Akil and Hong welcome SBCC Board of Trustees president Jonathan Abboud to the show to talk about the board and its role in the SBCC administrative process. From there, the three do a deep dive into Jonathan's path from LA to Santa Barbara, and then from there discuss Jonathan's favorite restaurants in LA and SB, along with the films, books, music, and video games (a first for the show!) that have helped make him who he is today.
Mentioned in this Episode:
SBCC Board of Trustees - https://www.sbcc.edu/boardoftrustees/
California Community Colleges - https://www.cccco.edu/
Community College League of California - https://ccleague.org/
Brown Act - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Act
Ethics - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
SBCC BoardDocs - https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/sbcc/Board.nsf/vpublic
Halo Multiplayer Culture - https://www.theringer.com/2019/11/11/20958715/halo-2-anniversary-first-person-shooter-xbox-master-chief-history-i-love-bees
The year 2008 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008
The Great Recession - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recession
Sunset Town - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town
Santa Monica College - https://www.smc.edu/
Janet Napolitano UC President controversy - https://edsource.org/2013/napolitano-named-new-uc-president-amid-student-protests/36234
Deltopia “Riot” - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/04/06/299913190/deltopia-spring-break-party-morphs-into-riot-in-santa-barbara
May 23, 2014 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Isla_Vista_killings
Isla Vista Community Services District - https://islavistacsd.ca.gov/
Dome House - https://localwiki.org/islavista/Geodesic_Dome_House
CA local Agency Formation Commission (CALAFCO) - https://www.calafco.org/
Tony Roma’s - https://tonyromas.com/
In N Out Burger - https://www.in-n-out.com/
Bettina - https://www.bettinapizzeria.com/
Third Window - https://www.thirdwindowbrewing.com/food-new
Wingman Rodeo - https://www.orderwingman.com/
Industrial Eats - https://industrialeats.com/
Freebirds World Burrito - https://www.freebirdsiv.com/
Johnnie’s Pastrami - https://www.laconservancy.org/locations/johnnies-pastrami
Tito’s Tacos - https://www.titostacos.com/
Burger She Wrote - https://burgershewrote.com/
JR’s BBQ - https://www.jrs-bbq.com/
Honey’s Kettle - https://honeyskettle.com/
Birria de Res - https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021858-birria-de-res-beef-birria
Todd Wilbur’s Top Secret Recipes - https://www.youtube.com/user/todderman
Shawerma - https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017161-oven-roasted-chicken-shawarma
Halal Guys - https://thehalalguys.com/
Reverse-seared Steak - https://www.seriouseats.com/reverse-seared-steak-recipe
Isla Vista Food Co-Op - https://www.islavistafood.coop/
Shalhoob Butcher Shop - https://shalhoob.com/butcher-shop
Santa Cruz Markets - https://santacruzmarkets.com/
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - https://www.zelda.com/tears-of-the-kingdom/
Game of Thrones - https://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire
Universal Studios - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Studios_Hollywood
Back to the Future - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future
Terminator 2: Judgment Day - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_2:_Judgment_Day
Godzilla film franchise - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_(franchise)
Shin Godzilla - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Godzilla
Hideaki Anno - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideaki_Anno
Neon Genesis Evangelion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Genesis_Evangelion
Yu-Gi-Oh! - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu-Gi-Oh!
Halo franchise - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(franchise)
Metal Gear franchise - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Gear
Zelda franchise - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda
“Friction” in game design - https://kotaku.com/in-praise-of-sticky-friction-5558166
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Gear_Solid_2:_Sons_of_Liberty
Metal Gear Solid 2 Cutscene About Misinformation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C31XYgr8gp0
Dark Side of the Moon by Pink FLoyd - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon
Random Access Memories by Daft Punk - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_Access_Memories
Nostalgia, Ultra by Frank Ocean - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia,_Ultra
Bad Religion on Jimmy Fallon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9Fbnp4Kilk
SBCC Dream Center - https://www.sbcc.edu/equity/dream-center/
SBCC Umoja - https://www.sbcc.edu/equity/umoja/
SBCC Student Commencement Speaker - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B5IoEiQbT0&t=2853s
Captions provided by Zoom
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Hong Lieu: Hello and welcome to another episode of SBCC Vaquero Voices - a podcast highlighting the unique voices that comprise our campus culture, and how we're all working together to serve our students and the community at large.
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Hong Lieu: As usual, I'm joined by co-host Akil Hill, and today we are honored to welcome Sbcc. Board of trustees, President Jonathan, Abboud to the show, the big, the big fish. Welcome, Jonathan. It truly is an honor the normally you be preferences, honorable trustee. You earn it. So you know you got you got a role with it. I feel like once you've earned it, because I mean.
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Akil Hill: I mean, it's not like they just hand you that position. It's not like, you know. It's not like we're to get to where you've gotten to. So let's let's respect the work with respect to grind and stand in your light.
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Hong Lieu: So, Jonathan, ha! It's an honor to have you here today, and I guess you know, for a lot of folks. It it is kind of mysterious in terms of the inner workings of the board. It's not like you, just like. show up, pull up after having my ties in the beach and start voting on stuff. I mean, I'm sure people are like email, you, Random, or they do have like, I said, schedule of like you can email me during these times, or do I really just people because hidden you up whenever they feel like it, and voicing their concerns because you are the voice of the of your constituents.
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Hong Lieu: You are the voice of the people. Truly we talk about serving our community large, and the trustees do that work, I mean. So if you want to speak on that a little bit, or just like what the process is like, and you know a little bit on, on, on how the board is seeing functions and stuff, because there are even limitations to what you can vote on your oversight and all that. So if you want to give us a little breakdown for the
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I'm happy to give a breakdown, and then also, like what we're working on, what's next? and just some of my reviews of how things are going. But I'll give like the basics first, which is, you know what what the board is? So the board is
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): the fiduciary, like the the body responsible for at the end of the day the legal issues, the financial issues, the facilities and the policies of the college. Those are like the the foundation of everything else being possible. So there, that's what they're responsible for If any of those things go wrong.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): the board is who's at fault? Not any one person.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): so that's kind of what our one of our roles is to be the the.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): the governance body and the fiduciary body. So we also do governance, which
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): is really translated through our hiring of a superintendent President, who we set goals for, and make sure. You know we we work with them to make sure those calls are followed through on the board. I always say more doesn't do anything. I mean, that's not necessarily true. We don't do like the
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): actual production work of the college that, like you both you and others do. We don't like that. Sometimes people do think that like we work at this at the school, and no well, we don't
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): So we don't. So we're not into that part of the the job. We we set the policies. We set the budget. We
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): any agreements go through the board contracts for the district. So we we take on that role, for for the college and it. This is how the California has decided to set up its system. So it's not unique to Sbcc.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): every community college district there's 70 to 73 depending on how you count it. in the State. They all have their own board. Ours is a little bigger than most. We're 7 elected trustees, and so the board is also a nebulous thing. It's the board is essentially a majority of the Board. You know. The we do take action as a majority body. and one of our policies is, you know, once you've taken action, we move forward, you know, as that's the Board's decision.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and so we we take on action. Sorry I
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): getting a little mixed up here. So we take on action as a unit, and that is but we are made up of individual elected officials from different districts. So we have 7 from the different geographic
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): regions of our Santa Barbara Community College district. So I represent Ile Vista and the southern part of Galita. Others represent the city of Santa Barbara, see Theleda, Monte Cristo, Carpenter, and and other areas. So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): we come together to make these decisions. The Board President and the Vice President have an additional role where we help set the agenda and work with the superintendent. But really our agenda, we have a lot of it planned out in advance for the year. So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): there are certain things that always happen at certain times. And but as things come up, the Board President and this vice President work with the superintendent President to
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): map out each agenda a, you know, a couple of weeks in advance and make sure that everything is being done to have it be ready. So usually that's work that the superintendent that delegates to vice presidents and others to produce reports, or You know other other presentations. But sometimes, you know, the Board does. say we would like to see a policy discussed, and then that then goes to the you know, the be-pap committee.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): that's kind of how we work. we're really a lay board. That's what people say to that. That means we're not experts like anyone can be a board member.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you don't have to have a certain degree. You don't have to have a certain training anyone who's sick over 18, and a Us. Citizen can run to be on the board.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And so that's we come together from many different perspectives. And that's kind of the point is, you know, we we bring the community perspective, and we take on that fiduciary responsibility. But we leave the actual running of the college to the people who know how to run the college.
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Hong Lieu: And and you you mentioned the the extra role the President and Vice President Board play with the superintendent. I'm I'm sure, depending on the Board Administration. It can be very, you know. There's some discretion in terms of how hard or how much work that entails. But knowing what I know about you, and knowing what I know about Dr. Mario, for y'all, I'm sure you all are doing some some heavy lifting behind the scenes. So
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Hong Lieu: I mean it. It. It's something where it's kind of a euphemism for some folks, but for you, I bet there's some serious serious work going on, some just to commend you and the Vice President and Dr. Reel for the regular and behind the scenes, because because stuff is moving, and there's a lot of stuff going on if you keep up with the board again, as they're always packed, you know, and and it's in it. It wasn't always the case, you know, and and just to say, Just leave it like that. And so so y'all are really grinding behind the scene. So much appreciate the work you're doing. And and
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): yeah, cause cause these decisions they're talking about like that. That's why you get the big bucks to make the decisions. Y'all are not getting those big bucks as like. But I didn't mention that. Yeah, we don't get it. It's like 400 a month, and they do cover your health insurance to if you want it. So some take it, some don't. But so it's a little better. But you you all are making those big calls and doing a lot for us so much appreciated. Thank you. And yeah, we me and Dr. Maria, I think we talk every day pretty much every day, so we try not to on the weekends, but
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): sometimes we have to on the weekends as well. So it's a 20 four-seven situation early morning, late night or weekends.
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Akil Hill: Yeah. And how long? How? How long have you been on the board, Jonathan?
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): That's kind of a super long time now. 8 years. So I I got. I started December 2,014 that my first meeting
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): when I got elected. So I had just graduated college in June
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): of that year.
