weeks for them to get

(16:00):
with their families or an extended relative. And yeah, it was pretty emotional.
You know. You'd see like abunch of teenagers who are just trying
to have fun and you know,probably were enjoying not processing what they were
going through yet, and just likebeing around other teenagers. And then you
saw a lot of like their youngersiblings who were with them, who would

(16:22):
like cry and they had no ideawhat was going on. You know.
I just so when we played forthem, it was fun in the sense
that they all wanted to be serenadedfor their birthday, you know that type
of thing like oh give me attention, like and then play like los a
heeles asules they love, you know, all the Cumbias that were big on
the radio around that time. Butyeah, I saw a lot of like
the little kids just crying, youknow that they probably were so overwhelmed with

(16:47):
emotions every day. So yeah,it was I was really I've been really
like thankful that I witnessed that becauseI know so few people get to see
what goes on in those situations.You know, and being able to listen
to this because that's part of thestory of like recording a song. Like

(17:07):
people just hear the three minutes orfour minutes of the actual recording, but
like that's all part of like thebaggage that you brought into that that baggage,
but you know, like it's it'spart of the context of how that
song was created. That's that's amazingand and it's it's poignant and important,
but you can't really, like Iguess you being able to discuss how that

(17:32):
that journey to being recorded it meansso much more so, like you know,
listeners that are listening to this podcastor or me when I listen to
that recording, and even for youthat that must stir up you know,
uh, the same emotions you hadwhen when you were there. Yeah,

(17:55):
yeah, for sure. And Icry a lot more easily these days after
the pandemic from all of those allof those moments, you know. But
yeah, it was so great,and I think, like you know,
Julian and I have similar stories ofbeing like mixed heritage, you know,
and growing up in like small townAmerica. But I grew up in the
north. He grew up in youknow, Nashville like South basically, and

(18:18):
you know, we we have somany similarities but grew up in such different
context. You know, he's VietnameseItalian American and Mexican Italian American. So
we had a lot of fun.And we both are like diehard o G
Weezer fans, so we we reallybonded on that trip, and poor Adrian
and Amelia had to hear us,like sit in the car and talk about

(18:41):
Weezer the whole time. And theyjust that's a band that lends itself really
well to Corridos and Mariacci. Ifeel like you can do a great Buddy
Holly with a Mariachi band. Apparently, I just need to do the whole
Blue album, and that's what youshould do on your sabbatical. Yeah,

(19:04):
record the entire that would be gnarlythere is you were talking about how so
much music lends itself to Mariacci andCordios. There's a they're really popular on
like Instagram and TikTok. They're calledthe easy band. Yes, yes,
yes, yes, I love them. But every time he'll do a cover
and I'm like, oh my gosh, you can do and then it just

(19:26):
reminds me of like, oh musiclike you can you can play this with
a in any style really, butyeah, it's just it's fascinating to see
how like other people are able tolike put it in a completely different genre.
Yeah, that was my chair.That wasn't me. I swear you

(19:47):
can't pick it up. Okay,perfect. I shouldn't have said anything.
I see, I'm your you giveme a second. So Adam is like
not recording, he's bugging out out, So I need to stop the recording
real quick. If that's are youguys okay with that? Sure? It's
not like we were not like killingit on the stream anyway, which is

(20:11):
fine because we get all our viewson the back end. And it's Friday
night. Yeah, I'm being honest. We're the responsible adults not going out
and doing things on Friday night.Adam is in the Saturday morning. For
Adam, that's only some Fridays.For me, some Fridays, I'm out
there playing gigs and doing things.And that's right. We were lucky that
you didn't have a gig today.Yeah, last Friday I did, and

(20:34):
then I'm pretty sure I got foodboys me from it. So that was
great. Gray you can tell usa little bit about you and why you

(20:57):
chose this path for your life.Why'd you do it? Okay, I
would say I always have enjoyed alot of different subjects. I mean,
I was a nerd, and I'msure that's been painfully obvious in all of

(21:18):
my classes. But I I lovedI always wanted to play music. Nobody,
nobody in my family plays music professionally. I think in my family tree,
I found one person who was listedas having a career in music and
they worked for like the royal familyin England back in like they died of

(21:41):
the plague in like sixteen oh five, right, Like, I don't come
from a family of musicians. It'sthe teak you did. Yeah, you
have a career musician. That's amazing, a choir clerk. But you know,
my my grandfather, my Italian grandfather, played trumpet and I never heard
him play though. And I alsoalways wanted to travel. I loved doing

(22:06):
science bears, I liked doing storytellingclubs and like the moth and yeah,
learning languages and so when I wasin high school and I learned about the
field of best in musicology from aguest conductor, I was like, like,
sign me up, Like my jobcan be to just travel, learn

(22:26):
languages, learn music, Like howcould there be anything better? You know?
So the way I could get there'sthat there aren't really s musicology programs
for undergrad which I didn't understand whyat that time. Now I do,
and I'm okay with it. Ithink it's a really I think you want
to get a good experience in likemusic or you know. Music education really

(22:49):
prepared me well because I learned howto how to learn, you know,
I went in and I always lovedteaching anyways, So I you know,
got the music degree, taught orchestrafor a year, and then applied for
grad school. And I had noidea what I was going to do.
After I graduated, I worked sixjobs and I laminated papers, and I

(23:12):
organized safety binders for the theaters atU C l A. And I wrote
grants for LED lights. And soif you go see a show at at
Scherenberg Theater at UCLA, all theLED lights I got those. I got
them, like three hundred thousand dollarsworth of gear. Last it was you,

(23:34):
that was you. We were therethe other day. Leo and I
slowed down from tired. We werelike those led lights. I'll met you
doctor Vayer, who had something todo with that. I said, these
things are lit, oh nice,and they're green. They're gonna last for
yeah, for our listeners. Whatwas well? I guess, just what

(23:56):
is ethno musicology? Uh? Forthe U baptized? And what made you
fall in love with that? Soit's studying people through music, right,
people? Society groups of people?And sorry, what was the other part
of the question and what made you? Why are you? Why are you
such a I guess you're like anevangelist for ethnic musicology, Like why do

(24:19):
you love it so much? Ijust love that you get to explore issues
or like examine society through one ofthe most I think enjoyable things that people
do. Music. You know,sometimes our topics can look at things that

(24:40):
I guess context of where maybe it'snot enjoyable, like I was. I
wrote my article on funeral music andplaying Mariacci for you know, during the
COVID pandemic. But I just lovethinking about arts and music and also so
kind of blending in some of myscience background and understanding you know, everything

(25:04):
from a little bit of botany ora little bit of epidemiology with some of
the broader questions I have about musicand so. And as much as I
love the sciences, I like thatin the arts you don't always have a
right or wrong answer, and whatyou do won't always you know. I
don't have to worry about like thesweat, you know, tripping off my

(25:26):
forehead while I'm trying to like cuta vein for surgery or something like that
type of stuff would stress me outso much. I think because I was
really bad at the game operation,I just could not imagine myself doing those
things. So I really like thatit's so flexible and so many people can
have different opinions, and it reallyjust makes you think there's there's a lot

(25:48):
of there's just so much to learn. So what was it about games in
the nineteen like sixties through like thenineties that were they weren't fun? They
were just like, hey, let'sgive you fucking anxiety. And then you
like, don't wake daddy. Doyou remember that? One operation is another
one? Don't wake daddy? Haveyou hippo? You're like, ah,
there's the one. There was theone with the alligator teeth, alligator dentist

(26:11):
or whatever. Yep, yep.Have you seen the people that they feel
like exact dough blades on the teethat the top and he just jenga.
Yeah, none of those games areenjoyable. Don't break the ice. Don't
break the ice. Yeah, don'twake daddy. It was weird though,

(26:33):
Like daddy, you probably need toget put at another home if daddy's a
getting that angry at you when youwake him up. I don't think child
abuse was in the was in themanual, or he was in every home
in the nineteen sixties. Another way, I don't think it was the lore
of the game Leo, the loreof the rings. There's a famous picture

(26:56):
and where since we're on the topicof ethnom musicology, and it's there's a
picture I think it's Francis Densmore.Yeah, and everybody knows that picture.
It's uh, there's a blackfoot chiefwith a headdress on and they have like
an old gramophone and they're just recording. I don't know what they were recording,

(27:17):
but that I have a picture pulledup on my phone. But when
you're talking about that, and that'swhat I think of ethnomusicology. But this
is what is important for you peoplelike you, and you specifically as an
educator, because like you were justsaying, you worked three four different jobs
while you were, you know,trying to figure things out and pursue stuff.

(27:41):
I was doing the same thing.I was never exposed and I probably
Kurt and Adam would both agree,never exposed to music as a thing of
like it just kind of like anominal thing, right, Never exposed to
it as a field of like studyhistory that has a context and culture and

(28:02):
society, sociology. So having aneducator like you where you were able to
break it down in a way thatwas like it was digestible, but it
was also fascinating. I think it'ssuper important because we were talking about music
being such a meritocracy even now,like the music industry. It's the same
way we were talking about music competitionsand how like that's a meritocracy. But

(28:26):
when ethnic musicology, I just feellike it lends itself to being like,
hey, like this isn't a race, this isn't a game, this is
just it is what it is.Like we're observing the things as they are
and that's fucking cool. Yeah,I mean there are there are definitely.
I was gonna say certainly and definitelyand I said dirt, but there are

(28:47):
certainly people who might bring the meritocracyto their their approach to eth musicology,
right. But I find that alot of the scholars I really connect with,
you know, we have a bitmore of you know, kind of
an inclusive and inquisitive approach, whichyou know has been I would say,

(29:07):
more characteristic of our field than like, you know, definitely from I mean,
Francis Densmore's time was h you know, problematic, Like we can look
back and be appreciative that we havesome of the recordings, but how they
were made, who made them,where they pointed the microphone, all of
that has issues with, especially howpeople of color were treated and looked at.

(29:33):
And but yeah, I feel likeI got into as a musicology from
the classical side because for me,it felt like I could be more you
know, I didn't have to workso hard to like play mental stinn in
a way that everybody would approve of. You know, later you find out,
oh well, I have to writemy articles in ways that people will

(29:55):
approve of them. So there's stillsome of that, but I've I feel
like I found a pretty good nichein my field and with the Latin American
and Caribbean Study Group that I helpedfound as part of the International Council for
Traditions of Music and Dance. Sothat's been one of my highlights of that
part of my field and my professionis connecting with scholars. And I got

(30:19):
to seal a bunch of them inCuba a month ago, so that was
great. Yeah, I'm glad youmentioned some of their favorite scholar to meet
in Cuba. Trying to think,I mean, I've met a bunch of
I mean a lot of them werelike friends that helped set up the conference

(30:40):
with me. I'm trying to think. So I guess I knew a bunch
of the people from before. Idon't know if I could pick a favorite.
I really like the board that Iwork with, you know, like
Javier and Nora. I make sureI send this to them, and like
Lucy Laney and several of the peoplein the group who I worked with for

(31:03):
years, my friend Jan. There'dbe a lot to list. Now.
I don't want people to come atme like you didn't list me. But
little doctor Baccardy, you know whatI'm saying. I had very little of
that. Well I had, Ihad a few momitos, but yeah,
said I say that again, Ididn't hear. Double down, Adam.

(31:29):
If anybody wants to get on yourlist, you know, oh share our
show. Yeah, Adam is likegod in this episode. Just every once
in a while we're like, what'sthat? Lord? What did you say?
Branden Wiggins says that we you didn'tlist him. Oh, Braiden's great,

(31:51):
that's right, Yeah, Braiden,why weren't you in Cuba? Braiden
would make a really good Cuban likewith the hat and the little yeah,
Like I'm just picturing him in awhole Cuban like nineteen sixties. I'm thinking
Buena Vista Social Club. Branden,Well, you know what I think we
should do is and I have thisidea because when I first went to Cuba,
we stayed at a hotel and therewas a UCLA Armenian Studies like reunion.

