Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 15

Lyft Therapy

My office is open for business

For as long as I can remember I’ve been told I look just like my mom. We share the same nose, the same blue eyes, the same “I was born this blonde, so it’s not so much highlights as it is my birthright” hair color. But now I realize I inherited something more from her: an aura that prompts complete strangers to unburden their lives to us.

In Mom’s case it was always at the grocery store, like she wore a pheromone that invited people to share when all she wanted to do was buy some tomatoes and get back home. In my case, it’s when I’m in a Lyft, trapped in the backseat for an impromptu therapy session that lasts until I reach my destination and our time together is up.

The first inkling I had of my dubious gift was last November, heading to the Austin airport with a bunch of friends after a weekend trip. I ended up in the front passenger seat, and while I was aware that my three pals in the back seat were continuing our nonstop girls’ weekend conversation to the very last second of the trip, I had other matters to attend to: bolstering the self-confidence of our very meek, middle aged, female driver.

She was apologetic about the length of the drive to the airport, the fact that it was hot in Texas, and the traffic around us. Even as I reassured her that no apologies were necessary in that she controlled none of those things, she moved on to being sorry for not having studied for an advanced degree, for not earning more as a driver, and for having only had one kid. It was apparent to me very quickly that whatever was going on for this lady, she needed a Confidence Infusion, stat.

“You must have done a great job with your son if he’s still coming for dinner every week, even after he’s grown,” I said to her as she apologetically changed lanes. “Your family must be very grateful for the money you’re earning as a driver, I’m sure it helps a lot,” I said, as she apologetically turned into the airport. “You got us here in record time,” I added, as she apologized that my bag was so heavy. I don’t know if I made a positive difference, but at least I didn’t make things worse for her.

I would have thought that incident was an aberration were it not for for Jerome. Jerome was the young man from Vallejo who picked me up last month to drive me into San Francisco for a conference, along with my college daughter who tagged along for a free ride into the city. Before Jerome put the car into drive, he shook our hands firmly and made eye contact, offered us bottles of water, and invited us to give him feedback on the volume and choice of the radio station. Then my LLT (Licensed Lyft Therapist) vapors wafted into the front seat and the confessional started.

Jerome had made some bad choices, see. Jerome wasn’t always thinking straight in high school. And he and his girlfriend, man, they sometimes had problems with jealousy, but that’s only because they really loved one another. He’d stopped selling dope and started driving instead. And now that his girlfriend was expecting a baby, Jerome needed to figure out how they were going to support a family. He was smart, he was hard working, and he was ambitious – all that was clear to me. He just needed a chance.

By the time our ride/session ended thirty minutes later on Market Street, Jerome had promised me he would a.) call his mom and thank her for all the ways she’d supported him, even if it was tough love that one time in 10th grade b.) sign up with his girlfriend for some free parenting classes, because it is always good in a relationship to learn new skills together and the baby will benefit too and c.) give himself credit for getting out of the dope game (I may have called it “the dope game”) because that showed amazing strength of character that would serve him well in life. Oh and he would d.) download the Black Panther album. Did I charge him my normal hourly LLT rate? No, because he swiveled around to my daughter at the end of the ride and said, “YOUR MOM IS SO COOL” and we all know that is worth approximately $758,923. Even with surge pricing, I’m still in Jerome’s debt.

I may or may not ever write the Great American Humor Essay Collection. But as long as there are times when I don’t feel like driving myself, I can still make my contribution to the world as an LLT.

When the topic of the Black Panther soundtrack came up, this is the song Jerome said he loved the most. When I said, “I have it here, if you want to play it off my phone,” he nearly drove us off the Bay Bridge in his excitement. Vallejo rappers and Pulitzer Prize winners represent. NSFW AT ALL

                   
CommentsEVERYONE SHOULD DOWNLOAD THE BLACK PANTHER SOUNDTRACK. I'm just ... by Nancy Davis KhoLook, my philosophy is, if you're coming to ME for advice, ... by Nancy Davis KhoYou were so kind to her. I tend to be kind but also ... by VikkiYou are a neverending gift to mankind, Nancy! Funny too. xoxo by Liz @ ewmcguireRelated StoriesSaving My Self-ImportanceThe Five People You See On College ToursNext Midlife Mixtape Dance Party: April 14 

The Five People You See On College Tours

 Last week during Spring Break, my family did the Great Junior College Migration; that is, we road tripped with our 17-year-old to colleges with impossibly low acceptance rates and impossibly high tuitions to see what all the fuss was about. (Yes. You’re right. We didn’t do it like this in the ’80s. But I already wrote that post.)

