Jared Maher and Vanessa Martinez

00:03 My name is Vanessa Martinez. I'm 34 years old today is November 3rd 2011 and I'm in Denver Colorado with my friend Jared who is also a co-host in co-producer of the Denver diatribe, which I am also a part of.

00:22 And my name is Jared Mayer. I'm 32. Today is November 3rd 2011. I'm in Denver, Colorado and I'm here with Vanessa who is my friend and co-host on the Denver die podcast.

00:39 And we came to talk about the diatribe because we're going to do some cross promotion with storycorps. So I realized when I was thinking about this earlier Jared, I'm a new host and I've never asked you guys when or how the diatribe got started how it came to be. What's the origin story?

01:02 I guess that it was mostly Joe Warner and John Dicker who are both of our friends both kind of.

01:13 Refugees from the print media landscape like we are to some degree and they were meeting for a beer or something like that over at I think the Lost Lake bar on Colfax and Joel had been talking to John about doing this podcast. This was sort of their idea and I just happened to be in the neighborhood. And so I stopped by for a beer and then walked out and somehow I was completely in the middle of this project and it was basically

01:54 Their premise was that Denver needed its own kind of news and culture podcast because the offerings that were out there right now whether it was from a really angry talk radio or really boring shows on public radio local public radio was there was there grab that we just needed something that kind of had that had to type of attitude that we that we felt was lacking it here in Denver and it was funny. That was that was when I was working at face the state it was the kind of Internet investigator reporting government Watchdog website that is no longer there. But at least the state they had their own radio Studio setup, and I hadn't done really that much radio or audio or anything like that. And so that's how we

02:55 Started doing it. We kind of I convinced my boss there to let us use the the studio. We had a few of these kind of test ones and it was a it was a it was a complete mess at first, but that that was that was the origin story. I kind of wasn't supposed to be part of that now I'm like the only one that's left from those three guys. You myself Josh Johnson and our newest member is Ron Boyle and we just moved into a studio. So we feel kind of legitimate by doing me by being in there. But I guess when you say attitude like what is the story behind that? What's the you know, what what was Denver missing with that? You said Denver was missing something with more attitude than public radio. Well, I guess that

03:47 And in this also fit in with the notion of doing it as a as a podcast because podcasts and

03:54 People who listen to podcasts demographically, they're fundamentally different than people who are going to listen to talk radio or listen to in public radio and be donators and hardcore listeners to just public radio. Basically, it's kind of the same type of people that would be reading alternative newsweeklies or participating in types of a sort of perspective of being younger and being interested in politics and also culture but not wanting to sort of sit around and have nice pleasant well-mannered conversation. Do you want something that is going to be in a little bit more? I wouldn't call it aggressive but actually have a little bit of more more Edge to it. Right because I I so often feel like being here in Colorado and I think you can back me up on this that from being a person that

04:54 Grew up here in Colorado being Native Native, which is very rare. I feel like people come and move here to Colorado and have this certain expectation or certain mindset about what should be focused on more important to coloradans. I think that's something that's reflected with some of the media around here in in Denver. They're kind of produced by people who originally from here. So they'll be doing stories about kind of outdoorsy farming Community types of

05:27 Things that I can imagine people in New York saying that's an important thing to people in Colorado when in reality, you know, a lot of the people here, I know are no different than people in New York or on the west coast. They have the same sort of issues and are interested in the same kinds of things not Colorado things. This is early or late receive it before we walk something like that, which I never did and I still don't see can you think of a particularly memorable diatribe episode where where in somebody was really fiery or was really, you know lame or something that kind of represents 10 episodes were us learning how to

06:19 Take me to cross that bridge between being purely print Riders right when you're sort of a rider and you communicate just to print and you consider yourself a fairly articulate person. Like I can I can write a mean sentence. I and I know a lot of big words, but when you're suddenly having to

06:41 Present your arguments and make them sound good in real time and make it compelling and make it interesting and make it something that someone else other than the three of you would want to listen to it's really difficult. It's it is a learned skill talk talking and speaking who knew evil is a learned skill. And so that was the growing pains in the awkwardness and I think I'm still pretty raw at that type of thumb presentation, but I remember one time

07:16 We were at the at the face estate studio. And I still I had no idea how to use the equipment. Like I barely knew how to press record and make everything work and we had had a keen Hall in the local comedian come in and recorded. This episode was like totally funny totally great and I go and I hit stop right at the very end and I don't know if I press that are pressed the wrong button, but the computer froze up, right and everyone was kind of like laughing and joking and I was the kind of broke out in this cold sweat because I didn't know what if Episode saved if we recorded any of the audio for going to save it and then they left and yeah, the thing was totally froze and I had to like turn off the computer and we lost it and I had to call everyone back the next day to completely recreate the episode that we recorded like the 40-minute episode that we recorded the day before it was it was completely awful.

