66. From Southeast Asia to Reno

Life can feel surreal. Being out into nature can provide a little nurture. Local and international travel can provide respite and perspective. And art and culture contribute to conversation and community. In this episode, Brad and Holly speak with artist and advocate Jesse James Ziegler, Reno's Poet Laureate, about his journeys in poetry, where he goes locally to find inspiration, and the thriving, supportive art community in Reno. Brad and Holly also talk about their recent Weekend Sherpa trip to a point beyond: Cambodia. Learn about how to see Angkor Wat by bike, the magnificent islands less traveled, and the Hero Rats of APOPO.  

NOTE: At the beginning of this episode, in sharing some positive news about Jackie and Shadow—Big Bear’s celebrity bald eagle couple—Holly fumbles it with what you call newborn eagles… they’re eaglets, not chicks (but since she has chickens, we’ll grant her a pass on this one). 

Reno Tahoe Care Package

Monday Night Poetry at Shim's Tavern in Reno

Jesse Ziegler, Poet Laureate for Reno

Full Moon Island Resort

Angkor Cycling Tour

Hero Rats

Kompong Phluk Floating Village Mangrove Forest Cruise

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Welcome to the Weekend Chirp a podcast. Take it outside.
I'm Brad Day.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm Holly Kulak.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
I'm laughing because I'm so grateful we're not on YouTube
right now. Looking at how messy the office is.

Speaker 4 (00:28):
Yeah, don't look at where the magic happens.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
It needs to be cleaned up. Anyway. How are you, Brad?

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (00:34):
You know, I'm doing all right.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
It's uh, you know, it's kind of strange right now.
I would say, really.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
You don't say any particular reasons.

Speaker 4 (00:47):
Yeah, I know, right, Uh No, it's uh, things are weird.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
It's you know, you're going about doing your thing, doing
what you gotta do, but they're just kind of a
weird undercurrent in the whole vibe around. I don't know
where we live, the country, just everything. It's kind of
kind of surreal a little bit. Well, how are you.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
I'm doing fine. I have I have two pieces of good.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
News to show. Let's start with some good news.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, we're gonna.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Start with some good news. Jackie and Shadow, the bald
eagles in Big Bear have successfully hatched two eggs. I
can't remember what they're called, their little like little bald eagles.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
I do remember you were, Yeah, you were following this
story last year the webcam.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, are they just chicks?

Speaker 5 (01:36):
They just called chicks.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
I think they successfully hatched chicks to them so far.

Speaker 5 (01:40):
Yes, I was.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
I was following them last year and they had they
didn't they weren't successful. So none of the eggs hatched.
And you know, you can watch it on a webcam.
You can follow them on Instagram. They're very famous. Yeah,
and it was really sad, but they're a couple and
they like did it again this year.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
They had three eggs and two so far. That's baby
bald eagles. Anyways, that's what they are.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Are they're in you said in Big Bear.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, in Big Bear. And so it's just really good news.
It's really fun to watch if you go check out
their Instagram and then their webcam. The webcam is great,
like people watch from all over the world.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
Do you know that what you just look up Jackie
and Shadow.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Web Yeah, yeah, you'll find it. You'll find it's on YouTube.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
And the second peasic news is congratulations, Brad. I heard
that you well. I saw that you got first place
in your mountain bike race in Arizona. The Belgian waffle
that's a that's a whopping race. How tell me about that?
And congratulations you got first place in your age category.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
Yeah. Thanks. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
So there's this this Belgian Waffle Ride. I think it's
been around for like fifteen years. It started in San Diego.
It's kind of a start as this quirky kind of thing.
It's not really mountain biking. It's it's what's called gravel biking,
which is basically a road bike that you can take
off road, so it has like bigger tires and he's

(03:00):
guarded this race that would kind of combine some roads
and then some like dirt trails and you have to
find the right bike for it, and that, you know,
is basically gravel biking, and it's become really popular. So
he's started a variety of these races across the United States.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
There's one up in Canada, there's one down in Mexico.
They're all over the place.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
But the one that kind of kicks off the entire
year is in Arizona, just outside of Scottsdale, and it's
really really beautiful. March is a great time to be
out there. The race length that I did was one
hundred and five miles and you're just kind of going
full gas for that entire time. So it took me
six hours and twenty two minutes to complete the race.

(03:43):
And yeah, it's it's really it's really hard, you know,
to do that.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
But I think, so I'm I'm.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Not going into it like blind or untrained, you know,
so I've trained for it, so I'm ready for it.
But still, you know, it's, uh, you have to get
pretty mentally prepared for kind of like going to know
that you're going to be putting in that type of
an effort. And the course itself is just like so
much fun because it's like you're in the dirt, you're

(04:13):
by the cactus, it's just you're ripping down some single
track and I don't know, I just I love it.
It's such a fun way to race your bike. And
ended up having a good day and yeah, I can't
ask for anything more than that. Last year I did it,
I crashed and I was having all kinds of mechanicals
and it was just kind of a bummer. So I
was really motivated to come back this year and just

(04:34):
kind of put together a nice race.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Oh nice, Well, I know, yeah, you're very fit and
you commit to it. You get your workouts in when
you can, and good for you. Congratulations.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Thanks, Yeah, yeah, No, it's good also to kind of
keep your mind off of things when it feels like
there's a lot swirling around in the world right now.
So you know, getting on the bike and having or
whatever your you know, mode of you know, kind of
resetting is nature. Getting outdoors is always a good one, exactly.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah. And we're going to be talking about that a
little bit later too. And we also are going to
be talking to the poet Laureate of the City of
Reno at Jesse James Ziggler. It's a great conversation with him, yes,
about where he goes outdoors in and around Reno for
inspiration for poetry and some of his other initiatives, including
a Monday night poetry at a tavern that he has

(05:23):
a great conversation with him.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
Really interesting guy.

