Meet You At The Bottom Abhinav Brahmamdam

It's Illini Football Game Week! On the latest episode of Meet You At The Bottom, Illini Football experts Lee Brown and John Kratz return and sit down with Abhinav to provide their thoughts on the Lovie Smith era, the hiring of Brett Bielema as well as give their overall expectations for the players and team for this upcoming season. Similar to years past, Lee and John are as optimistic as ever with the entire group predicting a return to a Bowl Game this season. For all the Illini fans out there, this is a must-listen episode as this is your Illini Football primer to get up to speed before the matchup against Nebraska on August 28th.

In the latest episode of MYATB, Abhinav sits down with Monica Moreno to discuss the future of concerts and large scale events in a post COVID-19 world. Similar to the workplace and education, remote events and concerts became a staple during the pandemic with some experts saying they are here to stay or will be in some sort of a hybrid fashion. Monica is an avid concert goer and works at Eventbrite in Nashville, TN so her thoughts on this subject are always interesting to hear. The two discussed the role of virtual events / concerts during the pandemic, what a hybrid concert looks like and how such events will occur in a post-pandemic world. The future is hard to predict but this episode is a must listen if you like going to big events, concerts or are just curious about our behaviors post-pandemic. Throughout the conversation, Abhinav was sipping on some Blue Moon after a long weekend of activities while Monica kept it classy with a glass of white wine. 

In the latest episode, Abhinav sits down with Ron Lewis to discuss his career endeavors, the newest national holiday, Juneteenth, and reactions to the current social justice reform movement. While Abhinav did not have a libation, Ron was drinking a tallboy of Stella while digging in deep into his personal feelings, thoughts and reactions to all of the events in the last 15+ months. Please see this link if you want to follow Ron's podcast, it is highly recommended: https://www.instagram.com/thewoodtalks_/

Meet You At The Bottom recognizes AAPI Heritage Month - in the latest episode, Abhinav sat down with good friends Chase Arima and Daniel Santos to delve a variety of topics related to Asian Americans. They discussed their upbringings, the composition of Asian Americans, the model minority myth (link below), Asian pride and the recent rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans. In the second half of the episode, the three of them shared some memories from their UAE trip back in 2016. For the cocktails, Dan was sipping on some IPA beer, Chase enjoyed some Allagash White and Abhinav went with some Koval whiskey. 

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/05/03/how-the-model-minority-myth-keeps-asian-americans-out-of-management.html

In today's episode, Abhinav sits down with fellow soccer lads Dardan Ibraimi, an Arsenal supporter, and Dave Willson, a Manchester City supporter, to dive into the rise and fall of the proposed European Super League (ESL). A potential ESL has been rumored for many years but it finally came to fruition on April 18th. What transpired afterwards was truly remarkable - 48 hours filled with intense emotions, street protests and statements from politicians, players and former coaches in what seemed like a unified response against the 12 founding teams and their owners. This ultimately led to many of the teams dropping out of the ESL only after 2 days and the whole debacle gave for great conversation as Dardan, Dave and Abhinav discussed the events over many Coronas, Heinekens and Lagunitas beers.

In the latest episode, Abhinav was joined by MYATB pod favorites Nick Buege, Shanu Mathew and Conner Murphy to delve into some of the key events and topics of Q1 2021. The group met in person to record this 2+ hour session as they discussed the COVID-19 vaccine deployment, the Texas Energy crisis, Big Tech / Censorship and NTFs. The episode is quintessential Meet You At The Bottom with 4 friends getting together and having a thought-provoking and enjoyable conversation on some of the biggest current events today. The group "Met At The Bottom" a few different times throughout the episode and enjoyed some wine from New Buffalo, Michigan's Hickory Creek vineyard, bourbon from Chicago's own Koval distillery and what is now a classic cocktail - High Noons. This is Part 2 of the recap and focuses on Big Tech, Censorship and NFTs. Part 1 focused on the COVID-19 vaccine deployment and the Texas Energy crisis.