Episode 89 The Origins of Utah town names

A month ago we hosted Jeff and Trey of Art Dimes for episode 86 to talk about how they were assisting 12 year old, Ozzy Passin, with his very first graphic novel/comic book! This week we had Ozzy and his bird call in and tell us about his kickstarter and how he came up with the idea for Stand Wars! There is one more week left on his kickstarter, so help a kid out!

Utah said goodbye to one of its caretakers this past week with the passing of Jon Huntsman Sr. From creating those cartons your burgers are carried in, to creating a legacy with the Huntsman cancer institute, we sure hope his family will be able to carry his legacy of philanthropy.

This week we tried our knowledge at whether or not we knew the history behind some Utah city names. You can take the “where did Utah towns get their names” quiz by clicking HERE. Also Jessica’s ancestors named a town in Utah too!

Don’t forget we are following along with the legislative session. You can track bills by going to the Utah Legislature Page. Don’t forget if you see something important to you to call and email and even show up to put your voice out there.

We will ALWAYS love your “likes” BUT don’t forget to click that little SHARE button (or retweet) *sharing IS indeed caring* You can find us and subscribe on Soundcloud, Stitcher, or Itunes, and Google Play and TuneIN. Leave us a review and Follow us on the Twitter @tnupodcast or on Facebook The New Utah Podcast

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Music: Bootleggers Dance by local Utah Band Folk Hogan

Episode 88 No One Wants to be Victimized by a Wig

*Enter pageant wave here*

This week newly reigning Miss Gay Utah and current reigning 2017 Miss Gay Central States America, Miss Gia Bianca Stephens and her alter-ego Ted Nicholls, joined us for a lesson in drag pageantry, cleared up some misconceptions, and gave us some herstory on Gia’s start.

We know that not everyone might be familiar with what defines a drag queen vs say a transvestite, or someone who is transgender. Gia reminded us that the term “drag” comes from Shakespeare “Dress Resembling A Girl,” because once upon a time men played both roles on stage. Also a reminder that drag isn’t a sexual orientation but merely an art form.

Gia Bianca Stephens has made a name for herself in the Utah drag and performance community. Gia was integral in starting Beauties on Broadway Brunch, Ladies of Marmalade with one of our alumnus Indi Skies, she had traveled the country competing in numerous pageants, and she helped start one of Utah’s first drag pageants; Miss Great Beehive State Premier. Listening to Gia talk about Utah’s drag community, it is true, we really do have something special here with the variety of talent. We don’t want to give away too much of the interview, but we learned a lot, so you should listen and learn too!

We can’t wait to see how she does again at Miss Gay America when she decides to compete again. Follow and support Gia Bianca Stephens on her Facebook and Instagram to see where her next performances and pageants lead her! And TIP… THIS… QUEEN!

This week we are so excited to announce the grand opening of The Truffle Cottage’s store front! They will be having a grand opening February 3rd at 11am at 45 S Main Street in Pleasant Grove! Congrats to Jennie and her team. Check out our episode we got chocolate wasted with The Truffle Cottage by clicking HERE.

thetrufflecottage.com/

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Music: Bootleggers Dance by local Utah Band Folk Hogan

Episode 87 Holystone Distilling is an alternative!

Episode 87 we finally had the opportunity to sit down with award-winning distiller, artist, and all around bad ass Ethan “Chainlink” Miller. Chainlink you might be saying to yourself? How does one get a nickname like that? Lucky for you, Ethan told us all about it! Having Ethan on with us was like a Russian nesting doll; each layer had a new story and you just want to keep opening to the next one!

You may have heard Ethan’s name as a distiller at High West, in Portland, Oregon at New Deal, and more recently a co-founder at Dented Brick in Utah. Ethan has bigger plans though! We started at the beginning and then learned he went from making sure people’s eyes were in check to making them blurry! (you know, the booze) Ethan founded the Distiller’s Guild of Utah, and who doesn’t love a guild? His hopes are that it will bring the local distillers/brewers together whether they are brainstorming or fighting for better liquor legislation up on Capitol Hill working together for a common cause. Ethan has taught continued learning courses about whisky and numerous liquor related topics for the U of U. Most recently he was hired with a local Geo-coring company, has been down training at NASA, and is about to spend a month and a half in Japan on a boat using his new found skills.

Did we mention he is an all-around bad ass?

Now, it’s hard to say most importantly because all of these things he has done are important. Ethan has recently teamed up with Barbie and Michael DeShazo and they are starting up a new distillery in Utah called, Holystone Distilling.