Speaker 6 (05:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
And speaking of getting out, we got way out we
did recently and way wait, way, way, way out a
bit for weekend Sharpa and it was to Cambodia. Yes,
so let's discuss that of bit because it's a beautiful, wonderful,
very friendly and warm country and you did some research

(05:47):
ahead of time and we checked out a place that
we want to tell our readers about and we will
be doing a special story on this, but I thought
I want to talk about it in the podcast since
it was so recent, it's fresh on our minds.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
Yeah foa Moon Island resort, Okay, jumping right in.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, So well, I mean, just to even back up
a little bit further. You know, Southeast Age is a
really special place, and had the opportunity to visit a
couple of countries over there, and one of the places
that's always been kind of like on the list to
check out is Anger Watt, but there just never was
really time to go do it, do it right and

(06:22):
not make it a like kind of a rust job. So,
you know, had the opportunity to get back there a
few weeks ago and really wanted to check that out.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
And a lot of people or you see a lot
of you know, travelers, the.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Only place they visit in Cambodia is seam Reap and
Anger Watt. And the country itself is very diverse. It's
one of the most biologically diverse countries in all of Asia.
It's got all kinds of stuff going on, so it's
really kind of a remarkable place. So we wanted to
get a little bit further out off the beaten path,

(06:58):
of course checking out Anger Watt, but why not check
out some of these islands that are off the coast
of Cambodia that rival Thailand. So did little research found
this place that you'd mentioned, Full Moon Island Resort, which
has only been open about a year, and it's a
pretty special, incredible spot. It's not like bohemian backpacker vibe

(07:23):
where you're paying twenty five dollars a night to sleep
on the beach kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
It's kind They definitely present themselves.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
As like this is a four star or five star
kind of experience, started and owned by a former Minister
of Tourism for Cambodia, and you know they've done a
great job. They have I don't know, twenty something villas
like on this island. That is you can walk around
the island in ten minutes. It's very very small, which
is kind of unique in itself, and there's a restaurant there.

(07:50):
Everybody has their own little private villa thing. You get
to it on a boat and you're just short boat yeah,
and you're just like looking out at beautiful nature, looking
out at the mainland, which was you know, a thirty
minute or twenty minute boat right away.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
But very beautiful place and simple.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
Right like when you run a place like that, there's
not not a heck of a lot you can do.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
You know.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
They haven't like totally accommodated to kind of the Western
culture of like having like yoga sessions or you know,
like whatever you might expect at a resort in Hawaii
or something like that. It's just a lot of it
is like hanging out at the beach.

Speaker 4 (08:30):
There's a beach bar, beautiful.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah, you can read a book and the BirdLife is
really cool. I really like seeing the hornbills.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah, just relaxing and they're really well they and they
built that. They didn't have big contractors come in they
like they just built it with locals and decorated it
that way.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
It's it's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
I mean, they have such incredible vision for it with
that island, and then they have a couple of other
islands right nearby, one that's connected by a bridge that
they're developed thing, but it doesn't feel in any way
overdeveloped or you know, super resorting.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
It just feels very special. Like you go there and
you could.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
I think at times you could probably be the only
people staying there for now. So go now if you
for now, because I think it's really going to take off.
But a lot of Cambodians stay there. When we were there,
it was part of Lunar celebrations Chinese New Year celebrations,
so a lot of Cambodians were there.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
It was all Cambodians. I don't think we said there
were no other Westerners there.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
Oh that's correct, that's correct. And there's excursions you can
do too, so they can arrange, you know, we had
a very interesting one which Brad maybe you want to
talk about.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
We had a wonderful excursion.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
They can take you, you know, out to fishing villages
or for some snorkeling, and we decided to go to
the fishing village and our guide was lovely and kept
asking us while we were heading over to the village.
He kept saying, you know, so you don't want to
do anything else, you just want to go to the village.
And we were like, yeah, yeah, okay, really you're sure, yes, okay, great,

(10:03):
We're just going to take a walk through the village,
which was very charming.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
It's very small and.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
You know, authentic, and we were walking with a guide
and he said, okay, well I'm just going to guide
you through the town then, and if you don't mind,
we're going to make a stop at the hospital. Like
oh okay, sure, thinking like, okay, there must be something
unique about this, maybe this is like it's a historic
landmark or something like that. Well know, his wife had

(10:31):
just had a baby that morning at ten am, just
that morning, just that morning, and he just casually says
that my wife had a baby, So I'm just going
to drop in and say hi. So of course we're like,
oh my goodness, that's so amazing, but it's also surreal.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
And by the way, we didn't know this.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
He's he had told us I had to work like
today regardless because I personally was feeling terrible. I thought,
oh my gosh, like I would never have like gone
on this had I known he did. But he said, no,
I'm just like I go around. I'm with the tour company.
So but it was kind of a bonus for him.
I guess that we wanted to go to the village,
which is why he kept asking, are you.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Sure that's the only thing you want to do?

Speaker 3 (11:08):
And so we went with him to the hospital, and
you know, it's like this open air, small hospital, so
you're walking through thinking, we're thinking we're going to give
him some privacy.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
But we're like walking through the halls.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
The halls which are open air, I mean you know,
so he just like we're following him, and he just
walks into a room and there's his wife and his
mother and this newborn baby, and we of course promptly left.
I just said, oh, give you some time to yourself.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
I didn't realize that was like going to be we
were actually going to be going into them to the room.

Speaker 5 (11:40):
Yeah, we didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
We left very quickly, and I mean awkwardly, were like,
oh hey, uh, you know, like do you do the intros?

Speaker 4 (11:48):
I'm brad, I know no.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
So we left, but he was a he was a
great guide. And then you know, we we made our
way through the island, which was cool, and then had
someone take us back so he could on the island
with his newborn and is Any had two other little
kids who were adorable, who just were like wandering around
the village like, Hi, dad was very sweet.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Oh yeah, no, there's no helicopter parents in this village
and kids run no.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Mobile phones for for tracking those.

Speaker 4 (12:16):
It's true.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah, anyway, it was a very it's a very special destination.
I would definitely check it out. Full Moon Island Resort
in Cambodia.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
It's a special stay.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
It's not inexpensive, but it's it's really cool. You're not
It's it's very unique and authentic, I would say. And
you know, if you're going out to Cambodia, then you
got to go to like seam Reap and you got
to go to anger Watt because that's like, that is
the marquee thing to do, probably one of the most
marquee things to do in all of Southeast Asia is
going to Anchor Watt. And uh we signed up for

(12:48):
this bike tour that took you around and I didn't
really fully get a good grasp of what Anchor Wat was,
but it's it's kind of a I mean, there is
the actual temple of anger Watt, and going there for
sunrise is kind of like the must do thing, so
you do that, but there's also all these other temples