08:16 What was when it's when the second one came out? Cuz I remember listening to that. It was like you have this kind of local celebrity who comes in and saves the day for you to time. We're doing it and every everything and we was this Deja Vu where we're trying to remember. What was that really funny smart spontaneous thing. I said yesterday want me to say it again. Only wasn't funny or the glint of recognition all of our eyes when they're reset it again.

08:48 More of us that would have been in I guess probably buddy a year ago about a year ago did that do you feel like maybe some of the things that cuz I know I feel this way sometimes is that you know a career choice, which is journalism is changing so much and we're doing all of this work because of podcast as we've all learned is really tremendous work and you can tell alot, you know, when we don't put the preparation in it, it usually stands out and in the quality at the end of the day, but do you feel like you're using you know, this is kind of a way to hold on to something that might be slipping away a little bit in terms of when we got into journalism, which we were, you know, both of us a lot younger out probably like 10 years ago.

09:42 For me it was 12:00. So yeah, that's that's an interesting question. I'd guess I'd had that maybe that notion of that feeling in the back of my mind that hadn't really thought it out. So if I understand your correct your question, right?

09:59 We both came up in the alternative news weekly realm where you are writing about a million different things going on in your city with a kind of alternative energy voice, but you're already my politics you're writing about culture writing about Arden, you know, it's kind of the underground things that aren't being talked about her covered in the rest of the media landscape and a you know, you're in the mix and it's really exciting and you're up and you know about all these topics but in our you know in our latest iterations of our Frankenstein of a of a career or are you know, our jobs are takis so far afield from that. Yeah. I think it I think it probably is it's good to sort of have a reason and a purpose to like be focused on thinking and talking about local news and local issues and the things that sort of get us fired up and excited to have a reason to bring those up and talk about them.

10:58 Put a put an angle on them that we think it's interesting or funny that isn't doesn't exist. Otherwise the shrinking so much everyday, we've got you know, I mean really there's there are fewer jobs for traditional journalists and fewer Outlets to that mean there are more about you. You're not getting paid for them. So if you really want to participate it's something that you've got to create yourself, which is awesome because it has all of The Independents but difficult because you're used to the infrastructure that your job gives you in the protection of quality that you're you know, somebody else's got your back somehow. So I think we've all you know, we we get each other's back as much as we can but we're also coming from this place of you know, we've never done podcasting like this before professional.

11:55 Why don't you?

11:57 Little bit about your background as journalist and maybe how you got into that profession. Like what what why that you made that decision and then how you moved from that tube world of podcast. So Vanessa. Do you remember the first time that we that we met got to know each other I do because I will I don't know for sure. But I remember I I contacted you because I think through Jewel who is one of our co-host co-producers because I was looking for a story. I was the editor of the bullhorn at the time the Rocky Mountain bighorn which was a little all weekly that I helped start in Fort Collins in 2000 and we started that paper and had it just like the diatribe. Absolutely. No clue what we were doing Joseph Rouse and

12:57 Joseph and I was the two of us to start so Joseph Ross and myself. He was my one of my best friends and neighbors and we just thought we were we thought we were so smart and we we really, you know, all the media in town was so lame and so bad and I didn't see anything that represented us and know we're at the nation and Mother Jones and we wanted to be just like them even though we had no idea who they were and no idea how they actually did what they do at least at the time. I remember when this was about what year 2019 99-2000 the first paper we put out in September 2001 play at that time before we went weekly. So I remember one of the questions that we asked when we first started talking telling people we're going to we're going to publish a newspaper with week. We gathered some men tours around us thankfully and asked one of the design mentors do we need quick and Photoshop because we had no idea what

13:57 Henry really really thought he was going to be the publisher in the ad sales person. I was going to be the editor and the production designer like how hard could that be? Of course, it was incredibly hard and we just we learned by doing just like the diatribe. So, you know, we were doing that for a couple years before I well maybe not a couple years but a little while at least a year before I contacted you were at Boulder weekly, which I was at you. I was just freelancing and I had sort of been bopping around I had worked for, you know adbusters forest and then had a journalism fellowship at the way to more a tune my or find a way to make my creative writing degree actually result in some income very very little income and I was riding for the boulder weekly and it's really just so excited to be riding feature stories for like in spending two weeks and getting like a $400 paycheck, right?

