Introductory episode featuring hosts Akil and Hong each discussing a film that means a lot to them, and the conversation and digressions that show what makes true community building so special.
Discussed in this episode:
Fall Classes Mostly Online - https://sbcc.edu/classes
Neighbor Tim's BBQ - https://www.neighbortimsbbq.com/
Noodle City -https://noodlecitygoleta.com/
Suburbia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburbia_(film)
Boyz n the Hood - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyz_n_the_Hood
Transcript provided by Zoom; apologies for any errors...
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Hong Lieu: Hello and welcome to the inaugural episode of Vaquero Voices. Is that what we're calling this? I'm joined by my co host Akil hill.
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Akil: That is exactly what we're
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Hong Lieu: I guess that's still the biggest work in progress. Because, I mean, the rest of it's just conversation. So figuring out what to call it, and then kind of hammer and things that will be what will be working on, you know, in the
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Hong Lieu: Near future, but just to try and give voices to folks on campus and in the community to just share and just have some casual conversation to have fun. So welcome to everyone and
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Hong Lieu: We always start the show off with some news and events going on around campus at SBCC - biggest news for us, of course, is our fall classes going
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Hong Lieu: Mostly online. We have a list of classes that will be online and - I mean, that will be in person on our website sbcc.edu slash classes, but most classes will be online. Akil how have things been affecting you over the summer in terms of the shift?
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Akil: Me. Yeah, it definitely has been impactful. Um, it's just - I think the biggest takeaway from me and working in admissions and records is that the processing time, although the department has done a great job.
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Akil: Processing, but it's just not the same as working in the office with two monitors multitasking. It just seems like it's taking a little bit
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Akil: longer to process things
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Akil: From home you know if you're just working from your laptop that kind of the set up and but you know it's still going. Well, I think students are still being responded to / things are still being processed, but it's just in a different manner, you know?
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, I feel like it for everyone. It's kind of like a learning curve to kind of figure out the differences. I mean,
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Hong Lieu: Nobody thought it was gonna be a smooth transition, but I know for me for some things I didn't realize certain things would be as tough as they were. And then the flip side, I didn't think some things would be as easy as they were like some, some things that I do really translate instantly.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, the variable. If you have families at home, having my kid at home and try to be a teacher as well and do all that stuff is not, you know,
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Akil: Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: It's crazy.
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Akil: Well, absolutely. I think that
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Akil: It's in some ways it's kind of re-looking at the will and the structure and how we
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Akil: Work and process things in an efficient way. And so, you know, there's, you know, there's always similar lines, right. So I think there's you know that there's definitely some in in light of the whole covert situation.
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Hong Lieu: And yeah, I'm not exactly the most experienced here to that. I mean, did you ever take the class online and college or anything, because I never did.
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Hong Lieu: No, yeah, Blackboard was like just coming out when I was in school and I never did that. And so
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Hong Lieu: So, I mean, I might do like the 15 miles in the snow equivalent trying to talk to people about how to do well online. But yeah, it'd be a tough transition for me because I
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Hong Lieu: I was already pretty terrible students. So I haven't like have the extra distraction. If at any moment. I can pop up in a browser tab and start, you know, while and on the internet, like that's not you know
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Hong Lieu: So we, we know it's tough for the students.
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Hong Lieu: Were doing the best we can, you know, on the behind the scenes here and hang in there. Do the best you can.
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Akil: Yeah, and I think the college has done a great job at trying to give people access to, you know, like laptops and setting things up. So, this causes done a great job, a phenomenal job I feel at
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Akil: Trying to close those equity gaps for students who, you know, may not have access to, you know, certain things that other students do so like to send it to just give a big shout out to SPC for
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Akil: making that happen. So
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Akil: Yeah.
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Akil: I think we're both dating ourselves on that.
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Hong Lieu: Oh yeah, once we got my class, you know,
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Hong Lieu: Talking about our movie choices will be fully dated, but
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Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: Only available. And if you want to see a list of classes that will be in person in the fall spc.edu slash classes and
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Hong Lieu: All the other classes, you can assume will be online.
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Hong Lieu: I mean it. I think in the grand scheme of things. We don't like to be on campus for the fall, but we're still having a debate about whether masks help. So we have a long way to go in terms of getting to bigger points in that. So yeah.
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Hong Lieu: So that's our big news. Moving on to our next experimental section that we're will be tweaking it depending on how things go is a quote unquote food section.
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Hong Lieu: And terms of any good meals. You've eaten or any good meals you've cooked recently.
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Hong Lieu: You want to start a kill. You want me to go
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Akil: How about you go
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Hong Lieu: Okay. For me, the biggest meal I've had recently was Father's Day takeout from neighbor Tim's BBQ they're out and deleted.
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Hong Lieu: There they have a truck out an arrow Camino. And there's cooking up you know brisket pulled pork ribs and they did a Father's Day meal with three pounds of meat.
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Hong Lieu: Two pounds asides loaf of bread barbecue sauce for like 60 bucks. And it was a great deal, and I'm still eating it. Three days later. So, I mean, it's not like the best barbecue have ever had.
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Hong Lieu: But in terms of like quarantine meals. It's probably one of the best
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Hong Lieu: Quarantine meals I've had because like I'm getting sick of my own cooking and I'm getting sick of Costco frozen products. So in terms of a home cooked like hearty meal like definitely one of the best meals I've had
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Hong Lieu: Nice and I will say that
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Hong Lieu: In terms of brisket in general on the West Coast. Did you. I mean, I didn't see very much brisket in restaurants or prepared at home you know like
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Hong Lieu: Even like five years ago, there wasn't much, you know, and now it seems like more and more places are doing brisket, which usually is a tough kind of meat to cook. And yeah, I mean, I know you were talking about cooking brisket. The other day, but I mean,
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Hong Lieu: It can be tough to hit that spot. I mean, it gets dry really quick. If you go too far. So yeah, I'm a, I'm a big
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Akil: Fan of brisket. I like you said I smoked one maybe a couple weeks ago and for you know it's it's one of those tough meets man is is hard to get right. But if, once you if you can
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Akil: master it. Then there's nothing better than brisket. You know, they say, in order to make good or phenomena barbecue. You have to make a lot of bad but first you know it came out pretty good though.
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Hong Lieu: How big within how many pounds.
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Akil: Let's get
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Akil: How much was 10 pounds.
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Hong Lieu: 10 pounds.
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Akil: And just kind of season it up through a whole bunch of different spices to make the rub. And then cooked it was the temperature. I think it was like 275 in for almost like 10 hours, something like that. And it came out, it came out really good. So, but, yeah, I'm a big fan of barbecue.
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Akil: I spent time in the Midwest as a kid in Kansas City barbecue was always the family thing to do over the summer when we would drive from Nebraska to Kansas City to, you know, over the summer. And so I'm a big fan of that.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, I mean, I gotta admit, I was kind of slow to get to barbecue. I mean, I had a lot of like
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Hong Lieu: Like chain, you know, generic barbecue. I didn't have tried it till I was 18 in college because in LA. It was not there was not around.
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Hong Lieu: It was all good and I saw that it was all like, you know, so it took me a long time to even get in the tri tip, let alone now like brisket and all this other stuff. But yeah.
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Hong Lieu: In the past 10 years of being able to travel around and go to different areas. I still haven't had Carolina pulled pork in Carolina, but I have had Texas style, you know, Memphis style, a little Kansas City. Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: Neighbor teams is good. How about you, with you.
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I
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Akil: You know i mean over the recording. I'm in cooking quite a bit.