(32:16):
Like the professor who started that programhas a bunch of his alumni,
Like they meet all over the worldand they'll just be like every couple of
years, they'll just meet somewhere andas long as things don't change drastically after
the elections and we can still goto Cuba. I say, we have
a breakfast club reunion back down.Yeah, let's all bring our let's have

(32:40):
a jam. Are we going toWe're getting the band back together. Yeah,
that'd be great. I would lovethat to bring Sophie, like who
else, a whole bunch of peoplefrom that class. I have the little
roster, so you keep the rosterlike framed on your wall or on your
fridge. That class, just ofthat class, just that class. I

(33:02):
was a good class. I hadso much fun. It was It was
nice being there with so many peoplewho are new to the university. I
know my experience when I when Iwhen we started, there was like there
was already kind of established groups ofmusicians and clicks a little bit, and

(33:22):
so it was kind of hard asa transfer student to kind of find that
group. But with your class,I mean, it was just such a
different subject. Monday morning, eightthirty in the morning, and we just
had so much fun. Yeah,and I think we made really good friends.
I think that class was extra funbecause child like almost everybody was a

(33:49):
transfer student. I think, yeah, you were the ones that weren't afraid
of an A A M. Classand so you know, and I was.
I was thirty when I was hiredand started there, so I I
felt like we were all like wehad similar senses of humor. Yeah,
and yeah we did. And Ilove transfer, Like like the attitudes that

(34:10):
transfer students have coming in, it'susually just wonderful. Like they're a little
bit less fearful about saying the wrongthing. They're a little bit more like
open to learning and having and justlike going off topic because it's interesting and
not going, oh, it's justgoing to be on the test right when
they're oh, so they're more disillusionedof the world. They're like, that's

(34:30):
not gonna it's not gonna be arock star. Yeah, right, Yeah
I was. I think I was. I think I was like twenty nine.
I was. I was like acouple of years younger than you in
that class, but I was alreadylike I was like, man, kids,
I remember, and now you're olderthan her. Now I'm older than
you. It's wild. I gotthe opposite Benjamin Buttons. That was right

(34:52):
the college experience, especially at thatschool because there it's a commuter school.
There's a lot of people that comein from like I can't I live in
Corona. But then there's there's peoplethat are going the four year route.
You know, they went there theentire time. And I think that's what
you were talking about, Kurt.There's like these kind of nothing wrong,
that's just the natural way things work, little clicks of people. But then
you had kids like us or oldmen like us, were like, I

(35:15):
need to get a fucking degree,get a job. I'm gonna be working
at BJ's the rest of my life. Folks. BJ's is a pizza house.
Get your mind out of the gutter. Uh you do to make money?
You don't want to yuck yeo,yum. Yeah. You know how

(35:37):
many times I got I'd be like, I work at all, right,
what do you like? What doyou want to order? Dude? Like
I worked at Applebee's for a semester, and yeah I was, and I
would never I'm not a fan ofApplebee's. That was a hard job.

(36:00):
She got paid for the semester.I mean you had to do you had
to do what you got to do. That. Yeah, that was when
I was student teaching. So Iwould do double shifts on the weekends and
if I were Friday nights and thenI would work like a day job with
the teacher all week, and Ihad I had a laundry basket of summer
clothes that were clean that I neverput away until after Christmas because I was

(36:24):
just so busy. I didn't stop. Smart move, you didn't have to
do laundry. It's efficient. It'san efficient lifestyle, right. I felt
this. I felt this way becauseI used to. I was working during
throughout college my entire time, butthere was a little bit of like I
would see kids that didn't have towork, and you know, they're like,

(36:44):
Oh, we're going over here aftera class and then we're going to
go do this, and then we'regoing to go play a show. And
I would be like, h andI've I've grown past it. I'd only
hate them a little bit now.But I was like, so, I
I guess now that I have thecontext and the words to say, like,
I was just very jealous of theirprivilege. Look at that. I

(37:06):
used the P word. But didyou feel that way going? Because like
you're you did? You went allI mean, you're you're You've reached reached
the the upper echelons of academia asfar as I'm concerned. You'll apply for
a full professor. So once Iget that, then I'll then I'll be
at the upper echelon. Oh soyou're associate, Yeah, are you tenured
track? Yeah? So tenure track. And then I got tenured at in

(37:30):
twenty twenty one, and then thankyou, And then it's very hard applying
for that during the beginning of thepandemic. And then I moving up for
early promotion because I did not flowdown the last few years, and we'll
hopefully have full professorship starting in thefall. Wow. But yeah, yeah,

(37:55):
it's been it's been a trip.What would you do if you were
selected as the department chair for howeverlong that tenure would be? Hopefully not
die of a heart attack? Pressfuljob. It's a four year appointment,
isn't it? I think it technicallyit's three. Some people. Oh,

(38:15):
doctor Coplin's doing really well despite likeeverything like blows up every week, like
the recital hall floods or you know, he came in during the pandemic,
like he's had a hard time.I've done my best to be like,
what do you need help with,because like you know, I don't want
people to get sick from distressed andwant to like help things improve in the

(38:38):
department. But yeah, speaking ofBuenavis' social club, that man can rock
a Buenavis social club hat apartments verywell. Maintenance man, Why you want
a job at him? I don'tthink you can do it remotely from the

(38:58):
facilities job like you no where whatwill was working as the facilities like sound
tech person that's gonna be opening upagain. So I'm just saying, hm
hmm. They're still letting Coplan bein charge. Brandon asks, I think
they elected him Braiden. I thinkit's a little more than letting him.

(39:21):
Yeah, he's he's doing his best, and you know, I like working
with him. You know, Iknow he I think some people thought that
he and I would clash the most, but we both have a you know,
a strong love for espressos in Cuba, and we get along. So

(39:42):
his espresso machine, I have ahe I have a story. He was
my advisor, and I hope hehears this episode because make sure we share
it with him. Oh yeah,so he was. During he talked about
the Beatles class, which is Iloved it. If you don't like the
Beatles, he hated, but Iloved it. And the first what's that

(40:02):
Adam turning your turn your mic upagain. Lord, that's better. Can
you hear me? You hear you? Fine? You sound good. I
want you to read the drunk guyat the bar that just screams in the

(40:22):
middle of like trying to have anice right now. He's got like the
perfect interrupting us. He has theperfect heckle. But because of his because
of his his WiFi, he's likea couple beats way too late. That
crazy person keeps talking about a Vietnamesecat. It's weird. I hate l
a, but I was. Iwas super late to the midterm and like

(40:47):
traffic was just gross. It tookme forever to get there, and it
was like right after Halloween and Icame in. I came into class and
everyone's dead silent, and he justglaring at me. And I had been
late every class that whole semester sofar, like ten minutes late. Just

(41:07):
parking. It was a whole Itwas awful parking. The side note for
anybody listening who didn't go to calPoly at that time, parking was horrendous.
I spent an hour looking for barkingsometimes yeah, and I had I
had to take my younger sister toschool, So it's your fault, Lindsay.
But so like, I drop heroff and then I have to book

(41:28):
it to class. And I walkedin late, and I felt so bad
that i'd like, I don't knowwhat was going in my mind, but
I had like some Halloween candy inmy pocket. So like, I walk
into the class and he's just livid, just glaring at me, and I
walk up. I go to hisdesk. I go, I'm so sorry,
I'm late. It was a roughmorning. And I put a Snicker's

(41:52):
bar on his desk and he justhe stared death into my soul and went,
take the paper and take your test. And I'm like, ooop sounds.
I like sat down and I likestarted doing the exam and he comes
to my desk. He takes myexam away. He goes, that's the
wrong paper and he brings the rightone to my desk and just so bad.