That I was even invited along was a miracle. One of my husband’s most beloved character traits, inherited directly from his own father, is a reservoir of college-related knowledge so deep and vast that he may as well rename himself Fiske. Name a school and he will tell you the mascot, the religious denomination that founded it, and what year the basketball team last made it to March Madness. He’s definitely the go-to parent for my daughters when it comes to college decisions though in my defense, I WENT TO COLLEGE TOO SO MAYBE I ALSO KNOW A THING OR TWO, YOU KNOW. Sorry, do I seem tightly wound on this subject?

Anyway, unlike the first kid, #2 is actually interested in staying in the Golden State – when your sister calls in April to complain that it’s still snowing where she is, it has an impact. So we headed off to SoCal. After three days, seven campuses, and a mascot in a pear tree, I came up with a list of The Five People You See On College Tours.

The Kid Who Came To Conquer. This kid is an unfortunate product of heightened expectations and lowered acceptance rates. She is not going to miss a single opportunity to wage her campaign for acceptance, which is why she sits in the front row and asks the admissions officers 15 three-part questions of, one of which always includes a recitation of her extracurricular activities, and another that allows her to organically mention that she’s taking nine APs.

 She even waits until Logan the Student Tour Guide has finished his spiel near Career Services (tours always end at Career Services, amirite) to make pointed inquiries about his senior capstone project and his favorite on-campus club. She doesn’t realize that Logan the Student Tour Guide just wants to get back to his dorm room to recover from last night’s party and will forget her before he’s made the pivot to the quad. Logan doesn’t get a vote on your application, kid.

  I would hate her if I wasn’t so concerned about her anxiety levels.

2. The “These People? I’ve Never Seen Them Before” Kid. Well yes, technically, maybe he has seen them, in that they are his parents and drove him to the campus for the tour. And yes, if you subtracted 25 pounds and 25 wrinkles from the dad, he and the kid could pass for twins. But the minute either parent raises a hand to ask about meal plans or dorm accommodations, this kid arranges his face into a mask of impassive disinterest, betraying no sign that he’s related, and drifts to the far edge of the tour group, there to pray for the gift of invisibility for the remainder of the tour.

3. The Disinterested Younger Sibling. Oh, this poor bastard. He’s off in the corner sighing heavily, resenting his older sibling, and looking for an outlet to charge his Gameboy because he’s learned that if pulls it out during the Admissions Officers’ spiel, there’s no way his parents are going to cause a scene and tell him to put it away.

4. The Parent There Sans Child. Look, I’m all for planning ahead, and Knowledge Is Power, and all that. But when you are scribbling notes in a tattered notebook already full of them, asking detailed questions about major requirements and study abroad and ACT ranges, and your child isn’t even there with you, I have to ask: can’t she just enjoy her elementary school experience for a little while longer?

5. The Jealous Adult. Admittedly, we were on campuses studded with palm trees that swayed gently in the Southern California breeze. And sure, touring on a warm Friday afternoon on a campus where the freshman dorms encircle a pool meant that the vacation vibe was strong. And to be fair, as someone who went to business school and didn’t realize until I was forty that the English Department would have REALLY been my jam, every time Logan the Student Tour Guide described yet another advanced writing seminar, I groaned audibly (turning our daughter into the “These People? I’ve Never Seen Them Before” Kid.)

But is it really wrong to believe that if we’re going to campaign to make college free in America, we should also go ahead and make the age minimum 50?

 What’s a spring road trip for besides figuring out which songs are going to be super overplayed by this summer? Also: at no point were we down in Hollywood.

My nephew Tristan played Logan the Student Tour Guide at his own alma mater. He’s looking at the College Tour question from the other side of the clipboard today over at Musings.

***

And if you’re in the Bay Area, hope you’re planning to come dancing with us tomorrow night, April 14 at the Cat Club, 1190 Folsom Street SF – all the details here!