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Akil: But, uh, I will say last night.
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Akil: I had
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Akil: The notorious local
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Akil: You have not lived in Galena unless you've tried noodle city for dinner.
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Hong Lieu: Oh, yeah.
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Akil: Yeah, and so
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Akil: That is one of my you know that hole in the wall when you walk in, you know, no one's really talking. There's no music or one sitting and eating, you know,
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Akil: And that's one of my kind of go to kind of like a Vietnamese comfort food.
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Akil: And so, last night I had the
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Akil: Shrimp for is it for, for as far as
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Hong Lieu: A for
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Akil: For
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Hong Lieu: I don't usually because all the all the puns usually start with, you know, going, but
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Hong Lieu: Yeah.
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Akil: Yeah, so I had shrimp for last night.
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Akil: I was I got extra noodles and
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Akil: That's one of my go tues along with the shrimp fried rice and
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Akil: There's one like the noodles dish I forget the name of the noodles.
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Hong Lieu: So they're doing. They're doing dine in though.
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Akil: They're doing takeout only so it was only so they're still open for business. And so people are listening live in the area I'm obits south of Lita, but
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Akil: You know, I would always go there, at least you know once a week or once every two weeks. So I just try to get there, as much as I can. Just to support local businesses.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, cuz their, their tables inside were always a little close. I was kind of curious how they would kind of do the reopening
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Hong Lieu: And positioning stuff because you can still do it, but
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Hong Lieu: Because the prices are so reasonable your margins are super thin so you have to cram a lot of good. A lot of people moving in and out. So it's kind of a tough, you know, tough route for a lot of these restaurants you kind of figure out your best path to navigate
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Akil: With figure
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Hong Lieu: Out capacity, so to speak.
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Akil: Yeah, I was talking to the manager also to and you know he said that business is kind of, it's kind of up and down like some days are extremely busy and then other days it's just completely dead so
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Akil: You know, just a just a good plug. If you're in the area in Santa Barbara area. Just make sure you you should try it out.
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Akil: Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: Now is the time to definitely try out your favorite local restaurant your restaurant. You've always been curious about because they definitely need
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Hong Lieu: Kind of patronage. I mean, you do want to be responsible and adhere to social distancing and all these other things but
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Hong Lieu: There's no reason not to be able to go grab it nowadays especially because they're they're hurting bad and business owners are really one of the frontline businesses right now that are
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Hong Lieu: Kind of out there and just kind of, you know, yeah, in the woods, so to speak, help them out any way you can.
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Akil: Absolutely. And it also to like I'm in like noodles city is not open but
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Hong Lieu: Actually
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Akil: I know like on State Street that's been reopened and people are out and eating, I think, you know, food and getting to the other under, you know, obviously, the, the social distancing guidelines.
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Akil: Is in some ways it's a healing comforting for people just to be able to
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Akil: Eat or break bread. Oh, if you will, together, and that's one of the things that are is actually a universal. So it's kind of nice to see that, you know,
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, absolutely. And in terms of like sharing unique flavors sharing any kind of experiences certain restaurants or just an experience like noodle city when when someone start yelling for the back and you're like, oh yeah, feels like home you know
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, like I come in from LA like Vietnamese restaurants or diamond does and new city just kind of hit that spot of that authentic flavor and like they actually put like tendon and tripe in there which some places won't do. So yeah, I do definitely vouch for that place. It's awesome.
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Akil: Yeah.
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Akil: All right, all right.
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Hong Lieu: Moving right along to the main the main part of the show, which the goal will be kind of to
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Hong Lieu: Where the host. We're going to have guests. Eventually, but for this first episode, we want to just kind of get, get to know each other a little better in terms of
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Hong Lieu: Our podcasting rapport and kind of just set the table for what we're going to be doing going forward. So basically,
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Hong Lieu: We will every episode. Pick one piece of media arts, what do you want to call it like a book movie, TV films music video game anything under the sun.
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Hong Lieu: And then we'll talk about it and our guests will bring one up and we'll just see where it goes. Because with with all these things, these cultural landmark, so to speak.
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Hong Lieu: They're wrapped around memories are wrapped around memories of when you first experienced it memories of revisiting it now, you know, things of that sort. So
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Hong Lieu: Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: You want to start to heal you want me to go it's time you want to go.
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Akil: It doesn't make a difference. I mean,
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Um,
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Akil: How about you, sir.
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Hong Lieu: Okay, good.
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Alright.
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Hong Lieu: So my pick for this week was a film because the keel told me he was going to fill. So I want to do something that would kind of compliment
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Hong Lieu: What he was doing. So my pic is suburbia Penelope spirits is feeling from 1983 about some punk outcast youths. There's a lot going into it in terms of its creation itself, did you get a chance to watch it at all, or no.
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Akil: No, I couldn't find it.
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Hong Lieu: I was screams it streaming on Amazon. But it's, yeah. Not too, not that easy to find. Otherwise, I was kind of surprised that a streaming on Amazon, like amazon prime free streaming, but other that it was kind of a really low end filming it hit so
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Hong Lieu: little backstory on the film up and LP spheres was a film director most famous I guess for the Wayne's World movie. And she did a couple remakes like The Beverly Hillbillies and Little Rascals
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Hong Lieu: But for me, heard landmark films are suburbia and the decline of Western civilization. It was a film trilogy, a documentary trilogy.
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Hong Lieu: That first film came out like 1978 77 and was about punk rock Part two was in the 80s, called the the metal years is about hair metal and then Part three came out in 99
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Hong Lieu: About like kind of the crust crust punk scene that was coming up, which is kind of derived from the first generation, but it was its own spin and
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Hong Lieu: A lot of folks told her you know you. You're not gonna make any money doing documentaries, if you want to do any if you want to get any sort of kind of like
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Hong Lieu: broad appeal or recognition, you need to make fictional movie so she kind of made this film suburbia as a fictional kind of re telling of decline of Western civilization. Part one
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Hong Lieu: She got a lot of punk bands for in the film to do musical performances and in terms of the cast of the film. It's not a lot. Most of them aren't known actors.
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Hong Lieu: They're just punk kids that she met it shows and stuff. And she got them to go in the film and do some acting so please is one of the guys in the movie, you know, the basis when they're hot chili peppers.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, his first film roles. He was like a 19 year old kid. He later would end up in the band called fear but um I picked the film because it was really, it's really um
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Hong Lieu: It kind of took a lot of boxes in my mind in terms of in terms of memories and in terms of just the context of the film itself. The film takes place in 1983
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Hong Lieu: And it's it's centers around location wise it's area that Norwalk and Downey that was taken over by eminent domain, which is when people buy, you know, the government buys properties to develop. They were buying properties in these areas to develop for the
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Hong Lieu: Forthcoming freeway system. So they bought up these huge tracts of land and all these houses within and they left them empty for years until they were able to kind of come up with the permitting whatever to build these freeways. So in the meantime these neighborhoods.
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Hong Lieu: These community tracks sat vacant for. I mean, almost, almost a decade, I think. And so in that time, like the areas became just downtrodden, you know, crime. Crime showed up gang showed up.
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Hong Lieu: And all this, these rows and rows of empty houses are there and Penelope spears kind of framed her story in this area with punk kid squatting in these houses.
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Hong Lieu: And one thing I didn't know was that in that time at three punk kids didn't really squat in these empty houses, she made that up.
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Hong Lieu: And it's kind of funny, because when I came up. I came up in the mid to late 90s as a punk and like these her film was like a hallmark and a lot of these old punk landmarks, you know, people were like, referring to me.
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Hong Lieu: To watch and to listen and
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Akil: It.
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Hong Lieu: It's kind of interesting to see all the things that kind of came true over time because people did start squatting in abandoned places like I would show up in like little squats. They call them squats and the people were squatters and you would hang out and just do whatever and
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Hong Lieu: Crazy kind of crazy that it didn't even exist. And it's like kind of her pressuring it knowledge of the scene and what it was going to become that that kind of happened.
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Hong Lieu: And it's one of those things where, you know, mid to late 90s. The internet existed. I was on the web, like 9798 but, you know, the internet is not what was not what it is. Now then.
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Hong Lieu: And it was really like hodgepodge then so we all your recommendations and everything that was getting referred to, you will still word of mouth like it was still people you knew
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Hong Lieu: You wouldn't know about something unless you knew someone that knew about something that told me about it.
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Akil: Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: You know, so I mean like I had to seek out the punks. First of all, I had to befriend them and approve, I wasn't a poser. You know, like, which was a huge thing now like everyone talks about, like, you know, selling out this and that. That's still kind of persist.
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Akil: But
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Hong Lieu: But I'd be selling out was a huge like a big deal. Like, it was like the cardinal sin, being a poser and selling out were like
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Hong Lieu: The two things you could absolutely never do like you would cut off your own arm before it would be a poser sellout you know so
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Hong Lieu: So they're always initiations. Where do you like you had a few people show up and they ask you questions and you have to answer them and like you know like
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Hong Lieu: What band would with band was sing this song. What's that, what's that DB, you know, the just the discharge be
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Hong Lieu: And so there's a lot of gatekeepers involved. So like once you once you knew and proved proved to folks that you were like down for whatever, then they would like all this know this. Watch this. And they would tell you about, you know,
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Hong Lieu: Some wise. It was the GG Allen documentary, because it was like oh my god that's nuts suburbia. And then, you know, the various bands that you would never hear because they weren't on the radio and whatnot so
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, so, so that brought back a lot of memories. It's just watching the film and be like, you know i i got hip to this by some punk friends, you know, my, my friends that I met and that they were able to like kind of let me into this secret wealth of knowledge.
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Hong Lieu: We're just watching it now. I mean, the power of eminent domain and these ideas you know gentrification is like that. The, the social pressures that we put on communities.
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Hong Lieu: You know internally with the people that live there but externally from, you know, government pressure to take over places with them and domain.
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Hong Lieu: external pressures from neighboring communities that want to gentrify your neighborhoods. I mean, these, these things are very real have been a real for a long time. It could have been dealing with them for a long time.
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Akil: Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: And, you know, the flip side of that is
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Hong Lieu: Seeing that suburbia takes place in the suburbs, you know, like my my part of La where I grew up, was kind of a suburb at the time, but it was, it's also like a statement of kind of
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Hong Lieu: Excuse me, what things were going on, what things were like on that side of town because you have your grid your quote unquote gritty inner city kind of issues and dramas and films that were coming out.
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Hong Lieu: But the suburbs are like paradise that people, you know, in the suburbs were like this kind of this Hallmark. And speaking of privilege and they still are today, to a certain extent.
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Hong Lieu: But it's that question of, you know, folks that have privilege. I mean it, it's number one it's hard for them to admit it but number two, even if you recognize it.
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Hong Lieu: If you're aware of it and you still don't come out quote unquote on top like if you're like a wealthy elite or whatever, then yeah, whatever your privileges all good.
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Hong Lieu: But if you have this privilege and you still quote unquote fail. Yeah, it's, it's a lot to wrestle with and and and the kids in this movie suburbia their parents. I mean,
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Hong Lieu: They did the best they could, but but they failed in certain aspects of like raising their kids and doing this and that, you know, like it's it's it's one thing that resonated with me kind of as an Asian kid specifically
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Hong Lieu: Because as easy as an agency. Growing up, my parents. I mean,
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Hong Lieu: They read they read my privilege in my face every single day of my life and I you know I didn't feel privileged. I grew up poor in East LA, but for them. It's like
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Hong Lieu: They their gold medal winners in the struggle Olympics. You know, like their whole lives. It's been a struggle. So every chance they get to rub it in my face like how privileged I am how lucky I am
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Hong Lieu: How I need to be doing better, better, better, better, better, I mean, that's one of the things that kind of drove me to the punk scene in the first place was like everything I did was not good enough.
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Hong Lieu: But don't want to hang out with the punk kids, I'm like the
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Hong Lieu: Genius. I'm like, you know, like this guy like oh man on the arena so much you doing this and that, like, without i mean
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Hong Lieu: Maybe it was like that the the promise of lowered expectations, but that was, that was one thing too. And so it's, there's, there's a lot of things about this movie that kind of hits
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Hong Lieu: And kind of resonates with me still, to this day, and just just picking it up the other day and watching some parts of it. I'm like, oh yeah.
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Hong Lieu: I mean, I will know that there are some scenes that are kind of weird. Like there's random bits of violence nudity, but
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Hong Lieu: That's a little sub know because the film was produced by Roger Corman, and he was like a horror, you know, horror schlock kind of filmmaker from like the 60s and 70s.
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Hong Lieu: And he kind of semi mandated that every, every 10 minutes. I had to be some kind of seeing that violence or nudity, or you wouldn't find the film.
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Hong Lieu: So little courts like that to kind of remind you, and you know as a as a female filmmaker. She had to jump through a lot of hoops to get the movie she made
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Hong Lieu: She wanted to make, you know, and she still got it done. And she had a pretty good career. So yeah, definitely suburbia and the decline of Western civilization trilogy, I would highly recommend
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Akil: You know, just listen to you bring up a
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Akil: You know, a lot of
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Akil: A lot of good points or in regards to like the suburbs being kind of for a lot of people
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Akil: A sign of you, making it, you know, and it's really interesting too because we know now, like, you know, just because
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Akil: You know you live in the suburbs, doesn't mean that you're excluded from having issues and and definitely now, more so than ever before, like, you know, with different you know like the different likes like opioids.
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Akil: Pandemic and stuff going on like that. We know that it's not specifically, you know,
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Akil: Troubles, and problems are not specifically located in certain places, you know what I mean. And so by all means, you know, privilege is definitely a real thing. But consequences, you know, the
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Akil: universals and so
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Akil: You know, I could definitely relate to you in regards to that. Did you have like a favorite scene in the movie that really spoke out spoke to you.
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Hong Lieu: I mean selfishly, I'd say the music performances, just because it's some footage of bands that I never thought I mean
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Hong Lieu: That bands. I didn't get to see live bands getting used to live in their, quote unquote prime because like I said when I was a punk in the 90s, like the La La punk scene in the 90s.
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Hong Lieu: It was a lot of skate punk. You know, like no facts. And believe me, it was just coming in. I mean, that was always current
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Hong Lieu: But the pumps that we revere like me and my friends. It was all that old crusty, like, you know, crazy super political punk, you know, Dead Kennedys and like you know TISA
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Hong Lieu: The bands in the movie or TISA while di and the Vandals and the Vandals
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Hong Lieu: Had to switch lead singers because they're releasing a castaway Steve Oh, so this is a Stephen era vandals performance is TSI. Well, we actually to get to see, you know, 2013 and it's di or actually saw in Santa Barbara at Soho, not too long, like maybe five years ago, so it's it's a
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Hong Lieu: Probably music performances, but also, yeah. Just a little commentary here and there, like the, you know, like the kids.
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Hong Lieu: Their scenes where the kids will be squatting out from the liquor store and people are shoo them away because they look like vagrants and I mean that was the point, it was
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Hong Lieu: I mean, in the internet with it in a post internet world today. It's kind of funny that like no one bats an eye at trolls.
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Hong Lieu: And things like that. But that's what kids are doing and you dressed up like studs and like spiked hair and stuff and you send it from the store.
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Hong Lieu: Trying to, again, keep your house and you, you were kind of just trolling. You know, he was waiting for someone to take the bait and then you just like unload on them, you know, so
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Hong Lieu: I'm like, that's one of the things you know we in terms of the suburbs and community with the internet is it's proven like you're saying the suburbs are not any less popping in the inner city and
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Hong Lieu: And even folks in other cities like you know if you if you grew up in Santa Barbara, you're like, Oh man, I wish I grew up in LA or New York. It's like, no, you know, like the Internet, your community, you're seeing is is like, that's what's sacred, you know, wherever you are.
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Akil: Yeah, I was.
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Hong Lieu: Sort of kindred, kind of like belonging, and then you find your find your tribe, as it were, anywhere.
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Hong Lieu: Because I know that when I was growing up, oh you you came up in LA so lucky. I was in, you know, Podunk whatever. It's like, but with internet now there's no limitations. You can find you can find your hub so
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Akil: I didn't, you know, I mean, I wasn't, I have
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Akil: No knowledge of like the punk scene punk scene in the 90s, or anything like that. So I'm glad that you're sharing this with me because it's all, it's all new to me. And were you like,
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Akil: How many people are like in your crew. Crew size when I was growing up was was important was your was a crew pretty big.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, I mean you had like tears. You know, like you had your day ones. The tier one
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Hong Lieu: You know, tier two, tier three. And the funny thing is, like, you know, as the music jazz music adjusted like
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Hong Lieu: Like by the end of high school, I was really into hip hop and like allow those a lot of the punk kids. I was with my able to kind of transition to hip hop pretty seamlessly because
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Hong Lieu: I mean, it was kind of interesting how like
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Hong Lieu: It was, it was really being in a gang was only FILTER LIKE ALL YOU WEREN'T in a gang, you kind of hang in any culture like when I went to hip hop shows and I punk gear, people weren't really
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Hong Lieu: Bad I, you know, like, and like if I was on the street and some hit me up. I could just like all maraca dude, you know, I don't, I'm not trying to ask them, nobody
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Hong Lieu: Ok ok ok ok
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Hong Lieu: You know, like those. But yeah, so it was five or six in terms of regular crew and then when you go to a show or something in your meeting up with like the community, then yeah, I'd be like 1015 deep
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Hong Lieu: Because, you know, like, oh yeah, this person bringing their crew. The front that crew.
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Akil: Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: And then, of course, like band practices and stuff like that are hanging out with with people in a band or hanging out at friends houses and then they have like three or four people will show up in terms of like the regular crews like five or six strong
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Akil: So these you
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Hong Lieu: Know, I think that I regret the most is like I'm I love music would like from the deepest deepest core of my heart, but I'm a terrible musician just absolutely just
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Hong Lieu: Like I can, I can DJ like barely worth a lick. But yeah, in terms of actual playing nothing. Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: But I can, I can dance. All right. Like I if I were to show I can get the party Hopkin for
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Sure.
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Akil: Alright.
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Hong Lieu: With the caveat. I'm not a B. Boy, so if
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Hong Lieu: We go to hip hop shell. It's all a Brock, I can't, I can't do anything on the ground. That's my second biggest regret is I never learned how to break dance and because I have no balanced and no upper body strength.
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Akil: Well hopefully when we pass at the next holiday party I'm
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Akil: I will see. I want to see your moves.
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Hong Lieu: I want to see your movie. Oh, I mean,
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Hong Lieu: Trust me, gimme, gimme music. I'll let it up. That's right. That's the one thing I love to do. I love to have a good time.
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Akil: Yeah. That's awesome.
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Hong Lieu: See, not only suburbia. If you, if you're no one's ever interested, the decline of Western civilization trilogy, in terms of getting idea of what la was like, and also how music, you know, kind of progressing things they're, they're great documentaries
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Hong Lieu: And Penelope spheres is a good filmmaker worth worth investing time into
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Akil: Is there a soundtrack for that as well.
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Hong Lieu: Oh yeah, the decline soundtracks are all excellent and I believe there's there's got to be suburbia soundtrack, because all of the musical is pretty good, too.
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Akil: Yeah, yeah. That was one of the things that, you know, I was kind of
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Akil: Looking into I was I when I watched
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Akil: Boys in the hood. I went made me think about the soundtrack and beautiful thing about music, we all can attest to is that it instantly takes you to
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Akil: A place of memory. And then, so I was going through the soundtrack of boys in the hood. And I was like, yep, I was there when I was
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Akil: Young. I remember cruising up and down State Street point. Listen to that. Yo, I remember, you know, I was on the east side of Santa Barbara for that one. I was in the west side for that. Yeah, so
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Hong Lieu: The natural segue into your discussion of boys in the hood. And I will say to that point.
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Hong Lieu: That the thing about the boys in the hood soundtrack that I really like is that it's a mixture of the contemporary in the classic you have you have what furious is playing in the car when he's driving
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Akil: Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: You have what was done when the guys are playing in the car when they're driving and it's like
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Hong Lieu: That you could, there is a connection there. But if you're not that hit to you might not, you know, feel that connection, but the music is all soulful. You know, it's also going to talk tell tell the truth.
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Hong Lieu: Never wants to listen.
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Akil: Yeah. So yeah, I mean I I looked at my movie that I chose this week.
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Akil: Was boys in the hood and
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Akil: It was just one of those things where it was just on TV and one day.
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Akil: I tuned in and you know this movie was directed in written by john singleton that late
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Hong Lieu: John Singleton, rest in peace.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, true legend.
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Akil: He was alive in and a pioneer in many ways in regards to filmmaking and just discussion or making people look or address social ills.
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Akil: And that's one of the things that really stood out to me was how so much of it is still relevant and and there was there's some heavyweights in this movie.
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Akil: Maybe not at the time, but that's the word their careers basically has evolved into being. Some giants. I mean, we know we have or as Larry Fishburne
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Akil: And then we have Morris chestnut Cuba Gooding Jr.
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Hong Lieu: What one thing that I was reminded was. There's a scene in the movie where Laurence Fishburne mentioned that you know as periods mentioned that he went to Vietnam.
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Hong Lieu: And then you think about in Apocalypse Now he had that cameo is the super young you know troop in army guy in Vietnam. And I was like, well, that I want 1000 little nod there but yeah
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Akil: Yeah, and that's so funny how he you know he talks in that scene about, you know, as a black man and fighting for this country and we're
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Akil: Just from some of the social ills.
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Akil: That you know he faced, you know, and it was kind of interesting because my father served in the military, and once he got out.
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Akil: You know, there's some parallels. I felt with a furious in the movie where how my father raised me and kind of helped shape my outlook.
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Akil: On on some things, and there were certain conversations, I found myself leaning towards my few my favorite scenes were just some of the dialogue between him.
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Akil: And a younger coming Gooding Jr. Well, his name is Trey
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Akil: Trey in the in the film. So
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Akil: There was also Angela Davis was in the film to we got to give her a shout out as well. She was trays mother and
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Hong Lieu: Angela Bassett
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Akil: Or Angela Bassett
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Hong Lieu: The thing about that is that Laurence Fishburne Angela Bassett
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Hong Lieu: Did you watch the tournament what's love
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Hong Lieu: Seeing that dynamic how different it was in that movie to this movie. I mean, that tell you about acting right there.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah range. I mean, because this, this relationship and this movie is not like you know hunky dory either. It's not all sunshine lollipops, but the shift in that movie was like, I mean it was straight up an action movie at times. I'm like, Oh, no.
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Akil: Please, yeah.
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Akil: Please, yeah.
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Akil: And the do also was like
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Akil: You know, it also speaks to their chemistry that they had it as as actors and actresses that that there was a real connection between them. And obviously, that's why they went on. Years later to star in was love have to do with that movie was intense as well, man.
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Hong Lieu: Very intense
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Hong Lieu: Very intense because, I mean, that's kind of where you had an idea, but then the seeing it play out. You're like,
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Hong Lieu: Holy cow. It's like when I read that story about the box for Christy Martin. The other day on ESPN where there was like you hear the news is the domestic violence is and then you read the ESPN. Sorry. Like, oh my goodness, it was way, way crazy
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Hong Lieu: About life goes. That's how life goes
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Hong Lieu: Yeah yeah
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Akil: So, I mean, the movie was
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Akil: It was released in 91 and I remember
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Akil: Where I was at, you know, when that when it was released. I actually saw that the Grenada.
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Akil: Here we are in the theater.
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Akil: In the year that
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Akil: You're not a
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Akil: You know, we all know that they don't you know there's they don't play movies anymore, but it was
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Akil: I don't know. It was a week night I think was Friday night, maybe Saturday. It was something like that. And it was just like everybody was that was, you know, going to the movie tickets are sold out, you know, there's all this talk that the police were going to be in the movie theaters, because
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Akil: early 90s, at the height of
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Akil: You know the
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Akil: Prowl. Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: Crowd oh yeah
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Akil: The demonic in this country this country. I thought was really interesting the opening scene where
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Akil: Trey was walking to school. He was a younger boy.
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Hong Lieu: Yes.
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Akil: I'm into school and he was walking with someone's costume needs to school and you know the one of the very first scenes where one of the boys shows them.
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Akil: You know, a crime scene and and the crime scene. It was really seen it was really interesting because they had, you know, posters or Ronald Reagan, you know, for four more years. And it's kind of a
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Akil: You automatically placed. What time period. And what was going on in the in the country at that time. So you know john singleton just, you know, has a really amazing way of sneaking in certain cities all throughout yes movie.
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Hong Lieu: It's, it's one of those things that invites further exploration like
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, and the moment you're like, oh, that's interesting. But now with the internet you can be like, look up Ronald Reagan drug policy.
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Hong Lieu: And then you look up the increased census for people with crack cocaine versus regular cocaine, which was like basically 100 to one sensing disparity, you know and and
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Hong Lieu: And you, those, those kind of bigger thought near form where it's like, it's not just this objective like
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Hong Lieu: Drugs bad. It was a subjective like this drug hundred times better than this drug, and you're ripping people out of homes for, you know, miniscule amounts of of this conical better drug. I mean,
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Hong Lieu: It's, it's, in terms of just like suburbia. It's a snapshot of the of the time when it was released. And for me, personally, I didn't watch the theater. But we had pirate cable at the time. So when the movie came on pay per view.
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Hong Lieu: It would replay over and over again, you know, you can watch it over and over again. So I remember very distinctly that era of the early 90s filmmaking coming out when you had your colors and like at a
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Hong Lieu: young minister society and boys in the hood. Those two movies when I got to see him.
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Hong Lieu: You know, and the thing about the reason I mentioned pay per view the to watch a movie multiple times.
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Hong Lieu: Because I couldn't watch the whole movie because my mom walked by, or someone went by, like, you have to the channel with the quickness. Because, like, it's like, you know, bad words every other word and this and that. So I haven't like kind of sneak it cuz I'm like 10 or 11 years old but
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Akil: Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: Being able to kind of watch those movies in the moment and see what was happening in my own you know when I go to school and people
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Hong Lieu: They'd ban raiders jackets and kings jackets at school. You know starter jackets. We're listening that and
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, and it was like just just the way that whole area wasn't seeing what crack did to to the city, you know, not just the inner cities. This is the stuff made it to the suburbs very easily.
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Akil: Yeah yeah
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Akil: Well, in the like look right. So when you're talking about, you know, when people bring up certain conversations around systemic racism.
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Akil: I mean, that's a classic example of crack cocaine crack cocaine versus just regular cocaine and how people are sentence and how that affects certain communities.
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Akil: Around that so you know that's that's a real thing, you know. And if we look at know we're kind of going off topic here, but I think it's all related when you look at incarceration rates.
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Akil: On black men versus our men of color versus non minute color.
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Akil: This is a high crazy despair. And then, so then you got to start looking at laws and how laws are written in and so on and so forth. So
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Hong Lieu: And it's totally on topic because this is what, this is what great art really does it makes you think it makes you explore beyond the boundaries of what the, what the artists who projection was to to what the global messages behind it, because
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Hong Lieu: You know, the point of ours to make you feel and make you think about things.
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Hong Lieu: And do you think about those those heightened drug senses. You think about, but, you know, like maybe you had a thought of, oh, you know, more black folks from prison because they're they're bad
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Hong Lieu: Know that the system was rigged against them, you know, like where you have increased patrols increased policing and areas and increase sentences or anything bad happens.
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Hong Lieu: So maybe you're in the suburbs drinking versus your in the inner city smoking crack
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Hong Lieu: All those things equal, maybe not. But are they equal to how they were sentenced, absolutely not. You know, so these are those are questions that great art makes you feel and
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Akil: I know and you know those movies like medicines it boys and
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Hong Lieu: I mean, there's a lot of violence in it because that's what people knew, but it was, I don't feel like it was a glorification about it's like like boys in the hood that the pivotal scene. It's not glorifying anything whatsoever. And even though
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, the repercussions afterward. What happens to Doughboy and everything else. You know, like
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Hong Lieu: There's no you know
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Hong Lieu: Well, I think.
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Akil: I think singleton does a beautiful job at building it up right so just wasn't like
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Akil: Oh, just a free for all, where everyone's just shooting match people are being getting killed. I think he builds the movie to a place where when you know the violence really takes place.
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Akil: The effect that you have on watching that is is it's it's a real effect. You know how you feel when you know i don't know if I'm giving the movie away. But you know when Ricky gets shot. I'm going to go ahead and say,
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Hong Lieu: I feel like I feel like within 20 years you can give spoilers out. Yeah, okay, good. So when Ricky good side where it's just that at the end it was like
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Akil: You actually really could relate to his character and what he was up against and and
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Akil: And, you know, again, like singleton does an amazing job at building that up, like with his struggles and what he was going through and you know
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Akil: Towards the end of the movie. He's contemplating like thinking about going into the military. There's a conversation between him and Cuba Gooding Jr about going to the military, which was based upon a lot of what human was
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Akil: Trying to relate to him was what furious a firstborn was telling them so
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Akil: It would came full circle in that regard. So
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Akil: There's also a lot of another good
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Akil: common theme between what you have brought up with the movie that you are reviewing and boys in the hood was
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Akil: There was a scene that they talk about basically gentrification in the black community. And it's really interesting. I used to live up in Oakland, and I
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Akil: In the late 90s.
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Akil: Or actually, early 2000s, maybe, but it was around that period of time and and I went back maybe last year.
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Hong Lieu: All the way different.
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Akil: roles for work conference. And I was, I couldn't even believe it. I was like,
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Akil: I was I texted one of my my my voice, who actually live in lives in Oakland. I'm like, Yo man, I've been the Oakland, and I've been here for like half an hour 45 minutes. I haven't seen anyone black yet this is could could, could we different from
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Akil: Anything else that I
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Akil: had experienced. So, you know, and it's still going on. I mean, it's going on actually down in Los Angeles to around the areas where
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Akil: They look you know where they built the brown stadium and and they're looking for different venues for other sporting teams. It's just all areas been completely ginger fine and people have been pushed out and and you know it's you know it's unfortunate, a lot of ways, you know,
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, that conversation with the furious and Trey and then Ricky fair to they'd like you to go to the office he drives them out.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, that's one of the pivotal moments in the movie because then a little crowd builds up and he tells them all about. And it's true. I mean,
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Hong Lieu: I found, I found me an open, they're still in Oakland, and I found in Oakland, San Francisco.
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Hong Lieu: I used to visit them in the summer. So I remember what Oakland was like in the late 90s, you know, like, okay, that area and Jacqueline and square
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Hong Lieu: And yeah, I went back a few years ago. It's nice, but it is different. And it's and it has, it did. Push, push, push, folks out farther into the margins. Like, even in LA South Central. A lot of folks, you know, 1015 years ago it was starting to get expensive. Even then,
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Hong Lieu: A lot of them up and move to Palmdale Lancaster Antelope Valley out there. And so the community change then and it's shifting again. So it's, it's one of those things that, yeah, you have to, you have to keep on top of these things to kind of know
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Hong Lieu: What communities going to
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Akil: In the here's the funny thing to in regards to that a lot of I
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Akil: You know, that's a known thing where a lot of people of color, end up moving out towards the desert like Palmdale
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Akil: And then, you know, like, in light of what's you know going on in this in our, in our nation with, you know, the protest and you know things.
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Akil: Surrounding race. Well, and then you so yeah people that are from that area that Palmdale Lancaster Lancaster. And I remember when I was in high school, I was talking to
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Akil: One of my friends. They were a year older than me, they're actually at UCSB they were from Lancaster and they were telling me I remember her telling me you know really distinctly that there was having they're having issues around race and you know
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Akil: People that are from, you know, like the Ku Klux Klan, and all these issues up at night caster. This isn't like 94 I was in high school senior 94
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Akil: And she was telling me that. And then so now you bring it full circle here we are 2020 and then, you know, we're still dealing with that same those same issues up in there and it was just recently, there is that
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Akil: Issue around that the black man who was found.
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Akil: On from it from a tree and, you know, I'm just thinking, like man, it's just, here we are 2020 that was in 94 and that's what and who knows this.
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Akil: You know, when they actually start was probably pre 94 but you know it just shows how things are systemic in this country where they just don't change or they change at a slow
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Hong Lieu: Pace Robert probably fill their name of the man in Palmdale, my wife is from Lancaster. So I have a little bit of just going there to visit her parents and just know the area from that. But even within the past like
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Hong Lieu: 10 years or so. I mean, I definitely see like the biker route the biker gang routes that were there and then seeing like the influx of black folks coming in from South Central, and then the Native folks here, the largest black folks always in Lancaster Palmdale
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Hong Lieu: So just to see how it's always been a little bit of friction there and now these conversations. I mean, you know, the, the hope is that things change and things change for the better.
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Akil: And the thing also to the piece that is so significant is that we don't see. We don't do a good job at building community and building bridges. But when things go awry, where we do a great job at pointing fingers. You know what I mean. And so the real work comes
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Akil: In prior to things going back, you know, I mean, if you have built community and you know reached out and try to
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Akil: Communicate with people. Then when things go awry, then you guys can lean on each other. Right. But we don't do a good enough job at at building
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Akil: Community in spaces where people can you know come together and just get to know each other for the sake of getting to know each other.
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Akil: And build trust amongst each other because at the end of the day, I think there's a majority people agree upon that they are all seeking the same thing, you know.
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Akil: But when things go bad, that's when we do a great job at, you know, look at these people. They're all you're doing this or these people aren't doing this so you know that's I think that's an important piece that that needs to be addressed in terms of how we can move forward.
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Hong Lieu: And that is the key is community in terms of community here. I mean, even this podcast that we get some good guests that we've become a little rapport, you know, talk to them. Have you ever taught something for that community.
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Hong Lieu: And you look at the communities in the movies that we mentioned today, you know, suburbia. The community kids that come together.
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Hong Lieu: Boys in the hood. The way that community is that the picture of that block. I mean I what I loved about boys in the hood is how honest, it is because
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Hong Lieu: You know there are a lot of films glamorizing that the whole gangster thing and just making like gangsters in every house. Now these neighborhoods where where people that want to go to college, people that might want to go to military
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Hong Lieu: Were some there were some kids deep in the streets to but that's part of it too.
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Hong Lieu: You know i mean i mean that's the thing that area of 90 cinnamon, you had, you know, for South Central Minnesota. The boys in the hood colors you still and we had blood in blood out American be and you know there is maybe the logo that wasn't, I wasn't mentioned
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Hong Lieu: And
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Hong Lieu: And just in just in terms of Asian exposure. Even I mean Joy Luck Club was a big movie, you know, in terms of
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Hong Lieu: Reasons on the screen, you know, like I never. I mean, I grew up watching Kung Fu movies.
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Hong Lieu: Hong Kong cinema 100% you know there's a lot of great movies in the 90s, you know that they're being put out in Asian markets, but to see that movie come out of the Hollywood system and see Asians on the screen on a VHS tape. I can read it blockbuster was
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Hong Lieu: Already you know pretty crazy. Yeah.
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Akil: Well, look, I mean like, even now. Crazy Rich Asians.
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Akil: Is
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Akil: Like they they kind of took little nuances from from that and some, like, okay, I mean it's they gave it a modern twist when I definitely see the similarities as enjoy the book.
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Hong Lieu: And that's and that's really the thing that people talk about greatest movie decades at this and that.
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Hong Lieu: I feel like the 70s or bit film decade the at the great, but the 90s, for me, in terms of the final the finally expanding the audience and getting more voices in there.
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Hong Lieu: You know, like getting getting a, like a Joy Luck Club to have your Asian voice GETTING GETTING THE INNER CITY stories told the boys in the hood, things of that sort.
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Hong Lieu: You know you have a movie like Pulp Fiction that comes out of nowhere clerks all these independent movies that came out in the 90s that
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Hong Lieu: To me is pound for pound, definitely my favorite film decade, even though the movies in the 70s, I
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Hong Lieu: You know, in terms of objectives, we now say, you know, if you have taxi drivers godfather Apocalypse Now all these films. You can't really go against it. But in terms of voices that speak to me.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, there aren't very many. I mean, all the all the all the black friends are blaxploitation films and then like it was Bruce Lee for into into the drag you know like in terms of the multitude of voices that we got later on.
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Akil: I'm yeah, right. So, so, yeah, in terms of a five top 100
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Hong Lieu: You know, like 70s before great films. I love them all. I'm a student film. So I do love you know the films, but in terms of actually having a multitude of voices and
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Hong Lieu: And doing more, you know, movies, and speak on on, you know, LGBT Q issues and things of that sort. It wasn't really until the 90s and later that a lot of stuff starts
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Hong Lieu: You know some of the was starting to perfect out. I mean, there's a movie, trying to remember crying game. How, how big a deal that was at the flip was that it was it was a, you know, yeah.
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Hong Lieu: Well,
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Akil: Like, like, look, I'm in the same thing for music too. I feel like for me the 90s were like, at least from a hip hop standpoint was. And that's the golden era, you know and i i think a lot of that too is just the consciousness of the 90s.
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Akil: That like from the 70s. I don't mean like the 70s and the old 60s to I would go back to this far search box far as back as a 16th the 60s and the 70s, I think, for some reason, I think it's all just
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Akil: Calculated reached a peak in the 90s, for some reason, you know, to me, and I felt like just, you know, hip hop was so conscious
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Akil: In in films were a lot more conscious and what you're saying that just about being raw and hopefully Hollywood can continue to like people can continue to push Hollywood in those
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Akil: In that direction, more because
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Hong Lieu: It really, it's got, it's gone backwards in some some
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Hong Lieu: Yes, because the big movies have gotten so big, like I've looked at was the best balance in terms of blockbusters and independent movies because the 90s was a very independent heavy decade.
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Hong Lieu: Your terms of music do you like how many, how many independent labels you know like rockets records loud.
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Hong Lieu: Hip Hop. There's a million punk labels out there. And even that is consolidated lately, where it's like the big five and then like all the other independent labels or subsidiaries of those big labels, just like in the studio system.
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Hong Lieu: All the independent
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Hong Lieu: Yes, or now subsidiaries of the big companies.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, like
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Hong Lieu: It, things got a little too efficient. I mean, I love the internet and algorithms are great, but things have gotten a little too efficient. We're squeezing people for every last penny, we can
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, like the efficiencies and we're squeezing a little too tight. We're not letting people be human anymore.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, being focus group and just like you know just beat up before it gets released and we have to go back a little bit to that let people let people do something, some independent vendor things, you know,
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Akil: I meant I was also to. I was thinking about certain scenes that are still relevant. You know it in like the pole police brutality that was address we saw shades of that in a couple different scenes throughout the movies.
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Akil: You know, even, you know, there's two, there's two scenes with
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Akil: were furious speaking to little tray and they they're talking about issues surrounding you know sexual protection and how educated on sex.
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Akil: And and that type of stuff. And I was like, man, that was pretty forward thinking, you know, they mean because they do address it, because in the 90s, you know you had age. Right.
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Akil: And so they again another brilliant way that singleton
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Akil: Chose to put that in the film to as well, you know,
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Hong Lieu: Just weaving in issues of the time and allow
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Hong Lieu: You to do the amount of research you wanted to do and then like I said in the 90s research was a much tougher to do you really had to want it. And so if you really wanted it, you really could, you know, get some true kind of wisdom out of things.
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Akil: Yeah, because I feel like when you have to search for it, like legitimate search not search like Google Wikipedia, like when you really had to make a commitment to something, it really became a life altering
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Akil: Because you put the work into actually, you know, look for it, man. I remember going looking in the Dewey Decimal I'm dating myself but remember they doing that's what says
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Hong Lieu: Oh, yeah. And so they have to go through all that and then you gotta go search for the book. Like, by the time you got the book. You're like, Damn, I'm going to read it like you had the option you were going to not read it.
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Akil: But now it's like the information so bashing so easily accessible. Like it doesn't really penetrate the same
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Hong Lieu: It doesn't hit the same absolutely does not have the same, like I said, there were a lot of gatekeepers that were bad things about that system.
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Hong Lieu: But there were some good things too, because if I wanted to be a punk. I really had to know and I had to like live it.
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Hong Lieu: I love it.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, and I went over to hip hop. Someone asked me what the four elements of hip hop was. And I was like, Oh, I like these are not gullible terms back then.
436
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Hong Lieu: I had to get hit from someone else.
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Hong Lieu: Someone had to give me four elements of hip hop emceeing B boying
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Hong Lieu: Me Jamie graph, you know,
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Hong Lieu: I would say fashion, you get the fifth element. Yeah.
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Akil: Yeah.
441
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Hong Lieu: But yeah, so that those are things that we're not coming now not not going on now. They weren't not. It's not that they weren't common knowledge.
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Hong Lieu: But it wasn't. You just asked anybody on the street and they will let you know. You know, like, and it was the same thing as, like, all you've heard you've
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Hong Lieu: Heard of Husker Du are Killing Joke these bands and like you know oh okay fine and then like, Oh, what about mission of Burma, what about this now. So you had to like start dropping the things
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Hong Lieu: And really knowing these things and knowing the message behind it, because I mean the crust punks, as you know, that is crazy. They look at things.
445
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Hong Lieu: There are they are they do have like their moral based there's a moral base there that you have to kind of answer to. So like
446
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Hong Lieu: Asking about bands and asking about message is really testing about are you down with the culture with the cause know and that's. Same with us another four elements of hip hop.
447
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Hong Lieu: Do you just want a party. Do you
448
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Hong Lieu: Want a party or do you understand that this is a culture that is growing and evolving and that is constantly being scrutinized
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Hong Lieu: And you don't want to be the one you know acting a fool and bringing you know knocking on the culture and Megan and making us look bad. You know, so
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00:51:31.170 --> 00:51:42.000
Hong Lieu: It was it was a universal thing that that's kind of, it's not like it's lacking. It's still there, but it's just a lot easier just Google like I used to have to trade VHS tapes of live bootlegs class sales. You know, like
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00:51:42.030 --> 00:51:43.170
Akil: Yeah yeah
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Hong Lieu: You go live. Now YouTube all the shows that I paid probably five $600 over the life of my high school career to buy VHS bootleg though we're solving someone's been recording off of someone's dream for all blurry and we're
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00:51:54.360 --> 00:51:55.410
Akil: Like yeah
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00:51:55.980 --> 00:52:03.120
Akil: Or how do you remember this like even like when like radios shows with like play certain songs and you just wait.
455
00:52:03.120 --> 00:52:07.020
Hong Lieu: All you awake the whole time just to hit the record button on your take.
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00:52:07.110 --> 00:52:08.730
Hong Lieu: On the tape on the top of the day.
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Akil: We see that's what I'm saying, like, and I know for me growing up. I mean, I
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Akil: I grew up in Santa Barbara. I say, I'm from Shannon, or my father was a military I graduated from high school, so I tell people I'm from Santa Barbara, but I remember like be if you're, if you were being called a seller. That was like one of the worst things ever. It's like a death sentence.
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00:52:26.850 --> 00:52:28.080
Hong Lieu: So our closer. Oh.
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00:52:28.080 --> 00:52:28.530
Akil: Yeah.
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00:52:28.740 --> 00:52:39.420
Akil: Why, when you said that when you said a poser or sell out that really struck a chord, because I'm like Yeah, man. I remember like nobody nobody wanted to be a song that was like a death sentence.
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00:52:39.480 --> 00:52:39.780
Hong Lieu: Yeah.
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00:52:39.840 --> 00:52:43.680
Hong Lieu: Yeah, there was no terms of your rancor if you if you backed out of the fight. You never want
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00:52:44.160 --> 00:52:45.210
Hong Lieu: To remember the rails like
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Akil: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, I mean, those are the
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00:52:51.180 --> 00:53:06.150
Akil: You know, the things that I really truly admire about the 90s and one other point that I'll speak on and boys. A good and I, and this is kind of piggyback off of what you were saying is that it was really, really. I love how singleton
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Akil: Like you what you were saying how he showed normal people in the hood night, everyone was like, literally.
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00:53:14.160 --> 00:53:15.120
Akil: Like gangsters and
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00:53:15.450 --> 00:53:24.480
Akil: Remember the scene where he's like he comes in like so the movie starts off when their kids. And then, you know, they it fast Fords like 10 years later, like when
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00:53:24.870 --> 00:53:39.720
Akil: They're in high school. Right. And so he comes in and Cuba Gooding Jr. Trey is all dressed up with the yellow shirt with the black guy and he and everyone else is all you know, looking like in their Dickies and white shirts and he's like yeah working at Fox Hill mall.
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00:53:40.140 --> 00:53:44.070
Akil: I remember going to Fox Hill was back in the day, it was a spot to be
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00:53:44.490 --> 00:53:46.830
Akil: In actually even now, it's still there. There's like
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00:53:46.860 --> 00:53:47.310
Hong Lieu: Still there.
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00:53:47.730 --> 00:53:59.400
Akil: And it's still, it's still has that that kind of culture aspect of just being around other people of color. And so what I was like, yeah, that's a brilliantly done like look, here's a person raised
475
00:54:00.090 --> 00:54:09.630
Akil: Went from was raised by his mother got in trouble at school. She should have shipped him his dad. He grew up is working on the fox. So, blah, and he finds himself in the middle of
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00:54:10.800 --> 00:54:19.410
Akil: This game thing you know and and and how many stories is that played out across this country. You know what I mean.
477
00:54:20.880 --> 00:54:25.200
Hong Lieu: Yeah, and it's just, it's just the nature of the circumstances, you know, you just have to be to live in this neighborhood.
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00:54:25.830 --> 00:54:27.390
Hong Lieu: That just because you live in the neighborhood.
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00:54:27.630 --> 00:54:27.960
Akil: Ya.
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00:54:28.020 --> 00:54:30.780
Hong Lieu: Know, and that's even if someone in East LA. Like, I mean,
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00:54:32.010 --> 00:54:36.420
Hong Lieu: You know, the Asian Games work a little differently because it was a lot more under the radar stuff, you know,
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00:54:37.020 --> 00:54:41.460
Hong Lieu: It wasn't as much neighborhood sense as it was. I knew someone who knew someone whose family was linked in with that but
483
00:54:41.880 --> 00:54:46.230
Hong Lieu: It was still a real thing. We're just being in the neighborhood. You read you. You are abroad stuff.
484
00:54:46.530 --> 00:54:56.370
Hong Lieu: And you had no rules. You have to know how to act, you had to know the way that be around certain places and not put yourself in any further danger than the danger, you're already read just for living somewhere, you know,
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00:54:57.660 --> 00:55:03.810
Hong Lieu: And and that's you know that these are the things that we talked about and started like in the 90s, they still exist today that is different. The rules have changed or
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00:55:04.290 --> 00:55:12.720
Hong Lieu: I feel like there are fewer rules, but I don't know because I'm old. I'm not the game so but it feels more law this now, in some ways, you know, like in other ways, know in some way. Yes.
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00:55:14.280 --> 00:55:17.760
Akil: Yeah, I mean, look, right. So in the 90s. I know especially
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00:55:19.290 --> 00:55:27.660
Akil: In those communities, which was kind of really interesting that singleton took this approach. But usually, if you are like a star athlete, like you were like you weren't
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00:55:29.190 --> 00:55:39.660
Akil: You were like you're off the table. In other words, so bankers only mess with bankers. You know what I mean, like, and if you are a star athlete. People are like, oh, he represents our community. Don't
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00:55:40.320 --> 00:55:50.190
Akil: Don't they're off right and so even like even I remember because my daughter plays tennis just, you know, the still hearing stories about Serena and Venus growing up in Compton.
491
00:55:50.640 --> 00:56:08.880
Akil: And everyone knew them and they're like, okay, don't mess with them. These are our athletes and and so there was, like, kind of like a code of conduct, so to speak, amongst people who were in gangs and so I don't know if that's still is applicable.
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Akil: Today, but I just thought it was interesting that he
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00:56:12.030 --> 00:56:20.070
Akil: Chose Ricky, who was, you know, in the movie was look like he was going places you know athletically and Yeah where's
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00:56:20.160 --> 00:56:23.730
Hong Lieu: Where's Mom has an essay T score in her head. He had to get a 700 you got seven
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00:56:23.730 --> 00:56:24.030
Seven.
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00:56:26.550 --> 00:56:30.240
Akil: Man, he was messing around, trying to get those scratch offs.
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00:56:32.010 --> 00:56:36.630
Akil: eating, drinking milk and eaten the, what was the chocolate dialer.
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00:56:39.360 --> 00:56:43.890
Hong Lieu: Yeah, even, even when Kendrick had that song about me mentioned Arron Afflalo and one of his tracks.
499
00:56:44.280 --> 00:56:49.230
Hong Lieu: Because they're in the follow was the chosen one. He was good at basketball. He's gonna make it. You're gonna come out of it. You know, so
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00:56:49.680 --> 00:56:58.650
Hong Lieu: So yeah, I feel like that's the thing for sure. And I feel like, you know, it's nice. Lot of unwritten rules I can baseball and baseball, and it was in the streets unwritten rules of this, you know,
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00:56:59.070 --> 00:57:01.080
Akil: Yeah. Right. Absolutely no crime.
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00:57:01.380 --> 00:57:06.210
Hong Lieu: With baseball. We do need. We do need to talk about the Yankees cheating allegations with you at some point, but you
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00:57:07.380 --> 00:57:09.930
Akil: Guys, not for this podcast.
504
00:57:13.740 --> 00:57:17.220
Akil: You and we see when if your angels are going to actually ever
505
00:57:18.390 --> 00:57:19.860
Akil: live up to the hype man.
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00:57:20.520 --> 00:57:23.880
Hong Lieu: This year, next year. This year, next year. Yeah. So yeah.
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00:57:24.270 --> 00:57:27.300
Hong Lieu: Good conversation good movies we can we can revisit the sports.
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00:57:27.540 --> 00:57:28.380
Akil: And we can we
509
00:57:29.640 --> 00:57:31.050
Hong Lieu: Can make it a regular section.
510
00:57:31.560 --> 00:57:33.810
Akil: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
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00:57:34.530 --> 00:57:42.540
Akil: And actually it will be kind of pretty cool to do like you know what's going on on campus, like the certain updates.
512
00:57:43.290 --> 00:57:54.720
Akil: So if people have any kind of events or anything going on, you know, reach out to either of us. And then, you know, we can just do a quick plug like what's going on around campus.
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Hong Lieu: First FIRST PART OF OUR SHOW should always be committed to promoting a institution and the great things that are doing the community Absalom News and Events anything's happening. And then, you know, we know the food will end, but
514
00:58:04.800 --> 00:58:08.850
Hong Lieu: We'll discuss, you know, movies, film and stuff. And you can see what what kind of grows from that.
515
00:58:08.910 --> 00:58:19.500
Hong Lieu: You know, like you want to talk about two movies and how far we can go. Today, you know, we're talking about all kinds of stuff. So I feel like we got a good format here and we'll keep a movement will be our first guest is right.
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00:58:19.830 --> 00:58:21.090
Akil: Yeah, absolutely. We'll see.
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00:58:21.120 --> 00:58:21.540
We're ready.
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Hong Lieu: Alright, so I so that would, that closes out for this week. Our inaugurait episode. Thank you all for joining us whenever this gets posted and we'll see you soon.
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Hong Lieu: Thank you. Alright.
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Akil: Alright, see you guys.