(42:16):
And I went up to him afterclass and I said, I'm so
sorry. That was really inappropriate,and he goes, just stop fucking being
late. Man. I'm like,you know, I never never let again.
If this was a movie. Ifthis was a movie, he'd keep
you after class. He'd be like, you know what, that's what John
and Paul would have done, andthen he would have given it. He

(42:37):
would have given you an A plus. It's a Beatles class. This is
quit being a peak best, Kurt. Yeah, do you remember like the
you know, my first day orlike our first day in that class.
And then nobody warned me that trafficgets bat around campus, like to get
on a campus right, and Iwas thinking, you know, coming from

(42:58):
the west side. I was like, oh, I'm you know, I'm
going east. It'll be fine,there won't be any traffic. I did
my whole orientation the week before,no traffic, no traffic, no traffic
getting there for like eight and nineam. Nobody told me like, oh
Mount Sacks starts the next week.Oh my god, I forgot about.
And so I was driving in.I was going to be forty five minutes

(43:19):
early. I'm on the fifty seven. And then like remember the train used
to run and it would block everybodygetting off of a Temple and then so
I was going to try to likeswerve out and get off, but they
had those you know, those bigconstruction trucks that carry like all the gravel,
so they're like three giant sections ofgravel, and I was blocked by

(43:42):
two of them, so I couldn'tgo around and then get off and reco
up, you know whatever. Andso I had to call Kim when it
was like fifteen minutes from class.I sat there for half an hour and
yeah, I'm off to a rockystart. Yeah totally, man, you're
gonna this. But do you rememberKim went in and she like told you

(44:06):
all, like you can't leave andthe fifteen minute rule isn't true. And
and I just like busted in,just angry at myself because when I took
eight am Trumpet Technique, Trumpet andTrombone Techniques, I was late every day
because I was in insomniac. Ijust didn't sleep and I was a first
year student and you know, justtrying to like, you know, get

(44:29):
enough sleep after playing Rubby five hundredwith my friends all night, and and
I would just like walk in everyday for the whole semester late. And
then I slept in through the finalexam. And the final exam ended up
all the brass technique students coming togetherand taking it in like one of the
big rehearsal rooms. So I walkedin to a class of like one hundred

(44:52):
people taking their exam thirty minutes late. You always know it's a bad sign.
During the semester when you wake up, you're like, I feel so
well rested, Like why do Ifeel so great? And you're like,
oh, because I slept in throughclass thirty minutes And then you feel the
worst you've ever felt, right,and I bust in terrified, and the
professors look at me. The trumpetprofessor just is like doing the same thing

(45:15):
that Coplin did you. And thenalso the professor just goes, I wish
less awkward, right, there's thatofm joking or laughing. But I took
that exam so fast though, somuch adrenaline that I finished first, and

(45:37):
I think they looked at me like, you know, and I still got
a three point eight in that class. So but that's why I always have
a soft spot for people, becauseit's like, you know, I feel
like my life sometimes is that,you know, to think that I saw
it on Mulberry Street and the kidgoing through and thinking of all the crazy
stuff that happened, but half ofthat actually did happen to me. As

(45:58):
I'm trying to get some point,but I mean Dave's right. He's like,
you gotta stop being late because it'sit's hard. You can't do that
for gigs. So yeah, andthen and then springing, I was on
time. And then the next fallI fractured my kneecap and I was late
every day. But I had Iwould like I have crutches I used to

(46:19):
have. There you go. Theshuttles wouldn't wait for me. They'd be
like, they're like, fuck thatguy, like rowing a boat. It
felt like. So I'd like,i'd be super late. And Doctor Revere.
I love Doctor Revere, but shelike I would come into her class
like super late and I'd open thedoor and I'd see the look on her

(46:43):
face as the door opened because it'sblack. They're watching a video, and
she would just have this look onher face like who dares come into my
class? And I overplayed it,but it was it was real. I'd
have my crutches, like so sorrylate. She's like, bless it's heart.
You know it's true. I couldn'thelp it, you know, but
you got to use it when yougot it. I had a right when

(47:06):
I went to my cane. Thatwas that was nice. I was I
got a car accident once where Ilightly rear ended this car and I was
fine, I like was completing myphysical therapy. I could walk fine,
but like I was, like,I just rearhanded rearended these people. And
I'm driving a rental. So mycane was in the seat next to me,
and I totally didn't need it,but I grabbed it anyway. And
I'm like, are you guys okay? And they're like, oh, we're

(47:29):
fine. Use it, use itwhen you need it. Old old man
Benkey with his cane, you seemlike a cane guy. Like I feel
like you you're gonna, you know, like some people just develop, you
know, like I'm a toothpit guy. Now like I'm a cane man.
It's pronounced caneman door hat. Yes, mine is a cane and now a

(47:54):
fake limp. There's a there's alook at a card with the dude with
Coffin's hat and Hurt's kane. Uhyeah. The map loa game I haven't.
Yeah during the pandemic, you know, I called the lot like Lota
night, you know, so thatthat was cool. I'm really glad I

(48:15):
have that. One of these days, I put on a I put on
a Latino Music Festival in Orgon calledit one of these days when we get
the funding, I would learn tohave your Mariaci band come up. Sure,
that'd be awesome. That was oneone thing we got. One of
the not critiques feedback that we getfrom the community. They're like, we

(48:36):
want more Mariaci. But my bigthing, like I love Mariaci, don't
get me wrong, but when mostof the time when you go to a
especially an Oregon, not necessarily California, but anytime there's like, hey we're
having a Hispanic Heritage Month, alwaysjust like two mariachi bands. And my
my big thing is like there's somuch there's like so many different like varieties