                   
CommentsYou will be #5. I promise you will be #5. by Nancy Davis KhoIsn't he the MOST? I promote his work so that when he's ... by Nancy Davis KhoMy favorite posts of yours now are the ones with tie-ins to ... by Ron ThibodeauxBy: And now, the Dining Hall, where we dine! – MUSINGS by And now, the Dining Hall, where we dine! – MUSINGSIt sounds like your husband and I could compare notes. Over the ... by EllenRelated StoriesNot the Trip We ExpectedNext Midlife Mixtape Dance Party: April 14Urfiss Good: The Remix 

Ep 27 Empathy Expert Dr. Kelsey Crowe

“Trusting my special sauce:” Grief and empathy specialist Dr. Kelsey Crowe on concrete ways to convert compassion to action, seeking joy in midlife grief, and outgrowing her own fear of making mistakes when loved ones undergo difficult times.

Help Each Other Out – a collective for learning how to put compassion into action through activities and workshops
There is No Good Card For This: What To Say and Do When Life is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People You Love, Kelsey and Emily McDowell’s book about compassion and empathy
Although, to be fair, Emily McDowell’s line of Empathy Cards are some pretty good cards for any dark time
Reimagine End of Life – a week of exploring big questions about life and death, April 16 – 22 in San Francisco

Here’s a direct line to my Mixtape Memories post – thanks again, Aaron.

And how about a little throwback Boy George for Kelsey and her soggy fellow concert fans?

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Mixtape Memories

Last night I read at Literary Death Match in San Francisco, about my mixtape memories. Here’s the piece. Many thanks to the esteemed judges for scoring me with an “R,” and hats off to the other wonderful readers: Arisa White, Faith Adiele, and winner of the Math for Writers Final Speed Round and the LDM crown, Baruch Porras-Hernandez.

For a person my age – that is, leading edge Generation X, the ones who hover with our cassette tapes between the vinyl collections of our older siblings and the CD collections of our younger ones – you’d expect me to have a million mixtape memories. They were, after all, the love language of us 80’s kids, that magical moment when a dual tape deck boombox met a painstakingly lettered track list, and made dreams come true.

In fact I did make plenty of tapes in my teens, though that was more of a poverty play than a creative statement. The next time someone says Millennials invented pirating with Napster, I’d just point out that any free time I had during high school that was not spent watching MTV was instead devoted to making replica copies of the tapes my friends could afford and I couldn’t. I didn’t have time for mixtapes when I was busy compiling the greatest library of stolen music in existence in western New York circa 1983.

Then I met Aaron.

He was a year younger than me; we went on one date and I had to drive because he didn’t have his driver’s license yet. I liked him; he had good hair, not unlike Steve’s hair in Stranger Things, and when you’re 17 that constitutes solid relationship potential. We went to see The Who’s rock opera Tommy at the University of Rochester, and partway through the film an overserved college student in front of us yakked all over the theater seats. There’s more than one way to make a first date memorable.

Shortly after that first date, Aaron’s grandma died, and his family had to drive from New York to Michigan for the funeral. So I followed the ritual of our tribe – I made him a mixtape for his Sony Walkman, for the long car ride. I have no memory at all what was on that mixtape; probably The Who, because I’m just not that clever, and certainly Split Enz, whose Kiwi singer Neil Finn was and remains my personal lodestone.

What I do remember clearly is the effect that mixtape had on Aaron. As soon as he got back from Grandma’s funeral, Aaron broke up with me, and didn’t speak to me again for the rest of my senior year.

The Mystery of the Disappearing Aaron was solved only when I was in college, when one day I received a lengthy and apologetic letter written on some paper he’d no doubt ripped out of his Trapper Keeper. Apparently my mixtape was SO good and SO kind, he freaked out. He had felt, and I quote, “…feelings I’ve never felt before. It scared me.”

It scared me, too. Jesus, am I that good at making mixtapes? Maybe I should lay off until I learn to control my powers.

So for years afterward, I was a mixtape bottom, as it were. Given my love of music, it’s not surprising that I gravitated toward amateur DJs, and over the years I accumulated a decent stash of their mixtape offerings. Some of them were made expressly for me; most were just the amateur DJs playing around with a set of tunes for a club and when they were done, passing along the slag. It was the olden days, kids; you couldn’t just reorder your playlist. You had to buy the 6-pack of TDK 90-minute tapes and commit.

And then, six or seven years post-Aaron, when I was at grad school in the middle of the Arizona desert, I found myself on a first date at a Goo-Goo Dolls concert. Two songs in, Andrew turned to me and read my mind. “These guys suck. Do you want to go get a coffee instead?” Later, we repaired to his apartment to watch one of the great romantic movies of that era: Kid N’ Play’s “House Party.” I knew that night I would make Andrew a mixtape, consequences be damned.