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Akil Hill: Oh, wow! That's
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Akil Hill: I'm excited like Hug and said, You know, I think I I'm a believer that you know. I mean, I've been on campus for a while now, but this board really excites me. I feel like, you know, that we're trending in such a great direction. And and you know, with Dr. Mariel coming in and kinda just really being a key part of kind of just setting a a new tone on campus. And
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Akil Hill: and under your leadership as well at it's it's exciting times. And I'm really looking for to, you know, the next few years with, you know, with the new President superintendent to be coming in as well as what the Board is doing. It's just it's exciting. I feel real confident in our board.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I I feel the same way. I mean, that was one of the reasons I decided to say for the third term, because I felt that we were on the up and up.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I have to root for the board, like things are good right now we can always improve, for always. We, you know we are talking about it. We have a retreat coming up in order to work on it. More improvement. But I'm feeling super happy about how things are going, and you know, when analogy someone else told me you you got to have the board presence like the team captain and the superintendent president is like the coach. So you have to have a good coach. You have to have a
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): team captain, who's, you know, putting in that work.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): But you know, I think, having that coach of Dr. Mario, it's really like she has coached the board. I I would say that she's really
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): taught us how to be a good board, and you need to have that foundation of a superintendent who knows what they're doing
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and who understands their role, understands the Board's role and helps, you know, get the cause. The board is, you know, we are the ones who are. I hate to say they weren't in charge, but we also don't know enough, and the we need to be coached into knowing things and also knowing how to do our role. and being trained, I think a lot of our trustees are getting training now, like our 2 new trustees, Dr. Gallup, More and Ellen Stoddard and
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Dr. Everett, they they're getting training. That wasn't available previously.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And so that's you know, it's just so critical that she's able to do that and inform us and give us so much good knowledge. Then we can make decisions. I mean, yeah, we we are going to make the decisions. We agree most of the time. Sometimes we might disagree.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): but I think Dr. Maria has definitely coached us into being a strong board. So I'm I'm excited. And you know some new members who've joined are also adding really great new perspectives.
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Hong Lieu: And I guess that's a a question I have in terms of the those transitory periods, because, just like, you know, city college students are here for X amount of years, and and board members are on 4 year term. So it sounds like a lot of time. And then, before you know what that time is up? So, in terms of transition from one to another, is there like a hand off process? Is there an official kind of thing, or is it just kind of you wing it as it goes, depending on
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): how it works out? And then, because in terms of getting folks up to speed right? When they take office, they take that oath and they're deciding matters, and they're voting on things right away. So in terms of that transition process. How does that even, I mean, it's probably different depending on the board. But for you all, how does that work out? Yeah, there's not one set in stone. And so it's happened differently different years. But excuse me. Well, Dr. Maria has been here.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I know that you had meetings and orientation with the candidates, all of them.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know. It was all free to anyone can come and meet with her and learn.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): So she had that for Canada, so that when they're on the campaign trail they can speak, you know, with the with all the facts
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): on the campaign trail. And then there have been since the new trustees have come in 2Â h workshops every few weeks that she's held specifically about the college with the different vice presidents and different folks who do the work.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And then we, the we have the California Community College League, which is our Statewide Association, and in January they have every, you know, every year in January they have a
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): effective trustee and new trustee orientation. So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): new trustees are encouraged to go to that. Our new trustees did go.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): So they went. And so that is like the official trustee training. It's not required, and a lot of people do not go but it. That is the place to learn how to be a trustee.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): It's not going to teach you about what's going on on campus for sure, but it's going to teach you about the statewide trends and just the best practices. And you know, here's what you do. Here's what you don't like. You don't
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know? Micro manage the superintendent? It's good to hear that from an expert, you know. The superintendent can tell you that, and the board present can tell you that. But it's, you know, when in the desk it's an expert telling you that it. I think it. It's differently. And so
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): yeah, that that's what they do. And they had an additional new trustee orientation this year, too. So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): the League does a lot of that. Our K. Dr. Mario has done a lot of that good work to, for, like the campus-specific information, but technically there's nothing set in stone or nothing required. Someone could choose to not attend anything if they wanted to. You know they call him road trustees. That's like the League comes in. Doesn't want to really get acquainted with things and kind of goes on their own, and tries to
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): do their own thing and kind of it's disruptive almost, because they're not getting educated and also feel like, you know, they have all the authority that they don't actually have. It's none of us have any authority. I do not. I. Only thing I can do is vote. The Board majority has the authority. I think that's a big difference, like I have 0 power.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Only the Board as a full as a majority vote has any amount of power. I you might have influence as an individual.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): But you have 0 power.
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Hong Lieu: and it's it's, you know. You talk about the rotor season, the state orientations, I mean. They compared to like a private sector board. the brown act, and and all the things that come with public sector. You really should go to one of these orientations. I'm sure Brown Act is a huge conversation topic in terms of what you can and can't do, because there's a lot of things that seem like.
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Hong Lieu: you know, they, without knowing that you can't do that. It's it you. There's a lot of nuance there, and that's you know, the he only gets so much from a state, I think, for you get the nuances of each individual board, and each individual set up. So it just as a starting block, going to those orientations then coming in here and figuring out where the nuance is laid. I mean, it just seems like it makes a lot of sense. Just that would be the path. But I mean, Hey, you go. Ro, you go. So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): yeah, yeah. And I was gonna mention one thing which the brown act is so important. And what's also really stressed at these conferences I thought was good. The last one was ethics.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and just that there's a lot. And the State adds more ethics rules all the time, which is good. But you know, for example, one of the new laws is, if you've taken a contribution
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): of over a certain amount, I think, is 200 to 50. I don't want to quote the wrong number, and someone who's given that donation has business before the board. You must recuse yourself before that wasn't required. so you could have gotten like a $50,000 contribution, and then voted on that person's contract, and never.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know, said anything or done anything. So ethics, I think, are also really, really stressed at least 2,
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Hong Lieu: which which is very, very good to hear. You know it. It's a it's a nice, it's nice to know, and it's one of those things where you you write the policies and you have those those procedures and places based you can. There's always loophole jumpers. You talk about people going, rogue. It's just
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Hong Lieu: they're just ways around everything but the fact that you know, like you, you you do your intentions as best you can, and then see where it lays, and then you probably have to. Behind. The scenes have to, you know, work. If something does happen. All this board, I'm sure, and done no issues with that. But you know, in general, it's so. It's kind of an interesting dance between the policies and procedures versus the actual human element of things, which is, you know.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Yeah, I mean, I have, you know, sometimes policies don't get followed, and if no one is enforcing it, not getting followed. That's a problem. And so we need to sometime we have had some.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): It's really good. I think our new trustees have been looking at our policies a lot, and I've heard from them. Hey? You know, this is one of our policies. How could we? you know, live this more? because maybe we haven't been fully living some of our policies. So that's one of my priorities as board President is to make sure that you know we're living by our policies, and you know we can make changes. So then, if there's any changes we need to make, there's some. I've had an idea for changing
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): that we've already done. But yeah, I think we need to live our policies, because if we don't, then it kind of invalidates them in other people's eyes, they everyone else will. This doesn't really matter if they have policy and they're not following their policy. Then why do I have to follow it? So?
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Akil Hill: 1. One thing that I really like about that statement that she just said is that
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Akil Hill: you know, I think in a lot of cases people wait to
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Akil Hill: for something to happen. And then they start looking at the policies right? And so it's automatically you. You're in a a defensive prostate.
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Akil Hill: I do like the idea of looking through the policies and living the policies. So when a situation occurs, everyone's already steeped in the understanding of what the policies are versus not really knowing, and then realizing, oh, what this policy is, a problem, we should probably change that. It's just the difference of being proactive. while serving on the board. And so
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Akil Hill: I know I sat on When you guys worked out on resolution 18 and just looking at the policies
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Akil Hill: is is is always a is a good thing. Everyone wins. I really believe that.
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Hong Lieu: And it's one of those. Yeah, it's one of the things where the example should be set from the top, you know, like a lot of times, people, people's big problem is that I follow these problems. And I look around me, and everyone's jumping through hoops and loopholes, and this and that when you see it being set from the top, it really does set that press and work trickles down. You're like they're doing it. I got it to. I mean, it makes it does make things more difficult, honestly, you know, for being completely honest. It's easier to be a cheat and the jumps of the rules and explain all this stuff.