(49:00):
of like music that come from LatinAmerica. So like I like, if
I'm going to have a mariachi band, it's going to be, yeah,
a good one. And I'm lookingat you viewers, listeners, I'm looking
at doctor v Yeah. And asmuch as I love like, I mean,
I could listen to mariachi all dayand I love that it's such a

(49:21):
central part of my life, butI totally get it, you know,
having done work in Ecuador at myCo Madres Salvadoran, you know, I
you just see the way that alot of places get sort of overlooked.
And then also different ethnic groups inLatin America, you know, Asian Latin
Americans, you know, after LatinAmericans. And I feel like in when

(49:42):
I went to college, I hada like a small like the Caribbean Latin
American Student Society and then the BlackStudent Alliance, like it kind of reminds
me of the show Dear White People. Like that was very much a lot
of my college experience, but Ilike a smaller school, like more of
a rural setting and things, AndI feel like I learned so much from

(50:04):
especially the BSA students who are like, you know, black and Caribbean.
Yeah, like trying to talk aboutlike, you know, the Latin American
events, they would all be like, we don't want to talk about Mexico.
And I was like, you know, I grew up like one of
the only Mexican American people in mywhole town, so like I was like
why not, Like I never hearabout Mexico, But now I get it,
Like it's so it can be overplayedto the which I'm fine with Mariacci

(50:30):
being involved in a lot of things, but I do think representation, rotating
or sharing the stage is important.Yeah, my fit you you were mentioning
like Afro Latinos that we had aPuerto Rican boisto that they made delicious Puerto
Rican food like bananas and like stuffI've never tried. And there was a

(50:52):
couple of my colleagues from work andthey were they were Afro Latino and they
were like, they're like they're Latinaand they like they're minds, like like
you could see their faith, liketheir their brains being melted. When they
were like, there's a black Latinoperson. They could they it was incomprehensible
to them. And then they theytried the food, They're like, Okay,

(51:14):
this is really good. Yeah.I want to ask you doctor for
I don't need to switch gears toomuch, but when it comes to your

(51:35):
experience with we use that we're usingthe term music academia, but but when
we when it comes to your experiencewith that, how does it how is
it different now versus when you wereor your experience now as as as a
professor versus when you were learning whenyou were a student. Yeah, yeah,

(52:00):
yeah, because when when I started, we had like social media was
ale and stant messenger, like itwas very much not that much happening,
and you know, it wasn't commonlike we would leave our all, you
know, our aim up and thenwe would we didn't bring our laptops to
class, Like nobody brought their laptopto class, and I was one of

(52:22):
a lot of people brought desktops tocampus. So we also didn't have internet.
My first semester we had intranet,so there you could like share files
with everybody on campus, and youthey're all these like scandals of how people
could like copy things or like Idon't know all sorts of things that I
don't know if I can share iton here because it's this one scandal was

(52:44):
ridiculous that it's public record, goahead, tell me about it was.
I don't know if this was publicrecord. I think there was. There
was some inappropriate tape made and andactually like somebody was being slats shamed for
it. And one of my friends, because this was the year before I
got there, he knew how tolog in and find that file on every

(53:05):
computer that had like downloaded it totheir like whatever f driver or whatever.
It was, right, no punintended, Yeah, maybe a little bit
but so then he went through andhe deleted everything for her so that she
wasn't like she wasn't being shamed thatway, and so he deleted everything.
So it was like a whole differentworld of using the Internet, and you

(53:30):
had to like log into the onelike internet connection that the campus offered you,
and it was it was totally different. So a lot more like hanging
out in the lounges, hanging outin the quads, practicing till really late.
And I feel like none of uswere trying to like match what anybody

(53:51):
was doing on TikTok or Instagram,you know, we were all trying to
or YouTube, like we were tryingto emulate whatever was in the recordings and
things like that. So I feellike in some ways it was a little
bit more focused and more present.On the other hand, like I like
how we have access to global thingsthat you know, I didn't at that

(54:13):
age, so I I, youknow, some of I guess that's been
one of the most interesting changes isjust the technology of like I was a
card catalog kid. I remember whenthey sent the first email from school in
second grade, and like all ofthese changes and then now just seeing like
we all just use our phones.And there's all these other Internet things that

(54:37):
change learning or sort of block it, like chat, GPT and AI,
which have their uses, but likeyou know, if somebody abuses it and
doesn't actually learn from college, likeI don't know why they're wasting more than
the money. I don't know whythey're wasting their twenties or whatever age being
in college if they don't actually wantto learn the skills that you have to

(54:58):
be able to do at some point. So it's hard enough to get a
job when you get out and youare good at what you do, and
so like why sabotage yourself and notdevelop things when you have that opportunity.
You're you're investing your time, Sowhy not? Yeah, you kind of
throw that. I think of thatmeme of the person that's riding the bike
and putting the stick. Yeah,I think that was God with the with

(55:28):
ysic now and chat chat GDP cominginto Now. What what do you think
it's that stop people from more learninghow to develop their music or or are
you think you're going to develop moreand more just like I'm helping him?
Uh or Okay, so I thinkthe question Sorry lord, you working mysterious.

(55:59):
Is it is a question like couldchat GPT like help or hurt people's
creativity? Or like how do Isee that happening? Or is that the
question? Yes, okay, yes, So I would say, yeah,
there's okay, So I would saythat I I think, I think the

(56:24):
like one of the best times orways to use chat GPT is when you
actually know a lot and you're reallygood at whatever you're using it for.
Right, And so I I leftthese in my office to show students,
but I spent when I broke myankle last spring, I spent my recovery
time crochaning chat GPT figures and thencrochane like the actual figure. So I

(56:52):
made a hammerhead shark, a verycute hammerhead shark, and one was a
pattern I paid like, you know, two bucks for and the other was
a pattern that chat GPT made forme. And the chat GPT one looks
like a molecule. It looks nothinglike a hammerhead shark whatsoever. And then

(57:14):
you know, the cute one lookspretty, looks pretty durable, and I
like it. So I use thatas an example, like if you know
crocheting, you you can look atthis and judge from it. You know
what you want, but if youhave no idea what you're doing what,
you're not going to learn anything fromthat. So I I think, like

(57:36):
I hope people, you know,students and non students realize that, Like
there there could be great uses forit. You know, I have to
summarize an article that I wrote,right, so I could put my article
into it. It could create theone hundred word abstract and then I know
what I wrote so I can gothrough and edit it right because you still