14:57 Maybe it was dead too depressing to try to actually divide that out in per hour pay but I think ya through Jewel you contacted me and asked if I wanted to write a feature story about Dennis kucinich coming to town and it would have been interesting about in 2003 or 2004. I mean because if they election was in 2004 when I guess probably wasn't 2004, right so early 2000 for a minute to win the primaries Democratic primary for the 2004 campaign, correct? He was the guy he's a representative from Ohio very very Progressive.

15:57 Which it was kind of at the time the bullhorn was such a very very Lefty paper for Fort Collins for a place like in Boulder. Probably not so much because we also had this kind of little wild libertarian Street every once in a while that kind of threw people off. But if you're going to commission a feature story because Dennis kucinich happen to be coming into town, then you definitely know that this is a 8ft paper made from made by college students seem to be a little bit more you what I remember meeting you at UNC I think or something like that because we were we were following him around that day and he was going to be on the bullhorn talk show which was one of the we had an hour-long radio show on what is Kara sea in Fort Collins and publisher was very excited about this. So obviously that's where the funds came.

16:57 From to commission you in all of the energy and excitement, but I remember seeing you and meeting you and then going to the University of Northern Colorado to hear him speak and you were very I think you were you seem to be very uncomfortable with how excited Joseph our publisher was about Dennis kucinich being in town and him doing the bullhorn show and just let you know that usual crossover between I don't know if I wasn't comfortable. I think I remember being extremely tired. I don't know. I think I probably didn't sleep a night before I don't know if I was like partying or what down here in Denver, but driving up there. I got a I think I got lost and I was like late and I was just like nervous about you know, what questions I was going to ask and then then yeah, I did the interview and came back down and was needing to then write this thing and at that time I may be only written.

17:54 Maybe one other feature story.

17:57 That actually I got paid for it. So I didn't have a lot of experience with that and this is really so difficult. It's still difficult for me to write feature stories. I mean, there's just so many pieces if you want to create a narrative and you want it built do something original and you'd have to take all this stuff and put it into something people actually want to read in a long form. But yeah, I kind of turned it into this first-person story about me going up in meeting him and I think I what was the title of dreaming with tennis still dreaming with Dennis because I because I was I was brought in how tired and exhausted I was and how it was almost like a dreamlike experiences Walking Through The Eyes Of The World of Dennis kucinich. I had a dream sequence in this article.

18:50 But yeah, I remember the the bullhorn is just being a place of Hedges so much tremendous energy and Edge and you kind of did feel like people there had you know, you guys had a mission, you know, it wasn't just a job or it wasn't like, you know, you got a journalism degree near going to go work for the the local newspaper was a you guys really even though you didn't know what you were doing. You knew what you wanted. Exactly and we we we wanted to be a part of our community. We wanted to be a part of of what the community was how it was growing what is future was going to be and we wanted to reflect what wasn't being reflected in the media. They're already which at that time was a Gannett daily paper and a music magazine that came out every month. And so, you know, there was a large group of people in the old town area, which is near the university Colorado State University who

19:50 What's included who felt very excluded by the kind of coverage that was happening there and they we know we all happen to to be politically Progressive and we wore that on our sleeves and we never tried to you know, it was it was very much disclosed in in our mission and and everything that we did so we never felt like we were not being upfront with it. And you know, we learned a lot of the things, you know, we learned everything on the way along the way I I commission that Terry from you. I remember because at the time I was more familiar with creative United come out of literature program and so creative writing the create the creative part of nonfiction was what I really had been focused on and I didn't edit very much in terms of restructuring what people were saying, we fact-checked, you know to the level that we knew that we should be doing that and that was pretty much it otherwise seems kind of they mostly ran for

20:50 People like you anyway people who had some experience writing even if they weren't, you know, published features, we would we would run, you know, just kind of whatever we felt fit the mission. So it was inside the the bullhorn started up and in 2000 and it closed down in what year 2005. I believe I was already gone. Just when I had a R22 when we started and we were very very very good friends probably too close and we had too much fun. I mean we Joel Warner has has said, you know, he referred to us as as the mafia because he worked for us for a little while and it we were very very close. And so when people came in, you know, if somebody left our group, we we were very we took it personally so if you've been working with us, and and you left we got we got really hurt.

