Author: Time To Say Goodbye

Hello from a spicy group chat!

This week, we begin by celebrating the release of Jay’s book, The Loneliest Americans, which was just excerpted in NYT Mag. Congrats, Kang! Order it now for yourself and family and friends!

Then, we talk the Kidneygate controversy (from the same issue of NYT Mag) aka Bad Art Friend, the long story based on a short story that launched a million Discord chats. Who’s really “kind”? Is the art any good?

Finally, a dip into the cancellation(?) of Bright Sheng, the composer and music professor at the University of Michigan who got in trouble for showing a film featuring blackface in class.

Reminder to catch Tammy in conversation with Noam Chomsky tomorrow, Wednesday, October 13:

Thanks for supporting the pod. Please stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) and Twitter!

Kindly,

The TTSG Podsquad

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Capitalist Playground of Death!

This week, we talk 100% “Squid Game.”

Warning: Don’t listen until you’ve watched it all.

Does the show constitute anti-capitalist critique? Why does the ending suck? Did Park Chan-wook make the West permanently love K-horror? Will Asian art soon displace Asian American art? What’s with the weird ‘noble savage’ thing going on in the show?

Plus: the dialogue genius in “The Wire”’s writers’ room, fantasy basketball, Gary Shteyngart (i.e., three Asian Americans trashing neoliberalism), and solidarity with subtitle translators.

Thanks for supporting the pod. Please stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) and Twitter!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Capitalist Playground of Death!

This week, we talk 100% “Squid Game.”

Warning: Don’t listen until you’ve watched it all.

Does the show constitute anti-capitalist critique? Why does the ending suck? Did Park Chan-wook make the West permanently love K-horror? Will Asian art soon displace Asian American art? What’s with the weird ‘noble savage’ thing going on in the show?

Plus: the dialogue genius in “The Wire”’s writers’ room, fantasy basketball, Gary Shteyngart (i.e., three Asian Americans trashing neoliberalism), and solidarity with subtitle translators.

Thanks for supporting the pod. Please stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) and Twitter!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Stuart’s Coffee in Bellingham!

This week, we welcome a special guest to talk about the immigrant rights movement and immigration policy. Plus, Andy and Tammy channel Jay Energy and answer listener questions.

(0:00): Andy and Tammy discuss Japanese food and our favorite chaebols.

(6:50): Listener Questions! What’s up with the “PI” in “AAPI?” listener SansMouton asks. We discuss the awkward origins of AAPI and why Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians shouldn’t be lumped into Asian America (cf. this random feature on Asian feelings in the NYT this weekend). But is there anything redeeming about a “Pacific” frame? And what would be the Pacific version of Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic?

* Thanks to friend of the pod Amita Manghnani for talking through the local politics of “A/P/A” and recommending “Asian American Studies and the ‘Pacific Question,’” by Wesleyan anthropologist Kehaulani Kauanui.

(25:00): How should academics balance institutional responsibilities (and annoying prestige stuff) with teaching? listener Robi asks. Andy tries to punt the question to Tammy before laying out his own materialist approach.

(31:44): Silky Shah, friend of the pod and executive director of Detention Watch Network, explains all things immigration:

* Her Truthout article on the dramatic increase in immigrant detention under Biden

* How her corner of the immigrant rights movement become abolitionist

* Why borders are b******t

* The We Are Home coalition

* Links between immigration and foreign policy

* The Dems’ obsession with “deterrence”

* Myths about immigration

* Why “Abolish ICE” isn’t nearly enough

* Recommended reads by Harsha Walia and Todd Miller.

For more on immigration policy, tune into this book event on Tuesday, Sept. 28, at noon EST, moderated by Tammy:

Thanks for listening and supporting the pod! Please keep in touch via Patreon and Substack, email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) and Twitter!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Zuccotti Park!

Lots of leftist nostalgia and reminiscence about Occupy Wall Street this week — and the podsquad joins in! Then we talk Vietnamese American Republicans in Orange County and rising COVID numbers in Vietnam.

(0:00): Marshmallow test

(10:50): Does Occupy Wall Street have an anarchist or socialist legacy? Why, even though it was “annoying” at times, does it still matter? Lots of personal anecdotes and reflection, plus a tangent about the suburbs.

(1:02:20): Why did Vietnamese American Californians, who vote heavily Republican (even for Trump), vote against Gavin Newsom’s recall?