Making a mixtape was both a metaphysical and a physical act: first you obsessed over your track listing, but then came the real challenge of hitting “Play” and “Record” and “Stop” at exactly the right time, and in the right sequence, and heaven forfend your last song ran 30 seconds more than your TDK tape did. I was raised better than that.

I won’t even go into the exquisite agony that was needing a song for your mixtape that neither you nor your friends owned on cassette.

Ok, yes I will.

There you were, tape cued up, trying to do your German 3 homework while listening to FM radio for a hint of a suggestion by the DJ that the certain song you needed for your tape might be played soon. As each song began to fade out, you waited with your itchy trigger finger over the “Record” button, hoping to intuit that the next millisecond would bring the opening notes of that elusive song so you could bag it, in full. It was like a terrible game called “Name That Tune… In Negative Two Seconds.”

But the worst – the absolute worst – was when the DJ announced your song…and then just kept talking, right over the song’s opening bars until the vocals kicked in,  so you couldn’t use it and you had to restart your song vigil from scratch. It’s a wonder ‘80s teens didn’t just spontaneously combust in frustration near their radios all day long.

So I was battle hardened and up for the challenge. A few weeks after the Goo Goo Dolls show, when I judged that the time was right, I sat down to the task of making a fresh mixtape on the floor of my friend Angela’s apartment, so I could poach her cassette collection too – old habits die hard. I carefully lined up the songs that I believed would communicate what I needed Andrew to understand about me, about us.

Partway through the process, the first lines of a favorite Crowded House song came on, with Neil Finn singing “When You Come.” Angela, who was from Texas, looked up from her textbook and said to me in a drawl, “Well, at least you’re subtle.” My assurance to her that I was just referring to when he came…over to my apartment! To talk about accounting and statistics classes! was entirely unconvincing.

Did the mixtape work? Well, Andrew and I just celebrated a quarter century of marriage, or to paraphrase our favorite lyric from the Old 97s: “Twenty good years of about 25.”

So Aaron, wherever you are: dude, thanks for freaking out. It caused me to save my mixtape juju for when it really mattered.

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Next Midlife Mixtape Dance Party: April 14

It’s been a minute since the last time I tried to convince you to stay out past your bedtime on a Saturday night, so here we go again…on Saturday, April 14 I’ll be guest DJ at the Cat Club, on 1190 Folsom Street in San Francisco. It’s all your favorite alternative ‘80s dance music, with maybe a little New Jack Swing thrown in for variety, and possibly a gag song. I’ve been known to sink to that level.

In keeping with the Cat Club’s penchant for friendly musical rivalries, it’s Stevie Nicks squaring off against New Order for the evening, so you’ll hear extra servings of both. I wonder if those two acts have ever been in the same room together – I’m going to go with no. My biggest New Order challenge is not making my designated hour New Order Only; my biggest Stevie Nicks challenge is figuring out what songs will make even non-Fleetwood Mac fans shake it. Don’t worry, I’ve risen to the occasion.

We’ll be donating a portion of the cover fee as well as any money we collect in the big bar buckets to Planned Parenthood of Northern California, so come out with your loud mouth, your comfy shoes, and your quiet money to have fun while doing good. Get all the details on Facebook or on the Cat Club website.

Remember, everyone is welcome – spread the word, grab your partner and your friends and your coworkers, and come find me to say hello! I’ll be the wrinkly lady in the DJ booth from 10-11!

This is one New Order song that didn’t make the cut, mainly because I played it last time I DJ’d at the Cat Club. No apologies, no regrets.

***

Did you know there’s now a Midlife Mixtape Virtual Merch Table ? It’s over by the bar, between the men’s room and the water fountain, cash only! I’m only kidding – it’s right here and it’s the place to get your “For the Years Between Being Hip and Breaking One” goodies. C’mon, who doesn’t need another tote bag or mug? You? Oh. Well, what other items would you like me to add? Tell me in the comments.

 

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Ep 26 Resistance Genealogist Jennifer Mendelsohn

“My voice is worth hearing:” Journalist Jennifer Mendelsohn on turning her genealogy hobby into a powerful means of combating disinformation, her midlife confidence, and that time she was Mariah Carey’s backup singer at summer camp.