21:50 Angry at Ya, absolutely. So we were kind of like Mom and Dad, you know, and and and the people who worked for us, even though they were a lot older than us in most cases. They were kind of like our our kids but we also I mean we so basically we had to divorce. You know, when I say I said, I am referring to Joseph in myself and and the rest of the people who eventually came along the bullhorn Josh Johnson who was our ass editor as he referred to himself Kurt Brighton at the time James Thompson, all of these people are still very much involved in their particular communities, and everybody's gone on to do something, you know, really really great indifferent whether they're writing still are acting and Chris case and writing for the Denver poster James Thompson works for Senator Michael Bennet now Joseph works for the elections office here in Denver.

22:50 Josh is a co-host of ours on the on the diatribe and is the national marketing director for Geeks Who Drink, so I think it was a great launching pad for a lot of the people who work there to be, you know, what to just to figure out who they were and what they wear their voice find their voice because we definitely were very adamant about people having a strong voice. If you're going to write for us you have to have a point of view and you have to have something to say those were those are pretty much are our biggest, you know concerns when it came to publishing printed the newspaper writing writing for alternative music weeklies that the industry was still pretty good after 9/11 in the.com crisis which affected things but this was before Craigslist and the internet and the drop an ad sales in the rise and printing cost completely have decimated the newspaper industry.

23:50 You think that if you know, let's see if we were to take our the beginning of our careers are collective careers that this group of people that all kind of started off together, but then moved it back into the day that the 80s or the early 90s when a weekly ads were very successful. Do you think you would have still been you know, this many years later still been in the all weekly editing business? I don't know if I would have had a choice honestly because I see some of the people who still are I think it really depends on how much you diversify what you're doing and how open-minded you are to leaving but I'm really I'm really glad I'm not at this point because it's it's crumbled so far. I still love the idea and I I'm a huge supporter of alternative journalism in general when I when I say that I mean on alternative to

24:50 The mainstream now we have so many alternatives to the mainstream because they are bloggers and you know, everybody's got to look at meaning anymore. I know that people like to say, oh, there's the mainstream media that I am the lame stream media out there, but I I look around and I see places like, you know, the Denver Post or all these former reporters in the Rocky Mountain news and it just the psych what media I mean, maybe if you're talking about the mainstream media your talk about cable news on a national level those places are still kind of it in an industry that exists in might have a particular point of view and its own.

25:35 Messi agenda, but at a local level. I don't really know how anyone can sort of point out and say this isn't a mainstream Outlet or the Denver Post that supposed to paper of record.

25:46 Just because

25:48 The the the the lack of them reporters that they have anymore really kind of hobble them. I mean, I don't even think that you can you can call that really a mainstream cuz just nothing news isn't being covered.

26:03 Yes, absolutely. I am I here where you coming from and I agree with that mean. It's it's it's not even to agree with its fat. Otherwise. We would have probably still be in the business for that. You know, the essence of your question to me came from you know, we'd be in it if we if we had started in the 80s, you know, maybe right now but I I think what would I mean by alternative? I think there is still there. It's countercultural and I think it's the point of view the countercultural point of view that I'm talking about. And that's when you know where you go back to the start of alternative news media, which was in the sixties with the Village Voice in the Bay Guardian rose up at the time to give a voice to the civil rights movement and to give her voice all the people that did not find themselves represented by media that was being read at least and so now it's you know, is there is there one place where you can go for all of this countercultural stuff going on. You know, it besides just an Occupy Wall Street for eggs.

27:03 You know what other kind of protest movement website that they're putting out themselves. Where can I go find out about you know, some of the other things that are happening with counter culturally, I think you know, maybe that's that's something that I that were lacking that I would like to have but at the same time I have access to be able to try and find those things more than I ever did because I have you know, we have the internet so it's not as I don't need another somebody else to you know to introduce it to me. It's funny that you know, I'm sort of waxing nostalgic and falling into the did old print journalist lament because I kind of feel like both you and I are two people in particular who have

27:48 Made a concerted effort to add to redefine ourselves and our careers to be more matching for what the future of Journalism is in digital by production.