No, this has nothing to do with anything related to the Mormon Church. A Holystone is a piece of sandstone brick that was used to wash the decks of Navy ships. Check out their website for more on the history and origins! Always striving to create with looking at the process as an art, Ethan promises that Holystone will be all new recipes with a combination of good liquor and a community gathering in arts and music.

We will keep you up to date about their location and process and please follow Holystone Distillery’s progress on Instagram and Facebook!

As always we thank James for his space and the continued support of our community!

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Music: Bootleggers Dance by local Utah Band Folk Hogan

Episode 86: Help! Our Trees are Budding!

Climate change is real. It is January in Utah and today is suppose to be 60 degrees. Our trees are budding and we are hoping that our flowers don’t start to break through the soil.

We did a lot of restaurant chat this week. Jessica visited a new burger joint in Sugar House, which unfortunately is not local to Utah, but alas BGRSugarhouse was still tasty! Jessica really did appreciate that they cut their jalapenos length wise instead of just small slices and also that they are the only BGR on the west coast! Chris and Bre went to ChopFuku Asian and Sushi in Taylorsville (follow them on Instagram too). Jeremy was super bummed to find out Iggy’s isn’t carrying Wasatch Brewery Blueberry anymore. Another cool restaurant we talked about this week, and definitely need to visit, is Bhutan House Restaurant. Opened by a family who spent over 20 years in a refugee camp, they have made their restaurant a home in Sandy, Utah. KSL.com ran a story about the family and their journey. You can read that story by clicking HERE.

Sundance Film Festival starts this weekend. Are you heading up? If you haven’t gotten tickets, or you weren’t able to, download the Sundance app and check out the e-waitlist for opportunities to try to get them! If films aren’t your thing, but you love people watching and celebrity spotting, then head up to Park City this weekend when everything is bustling. Also, if you can get a ticket, make sure to support local film, Quiet Heroes, about the struggle of having only one doctor available during the early AIDS/HIV crisis in Utah and her fight to save the population in Utah while everyone else turned their backs.

Chris schooled Jessica with a side-eye on BitCoin this week. Apparently it isn’t actual mining…

We’ve talked about other Utah Dark sky parks but did you know that Torrey, Utah is now one of only 18 dark sky communities in the WORLD? If you want the perfect place to see the stars and planets in Utah, besides Jessica’s house, then Torrey should be on your destination list!

Utah Legislature session starts on the 23rd! There are so far over 1200 bills that are filed. Some of the focus areas include medical marijuana, education, transportation, tax code, and the count my vote. Utah Business has a little more information on these issues, and we will be tracking progress over the next couple months. If you are passionate about an issue make sure you are calling your representative which you can find at le.utah.gov.

If you haven’t done so already, Wizarding Dayz tickets are available for the February 23rd-24th 2nd annual event! We had them on last year, check out episode 34 with creator Val Cameron!

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Music: Bootleggers Dance by local Utah Band Folk Hogan

Episode 85 Don’t flush those pills down the toilet!

Sometimes we get to have shows that are just us being silly and talking about the Utah we love. Unfortunately our guest had to have emergency surgery, so we will have reschedule with Herbalist Josh, but we promise when he comes on it will be pretty much amazing!

Our lessons learned this week include that Chris is a total wuss when it comes to pain. We learned about the continued love of LivePD by Chris. We also learned that opiod addiction runs pretty deep in our communities and there has to be a way to change this. We have all be prescribed a pain killer from a surgery, a fall, a broken bone, dental work, etc. When you are done with it, what do you do? Do you know what to do with it? Intermountain Health care has some steps HERE for getting rid of your expired and unused medications. And please, don’t flush them!

Did you know Utah is thriving with YA authors!? We did. We’ve had local authors Eliza Crosby and David J. West on our show. Even Jessica’s cousin Callie Kanno is a YA author and just released her newest book, Flame Singer.

What else did we learn? That in Utah we have an amazing company called “Peaceful Pet Departures.” As you know, Chris and Bre lost their sweet Lia a couple weeks ago. Peaceful Pet Departures were there for their family from beginning to way after. If you are in need of letting go of a pet in a peaceful way, we highly suggest reaching out to them. They are a local Utah company with huge hearts.

For the record, Jessica is NOT making human hand-pies like Sweeney Todd.

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Music: Bootleggers Dance by local Utah Band Folk Hogan

Episode 84 We wish we were 12: Stand Wars Comic Book Creation

Sometimes we get to reach outside Utah and bring people into the fold! This week for episode 84 we were contacted by the artists who did our podcast caricature, Art Dimes. Made up of the team of Emmy-nominated story-board and FX artist Jeff West and entrepreneur/mouth piece/artist Trey McCoy. Both currently based out of Arizona, we were fortunate to have them Skype in with us to tell us about an amazing project they have coming up!

We met Art Dimes at Salt Lake Comic Con a year and a half ago. We were looking for someone that would make us look super fun and capture who we were in a nutshell. We think they did a pretty swell job. We sure hope to see them back again this year and we will make sure to show them around the Utah we’ve all know and love!

Chris, Jessica, Bre, and Jeremy

A year ago, Jeff and Trey partnered up with 12 year-old Ozzy Passin, yes a 12 year-old folks, to help bring his comic book story to fruition! Ozzy is based in NYC and had a vision for Stand Wars to come to life. Stand Wars is about a dream to make it to a video game competition. The journey getting there, the experiences with bullying, and other pre-teen adventures. Jeff and Trey have been assisting in the art work as well as web design, promotion, and the upcoming Kickstarter (which we will add to this as soon as it goes live). We tried to get them to give us some upcoming work but it’s all a secret! So more to come from Art Dimes for sure! We will keep you updated as it comes down the pipeline.

We can’t imagine being 12 and having the support that Jeff and Trey have been offering to Ozzy to make his dream come true by creating Stand Wars.

Plus, who doesn’t love friends that meet through tacos?

If you are looking for animation, art work, story-boarding, etc. you can reach out to them at www.artdimes.com and sign up for their newsletter. Make sure to follow them over on Facebook and Instagram creating art!

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Music: Bootleggers Dance by local Utah Band Folk Hogan

Episode 83. Part 2 our recap of City Weekly Best of 2017: The Readers Edition

Happy End of 2017! It seemed like this year went so fast but at the same time it was never going to end. Our final show of the year (episode 83) we wanted to attend to part 2 of our City Weekly Best of 2017 recap: The Readers Edition! You can catch our run through of the staff picks on episode 77.

We still stand firm with our statement from last year, We do not approve of people voting for corporate stores that aren’t based in Utah. We have plenty of awesome locals. We also want to add to this; hey readers, there are PLENTY of amazing places and people in Utah that you are missing out on because you are voting for the same place every year. *coughCafeRiocough* *coughCupBopcough* *coughWaffleLovecough* One of the things we really love is that City Weekly includes a cool space in each county in Utah every year.

We at the New Utah Podcast extend a challenge to you for 2018, Expand your Utah horizons! Use these lists as a guide and get to know Utah a little bit more intimately! *covering eyes*

The magazines are not available anymore, however, you can find the link HERE and you can scroll on your phone while you are in your bathroom to get inspired for your next Utah adventure. Use this list to explore a part of Utah you might not have thought of visiting. Restaurants you may have not thought about eating at. Parks you haven’t visited. Artists you haven’t admired their work yet. And so on. Take a listen to this weeks episode, we definitely covered our loves, what we thought should be added, and what we were confused made the list.

We would love to hear what you would add to the ballot!

This week we also said goodbye to one of our podcast buddies, Chris and Bre’s dog, Lia. She joined us for many episodes and waited out the door patiently for us to finish recording many episodes. She will be missed.

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Episode 82 That’s Civolicy, not Civolocity!

Something great about Utah, no matter the passion, we have people that are willing to fight. Whether it is Kate Kelly, Cat Palmer, Psarah Johnson, and Genevra Prothero.

Now we can add to that list, our episode 82 guest, Alexander Castagno, the president and founder of the Civolicy Lobbyist group.

What is Civolicy you might be asking yourself and why haven’t you heard of it yet? Civolicy is a brand new local grassroots organization focused on changing laws to better the lives of Utahns. Think of it as a lobbyist group for the people. It was founded in May of 2017 Alex wanted to form Civolicy of a lack of political structure that benefits the citizens of Utah directly instead of big business or backroom legislative deals. Their focus is on issue campaigns that will make Utah better. Alex says, “Our goal is for all citizens, young and old, to be involved in pushing for policy that benefit everyone. Our motto is “The power of the people”. Meaning that us, the people, have the real power to make change and must hold our local representatives accountable for our interests.”

What is even more about Civolicy and Alex? The experience that he has at such a young age.

First and foremost he is passionate about politics and policy. Alexander served in the Utah Governor’s Office, and he has also served for a member of the United States Congress. Over his time in these offices he has met advocacy specialists and gained valuable knowledge on how to pursue his own advocacy efforts. Alexander has a B.A. degree in Political Science from the University of Utah and is attending George Washington University for a Masters Degree in Political Management. Alexander is currently the LGBT sub-committee leader and Legislative Policy sub-committee leader for the Utah Suicide Prevention Coalition.

