Is Now A Good Time?

An unedited conversation with Proud from June 1, 2017. James Allen Ehrlich (July 19, 1945 - August 17, 2024)

Emma Rose Allen grew up in Ojai and graduated from UCLA's dance program. She works as a teacher and choreographer for the Ojai Youth Entertainers Studio (OYES) and continues to choregraph and perform her own works as a professional dancer. musical notes: "So What" by Pink "Vampire Empire" by Big Thief "Ride" by Lana Del Rey "Espresso" by Sabrina Carpenter "Up All Night" by SAULT

This is a conversation with my Dad (Bill Ehrlich) on the eve of his retirement at 65. He had a 35-year career as a sales professional in the commercial printing business. Photo: On the front steps of our house in Minnesota with his two grandsons. musical notes: Neil Young "Ohio" [1:14] Simon & Garfunkel "Punky's Dilemma" [8:40] The Beatles "Getting Better" [21:20] Norman GreenBaum "Spirit in the S...

January is currently studying to become a psychosomatic therapist. musical notes: Rostam - "Thatch Snow" [intro] Yo Yo Ma & Kathryn Stott - "The Swan (From _Carnival of the Animals, R. 125_)" @ [18:50] Thelonious Monk - "I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)" @ [29:45] Colleen - "Soul Alphabet" [outro]

Wesaam Al-Badry is a photojournalist living in San Francisco. He was born in 1984 in Nasiriyah, Iraq. website: http://www.wesaamalbadry.com/ musical notes: Charlie Parr - "Jaybird" [intro] The Cannonball Adderly Quintet - "Mercy Mercy Mercy (Live) (Remix)" [outro]

Lorna Simpson is a stylist and art director currently living and working in San Francisco. website: https://lornaaisimpson.com/ instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lopimpson/ musical notes: Spoon - "Inside Out" [intro] Wilco - "I am trying to break your heart" @ [5:35] Wild Nothing - "Shadow" @ [15:34] Oddnesse - "Somewhere Somehow" @ [19:43] M. Ward - "Epistemology" @ [32:18] Flo Morrissey & Mat...

Simone wrote a piece about how he "solved his quarter life crisis" -- link provided below. Topically the piece has overlap with a number of the conversations I've had for this show and it displayed an admirable candor: "I’ve been out of college for four years, and while my med school friends inch closer to their white coats and my finance friends inch closer to their white board meetings, I feel a...

Darrell Williams is an excellent barber and lends a nonjudgmental ear to his clients, I know because I'm one of them. Darrell's mixture of serene wisdom and humor come through in our conversation reflecting on his life. He's been through a lot but has made it through without bitterness. "Their responsibility is to show me support, not to support me . . . There's a difference." "If you put in effor...

Nick Carrel - corporate sales turned dog walking entrepreneur . . . Nick went from corporate sales to dog walking via a failed attempt at "following his passion" for Yerba Mate tea. His story highlights the difficulty of career navigation in uncharted waters and how the vehicle to achieve work satisfaction can be totally unexpected. Show Notes: Website: www.barkingbuddhas.org Facebook: www.faceboo...

Martina and Britney Abrahams are the sisters behind the podcast You Had Me At Black. They grew up in Bridgewater, New Jersey and despite growing up in the same environment had starkly different experiences. After high school Martina majored in Marketing at Georgetown University while Britney studied theater and creative writing at Spelman College. Currently Martina (founder/host) lives in Oakland,...

Io Kleiser is an astronomy and astrophysics PhD student at Caltech and is currently a visiting student at Berkeley. In our conversation we discuss how Io decided to go into the sciences and some of the challenges that have come with that path – among them building a foundation of subject matter knowledge in order to pursue the career she wanted as well as the reality of being a female in a male do...

Dolly Li is a visual journalist at AJ+ - http://www.ajplus.net/english/ - http://dollyli.com/ Dolly's grandfather was persecuted during the cultural revolution in China before her parents eventually immigrated to Brooklyn, New York. Dolly's story explores how in two generations you can go from cultural persecution to professionally practicing free speech. Her father, who is also an artist, taught...

I met Kalin while he was drawing a crowd outside of the Downtown Berkeley BART stop. He was playing the saxophone with a soul and depth that stopped me in my tracks and I had to find out more. He studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and is a graduate of the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts. If you'd like to see him and his band live, Soul Progressions, check out upcoming dates...

Willee's path brought him from California to South America and back to California via New Orleans. Over the past few years he worked for the ACLU, Goorin Bros Hat Co. and studied under San Francisco milliner Wayne Wichern before beginning to make his own hats. Willee is now a hatmaker based in Berkeley, California. He combines the practice of plant medicine with the craft of millinery to provide p...

Siggy and Joey are the instigators of DadaConf (dadaconf.com), a conference built around the idea of “Big Dada” -- think Big Data meets Dadaism. Siggy and Joey work in the tech industry but maintain a sense of both the promise and absurdity of technology. They started DadaConf in order to bring people from all different backgrounds together to learn new skills from each other and subsequently use...

Michelle recently received admission to London Film School and moved to London at the beginning of April to begin her program at LFS in May. Michelle was a Digital Marketing Coordinator at Levi's in San Francisco for the past year and a half. Before San Francisco, she worked at Kinfolk Magazine and Sea Chant in Portland. "It's like shedding skin as a snake . . . that's the way you grow." "You have...

Joel is a QA Software Engineer from southern Mexico (Villhermosa, Tabasco). He currently works at Endless Mobile in San Francisco and in June will be leaving to travel the world starting with a one-way ticket to India. “I’m not sold on this idea that I should be careful about every step I take to have the planned perfect life . . . why wouldn’t I try this.” "I want to make decisions that the futur...

Allison is Head of Education at 3Doodler and currently lives and works in Hong Kong. "You can do anything that you want but you can't do everything . . . at least not all at once." "It's a lot of shiny objects out there." "Nobody tells you what to do after you've turned in all your homework." Her current side hustle is a clothing line most easily described as "Patagonia for bizwear." -- https://me...

Jenna is a copywriter at Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. "It's very sad but also very empowering. The worst thing that could possibly happen to me has already happened . So in a way it kind of released me to this, that I realized I could take more risks . . . because what's the worst that could happen . . . there is none anymore." Podcast mixed by Mike Benz.

Shane moved to California after spending time in China and South America post-college. "Go with your gut, whatever that tells you . . . whether it's the safe route, whatever it is. Your gut is going to get you where you are supposed to be." Podcast mixed by Mike Benz.

Mike is an aspiring writer who felt he needed more time to write. In his mid-twenties, he quit his day job and took a multi-year sabbatical only to find himself less productive than expected and yearning for some of the small things we take for granted as part of the daily grind. He currently lives in Oakland, works a day job, and is still writing.

Lauren is an industrial designer focusing on user experience and user interface. What makes something well designed? "The fact that when you're using the product or service you don't actually think about the design, you don't even notice it was designed . . . it's when the design actually disappears and it's just so intuitive, that means it's a good design." ~ Lauren Argo If Lauren had to choose a...

Chloe is a food photographer and graphic designer who works in restaurant PR at Postcard Communications in San Francisco, CA. Website: http://www.chloelist.com/ Instagram: @chloelist If she had to choose a title for her autobiography: "I Still Don't Know"