SEASON 1 and my FIRST “A VERY SPECIAL EPISODE!” aka (S1 AVS1) aka THE ZOHRAN SPECIAL!
SUNDAY, JULY 13TH LOS ANGELES! Come see me, Margaret Cho and so many incredible Asian American comedians at THE BELLY LAUGHS food and comedy festival! JULY 12 and 13! FEST PASSES OUT NOW! https://www.lalive.com/belly-laughs-festival
SATURDAY, JULY 26TH NEW YORK! I shall be at Union Hall in Brooklyn to record a LIVE episode of What Should We Talk About? GET TICKETS AND BRING FRENZ
NOTE ON THE EPISODE: I can’t believe I set up my studio OUTSIDE in my BACKYARD for the first time and within 24 hours from idea to publishing! I’m very proud of myself. I wanted to make sure our immunocompromised guest felt safe. And it was super fun! Hope you enjoyed the golden hour lighting, heavy bird chirping, and the tree pollen that fell on us throughout the entire chat! I think it turned out kyuute?
It is Thursday, June 25TH, 2025 and this is a BONUS aka VERY SPECIAL episode of What Should We Talk About? With Jenny Yang, your weekly catchup time with smart and funny people to find joy in an unjust world.
Oh and we are STILL recording our regular episode tomorrow with Milky Tran and Phil Yu but this last minute chat HAD TO HAPPEN. Why? Because Zohran Mamdani won! OMG! And by November, Mamdani could become the first Mayor of New York City who is Muslim, South Asian and a Democratic Socialist? A SEISMIC shift? A glimmer of progressive hope in the face of The Democratic Party politics-as-usual?
So I quickly pulled together this amazing duo of smart and passionate experts to understand WHY it’s so important that Mamdani won and what this could mean for making the entire country more affordable and supportive of the average American – instead of this nightmare fascist billionaire regime pillaging government resources for the filthy rich!
Our first guest is the California Director of the Working Families Party - one of the political parties that were instrumental in helping to elect Zohran. She is a longtime community organizer and progressive policymaker, a former two-term member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Education, former California Political Director for Bernie Sander’s 2020 Presidential Campaign AND she ran for San Francisco Mayor in 2018. Fun fact, like Zohran, she pursued music before politics: she was the bassist in an all-women indie rock band called Strangely. Let’s welcome, JANE KIM!
Next, we are also blessed to have one of my fave journalists and content creators - she covers tech and online culture, was the tech reporter at The New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post, and more and the author of the book Extremely Online, about the rise of the content creator industry. She also runs a tremendous and very sharable meme account on Instagram – TAYLOR LORENZ!
Yesterday on Taylor’s User Mag Substack, she published a piece entitled “Zohran did not win because of TikTok and podcasts” so I had to have her on. But I disagree with Taylor. I know Zohran won this election because of MY podcast. Yeah. Back in 2022, Zohran was a guest on Going Through It - a podcast I made with Mailchimp and Pineapple Street Media. Coincidence? I think not.
ME? What brought me joy is ZOHRAN MAMDANIIII! I don’t care that I live in LA, Zohran is my mayor AND my President nowwwwww!
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Jenny Yang is a standup comedian, actor, and tv writer who was named one of Variety's Top Ten Comics to Watch and has been featured at Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal, the San Francisco Sketch Festival, and Netflix is a Joke Festival.
Jenny is a former labor organizer who was born in Taiwan and raised in Los Angeles, and stars opposite Michelle Yeoh as an assassin in the Netflix action comedy-drama series, The Brothers Sun.
Follow her weekly podcast “What Should We Talk About?” on Substack: jennyyang.substack.com
ONGOING LIST OF RANDOM RESOURCES TO SURVIVE THESE TIMES:
Let me know if there’s another resource you’d like to add to this list!
I use DELETEME to scrub my personal info off the internet. Use my referral link before and I get twenty bucks off my monthly bill!
Download the 5Calls app or use their website! It’s a great and easy way to call your representatives on issues you care about. The scripts are already written and you can call your reps with a push of a button. No rerouting - no looking up phone numbers.
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