VOA – CONNECT

EPISODE  38
AIR DATE  10 05 2018 

FULL TRANSCRIPT
 

 

 

OPEN  ((VO/NAT))
((Banner))
Las Vegas One Year Later

((SOT))
It was really crazy.  I didn’t think it was bullets at first.  I didn’t think there was any kind of danger.
I told her “get down, get down,” and we started trying to crawl out from underneath the bars to get out.
((Animation Transition))
((Banner))

Creating a Musical Space

((SOT))
Austin is the live music capital of the world supposedly. Everybody is being pushed out. Condos are popping up. Venues are closing. While all this is happening, this is coming together and it’s going to be even a bigger space and a better space.
((Animation Transition))
((Banner))
Boxing to Fight Parkinson’s

((SOT))
Exercise in general for Parkinson’s is what’s going to help reduce the symptoms. So, boxing just fit in perfectly.
((Open Animation))
 

BLOCK A
((Banner:  After the violence))
 

((PKG))  VEGAS SHOOTING, ONE YEAR LATER  
((Banner:  Aftermath of a Shooting))
((Reporter:  Carolyn Presutti))
((Camera/Producer: Miguel Amaya)) 
((Map:  Las Vegas, Nevada))   
((NATS))
((Lacey West, Mass Shooting Survivor))
My name is Lacey West.  I’m 28 years old.
((Elizabeth West, Mass Shooting Survivor))
My name’s Elizabeth West.  Lacey is my daughter.  She’s my youngest. 
((NATS))
((Elizabeth West, Mass Shooting Survivor))
We were both at the Las Vegas massacre last year on October 1st of 2017.
((NATS))
((Lacey West, Mass Shooting Survivor))
It was really crazy.  I didn’t think it was bullets at first.  I didn’t think there was any kind of danger.
((NATS))
((Elizabeth West, Mass Shooting Survivor))
I told her “get down, get down,” and after about the third round of the automatic firing went off, there was probably the longest break after the third round.  And that’s when we started trying to crawl out from underneath the bars to get out.
((NATS))
((Lacey West, Mass Shooting Survivor))
After that, seeing just everyone just fleeing out of there, running like hats everywhere, boots everywhere.  The ground is completely sopping wet with drinks that everyone abandoned.  The rails were all knocked over just to get through, get away.
((Elizabeth West, Mass Shooting Survivor))
And Lacey grabbed my arm and later had told me her thought process was, “I got to get mom out.  I can’t let her fall.”  And as I was behind her running, and I could hear the bullets going, my whole thought process is, “if I’m behind her, they’ll hit me and not her.”  And so, you know, it’s like the bullets go off and your whole body tenses up, so there’s things that you hear even to this day.  And again, that brings that back, but she thought she was protecting me and I thought I was protecting her.  So that’s why we decided to get the tattoos on our arm, because it was where we locked and we held on and protected each other. 
((Lacey West, Mass Shooting Survivor))
At first it was uneasy when I came back because, seeing the Mandalay Bay again for the first time, it was just really putting into perspective what I couldn’t see in the darkness from that night.  Seeing it in the daylight and just like I didn’t know that I wanted to come back here after that. 
((NATS))
((Elizabeth West, Mass Shooting Survivor))
We’re so excited for her to be getting married.  We’ve always loved coming to Vegas, so it’s going to take a little bit of the sting away and let us come back here and still have happy memories.
((Lacey West, Mass Shooting Survivor))
I think having my anniversary will be the memory every year leading into October 1st.  It will just be the reminder of how my life changed so much from that event that it led me to my happiness.
((NATS))
Makes me very proud to pronounce you husband and wife.  You two may seal your promises with a kiss.
((NATS))
All right you two, take them. One more time. 