28:05 But at the same time it's interesting that you know, all of us, you know you me Joel Warner Josh Johnson is like even though we still met in this time when print was still the medium

28:18 You know all these years later, we're all still kind of doing the same thing. Right? It's like back even those things even though that the medians have completely changed. It's like we're still like hanging out together and wanting to make a make the same type of the same type of points the same bring out the same type of issues, even though we're trying to do it through things like a podcast that very few people. Listen to yeah. Yeah. Yeah for sure. It will the creation part of it, you know where we want to be creative in the same way in and hold on to journalism. I really feel I've had a lot of I struggled a lot with it. I remember when I left the second paper that I helped start in Fort Collins, which was called the chronicle after I went back to Fort Collins and by this time I had worked it another paper that had been established and was very not that the book The bullhorn, you know became established and we learned a lot like I said, but

29:15 We when I when I decided to leave there and I went to 5280 magazine, which is a City magazine for Denver. I remember going out two beers with one of the Predators and I had just been hired as the online editor there and I was the only person I was there first online editor very first person to come in and you know, they didn't want to deal with the website. It was very much we have don't bother the Predators are very busy with putting Us magazine. So here's your little staff over here and you guys are going to figure this out together and I remember him asking me, you know, why would you ever leave a position of being the top editor and coming into this? He didn't say it this way but it was the implication was there this lowly place of being you know online editor. This was in 2008 and I just I look back on that now and I remember at the time that really wounded me. I didn't know it when I was sitting there, but I think it took a couple days for it to settle in

30:16 And then also just you know the isolation of being in that place and being in my own Silo with other people and being, you know separated from from the editors not necessarily physically I was in the department but very much mentally and psychologically that was you know, it was it was under lying and it was let you know that was the message to let you know this is for you to handle so they don't have to and it was very clear that a lot of people considered it, you know loli look down on it so that you know, if I've since moving moving into the digital world, I've had I've had numerous occasions where because I'm trying to reinvent myself and re-imagined my job and make sure that I maintain journalistic principles, you know, I I I have these these you know self-conscious moments where I'm saying, you know questioning the things that otherwise, I'm really,

31:16 So why did you make that transition what made you make that decision to go from being a top Editor to 5280 magazine where you are in the decision to leave print? Well, I didn't leave Prince because I still went into print and and then, you know just went into the online side of friend. But the reason that I did that was because as I at the time saw a huge amount of opportunity there, I was really excited by the crowds and the impact that digital the internet just in general the web was having and so it became really exciting for me. I want to change I wanted, you know, something different and the paper that I was at frankly. I saw that Fort Collins wasn't going to support an alternative news weekly in the way that we wanted to

32:11 To publish one. I think the town is still pretty conservative for even though the politics of the second paper were a lot less there were just a lot less politics and general in the second paper, but it just it wasn't going to support financially the kind of publication that we wanted to put out especially because we we wanted it quality journalism, and it was we weren't a lot of words, but it got cost a lot of money. So do you think that

32:40 That decision that you made to try to move yourself into a new type of expertise and being more versatile and digital and thinking about you no content and strategy for all of these things an Indian almost a conscious choice to stay while I'm not going to be the print editor anymore. I'm going to be something different do you?

33:05 How do you think that that's that's that's gone. I'm doing anything very different the platforms are changing. So I have to learn different mediums and I have to learn new technology. I think I'm doing right now as what I call myself sometimes someday is a Content strategist exactly what I was doing when I was 22 years old and started the Rocky Mountain bull horn, which was strategizing the best way to deliver information create it govern it how it's at just how this is going to come about and exist and be presented to readers and it's the same thing but the platforms and the technology have changed and there just you know different tools. It's a different way to do it, but I don't think that I should I think where I get self-conscious is by letting other people come in and kind of put those thoughts in my head

34:02 It's the type of thing like Prince still has this or a Prestige about it. So even if it is just a name people still recognize it as being foundational even though what is this there now is a shell of what it once was so I had the same experience with Westward. I was a dino staff writer at Westward writing these big feature stories. My name is on the cover of every month and that that carried a certain amount of prestige and status about it as much as being the brighter for an alternate week. We can both people recognized it right and even if they weren't reading anything, I'd written right they still like the idea that I was a writer for something like Westworld then when I when I left made the decision to leave because you know the lack of money in the chest the lack of upward Mobility at in that position.

