Author: Time To Say Goodbye

Greetings from the deep state in our heads!

This week, we talk some oldish politics (January is moving so fast…) and welcome back our first repeat guest, Hua Hsu, to dig into classic Asian-American cinema.

0:00 – Andrew Yang is running for mayor of New York City. Last we saw him, he was buying Ito En green tea at a bodega and calling the worker “bro.”

8:20 – The better Asian Andrew, our Andy, wrote about the 1.6.2021 Capitol attack in our newsletter last week. We talk fascisms and how to combat right-wing extremism without further expanding our military-police industrial complex. Plus: this short Samuel Moyn essay in The Nation.

41:00 – In part two of our film club, scholar and critic Hua Hsu joins us to discuss director Wayne Wang’s classic, Chan is Missing (1982). (Check out Hua’s essay from way back when.) Wang is better known for The Joy Luck Club and Maid in Manhattan (J.Lo, anyone?), and more recently made a documentary on Cecilia Chiang, the godmother of stateside Chinese haute cuisine, as well as an adaptation of an essay by Chang-rae Lee. But Chan is Missing is totally weird and singular—and changed Jay’s life, he explains. Bonus: check out “Juke and Opal,” a sketch by Richard Pryor and Lily Tomlin that Tammy sees as a precursor of a key scene in Chan is Missing. (Hilton Als has written beautifully about it.) And here’s A.K.A. Don Bonus, a Spencer Nakasako documentary Hua loves.

Thanks for supporting and tuning in. Send us your questions and comments, as audio or text, to timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com or @TTSGpod.

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This week’s theme, courtesy of Tony Soprano: “Is the U.S. over?”

Both Tammy and Jay have new pieces out on our failure to curb the spread of Covid-19 in nursing homes. The country has seemed unable to tackle complex problems. Have we learned anything? What now?

0:00 – We talk about the vaccine rollout in the U.S. and our ominously poor start to distribution. Tammy hates on federalism and the States counterplan (debate joke). Plus: should health care workers have the right to refuse the vaccine?

23:45 – At the end of 2020, Beijing-based economic analyst Dan Wang offered this year-in-review newsletter full of global, historical observations of the U.S., spurring much chatter on China Twitter. 

Is Chinese society experiencing the equivalent of the U.S.’s “golden age of capitalism”? How do most Americans imagine the life of an “average” person in China—you know, like Pangzai? And is the U.S. in a “declining empire” / “rentier” stage of its history?

1:09:30 – A listener question from Swoo: What were some of your favorite reads in 2020? 

* Tammy: James Baldwin, “Stranger in the Village” (essay)

* Andy: Nancy Fraser, “Feminism, Capitalism, and the Cunning of History” (paper)

* Jay: Greg Kot, I’ll Take You There; Mark Kram, Jr., Ghosts of Manila

Thanks for tuning in.

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Keep in touch via @TTSGPOD and timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com.

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

HNY from the heart of Times Square!

0:00 – This week, we welcome JoAnn Lum, the director of NMASS (the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops), a “multi-trade, multi-ethnic workers center” located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Though COVID-19 has recently shone a light on horrifying working conditions in healthcare, nursing homes, restaurants, and delivery, JoAnn describes how “essential workers” have faced steadily worsening prospects for decades, and relays her members’ disappointment in the government response.

She also talks about how immigration law has been used to divide workers, and explains NMASS’s “Ain’t I a Woman” campaign, which is challenging the 24-hour workday for home care attendants. (Tammy wrote about this around-the-clock work for Businessweek two years ago [a sobering read!].)

Unsurprisingly, the pandemic has only exacerbated the urgency of NMASS’s organizing. Learn more and contribute here!

34:30 – In the second half, we discuss a bundle of listener questions about “diversity:” employment initiatives, diversity statements, even children’s books! How do we navigate between “good” and “bad” versions of diversity? What are the right categories to describe them? 

Thanks to Adriana, Amy, and Helen for the excellent questions!

Keep your queries and comments coming! We’d love more recorded audio bits, too, which you can send by email: timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com. On Twitter, we’re doomscrolling at @TTSGpod.

Finally, pass the podcast onto your friends!

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

0:00 — We welcome friend of the show Tommy Craggs, enterprise editor at Mother Jones magazine. We first get Tommy’s thoughts on last summer’s inadvertent strike in the NBA and assess the future of our favorite beleaguered sports league.

25:10 — We discuss Tommy’s new piece, “What’s the Matter with Cultural Politics?,” in which he interrogates the “culture contra” stalemate: the idea that what the Democrats need to do is drop the “culture” and “identity” stuff and get back to (white) meat and potatoes.

Should we defend “woke” culture? How to distinguish between “good” (materialist) versus “bad” (coopted) identity politics? Can we even tell the difference?

Send us your comments and questions!

Timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com

On Twitter @TTSGPOD

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

Today, Doctors Liu, Kang, and Kim are joined by Doctor Sarah Leonard, publisher of the soon-to-launch Lux magazine (named after socialist extraordinaire Rosa Luxemburg).

0:00 – We respond to accusations of COVID-19 denialism by comparing the US’s lockdown + welfare policies to those of the rest of the (Euro-American) world: Tammy on Canada’s robust wage subsidy and deficit spending; Andy on Sweden’s controversial decision to do voluntary lockdowns (even leftists are fighting over it); and Jay on the German advantage of strong infrastructure.