(13:09):
that you can check out. The there's the top Prome Temple,
which is where they did tomb Raider.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
With Angelina Joe Lee like twenty years ago.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
And then there's also the one that has all the faces,
like there's I think two hundred and sixteen of these
smiling faces carved out of stone at the Bayon Temple,
and there's just several other ones and they're all you know,
maybe like a five or ten minute tuck tuck ride
or car ride away, or you could go on bicycle

(13:38):
and you're kind of like weaving through the forest on
trails going connecting these temples, which is what we opted for,
and that was really really fun and a great way
to get in a little bit of exercise while you're
also checking out temples because you can get templed out right,
like sometimes you're like, you know, it's overwhelming, a little overwhelming,
but like having that that mix of including the bike riding,

(14:01):
I thought was a great combo.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
Yeah, that was a great idea of Brad. That was
your idea, And we went with Anger Cycling Anchor Cycling Tour,
and our guide was terrific, say ho, but it was
wonderful because you start, you do get the sunrise at
Anger Rot and it's incredible and then from there, you know,
you're taking your bike around and it's not what I
liked about it is I agree with you could get.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Overwhelming, you just get fatigued.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
But he kind of said, these are the temples we're
going to choose, including one that was less well known,
and he just sort of said, I'm just gonna let
you guys kind of walk around and enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
But it was it was a really.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Fun way to experience it. And then nearby when we
were heading there, remember someone mentioned when we were on
our way, oh, have you know heard of the Hero Rats?
You can you can go here and do the tour
so that the hero rats.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Like hero rats. What are those hero rats?

Speaker 3 (14:53):
Well, it's hero Rats are the rats that are trained
to sniff out tuberculous as a disease but also land
mines in places like Cambodia. And you can go to
their visitor center and do a tour where they teach
you about it and you get to see the rats

(15:14):
in action obviously with you know, land mines that are
not land mines that are dangerous. But it's a phenomenal
program and it's worldwide. They've been doing it for about
twenty five years. What's interesting is that, I mean they're
saving so many lives by doing this, and it's painstaking

(15:34):
and very hard work to train the rats and then
a lot of work to take them out to farmlands.
And I mean, there were so many bombs dropped on
Southeast Asia and Cambodia, so it's a huge and important project.
And it's interestingly, you know, we were there. It happened

(15:56):
to be at the time that there was a lot
in the news about us AID. Yeah, and you know
the program is actually funded in part by us A D.
So it's a little bit unfortunate that maybe that will
not be the case.

Speaker 4 (16:13):
Oh yeah, that's going to be.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, that's probably coming to a close, which is really
unfortunate because there was the United States that dropped all
these bombs in Cambodia.

Speaker 4 (16:23):
Back during the Vietnam War. And they have.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Maps that show where all these these land mines are,
and there's millions of these land mines, like I think
they said nine million roughly something like that, and they're
still there, and you know, you can do the metal
detector way of trying to find them, but it's just
painstaking and slow. So there's a guy from Belgium that

(16:46):
came up with this idea. He used to have these
rats as a pet as a kid, and he just
kind of came up with the idea, well, White, we
can train them to sniff out T and T and
so that's what they've done. They're a specific kind of rat,
believe it's like the giant African poutrat. They're big rat,
but they're not big enough to set off the land mine.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
Because exactly the weight, yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Think it's five kilograms or more triggers the land mine
and these are definitely under that that weight, so they're
able to they've trained them to sniff out the T
and T. They go and they kind of like scratch
and then you know, they they get a treat every
time they scratch and they point it out so that
you know, it's just remarkable and they can cover like

(17:30):
so much more ground than you could with a with
a metal detector, and so they're.

Speaker 4 (17:35):
Doing really really good work.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
There's a lot of work to be done still, but yeah,
kind of seeing that whole US aid in the news
and then you see the actual logo in this visitor
center that we went to to check this out, you know,
saying this is that we're funded partially through that. It's
kind of gutting because you kind of see some of
the work that gets done through that important work.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
And how valued it is, you know, because you have
of like, well so many instances, but kids running around
in fields that you know, like are nimed, harmed, killed
farm workers. I mean, it's just there's so many. I
think it's what Open Eyes was like, the staggering amount.
I mean I've always known there's a lot, but just
when you know, with all the information that they provide

(18:19):
on that tour and then on the plaques as you
go along, it's a staggering number.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
I mean it's just.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Uh, it's it's I believe it, but it's just such
a big number.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
It's just shocking.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
Yeah, they need more rats, and they.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Need more yes, and the demonstration was interesting and then
they let you hold hold a rat, which was very interesting.
Oh yeah, yeah, of course they are little heroes.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
They are the apopo A p O p O.

Speaker 6 (18:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
So if you find yourself in chebody, you definitely stop
at that visitor center and get onto a tour. They
run I don't know, every every hour. I think it's
very popular. Yeah, yeah, we also did let's just talk
about the one of the other twours we did, which
I really liked, which was on Southeast Asia's largest freshwater lake.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
Yeah, totally sop Yes.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
And you organize that. I just thought it was fantastic.
You take a boat out onto lake and it's so
this lake is so massive. Yeah, it acts like an ocean,
like you know, the waves. I mean it just I
kept forgetting because you can't see the I mean, the
horizon just going if you're looking at the Pacific. Yeah,

(19:26):
so what did you think about that tour? Oh?

Speaker 4 (19:28):
It was great. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
You arrive at a little fishing village which all these
we're there in the dry season. There's like two seasons
in Cambodia. There's the monsoon season and the dry season.
So we're there in the dry and you see all
these homes that are built. It looks like, I don't know,
twenty feet off the ground. And you're like, huh, okay,
I guess they really get a lot of flooding. Well,

(19:50):
you see photos during the monsoon season and everybody instead
of kids like running through the street playing soccer on
their bikes or whatever, everybody's in boats going from one there.

Speaker 4 (20:01):
It's a literal floating village. So beautiful.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, so it's really quite dramatic how much it rises
during the monsoon season.

Speaker 4 (20:09):
But going there in the dry season.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
You jump on a boat and you're kind of like
weaving around this little tributary that goes into the lake,
and then you get to the lake itself and they
have like little looks like houseboats, like mega kind of
big house boats that are built up where you can
get that has a restaurant or a little bit of
a bar and people just hang out watching the sunset,
having a bite to eat or a drink.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
It was really neat and so that was a unique,
really cool experience. What did you think of it?