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Hong Lieu: But when you, when you see that example me, said the top, because it's artists for y'all, too. So when you're always in that example, it makes it much easier to say it's it's extra work, but it's the right way to do it. So it's really saying that example is important. So it's good to hear that that that level of accountability, I mean it. It is happening here, and it is. It is something that people are are consciously looking to, kind of kind of stay in line with, you know.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And that's, you know. Another thing related that I'm trying to do as
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): the Board present this year is just really keep us focused and like, really focused on our policy role and focused on like the what the endgame is.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and you know, not getting involved in the in the menu show or the nitty gritty. I mean, some things are important in that realm. But really.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know, we had some more discussions where I had to step in recently this year, you know, we were debating $10,000 marketing expenses, and
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know our budgets over a hundred 1 million dollars. And we're a policy level board. And so sometimes we have to, you know. Again, we're no one's perfect right. So we have to. I've I've asked the board, hey? Can we reflect on that and say, let's not deal with that. Let's maybe get a presentation about our marketing strategies, which we did do. But we should really stay focused like same focus. Will, you know, meetings are shorter. That's a nice bonus, but it makes it more meaningful. You know, it's like we're we are really dedicated to that.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Instead of we are looking at everything, you know, turning over every run like, no, that's that's too much work like you're spreading yourself out. You're not really doing a good job anywhere. But let's just stay focused.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, it it it definitely goes both ways where you you miss the force for the trees. But until you can appreciate the individual trees, you don't, really, you can't see how they work in that holistic kind of aspect. So yeah, it's definitely good to have
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): a perspective on both. But it is good for you, as President, to kind of know when to pull the rain, so to speak, and be like, okay, let's pivot. And let's kind of really just hit it. We're at our level because your level, you know, there are levels of game, and you all are at that. That top step. So right? Yeah, that's that's not our. That's not us. Let's let's debate this how anything instead, yeah, exact. I like how you said that.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: excellent. So we will keep. I mean for folks. I will put links to board docs and the show notes, because even just I'm not one that you know full disclosure. I don't stay for with the full meeting every time. But I do try to stay on top of agendas and such and attachments, because those those agendas and the attachments are very important to, you know, to keep in touch with what's going on with the school and stuff. If you can't engage
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Hong Lieu: at John's level, and be at every board meeting for the full amount of time, and you can engage with it, Will, and up the links to the genes and such, and show notes. And we'll keep an eye, we'll just, you know, keep up with what the port is doing. Segue now, Jonathan, to what brought you to Spcc. So your path
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Hong Lieu: it is different than most in terms of you were elected here to serve on our board, but in terms of your path before that, I mean, everybody's got their own path. They walk, and if you want to go into a little bit what your path to your Fbc. Was, we'd love to hear it.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Yeah, I'd I'd love to, so I guess I'll I'll keep it shorter on the path to when I got there, and then go into how I've you know how things have been since I got here, too. But
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I would say, like to get to how I got to Sbcc, how, as I at that moment, you know, ready to run, I think I would have to go back a little bit to my younger days.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): When I was there, you know, when I was a kid and growing up and everything, but I grew up in la my parents They emigrated, they they immigrated to La from Lebanon, but I grew up in the I was, you know. La a kid
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): we're we're in la before. Hate to, but we're in. La, I just please interrupt. Los Angeles and Venice. If you're there it is! There it is! Mid- city, exactly right there. the Kaiser, you know. Permanente the 10 freeway big views from my room.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): but no, it was. It was a great time I lived on a cul de sac, so it was like off the street a little bit. So it was, you know, quieter not not, you know, Los Angeles right there, but you know no traffic on our street. So that was nice, and
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): our block was all
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): pretty much. Everybody on our block was Their parents were an immigrant from somewhere. so that was that was nice. We were all. It was pretty diverse, and we were, but it was all it pretty much immigrants. So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know, way to grow up lots of friends you know. People to talk, you know, hang out with as a kid. It was really, that was really important, like people to. Just, you know, we we were like the kind of kids who like played, you know, a lot of tag, a lot of video games. And you know, we were that kind of kid that we got into like just you know, we got to do like as we got older.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): pretty much more video games. Any any games of choice you want to shout out, I mean, we were really big on halo, as a group like that's how we all initially really got close was They all brought their X boxes to my house and for my birthday one year, and we all hooked up the screen, peaking the screen, peeking. You got to put like barriers up so people will look at you what you're doing. Yup. So it was fun, I mean. But you know it was interesting. We all went to different high schools.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): even though we all live in the same block. And that's because so we belong to high school called Hamilton High School. My mom went there when she moved to America. That's where she ended up going
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): But and you know she didn't have a great experience herself there. and so I she got me like an inter district transfer to Culver City High, which is also closer to her work.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And then another friend like got the same to Santa Monica, because that's where his mom was working at Santa Monica College. and other friends went to Hamilton. So we all went. We. It was it was nice because we had, like our home friends, and then our high school friends, and we didn't have to mix those too much.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): but no, I think that experience like our friend group. Really it, we learned a lot from each other because we're all different cultures.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and but we all had, you know, similar upbringing similar. You know what we what was pop culture at the time? we was all the same right for all the same things and everything but our our family cultures were all different. It was. It was really a great way to grow up. I I'm really, you know, we're all best friends. Still, we're all going, you know, to a wedding this weekend, actually, for for one of us who are the first or the second getting married. So it's nice to still have you know, my childhood friends
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): around. But yeah. So I I went to Culver High, so I was separate from from my friends there. So I was kinda like
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): alone, because I I had gone to Catholic school my first 8 years in school, like a little little Catholic school down the street.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): So that was also whole experience. Were you Catholic at the time?
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Yeah, my parents as well. So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): went to Catholic school, and I, you know I like it. There were pluses and minuses us with everything. But I wasn't personally a huge fan of the of the system, but of of the way the school was run. Nothing about Catholic or Catholic schools. Just that school. It's I was not a big fan
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): but I went to. I was. I really was eager to go to public high school like that was super exciting for me.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And that's where I really like. Found myself and got really involved with things. I was kind of shy in like K through 8.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): But then going to public high school. So that's really what made me really love public schools was going to my public high school, my teachers. There were incredible people like every year. Pretty. I I still am in touch with almost all of them. that I can still be in touch with. So it was a great experience there, and that's where I got really politically active at Culver High.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I mean. My junior year was the year of the great Recession, and Obama getting elected. And you know, just the general, I mean, it was like 2,008. So the Iraq War and Afghanistan were
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): major pictures in our news still. So that's like where I came from. And I, you know, being Middle Eastern and 9 11, you know
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): that was a whole thing. and I I was personally also. You know.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): the the anti-surveillance state, and a movement that those were the kinds of things that got me originally, politically going because that, you know, the great recession was impacting our schools budgets. And we were facing budget cuts at school because of, you know, things that were
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): way beyond our control.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): So I so that's how I got, you know. Motivated but it was great I was. It was really a good environment to foster that at Culver. High.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): my! So that what I ended up doing I started off at the newspaper, though. There. So I got. I have a lot of I. You know I have 3 or 4 years of journalism experience at in high school.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I I really, yeah, that taught me a lot to about how to like question things. So I was on the questioning of the administration and of the student government, and
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know of the system at places. So the newspaper does it. It questions and investigates, and it tries to get at the root of things. I did arts and culture as well. So a lot of movie reviews. I I I also like that aspect of the And I'll tell you where I know we're going to talk about media later. So doing it right? You do. I? I gotta say, just just get just a shout out, you do not. Not. Only in that moment was a lot of changing in in the global global world cover that area. Culver City, in particular, was changing a lot. Because I remember Culver City, you know, even 5, 6 years. But you talk about 2,008,
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Hong Lieu: 5, 6 for that I was commuting to cover CD. Get to send them on it, because I'll work in activation. So just seeing Culver city how fast it was changing there. So you're having a lot changing locally as well as overall everything. So it was just a real time of a lot of fluctuation. And as it with that journalistic mindset being of not only
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Hong Lieu: experience it and document it, even if it's whether it's in your brain or for the paper having a perspective on things is important to to just put that, you know. Equate that in your worldview. I mean, yeah, absolutely, love. I will always shop milking pot aspects of la, but it sounds like you just encapsulate that much better than I could ever ever, you know, like, just just in terms of your lived experience. It's beautiful, so I'm glad you understand. I mean in Culver City it was, and you know I lived on. I live on the border of Culver City in Mid City. Like, literally, like my.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): my car is parked on both cities. Essentially.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): when I'm whole, that's how much on the border between Mid City, like La City of La, and then Culver City. We live, and so, but my apartment is on the La side. So that's why we belong to La Usd for school borders, I mean, that's also I. I haven't mentioned this, and I I I have mentioned this a lot before. Is that this, that disparity of like the quality of Hamilton and the quality of Culver high.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): literally an invisible line under my car? that's also, what really got me politically motivated was like, why is this school better and this one worse?
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And it's it's fake. I mean, it's a fake line. This line doesn't exist anywhere. It's it's under my car. I'm not even definitely, not for people that live there. You did that line, does not, you know, like, yeah, so and so, that's and so for my mom to like, fight for that. And, you know, go through that process of like going through the city administration or this La School District administration and Culver High. And
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): to get me that transfer it just to go to a good school like, why should she have to do that it should? All the schools should be a plus
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): schools? Not some is a B, and some is an A, or any any different grading. So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): that also was a major factor. that you know we I don't see a difference between the block. It's it's all the same to the average person, all of us. We don't see city of Glit, a city of Santa Barbara Board that shouldn't matter. and that's actually one of the reasons I really.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I'm in government and politics like I, I think that just our system as a whole in California
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): is so factionalized. There's so many different government agencies that all have their own small borders and territories, and
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): what they do in different jurisdictions. It makes so many problems hard to solve, because it's easy to point problems like, Oh, well, that's the city of La is not doing their part here, and Culver City is not doing their part here, or the county is not doing it. But the city of Santa Barbara has to. Do. You know, it's easy to point fingers when you have
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Hong Lieu: 50 layers of government. And so I mean, that's just a personal side note, it's yeah, definitely, it's one of the things where it comes down to the people. So yeah, in organizations with good people, it maintains. But then you talk about rogue, and it's loophole exploiters. All it takes is one, and that one organization all of a sudden be set by graft, and it becomes compromised. So it's one of those things where, yeah, it's just. It's just talking about failure points, more more opportunities for fairy points. And we, we're all human at the end of the day. So yeah.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): yeah, failure points. Exactly. So, anyways, yeah. So all this kind of stuff. Got me thinking in Culver when I was going to Culver, and so I ended up. So I was in this newspaper. I ended up running for soon, Buddy President.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): at the insistence of a few people. I what and I definitely wasn't the popular candidate. You know there was the quarterback person running, and also that the person like the person who had been groomed for it. you know, those folks were all running, too, but I came in a solid third place, I think, really solid third place from going from 0 to none. And then I wasn't accepted to be in the class like, you know, you could just be a general member of the student government. I wanted to still contribute. They didn't accept me, so
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I did something controversial, which is, I started an alternative student government. Oh, wow! Look at that! That all the student union. So it was like a different perspective, like, we were going to fight for issues and policies instead of
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): plan to parties. Kind of thing. So that was like, that was what I was trying to do was like, well, there's like this electronics policy, which was the bane of our all of our existence at the time at school, which is, you know, if you had your phone out at any moment
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): on campus or ipod or anything. It was gone for a week. Then it was gone for a semester, and then it was gone for the rest of the school year. so I like 3 strikes at the high school level at the high School, and this, wow! 2,010, and they had instituted it because, apparently The year before, in 2,005 there had been like less of
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): bites, and they? They wanted to, and they they felt they were all game-related fights. And so they said no more electronics, because people would like record the fights or text each other to gather for the fights. And
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I think this is all like thes. To be honest. It it's it's the fights are gonna happen regardless. The phones are not involved in it, and they ended up creating more reasons. And again, it taught me so much about how is a policy put in place the reasons behind it, like, you know, they invoke gangs and fights for this. But then they start talking about well, your phones might get stolen, and we're worried about your phones, but that's their later reason. I mean.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): it taught me a lot about how administrations work and how policies put in place. So I started the student union. And we said, Our, we're going to work on other issues. But our big campaign is going to be to change the electronics policy.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And so we organized. I like went to parent night. And you know, what what is it called like when? Yeah. So I enabled, I like, set up a table in front of the school and back to school night and talk to every parent I'm like, do I? Do you like that? Your kids phone is taken like, didn't you buy their own and out for 5 months? So I got their look at this. This is incredible. I went to the teachers I got there, you know.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Got a petition, you know, rewrote parts of the policy. So we like organize this whole movement. We were not successful. Sadly, like we made a big difference, and we made a lot of effort. I think we got one change, which is like, Oh, yeah. Now, the 7 to 8 period, where, like 3 school time now, it wasn't a being applied, or after 3 when schools over. So we were like able to get relief for the non school hours to have your phone out on campus like, you can even have it visible
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): like not even using it visible. It's gone.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): it's so unreasonable. Okay, really, it's such an unreasonable policy. But
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): we activated a lot of people about it. And I think eventually we had left the roadmap of how the policy could be changed down the line.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and it had lots of different ideas. I think they ended up actually implementing that many years later. But
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): yeah, that's how I that was like the big issue And so that's what I was working on. And in like my last year in high school. It just taught me so much. I went to the school board meetings. I just it was this whole big campaign that I had to. Really, you know, I didn't have any actual position, or
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know, role or anything. But I just said.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): we're gonna do this. We're gonna fix this. So you really hit all aspects there? Because not only
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Hong Lieu: you didn't have a official position. You created an underground like, you know, I always advocate for for that underground, you know, grassroots bringing it. You had the underground movement, and then you hit your wall where you weren't able to actually get the folks did. And then you pivoted from there and still found a way to to pull meeting from that which is which is a lot of people. you know, we hit that wall. And we we get to a point and like, oh, nothing changed. But the truth is, those connections you built, the network you created that persists, you know.