 

((PKG))  IN A CUP OF TEA, HOPE  
((Banner:  Aftermath of War))
((Executive Producer:  Marsha James))

((Camera:  Kaveh Rezaei))
((Map:  Baltimore, Maryland))
((NATS))
((Aaron Hughes, American Veteran, Founder -- The Tea Project)) 
I very much have had a fondness for tea, for a long time. I still kind of consider it something to be almost sacred or special. You know, it’s more something for me to reflect over, or a tool to create a space of reflection and contemplation.
((NATS))
You know, I remember getting up to Camp Navistar, which is the camp on the border between Kuwait and Iraq, shortly after President Bush got up on of an air craft carrier and declared “Mission Accomplished” and I was motivated.  I was like, we’re going to go provide some humanitarian relief.  I’m going to help fix some bridges and stuff, and I’m going to go home a hero.
((NATS))
I remember there were these little kids, willing to jump on a semi-truck to get food and water, and I thought at the time, these are the kids we’re here to help. You know, the whole time I was deployed, I was offered tea by the ‘Third Country Nationals’, which is a massive migrant labor force that the U.S. Military depends on that’s basically slave labor, and they come up to us and they say, “hey, we need food,” and then we tell them, “it’s not our job to feed you.”  These were guys hauling our supplies, you know, and despite that, these men that had nothing would turn to us and offer us tea, and then we would refuse it. You know, everyone that we were there to help and liberate, we were simultaneously dehumanizing and abusing, and so, I never had tea my entire deployment, not once.
((NATS))

The contradictions of American exceptionalism and occupation just were too much, and I kind of lost faith in a lot of the things I believed in and I would start to figure out what could I still hold on to.  I got out of the Illinois National Guard and I joined Iraq Veterans Against the War. One of their allies was this group called U.S. Labor Against the War and they wanted to host an international labor conference to talk about worker issues in Iraq in the midst of the occupation.  After I was done speaking, this man jumps up in the back of the auditorium and starts yelling something really loud in Arabic and just looking down towards the stage and I am like well this is it, this guy is going to come beat me up.  Just as he comes up on stage, I hear the translation come through the little ear piece and it’s “I just want to come up on stage and give this gentleman a hug.” And he grabs me, and he hugs me. And I just started to bawl.  You know, this man, he was in the Iraqi military and fought against invading forces. He forced the British military out of his oil fields and there he was hugging me. They brought me off stage and they brought me out of the auditorium and they sat me down, and they offered me tea. Tea that, for the very first time, I accepted.

((NATS))

The Tea Project is an ongoing project in collaboration with Amber Ginsburg. I originally begun the project in 2009 on a return trip to Iraq in order to share all the generosity despite, and to create space for people to sit, sip tea, and reflect about living in a constant state of war.  I asked Amber to join the project in 2013 to help cast one porcelain tea cup for each person that’s been detained in Guantanamo. You know we’ve pushed the project further and expanded it to include all these forms of presentation and installation.
((NATS))

From the middle of my deployment, I’ve committed my life to using creative practices to counter destruction, to counter the dehumanization that too much of our world is consumed by.



TEASE  ((VO/NAT))
Coming up…..
((Banner))
Artist Collective
((SOT))
Because it wasn’t about being a big city and making it big. It was complete and universal acceptance of things that were artistic.

 

 

BREAK ONE                                                                                  
BUMP IN  ((ANIM))                                  
 

BLOCK B 
((Banner:  Sharing the Music))


((PKG))  MOSAIC SOUND COLLECTIVE
((Banner:  Sharing the Space))
((Reporter/Camera:  Gabrielle Weiss))
((Map:  Austin, Texas))   
((NATS))
((Dan Redman, Founder, Mosaic Sound Collective))                                 
Mosaic Sound Collective is a one stop shop of affordable resources and services for musicians and artists. We took over a former juvenile detention facility in East Austin and are repurposing this 25,000 square foot facility to create a place that is almost like a YMCA for artists.
((NATS)) 
Each of our tenants contributes to the Collective in some way, shape or form.
((NATS)) 
To be a member of Mosaic, you can pay a monthly membership fee, or you can earn your membership by donating your time, your art, or some sort of advocacy to one of the non-profits we support.
((Erick Sanger, Owner, Capital Radio Backline))                                                
Austin is the live music capital of the world supposedly and everybody is being pushed out. Musicians are being pushed out left and right. Condos are popping up. Venues are closing. And while all this is happening, this is coming together and when the venues open, it’s going to be even a bigger space and a better space.
((Dillon Gerhardt, Co-Owner, Worshipper Cabinets)) 

I make custom speaker cabinets, headshell enclosures for bands, musicians and people obsessed with sound.