34:57 And went into you don't got a job for a multi media agency and spent like six months totally out of my league in terms of trying to understand and learn software programs and being a totally new environment and then a pretty much Hopscotch through five or six different media organizations. And you know, I have a I have a new job now with with a New Hope media in Boulder this kind of my full-time thing, but it's you know, I still feel like it's so schizophrenic and trying to kind of trying to figure out this this path is difficult. At least when the one print was around like me and you knew you knew the direction. It's like you write a good enough story for this publication, then you can go and find another publication that a bigger publication to pick up your stories, and then maybe you'll get hired as a staff.

35:57 A big magazine or something like that and that just that that that just isn't realistic anymore because none of those places can actually afford to pay anybody. So now it's like well, I guess what I'm wondering is like, you know, both of us made this decision Piers ago and it was very conscious right? Like I could have stayed where things were comfortable at least print, you know, we knew that was slowly dying but trying to trying to go out and feel around and kind of understand what is going to be the right path way when there's there's there's who knows what's going on what's going to happen with how the direction of medium General is going for it? So it's exciting but it's also scary and then at the same time everyone still nostalgic for print I want still hate are you hey, you have any stories for westward anytime Jared and then unlike? No, I actually left three years ago, right and that's just a kid tells me you like

36:56 You know, how much people?

37:00 You like the idea of me being there and like my riding there, but also be how little people are actually reading anymore reading that paper. They don't even know right?

37:14 I need friends.

37:19 Former colleagues people that you know people that I just knew from around town. Yeah. I mean people that I see on the streets from years ago French from high school. I mean, they knew that I was riding for westward and they say things like you when I was working there. I saw that you have a you know, you have the cover story this this week.

37:47 And I'm like no like that. That's great. That's great. And I'm like, yeah, what what do you think of it? Like, oh, no, I didn't read it. I don't I don't I didn't read it. But you know that that was really cool that you have that five thousand words story that I didn't read and that if I feel was just a fundamental problem of why this was a you know, intractable in terms of where it was going to go forward. It was just a word people say something like that. Well,

38:15 You know a I would you know why I like writing long-form stories in on the narrative writer creative writer and also a journalist. And so you go out and you just work so hard. I mean that the depth that you go into with the sort interviewing hundreds of people who spend months months months trying to get people to trust you and you're getting your getting into places and doing things and seeing things and talking people that no one ever done you create something. I remember I was just a piece of Sleepless a purple we can just miserable trying to finish these stories and then you get it out and you'd be really proud of it, but then

38:54 Then there was just this feat that sinking feeling like I just worked so hard on something that I know is so important, but then nobody is reading it and it became this ongoing thing for me. Well,

39:07 It's not that the that the content, you know, the actual meaning of what was within this actual story.

39:15 That's still there. I mean that's you can you can have a story the story the story the problem it seems is that this is a medium that isn't built for this era anymore. It's going into something else. So what how can I take this the skills and this this want to create these types of stories and be a journalist, but then do it in a medium that is going to reach more people that is going to be more tuned to the way people are actually wanting to hear their stories now, so I'll doing a lot more video on television and podcast

39:55 Do you think it's working?

39:59 With the Denver diet five different factors that

40:04 Change the diatribe. I mean we know we don't have what we don't know exactly how many listeners we have. But you know, we we assume that we don't have many and so now when you put all this work into putting together a podcast episode, how did how is that may be different?

40:24 That's a good point, right? You spend all this time doing and then no one's no one's actually consuming it. I guess that the thing that still keeps me going is because it is in a weird sort of moving into a new territory for us and learning a new skill. Like even though I lost money in this endeavor. I don't even not made it. I'm not even know how we're getting naked. I'm off. This is sort of beyond the consideration. But you know, I've become more of a more well-rounded person in the media. Now, I know how to do podcast fully understands where the technology behind it and how those things work. I understand how do you know building sort of an episode that sort of kind of an Uzi butt pain around table type podcast Radio episode is what it is, you know that takes a certain amount of Storytelling in and of itself right or understanding how to produce something so that people can

41:23 Understand what you're talking about and take something away from it. That's sort of a new way to tell a story that I didn't really know before, you know, it's benefited me professionally, like now I can walk into my my my new job and I'm like a year ago. I would have known how to do podcasts or how to do audio a radio or how to be a producer and because we did this on our own and which were taking the time to do it. It's it's like a professional development thing, but you you know, you know

41:53 You become you become.

