Seattle nostalgia and autonomous zones, the ESPN Bruce Lee documentary, and guest Nikil Saval

Hello! This is our freshest recording yet—part one made just hours ago. 

In this episode, we talk about the latest hotspot in the Black Lives Matter uprising: Seattle, near where Andy and Tammy grew up and where Jay has family; and Jay and Andy review the new ESPN documentary on Bruce Lee. We then welcome our special guest (and Andy’s friend and fellow Philadelphian) Nikil Saval, the presumptive winner(!) of a seat in the Pennsylvania State Senate. (There is no Republican in the race.) Follow the results with us here.

3:24 - Jay packs his bags for the anarcho-socialist(?), abolitionist commune of Capitol Hill, Seattle. Why such radical resistance in Bezosland? Where does the uprising go from here? 

(Andy’s audio fails for a bit at 13:15; keep listening!)

20:12 - Is Be Water, the Bruce Lee documentary, any good? Does it go beyond representational politics and potted history? Andy and Jay offer their thoughts. (Tammy hasn’t seen it but chimes in anyway.)

30:08 - We speak with Nikil Saval (taped Sunday, June 7, 2020) about his recent primary election for State Senate district 1 in Pennsylvania. Nikil gives an update on the votes and talks about balancing his two lives as writer and as labor organizer.

Also: Nikil explains how his South Asian background was brought into the campaign and how he had to parry his opponent’s nativist strategy. He discusses how Covid-19 and then the Floyd protests changed the tenor of the campaign.

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