(57:57):
have to edit. And that's thatcould be a good use of my time,
Like why slave you know over likeif I spend thirty minutes doing that
when I can do it literally infive And for writing music, I guess
I don't think that AI is gonnaThey're spending all this money and spending like
all this energy to try to createin ways that people do. You know

(58:21):
that so many of us do andwe don't get paid enough for it,
right, it's kind of astounding howthey're doing that. And then but I
think I read that like for everyimage that chat ept creates, it like
it's it's enough energy that it requiresfrom computers. It's like what it takes
the charge of cell phone from zerotwo hundred percent, Like it's not sustainable,

(58:45):
and so I'm not even sure whatit's going to look like. Well,
maybe we should fact check that thatwas just something I saw, like
cited on social media, right,But when you think it's right, that's
correct, if it's on social media, right, that it's it's just not
very sustainable. And you know,they're putting so much money into trying to

(59:05):
replicate what so many humans do sowell, like why you know, it's
a black black box fallacy where wejust think it's a magical thing happening.
But there's all these little like you'resaying, like super not climate friendly things
that are going on. I alsothere was an article I read to that
there's actual farms of people, yeahin Vietnam ironically where at Him is and

(59:25):
the Philippines that are like lt shopsmaking sure that these servers don't go down
so that we can make a pictureof Joe Biden eating a hot dog while
he's flying a unicorn. And thenthey also test for like all of those
little like when you have to proveyou're not a bot, and it's like
click the light, the light bulbsor whatever, right, and like there's

(59:50):
people who actually have to sit therefor like ten hours a day and click
on what the light bulbs are sothat they're training the computer that then is
our like little authenticator type of thing. So, yeah, a lot of
ethical issues and a lot of thistechnology and what tech bros Are doing.
And that's why I like being onthe side of thinking about those ethics and

(01:00:12):
humanities and maybe a little bit moreanalog in some sense. Yeah. I
always when it comes to like Adam'squestion on AI and you mentioned I don't
think you said you don't think itwill ever replace actual like the collectivism and
the actual experience that we get frommusic. Might I always think of like

(01:00:32):
who who will ever go pay money? I mean people do go to raves
to go see a DJ press budds, But like the experience that you have
from going to see a live concertwith other people of like live musicians can
never be replicated by like a computercreating things unless we're in a simulation.

(01:00:53):
And that's where we're going on thisin this in this podcast. Yeah,
when when is that start? Wecould do that from so far away?
Yeah, being a sinus simulation.Yeah, I'm actually a solepsyst so I
believe I'm the only thing that existsin y'all are creations of my mind.
Oh, we're all n PCs inyour in your brain, I'm the main

(01:01:15):
character. Yeah, Okay, that'sit. We're NPCs in your game.
Uh yeah works. We're on thetopic of music in academia, and you
mentioned something earlier on uh doctor veAjo when we first started talking, when
I mentioned the Francis Francis dednsboor photo, you brought up like looking back,

(01:01:37):
like looking back ethically through the lens, a modern lens of their practices.
A lot of the stuff that theywere doing was problematic. Could you also
apply that to academia too, fromwhat you see now as a professor in
your career looking back and even inyour own academic career, do you see

(01:02:01):
any problematic themes in the past.Yeah, I mean, I would say
there've always been issues of like abuseand power abuse and the ways that you
know, the university is supposed tobe about, you know, knowledge and
sharing knowledge and everything, but there'sa lot of ways that the town and

(01:02:23):
gown relationships aren't very good or areSometimes they're harmed by the university. So
like you think about, you know, how some universities have like the skulls
of some people from you know,from people's research or from nearby areas,
or the way that gentrification can happen, or like I know, like Syracuse

(01:02:43):
University back home, you know,they'll they buy up land and in some
ways like okay, maybe they're cleaningup parts of the city, but there
are a lot of people who've beenthere for generations and or some people who
come in as refugees and are placedthere who just need help with you know,
better infrastructure and social systems and settingup you know, like private shuttles.

(01:03:07):
For some of these universities like USC, is that really the thing that
is helpful or is having a bettertalent gown relationship with you know, Metro
and you know the services that everybodywould benefit from. You know. I
really like that UCLA has such agood partnership with the Blue Bus and Metro

(01:03:28):
and Culver City Bus and cal Poly'sworking hard on repairing our relationships with Foothill
Transit because a past president actually tookthe buses off campus and basically severed those
relationships, you know, in partbecause they didn't want people who are too
black and too brown, too poorcoming to campus, and you know,

(01:03:52):
didn't want them coming to campus fromChino prison. And I don't know if
any of you have had family who'vebeen in jail. I have, and
you know, you know, insome cases it wasn't always fair. People
were profiled, and it's it's prettytraumatizing. You think, like if somebody
is starting their life again, theyfinally get out, like I would hope

(01:04:13):
they would look to education as oneplace that could be renew their hope and
humanity or something, you know.And I don't know. We're the Transportation
Transportation Committee and I were talking theother day and joking about how like a
lot of the violent things that havehappened on campus, not that many,
but it's usually been somebody who drovein on a car and then like stole

(01:04:36):
something, right, So like there'sa reason why it's called a getaway car
not a getaway bus. And I'msorry, Yeah, that's great control.
The second one with the boat,well both both of them. Yeah,
the speed. Yeah, I thinkI don't think. I think think universities

(01:05:00):
are susceptible to the same social illsthat we see in society at any given
time anyway, and sometimes they canbe can be like a little petri dish
for that, so you know,the media movement, you pick whatever cause.
And like there have certainly been ethicalissues in ways that universities, despite
having things online saying that their moralsor their ethics are this, there's tons

(01:05:25):
of room for improvement. So illthat I call that chequity. When organizations
and universities are like we stand withBlack Lives Better and we see you on
Hispanic Heritage Month, it's like,well, uh, you still allow all
this Awareness is one thing, actionis another. Right, Well, it's
just the easy route to do.And I see, I've seen that.