Speaker 3 (20:38):
Yeah, I loved it, and I liked to you know
when we got it. They have also smaller boats that
will just like take you out onto the lake from there,
and we did that, which was really cool and a
special experience at the end was our guide said, oh,
you know what's really nice is when you kind of
walk through the village late day. Yeah, and so we
took the boat back and walk through the little village,

(21:02):
you know with these homes on massive stilts because they
literally can't be on ground when you know, in the
rainy season, I'm like they have to sort of wave
to each other or I don't know how they get around.

Speaker 5 (21:15):
I guess boat boat.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, but it was dry season, so the kids were
just out playing, running around everywhere, you know, just on
their bikes, playing volleyball, young laughing, you know.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
It was really beautiful.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yeah, and to walk through that area and just I'm
so glad the guy had suggested that. It's just a
really nice moment, and it was towards the end of
our stay there, so it's very memorable to see. I
just found the kids wonderful, you know, just running around playing. Yea,
not on the fracking, not on there yet, not not

(22:00):
on their not on their phones. And again that's another
area where USA it is very helpful because of malaria.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
So they helped treat.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
The water and you know, prevent malaria from there.

Speaker 4 (22:15):
I think that got cutted.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
So I mean, I want to go on about on
and on about it, but it's just when you actually
are in places and you see what gets affected.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
You know, it makes it a little bit of a
difference when you can actually see how it's going to
affect things. Yes, which kind of brings us back home
right to the United States, And there's a lot of
changes going on with our national parks, in our national forests.
A lot of people are being fired from the National
Park Service. Seems to be in a little bit of upheaval.

(22:46):
Yosemite is losing their reservation system that they implemented, I
think during the pandemic. So that's going away. It's going
to impact your experience at the national parks.

Speaker 4 (22:58):
The National Park to home in the Bay Area anyway,
the Presidio looks like there was.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
The current administration wants to get rid of that Presidio Trust,
which runs the National Park right in San Francisco. Apparently
it operates in the black. The Presidio Trust does really well.
They had an earned operating revenue of one hundred and
eighty two million dollars last year and reinvested fifty eight

(23:28):
million dollars into the fifteen hundred acre park at the
base of the Golden Gate Bridge. And the current administration
wants to eliminate the agency's functions and reduce its personnel
to the maximum extent consistent with the applicable law. Not
sure why they're picking on, I mean, on national parks

(23:51):
on this particular eight. I don't know if there's any
particular thing that isn't getting picked on.

Speaker 4 (23:56):
It's just like it just seems to be kind of
a scattershot approach.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
But it it sucks because you know, we all pay taxes,
federal taxes, and one of the things you I appreciate,
you know, when I'm paying my taxes is having a
go towards our national parks. You know, that's the one
thing I'm like, yes, please send some of my money
to these national parks. As ken Burne calls it, ken

(24:19):
Burns calls it, it's America's best idea.

Speaker 4 (24:22):
And now we're gutting that. So you know, here we are.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah, incredibly unfortunate.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
And it does feel like everything was just sort of
a broad sweep, almost gorged or you know, not very
strategic or precise in all of it. And I just
you know, people losing their jobs just so suddenly it's
really it's really unfortunate, and it will it will affect
things at the parks. I can understand, you know, having

(24:50):
some you know, maybe doing some audits or whatever across
the board. Right, that's fine, but this just everything sort
of feels very okay, kind of chaotic, like just like
just broad sweeps and maybe and not a lot of
everything feels precision or yeah or strategy, and it's really hard,
but we will. We're gonna focus on this more on

(25:11):
a future podcast where we're going to have someone from
the parks come on to talk with us, so we
will dive more into that. But it is, it's it's
very unfortunate and it's already having you know, uh an
impact on weights and you know, from someone who goes
to national parks a fair bit, I I value so
much of what's provided there, including you know, the rangers.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
I mean the I know I.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
Was asking you, like where do you where have you
enjoyed the best park rangers? And you're like, I don't
even know an answer that, But for me, like, I
mean they really like, okay, I'm just gonna say mine.
When I go to Death Valley National Park, I hit
that visitors Center immediately because they are phenomenal. They know
their stuff, they know what's going on where they can

(25:57):
tell you, you know, know that hike has some snow on.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
I mean they it's like it's.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
Incredibly helpful and they'll say something like, oh, did you
know tonight we're having this special dark sky you know,
like things that you just might not. You might walk
in wondering about a hike and then they're going to
tell you tonight there's a you know, great dark sky
event led by a ranger, and you know, I've it's
just those things are small, but they're so meaningful and

(26:23):
they they keep you safe. Yeah, there's there's just so
many things and it's it's hard. It's hard to even
know really how to had to comment on it a
lot right now. Then it's quite surprising, and it just
feels like, uh, I don't know, we have we have

(26:44):
a ways to go to maybe write this.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, I think there's going to be a little while
to write this, and we don't know, you know, this
might just be the beginning.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
Who knows. Who knows how bad it's going to get
across the National parks.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
Can I just come back to the Death Valley Park
park ranger? Absolutely, I need to amend that.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
Except for the park ranger who told us.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
To do Corkscrew Peak right, Actually, no kudos to him.

Speaker 5 (27:08):
He did say it was I did say that was
a hard hike.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
It was a very difficult.

Speaker 4 (27:14):
That was a hard one.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
If you ever want to do a really remarkably hard,
beautiful route, finding kind of hike. Check out Corkscrew Peak
and Dad Valley National Park. There's no trailhead.

Speaker 4 (27:27):
You just got to go.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
You gotta know where to go. You got to talk
to somebody at the visitor center and they'll tell you.
I forget the name of the road it's off of,
but I mean there's like markings, you know, there's rock
Karens that help point the way part of the way.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
But I couldn't walk for like two days. I was
so sore from that. You're right, the view is beautiful,
the reward is there, but it's it's efty. It is
not an easy hike, and it's not one to do
in hot weather.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
They're protesting, hey, in the parks, like with the upside
down flag.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah I saw that.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
M Is that like a national symbol of distress when
you have this flag upside down?

