Tierney Talks Tierney Finster

Welcome back Katrina Kemp! Katrina is an actor, producer, activist, DJ, and intuitive from LA. 
Katrina not only shares her own coming-of-age story as a person with pseudoachondroplasia but also speaks to the relatively new project of people with Dwarfism collecting their own history, free from the gaze of average-height people. 
She explains how people with dwarfism were enslaved for centuries and how being forced to labor as circus performers still inform how they’re treated in the modern movie industry (and the world at large) today. Katrina traces the relationship between erasure and exploitation in media and reflects on how vital it was for her to find representation and community online growing up. 

“We find each other deep, deep in the internet. But other people are finding us too,” Katrina says. 
This sets the stage for our discussion of “Dear Average Height People,” a film Katrina is producing by director Aubrey Smalls. As far as Aubrey and Katrina know, this is the very first documentary comedy special to be directed and produced by people with Dwarfism. In fact, they haven’t been able to find ANY films, shows, or specials created by people with Dwarfism and urgently want that to change. 
The film is about dwarfism, disability hate groups, agency, and freedom. It portrays a global network of people with dwarfism who may live far away from each other, but who live in deep solidarity. It illustrates the way obsessive hate groups target and harass people with Dwarfism online, as well as how platforms like Youtube encourage violence and monetize torment.  It also depicts how talented, beautiful, funny, and diverse the Dwarfism community is around the world. 
Listen to hear Katrina’s many insights about beauty, bodies, surveillance, her bone to pick with Stephen Spielberg, Britney Spears, L’Express, Diane Arbus, inhalants, and more… 

“People experience epiphanies with me every day… every hour if I allowed it,” Katrina says. 
Follow Katrina on IG, Twitter, Twitch, and Youtube. Please consider contributing what you can to “Dear Average Height People.” Pledge your support on Indiegogo here.  Production crew volunteers, exhibition and performance spaces, and community partners are also welcome to donate resources. 
+ For more Katrina on the pod, listen to our Britney Spears episode from 2021. 
Thanks to Margot Padilla for engineering and editing this episode. Our show music is “Let Me Love You” by Dis Fantasy. Follow me on IG: @TSTAR7. 
Recorded 10/3 at Pirate Studios Silverlake. Pirate is open 24/7 in Silverlake and West Adams, as well as all over the US, UK, Germany, and Ireland. They have DJ, rehearsal, and podcast studios for everyone to use. Book online and let yourself inside. Click here and use the code TIERNEY for $10 off your first booking. Write me: tierneytierneytierneytalks@gmail.com
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Haewon Asfaw and Ale Lemus are friends, abolitionists, and pop culture enthusiasts. In this episode, they explain how practicing abolition together informs the way they watch their favorite Bravo shows together, especially The Real Housewives. Whether you’ve watched every episode of every franchise or have never seen the show, our conversation is for you. 
Listen to hear Haewon and Ale use real relationships from The Real Housewives to articulate ideas about conflict, punishment, and revenge. Using memorable moments from the Bravo canon, they also dissect capitalism, individualism and white dominant culture.  
Haewon offers a working definition of abolition and advocates for the need to study whiteness as a mental health issue. Ale discusses intergenerational healing in the Bravoverse and makes me cackle with comments like, “Big Kathy is a figure that looms large in Beverly Hills.”
Plus, they tell me about valuing your relationships as your currency and finding your resources within them. Listen for a fun meditation on celebrity culture and the cult of Bravo.  
Follow Haewon and Ale!