(01:05:46):
I mean even cal Pauly like thebiggest disconnect for me apart from your course,
and Kurt and I have talked aboutthis before. There's like a really
lush, thriving history of like MexicanAmerican a ton of music culture just like
literally like two miles away from campus. But like we never interacted with that

(01:06:11):
at all in the music department outsideof like things that we learned with you,
and that seemed like a big disconnectAnd I'm not and it's not like
an indictment of the music program micaalPauly just an indictment of like maybe the
music and academia in general of likewhere we've like you said, like there's

(01:06:31):
there's people that cut off ties withthe Foothill Transit syst system. They did
that kind of like these institutions existon an island and they're cutting off ties
with the communities that kind of likethey wouldn't have been there had it not
been for the communities around them,right, And to your point to Leo,
maybe not looking as something malicious,but what a missed opportunity. Yes,

(01:06:54):
you know there's twenty three campuses inthe cal State system in twenty three
different communities. I mean, whatsort of perspective if if those are resources
being split up, I mean perallocation, per tuition brought in per year,
you know, to connect with thatlocal community and to really bring that
in. I mean, what whata draw for the literally the largest educational

(01:07:16):
system on the planet. M hI mean, oh man, So I
was involved with some activism my firstyear of college actually for when Sunny Popstam
had their budget slashed, and Ilearned a lot about the land grant system
in those years. You know,I had a whole bunch of time on
my hands being a first year student. And so I like did all this

(01:07:39):
research and interviewed the budget you know, director for the campus and went to
NYPERG and I made a website thatthe budget director saw for New York State
and so patact's budget director asked,you know, little nineteen year old me
to go have a meeting with them, and so I did all along and
I was like fearless about it.I didn't care about their type at that

(01:08:00):
age. I was just like Iknew the facts and they were trying to
tell me I was wrong, Andyou know, I was upset that funding
was cut. But basically, let'ssee, with the land grant system,
a lot of these state schools,they were specifically placed in areas that needed
like financial revitalization, right, Andso I especially think that, you know,

(01:08:23):
the csus need to stick to theirour mandate, our charters to like
serve the community. And unfortunately,there aren't always administrators who prioritize those types
of projects or make it easy forfaculty to do it. And I'm not
even just talking about like a figurelike the president of a campus. Like

(01:08:46):
a lot of times there's other youknow, a vps in different areas that
or like people within the presidential cabinetwho advise on what to do and what
to prioritize. I know, calphe wants to create this other downtown arts
center soon. They had tried ityears ago, and that's what ended up
being the Daw Center because cal Polyabandoned it. And then the Daw Center

(01:09:11):
became a private or like a nonprofit, separate organization and it's hungry for having
cal Poly students involved. And sothat was one of the things I tried
really hard to do in my wheneverI teach the the you know, music
integration and service learning you know class, but the service learning class, you
know, we usually would one ofthe partnerships would be the DAW whenever I

(01:09:34):
teach it. You know, I'mnot sure what's going to happen if the
university goes through and like now createslike a duplicate of that essentially, And
you know, is it better tocreate something and have the cal Poly brand
on it or is it better tohave a strong partnership with something that already
exists. And so yeah, Ifeel like it's it's complicated and in the

(01:09:58):
ways that more people could do it. Not all faculty are able to live
near campus, you know, forprices for you know, depending on where
they have family, where their partnerswork, all of that. Sometimes I
think, you know, especially inthe case of Pomona, I don't think
a lot of faculty identify with youknow, the demographics of the city of

(01:10:19):
Pomona. And you know, I'mreally thankful I feel at home and that
you know, in Pomona, andthat I can sit there and like everybody
wants to talk to me if I'mout there in my Mariachi outfit and I
can talk to them in English andSpanish, and you know, a lot
of times, you know this,some of the people have asked me in
Spanish, like, well, Ididn't think I could go to campus,
like I thought it was just forthe students, because it seems so separate

(01:10:43):
and trying to break that barrier oflike no come to our concerts, like
we have concerts every night. Everyensemble would be thrilled to have more people
show up every event, right,like please come. And so I think
there's a lot of work to bedone, but it really takes pounding the
pavement in the sense of like goingout there talking to people, meeting people
being present there, you know.But a lot of faculty are spread then,

(01:11:09):
so it's like I wish more ofthem were doing that with me.
But I also understand like we noneof us are doing okay, Like we're
all really you know, processing thepandemic, all the ways we had to
reinvent our job, all the waysthat we're dealing with, having to navigate
how to help students who are alsonot doing okay. You know. I

(01:11:30):
just had a talk with one professorabout, you know, a student who
I think is having a mental healthcrisis, and it's it's more frequent now,
and so it's it's challenging. CanI ask what the what the campus
culture is like with at least regardingthe music department's relationship with the rest of

(01:11:53):
campus after COVID, I just Leo, I think you you and I you
were in that committee. We weretrying to establish a kind of a concert
venue, a small little venue somewhereon campus, utilizing under utilized space.
Adam, I don't know if youwere a part of that group, but
I remember we met with the universitypresident. Were you in that meeting?

(01:12:15):
I was in the meeting, butwe had talked about it, Yeah,
and we met with the president andwe had a building scoped out, We
had reached out to the proper partiesabout it, and she kind of she
was very very dismissedive the president.It seems like they kind of got laughed
out of the room like that.I was going to say, it was,

(01:12:35):
yeah, because they're not making anymoney off of it, so it's
going to be hard for them tosay, oh, yeah, this is
going to be good publicity for us, So this is going to bring you
an extra yeah whatever for us,versus the problem that they probably already have.
That's with any administrative and to speakto what doctor Via was talking about

(01:12:57):
too, You you think, andI like, I love the way that
you analyze things because you don't thinkin like personal like oh it's this person.
You think in like systems like it'sa systemic issue. You're like,
well, the problem with this thatfalls down through here. It's the same
thing with when you get into likethe leadership statuses of like these organizations,
right, they're not necessarily that personbureacracy. Yeah, you get caught in

(01:13:21):
the red tape of the bureaucracy.But also like this, it's what it's
dollar signs, right, and andit's in no fault of the person with
the I mean maybe a little bit, but they're they they go into these
positions and they have to keep theseinstitutions afloat, and they have all these
different like moving mechanisms. And themost the most profound way that someone would

(01:13:44):
kind of like demystifies demystified equity workfor me was when they told me they
did equity work at organizations and theywere able to quantify how much money an
institution was losing by not reaching outto the local marginalized groups or by the
lawsuit that someone had filed from aracist interaction. When you can put pen