Speaker 7 (28:06):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (28:06):
It must be.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, huh, well should we? You know, no, I really
believe right now nature can be an incredible respite, all
the more reason to have parks funded. And uh, you
know we are going to be talking to Jesse James

(28:28):
Baylor just momentarily. But you know, uh, a place like
Reno we didn't issue a while back called Reno Tahoe
Care Package, and I encourage I'll put it in the
show notes, but of course I encourage our readers. You
can just you know, look up Reno Tahoe Care package.
We can sure of and it's it's a great one
for you know, self care. I don't know about a

(28:49):
self care, but yeah, getting outdoors, relaxing in nature, doing
some hikes, you know, or going into some of the spasms. Oh,
I know, Miriam love the spas and the hot springs
that are there.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
It's a good issue.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
We wrote it in fall, but it's very relevant.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
And you know, the desert's always got I feel such.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
Beauty and comfort. Yeah, personally, you know, sunrises, sunsets, all
of it.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Sure, they're in such a unique position because they do
have that desert and then so close they have like
Tahoe and we're getting to the shore in like thirty
minutes or something like that.

Speaker 4 (29:30):
It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
It's the best of all worlds really. Yeah, and there's
lots of art there, so we will be talking about that. Yeah,
Reno is just a mecca for art and culture.

Speaker 4 (29:40):
Yeah, so let's get.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
Talking to Jesse James Zieler, the poet laureate for the
City of Reno. We're here with Jesse James Zigler j
jy Z, Poet Laureate for the City of Reno, the
creative director of Monday Night Poetry and True Colors Poetry,
CEO of Side Way Eight, Sideways eight Projects, writer, actor, photographer,

(30:05):
all round artists and advocate. That is impressive, Jesse, welcome
to take it outside. I'm so happy to have you.

Speaker 7 (30:14):
Thank you. It's it's wonderful to be here. I appreciate
the opportunity and the feeling is mutual. I'm happy to
be here.

Speaker 4 (30:22):
You got a lot going on, Jesse. I mean that
is had you. I mean there's there's a.

Speaker 8 (30:27):
Try but I mean there's a lot of a lot
of the work I do is volunteer, and some of
the things that I do get paid for don't pay.

Speaker 7 (30:38):
Me regularly enough or in a large enough increment that
I can just do those things as my primary source
of income. Sure, and so I try to be as
busy as I can doing the things that I want
to do. I have an ongoing list in my life

(31:01):
of what I need to do, what I ought to do,
and what I want to do. Yeah, and I'm hoping
to maximize the things that I want to do rather
than cut those back. Because the list of the things
that I want to do is what keeps me going.
That's kind of my reason why I want to do

(31:24):
this thing called life and share in other people's lives.

Speaker 5 (31:27):
It's really cool. Did you are you? Did you grow
up in Reno?

Speaker 7 (31:32):
No, I grew but I didn't grow up very far.
I moved to Rena from the the earl kind of
Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia, where I'd lived for five years.
And I've lived all over the country, but I was
raised about an hour and a half west in Grass Valley, California, Ah.

(31:56):
I was raised up against the Sierras in the sierra
about a foothills. That's where I lived from when I
was about three and a half until I was eighteen
and when I went to college, and then I also
went to college in California, but down on the central
coast in San Luis Obispo. And then once I was

(32:18):
done with college, I always had a sense of wander
lust about me and had to go see this great,
big world that we exist in with you know, my
own two eyes and my own two feet on the ground.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
So when you were growing up in Grass Valley, were
you always interested in writing and poetry?

Speaker 7 (32:39):
Absolutely from a hobby perspective. I was never necessarily in
more of like a formal perspective as I am now
where I'm kind of making it my way of life.
But I was all from a very young age. I
was interested in Doctor Seuss and shel Silverstein and as
soon as I could get my hands on like Shakespearean's

(33:03):
sonnets and John Keats and John Dunn and a lot
of people that you read in like high school English class.
I was always interested in poetry from you know, like
from a very I often tell the story that for
a creative writing or it was an all arts competition

(33:23):
in third grade, I wrote a poem about the Easter
Bunny and won a blue ribbon for that poem. And
I went to a very small school, so me winning
a ribbon wasn't really saying that much. But it was
the first time I ever had been praised for something
that I cared about. You Like, when I was a

(33:44):
kid and I'd take out the garbage or take care
of the dog, I didn't really care if my parents
gave me praise for the chores that I just had
to do. But when I got that ribbon for writing
a poem, I thought, I want to keep doing this.
And that was all the way back in third grade,
so it's just been more involved since then.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
I was just going to say, when did it switch
for you from going from oh, this is I really
enjoy this, this is a hobby too, this is a career.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
Well.

Speaker 7 (34:17):
I started seeing the possibilities for where poetry could take
me when I first moved to Reno, which was September
twenty fifth of twenty fourteen. Because shortly after I moved here,
I started volunteering at the local bruc of theater and
was just doing like box office and you know, being

(34:37):
a bar back and helping out with programs and whatnot.
But through that I met a lot of people in
the arts world, and I also found out about the
The creation of the poet Laureate position for the city
of Reno was basically coincided with when I moved to Reno.

(34:57):
So I read this pamphlet about that being a position.
I thought, well, that's what I want to do. So
I started thinking about everything I got involved with, whether
it was independent theater, independent film theater, photography, poetry. Whatever
I was getting involved with, I wanted it to be

(35:20):
either directly affecting my path to poetry or somehow tangential
to it in a way that it could be related,
whether it was some sort of voice work or character
work or just writing in general. And then in the
spring of twenty and fifteen, I met Ian Watson, who
is the founder of Spoken Abuse Collective that was founded

(35:40):
in two thousand and six. So from two thousand and
six until two thousand and fifteen, basically in the spring,
he was basically doing everything himself. And I quickly realized
when I went to their first event and I met him,
I thought, this is the guy I need to get
to know, the guy that's about the culture and about

(36:02):
not just page poetry in a formal, academic, written sense,
but more of performance, dramatized poetry that's about the You
know your body and you know your voice are the tools.
The page doesn't just speak for itself, which is its
own art leaping off the page, because you don't get

(36:25):
the person's tone or their vault volume, or their micro
expressions or their mannerisms when you're reading someone's book, but
when you're going to a slam poetry competition, you get that,
and so through Spoken to His Collective was my first
experience with slam poetry in person, although I had fallen
in love years before that with a series called Deaf

(36:48):
Poetry Jam that was rooted in the New yor Eakan
Poetry Cafe in New York and the Poetry Lounge in
La Is where they As a teager when I first
saw Deaf Poetry Jam and I thought, oh wow, poetry
can be like this, because it just blew me away
some of the most amazing artists I've ever seen, and

(37:11):
oddly enough now there's several of them that I've gotten
a chance to meet in person because of the draw
of Spoken Abuse Collective and having touring poets come through Reno.
But then the moment that I and I wrote about
it on November eight, twenty sixteen, when I saw the
direction that the election was going. My first instinct when