Follow Jennifer on Twitter at @CleverTitleTK
Dive into the #ResistanceGenealogy hashtag for dispatches from the Genealogy Army. They’re armed with curiosity, excellent research skills, and tenacity – consider yourself warned…

Today’s musical accompaniment: “The Ancestor” by Darlingside. I don’t think it needs any setup, but it probably does need a Kleenex.

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – check him out here!

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Episode 26 Resistance Genealogist Jennifer Mendelsohn

“My voice is worth hearing:” Journalist Jennifer Mendelsohn on turning her genealogy hobby into a powerful means of combating disinformation, her midlife confidence, and that time she was Mariah Carey’s backup singer at summer camp.

Follow Jennifer on Twitter at @CleverTitleTK
Dive into the #ResistanceGenealogy hashtag for dispatches from the Genealogy Army. They’re armed with curiosity, excellent research skills, and tenacity – consider yourself warned…

Today’s musical accompaniment: “The Ancestor” by Darlingside. I don’t think it needs any setup, but it probably does need a Kleenex.

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – check him out here!

                  Related StoriesEp 25 Hip Hop Choreographer Corey ActionEp 24 Chainstitch Wrangler Kathie SeverEp 22 Decluttering Expert Dana White 

Wegmans FTW

I landed in Rochester, NY last Sunday morning at 9:50 am, after a red eye from San Francisco via Newark. At 2:45 pm that day when I pulled into the Wegman’s parking lot on Henrietta Road, I glanced down at my watch at thought, “Five hours from touchdown until my first Wegmans run? I’m really slipping.”

If you know a native Rochesterian, then you know about Wegmans, because we are constitutionally unable to refrain some singing its praises at regular intervals. Sure, there are other “grocery stores” that sell “food,” but to Rochesterians, Wegmans operates on a HNL (Hole Nutha Level.)

Yes, the stores are vast, clean, and stocked with a minimum of sixteen brands of everything. And yes, Wegmans has now expanded up and down the East Coast so there are Marylanders and Virginians and even people in the Tar Heel State who now go on Wegmans runs. But Wegmans means something special to Rochesterians. Humor us in our devotion, for three reasons:

1.) Wegmans was our first job. In high school, half my class worked at the Wegman’s on Monroe Avenue, conveniently located next door to the Levi’s store where I worked. During my 15 minute break from folding colored corduroys into a carefully dictated rainbow of shades (is brown a shade of the rainbow? I think not) I could cruise the cheese and bakery departments, make a dinner of the samples they were handing out, AND get all caught up on the high school gossip.

2.) Shopping at Wegmans is like belonging to a social club. Sure, you need a zucchini and a bag of mulch and a new cheese grater, and obviously Wegmans will have all of those things. What it will also have is your piano teacher, that kid from AP Bio class thirty years ago, and your neighbor up the street who you’ve been meaning to ask for a recommendation for a roofer. I always make sure my lipstick is on point when I go to Wegmans, especially after a redeye. You never know who you’ll run into. Bonus: if it’s too cold to exercise outside, do six laps around a Wegmans and you’ve completed a half marathon.

And the most important of all:

3.) Everyone has a Wegman’s story. EVERYONE. There is simply too much material to avoid it. In my case, Wegmans pioneered a newfangled grocery initiative called “BULK FOODS” in the early 80s that we high schoolers thought was In. Credible. You mean the bins are just open? You could just reach in for some Swedish Fish or whatnot, and pay or whatnot? Cue “Whole New World” from Aladdin.

via GIPHY

However, my friend Lisa’s mom had a distinctly less positive view of this cutting edge trend. She was convinced that coke dealers would open the bins, THROW THE COKE ONTO THE BULK FOODS, and run away, leaving unsuspecting shoppers to get all coked up when really they just wanted a better price on dried apricots.

We never quite understood the business model here. First, while there was presumably coke in Rochester in the 80s, Rochester’s Lake Effect Snow was generally confined to the weather forecast. And would bulk foods really be the best place for an ambitious drug dealer to establish a foothold in Western New York? Let’s say they decided yes. Would the coke dealers hide a couple aisles away, to see if someone carrying a bag of bulk roasted unsalted almonds also wanted a business card? Was giving away samples indiscriminately to the kind of people who bought from bulk food bins when they were first introduced – that is, earnest hippies and broke high school students – really the best way to expand the coke business?