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Hong Lieu: if people are really passionate and feel strongly about what you or just just that organization aspect you can feel strongly about not only what you're doing, and that will persist, and and other issues will bubble up, and eventually you will break through, or time will be on your side, which it sounds like what happened where people realize. Okay, this is, this was a policy in 2,005. We are now 2,000 X. Let's revisit this policy, because now it's totally not making sense, and enforcement becomes UN unsustainable. So so even you can even just wait it out, and it'll work out. But I mean that
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): really, that I hit all aspects. But yeah, please, please continue, no, it's yeah. Thank you. Yeah, we definitely tried really hard. It taught me so much like, and also it helped me, as a person like, you know, gain this. I had to go up to random people and speak with them and explain issues. And you know.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I wrote, I wrote OP-ed it it was. It was just a lot of fun. And but it was frustrating because I felt like we had. We had done our homework. We got the support, we had the analysis. We had the new idea. We had proposals. We were like.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): keep the policy. Just change it in these ways.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Okay, we weren't going for full repeal like we knew that was impossible. So let's go. We go. Let's go with it. It was so. It was frustrating to see, like our efforts, not work. But again, like I said, it taught me a lot about how administrations function. And like, you know, how decisions
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): are going to be held up like they. We're insisting until the end we don't want like, I mean, Culver city has this
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): like horrible history, with like some as a sunset town, and everything and oversee, you know, has has had a really bad reputation on on how it's addressed these kinds of things.
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Hong Lieu: and so I felt like this were echoes essentially of that. Like, maybe those administrators, you know, they were all new to the area, so they weren't necessarily part of that. But they were. They were perpetuating a system.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Yeah. So I. So I did that. And I was like, well, time to go to college, and I I had been on a stem track, actually until I had this experience. And then I switched to political science. But I was trying to do stem stuff like I was.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know, actually, one of my first experiences with community colleges, sadly, was not a good one. I I wasn't like ap count in senior year of high School ap calculus, and I wanted to go to a more advanced math class so that I could be able to be more competitive when I'm applying to a couple of programs.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And so I went to Santa Monica College, and they like make. This is why I'm actually a fan of A. B 705. I know it's not a super popular thing, but I'm kind of a fan of it, because I had a real experience. Where I went to Santa Monica College. I took an assessment test for math and English
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and my math. I got put in free algebra, and I was like what this doesn't make any sense. I'm now locked out of any community college classes
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): above pre algebra because I didn't.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Something happened on this assessment like, I don't know what happened. I thought I was doing well. and so I wasn't able to pursue my goals of you know, taking the more advanced math class at in a community college. Because of that I don't think we had like the same kind of dual enrollment to set up that Sbcc does. So that was like something like that wasn't an option.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and I guess I could have gone to another community college. But it was just very discouraging. I was like, Well, I'm done with this like I might have been a totally different person if I had taken that math to, but
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I never did so. That was my experience with with trying to do that. So that's why I'm like a fan of the Sp of A B 705, because I didn't think those assessments were the right way to go
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): with with things, especially having experienced myself. So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): anyways, I got into Ucsb. I got into a couple I got into New York University, but I did got rejected from la and Sc. Which is where I wanted. I wanted to stay in la really cause I had grown up there. All my friends were there, and everything and But I I ended up
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): deciding on Nyu and then getting essentially called feed of like, well, it's too expensive. I mean, there's like going to be like 400,000 in debt that'd be take up out of state, too. Yeah. Private schools. They they charge me 60 K. For tuition, and that's not housing so per year, and I would have all been loans for 400 a year. essentially so, I was like, no, I think I I made a wrong choice. So then I was going to pivot and go to
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I was. I was just gonna say, let's go to a Santa Monica college like an extremely, you know, in La. It's like the Sbc about. Let you know everybody goes there even. They're the big fish, you know. Ntcrw started there. So they're they're so, you know, I was gonna go there. But I had. I actually ended up just begging ecst. I'm like, I know it's way past the deadline.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Will you still take me? And they said, Yes. I think they said yes, because my class is like one of the smallest classes ecstasy's ever had.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): We were like like 3,000 or less people, usually like 4,000 or more on that. So we were small cost. So they thankfully took me. And then I I came here. I'm like, you know, I'm gonna
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I have ap credits. I'm going to finish in 2 years, and I'm out
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): that that was wrong after a week. But you know that was day one. I was like that. A week later. I was not like that. So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): it's yeah. I stayed here. I got really involved in student government at Ucsb, you know, I went. I went to official one on the inside. So I got involved with, like my with my dorm, and with the actual as on campus.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): That was a great experience, and I ran for the student Senate. My! My! My first year as an independence and no part. We had a party system like not. Oh, wow, you had to affiliate. Yeah, it was like local based parties of like the local, you know, issues of the student government. It was like 3 parties, and like former party, it was extremely
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): yeah competitive. I like that. So I ran independent, though, because I didn't feel like I fit in
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): with the parties yet. So I but I won.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I was like the only so yeah, it was. It was a great win, and that just kept, you know I kept going from there. I stayed on for my third year. I ran for the residence hall president
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): rolled there, and that was a great experience. It was during the 2,012 election. So we really made sure that all the people in the dorms are able to vote
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and we. And then I was the student body president, my senior year. And so.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): yeah, when I was, I had a whole agenda. Let's just say this coming into being a as President, and most of it had to be pivoted because of what happened during the year. I mean, we. Still I still was able to work on. You know most of my ideas of what I wanted to do. But really
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): the year I had in mind was not the year we got, of course. it. So even from like the beginning, we started off with
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Janet Napoleon of being selected Uc. President, which was a, you know massive backlash and
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): the whole problem on its own that could have taken all the effort for the year is.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know, reacting to that. because there was so much on campus that was in reaction to her appointment.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): so that, you know, we started off the year that way, and then we went into just. you know, a year with just so many bad things were happening in Iv, like
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): month after month something was happening, and then we had the riot during Deltopia, while you know, right in quotes. But you know
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): there was a confrontation between many people and police in right here, with a armored car tear gas and rubber bullets being shot at people. So because it's almost a riot.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): But that was the I was on the front lines of that I was. I was in the front of the riot trying to
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): calm people down. And you know, let's try to. Let's try to not do this.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I mean, because what it was was, it's on Camilla, Pascadera and Delta at least that location. There were multiple locations. It was, you know. a crowd of people, mainly Ucsp students. People like to say it was out of tanners, but they were definitely out of town as there, but mainly Csv students.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know, tossing alcohol bottles towards the cops, the cops shooting back with gas, tear, gas and rubber bullets. I mean, it was like an in like a tactical engagement between it. It it was really something else. keep. Someone got hit in the face of the canister. We took them into my house to be taken care of
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Chancellor ends up on Dp. You know.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): working with him to try to, you know. Calm things down. It was a crazy night, but it did you know it was not even half as crazy as
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): the May 20 third that came up soon after. So we we again like we had this whole version of what the year was going to be. and this the I of us, a community services district which I'll definitely go into. We had been pushing that all year, and we had been ignored.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): We had been told. That's a fantasy idea.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): But then the riot happened, and that will some decision makers up and saying like, Yes, we might need a change in the status quo.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and then 6 people are murdered.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and it gets everybody now to care, which is like the big problem, right? Like no one cared about Iv until the murders happened. and that was the issue. Like the issue, was like. Obviously the murders were an issue. Obviously, the right wasn't like all these things were issue. But the problem was like no one cared up until people were dead.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I mean. So that's the whole hypothesis of the community Services district is breaking. That cycle of neglect is what it was. Boy in Das by Doss Williams was the assembly member at the time
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): is
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know, not waiting for a tragedy to do something good for the community. It shouldn't take a tragedy to
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): support the community. It really shouldn't. And so but that's how government works. Right, you know. For the most part.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): major problem happens. React with, you know. Let's do something. it's it's really unfortunate, I mean, I'll I'll t it into even Sbcc. We had been trying to pass something like resolution 18
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): for a couple of years before we did.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): but someone else was killed, and then that was able to pass, and some trustees had change of hearts.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I think it's just
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I just do not like this part of how government operates. It's it's really bothers some to me.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): yeah, so may 23 happens, and
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I wasn't planning to stay in town. I mean, everyone leaves. That's like a common, you know, common fact. And so but now that that had happened, and there was an actual window of opportunity to create the Iv. Csd.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I ended up deciding to say to work on that. And it wasn't like, you know, it was like, you know, it's just 6 months. Let's do a year. But then, a former professor suggested, he's like there's an open seat on the City College board, and it's the seat that represents Iv, and
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know Iv needs more representation. So you should run for this. So think he told me about it, and I ended up running and had an opponent the first time. I haven't since then. But yeah, it was a full engaged election. But again, I this I actually tell people a lot about my election, because people try to ask me like, How were you able to win at a young age. Oh, my! Well, I had a lot of factors in my favor, but
