New Podcast Episode: "The Barbie Movie Review - And Why The Kenergy?"

It's been a minute since the "Wait, What Is That?" podcast released a new episode. Leave it to Barbie to bring Brandon and Katie back together in the recording studio to analyze the movie, discussing what it brought to - or said about - pieces of our American social culture right now.

Listen to this episode right here on the "Wait, What Is That?" website, and soon on all the podcast platforms near you when you refresh.

SPOILER ALERT: This entire description and episode is filled with spoilers.

Co-hosts Brandon and Katie explore the Barbie movie from their perspectives as a tall Black man who loves superheros, and a not-as-quite-as-tall blond white woman who just stepped off her own moving sidewalk. They munch on topics from the movie including why Kenergy was introduced at all; would this movie have grossed over a billion dollars had the Ken story not been explored?; could Irrepressible Thoughts Of Death Barbie have carried it on her own?; the background of the co-creator and star Margot Robbie and writers Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach; more exploration of Gloria's (America Ferrera) character; and why Barbie wanted to see the gynecologist as soon as she decided to feel feelings and gain anatomy like a vagina in the Real World.

New Podcast Episode: "Intentional Styling," Featuring Danielle Pitts and Tahira Willis

Over at “Wait, What Is That,” the sister podcast from A Little Beacon Blog, we mixed it up by conducting the podcast out in the wild - from the chair of the hair salon Total Beauty Salon (formerly Salon Dae). Two powerful self-made stories were waiting to be told from inside the salon: the story of how Tahira Willis dug in to make a change in her career, leaving the world of childcare settings to pursue her life-long passion for hair and beauty styling. Known for her braids of the children’s hair at Beacon’s Rose Hill Day Care Center, Tahira left after the pandemic to work at Walmart, one of the only jobs available then. In that time, she was pulled hard by her friends to pursue her hair styling for real.

That’s when she came to Total Beauty Salon as a stylist who rents a booth. As does former owner Danielle Pitts, who bought the salon 10 years ago, rebranded it to Salon Dae, and sold it last year to one of her stylists, who rebranded it to Total Beauty. Danielle has just stepped out on maternity leave for the birth of her third son, so that she can enjoy early motherhood period, and pour her visions into her recently published children’s book, Hair, Hair Everywhere.

Listen to how they both did it in this episode - how they made purposeful creative career moves with intention to style.

PODCAST DROP! Beacon Bread Company, Ziatun and Tito's Restaurateur Kamel Jamal On Palestine's Future Liberation

Way back in warmer times in Beacon (June 2021), we sat down with Kamel Jamal to talk about Palestine on ALBB’s sister podcast station, “Wait, What Is That?”

Even though I have known about Kamel for 10 years, I had not made moments to speak with him. Really speak with him. I knew his politics. I knew he fought back in social media. I knew he answered back to outlandish reviews. I knew he didn’t like the empanada guy at the Beacon Farmers Market. I knew he was a Palestinian refugee. I knew his wife Lena was lovely and quietly fierce, and that his sister Kate (who now goes by her Palestinian name, Khitam) was raw fierce and lovely.

And that’s it.

However. When 2020 happened, I started to come out of my shell. On all of my platforms. In different ways (different platforms have different audiences in different moods). I started reporting on Black Lives Matter protests in Beacon. I started researching questionable employment and disciplinary actions by the City of Beacon that might not be able to prove discrimination on paper, but continuously result in decisions that don’t add up. And who knew that writing about COVID safety and vaccination recommendations during a world-wide pandemic would be so gutsy.

Kamel and I started circling each other. Then residents in a neighborhood in Palestine called Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem protested the scheduled take-over or demolishing of their homes by Israeli forces in May 2021, resulting in a lop-sided exchange of bombs that resulted in dozens of Palestinians being killed (including children), as well as some Israeli citizens. Anyone dead is too many. Especially when defending their home. This, after decades of recently lived histories of horrific murders and attacks on both sides of the Israeli checkpoints, resulting in friends and family members lost from the entire region.

Brandon Lillard and I reached out to Kamel to see if he would be willing to speak to us on our podcast, where we could ask him all of our big and small questions. Kamel said yes. We also reached out to Rabbi Brent of the Beacon Hebrew Alliance to see if we could talk to him as well. He considered it, knowing it is delicate territory, and in the meantime, wrote this blog post. Soon after, Next Step Hudson Valley organized a Free Palestine march in Newburgh, which ALBB covered and wrote about here with videos.