((NATS))
I know that a lot of my friends are getting kind of pushed out of town from just increased pricing. You have a lot of these guys that are wanting to play music and you can’t play music and work three other jobs. You know, it’s a lot harder. Like, I’m a nurse practitioner for a daytime job. Before I came here, we were making about 30 to 35 a year. I’ve only been doing it for about four years. Now we’re up to almost 50 since I've been here in three months. So, it’s a lot. So, we’re on this cusp of trying to make this, maybe make this a fulltime thing and now we have the opportunity to maybe make it happen.

((NATS))
((Stuart Sullivan, Owner/Operator Wire Recording Studio)) 

There is a seemingly sense of, as our city grows and it gets bigger, there becomes less of an intimacy, less of a personality to it.  And I think for me, the Mosaic really represents pulling back on that, bringing a community together, bringing personalities together, allowing Austin to have the personality that made it famous at this stage of the game. Because it wasn’t about being a big city and making it big. It was about coming to a beautiful town where there were wonderful things going on, and a complete and universal acceptance of things that were artistic and creative and non-violent basically. You know, there weren't a lot of rules. If you love music and you're not violent, welcome friend!

((Dan Redman, Founder, Mosaic Sound Collective)) 

Music was probably my biggest passion. And I now have two teenagers that are 17 and 19 years old and they started playing in a band in Austin when they were 9 and 11 years old called Residual Kid. When they were growing up in the Austin music scene, even as 9 and 11 years olds, their peer group wasn’t other kid bands but it was adult bands who not only were taking them under their wing, but were giving them opportunities on opening bills at shows. Now that my kids are 17 and 19 and playing in 6 or 8 different bands in Austin, I just started seeing that that peer group of musicians who helped my sons get to where they are, are some of those artists who are suffering from the affordability issues in Austin. And I really hoped to create something that was a place and a business model that could help to support artists.

((NATS))
((Dan Redman, Founder, Mosaic Sound Collective))                             

Sounds amazing

((Stuart Sullivan, Owner/Operator Wire Recording Studio)) 
Hey, that woman over there, she’s pretty good. Either that or she’s faking it really well.
((Musician)) 

It’s been one intense week.

((Dan Redman, Founder, Mosaic Sound Collective)) 

Yeah?

((Musician)) 

Yeah.

((Erick Sanger, Owner, Capital Radio Backline))                                                

I’ve never seen a community of musicians working all for a greater good of helping each other. For example, if the studio needs something, I've got that, or if somebody in the lighting department needs something from me, or if the record label that’s here, if they need something from or they need to record, but everybody works together. And we’re starting to create something that not, again, I’ve never seen in any other city ever. 

((Dan Redman, Founder, Mosaic Sound Collective))                                  

The plan here is to create an outdoor space for performances but a place for food and beverage and then this wing that we’re looking at will be mostly glass on this side, and so, our plan is to have two vinyl presses here. So, you can sit out here and have a sandwich or a taco and watch records physically being pressed.

((Peelander Yellow, Band member of Peelander-Z)) 

So, everything, like a manufacturer, we’re going to do it together here. That’s why I choose Mosaic. Mosaic, yeah.

((Erick Sanger, Owner, Capital Radio Backline))                                                 

I mean people need music. I don’t think I could survive without music.  