(01:14:08):
to paper and tell the vice presidentof an institution you're losing X amount of
dollars by not reaching out to thesepeople, then they're like, oh,
I'm on board of that. Goodynow because I want those dollars. Lenes
sucks. Can we hire this guyor who is a friend? It's true
like and because I'm not sure ifthey would have if the issue would be

(01:14:30):
so much of could they make moneyoff of having it was not Anhita center.
And I know, like I wasI was all four two. I
think space is often an issue,and the way that they had to like
increase enrollment to make up for theimpending like enrollment cliff that's coming up that
most that a lot of universities aredealing with that is coming sooner than everybody

(01:14:53):
anticipated because of the pandemic and becauseof the like rhetoric around like a degree
isn't worth anything. You know,if people want to go to a trade
school, like that's fine, butlike the trade schools where like you train
to go straight into a career,a liberal arts style college is about developing
skills so that you can do alot of different things, and you have

(01:15:13):
majors to focus in an area.But we're not a trade school. Like
you're going to do this and you'regoing to get out and you're going to
be like an electrician working on youknow, for LEDWP, right, And
you know, I come from afamily of trades workers, so like I
know how hard everybody works and howessential little skills are. So I think
it's like they're both necessary. They'reboth essential for the health of like our

(01:15:35):
society. But it's hard when likethey're trying to turn education into either like
more like a trade school, andlike they're cutting gees again. So since
I've been hired, nine units ofthe Arts and Humanities and social sciences have
been cut from the g E curriculum. You all took nine units, which

(01:15:58):
means we all lose funding, right, So that's not that's why the college
isn't doing as well. So we'rebeing streamlined into like more of a corporate
business model and then also like atrade school, and some of that is
coming from not a campus president,but like the chancellor. And then the
system. There's this like what theycall it, it's cal Getzi, but

(01:16:19):
it's basically a system with representatives fromcommunity colleges ucs and csus, but there
are no Arts in Humanities or socialsciences representatives on that. So a lot
of these decisions to cut certain areasjust because we added area F for ethnic
studies has been a problem. Solike sometimes the curriculum side is really the

(01:16:43):
the area where you can kind oflike carve out and make room to support
certain areas, but it's becomes sucha political like minefield sometimes, And so
I've been learning a lot about allof that since I've joined the Senate and
been more involved with the union.You would think that, I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, Lord, this isjust going off of that really quick.

(01:17:06):
But you would think that, well, there's a delay. Sorry. You
would think that a polytechnic university wouldbe that kind of fine line blend between
a trade school and a liberal artscollege if it's about the hands on experience,

(01:17:29):
which not to go into this becauseI want to hear Adam's question,
but you know, one thing wehave discussed before is that hands on learning.
That part of the reason, partof the drawdical Polypomona was that we
would get that experience. The otherpart was the affordability. We didn't really
get to an effective extent that wouldallow us to be effective in the industries

(01:17:49):
we were hoping to work in.So yeah, and maybe that's because it
was we were in the music departmentat a technic university and the hands on
stuff really came with all of theother STEM majors, and we were just
kind of a side thought. Butit would be nice to have labs that

(01:18:10):
aren't in other buildings, that areopen more hours for you all, and
also actual recording studio space that isnot a closet, you know, And
I think it would make it easierto integrate and involve all of the majors
because I do think that sometimes there'sa disconnect evement between MIS and the performance

(01:18:31):
side, and but there's there's sucha scarcity of time and resources for people
to use the studio like I mean, I would love to see you know,
MIS students working more on like youknow, even recording acoustic instruments.
So when when I play the ViperRoom or places like that, not all
the sound engineers have ever had tomic somebody who's singing and playing acoustic violin

(01:18:55):
into the microphone. So I meanthat happens like there are rock and folk
artists to do that, and Ifelt like that was an experience none of
you were getting. Well. Thenin a previous episode, there's either Adam
or Leo made this point that forall the Steinways that we have on campus,
each of those rooms could have beenfurnished as a small recording studio or

(01:19:17):
at least some way to facilitate theability to record yourself and experiment with that,
because that's what was the price thatwe discovered. It was twenty seven
thousand for one of those Steinways,Exactly what I was trying to get at
when we were talking about the Francisdensmore picture like looking at in the so
like I feel like academia is stuckin this in the past as far as

(01:19:43):
like where the money goes like this, and I don't know, I haven't
been in school for seven or eightyears. But like Kurt was saying,
those Steinway pianos could have been yousell two or three of them. We
could have gotten a couple MacBook laptops, a couple the Scarlett interfaces in the
microphone and any anybody in the suitin the that program could use it.

(01:20:05):
And it seemed like it was veryrooted into this trajectory that was you're going
into there's only a couple of differentthings you can do in the music industry,
and these are the ones that we'regoing to prep you for. And
your take on it, you're saying, we're going to we're going to teach
you just how to like give youlife skills and figure out how to do
a bunch of different things because likeand then you are going to go out

(01:20:28):
into the world and figure out inyour own is the approach that like I
agree with that, but it justseemed like a lot of and it's not
just this specific school. It justseems like music academian music in general is
so rooted in this I say itall the time. It's very kind of
white suburbs is a little bit Westernclassical. Yeah, that's what I was

(01:20:50):
getting that, that's the word Iwas using. That's the word right,
Like, you know, one ofthe things I try to do is bring
in songwriters and bring in people whoare involved in the music industry who are
people of color. And not asingle songwriting student has come to any of
those events. And so I thinkit's a mix of communication, it's a

(01:21:11):
mix of time, it's a mixof you know. I mean if I
were going if I were majoring inmusic industry studies and thinking like what do
I want to do, like Iwould probably go into something and be looking
for like either K pop or Mexicanregional music, right like globally speaking,
like that's really they have such awider audience. I mean, you have
a huge K pop fan base inIndonesia in different places where like parts of

(01:21:34):
Korea, Like it's huge in youknow, like Navajo as Like there are
tons of people who are like suchmajor K pop fans that you know,
I would love to have more of, like a global industry studies perspective.
I guess it's sometimes people's visions mightclash, and sometimes people's energies might not

(01:21:59):
be going at the same rate atthe same time, where it's easy to
realize that. I mean, wehave talked about in faculty meetings of ways
we would like to get back onthe same page of a vision. A
lot of times when organizations have thosetalks, everybody rolls their eyes because it's
like, already mean this again.But I do think it gets that concludes

(01:22:20):
part in one of our interview withdoctor Jesse Vagueho. Check back for part two.