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know it was Iv voting for someone from my V, so demographics are always important when you're running for office. You, you know you have to take those into consideration.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And also I had done the work for 4 years of becoming extremely ingrained in my community. So I didn't like move to Iv and work to try to run for office in 4 years. I kinda I mean, I did run for local like, you know, student office. But because that's like more of a community leadership role. But you have to do that kind of work, that deep work that then makes the election.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I don't want to see a non issue, but it's you know it's not. That's not where the actual event of winning happened is the election. The election is kind of a culmination. It'd be your like first step into trying to win off. So I always get that advice to people you ask me like, I just graduated college. I want to run for office. How can I
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): be like, you know, do that what you did I like? Well, you gotta. Wherever you move, you gotta get really rooted in the community and really do the community work.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and then naturally, it will open up, for, like it will naturally be next up. Once you've really gotten deep in the work of improving the community. So that was always my advice to people based on my, you know, experience running for office.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): But yeah, I by staying in my college town. It made it easier, because.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know, you can't just move back home. And then you've been gone for 4 years, and it's that is you. You have to be the move somewhere else, and, you know, get rerouted over there. So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): yeah. So I got elected in 2,014. That was in the aftermath of all that. It was a really tough year. you know. It was an unbelievable year to be honest and
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): it's me I've been on since I still live in Iv. I I've always lived in the same kind of South South 65 block for people who know. That means that's where I live.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I lived in the Dome house once, and it was that summer between graduation and getting elected. I lived in
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): the Dome house so 1,000 cool house. It's like a like there is a term a factual term for it which I truncated
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): he something I don't know. I actually don't know what kind of shape it is. But yeah, it it is a a, a circle. It's a sphere. go. Dec, Heedron, that's it's the technical name for the shape of the house.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): so that was cool. but yeah, so I've
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I can talk about the Iv C. So we we went on this whole
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): process to create it. we we.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): We had an idea of how it should be done. And there's a standard way to create. I community services districts.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): really, government agencies designed for places who can't form a city to have a level of local government.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And so
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): we had come up with the idea. A year prior, in 2,013. someone had discovered it while during research. And so we it. There is a standard way to do it, and if everything hadn't happened we might have you know, the standard route might have been what we done, what we had done.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): But we ended up having, you know, the political capital to do something different, which is, we had a State law that created ours. That kind of circumvented it, circumvented a few
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): parts of the process that we would have filled that
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): mainly through the laugh. Go, excuse me.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Okay. Got to cut that out. We got you. We're going to the local Agency Formation Commission Process, which we probably would have failed.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): so, as I remember, dust, Williams was able to, you know, get a bill through the State Legislature and through the Governor, that that the community wrote. So we had a meeting every week for 2Â h, which is, you know.
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Hong Lieu: for a whole year. Every week
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): we met Tuesday 6, 8,
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And we wrote the bill locally, and we gave Dos our edits we were like. Here's what we want in the bill, and he took that, and I commend him that you know you. You kind of surrender some of your power as an elected official. Say, let the people write the bill
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And they went through the process, and we had to make compromises, of course. and but it finally passed and the governor signed it. We went to the voters. They approved it. They decided to not to food the tax, though, so we had a government with no money
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): for a year and a half and that's how I got started. As a general manager. We had no money.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and I wasn't planning to be done manager, either. I I really, I really really wasn't But they needed someone who could work for free. And I was in grad school. At that point I had joined. I had just started grad school in in 2,018 or 2,017 for my
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): at Ucsb for my masters at technology management.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And so I was willing to work for free, because, you know, I I had my grabbed loans and financially paying for my life at that point.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): And so I worked as an interim. GM, or I think it was a thousand a quarter, actually so not for free big bucks And then we passed the tax in June of 2,018, and once we passed the tax.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): it's just opened up the door for us to do so much. We run the community center and Iv. Now we run a beautification program where we clean up trash in a prey. Overgrown weeds
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): put in beautification projects like public art. We We run a compost operation which is never even part of the original plan, but it's like one of the most popular things we do. We like run compost sites across town.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): What else do we do? We have like, and you get a plan. You get a plan to parties now to you. Time up planning parties at Culver High. Right now you get to plan the parties here now, the counter programming to to the weekend. Oh, my God, yes, so I I actually did a lot of the
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): a lot of the what's it called planning for the community festival we had in April. That was at the same time as Deltopia. It's part of our strategy to make Deltopia safer by providing an alternative event which was essentially a $75,000, you know, festival with free food and local bands and and murals. And you know, safety services.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): But yeah, I was planning essentially a large festival of that. So I'm doing that stuff, too.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): but yeah, it's it's been a great Iv C is definitely made a difference. I mean, I'm biased. I'm the general manager there, so of course I will say it's doing great. But I I really do believe that. You know we have.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): We are making a progress to changing the culture in a positive way, where Iv. Has a say over its own future. And that's the whole goal is that we're making the town better ourselves. It doesn't matter what better means. It just means like the compost
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): collective.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): That's a student initiated idea that it was a student club that became a government service. How often does that happen in in society? And not that often. But
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): that's where we went with it. So I yeah, I'm I'm all. And now we have like 33 people working here.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): It's really it's really pretty awesome. But and we're we're just doing a lot for the community, and our our revenue grows pretty healthfully, and we're able to do more every year for for the community. So we're we're right now. Our big thing is our parking study and our mobility plan. So we're doing like a transport. We're on the transportation parking
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Hong Lieu: side of things right now, and it's one of those things where I this is unincorporated. But and and you talk, you say everybody leaves. But there are a lot of families that live out there. So the work that you do, the stuff that persists that is very important to have a voice. The folks in the meeting have a voice. The folks that do stay, the folks that are there. It's good to have a voice there, and it's good that you. You know you're running the show because you you have your feet on the ground. You're in the area.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know what's going on. People have concerns. They know who to reach out to. So those things are important. So so thank you for that work. Absolutely. Thank you. No, it's it's it's a fun job. It's a I mean, it's tough in a lot of ways. obviously, a lot of jobs are tough. But it's a fun job because we really get to see
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): like we get to see things change on a local level, you know, like I and I live in ivt. So I get to have my town where I live to be a nicer. That's a nice plus. But we are really making a difference, and like a lot of our staff are
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Iv residents or former Iv residents. So they really get it. And that's part of the issue in the past is
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): people who serve Iv and different government roles like have no real connection. But now, like all our stuff, do, you can really tell they actually could like, I don't want glass on the street, for the dogs walk around here and there, people who walk on without choose, because that's a big thing here.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): like they're passionate about making sure the street is clean free of glass. So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): it's it's nice to also have given other people a chance. So you know. do their thing and make very, very awesome, very commendable. We appreciate you working in the community. We're we're glad you're here as well. So thank you for that, Jonathan.
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Hong Lieu: moving along to good eating our food section. This was segue, and because Iv's got the good eats, too, so they there's some good places eat around. Iv. But that's not necessarily what you'll pick. So if you want to regal us with a meal that you that had grown up some, you'd be recently, you know, restaurants, anything you got you can kick us off. Let's do it. So okay, my favorite place growing up to eat was Tony aromas.
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Hong Lieu: Oh, yeah.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): that red check the the red check of tablecloth, Italian right there.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): ribs and ribs. I love the V flames. So I put you as a kid, with like a massive, you know bone, and like my face, dirty with sauce and everything so 10 year old is my favorite place. But That was like a special occasion. In and out was where my parents took us on Fridays
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): to go like at the end of the school week went in and out, so I love it and out. Still, it's one of my favorites. But if I had to put the my top 5 restaurants in Santa Barbara and I might be miscoding myself, but I did just recently do this exercise for another reason, and I would. These are my top 5. And
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): again, I could be wrong here. And I could be even missing one of my actual top 5 and have someone else in here. But I would say, Bettina, and close village road for pizza, like.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I think, 10 out of 10, the Pepperoni pizza and and the others. But I get the Pepperoni
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): out of this world. It's, I think, the perfect Pepperoni pizza. So, Bettina, that wins there.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Third window for Burgers. I think they have the most excellent burgers in Santa Barbara. Delicious Fresh, high quality ingredients super good.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Next is Wingman Rodeo, which has moved from Melbourne to Monte Cristo Street.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): So I mean there. It's really at the sauce level at wing, man, I mean the the you know the wings are are good, they're they're good wings, but the sales are all homemade like it's all made in house, and you can really tell like the different complexities of them, like there's a strawberry one, and the buff. The classic buffalo is like, very, very, very good. It's one of the best buffalo sauces.