Thanks to Margot Padilla for engineering and editing this episode. 
Recorded 10/3 at Pirate Studios Silverlake. Pirate is open 24/7 in Silverlake and West Adams, as well as all over the US, UK, Germany and Ireland. They have DJ, rehearsal and podcast studios for everyone to use. Book online and let yourself inside. Click here and use the code TIERNEY for $10 off your first booking. 
Our show music is “Let Me Love You” by Dis Fantasy. Follow me on IG: @TSTAR7. 
Write me: tierneytierneytierneytalks@gmail.com. 
Support the show

Rachael Finley is the author of the new book “Nobody Ever Told Me Anything,” a memoir and survival guide detailing her highly isolated childhood in South Florida and unique coming-of-age experience online. 
She tells me about exploring the duality of women through writing about her mother, surviving her 11-year-old year squatting alone in a vacation rental while her mom sought out mental health treatment, and broadening her horizons by hanging out at the mall. 
At the mall, she met strangers for the first time and began experimenting with the parts of herself she thought the world should know and the parts they shouldn’t… tailor-fitting parts of herself for an audience… a lifelong experiment that led her to write this unfiltered book.

Follow Rachael on IG @instasteak and buy her book on Shop Hot Lava here. 


Thanks to Margot Padilla for engineering and editing this episode.  


Recorded 10/3 at Pirate Studios Silverlake. Pirate is open 24/7 in Silverlake and West Adams, as well as all over the US, UK, Germany and Ireland. They have DJ, rehearsal and podcast studios for everyone to use. Book online and let yourself inside. Click here and use the code TIERNEY for $10 off your first booking. 


Our show music is “Let Me Love You” by Dis Fantasy. Follow me on IG: @TSTAR7. 
Write me: tierneytierneytierneytalks@gmail.com. 
Support the show

Hi! Michelle Badillo is back. Watch her as Winnie, the sardonic astrologist in the latest season of "Search Party," streaming now on HBO Max. Michelle has also written for beloved shows including "One Day at a Time," "The Bold Time,"  "The Great North" and more. Watch her new project, "A League of Their Own," this August. 

We talk about our relationship and individual writing practices. Lots of chit-chat and tabloid musings. I drink a Coca-Cola and say Lacan when I mean Kristeva. I sound square despite my desire for narcotic freedom for all...fentanyl crisis much? 

Recorded on 5/27/22 at Pirate Studios Silverlake.
Thanks to Margot Padilla for engineering and editing.  

Our show music is "Let Me Love You" by Dis Fantasy.
Follow me on IG: @TSTAR7 
Write me: tierneytierneytierneytalks@gmail.com
Support the show (https://cash.app/$TierneyFinster)
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I'm back from a prolonged hiatus with my very first solo ep! What a risk! Tell me how it goes! I talk about losing a friend, traveling for the first time since the pandemic began, turning 30, getting engaged, and more. I also discuss my love of Lindsay Lohan and Anthony Kiedis, the shameless way I engage with Bravolebrities, and my year of only reading memoirs. 

Please subscribe to the show wherever you're listening. New interviews coming soon! Follow me on IG @TSTAR7 and write me with questions and comments at tierneytierneytierneytalks@gmail.com. 

Thanks to Margot Padilla for engineering and editing. 

Our show music is "Let Me Love You" by Dis Fantasy. 
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Welcome back Beth Pickens! My favorite art consultant, art counselor & lesbian-feminist  money coach (she's a Capricorn too!) We celebrate her new book “Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles” and discuss some of its core topics — money, time, fear, grief, isolation, education, and asking for what you want. Listen for a chance to win your own copy! 

Beth shares tons of tips to enhance your experience of both your art and your life. Investing time and money into yourself, distinguishing isolation from solitude, and warming up for your own creative practice are all talked about. We also explore staying connected to stillness while an abundance of ways to spend time become available to us. Beth gives advice to artists with common fears like experiencing disappointment while pitching and avoiding promoting your completed projects. 

Beth says, “For artists, the hard thing is not attaining goals, getting the grant or getting the opportunity or the show or whatever, the hard thing is being present for it and actually enjoying it.”
She reminds us all, "We can’t solve interior situations with exterior things!"
 
Follow Beth, buy her book & listen to her podcast. (Some LA libraries also have the book!) 

Tierney Talks is engineered & edited by Margot Padilla + hosted & produced by Tierney Finster.  Subscribe to the show wherever you're listening.  Our show music is "Let Me Love You" by Dis Fantasy. Listen to their new track "I Want You" on Bandcamp now. 
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