Right around that time, Kamel reached out to me, as he wanted to be a sponsor of A Little Beacon Blog for 3 of his restaurants: Beacon Bread Company, Ziatun, and Tito Santana’s (WTF is the alter-ego of Beacon Bread, and serves as the cool friend next door who you sometimes see when they’re in the mood). This part was a coincidence, but did create the first time for Kamel and I to really talk over coffee. We were very honest with each other, which was as refreshing as the mint he uses in his watermelon salad.

Take a listen of this podcast episode. There was a moment where he was overcome with emotion, but you’ll probably not be able to find it. Both Brandon and I were very grateful to be sitting with Kamel, with him so accepting of our questions, as he earned to speak about his Palestine.

NEW: Podcast Episode With Justice McCray, An Organizer With Beacon4Black Lives

As a person living in Beacon, I have been following Justice McCray digitally for many years. I first knew Justice as an employee of the Howland Public Library, and could count on his bright and friendly outfits to identify himself in the isles of books for anyone in need of a reading recommendation or to know how programming at the library worked.

Early days of Beacon4Black Lives in the summer of 2020, after an open mic session at Memorial Park.

At the time, Justice only wore yellow - or seemed to - and and like a flower, began to blossom in his Instagram with more visual expressions and art. Always quiet spoken, Justice’s imagery was powerful. Then one day the color purple seeped into his stream, and then Blackout Tuesday froze the world in black squares.

Blackout Tuesday was a social media based movement on June 2, 2020 by two Black women who are executives in the music industry to get everyone to stop and think for a minute in the new whirlwind that had become the Black Lives Matter Movement that started after George Floyd was killed during the day on a busy street by police in Minneapolis, MN.

Justice McCray (left) speaking beside Stefon Seward and supported by Ciarda Hall.

Blackout Tuesday was the day where the black boxes filled up Instagram boxes. It was originally designed to show support for Black lives, and create reflection. But the stream of black boxes caused silence, and Justice McCray grew scared. He took to his Instagram with a video, guiding people on what to do - why not to stay silent, and how to not block the hashtag.

He has been evolving quickly since that day. Many Black and Brown people were tired after that day, and emotionally couldn’t explain their pain or how they felt invisible any more times. Justice is one person who chose to keep speaking and educating, as a way to help. See this video, or this one, or the many photos with messages at @yellowswagger.

This is not Justice’s first evolution, but it is one that is deeply impacting Beacon and the surrounding areas in this human rights revolution. In late May, Beacon experienced its first protest with people walking down sidewalks on a Saturday with signs. A Black woman who saw it took out her phone to take a video, saying (with sincerity), “Awe, look at that. Beacon is having a protest. How cute!”

Justice McCray, protesting outside of Beacon’s Mayor Lee Kryiacou ’s house during a City Council Meeting presenting the 2021 budget, which has an increased police budget, which the City has explained by way of Excel sheet line items in the budget, specifically in the Contingency section where money for salary raises had been earmarked but not negotiated with the police union yet.

The following Monday, however, a much larger protest erupted, starting at the Chase Bank parking lot - an un-traditional place for a protest to take place in Beacon. Word had been circulating that a protest would happen, but no one know who was organizing it, or how it would go. Ciarda Hall, Stefon Seward and Xavier Mayo were young Beacon alums who kind of knew each other, but knew enough that they wanted to band together to bring the movement to Beacon.

Justice knew them in his own way from high school, and wanted to get more involved. Today, he is one of the leading voices, faces and thinkers for what became known as Beacon4Black Lives, a fluid group - both in gender and in organization - that is committed to breaking what is normal in order to discover something new. Fiercely creative, Beacon4Black Lives has led 20 protests so far, supported other organizers in other cities who are trying to make an impact when protesting for specific things, like jail reform, police reform, or in Beacon’s latest protest, breaking the line-items in an all powerful Excel spreadsheet of Beacon’s Police budget.

In one of his first speeches over the summer, Justice expressed: “I am tired of feeling alone.” He told fellow protesters that he had a conversation with an old college friend, and the conversation bothered him. The friend asked: "Why does it matter? I don't think that I could make a difference? What good is my voice going to do?" Justice told him: "If everybody thought that way, nothing would change. Nothing could happen."

Justice continued with this statement, which has become one of his mantras: “This system of oppression needs to end. But White supremacy won't die until white people see it as a white issue that they need to solve, rather than a Black issue that they need to empathize with. This starts with each and every one of us. We need to do what we can. We all have skills. We all have something to contribute.”

In this “Wait, What Is That?” podcast episode, Justice talks with co-hosts Brandon Lillard and Katie Hellmuth Martin (me) about the formation of this Beacon-based movement, where it is headed, why Justice doesn’t identify with any super hero, and why he loves capes.

Episode 4: Lee Kyriacou: About Federal Investigation Of The Beacon Police Department Prior To 2010

During the second @beacon4blacklives (but largest...they had so much success with the first, they collaborated with other organizations to grow the movement) Beacon’s Mayor Lee Kyriacou tried to speak, and in doing so, alluded to his spearheading the Federal Investigation of the Beacon Police Department. During former Mayor Randy Casale’s podcast, this was mentioned also.

Prior to the Black Lives Movement, we actually forgot about this major detail that ended 10 years ago - the investigation, the ridding of a police chief feared by many, as well as his son, also an officer at the time. The investigation is why the department is accredited today - a rarity in these parts. As Beacon talks about police re-imagining, knowing this bit of history is key, as reference points to it are made often.

Announcing New Podcast From A Little Beacon Blog: "Wait, What Is That?"

Hello!

The inspiration for A Little Beacon Blog came from not knowing about things in Beacon. Could  be the timing of a Spring Egg Hunt, or it could be why the Spirit of Beacon Day started (answer: after youth inspired racial riots decades ago!).

As the City of Beacon began growing with development of apartment buildings, a reader lamented one day: "A Little Beacon Blog isn't going to be so little anymore." And here's the truth: A Little Beacon Blog has the word "little" in it for 2 reasons:

1. The assumption was that there would be a lot of blogs about Beacon. Turns out, that manifested in the form of Instagram accounts, which are awesome.

2. ALBB always focuses on the little details. Could be a rose, could be a tree, could be an honoree, could be a bench, could a wrench.

In The Beginning...

At the beginning of the pandemic, people starting recording more videos. Disconnect people from each other, and we break out of comfort zones into new mediums in order to connect. This happened at A Little Beacon Blog too, in the form of a podcast. We set up a studio in Katie's shed, which is ventilated with 2 doors, a fan and an air conditioner, and we wear masks during interviews. Plexiglass is next.
 

About The Co-Hosts...

Brandon Lillard is the co-host of this podcast, and the recording producer. Raised in the City of Beacon, some of you may remember him from that time he attended Beacon High School and created a character for himself: Mr. Beacon High. This was his way of working with many different people. Brandon went on to become a community organizer, youth mentor and podcast producer with Youth Podcast Program, and is a board member for I Am Beacon. Brandon had nudged ALBB's publisher Katie for a while (ok, 5 years) to start a podcast. When in a pandemic, she said yes.

We are so excited to announce to you today the start of the podcast extension of A Little Beacon Blog, called "Wait, What Is That?" It's a podcast dedicated to finding out the answers behind simple and hard questions. Sometimes during our interviews, we discover more questions, and pursue new topics to dig deeper. This could be about donuts made in Connecticut but named after Brooklyn, or the Federal Investigation of the Beacon Police Department many years ago.

We have 5 episodes to start you out with. Do carve the time out of your day during your commute to nowhere, or your gardening time, or your outdoor fitness time.

Many of these episodes will serve you well in your homework for issues going on right now in Beacon.

EPISODE 1: The Beginning
Brandon and Katie record their first podcast. Not sure what they were going to talk about. And then Brandon brought the Brooklyn Baking Company Donuts. Which are from Connecticut. And go…

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EPISODE 2: Let's Do This
Because sometimes you just need a cup of coffee and a Popsicle. In discovering their voices, Brandon and Katie take a deep dive into that house on the corner of Cross Street that is a storefront window. Brandon remembers when it was a deli and he went there daily on his way to and from the old Beacon High School.

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EPISODE 3: Former Mayor Randy Casale
Well HELLO. Our first interview is with the former Mayor of Beacon for 2 terms: Randy Casale. A born and bread Beaconite who knows everything about everything Beacon. Everything.

We interviewed Randy when he was fresh out of his political silence, during the debate about his stepson's bench and if it should be removed or moved. The original interview was 3 hours.

At the recommendation of his attorney, the podcast was edited down to 39 minutes. The bench issue has been settled for now, so he did not want to reignite.

We talk to him about his experience with the Beacon Police Department, his insistence on and fight for body cameras, and the Federal Investigation of the Beacon PD years ago.

He also discusses with us about the demotion of a Highway Superintendent, Reuben Simmons, who was demoted back down to a worker position, how a mysterious letter dis-crediting Reuben was hand-delivered to a council person's porch, how Civil Service rules worked to legally let it all happen, and if the City of Beacon had an opportunity to keep Reuben in his job, but did not take that route. Even though Randy voted for the appointment of the current Highway Superintendent, Randy said Reuben having the position be taken from him was one of his biggest regrets.

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EPISODE 4: Mayor Lee Kyriacou
BAM. Our next interview was with current Mayor Lee Kyriacou. During Randy’s interview, and during the 1st biggest BLM protest in Beacon, we learned that Lee spearheaded the look-see into Beacon’s Police Department in the early 2000s, which resulted in a Federal Investigation. We wanted to learn more about that.

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EPISODE 5: Reuben Simmons
Following up on what we learned earlier, we interviewed Reuben about how and why he no longer has the position of Highway Superintendent, after 1 year of serving in it. Katie worked with Reuben when he created the Rock Out For Mental Health music event last year. Many service agencies came together at one community event, which impacted a lot of people.

When Katie wrote the article about Reuben's inspiration for the event, she went to confirm his job title, which had been Highway Superintendent. Reuben worked for the Highway Department since 2002, and she was proud of his promotion. But LinkedIn showed a job descension: where he once was the Highway Superintendent, he was now Maintenance Worker. What happened?

Reuben couldn't answer at the time, as he was filing a complaint about the experience. One year later, at the first BLM sound stage, Reuben spoke out about it. Reuben walks us through the chess match of Civil Service rules which determine how a city can hire, fire, demote, and discipline employees.

Reuben says he did not know about the mystery letter until much later. A Little Beacon Blog has a copy of it, and published it with this podcast so that you can read it. Additionally, we have published the City Council Meeting from February 2019 where each City Council Member voted to appoint Reuben's co-worker to the job under a technicality. During that meeting, many from the Highway Department were in the audience (except for the 3 Black workers in the Highway Department, including Reuben, who say they were not told about the date of the appointment). The staff from the Highway Department can be heard hooting and hollering during the vote. Many on the Council laughed with them.

Reuben continues his work every day for the City, but has this to say on why he speaks out now: "I have experienced unfair treatment, harassment, and retaliation in the Highway Department that has continued after my efforts to bring a number of issues to the attention of city management and leadership. I share my story as a response to the many narratives and rumors spread by childish individuals and because I don’t want it happening to anyone else."

The letter, the public City Council meeting with the laughter, and a timeline of events have been published with this podcast. A Little Beacon Blog reached out to the City Administrator for confirmation of the timeline, and was responded to with an invitation to talk to the City's labor lawyer. While we don't need a conversation, we are awaiting an email response to our questions.

If you're following Police news with any hiring of positions, you'll want to listen to this podcast to get familiar with Civil Service chess. If you want to learn about how someone gets safely removed from a job without legal ramifications, you'll want to listen to this podcast.

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EPISODE 6: Ali T. Muhammad
Ali T. Muhammad was born and raised in Beacon, NY, walking every day down a literal pathway between prison and public school, as his home was on the grounds. He walked the “school to prison pipeline” (and tells us about what that means on this podcast). His father was incarcerated for 12 years, and upon getting released, became the Chaplin for Fishkill Correctional Facility. Ali’s mother was a teacher at Rombout Middle School (and was Brandon’s teacher!).

Ali lived the life of a Black youth in Beacon, and continues to as a Black man in America. As a way to keep himself occupied and on a straight path, he began getting involved with local politics, getting elected as a Council Member for Ward 4 at an early age.

Ali served on Beacon's City Council years ago, and after a period bucking his own Democratic party, wasn't elected back. He was known to stay focused on issues of inequality for Black and poor communities, but was often dismissed. His concerns are coming back to make sense now to more people during this racial revolution. Katie and Brandon talk to Ali about those issues, including how to build a WeePlay Tot Park at Davies Terrace and other low income housing projects that are owned by private, large, wealthy real estate companies. Lots of times kids in the low income housing projects don't have access to transportation to get to city parks, and depend on taxis to get to the Beacon Pool - if they can afford the ride. We discuss this and more.

Next Up: We interview Katie's son, Cole, who wanted to talk about his feelings upon hearing that Paw Patrol might be canceled, and then fact checking the White House who in late July said it was canceled, but was in fact not. Cole tells us what he values about Paw Patrol.

Then: We'll meet our sometimes 3rd co-host, Blake Daniel Leslie, a musician, artist, actor and podcaster. And Brandon's best friend. You might recognize Blake from his days with the cover-band Skin and Bones who used to play around town.

And a few more: We have a few more interviews on deck. We interview on Wednesdays, and will release as they are produced.