(37:38):
I was staying up late at night to write for
my wife and the pets had gone to bed, and
I was just realizing that's really the direction the country's
going was to write poetry. It was like I it
finally crystallized for me, rather than thinking about like what
am I going to do with my life? I realized, well, Jesse,

(37:59):
what have you always done with your life? What's the
through line like wherever you've lived in the country, whatever
you've done for work, who whoever you've been friends with,
wherever you were traveling, which you've always had, what's always
been there is poetry? And I finally just gave myself
permission on that night to just go at it with

(38:20):
everything that I had. I already wanted to be the
City of Reno's poet Lauriate at some point, but that
was the night I gave myself permission to go at
this art form with everything that I have, because I
realized it's the only thing that I can give every
fiber of my being to and it's the only label,
the word poet is the only label that I've never

(38:44):
once in my life mind being called.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
Now, as part of that that is, you know, you've
created Monday Night poetry and True Colors poetry.

Speaker 5 (38:55):
Can you tell us a bit about that?

Speaker 7 (38:57):
Right? Yes? Two after I had been doing things actively,
very actively for about seven years, from when I first
met me in and got involved with Spoken Music Collective
up until twenty twenty one, I was that was the
first time I applied to be the City of Reno

(39:18):
Poet Laureate, and I made it to be one of
the four finalists, and they had a performance aspect where
you were supposed to come into the Renal Arts and
Culture Commission meeting and perform something or share something as
a reading. You didn't have to perform something, but you
could just share something and then that would help them
make their final vote. And I felt like I went

(39:41):
to that meeting and I wrote a piece or specifically
four going to that meeting and memorized it and went
in and I felt like I had done that poem
better than I had ever done that poem in my
life and just killed the audition. But they ended up
giving the position to somebody else, and so I thought,

(40:02):
I've got to do even more than I've been doing
for the last seven years. So I was talking to
my friend Ian about, like, what what can I do
to make the Renal Arts and Culture Commission regret not
picking me and not selecting me for that honorary role.
And he was involved when Oliver X rest his soul.

(40:27):
Oliver X was one of the main arts advocates in
Reno when he passed away. But the owners of Shim's Tavern,
who are the co owners of that's one of four
bars they owned in the Reno area, they were just
flat out dead on Monday and Tuesday nights, and they

(40:48):
reached out to Oliver X and said, hey, do you
know anybody who'd like to do something on a Monday
or a Tuesday night that could bring people into the bar,
because we really just want something going on on one
of those nights on a rint and Ian immediately thought
of me, because I had proposed the idea before that
of you know what I really love to do. Rather

(41:10):
than a monthly open mic, I'd really love to do
a weekly because I want something to go to every week.
And as I've frequently said to people, sometimes if you
want a seat at the table, you have to build
the table, because the table doesn't exist for you to
sit at unless you build it. And so he reached
out to me. The two of us went in and

(41:31):
talked to the owner, Zach Cage of one of the
owners of Shims a few years years ago. At this point,
he liked what he heard out of my mouth. I
told him at that point, my goal is to be
the city of Reno poet Laureate. I will work harder
than anyone you've ever known to put butts in your seats,
and I will go at this poetry thing with everything

(41:52):
that I have, and I just want to call it
Monday Night poetry. It's like an homage to Monday Night football.
Where people have their week start and most people when
they started work on a Monday, if they're like me,
somebody says, is it Friday yet, and they're just already
looking forward to the weekend. And I wanted to get

(42:12):
to a point where I because I wanted to make
Monday my favorite day of the week, even though I
was starting my day job. I wanted it to be something.
And they also the other thing that Monday lends itself
to is you're dealing primarily with locals. It's a way
of building the local community because most people that are

(42:32):
passing through Reno or passing on a Friday or Saturday night,
maybe on a Sunday night, but very few people are
sticking around for Monday night unless they're staying an extended
time in Reno.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yeah, yeah, no, Reno's great. We've had the opportunity to
be up there several times over the last few years,
and I'm curious as too, like how Reno maybe has
inspired any of your poetry.

Speaker 7 (43:01):
Well, I mean from when I was able to walk,
I fell in love with the siering about of mountains.
So some people love the ocean and there that's like
in their DNA. They need to be close to the ocean.
I need to be close to the mountains. I've always
been somebody who loved the mountains, the Sierras. Even though

(43:22):
I've traveled extensively and seen all sorts of mountains all
over the world, the Sierras are just home to me.
So being in Reno, which is in the high desert
up against the mountains, where you get four distinct seasons,
and it's easy to get out in places where you

(43:43):
can find solitude, whether it's in the high desert or
in the Sierras. That gets into me as far as
allowing my mind, as far as outside noise being quieted,
and it's just me with a journal or me with
the notes app on my phone and the dog and

(44:03):
we're out hiking and we can't see anything that's man made.
That's when life makes the most sense to me. I
love the snow, I love the big trees. I love Tahoe,
I love Pyramid, I love the Trucky River that runs
between the two lakes. And I love living in a
place that's four distinct seasons, like could I would be

(44:25):
driven insane if I lived in a place like Houston,
Texas or Phoenix, Arizona, where you don't really get four
distinct seasons, and it's just a gigantic city. Reno's kind
of the best of all possible worlds where you get
anything I would want out of a city. Reno's big
enough to have it other than maybe occasionally going to
see professional sports, but like Reno's big enough that you

(44:49):
can get almost anything you'd want. And Vegas is a
short flight away if you need something bigger occasionally. But
it's also real easy to get out in the middle
of nowhere. It's easy to go up Hunter Creek or
to go to Oxbow or go you know, spend time
on the Yuba, not on the Yuba, the Ubas where
I grew up, on the Trucky. It's just a it's

(45:13):
a part of who I am. I don't know, maybe
the name. Maybe growing up with the name Jesse James,
I've always had an affinity for all things Western, but
like there's just something about the wild West that I
just missed when I was on the East Coast, Like
when I was living in Florida and Rhode Island and Virginia,
I never really had the sense that I could settle

(45:35):
down in any of those places, with the possible exception
of Virginia. Whereas once I moved back out to Nevada
to be within a drive of my parents as they
were in the winter of their lives, I just knew
this is where I'm meant to be. I just knew
within a, you know, a week or two of moving here,
this is where I'm meant to be. It's not my

(45:56):
first home, but it's probably going to be my last.