Lisa’s mom never specified. But she was damned if Lisa and I were going to turn into a couple of unsuspecting Bulk Food Cokeheads. Every time we told her we were stopping by Wegmans on our way to go somewhere, we got the lecture.

Why do you think we ate so much bulk food in high school, genius?

via GIPHY

Thirty years younger than me, and four times as funny, my nephew Tristan has his own Wegmans story to share. Click on through to read it!

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Concert Review: Lorde

The Band: Lorde, March 16, 2018. Since the last time I saw Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O’Connor aka Lorde perform, four years ago, she’s grown up and into her talent, releasing a sophomore album, Melodrama, that was nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards. That she was the sole female nominee and the sole Album of the Year nominee NOT invited to perform from her album (yet Sting and Shaggy got a spot) is as offensive and tone-deaf as it sounds, especially at a time of #TimesUp and #MeToo. At only 21 years old, as visionary and gifted as they come, this young woman deserves the same respect from the industry that she gets from her devoted fans.

The Venue: Oracle Arena, Oakland. There are very few bands that lure me to a stadium show but I’ll go anywhere Lorde is playing (that is not Levi’s Stadium or the Shoreline.) This is where the Warriors play, as noted by Lorde during the quieter part of her show. “Do they eectually play heeah? Oh my god. That means when I showah eftah, I will be avoiding Ethleete’s foot from the Waahriuhs!” (I type fluent Kiwi.)

The Company: @KhoKhoPuff, the college daughter who is home from Spring Break because she misses us so much! JK she came home because San Francisco Ballet was performing Frankenstein the same week and then the Lorde show got announced and of COURSE she wanted to come home to see us during Spring Break, if she managed to see those two shows it was just a bonus! I’ve never been so happy to be used for free tickets, tbh.

The Crowd: I texted a friend whose son is a high school junior who is gay and said, “Is he here tonight?” Because there were many, many groups of three girls plus their gay BFF, all having the time of their lives. Also whole families with middle-school aged kids, for whom Run The Jewels’ profanity-riddled opening set may have resulted in a teaching moment home in the car ride home. Also many mother-teen daughter duos where the mom was wearing arty glasses and channeling her inner Kate Bush, and the daughter knew all the words to the Run the Jewels songs, or maybe that was just KhoKhoPuff and me looking in the mirror.

Opening Band: Run the Jewels. Ok, the first opener was actually Swedish Idol winner Tove Stryke, but we missed her because I was roaming the Oracle in search of a beer other than Budweiser. (A Warriors crowd would never stand for that many concession stands being closed.)

Run the Jewels are an American hip hop duo consisting of rapper/producer El-P and rapper Killer Mike. They’re superwoke and super funny and super self-aware. Killer Mike said, and I paraphrase, “You parents in the audience must be wondering how you are listening to us. Just think of us as Drunk Uncle Jamie and High Uncle Mike speaking up at your family reunion.” Pretty apt description. They could ease off the strobe lights, as far as I’m concerned, but otherwise they were perfection.

This video made me laugh so hard. I can’t explain why except perhaps sustained nervous anxiety since November 2016.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? She’s not available because she’s at the show or should be.

When I interviewed Go-Go’s bassist Kathy Valentine for the podcast, we talked about why there are so few women who go into the music industry, and why you need to be tough to do that. Tough as in not being asked to perform from your Album of the Year nominee at the Grammys, turning down the opportunity to perform as part of an ensemble tribute as a weak alternative, refusing to walk the red carpet, and then pinning this Jenny Holzer poem to the back of your dress for the evening.

My version of a white rose — THE APOCALYPSE WILL BLOSSOM — an excerpt from the greatest of all time, jenny holzer

Ep 25 Hip Hop Choreographer Corey Action

“It’s ok to say no:” Bay Area hip hop legend Corey Action on the power of putting your wishes into the Universe, working with the next generation of hip hop activists, and freestyling through unexpected midlife transitions.

www.CoreyAction.com
www.newstylemotherlode.com

I hard a hard time choosing from the plethora of Corey performance videos but I picked this older one because a.) half of the kids in the front row were my older daughter’s elementary school classmates and b.) it captures the joy and confidence-building and flat-out fun with which Corey teaches. Slide to the right, slide to the left, work it around, now pop your chest. Go ahead. Do it.

And hey, stop by the new Midlife Mixtape Virtual Merch Table here!

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – check him out here!

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