Episodes
Epis.#45: a Travel Agent in the pandemic- time to change careers
Marti is a travel agent who lives in Thousand Oaks, California. After 10 years in the travel business, the corona-virus pandemic rapidly put the brakes on it- there were virtually no trips to plan. Fortunately, she was beginning a transition into wellness coaching,...
Epis.#44: Going Where the Work is- an American Architect in Paris
Nick Morof works for an architecture firm in Paris. Just a year out of architecture school at USC, he’s already established a solid career path, thanks to strategic internships in Detroit, Tokyo and the one in Paris that led to his current full-time salaried position....
Epis.#43: Christy, an Essential Worker in Albuquerque
Christy works at a grocery store - part of a national chain - in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A recent college graduate, she talks about what it's been like as shoppers went into panic mode, navigating customers who don't follow public health guidelines, and the empathy...
Epis.#42: Project manager and commercial realtor Phillip P. discusses the comforts of wealth and the ways in which landlords can work with tenants in times of crisis
Phillip P. is a Santa Barbara-based landlord and project manager who works with multi-millionaires and billionaires. He talks about maintaining a minimum standard of comfort when he travels – which he does often for work –including everything from where he sits on the...
Epis.#41: Actor and standup comedian Ethan Herschenfeld on the complex relationship of being an artist AND having financial security
Ethan Herschenfeld is a standup comedian and actor (his acting credits include: Girls, Boardwalk Empire, High Maintenance, and the Plot Against America) living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He's managed to reach a level of financial security that's very unusual for a...
Epis.#40: Allen makes very good money in corporate IT, AND is unemployed in the same year as an Airstream trailer nomad
Allen (not his real name) works in corporate IT. He makes very good money, but only works about half of the year—the rest of the time he is “unemployed” (at least that’s how he essentially presents himself to people he’s dating)....
Epis.#39: How DO rich people feel about being rich? Sociologist Rachel Sherman, author of “Uneasy Street: the Anxieties of Affluence,” explains.
I speak with sociologist Rachel Sherman about her book, ‘Uneasy Street: the Anxieties of Affluence,’ which explores very wealthy (rich) New Yorkers’ wealth, and how they feel about it. I also spoke with my collaborator Maia Laperle about my experience talking with...
Epis. #38: Zane Helberg, Los Angeles comedian and former restaurant worker, on getting off the treadmill of an all-consuming job and striking out on his own
Just a few years ago, L.A. comedian Zane Helberg was being swallowed by his job: he was working upwards of 80 hours a week as a restaurant manager for a small chain called Fat Sal's, where he was on call 24-7 for any issues that came up among the various restaurant...
Epis. #37: Colin Beavan, Brooklyn-based writer and ‘No Impact Man,’ on how to navigate what we really need as opposed to what we think we want
Colin Beavan is a Brooklyn-based writer and life coach. In the mid-2000s, he launched his “No Impact Man” experiment in which he and his wife and daughter led a carbon-zero lifestyle, in New York City, for 6 months. The project went viral, but Colin wrote books before...
Epis. #36: Berlin-based filmmaker Spencer McDonald wonders if he’s getting paid TOO much money
Berlin-based American Spencer McDonald describes his path to becoming a professional filmmaker, from driving Lyft in San Francisco to interning for a filmmaker in Portland -- while doing odd jobs from wild-berry harvesting to carpentry - and barely getting by. Cut to...
Epis. #35: Why (and how) a tech entrepreneur lives in an adult dorm- in San Francisco & Los Angeles
Stephen Johnson is a twenty-something tech entrepreneur who splits his time between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It's a lifestyle that's actually far less pricey than you may imagine, because he's a member of the co-living space PodShare, which costs him only $1000...
Epis. #34: Elvina Beck, founder of co-living space PodShare (and an ongoing PodShare resident)
Elvina Beck, the founder of PodShare - a co-living space with five locations in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco - talks about moving from Russia as a child to Brooklyn with her family, then New Jersey, and subsequently Hollywood at 19. She discusses transitioning...
Epis. #33: Shared housing (PodShare) and housing the formerly homeless: Elvina and Paul
This episode introduces Elvina Beck, the owner and director of PodShare, a group of five (as of Aug. 2019) co-housing living spaces throughout Los Angeles along with one site in San Francisco. Elvina is also a resident - a ‘member’ - of PodShare, and she talks about...
Epis.#32- Renae’s story (whom Anna Scott reported on); plus a conversation with producer Maia Laperle about my apartment-hunting-in-New-York story…
We continue to talk with housing reporter Anna Scott, this time about Renae, a woman she reported on who went from having a tenuous housing situation to having to live our of her car, a car she's leasing through Uber, and how she wound up in that place through a...
Season 2- housing. Episode 31: NPR reporter Anna Scott, on how she (and everyone else) gets by in Los Angeles
Anna Scott is a full-time radio reporter for the Santa Monica-based NPR station KCRW, where she reports on housing issues in Los Angeles. She talks about her job, which involves talking to many people who are homeless or near homeless, and how she herself gets by,...
Epis.#30: Maneesh Seethi, nomadic entrepreneur and CEO of Pavlok, a wearables (and Shock Clock) company
Maneesh (with Pavlok) in Medellin, Columbia Maneesh Seethi runs the company Pavlok, which produces wearable products to help keep you on task, including waking up in the morning, and they also offer coaching. It goes back to when they introduced the Shock Clock...
Epis.#29: Lynne used to put all her money towards her family, then her non-profit; now she can spend it on herself, but she’s not sure where to start.
Lynne Ferguson is a musician living just outside Seattle, on a section of Native land that she loves. For over 20 years, she's run Native Horsemanship Youth Program, a non-profit that teaches horse skills to tribal and special needs young people, and helps them heal...
Epis.#28: Brian’s realistic about having a (paid) career in standup comedy and improv
Brian Gurien, a comedian and improver living in Brooklyn, talks about the reality of having a day job, which is currently a full-time, but not long-term, gig helping to set up passover camps in a couple of locales. Brian's admission that being in entertainment is NOT...
Epis.#27: Oliver’s trust fund. It’s complicated.
Oliver Sykes lives off a trust fund. It's doled out to him in $5300 monthly increments that are controlled by his mother and the investment account she set up for him. This source of income has been complicated for Oliver throughout his adult life, both enabling him...
Epis.#26: Paul Gilmartin (host of the Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast, former co-host of Dinner & A Movie on TBS)
Special guest Paul Gilmartin is a full-time podcaster through his show the Mental Illness Happy Hour, on which he talks to guests about their traumas, addictions, negative thinking and really- just about everything related to mental illness. He talks about getting to...
Epis.#25: Caitlin, part 2– what it’s like working for Google (and as a female software engineer)
In part 2 of our conversation with Caitlin, she talks specifically about working at Google as a software engineer, including everything from what she actually does in her job, what her work days are like (including the special Google perks), how much she earns, what...
Epis.#24: NYC-based dancer and choreographer Caitlin has a pretty solid day job: she works at Google
Caitlin is a dancer and choreographer, and she's also a software engineer at Google in New York. In the first part of two episodes, she talks about her various living situations over the years in New York, and a three-year stint in Denver, including her current one...
Epis.#23: Chef Antonio’s highs and lows in San Francisco
Antonio - known to his friends and clients as Chef Antonio - lives in San Francisco, where he does deliveries, participates in research studies and does personal chef work. He describes the tumultuous time he's had in the city, starting by moving into a nice townhouse...
Epis.#22: Deanna (vegan real estate agent, Portland, OR)
Deanna is a real estate agent in Portland, a three-and-a-half-year veteran. She defies virtually every stereotype and model of a real estate agent: she's an activist, she's (currently) a renter, and she's vegan. She talks about how much she makes as an agent...
Epis.#21: Angie (Detroit-based nutritional psychology student and part-time hug seller, fetish model, sugar baby and food service worker
Angie lives with her boyfriend in a suburb of Detroit, studying nutritional psychology and working part-time as at a Mediterranean wrap/bowl joint. She also has multiple side gigs, everything from being a fetish model to trimming marijuana plants to selling hugs on...
Epis.#20: Jim, semi-retired real estate investor & landlord (Ft. Myers, Fl., and Las Vegas)
Jim is technically retired (he collects social security), but he earns a very substantial income from the rent he collects on about a dozen properties, both residential and commercial. He talks about how he got into real estate and real estate investing (it began when...
Epis.#19: Jordan- multiple gigs, singer-songwriter harpist (Loveland, Colorado)
Jordan is an aspiring musician who lives in Loveland, Colorado (about 20 minutes from Boulder) and does multiple gigs: she sells jewelry on Etsy, she bakes cakes for random friends’ events, she cleans houses, and, most importantly to her, she plays the harp and sings....
Epis.#18: Matt (Alaskan cannery, & San Diego)
Did you ever wonder what it's like working in a fish cannery in Alaska? Matt talks about his experience working in an Alaska cannery for six weeks over the summer. He found out about the work through a friend, and saw it as an opportunity to do a "hard re-start" of...
Epis.#17: Mark (Eugene, Or.)
Mark works as a cook at a brewery in Eugene; he also makes paintings which he occasionally sells, and does seasonal work as a maintenance man. He talks about his prior life, in which he made plenty of money but found that he just became overworked and a mindless...
Epis.#16: Steve (Cheyenne, Wyoming)
Steve lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he works with draft horses (similar to the Clydesdales from the Budweiser commercials). He runs carriage tours around town; he provides them to music festivals including Bonnaroo and Coachella, where they're mounted and used for...
Epis.#15: Sophia (Boise, ID and the road)
Sophia is a traveler who juggles a few different gigs, from a face painting business to more recently an Airbnb management company. She also earns passive income from the housecleaning business she started while living in Seattle. She talks about her various gigs,...