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Akil Hill: So I I put wing man in there. Okay, wait 1Â s. So you're a wing guy. Then I do love it. Okay, so are you a flats guy, or you or or the Dro. Okay, your stock just went up, John, you saw this 100% flats. Next place, the next place is industrial eats and field 10.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): One of the most amazing restaurants, I think in California? I really think they're so experimental. And you know, they're all about the land and what is possible with what's currently available in Santa Barbara, and so super super good place, and then I have to give my last one
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): to the one in the only free birds which there it is. There it is. There's the ivy shadow. He's keeping it with us. It's like go fevers once a month at least, are they still 24Â h? They're not open 24Â h anymore. Actually, after 2,014 is when a lot of that kind of stuff changed and they went to not 24. Now they, I think they close that like
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): 2 or 3. I'm I'm happy for them, though, because I imagine whoever was pulling up at 3 30 in the morning with. It was not going to be a good customer interaction at time, so, but I used to love my 7 Am. 3 bird burritos after like, I actually my senior year. I like, did a massive all nighter to finish one of my last papers, and then celebrated with the burrito at 7 Am. That was fun. And I'll give my top restaurants in La to, because while I'm here, why not?
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Hong Lieu: So? I've got 5 for there, too, and I think this one is accurate, and again, I think one or 2 could be wrong. But the number one restaurant in La. For me it's not even a restaurant, but it's been there forever. Is Johnny's astronomy in right next to sink of the mile. And yeah, are you a Teetos Tacos Guy? I like Titos. I mean. It's not like my favorite place, but I it is. It's the own thing. I like the burritos more than tacos there, like the meat.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): There we go now, you know he's an ogl like I when he yeah, I love to Johnny's. But the other place. So this is a newer place. It's Burger, she wrote, which is also smash burgers like third windows, but they have a different button. Third one that uses potato buns, I think. Like man.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Yeah, I love it, too. And the Hawaiian role is a go to like like satisfaction like, you get that little bit of suite. And then, oh, yeah.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I yeah, I I love Hamburger sliders with the Hawaiian roles, and in Santa Barbara has some pretty good ones. but I would say my other 3 in la are there! There's this taco truck on Pico and Hauser. I don't know the name of it, but it's there so people can just go. I can eat there. They have great bio Last time I went.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and then Junior's barbecue, which is right down the street from me. It's on Los Angeles, and it's all in again. Washington, essentially so. Love that place
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and cause you know it. Once, son, your almost has gone. It's really hard to get a place at Sales Bee for it, and also a place that doesn't right like a lot, you know, some place to do them as an afterthought.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): but this place prioritizes them. So it's good. And then Honey's kettle also in Culver City. So there it is, they realize, for I don't know. 3 are in Culver City, and then one is, I guess, in I don't know Central la, and one Submit city proper. So but those are my 5 la spots. I have to get Johnny's every time in la, but that's like the number one, like the other ones, are all good. But Johnny is like the king.
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Hong Lieu: a true man of the people, you know Jonath is a man of the people. When not only did he shout out 5 Santa Barbara's pop with 5 la spots that are all like really already homey like you, you know. You got the batin in there to mix it up. If you want to go high forum. But even Patina has the outdoor bench seating, which makes it feel all home style, even though their stuff is really high concept, really high level execution.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): But you got you got a little bit of a little bit of Sunday for everybody, where if they hit, if you if they hit those 5 toys and set up on the 5 toys. And late, that's like, really kind of in the weeds like doing that work of like, Yeah, you're you're eating good for sure these are. These are great. Oh, I think so. And I also love to cook. So. I get inspired by all these places as well. So 2023 was my goal, and I I think I've met it at this point. But I want it to master Barrier, so I think I
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I have Whoa! Whoa! Every 2 or 3 weeks, which is like every month, like twice a month.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): So I guess the question would be there was there something you're missing, or a little wrinkle that you discover that really like boosted you up, because, you know, you can just crank out a batch. But when you say that you've mastered that, that means there's some is there like maybe, like a chili from a certain vendor, or you like, you know you're doing something in advance, or is it just kind of just practice is what's doing it? It's the practice. I mean, it's getting every step 100. So it's like I have to get every part of it.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): So it's like even dry riding the meat the day before and the and you gotta do that, you have to, you know. Go, you know. Well whether you do it in the oven or on the stove top. Well, the oven is way better, but like going from there to there was a big difference. At which point do you blend the chilies, whether at the beginning or in the middle.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I do the beginning, but a lot of people do the middle, but I felt that the beginning works better for me, and I I pre boil the chilies before I boil them. I don't boil them with everything. I boil them separately, blend them, and then Adam the broth.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): so yeah, there's there's a lot of different pieces to the puzzle, but you just have to execute pretty much at every stage.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): really? Well, I think, and then over the stove you said is, Be, are you running low? He in the oven, and just for a long period of time to kind of simulate that actual Earth environment of download. I mean, cause that that means you're watching that proper hours. I live in a small apartment with an electric of it so very limited and with with limited capacities. My like and my electric stove top is horrendous, you know it just does. It turns off on its own sometimes safety feature, but
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): after a certain amount of time it just cuts, or if it gets too hard to cut so as well. So you have to really like, turn both on and then like switch and like, you create an extra extra challenge and and be there wise, or you just be, for you hit the goat, too.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I just do beef because it's easier and I I just personally like beef better. But I I do eat my girlfriend, I think, prefers to go But I like I'm personally a beef person. So I with beef. But yeah, it was really tough. But I now that I've got it down
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I also like the straining of the sauce. It's just hard to do. I mean, it's it's it's a physically hard thing to do. It's it's once it's not hard to figure out. But That was a you know. It's it's every time gets me like my fingers almost burned. Do you get that nice rich cup of constantly on the side. Oh, oh, my! Constantly I feel very good. I don't want to brag, but I've like I really have, because you have to see.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I yeah. So I've really felt like I've done a good job on that. But it was my goal, like I studied a lot and watched a lot of videos watch, read a lot of articles, just, you know, watch from a lot of people like talk to people. It was just something I,
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): you know, put a lot of time into, but I got it done. So I'm really happy. I started cooking when I was 16, and I was inspired by
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): this guy on Youtube.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): who would create replica recipes of like famous places. His name is like Todd Wilber, or something like that. So he had, like a big Mac recipe, and I had never had a before in my life when I was 16. So I was like, I'm gonna replicate the Big Mac. Even. I've never had one. I've had many big Macs now. But
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): that'd be interesting, because yeah, the one that you made was probably way better than the actual Big Mac going to the Big Mac afterwards. You probably like, what's the big hub of about, you know, when the when you were doing like back these days. I feel like actually put some love back into it, maybe. But no, mine was, of course, better. But And I also love to grow. But sadly, my grill was still in
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): recently makes me sad. But I'm going to buy. It's an opportunity to buy a new one. I had just like a small Weber, like the 18 inch on the for one, so I was kind of not
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Hong Lieu: oh, the junior.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): not the is to the Jumbo small one. It's so. So it was a charcoal.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Yeah. So I have to. I want to buy a standing one. So I don't to bend over any more. So okay, so I'm shocked. I mean, I just have to say this. I thought you're going to throw some Lebanese at it. I thought, you can throw some kebab.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Okay, I could. I could. No, I'm very good at that, too. Actually, I'm actually on a good swarm. I can't make any other Lebanese dish, I think.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): but my storm is very good. I I know how to I it. I also that was last year. I that you know, last year I got my my sharma seasoning and and process extremely on point to. So now it's a staple
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Hong Lieu: that I make all the time. But yeah, my, it's it's all about the yogurt and having the right season. But you have to, you know, marinated in yogurt high heat and the stacking. It's kind of the way you layer things. So the Marini kind of drips down. And while it's cooking it kind of
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): base itself. So there, yeah, so I I do that. I do like a. What I really like to do is
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I do a like a kind of a replica of the hall guys.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Oh, yeah, but you know it. I I just use. I combine the 2. But just that like that setup is a very good combo. But I replace the lettuce with cucumbers. That's, I guess, more of a Lebanese thing. Yeah, that is a Lebanese thing, and I use the the tomb like the garlic sauce over the whole whole one is the whole. All guys. One is Mayo, based or partially mail. It's like 50% Mayo, 50% yogurt in the tool.
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Hong Lieu: No? Oh, and they're all they're they're squeezed the squee sauce. I I I just use the tune
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): instead of the white sauce. But I know how to. I learned how to make the white sauce and below the whole guys. And I really like that one, too. It's just a different, you know it's a different thing.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): so I like both. But I I just gravitate more towards the the tune myself. It's easier it open the container, and that garlic punch is very distinctive. It's such a the flavor where it's like this feels good to eat it. You know this garlic is so good for you, anyway, that yeah, yeah, it except it is like 200 calories in one outs. Wait, really from from the garlic itself, or that it's olive oil and garlic as well. Yeah, it's a lot of oil
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): platform. I need it.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): but yeah, that's food. I I could. I could talk way longer on food. I'm very good at I I my stakes are good. I'm a big reverse year, Guy.
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and I love try to, I mean, and I have to give a shout out to my 2, my 2 loves
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): all of us, if we'd come up for your produce. Shaloo! But your shop for the meet.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): That's that was my pandemic, you know. Well, I'll I' when I stopped having to pay my student loan like 2 50 a month. I was like, I'm gonna add this 250 budget to my groceries. But
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): go to like these nicer places, keeping it local high quality like when you start with that kind of canvas. Whatever you create with it is going to still be good as long as you don't just really tank it with too much salt or something. But I just just listen to you. Talk about beer. I know you're not. I know you're careful with your proportion stuff. So I had, you know, ivy food cup and chloop didn't work out. So I have. I have to go to. I go to Santa Cruz market to get my chillies and
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): if I had to get I I make my own Celsius, too, so but you can't get tomatoes at Ivy we'd go up. Well, you can right now, but most of the year you can't. But you can right now, if you're looking. But I go to Santa Cruz market as like a there's one right down the street in Galita. That's a good supplement.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): But yeah, those are my! I have to give a shout out to those 2, though, because I live and die by those 2 places. yeah, they have. They have really good quality stuff. I feel like I've
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I don't know. I feel like I've tasted the difference at this the meat, and like it's really incredible, like the chicken tastes like chicken. The beef tastes like beef, you know. It's like you get the full, the full taste. I love it, and the a lot of it's local like you'll see like delete a farm for the cilantro, or like, you know.