One of Alexanders big pushes is teen suicide prevention. We’ve talked about it many times on the show about the frightening teen suicide statistics that exist in Utah. The question is, what can Utah legislators do to help parents, to help kids, and to help any advocates that are willing to help kids that feel so helpless? Civolicy is also working on liquor law repeals and recently had involvement in the opening up of brewing/distilling in South Salt Lake.

You can find Alex and contribute to his group either financially or volunteering on Facebook, Twitter and their website, Civolicy.org.

Also, if you are feeling down, alone, or just need someone to talk to. We are here for you or you can call the Utah Suicide Hotline 1-800-273-8255

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Music: Bootleggers Dance by local Utah Band Folk Hogan

Episode 81 Pop Culture Thrift Store Paintings

The air might be bad and giving bloody noses, but it doesn’t stop Santa from taking a leak in downtown Salt Lake on the sidewalk!

December is our month of Cats! Cats with a ‘C‘ and Kats with a ‘K’! This week we were joined by local business owner and artist, Kat Martin. Kat gave us a history of how she started her own cleaning company when she was just 19! Kat’s Cleaning SLC services the Salt Lake City area, and is ranked as the best cleaning company on Yelp! We can’t argue with that. We made sure to ask her about hoarders, what the grossest thing she’s ever cleaned, and of course what she won’t touch.

Always interesting to hear the people you think have their lives together are completely a mess at home! Kat also gave some tips for cleaning during the holiday season.

Now, if you don’t know Kat for her mad cleaning skills; you may know her from Salt Lake Comic Con, the Urban Flea Market, or the Downtown Salt Lake Farmers Market as Altered Landscapes. “Pop Culture on Thrift Store Art.” Kat has scoured the valley DI’s, Saver’s, and estate sales to find old paintings to add a bit of pop culture to. However, she does have enough paintings to last a while so please don’t drop them off on her porch… unless it is a commission piece, of course. Recently she got to present one of her paintings to John Barrowman! Whether your shtick is Dr. Who, Spider-man, Super Mario Brothers, Star Wars, or Rick and Morty Kat has or will make a piece to go with your fandom. Kat will Bob Ross the shit out of a painting for you. (More than it already has been, of course.) Kat loves working on other paintings such as portraits and her famous yearly Christmas cards.

You can find her work on her Etsy store, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Deviant Art, and Tumblr!

Note to self, if you high kick with Kat Martin and you want to document it, use Boomerang instead of trying to take a picture.

Congrats go out this week to our friends at Olio Skin and Beard Co. They opened up a meditation/yoga studio across from their shop in SugarHouse this week. Follow them on OLIO MIND for class schedules.

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Music: Bootleggers Dance by local Utah Band Folk Hogan

Episode 80 Art Activism, Gas Masks, and Poop.

You know it’s going to be a great episode when the guest starts out by saying they will gladly talk about how many times they poop and masturbate in a day. And when Chris tries his hand at an Irish accent. And when Jessica ruins the episode by talking about what we weren’t suppose to talk about.

This week we were honored to be joined by art activist and photographer, Cat Palmer! You may know her as the artist that re-created Leonardo’s Last Supper, but with amazing people in Utah. This past weekend you may recognize her “Go Home Trump” and “Dump Trump” installation from the Utah State Capitol pre Trump visit. Let’s help her make it viral by sharing and crediting her work!

CatPalmer.com

cat palmer utah

Cat gave us insight to her inspirations, her love of gas masks, an upcoming project that she has been working to make happen, and of course, her rad mom!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, she doesn’t shoot landscapes.

Here is a list of some of her favorite locals:

Olio Skin and Beard Co.

Cat also let us know that she doesn’t attach her name with organizations, even though she is very active in the activist community. However, she is very passionate about Salt Lake Clean air. They have their Winter Solstice Salt Lake Clean Air Fundraiser on Dec. 17th

You can pick up Cats work on her website CATPALMER.com, at the Urban Arts Gallery, and the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. You can find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!

And a big thanks for James for letting us use his house!

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Music: Bootleggers Dance by local Utah Band Folk Hogan

The New Utah Podcast

The Utah you really want to know about.

podcasting

Episode 89 The Origins of Utah town names

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Episode 88 No One Wants to be Victimized by a Wig

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Episode 87 Holystone Distilling is an alternative!

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Episode 86: Help! Our Trees are Budding!

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Episode 85 Don’t flush those pills down the toilet!

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Episode 84 We wish we were 12: Stand Wars Comic Book Creation

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Episode 83. Part 2 our recap of City Weekly Best of 2017: The Readers Edition

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Episode 82 That’s Civolicy, not Civolocity!

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Episode 81 Pop Culture Thrift Store Paintings

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast

Episode 80 Art Activism, Gas Masks, and Poop.

LISTEN HERE: The New Utah Podcast