41:57 You don't give your currency as a as a person in the in the New Media landscape is becomes you come more valuable. I think that's that. That's my feeling. I mean, why are you doing it? Because I think it's the same thing. I'm I'm I'm curious and I but I am more for a connection to stay connected. I feel as I being more always being an editor more than that, you know, I've never had the title of reporter. I I did a lot of writing at the bullhorn and some writing after that but I was always in a you no managerial position. So it was very much editing and a lot of that adding was rewriting other people, you know, it's keeps me connected to issues that I enjoy like you said before, you know, we come from this alternative media background and I feel like if I don't do something like the diatribe

42:57 I'm getting sucked into something. That's very Niche temp reticular and is only if it's not a broad enough. I don't feel like I have a a broad enough exposure and experience of of at least you know, what's going on in Denver. It's like, you know of for example, I might focus on you know, if I'm if I'm editing something that's that has to do with food. It's all about food and agriculture or if it's technology. It's all about technology and it's a it's limiting. I don't I I like the general notice of you know that the general audience idea in theory. I don't think it works out necessarily in practice. But for me as it as a media consumer to do use a bad word that's along with what you're saying stay connected to issues and to stay connected to being part of that conversation.

43:57 Is something that I think really appeals to me. You see so many things. We're like when the Rocky Mountain news closed down so many amazing reporters and so many amazing writers and layoffs of the Denver Post, you know writers and all the sudden they're they're so brilliant, right and they know so much about all these issues right there. So smart at this one thing and then they lose their full-time job at a newspaper and then they just like disappear, right? You never hear from them. You never hear them that you never hear that you never see their name in print again and it's like what what happens do you how can you just turn that off being a news person just like consuming news a Hound right like going out and getting that and telling stories and being involved in the issues and being sort of the Muppet. How can you just turn that off and go, you know become a piano sales consultant or you know to start teaching and then it's like that's the day I get to the difference where it's cool, but I just wonder what happens to those people and at least with this

44:57 Never die tribe, you know, we can scratch that itch that same sort of the itch of like wanting to know what's going on here in Denver what's going on on in different Corners that people aren't necessarily looking at let's think about it and read all the stuff and then cash it out and trying to figure out what what do I actually think about it? Cuz I don't really know what I think until like write it out or I talk it out or have a reason to and where you're doing all of this intake were used to doing that. We will always do that because of the kind of Mines that we have you write it it's so where do you where do you release because you know, I know my husband at least is absolutely does not want to hear me talk about you know, whether fastrax is going to get funding or you know, even about the Denver Film Festival. Sometimes it at least in terms of the way that I want to talk about it and to the extent that I want to talk about it. So it's

45:57 Not something that we can bring into our homes as easily maybe as Elsa and I think everybody has a little bit of a different experience that your wife. So just like a family management tool. It's a completely selfish to just you know, help us be able to to stay involved in to be able to have an excuse to sit down and talk and get the things out to that we want to talk about. I think it's interesting how much we identify or at least I do it. But I think you do too. I think all of us involved with a diatribe do it to ya. I think we all do identify with our jobs so much and really just kind of dangerous and I know it's kind of like, you know, I think as I'm thinking about you know, what we're actually ending up talking about here. It's like we don't we will always consider ourselves journalist or writers or truth Seekers.

46:57 Whatever way we want to, you know put that it's in our core to some extent, you know to the extent that whatever it is that we're doing. We have to come back to this. We have to make it a part of my life is it absolutely is who sells the industry isn't there to provide us with the titles officially. It's like we have to create our own media oral Platforms in order just to allow us to say well, who am I why I'm a I'm a co-producer of the Denver guy tried podcast podcast for the Denver area if nobody else I'll I'll make myself.

47:37 Mentioned that you are Colorado Natives and I was wondering if you wanted to say for the record for you were from and where you grew up and if you think that in any way that has influenced your decision to participated come up with the Denver diaphragm diagram or not. So I was born and raised in Pueblo Colorado, which is in the southern part of the state on the southern end of the Front Range and I think it absolutely has had its a very low-income industrial city. That's also surrounded by Farmland, which is where I grew up in the out on the outskirts in the county on a farm. I think it's absolutely

48:25 Made inspired me and still drives me to it's it's made me who I am obviously, but because of the way the city actually operates in the way that it is in all of there's a lot of corruption there and there's a lot of you know, there's not a lot of education and so you often find yourself and conversations with people where you are if you if you are more educated are you do have information you can really make a difference in somebody's life. I mean you can make a dramatic difference in somebody's life if if they can't read for example, or or don't read well so they don't get the newspaper, which it's it's still very much a newspaper town and I think about it all the time and I read the news from there all the time and I think you know, this is something that there's places like that everywhere in the country. There's more now in this kind of economy and it's more important now.

49:25 It has been in my lifetime that I have been aware of or conscious of to have an informed citizenry because we are susceptible and vulnerable I think during the second of my time and so yes, absolutely. That is something that that inspires me to continue with. What do you think about growing up in Pueblo and Colorado in general?

49:51 How do you think that shape your point of view and makes it different than people that you meet who moved to Colorado from somewhere else? I think I have a lot of very high expectation of people to to do things for themselves to be self-sufficient and to be in that comes from growing up in a rural area. I think more then than anything but I think Colorado in general, I know people that I meet, you know, it's it's very much I think in us to be to be independent and to be to make a way I don't like using the word pull yourself up by your bootstraps because I don't think that's that quite represents what I'm what I'm getting at but stronger, I think it makes you stronger it makes you able to I think I've Colorado has given, you know, just the culture here has given me a perspective that

50:51 That says you can you can do really anything that you put your mind to, you know, if you're facing down, you know a cliff that you're going to fall, you know thousands of feet over at work or whatever. It might be just you you do it for yourself. How does it how do you feel having grown up in Thornton, right? Yeah. I was born in Denver and my family lived in in.

51:19 Broomfield for a little while and it was a much different place and then I went to Northglenn high school, but spent a lot of time down in here in the city in the 90s early 90s skateboarding around when this was before there was really look there was no Lodo Lodo didn't exist. There is no Central Platte Valley was all railroad tracks in abandoned buildings and I remember going and we'd be skateboarding on this old building Foundation where the Pepsi Center now stands and being 13 or 14 and going and exploring these abandoned buildings and encountering rooms full of light.

52:04 Scary bombs in freaking myself out and running away. And so in that regard, I think that I've I have a perspective of Denver that

52:16 You know just has a longer tail to it. I sort of remember when you know, there wasn't there wasn't really up and identity to the actual urban core as much that kind of grew in the late eighties, but they're really give you really gain and identity. I think in the in the late 90s and the way it was built out and people moving back into the City. And so I kind of know where it where it came from and how much it used to suck has nothing to do here and it's it's a pretty different place. So I like to

52:54 And I like to think that there's

52:57 You know that transition between Denver being kind of the old western style City more isolated and more.

53:08 Closed off from the rest of the nation having its own identity to now or if it has become so infused with people moving from other places, and it's not a bad thing at all, but it definitely will you change the the character of you don't know me Denver, but all the entire Front Range of Colorado, but

53:30 So, I don't know. I don't know if I have I don't know if that I don't know if that if I have a fundamentally different perspective than other people, but I guess I don't I don't have a romantic idea of like what Colorado is in what Denver is the way you see people coming from the East Coast so special I remember kids from college and all these like, you know kids that grew up in New Jersey and they like dreadlocks right in there come down here and there, you know, they want to go up in the mountains and they have his idealize John Denver age notion of of Denver and Colorado and it's kind of like we'll know Denver's a real place like anywhere else. It has things that suck in the poverty and has poor people and not everyone goes up into the mountains to go snowshoeing every weekend that most people don't because you know, there's you need to work your job and need to think about other Industries and sell.

54:23 That I like to I like to think I will serve poke these holes and in people that come in from out of town and want to pontificate about what

54:44 Talking in the title

54:47 I think it I think it has two. I think that

54:54 I think that being in a growing up here in Denver in Colorado has to influence the types of stories in the way that we're going to talk about.

55:02 Talk about what's going on. I don't really know. I can't really think of of how but I'm sure someone else could tell us what do you think that it? Absolutely it gives us the institutional you more so than I with Denver but I remember coming here when I was little too and thinking, you know, if I grew up, you know coming here to visit family. And yeah, it's a different it's it's it gives people at grounds. It corrects the the history know if it sets the record, it corrects the the stereotypes that are false that were all blonde hair blue-eyed which neither of us are you know, ski bunnies to have second homes in Vail or Aspen and sore if you know some kind of connection to Vail or Aspen, I think this could be a good topic for the number diatribe the stereotypes and fundamental misconceptions of Outsiders. We can do it.

56:02 Are episode about that? That would be great when we had our first hour long episode. Alright. Well, thanks for sitting here and talk with me Vanessa a different interesting.