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Hong Lieu: Yup, and I'll get links to all those providers in the show notes as well. Shout out to cool Co-OP! Shout out to loops, Shut out Santa Cruz market. If you need harness all the preparations of you don't want to marinade your own. They they got. They're holding you down, too. So it's it's convenient. Yes, so I'll get all those things to show us. Thank you so much you gave us. It's such a bounty of picks that yeah, we can as we, we, we're just good going out of what you got, because that what you just provided for us is a
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Hong Lieu: true document in terms of like, yeah, it it be like guide to getting in the Mid City Culver City area for food, and Santa Barbara as well, so that we can let that rest as it is. Thank you very much
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Hong Lieu: to higher learning. I I I'm feeling this may go similarly where John is going to just bless us with with the picks. Pick that will hold us down. So any piece of culture book, TV movie song, any. It sounds like he said. You had some some picks ready to roll from your high school days coming up so it'd be. Let's see what I'm obsessed with right now, and like every like more so, a free time
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Hong Lieu: is 100% dedicated to this right now is the new legend is all the tears of the kingdom game that came out just dropped. So he's he's in on it day 0. I I haven't even started it nice.
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Hong Lieu: I was at the midnight release at game stop in the and and I will also say, for the home in the nineteenth. This is the first video game higher learning pick. And I'm glad. Thank you, Jonathan, because I was waiting for someone to pop that and let it rip because video games yes, absolutely art and culture of the highest order exist in the video game, Rob and Zelda, because
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Hong Lieu: I came to breath of the wild late. I didn't start playing so maybe a couple of years ago. I don't didn't realize what I was missing out on, because that game is truly one of the greatest games ever made. Top top 3 top 5, top 10. It's got to be in it, no matter what. So it's here's the kingdom just built on that. I mean, if you never played a game in your life. You probably still know about legend, Zelda, and you know this. These are some of the greatest games that ever made. So you have to. You respect the art, the artistry, the creative process of developing. And you know all this stuff.
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Hong Lieu: Unbelievable achievements, you know. And just if you're getting on the nerdy side, 16Â GB of space it takes up. I I'm playing that Jennifer game that's 150 gigs of my computer that you know I can fit. Build on Sd card and take my switch to go. Oh, yeah, well, please continue.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I mean, here's a kingdom. Yeah, I love breath of the wild, but tears. The kingdom is like extremely perfect like, it's so. It's just so fluid, and everything works the way you want to match like you can imagine anything and do it in the game because of how like you confuse things together. you can make a plane. You can make cars. I don't know. You can make anything you imagine happen. You can fuse like a bat wing to your arrow, and it's more accurate.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): like things you'd never think of. So you have to like a lot to discover. Love the game, and I've been a Zelda fan since 1,999, when awkward enough time came out. And was that your first delta, or did you? Yeah, I mean, come on that. I mean, talk about a great place to come in awkward at a time is also in that I mean all this. All the games are really great.
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Hong Lieu: I actually hate to say it, but the first light in the Zelda. I remember bringing that gold cartridge on my Nes and going through that. I've I've been through a lot of them. But yeah, coming in October time, although that water, temple and all. Some of those temples were gnarly. But I looked up. Guides, I won't. I looked up. Guy. I was 6, so I needed some help, but some other things. So I just re-watched game of thrones.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I love game of thrones. I think it's really good. I've also read all the books on audio book twice.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I'm on my second. Well, I'm in the second. Read through on audiobook right now. But the waiting for those last 2 books. And also, how do you feel about the last couple of seasons? I mean, knowing that that's where the narrative is going to go. And now George is going to write his way into the those big plot points will change, and things, of course, but you know as well. I know it's a controversial view, but I think everything that happened is what he said was gonna happen, but maybe executed. Not the best way. Like definitely the dialogue, and like some of the the pop points, are wacky. But
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I feel like this is how it's gonna end in the books like it. It has to be pretty much this, and I don't think it's that bad. I I I liked it. But the larger beats do make sense. Yeah, you're right, you're you're right. The larger beats make sense. They just felt a little rushed in the execution, but in terms of George, George is one who does not write, rushed his books, his books, let everything breathe. So you're absolutely correct that, you know. Like.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): excellent. Yeah, I agree. And yeah, I'm a I I read a lot of the theories and stuff on Reddit. So, people I'm I'm there. I'm there with in the trenches. Yes, a couple of other things. I'm a big universal studios guy
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): like, especially 19 nineties, universal studios back to the future. The mummy
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Jurassic Park Park terminator like top movies of mine like, I think, Terminator 2 is my number one. Move no back to the future. One is my number one movie Terminator, 2 solid second.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): so I love those movies growing up. I was a big universe like I went to university years every birthday for a couple of years, and I just I loved it. but you know I I'm a fan of like, I think. Well, Godzilla is my first love in movies. I like watch the original Godzilla, and
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and every single American one and every single Japanese one. I've watched every single of the movie. And I have a massive collection. So, and even the newer, the newer shin godzillas that that we're done.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I haven't seen the enemies, but I it didn't seem that interesting to me this glory, but shin gazelle is very good. Actually, it was the the plot behind the plot of like how the Japanese government operates and the inefficiencies. And you know the the analogy to the reaction to the earthquake and nuclear plant issues in 2,011 like.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): that's what God delay it. Well, no like dinosaur.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, if you don't watch the films, you don't realize how little of it is city smashing, and and you have to have that that rhythm in place where you have to know the first hour hour and a half is logistics back end setting up of how the how this could get to where it gets, and then you only get about 2030Â min for these sort of a lot of people. The movies move slow. But if you once you get in that rhythm and the the cause, you know they they have constraints, budget wise of how much city smashing they can do so once you get in that rhythm, though. Oh, yeah, I do love the guts
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Hong Lieu: of all kind of all kinds of movies, you know. But the shinca is good because hidey. I know, as a director, and he else, if you like, Anime Genesis, Emily, on which is, you know, one of the best enemies of series of all time. So he he! He obviously loves to view that inner rit the nuance into his stuff. So she got the exactly. But those classics I mean Godzilla versus Mexico. Silla still is like, yeah, that that it's a high watermark for Taiji land. I love Martha. I love Gamma. I love all of them. But Mecca Godzilla, and that's why I see Mecca got to it in those remakes. They just did.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): It didn't warm my my tie too hard to definitely. Oh, yeah. And you know, while we're on anime, I well, I I think I'm more basic on the anime level. But I I was a big Ueo guy as a kid. I I played the game, I I mean, I still have a a deck. But I was. I was really obsessed at that. I didn't mean pokemon to I but I think I went more in the Avo front, which you know again, some of the more basic animates, but
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): loved them like that was. That was why I woke up every Saturday morning. What's to watch pokemon? And you know, and kind of good, and a good investment those cards for your future. Just those. Yeah, they're gonna they're gonna keep up and value you. You see what matches the gathering cards go for that black lotus. So yeah, your audio cards will get there, too.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Yeah. But yeah, I think those are some of my media. I mean, I I would if you had to ask my other top 3 games. It's halo and mel of your solid along with seldom. So that's my
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): top 3 franchises if anybody wanted to know, and books that I've read. Well. I that's this is a hard question, but
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): because I can't pick a favorite book, but I mean I I guess it's the game of throne, Sears. As a whole, even though I've never actually read it. I've only listened to it. It's just that counts that counts. I was late to that boat of like. I never listen audio books growing up. But now that you, when you've actually taken one in completely, you, it does scratch that similar neural itch. And yeah, I feel like that definitely does count you. You get you get it getting how you fit in. Take. However, you can get it. Audiobooks are absolutely yeah.
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I go to the gym and play the audiobook. So I get you. I get both done at the same time so
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): multi-tasking or drives. I I really do not like right. But sometimes it's better with an audio book, I guess. So. That's I think I think that's everything. Unless you have more questions for me or anything. I mean, honestly like I said you, the you've been prior to bounty right there that we could just riff off of that and keep writing, because, like, I said, we never had a video game pick here. So, hearing about halo medal, your solid. These are all foundational series for people, because there's a lot of, you know, a lot of folks who might just be getting into to video games, or or maybe their kids are in a video games. They don't know much about them. And there is at this point we've been in the it. It isn't a medium that has been around long enough.
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Hong Lieu: where you can have those conversations of of know your history, because, you know, for time, I reading books and things. That's where you always want to have a little bit of context for how things get. Because, you know, like, you can't go right into modern literature like the foster walls like that, and how they play with grammar, and how they play with things without knowing a little bit about the past. You you read the classics to get that, you know. And then you see how it goes from there. Same with music.
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Hong Lieu: a lot of modern music. You can. You can actually just jump right and listen to that. But if you know about rhythmic structure and going back and and and paying homage to those previous artists, it enriches your your knowledge of what you're doing now. So video can be the same way. If you've played those old games you you played halo. You see those friction points that you had a problem with you frustrated by those game designers and developers felt those same pain points and actually design their game to try to work around some of those things. The New Zealand absolutely feels almost frictionless where they they give you that freedom, because, you know.
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Hong Lieu: all games promised that freedom and very few of them actually deliver. You hit a point like even you know, whatever game you had, you hit the edge of the map, and you like.