(1:16:00): Vietnam recently went from having almost no coronavirus cases to an out-of-control epidemic. What happened, and what does it say about China and vaccine supply chains?

Thanks for listening and supporting the pod! Please keep in touch through Patreon and Substack, email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) and Twitter!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Pod squad assemble!

0:00 – Tammy catches us up on the latest in Asian Americana aka “Shang-Chi.” Jay and Andy remain skeptical of all things MCU. 

12:30 – We talk about the new vaccine mandate and the current discourse around “the unvaccinated.” Are we too un/sympathetic to the material constraints of poor and working-class people who haven’t been vaccinated? Is vaccine skepticism a reflection of the US’s unique political polarization? And what to make of demographic trends by race, education, political party, and class? 

43:50 – We mull Gideon Lewis-Kraus’s recent piece, “Can Progressives Be Convinced That Genetics Matters?” Should the left stake out a position on behavioral genetics, which the right has already done? Is all “genetics” talk doomed to slip into “race science”? Is race an inescapable way to think about the world?

Please share, contact us, and subscribe!

* Email: timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com

* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod

* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod

* Substack: 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

(Audio fixed and updated Sept. 7 afternoon. Thanks for your patience!)Hola from the Inland Empire!

This week, we bring you Tammy’s IRL interview with Andrea Vidaurre, a policy analyst with the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, in San Bernardino, California.

Andrea talks about the meaning of “environmental justice,” local manifestations of global warming, working-class immigrant life in the desert, labor violations at Amazon, organizing outside the nonprofit industrial complex, and green futures in logistics.

Some recs from Andrea:

* Support PC4EJ’s work!

* Read The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy, edited by Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Ellen Reese.

* Jam to Milpa, a musical collective in the Inland Empire, and oldies by The Chosen Few and Los Mirlos.

* Read Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co., a novel by María Amparo Escandon.

The pod squad will reunite ASAP. Until then, thanks for listening and supporting us via Patreon and Substack! Stay in touch by email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) or Twitter.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

(Audio fixed and updated Sept. 7 afternoon. Thanks for your patience!)Hola from the Inland Empire!

This week, we bring you Tammy’s IRL interview with Andrea Vidaurre, a policy analyst with the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, in San Bernardino, California.

Andrea talks about the meaning of “environmental justice,” local manifestations of global warming, working-class immigrant life in the desert, labor violations at Amazon, organizing outside the nonprofit industrial complex, and green futures in logistics.

Some recs from Andrea:

* Support PC4EJ’s work!

* Read The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy, edited by Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Ellen Reese.

* Jam to Milpa, a musical collective in the Inland Empire, and oldies by The Chosen Few and Los Mirlos.

* Read Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co., a novel by María Amparo Escandon.

The pod squad will reunite ASAP. Until then, thanks for listening and supporting us via Patreon and Substack! Stay in touch by email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) or Twitter.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from the West Coast!

It’s just Jay and Tammy this week, on everything from backyard farming to Barbara Ehrenreich.

* Jay advises Tammy on late-season tomato growing. 🍅

* What to make of SCOTUS’s awful (but anticipated) decision to end the COVID eviction moratorium? Where will it hit worst?

* Why are so many more people (nearly triple!) identifying as mixed-race in the US Census? Does it have anything to do with 23andMe?

* Tammy asks Jay about the latest installment of his NYT newsletter: on what we might learn from the media misfires of 1968.

* Who is teen TikToker Charli D’Amelio, and why does her whole family now have a Hulu reality show? Is it too late to get in on this hustle?

Andy will be back soon. Until then, thanks for listening and supporting us via Patreon and Substack! Stay in touch by email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) or Twitter.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from the West Coast!

It’s just Jay and Tammy this week, on everything from backyard farming to Barbara Ehrenreich.

* Jay advises Tammy on late-season tomato growing. 🍅

* What to make of SCOTUS’s awful (but anticipated) decision to end the COVID eviction moratorium? Where will it hit worst?

* Why are so many more people (nearly triple!) identifying as mixed-race in the US Census? Does it have anything to do with 23andMe?

* Tammy asks Jay about the latest installment of his NYT newsletter: on what we might learn from the media misfires of 1968.

* Who is teen TikToker Charli D’Amelio, and why does her whole family now have a Hulu reality show? Is it too late to get in on this hustle?

Andy will be back soon. Until then, thanks for listening and supporting us via Patreon and Substack! Stay in touch by email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) or Twitter.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe