Crude Conversations

EP 122 Hockey, journalism and being the last editor of the Anchorage Press with O’Hara Shipe

In this episode, Cody talks to O’Hara Shipe. She’s a former professional hockey player and a journalist. She started playing hockey at 5 years old after she was told she couldn’t because she’s a girl. So, the next thing she did was go to her parents and tell them that’s what she was gonna to do. They signed her up that fall and she walked over to the coach and said she was gonna be their next goalie.
 
She’s never liked being told that she’s limited, that she can’t do something. So, when her professional hockey career came to an end in 2013, it was devastating. She contracted viral meningitis from a dirty back injection. The infection led to myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME, and causes neurological disorders. Hand tremors, memory loss, neuropathy, excruciating pain. There are even times when her ability to speak is taken from her. When she was first diagnosed, she was bed-bound, but she worked her way up to playing hockey and rock climbing a couple times a week. She’s an eternal optimist. That’s how she defines herself in so many aspects of her life, and the last thing she was going to do was let this illness define her.
 
Before she was its editor, she took photos and wrote articles for the Anchorage Press. The second article she wrote for the paper was about the band Buckcherry. They were in Anchorage playing a show and they gave her a candid, warts-and-all interview. It was a transformative experience for her as a journalist, to see an entire picture of a celebrity, not just their public image. She says that was the turning point for her, when she really started to consider herself a writer. And the more she wrote and took photos for the paper, the better she understood the function of alt-weeklies, how they provide a unique opportunity to talk about the things that fall outside of traditional media, the human stories behind the news.
 
When she became the editor of the Anchorage Press, she wanted to return it to what she considered its heyday. For her, that was under the editorship of Susy Buchanan. O’Hara says the paper was well-designed, the stories were insightful, hard-hitting and they had a point of view. Her goal was to return it back to that, but with such a small budget to pay contributors it was hard. Instead of being able to pay contributors each week for content, she was responsible for writing four or five articles and taking most of the photos. It was definitely a labor of love. She’d go on 36-hour work benders to design, copy-edit and rewrite articles when necessary. This lasted for about nine months, and then on December 16, 2022 she was told the paper was closing and was given less than an hour to gather her things.

EP 121 A fear of money and the pursuit of success with Nick Carpenter

In this episode, Cody talks to Nick Carpenter of Medium Build. He grew up in a religious household, so the church and its teachings ruled everything. Money was important too, but he says it was always just out of their reach. So, in many ways, that resulted in them idolizing it because so many emotions were attached to it. Obsession, fear, paranoia, shame. It influenced their perception of themselves and others. This led Nick to his fear of money — that if he didn’t remain vigilant and aware of the pitfalls of wealth, it would consume him. So, he and his brother made a conscious effort to undo a lot of what they were taught and, in the process, figure out who they are without those teachings. Today, he and his parents have found understanding in their differences. They focus on connecting on the things they enjoy — food, music, playing board games. They stay honest with each other and they remind themselves that they’re stronger together.
 
When he was 8 years old, Nick started singing in front of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people at his church. Then, when he was 15, he realized that he wanted to write and play his own music. He wrote a song and played it for a girl he had a crush on. She didn’t like him, but she liked the song. So, he knew he had an ability to entertain people and connect with them.
 
He says that his songs are his journal entries. Historically, they’ve been self-referential, but recently they’ve become more fictional. Many times borrowing from people and situations he observes. It all helps him process his life and the world around him. He wants it to be his career, to travel around the world singing his stories. But he says that if it all stopped — if his manager left him and no one booked him for shows anymore — he would still play music. Most likely he’d be at the open mics around Anchorage.

Chatter Marks EP 53 A liver transplant and directing a horror movie starring an Inuit cast with Nyla Innuksuk

Nyla Innuksuk is an Indigenous director from Canada and she recently released Slash/Back, a horror / sci-fi movie about a group of Inuit girls who save their remote arctic community from an alien invasion. She says that the horror genre has always been a big part of her life. Her mom — being a fan as well — introduced it to her, actually. One day when Nyla and a friend were having a sleep over, her mom rented Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds for them. They were 8 years old. That was the same year that Nyla and another friend would ride their bikes to the graveyard, they’d sit there and they’d write ghost stories. That’s how she spent most of her days until she was about 13 or 14. She lived in a town that was predominently Christian and realized that her love of witches and magic was probably not appropriate. But by then, she had moved onto writing scripts anyway.
Making Slash/Back was important to Nyla for a couple reasons. For one, she was able to film the script she’d been working on for years. It also helped her recover from a liver transplant. When she got the news about needing the tranplant, she was told that she had a 50/50 chance of surviving the month. It was a grim and scary situation, but she made it through the month and received a transplant in May of 2017. That September, she went to Nunavut and shot the proof of concept for the movie. She wasn’t wasting any time. Facing her mortality brought things intro focus and helped her recognize the things that she believes are really important in life. Friends, family and the relationships we build with them. It also helped her understand the importance of pursuing the things she wants in life.

EP 120 Musical storytelling with Michele McLaughlin

In this episode, Cody talks to pianist Michele McLaughlin. She says that she’s always been musical. When she was in kindergarten, she learned to play the piano. Whatever songs they were singing in class, she would go home and learn them by ear and then play them for her class, almost as a form of show and tell. She remembers Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Mary Had a Little Lamb. Then, when she was 8, and she was getting better at playing, she learned George Winston songs by ear. Specifically his December album. Eventually, she began creating her own music.
Michele's albums have their roots in Christmas. Her first one — Beginnings — she gave out as Christmas gifts. She borrowed a digital keyboard and recorded the album onto a cassette tape. Her mom loved it and would play it in her car. So, Michele made 30 copies of that tape and decided to give them away as presents to friends and family. The feedback she got was so encouraging, that it motivated her to keep making albums. Maybe give them away for presents next Christmas. That was in 2000. By 2003, she had put her music online and that was the beginning of her career.
She calls her time at the piano her musical diary. It’s when she can express her raw emotions and raw feelings. And you can tell. Her music is contemplative, dramatic, triumphant, melancholy and joyous. It’s the result of her sitting down and pouring her heart into it. At her performances, before she plays a song, she tells the story behind it. Stories about her family, her hardships, her travels, her pursuit of love. All of the emotions and the experiences that are so integral to her music. She says it’s one of her favorite parts of her concerts: Sharing intimate pieces of her life so that her audience might, for at least a moment, feel those same emotions.

Chatter Marks EP 52 If you take care of nature, it’ll take care of you with Mossy Kilcher

Mossy Kilcher is a homesteader, a musician and an ornithologist. When she was young, she was afraid of nature. It was just so big and there were so many ways to die. But the more time she spent outdoors, the better she understood it. Making music and recording bird songs helped. She realized that it wasn’t about taming the wilderness or dominating nature — like her father believed — it was about living in unison with it. That if you take care of it, it will be there for you when you inevitably need it. Understanding her place in nature, helped her understand her role in it. For example, she found that if she sat still for long enough, she became invisible and she could see and listen to nature doing its business all around her. It carried on without her help. She says that this was a sobering thought: that everything is important, not just her.
She recently released a book — a memoir — that focuses on her upbringing. Homesteading in Alaska before it was a state, living off the grid and off the land. They hunted and they gathered. It was a self-sufficient lifestyle that her father sought out and he found it in Alaska, a place where he believed he could live simply. They settled on land about 15 miles from the nearest town and accessible only by a trail in the forest or on the beach at low tide. They used horses and a wagon to transport goods back and forth. Mossy says that she wanted to share all of this because it’s what led her to another way of looking at life, another way of looking at the world. That everything matters and we need to be good, thoughtful stewards of the planet. It’s a connection with nature that she has applied to every aspect of her life.

Chatter Marks EP 51 The Alaska punk scene with Josh Medsker

In the mid-90s and early 2000s, Josh Medsker documented the Alaska punk scene. He started out as a fan, attending as many shows as he could, and then he began documenting the scene. For about three years, he wrote for the University of Alaska Anchorage student paper, “The Northern Light,” the city’s alt-weekly, “The Anchorage Press,” and for his own publication, “Noise, Noise, Noise.” Articles, interviews, anything he could do to help tell the story of punk in Alaska. The scene was so vibrant and the energy was so infectious, that he felt a responsibility to capture as much as he could. 
There were bands with names like Skate Death, Psychedelic Skeletons and Filipino Haircut. There were bands interested in the occult, bands interested in performance art, bands interested in making genuine punk music. There was even a band that lit themselves on fire. And they were all performing in venues and eventually warehouses. But for it to be sustainable, there needed to be the right mix of culture bearers and promoters. Bands that created the music, venues that hosted shows, an alt-weekly newspaper that promoted the shows, and a college radio station that played the music. It was a mixture that sometimes worked out and sometimes didn’t. When it worked out, the scene would flourish; when it didn’t, the scene would fade. 
Josh looks back on that time as some of the happiest moments of his life. He remembers going into local music stores and buying local music. How special it was to buy a tape and listen to a local band, knowing that these musicians were walking the same streets that he walked. They understood his interests and his point of view.

Chatter Marks EP 50 Indigenizing public spaces with Crystal Worl

Crystal Worl is fresh off of two big projects. A mural in downtown Anchorage and a commission for Google. The mural depicts and applies traditional Alaska Native traditions and symbols — the formline art of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian, for example. It’s 120-feet long, the largest thing she’s ever designed. The Google skin, titled “Primary Ravens,” depicts ravens, which represent the Creator and are always playing tricks. What she likes most about these pieces is that they’re public. They don’t belong to just one person, they belong to the communities that they’re made for. So, anyone has access to them. Both designs utilize traditional and modern techniques, something Crystal makes a point of combining in her work, and they’re part of a larger idea to indigenize public spaces.
Crystal says that having her murals displayed downtown is significant because that’s where people come together. It’s where locals hang out, do business, have dinner, and it’s where visitors are often introduced to Alaska. In many ways, art helps us understand a city, the land and the history of both. She says that the art of formline can help us understand the future of Alaska. It can help us visualize and plan for the future of a state that reflects our ideals and our values. Her mentor, Haida artist Robert Davidson, taught her about the power of visualization. He told her to focus on the end goal, not the process because so many things will test your strength along the way, so it’s important to be persistent. To imagine herself standing in front of the finished piece and celebrating it.

EP 119 Starbound with Sammy Luebke

In this one, Cody talks to professional snowboarder Sammy Luebke. Snowboarding has been part of Sammy’s life for 25 years. He grew up in it. His first board was a 111 Burton Air — it was about 3 and a half feet tall — and he rode it at Alyeska, when he and his family lived in Girdwood, Alaska in an A-frame nicknamed Twin Peaks. There, at Alyeska, was where he laid the groundwork for the rider he would later become. Confident and versatile. Then, in 1998, he and his family moved to Truckee. His parents had just split up and the move provided his family with more opportunities. It also put him in a position and a scene that would help grow his snowboard career. It wasn’t long before he met friends, kids who were also competing in the USASA competitions. They formed a crew and called themselves Starbound.
 
Early in his career, he focused on freestyle riding — hitting jumps and rails. In 2011, he got first part in a Standard Films video and a cover shot with Onboard Magazine. At 21, he had accomplished what so many professional snowboarders work their entire careers to achieve. Then, in 2012, he switched gears and made the decision to focus on big mountain riding. He competed in the Freeride World Tour and came in 3rd place. Every time he returned, he got closer and closer to winning. Until, in 2016, he nailed all of his lines and won the tour. He would go on to win it in 2017 and 2018 as well. Three years in a row. He says doing the competition was probably the biggest decision he’s made in snowboarding because he did it for himself. It wasn’t to appease sponsors or to make money, it was out of his love and devotion to snowboarding.
 
