Rightnowish

Filmmaker Maria Victoria Ponce was raised in Richmond, CA. She’s mastered the art of telling stories that speak to her individual experience of coming up there, as well as the awkwardness that’s universally found in the process of growing up– no matter where you’re from. Recently, she invited Rightnowish host Pendarvis Harshaw and producer Marisol Medina-Cadena to stop by and see the family photos...

This week on Rightnowish, we’re sharing an episode from our friends at KQED’s Mindshift Podcast. It’s all about new approaches to raising and educating children. I didn’t have my first Black teacher until 7th grade, and only one after that until college. When I became a teacher, that’s when it clicked: representation matters, as does exposure to a diverse set of life experiences. In this episode,...

Today we’re passing the mic to a group that’s doing some substantive work, both in the community and in the media. The Hella Black Podcast, hosted by Delency Parham and Abbas Muntaqim, is a show focused on movements toward Black liberation. Right now the Hella Black Podcast is running a unique series called Tales Of The Town. It’s produced by former Rightnowish guest and award winning filmmaker, M...

At the heart of Día de los Muertos is a celebration of the cycle of life. It's a time to talk with our dead. We sing to them, prepare altars with flower and food offerings, and share stories to keep their memories alive. It's both a sacred and joyous time. Here in the Bay Area, we go all out for the tradition. Elaborate public altars are constructed in parks, schools, and community spaces. Museums...

October 25, 2022 marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Rightnowish podcast! This week, we’re revisiting an episode that’s emblematic of this show’s ethos. In July of 2021 we published an episode featuring Alameda’s own producer and DJ, Trackademicks. Known as the “cool collar scholar” from the HNRL collective, Trackademicks is a music producer who makes original songs and has a knack fo...

Inside of a classic Queen Anne victorian in West Oakland, photographer Traci Bartlow displays beautifully framed images of the people who shaped hip-hop culture in the Bay Area, and across the nation. Her house doubles as a photography museum and a boutique hotel, that tells the complex story of multiple generations of Black folks, land ownership and community. This week we go back to the 90s as T...

Fremont photographer Sydney Welch has compiled a collection of photos that serve as a highlight reel for the latest wave of talented hip-hop and R&B artists emerging from the Bay Area, including Stunnaman02, LaRussell, Kehlani, P-Lo, Su'Lan, Larry June, and Rexx Life Raj. Her images are captured at concerts, showing artists rocking the stage or having an intimate moment backstage. She has Polaroid...

There's a lot going on in the world. On top of the constant grind that capitalism demands, there's news of natural disasters, inflation, war and conflicts. And that's in addition to the interpersonal issues we all face. We could use a little more laughter in our lives. So last month, Rightnowish held an event called, Put Your Phone Down! A Rightnowish Comedy Night at KQED's headquarters in San Fra...

"It's only on you for the rest of your life," reads the Instagram bio of tattoo artist Shannon Anderson aka Mo' Better. A widely recognized tattoo artist, he's done notable pieces on famous athletes and entertainers, But he's also inked multiple generations of Bay Area families. He's a self-taught tattoo veteran who is paving the way for others to traverse an industry that hasn't been to kind to p...

"People really want something that brings meaning into their life," says Sabreena Haque, a well-known henna artist and burgeoning tattoo artist. Henna is an important part of wedding rituals and birthday celebrations. Similar to tattoos, henna plays an important role in times of transition. Sabreena says the practice of receiving henna, which involves sitting still and letting the paste sink into...

Sophia Blum, also known as Pio Poke, is a master of the stick-and-poke (or hand poke) method of tattooing. With a handheld needle, she creates detailed textile designs and images of feathers, arrows, birds and botanicals. On top of being a skilled artist, she's in the business of changing the industry — after recognizing unfair labor practices within traditional tattoo parlors, where owners get th...

Our series, Permanent Behavior: Getting Tatted in the Bay, starts with tattoo artist Miguel "Bounce" Perez. Perez has vivid childhood memories of art created by his family: His mother drew “chola-style” portraits of women with feathered hair and sharp brows, while his uncles created lettering in Cali-Chicano Old English script. His father was part of a car club in his West Berkeley community, a ne...