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Hong Lieu: you know, I was promised true freedom, you know, and that it it it's it's it's it's it's it's point that didn't take you out of the the immersion. So, for you know, when those games so you try everything and it actually works. It just feels seamless. I mean that that's that's a commendable. You know the design, choice and stuff. So
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Hong Lieu: yeah, super, Mario Brothers, you know the when you hit that one angle where they go back and forth, and you, ping ponger like that. But then you can try that all, all different ways. There's certain points where you think it should work, and it doesn't. And that's like, I don't mean that's actually when I talk about game design and stuff, we because we work at activision as a at some level. But
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Hong Lieu: supermar is a good example, because Mario, when he runs and when you cut back
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Hong Lieu: early, Cam didn't have that, you would go right, and you would cut and sleep back. Mario has that slide animation where he slides a little bit and turns back. Where do you feel the physics of the world. And it's not like an actual like mathematical physics, you know computation. There's just animation. They did but add in the animation where you have to play with that and work within the world. It's that extra bit of immersion and that bit of friction that is is good friction. So there's good friction. There's bad friction in terms of how you interface with the games, because that's the difference between games
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Hong Lieu: and film and other stuff is you're directly interacting with the scene that plays out in front of you. So you, as a developer, you have to account for all the user options that exist. And so
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): things that go outside the grain. And and yeah, so it's. And you know, I wanted one thing, what I want to add 2 more things. One is what you just said on game as an art, which is I. One thing I got to give a shout out for is in metal beer solid.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I've played them all. I love the whole series. But number 2, I think the story is the best, and at the end of the game there is a clip. You can find it on Youtube, where they talk about it's the game is from 2,001. But there's a conversation about how the Internet will has impacted the world and how they misinformation has in has kind of broken the world. At that point.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I think it's just, you know, with the discussions about fake news today and and misinformation. And you know what we experiencing the pandemic, for example.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): I think that game was ahead. If it's time and predicting what the Internet's impact is going to be on human society, especially in the global information, because information free flow so freely now. But that is good and bad, because now there's infinite sources of information
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): that means there's infinite
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): possible wrong ones as well as infinite Po, correct ones. And so I think, like, how do you determine what's truth, and how do you determine? Like you know the how do you manage information flow? That game was to have? It's time and what it was thinking. And it was an art form that you couldn't do in a movie. You couldn't do it. A TV show.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): It was a conversation in a video game. that I had this like massive overarching, like many, many, many, many hour arc to get there. So I have to put that out. Thank you for bringing that up, because I do want to say about Medicare saw, too, when it came out it was very controversial. It it it was very mixed reviews in terms of.
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Hong Lieu: because there was a I mean not to. I explore it for a you know, twenty-year-old game, or whatever. But there's a part of the game where you switch and play as another character, and people did not like that part of it from a gameplay perspective. So the narrative of of managers saw 2 is probably the best in the series, but the gameplay for people didn't like it, so they dragged it down, and a lot of people skipped it because like, Oh, but it, you know, time has. You know, we talk about time for things right.
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The time had proven that as a stone coke classic mitiger, solid. 3 probably has the best game play in the series that we're talking about. All the systems they built in, like the the hunger and stuff like that. So in terms of gameplay
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): 3 is the best one, but 2 by far is the best narratively, and because it was such a huge story overarching, and layers would peel back as you would play, so it would reward exploration. So yes, hopefully, you would just say another point as well, and then my last one, which I forgot I didn't add in the the music or the movies or the sports team, so I'll keep that short. But I do want to mention it. sports teams. I always just go with the hometown, you know. It's la, like, I'm a 100%. La.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): yeah, no question about it. Who I support. That's that's still recovering from the game last night. Yeah, but no, I'm I'm I'm an la 100 fan. But
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): for music I'll just give my top 3 albums. I'll do top 3. It's a hard choice, probably. Topic.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): The first one is a dark side of the moon pink Floyd. Second, one is random access memories, death punk. And third, one is no Salvia, ultra Frank Ocean, which is
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Hong Lieu: yeah. And you know what I I love. Number one, you you're able to rank top 3, because a lot of folks like I don't have favorites. You know I I try to play it. Play that way sometimes, too. But you're there. You're like you got the 3, and those those are interesting picks to me, because for Frank Ocean, putting the sol to ultra over channel, or in terms of the first time, Nova can hit.
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Hong Lieu: Oh, oh! And that whole album is.
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Hong Lieu: and also random access memories in terms of Doc Punk.
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Hong Lieu: Because a lot of folks, you know, alive and all that, you know they. And and so there's but that album is them
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Hong Lieu: really at the most playful, you know, like they weren't confined as just an Edm group anymore. They were able to kind of play with different sounds, and they were still very, very in tune as Djs and producers. So it's it's it's probably the album that's going to kind of age best in terms of you using the dot point 25 years from now. That album is just really incredible, and that and you know, bang halter. Just put out a solar record, and his stuff is all orchestral compositions. Now, so just really. And then.
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Hong Lieu: yeah. But dark side of the moon also like pretty picks. Awesome. I have to. I'll drop a bomb on you guys, which is
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): Frank Ocean is a friend of mine. he's someone I know from high school times. And wow! So
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): that's you know, I have a bias a little bit there. But yeah, I I love Nicole. I'll try. No, you know I know a lot of the meaning behind the songs of like where they come from.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): but we'll say bad religion, was the song, but I told him was gonna make him famous when I first heard it. But I I didn't out that way. But he did perform that live on Jimmy Kimmel, I think early on in like 2010, 2011.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): But yeah, he he's a we all went to like like thirtieth birthday a few years ago. That's the last time I saw him. But he's you know, he's big and famous now and doing he doesn't live in California anymore. But
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): he's The way it happened was my block of friends. He became friends with somebody who was friends with 2 of the brothers on my block. He globbed onto them. So he was just there every day when he he had moved here from Louisiana, from after hurricane Katrina.
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and he just was getting established. The friends he made were my friends. And so
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): we go back. That melting pot. That's just what it is, you know, like you people get in where they fit in and in cities like La, where you have an opportunity more angles to get in.
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Hong Lieu: It's really important. And that's one of those things where I think about growing up in La for screwing up anywhere else in the world. I feel very lucky and blessed because I was not my choice. I I was just where I grew up so when something like consciously was exposed to. But as time goes on and you look back on it, you realize how
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Hong Lieu: really lucky you are in those to be in those kind of environments where people people, if somebody will take you in somewhere, you just have to find where that is. And there's people that in smaller towns you don't ever get that opportunity. Look around. There's nothing else around them. But we're in la! You can keep poking and keep prodding in the you can keep looking, and then when you find it, it clicks, it's just like it's just beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Well, even to tie it into what we we're doing here at the colleges. That's why it's so important to have these spaces.
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Akil Hill: We think about our programs like the dream center, Emoji, these programs where students can actually find their way in and then I don't know if you guys, you know were at Commencement. But you know the keynote speaker. She talked about that she talked about, you know. She was struggling a little bit, and then she found. You know her way in through as she through Emoji And you know now she was accepted into brick. I don't know if she's gonna go there. But
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Akil Hill: that's the significance of having You know, these type of programs on our campus. It's giving people that access to find their way in And so yeah, I I feel all of that. And also Frank Ocean. It's been a minute man. I can't believe what his last album was in 2,017. It was blonde and blonde. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nike, Nike, he still hit. He put like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so that's like, and that, and that was it directly, or the the the stream he did.
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Hong Lieu: It was just the the art gallery stream. It was so a faithless, or whatever it would be that that album as an album. It's more like ambient, more instrumental. But if you go back to that, that's still kind of if you're in that right mood, that proper mindset. Oh, yeah, I mean, he's just a brilliant artist. But I mean, is this one of those things where you know we talk about the importance of that work, you know, equity work and stuff. It's really about finding that belonging for as many people as possible. And then like. That's that's what we talked about. The experience of La is a melting pot. We're just trying to bring that to other folks, because
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Hong Lieu: not everyone is receptive to that where a lot of people, you know, I have to live. My experience I have to find out for myself. But those people that are willing to engage and say, Hey, I'm just looking for somewhere to Vibe, you know. Like, if you can be that out there for someone to buy, and that, you know. You never know how those to pay up down the road. So it's one of those things where you don't have to engage with everyone that level, but for anyone that is willing to engage being there for them. That's
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Hong Lieu: that's where this kind of is. It's so important where you can feel that you can feel it in the moment, you know, like we talk about these policies and preachers a lot of time. It's hard to see to feel it in the moment, because you don't know. But when you actually have that human connection, even if it's one to one, you think oh, just one person. I can make a difference, but you never know, you know, like, and and then how that ripples out, and how that changes people's mindset. For you know, in a positive way.
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Hong Lieu: because a lot of folks, the first time they're willing to trust folks. A lot of times you get exploited, and that trust is broken. But the first time everyone trust someone you reach out and they reach out with love. I mean that just that kind of builds on itself as well, so it really, yeah.
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Hong Lieu: just this is, that's what hired learning is all about. Like we got this. How that Riff turned into this conversation. I mean, that's the whole point of things like.
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Hong Lieu: yeah, that's that's what we do.
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Hong Lieu: you know. And I'm out to listen to the Frank ocean in my office. Yeah, like I said we we had Pix, but just the the the gym that Jonathan drops, I mean there, there's no we can speak. Just speak on those picks I could we he time I'll be against to talk about Frank or whatever. But yeah, I don't. I don't think we can build. Well, we need to build on that acute. I think that I think I yeah, I think we're good. And I still can't believe our first video pick came from our
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Hong Lieu: from the president of the Board of trustees, honorable board of trustees, Jonathan. A boot had to bless us with our first video game picks, elevating video games. If you didn't know they renovated for elevating to the level of high art. You know of higher learning how many things we've learned from. That's the thing wherever it touches you, wherever you you, you learn something that is higher, you know, like
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Hong Lieu: you could be just kicking a can down the street one day. But if you have some profound epiphany while you're walking down, you stare at the sun, hit you certain angle where you're taking that can. And all of a sudden. You have some kind of higher, you know, like you learn about more about what you want to do with the rest of your life. That's how they're right there. You could come on our show and talk about how you keep the can for a day, and I hit you so what you you get in where you fit in it. Come, it shows up when it shows up. And thank you, Jonathan, for being here today and demonstrating that to us, and just showing how those you know how those moments of all coal last and come together
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Jonathan Abboud (he/him): and really built you into the into the the human being, we should all aspire to be more like. So thank you for having me. It's super fun. So thanks for yeah, absolutely. Thank you. If there is any last words, for we send you on your way. If you need anything else you want to to mess this with.
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Hong Lieu: I feel like I can't come up with something good enough. So I'm gonna say, no, we like, I said, there's there's a richness here like my work in the show. Notes is going to be pretty, you know. We'll we'll get it all in there so so folks can can can feel that feel that influence, you know, and and enjoy themselves as well again. Thank you, Jonathan. It's an honor to have you. thank you, Akil, as always. Thank you. Thank you until next time. This was Vaquero Voices take care y'all.
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thanks.