39:45 – Sarah talks about why she created Lux magazine, a socialist, feminist glossy! (Think: Marxist Vogue.) We discuss girl-boss corporate feminism, why there should be more than one socialist outlet, the virtues of social reproduction theory, and who deserves pleasure. Preview issue one here! Subscribe here! 

Subscribe to TTSG here: https://goodbye.substack.com/about

Send audio questions and regular-old comments to timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com and @TTSGpod!

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 Neera Tanden’s shoe closet!

0:00 – The gang’s back together, with geographic and pandemic updates.

10:00 – Data recently compiled by National Nurses United tell us that nearly a quarter of registered nurses in the US who’ve died from the coronavirus are Filipino. Why this outsized fraction? Can histories of colonization and migration, as well as labor economics, help us make sense of the numbers?

49:07 – In the first of what we hope will become a recurring a segment, we talk about a classic Asian American film: Justin Lin’s “Better Luck Tomorrow.” Does it hold up? Why did Roger Ebert once defend it so vigorously? And how does it compare to Lin’s more famous franchise (“Fast and Furious”)? To “corny” immigrant literature?

Our next movie talk, a few weeks from now, will be on “Chan is Missing.” Watch along with us!

Thanks, as always, for listening and spreading the word. Please send feedback and audio questions to timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com or @ttsgpod.

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!

This week we have another part of what can now be called a series on the AAPI voter with our guest Taeku Lee, a professor of law and political science at UC Berkeley and the author of several books, including Asian American Political Participation, which he co-authored with Janelle Wong, S. Karthick Ramakrishnan, and Jane Junn.

There’s few people more qualified to talk about the enigma of the Asian voter — Taeku has been researching and studying trends in voting since 1988 and was one of the first people to really study and then also generate polling information within AAPI communities. He has also been involved in the Asian American Voter Survey, which you probably saw on social media through this slide.

We talk about everything from the history of the Asian vote, the Reagan years in the 80s, the swing towards the Democratic party, the impact that geography has on voting patterns (for example, people who immigrate to Orange County, California or Florida will certainly trend more Republican than people who immigrate to New York City or the Bay Area because their neighbors are more GOP friendly), and how an immigrant, who generally arrives in the United States with a limited understanding of the country’s politics, develops into a voter.

Please give a listen!

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Happy birthday, Jay’s sister!

Tammy checks in from a motel in Kennewick, Jay remembers his lost novel, and we talk turkey. 

8:30 – On the global vaccine race. The “good” science (from Sarah Zhang), the “bad” vaccine apartheid (Jayati Ghosh, economist at JNU), Macbook vs. Chromebook, and the politics of glorifying private drug companies (as in the NYT).

Also, check out this cool new vaccine data center from Duke Global Health Innovation Center: https://launchandscalefaster.org/COVID-19

41:00 – A listener question from Kurt: Are tankies real or just an online phenomenon?

49:55 – Our first audio listener question! Listener Cody Wilson asks about Jay’s recent NYT op-ed / TTSG manifesto on the value of disaggregating “POC” communities, and offers an explanation for why the Rio Grande Valley went crazy for Trump in 2020 (cf. The Texas Tribune). 

Thanks for hanging with us. Have a safe, socially-distanced Thanksgiving, and send us your questions and comments! @TTSGPod / timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com

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 White House transition headquarters!

This week: literal housekeeping, “students of color” and “students of poverty,” coronavirus nightmares, how not to expect too much from Biden, and a Southeast Asian trade deal.

4:30 – Dads Jay and Andy review right-wing children’s books.

9:30 – Asians get lumped in as white again—this time, in the Thurston County, WA public schools. Why does this keep happening, and why do we care? Should the left abandon race-based sorting and affirmative action?

30:20 – The coronavirus is spiking all over the country. Why aren’t we talking about it more? Will Biden do better than Trump did?

38:45 – Student debt, the climate catastrophe, foreign policy, immigration, labor rights… What can we expect from Biden?

55:30 – Tammy’s “What you should know” corner: the ASEAN+5 Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Is it a big deal or not? How does it compare to the TPP and the CPTPP? And when will we Americans have the energy to start caring about stuff like this again? Plus: Jay promises to manage Tammy’s Fox News career.

Thank you for listening! Please spread the word, and stay in touch: @ttsgpod (Twitter) / timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com.

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,

Today we have something a bit different for you. TTSG goes a bit Melvyn Bragg with a history episode about Bay Area Filipino DJ culture. Our guest today is Oliver Wang, professor of sociology at Cal State Long Beach, one of the co-hosts of the Heat Rocks podcast, and the author of Legions of Boom, a fascinating book which tracks the history of Filipino immigrants into the Bay Area after the 1965 Hart-Celler Act — first into San Francisco and then out into suburbs like Daly City, Fremont, and Vallejo.

If you’ve ever wondered why so many of the top DJs in the word are Filipino and want to know the creation story behind legends like DJ QBert and the Invizibl Scratch Piklz, this is well worth your time. We discuss the mobile DJ scene in the 90s, the class dynamics of post-1965 Filipino immigrants versus the manongs who came over in the early 20th century and settled in San Francisco, and how music and a party scene can create a sense of cohesion and true identity.

Here’s some of the music these DJ crews created so you can play it as you listen along. Enjoy!

Spintronix Imagine #8

X-Men vs the Invizibl Skratch Piklz set in 1996

Generations: a 25 minute documentary about Spintronix and the mobile DJ scene.

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