 

((PKG))  ORCHKIDS  
((Banner:  Sharing the Spirit))
((Reporter:  Deborah Block))
((Camera:  Mike Burke))
((Adapted by:  Martin Secrest))
((Map:  Baltimore, Maryland))
((Courtesy: SEED School of Maryland))
((Banner:  
The free program called OrchKids provides classical and jazz music training to local underprivileged youth
Violin teacher Ahreum Kim trained at Baltimore’s prestigious Peabody Institute))
((NATS))
((Ahreum Kim, Violin Teacher))  
I heard about, first heard about OrchKids because it was founded by one of the students that went to Peabody. Over the years, I heard the great things that they were working towards in Baltimore inner city, and I saw, literally saw, a job opening and I applied and here I am.
((NATS))
((Ahreum Kim, Violin Teacher))  
I realize that some of the students come into the class, into the group setting, with the baggage from all day long. That could be poverty, that could be trouble at home, that could be some arguments they got in. So, when students come in with those baggages, I didn’t know how to deal with that. That was my biggest challenge. They would act out. They would get so quiet, or in so many ways, they would express that, or not express that. And try to get them to learn to play the violin in a room full of other kids.
((NATS))
((Nema Robinson, OrchKids Student))
Classical music is a big thing. It’s very, like, such a good purpose. It could change a lot of people, because they could see, like, oh, these kids really love this music. And they think, oh, like, I never thought that kids would really cling onto this music like this.
((NATS))
((Courtesy:  Baltimore Symphony))
((Nema Robinson, OrchKids Student))

There’s people who like the music. But some people are thinking of a high level, like I’m going to do this for college, etc. So, I think a lot of people in my program, they’re determined that they’re going to get their music, because you can see it how they play. I think it’s really cool though, to see younger kids play their instruments and smile when they play.
((Ahreum Kim, Violin Teacher))  
Well, Nema is a sweetheart, and she’s been in the program for many years. (She) shows other students, her age and younger, how to be a leader, and be that example.
((NATS))

 


TEASE  ((VO/NAT))
Coming up
((Banner))
Hyperloop
((SOT))
5, 4, 3, 2, 1…..

 

BREAK TWO                                                                                 
BUMP IN  ((ANIM))                                  
 

BLOCK C
((Banner:  Speed))
 

((PKG))  HYPERLOOP
((Banner:  Moving into the Future))
((Reporter/Camera:  Genia Dulot))
((Adapted by:  Philip Alexiou))
((Map:  Los Angeles, California)) 
((Banner:  467 kilometers per hour, or 290 miles per hour is a new pod speed record inside a vacuum tunnel.))
((Banner:  600 teams from around the world meet for a Hyperloop Pod competition, sponsored by SpaceX.))
((NATS))
((Florian Janke, Warr Hyperloop)) 
So, what we thought of is, how can we improve power to rate ratio because that’s all what it’s about.  It’s more of an electric drag race, what we’re doing here.  So, ok, what do you need to go fast?  Ok, you need high acceleration or a lot of horsepower and less weight.  So, that was the first design consideration and we tried different designs.  So, one big motor, two big motors, or two big motors on the same shaft.  That was also a pretty cool idea.  But, in the end, we saw these very small motors and these have a very good power to weight ratio, so we went with that.  The simulation just showed that that would be the best option to go. 
((NATS))
5, 4, 3, 2, 1…..
((Antoine Coppens, EPFloop)) 
What we wanted to achieve is a very strong and a safe reliable chassis.  Because when you accelerate inside the vacuum tube so fast, there’s a lot of forces that act on the pod.  And in order to keep everything straight, everything contained on the pod, you have to make sure that it is very, very strong.  A lot stronger often than what you would see in normal cars because the acceleration and deceleration is not as high.  Batteries are inside these two pressure vessels on the side of the pod.  The reason that we put them inside of the pressure vessel is because they are not rated for vacuum.  So, we want to keep them at one bar.  You want to keep them at the atmospheric pressure.  Basically, that gives you the reliability that the cells, when they are exposed to vacuum, they can expand and that could be a risk for explosion or battery fire.  So, when you keep them inside the pressure vessel, you are sure that will not happen.
((Jelle Van Der Zon, DELFT Hyperloop)) 
Especially in the Netherlands, aviation, there’s a lot of, from the environment, people are not liking it so much.  There’s a lot of noise pollution, a lot of environmental pollution.  People actually want to get rid of aviation.  So, that’s why Hyperloop actually already comes in. So, with a station distance of 500 kilometers, which means we can connect like Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris or Amsterdam-Berlin.  In a plane it would take like 40 minutes to an hour, depends a little, but you need to be at the airport like two hours in advance.  And for Hyperloop, we want to organize it in such a fashion that you can arrive at a Hyperloop station, get on board and just be in Paris in 30 minutes.
((Elon Musk, CEO, SpaceX)) 
This is like really the first opportunity to create something that’s fundamentally a new mode of transport and its two parts to it.  It’s creating a pod, engineering associated with a pod and a vacuum tube and then creating the tunnels.  And this is what this competition is about as well.  It’s encouraging people to think about new modes of transport, things that could radically transform cities in the way people get around, and really testing that’s going to be around for improvement.  There are certain things in the world that implores people to be their best about the future.  And like, so pessimistic and I think, what were you doing here, is one of those things that makes people excited about the future.