Right now, he’s at a point in his life where he’s trying to be a jack of all trades. He’s learning new skills — stuff he says he missed out on when he was younger and busy pursuing snowboarding. His plan is for these new skills to lead to work that will allow him to snowboard his own way. He’s learned a lot since Girdwood, back when so many big parties were at his house and he was surrounded by adults. He had to grow up fast. So now, he impresses on his daughters to enjoy being a kid because it doesn’t last long and adulthood, with all its responsibilities and obligations, will come soon enough.

EP 118 Pointing it with Ashely Call

In this one, Cody talks to big mountain snowboarder Ashley Call. As a kid, he was familiar with his home mountain, Eaglecrest, because he’d be there pretty much every day from 6:30 in the morning to 6:30 in the evening. For over 20 years, his dad was the director of ski patrol. So, while he helped ready the mountain for the day, Ashley ran around the lodge and caused trouble. Until the mountain opened and the lifts started spinning. Then it was time for Ashley to ride the mountain all day long.He started snowboarding at 13. That first year, he went as fast as he could until he fell down. He had to, he was trying to keep up with the Juneau Boys, a group of riders in Juneau who were pushing the boundaries of the sport in the ‘90s and early 2000s. They rode together, traveled for competitions nationally and internationally and filmed video parts. They were a family of exceptional riders who fed off each other. So, to keep up with them, Ashley had to point it. He had to go as fast as he could. Which is something he would become known for. He would go on to have an impressive big mountain career, with wins at Verbier, Arctic Man and King of the Hill.For the last six or seven years, he’s been focused on powsurfing. Powsurfers are like snowboards, but without bindings. He says it gives him the same rush he used to get with snowboarding, when he’d charge spines and steep lines. So, any chance he gets, that’s what he does. At a ski resort or in the backcountry. As he gets older, that’s where he sees himself putting his energy, being a proponent of powsurfing. That and being a father. He says that his daughter has taught him patience, something he’s lacked until recently. Lift lines and traffic, for example, used to stress him out. But now, with a kid, he’s learning to slow down and that it’s okay if things take a little bit longer.

Chatter Marks EP 049 On roots, family and heritage with Priscilla Hensley

Priscilla Hensley is a writer and a documentarian. Before she started working on documentaries, her job history was varied — she had worked in communications and, having made a few short films herself, had some prior knowledge of filmmaking. There was also a period of time when she considered herself a poet. All these jobs have helped her to become a jack-of-all-trades. Her time in communications has helped a lot with her documentary work because so much of filmmaking is about logistics and making things happen. Her poetry has helped with her screenwriting. She says that the most important thing she’s learned about screenwriting is to start. Just put the story on paper. You don’t need to have great spelling, you can drop words, and you don’t need to storyboard everything. Just start writing. And then, later, you can worry about editing and rewriting.  
Priscilla grew up recognizing and honoring her Inupiaq heritage. Her dad, William Hensley, is a key figure in Alaska Native land rights. He’s known for his role in the creation of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. As a result of the act, Alaska Natives retained 44 million acres of land and about 1 billion dollars to settle Indigenous land claims in Alaska. Growing up around all of this is a big reason she pursues telling the stories that she does. The first documentary she worked on, for example, was “We Up,” a film about Indigenous hip hop of the circumpolar North. It was produced by the Anchorage Museum. In addition to it being a family affair — her husband also worked on the film and their children tagged along — it introduced her to the power of filmmaking.
Priscilla has tattoos that commemorate her roots and her heritage. She gets them with her cousin every time she goes back to Alaska. The most recent one is on her hand, so she sees it when she’s writing or operating a camera. She says that she loves seeing her tattoos when she works because they’re a visual reminder of who she is, how she wants the world to see her, and her responsibility to being true to herself, her family and her community.