Speaker 5 (45:59):
Is it a place?

Speaker 3 (46:00):
I was going to ask you where your favorite place
to write is, And it sounds like, you know, being
out in nature inspires your writing. And because you mentioned
that you have your phone to take notes down, I
do that too for work when I'm on editorial assignment.
But that sounds really lovely, is that one of your

(46:21):
Is that true? That it's probably a very.

Speaker 7 (46:23):
Absolutely yeah, absolutely, that's that's true. And then the other
places where I am right now, you can't see like
my bookshelves behind me, But I'm in a room where
all all of the walls are just covered with books
that I made, wrought iron, black piping bars that are
attached to the wall, and stained wood, so the bookshelves

(46:48):
are actually mounted to the wall, and there's I'm just
surrounded by artwork and books, and I'm at my dad's
antique desk that was made in Cannne, France in nineteen ten,
that I got when he pass passed the way. It's
one of the few things I want sitting right now
talking to you. Succeeded at that desk in what I

(47:11):
choose to call this room of the house is the
zen den with my grandma's stained glass bird mosaic and
my succulents and the windowsill and paintings that friends of
mine have done and local reno artists have done, and
all my what's behind me is you can see a

(47:32):
good portion of my poetry collection, but I've got five
or six shelves of my books are just poetry books
or books related to poetry as an artform. So either
at my desk in this room where I am right now,
or being out in nature, and I'm good. I rarely

(47:54):
have writer's block if I'm in one of those two places,
that's wonderful.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah, it's Reno really seems like it's quite the kind
of art hub, especially with I mean, just walking around
you see so many inspirations from Burning Man and they've
really a Renos really embraced that. We had a chance
to go check out the Generator a couple of years ago.
That was amazing and.

Speaker 6 (48:21):
Yeah, which it's such a cool Have you been to
art Tech?

Speaker 4 (48:25):
No, haven't tell me about that.

Speaker 7 (48:27):
Art techs not as big as the Generator, but it's
a similar thing where it's like a warehouse where a
lot of major pieces are made.

Speaker 6 (48:36):
Really, the Generator is just you.

Speaker 7 (48:39):
Know, the stars and the stripes. As far as where
Burning Man pieces get assembled, that's huge done. Poetry vents
inside the Generator. That's been about a poetry society meets
inside art Tech, And so I'm just curious if you've
been there.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
No, we haven't, But I mean to somebody who's maybe
not super familiar with poetry, but maybe you know, one
of our listeners wants to get into it, how do
you like, what would you recommend? How does somebody get
into is it like showing up at one of you know,
maybe poetry.

Speaker 6 (49:11):
Yeah, yeah, that's what I know.

Speaker 7 (49:14):
I'm biased, but I would say, come to Monday Night Poetry,
come to true colors poetry. You know, there was a
time back in the day when you know, figures like
Ernest Hemingway and other literary figures would meet at cafes
in Paris, and those were the salons of that time. Sure,

(49:34):
I really believe that Monday Night Poetry is one of
the contemporary salons because so many people have gone there
in search of their own interest in poetry and then
met other people they've become friends with, and then later
planned events with those people that they wouldn't have met
if it wasn't for Monday Night Poetry. So it is.

(49:55):
It is a conduit through which we can receive and
give poetry. But I think the thing that keeps it
going strong is that it is community building and community service. Sure,
you know, like the glass, the wine is poetry, and
the wine glass is the community and the sense of

(50:19):
chosen family and being a part of something that's larger
than just yourself. So even if people don't really like
to write poetry, I would still urge them to come
to Monday Night poetry and just listen because it's not
mandatory to share. It's free to attend. There's materials provided,
and the only thing that's really encouraged as far as
spending any money is that you support the bar while

(50:40):
you're there, and they have a if you don't drink
like me, they've got a great mocktail menu. So it's like,
you know, you don't even have to drink alcohol for
it to be a worthwhile experience.

Speaker 5 (50:53):
I need to get in there with what mocktail? What's
your favorite mocktail?

Speaker 7 (50:58):
Well, there's a there's an orange creamsicle that's pretty good,
but they also have I miss Ireland. I got a
chance to go to Dublin and I went to the
Guinness distillery in Dublin and I met, you know, the
Arthur a Guinness's great great great great great grand son,

(51:22):
like the one who's running Guinness right now. I met
that guy and he took our family on a tour
when we were there, and we had a meal with
me and his family. And Shim's is one of the
only places I've been in Reno that has the non
alcoholic Guinness. It's got the little blue ring around the
top of the can. And I know that a lot

(51:43):
of people don't like guinness, but I do, and I
defy you to take to tell the difference taste wise. Obviously,
not having alcohol it is going to have a different
effect upon your body. You're not going to get the
fuzzies that you get from a genuine guinness. But just
taste wise, if you took a sip of a regular

(52:06):
Guinness and a sip of a non alcoholic guinness in
unmarked glasses, I don't think with one sip that you
could tell the difference.

Speaker 4 (52:16):
Well, there's a reason enough to go.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
Check out, go in and try right right, I have
another question and it's based on I'll put this in
the show where readers can can see your work. But
I read your beautiful essay Letting Go of the Four Seasons,
where you wrote so honestly about your experiences of isolation
and pondering during kind of the early days of COVID
nineteen and social distancing, and one of the questions you
wondered to yourself was if you'd ever get to Burning Man.

(52:41):
So I'm wondering, have you been to Burning Man?

Speaker 7 (52:45):
I have not been to Burning Man, but I it's this.
It's like when people who don't have kids say what
it would be like to have kids. It's like that
level of removal from what the actual truth is. I
don't know what it's like to have kids. I don't
know what it's like to go to Burning Man. However,

(53:06):
I will say that I have so many friends that
have been to Burning Man in excess of ten different times.
And I've seen so many pictures, and I've seen so
many pieces of art that were made at Burning Man,
and I've seen so many performance the performance based poems

(53:26):
that were written at Burning Man, and I've seen so
much of the clothing. And I live on Pyramid Highway,
so we see the caravan of cars driving by not
too far from our house that are heading up to
Burning Man every year. And what I like to call
him is returner Burners. But people who have been a

(53:46):
lot of times, and the type of people that say
it'll be you know, it was better next year, when
because they just keep going back. I've had so many
of those experiences that I feel like I have to
go at least once. For me, it may be a
one and done kind of thing. I may go there there,

(54:08):
you know, write an entire book of poetry and ride
around on a bike and lose my mind for the
better part of a week, but somehow find my soul
at the same time, and then I might be done.
I might move on to whatever is the next experience
in my life. But I have not yet been once.