((NATS))

 

((PKG))  BOXING TO FIGHT BACK PARKINSON’S 
((Banner:  Moving As Best You Can))

((Reporter:  Faiza Elmasry)) 

((Camera:  Adam Greenbaum))
((Adapted by:  Gabrielle Weiss))  

((Map:  McLean, VA)) 
((NATS))

Alright, today’s going to be a little bit of everything. We’re going to finish it off with a little competition, ok?

((Alec Langstein, Owner & Trainer, Rock Steady Boxing Fighter NOVA)) 

We have a wide variety of different cases of Parkinson’s in this program. 
((NATS))
One, two, three, beautiful!
((Alec Langstein, Owner & Trainer, Rock Steady Boxing Fighter NOVA)) 
Our youngest boxer was 25 years old. The oldest boxer we have right now is 86. A variety of different symptoms with Parkinson’s. Every case isn’t the same. So, some people have tremors. Some people are suffering from other things. And it’s pretty cool to see all them interact together.
((NATS))

One big step forward, one big step to the side.
((Neil Eisner, Rock Steady Boxing Fighter))
I think Alec, who’s the teacher, is really accenting those features that are prominent in Parkinson’s. For example, some people have problems walking or tripping. He works on exercises that affect the legs. He works on exercises that affect balance. That’s something I’m having particular problems with. One of the things, interestingly enough, is you tend to have a lower voice. When you have that lower voice, people can’t hear you. You don’t realize it. So, he accents getting us to bring up our voice clearly and more loudly.
((NATS))
Three, four, four. You’re going to do ten punches. You’re going to say out loud, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Go! When you say go your partner’s going to go. Go!
((NATS))
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, go. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, go!
((Alec Langstein, Owner & Trainer, Rock Steady Boxing Fighter NOVA)) 

Exercise in general for Parkinson’s is what’s going to help reduce the symptoms. So, boxing just fit in perfectly. It tackles all aspects that people may struggle with, with Parkinson’s. 
((Alec Langstein, Owner & Trainer, Rock Steady Boxing Fighter NOVA))

Typical boxer’s program, they focus on balance, hand-eye coordination, reaction time, footwork. There’s some cognitive stuff because in boxing certain numbers equal certain punches.  
((NATS))

Four, five…..
((Alec Langstein, Owner & Trainer, Rock Steady Boxing Fighter NOVA)) 
So when I yell out certain numbers, they have to move and react at the same time. So, the brain and the body’s working together.
((NATS))
Jab! Cross! Hook! Uppercut!
((Danielle Sequira, Physical Therapist))  
Research shows that exercise helps the brain use the dopamine more efficiently.  My goal usually is after I work with someone with Parkinson’s disease, I kind of refer them out and suggest they get involved in exercise programs out in the community.
((Victoria Herbert, Rock Steady Boxing Fighter))  
When I came to my first class here, was the first time I’d ever met anybody else with Parkinson’s. The social gathering that happens here is pretty amazing. These people have become very close in the 4 or 5 months we’ve been together. That’s a big part of it. 
((NATS))
Go! Rotate clockwise!