On Rightnowish, we feature a lot of stories about art that's here today, gone tomorrow—and we wanted to find art that lasts forever. So, we turned to tattoos. Permanent Behavior, our four-part series on tattooing in the Bay, kicks off this week. In these stories, we dive into the permanence of ink, as it resides on impermanent beings. We hear from the creators of the tattoos—the artists behind the...

Growing up, Robert Liu-Trujillo didn't see himself represented in the books he read. So after he became a dad, he wanted to make sure his son would have stories to relate to. Liu-Trujillo set forth on a path to fill the void. And in doing so, he's contributed to the effort to create a culturally aware and racially just future for all of us. Initially an illustrator, he became an author and has pub...

The Rightnowish team is working on some new and exciting projects — but first, we want to hear from YOU. Do you listen to the show? What do you want to hear more of? What's missing? By filling out a quick survey, you can help shape the future of Rightnowish. Check it out: https://bit.ly/3C4MRzt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last year, renowned writer and San Francisco Poet Laureate, Tongo Eisen-Martin, told us that it's not enough to simply be a poet. "The poet needs to just come on down to the trenches," he said, explaining that quality writing comes from the lived experience of participating in community activism. In direct application of his own philosophy, Tongo has been involved with the occupation of Parker Ele...

This week on Rightnowish, we're passing the microphone to the team at The Stoop podcast. In this episode, hosts Leila Day and Hana Baba introduce us to folks practicing healthy alternatives to monogamy, including author and educator Kevin Patterson, who describes his polyamory as "relationship anarchy." "Every person that I meet, our relationship just sort of forms naturally," he says. "I don't tr...

San Francisco lyricist and graffiti writer Dregs One is making sure Bay Area hip-hop culture is properly documented, and at the same time he's becoming a recognized historian. In a series of videos he simply calls "History of The Bay," Dregs is using TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to highlight aspects of Bay Area culture that are often overlooked. In one video he dives into the use of loc...

In Indigenous protocol, we're beginning this week's episode honoring the original stewards of this land that many of us in Frisco now occupy — the ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone. Now, let's take a trip down Valencia Street to La Misión. The neighborhood is home to not one, but two rich cultural districts. Calle 24 Latino Cultural District was first established in 1999. More recently, i...

Joshua Neal is a viral sensation, using social media platforms to share his acting talents and social commentary with the world, and simultaneously launching his career. Multiple times a week, Neal posts short comedic videos where he plays all the roles, writes all the scripts, and produces all the stories. He can be seen smoking fake cigarettes as a bad guy or wearing a towel on his head as he ta...

Maya Cueva makes documentary films that cover the heavy topics: immigration, reproductive justice and xenophobia. Her latest, On The Divide, follows the stories of three Latinx people whose lives interconnect through the last abortion clinic on the U.S./Mexico border. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2021, and is available to stream free of charge through July 18, 2022 at POV. Cu...

Nenna Joiner owns Feelmore, a queer-friendly sex toy shop with locations in Berkeley and Oakland. Noticing the lack of Black queer spaces beyond the monthly “RnB nights” at many local clubs, they decided to open the Feelmore Social Club in Downtown Oakland, a bar slated to open in 2022. “This energy that they feel in Feelmore is akin to the energy that they're going to feel here,” Joiner assures,...

The rich LGBT history of the Tenderloin goes back farther than any bricks thrown at Stonewall, and Transgender Cultural District President and Chief Strategist Aria Sa’id makes it her job to preserve that history. Her work in securing tenant protections, workforce development, arts and cultural heritage preservation, and cultural competency for the residents of the historic Tenderloin neighborhood...

When Rodney Barnette first moved to San Francisco in 1969, he noticed that “it wasn’t all rah rah gay capital of the world.” His experiences with racism in San Francisco’s historic gay community led him to open the New Eagle Creek Saloon, the city’s first Black-owned gay bar, in 1990. Over 30 years later, Barnette speaks about why Black-affirming queer spaces are still needed, and what he took awa...

Friendships can be hard for anyone. As an adult you need to navigate staying in contact with old friends, getting past the awkward early stage of new friends, and deciding if certain friendships are healthy or unhealthy. This doesn't even touch on time constraints, and the difficulty of hangs since the beginning of the pandemic. But maybe we make friendships harder than they have to be? This week...