Speaker 5 (54:30):
I haven't d there. I'm similar to you.

Speaker 7 (54:33):
I've only lived correctly. You haven't.

Speaker 5 (54:37):
No, I would like it.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
I'm rather introverted, so it would be I would urge
you to go drop me in like I wish I
could parachute in do something like One year I saw
they had a movie theater and I thought that looked
so cool. I want to go see that movie, like
walk around a little bit because it does the art
looks incredible, and then be able to snap my finger
and not have to be in the traffic to leave.

Speaker 5 (55:01):
But it is I've.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
Heard, you know, many wonderful things ye early early days too.
I've had friends go and it sounds it sounds really cool.

Speaker 7 (55:10):
Same same, and uh, and I'm with you. If I
could just somehow be there and then somehow just not
be there and not have to be in the line
to get in or the line to get out, I
haven't received that level of celebrity status yet where I
can just you know, take a helicopter in.

Speaker 4 (55:31):
Come on, man, de laureate. You should you should get
You got to pull some strengths on that.

Speaker 7 (55:38):
I'm Reno famous, but that doesn't have any comparison to like.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
La And hey, I believe in Reno and I think
Reno famous is is a great thing to be at all. Yeah,
and I I really am.

Speaker 5 (55:52):
I really enjoyed reading you know.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
I haven't been able to read all of your work,
but I've been able to read some of it, and
I just really appreciate your r around how creative culture
and artists support each other and you know, come together,
and it really reminds me of the bigger picture of life,
which is community coming together to support each other.

Speaker 5 (56:12):
And if I may, I would like to read just
a small part.

Speaker 3 (56:15):
Of your poem called in Times like These, where you say,
on nights like these and in the days to come,
I search for a hint of a sliver of compassion, empathy, kindness, care, patience,
and grace and others so that I can carefully help
tend to them and help them grow. I feel like,
you know, in Turbulent times. That's such an important that

(56:37):
that idea of community and generosity towards each other is
really beautiful in that poem.

Speaker 7 (56:44):
Thank you. It was interesting that you keep in on
that specific poem, just timing wise, because when I first
gave myself permission to go at poetry with everything that
I had was the night that the current president was
elected to his first term. That was November eighth, twenty sixteen.

(57:04):
And then when I wrote this poem that you keyed
in on that segment of I started this poem November
fifth of last year and ended it the morning of
November sixth, so it was the night that he was
elected to his second term. And so my poetry has
very much been the way that I processed.

Speaker 6 (57:25):
Things like the letting Go. You know, that was.

Speaker 7 (57:29):
Something I was asked to write about for the Nevada
Humanities publication their Heart to Heart, their Double Down blog,
and their Heart to Heart series on that. But that
was written in response to my dad not only passing
away from cancer, but specifically when he died May twelfth.

Speaker 6 (57:52):
Twenty twenty.

Speaker 7 (57:55):
He was a man that was very involved in his job.
It was the president and CEO of the largest employer
of persons with mental and physical disabilities in the entire country.
But because of when he died, we weren't able to
have a service, a celebration of life, like there was
no kind of saying goodbye in a formal sense. And
so a lot of that poetic essay letting Go, was

(58:18):
written in response to letting go of my Dad, and
then this poem A Hint of a Sliver of Hope
was written in response, like my response to the political climate.

Speaker 6 (58:32):
So poetry has always.

Speaker 7 (58:34):
Been the way that I processed the way that I
experience grief and loss, the way that I the way
that I pray, the way that I meditate, the way
that I share with others, you know, like it's it's
very much a part of how I process every aspect

(58:54):
of life at this point.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
So if you had an opportunity, kind of as we
we part here to leave us with perhaps a little
bit of a reading from one of your poems that
you would like to share, if you don't, if you
don't mind, we'd love to hear it.

Speaker 6 (59:10):
I don't mind. I will.

Speaker 7 (59:12):
There's a piece that I wrote. I was trying to
think of a way because of how often I host
Monday Night poetry. I tried to think of a way
to like close the show, like a closing piece, you know,
like Johnny Carson had the signature golf swing, and various

(59:33):
people on TV have kind of their signature, their sign
off or whatever. So I wrote a short piece called
Keep that I jokingly referred to as my frictionless benediction.
It's a way of saying goodbye to everybody and sending
them out into the night air, and my way of
putting kind of the rubber stamp on the evening and
saying we're done. Now, that's all that we had tonight, right,

(59:57):
And so that's called Keep. And every time I host,
I end with it as a conclusion, and it goes
like this, Keep it simple, keep writing, keep reading, keep fighting,
keep pleading, keep lighting and keep leading. Keep your heart
open and your mind aware, keep coming back for more,

(01:00:17):
keep going, keep giving, keep doing, keep daring to believe
in a better way of living. Keep loving and creating.
Keep each other sheltered, sound and warm. Keep being a
sanctuary in the storm. Keep being true to form. Keep
it together but don't forget to keep it loose, to
keep it getting home safe, keep it real, and keep

(01:00:39):
the faith I love you goodbye for now.

Speaker 6 (01:00:44):
That's great. So that's short, that's only like thirty seconds, but.

Speaker 4 (01:00:49):
No, it's amazing.

Speaker 6 (01:00:50):
That's how I close Monday Night poetry every time.

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
I think our listeners are just going to value that
so much, so beautiful, very very good.

Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
Thanks for sharing.

Speaker 6 (01:00:59):
I appreciate. Cheers to both of you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Yeah, and thank you so much, Jesse, James Zigler for
joining us for a little bit on the Take It
Outside podcast, And Uh, it's really amazing that you're the
poet Laureate for Reno. It's a great city and you're
doing amazing work. And if we happen to find ourselves
in Reno on a Monday, we are definitely going to
Shim's Tavern and uh and.

Speaker 6 (01:01:21):
Enjoying non alcoholic gain us.

Speaker 4 (01:01:24):
I'm gonna hold you to it.

Speaker 5 (01:01:26):
It's such a pleasure, Jesse. Thank you so much, no.

Speaker 6 (01:01:29):
Worries, thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:01:30):
I have a blessed rest of you.